Board of Supervisors Budget Work Session   2/25/2016

our county clerk Ella Jordan and our deputy county clerk Travis Morris and looks like we have we may not have anybody from the we may have a couple people from the public but if anybody has anything that they want to ask during the meeting they can address that to Ella or Travis and I guess at this point I'm just going to turn this over to whom

Lori's staff is sitting over there and they're usually the ones who have the best answers.

I want to say one thing.

I just look over there and ask, what page number is that on?

So she's not going to be with us today.

Maybe she'll name the calf after one of us.

I never would have known.

So any thoughts or any just general observations that anyone would like to share before we even get started?

benefits, retirement funds, retirement buyouts, all those kind of things related to staffing are the vast majority of the budget.

Any other thoughts that anyone would like to share as a general observation before we begin?

You want to hear from me?

These are some that are doing, we think will do pretty well.

That I'd like to go back to later, very specific, I want to talk about that.

So you want us to wait to ask questions?

Please go ahead.

those kind of projected or estimated sales tax records or numbers are then how they find their way into our budget because people may have this misconception that those record sales tax revenues actually impact this budget which we realize that does not happen but if there's a way you could kind of demonstrate that would be helpful.

You know, a simple slide or whatever, but I do think that's something the public wonders about, having heard the news.

Okay, we'll do that.

The bottom of this chart shows you the tax rate across the years and then this is just kind of a demonstration of how that would have impacted that house.

Is that about right?

I don't have that on the top of my head, but obviously we did not take that into account into this chart, but that would make a very big difference what the real value is of the dollar.

Given the fact that since 2007 we would have been looking at somewhere probably close to 8% inflation, actually that would be below the inflationary rate during that time period.

Again, I don't have that in front of me, but you're exactly right.

Thank you.

So this will be a convenient chart for people to look at.

Is this because of a net increased interest in smaller, more affordable homes that also are closer to the city and to the amenities of the city and therefore these districts are experiencing kind of the contagion effect of the increased property values in the city of Charlottesville?

I personally would think there'd be a lot of factors involved in that, but I think you're making a good observation that that may be an important giving.

We could have our assessor actually give some insight as to why he thinks that may be the case as a follow-up.

Brad just assured me it was because of the supervisors.

I was going to say that, but I thought it was presumptuous to note that Scottsville was then third, and as a newbie, I can't take credit for that.

That's a lot of the neighborhoods.

I mentioned this because I ran into somebody at the coffee shop about this and they had mentioned that Laughlin Hills had affected their older home assessment values because those homes are selling for half a million dollars and so there is a little bit of that infill that's affecting the values of older

and I said 50% is probably more like 40% to be honest with you, but we took a huge hit with the bypass going through neighborhoods as you might imagine.

So not that we want to make too much time on this, but did it go down more during the recession in the Jack Jouett and the Rio district?

She went pretty far back, and it showed pretty good information for each district, and each residential, each classification as well.

Okay, excuse me for that.

Are both of these figures for Rio and Jack Jouett, are those significant increases from the year before?

Were you the two leading districts in terms of property appreciation a year ago?

You saw a jump once the decision was made on the bypass.

This is all anecdotal.

because you're looking at aggregate data and therefore you know you've got a district with some of the district would be affected by the bypass on the western ends of it eastern end not so you have to compare appreciation on both and I'm just saying that because I live in one of those neighborhoods that was impacted but we certainly had a lot in the Jewett district as you look at Colters and Montview and you go all the way through

Actually, Jack Jouett went up 5.8% last year.

Yeah.

Thank you, Lori, for indulging us.

You're welcome.

I have a spreadsheet that Lori put together two years ago for me right at my fingertips.

I'm sure I already forgot about that.

Oh, that's good information.

We can talk more about it too when we get to the capital improvement plan presentation.

It's just an interesting increase to go from 38.50 to $40.75.

There's a cap on the amount of that fee that the state imposes and 4075 is the current cap.

Larry, does that cap go up every year?

In fact, we just checked it this morning, and in the budget that's proposed by everyone at this point in time, those fees don't change, so this appears to be the cap for this next fiscal year.

I think this makes great sense just because our part of our concern last year for some of us was that we weren't matching those funds and we were leaving money on the table and that is just not a good idea I mean that doesn't make any sense at all so just I just think this is I don't know if you're looking for reactions but I think from my viewpoint I think this is a great idea anytime you can pull down one-to-one matching dollars that's a good thing

In lieu of taxes, of course, property taxes, but.

