Board of Supervisors Budget Work Session #2   3/15/2021

You're good to go.

All right, good afternoon everyone.

This meeting is being held pursuant to and in compliance with ordinance number 20-A16, 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 Ann Mallek of the White Hall District,

Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley of the Rivanna District Supervisor Liz Palmer of the Samuel Miller District Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District District and myself Supervisor Donna Price of the Scottsville District.

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.

Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received.

I'd also like to mention that our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Greg Campner,

our clerk, Claudette Orgerson, and our deputy senior clerk, Mr. Travis Morris, are also participating.

Madam Chair, thank you very much.

Thank you so much for the opportunity for our staff to be here this afternoon for our second scheduled budget work session.

Today's focus will be the capital budget.

And I believe that I have our CFO, Nelsie Burch, who is with us at this time.

I'll turn it over to Nelsie and she can talk about with Andy Bowman, what we're going to accomplish this afternoon.

Thank you, and I'll begin while the presentation is being pulled up.

My name is Andy Bowman.

I am the Chief of Budget of the Budget Division within the Department of Finance and Budget.

And before we get into today's agenda and the content, I want to take a moment just to step back with the next slide and look where we are in the process as a whole.

Today is Work Session number two.

We'll talk about the agenda for today in just a moment.

We'll be back later this week for work session number three on March 18th, which is Thursday.

We'll discuss fire rescue in more detail and we'll also ask the board to take action to propose a tax rate and a budget for public hearing and advertisement on Thursday.

After this week, we have time set aside for some additional topics to go in a little more detail on that are listed in the screen.

Great.

Thank you, Andy.

Good afternoon, Board of Supervisors.

It's great to be here with you today.

I did want to spend just a few moments, since this is our first time together, since the President signed into law the American Rescue Plan last Friday.

As I think all of you are well aware, the county is on its way to receiving an infusion of funds via the

American Rescue Plan that was signed into law.

So what I wanted to spend a moment, just a brief moment, is to talk about our path forward for how do we make decisions and help the board with some recommendations and figuring out how best to spend the funds that are coming our way.

And on this slide here, you see that we've got two work sessions that do not yet have an agenda set forward.

So March 29th and April 1st.

What we would like to do is bring back to the board

An option for discussion on, I think we're looking at the March 29th work session to be dedicated to really speaking about the American Rescue Plan.

And hopefully at that point in time, we will know more.

The challenge that we have right now is I have been really monitoring things and trying to figure out if there is additional information that we know

that could help us and guide us and help us guide the board on figuring out how best to spend these funds.

And what I'm finding is there's too much conflicting information, even from pretty reputable sources.

And so the first being, I still at this point don't actually know the amount of money we're going to be receiving.

It's somewhere around $21 million.

And that's kind of just the beginning.

And so it goes from there.

Not sure when we're going to get it.

No, it's over two different tranches of funding.

know that we have to spend it by December 31st of 2024, but the details of what we can spend it on are what's making us as staff a little bit more cautious because it's a little confusing and we know that more information is going to come over the next few weeks and few months, much like the CARE-CRF funding.

and so we thought we'll give another two weeks or so to allow for some time for the federal government and the state to really determine how we can use these funds and then come with a path forward and some options for consideration that the board can entertain even prior to finalizing this budget particularly if there are some impacts to the FY22 budget the board decides to do

with the funding and the eligibility for that funding.

Not a lot of additional information, but did want to have a moment to say we're monitoring it.

And we are planning to come back to the board in about two weeks time to have a much more work session like discussion about how we could use those funds to support the economic recovery in our community.

Happy to answer any questions now or later know that we have a pretty full agenda.

Thank you, Delcey.

Going to the next slide, we'll just look at today's agenda.

First, we've designated a time to hear from the school board about their fiscal year 2022 funding request.

After that, we will plan to discuss the capital budget and debt management chapters of the book.

The board has already been involved and seen and heard some of this information with the process that led up to the CIP Advisory Committee.

That was subsequently followed but we'll walk through to kind of connect the story from where we were from fiscal year 21 adopted to where we are now.

We have a break if the board desires and then we'll also finish up the non-departmental chapter to talk about specific reserves and transfers and then we'll wrap things up.

So just one more slide from my comments before I turn it over to the school board chair.

Just a reminder of last time, this is going to be an interactive work session.

Staff will present some information, pause for as much board question and discussion as we need to along the way.

A bunch of staff will be listening very closely for adjustments that are desired by the board, kind of those items to be put on the list, or for just other general questions that we need to capture and we'll report back to the board.

So with that, I will turn it over.

I guess maybe it would be good times in terms of process to pause for questions from the board.

Thank you, Mr. Bowman.

Let's quickly go through to see if we have any questions.

I think I don't have any questions, but why do I do?

Okay, because I was trying to figure out whether you're talking about the proposal we're looking at right now or

I apologize that was unclear.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much.

That's it.

No questions at this point, thank you.

Just a comment.

Diantha asked my question.

Thank you for answering it, Andy, so well.

But I just want to make a comment that that could be a rather extensive list.

And I'm sure we'll have time to add to that list at a latter date after we hear more from Nelsie about

Yes, certainly.

Maybe if it helps to kind of break that apart, maybe there's two categories.

One of which are those items that the board would seek to change as part of the 22 proposed budget the board would take action on Thursday.

Thanks.

And I do not have any questions at this time.

Thank you Mr. Bowman.

Thank you.

Thank you and good afternoon Chair Galloway and Vice Chair Price and members of the board.

Thank you for setting aside this time to review the school division's funding request for the 2021 school year.

Vice Chair Katrina Carlson and I will co-present this afternoon and staff on hand to help answer any questions you may have following the presentation.

Our theme this year, Stronger Than Before, is a statement of our belief that we are, in fact, a stronger school division than we were a year ago.

While we have faced many challenges over the past year, we have also learned a great deal and honed skills that will continue to deliver benefits long after schools resume normal operations.

We expanded and diversified our community engagement efforts.

We improved internet connectivity for families.

We expanded professional learning opportunities for teachers, which resulted in enhanced instructional strategies and practices.

We broadly collaborated to create plans and solutions, and we strengthened our community partnerships.

In a lot of ways, this past year has been very difficult, but we move forward with the confidence that we are stronger than before.

This year Albemarle County Public Schools is serving over 13,500 students with a staff of more than 2,500, including 1,342 teachers and another 1,172 classified employees.

Our diverse student body represents 95 birth countries and speaks 75 different languages at home.

Nearly a third of our students are economically disadvantaged, meaning that their households meet the federal income eligibility guidelines for free or reduced price school meals.

About 10% of our students are English learners, also referred to as ELs.

These are students whose first language is other than English and who are in a special program for learning English.

Also, over 12% of our students have a disability that qualifies them to receive special education services, which are specifically designed to meet each student's instructional needs.

Today, March 15th, is the first day of Stage 4 of our Return to School Plan.

Since November 9th, we have spent 12 weeks in Stage 3, which offers a hybrid learning option to students in pre-K through third grade and provides full virtual instruction to all other students.

During Stage 3, we have served 1,514 hybrid learners in pre-K through third grade and 11,357 virtual learners across all grades.

Among those virtual learners, we provided in-person access to 972 students in grades 4 through 12, meaning that those students came into our buildings to participate in their virtual learning.

Our child nutrition team served an average of 7,758 meals each day through our three meal service programs, including on-site service to students who are learning in our buildings, our school bus delivery program,

and our pickup program that operates at seven locations across the county.

Our school bus drivers travel an average of 14,109 miles each day to transport students and also to assist with meal delivery, spending nearly 20% of those miles delivering school meals to students.

We also operated our staff childcare program in stage three, which serve 50 children of ACPS and Albemarle County employees.

As I mentioned, today we officially transitioned to stage four of our return to school plan, which increases face-to-face instruction time for students in pre-K through third grade from two to four days per week, and also offers two days per week of face-to-face instruction to students in grades four through 12,

That means in stage four, we're providing face-to-face instruction to 8,065 students.

That's 60% of our student body and more than five times the number of hybrid learners we were serving in stage three.

Our extended day enrichment program has also reopened in stage four, offering spaces in their childcare programs to 275 elementary students.

They currently have 72 students on the program's wait list.

For more than seven years now, Albemarle County Public Schools has relied on our Horizon 2020 strategic plan to guide our actions and support our decision making and funding priorities.

This past fall, the school division began the process of creating a new strategic plan to carry us into the future.

Our first step in this process is actively underway, and that involves collaborating with a broad range of community members representing diverse personal identities, professional expertise, and life experiences to design our portrait of an Albemarle County Public Schools learner.

This portrait will guide the creation of a new strategic plan, which will provide all of our students with the educational experience that prepares them to be lifelong learners who will make positive contributions to society both now and in the future.

Our school board anticipates an initial review of the division's new strategic plan in late May or early June.

In partnership with our strategic plan, our equity mission guides our actions and supports our decision-making.

As a division, we have committed ourselves to the pursuit of equity and inclusion.

The work that supports our equity mission, such as our anti-racism policy and its portfolio of projects, is meant to pervade every aspect of our system, to shift the way we do business, including our values, our structures, and our behavior.

On a cyclical basis and through a strategic approach, the school division dedicates immense effort to identifying and prioritizing the needs of students, employees, and families, determining how best to meet those needs and ultimately deciding how to allocate funds to support high quality teaching and learning for all.

Our budget cycle, like so many things in our lives this past year, has seen some changes.

For starters, we aligned some of our processes with local government, a shift we found to be very effective.

We also engaged our stakeholders, both internal and external, in new and different ways.

We hosted virtual community events, such as check-ins, forums, and community conversations, often around the topic of pandemic recovery.

