Board of Supervisors Budget Worksession   2/17/2026

County Board of Supervisors to order.

Yes.

Thank you, Chairman, members of the board for having us today.

Today, we're going to start with outside agencies.

We went through the whole list last week, or last time we met there was only a few with some follow up we had.

I have I'll start with Kim, we have Kim with the Louisa flue van, flue van a Louisa housing foundation, we get in right order.

And she was going to yell at us for additional information on the emergency home repair program.

He'll be back.

It's a whole tight.

Okay, no rush.

I'm ready.

Thank you, Board of Supervisors in Louisa County for having me.

Again, Kim Hyland from the Fluvanna Louisa Housing Foundation.

We had an extra $50,000 request in our budget request overall up for consideration to the board.

I'm going to kind of backtrack a little bit.

It would be for the essential home repair program.

And what I've handed to you shows some usage

is a repair program in Louisa County.

Over the past few years, it continues to increase.

And unfortunately, grant funds for repairs have been decreasing.

So they are more difficult to find.

And in particular, the HPG, or Housing Preservation Grant, which is specific to rural areas, has decreased considerably.

If you go to about the middle of the page,

You'll see total HPG funds from TJPDC, who distributes those funds, have been steadily decreasing over the last three years.

So FY23, it was $212,000, then it went to $174,000, then $111,000.

And this year, it is only $60,000 that is shared between all of the counties.

One of the figures that I had, I think I have it in here somewhere,

The bottom of the back page shows the distribution in FY23.

I can assure you guys, Louisa County has been getting the lion's share of those funds each year.

We have a really good model for utilizing funds that are available like this.

It was greatly underutilized about five, six, seven years ago.

And we ramped it up, made it really work in our program very well.

So that particular year, Louisa County used $67,000 of those funds.

And you'll also see that in our general grant funds, BAMA and LCCF at the bottom of the first page, have been steadily declining.

So those are an example of private funders that we use to help our repair funds.

This leaves us a bit of a gap.

While we have continued heavy use of the repair program, I think it's the widest used program of all of our programming.

We serve about 50 people a year at least in Louisa County.

It serves the people who live here.

They own homes.

Generally, they've lived here their whole lives, most of the people that we serve.

The average age is about 68, so it's about keeping our seniors in place.

If this is something that the board would entertain as really helping people who've been here for a long time, it aligns with not expanding growth in homes, keeping the people who are here in their homes, decreasing homelessness.

A lot of the people we deal with are at great risk of homelessness.

So it's something that I would share with you all that would have great impact on the community, would be valued by your constituents, and truly utilized for the people who live and work here.

And if this doesn't align with what you guys are thinking, I just want to pose a couple of questions about what success looks like for the Fluvanna Louisa Housing Foundation.

How can we best serve the community?

This program, I think, is highly successful.

I think it is our best program that we offer to the community with the best reach.

So if this isn't our best, I'd like to hear what you guys have to say, what direction you think we should be going in.

where we should be exerting our efforts.

We are also expanding working with first-time homebuyers because I do think that's been underserved, you know, getting our young people into homes.

So we are trying to serve in that capacity as well, but this serves more of our older residents.

It does serve families as well though and keeps a lot of our kids warm, safe, and dry.

Yes, they could be.

And we could design it in the best fashion that Louisa County would like to.

We could either do grant or loan.

We could do it as a matching fund.

It's typically what we do.

I would suggest using this similarly to the HPG program, where it was only for people under 50% AMI.

and we grant half of the repair project up to $5,000 and then we loan them the other half so it greatly reduces their cost.

For example, a roof that was $6,000, we would grant them $3,000, they would borrow $3,000.

I think this is such an important program and your funds are being cut for it, but we need to, I think as a community and as a board, find a way that we're funding.

These are our most vulnerable, is that wrong, but vulnerable population in our community, our seniors.

And that's why I asked you to come here today and speak about this.

And I appreciate you creating the opportunity for us to talk about it.

Do we have any idea, Kim?

So more often than not, they stay until the house disintegrates around them.

If you drive around and you see houses that are boarded up, there may be people living in there.

