Fairfax County Executive Anthony Griffin, charged with balancing the county’s budget amid stagnant revenues, on Monday proposed a bundle of fee increases and cost cuts and raised the possibility of a broader tax increase on homeowners.
The proposed $3.3 billion fiscal 2009 budget includes higher fees for the Emergency Medical Services Division of the Fire and Rescue Department, parking, garbage collection and sewer service, as well as a new 12-cent commercial property tax to fund transportation projects.
It also would cut in half employee pay raises and reroute some funding from storm water, transportation and affordable housing funds to pay for staff.
The county shot down the school board’s request for a contribution of $64 million more than last year’s and instead offered no increase, which could force the school board to revisit some unpopular measures such as hundreds of layoffs and requiring students to pay for athletics and Advanced Placement tests.
While the budget is engineered without an increase to the county’s overall 89-cent real estate tax, Griffin suggested the Board of Supervisors explore a higher rate should the economic picture worsen or additional needs arise.
Board Chairman Gerry Connolly said it’s too soon to tell if the board will consider such a measure.
Most of the austerity is due to an accelerating decline in the value of residential property, worsened by the crash in the subprime mortgage market and more than 4,500 home foreclosures last year.
The 3.4 percent drop in home values is expected to grow in fiscal 2010, which starts July 1, 2009, causing an estimated $200 million deficit. The county also lost about $26 million in investment revenue from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate cuts.
“We have to recognize that this is going to be a two- or three-year struggle,” said Connolly, a Democrat. “This may be looked at as the most positive of the next three budgets.”
Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity, a Republican, said he was bothered by the diversion of funds from infrastructure to employee salaries.
“We fought hard to get transportation monies out of Richmond. Those monies were supposed to go for roads and mass transit,” he said.
Each penny increase to the county’s real estate tax would net $22.8 million a year. If the board proposes — or “advertises” — such an increase in March, it can later reduce it but cannot raise it.
