Board of Supervisors Budget Public Hearing (CY 23 Tax Rate and FY 24 Proposed Budget)   4/26/2023

Good evening, everyone, and welcome.

I'm pleased to call to order this April 26, 2023 meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors and Lane Auditorium.

The supervisors who are present today are Supervisor Jim Andrews of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, Supervisor Ned Galloway,

of the Rio District, Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District, and myself, Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District.

I'd also like to mention that on the dais we have our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Steve Rosenberg, and the Clerk for the Board, Ms.

Claudette Borgerson.

Let me also welcome and thank our Albemarle County Police Officers who are present here this evening, Officer Josh Wright and Officer Ronnie Vanderveer.

I am continually reminded of the public service that you and all of your fellow officers in law enforcement and first responders serve.

We are here today for the public hearing on the calendar year

2023 tax rates.

And at this time, I believe I'll be turning the floor over to Mr. Andy Bowman, Chief of Office of Management and Budget for a presentation.

Thank you and good evening to the board and thank you for the introduction.

I have a brief presentation to cover the information on the tax rates and the budget before we open the public hearings and certainly if there's any board questions we can address those.

So tonight there are two separate public hearings, one on the calendar year 23 tax rate and one on the proposed fiscal year 24 budget.

The state requires there be two separate public hearings, but because these items are so intrinsically related, I will be giving one presentation to talk about both together.

I'll then pause for any questions on the tax rate, and then the tax rate public hearing will open.

I'll then come back to the podium if the board has any questions on the budget, and then we can have that discussion and then open that public hearing.

So what I want to do is hit the highlights of really the information that the board has covered.

Since February 22nd, there have been six budget work sessions held with the board.

There was a public hearing on the initial proposed budget from the county executive that the board has continued to revise.

There's been nine town halls as recently as yesterday evening that have been going on the last few weeks.

So this is going to be hitting the highlights of what has summarized the work over the last two months or so.

But to start, as the board well knows, this budget began far beyond two months ago.

It was back starting with an off-site meeting in August and continuing into October, the board adopted the fiscal year 24 to 28 strategic plan that includes these six strategic goals.

And related, there are 23 strategic objectives under them.

Staff has worked in the budget process to align the budget very closely to move forward all of these, either with additional investments or work plans to then implement strategies and projects that will move each of them forward, this fiscal year 24 being the first year of the five-year strategic plan.

In addition to the strategic plan work this fall, the board considered many topics included here.

We received information on the revenues of our revenue economic outlook,

We consider our five-year financial plan taking a long-term look at the county's obligations, commitments, and other projections.

We also revisited our financial policies to make sure they were aligned with best practices to insulate the county and to ensure our fiscal future.

All in the spirit of maintaining our triple AAA bond rating.

What that is for anyone who may not be aware of that, that essentially allows the county to have the highest credit rating possible for local governments.

And the county is one of the smallest as a medium sized government who maintains that triple AAA bond rating.

That allows the county to borrow when it needs to for construction projects at the lowest possible rate relative to the market and provides a lot of operational flexibility should and if and when it be needed.

The budget is balanced on the current tax rates for real property, personal property, as well as food and beverage and transit occupancy that are shown on the slide.

I will take a moment and show a slide the Board has seen before on real estate tax revenue, just to elaborate on that in more detail because that is the subject of the first hearing.

The current rate of 85.4 cents per 100 assessed value is the rate in the proposed budget.

Every penny on the tax rate is equal to $2.7 million in collectible revenue.

So what that means is if the board were to adopt a rate one penny lower than what is proposed, there would need to be an adjustment on the expenditure side equivalent of $2.7 million.

The other thing is by advertising the tax rate at 85.4 cents, that is a cap, the board can only adopt that rate or lower, not higher.

The real estate reassessment from calendar year 22 to 23 was about 13.5%.

And what we have as part of this legal advertisement is what's called the lowered or the effective rate.

And what this means is what would the tax rate need to be if we were to receive the same amount of real estate tax revenue only due to the change in reassessments.

And that is an impact of about $0.10 less or $75.3 per $100 of assessed value.

So moving from the tax rate to what it does, this is two pie charts of the total county budget.

The total is $551 million.

This is actually a decrease from the prior year due to the change in ARPA funding for both county government and schools that is removed from the total budget.

Also, the capital program by nature will change year to year based on the project starting, and it happens to be in the next year.

While we have an ambitious five-year capital program, the first year of that is smaller than the prior capital budget was.

So while that is the total budget, we like to spend most of our time with the board and the public focusing on the general fund.

We do that for three reasons.

One, as we can see in this doughnut chart, about two-thirds in the big blue piece comes from general property taxes.

Because that is one and is also the primary funding source of the school budget and the transfer to capital and debt.

The other reason we focus on the general fund is because that is where the Board of Supervisors has the maximum amount of legislative and discretionary authority.

I will highlight in this chart that up in the, if you imagine this being the face of the clock, up around 11 o'clock there's a yellow piece of the donut in state revenue.

We are working with the best information we can right now knowing that the state budget has not been finalized and this is an issue we'll continue to monitor in the coming months as the General Assembly and Governor complete their work.

This is also one of the reasons the Board of Supervisors increased its budget stabilization reserve.

So should we be in a position after our budget is adopted if the state were to have a dramatic change that provides the county an ability to be more agile and resilient knowing that we have a stronger rainy day fund to weather that.

Moving to the expenditure side, I'll point out the largest piece of the general fund is the transfer to the school division.

If we were to go back at that slide on the expenditures, 57% of the county's budget is for school operations, debt, and capital.

And we'll see in the county government portions, public safety, kind of about 2 o'clock in the light gray color is public safety, which is the largest area of county government expenditures.

In a nutshell, this is really where the increases in revenues are going in the general fund and fiscal year 24.

In each one of these topics, the Board of Supervisors has held an in-depth work session since February 22.

Starting in the upper left, we heard from the public schools and the school board about their operating proposal, where their state revenues are, and their other picture allowed the board to engage with that.

In the upper right, we held a dedicated work session around workforce stabilization.

The board has funded a class and compensation study and that is proposed to be implemented to bring employees that are being compensated below market up to a competitive market range.

We also include a 4% salary increase for existing employees and this also includes new positions to continue to deliver services such as police officers, other employees in our human and social services department as well as a few others.

In the middle we have school capital and government capital.

One of the challenges of the capital budget this year has been the dramatic increase we have in borrowing costs, not based on the county's borrowing rating as that maintains AAA, but as interest rates have risen, that impacts the county just as it impacts businesses and individuals.

So in order to maintain, based on higher borrowing costs and higher project costs, there's additional funding going into the capital to maintain the plan that was approved five years ago.

I'm sorry, last year for the next five years, which includes investments such as three schools to start in the next five years and some other highlights that I'll hit related to the strategic plan in just a moment.

Finally, in the bottom right, we talked about the county's share of partner agencies.

The board held an in-depth work session for our transit providers for Charlottesville Area Transit and Jaunt.

We also discussed some of the changes for the Emergency Communications Center where their budget is increasing, but due to the county's rate of calls for service and other changes, the county's share of that is increasing very significantly in fiscal year 24.

So moving beyond some pie charts just to tell the story across those six strategic goals and what the budget does related to them.

First in goal one refers to safety and well-being, and I'm not going to read through all these one by one just in the interest of time, but we have investments in our human services function really to take the work of social services and broaden that for our community well-being.

There is staffing there as well as additional funding for emergency assistance totaling $260,000 in next year's budget.

We have additional support for our public safety departments, including the Commonwealth Attorneys for their projected workload needs.

Four additional staff for the police department, including three officers in one services position, which I'll share for those who may be unaware, that is a 24-7 operation to support the officers who are in the field.

The county is also pursuing a third FEMA SAFER grant to provide up to 30 firefighters as we are able to better align our emergency response resources with our total system needs.

And then continuing the county's efforts to improve emergency management organizationally.

Moving into Goal 2, we have efforts for equity and inclusion trainings that are continuing, funding for some arts and cultural agencies, and the work will soon be beginning on the County's Biennial Community Survey, as well as the ongoing work efforts of the staff and the organization to implement the Climate Action Plan.

Moving to Goal 3, we've already discussed transit.

In the capital improvement program, the county has significant funding to draw down and match state funding to provide projects with what we call the revenue sharing program with the state to provide that infrastructure.

We have solid waste and recycling investments.

In fiscal year 24, we have the full year impact of the Southern Convenience Center that will soon be opening.

We have a bailing facility, RSWA, and in the out years we contemplate a northern convenience center as well.

We are also including the full year impact of services that are beginning this year, including the Street Sweeper, which is now out on county streets, and other vegetation management and right-of-way programs.

Moving into Goal 4, Quality of Life.

In the upcoming year, Biscuit Run Park will open and there is funding in the CIP for phases in future years, including two additional grass soccer fields.

