Board of Supervisors Budget Work Session #5 - Proposed Budget & Tax Rates   3/27/2024

I'm pleased to call the order.

This is a meeting of the Alpemarle County Board of Supervisors on the 5th of August, 27th of March at 3 p.m.

in room 241 of the Mackinsbury Building.

Like the note, the supervisor is present here.

Supervisor Diantha McKeel of Jack Jouett District.

Supervisor P. McKeel of Kirtley of the

District, Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, myself, Jim Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District.

And I understand that Supervisor Ned Gallaway will join us as soon as he can from another meeting.

But the forum is present.

We're also joined here by our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Steve Rosenberg, Clark, Ms.

Claudette Forterson, and Senior Deputy Clerk, Mr. Garvis Morris.

Also, let me please welcome

Albemarle County Police Officer is present.

I look at it, Angel Jamerson and Chief Police Officer, Ronald Nitter.

We thank you for your service today and every day.

Thank you.

A reminder to everyone, as I said this last time, if you have the floor, talk to the ceiling.

and we will jump right into it.

Let off by Mr. Andy Moment, Assistant Chief Financial Officer.

Thank you, Chair Andrews for the introduction.

Good afternoon to the board.

Today is work session number five, Board of Supervisors.

Just to look ahead, as we usually do at the calendar for the remainder of the process.

Today, the board will be asked to take action to propose a budget and tax rates for public hearing.

This is not the final action as we are taking action.

This is really the next milestone in the process where we turn the county executive's recommended budget into the board's proposed budget leading to the adoption of the budget in there.

As we can see on the calendar in April, there is much community engagement that will continue.

A building on where it has taken place in March with additional public hearings and continuing down the halls.

Looking at the agenda specifically for today's work session,

The staff would like to begin with continuing kind of the updates and discussions from prior work sessions.

We spent a significant amount of time on Monday working through some options with the Board on revenues and expenditures, and we'll bring that back together for the Board to continue to refine it in action.

Then we will move into the official motions and actions for the Board to take on the tax rates and the proposed budget.

to begin with a very recap, a quick recap of March 25th for anyone who's listening and they have missed that.

Staff and the board completed the review of the 25 recommended budget and the CIP as well as all the board Q&A that has been going on.

There are still pending questions we have from the board that are continuing to come forward and we're posting those on the website for transparency.

The public can see that work as well.

We spend also a substantial amount of time looking at a group of expenditure changes to board considered and a group of revenue options.

Put those together and take a look at how we could really narrow some options down to come back today and continue that conversation.

That's really the purpose of today.

So as we look at these updates from fire sessions, we're going to do this in a few sections.

The first of which would be the general fund.

That's where we'll spend most of our time.

After the general fund, we'll pause for some board discussion and then we'll talk about the impact of the school fund.

The Capital Budget and the CID.

So to really just frame before we go into content, this is a slide that was from the county executives recommended budget presentation all the way back on February 21st.

Now I'm reusing this because it really speaks to the fact that we budget annually, but the decisions that we make in one year impact subsequent years.

and that's a large story as there are decisions that were made last year in prior years where we are meeting obligations and requirements this year and that will continue into fiscal year 26.

A really good example of this took place about a year ago when in fiscal year 24, showing kind of the bottom left part of the slide, the board supervisors took about $5 million of ongoing revenue and rather than put that into ongoing operating expenditures, at that time it was invested into the CIP to move those projects forward.

knowing that at time it would be available in fiscal year 25 to fund operations for all of the items that are included in the county executive budget.

This is just, it was a very important strategy because it's provided some flexibility that has taken place in this budget that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

This also speaks to the board's commitment to financial planning and long range considerations that you all consider on a regular basis throughout the year.

So I bring this back today because

as we consider the options for the board mid-year and start mid-year fiscal year 25.

So when they begin fiscal year 26, the cost of those will potentially be greater than it will be in 25.

So just an important strategy to keep in mind looking across multi-year financial planning.

So moving to the general fund, this is a summary of the revenue options that the board talked about on Monday.

So what this shows is a consideration of increasing the transit occupancy tax by 1% from 8% to 9%.

