Monday, April 16, 2007
April NewsletterThis is a long newsletter this month, so I’ll dive right in, below, with the many items for your consideration. Happy Spring! Rob (If you would like to be added to the list, simply send a message to
Greening An Inconvenient Truth As a follow-up to my recent showing of An Inconvenient Truth, I know a number of people are still interested in seeing the movie, or in seeing it again. For this year’s Earth Day, there will be a free viewing of An Inconvenient Truth on Friday, April 20th at Earth Day Our Alexandria Earth Day Celebration will take place from 9 to noon on Saturday, April 21, at Environmental Discussion A number of people have asked me about an opportunity to sit and discuss environmental issues in Putting the Numbers Together: City Budget Update The Process Last fall, Council set aggressive budget targets for the city manager. This was done to lower the baseline operating cost of our city government in order to help us better manage city spending. This was a new approach to our budget. In the past, the budget proposed by the city manager was an “all things” budget that fully funded a broad range of efforts. That type of budget lets the elected officials cut the budget down in a few places and essentially “look good” by saying they tried to manage spending. Many jurisdictions still do it this way. But I think this approach fails to provide for transparency and collaboration and instead makes it harder to fully evaluate the city budget. With the new budget process, the council made a conscience choice to move to a model where the budget process begins with a base-line budget draft from the city manager. This enables staff, which has the benefit of close proximity to the actual spending, to take the first cut at finding efficiencies and proposing spending reductions. However, the budget process does not end with the target or staff’s preliminary proposal. The target is the starting point. The council and the community have a responsibility to evaluate and debate the merits of those cuts and to determine which of them make sense and which don’t. While not perfect, the process has worked. The city manager has lowered the baseline operating cost of the city by reducing staff and programs. The schools, with many cuts in staffing and expenditures, have also reduced the baseline cost of the schools. We have spent the last two months evaluating the many cuts proposed by the targets. There will be an effect on city services, but in general I think the city staff has done a good job of minimizing changes to service quality. As one example, we are going to pave many of our streets with only an inch of asphalt instead of two inches. We are told this won’t create future maintenance issues. Some hours of operation for city services may be modified. And some services that were free or almost free may see fee increases. We are cutting back the work-force for the first time in a number of years. And there are infrastructure projects that are being slowed down or delayed. Depending on how frequently you interact with city services, you may or may not notice any changes, but they are there. The city won’t be doing as much next year, and some projects may take longer than they used to, but in general I think city staff has done a good job of minimizing harm to core city services. Tax Bills The Council goal has been and is to keep the average property tax bill lower than last year’s. Working with averages is always a challenge as some owners have seen sharp value declines while others have seen property value growth this year. Despite a desire to treat everybody the same, property taxes are never going to rise and fall at the same rate across the community. There are two major activities that help us keep tax bills down this year. The first comes from commercial property growth and new development. Those two areas of revenue generation for the city make up a significant piece of new revenues this year. The second activity involves program cuts. The final budget will include a substantial number of program cuts, staff reductions and project delays by both the city and schools. At this point in the process, it seems all but certain that the average residential tax bill will be down. It is also clear there will be changes to programs and a reduction in city and school staff. How much the average tax bill will be down and the final composition of program changes is now the question. Cost of Living Adjustments The preliminary budget draft did not include funds for a cost of living increase for staff salaries (COLA). Everybody on the council has talked about the need to provide city and school staff with some form of a COLA to ensure that we retain good employees. Our region’s rising cost of living, the strong competition from other localities for teachers and police officers, the competition from federal jobs that often pay more than local jobs all factor into our analysis of staff salaries. It has become easier and less expensive for city employees to buy homes outside of Quality Child Care for the Working Poor In looking at program reductions, many of us on the council were struck by the over 200 children that are now on a waiting list for quality child care and pre-school services due to federal cuts in funding. We had hoped the governor and general assembly would be able to pick-up this funding, but despite attempts to do so, the general assembly chose not to. These programs were put in place many years ago to help move people off of welfare and towards work. The cuts leave working-poor families with no help for child care. It is a proven fact that children that receive inadequate child care are less likely to show up to school ready to learn and ultimately will require more school resources to help them succeed or pass state and federally mandated tests. I don’t expect our city can cover or should cover the gaps of every federal and state cut. There are programs that are being scaled back this year due to federal cuts. But we are taking a close look at this particular effort and its impact on our work-force. Red Light Cameras In past newsletters I have heard from many of you about the need to bring red-light camera’s back. This year, the General Assembly passed a law to allow us to do that. For this budget, we are reviewing options to re-install red-light cameras in The School Budget The school budget, comprising about a third of all city spending, has received and will continue to receive the closest review and the most discussion. This year’s school budget starts off more challenging than previous years