Seven months after Radford was deemed in fiscal distress by the state, city officials have taken actions they believe will improve the situation — without recommended state assistance or a clear timeline of when they will receive it.
In accordance with a fiscal distress statute, Gov. Abigail Spanberger and applicable legislative committees must first approve any plan for providing state assistance to a locality.
But after months of discussions with state officials, Radford officials say they remain unclear about which governmental entity must make the next decision, with communication from the governor’s office adding further questions about the process.
“We really haven’t heard anything else from the governor’s office or the legislature, and that may happen any day, we don’t know,” said Radford Mayor David Horton in a recent interview that also included City Manager Todd Meredith.
Spanberger’s office confirmed in an emailed statement to Cardinal News that it has, through the Department of Housing and Community Development, met with Radford officials as well as reviewed proposals from “fiscal turnaround specialists” in the process of developing a state assistance plan.
The office also highlighted what steps Radford has already taken to improve its situation, including engaging with the Berkley Group, a public-sector consulting firm, in efforts to improve financial operations and long-term planning.
“The Spanberger administration continues to closely monitor Radford’s fiscal status and looks forward to reviewing the results of the Berkley Group’s findings,” according to her office’s statement.
Horton said the city is unaware of any Berkley Group findings the governor’s office expects to review, nor who the fiscal turnaround specialists are.
The extent of the city’s engagement with Berkley Group has only been through consulting services with its representative, Craig Meadows, who served as Radford’s previous interim city manager, Horton said. Meadows was contracted for that job through the consulting firm.
“To my knowledge, there is no official Berkley Group report that’s being developed,” Horton said.
Cardinal News reached out to the governor’s office for clarification on the Berkley Group findings — but there was no response this week.
Cardinal News has also reached out to members of the local government committees for the state House and Senate, and they have not responded.
“I don’t know if it’s the governor’s office or the General Assembly, but they’re waiting on an appropriation, and it’s our understanding that once they have the appropriation, then they can procure for fiscal turnaround services for a financial adviser,” Meredith said about the city’s understanding of the situation.
The city’s last communication with state officials occurred in September via email, Meredith said, to confirm whether additional actions from the city were required. State officials said no.
“It does feel like it’s taken a while. I mean, March is a long time ago,” Horton said, “but having said that, I don’t know what this normally looks like for somebody else. The state has not had this program for very long and has not worked with that many communities through the program.”
The General Assembly in 2024 passed the fiscal distress statute, which tasked the state auditor to develop a scoring system for every locality to determine early whether serious problems are afoot. Only Radford and the town of Tangier have received formal designation letters since then.
“We have not waited for this fiscal distress notification, nor for the appropriation, nor for any kind of fiscal turnaround specialist,” Horton said. “We’ve been undertaking the things to right the course for the city of Radford to address any shortcomings.”
Those undertakings include hiring a new financial leadership team, raising water, real estate and electric tax rates to balance its budget and contracting with Brown Edwards, a certified public accountant firm, to conduct a forensic audit of the city’s finances. A report on the audit as well as recommendations from Brown Edwards is expected sometime this fall, Horton said.
During the meetings the city had with state officials, Meredith said the city shared goals to improve its situation.
That includes a plan to address one of the issues that got the city in trouble: using transfers year after year from enterprise funds such as water and sewer to balance its general fund budget. That wiped out any reserves that would have been available.
“So one of the goals we laid out was to get the general fund self-sustaining. It’s been dependent on transfers for quite a while,” Meredith said. “It’s not that uncommon that a municipality will make transfers between funds and budget for that, but it typically is not best budgeting practice to make those permanent.”
The second goal was to establish three-, five- and eight-year benchmarks, Meredith said, to determine a more structured pace to restore fund balances.
“It’s almost impossible to fix that overnight. And the reason being, it’s complex. It’s at the cross-section of revenues and expenditures, and working both sides of the ledger takes time,” Meredith said.
Near the end of fiscal year 2026, Radford had two remaining payments that it owed to Appalachian Power through a previous wholesale energy supply contract. Horton said that the city is still financing those two payments.
Radford still welcomes the opportunity to receive state assistance, Horton said, but he understands the city cannot afford to wait on those resources.
“We’ve taken action. From what we can tell, that action has put us on a much better path,” he said. “We’re not nearly where we would love to be. And in the next few years, hopefully, we’re going to get there, but that course has been charted.”
