Nicholas A. Spinella

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What Happened to the Church in Richmond

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The Catholic Lawyer Volume 19 Number 4 Volume 19, Autumn 1973, Number 4 Article 8 March 2017 What Happened to the Church in Richmond Nicholas A. Spinella Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/tcl  Part of the Catholic Studies Commons Recommended Citation Nicholas A. Spinella (1973) "What Happened to the Church in Richmond," The Catholic Lawyer: Vol. 19 : No. 4 , Article 8. Available at: https://scholarship.law.stjohns.edu/tcl/vol19/iss4/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Catholic Lawyer by an authorized editor of St. John's Law Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact selbyc@stjohns.edu. WHAT HAPPENED TO THECHURCH IN RICHMONDNICHOLAS A. SPINELLA, EsQ.*Over the past several years in Virginia there has been some publicsupport in favor of levying a service charge on tax exempt real estate inorder to reimburse localities for police and fire protection and refuse collec-tion. Accordingly, the recently revised Constitution of Virginia includedthe following section:The General Assembly may, by general law authorize any county, city, townor regional government to impose a service charge upon the owners of a classor classes of exempt property for services provided by such governments.Pursuant to this provision of the new Constitution our General Assem-bly did enact a statute effective July 1, 1972, permitting localities to im-pose service charges upon the owners of tax exempt real estate but exclud-ing church property which was exempt from real estate taxation and usedwholly and exclusively for religious worship. The statute limited the serv-ice charge to a maximum of 40% of the real estate tax rate and provided alittle understood statutory formula for computing the service chargewhereby the service charge was based on the assessed fair market value ofthe real estate rather than by the value of services rendered for police andfire protection and refuse collection.In an effort to cooperate with a reasonable charge for services and withassurance that churches would not be assessed with a service charge, theDiocese of Richmond did not oppose the Constitutional revision or theenabling act of the General Assembly, nor did any other church groups orcharitable organizations in the State object. Our Diocese did not opposethe act because it assumed that the service charge would be both reason-able and equitably applied.As the state capitol, the City of Richmond has located within itsboundary much valuable real estate owned by the state government and,therefore, our City Council immediately enacted a city ordinance levyingthe maximum service charge allowed by the statute amounting to 40% ofthe city real estate tax. In August of 1972 the Assessor of Real Estateadvised the Diocese and other tax exempt property owners as to theamount of service charge each would pay under the terms of the ordinance.Much to our amazement, the simple little service charge emerged as a*Partner, Spinella, Spinella, Owings, Richmond, Virginia.CURRENT TAX PROBLEMSsubstantial and unreasonable real estate tax on our school properties, con-vents, cemeteries and other buildings.While actual church buildings and rectories were exempted, nothingelse escaped. As an example of the unreasonableness of the service chargesas levied in Richmond, an elementary school assessed at $500,000.00 wasassessed with a service charge of $4,000.00-our school properties alone inthe city were levied with more than $25,000.00 in service charges for thefirst year. But the worst was yet to come.We immediately set up appointments with the Mayor of the City, theCity Manager, City Assessor and City Attorney in that order. Our problembecame worse with each conference. The Mayor assured us that the servicecharge was needed by the City and would be paid by all tax exemptproperty owners, therefore, we should not complain. The City Managerechoed the Mayor's remarks, but the City Assessor advised us for the firsttime that while Sunday school classrooms, educational facilities, audito-riums, cafeterias, and gymnasiums connected with other denominationswere exempted under the "religious worship" exclusion, because ourschools were full time accredited educational institutions, they were notwholly and exclusively used for religious worship and, therefore, we pay theservice charge, they do not. The City Attorney confirmed that this was themanner in which he had interpreted the ordinance.Armed with this unfair, inequitable and unconstitutional applicationof the ordinance to our properties, we consulted George Reed here at theOffice of General Counsel and later retained Bill Ball to prepare a briefon the obvious constitutional question involved, organized our troops andmarched on City Hall demanding exemption of our properties from the so-called service charge or else-the or else being clearly enunciated as Courtaction to declare the state statute and the city ordinance unconstitutional.I am happy to report that this sad tale did have a happy ending. OurCatholic concern and leadership drew support finally from other tax ex-empt property owners and City Council finally, on November 13, 1972,amended the ordinance to exclude all properties other than state ownedproperties, and with the valuable assistance of my associate diocesan attor-ney, Joe Gartlan, who happens to occupy a seat in the Virginia Senate, thelegislature at its 1973 session also limited the enabling act to state ownedproperty, thereby exempting all religious and charitable owners of realestate.Due to limitations of time, I have necessarily summarized in a generalway our activity on this matter, however, there are available copies ofselected news articles and statements which will give you a better appre-ciation of the manner in which we accomplished our service charge exemp-tion before City Council.The caveat I leave with you regarding this matter is simply this-aservice charge for police and fire protection on tax exempt property sounds274 19 CATHOLIC LAWYER, AUTUMN 1973eminently fair and equitable-it sounds like a charge by the locality forservices rendered-don't believe it-our Richmond experience proved thata service charge is a disguised real estate tax. When your legislature andlocal governing body begin to suggest and discuss the need for a servicecharge, don't sit back and consent in silence-organize immediately andfight. We finally did in Richmond, but it was almost too late.

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