Everyone, uh we're about ready to get started.

Mr.

So thank you.

So Mr.

Mayor, actually, um, this time it's um council's opportunity to review the draft reconciliation letter mayor that was sent by you and the vice mayor to the members of the council.

But um, Madam Vice Mayor, we do have Kevin Chatelier ready to talk to council about tax relief.

Do you want to do that now, or do you want to wait till after the council?

Um everybody not everybody realizes that we do have some different abilities for people to get some tax relief.

And we we heard from you know, I've lived in my house for 40 years and I still can't, you know, I'm not able to afford the taxes.

And there are a couple of sort of like valves that people can use and make sure everybody is aware of these.

So I thought it would be a good idea.

Um if we could get Kevin to just kind of go over these things.

There's you know, a tax freeze, a tax deferment, and some other things.

And that way, too, when he uh constituents call you, I can also refer into these programs.

So if you don't mind, do you want to hear from now, or would you rather wait and talk?

I think we should go ahead and set the table now because I think let's start it off on top of it.

We're gonna end on it.

So Mr.

Mayor, with that, Kevin will come and give City Council a quick overview of the tax relief programs and also where we currently compare to our regional um regional pair cities as relates to tax rates based on as of today.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Mayor, Vice Mayor, members of city council.

Um, with no further ado, everybody knows the context of the slide deck.

I'm gonna work through here briefly.

Uh so at the request, um, the discussion was in the thought that perhaps as a part of the overall budget development.

Um, the priority and the focus really became uh conversation about the personal property tax relief.

Here we go.

Let me see if this worked this time.

There we go.

Um, and so the purpose of this kind of talk about a little bit more than the personal property tax relief initiative being um proposed to added um to be added as part of the FY2627 operating budget.

Typically, whenever we talk about how comparative Virginia Beach is in terms of tax rates, this is the slide or the table that we typically include as part of the annual budget, um, as well as the slide of budget presentation slide deck.

You can see looking down here quickly, Virginia Beach is either the lowest or second lowest or tied for lowest in majority of these tax and fee categories.

There's a few that are um in bold where we got updated information since the time of the proposed budget coming out uh with um, for example, working across the top there, uh the city of Suffolk.

Their proposed budget included a one cent reduction in its real estate tax rate.

Um looking down further, personal property boats, Newport News is moving away from the uh personal property boat tax and looking to implement a fee in lieu of the tax.

Um the next bolded one is in the solid waste fee, where Hamptons made a modification to their monthly waste collection fee, and then the last one down at the bottom, the hotel flat tax where Suffix proposed an increase of one dollar in that.

Uh but whenever we talk about the tax rates at this level, um, there's actually a much deeper dive that can be done to get a sense of how competitive or how much additional tax relief um and tax burden Virginia Beach is um providing to the residents.

Um so if you look at real estate, for example, a locally administered and implemented program is the elderly disabled tax relief initiative.

This is something that city council's had in place for a long time.

Uh the parameters of the program are highlighted here where an individual who's 65 years or older and permanently disabled uh lives here in Virginia Beach as a resident.

As long as the income um within the household um does not exceed a certain threshold, um, which I'll show on the next slide, uh, then the individuals eligible or the households eligible to receive either up from a 20% up to 100% of real estate tax exemption, meaning it's possible based on their income that an individual might not have to pay a real estate tax bill at all.

Uh so one of the things that we do annually as part of the operating budget process is we look to modify uh or we do modify the income thresholds based on the um percentage increase of assessment increase for single family median single family homes within the city's um real estate tax levy.

So you can see here this is a visual of the income thresholds.

So kind of explaining this individual or household with total income from zero to sixty-six thousand seven hundred dollars is eligible if meeting all the other parameters of the program or requirements of the program to receive up to 100% exemption.

And then you have these different categories.

The next range provides an opportunity for 80% exemption, 60% exemption, 40%, and 20%.

I mentioned the policy that we have in place where we look to modify this each year as part of the operating budget process, the threshold for this program.

Also established by city council at that point in time was a policy in which Virginia Beach would compare ourselves and get a sense of benchmarking our program offerings with others within the area.

I do the last time that was done, it was included as part of the FY2425 operating budget.

Um so I do have copies of that here if city council will like to have that for reference, but it is um available publicly online.

Um I can last time we were looking at it, Virginia Beach was significantly more generous in the offering of this locally administered program.

Um so there's a lot of nuances.

So for example, um, based on the eligibility, an individual can enroll in the program regardless of the assessed value of their home.

If the individual lives in a million dollar house but meets all the other parameters, they can receive exemption based on their income.

Whereas other localities have a cap.

So they'll limit the enrollment within the program or the amount of relief that can be received in the program based on the median home value within the locality.

So again, Virginia Beach is very generous in this locally administered program.

Another program Virginia Beach has, and not other all, not all of the Hampton Roads localities have is the tax freeze program.

So the framework of the program is in the eligibility criteria is much in line with the tax relief rate elderly and disabled, um, with a few exceptions.

Uh for example, you can see it underlined here.