Friends,

Today, the County Executive presented his proposal for the FY24 Budget today. The release of the “Advertised Budget” is only the first step in a lengthy, community-driven budget process, with final approval coming on May 9.

The annual budget process includes a number of budget town halls around the County hosted by district Supervisors and including County budget staff. There are three public hearings at the Government Center on April 11, 12 and 13, and you can submit budget testimony via phone or video if you cannot attend in person.

I understand that residents are still feeling the pressure of inflation and rising real estate assessments, leading to affordability challenges for many including vulnerable populations such as seniors. Because of this, I'm glad that our Board expanded tax relief program for qualifying seniors and disabled persons over the past 2 years and is now in effect. This expansion made an additional 2,040 people eligible for relief.

Rising cost of living also has an impact on our County employees who worked so hard during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are feeling a lot of pressure but are proud of our reputation in leading this Board through a budget process that will carefully balance these issues before any budget is adopted.

Timeline of the 2024 budget process.

Some highlights of the County Executive's Proposed Budget include:

• Tax rate: The County Executive has proposed a flat tax rate of $1.11 per $100 of assessed value. The County Executive's proposed budget also provides flexibility for our Board to consider a lower tax rate – something I believe is essential.

• FCPS: 52.2% of our budget goes to FCPS, which currently totals over $2.3 billion. The County Executive has proposed for the 13^th straight year that we increase our transfer, this year by $144.1 million. This would fully fund the budget proposal we received from FCPS, and allow schools to also address employee compensation.

• County Employee Pay: Our County employees continue to work hard to provide high quality services to our residents. There continue to be nationwide challenges in retaining and recruiting critical positions like health care workers and police officers, and Fairfax County is not immune. This proposal includes a 2.00% market rate adjustment for County employees, as well as performance, merit, and longevity increases, making the total range 4-7%. I look forward to working with our employee groups to identify strategic investments in our workforce to attract and retain the best of the best.

Again, we have a PROPOSED budget. A key part of the budget process every year is you. I encourage you to share your thoughts on this proposal, either by attending a budget town hall hosted by your Supervisor, providing testimony during the April 11-13 public hearings, or by emailing me at chairman@fairfaxcounty.gov. 

Budget town hall schedule by district.

• BoS Meeting Highlights
• Skyline Center Revitalization
• Board Makes Changes to Several Polling Places
• Two New Appointees Reflect Commitment to Diversity

What's happening? Skyline Center was developed many years ago by the Charles E Smith Companies, the same developer of Crystal City. It was a very successful mixed-use project, with condos and apartments along the periphery, and eight office buildings, including the prominent Skyline Tower building. Six of the office buildings are interconnected by an underground system of parking garages, a health club and a huge Target. In recent years, the six inter-connected buildings have been essentially vacant.

In 2017, the County became a regional leader when we adopted measures to facilitate transforming vacant office buildings into residential use. The Board previously approved the conversion of three of the office buildings at Skyline into 720 live/work units that will be ready for occupancy in March.

Today, we approved the conversion of two more of the buildings into 510 live /work units.

In these buildings, you can use a unit as a residence, as a place for you to live and work, or as an office, thus providing great flexibility to meet the needs of resident.

The conversion of the five buildings will bring new economic vitality to what has been a pretty dead place. The projects will add considerable interior and exterior amenities that are open to the public, and will add additional retail uses, thus fulfilling our revitalization and economic development goals. This is also an environmental win, as using existing buildings rather than tearing down and building new has tremendous sustainability benefits. 

Current exterior of the Skyline Center.

What Happened? The Board authorized a Public Hearing for March 7 at 4:00pm to make some changes to polling place names and locations.

The Board is proposing to:

• Rename the polling place for Franconia precincts #1 and #2 to Edison precincts #1 and #2 to help avoid confusion with the renaming of the Franconia District (voting takes place at Edison High School.)

• Divide the Tysons precinct to create Jones Branch precinct and to relocate the polling place for Tysons precinct.

• Rename the Oak Marr precinct in the Providence District.

• Relocate the polling place for Difficult Run precinct.

• Relocate the Spindle #2 precinct and rename this precinct.

• And rename Spindle #1 precinct in the Sully District.

Why was this necessary? Growth and growth patterns often require the Board to adjust precinct locations to accommodate voters. Other reasons include avoiding confusion with naming and availability of polling places like houses of worships changing.

What does it mean? The biggest takeaway from this slate of actions is that Tysons residential growth is happening to the degree that the County needs to add polling places! This shows we are continuing to make progress on the plan to add 100,000 residents to Tysons by 2050. An essential goal is to maximize the land around the Silver Line to create a real mix of uses so that people can live and work in the same community. This is essential to our environment/economy and reducing vehicle trips.

Stay up to date on the latest polling information!

What happened? I was proud to move the appointments of Fazia Deen to the Police Civilian Review Panel and Amber Beichler to the Commission for Women. Ms. Deen is an attorney and the Deputy Outreach Director at the Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center. She brings an extensive background in law and civic engagement to the Civilian Review Panel and will provide a welcome perspective. Ms. Beichler has a masters from Mason and serves as Business Improvement Representative at BSI Group America. She, like Ms. Deen, brings a wealth of community activist and engagement experience to the Commission for Women where she will be serving as the transgender woman representative.  

Welcome new appointees!