Board of Supervisors Budget Work Session   2/22/2018

Ned, would you go first please?

Ned Gallaway, Rio District Supervisor.

Liz Palmer, Samuel Miller District Supervisor.

Norman Dill, Rivanna District Supervisor.

Ann Mallek, White Hall, Rick Randolph, Scottsville, Greg Kamptner, County Attorney, Doug Walker, Deputy County Executive, Jeff Richardson, County Executive, Bill Lotteri, Deputy County Executive, Andy Bowman, Office of Management and Budget, Lori Allshouse, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Then who am I passing the baton?

Thank you very much.

Our goal, excuse me, yes.

Thank you very much.

and what that is is that's a rebate that we pay on behalf of people who meet a certain criteria and it's included to your net worth and your income and that we provide different levels based on formula of some tax relief and that's increasing a little bit, about $40,000 from last year based on usage so we look at how is that being used and we make sure that we keep that where it should be.

So that's the information I have right now on the real estate property taxes.

I'm not sure of how much that is, but that could possibly be a very important impact here.

And in the past, do you pretty much see the city going up about the same amount that we go down?

If there's no questions on revenues, we'll turn it on to Andy that's gonna do kind of an overview on expenditures.

Thank you.

If we can grow it internally, that's terrific, but that's also something that I noted was down this year and something for us also to keep an eye on as we go forward.

When the later summer discussion happens about tourism and that kind of thing, having some accounting of where we are as far as getting our hundreds of B&B people to register and start to pay their taxes will be helpful.

Can you talk to me a little bit about the methodology of how you're projecting currently based on not just the adopted amount but also the estimated amount?

So everyone's watching every quarter, and we provide quarterly revenue reports that they're watching it every quarter, and if it's not moving at a certain rate, they're using the quarterly data plus the actual data.

So if I don't know if now is the right time to get into that, Madam Chair, or if that's another time, I certainly will defer to the timing on it.

And while someone is coming up to address that, it's the risk of the unpredictability that makes us all want to keep more in the piggy bank, just in case.

I'd just like to understand a little bit more about that, if we may, the adopted versus the estimates versus what the new projections are.

We're trying to improve it.

Would it be a fair question to ask, like on the business license at the VPOL, if the estimated projection is about 300 grand over what we are estimating for fiscal year 18, would it be OK to just ask, can I hear some of that conversation of how it goes for that particular item?

For example, if we see sales tax going up, if we see food and beverage going up, if we note the construction is going up, those are things that tend to impact our decision about what to project for the next year moving forward.

Is there something that kind of goes, okay, you can't surpass this line to over project?

as long as you were expecting one year they might be worse or they might be better.

Thank you.

But again, I just want to acknowledge that Steve has been doing a great job in getting us to a place where I think we're best practice at this point.

Thank you for those questions.

So that really is the cumulative result of all of those efforts that have taken place.

Sure.

In fiscal year 19, that amount is $400,000, approximately.

So we would take local government share money and send it over to the capital program.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you for clarifying that.

In all of the categories it says the changes are down or affected by the compression issue, but is there somewhere how much the compression issue is costing us overall?

So unless there are any questions, I will turn things over to Bill.

There was not a general question I noticed in places there was something called your staffing question made me think of this resource plans and it didn't look like it had current or prior year info and it looked like some of those things were unfunded items that didn't make it into the recommended and some of it was staffing so that's what kind of triggered my brain here but what was there a can you just explain what resource plans

Yes, initiatives would be another name.

Okay.

We're gonna go to page 91 at this point, which is beginning of the administration.

What is the process?

And then an increase of $6,900 representing public officials' liability insurance.

All public officials now, insurance rates have jumped up this past year?

Yes, it's a statewide policy.

Is there a reason why we're not using the same 2%?

Yeah, I'm not sure I can answer that specifically for you at this point.

