Board of Supervisors Adjourned Meeting (Budget Work Session #4)   3/11/2020

I want to welcome everyone here.

I'm going to call the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors to order for our March 11, 3 p.m.

work session.

And if we could, real quickly, we'll do introductions because I know we have some folks from the city here today.

And Officer Bryce Statz with us today.

Hello, sir.

Thank you for being here.

I just want to remind those around the table, as well as our guests who will be speaking, our microphone system in this room is all above us, so we do need to speak with some volume and with some annunciation, if you would, so that we're picked up.

And the first item on the agenda is we are, with change, ever-changing information and things happening, we're going to receive an update on the coronavirus first.

Good afternoon, John O'Grandy, Deputy Chief, County Fire Rescue.

I just want to let you all know about our planning actions, and then I'll quickly hand it over to Dr. Bonds, who obviously is a resident expert.

We're planning and taking action on a daily basis, and all of that is coordinated through our regional partners, through the Thomas Jefferson Health District with Dr. Bonds, and also with the Albemarle County School Division as well.

The actions and planning steps are all in support of the goals that we've established in an incident action plan, or an IAP as we call it.

And those goals have been recommended through the CDC as well, and they are to reduce transmission among staff, protect people who are at higher risk for adverse health complications, maintain essential services for the public.

So that's what we're focused on.

We have an incident management team, or an IMT,

that is established in order to carry out these goals, these broad goals and that structure allows us to efficiently direct resources and accept resources from throughout the region not only within Albemarle County but the city of Charlottesville and beyond if it gets to the point where we're accepting state resources that structure is useful for that kind of expansion as well.

I mentioned our IAP.

It is a phased approach.

We're in phase one right now, and so you will see that over the next couple of weeks change over time.

Us moving from one phase to another is done with strict coordination with the Thomas Jefferson Health District, getting information from them as well as from the CDC.

Dr. Bonds is here to talk with you all.

She also is on our incident management team, so she is meeting with us regularly on top of many, many other COVID-19 teams.

So good afternoon.

Thank you so much for having me here today.

First of all, I want to just give you an update.

We do now have coronavirus cases in our state.

We are in the Northwest region.

As a reminder, we do have one in the Northwest region.

It is not in our district.

It's actually in Spotsylvania, and I can share that information because that was put out in a press release.

To date, we have nine cases.

We know where all of those cases

where their risk was, with the exception of the Spotsylvania case, that we haven't traced back to either a known coronavirus case or to travel to a high-risk area.

So that one's still under investigation.

I actually am assisting that health district because their health director is out ill right now.

So I know a little bit more about that than I would normally.

So that's where we're at.

I mentioned we're really moving into a three-phase plan and this is what the CDC recommends at this point in time.

We really need to think about mitigating the impact of this infection in our community and the reason for that is that we need to keep

the epi curve, what we call the curve of infection below that healthcare capacity.

So if we don't do any of these mitigation strategies, the risk is that we'll have an epi curve, we'll have a huge number of infections that will rise and then they'll fall really quickly.

And while in some ways that seems like that might be desirable,

because then we get it over with quickly.

What ends up happening is what happened in Wuhan, China.

They had a very rapid rise in the number of their cases, and it completely overwhelmed their health care system, which is probably why we saw such a high fatality rate.

We are fortunate to have two hospitals in our community, and they are extraordinarily well resourced.

We have to be able to keep the capacity of individuals going in and needing treatment below their threshold, below their search threshold.

So that's what we're really trying to do is to mitigate that.

So we're still in the preparation phase.

We don't have a case here.

I'm going to leave here a handout.

This is on the CDC website.

Anyone can go and download it.

It breaks out actions.

by different community settings.

So if you're an individual, what should you be doing at which stage?

If you're a school, if you're a higher education, if you're a large community event, et cetera.

I think it has some really great practical strategies in there.

Again, at this point in our community, I would consider us on the preparatory phase.

Then we would move into the mild to moderate spread.

which is we are beginning to have cases and then finally into the widespread case.

I did meet with the school superintendents this morning and so we've chatted about what might be the next steps and I'm sure you've heard UVA is moving to a distance learning which I think was a very wise decision on their part and that'll really help reduce our risk in our community because our students are all off getting exposed to stuff right now.

That's pretty great.

So I will leave this here.

I am happy to answer any questions that you may have.

I, of course, am always willing to come and speak.

We're working very closely with all of our incident management teams across the district.

At some time, you may see Ryan McKay.

He is my liaison officer under the ICS structure, and he knows everything I know.

And it's really so that we can cover the broadest

Swath of groups that need information.

I will say we are having a meeting tomorrow first with our law enforcement and first responders to work on strategies to keep them safe as we begin to have community cases and then there'll be a community meeting for vulnerable populations and all of those groups that work with vulnerable populations because we really want to protect that group both people who are at high risk

but also individuals who are currently experiencing an episode of homelessness or unstable housing situations.

So we'll be meeting and coming up with strategies so that as a community we can have an appropriate response and, again, protect those vulnerable groups.

So happy to answer any questions.

I just have one hopefully quick one.

What's our hospital's capacity to isolate patients?

We do.

We have all of that.

Both EDs in our area have negative pressure rooms in there and use all the time.

They have isolation rooms.

We do have one of the state special pathogen units in UVA.

And so they are well-trained to deal with all sorts of bacteria and viruses and other illnesses that would require sort of special isolation procedures.

I think the concern is if we start to get a large surge in the number of cases, that's going to be quickly overwhelmed.

And we do have to remember we're still in flu season.

beginning to approach the tail end of flu season.

And people have other things that happen.

People still have heart attacks, and they still get in motor vehicle accidents, and they still have lots of other things.

And so that's where really being mindful of that surge capacity.

I'm not really in the right situation to talk about what the absolute capacity of the hospital is.

I'm not a hospital employee, and they have a much better idea of what that might be.

Yes.

We're approaching the end of flu season.

Do you see that at the end of flu season or going into the summer that this will dissipate?

I wish I had that because, boy, I'd be making a lot of money right now if I knew that.

I mean, that's the million dollar question, right?

Is this going to act like many of our other respiratory viral pathogens and we're going to see a gradual waning as warm weather comes?

or is this so different from other viral pathogens that we just continue to see this gray outbreak.

We can certainly hope that the warm weather is going to actually help in our favor and that would allow us time because I don't

I don't think this is going to go away.

This isn't going to be a SARS or a MERS where we do a big outbreak and it goes away and then we don't see it again.

It's a great consideration that you're exactly right, Mr. Chair.

On the 17th, we have a 3 p.m.

to 6 p.m.

placeholder that had previously been identified and held and at your last work session, you did make a decision to take a topic that had been briefly discussed and you did put the topic there for formal consideration and I believe we've invited the school's division to join us on the 17th.

I do not, and neither does Ms.

Allshouse, we don't believe that that would take the entire three hour session.

And so what we would like to suggest is that we consider holding time for an update to follow up from today with Dr. Bynes and with our staff.

And we would also like to give the board any budgetary adjustments, technical adjustments that over the next six days, we do have a financial component of this planning team

both from finance and budget.

And they're keeping close track of what's going on with our local economy, our national economy.

And at that time, that would be an opportunity if they want to give the board any considerations that would have some timeliness related to your budget consideration, that we do that at that time.

And also answering the questions the board has, and be prepared to look at board consideration for anything that may happen between now and then.

I appreciate that, thank you very much.

Are there any more questions for Dr. Bonds?

If I could just add in regards, we are also reaching out to the business community through the chambers of commerce in our various areas.

We do recognize that this is really going to be a big financial hit potentially for them and we want to talk to them about how they can continue their operations in the safest manner possible.

We have not forgotten that this is really going to impact them as well and will work.

Very good.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Tuesday?

Tuesday.

Tuesday.

That was me extending an invitation.

All right, so we're gonna get started.

This is our transit.

This is actually I appreciate the willingness of Mr. Boyles, Mr. Williams, Mr. Sheffield to be here today.

Transit is certainly a topic

in our budget session specifically to this topic.

So I know the board is looking forward to all the information we're about to receive and to get our questions answered.

Yes, ma'am.

Quickly, I think Denise Bond's brochure is somehow or another stopped down at that side.

Could you pass wherever they are?

The second, the two bullets here, I just wanted to review the desired outcomes of this meeting.

The Board of Supervisors would obtain a greater understanding of local transit goals, transit funding requests, current transit funding recommendations included in our fiscal year 21 proposed budget.

The Board of Supervisors may also today, if you desire, provide some direction regarding fiscal year 21 funding allocation of the contingency that is included on page 161 of the transit chapter in the recommended budget.

And before we go any further, I wanted to share with you a little bit about what's in front of you at the table.

You've just gotten handed out a copy of the presentation.

You'll have that information.

The other thing, you have two packets.

A light blue in honor of Jeff.

Mr. Richardson's colors here and the dark blue folder.

Inside the light blue folder you'll find on the

So you're going to be on your left side.

The transit agency contributions, this is a page out of our budget book.

So if you don't want to have to open your book while you're here, this is the information that we have about transit in the budget.

And on the other side, you'll see some information that's been provided by Cat for you to have on hand during the presentation.

And then in the other, we had two notebooks because we had a lot of information, so I didn't want to

If you look at the dark blue one, you have on the left hand side a copy

If you look at the dark blue one, you'll see on the left side there's a memorandum of understanding.

We'll be speaking to that today.

There's a lot of pages here.

This is just a reference for you during and after the meeting.

And then on the other side, you're going to see some information that was provided by Mr. Bowman earlier, just a lot of additional information about Pat's budget request.

So we thought that you've all gotten this by email that it might be handy for you to have that in front of you today as well.

So are there any other questions on this materials before we start?