And through those efforts, we received a lot of valuable and constructive feedback aimed not just at pandemic recovery, but also toward rebuilding our school system.

As a result of this process, we are confident that the funding requests we are presenting today reflects the insights, ideas, and priorities of our community.

Financially, we have good news.

The revenue outlook is very positive.

We are projecting recurring revenues of $205.8 million, which is an increase of $12 million over the current fiscal year.

The majority of that increase at $6.9 million is a general fund transfer from local government, which, as you know, is increasing in response to higher real estate assessments and other local tax revenues that so far have been impacted by COVID-19 less than anticipated.

We'd like to take this opportunity to say how grateful we are to Albemarle County taxpayers, the majority of whom do not have children in our schools.

We thank you for your invaluable support of public education in our county.

We especially want to thank those families who chose to enroll their children in our schools and entrust us with their educational needs.

Our anticipated increase in revenue also includes a significant hike in state revenues of $5.2 million, largely due to the whole harmless provision for enrollment in the state's budget, as well as positive sales tax projections for next year.

In the current fiscal year, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we faced a $5 million reduction in funds from the state.

from $57.8 to $52.8 million.

In response, we cut our expenses this year by $5 million.

As it turns out, however, we have learned that state revenues will not be cut in FY21 and that we will receive the full $57.8 million this fiscal year.

Budget to budget, our revenues from the state will be increasing by 9.9% or $5.2 million.

So with an anticipated increase of $12 million in recurring revenues, we are presenting you with a balanced funding request for FY22 that includes $12 million in new expenses.

I should add that since the presentation about draft funding requests, which was embedded in FY22 recommendation budget, we have made a few expended changes, most notably to our compensation strategy.

In the event that revenue are expended to our assumption shift, we have identified and prioritized areas to which we would allocate any additional funding, but our goal will be to stay balanced throughout the process.

Ms.

Thank you, Graham.

So as Graham mentioned, we do have a $12 million increase in reoccurring expenses.

Over 70% of the $12 million increase in expenses next year represents an investment in our workforce by increasing compensation for all employees, that's teachers, classified staff, full time and part time.

The second largest portion at about a quarter of our increase addresses restoring areas that were reduced last year on both the operational and instructional side.

We're also including two new proposals that together account for just over 5% of our increase, 5.3% that is.

So here are the primary drivers of our increase by category.

And this is not an exhaustive list, but it's the major ones.

So the school board has held three budget work sessions in which we've reviewed each of these expense categories in detail.

And this afternoon, we're going to briefly address compensation, restoration, and our two proposals.

And as always, you can review a full itemization of our expenditure changes complete with explanations in section A of our budget.

So compensation, this is one I'm most excited about.

One of our budget goals is to provide a salary plan that supports a competitive position and reflects market adjustments.

And in support of this goal, we are committed to increasing our minimum wage to $15 an hour and reinstating raises for all of our employees.

Our plan for increasing our minimum wage to $15 an hour is structured in phases.

In fiscal year 2022, we are planning to implement phase one at an estimated cost of $2.8 million.

Phase one raises the pay scale for both full-time and part-time regular employees, including those who are eligible for the Virginia retirement system and those who are not.

And it brings the VRS eligible scale to a $15 minimum hourly pay rate.

and Phase One funds decompression through a banding strategy.

Note that the cost is subject to change prior to budget adoption as additional modeling of compression strategies is still underway.

Our recommendations do include increasing all employees to a $15 minimum hourly wage in a future phase.

So increasing our minimum wage, who's affected?

Currently, 17.8% of our workforce earns less than $15 an hour.

And these are positions that provide essential services to our schools, students, and staff.

They are teaching assistants, they are custodians, they're special education assistants, transportation assistants, bus drivers.

I'm sure you've all heard the ads on the radio advertising trying to get our bus drivers.

It's a hard-to-fill position.

It's office associates, it's teachers in our extended day enrichment program and assistance and that's just to name a few of the people.

So raising our minimum wage demonstrates a significant and meaningful investment in our employees and it's also a strategy that will help us remain competitive with our local market and ensure that we can recruit and retain high quality staff.

So in addition to the minimum wage increase, we are also proposing a salary increase.

Just as raising our minimum wage is a worthwhile investment in our workforce, so are salary increases.

And this is where you're going to see the biggest change from our draft funding request.

When we were facing a significant drop in revenue as a result of the pandemic, our employees went without the raises we had planned to fund in the current school year.

They went without, yet they went above and beyond in every capacity in order to meet the needs of our students during a very challenging time.

We now have the opportunity to deliver on those raises, a decision that not only reflects the shifting market and helps us remain competitive, but also allows us to show our employees how much we value them and to do so in a meaningful way.

Our compensation strategy for fiscal year 2022 includes a 5% salary increase for teachers and at least a 2% salary increase for classified staff.

As state revenues continue to shift, we remain hopeful that we could further increase salaries for the classified staff.

And for your reference, classified personnel include many on the list I just mentioned, so bus drivers, custodians, teaching assistants, nurses, office staff, maintenance and food service staff.

As part of our strategy, employees at the lower end of our pay scale would receive the classified salary increase on top of the minimum wage adjustment.

So that brings us to the second category that's driving the increase.

So restoration.

This budget request does not seek to simply restore all of our past cuts.

We're not doing that.

We have identified the most strategic restoration areas to address in order to continue to improve and strengthen our school division.

First, I want to go over our enrollment projections.

So each year we allocate staffing, our FTEs, to schools based on enrollment projections.

Next school year we are projecting an increase of more than 800 students over current enrollment.

So moving from the 13,208 to 14,046.

When you look at the budget to budget projection, however, we are actually realizing a decrease of nearly 200 students.

So we were projected at 14,236 and we're going to be moving to 14,046.

So when we discuss the impact of our fiscal year 2022 budget in terms of expenditures, we're actually seeing a decrease in enrollment.

In the current school year, fiscal year 2021, we made cuts in our projected staffing, which means that we increased our student to teacher ratios in order to reduce our expenditures.

In fiscal year 2022, we are proposing to restore the student to teacher staffing ratios to original pre-COVID levels as adopted in our staffing standards.

This restoration results in an FTE increase that offsets the budget to budget decrease in enrollment.

Over time, special education enrollment has continued along a fairly predictable incline.

This year, as a result of COVID-19, we experienced a decrease in special education evaluations and referrals, with preschool enrollment suffering most significantly.

Since October, however, preschool evaluations appear to be back on track and overall enrollment in special education is increasing every month.

While enrollment remains stagnant from last year to this year, we anticipate that services will increase next year along normal levels, which will require an increase in special education staffing for fiscal year 2022.

By the way, guys, I hope it feels like I'm talking to you.

I'm not really in a room, so I look at the camera occasionally, but I'm trying to connect.

English learners.

We are currently serving 1409 English learners.

We saw a slight dip this year due to COVID-19 in students who exited their monitor status.

For monitor status, ELs are typically monitored for four years after they reach a WIDA level of 4.4, which indicates that they are proficient in English.

By the end of this school year, we anticipate that the number of ELs we are serving will rise to 1,470 students, and we're projecting a slight increase next year to 1,495.

So in summary, a restoration summary,

Our instructional restoration includes 8.1 FTEs for teachers and school staff representing restoration of student to teacher ratios, contingency staffing to address changes in enrollment, and one floating bookkeeper for the schools.

For special education, we're funding five instructional FTEs and four FTEs for special education bus drivers and assistants.

And in response to our growing English learner population, we're restoring four ESOL teaching positions and funding one additional FTE to accommodate new growth.

We've been quite conservative with restoration on the operational front, which includes restoring the full recurring transfer of 5,000, 500,000 to the Learning Resources Fund,

This is an internal service fund within our special revenue funds that provides instructional staff with necessary and contemporary learning resources to support the implementation of curriculum frameworks.

We're also proposing to restore only 6.5 of the 15 departmental FTEs we eliminated in fiscal year 2021.

This is a positive step forward, but it's still less than half of the positions we had previously cut.

Our strategy leaves $700,000 in operational cuts sustained in fiscal year 2021 that are not addressed in our fiscal year 2022 funding request.

getting unmuted here.

Thank you, Ms.

Nelson.

We have included two proposals in this funding request that total $640,000 in new funding.

And both of these, I think, are really bringing great excitement on the board.

The first proposal is our student safety coaches.

Earlier this year, Albemarle County Public Schools joined a growing number of school districts nationwide to increase trained staff to ensure a positive and safe school climate and provide basic security measures while minimizing the presence of law enforcement on our campus.

ACPS directed staff to develop an alternate program

promoting the mental health and emotional well-being of our students.

One of the primary reasons for this reevaluation was growing evidence that students of color are disproportionately impacted when it comes to disciplinary infractions that result in loss of instructional time and criminalization of behavior issues.

Our student safety coaches will concentrate on establishing a safe educational environment

while focusing on mental health, de-escalation, restorative justice, and safe physical interventions.

Their goal will align cultivating trusting relationships with students so that they can avert and mitigate behavior issues.

The total budget for this proposal of $551,000 is offset by eliminating the transfer for school resource offices, thereby reducing new funding needs to just over $286,000.

And our second new proposal, which is just as exciting to us, is the equity expansion.

Our second proposal components for effective implementation of our equity mission, including three full-time employees to expand our team of equity specialists.

This expansion will support the demand for culturally responsive teaching or CRT training and follow up support through the Office of Community Engagement, including delivery of our unique CRT professional development plan and certification model.

Demand for these services continue to grow, especially with a requirement effective in 2021 for all of our newly hired educators to complete a CRT micro-credential or CRT certification.

By 2022, the Division will introduce a plan to extend this professional development requirement to all of our instructional staff.

