City Council Budget Public Hearing/Community Budget Forum   3/22/2023

She didn't say it quite that way.

Are we ready to go?

All right.

Ten seconds will be official at six o'clock according to my watch.

Okay, it is 6 o'clock according to the clock on the wall.

Here Councillor Payne?

Here Councillor Payne is away on pre-scheduled travel Mayor Smith?

Here Vice Mayor Wade?

Here Alright, so we are here, we've got a quorum

Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council.

Well, this is another work session on the budget and tonight we want to hear from the public and what ideas they have about the budget so we anxiously await that contribution and when that's done we hope that you will have a discussion and think about

What are you going to do with this budget?

And there are a lot of demands.

I mean, for instance, in the VCF process, we know that the requests were twice the money made available.

And outside of that process, there are other priorities.

You've been reading your emails.

I know I've been reading mine.

And people want us to do a lot of things.

So some hard decisions are going to have to be made.

So we hope that you will give us some direction.

as we prepare the budget ordinance to bring back to you the first meeting in April.

So tonight, though, we want to start off with a

presentation from our financial advisors.

We do this each year at some point in the budget process to kind of give us a level set, if you will, in terms of our financial advisors' view of our financial situation and where we are standing with

Thank you for that introduction, and it's great to be back in front of you.

I know we did this a couple times over Zoom, so it's great to be back in person.

But I've got some brief remarks in this presentation.

I promise to keep it.

kind of at a high level but wanted to start out as Mr. Rogers said just kind of level setting and in terms of overall finances and starting with the US economy kind of what's driving everything and then going to the city of Charlottesville and then talking specifically about us but in terms of the US economy as everybody knows the Federal Reserve has been working to try to

Curb, inflation, they actually met the last couple days and raised their fed funds rate another quarter of a percent this afternoon and so they continue to do that, there's debate

currently about will this be enough will this be the last time they tighten that still remains to be seen they meet about every six weeks so the discussion but it's the kind of consensus is we're near the top and that

The overall economy is still performing well, but there are signs that it is slowing.

And there was concern a couple weeks ago about a couple bank failures and is the Fed pushing too hard?

Is that causing the system to potentially break?

And so there's a lot of eyes on that, watching all that very closely.

In terms of the city you're performing wonderfully your economic sensitive revenues are all up meals sales sales tax is up lodging is doing well and the expectation is that we'll have a solid results at the end of this fiscal year and so just want to provide some some you know general thoughts as we enter this budget process

We'll have our annual bond issuance coming up later in June and we'll actually be hosting the rating agencies for the first time since before the pandemic.

We've invited both Moody's and Standard & Poor's

to the city in early May to take a tour to see all the things that have happened since the last time.

We give them annual updates, but this will be an in-person, and we'll give a tour of all the new activities.

So we have that part coming up.

In terms of the rating agencies, they currently have a stable outlook on the market.

They can have a positive, negative, or stable.

They're currently at stable, which is a good thing, but they do have some concerns out there.

Namely, you know, they're worried about the inflation and the pressures that are putting on local governments Namely, it's hurting with your purchasing power, projects cost more, interest rates are higher, so that puts budgetary pressure It puts wage pressure, too, on, you know, employees and salary increases

residential as we all know is doing extremely well but there's some you know increasing commercial demands kind of overall but again Charlottesville is is faring well on this I will say when we talk to the rating agencies collective bargaining is is a new topic in Virginia and so they'll be asking us where we are on that and

We know that that's a work in progress but that also has the potential for budgetary pressure as well

As you know, we have the AAA ratings from Moody's and S&P and those ratings, we've had them for a long time and are extremely proud of those.

Here's just some credit strengths as they view it.

They like our large and diversified tax base.

We always have strong financial performance, strong management.

and they view our debt burden as manageable.

It's actually low but with our CIP they're viewing that as manageable.

