Northampton gets first look at expected FY 2024 revenues

Note: The FY2023 revenue includes a one time federal infusion of approximately $8,000,000 for a new 911 radio system. Without this one time federal payment, the actual revenues for Northampton in FY2023 would have been $36,808,366.

Northampton County’s Finance Director John Chandler gave the Board of Supervisors a first look at anticipated revenues for FY2024 at Tuesday night’s work session in Eastville.

Chandler expected for revenues to continue their upward trend from the last four years, for an expected total of approximately $38,932,148. 84% of revenues are expected from taxes and fees collected at the local level, 9.8% from State, 5% from non-revenue sources like loans and .25% from the federal level.

Chandler said he expected local tax collections to increase by roughly $3 million, $817,672 of which he expected from additional real estate tax revenues. A driving force behind this increase is that there was $46,000,000 in new construction additions in Northampton County 2022.

He encouraged the Board to increase the Food and Beverage Tax by 1%, which was enabled by the General Assembly last year. Currently, Food and Beverage Tax collections are down 9.26% so far this fiscal year, which Chandler suspects is a result of people traveling less in the wake of increased gas prices in a high inflationary environment. Chandler said the traffic on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel is down 3% so far this fiscal year.

Governor Glenn Youngkin has discussed eliminating the grocery tax in Virginia, a portion of which ends up in localities pockets. If it were eliminated, Chandler projects a $400,000 – $500,000 hit to the County coffers. He said if this were to happen, Northampton would have to figure out a way to make up the lost revenue.

The full report can be seen  here.