Board of Supervisors Public Hearing on Board's Proposed Budget   3/30/2016

Please join us in a moment of silence.

Thank you.

Welcome everyone and to anyone listening online or watching us online.

I want to make a brief, some introductions first and if you have never been here before, well.

Some people you won't know, even if you have been here before.

We have our officer joining us this evening, Van Deveer.

Thank you very, very much, officer, for joining us.

To the right of the dais, on the dais to the right of us is Larry Davis, our county attorney, and on to our left

On the dais is our County Executive, Tom Foley, and our Director of Office of Management and Budget, Lori Allhouse.

And behind the dais is our two Clerks, Ella Jordan is our County Clerk and Travis

Morris is our deputy county clerk.

If anybody has anything that they would like to give the board or have any questions during the meeting, please direct those to Ella or Travis.

So before we get started, what we would need to do is adopt our final agenda.

So do we have any changes?

And if not, can I have a motion to adopt the final agenda?

So moved.

Ms. McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Romer?

Yes.

Mr. Randolph?

Aye.

Mr. Sheffield?

Yes.

Mr. McKeel?

Yes.

Ms. Mallek?

And before we get started with the public hearing, we have a time to have people speak on matters not listed for the public hearing.

We have one person to speak.

Barbara Cruikshank, if you'll come forward.

As Barbara I'm sure knows, each speaker is allotted three minutes and when the green light goes on, you can give us your name and Magisterial District if you would please for the record.

When the yellow light goes on, you'll have 30 seconds to wrap up and the red light means it's time to quit.

My name is Barbara Cruikshank.

I have a home in Earlysville that I currently rent.

I'm a taxpayer.

I'm living in the city right now, and all three of my children have gone to Albemarle County Schools, and I have prospective students for you, my grandkids.

I'm here to speak about the proposed cell tower at Albemarle High School and I'm here to speak in opposition of that cell tower.

Cell towers are very powerful transmitters of radio frequency radiation, which is radiation, same as a cell phone radiation, microwave oven, Wi-Fi,

There is currently no proof of long-term safety for these towers to be placed near a school.

FCC standards are outdated.

They're over 20 years old.

They're not reflective of the current science and they do not protect children.

The World Health Organization has declared radio frequency radiation, which is the same type of radiation, as a class 2B carcinogen because of the links to brain cancer.

The studies continue to show that there is an increased risk of cancer for those who live or work near cell tower base stations.

I've given you each a copy of some studies.

One study shows if you're less than 300 meters living or spending a lot of time by a base station,

If you're a woman, you have a tenfold increase in cancer.

If you are the general population, it's fourfold increase.

There are several other studies there that address the cancer issue with these cell towers.

Other adverse effects, biologic effects to humans being near a base station include, and the research supports this, damage to the DNA, damage to the reproductive systems, the immune systems,

in tremors, insomnia, palpitations, people have a myriad of physical complaints.

The Bioinitiative Report is an international global research group that evaluates all of the research on human health and electromagnetic field radiation.

And they come out very strongly saying, by placing cell towers near schools,

We're exposing kids to thousands of times higher levels of radiation than existed 20 years ago.

So there are many other safety issues, connected fires, falls from cell towers, truck traffic on school property, not to mention property values near cell tower decline.

That link I sent to you over email and I hope that you will look at this information and not allow this to happen.

Thank you, Ms. Grouching.

And one more item before we go on to the public hearing.

I'll just do one safety announcement and one solid waste announcement.

Columbia Gas has been undergoing a safety campaign about calling 811 to get information about utility locations to prevent people from digging and disturbing gas lines.

So there's a lot of really important information available through the safety offices in both the city and the county and through Columbia Gas.

Calling 811 will save your life and that of your neighbor as well.

The other is that the solid waste, oops, wrong one, amnesty days are coming.

Friday, April 1st is household hazardous waste from two to six, Saturday, April 2nd.

Household hazardous waste nine to two.

This is at the Ivy Materials Utilization Center.

Bulky waste days, April 9th, that's a Saturday, furniture and mattresses all day.

April 16th appliances and Saturday, April 23rd, tires.

So this is a really important element that we have and I hope everyone will take advantage of it.

Thank you.

I have one announcement to make.

Tom Frederick, our executive director of the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and Solid Waste Authority has announced that he's taking a job elsewhere and we're very sorry to see him go.

He's done a tremendous amount for our community.

He will be giving a presentation, his quarterly presentation to the board on April 6th, so we're hoping we will have a chance to thank him for the excellent sewer system and water system that he has helped build.

So if there is no more comments from the board, what we are here today for is to get comments from the public on the recommended budget.

And we are not planning on making any decisions about the tax rate tonight.

We want to hear from you.

Before we get started, our county executive will give us a brief presentation to give you an overview of what the budget is this year.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I want to take a few minutes to do an overview of the budget for FY17, both the capital and operating budget highlights.

Before I do that, I want to talk a little bit about the longer term picture that the county's facing.

As you see on the slide before you, we're referring to a challenge, and it's a significant challenge that the county's faced with as it looks at our future financially.

And financially means our ability to pay for the services and capital program and so forth that the community has come to expect from the local government.

We're challenged to fund that into the future.

I want to just talk about that for just a few minutes.

As you look at this next slide, you see a graph here that depicts the projected revenues over a five-year period as we looked at our financial picture back in December.

and our expenditures that are projected over that same period of time.

The bottom line is the revenues and the top line is the expenditures.

Obviously that represents a structural imbalance as we look to the future and that gap begins to widen as we look out into that future.

We have looked at this graph over the last couple years and have been challenged to figure out how to get ourselves in a better position going forward.

That challenge is significant and as we look at that, there's a few realities that are important to understand.

First of all, slow growth in our largest revenue source is one of the things that's affecting that gap that we looked at.

A projected slowdown in the economy overall, significant increases in obligations, mandates, and commitments.

A challenge that is not just short-term but also long-term over that five years and beyond without some action as we move forward.

The significant challenge we're faced with is that we're having a hard time maintaining existing services as our population continues to grow while those revenues stay very flat into the future.

And obviously that leads to our inability to address board and community aspirations with the environment that we're faced with.

So that's the heart of it.

