CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The Mason County Schools excess levy renewal vote in the Nov. 3 General Election now has larger than expected consequences.
Consequences that could equal $90 million in annual property tax revenue.
The bill lawmakers passed two years ago (HB 2014) that created state law governing data centers includes a provision that says county school systems with excess levies can keep the increase in tax revenue generated by data center projects. It’s not that way for the school system’s regular levy that increased amount goes to the state.
A financial impact study released this week by state Treasurer Larry Pack shows Mason County getting $90 million a year in additional excess levy funds because of the planned data centers at the Monarch Compute Campus being developed by Nscale.
Pack said Friday on MetroNews “Talkline” the little-talked-about provision in the data center law makes the Nov. 3 election huge for Mason County Schools.
“If that excess levy would pass then the school board would get this $90 million per year but if the school (excess) levy would fail in a couple of weeks then the school board would not get that money, a matter a fact, the data center would get a $90 million reduction in their tax bill,” Pack said.
Pack said it’s an unattended consequence of the data center law. He said he expects lawmakers to revisit the tax revenue allocation language.
“I do think it’s going to get revisited next year, whether the school board should receive a cut in at all, or maybe we reverse it totally and all the (increased tax revenue) stays in the county,” Pack said.
According to Pack, it’s not surprising language about school system excess levies would make it into the bill that passed.
“When you sit in the House of Delegates and they put an 80-page bill in front of you and you’ve got to report it out the next week, you know a lot of things in that bill but you don’t know everything and you definitely don’t know the unattended consequences when you rush this stuff through,” Pack said.