A lot of our homes that really shouldn't be inhabited still are.

We don't go around.

Being a rural community, we often don't go investigate those properties and realize that there are people living there, or we don't want to make them homeless.

So it's, you know, they end up back on the county.

They're probably, they get behind in their taxes and that is something that we also require is that they are up to date on their taxes.

Okay, so what I'm seeing is a

a trend for this type of home to be stripped down from the pieces that are causing it to be in an inhabitable and then being refurbished.

Whenever we have the funding available, we do.

Yeah, we love to rehab homes.

So in some cases, some of these homes are inevitably they need to turn over into different ownership so that

And to your point, that's what we're hoping with the new community with the one bedroom and two bedroom units that we'll have some people who move out of those dilapidated houses.

We could then purchase that lot and rehab it.

Because some of these repairs, so we don't repair everything that comes to us.

So about one out of every four calls, we're really able to help.

Some of them are beyond repair.

Yes, sir.

Ms. Allen.

No, that's home.

Well, so it's home CHODO recipient funds.

That's the Community Housing Development Organization.

So it's not this one?

It is not that one.

OK.

Yes.

And I do, I actually, I printed out, I only print out one of them, but this is a chart of our usage of HPG funds over the past few years.

I'll pass this around.

That shows how it wasn't particularly utilized by our organization a few years ago.

Mr. Chairman, one more question.

So the HPG funds were not as high this year, and they get divided.

There's only one pool of money for the whole state, and it depends on how many organizations bid on it.

Previously, there were only two.

This past year, there were four, and there were fewer funds.

So there's just less, and there's just not a lot of programs.

I think this is a program that should be

I find it extremely successful in helping our residents.

I really struggle.

There's an EHART program that is statewide.

We get $6,700 every year and they have my email and phone number up on their website and people call me.

asking for those funds when that covers about three or four cases a year for us.

So, and they've, DHCD distributes those funds.

Their response to me is that they're afraid to bring it up at the state legislature because they're afraid then they'll get rid of the program completely.

Yes, sir.

Briefly, not to keep going back and forth, but Ms. Howland and I had a situation a couple years ago where we had a young man who was living in a house.

He was a single parent.

He had two children.

And the house literally was falling down on him.

It was a situation where he, over the years, he was a family home and he had it.

And we had some issues because of taxes and stuff.

But had that, he'd been able to rehab the house.

It would have made a big difference.

And he was scared to do some things because he didn't want Child Protective Services to see the kids living in the house like that because he didn't want them to take his kids.

Heartbreaking with nothing we could do.

Yes, sir?

Follow-up, I was going to ask the same question as Supervisor McCotter did, and so a follow-up on that.

Why are BAMA and LCCF's funding levels decreasing as well?

And then a quick follow-up question on that.

How are we expending these funds?

These aren't through internal forces.

No, it is through the people that we currently have.

So they claim that it has nothing to do with our application.

It's a reduction in the amount of funds they have and an increase in applications.

But they have told us that they're very happy with the programming.

We fold these in.

These are fantastic because we don't have to go through the paperwork.

We do have a formula, though, that we put together so that we can evenly distribute funds depending on the size of the repair.

If it's a very small repair and it's only $500, they might get $250 out of it.

And there's a max we will meet of $1,000 for some of these smaller ones.

in the next few years.

It could, right, because it skews the pockets of poverty.

With the rural areas, it's really difficult to pull the numbers that we need.

One of the professors at UVA just asked me to come in yesterday and speak on that as part of us trying to pull data

Very difficult, as you know.

It should be pretty easy in the mineral district.

It's very difficult, right, because we're skewed.

You have two very different segments of society living in the same district.

Fortunately, I'm exposed to Fluvanna County.

I've been able to pull some numbers that are specific to the Fork Union District.

and apply them to Louisa County because there's a similar issue.

But Fork Union is about the only area where I've been able to pull very accurate data.

And it's still skewed there.

But it's one of the more clearer data sources where you can identify this is very different than the rest of the county.

And they have the same issue there, right, with Lake Monticello.

But getting accurate

and within the margin of error.

