Board of Supervisors Regular First Meeting   4/1/2020

We're coming out of closed meeting.

I move that the Board of Supervisors certify by a recorded vote that, to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard.

discussed or considered in the closed meeting.

I'm sorry.

No worries.

So the motion was made by Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

We'll go with, I think, two people made the most seconds.

So Supervisor Mallek, you made the most second?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Mr. Chair, I have a motion that the board appoint the following individuals to the respective committees.

For the Albemarle County Service Authority, Nathan Moore, the Crozet Community Advisory Committee, Costas Alibertas, Brian Day, Joe Fore, Valerie Long, David Mitchell, Joshua Rector,

Matthew Slatz, Katia Spicusa, the Police Department Citizens Advisory Committee, Brent Hall, Olga Boucher, and Richard Hewitt, and for the Village of Rivanna Community Advisory Committee, Tim Novak.

Second.

All right, the motion is made by Vice Chair Price.

The second is by Supervisor Malek.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

All right, very good.

Good evening, everyone.

So we are calling back to order for April 1, 2020 Board of Supervisors meeting.

I will restate as I did at 5 p.m.

for our closed meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with emergency ordinance number 20-E2, an emergency ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

The supervisors who are electronically present at this meeting are myself, Ned Galloway, YO District, Vice Chair Donna Price of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District, Supervisor Liz Palmer of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, and Supervisor Ann Mallek of the White Hall District.

The persons responsible for receiving public comment are the Board of Supervisors of Albemarle County,

and the opportunities for the public to access and participate in the electronic meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website, on the Board of Supervisors homepage and on the Albemarle County calendar.

And I welcome those who hopefully are joining us online to participate.

And this is our first run at a virtual meeting.

We've done a trial and practice run.

At this time, Board, for purposes of staying with the protocol for our meetings, we would like to do the Pledge of Allegiance.

So if everyone would please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God,

And board and everyone, if we could please join together in a moment of silence.

At this time, we need to do an adoption of the final agenda.

I do know that we have one item, 11.6 waiver of rents that will be removed from the consent agenda.

So that item will be removed and we will address that.

I guess we'll just go ahead and address anything we pull from the consent agenda after we approve the consent agenda.

At this time, are there any other items on the consent agenda that need to be removed?

Ned.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I don't have anything to remove.

I would just like at the very end of the meeting to have a quick discussion about pedestrian bike access and the old Ivy Bridge.

And I think everybody knows the bridge I'm talking about.

Any objection?

So we'll add that to the end.

I have an item I want to discuss on the consent agenda.

So perhaps I would ask that it be removed.

And that has to do with the item for the parking.

I think that I would like to have some discussion on that rather than vote on it as part of the agenda.

I believe that's the correct number, yes sir.

So we'll move 11-3 and deal with that after 11, well we'll go in order, we'll deal with that first and go to 11-6.

Any other items from consent that need to be removed?

I'm sorry, I'd sent a note, but it was hard to see.

All right, we'll add that.

and thank you, Supervisor Mallek.

I'm still making sure I'm following my notes in the chat room.

It's hard, I know.

All right, so with that, I will need a motion to adopt the final agenda as amended and with the 11-3 and 11-6 pulled from the consent agenda.

So moved.

Second.

Vice Chair Price made the motion and Supervisor Mallek seconded.

Any further items or discussion?

Ms.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Aye.

Ms.

Mallek?

Thank you, board.

And then we will go to brief announcements by board members.

And I'll go just in the order of my sheet that I track these things with, if you don't mind.

So the first item up, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley, any announcements this evening?

No, thank you.

Who were you calling on?

Supervisor Malek, it's Europe.

I was expecting I was at the end.

I just wanted to quickly thank all the citizens who participated and wrote to the governor many times over the last couple of weeks to get us more on the program nationally for having everybody stay at home.

I've heard lots of comments in the last couple of days that people feel more confident that we're actually going to succeed in this effort, even though I know it'll get a lot worse before it gets better, that we will figure out a way to pull together.

I'm also really excited about the local distilleries who were helping out with the making sanitizer and also thrilled about Casey Kerrigan and her shoes actually using her 3D printers to make masks for our first responders and medical workers.

So innovation and all that, it's just, it's terrific.

And I know it's a real burden on families and students, but we will figure out a way to get this done.

I do.

I just have one announcement of interest, perhaps, to some folks.

NPR, in conjunction with Frontline, is running right now a documentary on the plastic wars, how the plastic industry greenwashed recycling.

and I think it would be fascinating for a lot of us that might be interested to watch.

I missed it last night but it's playing again tonight and then it will play again at different times.

I will just say that we looked up and I can catch it because we have Comcast, I can catch it on channel 266.

But everybody's gonna be a little different.

But this would simply be a fascinating documentary

that's pretty credible on the plastic industry and recycling.

Very good.

Very good.

Supervisor Price.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

I think it's evident to everyone both on the board, with the county staff, as well as our citizens and residents that we face two very significant challenges.

I'm absolutely confident that with the quality and caliber of people we have working for us in the county that we will get through, but it's going to be tough.

We've already started to see news reports from some of our nearby counties, the financial impact that's hitting them.

We are all looking forward to an updated report from Chief Executive, County Executive Jeff Richardson as we work through the budget process.

And I think we all have to be prepared for the reality of what we are going to face coming up.

Again, we will get through it.

It's going to be tough and we on the board need to lead by example.

I also want to thank the citizens for their support and participation through this process, particularly with this new virtual meeting.

We solicit and encourage your contacts and information to us, and we will improve each meeting to make this the most efficient and representative forum that we can.

Thank you.

I have just two brief announcements.

I do want to just reiterate publicly that for those who are interested in what Albemarle County is doing related to COVID-19, we do have our website, www.albemarle.org forward slash COVID-19.

So with any general type questions, obviously you can go to that landing site to see what's going.

And I think it might be prudent as well, just to remind folks who have tuned in,

what our game plan is for board meetings right now.

This past Friday we obviously passed the ordinance to allow us to have virtual meetings and in the foreseeable future what we're going to do is we've taken any item that may draw significant public interest in such that would normally mean a crowd in the auditorium

and we deferred those items to later meetings until we have a couple practice runs of these virtual meetings to make sure we are up and running and ready to be able to handle a volume of public participation on those items.

That was done with agreement in some cases by applicants and then also just by the wishes of things that were not controlled by deadlines for legislative or legal purposes.

But we will be continuing to work through our business

The plan is to do the meetings as this virtual meeting is going and we'll get better at this as we continue and the agenda will start filling back up and I just ask everybody's patience as we move through this evening and work through the first couple of meetings.

I'm sure we will be expert of it, but I also expect it won't go perfectly.

There'll probably be some pickups along the way as well.

And with that board, this evening we do not have any proclamations or recognitions.

And that will bring us to our consent agenda.

And just as a reminder, we did remove items 11-3 and 11-6 from the consent agenda.

I move as amended.

Second.

So that was Supervisor McKeel made the motion.

Supervisor Price seconded.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Mallek?

Very good.

The consent agenda is approved.

and Supervisor Price, you asked for 11.3 parking agreement for parking spaces at the daily progress to be removed.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Yes, I did.

I wanted to make sure we had a discussion on it.

And also was one of the requested that 11.6 be removed from the consent agenda so it could be discussed as well.

And I will hold off on my comments for that until later.

First off, I want to thank the executive, Jeff Richardson, for answering some of my questions today.

What this deals with is we have two different agreements, one for 21 parking spaces, one for 18 parking spaces next to the Northside Library.

The one for 21 spaces comes up for expiration, and this is a renewal for $15,000 to have those spaces.

In these spaces, the 21 and the 18 together have effectively been used for county employees to park so that patrons have better access to Northside Library where parking is restricted.

I appreciate the information that County Executive Richardson sent to me today about the parking limitations at Northside Library and how given a period of unemployment, it's very likely that the utilization of the library will be increased

Once we get back to the point in time where we're able to get past some of the social distancing, as many of our citizens may use some of the resources at the library in order to help find shops or whatever else they may need to use those services for.

It's only $15,000.

I recognize that.