All right, so now I'm going to just share with you the agenda.

And what we're going to do is Mr. Boyles will be starting it off talking about the Regional Transit Partnership and providing an overview and some information about the MOU.

And then Mr. Bowman will be sharing with you information about what's in the Fiscal Year 21 proposed budget.

And then John, Mr. Brad Sheffield will be sharing with you information about ridership and funding requests overview.

And we'll slow down at these points because this is a time for questions and answers.

So you can ask them all along the way with others, but this is a time for you to get your questions and answers asked and answered.

And then we'll have a break at 4.30.

And then Mr. Williams will come up from the Charlottesville area transit.

And again, we'll provide ridership and funding request overview.

And then there's a time at the end for your discussion.

And then there's a meeting wrap up.

So that's how the day will go today.

And what we thought, if it would be OK with everyone, the three gentlemen are here from the agencies.

They can pull up to the table and be with you at the table during the first part of the conversations.

Director for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District, and also the Charlottesville Albemarle Metropolitan Planning Organization, both of which provide the staffing for the regional transit partnership here.

I'm going to try to go talk fast, which is not easy for me, but I'll do my best.

I will also try to move fast through some things to keep us on track and get us back on time.

and also our budget request somewhat pales in comparison to Cap and Jones.

but the numbers are big.

24 regular partnership meetings that have included public involvement in each one of those.

30 different service stakeholder technical types of meetings held.

Completion of a strategic plan for the regional transit partnership.

The first written funding MOU for transit services between the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County.

The first online published ridership report completed for both Jaunt, CAT, Rideshare, and Amtrak.

Three additional service and planning grant applications submitted to DRPT working with Jaunt, the expansion of transit connectivity with Greene County.

These are just a few of the accomplishments.

My staff, as I mentioned, with the PDC and MPO, Sarah Pennington and Jessica Hirsch-Ballering are here with me as well to really be able to give you the right information.

I'll just be reading.

about the RTP and our work with Albemarle County, City of Charlottesville, Charlottesville Area Transit, Jaunt, the University Transit System, Rideshare, now Green County, the school bus systems for Charlottesville and Albemarle, and many others to include our hospital systems and others.

Though we've accomplished much in the past two years, you'll see that much more is expected in the upcoming months and years as well.

When it comes

I asked the TJPDC to look at an old Regional Transit Authority study from 2008 and re-evaluate that for direction to consider a more regional approach to our current transit services.

The updated report came out in 2017 and it recommended to Charlottesville and Albemarle

to create a regional transit advisory body, to pursue shared facilities and operations, to provide more formal services in reporting and budgeting documents.

And then in October of 2017, the same first year, Albemarle, Charlottesville, John PDC, our MPO, and Virginia's Department of Rail and Public Transportation, we all entered into an MOU.

that created the functions of this regional advisory group.

The RTP is just an advisory group to all of the stakeholders and the first meeting was held that October.

In August of 2018, through the help of John Martin and SIR from Richmond, we completed our first strategic and our only strategic plan so far.

And then in 2019 following that the city and county approved funding for the RTP for the first time the first year the PDC supported financially all of the activities of the RTP and then most recently the biggest activity is UVA requested and the board along with Charlottesville and Albemarle approved UVA becoming a voting member of the partnership

Through the strategic plan, we developed, of course, a mission and a vision for the group.

You can read it, but it's to provide recommendations to the decision makers.

And then the vision is to create an efficient, high quality, integrated regional network that catalyzes equitable and sustainable redevelopment and maximizes the region's reputation as the best place to live, work, learn, and play.

In trying to move both the mission and vision forward,

The RTP has produced and published a strategic plan created with the help of SIR.

We've held our monthly meetings for the partners, stakeholders, and especially for citizen input, and held several public meetings facilitated by an international transit consulting firm, Jared Walker, for learning and trying to teach what we've called Transit 101 within the community.

The RTP has also participated in two different listening tour sessions, one with the Virginia Transit Association trying to identify key opportunities and concerns of what transit is within our region.

You'll see one of the slides from our strategic planning session where we took a look at both current feelings, which are looking at it on the left, and future desires on the right.

Key thoughts of the current system include confusing, disconnected, inconvenient, slow, and silo.

Key desires for future improvements included accessible, efficient, seamless, coordinated, convenient, and regional.

I'm sure all of you have seen these before.

The bigger the word meant, the more often it was mentioned.

To help move us forward towards this desired vision,

For the system, recommendations included funding and development of a $550,000 comprehensive regional visioning plan of which we've applied to the state for funding.

It's very similar to plans recently completed in Richmond, Hampton Roads, as well as Roanoke.

We've also worked to continue publishing monthly ridership reports for all modes of regional travel, which includes CAT, JUMP, Rideshare, Amtrak,

Charlottesville Airport as well as the University transit system where feasible and finally continuation of public educational and public sessions for better understanding and better public input of public transit services Additional strategies initiated were rider and non-rider and stakeholder surveys and

developing a unified marketing and informational system for regional transit services learning from peer systems starting with an upcoming visit to Blacksburg, Virginia in their system working to continue to bring Green County Transit as a more active regional provider and coordinating funding opportunities such as the federal small transit intensive cities funding for our region

For budgeting purposes, if awarded,

The FY20 budget will continue to include funding from the monthly partnership and planning meetings, the peer visit trip to Blacksburg, the committee meetings as assigned by the RTP of which we have about three subcommittees, and then also a grant application preparation for expanded services within the region.

Again, kind of thank you for this time to talk this through.

Mr. Bowman will touch on your budget in just a moment.

I was going to say we have a couple more slides here in an hour.

We originally applied for $550,000 to DRPT for a regional visioning plan.

This will not be a replacement plan for either CAT or JUNG in the work that they have to do for the state with their individual systems, but will be a more regional approach that includes University Transit, Greene County,

and other modes of transportation.

The best way it's been described to me is that what we'd like to do is look at the demographics and the needs of our region for transit need as if we didn't have a bus that serviced our area.

Look at those needs, determine that, then start to overlay what CAC's currently doing, what JUMP's doing, what Greene County's doing,

and then take a look at where we're either currently servicing areas that may not need it or we're not servicing areas that do need it and help to figure out what's the best method to provide that service.

We've requested $550,000 of which it's a 50-50 match.

I just received word yesterday from DRPT that it will not likely be awarded in full.

but pretty close to full.

They had about twice as many applications as they had funding available, which is not non-normal.

But it's still very much enough that will move us forward.

What's the planning horizon of that?

We will determine that as part of the process.

It's usually, at least in this case, a 20-year timeframe, but that will have to be determined as we move forward.

For instance, there are some places that do this, their vision may be

Rail.

Well, rail's going to be a much longer time frame if that's what they see the demand is than maybe bus rapid transit.

And I have one more question.

I think that will be the local government's decision of how to change your land use.

It'll look at your current zoning and land use and use that as a guide to where we need transit services.

You may want to use that in your land planning and change your comp plan and zoning

to take the best use of that.

And just one thing to add quickly because I know that we're all interested in our public schools.

And I ask if, in fact, school transportation could be included in this visioning plan

And the response was that due to the federal requirements, we couldn't use the word school or pupil transportation, but we did get in this visioning plan in the application.

DRPT said we could consider older teenagers who may be using transit to travel between tech schools and other programs, which is really what we were getting at anyway.

So we did get that verbiage, so that's excellent.

Chip, if I could ask you a question.

I mean, you sit in an interesting position because you're looking at all the whole purpose of the organization you oversee, looking from a regional perspective.

Today, we're really going to get down into the weeds with two particular agencies that we work with.

And there may be two or three priorities and opportunities there.

is to build the backbone, which is CAB, Charlottesville Area Transit.

I think helping that fixed route system to be the best that it can be servicing the real core.

I think the second is to take advantage of the opportunities through both current technologies and systems as well as innovative future technologies and systems

to be able to connect to

E-Bites, whatever it may be.

But I think right now with technology, it's trying to make it easier to get those people from their origination to a point they can take transit in some fashion.

I think those are the bigger keys.

I think the other real opportunity

the state is really investing in public transportation because I think they see that as a better alternative and they can't afford to build enough more roads to accommodate and they're putting money into this and I think they're willing to help us reach these goals.

You have competing ridership versus coverage.

Unless you're Dubai, you can't maximize both.

That would be the regional visioning plan is the longer term.

I would love to think that the RTP may sunset.

I don't see that happening.

I think the visioning plan will identify how long that vision is for.

And what I'm getting at is I'm hoping that the vision will include flexibility, because as we can see, I've only been here since 2007.

Yep, again with the MOU, this is one of our bigger accomplishments as I mentioned it was the first time in the past

The city of Charlottesville and Charlottesville area transit Used a formula for a number of years to make their annual request to Albemarle County, but it had never been Formalized it really into a written type of document or agreement or process We spent quite a number of months with the subcommittee that worked on that And the MOU was to review and update

that have been used in the past.

The MOU helps provide a guide.

It's not a formal agreement, but it is a guide so that both CATT, the City of Charlottesville, and Albemarle County knows what to expect of where the dollar amounts come from.

To be clear, that was not present.

When we did our initial study, that was not clear to the decision makers.

I think that it's a great, great story.

And then the other thing is it does is that between the time budgets are first submitted budgets are approved and final funding is actually received.

A lot of things happen during the course of that year.

This MOU allows the parties to

to revise and update and kind of true out what the final financials are so that those can be adjusted.

If a one-time grant became available for operating costs and we were able to take advantage of it, then that could be filtered in to change either the current year or the next year's financials.

Better and increased performance requires additional resources.

Seems simple but not always well thought out.

Achieving additional and improved service must be planned for and takes extended time to put the infrastructure in place.