And then that's just what the city of Charlottesville is contemplating right now.

It includes a increase to the personal property and machinery tools rates of 54 cents.

That has a basis that we'll talk in more detail, but that was a scenario shared with the board.

And we've also included what calls some non-shared revenues that are related to the hearts team or heart team in the Department of Human and Social Services.

So we can see that the second column, the total revenues in the general fund would total 5.4 million, and we can see across the right in terms of capital and debt, public schools, and county government how those are accounted for.

One thing that is not shown on these revenues in the general fund is any revenue with a FEMA grant that's done for two reasons.

One, grant expenditures are accounted for separate from the general fund.

Also, if the grant were to be awarded, we would not appropriate that grant until the fall, which has been our practice with other FEMA safer grants.

We'll have in the budget the local match not covered by the grant.

The actual grant and related expenditures will come up in the year.

So in summary, there's about 5.4 million revenue, about a little over half a million to capital debt, 2.9 to public schools, about 1.9 to county government.

So I'm going to drill down next to take that $1.9 million at the very bottom right on county government and look at some expenditure and revenue options.

So this is just a summary slide where staff has taken the direction from March 29 and put together an option for the board's consideration that balances fiscal year 25 and considers fiscal year 26.

So we can see in the first column that $1.953 million, that's exactly, again, that bottom number on the slide from before.

and there's total revenues in the first line, total expenditures and the remaining balance.

Three main takeaways from this summary that I want to share with the board.

The first of which is this option, which we'll see in more detail, is balanced in Fiscal Year 25.

So that will meet what is required.

Fiscal Year 26, you may note highlighted in yellow is the cost without a FEMA Safer Grant.

So in preparing a option for fiscal year 26, staff has put together what is the highest possible local cost in fiscal year 26.

So this assumes that anything started mid-year in 25 is picked up for full year fiscal year 26.

It assumes that kind of the worst case scenario, if the county did not get a FEMA safer grant, what would the impact of that be knowing that in fiscal year 26, both North Guard and North Guard would be intended to be run 24-7 with their staffing replaced.

So hopefully the grant will come through and that cost will not be as high.

However, even if it does not, in this scenario, staff is put together, there is more revenue than needed in fiscal year 26.

That's okay.

We don't need to balance fiscal year 26.

We'll refine these numbers a year from now.

And what we know, just as we saw in the previous slide a few times ago, we think of the obligations, whether they be continuing to open the General's District Court for a full year.

Continuing to pick up fee in the safer grants.

What does transit look like once the microcap pilot is complete?

What does the county's compensation strategy keep up with market?

What does that begin to look like?

There's a whole host of options, each of which will cost more than $377,000.

But this is just to provide some level that positioned the board a little bit, about a year from now, heading into fiscal year 2026.

So those are the really main three takeaways, but under the board we want to see what is actually included in those two options, how we work through this.

So now shifting first to the revenue side, we can get 1.9 million in both years and taking it, which makes up that.

That again, is there is non-shared revenue with Department of Human and Social Services, that's included in both years, the transient occupants tax and the personal property tax.

Staff does project in fiscal year 26, the car values will probably continue to decline, so that's why that revenue trail is off a little bit in fiscal year 26, but just looking at this one package of revenues, they're about $1.9 million in each year.

For simplicity, there are a couple of things that I do not have on this slide, and I want to acknowledge those.

The board does not have to decide those today, but I just want to make sure we're clear in terms of what's in, what it's not, what other options may be.

The first of which is, you know, the board be aware that the personal property tax rate rate is effective for a calendar year.

So when that happens, it will be effective for the bills that are received in June.

And so of the total 4.5 million that would be collected from that tax in fiscal year 25, there's almost 2 million that the county would receive in fiscal year 24.

That is one time money that could be available for the board's discretion.

Staff would recommend not taking any action.

What would happen?

It was on March 15th.

County staff would bring forward the third quarter financial report for out this week or 24 is performing.

May 15th.

May 15th.

Sorry, what did I say?

March.

March.

Executive's president listening.

So on May 15th, we're scheduled to bring the third quarter report.

