McDaniel on FCPS budget

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/08/01/fairfax-county-school-boards-new-budget-chair-suggests-change-in-approach-to-funding-challenges/

Just saw this and had to laugh. They must be smoking something if they think they’re going to have the public on their side for the meals tax or increased budget after detrimentally pressing reset on the boundaries.

If anything, the FCPS SB is doing everything that it can to get vouchers in Virginia.

No no. No need for more taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:McDaniel is such a tremendous disaster for FCPS.

How on earth did this guy get elected?

He never would have been elected if he had ran on his 2 main pet projects, unwanted rezoning for equity, and a meals tax pushed through without a county vote.

It’s the result of those voting by party vs

[Anonymous]

My expectation is that they will add a Meals tax and will not lower the Real Estate tax. Taxes never go down, only up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes to the meals tax. It's paid predominantly by visitors from outside the county who are here on business or leisure.

And cut all the positions for teachers who aren't teaching: "specialists" and "coordinators" or similar at Gatehouse, instructional coaches, AART, etc. Interlopers who just add to everybody's workload to justify their pointless jobs.

It also hurts small business restaurants in the area. We don’t eat out that much, but I could see where this would put a lot of restaurants out of business. But the local democrats are so far left that they no longer care about trivialities like that.

So many neighboring places have meals taxes and t doesn’t hurt their restaurants. Restaurants have jacked up prices and are demanding tips for everything and they are still packed. Demand is strong.

I definitely support the meals tax for the county and the schools so that the on,y source of revenue isn’t property tax. Or let’s lobby the state to allow localities to enact an income tax like most places can in the country.

Sounds socialist or borderline you know what

Most states (33/50) do not have local income taxes. FFX already spends close to 20k per student each year and does not need additional money for schools.

Whereas Arlington County spends 20% more per student ($24K). TJHSST receives an extra $2.5K per student for their advanced curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My expectation is that they will add a Meals tax and will not lower the Real Estate tax. Taxes never go down, only up.

The meals tax adds roughly $100 million which will allow the FCPS to offer teacher salaries that are in line with what Arlington County and Alexandria already offer. That should reduce attrition rates and provide for somewhat more stable teaching environments from year to year, but it won’t do anything to attract the best teachers from other counties.

No single teacher in their right mind would live and work in Fairfax when they can get paid more and have a lower cost of living in PWC. But at least married teachers in dual income households (with partners who work near DC) will have less incentive to live in Fairfax and work elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My expectation is that they will add a Meals tax and will not lower the Real Estate tax. Taxes never go down, only up.

I would rather this also, mostly because we never eat out. How do they even enact a meals tax? Is there a vote?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My expectation is that they will add a Meals tax and will not lower the Real Estate tax. Taxes never go down, only up.

The meals tax adds roughly $100 million which will allow the FCPS to offer teacher salaries that are in line with what Arlington County and Alexandria already offer. That should reduce attrition rates and provide for somewhat more stable teaching environments from year to year, but it won’t do anything to attract the best teachers from other counties.

No single teacher in their right mind would live and work in Fairfax when they can get paid more and have a lower cost of living in PWC. But at least married teachers in dual income households (with partners who work near DC) will have less incentive to live in Fairfax and work elsewhere.

What single person wants to live in PWC?

[jvmorgan]

Anonymous wrote:
I would rather this also, mostly because we never eat out. How do they even enact a meals tax? Is there a vote?

The fact that a meals tax is based on discretionary spending (food away from home expenditures) rather than basic living costs (housing) is a benefit of a meals tax. No one has yet to show that aggregate spending on food away from home expenditures would be significantly depressed with a meals tax. There’s not a lot of reason to believe it would be given that other Northern Virginia jurisdictions, even with a meals tax, show strong growth in food away from home expenditures and given that Fairfax County has a lot of well-off households (about 34% have incomes greater than $200k). But individual households, if they do feel the impact of that additional 1-6%, have the option of preparing more meals at home to mitigate the impact. Households could also go to Loudoun County, the one other hold out in Northern Virginia. But given transportation costs, it seems unlikely many would make the trip, unless they were doing it out of spite for Fairfax County adopting a meals tax. And I wouldn’t be surprised if Loudoun eventually adopts a meals tax as well.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors might only begin to consider officially a Meals Tax after the County Executive delivers his September report on tax diversification options, including a Meals Tax of 1-6%. After the report is considered, the Board of Supervisors would still need to vote on whether to adopt a Meals Tax, what the rate would be, and other important matters like how much (if anything) restaurants would get to retain from the meals tax revenues collected for the service of holding such revenues in trust for Fairfax County and when the Meals Tax would go into effect (time would be needed for both the County and the restaurants to work out the logistics). A simple majority is all that would be needed for a Meals Tax to be adopted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My expectation is that they will add a Meals tax and will not lower the Real Estate tax. Taxes never go down, only up.

The meals tax adds roughly $100 million which will allow the FCPS to offer teacher salaries that are in line with what Arlington County and Alexandria already offer. That should reduce attrition rates and provide for somewhat more stable teaching environments from year to year, but it won’t do anything to attract the best teachers from other counties.