I don't want to speak for my colleagues but I know and having managed a public transit system

If you tell somebody today you want new service somewhere, it may be 12 to 18 months before a new bus can be purchased and put there.

It's not as simple as, hey, we've got the cash, start tomorrow.

So it must be very well planned and thought out ahead of time.

Transit services are very labor intensive and very demanding on personnel.

A lot of the costs you see are for personnel.

In our region, CAT and JUNG are in very different places within their services, the type of services, their performance levels, their immediate capacity for change.

Finally, funding is a very complicated formula for both CAT, JUNG, the RTP.

There are 5307, 5310, 5311 funds.

I could go on and on.

I don't disagree.

Sometimes in some ways better performance equals additional resources.

However, maximizing current resources to effectively make sure the current performance is good, then I might follow that training.

So part of it is making sure, because across the board we get, well, we just need more money and things can be better, but are things good with the current resources?

What's our high level of performance at the current state?

I think we also were referencing the fact that better performance equals additional resources that could come down.

I'm Andy Bowman, the Office of Management and Budget, the budget manager.

I'm going to spend a few moments to highlight the funding that is included in the Square 21 proposed budget related to transit.

There are two new pieces of information that I'm going to highlight right in the slides, and I hope the color will pop out well.

Andy, I want to stop a minute.

Well, this is really the board's proposed budget now, which incorporates the county executive's recommendation for transit, which is not a final decision.

That's just a continuing process.

The one thing I would highlight in green, kind of at the top of the donut, is the contingency, which is one of the items that the board will need to be considering in the budget process.

So yes, next slide, to hit the highlights, again, not to repeat a bunch of information in the budget, but also to allow as much time as possible for people to ask questions of learn.

The Regional Transit Partnerships, we recommend continuing including $25,000 for existing support that is provided by the Planning and District Commission.

We have, as Mr. Boyle alluded to, we included funding for the Regional Transit Vision Plan.

At the time of the recommended budget, it was based on an estimate we had at the December Regional Transit Partnership meeting, which was a $100,000 contribution in fiscal year 21 and fiscal year 22.

As Mr. Boyle alluded to, based on the information that was shared at the February Regional Transit Partnership meeting,

The update now is a $69,000 in fiscal year 21 and fiscal year 22 that would be provided.

Is that an additional?

That is a decrease from 100 to 69.

But in addition to the 25?

That is correct.

So the next item is the Apton Express, which is a commuter route that is proposed to run from the valley to the Charlottesville area.

The county share of that in fiscal year 2021 is only $770.

In the out years, we estimate that will be in the $5,000 to $6,000 range.

This is a partnership with the city, the university, many of the partners in the valley.

The board has seen information on this before in January, so I don't plan to spend much time on it unless there are any questions.

So this is Charlottesville Area Transit, and this is the other item where we have an update.

At the time of the recommended budget, we had included level funding for Charlottesville Area Transit pending further discussion, and here we are today for that.

Mr. Boyle's alliterative, and the board is aware, the county's budget process is ahead of the city's budget process, just as a natural time winner.

The county executive's recommended budget was released on February 19th, and the city manager's was released two Fridays ago.

So at the time we were reviewing the CAT budget with CAT staff and city staff, we were reviewing essentially a draft budget.

And as the best information we had as of late January, the request of the county was a total of 1.4 million for existing services, which was approximately a $388,000 increase for existing services.

So now, several weeks later, that the city manager's proposed budget's available and taking the MOU and applying that formula, the cost of the existing services for the county would now be $1.2 million, or a little more than $1.2 million, which would be an increase of around $203,000, or almost 20%, compared to the fiscal year 2020 budget for existing services.

And that is a number, as Mr. Boyle has alluded to, that still may change as we get additional information on the funding guidance from the state or federal government, or that it's always possible there could be additional changes that play out through the city budget process.

So all of transit will continue to watch that in the coming months to see if there are other changes.

A very high-level explanation of why that is a significant increase for existing services is that, and Mr. Williams will speak to this more in just a few minutes,

CAT has seen a decline in the related revenues of the non-county city.

So as state revenues and federal revenues and fair box revenues decline, the relative share of the city and county is increasing.

So that is one factor in their budget.

And CAT also, just like county departments, they have personnel increases for salaries and benefits and also for operating costs as well.

So that is a very high-level explanation, and I'll look at this in more detail.

So unless there's any questions, I'll move along to John.

Not right now.

I have one.

Can you marry, when you say the requested, and you may have said this, Andy, and if I missed it, I'm sorry.

Yes, to clarify, that's a good question, a good observation.

The 1.4 refers to the existing services.

The 1.7 referred to some additional positions that were requested by CAD for transit mechanics, to convert some drivers from a temporary staff to regular positions, and a few other items that Mr. Williams had mentioned to us.

The difference between 1.4 and 1.7 are those new additional positions that were requested and not registered.

So we had in our packet or saw two budgets.

The contingency is different than the contingency we're using for the pilot.

Very different.

12.4% increase.

Jaunt also is looking at projected decline in state revenue, which increases the county and all of the other local partner shares.

And they also have increased personnel and operating costs, and Mr. Sheffield will speak too.

I would highlight there is one difference in cap and jaunt.

We have for jaunt the inclusion of $84,000 for a local match to capital, which includes six electric transit vehicles.

Under the current MOU, local match to capital is not provided to you.

So that is just one portion of John that is different from the CAT.

And then finally we have the contingency which I mentioned just a minute ago.

That's $308,000.

That represents the difference of current funding in the 20-budget CAT to be announced as of January.

It was contemplated for continuing existing services.

And that is the end of my remarks unless there's any questions.

Questions?

As I've learned in my years with transit, as many questions as I've asked Jim and Ann at the end of the table, the answer is always very complicated.

So I think there's a few things that are changing.

One is that I think that

I think in the future, and I think this will be spoken to in your comments, the state is beginning to move to a more performance-based model in funding.

And so it's systems that are smaller and don't have the steady ridership or trends in ridership.

That is one thing in the county that will be in a tougher position to compete for state programs than we would have been in the past.

So I think that state funding formula is one factor.

It helps me sometimes to hear the overarching view and then get into the particulars later.

OK, so with this new state funding formula, then, regarding performance, it's going to be incumbent.

Because I know we're losing ridership, correct?

That's correct.

So it's going to be incumbent to be able to bring up that ridership in order to compete for state dollars.

Is that correct?

I wouldn't necessarily agree on that last point.

They're asking all communities to take a hard look at their transit systems and make improvements.

So they're not willing to continue to fund at the level currently if you're an underperforming transit agency.

I think maybe a short term challenge too is that whenever service is provided initially, it takes some time for that service to really take off and kind of get credit for that ridership.

I will try to talk slow because I talk fast.

So we had a few prescribed points for us to go over with you all.

who don't quite know what Jouett is and what we do.

We have this overview slide that gives you a sense of the size of the system that we operate.

Right now, we operate, we have 88 vehicles.

I would say that at maximum, we operate around about 70, sorry, about 80 some vehicles at a time.

That includes the commuter routes, the connect route is the commuter routes, as well as our command response services

What I want to note is that many of you may be aware that we are merging with Green County Transit System.

Here do not reflect that.

The budget numbers that you will see do reflect that.

So if you're going to do any side math on miles and trips and costs, just know that Greene County's information is not up in this very first slide.

We've got a pretty good diversity of where people use our services as far as just the types and the location, rural versus the urban and so forth.

We feel fairly fortunate because if we see a decline in one area where it's not necessarily hitting us overall.

Our funding request was driven by a handful of things that aren't necessarily about us trying to

any, I guess, internal aspects as much as continuing sustaining the services that are out there.

We requested from the county about $166,000.

And at the time, I made a mistake and said five positions.

It really was only four.

We had rolled out one already that was a dispatcher based on the fact that the call center supervisor was expected to help improve efficiency, which then would reduce the need for a dispatcher.

and then we we have this need for what's called an extra board meeting these drivers who quite aren't assigned to a run to come in in the morning because in transit you have people who call out sick and so for us if we have typically two people call out we have to take those schedules and try to merge them and figure out how to get the work done with two less people.

An extra board helps prevent that from happening it helps us

The increases that we're funded that are driving this are things looking at giving a 4% wage increase to our staff.

It's been very consistent for about 15 years seeing a 15% increase without a doubt.

Another is just general supplies and services, just contracts, things here and there.

The local match, I will have to say that this is, we kind of softly asked for local match for capital last year and we backed away because we had some electrical funds to be able to match it.

This time we've made the request for it.

All before then we've used what's called our excess agency revenues to help cover the local match.

We have a fairly ambitious capital program this year and so the need for the $84,000 would help with that.

We're still covering some local match of our capital ourselves, but things like going after implementing six electric vehicles just ups the

the amount.

And so that's where we came up with this request.

So this is the 6th.

So I will make kind of a plea to some degree about something that's changed more recently since we submitted the budget.

And that is the federal dollars that we had budgeted for from the urban area was about $536,000.

Based on the apportionments that were released, that should be going up about $100,000 for John.

which means we would be able to fund the critical position called the safety supervisor.

There's a federal requirement by July 20th that all transit systems have their safety plan and things like that in place that meets this new federal code.

We'll be meeting that but we know that we're going to need staffing to do that and that was why it was in this budget request.

Things like the virus outbreak that we're dealing with right now really emphasize the importance of having somebody who's very dedicated to coordinating the various different safety aspects of a transit system, especially when you have 80 plus vehicles out on the road.

So those additional funds usually get split between Charlottesville and Albemarle.

So you could kind of loosely say about half of that hundred grand would have been assigned to Albemarle had I known that number earlier on.

So what I'm pretty much asking at some point is that we are allowed to just retain that to go ahead and fund that safety supervisor position.