And then we can say just beyond those revenues, how do all the revenues, how the all the expenditures, where those look like in total?

And that's customary for the board to take a look and say, at that time, are there investments we could make in terms of one time to capital or housing or economic development or something else?

So that's just to acknowledge it's not forgotten about, but it's not part of the fiscal year 25 proposed budget for that reason.

The other item that is, again, just for simplicity, not on the slide, we talked there's some one-time funding options available to the board, one of which is the one-point, almost $9 million in the CIP for Advanced and Strategic Priorities Reserve.

That is not included right now, though it could be, and that can be also available if it's not anything in this package, but it could be also added at a later date, or even in fiscal year 24.

It's already appropriated if the board wanted to do something with that.

and the same is also true for that $250,000 for John.

So there are one-time options out there, but right now the intent of this exercise is really to solve an ongoing budget question more than a one-time one.

So there are still options for the board that don't need to be resolved today with those sources, but we acknowledge the board, they are out there and the board's got the experience.

So that's the revenue side.

Let's take a look to what this looks like on the expenditure side.

And before we dive down and look at the numbers, I'm going to focus on the top to remind the board and anyone who may just be tuning in, what's included in these expenditures.

This is where we heard a consensus from the majority of the board to continue to include staffing for North Gar and Brook Bar Ambulance.

That's a total of 16 FTEs across those two items and that would provide 24-7 coverage at both locations.

As part of that, staff would be pursuing the FEMA grant for North Garden, and again, we have the footnote on the table that's not shown here because of the grant funding, and that would be a supplemental appropriation rather than included in adoption.

There is an expansion of the heart team that would include three FTEs, one in human services, one fire rescuer, one in police.

There's an additional FTE for the sheriff and additional FTE for the police department, the new police officer.

So all of those costs, one time in ongoing, are in the top two rows of what's included fiscal year five and fiscal year 26.

What we also talked about on Monday was an option around ongoing service reductions.

And this would be something that we'll speak to in just a moment.

But the idea in this approach is that we could step in as a blend of a combination of funding these items.

So stepping that at a level of $250,000 in fiscal year 25, increasing to $500,000 in fiscal year 26.

And before I, and I'll ask the county executive to weigh in on that as I'm done with my comments, but the last thing I want to make before I do so is this real last line of one-time reserve contingencies of $831,000.

This is really replicating the strategy that the board chose last year to take some ongoing funding and apply it to a one-time use so that when the next fiscal year rolls around, the board is able to move forward to meet all of the partial year or be prepared and FEMA's safer grant does not go through and so on.

So that $831,000 is also, it doesn't need not to be decided today.

It does not need to be decided on May 1st when the board appropriates that budget.

This gives flexibility to the board to be nimble anytime between now and through fiscal year 25 to address any one time priorities they may have on their mind.

And knowing by doing so and not committing that $830,000 to ongoing expenses, if that were to take place, it would create a deficit into fiscal year 26.

Andy, thank you for the opportunity, board.

I'll focus my comments really on the red numbers and that would be the $250,000 for next year with an earmark for what we've called ongoing service reductions.

And really, board, it's a combination of things.

We went through six budgets together and six annual performance reviews.

And when we look back over the budgets that we've done together as well as the annual performance reviews, this board has been complimentary of the staff's work and the work with the board to guide and move together and make decisions.

But you've also emphasized that as we make investments in our systems,

and we update our systems and we modernize our processes and we cross-departmentalize systems that make it easier for the citizen to come in and go through our organization to get where he or she needs.

You've put an emphasis on systems modernization, efficiencies and saving money.

and so really that's what that that's really what that is that's that's us easing into that in fiscal year 25 and the chief finance officer and I met as recently as today the chief operating officer with with her team and performance and strategic planning we've met and we think this is the right time to do this board so I would I would urge the board to to support this as Mr. Bowman said this is not a budget balancing strategy at this point but our organization I believe is ready to to look through

physical year 25 with an eye on efficiencies, scalability.

You know, there's a part of the high performance governor government when you go through UVA that talks about the fact that you should spend your time looking at where are we, where are we spending money that's least impactful?

where could we look and stop doing things?

