Board of Supervisors Regular Meeting   1/15/2020

1. Call to Order.

2. Moment of Silence.

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:00:56
    Thank you.

3. Adoption of Final Agenda.

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:00:57
    I would now ask if there's a motion to adopt the final agenda.
  • 00:01:03
    So moved.
  • 00:01:05
    Is there a second?
  • 00:01:06
    Second.
  • 00:01:08
    All in any discussion?
  • 00:01:11
    Hearing none, all in favor say, or Claudette do you call it out by name?
  • 00:01:16
    Yes ma'am.
  • 00:01:17
    Okay thank you.
  • 00:01:17
    Ms.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:01:17
    Mallek?
  • 00:01:18
    Yes.
  • 00:01:19
    Ms.
  • 00:01:19
    McKeel?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:01:19
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:01:20
    Ms.
  • 00:01:20
    Palmer?
  • 00:01:21
    Yes.
  • 00:01:21
    Ms.
  • 00:01:21
    Price?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:01:22
    Aye.

4. Brief Announcements by Board Members.

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:01:28
    I would note that today we do not have two of the Board of Supervisors present at the moment.
  • 00:01:35
    Chairman Ned Galloway has been called away for work.
  • 00:01:38
    He does hope to make it later in the meeting and Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley will not be here.
  • 00:01:45
    She had a death in the family.
  • 00:01:46
    Her husband died on Monday and so she will not be here for the meeting.
  • 00:01:54
    Would I ask if there are any brief announcements by board members?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:02:00
    I would I would just like to make one comment, and I was going to mention it before the moment of silence and you were very efficient and I was running a little behind and didn't get it out first.
  • 00:02:11
    But I would really like as we go through our day today and in the ensuing days to think about our neighbors and friends in Australia.
  • 00:02:22
    and the terrible tragedies and environmental
  • 00:02:29
    I don't even know the word for it, catastrophe that they are experiencing.
  • 00:02:34
    And so I think our thoughts go out to them.
  • 00:02:37
    I know that certainly the United States is offering help as we can, but it really watching it on TV is jarring.
  • 00:02:47
    And you can only imagine, we took at my house a map of the area that has burned so far and superimposed it over the state of Virginia.
  • 00:03:01
    Not completely, it misses a little bit at the south, but it is shocking the amount of land that they have lost and the wildlife and the lives, people's lives.
  • 00:03:13
    So I just wanted to say that, Donna.
  • 00:03:14
    Thank you for indulging me.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:03:17
    Thank you.
  • 00:03:19
    Any other supervisors?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 00:03:23
    Well, I do have one thing that I want to say at this point.
  • 00:03:26
    Usually I would talk about this in board reports, but I did want to bring this up at the beginning of the meeting so that more people could hear this.
  • 00:03:37
    First of all, say thank you, Diantha, for that remembrance of the folks in Australia.
  • 00:03:45
    It's a terrible, terrible thing.
  • 00:03:48
    What I want to talk about is something totally different.
  • 00:03:51
    I did want to let everybody know that Rivanna Solid Waste Authority now has a more formal agreement with Strategic Materials down in the Danville area.
  • 00:04:04
    Strategic Materials is a glass recycler.
  • 00:04:08
    They will turn the glass that we send down there, bottles,
  • 00:04:13
    for wine bottles, jars, beer bottles, all that sort of thing, are sorted and turned into new bottles, or the residual goes to make fiberglass insulation.
  • 00:04:29
    and we do know right now that those the glass that is picked up in the by time and by county waste and other haulers that pick up combined recyclables that's going out to a MRF and that materials recovery unit and that material does get reused.
  • 00:05:00
    But it gets reused as alternative daily cover for the landfill.
  • 00:05:03
    So it's basically sprayed on the landfill.
  • 00:05:06
    So what we're trying to do, Strategic Materials is saying that they will take all the glass we can get.
  • 00:05:14
    So we're looking for ways to really reach out to our wineries and breweries.
  • 00:05:19
    and Cideries to let them know that if they choose to have their glass going like this, they can bring it to McIntire or Ivy.
  • 00:05:29
    We're also reaching out to our neighboring counties that have stopped glass recycling, that if they can get it to Ivy, we'll take care of it.
  • 00:05:39
    So I just wanted to say that.
  • 00:05:40
    What I'm gonna do is prepare a email that explains this and send it out to our board so that you guys can distribute it to let people know.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:05:48
    Thank you Supervisor Palmer.
  • 00:05:50
    Any other members?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:05:51
    Just one at the Crozet School of the Arts is having their open house and artists and teachers performance day this coming Saturday in the afternoon, so please check that out.
  • 00:06:02
    This is one of the two Lisa-ers who used the old Crozet School, elementary school, which formerly was the high school in Crozet, and many, many different classes all across the ranges from instruments to dance to improv to craft.
  • 00:06:20
    I was there a couple years ago for this day and it was a wonderful, world-renowned cellist playing for everybody sitting there on the floor.
  • 00:06:26
    So I do hope people will think about going.
  • 00:06:28
    It's supposed to be a rainy day, so that might be a good time to go.
  • 00:06:32
    Crose School of the Arts, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:06:33
    Thank you, Supervisor Mallek, and let me correct an oversight.
  • 00:06:36
    I failed to recognize those in attendance on the dais today, as well as our law enforcement officers here.
  • 00:06:42
    Lieutenant Terry Walls and Officer Dominique Zambrota, we thank you for the services that you provide to us.
  • 00:06:49
    Starting at your left in the second row, we've got Assistant County Executive Trevor Henry and Deputy County Executive Doug Walker.
  • 00:06:59
    And here in the front row, we have County Attorney Greg Campner, the four members of the Board of Supervisors, our County Executive Jeff Richardson, and we also have our County Clerk Claudette Borgerson, and we may have Senior Deputy Clerk Travis Morris joining us a little later during the meeting.

5. Resolution Recognizing Elton Oliver.

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:07:18
    At this time we turn to proclamations and recognitions and I'm very pleased to have one today.
  • 00:07:25
    Mr. Elton Oliver, if you would please come up front and center.
  • 00:07:35
    Right up there, yes sir, and then we'll call you up to the front a little bit later.
  • 00:07:41
    I have a resolution to offer as a motion, a resolution recognizing Elton J. Oliver.
  • 00:07:49
    Whereas Elton J. Oliver has served Albemarle County with distinction for 18 years representing the Scottsville District as a Director of the Economic Development Authority of Albemarle County from 2002 to 2020 and Whereas Elton J. Oliver's stewardship
  • 00:08:13
    as the Secretary-Treasurer has provided stability as the authority transitioned from an industrial development authority to an economic development authority and whereas Elton J. Oliver's dedication and service has enabled the economic development authority to issue bonds to promote and foster economic growth in Albemarle County and
  • 00:08:40
    whereas Elton J. Oliver's faithful attendance at economic development meetings and functions has allowed the authority to conduct its affairs in an efficient and timely manner and whereas Elton J. Oliver's consistent and deliberate manner has added a key element of thoughtfulness and wisdom to the economic development authority's decision-making process
  • 00:09:08
    and now, therefore, be it resolved that we, the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, do hereby honor and commend Elton J. Oliver for his 18 years of service to Albemarle County and its residents as a director of the Economic Development Authority representing the Scottsville District.
  • 00:09:31
    Do I have a second for this motion?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:09:33
    You have a couple of seconds.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:09:36
    Ms.
  • 00:09:36
    Mallek?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:09:37
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:09:37
    Ms.
  • 00:09:37
    McKeel?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:09:38
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:09:38
    Ms.
  • 00:09:39
    Palmer?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:09:39
    Yes.
  • 00:09:40
    Ms.
  • 00:09:40
    Price?
  • 00:09:40
    Aye.
  • 00:09:41
    Therefore, signed this 15th day of January 2020 by Donna Price, the Vice Chair, Albemarle Board of County Supervisors, and the absence of Chairman Ned Gallaway today.
  • 00:09:52
    Mr. Oliver, would you like to share some words with us?
• • SPEAKER_14
  • 00:09:56
    Thank you very much.
  • 00:10:00
    Just bring your mask up so we can hear you clearly.
  • 00:10:05
    It's been an honor for me to serve on the EDA for the last 18 years.
  • 00:10:09
    I think from the change it started with and when I began on the board in 2002 with it being conduit for the tax exempt bonds here in the county till now where it's transforming into a more integral and vibrant part of the economic development activity in Almore County.
  • 00:10:28
    I've been very appreciative of that and that I was very pointed every year on average terms.
  • 00:10:33
    Thank you very much.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:10:34
    Thank you.
  • 00:10:35
    Mr. Gentry, would you be kind enough to come up and offer some words as well?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:10:40
    Anybody else?
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:10:45
    Elton is a tireless worker, number one.
  • 00:10:50
    His bosses are here today and they would tell you that but he also likes understatement and I think this is a time not to understate but to say how important his presence, his experience, his thoughtfulness, and his fiscal maturity with regard to an organization has been and the role that it has played.
  • 00:11:13
    He's worked very closely with the finance department
  • 00:11:16
    and his institutional knowledge is going to be tremendously missed after 18 years.
  • 00:11:21
    He's virtually irreplaceable, but we're going to have to work on that.
  • 00:11:26
    But I have not been able, I was unsuccessful to get him to remain, but we are so thankful that we've had him for 18 years.
  • 00:11:34
    Kudos.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:11:43
    And we'll need to get some photographs here as well.
  • 00:11:45
    Mr. Gentry, if you don't mind, let's make sure we get some photos with you and Elton up here.
  • 00:12:27
    You know, as the supervisor for the Scottsville District, it is both my professional pleasure to thank Elton for his service, but also as the friendship that has developed over the last several years with him.
  • 00:12:40
    I know that he will be sorely missed from that role and position, but knowing Elton, I know he will still be there working for the community, so thank you very much.

6. From the Public: Matters Not Listed for Public Hearing on the Agenda.

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:12:58
    We are now at the time for batters from the public, not on the agenda.
  • 00:13:04
    I would remind individuals of the board's guidelines for speakers when addressing the board.
  • 00:13:13
    The board's goal is to listen fully to what everyone has to say and to treat each speaker with respect.
  • 00:13:20
    We only have one individual signed up at this time, so I will call that individual.
  • 00:13:25
    Later on, if other individuals would like to speak, then they will be given the opportunity.
  • 00:13:29
    I would ask that you come up to the front of the auditorium, however, to make it easier to identify you as a speaker and have you come up as soon as possible after the previous speaker.
  • 00:13:43
    Each speaker, whether as an individual or a group, will have three minutes to address the board.
  • 00:13:51
    Timekeeping is conducted through a timer and a light system at the podium.
  • 00:13:56
    The green light will go on when you begin speaking and this begins your allotted time.
  • 00:14:01
    A yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish your comment, and a red light indicates your time has expired.
  • 00:14:09
    In order to give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board requests that speakers adhere to the following guidelines.
  • 00:14:17
    When called to the speaker's podium, state your name and if you reside in the county, the magisterial district of your residence.
  • 00:14:25
    address comments directly to the board as a whole.
  • 00:14:28
    If you have written statements or other supporting material, we ask that you leave a copy with the clerk.
  • 00:14:35
    If you represent a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands and be recognized.
  • 00:14:43
    If you exceed your allotted time, you will be asked to end your comments.
  • 00:14:48
    And we ask that you bring the microphone to your mouth and speak directly into it in order to be certain to capture all your words.
  • 00:14:56
    Dr. Charles Batig.
• • SPEAKER_36
  • 00:15:17
    Success.
  • 00:15:19
    Members of the board, Dr. Charles Maddock here in the Scottsville District.
  • 00:15:25
    As far as Australia goes, it's a real tragedy.
  • 00:15:27
    It's not much consolation, but authorities there have arrested over 150 suspects who have been suspected of starting these fires purposely.
  • 00:15:40
    Things that your local environmental groups are not telling you.
  • 00:15:43
    Once again, water vapor is the number one greenhouse gas for Professor Michael Mann at UVA.
  • 00:15:50
    You just can't tax water vapors conveniently.
  • 00:15:53
    Role of man-made carbon dioxide is a hypothesis.
  • 00:15:57
    It has not been proved.
  • 00:15:59
    There is no man-made climate emergency.
  • 00:16:02
    Carbon dioxide is essential to human life.
  • 00:16:05
    Extreme weather events begin way, way before anything to do with coal plants and SUVs.
  • 00:16:11
    The environmentalists will quote the local ones anyway, quoting the UN or IPCC.
  • 00:16:18
    If you actually look what the IPCC says,
  • 00:16:21
    There is low confidence in any observed long-term increase.
  • 00:16:24
    In other words, they don't know if there are any more cyclones.
  • 00:16:28
    Same thing for climate change and floods.
  • 00:16:32
    They can't tell whether, more or less, there is no extreme.
  • 00:16:35
    But they said even if there were no man-made changes in the climate,
  • 00:16:39
    We would still be having extreme weather events.
  • 00:16:42
    Electric vehicles have been touted as a solution.
  • 00:16:44
    I like to call them a mission somewhere else.
  • 00:16:47
    Green virtue chariots because you have children in the Congo being beaten to harvest the cobalt and other essential elements that go into these vehicles.
  • 00:17:00
    The inconvenient baggage, which I call, is part of this.
  • 00:17:04
    Coal and natural gas will continue powering your car.
  • 00:17:09
    Manufacturing of the batteries is quite toxic.
  • 00:17:11
    If you build a wind farm, you necessarily build a new fossil fuel plant.
  • 00:17:15
    And these various plants survive on subsidies.
  • 00:17:20
    We'll be hearing a lot about the clean air and healthy air, and ICLEI since you started that up again.
  • 00:17:26
    The Scientific Advisory Committee to the EPA this past fall decided that they have to go back to the drawing board.
  • 00:17:35
    Their relevant facts are not enough to determine anything.
  • 00:17:40
    Another progressive group, eco group, deep green resistance comes clean.
  • 00:17:44
    Down with the capital is true gold.
  • 00:17:46
    The UN has said as much, Greta Thunberg has said as much,
  • 00:17:50
    and this environmental group says fact at the bottom.
  • 00:17:53
    Renewable energy is a government backed hoax that enriches the rich people, big corporations.
  • 00:17:59
    Cui Bono, who benefits?
  • 00:18:01
    Certainly, President Gore has done so.
  • 00:18:04
    I'll have to skip ahead to the last one.
  • 00:18:07
    On the agenda for 2010, who's going to benefit here?
  • 00:18:11
    What nothing you're going to do is going to change the environment.
  • 00:18:14
    What favors you're going to grant to those people already given the back door entrance to crafting the design of what's coming forward?
  • 00:18:21
    Who's going to be looking out for the local taxpayers?
  • 00:18:24
    And thank you very much.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:18:26
    Thank you, Dr. Batik.
  • 00:18:28
    Would anyone else present like to address the board?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:18:37
    Good afternoon.
  • 00:18:38
    Sean Tubbs, Piedmont Environmental Council with hastily written remarks here.
  • 00:18:42
    I just, let me get up to the top here.
  • 00:18:44
    So 2020 is going to be a busy year in land use and transportation.
  • 00:18:49
    You've already gotten off to a really good start with last week's transportation presentation and today is your first land use discussion when you discuss the community developments plan for fill and waste issues.
  • 00:19:00
    That's a topic that last September you prioritized quite swiftly when there was an item that came up before you.
  • 00:19:07
    An issue that was piling up, if you will.
  • 00:19:10
    But I'm looking forward to your conversation today on that topic because I think that staff has suggested some pretty interesting ideas as we proceed.
  • 00:19:18
    But of course, I'm really here of course to talk about transit.
  • 00:19:22
    And I wanted to state, and also community mobility, which also includes biking and walking in our communities and having safe places to do so.
  • 00:19:29
    I just want to build off of some of the momentum that you've had this year in previous years that I wanted to say.
  • 00:19:34
    On your consent agenda today is support for the Afton Express Service, which I learned at the Regional Transit Partnership last month is being funded, the startup costs are being funded quite extensively by the University of Virginia.
  • 00:19:47
    That would not have happened without your leadership and your influence on getting UVA to become a full member of that Regional Transit Partnership.
  • 00:19:56
    Your investments in Jaunt are also admirable.
  • 00:19:58
    I was watching the Commonwealth Transportation Board meeting yesterday and learned that Jaunt is one of 17 of the state's transit agencies that actually had a ridership increase last year.
  • 00:20:08
    I believe it was 4.9%, but I'm sure that Brad Sheffield will correct me if I got that wrong.
  • 00:20:13
    That would not have happened without your attention and your investment.
  • 00:20:18
    On that note, I want to talk about an item that PEC is helping sponsor next week.
  • 00:20:23
    It's one thing to provide the routes.
  • 00:20:25
    It's another thing to get people on them and to get them to understand why they take them or why they don't take them.
  • 00:20:31
    Census data on single occupancy vehicle over the last few years really hasn't budged.
  • 00:20:36
    It's in your comprehensive plan.
  • 00:20:37
    It's in the city of Charlottesville comprehensive plan to reduce that number.
  • 00:20:41
    I don't really care how we do it, I just know we're going to have to take many strategies to get there.
  • 00:20:46
    But in order to do that, we're going to need people, and we need to understand the barriers that people have to not getting out of their car.
  • 00:20:53
    Now this isn't necessarily trying, this is not an event next week that is going to be intended to tell them what to do, it's simply a listening session that the Institute for Environmental Negotiation at the University of Virginia is going to be part of.
  • 00:21:04
    Hopefully it's part of a community conversation that will continue throughout this year as the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission works on a transit development visioning plan.
  • 00:21:15
    So that's next week.
  • 00:21:17
    The partners with this also too are the City of Charlottesville, the Center for Civic Innovations.
  • 00:21:21
    We're going to have people from UVA there.
  • 00:21:24
    Kevin McDermott's going to be there.
  • 00:21:25
    Other people are going to be there to listen to these issues because again,
  • 00:21:28
    If we can understand what the barriers are, it'll help us build a better system as all these different pieces come together this year.
  • 00:21:36
    Thank you very much.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:21:37
    Thank you, Mr. Tubbs.
  • 00:21:39
    Anyone else?
  • 00:21:42
    Seeing none, we will close this session of comments from the public for matters not on the agenda.

7. Consent Agenda (on next sheet)

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:21:51
    We now move to the consent agenda.
  • 00:21:54
    Do we have a motion to adopt the consent agenda?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:21:57
    So moved.
  • 00:21:59
    Second.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:22:00
    Thank you.
  • 00:22:01
    Any discussion?
  • 00:22:03
    Hearing none.
  • 00:22:05
    Clerk?
• • 00:22:05
    Ms.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:22:05
    Malek?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:22:06
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:22:07
    Ms.
  • 00:22:07
    McKeel?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:22:08
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_19
  • 00:22:08
    Ms.
  • 00:22:08
    Palmer?
  • 00:22:09
    Yes.
  • 00:22:10
    Ms.
  • 00:22:10
    Price?
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:22:11
    Aye.

