Last Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors voted 8-2 on my motion presented as County Budget Chair in favor of the FY19 Marked-Up Budget, which sets the real estate tax rate at $1.15 per $100 of assessed value and increases funding for schools for the seventh consecutive year. 

 

Although the formal adoption of the FY19 budget occurs on May 1, the Board historically does not make changes to the package after mark-up is held.

 

The marked-up budget provides $2.26 billion to FCPS and provides more than 52 percent of County General Fund revenues to the School System. 

 

It  also signals Board's willingness to fund the third year of Diversion First, a collaborative effort that sends low risk offenders experiencing a mental health crisis to treatment instead of jail. Dollars are also slated to go toward a gang prevention initiative and Opioid Task Force, as well as staffing for the future South County police station and animal shelter. This new station is critical to our area and will shorten response times for officers.

 

While the new tax rate is increased by 2 cents, Tuesday's marked-up budget reduced the real estate tax initially proposed by the county executive by one-half cent. This was done following three days of public hearings and months of community discussion.

This budget highlights the great collaboration that exists between FCPS and Fairfax County and prioritizes investments that our residents have come to expect and enjoy. Our strong schools, safe streets, vital human services programs, and other infrastructure is what makes Fairfax County a premier place to live. These are priorities of the Board and eight of us - a strong majority - voted to fund them.

 

Despite all of the good items funded in this budget, it was no doubt another tough budget cycle. We saw increasing needs, a disproportionate spike in real estate values in our lowest income neighborhoods, and largely unmet needs in federal and state support. This is not sustainable. We must now immediately turn our focus to FY2020 and the structural changes that are necessary to achieve our long-term goals. Such work will be done through a lines of business (LOBs) process, which reviews every function of all of our County agencies, and through work on our strategic plan.