The May 5, 2025 Board Meeting turned into a circus. We had long public comment speeches cheering on the teachers. We had yelling and screaming at each other. We had the County Administrator calling out SWVA Patriots (a Meta page). We had one of in attendance asked to leave the meeting by the Board Chairman. We had the County Administrator saying he did not want them “Rednecks” back at a meeting. We had a meeting going on for over six hours. You tell me whether it was a meeting or a circus?
NOW IS THE QUESTION DID THE TAXPAYER WIN AT THE MEETING? Just because the meeting was so contentious that might be a good thing. Truly, in this instance I think the taxpayer won the night. The fact that they are not a go along to get along board is a win for the taxpayer. Different opinions tend to look out more for the taxpayer than them all voting together and, in most cases, when that happens taxpayers lose. In Washington County they tend to all vote together and county government appears to be always on their minds first. So, in Russell the not getting along means maybe the taxpayer is coming first.
The taxpayer definitely lost on the new Real Estate Tax rate. The Board set the tax rate at 57.9 cents per $100 of value for your property. That means for every $100,000 in value the taxpayer can add $105 dollars on to the next tax bills.
Those Board members fighting to help the taxpayer settled on this new rate in order to get a Forensic Audit on the county. The hope in the audit is that it will show Board members where the money is going and what the money actually is actually doing for the county.
During the meeting they did not follow the rules for meetings for the supervisors. The public comment period for each speaker is supposed to be three minutes. Some speakers were way over ten minutes. The supervisors are not supposed to be able to respond to speakers but not the case on this Monday night. Conversation between speakers and Board members was on going the entire time of the public comment section.
The public comment section was mostly filled with speakers in support of a teacher raise in the county. The Board had other meetings and no where did anyone say anything about not giving the teachers a raise. So, why were they out in full force? Well it looked like the Chairman had his own cheering section. Russell County Teachers having been dragging behind in salaries compared to other counties for years. Everyone knows that and I think all Board members are aware of these facts. The teacher raises were coming regardless of two hours of public comment.
The other interesting thing was the comments coming from the County Administrator about the Constitutional Offices. He stated during the meeting that they were state employees and that you cannot touch their raises. That is not true. As a former Constitutional Officer I know that if the county must match a raise the supervisors do not have to allow the raise to go through. It is not true that all their salaries are paid by the state. As Commissioner of the Revenue in Washington County, the State of Virginia paid around 80% of my salary. The county paid the rest along with health insurance. The next closest employee considered to be a state employee was the Chief Deputy in my office and they were called a state employee, but the state only reimbursed the county about 50% of their salary. The other so-called state employees in the office, with for example a salary of $40,000, the state only reimbursed the county about $4,000 dollars. That is not a single Constitutional Officer in the county that is not getting some benefit from the County. They may be called state employees, but the county pays in a lot of cases almost all their salaries. So, the question comes when the County Administrator is going to show supervisors exactly how much the county pays for each of these individuals instead of saying they are state employees, and you do not touch that.
Supervisor Andrew Hensley stated he is still trying to fight for the taxpayer and looking to lower the rate before the second half tax bills are due. Andrew has consistently fought to help the taxpayer and the county owes him a big Thank You! Nate Kiser and Tara Dye showed they are fighting for the taxpayer by pushing through the Forensic Audit.
What will be up at the next meeting as the Board tries to pass a reduced budget. Bring your popcorn it could get interesting.
