Raise taxes. Raise fees. Parking meter hours extended. Unbelievable. Is there anyone in government who can actually manage finances? I guess you get the government you deserve.

What about a cut in the city manager's $250,000 salary, the highest in the DC area on a population/ budget basis?

Close a couple libraries so a "black history" museum can stay open? WTF?

I agree about the city manager's salary. Why is a city employee making more than the $174,000 that a Senator makes or makes more than a SES in the Federal Government. Maybe the City of Alexandria needs to have a furlough to cut costs and not raise taxes. There will be a point I will not be able to afford to live in Alexandria. So it will be the poor and the rich - just like the way our country is heading. We need to update the schools, not tear them down. There is no correlation between a building and learning. Really, just an excuse to spend. Our city is no better than Congress and the President's spending. Raise Taxes - unbelievable!!!!! LEARN HOW TO STOP SPENDING FOR THE SAKE OF SPENDING!!!!!!!!! Cut salaries!!

Amen regarding the city manager's salary. Combine that with the ACPS superintendent's salary and you have two people, two, accounting for half a million dollars in expenditure of public funds. That is outrageous for a city the size of Alexandria. The positions are public servant positions. Are these individuals truly serving the public when they are taking tax dollars away from services? The bloated administrative salaries must be addressed. The excuse is that they are needed to attract the best and brightest. How has that been working for our city's schools for the past five years?

Something is stinking in the city of Alexandria. We the tax payers need to unite against proposed higher taxes. How much money was spent on the Whats Next Alexandria survey? The big conclusion was citizens want more transparency. Well, where is it? Why are we so far in debt when not long ago Alexandria had a surplus of funds? $250,000.00 is an insane amount to pay someone who has never managed a city longer than 2 years. Where is the experience that warrants this salary?

That's all right with me because we wanted all Democrats on the City Counsel. We got what we voted for!

Many of the candidates running for City Council during last year's debates, including all who won, said that they can see City spending heading north of $1 Billion dollars. So you think this news is bad, in the immortal words of Bachmann Turner Overdrive, you ain't seen nothing yet.

Thanks to the sequester, raising spending and taxes while we homeowners will have to cut back, is not good for the local economy.

How much of these increases is slated to support all the development in the city? How much has the waterfront plan cost us so far? How much have we spent on outside legal services to defend the planning commission? Why is the city paying for the Potomac Yards metro station? Why should the city pay for flood mitigation so hotels can occupy space along Union Street in a flood zone? The pro-development council and the developers have the citizens of Alexandria in a chokehold. They say that development will bring much-needed revenue -- but this budget reflects the truth, which is the opposite of what the pro-development factions claim when trying to get citizens to drink their Kool Aid.

In the article it states that "The proposal includes a 3 cent real estate property tax increase to $1.053 per $100 of assessed value for cash capital investments" - really, last time that I did math, 3 cents added to .998 is 1.028 - maybe this is why all of our budget numbers are up, they can't add. This is an increase of .055, is higher than 3 cents. From the City of Alexandria website: The tax rate in 2011 and 2012 was $0.998 per $100 of assessed value, or 0.998%.

This is an outrageous request. Our proposed assessment went up this year 5.4%, so by adding another 5.3% of tax rate increase our property tax bill will rise almost 11% from 2012 to 2013. And this is at a time when tremendous high-end residential development is increasing the city's tax base. Our tax assessment for 2013 is now 8% higher than it was in 2006 when the tax rate was 0.815, so our property tax bill has increased nearly 40% in seven years. Outrageous.

Just like the previous commenter, my home value increased by about $40,000 with the recent assessment. This is for a modest house of 12,000 square feet. Since I am retired, I could move. That option is looking better today. Please remember that in the fall Mayor and Council election, the accomplishment the Mayor kept touting was that the city had a triple A bond rating and was in great financial shape. Much of this increase is to help in the city achieve goal number one in its strategic plan, increasing development.

My property assessment went up 8.5% this year. If assessments are going up so quickly, there should be no need for rate increases. But, these increases will continue as long as we are ruled by liberal democrats exclusively.

We have school "leaders" who think the secret to improving education is to tear down perfectly usable school buildings and replace them with state of the art, LEED certified, temples.

We keep building sparkling new public housing units with "upgraded Corian tiles in the bathrooms and kitchens," enticing freeloaders from DC to move to Alexandria to enjoy the nicest public housing units in the region.

And we have city leaders who, for decades now, have been allowing city employees to retire at 50 years old with generous pensions. And we agree to keep subsidize the retirees' health insurance, along with their generous pensions! The health care and pension costs are adding up as more of these folks reach retirement every year, and there will be no way out of this because our "leaders" can't think beyond the next election. Buy the endordements of union employees with generous benefits, and hope that some day we figure out how to pay for it all.

