City Council Monthly Work Session   7/27/2021

I encourage us to begin to look at those stories through a whole different perspective.

I honor those who came before us and the work that they did

and as we move into our next century I think I would like to charge the young people that are sitting listening to this maybe even in the audience if you've always wanted to be a National Park Ranger this is your time.

This is your time to step up and tell your story to guide people in the places of our heritage.

As I think about the youth that I work with in Indian Country, I think about the generational trauma that they carry with them.

No problem.

One dollar.

Thanks.

Have a good one.

Yeah, I'll be home in like 15 minutes.

Hi, can I get a now bar please?

Uh-huh.

Sure.

Yeah.

All right, all right, take it down, let's go!

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Yes, Mayor, I am.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll call this meeting to order.

Ms.

Yes, just a moment.

Okay.

Mayor Walker?

Present.

Vice Mayor McGill?

Here.

Councilor Snook?

Here.

Councilor Payne?

Here.

Here.

Thank you.

This work session today is on the FY 2023 budget development.

And our first item of business is the resolution for the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund Program Review, Design, and Inclusionary Zoning Program Design.

It's for $165,000.

Is there a motion?

We talked about this at the last council meeting and we had a first reading on it and it would move up the process just by a week or so.

I move we adopt the resolution for the Charlottesville Affordable Housing Fund Program Review and Redesign and Inclusionary Zoning Program Design for $165,000.

Second.

But I do think there's some discussion.

That's all.

And I just wanted to discuss publicly some of the concerns that I had raised in email with other folks on council.

A concern basically about what the deliverable is going to be from the part of the proposal that involves helping design the affordable housing

incentive program, bonus densities, tax abatements, whatever.

There has been a lot of

of criticism, some merited, some probably not, but certainly a lot of discussion about the results of the efforts that we've gotten from the consultants so far and the question of how specific the recommendations have been to what might seem like unique conditions to Charlottesville.

There have been requests that the consultants do things like economic analyses.

I don't know what exactly their specific proposals are.

But I would hope that before things get too far along, somebody in city government, whether it's in the city manager's office, whether it's NDS, I'm not sure who, would sit down with Roadside or Hardwell and figure out what specifically we're going to get in the way of an evaluation of these incentives.

So I'm in favor of the effort.

Yeah, and I, that has been, Michael was on a meeting where we reviewed the process with NDSF, Chip was on the meeting, former housing program manager, John Sells, who had started some of this work, the review process of it.

So there was a lot of discussion around design.

The same consultant team that created the affordable housing part that we've already voted on, they will be the team that'll be working on this.

And I know that there's a lot of conversation surrounding the consultant's work effort at this time, but luckily all their meetings, I think besides one end notes are documented.

One that was in the NDS conference room was the only video that I can't find.

A lot of these people, including our HACC members that are making a lot, you know, sharing a lot of their thoughts about it now have been involved every step of the way.

And so now that there is an uproar in community for something that has been discussed, a lot of people like to point fingers and place blame, but they have been a part of these meetings and been able to influence the direction that these consultants have been taking.

Well, let me say I am not at all displeased with the effort the Roadside Hardwell has put in.

I think they've worked very hard.

I think they've been very responsive to what they've been hearing from the community.

I lay no fault on them.

I do note that there were some questions that were directly, why didn't you do this?

Why didn't you do that?

And their answer was,

That wasn't within the scope of the work that we were engaged to do.

I simply want to make sure that somebody is going to be sitting down with them and figuring out what exactly is in the scope of this last $165,000 to see, just to know whether we're going to get results that are in fact tailored to Charlottesville.

Thank you, Mayor.

Mayor and Council, I've got Deputy City Manager Sam Sanders is prepared just to give a brief overview because I do think in this case we have two very distinct deliverables that will be provided by the consultants.

We've spent a lot with a lot of help from Alex and Brenda with our housing and redevelopment.

Okay all right I'm happy to be able to do that for you I actually presented this to the HACC last week to give them an idea of what this

proposal this contract was to do.

It is really to take a look at CAF and look at the past allocation summary and look at the production under that.

Basically looking at who we gave money to, how much did we give to them, when did we give it to them, and what were the expectations.

And then there'll be the analysis of what were the deliverables that we were

We'll be doing site visits and interacting with some of those partners and looking at what the process is and what the relationship has been to more or less come back as the second part of that to give us an idea of how we can make improvements so that future NOFA's and

We're going to be able to look at a scoring model so that we can implement one to go forward so that we are fair and equitable in the distribution of the funds based on how we score.

And then just bringing back to our attention what tools and best practices we might need to take a look at and adopt as we go forward.

That's task one.

Task two is to look at the inclusionary zoning program and what I'll say in that regard again is having presented this to HACC this was so that they would be aware of what was going on to allow them a chance to weigh in on what they heard but the goal of it was to have the consultants help us design what an inclusionary zoning program could look like and

I do have one question now.

I appreciate you asking that, Sena.

That is a really good point, and it comes in two ways.

There's the amount of money that sometimes developers then forego and put towards the fund, which obviously would be in the scope, but then there's just if they decide to actually build units.

We know that we've had some projects that units have been built, but they actually haven't been able to be leased out for reasons that can be complicating at times, but I think it really would be helpful to understand that dynamic as well for those developers who actually were attempting to or had committed to and

and making sure that they have followed through on those commitments and understanding how many of those commitments they were able to follow through on and what hurdles exist so that we can prevent kind of repeating that in the future.

Are there any other questions?

Ms.

Councilor Payne?

Yes.

Thank you.

That carries 5.

O?

All of this will flow together and hopefully we'll also be following the same format that our budget process will with the development of a strategic plan.

I will go through what we're proposing there both immediately for the FY23 budget and then also what we intend to do to get back on schedule with a three-year strategic plan process

beginning with the FY24 and running through the FY26 budget.

Following this presentation, Chrissy Hamill and Ryan will bring up and discuss with you the process for the FY23 budget to include a schedule as well as a few, while I won't call them decision points, but at least directional points that we will need from you just because the

The financial items are so large and with that we'll be talking about the reconfiguration of the school and a couple of capital improvement plan projects that decisions do have to be made on in the very near future.

But leading up to that, we have been working on, I know that I have been talking with you for several months now about how to get back on track with our strategic plan process.

And if I could get Brian, he's beat me to it to begin to pull this up for me.

We're beginning because of timing to take a look at this in two different ways.

scenarios first to look at one more extension to our existing strategic plan just because we want to be able to get council and the public and our department's input

prior to our departments being able to submit their budgets to me so that we can put together the city manager's budget and get to you in March.

The department's budgets will be due to the city manager's office around November 1st

So they'll begin working on those anywhere from 30 to 60 days prior.

So we will be looking to get your direction and that comes from input to include the community prior to that point for key directions.

We aren't at this point proposing to look at mission, vision, goal type changes, but more of just strategic initiatives of projects and direction that you may want to see in the FY23 budget.

Brian, if you'll switch to the next page.