They would say in terms of our credit weaknesses, we are reliant on economic sensitive revenues but

those have consistently performed but that's certainly something to keep an eye on and our residential incomes our income levels are low to our peers but I will say you've got the elite the strongest as strong is your peer group there's only

a little over 100 cities nationwide that have that distinction of AAA from Moody's and S&P.

So when you compare to the peers, some of which are in Northern Virginia, it's not surprising that our income levels are lower.

So is our cost of living and they realize that.

and then S&P has strong things to say as well.

Moody's always puts in the report what can make the ratings go down.

Structural balance is really important to them that your ongoing revenues exceed your ongoing expenses.

you know that would be one thing if we get that out of whack if you know if we have significant declines in our tax base which we don't foresee could be something or

We've shown them our CIP so we really don't see that as an issue but if we dramatically increase our debt position, obviously since the bond rating is your ability to repay your debt, they'll obviously be tracking what we're gonna do on that.

In terms of the overall interest rate environment I think this chart is interesting let me orient you a little bit to it municipal bonds unlike a mortgage sell on an annual basis so if you want to buy a municipal bond you can buy one that matures in a year

and typically we do 20 year issuances so you could buy them between one and 20 years and so this shows you the different interest rates that you get typically the shorter you buy on the curve the lower your interest rate and then the longer

the typically the higher the interest rate and so what this chart shows is where interest rates have been municipal bonds have been over the last 30 years for high-grade AAA securities so the gray bar shows that range so in the one-year maturity interest rates have been as low as five basis points I believe and as high as almost five percent

the yellow slashes are where the market currently is and the blue slashes are where the average rate has been over this 30 years so you'll see that we're a little bit over historical averages on the shorter end of the curve the one two three years but then on the 10 15 and 20 years we're under it so

The yield curve is what they would call very flat, where, you know, your one-year maturity is actually higher than your, you know, 10-year maturity.

So it's a little unusual.

interest rate environment that we currently have.

Overall, I'd say it's still a relative attractive time to borrow.

We're going to be borrowing, if we win in the market today, somewhere between three and three and a half percent.

So it's not below 2% like we were able to do a couple years ago.

But historically speaking, the longer term interest rates are still relatively favorable.

Can I ask you a question?

Sure.

This is probably a question that reflects the wisdom of the adage that little knowledge is a dangerous thing but

I seem to recall having heard various prognosticators talk about the fact that when you've got short term interest rates higher than the longer term interest rates that that's a dangerous or an unusual anyway situation.

You know, I think given the current market, since the Fed is really driving up that short-term rate, and the expectation is that, you know, that as the economy slows, the Fed will bring that rate down.

But it's typically, the answer is yes, that that's what's going to, when that situation occurs, it typically leads you toward a recession.

which everybody but this has been an unusual market I mean like everybody's sitting there saying you know we keep raising rates and they keep waiting for people to stop hiring and so but then unemployment still relatively low but

you know earnings rates are bouncing around so it's just kind of I you know this has been an unusual you know recovery after after COVID it's hard to tell like has the workforce completely changed are these numbers are real so it's a little

It's a little hard to say.

There's so much more data than there used to be when something like this would lead you into a recession.

The Fed is really trying to manage this closely.

I vaguely recall that where you've got a progression of interest rates such that it's going down as you go longer and longer.

Sometimes it's inverting the yield curve.

But here you don't really have that.

Right, right, and as the Fed, you know, reaches the top and then starts lowering the rates, my expectation is that the long end will kind of stay where it is and then the short end and it will get back to that more normal slope Okay, thank you Excuse me, the last slide, yeah, I would say is

Overall, everything is great.

We've been making hay while the sun has been shining.

There's some expectation from a lot of economists out there, as we were just talking about, that a potential economic slowdown is coming.

But we have been doing well, just continue to exercise the financial discipline.

I call this my

continue to eat your broccoli speech and continue to do the right things as you go through the process because we're kind of right on that front end of a significant CIP.

