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.

Tomorrow, the Arlington County Board members will renew the annual tradition of previewing their priorities for the year. Unfortunately, the speeches can often be compared to a New Year’s resolution to go to the gym.

Before the speeches begin, the Board will need to elect a new Chairman. In recent history, the Vice Chairman has moved up to the center chair. But last year, Walter Tejada served in that role before announcing his retirement.

Theoretically, it would be Libby Garvey’s “turn” as she has not chaired the Board in any of her first three full years. But Garvey’s rocky relationship with the Arlington Democrats makes it far from a sure thing, particularly if there is an aspiring challenger waiting in the wings to run in the June primary.

As a fan of the occasional political drama, here’s hoping we have a surprise tomorrow and John Vihstadt is elected Chairman. Think the Democrats would never do it? David Foster pulled it off as a Republican with four other Democrats on the School Board.

What four things can you expect to hear about for sure from the Board?

Spending reform. As the Board wrapped up 2015, Vihstadt and Garvey called for reforms in the closeout spending process where tens of millions is spent with little public input late each year. It is unlikely their desire to change that process has gone away, nor should it.

Reducing the commercial vacancy rate. It may be a new year, but it is the same old story on this subject. The Board pats itself on the back for spending money on economic development, but has done little to change any underlying policies in the county to attract businesses.

Affordable housing. This issue rose to the top as candidates sought to replace Hynes and Tejada. Housing is expensive, and the Board has been unable to do anything to repel market forces in the county. Real estate principles aside, we are likely to hear how optimistic this new Board is on the subject.

School capacity. You cannot run for office in Arlington without talking about how challenging it is to meet the needs of our schools. Yes, our schools are a core function of local government. Yes, we have a capacity problem. But, having nearly $22,000 to spend per child means they are challenges we are able to meet.

Here are two things you shouldn’t hear, but might.

Everything that’s wrong in Arlington is not our fault. This familiar refrain from some on the Board all-too-often blames Washington and Richmond — usually Republicans — for county woes. With two newcomers to the Board, hopefully they will strike a new tone.

We had to/have to make tough choices. Year after year revenues and expenditures rise in Arlington. Our Board does not know what tough choices really look like, unless you count whether to try and spend $80 million on an aquatics center or half-a-billion on a streetcar.

And there is one thing you are unlikely to hear tomorrow.

Your taxes are going down.

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.

This week, the County Board approved its package of priorities for the Virginia General Assembly to address. The report came in at 53 items in total.

Item number one of the entire proposal asked for the ability to levy taxes, including the BPOL tax. This is the tax on the privilege of owning a business based in Arlington. It taxes your gross receipts, not your gross profits. It should be phased out or abolished as soon as possible by Arlington to encourage economic development in the County.

Arlington’s elected leaders also asked for Virginia to start taxing all Internet sales, not just those for which the state can prove a nexus for the seller. The Board also wants the General Assembly to give them the ability to tax the use of plastic bags like D.C. does.

The Board reaffirmed its support for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. This has been a longstanding priority for Democrats in Virginia, but it is well established that the Republicans in Richmond are not going along with this one any time soon. With the federal government running up the deficit in Washington, it is only a matter of time before the 90 percent share of Medicaid drops precipitously and puts an even greater strain on state budgets.

The controversial topic of immigration was addressed in two items. One asks for in-state tuition for undocumented students. The second opposes mandates on law enforcement officers evaluating immigration status of individuals as a part of routine police activities.

Hopefully, the Board would not oppose giving law enforcement the discretion to inquire on immigration status as part of routine police activities, while they have a person in front of them. That position would be more consistent with the Board’s support for maintaining a database of license plate readings to track all of our movements in the name of public safety and specifically mentioned terrorist watch lists as one of its specific reasons.

The Board wants more money for Metro. It is no question Metro is struggling: ridership is down; fares are up; safety concerns are growing; and infrastructure is not adequately maintained. But, this is not new. WMATA continues to fail when it comes to getting its house in order, which means more money alone is not the answer. It might be more appropriate for any funding offer from Virginia be contingent on real reforms at WMATA, possibly even a private sector takeover.

What was missing from the transportation section? HOT lanes on 395.

Renaming Jefferson Davis Highway did make the list. But, it was the Board’s lowest transportation priority. Most likely, it reflects the reality of the reception it will get in Richmond.

And finally, nonpartisan redistricting is a priority for the Board. While it will probably meet with about as much success as renaming Route 1, it would likely put Arlington all in one Virginia Senate district. It is  interesting to note that when the all-Democrat controlled Board was presented the question of whether to allow Arlingtonians to elect Board Members by district, they opposed the effort.

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.

Here we go again.

