Board of Supervisors Adjourned Meeting (CE Updated Recommended Budget)   4/22/2020

The supervisors to order for our April 22, 2020 meeting.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A6, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

The supervisors who are electronically present at this meeting are Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jouett District,

Supervisor Liz Palmer of the Samuel Miller District, Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District, Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District, and Supervisor Ann Mallek of White Hall, and of course myself, Supervisor Ned Gallaway of the Rio District.

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

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.

That's probably more pertinent for some of our other meetings today as more of a presentation.

I don't believe we have a public comment section set up today.

We also have with us, who are typically at the dais with us, our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Greg Campner,

With that board welcome everyone good afternoon and to those who are joining to follow the meeting and at this time I'm going to hand things over to our county executive Mr. Jeff Richardson for the main item today which is the county executives updated fiscal year 2021 recommended budget.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of our board.

I would like to take an opportunity to also introduce Lori Alshouse, who is our director of the Office of Management and Budget.

She will be with me today throughout this presentation.

She and her wonderful team in our budget office

have come back to us with a revised recommended budget for your consideration today.

We will be providing to the board and to our general public

with our revised recommended budget.

I believe it's just over an 80 page document that will be provided, that will be out for public inspection over the next week.

And so Lori has been instrumental as has been her entire team.

Also with me today is Doug Walker, our Deputy County Executive, along with Trevor Henry, our Assistant County Executive, Emily Kilroy,

the Director of Community Engagement for our county.

Each of these folks have played a tremendous role in getting us to where we are today.

We've been before this board prior to today to talk about the challenges that we face with not just moving into fiscal year 21, but also closing out our current fiscal year with our recent economic crisis.

and we've talked openly about the revenue gaps that we face going into fiscal year 21.

I'm pleased today to state that we do have a rebalanced revised recommended budget for your consideration and we will be formally back with this board.

Lori will talk at the end of our presentation.

about what's in store for this board in terms of upcoming work sessions as well as a public hearing and an opportunity for the public to provide comment to the board and then walk you through the rest of our budget process.

I would invite our staff who are here with me today to please chime in.

If you see a slide and I miss an important point that you think that would be worthy of the board to hear and our general public, I would please ask that you join me and provide

Clarification or input as you see would be helpful because this has really been a team effort board.

Lori and I, we typically are at the point with this board when we talk through where we are with the budget.

There are other key staff who are also with us, but behind the scenes, it has been a tremendous team effort.

And I'll talk more about that as we close out this afternoon.

So with that, Emily, I believe if you would move us over to our

I would start out by respectfully reminding our board and general public that 63 days ago, our team presented the fiscal year 21 recommended budget on February the 19th.

For me personally, it feels like that it's been much longer than 63 days ago.

In fact, I don't remember very much of what happened during that timeframe.

To be quite honest, things have evolved in an interesting and eventful way since that time.

But our team did present the fiscal year 21 recommended budget entitled expanded opportunity.

And it featured cornerstone connections to significant capital investment in key community infrastructure

areas.

This was a focus on the future.

This was a focus on the board's strategic initiatives.

What are our biggest opportunities moving forward to make the biggest impact on the quality of life of our community?

And we also, within that budget, had a significant emphasis on the county's equity and inclusion initiative.

And finally, we also talked a great deal about quality government operations and the continued investment in our business process optimization efforts, our systems design, our IT upgrades, the investment that worked well cross-departmentally, business process optimization, all focused at being able to serve our public

more efficiently and more effectively as we move into the future.

Much has happened over the last 63 days.

I don't need to go into the details of what's happened to this community and what's happened to each of us because everyone's got a story to tell.

But I come before you today with a tremendous effort from our staff and a lot of patience, a lot of support, and a lot of care from this board.

And I appreciate it more than you know because we will bring to you today for a second time

A balanced budget off of a tax rate of 85.4 cents per 100 assessed value.

And that's the same tax rate as our present year.

Okay.

So today's presentation, we are going to talk about the revised fiscal year 21 approach.

and then we'll go into an overview that will include the revised fiscal year 21 economic drivers for our revenue picture.

And then we will then go in and talk a little bit more in detail about what our revised fiscal year 21 recommended budget looks like.

There'll be some things that we have not talked about previously in public, both operationally and with our capital work that we've been doing in tandem with our school system.

And the last thing that we will do is we will highlight the next steps after today.

And Mr. Chair, I want to open it up for questions today from our board, because there may be necessary questions that the board has today before we close out.

And if there are, the staff stands ready to answer any questions that the board would like to put before the staff today.

We also have the work session, three hours on the 20th

As we've worked through the revised recommended budget, we really had to rethink what our guiding principles were under a very different revenue scenario.

In our fiscal year budget development principles, first and foremost, we've got to adhere and lay a foundation that we will align with the county's financial policies.

This budget does that.

Number two, we will continue to respond to the essential services, the needs of our community.

I believe this budget also does that.

We have prioritized essential service needs, not only with where we are now, but we're also trying to anticipate how these needs may change between now and into the later part of the year.

I think that is good thinking for us because it hopefully positions our organization to help to lead with the community's recovery efforts.

That's important because we have a vested interest in the quality of life, the economic vitality, the connection that we have with individuals, households, and our business community.

We have already talked and this board has approved efforts that we've made in the short term to reach out to individuals, households, and the business community in this fiscal year.

And those efforts certainly will continue into next fiscal year.

We need to remain flexible and adaptable.

As I've shared with this board previously, I've spoken with community leaders who've been in this community tied to the economic development, economic vitality of this community.

And I've talked with them about our strategy, not only for closing fiscal year 20, but also as we move into fiscal year 21.

And each community leader that I spoke with advised me that

The further we go with this, the more we're going to learn and the more we're going to know.

Several people emphasized to me that, Jeff, by June to July, we're going to know much more than we know now.

and we've got a deadline to pass the budget and we're gonna do that by May.

But we've, I think with our strategy of looking at next year in two six month increments, I believe we position ourselves to remain flexible and adaptable.

We're separating our work into really, we've done it into three distinct but connected sections.

The three months that we're in, the six months in the first part of next year and then beginning in January of next year, the final six months.

And there's the ability

for this board and staff to work and to remain nimble and adaptable to be able to lead recovery efforts.

And if the economy does better, we can add back things that we've paused.

And if the economy does not come back as we expect, then we can work through additional structural changes that may be necessary as we move toward fiscal year 22.

The final thing that we've done in building this budget

And I believe that it is listed last on the page, but it also underpins in my mind everything.

And that is maintaining strategic reserves.

Our budget manager, Andy Bowman, stressed this when we started this process.

He said, we really need to build this budget back and balance while maintaining our strategic reserves.

Because without saying that, that includes the 10% fund balance that this organization holds as a cornerstone part of our financial policies and our AAA fund rating.

But in addition to that, we've also maintained our 1% stabilization fund

that we could need later in the fall, depending on what our economic picture looks like.

And finally, this board had also maintained a strategic initiative fund balance, a fund reserve.

It's approximately $2 million.

This remains intact.

So the budget that we put before you today has these reserves intact.

And we will keep these, and I believe they tie directly to not just our financial policies, but also we can keep an eye on our essential services, we can position ourselves to lead recovery efforts, and the more money that we have in reserve going into the fall, the more flexible and adaptable that we can be.

So these are really the principles that we built the revised budget off of.

This is a slide that this board has seen several times.

We've talked at length about the fourth quarter.

And again, I'm proud to tell this board that we are balanced.

We are rebalanced in the current year.

Those bullets outline the steps that we have taken, and we will continue to monitor those steps.

We'll continue to monitor our revenues, monitor our expenses.

And as I explained to this board,

Once we go through June 30th, we will have taken the steps that we needed to to ensure that we balance as we close this fiscal year out.

And then there will be an audit period, a reconciliation of expenses throughout July and August, and then an audit, and then we'll come back later in the year and give some formal reporting back to the school.