The five-year CIP has 182 million of projects on it, which is a big number for the city.

A little over two-thirds of that is debt financed.

I think there's, you know, potentially good news is that we're on the front end of that and if the market goes the way that the economists say, you know, we might have a more favorable environment to be bidding those projects, to be borrowing rates, borrowing debt at a lower interest rate.

And then we didn't, we saved you all from the chart that Chrissy shows you all often and that

I bring up but you know just to summarize it we we do have capacity within our ratios you know we're currently in that six percent of expenditure range right now that we've got that growing into the eight percent range over time so you do have capacity on it but we still got to pay for it that new debt service so that debt service

I have a couple of comments.

Two slides back, please.

I wasn't sure to wait until the end or what.

So my question is on the fixed costs.

C&P says we have low fixed costs.

And then Moody said manageable overall.

Fixed Costs, I'm trying to, I just, I thought older cities, you know, had a lot of, you know, fixed costs because it's a lot to maintain.

Yeah.

Yeah that's you know most of what they do is again at a high level what a credit rating agency is doing is judging your ability and your willingness to repay your debt so that at the end of the day they're saying and they have judged y'all is the highest of the high of ability to repay your debt so

What would be an example, you know, of we've had maintain the highest credit rating as far as I know I've been in this community, I don't know, 30 years and I know something that that

you know it's a feather in a cap I think it's good it saves us a lot of money if you could give an idea like if we were just one step down

an example of what that would mean for, you know, let's say borrowing a million dollars, you know, or, you know, what difference would that mean?

Like how much more money would it cost us?

Right, right.

In your current, say, you know, roughly a quarter of a percent, so, you know, some lower rated, you know, so it's not like you double your cost of funds because,

The difference between being as high as you can be and very, very strong, there is a little bit of difference there.

To me, I think it's important to look at that, but it's kind of more important to

The things that you're doing and the right things that y'all are doing lead to the credit rating instead of as clients sit there and say, how can I get to this AAA?

We can give you a roadmap and what you need to do, but if you're doing the right things, it's going to lead you to it.

So, I mean, the wrong things would be,

And my last question is, you were getting into it in our last slide, where is there anything that we as councilpersons and as, you know, leaders, staff, should be concerned about at all?

I mean, other than, you know, not spending more.

No I would just say the you know the pressures are obviously there as Mr. Rogers started out there's budgetary pressures the collective bargaining is you know something that you're gonna have to manage because that's a little more of an unknown in in terms of

how much it costs and the budgetary pressures in there.

So it's just really being aware and diligent on what is coming down the road.

And so there's obviously a lot of projects in that CIP.

Thank you.

Other questions?

I do have one other question.

Yeah.

You know, since we're a little more insulated than some of the localities that are more federally, you know, have more sources of federal income, but it would shock the markets.

The rating agencies recently came out with a report and, you know,

10 years ago or so when they were talking about this they kind of the rating agency said I'm not sure that locality can be rated higher than the federal government but the rating agencies recently came out with a report that said yeah they can and so I think there would be stress I think it would you know all you know just like one of your major

companies the you know the ripple effect you have to go through every locality and see their ability to absorb it but it would it would definitely cause turmoil in in the overall markets because you know the the U.S.

government is has always been long viewed as that flight to quality when everything else is going bad people just run and buy U.S.

Treasury bonds

So if that safe haven went away, there would be a lot of ripple effects But not predictably positive or negative for us?

Yes, yes.

Maybe the flight to quality sends people to buy Charlottesville bonds instead of U.S.

bonds.

For a lot of reasons.

Okay, thank you very much.

So, you want to

Well, we've given the overview of the budget, and for the public who want to comment, there were comments of the night at the council meeting on the assessments, and the assessments this year yielded $9 million in additional revenue.

In my budget statement,

I identify how that revenue is allocated in this budget.

And that provides you a good roadmap that we've suggested some things that add up to the new revenue that we have.

