Several residents and members of the Arlington business community spoke out against proposed tax hikes at a County Board hearing last week.
As officials are considering possible bumps to the county’s meals tax and real estate tax, several speakers at a Thursday meeting made the case for fiscal restraint in the face of significant economic uncertainty in the D.C. area.
“Homeowners and renters have shouldered for years the increasingly heavy burden of rising assessments and, last year, the Board’s approval of a rate increase,” said Jeremiah Howard, the first speaker of what would turn out to be about a 35-minute gathering in Central Library’s primary meeting room.
Just two days earlier, the same room had been packed with advocates for government programs who descended on the Board’s budget hearing to press for full funding of their favored programs. That hearing ran for nearly 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Howard pointed to possible impacts of the Trump administration’s cutbacks, which he predicted will leave many residents with less disposable income.
“Please leave those of us who can help [others] with the resources we need to help,” he said. “Please don’t raise our taxes again.”
County Manager Mark Schwartz’s proposed $1.69 billion Fiscal Year 2026 budget, unveiled in February, called for keeping the real-estate tax rate unchanged at $1.033 per $100 assessed valuation.
County Board members, however, opted to advertise a higher rate of $1.043, with only J.D. Spain Sr., voicing opposition.
The advertisement doesn’t mean Board members ultimately will adopt that higher rate, but sets it as the maximum allowed for the coming year.
A higher tax rate dropped atop ever-increasing home assessments would prove a double-whammy for property owners for the second year in a row. Board members in 2024 increased the tax rate 2 cents per $100.
Bridget Mendes, who spoke at the March 27 hearing, said it was too much.
“Increasing the tax rate doesn’t make sense,” she told Board members. “Homeowners have already been paying increased taxes, year over year.”
“Raising the property tax rate at a time when federal workers are losing their jobs, and a time when we’re trying to increase home-ownership opportunities for the Missing Middle, is a terrible idea,” said Eric Ackerman, who also spoke.
Instead, he said, “the county needs to manage its costs.”
Another group of speakers took on Schwartz’s proposal to increase the existing meals-tax rate from 4% to 5%, effective July 1. The proposal would bring in an estimated $13.3 million to county coffers.
Those who came to speak out about the increase said it would put imperiled restaurateurs in an even more precarious position.
“The restaurant business is really suffering,” said Phillippe Loustaunau, owner of Pirouette Café & Wine Shop in Ballston.
“The patterns of pre-pandemic behavior are just gone, and we’re still trying to figure out what works,” Loustaunau said. “We just don’t see lunch business any more. Inflation has really hurt us — and now we have tariffs, real or threatened.”
A. Paul Voutsas, a real-estate broker who works with restaurants looking to lease space, and Arlington Chamber of Commerce government-affairs manager John Musso were among others testifying against a meals-tax increase.
A higher meals tax “will kill my tenants,” Voutsas predicted.
The Arlington County Board is scheduled to adopt a budget on April 9, and “a lot of deliberations will still continue” until then, Chair Takis Karantonis said.
“We’re listening,” Board member Matt de Ferranti added.
