Some voters in Virginia approved of increasing their local sales tax to finance school construction. But... most jurisdictions rejected the ballot initiative.
Voters in Charlottesville approved of allowing a local sales tax increase to fund school construction. So did voters in Richmond, Winchester and Fairfax City among others. But they were in the minority. Most jurisdictions that had the school construction tax referendum on the ballot rejected it. Wes Bellamy at Virginia State University says there's one obvious difference between the localities that approved and the ones that rejected.
"Clearly, there is somewhat of a divide between how urban cities and juxtaposed to those where you may consider it to be somewhat of a rural jurisdiction," Bellamy says. "With the cities being in favor by and large and many of the rural localities rejecting the amendment."
The only urban areas rejecting the referendum were in Hampton Roads, where voters in Norfolk, Newport News and Portsmouth said thanks but no thanks.
"We’re in a situation where many people are concerned about cost of living; that's the number one issue time and again in the polls," says Mark Rozell, dean of the Schar School at George Mason University. "So, maybe it just wasn't a good time to have a proposal in some jurisdictions for what people would perceive as an additional tax burden."
Of the 47 jurisdictions that had the school sales tax on the ballot, twice as many rejected it as approved it.