We have not recommended a tax rate increase.

So there are demands, so your decision window is within that $13 million if you want to move some things around.

The budget is balanced now.

So I just wanted to make sure I understand the next steps as far as us providing comments, particularly with what we heard last week with the non-profits, just in budget in general, that we can provide comments to Ms.

Hamill and then

I think April 6th, I forgot the exact date, but we'll have a kind of a work session where we'll kind of work with the numbers based on the comments that you have received and I'm sure you'll get some more that night, but is that kind of where we are?

Yes, yes, on April 6th, there's an opportunity for you to

having thought about this, taking the information from the night that we hear from the public and reading our emails and other means of communication that people are talking to us and deciding where we can be responsive and whether you want to go forward with what is proposed.

Got it.

Thank you.

Okay.

So we have, as always, both possibility of in-person comments and comments from people online.

We'll typically take one from here, one from online, back and forth until we exhaust one or the other.

If you are online and wish to participate, I assume you're here on a Zoom link or either that or on a phone link.

If you're on Zoom, raise the hand, hit the raise hand icon or a star nine if you're on a phone.

Why don't we first ask if there's anybody here in person who would like to speak on the matter?

Yes, ma'am.

Hello.

I'm Kristen Sakas.

I live here in town, served on City Council for eight years, and don't now, which is lovely.

A year ago, City Council reviewed its support for affordable housing as it proposed to increase its commitment to housing affordability, and I commend that commitment, and I know that it was entered into in good faith.

But the process has resulted in a recommendation that AHIP, the only year-round provider of emergency home repair and housing rehabilitation for low-income families in the city,

be denied funding after decades of support at the level of about half a million dollars every year and as Albemarle County continues its commitment at that level.

Such a cut could be catastrophic for the effort to preserve existing affordable housing in the city and would undercut your efforts to increase the total stock of affordable housing.

It would severely affect children, families, disabled residents, and elderly homeowners who long have depended on AHIP to stay safe in their homes.

According to the Charlottesville affordable housing procurement review and design update presented to Council on March 21st last year, during the 10 years up to 2020, the City's support for AHIP provided $8 million in funding that provided renovations and repairs to more than 600 homes in Charlottesville, with one of the lowest per unit cost to the City of any housing rehabilitation investment.

According to that same report, the majority of those projects helped African American families maintain family assets and stabilize neighborhoods at risk of rapid gentrification, such as Tenth and Page.

Most of these projects benefited families at the 31 to 50 percent AMI, and the rest were all under 80 percent AMI.

because of robust fundraising and private support every city dollar given to AHIP leverages far more impact than direct funding of emergency repairs and renovations could ever provide.

In 2018 alone city funding of more than $900,000 provided 56 emergency repairs and 22 large renovation projects by AHIP to save homes that otherwise might have been lost.

There are currently 39 Charlottesville households on the waiting list and more calls come in every week.

In the current budget, that support has been cut to nothing.

No emergency repairs, no neighborhood stabilization, no urgently needed rehabilitation to ensure that a family's lifetime of investment is not lost because of a leaking roof or worn out plumbing or dangerous electrical damage.

In the City's new allocation process for housing operations and program support, support for AHIP seems to have been forgotten, as the AHIP model is somehow not recognized in the methodology for support.

I urge you to reconsider this oversight and fund AHIP for the fiscal year 2024 at at least $250,000, just half the amount the organization received in 2020.

In that budget, CIP, AHIP was slated to receive continued support at $500,000 a year through 2024, but that funding was cut amid COVID concerns.

Thank you, Ms.

If I might, I note, looking at the past budgets, that in fiscal year 2020, we allocated $99,050, not $500,000 to AHIP.

Am I missing something?

Some came out of CIP and some came out of ABRP.

So just a very quick clarification question.

Yeah, just for the clarification, should they have applied through the Vibrant Community Fund or through the Housing Fund?