With a total budget of $354,000, the proposal also claims to provide oversight for implementation of anti-racism and other equity-related policy regulations.

Now back to Ms.

Thank you, Mr. Page.

So one-time revenues and expenditures.

Due to unexpected funding from the state in the current year, which we talked about earlier, the school division is projecting an increase of $5 million to our fund balance.

So we have some one time monies at our disposal and some high priority needs.

Our plan is to appropriate $4.1 million of our fund balance for one time expenditures in fiscal year 2022.

The majority of our one time monies will go toward funding learning recovery, which we'll talk more about in just a moment.

The remainder is allocated to transfers, contingencies, and reserves.

As we expect, there may be programs to fund after the budget development process comes to a close.

My time is short.

Thank you again, Ms.

Carlson.

As a result of closing our schools last March in response to COVID-19 and then reopening this past fall through a very modified learning environment, we have some real academic learning loss concerns.

This is an issue not just in our county, but across our state and our nation.

In January, ACPS assembled a learning recovery steering team composed of educators and staff who are focused on three primary areas, academic recovery, social-emotional learning recovery, and mental and physical health.

The overarching purpose of this team is to identify, address, and monitor those areas of recovery for all students and to develop and coordinate

a comprehensive range of strategies to support students, their families, and our educators and support staff.

We plan to direct the majority of our fund balance allocation and nearly 70% of our CARES funding to support learning recovery work.

Informed so far by research, feedback from community conversations, and mid-year review data, the steering team has identified a three-part process to address the adverse impacts of COVID-19 on learning.

The first step is geared toward relief.

This is where we are right now, and it involves ensuring that schools have the urgent resources they need to provide effective virtual and hybrid instruction.

This summer, we will begin implementing our recovery plan, which involves investing strategically in students in schools in order to begin making up lost ground.

Recovery will carry into next school year, during which we will launch the rebuilding part of the plan.

Rebuilding involves redesigning education to focus on three main things.

nurturing the whole child, balancing cognitive with social emotional skill development, and ensuring that every child has access to the conditions and resources needed to enhance their learning and development.

As the budget development process moves forward, the stirring team will continue to develop their recommendations.

Then, as we approach budget adoption in May, we will determine the funding we will dedicate to learning resources.

Depending on the timing of funds, we may include key responding in the adapted budget.

We have been allocated $8.9 million in CARES funding, and we are dedicating $6.1 million of that to learning recovery.

Plus, as we mentioned, we are planning to allocate one-time monies from our fund balance to finance learning recovery efforts.

Following budget appropriation, we hope to see the steering team's initial plans come to fruition in the new physical year, including summer program that is open to all students, expanding offering for K-5 students beginning this fall, and personalized learning plans supported by common assessments.

Since the Superintendent's Funding Request presentation on February 18, the School Board has held three budget work sessions, as well as a public hearing on our budget.

We will use the month of April, as indicated by the slide that we are viewing now, to adjust our budget.

as needed as we receive more information regarding state revenues and learn more about and make funding decisions to support learning recovery.

We plan to wrap up the FY22 budget cycle with budget adoption in May.

Again, we thank you members of the board for your partnership, your support, and your time this afternoon.

Thank you, Chair Page and Board Member Carlson.

We'll go through our order here.

Yes.

Thank you, Graham and Katrina.

Excellent presentation.

I really appreciate it.

I have a couple of questions.

I think there was a reference to increasing the classified raise from 2% if additional monies

appeared.

I think I caught that correctly.

Okay, so my question is based on commonality with schools and county government.

Just want to make sure that they're, and I know, you know, Matt and Jeff are working together very closely, but that

Commonality would come into that proposal, I am assuming.

We put you on the spot, but at least I may say working together would be a good thing, right?

That's true, right.

We do realize we aren't sure whether or not you are facing the same problems that we are of being in competition with Charlottesville for bus drivers and the other group of employees that Katrina mentioned.

It wouldn't be for all of them, but we are trying to remember that commonality thing

But we are facing that problem of really being in competition with Charlottesville and some of the surrounding areas.

But still, we haven't forgot the commonality.

Well, it's okay.

I'd appreciate it.

I'm just saying connectivity is always good and at least thinking about it and talking.

Help me a little bit more with understanding.

I am supportive of the student safety coaches.

Help me a little bit about how they might

what that group might look like or how they're trained.

Can you just expand a little bit on that for me?

So I can take that Mr. Page.

Thank you very much Ms.

McKeel and I just want to thank, always take an opportunity to thank Jeff Richardson for our work and relationship across organizations and of course this opportunity to present to the Board of Supervisors.

Occasionally you might hear, I do have a county backdrop here.

My son and I share an office sometimes so you can sometimes see him popping up while he's taking one of his UVA classes.

So sorry about that.

So I do want to say that there's been an extensive amount of planning and research that has gone into the student safety coaches.

And we're going to be doing significant training with these personnel that we'll be bringing on board.

There is a program at the Virginia Department of Education level for training what they call school safety officers and it's a certification that requires training in all sorts of areas such as crisis prevention and intervention.

and De-Escalation.

Also looking at things like crime prevention through environmental design so that they'll be qualified to do building inspections and be part of a safety management team at the school.

I would refer any board members who would like more information about this

to our most recent budget work session where Kevin Kurst presented much more detail than what was presented today.

We're gonna do this in conjunction with enhancing several safety features at our schools where we've needed to catch up over time, such as camera systems, as well as our check-in systems at the front entrances to the schools, and also moving to electronic key cards.

That's great.

Thank you very much.

That helped a lot.

I appreciate it.

And I could send constituents to that as well.

That's great.

All right.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I know that everybody's feeling pretty excited about the rosy finances at the moment, but are you setting any of it aside in case our future doesn't stabilize as far as the way our communities respond to changing health issues, et cetera?

I guess the two areas that I would love any extra information you have to add is about bright stars and about the after school program if those are going to be safely continuing I guess through the spring and fall and then expanding if possible.

So I'll, in a second, I'll ask Rosalind Schmidt and or Maya Kumisawa to talk a little bit about what we're doing to make sure that we're good stewards and are prepared for contingencies in the coming year.

And that's a great question, Supervisor McKeel.

We are running our extended day program now, and we do plan to run it and continue to grow it.

Part of our CARES recovery plan, in terms of using one-time money for that, we will use that to kickstart growing our EDEP program.

A pretty robust proposal last year that we scrapped because of the financial picture to grow our EDEP program.

to use school funds

Traditionally marginalized populations.

In addition to that, we are looking at expanding our EDP program to once again bring in pre-kindergarten children.

Prior to the changes in state code that took place, I think it was five years ago, that created restrictions on having smaller class sizes, licensure requirements, things like that.

We did have pre-kindergarten children attending our after school program.

It's not large numbers, but again, I think that economic factor was playing into it.

But we do plan to return to offering pre-kindergarten in our EDEP as we move forward.

That will be part of our CARES funding.

and it will be part of our recovery plan that we're fleshing out right now.

So for the other piece, I would turn it over to Rosalyn or Maya.

Good afternoon.

We do have some contingencies planned in next year's budget.

As we do every year, one contingency that we have is that we don't fully staff all the schools.

As you know, most of our budget, over 85% is staffing.

mostly at the schools.

And we initially don't fully staff to our 100% budgeted levels until we are more aware of our financial situation and other factors such as enrollment.

But in particular for FY22, we're also budgeting in FTEs for contingency because we don't know how many students will show up.

There's more uncertainties than other years.

So there is a contingency almost reserve

due to the uncertainty of how students will show up that we could either not spend and reserve.

Thank you very much, and thank you very much, Chair Page and Vice Chair Kallsen.

I just have a couple questions.

If Debbie Collins is available, give her a chance to jump in.

If not, okay, there she is.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for having us.

Okay, and how many days a week, how many hours a day, Ms.

We're looking at having two sessions, a morning session and an afternoon session.

That would be about three and a half hours each session.

and we would be running four weeks all of July.

Five days a week.

If I may, I would add, since we probably have a lot of the public in attendance today, is that we are currently putting out a request for proposals from our community partners that work with our students.

And often they have been great partners with the school system over the years for field trips, things like Triple C camp, Wild Rock, those kinds of programs come to mind.

We are running an RFP beginning today to invite those partners to make proposals to the school system so that we can provide programming for students in the summer that would be free of charge for the students, for their families.

As one of our elements of recovery will be social-emotional well-being and physical activity.

We've got some great partners out there and one of them right here

is also our Parks and Recreation Department.

We've had conversations with Bob Krichenberger and his staff, and they were, my first words that I heard that came from their department was that they were eager and excited to expand their offerings as much as they're able to, to work with our students.

And these programs would be offered at the school sites so that we can meet the students where they are.

And I noticed that Ms.

Yeah, that's what EDEP stands for.

We were thinking that some board members and maybe some people in the audience may not know what that is.

Okay, thank you very much and thank you also Dr. Haas.

And thank you, Chair Page, for speaking what Vice Chair Carlson had typed into the chat that this is the after school care program, the EDEP.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

I have two questions.

My first one, I wasn't quite clear on your explanation of what was happening in phase two of the raising the minimum wage to 15.

That's not happening in phase one.

Ms.

Yes, the current proposal for FY22 is to move the full-time classified scale to a $15 minimum.

So currently, in coordination with local government, we have two pay scales.

One is for part-time employees and one is for full-time employees.

And they're about five percentage points different from each other.

So the full-time scale will move to a minimum $15 floor.

The part-time scale would also move up but not quite reach the $15 in FY22.

Does the part-time get the 2% also?

That doesn't move them up to 15?

Okay, thank you.

And my second question, when you were talking about the 15 positions and operations, 15 positions that were cut in operations, clearly when you don't have kids coming to school, your operations really change.

