Fairfax County officials will begin holding community forums this month on next year’s budget battle, as a yawning shortfall threatens to cut into county services and raise taxes for already beleaguered residents.
The early start underscores just how brutal the upcoming budget process will be for the fiscal year beginning in July. Fairfax faces a $315 million deficit.
Supervisors earlier this year closed a budget gap twice as large, cutting 306 positions — though with few actual layoffs — and raising the property tax rate. Officials expect the upcoming shortfall, though half the size of the last one, to be more difficult to close.
To complement the community meetings, the county has established a hot line for budget input and is allowing residents to submit their comments online.
Comment on the upcoming budget battle
Fairfax County residents can give their two cents on the county’s budget woes online and by phone.
Phone: 703-324-9400
Online: fairfaxcounty.gov/government/budget
So far, 41 people have signed up for the dozen upcoming meetings, 13 people have commented online and one has called the county’s budget hot line, said Fairfax County spokeswoman Merni Fitzgerald. “Once this becomes more in the forefront of people’s minds, once some of the sessions have taken place, the media has reported on them, we anticipate receiving many more comments through all the different ways of receiving them,” Fitzgerald said. The first meeting will take place Sept. 29 at McLean Community Center, followed by another one Sept. 30 at West Springfield High School. The Board of Supervisors will begin the bulk of the budget work in February, when County Executive Anthony Griffin releases a draft spending plan. Especially troubling for the coming fiscal year is an expected drop in the value of commercial property, the taxes from which have historically buoyed the county’s budget even as residential values have fallen. Nonresidential property is slated to fall a staggering 18 percent in fiscal 2011, fueled largely by a raft of vacancies and potential foreclosures of office buildings, according to data released in June.
