County Board Votes To Advertise No Real Estate Tax Rate Increase

ARLINGTON, VA — Arlington County Board members voted Tuesday, Feb. 25, to keep the real estate tax rate at the same level for calendar year 2021, according to a county release.

On a 4-0 vote, the Board agreed to advertise a tax rate of $1.013 per $100 of assessed value for calendar year 2020. The Board is prohibited from adopting a higher tax rate than the one it advertises, although it could adopt a lower rate if it wishes to do so. Even without an increase in the tax rate, Arlington County will still collect $51.1 million in additional ongoing revenue.

Real estate and personal property taxes in total would increase $284 for the average Arlington homeowner, if the $1.4 billion Fiscal Year 2021 Budget Proposal County Manager Mark Schwartz presented to the Board at its Thursday, Feb. 20 work session were adopted. This would also mean the overall tax burden for the average household would go up $376.

The proposal, which is a 2.9 percent ($40 million) increase over FY 2020 budget, targets $848 million toward county operations and transfers $550 million to Arlington Public Schools. Both sides of the ledger are seeing increases over last year, 2.7 percent ($22.2 million) for county operations and 3.3 percent ($17.7 million) for schools.

“The Board appreciates that the Manager has followed our guidance and proposed a budget that is able to provide more funding for affordable housing, schools, and stormwater management, and restore some cuts made during the worst of the Great Recession, with no increase in the real estate tax rate,” Arlington County Board Chair Libby Garvey said, in the release. “Now it is the Board’s turn to carefully review the budget, hear from the public, and work with Schools to close their expected budget gap."

According to Garvey, even without an increase to the tax rate, the majority of Arlington homeowners would see the greatest jump in their real estate taxes since 2016.

“Facing that reality, we will certainly be looking for ways to adopt a lower rate than what we have advertised today when we finalize the budget in April," she said, in the release.

The Board will conduct budget work sessions in March and April, with public hearings scheduled for March 31 and April 2. The Board will adopt the budget on April 18 and the School Budget will be adopted on May 7. FY 2021 begins on July 1.