No, they applied through both the hops, which was the transfer of the vibrant community funds that were earmarked for housing prior, as well as CAF.

And just to clarify that, too, that before 2020, AHIP was always in the CIP.

And so it was steady, predictable funding that got interrupted by COVID.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, this is, I mean, just in general, this is one of those programs that, and we'll talk more about it.

Thank you.

We currently, oh, there we go.

Ms.

Palmer, you have three minutes.

Sure.

Hi, everyone.

My name is Ashley Palmer, and I'm a realtor and small business owner in Charlottesville.

I've lived in Charlottesville for the past seven years and own several properties in the city and currently live on Pantops.

I'm on the board and chair of the fundraising committee for child health partnership.

I have served on the board for the past five years, but I've had a relationship with them as a former client for over 13 years.

This relationship started when I was in foster care and became pregnant at the age of 15.

I hadn't been to the doctor for my first couple of trimesters and I didn't know how to go about making a doctor's appointment to get prenatal care.

But this organization was there for me when no one else was without judgment with limitless compassion for me and my baby.

Working so closely with my child health worker and nurse, we built a trusting bond that created a confidence in myself that I needed to be successful as a person and as a parent.

They also connected me with the resources that I needed to make sure my son and I were healthy and safe.

I'm honored to have the privilege to serve the organization that helped me become successful and I'm grateful to be able to give back to the community that I live in and be able to help other families that are in the same situation that I was in 13 years ago.

I know firsthand that Child Health Partnership provides an invaluable service to the families we serve.

Child Health has a huge impact on the stability of families in our community.

and the future of our children.

With the way the economy is right now, the need for our services is critical.

So please reconsider the amount of funding that Child Health Partnership will receive for the 2024 fiscal year.

Thank you, Ms.

Palmer.

Next, we'll come back to in person.

Ms.

Good evening again Mayor Snook, councilors and everybody thank you again for the opportunity to speak again kind of wearing two hats a little bit so first off want to say thank you as always for the support for funding for Charlottesville City Schools

specifically our middle school modernization and the to be determined what we'll be doing with early childhood so we do appreciate that in regards to tax rates I just want to say I do acknowledge the fact that that is hard on some folks but again some of that money did go to this funding and I just want to again say

I appreciate that part of it as far as what was allocated and will help us with our middle school modernization which is really exciting because our kids do deserve a state-of-the-art learning environment.

Pivoting to housing and other priorities

and I want to acknowledge Councillor Pinkston and Councillor Payne as far as their commitments to the housing support with the impact group last night and again I continue to bring up and also feel it's very important to

to invest and to continue to support affordable housing but really want to continue to echo and say what is affordable and is 60% truly affordable and to ask and to say that we all really need to reconsider what and how many people can truly afford 60% AMI if that's what we're going to use as our benchmark.

Similarly to Ms.

Zakos,

very much support and ask you to invest whatever monies that you can in programs that are going to support housing rehab, some of the subsidies that are going to help with the rental assistance programs, property tax assistance programs.

Again, we need to take care of our own here first.

and I may be probably a little naive when it comes to some of the economics behind continuing to increase density and building more, more, more when we still haven't taken care of fully the residents that are here in Charlottesville and I hope that you will take that to heart when you're making some of these decisions that are really hard because there are a lot of great people and programs that do need funding

so I am sensitive to that as well and again want to put in a plug for helping us fund some of the programs that we're going to need as far as space and supports for our youth.

Thank you Ms.

Torres.

Mr. Rylander you have three minutes me unmuted here I represent the Charlottesville Tree Commission where I've served for the last six years good evening everyone I'd like to ask you to consider reinstating the $75,000 budget for invasive plant removal that was recommended by the Planning Commission that we submitted to them and

session.

This is for a program where the city forester has a plan for reclaiming and restoring some of our public parkland that's been overtaken by kudzu and porcelain berry and bittersweet and other other vines that returning it to a condition where it can be contributing to our tree canopy, which provides innumerable benefits for public uses as well as climate.

