Here is some of the information I found in a comparison of Christiansburg data with that of 34 other large towns For the 2007 fiscal year (n=35 towns) based on highest to lowest:

• # 26 in real property as a source of revenue
• # 29 in Public Service Corp. Property as a source of revenue
• # 27 in Personal Property tax as a source of revenue
• # 8 in Machinery & Tools tax as a source of revenue
• # 11 in Local Sales & Use tax as a source of revenue
• # 16 in Consumer Utility tax as a source of revenue
• # 24 in Business Licenses as a source of revenue
• # 14 in Franchise tax as a source of revenue
• # 23 in Vehicle License tax as a source of revenue
• # 29 in Bank Franchise tax as a source of revenue
• # 5 in Cigarette & Tobacco tax as a source of revenue
• # 8 in Lodging tax as a source of revenue
• # 5 in Meals tax as a source of revenue
• #7 in Emergency Telephone tax as a source of revenue
• # 21 in Other (whatever that means) as a source of revenue

Remember that these are sorted from HIGHEST to LOWEST.

The Auditor of Public Accounts has in dept information that shows you where money goes and where it comes from. It takes a bit of time to get use to the format used, but then, it is piece of cake to just download the whole files, cut and paste the areas of interest into a spreadsheet and  run all kinds of tests on the numbers.

I haven’t finished the 2008 data yet, but I look forward to a comparison of the results since there were some significant slow downs in a lot of the major areas.

Considering the loss of businesses due to the economy, one would expect to see some decreases in some of these. However, the town did raise taxes last year in some of these areas so maybe there will not be that much of a drop. Guess I’ll have to wait and see what the data shows:)

By Carol Lindstrom On April 9 at 1:00 AM