But I'm curious, did you freeze those or were those actually cut?

And if they were actually cut, can you just give an example of a position that would have been cut in operations?

Not all 15, obviously.

They were not included in the FY21 budget.

So I don't know if there's a technical difference between freezing and cutting.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, they were frozen.

We identified positions that weren't filled at the time.

Thank you.

And this cut makes it sound like they were cut out rather than frozen.

And I have one other question that you may not be able to answer now, but I've asked this in past years from time to time of on the percentage of children that we have with disabilities, you said 12.4%

That's a great question, Supervisor Palmer.

I want to answer your other question a little more too.

We tried to be really creative where we did need to do some cutting.

So for example, we had started having our own procurement officer

during the fiscal year 1920 so that we could have a better interface with the procurement office in the county office building.

And so we did actually cut that position from the budget going into next year.

However, the procurement officer was a high school assistant principal who had come down to work with us.

Her name was Cassandra Blount.

and so we asked her if she would go back and be a high school assistant principal but then she won the job at Burley Middle School so there were a couple of positions like that where because we have people that can be jacks of all trades and we really try to have lots of learning opportunities for our staff we were able to be creative like that so

That is a good question and I like the way you explained cutting because I hadn't had that explained that way to me before and now I've got a good explanation for that.

The national average for identifying special education students is 13%.

When I started working in Albemarle County Schools in 2004, we were closer to 16%.

So I think there's been a great deal of effort and work to bring down those identification rates because there is over-identification nationally, also in the state and then locally.

One of the big pieces that's helped us bring that down over time is the response to intervention process where many, many years ago, the way things would work is if there was an issue with the child's learning and there was a gap

They would immediately go to a child study team, which was a premonition straight to an IEP or special education.

And what we do now is really have a time in between the student getting a little bit behind

and get going to the child study team where a group meets, they work on an intervention process.

They've used school-based and also curriculum-based assessments to track the students' progress.

And in many cases, we're able to head off that referral to the child study team for an IUP.

And so we've been able to bring that down over time to where we're below the national average.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Understood on the safety coaches, what that is, the content, the program, etc.

The amount, the actual dollar amount, is that a change year over year or was that just a

The total budget is the $500,000 that was on the slide.

That's the total cost for the new program in FY22.

You might have seen a different number because the new funding is actually

And that's about $200 some over what was the previous program?

Yes.

Thank you.

And I apologize if I missed this, but Supervisor McKeel brought up the 2%, 3% for the classified.

We have not.

We will probably be looking at it later, like in April and May, but it hasn't happened now.

But we also realize the commonality factor.

You know, we are sort of weighing all of those things, but it hasn't been put into the budget as of now.

Got it.

I think I'm pleased to see the equity pieces that are going in, the effort that's being put there and also the delay, the phrasing has escaped my head, the piece you're doing to help those

Due to the last year and the changes we've done to kind of get kids caught back up, especially from a social emotional standpoint, I think that's going to be important.

So I was very pleased to see that.

Thank you.

I have a comment and then some questions.

First, thank you, Chair Page, Vice Chair Carlson, Superintendent Haas, and Ms.

Kumazawa for the information you've provided.

I think it's appropriate right now just to express appreciation for everyone throughout the county for all the work they've done for the most difficult time.

And, you know, to praise one group is not necessarily to exclude another group.

We're talking about the school system right now.

And commonality is an important aspect in terms of all of the county employees, whether they be working directly for the county or for the school system, to know that they are all equally appreciated.

But we also recognize that market forces drive things and there are certain segments of our employment population that we must target at various times in order to remain

I recognize that there is a bit of a balance that must be undertaken

to try and ensure that all employees know that they are appreciated, recognized, and properly compensated, yet at the same time ensuring that we meet those market forces so that we remain competitive across the board.

So with that as background, I also want to say, I absolutely admire, respect, but in this aspect, I am in awe of what the teachers have done this year.

The closest observation I have is with a grandchild in first grade and what I have seen his school and his teacher do over the course of the many changes that have taken place in the teaching formula in person, remote, mixed, now today starting, you know, the four day a week in person.

My hat is off to all of them and I think it's important for our residents to appreciate that.

My question is this.

I saw that the state budget the governor has proposed and I guess is enacting a five percent teacher and state employee pay raise.

Ms.

No, I was going to say it actually helps, but I'll turn things over to Ms.

Kumisawa to elaborate.

No, I mean, I agree.

It does help.

They do fund whatever salary proposal that the state is proposing with the caveat that it doesn't fully fund any increase.

It's not one for one.

It is the partial offset of

Thank you, Ms.

Kumisawa.

And I think that's helpful for our residents to understand that it is not specifically county funding that goes in to this proposal coming from the school board, that there is funds that comes from the state.

And that helps put it in a little bit of a different category.

And the other thing, of course, is sometimes we do have to target particular segments of our employment population in order to maintain those market forces.

So I think that really is the principal question that I had.

Ms.

Kumisawa, thank you.

And with this, I think, Chair Page, if you are finished, then I'm ready to turn it back over.

If it's okay, I have a follow up to the question Supervisor Price just asked about the state pay raise.

I know that as usual annually there are considerations.

There's a lot of debate around it, but I haven't seen the outcome of those decisions yet.

If you would like, we can prepare information for you and the Board of Supervisors to elaborate on what was added to SOQ funded positions.

Yeah, I'd appreciate that.

I'd be curious.

I just I know that Albemarle goes beyond what rightfully so goes beyond what is required of the state and the state really needs to move along further on that.

And to your point, I would add, Dr. Galloway,

that every school system in Virginia exceeds the SOQ staffing.

And other supervisors, I'll just look at that for a show of hands if there are any other questions.

Seeing none, I think at that point I thank you again

Thank you and while our presentation is being pulled up, thank you Laura.

The next thing we're going to talk about is the recommended capital budget and debt management and we can go ahead to the next slide.

Great, sometimes it takes a moment.

So to really talk about the fiscal year 22 recommended capital budget and for debt service as well, I really need to first tell the story about how we got here over the past year.

And I'll share that there's nothing in here the board hasn't already seen, either through the CIP advisory committee's recommendation, or some of the work that's come along the way.

But it has been a while for some of that content.

And so I do want to take a few moments to frame the process and the recommendation for how it all fits together.

So going all the way back to about this time last year really in May when the fiscal year 21 capital budget was adopted it was during the early stages of the pandemic and the county paused several capital projects and programs.

This action was due to projected declining revenues and an uncertain economic situation as well as an uncertain bond market.

and has been noted before throughout pretty much every work session we have for other budget management check-ins.

We've been managing the fiscal year 21 budget through a 3-6-6 timeframe, referring to the last three months of fiscal year 20, the first six months of fiscal year 21, and the last six months of fiscal year 21.

So fast forwarding from May to a little further down the road in October there was a joint board and joint school board meeting that was held on a couple topics including the capital budget and at that meeting on October 21st the board's agreed to a simplified capital budget process where the capital improvements program advisory committee was charged to develop a capital proposal for the remainder of 21 and for the remainder of 22.

And for those who may be listening, what I'll call the CIP Advisory Committee is made up of two board members, two school board members, a planning commissioner, and an appointed citizen representative.

So the CIP Advisory Committee met on November 24th and December 3rd and reviewed projects that were polished or delayed in fiscal year 2021.

All projects originally planned to be for fiscal year 22 where the financial impacts of the COVID pandemic were known.

That recommendation is included in the fiscal year 22 budget.

So moving to the next slide to kind of talk about some of the high level assumptions that the advisory committee looked at before they prepared their prioritization.

There were several notable assumptions that we revised from where we were prior to the pandemic.

And I will start in the upper left.

and just kind of work myself clockwise around these four boxes on the chart.

The first of which is we now have the stabilized bond market.

Projects were primarily paused last year due to the instability of the bond market at the time we were approving the budget.

That is stabilized and it's no longer a concern.

And I should note on this point that the bond market is stabilized and that's so much more about the total economy, nothing particular to the county.

And this spring, the county is planning to issue approximately $83 million in borrowed proceeds in the current fiscal year, fiscal year 21.

And the first payment will be in fiscal year 22 of that debt service.

That is reflected in all the numbers of our budget process.

And this is a significant issuance, but we are still within all of the county's financial policies for debt management.

And that is due to the decisions that have been made in past years to delay borrowing when possible.

And so the debt could be paid off to retire and create that capacity.

So we'll be in this position for the spring.

The second major update on the upper right was our interest rate assumption.

Interest rates are lower now than they were at the time of the prior to the pandemic.

So working with our financial advisor we were able to reduce our projected interest rates and that results in about a savings of around $400,000 in future years.

The third box on this slide in the lower right, we have eliminated a potential tax increase that was due to the board's prior discussion in October.

I should clarify that the tax rate increase was due in the pre-pandemic budget based on the prior advisory committee's work about a year ago.

And then the final assumption in the lower right is that the model for the capital budget that we prepared was modeled on 0% growth in fiscal year 2022.

What I'm referring to is the transfer from the general fund to the capital fund.

That approach in the fall was continued to be a cost reduced revenue projection.

At that time, we did not know the results of the calendar year 21 reassessment for real estate.

We did not know what the results would be of our December tax collection, which is when a large chunk of the county's revenues are received related to property taxes.

and also our consumer-driven revenues, such as meals tax, sales, and hotel or transit occupancy taxes.

They were more volatile in the fall as we were just getting additional data coming out of the pandemic.

As we know now, we shared some charts last week.

Those are stabilizing, but still below where we've been.

It's a lot of data we did not have at the time of the fall that drove us to consider a flat revenue growth in the general fund in 2022.

