Some in Fairfax Must Give Up a Day's Pay

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors agreed yesterday to furlough all non-essential county employees, including themselves, for one day in January to help close a $58.2 million budget gap.

The furloughs, which will save as much as $2 million, will be the first in Fairfax that anyone can remember, and it is part of the most dramatic midyear budget correction required there during an economic downturn, County Executive Anthony H. Griffin said.

But Griffin warned supervisors that the situation could continue to worsen this year. He cautioned that a sluggish holiday shopping season and widespread anxiety about the economy could further pinch crucial sources of county revenue, including sales taxes and real estate recordation taxes.

That could require more substantial cuts this year, something supervisors are hoping to avoid until the spring, when they will put together their spending plan for the 2009-10 budget year. Already, Fairfax must close a shortfall of up to $500 million next year.

Supervisors are planning to recommend program adjustments only after completing an in-depth review of all county programs -- and only after the public has had a chance to weigh in at a series of ongoing community meetings.

But the board might not have the luxury of waiting until after those meetings.

"I would like to believe that we have been very conservative with our revenue projections," Griffin told supervisors yesterday. "I'm really concerned about what our estimates might look like three or four months from now. I'm putting everyone on notice: I might have to come back to the board in a couple of months."

Fairfax is among a growing number of jurisdictions confronting the reality of deep service cuts to offset the effects of the country's economic crisis. Even though they run Virginia's largest jobs center and one of the country's wealthiest counties, Fairfax officials now must balance the community's demands for quality classrooms, parks, police protection and highways with the reality that doing so will require big tax increases or deep cuts elsewhere.

Griffin announced the shortfall in the current budget last week, when he proposed closing the bulk of the budget gap by taking $20 million to $30 million from the county's emergency fund. He also ordered across-the-board personnel cuts of 2 percent, in addition to 5 percent already taken this year. And he ordered a virtual halt to hiring, capital spending, travel and vehicle replacement as the economy continues to affect the region's largest local government.

Griffin said he would not rule out a reduction in the county's appropriation to the public school system -- a line item that accounts for 53 percent of the county's $3.3 billion budget -- if things continue to worsen. But he and Gerald E. Connolly (D), chairman of the county board, said they are not yet ready to propose such a reduction because they are trying to protect classrooms.

"Public schools remain our No. 1 priority," Connolly said.

Supervisors declined to give Griffin permission to pursue additional furloughs beyond Jan. 2, but they acknowledged that he might return with just such a request. They also spent a great deal of time discussing the idea of cutting their own office staffs, even though the trim amounted to roughly $30,000 in each of the 10 supervisors' offices, a tiny fraction of the overall budget.

Supervisor Jeff C. McKay (D), who initially objected to office cuts, said he would probably absorb the budget cuts by reducing the number of mailings to constituents, canceling some community events and instituting some furloughs. He has two part-time workers and four full-time employees. Like other supervisors, McKay controls an annual office budget of $420,000. Connolly has a budget of $470,000.

"The reality is, it is an insignificant piece of our larger budget," McKay said. "At the end of the day, our citizens will have less access to government than they had before as a result of this action."

He added that he eventually voted for the cut because "it was the right thing to do."