Testimony to the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors FY2021 Budget Hearing - 04/28/2020
-- by Arthur G. Purves, President of the President, Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance (fcta.org).
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Board:
My name is Arthur Purves. I address you as president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance. Thank you for holding this hearing. I'll address three topics: raises, schools, and COVID-19.
For two decades, the supervisors have been increasing homeowner real estate taxes three times faster than household income. The major cause of these tax hikes is raises, pensions, and medical insurance. For example, next year's advertised budget proposed 4% raises. These raises plus the increased cost of benefits would have cost $162 million, compared to the $185 million that would have been generated by real estate tax hikes. In other words, raises and benefits would consume nearly 90 percent of the increased revenues from real estate tax hikes.
We would like transparency on raises. For example, the county does not disclose the average salary for uniformed and general county employees. Neither the county nor the schools disclose the number of applicants per job opening, turnover, or raise history compared to inflation.
We're told that these raises are necessary to retain the top employees, but do you need to give all employees the raises necessary to keep the best employees?
We're told that many applicants are unqualified. Aren't these applicants the products of our public schools? Police have stated that raises are needed because there is a small pool of applicants that pass background checks; what does that say about the effectiveness of school counsellors, health teachers, psychologists, and social workers?
Or is the reason for 4% raises campaign contributions? According to the Virginia Public Access Project, in the chairman's race top donors were the firefighters' union, SIEU, and the Mid-Atlantic Laborers' Political Education Fund, who together contributed over $100,000 -- to one race. Supervisors provide disclosures of campaign contributions at the start of zoning hearings. Shouldn't there be a similar disclosure for raises?
Turning to schools, both the county and schools have resolved, with the "One Fairfax" policy, to end racial inequality. This inequality appears in 4th grade reading and math tests. Public schools are not teaching reading and arithmetic in the critical early years of elementary school. This is because of the John Dewey "progressive education", which a century ago replaced phonics with "whole word" and eschewed arithmetic drill. Whole language expects children to guess words based on pictures. The students who succeed are those who learn phonics at home. This discriminates against the low-income generally Hispanic and African-American students. By 4th grade, they are condemned to academic failure and lifelong poverty. The county's $2 billion transfer to schools subsidizes poverty and inequality.
As a Scoutmaster, I remember helping a Scout plan a campout menu. We had nine campers and decided to serve each one-half pound of hamburger. When I asked the Scout, a Fairfax County Public Schools middle school student, how many pounds of hamburger we had to buy, he did not know the answer.
I have worked with affluent white boys and low-income Hispanic boys. The Hispanic boys were just as sharp, if not sharper than the white boys, but they had not been taught in school.
Turning to COVID-19, the county executive's updated FY2021 budget still imposes a real estate tax increase due to higher assessments while private-sector taxpayers are losing jobs and income and small businesses are at risk. Meanwhile county and school employees get full pay while not working.
The governor asserts that it is too early to reopen, but he does not provide evidence. I've asked the governor’s office for that evidence and received no answer. Virginia Department of Health statistics indicate that the COVID-19 and pneumonia mortality rates are no worse than the flu and pneumonia mortality rates in 2018, the last year for which data is available. Hospitals are under-utilized and nurses are being furloughed. When I emailed the Chairman's office about this, after three requests I got the reply that his office would "...enquire about the information you are seeking and make it available if and when it is provided." Where is the empathy? Where is the urgency?
Moreover, the governor sites Article V, Section 7, of the Virginia Constitution for authority to shut down businesses. That section has no such wording.
In summary, we have soaring real estate taxes for raises that may be the result of a conflict of interest; schools that discriminate against Hispanics and African-Americans, with generous funding from a predominately white board of supervisors; and a devastating government economic lockdown that has not been supported by evidence and is unconstitutional.
Surely this Board can do a better job of governing "for the people".
Thank you.