But both of these two items on the agenda collectively, I think, are things that we need to look at in the sense of

what type of business operation are we going to go forward with based upon what I believe is going to be a very significantly changed financial situation for us with reduced revenues, many people losing their jobs, others probably having difficulty making their property taxes.

I find myself more so with 11.6 than this one, but with both of them sort of this challenge of what do we do, how do we spend our money on things that may not necessarily at this point in time be seen as essential services.

And just by looking at this, the governor today said he expects that the social distancing is going to last until sometime in June.

Now we're expecting that the peak of the coronavirus

the pandemic will not come to our area until mid to late May.

So the question I have is, do we need to sign a contract that goes into effect May 1st when we know that at least a couple of months we're not even gonna be able to use it?

Is this something we should wait on and sign the contract a little bit later as we see where things are going economically?

Okay, I'll open this up for discussion.

Okay, I guess I think the libraries everywhere are overrun and will be more so going forward.

And so if these parking spaces are not leased by us, they will likely be leased by someone else.

And without those 20-some spaces,

We were two years ago at Northside where it was very difficult, especially for handicapped folks to even, the upper spaces fill up immediately and then the people trudging in from the bottom have a long way to walk.

Supervisor Mallek, if you can hear me, you're cutting in and out.

No, while I understand the concern, I am also concerned that I don't want these spaces to get away.

So I would leave it and ask our staff to find out if we can have an extension to start again until June.

That would help to resolve Donna's concern.

Well, I really

I agree with a lot of what Donna said and that I think we're all very, very concerned about going forward what we spend.

And I have to agree with Ann on this.

I think the library is extremely important and will be very important when we come out of this for people to help find jobs, to use internet services, et cetera.

And I am concerned that the parking spots might go away if we don't.

I would think that the savings from a couple months would be pretty minimal, but I'm willing to postpone it if we need to, if staff is not concerned about us losing the spots.

But I think this is one thing we need to continue with.

This is Diantha.

I agree and I appreciate Donna bringing up the concern, but I certainly am in favor of this particular expenditure.

I think that to some degree this will take care of itself in a way.

I recognize that the library may not be full right now, but it's going to be critical to have it.

Yep, I'm okay with that.

Mr. Richardson, do you wish to respond?

I did respond to Supervisor Price's questions later this afternoon that came in around lunchtime today and we were a little bit delayed getting the questions answered.

The first thing that I would say to the board is that we're looking at a one-year extension here.

This represents a significant amount of parking at our busiest branch in Albemarle County.

And when we look at the cost share between the schools and the library, our cost for this particular contract is going to be about $5,000.

And as I attempted to explain to Supervisor Price, if

If I were working at this moment on closing the gap in the current fiscal year, I would not recommend using one-time money, $5,000, to address the shortfall that we've got due to the revenue loss in the last three months.

We would be looking at much bigger pots of money that make a much bigger impact.

And at this point in time, this is a customer service issue.

It's only a one-year extension.

and the staff would not be recommending that we look in these areas at this time.

It's just too soon to be looking this far down into the weeds of the budget.

And so I would not recommend this.

I would recommend that the board allow the staff to go ahead and carry forward with this, renew this contract.

We can certainly talk about, since the library is actually closed now, is there a delay of 30 or 60 days to get our full 12 months

All right, thank you, sir.

I would just like to make the comment that with the current daily progress spots and the current parking, it's not enough.

We've explored trying to find additional parking there.

And with, as we know, the demand, if we are going to be, once these libraries do open back up, I would imagine the demand on that library is going to be even greater than it is now.

So I would be supportive of keeping it in and going ahead and improving it.

So moved.

This motion is to approve 11.3.

That was Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley made the motion.

Supervisor Malek seconded.

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

Aye.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

All right, very good.

That motion carries.

The next item we removed was item number 11.6, waiver of rents.

And I'm sorry, Supervisor Price, is this at your request?

I was at least one of the supervisors who requested that this not be approved on the consent agenda.

I have more concerns here, yet also more conflicted on it.

And with regard to the last one, Mr. Richardson, thank you for putting the exact dollar amount on the county, which I do appreciate your information earlier.

I find myself looking at the waiver of rents with both a moral and a legal consideration.

Let me talk about the moral first.

We know that everyone in the county is likely going to be facing some substantial financial impact.

And there's part of me that says we as a county, as a landlord need to be as compassionate as we can and lead by example and send a message to other landlords in the county to try and work with tenants as much as possible.

On the other hand, I also see a legal responsibility that we have as custodians of taxpayer funds to make sure that we are not arbitrarily making decisions that favor one group unreasonably over another group.

And when I look at the five entities that are listed, as I recall, three are non-profits and two are for-profit.

And that also raises a difference in my mind as potentially how these entities may be considered.

And finally, when I looked at this request, I have to ask the question, what actions have each of the tenants taken to basically exhaust their administrative remedies before the county takes action to waive rents?

I submitted an email that asked if there were other options such as deferring rent.

And I recognize that particularly for the nonprofits, that may not really help them because they operate on such a thin margin to begin with.

But I know under the CARES Act there are some mechanisms that are available for entities who are suffering economically as a result of the pandemic.

It's difficult to obtain either loans or grants and some of the loans can later be turned into grants and not have to be paid back.

So my biggest concern for this item is us taking action today to waive rents

before I believe a sufficient factual basis has been provided to the county to show that any other action or opportunities have been attempted and exhausted.

And then I take that and I say, how do we then look at the action that we take here

as it may relate to other residents or citizens in the county later on when property tax bills come due and things like that.

So there's an equity aspect of how we treat these individuals.

There's a differentiation in my mind between nonprofits versus for-profit.

And there's the question as to whether or not these entities have exhausted other avenues and options for financial relief rather than what appears to me the county's first, the county being the first step

to basically waive the rents.

Yes, I too wrote an email about this and asked if we could consider one month deferral of grants for all the reasons that Donna listed.

When I think of other engineering

companies in this community that are renting and paying to rent and not sure if their landlords are going to give them waivers.

It does seem like that is, you know, possibly unfair, especially since they very well may get help from the federal or state government later.

So while I understand and I do, I'm very concerned about the nonprofits

I thought if we would just defer the rent for this month until we had a little more time to consider what help is coming from the state and federal government, we could make a more informed decision whether we wanted to waive those next month or defer for some not others, et cetera.

Yes, thank you.

I hope that people had a chance to read some of the extra information that was provided by Crozet Arts and the gallery, the depot gallery, to answer specifically the questions which Donna and Liz had provided.

and also about the CARES Act because I heard a real analysis on NPR this afternoon about the CARES Act and it will be great for businesses up to $100,000 salary people, but for someone who makes a tiny amount and that is, whoops, it's much less in the salary for the one or two staff people than it is for the rent, and there is no provision in the CARES Act for rent,

and that is a difficulty.

I think the main issue with these two tenants particularly is that they have spent years and blood, sweat, and tears and hundreds of volunteers helping them clean up, paint up, fix up these buildings which had both been empty for years in the Albemarle County ownership to

not extend or feel as if we have some moral obligation to them.

I just, I disagree.

I think that the plan that Lance has put forward is balanced and certainly takes into account the rent money which they are paying, which goes toward the maintenance of the buildings, not into the general fund bucket.

So I hope that people will understand for the nonprofits.

those two who had requested it perhaps it is important not to sort of go wholesale here but to have it be the responsibility of the tenant and of course they pay their property taxes through their rent so they are paying property tax to the county in a way every time they send a rent check

So I think they're very fearful that having already been closed for the month of, most of the month of March with absolutely zero revenue, that they're really up against it to be able to pay today for April 1st.

And so I would like to have some information about how, what message will be sent to them about April.

Thank you very much.

I also, I'm a very huge proponent of the arts.

I've read everything.

I am concerned because they are nonprofits.

However, I still think if we defer this for one month to see what's coming possibly from the feds, possibly from the state, otherwise we're going to be inundated with all kinds of requests for assistance.

Perhaps there are some, there's a volunteer organization, perhaps there's

other artists, philanthropic things that could help pay the rent for a month.

I don't know, but I think it is better to defer it because of the reasons that Supervisor Palmer and Supervisor Price mentioned.

The hard calls, we're now making the hard decisions.

