For most of 2025, the Lee County Board of Supervisors asked residents to sign a petition for a 1% local sales tax. By March 2026, county staff had counted 371 signatures. Then, in June, the state gave every Virginia county the power to put a 1% sales tax to a public vote this November.
Lee County is not one of the places that will vote on it. The Virginia Department of Elections’ list of November 2026 referendums, revised September 8, includes 47 localities with a 1% sales tax question and no Lee County entry. The board’s minutes through August 18 do not record a vote to request a referendum.
The two ideas are not quite the same tax, though. The difference explains a lot about what Lee County could and could not have done.
A petition to lighten property taxes
The supervisors approved the petition in January 2025. Its stated aim was to show support for a higher local sales tax that “would help lower the tax burden on real and personal property,” according to the minutes of that meeting. Supervisor D.D. Leonard said visitors from out of state would pay a lot of the tax. The board also bought a quarter-page ad in the Powell Valley News to promote it.
Copies sat in four courthouse offices in Jonesville and, by June 2025, at Western Building Supply in the west end. Supervisors meant it as a message to state lawmakers, because Virginia counties can levy only the taxes the General Assembly allows. Signatures closed on October 31, 2025.
In February 2026, Board Chairman Mike Kidwell said Delegate Terry Kilgore had reported a $5 billion state surplus, and he questioned why anyone should be paying more taxes. A month later, County Administrator Clint Carter reported the final count of 371. He said he had asked Kilgore’s and Senator Todd Pillion’s offices to attend and receive the petitions but got no response, according to the March 17 minutes.
The tax the state actually allowed
The opening came through the state budget instead. The 2026 Appropriation Act lets every county and city add a sales tax of up to 1% if voters approve it, according to the Virginia Department of Taxation’s 2026 legislative summary. Before that, only eight counties and the City of Danville had that power.
The money comes with strings. Outside Northern Virginia, it can be spent only on building or renovating schools, including the cost of school bonds and loans. It cannot be charged on groceries or essential personal hygiene products. So the money could not be used for the general property tax relief the Lee County petition described. It would have to go to school buildings.
The timeline was tight. Governor Abigail Spanberger signed the budget on June 29, and localities had until August 14 to get a referendum through the local court and onto this year’s ballot, Cardinal News reported. Forty-seven localities made it, according to the state’s referendum list.
Who is voting nearby
The closest localities with the sales tax on their ballots are Smyth, Wythe and Grayson counties, all east of Washington County. Scott, Wise, Dickenson, Buchanan, Russell and Tazewell counties are not on the state’s list, and neither is the City of Norton. Cardinal News reported in August that Dickenson, Wise and Buchanan were not discussing the tax yet.
Some counties are treating this as a decision for later. Washington County plans to bring the idea back next year and may seek a special election in 2027, Cardinal News reported. More small rural school divisions are expected to move next year, the outlet reported.
What 1% might raise here
The county’s own budget offers a rough yardstick. Lee County expects $2,062,498 in sales tax revenue this year, according to the advertised 2026-27 budget in the June 18 minutes. A resident at a June 2025 meeting estimated the petition’s tax at about $2.1 million. Property owners, meanwhile, are paying the same 69-cent real estate rate as last year.
A school-only tax would leave out groceries and essential hygiene products, so it could raise less than a 1% tax on everything. How much less would depend on how much of the county’s sales are in those goods, a figure the budget does not show.