Later in the fiscal year, we expect Rivanna Village Park that would come online, as well as the board's action last week to move forward with a dart and towel field rebuild to improve the playing conditions on the four fields that are there.

In the coming years, county staff will also be doing work to plan an urban pocket park, the location of which has not been determined, as well as continuing the comprehensive plan work known as AC44.

There is additional one-time funding in the housing fund, bringing that up to a total undesignated reserve of $4.7 million, as well as funding in the CIP for economic development to support the board's strategic interest there.

Goal five is really about the alignment with the school division.

The current budget does fund the school board's funding request as well as make significant investments in the capital program with elementary school number one and number two to be appropriated in the next five years.

High school center two is appropriated in the current year and that work will be coming up in the next five years as well as some additional system-wide renovation funding.

Finally goal six, we discussed with the board the county's efforts to modernize our dated systems for human resources, community development, and our financial systems.

We also have planning to implement improvements to the current footprint of county office buildings rather than adding space outside of that as was done in the past.

We have development and training as part of our effort to support employees in the compensation changes that I mentioned.

Two slides for the public who may have been following along since the proposed budget.

There have been a few changes the Board of Supervisors have made along the way.

The first of which is the Dartontown Field Rebuild.

This would be a four-year project totaling $2.7 million.

The first phase of that is appropriated or would be considered for appropriation if it's clear 24.

At the time of the recommended budget, there was a transit reserve, and after the board's in-depth discussion with Jaunt, the board had proposed allocating that reserve to Jaunt to fund their funding request.

The county had proposed increasing in the recommended budget the tax relief for the elderly in program.

Based on the board's discussion last week, that amount was increased, and I'll talk about that more in just one moment.

Last week the board advanced proposing the start date for a housing position to July 1st and also for boards of commissions compensation.

Now to clarify, that does not refer to the Board of Supervisors.

That refers to five boards of commissions appointed by the board who had not seen a compensation increase since 2000.

There's a proposal to bring that up at a total cost of $27,000 in total for all five to match increases that have been received by the board over that 23-year period.

So finally on real estate tax relief, I just want to revisit this one to clarify some follow-ups from last week.

I'll highlight in the middle for the public's awareness, what is changing in this program is that there are limits for income and there are limits for net worth.

Both of those have been increased through the amounts shown on the slide.

Thank you, Mr. Bowman.

Members of the Board, I want to briefly address a question that was raised at the recent meeting about the provisions of 58.1-3210, which provide for the exemption or deferral of taxes on property of elderly and handicapped persons.

And if you'll recall, Chair Price raised some questions about

One of the provisions in that section of the state code.

And I just want to reassure all of the members of the board and the public that the manner in which the county has implemented this authority is consistent with the state code provision.

There is a very broad grant of authority to localities to establish

a program of exemptions or deferrals and our program that provides for relief on a percentage basis is in keeping with that broad grant of authority and the particular sentence that was focused on previously is actually a mechanism to allow the county if it so desires to

to provide for backward-looking relief.

Our ordinance does not do that presently, but you could, if you so desired, include in the county code a provision that would provide relief to property owners at the time that they first apply for

participation in the program.

But that relief is limited, so it's not as expansive as our current program, which has this percentage exemption depending upon the income and net worth thresholds, right?

It only focuses on that increment, Chair Price, that you were

referring to in the discussions at the prior meeting.

And so if you chose to include in the local ordinance this backward-looking relief, then it would be limited to the increment that is identified in the particular sentence of the state code.

But the current program

Thank you, Mr. Rosenberg, and I really appreciate the additional work that you and or your staff have put into this and being able to assure us of the full understanding of the legal provision.

Thank you, Mr. Rosenberg.

Thank you.

And for my final slide, this is the budget calendar, at this point most of which is complete.

Tonight there are the two hearings and next week the board is scheduled to adopt the budget and set the tax rate.

So at this time, knowing that we have two hearings, I'll be happy to answer any questions on the tax rate.

Thank you, Mr. Bowman.

We will go through our order for any questions of you first before opening the public hearing on the tax rate, and we will go through our order.

Thank you.

And I will also hold off on any questions I may have until after the public hearing.

So it appears we have only people in person tonight speaking and during public hearings the board will acknowledge speakers addressing the item listed for the public hearing.

Speakers are limited to one appearance of three minutes for public hearing.

Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium.

The green light will go on when you begin speaking which begins your allotted time.

The yellow indicates you have one minute to finish speaking.

The red light indicates your time has expired.

You will be asked to end your comments.

To give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the Board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.

Please, when addressing the Board, state your name and if you live in Albemarle County, your Magisterial District, address comments directly to the Board as a whole.

Any written statement or other supporting material may be given to the Clerk.

If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition.

Speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker.

Back and forth debate is not permitted.

Please do not speak from your seat or out of turn as all comments are live streamed, recorded, and published on the Albemarle County website.

I am John Lowry.

I'm a resident of Samuel Miller District.

I am pleased to be here tonight to talk to you about the tax rate.

But let me tell you that I've been reading financial statements about Albemarle County for decades.

I was in the business.

I've done a lot of things with the county as a volunteer.

I introduced David Rose, who is the investment banker

for the county, the public finance banker, to Bob Tucker.

And David's team has been working with the county ever since.

And yes, you are in great financial shape.

First thing David's team did was to raise the credit rating of the county.

It went from AA to AAA with Standard & Poor's, and then AAA with Moody's, AAA with Fitch, and it's continued to be AAA.

The county is in great financial shape, but I'm not sure that you all realize that the last year, I'll skip ahead to the last year, there was a budget surplus.

There was a budget surplus.

It's in the comprehensive financial report.

It's page 13.

I'll give it to Claudette when I leave.

It said, as of June 30, 2022, the county's governmental funds reported a combined ending balance of $125 million.

It was an increase of $12,900,000.

Now, what happens in this fund balance is the income statement gets married to the balance sheet.

And if there's leftover money,

It goes into the fund balance.

The county has been running surpluses for seven years.

I've got the headlines for the daily progress.

Year after year where there's a surplus.

So what happens to all those surpluses?

Well, the next line in this statement is approximately 48% of the fund balance, $60 million, is available for spending at the government's discretion.

It's unassigned fund balance.

That means you all can direct that money where you wish

You've got the authority.

The surplus is $60 million.

Now we're talking this tonight about a $22 million increase just because of higher assessed values.

I submit it's time for you all, this is a good time, to take action.

You could cut the tax rate, otherwise taxes are going to go up again.

There's going to be another surplus.

I'm going to close with 65% of the county comes to work in the morning from out of this county.

And they go back at night to where they live, not in this county.

If you weren't able to finish, you can leave your remarks with the clerk, Mr. Lowry.

Good evening Board of Supervisors and thank you for allowing the public hearing tonight.

I'm certainly not as well versed as John in all of the

financial aspects.

But as an individual homeowner here for about 16 years now, I got here and I thought I've died and gone to heaven.

Then I found out that the taxes once you've built go up, and they've continued to do that.

But this year was really, it was overwhelming to see my assessment go up 17 percent.

I still do not believe that if I put my house on the market today I could get anywhere near what this assessment is and I am asking you to lower the tax rate, roll it back to the 0.753 instead of adopting this 0.0854 The inflation has hit all of us

When I go to the grocery store on average now, I am having to lay out at least $400 more a month just for groceries.

Just groceries.

And we see it in all other aspects too.

And I hope I'm wrong, but it seems that the Board of Supervisors in advertising this new

assessment and the rate we're going to be paying in taxes, it seems you're uncaring about the impact this has on individuals within the county, especially those of us who are seniors.

We're on fixed income.

We don't get a 4% increase.

We're just stuck with this.

The taxes have risen so unexpectedly.

We didn't anticipate this.

We didn't have time to think about our individual budget and plan for it.

And now we're not sure what we're going to have to do without.

in order to pay taxes and keep our homes.

I would implore you to consider the plight of so many of us who are elderly and on fixed incomes in our county.

And I forgot to say, White Hall District.

Thank you.

I'm Joseph Jones, White Hall resident.

Well, I just want to say that regarding the tax rate, I saw on television, maybe, that several of you say that you did not want to cut the tax rate.

So I went to one of Ann's town hall meetings and indicated that they'd had a budget surplus and as Mr. Lowry has explained, it disappeared and

I don't know that there was any talk of saving it to give us folks a break but anyway ever since that meeting I've kind of pondered what to say to y'all tonight and oh as the old guru said you should look for a sign okay so

Yesterday, I saw a sign, literally.

It was a bumper sticker.

And the bumper said, sticker said, well it had country, but it said, I love this county, but I don't trust the government.

And I believe that's a sentiment of a whole lot of citizens in Albemarle County.

We've kind of, well, on one hand everyone here acknowledges that

your responsibilities to oversee the welfare of the county from rural to urban.