For me, it's public safety, health, education, and we're making hard calls and it is hard.

I don't want to repeat what other people have said.

I do agree with much of what Donna said and Liz.

For me, this is way too soon to be making a decision like this.

I'd like to find out more about what's available for them and what they are accessing.

And while, Ann, I agree with everything you said about these businesses, that could be said about every business in this county.

And certainly in the, probably the state.

People have put years into businesses, blood-sweeping, tears, and I really don't want to be seen as, I just don't want to be seen as looking as if we're picking and choosing.

I'm sorry, but I just,

I think we have to treat everybody the same.

So that I can clarify before I make my comment is it sounds like there are some that are just wishing to defer any action on this item until some further information is provided.

Some sounds like they have a position already made.

Would there be any objection to gaining additional information and just deferring any action on this item at this time?

We certainly have a meeting coming up on the 15th.

Can I say one more thing?

Yes, ma'am.

What I was suggesting, and I don't know, I'm a little confused on the different suggestions.

My suggestion was to defer

payment of the rent for this month.

And so we would have time.

I see some people shaking their heads.

So those are two different things, to not do anything and to defer the whole consent agenda item until later when we have more information or defer the rent for this month.

So I'm trying to clarify because that was my suggestion was to defer the rent for this month.

And I also was uncomfortable with the wholesale decision of doing them all.

But I figured if we deferred the rent for one month, then we could sort of make that decision

Chair Galloway, thank you.

I'm going to leave it to County Attorney Mr. Campner to answer the question on deferring of the rent and whether that is something that we can do or whether there needs to be an amendment to the lease contracts.

I believe it's possible for the county simply not to collect the rent right now.

What I would be in favor of is deferring action on this item until the 15th in order to give us a series of options or a variety of options that we can look at, which would be deferring the rent.

Still an option would be waiving the rent.

Getting more information on what alternative funding sources might be available.

But I just simply right now believe it is too soon for the county to start granting waivers.

And that's a painful thing for me to say.

I have to tell you, I was really torn morally on the desire to be supportive of businesses.

But Supervisor McKeel, I agree with what you said.

That applies to every person who has put their blood, sweat and tears

into their enterprise.

So I would make a motion that we defer action on this item until the Board of Supervisors meeting on the 15th of April to give staff and the county attorney an opportunity to give us a legal analysis on what our various options are, and also that we break out the difference between the different entities.

Is there a second?

I'm sorry, but I don't want to second it right now because I'm not convinced that the next meeting gives enough time for staff to do this.

Supervisor Price, would you like to withdraw the motion?

Yes, thank you, Chair Galloway.

April 15th would be a very fast turnaround to do further analysis and to understand the impacts on these particular businesses.

The next regular board meeting will be May 6th and if the action at that point

We would now be five weeks from today and we can look at how the deferral of the April rent could be worked into whatever action the board takes if that's their desire at that point.

The other thing is just understanding the

I don't have the lease agreement pulled up.

There's probably a one and a half, a certain percentage of the total rent that would start accruing.

Sure, and that would give us, we could also just amend the agreement to accommodate this particular situation.

So my question is, what is the message to these applicants today?

I'm happy to support the May 6th, discuss it again.

But I would like to know what, and Lance hopefully can advise on what they were proposing to tell these people who did reach out to staff many weeks ago as they saw this coming.

So

That would be great.

Only two wrote to us to request a waiver in the fee.

And I think I can address the question of

of the late fee in a general way.

It is our standard practice in leases to have late fees begin accruing after a set period of time when the rent is rate, and it usually is a percentage of the late fee per day accrued.

All right, so if I'm understanding, there seems to be consensus that we can defer action on this item until the May meeting.

The message to the current folks is that the current rules would apply.

There would be no change in what our current policies are.

It does sound like there could be interest in looking at waiver of weight fees, but that would come back to the board at a future meeting.

That could be, I guess, sooner than the other item, if need be.

But we'll let staff, I'll have to defer to staff and the timing on some of this.

But if there's not any objection to deferring the action, then we can do that.

And that'll give staff time to get the information needed for some of us.

And then if we feel like a late payment waiver is a separate action, then that can come before the board at a time that staff leave is prudent.

I'm sorry.

All right.

So the motion was made by Vice Chair Price.

The motion was seconded by Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley.

We'll open up for discussion.

My only question is, are we, as the county, actually authorized to make these changes in the payments?

We have talked about this many, many times through the Department of Finance for other things.

I think it would be appropriate in considering waiver of weight fee that that could be a separate item.

May I say one more thing real quick?

I would like it if we could be looking at treating the Crozet Arts

Center a little differently than we would normally, they are a special situation.

And I would love to hear, I'd love to be able to have a defense of making that decision differently than some of the other renters.

So I am prepared to

to analyze that and hear from other folks on that, because I do think that they are different than, for instance, the engineering company.

And I think the time to either have that conversation

Just the quick answer to Ann's question about waiving fees.

And we would have a public hearing to do that.

To change the lease, we'd have to have a public hearing.

Yes.

Very good, thank you.

The motion on the floor is to defer action on this item until the May 6th meeting, correct?

Nope, Supervisor Price made the motion.

Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley seconded the motion.

And I'll go ahead and ask the clerk to call the vote.

Ms.

Yes.

Ms.

Palmer?

Yes.

Ms.

Price?

I apologize.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

All right.

Thank you, board.

And that will bring us to our first public hearing this evening, number 12.

This is the sale of 701 East Market Street.

And let's see, Andy Herrick, I believe, is leading the conversation and presentation on this item.

Good evening.

Yes, sir.

Very good.

Good evening.

It's a pleasure to be with you this evening.

Hope you and your families are well.

I hope the citizens are well.

My item this evening is to present to you on the proposed sale of the surface parking lot at 701 East Jeff... Excuse me, 701 East Market Street.

I am calling up a brief presentation.

I hope that you're able to see it at this point.

And assuming you can, I will go forward and give you this presentation.

Here we go.

So as the board may recall, in December of 2018, the county and the city entered into an agreement to facilitate the continued operation of the county courts downtown.

And as part of that agreement, the county agreed to sell its one-half interest in the jointly owned surface lot at 701 East Market Street, and the county agreed to sell it at one-half interest in the city.

Here's a map for a little bit of orientation as to where the property is located.

The property is highlighted in yellow here and is surrounded by this blue box.

There's not much labeling on this map, but just for context, this is the City Hall Annex across the street.

Here's City Hall proper, sort of across the intersection.

The existing county courts, the county district court is up here by Court Square Park.

The existing district court, excuse me, the existing district court is next door.

And again, here's the subject property in which the county and the city currently own a one-half interest of each.

Here's a street view of the property.

This is the property in its current use.

You can see it's currently used as a surface lot.

From the angle this picture is taken, behind us is the City Hall Annex.

And again, City Hall would be sort of behind us and to the left.

To the right of this picture is the convenience store in the Guadalajara restaurant.

So that gives you a perspective as to the location of this property.

And rather than have me

To tell you about it, I thought that the agreement itself articulated very well what the purpose was in selling this interest.

It's to facilitate the city's construction of a multi-level public parking structure on this property.

And the parties understand that the city's financing and ongoing operation and maintenance of the parking structure is simplified if it's owned by a single owner, namely the city and not the county.

and again, as set forth elsewhere in the agreement, the parking structure alleviates the need for the county to continue owning the property.

The terms of the sale was that the county agreed to sell its one half interest in the property at half the appraised value as determined by an independent appraisal that was commissioned last year and the independent appraisal valued the undivided property interest at $2,560,000, which made each locality's one half share worth $1,280,000.

There is a public hearing requirement for this sale.

It's an interesting situation in that the county has already entered into an agreement in which it's agreed to sell its one-half interest, but state law requires that all disposals of public property, including this one, requires a public hearing.

And the agreement recognizes the need for a public hearing before this sale can be finalized.

However, the failure to approve this proposed sale would void the entire city-county court agreement that was entered into in 2018.

So the item before you this evening is to follow in a public hearing to consider and adopt the attached resolution which would authorize the county executive to execute all necessary documents we've already prepared a deed for this purpose related to the conveyance of the county's one-half interest in the 701 East Market Street property and to authorize the sale of that property to the city.