This is a fee that you would amend effective January 1 of 2017, so in people's personal property tax bills, this would be part of the first half 2017 bill, so that would generate this revenue.

That's quite a few years before you get up to $6.8 million.

Yes.

And then the 250 is an ongoing source of revenue that enables you to borrow that money and pay the debt service over time.

Dedicated to paying off that debt service.

We've missed our match.

I'm just curious.

But that's something we really have to do because that's

I thought last year the reason why we didn't is because we had so many projects in the pipeline that we were told that we should finish up, VDOT said to finish up the projects before we got started on something else.

I believe that's what I've heard too.

I mean, we need to really make sure we're getting that one-to-one match.

increases 620,000 and then the local government salary market increase of 460,000.

Lori, does the CSA amount, that's just for county government side of it, that, because the school division would have their own amount that they have to cough up for CSA.

Yes, I think it's close to 300,000.

That's correct.

This is our local government share, that's correct.

So I just wanted to share that with you.

How predictable is that?

I believe because of the lag factor, this number is right for 18, isn't it?

So once we have the information and calendar year 2015 for both the city and the county that address those three factors you can actually calculate it.

And it doesn't take into consideration our land use tax break.

It's the assessed value, fair market assessed value of the property.

And it goes back to what would have been annexed.

That was the original intent.

Well, I mean the purpose of the revenue sharing is to address the fiscal impact to the city because it could not annex property in the county.

For those people who wonder why we even ended up with this, that's what I was getting at.

And that prohibited that annexation from proceeding and then established this agreement which precluded the city from ever annexing again as long as this agreement was in place.

There's a formula that you're referencing is at least capped, which is I guess a good thing.

That cap has been in effect a number of the years over the history of the agreement, but in recent years it has not played a factor.

It's a little complicated, but you say it so well.

So each year that the county raises its tax rate and the city doesn't, that is a factor that decreases the amount of revenue sharing in the year that it's applicable to, which is three year lag years.

It's kind of interesting.

So maybe when we get to an equalized rate at some point we can just do away with it completely.

That's a joke.

Oh, goodness me.

So ours is decreasing based on the actuarials and the information about VRS.

That's right.

And I certainly want to see everybody compensated in the county government, but I do think it would be prudent that we be able to look at what the financial impact would be in those three scenarios.

We can provide that for you.

Thank you very much.

And just to clarify, you're just talking about on the local government side?

At this point, yeah, that's all I would want to look at.

And we know one thing for sure, and we'll get you all the numbers, is that the total cost, if we didn't do a raise at all for local government, is $462,000.

Yes, it was a 1% increase, actually, instead of a 2% when you did the dollars.

I think I have it back here a minute.

Whoops, let me find it.

We don't have to provide it now.

It's a 2% salary increase, but it's only a 1% salary impact to the budget, if that makes sense, because we had some changes in personnel cost overall, so the actual cost of it is a 1% increase, but it would generate a 2% salary increase for employees.

We'll just follow up with some, we're crystal clear.

But I was really more interested in this side of the governmental ledger at this point.

Just wanted you to have that background.

Just from a commonality standpoint.

And I don't know where that stands now.

Actually, I think all all the proposals are consistent on that that that teacher raises are not effective until fiscal year 2018 in the state budget.

But having said that,

And the other thing we'll do... More than that, now ten months out, but by next January.

And again, just another piece of information as you think about how you may want to make some adjustments.

When oil surplus is used up and the oil price takes a real big jump, as it always does historically, we will be looking at, now, six months, I don't know, but you're right.

We also have a fuel contingency, so all those things will be covered.

Well, I'm talking about the big picture from the global oil price.

You've been buying oil futures, I see.

I'm going to move a little bit to benefit the health care fund benefit and Mr. Walker was going to speak to these next two slides and we'll be talking more about it at the next work session but we wanted to provide a little information today.

in a 20 to 25% range.

12.

Look at Betty as the 12%.

They're going up, but not at this high rate.

It is.

So this is to help, that percentage is to help shore up that account.

So we had a good strategy to bring the fund balance down, but those claims went up dramatically and that's what put us in this position.

and we'll talk more on Monday about what changes have already been made and then what is in the current plan design going forward to try to provide that right balance between the revenues and expenses on our self-funded plan as well as get our fund balance up to an appropriate level.

is included in that 14.5%, so that helps a lot.

But the trajectory of our claims costs and the trajectory of our revenues are going to require us to infuse, to use some of this increase to replenish some of the needed structural balance between revenues and expenses.

And so we thought it was responsible to bring that down.

But things change.

So all of those things are good for everybody.

