The mark up meeting went until about 11:00 last night. 6 hours makes for a long meeting. At the end of that, the Council did come up with a budget proposal as follows:

101.5 cent tax rate

9 cent fire levy

These numbers represent a 6.46% increase in the budget. At this level, it is a budget I can believe in as includes at least parts of each big ticket item people were interested in. There are 2 ICE positions, 1 patrol officer, 1 financial analyst for the PD, 1 fire chief and several fire fighters (5).

Manassas Next made it through but with a reduction of $75k to the Economic Development initiative. This was at my suggestion as the City staff has indicated that they have no capacity to make new things happen right now. This seriously weakens the initiative but the City is not in a position to add more staff right now so that is the way it goes. On the bright side, the Schools initiative and the Battle street remake went through. Thanks to the School Board Chair and Vice Chair for their support last night and many thanks to my peers on the Council for supporting the initiative.

Well, tonight’s the night.  The Council Mark Up session is where everything that has been brought up as a possible addition, change or deletion to the City Manager’s budget is voted upon.  I think it will be a long meeting tonight as there are several important items to sort through.  Included in there is Manassas Next, ICE and firefighters.  There are usually lots of City staff there and sometimes a couple of citizens.

This is pretty much brass tacks time.