The Right Note

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

On Tuesday night, the County Board room was packed with people asking for budget dollars.

Granted, a large number of police officers and firefighters were in attendance to make the case for higher pay, a cause certainly worthy of consideration. However, it is not an uncommon occurrence for the Board to hear about multiple ways to spend more taxpayer dollars.

With the tax rate question settled — unless the Board wants to lower it, which would be fine with many of us — the Board has a relatively big, but finite universe of spending to do this year. I have already made the case that the auditor’s office needs additional resources to truly be effective.

If we want to help relieve future budget constraints, let’s speed up the process of reviewing how the County spends our money.

The County Board should also constrain the closeout process now, as part of the budget. Calls in this column for the closeout funds to be used to lower tax rates have amounted to nothing. But what about an approach that takes our expenditures, tax rates and debt into account?

Total debt for FY 2019 is projected to reach nearly $1.2 billion by the end of the fiscal year. That is $5,193 for every Arlingtonian. Debt service is projected to cost taxpayers about $126 million in FY 2019 between the schools and the county government.

That is 9% of the county budget, which is close to the 10% threshold credit rating agencies look at when evaluating whether we maintain our high bond rating. And with upward pressure on interest rates, the days of uber-cheap financing may be coming to an end.

Here is a suggested constraint on the County Board’s year-end actions for the next five years:

25% of closeout funds, for unforeseen needs in the county or school system.

25% of closeout funds set aside in a reserve fund and earmarked to pay cash for some or all of a future school building.

25% of closeout funds set aside in a reserve fund and earmarked to pay cash for some or all of a major project in the Capital Improvement Plan.

25% of closeout funds given back to homeowners as a tax rebate.

Meeting unforeseen needs, saving to pay cash for purchases instead of putting them on the “credit card,” and giving money back to the people paying the bills sound like a pretty reasonable allocation of excess resources.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Last week, County Manager Mark Schwartz put out a new “Six-Step Public Engagement Guide for Capital Projects.” The county press release called it a “major milestone.”

County staff will find no objection to a more clearly defined path to consider large scale infrastructure projects. And the process will certainly provide a good path for projects that everyone will generally agree on the need for, but maybe need just need a little tweaking that comes from public input.

But as Mike Tyson once said about boxing, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” In other words, the true test of the guide is what happens when a project turns out to be controversial.

In the case of a controversial project, how will county staff address negative feedback that present major obstacles to move through the six steps?

If, at the end of the engagement process, the staff and elected officials are unable to address concerns in a way that the community feels good about, will county staff just step up the public relations effort to tell Arlingtonians why the project is a good thing? And under what circumstances will the County Board move forward with the project anyway?

What about putting a policy in place to bring the biggest projects to a straight up or down vote with the public? A standalone vote at a threshold borrowing amount of $25 million for a single project does not seem too much to ask. If a majority of the voting public feels the project is worthy, they will approve it.

Finally, what accountability is there for a project that doesn’t live up to its promises? For example, what if the county subsidy for a new aquatics center doubles, or triples over estimates? This is the type of thing that happened when it came to the Artisphere.

Over the years, we have heard a lot about how the government will listen to the public and be held accountable to the public. Every time a member takes over the gavel to chair the County Board, the subject is incorporated into their speech.

Two years ago, the County Board unceremoniously terminated a proposed “Blue Ribbon Panel” that would have provided independent citizen input into county priorities up front. The county auditor has not been given adequate resources to embark on a scope of work that would result in real accountability.

The true test for the County Board moving forward is how they take into account advice, input and accountability that is truly independent of the county manager, not whether there is an avenue to offer it.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

The Washington Post, referred to by one commenter as the “Amazon Post,” failed to get any answers about the offer made to attract the new Amazon HQ to Arlington. The County denied the FOIA request and said the requested information was not subject to disclosure.