We will talk about our wellness program a little bit probably on Monday.

Good.

And we're bringing the fund balance up to the 25% this year or are we going to do that slowly over time?

Three years.

If it happened sooner that would be better for all of us in the budget and finance world.

Of course some of that may depend on just what our experience is as we go forward.

You would definitely recommend it in a two year at least.

I'm sorry.

So just making that connection.

Yes, sir.

There's no linking at all between the entities and the rating.

So it's been our, we usually start off with a recommendation that matches the ABRT because of all the work they put into it and we value their work.

get agreement on, though, is the relative value of, I won't just pull out two agencies, but, you know, struggling children versus aging people versus transportation or accessibility, I don't know, just, we have some, what?

Legal aid?

Yeah.

Sure.

So that's the first group.

Just a suggestion for the future.

But I think the terminology is something maybe that we should think about as well.

so you might see this conversation start again when Ann arrives.

You can channel her in her absence, that's great.

Oh yeah, she's well more articulated in her concerns about it.

Gretchen, if you'd like to introduce yourself and she's here, she actually runs the ABRT program and the process so it's great that you're here today, thank you.

And I'm happy to make that available to you.

You just barely missed it kind of thing.

I'm happy to share the scores with any of the organizations and I have already with many of the organizations that have applied this year.

Thank you.

That's where the municipal band for instance.

That's correct.

If you want to share any more details about these classifications, the last two that I mentioned,

So those are commitments that prior boards have made by forming these authorities or these joint exercise of powers entities.

Because even though we're an agency together, go ahead.

There's an operational agreement that the localities that are participating in the regional library have entered into, and there's a funding formula obligation that's created by that operational agreement, similar to how an authority is created, but it's technically it's not an authority, but it operates very much in the same way.

Once we set it up, it seems like it'd be harder to get out of it or change the formula or...

but in order to change the charter of an authority, it is a significant process to do that where they would, especially the joint authorities with the city and the county who both participate, you would have to have a process in order to change the funding formula that would be agreed to by the entities that created the authority.

So when you're talking about those, and I'm sorry to belabor this, but I'm trying to figure out in my head, so some of them actually have, we have a formula and we're prescribed and we're, that's what we have to ante up, so to speak, and I think maybe the SPCA is one of those.

It's a contract that we have with the SPCA and it is based on a formula, a certain amount of payment based on population.

We're not giving them that 9% because contractually, we're not required to.

So the amount of the library board budget drives the amount of the contribution from the localities, but it's subject to appropriation.

And I'm sorry to belabor it.

I'm glad you brought it up.

Because I noticed they had requested nine and since it's a regional I was thinking well that must be our share and yet we're you know Tom has recommended five which is fine I'm just trying to figure out which ones of these are absolutes and obviously some of them aren't.

And some of that's driven by regional costs and some of that's driven by our local branch costs which we pay a hundred percent of so we have more control over the local branch costs than we do the regional costs.

So there were a lot of very worthy, very important things that we were not able to do in this budget.

I just wanted to reinforce that from your information here.

There were other requests in there as well, so it wasn't all salary positions, but I get your point.

Okay.

Okay.

Mr. Latiria is going to cover this category.

Yeah, Doug might want to say a few words about HR.

those two items on their behalf.

Yes, ma'am.

You just said that they are trying to increase diversity, they wanted to request something to help them do that?

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.

How is that just informally or formally done within the organization?

Businesses do all that all the time.

Yeah, I mean there are needs and of course people are going to be leaving over the course of the year so there's going to be various ways to look at it.

I'm sure they have an answer.

Yeah, this isn't a new question I'm sure.

Again, the best first assessment is the priority ranking of the departments themselves and how they then value that position over other positions that they say are needed.

But within their departments, so then somebody higher up has to compare those rankings between the departments too.

That's readily available to you.

I'm just trying to explore that.

Yeah, and it is a starting point, so you all can.

How do you translate a half a cent into a number of FTEs?

Half a cent is $800,000 and that would be 8 to 10 positions probably that could be added.

1.6.

1.6.

Yeah, 800,000 is a half a penny and that's 1.6.

You should be the full number of what it is.

I mean, it's really a million six, five or something like that.

So if we added all those positions, we would be looking at a five penny increase.

All the 48 positions?

We would be looking at a five penny increase instead of a two and a half penny increase.

And that's usually going to be more than your typical staff person because of the equipment and stuff.

For the first year.

Yeah, good point.

