To the Fairfax County Community,
I hope your holiday season is off to a safe and healthy start!
This has been a confusing couple of weeks parsing through the news of the Omicron variant of COVID-19. There is a lot of information we do not know yet about Omicron, but we don't want people to panic. Researchers around the world are conducting studies to better understand many aspects of Omicron and will continue to share the findings of these studies as they become available.
As part of ongoing disease surveillance, CDC and the Virginia Department of Health are closely monitoring the emergence of this variant. To see Variants of Concern that have been identified in Virginia, visit the VDH Variants Dashboard.
That said, with the emergence of the Omicron variant, the Fairfax County Health Department joins the CDC in strengthening our recommendation that individuals 18 and older get a booster shot. People should get their booster either six months after their initial Pfizer or Moderna series or two months after their initial J&J vaccine.
Getting vaccinated reduces your risk of severe illness, hospitalization, and death; it also helps reduce the spread of the virus in the communities.
Sign up for your appointment here.
In addition, the Board met today. You may review today's full Board package here.
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What happened? Today, I made a motion to amend and expand eligibility for the County's senior and disabled real estate tax relief program, for age and income qualified individuals. The changes to the current program are below.
Why? As real estate assessments and the cost of living rise, there are real impacts on those with low or fixed incomes, especially our seniors. Unfortunately, because of our limited taxing authority from the Commonwealth, counties are forced to over rely on property taxes. Our tax relief program was established years ago to help qualified individuals with real estate taxes. I'm excited that we made an adjustment today, the last time tax relief was updated was in 2006. You can learn more about the changes here.
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What happened? The Board authorized a new map to make minimal adjustments to existing magisterial districts. This is a process that takes place every ten years as a result of Census numbers; local governments must redistrict to ensure proportional representation on the Board of Supervisors.
What are the changes? The map adopted was based largely on a map submitted by a member of the public, number 2336 . The Task Force reviewed each map along with the 279 precincts in Fairfax County. Following minor modifications, the new map will move seven precincts from their current magisterial districts, including:
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What's next? Following this vote, the final map will be submitted to the Virginia Attorney General for certification. Once the review is completed, district changes will go in effect immediately. In addition, the Redistricting Advisory Committee (who oversaw this public process) made a further recommendation to consider the names of magisterial districts as part of the redistricting process. The RAC specifically commented to, “encourage a community-driven process that evaluates the names of magisterial districts […] to bring greater equity to bear in Fairfax County.” The Board voted on November 7, 2021, to extend the charter of the RAC, with the mission of considering magisterial district names. This committee will begin soon and report back to the Board by March 2022.
Anything else? This map, which was originally submitted by a member of the public, is the product of months of input from our residents, the Redistricting Advisory Committee, and members of our Board. Extensive outreach in the redistricting process has been a longtime priority for our Board and produced a fair, nonpartisan, and transparent process. These small adjustments aim to take population changes into account while minimizing the disruption to the daily lives of our residents and keeping communities together.
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What happened? The Board adopted the 2022 Legislative program for the Virginia General Assembly. This is our opportunity to share with our legislators what kinds of laws we hope to see passed next session in Richmond.
What is included? You can review the package here.
- An increase in funding of core services - particularly education, mental health, criminal justice, and transportation. The state has chronically underfunded critical resources for years, leaving localities to over rely on tax payers.
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Education is an important example. In Fairfax County we allocate over 50% of Fairfax County's budget to schools. While the state's total budget has increased by 84% since 2009, the budget for education in Virginia has only increased by 7%. It is critical that progress be made now, given the budget surplus the state has. Counties have limited taxing authority and any help we get from Richmond helps our local budget. Fairfax County invests over $12,000 a year in each student; in contrast, the state only invests $2,700.
- Maintaining and expanding local government authority has long been a priority of the Board. This has increased in importance during the pandemic as counties be more flexible in the way we respond to unprecedented challenges. Local authority provides that individual local governments can make decisions to meet their community's needs. We are at the sidewalk level and many of the challenges we face don't work in a one size fits all environment - especially given the geographic diversity across the state.
- We also have a number of environmental initiatives we need to implement in order to meet our Countywide net zero goals. For example, we are asking for legislation that will allow us to participate in virtual net metering. This allows the unused energy created from a County-owned renewable project to go back into the energy grid for broader use and provides a discount to the jurisdiction’s energy costs, saving taxpayer dollars while helping the planet.
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What happened? The Board authorized the sale of public improvement bonds and public improvement refunding bonds.
Meaning? If you have ever voted for a bond referendum on a ballot, those bonds are used to pay for capital improvements to County facilities like parks and schools and infrastructure. For example, in the most recent election, 69.7% of voters approved the sale of bonds for schools.
Following voter approval of a bond referendum, the Board authorizes a General Obligation bond sale, whereby the bond pricing is dictated by our financial profile and general governance.
As a result of the County’s excellent Triple-A bond rating, the County commands low interest rates in the bond market and has saved an estimated $990 million to-date on bond and refinancing sales.
Fairfax County is only one of 49 counties in the United States to have Triple-A bond ratings from all three major bond rating agencies in recognition of outstanding fiscal management.
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Akshita Balajai, national spelling bee finalist and FCPS student (right) and my Task Force on Equity and Opportunity (left). |
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- The Board recognized FCPS student Akshita Balajai for reaching the semifinals in the Scripps National Spelling Bee. This is the first time in at least a decade where a Fairfax County student has been among the final 30 spellers in the national competition. Akshita won her first spelling bee in the third grade. If you see any spelling errors in my newsletter, reach out to Akshita!
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In 2020, I convened the Chairman's Task Force on Equity and Opportunity to better understand the drivers of inequity in Fairfax County and to develop recommendations for accelerating the County’s progress towards becoming One Fairfax. I invited the members of my Task Force to the Board to thank them for their service and make sure they know their recommendations are being acted upon.
- Finally, we recognized the 20th anniversary of the Franconia Museum, located in Lee District. This small but mighty museum, with devoted volunteers, highlights an important part of Fairfax County history.
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Vaccine Resources:
COVID-19 Resources:
- Fairfax County Health Department
- To view the number of cases in Fairfax County this page is updated at noon daily.
- Visit the County site on COVID-19, Health Department Website, and see their FAQs.
- To view multilingual health materials visit the County's Language Portal.
- Sign up for text message alerts: text FFXCOVID to 888777. Para inscribirse, textear FFXCOVIDESP a 888777.
- Call the Health Department from 9am-7pm weekdays and 9:30am-5pm on weekends: 703-267-3511
- Email: ffxcovid@fairfaxcounty.gov. This account will be staffed Monday through Friday, 8am-8pm.
- Inova has a helpful FAQ.
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Contact my Office
chairman@fairfaxcounty.gov
| 703.324.2321 |
Sign up for my newsletter here.
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