Arlington County Manager Mark Schwartz on Saturday proposed a budget that would freeze the residential tax rate and significantly increase pay for government employees, which he said was a way to reward those workers who have pushed the Northern Virginia suburb through the worst of the pandemic.
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The $1.47 billion spending plan would freeze Arlington’s residential tax rate at $1.013 per $100 of assessed value. But rising property values mean the average homeowner would still pay $395 more on their annual real estate tax bill. (The average single-family residence in the county is assessed at $762,700.)
Most county employees who are “meeting expectations” would receive merit increases of 4.25 percent, county spokeswoman Jessica Baxter said. Uniformed employees — including police, firefighters and sheriff’s deputies — would receive a 6.5 percent bump in pay, and all permanent, full-time workers would receive net bonuses of about $1,000.
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County schools would receive $576 million, an increase of $46 million — or 8.7 percent — compared with last year.
The budget represents an overall 5.5 increase in spending compared with Arlington’s plan last fiscal year, which runs from July to June. Although the county’s tax revenue is projected to increase by 7 percent, Schwartz said at a county board meeting on Saturday, there is still uncertainty around hotel taxes and nontax sources of revenue such as parking meters.
The county is required to pay a portion of any increases in hotel tax revenue to Amazon, as part of an incentives package cemented to bring the company’s East Coast headquarters to Arlington. Given a drop in revenue during the pandemic, Arlington paid no incentives to the tech giant over the past two years. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
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Schwartz said that the budget was meant to reward Arlington’s staff of nearly 4,000 public employees, who have kept the county running — in many cases, from front-line jobs — without significant merit pay increases for the past two years. Last year’s budget set aside a 1 percent pay increase for county employees.
With inflation pushing up the cost of living and the pandemic transforming workplaces, he added that the county needed to focus on recruiting and retaining its public-sector employees.
“How do we compensate our employees in a time when the way work done in our country has changed? Employees are no longer physically tethered to one location. They can pick up and move,” he said. “That is the single-biggest challenge I think we face.”
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Dramatic property assessment increases in nearby jurisdictions such as Loudoun County could mean those governments — newly flush with cash — might be able to lure away employees, Schwartz added.
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The budget proposal also would increase minimum and maximum salaries for each position by 3 percent, so new hires would begin at a higher entry rate and the highest-paid employees could earn up to 3 percent more.
As in the neighboring city of Alexandria, first responders in Arlington have protested minimal increases in their salaries. The Arlington firefighters’ union has warned that burnout and stagnating wages might cause a possible exodus from the department.
Alexandria is struggling to keep up pay for first responders. They say it’s straining emergency response.
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Public-sector unions are set to engage in collective bargaining with the county later this year for the first time in decades, although that process is expected to affect only the budget for fiscal 2024. Schwartz’s proposal sets aside $470,000 for three full-time positions to negotiate on Arlington’s behalf during the negotiations.
In a sign that Arlington also is looking beyond the pandemic, environmental programs would receive the next-largest increase in funding.
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Schwartz’s proposal allocates an additional $4.4 million in programs meant to combat climate change, including $1 million for an energy action fund that could electrify county vehicles and pay for energy-efficiency projects. Arlington has committed to rely only on renewable energy in county operations by 2025.
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The county board is scheduled to vote Tuesday on whether to advertise the tax rate of $1.013 per $100 of assessed value.
The budget presentation came at the end of a 12-hour meeting in which board members voted to approve the Pentagon City sector plan, which sets out a vision for the next few decades of growth in the South Arlington neighborhood.
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More than 110 residents provided public testimony on the plan, with many speaking against a provision that would allow developers to triple the number of units at RiverHouse, the largest apartment complex in the county.