Purcellville Council Reinstates Water Superintendent Position

The Purcellville Town Council on Tuesday authorized a $124,000 budget amendment to reinstate a water superintendent position frozen in the initial fiscal year 2026 budget. 

During budget discussions last spring, councilmembers directed staff members to find hundreds of thousands of dollars in cuts to reduce expenditures. Among those adopted cuts were several staff positions, including the water team’s supervisory role, but town staff this week said that position is needed. 

“Historically, the water department has operated with a staff of nine to 10 full time employees to manage the town’s drinking water system,” Human Resource Director LaDonna Snellbaker said.“Currently, we have only eight of these positions filled. This past January, our senior hydrogeologist assistant superintendent resigned and we made the decision not to backfill that position, and instead, we’ve been able to utilize the services on a contractual basis as we needed them.”

In addition to that, the town lost a Class One operator and replaced that position with a trainee.

“This approach provided us an opportunity to not only develop new talent, but to also minimize the financial impact of the department for the future. As we went through the FY2026 budget process, which also coincided with the retirement of our water superintendent, and at that point public works reviewed the structure of the department, and made the decision to temporarily freeze the water superintendent position pending the completion of that assessment,” Snellbaker said. 

Since completing that review, Snellbaker said the absence of a dedicated person in the superintendent role has resulted in operational compliance challenges.

“Reinstating this position, we believe, is essential to ensure the safe, compliant and efficient operation of the town’s border system. The superintendent provided critical leadership by planning and supervising preventative maintenance activities, managing chemical and service contracts, coordinating emergency preparedness and ensuring timely, effective communication with customers,” she said. 

The superintendent is in charge of regulatory compliance, develops and manages operational and capital budgets, establishes performances standards, oversees staff training and licensure, and maintains safety and compliance programs. 

“Without this leadership role, there is no single point of accountability for the department’s overall performance—an essential component for regulatory compliance, operational continuity, and public confidence,” Snellbaker said. 

The $124,000 budget amendment will cover a salary and benefits effective Nov. 1 through the end of the fiscal year in June.

Councilmember Susan Khalil asked what had changed since the budget was adopted. 

Director of Public Works Jason Didawick said the team is managing concerns about contamination from poly- and perfluoroalkyl forever chemicals, new regulations related to lead and copper inventory; and dealing with drought conditions. 

“This team needs someone that they can get to. Getting a superintendent that is licensed. I‘m not licensed, so if there’s an emergency or anything like that, I cannot fill that role and if we have a situation, we all have families on this team, if you have an emergency, we will have a superintendent that is licensed, and they can fill in as scheduled as needed,” Didawick said. 

Councilmember Carol Luke asked why none of this had been brought up during the budget season, which drew outcry from residents in the audience. Luke and Khalil, along with Mayor Christopher Bertaut and Vice Mayor Ben Nett, worked to cut expenditures during the budget sessions to offset reductions in the water and wastewater rates. That strategy was opposed by councilmembers Kevin Wright, Caleb Stought and Erin Rayner. 

Didawick said he thought he would be able to handle the workload. 

“I‘ll take the hit on that. I thought I could handle it and then quickly in, my assessment, I don’t play games with this. I mean, I take pride and this team takes pride in making sure that we are providing the best water that we can to our residents, and quickly in I realized I was in quicksand. You can do your assessment, you can probably ask the staff, how I felt and how I was having the pressure, and the pressure is a lot.”

Didawick said he had told the council during budget discussions that the team was facing the possibility of staff members retiring—a warning also highlighted by previous Town Manager John Anzivino during a 2022 staffing analysis. 

“This team has been hit with retirees: the water superintendent had over 30 years, the senior hydrologist had 20 some years, we had another operator that had 36 years in. The possibility of another retiree leaving early next year is going to have over 30 years. I challenge anybody that has almost 200 years of service hit like that in retirement, that’s a lot of heavy lifting and a lot that is put on our staff. So I’ll take the hit that I thought I could do it. I’m struggling. This team needs a superintendent for the for the issues that they have in the day-to-day task and the issues that we have with the upcoming future.”

Wright blamed the council majority for pressuring staff to cut positions. 

“If we’re looking for somebody to blame, it’s not that gentleman right there,” he said, referring to Didawick. “The four of you that voted for the budget and chose to eliminate that position need togo home and look in a mirror, and that would be the person to blame for putting this in this position right now, because you should have known better than to eliminate an important position out of the budget and not think we’d have to come back and address it later. So, you’re the only ones that blame, not that gentleman there. He did his job. We pressed him and the rest of staff to cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut, until there was so much blood on the floor there was nothing else to cut. And now we’re having to pay the price and look for it.”

Bertaut asked what extend the superintendent would be building staff and ensuring the team is meeting regulatory requirements and advancing in their training. 

“That would be the goal of the water superintendent, to give them guidance as [Didawick] has already mentioned,” Snellbaker began before being interrupted by Bertaut.

“Ma’am, I was asking you a basic question, I expect a civil response every time,” Bertaut said. 

Khalil proposed possibly hiring a “top notch consulting company” to evaluate the team’s licensure, but Snellbaker and Didawick said that would not solve the problem.

“Our team is awesome,” Snellbaker said. “They give this a thousand percent every day, so it’s not having an assessment of someone come in to look at how operations are running. Our folks are meeting that goal every day as licensed operators, but they need leadership … we can always spend money, but quite frankly we don’t have the money to spend on an assessment so I don’t think that would be a wise use of it.”

“It doesn’t change my thought process right now, which is going in the direction of, with all new technology that is coming out, to just have a global assessment of everything,” Khalil said. 

Snellbaker said the town does not have the time to go through a request for proposals process.

“We need somebody up there to help support our team,” she said. “The last thing I wanted quite frankly was to come in front of council and ask for $125,000 given our budget process and where we are financially.”

Khalil said she was not implying that the staff wasn’t doing a good job but asked if they could put someone in the position temporarily such as a utility consultant. 

“I highly would not recommend that. I don’t know what needs to be straightened out but needing staffing,” Didawick said. 

The motion to allocate the funds passed unanimously.