So one of our margins of error was a 24% poverty rate with a plus or minus of 14%.

So with that being said, I guess that we as a board should anticipate

We will have greater pressure on the more vulnerable people.

But as far as if this does have an effect on what grant monies or the amounts of the grants, if they start reducing because the county

I know the way the school works.

I don't remember what that's called.

But as that's right, so you know, it's a percentage that each locality in the state gets.

Well, if the more income that your county gets in tax money from somewhere else,

The less money you're going to get from the state for your schools.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

A couple more questions.

Ms. Hollywood, I know you recently received a Rappahannock Community Grant from Amazon.

That has nothing to do with this.

So we actually did ask them for $10,000 specifically for repairs.

OK.

Was it $10,000 for the limit of that request, if I'm not mistaken?

They limited everybody to $10,000.

Which is helpful, but it's another draw.

We've been looking, we continue, we will apply to LCCF again and BAMA funds, but it's really difficult to find.

You would think housing would be an abundant

A long time ago, when I was younger, I wanted a pair of Converse All-Star shoes.

That was the shoe that you would want.

When you look back in the day, it's not really much of a shoe anymore, but I didn't get Converse shoes.

I got McGregor's from Kmart, and I was thankful that I got those, and eventually they were kind of cool.

So I think what the point here is, what is a need and what is a want?

We have a lot of things in front of us on these sheets that are wants.

This may be a need.

So I think we really need to consider the difference between needs and wants when we look at this budget.

And I do think we are very good about selecting our residents and making sure they're compliant with the programs.

We have people on our board who also can say, hey, these are good citizens who need some help.

Because sometimes we get people who are not great citizens.

And we are selective in those cases.

I can vouch sitting on your board that you are selective.

The money is going to the right homes and the right homeowners and you're picking the right projects, you're not just spending it.

And I do agree with you and that's why I asked her to comment.

Thank you, and I appreciate your involvement, Ms. Jones.

Great.

Right.

Yes, sir.

Second.

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

I might cry.

Before she leaves, Chairman.

Board members, we will send an email.

from Congressman McGuire about funding

to be submitted by March 6, 2026 about projects in the community, project funding process.

And I would like to include our affordable housing project under the, where he has a project, must have strong community support, demonstrated clear federal nexus and shovel ready.

It's very shovel-ready.

And it must be for the funds for FY 27, which we're in that mix.

But I'd like to send him a letter of support for our affordable housing.

It has to be in by March the 6th.

And for those of you who ought to remember the monies that we now have, we got through the same process.

that we're using now, we got through a similar CDBG grant kind of deal.

We just need Dave Matthew to have another hit album.

Just a few updates on some of the others.

I did work with the Art Center and we went through their budget request and we are able to move from the general fund funding, their 60,000 requests, they have programming needs of about 94,000.

So we can move that over to transit occupancy and ask through it through that path.

Yes, sir.

They asked for $80,000.

Y'all had said that you would like to fund $60,000 to see if we could fund some of it through the transit occupancy tax funding.

So I met with them.

They actually have $94,000 that would probably qualify in the transit occupancy funding.

But I will work with them to apply for

at least the $60,000 through that process so that funding would pay that allocation in fiscal year 27.

So that's where I'm getting lost.

No, that's $60,000.

The original we normally pay for out of general fund dollars.

We're going to take it out of general fund and move it over to the transit occupancy budget to be funded there.

So it hadn't increased the amount.

So their request is still, I know Mr. Williams had talked about it and we had some discussion earlier.

About the 60 everybody was in agreement to and they could apply for T.O.D.

T.O.T.

He had asked me to also look at it for the 60.

So if they have $94,000 in expenses that would qualify under the T.O.T.

funding.

Okay.

We're still holding it, if I get it right, we're still holding the appropriation at $60,000.

Yes, yes.

Well, I would also like to add on to that is trying to also find that additional $20,000

Whether it's through T.O.T.

or whatever it is, but when we're looking at some of these other things, I think it's a value-added community service that, in other words, I don't want to see it

The 60 in the past has been sort of, this is designated, that's done.

