Purcellville passes reduced FY24 budget 

“For school D isn’t good, but for engineering D is not bad” – Dale Lehnig

By Valerie Cury

At the Town of Purcellville’s May 23 Town Council work session, council voted 4-3 to pass the town’s revised budget. Mayor Stan Milan, Vice Mayor Chris Bertaut, and Council Members Carol Luke and Boo Bennett voted for the lowered budget. Council Members Mary Jane Williams, Ron Rise Jr., and Erin Rayner voted against the FY24 budget.

Water rates were proposed at 6.5 percent and lowered to 5 percent, while sewer rates were proposed at 9 percent and lowered to 7.5 percent.

The FY24 budget was proposed at $28.2 million and reduced overall to $27.8 million. The changes included a half-cent reduction of the proposed real estate rate from .21 to .20.5 cents. Real estate assessments did increase, so with the reduction, residents will see a $7.25 increase per month in their real estate bill.

Committees, commissions and boards compensation – which has not been raised in 15 years – was increased by 4 percent. A council member, for example, receives $5,750 annually, and will receive an extra $230 per year with the increase. Council Member Erin Rayner said she would not accept a budget that includes a raise for council and committees, commissions and boards.

The legal department’s budget was reduced by going with an attorney on retainer. The cost-of-living increase for staff was lowered from the proposed 5 percent to 4 percent. Pay for Performance was set at a one-time bonus with a range of 2 to 4 percent, at the town manager’s discretion.

At the May 9 Town Council meeting, in the citizen comment portion, resident Michael Seipt again spoke in favor of the proposed 5 percent cost-of-living increase for town staff. He said he supported the 7/690 Interchange and urged council to approve it.

Kingsbridge resident Barbara Lucas said it was very difficult to exit her neighborhood and the 7/690 Interchange “benefits the people of our town and people of our county. I believe most residents are in favor of it.”

The unsignalized entrance for the Kingsbridge neighborhood would remain at an F level of service with or without the interchange.

Kate Goddard spoke in favor of the proposed 5 percent COLA and said she was “concerned about having a poverty mindset in an affluent town.” She said that Purcellville residents are primarily affluent people. She said that the average household income is $117K per year and added, “There are 400 residents below poverty level … Let’s not plan as if they are the only residents in the community.” She also supported all 4 interchange ramps.

Former Council Member Joan Lehr, who voted for the Vineyard Square 6-story development on 21^st Street and also approved the $40 million dollars of town debt for the sewer plant upgrade, said she supported the COLA increase of 5 percent. She said she also supported the 7/690 Interchange.  

Developer Casey Chapman said he supported the 5 percent COLA increase and the ongoing pay for performance for staff. He said the 7/690 Interchange “isn’t new – isn’t sudden. We need the 4 ramps [even] if it improves waiting time by one second.”

Director of Engineering Planning and Development Dale Lehnig said the purpose of the 7/690 Interchange was to increase roadway connectivity for growth that has already occurred. She said she disagreed with the notion that it was to support new growth.

Lehnig said that the planning commission’s findings regarding the fourth ramp – which would be in the Town of Purcellville – were flawed. She said the interchange would reduce volumes on town roads. 

“All have a level of service of D or better; LOS of D is a typical design goal,” Lehnig explained. “For school D isn’t good, but for engineering D is not bad.”

In council discussion regarding the proposed budget, Council Member Erin Rayner said she supported both the proposed 6.5 percent rate for water rates and 9 percent for sewer rates. 

“We really need to get going on fixing the problem of our debt and our rates,” Rayner said. “We need to listen to our consultants and raise our rates 6.5 percent for water and 9 percent for wastewater.”

She said council has subsidized the town’s utility rate by taking from “our reserves” to balance the budget, and that has “gotten us in the hard place we are in.”

