Board of Supervisors Budget Work Session   3/1/2018

Ned, would you begin, please?

Ned Gallaway, Rio District.

Liz Palmer, Samuel Miller District.

Norman Dill, Rivanna District.

Ann Mallek, White Hall.

Diantha McKeel, Jack Jouett.

Rick Randolph, Scottsville District, Greg Kamptner, County Attorney, Bill Lageri, Deputy County Executive, Jeff Richardson, County Executive, Kate Acuff, Albemarle County School Board, Jack Jouett, John O. Alcaro, School Board at Large,

So thank you all very much.

We will begin with a presentation of our school board budget, and who's going to lead off today?

I will intro.

Thank you.

Before I go any further, I'd like to thank Jennifer Butler for putting together this presentation, and she's going to be masterminding the slides since neither John or I were able to talk and do the slides at the same time.

With that, I turn it back to Dr. Acuff.

Thank you.

Questions for our school board representatives and or staff about their presentation or materials that we've read.

I have kind of a general question about teachers and difficulty in hiring teachers.

I'm just wondering how much is, and I will say right, what?

Obviously it's a nationwide and that's hard for you to answer but I just don't know if you get feedback on.

Have I covered it mostly?

Yeah, there's a mic right here.

Thank you Pam.

It's going to take five seconds Pam to introduce yourself for people out there who don't recognize your voice.

So, I think all of the above is really correct in this multiple choice question.

I guess that's the one.

I hope he's not going to tell me it's illegal.

Now under our form of government, the county has the ability to provide grants, loans, and other assistance to county and school division employees to reside in the county.

I keep bringing it up, but at some point I really think we might want to get a group together to talk about how it might actually work, or at least investigate the idea.

I see Bill taking notes, so I think it's on the list.

to add to the overall inventory of affordable housing that will remain affordable housing, will not just convert over a year or two to market rate, but it will stay that way.

I don't want to keep belaboring it right now, but if we could talk about, between the school division and county government, just what this might look like and is it a possibility, it would really be wonderful.

Well, certainly a possibility.

That's good.

the small bus size, the 20 kids from here to there through John or something as a possible financial savings.

I'm not fluent in what the plan is.

Good afternoon.

If it's green, it's on.

Jim Foley is on that task force looking at multidisciplinary transportation modes to see where we could do some subionic type transportation utilizing each of the services.

and eventually we would hope our regional transit partnership would get to the point where something like this might come under that umbrella.

And if there are buses on the lot, then we can just get a driver to move, then that's an easy way to move kids around.

Other questions, folks?

for net take home.

We do know that the market increase we give keeps up with our competitive market.

but it just may behoove the county to start thinking in terms of well if we provide salaries that compensate for the cost of living in our area and we obviously have to figure out how to afford it understood but that should at least be part of the conversation because that could help us give us a competitive edge and bringing talent into into the county.

I know some high school kids are doing programs there, but is that part of this general plan in high school 2022 or whatever?

is to have a greater connectivity to the community and maybe that's where you know an employer could come and ask for you know they need their website designed or whatever or you know maybe a nonprofit could come so there'd be a lot of interaction but I don't know Matt if you want to say anything

and how that can really feed into 2022.

It's kind of part of the same issue.

It's not a very formal part just yet, but it's definitely on the table.

But I think we have a lot of exciting potential, not only in the redesigned pedagogy for high school, but the redesigned learning environments that we're contemplating under the capital improvements.

And you're almost there, right, as far as the fiber project is concerned?

I mean, we're working on some cell towers in the other parts of the state.

And the high schools is what I'm particularly interested in for this question.

There may be certain areas

the geography will prevent you know usual access and we'll have to do something else but we're that's our goal but the fiber question is what I was talking about is what you have to have in order to do the live classes the wireless stuff is not going to cover that at all okay thank you great other questions yes

Sorry.

the teaching impact of that redistricting.

What's driving the need for the additional half equity education specialists?

That was a change made by the school board to the superintendent's recommendation and I think the board, I don't want to speak for the board, but the board was persuaded that the original investment of one FTE was not sufficient and they wanted to augment that with another half-time position so it's just their commitment to that culturally responsive classroom education program.

Were you able to outsource the Kronos coordinator to India or is there something else going on here that I don't know about?

The county is paying for a portion of it.

What's driving all of those increased operating costs for the school division?

I don't know if I don't need to get back to you with that one.

