F.C. Council Lays Plans to Lower Tax Rate

The Falls Church City Council was advised by City Manager Dan McKeever at a work session Monday night that it could lower the tax rate by as much as four cents "rather comfortably."

A tax cut from $1.13 to $1.09 per $100 of assessed valuation would mark the biggest one year cut in over a decade in Falls Church. Some Council members are pushing for an even bigger cut.

But McKeever said that, due to the higher than expected jump in assessments of City real property, the four-cent cut could work without jeopardizing the City's continuing fiscal soundness. Doing more, he cautioned, could result in a need to raise the tax back up in a few years.

Two weeks ago, City Council member Lindy Hockenberry requested that McKeever present the tax cut options at this Monday's work session. Hockenberry is seeking re-election to the City Council, along with co-incumbent Robin Gardner, in less than a month.

Mayor Dan Gardner made it clear Monday that he wants "any additional money coming to the City from the state will go to further the tax cut here." (The state legislature was slated to meet yesterday try to move forward on resolving a budget that, according to reports, could include some additional relief for localities).

Citizens and all real estate owners in Falls Church absorbed, on average, a 25% increase in assessments with the arrival in the mail of their individual assessments last Thursday. This increase was very uneven, under 10% for some town homes and as much as 75% for some detached homes where improvements to properties hadn't been accounted for in previous assessments.

While there has been no explosive reaction felt at City Hall yet, according to McKeever, the Council is pushing the tax rate cut to mitigate pressure on homeowners.

"We've hit the public with a lot of sticker shock," Hockenberry said Monday. "That's why I'd really like to see if we can go for a five cent rate decrease."

Citizens commenting to the News-Press said the rise in assessments has both up and down sides. For those contemplating selling their homes in the next few years, a 75% increase in assessed value is a huge windfall in value, even if it does cause higher tax payments in the meantime.

On the other hand, of course, for persons wishing to remain in their current homes and living on fixed incomes, the only impact is a negative one. Still, they have an increased capacity to borrow against the value of their home, and the City has both tax deferral and exemption programs for qualified applicants with less than $50,000 annual income.

While the City expects appeals, an official noted that if the appeal is based solely on the size of the jump, it may not fly. The operative question will be, "Do you think you could sell your home for the amount it's been assessed for?" If the answer is "No" and that can be backed up in some way, then an appeal might be successful.

There have already been some inquiries on technical matters, McKeever reported, including some possible errors regarding properties that straddle the Falls Church city limits and sit partially in Arlington or Fairfax counties. "In some cases, we might have erred in calculating the percentage of the property in the city," he said. "We'll correct the errors in those cases."

But McKeever said all the new assessments are now up on the City's web site, and that citizens can learn not only about their own assessments, but can compare them with their neighbors and other housing types and sections of town.

He said the proper procedure for an individual to appeal an assessment is to contact the City Assessor at City Hall first. If the problem cannot be ironed out at that first stage, then the appeal can go to the citizen volunteer official board, the Board of Equalization, for a hearing and final disposition.

Because this year's assessments are the result of the first comprehensive, door-to-door reappraisal of City real estate ever in 50 years in Falls Church, the City Council voted earlier this spring to extend the deadline for filing an appeal with the Board of Equalization to the first week in June.