For today, I'd like to focus really though on the 21 budget with Lori.

We're going to talk about the first half of 2021 and the second half of 2021 budget.

And it's split into the two six month segments as we have suggested.

This is a familiar slide for this board's consideration.

We use this really when we go through

the budget work sessions, the budget balancing process.

This is a snapshot of our major local revenue drivers for our community.

These numbers have changed drastically since we were before you in mid-February.

When you combine all of these revenue drivers together, this equates to approximately just over a $5.5 million loss of revenue going into next year.

This is a slide that we have not shown previously as we've been working through the all funds budget.

The yellow print at the top suggests that there is a $59.7 million downward adjustment from fiscal year 20.

I'd like to take a moment to talk to the board really about what that means.

In the visits that we've had publicly on April 13th and back on April the 1st, we were really focusing on

the general fund operations going from fiscal year 20 to fiscal year 21.

As this board notes, we have a significant and robust capital fund.

And over the last year to 18 months, this board, along with the school board, has spent significant time and effort prioritizing your highest needs moving forward.

And we had talked over the last year through several combination school board, board of supervisor meetings, we had talked about

What are the highest capital needs moving forward?

And we had an ambitious capital program looking out over the next five-year period.

For next year, the $59.7 million reduction in spending, about $50 million of that is in the capital program.

from fiscal year 20, that's an approximate $68 million capital budget.

And then recommended in your fiscal year 21 budget, that will go down to approximately $18 million.

So that is about $50 million in spending for next year in the capital budget.

I would highlight that $18 million would be recommended to go forward, and we'll talk a little bit more about that later.

In addition to that, there's two other areas that make up the remaining just over $9.5 million.

One is the loss to the general fund, to the general fund budget, which this board has control over along with recommendations and work from staff and key department leadership.

and that makes up just over $6 million.

And then the final piece is the transfer to schools, which we have a significant and collaborative relationship with our public school system.

And so when you add those three numbers together, that's how we get to the all funds reduction of just shy of $60 million.

Before we go into the details of what is

making up the revised recommended budget for fiscal year 21.

This has become a slide that we again show this board with regularity and it's a reminder to our general public.

So much of what we do in local government at the county government level is very quiet.

and behind the scenes, but at the same time, it does make an impact on the quality of life for our citizens, economic vitality of our citizens and helps to make the community a destination community and the caliber community that we have.

The size of the circle denotes the amount of financial investment and the size of the programs compared comparatively across county government.

What's not shown here is the amazing employees who help us make up each department.

Every one of these departments have stories to tell over the past month and a half that showcases our tremendous commitment and care in the Albemarle County community.

And I want to take a minute for most of our employees who are working,

They probably are not paying any attention to what we're doing today because they're serving the public.

They're frontline out in our community, serving our citizens, or they may be at home resting because of the shift work that they do on nights and weekends.

I want to take a minute to thank these people for their continued, valued commitment to our citizens in the out-of-market community.

Final adjustments have been made to the revenues and to the expenditures.

And we now are representing a $6.4 million reduction in the fiscal year 21 revised recommended budget compared to the fiscal year 20 adopted budget.

And I wanted to put that out there.

This has been a little bit of a moving target because we've talked to you several times over the last 30 days and given you a snapshot look of where we were

with our revenue and expense projections for fiscal year 21.

And each time that we've talked to you, the number has adjusted some point.

We now have all funds included, all revenues and expenses.

And this is the number that we've landed on going into the fiscal year budget.

And this is what we balanced off of accordingly.

OK?

This chart highlights the critical partnership that we do have with Albemarle County Public School System.

And I cannot emphasize enough the tremendous collaborative effort that has occurred at the staff level.

Rosalind Schmidt and the team that they've got in the public school system as they've been working with us with our revenue, our expenses, the capital to try to figure out what we look like

leaving 20 going into 21.

And again, there's a significant amount of work that has been completed on fiscal year 20 capital projects, also fiscal year 21.

And as Lori will highlight toward the end of our discussion today, or the presentation that we make today, that we're going to devote some time next Wednesday on the 29th to make sure that the board has adequate time to learn and understand

Okay, so this is really a transition slide to get a little bit more into the details of what we're talking about today

And again, we're talking about responding, recovering, and then recalibrating as we go through next fiscal year.

And as we see what the economy, the base of our economy looks like as we go into the fall and winter months to be able to recalibrate and to adjust accordingly to where we can serve our community in the best possible way.

All right.

I'd like to start talking about public safety because public safety has been probably one of the more complex areas of the fiscal year 21 recommended budget.

And there are reasons for that.

At the far left, we're talking about 12 positions, these 12 positions for advanced life support coverage.

These 12 positions were loaded into the initial budget back in January.

This was one of the starting features that needed to go into the budget.

Our fire and rescue department learned last year.

that the Charlottesville Albemarle Rescue Squad would be not being able to provide a level of service on nights and weekends moving forward into fiscal year 21 that we had enjoyed in the past.

And so we began to make immediate adjustments necessary for budget purposes and for bringing 12 positions on board to fill that service gap for advanced life support starting in July.

What was not included in the budget, and I'm going to talk about more in detail in just a few minutes.

is an additional 10 positions for fire coverage.

We also learned last year from the Crozet Volunteer Fire Department.

This is an exceptional volunteer fire department that has done fantastic work for the Crozet community for a large number of years.

And they have experienced increasing difficulty to provide the necessary Monday through Friday daytime services to the Crozet community.

And so the fire chief was faced with the challenge of trying to step back and ask,

with our fire rescue services, what can we do to adequately serve that part of the county?

What has emerged is an opportunity to serve that community and actually go about it in a little bit more of a broader, with a broader view, looking at the entire county's needs.

And I'll talk more specifically about what that means in a minute, but this has been loaded into the budget as an added feature since we first brought the budget before you in February.

Next item is apparatus, along with the planning for the additional personnel to be able to fill the gaps in service and to ensure no drops in service across the county.

We had to plan adequately for our apparatus needs, which includes a fire engine and two ambulances.

And finally, the investment that is included in our budget

The radio and mobile data computer serves the entire public safety system.

Our emphasis is on our first responders in the field and making sure that our IT backbone infrastructure is serving them with the needs that they have when in the field.

Specifically, in talking about the challenges that our fire department learned in working with the Crozet Volunteer Fire Department, we first approached the board in the December timeframe with a re-engineering proposal that would have repositioned

some of our existing staff from across the county and some of our lower volume call areas with more of an emphasis than some of our higher volume call areas.

This would include the Crozet area.

We looked at that, we've talked publicly with the board about it, and we were asked to step back and to consider other alternatives.

Our fire department about that time identified a federal grant that is available and the timing of it is quite nice as it relates to what we're trying to accomplish.

We are positioning ourselves to apply for this federal grant through FEMA and the application is due in mid-May.

We would maximize and leverage this grant.

by asking for 10 positions.

These positions, the grant would be awarded in the late summer timeframe, which works well for us.

And what the fire department would plan to do if we are successful with the grant, and we think we will be highly competitive for this grant, is to bring 10 positions on, take them through the schools, and then position these

New firefighters throughout the system to address some of the gaps that I previously mentioned, along with also shoring up in the rural areas the need for a continuation of fire and EMS services accordingly.

If you will see on the chart the way this lays out, and there are several things that I like about it,

The federal grant has a value of about $1.2 million over the next four fiscal years.

If we are successful with this grant, it allows the county to financially plan and gradually absorb the full funding

for these positions that would be in fiscal year 25.

If you look at the bottom of the graph, in fiscal year 21, the net cost to the county would be approximately $168,872.

That amount of money is loaded into next year's fiscal year revised recommended budget.

So we are planning to be successful with this grant opportunity, this grant application.

and we will strategically look to place these firefighters both in the Crozet area and then ultimately we would back go back across the county into our second busiest area in the county which is the Pantops area and that's going to strengthen our overall system for our ability to meet the future the existing needs and the future needs of this community.

