Additional Capital Projects Leave Leesburg's Tax Rate At 18 Cents

Construction of a dog park in Leesburg is on track to take a step forward, with a straw vote the town council took last week to appropriate $50,000 in development costs for the pet facility.

With the location still undecided, Director of Parks Kaj Dentler said last week he is still in discussion with Morven Park for a possible partnership. If that arrangement doesn't work out, a 2- to 3-acre site has been identified on the Ida Lee Park grounds.

The idea of a dog park gained a lot of interest a year ago when Ida Lee hosted a forum to hear public comments. Support was high, and members of the park department's staff began looking for locations and speaking with potential users. With nothing resolved, Vice Mayor Susan Horne asked last week where the project stood and when council could expect to attend a ribbon cutting.

Dentler said last week without a site secured, he could not give an answer on when one could open, or how much it would cost, estimating it could cost $55,000 to $60,000 initially.

"We don't have that in our budget," he said March 27. Now it appears he will.

The dog park was one of several additional projects that council members indicated they would add to Town Manager John Wells' $108 million budget when it goes before them for a vote April 10. Despite additional expenditures they indicated they would make, the overall budget is not expected the change and the tax rate will remain at the current 18 cents, meaning town tax bills would decrease an average of nearly 8 percent for homeowners.

Building a pedestrian and bicycle trail to connect southeast and southwest Leesburg with the W&OD Trail and downtown also received a boost in funds when the council indicated it would allocate $200,000 for design. The ultimate southwest connector trail is estimated to cost $6.5 million.

Because the trail still needs to be designed-the trail recommendation was a result of a citizens task force last year that restudied a controversial connection that was studied a decade ago-the bulk of the money won't be needed for a few years, said Annie Carlson, senior management analyst in the town's budget office. The allocation in FY 2008 marks the project as an official Capital Improvement Project, rather than being an unfunded project in the appendix.

The trail and dog park are two projects for which Vice Mayor Susan Horne has been advocating. Regarding the dog park, Horne said, "It's really long overdue for Leesburg to have a dog park. There are so many families with dogs."

And as a resident of southwest, Horne said she regularly sees children riding their bikes along Rt. 15 south or people using the narrow shoulders to commute.

"It will begin to connect the southwest community with the rest of Leesburg from a pedestrian accessibility standpoint," she said.

Councilman Ken Reid took a different perspective, saying last week, council members were "all more than willing to spend money, but when it came time to cut and reallocate, they didn't want to do it."

He said Councilman Kevin Wright, who meticulously examined the entire budget, "deserves a gold medal" for asking questions and suggesting budget reductions of almost $1 million. During the series of council budget meetings, Wright dominated many discussions, going over each department's budget, sometimes item, by line item. At one meeting, his colleagues teased him that he should write his questions on index cards and disseminate them to share his arsenal of questions.

Reid didn't support funding for the southwest connector trail, which the council indicated it would add to its active list of capital projects. Rather than add projects to the list, Reid said he tried to remove some.

"We have to focus on what's the most important thing in terms of these capital projects," he said March 30. "When we tried to cut projects ... council didn't want to do it," he said referring to the straw votes members took last week.

In addition to lauding Wright's work, Reid said, "I think I did a good job. It's just a shame that people didn't want to budge on any of the stuff" and approve reductions.

Wright recognized that many of his reductions did not pass the council's muster, saying, "The council overall was comfortable with where the budget ended up and didn't feel it was necessary to do anything more drastic." Wright pointed out that the bulk of his reductions would have come from decreasing the potential merit increase from 5 percent to 3 percent. Carlson said although 5 percent is the maximum increase, it is budgeted at 4 percent, since not everyone would be receiving the maximum.

"We have an outstanding staff," Wright said, adding that his salary reduction suggestion was not reflective of the staff's work or competency.

Even if the council adopted Wright's suggestions, the tax rate would have remained at 18 cents. He said he and other council members agreed a reduction would have been "artificial" in light of future revenue projections, noting that to balance this year's budget required unspent money from last year.

Another new CIP came about when the council indicated it would add $50,000 for a tree installation effort, with an additional $10,000 for upkeep and maintenance.

"It's a focused capital project at this point to beautify Battlefield Parkway," said Urban Forester Jay Banks. "The idea is a unified tree line look to the ultimate build out of Battlefield Parkway." The $10,000 is especially important to Banks, who said today, "We can put trees in the ground, but we've got to maintain them."

Councilwoman Katie Sheldon Hammler said last week, "The goal is to get more aggressive about tree planting and the Battlefield Parkway priority is what we mentioned." She and Horne said their intent is for the project to be larger than just Battlefield.

"I don't want to see us forget the [Leesburg] Bypass. I'm hoping that it will be broader than Battlefield," Horne said.

No significant spending cuts were made during last week's straw votes, Carlson said.

Norm Butts, the director of finance, said the additional money is a result from another "scrubbing" of the general fund.

"We went back and looked at some of the accounts. We looked at the CIP and identified some proffers that we had in there that were unused and available for different projects," as well as going back through the general fund, he said March 30.

They also re-evaluated the cash management program and recognized it was doing better than their conservative estimate. There was an additional $50,000 in earnings than originally anticipated, he said.

As for why programs or funds didn't get cut, Butts said it represents the up-front analysis Town Manager John Wells did in preparing the budget.

"I think John was right on target," Butts said.

Going forward, Reid said he wanted the council to be more involved in setting departments' objectives, and he spent time querying departments on their overall goals.

"Departments should not set their own objections without council being involved," he said last week, adding, "I was trying to get the council to look at the objectives of the different departments."

Reid said he would try to find time before the April 10 budget vote "to do some personal outreach and see if we can get people galvanized and motivated." He said the council is impacted when residents come out to speak, taking to heart their questions and comments.

"No one showed up to question expenditures in the budget. No one showed up to question why some nonprofits are funded and others aren't," he said. "The public is not really engaged, I guess, at that level." n