Council Budget Work Session   3/11/2021

All right.

Good evening.

Hope everyone's doing well.

I'm glad that this worked out on such short notice.

I'll call this meeting to order and I'll ask Ms.

Thomas to do roll call for the city and then turn it over to Ms.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Here.

I'm here and almost at my desk.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

And yes, thank you to everybody for the ability to meet and talk together.

I'll call the meeting to order for Charlottesville City Schools and

Madam Clerk, Ms.

Ms.

Morseberger?

Here.

Dr. Kraft?

Present.

Ms.

Bekever?

Here.

Ms.

Currier?

Present.

Ms.

And Mr. Wade?

Thank you.

Mayor Walker, thank you for having us.

I believe we do have a presentation.

Yes, if I could just welcome everyone.

Thank you for being here, as both the chairperson and the mayor have said.

And I know, especially for some of the school officials, it's been a very full day, a very long day.

We started out together very early today.

A couple of quick things, if I may, I'll go through the agenda and just a couple of introductory budget items that we wanted to get before the city council and also as relevant to the school board.

And then we'll turn it over to you for your presentation and initiating the discussion.

The agenda for tonight is a quick review of some changes to our FY22 budget.

There have been some positive changes since the last time that we've met and we wanted to touch on a couple of those.

Then open up the floor for discussion regarding the Charlottesville City School funding and budgets.

Then City Council, after that, the scheduled meeting for today, which should begin sometime around 6, is to review the outside and nonprofit agency funding, which includes both our contractual agencies and the Vibrant Community Fund agencies.

As we wrap that up, staff will provide any input and receive direction of where we go from here.

And then at that point, I know that we'll want to open it up for public comment from the many people that we have watching us tonight.

What I do want to and some of the changes from the FY22 budget that has previously been presented to the mayor and council, I'm very happy to say that we do have some positive changes.

With our business and professional licenses, new estimates have come in, both from the state and with us looking at these internally, and we feel very comfortable increasing our FY22 estimates to $950,000.

The weather's getting better, vaccinations are happening, and just a lot more activity is occurring.

So that's a very positive change for us.

And looking at our budget and with the help of the council staff and the community, we've been able to decrease a couple of expenditure items, transfer to the capital improvement program from some police department expenditures that will save us $255,000.

and then combined savings from both the school and our police department with a reduction of school crossing guards is another savings of $55,307.

So the bottom line is the good news.

We do have an extra $1,260,000 that we'll be able to consider other changes to our budget.

Clearly, everybody was following the news yesterday with Congress's approval and passage of the Federal Recovery Act.

and Charlottesville is expecting to see just in excess of $10 million from that act.

We aren't totally clear as to what we can spend it on or more importantly, what we can't spend that on.

So we'll be working with that in the future and working with council, with our departments and with the community on areas there.

I do caution.

I think the one thing we know for sure is that we want to be very, very cautious of not trying to spend that money on reoccurring expenses and we'll be looking predominantly at one-time expenses such as capital improvements and other one-time operating expenses for these funds.

So I

With that, I will turn it over very quickly then to Ryan, who I think is going to run us through just a couple of slides that you all have seen before regarding the school budgeting and funding from the city and then turn it over to both the school board and then for city council's discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Boyles.

So we just wanted to start with the part of our discussion at our work session last week.

We had brought up two slides related to the findings for the schools.

And this is our first slide here.

This shows these are the charts we put in front of council every year that shows the chart on the left hand side shows if we had stuck with nothing but the 40 percent

contribution target for our funding, where the funding would be, which is the blue bars versus the red line, which is where our contribution has been for the schools.

The orange or yellow, it's hard to see on this particular screen, the yellowish bar at the end is what was being projected for FY23, which is that $4.5 million increase to cover the one-time funding that's

the schools are proposing to use for their FY22 budget.

The chart on the right-hand side shows what 40% of the actual real estate and personal property has been for the city of Charlottesville over the past 10 years and our projected increases for FY23 and then what our actual contribution has been over that same amount of time.

The purpose was to highlight that there would be a large jump in FY23, given what's been proposed with the school's FY22 budget.

Next slide.

As we discussed with Council last night, we provided three options for staff for Council to discuss.

The first option was to adopt as submitted for 22 and 23, so the contribution level for FY22.

The increase of the 4.5 million now becomes the new base, and this is similar to the scenario we had with the gifted teacher program between the FY20 and FY21 budget where there was an adjustment and that they added that to the base.

This would be similar to those charts on the previous page that showed that large increase in the city contribution for the first year.

Option two would be to reduce the 22 school budget and use the savings to fund some items that had to initially be removed from

the city's budget in order to balance.

There's a listing of those there and we have shared the full listing with the city council previously and that was another area to look at.

And then option three was to adopt the school's proposal as submitted for FY23 only at the $58.7 million

but not adopt or not have the assumption that the four and a half million dollar increase would be a given in FY23 that that that funding and that increase in funding would have to be considered as part of the FY23 budget process and go into essentially go into the mix with all the other city departmental items and any other items that may come up between now and a year from now essentially.

And so we just wanted to reshare those slides with you as we had had some discussion around those last week.

Ms.

Torres, I'll get started.

Thank you, Dr. Atkins.

Thank you.

Thank you, City Council and City Manager Boyle for inviting us and meeting with us to further discuss the budget.

We appreciate being able to present our budget funding request to you recently and we are delighted to come back and respond to some of the questions that you might you have about our budget.

So what I'd like to do is the next slide is to go over the four topics that we're going to cover.

and these represent some of the questions that have come up from city council members relative to our budget.

So number one, understanding the funding mechanisms tied to the 5% increase in the salary as mandated by the governor, and I wouldn't use the word mandated as proposed by the governor, discussed also the impact of reducing the school's budget year to year budget and further discuss the impacts

and potential risk if CCS budget is not fully adopted and then any updates on the school's funds from the state as well as a timeline for the potential funds from CARES 3 that City Manager Boyles made reference to that is on the president's desk and is it anticipated that the president will sign that legislation on tomorrow?

So what I'd like to do now is ask Kim Powell to go over just a few slides with you to respond to those questions and then we'll open it up to answer any additional questions or discussions that you may have.

Thank you, Dr. Atkins, City Manager Boyles, Council Members and School Board Members, thanks for having us and

The slide that was previously up about the four topics, that was actually just us copying and pasting in the four questions that were sent in advance because we wanted to acknowledge that we received those.

We are answering number one and number four first because that number two and three kind of we felt went better together conversationally, but you'll see that we'll cover all of these topics that were sent to us in advance.

Okay, thank you.

Next slide.

So for the question about the 5% increase, it's not a mandate.

That's the way the topic was conveyed to us, but it isn't a mandate, but it does have real funding tied to it, whether or not we comply with that.

Basically, we received a superintendent's memo that you see referenced here.

These are available in the Virginia Department of Education website.

And if you look at attachment A for that superintendent's memo that was issued March 9th,

We get a summary of all the budget amendments that come through the process in Richmond, and the General Assembly budget, which of course is what happens, we go from each year the Governor's budget, House and Senate proposals, and then the conference budget, and so what we're looking at now is the end product of that process, and what we have is the state giving us additional money

to fund a 5% compensation supplement.

And we even, we sought clarification.

This must be in the form of a salary increase.

It cannot be a one-time bonus payment.

It must be a salary increase.

And so in order to receive the state funding that's been appropriated to us to do this action, we have to certify that we take that action for all

what they call SOQ funded instructional and support positions.

And so we talk about teachers and when you read the headlines, it'll say 5% for teachers, but it really does go beyond that to different, you know, principals, assistant principals, instructional assistants, even, you know, custodial staff and some division administration positions are all touched by this in the SOQ.

and SOQ stands for standards of quality, but it's really not quality, it's just the funding formula the state uses in determining how to appropriate the K-12 funds to each locality in the state.

So that's the language directly from the announcement, if you will, from Richmond.

And we can go to the next slide now, and certainly this is not a big slide deck, we can return to any of these that the council or board members would like to.

So then the fourth question was an update on schools funding from the state and a timeline to know about further cares funds and city manager boils already referenced the it's not called cares money now this next round is called the American rescue plan, but first let's focus on the state funding, so what.

What the school board couldn't know when they approved the superintendent's proposed budget is exactly what that 5% would mean as far as additional state funds for us by the time that the calc tool has since come out.

And so we know what it means and it resulted in an additional $358,701 for Charlottesville city schools.

And that's what's in the calc tool for us.

And if you have been following our process,

The impact that that has is in the bottom right corner where you see minimum projected carry forward of our CARES funds.

Well, now that we know what our additional state funding is tied in part to that 5% salary action and if you looked at our old slides, it was only $394,124 that we thought we would be carrying forward.

Now it's $752,825.

So more state money means we would definitely have more of our current CARES funds available to carry forward to FY 2023.

Now, beyond the carry forward of our CARES 1 slash CARES 2 money, now there's this American Rescue Plan or ARP money that the President is expected to sign off on tomorrow

and these funds, we've seen enough language to know that these funds are to be used for health and safety to reopen schools and to address learning loss and social emotional needs of students.

We've seen that language.

We don't know exactly how this $125 billion for K-12 is going to translate into what we actually get for Charlottesville city schools, but I can tell you that from the, you know, our first round of CARES funding

was, hold on just a moment, let's see, one was almost 1.2 million, and our second round of CARES funding, the CARES 2 money, was almost 4.5 million.

You know, I don't know exactly what, whether this will result in something around 1.2 or 4.5 or something in between, but it is a considerable amount of additional money going to K-12.

Do you know how,

Do you know how long you have to spend that, what max money may be?

But what's interesting there is we do know that the CARES II money can carry into at least the first quarter of fiscal year 24.

Or 20, Renee, you're on.

Fiscal year 24.

Right, that's right.

That's right.

And that money did not have many restrictions on it.

It was very, it's fairly unrestricted.

So you can do a lot even just with payroll expense in that first quarter.

Can you remind me the line item for the staff increases at 5%?

What does that amount to for the fisc for one year, for the year?

I have it somewhere.

Right.

That was for teachers.

Which is 321,000.

And then the administrative staff would be 545,000.

Yes.

We'd have to add those together.

Yeah, I was wrong, Heather.

Thank you, Renee.

The thing, one of the things that happens, one of the big factors, the local composite index of ability to pay for Charlottesville City is six, I think it's around 0.64%.

So whatever actions are taken in the state budget process for Charlottesville, they're expected to pick up

Close to between 62 and 65% of that cost.

And then there's a whole other narrative which would take too long about how the state doesn't have a good lens on what the true average salaries are in the Commonwealth and all that.

But anyway, we won't go there.

But just know that whatever great things come out of the state budget in Richmond, the local composite index then comes to bear on that to dictate the actual funds that flow down to us to comply with those actions.

If there are no other questions on this slide, and again, there aren't many slides in this deck, we can always come back to any of these.

I also would point out that the current budget proposal represents a 6.4% increase overall.

And next slide.

So then the last couple of questions were about the impacts of reducing the school's year-to-year budget and the impacts or risks of adopting a budget that may not be sustainable because it does include use of one-time funds.

The first three pieces of this slide come directly from slides we've been showing throughout the process.

We always acknowledge that city funding is the foundation and key for the programming and services that Charlottesville schools are able to offer.

And if you follow Jim Reginball's work at the state level, this is true for every locality.

What ultimately determines the quality or the offerings of any public school system in Virginia is what the locality does or doesn't do.

That's universal across the Commonwealth.

COVID-19 has had significant impacts on our families.

You all know this, it's impacted our students emotionally, academically, economically, and the staff has worked really hard to do a lot of different things in this environment and pivoting to work in different models.

And we've always had this caution included in every presentation we've done, I think, since January.

We want to put it in a flashing neon sign that this budget proposal hinges on the use of one-time non-recurring funding.

But there's an element in here where we also want to leverage that funding as much as possible to provide a ramp or a runway for city revenue recovery.

There's a lot of R's in there.

and we acknowledge that any additional appropriation, if the city had any additional funds they wanted to appropriate to K-12 for the coming year, that would start the process of taking down that dependence on one-time funds.

The converse of that, and this is in response to one of the questions, any reductions to the current appropriation for operations for fiscal year 22,

would simply make that revenue recovery need greater for FY 2023.

It would make that curve steeper, if you will.

So that's the simple answer to that question.

And if the funds are not available, and this has always been in that green caution message, just as with any budget or in any organization, cuts to services would be required.

if there were significant shortfalls in the revenues that could be provided to offset these one-time funds.

And I believe the next slide may just, oh, there's one more.

This slide is just a reference back to the city's Blue Ribbon Commission on Sustainable School Funding.

And I really think it's amazing that the work that that group did, and this was before my time in the city, but that group in 2014

put forward that it could be expected that to maintain and sustain, maintain the level, the depth and breadth of programming that Charlottesville City Schools offers for the community that it could be expected or should be expected that two to four million additional funding would be required each year to keep moving forward or maintain the level of programming.

And this was back in 2014.

And it never ceases to amaze me in the time I've been here how that

Thank you, Ms.

Powell.

And I'll add a closing comment to that presentation.

I will say to City Council that during the development of this budget, there were several priorities we had in looking at programs and maintaining staffing and instructional delivery.

And there were two considerations.

that we used to develop this budget.

The first one was that we recognized that COVID had an impact on the revenue coming into the city.

