Town approves 90-day waiver on delinquent tax penalties due to COVID-19

They’re all beginning to look alike – from one virtual meeting to the next. Royal Examiner Photos/Roger Bianchini

Municipal and other governments continue to cope, along with their constituents, with the new reality of mandated and/or voluntary social distancing to stem the spread of a new strain of Coronavirus to which humans have no immunity or vaccine to build immunity from. In that environment several days after the U.S. saw its fatality rate attributed to COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) pass 2,000 in one day for the first time, the Front Royal Town Council met virtually once again on Monday night, April 13, to address several matters, including one related directly to the COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019) situation.

As part of a six-item consent agenda approved by a unanimous vote, the council authorized a resolution “to delay charges for penalties and interest related to 2020 Real Estate and Personal Property Taxes by a period of 90 days due to implications of COVID-19 on the Town citizens.”

For some town citizens in service industry jobs deemed “non-essential” those COVID-19 “implications” include furloughed or lost jobs and paychecks upon which many rely to make weekly or monthly ends meet.

An empty E. Main St. in downtown Front Royal reflects pain being felt by citizens across the commonwealth and nation.

The delinquent tax penalty in place is 10% of the past due tax or $10, whichever is the greater amount, and the interest rate assessed on delinquent taxes is 10% per year, which begins accruing on the first day of the first month the tax becomes delinquent.

At Councilwoman Letasha Thompson’s suggestion at the April 9th work session, the council extended the waiver period from 30 to 90 days to avoid repeatedly revisiting the resolution as the COVID-19 Emergency Response restrictions face governmental or voluntary business extensions beyond initial April timeframes.

As reported in our coverage of last week’s work session discussion of the tax penalty waivers and other suggestions made by council members related to COVID-19 impacts on, not only citizens, but the Town government’s revenue stream, facing “a revenue crisis of unknown dimensions” council’s intended direction appears to be to look toward not only capital improvement cuts, but also further departmental operational and service cuts, perhaps even coupled with cuts to utility and tax rates in the coming fiscal year.

As we also noted in that April 9th work session coverage, council discussion of additional cuts to revenue sources while still-undetermined Town revenue losses are on the horizon led Interim Town Manager Matt Tederick to twice joke that Town Finance Director B. J. Wilson was either receiving CPR or simply “flopping on the floor again”.

Boy, this file photo is at least a year old. Town Finance Director B. J. Wilson is trying to lead the town council through uncharted revenue shortfall territory without the need for CPR.

Contacted later, hopefully not flopping on the floor, Wilson noted the Town finds itself in uncharted territory with little or no precedent for what is happening.

“This didn’t happen in 2008 (the housing market collapse-fueled “Great Recession”),” Wilson noted of general across-the-board business closings and other variables like early spring public school closings that have taken a big chunk out of the Town’s utility revenues.

“My focus has been on how to cover our shortfalls and we’re so early in, there are no good numbers to present. But we’ve got to be able to cover our shortfalls before giving credits,” Wilson observed of the financial landscape municipalities now find themselves traversing.

Prior to that consent agenda vote, during his report to council Interim Town Manager Matt Tederick reported that Town staff continues to function behind locked Town Hall doors to serve citizens.

It may still be service with a smile; you just can’t see it – unless you’re at the first finance department drive-thru window behind Town Hall.

He said there were no Town employees out sick Monday, but he continues to monitor departments for any signs of COVID-19 contamination that might require a departmental quarantine. Tederick, who is the Town’s emergency management manager, said he was viewing the crisis in three phases – preparation, enduring, and recovery.

“I’m very confident that we have prepared as well as we could be prepared. We’re currently in the enduring phase, so we currently have 17 cases in Warren County (of 129 in the six-municipality Lord Fairfax Health District and 5,747 in Virginia as of April 13). That seems to go up pretty frequently now with confirmed cases. But pretty soon, we’re going to be in the recovery phase. And I’ve already started as of last week, doing some planning in an effort to expedite the recovery on our citizens and our business owners.”

Tederick then went on to trace the council’s coming work session and special meeting as necessary, budget process to see a tax rate and budget proposal achieved by the April 21st deadline cited at the April 9 work session.

Other items approved as part of the consent agenda included:

1 – amendments to the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Downtown Revitalization Project bylaws to reflect changing Town personnel and financial landscapes;

2 – a proclamation proclaiming April as “Sexual Assault Awareness Month” as brought forward by the Laurel Center that deals with domestic and sexual assault issues in the community;

3 – approval of a $4,000 donation to the Front Royal Independent Business Alliance (FRIBA) for the purchase and maintenance of letters spelling out “LOVE” to be placed in the Village Commons/Gazebo downtown area to replace letters FRIBA already purchased and placed in the fall of 2019 as part of a “Virginia is for Lovers” promotion replacing previously Chamber-rented letters from the State. It was not clear from the accompanying request from FRIBA what happened to their originally purchased letters;

4 – recommended to the Circuit Court judiciary reappointment of John E. Hensley to a five-year term on the Town Board of Zoning Appeals (BZA); and

5 – approved a Deed of Easement with HEPTAD, LLC for a 20-foot Sanitary Sewer easement to be dedicated to the Town off Leach Run Parkway.

Town Attorney Doug Napier recused himself from any involvement in the HEPTAD matter, explaining that he has a personal business interest in the HEPTAD group led by former Warren County Supervisor and EDA Board member Ron Llewellyn.

If you look closely, you might be able to tell if these were taken April 13, or are file photos from an earlier virtual meeting.

In the one other item of business on the agenda, the council unanimously approved a Consent Order from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) “to implement specific actions to correct issues that have resulted in violations of the Virginia Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit (issued) to the Town’s Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) that occurred over the past year.”

The Town managed to have a $38,615 fine reduced to $3,915 by agreeing to utilize the balance of the fine to institute corrective measures that include “a streamback and channel restoration project in Happy Creek between E. Prospect Street and South Street.”

And with that Mayor Tewalt called for and council approved adjournment of a 14-minute virtual meeting.