"Pay yourself first" is good advice for managing a personal budget, but not for spending public funds. However, that's exactly what Fairfax County Executive Tony Griffin wants to do in his $6.1 billion 2012 budget recommendation. Griffin's proposal would effectively raise annual property taxes on battered homeowners $115 on average, while spending $41 million more on benefits for county employees. The Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance notes that since 2000, county employees' benefits have increased 10 times faster than the number of new taxpayers to pay for them. During those same years, property taxes went up a whopping 104 percent, three times the rate of inflation. Homeowners are already paying $1,500 more per year than they would have if the county's spending increases had been limited to growth in population and inflation. Griffin's latest budget proposal just worsens that inequity.
The Democratic majority on the Board of Supervisors added injury to this taxpayer insult on Tuesday when it passed, on a 7-to-3 party-line vote, a plan to subsidize a luxury development on Monument Drive near the Fairfax County Government Center. The board agreed to lease county land worth as much as $15 million to Jefferson at Fairfax Corner LLC for one dollar per year. In return, Jefferson promised to build 270 units of federally subsidized "affordable" housing, complete with a swimming pool and weight room, that will be available to a "low income" family of four making as much as $103,500 a year, even though cheaper apartments are readily available nearby.
Chairwoman Sharon Bulova, D, muscled this project through despite vocal opposition from Supervisor Pat Herrity, R-Springfield, in whose district it will be located. "We're subsidizing this group to develop a luxury product that will compete with cheaper units already on the market," Herrity told The Examiner. "We're providing subsidized housing that is more luxurious - and expensive -- than what's available at market rates in the private sector." The board also shot down a proposal by Supervisor John Cook, R-Braddock, to lower the residential property tax rate from the current $1.09 to $1.065 per $100,000 of assessed valuation (it was 89 cents in 2008). The only honest answer to Fairfax homeowners who are questioning why their taxes have not gone down in tandem with their property values: In Fairfax County, only developers and county employees get a break.
