Fairfax County leaders hope to soon have a better gauge of how much they’re getting back from tax revenue sent to Richmond.
The Board of Supervisors voted yesterday (Tuesday) to direct County Executive Bryan Hill and staff to return before the end of the year with an analysis of how many local tax dollars flow to the state government, and how much comes back.
The conclusions may prove helpful, as Fairfax officials attempt to get more funding from the state government in 2026.
“Give us the data. I just want something we can all point to,” said Mount Vernon District Supervisor Dan Storck. “It’s critical that we not be shortchanged.”
County leaders say the most recent similar analysis was conducted in collaboration with the state’s Joint Legislative Audit Commission (JLARC) in 2001, and the conclusions are woefully out of date.
No one in Fairfax leadership is expecting to get back 100% of what the county sends to Richmond. In Virginia, as in every other state, wealthier localities typically are called upon to subsidize those areas with fewer resources.
But fresh data could help Fairfax officials make the case that the county is receiving an unacceptably low return on its financial contributions to the state’s budget coffers.
Estimates in recent years have varied widely: Some say Fairfax receives back 19% of funding that heads to Richmond, while others have come up with figures of 25%, 30% or 50%, Board Chairman Jeff McKay said at the meeting.
Regardless of the specific number, “we don’t get near enough” from Richmond, McKay said.
Having an analysis will give the county government more firepower in trying to extricate cash from state lawmakers. But it is no guarantee of success.
As a Dillon Rule state, localities — even those as populous as Fairfax — are effectively considered agents of the state government, with no local autonomy except what the legislature chooses to delegate.
“It breathes into them the breath of life, without which they cannot exist. As it creates, so it may destroy,” Judge John Forrest Dillon wrote of the state-local relationship in an 1868 court opinion.
Although Dillon was from Iowa, his legal theory was seized upon by a number of states — Virginia among them — to aggregate power in the state legislature. While localities have received small measures of autonomy in recent decades, the General Assembly has refused to go further.
The proposal to study the issue won unanimous support — including from the board’s lone Republican, Pat Herrity of Springfield.
Herrity said it would be good to have some firm financial figures to work from.
“We’ve heard numbers all over the place,” he said.
But in nearly the same breath, Herrity said his Democratic colleagues should put an equal effort into coming up with budget savings.
For Northern Virginia localities, there have been some benefits to having accurate data. For example, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and other regional leaders have used recent JLARC studies to argue that the state is drastically under-funding public schools.
That prompted Virginia to start a review of school funding formulas that have been in place for more than 50 years, providing more financial support to wealthier school districts, but funding gaps remain.
McKay lamented what he believes is the continuing indifference of state leaders to fairness, particularly since Fairfax represents “the major economic engine for the commonwealth.”
The resolution set no specific deadline, other than having the staff report come back for consideration at a budget committee meeting in the fall.
Staff also was directed to detail how Fairfax County fares related to other Northern Virginia jurisdictions.