No single teacher in their right mind would live and work in Fairfax when they can get paid more and have a lower cost of living in PWC. But at least married teachers in dual income households (with partners who work near DC) will have less incentive to live in Fairfax and work elsewhere.

What single person wants to live in PWC?

We lived in PWC when we first moved to this area and it was quite dreadful. We are in Fairfax county now and it's much more civilized. I can't fathom why anyone would prefer PWC other than cost, the only more dreadful county I can think of is Stafford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:McDaniel is such a tremendous disaster for FCPS.

How on earth did this guy get elected?

He never would have been elected if he had ran on his 2 main pet projects, unwanted rezoning for equity, and a meals tax pushed through without a county vote.

I knew McDaniel back when he was a young staffer to Pat Herrity working county budgets many years ago. He was and probably still is one of the smartest people in the room when it comes to the budget.

I’m very interested to see how he navigates this upcoming budget.

[Anonymous]

/quote
I was a supporter of public schools until the spring 2024 “great boundary reset” exercise. So, at this point, I just can’t support a school district that is running itself into the ground because of equity. They’ve done nothing to garner my support and everything to lose it. Maybe they don’t need my support, but I don’t think I’m the only one thoroughly disgusted with the 8130 push over the objection of constituents.

I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t have a strategy and it’s more of a protest vote, unfortunately. Though, I’m not the one making the decisions and they aren’t listening to people like me anyway.


Absolutely agree. The outcomes on reading, writing and math is atrocious. FCPS lost the plot that their mission is to educate students. It has devolved into an employmment agency. I support vouchers and nolonger can support FCPS public education as is. Tragic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My expectation is that they will add a Meals tax and will not lower the Real Estate tax. Taxes never go down, only up.

The meals tax adds roughly $100 million which will allow the FCPS to offer teacher salaries that are in line with what Arlington County and Alexandria already offer. That should reduce attrition rates and provide for somewhat more stable teaching environments from year to year, but it won’t do anything to attract the best teachers from other counties.

No single teacher in their right mind would live and work in Fairfax when they can get paid more and have a lower cost of living in PWC. But at least married teachers in dual income households (with partners who work near DC) will have less incentive to live in Fairfax and work elsewhere.

What single person wants to live in PWC?

We lived in PWC when we first moved to this area and it was quite dreadful. We are in Fairfax county now and it's much more civilized. I can't fathom why anyone would prefer PWC other than cost, the only more dreadful county I can think of is Stafford.

Many people live in PWC because they don't deal with the BS in Fairfax. It's more balanced politically and not completely run by tax and spend leftists. PWC actually cut the property tax rate this year, unlike Fairfax.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My expectation is that they will add a Meals tax and will not lower the Real Estate tax. Taxes never go down, only up.

I would rather this also, mostly because we never eat out. How do they even enact a meals tax? Is there a vote?

They will do both. Don't fall for the Lies. This county always has an excuse to spend more and does not care about responsibly using taxpayers money. It's not an either or thing, a meals tax just means more taxes for Fairfax.

[jvmorgan]

Anonymous wrote:
Many people live in PWC because they don't deal with the BS in Fairfax. It's more balanced politically and not completely run by tax and spend leftists. PWC actually cut the property tax rate this year, unlike Fairfax.

I certainly do not profess to be an expert on Prince William County, its politics, or its budget. But I do know they started collecting a meals tax (“food and beverage tax”) in 2022. https://www.pwcva.gov/assets/2022-06/MealsTax_TaxpayerBrochure_FINAL_5-27_Web.pdf I also know that they projected this tax would bring in 2.7% ($42,000,000) of their FY2025 revenues. https://www.pwcva.gov/assets/2024-07/FY2025_Budget.pdf This is an increase of 31.25% over what they had projected ($32,000,000) for FY2024.

It’s possible that the additional revenue from a meals tax—not to mention the increased certainty after seeing it implemented for a few years—may have helped Prince William County in its decision to lower the real estate tax rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My expectation is that they will add a Meals tax and will not lower the Real Estate tax. Taxes never go down, only up.

I would rather this also, mostly because we never eat out. How do they even enact a meals tax? Is there a vote?

They will do both. Don't fall for the Lies. This county always has an excuse to spend more and does not care about responsibly using taxpayers money. It's not an either or thing, a meals tax just means more taxes for Fairfax.

The 8130 push is the most significant action a FCPS school board has taken toward a responsible budget in more than two decades. Boards have seen the writing on the wall for years and have kicked the can down the road year after year fearing political backlash. This Board actually had the courage to do something, namely, to provide a mechanism by which the FCPS administrator can propose to more efficiently allocate limited fiscal resources for transportation and school facilities across the county. Whether the FCPS will actually need to use 8130 to do anything more than minor boundary adjustments will likely depend on the amount of money coming from the state as well as local tax revenues, but now at least the FCPS finally has a tool at their disposal to meet budgetary constraints beyond tax, tax, and tax some more.