"This is for a modest house of 12,000 square feet"

Yeah, and Versailles is a dump.

The Council needs to take a careful look at all of the line items and figure out how to get the most bang for our buck. If city managers staff are indeed making more than the Senior Federal officials, that needs to be looked at. Also, what is the city doing to increase its tax base-- if Landmark Mall could be turned around to generate more taxes, why isn't that being doine? In terms of schools, the fact is that some new schools are needed as ACPS has no place to acoomodate its increasing population and of course better schools will attract more people to the city, increase property values, etc.

I think Katy meant 1200 sq feet. In any event, why do we have a city manager? Can't the mayor and city council handle that job? Or some board?

I can see the city budget being one billion dollars, and more, in a few short years. Taxes and spending will increase so that the City of Alexandria will be one of the most expensive places to live in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area. The cost of living in Alexandria is already very high and quite unaffordable for most people now, but it will be even worse in the next few years, as property taxes go up, along with commercial taxes, making it so that even renters can't afford to live in the city. The City of Alexandria is only 15 square miles, so it's not very big, but with 144,000 residents, I can also see a lot of people moving out of town to get away from all the high taxes, dreadfully bad schools, and terrible traffic congestion that is increasingly getting worse, year-by-year.

One half a million dollars per year to pay two individuals salaries, that's outrageous. Maybe they should look at the new Jefferson Houston school and not tear apart the whole block to just build a school. It would be quite a cost savings to not run a driveway around the swimming pool and not dig up the basketball court and current playground. The developer is going to put a drive way on both sides of the Durant Center, so why tear apart the current configuration. The project is over budget and getting worse each day.

The Mayor and the previous Council hired this city manager at a very high salary to do what they tell him to do. I think the Council-manager form of government works well. Our local government is already much too big to be managed day to day by a part time Mayor and Council. I am sure the city manager's budget choices reflect the desires of City Council and especially the Mayor. The city rezoned Landmark Mall with a higner density mixed use plan several years ago. It can not force the landowners there to tear down what they have and rebuild to the higher density. Gail's right, I put an extra zero in the square footage for my house. Even at just 1200 feet, the Alexandria government has assessed it as being worth well over $600,000.

Considering the new flipped house on Linden was listed at $799,000 @ < 1,600 sq ft and was under contract in litte over a week (what the contract price is should be interesting) as well as other similar sales, it shouldn't be surprising that assessments are going up in our area. No supply and huge demand. Why with that massive increase in home prices, we should get more tax on top of that though is nuts.

Before you comment on this article, remember who you voted for in November and in previous local elections. Regardless of how you label yourself it would do us all good to have a mix of political ideologies representing us at city hall. Maybe next time.

My point is that if the city is large enough to require a city manager/COO, then it's large enough to make the mayoral position full time with commensurate salary. Then we could all elect someone with the skills to manage the city, and do away with the city manager position. What we have now is a system that more or less results in the mayor and council being figureheads to some degree. An unelected person is making the initial budget decisions, and he's not a long time Alexandrian. In any event, I agree that the salary is grossly inflated, as is that of the ACPS superintendent.

Could someone read page 5-2 of the FY 2013 Proposed Budget and tell me if I'm crazy or if these guys seriously don't know how to compute percentage changes?

Also -- why on earth is there a 31% increase in the budget for the City Manager's office from $1,789,977 to $2,361,123??

I thought all the revenue from the new, high density, multi-level condos/apartments that are popping up everywhere was going to pay for everything? Oh, you mean that's also going to lead to more traffic (meaning more road repairs, infrastructure needs, and gridlock) and the City also has to provide services to them, which costs money as well? At least they are building an elementary school to serve all the new residents at Potomac Yard. Oh wait....

All of the comments posted so far are very interesting and should be conveyed at the upcoming public hearings.

Building new schools is necessary in some areas of the City. Similar to when we needed a new high school, the building simply could not be retro-fitted to meet technology changes, updates to HVAC, space needs, etc. I suspect that that is the same rationale for new elementary schools.

Spending needs to be cut. As we expand school budgets to align with the growing student population, we absolutely must crack down on the number of non-city resident students who are attending our schools.

<<Increase the commercial refuse fee so that it’s on par with the residential refuse fee.>>
Sure, *that's* why they did that, so it's "on par." I wonder how much thought was given to the other way they could have set these fees "on par" if that was truly their goal.

