Comments On Proposed FY 2026 Budget In Fairfax County: Letter

The following letter was sent on Tuesday to Dranesville District Supervisor Jimmy Bierman and the other nine members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors.

Dear Supervisor Bierman:

Citizens For Great Falls, a consortium of Great Falls residents who have joined together to address issues and concerns impacting our community and the community-at-large, provides the following comments regarding the FY 2026 County Budget.

Based on the efforts you and the Board have put into this process, we hope our comments can assist in attaining more economies in this budget planning process. The following areas are offered for your further consideration:

More Equitable Distribution Of Reductions

We urge the Board of Supervisors to go back to the administrative agencies and recommend further reductions, especially in staffing, and to apply the principles and creative methods offered by their counterparts in public safety. Although minor reductions have been proposed by most departments, they do not compare to the significant adjustments previously recommended by the County Executive or to those offered by both the police and fire and rescue departments.

Those two front-line organizations have put forward substantial staff adjustments that deliver meaningful budget savings without impacting on the operational tempo of their departments. In the case of the fire service, reclassifying and downgrading positions and reducing the reliance on overtime resulted in a significant overall budget reduction—approximately 20% of the total proposed FY2026 Budget reductions. Similarly, the police department’s proposed staffing realignments and overtime adjustments represent another 20% of the overall budget cuts.

In another example of a front-line service delivery organization, the Fairfax-Falls Church Community Services Board has proposed a significant overall reduction of its funding level, and there are other agency reductions that also target front-line service delivery.

Taken as a whole, we consider that there is a disproportionate fiscal impact on those agencies engaged in front-line public safety, health, and community services.

We also acknowledge the assurance that proposed creative staffing and redeployment of emergency medical services units based on peak call periods will not result in a degradation of services, for example, but we remain deeply concerned about the impact these changes could have on the affected communities. Therefore, we would expect any negative impacts to response time for emergency services, especially involving advanced life support, to result in the restoration of fire and rescue department units to their originally assigned locations.

Freeze New Program Implementation

We recommend other methods to be considered to increase the reductions in the budget. Specifically, across the board elimination or postponement of new program implementation. For example, because the County Executive has stated that there is no plan in place for implementation of the proposed Unified Sanitation Districts (USD) that would establish a new waste collection system throughout the County, and the fiscal impact of the plan is not well defined, and that it would result in the creation of new staff positions, a public hearing scheduled for June 24 should be cancelled and program planning for USD put on hold.

Freeze On Backfilling Vacancies

Currently there are approximately 50 job vacancy announcements posted for county positions. Several of those positions are in public safety roles that would be required to offset the demand for overtime. While they should be exempted, action to fill other positions should be postponed.

Eliminate Out-Of-State Travel To Conferences

During this period of belt tightening, agencies should eliminate all out-of-state, overnight, conference attendance and travel.

Eliminate all non-competitive contracting All county contracts should be based on competition to assure the best level of service and value. No “no-bid” contracts should be permitted.

Surplus Utilization

Each year the county has had a budget surplus that is typically utilized for smaller transportation projects and an unallocated reserve that does have a specific use associated. Should at some point in the budget execution process revenue projections change, we recommend any surplus/reserve to be dedicated to offsetting the need for the property tax increase. Also, we recommend prioritizing transportation safety projects around schools such as crosswalks and ASE (automated safety enforcement) implementation.

Meals Tax To Offset Real Estate Tax Burden

While we do not support a proposed meals tax, based on the previous referendum results and current opposition testimony, should the Board enact such a tax we recommend that all revenues derived be used to offset the real estate tax burden on county residents.

Thank you for your consideration of these budget issues. We would be happy to discuss these matters with you at any time.

Sincerely,

John Halsey and Jennifer Falcone

Citzens for Great Falls