Not necessarily something I would expect you to make a decision on today, but it is worth noting that we believe we can get that one position covered with this additional

Next slide.

Part of this slide is to give you a sense of the context of Albemarle's revenues and expenditures in relation to the overall regional services that we provide.

Right now we have

an estimated $18 million budget.

And I checked on it.

And it is correct.

And it's because of the Greene County.

Adding Greene County in pushes us up even higher than we've been before.

It's a mix of capital and it's a mix of operating.

So we've got about $5.6 million in capital that we're going after.

The remaining amount is on the operating side.

The pie chart in the middle is focused on just Albemarle.

Of all the services we provide, the expenditures of that roughly 12, 13 million of operating, about 8.3 of that is to expend services in Albemarle County.

2.4 million of the operating that you've allocated goes towards that and then that $84,000 is helping local match with the capital.

So when you're looking at this pie chart basically the left side of that green area is really the capital and then on the side of the blue is our operating.

I will note that one of the keys or the I guess the secret kind of to our success and

Karen's laughing in her mind right now being like crazy because I joke about her glasses all the time.

But one of the things we do is coordinate with human service transportation, like Medicaid and other entities.

And that allows us to offset cost to the localities.

For Albemarle, that's about $862,000.

I have that right, Andy?

Is that correct?

Am I reading it right?

That's where we carry these additional type of services at the same time that we're carrying passengers in Albemarle County.

And it really basically offsets the cost.

Think about two people riding down the road on Jaunt.

One of them is paid for by some sort of human service agency and others, which you're covering as a public trip.

The cost of that trip has now been split between the two.

And that is what helps us kind of keep some of the costs down from where they are right now.

Otherwise, that's pretty much our breakdown of the revenues that we see coming in.

This does exclude that $100,000 that I had mentioned about the federal amount.

I did not put that in.

I was putting this slide together to adhere more to what the budget request was looking like.

Next slide.

So the expenses.

Breakdown, very similar in that we're looking at what we fund on the capital and then the operating side.

They obviously correlate to the revenues that come in.

It is important to note, and it was why it was one of the key points, that labor is the vast majority of operations.

Looking at the pie chart in the middle, if you take out the capital and kind of just visually look at the green and blue coming together, you'll see that the blue takes up a huge amount.

So whenever we have challenges with recruitment, looking at things like compensation, all those things, it's a very, very direct impact on the cost of services.

So we're looking at how we're trying to allocate our expenses.

I'm going to be in the majority of labor.

And the philosophy that I have is trying to figure out how do we empower and encourage our staff to be able to make the best decisions possible.

And that is a great segue to introducing the numerous people that are sitting behind me that happen to be John's staff.

I told them today that we were presenting to the Amal board and that they're welcome to come.

Maintain our expenses or try to best utilize them in the most efficient way is putting that information, that empowerment into the employees and helping them understand what decision they make, even the drivers, even our reservationists, how that trickles up and down in the organization and ultimately results in what we're spending our funds on.

So labor is a big cost, but it's also a big focus of our efforts from a development standpoint.

and I believe the next is just ridership.

And we're fortunate to have strong ridership.

Our urban ridership has been leveling off.

That's mainly the paratransit services.

The demand response is all in the rural area, all the way out of Earliesville, Eddesmont.

Name it if it's not in that.

You know, Charlottesville, Albemarle, urban area, then it's basically those world trips.

The commuter services are the blue lines on the bottom.

They've been taking off like wildfire.

We, Crozet Connect, we're at capacity.

You're not going to see that line be able to go much higher unless we have more capacity in those vehicles.

The service is very popular.

The more we are focusing on the messaging and the promises, what I call it, for the connect service, the more response we get from the community about what it means to be able to get it from home to, you know, grounds or downtown without having to hassle with traffic or parking.

What is the most interesting thing about the connect services and the riders was you would think that one incentive for people to do to ride transit is to

than driving, that is not the case.

We have found that many of the riders of our commuter services are willing to trade slightly more time of riding to have the convenience to not have to worry about parking or the congestion.

That is very, very encouraging, yes.

Because that means that we don't have to focus on being as quick as being as reliable, safe, as convenient, whatever aspects we're looking for, which is great.

So we're building on those things, and we're going to be

We've put in a technical study as well to look at a route that would come from the town of Louisa to Zion Crossroads into Charlottesville as one of our next year investments.

That is all that I have.

Your Greenboro is Albemarle County only?

Yes.

In the whole up and down, we discussed this before internally and stuff.

Transit is seasonal in that ridership, no matter what transit system it is, dips in the winter during the holidays, goes back up in the spring, dips back down in the summer, just vacations and schools out, and then it goes back up in August again.

So that up and down is not a volatile ridership thing.

So just while this lines up, Brad, could you just make sure everybody understands the Crozet Connect is pretty obvious?

The ones that run up to the end.

29 North, Park Connect are the main two.

Right.

And I will say that on the state funding question, one of the reasons we've seen a decline in state funding was to get the Crozet service up and going, we asked for state money to help fund that.

It's a one-time type of funding that's gone away, so that adds to that slight decline.

On that I will say that I sit on the state committee.

It's called the transit service delivery advisory committee that works on that funding formula and Most everybody is seeing some sort of increase.

So all the boats are fairly lifting.

There are some that did not fare as well But for the most part it's a reasonable formula

We are now, FY21 will be the final year of the transition of the formula.

This current year, it's about 50% that they're focusing on with ridership.

Next year, it'll be 60%.

I will make a little bit of a plug that one of the entities that fared the most was Greater Richmond Transit Company, where, from what I understand, somebody came from.

So they focused on what can we do better that occurs with ridership and if they didn't necessarily do that in anticipation of the state funding formula

We looked at our projections

Our cars would go slightly down with the final formula because our ridership isn't as robust as some other systems, more or less the urban systems.

So that's why I'm predicting a slight decrease and then the decrease because we won't have state money for the Crozet service.

We're going to need to lean on the county more to help fund that.

So on your graph there, you have urban paratransit.

But on your rural demand response, you don't have that.

You don't have that paratransit.

So I'm probably behind the times on what you're doing.

But tell us or tell me, especially since I'm behind the times, how much of yours

and also on that I remember being told last year or the year before or something like that that there was a problem with people getting the doctor's agreement and then not finding that person after that period of time was over with.

That eligibility is something that Garland probably can address.

They, CAC defines the process by which someone becomes eligible to ride as a paratransit rider so you might hold off until this presentation and you can ask that question again or unless you want to go ahead and answer it.

It's a, there's a little bit of, leave your conversation I think to it and so

They go through that process in the urban area.

They apply to CAT to be what's called ADA paratransit eligible.

And once they are, then they can ride under that paratransit tag.

And it doesn't exist outside of the urban area.

So the urbanized area, UZA, does not line with Albemarle's urban area or its development area and all that.

So it is sometimes just a terminology barrier of what the feds call an urban area versus what a locality or even what the state.

The state used to have urban development areas.

So the feds look at census information and for a community this size, they're looking at population and population density.

And if it goes over a certain threshold, then they are tagging those census blocks, tracts, as urbanized.

Now, if they exist too far away from a typical urban area, then they're just an area of significance.

They don't get sucked into it.

But that's what kind of defines it.

And it's a really weird looking map.

It's got this little pantops leg that goes up.

But it's all based on the census data.

No one's looking at a map when they're deciding which of those tracts should be urbanized.

And it's every 10 years.

So we should see that map change once the 2020 census is done.

It will reassess the population and population density.

So that is what will define what the opportunity to use something like paratransit versus demand response.

I would love to slide all the way back to Chip's slide about the word thing.

Confusing, that is like the number one thing when it comes to the services that you might be eligible for versus Andy versus Trevor.

It sometimes depends on where you live, depends on whether you're disabled, depends on a handful of other factors.

So if I just don't feel like driving into town today, or on Friday or something like that, I can call John.

I live in Ivy.

They'll come out.

I'll pay.

Correct.

You can call a day ahead of time, just get on the trip.

We'll figure out which time's the best.

We eliminated the requirement to have somebody say that they're elderly or disabled in our recent restructuring of our fairs.

Personally and just professionally, I didn't feel like in the rural area to have two different fairs, one for a regular person and then one for

known as a disabled person.

And we worked on consolidating the fare structure, and it happened to be the fare that is most used is the elderly disabled one.

So instead of requiring somebody to jump through hoops to get that fare that is being used the most anyways, we just eliminated all of those requirements and said there's just one fare for this particular service, and that's it.

So we don't ask if they're elderly or disabled in the rural area anymore, just because

So you actually don't know, maybe you do, but you don't know in rural area ridership how many are these elderly or disabled people versus how many people like me that don't

You're right, unless we rely on the customer surveys that we do, but even then I wouldn't even rely on that data because I don't think too many people are too willing to identify themselves as

you know a at-risk person and being disabled or something.

because there are different pots of money.

The red urban area is that 5307 number that Chip was starting out.

That's the 88 urban money.

That's the extra 100 grand that we were able to get.

That's capped.

It's set each year.

It doesn't go up or down based on any additional spending or anything.

The green and the blue ones, actually, it's 50-50 match with rural funds, which allow us to, if every dollar that we spend on service, we're drawing down a dollar from the federal government.

So if we spend $2 million in services, we're drawing down $2 million in federal.

If we spend a million, you're only drawing down a million.

So it has a positive double impact, and it has a potentially negative double impact.

on the available funding.

So it's a very distinguishing difference because in that red urban area, right now every single additional trip requires 100% local money to make it happen because I pretty much have already used up all those federal and state funds

at the very beginning because they're so limited.

I go through that money pretty much within the first six months.

After that, we're relying more on the local funds.