So our first consideration was to attempt to develop a budget that would keep us at level funding and not ask the city, in light of those revenue shortfalls based on COVID, not ask the city for additional funding for FY22.

The second consideration was that at the time that we were developing the budget, we were notified about the CARES II dollars and the availability of those dollars and also given some guidance on how we might appropriate those dollars and the spend down schedule for it.

With using that information, knowing that our students were coming back face to face, it presented an opportunity for us to not only be able to respond to

the significant needs that we feel that our students will have when they return to the classroom, supports that our teachers will need as they return, but also allow us to adhere to that first consideration, not to have to ask city council to increase funding for the FY22 budget, that we would be frugal in the way that we use the CARES dollars and use them in a way that responded to an immediate need, understanding

that in future budgets that we would have to reconcile that and there would be multiple ways in which we could reconcile that and one of those ways would be additional funding or we would have to consider cutting some of those positions or cutting some positions or services in our school division in order to reconcile that but we felt like those two considerations had great weight as we developed this budget

So we appreciate Council allowing us to answer those questions and we will be glad to answer any other questions or discussions and I'll turn it back over to Ms.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Powell, Dr. Atkins.

And I believe the questions that you all showed on the first slide were questions that directly came from City Council.

Can we go into a discussion mode Brian by chance?

I mean, I think I did go back and I do have to say it is really challenging when we're having meetings and you guys are having work sessions at the same time.

So I did go back and listen to your work session to try and get a sense of where you all are coming from and where some of your questions, you know, what they were around.

So I hope that we've answered

some of them, but we're happy to take further questions or more specific questions.

I mean, I know that there were specific questions around the positions as far as the program supports and improvements that were part of our budget.

So if you have specific questions about those, we're more than happy to speak to those specifically.

and I would imagine we could pull that slide up again if y'all don't have it but again I think

each of those programs, whether it be something like internet access for our students or the instructional assistance, which we had had to eliminate the prior year due to level funding.

I mean, we're happy to address those, but I think we really did work hard to establish those positions and invest in things that we thought would make the biggest impact.

on our students coming back this next year, especially after the year that we've all had.

So again, looking at equity, whether it's a teacher in a building, a math specialist that hadn't

been present at the high school that's going to be able to provide specific supports to students that may not have had it but are looking to potentially take AP level courses or even supports to teachers in how that they can provide better supports, again, whether it's instructionally or to some of those students.

You know, our reading specialist.

I mean, that was another one of the positions that that we had.

Again, literacy is huge for all of us this year.

Our teachers have worked and entire staff has worked incredibly hard to adapt to virtual and now hybrid and virtual again.

But again, literacy is such a huge and important piece to just education and

who we are as humans, and it opens the door for all of us.

I mean, again, I don't want to go line by line, but I mean, I'm happy to, or we are happy to, to answer those questions, but I really don't.

And I know I'd asked this once in the last, and just to get on the same page again,

There's none of those positions you feel are unique to COVID that after one, two years from now may not be needed.

I mean, I'd be curious.

I mean, if you had a sense or if you were more specific on what you think might be unique to COVID.

I mean, I know we have a lot of positions for social workers, but we really

We are moving towards that as a model that we value as a school division.

So those, in my opinion, are not temporary.

I mean, as we move to adapt and change our SRO system in the high schools, I mean, the social worker positions and social work support positions, I mean, I think those are crucial.

I think that's something that

Ms.

Torres, I would add to your comments that in the development of the budget, we make sure that we gather information from our staff, from our teaching staff, our administrative staff.

So many of these positions and services and items represent

No, I certainly understand that in the city we have the same thing with our departments, you know,

that we're level of funding certainly expressing that there's a lot of need there that we just can't meet.

And I think we're just trying to determine the best way to bridge between today and what the next couple of years looks like.

I do feel encouraged by the thought of additional funding becoming available if we can feel confident that that can continue that ramp so that we're not looking at a year from now going from where we are now to four and a half million dollars more in one year having to do that in order to maintain these positions.

Obviously that's all your decision.

We just determine the overall number, but I just, I do have, I continue to have anxiety over doing that blindly without like seeing that ramp over a longer period of time.

And also just, as we've said again and again, like our, at this point, and I'm hopeful that will change with some of the new revenue pictures that Mr. Boyles presented earlier.

We don't have even a COLA of 2% in for our staff.

To sort of follow up a little bit on that, I don't know any sort of politically correct way to say this, so let me say it just sort of bluntly.

It's hard for us to figure out how to justify

a budget request to the school system that implies, number one, roughly 18, maybe 18.5 new FTEs, a 5% raise for staff at a time when we don't see how we can give our employees a raise and we don't see being able to add additional staff.

And so the thing that is giving us

at least giving me at least heartburn is this notion of you all have a vision it seems of getting back up to speed a lot faster than the rest of the city government is likely to be able to do.

Our ability to get the rest of city government up to speed is going to be handicapped

if we fully fund the additional money that you want.

And so our problem is to balance, number one, your ambitions, your desires, your goals, however we want to characterize it, versus the reality that if we fund those for you, we can't do it for the rest of the city government.

Help me figure this thing out.

Is there a way to get to a middle position here someplace?

Starting with, I mean, the first thing, I don't begrudge anybody a 5% raise and we would love to be able to get to the same position.

It would cost us, I think I figured out about $2.5 million for us to be able to do that.

But the particular thing that I'm looking at is the notion

that you're adding these 18 new positions.

Granted, a few of them are adding back positions that were cut last year, but let's say you're adding 12 new positions and plus a number of other increases in the amount of time that you're intending to compensate people for.

And I looked at the costs to you all of those upgrades in your staffing,

And it comes out pretty darn close to the amount it would cost us.

I mean, almost within $100,000, the amount it would cost us to give our people the same raise you all are giving your people.

And so that's where I'm struggling here.

Mr. Snook, I hear you.

Correct me if I'm wrong, somebody on our side.

I don't think it's 18 or 19 new FTEs.

And first off, I would hope

And I would ask that, you know, when you're when you're looking at this, that it's not it's not an us against you.

And I feel like that that you're coming from that position.

And I feel like, you know, you represent our entire community and our students and our teachers are part of this community.

So I think and I would hope that we can get beyond that.

You know,

Mostly that.

I mean, that bothers me.

It doesn't sit well because I feel like there is value in every single student.

Yeah.

So I don't understand how it's an us against you.

and we need your help and we appreciate your help as a city council in every level of funding.

But again, the positions that we are trying to implement, as Dr. Atkins said, came from staff, but are really geared towards support and equity for every single student that comes through our buildings.

And, you know, we're asking for level funding.

You know, our raise that we've approved is coming from our CARES funding.

And it feels like if you're going to cut or provide less than level funding to us, I mean, you're taking away from us.

and it just doesn't feel right.

Well, obviously, I mean, just by your own language in your last sentence, you recognize that as some inherent us versus you kind of approach to it.

I will tell you in talking to city employees who are not school employees, they feel an us versus you sense.

that they're saying, why does the school, why do school employees get to talk about a 5% raise and we don't.

And so our task, and also at what you call level funding, we're actually, I don't know what the numbers are going to look like with the most recent news today, but as of yesterday, we were looking at cutting our budget in absolute terms.

So I'm not trying to put it out there as an us versus you situation, except to the extent that anytime somebody is asking one party for money that you want us to have, there has to be some sense of a recognition that there could be different interests at stake.

We all have great interest in making sure that the school system is the best school system it can be for the money that we can afford to spend.

And that's the catch, is for the money we can afford to spend.

Anyway, I'm not trying to make it an adversarial situation, except to say that I think that when we set up a situation where

Can I just mention that the 5% is something that was really put forward by the governor.

It wasn't where we started.

It's not what we came to you with, but the governor

is putting this forward as a way of recognizing sort of what has happened with our education system during COVID and what happened last year and the fact that there were no raises last year either.

And the state is putting money behind that.

So it's not where we started, but it seems like why would we

Why would we then say, no, we don't want this to this governor when they're actually putting money forward to enable us to do this and enable the teachers to, or the staff to really catch up from the losses that were incurred by them last year.

So, you know, I think that's one thing.

And I guess another thing that I would say is that the impact on our

Our school division on our kids is huge.

We don't even know yet.

These kids are just barely coming back now.

We don't exactly know what that's going to be, but I think it's going to be really significant in terms of both academic losses.

I think we know that there are going to be increased inequities in terms of the impact on different cohorts of our student community.

And I will say this as, you know, I think we have a mental health crisis amongst our kids.

It is here now.

We have it.

Now, how long does it take to fix that?

You know, I don't think anybody's going to really know that, but we can't ignore that because it impacts everything else.

And so those are some of the things that we're facing now.

It's not...

There's been a lot of damage done, not our fault, but it's the pandemic.

And what we're trying to do is to keep our kids from completely falling off the planet in terms of what they've lost and in terms of their own emotional and mental well-being.

And in terms of the equity, we committed ourselves to looking at our division through a lens of equity.

We can't stop doing that now.

And so it requires resources to do that.

And maybe more resources going towards some kids than others.

So those are some of the things, you know, that the ways that we're looking at this, we're not trying to be unfair.

We're not trying to say our employees are better than other city employees.

I could not agree more.

I'm a parent of three kids under the age of 11.

I see what's going on in the virtual classrooms and now in the real classrooms.

I do believe the need is greater now.

I'm not disputing that.

Where I struggle with is that the governor has used, there was this, you know, request for this 5% increase, but the slide that you showed earlier reflected that that only results in a $300 and some thousand dollar

benefit from the state and the rest is having to come from the locality.

So I think it's great to ask for that, but it's a reality that we have to figure out a way to pay for it after this year because the CARES funds are not going to be there.

And so again, I just want to just reiterate that that's just the reality that we're in.

And again, I am not denying that the needs are at their peak.

And that's one of the reasons I was asking to understand, is there some needs that we see that over the course of 18 months, 24 months,

are going to maybe trickle, you know, there's going to be some adjustments that can be made because it's not as acute as it is right this moment and what I anticipate the full next school year is going to look like that can allow us to kind of smooth this both operationally as well as balancing that with the funding that we're going to have available.

And also a commitment that if additional dollars come from the federal government, which we are hopefully assured are

that some will be set aside as a reserve to help us smooth over the next few years because the city has so many unknowns.

I was in a meeting yesterday, actually, that where the American Rescue Act was being discussed with Congressman Bobby Scott and his legislative aides.

At this point, my understanding is that

the distributions were going to be based on the Title I formulas, just so you know, and that it was intentionally that it would have a couple of years to spend through the end of FY23, with being that the idea specifically so that it could purchase the end of FY23, specifically so that

People could get hired for year-long contracts to help fill in the educational needs to help kids catch up from this pandemic.

With that case being, it sounds like some of the positions that are looking to be funded

are potentially going towards that way already.

If that is the thought process, what if we are committing to utilizing when we find out what those funds are to pay for some of those positions out of that money

If I could add to that,

You know, I certainly don't see it as as us versus them.

I think it's just like everything else.

This budget cycle is just the mantra I see over and over again is just there.

There are no solutions, only trade offs.

You know, we don't have the resources to meet every need and it's just figuring out what the trade offs are.

But to Vice Mayor McGill's point.

I know the money for K-12 and the new bill is $60 billion more than both the previous CARES Act bills combined.

And as Vice Mayor McGill mentioned, it'll be the Title I formula.

I don't know if that's what was used in the previous CARES Act bills or not or how that impacts the money.

But it would seem safe to assume we're probably going to get, at a minimum, a similar amount of money

as from the two previous CARES Act combined.

So in some ways, I almost wonder if our conversation right now is almost a moot point given, you know, the additional support that may be coming there.

And it's probably impossible to know at this point.

But does this do you all have any sense of

how how you would look at prioritizing that money, because certainly now that we know it's available, it wouldn't seem to me to make a whole lot of sense to

reduce expenditures if we can cover it with there.

It's just how we're going to mix it around to better smooth it out and make sure we have the best use of it.

Mr. Payne, what I would be recommending to our school board is that we look carefully at the additional CARES dollars.

the American relief dollars and the spend down of those dollars and then allocate that those funds over those fiscal years in order to reduce the request that we would have of city council, the funding requests that we would have of city council in those spend down years and to gradually ask city council to help us to wind out of the use of those one time funds.

So they would be used as I think this, um,

Ms.

Hill made the recommendation or observation that having that runway is going to be critical to us as we come back in subsequent years to have funding requests before City Council.

So it certainly will be providing that landing for us coming out of using the $4 million now in CARES dollars.

Right.

Go ahead.

It would actually be presented just as it is.

That was always our intent.

The budget that we've developed had those two considerations.

And the intent is that we would use additional CARES dollars if they became available.

or any carry forward dollars to reduce our requests.

So even if it's something that city staff has to consider as the base moving into a two, three, four year, five year period, I think the reservation

that you're hearing may still be the same without because at some point the government funding will stop and it will turn to the locality having to fund, you know, pick up what has been, you know, funded in the past.

So I don't see how, I mean we have a couple

things going on with the city that gives me the same, you know, pause where we are using this one-time funding to increase our fire staff.

At some point, the city is going to have to pick that up.

All of those things have to be considered.

And if those things start happening at the same time.

So that was my question as you were talking just is even if this then moves to three years out, I think

Even having the conversation around that these things will be evaluated in the meantime to see if they're still needed would probably help with the concerns that that council and staff are having.

