Albemarle County FY27 Budget - My Public Comment
Sometimes it feels like public comment vanishes into the ether, even if it is ultimately preserved in minutes and video records. I wanted to share what I said at the March 4, 2026 meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, the first public hearing for the FY27 budget.
My name is Michael Monaco, I live in the White Hall district, in Crozet, and personally, I want to pay more taxes.
Like many of my neighbors, I’m here to speak about the affordable housing investment fund.
Seems like the fund is, bit by bit, staggering to life. Notwithstanding today’s decision to bounce approval of $3.6m in grants and loans to next meeting, we’re finally seeing the fruits of having an actual fund with an actual governing policy.
But the AHIF will always be weaker without strong dedicated funding. Several supervisors expressed earlier today a desire to see the fund spent down entirely every year - to make the most of our budgeted dollars. I’d support that choice; the need in our area is evident, and it’s just a matter of connecting the need to the dollars with a coherent application process. But I only see $1.3m in dedicated funding for the foreseeable future. Without reliable, year-after-year funding, I worry that we’ll discourage the long-range and large-scale investments in affordable housing that we really, desperately need.
I recognize too that our obligations continue to grow. I don’t envy the choices ahead of you. I know too the pressure you receive to keep assessments and real estate taxes low. But I also see what my neighbors in the City of Charlottesville pay as a tax rate. More than me. I see what my city neighbors pay into affordable housing - more than me. And I think about how few people I know who can accurately tell you were the city ends and the county begins. I think about how the tents at the Free Bridge encampment might sit in the city but look two hundred feet over to the county. We’re one community.
This is why I’m asking you to consider a one cent real estate tax increase, dedicated entirely to affordable housing. A one cent increase this year would come out to a little over $3.3m in revenue, bringing the overall total, including projected carryover from FY26, to about $9.7m in FY27. That one cent increase, for the median homeowner in Albemarle County, would cost $4 a month. Personally, I would rather pay very slightly higher taxes to contribute to such a fund.
I believe this budget - a moral document - should reflect the needs and priorities of the people it serves. I know there are thousands of families living on the thin line, burdened by the cost of rent; thousands of my neighbors who are not sure where they’ll lay their head next month. I know what I am asking for. I am asking for permission to pay about $4 more in taxes every month in order that my government might better serve my neighbors.
Will we actually get a once cent increase? I don't know, I'm just some guy. It's a real pain that the nature of the budget cycle is such that there's only two weeks between the initial public hearing and the legally-required advertisement of the tax rate - doesn't leave a lot of room for public input on the subject one way or another, even though my opinions about whether or not we should raise the tax rate are driven almost entirely by the specific contents of the recommended budget.
There are budget town halls coming up; see below. Unfortunately, all of them fall after the date for advertising the tax rate (March 18).
