Arlington residents could see an increase in property taxes as municipal officials look to balance expanded city services with a return to pre-pandemic revenue growth rates.
The proposed 2025 budget includes $3.1 million in planned budget reductions across departments; plans to cut 22 positions; and $23 million in deferred department budget requests to the 2025 bond election.
City Manager Trey Yelverton described the volume of department requests as “not sustainable.”
“This year it’s more clear than any other year that that can’t be the case and we have to figure out how to work through what our priorities truly are,” he said.
A budget also comes with a proposed property tax increase of 0.5998 per $100 of assessed property value, up from 0.5898 per $100 in Fiscal 2024. The proposal, if approved, would mark the first property tax rate increase since 2004.
City Manager Trey Yelverton said city employees considered cuts or reallocations across departments before proposing a tax increase on residents. New services – including one to launch an initiative called “Clean Arlington” and the anticipated March launch of the senior center, ACTIV – and federal grants winding down mean the city has more to absorb.
“We’re able to absorb some of that new stuff, but we can’t absorb all of that new stuff,” Yelverton said.
Yelverton asked Arlington City Council members to finalize the proposed property tax rate by Tuesday, Aug. 13.
A larger increase, he said, would allow the city to take care of what he described are “chronic issues” the city is not addressing, including investments in streets, buildings and city vehicles.
Andrew Piel, District 4 city council member, asked about the city’s drop in municipal court revenue since 2010 – and contrasted the dip with the amount of money residents’ property tax increase would generate.
“It just kind of jumps out to me, especially given the multiple times I’ve been told by residents that traffic safety is a huge concern for them in Arlington, that the amount of citation revenue dropped $10 million in 10 years, and we’re looking at a $4.1 million tax increase. That just kind of boggles my mind,” he said.
Arlington’s property tax rate is project to increase by $7.2 million in the Fiscal 2025 budget. Sales tax under the plan is up by $4.1 million, and overall general fund revenue is up $15.7 million.
The budget includes $421,000 for the second half of Arlington Fire Department’s transition to four-person staffing, as well as the absorption of 47 grant-funded full-time positions totaling $3.2 million. The department reduced its budget by nearly $200,000 by cutting 10 unfunded firefighter trainee positions, as well as the public health nurse position.
Yelverton said he has asked Police Chief Al Jones to reallocate 10 police positions from different units to patrol, on top of 22 recent training academy graduates dedicated to patrol. Yelverton alluded to complaints from Arlington Municipal Patrolman’s Association, which has asked for more patrol staffing.
Yelverton said while the department has added 100 officers over the past 16 years and put them in special units – positions that former police administrations thought might help patrol officers.
“I think we ought to do a little better because I share interest that people value patrol and not just special units, you know, behavioral health unit that, geographic detective this, a traffic enforcement unit that, which doesn’t seem to be enforcing much traffic in my mind,” Yelverton said.
The city will host two town hall meetings: One at Arlington City Council Chamber Aug. 14 and at the South District Police Station Aug. 26.
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This story was updated at 3:48 p.m. Aug. 7, 2024, to reflect the amount of years since Arlington has raised property taxes.
