Manassas Plans Not To Mitigate Others' Cuts

Policy Aims to Send Message to State

The Manassas City Council adopted a policy Monday that calls for the city to stop supplanting state, federal and private funds with local money.

The policy, which was unanimously approved, says that if state, federal or private agencies terminate programs or funding, it will not be the city's responsibility to try to keep them afloat or fill the budget gap, as it sometimes did in this year's budget. Doing so would "significantly" affect other services or force city officials to raise taxes, the policy says.

"If the state reduces its budget, we will have to reduce ours, too," City Manager Lawrence D. Hughes said.

Manassas budget officials said the net state reduction to the city's fiscal 2010 general fund budget was $40,000. What will happen with the fiscal 2011 budget is up in the air, and the city could get hit even harder, they said.

Hughes said the two biggest departments affected by the diminishing funds were the police, which fall under the city's general fund budget and receive state money through the House Bill 599 program, and Family Services, which has a separate budget. In fiscal 2010, Family Services lost about $270,000 in state and federal funds -- about a 6.5 percent revenue drop from fiscal 2009.

Hughes said that although he wasn't aware of other Northern Virginia jurisdictions that have taken such a stance, places such as Virginia Beach have adopted similar policies in an effort to send a message to state officials.

"Our objective is to send a copy [of the policy] to the state and inform them we can no longer subsidize the state's budget," Hughes said. "The state reduces its budget and expects the local government to pay for services; we just can't do it."

Although city officials generally intend to carry out the policy, Hughes said, there will be exceptions, such as when the city must dip into its budget to meet state and federal mandates.