With the latest back and forth, there are two questions that come to mind for me:

1. Is Arlington’s commitment to transparency and accountability good enough?

Arlington does have a robust website where you can find a good deal of information about the county. We have an independent auditor now who reports to the County Board. A study of overtime at our emergency communications center was just released and is valuable information.

However, the auditor’s agenda is far less than robust with no real financial resources on the way to make it better. According to the proposed budget offered by the County Manager, there will be no new personnel to expand the scope of work in this office.

With $1 million dog parks and bus stops in our recent past, the $11,000 proposed increase demonstrates there is no commitment to making this office effective in more quickly evaluating how our $1.3 billion annual budget is spent.

2. Why does it cost so much to make a FOIA request?

According to those asking for more information about the Amazon deal, the FOIA request would have cost anywhere from $319.50 to over $1,000.

First, the county should explain this cost quote discrepancy. Certainly county policy is not to discourage a regular Arlington resident from filing a FOIA request by quoting a higher potential cost than it would to a member of the media?

A few years ago, the County attempted to charge residents $2,858 for a FOIA request on the Columbia Pike streetcar project. The quote did not appear to be in line with what was allowable under Virginia law because county staff was attempting to charge for work done by consultants.

Whether it’s $300 or almost $3,000, it seems to be a lot of money to receive information that already exists. This is particularly true since so much of the information is already available in electronic form and could be produced with a few mouse clicks on a computer.

Gone are the days where you would have to pay a staff member to stand at a copy machine or scanner in order to reproduce information. The County Board should explore whether Virginia law allows it to direct county staff to lower the cost barrier for FOIA requests.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

The Virginia General Assembly has passed legislation to allow local school districts a little more time to let elementary kids go out and play. Count me as someone all for it with one big caveat. If it means more of the schoolwork is going to be coming home to be done in the evenings, then please don’t do it.

I have written about ending the practice of assigning homework into some point in middle school. It not only causes unnecessary stress at home, but several studies have found it may not be doing anything academically for our kids.

Since we are on the subject of what goes on in the classroom, it is time for the next progress report on the math done by Arlington County on per pupil spending.

The School Superintendent announced that under his proposed budget per pupil spending would come in at $19,235 for the 2019 school year for the anticipated enrollment of 28,027 students.

When you pull out your calculator and divide $636.7 million by 28,027 students, you arrive at $22,717 per projected student in Arlington Public Schools. That’s a difference of about $3,482 between total and reported per pupil spending.

Arlington’s reporting of per-pupil spending does not take certain spending into account. Common sense should call for greater transparency.

When you compare Arlington’s per pupil spending with other school districts in the region using the Washington Area Boards of Education formula, we are currently spending $1,121 more than the second highest spending jurisdiction in Falls Church. Based on our current enrollment, spending the same per-pupil as Falls Church would save taxpayers about $30.2 million this year.

Every jurisdiction’s needs are different, and in Arlington, we have set high expectations to go along with our increasing enrollment. But, there are two points to be reminded of as the School Board moves through the budget process.

First, please stop leading people to believe the number you publicize is total per pupil spending when it’s not. Second, when you are able to spend 6 percent more per child than the next highest jurisdiction in the region, it may be a challenging job for a lot of reasons, but not for lack of resources.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

The County this week announced the opening of its online portal for permit applications and payments. It is too early to know how the system will work or if it will make the permitting process any better for applicants, but the county should be applauded for moving past the paper only option.

Arlington Economic Development is holding an event next week to teach businesses how to do work for Arlington County.

More transparency is always good news. This type of event opens up the county procurement process to more businesses which should encourage competition and discourage cronyism. In theory, this is good news for the taxpayer. One has to ask though, is it really so hard to figure out how to work with the county that it necessitates a training session?

Arlington officials have been at odds with the county’s two country clubs over how to tax the properties. According to the Sun Gazette, the courses combined are taxed at a rate equal to the next 11 country clubs in Northern Virginia combined.

