City Council Work Session   10/18/2021

1. CALL TO ORDER

• • Krisy Hammill
  • 00:00:00
    End of September, and we are starting to comb through those to compile information to be able to present and talk to you.
  • 00:00:08
    We'll be going to the Planning Commission, a work session at the end of November with a public hearing on that on December 14th.
  • 00:00:17
    So we are well on our way with the CIP.
  • 00:00:21
    Additionally, we've sent out request information to departments for operating budgets.
  • 00:00:26
    They went out about two weeks ago and departments are working on those.
  • 00:00:33
    They are due back to the budget office November 5th.
  • 00:00:37
    We'll be spending the month of November and December meeting with department heads to discuss their budgets, their submissions, and their proposals.
  • 00:00:46
    to then be working on a proposed budget to present to council which will be coming to you March 7th is when we'll actually be presenting the proposed budget so we will have a work session on February 3rd to start talking about
  • 00:01:06
    sort of the current budget situation.
  • 00:01:09
    We have also reconvened our revenue team.
  • 00:01:11
    We took a few months off, but we are back meeting on a regular basis to update and keep abreast of revenue changes as they're happening.
  • 00:01:23
    So a lot of work behind the scenes.
  • 00:01:26
    And also I would offer that if there are items or things that council has as a priority that you would like for us to consider,
  • 00:01:36
    As we are doing this, now would be a time to submit those as well so we can make sure that we get those on the list and at least out there for all of your discussions.
  • 00:01:47
    But that's sort of what our process is to date.
  • 00:01:51
    Given the current situation, we are still, this is the schedule we set out originally, so we're still going to do our best to keep to that.
  • 00:02:00
    If things change and we have to make changes, of course, we'll keep you abreast, but that's our current plan.
  • 00:02:07
    So I don't know if there's any questions or comments about that piece before we go on to the next part, exciting, more fun part.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:02:19
    And for councils, items that we would like for you to consider, when would you all want that in?
• • Krisy Hammill
  • 00:02:27
    anytime.
  • 00:02:28
    If you want to send them to us, we're happy to make sure that they get in the mix and on the list.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:02:36
    Okay.
• • Krisy Hammill
  • 00:02:37
    Thank you.
  • 00:02:40
    So some other exciting news.
  • 00:02:41
    We have been listening and we have heard the cries and calls for more transparency and want to take some time to introduce you to a new member of the budget office.
  • 00:02:54
    His name is Brian Ray.
  • 00:02:56
    He's been a city employee for some time.
  • 00:02:58
    He worked in Parks and Rec and we were lucky enough to have him join us in June as a systems analyst and so he is working to help us do some cool and great things from a budget transparency standpoint for
  • 00:03:14
    budget dashboards to be able to help present information in a meaningful way that we hope as this will continue to evolve.
  • 00:03:25
    And so one exciting thing that he's here to demo for you today is something that's called a Budget Explorer that's now on our webpage.
  • 00:03:34
    And so with that, I'm going to toss it over to Brian and let him do a demo for you.
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:03:41
    Thanks, Chrissy.
  • 00:03:42
    I just want to start out with a little bit of background.
  • 00:03:47
    This project has really been in the works for probably about a year.
  • 00:03:51
    And the original goal was to create sort of an internal decision support tool that would allow budget managers to perform reporting and analysis of their budgets.
  • 00:04:03
    as sort of an alternative to using our enterprise financial system, which can be a little cumbersome at times.
  • 00:04:09
    We wanted to create something that was a little more intuitive and provide maybe a little bit more insight.

2. ROLL CALL

• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:04:14
    So then a couple months ago, I was asked to sort of expand the scope to include a public-facing tool that would allow users to gain insights into the city's general fund budget.
  • 00:04:28
    So the biggest challenge in this was really getting access to this data, sort of being able to talk to the enterprise financial system and sort of pull that data out.
  • 00:04:39
    And this was accomplished through a collaboration with the IT and the finance departments, which ultimately allow me to build the dashboard that you're getting ready to see here.

3. Sidewalks on Stribling Avenue

• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:04:50
    So let me go ahead and share my screen.
  • 00:05:04
    All right.
  • 00:05:04
    Can you all see that?
  • 00:05:08
    OK.
  • 00:05:10
    So this dashboard is located on the budget website.
  • 00:05:13
    So that's where I've navigated to right here.
  • 00:05:16
    And then you can see this little icon here called the Budget Explorer.
  • 00:05:20
    So if you just click on this icon, that'll take you over to the Budget Explorer page.