I want to talk about a few of these items that I've just mentioned to give you a little more information about what we're faced with.

First of all, slow growth in our largest revenue source.

As you look at the pie chart on the left, you see the area that is the largest of that pie in blue.

That represents our real estate tax base, which represents 60% of the revenues that we generate locally.

When 60% of your revenue base is not moving in a very positive direction, or is moving very slow, it affects your ability to fund the future.

The graph on the right hand side shows you how the values on our properties driven by those real estate values have fluctuated going back to the Great Recession.

So in 2007 you see that significant dip and then you start to see a recovery that peaked out in 2015, not this past January but the one before that.

Unfortunately, you see that peak now start to drop again.

That represents where we are today and the challenges that we're faced in terms of the growth in that 60% of our revenue base.

That's really causing some of these challenges that we're faced with today.

As you look at the next slide, I've mentioned obligations and mandates and commitments, things we have no choice on, things that either the state is requiring us to do or commitments that we've made previously to keep up with basic services.

and also trying to minimize the impacts on existing levels of service.

Those were two of the big things that we looked at in this budget but as you can see the total of just those two items is 9.7 million dollars in this proposed budget in FY 17.

That 9.7 million dollars

is greater than the revenue growth we have projected in this budget.

That's only projected to be $9 million.

So obviously we've had to make up that difference in some other ways that we'll talk about in just a moment.

But again, the point here is the things we have to do are outstripping a budget that even includes a two and a half cent tax increase in it.

This challenge is both short and long term.

We've seen the drop in our property values below what we had projected.

in the current year and also carries us into the next two fiscal years that we're talking about as we look over this three to five year period.

The impact on the current year we hope will be mitigated by some growth in some other sources of revenue and also some expenditure savings that we're expecting, but it is something we have to pay attention to even between now and July 1st of this current calendar year.

The reality of FY17 is that just to deal with these obligations and mandates, given the slow revenue growth that we have projected, we've had to include a two and a half cent tax increase.

This budget includes no new positions, expansions of services, or any new programs or services.

None of those things were able to be considered because of these challenges that we're faced with.

and even past that, we had to make up the $700,000 difference between revenue growth and obligations and beyond just to balance this budget.

This budget includes $400,000 over the next two fiscal years in reductions that the county government will have to make just to keep the budget in balance in spite of the tax increase and not adding any positions.

And as we look out further to FY 18,

we are projecting a deficit between two and a half and three million dollars.

That would require a fairly significant tax increase to offset.

Again, a true picture of a multi-year challenge that this county is faced with.

Obviously, on the next slide, it really sort of sums up the results of that and that is without some change going forward and looking at some things in a different way, we're challenged just to maintain existing levels of service

and it's very difficult for us to meet the aspirations that the board has established and the community has established through our strategic plan and some of the things that we've talked about wanting to do.

Future tax increases or dramatic expenditure reductions are needed into the future just to keep up with existing services.

The strategic plan and our initiatives go unfunded for the three-year period that you're looking at here.

and our CIP is funded only at a maintenance level for essential projects and even that will require a three cent tax increase over the next five years.

That's the setting we find ourselves in.

That's the challenge that we're talking about.

It is hitting us harder this year than we had anticipated because of some changes and drops in values and their growth.

But that is the challenge we're faced with here.

We have faced big challenges in the past during the recession, the great recession which ended a few years ago.

We had to innovate and adapt and do some different things.

The chart that you see before you highlights some of the efficiencies.

They include things such as eliminating positions during the recession or reallocating positions from one department to another where there were priorities.

We looked at privatization, we made greater use of volunteers, and we were more aggressive on our grants.

And a number of other factors that you see before you.

So we have been through this before.

The reality is a lot of those measures were put in place and remain in place, so the challenge going forward is that much more difficult.

We'll have to do more of this as we look to the future.

This is a great community.

It's going to require some significant strong leadership by this board and some engagement by the public to try to figure out how to right our ship, if you will,

and we're confident that we can do that.

But overcoming that, two natural things come to mind as to how we might overcome something like this.

Two sides of a picture of a budget is the revenue side and the expenditure side.

If we look quickly at a strategy that involves raising taxes, the graph that you see before you, the top line shows how our tax rate has changed since back in 2002 and how it has climbed in recent years.

and how it will need to continue to climb if taxes are the way that we solve this.

That shows us at a low of about 68 cents in 2007, climbing up to almost 92 cents by the projected year 2019 based on everything I just talked about.

But the other line that you see is the drop in those property values that we talked about earlier.

As you can see, we've had to offset the drop by increasing taxes at the top.

And as you look out into those outer years, you see that flattening of our revenue growth

and that's resulted in this tax increase.

So again, just to balance without any new services or positions, it would require, if we just raise taxes to solve it, it would require a tax rate that goes up to about 92 cents.

This budget proposes an 84.4 cent tax in the year ahead in 17.

Obviously, the other side of the equation is to look at our expenditures and figure out where we might cut.

When you start with that equation, you have to look at how we're spending our dollars now.

What this graph essentially shows you is that the county's expenditures on average compared to similar localities are right at the average.

This picture compares us with other localities like Stafford and Hanover, similar to us in population and some of the demands that are faced.

But even with some significant things that I'll talk about in just a minute, we are only at the average of expenditure.

As you look at the next slide, these are some of the things that are different about us when we compare ourselves with the other localities, which really demonstrate that our expenditures are well below the average because the other localities don't face some of these challenges.

First of all, expenditures include a revenue sharing payment to the city that's almost $16 million in FY17 and will actually increase in FY18 and beyond.

That's not something that other localities are faced with.

It's equivalent to almost 10 cents on our tax rate.

So obviously our average expenditures are well below those other localities when you factor this out.

although not an expenditure, the county forgoes approximately $16 million or another 10 cents on our tax rate through a pretty robust land use program which forgoes taxes for properties that are qualified as agricultural forest or open space.

Our program is not the only one in the state but is much more robust because of our values of protecting our rural areas than these other localities that we've compared ourselves with.

We have a very strong pre-K program in this community, which exceeds what other localities do, which is something we highly value.

But even as we look over our period of that 10 years, we know that our expenditures and our numbers of employees per capita has actually not increased in 10 years.

