Growls

With the Arlington County Board set to adopt the FY 2010 budget Tuesday evening, April 28 that is expected to include a real estate tax rate increase of 2.7 cents, ACTA’s president spoke at the Board’s public comment this morning. He compared the per capita general fund spending in the the County Manager’s proposed FY 2010 budget to that in Fairfax County’s proposed budget. (Video available at the Board’s webpage)

Wise said the difference is stark. The Arlington County Manager’s budget proposes spending $1,259 more per capita in Arlington County than is proposed in Fairfax County. On a percentage basis, that’s 40.1% more per capita than in Fairfax County.

Wise’s comments drew a response from Board member Chris Zimmerman and Manager Ron Carlee. Apparently the stark difference unfairly implies that Arlington’s per capita spending is lavish and/or excessive. Zimmerman said the $1,259 difference “no doubt . . . is true,” but complained that ACTA made no mention of the year-to-year comparison in the relative tax burden and said that people in Arlington expect a higher level of public service. Another point of difference between the two counties, he noted, was the difference in the size of the commercial tax base, i.e., 17% to 18% in Fairfax compared to almost half in Arlington.

Carlee noted the daytime population of Arlington is about equal to resident population, which is not the case in Fairfax, and thus the commercial tax base supports those nonresidents.

They also noted that the higher proportion of the tax base being commercial, which presumably has relatively few direct votes, Arlington is able to provide county services at comparatively lower real estate tax rates. The argument offered was somewhat incomplete, in that the example of better services offered was the more generous library coverage in Arlington than Fairfax, but which accounts for only a little over 1% of Arlington's budget.

So although the difference in per capital spending is “undoubtedly true,”  it “can be misleading,” Zimmerman said. Admittedly, differences in per capita spending is just one way of comparing the spending by two counties, however, it behooves the political class to explains those differences. And indeed, Mr. Zimmerman said that at another time, he would “take-up the challenge,” and explain how Arlington benefits from the greater spending.

Hopefully, there are greater benefits to living in Arlington County other than living adjacent to the national pork farm on Capitol Hill.