The Manassas Park governing body has approved its fiscal year 2021 budget that maintains all taxes and fees at the same rate as last year.
The real estate tax rate is $1.55 per $100 assessed value. If a resident’s home has an assessed value of $250,000, they can expect to pay a real estate tax bill of $3,875.
Manassas Park’s total budget for the fiscal year 2021 is just over $97 million.
The city’s general fund accounts for about $51 million of the total budget, down 2.6% from the last fiscal year.
The reduction of the budget comes from spending cuts to transportation, park trails, and technology.
Manassas Park schools will be receiving $46 million, 2.5% more than last fiscal year. This accounts for the majority of the remaining budget.
All full-time city employees were slated to get a 2% pay raise in accordance with a pay raise strategy implemented back in the fiscal year 2019. Due to the coronavirus, the 2021 budget does not include the planned raise.
However, the budget model including the 2% raise is available in City Manager Laszlo Palko’s budget book:
“The reason why we present the 2% model for the governing body in this book is that as the economy recovers, city staff would like to eventually implement these budget changes- either in FY 21 with a budget amendment or in FY 22 depending on the economic realities,” said Palko in the city document.
The city has also adopted a long-term strategy to reduce taxes from 2025 onward once fund reserves have reached the required levels.
Manassas Park will be using the rest of the $1.5 million it received from the CARES Act during this fiscal year.
On Tuesday, May 19, the governing body decided to split this funding between the following eight projects:
- Reimbursing the city’s payment to Parks & Rec staff
- Supporting small businesses
- Rent and utility support to people unemployed due to the coronavirus
- Employee support
- Technology enhancements
- Additional coronavirus workforce
- Personal protective equipment and testing kits
- Cleaning support