Mayor Walker, I certainly can understand that the reservation.

I can give the example.

Councilman Payne suggested that we may, and hypothetically, we got $5 million in the recovery dollars.

If we use 2 million or 3 million of those in FY23, that would reduce our request to city council.

debt by that $3 million.

So the baseline would not be the total $4 million in FY23.

The baseline would be an additional $1 million.

And then for FY24, remaining dollars would be used to again reduce what would be considered the baseline.

And we would be $1 million out of the use of one-time dollars.

FY24

Potentially, and these are hypothetical because we don't, I don't know what's in the future.

If we use another $2 million of the recovery dollars, then the baseline that requests for city council would be $2 million, bringing us $3 million out of the use of one-time CARES dollars.

And I would

I would say from my perspective, the ability of those additional stimulus dollars, making that ramp multiple years makes me much more comfortable because I think our biggest challenge is if it's a cliff we hit in one or two budget cycles,

You know, maybe there's not a full recovery yet, but if we extend it over that timeframe, I'm just a lot more comfortable that the economic recovery and the growth that we'll see will make it much more easy to cover it.

And I also, I think we just have to bake in that

As was mentioned earlier, you know, some of the impacts from the pandemic on students, there's no way to avoid that it's going to require investments and it's going to have impacts on students entire educational career, you know, from everything that's happened this past year, and that there's no way of avoiding some of increased investments that we're going to need.

And then two final questions is, one, I know there's so much uncertainty, it may be hard to say, but do you see it as potentially being feasible at all, depending on how much money comes from this new stimulus bill to say, council reduces some of its contribution to schools from our general fund, but it's covered with that stimulus money.

So in effect, your total budget is the same, you're just using this new stimulus money versus

John C.D.

: City money that comes with the trade off of having less money for that like ramp over time, but it would free up more immediate money for us this immediate budget cycle if there's opportunities there and then to John C.D.

: I just think I might have misunderstood is is the governor's request for the 5% raise something that the school district has to do.

And just before the CCS answer that, I just want to make sure that I'm clear when you all respond, because I feel like that would make us then have to get back to that baseline and then add whatever increase.

So I don't know how that would be helpful.

I would just say there's a potential for it to be helpful if, and I'm not saying it would be a huge amount of money, but if it's like even a couple hundred thousand dollars and it's covered by that CARES Act money, we can meet an immediate budget need that we can't cover now.

Correct.

$10 million direct, $5 million to CAT, and then potentially indirect money as well.

So it may not be necessary.

Yeah, I would just ask us to really think about that because then we're asking for the CARES funding to do two things.

I understand what you are saying.

without knowing what the future looks like, what building out of this really looks like.

I mean, you get all of our students back into the school system and then problems that are not even planned for may present.

You know, I don't know.

I get what you're saying, but I just feel like that may be, but I'll let them answer.

One thing, one other comment that I'd like to make, and I want to say, I really appreciate the difficult

that you guys are in that the city is in right now.

And, you know, I, you know, and I want us to all work together.

We're all really on the same team with this.

And we were talking about some of these very acute issues, and then talking about, you know, ramps and how we go forward.

And I would just like to remind us all that, you know, in the long term, or medium term,

we're dealing with an inadequate funding formula as you know suggested back in that blue ribbon commission so I think the city is going to need to really take a hard look at this and it's been hard to do in the past you know few years because there's been a lot of change but I think with Mr. Boyles here and I hope you know you're listening very carefully that's something that that I think the city really needs to look at that

Rather than talking about how the schools are trying to add this and add that, the funding formula itself is a problem and needs to be addressed moving forward and after we have some kind of a ramp out of our current situation.

And I would like to add to what Dr. Kraft has said.

This is a difficult position for everybody and I don't think anyone takes it lightly.

I think everyone is trying or attempting to do the best that they can do.

I think we are all very aware that there are many people around us that did not receive raises.

They are not a part of city government or a part of the CCS government.

and that is very difficult as well.

And some of the people that did not receive raises are members of our community that are still having to do certain things who may also be parents of the children in our community.

Dr. Atkins and her team have always been

during my duration on the school board thoughtful in their manner and what is best for the people in the CCS community to include the students,

and the staff.

And when I'm talking about staff, I'm talking about everyone, our custodians, our cafeteria workers, our instructors, our part-time people, or anyone that falls in there.

And when we realized that we had CARES money that we could use for one time, our board had a very serious discussion about what to do.

What do we do with the money in order to maintain equity?

Equity does not always mean inclusion, ladies and gentlemen, but the CCS community is working to have inclusion.

And often when you're including, there is a cost.

but we hope that the cost is not to the detriment of our students.

Any monies that we receive going forward will be reviewed by Dr. Atkins and her team and she will then discuss it with the members of the board so that we can see how best to go forward.

We will not spend every dime that we get.

We will portion it out and use it to help us over the next several years, which will ultimately help city council over the next several years.

and I think that we have always worked as a team.

I think there may have been differences and there may still be differences, but I don't think that there's anyone that is in attendance that doesn't want the best for the students.

And I'm not discounting the adults in the CCS family, but the students are the people that are gonna go out and do what all of us do around this table.

and we have to ensure that they are healthy.

And that health comes in many forms.

It's physical, it's psychological, it's emotional, it's academic.

There are a lot of things that go into making up students.

I don't know how many of you have been out and about since Monday, but there's a different energy with the young people.

It's hard.

but we're doing the best we can and we feel that you are doing the best that you can and we understand all of the stresses and pulls you have because you have more than one entity looking to you to say help.

You're the parents and the police and fire and schools and social services and everyone else

that you give money to are your children.

And you're trying to do the best by your children that you can.

And we're asking you to help us to the best of your ability and also understand that we will do the same.

And that's critical.

And asking for the same money that we currently have, which will be done in June,

is level funding and we've tried to use our CARES dollars with that in mind.

We can't spend something that we don't have.

We are anticipating a signature tomorrow.

We are anticipating money to be transferred, but we've got to wait until it comes because there's a lot that can happen between a signature and a formula and money in the bank.

and we are aware of that and we are mindful of that and we are going to be good stewards of your money.

And I'm not talking about any federal money that we get or any state money that we get, but I am talking about city dollars.

We have always been mindful of those funds.

And if you remember the presentation that was made a few short days ago,

The Charlottesville City School Division did not come in fifth or seventh or eighth in the various places that we ranked because we misappropriated funds.

We use the meager funds in order to do the best by your children and their families in order to help them to continue to achieve

And I do appreciate, as does everyone else on the school board side, your willingness to hear us, your willingness to ask questions, and your willingness to allow us to answer those questions.

And we also hope that if you have further questions that you will ask in order to give us an opportunity to answer them.

Thank you, Ms.

Puryear.

I also, I guess we need to answer those questions.

Does somebody need to answer those questions?

But I did want to quickly, I wanted to acknowledge that Mr. Johnson, our student school board rep, also has been here through this conversation.

Stupane, I believe you presented some questions.

Did we answer any of those questions that you asked that we give you enough information?

No, I think so.

I mean, definitely understand the 5% raise just being not technically a mandate from the government, but a recommendation.

And obviously something I think we all want to

to get to and is needed for, you know, teachers in this environment.

To the first question, I mean, I think maybe it's just unknowable is just about, you know, as was said, you know, the legislation signed, but we don't know the amount of money.

And just depending on what that new amount of money is, how feasible it may be to

Again, just put less of it on the ramp over time to help more immediately this budget cycle in a way that is not a cut in any way.

It's just reallocating the timeframe of when that money's spent, if that makes sense, just to figure out the most effective way that we can use that money to meet all our priorities.

I think mostly answered.

But I will say, Councilman Payne, if that, when the funds are allocated and we know what those are, certainly using that to respond to immediate needs, be it for the city or city council, would certainly be something that we could discuss.

And I know I could make some recommendations to the board and the board would discuss.

I'm just wondering if there's a possibility, if there are signatures this week and that we understand, is there a possibility that we would understand by next, our next, well we have two budget meetings next week, but maybe the meeting on the 17th?

Renee Hoover has been following that piece of legislation.

I haven't read anything.

I've seen anything.

It's been more focused on passing through Congress and the president's signature.

Mayor Walker, I do know that our State Department of Education will give us a notification that it's on the way.

When they get notification that it's coming, they typically will let us know and give us the projected amount of it.

And just it may be helpful if once you all have that information,

instead of us trying to do this over email, especially with the conversation about if the ramping up changes, that it may be helpful for you all to join us again at one of those other meetings.

And those dates are the 15th, 17th, and 25th right now.

So just put those dates out there in case for you all to consider if that works for you.

And I guess just final thought is, I think, particularly in light of this new legislation, it seems to me that it would seem to be very feasible to provide sufficient money from the city for 5% raises in these requests.

And the budget situation is a lot less difficult than it was even a day ago.

And so especially once we just get more specificity on the numbers are,

The only other thing that I wanted to add, by the way, in response to something, I don't remember who it was, was it Dr. Atkins or I'm not sure who it was.

I'm getting my figures about your FTE additions from your January 16th document and your presentation, page 20.

I count up 19.5 additional FTEs.

So that's where I got it from.

And the question that I've got philosophically, again, is you've indicated, I don't remember who it was again, who said,

that the push to getting to hiring additional social worker to hiring social workers was something that you had been hoping to work toward for a while.

And I just question at a time when when we're but we're going to have to be budgeting both of both the city as a whole and the schools as as an entity are going to be budgeting and balancing budgets with one time funds.

whether this is a great time for anybody to be making a longer term commitment based on one-time funds.

So you look at the 19.5 FTEs and some of those seem like they might have some relevance to COVID.

Most of them don't.

I understand that you're likely to have not as many students this year as you did say two years ago or next year as you did two years ago.

and it's just the questions that people keep asking me that I all I can say is heck if I know is why do they need more more teachers for fewer students and that there may well be a perfectly legitimate explanation but understand that that's that's the kind of issue that the people who are writing the checks for paying the taxes are asking

and it's really not my favorite position to be in as a city councilor to say, I don't know why they say that.

Mr. Snook, if I may, when you're looking at our budget changes sheet, if you follow along near the end, it shows where we do adjust our staff based on enrollment.

There are enrollment-based reductions to positions and that's a routine part of our budget process.

Which document are you looking at?

Sure.

So if you're looking at the presentation, let me see, make sure.

Yep, from the council meeting, go to the slide after the one where you counted up the FTEs.

You'll see a reduction of $372,874 for five

classroom teaching.

Okay.

Anyway, so that's the political problem, and I don't mean that in an electoral sense, but just in terms of how we interact with the people who write everybody's paychecks.

is to try to figure out how to explain why in this very difficult time the schools are looking to add net 14.5 full-time equivalent positions.

And if some of them are directly responsive to needs brought on by COVID, that's perfectly explainable.

Anyway, this is I think I disagree that anything that we're just gonna have like a one time COVID trauma

year.

I think this is going to be an ongoing experience.

One of the things that Dr. Atkins and I had discussed was about the IAs specifically.

We have been trying to get that back in the budget since 2009.

And I just feel very strongly that the more adults in the building to support the educational and

needs of our students, which also includes their social and emotional needs, I think is going to be critical next year, but also an ongoing experience.

These are children who have been in their house for 10 months, much longer for some other students come August and September.

And I just want to, I think it's a very narrow way to look at

at the CARES and Rescue money is to think, oh, well, it's just one year.

No, we have an ongoing mental health crisis.

not done before, but that we have been hearing for... Sorry, we lost you for a second, Jennifer.

Okay.

That always happens in this house.

I'm so sorry.

Anyway, my point is that we are...

We're on the cutting edge of a lot of trying to meet a lot of unique needs in the next decade.

There is no doubt.

And I think we're going to need to think long term and broadly about that.

And our community has been asking for us to focus on the mental health of our students.

And that is what this budget is.

And it's really important that we commit to that.

We cannot take away.

We should be adding supports.

And Lloyd, I'd like to concur with Jennifer and Dr. Kraft and everyone who's spoken up to this point.

As a former educator, I saw it up close and personal before I retired.

And this is not something that's going to be temporary in terms of mental health challenges of our students.

This is going to be long term.

We have lost a lot of ground due to COVID.

So we've got to continue to have sufficient funding of the schools in order to meet the needs of our children.

They have so many unique challenges.

And this is not something that's going to go away in a few months.

It's going to be long term.

It involves equity.

It involves closing

beginning to close that achievement gap.

It's going to involve a lot.

Not only the children, the parents, the teachers, the staff members.

And I agree with you, they've been locked down for 10 months.

So we have a lot, we're going to have a lot of challenges with our students.

Those social workers are going to be up and running along with the school counselors.

So it's not like, you know, we're going to have less students and asking for more funding.

We are going to have to

have level funding to meet the challenges that are going to be ahead of us in the next, not just five years, could be 10 years down the road.

And I saw it up close and personal, and I know what those challenges could be.

I'd like to give you a couple examples of something I heard today from students.

the governor visited the school division and we were at one of the schools this morning and he read he had two books the teacher he went to a classroom and the teacher asked him which of two books he wanted to read and he said well let's give the students the opportunity to select which book and one book was about families and another book was about COVID and so she asked the students to and the book about COVID was written by two physicians at UVA

and this was a third grade classroom.

