By Jeffrey A. Leach | fairfaxtimes.com
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is currently reviewing a plan (available at https://bit.ly/436os9G) that balances the county budget, lowers taxes, provides a $1,600 tax credit for every household in the county, and still results in a $25 million surplus. The proposal addresses several key problems that have created a $271 million shortfall, which threatens to become a $439 million shortfall. At a time when the taxpayer base has been steadily leaving Fairfax County, 17.8% of commercial real estate remains vacant. Sent to all board members on April 15 and again on April 23, the proposal was discussed during the County budget hearings held on April 22. It combines necessary cuts with new revenue streams to finally provide tax relief to county citizens at a time of federal downsizing and economic uncertainty.
As noted in a previous article, between 1985 and 2025, the number of students in the Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) system increased by 44%. During that same period, however, the total number of FCPS employees nearly doubled at 94% (twice the student growth rate), the number of teachers almost tripled at 186% (over four times the student growth rate), and the number of assistant principals increased at a rate of 306% (nearly seven times the student growth rate).
During the same period, mainly due to this explosive growth, and after adjusting for inflation, the cost per student has nearly tripled, and the cost of FCPS per household has almost doubled, while real incomes have decreased. Add to this FCPS retirement plans, in which the county provides a 33-34% match, far above the national average of 6.7%. The gross overspending becomes even more apparent.
The amendment returns school staffing, over three years and with early retirement incentives, to a size commensurate with the growth of the actual student population, pointing out that Fairfax County teachers and leaders in 1985 could, for one-third the cost, run a school system that was nationally-recognized for its excellence (see Dr. David Duke’s Education Empire, 2005). The teachers and leaders of 2025 can and should do the same. This change alone will save the county over $500 million per year.
Federal funding to the tune of $168.1 million is now in jeopardy due to Fairfax County’s controversial policies that discriminate based on race and sex, protect illegal immigrants, and promote transgender ideology, all of which conflict with executive orders. The amendment removes the offending policies, thus safeguarding the federal funding. It also frees up the $6 million currently being spent on these policies, allowing that money to be redirected to services that save people from impending death, such as the Clifton ambulance ($1.2M), which is a lifeline to an isolated community with many at-risk elderly residents, and CERT ($34K), an organization of volunteers trained to save lives in emergencies that clocks over 20,000 hours of service annually—both of which, astoundingly, are currently on the chopping block instead of DEI programs that save no lives and put federal funds at jeopardy.
The school system regularly borrows money in the form of bonds for various projects, such as school construction. It pays unnecessary interest payments on these loans ($15.3M in the current advertised budget). However, there is already a capitalization plan in which such projects belong, and FCPS has several hundred million dollars in reserves. The amendment reduces bonding from 10% to 3%, saving $10.5 million in unnecessary expenditures.
Fairfax County currently spends untold millions of tax dollars collected from American citizens to educate illegal immigrants whose families do not pay into the system. The amendment ends such subsidies, the total amount of which cannot be known because Fairfax County leaders actively and deliberately hide such information from the public.
In addition, the amendment proposes creating a tax and regulatory environment that makes Fairfax County more attractive to businesses (e.g., by nixing the meals tax), facilitating conversion of at least 50% of the commercial properties that sit vacant to residences (thus easing the housing crisis while generating new revenue streams that are fourfold that of commercial spaces), maintaining and diversifying investments with reasonable and permitted risk profiles, verifying that the county’s contracts with all businesses that sell to the county have been vigorously negotiated to the best price, quality, and terms, and ending translation of county notices out of English, the language that since the beginning of the Republic has been a key factor in integrating immigrants into local communities and binding together our ethnically-diverse population.
If you are interested in contacting your County representatives about this amendment, you can email them at clerktothebos@fairfaxcounty.gov or call them at 703-324-7329.