Tag Archives: Arthur Purves

Fairfax Spends More, Teaches Less

Posted on April 14, 2024 by | 29 comments

by Arthur Purves

(Editor’s note: Arthur Purves, president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, addressed the Fairfax County School Board on Feb. 13, 2024. His remarks, with updated numbers, are posted below.)

At church I get to ask students and parents around Vienna about our schools. The feedback is positive, and we appreciate your dedicated teachers and administrators.

However, as FCPS spending goes up, achievement goes down. Over the past 5 years, per-student cost has increased, from $16K to $21K, while SAT scores fell, from 1212 to 1181. Never in half a century have FCPS SAT scores seen such a precipitous decline.

Your crucial failure is in teaching minority students mastery of reading and arithmetic by third grade. Most of our crime is committed by individuals whom the public schools failed to teach reading. The fault is the curriculum and unaccountable administrators,not the students, their race, nor their families. Your budget does not even mention Equal Access to Literacy, which was supposed to replace whole word reading instruction with phonics. Continue reading →

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Posted in Budgets, Education (K-12), Efficiency in government, Taxes

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Fairfax SAT Scores Fall 27 Points Since 2018

Posted on February 7, 2023 by | 22 comments

by Arthur Purves

When my wife and I were looking for a home in Fairfax County 50 years ago, we asked the real estate agent how the schools were. “Excellent!” she replied.

But today? The Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Oct. 5, 2022, press release on 2022 SAT scores shows that between 2018 and 2022 the average FCPS SAT score fell 27 points, from 1212 to 1185. The last time FCPS SAT scores decreased over a five-year period was 1989-1993, and the decrease was one point.

The Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance (FCTA) emailed FCPS School Board Chair Rachna Sizemore Heizer to ask why SAT scores decreased. She forwarded our question to the Assistant Superintendent for Instructional Services, who replied that, “… five-year trends for mean SAT scores are down globally since 2018, a pattern consistent in Virginia and FCPS.”

However, the FCPS press release itself says that Virginia SAT scores increased 14 points while FCPS scores fell 27 points. So, the FCTA replied to Chair Sizemore Heizer with this correction and again asked why FCPS SAT scores decreased.

Two weeks have passed without an answer. Continue reading →

22 Comments

Posted in Education (K-12)

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Taxation Through Misrepresentation

Posted on June 27, 2022 by | 15 comments

by Arthur G. Purves

Around June 28 Fairfax County homeowners will get their real estate tax bill, which is due July 28. The typical homeowner’s real estate tax bill will increase by $484, or 6.8%, from $7,159 to $7,643.

Around Sept. 5, Fairfax County car owners will get their personal property tax bill, which is due Oct. 5. The typical household’s personal property tax will increase by $151, or 36%, from $420 to $571.

Combining real estate and personal property tax increases, the typical household will have a $634, or 8.4% tax increase. This is the largest increase since Gerry Connolly’s 9.7% increase in 2006, at the end of the housing bubble. (When he was county chairman, Congressman Connolly increased taxes 15% in 2003, which makes him the record holder for the largest tax increase since 1982.)

However, if you read county chairman Jeff McKay’s April 26, 2022, newsletter about next year’s budget, you’d think your taxes are going down. Continue reading →

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Posted in Taxes

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Fairfax’s Un-Affordable Housing Program

Posted on March 24, 2022 by | 45 comments

by Arthur Purves

If you live in Fairfax County and are over 50, you may have received from the county a five-page 120-question survey to “…inform the county’s … Future Aging Plan.” Here’s the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance Future Aging Plan: stop taxing us out of our homes.

For 20 years, county supervisors have been increasing real estate taxes three times faster than household income. Real estate taxes are the supervisors’ “Unaffordable Housing Program.” The supervisors do have an “Affordable Housing Program,” but with a waiting list so long that they’re afraid to disclose it. Their Unaffordable Housing Program, however, has no waiting list: Homeowners get a tax hike July 28.

Assessments increased almost 10%. Many people think that if assessments increase, real estate taxes must increase, too. This is false. Supervisors can prevent a tax hike by lowering the tax rate 10 cents. However, if they keep the rate unchanged, they get an extra $250 million. That’s a quarter of billion dollars. Continue reading →

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Posted in Taxes

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A Taste of Tyranny

Posted on January 19, 2022 by | 19 comments

Leviathan

Testimony of Arthur Purves, president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance, at a hearing held by the Fairfax delegation to the General Assembly January 8.