The bottom line for all of this is that we have maintained a very conservative approach on our expenditures and there's not a lot of

of fat in there that is gonna help solve this problem.

That doesn't mean we don't have to look at our expenditures and we've actually proposed that we do an efficiency study in FY17 to further look at this opportunity.

One of the most telling things that gives you an idea about our levels of services and how we compare to other localities is that last bullet on the page.

Albemarle County ranks 126 out of 133 law enforcement agencies in the Commonwealth for the number of police officers per capita.

Again, the message here is we could raise taxes up to 91, 92 cents to solve this problem.

As we look at the expenditure side, while we need to continue to look at operations and how we can do some things different, we don't start off at a place that is beyond the average.

We're actually below the average on expenditures when you factor out those few areas.

So real important as we think about that future and some potential strategies

But the proposed budget that we'll talk about now balances hard choices and opportunities for change and some different types of action It does propose some concrete steps to transform our organization It talks about investments we need to bring about some of that change It's focused on establishing clear board and community priorities that drive our future decisions

And the bottom line is we've got to align our tax structures and our levels of service to what we desire as a community.

And that's going to require a considerable amount of involvement by the public to help have a conversation about what we value in this community and what our future should look like.

A little bit more specifically, we established six goals in this budget.

Three of them are about addressing the current challenge and three of them are about making investments for the future.

This budget meets current commitments and obligations.

It minimizes the impacts to current services and holds the line on existing expenditures.

While it also invests in meaningful solutions for the future,

determines, establishes a process to determine the board and community's priorities and then results in a realistic two-year budget going forward after FY 17.

Rather than looking one year at a time and sort of stumbling into tax increases it says we need to take a step and step back and look at a two-year budget

That's different than a five-year outlook, which sometimes is very uncertain and a one-year that really doesn't do enough planning for the future.

So these are the major goals that were established.

I'd like to quickly review the highlights of the budget and a little bit more about the expenditures so that we can get some comments from you all on this proposed budget.

It is a $376.3 million budget.

As you look at the pie on the left-hand side,

you'll see that the majority of our revenues come from property taxes at about 44%, that other local revenue is about 19%, and the state provides us about 22% of our revenues.

The rest is divided up among borrowed proceeds and some other small sources of revenue, federal revenue is an example.

On the right-hand side is our expenditures in total, all funds.

58% of our expenditures are school related and 38% are everything else the county government does, local government services.

We do spend about 4% of our total budget on a check to the City of Charlottesville under a mandated revenue sharing agreement which I've talked about earlier is about $16 million in FY17.

Some of the highlights of this budget, it represents only a 0.4% increase in total or $1.6 million.

The majority of that change is because our capital program will be down in the year ahead.

Operating expenses are up about 4.5% for all government services, including local government and schools.

Our revenues, although we're seeing some moderate growth in some of our sources, the slow growth in our real estate values that we talked about earlier is having the biggest impact on this budget.

It is built on an 84.4 cent tax increase, which is a two and a half cent tax increase.

One penny of that two and a half cents is dedicated solely to our capital program, basically to keep up with maintenance needs and some critical public safety needs that we have.

The 1.5 cents going to operations, 1.1 of that is going to the local government side, basically to pay for those mandates that I talked about earlier, that 9.7 million dollar impact.

About .4 cents of that 1.5 is going to the school system to help them deal with some of the budget gaps that they're faced with.

State and federal revenues are not a large sum of this budget except for some mandated programs.

They're not changing dramatically as we look into the future.

So how is this affecting you in terms of your tax bill?

What we've done here on this chart is taken the average home price back in 2007 and we've tracked that over this entire period up to the proposed budget over a 10-year period.

The dark bar that you see

is a picture of how that tax bill on that average home has changed in real dollars.

But when you adjust for inflation, the lighter colored bar gives you a representation.

Basically what that tells you is the tax bill hasn't changed very much no matter how you look at it.

But certainly in inflation adjusted dollars, there's really no new money coming in on the average tax bill.

The tax bill is proposed with the two and a half cents on that average home to be about $2,201.

If it was at the current rate, it would be $2,136.

So you can see that change with the two and a half cents to give some perspective.

Quickly, some of the highlights according to the goals that were established, meeting current commitments, mandates, and obligations.

Support for the school system is up $3.3 million.

They automatically get 60% of the revenue growth that we do receive according to a formula that's been in place established by the Board of Supervisors.

The 0.4 cents from the tax increase is also included in there.

Our debt service obligations are up almost $3 million and a significant mandate for Children's Services Act, which provides treatment services for children in need in the school system, special ed, and our foster care program.

That is going up almost the equivalent of a penny on our tax rate at 1.4 million.

There's that 7.6 that we talked about before broken down.

Minimizing impacts to current levels of service.

You can see the increases of about a million dollars to some of our key regional agencies just to keep up with existing levels of service and maintain them.

Our local government health care costs are up 14.5% in this proposed budget.

and our budget does include a 2% market increase for county employees just to keep them up with the market as it changes so that we are able to retain and attract quality folks to work in a pretty difficult environment these days.

Goal number three is holding the line on existing expenditures.

This budget includes no new positions, expansions of existing services or new programs in local government.

Across our entire budget,

On the local government side, we are seeing actually a $17,000 reduction.

That's a great representation of holding the line on operating expenditures.

However, it does rely on $400,000 of reductions over the next two years that we'll have to find.

And we have reduced any one-time expenditures in this budget by just over a half a million dollars to kind of tighten the belt up a little bit.

It does reflect other expenditure reductions.

As an example, even though we're paying $16 million to the City of Charlottesville for revenue sharing,

That number is actually slightly down.

It's down by $300,000.

Unfortunately, it goes back up by $300,000 in FY18.

That's a $600,000 swing that we're going to have to overcome.

We have reflected things such as fuel savings in this budget that I think everyone has experienced.

Number four, investing in meaningful solutions.

So as we shift away from what we have to do to what we need to do looking to the future, there is an efficiency study proposed in this budget at about $100,000, and we're going to try to do that in concert with the city of Charlottesville to figure out if there's opportunities together to be more efficient, combine services, or look for regional solutions.

