In an e-mail to members of the Falls Church City Council last week, City Manager Wyatt Shields reported that the anticipated budget shortfall for the current fiscal year is close to $800,000, double what he expected as recently as two weeks ago. The decline in revenues from real estate values and sales taxes, even if not as severe as outlying areas in the region, is identified as the cause.
Shields told the Council at a work session Monday that he will provide more solid numbers and a game plan for cutting costs in the next months. Fairfax County is already engaged in a similar process, but with much higher stakes. According to Fairfax County Supervisors Chair Gerry Connolly, in comments to the News-Press yesterday, a total of $350 million in budget cuts is coming in the county, and “no entity in the county is immune,” including the schools. In the City of Falls Church,
$800,000 is percent of the annual budget of $76 million, but finding where to make the cuts will not be easy. Shields said that he convened a meeting of all City department heads last Friday to urge them all to find savings. “I am not calling for mandatory cuts yet,” he told the Council. “I am hoping we can come back and work together, evaluate the level of service provided, and agree on where we can save.”
Democratic Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, in exclusive comments to the NewsPress in Tysons Corner yesterday morning, said that the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, sell off of Merrill Lynch, near failure of AIG and the attendant stock market nosedive has triggered what he called a “reset” of the presidential campaign. The reaction to the crisis by the presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, echoed in comments they made the last three days, have fundamentally redefined the race, he said. Kaine was appearing at a fundraiser for Democratic Congressional candidate Gerry Connolly. A staunch supporter of Obama, Kaine said McCain’s comments Monday that “the economy is fundamentally sound” reminded him of the kind of things that President Herbert Hoover said when the Great Depression began to set in. But Kaine conceded that the presidential race in Virginia remains a “dead heat” at present, a view also shared by a prominent Republican, retiring U.S. Rep. Tom Davis, in comments he made to a joint meeting of the Falls Church Chamber of Commerce and Merrifield Business Association Tuesday in Falls Church. Connolly, current chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, is seeking the Virginia 11th Congressional District seat being vacated by Davis’ decision to not seek an eighth term as the representative
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