Board of Supervisors Budget Work Session   3/17/2025

and progress.

And with that, I understand that we have quorum for the school board.

So I'd like to turn this over to Mark McKeel to call the school board.

Is that right?

I understand.

Patrick's Day meeting of the school board in session.

That will be fine.

and many other supporting folk from the cabinet who are here to help us field questions if you have any.

With that, I will turn this over to Andy Bowman, our assistant chief financial officer, who will take it from here.

Dr. Hiccup.

And now Dr. Berlin will present the first two segments of our funding request.

And now I will turn it over to Dr. Acuff to provide an overview of our funding request.

And now, Dr. Berlin will take a closer look at our Learning for All proposals.

And now Dr. A. Kopp will take a look at ACPS capital funding request and close us for the day.

I know it's a little long, so I do apologize for that.

we're talking about this year and next year.

Within the $6 whatever million dollar savings, it includes about a million dollars, just under a million dollars in deferred costs.

So I'm just trying to make sure I understand this.

$9.9 million is the combination of the FY 25 reductions and the FY 26 reductions in the past two years.

We had no way to

So your existing gap, right?

That's what I think I just heard.

If we include the paused or the deferred payments, yes.

750K and, so two separate numbers, a 1.7 million would mean what on the tax rate?

You would need 6 tenths of a penny, which would be $1.8 million, approximately, to take care of the second number.

The first number is what on the tax rate?

0.3 and 0.6.

Just to make sure.

Assuming that it is dedicated.

So those would have to be dedicated.

Correct.

to explain to the public what dedicated means.

So if the board were to increase the dedication for public schools from 0.4 cents to either 0.7 or one full cent, as the 0.3, the 0.6, that would address the school's gap in those two numbers.

And if it wasn't dedicated?

One moment.

It's okay.

That would be about a little less than half a penny, either three or four tenths if split.

Can you somehow or another, just for my benefit and maybe other people's benefit, I would love to have that in something after this meeting, just so I can refer back to it in my brain.

Sure, we can buy that as a grid with the next board follow-up we send out.

We broke it out because we couldn't afford the whole recommendation based on our market.

And going back to my notes, I guess we'll be able to have another round.

Having said that, I know you have nailed support officers and so you're going to keep the support officers in place and add the SROs to them.

I don't know, Dr. Hawes, if you want to add anything to that.

Thank you.

There used to be some service that you were, I know out of the Lands Lake campus, maybe some services to try and help the children that were homeless and moving around to stay in one school and not be constantly, just help me with that a little bit.

So it is a significant issue and it's disproportionately concentrated on our interjective district.

I don't know the second part to your question.

There are 60 at Woodbrooke.

Yeah, that makes sense.

But yeah, we do everything in our power to keep them as stable as possible, at least in their education environment.

It was a dollar invested in school construction rates to $20 in real estate values over time and $1 investment in schools in general returns $4 to $7 to the local economy over time Tell me that again.

That's why I remember.

And that $54.2 is an increase for two years.

$26 in this fiscal year and $24 for FY.

I want my language.

It's a rebranding of that state terminology.

and that equates to me to Center 1 and Center 2.

Yes.

Specifically Center 2 I guess right now but it was I guess Center 1.

Right.

Yes.

All right.

And with the ultimate hope, I mean, well, I won't go

that while it may look like there's some duplication in my head, they're addressing different students.

But we're more partners with them than we are overlapping or duplicating their programs.

So what you're saying is that you are a partner.

We're part of that.

Or you can.

Our students can attend it.

I do remember years ago, certainly Monticello High School, because of its location, had some really good connections with PVCC as well.

We have just a commercial, but we do have the Early College Scholars Program at Monticello where students earn their high school diploma and an associate's degree.

And is there any reason why now that couldn't be expanded to the other two high schools?

We provide transportation.

That's helpful for you.

Who's that program?

Part of what you're doing from the big picture with special ed is trying to avoid those external placements that were so expensive, sometimes up to $100,000 a student.

Wow.

So if we could pull three or four of those students back.

But most importantly, it will allow us to keep our students in our school system and not have them have to travel away or be in spaces that we're currently leasing for those students.

If I remember correctly, we're pretty far.

Some of them are very far away, even out of state.

from other folks, but the concerns about the chaos right now at the federal level

Dr. Berlin had mentioned it's a

Was it a $200,000 increase in their lifetime earning for a high school diploma?

Does that then break it out by regen and other obstacles?

No.

Especially when you're looking at the high wealth that this community is, that you would think that if we're producing that kind of high wealth quality of life for people that live here, our students should be participating and enjoying that.

and do internships now and grow into those jobs either as high school graduates or coming back after some post-secondary study.

If you come across anything that speaks to that type of thing, I'd love to be shared.

I'm kind of detached from my ed research days, so I don't really... A lot of the Federal Reserves have been doing research, and then I come up to see if the Richmond Federal Reserve is doing that.