If I was to do pie charts on the rural funding versus the urban, you'd see local and federal pretty much even in size.

If you look at a pie chart for the urban, the federal would be very small and the local would be much bigger.

Just one question, there still is wheelchair

And clarify one more time for everybody, so the eligibility is, who is, depends on the eligibility that CAT establishes.

So the, and if I can add one thing, so for the urban areas, as far as CADD is concerned and defined, it's where we have fixed route service.

That would be a better explanation.

Because that's how the areas are.

That's where it's defined.

So wherever there is a fixed route bus, where the three-quarters of a mile around, you put a line three-quarters of a round, that's the population that's considered an urban area.

Those are the individuals who can apply to CAT to get into the ADA pool.

And those of you who've been on the board for a while will remember that we used to discuss with Brad that we had to always remember as we were establishing a new fixed route

It was going to cost John money because of the ADA circle that he has to draw around that route.

Making sense?

Which increased the county budget, but it was just not that we didn't want to establish the route, but we had to remember it had a budget impact.

That's not coming out of the pot of money associated with 5207.

And this does, looking at a couple of these charts, and I guess I'm looking at Andy as well as the other board,

As we are going through the next couple of years and transit is becoming more important, I think, for our community, in thinking about what we might add to our budget book for information, a couple of these pie charts to be clearly describing what John is doing as far as the revenues might be a good addition.

and I don't know for sure if both of them or if there are others that might be better, but I do think we're going to start paying more attention as a community to the costs and to have some of these pie charts maybe in the budget book would be a good idea.

I'd add to that, and I think I'm pretty good at going through it, but if somebody were to ask me

You know, when somebody asks me about the school budget, I'm pretty good at delineating federal, state, local.

And this breakdown is showing I'm not good at that, explaining that with transit.

So when I look at the slide that had that $8.3 million in Albemarle, and then if somebody asked me, tell me about the budget for transit, and I go here, I'm not telling the

I'd like to be able to trace that in a budget book more appropriately or accurately or whatever the right word is.

We'll certainly have more time because you always do a good job of asking us afterwards, what should we do for improvements?

And I think we're saying the same thing.

I just think explanations with pie charts or charts are really easy to understand.

Oh, Census.

I heard Census mentioned.

I just happened to be participating in something we'll be putting out to the community, Encouraging Census.

What's the website?

2020census.gov So I would encourage everybody to make sure you participate in the upcoming Census, 2020census.gov, because that's important for the very things that we're talking about.

You asked me a year ago.

people were just laughing about the downtime.

It does mean things I've never slowed down.

And right now, there's huge amounts of investment being made by Ford and even Amazon and others into electric vehicle technologies.

And my belief is that it's no longer going to be about a green technology.

It's now something that's making financial sense to a lot of

Big international companies that now see the return on that type of investment long term.

So that kind of turned my head a bit in thinking, OK, wait a second.

This is probably going to come faster than I realized before.

And you look at Europe, you have pretty much what

Paris ordered 800 electric buses recently.

They're not looking to manufacture diesel buses in Europe anymore, unless you're in China or one of the other countries out there that manufactures some of them.

But it's coming, and for a system like Jaunt,

There aren't any transit electric vehicles like the vehicles we operate.

And so I pretty much know that we need to figure out how to make that work within the structure of how we operate now.

Right now, operating a gasoline vehicle, we fill up when we're getting low.

And that could be after a couple of days.

Do you do it overnight?

Do you do it along your runs?

Fixed route transit, they're charging up on the routes, but we don't have any set routes.

We go wherever people need us to go.

got even a little more compounded in our thoughts about wanting to tackle this is that opening up and stirring up the conversation about, well, heck, if we can't figure out how to charge on the go when we're doing our demand response, how is any kind of commercial company like a heating and air company or a package delivery company going to figure out how to charge as they go along?

They're not going to make the jump to electric vehicle technology if they feel like they can't have that solved.

and so we're in a good place to be able to explore and figure it out and so we decided to make that move towards it.

It can't be about saving money initially it's got to be about where just propulsion technology for vehicles are going.

I mean you could jokingly relate it to horse and carriage buggies to gasoline you know it's just

Just you're seeing a quantum jump in the technology that's being applied to vehicles these days.

And this is just going to be here before we know it.

It makes financial sense to a lot of big companies.

And to piggyback on that, I would love to have Garland discuss this, because I know you've said at least two or three

Regional Transit Partnership meetings that you'd like to see us move towards compressed natural gas as opposed to electric.

And I have to say I find that a little interesting, concerning to some degree.

The timeline is different for urban than the model transit vehicle that Brad's using.

His vehicles are five years.

And when I buy a bus, it's a 12-year bus, or I can get a small one in 29, it's at least 10 years.

And the model that we have, CAT has already had the hybrid electric vehicles in our fleet for almost 10 years now.

Unfortunately, they haven't been very reliable.

So we are at a point where we should be talking about being able to replace them, meaning that they've gone 10 years, 300,000 miles, and we should be able to replace them.

and we've already had to replace batteries once and some of them are already degraded to a point where we may have to do it again.

So the technology is improving in the big bus side and I've actually been in contact with a number of other transit agencies around.

Duluth, Minnesota is one of the first transit agencies to actually use one of the Patera electric vehicles.

They were kind of attested for the FTA.

And one of the main points in the presentation that I can actually send out to AM&T to distribute is that they've had some issues in keeping them up and running or getting them to actually run at all.

And that the long and short is it's not a one for one switch.

It's almost

I come from a system, GRTC, where they have used alternative vehicles to use compressed natural gas.

The system is 97% compressed natural gas.

their next purchase, they'll be 100% compressed natural gas.

And they have had zero issues with reliability.

And their fuel costs have been able to be redeployed to actually improve the service.

Because the equivalent for a gallon of gas, I think it was like $2.70, and for

I just don't think the model for us right now is doing it and there's a significant infrastructure

And the state and feds are not allowing us to do expansion.

They are asking us to do it as a part of replacement.

And that's really the concern for me.

Just a couple of questions to follow up.

And I don't mean to take a lot of time on this, but I see the hybrids as very different than the total electric.

Very different results.

Right now, if I can't depend on the vehicle being able to be out there every single day, we only have 36 vehicles in our fleet.

Half of those vehicles are, eight to ten of them are the, ten of them are the hybrids, and if they're down, then I don't have that for our capacity.

And that's the concern that I have.

When folks are, most transit agencies that are moving towards the

I don't have the luxury of being able to test right now.

We need to improve the system.

I think in a couple more days a federal grant called a low flow no flow, low emissions no emissions will be closing and there are these windows of opportunity every couple of years to tap into federal funds to help purchase again low

I think that's a really good question.

So, can I just say one final thing on this topic is that the low note does come out every couple of years.

That doesn't mean that we're not, that Cat is, doesn't want to explore

electric vehicles at all, ever.

I'm saying the timing right now is not right.

There is time for the products to develop.

There's a compressed natural gas station that could be retrofitted, or we could actually

or we can fully go and actually apply for a grant and in effect we'll pay for it to allow us to get compressed natural gas.

I have one question and please don't think, you've evaluated your system and you know what it needs but I have one more question.

You move forward with a clearer understanding of what you're trying to achieve and get out of any initiative.

Maybe I just heard they were planning on it.

They run 12-year buses, just like Cat does.

So the window of opportunity is much more narrow in that sense.

For me, again, every five years is a fairly reasonable opportunity to replace or even expand our fleet to be electric.

and not take the risk that there might be some unforeseen problem.

But I imagine they would want to be part of those conversations as well.

Well, diesel is staying marked at 12 years.

I can replace it after 12.

Kicking us is

or anything else.

So if it's a 29-footer, I have to exceed 300,000 knots.

So if you, because diesel has its own pollutants, but I understand also that CNG also does.

So this is not saying that we stop at CNG.

What I'm interested in potentially is transitioning from let's stop buying diesel, let's do half of our fleet CNG, and when the timing is right, the other half becomes electric.

I'm not big on putting all my eggs in one basket.

Even if I have everything on electric grid, it goes down and I can't actually run.

We haven't had the chance and you've been here eight or nine months.

I think it's, I mean, obviously we're looking more into this budget-wise and stuff and with what your request is, but I'm curious and I, similar way as to what I asked Chip at the end of this presentation, so it might be unfair before the beginning, but you might think about it.

If you were, I mean, coming in as the new person and you've had some time, but if you could think of like, for Albemarle County, the one big opportunity for us that could improve services, that could improve

So the current status quo situation is we need to become more reliant.

That's on CAT to do that.

That takes management doing better, but it also takes resources.

The model that we have right now is we have 50 drivers who are full-time

and then 37 of them are temporary, not even part-time.

The temporaries can, will sometimes show up, they don't show up, including whether they may or may not show up.

So that actually impacts our service.

So if you're asking me how to, what would I really want to focus on, I want to actually... I would like to explore getting our frequencies on a lot of our routes, which are 60 minutes up to at least a reasonable 30 minute service.

So Albemarle, I see you've had some conversations about BRT service out on 29.

I come from a system in Richmond where there was a ton of services on Broad Street, one of the main corridors.

The feds are going to look at doing a model like that once the region has made a substantial investment in that corridor first.

So if the region here wants to do bigger, more robust projects, there needs to be a first step in showing that the region wants to do higher frequencies in those corridors first before the defense or state will come in and actually help.

So I see potential expansion of service to the airport, to higher points of activities.

29 is probably the place.

And then the model would probably

our hub and spoke.

I'm not sure that we continue that model.

Maybe it's more of a grid pattern and maybe even establishing a connection point in the county where everything doesn't have to come downtown.

That is actually potentially a way to move people faster and get people to where they want to go.

But it all depends on what this group across here really

of the system has not been optimal.

