IW supervisors settle on 6% real estate tax increase in 2025-26 budget
Published 5:50 pm Friday, May 16, 2025
- FIle photo
After considering seven options, Isle of Wight County supervisors voted unanimously on May 15 to adopt an amended version of County Administrator Randy Keaton’s proposed $113 million fiscal year 2025-26 budget, which now includes a 4.5-cent real estate tax rate increase.
The new rate of 77.5 cents per $100 in assessed value, which will take effect July 1, reflects a 6% hike from the 2024 rate of 73 cents. But it’s 8.8% lower than the 85-cent rate Isle of Wight charged in 2022 before supervisors lowered it to 71 cents in 2023 to partially offset the reassessment that year that saw single-family home valuations rise 34% on average.
The supervisors had initially advertised a 5-cent increase coupled with a 10-cent, or 5.1%, machinery and tools tax rate increase to $2.05 per $100 in assessed value. Under the adopted budget, the M&T rate will remain at $1.95 per $100.
Supervisor Thomas Distefano said raising the M&T tax could have spooked prospective businesses looking to relocate or expand in Isle of Wight County. Per state law, the supervisors had the option of going lower, but not higher, than the rate advertised.
“I think we really need to be careful there to draw in a more diverse tax income to the county,” Distefano said.
The revised budget would fund additional Sheriff’s Office and Fire and Rescue positions and includes a $38,000 county match of $48,272 in state funding for an additional full-time position in the county Clerk of Circuit Court office, but would not fund the conversion of a part-time investigator in the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office to full time, which had been included in some of the other budget options Keaton presented.
Keaton had initially proposed a $3.1 million, or 9.3%, increase in the county’s contribution to Isle of Wight County Schools, matching the amount IWCS Superintendent Theo Cramer identified as mandatory expenses at a joint March 27 meeting of the Board of Supervisors and School Board. The final county budget reduces that increase by $93,000 due to $1.2 million in additional state funding for IWCS.
The School Board plans to use the extra state funds to cover the $521,732 estimated cost of restoring the 1% to 2% annual raises teachers receive under Isle of Wight County Schools’ 35-step pay scale, which had been frozen last year, and to cover an additional $432,000 in health insurance costs beyond the $1.6 million increase the School Board had initially budgeted. Another $160,000 will go toward the cost of utilities at Isle of Wight’s nine schools. The $93,000 cut from the county contribution matches the unallocated remainder of the additional state funding.
The $3 million increase brings the county’s contribution to its school system to roughly $36.3 million, or 32% of its $113 million budget. The county contribution would fund Isle of Wight’s share of a state-required 3% pay raise for school employees on top of the step increases but would not fund 14 new full-time positions IWCS had requested.
Non-school county employees will also receive a 3% raise under the adopted budget.
Despite the 4.5-cent increase, Isle of Wight’s real estate tax rate remains the fourth lowest in Hampton Roads. Surry and Southampton counties, both of which presently charge 71 cents per $100, and the city of Williamsburg, which charges 62 cents per $100, are lower.
Windsor residents would pay a combined 88.5-cent rate based on the county increase and the town’s current 15-cent rate. Smithfield taxpayers would pay a 91.5-cent combined rate based on the county increase and the town’s 16-cent rate. Neither town is proposing a real estate tax rate increase for 2025-26.
Supervisors previously voted in March to readopt a $4.50 per $100 car tax rate ahead of the mailing of bills this month that are due June 5.
The adopted budget also includes a water rate of $15.15 per 1,000 gallons, up $2 or 15% from the current $13.15 rate. Keaton had previously proposed a 66-cent increase to keep pace with the cost of buying water from the Western Tidewater Water Authority, an entity formed from Isle of Wight and the city of Suffolk.
Isle of Wight’s water rate remains the third-highest in South Hampton Roads behind Suffolk, which currently charges $14.83 per 1,000 gallons and has proposed a $15.24 rate effective July 1, and Southampton County, which currently charges $14 per 1,000 gallons and has proposed a $5 increase to $19.
Isle of Wight’s sewer rate is also proposed to increase from $7 per 1,000 gallons to $9.