The next fiscal years County Budget will be $500 million short, what to do? (Alexandria: landscaping, high schools)

[Weekend Traveler]

Remember all the talk earlier this year about the huge deficit in the Fairfax County Budget. It was close to 400 million. Well after some creative accounting, some cuts, salary freezes and a huge tax increase some how we survived. Well wait until next year. The shortage is going to be even worse for the 2011 budget year that will start on July 2010.

What should the County do to eliminate the additional 500 million deficit?

Here are some ideas:

Raise taxes to make up the difference
Cut wages for the county employees including teachers and police
Close all the libraries
Sell park land to developers
Increase class sizes again in the schools
Cut police and fire

[VRE332]

Originally Posted by Weekend Traveler

Remember all the talk earlier this year about the huge deficit in the Fairfax County Budget. It was close to 400 million. Well after some creative accounting, some cuts, salary freezes and a huge tax increase some how we survived. Well wait until next year. The shortage is going to be even worse for the 2011 budget year that will start on July 2010.

What should the County do to eliminate the additional 500 million deficit?

Here are some ideas:

Raise taxes to make up the difference
Cut wages for the county employees including teachers and police
Close all the libraries
Sell park land to developers
Increase class sizes again in the schools
Cut police and fire

How about get rid of 2/3rds of the County Police cockroaches pulling over people for farting the wrong way. Schools should never be put on this list. How about keeping the taxes the same as last year, just raise the tax rate, which should equal out.

[Caladium]

Hmmm, now we know what they'll do with those fines for texting while driving...

As a serious answer, every year the school systems spend a fortune on hardbound textbooks. So I like the idea of phasing out those antiquated, expensive textbooks in favor of having books online. After all, young people are the first to adopt new online technologies so they'll take to it easily.

The thing I like best about this idea is that books can be much more up-to-date. Scientific discoveries and moments in history can be added as they happen. California's high schools have already created an academic standards review that online texts need to pass, I think we should adopt their standards review. I'm sure their standards are fine, and we can also save money if (just this once) we can resist the desire to re-invent the wheel.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by VRE332

How about get rid of 2/3rds of the County Police cockroaches pulling over people for farting the wrong way. Schools should never be put on this list. How about keeping the taxes the same as last year, just raise the tax rate, which should equal out.

Or, raise the fine for farting the wrong way. To the left only, please, or that'll be a $100 fine.

[Caladium]

I'll tell you one thing they should not cut... whatever you do, do not eliminate the fees for snowplows!!! I lived in a county that tried that and so naturally the next winter we had record breaking snowfall for 3 months straight.

[Denton56]

How about we cut the school bureaucracy by half? No one would notice or care. Do we really need thousands of people in the central office, 8 cluster offices, and 6 assistant principals at every high school? Put half of them back in the classroom and get rid of the rest of them.

[Alicia Bradley]

How about putting an end to the crooked deals between the county and its supervisors' contractor buddies?

They've been working on the interchange in Huntington (immediately south of Alexandria City) since well before I moved here in Jan. '07. They've finally put in pedestrian crosswalks and stoplights, but the stoplights have been non-functioning, with pieces of brown paper taped to their display units/screens, since they were installed over a month ago. (They also planted some tall wildflowers, but these have already died - presumably since no one has watered them. Will they come back if we get rain for awhile? I'm not a plant person and so have no idea.)

[VRE332]

Originally Posted by Denton56

How about we cut the school bureaucracy by half? No one would notice or care. Do we really need thousands of people in the central office, 8 cluster offices, and 6 assistant principals at every high school? Put half of them back in the classroom and get rid of the rest of them.

They should bring in the VA National Guard, and let them run Fairfax County. Heads will roll , and things will get done.

[Weekend Traveler]

What ever they do, the supervisors will make a point to close, cancel or cut back the programs that are the most visible and painful to the public. That is why I chose the things like libraries, class size, parks, etc. Instead of not replacing a government worker who does nothing all day, they will drastically cut library hours.

[normie]

Originally Posted by Weekend Traveler

What ever they do, the supervisors will make a point to close, cancel or cut back the programs that are the most visible and painful to the public. That is why I chose the things like libraries, class size, parks, etc. Instead of not replacing a government worker who does nothing all day, they will drastically cut library hours.

Well, that's one opinion. So far, however, what's actually what happened is they discussed solutions such as adding fees to Riverbend Park. But in the end they opted for another solution. Most of the solutions have been cutting jobs that were already vacant. This is a transitional area, people are still moving and retiring. When they do, their jobs are not being filled.

I don't know about the Fairfax libraries, but I do know that Loudoun considered cutting library hours. Then they chose not to. I believe they chose to cut various landscaping services, instead. So if a median has long grass and weeds, try to appreciate them as wildflowers, as a natural look, as something you'd love to see out in the country. And god bless those weeds, they are keeping our libraries open.