We are also positioning ourselves during this time for recovery, economic recovery in this community, as well as individual needs, household needs, business needs as we go forward.

I believe this budget and how we've realigned and continue to align our recommended funding for next year takes that into consideration.

First of all, I'd like to talk to the board about our key partnerships with our outside agencies.

Many of our outside agencies are closely aligned with our community and for people who need support, services, and assistance on an ongoing daily basis.

This revised recommended budget takes the funding recommendations that came through the ABRT process and it continues to fund and support those recommendations to all of our agency partners.

We think this is important because of the relationship we have with these nonprofit organizations and the services, again, that they provide our community.

In addition to that, we have also continued to place in our budget

a $20,000 increase in the emergency utility funding.

This is a program that is housed out of our Department of Social Services in fiscal year 20.

This program received $40,000 in funding, and this $20,000 increase would increase that fund by 50% and take it to $60,000 going into fiscal year 21.

This budget also continues to recommend that we place the healthcare worker at the Yancy Community Center.

We are in the second year of programming under our Equity and Inclusion Initiative and efforts in our Equity and Inclusion office.

We have grown our commitments in our programming and our

Reach in that part of Albemarle County.

The health department, our regional health department, has been a key community partner and a key agency partner with us, and we are maintaining that position in next year's budget as we have presented it today.

We've also added and kept in this recommended budget additional funding for language accessibility support.

I previously reported to this board

back in February, the growing number of citizens who qualify for services in our community in which English is not their first language.

And our Department of Social Services works very closely with these folks and other departments do as well.

And we're looking for a little bit more of a unified approach with a little bit more of a robust program to better serve our citizens moving forward.

Business and commerce continues to be a key element when we talk about leading, helping to lead and position ourselves to lead recovery in our community as we move forward into the year.

We, within our economic development efforts, we are here to support our businesses and this board recently supported the microloan program that we are partnering with in our community.

We are partnering with the city and we are working that program into

an operational stage at this point and we appreciate this board's support.

Public-private partnerships are ways that we can leverage public funding with private investments to generate public good and we continue to provide this funding in next year's budget not knowing exactly moving into the fall what our business and commerce community may be asking for or needing as the economy hopefully starts back up but we believe that the investment in additional money for next year

and our economic development efforts will pay dividends for us as we go into the fall.

In addition to that, we are also focusing to support our local economy with capital investment with construction jobs and ancillary spending for materials, mills, architecture and engineering services.

Our essential services have remained open to our general public and I'd like to take this opportunity to visit with the Building Inspections Director yesterday evening as he was calling it a day late in the day and going home and I visited with him in the parking lot and he talked about the continued high volume of work

the hard work, the long hours that our building inspectors, that our plans reviewers, we're still accepting applications.

We are still open for business in our community development department.

And it's all focused on keeping our local businesses moving forward and going forward as our community hopes to rebound soon.

As you know that I've talked to each of you about our need to remain nimble and flexible as we move into the fall because again right now we just don't know how our economy will respond in the fall but we are positioned to recalibrate as necessary in order to be able to put ourselves in that position.

We needed to create capacity that we otherwise did not have.

We've lost significant revenue in the last three months of this year.

And we have financially forecasted next year to the best of our ability.

And we are planning for severe revenue loss in next year's budget.

And so in doing so and recalibrating, what we had to do was we had to create a capacity that we otherwise don't have.

So if you go to the next slide.

This board knows that we've done that in some very meaningful ways, and I will start with highlighting some of the staff and organizational impacts.

We have removed from next year's budget recommendations.

We've removed from our compensation program all

Previously recommended salary increases for next year.

We will delay the implementation of the $15 an hour minimum wage that this board supported so heartily.

And we worked so hard to get into the first recommended budget.

We are going to suspend and delay that later this year to see what happens.

We will certainly remove the 2% salary increase that had been previously recommended.

We are also reducing a salary reserve that is reserved for reorganization, reclassification, and promotion.

We are reducing that by $150,000.

Departments were asked to go through cost-cutting measures of between 5 and 10% to each department's operational budget.

As a result,

Almost $400,000 has been removed out of next year's budget for training and professional development.

In addition to that, we have delayed

or deferred equipment, furniture and key fleet replacement for next year that has produced over $1 million in cost savings for next year.

And finally, we've taken our business process optimization funding that we have used over the last year to 18 months to help emphasize system integration and improved customer service processes.

We've lowered that funding by $250,000.

Finally, I will talk briefly about, and this board has heard, that in the current year we have frozen 15 positions, which are currently vacant, and we propose that we will continue to freeze positions that are vacant once we go through

a review process between now and the end of the year.

We will look at the functions that are provided within the department, the other vacancies that are within the department, how the work's going to be done, what is the impact on our citizens.

These are some of the things that we're looking at, but in next year's budget, we're going to propose that we go for a goal of approximately 20 additional positions.

When you add everything on the page that's before you, this equates to approximately $5.7 million.

This is capacity that we have created with the support of our management teams, our department heads, the budget team,

everybody has worked very hard to create this in short fashion so that we can reposition ourselves with a balanced budget next year and what the emphasis is is this has more impact on our employees and it has less impact

on the citizens that we serve.

We will not see as much of a drastic drop in programs and services to our citizens by implementing this strategy going into the fall.

It will be difficult for our employees.

It will be difficult for our managers to be able to work with less resources than we've had in the past.

But we know that we will be doing this as we go into the fall, and we will be monitoring revenues, monitoring expenses,

We know that we're going to be revisiting this strategy with this board, certainly by the fall of the year.

Our noticeable service levels and program impacts, I would like to take a few minutes and talk to the board about this.

This is the first time that we've talked about this.

We are recommending for this next fiscal year that we eliminate

the recreation programs that we would typically provide our citizens throughout the summer months.

This would affect 114 temporary seasonal positions that will not be hired.

This is the time of year that our Parks and Recreation Department is working closely with our Human Resources Department.

to really gear up for the summer months.

These are very busy months for our Parks and Recreation Department.

And this has a budgetary savings for the coming year that we needed in order to balance.

But I would take a minute and I would also highlight to the board that in addition to there being a budgetary impact, there is also

business analysis that we really needed to take into consideration for these summer programs.

We really had to take a step back and we had to ask ourselves, what do we know right now?

When do we know that we will be back to a normal state of operations to bringing these services and programs online for the public, but even be accepted with where we are with the stay at home orders currently?

With us being behind in our window closing for bringing these positions on for the summer, how much of the summer can we preserve as business as usual?

All these are questions that we had that led us to conclude that it just is not worth the expense, the resource, and the effort to roll this out or to plan to roll this out this summer as business as usual.

What I would emphasize to this board and to the general public is that our parks this summer will remain open.

The staff has worked diligently with this board's support to continue to

operate and open our parks as a recreational outlet, as an exercise outlet for the citizens in Albemarle County, and we will continue to do this.

These are the programs, however, that come online each summer through our Parks and Recreation full-time and temporary staff.

and in our budget, we are recommending that these programs be eliminated this coming year.

In addition to that, we've worked closely with our facility and environmental services department and in their five and 10% budget cut work, they have come back and said that they're going to have to adjust some of the outside contracts that we have that are focused on some of our corridors, some of our mowing contracts, some of our public property that we own and operate in some of our key areas of the county.

And we're hoping to move these in a way to where it's not drastic, but it will be probably noticeable to some degree that these programs will not get the attention that they've gotten in years past as we've tried to recover and capture some of the cost savings that we need.

The final thing

that is indicated on this page is really a re-engineering opportunity that I would like to highlight for this board.

It has significant cost savings.

It was a part of our budget balancing strategy.

And to be quite honest with this board, we backed into this

as it relates to our organization being faced with adversity over the last 45 days at our fifth and Cobb location.

For an example, our Department of Social Services, which is housed out of the fifth and Cobb location, has approximately 150 employees housed at that facility, 140 of the 150

employees on a typical day are working out of their home and not working out of the building.

