Arlington County unexpectedly ended up $26 million in the black in fiscal 2007, county officials said this week, not long after predicting a $17 million budget shortfall for 2009.
“When we did our final reconciliation, it turns out there was a combination of additional revenue that we weren’t aware of in the spring and some savings related to lower-than-anticipated spending by some county departments,” said county Chief Financial Officer Mark Schwartz.
The 2007 fiscal year ended in June, but the budget was not closed out until the County Board meeting Tuesday night.
While other area jurisdictions are seeing budget deficits blamed on slowing revenues from the plunging housing market, Schwartz said Arlington’s strong commercial real estate market has made up for its flat residential one.
“Arlington is fortunate, given the challenges facing many of our neighboring jurisdictions — and the current slowing of the residential real estate market — that we can begin planning for the 2009 budget with this reserve of one-time funds,” said board Chairman Paul Ferguson.
Close to $10 million of the county’s surprise money will be reserved for discretionary one-time funds for fiscal 2009, Schwartz said.
The county will add $7 million to its 2008 capital projects fund that is used to repair county buildings and infrastructure — a line item that acting county Budget Director Richard Stephenson recently said was budgeted at only a quarter of the needed $20 million.
Some of the county’s 2007 windfall is the result of real estate taxes dumping $1.5 million more into the county’s pot than officials had expected.
Another $2 million came from property transfer taxes from several large commercial development deals.
Personal property taxes for such items as cars and boats came in $5.8 million above projections, Schwartz said, and several agencies came in under budget for the year, saving an additional $12 million.