I think Laura could come up to the microphone and answer it right now.

and if you want any specifics about any of them, I can look into that.

As long as the poor people who are here all the time are getting the 2%, that's the thing.

Lori, do you want to comment on?

Thank you.

There's no real necessity that it be one or the other, but they both seem to fit.

that will be able to focus on maintaining that program and doing the coordination that needs to happen with all the different payroll departments.

And it may be new, but it's been in process for five years or at least a long, long time.

And by the way, we'll be providing an update on that and other transformational projects at an upcoming board meeting we're looking forward to.

Bill, could you just comment to the efficiencies that that position is going to provide with that software and what the benefit is for the county, for the taxpayer in terms of the value proposition.

So there's this part of savings, but it's also being able to handle a much larger payroll and activity level with an automated system without having to add new staff.

Efficiency should pay if you invest money in something that gains efficiency.

Or at least have a very reasonable payback period or ROI that you could look at.

We don't.

and I will share with you that in identifying this software and this solution, we had an assessment done, a very thorough assessment of the number of employees we have, the nature of those employees, how we do business and based on that analysis, they had done a preliminary estimate of what they thought we could both save and avoid in the future as far as cost is concerned.

We don't, you know, there's probably things three years ago that are now have paid for themselves that we put in place and it's a good idea to notate those things.

This too is one of our shared departments.

So thank you, Greg, for all that your people are doing.

Yeah, it's amazing with all the legal stuff it seems like we're trying to do.

It may be that we will actually be moving that position at some time in the future into the IT department, but it will be an embedded finance position because it's so focused on their software.

But they can make sure that what's in there is corrected.

Let's see.

When you say it lacks strength, I wonder about the training that's going on.

I tried to do the best I could in terms of mentioning the need.

Can I come to the microphone, please?

Sorry, Lisa, go ahead.

Looks like Laura's pulling that information up right now.

This having someone that could help Susan in that analysis will help cut down on a lot of the errors and keep our employees happy, keep our taxpayers happy as well.

Sounds really important when payroll's involved to have a little bit of cushion.

I think Laura Van Zandt is available to answer the question on the training budget.

By the way, Laura Van Zandt is a senior budget analyst in OMB.

So with the 30-some thousand, that brings the total training budget in finance to 99.

So it's 69 now, so it's about the total, okay.

payments being made that will expedite that process and I would just I'd love to be able to do that because what I'm seeing is even this year we're not meeting all the needs that are really there within the department and I'd like to have a chance to really look at that and see if there are not ways that we can try to enhance the operations of the department.

County's fiscal landscape is evolving and becoming more complex, requiring a greater degree of fiscal and policy analysis and management to maintain our strong financial management processes and to maintain our triple A.

Happy to see that in there.

We felt like it was better served to be in the HR department where training is more a part of their culture.

I guess we should just note that our IT director is spending a great deal of time with the broadband authority also, so that's probably another stress on that department.

What's making up that money?

This is hardware.

When I think of hardware, I'm thinking of the laptops, the computers, the servers, all those things.

Well, that too.

This is just a normal.

Mike, we're happy for you to address that.

Some of these things stick out out of context.

It's taking money from CIP and moving it into an operating instance, if that helps.

Thanks for that, Claire.

Thank you.

Well, it's a good point, because if a help desk analyst isn't there helping, then somebody's not doing their job, and then that's an efficiency issue.

You've been doing a lot of that, right?

And thank you for everything you do.

We've asked him for that before.

That's why I said it publicly.

If we're still, since we are still in the early stages of this, maybe we need a proposal along this line, like, this is the time to do it, Mike, of, you know, you finding a twinning with somebody who's equally competent or, you know, that kind of thing.

I'd like to hear about it.

I mean, that doesn't do much.

and so I'm happy to read the next chapter.

We're on the right track.

I just want to make sure I have that straight.

and then the paper, once the case is finished, is separated, verified that the file is complete in digital format, and then the paper is destroyed pursuant to statute.