You'll see in this presentation and for those of you that have been on council for a couple years, you've seen the P3 logo of planning, performing and perfecting when it comes to our strategic plan process.

This was a program put into place with our leadership team and with council several years ago.

It had proven very successful and was really gaining some momentum and then during the time of transition and the pandemic we've kind of lost that momentum but we hope to be bringing that back.

and this is just a coordinated way for the staff to work with the council and with the public and having an ongoing all year round strategic plan process of looking at results as well as financial planning for the upcoming year on the next slide it's just

The P3 is a core team.

It just promotes and champions the strategic planning process.

It helps to create the systems that are necessary.

And it's the communication and coordination between the public, the council and all of the leadership at the city organization to keep this running year round.

The next slide

just gives an idea of some of the leadership that have been involved with the P3 and the strategic planning process, city manager's office, police, fire.

A lot of our departments with the largest budgets and the largest number of employees have all participated in the past.

On the next slide, we begin to take a look at both the history and where we then will be going with our strategic planning process.

This all really began back in 2008 and was working quite well.

In 2014, the 15-17 strategic plan was adopted.

In 2017, the 18-20 plan was adopted.

But then the past two years, including the current fiscal year,

will be extensions of that FY 18 and 20 plan that was adopted.

This will be an update without major changes, but what it will do is provide us the entry level so that when we're developing the FYI 24 to 26 strategic plan, which will be not an update, but a complete new development plan that will relook at mission, vision, as well as the strategies

and activities that council wants to see city government work towards.

What we'll be looking at is that in May to August of next year, that would be when we would really be putting that plan together so that we'd be bringing it to you in August of 2022.

The next schedule, our next slide.

Thanks.

Oh, sure.

We will be working both with council, with the public, and with staff.

Okay, I want to make sure because part of when we tried to do this update, Sena, that meeting was what, last year or earlier this year?

At a certain point, but we had a lead team leadership meeting after our failed attempt to start this process earlier last year, and I think it was my perspective of that meeting was that there wasn't alignment, which I'm hearing from you, that's why I asked just for clarification of

on whose plan this was and who was responsible for it.

And I think it's very important for us all to understand that we are all doing this on behalf of the citizens, that there should be lots of influence from them and just not the citizens who usually have access to people in leadership and that these departmental plans should be influenced

Very much, and it's one of the reasons you'll notice.

Matter of fact, Brian, if you could back up another slide.

Previously, the plans were brought to council in June after the first year of the three-year cycles budget was already adopted.

We're really changing that up so that council would adopt the strategic plan before we even begin development of the next year's budget.

For me, in addition to the performance management of this program, it's so instrumental for the staff to receive direction from the council

and for council to receive input and direction from the public prior to the departments putting together their annual budget so that they will know where they're headed what they're trying to accomplish and as you said Mayor it's that three-legged stool it's three different groups working on this

but getting it done prior to working on the budget it's so crucial and and so we're moving it way up so that this would actually be approved prior to the departments even beginning their budget process so thank you the next slide again

Starting to get into a little more detail of the current.

Knowing we do not have time to accomplish a three-year strategic plan prior to having the departments who will begin their budget prep in September to October 1st as kind of the last moment they can start working on their budgets.

We just wanted to update the current plan.

what we are hoping to do is to have a workshop with you we're proposing early in September hopefully that would allow us a hybrid type meeting where those who wanted to be there in person could as long as they were safely distanced and then we would also have the virtual capacity for both the elected officials and the citizens

Again, all of this is contingent upon our COVID levels staying in a very positive way.

There could be the likelihood that we do extend our current state of affairs past the current estimated time of September 7th.

But anyway, we're going into this optimistic.

We're hoping to bring council together for about four hours in a workshop setting that would allow department heads to present their initiatives.

for the council to present their initiatives and then for the citizens to have input as well.

We would come out of that with a lot of different items and then staff working hopefully with a facilitator would then put this together and group like items together, look at things that are multi-year in nature

and then come back to you with a draft of these strategic plan initiatives for your review.

Then we would revise that with your input, with the public's input, with the department's input, and then come back to you in early October for a final approval.

That would give enough time to get it to the department heads for them to utilize in putting their budget packages together to submit to the city manager's office.

All right, really quick question.

Sure.

A couple logistical questions.

So number one, so it's September 11th date is the date we're targeting.

I just want to make sure we all block our calendars because that's a Saturday.

It's a Saturday morning.

Okay.

So, okay.

And then number two, what kind of prep in advance of that will we be able to kind of, so we're all kind of making the best use of that time.

Like what will staff be providing to us for consideration?

Like how many priorities?

No, we will give you a very detailed and we've already begun looking at it from the perspective of trying to give council five

Yeah, I think it's right.

Five minutes each to just kind of rapid fire what your priority initiatives would be.

We would then give the department heads three minutes each to provide theirs and then the public three minutes each to provide theirs.

We would give you the current strategic plan.

We would also supplement that with certain projects that have come about that were not in the strategic plan.

So we would be able to give you that.

And we would also give you some direction of trying to keep this at a high level.

If it's creating jobs, it may not necessarily be how to create those jobs.

But the initiative is to create jobs for individuals that are either currently unemployed, getting out of incarceration, or at a certain income level.

So we would be looking for that, but we would provide you with all of that ahead of time so that this can go as quickly and efficiently as possible.

For me, four hours would be the extreme.

I would like to get this done between three and four hours in a work session.

After four hours, it's pretty tough to keep the attention span.

Should we have to come back?

We could certainly do that, especially with the virtual capabilities.

It would make it easy.

But we would give you plenty of prep time.

Also, I will very likely begin to, if your time is available, begin to meet individually, possibly even on a weekly basis, just to talk budgetary items, rather than as we meet now about all items, keeping some meetings strictly for budget only.

Hopefully that helps.

Okay.

The next slide, if you will.

This then takes us a year later when we're putting together almost a year later, is that we will have the need for a new plan.

As a mentor county manager once told me, he said, Chip, if you have one new council member, you have a new council.

and so come January we will have a new council that will be considering that following year's budget we want to have extensive community meetings we want to be able to meet with individual counselors we want to make sure that we're determining the right performance measures things that are simple to put numbers to to make sure if we're being successful with our endeavors or not

working with all of our departmental and leadership team and then also to look at some of our peer cities.

It's also, you know, when you're looking at different departments, it's good to at least look and see what other cities with our similar budgets, with our similar populations, what they spend per capita on something like education, law enforcement, affordable housing, things like that.

As mentioned earlier, in May or so, we'll begin to work on the plan development itself, working with the council, the public, and our leadership, and then get to you in August a draft that we would then begin to massage until we can get it for your approval, hopefully somewhere around late August.

I was just going to say, and again, that's the three year plan.

Last year, again, when we attempted to update the organizational values, I think that is going to be key no matter what year we're working on, especially for the departments.

I'm thinking again back to the work that Mike Murphy and

did during his interim process.

We're trying to get a feel for how well departments understood equity.

