Local activists, especially Charles Pool and Scott Burger, rightly complain Richmond families are burdened with among the highest comparative water rates in America.

The combined rip-off equals $25 million in the current budget. This number surges to $28 million in the new fiscal year. In Richmond, a majority African American city, 40 percent of black families struggle at or below the poverty line.

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The law requires revenue from city-owned utilities to be put in Richmond’s general fund, where it supports the most expensive per-capita governing structure in the state. Its bloat, incompetence and sweetheart deals for political cronies earned Richmond the label “cesspool of corruption” not long ago.

Note: This money isn’t going to improve the utility infrastructure, even though government and business leaders concede it is in desperate need of repair.

To make the situation more infuriating, government and business leaders claim that the city doesn’t have the money to modernize or even do necessary repairs on obsolete, often unsafe city school buildings serving a student population overwhelmingly from poor, minority families.

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Luckily, Richmond elects a new mayor and city council this November. Of the six leading candidates, four — Bruce Tyler, Michelle Mosby, Jack Berry, and Jonathan Baliles — are campaigning on their knowledge of city budgets. Did they know about this rip-off? Two others — Levar Stoney and Joe Morrissey – lack such experience but are active in government. Did they know about this rip-off? (One of the writers, Paul Goldman, is a partner in Morrissey and Goldman with mayoral candidate Joe Morrissey.)

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The law was enacted on Feb. 27, 1954 when Jim Crow reigned supreme. It reads like accounting gobbledygook. Section 13.06 (c) (2) reads, in the pertinent part:

(2) … taxes not actually accruing but which would have accrued had the utility not been municipally owned shall be paid annually into the general fund.

In the 1950s, more than two-thirds of Richmond’s population was African American. Few could afford to own property or a business, both of which are subject to an array of city taxes.

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But everyone needs water to drink and sewage service, and many use gas for cooking and heating. City-owned utilities usually offer lower bills because a private company would have to pass along the cost of taxes to users, along with making a profit for shareholders, unlike a tax-exempt government entity.

The term “not actually accruing” in the charter is a fancy way of saying taxes aren’t owed.

But the Charter requires the hypothetical amount of these non-existent taxes to be considered utility entity expenses. By law, rates must at least cover expenses. The city therefore legitimizes forcing residents to pay for fictional taxes — $5 million alone for federal — in order to generate the money to make the payments required by the charter law.

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It’s a political racket. The mayor and council claim the cash is actually a “payment in lieu of taxes,” misleading the public. That concept is actually aimed at a situation where, for instance, the state or federal government is immune, by law, from local government taxes.

The Commonwealth of Virginia — a big property owner in Richmond — makes a “payment in lieu of taxes” to the city to cover the cost of certain services used. However, the amount paid is considerably less than the taxes that would otherwise be owed, as city leaders have long complained.

This utility rate scheme here is different — because the Richmond government doesn’t tax itself.

Section 13.06 ( c ) (2) is nothing more than a scheme concocted to force residents to pay unconscionable utility bills so the taxes and fees of more powerful political and financial interests could be kept artificially low.

We have studied Richmond’s budgets. This unconscionable rip-off must end.