Our DSS director, Phyllis Savitas, has been quite complimentary of the team and of the attitude and of the productivity of the men and women of that department as they've served the citizens of this county.

And what it has taught us, that adversity has really opened our eyes

to the opportunities that we have once we go back to the new normal and we begin to invite our employees back to our work locations and we turn our work back on in the way that we were before.

It has really challenged us to question our old work practices as it relates to the space we occupy, the parking that we occupy, how our employees work,

how our employees get the work done.

And so with that focus, our management team recently revisited

the commitment that we had made with this board's support to move voter registration out of 5th and Cobb in anticipation of the 45 days of early voting that will come later this year.

There is a significant uptick in traffic volume and voter traffic, and we have been very concerned at the 5th Cobb location.

We just couldn't handle the parking.

At peak times, that could be as high as 125 parking places a day.

With the recent events that have occurred and the experience that we now have under our belts, with our staff being able to work from home, turn on a dime, and adapt to the situation that we've had, we have revisited this and we confidently come to the board today and tell the board that we will take the voter registration and the functions associated with that back to Cobb Fifth,

We will utilize the space within the building in the smartest way and the most efficient and effective way for our citizens who will be coming to that site this summer and this fall.

And we will also work with our department heads at that location to manipulate our parking to

open the spaces necessary to utilize some of the lessons that we've learned along the way with workers having to work from their home in the last 45 days.

And we're confident that we're going to be successful this fall by taking this back in-house and moving it back over to Fifth Cobb with the support of the Elections Director and the staff that work at that facility.

This has been a learning opportunity for us as an organization.

I think this has enlightened us in ways that we just wouldn't have known otherwise as to what future opportunities we may have to revisit our space needs as we move forward.

As you can see on the slide, this has a one-time upfit cost savings of over $600,000.

Some of that money will be repurposed back to the Fifth Cop site for some minor alterations to the site to be able to accommodate the traffic this fall.

And then just as important, this also has a cost avoidance

of $225,000 a year starting next year because we will take the function and keep it at Cobb 5th throughout calendar 20, throughout the presidential election.

And then early next year in calendar 21, we will go back and we will revisit how it went, what was the customer experience, what had been the staff experience with the services that we provide at that building on a day-to-day basis.

And then we will report back to the board where we think what we've accomplished and what we need to be thinking about in early 21

moving forward.

I'm excited about this and I hope the board can see that the staff is very excited about our ability

to rethink this opportunity.

This is an unfortunate series of events that have occurred.

This is what I would believe is a silver lining with what has occurred because it has been a thick learning process for us to see how we are able to work when put under the adversity that we've been under over the last 45 days.

Okay?

I'm going to take a second and I'm going to talk about our capital budget approach.

As I said earlier today, our staff has worked in sync with the school staff to identify our current capital commitments in this fiscal year, as well as the capital projects that had been previously identified to move forward in fiscal year 21.

In looking at the framework of what we needed to look at moving forward,

We knew that we, in the short run between now and the fall, we needed to preserve cash.

We needed to minimize our additional debt in the requirements.

We needed to delay certain projects to allow us to monitor the economic situation.

We needed to support the local economy with capital investment.

And so it's a blended approach.

It's a balanced approach.

I think it's a very practical approach that's been led by Trevor Henry, Lori Alshouse and her team, Rosalind Smith with schools, and they've worked over really the last three weeks to go project by project to say, where is the project currently?

What is the timeline?

Is it in design phase?

Has it started?

Is it under construction?

What did it come back at?

What is the cost?

Is there a cost associated with delay?

And then finally, once the project is completed, is there an operational impact?

and so these are all things that have been under consideration to try to find the appropriate balance for this board's consideration as we move forward.

And again, next Wednesday, we will be spending some specific time with this board to talk through the rationale for the projects.

And this information is included in the handouts that Lori and her team has provided.

So in summary, what I would say first and foremost is that I believe what we've done is we have adhered to the principles that I outlined at the beginning of this presentation.

There has been a strategic framework in which we have approached this budget shortfall.

trying to position our board and trying to position our staff for our best work as we go into the fall as we learn more about the effect on our local, state, and national economy.

We had had an ambitious strategic plan.

We had an ambitious commitment to this community to positively affect the community's quality of life.

And we have tried to preserve as much of the work as possible, not knowing where we will be in the next three to five months.

But I believe we're positioned with our strategic reserves intact.

in a good spot to where we can again pivot in the fall and gear up if things do better than what we expect.

And if there is a necessary restructuring with more permanent cuts, our staff will be working continually between now and the fall in order to position ourselves for necessary additional cut considerations.

I do want to emphasize to this board that while I, along with the staff and our team, while we have emphasized the need to fill the gap in our advanced life support rescue, fire rescue services with 12 positions that we have recommended because of the loss of that service, as well as the opportunity that we have that has emerged

for the federal grant, which is 12 plus 10.

I would emphasize to this board that when we look overall at the position count that we've got in the county,

In the current year, we've got 787 authorized positions.

And as we go into next year, we have repurposed, we have frozen or will freeze approximately 35 positions.

And then we have focused with that creation of capacity through the freezing of positions.

We have created capacity.

in the short run to be able to address the needs that have surfaced over the last six to 12-month period.

We still are at a deficit of positions.

Over the past three years coming into today, we have averaged adding 27 positions per year.

And so this is slamming on the brakes, if you will, in terms of position count to ask our organization to move with almost a whipsaw effect in the other direction.

maintain services and maintain programs to the general public to the best of our effort.

And so that is a significant amount of effort for our organization to shoulder.

I could not be more proud of our staff.

I'll take a second just to share with the board if you advance the slides.

The frozen positions to date, as you can see, these are the 15 positions that we have frozen in the current year budget.

And these positions are spread throughout the organization.

Positions will continue to open up as they do, either through turnover or retirement between now and the summer months.

And we'll continue to evaluate every position as it opens in the organization, as I have discussed previously.

I have talked about our themes of being able to respond, recover, position ourselves to recover, and to lead the community in that way.

And then as we move into the second half of the year to be able to revisit, respond, and implement our longer structural changes if necessary.

And the staff realizes that that's the position that we're in right now.

We understand that.

We stand ready to work accordingly with this board and this community over the next three to six month period to meet that challenge.

At this point, I believe, Lori, I will talk to you or turn it over to you to talk to the board just a little bit about the budget document, the scheduling that lies ahead,

I also wanted to open it up to the board for questions.

Sure.

We'll go through our order.

I know sometimes when one supervisor asks a question, there's piggyback or tack on questions.

So as you raise your hand, if one supervisor is talking, I'll keep the order or the

The supervisor who's in the position on deck, or at bat if you would, you can get the follow-up questions in and then move to the next supervisor if that makes sense.

With that, Supervisor McKeel, we can start with you.

I do not at this time.

I would like to just thank Jeff and all of the staff for this great proposal.

And obviously, we're getting our first blush at this for the most part this week.

So I'm sure we'll have more questions at our next opportunity with our work sessions.

Yes, I do have a couple questions.

My comment, of course, is thank you very much.

And in advance, thank the staff for taking the brunt of all these reductions.

To ask my questions, hopefully quickly, I have the broadband authority meeting right after this.

I did not see or hear anything about a change to the fund for matching grants, et cetera, for the Vatti fund.

I understand that it is.

Okay, my second question is the other day when, Jeff, when you were giving your presentation you said that there were three evaluation points, a mild

moderate and severe projections and that you used the severe for the last quarter of this year and you used the moderate for 2021.

But I noticed in your discussion that you did refer to the 2020 budget as a severe revenue loss.

That's a great question Supervisor Palmer and I really appreciate you giving me the opportunity to clarify.

We looked at the staff model three scenarios in this coming fiscal year.

most severe and then the middle one, which would be kind of middle of the road and then the less severe as you've outlined.

