What a County Government Does When It Has Too Much Money

The Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, here in the Washington suburbs, complains that property taxes have soared over the past seven years. The typical Fairfax homeowner is paying $4830 a year in property taxes. The FCTA points out that "if during the past seven years the Supervisors had held real estate tax increases to the rate of inflation, which averaged three percent per year, the typical homeowner would be paying $3,079." Home values have been rising fast in the Washington area (at least until the past year), so taxes have also increased sharply.

Taxpayers urge the supervisors to cut taxes. The supervisors--in Fairfax County and everywhere else--respond, "Would you have us close fire stations or fire teachers or throw widows out in the snow?" Somehow they never discuss, as another item in the FCTA newsletter does, the fact that salaries and benefits have increased far more than population growth or any other measure over the past seven years. Just hold county employees' salary increases to the rate of inflation, and you could save the taxpayers a lot of money.

Or maybe, just maybe, Fairfax County's $3.3 billion annual budget contains some low-priority items, like this one that was the subject of a charming article in the Washington Post:

This group of 12 kids, ages 6 to 10, are in the otherwise empty cafeteria of Anthony T. Lane Elementary School in Alexandria for the last of their eight Saturday morning classes on manners, offered through the Fairfax County Park Authority.