Council Passes $34.6 Million FY 2013 Budget

Editor's Note: This story will be updated throughout the day on Wednesday.

Manassas Park City Council adopted its $34.6 million budget for fiscal year 2013 Tuesday night—a budget that includes a two percent pay raise for city employees and a little money left over to put toward paying future bond payments.

This will be the first raise for employees since 2009, when general employees received 2.5 percent and police received 4 percent.

The $190,000 for the raises comes from a $273,788 expected appropriation.  The appropriation is the difference in the expected $34,644,193 in city revenue and the $34,370,468 in expenditures.

The rest of the appropriation—about $60,000—will be put toward paying the city's debt service, which is set to increase some $3.6 million in fiscal year 2015-2016.

The governing body also voted on the city's tax base. Taxes did not increase for residents this year.

Just before the vote, several members of city council said they would like to see the tax rate lowered for residents next year.

"In my opinion, in the past four years we've had to stuggle a lot," Councilman Suhas Naddoni said Tuesday.

He'll be pushing for a tax rate cut next year, he added.

Councilmen Preston Banks, Brian Leeper, Bryan Polk said they concurred with Naddoni about the tax rate.

Polk said the federal and state governments are backing away from their obligations and putting more burden on the local government. That's why the tax rate can't immediately be lowered, he said.

He encouraged the audience members present to write to their lawmakers in Richmond and Washington and ask them to fulfill their obligations at the local level.

Mayor Frank Jones said the first step toward lowering the tax rate is to figure out a way the city would not have to pay so much in debt service and get a handle on the city's cash flow. 

Once they get a handle on cash flow then they can take the steps needed to lower the tax rate, Jones said.

Keep up with school, city, crime and other news by receiving the Manassas Park Patch email newsletter. Learn more here!