Author: Mark Kelly

Imagine you are building a new house. You live in Arlington, so you have a budget of $1 million. Your builder comes back to you and says for $1 million, you may have to cut a few things off your wish list.

Instead of marble tile in your bathrooms, you will have to go with another natural stone or maybe even ceramic. They are going to have to downgrade your hardwood floors and kitchen appliances slightly. And, you may only be able to finish half of the basement, so your media room may have to be a little bit smaller.

Next week the County Board will open its microphones to any Arlingtonian who wishes to discuss items in the budget or the advertised tax rate. If this year holds to form, hundreds of Arlingtonians will show up to advocate for higher spending and adopting the highest tax rate. Few will speak to lowering taxes.

It would be nice if the thousands of Arlingtonians who are tired of the Board’s tax and spend record would pack the room next Thursday and make the case to hold the tax rate level, if not lower it. But past experience has taught us all that the Board will listen politely, and then do what they were going to do anyway.

At the last County Board meeting, John Vihstadt proposed that the County Manager outline possible budget cuts to avoid the maximum advertised tax increase. This “radical” idea was meant to ensure the average homeowner’s tax increase was capped at 4 percent instead of the maximum advertised 5 percent (when you combine assessment increases with the proposed tax rate increase).

In response, County Manager Mark Schwartz produced proposed $11.1 million in possible budget cuts this week.

At the end of February the Arlington County Board voted 3-2 to advertise a 2-cent tax rate increase. The two members who voted no did so because they wanted to advertise a higher rate.

As the County Board discussed advertising the increased rate, Chairman Jay Fisette called the County Manager’s budget the “best professional recommendation.” In reality, Arlington County rigs the budget game to ensure they can spend not only what they propose in the annual budget, but the closeout slush fund created by chronic underestimation of revenue.

In 2009, the Arlington County Board filed a lawsuit to stop the Kaine Administration’s efforts to bring 395 HOT lanes through the county. This surprised state officials as for some time, County leaders had offered support for the idea.

The suit cost county taxpayers around $2 million in legal fees. It also embarrassingly named state employees, sued as individuals not in their official capacities, as parties to the case.

This week, 20-year County Board veteran Jay Fisette announced he would not seek re-election.

Just a little more than five years ago, the Board was made up of Fisette, Chris Zimmerman, Walter Tejada, Mary Hynes and Barbara Favola. Between School Board and County Board service, they had each been elected multiple times over. After November it is likely that four of the five members of the Board will be in their first full term serving the County in any elected capacity. And this new perspective is certainly a good thing.

By now, you have probably heard about the controversy over signs at Yorktown High School. There is little doubt the signs were intended to make a political statement about issues surrounding the Trump Administration, albeit in an clever way.

You may support the posting of the signs as statements our community supports or you may oppose them as political propaganda. For the purposes of furthering the discussion, what if a teacher posted a sign in his or her classroom at Yorktown that said the following, complete with red, white and blue color scheme?

Arlington schools have called in an outside consultant to evaluate their enrollment projections. No matter who makes them, projections outside of the next one to two years are extremely difficult to make. Nowhere was this more evident than Washington-Lee High School which was built too small because of bad projections in the other direction.

The Arlington School Board should continue to proceed with caution in the efforts to create more seats for more students.

Yesterday, Governor McAuliffe was in town to announce that Nestlé USA is moving its corporate headquarters to Arlington in September of this year. Finally, the long-vacant 1812 building will have a major tenant, which is certainly good news for Arlington’s commercial vacancy rate.

The move is touted as a $40 million investment by Nestlé USA. However, it does not come without a cost to Arlington taxpayers. The company will receive a $6 million grant from the Commonwealth Opportunity Fund, a $4 million grant from Arlington, and a commitment to $2 million in Arlington spending on infrastructure as well as “extensive relocation assistance” from Arlington County.

Meeting the transportation needs of both Arlington’s residents and the greater region is no easy task. And Metro’s problems have only made it harder. While there is no doubt our county leaders take the issue seriously, they do often make decisions that can leave Arlingtonians scratching their heads.

1. Planning to spend $575,000 for each bus stop on Columbia Pike.

This week’s announcement that residential real estate assessments are up again was not a surprise. The average homeowner will pay an additional 2.3% in taxes for 2017 unless the County Board reduces the tax rate.

This 2.3% assessment increase comes despite the average home sales price only ticking up by 0.3% in 2016 over 2015. Assessments increased by 2.8% in 2016 as well.

The fireworks from the January 3 County Board kick-off meeting were generated by the partisan efforts of the three lowest vote-getters on the Board during the Vice Chairman election. The remainder of the meeting went to script, except for the little noticed move to make it harder for Arlingtonians to request a public hearing on an agenda item.

As with every year, each Board member also made remarks outlining their thoughts for the upcoming year. You can find links to all five here. And the speeches could be summed up like this: “We have a tough job, but take heart, we’re doing it pretty well.”