I have one just for clarification.

If for some reason, and I just want to make sure I read everything correctly, that if the city does not build the garage on this property, they are required to sell us our share back.

That is also part of the agreement that the proposed use of this property is for the construction of a parking deck.

I would defer to Mr. Campner if he's available.

I think he's more familiar with all the terms of that easement.

So if he can be brought in, I think he's probably better able to address the terms of the full agreement.

Let me pull up that agreement.

I've printed off portions of it.

Really, the next step is for this city to give us 100 parking spaces in the Market Street garage.

As I read it, it said that not only would they have to give us

Actually Liz's question was my question.

Got it.

Just a comment.

We really were very careful when we crafted these comments.

I read very carefully as well and did actually reach out to Greg because in several places it refers to other parking nearby, alternate parking nearby in some pages in this, rather than reiterating over and over again the hundred spaces in East Market Street, which to me is the only effective substitute for

the parking garage.

So I would just ask that everybody be absolutely diligent to make sure our legal eagles make sure that we are protected with that detail.

And also that what was very important during the earlier negotiations was the ground level, that ground level on East Market as well as Seventh Street, they weren't going to stick us down two blocks away and on the third floor.

So those things were not

as detailed in this conveyance as I remember them in discussion.

So the agreement provides, as I stated, the option of the county to either have the city give us the 100 spaces in the Market Street garage or for the county to require the city to convey the one half interest

in the East Market Street parcel back to the county and to allow the county to use that parcel for parking and also to pay for the cost of the reconveyance and for the city to enter a new

Okay board, any other questions for staff at this time?

All right, we will go ahead and open the public hearing.

We will just confirm a few minutes ago nobody had signed up for this public hearing.

I'll just confirm with the clerk.

Is there anyone signed up to give public comment on this item?

All right, then seeing nobody signed up for public comment or raised their hand at the last minute, we will go ahead and close public comment.

I would move, if there's no additional comment, that we

All right, the motion is made by Supervisor Price.

The motion was seconded by Supervisor Malek.

Is there any additional discussion?

Ms.

McKeel?

Yes.

Ms.

Ms.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms.

LaPisto-Kirtley?

Yes.

Ms.

Mallek?

All right, very good.

That motion carries.

On our agenda this evening, the next item is number 13 from the board.

So committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda.

We put two items here in the parking lot.

So we'll go to those items first and then we'll open up for any additional matters.

The first one, Diantha, Supervisor McKeel, you asked about the ped bike path.

Yeah, I just want to ask the board if we could have consensus

for Kevin McDermott to work with VDOT to provide us more information about what would be involved or what it might look like to have a bike and pedestrian access over, well, let me back up a minute.

You all know that the old Abbey Bridge is gonna be resurfaced.

And right now there is no,

The bridge will pretty much stay as it is.

And I would like to see if VDOT could offer us some creative ideas, if they could do something.

But I'm really asking for just consensus to ask VDOT for information.

And Kevin seemed to think this was possible.

Kevin is connecting and maybe he could speak to this better than I, but I just would like to be able to think about that access specifically there a little bit more carefully before we just say it's not gonna happen.

We have an ability there to connect north and south, east and west for bike and pedestrian.

The Rivanna Trail comes in there.

Three Notch Trail connection is not very far away.

And so I just would like to be able to investigate this a little further.

Yes, I am on.

I hope you can all hear me.

Diantha did call me earlier today about this issue and we have Dan, my other transportation plan of the staff.

He attended the previous VDOT public hearing meeting on this and the question has come up.

I know that supervisors have received a lot of requests from the public about looking into it.

I think

Diantha McKeel

Let me just ask a question because Kevin did check for me and this project is not scheduled, Kevin, for construction until, was it 24?

Yes, that's correct.

I believe it was the right of way is supposed to start in late 2023.

So they're probably, you know, going to be entering into a contract with an engineering consultant sometime soon.

And then between now and then they'll be working on the engineering design.

I have a quick question.

This is a standalone project.

So all I'm really asking for is consensus for Kevin to go to VDOT and say, could we have a little bit more information

about what it might take or what it would look like to have some pedestrian invite access across that bridge or beside that bridge.

I don't know.

Wonderful idea.

I agree.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kevin.

So Jennifer Flynn sent an email this morning forwarding a letter from Rappahannock that she had received to see if Albemarle was interested in sending something similar

to the Department of Interior requesting closure of Shenandoah.

As you saw in the letter, Rappahannock was completely overrun with people over the last weekend and then during the week as well, and are seeking the park to close its trailheads.

We are seeing across the country, state of Utah, Colorado, other places are closing their national parks.

So I think it's coming our way, and perhaps the sooner the better.

I have a question about it.

So we have, to my knowledge, one other trailhead that we have not addressed in into the Shenandoah National Park.

And I haven't driven out there to see what kind of I was planning on doing that this weekend to see what kind of mess that was getting.

but is the park service, if they leave the Skyline Drive open, they have a limited number of parking spots at each one of their trailheads off the park.

And if they're policing that, then I wonder if it's reasonable to leave the park open.

And if we close that park, does everybody just move over to the George Washington National

you know, to the National Forest.

And that's just a question.

I'm not sure what the, and I'd like to ask the Park Department.

I know they don't have any money.

I have not been out of Brown's Gap to see what's going on out there.

And because there are only two parking places at the top of Jarman's Gap, that pretty well limits anybody who doesn't want to walk up a two mile very steep hill.

Oh, I forgot about that one.

But that's right.

We have two more that we haven't addressed.

That's right.

But I think the park service, my impression from Superintendent Flynn is that they are completely outmanned as far as being able to do their job.

to do for the rangers, for public safety, for rescue, for any number of different things because of the people who are coming.

Yeah, I don't have, I'm just trying to figure out what happens do we move them south?

Do we move them to Reeds Gap?

Last time I was at Reeds Gap a few weeks ago, this was before all this happened and there weren't any parking spaces and people were starting to go and park on the road.

Now that's not the national park.

I have absolutely no idea where they're going.

So the request, was she forwarding it because she feels like they can't keep up?

I mean, she didn't have any personal comments in that email.

I think her phone conversation of a week ago

still sort of the unwritten words was that we can't handle this.

So that's, I think, otherwise I can't imagine why she would have forwarded the letter from another county for us to consider.

I can sure sympathize, Ann, and it's really hard not to step up and support another county that's reaching out and asking for help.

I do, I am a little bit concerned about just moving the problem.

I don't know.

I don't know if Trevor has any thoughts about this or Jeff, staff.

I'll step in.

That's okay, yeah.

We did talk about it very briefly today at our IMT executive meeting.

While we don't have an express opinion about the national park itself, we do share some of what the board has been mentioning about what we call squeezing the toothpaste tube, where you squelch down access to public spaces and the problem goes someplace else.

I agree with Ms.

Mallek also that there's only so much that we can anticipate what those consequences are going to be.

But if this is a direction that the board would want to go, it might be worth allowing your staff, if you think that there is more time, some time to kind of work through what we think that the consequences might be.

If the park is going to close, what the impact is going to be on

parking and walking in, or shifting the problem someplace else.

Specifically, our concern is to our county parks, which, as you know, we're already working very hard to do what we can to manage the social distancing while still trying to kind of keep them open.

So highly sympathetic to the concern, and we know it's a sensitive issue.

So, can I just make one suggestion?

And Ann probably will know the number of the road.

I can't remember the number of the road, but there's another entrance into the park where people frequently drive up pretty far.

And the road is in very, very bad condition now because there's some residents that have been

trying to make it into a private road, actually made an application.

Ann, what's the... If you're speaking about the Browns Gap Turnpike, that's 637.

That is 637.

But there is a parking lot right on 810.

I'm down at the bottom.

And I don't know if that's being abused either.

But it does go up into the park.

And I just want to mention that is another place that people might move to.

So I just want staff to know that and the police department to know that.

So anyway.

I think I would just like to hear a little bit more about what's going on up on the Skyline Drive.

If the parks are, you know, people are parking along the Skyline Drive, then I would agree that to support that.

I guess they tow them away, but I don't know.

Yeah, I would appreciate that.

I'm just going to caution everybody that our staff has a lot on their plate right now.

I would be very happy to reach out and have her convey the other information to everybody.

And our interest, and I do appreciate that, Diantha, thank you.

Our interest also extends to, if this decision is made irrespective of any position our board might take, then we're going to be dealing with a problem anyway.

All right, well, that makes me feel a little better.

Yes, ma'am.

And what I will do this weekend is I'll just drive to a couple of these places way out and take pictures and send it to staff.

I'll count cars and take pictures.

All right, board, those were the two items that we agreed to put to the end, but we still are in from the board committee reports and matters not listed on the agenda.

So I'll just go around the horn.

Is Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley any items here?

No.

No, sir.

I do not.

I would like, as Ann said, I know for our folks and our staff, it took a lot of work to get us set up with this event this afternoon.

We're going to get better at it, but I think we did a pretty good job today.

So thank you everybody.

I concur with that statement.

So I have a question, actually.

I think it's for Claudette.

But first, I want to say thank you.

Everything worked out beautiful to staff.

I think they've done just a miraculous job of, as Greg said the other day, reinventing government.

But I've been trying to kind of follow along in the I legislate just to

There's not much in here for this one, but just to try to understand how we're going to do this in the future.

And I noted that there weren't any comments for the public hearing, but I did note that Claudette sent us an email from one constituent with a comment about it.

So what I'm wondering is in the future, will those emails show up in the comment?

for iLegislate, or is that just for the people who are actually going to be talking in the public hearing?

I think she might be commenting another way.

Supervisor Palmer, this is Claudette Borgerson.

Oh, okay.

All right, gotcha.

So we should be in the future looking at our email for the webinar chat and what's going to come across with respect to comments in the public hearing with the iLegislate.

or maybe I should ask that at a different time.

I think what maybe we should do is if it's agreeable to Claudette and Travis if we can maybe just outline that protocol if you would so that we're all understanding what will occur and I'll have them send that out to the board.

Right.

If need be we can even announce that publicly so the public understands how we're getting the notes but that'll give them a chance to outline it.

I'm in a clear fashion and send it out to us.

Is that?

No, just a thank you to everyone for everything that's been done to this point.

And Supervisor Price?

Thank you Chair Galloway.

As with all the other supervisors, I especially want to thank Emily Kilroy, Claudette Borgeson, and Travis Morris.

What you did with this together is incredible.

I want to thank County Executive

Jeff Richardson and his staff and County Attorney Greg Kantner and his staff are answering the many questions that I send to you.

I do want to finish where I started.

We are facing a double whammy of a pandemic on a healthcare issue and an economic crisis that we must accept as a reality.

I see our function as providing essential services to our constituents, which is public safety, health, education,

And because of the economic situation, we have got to look at what funds essential services.

And I see three responsibilities there as well.

The first is to fund to make sure we take care of our constituents.

The second is to ensure that the county comes out of this financially stable so that after it's over, we're in as good a situation as possible.

And the third, taking the board of supervisors like a board of directors, I'm also concerned about our county employees and their welfare.

You're absolutely right.

Mr. Richardson, me talking about $5,000 on a parking is down in the weeds and that's not going to balance our budget.

But that's the attention that I think we have to give to everything going forward financially and in the sense that the county has got to get down into the weeds and give us the best budget financial project that we can get so we can meet those obligations to our constituents and keep the county financially stable.

So I thank you all for everything you're doing.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Because no one in Earliesville seems to have gotten one, and we're getting all sorts of emails about go and do the census, but none of us have gotten our ID numbers.

We've actually received three.

Well, I feel left out now, so I will take that up with Senator Kaine, I guess.

It seems sort of ridiculous.

Nobody knows what to do out here.

I don't think it's personal.

No, no, but when it's a whole geography, it is concerning.

that people are going to miss the boat.

And so we need to figure out a way to get the story out to people about exactly what to do.

And if they're completely just supposed to ignore the ID number, which is a little scary, then they'll go ahead and do that, I guess.

I have one announcement.

I appreciate the deputy clerk, Travis, and our clerk, Claudette, reminding me that

On Monday, March 23rd, a former Board of Supervisor member, Mr. David Bowerman, passed away.

He represented the Rio district, which I have the pleasure of representing.

He was in service on the Board of Supervisors from 1989 to 2005, so 16 years, four terms of service.

I know he served 10 years on the Planning Commission.

At the time of his death, I know that he was serving on the Board of Zoning Appeals, so continuing his service to the county.

I had noted that, and reminded when I looked back up to a comment that was included as part of his online obituary, and I'll quote, as he neared the end of his final term on the County Board of Supervisors, David was asked by a local media outlet who he admired.

And David responded, anyone who has the guts to stand up and say what they believe.

and it says those who knew David would be quick to say he was describing a character trait that he had in abundance.

I did not have the pleasure of getting to know Supervisor Bowerman, but I appreciate his service, his many years of service to Albemarle County and our thoughts are with his family at his passing.

I will note that they did say in lieu of flowers or other remembrances,

It was asked that donations can be made in David's name to the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA and that of course can be done on their website for donations.

I want to jump in just briefly to say David was a dear person and he really did let you know what he thought, which was wonderful.

Looks like, let's see, Supervisor Palmer, you want to weigh in?

I just have a short comment in that I did not know David well, but I was following the Board of Supervisors while he was on and did very much respect his opinions and his input.

I would just add that he was on the board during really tumultuous times, and I know we think we're in the most tumultuous times, but with growth of values of 15% a year and just rapid changes in the community, they were riding a bucky, Barack Obama, and he managed to keep his equanimity throughout and

People who did almost everything still work together very well.

And I thought that was pretty wonderful.

Thank you very much.

The next item on the agenda is number 14 from the county executive report on matters not listed on the agenda.

Sir, Mr. Chair and members of the board, thank you very much.

And as is consistent with the County Executive's monthly report, and we do typically do that at the first meeting of every month, tonight I will be doing a report that will include

COVID-19 update, first from a county operations vantage point, and second, we will be giving the board tonight your first look at the economic impact specific COVID-19 on our fourth quarter of our current year, as well as our review of the COVID-19 impact to our revenue estimates going into next fiscal year.

And I would like to recognize Lori Allshouse, our Office of Management and Budget Director.

She will be joining me for the second part of the presentation tonight.

And as always, Emily Kilroy has worked tirelessly to help me pull this together and get it before the board.

We do have our deputy and assistant county executive who will also participate.

So if there's things that I miss or things that there's questions from the board on any of this information, we have, as you know, a good team that can follow up with answers to your questions.

Okay, so, board, thank you.

As I said, this is a two-part report to the board tonight for the April monthly report and I'm focusing on the COVID-19 update.

And this is two parts.

The first is on county operations.

And so, as we wrap up day 22, this is day 22 of our incident management team structure.

which is a parallel organization to the day-to-day operations of county government.

You see our three goals.

These are our goals for the COVID-19 response and these guide our decision-making.

We've shared these, that these are operating through the incident command structure to manage our response and ensure the organization remains aligned.

And these are a balance.

These goals are a balancing act each and every day.

To maintain our essential services, we are managing our staff differently.

As staff availability shifts due to the impact of the virus, we're shifting our personnel to ensure that our core essential functions continue to remain operational.

This includes the legislative work for our board, our capital projects work, our parks, as well as our IT, finance, HR, and internal services that help hold the organization together.

To reduce transmission, we're working regionally to manage personal protective equipment and streamline procedures

around care for our patients.

We're working hard to spread messaging from reliable public health sources.

We have a strong partnership with our regional health department, as this board knows.

We're responsibly managing our own facilities to keep social distancing and eliminate gatherings that are in line with executive order 53.

We transitioned as much as our workforce to home as we can.

To protect our people who are high risk, we're working with our area long-term

Care Facilities about best practices and doing outreach with the business community regarding best practices as well.

Next slide.

It's a challenging transition to move from an in-person organization to a virtual organization.

I'd like to personally recognize our IT department, human resources, our county attorney's office,

and there are other support staff who really have worked around the clock to support the policy and the technical work necessary to stand up a virtual organization.

Most of our staff are not physically present in the building currently, but we're working to deliver the same services that we typically do.

Calls for service are being responded to, inspections continue, and we're encouraging the public to visit our website to see if the service they need is able to be accessed online.

or they can simply call us.

We also have two hotline numbers here.

One is for emergency financial assistance and another run by the health district for general COVID-19 questions.

Here is some detail about executive orders 53 and 55, under which we're operating at this time.

The governor issued these executive orders and has indicated that local law enforcement has the ability to enforce the orders.

We've received several questions about the stay-at-home order and specifically what it means.

The basic idea is that if you don't have an initial need to be away from home, buying groceries, visiting the doctor, buying medicine, that you really should be at home.

Gatherings of no more than 10 are banned in public and private settings, and everyone is strongly encouraged to stay six feet apart.

Enforcement first focuses on education and legal enforcement.

Violation of the order is a misdemeanor, and it can carry fines and even jail time.

That's not the intent of our police department, however.

So far, the Albemarle County Police Department has been called out to investigate a claim that the executive order is being violated

Individuals have been highly responsive to the request to move on and to respect the social distancing that are included in the governor's orders.

Since March 26, there have been 15 calls for service for the executive orders for ACPD.

Our messaging is focused around everyone doing their part so that we can flatten the curve in our community.

Board, unless there are questions, I will move to the second part of my presentation, which is the economic update, and that's related to COVID-19, and it's specific to current year and fiscal year 21 revenues.

I'll stop to make sure there are no questions.

All right.

Supervisor Price, did you have a question?

Just real quick, do you know when

People may be able to go online and pay property taxes.

I would have to check for that answer.

Well, it'll have to be after the tax rate is set and the bills are calculated.

Okay.

We ready for part two or we have any additional questions in part one?

All right.

Okay.

Regarding the fiscal year 20 and 21 budget,

And again, Ms.

Alshouse has joined me for this part of the presentation tonight.

We're going to be talking about the revenue impact to fourth quarter.

And that is the final three months of our fiscal year as we begin to go through the last three months, April, May, and June.

So I'm going to talk about that.

And then from there, we'll transition to the FY21 budget.

OK?

Board, if you'll recall, the last time that we talked about this is on March 17th at our work session, where we talked about the approved amended FY21 budget development calendar.

We reviewed our reserves.

We received an overview of budget development tools and approaches.

We also talked about the fact that staff was going to continue to monitor current year revenues and expenditures

we were gonna begin to run scenario modeling to reflect the current economic conditions or the changing economic conditions.

And then that would lead us to a reevaluation of the 21 revenue projections.

And that occurred two weeks ago.

So I'm back before you tonight.

At that time, we talked about our reserves with about 3.2 million of unobligated fund balance, 3.1 where the stabilization reserve

and then the 10% unassigned fund balance reserve that we keep as a baseline as a triple, triple A county government, okay?

So we did, we have been working on the modeling of the impact to our fourth, to our final quarter revenues

We looked at three scenarios.

We looked at a scenario with less impact, moderate impact and severe impact.

And there's really good news and bad news.

The good news is we're three quarters of the way through our year.

And we have been physically very prudent and very conservative.

And so we were running until about the middle of March.

We were running really well year to day.

and that was reflected in some of the information that the board was receiving as you were looking at fiscal year 21 projected revenues.

It has come to a significant downturn here in the final quarter.

It's the fourth quarter of 20, when we show you the gaps that we're looking at, this would be off of our severe

So with that, just bear in mind that we're looking at, for the last three months, we are looking at

what I think is the worst case scenario for the final three months.

So if we look at the slide that's in front of you, this is an update to the funding formula calculation.

And so for the final three months, when we look at our revenues, we're looking at, as you will recall, is a shared revenue model

and so for the schools division with the downturn in the revenues for the final three months, we see adjustments that would be a negative 2.64 million for schools.

For us, the shared revenue formula is the small number on top.

It's 1.87 million.

And then for capital, it's 580,000.

So then we have to go back because as this board knows,

We receive revenues that are outside of the shared formula.

We receive revenue that's separate from that.

A significant amount of that is fees and related revenues.

And so in the last three months of this fiscal year, the adjustments that the staff will make on the general government, local government, the middle part of the page is right at $3 million.

We will reduce

We will reduce our budget, reduce our spending by about $3 million over the last three months.

I will ask the schools to work through this with us on these adjustments for the current fiscal year.

I will pause at that point and tell the board that I believe the schools has its meeting tomorrow.

And I believe the superintendent, after a brief discussion that we had earlier this week, he will be speaking to the school board about this tomorrow.

And then the school staff

and the county local government staff will be meeting.

That will include the superintendent and myself and that is scheduled for Friday morning.

And so we are already working on this.

Staff has been working on it for a while.

And so I think we can go to the next slide.

So our strategies for fiscal year, as we move through the final three months,

The final quarter, our strategies are a focus on provision of the essential services.

Several board members have mentioned that that we've got to focus on our essential services over the last three months.

Our staff is in the process of evaluating all discretionary spending for the final three months.

This will include a thorough review of vacant positions that are in the organization.

And I don't have an exact number, but we do have staff who have been working on this and evaluating the vacancies that we've got in the organization currently.

And that would, we were prepared and will take steps to freeze positions in the organization between now and the end of the year.

and that will generate savings that will begin to close that gap.

We're also evaluating capital projects.

And again, I would outline that we are coordinating, we have been coordinating and we will continue to coordinate closely with the school division, both on current year, as well as the discussions moving into the gaps for fiscal year 21.

I do want to tell the board as it relates to current year that we are striving.

We have started with our current gap, and the number that I gave you just a second ago on the prior slide is $3 million.

We're striving to address those cuts without any or minimal use of reserves to close this fiscal year out.

In other words, our staff has approached this from the standpoint of if we can identify operating cuts, vacant positions is a great example.

then what that allows us to do is to continue those reductions into next fiscal year and that will help us as we cross fiscal years.

I intend to provide our current year spending cuts soon so that we can go ahead and eliminate the gap in the current fiscal year that is created by the fourth quarter downturn and then that will allow us to reestablish our base

our new 20 base, and we've got to do that before we can provide you with a proposed new recommended budget for 21.

Board, you will remember this slide.

This is one of our go-to slides when we look at major drivers of the fiscal year 21 local revenues.

And this particular slide

was shown to the board.

This was the last time we updated these revenue figures when we balanced the budget and we provided the technical adjustments.

These figures are what we use to build the final recommended budget for fiscal year 21.

And you can see really good growth across the board.

We were moving along at a pretty good clip with a really vibrant local economy, okay?

Now let's look at the fiscal drivers for next year once they've been adjusted, please.

All right, so what you see is you see a significant adjustment over to the far right with the consumer-driven taxes.

That is a significant decrease from the fiscal year.

fiscal year 21 projections that were given to you in February.

And that's what, again, we were building the fiscal year 21 budget on.

You see the adjustments in the far right on consumer driven, and then you can go back over to real estate, which the prior slides shows that real estate was going up originally by about 5.5%.

and we've adjusted that downward to 1%.

So that's a significant decrease over what we projected in February.

So the two that have been, all four areas have gone down, but the two big drivers are real estate and consumer driven.

I do want the board to be mindful that when we look at the amount of downturn in these revenue projections, be mindful

that the fiscal year 21 budget that was originally handed to you in February had all of the revenue projections for 21.

This now takes all of that away and it adjusts it downward.

But if you build it off of the 20 budget, the adopted 20 budget, and you remove that out, I'll now show you what we've got to remove from the budget going into 21.

So if you'll see at the top, this is updated funding formula going into next year, going into next year.

Once we make our spending cuts in this current year, and we'll work on that and get that to the board soon and show you what our spending cuts are so that we will remain balanced in our current year.

Then you look at the additional revenue loss that we project for next year.

And when you run it through the funding formula,

you can see that next year the school division will be at minus 3.38 million.

And then for us in the middle of the page our shared revenues are going to be about 2.37 million and then non-shared revenues about 140.

So once we make our cuts that we need to on our current year and we are assured that we'll remain balanced then we'll work on providing a new proposed budget to the board

and right now we project that we're gonna have to cut about 2.5 million out of next year's budget in order to balance and then the final number at the bottom is 850,000 and that is the loss of money going to the capital fund.

I want to say one more thing to the board and I hope this resonates because it's hard to bounce back and forth between the 21 projections in February

and where we are today with our new revenue projections.

I'd like for the board to think about it, that when we look at this slide, if you'll think about the fiscal year adopted budget that we have right now, that we're operating off right now with nothing new considered in it in 21, no new considerations, that these are the numbers that we're working from.

So for local government,

that's cutting the budget by 2.5 million.

So if we had started knowing that we were gonna have a pandemic and we'd have told departments, do not add anything into your budget, it's a rollover budget and we're gonna go through a pandemic and oh, we've got to cut 2.5 million out of next year's budget.

I will also tell the board that this does not include mandated obligations, legislative obligations and let me give you one example.

One example would be that the board will remember that when we went through the budget balancing exercises, we had about a $930,000 increase in the Virginia retirement system requirements for local government.

So that's an example of a very expensive obligation that we will carry into next year.

and that we have got to generate that additional money.

And so on top of the 2.5, we will have several examples of mandates like that.

I think the Virginia retirement system is the most expensive one, but it's 2.5 plus any mandates, obligations or necessary expenses that we must put into the budget for minimum standards or other related reasons.

So, where we are with next steps is that the staff will start in earnest with our school staff.

A big group of people will be meeting on Friday morning and we will be looking at our current year and we will be sharing our strategies for how we're reducing the gaps in current year.

We will then be looking at

We will also be discussing how this affects our proposed new proposed budget for our boards to consider moving forward.

As it relates to this board, you will come together on April 13th and we will have a public hearing on the budget and the focus is the tax rate.

If this board will recall, you have set the tax rate ceiling at our current tax rate

And so on the 13th, you'll have a public hearing on the tax rate at its current level.

and then you will on the 15th set the tax rate.

My goal shortly after the 15th, because you see the time between April 16th and May 13th, my goal shortly after the 15th is to provide you with an adjusted new proposed budget for next year that would reflect the staff's recommendations for how we make these cuts in order to match with the revenue losses that we now have

And then the board would consider that and then hold work sessions.

You can review these.

You'll hear comments from the public.

And then you can consider these cuts, consider these recommendations from staff, and then do the things that you feel like you need to do.

And our goal is for the board to adopt the fiscal year 21 budget May 14.

So Mr. Chair, I will stop at this point and see what questions there are from the board.

And again, Ms.

All right, Supervisor Palmer.

And if others wish to get in line or be ready, I'm sure everybody would like to make comments here.

If they'll just chat over the help with the order.

Jeff, thank you.

Could you go back to your major driver's slide?

and the new one.

I believe that you said at the beginning that you started off with worst case scenario.

Liz, that's a great question.

I failed to mention that when we looked at fourth quarter of this current year, we modeled three scenarios and we took

we took worst case scenario, we took the most severe and we feel very confident with that.

And that reflected in the cuts that I showed you for the current year, which is right at $3 million.

And then when we modeled the fiscal year 21, the three scenarios, we picked the middle scenario, which is moderate.

So instead of the severe, we picked moderate.

And so, and the reason we did that is because

Once we picked the fiscal year fourth quarter as severe, that sets our base at a lower level.

And we feel like that we have some flexibility going into next year, especially in the first six months.

And when you did this, did you assume that we would be starting to get back?

Did you take the June 10th date that the governor gave us as the end date of the stay at home?

Well, this is looking at the information that we've got now with the study that was done.

We combed, we had staff, we had about eight staff that combed through all of the various revenue sources.

We looked nationally.

There were studies that the staff did nationally on what people are saying and what people are

expecting with the recovery of the economy and so forth.

And we were looking at it through a conservative lens.

And again, it was about eight different staff coming at it.

And there was, this was consensus driven by the staff.

And so this was consensus across the board.

So we looked at, I believe the response,

going through the early part of June and then moving through a transition stage with our community and with our organization.

And then finally, as we move into the fall recovery stage, and we would be approaching that with the types of cuts that we would be suggesting in fiscal year 21, hoping that as we get more time to look at the economy in the post-July timeframe, that we're looking at the economy and we're gonna know a lot more

about whether there's been structural damage to the economy.

That's true.

I mean, they're taking information from outside the community, but I would also say that we have staff working in the organization that has a lot of experience.

We have a lot of staff that worked through the recession in 2008 through 2012, either here or in other organizations.

And so they were also studying this from the perspective of what they've seen before.

And some have been here for a while, so they've got a good understanding of this local economy.

and then some have been in other areas.

I'm sure it's a good job and everything.

I'm just trying to figure out what you based these projections on is all.

I'm just trying to understand that process a little better.

I guess my gut reaction... Supervisor Mallek, if you hold just for breaking up a little bit, we might want to cut Supervisor Mallek's video again.

Video's gone.

So I hope I am wrong by thinking that these numbers are maybe a better case scenario than... I mean, I know everybody wants it to be better.

Two questions.

Does the VRS increase

have anything to do with increases in raises?

Or is it strictly on the return of the VRS portfolio?

And so that board makes that decision.

And secondly, 10 years ago, I know there was a postponement in the VRS increase when the economy tanked.

So I would encourage us to get together and reach out to our legislators as well as to Secretary Lane in advance of the April 22 reconvening of the session because they're going to be working on the budget and they've got to understand that local government is in trouble just like they are.

So that's something to be thinking about.

And certainly as far as what, I haven't read the article that Dennis Rooker circulated that Chesterfield had just laid off 500 staff people.

But holy mackerel, they must have a lot of staff.

So I really appreciate the fact that we're trying to deal with lapse factor and retirements and those kinds of things as that was the way we shrank by 15% back in 2009 over the whole year.

we just will hopefully be able to avoid layoffs.

That would be the most painful of all.

So I, if there's a VRS answer that somebody knows, then that's great.

Otherwise it'll be something to put in your thing for consideration.

Any response there or we can, we obviously are going to have other work.

Obviously we'll be working on budget moving forward.

I actually know a little bit about the VRS.

The VRS is not based on races to come.

That's an actuarial of the current VRS.

We actually have a basically like an Albemarle trust fund in the state's VRS system.

So that was their analysis on our part of VRS.

The second thing, when the state did give us options to kind of defer our VRS payments, we actually in Albemarle decided to go ahead and try to pay it because we know we'd have to pay it later and we wanted to keep our VRS funds solid.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

Mr. Richardson, Ms.

Hall's house, I cannot even begin to fathom or comprehend the complexities of what you and your staff are working through.

And I do commend you for the work that you have done.

It seems like it's never, the target is ever moving.

And it's extremely, I know, come up with this.

If I understand it right,

What you've told us is that for the last quarter of fiscal year 20, you took a severe impact.

You then used that calculation for a base for fiscal year 21 and added a moderate impact on top of that.

If I understand appropriately or properly, when we decide and approve a budget, we can then appropriate

on a less than annual basis.

We could do quarterly, I don't know that we wanna do it too frequently, simply because of the additional work that would impose on you.

Can I acknowledge your expertise and the expertise of staff members who have worked and lived through the financial impact of the 2008 recession?

I'd have to candidly say, I am concerned that this is going to be more significant

and really believe that we should look at 21 still with a severe impact on the economy.

And that would be my comment that I don't know if taking a moderate moving forward into FY21 is realistic.

And again, I wanna go back to now turn a comment into a question.

We can approve a budget for FY21, but then we can,

periodic basis through the entire fiscal year appropriate based upon where we are at each of these wickets as we go through the fiscal year.

Yes, ma'am.

That's exactly the case.

And those are really, really good points, just like we are in the current year we're in right now.

And we've had some unexpected downturns in the last quarter of our year, which is going to require staff to quickly regroup and to identify spending cuts that are approximately $3 million.

We're in the process of doing that.

We would approach next year really in my mind as a six month, six month process.

So it's really a three, six, six process that we're in and we're crossing fiscal years.

So the first three months is about identifying our spending cuts and we will have those soon.

so that we're assured that we balance at the end of the year.

The second part with the moderate revenue loss for next year, you've seen those numbers, both for schools and for local government, is we would come with a new proposed budget and it's based off of severe loss in the last quarter of this year.

We will be balanced and then we're going with the moderate approach.

And when I say six months and six months,

Supervisor Price, you're exactly right.

We will approach this with spending cuts for the first six months of next fiscal year, knowing that we're going to have to monitor revenues and expenses much more closely than under normal circumstances, knowing that the needle could move more towards severe

It could stay with moderate or if the economy surprises us and we don't have the structural damage and we begin to bounce back more quickly, that needle could move from moderate over to slight.

And in any of those scenarios, we want to be nimble and we want to be able to add back if we can, but in a worst case scenario, we could move from moderate to severe and that would replicate

some of the work that we're doing in this current fiscal year, we would have to do that next year too.

So I hope that makes sense.

What I'm saying is that we go into next year, we've got to balance the budget for 12 months, but we're really going to look at it between July and December.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

What I would ask is that as part of those calculations, we look to defer as late maybe expenses that we might otherwise incur at the beginning of a fiscal year, but we have the flexibility that we defer those until the second six months of the fiscal year to further give us flexibility and not over obligate too soon in the year.

Thank you.

I have no further questions.

I appreciate your responses.

Diantha, are you there?

I was muted, sorry.

I forgot.

Restart, there you go.

A couple of comments and then one question.

I really do appreciate where we are right now because thanks to staff and our very

conservative use of funding and monies and revenues for our community.

I think we are in a better place perhaps than some communities starting this discussion.

That's not to say anybody's done anything wrong, but I really look at where we're starting this budgetary challenge.

We're at least in a good position.

The other thing that I would say is that, and I think it's probably been said many times, but I just want to reiterate that we're going to be always looking at our current outlook.

I mean, I know staff is going to be constantly looking at the revenues and where we are and updating them and adjusting them as we go.

And that's a really good thing.

My one question though, I guess maybe

Historically, I remember the VRS piece from years ago.

Of course, I was on the school board, but the VRS hits the school system, Lori, harder than it does us because they have more employees.

And I can't remember, and maybe you can't answer this, but

We chose to, I know Almar County chose to make the payment because we didn't want to have to come back and face it later.

I can't remember if there was an offer of an incremental or if it was all or nothing.

And what they did historically, they may not even do again this time.

So I don't know.

Yeah, this is Lori.

Basically, it's very interesting because the schools are in VRS, local governments in VRS, but they're kind of two separate pots.

So the General Assembly has a lot to do with what VRS impacts hit the school.

and so it's a little bit different for the schools and sometimes you have to do just what they tell you to do.

Where we had a little, we did have an option on the county so it's a little bit different.

Now that you say that I do remember that and I think that had just kind of gone out of my head.

It was that there are different pots of money.

So it may very well be that county government will have different options from the school division, which is good for all of us to keep in mind.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

Memory serves, they did have a timeframe that they had to do the full percentage by.

and you could delay and then some places chose to do that but that proved I think in the long run not to be the best decision.

I agree.

Right.

I've got a few questions or comments.

Do other supervisors still have any additional questions or comments at this time?

So one comment.

I was pleased.

I mean, obviously it's very sobering news and I think we all agree on that.

The fact that you're doing the items to protect the reserves in the current year and focusing on operating costs, which will roll over, I appreciate that approach.

One, what that'll do, obviously, like you said, is it carries over and then we should be set up for next year to be

and so on, and so on.

Obviously, I also endorse the fact that we're doing everything we can to protect

I think as I'm witnessing or participating with my own company, if there's a way to save positions versus eliminating positions, I would endorse trying to do everything we can to save those positions.

I think in times like this, obviously, that when we start finding other ways to operate or we're looking for places to go, I just want to call out that we have had as part of our

philosophy the last year and the current fiscal year we have business process optimization and funding in there.

We're all finding efficiencies when you're forced to do things in a different way.

Just meeting virtually, how many times with different buildings do we have staff moving around town to meet in person when they really could have been meeting virtually anyway that this crisis has made us virtually?

I know that's not a significant amount of savings, but that does reflect in fuel and vehicle use and just people's time.

So I hope that we are ready, I suspect we are, to capitalize on any efficiencies that we learn and pop up while we're dealing with this crisis and though that probably should be standard operating procedure.

That'll help move forward just as a better, you know, a more modern or nimble organization, but will also help in these times when we're trying to find

places where we can go to save some money.

I found in my backpack the other day, this is just kind of an aside, we had a pamphlet my first year on the board when I was questioning Steve All's house about how we do projections, what goes into, Liz brought this up about what goes into figuring these type of things out.

And the process is really the same regardless of what you're dealing with.

and it may be a good time to get that brochure.

There was a brochure on how local governments project revenues and it was a small little item that I noticed Steve had passed out.

It may be a good time to dust those off or maybe get new copies, especially for our new supervisors.

That could be a handy item for us all to wrap our heads around again.

I thought so as I started to flip through it again.

It does seem to me that we're focusing on the recession outside of the immediate pandemic adjustment, so I hope that we can continue to do that.

The CEO of the company I work for was talking about how a lot of this consumer-driven items that are still on the screen, this is restaurants, this is local sales tax,

You know, things will recover and bounce back, but it's not like they'll be able to go back and recover those sales.

They'll just have to continue with consumption as it moves forward.

Local personal property vehicles, there'll be some pent up demand and vehicle sales will catch up with itself.

But you can't go back and catch up for lost, you know, lost orders at a restaurant.

you know you don't go back while you might see a nice swoop up when things return to normal whenever that is they're not really going to be recovering lost sales like some of the bigger ticket items will be somebody might delay putting a car purchase off but you don't delay putting buying a sandwich on you you go and find your food elsewhere so I just want to be mindful of that

Just looking at my notes to make sure I hit my points here.

Oh, obviously I want to be, I know that this will start to come out.

I'm not looking for any reaction tonight, but how the state, I mean, what the state is going through is what we're going through and how state revenues, especially in regard to our school division is going to be something that I'll be wanting to be very attentive to.

How does the state revenue picture end up trickling down and impacting our local, local resources as well?

And I suspect we'll be able to talk to that as this moves on.

I'm sure the schools are going to be very focused on that.

And with that, I think that that covers my comments and our questions.

Have other supervisors had any comments or questions that have come up in the meantime?

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to take a second to close.

And I would simply first say that I'm very appreciative of the board giving me the opportunity to show the connection with the COVID-19 to fourth quarter.

analysis of revenues, and then that will prepare us for a new base.

I'm confident that our staff will come forward with very good, strong recommendations for us to go ahead and implement for the fourth quarter so that we can remain balanced through the end of the year.

And we will work hard and diligently to get you a new proposed budget with the reflections that I've put before you tonight.

and we're shooting for that mid-April timeframe to get that to you and we're hoping that we'll have about one month to work with you and work with our general public on what our new budget proposal looks like, how it affects our organization.

Again, I would say we're gonna strategize and look at next year in two six-month increments and we'll hopefully be able to be strategic in how we look at our cuts for next year so that we can be agile and that we can move

according to how the economy moves and how the recovery goes into next year.

I'm proud of our staff.

They've worked tirelessly on this and with the emergency response piece of what we've needed to do in our community.

This board has continued to be very supportive and very patient.

We have wonderful staff.

We have wonderful citizens.

and I can't thank this board enough for your support and your continued hard work and how you jump in and help in every way.

So Mr. Chair, that's all I've got.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

Yes, I concur with what all the other supervisors have said.

On a personal note, I'm extremely proud of our county

of our staff, of the entire staff, how far they've worked.

It's very impressive how we're handling this.

I also want to say thank you to the entire community because it seems like everyone is rallying.

And I need to say on a personal note, I hope everyone supports restaurants, especially our smaller locally owned restaurants.

We really need to do that.

We can't afford for them to go out of business.

We really need

all the small businesses and to do whatever we can do.

But having said all that, I'm very proud of Albemarle County and how we're handling this.

We're on uncharted waters.

We will get through it.

Thank you.

Supervisors, any final comments this evening?

I want to thank everybody tonight for a first run.

This seemed to go fairly seamlessly, so I appreciate that.

We'll get more efficient, I hope.

And with that, thank you everybody.

I hope you have a good evening.