So even with a flat transfer from the general fund in 22 to the capital debt program, the county is still able to move forward with notable projects fiscal year 22 pursuant to the CIP Advisory Committee's recommendation.

So we can go to the next slide, and this is more moving to some changes we made on the revenue side to looking at the expenditures that were prioritized.

Staff presented 23 projects to the advisory committee that were paused in fiscal year 21,

or they were scheduled to move forward in 22 that were looked at through four lenses that were shown on the slide.

The first of which is our strategic plan and our new reality.

Our strategic plan is driven any year.

This is really referring to the nine strategic priorities of the board of supervisors, but also reflecting on the new reality of the pandemic, that some projects, whether it be outdoor recreation or some other things, changed our thinking and how we prepared a prioritization for the advisory committee to consider.

Second criteria we looked at was around affordability and taxpayer considerations, again knowing that there would not be a tax rate increase dedicated to capital based on the board's direction in October.

A third priority or third lens we looked at was around our ability to execute on capital projects.

This was something we spoke about last week about the delicate balance between our capital program and our operating budget.

knowing that with many notable projects already underway and more in the works, we have to balance that at the same time we have a number of first positions and also have a lot of staff capacity directed to the response to the pandemic and the support of our community and organization.

And the final lens we looked at in this project and program criteria was the operational cost impact, knowing that in an uncertain financial outlook, those items that may have higher operating costs, we would want to be cautious about prioritizing those highly.

So based on that initial criteria, staff prepared a recommendation for the advisory committee's recommendation.

And prior to that, going to the advisory committee, we had a part of the November 18th meeting with the board.

That was an opportunity for the board to provide feedback and questions for the representatives the board has on the advisory committee.

And after that meeting of the 18th, the committee met twice and we put forward a recommendation.

I say we, the committee, put forward a recommendation that I will first talk through at a very high level in our capital program and then go to what was included in 21 and 22.

So going to the next slide this is a number we don't always talk about much in the budget but it's a a total picture of 181 million dollars that refers to our current active projects in the capital budget as well as those that are being proposed to move forward in the 22 budget.

Our recommendation is built from the bottom up and this chart illustrates that and we'll go to the top of the chart in the next few slides but

We have already in current projects and programs that were addressed in the fiscal year 2021 adopted budget or carried forward from a prior year about 90 million dollars in those current active projects.

So no decision, additional decisions need to be made on those.

The board has already appropriated that funding.

The next category is where the CIP advisory committees and then the board of supervisors direction really came into play or additional direction I should say came into play.

where in January the board appropriated $34 million of projects that were previously paused that were then able to be unpaused as our financial picture began to stabilize.

That is that section in blue in the middle of the chart.

And then final for our discussion today, where we are today, is the recommended 22 budget.

That is a section in green for $57 million capital budget that would be additive to those items already approved in gray and in blue.

So in the next two slides, I will cover in more detail what makes up the blue and the green pieces of this chart.

So this is a slide the board has seen before.

These are of the 23 projects that were prioritized.

There are 12 that are moving forward either in 21 or in 22.

Eight of the 12 projects have already been approved and appropriated in fiscal year 21.

They are in the dollar amounts and it's on the red box on the screen.

And I won't dwell on this slide too much because these projects have already been approved and the board has seen this list before.

So with that, we'll move to the next slide to talk about fiscal year 22, which is just moving that red box to the next column to the right.

For the remaining four projects that would have additional funding in fiscal year 22, they are additional funding for economic development, public-private partnerships.

That's what's meant by P3s, public-private partnerships.

We also have $3 million in additional funding for transportation leveraging program.

There are $6.3 million for the Mountain View expansion and site improvements.

Then the final project was about a trailhead for the Moores Creek Trail that would then make a connection into a greater trail network in the future.

So now to look at the next slide, because the CIP's advisory committee's recommendation is not the only thing in 22, but this is just one slide, everything that makes up that $57 million.

The first of which is on this one slide is of our maintenance and replacement and ongoing programs.

As is the case in capital budgets, we want to prioritize the maintenance and replacement of our existing assets.

That total is about $20 million in fiscal year 22.

I should note, just like new projects, county staff have scrubbed the numbers of working with departments in the school division as well.

As we talk about that lens of our ability to execute to ensure that we were being, you know, I guess fair in our treatment of new projects as well as we were in the current projects.

So the result of that was a $20 million maintenance program for fiscal year 22.

In addition to maintenance and replacement, there are obligations that are included in the fiscal year 22 budget.

Just a couple examples, there is the final year of the Senior Center at Belvidere contribution pursuant to an agreement that the Board of Supervisors adopted a few years ago.

That's approximately half a million dollars.

A much larger dollar amount that is from an agreement that the Board approved in the past.

There is $25.2 million at fiscal year 22.

That is the next phase of the courts complex for the general district court renovation and addition construction.

And I should note that $25 million is just the fiscal year 22 portion.

Not all that will be spent in fiscal year 22.

That is just one piece of the total project, which totals $44 million, where funding is currently allocated and that will continue through fiscal year 24.

So beyond maintenance, replacement, and obligations, we next have on the slide

The four projects are identified in the CIP advisory committee's recommendation that we're not already moving forward in fiscal year 21.

And the final item on the slide I have is an asterisk because this came after the CIP's recommendation and this refers to the North Garden Ambulance and Equipment of about half a million dollars total that was discussed last week at the work session.

And we have additional time for fire rescue to talk about on Thursday.

so in a just very high summary level that walks us through you know kind of where did we get from the adopted budget in May to where are we today what was kind of some of the work that was shared with the advisory committee what was their recommendation and how does that fit together into the fiscal year 22 budget so this time I will pause for any board questions.

Supervisor McKeel.

Thank you, Andy.

This was a good recap of where we are right now and I appreciate it.

This recommendation to our capital budget is a snapshot of where we are right now with our revenues and ability to fund capital projects.

And I guess where I'm going with that is that I am hopeful and looking forward to a discussion again about capital projects or looking at the possibility that we may be receiving other one-time funds

based on the Federal Government's Recovery Act.

That's where I was trying to figure out where we're going to talk about that, because I do have some things that I'd like to talk about at that point, but I wanted to distract from where we are today, because I understand we've agreed to these, and these are priorities that, you know, we've agreed to fund.

That is correct, and prior to that, as we learn more, there may be some categories and expenditures that are eligible or better fit for that funding.

Yeah, because I'm very interested in looking at some projects that would address some of the equity concerns prospectively rather, anyway, it's okay.

So we'll have that discussion on the 29th.

There we go.

Okay, thank you.

Let me run through my stuff.

I think I am all right right now.

Yes, I'm thinking exactly along the lines of Diantha just asked, but I'm wondering and I agree with her that we don't want to distract from these things that are on the screen right now.

They've been well thought out and we've agreed to them.

However, I wonder if it would be a, I think depending on our time situation, it would be a good idea for board members to let other staff and other board members, what they're thinking about now so that we can be thinking about some of those things

I'm sure everybody has their list.

I certainly do.

But I have one question while I have the mic too, is that, other than my long list, is that not only apparently are, and I'd love somebody to correct me, but not only are we going to get the approximately 20 million that Nelsie was talking about in the beginning, but that the state is also getting a significant

amount of money in addition for broadband and wastewater and water treatment facilities.

And so if anybody can speak to that at some point, I'd like to know if we have information and if that would be included on the discussion of the 29th at all.

I'll stop there.

Yeah I can Andy and then you can you can add anything.

What we know and that's part of our challenge Supervisor Palmer is

There's not only the funds that are going to come to us directly, much like CARE-CRF, but trying to understand all the other buckets of funding and their impact in our community.

And so as I look at the current 21-ish million dollars, one of the provisions that I saw in one of the items that was provided to us was that infrastructure investments were for water, sewer, and broadband.

And that would be part of our funding.

And so what we want to make sure we can understand and prepare for for the 29th is what other funding is out there for those same items.

And in terms of infrastructure investments, is that it?

Is that all we're allowed to fund as part of this funding that we're getting from the state?

And so those are absolutely what we're trying to get answers for so you all can have that to make some decisions about where we'd like to fund.

I would say probably the primary focus of the 29th will be the funds the County will receive themselves.

We have to keep a very watchful eye on all the impacts and help them elsewhere such as the state.

You know I understand and this is preliminary information that transit will also receive some of this funding as well.

That will impact CAT and Jaunt and I know we have a work session with some of the information on the 22nd but

Depending on how much information is out there, there may be some follow-up that we have to do, as was the case last year as CARES funding was being realized.

So just a comment and one question to be answered as you go through this.

On water and wastewater, I'm curious if that's going to include in any way stormwater infrastructure for our aging infrastructure in the urban area.

It doesn't sound like it, but I haven't read all the stuff, so I don't know if it includes water quality.

And also just something for the board to consider, we don't usually think about water and wastewater treatment because ACSA and RWSA take care of that.

However, if they are not, they didn't get CARES money before directly,

or indirectly for that matter.

But one of the things that we may want to think about in the equity world is that we have a lot of aging infrastructure in our water treatment plants.

and we've got significant costs associated with that and increase in water prices over the next several years.

And so to help with some of those project-ready, those shovel-ready projects, we may just want to consider something like that.

And I just wanted to put that thought out there.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm not sure of the specific answer around store water construction, some of those, but I can see our staff has made a note of that.

Thank you.

Chair Galloway.

Thank you.

I do not have any questions about what is in front.

I guess I would, I know we'll be discussing a list and potential items to be put on the list for expenditures, but I think

looking at this the capital projects that are improved especially from the school projects that are there that it's I think as we all know we are still playing catch-up from past issues with our CIP trying to accommodate the demand or the the growth that we've been seeing in the schools

understood that the pandemic has changed some things, but I expect in four or five, five to 10 years out, especially in the northern feeder pattern, as development continues in our development area, where are we going to put butts in seats when we're back to that normal type of situation, especially with elementary school students?

