Flush with cash from rising property assessments, not to mention an ocean of federal COVID cash, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors is taking token steps to aid residents who are increasingly taxed to the limit.
Supervisors are planning a 3-cent cut in the real-estate tax rate this year. It’s hardly something to cheer (neighboring Falls Church is cutting its own rate three times as much), but it is better than nothing (and nothing is what residents of Arlington are getting, as the County Board there adopted a budget with no cut in the tax rate at all).
We’re guessing the Fairfax cut, modest as it is, serves as an attempt by Fairfax supervisors – who face the electorate next year – to simultaneously buy off all the “gimme groups” (as one activist calls them) with increased funding while attempting to placate those residents who are wondering exactly why they are continually used as the county government’s ATM – with no PIN number required and seemingly no limitations put on withdrawals.