So I'm not talking about the transparency of the dollar spent, but trying to say, well, here's what we're going to try to learn from other places, because we always do those comparisons for salaries, et cetera.

Thank you for that.

It took years to get the buses into the damn CIP.

But I would say there are some components of those renovations projects already in that maintenance program.

but it's better planning that way because we're treating it like a roof or a gymnasium floor replacement or something.

It's not good news.

Because last year you did 13, 16.3 FTAs in your reductions.

This is just.

Right.

I think about 16.5 by increasing class sizes.

Those are actual existing positions from last year to this year that exist in the current school.

It's a combination of vacant positions and current programming.

You're still using the PrEP for where you don't have 12 students and you need to serve two inside the school and then that staff person goes around the nine counties.

We're still going to have services with PrEP.

But it's not going to be the end all of all.

And you're saying that you're bringing, you're serving both the folks being served by PrEP and the outside of the division being brought in.

But not all of the outside.

But we'll make significant headway into

But I just want to set expectations that that one program is not going to be able to serve.

Andy, is the SRO FTE the same as us adding a police FTE in terms of cost, salary benefit, and one-time costs to equip?

The people who provide the one-time costs

So that's 69 students.

And then you're going to serve, you think, how many of those?

It'll be a minority of those positions.

The math we were using is, even if you can serve only three of those, it's a cost neutral proposal.

And it's more expensive, I'm assuming, for the non-prep students than the prep students.

It's something you can't really know at this time.

They vary so much.

So you're giving the projection, and then you're just kinda?

Yeah, we do our own state revenue projections.

Thank you.

So can you just, which one is what I should talk about?

Thank you.

On slide 16, we were talking about the fund balance and how much is remaining in the fund balance.

We are not planning on using our school fund balance but we do have a projection at the end of this year it'll be about 1.3 million

The total, if all of that happened, would be $20 million increase in this coming year.

Supervisor McKeel, can we just clarify something on that point before you move on?

So go over that one more time.

The one-time transfer to the health care fund for the ACPS portion is not included on this slide.

Right.

Well, we're still figuring out technically how the transfer would move within all of our funds that are together.

Then the schools would transfer that into the health fund.

So it's 20.5 something plus.

So the $11.8 should really be

The expenditure side of that is not reflected in any table either.

Isn't that right, Ann?

Yes, I'm just trying to make sure I know when people ask.

I wasn't questioning you, I'm just questioning my understandings.

But for example, with the change in the format for Environmental Sciences Academy, will those teachers

Support and leadership of this program.

Is it starting up a new thing, and it's going to be there?

So once we have full ownership of the whole building, those two programs would have their own spaces.

I think somebody answered the security hires at like 27 something to alter out all the various levels of schools from elementary, middle, and high schools that are currently employed or are there new ones that are going to be added because this was not in your presentation it was something that flew by in somewhere in the last couple of weeks and I just wrote it down and said please but I need to find out.

And in this proposal, one at Western and one at Mitchell.

So our proposal would have both.

So those are more around monitoring hallways, making sure all the doors are locked, working the front door at Albemarle High School.

figuring out the most efficient ways to do this, but also being very clear about what's really going on.

They are small improvements.

Otherwise, later is fine.

Right now.

Supervisor Pruitt.

I guess I would like a little bit more help understanding, we talked about the relationship between the centers and PVCC, can you help me understand a little bit more about the relationship between the Scholar Studios program and the centers and how if there is any effort to create kind of a through path to frankly drive enrollment at the centers which it sounds like we need from not just a, from frankly a fiscal perspective, we need more enrollment

So we really have one center right now, and that's center one, that's at Seminole Place.

I was referring to two because I know we broke the ground.

But at the same time, it's still a student's choice as to whether they would travel.

Anyway, that's my little speech.

That was very helpful, and the public dear to it.

Is that 3%, is that fully evenly distributed or is there additionally like a deeper salary or comp realignment that is addressing this, because you identify a very specific gap, but I'm not seeing what sounds like a very specific comp realignment to correct

So that would come at a greater cost.

Or is that still below?

This is why the concern is if you didn't do the 3%, it would be worse.

I think you touched on this, but if you could just reiterate it briefly.

So the adapted market that we compare to is Alexandria, Augusta, Charlottesville, Chesterfield, Fauquier, Hanover, Henrico, Montgomery, Prince William, Rockingham, Spotsylvania, Stafford, Virginia Beach, Williamsburg, and York.

We pay more, but we also had some of our closer neighbors.

Can you help me kind of place that in the market?

We probably have state.

So coming out of the pandemic, there was more state reporting on this so that other districts that we could benchmark with other districts, but we are outperforming Virginia.

And you mentioned briefly that in your last year's budget,

So when we say increased class size what we mean by that is we we have a bunch of formulas about how many staff is allocated to schools so we increase that ratio that student to teacher ratio and we did it by formula so it impacted all schools whether it physically impacted class sizes depends on a lot of variables but yeah that was across all schools by formula.