And she asked the students for the governor, which book would you like the governor to read?

Stand up if you want the governor to read the book on COVID and stay sitting if you want the other book.

So when she asked that question, over two thirds of the classroom stood up to hear about COVID.

That tells you how

much COVID is at the forefront of the thinking of our students and how much it has impacted them over these last months.

And then he talked about heroes because COVID, the story had something about heroes in it.

And he asked the students, who are your heroes?

And is some of them named, you know, the suspects that we would have with heroes.

Several of them said, my teacher.

My teacher is my hero.

Now, when we are paying our teachers in Virginia, we're in the bottom 10, the bottom 10 in the nation in our salaries.

Adding a 5% increase, and we didn't give them a salary increase last year, giving them a 5% increase is but a small step forward to help solidify those heroes that are in the lives of our young people in those classrooms.

And just real quick.

I just wanted to, part of I think what we have to do also as a community and I was attempting to get our staff to work on some kind of mental health campaign during the pandemic, but part of that is how the information is also presented to kids and we've talked about this before in terms of their ability to learn

their ability to get through very difficult times will also present itself in the same way.

And so that's one thing I'm hoping that we do better as a community.

I had a conference call very early on with my entire family and anybody who would join just about a year ago about what this time could potentially look like and how they get through it.

Some of the same students that you're talking about as city students, they are handling this pandemic, I think, better because we had those very early on conversations with them about what this time could look like and what that would mean, but how getting through it would enhance the future.

So that's one thing I wanted to say that I think we all have to do better about.

And then the second thing is this is likely to not also be the last stimulus from the government also.

So I think even processing how we spend future stimulus is the same conversation that we are attempting to have now about the ramp up.

And so we keep talking about those as one time things.

but now it's already three times and the government knows how vast that need is too and based on the current federal administration and hopefully if things keep working at a congressional level and we know some of those elections are coming up shortly that we can continue to plan to be able to meet those needs that you know that we know that some people have so

You know, I definitely just echo the points about from my perspective as a counselor, you know, I just I think we have to just bake in those more permanent needs for support for mental health for students and the impacts of COVID.

I mean, even

The data's fuzzy, but I think the last data I'd seen nationally was like a little under 50% of students reporting depression and anxiety disorders, 25% quarter students reporting substance abuse, around a quarter students reporting at least having some suicidal ideation.

It's I don't think we're going to fully know the impacts on mental health and economically for years.

And we're just going to need to bake in permanently that we're going to need to change how we operate and provide those supports.

And again, I think in a lot of ways, this new stimulus makes some of the conflict earlier a moot point.

Thank you for the opportunity and the invitation, and I'm glad we could all have these discussions.

I mean, I think they're very important, and we are always here to receive questions and to do our best to answer them.

So thank you.

I know we've run over.

Well, thank you all.

Well, good luck, Mayor Walker.

And thank you, as always, for your thoughtful manner and guiding us forward.

As a resident of the city, I appreciate it and have a great evening.

Everyone, please remain safe.

Thank you.

Do you all have to adjourn?

Do we?

Yes, Ms.

Torres, would you please adjourn?

I do adjourn the meeting for Charlottesville City Schools.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Have a good evening.

All right.

Thank you, Mayor and Council.

We'll just walk you through a few slides to begin the discussions on the community fund.

I'm going to go ahead and kick this off as we talk about the contractual agencies.

As we start to go through our outside nonprofit agencies, we're going to discuss the contractual agencies first and then follow that up with our community fund agencies.

The first slide shows the contractual agencies for public safety, transportation, education, and the arts.

Many of the funding levels for these agencies within the next few slides are set by formulas, MOUs, or other agreements between the agencies in these cities.

So as such, we're not planning to go through each and every agency and detail each and every change.

But if you have any specific questions related to any of the agencies you see on the slides as we go through them, please ask.

And we have we should

If we don't know the answers, we'll be able to get those for you before our next meeting.

But as you can see, this first one, as I said, is public safety, transportation, and some education and arts.

And, you know, the larger changes are for the ECC, jails, and John.

Go ahead, Heather.

I just want to understand what qualifies someone to fall into this category versus the competitive process category, because I know that's going to be a point of discussion probably at some point.

So typically, I will speak to how it was initially envisioned in the past.

As I said, many of these agencies, we have MOUs with them.

We have other agreements.

It would be contractual if it's considered.

If they did not provide this service for the city, the city would have to staff and provide the service as well.

In the case of the SPCA, I know this has come up in

past discussions where if we didn't contribute to the SPCA as the regional pound, we would then have to build and create our own.

So those distinctions are how we typically do it.

Many of these are regional collaborations with regional partners.

As we go through most of these contractual agencies, I can't say a blanket statement, but they are

the vibrant community fund agencies are related more towards the human service side of things, whereas the contractual agencies, as you can see, are very specific to services that are being provided.

No, thank you, Ryan.

Thank you.

I had a question.

So there was an article today about Jaunt that mentioned that they had a $1.2 million surplus and an additional two, they were in an operating profit of $200,000.

Are those things considered in these

I would say basically for this request, those two items were not.

Their decrease here is largely

due to CARES funding and the use of CARES funding and also the reduced number of routes because of COVID, and that equates for the reduction.

So many of these have agreements that limit their fund balance or surpluses that they're able to maintain.

For example, the library has one and others.

In terms of jaunt, we can check on that for you.

I'm not sure specifically.

In most cases, I would say that, you know, a surplus is a rarity.

And so this is probably an anomaly, but the specifics I'm not sure of and we can certainly find that out.

And then the other question from this page, I just want to point it out while we have this discussion is that last year I brought up with the budget office and then spoke with one of the supervisors about the defender's office, the public defender's office.

And if we're talking about equity and throughout the criminal justice system and

that other organizations should get funding and shouldn't have to participate in the vibrant community process.

This is definitely even before you get to a drug court program or a mental health doctor, having adequate defense is more important because maybe you never end up with needing those services in the first place.

If your defense

is present and attuned and adequately provides what they call indigent defense.

So at this rate, it's hard for them to provide funding for their office.

And I'm sure this will come up after the group that I'm a part of or the working group that I

that, you know, whatever I have together, whatever we were, you know, council was aware that that group was, you know, meeting and we talked about it at council meetings.

Are there any other questions on this set of agencies?

Okay, next slide, please, Brian.

Here are the contractual agencies for the organizational memberships, workforce, youth and family type of agencies.

I have a question.

The blue, the health department,

Blue Ridge Health Department.

I think that's the first time I've said it.

I wish I could answer that.

I will write it down and make sure we get an answer to you and maybe somebody who knows is listening and will text me or email me the answer.

Okay.

And then my other question, this slide.

So Region 10, very early on in the pandemic, they were furloughing or laying off employees.

And I know that we don't have a say into what happens to dollars once they get, but if there's any way that, you know,

We can tie any of this funding to ensuring that people are, you know, not kind of tossed out doing, you know, pandemic in the hardest time that any of, you know, most of us have experienced, that would be helpful.

And I think what I'm really asking is the reserves, like that we maintain reserves or our non-contractual agencies, do they have to maintain those reserves and how

do they show us whether they have maintained them.

Again, I'm going to have to defer to Kakia.

I'm afraid I'm actually not an expert in the child care arena.

Okay.

So I think the question, Mayor Walker, was what's happening with the idea that there were multiple agencies creating child care scholarships.

Did I understand that correctly?

Yes.

Okay.

So I don't know either, but I'd be happy to check on that.

All right.

Are there any other questions on this particular slide?

If not, let's go ahead and move to the final slide, the contractual.

These are just a few more of our workforce and organizational memberships.

And I just want to add just one note.

There is the potential there may be a few budget adjustments coming on some of these.

As many of these organizations have boards that won't be adopting their budgets until a little bit later.

So they are subject to change.

And I know a couple are in the works.

So you may be seeing some adjustments.

And just one more comment to that, well, a comment to that.

It may be helpful if we feel like early on before boards adopt their budgets that if we are not going to be able to give city employees increase in pay that we also talk about, you know, send maybe a message out if that's legal.

to say that increases in COLA or pay raises cannot be accepted or reviewed this year.

If there's a way to create that consistency across the board, we had it come up in the jail board meeting this morning.

So that just is something that And we do try to communicate that when we can, especially on the ones where we have the option to have an impact with that decision.

If I may interrupt the magic of having so many people listen who know things that one of your questions from a previous slide was answered.

The dental clinic moved 100% from the health district to the free clinic a couple of years ago.

It's unclear whether that's as many as 8 or 10.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay, while Mayor Walker's looking for that, is there any other questions on this particular group or any of the others that we've just gone through that others may have thought of?

No, so I got it.

It was saying that the free clinic assumed management of the dental clinic and so they were just basically saying that the funding requests

for this year, and I don't know whether it's just the free dental clinic and the integrated medical clinic pharmacy, but they were saying because of that transfer that this funding is, you know, the funding is essential.

And one was rated a 2B.

So I guess then my question is, when they were under the health department, was that guaranteed funding through contractual agencies or

No, I think actually I'm remembering now that the reference there was when they were actually in the building at the health clinic.

So the free clinic was co-located with the health district for a number of years.

And so in the last year, the health district has necessarily had to expand its programming and needed all that space.

And so

So it hasn't been that many months since you all were talking about the Vibrant Community Fund process for the last budget year.

And that will likely be true as we continue to think about fiscal year 23 already.

But just a reminder about some process.

Significant changes have been made to the way that the Vibrant Community Fund process has unfurled and most recently spurned by a group

that the mayor convened in 2018.

Some of those changes included a new name, the adoption of five broad priority areas to focus decision making, creation of some funding opportunities to improve their capacity.

And so one of the things that had come up in that small group was how difficult it was for newer organizations or newer programs to sort of break into the city funding.

And so this was designed to help those agencies develop

some of their capacity to do that.

Albemarle County, which had been a partner in our funding process, established an independent process for funding local nonprofits, which they continue to call the ABRT, which is the former name for this process, and the creations of a workgroup to consider additional changes.

We saw additional feedback from Council last August before this process got formally unveiled to the nonprofit community, including

adding equity as a priority area, whether you all wanted to rank the actual priorities, not just have priorities, but actually have ranked ones, support for arts and culture programming, funding philosophy, and then responding to emerging community needs.

Next slide, Brian.

The impact of the pandemic has been significant on the nonprofit community and on the vibrant community fund process.

It's no surprise.

Seems to be something we're talking about a lot today.

Planned community meetings around improving the process for arts and culture did not occur.

The work group was interrupted by the pandemic and resumed meeting in October, but then lost the staff person in that process as well.

Many agencies pivoted services to focus on emergency need rather than previous goals, and many agencies moved to virtual services, resulting in fewer people served, but that's not exclusive.

There are some agencies who actually served lots more people because of their pivot, and so it's not that all nonprofits served fewer, but some did.

and that the community need for financial assistance, food, health, mental health services really sharply increased.

And that's both the intensity and acuity of the need has been really sharply felt by all agencies, regardless of how you started your relationship with the person who's receiving services, you have had to find a way to be sort of providing wraparound services in a way that you weren't necessarily before.

I think this will come up again later, but this shift in the sort of sense of emergency need in our community certainly impacted the decision making process for this cycle as well.

All of all of the folks who on the review team and on staff who were making decisions and thinking about this process had the pandemic as a backdrop in our decision making and thinking about the incredible level of need in our community.

Next slide.

Thank you, Brian.

So for this cycle, the process changes that were implemented were that there were six broad funding areas.

So the five that you all decided, the council decided earlier, education, youth, jobs and wages, community public safety, affordable housing, health, and then equity was added based on fairly robust conversations during the fiscal year 21 vibrant community fund process.

There were two ways that nonprofits could seek city support.

One was for general operating, and then the other was for funding under $10,000 for capacity building.

Applications were, again, just like last year, ranked by both the quality of the application, so exemplary, solid, fair, or poor, based on best practices identified for nonprofit programming and operation.

and then also on importance in addressing the priority area identified by council.

So those ranks were essential, important, helpful, no direct connection.

And then as you'll remember, the grids marry those two scores together into quadrants.

We provided a new method for arts and culture applications, a streamlined process that we actually borrowed with permission from Albemarle County who had done the same before this cycle.

application and evaluation improvements included a review team with experience as consumers of nonprofit services experience with grant making and nonprofit management feel really lucky to have had the members of our review team who were part of the cycle this year, and it really improved our the

and enhanced, I shouldn't say, and improved and enhanced and made our consideration conversations really robust.

So I'm really grateful for the review team's time and effort to help us.

Next slide.

So as you all know, there's a future council work session planned for process decision points and recommendations for the Vibrant Community Fund.

I think May is what I've heard, but I don't think it's scheduled at this point.

Next slide.

And I just wanted to make one additional point.

From the prior slide about kind of the future discussions and ongoing efforts, we have, we started, as Kaki said, we started this process a couple years ago trying to make the improvements and meet the needs that we were hearing from council in the community with this process and

We've started the process.

We by no means think this is a finished process or that this is a perfect process.

We are taking steps and we feel like we are moving in that right direction.

We were obviously somewhat delayed by the events of the past year, but we'll continue to move in that way.

And as we move forward and we make those changes,

We're looking at the process side of it.

We'll continue to involve council with these discussions and these decisions.

And so even those members of, you know, I know there were several of you who were not involved in the initial discussions of the changes to this process.

