LoudounNow LOUDOUN COUNTY’S COMMUNITY-OWNED NEWS SOURCE
[ Vol. 2, No. 18 ]
[ loudounnow.com ]
INSIDE:
School-Business Partnership Issue
Mar. 9 – 15, 2017 ] Douglas Graham/Loudoun Now
Artist Michael Clay works out of his Lovettsville studio to create the LOVEworks sculpture that will be displayed along the W&OD Trail at Harrison Street in Leesburg. It’s the latest project in an effort to bring more public arts to downtown.
Supervisors Open Budget Talks With $967K More BY RENSS GREENE After weeks of preparation and three public hearings, Loudoun supervisors have begun taking straw poll votes to shape next year’s budget. On Monday, the board reviewed spending requests by the school system, the sheriff ’s office, the commonwealth’s attorney, and the departments of family services, community corrections, and mental health, substance abuse, and developmental services. During the fourhour meeting, supervisors added almost $1 million to County Administrator Tim Hemstreet’s proposed $2.5 billion budget.
Schools Get More Buses, 2 New Fields Fast-Tracked
PUBLIC ART MOVEMENT GROWS IN LEESBURG “I think the desire has always been there,” said architect O’Neil, chairman of the town’s Committee on Public It starts with a . Tom Art. “But getting [projects] out in front of them makes a BY KARA C. RODRIGUEZ
spark
F
or a decade, a handful of volunteers worked to convince the Leesburg Town Council of the value of investing in public art. Council members have resisted earmarking taxpayer money for such projects. But dedicated members of the local arts community, undeterred, continued to get projects off the ground, at their own expense, with the hope of getting buy-in from town leadership eventually.
difference.” And that is exactly what members of COPA and Friends of Leesburg Public Art, a nonprofit formed in 2012 in part to host the Leesburg Arts Festival, have done. Art projects now dot the downtown, including a mural inside the Town Hall parking garage, a sculpture garden at Raflo Park, and the new LOVEworks sculpture that will be installed along the W&OD Trail near Crescent Place in May. FOLPA has also hosted pop-up art shows in addition to PUBLIC ART >> 29
! LE W A O S N N O
In straw votes, supervisors added funding to purchase new school buses and install artificial turf fields at Dominion and Heritage high schools. The $3.8 million to pay for the turf fields will come from a $23.8 million surplus in the school system’s insurance fund, that will actually be part of the current fiscal year’s budget. School administrators sought to keep the extra money in that fund, but Hemstreet noted that state code requires unspent money in the school budget to be returned to the county. Keeping that surplus in the fund would have given it 17.5 percent emergency reserve. Supervisors voted unanimously to set that reserve at 8 percent, the same as the county’s reserve, using only $10.9 million. “A good part of this extra money is that $7 million of fund balance that we sent them in the first place,” said board vice chairman Ralph M. Buona (R-Ashburn), referring to an additional appropriation the School Board requested last year to fill a deficit in its insurance fund. “We could have done all four turf fields at the time, but instead we had to send $7 million to the schools because they mismanaged their insurance program.” Supervisors voted 7-2, with County Chairwoman Phyllis J. Randall (D-At Large) and Supervisor Matthew F. Le-
Where will you purchase your next mattress?
BUDGET TALKS >> 38
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