When is the sixth year?

Six years expires in 2021. Who's counting?

Good, get rid of more paper.

Thanks, John.

Total operations recommended budget is just under 1.4 million or increase of 151,000 or 12.2 percent.

I'm not sure.

I do know they're involved in that scheduling, obviously.

I can be for another time.

OK.

We're hoping to include that in the FY20 budget.

Obviously we can't pay for everything and I recognize that, but was there some process that you went through to determine that that can wait?

And sometimes those choices are difficult.

At least for me, I would piggyback on this question at this point.

So as we can do that, we will try to bring those folks back and give you more details.

I get that we can only pay for some things versus other but hearing how those were weighed is going to be helpful for me to be confident in the budget.

I'd just kind of like to know some comparison with respect to the training of the sheriff's department versus the training of the police department.

Our training is the exact same as the police department, and it's regulated by DCJS.

So when the police department recommends more funding for additional firearms training, do you just incorporate that also?

for our farm use for both us and the reserves.

So is that in your budget, your request for that increase?

We did.

So just so I'm clear, when I read in the police department a $73,000 increase for training to provide increased technical and professional development, including increased frequency of firearm qualifications from two to three times per year, you would be doing that too?

Yes.

Okay, all right, thank you.

and then lastly on page 123 is our judicial contributions to the public defender's office and our contributions there and any changes to that contribution is based upon the same salary increase that we would experience or propose for staff, in this case 2.7%.

We're not required to.

three years ago now to request a supplement so that their salaries could be on a par with others in the community.

About three or four years ago.

We didn't supplement it.

But it was funded based on that dual, that jurisdictional one.

Are there any of the other departments that the state has not kept up to do something so that they can maintain

As we do the Commonwealth's Attorney's Office, they came in and said they should get a similar salary.

Well thank you for your time here for those two categories which Doug will take over now for public safety and then I'll come back and finish with the public works.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm sure we can talk more about that and know that Ron Lance is here.

Is there any metric with respect to the sheriff's department that we look at, number of sheriff's deputies per court cases or anything like that?

Not to minimize keeping pace with maintaining levels of service, but the initiative of squad base really is kind of outside of the methodology of just using officers per thousand population to determine our ability to provide service.

You're explaining that it changes it, but I don't know how it would change it.

I will speak for the sheriff, I mean the police, sorry, sorry police chief, sorry chief, for the chief in the back of the room that he has indicated in the past his need for seven additional patrol officers in order to implement his squad-based policing, for example, based on the number of officers that it currently has.

And the question was, I'm sorry?

Doug just explained to us that the squad-based system changes the calculations on the number of officers that you need total, and it's more, a little bit more, a little better than the metric that we use when we look at number of police per thousand people or whatever.

And we had the same officer work in the same patrol area day in and day out so he would know the community and this is a way for us to do it.

Do you need less officers?

No, we don't need less officers, we need seven more.

I have one request, not of you.

Stay close though.

Yes, ma'am.

In light of what happened a little over a month ago with an accident at a crossing here, I just think we have to be really mindful about the way in which our police department is asked to respond to events that oftentimes are completely out of this county's control and that's not unusual and we'll probably continue to see things like that that we have to deal with.

Was there a school that's just, was it just adding two so that there was more flexibility to staff or was it thinking of going to a particular school?

We try to get creative where we'll assign an SRO to float between the middle school like Jouett and come over and augment staffing at Albemarle High School because that's our biggest population right now.

So is this, but is it adding to the floating or is it just adding a whole new school as service now or it just adds the...

They would be assigned permanently to a middle school and still keep a float.

I missed that.

So that's where we assigned that officer to at that point.

Logistics officer?

And basically what I was going to do was assign one to the Blue Ridge and one to the Jefferson District as a part of the GOCC rule.

Absolutely.