You will be much more involved as we move forward with continuing to tweak and change the process and make these improvements and these changes to get to

The process, I think, that everyone envisions in the end, which is our, you know, the end goal.

So I just did want to point that out because I know there are some, you know, that are some, a few of you feel like you were playing catch up last year because you weren't really involved in these decisions.

And so as Kaki explained all the changes that have happened, the changes moving forward, you will definitely be more involved and more a part of as we go forward.

Now we can go on to the next slide, Brian.

Make one comment about that.

I still want to put a plug in right now for the staff member for the Measurements and Solutions Office that the city desperately needs because even, you know, one thing that's

been clear, we haven't gotten much work done in the group, but that it's going to take, like this is not going to be a process that's going to be able to be handled well if we do not have that staff person.

So, as I would say, so in FYI, beginning FY21, we started making the funding determinations and decisions based solely on the merit of the applications and the scores from the current year's review and was not based on any prior allocations.

And the way we had done this was, as Kaki outlined, we have the

application scoring, whether it be exemplary, solid, fair, poor, or weak, and then the priority importance of essential, important, helpful, and no direct connection.

Last year, we were able to fund three of those categories, the exemplary essential, exemplary important, and solid essential categories.

For FY, based on how the scores for the current year came in for the FY22 process, we were able to increase the percentages in all three of those categories that were funded last year, the percentage of the requests that we were able to fund

And we also were able to add funding, a level of funding to those agencies and programs that fell within the solid important category.

And again, because it's independent reviews from year to year and obviously outcomes change, measures change.

as we go through a pandemic, the lens through which the reviewers view these programs and their importance has also been changed and altered.

So that led to some shifts in the overall scoring.

I did want to point out that the actual dollar amount did not change throughout this process.

It was actually increased slightly, about $7,500 for the current year.

But this just shows a funding breakdown of where the funding went, where this entire $2.26 million went for these funds.

And as you can see, there's still, even with that, there's still about $1.3 million in unfunded requests, $570,000 from agencies that

only received partial funding in these categories that are shown here, and then another 757,000 from agencies that were proposed to receive no funding.

Next slide.

So for the next few slides, they're organized around the six adopted priority areas that Ms.

Demick had mentioned earlier.

We're going to focus on the agencies and programs that receive the funding in each of these.

Our intent is to go through all of these slides and all the agency funding slides and then have a larger discussion about the agency funding, whether it be increasing funding for agencies that are already funded or adding agencies that were not funded in this process kind of in context with the other unfunded and potential changes of the FY22 budget.

So we'll go through and highlight

what was funded in these areas right now.

And then as we go through the next several slides, you'll notice also

Excuse me, let me backtrack.

Sorry, I got ahead of myself.

After we, as I was saying, we'll go through and highlight what was funded.

And then once we get to the end, if there are questions about what wasn't funded or those agencies that may have received only partial funding, we can we'll be happy to answer those.

And we'll also be happy to talk about the other items we have on our potential changes list for the budget.

As we go through the next few slides, please note that many of these programs and agencies meet multiple priorities.

And so the agencies self-selected their priorities and they were able to select up to two.

The way we have them organized is based on their primary alignment.

But for example, using MACA Head Start, primary alignment is education and youth.

However, there is an equity component to that as well.

So some of these may fall within several priorities.

And so

Just wanted to point that out that it's not, they only meet this one priority, some of them, some of them may only meet one priority, but many of them are meeting multiple priorities.

As you can see for education and youth as the multiple or as the primary, excuse me, primary alignment had 16 programs and about $900,000 worth of request and of that we funded about $690,000 through these programs.

Next slide.

This is our community and public safety programs.

And again, as you can see, there was $675,000 of requests through these nine programs.

We were able to fund about $516,000 or $17,000 in the community and public safety.

And again, there was agencies that were in all four of the quadrants that we were able to fund this year.

Next slide.

This is our affordable housing category, 11 programs at just shy of $900,000 and the funding allocations came out to about $540,000 for this group of applications.

Next slide is our health programs.

Again, we had agencies that fell into all four quadrants of our matrix that we were proposing to fund.

11 programs requested funding through this aligned primarily as the top priority with health, about $644,000 worth of requests, and we funded $240,000.

Next, jobs and wages.

This was the area that had the smallest or next to smallest amount of applications, only three program applications and roughly $70,000.

Ryan, can I stop you a second on the Community Investment Collaborative?

In our book, that's shown as a 3B, not a 2B.

I think that is a typo in that book.

Okay, I will have to double check that, but based on the scoring that I had been sent, this is when we were putting together the matrix, this is what we had in there, and I believe this is also reflected in the budget document for CIC, so Okay, thanks.

Those are intent.

The final category is equity.

Again, there was three programs that selected equity as their primary priority area.

There were 14 other programs that did identify equity as one of the priorities that they helped meet.

However, it was not necessarily the primary alignment of that program.

So I know equity was a new one, a new priority area for FY22, and I didn't

I want counsel to think that we didn't get any applications for this.

We did have these three applications and there were several others that selected this as a priority.

It was just that there were three that were the primary priority and one received funding.

So it was Sen Barreras,

The Fountain Fund and Legal Aid Justice Center.

I'm going to get this program wrong, but it's the Racial Equity Law Program.

I know I've butchered that name, but I think you understand that program.

Mr. Snook, the slide is correct for CIC, the book was a typo Okay, thank you Okay, so moving on to the next slide is our arts and culture agencies and I'm going to turn this back over to Ms.

So for really many, many years, for certainly more than the five years that I've worked for the city, the arts and culture organizations have expressed frustration that the process that they're asked to go through to seek funding prioritizes and benefits the more traditional social service agencies and requires that they contort to have outcomes related to those as opposed to more traditional arts and culture

Outcomes.

And so they had asked that we had essentially promised several years ago that we'd go through a process to try to create a more responsive tool and process for their decision making.

And so because of the reasons described earlier, we were not able to do as much as we had hoped, but we did want to make a process that was geared towards arts and culture specifically.

And so

thankfully the county had already done that work and so we borrowed their process which actually mirrored in some ways a process in both Ohio and Richmond that we had looked at and asked them to submit their applications using that tool and so there's I don't think there's any new

Well, there might be one new arts and culture organization or application in there, but the vast majority of them were ones that we had received in years past, and so we're familiar to them all.

Next slide please.

These are our capacity building grants that Keg spoke of where they can request up to $10,000 for capacity building.

There are eight programs that requested capacity building grants.

There was a review process with this, and in order to be deemed eligible, they had to meet certain criteria in terms of score, in terms of equity score as well, and priority was given to those

agencies that had a high equity score and both of these applications received the high equity scores and were recommended for funding.

Next slide.

So that concludes all the agency-specific information we had.

Before we went into the discussion, and we can go back to any of the particular slides that you'd like to, but before we went into the

kind of got into the weeds of the discussions of the individual agencies and the particular agencies.

We did want to show this slide, which is what we're calling potential changes to the 22 budget.

Additional outside agency funding is one of the areas we've put on here.

This reflects the list that we came away with from the last council meeting or the last council work session we had with you last week.

We feel that we've captured, you know, this captured most of what was talked about and wanted to, before we started talking about it, just look at this holistically and talk about additional agency funding in terms of looking at it in additional ads for the budget as a whole, because as, you know, as we did show you, we do have that additional

funding available for FY22 between the changes in our B poll receipts and the two expenditure reductions.

However, as we said, there's always more, the needs always outpace the funding.

And so this was to try to tee up those conversations so that when we are talking about potentially adding agency funding, we're also looking at it in relation to other needs that council has mentioned that they want to add to the budget.

I just want the the one of the proposals that I submitted was the Office of Innovation

and then within that was the solutions and management and measurements office creation.

And so I would like for them to be added in future slides so that it's at least part of our discussion and thought process.

And for whenever it's done, that it'll be clear that it was brought up for many years, the entire time.

at least for the measurements and solution piece that I've been here.

So I would like for that to happen.

I also, if we could add the employee compensation for the COLA, and I would like for council to have that discussion.

We already know that the comp study, and I'm interested in where we are in that process.

We know we're gonna have to start somewhere there,

But I think we all know that not all employees within the organization are, you know, kind of challenged by the lack of COLA.

And I think if our top level management, we keep having the discussions every time we have increases, when there was the $15 an hour, it was compression issues for other employees, which translated into the why we shouldn't do this.

And I think that if we can start having a discussion on whether even increasing like the giving the COLA to the managers and below conversation, if that eventually will help us with the compression

issues that will come up as we keep increasing the very top layer that no one has said that our director level and up are not aligned or maybe there's information we don't have yet since we don't have that study.

One question that I had for, I guess, for Ryan Akaki, I'm not sure who, on the page, it talks about arts and culture agencies.

That's correct.

There's programming at the lighthouse that is a specific request for programming and then there's use of the theater that has a broader audience and a broader purpose.

Sorry about that.

Okay.

All right, that clarifies that.

Under city-supported events, that's a category that we've seen a number of times in different years and sometimes it's been apparent looking back at the budget what was included in that and sometimes it's not clear.

So the city-supported events refers to events where we are not necessarily

paying for the event to take place, but rather the city's support of that event.

So for example, there's transportation related to the Dogwood Festival in the 4th of July, where the city encouraged the expense to run shuttles and things of that nature.

There's cost related.

Part of the reason there is a little bit of an increase in the city supported events for this year is a transfer of some of the costs related to the

Grand Illumination, and that's also supported in there.

I think I mentioned the Dogwood Festival.

I believe there was also what partially in here is the waiving of fees for I'm blanking on the festival now, I believe it.

I'm sorry.

Blanking on the festival.

There is a festival where we waive the fees.

That's roughly $2,000 to $3,000 in that amount as well.

And so it's just little pieces like that.

There's some costs related to security and cleanup for some of these larger city events.

So I have an example of, I was talking a little bit about this earlier, but I think, you know, Michael brought up, I got to find my notes for the other thing, but far as requests,

Crescento Juntos and Sembreras.

I mean, who else can do that work?

I'll say it again.

So when maybe they didn't understand equity and applying for that, but are there other organizations, and I said this last year, who can meet the needs the way they do?

And so I think that's important for us to consider as we vote on this.

and I if we could all look at the Piedmont YMCA as I'm given my example if I can find this year's because I think this is important for us to think about this

So last year, this organization was rated a 1B, and this year it's a 1A, and their request was for $68,000 both years.

This year, we've increased the city manager proposed funding to 64-6.

Last year, they received $37,000

3752 was the recommended amount.

And I don't know if they were on the slide that whether that changed or not.

You can look in the description for this.

And they talk about how much per

resident this year it's 68,485 residents.

Last year it was 68,412 residents.

So it looked like that that amount should have been able to be reduced if this information is factual.

Something that came up last year was that the rate of the income for which they were

offering scholarships was way past the income that we are considering.

I think the United Way is considering, social services is considering for applications of scholarships.

And so there should be some uniformity around if they are, because part of their model says that they, part of their funding stream is 72,000 this year from the United Way Early Learner Scholarship Fund.

And so, and I'm sure that United Way, based on what I understand of the Childcare Scholarship, is making sure that that amount, that families who apply for that funding fit inside an income stream.

And so,

If we are trying to meet the needs of the families who need it the most, then this is one of those things where it just, it seems a little off.

And I brought this up last year too.

And I just think it's something that we really needs to look at.

And if the United Way is meeting the needs, the way that the city is aligned with our priorities,

then the money, all the funding should go to United Way and then it would be dispersed out as needed or the money should go to social services to be dispersed out in those income brackets.

So that is an example of, you know, just trying to keep this

our costs down so we can serve as many people as possible and also whatever the if council, if it's still 70,000, which I don't know because nobody ever answered that question last year, but if that's what they're still doing, if we are okay with that, then we need to say that and I don't think we are.

It is 75 for full price and then there's two tiers of reduced price and then free based on their breakdown.

So 75,000 is their threshold for

above full freight below some degree of scholarship.

And as I recall, it wasn't a model that they adopted themselves, but it was also tied to some other metric.

And I was just searching through their application for CARES funding to try to find that.

And I'll keep looking for that for you.

And what I'm hearing is

more about having a uniformed expectation for childcare scholarships, regardless of where the childcare is and regardless of what the funding stream sources, whether it's through United Way or it's through us or through DSS, but that it's consistent across the board.

Kaki, do you have...

One thing I am noticing is obviously we've got some changes from this year to last year and who rated what.

I can certainly give it a try.

I didn't

I didn't serve on all the panels and so I wasn't privy to all of the discussions.

I did have some general impressions.

Was the criteria any different this year?

It was.

It was largely the same.

I think there were a couple of changes that were about clarity.

So there was a couple of repeat questions that we reduced.

And we continue to ask sort of the new questions sort of that last year we had asked about pandemic response.

And this year we had clarified that we're interested in, and I think we've always asked a similar kind of question, but what would be the impact of not funding the request?

So that it was clear that both the question and the responses had

a little more pointedness in our current climate than they had in years past.

But other than that, the process was the same.

I think the difference both for last year and this year is, of course, the additional ranking of importance based on importance for meeting the council's priority areas.

And so that's the biggest shift.

I mean, other than two years ago, we had said to nonprofits that

that every year would be a clean slate that there wouldn't be a reference to last year's funding.