I'd be happy to get in more detail.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Other questions?

Because mine's a little different from budget.

But it gets a little frustrating to hear that, especially in the urban ring, Greer is what, 76% economically disadvantaged?

I think the redistricting shaved it to like 74%, but it's still right up there.

Thank you for your presentation today.

I guess I've got one real quick question that has to do with the budget, but I do want to say that I was amazed when I was told that just a couple of very wealthy people in Albemarle County making more money could skew this whole entire thing.

the revenue sharing agreement and it assumes we have that income at our disposal and again I want to thank the county with diminishing state returns, state revenues for your continued support and I think together we have a first-class educational system that I'd like to keep going.

on funding education for our kids.

I have some constituents that want us to increase those and so when I get asked about this I want to be able to

Correct.

Like sciences and science?

Lab fees, right.

Ned, thanks for bringing that up and it is shocking to me at times when we look at Virginia and how we have become a state that educates by zip code on what localities can pick up the difference locally determines the quality of the education which is very, very concerning.

And it is a very wide range of abilities to be resilient in the county that we have to appreciate.

This is.

Disproportionately, so we have one school, you know, we have a range of elementary schools, for example, with less than 6% free and reduced lunch eligible children to almost three quarters of them.

but when I look at the Jack Jouett district at 7.71% and White Hall at 17.9% and most everybody else somewhere high in...

These are the students as public school students.

and exactly what we're looking at.

This is an ongoing discussion in Scottsville.

That's right, that's right, you're number two.

But then when you looked at the census data from 2010, Jewett's actually the most populated magisterial district.

And that led me then to do the analysis showing the percent and that is something of an inexplicable

the low percentage of students coming out so it could be demographic, it could be there's more older people living in that or fewer young people living in it or maybe some other factor, maybe that something about that school, district schools are keeping people from wanting to attend there and they're going to private school and I think because of that I think it'd be good to spend some time trying to figure it out and determine if it is demographically caused and whether there's anything we do or don't want to do about it but if it's not it's something else then perhaps it's actionable.

I am an empty nester and I've said maybe they all look like me but my anecdotal evidence says not but having said that

And we're seeing the effects of what Bob's Parks and Recreation Report provided to us as a county.

That's why I would like to have staff research this issue and figure it out.

Do you already have information from kindergarten survey or something to know how many children there are in households in the district?

Does a tiny one do that, Debbie?

By school?

So we haven't quite climbed that into a Magisterial.

We might be able to figure it out, yeah.

So I know there's that natural evolution of neighborhoods.

Thank you very much.

I don't know if that makes sense to look at, but I know we get people back at the high school level sometimes.

Yeah, let me look at it from that perspective.

It would be so easy to think, well, the 7,000 new building units in Crozet of course means that there are all those new people, but there may be a whole lot more to it.

Yeah, so that's why it'd be great to know.

We are going to stand up for five minutes before we, when we change cycles here, so school board folks, thank you so much for coming, and we have homework to do.

Excellent report.

Thank you, Lori.

All right, Bill.

Yes, yes, thank you.

Thank you.

What's the?

Thank you.

I could not find it in the packet, so this is new today.

Isn't that?

Well, we're going to talk both today about the total CIP, which is the five-year plan, and then Laura's going to focus in on the capital plan, capital budget, which is what you have seen in your books.

Right.

Yes, based on that.

And then we'll do short-term borrowing in between.

That's right.

We would expect to establish with the local bank a line of credit, if you will.

Oh, okay.

All right, let's see, expenditure.

That does make a total of 8.2 million?

Yes.

which brings us to the 8.2.

If we did a 2018, excuse me, a 2018 referendum, we'd have to make that decision pretty soon.

We'd have to get... Laurie will talk through the process and decision points.

And if so, when then does PAYGO begin at a desired goal of transferring 3%?

I know that's a lot of material to cover.

So in the empty fiscal year 19 box, where in the CIP discussions there was a 1.3 or 1.4, that's empty now because of the increased revenue which has come in due to our prosperous numbers in this particular year.

Yes, two things.

and that cost has been absorbed at this moment into this new revenue.

So it's a one-time solution for 19.

Well, I just don't want people to forget that that's where some of that money came from.

So it's a program that basically streamlines and makes sure that everyone gets notified at the same time.

I think it's been in our newer stations and this will help to phase in ones who aren't quite up to snuff yet.