We're gonna assess all of our technology uses to try to streamline services to a greater extent, look for consolidations where we can.

And this budget does make an investment in economic development in our urban areas by setting aside a little bit of money to try to invest to attract some economic development and growth to hopefully turn the tide in future years.

We have implemented a number of recommendations from a citizen committee that we had underway this past year.

We are looking at the possibility of freezing or reallocating positions in the county government and we're going to take a hard look at our health care fund and this Children's Services Act to figure out if there's some different ways we can deliver services at less cost.

The last couple goals, all of this work is significant work.

If we have to think about reducing services to try to get ourselves in the right place in the future, or if tax increases are gonna have to be a part of providing the high level of services that we value in this community, we need to have a discussion with the community about that.

And we need to determine what the highest priorities are.

So we're gonna, we have proposed

something called priority-based budgeting to take a hard look at what we do now and how we might need to do it differently in the future.

Finally, I talked about a two year fiscal plan.

This year we are proposing that we move to that two year look to try to keep our eyes on the immediate as well as the near term future.

A two year plan would focus on realistic priorities that move us to a sustainable future.

It is going to involve some tough choices on tax rates and service levels, however, which we need to do with the community.

and the idea here is that if we can get ourselves in the right place, we can stop limping along year after year with these kind of reductions and hopefully put ourselves to the point where we're reaching towards the aspirations that the community has for the future.

So in conclusion, this budget proposes that we take action now to address a three-year budget imbalance, that we evaluate all the options and make necessary changes to get to that future that we want,

That's going to involve some clear community and board priority setting.

Ultimately, aligning our tax structure and our service levels to our desires, values, and priorities is essential as we look to that future.

And one thing that is very significant is we are going to have to invest in growing our tax base.

So our tax rate is not always going to have to go up.

That's economic development.

That's trying to get business and industry in here that adds to the value of our properties to help pay for some of the services into the future.

Residential development costs us more money.

then it even costs to educate a child so we've got to invest in growing our economic commercial and industrial tax base.

And finally as I've mentioned a number of times we're going to have to engage with the public significantly over the next year so that you're involved in helping to make some of the choices and decisions about the future.

Clearly we can overcome these challenges as a community, it's a great community, but it will take that investment and that bold leadership to get us to that place.

So that today is not the end, even when they adopt the budget, it won't be the end.

We will engage you continuously over the next year to think about that future.

Before we open the public hearing, is there any questions for clarification from the board?

Anything that anybody would like to add?

And you do such a good job at public hearings with going over what you refer to as your school teacher chat.

All right, I will.

Emphasizing that this is a place for people of all opinions to share their thoughts without fear of any kind of reaction, negative or otherwise, from other members of the audience or members of the board, we are happy to have you show your

agreement if you would like to stand up or raise your hand but we will not have audible signs of distress or disagreement or support.

No applause and no negative things because it intimidates people and makes this a less useful situation.

I have two lists this evening, one from the folks that signed up online and another list the folks that signed up in person.

We have a total of eight people that have signed up, so everyone will have three minutes.

and I'm going to call four names at a time if the four people will come down and then I'll call the next group of four names.

So would Peggy Williams, Michael Irani, Charlotte Hogue and Robert Hogue come on down, come forward and Peggy Williams you are first.

and as I said earlier, if you'll just identify yourself in the magisterial district in which you live, make sure that you pull the mic towards you so everybody can hear clearly.

Green light says go, yellow light 30 seconds to wrap up and red light means to please complete.

Hi, I'm Peggy Williams and I'm in the Samuel Miller district.

I am a parent of three children in Albemarle County Schools and when you have a good thing going, it is worth the extra effort and resources to keep it going.

Albemarle County Schools have a good thing going and that is why I support the proposed tax rate increase so that they can continue to face the challenges that come their way head on.

Challenges like maintaining ideal class sizes despite continued growth and enrollment.

Challenges like attracting and keeping the best teachers and paying them competitive salaries.

Challenges like providing professional development opportunities so teachers can keep up with cutting edge technology and inspire their students at the next level.

The world has changed and continues to change.

Schools must continue to change.

The money invested today will pay great dividends, not just for the schools and those in them, but for all of us.

Please support the full tax rate increase and funding for Albemarle County Schools.

Let's do all we can to keep this great thing going.

Thank you, Ms. Williams.

Good evening.

I'm Michael Arani.

I'm principal of Meriwether Lewis Elementary School in the Samuel Miller district.

I'm here tonight to support full funding of the proposed county budget and advertised tax rate.

As an elementary school principal, I have the honor of working directly with a number of our locally funded public servants each day.

Plumbers, electricians, bus drivers, custodians, counselors, office assistants, grounds crews, utility workers, and of course, teachers.

I'm consistently impressed with the level and quality of service they provide our schools and our most important customers, our children.

The quality services most in the small things.

It services when a grounds crew times its mowing around recess so as not to endanger children.

It surfaces when emergency responders give up their lunch hour every week to partake in pizza Friday and show our youngest citizens that police officers, firefighters, and EMTs are real people.

It surfaces when a teacher attends a student's soccer game on a Saturday morning.

They do this work despite not getting the annual 3% pay raise that the average American worker in the private sector has received over the past three years.

I'm encouraged that the proposed budget appears to make a small step towards compensating these public servants more appropriately.

I hope it is just the start.

I can speak firsthand that I know our teachers need it, as many cannot even consider affording a home in the very school district they serve.

As you consider this year's budget, I ask that you keep in mind not only the perspectives that adults will be sharing, but also the impact a budget has on children.

In our schools, this means providing them the finest teachers who have provided adequate professional development.

It means providing them innovative learning opportunities such as elementary world language programming.

Above all, it means surrounding our children with the highest quality adults we can on a day-to-day basis.

Thank you, Mr. Ronnie.

Good evening.

I'm Charlotte Ho from Samuel Miller district.

If the county is so short of money, how come the board justifies giving funds to so many nonprofit

When you give to one, all the rest is expected.

The senior center wants a huge donation from the county for an elaborate facility.

They should have a fundraiser for this instead of expecting the county to provide funding.

Many citizens do not use this center.

No funds should be used by the county to sponsor the film and book festivals and other such events.

