City Council Work Session

Mr. MartinezstaffABLE TO LOWER THE TAX RATE FROM THAT SIDE. LIKE THE MANAGER SAID, A MULTITUDE NUMBER OF VARIABLES THAT IT WOULD BE VERY HARD TO DRAW A VERY SOUND CORRELATION. ADDITIONALLY, ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE DO HERE IN THE CITY IS WE ASSESS EVERY SINGLE YEAR. IN MY MIND, INFLATION IS KIND OF BAKED IN WITH THOSE ASSESSMENTS THAT GET REASSESSED EVERY YEAR. USUALLY THOSE ASSESSMENTS APPRECIATE EVERY SINGLE YEAR. SO INFLATION IS KIND OF BAKED IN. How do I back out meals tax? How do I back out ARPA? To try to really give you and the public the most accurate information where I wouldn't be challenged or say that I'm presenting something, again, not as genuous as I potentially could.

Brian FosterstaffWe discussed that internally, and, you know, we think, you know, $1.15 was 2.5 cents higher than recommended, and that's about the difference in the meals tax that's being proposed because we haven't talked about that, you know, because I've heard some comments about not liking on the meals tax. There are other options for you. we all know no one likes to be on put it on the real estate but the reality is that's your largest that's the biggest bang for the buck in terms of the smallest increase gets you the biggest return and so there's a combination of things that we can do and again we've given you a recommended budget 9.5 or 1.12.5 rate all all we're suggesting is if you again to your point of the budget town

Catherine ReadAnd so the idea that if people lost their jobs, they could lose their homes, and those homes could be in a situation where they're taken into receivership. at the minimum, we could see a decline in our meals tax for the same reason. It's not just the tariffs making everything more expensive. I mean, people are already paying whatever for a dozen

But the fact of the matter is, people are going to start cutting back on things that generate revenue for us, like the meals tax. And I don't think we can predict that. I mean, here we are. It's March 4th. We are so, this administration hasn't even started doing what they're going to do, and we're trying to do a budget, as is every other locale, every location in Northern Virginia, trying to figure out what kind of economic hit our communities are going to take, and what does that mean for the bottom line where we are generating the dollars, whatever the tax rate is, to pay our bills. And I don't know that there's any discussion in the world that resolves that. There just isn't. We don't know what's going to happen.

Brian Fosterstaffwhich will basically lead to higher bids. That's where I think that's probably the most likely outcome of that. His next question is, can the meals tax be raised above the 6% level? The answer is yes, it can be, if you would like. and can we add a sunset provision like the town of Vienna did and the answer is so what I understand is you they increased it and but they put a sunset on the increase for a certain period of time so so if council desires that that is certainly something that could be done if you wish to put some type of limitate sunset limitation on the increase that could be done as well how can it increase the transit occupying tax. You can do that the next time you have to amend the charter for anything besides that would be