There's obviously land applications that are coming.

People are concerned.

I think all of us have been around long enough to know how students, how the redistricting has played out between Woodbrooke to Hollymede to Baker-Butler, then a Woodbrooke expansion on the heels of a Greer and Agner-Hert expansion.

But, you know, the growth, if it continues to go into the growth area, and the projects that I'm seeing right now, rightfully so, for Crozet and for Mountain View, but there's a coming, there's going to be a coming concern for

Elementary School seats, I'm afraid, in the 29 North that has to be on discussion at some point.

And if we're going to be considering dollars going into the CIP, I expect that that's going to have to play into the conversation just to accommodate that future growth.

And with that, I'm finished.

Thank you.

I actually have a question, I believe, for Mr. Richardson.

Thank you, Mr. Bowman.

Mr. Richardson, we're all getting

You know, inquiries from our constituents about particular projects they would like to see in the CIP.

As I understand this, and I'm asking you to clarify or correct, in addition to the funding for the actual project,

There are at least two other substantial considerations that we have to take into account.

One is county staff capacity to manage the project and then once it's completed the operating expenses and staff for that.

No ma'am, that's exactly right.

It's our ability to be able to execute internally and that every project is different in how we go through that and take a look at it in terms of what the capacity impact will be on our staff.

and then a good example of the operational impact.

It's easier to talk about this because we've already got one in place and that would be a convenience center.

And so the Southern Albemarle Convenience Center, we can look at the Ivy Convenience Center and determine that it's about 1.1 million perhaps of one-time money, one-time investment in order to get that built and ready to open.

And then our ongoing cost

We're going to use a placeholder number of about $400,000 a year of continuous operating.

That's a stream of money that we would have to take from the general fund on a year-to-year basis if that convenience center were to be used in the same way that the one in Ivy is used.

And so those are some things that we take a look at.

and trying to balance between the capital fund and the general fund and if you go back in fact Supervisor Price to a prior meeting that we had where we looked at the nine strategic goals in tandem underneath that was the quality government operations bar and that's really looking at your strategic plan and all the capital investment and you're looking for a balance across those nine areas.

but you're also having to look at the underpinning of that on a day-to-day basis of the work that's required inside of our organization in order to get that done.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

Any other questions from any supervisors?

I don't see any hands up.

Yes, I just wanted to make a point that while I do agree with Supervisor McKeel and looking forward to March 29th about additional funds, I think we also have to make sure that we don't enter into anything too soon.

that we could have, we find out a month or so later, we could have used funding X instead of funding Y and Y would have been much more flexible for us.

So, I mean, I think it's very important for Ms.

Burch and everyone to find out exactly what monies we will get, we are getting, we will be getting in what pots of categories to look at that because I certainly don't want to

fund something out of category X when it should be funded out of category Y and we could have used Y for something else.

All right board we are a few minutes ahead of schedule it is just after 4 30 we're scheduled for a 4 40 break.

No, let's go ahead and do those now.

I'm sorry.

I apologize, Mr. Bowman.

Nowhere is it off.

This next slide is just a reminder that on Wednesday, there will be an appropriation request coming

February 17th to provide funding from the CIP Advancing the Street Priorities Reserve, and also the Pantempa Reserve to support broadband, the Southern Convenience Center, and the raise for Earliesville Road planning.

But the more substantial slide we're gonna talk to is the next one, which is a recommended adjustment to the fiscal year 22 capital budget.

Thank you, Andy.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board.

This ties in nicely to some of the conversation you're just having with regard to the capacity that we have in our organization to deliver on opportunities to complete capital projects.

This is a proposal that would have been included in the county executive's recommended budget had we got it in time.

But since we're at this point, we want to bring it to your attention now.

This is the principal planter transportation position.

This is currently frozen in the general fund.

It's been left vacant for the balance of the year due to the promotion of Kevin McDermott to the planning manager position.

And so, as you know, this is one of those 19 frozen positions that you've heard us talk about a number of times.

I don't need to go down each of the bullets.

You can read that yourself.

I do think that you understand the complexity of the environment that we work in and our relationship with VDOT.

You understand how well we have recently scored with respect to the smart scale projects and how much money that we're putting into revenue sharing.

What we really need is more of an ability on the local side to be able to manage that work and that's work that Kevin has done to a degree.

and now with that vacancy we're obviously hoping to fill it.

The change has come that we have determined our ability to justify using capital funding rather than general fund funding for this position that is 100% supportive of capital projects related to transportation.

So I'd be glad to answer any questions.

Thank you, Mr. Walker.

Sorry, I was trying to unmute myself.

Doug, help me out with this just a little bit.

I am very supportive of this position.

I think we really do need it in the county.

That's the proposal, yes ma'am.

The proposal is that we would fund it instead of from the general fund, we would fund it from the capital budget.

For example, we fund a good deal of the support through FES, through PF&D division, right?

Because they have direct support for the capital program.

This would fall into that category of position.

Yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, I think that helps.

It's just unusual in my head to have a position like this funded through the CIP.

Well, it would still just be funded there.

It would still live in community development, be part of the transportation group, working with Kevin, working with Daniel.

I was just going to say the intent though is to have it funded.

There's not a sunset clause or anything like that.

Our expectation is that the way that the state provides its funding to support transportation improvement projects and the complexity with which that the county, which of course does not own or maintain its own roads, that we would expect that this position would ongoing be appropriately funded out of the capital fund, out of the capital budget.

rather than the general fund.

If for some reason all the money dried up for transportation improvements in the county, then we might have to reconsider.

I do too.

Thank you.

That was very helpful.

I appreciate it.

Yes ma'am.

Thank you.

I guess my only additional question piling on to what Diantha just said is the money, there is no outside revenue source.

However, it's the same source of money.

It's just coming out of a different bucket, but it's still all tax revenue locally.

that we're having to raise for this.

OK.

All right.

And if I can leave, I'm not sure when I'm supposed to ask this other question.

So if I may leave it and then someone can decide when it's appropriate to answer it, that would be very helpful to me.

Someone asked me today what the business optimization fund was.

and I was having trouble explaining it and I want to make sure that I have the right information.

So if someone could update us on that at some point in writing or in the meeting, that would be really great.

All right.

No questions for me at this time.

Thank you very much.

I do agree with funding this position, frankly.

I have a question actually on the last slide from Andy.

on the appropriations that we're going to make on Wednesday.

And the whole board has clearly, and myself included, supported the $3 million for the broadband affordability access.

My question is given that it's this pot of money from the state coming for broadband,

and we don't have a lot of information.

Would it give any value to hold off until the 29th of passing that, approving that 3 million for that particular thing in light of considerable amount of funds coming from the state to fund this?

I can speak a little bit.

if the state does not allow us to essentially supplant the funding that we already have provided.

It's a very good question and a very good point that we should really think through because broadband is certainly one of those areas where it will be eligible to be funded because there's no discrepancy in any of the things I'm reading.

Right, so your point is well taken.

The issue really is our ability to start some projects and to move forward on some of the things you all heard last week.

But I think that that could be a very wise move for us to delay the vote of that $3 million.

Yeah, I think there's an additional piece that Trevor Henry, Assistant County Executive, spoke to is that a portion of that $3 million, if the board is comfortable moving forward with this broadband office in 2022, we could actually work to start that office in the affordability fund and some of the components earlier.

I don't know whether the funding from the federal government or the state would create funding to offset those positions.

What I've read is it tends to be more infrastructure related.

I'm not sure so because another option could be

If the board were to move forward, assuming there are comfortable moves in 22, to get some of the wheels in motion for the staffing.

Is there a value for you guys just to consider that a little bit more?

And if, I mean, we're talking a week.

of difference, essentially.

So I'm just asking the question.

I'm not trying to postpone starting that office by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm sure there's nobody on the board that would want to postpone that.

Yeah, I think we will absolutely take that, Supervisor Palmer.

Okay.

Yeah, we will work through that with the County Executive's office.

Yeah, I believe just because it's Trevor on the broadband authority, I think we would need to follow with him at a separate time just to be a sort of be three members of the board just for logistics.

We would need to call their authority to order should you know, should we participate in conversation around broadband.

Okay, well, I'm just suggesting that maybe you think through it, you let us know if it's a bad thing to do.

You know, we come to the board with the recommendation of Wednesday.

Okay, thank you very much.

I guess if it's useful knowing it's coming back, not to belabor Supervisor Palmer's point, I think there's some merit in doing the delay.

But if the 300, I think it was 260 or 300 grand was going to be put into this year for the

to get the office up and running.

And then we were going to backfill that 300 grand back in to keep it at 3 million.

So there could be, if we didn't want to delay or if waiting to the end of the month was a big delay, that that portion could at least come forward if needed.

But I'm just throwing it out as an additional option.

I'm supportive of the transportation position.

A good question that I can't answer in the moment.

A number of the project managers in the PFD division of FES, they're also, I believe, a position or two in finance.

Let's get that information and get that out to the whole board.

That's a good question.

Yeah.

Thank you, Doug.

That's all.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Boes.

I was going to just add, we'll get that number to you.

It is the kind of three components.

It would be this position, if approved, three and a half positions in finance and budget, and then the entirety of the division of facilities planning and construction that has.

Thank you.

I appreciate Supervisor Palmer's question about the broadband.

I mean candidly I believe we almost can't put enough money into broadband expansion and support.

I remain a little uncertain as to why

certain positions are funded out of the CIP rather than taking that money, putting it into the general operating budget and then funding them from there.

So in addition to simply listing those positions, if it would be possible to give me a little more of an explanation as to why that funding source, but that is not to in any way imply that I do not support those positions.

