In her 4/24/18 Bulova Byline email, County Chairman Sharon Bulova’s statements on the proposed FY2019 real estate tax increase are misleading. Her proposed FY2019 rate of $1.15 per $100 of assessed value omits the stormwater rate. When the stormwater rate is included the proposed FY2019 rate is actually $1.1825.

She states that new budget includes a 2-cent increase in the real estate tax rate but this omits the additional tax increase due to the 2.2% increase in average residential assessments. The effective rate increase when assessments and the additional stormwater rate increase (1/4 cent) are included is 4.7 cents, not 2 cents.

The typical Fairfax County homeowner’s real estate tax bill will increase by $258, a 4.2% increase, while Loudoun County cut its real estate tax rate by 4 cents. 

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average paycheck of people employed in Fairfax County declined by 0.6% between September 2016 and September 2017.

Chairman Bulova continues to mislead. She states that the tax hike fully funds the Market Rate Adjustment, Performance, Merit and Longevity increases for county employees and states that the Market Rate Adjustment is 2.25%. She does not state the salary increases resulting from the Performance, Merit and Longevity increases. When those are included county employees will see average increases ranging from 4.25 to 4.50 percent!

Likewise, the school board is funding a total of 2.3% step increases and other salary adjustments, but does not say what the total average raise will be when the other adjustments are included.

Since FY2000, the supervisors have increased real estate taxes 169%, more than three times faster than inflation, which increased 53%.

Here’s the bottom line:

Last year, Fairfax County had  15,350 more residents move away to other parts of the region or the U.S., than people who moved into the county from other U.S localities. The proposed FY2019 budget will drive away even more residents. These are the exact same tax and spend policies that are causing taxpayers to flee from high-tax states like New Jersey, Illinois, and New York.

If the Supervisors set out to drive young families and the middle class out of Fairfax, they couldn’t devise a better scheme.

If the Democrats felt that the tax increases were justified, they would not have resorted to half-truths in the Bulova Byline. Their method of governance is taxation by misrepresentation.

In the coming months, the Fairfax County Republican Committee will reach out to every precinct across Fairfax to educate the voters on the real damage being done to our household budgets by the current Democrat Board of Supervisors. Let’s make Fairfax a place where everyone wants to work and live – and not a place families have to flee in order to preserve their children’s future.

We need a change in leadership.

It’s time to vote more Republicans onto the Board of Supervisors in 2019 and end the out-of-control tax hikes!