March 15, 2021 at 1:45pm
With budget planning in full swing and tax season looming near, you may be wondering what Arlington County is paying for with your tax dollars.
County officials are currently hammering out the details for the next fiscal year’s budget, which the County Board is slated to adopt on Saturday, April 17 and which will go into effect on July 1. The proposed $1.36 billion budget, which County Manager Mark Schwartz calls a “transition” budget, includes a COVID-19 contingency fund and $16.4 million in cuts.
And while the pandemic forced some revisions to the current 2020-21 budget, the pandemic has not changed the different buckets of spending by the county from Arlington Public Schools to the Department of Parks and Recreation and what proportion of the general fund these sectors receive.
March 1, 2021 at 3:50pm
(Updated at 11:30 a.m.) For his first budget as Superintendent of Arlington Public Schools, Francisco Durán said he is proposing a conservative budget “that reflects our most urgent needs.”
The 2022 budget for APS, which he presented to members of the School Board on Thursday, comes to $704.4 million in expenditures and $661.9 million in revenue. APS, which has expected budget gaps in years past, is expecting a $42.5 million shortfall for its next fiscal year.
“We are facing very unique challenges as our school division works through the pandemic and what is to come,” Durán said. “Over the past year, we have seen the impact that this has had on our local economy and significant losses in revenue in Arlington.”
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Liam Sullivan is a DC resident with a background in landscape architecture, horticulture and political science. He loves all things plants, urban communities, and anything outdoors. He lives in Dupont Circle. Share
UpdatedThu, Feb 18, 2021 at 5:57 pm ET
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In his FY2022 budget proposal, County Manager Mark Schwartz calls for $17.5 million be set aside as a COVID-19 contingency fund. (Shutterstock)
ARLINGTON, VA County Manager Mark Schwartz called the Fiscal Year 2022 budget proposal he was submitting Monday to the County Board a transition budget, one that would move Arlington from a pandemic footing in the direction of a post-pandemic environment. The budget proposal sets aside money for a $17.5 million COVID-19 contingency fund and $500 bonuses for county employees. From Fiscal 21, we completely redid our budget, assuming, based on all the revenue drops that we had, that we needed to make some pretty significant changes, Schwartz said, during a Thursday news conference. Right now, we re hoping that as we move into Fiscal 22, which starts in July, that things will improve a little bit. But having said that, we still needed to make some adjustments and some cuts.