Fairfax County supervisors are likely to pump an additional $40 million into the county’s school system, undo proposed cuts to employee pay raises and bolster a strike force that targets neighborhood blight and overcrowding – almost all of it funded by a tax increase and a series of new cuts.
Braddock District Supervisor Sharon Bulova, the board’s budget chairwoman, outlined the latest version of next fiscal year’s proposed budget at a meeting Friday, setting forth a bevy of new spending items that depend on $68 million in revenue from a 3-cent increase in the property tax rate. The changes are expected to be voted on Monday.
About $25 million of that new revenue would pay down a shortfall caused by the Federal Reserve‘s interest-rate cuts, rising fuel costs and shrinking sales tax receipts, a drop that county officials only recently became aware of.
From what remained, Bulova proposed to give about two-thirds of the funding boost requested by the School Board, devote $12 million to restoring employee pay raises, which were cut in half under County Executive Anthony Griffin‘s initial budget proposal, and fund eight new positions for the strike team, among other items.
The major infusion of money to the school board raised alarm with Lee District Supervisor Jeff McKay, who worried about a greater shortfall in fiscal 2010 as the housing market continues to deteriorate.
“I’m very concerned about what kind of message we’re sending to the School Board next year … in a bad year we’re giving $40 million more, what are we going to do in a terrible year?” McKay said.
Under Bulova’s proposal, about $13 million in cuts and savings would come from deferring information technology projects, collecting additional traffic fine revenue, drawing from funds for contingencies in the Public Safety and Transportation Operations Center project, and other sources.
The board’s two Republicans offered an alternative proposal that sparked a debate over spending and priorities with the Democratic majority and Chairman Gerry Connolly. Sully District Supervisor Michael Frey and Springfield District Supervisor Pat Herrity proposed no increase in the property tax rate and millions more in cuts, including to housing and stormwater funds and by eliminating unneeded county vehicles.
At a glance
Key parts of Republicans’ opposing budget proposal:
» Eliminate the penny on the real estate tax for affordable housing ($22 million savings)
» Pull funding from stormwater projects ($23 million)
» Get rid of the Office of Community Revitalization and Reinvestment and fold its functions into the Economic Development Authority ($1 million)
» Cut the county’s vehicle costs by 4 percent, excluding public safety agencies, by eliminating “underutilized and unneeded vehicles.” ($3 million)
