Fairfax Supervisors Approve Uses for $46.9M Budget Carryover

Karen Goff September 24, 2015 at 9:30am

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved a $46.91 million carryover from the 2015 county budget.

A carryover is the process by which certain unspent or unencumbered funds for commitments to pay for goods and services at the end of one fiscal year are re-appropriated to the next fiscal year, the county says. FY 2015 ended on June 30.

County executive Ed Long made as series of recommendations on how to allocate the money. After a public hearing Tuesday, the supervisors approved those recommendations.

Among them:

$13.10 million to fund Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) for infrastructure replacement and improvements (school building renovations, new facilities, HVAC upgrades, etc. This amount will also be included in the proposed FY 2017 budget planning. Schools superintendent Karen Garza is predicting a budget gap of about $80 million for the schools in their upcoming fiscal year.
$5.53 million is being allocated to the county’s infrastructure reserve fund.
$3.86 million to fund Board of Supervisors’ priorities, including the purchase of second mobile crisis unit, reduction of waiting lists for School Age Child Care (SACC) programs, human services’ prevention efforts, the resident curator program, emergency system requirements related to aging infrastructure, preliminary design for a community athletic field in the Hybla Valley area and Fire and Rescue programs related to health and injury prevention.
$2 million in contributions to the World Police & Fire Games. The carryover review also included $1 million appropriated by the commonwealth of Virginia to support the 2015 games. Fairfax officials estimated the games, held in late June and early July brought in $83 million in economic benefits for the county.
$1.5 million to fund FCPS high school turf fields. This is the third and final county contribution to install turf fields at county schools. Funding is being matched by FCPS.
$.65 million for Laurel Hill Adaptive Reuse project. This funding was approved by the Board of Supervisors in July 2014.
$.17 million to fund a six-month transition period for the closing of the Annandale Adult Day Health Care Center.
$17.81 million is being allocated for the county’s financial reserves to support the Triple AAA bond rating based on the board’s reserve policy. All adjustments included in carryover have been accompanied with contributions to the reserves, bringing total reserve adjustments to $18.53 million, the county says.
$5.96 million is available for the Board of Supervisors to allocate for future non-recurring priorities.

The reserve allocation will be taken into consideration when the county executive makes the annual budget forecast for FY 2017 to to a joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and the School Board in November.

For more budget information, visit Fairfax County’s website.