And so this is, again, in reference to the feedback that we had received in the 2018 ad hoc group convened by the mayor, which was that if agencies could assume that they were going to get

at least what they got last year or some percentage and they were always going to eat up the pool of available funds and so it would be nearly impossible even if you are meeting a really critical community need it would be nearly impossible to break into the funding cycle unless we said every year is a brand new slate and so what that means is you're not tied to the request the amount of the request you had last year and certainly we saw agencies in the last two years increase the amount of money that they asked for from the city and others that did not

Thank you.

Can I add that the conversation around that was to try to give these maybe organizations with fewer resources the opportunity to kind of compete

I don't know.

I wasn't on that particular panel, so I'm not privy to the discussions.

Okay.

I wasn't trying.

I mean, again, I appreciate it.

So with the review team for many, many years was largely the same, the population of folks who agreed to serve.

And they really reflected people with experience both working in nonprofits and as donors or grant makers.

And there was a strong push in 2018 to try to make sure that we included more people who had experience with nonprofits as consumers of nonprofits and more members of a diverse community.

community group, particularly black and brown folks from poor neighborhoods who are part of this decision-making cycle.

And so we've been really intentional about that.

And so we're really pleased by this year's review team.

We are really, every single one of them was really exceptional, but we were very lucky to have Ben Allen from the Equity Center and Juan Diego Wade to join this year's group, among many other folks.

And just to be clear, how was this group chosen?

It's by staff.

And so we go out and seek people.

Another subtle difference that, you know, as far as how these agencies were reviewed and viewed is, as I mentioned earlier, it's the lens through which the importance was also viewed when they were reviewed last year.

It was before we really had even, maybe there was a whisper of the coronavirus.

And so

Now we've lived a year through the, you know, we were almost a year through that pandemic at that point when we start to review it.

So the importance of some of the more pressing emergency needs such as food, shelter, those kind of things tend to, you know, if you look through the scores, those tend to score slightly higher.

because of the lens that the reviewers were viewing things through as well.

And I think that does some of the subtle changes on the important side.

Many times when you look at the year-over-year

Rangings on what I'm going to call the quality side.

There's very little change in that.

I mean, there's some agencies that will come up, but you don't see huge swings in how those agencies are viewed from a year-over-year basis.

But there are some changes.

And again, the pandemic did affect one of the things we look at is outcomes.

and the agencies, you know, Mayor Walker mentioned reserves for the contractual agencies.

For these agencies, we do also ask about operating reserves and capital reserves to make sure that they are a good

Solid use of taxpayer dollars.

So I think one of the questions is obviously we've been presented like this is the recommendation for funding them the money that we have, but if additional funds become available or we determined to allocate additional funds to this this category, what are some of the ways that we might determine to allocate those additional funds?

I'm curious of staff's thoughts on the approach that Council might take if

if we decide to use some funding that we are aware of.

Again, we have to remember this is one-time funding that we're talking about that's coming up now, but also recognizing the need right now is just so significant.

One of the things I wanted to think I would... Real quick before you answer that, I still think that we need to look at this separately.

What we would fund with one-time funding and still having a conversation as if that funding did not exist, I think is important.

So if the additional funding wasn't there, would we go with these recommendations?

I'm happy to have that conversation.

Okay.

One of the, and I'll kind of tackle this in two parts.

The first is NRF and

response to the use of the one-time funds.

Because of the way we have

now shifted our funding recommendations where next year's recommendations will not be based on the current year's recommendations.

It really, if you decided to fund an agency in FY22, it really could be a one-time allocation because in the past, if you funded an agency at say $90,000, then that was built into the base for next year.

Whereas this year we look at the pool or the pot of funds as a whole.

And so each year,

Allocations are based solely on the merit of the application, not what you've gotten in previous years.

That was one of the big things we heard is those agencies get in either way up high or way down low and they can never shift from there and it doesn't meet the needs of the rest of the agencies or even the current agencies receiving funding.

So that's one shift we have made.

So one-time funds would really be

one time, you know, one time allocation.

And then in the next year, they would fight for the pool of funds, just like every other agency.

So that's part one.

Part two, in looking at, you know, if the question of if funds become available, where would staff recommend?

I think the

We kind of looked at this in in two different ways.

And there's a turn to the side here to look up these charts to make sure I have them in front of me.

But when looking at the the unfunded request, we essentially had, as I said before, agencies that were partially funded that scored within the

Quality and Importance Ranking to at least receive some funding.

There's still over $570,000 worth of their request that was not funded.

So those were ones where, you know, you could look at this agency received some funding.

They were deemed scoring high enough to receive some amount of funding.

Maybe you look to some of those agencies first to say that they scored well.

Maybe we should increase their ask to be able to get them closer, you know,

to increase their allocation data closer to the request.

And there may be some in the almost completely unfunded list, those agencies that didn't score well enough, whether it be within the priority ranking or the quality to not receive funding.

That's another $757,000 of unfunded needs there.

And so that would be another area you could maybe look at secondarily after looking at the agencies that were partially funded.

I guess the easy way to do that would be to look at what fell within each of the particular rankings and if there was something that potentially on the

the importance ranking side for the priorities that might the council might see as really needing to be reviewed or reexamined or talked amongst themselves to potentially say, you know, move it into a category that may have been funded.

I know that's happened as part of the discussion last year.

So that would be, you know, of those agencies that are not funded, that would be another way to look at it.

So those are two different ways to kind of look at getting to what

If funds should come available, how would you go about it?

Because I know that's, you know, 1.3 million worth of unfunded requests is a big list to try to sift through everything.

So I think, you know, there's a lot of time and effort by these review groups to come up with this ranking system and these review scores.

So maybe looking at those first and moving from there.

Not to say that there isn't some needs that, you know,

Council views as higher than what maybe the group did.

And that's totally within your purview as well.

Well, I have a number of questions about some of the agency recommendations.

You know, I know as was mentioned at the beginning, you know, there's obviously been a lot of staff turnover, the pandemic hits, you know, this is readjusting to meet immediate needs created by the pandemic, which is a new priority.

But similar to last year, you know, I still question a little bit whether the where the process is at is

too blunt an instrument or isn't quite meeting what our actual goal of some of the changes are.

I've been on council to go through the old process, so I don't know.

It may be the same exact challenge or it used to be even worse.

I don't know.

But because of that, going through it, you know, some of the things I was trying to look at is

you'll get a sense of the impact of the program, but as well as what percent of the operating budget of the program request came from the city.

And just thinking about how, you know, one unfunded request, if it's 1% of their budget is going to have a much smaller impact than if it's 50% of their budget.

And so just having gone through it, some of the things that jumped out to me were both the drug court and the therapeutic docket.

You know, as others has mentioned before, I don't know, it seems like those are just sort of more permanent parts of the

You know, like our criminal justice system locally more than competitive nonprofits, but I know their requests were about 20% of their operating budget for both the drug court and the therapeutic docket.

So question both the impact of there is whether it's, you know, seeming like that may be a higher priority than it was judged, just given the impact on the local court system and the role they play.

The other one was CRHA's Housing Voucher Program, also because, you know, it jumped out at me because it's important was at the highest level, but it's like application quality was low.

So definitely curious to get more information about

What that is and what impact it would have to not be funded.

My concern is that if we don't fund that, we're basically just going to be in a situation where people who could have been housed with housing vouchers just won't be able to because it's not funded.

But I don't know all the details and would definitely be interested in knowing we're there.

And then the two others were FARS requests.

I know both of them, their city funded portion was about 50% of their budget.

So to not fulfill those requests is basically going to, at least over the next couple years, end those programs.

And I know last budget cycle, you know, we had readjusted them to have those be higher priorities.

And I see that being, you know, a top priority for us, especially as the redevelopment process is, you know, starting to get underway.

And then the final was Legal Aid Justice Center's legal services.

I think that one was about 20% of their budget as well.

And just the impact that would have on their ability to provide just basic legal services to residents.

So those are the ones that jumped out to me.

You know, when I added those up, if they were fully funded, it would be about $312,000, I think, for that gap there.

But what I just can't wrap my head around at all is figuring out like how all these things fit into that matrix.

And if we're thinking about

If even some of these or all of them, how to meet it, like, are we just how how we would go about that in terms of like, shifting where things are ranked.

Or I would note, you know, I know at the beginning of the budget presentation, you know, it was noted that there have been some

Andrew Smith, Ph.D.

: Revenue changes are about $300,000 that have been cut from the police budget compared to our last presentation, both for the Mabel data units, as well as to positions inside and you know maybe

you know there's an opportunity to shift that money into this unmet need here since we already know we've had that adjustment in revenue and whether that's the best approach or just but the thing I really can't wrap my head around is I've tried to figure out like how everything would play out if you shift it into the different matrices and what percent is being funded but I guess the bottom line for me is it would seem like those requests

Again, particularly because of the percent of the operating budget there are in their alignment with our priorities would be important to try to fund as much as possible.

I'll just, the decision about how to move them around or to fund them is entirely up to council at this point, but around the issue of the instrument, I think you're absolutely right.

I'm not sure if I would describe it as a blunt instrument at this point where we've put a lot of work into it, trying to make it as transparent and objective as possible, but these are also human beings.

And so we are, you know, we are

able to influence processes directly and indirectly, intentionally, unintentionally.

And so there is a level of subjectivity that's inherent in the process as long as we're not having it be like scored by a robot or an algorithm.

And so that can be a really good thing.

And I will say that even in the five years since I've been working for the city, there's been a shift in expectations around what should be valued and what should not be.

And so this instrument's

has not been able to keep pace with that shift in council interest or priorities.

And so that's something for us to consider going forward, how to create a more flexible tool that can shift.

For example, percentage of overall budget in years past that those organizations who had the smallest percentage of their budget coming from the city council

had the higher scores and the greater interest because it seemed they were less reliant on city funding as opposed to those organizations now who need the funding more than other agencies might be

you all might be more inclined to say they need it so much we need to give it to them.

And so that's just a philosophical difference in the way sort of organizations have been valued in terms of their economic viability.

And so that's just one example and that there are a number of those kinds of things embedded in the tool.

The tool was originally created

with a set of best practice nonprofit administration strategies inherent in it.

And so some of those things you all would continue over time.

Council members have continued to value other things less so.

And so there is something to be said about looking at the tool in a way that makes it flexible enough to accommodate sort of shifts in philosophy.

I would also say that, and this is something that two years ago, or maybe even a year ago, time is difficult now with the pandemic.

So some time ago, I talked to you all about the fact that one of my assessments of the Vibrant Community Fund or ABRT process, I can't remember what we're calling it then, is that it was trying to do two or three things at once.

It was trying to fund those organizations that needed a match from us.

It was trying to fund those organizations that, like the drug court or

mental health docket who we would that at the time Council would say is automatic.

Of course, we want to continue to support them.

It's a critical resource.

It was also trying to fund organizations that were up and coming and responding to a critical service in a really flexible, immediate kind of way.

And so the way you might assess those two things is really different.

But we were trying to assess them all using the same product.

And so I think

You know, part of what I hope we'll talk about in May is a way to sort of divvy up the process so that it reflects more of those kinds of interests in a way that allows us to develop different tools for the assessment or the monitoring of those going forward.

And so I think you're absolutely right.

The frustration around those kinds of distinctions is felt every single year.

And I just want to say again, I was looking for something, but I have two reports here.

This is a report from a steering committee that was convened in September 2010 to look at the same discussion that we're having now.

And then this is the report, and I'm just pointing these out because they were before I got here, too, from that the UVA

the consulting clinic class at the Batten School.

This is the report they did.

And so I think this is a little bit, this was 2017.

But it says here in both of these reports about the final decision.

And in this report, it talked about how uncommon, even though the decision lies with counsel,

the final decision.

So these are recommendations.

And I think this is the report where it stated the 2010 report that the city, the reviewers on this board, which was primarily staff and then other organizational leaders, understood that they were making recommendations to council.

so I just want to highlight that and it was nothing about that process that was part of the change process I understand and it says in here somewhere and I'll find it and point it out just so I didn't I didn't write this but that you know that that was made clear to the committees that this was just recommendations they understood that they will be doing a lot of work and then we would be

be reviewing it.

But I think the bigger point in all of that is that we've been long before, you know, Khaki said her five years, long before then with this 2010 report, that we have been having some of these same conversations.

And I think that one of the ways to make sure that there's a

better process that we can trust is to make sure that those positions are in place to do that.

I think that many of us have shown support for we do need to have a resource focusing on that facet.

I think that the way that we're getting into our budget discussion, the way it was presented was part of a much bigger kind of construct of a department, which I think that right now we can't bite off that right now.

I think we need to focus on the specific roles that we need to have filled right now.

Yeah, so this was the first year that it was part of that bigger package, because that's the Office of Innovation.

This was the first year that was presented.

But the last budget meeting, I talked about the fact that no matter what we do, that that measurements and solution

staff member to start, which it'll probably be two staff members, but even if we get started with one staff member and that that person, either whether it's, I think, you know, the budget, if it's, if that office isn't created, then that would be a position in the, makes the most sense to be with the budget team to start that process.

But I've talked about that before that bigger package was presented.

So I just wanna make sure that we all heard the support of looking at that and figuring that out.

And Mayor, I just wanted to address one of the earlier points you made about these being recommendations.

I think one of the things I sit on the majority of these review groups as a staff member, and we always tell them at the beginning,

These are recommendations.