And if we did, what would be the impact to the citizen, the customer, to the organization and the people in our organization?

So I think that the investments in our people and in our systems are noted and it's time for us to ease into this.

And we will need this money as we go into FY26.

So even though this is no longer if the board

to support your revenue strategies.

We would not need this to balance in 25, but this is a good exercise for this organization to take on at this time and keep the board in close conversation with us through next year on how that's going.

This would be a good time to turn it back to the board for any questions or commentary.

Thank you very much, and excellent reviews, and I don't have

I'm not puzzling with any of these, but I have raised in a concern in your earlier meeting in support of the effort on the core modernization and the need perhaps for that staff person who is not included at the moment to push that through.

So I just, we mentioned that so that that can be on your radar.

to make sure that we have the staff available to carry on with the daily work, but also to make sure that this modernization is most successful.

Yes, so I'm broadly supportive of the option that is presented to us here.

I would also really like to thank staff for the fairness they've shown and the responsiveness to our numerous requests that have come from this board.

I do want to just for the record note my continued kind of position that I don't believe that the sheriff

interested to see whether or not any of the interventions either from the heart expansion or from the state actually impact the overall number of TDOs that are being processed by the sheriff.

So I'm still not convinced that's a necessity.

And also just we were just talking about, we just heard from the county executive that this is an expression of our own emphasis, our own policy decisions and how we choose to allocate our funding.

Things like our response times are policy decisions.

Technically, if we want to look at the Constitution, the existence of fire and rescue services are a policy decision.

They're not necessitative.

And I want us to just be able to be comfortable in owning everything we're looking at as a policy decision.

And that comes with the decision of what is not included.

Every single thing that we are asking be added to this budget comes with the implication that there are things that we have left on the cutting room table, that we all agree this is more important.

I don't fully agree with that.

And I just want to say that for the record.

So I would just say, you know, for the record, I think every single dollar that is being spent for the additional EDO share could be better spent through directing.

And I've emphasized several times how I believe that that is a

just proportionately impactful way that we could be spending our dollars in the emergency relief fund.

I appreciate that.

I hear what Supervisor Pruitt is saying regarding the one PDO.

I'm not convinced either that is absolutely necessary.

I'm not really

against it.

I just don't know.

I don't know the data, especially with the courts coming online.

Is that something we could fund mid-year if necessary?

I mean, if we could fund it mid-year once the court, when the board's open, I would like to get more data to see whether or not that is something that really does affect the heart expansion.

I'm in favor of the heart expansion.

I'm just, like I said, worried on the shared TDO.

I could

though either way on that.

My other question was for, if necessary, regarding the Berkmore Ambulance.

I think I brought this up before.

You guys have probably answered it in my mind.

I had a brain fog, but asking for if we couldn't fund Berkmore Ambulance 24-7, will we be the optimal time

could be funded for one shift or maybe two shifts.

If we don't get the safer grants, I mean, I know the elephant in the room is we're going down this path of fully funding fire as volunteers, as that declines, hopefully not for a long time, but that's what happens.

Yes, thank you because I neglected to mention that in my comments earlier.

This was part of Mr. David's comments on Monday.

So to be clear on sort of the plan, if FEMA's safer were to not be received, the plan would be to reduce the 24-7 coverage at Burk Mar to weekday data.

Right now, a split of calls is that I think a hair in the direction of nights and weekends.

However, it would be challenging to hire staff for only nights and weekends.

So the intent would be to mid-year make that a weekday daytime ambulance.

So that answers that question.

And regarding the the share of TDO, is that something that could be funded

The board could take that option to start the date related at any point in the fiscal year.

The four-year cost could be covered in fiscal year 26.

The board does not need to kind of pick that time now.

It's really, it's part of the proposed budget.

And if they needed to adjust that, that could be happening between now and May 1st.

We say for grants would affect that, correct?

Yes, that's correct.

We would not affect that.

I'm just wondering if the board would consider waiting until mid-year just to see if it's in fact necessary, if it is, or if there's a definite answer now.

So that's one thing.