And I hope a new council doesn't mean that that isn't like the foundation of all the work that we do and that somehow stays at the forefront.

But it was pretty clear through the efforts that they did with communicating with

department leaders that there was not a real understanding of that.

And whatever that role, you know, however that is prioritized, if it's going to be effective, there needs to be some kind of understanding, which I think that mission value statement has to be key.

And I think that's why it's so important with the FY 24 to 26.

I mean, we will have the current strategic plan to work from.

But to me, everything is game.

And it's something that we need to reemphasize.

I'll say in the current plan, while equity is mentioned, it's not highlighted.

Yeah, and I guess the fact that we haven't had this update happen to date and it should have happened before now is the reason that is not clear.

Sure.

Not to try to put...

Any ideas?

But that could very well be one of the strategic initiatives that becomes a priority out of the current for the current budget.

Even though we're only updating the existing strategic plan, that would be something for council to consider being a priority with the upcoming update to the strategic plan.

So it doesn't have to wait until the next year's plan.

Next slide.

This is just a copy of the current plan.

It's the organizational values as well as the goals, the five goals.

What we would be working on with the update plan coming up in September would be just making sure that the initiatives that are brought forward all fall within these five goals and also follow and meet our organizational values.

So for Councilor Hill, this is the type of stuff we will provide you the full strategic plan as it is right now.

There is also on the next slide some of the initiatives that you all have recommended in the past that we're working from now.

So we'll be able to provide all of these to you prior to that meeting.

Some of the things that just make this a little bit different than what's been going on in the past is it does give a very timely direction to the departments for how they prepare their budgets.

It creates a avenue for conversations about exactly what is strategic planning and how do we measure it?

How is the departmental performance measured from the success or non-success?

Also creating conversations, not just about what needs to get done, but how things get done.

It creates an avenue for community of residents as well as the city council to engage with the organizational staff and hopefully we'll have better execution of the plan and be able to document the accountability of the performance.

These are the goals that we'll be striving for

I have a comment about the, I do like the idea of hearing department leaders' presentations.

I think that's something that's been missing and it will give

us more information to be able to either advocate on their behalf or at least tell them why we chose to allocate funding to another, you know, something else other than what they were recommending.

But I also think there needs to be a and I know that people have said that this is somewhere, but a list that's created that

you know out of each budget cycle for just prioritizing the request in order if we did have the funding and putting the reasoning behind why that's at the top of the list because I think that will help with the next budget cycle so when department leaders are saying that I've been requesting the same thing for three five years or whatever we at least would have you know record of that and

Sure.

Most definitely, Mayor.

These types of plans are not just important for the current year, but they start to set up the future so that we can see reoccurring themes of things that are of high interest.

And it does then give the ability sometimes to say, well, if we can't fund this particular thing, what if we combine it with something else?

that then makes it more palatable.

And I know I'm kind of a broker maker, I said this earlier, but I'm just talking, thinking through this process and if we have all, you know, obviously we're going to hear from the community, we're going to hear from senior leadership in the organization and from counselors.

I just think that either

we we know that I mean you mentioned there's more than one meeting for this but I'm just trying to think again at this September on the 11th what we can see ahead of time so that we're all coming kind of with all the information available to us so we can all work together to kind of see what the themes are and where there's that alignment versus trying to just all be hearing it for the first time that meeting and I'm sorry if I'm just repeating myself but it's just as we talk about this I just feel really strongly that it would be more helpful I know for me to just have

what my colleagues are feeling, what staff's feeling, even if it's at a high level, just those themes.

And so we can really make the best use of that conversation we're all together and maybe even come in with a summary of like, this is what we've been hearing across the board, or these are where things are majorly different.

We'll work very, very strongly for that because it is very, very important.

I don't have to tell you all is that

This effort is designed to get the consensus of council.

It's really not designed for one council person's initiative.

If you know ahead of time and so you can start working together so that you know, hey, this theme is something all of council is behind, or at a minimum three of council is behind, then very clearly that gets its way into the budget, more so than to have everybody out there with very different individual type of requests.

So I think that's very important.

Thank you.

One comment that I would make is that we had talked about doing something with the strategic plan last year, and I would just say that I think this is a much better thought out approach than what was being

Thank you.

That's our goal.

That's our goal.

The only other thing I'd say with it, our goal is simple and understandable.

You won't mind putting this in a backpack and taking it with you somewhere.

We want it to be very easy and manageable and easy to follow.

I've seen these before.

Try to include everything and you end up just being unusable.

With that, thank you again.

I will turn it over to Chrissy and Ryan to take us forward.

I do want to take this time because we may get into some really meaty subjects.

later in the discussion.

But I have the misfortune to be the bearer of news that we're losing Mr. Davidson at the end of August.

He had some professional opportunities that he is able to take advantage of.

He has been a great asset to the city for 16 years or so.

And he will be sorely missed, especially

at budget time, but the rest of the year as well, but just wanted to tell you all that and have you join me in wishing him well, but he'll sorely be missed.

With that, I will let him earn his keep for the next 30 days and turn this over to he and Chrissy.

Could we comment?

No, no, I'm sorry, I see You're the mayor, tell him no, I told him no and he didn't listen to me But yeah, that's, yeah, Brian, well, have, you know, enjoyed your energy from the very first project that, you know, with the vibrant community trying to shape that

when I first got here and always welcome.

While I know you had to be frustrated at times, you really just try to get the information that's requested and presented and lots of, you know, knowledge and history.

So I really enjoyed

you know, the time.

And I'm just at a loss because I wasn't prepared for this.

But I can't say enough.

I mean, you've been the continuity for the budget team because when we first came on council, we lost one of our other budget folks around that time.

And you've been here through the whole thing.

And as Nakaya said, you know, we certainly work closely with you, not just through the evaluation process for Vibrant Communities Fund, but obviously every year that we've been kind of pushing through with this.

But also, I just can't imagine you and Chrissy without each other.

So

I'm just trying to put myself in Ms.

Hamill's shoes as well.

So can't thank you enough.

It's just been a pleasure working with you.

And I'm just, I'm sorry for this news, but happy for you.

I'm sure this is, you know, a great thing.

So thank you.

No.

But I just want to say thank you to each and every one of you.

I have enjoyed working with you.

As frustrating as I know it has been for you, it's been frustrating all around, but it's been great at the same time because we work through the problems and come to what I think is always has the citizens

needs and the city's needs at heart and trying to come to that compromise and the best solution that meets the needs of everyone.

And I truly believe that each and every one of you has the best intentions and the best needs of the city and the citizens at heart.

And I've appreciated that.

And I've learned, I'd like to think that I've learned something from each of you and from everyone I've worked with.

And I'll miss the people and the family here at the city, but I'm happy to be moving on to a good opportunity.

So good afternoon.

I'm going to try to be cheery and happy.

We're going to ignore those last few minutes, let Ryan enjoy it.

We're going to talk a little bit about the budget process going into this year.

I also want to take this time to introduce and let you know that we do have a new member in the budget office.

