Diners eating at Stafford restaurants on July 1 or after will help county school employees bring home the bacon.
The Stafford Board of Supervisors voted 4-3 on Tuesday night to raise the county meals tax from 5 percent to 6 percent, with the extra 1 percent going to raises for school workers in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.
The move was one the supervisors promised the Stafford School Board they would make, and the School Board last week approved a $488.2 million budget that assumed the action would be taken.
The idea is that the $3.2 million generated by the tax increase will get school workers’ pay hikes as close as possible to the 2.75 percent bump that the supervisors approved for county government workers last month.
The extra money won’t quite get to that level, but it will get school-employee raises to 2.7 percent.
Board Vice Chairwoman Tinesha Allen underscored that the raises won’t just be for teachers, but also for school support staff.
“They’re the ones who are responsible for keeping those [school building] doors open and keeping the flow of traffic going and making sure our students have successful experiences in conjunction with our teachers,” Allen said. “And, so, if we don’t take care of our people, what are we doing?”
That argument, however, didn’t sway Rock Hill District Supervisor Crystal Vanuch. She voted against the tax hike along with Falmouth District Supervisor Meg Bohmke and Hartwood District Supervisor Darrell English.
“I can’t support raising another tax,” Vanuch said.
The meals tax increase brings Stafford in line with Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania County, which also have 6 percent meals tax rates, according to Andrea Light, Stafford’s chief financial officer.
The supervisors’ vote came after a public hearing during which only three residents spoke. Two supported the increases, and the third, former Stafford Supervisor Joe Brito, was on the other side.
He said county tax increases are “just getting crazy,” and he worried that a higher meals tax would dissuade restaurateurs from coming to the locality.
“We’ve got to get some restaurants on Route 17,” Brito said, “and this is just going to discourage it.”
The supervisors also voted, 5-2, on Tuesday to increase the transient-occupancy tax, which hotel users pay. That fee will go from 9 percent to 11 percent, generating $1.1 million that will be used for county park improvements.
English and Vanuch voted against this move.
At 11 percent, Stafford will have the highest hotel tax in the region, Light said, with Fredericksburg at 8 percent and Spotsylvania at 9 percent.
Data center rules
Also Tuesday, the supervisors voted 6-1 to request the Stafford Planning Commission study the county’s current data center regulations and offer any recommended changes to the board in August. That action would be followed by a joint supervisors-commission work session and a public hearing before any changes would be implemented.
Data centers, where data from electronic devices is stored in server rooms, have been an issue in Stafford for more than two years.
The first data center applications were submitted to the county in February 2023, Planning Director Michael Zuraf told supervisors. The following October, the board established regulations for the businesses.
Since then, there’s been a steady influx of data center applications, Zuraf said. Four projects have been approved, with three under construction. Nine others are under review by county staff.
So the board wanted to take another look at the county data center rules to make sure the regulations are adequate. Data centers make for a sort of political football for local governments: They promise the possibility of generating significant tax revenue, but concerns abound, as well, ranging from worries about noise and environmental impacts to anxiety over effects on nearby property values.
Vanuch cast the sole dissenting vote against the Planning Commission referral, but she wasn’t against the spirit of the move. In fact, she wanted the review of county regulations to happen even faster.
The supervisors’ vote came after 22 speakers told the board during the public comment portion of Tuesday’s meeting that they supported examining the data center rules.
Two speakers said they had worked at data centers and claimed that the businesses have significant downsides. And some railed against a comment by Allen that other businesses can bring negatives to the community, too, including restaurants that could draw “vermin” to a given area.
Bart Randall, who is running for the Garrisonville District seat on the board, questioned how many data centers the county really needs.
“When we talk about smart, managed growth, where is our smart, managed data center growth plan?” he asked. “Is 25 too many? Is 30 too many? When will we say enough is enough?”
J.W. Swain, who lives in southeastern Stafford, said data center developers don’t really care about the county’s welfare.
“The folks who want to build these data centers don’t live here,” he said. “They don’t raise families here. They live in California, New York or somewhere else.”