And we have stayed true to the middle option, which is kind of middle of the road for next year.

As this board knows, we took the most severe option for the remaining three months and built off of that base.

And it has a little bit of a compounding effect going into 2021.

in a positive way for us, taking the most severe going into 2021.

I think that, Supervisor Palmer, that there's some logic in taking the middle of the road approach going into next year because what you're doing is you are lessening the need to do deeper, more structural cuts in the short run

and you're hoping that the economy will respond to some degree.

There was quite a bit of differential between next year.

We've kept that middle approach and I'm glad we did because if we would have taken the most severe approach that was modeled for next year, it would have required us to do frankly much more deep structural cuts

and I would have been disappointed to do that because it would not have positioned us to be as adaptable and nimble going into the fall and winter if things got better and we needed to load back.

It would have been much more difficult for us to be as responsive as we think that we hope that we will need to be going into the fall and winter months.

Yeah, it does.

Thank you.

I just heard the word severe revenue loss so I wanted to make sure that that hadn't changed.

My last question has to do with the reserves, and I really, really appreciate the maintenance of our strategic reserves, especially, and for the board reserves, because I think it's gonna be an interesting discussion over the next, assuming and not for a few months, how we decide under the current conditions how to use that.

However, you didn't mention the

Reserve Fund from leftover from last year, we had a general fund balance that was currently, or last time we talked, recommended to be included in the CIP Advancing Strategic Priority Reserves.

If I'm understanding your question correctly, and Lori will do an excellent job of monitoring my answer to make sure that I don't confuse this, I think what you're asking, because back when we were in the normal budget process, we discussed your $2 million strategic reserve that is focused on the board's strategic initiatives, and also the board had a $1.8 million

amount of money, and it was reduced to $1.56 million, as I recall.

Both of those pots of money, I only talked about the $2 million today, Supervisor Palmer, but both of those pots of money remain intact.

The board had not made a final decision when you were back in your early March work sessions.

You had not made a decision as to what you were going to do with that additional amount of money.

both of those funds are available.

They're intact.

Thank you very much.

Very good.

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

As with the other supervisors, County Executive Richardson, I cannot express enough how much appreciation that we have for you, Ms.

Allshouse, and all the rest of your staff completely reworking this.

But Chair Galloway, I have some questions or comments I'd like to reserve until after Ms.

Allshouse's presentation, as she may address them.

Supervisor.

I'm here.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you.

Um, once again, I am extremely impressed with not only the executive staff, but the entire staff of the county, what they've done in such a short period of time, rewrite, redoing the budget and making sure that we're poised to be successful, not only now, but in the future.

I did have one question.

I know our focus is public safety at this point in time.

So the FEMA grant, that's pretty good.

We're hoping that that will go through.

That's an excellent question.

I would ask Mr. Walker to lean in.

I know he's in this meeting and participating, and I'll talk for a second about that.

And then Mr. Walker, who is critically integral to our public safety function, I'll ask him to elaborate as he may have more specific comments that can help.

We are optimistic that we will be highly competitive for the SAFER grant, as I said earlier.

We're trying to leverage and maximize that grant by requesting 10 positions that not only gives us the opportunity to address the prosaic situation and do it wholly and fully, but it also allows us to look across the community and across the county and also longer

term fashion, look at the Pantops area and be able to look at the system, the integral pieces of the system to make sure that all the areas of the county are adequately served.

In the event that we are not successful and we should learn by late summer, early fall, we do have a contingency plan and that would be at this point in time to step back and to scale down the position authorization probably to the six positions that were originally contemplated to fill the Crozet needs and we would do that in tandem

with the position freezes that we have across the county.

By that time, we would know a lot more about our economy.

We would know what is in store for us for the second six months of this next fiscal year.

And we would have to work that through accordingly.

Doug, would you elaborate more specific to that?

In adding to Mr. Richardson's response, then we would be back in front of the board to talk about how we would consider, with the available resources, adding some additional staffing in order to meet the needs, particularly at the crozet where the Volunteer Fire Department has asked for this need to be met.

The value of the ten positions, if we're fortunate to, and we think that we will be to get the SAFER grant, enables us also to address the needs at Pantops, which is, as was mentioned, is the busiest station in the county.

The priority at this point has been in Crozet because of the demonstrated need for daytime staffing and so it is likely that without the SAFER grant we would have to reduce our shorter term requests from 10 to 6 in order to provide the priority coverage in Crozet during the week, during the day.

but still keep our eye on the need to provide that fire coverage during the day, during the week also.

So it may take us longer to get there.

We still think this is the right strategy and hoping that the SAFER grant, expecting that the SAFER grant will enable us to do it more thoughtfully in a shorter time frame.

Thank you very much.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

I'll start with a follow up for Bea's question because mine was a very eager question about can we start the search and training for these extra staff before July when we know if the grant is coming?

And I guess someone will have to advise me about that later because it's a long wait time no matter which route we take.

We've had FEMA grants before, and hopefully that means they will think that we're another good candidate to do that.

The second question is, I'm sure someone will call me right away and say, what about unguarded swimming at the parks this summer?

So I don't know if there's an answer to that yet, but that's what's out there in my head right now.

And wonderful job today, everybody.

Even with bad news, it's still

really understandable and the reason why people keep trying to poach our county staff around the commonwealth all the time.

I think I'm I apologize in advance for several questions or comments here.

I could if Jeff would like you to address the first question I believe I understood from this Malek with regard to the timing of the uh of the staffing for Crozet.

Yeah, OK.

The opportunity that we have currently is to take advantage of our current recruiting pool, to bring on board staff that already have credentials that don't then require to go through the typical recruit school process.

They have certifications in fire and EMS.

That shorter expedited recruitment school would enable us to be fully staffed at our current allocated amount

that with some use of additional overtime, stretched thin, would enable us to, we believe, to be able to have daytime staffing at a grocery volunteer fire department as early as September.

It's a stretch, but we do think that that is a reasonable estimate.

You are correct, Ms.

Mallek, that bringing new employees on and getting them to recruit school, to the extent that they need ALS certifications, it also takes additional time.

It does take a while to put it all out.

Yes, ma'am.

Like I said, I apologize.

I have several questions or comments.

So I, too, just want to endorse that if the grant is not successful, what the contingency plan would be.

Because if we throw this out there, that this is the moving forward plan, and then it doesn't go through, the expectation level is going to be set.

So I think it's important for us to know what that contingency plan is.

um related to the to the fire elements it's just a question let's say the grant goes through we put this plan in place the pan tops coverage specifically I'd be interested I don't need the answer now I would just be interested to understand how the ripple impact plays out through the other urban ring areas what what that does for the coverage through the entire development zone that's that's in the urban ring so I'll park that question

I guess as it relates to public safety and health and I just throw this out there as a highlight or a I guess a moment of concern I'm not disagreeing with the positions that we're adding into the fire and the ALS but I do know that we were going to add we've been slowly adding to our police coverage

I just think in the second or maybe the first or the second six months, we need to make sure we keep it out there as a priority to watch what our coverage is for that department as well.

It may even be helpful at some point to hear from Chief Lance about, you know, I got to imagine traffic volume, which is one of their biggest items that they respond to on a day in day out basis, has got to be significantly down.

My concern would be at some point when times are lifted that there will be a high increase or bubble that will happen that could put more than normal what the daily stress is when we're under normal operations and just making sure we're mindful of what the plan is for that if we need to make any half-time calls with the budget relative to that department.

and I'll leave that out for future response as well.

Let me just track my items here.

It came up to me when you were talking about the importance of economic development and earlier in the presentation, but the thought occurred to me and again, this is a question for future.

Is there anything, I don't know if anybody knows this, the fact that we have opportunity zones and if the COVID-19 has modified or changed any of the timeline for that.

This timeline is such a tight piece that it has to happen in certain points for that to make sense for the investors.

I just don't know if the feds or if anybody's doing anything to modify that timeline.

So I'm just taking the chance to put that out there as an open question.