Brian Ray was previously in Parks and Rec and he'll be coming over not to necessarily fulfill a role that Ryan has been filling but to work in the background and help us to

put more things online to be more transparent, to provide more visuals.

And so he's working on some really exciting things that we're looking forward to pushing out with this process to help address just providing more information related to the budget.

So I do want to welcome him as well.

And with that, if we could just move on to the next slide.

The budget is a cycle.

We start, we finish, and as soon as we finish one, we're on to the next one.

So if we think about this in terms of the beginning, staff works throughout the year in terms of planning.

We're working on forecasts.

in teams such as the revenue team for the monthly reports that Ryan has been presenting to you.

There are a team of folks who are looking at those numbers constantly and working on those forecasts.

Departments are working on their budget submissions.

We're also working on, you know, the initiatives and the things that are set forth in the strategic plan.

those kind of happen all year but they certainly get pushed in the you know to the forefront as we begin the budget cycle we're starting to look at that and kick those off again sort of the next stage is once the submissions I'm sorry can you go back

So the next the next part of that is that once the staff has sort of put all those pieces together the budget staff with along with the city manager begins to review all that information and develop a proposed budget that ultimately the city manager will present to you all in the official form as the proposed budget

from that council will review that take the opportunity to put your touches on it make amendments and you will then as a council formally adopt that budget

So if we move to the next slide to sort of just put some dates to that, you know, August and September is sort of where we're going to start kicking off this budget development, both the CIP and the operating budgets.

Departments will be working and submitting those throughout October, November time period.

in the November and December time period we'll be working on the CIP presenting that to the Planning Commission we'll also be meeting with departments the departments will have the opportunity to meet with the city manager to discuss their submissions

throughout January and February we'll continue to develop the proposed budget and in February is the very important date because that's when we're gonna get down to what we think is pretty close to what our budget's gonna look like and what advertised tax rate we'll be submitting.

In March, the city manager will actually present his proposed budget to you.

And then in March and April is when council will take the proposed budget and you will put your final touches on it to formally adopt that in April.

So as we look at these dates, next slide, there are parts of this that are sort of dictated by the city code and that, you know, the code section is listed here and basically the city manager is required to present to you a proposed budget by March 15th.

and he uses his judgment and the information that he gets so in the visual below that's basically a combination of the submissions from the departments the budget guidelines that we'll be working on with you as part of the process your priorities forecasts and projections all of that information will be put together and will be used to actually create a document of the proposed budget that the city manager will present to council

and then in addition the next slide council the city code provides that you will then take the proposed budget use the details of that use public input your input and make amendments to that to what will ultimately become the adopted budget and that must be adopted by April 15th of every year

So in a nutshell, that's sort of the process.

There's a lot of work that goes behind the scenes, and that was a very short explanation.

But to kind of keep it high level, that's the process.

And we wanted to talk to you today.

So next slide.

to take this opportunity early on to talk about the things that we're going to use for the budget development and some of the sort of key decisions that will be feeding in to both the general fund budget and the CIP budget.

One of the things that is kind of a continuing conversation that we started last year is the school reconfiguration project and the need for the tax increase to cover the debt service that would be associated with that.

In addition, as part of this budget development, we will be looking at options and discussing options regarding the operational funding calculation or the 40% formula

to see how if we increase taxes and we allocate that to the reconfiguration, then what does that do to the formula and how can we best adjust to make that work and still keep the general fund balance?

and then thirdly we will look at the council's strategic priorities as Chip spoke with you earlier about the process for the strategic plan we will use the input from you the community and as well as our senior management to best fit those priorities and make sure that this budget is addressing those as we move through the process

so that will be sort of the starting point for the general fund as we move on to the next slide for the CIP again the school reconfiguration project will be driving that process as well we will basically begin with no new projects being requested as we discussed last year with the five-year plan that's put forward and the 50 million dollars that were programmed in for the school reconfiguration

Our CIP is full for a short period of time.

As you will recall we put in the $50 million and it was programmed for FY 2025 and in order to get that in we were looking at approximately a 10 cents tax rate increase to cover that additional debt service.

As those conversations have evolved through the committees that are working on that reconfiguration, the three points with the asterisk are things for your consideration that will need to be decided.

At the last discussion, schools were asking or seeking $60 million, and that was for the reconfiguration of one school, which was Beaufort as phase one.

They also requested that construction be moved forward to FY 2024 and that funding sources at this point would be unknown for phase two which would be the Walker campus.

Again, West Main is still a decision point that will need to be discussed.

If we're currently there is 18 and a quarter million dollars that are programmed in for bonds that have been authorized for that project.

If we are now moving the school reconfiguration to 60 million, then 10 million of that would need to be reprogrammed from the West Main Street project and moved to the school project.

So these points are the things that we are starting with as we start developing this budget we will be looking to you for your input your guidance in terms of are we hitting the mark are we where you want to be and if not then you know where does that need to be so that we can best address that in the budget

And that's kind of all we have prepared.

We are hoping that, you know, through today, today is the beginning of the conversation.

As Chip mentioned, you'll be having regular meetings.

You have regular meetings with him weekly.

that you will take the opportunity with him to regularly discuss budget issues.

And Chrissy, if I could just I want to to

emphasize as much as possible your last next to last slide of those are the school reconfiguration and the West Main Street are very key points that that really set the stage for how we develop the rest of the budget.

So those are those are some talking points and it's why we we pinpointed those out right now because

Just to make sure like because not I mean I think I've talked to some counselors and that we talk about the walker phase two it would be that that would be seeking other revenue streams that are beyond the city so if we think about that sales tax if that was a possibility that that that might be one of the things that would have to fund that at the same time that could also be something that

helps relieve some of the pressure even on the phase one piece.

But that was a discussion by the working group that really prioritized that getting Buford correct and really getting both the facilities as well as the capacity to what was needed to accommodate the three grade levels was determined to be the priority and getting the fifth graders back in the elementary schools and then recognizing that Walker would be a facility that would

just be able to, I mean, the preschoolers would move into it, but there wasn't going to be a lot of capital investment until we identified another funding source.

But there was also just some nuances around the length of time to get to the end of the Beaufort project.

And if we find those other funding sources are available, that Walker could, in fact, still finish within the same time frame.

Thank you, Mayor.

And thank you, Councilor Hill.

Very important, and I think a priority is the pursuit of the capital sales opportunity that the General Assembly does allow through referendum strictly for school capital projects.

That would be another game changer if we could get that approved.

Clearly, it's something we can't budget for.

We can't assume it will happen because it's just not that sure, but something to pursue because it would, if I stand corrected, I think it's about $10 million a year that that would generate for school capital projects.

So it would make a huge difference.

And I think we do have to be prepared because not all those things still have question marks, those other funding sources.

As we've seen in those working groups, we have a community, and I'm the same way, so I'm not saying it negatively, but who has set its sights on something and that's what they want and that's their vision.

And they have a hard time letting go.

