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.

A lot of discussion here regarding those who would pay and those who don’t want more taxes. The question I have is why is there a need with 3 billion a year. What is so dire? Then my other question is what are the programs or what is funded where is not making an impact- defund and reallocate? That’s what leaders do- they don’t just go back to the well all the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If Kyle McDaniel wants to use his School Board seat as a platform primarily to argue for a meals tax and the election of other Democratic candidates to office (see his Twitter page), that's fine with me. What I don't like is the all-Democratic School Board using kids as bargaining chips by unleashing Reid to propose unwanted county-wide boundary changes and then arguing they are compelled for budgetary reasons to do so, when that's clearly not the case.

McDaniel didn’t actually say he supports a meals tax though. At least not in the original article linked.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Kyle McDaniel wants to use his School Board seat as a platform primarily to argue for a meals tax and the election of other Democratic candidates to office (see his Twitter page), that's fine with me. What I don't like is the all-Democratic School Board using kids as bargaining chips by unleashing Reid to propose unwanted county-wide boundary changes and then arguing they are compelled for budgetary reasons to do so, when that's clearly not the case.

McDaniel didn’t actually say he supports a meals tax though. At least not in the original article linked.

Is this on the agenda to drive? Same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Kyle McDaniel wants to use his School Board seat as a platform primarily to argue for a meals tax and the election of other Democratic candidates to office (see his Twitter page), that's fine with me. What I don't like is the all-Democratic School Board using kids as bargaining chips by unleashing Reid to propose unwanted county-wide boundary changes and then arguing they are compelled for budgetary reasons to do so, when that's clearly not the case.

Do you have a link to that “agenda”?

McDaniel didn’t actually say he supports a meals tax though. At least not in the original article linked.

Is this on the agenda to drive? Same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We don't eat out much at all. Ever since the tipping culture has exploded and you are made to feel bad to not tip on a pizza carryout 20 percent. For instance, I took my kids to sweet frog which is expensive already, you take a cup and fill it yourself with ice cream and put your own toppings. Then you go pay and they ask for 20 percent tip. Tip for what? I stopped going and avoid eating out. I make our own food and buy our own ice cream. Take out is only a seldom occurance for our family. I don't care about this meals tax personally because I will probably eat out even less than now.

Great

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jvmorgan wrote:

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.

PWhen we get home from a long day and picking up kids, most of the time we pick up food bc there isn’t time to cook. So now they want to put more tax burden on those where both parents work. It’s not discretionary, it’s how we can maintain our house with so much to juggle.

You’re gonna have to use a crockpot instead, or make tacos. That’s a quick meal.
Or cook extra on weekends and put im the fridge and freezer for reheating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m convinced Fairfax County Schools is broke. They are looking for cash wherever they can.

They have over 3 BILLION dollar budget.

It is a money management issue, not a lack of funds issue.

They need to be audited.

Absolutely. They don't need more money. They need to spend less.

But the trend is to get more money to support more programs. We need more programs.

And more programs.


And more programs.


And more.

It’s because the test scores suck and they would probably see the most improvement by paying the highest and getting the best teachers but they go for another program instead.

Learning is not just a school responsibility.

It's not but schools really aren't teaching....the reason is they are weighed down by a teacher shortage-out of control behaviors- and a lack of funding in the needed areas. Let's not play games and ignore that there are warm bodies in classrooms now a days because teachers and admin are leaving. My son has not had a decent math teachers since.....umm I don't think he has. So what is the answer we all homeschool and pull our kids-a tutor is not going to make up for a lack of true daily instruction.[/quote
Anyone who has a child not learning should absolutely pull their kid out and private or homeschool of at all possible.

You get exactly one shot at their childhood education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jvmorgan wrote:

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.

PWhen we get home from a long day and picking up kids, most of the time we pick up food bc there isn’t time to cook. So now they want to put more tax burden on those where both parents work. It’s not discretionary, it’s how we can maintain our house with so much to juggle.

You’re gonna have to use a crockpot instead, or make tacos. That’s a quick meal.
Or cook extra on weekends and put im the fridge and freezer for reheating.

You do you. There’s not enough time. Not all of us have comfy office jobs and have time every day to plan and cook - and get to it all.

[Anonymous]

The one thing FCPS DOES NOT need is more money. They have heaps of money. They need to use the money they have more efficiently, prioritize teachers and stop spending so much on detrimental, useless technology.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You do you. There’s not enough time. Not all of us have comfy office jobs and have time every day to plan and cook - and get to it all.

