Manassas Park residential property values are projected to decline between 30 and 50 percent next fiscal year, leaving the city with an estimated shortfall of about $8 million in fiscal 2010 — more than one-fifth of the city’s $38.9 million budget in fiscal 2009.

City Assessor Richard Sanderson said he “never before” had seen such a big drop in his 20 years of experience, adding that when he worked as the Alexandria assessor in the early 1990s, drops came in groups of 2 percent to 3 percent each year, “not in the 20s and 30s.”