All of the Town’s Reserve funds currently contain more than required by the amount set by the Town’s very conservative fiscal policies. The Reserves are intended to be used for emergencies, to pay down debt, and to support the operations of the Town. Vice Mayor Chris Bertaut has previously said when discussing the Reserve fund that sitting on excess cash is harmful to the citizens. Why tax them more in order to keep putting money into the Reserves when there’s more than enough there already?

Rayner said the proposed budget “was a sound budget. It’s a lean budget. We literally have found nothing to change that is substantial. Our previous town manager and our new one both agree that this is the budget we should adopt. We don’t have a spending problem; we have a revenue problem.”

Vice Mayor Chris Bertaut said this was the second year in a row “with double digit increases proposed for the annual budget.” 

“While salaries are just a part of the picture, they are important both to those receiving them and to those supporting them – that is the taxpayers and the rate payers of this town,” said Bertaut. “The economy today is uncertain and very few outside of the government have a great deal of faith and confidence in the security of their jobs.”

Bertaut said that the town’s practice of “charging the utility fund for services rendered by the general fund staff means the utility funds are getting hit twice. Once by increases in pay within the utility fund and again when the chargebacks are exacted.”

He reminded council that the Baker Tilly compensation study was published in 2019 and since then the town has “made great strides in making jobs and Purcellville government pay comparable to other jurisdictions … in the region.”

The council has heard some criticism about council’s relationship with the county. “Town council, and the committees, commissions and boards have no reason to apologize for not having been informed by the town of the existence of several applications for an entire year,” said Bertaut – referring to the delay from management in bringing the Fields Farm Projects and the 7/690 Interchange to the council’s attention. Once council and the planning commission were made aware of the plans, they “devoted many hours to examining the applications, surveying residents and holding public hearings.”

“But,” he continued, “no favors were done when the county brushed aside concerns about late night lighting … because they were driven by the lure of rental fees from tournaments.”

Regarding the 7/690 Interchange, Bertaut said, “Both the town and the county have been reluctant to admit that the application was made using data from old studies. In the case of the town, they are holding on to floodplain mapping that became effective in 1986. The county applied for a remapping in 2012, but when they made their application to the town the modeling failed to include 3 additional lanes – and the 3 off ramps that aren’t within the town boundaries.”

The eastbound off-ramp is the only part of the interchange that is in the Town of Purcellville.

So the determination that there would be “no impact on the Catoctin Creek floodplain is based on incomplete data.” Bertaut said that the county is pressuring the town to sign a deed of vacation that “would hold the county harmless and permit them to cut down however many trees they deem necessary.”

Bertaut pointed out that both the county and the town are only looking at pieces of the floodplain map instead of the whole picture, without collectively assessing the risk this poses to residents.

“There are 21 properties in town that are affected by this new floodplain mapping,” Bertaut said, “and no one wants to acknowledge this. Which scenario poses a greater liability threat for our residents – informing the affected landowners they are at risk and should get flood insurance or not informing them and waiting for those who have not been informed of enhanced risk [that they need] to get flood insurance – then sue when they realize they could have been better prepared had they known the risks?”

Bertaut said that a few years ago, Stantec, the town’s utility rate advisor, told the town council that they could have increases of 3 percent for water and 5 percent for sewer for the foreseeable future. “That certainly changed in the last 2 years.”

“Regarding the utility debt,” he said, “There’s a can being kicked down the road, but the can got its start years ago under former Mayor [Robert] Lazaro. He gave it a good swift kick in the form of balloon payment bonds which are now coming due. That’s why we pay interest year after year after year and then suddenly have a great big payment that comes due in one particular year.”

“This is a problem that cannot rest entirely on the shoulders of the town rate paying residents,” Bertaut said.

Rebutting Council Member Erin Rayner’s statement that the town has a revenue problem, Mayor Stan Milan said the revenue the fund brings in is 4 times the debt for the water fund and 2.5 times the debt for the wastewater fund. “So the question is: Where is the excess money going?”

It’s going into the operations and maintenance.