The existence of families that eat out because of time and energy constraints (which I am sympathetic to) is not a strong argument against adopting a Meals Tax in Fairfax County. Regardless of whether a household tries to mitigate a meals tax by preparing meals at home more often, or just has to pay that additional marginal expense for meals they just don’t have the energy to make for themselves, a meals tax provides savings for Fairfax County residents compared with raising the same revenues through real estate taxes.

Visitors to Fairfax County would be expected to contribute to about 30% of the revenues generated. What this means is savings across the board for Fairfax County residents (at the expense of visitors to Fairfax County (sorry)). For lower-income households (those with incomes below $30k), a meals tax would cost about half as much as the real estate tax would cost in order to generate the same revenue. For upper-income households ($200k or more), a meals tax would cost about 75% the cost of equivalent real estate taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You do you. There’s not enough time. Not all of us have comfy office jobs and have time every day to plan and cook - and get to it all.

The existence of families that eat out because of time and energy constraints (which I am sympathetic to) is not a strong argument against adopting a Meals Tax in Fairfax County. Regardless of whether a household tries to mitigate a meals tax by preparing meals at home more often, or just has to pay that additional marginal expense for meals they just don’t have the energy to make for themselves, a meals tax provides savings for Fairfax County residents compared with raising the same revenues through real estate taxes.

Visitors to Fairfax County would be expected to contribute to about 30% of the revenues generated. What this means is savings across the board for Fairfax County residents (at the expense of visitors to Fairfax County (sorry)). For lower-income households (those with incomes below $30k), a meals tax would cost about half as much as the real estate tax would cost in order to generate the same revenue. For upper-income households ($200k or more), a meals tax would cost about 75% the cost of equivalent real estate taxes.

Only a liberal would claim that paying more in taxes is a "savings". You're starting from the false assumption that FCPS needs more funding. It does not.

[Anonymous]

Could you explain how our household paying a meals tax whenever we get take out or go to a restaurant would result in our household saving money? I'm not following the math.

[jvmorgan]

Anonymous wrote:
Only a liberal would claim that paying more in taxes is a "savings". You're starting from the false assumption that FCPS needs more funding. It does not.

Three things:

First, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society.” It makes sense to debate how taxes are raised and how much taxes are raised (although, given that taxes are driven by spending, and not the other way around, it makes more sense to debate spending priorities). But taxes really shouldn’t be treated as some kind of evil that needs to be stamped out.

Second, as Republican Congressman Dusty Johnson said about promoting civil public debate (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/28/politics-civility-respect-dusty-johnson/):

Give others the benefit of the doubt: Relationships fail when couples stop seeing the best in each other. If our country is to stay together a while longer, for the sake of our kids, we can’t assume that people on the other side of the aisle are always motivated by racism, fascism, communism or some other evil-ism. Assume, instead, that they view an issue differently than you do.

Attacking a position because one sees it as representing liberalism really does little to promote civil public debate.

Third, mathematically a meals tax would provide savings for Fairfax County residents compared with raising the same revenues through real estate taxes. The comparative savings would not come out of nowhere, of course. Rather, the savings for Fairfax County residents would come from our visitors to Fairfax County, such as tourists and commuters, who would be expected to contribute about 30% of the meals tax revenues raised. For lower-income households, this means that raising revenue through a meals tax costs about half what it would cost raising those same revenues through real estate taxes. But other households would benefit as well. Even the highest-income households would only pay about 75% as much in meals taxes to raise the same revenues as a they would pay through real estate taxes.

Most of those visitors paying a meals tax would be our neighbors. But really, a Fairfax Meals Tax would be about reciprocation, not about gouging. Alexandria, Arlington, City of Fairfax, Falls Church, Herndon, Leesburg, Manassas, Manassas Park, Prince William County, and Town of Vienna all have a meals tax in place (several for decades). So Fairfax County residents who have eaten out in these jurisdictions have helped fill their government coffers. A Fairfax County Meals Tax would finally enable their citizens to reciprocate.

[jvmorgan]

Anonymous wrote:Could you explain how our household paying a meals tax whenever we get take out or go to a restaurant would result in our household saving money? I'm not following the math.

The savings comes from visitors to Fairfax County contributing 30% of the meals tax revenues. That means to raise $1 of tax revenue, Fairfax County residents would only have to pay 70¢ in taxes. To raise the equivalent $1 through real estate taxes, Fairfax County residents and businesses would have to pay $1 in taxes.

[Anonymous]

jvmorgan wrote:

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.

It’s mainly (or almost entirely) from data center tax revenue. The meals tax does not generate a meaningful amount of revenue in comparison. Data center related tax revenue for the current fiscal year will be close to $200M including both the personal property and real property taxes. The schools receive around 57% of this money.