I'm sorry.

put them in existing stations as well.

Are there any questions on any of those?

So I just want to keep that as a thought.

Do you have a line number?

But that's kind of how you can follow through.

So that'll help you when you go back later to work on your chapter.

26 is police.

This is my old list, maybe it's been changed, but anyway.

I'd just be helpful to know what it was.

Holly has a question.

The Berkmar Ambulance is on your list and that's in a different category.

No, I understand.

So I've added five, you've cited five, we should have the same figures.

Is that what you're referring to, sir?

So it was referred to as addendum C.

And that the CIP committee sent to the county executive who was then remade into the notebook stuff, page 264.

If there have been changes, I'd just like to know.

So we can provide those details but in many cases it's because the distribution of those, the cost of the project management.

Are there any other questions on this particular category?

I mean, the other board members probably know that,

So you can go in and look at every detail behind every project, whether it's the referendum project or any other project on here, even past what we have the description in the book into all the requests and details.

So I didn't miss it in the budget book.

It's an electronic link on the website.

But there's a maintenance just to maintain what we have while we plan longer term of what we're going to have in the future.

Does that become revenue generating for it?

I think that's an opportunity.

And the trailer for the fire, the burn trailer that the CIP committee did move from the way-down list to the right-of-way list was to get us over that gap.

We anticipate the building's going to be condemned and it's not worth fixing further, so we're going to recommend a trailer just to get us through this gap period.

And the gap period, or the trailer has a lifespan of ten years, five years?

Probably something like that, yes.

And this was to just start the design so that we could start moving forward to get more cost estimates.

It was really almost part of the judicial system in that if we lose evidence, especially cars that are left out in the weather and that kind of thing, it can affect the outcome of various trials.

Is there any effort to combine or provide space for them if they need additional space?

Greg Jenkins is here.

I'm not sure how much equipment they have that would have to be stored in the facility, but I think it's a possibility.

Parking, but part of that was specialty equipment, and I don't know if that's ever gonna come up in our discussion of the court rehabilitation, so I, you know, if, just a thought that somebody might reach out and just see what the issue is.

Hopefully there'll be some formal proposal that comes forward to us, that would be important to have happen.

Talking about 40 parking spaces,

Is that something that?

I don't know what it is.

It's the, you know, our community response vehicle that we pull to special events or to major events trailer.

It's the truck that actually pulls that piece behind it.

It served its purpose but I think the information that I've been given from Dave Rhodes who maintains this particular equipment, it's reached its shelf life.

That's the diminishing returns element.

And we do have folks from community development here that can answer some questions.

Leveraging?

Kevin, excuse me.

We do.

The revenue sharing program is that one specific VDOT program that we could apply for.

Good.

Exactly.

Thank you.

And again, we do have community development staff here in the audience if you have any questions about these.

I understood.

We hope...

The placeholders for the whole project, even if we have to pay for it ourselves.

I think the idea, we didn't request funds for the entire project but the idea would be if we don't get it fully funded we could use our funds to leverage against say like a revenue sharing application.

So a piece of it.

It would complete the entire project but the county would only pay for a piece of it.

And it enhances our chance to get the award if we put in local dollars then they fill the bucket for us.

Or is there any dimension of rural access to either one of those county parks?

Yeah, understood.

Hedgerow doesn't factor into the equation currently.

Thank you.

And I know Mr. Schickenberger is here in the audience that can answer any questions you might have.

And when we say parks athletic field improvements, does that include fields at schools or does that not include fields at schools?

Here comes Bob.

When I found the link.

It's good, isn't it?

So it looks like it is at schools.

which over the course of the year is well over 1,300 hours of additional practice and play.

Make sure we're getting the very best materials for safety.

Yeah, we will certainly explore that.

Thank you.

I'm not exactly sure what the right way to do it is, but I don't think we've gotten a firm estimate on just what building the two sets of pickleballs are.

So a lot of excavation in there to settle that area, but it creates more of a storm water management issue.

So all that storm water management is related to that parking lot and those eight courts?

In addition, currently we are in compliance, but with the addition of those two batteries of court, we add a lot of additional runoff that needs to be managed properly.

the existing issues.

No, it's all related to the pickleball.

Is that correct?

But it's our understanding that they have exhausted all of their fundraising efforts and basically turned it back over to the county and city.

They are still.

They did the $6,000.

They need to provide that too.

where there is a growing community out there of people who want to play this and there's no public courts to play it.