How much does the county really get in return?

Mostly the benefits go to the city of Charlottesville.

When money was saved from a recent court case, why did you donate this money instead of returning it to the general fund?

I was disappointed that you did not see fit to hold the school board more accountable on how they spend funds.

How do they justify giving such large increases to school officials in the highest paying jobs?

A lot of citizens like those in low paying or part time jobs and seniors on fixed incomes do not get yearly increases.

They cannot and should not be expected to pay for everyone's pet projects.

This is not your money.

It belongs to the citizens.

You have no right to give it away.

Be wise and conservative when spending our money.

You raised real estate assessments along with proposing an increase in the tax rate plus car registration fees.

Shame, shame on you.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Ms. Hogue.

Good evening.

Robert Hogue, Sammy Miller District.

If you want to take some of the tax burden off the homeowners, do not fund the Senior Center.

The Senior Center has created their problems through advertising, and they advertise a lot and offer more programs.

Let the Senior Center raise their own funds through their membership and activity fees.

Plus, the county has budget shortfalls projected for the future.

Instead of raising the fee on cars and trucks in the county, raise the cost of dog tags.

A car is a necessity for a lot of us.

A dog is not.

And I own a dog.

Using the fire department to rescue a dog or horse from a pond or a cat from a drain pipe, this cost should be paid for by the owners.

It is the owner's responsibility to take care of their pets and livestock.

A 2% paid raise for teachers while senior citizens are not getting a cost of living increase.

No wonder a lot of seniors resent the school system.

Also, the school system is not efficient like running buses on dead-end, non-state maintained roads.

Why are the entrance corridors like to bypass?

being mowed this week.

Again, wasting taxpayers' money on short grass, amnesty days at the landfill, hazardous waste day is the only one that should be funded.

Drop the other three.

Losing revenue there and it's not solving a trash problem in this county.

I know I pick up a section of road and it's a dump.

There has to be individual responsibility in this county.

I really wonder if any of y'all

believe in it because that's why our taxes are going up because a lot of people do not want to take it.

They want somebody to hand it to them.

Do not raise your tax rate.

I am paying too much for what little I received from this county.

The next four people, if you'll come on down as I call your names, Marty Keene, Pat Smith, Robin Bowling, and Brooks Wellman.

And Marta, you're the first speaker.

Good evening.

I'm Marta Kane, the CEO of Java, and I'm also an Albemarle resident in the Jack Jouett district.

I wanted to thank you for your previous support.

and remind you that Java has touched many lives of many seniors in the county.

This last year we've touched over 6,000 clients out of about 15,000 seniors.

And that's a really important piece to keep in mind.

29% of the seniors that we work with are at poverty level.

So it's a group that is in great need of these services.

and we have many programs and I know you've seen them all in your budget books so the front page with the green on it just gives you a recap of where we've seen so many seniors but I would ask you to turn it to the backside because I think that is a really important piece and that doesn't always come through in the budget and that's our outcomes as we look at the satisfaction that our clients and seniors have had as you can see

One of my favorite numbers on here is the insurance counseling.

I know many of you have heard me say that you could be a

PhD in Biophysics and not figure out the Part D for Medicare.

This last year we saw almost 1300 people and saved them almost a half a million dollars in the Part D subscriptions that they were enrolling in.

That's a wonderful outcome.

If you add up our meals on the front page for home delivered and congregate, we've served over 20,000 meals to seniors in this last year.

And again, that serves a very important purpose.

As well as the nutrition, it's socialization, whether it's home delivered, where people are meeting with the people who deliver, or the phone calls that follow up, or whether it's in our congregate sites.

and I would encourage you in May we will be having some resource fairs and I hope you will come out and use that opportunity to see the services at either of our southern Albemarle sites of Scottsville and Esmont or the Mary Williams Center which serves about two-thirds of the people there are from Albemarle County.

And lastly I would just point out our volunteers with 100% of a sense of purpose.

and 98% feeling they make a difference.

And I think a lot of these seniors, many of them are also at poverty level but it serves a different purpose for a whole other group of seniors because we all know that we want to feel like we're engaged and continue to be involved.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I'm Pat Smith and I'm the director of OAR, Jefferson Area Community Corrections, and I'm also an Albemarle County resident.

I'm here to speak to you today about the Restorative Justice Program, which is one of our programs.

I sent you letters and I know that one of the things I want to say first of all is I appreciate the support you give to our entire agency.

We do a lot of good work in this community.

I think we save the taxpayers money by doing the work we do.

Restorative justices are one program that the ABRT process recommended restoring the funding to.

And I hate to even ask after hearing the story about Albemarle County as a resident, I think, wow.

But it is an important service.

It's something that we've had for a number of years and the county has supported.

and then last year did not because of, or the current year, did not because of the ABRT recommendation, but they now are recommending that we bring the funding back up.

And so I'm asking you to consider that.

Again, I truly appreciate that you support our services.

You know that they're valuable because we provide a lot of options for people not to be in the costly jail because the jail is what costs a lot of the money.

I don't know if you have questions.

I just wanted to keep it short and sweet, and I gave a packet that includes a lot on restorative justice.

I'm Robin Bowling, Principal of Greer Elementary School.

I also serve on the Hydraulic Places 29 Committee with Diantha.

I am in full support of the advertised tax rate and the budget and ask you for your full support and funding.

I thought I'd just tell you a story tonight.

I want to tell you about a student.

I'm going to call her Sasha tonight.

She was born and raised in a refugee camp.

She was born with cerebral palsy.

She didn't have the use of a

One of her arms and one of her legs Her parents used to push her around in a stroller and did so when they first came in to Albemarle County through the IRC

They told me that day, they said, you know, I don't think her mind works really well.

And she wasn't able to go to school more than a half a day.

So they were just so impressed that we were going to be able to welcome her into our school.

I spent that year, remember one of my first

A few weeks with her, I spent about 45 minutes with her.

Actually, with her in the bathroom, she was trying to overcome a fear of indoor plumbing.

The flushing toilet would make her so afraid she would run and run and run.

A year later, she is running, she is climbing, she is reading, she loves math, and she's learning to communicate in English.

and her family could not be prouder of her.

