Alexandria City Council OKs $588 Million Budget for Fiscal Year 2013

City Council on Monday evening voted unanimously to adopt a $587.9 million operating budget for fiscal year 2013 and to leave the real estate tax rate unchanged at 99.8 cents per $100 of assessed property value.

The 2013 budget is a 3.7 percent increase from FY2012.

Other city tax rates, as well as the solid waste and sanitary sewer tax rates, remain unchanged. The average Alexandria homeowner’s taxes will increase by $52, or 1.2 percent, due to increased property values, according to the city.

“We wish we could have done more, but we feel we were responsive” to the needs and concerns of the community, said Mayor Bill Euille in council chambers before the 7-0 vote.

Additionally, the city will transfer $179.5 million to Alexandria City Public Schools for FY2013 operating expenses, an increase of $4.5 million, or 2.6 percent.

Approved city employees will receive merit step increases at a cost of $3.3 million. Council also allocated $900,000 to fund employee career ladders and to address how public safety employees’ progress on the pay scale compared to other jurisdictions.

The Virginia General Assembly also recently passed legislation requiring local governments participating in the Virginia Retirement System to ensure that their employees contribute 5 percent of their salary to the retirement system.  Local governments must provide employees with a 5 percent salary increase, and can phase in the requirement. Alexandria decided to gradually implement the 5 percent contribution and salary requirement at 1 percent annually, beginning July 1. As part of that process, the city took $1.23 million that the state allocated to ACPS to use to balance the city side of the budget, a move that Councilman Rob Krupicka opposed although other members supported.

Without that move, the city could have been faced with raising the tax rate.

Krupicka also noted that the city’s move to absorb those funds takes away a hoped-for pre-kindergarten coordinator position.

“My personal ire is against the [Virginia] General Assembly” for making this retirement system decision, School Board Chairman Sheryl Gorsuch told Patch after the budget work session, adding that in Alexandria, “it’s an election year.”

During the work session, Euille sought to placate concerns, saying: “We’re going to fully fund ACPS. They are going to have monies to take care of all of their needs.“

The FY13 budget includes:

• Support for Complete Streets, a new program that reactivates city efforts to implement pedestrian, vehicular, and bicycle-friendly transit and safety measures ($532,000). In a budget work session, Vice Mayor Kerry Donley indicated there’s a backlog of projects poised for Complete Streets, which have been on a waiting list for three years.
• Restoration of senior citizen taxi reservation services provided by Senior Services of Alexandria ($70,000), and contingent reserve funding dedicated to expansion of the Meals on Wheels service for senior citizens ($39,983).
• Funding for maintaining a position, previously funded by the federal government, to help prevent gang crime ($85,000).
• Restoration of Healthy Families program funding reduced by state budget cuts ($56,607).
• Restoration of funding for the Teen Wellness Center, located at and operated by the Alexandria Health Department, to replace a loss of state funding ($65,000).
• Funding for marketing and advertising used by the Alexandria Economic Development Partnership to attract businesses to Alexandria ($83,365).
• Support for increasing the operating hours of the Alexandria Library Special Collections Branch at the Barrett Library ($50,000), which were reduced by the city in FY 2011.