Like you said, you're going to do the work.

These are recommendations.

We've built it to be as objective as possible.

However, there's always some subjectivity to it.

And again, as the reviewers, they don't get the emails and the midnight phone calls from the agencies and from the citizens talking about these various programs.

So there's that extra layer that comes into these determinations.

There are going to be recommendations and there are going to be some that are followed, some that are not.

And it's just, it's not, you know, obviously you can't take those things personal.

This is a recommendation to council that has much bigger things and priorities to kind of balance all of this against as well.

Well, and it should be said, I mean, even in the things I laid out, still the majority of it is still driven by those recommendations and that work.

So it's not as if like every single thing was off by any means.

But again, to me, it sounds like there's sort of two parallel conversations, like the decisions we need to make this immediate budget cycle, and then that longer term work of adjusting the process.

And again, like I said, where I'm at is those agencies outlined, and I'll

I'll send those out in an email as well.

I'm definitely interested in trying to, as much as possible, fill the gap on those between their request and what's funded, particularly some of them that got zero funding and

You know, in the context of, you know, the, you know, cuts that have been made to the police department's budget and also, you know, the influx of stimulus money that we know we're going to get, you know, I would be interested in, you know, potentially even filling those funding gaps, not by cutting other agencies, but by providing more money into the vibrant community funds that, you know, is potentially made possible by those cuts we were presented with.

But that's where I'm at.

And I understand it may involve like, also involve like, you know, shifting some of these ratings into 1A or 1B and just figuring out how exactly all that works out.

That's again, that's the thing I really can't wrap my head around what that would look like for each one.

I think we also need to look at that for the last two years now we've had jail savings and looking into those programs including the public defender's office which assist us in those savings including the therapeutic the mental health therapeutic docket and the drug court both of all three of those

help divert from bed days, which then bring down our bill from the jail.

One question that I had, I remember last year, and it was my first experience with the process, and so I may have been misinterpreting some of what was sort of zooming by, but it seemed to me that there was

let's say some flexibility about what the top end was of the amount of money that we could allocate through the vibrant community fund.

And while it wasn't something we could just continue to inflate, there was a point where the staff, we reduced from 97% to 90% some of the allocations and that kind of thing.

There was also a sense that I remember having the sense at one point that it seemed like there was

some flexibility for the tune of a couple hundred thousand dollars.

It started off as $2.3 million.

It got reduced to $2.1 million.

I think we added a little bit extra along the way.

What sort of parameters are we dealing with here?

So I'll kind of spin this back to the context of, you know, kind of the message and what we've been speaking with you guys about over the last couple of weeks is that this 2.6 million is baked into the bottom line of our $190 million or 100 with the changes, it will not be $191 million general fund budget.

And so

With that, as we've heard you repeat and say it several times, it's a trade-off or a decision.

If you add something, then you're going to have to remove from somewhere else because we don't have an unallocated pot of funds sitting over here for agencies.

I mean, that is a decision point that we could talk about in May of, hey, would you like us to have, say, set aside $100,000 for a council to have unallocated so that council can

add during this process that but that's a different discussion.

So again, as we move through this, any addition on

of funding on the agency side here.

Again, that's why we put this, you know, we've had that final slide.

It needs to be put in context of any addition here needs a reduction somewhere else, and it may also mean that these other things on this larger list, it's going to make it more difficult to do any of those additions as well.

So, you know, instead of, I know it's very easy to get into the

kind of silo of looking at just the agencies.

However, that's why we were trying to take a step back and look at overall, you've got, you know, the amount for the agencies has been set in the budget.

Anything, any additions or, or if there's subtractions, I don't want to say that that's out of the realm of possibility as well.

If there's additions or subtractions, that would change the overall funding within the total budget and how that relates to the context of all these other things that we've been talking about

with the employee compensation pieces, restoration of areas that were reduced, all the lists that council had given us as well.

And I would just add, too, to that, along with the big list, if there are council initiatives such as the Office of Innovation proposal, Mayor Walker, that you're talking about, I mean, now would be the time we would love to hear about those things so that we can get them on a list and we can prioritize them, or not prioritize them, I'm sorry, but we can at least keep them on the burner for you as we have these discussions and so that

Yeah, and I thought that information was shared with you all.

Yeah, and I have not seen the specifics.

I have not either.

I think the council needs to discuss the scope of that because I think there's a lot of different ways.

We've given feedback to each other among ourselves.

Whether we are in agreement or not, there should just be a process for it to, it still is, should be, I keep mentioning it,

I would say that earlier we do that because we're rolling through these work sessions pretty quickly.

We're working on adopting a budget by April 13th.

So if there are new things, there's no one work session that's just about new things.

And so sort of our plan here is to come back to you at the beginning of every work session, just like we did tonight and say, hey, here are the things we know that have changed.

And

And again, an opportunity to have the conversation if there are ads or discussions that you all want to have as a collective group about what needs to be what you'd like to see added or change.

I think some of it is just that.

We know we're not in a budget situation where we can be adding a bunch of things.

And so I think council was trying to be cognizant around the types of things that we're putting on that list of things to add because we already can't do the top things that we've already stated and then you put on the slides today.

Yeah, and that's what I think is just like the conversations that we have with the employees, you know, the unfunded list, funded, you know, that and how we kind of nick away at that.

It's the same process.

And I had a note, another note, but that's another conversation, I guess.

I can't find it.

It's just important for us to have just like we just brought up this measurements and solutions position.

I have been bringing that up for years.

So that's not a new thing.

And so if we had the same kind of list, it would just kind of stay on there.

And when we get to it, we would discuss it.

Another question I have about tonight with the conversation right now is so if we look at AHIP on this

last year.

They had the same request, same number of city residents.

The proposed funding was 165 last year.

And I know it's not, it's a SEP next year and there's new people who are evaluating the program.

But this year it came in at 187.5.

So I'm just, you know, in terms of

Looking at these as the parallel conversations, I think it's if, you know,

We are now making decisions based on the fact that this American Rescue package is coming and there will be future package.

But I think we also need to keep all of these things aligned for the future.

So the Boys and Girls Club is also in there.

And I would not be all over the place if I could find my notes from earlier and I'll promise I took some.

But that just jogged my memory.

The Boys and Girls Club is in here for an after school program, which I'm sure was written based on a normal year.

But they are only, from my understanding, they only have students who are going through their virtual learning program.

They're not

because a parent contacted me about the fact that she needed somewhere for her kids to go after school and they weren't accepting students.

So what was the conversation around that?

And then in an ideal world, I think that the $183,000 that I think the Boys and Girls Club was the place, one of the organizations that received that and then the YMCA,

Is that tracked consistently?

And then are these organizations who are applying, are they also, any of them, can they receive the, did they receive CARES dollars and can, will they receive the American Rescue Plan?

I don't, that name is interesting, but can they receive those dollars to, what is it, ARC and maybe,

And if so, are we asking that question too?

Because that is very different from a smaller organization who may not be able to receive the funding to a larger organization who can apply for some of these funding streams directly.

And then that should impact like the discussion around who gets funding from the vibrant communities based on need, one-time funding

Now, to the question of the broader priorities, I've stated my thoughts on vibrant community and these bigger picture priorities, I would say

should even indirectly there be money made available because of this new stimulus money.

I would still rank my top priorities as funding for the CAF and trying to get to that $3 million level.

I know that's a big lift, but we just adopted a housing plan that called for $10 million a year, and we've got to start beginning to get to that commitment yearly.

And I know last year, the pandemic necessitated

you know removing all funding in CIP for CAF projects so I think it could be an area where there's a lot of one-time expenses for basically projects that are shovel ready affordable housing projects that would be able to go for able to put it there and perhaps you know in a process there may be other things for

Rental Relief or Eviction Prevention, but I think we could get a lot of bang for our buck if there's money freed up to put it there.

And again, those staff positions for the climate action planning process, as well as the recommendation for in the affordable housing plan, whether it be directly in the city or indirectly outside of the city, investing to provide right to counsel and eviction cases.

And I do think that'll be a very immediate priority once these eviction moratoriums fades out.

I think the number of people nationwide who will immediately be months behind on rent and mortgage payments is multi-millions.

So, you know, that's definitely going to be a big hit.

And then finally, you know, thinking about these bigger priorities, like about next year's budget, you know,

I know it may not be possible this budget cycle, but the General Assembly has given localities the authority to implement a tax on single-use plastics in exploring that both for the environmental benefit, but we could expect to perhaps raise a couple hundred thousand dollars and we could potentially earmark that for

the climate action planning process or green retrofitting homes to reduce energy costs, you know, all kind of climate related things.

I just wanted to add

Two thoughts to things I've said before.

The first is, Mayor Walker, I will join in saying that I think measurements is an important step forward that we need to be taking.

I have some quarrels with exactly the proposal you circulated.

but I have no quarrel with the idea that we should be looking for ways to measure the success or failure of the plans and the programs that we're funding.

And I hope we can figure out a way to do that that's frankly good financially for everybody.

The second point that I just wanted to make is that I served for about 20 years on a committee

that had as one of its main tasks, making grants to social service agencies, to nonprofits.

20 years is a long time.

In 20 years, I saw a lot of different philosophies come and go.

And there were times when one particular notion was popular, was thought to be important and

You know, at one point, we were trying to encourage more groups to sort of startups and funding startups.

And other times, we would be sitting there saying, man, those startups, they really, you know, they bombed out, they wasted our money.

Let's go back to the tried and true organizations.

I just want to caution us not to be too formulaic, not to be too inflexible, not to be immune to the, hey, that's a great idea impulse.

and if we can balance or leaven the rest of the mixture with that kind of an attitude rather than obsessing over exactly what rules we want to follow to get to our final result, I think we'll be happier in the long run.

By the end of next week.

Okay.

The only thing I would just add, you know, not to be, you know, burst the good news, but the one thing is that we still are a long way from knowing how we're going to finish FY21.

And Ryan... I promise, Chrissy, that was on my list of things I was going to say.

That monthly report to you next week, actually.

And there's a big number to make up there.

Yeah, that was actually the thing I think we need to look at first and understand what that volume is.

And also just some of that reserve, because I think that it's important for us to be planful and have some kind of cushion with so much unknown ahead.

And Heather, too, I would add, a lot of that list is already there, considering the budget cuts that we made during the budget process.

I mean, that would be where we would start with what the departments have already asked for.

We just didn't include it in the recommended budget.

But I am with Michael in terms of just thinking about one time things that we can allocate.

And the only other thing I would add just in terms of managing expectations, one, we're probably still a ways away from even getting the check.

There's a lot of processes to still happen.

And the other thing is before we ever finish out year end, we're probably looking early fall at the earliest from having any indication there.

So just to sort of manage expectations in terms of timing, keep that in mind.

It's fun to dream, Chrissy.

I do know there's also concern, pretty serious concern, that while the localities will be giving

They don't have as many restrictions as the states do.

And there's concerns that if the states do not meet their expectations and don't get their second half, that they will withhold other state funding to make up for that, that we will then need our rescue plan funding because the states, it sounds like, have more obligation and more restrictions.

And so I just want to make for the outside agency funding, which is the first thing on slide number 22, that, you know, I am interested in

whatever capacity that the funding happens in, talking about supporting the bridge ministry, Abundant Life, Crescendo Juntos, Georgia's Friends House, Legal Aid, FAR, and there was one more, The Conscious Capitalist.

to supporting them as, you know, I said this before in previous years, but the number of individuals and families that they serve, and they weren't even asking us for money in the past, we really need to, you know, take a look at it.

and then the CRHA request.

And I don't know if we've served the need for the vouchers with the other allocations that we have given to them.

So that's a question that I have there.

I still have the questions about the employee compensation and would like to look at the original question that I asked versus

and if out of this one time funding there are bonuses that would make up the difference and if we and I think instead of just assuming morale issues that we should have that you know conversation the affordable housing fund I understand but

If nothing else, moving that baseline for the chat program to the 35,000 and under, which if we had continued every year, it would be up to the 45,000 we would be considering this year.

to that first category is something that I would like for us to look at.

The additional new positions would like to list the Office of Innovation and pull out the measurements and solution, at least one staff member adding it to this climate action position and housing eviction specialist.

The conversion of temporary employees, cat operators,

again want to bring back in the other temporary staff members who will be calling back into the city especially Parks and Rec who had the largest temporary number of temporary employees in the past as we discuss reopening up and how important that is there and then of course you all are going to submit the recommendations for the last one for the

I have one more thing.

Oh, the $255,000.

So when we're talking about the Peace in the Streets and the Buck Squad, it would seem to me that if we were aligned with those priorities.

And first, before I say that, that was on my list too.

The counselors who attended, I think maybe all of you or at least three of you attended the Friday ceremony and you all got their budget way before I did.

And so I got it, I think the Wednesday, Tuesday or Wednesday after that.

And I've had conversations with Mr. Gilmore about how few organizations operate from that budget.

and what scaling up to have a successful organization looks like.

So I just want to say that because I think there are some different thoughts about that budget presentation is not how I operate at all.

But I think the work that they're doing is very important and that we need to figure out some funding for both of those groups and the work that they are attempting to continue to do through this time.

and if there was a reduction in the police department budget of the 250, 255, then it would seem if we were aligned that that would immediately go to some of those organizations and especially if they can't be served during the normal process.