And just for my colleagues, since I haven't discussed it with you, my comments to the schools, because I think this preschool plan to move the students into that building, that's going to cost us more than

that people are admitting at this point if they don't change course on that plan.

I don't know if we can afford it at that time.

So I hope that the school board is at least discussing

you know some of the changes that that they hope to happen based on the fact that we do have to split these projects up and I am in favor of splitting it up which I wasn't for a long time but if we it we when I returned back to the meeting last week before last whenever it was they it seemed like there were cutting corners to make two projects happen simultaneously and that's not what anybody

would want, and I don't think it would give us facilities that our, you know, kids deserve.

So those are my comments there.

I do have a comment on the slide, the budget cycle slide.

I do think that where it says staff planning, forecast, submission, strategic planning, that

It should also, that part should say council.

And I know I've been very active here.

One of my conversations back with Maurice Jones, he said that I was coming in with a lot of ideas.

But last budget cycle,

The chat program, which is a big item for me.

And I think as we're talking about increasing this 10 cent, there's no way that we cannot figure out how to get that

to increase who qualifies for that and the amount that they qualify for.

And even though that requires work with staff, one of the things that came out of last cycle was that staff officially got it too late.

And so at what point would you want items like that to come in?

Because by the time we show up on this,

Mayor, I would say I think you and I meet this Friday afternoon.

We could begin that discussion on Friday.

And I do, I agree.

I think that especially if we start assigning a portion of our meetings to talking about the upcoming budget,

I can talk to each of the counselors individually and make sure then that collectively you all know what's being put on the plate so that you can then start working together to build that consensus.

But I still think it should be visual somewhere because I participated in budget meetings before I became a counselor, but let's say if you have two new counselors coming on next year, you will have five counselors who are really trying to figure things out still.

And I think that them being able to flip through papers and see, like, if I have an idea, that's the time for it, even if there's not someone who is on

Council sharing that.

We can do that.

Some of my thoughts is one on West Main, which never ceases to come up.

As was said in the past, I think I'm not happy about it, but I just don't see any realistic way to be able to afford school reconfiguration or other priorities unless we're cutting that.

I've seen people say they wish we could do both, but I just haven't seen a realistic argument for how that's possible.

The only way I could maybe see it being possible is if there is some kind of infrastructure bill passed by Congress and there's some way we're able to take advantage of that.

But that's the only way that to me would seem to make sense, not with our local money, given the money that's going to be required for school reconfiguration.

I will say that no new projects being requested gives me a lot of pause.

I think we need to have a very real, honest conversation about the specifics of what those trade-offs are going to mean.

For me, that makes me nervous because I'm thinking about

What if there is an unexpected increase in the cost of public housing redevelopment?

What if there's an opportunity to take advantage of state money to ensure long term affordability for Midway Manor and we need local matching money?

How are we going to fund that $10 million a year for our affordable housing plan?

If we're freezing our CIP, every single one of those things is not possible.

So it gives me a little bit of pause for us to go all in on saying the CIP budget is completely frozen for new projects if we haven't at least exhausted trying to pursue the opportunity of that sales tax.

And the final thought I had right now is, you know, one of the things I've struggled with the previous budget cycle is getting a hold on integrating sort of our higher level initiatives on council with the staff resources needed to execute it.

And I'm just curious about if you know how that those two things could be integrated in terms of like

We know we want to try to pursue 100% clean and renewable energy by 2050 or implement our affordable housing strategy.

Sort of what specific investments are going to be needed to implement it?

I'm just concerned because we struggled to allot 50 million for both schools in our budget and now we're looking at 60 million for one school and I mean I don't know where I have Michael's same concern about what if something's coming up how are we supposed to to do this maxing out I mean

that maxes out our bond capacity entirely.

That puts us over in places at times where we should be on our bond capacity for a couple of years there.

At the same time, I know Buford and Walker are in desperate need of change.

There's really not any good answers here right now.

And if, yeah, if we can get the sales tax, that's great, but we do have to plan for if we don't get the sales tax.

So how is it gonna work if we just rehab Euford, but don't do anything to Walker?

Cause we won't have any more bondable dollars at all.

I mean, we're tapped.

Yeah, so just some thoughts from me.

The $50 million was never going to be enough for the schools and we knew that.

And the original

I mean, I think 10 years ago, estimates came in around this, you know, $60 to $90 million range.

And I understand your point.

And that's why I said, especially the housing piece to keep the families who currently live here.

and you know is a big deal the affordable housing fund we know that 10 million dollars isn't even enough even if we figure that 10 million dollars out that originally the consultants were going to propose I think it was 15 where they thought we could make a sufficient then and so we are not there either and all of this I think plays a major part in

what we continue to do what we cut out looking at some of the financial policies that we have and I remember a slide last year where it was these are the three things that are kind of like tipping the budget over

But we had never, as we were adding to the budget, we didn't subtract anything.

And so we added these new priorities, but the old priorities remained at priorities, too, because they had already been there.

And that is, I mean, we're getting to that discussion kind of with West Main, but we haven't, you know, had it thoroughly.

And part of the discussions last year that made me really uncomfortable were the conversations around

if we added something then something staff have requested wouldn't be added so it kind of pitted what we thought were important or were recommending what what staff is recommending based on departments and that was one of the reasons why I made the rec you know the comments earlier about knowing what staff is recommending because some of the things that

certain staff members will say they recommend it.

I didn't even have any idea that I was proposing something that would knock something they had off or cost the same amount or something like that.

And so I just had to accept that feedback, but I hadn't seen what they had even submitted to be able to say, okay, I knew that I was proposing something similar dollar amount.

So I think that piece is important, but I also think if the foundation of what we're proposing is equity, then

everyone is making recommendations based on that and that hasn't necessarily been clear either and I think we had this discussion last year when we were talking about what was it a screen porch or something at the golf course something came up there was like some extra money and it's like should departments be able to just take extra money and use it for something else that comes up

And those items do add up.

So I don't know if there is a good way to do this, but if we're going to do something different, then we're going to have to, you know, figure out the financial, you know, support of that.

I know.

I mean, I'm just, I'm just,

and I've just been saying this from very early on that one, I think the community as a whole really does need to understand school reconfiguration is at our doorstep.

Are we doing it or are we not doing it?

It really feels like, you know, it's kind of, it's a done deal at this point.

and I don't know if the general community really understands that and how much it's going to cost and what it's going to mean.

I hope people are hearing this right now that this is going to mean a 10 cent tax increase.

I mean, we have to also talk to the schools then if we're doing this that we can't keep.

the current assumption that 40% of that is then going to operations to the schools because then we're just gonna have to really have more of a 15 cent or 16 cent tax increase because all of that is going to our schools.

And again, I have a kid in this school.

So just like the majority of counselors do.

So I want I definitely want our schools to be a good quality environment for learning.

I also I just I don't know how is this transition going to work if we haven't factored in what's going to happen when Buford's done.

Does that mean for a while the fifth graders are just going to stay at Walker?