Bigger point, I noticed on the slide for business process optimization, I think I remember from an earlier presentation a week or so ago that that minus 250,000 is half of what was going to be there.

Not against the savings going there, but in the spirit of that, I think it is important while we go through the COVID-19 piece that collecting and analyzing data

on how work from home or how the modified work plans have gone for folks, how that's playing out.

All departments, I would think, would be playing in, analyzing their effectiveness, their efficiencies.

And then as we come into what you said is our new normal, Jeff,

Are we prepared to take advantage of what we learned in this quick hit that when we do recalibrate later, that what we've learned will then be put into place and be normal operating procedure for us?

I don't think that will necessarily take some money funds to be able to pull that off, but if it does, that could be critical for us understanding how to recalibrate.

Also with recalibration, how we come out of it.

I think, and I'm not expecting anybody prepared to speak to this today, but how we come out of, as we can add back in, what are the priorities?

So what is the first position or the first item that gets put back into play?

And I think it's important for the board and for our community and for our staff to understand, well, what are our priorities as we recalibrate that will come back online first, second, third, fourth?

I think that goes a long way to giving people confidence while you're dealing with the current situation to know that as we slowly come out what pieces get put back into place.

I would imagine that works being done.

I would be shocked if it was not being done.

So at some point that might be something interesting for the board to hear about when the timing's right.

I want to make sure if this is one where folks may know the answer today, it's just with the information I haven't been able to pour through the full document you've given us.

We had the space and facility study going on.

and I know that we talked at different points through the budget.

Supervisor McKeel had brought this up that what we learned from that could have big impacts down the road and we were talking about things out on Berkmore and stuff like that.

But when we do the Board of Elections piece and this current situation allowed that to, you know, allowed us to figure out a solution to that, the work from home, etc.

But it dawns on me that that space study becomes even more important right now

and it's interesting how an emergency situation creates this opportunity to be more efficient or to pull something off at your own facilities and do we learn anything from this current situation to inform that space and facility study so that as we continue forward I hope any resources that we have there is still there

because I think our capital plans, our different strategic priorities and all of that could be really informed by that of making sure we're using our property that's currently there the best we can.

And then also if we needed to bring things online in the future, four or five, six years down the road that we don't just shortchange that work.

And that may have already been funded in the current year.

I'm getting, I'm trying, I was trying to recall

No, and I would like, Trevor Henry is on the line and he's participating today and he's had to step away.

Mr. Henry, if you're here, I think it would be great if you could comment a little bit to Chairman Galloway's questions and comments that he's made, because I know this has been at the forefront of some of the work that you've been in charge of.

Could you talk about that for a second, please?

Yes, sir.

Trevor Henry, Assistant County Executive.

Mr. Gallaway, that project and assessment is currently funded, including the expanded scope of looking at properties that the county owns,

with proffered sites and properties within the development areas.

So that study's underway.

We have slowed it down, actually kind of put the brakes on it while we're in this response mode to the COVID pandemic.

And we've had discussions with the project team as recently as this week, where we've talked about kind of pausing that study to give us time

As we move from response to hopefully transition, we are going to be learning the lessons on being able to work more remotely.

And we want to make sure that that all gets factored in to this overall assessment.

So I think the only real impact is that the delivery of that study is going to be extended out.

But I believe it will be appropriately extended in order to really give us the time to do the analytics within the

I appreciate that Trevor, thank you.

And then my only last comment is Supervisor Palmer brought up the in the fact that the strategic reserve is there and I really am starting to more and more think of that board strategic priority reserve

as an addition to our stabilization fund.

We almost have a 2% stabilization fund than a 1% as we continue to work through this.

That's just in my opinion.

That was my list.

I'm happy to, I don't think I need response on some of those.

Those are follow-ups for next week and going on.

Supervisor McKeel, you did have a question that came up while I was speaking.

Yes, I think just a couple of comments that probably don't need to be answered today, but I really appreciate you bringing up the facility study.

Good to hear that while it may be paused, it is still moving forward because certainly I think we're going to be able to have a really good discussion when that report comes forward about all the properties that we own

in the development area and how they may be best used.

And that use could change, you know, could greatly change based on what we are seeing as sort of, if you think about it, our new normal.

I also would like to just make sure that going forward gets back a little bit to Liz's concern about the broadband.

And I know that was for the meeting today.

But I am very interested in working or hearing from our staff and the school division about where the gaps are in connectivity.

Because we're seeing a new normal with the ability to work from home.

But we know that not only do our employees, but certainly our educators and our students have gaps in their connectivity.

So I'm going to be asking at some point about where those gaps are and maybe looking and having a discussion with the school division, because I know staff and school division are working on this.

But it's going to be critical moving forward for us to come to the realization that

We have to have people connected for safety and for work and for education.

So I guess that was really a comment.

And the only other clarification I want to make is that we had a great work session around transit funding.

And we know that CAT has the ability now to pull down some significant dollars from the CARES Act.

And so at some point before the, well, let me back up.

It looks like to me that the CAT funding has at this point remains what Jeff had recommended in the previous budget, because I haven't seen or heard of any changes.

But we are certainly going to want to have a little bit of a discussion around that and figure out how that the CARES 2020 Act might change our funding for CAT.

Very good.

I think the next item, we were going to move to Lori for the remainder of the schedule items.

And then Don, I know had some comments after that.

Okay, thank you.

This is Lori Allshouse.

I'm the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

I want to thank everybody for all your ideas and thoughts and involvement in the budget.

We still have a lot of work to do ahead of us.

So today we have provided a revised 21 recommended budget document to you.

It's also available online on our website for the public to look at.

It's about 80 pages.

Our original document runs more like 300 pages, so it's definitely a revised, slimmed down version of our usual budget document.

This is what is included in it.

It has the budget message.

It has a chapter very similar to a chapter you've always seen.

And we think it's important to have this in our budget document because it's about your policies, the board's financial policies.

And as Mr. Richardson spoke to earlier in the presentation, how important it is that we adhere to our financial policies.

So we wanted to make sure that that was available to you very conveniently.

The next section is our budget summary.

That's a nice chapter to look at to just see the larger picture of what's going on in the revised budget.

Then we have a chapter on the general fund revenues.

This provides a lot more detail on the revenue assumptions that were asked about earlier and where we are with our current assumptions on revenues that we will continue to monitor and update as we get more information along the way through this 366 model.

The next chapter is the general fund expenditures.

This provides a lot of details about the recommended expenditures, as well as use of fund balance, transfer to the schools, a lot of the details that you would see in our other expenditure chapter.

So again, we thought it was an important one to include.

And then finally, we have the capital budget and debt service funds chapter that provides the updates on the capital budget, including what

We are recommending to delay until we learn more about the economic situation and which projects we would recommend to continue to move forward.

So that's your document.

What we're going to encourage you to do is, I heard a lot of really good comments today and really good questions that I jotted down for the work session coming up next week.

But if you have any other questions as you read through this document, please feel free to shoot them to us right away.

And if we can answer those really quickly for you or

If there's ideas that you say to us who really want to talk about this at our work session coming up, please send those ideas and comments and questions to us as you read the document.

Feel free to send them at any time.

That'll just be helpful for us as staff to be responsive.

OK, next slide, please.

This chart is the schedule moving forward.

As you know, we had to modify the schedule very dramatically with this change.

So I just wanted to identify some of the items going forward.

You did approve your tax rates on April 15.

Today, you're receiving your first look at the recommended budget.

On April 29th, you'll have your first work session.

We'll talk about it more on the next slide.

And then you'll have a public hearing on the 6th.

The schools, if you can see that little block at the bottom of this chart, the schools are also, we're working very closely with the schools on scheduling and planning and working together.

So the schools have a survey out right now about their budget and they will have a public hearing on May 7th.

On May 11th, this is a holding place for another work session.

If you need it and requested of staff, we will definitely hold that if there's some questions or items you want to discuss further from the April 29th work session.