This lieutenant's position would be assigned permanently to that district and that's long term, you know, down the road if we ever, you know, decentralize and go to district stations, we would have a captain in a lieutenant's position at those district stations.

Got it.

I think that would be helpful as well.

Take a minute and just talk about the sizes of the different districts because I think that helps to answer that question.

I hope that answered your question.

That's right.

So that's also been a priority for the department.

Thank you, Ron.

and less than until we know more our expectation is is that that classification review and consideration of the tape plan will dovetail to

Dogtail together.

But they want to make sure that you're aware of that because of the context it has specifically on public safety.

We'll be hearing about that later on as it unfolds.

It is specifically for a classification view because it's public safety's turn, but we anticipate that it is available for implementation of any consideration of a set-aside.

If we decided to do that, then that's great.

It would be kind of a combination.

That answers the question I was going to ask.

Perfect.

And that was my question before.

What I can say is that although I have not been directly involved in the development of the work to this day, my understanding is that the Sheriff's Office is part of that conversation.

Okay, good.

I see Ms. Palmer has a question.

extended period of time and then it took another at least another 20 minutes to get the EMT folks there and she broke her back and was basically lying on the side of the road for quite some time and so I that really brought home to me how we really need to have more people to respond down there.

This year there's a dollar figure assigned to the positions, but strangely here there is no dollar figure for five and a half additional positions.

Thanks, Andy.

Thanks, Andy.

Does that exist, Doug, at all?

Again, as far as the specific, yeah Dan, probably the impact that it has on response times throughout the southern part of the county, I think Dan can probably best speak to that.

So you can see it jumps dramatically, doubles when there's no staffing there.

Backfill would be worse because there's no ambulance at North Garden to be halfway.

We're still going to work with the organization to recruit additional volunteers, but that's going to be a long process.

And so are we able to meet, when we get a burst of volunteers as we just had, do we have the training available for them so we don't lose them?

We want to have always have a spot for them and we've been able to manage it marginally up to this point.

That's right.

What was it, past year?

You do see that played out on an agency-by-agency basis in that table.

I mean it just was a big outlier.

That's my understanding and Andy can speak to that.

There wasn't anything else besides that but also played in like that one got double hit with one instance and this instance.

In 19, the greatest factor primarily is the updated volunteer policy covering costs that were not covered before, updating some of our rates and then just fully funding the other costs in the system.

Just impacted that particular company more so than others.

Yes.

looking at the fiscal year 18 projected, which is higher than the adopted, and we're recommending a little bit lower than the projected.

The real comparison in terms of apples to apples would be the 18 adopted to the 19 recommended.

These outliers that we've had, that we've repaired over the last couple of years.

And I think either Dan or Andy or both can address that more directly in terms of how that's going to be impacting that category of cost outside of the actual operating budgets.

but being anticipated in some fashion in here so that when it comes in April or June or August then we're ready.

It's going to be a rather significant decision for the board to undertake.

I'm glad to know that's coming.

And while you're here, could you just speak, if you would please, to the city fire contract and whether long term the goal is to essentially have the county fire department take care of all of those net calls in the county and no longer become reliant on the city?

So I see this contract as a temporary fix until we get to that point where we can equally share services.

Right, and as the board will recall, five years ago it was about a million dollar contract that's down obviously and some significant less than that and so we couldn't quite get all the way there but that still remains the goal.

We're still having that conversation and when are we going to continue to have that conversation?

No.

Only in the garage.

Some of them are in pretty good shape.

And when you start repairing them, that's what you're going to have to...

Yes, exactly.

You're going to find some charges because of that.

Some of them are even built in floodplains.

I'd like to get a survey.

I think that one we can resolve.

I know that some of the stations are modern and have access to all that, and there are a lot that are 50 and 80 years old that are just struggling.

That's a very important piece.

I don't want to get into a big conversation about it, but it is really an important goal.

Interesting.

And just a good something for us to think about going forward, okay.

