Fairfax County employees, as well as ones working for the school system, would receive healthy pay raises under County Executive Bryan Hill’s proposed fiscal 2024 budget – but this would come largely at the expense of homeowners.
Hill’s $5.13 billion general-fund budget, which he presented to the Board of Supervisors Feb. 21, is $365.5 million – or 7.7 percent – higher than the adopted fiscal 2023 budget. Because of high inflation and a tight labor market, the county is having difficulty adequately funding its employees and core programs, Hill said.
Hill proposed 2-percent cost-of-living adjustment for all employees, plus performance, merit and longevity increases for eligible workers and additional pay for public-safety personnel. The average non-uniformed employee would make 4.06 percent more; average uniformed worker would receive an additional 4.39 percent, with those at lower pay grades getting even more.
“We have been working to incentivize the best and brightest to come to Fairfax county and build a career, and for our current employees to finish their careers here,” Hill said.
Hill recommended holding the real-estate-tax steady at $1.11 per $100 assessed value. Unless supervisors lower the rate to offset higher property assessments, the owner of an average house – costing $719,522 – would need to pay $520 more in real-estate taxes this year.
Real-estate taxes account for about 67 percent of the county’s general-fund budget. Bolstered by seven Federal Reserve rate increases last year, the county this year will benefit as investment-portfolio earnings will rise an estimated 76 percent to $113.5 million.
“That’s our cushion,” said Supervisor Penelope Gross (D-Mason).
Real-estate values for residential properties rose nearly 7 percent this year, but commercial and industrial properties saw only modest 1.65-percent growth. Office buildings with elevators, which were clobbered when the work-from-home craze began during the pandemic – recorded values lower than the previous year.
The proposed fiscal 2024 budget would increase the transfer to Fairfax County Public Schools by $144.1 million (6.3 percent), which is less than the $159.6 million (7 percent) sought by Superintendent Michele Reid. FCPS has benefited from about $84 million in additional state aid and sales-tax revenues, Hill’s budget notes.
Arthur Purves, president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, said the county was getting less value for its educational buck.
“While per-student spending since 2018 increased from $15,000 to $20,000, our SAT scores fell 27 points,” he said, adding that scores at Langley, Oakton and McLean high schools declined by 12, 23 and 31 points, respectively. “Meanwhile, Virginia SAT scores increased 14 points. Higher real-estate taxes paid for lower achievement.”
Hill’s budget has a $90 million remaining balance, which gives supervisors some wiggle room for providing tax relief, program investments or additional employee pay.
Faced with dramatically higher used-vehicle values last year, supervisors last year cut the vehicle-assessment rate from the usual 100 percent to 85 percent in order to slightly reduce residents’ personal-property-tax bills.
Because vehicle values have declined somewhat this year – but still are above historical norms – Hill’s budget suggested supervisors could set the vehicle-assessment rate at 90 percent to hold revenues steady.
Purves was unmoved.
“Last year’s 32-percent car-tax hike is being reduced by only 3-percent,” he said.
The budget also proposes to:
• Add no new net positions. The proposed 17 new positions – including an “equity lead” for the police department and a deputy director in the Department of Economic Initiatives – would be offset by reductions in other agencies.
• Boost Emergency Medical Services transport fees, 97 percent of which are covered by insurance companies and have not been adjusted since 2014. This would bring in an estimated $2 million more.
• Increase from $475 to $490 per year the refuse-collection fee for the approximately 44,380 residences in the county’s sanitary districts.
• Increase sewer charges by 6.2 percent to cover higher system costs, debt service and upgrades, plus the need to meet more stringent nitrogen-discharge limitations from wastewater-treatment facilities.
• Set aside more than $18 million to offset inflation-related expenses and cover higher contract rates.
• Provide an additional $500,000, which would go with an equal amount approved in last year’s budget, to finance equity initiatives by the Fairfax County Park Authority and hold summer-camp fees the same as last year.
Supervisors will advertise a maximum real-estate-tax rate March 7, hold budgetary public hearings April 11 through 13 and adopt the fiscal 2024 budget May 9. The new fiscal year begins July 1.
Hill’s proposed budget represents a “mixed bag, to say the least,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Jeff McKay (D), who likened it the stock market’s daily ups and downs. The possible $520 average residential-tax-bill increase is “far too high,” he said.
Supervisor Patrick Herrity (R-Springfield) said higher residential tax bills were no surprise, given the board’s unrestrained spending, the county’s declining commercial-real-estate tax base and the end of federal pandemic moneys.
“Surrounding jurisdictions, not to mention prior Fairfax County boards, have been doing what I have been proposing: looking at ways to cut spending and find efficiencies,” he said. “This board has refused and our residents, who are already suffering due to the pandemic and inflation, are paying for it. This stands in stark contrast to what our state leaders accomplished last year and are trying to accomplish this year: reducing the tax burden on residents and businesses.”
Supervisor Rodney Lusk (D-Franconia) said he was worried because the county’s commercial real-estate tax base was far lower than the goal of 25 percent.
“It’s very disconcerting to me and I think we’ve got to get really focused on developing some plan or strategy on how we’re going to address this issue,” he said.
