Fairfax approves $290.2M budget with focus on infrastructure

Fairfax City Council unanimously approved the Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget totaling $290.2 million—a 10% increase over FY 2025—and the FY 2026-2030 Capital Improvement Program (CIP). The General Fund budget is set at $198.6 million, a 9.9% increase, maintaining a 17.7% unassigned fund balance to support the city’s AAA bond rating.

The budget includes $98.1 million in CIP expenditures for 2026 and outlines a $614.9 million investment through FY2030.

Although there was a slight increase in property tax—from $1.0300 to $1.0550—the city’s goal was to diversify revenue to avoid a heavy tax burden on residents. The tax would equate to a median increase of $959 due to property tax and property value reassessments for homeowners. Other streams of revenue, such as the 4% meals tax and the 6% each wastewater and stormwater fees help alleviate the burden for residents and businesses to fully fund schools and improve infrastructure.

In Fairfax, a city of nearly 26,000 in the Washington, D.C., metro area, about 3.1% of the workforce is federally employed. Over the entire northern region of Virginia, that number increases to about 6%. While there is still some uncertainty in federal budgets, balancing the city budget in a way that spreads the sources of income and reduces spending is a significant consideration.

The budget calls for a reduction in spending in areas such as travel, police and other departments, nonprofit grants and merit pay increases, as well as a freeze on hiring non-urgent vacancies for a year. Other cuts are more temporary, such as the two-week deferment of a school bond project.

These measures to increase sources of revenue while curtailing spending will allow Fairfax to plan 126 substantial infrastructure projects through the five-year CIP:

• Transportation: $31.9 million for road enhancements, traffic signal upgrades and multimodal infrastructure.
• General Government Projects: $24.1 million designated for upgrades to public facilities.
• Wastewater and Stormwater: $15.8 million for improving water quality and flood mitigation.
• Recreation: $9.6 million for parks, trails and recreational facilities.

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