Will the Loudoun County BOS Do the Right Thing with the FY2025 Budget Surplus?

Last year in the December timeframe the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors (BOS) quietly held a meeting to allocate surplus funding from the previous year’s budget. In that case, the subject was a surplus of $250M from the FY 2024 budget (June 2023 to June 2024).

The meeting was publicized after the fact in a Loudoun Times-Mirror article. The wording in the article was interesting. It said, “the Board of Supervisors held their annual meeting to allocate surplus.” What this indicated was that this is a regular event to determine how to spend the money that should not have been taken from Loudoun County taxpayers in the first place.

Given another record year of data center growth, there is little doubt that there will be another substantial surplus after the FY 2025 budget books are closed. One can bet the Board of Supervisors will again quietly hold their annual meeting to allocate this surplus.

It would be far more appropriate for the Board of Supervisors (BOS) to give the surplus back to the residents from whom it was taken. But it is hard to imagine that the profligate spending BOS will entertain this thought. I implore them to do so.

In this regard, it is notable that Virginia code specifically authorizes refunding surplus. Section 15.2-2511.1 of the Code of Virginia, as amended effective July 1, 2022, authorizes the Board of Supervisors to enact an ordinance to “develop a method for returning surplus real or personal property tax revenues, or both, to taxpayers who are assessed such taxes in any fiscal year in which the locality reports a surplus.”

It is also notable that Henrico and Frederick counties have used this provision to refund surplus taxes.  These county’s attitude should be applied by the Loudoun County BOS rather than – “oops, we took too much so let’s figure out how to blow it before anyone looks.”

The Loudoun County BOS has and continues to overtax Loudoun taxpayers. The BOS increased local tax collection by 11% from FY 2025 to FY2026 alone and has increase local taxation by 34% since 2023.

To members of the Loudoun BOS: control your spending and give some of our tax money back.

John Kefaliotis
Leesburg