THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 6, 1996 TAG: 9602060008
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Whenever the haves and the have-nots discuss sharing, the haves become nervous.
Relatively affluent Virginia Beach and Fairfax County are nervous as the General Assembly considers a bill to promote regional revenue sharing and decrease economic disparities among localities.
The bill is backed by the Urban Partnership, an organization of 18 cities and counties that is promoting regionalism as the economic salvation of Virginia. The bill encourages regional projects - like area revenue sharing to build a sports arena - of benefit to all participating localities.
If the bill, the Regional Competitiveness Act, is to pass, the partnership must demonstrate that regionalism, including revenue sharing, will help create powerful economic engines like Atlanta and Charlotte - and do so in a way that's fair and beneficial to counties and suburbs, as well as core cities.
When Virginia Beach City Council members discuss revenue sharing, the number 68 comes up. A 1992 study showed that for every dollar of state taxes collected from Virginia Beach, only 68 cents made its way back home from Richmond. (By comparison, Norfolk got 87 cents back for every dollar in state taxes.)
If regional revenue sharing becomes a reality, said Virginia Beach Vice Mayor William D. Sessoms, ``We don't want to get sixty-eight cents back on the dollar, like we are doing with Richmond. That doesn't make sense for the city.''
Sessoms said he does not object to revenue sharing and in fact favors it for building a major-league-sports arena in Hampton Roads. But his concern, and certainly a worthy one, is fairness.
The Regional Competitiveness Act, which is working its way through both General Assembly houses with broad support, would set up a state fund of up to $200 million to reward localities that act regionally.
A point system would award a region the most points for revenue sharing and cooperative-education efforts. Regions with the most points would get the most incentive revenues.
Localities would not be coerced into regional cooperation. However, some of the money they paid in state taxes would go into the incentives fund, whether they liked it or not. In other words, a locality like Virginia Beach would pay for part of the carrot that then was dangled before it.
To get a bite of that carrot, the locality would have to cooperate with other localities in the region. Presumably localities would cooperate only on projects they all liked.
The arguments for regional cooperation are compelling. The State Chamber of Commerce and other Urban Partnership advocates argue that Virginia laws, which treat cities as islands, are weakening core cities and thus damaging the entire state. One study showed that between 1970 and 1990 Virginia's rate of income growth per private-sector job was 1 percent, while North Carolina's was 6.7 percent and Georgia's was 11.2 percent. North Carolina has Charlotte and the Research Triangle - two sterling examples of regionalism at work. Georgia, of course, has Atlanta, home of the 1996 Olympics.
The Urban Partnership may have chosen an unfortunate name for itself, because the name implies that counties and suburbs are left out.
In fact, if regionalism works, counties and suburbs will share in the good times - in the rising wages. If regionalism fails, they will share in whatever follows.
Former GOP Gov. A. Linwood Holton, chief lobbyist for the Urban Partnership, has been brilliant in emphasizing that the incentives plan is aimed at economic development - not core-city bailouts. It's purpose, he says, is statewide progress, not charitable redistribution of wealth from suburbs to cities.
Later this month, Holton will attempt to sell the Virginia Beach City Council on the Regional Competitiveness Act. We hope he succeeds, for no Virginia city, standing alone, can compete with powerful economic regions in other states. by CNB