Bristol council holds budget hearing, adopts 2025 real property tax rate at $0.93
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Summary
After a public hearing where multiple residents described large assessment increases, the council received the city manager's FY2026 budget presentation and adopted a real property tax rate of $0.93 per $100 of assessed value by a 4–1 vote. City leaders cited landfill and debt pressures and proposed salary and scale corrections for public safety.
Bristol City Council on April 8 held a public hearing on the city’s real property tax rate and the proposed FY2026 budget, received public comments from multiple residents who said their reassessments rose sharply, and after a staff presentation voted 4–1 to set the real property tax rate at $0.93 per $100 of assessed value.
Tamara Spradlin, assistant city manager and chief financial officer, told the council the advertised rate was 0.93 cents per $100; she said the equalized rate — the rate that would produce essentially the same total revenue as the prior year after reassessment — would be $0.80. Spradlin said the public hearing was advertised per Virginia Code §58.1-3321.
Several residents used the public comment period to give examples of large assessment increases. Danny Wallace said his reassessment initially was recorded as a 70% increase, later adjusted to 52%; during his remarks he read the statute and said, “the law that's in question is, section 58.1 hyphen 33 21 of the code of Virginia.” Randall Lockhart said his assessment rose by $68,600 and that a proposed rate of 0.93 would increase his taxes by 16.4%, and others described similar large percentage changes.
City Manager Randy Eads and staff presented the draft FY2026 budget. Eads said the general fund recommendation is $95,298,016 and noted the single largest pressure is the city’s landfill and related debt. He said the city requested $35,000,000 from the governor for landfill work and received $26,000,000. Eads described other drivers: inmate housing costs, facility maintenance, and a multi-year need to build up capital funding. The manager proposed a 3% across-the-board salary increase, police and fire pay-scale corrections and several additional positions (including an additional firefighter, an added captain in police, custodial positions, and an economic development director), and he said the budget includes $9,000,000 toward landfill-related costs in the general fund.
Spradlin summarized revenue changes: local revenue increases of roughly $5.6 million (including $2.7 million estimated from real property taxes), state revenue increases of about $1.7 million and federal increases of about $435,000, and she said $8,000,000 of bond proceeds were included for disposal projects. Eads and Spradlin warned that the landfill will require ongoing expenditures: Spradlin said an operating budget including debt for disposal services is no less than $8,200,000 and that landfill monitoring and maintenance will continue in perpetuity unless a very costly remediation option is chosen.
Council members discussed trade-offs between lowering the advertised rate and preserving services and staff. During roll-call voting on the resolution establishing the 2025 real property tax rate, the council recorded four votes in favor and one against (Council Member Pollard voted no); the resolution set a combined city and school real property tax rate of $0.93 per $100 of assessed value.
The budget ordinance process timeline cited by staff: advertise April 12, public hearing April 22, first reading May 13 and second reading and adoption May 27. City staff will return with line-item details during the public hearings and budget sessions.