So just one clarification, just so we're clear on that 255, the 55,000 is a reduction of the general fund police department budget.

The remaining was actually a reduction of CIP dollars that were allocated

for MDTs for the police department.

But that was a cash funded CIP?

Yeah.

So there is that money available.

but we also have some cash funded projects in the CIP that we need to be funding, right?

So the debt transfer is slightly reduced in 22 just simply because the meals tax is reduced.

All else is level.

In terms of the cash funded projects, you know, that's relative as to if they're always projects that are not funded.

That being said, there were $6.6 million of cash funded projects in 21 that were deferred.

so that we could create the reserve.

I think we need to start with our matrix, what we have, and then hear from staff on ways that we can further that matrix based on the process that was followed.

and understand what dollar amounts go with different scenarios, as Councillor Payne was saying earlier, like, are we going to increase our funding to those who already have funding?

Are we going to expand the groups that we have along the continuums of the matrix and see what those dollar amounts are?

We don't have endless dollars here.

We don't have, I think we need to at least open it up for public comment because we are over meeting time and to see how that goes.

But we do need to decide what is the priorities and then support and then understand we can't do everything.

And I know everybody's everything is different.

So that's part of the, but Councillor Snook also just talked about the flexibility and part of what is what

The conversation you were present around the capacity building grants was to help people build.

And some of the organizations that are applying for capacity building grants, even though they may have a segment within their organization they want to expand, that wasn't also the intended

idea for very established nonprofits to benefit from those funding either.

So there's a lot of work to do there to get different organizations and different people running those organizations in a position where they can compete in this regular process.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

If you're in the audience, we have about 39 people in the audience right now on the webinar.

If you'd like to address counsel, you can have up to three minutes.

Just click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar to get in line.

We have a couple of hands coming up.

First up will be William Washington, followed by Aaron Tucker,

William, you're on with city council and you've got three minutes.

You'll have to unmute your microphone.

Can you all hear me?

Okay.

All right.

Well, thank you.

This is, I've logged in.

This is Jay James.

I am chiming in representing the bridge ministry that was just mentioned by Mayor Walker.

And I would agree with councilor Snuth about

being less formulaic and looking at the bigger picture.

We were not initially recommended for funding, and I just wanted to address the feedback that we received from the committee where they rated our application in terms of our service as being helpful.

And I just want to address that specific issue because we provide a service of addiction treatment, helping people overcome incarceration, lack of employment skills,

and putting them into productivity so that they can change their lives.

These are things you all know about our organization.

We've done it for 25 years.

But to say that we're just helpful, we have people who come into our program that are one step away from death.

And we know about the overdoses of heroin and fentanyl in our own community, substance abuse increasing during the pandemic.

And we were one of the only long-term programs that I know of in our entire state that stayed open throughout the entirety of the pandemic without receiving any state funding.

and that would be the question to ask is how many organizations are able to do that without receiving that kind of support?

So we've been doing this for a long time in terms of serving this community.

But to just say that we're helpful, no, we're essential in equity and in public safety.

And we've even had individuals that we couldn't get to quickly enough to provide them with substance abuse treatment services or didn't have the resources to support them and they died.

Again, for us to be referred to as helpful when we provide this service to our community and we know with the priority on criminal justice reform, keeping the jail population low, we brought in 16 individuals from the Charlottesville jail over the course of the pandemic and we asked for in a budget

for, we prepared for 30 people.

We were asking for $10,000 per student because our cost is $36,000 we invest per student just for one year, which is an approximation is slightly less than what it costs to incarcerate.

So the numbers, if you're looking for an explanation of the numbers, we get two to four applications a day from the classification department of the Charlottesville jail.

Inmates are tested in quarantine before they come to our facility to make sure that we're COVID safe.

So I just want to emphasize these points that we are an essential service to this community to protect people's lives and to help them change their lives.

And I'm grateful that Mayor Walker brought this to the council's attention.

And I'm hopeful that we will be considered whether it's in the CARES funding dollars or it's in the continuum of the conversation.

Thank you, Mr. James.

And just real quick before Aaron goes, that was another question I had for On Our Own.

And so that's just something to look at in terms of, because even as we change this process, if

Things happen this way, look at their funding from last year and this year, there'll be a lot of questions just about the process.

So the general operating, they received funding this year, didn't receive funding last year, and then the RAP program received funding last year and didn't receive any funding this year.

Mayor Walker, I can address that real quick.

Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt public comment, but I believe last year that was because council made that flip.

All right, we have a new next speaker, which is Angela Cholfi.

Angela, you're on with city council.

Good evening, Mayor Walker, council members.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful discussion here tonight.

I just want to raise that last year we asked you to prioritize racial equity in your decision making, and you did.

You partially restored cuts per

proposed cuts to FAR, LAJC, and several other organizations whose proposals explicitly addressed racial justice and asked staff to make adjustments to the process to make sure the city's human services funding priorities reflected your commitment to racial justice.

This year we are back again to make the same ask LEJC's support for racial equity proposal was one of only three proposals that explicitly named racial equity as the point the number one goal of their proposals only one was funded for a total of just over seven thousand dollars toward equity as the primary goal

We think that's inadequate.

We are also mystified by the proposed cuts to legal services.

Last year our proposal was considered essential.

This year it's only important.

It's hard to see how our services could be essential before the pandemic but only important during it.

And I understand why you might think that.

We ourselves first really only came to understand ourselves as first responders at the beginning of the pandemic.

but here are just some of the things we have done this year that would be deemed that would not be deemed essential by the rubrics metrics defending evictions and preventing mass homelessness including illegal lockouts giving people accurate legal information explaining the rules around an ever-changing patchwork of eviction moratoria and rent relief giving information and advice to hundreds of callers to our unemployment hotline and compelling the Virginia Employment Commission to restore benefits to tens of thousands

helping people who lost their jobs and their employer sponsored health insurance to get ACA coverage and other public benefits helping parents advocate for their children's special education needs during remote learning protecting families from abusive debt collectors and recovering stolen wages and organizing pro bono lawyers to draft wills for our first responders and nursing home residents these services certainly felt essential to the people who no longer had to worry about their housing

Schooling, healthcare, and incomes, and they should be considered essential to the city.

Lastly, please fund FAR's internship program first.

FAR is a model tenant advocacy organization that is, in fact, the envy of many communities all over this country.

Joy Johnson even won a prestigious national award this year for her work at FAR.

The internship program is a building block of FAR, ensuring that there is a continuous supply of new leaders who can lift up the voices of residents.

Please restore the funding cuts to both organizations, but if you can only fund one, please fund FAR.

Only FAR can do what they do, and that is a huge equity consideration.

Mayor Walker, our next speaker is Shelby Edwards, who will be followed by Lena Saville.

Hi, Council.

How y'all doing tonight?

Hi.

Hi, everybody.

Well, my name is Shelby Marie Edwards.

I'm with FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents.

I will not take up too much of your time, but I first want to acknowledge, thank you so much for the meaningful dialogue that you all have had tonight.

I see and acknowledge all of your hard work.

And I also want to say

and echo the words that Angela just said tonight.

FAR is truly a niche organization, and I know that a lot of nonprofits can say that, but I wanted to say to the full council that our FAR internship program, which I would love if it could be funded, if it could be funded, period, is truly niche because we create the next generation, or we at least support the next generation of low-income leaders, much like Joy Johnson as

Angela noted today and affordable housing is one of the six broad funding priority areas as we said as y'all stated at the beginning of this and yet only one of the program and only one of the programs were funded so I would definitely ask that the council consider that moving forward

And I also wanted to highlight that the FAR internship program is a really big role in including low-income folks in city decisions.

And as we were talking in a meeting earlier today, I think it is important that we take this time to create systemic change that will last and systemic change that is beneficial to the people that are being affected.

So again, wanted to plug FAR.

Next up is Lena Saville.

Hello, everyone.

I will make this quick.

I just wanted to let you know that I am here in support of FAR Public Housing Association of Residents and Legal Aid Justice Center.

I suspect that quite a number of the other attendees here are as well.

Thank you.

Next up is William Washington, who I do not think is Jay James.

Council, thank you for this time.

Okay, great.

Great.

You know, Jay, Jay been just great trying to give the information and the communication of the bridge.

You know, we are at a place, as you know, it's been a very tough year.

And before this, we have been faithful to this community for 25 years now.

And changing and working with the police department, working with many different entities, you know, I can go all the way back to the Moore Moore Center, the Piedmont House that I have been a part of and

have impacted their success by supporting them and bringing them into our program.

But now we are at a place very clearly

that the bridge is needed in this community.

Not only needed, but it's called on a lot from Judge Hawkshire, from all the judges from Albemarle County, Charlottesville, the Commonwealth Attorney depend upon us, Martin Cadet, who's overseeing the jail.

We have 10 HEI guys who went out

and was released back into the community.

Someone reoffended, came back, and now the NL program is being very successful.

I mean, you have heard a lot of these things from Jay.

It's time.

You know, the bridge have not, we don't get state funding.

We have survived in ways that no other organization in our community have accomplished this.

You know, most of these organizations is benefit through state funding.

We have not.

We have been through hard work, faithfulness, and being very strategic with our funding.

and we have a facility that paid for.

We meet our budget, you know, sometimes it's tough, but we meet our budget.

It's something else that in that report that you have about the bridge, about the surplus, that was not a surplus, that was a building that we was building and was a capital campaign and we explained that, but yet and still it was explained in a different way.

Listen, if at any time the bridge is needed, it's needed now.

We are not only changing life, but we're giving the leaders of our community an opportunity, an opportunity to have a resource that actually works, to change lives, that not coming back into the jail, that becoming the city responsibility to keep paying from $35,000 to $50,000 a year to take care of grown men who can take care of themselves.

That's what we do.

86% success rate, but we can't do it alone no more.

We need your help.

That's what Jay is trying to say.

The bridge going to have to walk away unless we started getting support.

We have three more hands raised at this time.

Next up will be Aaron Tucker.

followed by Brandon Collins.

Erin, you're on with city council.

Hi there.

Hi, city council.

Hi, city council.

Thank you for, I don't know what happened.

I had lost my place somehow, but I'm glad to be here with you all.

I just wanted to say that I,

I also believe that the services that we're providing are essential.

We have a small staff of 10, but we are supporting 125 individuals in our communities and the surrounding communities daily.

Our staff call our members every day to check on them to make sure that they're doing okay, to make sure that their mental health is taken care of.

We offer three to five groups still daily.

And we also have two days a week that we're open for our pantry, where we're making sure that all of our members are receiving resources that if they don't have internet, we're paying for their internet.

If they don't have a computer, we're buying them a computer, a laptop.

If they don't have a smartphone, we're getting them a smartphone because we want to make sure that there is no one that has barriers when it comes to technology, when it comes to mental health services.

And so I also believe that, I know we were rated as important, but I also believe that we are essential in this community.

And this is our 30th year, and I don't want to see on our own

leave or go away because we don't have the funding to continue to provide these services.

And lastly, I just want to say that our services have increased substantially since COVID.

So we're one of those programs that have seen an increase in folks that we're serving.

Next up is Brandon Collins, who will be followed by Daniela Pretzer.

Good evening, City Council.

I'm Brandon Collins.

I'm an organizer for FAR, the Public Housing Association of Residents.

FAR is a truly unique organization.

We are recognized by the federal government and the local housing authority and hopefully by y'all as the duly recognized resident council and resident advisory board.

as far as been in existence since 1998.

And we are governed by a board of directors that are entirely made up of very low income residents of public housing plus one section eight representative.

Our board is representative of the population we serve and we have a very active board.

Our board is often populated with former interns.

When FAR was founded, one of the first things that needed to happen was to establish this internship program.

It's the bedrock of what FAR does.

And I think you've all seen the information in years past because we go through this almost every year.

We're happy to present figures, numbers.

It's in our grant applications.

and FAR is done right by the public housing community and done right by the city of Charlottesville for many, many, many years, including right now where you're faced with three major crises.

You've got a public health crisis, a housing crisis and a racial equity crisis.

And you've all stated that these are things you want to address.

You've all acknowledged that recovery from this pandemic is going to be intense and very long lasting and far as an organization has stepped up.

Redevelopment is beginning that would not have happened without our organization and that would our organization would not have been able to do that work without the work of the far internship program.

Giving folks the right information so they can have some determination over the future of their community is not only essential, but it's protecting people and it's doing the entire community good.

And I hope you all will continue to recognize that.

Fully fund our internship program.

And I would say consider increasing the small amount that was given for resident directed redevelopment.

These are essential.

I think as Ms.

Cholfi stated earlier, your intentions from last year were very clearly stated.

The decisions you made when you were tweaking the recommendations were based on racial equity and doing the right thing by this community.

And it's confusing as to how we're in the same position a year later having the same conversation.

And we have one more speaker.

So if you want to get in line, this is the last call.

Daniella Pretzer is up next.

Daniella, can you hear us?

I hope you can hear me.

Thank you so much.

Daniela Pratzer with the Bridge Line.

We serve adults with brain injuries and welcome to March Brain Injury Awareness Month of all months.

I just want to say thank you for recognizing how important our services are and particularly the residential program where people actually have a home and not being homeless in jail or

when they're 30 maybe living with their parents or in a nursing home.

So I just appreciate all you do and your support for our program for some years.

Got two additional hands up now.

First is Joy Johnson, who will be followed by John Sayles.