And then we're going to request that you approve the budget on May 14th.

And then the schools will be also approving their budget on the same day.

So we'll coordinate that very carefully with the school division.

And then on June 3rd is your appropriations.

That's your resolution of appropriations of the funding that will begin on July 1.

So that's our plan ahead.

I'll go to Supervisor Price.

No Chair Galloway and I'm willing to wait until the very end.

One more slide I believe.

This is a recommendation for the work session on April 29th.

You'll have a chance to have read the document.

We will provide some information to you.

We really find it valuable that it's your work session, so it's your time to have discussion and talk.

So we'll provide some leading slides for you and then definitely provide enough time on there for dialogue.

So we'll start with our general overview.

We will then speak to some highlights from the revenue chapter.

We'll go into our general government.

Basically, this is our departments, and you'll get a chance to look through your document and talk about any questions you might have about our recommendations for general government.

And the fire rescue system-wide services that were spoken about today, and we've started that dialogue, will have much more information available to you at that time.

And the staff from the fire rescue department will be there to speak to the system in more detail.

We schedule a break, a virtual break for all of us, if needed.

And then the school division, we're inviting school division staff or others to attend from the school division to share with you where they are at the time.

It might not be their finalized project, but they'll at least share with you what their thinking is and where they are and any information you might have as questions from them.

And then finally, we'll speak to the capital budget, share with you the programs that are paused.

and the programs we're recommending to continue as well as have some time available for you to think about any of the projects that we're currently funded.

As you know, capital programming goes over multiple years and share some information with you on the current program as well as to what we're recommending to continue to move forward and to pause until we learn more about the economic situation.

And then we'll wrap up.

So that's the recommended schedule for next week.

Thank you, Laurie.

I wanted to thank the staff that were intricately involved in putting this together today.

It's Ms.

Oshouse who's representing the budget team, but

It's a group of probably as many as 10 people that reach to not just Lori's team, but into the finance department, back over to the schools division.

What I feel like we're most blessed with, we have great people and the board knows that because the board has a lot of interaction with our staff.

We're very blessed that we've got the experience that we've got with our team right now.

This experience has really helped us to be able to maneuver through this.

because this team has past experience with other problems and issues that we face with the economy and other related things and this staff borrowed from that experience and it shows with the caliber of work that the group that Lori leads, the finance department, the operational department heads, we have a very experienced and talented group of staff.

They work together well

And I'm very blessed that I have that as the county executive.

I don't take it for granted.

I know this board doesn't.

And I can't really say enough to thank the team that has worked behind the scenes to get us to this point today.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

Thank you, Chair Galloway, Mr. Richardson, and Ms.

Allshouse.

I have three comments and then a question, and the question

does not need to be answered today.

The first comment, I'm so pleased to see that the proposal you have sent to us maintains the funding in our partnership with the local nonprofits and agencies that provide such critical services in the county, especially now

with so many other sources of revenue drying up, that's just critical and I thank you for the work to continue that.

The second thing, comment, I trust that our residents understand

that this strategic reserve is effectively the government's rainy day fund.

And then if we do not have that, we do not have the capacity to adjust and be flexible when situations like what we're dealing with right now occurs.

And so I'm very appreciative for my predecessors on the board of supervisors and the county staff over the last few years ensuring that we had not only an adequate

I also think it's important, however, for our residents to understand

that when we look at reductions in our capital improvement plan that we are effectively holding off on our infrastructure stability and improvement.

And we can do that for the short term, but we can't do it long term.

We've all seen any entity, if you don't maintain what you've got and continually build for the future,

then you will not survive.

And so temporarily we can do this, but it's important to know that we can't just hold off forever, that we are going to have to come back and reinvest in the Capital Improvement Program.

And the one question that I have on page 37 of the booklet that you provided for us today in the bottom paragraph

You talk about an assumed decline of 1% in the second half of the FY21 budget based upon, I believe, changing property values.

And I'm not a financial expert.

I really have to turn to you, Ms.

Halshaus, and your department to give us that information.

If the economic fallout of the pandemic continues, and I am seeing more and more reports of this pandemic lasting for a longer period of time, with the rebound later this year, with concerns if we open up too soon that the second wave may be worse than the first, and also

So looking into the future, if this recession becomes a depression and reduced property values, then that of course will equate to reduced revenue.

So I know that you and your staff will be looking not only for finishing fiscal year 20, not only working our way through FY 21,

but the reality of potential reduced revenues in the out years as that would affect our capabilities.

So I know, I'm confident you're gonna be looking at that but that is a serious area of concern I've got.

And I know that we can't even get past this quarter right now with the uncertainty but I think that's part of what we're gonna have to be planning towards.

Just thanks because I had never heard of 366 before this season and it's such a pleasant surprise and a better approach.

In 2008, we were the turtle who panicked, pulled in their head and slammed the trap door shut and took $100 million out of capital with one chop.

And this much more careful, step-by-step, deliberate way of looking at things will save us in the end because

the confidence in our citizens will be so much greater knowing that we're looking all the time at how things are changing and being very thoughtful but also that when needs happen or we start to turn things around it will be so much more a smooth transition out that took years to accomplish in 2008 because everything we went down 77 people and so it took a very long time for the capacity to come back up

and it was years after the demand.

Thank you.

No, I think at this time I am okay right now.

No, thank you very much and I apologize but I am going to sign off now.

Thank you.

Good luck on the broadband meeting.

I hope all that goes well because we certainly need it.

I do want to once again thank the staff for their

Flexibility, creativity, and above all, intelligence in being able to do all of this in such a short period of time and really lead us, help us for what's important, which is making sure that our constituents are taken care of.

Alright, very good.

And with that, then we will move to item number three.

This is from the board, matters not listed on the agenda.

We did have one item added at the request of Supervisor Mallek.

This was the rent waiver issue for the School of the Arts and Crozet Arts Depot.

So we'll address that item first, and then I'll go through each supervisor to see if there are other items you would like to do as part of this agenda.

Muted or not?

Yes and no.

Okay.

Earlier today I spoke with Greg Kamler to ask him about the advertisement for the May 6 public hearing on the leases and also if there were questions that staff had I'm saying that I was going to ask board members if they had questions as well so that we could be more prepared for May 6 and he said that it would be helpful if there were any items which we did have consensus for today

that that would help them between now and May 6.

So that is why I sent out the text.

My internet was completely down.

So I hope you've had a chance to see the text.

And I guess, is there anyone who has not seen the questions at all?

And if so, I'll go through all of them.

I think maybe go through each list of the questions.

The second was, is the board interested in waiving or deferring these rent payments, if we answer yes to number one.

and for long-term tenants.

And then number three, what time period are we talking about to do this if we say yes to number one?

And then one suggestion was to describe it as long as the business is in forced closure by local, state or federal mandate.

Then that's one way to describe it as opposed to picking a date that we won't know if it's going to stick or not.

So I will just

Supervisors have reactions to this item?

Thank you, Chair Galloway.

I was one of the, if not the first, supervisor to raise some concerns about the proposal when it came up before our board meeting a couple of weeks ago.

I think it was appropriate to ask the questions that I did.

I think it's appropriate for us to differentiate between non-profits and for-profits who are tenants within county-owned spaces.

I will point out that I think I,

I've either received or exchanged over 50 emails specifically related to the Crozet Arts Depot.

It's very clear that there's widespread community support for it.

I acknowledge up front that the 15,000 per month we were talking about for the five entities is not going to make or break our budget under any circumstance, either currently or pre-COVID-19 pandemic.

But I think those are important questions that need to be asked.

In the interim, since this first came up, I have been able to receive a lot of information that has demonstrated the commitment and the investment, not all financially, blood, sweat, and tears as well, particularly with the Crozet Arts Center.

I am more inclined to support

a waiver of the rents for the for the three non-profits but not necessarily for the two for-profit enterprises.

