Bacon's Rebellion

Map of the Day: Fiscal Stress

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by

James A. Bacon
in

 The Commission on Local Government has released its report ranking the “fiscal stress” of Virginia’s local governments. Fiscal stress measures a locality’s ability to generate additional local revenues from its current tax base. As shown in the map above, the most severely stressed localities in Virginia fall into two buckets: cities and chronically depressed coalfield counties.

The most fiscally stressed localities of all are small cities — Emporia (the #1 most stressed), Petersburg (#2), Covington (#3), Bristol (#4), Galax, (#5), and Martinsville (#6). The most fiscally robust (or least stressed) localities are suburban counties and cities — Goochland County (#133), Loudoun County (#132), Falls Church (#131), and Fairfax County (#130).

A fascinating anomaly is Bath County (at #129), which is about as rural as you can get. The largest community, Hot Springs, has a population of less than 1,000. But the county is home to The Homestead resort and has numerous vacation homes. Also high on the list of fiscally robust counties are Lancaster (#118), Middlesex (#115) and Mathews (#114) counties on the Chesapeake Bay. Lancaster is home to The Tides resort. All three are blessed with an abundance of vacation and retirement homes.

— JAB

Update: I have updated the post to give a more precise definition of “fiscal stress.”

 

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8 responses to “Map of the Day: Fiscal Stress”

  1. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    Overlay a map of data centers.

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Overlay previous years for a flip book of a still life.

    2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
      Eric the half a troll

      Overlay a map showing tax dollar flows.

  2. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Reader Jim Weigand points out that Bath County is also home to Dominion Energy's Bath pumped storage facility. Presumably, that plant generates a lot of revenue.

    1. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      Louisa has low stress, but it's not because of North Anna. The county exempted it from property taxes. Louisa government doesn't do much, but unlike Richmond, doesn't charge much for not doing much. It's a pretty conservative approach, do what you can pay for. Some of the other rural counties with low stress may operate with the same philosophy.

  3. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I think Dominion might be helping Bath also on revenues from their pumped-storage facility.

  4. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    I find the concept of Fiscal Stress interesting:

    " The fiscal stress index illustrates a locality’s ability to generate additional local revenues from its current tax base relative to the rest of the Commonwealth. For a given year, the fiscal stress of a locality can be gauged through a statistical averaging of relative stress scores that are based upon the following for each of Virginia’s 95 counties and 38 cities:

    ▪ Revenue capacity is a computation of how much revenue a jurisdiction could generate if it taxed its population at statewide average rates.

    ▪ Revenue effort is a ratio of actual tax collections by a locality to its computed revenue capacity.

    ▪ Median household income represents the level at which exactly half of the households in a jurisdiction earn more and the other half earns less.

    The index weighs all three variables evenly. For all three variables, a tally equivalent to the state average will yield a relative stress score of 100.1 Therefore, a composite fiscal stress score of 100 would equate to average stress relative to the rest of the Commonwealth.2 Composite scores above 100 indicate fiscal stress that is above the state average, while scores below 100 imply fiscal stress conditions that are lower than the state average. "

    So, I know this is used for the composite index for schools.

    How about other services the state might help subsidize like law enforcement, courts, social services?

  5. how_it_works Avatar
    how_it_works

    How are Manassas and Manassas Park having above-average fiscal stress in that sea of prosperity known as Northern Virginia???

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