Say that, are you familiar with the urban development area of Albemarle?

Our land use?

Half the population is basically on 5% of the land.

So that would be good for people to know about.

It would be an interesting thing at some point to do a transit workshop around

Well, and Chip mentioned the importance of fixed routes, and I think that's what I'm focusing on, and the frustration around the current fixed route service that are there.

And I'm not, you know, if you'd been here for 10 years, then I'd be directing that question right at you.

But you're coming in, you're new and you're looking at this system and going, okay, just the current delivery of what's out there, is it effective or not?

I think that is not just for Albemarle, it's for the region period, whether it's the city or the county.

I think one of the first things I did when I first got here was create a document that's called Mistral Pool Trips because I wanted to see where we were missing service.

And what I saw is, and I actually asked my team to go back and start from July 1 fiscal year so we'll have

started to improve.

Thank you.

Well, the trip's over.

So when I was missing Carlin earlier, by the way, that you had the benefit of me talking about transit for a very long time and not so much on the cat urban side.

One of the things I wanted to see was how efficient we were and being able to see whether we were able to deliver every single trip that we promised each of the jurisdictions we were going to do is an important piece because that's the only way if we're not measuring it I can't improve.

So that's one of the first things I asked the team to be able to do.

What we were showing was that we were missing 75 hours of service in a month.

125 hours.

Routes weren't running.

Routes weren't running.

That's what that means.

We are, the last two months, we are down six, seven hours.

That's still too much, but that's a marked improvement from where we were just a couple months ago.

One of the things that we're quickly assessing is the way that the routes that drivers work was

So we had to actually come back and recut their work so it made it less cumbersome on individuals to be able to do their work and provide you with the level of service that you want and by doing that we were able to cut down on people missing out

Strips, and feeling like the schedules were against them.

And one of the things I told the team when I first came in is that we're going to do what's in the best interest of CAT so I can deliver the service to the city and the county that they're paying us to do.

And because of that, we're going to do it about seniority base.

And this is the model.

This is what CAT needs to run.

And there was a lot of concern about I'm not giving a weekend off for that.

So I'm going into a lot of detail, but I just wanted to say,

We are working through the model so everybody feels that they are a part of the answer.

And I tell them all the time, they are more important to this model than I am.

I can only give them the vision.

They have to execute it.

And if they execute it well, this region in our system will rise.

And that's going to take a little bit more money.

But it's also going to take a lot of planning about where we need to be because there is significant infrastructure

and vehicles that we need to purchase if we're trying to get bigger.

Well, Mr. Williams and Board, I appreciate that I don't often do this.

And it really does, and I don't want to belabor this, but it would really behoove us to make sure that you understand our model of land use with a development area and a rural area and how that impacts our density.

Thank you for indulging me.

No, thank you.

So once again, my name is Garland Williams.

I'm the director of transit.

Actually, I cover people transportation for the city and the urban side, which is Charleston area transit.

So today I want to basically explain to you kind of an overview of what CAT is.

CAT is a small urban transit agency.

And what that means is that we're able to get direct.

We're a direct recipient of federal funding that allows us to offset the expense to run the system.

Last, in fiscal 19, we did about 1.8, almost 1.9 million unlinked pass.

Just to give you a reference point, and in your packet I think there is a trend that actually shows by route.

So in your light blue one, and we'll get to that when we talk about transit, but I just wanted to give you a reference point that has gone from

about one point last year and we're still trending

We want to turn it around.

So in the model, we have 375 bus stops in our complete system.

We have one parking lot and a transit center.

We operate 364 days a year, approximately 19 hours a day, Monday through Saturday, and 11 hours on Sunday.

We have approximately 36 fixed route buses, and we have 13 fixed routes that operate

and we've actually provided service in Albemarle County that you know of since 1978.

We actually have nine routes that actually operate in the county and that's one, two, three, five, seven, eight, ten, eleven and that one is in the twelve.

Some of the details are also provided about those routes in your packet.

So I have to admit the numbers are always an anathema to me.

It would be lovely if at some point we could talk about not maybe using the numbers but also using an alphabet like Rio is number what?

Eleven?

I'm just saying the way we're referring to them right because right now and Ann's pulled it up and that's fine yeah but part of our visioning plan maybe we could make them more descriptive.

So I wanted to give you kind of a perspective of the last six years of the riding trend.

And the blue line is kind of hard to see.

That's one of the highest peaks, which was FY15, which was our numbers were up, like I said, almost 2.4 million.

And now we're trending low.

And the green line is the bottom, which is our current FY20.

I would say the inconsistencies of not having vehicles or drivers available

has hurt the system some, but also we have bad technology which we're trying to address.

One of the things I've reached out to the state to do is actually I've asked for a technical assistance grant to kind of really look, do a kind of a deep dive now into our system that kind of looks one to two years out and help us right-size the route because they haven't really been looked at in years.

And the running times one into the other should be adjusted annually.

and if they haven't been, then it used to take 20 minutes to get from here to Fashion Square Mall.

Now it takes 27 minutes and we're still trying to do it in 20.

That's making people upset with us because they're thinking the bus is coming in 20 minutes and it looks like we're always late when we haven't really adjusted the running times to fit the needs.

So what I wanted to do here is also provide you with information about revenue expenditure drivers for 2021.

So the revenue for our CAD is basically in the federal bucket, state bucket, money that comes from the city, money that comes from purchase service, which is Albemarle County, and then money we get actually from the fare box from when people pay us.

The shares from the feds is 19%.

It's 21% that comes from the state.

Once the state and federal credits are applied, it's 41% that the city pays to run the entire system.

And Albemarle County pays 16% to run their part of their system.

So performance will equal more money from the state.

So if we can turn these numbers around long term over the next,

Three years as a thrilling three-year model, then we would get more money to actually re-employ to the system to make it better.

So the expenditure drivers for us is service hours from each jurisdiction, which is the total miles and the operator hours play a key role in how we allocate the funds.

Full-time staff levels, if we can convert temporary staff to full-time, actually helps with reliability issues.

Fuel costs, whether it's diesel or gasoline, plays a major issue for us.

We're seeing a little bit of,

System wide, as the fuel costs come down, then we'll recoup a little bit of a savings, but it's not anything brand at this point in time.

Repairs and maintenance, whether it's parts, materials, or supplies, play a major role.

As our fleet gets continued, gets older, those numbers continue to go up.

And then the percentage of increase that happens, whether it's a pay increase across the board,

So I want to give you the expense side of that.

Is the revenue side of the house the next slide?

So the revenues, once again just explain it a little bit.

This was the revenue projection that was done prior to the city manager's budget coming out and knowing what the final numbers were.

So Cat working with

Our proposal to the Albemarle County, we said that the feds are still going to give us the $1.65 million.

Actually, that number is $2.1 million.

$600,000 comes out of that pool that comes from the feds, actually goes to John to help pay, offset the ADA portion of urban in the city.

In the state, here's the $1.78 million.

And then there's local money that comes from the city, which is about $3.1.

At that point in time, I was requesting $1.4 million.

And Andy has gone through the adjustments that have been made there.

And then there's directly generated, whether it's fare box, ticket sales, advertising, all those things are in the directly generated category, which brought us up to $8.6 million.

So if we go to the expense side, it breaks it down that I have $5,

We have a number of categories by which we allocate

improved the overtime number a little bit.

Historically, I think it was budgeted at $170,000.

We actually put $300,000 for overtime into the numbers, which is more realistic to what we anticipate potentially being able to spend in FY21.

Just for context, last year, in the operations side alone, over $500,000 was spent in overtime.

and that's a product of not having any drivers.

The administrative portion is the administrative team.

I've only got six employees plus some operating dollars.

We have our consultant money just sitting in there.

So all of that is roughly about $965,000 in the maintenance fund.

our small marketing budget at $130,000 which is actually one person and some marketing money and then safety and security which is actually a new org that was created and pulled out of administration and operations to clearly delineate what we're spending on safety and security and that's a requirement actually by the FTA that they want to see that we have a safety and security officer on board and we're able to show them the expenses and it comes up to the $8.6 million.

So that's kind of the high level.

That kind of ends my presentation.

I wanted to leave as much time as I could for questions.

I don't know that answer because I can tell you where folks, potentially, where they get on but I don't know, I have to make the assumption that they're Albemarle County and they're getting on in the county, right?

So that's the first assumption.

We're working through the model and being able to clearly show you how many people get an on and off of every one of our single bus stops.

Normally that's a planning function, I do not have a planning style.

So we're working through that and I'm getting some resources.

The city, we have a GIS team and I'm actually getting some help from them to actually go through.

We do, but it was so small in scale that it really should have been much bigger and actually more riding surveys would be better.

Part of the technical assistance grant that I'm asking help from the state, I'm actually going to put what are called automatic passenger counters on our buses temporarily so I can actually give you better numbers as how many people got on in all the locations in the county.

One of the things I'm getting at is if we go back to that slide that has the city's proportion state, and ours is almost half what the city's is.

And so I'm curious as to how that works.

I always think of it as mostly city people, but I could be completely wrong.

I don't ride the bus.

So the numbers that you see here are kind of high level of saying that the total budget to run the system is $8.6 million.

And when I go and look at the revenue hours associated with each one of the routes, it dictates the actual cost for each one of the routes in the system.

And whether on some of your routes, you may pay for 50% or 25% or 92% or 100% of the route, depending on who funds what route and how far it goes into the county.

Because it slides, it's not proportionally to say that you get

X number of dollars.

Once you get credits from the state and the fairs and the fare box and advertising, then it comes down to 16%.

that in the formula because it's so difficult.

If a person gets on at Fashion Square Mall,

They're getting on in the county, but that could be a city resident.

Without surveys to better detail that, there's no way.

