ARLINGTON, Va. — The Arlington Coalition of Police together with the Arlington Professional Firefighters and Paramedics Association are requesting the county board to raise real estate taxes by one cent to help retain and recruit public safety officers amid a shortage of firefighters and police officers.
The request comes amid the worst staffing crisis in at least 30 years, the groups said in a press release Monday. The money would be used to help fix the staffing issues.
Randall Mason who serves as the president of the police union says the department is down 72 officers out of the 376 positions which positions Arlington County with one of the worst vacancy rates in the region with 19.1%.
"Every day we are backfilling multiple shifts. Anywhere between 12 to 16 shifts, over the course of the day that we have to backfill just to get the minimum staffing. It's causing the officers to be overworked," Mason told WUSA9.
The Arlington County Professional Firefighter and Paramedics Association says they are facing similar staffing issues and member burnout.
Both the Arlington County Fire Department and Police Department say they are still fixing pay inequities left behind by the old, "open range pay system."
"There were 200 of 300 officers that had been leapfrogged in pay by someone with less time on. One example was a 7-year officer who was being paid less than a 4-year officer," the police union said in a statement.
The coalition says County HR identified the issue as costing $7.8M and the Board gave the department $275,000 to fix the system in FY2023. More recently, the coalition asked the Board to raise taxes to help pay for the cost of fixing the system. Instead, the group claims the Board gave the department another $520,000.
"In total, the County Board has given $795k toward a $7.8 million problem, a little over 10%," the coalition said. "Only putting 10% toward the problem has left ACPD with the worst system in the area, taking 20-26 years to max out and the lowest yearly percentage merit raise."
Mason says the high cost of living in Arlington County is also contributing to the vacancy rates.
"We have to incentivize coming to Arlington County because 63% of our officers don't even live here," Mason added.
The 2025 annual budget proposed by Arlington County Manager Mark Schwartz includes raising the tax for homeowners by about 1.5 cents and recommends $10.1 million in service and program reductions across county departments.
Both the police and fire departments are each being allotted 5% of the total budget.
However, the police department is seeing a 2% increase compared to last year leaving them with nearly $86 million.
Arlington County Board Chair Libby Garvey acknowledged the unions' request to raise the real estate taxes by a penny. In a statement, she added, "The Board is aware of the many critical needs facing our community—including budget challenges in Arlington Public Schools—that need to be addressed."
Mason hopes public safety is among the Board's top priorities. Without a significant commitment from the County Board, he sees no way out of the staffing issue, especially as more than 60% of ACPD officers live outside of the county.
"ACPD and our staffing can’t afford another year of waiting to fix our system," the coalition added.
The Arlington County Board is set to deliberate on the budget Tuesday evening to determine the upper limit on a tax rate increase.
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