And as Mr. Lowrie said, we have the triple A rating and you've done well so far.

But on the other hand, it is also your responsibility to look out for your Albemarle constituents, as Ms.

Douche was just saying.

and I feel you are ignoring the citizen welfare hand.

I've not heard the words cut and spending used in the same sentence since Ken Boyd, rest his soul, said on this board.

To quote a fruit producer friend, there's always rain at the end of a drought.

So I'll conclude by saying, being optimistic, that you will reduce the tax rate by at least five cents.

And I can say that I love this county and I trust the government.

That concludes the speakers from the public.

So we will go back to any questions that the board may have of staff before closing the public hearing.

Mr. Bowen, would you, I know this has come up with some of my constituents regarding a surplus.

I'll say there's two ways to think about this.

One in the annual financial report and one in understanding of the county's fund balances that are reserved.

Would you want to take the first one or?

I'll start there.

So I'll speak on the county's unassigned fund balance.

The county and its financial policies, which help ensure our triple AAA rating, require that the county holds 10% of its budget in an unassigned fund balance.

This can sometimes be thought of as a rainy day fund, but it's really only a fund the county would touch if there was some sort of unforeseeable disaster or something that would happen that caused a significant disruption.

almost think of it more of a hurricane fund than a rainy day that you would get into that situation.

Now on top of that 10% there's an additional 2% called a budget stabilization reserve.

And this is a reserve that would be more for unforeseeable situations, but it must be more short-term or acute in nature.

That would be a part of that.

So we have that 12%.

Now, anything on top of that 12% would be for the board's discretion, which could take a number of courses.

The board is included in this proposed budget to invest that into the capital program to keep up with additional project cost, invest some of that into other sources like that or other one-time costs rather than ongoing expenses.

So I'll start with that.

Would you care to add anything to that?

The only thing I would add to what Mr. Bowman indicated is that every time that we have an anticipated budgetary variance, we want it to be positive because that allows us to know that we've managed our funds appropriately.

We bring that in front of the board, and the board can make a determination about what to do with that.

So it's done in the public discourse.

It's not done behind any sort of private conversations that we have.

We bring it to the board.

and we give you a moment to say yes, we want to put this into the capital program or no we do not.

What Mr. Bowman is mentioning is we did that as part of the FY24 budget.

We brought to you a series of

of items, and I do not have the numbers off the top of my head, but Andy will save me, of what we could do with the anticipated positive budgetary variance for fiscal 23, and that was to protect our capital program.

And as you all know, we're building three new schools over the next five years.

Much of that increase was to support our schools.

The increase in our cost to actually construct our building industry has grown precipitously.

Andy's going to look at those figures so we can provide that to you.

But that is how we approach

any positive budgetary variance that we have at the end of the year.

What Mr. Lowry was mentioning, that $60 million, I do want to kind of put a fine point in that.

It's exactly what we use for our rainy day funds.

If that $60 million were not there, that would mean that we have some pretty significant issues where we wouldn't have working capital to be able to pay our bills.

We would not have a place to go in the event that there was a serious economic downturn.

It would be gone.

So that $60 million, while it's large, we have almost a $600 million budget.

And so that's really the 10% and the 2%.

And could you please tell, or please let me know if that $60 million were gone if we used it.

to lower taxes.

I should never speculate what the Wall Street would do, but it's really one of the foundations for having flexibility is one of the things that they look for.

They want you to have flexibility in how you manage your money, just like your personal finances, right?

you have flexibility when you have savings accounts and you have flexibility when you don't spend too much money and have too much debt taken on.

So they look at all these flexibility markers.

Having a good solid savings account from our perspective as a fund balance is a rainy day fund.

If that went away, that increases our risk considerably.

So investors who have given us funding through bonds, we pay interest to them.

We would likely have pretty large interest payments because our rating would go down and then there's a correlation there with our interest rates that we would have to pay.

Do you have a ballpark figure as far as how much we have

I'll have Andy speak to that.

But one of the other things I want to make sure the board and the community understands is it's not only having an ability to have lower interest rates.

That's awesome.

That is absolutely awesome.

There's another piece of this and it's having access to the capital markets.

When you are triple, triple A, when we put out money into the market, we get investors.

That's what you want.

When you start to lower that rating and it becomes more risky, that's a different type of investor and they're not always there.

And you have competition among investors.

You have competition among investors.

So I think the last time we issued bonds we had 10 or so investment companies who wanted to invest in our bonds.

I've been in another locality, the city of Petersburg, where we had nobody come to the table and want to invest in our bonds.

You never want to be, you never want to be in that position.

And if we were to lower the tax rate someone suggested ten cents, someone suggested five cents.

My calculation is it would

be $27 million and $13.5 million that we would have to take from some of the other projects that benefit the citizenry.

That's correct.

No more questions for right now.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you before you go away, Nancy.

So I always cringe when the CAFR comes out because I want to make sure I'm correct.

That amount that's in the statement at that time of the year is before the end of year bills are paid, correct?

Yeah, so I will say that, I'm going to try and say this back, please let me know if I missed the intent of your question.

At the end of fiscal year 22, that will reflect what all of our activity is as of June 30th.

But due to the nature of our business in the county, there may be projects that cross fiscal years.

For example, we talked about the comprehensive plan work as a multi-year effort where funding was appropriated in the prior year.

and the board will re-appropriate that funding.

So as part of that total fund balance, there's an amount that is obligated for those ongoing efforts as well.

Very good.

Thank you.

And as I remember years ago, there was a policy or a rule or a hope that at the end of when we're looking at

these particular types of funds that for the next year at least three cents would be put into the capital program from those end of year funds in order to be able to be ready to build things.

And one of the things that absolutely stopped happening in 2008, 9, and 10 during the slowdown was that there was nothing put into capital and that really had an impact on capital.

So off the top of your head, can you help us?

I would say those comparisons from probably 15 years ago now were a little challenging.

What I can say is that the board has historically prioritized any of those one-time funds for one-time purposes.

And one of the best one-time examples of those projects is, or capital projects, because we need to plan for the debt service to pay that back.

A lot of the cash we need to, whether it be build new schools, open new parks, the course project downtown, either that or economic development and housing have been where those investments have been made in the past with that one-time money because that and the entire unassigned fund balance is just one-time money.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Andy, for answering these questions for us.

I remember that we discussed during one of our work sessions that we were part of our capital program because of the increase in costs that I think we all are aware, everybody in this room is aware that everything has gone up.

And our capital is bricks and mortar.

and construction costs have gone up, items have gone up.

And I think there was a number of $39 million that we have had to put forth this year to cover.

Yes, Supervisor McKeel, thank you for bringing that up.

You've got a great memory.

Early in the process we talked about the five-year capital plan and we talked about that the board, with the help of the school board, that we plan five years out.

And so the board approved last year the five-year CIP and due to increasing cost that's driven by construction labor cost, increases in materials, and the increases in the cost of borrowing

and debt service due to rising interest rates, the cost to build the same projects that are in our CIP for fiscal year 24 through 27 we predict will go up $38.4 million.

And so that's why in this budget that we recommended that we increase to the capital program $16.7 million next year.

and that's $16.7 million that's above formula.

And so what that does, Board, and we talked about it in our budget work sessions, is that if we're going to be able to keep those projects on pace

with where the boards, both school board and school supervisors have talked about your highest needs for your capital items.

If you're going to keep those on pace and keep those projects intact, we've got to be able to come up with additional one-time money to absorb the cost for additional construction

I would also remind the board

that that includes three new schools in the next five years.

This county has not built a public school in 20 years and there is a tipping point with school capacity where you have to step back and you have to reevaluate the cost of renovation and the cost of expansion

versus where the growth is in the county, and is it time where we've reached that tipping point?

So in the next five years, we're planning to pay for a northern feeder pattern elementary school, a southern feeder pattern elementary school, in addition to one additional innovation high school that school board right now is working on the timing and the location of where that would be.

Thank you very much.

And the capital projects that we're talking about are capital projects that our community

through our work and our outreach with our community have requested.

I mean those are not projects that just appeared in, they are projects that have the support of at least a portion of the community depending on what the project is.

They're important to the community or at least portions of the community.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

It's difficult because we're sort of bifurcating the budget and the tax rates in discussion, but you can't really separate the two and that's why it's very important to talk about things that are in the budget that have driven this.

And I do want to ask, as far as tax rates, we've talked about the real property tax.

Are we separately addressing the personal property tax, and can I ask a question about that?

Absolutely.

So just for clarity, I know last year, this is my second rodeo, there was a significant discussion about the tremendous increase in assessed values for vehicles that appeared to be anomalous.

That is correct.

The rate dropped from $4.28 down to $3.42.

That is correct and to kind of just put some numbers in perspective to where we've been because it has been an unusual time, the used car market in particular.

A year ago, property values for personal property, on average, were increasing in the ballpark of 25%.

