Testimony to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors at the FY2021 Effective Tax Rate Hearing - 04/14/2020
-- by Arthur G. Purves, President of the President, Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance (fcta.org).
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board:
My name is Arthur Purves. I address you as president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance.
On April 7, I received from the county chairman a "COVID-19 Update" email, which stated, "The County Executive no longer recommends an increase in the Real Estate Tax Rate, keeping it at $1.15 per $100 of assessed value."
Similarly, on April 8, I received from my Hunter Mill Supervisor the "Hunter Mill District News", which stated, "All proposed tax rate and fee increases have been eliminated, which maintains the current Real Estate Tax rate of $1.15 per $100 of assessed value ..."
These two statements are, at best, misleading in that they imply that the typical homeowner will have no increase in their real estate taxes. That you are holding this hearing proves that the typical homeowner will have a real estate tax hike -- due to increased assessments.
How large is the tax increase due to assessments? The average increase in residential assessments was 2.65%. So, the typical homeowner will have a real estate tax hike of 2.65% or $172. Is it fair to impose a tax hike on private-sector taxpayers who are losing jobs and pay due to the COVID-19 lockdown?
The supervisors can eliminate this tax hike by reducing the real estate tax rate to offset the increase in assessments. The rate that would offset the increase in assessments is $1.12, which is three cents less than the current rate of $1.15.
So, you should lower the tax rate from $1.15 to $1.12 to prevent a real estate tax hike. By keeping the rate at $1.15, you are effectively imposing a 3-cent increase in the rate. Therefore, the statements made by the chairman and the Hunter Mill supervisor that there is no increase in the tax rate are false. Maintaining the rate at $1.15 actually represents a 3-cent increase. The County Executive was equally misleading when he stated in his original proposed budget that he advocated a 3-cent increase in the rate from $1.15 to $1.18, because he left out the impact of higher assessments. He was actually proposing a 6-cent increase.
We would like to have a Board of Supervisors we can trust. Please don't imply that there will be no real estate tax hike when in fact there would be a real estate tax hike.
In a similar vein, in the last few weeks I emailed the county chairman, my Hunter Mill Supervisor, and the county Office of Public Affairs to ask how many county employees are not working due to the virus and how many employees are losing pay due to the virus? I have received no answer.
Again, so we may have a level of trust with the county administration, please answer our questions. However, the silence suggests that there are county employees that are not working but are still getting full pay. Is this fair to taxpayers who have lost jobs and income due to the virus and who will probably receive a real estate tax hike?
Stepping back, over the past two decades the supervisors have been increasing residential real estate taxes three times faster than household income. Major drivers of these tax hikes have been annual 4% raises for about 30,000 county and school employees, based not on performance but on years of employment, and on the soaring cost of the county and schools' generous pensions. Prior to the stock market collapse from the virus lockdown, county and school pension funds had a $5 billion unfunded liability. Unless the stock market rebounds, this unfunded liability could increase a lot. Are you going to expect taxpayers to fund both 4% raises and increases in pension payments? This leads to another question: How did you decide to give 4% annual raises?
Finally, half of our taxes goes to Fairfax County Public Schools, which advertise themselves as being excellent. However, the schools' 213-page proposed FY2021 budget devotes less than a page to student achievement. The only evidence offered is the FCPS average SAT score, which is only at the 76th percentile and varies a lot from school to school. This means that the average FCPS student taking the SAT scored higher than 76% of all students nationwide who took the SAT. The 76th percentile is mediocre. By comparison, the average SAT score for the University of Virginia freshman class is at the 93rd percentile. Low FCPS achievement starts in 4th grade due to so-called "whole word" reading instruction, lack of arithmetic drill, and Social Studies instead of history. Do not raise FCPS funding until the early elementary school curriculum is fixed.
Thank you.