Town will utilize fund reserves to balance Criser Rd. Bridge budget

The Front Royal Town Council will dip further into its General Fund reserves to make up a revenue deficit for the Criser Road Bridge replacement project. At an April 16 work session staff presented a status report indicating an approximate $200,000 shortfall on what will be a nearly $1-million project.

The staff recommendation was council approval of a budget amendment authorizing withdrawal of the needed $199,583.35 from the General Fund – after some discussion council concurred. The lowest of three bids received was $986,075 from Archer Western Construction LLC of Chevy Chase, Maryland. Other bids came in at approximately $1.2 million and $1.4 million.

Available funding totals $786,491.65, including $561,491.65 set aside and carried over from previous budget years and $225,000 in approved V-DOT state revenue sharing money.

Included in the available funds is $163,000 remaining from the sale of the old town police station on West Main Street and $36,583 that had been set aside to fund enforcement of a new property maintenance code that council has put on the back burner for now.

“I think this is more important than a rental inspection district,” Councilman Eugene Tewalt observed of immediate council priorities.

Town Finance Director B.J Wilson noted that the General Fund is currently $1.5 million above the required three-month reserve balance. So, the deduction to balance the Criser Road Bridge replacement budget will leave reserves $1.3 million above the three-month town budget funding mandate.

Referencing recent tension over council’s FY19 budget debate over smaller, incremental tax hikes to set-aside revenue for the coming FRPD headquarters debt service and the fact that set-aside revenue initially earmarked for that debt service had been diverted into rental payments to the County on the old Jackson Street Sheriff’s Office headquarters where FRPD is currently located, Councilman William Sealock sought assurances set asides for this or other future projects would not also be diverted.

Mayor Hollis Tharpe reminded his colleagues that council had authorized the FRPD set-aside revenue to be utilized for police headquarter rental payments because the needed $45,000 was nowhere to be found in previous budgets – so, essentially as an alternative to either tax hikes or reserve fund withdrawals.

Town Manager Joe Waltz suggested that when the Town has the information, that administrators for both Ressie Jeffries Elementary School and Samuels Public Library be alerted to the dates of the coming bridge deconstruction and replacement. Councilman Eugene Tewalt observed that school buses do not currently cross the bridge to access the elementary school, though some parents transporting children might need that heads up.