8. FY 21 Budget Development Guidance.

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:22:23
    Next item on the agenda.
  • 00:22:26
    is the FY21 budget development guidance.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:22:41
    Good afternoon.
  • 00:22:42
    I'm Lori Allshouse.
  • 00:22:44
    I'm the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
  • 00:22:47
    Here beside me is Andy Bowman, who's our budget manager.
  • 00:22:50
    We're here today to further our conversation from the long range financial plan to the annual budget and to seek your additional guidance today.
  • 00:23:04
    This is part of a series of meetings that we've held beginning in November.
  • 00:23:09
    We had a joint work session with the school board and we talked about long-range plan revenues, our CIP, our school division's five-year financial plan.
  • 00:23:20
    On December 4th, we looked at the general government's five-year financial plan regarding operating.
  • 00:23:27
    and then on December 18th we again as the board and staff we looked at the alignment of the long-range financial plan with your strategic plan priorities and we also looked at the end of year funding so as fiscal year 19 ended we looked at the general fund
  • 00:23:48
    Fund Balance, and looked at any funds that were unobligated from fiscal year 19, and we talked about that.
  • 00:23:54
    That's something that we usually do as part of our budget processes.
  • 00:23:58
    And then we started seeking your guidance on the annual budget.
  • 00:24:02
    And today we come back again, and we had a great discussion on the 18th, but we want to continue that.
  • 00:24:10
    And we wanted to make sure that Vice Chair Price heard this information too.
  • 00:24:16
    and also involve her in these conversations.
  • 00:24:20
    And the other thing that's going to happen today, you're actually having a few budget related discussions today on your agenda.
  • 00:24:26
    The fire rescue service challenges will be discussed later this afternoon.
  • 00:24:31
    You'll also be hearing from the finance department on the reassessments.
  • 00:24:35
    So there's a lot of things you could kind of connect as a thread throughout your day to day that has some budget implications with them.
  • 00:24:44
    So for my part of it today, we have three outcomes that we're hoping to achieve.
  • 00:24:49
    The first is that we recap.
  • 00:24:51
    I just wanted to give you the information back to you that I've taken as notes on your conversations and your guidance to make sure that we have captured everything you've said to date.
  • 00:25:02
    And then I want to provide you with some updates.
  • 00:25:05
    So what's occurring now is we're moving from kind of a long-range framework into our annual budget process.
  • 00:25:11
    And what happens is things are kind of iterative.
  • 00:25:13
    Things keep changing along the way.
  • 00:25:15
    So what we're doing is kind of letting you into our world of changing information and provide you with some key pieces of data that have occurred since we were here on December 18th.
  • 00:25:26
    so that you're staying closely with us as we continue to see how things are moving forward as we put our budget together.
  • 00:25:33
    And then finally, after that, we'd like to have that conversation again and provide you the opportunity to provide us further guidance on the fiscal year 21 budget.
  • 00:25:46
    So we have one hour and 15 minutes scheduled for this, so I just wanted to let you know that we'll keep our eyes as staff on the time.
  • 00:25:55
    I'm gonna start with what we're calling the recap.
  • 00:26:00
    Excuse me.
  • 00:26:02
    Just the first thing I wanted to mention, in Albemarle County, we do long-range financial planning every year, and we do it for several reasons.
  • 00:26:12
    One is it's very important.
  • 00:26:13
    We are a AAA bond-rated organization, and that is a requirement of those types of counties and cities throughout the nation to do long-range financial planning.
  • 00:26:24
    The other thing I want to mention is that all the information that we provide to you in our long-range financial plans are based on assumptions at the time and things change.
  • 00:26:33
    So it's a changing environment and I just wanted to bring that to your attention because you're going to see some new data.
  • 00:26:42
    When we put the five-year, this is just kind of a summary of your several meetings, when we put the five-year plan together, our revenue projections indicated that revenues are going to continue to grow but at a reduced rate of increase over the five years.
  • 00:26:57
    The school division provided their long-range financial plan and it showed a widening gap over the five years just based on the assumptions and the data they had at the time.
  • 00:27:06
    General government's five-year plan is balanced in the two years by your policy.
  • 00:27:11
    So we work to balance the first two years but we also showed a gap in the out years.
  • 00:27:19
    Both of our long range plans included our efforts to increase minimum wage.
  • 00:27:25
    Giving a lot of things that are going on in the community, we wanted to start that process.
  • 00:27:30
    So at the time that we did the long range financial plans, we had the minimum wage increasing in the first year to 1275 with a longer term plan to get that even higher.
  • 00:27:41
    The other thing about long-range financial planning that we do is your CIP, your capital improvement plan, is also a long-range financial plan.
  • 00:27:49
    We did a lot of work this past season and over many, many months to look at our CIP in a different way.
  • 00:27:56
    And our CIP advisory committee made recommendations and we incorporated that into the five-year plan.
  • 00:28:04
    Their recommendations and associated resources had some equivalent tax rate increases in it that would be dedicated to the CIP.
  • 00:28:12
    In both the long-range plans, all the plans, and your CIP, we shared with you on the 18th how they supported your strategic plan priorities, the county's strategic plan priorities.
  • 00:28:25
    The other two slides are just two more recap items.
  • 00:28:27
    I just wanted to kind of ground us.
  • 00:28:29
    I know you see a lot of information between the time I was here before and today, so I just wanted to ground you in a couple other slides related to the general government's expenditure drivers and another slide about CIP.
  • 00:28:43
    So the general government is one of the three general areas that we talk about in five-year planning.
  • 00:28:49
    For general government, which is where we start really focusing in on as we're talking about our annual budgeting,
  • 00:28:55
    included the first step, as I mentioned before, to address minimum wage to 1275.
  • 00:29:00
    It had a 1.5% salary increase.
  • 00:29:04
    We have many obligations, and all those obligations were worked into that five-year plan, the transfers.
  • 00:29:12
    And also, we have to always take into account the revenue sharing with the city.
  • 00:29:15
    The revenue sharing with the city of Charlottesville is a very important component of a lot of our calculations.
  • 00:29:22
    and so that was also built into the five-year plan.
  • 00:29:25
    And then on that right-hand side, the term other, we had a lot of activities that would occur in one fiscal year that we have to remember as we go into the next fiscal year.
  • 00:29:34
    So some of the things that we've completed in fiscal year 20 as budget amendments and along the way will have to be fully considered in fiscal year 21.
  • 00:29:43
    So the first thing we do when we think about the next year's budget is make sure we bring along with us anything that had occurred in fiscal year 20
  • 00:29:52
    And when we have operating impacts associated with capital projects, we also build them into our planning.
  • 00:29:59
    And then finally, the one at the bottom there was maintaining the current level of services in the fire rescue system, a topic that again you'll be hearing more about later today.
  • 00:30:12
    This last slide here is part of my recap slides.
  • 00:30:16
    It's a slide that I've been sharing several times, and it's basically how we're laying out the work that was done by the CIP Advisory Committee.
  • 00:30:24
    So you can see on the darker, the bluer section on the left was a base CIP.
  • 00:30:30
    CIPs are our five-year capital program.
  • 00:30:34
    And we had a base that the advisory committee began with.
  • 00:30:38
    It had a lot of our ongoing programs and the courts and a lot of things that we had already planned in prior years.
  • 00:30:45
    And it already had included some potential equivalent tax rate increases just because of the multitude of things we were doing in our base plan.
  • 00:30:54
    and in the bottom column talks about how much year-end funding.
  • 00:30:59
    So in addition with money that we put into the CIP reoccurring, at the end of each fiscal year, we estimate some funds that would go to the CIP from year-end funding.
  • 00:31:09
    So the column on the right-hand side, which is the recommended CIP, shares with everyone what the CIP Advisory Committee presented.
  • 00:31:19
    And this is based on a lot of work done by both boards, and the Board of Supervisors was very much involved with setting what we had called kind of a cap based on our debt requirements and other requirements of how much additional
  • 00:31:32
    potential projects we could place in the CIP.
  • 00:31:35
    And so the column on the green side basically shows those adjustments and those changes that were recommended by the CIP advisory committee, which included board members, school board members, planning commission members, and a citizen at large.
  • 00:31:51
    And that's presented to us actually all for consideration.
  • 00:31:54
    So it actually comes to the board as your consideration.
  • 00:31:57
    It comes to all of us as staff.
  • 00:31:59
    as we're putting together the next year's budget, which includes the first year of the capital CIP program.
  • 00:32:07
    And now I'd like to just shift a little bit.
  • 00:32:10
    I'm still in the recap kind of frame of mind, but I want to share with you what we heard along the way.
  • 00:32:15
    Because one of the most important things about long-range financial planning is what we hear, and we try to set these up for a lot of interactive and a lot of conversations along the way.
  • 00:32:23
    So I've captured some notes from those meetings.
  • 00:32:26
    So November 13th,
  • 00:32:29
    The board and school board worked together and this was a joint meeting and after we presented our data, you and the school board had a chance to have a conversation and here are some of the bullets of some of the comments that were made and captured.
  • 00:32:46
    As you spoke together, you talked about advocating for increases in state funding for schools.
  • 00:32:51
    talked jointly about economic development, affordable housing, and to help encourage the state to follow through on their funding requirements and what we expect them to find as obligations.
  • 00:33:06
    You also spoke with the school board to coordinate together on transit and transportation.
  • 00:33:12
    was mentioned, don't forget possibilities of online learning and talk together about how can we expand the economic pie and talked a lot, you talked a lot with the school board about local business growth as well as lots of other topics.
  • 00:33:26
    And then the next two meetings were just the board of supervisors, not with the school board.
  • 00:33:31
    The school board continued to have their budget discussions and then you had your discussions on the long-range financial plan and as we moved to the annual budget.
  • 00:33:39
    So on December 4th, the board suggested that we work with the school division as staff to prepare a chart for an upcoming meeting that you had, which we did, to review the boards and commissions for increased efficiency.
  • 00:33:52
    Maybe that could free up staff time, so there was some conversation about the boards and commissions and what could possibly be done for some more efficiencies.
  • 00:34:02
    There was discussion about considering establishing a fundraising matching structure mechanism to effectively involve community members to support capital projects.
  • 00:34:12
    There was conversation about economic development and encouragement of supporting businesses that demonstrate they're supporting the climate action plan, which is in your strategic plan.
  • 00:34:24
    And this is when the guidance was to please have a work session on fire rescue.
  • 00:34:32
    And then on December 18th, which was the last time we were together, I have two slides of notes from that discussion.
  • 00:34:38
    And here's some of the things I captured when we talked about the strategic plan.
  • 00:34:42
    So on the 18th, we really dug into how is this long-range financial plan and capital plan supporting your strategic plan.
  • 00:34:49
    And here are some of the notes captured from that meeting.
  • 00:34:52
    There was a lot of conversation about climate action planning.
  • 00:34:55
    and there was a conversation about including, you know that a climate action plan is coming your way, they're working on it right now, so a lot of this advice would be very useful for that process was to expect to see solid waste planning as part of climate action planning.
  • 00:35:11
    and there was a lot of conversation around rehab and weatherization of homes and how important that is to climate action planning.
  • 00:35:18
    There was information noted about the weatherization work that's already occurring in Southwood.
  • 00:35:24
    Transit would be another important consideration and so that was discussed on the 18th.
  • 00:35:29
    possibly considering a recycling center maybe longer term.
  • 00:35:34
    And then there was news that was shared about a food composting project provided by a private entity.
  • 00:35:40
    So all in all there was a lot of good conversation about the strategic plan alignment and about the climate importance of the climate action plan.
  • 00:35:48
    There's also observation that transportation leveraging program, you might occur that that's a project that's in their CIP right now, the recommended CIP, and how important transportation leveraging, which brings in money from the state and others, how important it is to not just one of your strategic plan priorities, but to a number of your strategic plan priorities.
  • 00:36:10
    Also on December 18th, you provided even additional guidance to us as we start thinking now more towards that first year of the five-year plan, which is our annual budget.
  • 00:36:20
    We were encouraged, we looked at that end-of-year money as part of the conversation on the 18th, encouraged to provide, the thought of providing as much as we can to the capital program was encouraged.
  • 00:36:32
    We were asked to provide more information on efficiencies in the government and local government.
  • 00:36:38
    We were
  • 00:36:41
    there was a conversation about on the consideration of employee-friendly programs to assist in recruiting and retaining quality staff such as more training and opportunities that aren't necessarily salary increases and to
  • 00:37:00
    Place available, now this one I'm going to slow down on a little bit because I'm going to bring your reference to a, you might remember the yellow sheet that I had placed in front of you which was kind of a worksheet where we worked from the end of year CAFR to the available unobligated funding that we can utilize, funding that's not obligated or committed to something and we worked through that
  • 00:37:22
    through that page.
  • 00:37:23
    And as we worked through that, we also talked, and I'm gonna bring a slide up in a minute.
  • 00:37:30
    We talked about community requests that are coming forth that are kind of leveraging, like a leveraging request for funding from local government that might leverage other community activities.
  • 00:37:42
    And so we had put a placeholder as a consideration for some year-end funding for that.
  • 00:37:47
    and the conversation was, you know, there's another placeholder for another something to do.
  • 00:37:51
    Why don't we consider placing that into your strategic plan initiative reserve?
  • 00:37:57
    You do have a reserve for your strategic plan and there was a thought of rather than creating something different to just combine that and a few board members talked about that so that's something we want to further discuss today.
  • 00:38:11
    and then there was a recognition that we're really gonna, if this capital program increases in the way that it does, there might be a need to be really thoughtful about how do we get that implemented and moving that forward, that that might require some additional management.
  • 00:38:27
    And I'm gonna just pause for a second for those of you that were here on the 18th.
  • 00:38:32
    I felt like I captured most of what everyone said and there was a lot of other comments.
  • 00:38:36
    Is there anything else anyone wants to recall from the 18th that I might have left out?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:38:43
    You know, it feels accurate to me.
  • 00:38:46
    I know there was great support for stuffing as much into capital as we possibly could.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:38:51
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:38:53
    So now what I'm going to do, I'm transitioning, so there's a couple transitions in this slideshow, so I'm just going to kind of pause a little bit here to say that's basically the recap of where we've been all the way up to today on that long-range financial planning conversation that's so very important to us.
  • 00:39:08
    And now what we start doing in our office and throughout the county is we start moving to the annual budget.
  • 00:39:13
    So now we're thinking that first year, and now we start thinking, we drill in a little bit more to that very first year.
  • 00:39:18
    And so what occurs also along the way is information changes.
  • 00:39:23
    We get new information, especially on revenues.
  • 00:39:25
    They change along the way because we're working with assumptions back from late summer and early fall on a lot of data and a lot of numbers that we put in five-year financial planning.
  • 00:39:35
    And we had some very important changes that occurred, some of them just like last week.
  • 00:39:40
    So we want to make sure that the board keeps up with where we are and the numbers and information may continue to change.
  • 00:39:46
    So I just wanted to bring you into to this some of the new information that we've received since we were in front of you on the 18th.
  • 00:39:54
    So the two major areas I'm going to share with you the first one is about revenues and the second one is a VRS which is a Virginia Retirement System information that we received right before the holidays.
  • 00:40:09
    So the first thing was, actually the very day before we met on the 18th, the governor announced his budget.
  • 00:40:18
    The governor's budget is a very important budget to the school system.
  • 00:40:22
    So they didn't have time, we had no time for the 18th to go, what happened?
  • 00:40:27
    You gotta really dig through that big budget book to find out how does the governor's proposed budget
  • 00:40:33
    affect the school division.
  • 00:40:35
    So there was some good news in there.
  • 00:40:37
    So what this chart shows here is that the number on the left is a fiscal year 21, the first year of your five-year plan projection number that was placed in the five-year plan.
  • 00:40:51
    And then it's what they thought the state revenues were coming in at, based on history and based on their best information they had at the time, and then what came in the governor's budget.
  • 00:41:01
    So the governor's budget,
  • 00:41:03
    who provided $7.7 million, an increase of $3.4 million from what they thought when we put the five-year financial plan together.
  • 00:41:11
    This is significant.
  • 00:41:13
    This is significant potential funding from the state for schools.
  • 00:41:17
    Is that evenly distributed over the five years?
  • 00:41:21
    No, I'm just talking now, I've gone like to the first year.
  • 00:41:23
    That's what I thought, but I wanted to make sure.
  • 00:41:26
    That's a great question, because it's really hard to go from that five-year to like
  • 00:41:30
    Okay, now I'm talking one year at a time.
  • 00:41:32
    I'm in the very first year of a change.
  • 00:41:35
    So just in that very first year, the funding from the state compared to what they thought on that very first year is increasing.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:41:45
    And Lori, are there constraints or restrictions on how that funds can be used within the school system?
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:41:51
    There are actually, some of it is designated.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 00:41:53
    Okay, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:41:54
    Yes, that's a great question.
  • 00:41:56
    Yeah, and some of the drivers, we work very closely with the school division, our budget offices are working really closely together, and the drivers that are on this slide are some they shared with me of why this has changed.
  • 00:42:07
    And overall, the state revenue estimates have increased, and so that alone definitely increases funding for Albemarle County.
  • 00:42:15
    The local composite index made an adjustment.
  • 00:42:19
    Some of you are more familiar with that.
  • 00:42:23
    You know more about it than others.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:42:24
    I was just saying though that that in a way is a mixed bag because when the composite index adjustment is favorable for us, it means that our ability to pay has gone down.
  • 00:42:39
    So it's relative, that's right.
  • 00:42:41
    It is a little bit of a mixed bag.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:42:43
    Doesn't it also have a lag?
  • 00:42:46
    Yes, it does.
  • 00:42:47
    It has a two-year lag.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:42:49
    So you have to put it in, just always realize that there's more to the story than it just seems.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:42:56
    That's right.
  • 00:42:57
    And payback is coming.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:42:58
    Well, you know, more poverty, less ability to pay, but the composite index is adjusted, so that's all I'm saying.
  • 00:43:05
    It's just really important to put into perspective.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:43:09
    And you've got to think about it because it does have that lag piece, and so as we think long-range, really good lens, and that's an important lens.
  • 00:43:16
    Long-range lenses on annual budgets is really important because we go into annual, you've got to really think that long-term approach.
  • 00:43:25
    The state aid formulas incorporates the enrollment increases.
  • 00:43:29
    And another thing that's going on is their enrollment increased.
  • 00:43:32
    And when your enrollment increases in your schools, that affects the formula.
  • 00:43:36
    So that was one of them.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:43:37
    Which also makes another mixed bag.
  • 00:43:39
    More kids, so the increase is spent on more kids rather than the same amount of children.
  • 00:43:45
    Exactly.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:43:46
    Right, thank you.
  • 00:43:48
    The other, there's a lot of other, there was policy changes, a lot of other little technical things going on with re-benchmarking, and then they did earmark some funding for at-risk students, English as a second language, school counselors, so there's some places in that school budget that's actually very focused in specific areas.
  • 00:44:08
    So that also increased, so this is kind of an aggregate amount.
  • 00:44:11
    that increased.
  • 00:44:12
    So, you know, we've talked about it.
  • 00:44:15
    You remember in that slide I mentioned that we talked about the state, you know, hoping that the state provides some additional funding that has, at least for this one year, has occurred.
  • 00:44:24
    So that's just an important piece of new data that has occurred since the five-year plan.
  • 00:44:30
    I'm going to move.
  • 00:44:31
    Are we ready to move?
  • 00:44:33
    The next slide is that we also, you're gonna, as I mentioned earlier, you're gonna receive information about the reassessments that occur in January.
  • 00:44:41
    It's kind of the very first week of January, finished up literally last week, number wise, for those of us in the budget office.
  • 00:44:48
    So a reassessment has occurred, and you'll hear more about that later today, but that came in higher than what was expected in the five-year plan.
  • 00:44:57
    So that does change your local revenues potentially for your fiscal year 21 year.
  • 00:45:04
    The other thing that had occurred very recently, the CAPR was completed, which is our audited end of year for fiscal year 19.
  • 00:45:12
    And so that's when the numbers land.
  • 00:45:14
    And then we start looking at the new fiscal year.
  • 00:45:19
    So what's been going on in the year that we're in now?
  • 00:45:23
    There's new data that comes in all the time on how revenues are coming in.
  • 00:45:27
    So based on that longer term data, we have some new information that revenues we believe are higher than the five-year plan projection, especially in sales tax revenue.
  • 00:45:39
    Clerk's fees and food and beverage tax came in higher than we thought.
  • 00:45:43
    There's been a change in an interpretation.
  • 00:45:46
    on sales tax, interpretation of a law around sales tax that has to do with internet sales.
  • 00:45:52
    And so we think that that might be part of the reason that we're seeing those sales tax revenues coming in higher than we had previously anticipated.
  • 00:46:03
    We were looking at potential recession risks.
  • 00:46:06
    I think people statewide and nationwide in the summer, there was a thought of potential recession risks.
  • 00:46:12
    And some of those data points that were trending seemed to have kind of changed a little.
  • 00:46:18
    So the recession risk seems to have declined since this past summer.
  • 00:46:22
    and regionally our job growth is robust, our unemployment rate is low, interest rates have declined, stock market's strong, so we see some other more broader economic indicators that seem to be a little more positive as we're putting the revenue forecast together for this upcoming budget.
  • 00:46:41
    So those are some drivers and now I'm gonna show you some numbers.
  • 00:46:46
    This slide is very similar to the slide that I shared with you a few minutes ago about the school's revenues.
  • 00:46:53
    These are rounded numbers, so you'll see maybe some rounding pieces because we've taken them to a much larger level than where they are.
  • 00:47:03
    You can see in that first column, I'll back up one second here, these are what we call shared revenues.
  • 00:47:11
    a guideline that some people call the 60-40 formula.
  • 00:47:15
    It's a sharing of the revenues with the school division.
  • 00:47:19
    And so the shared revenue, what we've done, the school division's a little ahead of us on their budget.
  • 00:47:25
    So they're gonna come out sooner than we are.
  • 00:47:27
    And so it was really important for us to work these numbers as quickly as we could to work closely with the school division to give them the very most up-to-dated information as they put their budget together, again coming in a little ahead of us.
  • 00:47:41
    we quickly put the information into the formula and on the column, the very first column is called new available shared tax revenue and that basically, the column, that's the first row, I'm sorry, the first column says fiscal year 21 projected in the five year plan so what I'm doing is I'm showing you what was projected in the five year plan for the first year
  • 00:48:07
    the numbers that we were using.
  • 00:48:09
    And then that next one says update.
  • 00:48:11
    So that's the update based on some of these new revenues and the new information that you're gonna hear about later today.
  • 00:48:20
    And then the increases in your last column to the right.
  • 00:48:23
    And what I wanna do is say this isn't year over year.
  • 00:48:26
    This isn't like if you looked at last year's budget and next year's budget.
  • 00:48:29
    This is literally comparing the increase to what we had in our planning number.
  • 00:48:34
    So it's one of those things that will look different if you compare it to a different base.
  • 00:48:41
    So I just wanted to share with you that the new available shared tax revenue increase of about $6.4 million
  • 00:48:49
    than what we thought for fiscal year 21 in the plan.
  • 00:48:52
    And capital is also a part of that formula, so the capital program received an additional $775 million.
  • 00:48:59
    I'm sorry.
  • 00:49:06
    $775,000.
  • 00:49:06
    Thanks for the correction, Andy.
  • 00:49:08
    School share is 3.4 million of that, and the local government share would be 2.2 million.
  • 00:49:15
    So those are the numbers that changed.
  • 00:49:21
    sharing with you also what happened with the state's budget and then what happened with some of our local revenues since we saw you last.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:49:28
    So the general government share, which shows us as a positive 2.27 million, that is what percentage of our overall budget?
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:49:44
    I'm looking at Andy here.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:49:45
    He can do that faster than me.
  • 00:49:47
    I could do it, but I'm not going to be able to do it.
  • 00:49:50
    I have to think about what even our budget, but I'm just asking.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:49:53
    There are a few ways I could interpret that question, so I'll make sure I'm answering it correctly.
  • 00:49:56
    What percent of the budget is general government?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:49:59
    I want, in other words, when this comes out in the paper, that we are actually receiving $2.27 million more and it's identified as surplus.
  • 00:50:12
    When we look at that amount, because I don't think of that as surplus, but that's the way it's always identified in the paper, that is what percentage of our budget?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:50:19
    So the general fund budget to use round approximate numbers is approximately 300 million dollars.
  • 00:50:24
    So that's what percentage?
  • 00:50:25
    So every 1% of that's 3 million, so 2.27 would be roughly 6 to 7 tenths of a percent.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:50:33
    I'm just saying that in the overall picture of how much money that is to county government, it's important to keep that in mind.
  • 00:50:43
    That's not a huge number when you look at our overall budget.
  • 00:50:49
    I'm just trying to, again, let's look at it through a different lens.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:50:54
    So again, the important thing about our revenue updates, remember that we even have another revenue update that we do for the board in March.
  • 00:51:05
    So we will continue, we're going to continue to watch this.
  • 00:51:08
    So I just wanted to let everyone know that these could be somewhat fluid, so don't totally go, hey, this is the exact number, because we're going to watch revenues very closely all the way up as long as we can before you actually make your decisions in moving forward on your budget.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:51:25
    The other pins and needles item is that the legislature is a long way from putting those numbers in concrete and we have a lot of work to do in Richmond to make sure they understand and the question that someone can answer later is were any of these numbers in relation to a change in their per pupil amount that they're giving handing out or is it just overall economy that's causing this because I'm guessing they haven't gotten to the really important change yet about per pupil but I would be happy to be wrong about that.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:51:55
    Yeah, you're raising a very good point and it's that even at the state level, this is a proposed budget, so it's not a approved budget.
  • 00:52:04
    So, again, we're working with the best information we have at the time and that things can change.
  • 00:52:10
    So, thank you.
  • 00:52:12
    The next slide is going to take all the fun away.
  • 00:52:15
    I'm sorry to have to share this next slide.
  • 00:52:18
    The other thing that we watch is we definitely look at the revenues, how they may be changing, but we also sometimes get more information about expenditures.
  • 00:52:28
    So for general government, we're in the Virginia retirement system.
  • 00:52:35
    We received information, this happened on December 20th, we received information from the state that shared that they're reducing the projected rate of return for general government's VRS.
  • 00:52:48
    We have our own fund actually, and so our particular group that we have
  • 00:52:55
    They've reduced that, the actuarial report reduced that and the impact is estimated at nearly a million dollars for general government.
  • 00:53:05
    So thinking back to your prior comment, Ms.
  • 00:53:09
    McKeel.
  • 00:53:11
    Yeah, so this was the other piece of, new piece of information we wanted to share.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:53:16
    Well again, that's really important for employees in our state because we have to have integrity to the system.
  • 00:53:23
    I mean, we have seen states where in some areas their whole entire retirement system for their employees has crashed and we can't have that in the state.
  • 00:53:33
    I mean, this is, it's critical.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:53:36
    So that's all I have today of new updates since we were in front of you before, but we wanted to keep you where we are and we're going to continue to have updates, but we wanted to share with you the major ones we've heard.
  • 00:53:50
    So now I'm going to shift to my last part.
  • 00:53:52
    This is kind of a three-part work session.
  • 00:53:56
    and so now it's back to board guidance and this is continued board guidance because as you recall we've been capturing notes all along the way and I had this even broken into two parts.
  • 00:54:09
    So the first part is receiving board guidance on and now I'm taking you back in time before we're going forward on something that we call our unobligated general fund fund balance and you may recall I brought a copy
  • 00:54:27
    um...
  • 00:54:28
    We've had this yellow sheet and I can certainly copy, pass it around again or make sure that everyone has a copy of it.
  • 00:54:35
    We walked through this, which I don't want to go all the way through it again, but we walked through it all the way from the CAFR, fund balance, all the way to what we have, a term that we use in budgeting called unobligated.
  • 00:54:47
    So passed our obligations that we have to set aside, our policies, all those types of things to a place where we have some that's unobligated.
  • 00:54:56
    And we had a conversation about that.
  • 00:54:58
    And this next slide shares with you that conversation that we had.
  • 00:55:04
    I've broken into two slides, but we talked about the potential uses of unobligated general fund fund balance.
  • 00:55:12
    And so we usually do this as part of our budgeting processes every year.
  • 00:55:16
    and so as I worked you through that slide, I got to the very top number there on the right of basically $5.9 million and then you can see some of the potential uses.
  • 00:55:30
    This is one-time money.
  • 00:55:31
    This is end-of-year fund balance.
  • 00:55:33
    It's not an ongoing revenue.
  • 00:55:35
    It's one-time money and so you wanna spend it for one-time things.
  • 00:55:40
    So these are some potential uses.
  • 00:55:43
    And we usually bill this right into your budget document.
  • 00:55:45
    So as you get your fiscal year 21 recommended budget, you'll have information about this in your budget document.
  • 00:55:51
    And so we talked about
  • 00:55:55
    sending 1.5 of that over to the capital program based on an earlier slide I shared with you, a recommendation from the advisory committee.
  • 00:56:04
    We talked about a category and you might remember I talked about it in your discussion on that category we had put in there called leveraging capacity.
  • 00:56:13
    You had a lot of conversation about that and I'm gonna touch on that again in a second.
  • 00:56:17
    And then we talked about your strategic plan initiatives that were on the economic development and climate action
  • 00:56:24
    possibly categorizing portions of it to those two items.
  • 00:56:28
    And then the bottom line there was potential uses in your fiscal year 21 budget.
  • 00:56:33
    This is a routine thing that we do every year.
  • 00:56:36
    Some one-time costs in your budget, usually one to two million dollars a year.
  • 00:56:40
    You'll see in your budget document next year, you're like, oh, that's one-time money that we've placed.
  • 00:56:45
    So we like to have that available to assist us in the fiscal year 21 budget development.
  • 00:56:52
    So you could see that we recommended you to consider those potential options.
  • 00:56:57
    And then there was a lot of conversation around this option, the leveraging capacity one, and that was the one that more than one board member said, hey, why don't you not retitle something different?
  • 00:57:09
    We have a strategic plan, initiatives, reserve.
  • 00:57:14
    It's for not just things that are community driven but things that you know that we drive possibly even for the strategic plan or for other priorities and even to remain a little nimble for the board to remain a little nimble along the way.
  • 00:57:28
    So we talked about doing that differently and so this next slide would be
  • 00:57:36
    the proposal of a change in that based on the guidance you provided to us on the 18th to do just that.
  • 00:57:43
    So I just changed the name on that on this slide and just said add to the advancing strategic priority reserve.
  • 00:57:49
    I didn't change the amount or anything, I just toggled it, changed the name.
  • 00:57:53
    So this is a recommendation just on feedback that we received on the 18th.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:57:57
    And I think that's good to change the name, but for me, and I know the board members talked about this, then what we're really going to have to do is make sure that we use that money to advance our strategic priorities.
  • 00:58:08
    It's not just a matter of changing the name.
  • 00:58:11
    That name change represents the work that we're going to do and where we actually want to put that money.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:58:17
    Thank you.
  • 00:58:18
    So a discussion about how that will be used, because where it's coming from was a pot that was described where if we needed 200,000 to help push VDOT to do an intersection change.
  • 00:58:31
    Maybe that can be folded in as a strategic thing of health and safety, in which case maybe my concern is not needed, but we also need to remember where we came from.
  • 00:58:40
    with that.
  • 00:58:41
    It's not just all going to big monster things.
  • 00:58:43
    It's a way to do something small but incredibly effective and incredibly important.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 00:58:47
    It affects the quality of life for our citizens, whatever.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:58:50
    And when you get to it, this 1.5 additional for CIP is on top of the previous slide which said three something or other
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:59:00
    Yeah, when we looked at this, when you guys looked at the yellow chart, some of the policy, there was a policy of sending over 800,000, and then we would add the one five to that.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:59:16
    And then on the blue slide here, you talked about how its share of the new revenue, the shared
  • 00:59:21
    Local revenue would be an extra 1.3.
  • 00:59:23
    So that's all going in.
  • 00:59:24
    We'll end up with 5 or 6 million, I hope, by the time we get done adding up all these little pieces.
  • 00:59:29
    I would have to take a minute to add that.
  • 00:59:32
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 00:59:33
    Yeah.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 00:59:33
    But yes, it's just a matter of what we want to send over by policy and what we want to... Yeah, we had... Because the 3% would be $9 million, right, for our long-time policy goal of 3% of the budget.
  • 00:59:48
    So we're still a long, long way from that.
  • 00:59:50
    We're getting closer.
  • 00:59:51
    We are getting closer.
  • 00:59:52
    It's better than 200,000.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 00:59:55
    At some point, and I don't think it's right now, I would like to talk just a little bit about some of these capital initiatives that don't make it into the CIP.
  • 01:00:07
    And I'm talking about solid waste.
  • 01:00:09
    We've done our new transfer station, we've done a lot that were never in the CIP, that they've sat somewhere outside that that are important, and I'm not quite sure how to handle that, but at some point.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 01:00:24
    We put a recommendation, a staff recommendation just for your consideration.
  • 01:00:43
    There should be, you know, it's hard if you don't have a process.
  • 01:00:46
    And we have processes.
  • 01:00:47
    So we do have capital and operating budget processes at the county.
  • 01:00:52
    And our recommendation is you kind of move this into our annual budget processes.
  • 01:00:57
    so it's not done outside of or differently.
  • 01:00:59
    And you do know if there's something urgent or something that comes up between budget to budget, not everything works perfectly time-wise, that we do bring back amendments to you, appropriations to you, executive summaries that talk about an issue.
  • 01:01:13
    So it's not that it's just real rigid, but it does provide a process that we, instead of setting up a whole different new process that let's just incorporate this into our regular processes, is our suggestion.
  • 01:01:26
    and then prior to a request coming to the board, because it is, as Diantha mentioned, strategic priorities reserve, we would talk about the strategic plan connection.
  • 01:01:38
    Leveraging opportunities are really important, maybe not for every single one, but we would talk about how does this leverage other funding if it does.
  • 01:01:47
    if a request does.
  • 01:01:48
    And then there's other considerations such as timing, safety, urgency, connection to other county plans, and those types of things are important.
  • 01:01:56
    Some of the criteria we used to use in the CIP Technical Review Committee type of thinking.
  • 01:02:04
    So that's our suggestion for your consideration.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:02:13
    Process is good.
  • 01:02:15
    We need it, otherwise it's a free-for-all and that makes citizens uncomfortable.
  • 01:02:19
    So we need to have it laid out so there's a deliberative approach and yeses and nos and it'll be a debate, I'm sure, about what to do, which thing first.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:02:28
    Yeah, but I think this looks fine.
  • 01:02:29
    I think you just are looking for consensus around this process.
  • 01:02:33
    Yes.
  • 01:02:33
    And these will all come back to us during the budget season and yeah.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:02:37
    Yeah, maybe the process looks good.
  • 01:02:40
    As I said, I'd like to figure out how to deal with solid waste issues because they are not in the CIP.
  • 01:02:47
    They never have been, and we've tried to work them in.
  • 01:02:51
    I know in our discussion with the school board, the convenience center recycling compost drop-off place came sixth.
  • 01:03:03
    We took the top four.
  • 01:03:05
    It didn't make the cut.
  • 01:03:07
    However, we've had discussions that those minimum of two additional convenience centers are important.
  • 01:03:17
    They simply haven't made the cut so far.
  • 01:03:20
    But they have never been in the CIP.
  • 01:03:26
    And I have to say again, the transfer station was never in the CIP.
  • 01:03:31
    but it was needed.
  • 01:03:32
    And I don't know how, I'd like to see some guidance from staff as to how to sort of work through that because it is an RW, excuse me, an RSWA run project and so it's always kind of been somewhere else.
  • 01:03:49
    So anyway, just a comment, I know we're not into that discussion now, we're talking about the process now.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:03:56
    And Lori, when the time comes, I would really like some additional guidance from your staff on the beginning to end of a budget item.
  • 01:04:04
    So I would appreciate that.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:04:06
    To sort of track a budget item through.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:04:08
    Right, from concept to conclusion.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:04:11
    Yeah, that's great.
  • 01:04:12
    Solid waste convenience center is a great idea.
  • 01:04:14
    You can use that as the guinea pig.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:04:16
    Yeah, convenience centers.
  • 01:04:18
    I'll echo that.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 01:04:21
    Thank you.
  • 01:04:23
    Still more.
  • 01:04:27
    What I'd like to do now is move us from thinking about the year-end funding, thinking about that process, and now talking, really talking more about the actual fiscal year 21 budget development.
  • 01:04:43
    And Mr. Richardson will lead you through this slide.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:04:49
    Thank you members of the board.
  • 01:04:50
    I'll just take a couple of minutes to hopefully pick up where Laurie and Andy have left off to talk to you about
  • 01:05:01
    Some of the framework as we go into the budget process, the fiscal year 21 budget process, the framework of where we are.
  • 01:05:10
    I think what Lori has done is bring you up to speed on what we know right now on the revenues.
  • 01:05:18
    We talked about schools.
  • 01:05:20
    and state and local revenues, and the school's budget picture has improved greatly since we were before you in the fall and up through November.
  • 01:05:30
    The budget picture, but because of the state, the governor's budget, and with a positive local revenue picture, they are in much better shape than they were in in the late fall.
  • 01:05:42
    I will take a second since I'm talking about schools to remind this board, and you know this because you've said it out loud recently in a board meeting, that the school superintendent is scheduled to present his budget to his board January 23rd, so next Thursday.
  • 01:05:58
    He will be presenting his budget to the board.
  • 01:06:01
    Lori mentioned earlier that they're ahead of us in the process.
  • 01:06:04
    They are about 30 days ahead of us in this process.
  • 01:06:08
    And so the next 30 days for this team is an extremely intense period so that we also can meet our obligation and deadline and be back before you on February the 19th to present our balanced budget.
  • 01:06:23
    With that,
  • 01:06:26
    you see in the gray area, you see strategic initiative alignment.
  • 01:06:30
    So as I go forward with the help of the team to work on this budget and what it has in it and what it doesn't, a guidepost for us is your strategic plan, your nine strategic initiatives, and where we have discretionary resources, I will look with the staff's help to try to align as much of that
  • 01:06:54
    with your strategic plan, your strategic initiatives in mind.
  • 01:06:59
    The department heads know that, the senior staff knows that, the budget staff knows that.
  • 01:07:03
    We'll have an opportunity for your questions after I go through these bullets.
  • 01:07:08
    And then I also want to capture any concerns that you may have.
  • 01:07:12
    Where I would start first is mandated increases.
  • 01:07:16
    You will recall earlier in the conversation that Lori identified approximately an additional $2.3 million of local government money due to improved revenue forecasting.
  • 01:07:35
    That's good news.
  • 01:07:36
    What's not good news is the Virginia retirement system.
  • 01:07:40
    This is an example of a mandated increase.
  • 01:07:43
    Take that 2.3 million and back a million off of that because we've got a million dollar surprise from the retirement system that is a mandated obligation that we're gonna have to come up with next year.
  • 01:07:55
    So the good news is that I've got a better than expected budget revenue picture.
  • 01:07:59
    The bad news is take a million away from that.
  • 01:08:02
    We can pay it next year, but that shrinks.
  • 01:08:05
    our budget
  • 01:08:20
    of putting a plan in front of you to show you that we're going to be able to meet the obligations in 2020 with early voting and the changes in law.
  • 01:08:30
    We're going to do that, but that will come with both capital cost and some ongoing cost.
  • 01:08:36
    I'm going to build that into the budget, and that's right out of the gate.
  • 01:08:40
    That's in the framework.
  • 01:08:43
    I want to take a minute to ask this board for some guidance.
  • 01:08:50
    For the board who was here prior to January, we went through a process and we were in alignment with schools that we're doing a multi-year process to get to $15 an hour.
  • 01:09:02
    And that based on very conservative revenue figures in the fall, we suggested that we start at $12.75 July 1st.
  • 01:09:13
    I want to suggest to this board that if we can do a little more than that effective July the 1st, I'd like to do a little more than that.
  • 01:09:23
    The school's budget picture, as I've said, is better and has increased.
  • 01:09:29
    So the school superintendent has communicated with our team that we want to do more than 1275 effective July the 1st.
  • 01:09:37
    And bear with me just for a second.
  • 01:09:40
    Our school personnel, based on the nature of their jobs, they've got a lot of folks who are below $1350 an hour.
  • 01:09:49
    So they're trying to do something more than $1275.
  • 01:09:52
    Local government wants to go in lockstep with them.
  • 01:09:55
    So I don't see people around the table with negative looks on your face.
  • 01:10:02
    So if I can build a little more in the budget and go a little more aggressively than 1275, I want to make that a very high priority for the manager's budget that would be recommended to you.
  • 01:10:14
    I'll stop there.
  • 01:10:15
    Questions or concerns?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:10:17
    Do you have any idea how much that's going to cost in addition?
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:10:19
    That's a great question.
  • 01:10:21
    The staff is working probably as we speak on that, but let me give you an idea, Supervisor Palmer.
  • 01:10:28
    Right now, we're at 1275, and we know that we can, right now, unless any big surprises come, which we don't expect, we know that we can afford that in our budget.
  • 01:10:37
    If we were to stretch to 1350 July the 1st, that's gonna be about another $150,000 for local government.
  • 01:10:47
    It's much more for schools because they have so many more people but the staff have worked really well together both with schools and local government and on our side of the equation we believe that we can find that to go to 1350 and they're also running modeling above that number but I don't have what the projected costs are.
  • 01:11:09
    Is that what you were asking for?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:11:12
    It's a work in progress and I think one of the things that I would underline is that there's a high level of
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:11:29
    of synchronization between schools and local government on what this prevailing new minimum wage is, recognizing they're 30 days ahead of us, but they're also trying to reach back for us and say we're going to coordinate with you to the degree that we can.
  • 01:11:45
    Human resources is in the middle of that, as you would expect.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:11:49
    And I would say I'm definitely in favor of comparability between the two.
  • 01:11:53
    Yes, ma'am.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:11:54
    I'm thrilled to hear that work together and the connection and it's all good.
  • 01:11:58
    And I just want to make sure that people understand you're talking about how far ahead of us the schools are.
  • 01:12:04
    That's intentional because their budget has to, their funding request has to roll into your funding request so that the fact that the schools is ahead of us is very purposeful.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:12:16
    Yes, ma'am, it's been that way.
  • 01:12:18
    Lori and her team reminded me and they do.
  • 01:12:22
    It's been this way for a very long time and there's reasons for that.
  • 01:12:25
    And so there's nothing out of sync this year.
  • 01:12:28
    It is a normal process.
  • 01:12:29
    You're certainly correct.
  • 01:12:31
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:12:32
    If the funding works, that will help us to retain employees as other employers in our area get ahead on the wages.
  • 01:12:40
    So it's a really important thing that we try to do.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:12:44
    Okay, may I move forward?
  • 01:12:46
    Thank you for that guidance.
  • 01:12:47
    That's extremely helpful between now and the time that we're back before you in February.
  • 01:12:52
    A related topic but it's a parallel track issue and it's related to what we just talked to is market salary increases.
  • 01:13:00
    I've underlined no less than 1.5% on the local government side last year
  • 01:13:09
    Last year, in this current budget year, we did 2.2%.
  • 01:13:13
    So we did 2.2% across the board for local government employees.
  • 01:13:19
    This year, the recommendation, and this was back in the fall, this was back in the September-October timeframe, the Human Resources Department rolled out that the World at Work numbers were about at 2.7%.
  • 01:13:33
    I have put the minimum placeholder in for employee raises at 1.5%.
  • 01:13:43
    and that is an extremely conservative number but it's because we've got 30 days of work ahead of us in trying to pull it all together and I think once I go through the rest of the list you'll see why it's such a conservative number.
  • 01:13:58
    If there's any way that we can justify and afford to go higher than that, you will see that in the manager's recommended budget.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:14:06
    That's music to my ears because I will remind people that the 2020 COLA increase this year is 2.7.
  • 01:14:14
    for folks that are retired and the COLA increase is 2.7.
  • 01:14:19
    Just to remember to keep in mind when you're comparing to this, yeah.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:14:28
    Right.
  • 01:14:28
    And the human resources director, she does a really nice job of keeping balance with us as to reminding us what things mean just for us within Albemarle County.
  • 01:14:37
    And if she were in the room right now, she would say a 1.5% increase.
  • 01:14:40
    If that's all we can afford, it's all we can afford.
  • 01:14:43
    But she would say to me that if we do that, we're losing ground.
  • 01:14:47
    That's right.
  • 01:14:48
    And that's an understandable statement.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:14:50
    And we have been where we lost a lot of ground.
  • 01:14:53
    And in my opinion, we're still playing catch up.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:14:55
    Yes, ma'am.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:14:56
    The percentage cost per percent is about 1.5 million I think for each in local government for each percent increase.
  • 01:15:05
    Do I have that right?
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 01:15:05
    For local government every 1% of salary increase is around $600,000.
  • 01:15:09
    I'll add that includes the impact of the associated benefits with FICA and VRS to go with it.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:15:20
    The whole picture?
  • 01:15:21
    Yes.
• • 01:15:21
    Good.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:15:22
    So to this point with the blue section, to this point we've really been focusing on employees.
  • 01:15:29
    Now let's change the thought just a little bit that as I move forward in the budget building, oh I'm sorry Liz, I didn't see you.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:15:37
    I have one more question, I just wasn't quick.
  • 01:15:39
    Okay, I apologize for that.
  • 01:15:41
    So everything you said sounded very reasonable.
  • 01:15:45
    We're trying to get up to the $15 an hour though at the same time that we're doing all this and obviously that's going to cause some compression as you go through these salaries and with the 1.5% increase.
  • 01:16:00
    This is just, I have no idea what the answer to this is.
  • 01:16:03
    I just am curious when you, if you were to go more than the 2, the 1.5,
  • 01:16:13
    I guess it wouldn't make a difference, but I'm just thinking about dealing with the compression in the future, how that affects the percent that you increase overall, how that affects the compression, if it does at all.
  • 01:16:30
    I just don't know the spread of where the different employees will
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:16:36
    I think there's an answer to your question and I think we should write that down and when we come back with the manager's recommended budget and go through the budget work sessions with the board and the board has time to see everything else that's in the budget and why it's recommended.
  • 01:16:50
    We should be prepared to answer that at that time.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:16:53
    But my understanding was as you're looking at this you're factoring in compression and looking at those factors.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:16:58
    That's exactly right.
  • 01:16:59
    As it relates to minimum wage, I'll say this out loud because this is important for this board because we've been in different places back to last fall to now, is that our effort to go to $15 an hour as a minimum
  • 01:17:16
    we would look at a compression remedy up to $16.25 an hour.
  • 01:17:22
    That's salary grade 12, that's about a third of the way through our pay plan and that also mirrors the University of Virginia and what they have done.
  • 01:17:34
    And so we would not cascade it through the entire pay plan as was originally discussed and that was way back in the fall.
  • 01:17:42
    for cost containment reasons, as well as if you can hit a logical cutoff for the positions that are most closely affected as you move from the entry level of the pay range.
  • 01:17:55
    That seems most logical to us, and we had unanimity on that when we were working through it.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:18:01
    Thank you.
  • 01:18:01
    That's a big improvement over 10 years ago, and the whole thing failed because it was a demand to take it all the way up.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:18:07
    And I think it makes a lot of sense not to take that and, as you just said, cascade it through the entire pay scale because really the objective in raising the minimum wage is directed more towards the lower income employees.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:18:22
    That was exactly the logic behind the staff, the staff who was working on that.
  • 01:18:26
    Yes, ma'am.
  • 01:18:27
    Okay, so to switch gears just a little bit, we're also in the process, and this is where a lot of Andy Bowman and his colleagues, this is where a lot of their time is going to be spent in the next 30 days determining our share of costs that are associated with supporting existing services and agency partnerships.
  • 01:18:47
    So we're in the process now of determining what new money do we need just to continue to uphold our end of the bargain on a number
  • 01:18:55
    of agency partnerships as well as existing services.
  • 01:18:58
    And so we're in the middle of doing that.
  • 01:19:01
    Andy and his team are in close contact with a lot of our agency partners to determine what their current needs are and how that changes going into next budget year.
  • 01:19:11
    We've talked, Lori has already talked about the CIP Advisory Committee and the work that was done both with the schools board and this board as well as the CIP Advisory Committee.
  • 01:19:23
    We know that right now we're looking at taking on an additional $55 million of debt and that is over the next five years.
  • 01:19:31
    That is both for schools and for local government.
  • 01:19:34
    We also know that natural growth, even good strong natural growth, will not be enough to pay our debt obligation for that much additional money.
  • 01:19:46
    To put that in perspective,
  • 01:19:48
    We're at about 155 million currently, and we would be going to about 210 million, respectfully.
  • 01:19:55
    And there's a list of projects, and Supervisor Palmer referenced that, about how far we were able to get down the page.
  • 01:20:02
    And she remembered correctly, I believe it's four.
  • 01:20:05
    We were able to hit four of the top projects, and then that left a list of things that we were not able to reach to because of that $55 million gap.
  • 01:20:16
    We are continuing to monitor and Mr. Lynch is going to give you an update later today about our local real estate and how that has affected how we go into the budget next year in terms of natural growth.
  • 01:20:30
    We're continuing to monitor what that says and that is a potential tax rate increase of one cent in next year's budget as well as a spacing of tax rate increases and what those might look like over the five-year period.
  • 01:20:45
    I will remind this board that the CIP Advisory Committee recommended a leveling effect.
  • 01:20:52
    that if it is as much as five cents that they'd like to see a leveling effect to where there's not a spike and then a commensurate drop in what we expect with our tax rate over that period where we're trying to afford that additional debt.
  • 01:21:09
    You're going to hear about fire and rescue service challenges and these are things that, again, it's our agency partners, it's our service levels that we've got in our community.
  • 01:21:19
    We'll talk about that this evening.
  • 01:21:22
    You have consistently said to increase reserves.
  • 01:21:25
    I think you see in the early stages of this budget that we are earmarking money with your support.
  • 01:21:30
    to increase our reserves that gives us opportunities to advance your strategic priorities in the future and that would be escalating it based on what you see as well as emerging opportunities that in this community at times things come out of nowhere they're justified and the board needs to consider it and in order to do that you've got to be able to look at some reserve capacity to be able to make decisions.
  • 01:21:53
    Then the final thing, which is really the nuts and bolts of our budget, is to consider department, agency, operational needs, and it's basically related to service demand, population growth, increased density, and workload volume and workload growth.
  • 01:22:11
    looking at pinch points and that is basically our focus on maintaining service delivery, sustaining service delivery and that's where our departments communicate back and forth with us on a regular basis on where are your stress and pinch points in your department.
  • 01:22:26
    Trevor, Doug, they're in the middle of this with departments and a lot of work in the next 30 days.
  • 01:22:31
    So this is what happens after we leave today
  • 01:22:34
    And so I want to stop there and ask if there are questions, things that you would have expected us to talk about today, questions about what you want to see that maybe you've not had a chance to talk about.
  • 01:22:46
    And then when we come forward back to you formally, we'll be on February the 19th.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:22:55
    I recognize at the outset that the question I'm about to ask, the calculation may be impossible to provide right now, but if we are able to obtain equal taxing authority, can we look at how that might permit us to reduce the reliance upon the property tax burden that's being imposed upon our residents?
  • 01:23:18
    Because we have a lot of needs and they have to be funded.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:23:22
    But raising tax property tax rates is a very difficult thing to do And certainly cities have other options that we don't have exactly right lodging Cigarette it goes on and you know there are multiple other options exactly.
  • 01:23:38
    Thank you tourists and not just our resident residents
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 01:23:43
    Yes, I think we could calculate that.
  • 01:23:45
    I don't know, and I would have to get more information on how fast it can affect us.
  • 01:23:51
    I don't know if it can affect us if we get the equal taxing authority this year from the General Assembly, if it'll just equally, immediately
  • 01:23:58
    change it.
  • 01:23:59
    It'll probably be a while to get all that in place.
  • 01:24:01
    It may not impact your fiscal year 21 budget.
  • 01:24:04
    We could still work on the calculations.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:24:06
    And I recognize the next 30 days may not be the time to do that with the other things you've got to do, but I think that's very important for us to be able to look for sources of funding and obviously we're trying to get that other than simply raising property taxes.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:24:20
    A couple of years ago, I believe there were estimates, there certainly was an estimate for the cigarette tax, and I think that, I'm wondering how much of this is already just maybe needs an update.
  • 01:24:33
    It's out there but maybe needs an update.
  • 01:24:36
    I do remember, I think the cigarette tax was like 250,000 a year or something like that, seeing a head shake up and down.
  • 01:24:43
    Yeah, there was a committee.
  • 01:24:45
    There were numbers given to us before.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:24:50
    But I think it's important to understand that even if something takes effect July 1st, it's going to take us six to nine months to get our own processes in order and consider this and talk about it and figure it out before any money starts coming in.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:25:03
    Good point, so it may be a full year at the minimum before we can actually see a practical impact on it.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:25:10
    And we'll be able to tell about the discussions in the General Assembly as to what that, realistically where that might be going.
  • 01:25:18
    I do want to just remind folks when we're talking about this, and this is not for now, but one of the things that I've suggested is that when we're trying to look at revenue sources,
  • 01:25:31
    We're spending, our fire department is spending a lot of money putting out brush fires that are caused by cigarettes.
  • 01:25:41
    So when we put, you know, we talked about that at one point, and I'm just making the comment right now, because when we're talking about a cigarette tax, we need to look at it beyond just a tax on what people are actually smoking, but they're
  • 01:25:55
    as they're flicking their cigarettes out their window.
  • 01:25:58
    Because if you watch the screen of our responses and what we're responding to, you see a good number of brush fires along the highway.
  • 01:26:07
    And many of them are from cigarette butts being flown in.
  • 01:26:10
    Especially when it's really dry.
  • 01:26:13
    To include one that was pretty interesting on pan tops last year at a gas station.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:26:20
    That's a comment on my part, sorry.
  • 01:26:23
    Anything else, any supervisors?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:26:27
    I do.
  • 01:26:27
    I just have one quick comment, and I'm not sure how we roll this in, but the Board of Supervisors, we're really, really good about talking about our department and agency operational needs.
  • 01:26:42
    and efficiencies, but the department that we've really never looked at is our own.
  • 01:26:49
    And Donna and Liz, I'm not sure how, but I would love to start the process of saying the Board of Supervisors, along with our other departments and agencies, we need to look at our own office.
  • 01:27:04
    because we really never have our Board of Supervisors Office.
  • 01:27:08
    There may be things that we can do to help Claudette and Travis.
  • 01:27:12
    There may be efficiencies.
  • 01:27:14
    There are certainly new technologies.
  • 01:27:16
    How we could somehow or another, and this is not the time to do that, I'm just putting on the table that I'm very interested in looking at our own Board of Supervisors Office as well as the other departments.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:27:28
    I will say that we have in my experience we've done it on a smaller scale within you know sort of privately in our department and are you suggesting a public discussion over this?
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:27:41
    No, I would just like to look at our own
  • 01:27:43
    on office and our efficiencies.
  • 01:27:44
    We have things we could be more efficient about, perhaps with minutes, with committees and boards.
  • 01:27:50
    We could probably help Claudette and Travis with some workload if we become more efficient.
  • 01:27:55
    So I just think we need, but I would certainly want it to be a public discussion.
  • 01:27:59
    and to my knowledge, while I've heard over the six years some information about what the board office spends, I've never really received a report, I've never seen anything where we said, okay, how can our board office be more efficient?
  • 01:28:18
    Because we're asking our staff to do that, we're asking our departments to do that.
  • 01:28:22
    I think it's fair for us to look at that and I think there are some efficiencies to be realized.
  • 01:28:28
    Anyway.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:28:28
    Thank you.
  • 01:28:29
    Sure.
  • 01:28:30
    Lori and Jeff, do you desire anything more in terms of comments or consensus or anything from the board?
  • 01:28:37
    Are you comfortable with the conversation in terms of where things are?
  • 01:28:41
    Have you got more to present?
  • 01:28:43
    One more slide.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:28:44
    Okay.
  • 01:28:44
    And that is next steps.
  • 01:28:46
    And so that will either serve to wrap us up or to identify any outstanding questions.
  • 01:28:52
    So as I mentioned earlier,
  • 01:28:56
    formally will be back before you on February the 19th and that is a normal board meeting day that does have a special start time and that is at noon.
  • 01:29:08
    So the board, I'm sorry, the manager, the county executive will roll out the recommended budget at noon and then our board meeting that day is starting at its regular time of one o'clock.
  • 01:29:20
    and I leaned over to make sure from the clerk that I said that right.
  • 01:29:24
    Then, after the rollout of the recommended budget, we have right now scheduled work sessions beginning on February the 25th, March the 3rd, a public hearing on March the 4th, and then a work session scheduled on March the 5th.
  • 01:29:50
    I do want to call attention to that first work session on the 25th and it's an overview and then also a tie to the school division and to the Capitol.
  • 01:30:04
    Supervisor Palmer had a question about Capitol
  • 01:30:08
    specific to solid waste and recycling and I believe that if you look at the capital budget and it's recommended budget and you see things that you want us to stretch to put in there that are not in there or maybe they're partially in there or you want to have a discussion about how does this align I would flag the February 25th meeting as an opportunity for that also reminding the board that you will have that strategic initiative capital reserve
  • 01:30:38
    and you can, you don't have a timeline on giving us guidance, but you can have discussions all through the budget process, but that's one where we would be expecting to talk to you and talk with you and receive guidance from you on capital.
  • 01:30:56
    So I'm trying to circle back and answer that question.
  • 01:31:00
    Thank you.
  • 01:31:00
    Yes ma'am.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:31:02
    And just a quick clarity, maybe from Claudette, I have a budget work session on the 25th with two separate starting times on my calendar.
  • 01:31:12
    So maybe we just need to make sure we're all, I don't have, we don't have duplicates.
  • 01:31:17
    I have a three o'clock and a five o'clock.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:31:19
    I think the clerk's office, Claudette's going to check this, but I think the clerk's office worked with the board and staff to suggest that that is a 5 o'clock start time and that is a 5 p.m.
  • 01:31:30
    to 8 p.m.
  • 01:31:31
    start time and that's because we have a conflicting board meeting on the authority earlier that afternoon.
  • 01:31:40
    So several of us have a very difficult time getting over here for our normal start time.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:31:44
    That works.
  • 01:31:45
    I just noticed that I had two on my calendar, and I want to make sure.
  • 01:31:48
    Yeah, that's good.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:31:49
    So, Madam Chair, I'm going to stop there, and I'm going to let Ms.
  • 01:31:52
    Ausehouse make sure that we've not missed anything at this point, and then make sure the board doesn't have any final questions.
  • 01:31:59
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 01:32:01
    I have no additional slides or information.
  • 01:32:03
    I just appreciate everyone's time and attention.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:32:07
    Anything further from any supervisors?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:32:09
    questions.
  • 01:32:09
    So the March 4th public hearing is we're going to do the public hearing on the budget as part of our regular meeting on the first Wednesday, which is fine.
  • 01:32:20
    I'm thrilled that we've got two weeks in between the original offering of the budget and the public hearing because it was absurd to ask people to be ready in five days when one of it was a weekend and it was just awful.
  • 01:32:31
    So just wanted to make sure I have that written down correctly in my brain.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 01:32:34
    We did provide more time based on the board's guidance when we put our calendar together.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:32:41
    And I think it'll work just fine.
  • 01:32:42
    I just wanted to make sure that I had that right in my head, that I was hearing that correctly.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 01:32:47
    Are we aligned?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:32:48
    Okay, good.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:32:50
    And then we have our usual March the 11th hold if needed.
  • 01:32:54
    Right, we have holds if needed, yes we do.
  • 01:32:56
    Exactly, that's good.
  • 01:32:57
    That's for the budget work session.
  • 01:32:58
    Right, exactly.
• • SPEAKER_22
  • 01:33:01
    All right, well, thank you very much.
  • 01:33:02
    I know you have a busy calendar today, so thank you.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:33:07
    We'll see you again soon.
  • 01:33:08
    Thank you for the work.
  • 01:33:09
    Thank you for the great work you all put into that.

