OK, a bit more in the way of concrete info. Given the decisions the State has made and our own internal City estimates for tax reciepts, we will be about a million dollars short in next years budget. That number includes two very important assumptions that require some discussion:
The first is that the Council would agree to a tax rate that keeps the average residential tax BILL the same. The rate will doubtless be adjusted but your bill would be close to what it was last year. I know that everyone wants lower taxes so a quick back of the envelope calculation of a 5% property tax rate cut would equal about $3 million. If we did that, the budget hole would be about $4 million. This on top of a $6.7M cut last year where we laid off 26.5 FTE’s. By way of reference, the City’s budget is about $50M and half of those cuts would go to the schools….
The second is that commercial values will decline somewhat and that residential valuations will be flat or down LESS than commercial valuations. This is important as commercial tax bills can’t go up again. I know that the residential payers have high bills but over the past two years while residential bills have been flat or only slightly up, commercial bills have gone up over 30% a year. This is because the state only allows us to have a single real estate tax rate. Localities have lobbied for a split rate for years but the General Assembly has never seen fit to pass it.
At the end of the day, the government needs to be funded at the level necessary to provide the services citizens demand. Our job is to figure out how to balance all of this and ensure that those services are delivered in a quality fashion. I’ll update as I know more.
September 11, 2009 at 10:40 pm
Another sunny report….. It’s going to take years to recover from this mess if there is even a recovery at all. Wait until the Federal tax bill comes in the mail for all of the spending obama is doing.
September 12, 2009 at 11:02 am
Sunny indeed. I feel the fiscal problems at a local level are manageable. The budget fiasco in Washington is so large that the scale is pretty much meaningless to normal people. I’ve always been very fond of saying that the American people are happy to stay uninvolved as long as things in Washington are running smoothly. I get the feeling now that Americans remain uninvolved because most feel it very far beyond their means to do much of anything about it…
September 12, 2009 at 9:11 pm
The fiscal problems at the local level are not going to be manageable when we either have hyper inflation, or the interests rates we saw in the late 70’s under Carter(we had nowhere near the debt we have now, and nowhere near the spending we have now). Or when the Feds raise taxes, which is going to happen at some point, they can’t keep printing money like they are, and the Chi-Coms are not going to continue to buy our debt, particular after obama slapped a tariff on chi-com tires yesterday. There has been talk of replacing the dollar as the “international” bench mark with a new type of currency. If that happens, the dollar will drop like a lead balloon.
The job market is not going to get better any time soon, and that is from the White House, which means unemployment is going to top 11% or more. Yes, jobs are the last thing to recover after an economic downturn, but given the mess we are in with debt, it’s going to really hurt. Can we just continue to extend unemployment benefits forever?
I’m not trying to sound so gloom and doom, but I think we are seeing a perfect storm of economic issues that is going to spell doom for the Nation.
September 16, 2009 at 10:34 am
“The Citizens of the City of Manassas receive important, beneficial
services from a variety of State, Federal and private agencies.
In addition, many City Departments rely on funding from State,
Federal and private agencies. These State, Federal and private
agencies are critical partners with the City and Manassas City
Public Schools in providing services for our community. When
these State, Federal and private agencies terminate programs,
services or curtail funding, it cannot be assumed that
the City will maintain those programs. The City’s ability to
assume the financial reponsibility for State, Federal and
privately funded services without significantly impacting other
service areas or raising taxes is limited.”
POLICY STATEMENT #P-2012-02 – Prevent Supplanting
State, Federal and Private Funds With Local Funds
(Adopted by the Manassas City Council 9-14-2009)
FYI.
September 16, 2009 at 10:45 am
And note that Vice-Mayor Harrover did a fine job Monday night
running the city council meeting in the absence of the Mayor.
(But do think our “show” was stolen by the therapy dogs who were
at City Hall to receive a proclamation for their fine service to
the citizens of our community).
September 25, 2009 at 8:13 pm
I enjoy this site, it is worth me coming back