County Agencies Propose What to Cut

Officials Explain Services Provided as Supervisors Consider Tight Budget

Fairfax County supervisors have begun a line-by-line review of how government spends its money as they prepare for another difficult budget season.

Their goal is to reckon with keeping taxes from skyrocketing and continuing to provide the level of services residents expect. They have already confronted how difficult that will be. Officials are going before the board to explain what their county agencies do -- and a list of how to cut 15 percent from their budgets.

Fairfax Police Chief David M. Rohrer talked about eliminating 263 positions, including closing the Fair Oaks district station and making deep cuts to the school resource officer program and bicycle patrols. Fire chief Ronald L. Mastin threw out the possibility of closing four fire stations.

County libraries might close Fridays and reduce hours other days. Recreation programmers have listed senior centers and the county's much-hailed after-school program for middle-schoolers as possible casualties. The Health Department suggested eliminating health clinic aides -- people who care for sick children, check immunization records and conduct hearing and vision tests -- from public schools.

If the process sounds like a budget-season scare tactic to drum up support for tax increases, it wasn't intended that way, supervisors said.

"I think it has sort of drifted into that," Supervisor Michael W. Frey (R-Sully) said. "We needed to get in and really examine what we're doing and look for ways to do things better. I didn't think we were going to spend all of our time discussing the 15 percent cuts."

When County Executive Anthony H. Griffin asked each agency to come up with 15 percent in cuts, the figure was viewed as preparation for a worse than worst-case scenario, said Edward L. Long Jr., one of his deputies.

Supervisors and budget analysts expected some of the cuts to be painful, unacceptable and avoidable. But now, with the economy worsening and property values continuing to fall, the process is no longer so theoretical, officials said.

"What it shows you is how unpalatable some of the decisions, we and the public are facing, will be," board Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) said. "There really is no substitute for a police officer or a firefighter when that call comes. In Fairfax, we're hearing, 'I want you to strike a balance, but there's a line I don't want you to cross in terms of public services.' "

Like governments and businesses across the country, Fairfax is predicting hard financial times. County budget analysts have blamed the woes on the national foreclosure crisis, which has driven property values down and slowed job growth, the commercial real estate market and automobile sales. Those trends, in turn, have caused key sources of county revenue -- residential and commercial real estate taxes and car tax revenue -- to level off and even decline.

Fairfax first felt the crunch in the spring during deliberations over the current $3.3 billion budget. A decline in the average home value of about 3 percent, from $542,000 to $524,000, coupled with pressure to protect school spending, prompted supervisors to raise the property tax rate 3 cents, to 92 cents per $100 of assessed value.

In the coming year, the picture is worse. Budget officials have predicted a 10 percent decline in residential property values next year and a 5 percent drop in revenue. With rising costs such as fuel, officials have predicted a $430 million deficit for the fiscal year that begins July 1 -- a budget gap that would require a 19-cent property tax increase to close if no service cuts are made.

Bulova agreed with Frey that some of the suggested cuts seem on their face unacceptable. But her goal is to throw that question back at the agency chiefs and find out what is and is not possible.

"Should we be closing a fire station or two if the number of calls are low enough where we really can't justify keeping it open if there are others that could absorb the need?" Bulova asked. "That's our question."

One trick for supervisors is the fact that much of their $3.3 billion budget, about $1.8 billion this year, goes to the county school system. Although county leaders decide how much to spend on schools each year, the School Board -- not supervisors -- decides how to spend it. The School Board has agreed to conduct a similar line-by-line analysis of school spending, but there is little supervisors can do if they don't agree with that analysis other than limit the overall school appropriation.

They do hope for community input. Supervisors and the School Board will jointly host 20 community dialogue meetings, beginning Tuesday and running through mid-November. Residents are also encouraged to submit ideas online and to read the agency-by-agency reports, available at http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/budget.

"My view," said Bulova, who is chairman of the board's budget committee, "is that we should look at everything we do."