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Lynchburg council debates lodging fee, personal property and real-estate rate as options to close FY26 gap
Summary
At a May 6 budget work session, Lynchburg council members debated raising consumption taxes — including the lodging tax and a per-night room fee — as alternatives to raising the real-estate rate, while staff provided revenue yield estimates and cautioned about legal and market limits.
At a Lynchburg City Council budget work session on May 6, council members debated whether to rely more on consumption taxes — chiefly the lodging tax and a room-per-night fee — rather than increasing the local real-estate tax rate to balance the proposed FY26 budget.
Councilman Ferraldi urged the council to “start there” with taxes borne mostly by visitors rather than homeowners, saying a levy paid by nonresidents would reduce pressure on local property owners. “If there's a solution that prevents taxes going up on the folks I represent that is paid for by 99% of folks out of town, we start there,” Ferraldi said.
Why it matters: Council members framed the lodging and room-fee options as politically and economically preferable to large real-estate increases because those taxes are paid primarily by visitors and event attendees rather than by homeowners on fixed…
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