  • 00:05:26
    And so this is the dashboard that we've built.
  • 00:05:31
    A really helpful thing when you first start using this is this sort of user guide that I've created.
  • 00:05:38
    So if you just click right here, it opens up this user guide.
  • 00:05:44
    And I'm going to basically walk you through what's covered in this guide here.
  • 00:05:49
    So if you navigate to the website and you want to play around with this Budget Explorer, it's helpful to open this up and kind of get an explanation of what you're looking at and sort of how to use the tool.
  • 00:06:01
    All right, so now back to the tool here.
  • 00:06:03
    All right, so this, what you're looking at here is the dashboard.
  • 00:06:08
    So I'm gonna kind of just walk through everything you see here.
  • 00:06:11
    It's kind of a lot to look at at first, but I think it'll start to make sense once I start to sort of walk you through each of these visualizations and sort of start clicking around on the dashboard.
  • 00:06:24
    So we'll start with these three sort of charts over here on the right.
  • 00:06:28
    I guess the way you can sort of look at this is these tables over here on the right sort of describe the data that you're seeing.
  • 00:06:38
    And over here on the left, these sort of tables over here allow you to select the data that you want to analyze.
  • 00:06:47
    So starting with these sort of descriptive visualizations over here.
  • 00:06:51
    This top one is the percent of the total FY22 adopted budget that we are looking at in this current view.
  • 00:06:59
    So we have selected nothing.
  • 00:07:01
    We're basically looking at the entire budget as a whole.
  • 00:07:04
    So we're looking at 100% of the FY22 adopted budget in all these visualizations.
  • 00:07:11
    The table below that is called totals and changes from FY21 adopted to 22 adopted.
  • 00:07:19
    So basically we have your FY21 adopted total, your FY22 adopted total, the dollar and the percentage change between those two amounts.
  • 00:07:30
    And like I said, we're looking at 100% of the budget.
  • 00:07:32
    So this is 100% of the general fund budget right here for 21 and then 22.
  • 00:07:38
    And then the final sort of descriptive visualization here is this trend line, which just represents the FY19 actuals, FY20 actuals, 21 adopted budget, and 22 adopted budget.
  • 00:07:52
    So that sort of gives you a trend line to show you the sort of trajectory that we're on.
  • 00:07:59
    All right, so those are sort of the descriptive visualizations.
  • 00:08:02
    And like I said, over here on the left, these visualizations allow you to sort of select the data that you want to sort of analyze.
  • 00:08:12
    And the one thing to know about the dashboard is anything that is sort of colored yellow here
  • 00:08:18
    That represents something that is interactive.
  • 00:08:21
    In other words, I can click these yellow areas to filter the rest of the dashboard.
  • 00:08:28
    So for example, up here at the top, right now we're looking at the expense side.
  • 00:08:32
    If I were to click here, you can see now all of the visualizations have now changed to represent the revenue side.
  • 00:08:41
    So this product is called Tableau, and that's really one of the powerful sort of advantages of Tableau is this interactivity.
  • 00:08:49
    So, you know, when I click back to expenses, you know, if you look at, you know, all these visualizations, they all change and are filtered relative to what I've clicked here.
  • 00:08:57
    So now I've clicked back to expenses.
  • 00:08:59
    Now we're back looking at the expense side.
  • 00:09:03
    So that's our revenue expense selector.
  • 00:09:05
    And then we'll move down to these three tables right here.
  • 00:09:09
    These represent, I guess, what I would call sort of the organizational units within the city, which is simply sort of our departments at the top level here.
  • 00:09:20
    The level below that would be the divisions that departments are made up of.
  • 00:09:25
    And then the level below that would be the cost centers that divisions are made up of.
  • 00:09:30
    So it's just sort of a hierarchy of organizational structure.
  • 00:09:34
    And each of these tables here has a little bar that represents the sort of relative amount of dollar amount for each of these sort of departments, divisions, or cost centers.
  • 00:09:48
    So this bar represents, you know, the contribution to schools.
  • 00:09:51
    And if you hover over, you can see it's $58 million.
  • 00:09:53
    So that's the largest sort of chunk of money for any department that contributes to the overall FY22 budget.
  • 00:10:04
    So that's sort of the hierarchy here.
  • 00:10:07
    And then down below, we have the actual line items.
  • 00:10:10
    So this gets right down to the line item level.
  • 00:10:13
    So this is, I mean, if you scroll down, this is all of the line items in the entire city budget represented here.
  • 00:10:21
    Like I said, we're looking at 100% of the budget currently.
  • 00:10:24
    So this is every line item and the full amount sort of citywide.
