County Executive Presents Proposed Fiscal Year 2025 Budget

Prince William County Executive Christopher Shorter presented the Proposed Fiscal Year 2025 Budget to the Board of County Supervisors during their meeting on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2024. The proposed $1.77 billion general fund budget advances the board’s strategic goals and other investment priorities and meets the Board’s policies and principles of sound financial management.

The proposed budget maintains the County-Schools Revenue Sharing Agreement, which provides 57.23 percent, or more than $887 million, of the county’s general fund to Prince William County Public Schools and increases the transfer to the schools by $81 million, or 10 percent more than the FY2024 budget. In addition to the revenue sharing agreement, funding for the class size reduction grant is maintained, as well as current funding for community safety officers at elementary schools.

Funding for Police and Fire and Rescue staffing plans, as well as a medic unit staffing for Fire and Rescue Station 27, is also in the proposed budget. Additional investments include Sheriff deputies, a Commonwealth’s Attorney staffing plan, support staff for a new judge in the Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court, language interpreters at the courthouse, and a caseworker for the Veteran’s Docket.

The proposed budget also creates an affordable housing office within the Office of Housing and Community Development, and the proposed five-year plan programs annual contributions beginning in FY2027 to an affordable housing trust to promote the construction of affordable housing units in the county. The proposed budget also includes the creation of the Office of Youth Services, which will provide outreach, intervention and prevention services for disconnected and at-risk youth. It also includes a 3 percent increase for existing community partners.

Also included is parks, trails and maintenance funding for improved facilities at Ali Krieger Park, Hellwig Park, Howison Park and Occoquan Trail, as well as funding to develop an agribusiness/agritourism master plan and overall tourism master plan. It also invests in an efficient multi-modal transportation network by maintaining the local subsidy for the Virginia Railway Express commuter and provides funding for the Potomac and Rappahannock Transportation Commission’s commuter and local bus service using the motor fuels tax. In addition, maintenance support is provided for the Neabsco/Potomac Commuter Parking Garage.

Investments continue with compensation for the county government’s workforce, including health benefits, market and merit adjustments, retiree health and contributions to the Virginia Retirement System. Also included is funding to do an assessment of the county’s classification structure for internal equity and external market competitiveness, as well as funding to implement the ratified collective bargaining agreements for police and fire and rescue approved by the Board in January 2024.

The proposed budget also invests in modernizing information technology digital services for better constituent services, builds internal capacity to advance capital projects, and funds critical needs to improve effective and efficient service delivery.

The proposed budget is funded at a flat residential tax rate of $0.966 per $100 of assessed value. Based on the increase in real estate appreciation, this would increase the average tax bill by $243. It also keeps the fire levy tax rate flat at $0.072, which will produce an average $18 residential levy increase. The proposed budget is funded by an unchanged business tangible personal property tax rate on computers and peripherals at $2.15 per $100 of assessed value; however, a rate of $3.70 will be advertised for discussion purposes by the Board during budget deliberations. The Board can adopt a tax rate lower than the advertised rates, but cannot adopt a tax rate higher than the tax rates advertised.

“This is just the start of the budget process. We will be working with the Board and hearing from the public over the next couple of months, which will culminate with the adoption of the Budget on April 23,” said Shorter. “It is through this collaboration that we were able to see more than $6 million in savings in FY24. County staff remains prepared to support the Board as these important decisions are considered in the coming months of the FY25 budget process.”

The public can participate in the budget process by attending a virtual community meeting at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Feb. 24. Other opportunities include:

• Budget work sessions during the afternoon Board meetings of March 12 and 19 and April 2
• Budget Public Hearing during the evening Board meeting on March 19
• Budget Recap during the evening session of the Board on April 9
• Budget and Tax Rates/Fees Public Hearing during the evening Board session on April 9
• Budget Markup during the evening Board session on April 16
• Budget Adoption during the evening Board session on April 23

All meetings on the budget calendar will be held in the Board Chambers at the McCoart Administration Building. The link to the budget calendar and the Budget Q&A app can be found on the county’s website at pwcva.gov/budget.