Funding largely restored to programs facing cuts, Prince William budget process far from over

In a rare Saturday meeting, the Prince William County Board of Supervisors largely moved to restore funding to community services and programs that just earlier this week had been on the chopping block.

Millions in funding for Virginia Cooperative Extension programs, jailhouse drug rehabilitation programs, the Flory Small Business Center, gang awareness programs, funds for Prince William Soccer Inc., and the Boys and Girls Club – just to name a few – we’re all added back into the fiscal year 2016 budget.

Their removal was recommended earlier this week by County Executive Melissa Peacor, who delivered, as instructed by the Board, a scaled back $1 billion county government funding budget for the coming year. That budget envisioned an increase real estate taxes – the county’s largest revenue source – by 1.3%, not the 4% as was originally called for a year ago in Prince William’s five year funding plan.

The work to find a balanced budget is far from over. If the county passed its budget in its current form today, so many programs have been restored, it would require a tax increase greater than 4% to fund them all and the rest of general government operations, according to Chairman, At-large Corey Stewart. The Board will hold another budget work session, similar to today’s meeting, at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 28 at the Buckhall Fire Station outside Manassas. The Board is expected to adopt a final budget in April.

One of the largest of the looming cuts budget cuts now off the table was a call to freeze county government employees’ (excluding teachers and county schools employees) salaries for the next five years for a $6.1 million savings.

“This was never gonna happen,” said Gainesville District Supervisor Peter Candland, a strong proponent of limiting a tax increase to 1.3%. “No one on this Board was going to entertain the notion of freezing employees’ salaries for the next five years.”

“If you’re going to rollback millions of dollars in funding in the five-year plan, and this was the biggest item on the table, the 1.3% tax increase wasn’t realistic in the first place,” Coles Supervisor Marty Nohe told Candland.

Funding for lighting and turf at new sports fields, improvements to Waterworks Water Park in Dale City, new restroom facilities at Long Park in Gainesville, and county monies that supplement state salaries for magistrates who work in the county’s courthouse were all restored.  The Board also moved to add $300,000 in one-time funding to the Flory Small Business Center near Manassas to fund an expansion of the facility currently located in a 19th-century farmhouse.

Still on the chopping block is nearly $100,000 that had been allocated to Discover Prince William / Manassas, the agency that promotes tourism for the county and city. A total of $25,000 in funding from the county’s hotel tax could now be allocated to fund its historical properties program.

County government employees and officials could also soon be outsourcing printing work for fliers, cards, and other publications, that had been handled by the county’s in-house print shop for an estimated $320,000 savings.

“Moving this service out to the private sector is an efficiency, and I do not support motion to restore it,” said Stewart.

Immediately following Peacor’s budget cut proposal earlier in the week, members of the group “Our Prince William” sent a letter urging public support for community programs and urged residents’ participate in the public budget process. Last year, Our Prince William banded together to urge restoration of similar cuts that had been proposed in the 2015 budget.