  • 00:10:28
    It's not specific to any of department.
  • 00:10:30
    This is the entire city budget.
  • 00:10:34
    So that's sort of an overview of all of the visualizations.
  • 00:10:37
    So now I just want to walk through kind of how you use the tool to sort of gain insights.
  • 00:10:43
    I showed you how you can sort of select between revenues expenses by clicking up here.
  • 00:10:50
    So now I want to sort of demonstrate two, I guess,
  • 00:10:57
    sort of methodologies maybe to gain insights into the budget.
  • 00:11:03
    I call it the top-down approach and the bottom-up approach.
  • 00:11:06
    So we'll start with the top-down approach.
  • 00:11:08
    And what I mean by that is we're going to use the visualizations here in the organizational unit section to sort of isolate departments and divisions sort of here at the top and then explore down at the bottom, explore the line items that result from those filters.
  • 00:11:26
    So I'm just going to use a department that I'm familiar with for the demo.
  • 00:11:30
    I'm going to use the Parks and Rec Department.
  • 00:11:32
    So if we scroll down here,
  • 00:11:34
    to Parks and Recreation.
  • 00:11:36
    Like I said, all these yellow areas are filter, they're areas that you can use to filter.
  • 00:11:41
    So I'm gonna click Parks and Recreation here.
  • 00:11:44
    And now you watch all the visualizations have now changed to represent Parks and Recreation.
  • 00:11:50
    So you can see now, we weren't looking at 100% of the budget.
  • 00:11:53
    Now that we've selected Parks and Rec, you can see Parks and Rec is 6.2% of the entire general fund budget.
  • 00:12:03
    Similarly, the totals and changes have filtered to only parks and recreation.
  • 00:12:08
    So the FY21 adopted 11.5 million, FY22 was 11.9 million for an increase of 378,000 or 3.3%.
  • 00:12:19
    As well, this trend line has also now been filtered to represent just the parks and recreation sort of trend.
  • 00:12:26
    If you hover over these, you can see the historical values of these totals here.
  • 00:12:33
    So while you can filter by department, you can also drill down further within a department to get the same sort of insight.
  • 00:12:42
    Oh, and I didn't mention, but now at the bottom, we are now just looking at the line items for the parks and rec budget.
  • 00:12:48
    So this is the entire parks and recreation budget, line item by line item.
  • 00:12:54
    So similarly, we can leave this parks and rec filter on and we can move down and say, okay, well, what about a division of parks and rec?
  • 00:13:04
    What if we want to explore the budget of one of the divisions?
  • 00:13:09
    We can actually click again, drill further down, we can click aquatics,
  • 00:13:14
    So now you can see everything's changed again.
  • 00:13:16
    Now we're just looking only at the aquatics budget, which now only represents 1.3% of the total budget.
  • 00:13:23
    Here's the 2021 and 22, the change in percent, as well as the trend.
  • 00:13:28
    And now we're looking at the line items for only the aquatics division.
  • 00:13:33
    And then finally, you can drill down even further to a particular facility or cost center within aquatics.
  • 00:13:42
    So if we wanted to look at Smith Fitness and Aquatics Center, we click here.
  • 00:13:46
    And now we have drilled all the way down to this facility.
  • 00:13:51
    This is that particular facility's line item budget.
  • 00:13:55
    It represents 0.5% of the entire city budget.
  • 00:13:58
    And here's the changes between 21 and 22.
  • 00:14:00
    And here's your trend line.
  • 00:14:04
    So it's a really powerful tool, and this demonstrates the sort of top-down analysis that I was talking about.
  • 00:14:10
    You sort of choose a department or division or cost center and sort of get the metrics and the line item details for that area that you've selected.
  • 00:14:23
    So now I want to show you sort of the other approach, which I call the bottom up.
  • 00:14:27
    And one important thing to understand about this tool, and it's outlined in the how to guide, but there's little buttons down here at the bottom.
  • 00:14:35
    Once you start clicking these filters, sometimes you can get lost and you can really kind of click them back to get back out.
  • 00:14:43
    But the easiest way to just get back to the beginning is to click this little arrow right here called reset.
  • 00:14:49
    Click there, and then you're just back to where you started.
  • 00:14:52
    Now we're looking back at 100% of the budget again.
  • 00:14:55
    So now I just want to demonstrate the other sort of methodology that I think is pretty insightful as well, which I would call bottom-up analysis.
  • 00:15:04
    So instead of starting up here with the sort of org units and then investigating the line items, I'm going to sort of do the opposite.