Jim Space, that's some of the PE classes, and the pickleball community themselves are currently using.

And Penn Park all the time.

It's in the park enhancements, not in the city county maintenance, because it is a non-maintenance project.

And your Dardentau study is going to be taking all of this into consideration?

It's just the funding now is not in place.

Thank you.

So there is a tremendous imbalance between the amount of tennis available to people and pickleball.

This could be an item that you could add to your list and as we go into the next conversation we could talk about it further or whatever you'd like to do.

I think Denise has a place to talk about it.

It's already been identified in the needs assessment for those types of facilities and it didn't rank very high.

If people can't be exposed to it, they're not as likely to say, I want a pickleball court, if they've never seen it or played it.

There's a lot of younger people playing it, too.

You don't have to run too far.

That's my game.

Thank you, Bob.

In that whole analysis, obviously in Quickly Perusing didn't see, is there actual dollar savings in the long term?

We want to have it shared.

My point, if there is actual dollar savings, and this is going to be on a public bond referendum, that's an important story.

I agree and we would certainly provide you with that information in regards to what our current annual maintenance for athletic fields, what the cost for the turf fields themselves would be, and what the potential long-term savings would be.

If there's actual dollar savings, that could go to the other grass fields that remain grass for maintenance as a way to help.

The cool grass turf field will benefit because they will not get as much play and as much impact.

Okay, thank you, Bob.

Thank you.

And we do have folks here still from the schools if you have any specific questions.

And Lori, just to reinforce that the Scottsville improvements are to deal with the increased enrollment as a result of the closure of Yancey.

Make sure you introduce yourself and thank you for coming up.

Okay.

That's great.

Somebody can direct me later.

The other ones on the quality of life ones are on that website.

Thank you.

So I'm missing 12 million.

I'm assuming that's our existing projects, which would be our maintenance replacement, technology, and school bus replacement.

Thank you.

Yeah, it's good to go through it, and then you have your answers.

So I don't want to make, I want to make sure that the story of that project is not directly connected to UNC.

Yeah, yeah, thank you.

It's just that it didn't go through the kind of scrutiny that we like to do, so I would just point that out that perhaps as we get into this a little bit more detail, there may be phasing adjustments, there may be cost adjustments, we just don't know at this point, but I think it's a pretty good number at the moment.

Thank you.

Things might be on the horizon there, and some other transportation items that we might need to consider, and also the master plan work that's being done, if there's not full implementation built in the CIP.

and so I'm not sure exactly where that is in all of this but we'll figure that out.

I appreciate that.

When we have the some track record on the one at IV and we want to go out and try to You know replicate that so as early as this summer.

We will begin to entertain request for projects for fiscal year 20 and they will go through the normal

So I want to make sure that we're communicating on that.

So it may end up as the fifth bullet on that list.

We were going pretty fast when we were working on that, but we think that we made some good choices as a first look at what we could do with a referendum.

Over to Trevor again.

So we considered it, but felt that the request itself and scope needed to do a little more work before it was ready to go.

Thank you.

But I did want to just point out, too, that it's really, we were looking in two-year intervals as well.

The renovation of the voting machine storage and...

And the chief can talk to that.

And there's a notice thing that's years out on that anyway, so we can't really change that.

Yeah, that's a substitute for blurry.

Thank you.

So Madam Chair, it's a little after six, and I have one more slide on this referendum piece, and then one other, I'd like to talk with you a little bit about the list for the fifth, but I don't know what you'd like us to do, if you'd like to stop now.

Two of us have another board meeting at seven.

One quick question.

I'm looking at DART and CAL and that's great I have no problem but I just want to make sure that if we're doing a referendum it's got to reach everybody.

Is there anything else?

Just to point out, of course, that period between August and November is the community education piece, the whole campaign that goes on during that period of time.

And then we will talk about the list as well on the 5th, and that is the day that you have to approve your proposed budget and finalize your tax rate for advertising.

Very good.

Before we go to closed meeting matters, anybody from the board have anything they want to add?

And County Executive Knott, he's shaking his head.

Closed meeting person, go Ned.

and under subsection 8 to consult with and be briefed by legal counsel and staff regarding specific legal matters requiring legal advice relating to the negotiation of an agreement for and the possible relocation of court facilities.

Yes.

Yes.

I move that the Board of Supervisors certify by a recorded vote that, to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you everyone.