Report: Augusta County Courthouse requirements overstated

Population projections used to estimate the amount of courthouse space Augusta County will need are outdated, according to Weldon Cooper Center analyst, Hamilton Lombard.

While the updated projections will not officially be released until this winter, he notes the trends have changed significantly.

According to Lombard, the county’s population will likely only increase about half as much as the projection used by the Board of Supervisors’ architect, Moseley Architects. To illustrate how much population growth has changed in Augusta County, Lombard said that “if growth trends since 2010 continue, by 2040 Augusta’s population will only be approximately 81,000, just a few hundred more residents than the Moseley study expected by 2020.” This means the county will need much less courthouse space than the nearly 120,000 sq. ft. court complex proposed by Moseley.

“The main reason for the difference in the projections is that the 2012 projection only included population trends up to 2010 and the updated projections will include this decade’s population trends as well. Population growth in Augusta County has been considerably slower since 2010, growing less than a third as much as would have been expected so far this decade,” said Lombard. “Since 2010, Augusta County has had more deaths than births, which is the first time that has been recorded in the county. [This] means that the county’s population is aging faster than expected and as a result is less likely to grow as quickly as was projected in 2012,” he added.

There are other reasons to question the projections in the Moseley plan. County Supervisor Marshall Pattie, the lone supervisor to vote against the referendum, has questioned Moseley’s statistical analysis since the study was released. Lombard agrees Moseley’s methodology is worrying. He said, “Moseley appears to pick different projection methodologies based on whichever produces higher caseloads for the circuit, district, and J&DR courts, and in at least one case they removed a caseload number they thought was too low. They may have had good reasons for this, but typically statisticians try to consistently use the same data and methodology to avoid any bias.” He observed that the result of the Circuit Court projection is a crime rate in 2035 that is more than double the rates seen in recent years.

Lombard believes these crime projections are inconsistent with the demographic data for Augusta County. According to the Census Bureau, Augusta County’s population of 18-39 year-olds has been essentially constant for the past 25 years. According to the Virginia State Police, 18-39 year olds account for two out of three arrests in Virginia. On average these cases account for nearly 80 percent of circuit court cases. Lombard said, “This makes Moseley’s projection of a doubling of the crime rate more questionable.”

Lombard adds, “The problem [with Moseley’s projections] is compounded when they apply the unlikely rise in crime rate to the outdated population projections that are likely too high.”