City Council Budget Work Session   4/7/2022

the Baltimore loop and D.C.

loop for a bit.

Oh, no, we've been taking like we've been on 11 a lot or 15.

No, I've been.

Oh, yeah.

It's very different what I look at now when I'm when I'm driving.

It's like.

See this little town?

It's really cute.

There's no setback.

So I missed something.

We landed in Baltimore.

So, you know, we've been just rolling a die and kind of turning left.

It took us four hours to get to Culpepper on Tuesday.

took 230, ended up taking 231 over the mountain, ended up on some gravel road, crossing over the Blue Ridge Mountains on a gravel road.

So let's see.

Okay, it looks like we've got all of our counselors here.

Sam, Ashley, Lisa, are you on?

Okay.

I'm here.

Very good.

Okay, unfortunately, I had just started printing something and my printer is going to buzz at us for the next 30 seconds or so.

That notwithstanding, we are ready to call to order this six o'clock budget.

I saw it optimistically referred to as the budget wrap up meeting.

Let's keep that thought in mind.

I wanted to sort of start off by saying for the benefit of folks who have not seen what we've been up to, the city manager had circulated a spreadsheet that we were able to feedback to the city manager what our thoughts were on the various decision points that we had to confront tonight.

That is all set against a backdrop that I wanted to just sketch out for folks who are tuning in who perhaps may not have been obsessing over this as much as some of the rest of us have.

But one of the things that happened last week

was that we learned that if we consider the expected surplus coming out of the 2022 fiscal year, the year that ends June 30th, we will have enough revenue to fund the city manager's budget for FY 2023 by keeping all of our present tax rates the same.

So we had advertised the possibility of an increase in real estate taxes, for example,

or meals taxes, we would not need to do that and we would still be able to fund what the city manager has suggested.

terms of expenses, we would be able to fund certain new expenditures without raising tax rates.

There are a few that have been suggested by people that might raise might cause expenditures to rise above the revenues.

These would fall in many cases fall into the category of we're waiting for a plan.

And one of the decision points that I think we will need to make tonight is are some of these

things where we ought to say we're waiting for a plan, but we have enough in mind that we think we can at least put a ballpark figure on it and let's figure out a plan to work to that figure or something like that so that we're not simply saying we're not going to be saying we don't have any idea what we're going to do, for example, about our unhoused populations.

or about potential expansion of the transit system.

These are things we've been talking about to some extent.

So those are things that we may end up talking about that don't really have a fixed number attached to them right now.

One of the questions that people have asked a number of times since we started having this conversation last week and where it looked like we would have enough money without raising taxes has been, well, if that's the case, why the heck did you scare us all to death with this new

Tencent tax increase and all the rest of that.

And I will say that there are a couple of things that are a little bit different about the way we've handled this.

One of the ways that's different is that we typically have not tried to factor into our thinking a surplus that we expect in the fiscal year that we're presently in.

That surplus has typically not been known until December or January.

But in this particular case, our surplus is, first of all, significantly larger than we have had in years past.

And second, we can look with some certainty and feel pretty good that at least most of that is going to be real surplus.

You never want to catch chickens for the hatch.

But maybe some of these chickens are close enough to being hatched.

Remember, we're three quarters of the way through the fiscal year.

So we deviated from sort of our standard practice in part because if we didn't, and we made some very difficult and perhaps traumatic financial choices right now, and then in December, we're told, oh, by the way, you have $12 million more

People would justifiably be saying, what's wrong with you guys?

Why weren't you thinking about that back in March and April?

So I was glad that we deviated in this case.

Most of the time we were talking about a surplus of $3 million or $4 million.

But a surplus of potentially $12 million is worth changing procedures for.

So the consequences we've got, we've all been working with sort of a spreadsheet that gives us a whole bunch of choices.

And I'm hoping that we will go through those choices this evening and just kind of see where everybody is and see what what's getting a majority vote and where we

where we end up and then at the end of that we can see kind of where the surplus looks like and what sort of tax rates would be necessary to accommodate the things that we're talking about.

Does that sound like a reasonable way to be approaching things?

Okay.

Now, with that preface, Ms.

Yeah, we're sharing.

Chrissy, put up the PowerPoint through the first slide and then you can do the rest.

Mr. Mayor, just to set the table, the city manager submitted a budget on March 7th for $216,171,432.

That revenue basis was

contemplated a 10 cent increase in real estate taxes, but we did not allocate those funds, as you recall.

But with the $9.2 million of real estate taxes included, increase included, that took us $16 million.

Now,

with not going forward with 9.2.

We look at, we back that out of the 216.

We back out new revenue estimates from the Virginia Communications sales and use tax based on the estimates of our finance team.

And we look at the end

the personal property tax.

The rate remains the same, but there is a $2 million bump there.

And we talked about that with Todd and Diverse, and we contemplated some other options.

He had some other recommendations.

But if you keep

the tax rate as it is, that would yield $2 million.

There's a projected increase in utility taxes, $100,000, sales and use tax, $900,000, transient room tax, $500,000, the meals tax is $25,000, and licenses and permits for $300,000.

When you add all that up,

we come up with a net reduction from the 9.2 of 5,457,141.

So the general fund budget that we submit to you based on those amendments would be $210,714,291.

That's with no tax increases.

And keep in mind, with this number, we are funding the employee raises of 3% effective July 1, the retirees of 2%.

We're funding the school operating budget at their request level of $4.2 million.

We are including seven or eight

new positions that would help us enhance our capacity administratively.

We are doing some equipment purchases that are much needed.

And in the overall scheme of things, we are also funding the school reconfiguration project through our CIP at a $68.8 million

level as agreed to by the school board as we discussed earlier in an earlier meeting.

And so that's all with no increase in real estate taxes or other tax level.

So tonight we'll take a look at the CIP.

There were

to discuss last week some areas that you were interested in.

And we'll take a look at the bond.

These are just a couple of slides at the bond allocation and how that would work out for us.

Sure.

So this is a slide that we shared with you, I believe, last week at the work session.

Just wanted to talk through this one more time before we pop up the spreadsheet to work through some numbers, just to remind everyone where we are.

So as Mr. Rogers

indicated we are looking at a total of 68.8 for the school project.

That in and of itself, if that's what you decide would be an amendment to the CIP, which would reduce that down from 75 to 68.8.

We talked about two different bonding scenarios.

One was with a $54 million bond.

The other was with 50.

And then backing into the difference using either year-end surplus on the city side, ARP funding from the schools, and then some other type of cash source to get you to that total.

you see those listed there in the $54 million scenario we're at $14.8 million of other funds and in the $50 million scenario we're at 18.8.

We also presented you with two different ways to look at affording that.

One would be using

An incremental increase in your debt service transfer with the equivalent of either 1.9 or 1.8, depending on which scenario, over three years.

So for three years we would be increasing the debt service transfer by that much.

three years in a row.

Or the other possible option was to look at a one-time tax increase that would be equivalent to five, five and a half or five and a quarter's worth on the tax rate and put that in the debt service fund all at one time up front.

Hi, Ms.

Hamill.

Thank you again.

So just checking one last time.

Correct.

All right.

Mm-hmm.

Any further questions on that?

Okay, the only other thing I wanted to just, again, this was a slide from last week as well.

These were a couple other scenarios that we talked about with regard to the CIP.

The school one we just talked about, Stribbling, Meadow Creek, and the PHA projects.

All of those were projects that we've spoken about and heard from you all with some interest.

Stribbling and PHA are both sort of in the 2025 year range.

We suggested with the Stribling project, there is money from the developer as well as some city money.

And then PHA, we also provided you with some suggestions, which we'll talk about when we get to the spreadsheet.

But again, those, while they are important, they won't have a direct impact on 23 per se.

So I'm sorry, quickly, before you move on, I just want to make sure that I understand this.

So those projects, because they're, you know, a few years down the road, won't have an impact on 23 budgets.

So

is possible, like for those transportation projects that we may have some, once the audit is done, some excess money in December of this year.

Am I understanding that correctly if everything lines up?

And is it possible that at that point, I guess for next year's budget, that we could allocate some of those funds for

these projects and maybe others?

Or is that not kosher with how to use these monies and things?

No, I think you're thinking about that correctly.

I guess my point with that is that it doesn't have an impact on 23 is that when we're talking about the 3.7 million that Mr. Rogers referenced as potential amendments to the 23 budget, because there's not a cash outlay required for any of these in 23, that those are things that are probably better suited for decisions down the road.

So I'm going to stop sharing this screen and bring up the spreadsheet.

Can everybody see that?

Yep.

So just a couple of things before we get started, just some mechanics of how this works.

So again, as we talk about these columns, when would council actually be making the approval or the decision to do this?

Anything that we talk about with the 23 amendments, that's going to be what you're going to adopt with the budget ordinance next Tuesday on the 12th.

The CIP contingency, that's something you can approve at any time, tonight, next week, next year, whenever.

The last column D, again, that's our projected surplus for 22, and that's something that won't actually come to you officially and won't be an official decision until sometime in the November-December time frame.

So as of right now, the number that is here, this 3.75 is the new revenues that Mr. Rogers just highlighted with you.

Again, it assumes that you do not change the personal property tax rate as recommended by the commissioner.

If you were to change that, that will change this number.

Or if you decide to make any other tax changes, that could change this number.

And then as we start putting numbers in this column, and you can see there's already numbers in there, this number in yellow will start to buy down your balance.

So it's just a way for us to keep track of where we are.

Same thing for the contingency.

That's currently a balance of 11.4.

That's money that has built up from basically the 20 and 21 surplus.

That account gets replenished every year if there is a surplus in excess of our 17% policy.

Our policy says that goes here.

So this always has the potential to grow.

And then the surplus, as the mayor referenced, will be part of our year-end closeout that Mr. Cullinan will be presenting in November, December.

Okay, so I don't know, do you all have a preference of what section you want to start in?

Do we want to talk about things that are already filled in?

Mr. Mayor?

I was thinking we would go through the expenditure items, particularly the ones we've already

Okay, so I'll pop down anything that's in blue and in italics.

These were items that were recommendations of the city manager's office and they were things that we showed to you last week.

Again, these are at your discretion.

but they are have been calculated in this total so there were two changes to agencies that was basically just a housekeeping item between to correct a difference between the actual scoring and reporting with the vibrant community report and what was actually in the budget the housing coordinator position upgrade

was one that Mr. Sanders talked to you about.

There was the recommendation for funding to restore funding to a buyer in procurement, and there was the need to replace

at least one vehicle in the sheriff's office.

Normally this would be a one-time expenditure, but the reason we put it in this column is that in response to COVID, vehicle replacement was an area that we've really sort of cut back.

Um, moving on.

Yes, ma'am.

One thing, one question I have is where, where is Ryan's position?

Was, is that still in the budget?

It is.

Okay.

So it's funded.

It's just, we have to work on hiring it.

Correct.

That's right.

So right now we are in office of two.

When we hire Ryan's position that would give us an so we have a systems analyst myself.

That's it.

At the moment, Ryan's position would give us a another budget analyst.

So, Ms.

Hamill, I don't have any issues with the city manager amendments, rows 40 through 44.

Anyone else?

I'm fine with them.

Okay.

Michael or Sena, are you all cool with those?

Just out of curiosity, why was Festival of Cultures cut back some?

It was just a difference between what was in the report and what was actually put in the budget.

I had gotten a higher number and their allotment was actually smaller.

Okay, so one-time considerations.

Again, these were ones that we talked about last year.

These are one-time kinds of expenses, which is why the recommendation was if you were interested in approving those that they would sort of go in the surplus column with the exception of the SAFER grant.

But the DSSS Department of Social Services, we've been notified that their current software system that processes foster care payments is no longer going to be supported and has to be replaced.

So that that 150 would be a one-time cost.

There will be some ongoing annual maintenance, but this is sort of the one-time outlay.

Procurement e-sourcing software, that's a similar thing.

We've been using a pilot program.

You know, up until COVID, we were, all of that process was purely manual and we found out through COVID that, you know, the advancements of a lot of other localities that are doing that online is a very necessity or necessary thing.

And so we've added that as one time.

two additional buses to increase or decrease the route wait time for Route 6 as an equity initiative was added.

Ms.

So this the original number that we've been talking about for the 15 firefighters was roughly 1.9.

I actually bumped that up to adjust for the mid-year increase and the potential merit that's in this proposed budget.

So that's how I got to the 2.1.

I think the way this works is that, and if anybody from the, if the chief is on or Mr. Rogers, Mike Rogers from the fire department's on, they can correct me, but I believe that we, the full freight comes on beginning in March of 2023.

so that would be three months in in 2020 FY 2023 and then we get the full year in FY 24.

Okay and that total in

Michael Payne, you might know, I know you've mentioned this.

Is this the total that we're sort of, we were granted that we've got to figure out how to do the 2.1?

Okay.

All right.

Great.

We got more, but we got more.

But so what this number is, it is the salary and benefits of those 15 firefighters.

So the grant originally covered them, I believe it was for three years.

Likewise.

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Diane

So we have another section, not to skip the school project, but to just kind of keep this conversation going.

If you don't mind, I'm going to skip down to this internal capacity section because this really speaks more.

This is some follow-up from your retreat over the weekend and some things that we talked about during that time.

Yes, in part because one of the things that it accomplishes is

So again, some of these, when we first sent the sheet to you, if you recall, there were no numbers attached.

These were just ideas that came out of the retreat.

Many of you, when you sent your responses back to us, had, you know, give us a cost, what's the estimate?

So we did our best this morning.

We took a look at this.

And that's why these numbers are in blue, because these are numbers we're providing.

So the CAD additional funding, the 30 minute routes is roughly $2 million.

Yes, basically this was the conversation that we had in regards to having some funding available for CAT to use as a match to any of the infrastructure and transportation dollars that come.

This was a conversation that both Galvin and I have had multiple times about wanting to position CAT in a way that they will be able to respond.

Thank you for that.

I have not looked in detail through the spreadsheet that was sent, the separate email that came out about CAT that Counselor Payne initiated, I guess.

And honestly, it's just a stab at this moment because, again, this would be what we would rely on for the local match dollars that would be required for whatever we're able to secure.

We have no way of knowing at this moment what our share of that would potentially be when we would get it.

But the prudent action that you would be taking by doing this would just ensure that we could respond.

So it's basically like a transit fund.

Yes, exactly.

Mr. Divers is on.

It's an entry level position.

I mean...

You know, competitive salaries are always tough.

I was making sure it's an enough being budgeted to it.

I mean, I believe you need it, especially with overseeing the chat program and everything.

And I know we've talked a number of times about how that takes time.

Um, and

It's what we've been paying people.

I mean, that's a bigger question.

If you're good with that number, I'm good with that number.

Okay, so another thing we talked about over the weekend at the retreat was the idea of a grants or an intergovernmental specialist.

We also had talked about potential of ARP funding.

We haven't really had an opportunity to research that yet with Mr. Cullinan, but if we were to add that to the budget as an ongoing grant,

position, then roughly this is what we think the salary and benefits would cost to acquire a person who could do the work that was what we talked about at the retreat.

Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, this is amount that was put in and Ms.

Sure, so over your sessions in the weekend, there were multiple discussions of equity in many different areas and places and spaces.

Prior to this particular moment, it was not a line item funding amount for the Office of Equity and Inclusion, which was a office that was really drummed up through a 2019 study that was done and was presented to council.

The funding that is allocated there would provide support for team members, including a community health worker.

That community health worker would be tasked with providing support for housing navigation, specifically for individuals who are unhoused.

So that is addressing some of you all's concerns about making sure

that we're providing support for our unhoused individuals.

Further, as we discussed during your weekend session, it would provide an opportunity for training, not only training that would be available and open to the community, such as a Racial Equity Institute groundwater training,

But also trainings that would include visitable, which is an ADA hospitality training.

So we're not learning the nuts and bolts of how many inches you need.

It's how to make sure that we're treating our community with excellence.

It would include training such as

and intersectional allyship for racial justice training, another training for exploring racial liberation.

All of the trainings I've chosen have deep meaning and would move the organization forward in their thought process and mission for racial equity, diversity, and inclusion.

So that is what that funding amount would cover is, again, some additional staffing to work on those

Ms.

Marshall, I know that you're sort of putting this together.

The retreat was just Saturday, so I really appreciate you getting this together.

Any sense of how many new people would be hired out of this?

It has space for two individuals.

The way that it would work would be, again, that community health worker and outreach specialist that would address many of you all's concerns.

In addition, I've built it in with the consideration of hiring an individual that would work with the

Charlottesville, sorry, my brain just died, Charlottesville Community Care Team, you just witnessed it, and that person would be a self-sufficiency supervisor.

Again, that program really focused in on individuals who are unhoused or individuals who are on extremely low incomes and are finding difficulty

with navigating services and navigating opportunities.

And that really was bolstered.

And we'll talk about that a little later in a different presentation.

But as you all are aware, you received a petition from individuals who are currently unhoused requesting support for housing.

Those individuals were gracious enough to meet with a group of community members, specifically in homelessness provision.

that included our director of social services as well as our director for the office of human rights and one of the things that really came out of it from those members of our community our neighbors and our friends is that especially being on house they have a lot of difficulty navigating navigating their opportunities remembering a phone number because maybe their bag gets stolen

So they really need that support and it's something that thankfully our Office of Human Rights, Office of Human Services and Department of Social Services are already providing without an extra person without extra hands.

This would give them some extra hands because that work is really increased.

Ms.

Marshall, I am all for this.

And that is absolutely correct.

And they are still doing excellent work, but like everyone, they're still experiencing the same staffing attrition.

And so they really narrowed their focus to making sure they're providing excellent services and excellent care, which does mean that sometimes you will need to pull from running a nonprofit myself, you have to pull back on some other items.

So we're not, we absolutely would, I am again, a former nonprofit CEO,

I'm never in there to duplicate efforts, but I am really focused on making sure that we're also providing the supports needed for our teams on the ground working in homelessness in our nonprofit community who may just simply need an extra hand.

So, for example, the community care team as a whole, that perspective really came about because Region 10 unfortunately has a hard stop if an individual

is not experiencing a mental health crisis.

They can still be unhoused, they can still be extremely low income, but their funding is very narrowly focused for their expertise and that makes absolute sense.

So what we hope that we're doing is working to provide support in those gaps and holes

until perhaps it can be filled in a different way.

But until that work can be done, we don't want members of our community to not have access to items and tools that they should have access to or to not feel as if they have, you know, a helping hand to allow them to move forward.

So we would always evaluate whether or not we're duplicating efforts.

But what we know now, again, is that

you know the silver tsunami and the great resignation has affected everyone from nonprofits to corporates and so you know really just thinking about stepping in to make sure that we're getting those warm connections those hot handoffs to our experts for them to be able to do it and quite honestly loosening up a little bit of time of some of our current staff like Mr. Niemeyer to be able to do the work that you all really want him to be doing but he is absolutely one of the people that would go and

give his own tent to an individual.

Same thing for our Home to Hope team.

They're doing excellent work with individuals who also happen to be unhoused and extremely low income, but we know that you all want them doing more in their particular level of expertise.

So very mindful of duplication of work.

You're absolutely correct, Councilmember McGill, and No Wrong Door is something I'm very intimately familiar with.

Along with No Wrong Door, there's also hub models that utilize community health workers.

Again, the idea is No Wrong Door.

The idea is providing a hot handoff so that person would have the time to say, you know what, let me go with you to social services.

You know what, let me go with you to the Haven and introduce you to Ms.

Nancy.

Okay, moving on.

So the budget office capacity, this is something that I am grateful for that recommendation that came out of this weekend.

We have some exciting stuff we want to do.

And this would certainly provide us with the capacity to do so.

This number that is shown here is slightly higher than what we gave to you previously.

That's just because we went back and realigned the actual numbers.

So that is a slight change from what

was on the sheet that you got originally.

And just to be clear, my thought was not that this is something that the city manager would be able to spend on his or her own initiative without consulting with council.

Simply that with consultation with council, there's money there that's unallocated that the new city manager could say, this is the direction I want to be able to go.

I want to be able to go now, not next fiscal year.

Yeah, Mr. Mayor, I think it's a great idea.

I really like it.

And yeah, I would agree with with Councillor Pinkston and maybe we'll get clarity as we go through the rest of the items.

But I would go in through it.

This would be the first area I would look to make a reduction from if we're reaching with our other priorities sort of

needing to find money from other areas, but certainly open to the idea, but not settled on that amount.

Just one comment there.

Just keep in mind because we really aren't making decisions on that column.

We can make that column, you know, as big a minus as we want to, to just throw some ideas out so that when we do get to November, December, we can go back through this kind of process.

So we don't have to settle on an amount tonight.

Right.

So those are the ones that we could assign numbers to for your consideration.

Then there's also some of these other sort of bigger ideas that are kind of in the works.

And those are the things such as climate action planning, affordable housing capacity,

the Marcus Alert System, Collective Bargaining, the Wage and Compensation Study.

With Collective Bargaining, the money has been set aside for the consultant, $685,000 or something like that.

Maybe not all of that will be used, but some of it can be used for

for training internally, getting our managers ready for the bargaining process.

Some of it may be allocated for the actual result of a negotiated contract with some of the units.

The compensation study, there still remains $685,000 for that.

I believe the amount, correct me if I'm wrong, Ashley.

or Chrissy, but I think that's what we left.

We split the count.

It was 1.2 that was in it.

But anyway, the compensation study actually says that's correct.

The compensation study will yield some additional costs in terms of identifying positions that are not now competitive in

recommend to us an increment necessary to bring certain positions up to the competitive level.

And that will play hand in hand with collective bargaining, because that will bring us to a certain level.

And then the bargaining process would certainly seek to add on to that.

And you have no way of predicting it.

So, Mr. Rogers, if I understand you then, so you're saying that for rows 80 and 79, we have money sort of not only set aside, but contracts or studies or whatever sort of either on...

going or about to start or whatever to get some really good answers to those questions and it sounds like there's even a little potentially extra money in there to use if we have to like partially fund a position or something to help enact some of those pieces is that correct and then maybe for the next budget cycle we could because as you say we won't really know

That's correct.

The collected wage and compensation study is underway.

We've had a couple of sessions on that.

The team is working and we expect that to take at least nine months, maybe 10, for us to come back and report to you what the result is.

of the collective bargaining.

We just received the bids last week for those that we are looking at those responses now to select a consultant to work with us in shaping the collective bargaining ordinance to bring to you.

And as I promised, that should be within

I'd say 90 days from, I think, March, Mr. Payne pinned me down on that one.

So I think in June, latter part of June, we should have a clear path of where we're going with that.

And that's funded with currently with money that had been set aside.

And so we're not worried about the end of the year.

I'm sorry.

So my sense then is for item 79 and 80, we could just leave those blank at this point.

That's what I'm hearing.

Yeah, I think that's right.

I mean, we will know by the time we get to fall, we will have some indication on 80 in terms of what improvements we should be making to our overall compensation system, how much that will cost, and you consider that at that time.

and I think collective bargaining, once you get into the process, if it goes well and we're able to reach an agreement, I think it will have an impact on 24.

So while we're looking at that scene there, Marcus Alert System, other criminal justice reform, one of the questions that I had asked in this section was, are we moving forward to being able to comply with federal law as it pertains to the 988 suicide hotline that's going to be required effective July 1, 2022?

If so, where does that appear in the budget?

Yes, sir.

So I reached out to Mr. Saxton, who's our Executive Director of our Emergency Communications Center.

For 988 specifically, which was where your question lied, it's important to remember that that will end up being a regional effort because we have a regional ECC.

The bad news is while we know there will be some associated costs for the team to plan and build the process where 911 callers experiencing a mental health crisis are first screened and then if they match with 988 criteria routed to 988, we don't have that number yet.

And this again is coming from I appreciate Mr. Saxton being very quick and responsive on it.

What we're finding across the state is that

If you were not a locality that has piloted this work, everybody is feeling their way.

And I wish that I could tell you I needed $500,000 to get it off the ground or $250,000.

But unfortunately at this point, I cannot do that with any accuracy.

What I can share though is within CPD's budget, there has been some funding set aside for more community policing aspects.

And I've spoken with Acting Chief Durette to talk about utilizing perhaps that place and space in their budget to begin a co-responder model.

And there's multiple models to choose from, some bringing in civilians, some civilian and sworn.

The model that it appears that our counterparts in Albemarle are going with has sworn officers, individuals from fire, as well as civilians.

So there's multiple ways to do it.

Either way, you do have to end up designating some time and some funding allocations towards it.

I was thinking the same thing, Mayor.

I was thinking that we

might want to look at how much Albemarle County has put in for the SeaTac, the joint venture with Region 10 that they had recently announced.

Any idea of even the order of magnitude?

Right, but as I see now, we're not sure of what it is.

Well, I'm fine with putting in something that seems like a reasonable starting point.

I guess part of the question is, Ms.

Marshall had suggested that there may be some money in the police department budget that is already kind of perhaps going in this direction.

In which case the question is how much more might they reasonably expect to need if they were going to go that way?

Or to put it slightly differently, would there be a notion that let's say we don't get it ready by July 1, but maybe we get it ready by September 1 or something to say at that point we will come back with a plan that we've worked out with ECC, with Albemarle County,

put the whole package together.

Now we've got a number.

We don't have the plan here in April, but we'll have the plan by the fall.

And let's make sure we put some money there so that it's available if we need it.

Are you suggesting like $150,000 or something?

I don't know what I'm suggesting.

Ms.

I saw the police folks were on this call.

45 what?

Okay.

So this was part of what we talked about, the reallocation of removing SWAT, changing kind of our negotiations, our crisis response and building out this community response

line item and group that would eventually start to build in kind of like what the county model is doing of this mixed use assisting Region 10 and other community groups to provide assistance.

This is also funding like what we said.

It funds our crisis negotiation teams, further training on that.

It helps to cover any CIT costs that we need for officers, any further education on that line.

It's also a funding source

We get a lot of these TDO transports and TDOs that ECOs that we have to sit with that can sometimes take days.

So Albemarle County has put aside $143,260 for a community response.

That's, I believe, I mean, I know I'm planning on meeting with Lisa Bites.

Right.

You and I are both going to be meeting with her.

Yeah.

But that's the whole, I believe that's the how to start

Well, I'm wondering if the county has said $143,000 and we can reasonably infer from the fact that they've got a number that's actually specified with six significant figures that they've done at least some thinking

on it.

Would it be reasonable for us to say, with the same degree of admitted lack of certainty and admitted lack of specificity, supposing we said $100,000 in that box, and that will at least give us something to focus our thinking on when it gets time to figure out more specifically what the plan is?

Yeah.

Ashley points out that the county money has been set aside for a partnership with the DSS Police and Fire.

No, sir, outside of the fact that it is set aside that $143,260 as a one-time cost sort of to spend that work up.

It is important to note that that cost is different than Councilmember McGill mentioned the CTAC, which is Crisis Intervention.

Ooh, I forget the rest of the acronym, but it is a location where an individual who is

currently experiencing mental health crisis can go instead of an ER during a ECO.

Typically those individuals would be noncombative, you know,

And at this point in my understanding, and CPD team, please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the proposed CTAC would have limited hours and accept one individual in crisis at a time.

So I just wanted to make sure that I was expressing that those are two separate projects that do two separate things.

But it appears for their specific Marcus Alert focused co-responder model

Thank you for that clarification.

I was not clear on that yet.

Again, I haven't had a chance to talk to Lisa about this fully.

So I think a minimum of 100,000 needs to go there because

I would just suggest at least exploring whether that can be done with money that's already been allocated to CPD in terms of are there any cost savings from vacant positions that won't be filled that could cover that amount.

And then the only other thing would be

as an amount, but I think, you know, we would be better positioned if we're thinking about are there ways that we can do that with already allocated money to CPD, given that it seems like there's going to be a number of positions that you are just going to build, but.

Okay.

I think it's going to need both CPDs as well as additional beyond it.

Regretfully,

We're going to have to be building something.

So much stuff is over here right now, and in order to move it over here, we have to build this first for these people here, not to fall off a cliff.

Well, so let me just say one of my least favorite parts of the budget process is the notion that we would suddenly come up with a brand new program on the last night before we're going to pass the budget.

And I think we recognize the complexity of it.

And we recognize that it's going to be interconnected with the county and their efforts and with ECC and their efforts and everybody else.

and it's certainly something that we're going to need to spend some serious time on.

So, Mr. Mayor, I say 100 grand, 100,000.

Vice Mayor Wade, what do you think?

Oh, I'm sorry.

Okay.

We'll go with 100 and figure that the CPD has already said they've got 45,000 that might have something to do with this.

Okay.

Mr. Mayor, under the category of having your least favorite thing to happen on the last night of the budget,

In this internal capacity area, I had a conversation with Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders this afternoon and he's been working on with VDOT and the projects we have going there and working on our capacity with project managers or the lack of them or insufficient number of project managers in

and he came today having gotten to a conclusion that he needs assistance to move that project along.

You have set it up and I am ready.

Chrissy, if you would take your slides down and let me pull this up just so that I can address climate action, housing, and now public works engineering as priorities.

Are you able to see that screen?

Yes.

So just wanting to give you the details to go along with consideration for climate action and for housing since that too was a part of the conversation on Saturday.

recognizing the discomfort that exists with just asking to set aside money without any idea of how it would be used.

Did spend some time with the team trying to identify what some various thoughts could be.

I'm still asking that we not be held to picking or choosing specifically from this list, just more or less offering that there are options

as to what we could do and wanted to give you samples to consider what allocations could be made and how they could be utilized.

But also wanting to frame that the work session on Monday on affordable housing and the work session that you'll have on the 18th on climate action

Both are aimed at trying to make sure that we are all on the same page singing from the same sheet music.

So that in itself, it doesn't necessarily work for needing to approve a budget next week.

But again, I wanted to give you enough to consider as you look at being able to set something up for an investment in climate and an investment in housing.

So under climate, these are some examples of climate action projects that the team has offered up.

Home Energy Audits is something that we're doing right now.

We could increase those and do more.

The next item would be a pilot streetlight conversion.

It would be to test the notion of what we can do with the lighting choices that we are making in the streetlight section, make changes there, and then demonstrate that that is something that we could roll out in a larger, bigger, impactful way at some point in the future.

Consider offering a community supplement, which would be more or less an incentive to individuals who are purchasing EV vehicles over standard vehicles.

Also looking at incentivizing for solar integrations would be again a stipend of some kind to households for choosing to integrate solar into their home operations.

And then the other option would be we are currently, as I mentioned in the report on Monday,

moving forward with the feasibility study for the transit side of the operations at CAT.

But the climate side would not be an item that could be funded in a similar fashion.

So funds could be set aside for us to study the pupil side and see if there was an opportunity to align both of those as part of the consideration for what a conversion of the fleet or different alternatives to fueling.

those various buses on both sides of the cat house would be a chance to look at that.

So that I'm not necessarily committing you to anything.

I would say to you that $150,000 in the climate space would pull a couple of these items off that list if you wanted to consider it for that perspective.

On the housing side, we know that we're going to have compliance management needs, as I shared with you in the presentation on Monday.

There could potentially be a need for software.

We want to look at extending current software programs, so there might be adding a module as an option.

We haven't been able to start that process yet, so we don't really know what that would cost, but funding is set aside for that purpose would allow us to do that and execute within this next fiscal year.

I share with you in the Saturday conversation that we do need to consider some intervention in the homeless space.

So looking for innovation projects and being able to do some feasibility studies on those would be something that would be available for us.

as well as what I would call a housing first gap analysis.

We know within the continuum of care that exists for Charlottesville, there are gaps in multiple places.

That has been basically reminded to us over and over in the various conversations we've been hosting in the Homeless Rumble that Deputy City Manager Marshall has coordinated.

and this will give us a chance to analyze some of those and come up with potential recommendations on how even the housing investments that we are running today as a program, anything could potentially be shifted to do something specific to closing that gap.

So I'm offering for your consideration there 175,000 could do one or more of these items.

Right.

And because I am a fundraiser in my past life, I will ask for more money.

So because of the setup that Mr. Rogers shared with you as to hot off the press news, adding that I actually need to prioritize public works engineering over both of these at this moment.

not to dismiss them as important.

We need to invest in our climate action planning as well as our housing programs.

But as Mr. Rogers described, our engineering division is in need of a reboot.

I've been spending a lot of time looking at where things are in that space today.

They too, the leadership team, as well as the entire engineering division has been digging deep to be able to bring back to me

a presentation of what would it take to get our transportation planning, project management, house in order.

The critical need is capacity.

We need more people in that space.

These are the three positions that would be of critical importance.

They check multiple boxes, which is why I focused on them over any other consideration that was offered.

We need just project management capacity, period.

We need more hands to do the projects that we currently have in our inventory.

We need a project manager dedicated to ADA.

We are not doing a good job in the ADA space.

We know this.

We've known this for quite some time.

We have a transition plan that tells us we need to do more.

We have to do better.

This would be a chance to check in a considerable way how we can do more with being able to set aside funds today, which you are doing in the CIP, but not necessarily being able to deploy them as we need.

This would give us the opportunity to dedicate capacity to ensuring that that money is moving and is not sitting.

And then we really, really need assistance with the financial management of all these federal funds and state funds that are coming in to the city for us to do these projects.

Just being upfront with you as to what's coming, there is going to be a presentation to you, I imagine, Mayor Snook, that offering of a special work session for more time is probably going to be focused on our VDOT program.

in the very near future.

We're headed into a facilitated conversation with our district to look at rebooting the size and operations as they exist today.

It will call for actually potentially canceling projects, turning some projects over to VDOT, and the team keeping some other projects.

All of this is in the vein of getting us ready for what is coming forward with the infrastructure and transportation program that the federal government has funded

If we don't get ourselves together now, we will not be ready for that.

And Councilor Payne will be very upset when all that money passes us as he's continued to remind me that we've got to get ready.

This is how we get ready.

So a way to frame what you just said about the engineering and anything having to do with project managers I support is that these basically are unlocking, this investment unlocks a lot of other potential investment in our community by the federal government.

It is, but first and foremost, it's about making sure that we can do better at what we're already attempting to do.

But I think it's really important for the community to know that if we, I mean, all three of these buckets are really important in, you know, climate and housing, we've heard lots about.

and this new one about engineering, I think, you know, Councilor Payne is right on.

And it'll be in a big way.

So this 350 will be subtracted from back to that spreadsheet that Chrissy was showing us before be subtracted from that.

Was it nine?

So I'm going to take I'm going to take this down, Chrissy, you can pull that up.

And if you captured what I shared, what I offered, then that'll be a place to start, I guess.

Okay, so can we backtrack for just a second?

Collective bargaining and wage compensation, we were at zero.

I think so.

I'm not seeing your screen.

Yeah.

Climate action is 150.

Housing, housing 175.

And then adding engineering, public works engineering at 325.

And I am in full agreement with one, I mean, we've definitely been hearing about, we've heard about ADA issues for my entire time on council, which I'll be, it's only been a little over two years, so it's not that big of, but additionally, with the Build Back Better money, we have to be in position for this.

It was made very clear that we have to have our house in order to apply for this stuff.

And this is, you know, some of this money is 100% federal match money.

We don't have to match anything.

It's coming in and taking care of bridges that could cost us $10, $20 million.

And so I am 100% behind this.

And I know it's not

And likewise, I would be in support of all three of those areas for the same reasons.

You know, these are the nuts and bolts, we just have to do well.

And I'm thinking not even of just, you know, the bipartisan infrastructure law, but even, you know, we're allocating money in out years to

You know, the sidewalks.

How am I blank?

Stribbling Avenue.

Stribbling Avenue sidewalks.

Well, that's great, but if we don't have the project managers to do it, so what?

So I think these are just necessary.

Yeah, I'm in support of it, so.

No, I think it should stay in there.

I'm just saying that I do believe that we will be able to have ARPA funding for it.

But the other piece is ARPA funding is only going to be for a year or so.

So if it's a position that we end up wanting to keep permanently,

Okay, this will do that.

Okay.

Okay, any other questions on any of these?

I am.

Thank you.

That's correct.

So moving on, before we

move up to the CIP portion.

These were a couple other things that came out of the retreat.

We talked about them as a team and thought that these were more of sort of future capacity building or future initiatives that really don't have dollars assigned to them per se at this point.

But again, these were some of the things that came out of your retreat.

So we just wanted to pop these up and make sure you agreed with those.

Revisiting the VCF process and reporting was one we talked about.

Future funding needs for CAT, Housing and Climate Action.

Again, that's just sort of those big picture ideas.

I think Sam's helped you kind of narrow down some dollars in this budget for that.

Future phases of public housing redevelopment.

Reconfiguration for Walker.

That's another topic we've been talking about in conjunction with the Beaufort Project.

in addition to additional funding for homelessness efforts and the solutions and measurements.

Yeah, I mean, it feels like with the support row 89 that what Mr. Sanders spoke to earlier does kind of get at that same for row 86.

I feel like we're more thinking about that row 87 in terms of future public housing redevelopment, you know, I'll just have to wait and see what those numbers look like.

But I don't think we're at a point where we can consider them now.

And I would, I would just add when it comes to the future phases of public housing redevelopment, there's not only West Haven, which is going to be, you know, the big one over 100 million dollars, you know, doesn't necessarily means that all is city money.

But there's also planning for parallel track for Mickey Drive and other areas.

how those could be renovated and improved along with the current projects underway.

So I don't know what year we slip it in, but the biggest thing to me is that as we're thinking through the revenue side and the expenditure side, that we're leaving enough fiscal room where

We haven't shut off our possibility to start planning for those expenses when they come due.

And I think we're much better positioned than we were even a month ago on that count.

The only comment I would offer is that I hope we would not be sitting there thinking we're going to wait until we're finished with the Buford project before we start thinking about the Walker project.

I would hope we would perhaps be able to tee it up so that at the very least could be sort of a continuous, okay, we finished this one and now we're moving right into the construction of the next.

That's a really good point, Mayor.

Okay.

So do you want to talk about the school project next or do you want to talk about agencies and nonprofits?

Okay.

So, again, these were based on comments.

We've heard things from the retreat, things that you all provided us.

This is a list of potential changes in funding, and we'll just leave.

I don't know if you want to go one by one.

Should we start from the top?

Sure.

Yeah.

And I had suggested $75,000 extra.

And the argument, I want to sort of sketch out for the public what I put into a very detailed memorandum for other counselors that I don't feel it is appropriate for us or particularly a good idea for us to try to redo the work of the VCF committee.

They have

spent probably thousands of hours collectively to analyze more than 50 grant applications and to make some very fine detailed assessments of them.

And so I am inclined, I would even say strongly inclined to go with their recommendation unless it meets a couple of criteria, either number one

that is something that it's a policy decision that's kind of uniquely ours that we feel we need to affirm or reaffirm.

And the second is if it looks like simply that there was a mistake.

And with AHIP,

The one thing that it appears is because their funding, they were deemed a 2A organization.

If you'll recall, 1A is getting 85% and 1B is getting 65% and 2B is getting 35% and 2A, there's only one 2A organization and that's AHIP and they were being given 35% of their requested allocation

and I just felt that we ought to, at the very least, make them comparable to the 1B.

In both cases, they are sort of one judgment away from being the top, but they would not deserve to be at the bottom.

So if we bump them up to 65%, that would add about $75,000 to their allocation.

That's one of the very few times in all of this that I'm recommending

And I would add that they do an important piece of work that nobody else seems to be doing.

And that's an important thing too.

And keep people in the house.

I mean, the most affordable house is the one you're already in.

Okay, I'm good with that.

I'm good with that for AHIP, and I know we'll get into it, but I do disagree philosophically on

the other items as we get to them, but we'll get to those.

Well, so we'll get to one.

Sena?

Just, you know, I mean, this is, again, a good reason, though, as to why we need to be putting the housing funding in one bucket.

Because AHIP also does get money from the CDBG process, I believe, or the home process.

and also the CAF process.

And are we planning to do that?

I'm just bringing that up in regards.

I know that AHIP is the only place that's doing this right now.

And I'm not against AHIP as an organization.

I'm not against any of our nonprofits as organizations.

I just want to make sure

Yeah, when we clean that up, that'll be a good thing in terms of having it all come through the housing.

Okay, so are we agreed on that 75?

Sounds like it.

Yes.

Okay, FAR Internship Program.

Yeah.

Yes.

Same here.

And I do not for basically because of the reason I just said, but, you know, it's interesting to me that the FAR internship program

Every year, all three years I've been on council, they have felt that they did not get an appropriate award out of the VCF process and their approach has been to come lobby us directly

and I don't know why it is because, of course, I haven't sat on the committees.

I don't know why it is that every year, it doesn't seem to matter who the people are on the committee, on the VCF committee, but they're always giving the FAR internship program a much lower ranking and

Yeah, so I'm with the mayor on this one.

Well, and I'll just briefly say, you know, how I'm thinking of it and approaching it is, you know, we began changes to the Vibrant Community Fund process a few years ago.

We all acknowledged those changes were incomplete and unfinished, but we haven't gotten around to doing a deep dive.

And I know there's been a lot of

turnover with the lead people who are working on that.

And I do think that it should broadly guide us, which I think it has and will.

But we are ultimately the final decision makers.

And I think it can be within our good judgment to make some changes here and there.

Yeah.

And I think that the work that they do

and some of the other ones is really hard to measure when a building is done or when a widget is done.

But the type of work that they do is a little bit hard to measure.

And I would like to have a voice in the parameters that we give the committee to judge.

And I know that that's something that we will be doing hopefully over the next year.

I mean, I would like to figure out what is going on with the application.

Again, the whole Vibrant Community process, this is just kind of highlighting every year, this happened last year as well, and we all voted to give FAR the extra money.

Um, again, we don't see the applications and this is not, and that's, we have so many people who are sitting here taking their time and putting into these applications, um, and to review them.

And I just, we need some things.

I am definitely going to vote to increase it for FAR because I do believe in what they are doing

Their program has been, I believe it is, I mean, they helped get a lot of community engagement.

I don't know if it's just not being documented well, how they're measuring this.

I'm not sure what's happening here.

And I'm really hoping that next year we do not find ourselves in the same situation again.

and so I just I know staff has been more than happy to give technical support on grant applications and I'm really hoping that people take our staff up on that in the future and make sure that they follow the recommendations of the technical assistance

so that we can, yeah, I'm voting to fund it, but yeah, something's going on in this process.

So they had asked for that program for $20,100.

The present allocation would give them $7,035.

That's at 35%.

if they were to get the 65% that we have suggested.

In other words, effectively to say that instead of 2B, we should consider them either a 2A or a 1B.

That would be $13,065.

I haven't done the math if we were to decide that they were to be equivalent of a 1A, but it would be roughly $17,000.

So you would make them effectively a 1A?

How do other folks feel about that?

Okay.

Bingo.

Okay.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

We're missing a C in the middle there.

They have asked for $200,000 and that effectively is the rent that they are having to pay that

Apparently, well, actually, it's not.

It's more than the rent that they're having to pay.

We found the lease.

How much is that rent?

The lease does not expire until November.

In terms of impact on FY23 budget, we would be covering them from November to June.

I believe that's $166,000 for the first year.

And then the next year, I think it is at $200,000.

I don't have a lease in front of me right now.

But they are leasing from the foundation and they had a five-year lease with a five-year option.

In addition to the 23 allocation, a decision has to be made now or later in terms of whether we're going to commit to the five year or whether we're going to allow an option if we're permitted under law to do so to go the additional five years and how that is done.

I would recommend that we fund them in 23

to pick up their lease from expiration until the end of our fiscal year and give us some time to work through a few of the mechanics in terms of whether the money goes to the foundation or the Heritage Center and how that works out because there's also the separate discussion

of the long-term outstanding relationship of the foundation with the city in terms of the initial financial support given by the city that was supposed to be addressed somehow, and that has not come to a conclusion yet.

So I was talking with Lisa about that, and I think we need some more time.

And I would agree with that, and I have two

So just to be clear on city manager's recommendation, is it that we would basically take eight months of their lease, basically November through next June?

Yes.

And the base amount for all 12 months is $200,000?

That's my record.

I'm not looking at the lease right now.

No, I don't have it nearby, I'm sorry.

I think Ms.

Marshall has been helping me with some calculations and I believe that

By her calculations, the cost was slightly under 200 for a full year.

So if we're looking at eight months instead of 12 months on your recommendation, that would be $133,333.

I believe so.

Yeah, I heard you mention 164, 166 at first, you know, so maybe that that $40,000 roughly difference is the difference between

eight months and 12 months.

So why don't we just say 175 for now and, you know.

And yes, part of this being then a larger discussion too on the properties that we lease and the properties that we own that we lease out and the incomes that we're getting in versus the incomes we are paying to other properties.

needs to all be on the table together.

That's coming.

Yep.

Well, I guess I'm saying 175 alongside the vice mayor just because there seems some ambiguity.

Yeah.

But like Mr. Rogers said, they're going to come up with a precise number.

Yeah, so it's kind of a place.

Good enough tonight to see where our totals are.

Or we could say 150 if you'd prefer.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, I'll be honest with you.

I'm looking at the remaining decisions we have to make, and I'm looking at the remaining balance we have that shows us now being $10,000 in the red.

We've got, according to my calculations, perhaps another 45%.

Yeah, so I thought that this $175,000 or this amount was going to come from the Board of Strategic Initiative.

We have to make a decision if it's coming from the strategic... Well, I would suggest allocating it perhaps from that pool of money and then using year-end surplus to replenish that account.

I agree, Michael.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay, it...

It occurs to me looking at this, by the way, that the 17,000 number we put in for the FAR internship program doesn't take into account that our present budget already allocates them a little over $6,000, a little over $7,000.

I think it's $7,035 at the moment.

So it's effectively 0.5 times their

times their budget.

Yeah.

Okay.

Times their ask.

There we go.

Okay.

So that moves us next to Piedmont CASA additional funding.

and I have noted in my own comments the same logic I've expressed before that I'm not inclined to second guess what the committee has done.

And I say that even though I've been a financial supporter of Piedmont Casa as well as most of these other organizations as well.

I want to respect the decision that has been made.

What do other folks say?

Yeah.

I mean, I'm in support of giving them some additional funding.

You know, again, this is I don't know the particulars, but I know the work that they do and that it is good for matching funds.

So but I'm in support of an amount.

I'm not

And I agree with the vice mayor and I think $15,000 was a figure I had seen in an email.

You know, looking at their organizational structure, I believe they had a brand new executive director who was coming on board during the beginning of the vibrant community process.

I don't know who did their application this year.

and what was the percentage they got last year?

See, I can find that.

Well, do we know what, I guess, the consensus of the group is now?

I know that even just a small amount of

whether it comes from the Vibrant Community Grant or whether or not we find a small amount in ARPA or something like that can just this is this is killing the processes.

I know this is just destroying the process.

This process.

Well, I think it's, you know, Juan, what would you propose or Michael?

Yeah, yeah, I'm fine.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking was 4,000.

I didn't think, yeah, even for, I mean, I was just thinking like 4,000, like we did last year.

So that'd be $3,500.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

So if it's eligible for our money, you know, I'm going to be a big one.

We redo the vibrant community funds that we need to support programs like this so that we won't be spending money on the other end.

I'm supportive of funding them with some ARPA money.

We've got the comment, revisit with ARPA, that's appropriate.

Yeah, okay.

Do we have the capacity to support $25,000 additional trees?

How many more? 50.

I have no idea.

I think that's a different inquiry.

I wondered the same thing, but I assume that's also including the labor and everything else to put them in and to tend to them and make sure that they don't

But they've been asking for $100,000 in trees for several years, right?

I frankly don't remember.

That could be.

I think that was and it got cut during COVID.

It used to be.

In 2019, it was $100,000.

2020 wasn't COVID, but 21 was our COVID budget.

I don't know how to ascertain that tonight.

Is that something I doubt Mr. Sanders knows the answer to that, but maybe he does.

I wanted to be able to give you the answer, but no, I do not.

I'm looking.

I did check.

I don't see anyone from Parks and Rec on that could speak to it as well.

What's the question?

So that's in the CIP.

The tree planting goes in the CIP.

Additional funds, yes.

Okay.

Then CRHA additional funding.

I'm not sure what that's an ask for.

Is it that

I'm not sure either.

My two requests related to CRHA were the reimbursement for the pilot program and then moving to make them a contractual agency.

I don't know what specifically that refers to.

Yeah.

And that's what, and maybe that's what, maybe that was my comment, but I am in

I had in mind what Michael was referring to.

So maybe we don't need 31.

I can also add for your, just for some consideration, it'll be a separate action we'll have to bring back to council, but in regards to the rental assistance program, there is $1.1 million still sitting available at this time because CRHA has been unable to spend it due to the lower max rent allocations.

So if you were to consider increasing because they're going to be receiving $900,000 already as a part of the CIP, that would take that up to $2 million, you would have the room to actually increase the max rent to 150%.

Okay.

and the only we don't need to get into it now.

Okay, so the next line, add CRHA as a contractual agency.

I agree with that.

CRHA is its own unique entity on this.

I mean, it's public housing.

It's federal, state, local.

Well, I think we get into a question about what we're really meaning by contractual agency, but that's beyond the scope of what we need to do between now and Tuesday the 12th.

If you'd like.

Oh, that's also fully fund.

Yeah, OK.

But it's two things.

Right.

So the next thing up is the public defender issue.

I had just frankly, it's not quite picking a number out of the air, but it's trying to make sort of a compromise.

I had recommended $20,000.

And let me tell you briefly why.

There is no question that the public defender's office attorneys get paid less than the prosecutors.

However, trying to do an exact

one person to one person match gets us into a lot of, frankly, very difficult territory.

For example, the averages and the specific numbers will all change

when in all likelihood we will have one of the senior deputy who is going to move up to become a judge.

That opens up a vacancy.

Everybody else kind of moves up.

And so what does that do to the attempt to compare people to people?

I think it makes it very difficult.

On the other hand, I think that something additional needs to be done.

And then we look also at the question of whether we're supposed to be

trying to fund an attorney who would be trying to basically make the first appearance on a bond hearing for, in essence, anybody who's not represented when they're arrested.

It has been suggested that we do that in consultation with and cooperation with and splitting the cost with Albemarle County

I don't know, and the question is, is this person, this additional responsibility, a full-time job, which was estimated about $75,000 with costs and benefits and so on, or is it more like a half-time job, as has been suggested?

I don't think we know.

I'm thinking that if we say, let's assume it's a half-time job,

That would mean roughly $37,000 for the whole thing, so roughly $17,000, $18,000, $19,000 for each city and county, in which case if we gave them $20,000 that enables them to fund that additional position if the county also puts in the same amount of money.

This is a situation where we didn't really have an opportunity for extended discussion because by the time the recommendation came out, I contacted the public defender's office to say, ultimately they sent me what they had submitted to the city and the county,

which still has a lot of assumptions built into it that I would have wanted to discuss further.

Unfortunately, when I talked to Ms.

Murtaugh about it, she was in an airport someplace in the western part of the country and it wasn't really a very good opportunity to talk much.

I just picked $20,000 because I think it is a significant bump.

If they wanted to use it specifically to fund the person who would be doing the bonds, it could be used for that.

Yeah, and I'm hoping we could figure out how to make that whole work with the public defender contractual.

I mean, that'd be a further, a future effort, and maybe that's not possible.

I don't know.

So just to clarify on that point, Public Defender is a contractual agency of sorts.

We do have an MOU agreement with them and it was a base amount was set at the time of that MOU and then what we have done in the years past is that was set aside to fund

certain positions that were identified at that time.

But there are three employees, as I understand it, who are not part of that.

So at least part of

Ms.

Murtaugh's ask was give us the same kind of bump for the staff people as well.

And just one last piece to that equation.

We do share that cost share with the county.

And so the county basically does the same kind of thing.

And as of the time of their budget, and I don't know what has changed since then, but as of the time of their budget, they were not providing additional funding for those additional three positions or the just Seville conversation position.

That may have changed.

All the more reason, it does seem like with this particular, it's a really important function in our community and it seems like there's some more discussion that needs to happen going forward about how to make that relationship in terms of like every year what the sort of incremental funding would need to be so hopefully we can capture that.

I'm fine with that.

I mean, we've already just gone through it.

But, you know, as part of our two criminal justice work groups, you know, one of the recommendations was a number of things relate to the public defender's office.

It would go above 20,000.

And I'm also hoping that we can, by putting this in, too, we can encourage Albemarle County to up theirs as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if they would be willing to because I do believe that they also know that this is very important.

I believe that we have the public defenders make the same as prosecutors.

There's also a recognition that we give an enhancement to the salary of the prosecutors as well.

Sorry, I stepped away.

Yes, I'm fine with that.

Yeah, I thought I thought I remembered to see it on your spreadsheet that you were.

So, yes, sir.

Okay.

Additional funding for Ready Kids Early Education Program.

Again, I'm going to stick with my I'm be philosophically consistent, even though I was on the board of Ready Kids for six or eight years and I'm

are very much fond of their program.

I'm going to be philosophically consistent.

Other folks have expressed their desire to give them more money.

Yeah.

And likewise, Lloyd, I was on their board as well many years ago, but I also was more recently on the school board.

And I know the impact of this program on the kids as they get ready for school.

So

They are receiving some funding, correct?

Right.

And what happened was, this is a program, they asked for $113,423

It was decided by the committee to give them $10,900, which is effectively 10%.

And the reason for that, as well as on two of the other Ready Kids applications, was basically noting that it was based on the cost per participant.

And one of the specific concerns was that the cost per participant on the application for city funding

worked out to a whole lot more than the cost per participant on the application for county funding.

And there were five applications that got their amounts cut back because of that disparity.

Three from Ready Kids, MACA Head Start was the other one, and Piedmont Housing Alliance Management and Development Program was the fifth.

So

We had some extended discussions about this and whether it was fair or appropriate or whatever adjective you want to use to try to attach perhaps a new criterion for decision, that criterion for decision being this question of cost per participant.

And I eventually came down to thinking it was not unfair.

It may be a new consideration

but it shouldn't be a terrible surprise to the applicants.

So in that sense, it wouldn't be unfair to say we're going to look at the same cost per participant, whether it's a city application or a county application, recognizing that this is a discussion that I think people ought to have honestly and openly next year during the application process.

So that's

Can't hear you.

If you use a 35% of you, if you go to the full 65%, then that would be roughly $73,000, $74,000, which would be adding

Yeah.

I'd be open to $36,000.

Is that the total?

Oh, that's true.

Yeah, they're already getting 10,900.

So subtract that.

Okay.

All right.

Reimbursing CRHA for payment in lieu of taxes paid to the city of $20,000.

Well, yes, it's part of an agreement, I think if my memory is correct, from the 1950s, where CRHA paid in lieu of taxes to the city.

And, you know, they have wanted to both be reimbursed for it and just get rid of that requirement.

So I think the first step here would just be a reimbursement for it.

And then along with the conversation about a contractual agency, you

looking at just eliminating that agreement of them having us give us a payment move taxes.

And as an aside, I know it's not vibrant community fund, but the conversation around contractual funding for CRHA does come with a dollar amount they have in mind, I think of like 113,000 annually, something like that.

So this payment in lieu of taxes, this would be like for all of their properties?

I think it's a calculation based on their rent revenue.

Yeah, that's Lisa.

So for those of you counselors who were on city council when the last couple of years when CRHA was seeking approval of all the LLCs to do the redevelopment discussing the plans to address the trouble status as an agency, we did a lot of background research and

There's a 1958 agreement that is entered into under the HUD regulations and because HUD money has been granted to the housing authority over the years to there are certain provisions that have to be in agreements and this pilot payment is somehow the result of those HUD regulations and all of the various

sort of grant agreements or other arrangements between the housing authority and HUD pursuant to which they've received funding over the years.

So I don't know to the extent if any that those arrangements were or could be modified as a result of

So Lisa, it's a separate question whether

We could eliminate the pilot, which it sounds like we may not be able to because it's embedded in the HUD regulation and whether the city decides to reverse for the payment of the pilot.

I suppose so.

I'm sorry.

I just don't know enough about the HUD housing regulations and

What if we created a policy and sorry if of saying that all monies collected by the city as a payment in lieu of taxes go back into a fund to assist any residents of public housing who have had issues with paying

I certainly don't want to have a longer term discussion right now.

The question, as I've given the choice, if folks are determined to reimburse them for $20,000,

I would rather just go ahead and make an appropriation to the $20,000 and figure out the theoretical basis and how it fits into the entire program later on.

Okay.

And then the amount to fully fund drug court and the therapeutic docket

and make it basically 100% funded, it's about a $75,000 increase at that point.

Mayor, I'm sorry, was $20,000 the number I should plug in?

Okay.

I don't remember exactly what it is, but let's see.

136,447.

No, wait a minute.

That's not using the log.

I have 27,892.

Yeah.

186, 447 maybe minus I remember it was 75 and some change beyond that.

We've already designated to give them 100 and what's it?

My computer is not being cooperative with me right now.

And Lloyd, your email from earlier in the week was 27892.

You're right.

You're right.

You're correct.

Okay.

So that gets us through all of our

All the decisions we need to make for the FY 2023 budget, if I'm... Nope, we still got schools.

Okay, it's school issue.

So just a little bit of explanation here.

The information in blue is basically from one of the scenarios that we put forward.

We, the city manager's office, put forward last week.

The black is just trying up here thinking through some of the options that you all have to consider.

One would be to get you to $68.8 million with using $54 million worth of bonds, which is what's shown below.

68.8 million using $50 million worth of bonds, 68.8 million with a three-year debt service schedule, so either 50 or 54, but spreading that out over three years of an increase to debt service, 68.8 with a one-time tax increase at either bond amount.

So my view is $54 million in bonds only because that extra $4 million in cash that you showed on the other slide, I'm not sure where that other $4 million in cash

Yeah, and I'm supportive of that as well because we can't bank on at this point the expected surplus in December.

That's

We have to pretend like that's not there.

We do, although I just want to point out that if you are counting 3.8 of that to get you to years two and three of your debt service increase.

Okay.

My point is if we do 54 versus 50, that's $4 million in cash that we're not having to go out, you know, shaking the cupboards.

So you've got the first year of additional debt service, cash contribution, that's coming from that other slide, the $600,000, which is for the surplus, from the surplus.

Yeah.

Right.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

And I would say 50 would be ideal, but I don't know where that 4 million comes from either.

So I'm okay with the 54 scenario here that's laid out this way.

The only one...

You know, I'm unsure on is the 700,000 for the Meadow Creek Trail.

I guess the two questions would be one, I know there had been a discussion of funding it with ARPA.

Would this be an addition to the ARPA money?

Or is this just having it in surplus instead of ARPA?

And the second thing is, I'm potentially open to it.

But before I feel like I could make a final decision, I would just want to see what we're weighing it against.

and allocating either ARPA or the surplus.

Well, in anything in the surplus, we're actually not making decisions on tonight.

Right.

I would hope we would consider it as more than just a suggestion with maybe an assumption

Yeah, I would agree with that myself.

Well, where is it in our park master plan or where is it with our parks and recs department and their priorities?

What's else?

I mean, I just think this is, again, as we have brought up another conversation.

That's true.

I mean, if this is the same one that Ned Mickey has shown me so many times, and I guess it is Lloyd.

We don't need to get into it, but there's a lot of other things that are in a very similar scenario.

But just letting you know, my mind is not made up on it.

The only other final thing I would just add is I touched on it briefly, but the CRHA contractual agency does have a rough dollar amount associated of about $113,000 a year.

So I believe that's correct.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's a discussion for another time, but it's basically on a contractual basis, paying them

per each unit they manage price on a monthly basis.

And I think their initial request was like $25 a unit on a monthly basis.

And then there's 376 units.

Yeah.

Well, we don't have to, the only reason I raised the issue is that I,

It seemed like from one of the comments earlier as though somehow there was an assumption that we had support for that and my my comment was just no not from me because I don't even understand it yet so.

Okay, not an issue we have to confront now okay so is there any other decision on well first of all is there any other decision on this spreadsheet that we want to change or revisit or.

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

I just want to make sure that at this point, I guess, because this is a public hearing as well, Lloyd?

Yes.

Yeah.

I am.

We're clear.

Right.

That's right.

And no reduction of the personal property tax rate.

That's correct.

Do you want me to walk through these and what the impact might be?

I say go one by one.

I don't know enough about that particular tax to

Well, I guess my thoughts, you know, are in part going to be influenced by where, you know, majority of counsel aligns, if anywhere, on where to go.

But

In terms of how I would think of it, I would think, I think they're all likely regressive in our local market.

I would think real estate is the least regressive because of our relief program, as well as the structure of the tax, followed by lodging and then meals.

So I'll just go ahead and lay out where I'm

what I'm thinking.

I don't know enough about the lodging tax.

Maybe I should, but I don't.

The personal property tax rate, you know, $2 million already baked into that.

Which is great.

I saw the mayor's email about, you know, if we were to, the relative impact of that tax compared to others seems lower.

It is, I guess, in a sense, a windfall to us.

But I can see the point of not changing the rate just because of that.

And I guess, you know, at some point car values will go down.

So I could either keep it at the $2 million or equalize it to where we only quote make $1 million, though I guess someone might say that's ad hoc.

When it comes to the real estate tax, I'm supportive of a one cent tax increase for that.

And I realize that seems ridiculous with housing assessments going up, but we can't always depend on housing assessments going up.

And I think that we need to have some structural changes in terms of

our revenue so that we can sort of move the city to what we've seen tonight is all these other requests that have come in that are good and important requests and right now we're operating on a $50,000 sort of margin and I just I think it's time for us to

position the city for the future where we've got the money we need to make these really, as Michael said, larger investments.

So I would support a one cent tax increase for real estate with the notion that over the next couple of years, maybe we could add another penny every year or two.

In terms of meals tax, I realize that it's more regressive than

Some other taxes, I don't think any of these are taxes are unproblematic in some way or another.

I would support a half percent increase with the meals tax for the same reason that I support increase with the real estate.

because I want to position us in the future so that we're not on these sort of, I don't want us to have to rely on the possibility of surpluses or on these kind of really narrow margins.

So those are the three for me.

I'm torn about the personal property tax.

I could either leave it as it is or equalize it for a million dollars extra, so to speak.

So if we were to simply take the additional half percent for the meals tax and to take the one cent for the real estate tax, that works out to about $2.2 million.

Well, I guess, first of all, I mean, the positions that we've talked about tonight, the additional things that we've

We've added that we've kind of cobbled on at the last minute.

I would like us to not have to rely on, you know, this sort of right now we're basically skating through this year because of a $2 million helpful

and I would like to make a sort of baseline adjustment in the revenue side of the city so that we're not having to face that.

I don't know about the possibility of, like, you know, to use that old term they used to use about Social Security, putting it in a lockbox or something.

But, you know, Counselor Payne has made some really, I think, eloquent points about funding a CIP that's, you know, five to ten years in the future and thinking and thinking in that.

So,

Just in terms of what goes into the budget document that we're going to pass next week, which are balanced, the $2.2 million, does that go into... It was in the same place that $9 million was going to go for the $0.10.

So the only thing that you've suggested that would be a reduction off the 2.2 million would be something to reduce the personal property tax rate, let's say by a million dollars, in which case we're adding 1.2 million dollars that's got to get allocated to something.

That's actually, yeah, thank you, Lord, you're giving me an education.

Yeah, I guess what sort of where my mind had been would be to go ahead and use it, you know, I

3% a year.

So Mr. Wade and Ms.

McGill are trying to speak.

Well, thank you, sir.

So, a couple of things.

I am not

for reducing the personal property tax.

One reason for that is because the local governing body of each county, city, or town shall fix or establish its tangible personal property tax rate for its general class of tangible personal property, which rates will also be applied to that portion of the value of each qualifying vehicle that is in excess of $20,000.

So I am not in favor of lowering the personal property tax.

because in a lot of ways that is with that there that makes it one of our more progressive taxes with the first $20,000 not being counted.

I would like to see a one cent real estate tax again being again one of our more progressive taxes even though it is counterintuitive for a lot of us to think of meals taxes as being we think that the more wealthy you are

the more often you're going to go out to eat.

It's actually the opposite.

If you're poorer, you're more likely to grab a meal for your kids because you don't have the time.

And so I'm just one cent real estate tax that goes straight into a fund solely to support the schools.

knowing that we have this large, I know we're looking at the surplus, but I don't count my chickens.

I just don't.

And we know we have a large bill coming due for the schools.

Okay, so you're looking to increase the real estate rate by one cent.

Okay, so you're looking to add basically $925,000.

I mean, the, what I mentioned with lodging earlier was this, we haven't advertised it.

So I was saying we, there's no point in even considering it, but if we could re-advertise it before the end of the year, I don't see the, as we found with COVID and as we are looking at COVID and, you know, we're realizing that things like lodging taxes are

Mutable.

We're up and down.

Okay.

Todd, fire away.

I just wanted to clarify, I think Councilor McGill was referring to the fact that personal property tax relief is applied to the first $20,000 of value on vehicles, right?

Yes.

I feel like I need to point out that is a fixed pot of money that we get from the state.

And that pot of money is going to go farther than

if the rate is lower, if that makes sense.

I hope that makes sense.

But when you guys get done setting the rate, the first thing I'm going to do is set the personal property tax rate.

If the tax rate, excuse me, the personal property tax relief rate, if the tax rate is higher, that rate is going to be lower.

Yeah.

So another way to put that is every year we get 3.4 million and some change from the state.