MANASSAS — The average real estate tax bill is slated to increase under Manassas City Manager Patrick Pate’s proposed 2020 budget.
Pate told the City Council Monday night that increased property revenues from newly constructed homes and higher assessed property values mean the city will have $2.3 million more in its general fund to spend next year.
In all, the proposed $244.5 million budget is about $5 million more than the previous year’s budget, an increase of 2.1 percent.
In his budget, Pate proposes a higher tax rate at $1.48 per every $100 of assessed property value. That’s two cents higher than the current rate, and it would generate an average property tax bill of $5,881, about a four-percent increase for city homeowners.
With $58.8 million of the city’s budget going to education, the city school division would receive three percent more than it did last year.
One of the biggest budget drivers in this current year is a shared services agreement with Prince William County on everything from a courthouse and sheriff’s office, down to the money the city pays to the county library system for its residents to be able to check out books and other materials at Central Library, and others in the county.
At $11.8 million, its one of the largest cost centers in the city’s budget and this year, city taxpayers are on the hook for $1 million more than last year. Construction of a new courthouse and the effort to hire more guards to staff the jail is driving costs up, said Pate.
When it comes to cutting shared services costs, city leaders may continue discussions about building its own library. Manassas will pay $1.4 million in 2020 to be apart of the Prince William County Public Library System.
“The library is a big cost,” said Pate. “We’re still looking at having a library in our city limits rather than having our residents drive to one in the county.”
The higher costs, and projected higher real estate revenues come as the city’s population continues to grow. It’s now up to 45,500 people, up from 36,500 in 2005.
To meet demand, water and sewer rates are going up next year. And so is the cost of a police station slated to be built on Grant Avenue just south of Downtown, which will house a department with 96 16 officers that responded to more than 49,000 calls last year.
The cost of the new station in the recent year, dubbed the Public Safety Center, has jumped from $28.6 million to nearly $50 million. Pate blamed the increase on the rising construction costs in Northern Virginia.
Those rising costs come as more companies are investing in the city. In August, it landed the largest economic development expansion in Virginia history when Micron, Inc. said it would expand its operation and bring 1,100 new, high-paying jobs to the region, all of them focused on developing technologies for self-driving cars. Micron’s investment will total $3 billion over the next 10 years.