  • 00:15:14
    So I'm going to start down here at the line item budgets.
  • 00:15:17
    I think I'm going to select
  • 00:15:19
    Temporary Salaries, as an example.
  • 00:15:22
    So instead of clicking a department, I'm going to click on a line item.
  • 00:15:26
    So I'm going to click temporary salaries.
  • 00:15:27
    And when I click this, you can watch up here, all these metrics are going to change to represent the temporary salaries.
  • 00:15:35
    So click here.
  • 00:15:37
    Now everything has changed and now up at the top sort of what we're looking at up here now is the relative contribution to the temp salaries line of each of these departments and divisions.
  • 00:15:50
    So now you can see Parks and Recreation has moved to the very top of the list and really by a long shot.
  • 00:15:57
    They by far contribute the most dollars in the entire city to this temporary salaries line item.
  • 00:16:05
    And you can hover over it and get the total.
  • 00:16:06
    You know, you can scroll down and see, you know, the sort of relative bars relative to parks and recreation.
  • 00:16:13
    And the same thing over here with the metrics.
  • 00:16:15
    You can see the temporary salaries is 1.8% of the whole budget.
  • 00:16:19
    Here was 21 and 22 adopted and the dollar and percent changes.
  • 00:16:23
    And here is the trend line over time for the temporary salaries line item.
  • 00:16:29
    So that's sort of the bottom up approach.
  • 00:16:31
    And once again, you click the reset button here.
  • 00:16:35
    And now we're just back to looking at 100% of the budget.
  • 00:16:39
    So that really kind of sums it up, sort of the nickel tour there.
  • 00:16:46
    It's available on the website.
  • 00:16:47
    And it's really kind of cool and kind of fun to play with.
  • 00:16:51
    So feel free to go and click around and explore the budget, I guess.
  • 00:16:58
    Anybody have any questions?
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:17:02
    That is great.
  • 00:17:05
    Yeah, I look forward to, you know, taking time to go and explore.
  • 00:17:10
    But counselors, any questions or comments?
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:17:13
    Oh, just appreciation for the work here to provide this kind of a tool to the community.
  • 00:17:18
    I heard it was coming and I'm super excited to kind of see it out there live.
  • 00:17:23
    Thank you very much, Brian.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:17:26
    Now, is this on the front page of the website, or do you have to go to the budget page to get to it?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:17:34
    You have to go to the budget page.
  • 00:17:36
    So here's the budget page, and then this little icon right here, Budget Explorer.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:17:43
    Is there a link to it on the front page?
• • SPEAKER_08
  • 00:17:47
    There is not, but that can certainly be something that can be added.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:17:55
    Any other questions or comments?
  • 00:17:58
    Thank you.
  • 00:18:00
    This is what transparency is about and it's really awesome.
  • 00:18:05
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:18:08
    I'm going to enjoy wasting a lot of time after two o'clock in the morning clicking around.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:18:16
    Yeah, I think, you know, the public has been asking for this for a long time, and it seems like it's a user-friendly creation, so that looks very good.
  • 00:18:29
    Thank you all for working on that very much.
• • Krisy Hammill
  • 00:18:34
    Yeah, and then when we present the proposed budget in March, this will be updated with the 23 budget.
  • 00:18:41
    So during the work sessions and as we have conversations, you'll be able to use this tool as well when you're looking to make decisions on what you want to put in the approved budget.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:18:57
    Yeah, that's good.
  • 00:18:59
    That would have been helpful for a lot of years, so yeah.
  • 00:19:04
    All right, well, if there are any other, that's great, and that looks really good.
  • 00:19:12
    So, counselors, are there any other questions or comments?
  • 00:19:16
    All right, thank you all for that presentation, and I'm sure if once we go clicking through it, if there are any questions that come up in the future, we'll ask them.
  • 00:19:26
    All right, thank you.
  • 00:19:31
    All right.
  • 00:19:33
    So next up, yeah, Mr. Wheeler, if you could check and see if there's any one that would like to speak.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:19:44
    Thank you, Mayor Walker.
  • 00:19:45
    We've got 16 people in the audience right now.
  • 00:19:47
    If you'd like to get in line to address council, please click the raise hand icon in the Zoom webinar.
  • 00:19:53
    Each person will have up to three minutes.
  • 00:19:56
    First up is Jason Halbert.
  • 00:19:58
    Jason, you're on with council.
  • 00:19:59
    You've got three minutes.
• • SPEAKER_02
  • 00:20:02
    Hi, I just wanted to follow up on this dribbling discussion.