Thank you for this hearing. I have five topics.

First, it was 19 degrees this morning, and we just had a 20-hour, 50-mile shutdown on I-95 due to snow and ice. You should claim victory in your war against global warming, withdraw from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and repeal the Virginia Clean Energy Act, which drive up the cost of living and replace reliable with unreliable energy. Solar panel production is not clean.

Why does Germany, a leader in clean energy, need a new natural gas pipeline?
The evidence for a climate change crisis is sketchy. For example, when I asked an employee who had worked at a ski resort for 32 years if the ski season had been shortened, the answer was no. For another example, Bangladesh flooding is the result of silt runoff due to deforestation, not rising sea levels. Continue reading →

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For the Left, Government Is Always Underfunded

Posted on December 18, 2021 by | 9 comments

by Arthur G. Purves

Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin has proposed several savings for Virginia’s taxpayers, including doubling the standard deduction, providing a one-time tax rebate, eliminating the grocery tax, and suspending the 10-cent increase in the gas tax. His proposals come at a time when Virginia has a record $2.6 billion budget surplus.

Nevertheless, Virginia Public Media ran a Dec. 10, 2021, article entitled, “Economic experts say Youngkin tax cuts could continue underfunding Virginia’s essential services,” primarily education and healthcare. They also said that Virginia taxes and cost of living rank in the middle of all states.

The phrase “could continue underfunding” would be humorous if it were not so reckless.

Since 1981, Virginia spending on education has increased more than twice as fast as population and inflation. Welfare spending, which is mainly Medicaid, has increased nearly four times faster than population and inflation.

Since 1961, the Virginia General Fund, primarily based on income taxes, has increased six times faster than population and inflation. Continue reading →

9 Comments

Posted in Budgets, Taxes, Uncategorized

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Democrat Bunkum about Youngkin

Posted on September 30, 2021 by | 8 comments

Arthur G. Purves

In this fall’s Virginia gubernatorial campaign, Virginia Democrats are citing “a new independent study” to attack Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin, when Democrat policies themselves merit scrutiny. The Virginia Democrats web page does not cite the source of the Youngkin study but does link to the the website of the Virginia Education Association (VEA), whose political action committee has endorsed the Democrat candidate. The VEA page describes a study about “… Mr. Youngkin’s proposal to eliminate the personal income tax …” but does not link to an actual study. To request it, you must contact VEA Communications.

Try it. The reply was, “This study is being reserved for VEA members and members of the media.” (Though a long-standing member of the media, Bacon’s Rebellion publisher Jim Bacon received the same response.)

What are the Democrats and the “independent” Virginia Education Association trying to hide? Perhaps it is that Mr. Youngkin never proposed to eliminate the personal income tax. According to PolitiFact:

Continue reading →

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Posted in Elections, Taxes

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Return the Surplus, Do Not Reward Schools that Don’t Teach

Posted on September 26, 2021 by | 9 comments

by Arthur G. Purves

Virginia ended Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 with a record-breaking budget surplus of $2.6 billion. (Virginia’s budget year, or fiscal year, is from July 1 to June 30.) Virginia Governor Ralph Northam stated that the surplus was due to Virginia’s great business climate, pointing out that CNBC ranked Virginia as the #1 state for being business friendly. Not everyone agrees with CNBC. The Virginia Industry Foundation last November ranked Virginia as #11.

$800 million in tax hikes. Also, Governor Northam did not acknowledge that perhaps $800 million of the surplus is from two recent tax hikes. One is the internet sales tax, which started July 2019. The other is Virginia’s failure to increase its income tax standard deductions to conform to the federal standard deductions.

 Currently the Virginia standard deduction for single and married filers is $4,500 and $9,000 compared to the 2021 federal deductions of $12,550 and $25,100. Many filers have itemized deductions that are less than the federal standard deduction but greater than the Virginia standard deduction. They opt for the federal standard deduction to save on federal taxes but are then forced by Virginia to use the Virginia standard deduction on their state return. They then pay more for their Virginia tax than they did with itemized deductions. Continue reading →

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Posted in Education (K-12)

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