Yes, on the position, I would just like to understand a little more why they're funded out of a CIP budget rather than out of the regular general fund.

Any other questions?

Thank you.

Any other questions, Supervisors?

Mr. Bowman, are we now ready for our break?

Yes, thank you.

All right, let's go ahead and take a break and we'll come back at five minutes till.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Correct, thank you.

So we will continue today on this is called Transfers and Reserves, but it's really referring to the non-departmental chapter of the book.

We discussed the largest parts of this chapter on Wednesday, you know, including the revenue shooting payments to the city,

the transfers from the general fund to capital and debt funds.

But we're going to spend a little time today and talk about some of those other reserves and transfers that are funded with one-time money.

Those are notably on page 139 and 142, so it won't be the whole chapter.

and specifically I have comments on four items and after those four items we'll ask for any board questions and comments.

To the next slide, this is just a reference slide we showed the board before last week and the executive's presentation.

It's really that chart on the right which is a pyramid that we've shown to really kind of how staff made recommendations for board consideration to use one-time funding that's available.

First, that we're meeting and enduring our financial foundation.

Second, that we're looking into our economic outlook and supporting the community.

We're choosing priorities.

And then the third is that workforce stabilization.

So uh moving to the first one that I will highlight fiscal year 22 recommended budget includes six hundred thousand dollars provided for the climate action pool and I should clarify that this funding if the board is comfortable with it is actually recommended to be appropriated in the current fiscal year fiscal year 21 after the budget is adopted.

So for perspective on how this six hundred thousand dollars fits into current climate action funding

Department of Facilities and Environmental Services on the annual operating budget that's ongoing money.

There's $100,000 that supports efforts such as LEED's Home Energy Audit Program and also efforts of the Charlesville Climate Collaboration, or C3, for their home energy and better business challenges.

That is ongoing every year.

In addition to that, in fiscal year 21, there was $250,000 that was pleasured to support low-income housing weatherization in efforts to move forward on that initiative.

And I should note that $250,000 does not meet all the demand that is out there for that effort, certainly beyond that.

That's just one example of how the funding was put to use already, or beginning to be put to use already.

In addition to that $250,000 in one timeline, there's another $500,000 that was approved for general climate action implementation funds.

Right now a portion of that funding is being used to support electric vehicle chargers at county office buildings underway right now in the county office building.

And beyond that the climate action plan identifies a long list of potential uses to funds.

This $600,000 would augment at plus the leftover from the $500,000 to augment those ways that are augment those efforts that are currently underway.

What's shown on the slide is really a four-step process that's led by the Department of Facilities and Environmental Services for future resource commitments related to the Climate Action Pool, where they look to a prioritization matrix.

They identify projects and how they align with the Climate Action Plan and the uses of those funds and then implement those as appropriate.

So again this is $600,000 that would be in addition to what's already funded and how those current efforts and as well as those will be identified in the future in the context of the climate action plan.

So moving to the next slide there is $600,000 to go to the housing fund and like the climate action funding that is recommended to be appropriated in fiscal year 21 after the adoption of the 22 budget.

This funding would be added to the current housing fund and reserve

and the other proper funding the county has received in the last year.

And all of this in combination, the $600,000, the additional proper funding and balance, that would create a reserve of just over 1.9 million that is intended to support housing initiatives that are one-time cost and support the county's strategic and housing goals.

What is shown on this slide is a four-step process for how a process in the coming months would be carried out with the Board of Supervisors to utilize that funding.

Step one would be that the housing policy would be adopted and so this reserve would be a place to enable something to move forward to the next budget process that would already be here.

So then step two would be drafting an RFP and evaluation tool led by Dr. Stacey Patia who's been very involved with the board and these housing discussions.

an operation would occur and then the board could approve the uses the specific funding later in the calendar year this puts that funding in place for when those uh you know ideas are ready to be actualized my final comment on the housing fund is that in addition to this 1.9 million reserve reserve to support the performance agreement between the county the economic development authority and habitat for humanity that's about 1.7 million and that supports the project in the southwood community

So moving on to the third slide.

This refers to the Strategic Priority Support Reserve that's included in the operating budget.

And this was a reserve that was created in fiscal year 18.

It's been used in the past primarily to support the implementation of strategic planning initiatives that is mainly in the Department of Community Development and supporting their work program.

is largely involved in many of the board's nine strategic priorities.

In recent months, the community development department has been discussing with the board how to best accomplish that.

That discussion will be continuing in the coming months and also in the context of their work program.

I believe that's coming back to the board next in April or May.

So this funding of $655,000 that is intended to provide a one-time contractual support to augment their staff as they plan a comp plan update, any subsequent zoning related work, and also a spotlight initiatives that are in the coming years.

And what's on this slide are also four steps like the previous ones but you'll see there are fiscal years on this because this

Reserve now, but it will be spent out over the next four years, fiscal year 21, 22, 23, and 24 as each phase of the project moves to the next.

And so for the fourth slide on reserves, I will turn that over to Christy Shifflin.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board.

I'm Christy Shifflett.

I'm the Director of the Project Management Office.

And as Supervisor Malek already mentioned today, we're going to talk about the Business Process Optimization Reserve, what it does and what this year's request is about.

The BPO, we call it BPO, and it is a reserve that was created a couple of years ago to fund one-time organizational needs.

as they emerge and are defined in order to optimize our performance.

This reserve has provided project management, technology solutions, workforce training, and business process improvement to our departments with a focus on improving customer service.

One example would be the new website.

Many of you will recall we had a 20-year-old system

that required a lot of maintenance and resources and limited our ability to meet modern service delivery.

The website needed replacing, but it also required project management, training, and staff support to accomplish this effort.

The BPA Reserve provided funding for that initiative.

Because we were able to have focused resources on the project, we were able to launch the new website, improve mobile access to our community and partners, as well as modernize our web capabilities, even while we were managing the pandemic response.

Our BPO program is where we reserve funds for those non-departmental organizational efforts to assess the foundational systems that drive the organization and service delivery.

Next slide, please.

So this year's budget, we're aligning our systems and process improvement again with work that enables us to see how we can and should be working differently to drive performance.

This budget recommends contributing $3.1 million in one-time funding to further this multi-year work.

In FY21, we've begun building a roadmap.

Really, how might we replace a new community development system as well as an enterprise resource planning, or ERP, effort in order to update our business systems for the modern workplace?

We understand this is a large undertaking, but our technology in these areas are aging and limited.

The lift of this work is why there's a multi-year approach.

Also, I just want to share an example is our intake and community development is automated and does have the ability to take those types of requests.

However, it doesn't integrate with the county view system.

And so someone currently is manually putting that information in.

That's the type of work that we hope to overcome and accomplish with this.

So the purpose behind the redesign work that you see here is to add value to internal and external customers, reduce delays between local government departments, offer standardization, and promote compliance to ultimately provide excellent performance to our community.

It's also, as you see in FY22, to assist with the upcoming strategic plan update and also to integrate equity into our program and project design using data and to continue our work to formally assess our internal structure so there's money for staff support identified for our new community value.

And then lastly in FY23, we're going to continue to the next phase to support the system design, procurement, and hopefully project launch.

And that's all I have.

Sure, yeah, thanks, Christy and others.

That was a great overview, but I wanted to spend just a moment to put a pin in this piece of the program for the board.

And so the last several slides that you saw were really our response to being resilient, which is part of the nomenclature we're using for this budget is how do we go from where we were

We just went through and are going through a pandemic and we're transitioning to a new reality.

So how do we make sure that we don't lose our focus?

and don't lose our ability to drive outcomes that the board wants to see of us.

We have spent considerable time over the last few weeks showing the board how, when you looked at all of the obligations that we had, we only had about $2 million to support the things that we needed to do in our local government and on the general fund side.

And so this is an area where we were really strategic to use one-time sources of funding

which came from prior year positive budgetary variance to support us, to transition us to the future that we're trying to get to.

And so I think, you know, between the housing and the climate action and the CDD work, and also this

I just wanted to spend a moment there to make sure

Just a couple of thoughts.

On the previous presentation, I was thrilled to see spot blight, as you might imagine, since I've been talking about that and dealing with that and certainly within my community and I think many of the other supervisors have too.

So that was music to my ears.

But to get to the presentation in front of us, the BPO process

is really necessary and I am thrilled to see we're doing this.

Our systems have to support our work and not make our work more difficult.

We shouldn't be having to do workarounds, right, to get our work done.

And resiliency is critical.

I would also encourage though in some of this as we're going through this process and doing this work to think about redundancy.

Now is the time to think about putting in place redundancy for some of these systems where it's appropriate.

It's critically important and I guess that's really, I'm very much in favor of this and look forward to all of this work.

Continuous improvement is critically important and I'm glad to see we're moving with us.

I agree with all of what was just said, but I have just a couple little questions.

Just to add on a little fact to go with the climate action notes about the low-income weatherization that the county's already been funding, one of the wonderful benefits of that county funding that has been shared with LEAP is it allows them to then complete a job.

For example, at the places in Southwood where Dominion was paying for a part of it.

like the new heat pump but they didn't pay for the leaky roof or the drainage or anything else and so having the ability to do a more thorough weatherization project while the various contractors were at a property has made so much difference so I think that I'm really glad to see that that's something that would be considered to go forward.

I wrote down, as it was being said, there's a long list of staff-generated projects for climate action and I was just checking to make sure that list of projects is coming to the board so we can add ours to it as well at some point in the future.

Jumping down to the housing fund and actually, no, the 655,000 strategic priority support

A lot of those things are the projects that are being listed there sound like they're things which our most experienced staff need to be working on.