I feel like Greer is really the changing face in Albemarle County and while we educate many students like Sasha, we also educate many other families and students who raise their children right here in Albemarle like most of you.

It's my job to provide a high quality education to all of Greer students, the ones that have significant gaps, ones that have moved around,

from country to country, from school to school, and ones that have been at Greer, raised with English-speaking families, members, they're not struggling with that language, and who need constant enrichment and higher rigor from us.

When I moved here from Fairfax four years ago, Greer had about a little over 400 students and an economic

Disadvantaged rate of about 60.

Today we've got close to 630 students and almost 80% economically disadvantaged rate.

We opened a new school addition four years ago and that space is now maxed out.

I've hired close to 40 teachers due to growth.

While we're growing as a school, less than 20% of our current fifth graders actually attended Greer as kindergarteners.

So the mobility is pretty high.

I'm passionate about diverse schools.

I've specialized in Title I schools my entire career for 31 years as a teacher and a leader.

I recognize the many needs.

I support them.

Our firefighters, our police department, Department of Social Services all contribute quite a lot to our Greer families.

Thank you, Ms. Boling.

Hi, my name is Brooks Wellman and I'm here to represent Lighthouse Studio.

We're a nonprofit in Charlottesville, but 60% of our students come from Albemarle schools.

We teach youth ages 8 to 18 self-expression and leadership skills through the art of filmmaking.

and we are Virginia's only youth nonprofit filmmaking center and are proud to be the winners of this year's Dominion Arts Stars Regional Shining Star Award presented by Virginians for the Arts for the best youth arts education nonprofit.

Excuse me, I'm also sick.

Last year we served 878 students in this region, 60% of whom were Albemarle public school students.

Although our program started in 1999 and is a well established program, we are new to the ABRT funding process because we've been growing so significantly over the past five years.

So we were considered a new program this year.

We were rated solid by the ABRT team and recommended for just over $14,000 in funding.

I listened carefully to what Mr. Foley said and I understand that you have a commitment to holding the line on current expenditures and not funding new programs.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Wellman.

My name is Audrey Coker and I live in Albemarle County.

I do not support a two and a half cent increase in the tax rate.

This is on top of increases in taxes through increased home assessment and car registration.

A successful referendum in November will increase tax rates by three and a half cents.

If successful, property tax

Property assessments in the new year will immediately follow.

How are taxpayers to plan?

These tax rates will all come within a relatively short time.

The current county debt, as far as I can tell, is about $168 million.

We pay $8.1 million a year on that tax debt.

If the referendum is passed, another $35 million will be added, if I'm correct.

That will put us well over $200 million a year.

That's greater than the current operating budget for Albemarle County.

Although I support education in good schools, I am concerned about the inclusion of funding to plan an addition to Woodbrook School.

The $15 million plan for a referendum, if it's included, will expand the school further, and I don't think that the need justifies spending that much money.

The school projections as presented to Woodbrook on February 10th show that 103 students will be over capacity in 2017.

Building a school in 2018 will not be ready in time to deal with that number.

The projections of over capacity are about 138 in 2018-2019 and drop to 78 students in 2020-2021.

Long range planning documents that I have seen through 2025 do not show expanding enrollments.

And I really worry about where those additional students will come from.

From the meeting in Woodbrook, I have learned that Kale is included in the urban schools.

A kindergarten starting in Kale one year will move to Greer when Woodbrook opens.

Greer students will move to Agner-Hert, Hollymead, and Hollymead-Agner-Hert students will move to Woodbrook.

That's a huge reshuffling of children.

The young child from Kale will go to Greer

then to Walton and then to Monticello High School.

That doesn't make sense.

I think we should go back and look at the previously discarded redistricting plan for Greer.

Thank you very, very much.

Is there anybody else who would like to speak at this time?

I'm Chris Pocreno.

I donate faxer figures to site.

I'm from North Garden, moved here three years ago with my family.

I had the luxury of spending three years on the road, traveling the country, looking for a community call home.

And one thing that I noticed in all my travels is that those that I considered a good place to live invested in their schools and their libraries and the parks.

And being a father,

I want to make sure that our school budget is fully funded and particularly the Redhill Elementary School near and dear to my heart that the capital improvements there get seen through.

a mobile tech workforce representative.

These kinds of things that you invest in, the community, like I said, these are the kinds of communities that I wanted to move to.

And I have the potential to bring the 21st century jobs to the area and the other young families looking for a place to live or looking for the same qualities.

Thank you, Chris.

And could you give our last name one more time?

Yeah.

Thank you very much.

Okay.

Is there anybody else that would like to speak at this time?

Seeing no one, we will close the public hearing.

Thank you very, very much for everyone who spoke tonight.

Again, we are not planning on setting the tax rate tonight, but there will be many more.

There will be other opportunities to make more comment.

Do we have anything that the board members would like to say at this time before we move on?

In your data-providing gathering, can you tell us what $1 million of debt equates to an annual debt service for us?

Does that make sense?

Bill, I don't think anybody can hear you.

Bill Latire, Deputy County Executive.

You know that it of course varies on the tax rate or on the interest rate.

Basically right now we use a factor of about one in ten, so a million dollars would be about a hundred thousand.

And I have one more question.

There was a mention that I think you'd probably be the best one to answer this.

There was a question about, well there wasn't a question, there was a statement by one of our speakers tonight about the referendum and adding three and a half cents to the tax rate if that's passed.

Can you make any comment at this point on that?

I hadn't heard that figure, so I just wanted to see if there was any.

Clarification at all that you could say.

There's nothing that we've calculated that would be anywhere near that range.

And right now we're primarily just looking at what the schools has put forward.

And I think we did estimate that based on their proposal, it was about a half a cent, one and a half cents.

That sort of depends on what you all might want to put on the referendum, but we didn't anticipate it would be anywhere near that.

Absolutely.

I'm sorry.

Just the very basic.

Well, again, we are AAA, so we get perhaps the best interest rate available.

Our recent issue had averaged about just a little over 3 percent based on this market.

Of course, that could change next year, but that's the current rate.

Any other questions from the board?

No?

I will dig them up if it's probably not readily available because I left my notebook in the car.

