The Lynchburg City Council approved its 2027 fiscal year budget Tuesday, making investments in the city’s workforce, the school system’s infrastructure and other priorities without raising taxes. It takes effect July 1.
When City Manager Wynter Benda first presented the spending plan in March, he called it a “maintenance budget” designed to carry on the city’s current level of operations in an inflationary environment, without making cuts or tax hikes. The budget, as passed, includes no new citywide initiatives and is “intentionally focused on sustaining what we have built,” as described in the budget book.
City budget staff asked city departments to absorb inflationary costs into their individual budgets to keep their requests flat.
The general fund operating budget was passed 4-3 by the city council, without support from Vice Mayor Curt Diemer and council members Marty Misjuns and Jacqueline Timmer. It secures a 2.5% cost-of-living adjustment for general city employees and a continued pay progression plan for sworn police and fire personnel. It also waives residents’ trash collection fee and motor vehicle license fee for the fourth year in a row.
Lynchburg City Schools’ budget, approved separately, was passed by a vote of 5-2, without support from Diemer and Misjuns.
The city is set to give the schools $44.9 million in 2027, or about $2.8 million more than in 2026. That sum includes some cash for one-time expenses. The bump in funding didn’t meet the school’s original request for $46.6 million, but does cover the city’s contribution for compensation increases within the school system.
The school system also received $30 million for school infrastructure upgrades and maintenance, which stands as the second of three installments that will total $60 million by the end of the 2028 fiscal year.
The capital improvement program as a whole, which includes the school infrastructure investment, passed 5-2 without support from Diemer and Misjuns and allocates more than $100 million across city, airport, water and other capital project funds.
The only part of the budget that did not get final approval Tuesday was the city’s 2027 water and stormwater rates. The proposed budget originally included a plan to increase water and stormwater rates, which would result in an estimated additional $1.06 on the average residential monthly water bill if approved. The water and stormwater funds are self-supporting and “must remain financially sustainable to meet regulatory requirements and infrastructure needs,” Benda said at the March budget presentation.
At a first reading of the budget on May 12, Diemer, Misjuns, Timmer and council member Chris Faraldi voted to oppose the rate increase.
At a city council work session Tuesday, Tim Mitchell, the city’s director of water resources, gave a presentation on the cuts that would need to be made to construction projects, materials and more to adjust the department’s budget to the flat rates. When the rates came to the city council for a second reading and vote later Tuesday night, members decided to reconsider going back to the original plan of raising the rates. To do so, the city council will host a new public hearing on the rates on June 9 and vote again on whether to increase the rates or keep them flat.
Also in flux is the operating budget of the Greater Lynchburg Transit Company, general manager Josh Moore said in an email to Cardinal News on Wednesday. He’s waiting for final numbers for state and federal funding before he can “know for sure if we will need to realign any service or make changes.”
Earlier this month, Moore warned that service cuts could be on the horizon due to a combination of rising prices in the transportation industry, diminishing grants and an ask for city funding that wasn’t fully met.
City budget staff have proposed meeting projected transit budget shortfalls with money from a special reserve fund established under the transit company’s memorandum of understanding with the city. That move was opposed by the transit board with a resolution earlier this month “on the grounds that it is inconsistent with” the rules of the MOU and would reduce reserves “below levels necessary to maintain adequate operating liquidity.” Moore said he plans to have a more definitive understanding of the city’s funding and the transit company’s 2027 plan by the transit board’s July 1 meeting.
Have questions about the budget and what comes next? Email emma@cardinalnews.org with your ideas for future coverage of this topic.