as baseline school revenues are less than previous years due to state funding changes and a few other factors. To respond to this and the constrained budget outlook, the schools have cut substantially out of their base-line programs, reducing over 60 positions. The schools are also going through a state performance audit right now and we will know the results of that effort later this year. Some of the factors affecting school costs are worth discussing. Attracting prospective staff members to our community requires us to provide competitive salaries. We compete for teachers with faster-growing school districts in communities like Loudoun and Fairfax where it is less expensive for our teachers to live and where pay is competitive. Those jurisdictions are also hiring teachers at a faster rate than we are. Over 80% of the school budget is salaries compared to about 50% of the city budget. That difference has a large impact when we compare budget growth rates between the city and the schools. Employee compensation, with career ladder salary scales and cost of living adjustments, grows much faster than non-personnel costs. Salary scales at the federal, state or local level provide higher pay as employees advance in their careers and move up the “ladder”. In addition to career advancement, employees also receive cost of living adjustments so that the salary scale keeps up with rising costs. The school budget, because it is almost entirely comprised of staff costs, will always grow at a faster rate than the city budget that includes more infrastructure and supplies where costs grow at a slower rate. Compared to the region, These results are all facts our community should rightfully be very proud of. We are starting to see the result of school improvement as more families elect to stay in I don’t expect the city will be able to provide the schools with every dollar they have requested. There are too many competing needs and revenues are too constrained. The superintendent and school board members have outlined and considered a number of potential program reductions -- some that would impact classrooms and students, and some that would not. I am hopeful that they can review those reduction proposals and perhaps some new ones as well in order to find a way to reduce costs while also taking good care of school quality. I believe the Council is committed to work closely with the school board to ensure we protect classroom quality. Rainy Days One final thought on the budget. Looking past this budget, it is critical we recognize that we are likely in for a few lean budget years. Given that, it is important that we ensure we have a strong “rainy day” fund to help us through potential the next few years. As we look at this budget, I think it is important we ensure our reserves are in the best possible condition to help us with likely future lean budget years. We have another month of budget work to go. As always, feel free to send me your thoughts and questions. I know there are a lot of different opinions and perspectives out there. I always appreciate hearing from you.
New Small Business Opens My Bakery and Café opened recently in Arlandria. I have been there twice already. The Bolivian food is great and the Tres Leches cake is amazing. My daughters couldn’t eat the cake fast enough and they loved the chicken fingers. My Bakery is owned by a local Alexandrian named David Escobar. He owns a few of these around the region, but this is his first establishment in Address: Economic Development – Landmark Mall A number of people have pointed out that Landmark Mall’s decline has really hurt our community. This 60-acre site has lost much of its value over the last 15 years. One astute newsletter reader did some research about this: “I did a little analyzing of the economic presentation you sent me last month, focusing on Landmark Mall. Since it has been a long time since the benchmark assessment ($204.9M in 1991) ,I used the CPI calculator in the Bureau of Labor Statistcis website, a commonly used metric, to see what the reported 2007 assessment of $84M would be worth in constant 1991 dollars. The answer came back as about $56M, meaning that since 2007 dollars are "worth less" -- due to inflation - than 1991 dollars, the actual assessed value is in constant terms has decreased even more than it appears. Simply put, the 2007 assessment is only about 27% of the 1991 assessment.” Getting Landmark Mall back on solid economic footing is important for our City tax base and also for our quality of life. We could benefit from a high quality retail center that could keep us in Come listen to Gregory Hamm of General Growth Properties and JoAnne Carter of Public Financial Management talk about Landmark Mall and Alexandria’s ability to compete at the next Agenda Alexandria dinner meeting on April 23rd (reception at 6:30 PM and Program starts at 7:15 PM). If you are interested in attending, contact Sherry Brown at 703-549-4696 or send e-mail to AgendaAlexandria@aol.com State Transportation Funding Update (from Virginians for Better Transportation) The first significant transportation funding package for For more information about the transportation funding crisis or Virginians for Better Transportation, call 804-237-1399 or click here to visit the It's Time Web site. Additional Note: The City is beginning to analyze the new funding sources to determine what the best approach will be for What’s the plan for all of this traffic? Regional Transportation Update on April 19th:
Art and History: Some Events to Consider… 1) Empowered Women International presents the concert Traveling the World in Music on Sunday, April 15th 2:30 - 5 p.m. at the Lyceum, Artists' reception complete with wine and appetizers will follow the program. Tickets are $25 a person, and can be purchased by mailing a check to: EWI, concert 1307 King St., 2) Please stop by the Friends of Carlyle House Annual Herb sale on Saturday, April 21 from 9-4. Our theme this year is “Herbs of Shakespeare”. The sale features herbs from the Mount Vernon Greenhouses, Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia Plant Clinic, The Irish Breakfast Band, the Girl Scout bake sale, herbal cooking demonstrations and the Alexandria Pipe and Drum Corps. Museum Hours Sunday: 12:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m. Admission Free Admission for school groups from www.carlylehouse.com Laura Lippman will read from and sign her newest book, What the Dead Know, at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, May 3, 2007, at the Lyceum in
2:11:44 PM 
|
Last update: 5/3/2007; 11:52:50 AM .
