Reston Impact Taxpayers' Alliance: Arthur Purves from Comcast Channel 28 on Vimeo.

Barbara Hollingsworth: Sound of a Government Bubble Popping

"Fairfax County School Board Chairman Kathy Smith warned parents about having to increase class size and make drastic cuts in popular band and sports programs at a public budget forum last month, while her fellow board members urged the audience to ask county supervisors to raise taxes.

What Smith didn't mention was the real reason Fairfax County Public Schools needs more money, even though it already gets half of all county revenues. Hint: It's not for the children.

"What they're really doing is cutting band so they can give their employees better benefits than most taxpayers get," Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance President Arthur Purves toldThe Examiner. In fact, the largest increase in the fiscal 2011 school budget is a proposed $96 million expenditure for employee benefits, versus just $9 million for increased student enrollment."

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By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
March 9, 2010

Fairfax faces choice: Raise taxes to fund teacher pensions, or tame local spending

"Fairfax County officials are about to run head-on into the same public sector pension funding crisis that is spreading across the entire country, as detailed by the Pew Center on the States' recent report about the "trillion-dollar funding gap."

The issue is being drawn with razor-sharpness in Fairfax in the choice now facing local school board officials: They can either ask the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to raise taxes to fund lavish teacher pensions and other retirement benefits properly, or they can reduce current teacher and administrator salaries by eight percent and use the money saved instead."  Read more

By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
02/21/10 8:40 AM EST