Marion County Commission stands opposed to Amendment 2
Sep. 22—FAIRMONT — The Marion County Commission has joined with numerous other counties and municipalities across West Virginia to oppose Amendment 2.
Wednesday at its meeting, the commission voted 2-1 to sign a resolution cementing the county's opposition to the controversial constitutional amendment that will be on the ballot in November.
Amendment 2, also known as the Property Tax Modernization Act, would remove personal property tax rates regarding business inventory and machinery as well as the motor vehicle tax from the state constitution and hand control to the legislature.
The legislature has already made clear that it plans to completely cut those taxes given the opportunity.
Were the taxes removed, county budgets could be cut by up to 27 percent. The taxes also pay for levied programs like public libraries, the transit authority, and the county school system, all of which could lose sizeable chunks from their budgets.
The legislature has assured any organization affected would be "made whole" through other means, but a concrete plan hasn't been presented to the public.
The County Commission's resolution comes a week after Fairmont City Council approved a similar resolution and both the West Virginia Association of Counties and the County Commissioners Association of West Virginia passed resolutions as well earlier this month.
Commissioners Randy Elliott and Linda Longstreth signed the statement. Commissioner Ernie VanGilder did not sign the resolution, saying he's in support of the property tax cuts, but did not support the way the legislature has presented this amendment.
"I'm not opposed to the amendment, I am opposed to the way it was presented," VanGilder said. "For that reason, I won't sign this resolution, but I certainly understand my colleagues' willingness to sign it."
VanGilder cited his commitment to conservative business practices as the source for his support of the amendment. Elliott, who also calls himself a conservative businessman, feels that the potential benefits of these tax cuts don't outweigh the burden it will pass onto taxpayers.
"Being a business person, reducing taxes on inventory and vehicles is a very popular thing to do, but at the end of it, who's going to pay for it?" Elliott said. "Someone's got to pay for it, the state says they'll pay for it... but they've not always been sound financially."
The most sound critique of the amendment and the legislature's promise to make budgets whole through the general fund is that most mockups done by the state use data from the finances of the last two years, which are muddied by the influx of federal funds sent in a COVID relief.
According to the West Virginia Center of Budget & Policy — a Charleston-based think tank that has studied the potential impacts of Amendment 2 — between 2010 and 2019, there was not a single year where the state's budget could support filling the gaps left by these potential tax cuts.
"All we're saying to the state legislature is, 'Please, make a plan,'" Longstreth said. "This is something that is guaranteed to us now in the constitution now, how are you going to guarantee it to us later? They haven't shared any thoughts about that except taking it out of the general fund."
At Wednesday's meeting, Transit-Authority Director George Levitsky and Marion County Public Library Director Larissa Cason spoke to the commission and thanked them for their stand against Amendment 2.
The libraries and the transit authority are two of the levied programs that would be directly affected by the cut of property tax.
Reach David Kirk at 304-367-2522 or by email at dkirk@timeswv.com.
