The Leesburg Town Council held a work session on September 21, 2026, beginning at 7:00 p.m. in the Council Chamber. The meeting included a Fiscal Year 2026 Fourth Quarter Budget and Capital Improvements Program (CIP) update presented by Tamara Keesecker, and a continued review of the Zoning Ordinance Rewrite focusing on Articles VII (Nonconformities), VIII (Enforcement, Violations, and Penalties), and IX (Word Usage). The council also entered a closed session to discuss the town attorney’s performance and a potential legal claim. Key decisions included scheduling a closed session work session on enforcement for October 5, 2026, and moving the public hearing on the zoning rewrite from November 10, 2026 to a later date (likely November 23 or December 2026).
Recycled music from a 50-year-old abandoned symphony by Gabriel Faure. He turned it into masks and bergamasques. Emmanuel Crubeen conducting the Lyon National Orchestra. Good evening, Madam Mayor, members of council. Tonight I'm here to present on the quarterly budget and CIP update, and this is going to be for the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2026. Doug is not here tonight, so I'm gonna cover the capital improvements program, so hopefully I will do it some justice. So they are subject to material year-end adjustments. Very consistent at about 91%. Diving into general fund revenues, this chart just shows you a comparison of the percentage of budget recognized for each of our major classifications of revenue with total revenue there off to the far right. Personnel does represent about 60% of the general fund budget, so that will mean expenditure savings, which means again you won't use as much reserves as anticipated in the budget. That lower and lower cost for personnel services is primarily related to increased vacancies in the police department. In terms of the utilities fund operating revenue, 37.6 million dollars, about 11% higher than anticipated in the budget, compared to $35.8 million last year, which was 16% higher than budgeted. On the expenses side, you can see very consistent spend in terms of the dollar value, 28.6 million dollars this year compared to 28.9 million dollars last year. On a percentage, that's 86% of the budget this year and 88% last year. Diving a little deeper into that operating revenue, again, 11% higher than budgeted overall compared to 16% higher last year. But if you dive into the very largest category of revenue, which comprises 95 to 99% of the utilities fund operating revenue, that's your charges for services, that's your quarterly billings for service. That was only up 5.4% higher than budgeted compared to right on 100% last year. The difference you're seeing in those two bar charts is really the interest from investment revenue wasn't as that much higher than budget this year as it was last year because of the changing interest rate environment. In terms of operating expenses, um, again, 86% this year compared to 88% last year. This chart just shows that broken down by category. Similar to the general fund, you see increased vacancy savings this year. A couple retirements earlier in the year led to some vacancy savings in the second half of the year. Other notable things, contractual services, you can see in both years, less than 60% of the budget was spent for utilities fund. I do want to emphasize though that this was an area we looked at as part of the fiscal 27 budget to just right size that budget to what they actually needed on an ongoing basis for contractual services. Other changes include chemical costs, which we've talked about the past few quarters, as well as electricity costs, which get captured in that continuous charges category. In terms of the CIP, the mobile command posts, we did receive congressional funding of $500,000 for that. We have applied for the grant, and we anticipate the official award notification and documentation in the next couple of months. Um we anticipate final completion of phase one the next week or two. Meanwhile, construction is underway for the pickleball courts, and that's anticipated to be completed in December of 2026. As you're aware, we recently broke ground on the Evergreen Mill Road Widening Project. That is anticipated to be completed winter of 2028. In terms of the East Market Street improvements, we are reviewing 30% design plans now, and we anticipate a public hearing in November to get the community's feedback on the design of that capital project. In terms of stormwater, loss and road pedestrian crossing has reached substantial completion. Final completion is anticipated next month. In terms of airport projects, we have received the 50% design plans for the air traffic control tower. We anticipate 100% plans in the next month. Once we have all of the design done, we'll be able to start applying for more of the grants for construction. Design is fully funded with grants with the town's one to two percent match. Construction, we've estimated $16 million for construction. We have federal grants for $6 million, so we're just looking to bridge that 10 million dollar gap there. In terms of the parallel taxiway relocation, we expect 90% design plans for that project by the end of this month. Turning to utilities, the sickly zone tank recoding was completed a little bit earlier than anticipated, where we had anticipated spring of next year. We recently completed that project and it was within budget. Car tank ones recoding is expected to be completed this winter. The enhanced barrier treatment project, while anticipated to be completed in May of 2026, has been pushed back to fall of 2026, but it remains on budget. You can see here we'll be back October 5th. We anticipate that discussion to be focused on a recap of the fiscal 27 budget, as well as an economic outlook for 2028 and a discussion and presentation from the utilities department. October 26th, we'll have a presentation from the public works department and a discussion on the capital improvements program. Then on November 9th, a discussion of personal property taxes, as well as a presentation from airport staff. November 23rd, that's when we'll come back with our first quarter update for fiscal year 2027.