The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors approved the $3.2 billion fiscal 2007 general funds budget Monday, a 6.4 percent increase over last year’s budget, and voted to expand its $5 billion budget for parks and infrastructure.
Even with the increase, county residents will see a reduction in the real estate tax rate and the elimination of the $25 automobile decal fee. Like all neighboring jurisdictions, the county reduced the real estate tax rate to assist homeowners with rising assessments. The new rate is 89 cents per $100 of assessed value. As a result, the average household’s property tax bill will be $4,813 — which is still an increase of 7.3 percent over last year because of rising home assessments.
The county is spending much of its windfall from skyrocketing values on increased funding for schools. The county boosted funding for the schools by 6.6 percent over last year to $1.53 billion. The money will go toward No Child Left Behind programming, building new schools and increasing teacher salaries, said Supervisor Sharon Bulova, D-Braddock, the board’s vice chair.
The county also made several additions to the separate five-year, $5 billion county-managed Capital Improvement Program that supervisors said “were not originally contemplating,” said Board Chairman Gerry Connolly. The program builds and maintains parks, roads and other county property.
Some of the money may go to revamping school buildings returned to the county by the Fairfax school system. The unused buildings are being turned over in exchange for an additional $25 million in school bonds on top of the $130 million in bonds already expected to be issued over six years.
As part of the CIP budget, the supervisors also approved a $25 million November bond referendum for parks and a $100 million transportation bond referendum for the following year, Connolly said, the second in less than four years.
The park bond will fund more artificial turf fields, trails and land acquisition, said Judy Pedersen, Fairfax County Park Authority spokeswoman. “If we are going to continue to stand a chance of gaining more open space and parkland, we can’t wait,” Pedersen said. “It is going and it is going fast.”