Unfortunately, the county was either unwilling or unable to find a way forward on how to lower the tax on the open space, so the General Assembly has entered the fray. A bill with overwhelming majorities in both chambers is on its way to Gov. Ralph Northam’s desk to dramatically scale back the allowable tax rate. It remains to be seen whether an intense lobbying effort, similar to last year’s decision on the towing ordinance, will impact our new governor.

Also on taxes, the county manager’s proposed budget may not include a property tax rate increase, but it does include an increase in other taxes and fees. Going up are utility taxes, parking meter rates, parking tickets, certain building permit fees, among others.

If you read through the proposed cuts to the budget, many come from not filling currently vacant staff positions. However, one cut would be to end the printing of the Citizen Newsletter. At $82,088 per year, it won’t make or break the budget, but it probably was past time to stop sending that information through the mail.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Delegate Patrick Hope’s bill to give Arlington the authority to hold school board elections is on its way to Governor Northam. The legislation is an acknowledgement that no one is quite sure whether the authority to elect a school board really existed in Arlington.

It may or may not call into question any previous School Board actions from a body that could very well have been elected without specific statutory authority. As such, someone should get a legal opinion on what exactly this all means, including whether there needs to be an immediate election of all five School Board members to new four year terms, rather than waiting for their current terms to expire.

In January, Arlington County Board Chair Katie Cristol indicated the county would be able to disclose its offer to Amazon to bring the online retailing giant to the county. Now, she seems less sure of when or if that will happen.

Activists, and businesses not receiving special deals, are rightly asking questions about the incentives being offered to Amazon and the level of transparency the county will provide.

The Board should figure out exactly what it can say now to speak to the offer, and say it. In the future, they should not sign any non-disclosure agreement that would keep the public completely in the dark about what kinds of offers are being made. And the Board should continue to look for ways to make our economic environment more friendly to everyone who wants to do business here.

On more than one occasion, backers of the Columbia Pike streetcar project speak of their regret that Arlington did not move forward with the project. This week, news reports surfaced out of Washington that reminded us that promised results from such a project can go awry.

It seems that just two years after the first passenger trip on their initial $200 million streetcar line, DC officials are contemplating a total replacement of their streetcars as they cannot get their hands on parts to make needed repairs.

And they are still not collecting fares, though they hope to figure out how to start collecting in two to three years. Despite the fact they are still not charging for passengers, the District still plans to spend upwards of $500 million more to create two additional extensions of the line.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Larry Roberts recently gave up his duties as “editor” of the Progressive Voice to take on the role of Chief of Staff for Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax.

In his farewell column, he made the case for why the column he headed up was needed.

Based on his words in the column, the authors who have participated, and the opinions expressed therein, it was to give a voice to those who generally embrace the direction taken by the Arlington County Board.

Since all but one of our elected officials in Arlington are Democrats, it is fair to say that those who share Mr. Roberts views are already well publicized throughout the community. Democrats not only control the outcome of all the votes, they control all of the information flow as well.

With near universal control by the Democrats, it is good for the public discourse for someone on the right to continue talking about the issues from this perspective. The 300-500 words written through the prism of fiscal conservatism in this forum each week may be the only time some in Arlington ever read that type of perspective.

While the voters have generally continued to provide big margins for Democrats at the polls since I started writing this column, they have elected an entirely new County Board. Included in that new roster is the first non-Democrat to be elected to a full term in nearly three decades. The County did withdraw from what many residents felt was a boondoggle streetcar project.

Instead of pushing for even more funding for a pool project, the County scaled it back. The County hired a new auditor, albeit one who needs some additional support to truly be effective.

These were “wins” for the taxpayer, but there are still many ways the County could improve the way it serves Arlingtonians.

Roberts’ column also caused me to look back over the past five years and scroll through roughly 250 columns or 100,000 words. Looking all the way back to my first column, I wanted to end with a reminder about how the right views local government:

What cannot stand is the notion that all, or even most, fiscal conservatives are anti-government.