And it makes perfect sense to do it that way, the cost to provide the service.

I'm thinking my other experiences with fixed services

One of the questions, just to kind of piggyback Liz on your question and help me understand a little bit, because if you look at the map, it really looks like where your locations are, your stops are.

It appears to be a stretch for it to be 28%.

Now, I'm not saying it's not, I'm just saying it looks more

It looks less than 28% of the time being in Albemarle County.

And I guess my question is, have we ever had the opportunity to verify that?

In other words, if you look at Route 11 and you look at where it runs just based on the schedule, then there is a difference between what it looks like

We're paying for that route and how it actually runs, the percentage of time.

I guess I'm probably not explaining that very well.

But what I'm asking is, as the routes, we know that we're paying when it crosses the county line.

We've established that.

We went through a committee process and got that.

And I get that.

That makes perfect sense.

But have we ever used the schedule of the route when it leaves here and it goes here and then it comes back?

It just doesn't look that way.

Two things when we were working on this with the committee is we were using the route map.

Yes.

They come into the county at 9.25 AM, they leave at 11.30 or something.

To the best of my knowledge, that has been the only way.

That's never been verified.

But the trip delay information would show if they weren't getting to that first spot till later, that would come up.

Here's the thing using the map.

on the map, that route might have three buses on it.

But there may be three buses on that one line.

on a map, the line will look exactly the same for a route that has one bus.

So you've got three times the amount of time.

I'm going to do that.

That's the right answer.

Thank you.

Can you just give me some ideas how do they verify?

So the consultants will actually use their GIS scheduling software to put our ARTCAD maps in of our routes and they will basically be able to trace and say and drop in the census tracts and also

The software package is almost a million dollars and you're probably looking at two to three individuals who would do nothing but that.

That's not a cheap endeavor.

Those individuals, once they have that level of expertise, make $85-90,000 a year.

So you're looking at it from the system constantly needs to be evaluated and constantly needs to be tweaked to make sure that you continue to get to work on time.

If I go too long and not evaluate and adjust the schedule,

You're mad at me because you've hit the work late for six months or a year, 10 minutes late.

I said we probably should get together.

It costs a million dollars.

It's based on the route match platform.

Different model.

So GRTC, the system I come from, they use the route match model that he has for the pair of chairs inside.

You have a system called, they have a system there called Hasse's Hero.

It is a fixed route model.

We have a fixed route scheduling system and a demand response scheduling system.

You have the same.

It is for fixed route.

Are there questions?

Not the same topic.

Are you talking about revenue miles or service miles?

And then what measures are you using?

Yes, absolutely.

So it is deadhead.

saying that this 1.4 is now 1.2.

And I just want to understand the contingency, what decisions we're being asked to make, and what can you do with that?

You've also asked for additional money to convert the temporary FTE employees to permanent FTEs.

Would that be all right?

I'll go back to you.

Can I ask a quick question and if I'm off, Liz, then I apologize.

I'm really trying to understand in our budget recommendation that the county executive brought forward, the request was $1.7 million.

From Understood, there's going to be adjustments and things like that.

And the staff is trying to explain that.

But for me, I want to understand as an entity paying for a service to a vendor, the request was one seven.

The other person that contracts your services, for lack of better words, in our current year, it was one million.

So this was 700 grand over and beyond.

What the current is is one million.

If at any point I say something incorrect,

So I'm just trying to understand which goes to my opening question.

You're new, you're looking at this system.

You're asking for a huge increase year over year of us and I'd like to know

Between that, we ask of the city council and their percentage increase there.

And then we don't necessarily need to complicate this with what the city manager thinks.

But why the big ask?

I don't know if it's a disparity between the city and the county.

I actually ask the city for 20 positions to be converted from temporary to full time.

I asked for additional positions for supervisors, I asked for three supervisors, three mechanics,

I asked for software transit analysts, so I asked for a number of positions.

So that's why we have two and you reference one as a base and one as a budget with additional personnel increases.

So I guess my question was were those positions were not submitted to the city?

They were submitted to the city.

Yes.

So

So it is the combination of everything in the pot and then your portion of it would have taken it to the 1.7.

He did not.

Help me with that.

The 1.246 million.

I've never said he gave us that the 1.4 is now down to 1.2.

which changes the landscape.

The city manager did not approve your 20 or your additional folks.

So I assume we're not going to approve what the city manager didn't approve.

So do you try to skip a ways?

And I just have one more question that might drive some people a little nutty, but I'm going to ask it anyway.

Now, you're not asking us for positions

And so that this may be on their

Well, I'm just, are we making, what decisions are we being asked to make today?

Surely, nothing needs to be decided today.

This is information.

Well, I'm just asking questions.

I'm just trying to understand and track what we've been and this is finally just getting allowing us to get into the weeds a little bit so that when I'm asked for my constituents what are we what are we paying for and what are we getting this helps me understand it we have the extra layer of a new director

with new eyes now coming in.

And your ask, just like when we see the county executive in our budget book, the department comes forward and we have unfunded requests.

And we sometimes ask, what was the reason for that request?

What was the rationale behind it?

What's the philosophy?

Why did this department ask for these extra positions?

Why did you fund it?

Too many routes that are 60 minutes.

I want to improve that service and at least get them up to a 30-minute standard.

And I would love, as a part of, there's a document that that is required to do.

It's called the transit development plan.

My predecessor and I guess the team must have worked through it.

And in there, there are recommendations to convert some of our routes to what are called bi-directional routes, which means you run on the same

direction on the same streets.

You start the route at the same time on each end of the line, so there is continuity.

So that is not what we have in our system today, which actually frustrates individuals because I really want to go south, but I have a one-way loop.

I've got to go north to go south.

So trying to correct some of that is a part of

Conversions, but it also allows me which I wouldn't be able to do all that so we really have to pick What one or two to do, but it also allows me to become more dependable because I'm not subject to Temporaries not coming in and now I can't provide the level of service that you want and that's the problem when you talk about CAT and as the new CAT director I want

And I want to be able to give you the level of service that you are paying for.

But if I can't depend on the individuals to come in, then I can't give you the service.

There's no other way to make this model work without people and without vehicles.

Well, two percent

It all depends on where they are in the scale, but I think our highest driver is just... I'm just trying to get a sense of... And we don't have many of those.

I think it's probably one or two of them that are like at $20 an hour.

Our minimum is $16.

I'm looking at the original budget, which is what we're supposed to go for.

So there is full-time salaries in there, and then they're in the salary position.

In the operating, there are temps.

Right, and you have different, for example, full-time salary, the actual 19 was $1,898,000.

Proposed is $2,333,000, which is a 15% increase, I believe.

And then you have, I'm just looking, trying to figure out, and you do have overtime,

So I was going through and looking at this.

What did I say last?

I said the two overtimes, which you referenced.

So I think in the model, in the model, there's a 2% increase on top

spikes this year, and then a 2% increase which would be next year.

I do not want to speak for Mr. Williams, but to connect the thread to something you mentioned earlier.

In the current fiscal year, CAT has converted some temporary drivers to the permanent positions or regular positions.

I'm not sure of the city term now.

Certainly that transition would appear in full-time salaries is that conversion in mid-year to half in fiscal year 20 is continuing to 21.

That's correct.

And also, just to give you a reference point in the correct me if I'm wrong,

or Janice, correct me if I'm wrong.

Actually, I want to introduce Janice Woodson, my accountant on the staff for CAT.

So last fiscal year, CAT finished in the red.

Is that correct?

Like $500,000?

So the adjustment that was made for this year reflects that there wasn't enough money in the system to run the system last year.

I would not correct to that.

I would add to that maybe more respectfully.

Under the MOU, we currently have a true up process that will happen for the first time in fiscal year 20.

So in part of my back and forth with city staff, I asked the budget office, over the last three years, if this MOU was in place, what would have happened?

Fiscal year 17 and 18, the county would have overpaid.

Fiscal year 19, the county would have underpaid.

Actually there was, thank you Janice, we actually converted one of our customer service individuals to one of our lead drivers to a supervisor in the model.

So that's also adding to the salary increases.

all over the place questions, I have three, but I'm not alone in having citizens who really love the details of all these things and so I try to understand at least so that I can answer them pretty well when they ask me.

So you had mentioned the farebox revenue and it looks from the way the budget is done that only certain categories

that split is made.

So the UVA miscellaneous revenue and the transit pass revenue sales look like they're zero, which would make a big difference as far as where our 20% share is.

That was adjusted.

I want to clarify, all transit pass sales and transit fare box revenues are shared between the county and the city.

There have been so many different pieces of paper now I'm completely bewildered.

Yes, the $1.2 million reflects that.

There is one revenue that is not split.

Okay, another question is about the administrative costs for this school bus transportation, which is apparently also what we're paying for.

Well, there doesn't seem to be any delineation about separating out the money that you're spending of your administrative time on the school bus stuff.

as opposed to the transit stuff.

And so without information, my assumption is that that's coming into the big pot.

And therefore, my folks are saying, where's my $50,000, or whatever it is?

I don't even know what they have.

So that was one of my questions.

And the other one is?

The school transportation is sitting in the general fund.

We are a special fund outside of the general fund, where the money for CATS sits.

The general fund money actually comes in from the school budget, which comes from the city's budget, and just comes from robbing back to us.

But there's time that you allocate and federal funding doesn't allow for that.

So I do remember when we saw the advertisement through the transit partnership when they were advertising for your job.

And you applied for that.

I remember specifically that it was in your job description that you had responsibilities for the pupil transportation system.

I guess I'm just getting at what Ann was saying.

So we were anticipating that because it was in your job description that you were spending

Are the expenditures?

We do that with other areas.

We do that with Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and Solid Waste Authority and we proportion administrative costs to other things.

