Acting County Manager Proposes Reduced FY 2011 Budget

• $941.8 million FY 2011 Proposed Budget is 0.5% smaller
• Recommends 6.7-cent tax rate increase, reduced services, staff reductions
• Tax, fee burden up $20/month for average household
• Third year of budget, service cuts

ARLINGTON, Va. – Acting County Manager Barbara Donnellan today proposed closing an estimated $65 million gap in the FY 2011 Budget by raising the tax rate 6.7 cents, reducing services and eliminating nearly 90 staff positions, of which approximately 20 are filled.

The Proposed Budget is $941.8 million, a 0.5% decrease from the FY 2010 Adopted Budget of $946.8 million. Total County government spending is down 1.9% from last year.

“My Proposed Budget includes some hard choices that will impact services in most areas across the community,” Donnellan said. “What I have tried to do is to cut only those things that will not change the values of our community or our basic expectations of responsible government.”

The Proposed Budget reflects the Board’s guidance to equally divide the revenue/expenditure gap between proposed revenue increases and proposed expense/service reductions.

Services trimmed, not eliminated

Cuts are proposed in many areas, including: community policing; library and park facilities hours; nursing care; mental health, a fire rescue unit and staffing of planning functions.

Donnellan went over the Proposed Budget during a two-hour public work session with the County Board. She will formally present the Proposed Budget at the Board’s upcoming regular meeting, beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 20. Public hearings on the budget will be held in March and the Board will adopt the FY 2011 budget in April.  

>>> View the slide presentation from today’s worksession.

Third year of budget cuts, staff reductions

“In many cases, departments are seeing the third year of cuts in programs,” Donnellan said.

In the past three years, Donnellan explained, the County has made more than $36 million in cuts and frozen or eliminated 190 full-time positions. In FY 2011, nearly 90 staff positions are being recommended for elimination; of these approximately 20 are filled positions. Similar to last year, the County anticipates that all employees will be placed elsewhere in the organization or will accept a separation package.

Donnellan warned that the County may face additional cuts in State funding above those already assumed in the FY 2011 Proposed Budget. To respond to ongoing economic uncertainty, the Proposed Budget includes $6.4 million for the Budget Stabilization Fund for unanticipated revenue shortfalls or expenditure pressures.

The proposed tax rate increase would raise the overall tax and fee burden for the average Arlington household from $6,051 to $6,286, a 3.9% increase, or about $20 a month. The tax rate would increase from 87.5 cents per $100 of assessed value to 94.2 cents per $100 of assessed value.

County transfer to Arlington Public Schools to increase

The Proposed Budget includes an increase from FY 2010 to Arlington Public Schools (APS) of $6.3 million, to $358.7 million. The 1.8% increase is needed largely to account for increased enrollment of 699 students, Donnellan said.

“We remain relatively fortunate that, as we enter the third fiscal year of economic turmoil, Arlington has been less affected than our neighbors,” Donnellan said. “We still offer the vast majority of services on which our residents rely.”

Press contact: Mary Curtius, 703-228-7943