I can't recall the exact percentage, but close to that.

The board responded to offset that impact, not in full, but dramatically, to drop the rate 20% or 86 cents.

Yes, to some extent.

As the board knows well, everyone's individual experience will be different.

On average, that's what you would typically expect to see.

and the real estate assessments are done then on a calendar year basis, which is why we're looking at that this way now.

That is correct.

Because we budget on a fiscal year basis and we set rates on calendar years, we do always have an assumption on two different reassessments.

Thank you.

I appreciate the answers from before about the surplus and the fact that we've needed to re-appropriate amounts and to maintain our reserves.

Thank you.

Just fact check my memory, Mr. Bowman.

So, historically, our tax rate in 2014 was 0.799.

it raised in 15 to .819 it raised in 16 to .839 and stayed there and then in 19 it went up .854 and that's where we stand currently that is correct the last tax rate increase while it was delayed a year 1.3 cents of that one and a half cent increase was a bond referendum

that passed with 70-some percent countywide that the voters said yes to that as it was a school bond referendum.

So the last, and then that rate has stayed the same.

Yes, that is correct.

So the last tax rate increase that occurred without the bond referendum behind it would have been in 2016 or the lead up to when it went from 819 to 839?

Correct.

And then the equalized rate, as you put on the slide, was down to 73 cents.

75.3 cents.

And the equalized vehicle tax rate that Supervisor Andrews talked about, last year when we made that change, that was at a revenue avoidance of about 7 million and some dollars.

This year, if we keep it at 3.42, we would be foregoing about $3 to $4 million.

That's correct.

The decline year to year in personal property is around $3.3 million.

Every penny on the personal property is approximately $100,000.

So equalization can occur, I mean, obviously, both directions.

to equalize the property tax would go down to the 75.

To equalize the personal property where the vehicles fall, we'd actually have to increase to about $3.76.

Yes, approximately, yes.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

I have no questions tonight.

I've asked plenty of questions at our other budget meetings.

I will close the public hearing unless there are other questions by supervisors.

And Board, we do not have action tonight.

However, I do want to give each supervisor an opportunity should you desire to make any comments this evening.

I think this was a carefully, very carefully thought out budget.

I think it gave us the items we needed to recover from the pandemic.

We increased our police force, which was very low.

In fact, our starting salary was the lowest in the surrounding counties, which is why we couldn't fully fund or fully have the number of officers we needed on our police department.

That has now changed.

Yes, ma'am.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, your question is, with our head count in the police department, we have very few vacancies at this time.

With the current recruiting class, once they're through the academy, we'll be at full staff.

So we and that hasn't been in the last few years we have not had that luxury of having a full police force which means that other police officers have double duty over time which costs a lot more money in the long run and when a disaster happens we want to make sure that we have a full police force we want to make sure we have a full

firefighters, and we're applying for safer grants, which gives us additional monies to hire, as you saw, 30 additional firefighters for our county.

We're doing what we need to do to keep our county safe, to make sure that we can provide the schools for the schools.

Schools are not cheap at all.

And we need to do that for our children.

We need to make sure what kind of a community do we want to build.

And I realize that tax assessments are high, the assessor rated it high.

We're all a product of that higher assessment.

But I do believe

We have a very, very good, strong budget that is focused on the needs of the community.

That's what's important to me.

And what everyone thought was a surplus is actually what we refer to as a rainy day fund.

So those monies we need because of climate change, because of other disasters, that

Not if they will happen, but when they happen, we want to be able to respond to keep our citizens safe.

So that's all the comments I have.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It is really difficult to work our way through this and understand as a background that the county has more than doubled in population since 1980.

When I was little it was like 30,000 and then it was 50,000 in 1980.

So with those people come obligations and I think it's always a struggle about how to meet them.

But I will just give one brief example in those capital projects which are being maintained and kept on track.

One of them is a very important bridge between the north side and south side of Lickenhole Creek in Crozet which will help to get fire and rescue vehicles across and provide more safety for the more than 10,000 people who live in that growth area section right now.

It has been a very long time coming, wrangling with VDOT and that bucket is full and it's really important that that stay on track.

That's all I have.

All right, thank you.

Yes, thank you.

I really appreciate everybody coming today to speak to us.

It's good to hear from you.

And while we have another public hearing shortly, I will say that we have had hours

of discussion about the budget.

We have had many opportunities for folks to come and listen.

All of our work sessions are up on the website.

You can listen to them.

And we hope that at some point

You have an opportunity to listen to some of the discussions that we've had about the projects that you might be concerned about.

We try and do everything in an open and transparent way and not wait till the very end and surprise folks.

And it is really critical.

It really saddens me when I always hear people putting down government.

Because at the end of the day, you are the government.

and we all have a responsibility to our fellow citizens and while not everybody needs social services or police or fire and rescue, it behooves us to make sure that everybody in our community is safe and everybody in our community is educated and a growing community which is what we are

need services.

Thirty fire, we're talking about over the next, is it five years?

Thirty firemen we're going to need in this community because there are no more volunteers.

Because in this day and age, companies, we no longer have the ability, people don't have the ability to volunteer in fire departments like they used to.

And it's our responsibility to make sure if your house catches on fire,

that there's a fire truck or availability to come to meet your need.

Doesn't mean that you'll all need that and it doesn't mean that you'll all need a police officer, but we have to provide those services and that's what government does.

So I'm going to, with that I'll just wait and I'm anxious to hear the next public hearing.

Supervisor Andrews.

Thank you.

I also appreciate the process that we go through and the deliberation and the feedback we get throughout, including at the community meetings.

I want to thank Supervisor Gallaway for clarification about the personal property rate.

My point is simply that if we looked even at the $4.28 that we had previously set the personal property tax rate, that would have contributed

of $8 million additional, which is more like 3 cents on the real property tax rate.

So it's not a one for one in any sense, but it is definitely something we've considered as part of this process.

I have a lot of things that may be more relevant to the budget, but in this process of

going through this.

I really have appreciated that people are very concerned about the effects of the increases in their assessed values.

But what we're doing in this public hearing, in the next public hearing, is discussing this in the context of the budget.

And the important thing is to try to figure out, well,

What are we doing that we didn't need to do?

And it's been very difficult to not see needs that are still being unmet with the current budget, but I am happy that we're able to meet some of the needs, including addressing capital programs that had been in the works, but due to increased costs were jeopardized by an inflation in capital costs and in interest rates that we otherwise couldn't have dealt with.

I'll try to keep on comments specific to the tax rate I had a wonderful town hall last night visit with folks that live in the Rio district And and we had that conversation.

I expect I'll be hearing from some Rio district folks this evening at the next public hearing When I joined the board in 2018 was my first year I mean now this is the start of my sixth year on the board and

and we talked about in the face of the fact that some people's income coming in specifically those who are on fixed incomes only went up about 8% for some while they saw their property tax rates go up 13% with that difference and we didn't even get into the conversation of inflation so I know it's a very tough thing to have that happen but the conversation got to the point of alright

If the money is going to be collected by us, then what are you going to use it for?

And that is the level of appreciation I had for those constituents last night.

Just understanding, okay, why are you taking it in?

It's tough on us.

Please understand and appreciate that.

But now let's understand what's being done with it.

When I first joined that board in 2018, when we were doing our five-year strategic planning or financial planning, we were theorizing by now, today, that our tax rate would have gone up anywhere from four to six cents over that time.

That would put us in that 90, 92 cent range right now.

Now, why haven't we done that?

Well, because property values have increased and we have not had to change the rate.

But if we hit this board,

At the time back then there were a few different members, but the current board has a strategic plan and the tax rate that we've been looking at and the revenues that have been coming in, we have been saying that's what is needed in order to afford the strategic plan objectives.

I think the comment tonight about paying attention to surplus and where that surplus goes is spot on.

Absolutely we should.

And it's up to constituents to look to their representatives and say, how are you using that money?

If some want us to use that money, just in my conversation last night, it could be used to give something back.

What are the other uses you could do for it?

And the folks I was speaking to last night were open about having that conversation.

I can tell you in this year's budget what I personally don't want to see happen because these assessments have been growing so much over the last two years specifically on property value.

What the economic outlooks are saying is that increase in value is not sustainable in the long run.

At some point it is going to reverse.

What I don't want to have happen is then

Stuff drops so much that we've programmed revenues in a way that puts us at a shortfall the next year because then we either have to make cuts that we've just put in place or we have to raise the taxes.

And I got to tell you something, I don't want to face any of you.

If assessed values decrease and then to justify a strategic plan that I believe in and support, I have to raise taxes again on it.

So this year's budget, surplus use, what is it being used for?

Part of it, a portion of it, is being used in anticipation that the values will not be sustained and that there will be, I think the words used in a private one-on-one conversation was, you know, we don't want to be drunk or hungover when that happens.