It sounds like now, if I'm understanding this correctly, the 60 is still there, we're just looking for a different pocket.

If y'all vote for me.

Do you know what the name of it is?

Is one of those members local?

No, no, no.

It's a whole different quality.

I am confused on this, because the way I understood this, at the last meeting we approved $60,000 straight out of the general fund for the Louisa Arts Center.

I'm not saying that we don't have to do what we're doing now, but I'm just trying to parse this out in my mind.

And I think maybe Supervisor Barlow has a similar question.

Because it was something that we discussed at the last work session.

And evidently, it's still not clear.

The $20,000 that we are, they asked for 80.

We're not going to 80.

We're going to 60.

But what I understood is that the additional 20 could come from TOT.

So I don't know why we need to make it

More difficult.

It's a lot of money.

It's a large percentage of the T.O.T.

But if we go 20,000, that may be a little bit more palatable and it may not cause other people that are applying for T.O.T.

to be like, hey, 94,000 and we're getting such and such.

So I don't necessarily feel like we have an issue where we have to go

to $94,000 out of TOT.

But again, I'm not on the finance committee.

Hold on a minute.

I'm sorry.

No.

Let me back this up.

Let me back this up.

So the last budget workshop, the board tentatively agreed to fund $60,000, which is historically where they've been funded.

They requested $80,000.

The Finance Committee recommended that we hold this to stay at $60,000.

Then Mr. Williams asked if there was a way that Ms. Colvin could look at any money that could come from the TOT money.

So what Ms. Colvin has come back with is said that the entire 60 could qualify to come out of the TOT money.

And the advantage to that, in my opinion, is

That's a completely separate bucket of money than our general revenue, right?

So that frees up general revenue, which is not restricted to some very narrow things, and frees up general revenue to go to schools, fire, EMS, human services, wherever we would decide that we would have to put it.

So that's the factual statement.

I'm going to give you my opinion of what I think.

That's just been a historical number.

But by being able to find it outside a general fund, it frees up general fund money to do the other functions of local government.

That's a win.

For the arts center, they get their historical funding level and I'll go back to needs and wants from the community.

I think that's probably a need.

I think this is probably one.

But this is almost a placeholder for the last, how long Mr. Barnes?

10 years, 12 years, something like that.

A long time, right?

So that would be the advantage to taking it out of TOT.

Mr. Chairman, I'm of that same answer.

that the T.O.T.

is the way to go, that's why we have it, and go from that standpoint.

The funding for it, coming out of T.O.T., they have to apply for that to get it?

Whereas, that's where I'm getting a little, in other words, we're taking it from, it's coming out of the general fund, and I'm fine with it coming out of T.O.T., that's fine.

But, in other words, we're taking it from the general fund where we're saying that, okay, you got $60,000 from the general fund.

We have, but what we've said in the past that we'll put a placeholder for the full $60,000 from the general fund if they don't get the full amount.

We did this for the Historical Society last year and so I did the same thing for them and so what we did last year is when we told we had them apply and

But when they applied, we put a note that the board would like this to move forward.

It meets the requirements.

And I put that on their award letter that it would be funded with TOT with an application process.

And if for some reason it wasn't, then I would come back and we'd fund it with the other.

And it was approved.

Y'all do the final approval on TOT, as long as it meets the guidelines that go to the committee.

The committee does have a say in it.

But these are things that do fall in what they vote to do for.

And that's why I had them go through and say, hey, programming, anything that brings in people, promotes tourism, these are the kind of expenses.

So going through the historical society's budget, same thing.

You all said to approve $24,000.

Last year, I think $13,000 is what we

I have zero problem with it coming out of T.O.T.

That's fine.

It's just I don't want it to be hit or miss.

In other words, we're not plowing new ground.

As you said, this is how we did the Historical Society.

We did it with Historical Society.

And the goal is to fund the project.

It's just the funding source.

And we do because of the funding source that does have an application process because of the way it has to go through that committee.

Chris McCotter, R.T.

So we can take it in March to that committee and get it approved or not.

Yeah, but the Arts Center.

