Board of Supervisors Public Hearing (CY 2017 Tax Rate & Board's Proposed Budget)   4/11/2017

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

And if you have anything you want to share with us tonight, if you would just give it to one of the clerks, they'll be happy to pass it out to us and make sure that we have copies.

Let me, Doug, I believe, or Lori, is Lori, you're going to start.

Yes ma'am.

Okay, so I'm going to turn it over to you, right, to start off.

That's all the comments that I have, Madam Chair, members of the board, glad to answer any questions, but I know you wanna hear from the public.

Just ask quickly if anyone on the board has any questions at this point.

I just want to make sure people knew that.

Thank you.

And with that, I will open the public hearing on the operating and capital budgets and turn it over to Norman, who I believe has the sign up sheet.

And we'll start with Marta Keene.

So I just really wanted to make sure I extended my thanks for the support that you all have given us.

Thank you.

Thank you, Marta.

Robert Hogue.

Thank you.

Gary Grant.

Thank you very much.

You might.

If we change the status of the firewood and burn it, actually it then has actually remained in a molecular state?

Is there anyone else that didn't have a chance to sign up that would like to say something?

Yes, please come on up.

Make sure you adjust the mic for your height so that we can hear you clearly.

Not real well.

That's better.

In other words, so far I've heard at the White Hall meeting, everyone opposed, but I haven't heard why we think we should fund it.

Matano.

M-A-T-A-N-O.

And unless you all have any comments, I'm going to go on and open the next one.

Do we want to comment at the end of the next one?

It's up to you all.

If you want to make comments, if anybody has anything they want to say.

Or you can wait until the very end.

I recommend.

OK, we'll wait.

Then I'll open the public hearing for the proposed calendar year 2017 tax rates for real property.

Do we have anyone signed up?

Then I'll close the public hearing, this particular public hearing.

I mean, yes.

Then I will open it up for comments from the board.

We also have a little bit of a legacy issue to deal with.

And there is the information that Andy Bowen sent out did have some charts, and I'm trying to find the one, but each of us, I think, needs to contact our chiefs and make sure we have the latest up-to-date information before Tuesday on the last two years, at least.

Well, and I think Doug has indicated he'll come back to us with information at our discussion next week.

It's about $140,000 just for the last year that they're shorted.

So do we need to find out from our chief, Doug, or are you going to find that out?

So we'll prepare to have that conversation with the board next week.

Alright, Brad did you have anything else?

No, that was the only thing scratching the back of my head.

activities and services for seniors, but I'm wondering if anybody else who's been following it a little closer than I do have anything to say, because I quite frankly have not been following it as closely as some others that I know have been meeting with them.

Does that help?

I can understand that there's another side to it, but that's my story.

So Rick, do you have any comments?

I've made comments before and I will have comments next Wednesday that are comprehensive.

Okay, that's great.

Probably a half hour will do fine, Senator, if you'll yield me that time.

We'll bring a packed launcher.

No doughs as well, please.

So the public hearings have been held and open and closed properly, I believe, just to make sure on my work here.

So we do have from the board committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda.

Somehow Lorna can provide a condensed paper file that the board office or the clerks can send to people if they call up and request one so that we don't miss anybody's ideas because they can't get online.

That's a great idea.

I made him happy.

There you go.

We didn't realize until towards the end that we did have the city engineer there who could have answered questions but we weren't, we didn't know.

Clued in that he was there.

We did have some city people who had some good, good comments.

But the connection between the city and the county at sunset is close.

I mean, it's just amazing.

It was the supervisor doing 68.

Norman and I have actually taken the tour over there with those folks.

They do have some real challenges.

And at Jaunt, we do take action.

I think that's very important.

And the more we can try to get the community to help us educate drivers, I think the better.

request to get a bunch of those small you are going something or other signs similar to the one down at McIntire when we come off the bypass because it was about a year ago we were going to get like ten of them and put them out in the right places.

Doug and I had a conversation about this about a month ago.

It was going to be $12,000.

Yeah, we wondered what happened to that.

To do lots, thank you.

A lot of places we really need to have those up there.

Move them around so people don't get used to them.

Any other comments?

We have them in the Scottsville District and we're holding them hostage.

Very good.

Doug, did you?

Can you clarify whether that's FY 15 and FY 16 or FY 16 and the current year FY 17?

So this will be part of the same discussion we were having before about the kinds of extra services.

To me, just 1716 at this point.

I'm not as concerned because 17's not over, but I guess there's a projection ability.

I think we should find out what the 15 was though it may be that you know one station had far more in 15 and less than 16 and it wouldn't really be fair for them to not get anything because they had put it all in 15 just to see what it is and then we can decide okay I think we want to try to have some fairness between the stations you know relative to their size and also that might help okay then to close the loop with Ms. Malek we are planning to have a conversation about the broader funding policy before we get into next year's budget process

So, there are huge inequities and that's a real problem.

Yeah, it's a broader look than what was identified.

That's why I wanted to clarify that there are several different questions flying around here.

Did you want to look at what the stations have requested versus what's been allocated to them in the FY18 budget?

I mean, it's the page two of the budget that needs to be talked about.

I'm getting head nods from Laura.

And now's the time because we've been talking around the fringes of this issue for eight years and we need to talk about it during the budget process and get it nailed down right now.

The conversation at the next level of their FY18 budget request versus allocated will teeter on where does the money come from.

Well, there's that extra million plus in the fire fund this year due to race assessments and that's probably a good place to look.

Just want to make sure there's a distinction.

It's two separate issues.

So Doug, does that help?

That's what I have.

So here we are with the budget.

And I think staff is not, at this point, is not, and I don't think really can reasonably be prepared to have a full conversation about the policy in involving the input from FIMS.

We just need to have a conversation.

Is this anticipating that there will be changes made to the budget for FY18 based on interpretation of the funding policy or changes to the funding policy?

It would certainly be my wish, but I may be the only one.

I know it's late in the season, but it seems like it doesn't come up until the very end.

It's come up, believe me.

Doug, when do we plan on having the next strategic plan update discussion?

is May or June.

But I have no problem having that conversation next week.

but was lots more punitive even ten years ago so I just want to see if we can take some bigger steps to fix this because people are getting impatient they're getting you know why am I working 40 hours and volunteering 30 hours and don't even get the basic stuff so we need to really buckle down and face this while we have concerns all the way around the county.

a significant issue that how much was turned I forget the terminology but how much was requested versus how much was approved do we have a sense of that's what we're going to talk about next week.

I just forwarded you again Andy Bowman's email from last week that has all the charts in there.

Well, looking at the requests and what was approved,

We just need to talk about what's happening.

But yeah, discussing it when we have all the information in front of us, I think.

So I'm just trying to reconcile what information we can provide and prepare and provide to you in advance of next week.

I was thinking it was June, but July.

This is sort of our last chance to deal with this right now.

You want to go over it again?

I'm just not sure what it is that we can prepare for today.

But that discussion you all had planned for for July.

as part of

seems like the essential question.

Not really excited about paying another person to sit at a desk and shuttle people.

So, yeah.

We will have the fleet maintenance costs for 15 and 16.

And Doug's been given direction to pull together what the stations have asked for versus what they were allocated in the FY18 budget, which will feed our conversation of policy and the board's position on supporting that.

But we could make changes in the funding on both those categories next week.

Again, we're trying to be responsive.

We'll have that discussion next week.

Staff will bring us the information.

And my understanding is we're not having a closed meeting tonight.

Second.

For discussion on that, since it is a motion, just a reminder, CTB's meeting next week, just if more than two of us plan to attend, we need to tomorrow adjourn to that.

And I'm unsure of what the time for the CTB meeting is so I guess we need to make sure it'll be in the morning the Tuesday morning is when it starts so we would adjourn to that possibly tomorrow so I'm just asking to make sure we get the clerk direction yeah sure so let's just get the clerks to find out for sure the time and then if you guys can think about it and let us know tomorrow if you plan on attending

I definitely am going.

You can think about it overnight.

We'll be three at least, I would guess.

Alright, so there's a motion on the table.

Yes.

And thank you for those listening.

Watching, listening.