In fact, we believe there is an appropriate role for each level of government. The most important of which, outside of self-government, is local government. It is where our tax dollars meet the asphalt. It is where our children attend school, our homes are kept safe, our water is dispensed, and our trash is collected. It is where we can most easily and directly petition our elected officials for assistance. And, at least theoretically, it should be the most responsive to changing community needs with the smallest amount of bureaucracy and red tape.

We just want to do it in a way that makes the most fiscal sense, is accountable, and serves people efficiently. That is why I continue to write.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Delegate Patrick Hope unsuccessfully tried to move a bill through the House of Delegates to change the way Arlingtonians vote for County Board.

Hope’s bill would not have required the County Board to adopt the new voting process, it would have just given them the option. It is not an option they should have.

Hope proposed what’s known as “instant-runoff voting” which would give voters the ability to rank their choices when voting. This process has been used by local Democrats in recent caucus voting.

If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes, the the second choice of the last place candidate is redistributed to the other candidates in the field based on the ranking. The process repeats until someone reaches a majority.

Having come in a fairly close second (for an Arlington Republican anyway) in the most recent County Board special election which resulted in no one receiving 50 percent of the vote, you might think I would be for this change.

However, in a county where the numerical advantage so overwhelmingly favors the Democrats, removing the ability for a non-Democrat to win a plurality vote means the only real practical impact of the proposed change would be to put Independents and Republicans at a further political disadvantage.

The cynic may say the call for instant-runoff voting, much like redistricting reforms, is most often pushed by those who think the change would tilt the political playing field their way. But let’s give Hope and others the benefit of the doubt, that one of the big goals is to find a solution that creates more “civility” in politics. Poll after poll certainly says voters would prefer a better tone during our elections.

In Arlington, general elections are not really acrimonious affairs. Can someone really say that any County Board races have devolved into mudslinging affairs in recent memory? Maybe the problem is just with the tone on the Democratic side in their primary elections?

Another of Hope’s stated goals is to prevent a “fringe candidate” from winning a crowded field with only 25 or 30 percent of the vote. Someone should ask Delegate Hope which “fringe candidate” who failed to receive 50 percent is sitting in office that he thinks fits the bill?

It is understandable that politicians want to be seen as doing something, but changing the system of electing candidates is unlikely to change the current political environment here in Arlington.

If you want more civility overall as a political leader, recruit candidates who will adopt a positive tone in their campaigns. If you want more civility as a voter, do not reward candidates who run scorched earth campaigns with your vote.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Arlington’s independent auditor, Chris Horton, is soliciting suggestions from the public on what to audit. Encouraging ongoing participation from all Arlingtonians is a good thing.

The current work plan for the auditor includes fleet management, public safety overtime, Business Improvement Districts and the Neighborhood Conservation Advisory Commission. It is a good start, but only two of these audits are definitely slated to be completed this fiscal year.

If you look at the what the auditor has identified as the “Audit Horizon,” it is clear that the office should step up the pace. The Audit Horizon includes affordable housing, capital improvement planning, economic development incentive funding, facilities management, the handling of personally identifiable information, procurement and analysis of the county’s financial condition. And that is just a partial list of important items.

The total budget for the auditor in FY 2018 is about $210,000. The County Board should consider a dramatic increase in the budget and staff allocation for the auditor during the current budget cycle discussions to at least $500,000.

There is too much important work to do to spread the audits out over the next decade, or even longer. If the Board is committed to paying more than lip service to this new level of accountability, then it is time to give the office the resources it needs.

The Electoral Board this week announced a competition to design a new “I Voted” sticker. A goal of the project is to help boost turnout in the 2019 election cycle, the historically lowest turnout year in each four-year cycle.

The idea that more voters should take advantage of their constitutional right whenever it is available to them is certainly a noble goal. As we saw this past November, turnout can be dramatically increased over prior years, but it is primarily driven by the circumstances surrounding a given election cycle.

