By FALLS CHURCH TIMES STAFF
March 13, 2013
Editor’s Note: Actions taken by the Falls Church City Council are reported by the City Clerk in a “Legislative Update” typically published within a few hours of adjournment of a City Council meeting. Video and minutes (2 hours and 19 minutes) from this Council meeting are now available online. Other materials including agendas, working materials, past minutes, and the schedule of upcoming meetings are available from City website.
Proposed spending and sources of revenue from the City Manager's presentation of FY14 budget to City Council on Monday.
Falls Church City Manager Wyatt Shields summarized the FY14 budget for the Council with a 34 page presentation [PDF]. The budget, as presented, calls for a 6 cent increase in real estate taxes which would provide 60% of revenue. For fiscal year 2014 Shields proposed an 8.2% increase in spending over 2013 levels.
Council Member David Snyder immediately reacted negatively to the budget saying “In all my 19 to 20 years of local government budgets I’ve never seen a budget more out of line with the economic realities in which we exist than this one, so my initial comment is there is an awful lot of work that is going to have to be done on this.” By contrast Council Member Ron Peppe was more sanguine saying he’s “not that shocked by what i see here” explaining that after kicking the can down the road sometimes you catch up with the can.
The fact that the proposed budget did not include City or School funding for Falls Church City TV was mentioned by several of the Council Members as a potential issue.
Budget review will include two readings of the Budget and Tax Rate Ordinances before the Council at meetings on March 27 and April 8 leading up to the final vote on April 22. The budget will be discussed in Town Hall meetings on March 16 and April 13 both at 10 a.m. at the Community Center. More details about revenue, spending, and the budget revue process are available in a special section of the City website.
In other work the Council passed the first reading of an agreement between the City and the Falls Church Housing Corporation and the first reading to adopt a FY13 funding recommendation for an arts challenge grant.