Your one-time reserve for contingencies totally in favor of

and I think the fact that having, if I can make myself clear, having one-time reserve contingencies for modernization for efficiencies would that include hiring perhaps of additional people that would help with the efficiencies and I'm thinking specifically of maybe, I know we've done a great job moving permits for housing

If you're building an individual home, it's gone down to about four or six weeks of approval.

If we can do that for developers, my reasoning is the faster they get it up, the faster we start getting tax dollars.

And so there's an efficiency there.

That's what I've been told.

I don't know if that's true or not.

And certainly other efficiencies you have regarding modernization IT.

totally in favor of, always had been.

And you all see, we come up with our really good rational efficiencies to move the organization forward.

I don't want it, let's not delay, let's move forward, continue to move forward, because we're really helping our communities by having more, that's what they see.

That's what they see.

Okay, so that's one there.

And of course, same branch.

I think that was it for me.

Thank you very much.

I'm supportive of what I see on the screen.

I think you all worked really hard and I really appreciate it.

I am especially appreciative that you have figured out a way to cover.

We don't get the FEMA grant.

That was the fire department and the budget team working hand in glove to try to bring something back that pragmatically made sense from a timing standpoint that it made sense budgetarily.

Yeah, and it's really getting out of silos and working together.

It's really very appreciative of that.

The sheriff asked for four positions we're offering our funding suggested to fund one.

I think she needs the help and waiting and perfectly willing to wait to see how the arts team, the new arts team

But having said that, I think one position is a fair compromise.

I think that will help her.

And then we can wait and see on the other three.

And I don't think we're going to need a total of four.

I'm expecting that we'll be able to follow that new hearts team roll out pretty carefully.

But I do think that giving her one position is not unreasonable, especially given she couldn't even make the

the last meeting that she was called away and her deputy designee that she was hoping to participate in this meeting or the meeting the previous was called away as well.

I think one position is not unreasonable.

But I really do and I really appreciate the ongoing service reductions.

I have a comfort level that you all feel comfortable with those service reductions and you'll be

helping us understand how they play out over the next budget cycle.

The one thing that we always are asked when those of us at this table are up for reelection is, what have you gone back and looked at to save money for the taxpayer?

And that's exactly what you all are doing.

And our systems modernization has allowed us to do that.

Good investment.

And I really appreciate it.

So I'm happy with what I see up here, because I guess the bottom line.

Thank you.

I'm also happy with what I see up here, including the one after you for the sheriff that was for the

We appreciate that we will have to revisit this.

We'll see how the heart's team works out and see where it goes.

I don't think it's unreasonable to start with adding that position and circumstances.

You have ongoing service reductions.

I guess I really would like to see that re-labeled.

I think, Chair Andrews, I think that what you're saying is actually a much more accurate description.

You're broadening it.

because it's efficiencies, it's re-engineering, it's looking at duplication of effort.

It's visiting, as I said earlier, maybe work that is not as impactful as it was maybe 10 or 15 years ago, legacy types of systems and such.

So we can do that and again broaden that.

The reason that I said it, when I said it, none of you, two budget work sessions ago was because our organization is 75% of the budget is our people.

And when positions become vacant, it is incumbent upon us to revisit the position's duties while it's vacant and how it fits into the broader system as an organization of over 800 people.

but what that doesn't mean is just reducing headcount in a draconian way or to freeze positions and sacrifice our service delivery and so we're going to do that with some refined thought and again I want to emphasize that our

Performance Division led by Ms.

Schiflet that we've been preparing for this for several budgets.

And the board has seen your recent quarterly report.

It's the Spears report.

We'll continue to bring that forward.

And that's going to help inform some of our thought as well.

So it will be a more refined and careful way of thinking and not to look at things and

and the

Yes, that is an expenditure as well.

But at one point, we have described the possibility of

Yes, the board has multiple options there.

They could use that $800,000 to do something one-time in nature.

They could use the almost $1.9 million of the capital event at State Strategic Priority Reserve.

There's also that $250,000 in one-time funding from John.

So between those sources, there are significant, and also the fiscal year 24, depending on the third quarter financial report, that has options too.