If I may just add one thing we also have an efficiency savings budget into this budget where we're gonna look at vacancies and look at changes so I would think that'd be the first thing you'd look at I think it's this year is a hundred and fifty what's the sheer savings 150 150 yeah so we just have to keep that in mind we have 150 savings that we still haven't gotten yet in the current budget so you want to put that out there

They were not upset with the investments in those two departments.

They thought they were absolutely essential.

But I think there's been a really great strategic effort throughout the last eight years for sure.

So thank you Madam Chairman for that.

Did I hear that correctly?

Yes.

And so could you explain that because we had the 70% I mean excuse me the 70 some positions eliminated during the recession and I just want to make sure that somebody doesn't interpret that differently than you meant.

And I'll stand corrected if that was incorrect, but we can look at the information on that.

I just wanted you to comment on whether it was a net increase or not, so I didn't want anybody to misinterpret that.

There was a lot of cross training and people were reassigned in other departments as part of that shrinking.

Not to discuss today, it's such small print, but just for future reference.

So if there's something that you see there that you'd like more information, as for all of these positions, we've received very thorough, detailed request analysis that we'd be happy to share with you.

Thank you.

They have asked for, in their case, an additional assistant Commonwealth Attorney, and I believe an OA position that is not included in the current budget.

That was the, so what we have approved, what you have in the budget is what they asked for prior, like last year, when the beginning of the budget department, the new positions from last year.

That's right, it does include the positions that were previously approved, yes.

Bill, before we, if I may, if somebody else can.

I was just gonna ask, do we know anything about what the state's funding of that is, isn't that also their responsibility?

Most Commonwealth attorneys are not funded in full throughout the state.

We can't know how much we're supposed to pay until we know what the state's paying, right?

So we're able to then calculate on the basis of that allocation what it is they can afford to pay their people.

That is not anything that's guaranteed on the latest request, which I think you all know didn't come in the budget process, but you've gotten information.

It came outside of our process.

And again, we know the state standards aren't usually very realistic, not neither in the school system or on general government side.

how many there are needed for the caseload, workload.

All of these both and the salary as well.

So there's some jurisdictions that are not being fully funded even under the state standards.

Is there any penalty if we don't take it to state standards?

There's no requirement for the locality to fund those positions or those offices beyond providing them adequate space and providing them the benefits that are required by state law.

Driving that, is increased number of juveniles coming into the court system?

I'm not sure I can answer that.

That'd be great.

Thank you very much.

We have proposed to limit that adjustment to the 2% that we have given to the rest of our employees.

Can you let us know, is the city paying the same amount for building and maintenance?

50-50?

Just seems like a pretty significant increase.

There may have been some kind of HVAC or something that needed to be fixed, who knows.

Maybe.

We'll find out.

We hope.

I'm not quite sure how much time you're allowing for us to ask questions, and I want to make sure you're finished with your.

So we have a couple more opportunities if we don't go through all of our slides today.

Great, thank you.

That concludes judicial and I think at this point we'll move to public safety.

If we go too fast then you'll slow me down.

It's you who's dragging down the conversation.

We want to hear.

Their top initiative for this year, again not funded, is they try to build out their problem-oriented policing unit with two additional officers.

Problem-oriented, what was that word?

I know Chief Sellers can speak to that as well.

I don't know if you need to give a full explanation right now.

Steve's not wagging his head, so I think that's...

I don't know if a robust discussion is going to change too much right now, but at least in our strategic planning we should probably be very clear about where we're going.

Where are we headed with this long term and what investments should we make or should we just stop with what we're doing because we're not going to make the longer term investments?

I'd just like to have it.

That cost would then go away in fiscal year 18.

Yes.

87 is for the equipment essentially?

Correct.

I want to remind everybody that we did some creative budgeting to try to get those two other positions last year.

We had a spare vehicle, so that cut down the cost once last year.

Is it only 0.7%?

There should be a 2% market adjustment for police officers same as other employees.

2% in the 14 years.

In this chart here it shows...

I'm looking on page 117 under police department.

That's the overall budget chart I think you're looking at.

It just moved money around.

Across the top just the recommended versus ADP it's 0.7 versus the two.

Andy can address that as well.

So as a result, you'll notice probably in the projected budget for 2016, their salaries are less than budgeted.

Anybody that's been there a while is getting 2%.

That 2% applies to kind of the base of where we are right now and not where we were this time a year ago.

Good ol' lapse factor.

That's right.

I have a couple of questions if that's alright.

So that would be, though, an additional position for the Commonwealth Attorney's Office over and above all the conversations we've had already.

I'll say it so that Larry doesn't have to perhaps.

