Blog posts are the personal views of Letty Hardi and not official statements or records on behalf of the Falls Church City Council

Dear Friends,

It’s been a big week — we welcomed a huge commercial real estate tour to Falls Church, I received my first invitation to the White House, we celebrated important women of Falls Church past and present, we kicked off Asian American Pacific Islander Month with our first celebration at City Hall, AND we adopted a budget. Whew! Read on for a quick recap including my thoughts on the budget and importance of regionalism.

Best,
Letty

PS – Looking ahead – we’ve got packed agendas for the rest of our May meetings, including kicking off the Accessory Dwelling Unit work next week by reviewing policy goals, proposed schedule, and community engagement plan; budget amendments (on last year’s budget); solid waste management plan; commercial parking code updates.

What Happened This Week:

(1) FY25 Budget Adoption

By a 6-1 vote, we adopted the FY25 Budget and Capital Improvements Program, a $138M operating budget and nearly $190M of capital investments in the coming 6 years. (I looked up my first newbie budget in 2016 – that FY17 budget was about $85M. A lot has happened in 8 budgets!) The press release has a good summary, but I’ll share some highlights that were notable to me:

• With strong revenue projections (8% overall, with 3.7% from residential and 19.1% commercial – a rarity in the region this year) – we are funding key priorities of the City while lowering the real estate tax rate two pennies to $1.21. See tax rate history.
• The FY25 budget, both schools and general government, is growing 7% over last year. For context, our year-over-year growth rate over the past 10 years has been about 3.5%, so 7% growth is double that average.
• Revenue sharing: we are sharing our organic revenue (after the tax rate cut) evenly with the schools – about $52M each, which is a $3.5M increase over last year.
• For the median homeowner: even with tax rate reduction, the annual tax bill will increase $174 due to assessed values rising. Stormwater and sewer fees are increasing to keep up with inflation, with an impact of $10 and $15, respectively, for the median homeowner.

• Competitive pay for the City workforce, with comparable increases of 6% for both general government and school employees along with significant increases in the workforce with 14 new FTEs in general government and 8 new FTEs in the schools.
• 3x the investment in affordable housing, public safety, sidewalks, transportation safety, environment priorities, technology and process improvements to keep improving customer service.
• 2 extra hours for the library on the weekend.

We also adopted the budget in the backdrop of the state budget being approved last weekend, just in the nick of time. It restores Metro funding for the next two years so that Virginia shares the cost with localities and will send additional funds to the schools.

Also, the current fiscal year FY23 will end in about 6 weeks and we’ll likely be facing a surplus, so we’ll be discussing how to fund additional needs with that one-time money.

Letty’s Thoughts: This budget does a whole lot of good! We continue to be an ambitious little city with big priorities. When I take a step back, I recognize how incredibly fortunate we are by being able to make foundational investments in people, infrastructure, and processes while balancing the rising cost of living for taxpayers with a tax rate reduction. Around the region, most local governments are increasing taxes and decreases services whereas we are decreasing taxes and increasing services. That’s remarkable.

Budgets are all about balance. And while there are of course always more things we can fund, my budget philosophy over the past 8 years has always started from a place of fiscal responsibility and using taxpayer dollars wisely to fund core services and programs – now and at a sustainable pace in years to come. And with many budget seasons under my belt for comparison, this has been one of diligence and care. I am grateful to city staff and my colleagues for their hard work and collaboration as evident by our marathon work sessions, listening in office hours and public meetings, and detailed questions.

(2) Celebrations All Around

AAPI Month: while we’ve recognized Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month in Falls Church for many years, we hosted our first cultural celebration at City Hall this week before our Monday meeting. I was blown away by the amazing performances and am so grateful to our friends for sharing their talent with us. A few photos here and more on my city Facebook page.

Women’s History Walk: it was a beautiful sunny Saturday last weekend to celebrate women of the past and present. A new to the scene Falls Church news publication, The Falls Church Independent, does a great job with photos and recap.

Importance of Regionalism: we welcomed the NAIOP bus tour (an association of commercial real estate professionals) to Falls Church – which toured inside the Beltway markets of Alexandria, Arlington, and Tysons – with a lunch stop at the West Falls project. It was a great opportunity to compare and contrast commercial real estate across the region and see how unique Falls Church is.

I also got to see regional friends at various events in the past week, including the opening of the Biden-Harris NOVA office, an invitation to the White House, and more.

Whew – it’s been a busy week. When we are the smallest jurisdiction in the region, this week has also been an important reminder to stay connected with our neighbors as we are part of a bigger ecosystem, with many shared priorities and issues.

What’s Coming Up:

Monday, May 20 – City Council Work Session*

Tuesday, May 28 – City Council Meeting*

Monday, June 3 – City Council Work Session*

Monday, June 10 – City Council Meeting*

*Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings