Community Budget Forum   3/17/2021

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Yes, Mayor, I am.

Thank you all for joining us this evening.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

We're glad to have you all with us tonight as well as the public.

We have quite a number of participants on already.

Do we want to do roll call?

I'm sorry, Ms.

Thomas.

Thank you.

That's me.

Present.

Vice Mayor McGill.

I am here.

Councillor Hill.

Here.

Thank you.

And thank you again.

I can ask Mr. Wheeler if he'd put up the presentation and we'll get started.

Tonight we have the community budget forum for the recommended FY 2022 budget.

Community members and partner stakeholders will have the opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas towards priority spending.

The required public hearing will be held on April 5th.

There are no recommended changes to the city's real estate tax rate of 95 cents per 100 value, $100 of assessed value.

Additionally, there are no fee or property tax rate changes proposed for the FY22 budget, but also understanding, as I've said before, that FY23 will likely see recommended increases in a number of tax and fee sources.

The original proposed budget was $190,689,839, a roughly one quarter percent decrease from FY21.

Upon further estimates over the last couple of months since we've been doing the budget process, this amount is being recommended to be increased by $1,260,000 to a total of $191,950,000.

As we put together the FY22 budget, we focused on these themes of affordable housing,

preserving and growing citizen services, support of our employees, a strong city school system, organizational efficiencies, and meeting the city council's priorities and vision.

The next chart shows the overall breakout of where the city receives its revenue from.

As you can see, the largest portion of the city's revenue, 74%, comes from local taxes, which includes real estate, meals, lodging, sales, and use taxes.

For the FY22 proposed budget, again, we're not proposing to increase these tax rates.

The next largest category, still back on the other slide,

are our charges for services.

Examples of these include waste disposal fees, parks and rec revenue, and court revenue.

Then we have intergovernmental revenues, which are mainly state revenues, such as state highway assistance, as well as the reimbursements for constitutional officers.

This is followed by licenses and permits, our business and professional occupancy license, as well as our building permits.

Then the final is the operating portion of the city and county revenue sharing agreement.

The next chart highlights the expenditures of the city budget, with schools by far the largest portion at over 33% of our expenses, followed closely by public safety at 24%.

than healthy families and community, which includes expenses for parks and recreation, for social services, and the majority of our outside funding agency services.

In following council's program priorities, affordable housing, racial equity, economic development, community safety, and employee investment were all prioritized towards the development of the FY282 budget.

As mentioned earlier, a more current revenue on the next slide.

A more current revenue estimate reflects an increase of $950,000 in our business and professional licenses from the original recommended budget.

We've also looked at cutting certain expenditures and expenditure savings in the area of the police budget, which is an additional $310,000 in savings, which is shown on the next slide.

These two say one revenue increase and one savings amount gives us an additional $1,260,000 above our original revenue estimates.

On the next slide areas that the Council have suggested for changes that we needed additional funding for.

I've provided these to Council with an updated list and we've already begun to receive comments back from the City Council.

And while we expect over $10 million to come to us in FY22 from the American Relief Funds, we do not have the final amount or the final restrictions that will be on these federal dollars.

Therefore, staff recommends at this time, and until these items are known for us,

Council and staff may work together to amend the FY22 budget at some time in the near future that would be accounting for the expenditure of these funds for possibly additional sources and expenses with the Vibrant Community Fund, with departmental one-time funding for items that were requested but not recommended, and meeting one-time community needs.

For the FY22 budget, staff continues to recommend that the $1.2 million in new revenue to be first appropriated to a cost of living adjustment for the staff, and then the balance be reprioritized towards smaller requests.

The next slide shows the remaining budget calendar.

We have less than a month to approve the budget.

So March 25 will be a work session again for the council in public with the second public hearing for the proposed budget on April 5.

We have scheduled a tentative work session if needed on April 8 and a final budget approval on April 13.

To get the final draft budget for the second public hearing

We will have to have pretty much all of councils and the community's input on March 25th so that we can incorporate that and then get the council packets out on March 26th for the April 5th meeting.

With that, Mayor and Council, all of this budget information can be found on our website as well as at our regional library system.

and I'll turn the meeting back over to you to open up for a community comment.

Thank you.

And council, were there any initial questions before we open?

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

We have 11 people in the audience right now.

If you'd like to speak to council, you can have up to three minutes.

Please click the raise hand icon.

in the Zoom webinar.

If you're watching via Facebook or BoxCast, you can join the webinar by going to charlottesville.gov slash Zoom.

You can register and join us here.

Raise your hand and participate.

We now have three hands up.

First, we'll go to Mary Bauer, then to Jay James.

Mary, you're on with City Council.

Thank you.

Can you hear me?

We can.

Okay, I think now everybody starts that way.

Yes, so I'm Mary Bauer.

I'm the chair of the Human Rights Commission here in the city, and I'm here to support the notion that the city should commit to providing an attorney to every single tenant and eviction proceedings in the city.

This is a matter of equity, and it is a matter of racial justice.

In Matthew Desmond's groundbreaking book, Evicted, he found there was a profound racial and gender disparities in evictions and in the trauma that eviction causes.

And he wrote rather compellingly that if mass incarceration is the face of structural racism for African American men in the US, eviction is the face of structural racism for African American women.

there's plenty of data both nationally and locally that an attorney results in far better outcomes for tenants it's impossible to overstate the stakes for people in eviction proceedings an eviction judgment not only condemns many people to short-term homelessness but the ripple effects of these judgments reverberate for many years as people who have been evicted find it harder and harder to find a decent place to rent

In the interest of creating the fair and equitable city that I know that we all are committed to, I would ask that city council commit to the notion that it should provide attorneys to tenants and eviction proceedings.

Next up will be Jay James followed by Jay Sweat.

James, you're on the city council.

Hi, good evening.

Thank you, Brian.

And again, good evening, council.

And Mr. Boyles, good to see you.

Appreciate your work on this operating budget.

And I want to thank you all for these opportunities that you continue to give the community to express things about the budget.

My name is Jay James.

I'm a city resident.

I'm a volunteer and a board member for the Bridge Ministry Substance Abuse and Reentry Program.

And I know

You all have been gracious enough to allow me to speak before and I just wanted to make a couple of points because I know you have a number of priorities and initiatives that you have to meet and I certainly understand that.

The biggest thing for me is that there's a real push among prosecutors, both prosecutors in our community and at the General Assembly level to find alternatives to incarceration and also treatment opportunities for people who are coming out of addiction and addictive behavior.

And you all know that that's what we have specialized in for the last 25 years.

But the biggest thing I wanted to present to you tonight in your consideration is that now as things have started to change in the General Assembly, alternatives are needed now more than ever before, not just because of the drug use and the mixture of drugs on our streets, but also people need places to go to overcome their addictions when they're leaving incarceration, when they're coming back into reentry.

and we are a long-term facility and we're really the only one I'm aware of in the state that stayed open throughout the pandemic but the biggest thing too that I would just present to you is that we have a 50 bed capacity and there are wonderful places in our community like Region 10 and other places that provide services that can work in tandem with us but I don't know any other places that have a 50 bed capacity for people to go to get inpatient residential services

for coming out of addiction, incarceration, addictive behavior.

And then, of course, we line them up in a living wage with professional credentials through a partnership we have with Piedmont College.

So I know my time is near.

You guys have heard from me before, and I just I'm so grateful each time that you listen.

And we're just hopeful that you will consider making an investment in

As we work with the outmost Charlottesville jail, we have reserved 30 beds of our 50 bed capacity for this community for people to overcome homelessness, a lack of skills, addiction, addictive behavior, and given an 86% chance to be successful.

So again, I yield my time.

I'm so grateful for each of you and the priorities you have.

And last thing I'll say is I agree with something Counselor Snook said that, and I know he has a criminal justice background and Vice Mayor McGill and Mayor Walker have worked in human services.

not to be so formulaic in how we look at this, but to see a bigger picture of the opportunity of how to help more of these individuals in our community.

We have two hands raised right now.

Jay Sweat will be next, followed by Nancy Carpenter.

If you'd like to get in line, just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.

Thank you for letting me speak at this meeting.

My name is Jay Sweat.

I'm speaking again on behalf of the Bridge Ministry.

Jay James has been a stalwart in terms of advocating the purposes behind the Bridge Ministry.

I'd like to echo that from a sort of different perspective.

In listening to Mr. Boyle's outline the general objectives of the budgeting process, I was intrigued by his focus on public safety and justice, on public housing, some of the other priorities.

The bridge ministry has a place or a foothold in each of the areas of concern and interest of city council.

as Jay has just explained that's been in the community serving the community for approximately 25 years.

I was a former circuit judge in the city of Charlottesville during basically the 1990s and then a retired judge thereafter up until I retired completely in 2016.

I know firsthand of the ravages of substance abuse, be it drugs, be it alcohol,

and its impact within the criminal justice system.

And I became convinced early on that there have to be alternatives to incarceration.

What I'm pleased to know is that over the last two to three years, the circuit judges in the 16th circuit, the Commonwealth attorneys in the 16th circuit, and those particularly in the city of Charlottesville and Altemarle County,

have become advocates to reduce the population at the Joint Security Complex.

Superintendent Krumer is also very supportive of the bridge ministry because it provides an opportunity for men to come out of the jail, be housed at a residential facility where the focus is on changing their core behavior.

The PVC partnership has created opportunities for job training

so that when these men are completing the program, they come out with a certification with a particular job skill and that certification and their completion of the program is a ticket to employment opportunities that they do not have now.

So I encourage you to look at the Bridge Ministry as an opportunity to change men's lives for the better, to address

the high incarceration problem we had that particularly affects the African-American community.

So I encourage you in your deliberations to consider the bridge medicine.

Next up is Nancy Carpenter, who will be followed by Valerie Palomountain.

Nancy, you're on with city council.

Thank you, Brian.

And good evening, City Council and other members there.

I appreciate the time to talk to you for a second time this week.

I'm glad to see that affordable housing still is

an area that you find important to uplift and support because we all know that the most affordable housing is the housing you're in right now.

And to that end, I want to support what Ms.

Bauer has said in reference to providing funding for eviction defense.

I've always said that a home, a house is the hub to everything that everyone wants to do.

It is the hub to education outcomes.

It is the hub to health outcomes, whether it's physical health or mental health.

It's the hub to employment and financial growth.

It is the hub to maintain strong family connections.

and anything that the city can do to support that, which includes eviction defense, providing funding for perhaps one of our nonprofits, I'm thinking of LJAC, but there's also CVLAS, could possibly help and assist families, individuals

to stay housed while they work through whatever issues are creating unstable housing.

We voted for change on this council.

We voted for change.

I know that change has been very difficult and very hard to happen, but I think with not a whole lot of funding, I'm not saying that it's going to take that

additional revenue that Mr. Boyles was talking about.

But I think with some additional funding, we could do a lot to create stable residences for our citizens that live in this city so that they can go on and maintain and obtain their goals that they'd like to achieve.

So I thank you for this time.

I don't want to belabor the point because Ms.

Bauer did say it

quite more eloquently than I did, but I do appreciate your time this evening to let me express my opinion.

Our next speaker is Valerie Palomountain, and if you'd like to get in line to speak next, click the raise hand icon.

Valerie, you're on with Council.

Thank you, Brian.

Hi, my name is Valerie Pellamountain, and thank you very much for giving me the time to speak to the council.

I'm speaking on behalf of the Bridge Ministry.

Many of you know me because of my previous position as Dean of Workforce Services at PVCC.

I'm now retired and have gotten involved a little bit more closely with the Bridge to help them find funding, grant writing and finding the funding sources.

to construct an education and learning center at the bridge.

This program is an alternative to incarceration.

The program helps build self-esteem, it helps build self-confidence, and it gives the men at the bridge the ability to become contributing members of our community.

The funding would be for an education and learning center that would provide not only classroom space but also space to hold industrial arts classes such as construction, electrical, HVAC, welding.

All of these classes need a lot of room.

They have a lot of equipment.

There are other trades that we're looking at.

and all of these trades are in high demand.

They pay at least $15 if not more per hour to start.

So this would put these men on the road to self-sufficiency and to becoming contributing members of our community as well as taxpayers.

The training is for nonviolent offenders.

We work with them to help them get back into the community in order to be contributing members.

And I want to thank you for your time.

I hope you will give strong consideration to funding for the bridge.

Thank you.

All right, Mr. Bullock, I don't see any other hands.

Okay.

As you heard the mayor say, if you'd like to get in line right now, click the raise hand icon.

We have about 14 people in the audience.

We've had five speakers so far.

All right, thank you.

Mayor Walker, I'd like to both ask some questions of staff and to talk a little bit about the question of

an attorney to deal with eviction, defending eviction cases.

First of all, I have seen a number in various documents that we've had of $117,000, but I haven't seen a plan.

Do we have a plan that that number attaches to?

Honestly, Councilor Snook, that was a filler to round out the available funds because we don't have a plan.

I think the original thought would be to have a new hire for the city.

I would recommend that we should partner, as was mentioned by one of the speakers, with one of our nonprofit partners and provide funding for somebody who's already providing these legal services.

I think it would be much less than the 117,000.

But that was just put in because the estimate that we had was probably closer to 50 or 60,000.

And there wasn't a real other priority item that we could have filled that gap with.

Okay, I mean, the thoughts that I have had about it all, first of all, I absolutely agree that the best way to prevent housing, Nancy Carpenter, who said, the most affordable house is the one that you're in right now.

The notion of preventing evictions or avoiding evictions

is an important piece of this whole plan.

I am concerned, first of all, just in terms of what the plan would be.

I really don't think this should be a city staff position.

First of all, my sense of things, and I don't practice in this area much, so I asked Judge Sneather what has been his experience with eviction cases.

He says he hasn't had more than a handful of

in the past year.

Admittedly, there's been a moratorium that has affected a lot of the stuff, and he has made sure that landlords have had to go through all of the steps that they are required to go through.

And so I'm sure that has slowed the process down, but I think he told me that the handful of eviction cases he's had, more of them have been for things like illegal activities in the residence and violence and things like that than for issues of non-payment of rent.

this may be more of a problem in the county I don't know and one of my thoughts had been that if the county wanted to also do something about this it might make sense for the city and the county together to partner on it

Another reason not to have this within the city as a city employee is just a question of malpractice exposure.

Surely it's not a large financial hit given the limits of what the cases would probably involve, but you'd have to have that kind of overhead and malpractice insurance.

If this person were a city employee, the city would be on the hook for any judgment.

The other question, you know, who in the city hall would supervise this person as a practical matter, this person would be an independent contractor.

No one in city hall would be controlling how they do their job, whether they do it well, etc.

And from a management perspective, that would give me great concern.

Fourth, supposing the evicting agency is CRHA or some other housing provider that is receiving city funds

for its activity.

The Affordable Housing Strategy has recommended that we impose additional conditions on housing providers who receive city funds to help prevent evictions and to give tenants additional rights.

If we're doing that, aren't we already kind of involved in the litigation in a sense?

And so I'm not opposed to thinking about it as a VCF grant or some other similar mode of funding to an outside agency, such as perhaps the Legal Aid Justice Center,

if they wanted to undertake such an effort.

But I think that if it's gonna, and if it were seen as a COVID enhanced problem, there may be some additional one-time funding available for that.

Well, and Councilor Stook, if I may, just briefly, I know, you know, I originally brought this up and it's in the affordable housing plan, page 15, dedicate funding for the provision of legal services for tenants facing eviction and establish a city right to counsel on eviction cases.

So I think when I had brought it up, I had mentioned a city staff position, but I am, I'm certainly not at all wedded to what it being a city staff member.

And I, I

I think the argument seems right that it's more effective if we provide funding and partner outside the city to do it.

For me, the bottom line is just being able to provide funding to provide that right to counsel, however the specifics look.

And actually, just some investigation I've been doing on this, it

This position potentially could be eligible for CDBG money.

And especially if it's an outside agency like Legal Aid that would be applying then for that, which could be a way to help with, you know, guaranteeing funding down the, well, not guaranteeing, but again, getting some other funding down the road on a more permanent basis.

Also, if we did this, I would really hope that if we are asking, if we potentially, if we do this and we open this up and we ask an agency to partner with us on

a program that we are identifying as part of our affordable housing plan that instead of putting that through a competitive grant process that we do it as a contractual obligation to the entity that is providing this benefit so they can count on that this is something that we have requested as a city identified a need as a city and we are asking them to do for us as a city

and that we are saying we are going to fund this for at least in this time period.

And I would agree with that.

I didn't mean to suggest that by mentioning VCF that that that's the preferred method.

I think a contractual kind of thing, if we're going to do it, would be would be the better way to go.

And it may be, you know, again, the issue that I've got is I'm trying to figure out how many eviction cases Charlottesville has as opposed to Albemarle County.

And I don't have a good sense.

Again, I asked Judge Sneather and he could hardly remember the last case that he had had that was actually tried.

The other point that somebody had made in one of our earlier discussions is that a lot of times

the the time or the best way to avoid an eviction is to deal with it before it gets near a court and we ought to think more you know pardon the expression holistically about about how that might be done and it would probably be better for everybody if we could work out a way that

that keeps things out of court.

It's an old saying that if a case actually goes to court, somebody has failed.

So I mentioned before, based on the needs that the PCRB has, HRC, and if this is a component that we want to add, the city could hire an attorney to work with

those entities.

I think those are very different skill sets.

We may find, for example, that an attorney who was advising the PCRB wouldn't have to come to Charlottesville to do so, particularly in the era of Zoom meetings, and I suspect that will continue even after the COVID emergency passes.

I think that the attorney that they've been talking with is somebody who's from out of the area, whereas an attorney who was going to

defend eviction cases pretty much has to be somebody who's pretty much located around here.

So we may find that that's a combination that is difficult to meet, but I don't know.

Yeah, no, I think, well, I don't know, but I'm sure based on some of the attorneys that I deal with who, even if they're not well-versed, they do the research or they partner with other attorneys.

I just, that attorney does, it doesn't have to be, I know they wanted to have access to an attorney more than we put in the, you know, in the ordinance, bylaws, whichever one that it's in.

And it just could be a way for us to solve some of those issues from both of those areas.

Right.

I'm actually just getting ready to read this.

And again, I would say, you know, that's still with eviction moratoriums.

And of course, one of my fears is just that as there's phase out

We're sort of just going to hit a cliff of a lot of families who are behind many months in both rent and mortgage payments.

But I would certainly agree.

That was just the only comment I was going to reinforce is I just think that looking at this regionally can be really beneficial.

Certainly.

And one of our other thoughts is that

Okay.

Okay.

And Mayor Walker, the first person with their hand up is Mary Bauer.

I think with the numbers, that's fine.

But if she could, maybe at the end, if there are no other,

So Mary, hold on.

We're going to go next to Matthew Gillican and then Elizabeth Stark.

Matthew, you're on with city council.

Good evening, councilors and Mr. Boyles.

This is Matthew Gillican.

I live in Fifeville.

And I wanted to talk about a couple of things with the budget.

First of all, I want to continue to ask that you all provide some funding, some degree of funding

for alternatives to policing to increase the amount of funding that's available for that beyond what's currently provided.

And I would like additionally for some criteria to be identified

by you all as we're thinking about what we need to accomplish to shift away from our current budget and model of doing policing.

It's kind of been mentioned a few times that we can't really make any big changes right now because of

where we're at in general with how we do policing.

And I would really love for you all to, over the course of the next number of months, lay out what are the criteria that need to change?

Where do we need to get as a community that we don't necessarily need to spend $19 million a year on policing?

Because that's one of the talking points I'm hearing now is we can't make any big shifts right now.

I want to know more about why and I want to know more about solutions that can push us in different directions.

I also wanted to talk a little bit about a talking point has sort of emerged of whatever we do to kind of have a deeper analysis of the police budget to look more closely at it, we need to do something similar across

all city departments.

We need to have a consistent way of accounting for all the budgets.

Well, I think there's probably a kernel of truth to that.

I think that, first of all, that doesn't generally seem to be what people are asking for is a wider degree of transparency with the parks and rec budget, for instance.

People want to know what's going on with the police budget.

I think that's a pretty common sentiment, and I don't think people necessarily want time spent

looking more deeply at the other things.

I mean, transparency is good, but there's a particular area where we want transparency.

And I think that, but that's not just my opinion.

That's also the opinion of the General Assembly of Virginia, which just said police civilian review board should be allowed to have more opportunities to review budgets and how those go for the police departments.

And so I'd love for you all to both empower the police civilian review board to have more authority with that now that they have enabling legislation to do it.

But also let's not get distracted by this sort of all budgets matter dynamic that seems to be emerging.

Let's focus on the one that's the one in question.

And then I want to shift real quick to the schools.

Just anecdotally, the other day, my five year old, she's kind of out of nowhere at dinnertime said, What happened to that specials teacher that teaches me about emotions?

And with the shift and to in person learning, he's not getting quite as much interaction with the counseling.

the counselor at Jackson Bay I miss you and then kind of just right after that my wife who is you know teaches kindergarten she said oh yeah I need to get in touch with her there's a student I'm familiar with that needs clothing and she'll help connect us with that and I think that what the city schools is wanting to do with social workers in each another social worker in each city school is something that is like a really good idea

in any context, but especially in the pandemic as the strains are greater.

I know you all are aware of this.

I know you're familiar, but I just really want to advocate to make sure that that funding happens for those positions.

And that's all.

Mr. Will I just want to comment because that all lives matter just kind of got me a little worked up in my head and since I was the one that has been saying that so I think this is where it's very important for us to make sure that we are having like honest feedback the police chief gave a budget

She sent a budget.

It is what the city finance department has been asking for her and other departments.

Her budget has been pretty clear about where money is going and I think from my conversations with her what she's been saying is what services does the city want us to stop doing and then we can talk about cutting those services.

and those services are traditional police service.

We had these conversations before with the PCRB where there was a comment made during the session of are your officers downtown eating donuts or something like that.

So that has been pretty consistent that she does not have this is what an officer spends the first 10 minutes of their shifts doing.

This is what an officer spends the next 30 minutes of their shift doing.

So I think it's very important

for us to know that we have been asked, what kind of service would you like for me and my department to provide or not?

And then I can tell you about how much that costs.

And if we're being honest about what those costs is, is we're talking about staff numbers.

and if you are aware of what's going on and I'm not in the business and this is something that Chief Brackney and I have a very difficult conversations over of defending police.

So this has been a very challenging conversation but I do not think that neither the community nor council members have been fair to this process about what she has been providing.

And the way this works in a

The scenario, well, what you just gave the all lives matter, which is we are talking about budgeting better, spending the city resources better and making sure that citizens are aware of where money is going.

And that has been the nature of how that conversation has come up.

So from everything we know today outside of staffing for the police department, there's about $900,000 that's remaining.

And I don't have those numbers in front of me, but that is what I remember.

So anything above $900,000, we're cutting police officers.

And that is what we've been talking about.

What would that look like?

And what services would the department be able to continue to provide?

And I don't know if Chief Brackney is on here and if you have any comments, if I did not say something correctly there, but

to use an all lives matter response with the way black people are treated by the police.

And that is some of the things when we are talking about this community and allyship and what white people think is okay.

That is not Matthew for future references.

So, Madam Mayor, thank you.

And for the question, the Charlottesville Police Department prepares a budget that is extremely extensive, oftentimes more than 22 pages per budget in terms of what we break it up into even our benefits and personnel and then operating costs.

You are exactly right.

I think it's 82% of our budget is personnel costs.

And that includes civilian personnel and costs too.

Our budget is very clear and we put it out.

We provide the budget office.

and the city manager's office with a very robust detailed budget accounting for and have switched our accounting practices once I hired an actual budget analyst and reduced even a police officer by that in order to get a budget analyst who does nothing but our budget.

and to manage the monies judiciously as well.

And when all is said and done between the body-worn cameras, the fleet, the mobile display data terminals and things of that nature, when all of the fixed costs that I have, licensings, systems,

Fixed costs, we are well under $700,000.

That is any way discretional that becomes my operating budget.

And when I say fixed cost, it costs how much?

$80,000 a year just to have an academy, to have our firing range in which we have a contract with UVA.

and Albemarle, discretionary budget to buy uniforms, any training through DCJS to keep our officers certified, pencils, pens, anything of that, I am dealing with a discretionary, and I'm going to use that term very loosely, about $700,000 a year.

What I would also say is we give the budget office this very extensive detailed explanation of our budgets.

What the budget office submits to counsel

is the format that they submit for all of the departments.

And that is correct.

The persons, if we want it differently, if they want it presented out differently, I don't control how that information is then socialized out to council or to the community.

That all comes from the budget office or the city manager's office, how that is released.

Not within my purview.

to do anything of that nature.

I've been supplying that information since I arrived here, contrary to the black box theory that I have not and that this place is a hole when nobody gets any of that information.

So that does answer the questions for how much that we do spend.

We do not do programmatic budgeting.

I understand that is a desire, but we don't do programs in the authentic sense that maybe a park and rec program is done.

So it's much more difficult

to say programmatically, how do you do your budget?

We do service delivery.

And the services that the community has asked for or that council sets the priorities for that they want this community to receive, that is all part of the conversation.

And when we talk about what services we want cut, people said cut traffic and traffic accident investigations.

We have a lot of that going on right now.

Right now we're experiencing extreme changes in violence in this community with shootings and aggravated assaults.

And that someone is answering those.

I'm not trying to create a you get rid of the police narrative that all heck breaks loose.

That is not what I'm saying.

But we have to work towards a co-production of public safety.

And then we have to then think of one of the resources that we're going to need to do that and the capacity to do that.

Body worn cameras cost us close to $350,000 a year because the community demands and should demand access so that we have body worn cameras.

If those are things that they don't want in the community, that's a council decision about how we can fund or what we do fund.

So we do provide a very robust budget.

What you all receive, I don't know.

I don't get those packages.

But those are questions that need to be asked backwards, as I have always indicated, as to why things are funded.

We provide what we're asking to be funded.

City Manager provides how that funding can occur.

Thank you.

Next up is Elizabeth Stark.

Elizabeth, you're on with city council.

Hi, councilors.

My name is Elizabeth Stark, and I live in the Woolen Mills neighborhood in the city.

I'm a co-chair of the Charlottesville Democratic Socialists of America.

And earlier this afternoon, Seville DSA presented some of its eviction findings to the Human Rights Commission Housing Subcommittee.

I'd like to share a little bit of that information.

But just to give you some background, since July, Charlottesville DSA's housing justice advocates have been canvassing people facing eviction.

We get that information from the courts and we go and knock on their doors.

In many cases, we are the ones letting these folks know that they're facing eviction.

We also show up at court, both city and Albemarle County Court.

We try to observe court proceedings.

We deliver Know Your Rights information to tenants so they know what to expect when they get into court.

There have been 129 eviction proceedings initiated in Charlottesville since we started recording them in July.

There have been 259 hearings.

This is because there are a lot of continuances, especially right now in the COVID atmosphere.

There have been 54 evictions in Charlottesville.

I'm not sure if our data conflicts with the data you all had before.

I was trying to pay attention to a lot of things at that point.

So Charlottesville DSA has observed 142 of these eviction hearings.

We've learned that when tenants have legal representation, 50% of the cases are dismissed and 50% are set for trial.

That means when we have seen people that have legal representation, they are not evicted.

They get a chance to have a trial, they get a chance to ask details from their landlords, and they get a second chance at keeping their housing.

By contrast, without representation, 30% of tenants who appear in court are evicted, 30% set for trial, 20% are continued, and 20% are dismissed.

This also doesn't include the people who just don't appear in court and are evicted

right out of hand.

If they don't show up, they're dismissed, you know, their case is judged against immediately.

There's a significant racial disparity in the city's evictions.

Of the evictions, Seville DSA has observed, slightly more than half the tenants have been Black and about a third have been White.

These are observations our court observers are making, so this is not self-reported information.

We're doing our best to collect this data under difficult circumstances with COVID.

Because we canvass every tenant on the docket, we know those numbers don't reflect the full racial disparity of evictions as white tenants have been more likely to appear in court.

Tenants who don't impair in court are immediately evicted about 50% of the time.

Counselor Snook said that a lot of these cases are for non-payment of rent, but a lot of them are for other reasons.

But that's because landlords know they can't evict right now for non-payment.

And so there are a lot of ways that landlords are working to find other causes to evict.

That is exactly why tenants need legal representation.

We know that housing is essential.

Representation would make an enormous difference in the outcomes for tenants.

And I hope you will fund representations for city of tenants facing eviction.

And I just, I know my time is up, but I just want to say, if you are interested in Seville DSA's findings, we're going to be sharing those with the Housing Justice Committee, I mean, the Human Rights Commission tomorrow night, and we'd be happy to share them with council as well.

Can I just ask that perhaps they email them to us?

I'd love to see them.

That'd be great.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Mary Bauer.

Yeah, I'll be brief because I wanted to share some of the numbers that DSA had shared with us this afternoon, and I think that's powerful.

I think it's important that we don't look at the number kind of as the dispositive number that is how many trials there are, how many hearings there are, because without a lawyer, so many people never make it to that.

to that moment of being able to ask for a trial and articulate what their defense is.

And having represented hundreds and hundreds of tenants over the years, I know that getting to trial without a lawyer is very, very challenging.

So we really need to look at the numbers overall

So many people get that notice of eviction and determine that there is nothing to be done and then begin the kind of desperate scramble to find someplace else to go, you know, kind of resulting in homelessness.

So we will share the data that we have, that we are receiving from DSA and from other sources.

I have a

Still questions about like vibrant community funds and other things, but just as one opportunity area related to the conversations around policing is just, I think, especially over the next budget cycle and the next couple is just the Marcus Alert system bill that the General Assembly passed will over the next several years have all community service boards and

Behavioral Health Authorities start to establish their own Marcus Alert Systems to be able to provide mental health professionals and some service calls.

was talking about that earlier with some people.

I do also know one of the things that has been coming up in regards to mental health right now is there is a pretty severe lack of bed space in the state, which is causing at times because police officers have to stay with somebody until they are admitted

it is at times causing officers to be with somebody in a mental health crisis for up to 24 hours and also having to then transport somebody halfway across the state if a bed is identified which is not something that the police want it's not something that's

Good for somebody in a mental health crisis.

But right now, that's the way the law is.

That while somebody is going through the emergency custody order process, they have to be in police custody.

So for anybody, that's one of the areas that needs to be changed at the General Assembly level.

As we are working on Marcus Alert and other things,

and as we're taking off things that the police shouldn't be doing and the police don't wanna be doing.

Vice Mayor McGill and Counselor Snook, in terms of the work that you are doing, are you all gonna be asking for dollars to be set aside for mental health and

policing relations, or is that something that's going to come at a, because this would be, we've been trying to get to in the other group what that request looks like, and we are still working, you know, through that too.

We have set our date to try to have a presentation for council, an unofficial presentation, well, as our unofficial group.

for the first meeting in August of this year.

We have a the executive director of Fairfax is going to be presenting us with what they're doing.

There's we are also finding that the Marcus Alert has some timelines that are different for different agencies and different different members.

And we also have

um some you know we're also looking at some of our particular issues that Charlottesville is engaged in a lot of regional pieces like region 10 is a regional entity our emergency communications is a regional entity um and so

We're trying to figure out the best way to what can potentially start with Charlottesville and then grow.

But we are still at baby steps on a lot of this because it just every time we start talking about something, we start realizing how complicated every piece is.

And then what I mean, because the state is still trying to figure out what they expect of the Marcus Alert.

Our region is not in the first

grouping.

It's going to, the second grouping at the earliest.

So, which is what, like 2026, I think is when we might, I can't, numbers in me don't, they, I write them down for a reason.

But it's a number of years down the road before we have to have something in place.

There's also supposed to be a

a centralized call center number at some point.

But statewide, they're still trying to figure out what that's going to look like and if that's going to be, I think, in its own number, kind of like a poison control number.

So we're looking at we're looking we're starting to look at some different models with the understanding that some of the models we're looking at have different laws regulating them.

Like one of the things about the cahoots model, the cahoots model out in Oregon, while we're going to look at it, they won't take emergency custody orders either.

So it can't be somebody who is in that threat to themselves or other category, which is still considered to be you have to call the police category.

I don't even know if they figured out.

And I was just saying it's because this is what the community is asking, you know, for what does those dollars reallocated or more dollars allocated to look like?

And I think between the two groups that we have

Sheehan, Ph.D.

: convene trying to figure out what the ask is is presenting.

I mean, while we're getting quite a few things that people can change individually and we're becoming aware of what people are working on.

You know, there's, there are some asks that are quite costly, like one of the projects with the Commonwealth Attorney Office, which would incorporate policing judges and the prosecutor, there will need to be a data system created.

So if that's going to happen,

doing the next year since people are saying we were already waiting.

I think because we're not doing public updates, people don't know that we're really trying to figure out what our community could do.

There are a number of things, I guess, we've been talking about sort of next steps and ways forward.

And it's been hard in part because the landscape keeps shifting all around us by actions of the General Assembly in particular, but not only by them.

We also have to acknowledge that

A year from now we're going to be required by the federal government to have a suicide intervention hotline program and that's going to be related to emergency communications and it's going to, you know, one of the things we've been thinking about is trying to identify times when we can keep police from having to get involved in the first place.

And it may be that the most effective time to do that is when the 911 call comes in.

If you look at some of the models that have been fairly successful in diverting mental health related cases away from police interventions,

They have been situations where there has been a screening process at that initial call.

And we have to think about what that might end up looking like and how we might end up implementing something like that.

And that again is likely to impact or to be affected by this whole notion of the federal suicide prevention hotline issue.

So there are a lot of moving parts.

And unfortunately, a lot of them seem to be moving behind the screen.

And so we can't see exactly where they are and where they're going.

We only know that they're there and they're moving.

And it's been kind of hard to figure out.

So that's certainly true for folks like me who are not involved deeply in the emergency response field.

I note that both Chief Brackney and Chief Smith are on the call.

Maybe they've got some specific information that might shed more light on it.

But

And I will say, Chief Brackney, just real quick, that even in our group where we're spending a lot of time, we're meeting twice a month for two and a half hours, and we're trying to come up with, you know, some of the stuff, it's almost if you have to just, I don't know what the appropriate word is, but just

completely dismantle the whole thing and just build something new, which, and so I know that's what the public is probably thinking and I really understand, but it is hard when these systems that have state and federal level requirements that we can't just like, you know,

completely break it down to, you know, rebuild something new, which is unfortunate and it's frustrating, you know, for me too.

So I just wanted to acknowledge that we, a lot of us, I haven't been in your meetings, but if it's anything like some of the things in our meetings where every time we think we're getting somewhere, it's, oh, but, and those buts are, you know, a lot aggravating.

And, Mayor, I think what also complicates this and why we keep shifting is because we can't move forward on certain things until DCJS and the Department of Behavioral Health, they're supposed to come together with a plan that they then push out.

They have until July 1st to do that.

So we're all kind of waiting to see what that plan looks like.

And then there's some mandates that...

require the regions to have mobile response teams and planning that we don't know what kind of resources are going to come behind that, right?

So our approach is

Let's see what the furthest date out is that we have to be in compliance and then we're working back to see between that time and today, what are those resources and capacities that we have in the system to support our Charlottesville residents and then the regional residents and where those gaps exist, how can we support

who are experiencing an emotional crisis or a mental health crisis at that time.

The problem is that we're finding that Charlottesville, and I use this a lot, we are resource rich.

However, we have a deficit in capacity.

We do have resources in the area, but we have no capacity to really pull those resources together and to deliver the services that individuals need.

And because there are these, and I see Kaki jumping on, because there are these state statutes that require police interventions until those things get rolled back,

We have some problems.

And just to actually accentuate what Vice Mayor McGill said, it's not 24 hours, it's 72 hours that we can sit with an individual.

And we also have orders that are coming out from

the region saying delay even sending or transporting or sending someone onto a bed because we are beyond capacity.

So they're asking us even to extend it to not even make the trip to possibly get someone to help.

So

It really is an issue that we face here.

So thank you, Kaki, for jumping on because she also has been very much involved in these discussions, much like the other group, every other week.

All right.

And so, Mr. Will, if you want to grab those.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

Next up is Pertel Gilmore, followed by Ang Khan.

Pertel, you're on with City Council.

Good evening, everyone.

Just to retouch on what I discussed the other night, dealing with the specifics of trying to get the budget fulfilled, at least in part, by the City Council.

I'm in the process of

sending a group email out.

I should have sent it when I sent the earlier email from a young lady over in Prospect as an attachment, but I had a conversation with my accountant.

He told me to do it otherwise after he checked it over.

Right now, we are in a position as a community to do something about

You know what's going on.

As far as the police chief is concerned, she has a job to do, city council has a job to do, and the community has a job to do.

And as I explained to someone earlier, it's no different than the three parts of the government, the legislation, the executive, and the judicial.

Everybody does what they're supposed to do.

They do it according to and play their part the way it's supposed to be played and everything can be a cohesive unit of success.

And I think that in terms of what the buck squad do and guns down do.

It's a very unique and I'm gonna keep saying this, no one could do the job that we do.

And that's not arrogance talking.

It's just, it is what it is.

That's the reality of the matter.

And we are in a position and we are in a position to be able to not only reduce, but in a small town like Charlottesville dealing with the conditions of being confined in the African American community.

I think we can stop it.

But I said, I got a call the other night and went to send the guys out and I couldn't find none of my guys because they was at work.

And one of those situations ended up in gunfire.

And I know it just may sound redundant to you guys and y'all may not really understand because it's not really affecting your community.

But I read in the paper that

One of those shots went into a white household on Anderson Street.

So now it's a possibility that those things can happen anywhere because that's the climate that we're living in.

And having my ear to the street, sometimes being the sole employee that I can be out there in the street to see what's going on, it's hard to do it by myself.

There are times when I can call on two or three guys, there are times that I can't.

But my goal and aspiration

is to put us in a position where we can be a healthy, thriving community, where we can be the number one city.

But I need you to be in tune with the soul of the community, with the soul of the people, the disenfranchised, the low-income community, those who have been overlooked.

And at least if you have a semblance of some kind of care to do an emergency hearing,

You all have all three budgets that I sent to you.

They've been narrowed down to the point where they probably can't be really fulfilled doing it that way.

And when it comes to a public issue, like we dealing with gun violence and dealing with the death of these black males and these fatherless kids, it should be priority for you to do an emergency hearing.

Thank you.

You got the numbers in front of you.

Mayor Walker, next up is Ange Khan.

Ange, you're on with city council.

Thank you.

I'm sorry.

I was having difficulty with internet.

So I do want to say that

There is a when speaking about the person who is now doing the budget, I believe they make roughly $80,000 a year to analyze the police budget.

I think that that person should be able to figure out where to cut the police budget.

While some vow by the usage of body cameras, we know that the footage obtained is often used to exonerate the officers involved.

And when we're giving body cams as an example, that $350,000 is a small portion of the budget.

When we're speaking about the increases in gun violence and domestic violence, police do not interrupt either of those instances.

What is preventative is providing resources to those communities, education and community training and de-escalation tactics.

I would say I don't know how much time I have because I cannot see too much.

Thank you.

But Defensive PD also sent a recommendation over the summer to start looking at a branch of first responders that would handle mental health crisis is

and substance use disease and many other of the mentions, domestic violence situations.

violence situation, gun violence, all of those situations that fit into those categories where, you know, that are being used as examples in why we need to have a $19 million police budget.

So that's all my time.

So I just have another comment.

I don't think that that wasn't a thorough presentation of the police budget.

It was just examples of what is being spent within the budget.

I wish this was easier, and I wish we just had every dot connected.

I feel like

Last summer or fall, I don't even keep the date, when we had the CRHA meetings and, you know, I was, you know, being kind of blasted by the community for making the statements that the police should police on First Street like they police on Park Street.

And so,

There is a lot going on and even some of the community members that people are advocating for are saying, unfortunately, different things.

And I really think it's unfortunate and I have shared that with them too, but I think that we all need to figure out how to know all the information so that we can know what's being requested by everyone and just what is reasonable.

Go ahead.

Thank you.

It'll be brief.

I also attended a CRJ meeting, so actually a farm meeting as well, and was also listening in on that.

And

There are going to be areas where people are going to say, hey, this is what we feel keep us safe.

If we could show the community a different method than what is already presented, you know, I think that would be

beneficial.

And it takes a lot of conversation.

While you're building, we have to build this community up, right?

The entire community.

I agree.

I've been working with Peace in the Street.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's gonna take a lot of folks and a lot of folks aren't gonna be on the same page, but once we show folks what community really looks like and what safe community looks like without police and without policing and giving those resources and a good place to start is, you know, let's have another community conversation such as this.

and bring a lot of folks to the table.

There's very few people on this call.

Yes, and this wasn't the nature of this call, but I just want to, I'm just on, I'm in almost all the conversations and I just, and I say all the time, if the world was the way it is in my head, we wouldn't have a police department, but that is not the world, unfortunately, that we

Right.

All right.

I would just kind of just add and reinforce one of the points that Mr. Gilmore made.

It's really going to take all, it's going to take the community, it's going to take the police department, it's going to take these grassroots organizations, it's going to take us as leaders to come together and to

to find that common ground and work towards that common goal of providing a safe community where people can thrive.

But I think what the missing piece of what, well, I don't know what Mr. Gilmore was saying, but what I'm usually saying is that we have to, we know just in, you know, what, who and what receives funding.

I said this the other night that

Organizations run by Black people, and especially run by Black people for this reason, they're not going to be able to raise that money on their own.

And so whether the city, you know, views this as something you invest in for a period of time to figure out how

to, you know, and measure it to see if it's working or you invest in it to get it started.

I think the investment so that other people know that it's something worth investing in is going to have to happen.

It's going to be a challenge

for those groups to get funding from community leaders because you know even with our Vibrant Community Fund you have to already be established for a year, you have to show, you have to have the ability to get the audit and you're then competing for those resources

Annually.

And even I know what the piece in the streets, they are still expecting to have to keep their jobs to do this.

That is very difficult for people to have multiple jobs and then do this very important work.

And the other thing, which is what I've been hoping would happen with the Vibrant Community Fund, is if we get those measurement tools in place better, we know what is working and what is not versus

organizations continue to get funding just because they have received funding before.

And I want to create programs that are effective.

So if that person is hired for measurements and solutions and they come back and say Home to Hope doesn't work, I'm not going to fight for Home to Hope just because it's already in existence.

If Home to Hope is not effective, then we need to figure out how to change it.

and we should have enough data to do that or we need to invest that money in another place.

And I'm just using the program that I have spearheaded.

So I've had those same conversations with Mr. Gilmore.

I've had the same conversations with Mr. Rush and Mr. Gray.

and wanting them to understand the administrative side to all of this because if we're not effective then the community lives aren't changing so it's not about us and what we hope and what we think and I think if we look at all of the things we fund in that manner then we will know

Heather Hill, Ph.D.

: Whether we are spending these dollars in the right way.

And we have to look at how much we've invested in things in the past and the results that we are still struggling with and trying to deal with today.

And so if we're talking about resource-rich community, but we're still plagued with all these problems, there's something

that's wrong.

And unless you believe in the narrative of Black people being inferior, naturally hostile, natural killers, unable to learn, unable to care for their children, unless that narrative that has been shared since enslavement, then there's something else that's happening.

And so if we're going to continue to fund

I'm just trying to think around the

specific decision points, you know, we're gonna need to get to, if not tonight, then within the next week or so.

And we may not resolve these tonight, but I'm just, these are sort of what I was thinking of and I emailed around.

I'm just curious if others have any others of just deciding exactly how we're gonna allocate that 1,000, 1,260,000.

Still not sure we've gotten a consensus there.

what if any agencies do we have a consensus of adjusting allocations to in the Vibrant Community Fund and if we are adjusting them are we funding that by changing tiers or how much is funded in each tier or do we want to add more money to the Vibrant Community Fund and then finally just you know if we're going to

Like I would view funding the work of Guns Down Inc.

as sort of like, you know, maybe sort of like the investment given in the Food Justice Network where there was seed money from the city that helped catalyze and grow that new initiative.

So I could

I absolutely see the potential and need there.

And just like with anything, you know, if we're going to provide some seed money, where are we going to decide to take that money from in order to fund it?

Is it going to be from that 1,200,000 or money that's in the Strategic Initiatives Fund?

Seed money would be hopefully a good use of American Recovery Act money with a one time, I mean, especially if, cause seed money is potentially a larger beginning donation than it would be, than a continuous donation.

So, I mean, that's what I just thought there as far as.

Just the, you know, once we know, because this happened the last time where there were some restrictions and then there were, either we found out they weren't restrictions or they were less restrictive than we originally thought.

I don't remember if we ever was clear on that, but I think that would be helpful to know what's possible out of that money.

I'm assuming since, you know, like YMCA, Boys and Girls Club, all of those things,

we gave conscious capitalists the money for the program with the youth out of the last funding.

I can't imagine that this administration would be more restrictive than that.

So I think that's what Councillor Payne said is, and Councillor McGill, I think that's possible, but we really do need to know like what is possible

I think some of that's still up in the air as part of the problem.

Yeah.

I know I'm going to be on a call with the National League of Cities on Friday afternoon and I just got a notification from VML.

It's still unclear how much we're going to be getting.

They're fighting for us on getting more than the 10 million because it's not

Okay, any other questions?

I know the Vibrant Community Fund, one thought that I had, I know there wasn't an interest in revamping, like going through the entire process, but we did come to an agreement last year.

I know that you all are hesitant to undo work that another group of people did, but there is

I'd have to look at it because I don't know how that would line up.

I'm willing to look at it.

I just couldn't say I don't know how it lines up compared to what's funded this year.

But as I said before, I absolutely want to, I don't want to

upend every single recommendation, but I definitely want to find a way to get more funding to FAR, legal aid, and the drug and mental health dockets.

And just based on the kind of adjustments we made last year, I mean, that dollar amount to get to those, if all those were funded at 100%, it would be

a little over $200,000.

And so I just, it seems very doable for us to get there.

And I would like us to get there and not just leave those recommendations as is.

And again, you know, one of my motivations is looking at, we know it's an imperfect tool and I'm just trying to look at agencies that have had a reduction that is

a substantial part of the operating budget of the program.

Because even if the total dollar amount, if something is getting funded and it's 1% of the program and they're cut a dollar amount, that has a very different impact than if an agency, it's 50% of their operating budget and it's cut, even if it's the same total dollar amount.

Or I'm just saying the unfilled, the gap between their requests and what they got is $200,000.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Just those I identified.

Okay.

And who did?

One of them was just a specific program you mentioned, Michael, within an organization.

It wasn't both programs, I thought.

Yeah, I just identified some of the biggest priorities, again, as the therapeutic court drug docket, again, because those just seem to be major diversion programs that seem a little odd to just cut money from, and then to FAR's request, and then Legal Aid Justice Center's legal services request.

Again, just thinking there are

There are things we're going to have to leave on the table, but just looking at the things that have some of the biggest impact in providing services to the community, as well as the impact of the budget cut on the program's ability to function.

And it's an imperfect science, but that's sort of where I'm at.

Sure.

And if I may, Counselor Snook, I didn't mean to interrupt if you were going to

I was just going to ask.

Last year, FAR and I think Legal Aid and Justice Center both came out of the Vibrant Communities Fund process

in relatively not good shape, and then we boosted them up for various reasons.

This year, again, the VCF committee didn't rate their projects very highly.

Do we have a sense of what the Vibrant Community Fund committee found to be the problem for those groups?

I mean, two years in a row with different committee membership in many cases, I'm just curious why the differences.

why we're out of sync with them or they're out of sync with us.

And so I don't have all those details exactly in front of me as to where the differences are between the rankings, especially from one year to the next, and what the exact issues were with all of them.

It's hard to keep track of.

Some have various pieces, whether it be engagement of underserved populations, which is not the case in this one, or budget issues or other things that have created some

Mike Signer, Ph.D.

: Disconnect in this, if you would, but what I would say is that what we're planning to do is I've collected a list from all of you from all of Council now as to those agencies that you had interest in further discussing.

Mike Signer, Ph.D.

: i've been sending out a couple emails to you to all today to verify that I had I didn't miss any that you wanted to look at those kind of things.

So I'm continuing to work through that list.

But as we do that, the plan is next week, we have our CIP work session.

And we're planning based on how those discussions go.

And if there is time left at the end of those discussions to begin, what looking at those, you know, those list of unfunded agencies.

And as Councilor Payne was discussing,

Fully funding versus substantial cuts from one year to the next, or any cuts from one year to the next, and give two different ways to look at those agencies, as well as other agencies that may not have been a consensus of counsel, but rather ones that at least one to two counselors had mentioned, see if there's others that wanted to go that route.

But I think we can look at these programs and get better information and more complete information for you as to

where the review committee saw these differences and made these any changes in these rankings or didn't make changes in the rankings and why that happened and be able to

have a more productive and discussion as opposed to me sitting here saying, I think.

So for right now, I think that's the best plan is to kind of look at all these holistically when we get to those next week.

And if we run out of time, we can either move that into have a little bit of a working area after our public hearing on

April the 5th, or we do have that final work session scheduled for April the 8th, where we can continue to go through all these.

So that would be my recommendation at this point as to how we handle that so that we can make sure we have all the information in front of you and we're not scrambling and guessing and giving incorrect information or incomplete information at this time.

I don't know if Ms.

Thank you, Mr. Davidson.

I would just suggest that the review team has done its job.

and then it forwards its recommendations to the budget office that works the numbers to try to make it work based on the recommendations and the ranking that the review team has done and then council can decide to override or change things around based on what's a priority for you if that's not reflected in the recommendations.

This is something that's happened nearly every single year and so

I think if we're going to go back and evaluate what the work of the review team for one organization, we need to evaluate the work of the review team for all of the organizations.

And I think it's fair for council to say we have used the information provided to us by the review team, plus the information provided to us by the budget office and the information we know about our current reality, which might be different from when the review team did its work, and we're going to make a different decision.

I think that that is a legitimate process for you to go through.

But if we're going to evaluate or unpack what the recommendations were by the review team for one organization, I think we need to unpack it for them all.

The information we have is obviously was in this in this booklet.

Yes, and so I would say that, you know, thinking about the work session in May, I've sort of started to map out what I hope will be a structure for that conversation, which would include

a copy of the evaluative metric tool that we use so that you all understand what goes into that.

You can look at all of the questions that we ask and then you can help us decide whether those were the right questions to ask or the wrong questions to ask or who should be evaluating them differently going forward.

But we have a process that has been

While it certainly has been flawed and that there's an effort to try to improve that process every year, it is fairly detailed.

The process and the time investment for our review team members is significant.

There's multiple meetings and conversations.

There are often site visits.

And there's an additional, I mean, a huge amount of reading that people have to do in order to understand what the applications are.

It includes both

An evaluative description about what the program is, what it intends to do.

It also has a logic model with a metric about how it intends to get to what kinds of outcomes.

And it also includes both a program budget and an agency budget.

And they're asked to understand and evaluate all of the above based on a specific set of metrics that have been sort of honed and evaluated over time.

The last time we spoke, you know, I think it is legitimate and fair to say that council values around those things have changed.

Ten, eight,

Eight or 10 years ago, it was clear council evaluated a best practice, highly effective organization as identified by essentially nonprofit expertise.

So there were a number of components that would lead to that.

Councilmember Payne had talked about the percentage of the budget for an organization that was needed from the city and that that might influence their neediness, might influence our response in terms of how much money we might give them.

Ten years ago, if an organization needed the city too much, the city thought that that was a bad risk for taxpayer dollars to go to an organization that didn't have a diversified funding base.

That's clearly different today.

And so in that way, the tool and the process has not kept up with council member values.

And so I think I suspect that we'll try to unpack that in a more deliberate way in our conversation at the work session in May.

But it is a robust process that folks have to go through.

And often we're asking our nonprofits to go through this robust process for $10,000 or $20,000.

It's just not that much money that you might

actually write a letter to a donor and get that money directly from one human being in a relationship as opposed to go through our fairly rigorous process.

And we often field complaints about how complicated and onerous it is from nonprofits.

But we also feel like we have an obligation to have there be a process to access taxpayer dollars and to help you make that decision.

And let me say I

I understand that you all have done a lot of work and I appreciate that and I would like to be able to value it, but when the only thing, the only actual information we get from the panel is two words, in this case for FAR, solid and helpful, I have no idea what the committee thought was solid as opposed to essential

or exemplary, I can't remember which scale is which now.

If we had some idea that the committee thought here is a particular issue with this program or here's why we value it as a level two instead of a level one, it would be

easier, frankly, to to say, oh, OK, they have thought about this detail and that detail.

And when but when we're given essentially nothing, we're given their description of the program, we're given two words from the panel.

It gets to be hard to to know how to how to assess the advice we're getting from the from the committee.

as an organization that has was established to essentially evaluate applications for funding for nonprofits from nonprofits for city funding as a mechanism to prevent city council from having to field individual direct requests for those asks directly from council at council meetings.

Our work was not designed because we decided that it's the right thing to do.

We were responding to council's requests.

to create this process.

And so I just want to defend the evaluative process from our community members who are part of our review teams that their work is valued.

Well, I mean, there are probably 35 agencies, I think, rough count in the VCF report.

and we've only got serious questions about three or four or five and how the ratings were arrived at for those three or four or five.

And for the ones where we're essentially in agreement, I'm not sure that we have a great need to investigate further.

But I would just like to know whether it's council that is off base or whether it's the VCF committee that's off base and whether we're even on the same basis.

I could just interject maybe before you, Kaki.

I do value the work.

And you know, because you were a part of even looking at this process since I've been on the outside of it.

And now I'm sitting in this chair looking at it from this way.

But what you said was helpful for me because moving,

And I know I'm a person on the other side of that moving from high performing evidence based able to fund the majority of their budget to the other person now who's asking for how do we help people start up organizations, which is kind of the conversation we had around capacity.

the capacity grants, and how do we fund them until they are established enough to where some of these other funders would even take them seriously because of how that world works.

So I hadn't articulated that before, but when you said it, that made me, because I am viewing this through that lens versus this kind of, you know, high performance, evidence-based, longevity, able to sustain themselves type of lens, so.

I think my interest is obviously meeting your needs in terms of evaluating the number of requests for city funding from the nonprofits.

I would very much like for the work to be trusted and informed by your desires.

And I would say that we sought your opinions before we developed this process.

And we only heard from three out of five of you.

And I will say that it was kind of remarkable that for almost every single question, there was zero consensus.

There wasn't even two answers that would be consistent to help inform how we went forward with this process.

So for me, the need for this evaluative sort of

really conscious May work session that's really important.

And I do think what I would like most of all is to see a responsive process that is flexible for you all to use.

I don't think you've had one ever.

And what I see you all saying is we want a more flexible, reactive, responsive tool that, excuse me, and I'm going to suggest to you that that's a series of tools to help us make decisions that are responsible

to current events and that you all have some more flexibility around that.

I don't think this tool has been very flexible for you all in the past.

And I see that there's a heightened expectation and need for that kind of flexibility and responsiveness now.

I was going to say that I think more of our issues are about the tool, not about the evaluators or the community timing.

The members of our community have the tool that

is being used to evaluate with.

And I think, I know myself, I don't understand the tool very well.

I do remember looking through it at one point, trying to kind, it's, and it also, with elected officials, we're coming and going on a relatively regular basis.

So by the time we've actually learned this, we're gone.

I just, you know, and so this does also,

Bring some time of like, you know, it's a new thing trying to understand it.

We're trying to make decisions that are very high pressure decisions on a tool we don't understand.

Again, not about the evaluators, not it's and so I'm really welcoming this this discussion in May that we can hopefully get to this place where this is always going to be difficult.

I find

that I would, again, would love to have some more, a little bit more information about why something scored someplace.

Because yeah, but again, that's nothing to do with my distrust of it or the people who have evaluated it.

And I do wanna make sure that's heard by everyone who gave their time to this, that it is not the evaluations

I'm much more concerned about why, as Counselor Snook was saying, these consistent non-profits that we are looking at again, what is it about the tool that is causing these scores to consistently be low when it's in our priorities?

Well, I think it sounds like where we're all kind of at is just acknowledging that, you know,

tool can be good, but it's not perfect.

That's life.

Nothing's going to be perfect.

And there's going to be subjectivity.

And so it's just us as the executive decision makers to make some of the really relatively smaller adjustments and just what our decision point will be on that for this immediate budget cycle.

So it sounded like the process proposed seems to make sense of discussing that if there's time after the next

budget work session and if perhaps if needed to use that tentative optional one to just figure out exactly what the specifics will be like.

I agree.

I think there's a good opportunity to kind of look at this as Ryan has presented.

Oh, I just lost my train of thought.

I had one other question.

We've heard a couple of speakers tonight talking about the bridge ministry, which is not, I don't know whether they filed anything with the Vibrant Community Fund.

We didn't get anything in our booklet from them.

Was there a page?

Well, okay.

Maybe that's the answer to my question.

I didn't remember having seen it.

Okay.

Nevermind.

The thing I forgot was, looking at feedback from Council so far and just some of the budget considerations, it does seem like there is, you know, enough support for us to expand the amount of money that we're putting into vibrant communities so that we're not going to be limited to just these funds.

Now, how much that is is to be determined, but I think there's going to be a decision making about what's going to be in this original budget.

And then as Chip stated on Monday, then whenever we get to the point where we can unlock further dollars from the recovery funding,

there'll be another amount that we're going to be agreeing to.

And I still think that it should be whatever the vibrant community allocation is and then this additional conversation about what else we want to fund with the one-time funding.

Expanding the vibrant communities unless we are saying that that's the process and

If we don't get clear on the evaluation tool, then it's just more money that we're going to maybe have a problem with in the future.

I just think that it's still the way and I understand if I'm out voted for that, but I still think that the what the vibrant community amount is getting that straight and then saying once the ARP

dollars come in.

This is what we want to use those for.

I just can't help but look at this broader than just those two.

I think it's just it's one system that we're trying to accomplish a lot of a lot with and vibrant communities is one every year.

It's a new set of funds anyway.

It's not like they're like there used to be continuity.

Every year people are reapplying.

And so they're essentially one time funds for anyone applying as well.

and we're just expanding that one time funding.

The question is, do we have those funds to continue at those amounts next budget cycle?

Yeah, but even though we did not look at last year, you know, amounts and dollars, and that's part of what this change was supposed to be.

The changes have not occurred the way they are still changing, but the system is not

Totally changed.

I don't know.

I'm just still looking at those as two different things.

I was just going to say, and I think once we

kind of right now is this big kind of, I don't want to call it amorphous, but this big sum that's hanging out there over the top because there's been a lot of agencies that have been spoken.

And I think if we go through and get consensus on here's the four, then we can say, okay, this is the amount and see whether it is something that, okay, this really does make sense to reallocate within the existing funds or maybe add a little bit from existing budget or

Hey, this is so much that we really need to stick with the rankings and look at, okay, now when the ARP funds come in, we can potentially look at them in this way.

And I think until it's hard to put a value on whether we leave it the same, increase it or whatever, until we can get kind of that consensus around, these are the few agencies over here, as Mr. Snook said, these are the three or four agencies over here that we really want to add additional funds to and see what that comes out to.

And then we can have a better idea of a recommendation behind

The other question, I guess we had two questions.

Well, the main one is it seems like another decision point.

It seems like as council, we haven't clearly ended up somewhere on is

how exactly to use that 1,200,000 or so?

And what sort of timeframe does it seem necessary for us to have clearly come to a consensus on what exactly that 1,200,000 will go to?

We have the first reading of the budget on April the 5th at that public hearing.

It's the first reading and we would need to present a balanced budget.

However, technically we have until April the 8th to come to a consensus on how to use those dollars.

If we need to, we would love to have that consensus after our work session on the 25th.

However, time permitting, we may not be able to get into all the discussions that you wanna have.

So there is some, we may have to do some

put it as an unallocated amount or something along those lines to be able to present something balanced as the first reading of the budget and then make amendments to that as we move forward through the process, make additional amendments.

So there is potential to be able to

Go all the way until the 8th.

We would love to be able to have as many decisions finalized before that time because it really it does create a real time crunch, especially when you look at the turnaround to have to then go ahead and revamp and redo the budget appropriation before actual adoption on the 13th.

So ideally, we have as many decisions made as we could by the

into the work session on the 25th.

And, but Ryan, as of right now, like we've, you know, we're all providing some feedback on a number of items.

And I think that hopefully by the next time we convene, you'll be able to kind of put some slides together to just kind of show where there is consensus relative to that, that additional funding.

I was just going to answer yes.

We've, we've received almost everyone's comments from the, the,

handout that we provided earlier in the week.

And so there really is a very strong consensus that's showing up.

As we receive the rest of councils, it should be a lot clearer

I think we're a lot closer on that $1.26 million than we were this morning, even.

Just the final thought from me to other counselors is, again, what I raised earlier, I don't know the answer myself.

But one of the things I'm still thinking about is

If we provide seed money and support to guns down just exactly what pool of money it comes from.

I know it was thrown out the stimulus bill is one potential area, but that still seems like another question mark if we do provide that support exactly where it's going to come from.

When is it, we should know something.

I know that the disbursements out to the state from the federal government, so that has all happened pretty quickly in the past.

Do we think it's going to slow down with this time?

Because we're still only, what, a week or so out from that?

So I know it seems like a long time because everyone wants the information, but

Do we think that by our next budget meeting that we'll have more information possibly about that?

Yeah.

It's so hard to say coming out of Washington.

There's a lot of information coming out daily.

There's a good bit we just have to run through that's already out because even in the bill that was passed

there is at least the first payment dates that were provided.

The other thing, and I think some of the counselors spoke on this earlier, this appears to be much more flexible funding.

While the first CARES Act was very specific to COVID relief,

This is a lot more specific to just economic recovery and trying to get money out onto the street for the economy.

So the flexibility is much greater for our use.

One of the things we will have to be conscious of and while the first date for payments was prescribed and it was very early, the second payment schedule was not prescribed.

Okay.

And we do have the, you know, some other pots, but I guess it's...

I think that would be the best, just to keep it clear, use of it.

But if that is gonna be delayed, then I think, you know, we could talk about the council strategic funds.

But I would, if we could see if we're gonna get, because even if we're talking about

We're not talking about, I didn't think that with those two groups that we were talking about, the vibrant communities, I've been having the discussion.

I thought that we were either talking about our funding or the, you know, if there were other potential reserves or the, you know, money that would come out.

And I did want to point out one additional piece with that, and I hate to be a wet blanket on this, but I did on Monday present a scenario that was $9.9 million in the hole for 21, and so I think we need to really be cognizant of that as we're looking at all of this as well, because I think we need to make sure

We're in solid financial position coming out of FY21.

We'll have some new numbers, hopefully better numbers when we get to that presentation next month, but it's still going to be in that same neighborhood.

I mean, we're not going to be completely dug out of the hole.

So we need to make sure that we're still looking at that piece of it as well with these funds.

So I just wanted to

Yeah, that was the first bullet point that I added above the list from Chip was just like, before we get to this stuff, I really think we need to make sure that we understand what FY21 is looking like.

And then the other question I had was, you know, previously when CARES money was allocated, and Mr. Boyles, you implied this in your email, but, you know, we've given staff a chance to kind of

consider that through the lens of each of their departments on what some priorities might be that would be helpful.

Yes, we are.

We spoke of that today with department heads.

And I hope that the housing relief

just since we are on that topic, the housing relief and pathways because community members are going to need those avenues too that we're considering making sure funding those again.

We've got 12 people in the audience right now.

If you'd like to address council, click the raise hand icon in the zoom webinar.

And you can have up to three minutes to speak to council.

First up is Joy Johnson.

Joy, you're on with council.

Joy Johnson, the chair of FAR.

I guess one of the frustrating things for me as a board member who works with the staff who work with the city staff I think I could be speaking incorrectly and I apologize if I am is that when there is a score that's low in the previous year our staff work with someone in the city to say how can you better make this application

move forward.

And then when they make those changes or do those changes, then they still get something basically saying, you didn't get funding because of A, B and C. And so if you're working with an organization to move them forward, why aren't you showing all of the things that needs to be changed?

And that's a frustration.

What I hear from the staff, they're frustrated because they put so much time into working in this to change it only to be told, okay, you're not funded and don't tell them why they're not funded.

So again, I'm not in the mix of working with the city staff.

but I'm just conveying to you the frustration I'm hearing from our staff who works on these grants.

That has to change.

And I asked the question when I was told, well, we didn't get the full funding.

I said, why?

And they were like, I have to check.

I think if you're going to tell people that they're not going to get funding, tell them why.

So that's my only piece of comment that I have right now.

I wasn't prepared to say anything, but just listening to the conversation.

And Mr. Snook asked, why is it that it's the same thing this year from last year?

It shouldn't be because they work with staff to correct or improve what happened the previous year before.

And last call for anyone who'd like to address council.

And while we're waiting, I'll just add, I used to work with Reverend Nan Brown of the Way of the Cross.

And we used to do

Sheehy, Sheehy, Sheehy, Sheehy, Sheehy, Sheehy, Sheehy, Sheehy, Sheehy,

It's a lot of work and that's why I've been pressing even talking to agencies about starting up because even if the city decides to fund or if that ever changes usually what people are looking for and I don't know what's in these and I'm not necessarily responding to you Joy I'm just responding in general because just to say what kind of conversations I'm having with people

because that's who I learned from what is required to make sure people don't, you know, deny you.

In this process, I don't know.

Usually those processes are clear.

And I think since we're going through this kind of change, then maybe it's not clear or maybe it's just been a part of what people have found problems in, you know, throughout the year.

So I haven't been on that side, so I can't say.

But

Yeah, it is a lot.

Next up is Tim Wallace, who will be followed by Sherry France.

Tim, you're on with counsel.

Good evening, all.

Thanks for doing this.

My name is Tim Wallace.

I'm the director of development at the Legal Aid Justice Center.

And I wanted to not advocate for our funding tonight.

You've heard from us a lot.

What I wanted to do was address just a couple of thoughts about the vibrant communities process in terms of how applications are scored.

And I bring to this not inconsiderate or not inconsiderable

experience with local funding applications.

The Legal Aid Justice Center has offices in Richmond, Charlottesville, Petersburg, and Falls Church, and I have applied to funding from many of the localities in the state and have lots of experience with those different processes.

And there are two changes that I would recommend making in the future, and I'll leave it to y'all whether you want to incorporate

one of these into how you think about any changes you might make to funding recommendations for this year.

But the first of the two is that the scoring, right, the applications are graded based on their quality and on their importance.

And the quality is a question of two things.

And one is the quality of your grant writing, your skill in producing a proposal that is clear and

and all of those sorts of things.

And then the other thing is it measures is how closely your organization resembles the platonic ideal of a nonprofit organization.

Because the rubric is measuring one idea of what a nonprofit ought to be, and it scores things based on that idea.

And nonprofits come in many different shapes and sizes.

And so that's not always the best way to do that.

And so my recommendation

for the change is that instead of basing your funding decisions in terms of amount on that quality score, treat it as a threshold.

Organizations that score at least this high are being considered for funding, and it's a simple thumbs up, thumbs down, yes or no consideration.

And then let your decisions about how much to fund be driven primarily by the importance of that funding to the city, and then

then we're only having a conversation essentially at that point about how important is this.

The other thing that I'll address just really quickly is right now you can only apply for funding if your program has been in operation for at least two years.

And in an environment where innovative responses to new and emerging problems are of critical importance, things like the anti-violence programs that are trying to get established,

they won't be able to apply for funding until years after the idea that they are there to meet is passed.

Thank you.

And we discussed these during the initial conversations about changing from the ABRT to the Vibrant Community Fund.

So we are aware that there and that whole

If you can write great grants, that has been one of the things that I've been talking about for a long time, because that doesn't necessarily translate into if you are able to do the best work.

And our next speaker is Sherry France.

You're on the city council.

Good evening.

My name is Sherry France and I am the Executive Director of the Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad.