McDaniel on FCPS budget

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

A vast majority of funding goes to in school teachers and staff.

Their budget is just shy of 4 billion this year.

When is tge last time they had a full audit for waste, fraud and abuse?

Surely, with a close to 4 billion dollar budget, FCPS could find some things to shave off the top at Gatehouse.

Not all programs are successful. Deprioritize waste first.

What are these wasteful programs? The only cost for a “program” in FCPS is a teacher unless that program also entails special transportation. Do you mean foreign language classes? Advanced STEM classes? Music classes? AP classes?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm for it. Will tax more undocumented individuals.

What?

[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.

We don’t need more taxes - meals, real estate, etc. real estate tax has been horrible.

[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.

This is why FFX home owners will vote no on a meals tax. You will continue to raise our property taxes every single year and not use the meals tax as an offset to doing that.
This will be a tax in addition to. My property taxes have increased 50% since 2015 on my little 1200 sq ft house.

No vote from homeowners is required to do a meals tax.

[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.

This is why FFX home owners will vote no on a meals tax. You will continue to raise our property taxes every single year and not use the meals tax as an offset to doing that.
This will be a tax in addition to. My property taxes have increased 50% since 2015 on my little 1200 sq ft house.

No vote from homeowners is required to do a meals tax.

I need a raise too. Will the meal tax give me some money?

[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.

This is why FFX home owners will vote no on a meals tax. You will continue to raise our property taxes every single year and not use the meals tax as an offset to doing that.
This will be a tax in addition to. My property taxes have increased 50% since 2015 on my little 1200 sq ft house.

No vote from homeowners is required to do a meals tax.

This. It will probably feature prominently in state wide adds if the council imposes a meals tax a few years after residents say no. Locally, it won't impact anything. State wide, it might swing elections

[Anonymous]

I thought the lottery money was supposed to be for schools. what happened to that?

don't forget everyone's favorite-the car tax.

[jvmorgan]

Anonymous wrote:
I cited those pages because there is a project that will include some of the same amenities/function etc and 1 designated area has a special tax district and the other will not. This goes back 9 years and some members of the BOS noted the issue.

Well I appreciate it when anyone, even those who oppose adopting a meals tax, try to back up their assertions with supporting evidence. Too many meals tax opponents throw out wild assertions without support. Unsurprisingly, many of those assertions don’t hold up to even minimal scrutiny.

For example, a post immediately following your claims that Fairfax County raised real estate taxes 10% per year, a rate of increase that would double real estate taxes every seven years and quadruple them every fourteen years. No evidence cited.

The assertion definitely doesn’t hold up looking at the past seven years. For FY2018, aggregate real estate revenues were expected to be $2.4B ( https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/budget/sites/budget/files/Assets/documents/fy2016/adopted/volume1/where_from_pie_chart.pdf). For FY2025, aggregate real estate revenues (i.e., revenues including not only any increases in rates and assessments, but also new and improved properties) are expected to have grown to $3.6B (https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/budget/sites/budget/files/Assets/Documents/fy2025/adopted/overview/Pie%20Chart%20Where%20it%20Comes%20From.pdf). That’s a much more modest annual increase in revenues of 4.5% over a period where, due to some years of higher-inflation, the cost of just maintaining existing government services has gone up more than usual.

If real estate tax revenues continued to grow at that rate—perhaps in part because there are more developments in Fairfax County increasing the stock of taxable properties—it would take sixteen years, not seven, for aggregate real estate tax revenues to double.

Hope you eventually come around on the meals tax. Even if not, thank you for trying to make your case based on objective facts and not based on a caricature of reality.

[jvmorgan]

Anonymous wrote:
I need a raise too. Will the meal tax give me some money?

A meals tax would save Fairfax County residents money compared with raising the same revenues through real estate taxes, thanks largely to the fact that 30% of meals tax revenues would be expected to come from visitors to Fairfax County.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought the lottery money was supposed to be for schools. what happened to that?

don't forget everyone's favorite-the car tax.

Lottery proceeds do go to schools, but it was only $934 million last year.

https://www.valottery.com/playingmatters/givingback/

[Anonymous]

jvmorgan wrote:

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.

Again, you are proceeding from the false assumption that FCPS needs more funding. There are no "savings" here - just more taxpayer money flushed down the toilet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

A vast majority of funding goes to in school teachers and staff.

Their budget is just shy of 4 billion this year.

When is tge last time they had a full audit for waste, fraud and abuse?

Surely, with a close to 4 billion dollar budget, FCPS could find some things to shave off the top at Gatehouse.

Not all programs are successful. Deprioritize waste first.

What are these wasteful programs? The only cost for a “program” in FCPS is a teacher unless that program also entails special transportation. Do you mean foreign language classes? Advanced STEM classes? Music classes? AP classes?

Example #1: Changing middle school start times. A total waste of time and money.

[jvmorgan]

Anonymous wrote:
This. It will probably feature prominently in state wide adds if the council imposes a meals tax a few years after residents say no. Locally, it won't impact anything. State wide, it might swing elections

It has been nearly eight years since the 2016 meals tax referendum. During the dueling campaigns leading up to that referendum, meals tax opponents threw out claims like spaghetti at the wall (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/what-fairfax-county-voters-really-think-about-taxes-and-spending/2018/03/01/30aa7106-1bda-11e8-98f5-ceecfa8741b6_story.html). For example, some of the people I talked to were absolutely convinced that a meals tax would hurt lower-income households the most, a falsehood that was recently trotted out once again, but that doesn’t accord with the reality that it would cost the lowest-income households half as much to help raise revenues through a meals tax as it would cost them to raise such revenues through real estate taxes.

[Anonymous]

jvmorgan wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I need a raise too. Will the meal tax give me some money?

A meals tax would save Fairfax County residents money compared with raising the same revenues through real estate taxes, thanks largely to the fact that 30% of meals tax revenues would be expected to come from visitors to Fairfax County.

LOL, give it up.

[jvmorgan]

Anonymous wrote:
“A meals tax would save Fairfax County residents money compared with raising the same revenues through real estate taxes, thanks largely to the fact that 30% of meals tax revenues would be expected to come from visitors to Fairfax County.”

LOL, give it up.

As an engaged citizen of Fairfax County who wants to see its government adopt smart policies, I am happy to engage in public discussion on matters such as a meals tax where I have something useful to contribute. I am sure that opponents of a meals tax, who really don’t have a good argument against raising revenues in a manner that costs Fairfax County residents less than it would cost them to raise the same revenues through real estate taxes, would be happy for me to shut up with all the facts and logic. But I don’t want to disengage simply because some people, perhaps driven by ideology rather than by any sort of objective analysis, don’t want to hear why a meals tax in Fairfax County makes a lot sense. I am proud to show my support for improving our local government tax base through diversification of revenues which would increase the expected growth in the tax base (food away from home expenditures in Northern Virginia grow about a percentage point higher than real estate assessments), would increase the expected stability of tax revenues (growth in food away from home expenditures in Northern Virginia are poorly correlated with growth in real estate assessments), and that would cost Fairfax County residents less (about 50% for lower-income households and about 25% for higher-income households) than real estate taxes in order to raise equivalent revenues.

Taxes are the price we pay for civilization, and I am happy to help improve how we raise tax revenues. Frankly, I don’t know any good reasons why any supervisor would vote against raising at least some revenues through a meals tax. The only reason I can think of is that it might be good politics to oppose a meals tax, thus placating those who oppose a meals tax, even if it might cost them more because visitors to Fairfax County aren’t contributing 30% to a stream of tax revenue like they would through a meals tax. Then again, good politics does not always correlate with good leadership.