While the holding the competition will draw some additional attention, it is hard to imagine that the stickers would do much. In New York, a city of 8.5 million people, 700 designs were submitted, but only 10,000 people voted on which design they liked best according to the Sun Gazette article. That’s just a little over 1/10th of one percent of the population.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Redistricting has been thrust into the spotlight recently.

Courts are increasingly entertaining legal challenges to electoral maps, even based on challenges that the process is too political. Reformers are also seizing on perceived momentum to push for change.

Politicians who favor redistricting reform often do so because they believe the map has been drawn in a way that drastically favors the other side.

Republican Governor Larry Hogan favors redistricting in Maryland as Democrats there have drawn lines in a way to favor them. Portions of the map, which uses bodies of water to connect various portions of districts, resemble an ink blot test.

Democrats in Virginia favor redrawing Congressional district lines because Republicans currently hold seven of the eleven districts here.

Some backers of reform favor redistricting because they believe less partisan districts will produce less partisan public policy results as politicians will have to be more responsive to the middle or moderate voters. Many believe these new policy outcomes will look more like the things they wish would be accomplished.

Will the proposed reforms really be a silver bullet to address political polarization? Would the type of politician elected really change all that much? Will the base of each party lose influence on public policy to the middle? These are the things I hope to address next week in a Civic Federation panel discussion on redistricting.

Speaking of thawing political polarization, it looks like Democrats are once again split on County Board race. Three Democratic elected officials, all women, are backing Independent John Vihstadt’s re-election.

This is a reflection of his 2014 coalition that defied conventional wisdom by producing a comfortable win in a November election after Democrats claimed the special election was little more than a fluke.

The question is what voters will do without a controversial big ticket item like the Columbia Pike streetcar driving the debate. Most prominent Democrats will end up backing Vihstadt’s opponent of course, but the endorsements are a reminder that every once in a while, political polarization stops at the county line.

The Right Note is a weekly opinion column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ARLnow.com.

Arlington homeowners received some bad news last week when the county announced that residential property tax assessments were up over last year while commercial assessments, driven by office buildings, went down.

The news will put a real strain on the County Board guidance to hold the tax rate steady as they chase the mythical budget gap.

Residential assessments are up 3.9 percent over last year, which means the average homeowner will already pay 3.9 percent more in taxes absent a rate cut. A year ago, the County Board raised the tax rate by 1.5 cents on top of the 2.5 percent assessment.

Overall assessments rose by 1.9 percent, instead of the projected 3.2 percent. It is hard to imagine a scenario where the Board doesn’t eventually say they were “forced” into raising the tax rate again this year by another 1 or 1.5 cents.

Lest you think they needed the last rate increase, the Board once again spent millions in extra revenue during the closeout process last fall. It was more than enough to eliminate the need for last year’s rate increase.

Since they do not need the extra revenue another rate increase would bring, let’s take a moment to discuss some of the other go-to talking points when the subject of assessments and rate increases come up.

“Arlington homeowners should be pleased their assessments are going up because it means their homes are worth more.”

Sure, it’s great over the long haul for when you want to sell your home. It is not so good for young professionals trying to buy into the housing market or for retirees trying to age in place. Right now, we have to pay all the taxes out of our income. If your incomes are not rising by 4-5 percent every year, you are not further ahead, you are further behind.

“We use conservative estimates of revenue to determine how much of a rate increase we will need.”

It’s only a conservative estimate if your intention is to give the money back when you consistently estimate the revenue wrong, and in a way that creates a “budget gap” and requires you to raise taxes. And it’s not conservative when your intention is to spend the excess each year in order to raise spending even more the next.

Here’s a challenge to the Board and the County Manager as they continue through the budget process

Step 1 –Continue to write your budget in a way that rates would not to increase under the “conservative” estimates.

Step 2 — At the end of the process, reduce spending by .5 percent across the Board.

Step 3 — Use any closeout revenue available in November of 2018 to cut next year’s tax rate.