A few days ago, County Board Chair Mary Hynes wrote a letter to the Virginia Department of Transportation sounding an optimistic tone on the opportunity to work on HOT lanes inside the beltway on 395. Those lanes were part of the original HOT lanes project proposal in the region, dating back to Democrat administrations of Mark Warner and Tim Kaine in Virginia.

In 2006, then County Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman sent a similar letter to VDOT outlining what sounded like Arlington’s conditional support for HOT lanes on 395. In the letter, he even described the need for a HOT lanes exit at Shirlington — an exit he later vehemently opposed.

The Board seemed to sour on the idea of HOT lanes in general as time moved on. By 2010, the County Board had sued everyone they could think of to stop the HOT lanes from happening. They even sued individual civil servants, requiring them to hire lawyers to defend against the claims. The addition of individuals to the suit drew some of the harshest criticism for it.

Eventually, an exasperated VDOT announced they were abandoning plans for the project inside the beltway. But, Arlington taxpayers paid around $2 million for outside counsel to file and pursue lawsuit before the County Board dropped it.

If you work at VDOT, you may be feeling like Charlie Brown staring at the football in Lucy’s hands wondering if it will be pulled away just as you start to kick it. You may also be wondering if you may some day be a defendant in a lawsuit.

Regardless of where you stand on the issue of adding a lane in each direction, you have to wonder what path the Board is really heading down now. Is the Board actually serious about finding a way to add this lane of traffic? Are some of the demands in the letter actually impossible for VDOT to meet?

What are the chances the Board, with two new members about to join, balk again later in the process? And would the Board spend $2 million or more to sue again if they didn’t like what Governor McAuliffe’s administration decided?

Only time will tell. At the very least, let’s hope they can work it out without handing taxpayers another $2 million legal bill.

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 week before Thanksgiving, County Board members Vihstadt and Garvey teamed up to question the closeout spending process. They asked the Board to at least delay the decisions on spending nearly $22 million in excess revenue till the new members were seated in January.

Kudos to Vihstadt for raising the issue as part of the closeout process and drawing more public attention to it. As Garvey noted, it would be “much better governance to make sure your spending goes through the budget process.”

Outgoing members Tejada and Hynes were not amused. Hynes claimed the public supported the Board’s plans for the year-end spending, despite having virtually no public input on the specifics of the just-released plan. Tejada called the Vihstadt proposal to pump the brakes on the spending measure “unreasonable and unneeded.”

If your goal is to spend tens of millions of dollars in a way that does not catch the attention of the public, then you agree with Tejada. If you never want to give taxpayers a break, then the 3-2 vote to forge ahead without additional public scrutiny makes a whole lot of sense.

The $22 million in year-end surplus revenue is just the tip of the iceberg in closeout spending and the need to shed more light on it. Arlington Public Schools ended up spending $25.6 million less than they budgeted for the previous fiscal year.

As part of the same meeting, the County Board considered budget guidance for the next fiscal year. Once again, the staff report raised the issue of a so-called budget gap, to the tune of around $15 million total between schools and the county budget.

In recent memory, Arlington has not faced a budget shortfall. There will be no budget gap next year either.

County Board members had just voted to spend tens of millions of dollars in excess revenues, just like they do every year. To allow for any pretense at the same meeting there will be a budget gap next year borders on ludicrous.

Despite claims to the contrary, the threat of a budget gap has nothing to do with conservative budgeting. It is put in play to give Board Members an excuse to once again force the taxpayers to pay more.

For the next four to five months of the annual budget process, the Board can talk about the budget gap. How they must make difficult choices. How they cannot lower taxes.

Unless Vihstadt and Garvey can convince one of their new colleagues to change the way the Board does business, we will be right back to this point a year from now. The Board will be spending the taxpayer-funded proceeds of another budget surplus and talking about the next budget gap.

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 Board this week approved the first step in creating the third Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district in Arlington.

The TIF plans dedicate a portion of future tax revenue to a specific project or set of projects. In the most recent proposal, the funds would be used to pay off a bond taken out to pay for a portion of the redevelopment of the Ballston mall.

The money taken out of future budgets for a TIF is not eligible to be used for anything else. Not on schools or infrastructure or public safety. In this case, the number is proposed at 40 percent of future revenue in this TIF district to pay for a $45.5 million bond.

The argument for TIFs is that the development being paid for by the TIFs will increase revenue to the County above what we would have otherwise received. Therefore, despite setting aside a portion of that revenue to subsidize development, it is still a net benefit to the taxpayer.

However, if a private developer cannot secure financing for a project in one of the most attractive real estate markets in the country, why should taxpayers agree to make up the difference?

The County Board has not really seen any pressure on budgets from these revenue set-asides yet because they are a relatively new idea here. But, we can look to a prolific TIF user, Chicago, which has been using them since 1986.