So we're getting a bargain and a half for $215,000.

Good to know.

I had a sense of what it was.

I think it's good to hear it publicly.

I want to make sure he understood the question before he answers.

It's all good.

Thank you.

I will be quiet and see if there's other questions that you have.

I know we just talked about the drug court very recently about where that funding would come from, but it seems like at the end here where you have these

The city's budget presented tomorrow, I think it was already printed before it got to them, so it's just something that will have to be addressed going forward.

And the judge will make a decision about whether to allow it coming up sometime.

I was thinking about a therapeutic court and where there is work to be done, understanding that it could be a very meaningful opportunity.

Renovations, new houses, things are hopping so I do hope that we are planning ahead well enough so that our 30 year guys don't decide to call it 29 and a half and get tired and go fishing because they can't run 60 calls in five days.

Lori may have said it, but just because we're finished with these chapters and this part of the process, obviously all of these are for further consideration, further conversation, so I just want to make that point.

It's a 10-year contract, therefore it gets renegotiated.

We're also working on relationships with them and have initiated a review of that contract provision with the police department and with the county attorney's office.

Thank you.

Just a really quick note, because this was brought up by the board at an earlier time, I did sit back with the new director and look at the new plans for the expansion of the SPCA and go over where they're getting the money and it's all contributions.

And that's the addition that they're building.

So we have leverage to make it happen.

Very good.

This assumes minimal operation costs and that will be reevaluated, of course, as we decide how that facility is actually gonna be used.

So there is some fun set aside somewhere in case the board decides to do more, correct?

Well, at the moment, there's 147,000 total set aside for this proposal.

We do have a reserve for contingency built into your budget for adjustments you may want to make through the year, even after you've approved this budget, just so you're aware of that.

I think that was the plan that the board had at the moment.

We're increasing that.

Because they're picking it up every month and they just can't keep up.

I'll mention, we did a lot of that in Chapel Hill, too, which was really effective.

So it really is a win-win.

As you know, that's, I, sure.

So I'm just wondering about that statement.

If you don't mind, we'll.

I wanna put in a plug for not just monitoring it.

Are you operating drones and doing surveillance?

Okay.

So we've been very, very competitive here.

And so it's really exciting to see how well this has worked out.

Sorry.

And then there's a true up the next year or something to make it come out, right?

That's right.

Correct.

Or will be right.

I'm very interested in this topic, so.

So what I'd like to do is get our ducks in a row with the executive office, present that plan to the board, if we have buy-in, then we'll move forward.

So late spring is what I hear, early summer.

Well, late spring for the plan, but work has been ongoing, but it's more internal as well as working with UVA and the city, because they're also moving this process forward.

That sounds great.

Thanks.

Lori, next steps.

Would you like me to?

That would be great for me because it would be a good synopsis.

I don't, and it said on the list, was that something you want for this budget process or for after the budget, just for clarity?

That's appropriate, I mean the appropriate for this budget.

Okay.

Think I got it?

I would just add that as part of the police analysis there was a request to have comparable jurisdictions as well.

Thank you.

This has been a great learning experience this afternoon.

My rookie question, what is the expectation to receive that info?

But if we can't fit it in, we try to finish it all on the March 5 date.

Does that give us time if we suggest changes?

And we have two more work sessions also to keep debating about that at the end.

at a place that the board would like to have for the public hearing.

I know that I did hear others request for the finance

Well, if that's the same reason they're running out of people in the Sheriff's Department, I'd like to understand that.

That's a sworn officer.

Well, I guess we need to figure that out.

So we'll work very diligently to turn information around.

then we're just putting them in a different spot where then if they want to make other choices then it means we're going to have to then reduce another area so not to presume anything but just to make sure we give maximum flexibility.

We'll go as hard as we can.

Hopefully all the experts in all the departments will answer all these questions for you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Announcements.

Thank you.

Glad to know that.