So I look forward to the discussion in a month or so or whenever we get to it about what the right order of things is because each of us may have a different view.

This slide we're looking at right now, the 21.

You know is this the right order of things or should we be working on getting our zoning updated first which is what we've been talking about since Greg's interviews however many years ago that was before he became county attorney and how important that is to finish so that'll be for a future discussion.

A question for the technology or I guess it's part of the business

process optimization.

Would this include something as rudimentary in a way but also incredibly useful as an idea that I heard floated years ago about getting our inspectors to be equipped with iPads so that they could get all of their assignments and enter all their data and things in one place instead of having to scribble things on

No papers when they're out inspecting a project and then have to transfer everything when they got back to the office.

So that may or may not be something that is germane to this particular discussion, but I hope it's still on the list of things to have happen.

And I will have more things to do at the end of the meeting when we get to other questions.

Thank you.

No, I agree with a lot that was said and no further questions at this point.

Thank you.

Two things.

First of all, maybe it's in the book somewhere and I missed it, but could you, Andy or Nelsie or whomever, just send us a little more break.

I would like to see a little more breakdown of where the $3.1 million is expected to go.

Just a little more detail on that.

Not that I'm objecting to it in any way whatsoever.

I would just like to see

how you came to that figure more clearly.

My other just a comment is to echo what Supervisor Mallek just said.

As I look at this optimization of our procedures, I think again to our county attorney telling us that we have 1980s code that needs to be rewritten.

We have this wonderfully progressive

comp plan that got really really overhauled in 2014-2015 with a great effort from staff from the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors and I'd like to see our county code and I know that updated and I know that is going to take quite a lot of time from our county attorney's office and community development

but as I'm looking at this capital improvements money for community development I can't help but think of the need to update our county code.

So just a comment.

Supervisor Galloway.

Thank you.

Thank you, and I don't have any questions at this time either.

I do look forward to the conversation to look for a different source of regular funding for an affordable housing trust fund, but I recognize that's a different conversation for a different time.

Thank you.

At this point, we just have a few slides to kind of wrap up.

The first of which is just a summary of any follow-ups and items on the list.

I think what I heard today, and I'll kind of run through my list, and please correct me if I miss anything.

In terms of a budget adjustment to fiscal year 22, that was not discussed.

However, there is a clear desire from several board members about having a discussion on the 29th around the additional federal funding and or state funding and how that may fit into our broader capital picture and other uses of one-time funding.

So looking to the specific questions we'll be following up on, I will skip the school division because I'm sure they're already off and chasing down answers to those questions right now.

But several questions around getting clarity around state funding for broadband and wastewater, both in terms of the dollar amounts and how that funding may be received and whether that includes a broader kind of stormwater infrastructure.

looking at kind of a recommendation more timely on Wednesday that appropriation for broadband and what would be the options or a recommended way to proceed with that.

Getting clarity about the number of positions funded in the capital budget rather than the general fund and the rationale for that.

kind of a future list of projects to the board for the related to climate action and for the board's involvement.

The question about the BPO funding and how that ties into the work around inspectors and IPADs to do field work, getting further detail on the 3.1 and that breakdown.

And then there's just the last question on the county code.

Yes, Andy, I would like to, I'm piggybacking on, I think it was Supervisor Ulmer's, anyway, one of them, suggested regarding laptops for the inspectors.

It would seem to me that that would really cut down.

Okay, I see Trevor saying he can comment on that because I think that would be

cut down on a lot of man hours or person hours actually to be able to have something like that, some kind of a tablet where they could write everything down and then upload it.

I'll go ahead and chime in.

Trevor Henry, system county executive,

That was a great question, Supervisor Mallek, on the memory of that.

And I'm happy, and it really does tie into the work that we've done through our business process optimization funding and our project management office, along with our information technology department.

Just keep adding acronyms.

And in the fall, we went live with a mobile inspection app on tablets.

for CDE Engineering.

So that's live now and is being spread to other parts of the organization that do similar work.

So I've asked IT to give me a more formal update.

I'll share that with the board as a status thing, but it is a great connection to the work that we're trying to do that will be more efficient, more effective, and ultimately save us time and dollars.

And so

That is good news.

And then the only other follow up question I had was maybe Supervisor Malek or Albemarle or one that also regarding the zoning, making using some extra monies we may have to make sure that our zoning revisions are put in place.

And Ms.

Thank you, Supervisor Price.

I'd just like to share, first off, Jody Filardo, Community Development Director.

Mr. Henry is exactly right.

We did deploy tablets in our engineering inspector team or for our engineering inspector team.

It is likely that we may

Pause, any further deployment on that at the moment because those deployments have to be tightly coupled to the software that we utilize.

So we don't want to spend a bunch of money connecting an additional set of tablets to a system that is aging.

So we are, through the ERP process, trying to consider how to time these various projects to make best use of county funds so that we are not throwing good money after that, I guess is the easiest way to say that.

And as for zoning, I'm so excited to hear everyone supportive of redoing our zoning.

We in CDD certainly are too.

I know the county

We intend to lead with comp plan updates before we update zoning because if we do it the other way around we'll have to come back and update zoning again after the comp plan gets updated.

So once again, this is another one of those kinds of projects where the timing and the integration of these projects is really critical.

Thank you, Ms.

Florida.

No, I'll save it.

Any other supervisors with any other questions at this point?

Seeing no hands, I think at this point we'll go around the board for matters not listed on the agenda.

Supervisor McKeel, a closing comment?

I do have one comment just for a preview of Thursday.

It's going to take long.

On Thursday's work session, I just want to take a moment just to clarify expectations for the board.

Work sessions have been information, lots of questions to answer, but on Thursday there will be two actions that the board will be asked to take.

We'll start the meeting by reviewing fire rescue, and if there's anything else on the list, we can touch base on that.

But the third bullet on this slide is that there will be a, the board will have to be finalized a tax rate cap for advertising.

I'll go into detail a little more on Thursday what this means, but essentially the advertised tax rate can only be changed down.

So if the board were to advertise a rate at the current rate of 85.4 cents, the board can still change that when it comes time to set the tax rate.

They cannot increase it further from what it's advertised.

and the second distinction I would make on the proposed budget, at that point, it's just nothing is final.

The board can continue to amend that as they receive public feedback or have additional questions and ideas.

There's that one distinction in the tax rate gap that I mentioned Thursday, but just want to give a heads up to the board.

In addition to information, there will be some action requested on Thursday.

All right, Mr. Bowman, I do see that was 25 of 26.

Yes, just for what's ahead, that is the final slide.

But we've discussed this with the March 29th meeting.

We'll change that if needed to a discussion around the additional federal funding.

Thank you, Mr. Bowman.

Yes, that does.

Thank you.

And I apologize twice.

I've cut you off today, Mr. Bowman.

I do apologize for that.

So we'll go around.

Supervisor McKeel, anything from the board?

May I just ask a clarification question?

Andy, when you talk about the list, I think I heard you saying, I'm sorry, on my end, you were breaking up just a little bit.

But when you talk about the list, you're referring to the list of projects that the board feels like might be

I would clarify there really there was one list before today now I think there's two lists I think the list I referred to Thursday is really for those items that impact the board's consideration of a proposed budget based on what will be advertised for public hearing and all right I think the second list which is I can tell is probably moving more to the forefront of the board's minds is

for the use of that $21 million or so or however it shakes out with all the different funding sources.

What are the ways that that would be utilized in terms of our process to plan out how that funding is utilized both in fiscal year 21 all the way through the end of that timeline that the federal government sets.

Yeah.

And that's great.

I just saw the list and my antenna went up and I just wanted clarification.

So that's perfect.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate all the work in the presentations today.

This was really great.

Very informative.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I agree.

This has been informative.

I did remember or finally find my notes about the question I was trying to find before.

So if I may leave this with

Andy, to farm out to Tim Padolino or somebody.

I've discussed over the last several months trying to get information, which I then saw again in the budget, in some chapter, Parks and Rec maybe, about a grant which the county made to the Planning District Commission $200,000 a couple of years ago, which has not been developed, spent, or otherwise planned.

So I wanted to make sure that we took this opportunity during the budget to get our hands around that and find out what's going on and if we need to retrieve it we need to retrieve it and do something ourselves because they've had two years.

So I'll just leave that thought for others to get back to us on and everything else on my wrap-up really is

based on that second list that Diantha was speaking about, the one for the 29th.

So I know all of us will be thinking a lot about that.

And the only other announcement I have is that my town hall is on the 23rd.

And I very much appreciate this.

Thank you.

Hi, yes.

I just wanted to thank you very much.

My upcoming town hall is on the 22nd.

Looking forward to that.

And it was a really, really good informative presentation.

I'm really looking forward to the 29th.

I mean, excuse me, the 18th.

Thank you.

I have nothing to add other than Supervisor Price and I are having our town hall with our CAC Thursday night with our 5th and Avon CAC.

Boy, I'm having trouble.

And I will be the guest speaker for the Yancey community

Advisory meeting as a town hall to talk about the budget for Southern Albemarle on Friday.

And all that is of course on the county calendar.

Thank you.

Supervisor Galloway.

I have no further business.

Thank you Chair Galloway and as Supervisor Palmer said we'll be doing our town hall on the budget in conjunction with our 5th and Avon CAC.

I have no announcements this evening, Madam Chair.

Thank you so much for the opportunity for us to be here this evening and I have nothing further.

This meeting will adjourn to March 17th, 2021 at 1 o'clock p.m.

The meeting will be an electronic meeting held pursuant to ordinance number 20-A-16, an ordinance to ensure the continuity of government during the COVID-19 disaster.

Information on how to participate in the meeting will be posted on the Albemarle County website Board of Supervisors homepage.

Thank you everyone.