"Tough" Budget Conversations Begin in Stafford
"We’re looking at two years, maybe three, of hard conversations."
By Adele Uphaus
MANAGING EDITOR AND CORRESPONDENT
Email Adele
The Stafford School Board on Tuesday approved its budget for next fiscal year, which asks for $18.6 million in new local funding from the Board of Supervisors.
Of that, $10.6 million would support operating the three new schools set to open in August, and $8 million will be dedicated to staff compensation and benefits.
Also on Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors met and began reviewing County Administrator Bill Ashton’s proposed budget for the county, which is built on a proposed real estate tax rate of $0.985, a 6-cent increase over the current fiscal year’s rate.
Andrea Light, the county’s finance director, said that one penny on the tax rate brings in $2.26 million in revenue.
If the board wanted to keep the tax rate where it is now, “you’re going to shave off more than $25 million” from the proposed budget,” she said. “The effective tax rate no longer makes any sense when looking at Stafford County’s residents, due to the state mandated exonerations.”
Among these state mandates are tax relief programs for senior citizens and disabled veterans. Ashton’s budget presentation from last week estimated that the tax relief total from these two programs in Stafford will be $40 million in fiscal year 2027 (July 1, 2026 through June 30, 2027).
Ashton’s budget includes $24 million in new funding for the school division, but of that, $9 million is to cover debt service for the three new schools. He is proposing $10.5 million for the new schools’ operating cost and the public day school, and $4.5 million for employee compensation—about half what the division is requesting.
All Stafford County departments were asked to cut their budgets by 2%, and there are no new positions included in the total county budget. On Tuesday, Stafford’s constitutional officers—Treasurer Mike Sienkowski, Commissioner of the Revenue Scott Mayausky, Commonwealth’s Attorney Eric Olsen, and Sheriff David Decatur—gave the board more details about their requests and what is not being funded.
Sienkowski said there have been no new positions in the treasurer’s office since 2021. He said that this year, he requested an additional full-time revenue collection analyst, as well as to convert one part-time revenue collection specialist to a full time position, to “provide backup coverage for critical functions currently performed by one person.”
Olsen said he requested one additional paralegal, to bring the case load per paralegal to 1,889, down from 2,125; one additional attorney, to bring case load from 1,000 to 944; and one additional legal assistant.
Decatur, during his presentation on Tuesday, said he is aware of the budget challenges, but that it is “ it incumbent on me to let you know the pay and bonus disparity” between Stafford and surrounding jurisdictions. He distributed a handout showing that the starting salary for a deputy in Stafford—$61,078 for fiscal year 2027—is the fourth lowest among 11 neighboring localities, and noting that many of these agencies have other hiring incentives such as signing bonuses, and language and educational stipends.
Ashton’s proposed budget does include a 4% pay increase for public safety and general government staff.
Decatur said he requested five new sworn officer positions that are not funded in Ashton’s budget, including a school resource officer for Hartwood High School, which is opening in August, as well as “a number” of new civilian positions.
Mayausky said the “biggest ask” from his office is $10,000 for the investigative software CLEAR, which he said would help the office keep track of residents and keep the tax rolls clean.
The School Board and Board of Supervisors will hold a joint meeting on Thursday to discuss the budget. Supervisors are scheduled to vote on an advertised tax rate next week. The final adopted tax rate can be reduced from the advertised rate, but it can’t go above that rate without a second public hearing.
Deuntay Diggs, Chair of the Board of Supervisors, said Tuesday that this year’s budget season is going to be difficult.
“I believe that if we sit in the room and have hard conversations, we can get there, but I’m just going to say for the record that we also have to protect our staff and our county employees,” he said. “Yes, this is a tough year, and next year will be another tough year. We’re looking at two years, maybe three, of hard conversations.”
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Thank you for great reporting. I would describe the effective more as deficient, rather than making no sense, when looking at budget increases, since it merely fails to capture the revenue lost to tax relief beyond what was forecasted when setting last year’s 0.9236 tax rate. But it’s still quite relevant to the taxpayer when determining the increase to the average tax bill by the new proposed tax rate of 0.985.