In light of today's earlier internet discussion, let me phrase this as
internationally as I can:  I'd like some advice.
 
I am currently working on a consulting project involving the Virginia Port
Authority and the cities of Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth.  These
three cities are home to VPA facilities, the largest ports in the
Commonwealth.  The ports are owned by the VPA, a state agency, and operated
under contract by another quasi-governmental agency created specifically for
that purpose.  As a state agency, the VPA pays no local property taxes to
the three host cities, and the cities are granted a service charge
bascically limited to costs incurred in providing fire and police services,
as well as refuse collection and disposal.  Not all of the cities provide
all of these services to their respective ports, however.
 
The cities argue they are being shortchanged, since VPA and the
Commonwealth's operating agency have employees who live in the cities, and
whose children are enrolled in the public schools.  While, for example,
Norfolk Southern Railroad pays property taxes on its land, helping to
support the public schools, EMS, road construction and maintenance for roads
leading to its facilites, etc., the VPA, while enjoying many of the benefits
accorded Norfolk Southern by being based in Norfolk and its employees by
living in Norfolk, does not.  Imposition of real property taxes on VPA
property is politically unlikely.
 
If you are in another jurisdiction with publicly owned and operated ports I
would be interested in hearing how your jurisdiction provides for the
financial interface between a provincial or state port and the local taxing
authority.  There is general agreement here that merely trying to identify
the costs to the local government of providing direct services to the real
property isn't going to get us very far.  In Virginia the ballpark figure is
that 50% of a local government's (i.e., city's or county's; and, remember,
our cities are not in our counites, the are independent) operating budget is
devoted to public education, and it is the provision of these services to
which the cities argue that the VPA is making no contribution, despite
people living in the cities because of their employment with the VPA.  (We
can take judicial notice, I think, of the fact that residential property
taxes do not cover all the services provided by local governments to the
property and its residents.)
 
Any ideas you could offer in terms of relationships between provincial/state
governments and local governments in the above context would be greatly
appreciated.  Thanks in advance for your consideration and help.
 
Hank Mallue
 
P.S.  There is no need to send your response to everyone on the ALSB list;
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Thanks again for your help.