Blog posts are the personal views of Letty Hardi and not official statements or records on behalf of the Falls Church City Council

Dear Friends,

It’s been a busy week so I’m going to jump right into it – budget season is here. We’re already starting to get public comment via email and I joined our first budget town hall yesterday to hear what’s top of mind. I know there are concerns about your property assessments (more on that below), paving, bike/pedestrian safety, and a desire to renovate the Teen Room at the Community Center. Plus, our longtime City Manager announced his retirement, so it’s going to be an even busier 6 months ahead. Read on – I’ll share a budget recap, how you can engage, and next steps on filling the very big shoes of a City Manager.

And a warm welcome to new readers from The Oak – I had the opportunity to meet 20+ new neighbors at The Oak this week (fun fact – The Oak is our first condo building in Falls Church since the Spectrum opened in 2007!). We had a great conversation and Q&A. I’m going to share a response to one of the topics below in case it’s a FAQ you’ve had as well.

Happy spring break, plus next week is a 5th Monday so City Council is off. Our meetings will resume the first week of April so my posts will resume then as well. Look forward to hearing from you – or seeing you at my walking office hours in April as part of the Fitness Challenge.

Best,
Letty

What Happened This Week

(1) FY27 Budget

We heard the budget presentations from the School Board and from the City/General Government this week, officially kicking off City Council’s part of budget season. As Falls Church’s budget process starts a bit later than our neighbors, we have the benefit of seeing how their budgets are unfolding, revenue assumptions they’re using, key risks they’re facing – many of which we share as well.

The full budget and CIP (Capital Improvements Program) are available online, but here are my key takeaways and highlights. I also recommend the staff report as the cliff notes version of the 300 page budget:

• The FY2027 General Government operating budget is proposed to increase 3.4% over last year. The transfer to schools from general tax revenues is an increase of 4.1% over last year. Overall, the total proposed budget is $134M, a 0.8% increase over the last year budget, mostly because we’re using less capital reserves in this budget this year.
• Overall, the budget reflects economic uncertainty with regional federal workforce changes, reduced investment returns (ie, we benefited from a few years of higher interest rates and now that is tapering off) and increased contract and compensation costs. There are proposed eliminations of 7 vacant positions and reduced spending on paving and affordable housing from previous years to make up the budget gap.

• The budget proposes to keep the real estate tax rate flat ($1.185 per $100 of assessed value).
• The median homeowner’s real estate tax bill will increase by $611, or 5.0%, due to rising assessed value of homes due to market appreciation.

• As real estate makes up a significant portion of everyone’s budgets, this is important regional context on how our budget is benefiting from market appreciation and new construction.

• There are proposed small increases in fees for utilities – stormwater (7%), sewer (5%) – solid waste (4%), and building permit fees to keep up with rising costs.
• The CIP (aka, the big stuff that has a longer life cycle) provides a six-year plan of $162M investment in City schools, parks, government facilities, transportation, sewer, and stormwater infrastructure, with a majority for transportation. No general fund debt is planned until FY31.

• How can you engage? You can follow along with our work sessions and meetings (schedule below). We welcome public comment at our public hearings, the next town hall in April, or you can email us.

A note re residential property assessments –

I’ve been fielding concerns from homeowners regarding double digit property assessment increases (my own increased 14%) as well. I wrote about this earlier in March but will briefly repeat here. Real estate assessed values are determined independently by the Real Estate Assessor’s office while the City Council sets the tax rates. The two combined (rate x value) is what determines your real estate tax bill. This is a frequent community concern I hear, and I am sensitive to the growing tax burden. Even though we have steadily decreased the tax rate 17 cents to somewhat offset rising assessments since 2020, I am cognizant that your tax bills are still growing year after year.

The property assessment process is a complex process and changes in value are largely determined by market sales in your neighborhood, plus any improvements you may have made to your property. If you have questions or concerns about your assessment – that it either doesn’t reflect current market value, isn’t uniform with similar properties, or based on inaccurate property details – I encourage you to reach out to the Assessor’s office who can share more details about your particular assessment and/or help you start the appeal process.

(2) City Manager Retirement & Next Steps

On Tuesday, our long-time City Manager Wyatt Shields announced his retirement for this fall. This is indeed big news for our community. For anyone who knows Falls Church and our Council-Manager form of government here, they’ll know that the City Manager is the most important job in the city and not the Mayor or the City Council! We have been lucky to have Wyatt at the helm of the city for over 20 years – seeing us through major projects and growth, helping the city weather bumps and storms, and positioning us to be the vibrant and resilient city we are today. We all wish him all the best in his well-earned retirement from the city.

The City Council met early Wednesday morning and begun discussing next steps in the recruitment of a new City Manager. We’ll be bringing in a professional firm to help with a broad, nationwide search and will have opportunities to hear from key staff, community members, and other stakeholders on the skills and characteristics we’d like in the next City Manager. Stay tuned.

(3) FAQ – school enrollment and capacity

At my meet and greet at The Oak this week, I was asked about our school enrollment and school capacity. I get it – it’s a common question. All of this housing must mean a lot more students, right? Plus, we see that nearby school districts sometimes have school boundary and redistricting changes to accommodate growth. That is not the case here in Falls Church – mostly because our school system is small with one school per grade (therefore we don’t have any schools to re-district), school enrollment has been mostly flat, and we have lots of capacity due to earlier years of planning and school expansion.

A few pieces of information:

• As a whole, Northern Virginia public school divisions have actually been seeing declines in school enrollment and projections for all of Virginia are similar – due to declining birth rates and especially in NoVA, out-migration due to federal policy changes and housing affordability.
• In Falls Church – we obsess about school enrollment data. We have formulas that predict students by housing type and it’s part of our decision making with every new big project so we can carefully plan for growth.
• The 2025 school data showed enrollment returning to our pre-Covid 2019 stats. We look at enrollment every fall, tracking the types of housing students are originating from and whether our projections are accurate. (And they are.) I last wrote about this in November 2025 so encourage you to dive into that post if you want to know more.

• School capacity – this is from last year’s school budget, but FCCPS projects we have enough capacity in our schools until 2045

What’s Coming Up:

April 6 – City Council Work Session* (budget)

April 13 – City Council Meeting & Work Session* (budget)

April 20 – City Council Work Session* (budget)

April 27 – City Council Meeting & Work Session* (budget)

May 4 – City Council Work Session* (budget mark up)

May 11 – City Council Meeting* (budget adoption)

*All Mondays (except 5th Mondays and holidays) at 7:30 pm. You can access the agenda and livestream here, including recordings of past meetings

Office Hours:

Letty’s Walking Office Hours – Friday, April 10 (5 pm, Broad St / Howard Herman Trail)

Letty’s Jogging Office Hours – Friday, April 17 (12 pm, Library)

Letty’s Walking Office Hours – Friday, April 24 (5 pm, W&OD / West End Park)