I believe it's gone.

What was funded in the past was under $7,000.

All right, if there's no more questions, Ann, do you have another question?

I did, and it's probably that I'm just behind.

The CSA that used to be called Comprehensive Services was focused then, I thought, on children who had Judge-required

treatment somewhere that we couldn't provide locally.

But has it been reorganized?

So now it includes many more things, because I know Tom mentioned special ed and those kinds of things too.

It has always included more than the judge mandates.

I guess perhaps we're the biggest ticket items in the past.

All right, so if everybody's finished, we'll move on to the next thing on our agenda, which is a discussion of the April 5th budget work session.

I'm sure we were really wanting to just do whatever we could to understand questions or issues that you'd like more information on so we can be well prepared for the 5th.

If there are particular issues that you feel like you'd like more information on,

We've given you quite a lot of information.

The comments that we've gotten from the budget meetings that you've conducted, are those posted online?

We have tracked those.

It just might be a suggestion that given there was a new approach for us to have staff go out and make presentations and take comments,

that maybe they'll publish just a summary of those comments online.

Lee Catlin, Assistant County Executive.

That's a great idea.

Thank you.

I guess I should see if there's agreement to do that.

I think that's just, again, we've tracked it.

What I thought you were asking was also for the wonderful responses that Laurie and others have given us in email.

Are those available somewhere in general form?

Questions, response, because

That might be also something that people would get a lot out of.

I know it helps us a lot to understand those particular things.

One of the things that we are going to talk about I know is the Commonwealth Attorney's budget because there's been a request for that.

We have had some discussion about legal aid and you were going to bring some information back.

I mean we're not, that legal aid discussion, couldn't that happen outside of the budget process?

That doesn't need to happen.

You're right, because we already said that.

And you all did actually, we identified that as one time money.

You took an action on that and you amended the budget to include it.

It is actually in your proposed budget, but it is paid for with one-time monies, but it wouldn't be available beyond one year.

And I do believe it's for an ongoing program that they've requested, so you can deal with that next year or you can talk about it some more.

It'll be part of the debrief on the budget, which Lori does every year.

Any other suggestions?

And are you going to send out the list of the things that you're going to talk about?

Well, obviously you will, but that you've been tracking, that we've been asking about?

We're open to any discussion you'd like to have and want to be supportive.

and I may have made that a little bit confusing.

I think there was a couple follow-up items like the Kamos attorney which we knew we needed to actually put in a slide and say here it is and you need to make a decision because you've asked us to put it forward.

And, okay, I'm just trying to figure out what we are going to discuss on that day.

Okay.

All right.

So the next thing is from the board, matters not listed on the agenda.

I guess I would like to schedule at some point, find out when we can talk about

the recognitions because in the past we've had things that were already written and prepared brought by board members were not before held to the four-week item.

The four-week schedule has been for outside requests from agencies and that required a lot of follow-up and work for Ella.

So since the...

and this sort of came, this came from me today because I was concerned about the four recognitions on our next schedule and I also said to Ann well we usually have a four week process and she reminded me that if it's coming from a board member there's not that four week process.

Sometimes I'm a little bit concerned about this.

I know when people have come to me and asked me to put things on the agenda I could have

brought it forward but I always tell them well you know it's you need to do it four weeks in advance and I don't know if that's sort of negating that that process or not or if we just want to continue that and how many recognitions we want on one

on one meeting at a time.

It's 30 seconds.

We did have four.

We have a film too.

We established guidelines on the recognitions and proclamations.

I don't know if it's addressed.

The times when we've had uproar about it is because particular members didn't want to discuss the topic that was being suggested.

And that's the only time we've had pushback in the past about having things on there.

Well, I'm not trying to keep you from doing it.

It was a question of time that my concern was predominantly.

I think making all these rules makes it impossible to function because unless there's some flexibility to allow for

when things are quick and short and time sensitive, that's different than having four or five or it depends if they're long or whatever.

So you don't need to have anything sent out because it's already in our board process, what we've already adopted.

Well, we'll leave it to the board then.

If I was incorrect, I apologize and we'll leave it to the board whether they want to add that to the agenda.

The board rules of procedure actually does address this issue specifically and it does require a four-week

So we leave it up to the board members to decide whether they want to add the fifth one, correct?

So in response to my email the other day, are there any others besides the ones I've heard from who would like to hear 30 seconds on tennis day in Crozet next week?

Otherwise I will do it under board announcements.

That's what the, the, the, no, that one is set, thank God.

It seems like it depends a lot on if something comes up and it's related to a specific date.

It seems kind of silly to do it three weeks after the date is passed.

Why don't we just have board members if they wish to wish to approve it just send the email in and so moving on does anybody else have anything from the board not on the agenda

I have one thing I would like to bring up.

We've been having a lot of discussion about what to do about fire and rescue and how to sort of get our brains around fire and rescue.

I was having a discussion with Brad about this the other day and he had a good suggestion.

It's another strategic planning session, but to talk about fire rescue in a strategic planning session and to consider the comprehensive plan and the land use in that discussion.

And I'm wondering if the board has some interest in that.

After seeing

Wayne this morning at the coffee shop.

His last day is the end of April, right?

So I think we should do a fire and rescue strategic plan with a comprehensive plan component on April 29th.

There you go, that's right.

But no, in all seriousness, the whole intent is that we have our

Our comprehensive plan lays out the vision for 50 years of what this community will look like.

And Fire Rescue is going to be one of the, I think, larger investments that we're expecting to make.

And I think it's just understanding how those two are aligning properly.

so that either we're getting on board with that or changing that direction.

I really think that's a great idea.

five minutes and 13 minute response times because that doesn't begin to get at what our issues are.

And that's what the comp plan talks about.

Right, don't get me wrong on the fire and rescue component of the comprehensive plan.

That's not my concern as much as the growth expectations of the comprehensive plan.

So the growth that it's laying out

is what I want brought to the table and part of the discussion of the plans that Fire and Rescue has put together over the years.

I initially wanted to also include the Police Department but I think that would be a very very long meeting in itself.

That would be my farewell gift to Steve is to have to

We're heavy into planning the May strategic planning session and it's pretty clear that

with all that we're trying to do in terms of prioritizing, we're gonna have to have more than a single day.

