Looking out the window, it was easy to see the children playing ball under the lights near the Vienna Community Center on a cool spring night. But inside the little white room, on April 11, the Vienna Town Council was going line-by-line through the proposed budget, discussing the proposed expenditures with the Department of Public Works and the Police Department. Other departments had been reviewed during a worksession on April 9.
Town residents pay the full Fairfax County property tax rate. The Board of Supervisors has advertised a rate of $1.03 per $100 of assessed value, but during the count's budget deliberations, discussion of cutting that rate even further has taken place. However, due to the dramatic increase in home assessments, the average tax bill will still be higher than last year.
Town residents also pay property taxes to the town, but the budget proposed by town manager John Schoeberlein calls for a large enough cut in the tax rate, that it is able to offset the assessment increase. According to budget documents, the average resident’s tax bill will go from $957.02 to $965.16, an increase of just $8.14, less than 1 percent.
State law allows an increase of up to 1 percent in the tax rate to be considered "no increase," wrote Schoeberlein in the budget summary.
THE PROPOSED county budget for this year is just over $3 billion. The town’s proposed budget is approximately $17.3 million, a 3.39 percent increase.
The town is able to cut the tax rate, Schoeberlein wrote, due to a projected increase in other revenue streams such as sales taxes; utility taxes; Business and Professional Occupational License taxes; and bank stock taxes.
Schoeberlein also used the budget to attack the Board of Supervisors' attempt to spin its tax rate. In many budget documents published by the board, statistics state that residents are saving a certain amount compared to what they would have paid if no rate cut had taken place.
"It is irresponsible to state that property owners will save a certain amount of dollars on their tax bills over what the real estate tax would be if we were to leave the rate unchanged," Schoeberlein wrote.
He called for full disclosure of the impact of the property tax on the residents’ wallets. "There should be no attempt to obfuscate the issue by stating that the tax rate is being reduced by x cents and how much the property owner would have paid without a rate reduction. The comparison should be against the amount the property owner paid the previous year," Schoeberlein wrote.
BACK IN the little white room, however, members of the Town Council questioned if the proposed budget was realistic. Councilmember Laurie Cole pointed to several line items in the Public Works budget that seemed low. "We’re budgeting less for the coming year than the actuals for the past two years," she said of several items.
Dennis King, director of the department, noted that much of the expenses have been refurbishing equipment in some buildings and that those expenditures would not likely be necessary any longer.
Other items, King and Schoeberlein said, would see a cost reduction since work that had previously required a contractor would be able to be completed using town employees.
Police Chief Robert Carlisle explained that many of the increases he was facing were related to unfunded mandates relating to Homeland Security and preparedness. "A lot of them are the right things to do, it’s just challenging," he said.
The end of red light cameras will also likely impact the town budget. The camera netted the town about $20,000. Additionally, Carlisle said that police will need to increase their presence on Maple Avenue in order to make up for the reduced enforcement that the cameras provide. "We’ve made progress in changing behavior," Carlisle said. "I don’t want that to slip."
The public hearing on the town budget is scheduled for Tuesday, May 9, and final adoption is set for Monday, June 6.