President's Letter:Dear Neighbors – As most of you know by now, this is my last letter as President of the VRA. It was an honor to serve as President and I enjoyed getting to know all of my neighbors in the community. The Village is truly a special place with many close friendships. My kids and I know almost everyone that lives along our walking route to and from Eagle Elementary…most of whom we met through the VRA. I am happy to say that Heather Lusk will be our new President. Heather is very active in the community so she will do a fantastic job. I know we all look forward to hearing her ideas and seeing what she has planned. I can’t wait to see what the future holds! Have a great October and a Happy Halloween! Best, Julia New Presidents Letter Hello everyone, I’m very excited to be leading the VRA for the next year. With the Gateway Project looming I’ll make communication and finding ways to work with Village businesses a priority. On the subject of the Gateway Project and communication, a bit of clarification: The town’s survey and the VRA survey are different! Sorry for confusion. PLEASE fill out the town’s survey by 10/14/20. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScyckmhcxIzCkCRrIrWzhccaWe9CRe3cvrEUxSjS1UBwN1Bgw/viewform The VRA survey that was sent about a month ago was intended to give us an idea of what residents want before the town communicated how they would be collecting their data. The town / Thomas P. Miller and Associates will be using their own data to create a proposal. As we learn new information I will let you all know. More details here: http://www.zionsville-in.gov/567/Zionsville-Gateway-Area Lastly look for an online application for the annual holiday decorating contest soon and potentially a new addition! Hopefully we can find ways to stay connected to neighbors and as a community while still being safe. If you have ideas send them my way. Heather Lusk president@zvra.com Town Council:
Greetings It is a busy time for Council as we go through the budgeting process. Budgeting for a public entity is much different that budgeting for a business, or even a personal budget. There is different terminologies, different timeline requirements and ultimately the budget has to get approved by the Indiana Department of Local Government Finance (DLGF). The process itself involves a number of steps including:
That’s a lot to get done in a short period of time as it is all due by November 1st. The budget, in order to be certified, has to be balanced per DLGF rules. If we are unable to pass a budget in that timeframe, our old budget is adopted by default, which is something that everyone wants to avoid. Earlier this year the Town modified a role to hire a CFO, similar to what a company would do. Our CFO, Tammy Havard, has been working on this budget process while also moving us into different financial systems to have better and clearer reporting for staff, Council and the public. While that won’t be done by the time this budget is complete, it will be done by next budget allowing for an easier apple to apple comparison. We are also working on sustainability reporting to ensure that decisions made now can be sustained without cuts to services or capital projects in the future should revenues decline for any reason.
The budgeting process is incredibly important as it defines all the ways that the Town will spend money in the subsequent year, as well as setting things like tax rates and revenue goals. My hope at the end of this we’ll have a budget that reflects the best wishes of the community and continues to move us forward.
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