I think it's a good suggestion.

I'd like to add one additional thought.

At that point, we will have a new head of the police department.

And I think one thing that is worth discussing that has not originated with me is my idea

but to look into the possibility of police department also all of the officers that serve in the field be trained as first responders.

Now that's a huge additional training cost for the county but in terms of on-site effectiveness and response time there are situations where a police officer arrives sooner than the fire or rescue squad can arrive there and in terms of

helping a woman deliver a child, helping address a potential cardiac arrest, having some ability to diagnose on the spot may be really valuable.

So I don't think it's something we want to put on the Chief's agenda at this point, but I think it's something worth exploring because we, instead of just focusing in a silo,

on rescue services and fire providing that immediate first aid.

There may be other individuals, trained professionals, such as police officers that could also provide some of that service and it would require additional training.

I will say that there's no question that we're looking for some direction from you all about public safety services in a broader sense.

Obviously the challenges that we've talked about related to fire rescue, the new station, the fire response, and the EMS response.

But the other item that's on our strategic planning list is geopolicing.

That was identified.

There was a pop officer from that grant that you said, let's talk about that.

That's really one of the ways we're implementing geopolicing.

So I think if you look at fire and rescue, there's a big cost driver in both of those areas, public safety as a whole, if we're moving forward with geopolicing.

So I think both of those are worth having a conversation together on.

And if we're going to have a session, we could focus on public safety.

That's going to be a huge part of your budget.

Talk to your department heads.

I mean, if you want to try to have a public safety retreat, that would be fine with me.

I think we've had, I have not heard one person who has been anything other than very supportive from the citizens about the geopolicing.

and so I don't know that we need to rehash that.

I don't think it's a rehashing as much as the aligning of what our growth expectations are.

That's really what we're seeing.

I mean, outside of schools, those are the two other departments that are feeling the pressure of the growth.

And again, the challenge that we've been talking about for the last couple months is a lot of that future will be driven by growth in the demands for public safety outside of schools, the largest expenditures that we have.

And even though there certainly has been an expression of support for geopolicing, the question is what does that mean and at what pace?

the city has set a path that they're gonna add X numbers of officers for the next three to five years every year.

So it's a direction from the board, but they don't do it in isolation of whether they can balance their budget and accomplish that.

So this thing about priority setting, how does that stack up against some of the educational investments you'd like to make and so forth?

But you have to get at least educated and have a thoughtful discussion about where you really wanna get to

then we got to look at it in the big picture of priority based budgeting.

So I think all of this is good for that discussion we've talked about having anyways.

I think Rick has also introduced an idea that says if we want to get to that future that gets us to geo-policing maybe we have to do something different in how we get there or how we work across those two public safety areas and that's a worthwhile discussion as well because

You guys have seen the graphs.

I don't need to say anymore.

I want to add one additional thought, and that is I think you're bringing up a very good point.

the reality though is what we're all talking about is the top of the iceberg that we see and the what's below the surface on the iceberg is as we look at these areas of continued growth and need for those services we also have to think about social services and social services mixed in work very closely with the police department with the fire department work closely with the city so

When we wade into these waters, we just have to be very clear that we start off with that initial focus perhaps on fire, rescue, and the police department, but we can't leave out the social service and the educational components of this because we have to think comprehensively about what's going to be driving those huge cost factors for us that we're already experiencing.

and what we want to avoid is a repeat of what happened in the past where we've failed to look ahead with any degree of clarity and acuity to anticipate the future.

And doing something different is important not just adding on to what we did before.

Somebody up here though mentioned land use as one of these items, which is to be discussed at the strategic planning, which is news to me.

When money gets tight, that is usually something that is used

you know people start whacking at that the Landis program the taxation program as a with a bat and there is nothing that creates the quality of life here more than that because when you see all the development rights that are out there in the county the map with one dot per house the map looks black the 50,000

I just want to make sure about that because when things like this happen it goes into the radio and people go get incredibly afraid that they're not going to be farming anymore.

Words get twisted and rearranged.

It's a misunderstanding and if that's what it is that's great.

There's a lot of issues here and we were planning to come back to you all with the process.

for looking at these major areas as a part of priority-based budgeting.

And I know we haven't talked enough about how we would go about that.

I think when we come to you, you'll see where these major issues are going to fit in social services.

And so I think we're going to get at all the things that you talked about.

We're going to try to do it in a comprehensive way as opposed to

So give us an opportunity to tell you how we're hoping to bring all of this forward to you in a way that helps you to work through it over the next several months.

But I'm hearing loud and clear that fire rescue is a particular interest of digging down into that and better understanding it.

and tying it to growth and looking at the future and how public safety expenses are gonna change based on that growth pattern and demand.

So we will do that.

and on another topic or another thought it occurred to me recently and I actually mentioned it to Colonel Sellers that before Steve leaves us recognizing that he's not leaving the county but before he leaves his position I personally would like to have the opportunity to hear from him

I guess the best way that I would describe what I'm looking for is his thought on the state of the police in Albemarle County right now and his department challenges

and what, I don't know how we might want to have that discussion.

Well, I don't want to, I hate to keep adding to our retreat, I don't know.

But anyway, I just, if you all have that thought as well and would appreciate that, maybe we could do it another time.

You see if Tom and Steve could maybe work out something like that as to when we might have the availability.

I just think it would be a really good thing, I would appreciate having it.

I think it's really important.

We can work towards that.

The most important thing is that we hear what's important to you and then we figure out a way we can all work through it.

Exactly, that'd be great.

That would, you're recommending that happen in public session, not in a strategic plan.

Yes, schedule it on the agenda.

Is that something that,

We're going to do that July 2nd, though.

There you go.

We're going to be parading on July 2nd.

You're going to be doing it in May instead.

Okay, so we'll turn it over to our County Executive.

Well then, if that's the case, I need a motion to adjourn to March 31st 9 a.m. in Lane Auditorium.

Mr. McKeel?

Yes.

Mr. Palmer?

Yes.

Mr. Randolph?

Aye.

Mr. Sheffield?

Yes.

Mr. Dill?

Yes.

Ms. Mallek?