Yeah, there are several, but this is not reflected in the CAT budget.

Those individuals are not in this budget.

There's a separate budget by itself.

I guess just for everybody to know, and maybe you can correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is, and just to get at the heart of this, that the city schools have a contract with CAT to run their system.

If you want to look at it that way, I mean that's essentially, you could call it an MOU or a contract.

So you are in fact, they're

using your, that's right.

So I guess we're just asking how that, we weren't seeing that broken out in your budget anyway.

Yes, but they're in the pupil budget.

So all of the drivers, all the administrative staff, which is two,

on the pupil reside in the pupil budget, which is a general fund, which is not in any of these numbers.

There's not a driver in here, or a supervisor, or any other that's affecting your number for CAT.

So those are FTE, approved FTEs.

I do not have that number of drivers for pupil.

So you don't have other administrators besides yourself that work with them?

I guess I'm just finding it's so different, Garland, from our model because our model has our school system bus service completely separate.

The budgets are separate.

The two budgets are separate.

And we have drivers who work in pupil and work in cat when they get from pupil.

They are coded as pupil, which means they're being paid for out of the school fund.

and then they come and they work for CAT, they be coded as CAT to get out of the federal and to make sure that we keep it clean.

There's no sharing of resources between the two.

Other than me.

And you mentioned there were 327 bus stops and I'd love to know how many of those are in the CAT.

Somebody will ask me for sure.

And I guess I'm a little concerned about the ADA changes that you're making after so many years of not requiring everybody to jump through the doctors.

It's in your hat.

I was asked about the doctors and thing.

So one of the earlier conversations I think Brad and I had was his numbers continue to grow for the urban ADA side.

So we need to try to control that, because the ADA paratransit side of the house for the urban system is designed to get those individuals who desperately need that transportation to get to doctor's appointments or work.

Actually, we can't really ask them

where they're going.

So that's not allowable.

But we need to make sure that you know where you're taking it.

But I can't tell you.

You can't say what the purpose is when they're booking a trip.

What we're doing is what most transit systems across the country do is actually put that doctor's approval portion in to make sure that the folks, so we can pare down the numbers, so the folks who actually really need the system as opposed to want the system.

What if there are some other reasons why somebody would need joint services instead of a bus, like there isn't a bus near them or something like that?

We still can do that.

I don't understand why you're trying to cut the numbers down.

to take that additional load in Albemarle County.

That's two or three years out.

And we're talking about right now as far as people getting where they need to go or in July.

I mean, that's what you had said.

I think it was several years away before significant changes were going to be happening.

So that's why I'm looking at this for July and thinking, well, we can't just say to people,

We continue to let that ban expand because we are lax on our approving abilities in that model.

And we have seen it, that when you get qualified to rob ADA, we actually make the system free to you.

You actually can use CAP for free.

Most individuals are preferring to pay double.

Once the improved system appears, people will migrate back and not have to spend that extra money.

But there must be a reason why they're feeling they would rather spend whatever the dollars are for the short term.

I do want to mention that when we look at the ADA ridership between the city and the county, the county has leveled off for the most part.

A lot of our growth is in the city and at some point we'll need to dive in and figure out why.

In the urban area we're seeing more ADA ridership and the trend of growth is more in the more dense urban area of the city than it is on the county fringe.

So throwing that out there because it's curious to see that the counties isn't going up really but the city's ADA ridership is.

I agree.

So also, I would also point out that since I've been here, I've come across and we've actually started taking the IDs where you got a temporary approval and it was for a year.

Well, we had one that was taken the other day because I guess no lady fell out of her hand, and we could actually see the date.

It's actually been two years.

She's been riding it for expansion for two years with that ID.

She wasn't using John.

She was using Pat for free.

So there's a number of folks that are in the system who shouldn't have the card, and we just need to do an annual

That's not normal.

So your plans to tighten that up?

Absolutely.

Additional changes would be to institute the medical provision and allow individuals a certain amount of time, we need to figure out what that is, to transition and get a new card that will actually say that you are eligible to continue to use the service.

I'm sure I track that right.

Is that over and beyond what's required now?

It's over and beyond what's required now based on our loose

Approvals.

So there's a tighten up, then there's an extra one.

The extra step is the medical approval.

Well, say, it's something that to think about parallel is that you're mentioning about maybe a workshop about the development area.

I would say that I have the same goal of reducing our, and it's probably the first transit director that's actually saying I have a goal of reducing my ridership, but I do

I look at it from more of the limited ability to get to, I think you were saying this more, being able to walk to that bus stop and looking at the urban development area and seeing who we're serving with ADA right now and seeing why they may actually be calling us instead of walking in a ditch to go to a bus stop is probably more of

something that's driving it.

Now, without a doubt, the friendliness of our drivers and the culture that we have and all is the first reason that they're calling us.

But being able to get to that cat stop is without, I mean, you can walk around and not walk around, drive around and see that in the county's urban development area, that's probably a big limitation of why they're calling John.

In my consulting days, I did a project in Collier County, Florida that had the exact same problem, increasing in ADA ridership.

We came in, surveyed, talked to the population, the riders and all, and it was infrastructure.

It was a shade in Florida in sunny days that almost all the stops had nothing.

They were sitting out.

come out there and stand for even five minutes in the burning sun.

And so as they started making those changes and improvements, the ridership shifted away from the ADA back to the fixed route.

I agree.

Oh, hardly.

And let me clarify something.

that the personalization for John comes from the fact that you may have six, seven people on the bus, whereas with Kat, you may have 20 or 30 people on the bus, but I'm sure that the

Yeah, I think there was an exercise done by Smart Seaville.

And there was a lot of people who spoke highly of both sets of drivers.

If there's anything on my top wish list, it's to celebrate and to really figure out how we boost our drivers in this area and just share that appreciation for more.

Because with the whole virus outbreak, we were talking yesterday.

Let's just say $14-$16 an hour and they are on the front line of that virus being transmitted.

the ability to ride for free, that number spikes.

So your ridership spikes because I'm qualified to use the ADA, but the system is designed well enough that I can actually get to my doctors on the bus, and I don't have to pay anything.

I can get on the bus and do it.

So in Richmond, the system I come from, we saw as we made that a policy that once you get ADA, you can ride the system for free.

Our numbers on ridership increased.

It's just the opposite here.

We saw where it did increase, and then it started going down.

And it has gone down every single year.

And his numbers have gone up every single year.

So there is a direct correlation.

I can't say those are the exact same people, but there is a correlation between something not working well in our system and them relying on jaunt more than cat.

So that's the reason for the conversation about

If we can make CHAT more reliable, then I believe that we can reverse that trend and actually get those individuals on the bus.

Other questions?

I just have a question.

I just had a question on that.

I just wanted to say this, and you started to say this, Ned, or did say it.

Brad's Articulate and Thorough Explanations of Things.

So I just want to say I welcome the opportunity to have conversations with each of you.

I really do want to have a conversation one-on-one if the county executive is okay with that about where you want to see your system go because we really need to start that planning because as Chip and I talked about infrastructure meaning

We realized as we were going through the RTP process and the memorandum and working everything out that CAT was underestimating the amount of federal dollars that they were getting.

And I think you referenced it in a different way.

And I'm just trying to ask here, because I look, because of Virginia Transit Association, in December I know that the federal amount, funding amounts come out.

and right now we're showing a discrepancy and maybe I just need you to explain this to me as to what it is because we've had that problem in the past.

So for CAT that document shows that CAT's receiving $1,891,217 and you have in the budget $1,615,000.

Yeah, I think what she's talking about is the same number I mentioned about that with the 2020 apportionments, the amount that's for Charlottesville has gone up $375,000.

It's causing us our 25% is $100,000.

And so I think what she's looking at is that

there's a correlating increase on the CAT side of that equation.

And I bring it up because that's what we discovered and what we found historically before you came before Dr. Richardson was here.

And it's concerning if the amount of money that you're getting from the federal government

We need clarification.

So we can get you clarification.

But from the system that I come from, if that number, let's say, can you go back to the budget for me for one second?

The revenues?

Yep, that right there.

So let's say that number is 1.8.

I can't spend that $200,000 until I would actually have to go back to the Kansas City Council and appropriate it.

And at that point in time, you would get your 25% anyway.

And he would get the additional 25% of the money in the agreement that goes to John.

And then the county would get its 28%.

So I couldn't spend it, regardless of whether I had it or not.

Does that make sense?

I think that's where the true up is.

What I'm saying is, so I don't know.

Appropriations mean that my spending limit is $8.6 million.

If I have $200,000 more, I can't spend $8.8 million.

I have to go back to the city council and actually do a paper that shows I got $200,000 more, where it came from, and where it's going to be, how it's going to be spent.

So you would see that lot.

You can speak.

We ran into, for two and a half years, we were penalized and a certain amount of their money was held back by Rivanna because they weren't in compliance.

It was released back.

Yes, ma'am.

And it came in 2020.

If that number has changed recently, I'm not aware of it.

So maybe you need to take a look at it again.

I think it has changed.

Yes, ma'am.

Yeah, and I don't know why.

And I do think one of the disruptions

And so after that, when the city manager and then what was finally approved by the city council would happen after Albemarle County had already approved their budget.

And somehow or another, we never

And are there changes reflected quarterly or is it just wait till the next year?

I'm exhausted.

I would like to thank each of you for coming and spending the time with us.

I mean the board's not done this before.

No, we've never had this kind of information.

My number one priority was a convenient center down in the southern part of Albemarle County and that has upset me that I said that.

I'm not apologizing if I offended somebody, what I said was offensive.

All right, Mr. County Executive, anything you need?

All right, well, with that, we will adjourn to March 17, 2020, 3 p.m.

in room 241.