CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – The Albemarle County Board of Supervisors will finalize the 2027 budget and tax rates in a special meeting on Wednesday at 5 p.m.

The $724 million plan was presented in February by County Executive Jeff Richardson and is $80 million more than the 2026 budget.

“When I saw that this year’s proposed budget was 13% higher than last year, I assumed it was an outlier, but it’s not,” Albemarle County Republican Committee Chairman Phil Riese told supervisors in the final public hearing on the budget last Wednesday. “In 2023, the budget was $494 million, this year it’s $724 million, that’s nearly a 50% increase in just four year. Over the same four years, inflation was 12%, so how is our county budget growing by four times the rate of inflation?”

County Executive Jeff Richardson told WINA Morning News he hears that question, and people have the right to ask it. But there is an explanation.

“The first thing is we’re going to take care of our capital debt obligations, which is basically the county’s mortgage,” Richardson said. “So right now, when you look at our current CIP [Capital Improvement Program], we’re going to pay for the courts complex, the land we purchased out at Rivanna for future economic development, and three news schools: Mountain View Upper Elementary, Ace Academy at Lambs Lane and North Feeder Pattern.

“In addition to that, we have to pay for really good people to work in our organization, we need to keep market salary, we need to be able to recruit and retain just like private sector with a focus on public safety. Because, again, those calls for service are continuing to increase and that’s a big deal.”

He said there are also contractors who help do the county’s work, so the county needs to take care of obligations and are doing multi-year budgeting.

Demands continue to rise for K-12 education as well. Richardson makes sure to tell people 52-cents of every dollar coming into the county goes toward the schools.

“That’s the design of local government in the schools is that we’re responsible for paying a significant amount of what they do every day,” he said, “and they’ve got a lot of work to do in our county every day to educate our kids.”

During his public comments last week, Riese acknowledged the county has plenty of “pressing needs,” but argued “we can’t afford our government to keep growing at four times the rate of inflation.” Riese also specifically questioned the rise in school spending when student body growth is not happening in Albemarle County. According to the ACPS website, fall enrollment decreased by 121 students from 2024-25 to 2025-26.

“The board has been lucky to have significant growth in tax revenue due to rising property assessments, but this budget growth is unsustainable,” he said.