FCCPTA Budget Analysis -- 2/22 by David Edelman, Budget Chair

Budget Analysis Link
David Edelman, Budget Chair for the Fairfax County Council of PTAs presented this budget analysis at the FCCPTA meeting on February 22. The main points:

• Governor proposed cuts to Education Funding (SOQ)
• Governor recommended the LCI be readjusted to 2007 data
• The estimate from Stuart Gibson, School Board Member, Hunter Mill District, is that 1 and 2 together = a wash. No additional money for FCPS.
• Governor does not want to raise taxes to cover the large Virginia budget deficit
• The HOuse and Senate still need to approve all of these budget changes and the budgets are very different on each side
• FC Board of Supervisors will have to decide to riae the real estate tax rate or not.
• Both the County and FCPS have budget deficits --- either cuts will occur or real estate taxes will be raised or a combination.
• Equalization means that real estate property tax rate would be raised so that tax bills on average would not go down or up since last year.
• Base real estate tax rate is $1.04 per $100 assessed value.
• Click the document link above to see a hypothetical tax scenario
• On March 9, the BOS will vote to set the maximum rate of property tax. After this time, the tax rate cannot be raised above this level.

 NOTE:Since this analysis was prepared, the County Executive released the Fairfax County budget which did not provide full funding for education. Some advocates believe a tax rate increase request is the only way to fund the budget.  Others believe there is fluff in the budget that can be cut as an alternative to cutting services like full day K, band and strings, class size, etc.  The main proponent of cutting fluff is the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, FCFT.