So I have a small child now and am a homeowner and my wife is a teacher so I have recently started paying attention to school board issues in Fairfax and Arlington. As an accountant, one of the things I find most interesting/crazy is the budget process. For the past infinity years there is always a "budget shortfall" at the beginning of the process that somehow gets resolved through magic/my property taxes going up.

The thing that always irks me about the budget shortfall is that one line-item in the "YOY reconciliation" is an increase related to "Step Increases for Current Employees". The reason this irks me is that:

1) We have a step system of compensation (not trying to get into a debate over whether it is the right way to do things or not), so it seems odd that this would be a line-item in the reconciliation as opposed to just saying "salary increases". Except in rare cases (economic collapse ala 2009) I would expect the step to come every year since it is how the system is set up.

2) From a math perspective, shouldnt this result in a net 0 increase over time? For example, if I have 5 teachers, and each one gets a step increase, the top one should retire and a new one should come in at the bottom. Thus my net increase over time should be 0 as the higher step teachers retire and are replaced by new teachers? Instead every year, there seems to be an increase as a result of "steps". In theory, there should be some years where a bunch of older teachers retire resulting in a decrease due to steps. (I understand that a market adjustment to all of the steps would cause an increase and am not arguing against that).

Understanding #1 and #2, what is causing the budget to explode so much that my tax rate keeps going up? The only things I can think of are: (1) More older teachers than new teachers which will eventually reverse (see #2), (2) The ratio of enrolled students to taxpayers is changing such that my tax dollars are covering more students, (3) State funding is decreasing/not keeping up with inflation, (4) We are providing a better education service as a county?

This is somewhat all over the place...but would be interested in the Board's thoughts.