ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, January 9, 1997 TAG: 9701100015
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Ray L. Garland
SOURCE: RAY L. GARLAND
IT WOULD take great imagination to make more of the 1997 General Assembly than it is: a legally required convening of the legislature that will try to make mountains out of molehills by way of justifying a Democratic or Republican victory in the November elections. While there are several things worth doing, such as providing state vouchers for nonpublic schools, they are either too controversial or expensive to contemplate now.
Vouchers, though, will come. Indeed, they are arriving in some far-seeing locales. The Gallup Poll has sampled opinion on the subject since 1993 and reports rising support. Polls, of course, do not reflect where the stronger passions reside. Because public-school teachers are totally opposed, and almost totally in control of the policy of the Democratic Party on the issue, it will take the support of far more than 50 percent of the public to embolden Republicans to really fight for the issue. We are a ways from that yet.
It would be nice if taxpayers paused to digest just what is being asked of them to support public schools. In a few places in Virginia, per-pupil costs already nudge $10,000 a year. How long before that's the average cost? Vouchers can be a very cost-effective alternative to building new schools.
The state Department of Education recently said $6.3 billion is needed to renovate old schools and to build new ones. After years of declining enrollments, Richmond city schools asked for $443 million over 20 years for construction. That would absorb all the money the city expects to have for capital outlay - for all purposes - over the next 20 years. Chesterfield County residents recently approved a school-building program of $208 million over five years. The superintendent says twice as much is needed.
Gov. George Allen has proposed allowing local school divisions to borrow more money for construction through the Virginia Public Building Authority. Democrats were predictably downcast, but stopped short of saying where they'd get the money to give localities. "It's smoke and mirrors," said Del. Clifton Woodrum, D-Roanoke. "He's going to allow already fiscally stressed localities to incur more indebtedness."
Had Allen been so bold as to earmark a large share of the current state surplus exceeding $200 million for school construction, Democrats would be criticizing him for placing a higher priority on bricks and mortar than teacher salaries. It's always better politics to give available funds to government employees, then borrow for capital outlay. But given wide variations in local need and ability to pay, school construction should remain what it traditionally has been in Virginia, a matter of local decision-making and payment.
We hear a great deal about local fiscal stress, and I suppose there is some in older cities and rural counties. But state records show a growth of 125 percent in locally generated revenue between 1984 and 1994. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1984, Virginia localities generated $3.1 billion from local revenue sources. Ten years later, that was almost $7 billion. Had receipts merely tracked population growth plus inflation, it wouldn't have been much more than $5 billion.
Counting state and federal aid amounting to an additional $4 billion, Virginia localities in 1994 spent $1,653 per capita.
The proposal by Sen. Charles Colgan, D-Prince William, to reduce the local personal-property tax to one-fifth of the current levy by increasing the sales tax from 4.5 percent to 6 percent got a boost on the eve of the '97 assembly when Allen hinted he might be receptive to some variation of the idea, which he refused to specify. It's hard to imagine this governor consenting to raise the sales tax. While there's more than one way to skin a cat, none is so efficacious as to be likely to pass now.
But if you believe polls, a majority favors the switch. A survey by The Richmond Times-Dispatch found 57 percent in favor of raising the sales tax to eliminate the personal-property tax and only 33 percent opposed. Maybe it's the old story of people preferring to pay a bit more as they go along than to write that big check once a year.
The localities don't like the idea because they have controlled the property tax, while the legislature controlled the sales tax. Many also report revenues from the first have grown far faster than the second.
The debate highlights problems with both taxes. No question, the personal-property tax is more difficult to administer and to collect from all who owe it. But it's also a tax that can be legitimately avoided by the simple expedient of not owning a vehicle, or only a cheap one.
While the sales tax is uniform across the state irrespective of the ability to pay, it also puts a good deal of money in the hands of those who collect it for the state and must be relied upon to remit all that is taken from consumers. A sales tax of 7 percent represents big money.
If we want to tamper with taxes, it would be better to leave the sales tax where it is, giving localities a surcharge on the state income tax in lieu of taxes on personal property. That would add almost nothing to the cost of administering the income tax. But it would scrap entirely the vast apparatus of the personal-property tax. Billings for decals could be generated by DMV computer tapes.
But we seem to have reached something of a consensus on taxes in Virginia: Leave them alone! Given the constraints of constantly rising fixed costs, that leaves politicians little choice but to make a great stir of rearranging the deck chairs. It is somewhat pathetic to see the prospective candidates for governor, Don Beyer and Jim Gilmore, nibbling at the extreme margin to cobble together a program to take to voters.
Ray L. Garland is a Roanoke Times columnist.
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