Reston Association Board Budget Workshops Planned for Coming Weeks

The Reston Association Board of Directors will meet throughout the month of August to work toward drafting the 2018-19 biennial budgets.

Monday, RA staff will provide an overview to the board on the draft 2018-19 Capital Projects & Budget Plan, along with the Five-Year Strategic Capital Projects Plan. The following Monday, Aug. 14, the Board will receive and provide comments on CEO Cate Fulkerson’s first draft of the proposed 2018 and 2018 Operating Budgets.

At a Monday, Aug. 28 session, directors are scheduled to consider the Decision Points presented within the drafted Operating and Capital budgets. They are also to provide guidance to staff about what should and should not be included in the second draft of the budgets.

Each of the three August sessions is scheduled for 6:30-9 p.m. at RA headquarters (12001 Sunrise Valley Drive).

Directors heard a presentation at their meeting last week on the results of community engagement workshops where input on budget priorities, among other issues, was provided. The Board has been asked to consider incorporating the feedback provided through the community listening sessions into its budget development process for the coming year.

Sridhar Ganesan, At-Large director, said he would like to see more such listening sessions held before the budget is finalized.

“I think we will be doing some public sessions, [and] I hope to do substantive ones so that people can actually give feedback on it,” he said. “For example, ‘These are the projects we’re proposing — how do you react to that?’ [It’s about] actually having a way to get real data back from the people.”

The process is scheduled to continue with another work session in September and the final draft presented at the Board’s Sept. 28 meeting. There will then be a pair of public hearings on the budget in late October, followed by approval of the budgets and the 2018 assessment rate at the Board’s November meeting.