So let's plan accordingly for it.

And we can use some of those cushion monies, those surplus dollars, to help in that event.

So then we do what we didn't do this year which was equalize the vehicle tax rate back up.

So that kind of flexibility is what the surplus allows you to do.

So yes, I've seen huge surpluses in this county going back over the last 15 years and been upset about it.

If you underestimate your revenues and you overestimate your costs, you can produce, did I say that backwards?

If I overestimate my revenue, overestimate my costs, then I can falsely produce a surplus.

And frankly, I think

years ago under different management and regimes that could have been happening.

So we use updated revenues all the way up to March now to project out so that we're trying to be tight on what we believe our revenues to be.

And of course we don't.

We have to be conservative on what we think the costs are going to be because we don't want to have a shortfall year over year.

Then we have to dip into the surplus that we don't want to touch, that we hold back in the stabilization reserve.

So I share all of this just so that folks, at least in my district, understand where I'm coming from and how I think about the tax rate, the history of it.

The next public hearing that we're going to hear is about then where does that revenue get programmed and is it justified.

And then that's where constituents get to make a decision.

They either agree with me or not about how I prioritize where those revenue dollars go.

and then I have to stand to that as I face election when my terms are up.

Thank you.

I will try to keep my comments related to the tax rate.

The other day, Mr. Richardson, the county executive and I had a meeting in

I might not get the hour exactly right, but I believe he commented that in the last six to eight weeks this board has spent over 53 hours in public meetings, most of that related to the budget.

We had five or six budget work sessions in addition to discussion during the board, our regular first and third Wednesday board meetings.

And through this budget process, this is one of the things that really has stuck out in my mind.

In 2007, the then Board of Supervisors reduced the tax rate by six cents on real estate property.

And we all know what happened in 2008 and 2009 and into 2010, which was the Great Recession.

That six cent reduction in conjunction with the Great Recession

resulted in a reduction of county staff of about 10% and the inability to fund any schools for 20 years.

The three schools that are proposed total $130 million at $36 million, $50 million, and $44 million each, and that was on slide number 15 of the budget presentation.

If we reduce the tax rate, and we do listen to what you say, one member said 10 cents, another member of the public said five, that's between 13 and a half, roughly, and $27 million that would be reduced.

and on slide nine, we saw where most of the funds are going to the public schools, 14.6 million schools capital, 5.9 million workforce stabilization, 12.5 million capital government, capital for the government, 2.2 and partner agencies, 3.2 million.

And so the question that I keep looking for an answer is how do we cut

the

to other entities that will pay more than we're still going to be able to pay.

We're looking at an internet network for the county that is under daily barrage of hundreds of attacks.

And if we don't have the infrastructure to support that, we run the risk of being one of those entities that is held hostage by people who come in and lock down our system.

So, and I'm not going to use the word surplus because I see that 10% that's necessary to maintain our triple AAA bond rating and the additional 2% that we on the board have designated as simply undesignated funds that we must have.

For those who are able, it's wonderful to have a little money in your savings account

when the car needs servicing or the tires need replacing or the kids have got to have some medical procedure that's not covered by insurance.

And I will not, as a supervisor, vote to eliminate this county's ability to meet those financial needs.

We have just come through a pandemic, but for the money that we got through CARES and ARPA, I don't know where this county would be.

So I struggle to see how I can vote in good conscience when the time comes to lower the tax rate and provide the services that I believe we are obligated to provide.

If not, Board, we will move to our next item, which is a public hearing.

for the FY 2024 proposed operating and capital budgets.

Before going to that board, and it's a little ahead of where I will open the public hearing, Vice Chair Andrews did point out that we have well over 10 individuals who have signed up.

Our procedural rules do provide that if more than 10 speakers are signed up to speak, the time allotted to speak may be reduced to two minutes.

rather than three minutes.

Fourteen.

Or to reduce it.

So without

Second.

We have a motion by Supervisor Andrews to maintain the three minutes, a second by Supervisor Mallek.

Is there any further discussion by the board?

I concur.

That's my comment.

Ms.

Mallek?

Yes.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Andrews?

Yes.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Aye.

All right, thank you.

Supervisor, Vice Chair Andrews, thank you for pointing that out.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Board will go through our order.

Any questions of Mr. Bowman with regard to the proposed operating and capital budgets?

Thank you, Supervisor McKeel.

I'm good, thanks.

Thank you, Supervisor Andrews.

No questions.

Thank you, Supervisor Galloway.

No, thank you.

Thank you, and I'm fine right now.

Thank you, Mr. Bowman, that was an excellent presentation.

All right, thank you.

Then I will just summarize for those that when Vice Chair Andrews calls you up, you will have three minutes.

The green light will go on when you commence speaking, the yellow light when you have a minute left, the red light when your three minutes are up.

We ask that you then conclude.

If you're unable to provide all of your comments, you are invited to leave them with the clerk who will ensure that we all get them.

Thank you.

and I will read off three names at a time so people are ready.

Good evening.

My name is Tom Ekman and I'm standing in for Rose Byrne from the Samuel Miller District.

Rose is disabled and a member of IMPACT.

and has been an advocate for more affordable housing for seniors and people with disabilities.

She supports annual funding of the Housing Fund with $5 million to serve people struggling with housing and disabilities.

She put a lot of work into creating an effort, or creating this video, which is her 10-year struggle to get an affordable, accessible house.

The video only runs for two minutes

So I thank you for the three minutes.

So would you please play the video?

Thank you.

My name is Margaret Rose.

In 2002, I was 39 and living in affordable housing.

My husband and I lived in a tax credit community for 10 years.

I am disabled.

My saga was motivated by the inaccessible bathroom in my living situation in 2002.

The department was also a bit of a dump.

It had a leaking ceiling and a ground floor unit, causing a moldy carpet.

The source of the leak was our upstairs neighbor at a hot water heater with a leaky valve.

At night, my husband informs me, there are drug dealers.

Our landlord would not remedy anything.

As we searched for a better living situation, my disability was progressing.

As a result, I was having more and more trouble with the apartment, especially with the inaccessible bathroom.

Finally, the Piedmont Housing Alliance helped us find the VHDA.

We took out a subsidized mortgage using the HDA's first-time home buyers program.

Bill Fuller and the HDA gave expert advice and helped us find CHP.

After stalling repeatedly, CHP designed and built our house after I could no longer get into the shower.

We were able to move in 2011.

At last, we had an accessible bathroom.

It should not have taken this long

have been this difficult to gain access to a handicapped accessible bathroom.

What is the situation now with ADA as an ending?

Access to accessible housing is still a problem.

Thank you.

And Mr. Eckman, thank you for working with the clerk's office to be able to make that accessible for us this evening.

Thank you.

Good evening.

I serve as the Executive Director at the Alliance for Interfaith Ministries, also known as AIM, a nonprofit organization that has been serving Albemarle County and Charlottesville residents for 41 years.

We have provided emergency financial assistance primarily through those 41 years to families in need.

I am here tonight to

tell you that respectfully, and you're going to hear this a lot, $260,000 in emergency financial assistance to families and individuals in need is a drop in the bucket.

You have the unenviable position of increasing homelessness in Albemarle County, particularly among seniors.

For the duration of the period of time that I have served at AIM, I don't believe there have been any affordable housing units added to your housing stock.

And let me also say, my definition of affordable differs from the official governmental definition of affordable.

I can tell you that this morning our phones were ringing off the hook because the Community Resource Line, also known as Pathways, was under the mistaken impression that we had funding currently available for Albemarle County residents.

We had two

staff members plus one volunteer answering our phones and we had additional lines with incoming calls.

All but one call was an Albemarle County resident in search of assistance with rent or utilities, assistance that was not available somewhere else.

I can tell you with absolute certainty that this funding is not available

is not able to be made up on the backs of the nonprofit agencies in your area.

We simply do not have that funding.

The majority of those impacted by the lack of funding for emergency assistance in the county are seniors.

I have the data to back it up and our unlimited incomes.

The landlords who evict the most families are all located in the county.

The county accounts for a disproportionate share of evictions in the Charlottesville area.

Most meeting assistants are already working two and three jobs the most hours they can, receiving the maximum benefits available to them.

They have economized to the nth degree.

We have for months been telling residents of Albemarle County to go to local food banks twice a month to save money from their food budget to be able to absorb increases in housing costs to avoid eviction.

Imagine yourself giving that advice to a sibling, a parent,

or a retired relative in your county because that's exactly what's happening at the nonprofit agencies.

Thank you.

I have additional comments advocating for additional funding and I'd be happy to email them.

I am available for any questions.

Good evening.

My name is Vicki Bravo and I'm speaking on behalf of IMPACT.

In our meetings with all of you, we have emphasized the need for $5 million in this budget and in ongoing budgets for building new affordable housing.

We're very happy to see $4.7 million listed in this budget for affordable housing.

