Doctoral Student Wins Mid-Continent Regional Science Association Award

The Mid-Continent Regional Science Association has awarded SPP Doctoral student David Diamond with a second place award in the 2005 M. Jarvin Emerson Student Paper Competition for his essay about Arlington County property tax policy.

For the paper, which he originally wrote for a public policy budgeting seminar (PUPB 710), Diamond interviewed Arlington officials and a county budget watchdog group and searched through the county’s budget records. He discovered that, despite the county’s relatively low tax rate, the Arlington government has continued to raise the amount of property tax revenue it collects each year at a higher rate than inflation.

He explained this finding in his abstract: “The most recent Arlington property tax rate is the lowest since 1995, yet due to a double digit increase in assessed property value this rate will still result in a one-year tax increase of 15% and almost $500 for the average homeowner. Although Arlington’s tax rates and average assessments are on-par with its neighboring jurisdictions, there is evidence that Arlington engages in aggressive tax competition with its neighbors, and that rapid increases in home values have largely shielded the county from having to make highly visible tax rate increases or address fundamental questions about budget cost drivers and county service levels.” In an interview, he said that Arlington County has sought to maintain its citizens’ quality of life by increasing the budget at a faster rate than inflation. Meanwhile, rising housing prices have allowed it to continue lowering property tax rates, he said. “Even though most of the budget-making system is an inherently rational process, the most important part of the process, setting the tax rate, is an inherently political decision and the tax rate the county picks every year communicates budget priorities.”

SPP Doctoral student David Diamond

This system may eventually result in some tough choices for the county, according to Diamond. “The county will run into trouble once real estate assessments stabilize or go up at a lower rate,” he said, adding, “Arlington officials will be forced to increase the tax rate to maintain the same level of services.”

Diamond, who now lives in Herndon, became interested in his paper topic while working as co-president of Arlington’s Penrose neighborhood civic association in 2002 and 2003. Although his main policy research focuses on science and technical policy, he hopes to continue his property tax analysis by investigating other Washington, D.C., metropolitan-area counties; investigating the relationship between property tax and household income; or studying the indicators of a tax revolt.

Diamond, a former Navy Submariner who hopes to graduate in 2007, works as a research fellow for LMI Government Consulting, doing engineering and policy consultation work for the U.S. Army and Department of Defense. He said that his experiences in SPP have “ broadened my way of dealing with policy issues at work and helped me to think beyond immediate engineering or management issues and look to broader policy implications of different decisions.”

Although he remains undecided about his dissertation topic, he has begun formulating some ideas. “I’m interested in how government and society influence the development of technology and hoping to explore that more in my dissertation work,” he said.