These are important contributors to the to the welfare the quality of life of our residents and I appreciate all of the efforts that everyone has made whether on the board with the Crozet Arts Center or the beneficiaries of their their programs who have helped

provide me the background that I needed to be more comfortable in this.

I misspoke originally the turns out that the artisan

Depot, the gallery at the, who is the tenant in the arts depot, in the Crozet train station, who shares the space with the tourism agency, is not a nonprofit.

It is a business, regular business license, but they have no employees.

They have five artisans who partner together to share the financial burden, and their bills are paid by the commission from

the sales of the 88 artisans who are in their representative group.

So I didn't want that to, I had missed, I had thought they were nonprofits as well until just the other day.

And in your email for going forward, there are some comments from Karen Yanovitz from the Depot, as well as Courtney Kucation that you probably have not had a chance to look at.

Other comments at this time?

All right, other thoughts or comments?

I mean, I'm of the mind that I was prepared to vote on the item that came before us before.

I'm happy for that item to come back to us again.

We can certainly hash out in that discussion period if there's any nuances that need to change as part of that.

But I walked into that meeting prepared to take action on that item on the first.

and I'm happy for the additional information we received, but I'm still prepared for that item to come back to us if it need be.

Thank you.

You were watching the unmuting, which is a good way to do it.

I agree with you, Ned.

The only thing that, this came up pretty quickly for tonight's discussion.

And so one of the things that I don't understand very well right now is how we're talking about advertising the contracts, the leases for a couple of these organizations.

And I don't really understand.

I haven't seen the leases.

I don't know how long they're going to be for.

I'm thinking we're making a decision tonight.

I didn't think we were actually making a decision tonight.

And for me, I need to understand how the leases affect at least a couple of these entities.

I'm muted off here.

Thank you.

So I don't expect a vote today either.

I was just trying to respond to staff and their interest in any information that we could share about what other questions we had and what inclinations they are.

The public releases could not change until May 6 public hearing anyway.

And I think they will work on drafts to share with us before that.

So there's no preemption of any processes at all.

Just trying to continue to

I think staff was just looking for if there was consensus for it to come back at this point.

I think that is Supervisor Malek's, um, see if there was any, if there was not consensus to bring this back, then we don't, nothing moves forward.

So it appears that, um, we can bring this back.

It seems like I, like I said, the differences and whether it's

Yes sir, I believe it is.

I know Greg has also been paying close attention.

I can work with Greg to make sure that we're ready to go on the 6th.

Yeah, we have looked, not to further muddy the water, so you've looked this afternoon at alternative ways to get the decision on whether to waive, and I think that

under Jeff's authority as the Director of Emergency Management.

He does have the authority.

This is similar to the open burn order that he issued where he checked in with the board.

So that's another way it could come back.

So we can do it either way through the public hearing process or just getting direction from the board and authorizing Jeff.

I appreciate that distinction, Greg, because it originally came to us as an action item for waiver on consent, as a matter of fact.

And that, to me, would sound to be the way it should come back to us.

Again, and then the bigger picture, the bigger lease items, that's a whole separate conversation, really.

I would just like to pass along the concern for the lease, the notification that someone would not want to renew had to be provided by June 1st.

So their situation was, we won't know if we can

be alive on June 1st or not.

And that's why they were hoping for some, a little earlier, jutification working this out.

But I'm sure there's been correspondence between Michael Freitas and the tenants regularly.

So I'm sure they are working on all of these issues.

And I'm very happy for a combination.

All right, so this item will come back.

I think we do have a check in next week.

So if we need further clarification or something, we'll have a chance to do that next week if we need to under other matters.

I mean, my personal opinion is it comes back the way that it came to us originally.

Okay.

Yeah.

Well, and I will say that I'm really pleased that in the meantime, through the Economic Development Authority, we have now microloans for very small, not microloans, loans for microbusinesses that are identified as local businesses, local needs.

Yes.

I do briefly.

And Ned, you may want to jump in with me too, because you and I, I attended today the Regional Housing Partnership

Executive Committee meeting.

And I was there as your designee because the board certainly put me as your designee.

And you all had a meeting today.

I found the discussion around real estate right now very interesting.

And I would like to say that our staff, Ned, was really complimented in this discussion today.

about how we have continued to do our work.

And Albemarle County is moving business forward and we're continuing to work.

And that was very much appreciated.

The other discussion that was interesting was how busy the real estate agents are right now.

Correct me if I'm wrong, Ned, but they were indicating that houses are selling

and that they are busy.

What I found fascinating was that there was a concern at least from one staff member that in her neighborhood, what she was seeing was because of the low interest rates, people swooping in and buying up our affordable housing again to be used for rental.

We saw that back in 08, 09, 10.

And I'm putting on the table again my concern about losing affordable housing in our urban ring neighborhoods because people are coming in and buying it up right now.

And they're going to flip it.

And we're going to lose that affordable housing.

Well, I'll just reinforce, yeah, that's what the idea in the real estate was that people are just buying homes.

So it's because of the low interest rates and it's driving the prices of homes up.

So the particular comment about that particular neighborhood for landlords, but the same instance with folks buying it just for their residents.

But what it's doing is moving the prices up because the market has shifted as a push on that.

And then there's certainly other conversations as we go to see what happens with local development and buy right versus do they go for bonuses and things like that or do they just go to get things online as fast as possible.

We didn't really get into that today, but that's another piece of that conversation.

and then I'd also just add the kudos that was sent over to our, I give the credit to our incident management team.

There were other decisions that have been made.

In particular today it was commented about the assistance programs that have gone to help the homeless population and what the county has done to step up to help in that regard.

And I would just add that one of the concerns around the affordable housing piece in this particular person's neighborhood, she was saying that what has happened in the past is that the folks come in and swoop these houses up, they flip them to rental, and either they become, they create a non-affordable neighborhood, or the other way is that they're not taken care of and they're not maintained.

and they're just used as rental.

And that's what I've seen happen as well.

One of the complaints that I received the most often in my non HOA protected neighborhoods, my urban ring neighborhoods that provide affordable housing is that people are renting them out and not maintaining them.

not making sure that the houses are maintained, grass, landscaping, and they drive down the property values.

So you have a couple of problems going on, but I really want to talk about it because we need to get back to this discussion at some point about renters and rentees and the affordable housing in these neighborhoods and trying to protect it.

Yes ma'am.

Only to add to the last comment and to say perhaps strengthening our maintenance code that we've sort of put on hold a little bit will be a way to make people understand this is not a cut and run investment that they're about to make.

Supervisor Palmer had to step away to attend the broadband authority meeting.

Thank you, Chair Galloway, and as soon as we end I'm going to break over to that broadband meeting as well.

But I want to echo the previous comment from Supervisor McKeel on the positive comments that I have heard

from our residents about the county continuing to provide services and also recognition that the 366 format that you've come up with, County Executive Richardson, people really see that as a positive for managing the current and moving forward to the future.

So that's all I've got.

Thank you, Supervisor Price.

Nothing at this time.

Ned, can I make one more comment?

Sure people understand.

I'm not talking about the fact that people that rent don't maintain their homes in general.

That's not the issue.

I have neighbors in my neighborhood and they maintain their homes beautifully.

The issue is that we do have a disconnect between, in some situations,

people renting out homes and between the renters and the rentees, there's not an agreement about who's going to maintain it and how it's going to be maintained.

And we really need to figure that out.

Right, right, right.

So Ann was right when she talks about getting back to that blight

Yes, ma'am.

Mr. County Executive, any matters not listed on the agenda today?

All right, board, if that is the case, then we will adjourn to April 29, 2020, 10 a.m.

That's an electronic meeting pursuant to ordinance number 20-A6.

And it's an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

And information on how to participate, attend, et cetera, in that meeting will be posted on the Albemarle County website, Board of Supervisors homepage when it becomes available.

and thank you everybody for participating today and for those who tuned in to listen and look forward to meeting up again next week and everyone be safe.