The Cape Charles Town Council has wrapped up most of the work on the 2022 budget. The consensus was reached, and the town council concluded that Cape Charles is in a marginal financial hole–the money reserves are almost depleted. Over the last ten years, town expenses have outstripped town revenues by 2% per year. Most of the blame falls on real property taxes which have remained flat over the last decade.
The FY22 budget proposal includes an increase to real property taxes of about $0.04 per $100 of assessed value.
Tourism will take on an added share of the burden. Council hopes to increase revenues there could make up 53% of this year’s operational deficit.
The proposal is to increase TOT from 3.7% to 4.0%, plus add a new flat fee of $1 per night per room for hotels/B&B’s, and $4 per night for residential rental units. The meals tax proposal is to go from 5% to 5.5%, with that extra revenue going to our capital program.
A public hearing for the budget will be held on June 17th at 6:30 PM.
Cape Charles Civic Center
500 Tazewell Ave
Cape Charles, VA 23310
Budget details are located here.
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I hesitate to be the one who points out the obvious, but has the choice of lowering expenses been entertained. Maybe someone with a CPA can explain that there are indeed two sides of the ledger. Subsequent reports that followed this one list new hires for the town. A Washington saying, expenses will always rise to meet revenues. That same mythical CPA could introduce the town council to zero based budgeting
Cape Charles is growing and becoming more affluent. We need to raise taxes and fees for every facet of life. Town employees are some of the lowest paid in the state. And they work hard for the pittance they get. The town is definitely understaffed. We need more police, a full time fire department, more social activities personnel for the expanding population and tourists. Why don’t we have a Racial Justice Director to help us become more WOKE? We are getting better but we need to do more to ensure equality and equity in our community.
Please say your are kidding, you can’t be serious. Today is not April fools day. With jokes like this you could be a writer for SNL
Hell they didn’t include any Reparations in their budget either. They must be exercising their Town Council White Privilege again.
Reparations for what? A thank you for what we have already done, thus far, would be nice.
‘Miss Rudolph, Miss Rudolph, can you please do something about the monkey?’