So, this is not the only way the board can move forward in a strategic plan.

There are options to make those one-time investments.

Those are not on the slide today because they don't necessarily need to be part of the proposed budget.

Thank you, Mr. Butler.

It makes sense.

I'm supportive of those.

where to go forward with the factory change on the budget, knowing that, oh, it's our still subject of public hearings on them.

And thank you for clarifying, because the sheriff did ask for four and a half.

I was grounding and just saying four and a half.

piggybacking on what Supervisor Andrews has said regarding the contingency.

So one point out, he said, we don't have to take any action now.

that could be made at really any point in time.

Okay.

There's really no limitation or urgency to that other than the benefit of waiting as you allow time to come up with perhaps the best option to benefit or the downside of waiting as you may have an opportunity right now you could apply that one fund into.

I personally like the fact that, you know, we can wait to see what else comes up because sometimes you never even know what's going to come up until it comes up.

I like the fact that you're planning for that.

Yeah, that is correct.

So there's about to go up 54 cents in that rate for personal property and machinery tools.

In fiscal year 25, that will add about an extra 4.5 million.

Because that calendar year, because that tax rate is affected when a calendar year basis, it will impact the bills that are sent out in May and due in June.

And county staff projects we collect about 2 million.

We'll get $2 million in June and then $4.5 over the collections in December and then the following June in fiscal year 25.

Okay, that's for us.

Yes, and thank you, Mr. Davidson, to clarify.

That is $2 million in total.

The county government's split of that would be around $700,000.

Capital would be around $200,000, and schools would be the difference.

We can certainly bring back that in more detail as part of the third quarter financial report as the board has options.

So I am very pleased with what you all have done, frankly.

I think you're, and I will have to compliment Mr. Richardson, because when I first came on board, you immediately started tackling efficiencies.

And you did that with the HR department, which was huge.

And you did it with other things.

So I am, I'd like to see that word change, frankly, to

Efficiencies.

I think that will really make the public happy, because that's what you're doing.

So a big compliment there.

Thank you all.

Yes, just to follow up on the share of the reason I'm supporting going ahead with this July 1st is because it's going to take so long to sanitize and hire and train in order to have a person on board pathways for the year.

We need to get them.

Oh, yeah, I believe we have consensus on all of these items.

Yes, this was probably the densest part of today's work session in terms of content.

One question.

You had mentioned about things being available on the website.

Is there, and I should have gone to look for myself,

So how's that going to be passed and hopefully in time?

Well, we're probably waiting until we made a final decision.

I don't mean putting it up there.

I want to make sure that the structure is there so that people don't have to search and chase around.

Yeah, after today.

We'll follow up with our team on that.

I see a few people leaning in.

I'm not the best reading body language.

So what we were planning is that by tomorrow morning that there would be an update out to the community through the newsletter that describes the changes in the proposed budget.

It takes a little bit of time for the team to get the changes sort of fully documented and all the all the bath that goes into some of the changes that are being proposed.

So we will have a newsletter out by tomorrow morning that describes what those changes are.

So those are very much in the public sphere or with a budget team to ensure that documents are uploaded as they're available.

And then we'll take a look at what the homepage looks like.

So with work consensus on the slide 10, this would be part of the proposed budget.

I'm going to move on to the county government funds.

Just to remind the board, we have technical updates that we've covered on Monday.

So as part of the proposed budget, we will take the one-time revenue from John and the

The ongoing revenue from the compensation board and the ongoing expenditure change for Rivanna Solid Waste Authority.

That will also add funding to the reserve for contingencies, both on time and ongoing.

Again, that's there for the board whenever they'd like to use it.

Moving next to the school fund, there's a little bit of information that's new on this slide that I'll take a moment to explain.

This is just to walk through where we are as best we know it today.

The school board had a requested funding gap of $13.3 million that they were here about on March 11th.

They shared, and that's what the school board adopted and communicated with the board's supervisor system.

based on the state revenue update that we have, which is not final, subject to change.

We have nastrics, lots of caveats here.

But based on talking to my counterpart, Maya Kunzala, director of school budget planning, the latest forecast would be if the governor were to approve the budget based on the general assembly, they would receive an additional $4.8 million in funding.

So if that were to pass, the school gap would drop to $8.5 million.

Again, subject to change, that's what we know as of today.

As part of the revenue update that we started with on the first slide, the schools would receive $2.9 million in ongoing revenue as part of their share of the personal property and transit documents tax update.

So if that was ultimately approved, that would drop the, now we'll call this a revised preliminary funding gap down to $5.6 million.

The school board would then need to work through the strategies that Dr. Haas talked about on March 11th when they were here.

So it's part of the proposed budget.

We're not including that $4.8 million.

That would then come in later, whatever the real amount is, about May 1st.

We just want to give a sense of where the school board is, and they continue to work through their budget.

Yes, they do.

That's great.

Yes.

Final, just to recap the capital budget, this reflects no new information.

This reflects the technical updates to remove the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, the update to RSWA here.

This also accelerates Earleysville and Seminole Trail volunteer fire stations from year three to year one.

That's funded by the increased revenues and capital fund balances made moved from year three to one.

So this just reflects the board's direction and updates from Monday.

One additional slide for consideration for the board that we did not talk about on Monday was just the reality that the CIP is a five-year plan.

So when we add that half a million dollars in fiscal year 25, there's another roughly half a million that will be added each year from fiscal year 26 through fiscal year 29.

So $2 million across those last four years.

Staff would recommend the board really recommend considering that later because we were really waiting the pending outcome of the bill for the sales tax referendum.

And so if that were to happen, that would be a dramatic change to the CIP working through all those steps.

So rather than focus our energy on that two million at this time, we'd say it's probably a better use of board and staff's time to consider that revenue update for the CIP after we have more certainty from this day.

And so that recaps really everything we talked about Monday and these other updates around there.

No questions right now.

Supervisor Pruitt, no questions.

Supervisor McKinney?

No questions at all.

Thank you.

Supervisor McKinney?

My comments are going to be very brief, leading to these actions.

This is really going to be a review of a discussed date.

Would the board desire a break to give the supervisor Gallagher a chance to arrive or?

I'll start.

No action is needed today on this.

This is a transitive documents tax, where the rate went from 8% to 9% in July 1st to generate about $900,000.

No actions were requested today based on what we talked about on Monday on the board's consent agenda on April 3rd.

There will be an action item to schedule the public hearing, the board's usual public hearing and advertising process, because this is set under a separate ordinance.

That public hearing would be held the night of April 24th, which is coincidentally the other night as the tax rate hearings.

And then the board would ask me to not take action on the 24th, but to do so on May 1st as part of the regular budget adoption and appropriation.

The second item, as this slide the board has seen before, is the board will need as part of their motion to act on real estate property taxes.

Currently they are at .854 and that would remain the same based on the board's direction from Monday.

The overall reassessment was 4.07% compared to calendar 23.

One part of the advertisement is what is called as the lowered or effective rate

which is what would the rate be to essentially negate that 4% increase in assessment change?

That rate as advertised will be 82.1 cents per $100 assessed value.

Personal property, these are another slides the board seems for, but for anyone who's just tuning in, here's the history of where we've been the last three years of the rates, the rate being dropped in calendar year 22 by 86 cents and car values continuing to fall.

When this next slide is the concept that we reviewed with the Board on Monday, where there would be a rate increase proposed at 54 cents, that would add about $4.5 million to the fiscal year 25 budget.

The basis of that is that returns that revenue to the previous peak of $36.6 million.

This rate is the same for personal property, machinery, and tools, and that will be reflected in the motion as well.

So with that, that takes us to the motion itself on the slide.

And I believe it is the county attorney's preference for the motion to be read in full.

Obviously, the board desires a different motion on those rates.

We can update those numbers, but this is the really leaving where we were on Monday of the real estate at point eight by four.

Then we will look for a motion.

Questions first.

Thank you.

At some earlier meeting, there was a discussion about the adequacy of machinery and tools, especially regarding solar.

Is this the opportunity once a year to adjust that percentage rate?

That is a tax based on the calendar year basis.

And so this would be the time.