No, the plan was that, we discussed this at length, the fifth graders would, their priority was reconfiguration, meaning that fifth graders would then return back to elementary schools, but we would take the facilities as they are and do our best to make them work for those smaller children for the minimum amount of capital investment until we know where we can get these other funding sources from.

So the goal was to get every

because we did discuss with fifth graders just hanging at Walker, that was not the priority scenario given what the point of reconfiguration is, try to minimize the transitions and kind of get that priority in place.

And so they recognize that that's not an ideal situation, but the consultants kind of talk through scenarios that would allow that to happen without putting a lot of investment upfront, then you're just gonna rip away when you actually do do the work.

Really quick.

Heather, the fifth grader staying, not that this is the place to debate that, but the fifth grader staying is the only option that won't cost us additional monies until we can do that building correctly.

I don't disagree.

I think it's for conversation much farther than the working group.

Don't disagree.

I would say I was hoping Christy could weigh in because I do think there is some

Clarity that needs to be made about this 10 cent tax increase and the drivers of that, but ultimately reconfiguration is a main driver.

Sure.

So what we presented to you last year was a plan that included the entire CIP plan.

It was a plan that talked about or

contemplated roughly $185 million worth of projects.

That was the dollar amount that got you to your full capacity.

So

Part of what Chip has done with the school group that he spoke to them and spoke to the group last week was that there is a piece of the debt service that belongs entirely just to the school reconfiguration so of that 10 cents roughly if we did a 50 million dollar project I believe approximately four cents of that it's just for the school reconfiguration only

The other six cents that gets you to the 10 cent increase that we're speaking of is then everything else that we have included in the project.

So the courts, you know, Belmont Bridge, West Main, if that stays in, all of the other projects.

So when we talk about a 10 cent tax increase,

you know also to clarify last year when we spoke to you about this one of the reasons why we pushed the school reconfiguration out was to give you an opportunity to have these discussions to figure out a financing plan to figure out a way to get this in and to do the tax increases sort of at a laddered level so that by the time you're ready to issue the debt you already had the money there to pay for it

If the request is to now move that up and to start that, we are looking at a Tencent tax increase all at once.

The ability to sort of layer that in is not there once you say yes to a $50 million project.

Again, to Councilor Payne's point about freezing the CIP, I'm glad you brought that up because I meant to add in as part of that discussion is that we've been coining a phrase that you say a lot about trade-offs and what that might look like in the CIP process in terms of

We don't want to stick our head in the sand and not know what's out there and not get that information.

But if you're going to submit something new to the CIP, then the next question will probably be, well, what can you trade off that is less important

that this new thing needs to now replace because as Councilor McGill pointed out, the $50 million that we put in the CIP really does max out a lot of things, your debt service,

I know that Governor Northam just had a press release about funding for school rehabilitations.

I saw that but I have not had a chance to read it in any detail.

And my understanding, which could be wrong, but my understanding is that it's for HVAC replacements.

But we have those.

Those are on the CIP list for schools, right?

We could use that money too.

I wanted to talk a little bit about the West Main Project.

I suppose I may be the holdout on this.

I became convinced when we thought about it six months ago that I really believe that in terms of urban design issues, the West Main Streetscape project is really our future.

It's what we need to be working on for the future is the equivalent of our downtown mall

kind of discussion that 50 years ago, Mitch Van Yeris and Charles Barber took the bull by the horns and said, yes, we're going to do this.

And it was controversial and it was expensive, but it was absolutely the right thing to do.

The question is, what can we do with the rest of the budget that would still enable us to do that?

I think it's important when we think about it to keep in mind that the West Main Streetscape project is not fundamentally about cars.

It's fundamentally about things like bikes and pedestrians

and urban design and a lot of other things, but it's really not about cars.

Cars are already able to go up and down West Main Street.

That's not the issue.

It's everything else that is associated with it that really makes this project important.

It's also important to remember that we were already feeling maxed out with $50 million reserved for the schools.

And if we're now talking about $80 million or $100 million or whatever the figure is going to turn out to be, we were already at the point that Michael was concerned about.

We were already at the point where we didn't have the ability to fund the next affordable housing project.

We were already at the point where we had no way to improve West Haven, where we had no way to go to phase three of Friendship Court.

And so I think we have to acknowledge that there is really only one clear path to being able to do what we need to do, and that is the sales tax increase

so that the schools can then be in charge of their own destiny in that respect.

If they want to build something that is a $100 million solution, they will then have the ability to do that.

And when they do that, it won't have the same deleterious effects on the rest of the budget.

Still got capacity issues, still got cash flow issues.

It's not going to be an easy thing to deal with, as Ms.

Hamill continues to remind us every time we talk about this.

But it's doable if we get that.

If we don't get that, then we're in a lot of trouble in a lot of different ways in a lot of different areas.

I am reluctant to plan as though that's going to happen.

I am reluctant to make a plan.

I don't want to be completely rose-colored glasses about it, but the decisions that we would make, not knowing yet whether we would have the ability to do other things,

I think that those decisions we may find, you know, two years from now, we will have agonized about things.

For example, if we say, okay, we're going to go ahead and pull the $18 million for the West main project.

And then a year from now, we find that or a year and four months from now, we find that the bond refer, the sales tax referendum passes.

and then we are able to factor in $10 million a year going to school renovations and school construction and then we can see what else is freed back up again in the capital budget.

I just think that we should not make assumptions now that

We are not going to be successful in that effort.

I think we, again, as I said, we have to acknowledge that we have to keep our options open, but I think we ought to make plans as though we're going to be able to get the sales tax increase, that we are going to be able to fund the school renovation project the way the school board would want to do it,

and then that we are going to be able to move forward with the other capital projects, affordable housing, bike-ped improvements, whatever else they may be.

And I say that simply because I don't think that it is worth the effort to, unless it's simply to develop a scare budget out there, I don't think it's worth the effort to try to agonize over things that we're going to cut

if in fact we have a straight path, it's not an easy path, but at least it's a straight path to being able to make things work.

I would like to assume that that's going to happen.

If we have to delay some decisions, maybe we have to delay some decisions.

The schools would like to move immediately.

I don't think we can necessarily sacrifice all the rest of our capital planning

simply because they want to be able to move one year sooner than what we had discussed.

So that doesn't lead me to anything that causes me to want to take a vote on anything today.

Just to touch on a couple of things, Councillor Snook, that you brought up is that I do think it's with the schools sitting on the committee working on this,

It's more of a cost savings to move quicker than it is just a desire to move quicker.

The inflationary estimates right now, I don't have to tell any of you, are quite high.

And on a project of this size can actually be in the millions between starting earlier and starting later.

So I do think that's their initiative to move quicker.

I will say too, we will be meeting with VDOT regarding West Main to see what is the absolute last time period that we have to be able to let them know whether we want to maintain or terminate that project.

The time is clicking on the very first funding that we received from SmartScale.

And while they initially have agreed to us being able to delay that so that we could combine the three phases altogether so that they could occur under one contract, they're still limited as to how far they could push that out.

I think that would be very useful.

It sounds like.

