CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – City Manager Sam Sanders presented his proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 to City Council on March 5, 2025. One thing that stands out is that it includes no new taxes.

“I did not advertise a tax increase, so that part of the budget question has been answered,” he said. “We will work within the $264 million that is available, and hopefully we can move through this process and not have any burns or any arguments about what we need to do to make everybody happy when we adopt it on the 14th.”

Revenues and expenditures total just over $264 million. The current fiscal budget is $252 million.

Much of the money comes from increased real estate tax assessments. Residential assessment is up by 8.1% and increasing rapidly. Commercial assessment, meanwhile, has seen a 6.14% increase.

“We are reminded that Charlottesville, a city of 51,743 residents according to the Weldon Cooper Center, is the second-most expensive Virginia real estate market following the DC suburbs,” he pointed out. “That’s more expensive than Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Richmond, Newport News, Suffolk and Roanoke. And this is all while being the 16th largest city in the state of Virginia.”

Council will approve the budget on April 14.