How are we doing that?

So with elementary school we're lower, for middle school we're a little higher, and high school we're a little lower.

Those are people who we would not be hitting with the same interventions.

And that's a good point.

That's all I got.

Well, I'm going to bring up the rules of evidence.

Sorry.

Your TAs, do you

And then schools elect to use TAs in other functions, but not in every classroom.

Well, I'm thinking of that, but special ed has their own TAs.

No, it depends on the students.

It's not just temporary, is that right Mr. Richardson?

Could you repeat that question please ma'am?

It wouldn't be necessarily temporary.

I also should just add, I have no idea if they allow children in the supporters.

Yeah, they do or they don't do?

We don't know.

OK, all right.

We did have discussion about children coming out of premier services.

We're getting 13.5 million.

It's that $1 million, I would say, at the bottom, because there isn't legislation necessarily to carve rules and statutes behind it.

Any teachers?

So what was your question about who are they?

Okay but you were actually

I would like to know that number if you don't mind.

Thank you very much.

Or is this just positions that are being cut separate and apart from those that are being added elsewhere?

It's not a net.

Is there a net number?

Now you are hiring those people.

I'm sure there are other comments.

That's average now, right?

20%.

I'm looking at Lands Lane master plan number seven and we're already doing a middle school facility master plan and we can just let that go that statement so we're going to have one master plan that we haven't implemented and we're starting on another master plan.

You all asked very good questions.

I don't know if the board desires to go over it, but just to manage expectations of when we may stop the presentation of the CIP.

Nervous, but I know the questions will take some time, too.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

Just kidding.

The information which is coming back to us that may pertain to things left over from previous work sessions would be very helpful instead of doing those things now because we don't have those responses yet.

The board has all that information.

Do you not expect us to do more with the Human Services things now?

But if the board's not there yet, that's OK, too.

Were you going to do any natural breaks?

I'll pause here if there's any board questions to date on the overall CIP or public schools, and then we can pick up where to go further at this work session.

So this is the five-year CIP.

Correct.

You know, we usually plan ten years out in some ways, but we're really talking about the five year right there.

Five years is what we're talking about at this time.

And I'm assuming that the Southern and the high school, that does not, well I was going to say that.

There was a small cost update that had to take place.

This is what you were talking about, about the additional cost update.

Yes.

Thank you.

Well, that's probably not even enough.

Hopefully it'll all be quieted down by 2026,

Right now we recognize we're in a very different environment right now than we were the last two June's.

Just wondering.

And if rates are lower, that will create more capacity for a future CIP discussion.

Several years out before you can re-finance is typically Yeah, it typically is pretty far into that.

So at this point, I will turn this over to Mr. Davidson, Ryan Davidson, our deputy chief of budget, to walk through the county government.

But this was the one that did fund and again we are continuing, we funded three in FY 25 budget that we are continuing to work with those outside agencies to make sure those come to fruition as well.

And we'll be happy to turn it over to the chair for any questions.

Yeah, let me go back to our beginning.

I'm just wondering, do we know at what point the transportation decision, or a smart scale transportation funding decision will be made?

I'm sure staff will come back with some sort of plan based on the feedback they got from VDOT because this was scored differently this time for recommendation for the next cycle but the next cycle is not for two years.

Isn't it two years?

We'll go through the whole iteration again.

I was just trying to figure out at what point we might know what the criteria and how that's changing and it'll be within the next two years I guess is the answer.

I don't think that's going to happen in two years, even with a change.

That's where you heard this change.

And none of them, while they may not have appreciated the snark, they didn't correct my understanding.

I'm just saying, so it hasn't changed.

To my knowledge, we will have to go back and double check, but to my knowledge I know they're still working on the design piece at this point and so I think they're working through that as we speak.

There was room for all of it and I just want to make sure we're not shifting it and causing ourselves another problem.

We'll confirm that.

Northwest corner of Ryo Mills and Berkman.

That's what I recall.

That pays for only one of the fields, which is clarity.

That's the remaining funding split between half by 26 and half.

Having said that, you mentioned there were three others?

Oh, I have one more question.

If you could just send out the details of the pan tops for the transportation.

I think it's either on the top or on the western side, right?

I'm not remembering the rest of the projects aside from what was in the SmartScale project, if any.

When you sort of leapt into design, I wondered whether some spot had already been found, a location or not.

I think we're close to getting it to the board.

There also was a focus of bicycle-only trails, which are perhaps also under construction in one region of Zola itself, just for bicycles, right?

Technical course, and it will be bicycle-only.

So that's all I have right now.

Thank you.

Can you help remind me kind of how our relationship with the library's foundation and their private dollar raising would work in this project as we move forward?

So that would be one thing that would, those dollars would not flow through the county's books because the city as the fiscal agent would be the construction lead for the project, but that is the expectation that they would be bringing money to the table for that as they have committed

Am I asking more granularity than this?

Sure.