Alexandria’s city manager is proposing cutting city and school services and raising property taxes to close a $44 million budget gap.
City Manager James Hartmann presented a budget that includes roughly $19 million in service cuts and a 7-cent increase in the city’s property tax rate.
That rate increase means the average homeowner would pay $103 more in property taxes per year.
Cindy Smith-Page, Alexandria’s director of real estate assessments, said the tax increases were necessary to combat falling property tax revenues.
“[This budget] is all about maintaining our quality of life and being the community that we want to be,” Hartmann said, “but it is very difficult to do that in this type of financial situation.”
Alexandria officials will revise the budget before the City Council votes on its final approval in May. – Markham Heid
