The birds will be singing, the snow will be melting, and throughout spring, Arlington County staff and board members will spend most of their afternoons haggling over finances. On Feb. 23, the County Board will vote on County Manager Mark Schwartz’s proposed FY 2017 budget, and 2016’s budget session will officially kick off.

2016 shows no sign of slowing for Arlington’s population growth, which means increases in service demands and the school population. Even before the County Board can begin financing county projects and services, the county faces $7 million in non-discretionary inflationary increases to county expenditures. There’s a 3 percent ($1 million) increase in metro costs, and another 3 percent ($1.9 million) in county debt and 9.5 percent increase (also $1.9 million) in county facility costs.

Residential assessments in Arlington are expected to increase by 3 percent, with zero growth in commercial property growth. In the commercial property sector, office vacancy continues to be a major concern. Vacancy rates are currently at 20.8 percent, the lowest it’s been since the last quarter of 2013. Vacancy rates spiked in late 2014 at 23.6 percent vacancy. With little growth in commercial property, the preliminary FY 2017 outlook prepared by the county manager’s office indicated that more of the tax burden will continue to shift towards homeowners.

Arlington County government and Arlington Public Schools have a revenue sharing agreement, meaning 46.5 percent of the local tax revenue goes directly into the schools. Arlington County Public Schools will host its first budget meeting on Thursday, Feb. 18, where preliminary budget guidance estimates that county and schools will face a $12 million budget gap. If accurate, that gap is less than the record $20 million gap that the FY 2016 budget started with. The preliminary outlook noted that student growth had increased by between 2.8 percent and 5.2 percent per year over the last five years. However, that growth was expected to slow to between 2.7 percent and 3.5 percent each year over the next five years.

The entirety of the Feb. 23 Arlington County Board meeting will surround a vote on a request to advertise the FY 2017 budget. Public Budget Hearings will take place towards the end of March, with a tax rate hearing on March 31. Budget adoption will occur in April.