9. ZTA 2019-007 Fill and Waste Areas.

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:33:16
    Our next item will be number 10, a work session on fill and waste.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:33:37
    Good afternoon.
  • 01:33:38
    Thank you.
  • 01:33:38
    I'm Bill Fritz.
  • 01:33:39
    I'm with the Community Development Office, Development Process Manager, and I'm going to try to talk to you today about building waste.
  • 01:33:59
    So the Board of Supervisors directed staff to work on this back in September, and today we have a work session to try to get some feedback on the potential changes that staff has identified with the fill and waste regulations.
  • 01:34:13
    I want to start with some background about what we're talking about.
  • 01:34:17
    Fill and waste, which I'm only going to refer to as fill from now on, involves obtaining material on one property and disposing of it on another property.
  • 01:34:27
    Moving material around on the same property is not fill.
  • 01:34:32
    Fill material may only be inert material.
  • 01:34:34
    This includes things like soil, rock, concrete, bricks, and asphalt.
  • 01:34:39
    Metals are not considered inert materials.
  • 01:34:42
    However, they may be accepted if embedded in concrete, for example.
  • 01:34:46
    This allows for things like reinforced concrete to be disposed of as inert materials.
  • 01:34:51
    Fill is permitted in all zoning districts.
  • 01:34:55
    If the area disturbed exceeds 10,000 square feet, or if the fill is coming from a site in Albemarle County that is disturbing more than 10,000 square feet, then the regulations of the Water Protection Ordinance come into play.
  • 01:35:09
    If the area disturbed is less than 10,000 square feet, or if the material comes from outside the county, the Water Protection Ordinance regulations do not come into play.
  • 01:35:20
    regardless of the area of disturbance, if the fill is for agriculture, it is exempt from regulation.
  • 01:35:28
    So what did we do?
  • 01:35:29
    I'm gonna start by giving you an outline of what it is we've proposed.
  • 01:35:35
    I'm gonna get into the details as I build through this presentation.
  • 01:35:39
    But if you have questions at any point in time, yes.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:35:41
    Just for clarification, if, for instance, it is from the university or it's from the city, it could be a much larger than the 10,000 square feet.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:35:54
    So if the material is coming from, let's say the material is coming from the city, it's coming from the city and it's disturbing some area in the city.
  • 01:36:05
    We don't know what it's disturbing in that adjoining jurisdiction.
  • 01:36:08
    If that material that's coming to Albemarle County, if they're disposing of it and it's less than 10,000 square feet, then it is not subject to the water protection ordinance.
  • 01:36:18
    If it's over 10,000 square feet, it is.
  • 01:36:23
    If the fill activity in Albemarle County is over 10,000 square feet, it's subject to the regulation.
  • 01:36:30
    The only way that it is subject to regulation, the WPO regulation, and it's important that we make a distinction between WPO and supplemental regulations.
  • 01:36:41
    The only way that a disturbance of under 10,000 square feet is subject to the WPO regulations is if the material is coming from a regulated site in Albemarle County.
  • 01:36:52
    So let's say Hollymead Town Center is developing, they have a permit, a WPO permit, and they're exporting material.
  • 01:37:02
    They're exporting 5,000 square feet of material to a property.
  • 01:37:06
    Even though that area is less than 10,000 square feet, because it is part of a larger permitted project, that 5,000 square feet is regulated by the WPO.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:37:17
    And I guess I'm still just a touch confused.
  • 01:37:19
    I was reading this and I really was confused while I was reading it.
  • 01:37:22
    So I'm looking forward to getting myself straightened out.
  • 01:37:25
    I'm talking about where it's coming from.
  • 01:37:29
    If that is larger than 10,000 square feet of material, maybe it's deep.
  • 01:37:35
    where it's going, but what's coming for let's say the university, the university would be outside of the county, the city would be outside of the county.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:37:47
    Correct, if it's over 10,000 square feet and it's in
  • 01:37:51
    the city of Charlottesville, Green County, then it is.
  • 01:37:54
    It's subject to whatever the regulations are of that jurisdiction.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:37:57
    Of that jurisdiction.
  • 01:37:58
    Correct.
  • 01:37:59
    And do we know what the regulations are in those districts?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:38:05
    I don't know.
  • 01:38:06
    You do not know.
  • 01:38:06
    The regulations in all the districts.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:38:07
    Okay, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:38:09
    Just to be clear on that, so we want to differentiate between the activity of picking up what is called the fill versus where we drop it, the fill.
  • 01:38:20
    And our ordinance, our regulation applies in Albemarle County 100,000 square feet.
  • 01:38:27
    10,000 square feet.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:38:30
    And all we're talking about with the fill and waste regulations is the disposal of the material that's generated from another site.
  • 01:38:39
    If you're moving material around on the same site, you're over here and you've got a bunch of stuff and you're dumping it over here, that's the same site.
  • 01:38:47
    That's not fill and waste.
  • 01:38:48
    That's a completely different animal.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 01:38:50
    And for these purposes, it doesn't matter in certain respects how large the origin site that's disturbed.
  • 01:38:56
    What we're talking about is inside Albemarle County.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:38:59
    We focus solely on the receiving end of the equation.
  • 01:39:01
    All right, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:39:02
    But I thought you just said if it was inside Albemarle County.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:39:07
    If the exporting site is within Albemarle County.
  • 01:39:13
    and it is a permitted site in Albemarle County, then the receiving site is also permitted.
  • 01:39:18
    Regardless of how big it is.
  • 01:39:20
    Whatever the square footage is.
  • 01:39:22
    But we looked at, we sort of discounted all of that and looked just exclusively on, let's look at how these properties are receiving
  • 01:39:31
    receiving the fill and waste material.
  • 01:39:34
    And these are not the, we didn't look at the WPO regulations, we only looked at the fill and waste supplemental regulations because the WPO regulations are being looked at also separately and what we would do is simply make the two mesh with one another.
  • 01:39:51
    However, it ultimately gets done is to mesh the two.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:39:56
    question.
  • 01:39:57
    So if I heard you right, or tell me what I'm supposed to hear.
  • 01:40:01
    You said, if it's a regulated site in Amarillo County, such as Hollymi Town Center, you said the receiving site is also then considered to be permitted, or the receiving site must be permitted before it can receive stuff, because that's what I thought it
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:40:16
    The answer to both of those is yes.
  • 01:40:18
    It is permitted and it must be permitted and it is permitted.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:40:21
    So the receiving side is not de facto permitted.
  • 01:40:23
    It has to go through its own process if it's taking stuff from Albemarle County that comes through a regulated site.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:40:29
    Right.
  • 01:40:29
    As part of looking at a grading project, if we see the surplus materials being generated, we ask, where's it going?
  • 01:40:39
    And they need to tell us where it's going.
  • 01:40:41
    Now, if it's going into the city,
  • 01:40:45
    There's some follow-up about the fact that it really is a permitted place.
  • 01:41:04
    So I'm happy that you're asking me questions.
  • 01:41:06
    If you have more, keep on going.
  • 01:41:07
    I'm going to try to build on this and I've tried to anticipate your questions, but if you've got questions, go ahead and ask me and I'll get to them.
  • 01:41:17
    So we looked at this as a land use issue, this fill and waste as a land use issue.
  • 01:41:23
    We also realized that fill activities are necessary.
  • 01:41:27
    They're just part of a growing and developing community.
  • 01:41:30
    So these proposed regulations take into account the need for those fill activities and we attempt to accommodate the fill activities.
  • 01:41:38
    I'm gonna go over the general concepts first and then get into all the details.
  • 01:41:44
    The idea is to create two types of fill.
  • 01:41:48
    Clean earth fill, which is just that, earth, soil, rock, with limitations on the amount of rock and the size of the rocks.
  • 01:41:58
    In earth fill,
  • 01:41:59
    would stay just what it is now.
  • 01:42:01
    So we're gonna have clean earth fill and inert fill.
  • 01:42:04
    Clean earth fill could go anywhere.
  • 01:42:07
    Basically taking the place of what we currently have, which is inert fill, which can go everywhere.
  • 01:42:12
    So clean earth fill can go everywhere, just like today.
  • 01:42:16
    Inert fill would be permitted by right and all zoning districts except for the rural areas.
  • 01:42:23
    In the rural areas, inert fill would be permitted only by special use permit.
  • 01:42:28
    To do this, we have to redefine agriculture so that fill is not considered an agricultural activity.
  • 01:42:35
    That's how you get the exemption today.
  • 01:42:38
    But remember that in the rural areas, clean earth fill would still be a by-right use, meaning it could be used to support agriculture.
  • 01:42:46
    So if you wanted to bring in clean earth fill to tariffs, you could do that, subject to the regulations.
  • 01:42:53
    I also want to make clear that this does not deal with fertilizers, biosolids, or anything like that.
  • 01:43:00
    They would continue to be regulated just as they are today.
  • 01:43:02
    This doesn't touch that at all.
  • 01:43:05
    This proposal also makes provisions to allow for fill to be located in the development areas without excessive procedural requirements, and I'm going to go into that in more detail.
  • 01:43:15
    you'll see that I say some trees may be cut in the development areas and I'm gonna explain what that means as I build on this presentation.
  • 01:43:26
    So first let's look at what we have, oops, sorry, I was on the wrong screen there.
  • 01:43:34
    So first let's look at what we have as the rural areas.
  • 01:43:37
    By limiting the rural areas to clean earth, it limits the total activity that can occur in the rural area district.
  • 01:43:45
    This reduces the total amount of traffic.
  • 01:43:48
    This reduction in traffic may help to improve safety and the quality of life for rural residents.
  • 01:43:54
    By having material disposed of in the development areas, it reduces total truck miles which may help to reduce the county's environmental impact.
  • 01:44:03
    By not using the rural areas for the disposal of inert material, we also may be preserving land for future agricultural or forestal production.
  • 01:44:13
    How does this impact the development areas?
  • 01:44:15
    The rural areas are used for the disposal of materials because of the ease of getting those approvals.
  • 01:44:21
    In the rural areas, the most that will be needed is an erosion and sediment control plan in order to comply with the water protection ordinance.
  • 01:44:29
    There are some performance regulations within the fill and waste regulations, but those are largely technical and easy to comply with.
  • 01:44:37
    In the development areas, getting approval for a fill operation is complicated by the need to obtain approval of a site plan, a subdivision, or a building permit.
  • 01:44:47
    This is because tree removal is not permitted on non-RA zone property unless a site plan, subdivision, or building permit has been approved.
  • 01:44:57
    What this effectively means is that vacant property zone, commercial or industrial, cannot accept fill material unless the necessary approvals have been received.
  • 01:45:07
    So you may have a project, a sending property that is ready to go and it doesn't have time to wait for someone to get those approvals to dispose of the material now.
  • 01:45:18
    The rural areas can receive it, so that's where it goes.
  • 01:45:22
    This ordinance would allow tree cutting with limits on non-RA parcels to allow them to accept this fill material.
  • 01:45:34
    But we have performance standards.
  • 01:45:37
    In order to minimize the impacts caused by fill operations, staff is recommending a number of new performance standards.
  • 01:45:44
    These include things such as setbacks and limits on the amount of fill.
  • 01:45:49
    Preserved slopes in the development areas are already protected, but critical slopes in the rural areas are not.
  • 01:45:56
    The proposed performance standards would protect critical slopes and hydric soils, which are not protected in either the rural or development areas now.
  • 01:46:04
    And I'm gonna go over the performance standards
  • 01:46:08
    in more detail in just a minute.
  • 01:46:11
    There are potential negative impacts that staff has already identified.
  • 01:46:15
    If the rural areas can only accept clean earth fill, there is going to be increased pressure to place inert fill in the development areas.
  • 01:46:23
    As stated previously, the proposed regulations would allow for some tree cutting to make filling easier in the development areas.
  • 01:46:30
    However, this may result in the partial development of property that then sits idle until full development occurs.
  • 01:46:37
    Additional regulations often result in additional cost, and there would be a cost associated with the processing of applications for special use permits or special exceptions.
  • 01:46:53
    So what I'm gonna do now is I'm gonna go through and compare what the current regulations are with what the proposed regulations are.
  • 01:47:00
    So currently, it's permitted in inert fill, it's permitted in all zoning districts.
  • 01:47:07
    What is proposed is breaking that out, clean earth permitted in all zoning districts, inert waste permitted by right in all districts except the rural areas, and permitted by special use permit in the rural areas.
  • 01:47:24
    Right now, we have inert materials.
  • 01:47:27
    That's all that non-reactive material I was describing before, your concrete, rubble, bricks, things like that.
  • 01:47:33
    Break it down, define clean earth fill, soil, earth, rock with limits on the percentage of rock and the size of rock, and then maintain the existing inert waste definition.
  • 01:47:49
    The exemptions.
  • 01:47:52
    So currently you have agricultural activities are exempt and fill and waste activities of less than 10,000 square feet.
  • 01:47:58
    And I guess I rounded that off to not take into account if it's coming from another site.
  • 01:48:03
    Just make the screen a little easier to read.
  • 01:48:05
    But those are basically the exemptions.
  • 01:48:08
    The proposed is to remove that agricultural exemption and to lower the threshold to 2,500 square feet for a permitted site or a regulated site.
  • 01:48:18
    What that's doing is that's matching what you've been talking about with the water protection regulations.
  • 01:48:24
    So if that were to change with your discussions of the water protection regulations, these would change.
  • 01:48:29
    That's the magic behind those numbers that we're simply trying to pull them together.
  • 01:48:34
    So as your discussions go, these would move back and forth.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:48:39
    And right now we're just talking about the rural area inert, correct?
  • 01:48:45
    Because we're making it by right.
  • 01:48:47
    If we did this, we'd be making it by right in the development areas.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:48:51
    It would still be by right.
  • 01:48:54
    So if you had a fill material, clean earth or inert waste material of over 2,500 square feet, RA or development area, and I realize that there are some commercial properties in the rural areas,
  • 01:49:08
    rural areas and non-rural zoning districts.
  • 01:49:11
    If you had clean earth fill, you were over 2,500 square feet in the rural areas, you would need to get a permit, a WPO permit, and that would be addressing your soil and erosion control issues.
  • 01:49:31
    And it also would trigger the supplemental regulations, which I'm gonna go into in just a little bit here.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:49:36
    Does that make sense?
  • 01:49:38
    It makes sense, but tell me what it would be.
  • 01:49:41
    So my question is, this is just for the rural area.
  • 01:49:45
    If you were bringing it into the development area, would that 2,500 square feet be applicable?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:49:52
    Yes, it would be applicable.
  • 01:49:54
    It doesn't matter where you were taking the material.
  • 01:49:56
    If you are filling more than 2,500 square feet, you need to get a permit.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:50:02
    Okay, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:50:08
    So previously I had the current and proposed regulations side by side.
  • 01:50:12
    The next few slides just don't really lend themselves to that.
  • 01:50:15
    So I've changed the format on you.
  • 01:50:17
    So what you have now is the current operational regulations.
  • 01:50:22
    This is out of section five of the ordinance.
  • 01:50:24
    And they are largely technical.
  • 01:50:27
    Prevent ponding, stay out of stream buffers, flood plain, reclamation.
  • 01:50:32
    There are very few setback requirements.
  • 01:50:37
    We've talked about this before.
  • 01:50:38
    There's a limit on hours of operation, but it applies only to industrial-type power equipment.
  • 01:50:43
    That term is not defined anywhere, so that's what we have now.
  • 01:50:49
    If you go to Attachment B, if you want more detail, Attachment B, page 2, gives you a full list of all the current and proposed regulations.
  • 01:50:58
    I didn't put them all on your screen, but that's where you can find them.
  • 01:51:02
    So the proposed regulations.
  • 01:51:06
    These operational regulations would set limits on the area of activity.
  • 01:51:12
    What this means is it includes not just the area where the filling is occurring, but any other areas associated with it, such as your vehicle or equipment storage, your maintenance areas, and limits where tree cutting can occur.
  • 01:51:28
    All of these regulations would be supplemental regulations.
  • 01:51:32
    What that means is that the board would have the ability to modify any of the regulations if requested by an applicant, and in granting any modification, the board would be able to include appropriate conditions.
  • 01:51:44
    So I just wanted to start that.
  • 01:51:45
    So there would be setbacks.
  • 01:51:47
    The setbacks would be 150 feet from entrance corridors, 75 feet from all other streets.
  • 01:51:53
    That's measured from the right-of-way.
  • 01:51:56
    Setbacks from your adjacent property, if the adjacent property is residential or rural, 75 feet.
  • 01:52:02
    If it is non-residential, 50 feet.
  • 01:52:05
    A minimum lot size of five acres.
  • 01:52:08
    but we would also include a provision that if you owned multiple parcels that you could effectively combine those for purposes of getting up to the five acres.
  • 01:52:18
    So if you had a two acre commercial piece and a three acre commercial piece and you wanted to fill, that counts as your five acres.
  • 01:52:26
    But if you had two acres of commercial and three acres of residential, we would not consider that to be a single parcel for purposes of combining the five acres.
  • 01:52:36
    and that's because of the setbacks we have.
  • 01:52:39
    Again, these are supplemental regulations, an applicant could come before you and ask for relief.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:52:44
    Will you just go over that again for me?
  • 01:52:46
    Help me with that.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:52:46
    Sure.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 01:52:46
    I'm just trying to wrap my head around that.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:52:49
    The minimum lot size, the area under control needs to be five acres.
  • 01:52:52
    So if you have a commercial property and it's five acres, you're good to go.
  • 01:52:58
    If you own two adjacent properties, one's two acres, one's three acres, they're both zoned commercially,
  • 01:53:05
    We could consider that to be a five-acre area for purposes of complying with this provision.
  • 01:53:13
    However, if two of those acres were commercial and three of those acres were residential, we would not consider that to be five acres for purposes of complying with this area requirement.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:53:25
    So, maybe you're about to answer the question because I sent you a couple questions on this basic page.
  • 01:53:33
    Should I ask them or are you going to go ahead and answer them because you didn't so far?
  • 01:53:38
    Anyway, the two.
  • 01:53:43
    The whole purpose of this is to encourage the fill in the development area.
  • 01:53:49
    So if you had multiple owners, like let's say you had two owners with, they're not the same owner, but they're all commercial, and maybe they're working together to do a development in that area, why would we not consider multiple owners commercial property?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:54:10
    You certainly could, and I will confess right now that the provisions that you see here are a collection of what I identified as best practices from multiple jurisdictions across Virginia, so I freely admit that I copied
  • 01:54:30
    very generously.
  • 01:54:33
    We saw that five-acre.
  • 01:54:35
    I didn't see anything that had that, but I think it's a really good idea that we could write an ordinance very easily that said under a unified plan or with agreement provided that it was common or not a mix of residential and non-residential zoning districts.
  • 01:54:54
    It'd be a very easy thing to do, and I think consistent with what we're talking about and the concept that we're trying to do here.
  • 01:55:00
    of trying to protect the adjacent properties
  • 01:55:03
    are not subject to development, immediately subject to development.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:55:07
    And so I'm a little bit concerned about this 150 feet from the entrance corridor from the right of way.
  • 01:55:14
    So that's liable to be, there could be a development that is occurring closer than that where the fill is actually needed, or am I incorrect?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:55:25
    If there's a project closer than 150 feet that needs fill and has an approved plan,
  • 01:55:33
    They would be permitted to do that.
  • 01:55:34
    That's actually not considered to be filled.
  • 01:55:36
    That's considered to be part of the development proposal that's there.
  • 01:55:41
    I should have prefaced that.
  • 01:55:44
    That if you have an approved site plan, subdivision, or building permit, and you are bringing materials in for that previously approved development, that's not considered filled.
  • 01:55:55
    That's just part of your development plan.
  • 01:55:57
    it's covered by the conditions of the approval and of the water protection ordinance permit that you have.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:56:05
    Okay, so they'd have to be pretty far along in their development process in order to utilize that?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:56:12
    Correct, correct.
  • 01:56:14
    And if they were not quite that far but they could come in before the Board of Supervisors with a special exception request to say
  • 01:56:24
    We're going to do XYZ, and here's where we are with our plans, and we want to fill closer than 150 feet.
  • 01:56:30
    We could present that to the board, and the board could take whatever action they thought was appropriate.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 01:56:36
    Okay.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:56:37
    Thank you.
  • 01:56:38
    Do I understand that what you have on the screen now is a description of where the dirt's going to go?
  • 01:56:43
    This is a description of where the... It can't be put right at the sidewalk, in other words.
  • 01:56:46
    It has to be back that distance.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:56:48
    That's correct.
  • 01:56:49
    And it's important to note that this defines the area.
  • 01:56:54
    So you'll see here, the last one says allows tree cutting on non-RA properties.
  • 01:56:58
    So what that means is no trees within 150 feet.
  • 01:57:03
    if it was an entrance corridor property, no trees within 150 feet except for the access road to get back to the fill could be cut.
  • 01:57:13
    So you would maintain those trees on the property.
  • 01:57:16
    You'd maintain the trees around the property, 75 feet from an adjacent residential, 50 feet from an adjacent commercial or industrial property.
  • 01:57:26
    So what this does is it doesn't allow the property to be clear cut of trees.
  • 01:57:30
    That's why I used the phrase some trees.
  • 01:57:33
    It still is going to maintain some level of a buffer between the streets and adjoining properties for this fill activity.
  • 01:57:43
    Now it's important to understand that when the ultimate site plan or subdivision or building permit comes in, there's nothing that prevents those trees from being removed as part of that site plan or subdivision, but that's going to be reviewed at the time of the site plan or subdivision.
  • 01:57:59
    So the concept we're trying to go with here is sort of an incremental approval of activity on the property without the clear cutting of the property.
  • 01:58:08
    And as you'll see in some of the next slides, the complete re-terraforming of the property.
  • 01:58:15
    There's some limits that we have there.
  • 01:58:18
    And actually I'll just go ahead and go to those real quick.
  • 01:58:21
    So there's some access requirements that we would add when private access easements are used to verify that they have a right of usage and that the
  • 01:58:29
    the access way is adequate design to accommodate the proposed activity.
  • 01:58:35
    Just a flat out limit on the hours of operation, remove the reference to industrial type equipment.
  • 01:58:42
    Establishing a maximum fill height of eight feet, that's over the existing native terrain, native grade.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:58:50
    And can that start at the property line or can that still have to be back the 150 feet, 75 feet, whichever side of the lot it is?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:58:59
    It has to be set back from the 150 feet from an entrance corridor, 75 feet from any other street, 75 feet from a residential property, 50 feet from a non-residential property.
  • 01:59:14
    maximum of eight feet and the area of activity can't be any greater than those boundaries that I've described.
  • 01:59:20
    You have to meet those setbacks so you can't be filling within those areas.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 01:59:26
    I guess I'm having a really hard time imagining a lot in a neighborhood in the urban area
  • 01:59:33
    where this could possibly be appropriate.
  • 01:59:35
    So I mean, you may have a ravine or something, but it's a ravine because water ran the dirt there and eroded it all the way.
  • 01:59:43
    And so is that a reasonable place where someone would be allowed to bring in extra clothes of dirt and fill that ravine so that sometime in the future they put a house there?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 01:59:52
    Well, let's say that that ravine is there.
  • 01:59:54
    If it's in a stream buffer, can't go there.
  • 01:59:58
    If those are hydric soils, it can't go there.
  • 02:00:00
    If the property is less than five acres, it can't go there.
  • 02:00:04
    They'd have to come for a special exception.
  • 02:00:06
    If the property's less than five acres, they can't fill.
  • 02:00:10
    If they can't meet a setback of 75 feet from the adjoining residential properties, it can't go there.
  • 02:00:16
    So simply an infill property in a development where maybe there was a leftover piece of land.
  • 02:00:24
    No, you would have to come before the Board of Supervisors for a special exception to be able to develop that property.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:00:32
    So I'm thinking of a property in the Crozet growth area which received during the construction of the Crozet library.
  • 02:00:40
    It was supposed to be temporary and that was 2012.
  • 02:00:44
    And it's still there and receiving another six to ten dump trucks full a month.
  • 02:00:49
    So these new regulations might be able to get, I mean that's within 30 feet of the road and that is an interest quarter, 240.
  • 02:00:57
    So that sort of thing would not be allowed to continue on this under these new rules.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:01:02
    Not by right.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:01:05
    If I could follow up on those questions.
  • 02:01:07
    Is there a way to identify or constrain, so to speak, a specific infill activity or fill activity so that an individual does not do repeated under 2,500 square feet that ultimately ends up being a substantially larger area
  • 02:01:28
    a fill and basically subvert the whole intention of protecting water quality and constraints and everything.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:01:36
    We're working on that as part of the water protection ordinance regulations so yes it can be done but we're working on how how to actually do that and these uh the way that we would write these regulations about for example the maximum fill area is from the natural terrain
  • 02:01:54
    so we would know what the natural terrain was prior to the initial filling.
  • 02:01:58
    So you wouldn't be able to come in and do eight feet and then come in and do another eight and then another and another.
  • 02:02:04
    You wouldn't be able to do that.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:02:05
    Do you have any, and maybe you're getting to this, any idea how many properties might be receiving properties in the development areas since a good portion of the development area is obviously already developed?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:02:23
    No, I couldn't tell you.
  • 02:02:25
    There are a lot of vacant or underdeveloped, and that's really the trick is the underdeveloped properties that are in the development area that may be able to receive fill.
  • 02:02:37
    Just didn't have time to do that research before coming to, no, I can't answer the question.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:02:41
    Okay, thanks.
  • 02:02:43
    So I have some concerns that they're nibbling at the edges about, but I was gonna try and let you get to the end of your slide because you may, I don't know where you are in your presentation, Bill.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:02:54
    Last step.
  • 02:02:57
    Give me your feedback and we'll come back to you.
  • 02:03:00
    Perfect timing.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:03:05
    I'm trying to figure out, because this looks like to me, I guess what my concern is.
  • 02:03:11
    Putting aside the development areas in Crozet, which is a very different animal, and looking at the development area in the urban ring that has not had the infrastructure and the attention
  • 02:03:25
    and has lots of different residential areas right across the street in the urban ring, I mean in the development area from the rural area.
  • 02:03:37
    The lines are very different.
  • 02:03:42
    I guess my concern is looking at noise, traffic, all of the impacts once again on the development area at the expense of the development area to make sure the rural area is protected.
  • 02:03:57
    I understand where you're going about pads and needing to prepare, but I'm very concerned about my neighborhoods in the urban ring.
  • 02:04:08
    and all of a sudden we're talking about, I had a call on New Year's Day that a developer had started working at seven o'clock in the morning on New Year's Day with moving equipment.
  • 02:04:24
    So I'm looking, and that's about enforcement and I understand that, but after the fact is a little bit, you know,
  • 02:04:32
    and so seven to nine, are we gonna, are my urban ring, not the crozet, but are my urban ring old neighborhoods that are right up against each other, small, and I understand the five acres, but what's the impact gonna be from trucks, noise,
  • 02:04:51
    are they gonna all of a sudden say, why am I even living in the development area?
  • 02:04:55
    I need to go to the rural area where it's quiet and where it's maintained and, you know, you get what I'm saying.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:05:02
    So, to try to answer your question, these will be for, obviously, larger properties, about the five acres.
  • 02:05:10
    And there's, by right, have to be at least five acre conglomeration of property.
  • 02:05:16
    a maximum area that's disturbed of two acres.
  • 02:05:20
    There are limits to how the mounding of the soil, so it can't be more than X number of feet.
  • 02:05:27
    There are the hours of operation.
  • 02:05:28
    We do cite as a potential negative that there could be this activity that comes and occurs
  • 02:05:35
    fill materials placed there and then they stabilize it, reclaim it, because we would maintain those reclamation provisions.
  • 02:05:43
    They would reclaim it, you'd have a grassed area there, and then it might be another two, three, some number of years until the full development of that property occurred.
  • 02:05:55
    One of the things we did talk about was that
  • 02:05:58
    that fill probably would have been coming in there in any event to facilitate development.
  • 02:06:04
    We don't think people are gonna be very likely to accept property that then prevents them from ultimately being able to develop the property.
  • 02:06:12
    They're gonna be accepting fill with the concept of facilitating future development.
  • 02:06:17
    So that fill would have been coming in anyway.
  • 02:06:19
    And what you've done is you've broken it into two pieces.
  • 02:06:22
    So maybe they're working for three months to bring fill material in there.
  • 02:06:27
    and then they stop and go away for a number of years and then they do the permitted activity for the ultimate development.
  • 02:06:33
    Well, they would have had to do that three months of fill activity anyway.
  • 02:06:37
    So they did it in three months, stopped and then maybe 12 months of construction to do whatever it is which would have been 15 months if they'd had to bring the fill in.
  • 02:06:47
    So there's a little bit of a pro but there's certainly cons and we recognize that and I don't have a good answer for you.
  • 02:06:53
    It's something the board's gonna have to chew on frankly
  • 02:06:58
    It's an issue.
  • 02:07:02
    Work Session.
  • 02:07:03
    It says action on it.
  • 02:07:06
    Yes, we're looking for guidance from you on what to do next.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:07:09
    Supervisor Mallek.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:07:11
    I'll share some guidance, and that is I think it's an artificial distinction between the growth area and the rural area that pits them against each other for no benefit at all.
  • 02:07:21
    The benefits, the damage done to quality of life is for the residents everywhere.
  • 02:07:26
    It's not one or the other, and so as I said earlier, I'm having a really hard time
  • 02:07:32
    visualizing how any of this would work in the growth area.
  • 02:07:35
    The other thing that is a concern that just popped into my head is this extended process where first you tear down two acres of trees in the middle of a lot, which is just environmental destruction, and then you put a bunch of dirt on it and then you go away for what could be a decade.
  • 02:07:52
    Number one, you've created a mess and a wreck, and then with no intention or ability to really follow through on it.
  • 02:07:58
    I mean, I'm thinking of the New Hope Church, which is still two acres of red mud and footings in the middle of a forest that has never been acted on since 2012 or something like that.
  • 02:08:11
    So it's just not...
  • 02:08:13
    Are we setting ourselves up for more damage and more trouble?
  • 02:08:17
    I think there are many, many proposals that are tremendously wonderful.
  • 02:08:20
    And I'm really excited about them.
  • 02:08:22
    But I just don't know what we're benefiting from by saying it's by right in some place and not in some other place, because that is going to push activity here and there for that.
  • 02:08:37
    And I just that's all.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:08:39
    And Ann makes a really good point because we've been talking as we've urbanized and we are an urban community now and we have this distinction between rural and development and all of a sudden even if we're talking about dogs on leashes and talking about the urban area and the development area we've got to figure out a way
  • 02:09:01
    to distinguish better that's just not rural and development because, as you say, those boundaries are, they're not hard lines, and we have neighborhoods in the rural areas that want leash laws, just like we do in the development area, and then we have areas that don't need them.
  • 02:09:26
    I struggle with those artificial lines a lot.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:09:33
    One of the reasons why I was very intrigued by this was because I'm thinking about, for instance, the research park and UVA having to demolish all these buildings.
  • 02:09:48
    and having this go onto farmland to fill.
  • 02:09:56
    And the dirt's great, of course, you know, that's the clean fill.
  • 02:10:00
    But it is an agricultural use to put cement and asphalt.
  • 02:10:07
    across good soils, good farming soils, et cetera.
  • 02:10:12
    And a lot of times these are getting ready for pads for building houses and neighborhoods and things like that.
  • 02:10:23
    I really struggle with how difficult it is right now for people to bring the fill to the development area.
  • 02:10:33
    I look at this as very positive because now if we did something like this, it would make it a lot easier for contractors, for haulers to bring that to the research park or to bring it to somewhere on 29 that's gonna need to be developed.
  • 02:10:51
    Hollymeade Town Center, wherever is a large development.
  • 02:10:58
    So I'm quite thrilled with that.
  • 02:11:01
    Some of the pieces I of course would want to understand how much we're limiting it.
  • 02:11:10
    We don't want to just push the stuff out to the neighboring counties either.
  • 02:11:16
    and so that's a concern.
  • 02:11:19
    So my biggest thing is how much area, how usable is this for the people actually doing the construction.
  • 02:11:31
    I personally really like it.
  • 02:11:32
    I agree with Ann, it's kind of an artificial concern about development area versus rural area and noise.
  • 02:11:43
    For the last five months I've been listening to my next door neighbor build a mansion and every morning at eight o'clock in the morning it feels like that construction equipment is in my kitchen.
  • 02:11:59
    It's their property.
  • 02:12:01
    That's what they're going to do, and I'm going to have to live with that until they've built their home, as much as I don't like it.
  • 02:12:11
    And so that would be my concern with this, and I get a lot of complaints about truck traffic,
  • 02:12:19
    at these fill sites and there's a lot of road destruction, that kind of stuff on our rural roads when thousands of trucks from UVA are bringing the fill to a specific site that is permitted and is legal.
  • 02:12:35
    So as far as I'm concerned, I would like very much to see this flushed out a little bit more, to see how well it would work.
  • 02:12:47
    Are there enough areas in the development area?
  • 02:12:50
    Can we make it easy enough for people to do this and for it to be economical for them to bring it to the development area?
  • 02:13:00
    I am thrilled, quite frankly, with what you've done and really want to hear a little bit more of the specifics of how practical it is for the people who are actually going to be taking this stuff to these sites.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:13:17
    Bill, I would echo some of the concerns that the other supervisors have raised, yet at the same time, thank you for the work you've done in living in a rural agricultural area.
  • 02:13:28
    I'm very, very appreciative of the effort to prevent the inert materials from coming out there and destroying the agricultural areas, because unfortunately, as people, we have a tendency to be sort of an out of sight, out of mind, and you cover it up and now you've destroyed the agricultural areas.
  • 02:13:44
    As an aside, living in an area surrounded by tree farms, I wish this all started as late as 7 o'clock in the morning because they start quite a bit earlier than that.
  • 02:13:55
    But I do believe that 7 a.m.
  • 02:13:57
    to 9 p.m.
  • 02:13:58
    is a bit excessive in terms of that type of work and would ask that you look to start a little later and end a little earlier in that.
  • 02:14:06
    And I share some of the concerns from the less rural districts in the county.
  • 02:14:13
    but from the rural agricultural area, the efforts that you're taking to protect our soil and our water is critical and I'm very appreciative to see that.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:14:24
    And I don't disagree with that, you're right.
  • 02:14:27
    I would like to see some of this tweaked some though based on our discussions and thank you for the timepiece because I do think when we're talking 7 to 9 p.m.
  • 02:14:36
    that seems excessive.
  • 02:14:38
    I would like some examples.
  • 02:14:41
    I think maybe Liz said something about some examples.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:14:44
    just to make sure that we have enough places in the in the development area and we're being you know it would be helpful yeah I just want to make sure we're that there are enough places that we're making it easy enough for them to do it because the stuff's got to go somewhere let's face it well now and I get that I'm just trying to make sure that sure and I understand I mean we we all want to lessen the impact of all this stuff but we also know that
  • 02:15:13
    We're hoping that we have more redevelopment on 29 North.
  • 02:15:17
    We know the university is taking down more buildings.
  • 02:15:22
    I feel a kind of a sense of urgency knowing that all this redevelopment is occurring and where's all this stuff gonna go.
  • 02:15:30
    I don't think our one recycling place is quite geared up enough to be taking it right now.
  • 02:15:38
    Hoping that that will change.
  • 02:15:40
    but we have to have a place for this to go and so that's my concern.
  • 02:15:45
    So what would the enforcement be on this?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:15:49
    Same as it is now.
  • 02:15:49
    By complaint.
  • 02:15:51
    By complaint.
  • 02:15:52
    The way we're proposing it though would be we'd be reducing the threshold that required a permit to come into play so there'd be a more review up front but for those that didn't get a permit and they're doing 5,000 square feet
  • 02:16:08
    It would be complaint driven just like all the other ones we have.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:16:13
    One more follow through.
  • 02:16:15
    As I said, I do want to emphasize how very supportive I am of 99% of all of this, but I did have a question that I would like to get a clarification on on page two of your attachment.
  • 02:16:26
    And it seems to be contradictory in paragraph, in the, oops, I just messed up.
  • 02:16:31
    On attachment?
  • 02:16:32
    Proposed regulation.
  • 02:16:35
    with what fill activities are exempted.
  • 02:16:37
    First it says remove exemption for placement of fill as an ag activity by redefining that to add a phrase such as storage or disposal of non-agricultural excavation material waste and debris if the excavation material waste blah blah blah is not generated on the farm shall not be considered an ag activity.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:16:53
    Right.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:16:54
    Fine.
  • 02:16:55
    I got that.
  • 02:16:56
    I understand that completely.
  • 02:16:57
    Then it says
  • 02:16:59
    Placement of clean earth fill would be permitted by right and could be used for agricultural activity or any other activity.
  • 02:17:07
    But doesn't that seem to contradict the first sentence?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:17:11
    It's not exempt.
  • 02:17:12
    It's a different activity.
  • 02:17:14
    It's saying you can't call clean earth fill agriculture and get an exemption.
  • 02:17:20
    You can do clean earth fill subject to the regulations of clean earth fill.
  • 02:17:24
    and if you want to do that clean earth fill for agricultural purposes or anything else, that's fine subject to the regulations of the clean earth fill.
  • 02:17:33
    You just don't get to use an agricultural exemption.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:17:36
    Oh, now I get it.
  • 02:17:38
    That was the explanation I needed because that has been our biggest problem is people have said it's for farming and so everybody walks away.
  • 02:17:43
    Right.
  • 02:17:44
    When then six months later you find out that there's loads and loads of stuff there.
  • 02:17:47
    Right.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:17:48
    But if you wanted to terrace, for example, and you said, I'm terracing this and it's for agriculture, great.
  • 02:17:54
    But it's not agriculture.
  • 02:17:57
    It's clean earth fill.
  • 02:17:58
    You can do it subject to these regulations.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:18:01
    And then soil processing.
  • 02:18:04
    which is also something that is slid in under agriculture and piling up dirt except that the dirt comes in ten loads a day and goes out ten loads a day.
  • 02:18:13
    It's not agriculture.
  • 02:18:14
    It's something else.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:18:16
    That's not addressed by this.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:18:17
    Okay.
  • 02:18:18
    Very good.
  • 02:18:19
    So that's something still in the work on list in the future.
  • 02:18:22
    All right.
  • 02:18:22
    Thank you.
  • 02:18:23
    You've answered my question.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:18:24
    I appreciate that.
  • 02:18:25
    Any other comments, Supervisors?
  • 02:18:27
    Thank you very much, Bill.
  • 02:18:28
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:18:29
    Just before you go, so what we were proposing to do, sounds like what we were proposing to do fits right in with what you are discussing.
  • 02:18:37
    What we'd like to do is prepare the ordinance language so that we have something to actually chew on and share, then share that with the public at large for a review comment.
  • 02:18:48
    We would like to take this to a work session with the Architectural Review Board because it does impact some of the entrance corridor districts, see if they have any recommendations.
  • 02:18:56
    then we'll take any comments we get from the public, any comments we get from the Architectural Review Board, do a public hearing with the Planning Commission, then do a public hearing with the Board of Supervisors and go through that route.
  • 02:19:07
    Does that sound like what you all were looking for?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:19:10
    That sounds reasonable and somewhere in that we'll get some
  • 02:19:16
    estimate of how many properties are practical this is.
  • 02:19:20
    I mean, I understand you can't give a number of properties.
  • 02:19:25
    I'm not asking for that, but just to make sure that it's a much smaller area.
  • 02:19:34
    We're talking about going from over 700 and some acres down to a much smaller area.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:19:42
    We share your concern because we looked at the resolution of intent which largely was focused on the rural areas and we said well we could come up with this definition to simply say it's not defined as agriculture okay so it's not defined as agriculture now what does that do and what we saw is that that was going to create such a problem that where does this inert material now go what's the permitting process
  • 02:20:08
    that we had to find some sort of relief valve and that relief valve we came up with as well.
  • 02:20:12
    If it's being generated in the development areas, let's leave it in the development areas.
  • 02:20:18
    Reduces the truck travel time, wear and tear on the roads, wear and tear on the trucks, all the emissions that go along with it and potentially has an economic advantage of
  • 02:20:27
    making sites ready for development, which is potentially consistent with the comprehensive plan to use the development areas for development.
  • 02:20:34
    So we'll try to come up with those numbers and make sure we share the same concerns that it needs to actually work.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:20:40
    All right.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:20:41
    Thank you, Supervisor Mallek.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:20:42
    Two super quick questions I forgot to ask.
  • 02:20:44
    So what is lateral support, lateral support to adjacent properties?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:20:50
    So if the tips of my fingers are the property line and you own this parcel and you grade it down to like this, you're no longer providing lateral support to this property.
  • 02:21:01
    It can collapse.
  • 02:21:02
    So you have to provide that.
  • 02:21:03
    You have to hold up your neighbor's property.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:21:06
    and why would you, you're anticipating people grading something down in order to be able to receive fill?
  • 02:21:12
    I mean, why is it in this particular?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:21:14
    You also can't fill up, and it's fine, because we're now proposing these setbacks that didn't exist before, that lateral support may become really a mute issue.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:21:24
    More irrelevant, okay, okay.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:21:25
    But it was an issue before, it had been brought up in all the, I went back and looked at all the prior discussions about this, it kept coming up over and over again, that's why it's in the ordinance, so we didn't propose to take it out.
  • 02:21:35
    It may become really a moot issue, but that's what lateral support is.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:21:40
    I mean, landslide is what happens when it rains a lot and you've got a big dirt pile and it all runs down to your neighbors.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:21:44
    You have to hold up to your neighbors property.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:21:45
    And the last one, I still have heartburn about excess easements, only because of what happened in the brewery thing out in Chestfield or Goochland where they were running these big trucks right through the middle of an easement through the middle of a neighborhood.
  • 02:21:59
    and so do we have the ability, or please consider if we have the ability, and Greg may say no, to have some sort of more official than yes, I got permission from the guy who lives next door, from maintenance and all that stuff.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:22:15
    We found some pretty good language that I saw.
  • 02:22:17
    I can't remember which jurisdiction, but we found some language in another jurisdiction that
  • 02:22:23
    it was spot on that point about using easements that go through other properties to ensure you had the right of usage and adequacy of design and restoration, maintenance, those types of things.
  • 02:22:35
    So yeah, I've looked at that and I'm copying it, trying to put it into our language, but yes, sharing your concerns.
  • 02:22:42
    Thank you, that's great.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:22:43
    I will recirculate the photographs I sent around several months ago of areas in Fauquier and Loudoun where they have 100 acre
  • 02:22:52
    Piles of dirt and the dust and the stuff that is just ruining people's lives.
  • 02:22:57
    So I'm so grateful to you and Frank and everybody who's been working on this because we're this close to being in that same situation.
  • 02:23:04
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:23:04
    So you'll go back and look at this through the lens of some of our concerns.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:23:07
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:23:08
    And come back or we'll see it.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 02:23:10
    What we'll do is we'll take your concerns.
  • 02:23:12
    We'll try to craft that into what we think is the ordinance language.
  • 02:23:16
    We'll share that with the community, go out to a work session with the Architectural Review Board, then to the Planning Commission, then back to the board.
  • 02:23:23
    So the next time the board will see this is after the ordinance has been prepared and shared with the community, ARB and PC.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:23:32
    Thank you very much.
  • 02:23:33
    Thank you very much, Bill.
  • 02:23:34
    Thank you.
  • 02:23:35
    And the next item of our agenda is our break.
  • 02:23:38
    So yeah, let's just do a 10-minute break, come back at 3.35.
  • 02:23:58
    We'll call the meeting back to order.

10. 2020 Real Estate Reassessment.

• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:24:06
    We're now at item number 11 on the agenda, the 2020 real estate reassessment results.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:24:19
    Madam Vice Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors, thank you very much for having me.
  • 02:24:23
    My name is Peter Lynch.
  • 02:24:24
    I'm your county assessor.
  • 02:24:28
    So as the slide shows up there, this talk is about the results from the 2020 reassessment.
  • 02:24:37
    But also it's kind of a state of the real estate assessor's office presentation.
  • 02:24:44
    So those are combined together, and I think it's very important.
  • 02:24:47
    And that's really the message that I'm trying to get across today.
  • 02:24:53
    So to start, I'd like to say kind of the sets the stage.
  • 02:24:58
    When I arrived in the Assessor's Office in 2015, I found an office in disarray.
  • 02:25:06
    There were major issues with personnel, morale, staffing levels, organization, procedures, standardization, management, and ultimately leadership.
  • 02:25:16
    The office was being narrowly held together by the staff members who
  • 02:25:21
    care deeply about what they did.
  • 02:25:24
    And I mention this because I want you to understand that we took kind of a holistic approach to improving our processes and improving the work that we do.
  • 02:25:35
    So what I'm gonna show you today is empirical information that reflects great improvements in all of these categories.
  • 02:25:46
    To me, what is more important, what most people are probably here for today is to find out that there is a 3.4% increase overall in the tax base.
  • 02:25:56
    And that's the number.
  • 02:25:57
    But to me, what's more important is the improved state of the Assessor's Office.
  • 02:26:06
    So what I'm going to talk about today as an overview, the primary functions of the Assessor's Office are 2019 achievements,
  • 02:26:17
    our 2020 goals, the assessment value changes, sales support for those assessment changes, which is very important, review results from past years, land use rates and general information, review and appeal procedures,
  • 02:26:39
    and while we're talking about those, there are gonna be a few terms that are gonna be included.
  • 02:26:44
    I just wanna get them out in the beginning just so they'd be clear.
  • 02:26:48
    A sales ratio, we talk a lot about sales ratios in assessments.
  • 02:26:52
    That is the assessment divided by the sale price.
  • 02:26:54
    So on a property that sells, it's kind of a gauge of where we are with the assessment.
  • 02:27:00
    If those numbers, if it sells for the assessment, that's 100% and that's what we're looking for in the end.
  • 02:27:08
    Of course, we're not gonna be at 100% on every sale, and we're looking at the way all those ratios fit together.
  • 02:27:15
    CAMMA, we talk about our computer system, it's a CAMMA system.
  • 02:27:21
    It's just where we enter and analyze all our data.
  • 02:27:25
    The variance or the COD is just the variance of those ratios that I was talking about.
  • 02:27:31
    So that's an important number when it comes to how accurate we are.
  • 02:27:35
    and then valuation neighborhoods.
  • 02:27:37
    And this has to do with how we organize our work.
  • 02:27:40
    Has nothing to do with a subdivision where somebody has gone and built five houses or 100 houses.
  • 02:27:46
    Has to do with a assessment neighborhood where we combine all of our data together to come up with like properties to compare.
  • 02:27:55
    So having said that, the three primary functions of the Assessor's Office are the reassessment.
  • 02:28:03
    is the first one, and probably the prominent one.
  • 02:28:07
    And in the reassessment, we review all of our, or we hope to review all of our property data on every property in the county over five years.
  • 02:28:16
    So 20% of the properties should be reviewed every year.
  • 02:28:22
    We validate all of the sales, so when a transfer happens, we check that out, make sure that's our market data to show us what is actually happening in the market, so we want our data to be accurate.
  • 02:28:35
    and we update the valuation model that we use to value all properties and we calibrate it back with those sales.
  • 02:28:42
    So those are the three of the major things and actually I left off one of the most important ones off of my side and that's communication to the public, which of course starts today and then happens
  • 02:28:58
    more completely on the 24th when we send the reassessment notices.
  • 02:29:03
    So all the information we can get to the public about their assessment and how they're changing, why they're changing, and how it's supported is very important to this process.
  • 02:29:13
    The next major function we have is new construction.
  • 02:29:17
    So as permits are taken out on properties, new houses are built, new decks or pools or any miscellaneous items are added, we get copies of those permits and we go out to the properties, make sure we get the correct data and we add it to the tax rolls.
  • 02:29:37
    We also add on permits, and that's on permits, the initial one is permits that are complete.
  • 02:29:44
    When those properties are completely done, or what we call substantially complete, we pick them up.
  • 02:29:51
    We also add value, based on state law, we add the value of a property as of January 1st as it sits, if it's not actually complete.
  • 02:29:59
    So those are two components of that new construction.
  • 02:30:03
    and then of course land use administration, which is a big deal in Albemarle County.
  • 02:30:09
    We conduct a biennial revalidation of all properties in the program.
  • 02:30:17
    2019 was our revalidation year and our due dates for that ended December 5th of 2019.
  • 02:30:29
    And as kind of the results of that, we ended up having about 75 properties that did not get revalidated and were removed from the program.
  • 02:30:38
    They have a chance to follow through and file a new application as long as their use is still going on.
  • 02:30:47
    We review all revalidation applications over the two-year period after the revalidation.
  • 02:30:54
    Now this is actually new.
  • 02:30:56
    We have not had the capability in the past of checking all the properties over that two-year period.
  • 02:31:02
    We did kind of a sampling of them, but we didn't have the staff to actually make that happen.
  • 02:31:08
    And I'm going to get into more details about that in another slide.
  • 02:31:13
    we also review any new applications for properties.
  • 02:31:17
    And we're much more detailed about that review now than we used to be.
  • 02:31:22
    So the next slide.
  • 02:31:25
    Now this looks a little bit busy, but there are three basic ideas here.
  • 02:31:33
    First of all, we are increasing efficiency of the work that we do.
  • 02:31:38
    So by organizing the work, the properties that we assess better than they were before, it makes our work easier and we can get more work done.
  • 02:31:49
    So we've consolidated some of those small neighborhoods that we had before into larger neighborhoods.
  • 02:31:54
    So what this does is just makes it easier for us to do our work.
  • 02:32:01
    It also stops having a 5 or 10 parcel neighborhood that doesn't change over 10 years and then suddenly we get one sale in that neighborhood and then it goes up 50%.
  • 02:32:13
    So that's a problem with having that organization.
  • 02:32:19
    So we have also reviewed and sketched more than 4,000 properties into our camera system.
  • 02:32:26
    That's really important because an accurate sketch means that we have the more correct information on a property.
  • 02:32:35
    In the past, the majority of our properties and still almost half of our properties are based on a hand-drawn sketch where we've determined the square footage.
  • 02:32:44
    And we want to move, we want to completely sketch
  • 02:32:48
    the 38,000 properties in our system so that we have the most accurate information.
  • 02:32:56
    So this all means that we've gotten better results.
  • 02:33:02
    And more consistent results across the county is really what we need.
  • 02:33:10
    This might be the harder to read slide, but what I'm saying here is that this is our goals for next year, for 2020.
  • 02:33:23
    So we want to continue with the work that we've been doing.
  • 02:33:26
    Specifically, we want to keep adding sketches to the program.
  • 02:33:29
    and this is where I talk about living area is one of the most important parts of our model.
  • 02:33:36
    The size of a house obviously matters and so the more sketches we get in the better.
  • 02:33:43
    Continue to inspect more properties.
  • 02:33:48
    That is the key to our data quality.
  • 02:33:53
    And our data quality is really something that you'll see in later slides that can make a big difference in the work that we do.
  • 02:34:00
    So in 2019, we were able to look at about 6,600 properties and review them.
  • 02:34:09
    This included a contract with a contractor you probably are aware of that we hired a contractor this year to look at some properties.
  • 02:34:18
    and also included some part-time staff in my office.
  • 02:34:20
    So we were able to see about 6,600 and update the data on that.
  • 02:34:26
    Now our goal is 20%, which as of now is about 9,500 properties we want to look at every year.
  • 02:34:33
    So we're falling a little short on that.
  • 02:34:38
    The third item on this slide is land use.
  • 02:34:43
    So in 2018, we determined that we were not, our oversight of the land use program was not appropriate.
  • 02:34:52
    And that we requested a new position be added for the 2020, or the fiscal year 20 budget, which was approved.
  • 02:35:02
    So we have a new land use administrator who started this fall.
  • 02:35:06
    and I'd like to introduce him.
  • 02:35:08
    Eric Keen is right here.
  • 02:35:10
    So you might be seeing him in the county as he's out doing his work.
  • 02:35:15
    So Eric has already, he has jumped right into his position and has been finding a lot of properties that have fallen short of qualification.
  • 02:35:27
    and we are taking steps to make sure all of those properties will be in compliance.
  • 02:35:33
    So over the next two years, we hope to confirm the qualification status on all land use properties.
  • 02:35:42
    There's approximately 4400 properties at this point in land use.
  • 02:35:50
    So far,
  • 02:35:52
    With Eric's help, we have identified about $60 million in deferred assessments that should not have been under the program.
  • 02:36:04
    That equals about $500,000 in taxes.
  • 02:36:07
    That's part of the budget going forward, the numbers we've reported to the budget office.
  • 02:36:17
    It's a big deal.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:36:18
    it is a big and just one little snippet to go with that when we got the revalidation in which was 13 I think the first year five million dollars in revenue that first year because it was such a big sweep at that time but this is really good news sure there are much more I mean there were items
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:36:34
    There are properties with, you know, we were qualifying the areas with Tenex course.
  • 02:36:39
    We even had a property with a go-kart track.
  • 02:36:42
    I mean, these are not qualified land uses, but they were, it was never paid attention to before, closely enough.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:36:49
    But on the other side of that, and I'm sure you're doing this, there are some elderly folks out there that have been in land use for many years that want to stay, but maybe not understand all the changes, and I'm sure you're helping
  • 02:37:04
    some people that can easily meet or can qualify to qualify.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:37:11
    Thank you for that comment because actually if there's any chance that a property can be qualified but it's just falling short for some reason.
  • 02:37:19
    There's an area that you know like it's a 25 acre parcel and eight acres are cleared and they don't have trees on them.
  • 02:37:26
    They're trying to qualify as trees as forestry.
  • 02:37:29
    We give everybody an opportunity in that case when they can
  • 02:37:34
    to remedy the situation and continue in the program.
  • 02:37:39
    So we're not just throwing everybody out for a minor infraction, let's say.
  • 02:37:45
    But if it's determined that the property, there is no way a property can qualify.
  • 02:37:52
    There are restrictions on some properties that they cannot be logged.
  • 02:37:56
    Their trees cannot be cut on their properties, yet they are currently in forestry.
  • 02:38:00
    Well, they're not in forestry now, the ones we have found out about.
  • 02:38:02
    So there are certain restrictions on properties that there is no way they could qualify for land use, and we are making sure that those properties are removed.
  • 02:38:11
    But if it's a question of just they don't have enough of something, we're working with those owners to, if they want to, bring that up to qualification.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:38:20
    And you do give them information about conservation easements and ACE program and all that sort of thing?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:38:26
    Yeah, we do.
  • 02:38:26
    With the qualifications of whether they would qualify for that.
  • 02:38:31
    Yeah, thank you.
  • 02:38:36
    Okay, so this is where we get to the results.
  • 02:38:38
    So overall, like I said, 3.4% increase to the tax base based on the new assessments.
  • 02:38:45
    and I've included the two previous years so you can see 4% last year, 2.2% the year before.
  • 02:38:56
    And I would like to stress that this is just an overall average for the county.
  • 02:39:04
    There are very few, probably a handful of people, homeowners who would actually have a 3.4% increase on the property.
  • 02:39:12
    Half properties will be below that and half will be above that.
  • 02:39:14
    It's just an average.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:39:18
    Peter, in the change in the count, is that the result of division of parcels?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:39:26
    Yes, exactly.
  • 02:39:27
    That is the difference.
  • 02:39:29
    That's actually the growth of the county right there.
  • 02:39:31
    There were about 700 and some that were subdivided in 18 that added to the 19 list and 200 and some that were added to the... Thank you.
  • 02:39:44
    The next slide, this is by your districts and the increases, again, those average increases by district.
  • 02:39:51
    So this is in your handout also.
  • 02:39:53
    And one note on that last slide was the town of Scottsville actually has, over previous years, has been going down.
  • 02:40:07
    This is the first year, I think since I've been here, that has had an increase.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 02:40:10
    I didn't realize that the county office took care of their assessment.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:40:14
    We do.
  • 02:40:14
    This is brand new.
• • SPEAKER_20
  • 02:40:15
    Okay for me that's good.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:40:17
    It's its own district within a district.
  • 02:40:22
    So this is again a separate breakdown by state code so it's you know the descriptions are here to show what those codes mean.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:40:31
    And on the rural properties, there's been discrepancy between the house going up and the land going down in previous times.
  • 02:40:41
    When you have, could you just, or maybe you're going to mention if there's any.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:40:47
    There hasn't been anything unusual this year.
  • 02:40:50
    There might be a little bit, a few properties that are affected individually as we inspect them and find differences in what we had and what we now understand.
  • 02:41:00
    But overall, we didn't have, you know, like the first year I was here, a major reduction in the land value in the rural areas and an increase in improvements.
  • 02:41:07
    This is just an overall change.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:41:10
    It'll be interesting to see if many of the neighborhoods in the Jack Jouett district are back up to where they were in 07.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:41:17
    That is, I believe some neighborhoods are and some are not.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:41:21
    Exactly.
  • 02:41:22
    Peter, is there data for rural under 20 acres?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:41:28
    That's in the second, in 02.
  • 02:41:31
    That's generally your rural properties that are under 20 acres.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 02:41:35
    So whether they're rural or urban, if they're under 20 acres, they're in that category?
  • 02:41:39
    Exactly.
  • 02:41:40
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:41:42
    and the difference between those first two is if they have water and sewer or they have well and septic.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:41:53
    01 has water and sewer.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:41:56
    And going back to my comment from a minute ago, do you actually have data on the neighborhoods that, because you seem to know exactly what I was talking about, about the neighborhoods that are not yet up to where they were in 2007.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:42:09
    Only anecdotally.
  • 02:42:10
    I don't have any reports that I've run that specifically show all the neighborhoods not.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:42:14
    Because I've been interested in that, because I know mine's not.
  • 02:42:17
    and many of the folks that are in the area that I represent in that urban ring.
  • 02:42:22
    Because we look and we know but it's anecdotal too.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:42:27
    Occasionally when I'm looking at a property I'll look back in years and see how it relates to twelve years ago or so.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:42:34
    If you can, as you did last year, the office generated a six-page thing of all the different neighborhoods and all the districts and their increase or decrease or whatever.
  • 02:42:45
    And people found that fascinating because I took them all to all the meetings and laid them out on the table.
  • 02:42:51
    And that was really great.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:42:52
    You'll do that again because you've done that now twice, I think.
  • 02:42:54
    That's great.
  • 02:42:55
    Yeah, you're right, Ann.
  • 02:42:57
    People love to look at that and see.
• • SPEAKER_18
  • 02:42:58
    Mystery loves coming out.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:42:59
    Yeah, exactly.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:43:06
    The next slide is, this is because obviously the majority of properties are residential.
  • 02:43:13
    They're single-family residential.
  • 02:43:14
    So I try to give more information on breakdowns of those types of properties.
  • 02:43:19
    So your overall single family is about the same as the average overall for the county.
  • 02:43:24
    Your vacant residential is actually, this vacant parcels has actually gone up more.
  • 02:43:29
    and residential condos because they're of the lower value typically, or the majority of them, they are experiencing more increase.
  • 02:43:42
    Condos are having a resurgence, I think, a little bit in the county.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:43:47
    That's good for all those people who bought them in 2012 and then were really in big trouble.
  • 02:43:53
    I am surprised.
  • 02:43:54
    Well, I guess something that struck me over the years of looking at the GIS files is how, and you just pointed out here with vacant residential, any rural property or anywhere, I guess, that doesn't have a dwelling on it is called vacant residential.
  • 02:44:08
    as opposed to just unimproved or something?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:44:12
    Yes, something without a dwelling on it would be vacant, without any buildings on it would be vacant residents.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:44:19
    Okay, is there a state requirement to call it residential?
  • 02:44:23
    I mean, some of them have absolutely no chance to ever be residential, so I just wondered why we were doing it.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:44:28
    Well, it's the zoning.
  • 02:44:29
    I mean, it's zoned.
  • 02:44:30
    All right.
  • 02:44:31
    Now, there might be some of these that are included in that number that could not be improved with a house.
  • 02:44:36
    Okay.
  • 02:44:36
    For floodplain reasons or whatever restrictions.
  • 02:44:39
    Sure, steep slopes.
  • 02:44:39
    But the majority of them could be improved with a home.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:44:42
    Okay, so that's sort of built into their base value.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:44:45
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:44:45
    Is it somebody might be able to build something up there someday?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:44:48
    Absolutely.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:44:49
    I see, okay.
  • 02:44:52
    And are development rights of a property taken into consideration when you do your assessments?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:44:57
    They are not because we don't know what they are.
  • 02:45:00
    Because they're theoretical and real.
  • 02:45:01
    Well, not just that they're theoretical, but even community development has to do a very deep dive to figure out on a specific parcel.
  • 02:45:09
    And if we knew that for every parcel in the county, we could include it in our model.
  • 02:45:14
    But but it actually is the reason why some rural properties might sell for more than our assessment and sometimes quite a lot more.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:45:20
    because people think they can do all those things.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:45:22
    Well, they might know that they can do that, but we don't know and we don't really include it because people have often said, well, they're taxing me based on this stuff.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:45:29
    And I said, I don't think so, but I'm going to ask.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:45:31
    So no, we're actually assessing based on just what is there.
  • 02:45:34
    So if there's one house there, we base it on the fact that there's one house.
  • 02:45:38
    If there are three houses existing on a parcel, that's different.
  • 02:45:42
    But.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:45:43
    Present on January 1st.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:45:46
    So this slide just breaks down by the increase in assessment, average increase in assessment by the value range of properties.
  • 02:45:56
    So you can see how the different value ranges.
  • 02:45:59
    Like I said, the properties at the bottom, kind of the more liquid properties are experiencing the highest increases.
  • 02:46:12
    and the most affordable.
  • 02:46:13
    And obviously we know about the need for affordable housing.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:46:17
    Well, we have a lot of houses that are over 600,000.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:46:19
    Oh, we do.
  • 02:46:20
    Yes, we do.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:46:21
    You sort of stop there, but.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:46:24
    Oh, no, that's the first column.
  • 02:46:25
    The second column has.
  • 02:46:27
    Second set of columns.
  • 02:46:28
    Yeah, I'm sorry.
  • 02:46:28
    I broke it down.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 02:46:30
    Yeah.
  • 02:46:32
    Oh, I see total overall.
  • 02:46:33
    I got you.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:46:40
    So the next slide here, those were the overall average changes that we were talking about by whatever breakdown it was.
  • 02:46:48
    This is kind of the range of how many properties have changes within each range.
  • 02:46:55
    So 72% of single-family properties, or 25,000, have an increase of zero to 10%.
  • 02:46:59
    So the majority of properties are in that range.
  • 02:47:10
    another 15% are going down up to 10%, but then there's an amount, a certain number of properties that are going up more than 10% and then some that are declining more than 10%.
  • 02:47:22
    So this just kind of gives an idea of that range.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:47:28
    Small increase for most everybody.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:47:36
    So this actually is the slide that I like to focus on more because this is the support for the work that we've done.
  • 02:47:44
    This is what says that those changes in values are appropriate.
  • 02:47:50
    There were 2,160 residential confirmed arms length sales, market sales in the county.
  • 02:47:59
    There were much more transfers than that, but these are the ones that we could identify as market sales.
  • 02:48:05
    After we did our work for the year, we ended up at 100% as we're required to by law, our median ratio.
  • 02:48:12
    And the COD, like I said, the variance of that is 4.81.
  • 02:48:18
    As you can see, these are our improvements over the years.
  • 02:48:22
    We've gone from 98 to 99 to 100%, but that COD, which is how accurate we're getting with those values, has been improving each year, and that's the good number
  • 02:48:35
    that I have on the screen.
  • 02:48:38
    Now, I also include here, and I haven't included this before, there's a little disconnect, and I want to explain it.
  • 02:48:45
    This state ratio study that's done by the Department of Taxation, you'll see those numbers from time to time, and you might say, 93, 95%, but Pete keeps telling us we're at 100% when he gives us the presentation.
  • 02:48:59
    So the difference between those are that the numbers that I'm talking about are the 2019 sales
  • 02:49:09
    the 2,160 properties that sold in 2019, after we have had a chance to inspect them and update our data, we have gotten those sales to 100% with that variance.
  • 02:49:23
    When the state looks at it, they will look at the assessment in, well, let's say the latest one that they had, 2018, the assessment of the 2018
  • 02:49:35
    Sales with the 2018 assessment.
  • 02:49:38
    We're setting 2020 on 2019.
  • 02:49:41
    So there's a difference between those.
  • 02:49:43
    Now the difference between that 100% in 2018 and the 95% that's seen by the state is the quality of our data.
  • 02:49:52
    We are updating the data on those 2,000 properties that sell each year.
  • 02:49:57
    and we're updating it on a number of others, but unless those are the ones that sell, we're not going to equal what the state is coming up with.
  • 02:50:06
    So the more we update our data on properties that haven't sold, the closer we're going to be to that.
  • 02:50:13
    Now, to tie this back to what Lori was talking about earlier in the day,
  • 02:50:19
    That state ratio of 95% is used in relation to the state ratio for Charlottesville as part of the calculation for the revenue sharing to the city.
  • 02:50:31
    Now the higher ours is in comparison to theirs, the better we are.
  • 02:50:34
    For 18, they were at 89%.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:50:38
    So that's the importance of that number.
  • 02:50:40
    I guess I'm slightly confused.
  • 02:50:43
    So let's just take a specific situation.
  • 02:50:46
    So let's say that you have a house assessed at 550.
  • 02:50:49
    It sells for 500,000 in 2019.
  • 02:50:55
    Tell me how that would work into these numbers.
  • 02:50:58
    How is that visualized?
  • 02:50:59
    Because I'm not quite sure I'm understanding what you're measuring, quite frankly.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:51:04
    So, it sold for $500,000 and we're assessed to $550,000.
  • 02:51:08
    Is that what you said?
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:51:09
    Yeah, I'm just throwing out a number.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:51:11
    I just wanted to get it straight.
  • 02:51:13
    So, first thing we would do is check the property out.
  • 02:51:17
    Our assessment might have been 550 in 2019, but once we look at it, we found that it wasn't in as good condition, or some other data was wrong on it, or we re-sketch it because all we had was that hand-drawn sketch as less square footage.
  • 02:51:32
    So at that point, we might find that the new assessment for 2020 would then be a 500,000, just to make it round.
  • 02:51:43
    Our ratio going forward would be 100%, but the ratio that the state would see would be 110% because it would be comparing the 550 to 500,000.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 02:51:53
    okay all right thank you so they're behind us on that okay and so when a property is sold then you go in and you take a look at it before it is um before the new owner gets in there well not necessarily before the new owner gets in but at some point we we get to the property sometimes we don't get inside but we can we can definitely find information out
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:52:18
    from inside from if we have access to the listing we might get more information on the property that that corrects what we have or changes updates what we have because they're often gutted as soon as as soon as the new owner takes over they you know they bring that sometimes that's the case yes often it could be it could be quite a bit a range of what goes on when okay thank you
  • 02:52:49
    This I think is important because this, and I haven't provided this before and I thought it was very important this year because it goes back to that question of our data integrity and how out of date our data can be on some properties.
  • 02:53:05
    So in 2016, at the bottom of this screen, we had 203 review requests in my office.
  • 02:53:15
    and overall we changed 83% of those properties assessments on review.
  • 02:53:23
    That's an unacceptable number.
  • 02:53:28
    Again in 2017, we had then 712 reviews.
  • 02:53:33
    and we changed 80% of those properties.
  • 02:53:37
    In 2018, we changed 76% of those properties.
  • 02:53:43
    And again, these are properties that we had not had a chance to review yet.
  • 02:53:48
    Now the good news is in 2019,
  • 02:53:50
    we're down to 49% and compared to the 80% level that is great increase and I want that to continue.
  • 02:53:58
    But that's why I don't want to focus on the 3.4%.
  • 02:54:01
    The importance is how much are we changing those numbers afterwards and how many people are not asking for a review that don't have updated data.
  • 02:54:11
    So the importance of that aspect of our job is very important.
  • 02:54:20
    Also, the fact in 2016 that we had 17% of the properties that were asking for an increase to their assessment was telling.
  • 02:54:31
    And how many actually over those years have asked for an increase is an indication that we were in those years too low in those assessments.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:54:42
    I think that is a follow-up to what I remember during the pain of the recession is so many people got to be underwater because nothing was selling and therefore there was no
  • 02:54:52
    activity on which assessments could be made in the old regime anyway.
  • 02:54:57
    And so they were definitely coming to the board and saying, I'm in trouble here.
  • 02:55:02
    What's going to happen?
  • 02:55:03
    So the fact that you're doing much more consistent and fair and getting everybody, instead of this big wait for 10 years until something sells next door, that's just going to help everybody.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:55:13
    Exactly.
  • 02:55:13
    It's that organization.
  • 02:55:15
    And that was a big problem in the rural areas, not just the subdivisions that were too small.
  • 02:55:22
    The next slide is just a simple change to the land use rates.
  • 02:55:26
    These are established by the SLEAC Council, and they're very minor changes this year.
  • 02:55:33
    I just highlighted the ones that are changing.
  • 02:55:36
    Most of the rates are staying the same, and the changes that are being made are very minor.
  • 02:55:41
    These rates are pretty low to begin with, so a $10 change is not a huge change, but I just wanted to present that to you.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 02:55:52
    Wasn't there some work in the last several years about getting better fine-tuning of values for our crops here, such as hay, which wasn't... I mean, I think a lot of the SLAYAC stuff was based on commodity growth, like in the Valley, where they have corn and soybeans and all that stuff.
  • 02:56:07
    And ours were sort of disregarded because we have a lot of pasture and a lot of hay production.
  • 02:56:13
    Is there any progress on that?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 02:56:15
    Yes, actually several years ago we made a change based on the advice of the members of the SLEAC from Virginia Tech that we talked about
  • 02:56:31
    There are two different methods of calculating those values.
  • 02:56:33
    One is the income approach, and that's using the market basket that you're talking about.
  • 02:56:38
    It has mostly hay and pasture for our county.
  • 02:56:41
    And those were valued at practically zero, those portions of it.
  • 02:56:47
    And then there's the rental rate method.
  • 02:56:49
    And I was advised that the rental rate method was more appropriate for our county.
  • 02:56:54
    And that's what we've been using for three years now.
  • 02:57:01
    This slide, just kind of general overview.
  • 02:57:06
    And so as I mentioned earlier, 287 new parcels in 2019 from subdivision Platts.
  • 02:57:14
    We completed 1,760 permits.
  • 02:57:17
    This is generally the work that we do during the year.
  • 02:57:21
    We're picking up new value on permits that are completed.
  • 02:57:24
    We have a backlog of permits that haven't been done yet that we're continuing to check.
  • 02:57:30
    and the last item of the reassessment is the creation of the land book.
  • 02:57:34
    So the land book is created in April.
  • 02:57:37
    It is a culmination of the budget process and you establishing tax rate.
  • 02:57:43
    So as soon as you establish that tax rate, we apply the tax rate to the new assessments and we create the land book.
  • 02:57:50
    The tax bills are then recreated off of that land book.
  • 02:58:00
    Okay, so the next, and this is important to the public, the review process.
  • 02:58:05
    And I just always like to make this very clear.
  • 02:58:10
    basically three levels in our office, three important parts of this process.
  • 02:58:16
    Speak to an appraiser.
  • 02:58:17
    If you just wanna know why your property sold or how it was calculated, call my office.
  • 02:58:24
    The number is on the notice that you're gonna receive and we will go through the process of how it's calculated, the data that we have.
  • 02:58:34
    That might turn into a review request.
  • 02:58:37
    If there's information that's needed,
  • 02:58:40
    We will say, this is what we've got, and they say, well, no, that's not what I have.
  • 02:58:45
    So we'll move it up to a review.
  • 02:58:47
    So the review is an official process.
  • 02:58:50
    We track all of that.
  • 02:58:51
    We do an interior inspection.
  • 02:58:54
    The review forms themselves must be submitted by February 28th.
  • 02:58:57
    That's county code.
  • 02:59:00
    And then I will respond with the results of any reviews that we do.
  • 02:59:07
    and that triggers actually the deadline for the Board of Equalization on that property.
  • 02:59:15
    So whether we change the value or not on review, I will send a letter.
  • 02:59:21
    The Board of Equalization is the next level.
  • 02:59:23
    The deadline for submitting that application is March 30th.
  • 02:59:31
    unless you have requested a review in advance and then you have 30 days after the response from that review to submit to the Board of Equalization.
  • 02:59:44
    You can only get the Board of Equalization form from our office.
  • 02:59:47
    We control that form just to make sure that we can track it well.
  • 02:59:52
    The review form is available on our website, so it's readily available for anybody who wants to go that route.
  • 03:00:01
    And then I just have samples of what we are sending on the 24th.
  • 03:00:05
    So like I said, January 24th, we are mailing the notices.
  • 03:00:10
    The top of the notice is going to look like this.
  • 03:00:11
    And I just included this to show the reason on the top, kind of to the right side of that screen.
  • 03:00:19
    If it's just annual reassessment, nothing has changed on your property.
  • 03:00:24
    We're just Assessing from year to year it says annual reassessment on that on that field, but otherwise there could be new construction involved There could be a change in land use status or some other Reason for change in value which would cause a much greater change if you if you see a hundred percent change to your value It might not be because of reassessment, but because of a new building being built something like that
  • 03:00:50
    So we make it very clear at the top of the notice.
  • 03:00:55
    In the body of the notice, and I wanted to make this clear this year because we had some issues in the past.
  • 03:01:03
    We changed it.
  • 03:01:05
    At the bottom in the land use section, if the property is not enrolled in land use, we make it very clear that the property is not enrolled in land use.
  • 03:01:13
    Now, anyone living in a condo or a townhouse, land use is not something you can get into.
  • 03:01:22
    So if you don't know anything about the land use program, it's not necessarily something you need to seek out.
  • 03:01:27
    but this is just to make clear that you're not in because we do have properties, like I said, about 75 that we took out of the program after the revalidation.
  • 03:01:37
    We want it to be clear to them they're no longer in the program.
  • 03:01:40
    We've already sent them a letter but sometimes a letter doesn't get to them and we want to follow up with that.
  • 03:01:46
    So this is a change this year.
  • 03:01:52
    Let me go back.
  • 03:01:55
    We updated our FAQs.
  • 03:01:58
    The FAQs have been very popular in the past, so we just updated some information on here.
  • 03:02:04
    So that's included with the notice.
  • 03:02:08
    And we also have another insert with the notice, and this has to do with the email.
  • 03:02:12
    So we're trying to get the word out so that Emily can get more people signed up with email.
  • 03:02:19
    So that's going also in the notice.
  • 03:02:25
    And that's it for my presentation.
  • 03:02:28
    If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:02:33
    Any supervisors have questions?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 03:02:35
    I have a request.
  • 03:02:37
    For the newsletter that I send out, would it be possible for you to just make me a, so I don't have to snip it, could you just make me a page of the review process and with this little sample in there so I can just plop them in to get them out to people and I'm going to do your FAQs that you already sent out so people will get a nice packet of
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:02:58
    Okay.
  • 03:02:59
    You mean an email that to you?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 03:03:01
    Just a little PDF would be all I need.
  • 03:03:02
    Thank you very, very much.
  • 03:03:03
    And others may want it, too, because then they can do the same thing.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:03:06
    Okay.
  • 03:03:06
    And I have this presentation in a PDF form, if that would do, if you just want me to send that to you?
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 03:03:12
    I think I can put – yeah, that's fine, because then I can pull it out myself.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:03:14
    Okay.
  • 03:03:15
    That'll be all right.
  • 03:03:15
    Thank you.
  • 03:03:15
    I mean, either way would be fine.
• • SPEAKER_24
  • 03:03:17
    Okay.
  • 03:03:19
    Donna, just a comment.
  • 03:03:21
    Peter, this was excellent.
  • 03:03:22
    Thank you very much.
  • 03:03:23
    And thank you for your hard work because the office and your staff is really very professional and I appreciate all your work over the last few years to get us straightened out.
  • 03:03:36
    Thank you, I'll share that with them.
  • 03:03:38
    It's really important for our constituents and our residents.
  • 03:03:43
    Anyway, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:03:44
    There has to be confidence in this process.
  • 03:03:46
    Absolutely, yes.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:03:47
    There's one thing I want to say on that, that I really appreciate what you said in the very beginning, that when you came here in 2015, there was a lot of work to be done.
  • 03:03:58
    I also recognize that not too long ago you wouldn't have been able to get up in front of us and say that and I really appreciate that and I think that that reflects upon our County Executive so I want to give some credit where credit is due also but thank you very very much because for
  • 03:04:18
    Many of us who were around in 2015 when you came, we understood there was a problem, but we really didn't understand how deep that problem was.
  • 03:04:29
    So we really appreciate it.
  • 03:04:31
    I have one question.
  • 03:04:33
    When you find these folks who no longer qualify for land use, are you requiring them to do the five years or back pay and taxes?
  • 03:04:46
    Or are you saying, well, you don't qualify now, we'll have to take you out?
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:04:50
    Yeah, this doesn't mean they change their use, so it doesn't require rollback taxes.
  • 03:04:56
    So these are basically, we're treating it as we're finding that the way we evaluated the property in the past was incorrect, and we're updating it, and it just requires them to come out of the program without the rollback taxes.
  • 03:05:11
    Unless we've identified that they've changed their use, there could be exceptions.
  • 03:05:15
    But typically, there's no rollback in this situation.
• • SPEAKER_25
  • 03:05:18
    Great, thank you.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:05:19
    You're welcome.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:05:21
    I would like to echo a couple of those positive comments and express appreciation for the method in which your in manner that your office handles these situations not just looking at ways to increase the payment from the residents but also helping to improve the accuracy if when it's to their benefit as well and I have worked with your office having acquired a an old house that needed a lot of work and I appreciate their professionalism in working with me
  • 03:05:50
    Long before I ever thought of running for office.
  • 03:05:52
    And that's an indication of just how professional your staff is.
  • 03:05:55
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:05:55
    Thank you very much.
  • 03:05:57
    I think it's very important what we do and that we're kind of separate from the amount of money that it's bringing in.
  • 03:06:08
    the fact that we are accused sometimes of taking people out of land use just to get more money but really it's to make the program work better and you know that the properties that are in should be those that are qualifying and we're not taking them out because we want more money we're taking them out because we have certain rules we have to
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:06:28
    And you know back to that earlier comment there was a time at least with the IRS if someone went through an audit and they found that there was an error to the taxpayers benefit they never did anything to help them but they would always take more money from them and what I see and what I've heard and what you're saying
  • 03:06:46
    Your office doesn't do that.
  • 03:06:47
    Your office makes sure that it's done right.
  • 03:06:49
    Whether that's to the benefit financially of the taxpayer or to the county is not the important thing.
  • 03:06:55
    It's doing it right.
  • 03:06:56
    And thank you for that and your staff.
• • SPEAKER_30
  • 03:06:59
    Madam Chair, I know we're running tight on time with presentations that need to, we need to move along.
  • 03:07:06
    I do appreciate this board recognizing high quality work and you are very, very kind with your comments to Pete and his staff and he's the first one in this building to deflect accolades.
  • 03:07:21
    He's the first person in this building to always recognize how hard his staff works
  • 03:07:26
    His work ethic and his attitude, I would challenge anyone to find anyone in this building that has better work ethic and attitude.
  • 03:07:36
    His staff is doing outstanding work.
  • 03:07:39
    His leadership is making so many things in this building that we do so much easier because of his leadership and his staff's work.
  • 03:07:47
    And thank you so much for recognizing that.
  • 03:07:50
    We're very fortunate to have him.
• • SPEAKER_17
  • 03:07:52
    Thank you Mr. Richards.
• • SPEAKER_21
  • 03:07:53
    I would pile on with one last thing and that is the communities who cannot afford to have their own department such as we have are in such a handicap because they hire a contractor who comes in and then some large percentage of the time they throw it out and start all over again because they don't have faith in what the work is being done.
  • 03:08:14
    I really appreciate all that you've done and you're a wonderful listener and really are responsive to people's questions and concerns and we will continue to work on ways that we can incorporate state process and conservation projects to be able to qualify for so they meet your standards so that we can do a better job with our open space.
  • 03:08:32
    So I thank you for all that.
• • SPEAKER_11
  • 03:08:34
    Thank you for the time.
  • 03:08:36
    Thank you very much.