I don't have an information either.

The other critical thing that I've mentioned before, but neglected in my comments today, is when the board advertises, or whatever the board advertises their rates, that is a maximum the board can adopt.

So that the board can adopt that or lower, they will not be able to go higher.

Sure.

I don't know why we wouldn't have it just back to its original smell.

So I'm not entirely sure I know why it would have been brought down in the first place.

I'll share for perspective, for machinery and tools, there's, I believe, roughly in the ballpark of 30 to 40 mayors in the county that generates between $600,000 and $700,000 annually.

So to create a pretty substantial amount of change would require a pretty significant change in that rate, depending on what the board wanted to do with that.

But what we can do from this discussion is, as we think about really

Next year's budget process of what are some options?

What are some other practices in the state, how they look?

What might some revenue generations look like, potentially even the solar project was mentioned the other day?

So that could be one that we could take as an action in the coming year knowing there's more to interest in exploring this.

Just as the board has signaled before, we'd like to explore tax relief more, or TOT more, or some of these other options.

My only other question is

and transient occupancy tax would come in favor of, and I understand we're not doing that until May 1st.

And the only reason I ask this is because if Charlottesville does not go up to 1%, that might change our thinking, not to do that also, but I'm just throwing that out, but we would have the opportunity.

I'm sure they're going to go to that, but we don't know yet.

Right.

That's my only concern.

I was just concerned about if they have one, we have another one.

But I'm hoping they will go ahead and I'm pretty sure they will.

We can go ahead.

I appreciate that the amount we're dealing with when we talk about separating out original property and machinery and tools is not enough.

I also think we're safe for another day this question of whether we really think that solar is something that we want to

and additional taxes would really need the resources as well.

So not going there today.

I would definitely support these as our excellent rates.

I move that the board advertise the following rates for public hearing from the 2024 tax review, 0.854.

Tangible, over what I said, Tangible personal property employed in a trade or business that is not otherwise classified as machinery and tools, merchants capital, or short-term registered property.

And that has an original cost of less than $500 and $3.96 per hundred dollars of assessed value for machinery and tools.

We have a motion from Supervisor Alex, second from Supervisor McKeel, without objection of the court.

Misalquisto-Kirtley, Ms.

Mallek, Ms.

So this next action is the proposed budget for advertisement.

Just to recap, we've started our work sessions looking at the total recommended budget at $629.1 million recommended numbers.

The Board's walked through the general fund revenues of 430 million property taxes and all the other sources.

The Board has been spending considerable time working through general fund expenditures, including the transfer of the schools and the school fund.

These are the capital projects discussed Monday.

We talked about the total plan, but these are the projects that would be part of the fiscal year 25 proposed budget that would be requested for appropriation on May 1st.

All these were mentioned on Monday.

and then that leads us to the budget amendments, which are the county executives recommended technical adjustments that were shared earlier and the board recommended adjustments, which I'll just say for perhaps just clarity, back on slide 10, the inclusion of North Gardening, Berkwar, Hartz to share from the PDE and the One Time Reserve and all of this slide is what we will use as our basis in the proposed budget.

Just going back to that for clarity.

And so with that,

I move that the board authorize staff to advertise for public hearing.

We have a motion from Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley and second from Supervisor Mallek.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That concludes today's work session in April or the remaining items.

Mr. Rosenberg did bring up that there is a work session on the 10th, which is to be determined could be canceled.

There could be a question on the board whether that would be part of next week's meeting or whether the board would ask to take action on that another time.

But that is one item that's out there as a question.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

There's still things major shoes left to fall that may impact us one way or the other too that we may learn about the next week or so.

So we can, I can prepare the resolution.

Thank you.

Thanks all of us.

Yeah, sounds good.

Didn't end that.

I believe this concludes the about 13 hours of budget work sessions.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate how hard staff worked on this.

We do have from the board members not listed on the agenda.

Lepito-Kirtley, Supervisor McKeel.

Just a big thank you.

All right.

Well, we will adjourn to April 3rd, one hand, the Lane Auditorium, regular meeting.

I thought there was an important meeting.

Opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public that they received.