It's envisioned to be a very expensive proposition both for the Commonwealth Attorney's Office, my office and for the police department for that matter.

So I realize the program is unfunded right now in this budget's recommendation, but you don't have anything in here for your office, it's just for the Commonwealth's Attorney that's part of- In regards to the body cameras, that's correct.

That was based both on workload and on anticipated other issues.

Would that be okay?

The overtime question, I would defer to the Chief and to Andy.

Because I know last year was such a huge impact as far as your staff goes and everybody else's staff.

But they've agreed to do that now as well.

Thank you.

Steve Sellars, Chief of Police.

So in terms of geopolicing, you're even getting into a geographical area within your geopolicing that is much more police intensive.

So we're urbanizing, we're urbanizing.

Appreciate it.

How much are we expected to have to fully fund by next year, given that this is the fourth year of that grant?

How much for the crime analyst for fully funding when the grant runs out?

Is it going to be double that number?

We can work on that for a minute if you want to.

I just want to make sure that we all appear understanding that that position is one of those grant positions that sneak up on us.

I'll let them get the actual information.

So that's readily available.

I just want to make a couple of comments there without... Doug, we might go ahead and answer that question right now.

I think Andy has it at his fingertips.

Why don't I wait?

So $17,000 will be the impact.

I'm sorry, could you say that one more time?

$17,000 will be the lost grant revenue going into fiscal year 18.

It's not going to be that much of an impact.

I was expecting more than that.

Now the Emergency Communications Center.

I was just thinking it'd be great though for somebody to join me.

Well, think about it.

March the 18th at 10 o'clock, so.

Actually, you can't have a public meeting in a jail where people can't.

Is it an annual contract or is it subject to renegotiation and reappraisal at any point?

It's an annual contract to the extent that unless we indicate otherwise then there's a factor by which that it increases to deal with increased costs.

Nothing against animals, owner of two dogs and a cat, I'm not gonna malign them, they provide wonderful services, but over a half million dollars seems like a huge sum of money.

It's gone up about 200,000 in the last several years.

The extent to which the pound costs and the shelter costs might be evaluated I think would be where that conversation would be.

either Larry or Tom or staff can conjure up that whole report that was done in ten maybe because we really beat that thing with a stick for a long time to try to figure out how to squeeze the nickel as hard as we could.

Very thoughtfully put together I guess the question would be what would be that mandated level of service versus a higher level and then could some of that be subject to fundraising and I would say in principle the issue you raised is one of those ones throughout the budget are there areas where fundraising could be done instead so we could reallocate money to other critical services I am absolutely sure that the county money is not going for the surgery and things like that the very high level of care it's strictly for the pound and that is very clear in the way the contract's written

I was going to say we have a contract, you just mentioned this, it's by population.

and at that point we could not, going forward, that was something that was left on the table as being a future option, but we did not pursue that.

We could probably get it cheaper, but it wouldn't be as humanely run and I think they do an excellent job.

and I mean I think we're valuing something at a very high rate at half a million dollars to put all that money there when we've got other needs in this age of scarcity to talk about so I'd welcome a chance to re-examine that I think it's timely.

Sounds like a strategic plan discussion.

It could be on that list if that's what

Thank you.

I can show you the numbers.

My main concern is wondering how many calls are coming for elder-related issues.

From a budget standpoint, I just wanted to make the point that our share is being driven by our call volume or dispatch activity volume.

and we also have a tremendously high rate of auto accidents and things like that around here and so they're always chasing around.

I'd love to have that information Brad's asking for to tease that out because we're really trying to figure out.

Is that calls by type?

Calls by type?

So I will look forward and anticipate that information when you can.

Why would we pull out the Firearms Training Center separate and not included in our public safety contributions?

And speaking about structure, it is a regional exercise, a regional activity that involves participation by the city, the university, and the county.

It is.

We had wanted to talk a little bit about community engagement through March.

The local cost to Albemarle County is reflected in the general fund in the police department or in the parks department in the example of Tow.

We calculated our contribution this year based on when it's opening.

When's the party?

Colonel Sellers will be working on an opening ceremony for that.

I should expect to, when I find that again, when it says full year, it means the entire fiscal year.

Yes, Andy just clarified fiscal year 17 is a full year of funding.

People sometimes don't understand fiscal year for us is different than the calendar year, so.

I would like to just suggest, I think that this is to end at 5.30, is that correct?

Yes, we have to recess to room 241.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, anything else before we recess?

We're recessing to room 241 for our joint meeting with the Economic Development Authority.