FARMVILLE — With no fanfare at all, the Town of Farmville cantered across the budget finish line Wednesday night ahead of both the Commonwealth of Virginia and Prince Edward County.

If budgets were horses, then town council unanimously adopted California Chrome.

Of course, the Town’s budget process was far simpler than that of the General Assembly and the board of supervisors, who were left to fight it out for “place” and “show” in the budget derby.

And the Town’s 2014-15 budget is not at all controversial.

Farmville’s $15 million budget will not raise a single local tax or fee.

Town employees, meanwhile, can look forward to a three percent raise and a Christmas bonus.

Furthermore, employee health insurance will remain unchanged for the coming year, though changes in co-pays, deductibles and family member coverage may be on the table when the 2015-16 budget is undertaken 12 months from now.

The $15 million 2014-15 budget anticipates leaving a contingency balance of $190,054.

The police department, in great news of some new wheels, will be able to purchase several new cars.

And the Town also budgeted for a garbage truck and a dump truck.

In a late addition to the budget, residents in the West Osborn Road neighborhood in Jackson Heights will see a $65,000 project to provide curbing, gutters and a sidewalk on one side of that street.

The need for the project was brought to town council’s attention by Ward E councilman Jamie Davis, who cited safety concerns regarding resident walking to the Farmville Area Bus stop.

Without a sidewalk, residents have been walking in the street to catch the bus.

The cost for materials is about $65,000 and Town workers can do the work themselves.

The sidewalk, curb and gutter will be from one end of West Osborn Road to the other.

Because the Town owns the right-of-way there will be no issues in that regard.

There were very few issues, either, encountered by town council’s finance committee during the spring as it went through the process of developing a budget proposal.

Department heads were praised for their fiscal restraint.

“It came to a total that was reasonable,” finance committee member Dr. Edward I. Gordon told council during its April work session.

The finance committee sought to ensure that a thorough process that received “needs” input from the various department heads would help guard against budgetary surprises during the fiscal year.

The “needs” list did not stretch into the realm of wish-listing.

“Looking at it from a finance committee point of view, we feel like this budget is good…I think what we found is the different departments—everybody seems to be very well aware of the economy and I think there was a lot of constraint by the different departments on what they thought they absolutely needed and didn’t need,” the Ward A councilman said during his April budget presentation.

The budget process, Dr. Gordon told council members, “really didn’t turn out to be as difficult a task as we thought.”

Town Council is optimistic that the budget’s realism will see revenue projections accommodate the budgeted expenses.

Rose-colored glasses were not used when looking at revenue streams.

If anything, the reverse was true, according to Dr. Gordon.

“When Gerry (Town Manager Gerald Spates) looks at the budget,” he pointed out, “he looks at the revenue at the lowest point and he looks at what we’re going to spend at the highest point. So, if you look at the past budgets and past years, we’ve always been better than it shows on paper. Hopefully that will be the same (in the coming fiscal year).”

Looking at his fellow town council members this spring, Dr. Gordon spoke for the finance committee, saying, “We felt like this was very fair. And everything, we felt, was very needed. And our suggestion is to accept this as stated.”

Two months later, town council, without a single comment, did just that. The West Osborn Road sidewalk project is the only change.