We just want to clarify, $5 million would build

about 166 apartments and over 10 years that would be 1,660 apartments and would make a dent in the need for affordable housing.

But it must be ongoing and that 5 million is less than 1% of the county's budget and affordable housing is a foundational need that affects all aspects of quality of life.

Again, we very much appreciate seeing 4.7 in this year's budget and all the work that you do on affordable housing.

And we also appreciate your recent decision to bring developers, nonprofits, and other stakeholders to the table with supervisors and staff to complete the plan for going forward with affordable housing.

Secondly, IMPACT also supports the request which was put forward by the Pathways Program for $2 million to assist people at risk of eviction or who have been evicted.

Keeping people housed is as important as building new housing and it prevents upheaval to families and is less expensive.

One eviction

makes it more likely that there will be more evictions affecting kids in school, their parents at their work, and mental and physical health of families.

You will hear other speakers speaking on this issue and IMPACT joins them in this request.

Our next three speakers will be Silithia Carr, Elizabeth Stark, and Gustavo Espinosa.

Good evening.

My name is Salithia Carr.

I am a city resident, but I have been living within the county back and forth because of the affordable housing issue.

I have a lot of friends and neighbors within the county, and I also work closely with a lot of people within the county.

They are not living in the best of homes for affordable housing.

260,000 is what I heard and that's appalling to me because we living in a day and age where affordable housing is actually affecting every single person, whether if they're low income or middle class.

It is devastating to them all.

I also wanted to mention

You know how you have two children.

You have one child that's just that powerful child that you got, and you know he's going to do something perfect, but then you have this one child that's just struggling just a little bit and needs a little bit more care.

But that's how it is with this affordable housing.

These people just need a little bit more care, and y'all are in the position in order to do that for your family within the community.

So, and I'm hoping that today would definitely do something for them.

Good evening, supervisors.

You might remember I'm Elizabeth Stark.

I live in the city, but I am an anti-eviction advocate.

And last week after I spoke to you, I went to the courthouse on Thursday where the eviction hearings take place.

I will be standing outside the courthouse tomorrow at 2 p.m.

Well, 1.30 because we like to get there early.

and the tenants we spoke with were bereft when I told them that they had no option.

Pathways was out, as we've heard.

The Alliance of Interfaith Ministries funding is out.

There's no funding for people in the county.

Through our anti-eviction work,

We've spoken with a retired couple who, even though they're retired and they don't have a lot to do, they have some mobility issues, they've gotten rid of their cable, they sold their car, and they've told us they have nowhere to go because there's no parks near there either in the urban ring.

And so they've done everything they can do to economize.

And they were still facing eviction, wondering how they were going to make ends meet.

and now at that time there was Pathways funding so we were able to connect them but I can't tell you how scared

and just terrified tenants are knowing they're facing this with no cushion whatsoever.

One of our volunteers spent half an hour last night on the phone with a tenant who lost their job for two months.

She got a new job, but she was unemployed for two months and she fell behind.

She's working now, but she's also facing eviction tomorrow.

and there's no, you know, she could use maybe one or two thousand dollars or ideally the three that Pathways allows over the course of three months.

That would keep her in her home.

It would keep her on her feet.

She's a woman who's nearing retirement age and she doesn't know what she's going to do now.

I had tenants in tears.

I just, I can't emphasize to you enough, we speak to everyone on the docket.

The reason AIM got so many calls is because we went out and knocked all 30 people who are facing eviction tomorrow.

We knocked on their door and we had a conversation with them.

Usually that conversation is, call Pathways, call LEJC or CVLAS, maybe they can represent you.

But right now we say, I'm so sorry.

There's no funding for you.

There's no cushion, even if you just need the tiniest leg up to get back on your feet.

I really hope you'll reconsider.

I know budgeting is tough.

I know you have to make decisions and weigh different things, but I'm hoping you will reconsider and weigh this because as an anti-eviction advocate, I don't know what I'm going to tell those people.

And if you want to come be outside the courthouse with me, I'll be there tomorrow at 1.30.

Our next three speakers, Gustavo Espinoza, Pada Kovar-Vias, and Jojo Robertson.

Good evening.

My name is Gustavo Espinoza.

I'm a tenant organizer with the Legal Aid Justice Center.

I do almost all of my work with county residents, and I'm here to advocate as well for increased funding for Pathways, the full $2 million that is needed.

And I've already spoken.

I'm going to try a different tactic.

I'm going to mention a lot of numbers here.

with the current amount proposed of $260,000 for emergency assistance, that would only be $5,000 a week to cover the entire county.

And last year, 428 families were evicted in Albemarle County.

And that's just those that were evicted through the court and received the judgment.

That doesn't count families that up and left when they got the notice because they knew they weren't going to be able to make the money or people that were chased out by their landlord illegally.

and that equates to more than one family being evicted every single day and so sometimes families are evicted for one or two months rent we've seen the median amount that families are being evicted for increase from about $1,200 before the pandemic now it's about $4,500 and with the way rents are now in the county that might be two months rent that might be three months rent but that's something that the $260,000 the $5,000 a week

That's one family a week that might be able to be protected.

$2 million, though, that would cover that amount.

And one out of three families is evicted automatically because they weren't able to go to court.

And that could be because of a situation like what Elizabeth Stark was saying.

Someone just started a new job.

They have a court date tomorrow.

They don't want to lose their job, and they don't know the consequences of missing their court date.

One court date you miss, you completely lose your case.

and I heard the $600 million item thrown out there.

That's the budget.

It sounds like there's $600 million in the budget.

So I'm sure there is room if you all put your heads together with the board and the staff to find room for $2 million for Pathways.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

So I'm hoping that on the board and in the staff, there is a will to keep families housed and keep families safe.

Thank you.

Good evening.

My name is Paula Corvias, and thank you for the opportunity to speak on today's meeting.

I am a community organizer with the Public Housing Association of Residents.

I live in the city, but although we work with residents living in public housing or Section 8 in the City of Charlottesville, we receive many, many, many calls from surrounding areas.

especially from Albemarle residents asking for help in housing issues.

Affordable housing has been an issue in our area for many years with many low-income families having been pushed out into the outside of Charlottesville.

and Forest to house in other counties.

Although many have continued their lives as if the pandemic never happened, many families, especially extremely low income, are still experiencing a lot of the impacts.

Tonight I am here in support of funding pathways.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Jojo Robertson.

I live in the Jack Jouett district.

And, of course, I haven't spoke like this before in the county, so I had a list of stuff that I wanted to say.

But one of the things that struck me while listening to you all, where you were talking about hiring more police,

Firefighters to keep our community safe.

And I want you to think about children that don't have a place to live.

Because where I live at Park Sedge, I actually took a tour with one of the advocates.

And there were many people that were going to be evicted.

and even I that almost went through the process to see these kids not know and these people say they can't take off work to actually go to court and then you're talking about safety.

I want safety for these families.

They deserve that.

You're sending kids to school who don't have a place to live that's putting an undue burden on the schools, on the teachers.

So it's just a

It's a process where it's just failure and a few years ago my family, I had two children that went to Jack Doit and we were displaced and I cannot tell you what my children went through and the resources at the school.

My kids went into counseling with the school counselors.

I mean it was just we didn't have a way to get there.

We didn't know

where we were going to go, but to see these faces of these children and for you all to talk about where you're putting your money into, you need to think about your youngest constituents, the ones that need for you to have a voice.

Thank you.

That's all.

Good evening.

My name is Emily Smith.

I'm an Albemarle resident in the Rio district and a housing attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center.

A lot of my work focuses on eviction defense for low-income Albemarle residents.

In fact, my position is in part funded by ARPA funding, which I appreciate.

And I'm asking that the board allocate $2 million to the emergency financial assistance to keep people housed

Eviction filings in Albemarle County are at or exceeding pre-pandemic levels.

According to court data, average rental judgments have jumped from about $1,500 to over $4,000 pre to post-pandemic.

And in my work with families facing eviction, emergency rental assistance is often the only thing that will allow low-income families to remain in their homes.

And an eviction can lead to long-term

Housing Instability because qualifying for a new apartment after an eviction can be extremely difficult, much less getting the money together for a new deposit, first month's rent, and moving expenses when you're already living paycheck to paycheck and couldn't afford rent where you were already living.

The current allocation for assistance would be used extremely quickly based on the rate of assistance currently being dispersed, and many residents have nowhere to turn for assistance.

The amount proposed at $260,000 would amount to $5,000 a week with over 400 families being evicted in the last year, and average rent being for just one month over $1,200.

Of course, creating a county budget will always come with competing priorities, but I ask you to prioritize this vital assistance for those that need the most help.

Good evening, my name is Victoria Horak.

I'm a resident of Albemarle County in the White Hall district and I support funding for pathways and for affordable housing.