Who's to the Historical Society?

Is that you?

Oh, they were great.

I talked to Caitlin.

I told him we would help them get what you know, in the process that just, you know, when you have your meeting, so anybody else have any comments or questions?

I'd like to make a motion to, to do that.

And I also went in your discussions with them, have them apply for this for that

So what's your motion?

Is there a second on that?

Let me just make sure I understand the motion, if I may, Mr. Chairman.

Along your lines, $60,000 is going to get allotted to them.

They're going to try and get it all from TOT.

I think that's his motion.

Do we have a second?

Notion from the General Fund for 80?

That's good.

Mr. Barlow, I think we understand what you want to do, but we can't take money out of T.O.T.

We might make a recommendation or something or application, but we can't take money out of T.O.T.

I think what we were talking about before, like what Ms. Carlin was talking about, put a placeholder.

for $60,000.

If they don't get it from the T.O.T., then we will fund it out as a general fund.

That's right.

So we do have a motion for $60,000 total appropriation.

We don't have a second.

I'll give it a second.

$80,000 total.

$80,000.

I thought it was $80,000.

I'm sorry.

OK, so you second that.

That's the motion on the floor.

I would, final point of discussion.

T.O.T.

is like Easter candy.

It's a big old basket of great candy that we're getting, not from our taxpayers, but from visitors.

As we take from the basket and enjoy the candies, eventually the basket is empty and you have to wait until next year.

So keep that in mind when you're thinking about all the Easter candy and T.O.T.

money we can enjoy.

This is

My motion is for the 60 from the general fund if it doesn't come from the TOT.

That's not what I intended.

Well, then we don't need a motion because we already did all that last meeting.

Yeah.

OK.

I think it is.

And that, folks, is Robert's Rules of Order happening.

Yes, sir.

So with that being said, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to make the motion that the Arts Center asks for the $80,000, $80,000 from the TOT money and

OK. Second.

Any discussion on this?

Right now the 60 doesn't make any difference.

They're going to ask for $80,000 from a transit occupancy tax.

So let's just use an example.

If the TOT says we're not going to do $80,000.00 but we'll do

30 then we only have to do 50.

The motion is for $80,000 ASF from the TOT, but I think the scenario doesn't have to play out that way would be that.

From somebody.

From TOT.

So forget I said the other.

Pardon?

Forget that I said that about it being anything more.

I'm saying $80,000 from the TOT is what they asked for.

If it doesn't work out that way,

So I have a question.

And again, same question I ask here.

So we've agreed in the last budget workshop to fund them wherever the source comes from at $60,000.

Nothing stops them.

from applying without a board directive and wandering into this $80,000 number from going and applying for additional TOT funding outside of the 60.

Well, if I'm the arts center... Yeah, they just heard they're getting $80,000.

If I'm the arts center, I'm gonna apply for the $20,000.

Regardless.

Regardless.

See what I'm saying?

What we've done in the past is, if y'all say we're going to give them $50,000, they get $50,000 from whatever source.

So if TOT has 25, they're only going to get 25 from the board.

If TOT has 50, there's nothing from the general fund.

So we've been doing it like, y'all vote on a total of what you want them to have, whether that's 60 or 80.

And then we figure out the funding sources based on that.

They're the only one we've done so far.

Yeah.

And so I was asked to try to do the same thing using $60,000 at the last work session.

See how much of that $60,000 could be funded from TOT.

Not that they can apply for more, but the board would only commit for at least last session.

$60,000.

The Board has agreed to tentatively fund the Arts Center for $60,000.

There's a possibility that all or a great deal of that funding can come from TOT money, which would lessen the impact on the general fund, because it's just a different bucket of money.

Dave, whatever their additional request is, 20, 10, 30, 40, they can go to the T.O.T.

committee and ask for additional funding through the tourism dollars.

But what the county is guaranteeing them, regardless of the funding source, is $60,000.

They'd only get more if they ask for $61,000 and all of it can come from T.O.T.

But that's separate from board action.

That's exactly right.

