With this series of posts, I’ve pushed the idea that the Town of Vienna needs an accurate assessment of costs and benefits of a proposed Vienna pool/gym complex. Part of the costs — by my estimate, the majority of the costs — is in the ongoing taxpayer subsidy required to cover the operating losses of the facility. Further, pretty much everything I look at tells me that the projected operating losses that the Town has been shown are materially too optimistic.
Based on what I stumbled across today, this is (maybe not) my last bit of unsolicited information and advice to the Town of Vienna, before they decide whether or not to build a pool/gym complex.
Think of the proposed new pool as “completing” the existing Vienna REC Center. Combine the existing budget of the Vienna Community Center, with the projected budget of the newly proposed pool, arrive at the budget of the Vienna Community Center With Pool. Then do a detailed comparison of that, to the existing Reston Community Center With Pool.
In round numbers, the taxpayer subsidy for the Reston Community Center with Pool amounts 21% (of Vienna’s total property tax rate). The projected taxpayer subsidy to what I characterize as the Vienna Community Center with Pool amounts to 12% (of Vienna’s total general fund expenses).
That’s not apples-to-apples, but it’s in the ballpark, and that’s a big gap. I think we’d all learn something useful if someone with access to the detailed data attempted to reconcile those two numbers, however crudely, before the Town commits to pool/gym complex.
The upshot is that when you finally get around to seeing the obvious — that this is the second recent attempt to add a pool to the community center (the last one being in 2014) — then the idea above starts to make some sense.
Ten minutes’ worth of reading material
- Reston Citizen’s Association, 411 Series 2014.2 (reference, .pdf).
- Reston Citizen’s Association, 411 Series 2014.1 (reference, pdf).
- Fairfax County, budget fund 40050 document (reference, .pdf).
Here are a few things I learned, from skimming the three documents above, all of which focus on Reston, a well-to-do community with about 62,000 residents, located about eight miles northwest of Vienna.
- Fairfax County has a REC Center in 9 of the 10 county districts.
- The only district that doesn’t have a REC Center is Hunter Mill.
- (So, an obvious thing to do is ask Fairfax why that is.)
- Vienna is at the southern tip of Hunter Mill.
- And that explains why we’re surrounded by three REC Centers.
- Those three REC Centers are in the three adjacent Fairfax County districts.
- Decades ago, Reston got its own Community Center, as a substitute for a REC Center.
- But Reston was required to pay for it.
- The taxpayer subsidy for the Reston Community Center is literally the Fairfax Small District 5 tax.
- The Fairfax Small District 5 tax is currently 4.7 cents per $100 of assessed valuation.
- For comparison, the (entire) Town of Vienna property tax rate is 22.25 cents per $100.
- That works out to 21% (4.7 cents/22.25 cents).
- The Reston Community Center facilities include a pool about the size of the proposed Vienna pool.
- And, separately, the Fairfax budget document specifically mentions that swim teams provide an important revenue source for the Reston Community Center pool:
From the Fairfax County document, emphasis mine:
Swim team and other group rental reservations for RCC's Terry L. Smith Aquatics Center remain an important layer of programming and cost center revenue performance. ... rental ability to community partners, including South Lakes High School, Reston Masters Swim Team and the Reston Swim Team Association winter swim program.
Two practical takeaways from ten minutes’ reading.
Swim teams matter, for revenues. Enough that Fairfax highlights that in its budget documents.
And, separately, maybe the best way to get a grip on the likely financial impact of the proposed Vienna pool is with a detailed analysis of the Fairfax Small District 5 tax, as a fraction of Vienna’s property tax, compared to the Vienna Parks and Rec budget net cost, as a fraction of Vienna’s general fund costs.
In other words, think of a combined Vienna Community Center and Pool as being analogous to the existing Reston Community Center with Pool, and work up a financial comparison on that basis to provide an estimate of likely taxpayer subsidy for the proposed Vienna facility.
Details
First, if this new pool isn’t designed to accommodate swim teams, it seems likely that Vienna is losing out on a major revenue stream. From the on-line grumbling I’ve read, the current Vienna pool design will not work for swim teams, or will not work adequately, or something. (“Swim team” is a foreign culture to me, so all I can do is pass along the rumor.) The Town needs to ask Fairfax for the data to pin down how much revenue loss that involves.
Second, the annual taxpayer subsidy for the Reston Community Center complex creates an add-on property tax rate (Small District 5 rate) that is 21% of Vienna’s total property tax rate.
Now, that is a number, and its a big number, but in no sense is it a clean number, or a meaningful number, as it stands. It’s not obviously and immediately an estimate of anything directly relevant to the current discussion of a Vienna municipal pool.
For reference, the Reston taxpayer subsidy for their Community Center (including the Smith Aquatic Center) amounts to 21% of Vienna’s entire property tax rate of 22.25 cents. By contrast, the entire Town of Vienna Parks and Rec budget ($5.2M, TOV 2025 adopted budget, page 11), less Parks and Rec fees ($1.6M, TOV 2025 adopted budget, page 13) is $3.7M, which is in turn about 11% of the $33M spending from Vienna’s general fund (same, page 8). And so, by contrast, the net taxpayer subsidy to run all of Vienna Parks and Rec currently amounts to around 11% of the general cost of Town of Vienna government.
The projected $0.3M ongoing taxpayer subsidy for the proposed Vienna gym/pool amounts to about 1% of Vienna general fund revenues. So that, as projected, the Vienna Parks and Rec budget, net of all revenues, will expand to a total taxpayer subsidy that is 12% of Vienna general fund costs.
On the one hand, we have the Reston Community Center With Pool. On the other hand, think of adding a pool, to our existing Town-run recreation facilities, as creating the Vienna Community Center With Pool.
- The property tax rate that pays for the operation of the entire Reston Community Center with Pool is 21% of the size of Vienna’s total property tax rate.
- If you view this new proposal as the Vienna Community Center with pool, it is projected to require tax subsidy of about 12% of Vienna general fund costs, crudely put, as explained above.
Somebody needs to reconcile these superficially-irreconcilable numbers.
Conclusion
I get the strong sense that Vienna is not planning realistically for the operating losses (required taxpayer subsidy) for this new pool/gym complex.
This latest realization about the Fairfax Small District 5 tax adds to my unease. That nine-percentage-point gap between the Reston taxpayer subsidy and the projected Vienna taxpayer subsidy (for a combined Community Center and Pool) really begs for a detailed reconciliation. If I had unlimited access to the books of both organizations, I believe I’d dive into that, first.
Forever is a long time, and that’s approximately the length of the commitment that Vienna is making to the required annual taxpayer subsidy for the new facility. It doesn’t seem too much to ask that somebody reconcile the experience of the nearby Reston Community Center with Pool, with the projected set of books for a combined Vienna Community Center with Pool.
