September 16, 2025 Budget Policy Committee - Sep 16, 2025
meeting
Fairfax County Board Committees
1h 25m
5 speakers
7 agenda items
transcribed 2 days ago
official recording ↗
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the agenda and purpose of the September 16 2025 Budget Committee meeting?
We're gonna go ahead and get uh started. It's now nine thirty. I wanna welcome everyone to the budget committee uh committee meeting of September sixteenth, twenty twenty five. Um and just as a reminder uh for folks watching, our next budget committee meeting after today uh will be a joint meeting with the Fairfax County Public Schools uh and the school board, which is scheduled for December second, uh, twenty twenty five at three PM in conference room eleven here where we are today. Uh with that there's only two items on the agenda today. Uh first is the FY 2025 carryover review and after that we will get an update on the joint committees uh with our school board colleagues that uh were created not long ago.
With that being said, I'm gonna turn uh the mic over to uh Phil Hagen, our director of the Department of Management and Budget. Welcome.
Uh good morning and thank you, Mr Chairman. With me at the table today are my Deputy Directors, Katie Horstman and Joe LaHate, as well as our Deputy County Executive, Alicia Seard McCormick, and our Director of Information Technology, Matthew Harrison. I'm going to be walking through the staff recommendations of the FY 2025 carryover review. This is our first opportunity to amend the FY 2026 budget, primarily by identifying uses for the revenue and expenditure balances that remain at the of FY twenty twenty five. Carryover adjustments typically focus on capital and IT needs as our quarterly reviews are the primary means of funding those items. I noted during last year's carryover presentation that we were expecting our year in balances to decrease and this slide gives some historical context on that.
Uh for revenues, our variances were typically below one percent of the estimate prior to the pandemic. Those variances increased to a high of one and a half percent following the pandemic, primarily due to the high interest rate environment. Uh we had remained conservative in our projections of interest earnings during that time frame due to concerns that those rates would decrease. FY twenty twenty five ended with a variance of just under half a percent, which is similar to our position pre-pandemic. On the expenditure side, variances were typically below 2% prior to the pandemic. With the onset of the pandemic, we encouraged agencies to hold back on spending, and we also instituted a hiring freeze.
And we saw the impact of those actions on our variances as they increased. With improvements in our position vacancy rates and the tightening of budgets due to multiple years of budget cuts, the expenditure variance for FY 2025 was a similar percentage to those pre-pandemic levels. I would note that that ninety eight million dollar expenditure variance includes forty nine million dollars in encumbrance in encumbrances, which are orders that were placed but not paid for in the prior fiscal year. as well as the ten million dollar one time balance of the Reserve for Economic Uncertainty and the two million dollar balance of the hiring incentive reserve. If we were to exclude those amounts, agency variances would total a much smaller amount, about $37 million.
As you see on this slide, just going to that bottom right-hand corner, the total variance of $124 million is the smallest balance since FY 2020. As a result, the balance available for investments in capital IT and other priorities is smaller than what we've seen in recent years. This next slide provides a high level summary of staff recommendations for carryover. We have detailed slides on each of these items as we go through the presentation. And so as I noted on the prior slide, we start with a general fund balance of $124 million, FY 2025 commitments, which include encumbrances, The reappropriation of those two reserves, the Reserve for Economic Uncertainty and the Hiring Incentive Program Reserve, as well as associated reserve contributions, total sixty-four million dollars.
Then we have thirteen million dollars, which is related to either prior board commitments, critical requirements, or the results of state action.
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Agenda
7 items
1
What is the agenda and purpose of the September 16 2025 Budget Committee meeting?
0:03–5:27
2
How does the FY 2025 carryover review impact the county’s budget and reserves?
5:27–34:20
3
What updates are provided on the joint committees with the Fairfax County School Board?
34:20–56:02
4
How are revenue variances and economic uncertainty affecting FY 2026 projections?
56:02–1:05:34
5
Why are transportation and sidewalk projects experiencing delays and what role does VDOT play?
1:05:34–1:14:58
6
What are the proposed position adjustments and staffing changes in the FY 2027 budget?
1:14:58–1:23:48
7
How are innovation, IT initiatives, and cost‑saving measures being integrated into the budget process?
1:23:48–1:25:09
Speakers
5 identified
Jeffrey C. McKay 23 min
Rachna Sizemore Heizer 4 min
Pat Herrity 3 min
Rodney L. Lusk 3 min
Kathy L. Smith 2 min
Officials recognised by voice; public commenters shown as “Speaker N” unless they state their name.
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