At one point, Chicago had over 150 TIFs. Chicago is roughly 12 times the size of Arlington, so that would be like a dozen or so TIFs here. In 2013, Chicago TIFs held $1.7 billion in unspent funds in their accounts after taking in $412 million in revenue.

The TIFs began to squeeze Chicago’s revenues to the point that Mayor Emanuel had to campaign on the promise of rolling them back and opening them up for more transparency. Many opponents argued they had become a slush fund to benefit favored developers and projects at the expense of other core budget priorities.

In July, the Mayor announced he would phase out seven of the TIFs and put $250 million back into the city’s budget over the next five years, half to go directly to the schools. And, the Mayor is putting in place a requirement that TIFs return at least 25 percent of their surpluses to the city, which will net an anticipated $150 million.

Granted, Arlington is not Chicago, which according to one review had more public corruption convictions than anywhere in the country. However, the idea that future revenues will be diverted to pay for private development should at least raise some concerns for Arlingtonians. Ballston is almost certainly not the last TIF the Board has in mind.

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 the next Arlington County Board meeting agenda is the annual close-out process. Despite it being just seven days away, the recommendation from the County Manager is not even online.  This process often allocates $100 million or more in spending and no one outside of County Staff — and presumably Board Members — has seen it yet.

For years, I have railed against this process. In effect, the County Board has a slush fund every fall that they can dip into and spend with almost no public input. While this process may not get the attention of a Columbia Pike trolley project, it has spent far more of our tax dollars and few county residents even know the process exists.

Last year, around $32 million came from revenue over and above what was budgeted for in the spring. In fact, year after year, revenue estimates come in far below actual revenue collections. The County argues this is fiscal prudence. I remain convinced they take the low end of the estimate range so they can advocate for higher taxes to pay for their spending priorities.

What should the County Board do to improve the close-out process?

First step: make it more transparent. The County Board should not vote to spend $100 million with only seven days, or less, notice.

Second step: create a section of the annual budget in the spring of anticipated priorities with close-out funds. Tell the community specifically what you will spend money on if some things you are budgeting for end up costing less than you anticipated. Let people speak to it as part of the budget hearings.

Third step: as part of the new independent audit function, the County Board should ask for a report as to why revenue estimates continue to be off by such a wide margin every year.

Fourth step: start returning excess revenue to taxpayers. Property taxes, not rates but actual tax payments, go up every single year in Arlington. Few of us would object to paying a little less.

With fresh faces on the County Board and a new County Manager on the way, it as good a time as any to bring a more transparency and accountability to the spending process. With any luck, it will lower our tax bills as well.

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.

Across Virginia, voters made few changes to their elected representation. Every single incumbent on Tuesday’s ballot in the General Assembly won. The Senate remained 21-19 Republican, and Democrats netted a gain just one of 100 seats in the House, leaving it overwhelmingly in Republican hands.

Despite millions of dollars being spent to retake the Senate, Governor McAuliffe now must work with Republicans if he hopes to achieve any meaningful results in his final two years in office. After ignoring the General Assembly and the Virginia Constitution with his Supreme Court appointment over the summer, the governor has some ground to make up.

In Arlington, the results were a far cry from 2014 when voters delivered a resounding defeat to the status quo by overwhelmingly electing John Vihstadt. Like Vihstadt, Mike McMenamin offered vast community experience to voters.

The voters chose overwhelmingly instead to give two Democratic newcomers a chance on the County Board. Those results mirror Arlington’s recent history in County Board elections as voters reset to their natural predispositions at the ballot box. We will never know if the retiring members Walter Tejada and Mary Hynes would have fared as well with the electorate. But both Cristol and Dorsey promised to do a better job of taking community concerns into account on the campaign trail.

While neither Dorsey or Cristol campaigned on a complete overhaul of how the government budgets and spends our money, they join two other Board Members who have been elected since March of 2012. Four out of five County Board members had to campaign for the office in an environment where voters of all political stripes are growing increasingly concerned that our County Board had taken its eye off the ball when it comes to core functions of local government. And that is a good thing.

Now the newly constituted Board can turn its attention to hiring a County Manager. It will be the first indication of whether it will be business as usual or a new direction.

Paper Ballots

Many voters were surprised to find paper ballots awaiting them at the polls on Tuesday. Some were taken back to their hatred scantron tests in school. But lawmakers wanted to create a paper trail for recount purposes, so we will be filling them out for the foreseeable future.

Election officials at my precinct were welcoming feedback on the paper ballots as they head into a much higher turnout presidential election year. If you have any constructive suggestions, please consider contacting the Registrar’s office or use the comments section below.