Well, it also sounds like at a minimum, that would mean, one, a decision point of.

We want to defer

But even if we could, I think that we keep floating around as, you know, with West Main Street, this is the type of decision that we keep trying to do everything that we were planning or

People have planned to do.

And then if we have these new priorities and if they're based on, you know, something else, yes, it would be nice for people to ride their bikes in the bike lanes that propose.

And it would be nice for the trees to be in the soil that's been proposed for that West Main Street.

I'm sure that is of some value.

Not my expertise, but I have listened to the conversations.

And I've said this before, and I mean relative to West Main, I think the hardest points for me are just the amount of money we're foregoing from other sources and just all the time and investment that's put into this because we have been known as a city that can't get through projects.

I mean, Belmont Bridge has been going on as long as my oldest child has been alive.

It's been in part of the design phase.

And so we have to become a city that can actually follow through.

And there's so much transition and leadership.

And so I understand all the points being raised at the same time, like with this level of investment and this much

funding from other sources.

I do agree with the perspective of just, I'd like to know as much information.

I would not want us to look back a year from now because something did follow through with terms of another revenue source and feel like we really walked, we let go of those funding sources from being available because they're not going to come back again.

And it's not insignificant.

It's a significant amount of money that we're going to forego and it's going to go to another community.

And so I don't take that decision lightly.

At the same time, I certainly agree that it's impossible for us to do it all.

And I'd

I see what position that we are finding ourselves in.

But it's really helpful to hear other counselors' perspectives on this.

And as we kind of work through this, I anticipate that we're going to need to have a joint session with the schools probably sooner versus later.

And I know that some of them have expressed interest in that.

And I'm not sure, Mr. Boyles, if that's something, what time frame you might want us to consider for that.

But I think for that meeting and schedule, we need to make a decision about the project.

Unless we're saying based on the information we hear from the schools, we'll make a decision about the project.

We know what they want.

We know one of the factors that is increasing CIP debt services.

And so it just needs at some point a decision has to be made.

And it's important to

The maxing out any budget is important and that's something that

I've been getting some heat for it.

Wes got a lot of heat for it.

But you see how hard it is to prioritize things related to equity.

If you look at all the initiatives Wes started when he was on council, Daniel's position, I think, at human services is probably the only thing that's still intact.

And so those things required funding and related to equity and trying to think

about how to impact families directly and not in this roundabout way.

And that is not something that we've been trying to get there, but it's been a very slow pace in getting.

to those things, even chat program.

Yes, we are much better positioned than we was before I got here and started working on it, but we haven't matched that with the developments that we've approved and what that means for families who live in our neighborhoods.

And part of that holistic look at when we are making a decision how it affects people

And if we're saying we haven't increased CHAP, I think two, we increased it twice.

And yeah, so then the last two budget cycles, I don't think there was an increase to it.

It's not somehow making sense in my head, but I think that's accurate.

And then I'm thinking of neighborhoods like the 10th and Page, Grady Avenue, that neighborhood, like what that looks like.

So those are the type of things that we need to be focused on when we are talking about maxing out, not if we are going to continue, in my opinion, continue projects like West Main Street.

getting to $15 million for affordable housing was going to be recommended, figuring those type of things out.

Well, I guess my just my final comment would be, as I said earlier, the challenge I just see is we have, you know, a ton of needs in the community, but a limited budget, limited resources, we can't run a deficit.

So we're going to be forced to make trade off decisions.

And I'm comfortable, you know, with the trade off of not continuing with West Main, unless there's money from the federal government.

But even if we do that, what I'm not comfortable with is that even with the 10 cent sales increase in tax,

If we pursue school reconfiguration without a sales tax increase with the state legislation, it means again, no ability,

if there are unexpected increases in the cost of redevelopment of public housing, unavailable to take advantage of any potential opportunities with Midway Manor or other LIHTC properties that have affordability periods ending, and no ability to actually fund or adopt an affordable housing plan at even $10 million a year.

Those are some trade-offs that I'm not

comfortable with saying that we're 100% foreclosing those opportunities.

And so at a minimum, I'm definitely very interested in at least seeing if anything happens with that sales tax legislation.

and really making it a priority to advocate for that this General Assembly session, because if we get that, that would completely change this conversation and make a lot more things feasible.

And I think it, at least for me, because I don't want to foreclose those housing and other considerations,

really, at least in the short term, going all in on advocating for that sales tax legislation in seeing what happens.

I definitely agree with that.

I guess my question, Michael, is do you like what I was alluding to?

Do you feel that we should that the time for which the school projects obviously recognizing that Chip has raised the point that, yes, there is an inflationary consideration.

Yeah I haven't been as involved with those conversations with the school board so I'm not a hundred percent sure but I would say my understanding would seem to be that if we're speeding up that timeline to start it

earlier before anything is known about whether that sales tax legislation happens, that would mean we're saying that, I don't know.

I mean, I guess if the sales tax legislation still happened, you're just increasing the risk, I guess, that we're blocked from doing anything about housing.

It would be 22.

I have not been able to find out yet, but we are inquiring about it.

If so, we also have to factor in that cost.

A special election isn't cheap.

I don't think we can do it at the time of a primary, but my broader concern is that if we're going to have a referendum, I want it to be a referendum at a time when we can be reasonably likely to have a large turnout.

An off-year congressional election in 2022 is not going to be a huge turnout, but it's not going to be a small turnout.

It'll be, frankly, larger than most of the turnouts that we had for

for City Council before we move to November.

But even I think having that conversation with waiting for that information, what that means in terms of dollars, you know, for the project and the length of time that that could take.

Because then even if it was 2022, it would be July, right?

2023 before we could start that the sales tax would be, you know, starting to

How are projects like this paid?

Christy, I think she wants you to talk about maybe what you were talking about the last meeting about why we couldn't phase in the increase maybe.

Well, I was kind of wondering, so if we did start it, obviously we're not selling the bonds until we actually need to sell them.

until they're actually going to pay somebody.

Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's probably the better way to do it.

Again, we can work through a bunch of scenarios.

I think at the end of the day, though, you know, if we're contemplating a $50 million project, we have to have a way to pay debt service on $50 million as soon as we say yes to the project.

And even though we won't be selling, you know, the bonds until we're ready to pay the bills and it might be, you know, 25% year one and 35% year two or something like that.

We can only vote a tax rate on July 1 and you can't borrow, you can't contemplate, you can't sign a contract for $50 million with only a portion of that funded.

And, you know, every council and every year brings out new priorities.

And so, you know, you can do a lot of things, but you've got to have that payment for sure.

Chris, do you know, is it, I was going to try to look it up during the meeting, but I haven't been able to find the links.

I do not know.

I would have to defer to Ms.

I mean, the reason I ask is I think that I remember having seen

that some of the places, some of the counties that have had these referenda have made provision for the sales tax increase to take effect at some point other than on July 1.

So that you could have a referendum, for example, that would say, let's have the sales tax increase go into effect April 1, something like that.

Here comes Ms.