So far, I have no major issue with how they closed the budget gap this year (haven't looked at the details of the $13.8M in spending cuts yet). Our tax rates are still easily competitive with our neighbors and still lower than a very brief period during the early 2000's (See page 15 of http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/budget/info/budget2014/FY%202014%20Proposed%20-%20Sec.%207%20-%20Revenues.pdf)

Contrary to other posters claims, raises in the last five years have not been out of line (page 13 of section 10) and average salaries are not exorbitant Page 14 of section 10)

I think the more difficult question is how to control the growth of costs over the next 10 years as outlined in the forecast scenarios (http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/budget/info/budget2014/FY%202014%20Proposed%20-%20Sec.%206%20-%20Forecast%20Scenarios.pdf).

So they've got a budget growing by over 6 percent, which is about 3 times faster than inflation, the money to replace the perfectly-working traffic and pedestrian signals -- and curbs -- along King Street, a budget that proposes an expansion of Bikeshare, someone above noted a large jump in the budget of the City Manager's office, and funding for purchase of "public art", what exactly is this "shortfall" they speak of?

So we're competitive with other tax districts, but our parks aren't as nice, we succumb to weird, expensive, fixations on development in especially contentious areas, but leave the West End and Landmark to founder...what are we getting for it? Incarcerated 10-year olds?
Oh well. The paraphrase Mencken, after November, the people got what they wanted, good and hard.

This is not just business as usual. The city wants to close Warwick Pool which serves a neighborhood with young families and has a very high rate of use. The city has fought renovating it for years, in spite of its popularity. If they want to encourage a green city, a neighborhood pool that hundreds can walk down shady streets to visit on hot summer days delivers a better return than expanding bike share. And that does not even address physical fitness for kids. Where would Alexandrians rather see their kids on a hot summer day - sitting in a dark, air-conditioned house, or having a blast in the neighborhood pool? It's a neighborhood institution for kids and a blessed respite for parents. Wake up, City Hall.

We are all to blame. Had our time at the voting booth.

For those of you who are concerned about the direction of our city government, taxation, and property rights; you might want to tune into the issue which once was limited to waterfront rezoning but now has enormous potentially detrimental impacts to property owners city wide. Visit www.whatsreallynext.com for details and let your voices be heard on Tuesday night - March 5th. This is a very big deal..... Join the joint neighborhood task force to help stop this.

raise raise raise raise raise raise.............................cut library hours and lessen ACPS funding.

Well done Alexandria. Pay more, educate less. This is EXACTLY how to govern. So sad.

I certainly agree that public service salaries for city employees must, must come down (and the experience and competence required to be in one of those positions must go up). It is ludacris. Also, I would like to see the numbers of visitors for the black history museum compared with that of libraries that will lose hours. If and only if the numbers of people visiting/using that museum significantly surpass the combined numbers of those in and out of the libaries per hour should this be considered (which I'm willing to bet is not the case). The recommendation itself is laughable. My neighborhood library (Duncan) already has hopelessly limited hours. Libraries are a resource that promote learning about ANY history (among a million other topics). Already Duncan is not opened at ALL on Sunday one of the only two days working people can spend time with their children there (or their own time there). City residents (who use the library) can reasonably be expected to use the library monthly (if not more frequently) but who can really say that more than 1-2 visits per year to a small, very specific museum with limited resources and infrequently rotating exhibits will be a draw? I'm a huge proponent of museums, but not at the sake of libraries.

I have visited the Black History Museum several times and been impressed with the exhibits. Wouldn't it make more sense to take a section of the Main or Queen Street libraries (or both) and devote to Black History? The exposure would be so much greater and there would be the benfit of professional librarians for serious scholars.

The Black History Museum is just an emotional distractor to the real issues at hand. It's the cozy relationships that some of the city council members have with the developers in the area that is driving up the taxes for everyone.

I agree, but to me that is an example of our city government's weakness. They would rather be politically correct and get good press than be effective.

In the 60s and 70s, Black History museums were placed in African-American neighborhoods to encourage Black pride. At that time, Black history hardly existed in schools. . Now it has been embraced as part of our Natinal heritage. Thus, the Anacostia museum closes and a huge African American History Museum is constructed on the Mall. Yet Alexandria hangs on, treating Black History as an aside. How much more effective the great exhibits would be if in the public libraries instead of a small venue with limited hours.

where was the outrage of Rashad Young's salary of $250,000 back in 2011.
If you don't like the constant tax hikes - make sure to vote out the City Council members in the next election. To be honest there should be term limits on all elected positions. Good example, Justin Wilson, newly elected but took a sabbatical for a term.

For the next election, I would like to see a candidates who is a fiscal conservative.

And who is going to hire this conservative? Like begets like.....

Look to Detroit for your future

The people of Alexandria are getting exactly what they voted for when they put in an all Democratic City Council. It is time to shut your yaps and pay up suckers.

You get what you vote for.