  • 00:20:06
    I appreciate what Engineer Dawson did, and I want to reiterate that the neighbor, I'm the co-president of the Fry Springs Neighborhood Association.
  • 00:20:16
    I live on Jefferson Park Circle, sorry.
  • 00:20:19
    I want to reiterate that we have long said that we're not as a board, although some of the neighbors are fully opposed to the project, we are not as a board fully opposed to the project and want to see
  • 00:20:29
    some sort of solution eventually.
  • 00:20:31
    But I think the conclusion that you all seem to have come to is the right one.
  • 00:20:35
    And clearly given the city's priorities with affordable housing and school reconfiguration and lack of all the money we would love to have, this is not the right project for the right time.
  • 00:20:47
    Though that road is still in need of CIP monies that we've been asking for for over a decade.
  • 00:20:53
    And so I appreciate what you've done here, what the engineer did
  • 00:20:58
    and I hope that when this comes back to you from the developer, whom we're still willing to work with, that the city council will reiterate what you said here today.
  • 00:21:08
    Thank you.
  • 00:21:08
    Thank you.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:21:14
    We've got one other hand up right now.
  • 00:21:16
    Peter Krebs, you're on with council and you've got three minutes.
• • SPEAKER_05
  • 00:21:22
    Hey, good evening, council.
  • 00:21:24
    Thank you for the opportunity to speak and
  • 00:21:27
    Actually, both of those presentations really upped my respect for first the engineering profession, but also for the systems engineering, you know, profession.
  • 00:21:39
    So it was amazing.
  • 00:21:41
    I think it's actually super relevant that you're talking about both this sidewalk situation and the budget situation.
  • 00:21:50
    Counselor, I believe it was Payne, pointed out that this
  • 00:21:57
    isn't a super high priority as far as where we're looking to have affordable housing.
  • 00:22:04
    It is a priority in terms of sidewalks, but it's not even on that list that's in the conference plan of like 20 projects.
  • 00:22:13
    So just keep that in mind when you're developing the CIP.
  • 00:22:19
    Although it was a super complicated project that like $800,000 is actually
  • 00:22:27
    sort of not all that atypical.
  • 00:22:30
    If you look through the priorities list, that's the sort of tranche that is needed for sidewalk projects.
  • 00:22:36
    Same thing with the comp plans priority sidewalks list.
  • 00:22:43
    So just keep that in mind at budget time.
  • 00:22:45
    And that's it for now.
  • 00:22:47
    Thank you all for your service and have a great evening.
  • 00:22:51
    Thank you so much.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:22:52
    Thank you.
  • 00:22:56
    and we'll make one more call for any hands.
  • 00:22:58
    If you're on via telephone, you can press star nine.
  • 00:23:03
    There will be additional opportunities at the 630 meeting.
  • 00:23:06
    Mayor Walker, I don't see any other hands.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:23:11
    Okay, thank you.
  • 00:23:14
    All right.
  • 00:23:17
    So next up, we have the closed session.
  • 00:23:22
    So, Councillor Hill, would you like to read us into closed session?
  • 00:23:25
    Sure.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:23:26
    Pursuant to Section 2.23712 of the Virginia Code, I hereby move that the City Council close this open meeting and convene within a closed meeting as authorized by Virginia Code Section 2.23711A1, A7, and A8 for discussion of prospective candidates for employment as interim city manager, discussion and consideration of the relationships among city councilors and among city councilors and the city attorney's office, update regarding pending litigation, Charlottesville Circuit Court civic case
  • 00:23:54
    number CL21-116 in a personnel matter appealed pursuant to section 13.5 of the grievance procedures and consultation with legal counsel regarding resignation of the city manager and administrative and operational matters within the city manager's office and police department.
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:24:15
    Second.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:24:15
    Mayor Walker?
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:24:23
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:24:24
    Vice Mayor McGill?
  • 00:24:26
    Yes.
  • 00:24:27
    Councilor Hill?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:24:28
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:24:29
    Councilor Payne?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:24:31
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_07
  • 00:24:32
    Councilor Snoop?
• • SPEAKER_03
  • 00:24:33
    Yes.
• • SPEAKER_06
  • 00:24:33
    Okay.
  • 00:24:37
    All right, so you also have the link for the closed session.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:24:41
    Okay.
  • 00:24:42
    Council, you'll return to a different webinar for the 630 meeting.
• • SPEAKER_01
  • 00:24:46
    Thank you for converting.
• • SPEAKER_04
  • 00:24:47
    I was just going to ask.

4. Budget Development

5. PUBLIC COMMENT