Yeah, in general, I can tell you that there are some statutes that address the circumstances under which you can change a tax rate mid-year.

And I'm sorry, I don't have specifics in front of me because to my knowledge, at least in the years I've been here, Charlottesville hasn't done that.

But

There are some limited statutory provisions that do allow you to change your tax rate mid-year after some procedural compliance.

Yeah, yeah.

That's what I thought I remembered, yeah.

Yeah.

I'm not against the sales tax increase, I mean the real estate tax increase.

I wasn't thinking either or, I was thinking

and it's going to take and yeah I know I know but I also do want to make sure that it's really clear that if if the sales tax if we have agreed to go forward with Buford at 60 million dollars and are cutting all sorts of things from the capital budget and kind of freezing ourselves from jumping on potential

Well, the sales tax dollars we have to put towards schools, like that's one of the requirements, but it would free up the other revenue streams like our tax increase, our real estate tax increase for us to use towards other priorities.

Yes, I just want to make sure that it's not thought to be

60 million in bonds from real estate tax plus the sales tax to then go totally towards updating Walker or something like that.

It's an important point because the way that we've talked about phase two in the working group was that it could only be funded if a new revenue source came to fruition, namely

the sales tax increase.

And so that's a good point because that is something that's been contemplated and that that would be the source of revenue.

And I would just add one other point as you think about this is to really kind of think about the general fund and the CIP together.

You know, as you talk about raising real estate tax or even sales tax to

Go towards a school reconfiguration or school project.

Keep in mind, you know, your growth in your general fund is only available through revenue sources as well.

Which means raises for our staff, which means assistance

The revenue sources we would have were any organic growth in revenue just from new real estate coming online or obviously assessment changes.

So those would be the only other increases that we would anticipate.

Yeah, I mean, I think we'd have to figure out how we structure that.

You know, right now what we're talking about is 10 cents on the current assessment rate.

So, however, we decided to frame that in the resolution, whether it be an equivalent of 10 cents now or we do a dollar amount, would dictate whether or not that additional growth is available.

No, that's a good point because

Often we do see increases that we haven't made consciously, but they have happened just by the movement of the market and maybe we would want to just lock in if this is a maximum and not a this and.

So that's a good point.

Yeah, and based on the discussions that happened with the assessment, which wasn't the thought I just had, so I don't want to lose it, but I think we should talk about that a bit more.

But so the school operational funding recalibration, is that a discussion we are having that

or that we are going to have with the school board.

Yes, what we will be doing is, as we discussed at the school working meeting, is now that we know that capital dollar amount that we're working from of $60 million dollars

will begin running some different scenarios of how to fund that debt service on that.

And we have to consider, you know, Sena just talked about raises for employees, but we have...

You know, I made the point that I don't think we're doing a very good job of taking care of our employees, but we also now with the collective bargaining employees will be able to tell us what that means for them.

So those will be costs that we have to

consider trying to look at what we offer them holistically like leaving the retirement out of the benefits for transit and pupil or no just pupil I think I don't know where new transit drivers is that's a question that I have and you know those type of the the cat drivers

once the CARES and American Rescue dollars are gone, the fire department increase, that's up, what year is that, 2024?

And this 4.5, I guess 4.8 or 9 that with the school bus drivers and the money for the schools next year, all of that has to be

So we were not quite that far along.

Just to give you a gauge, though, we were looking at approximately for our projections, roughly just a general reassessment growth of about 3%.

Yes.

Was it $600,000, Ryan?

work on a changing of the levels and getting the levels at the appropriate, I think it was somewhere between $600,000 and $670,000.

I don't remember the exact figure in front of me, but that would, yeah, that would both combine the programs and create a little bit of an increase in some of the levels.

But that was only a slight increase.

That wasn't trying to work our way towards the goal of having up to the 60, around like $60,000 a year get some tax benefits and those who are under the 45 into that 100%.

Yeah, I would have to double check with Commissioner Divers on that.

Like I said, I don't have all the details pulled up in front of me, but I know there was some additional cost.

His proposal that he had submitted to us for potential consideration, which was received, you know, kind of later in the budget process, was about $600,000 to do the combination of the processes.

I think there was potentially an additional cost should we look at changing the levels, but I think that was also

Yeah.

And that was my comment.

I don't think we have to get to 65,000 this year.

But even with those increase, I'm just saying it will cost money.

And that is a project that we've delayed, I think, the past two cycles.

like to wait at last cycle we didn't add or this budget that just started and the last time we did give I think the $250 towards it but we didn't make a long term program change in the cycle before that and so those are the type of things that get put on hold.

And at the rate our families are being pushed out the communities, those are the type of things we have to consider.

And I think it's safe to say that when we're talking about this kind of a tax increase to backfill the CHAP, like to be able to kind of hold those CHAP recipients and maybe more, you know, steady, it's probably going to cost us one and a half cents of that increase.

Maybe I'm just throwing numbers out there based on what I always understood there to be a one cent tax increase is worth X.

but I just want us to be realistic about that because I do feel like it's gonna be important that we make those programs more robust if we're talking about this kind of an increase so that we're not hurting the families that we certainly have been focusing on over these years to try to maintain in the city and not be tax burdened.

Based on the 22 projection for what one cent was and the numbers that the mayor was quoting, that would be a rough estimate.

Well, this has been a very uplifting conversation.

So what decision points do we need right now?

I mean, as long as these are these are the figures we're moving forward with.

I think that's the main thing to know unless we hear different from council.

The budget team will be using the dollar amounts we've been talking about, the tax increases we've been talking about in our budget development.

So the real thing we need to know from you all is at what point any of these may change.

And one thing I will say we're working on now is to get you and there is no way to compare apples to apples with this.

And from a timing perspective, that deliverable we've talked about with the working group and you've referenced today, Chip, around just all the alternatives of how this will be paid for.

We really haven't talked about that yet, so I'd be afraid to say, but it's something we certainly can work on very quickly.

I mean, we can initiate that.

I'm mostly just thinking about October is when I think we have this decision point kind of time frame that I know the consultants for the schools have talked about and I think it would just be helpful just to have all of that information at the ready well in advance of that.

I think one of the key information points is how far VDOT is willing to let us push out a decision as to when that project would have to move forward before they themselves would terminate the project.

um so and and we've got that meeting coming up I think I mentioned to you earlier the um the district engineer for the Culpeper district has left and he's the the person we've been talking about with this project so we're setting up a meeting with the interim uh engineer for Culpeper um and I

I think that's either this week or next week.

Yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thanks, Sam.

Next Friday.

The 6th.

Not from our standpoint.

Thank you so much.

Not a lot of positive discussions, but still very, very helpful for us and appreciate the comments and the support on the strategic planning.

You know, we still have a ways to go with that to get it to where we want it, but I think we're moving in the right direction.

That's it.

Thank you all.

Thank you.

No, I just wasn't sure if we had public comment or anything like that today.

Oh, thank you, Sena.

Thank you, Mayor Walker.

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Okay.

Thank you.

All right.