I'm privileged enough to own a home in the beautiful White Hall district in Earliesville and I want my tax dollars to be used to make sure that the violence of eviction is not something that my neighbors and my community members

and the other children in my daughter's public school have to go through.

Trish Cook.

Cook.

Dede Minter.

Followed by Pablo Miller.

Good evening.

Pablo Miller, Crozet.

I arrived 30 minutes early at the wrong office building, and I think I may be at the wrong meeting now.

I was looking for Ms.

Davies, who spoke at the last meeting, I believe, that I saw on the video on YouTube.

And I don't see her, so maybe I'm at the wrong meeting.

So I'll just make it brief and thank you for this

for your thoughtful comments and questions and this glimpse into the magnitude of your responsibilities.

I would like to, at least while I'm up here, support the pathways as I understand it from the meeting tonight.

I would certainly like to support that.

I was going to have someone speak for me.

All right, pull the microphone down, though.

So yeah, there you go.

Hello, I'm Lanika Hester.

I'm from the Jouett District.

I'm speaking on behalf of support for affordable housing and more support for pathways.

I did write a little something down, but they've covered a lot of it.

So I wanted to make it very personal.

I am a single mom.

I have a daughter who has come home from school.

and where we're living, we're facing where we might have to leave.

And I didn't want to cry when I got up here, but it's so necessary and needed for those fundings because I'm faced with a choice of having to continue to provide housing or to help my daughter.

My daughter started at 112 pounds in January.

She is 92 pounds because of the living situation we're in.

And I have to make choices.

where I don't have all of what I needed.

And sometimes, like with those pathways, what they do is a lot for the community, a lot of things that a lot of people tend to skip.

And like they said, without a home, without a place to go, well, most of all the things that you have on your plate, she dealt with depression as well, but she made it through her first semester of Hampton University.

And then to come home and have to deal with this, and I don't know if I'll be able to provide that for her.

The funding is like so necessary.

I also wanted to say, in our home there's like a mold, right?

And what they tell you.

Oh, you don't like it, you can leave.

Okay, of course I want to leave, I want to, but there's no affordable place to go.

I'm not lazy, it's not like I don't work, I don't try to provide, I do that.

But then we are forced in situations, and then it's the seniors in the community that can't move, like I can move and get multiple jobs.

But at the same time, it's just not that housing

It's just necessary for anyone to be great in any walk that they're walking.

Right now, her education altered because we might not have housing.

Her health, because there's not housing.

There's so many other planned parts that we're providing funding.

Oh, I'm sorry.

But yeah, having those funds will help not just me, there's multiple people, but multiple people like myself that can't get here and speak up for this.

So I speak for all of them.

And I definitely speak for my daughter who deserves the opportunity to have a chance, you know, to have a place to still call home.

And thank you for listening.

Thank you guys for being here.

Thank you for putting in the work.

That is our last speaker.

And you did confirm with the clerk we have no further signups, correct Ms.

All right.

At this time we will again, I'll look to see if there are any additional questions that any supervisor may have with county staff.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley?

No questions, thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

No, I know, but it's a question.

So I know we've discussed this funding and we discussed ARPA funding and I think your phrase at one point is the great unwinding of federal benefits and the effect that has.

With the pathways, right.

So back during the time of CARES and ARPA, there has been funding that's been provided through this program as well as some other assistance through the community.

ARPA funds across fiscal year 22 and 23 included programs like the Advocate Navigator Program for Rent Relief, that was an $80,000 allocation.

There was the Eviction Partnership Prevention Program that was a $200,000 allocation.

And the Pathways and Beyond Pathways allocation from the county was $2.5 million from that ARPA funding.

That was a program administered through the United Way in partnership with the City of Charlottesville.

and at different times allowed for rent mortgage payment assistance or other emergency financial needs.

There have been other housing investments that were made through ARPAS funds through the bonus bucks program, rental application fee program, other direct in-house investments such as the county's partnership on the premier circle project extending just beyond that individual relief that was discussed.

CARES funds in fiscal year 21 provided 2 million that went towards primarily rent and mortgage payments and they're also the ability for community members to apply for support and rent mortgage relief through the TJPC during the pandemic period.

For a little more historical context, the board heard from staff, including our Director of Academic of the Department of Human and Social Services, sometime in the winter around this great unwinding, whereas federal benefit requirements change, that would put a significant workload pressure on the Department of Social Services to review applications and processes.

So the board had supported the effort there to augment the staffing in the Department of Social Service to assist with the timely processing of that to provide that assistance.

And then that would bring us into then fiscal year 24, the continuing of those positions through the duration of that and then the additional 260,000 that has been discussed this evening.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions?

So I'll say as a rule of thumb for capital projects, particularly those that have a very long life cycle like schools, we would assume those to be funded up front with 5% cash pay-as-you-go.

That other 95% would be from borrowed funding, unless there was any other related funding that could be brought to the table such as proffers or others.

And this would not be through referendum.

To answer your question, we are assuming in the next five years what we call lease revenue bonds, which are not done by referendum.

If a referendum were to be pursued by the board, there would be a process with that.

Thank you.

No questions.

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway?

No questions, thank you.

Thank you.

I have no questions.

Does any other supervisor have questions of staff?

One follow-up.

Because, Mr. Bowman, you described the additional staff, people who are now going to be staying on to help with benefits, but are there then services provided

that at the state and federal that these new staff people will help be caseworkers for people to get this kind of assistance or does the, I mean how does that work?

Sure, I'll do my best academic impression as I can.

I think there's two aspects to this.

There's one that is the more, I say short term, but it's not going to be a matter of months, it's more a matter of years as we go through this federal unwinding to make sure we are supporting the workload or department to go through applications in a timely way.

The other way is we look at really a shift in what we've traditionally thought of the Department of Social Services to a broader Department of Human Services.

Any other questions?

Yes.

Andy, help me just understand a little bit, because we're hearing 236,000 and 260,000.

Help me understand a little bit about that number, because you just referenced it, but I feel like I really don't understand where that number's come from.

Well, exactly.

In the numbers I was referencing, the Pathways program that was provided from ARPA kind of Pathways and what was termed as Beyond Pathways was $2.5 million

From CARES Pathways, that number was approximately $2 million.

In addition to that assistance, one of the areas that the board prioritized for CARES and ARPA funding was direct assistance to the community in response to the pandemic.

So there were some other programs working with our Department of Human and Social Services for other, we call some of these Advocate Navigator for Rent Relief, that was around an additional $80,000 on top of ARPA and

I think where part of this gets a little bit hard to follow is just sort of the history of how these funds came to be and how the county programmed those and sort of where we're heading so we had prior to the pandemic the county did not have any emergency financial assistance program

That was that was a right now.

It's a pathways is a hotline where anyone can call their caseworkers that triage with questions to ensure that individuals are eligible for the uses that the funding has been sort of identified for and then We work to get a funding to the right place.

So typically that's rent and mortgage at different points in the pandemic There were other eligible expenses as well

So again, prior to the pandemic, the county did not have an emergency financial assistance program.

During the pandemic, when CARES and then ARPA funding became available to help sort of meet urgent community needs,

The county decided to use some of our allocations over the three year period to provide emergency financial assistance.

And the eligibility requirements for using those funds was that there was a proven COVID-19 pandemic impact to the household that then allowed them to use those funds.

That money is now gone.

The county used ARPA funding to serve a lot of different areas.

The funding that we've put towards human services programs has now been used.

And so for fiscal year 24, what we're looking at is for the first time local funding.

of an emergency financial assistance program, and that's $260,000.

So if you sort of remove those federal funds related to the pandemic, we're going from zero to $260,000.

If you look at the pandemic years, you're seeing higher numbers of the billions.

Again, that was the county's commitment to funneling our local allocations of federal relief funds to really do some direct service to community members in need.

So that's what I was thinking was that I keep hearing the $236,000 is not going to be enough.

I mean $260,000.

I thought someone said $236,000 but $260,000.

That's as of July 1.

That's the money that's appropriated as of July 1.

Yes.

And the Emergency Financial Assistance Program is really designed for that unexpected life event that might create a short-term hardship in making rent or making mortgage payments.

And so the intent of that program is to help with someone who ordinarily, in the course of a month, can meet all of their expenses.

And then due to sudden job loss or unexpected family medical situation, a large bill comes

That helped clarify my confusion.

Thank you.

At least I understand better the situation.

So just, Emily, before, Ms.

Kilroy, excuse me, before you leave, so for this coming year we've allocated $260,000 for the, correct, not, this is not from ARPA funding, this is from our regular

Okay, and this is something new we're doing.

Okay.

And one follow-up to that as well.

So is there some metric that generated the $260,000 figure?

I would say that we can bring some of this back as a follow-up with Director Demick at next week's meeting in terms of some of that.

