The Town of Herndon has held the line on its real estate tax rate as the council approved its $57.3 million budget for fiscal year 2023.
The budget, which represents a nearly 3% increase over last year, includes the first pay raises for the Herndon Town Council in nearly 15 years.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors agreed yesterday (Tuesday) to advance proposed spending adjustments to help its park authority, ArtsFairfax and nonprofits.
County leaders approved the changes at a budget markup meeting, serving as a final step before the board adopts the final fiscal year 2023 budget on May 10.
On average, Fairfax County residential property owners will see a bigger hike in their tax bills this year than at any other point in the 21st century.
Based on a real estate tax rate three cents lower than what was originally advertised, the average increase of $465 will come once the Board of Supervisors officially adopts a budget on May 10 for fiscal year 2023, which starts July 1.
Additional raises are coming for Fairfax County government employees, specifically firefighters, police officers and other uniformed public safety workers.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors plans to allocate $6.1 million in the upcoming budget to give a step increase to certain public safety workers hired on or before June 30, 2021. The proposal is part of a mark-up package that will go before the board tomorrow (Tuesday).
Property tax bills are poised to go up — but somewhat less than initially expected.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors’ budget policy committee discussed a plan on Friday (April 22) to set the property tax rate at $1.11 per $100 of assessed property value, a 3-cent decrease from the current rate.
(Updated at 5 p.m.) The Fairfax County Police Department has turned to advertising to help address vacancies.
The department has signed a contract with Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Epic Recruiting to deliver digital marketing services and materials. Operational expenses for police recruiting have already more than quadrupled this budget year.
Karen Johnson commutes two hours each way to get to work in Fair Oaks, leaving at 5 a.m. from her home in Fredericksburg.
Johnson, a child care center teacher, has tried to live in Fairfax County but can’t afford it, she said on April 12 at a budget hearing with fellow union members. She called on the Board of Supervisors to fund proposed raises to the county’s 11,000-plus merit workers.
In a push to convince Fairfax County to fund the arts, one high school student put on a show.
The performance on April 13 provided a musical interlude after hours of in-person, phone, and video remarks across three days of budget hearings before the Board of Supervisors.
The Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office has 71 vacancies. There are over 200 vacancies at the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board. And that’s not all.
Staff vacancies continue to be a challenge at county agencies across the board, administrators and employee leaders told the Board of Supervisors at budget hearings last week.
While Fairfax County regularly makes headlines for its diversion initiatives and other criminal justice reform efforts, an imbalance in funding for prosecutors and defense attorneys remains unaddressed, the local public defender’s office says.
Dawn Butorac, the county’s chief public defender, said her office’s 25 attorney positions are around half the number of lawyers that Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano’s office has, and that gap is only going to worsen if a proposed county budget is adopted without changes this May.
