Town Council Work Session

meeting

Leesburg Town Council 2h 11m 4 speakers 4 agenda items transcribed 1 day ago official recording ↗

▲ 0

Transcript

jump: agenda · speakers · find in transcript

Transcript

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the current financial state of Leesburg and the upcoming budget requirements?

Kelly Burk 2:03

Um just uh for the record, uh everyone is present with the exception of uh Mr. Uh Councilmember Simone O'Johnson. Uh and he's not is he he's not calling in tonight? Okay. Um all right, and our first item for discussion tonight is the financial state of the town and the upcoming financial plan requirements. Mr. Rose, how nice to see you.

Unknown 2:28

Nice to see you, Mayor, members of council, I appreciate the opportunity. Uh we've got a big presentation, but I'm gonna go very quickly because I know you've got a whole lot of things in front of you. Uh so I appreciate it. Uh

Kelly Burk 2:40

Mr. Rose did ask for twenty minutes if anybody has any objection.

Unknown 2:45

I'm gonna see if I can beat that by a few seconds. If not more, we'll see. Um but having said that, um the important thing for those of you who have just met me uh or have seen me just a few times, um, we are your financial advisor. Um I've had the good fortune of working for over 25 years with the town, and my goal tonight is to try to educate the town. on what you look like in terms of your fiscal year, some strategies going forward for things that you've already approved in terms of capital, and just to talk about overall uh where the town stands. So there's a series of goals and objectives uh for this comprehensive financial review. Uh we want to let you know that we have looked at uh the town closely its finances.

Unknown 3:32

We know there are certain challenges facing the town over the next several years, but you enter that in very strong position, and I want to make that clear. All three of the rating agencies have you as AAA, the highest possible, and we want to make sure we do nothing to change that in moving forward. So let me just give you a very short glimpse of the overall financial results. I understand uh that Mr. Case is going to go into that in more detail tomorrow evening. But you have done once again in 2023 a structurally balanced budget. Your revenues exceeded your expenditures on an annualized basis. And overall, you are able to add some five plus million to what we'll call your unassigned fund balance or your rainy day fund.

Unknown 4:23

So on this page what you'll see is you have a policy that says that twenty percent of your unassigned fund balance will be in an account you actually have over twice that level by virtue of where you are and how you've run the town. So congratulations. Now, these are some of the reasons why it's important to have a strong unassigned fund balance. But one thing I'd like to point out, and that is for the citizens, you all probably know this. All of those dollars that are sitting there, they are earning interest. And the interest that they are earning helps make less pressure, if you would, on your general fund. So they actually help you keep the tax rate down by having strong fund balance and earnings.

Unknown 5:09

So want to make sure people realize that. So let's talk about the challenges facing the town in the next three to five years. And just again, for some of you that are fairly new, I do this every year. I present to you where you stand, I present to you working with staff, what we think are some of the challenges. And you can see them right here. Basically, inflation is real. And again, we think that you see that especially with certain expenditures. as well as with the capital projects that you are doing and are going to be doing. In addition, we are concerned nationally and regionally about potential economic downturns. Hopefully our fears are going to be allayed. But nevertheless, we are mentally preparing for that, as is your staff, and so we want to make sure we don't get too excited about having a really good, strong financial situation right now.

Unknown 6:05

Lastly, the last bullet point. We're going to have some additional debt service, considerable additional debt service, all of which I will tell you now you're in a position to meet or in good shape, but nevertheless it is real and we're going to talk about that. So the next big topic which we're going to just touch on is stormwater capital funding. Some of you may be aware, perhaps all of you, that that is an evolving need