But part of that was looking at the, you know, certainly stepping down, knowing that I think as we balance the budget and recognizing there are 23 objectives to move forward, how can we move forward then in a balanced way, knowing that as the board knows very well, we're trying to make progress on all of those.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Seeing no further questions of staff I will close the public hearing.

The matter is back before the board for comments but again board we are taking no action this evening.

I have no further comments.

Thank you.

I want to thank people for coming.

Many, many years I've been out there making requests for funding to the board at the time for all manner of different programs, but this has been, I think, really heart-wrenching tonight to hear about this.

Thank you.

Yes, I don't have, I will say I'm very saddened to hear the situations we have and it has been, I guess a good word is heart-wrenching.

I am also, and I will just add this for the future discussions or perhaps work with the county, I'm very concerned about what I'm hearing about, about some of the conditions in our

rental apartment complexes.

I think one of them is controlled by one of the city housing authorities or something.

Anyway, I'd like to have some further discussions later about some of the conditions that I've been hearing about, but that's a separate issue right now.

I just want to, while I'm thinking about it, put it on the table.

I've emailed about it to staff earlier in, I think, last week or earlier this week.

Thank you.

We're looking at comments at this point on everything.

I've got a couple different directions briefly.

Obviously we've heard a little bit tonight about both affordable housing and the Pathways Project and it does break my heart recognizing the needs that are unmet and I think that's symptomatic of what I've been hearing as we've gone through the budget is people have

Some have been concerned about tax rates, but many people have been concerned about what we're emitting from the budget.

It's been a very difficult process to weigh what we can do.

I think there's more obviously that we will need to do.

We will talk about affordable housing in the future, and I look forward to that discussion.

We had advocates here earlier who gave us a book I believe called Homelessness is a Housing Problem, which basically explains that

Despite the many reasons why someone might be housing insecure, correlation between tough housing markets and homelessness is irrefutable.

It's the biggest indicator of when you're going to have problems is a tough housing market.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll reserve my broader comments for next week when we take the vote.

and then because a lot of those comments will be explaining the way in which I will vote.

But I will say this evening after hearing from folks in both public hearings I'll at least share what I'll be having on my mind leading into that meeting next week.

One quick comment that I should have made under the tax rate public hearing that I think is important to note

Obviously everyone has been focused on the real estate assessments.

And in the county, and Mr. Richardson and Mr. Bowman can keep my numbers straight if needed, but we've been hovering about 68-67% of our revenues rely on the real estate and the revenue we bring in from the real estate tax.

And that number has somewhat stabilized.

Even though we're taking in more from the real estate, the percentage of the total revenue intake has stayed in about the same.

This particular budget in this calendar year has some significant investments into economic development that are not designed or shouldn't be targeted just for small type of five or ten type of job creation avenues.

If the county, based on Project Enable, can start achieving a larger, even moderate scale, what those objectives are.

the revenue that would be able to be derived from that economic development activity can provide relief from the real estate property tax and should bring that 67, 68% number down.

That coming down could help when it's not just a conversation of raise or cut my taxes or reduce spending.

So there are other avenues in our strategic plan that are designed to not continually put the pressure

for revenue needs on our real estate, on the real estate tax rate.

You know, last week, you know, the advocates that spoke tonight for Pathways and, of course, the affordable housing folks, in addition to their, they made comments last week and are at different portions, but also we heard from the Department of Social Services in their annual report that the board brought forward.

And it's the comments about thinking of the children and what's going on.

Last week we saw how many are living in poverty in the county.

I think we always take note of the number of children that are experiencing homelessness.

in both the city and the county and it's a number that none of us feels good about.

So I have to say going into the next seven days before next week that that will be something I'll be thinking about quite a bit relative to what we're able to do in the coming budget.

Thank you.

I'm going to follow up a little bit with what Supervisor Galloway just mentioned because if our

Project Enable with Economic Development can increase the value of industrial commercial real estate.

It may not make that big of a change overall in the percentage of revenues that come from real estate property taxes, but it will substantially reduce the burden on residential.

real estate taxes and that's part of what our target is is to to increase the values of those commercial and industrial spaces which over the last several years of the pandemic have declined substantially as more people have worked from home and we have vacancies in those properties and those vacancies result in a lower value and the lower value means smaller revenues that come in from commercial and industrial

I think there was something that was pretty special about our meeting this evening, and if you paid attention both here in person or online if you're watching, you saw and heard what we see and hear from all segments of our community.

Those who come in and ask that we lower the tax rate, anywhere from $14 to $27 million from a couple of the speakers, to those who are asking that we expand the funding that we're using

for the social network, the social welfare.

I've long believed that government is there for what I call the little person like me.

I'm not wealthy.

I can't afford to do things others can do.

I need to send my kids to public schools.

I need safe neighborhoods.

I don't live behind a wall.

I don't have that kind of security.

We've also heard over the last several weeks from many people who are looking to age in place, which is another way of helping with affordability of housing.

So, you know, and Supervisor Andrews, I appreciate the questions you brought up about the Pathways.

I think we've all been experiencing the great unwinding.

I'm actually pleased that over the last couple of years our county saw that we do need to put funding into this Pathways program, which is not a pathway out of poverty.

It's to help those individuals who generally can meet their expenses but have something

extraordinary that comes up.

And I would love to see us come up with more money.

I don't know if we're going to be able to, but I'm really pleased.

I mean, academic, social services, Mr. Richardson, the rest of the staff, recognizing that with the end of CARES and ARPA funds, we do need to support that.

We're also working on what we can do with affordable housing.

You know, I believe we need three things for democracy to work.

An educated population, and we've received a lot of communications from our public saying thank you for fully funding the schools, which is 57% of our budget.

57%.

So if we cut a dollar off of revenues, the county only sees 43% of that.

The schools, as an impact, the schools will lose 57% and we have fully funded their operations in the capital program.

The other thing I want to mention, inflation has affected all of us, both individuals who go to the grocery store as well as the county.

The $38 million increase estimated in our CIP, our Capital Improvement Plan, over the last year, and the social security and cost of living increases of 5.9 percent in 2021 and 8.7 percent in 2022 are nice, but we know they didn't fully cover the cost of inflation.

and that inflation affects us at the county as well.

I will hold off on the rest of my comments for next week and I just want to thank everyone for coming out and sharing with us, you know, what you feel and what you would like to see the county do as we struggle between resources and needs.

I just wanted to say also thank you for everyone coming out.

To come out for a couple hours and to listen to the proceedings and such, I really commend all of you for doing that.

It means a lot to us to be able to hear from all of the people that do come here and take the time to email us, call us, or come out and speak to us.

All right, Supervisor Andrews.

I guess I was looking past things and I just want to point out to people that in addition to having the budget on the website, we still have this Albemarle budgetvis.com.

Is that being kept up?

That is correct for those who may not be interested in reading the entire 381 page document.

We do have a tool that we partnered with Smart Seaville with a few years ago and essentially what that is, I'm not going to try and pull it up right now, it's a visualization tool to really kind of show where tax dollars go.

what the county's revenues are and you can kind of drill down to look at the general fund then for example to public safety then the police budget you get a sense kind of for where those dollars go for our entire general fund budget it has both the if we didn't update for proposals at least the recommended budget and has the history going back I believe

several years.

I believe it's about ten.

So that is a tool out there in the same way that we publish all of our presentations, all of the Q&A that happens during meetings we can't follow up.

All right, from the board, committee reports, matters not listed on the agenda.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley?

Nothing at this time, thank you.

Thank you.

Supervisor Mallek?

Are you going to talk about this?

I'll leave it and we'll do it then.

Just two quick things which have happened since we were last together.

On April 18th,

The governor hosted a workforce summit in Richmond analyzing and brought to there were several hundred people working on the reorganization of the workforce system which provides enhanced training services to job seekers and also business services to employers.

This is really, this program is really coming along fast and well and I hope that we'll get over the finish line quickly and be able to do an even better job.

And I invite everyone to also come by the Glenwood Station 943

944, our workforce campus.

We have two buildings next to each other where all the local services are provided.

And also, April 21 was the 57th rededication of the Dogwood Memorial, a very large crowd of family members, veterans, and community supporters.

And it was a beautiful day and very meaningful ceremony.

And I'll save the rest of it till later.

Thank you.

Supervisor Andrews?

So we'll be working on the logistics of that and I'll be sure to be giving reports back both to staff and the board so that we have to plan it now.

So they've given their go ahead and we hope to have what it will look like in front of them by the next meeting in May.

So I'll be sharing updates throughout May.

Mr. Richardson, anything from you?

All right, then one last chance.

Any other comments by supervisors?

No?

We will adjourn till May 3rd, 2023 at 1 o'clock p.m.

here in Lane Auditorium.

Opportunities for the public to access and participate in this meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Board of Supervisors homepage, and on the Albemarle County calendar.

Participation will include the opportunity to comment,

on those matters for which comments from the public will be received.

Thank you everyone.