Well, if I understood what was just said was that if we have a placeholder for $60,000 and then they apply for the additional $20,000 more through the TOT funding, that

They would get, it sounds as though they would get 20 from the T.O.T.

All of it from the T.O.T.

If they asked for 80 and that group approves it, if they approve

Yeah, but again, Mr. Chairman, Tommy, I understand your confusion because when we approve $60,000 for an outside agency, that's $60,000 out of the general fund.

Now we are encouraging them to apply for another $20,000 grant from the TOT.

What I am trying to understand is, is that $20,000 backed out of the 60?

They've asked for an appropriation of 80.

We're not encouraging that they can do that?

So we're looking at a funding source to free up money from the general fund.

Y'all have approved $60,000 and we're looking for ways to fund it that's allowable.

Like we have revenue recovery funding.

We used to.

We use that now with the equipment bills.

But different funding sources and the only thing is this money ties to an application.

We can try after.

You're doing a great job trying to explain it.

I may not be able to understand it.

Y'all would approve the amount you want them to have.

30 hands.

Which is 60.

And so the funding source now, we'll figure that out on the backside of it.

If y'all approve 60, if we can take it out of transit occupancy, great.

And that's what we did the last meeting.

And I have the same for the Historical Society with their amount, but y'all did the same thing.

Okay.

What I talked about was a 60 that we typically approve.

And then if they could get applied to the the TOT funding for the additional, but so it's a if they get that TOT,

No, we're giving them 60 regardless.

If they apply for an additional 20 and get it, they get 80.

But we could use T.O.T.

to get part of the 60.

What they do with that other 20 is outside of our purview.

I'm going to have them apply for the 60 alone and leave it at that.

If they want to apply and do a second application for anything above and beyond, then that would flow through that normal process.

And maybe that's the simplest way to look at it, right?

Is that okay?

Let's split this into a 60 and a 20.

And we're going to ask them to apply to TOT for the 60.

And if they don't get all of the 60 from TOT, we'll make it a whole 60, assuming that's what you all still want to do.

We'll make it a whole 60 with TOT in general fund.

If they want to come back in a second separate step to get to their full 80 request, we would say you may apply to TOT for that and there's no guarantee

of whether or not you will get it.

It does, but you cannot do two applications within a set amount of time for TOT.

There's a time limit on that.

We need to check on that.

I don't know what it is.

Is it shorter than one year?

Yeah, we'll pull that and check on it.

How many more of the work sessions do we have?

One more and then the budget town halls.

Oh, wow.

OK. Then the last one I have, and we can do this one next time if you want.

So Planning Commission did approve the capital improvement plan.

So that is what's in front of you.

What was approved?

There were no changes based on what we talked about at our last work session.

I talked to Mr. Williams today.

So what I'd like to do is have the work session go from start at three, have the schools, the fire, and the sheriff's department, those are the top three, give their presentation.

I have written that down to potentially do that.

I would think so.

It'll be March 2nd at 3 o'clock instead of 4 o'clock.

I'll send out a meeting invite.

and update the website.

And then we've also scheduled our budget roadshow meetings.

I've sent out meeting invites for that on March 24, March 31, and April 1 from six to eight, we'll have those at the three different locations.

Are we all going to be attending at Spring Break Week?

Spring Break is a week after April.

The Spring Break, I think, is April 6th.

No more than two, if you don't interact and all that sort of thing.

Do we need to keep it to two?

Then you're covered.

Yeah.

It's not like you all are going to take any action, but I certainly see a potential for more than two of you to be there.

Exactly.

So we'd be fine.

Yes, sir.

Cindy's already started posting, I think the meeting's out.

Okay.

Perfect.

I move that we convene in closed session pursuant to the following subsections of Virginia Code Section 2.2.37.11.

1.

In accordance with Section 2.2.37.11.

8.3. discussion or consideration of the acquisition of real property for a public purpose or the disposition of publicly held real property in the mineral district where discussion in open meeting would adversely affect the bargaining position or negotiating strategy of the public body.

and 2.

In accordance with section 2.2, 3711 A.B.

Second.

We've been properly moved and seconded.

We go into closed session.

Any discussion?

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion passes.