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Homes all across county see higher assessments – Story, Page 5
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SunGazette
VOLUME 36 NO. 27
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FEBRUARY 26, 2015
G R E AT FA L L S • M c L E A N • O A K T O N • T Y S O N S • V I E N N A
Homeowners to Bear Brunt as Budget Takes Shape $7.1 Billion Fairfax Package May Not Raise Tax Rates, But Higher Assessments Will Equate to Larger Bills BRIAN TROMPETER Staff Writer
What was true in Fairfax County for the last several years will be the case again: Residential property owners will have to shoulder the burden for increases in the school transfer and raises for county employees. County Executive Edward Long laid out this familiar scenario Feb. 17 when presenting his proposed $7.13 billion fiscal year 2016
budget to the Board of Supervisors. The county’s economy has been limping along ever since the Great Recession and was dealt a further blow by the federal government’s budgetary “sequestration” cuts, which caused cutbacks in federal spending and contracting – long Northern Virginia’s bread and butter, Long said. “Sequestration still exists,” he said. “It kicks in again next year. Those cuts are still out there.”
The county executive recommended that supervisors maintain the county’s real estate tax rate of $1.09 per $100 assessed value. This would not prevent homeowners’ tax bills from rising, however, as residential assessments are up about 3.4 percent this year. Non-residential assessments, including those for commercial and industrial properties, continued their long slump and are averaging 0.6 percent lower this year. Office-vacancy rates are 15.4 percent – the highest since
1991, Long said. Homeowners on average would pay $184.81 more under Long’s proposed budget, based on an average property value of $517,101. Residential assessments rose half as much as they did during 2013, while non-residential assessments fell an even greater percentage than in 2013, Long said. Nearly 79 percent of the county’s real esContinued on Page 14
Optimist Club Lauds Award Winners of Local Communications Contest The Optimist Club of Greater Vienna and three neighboring clubs on Feb. 4 hosted a communication contest for deaf and hard-of-hearing children at P.J. Skidoos restaurant in Fairfax. Four hearing-impaired students from Canterbury Woods Elementary School – Yana Bugby, Brandon Reyes, Luis Pinto and Pranil Dhakal – made presentations on “How My Optimism Will Help Me Press on to Greater Achievements in the Future,” utilizing Optimist International’s contest guidelines. All the students were declared club winners and provided feedback to improve their presentations. They competed at the Capital-Virginia District contest in Fredericksburg on Feb. 21. In addition to the Vienna Optimists, the students were sponsored by two Optimist clubs from Alexandria and one from Central Fairfax. At left, Canterbury Woods Elementary School students Yana Bugby, Brandon Reyes, Luis Pinto and Pranil Dhakal proudly display medals from their winning performances at a contest for deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
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