And this is something that's kind of beyond the

the noble efforts of student and senior volunteers picking out weeds by hand.

As you know, just looking at any railway right of way, the area of our environment that's been overtaken by these plants requires some

sort of industrial strength removal and planting.

Once it's cleared and replanted, it will be a self-sustaining forest that will grow on its own.

And I'd like you to think of our trees and our plants really as infrastructure in the same way we think of

Roads and Utilities or trees and streams and rivers provide ongoing and renewable benefits and thinking of it as an investment just like you would any other investment.

Thank you, Mr. Eyelander.

Next in person.

Yes, sir.

Good evening and thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

I'm Larry Brown and I'm speaking on behalf of the Charlottesville Police Foundation where I'm a member of the Board of Directors.

We want to at the foundation encourage you to support the Charlottesville Police Department budget for the coming year.

As I think many of you know, the foundation is a non-profit organization and our mission is to foster community well-being by supporting police excellence to provide training and equipment for the police department beyond the city budget and to promote meaningful community engagement so that officers can do their best work on behalf of all the citizens of Charlottesville

As you know, the number of certified police officers in the department is currently significantly below the needed staffing levels.

This obviously means less officers on the streets, particularly in critical areas.

With new leadership, there's an opportunity to correct this problem and bring the department's staffing levels up to the budget amount.

However, the department leadership requires the financial support of the council and the city manager to achieve that goal.

Some specific needs are increases in compensation and benefits that make CPD a competitive department with the Elmar County PD, with the University Police Department and with other surrounding departments.

Also funding for vehicles that will support a more robust take home program that is an important tool for recruitment.

Funding for basic supplies that support officer training both in the department and at the training academy.

And finally funding to support the development of a crisis response team to meet the needs of our community.

In summary, this is a critical time for the city of Charlottesville.

Residents and visitors are concerned about violent crime, particularly shootings in our neighborhoods as well as our business districts.

Parents should feel that their children are safe when playing outside their homes and locals as well as outsiders coming to our town should feel comfortable exploring our community without the fear of crime.

So in conclusion, I strongly encourage you and the city to support the police department and provide them the funding they need to serve our community most effectively.

Thank you.

Ms.

Hello, I'd like to continue on what Mike Rylander said.

So I'm also, I'm a resident of Charlottesville, so I live in the Fifeville neighborhood, and I am currently serving, I've served one year on the tree commission, and I would like to advocate for reinstating the $75,000 for the invasive plant control and containment.

It will help keep our mature trees from dying and open up new land for planting new trees that will help increase and maintain our canopy cover.

Currently, there's lots of invasive vines that are killing our trees.

Not acting on the problem is only going to make it worse.

And it is a problem with a known solution.

So while volunteers can make a really small dent, we need a lot more.

We need more this problem that is really easy to address.

All right.

Thank you.

Next person here.

Actually, I said, is there anybody behind?

I recently moved here four years ago from New York.

I'm a former member of the United States Secret Service uniformed division where I was a police officer in D.C.

and was actively involved in task force to regulate crime in the D.C.

area with Metropolitan Police and Park Police.

I was involved in very active policing.

I know what the stress level is of a police officer.

I cannot imagine what our local police department is going through right now responding to over 50 gun incidents, shots fired.

I'll just repeat from today's paper that we have gun violence has taken the lives of 14 people and injured 22 since September.

I'm pleading with the council

to please, please advance the budget forward for the police department.

I have been an advocate for compassionate policing.

I come from a police family.

My father was a New York City police officer.

I served in the police department.

I know the job is tough.

I tell my wife all the time how difficult the job is.

She got to witness it firsthand as we drove by the convenience store on Cherry Avenue just after the shooting was happening and people were running out of the convenience store with their hands up and police were arriving on the scene having to assess the scene.

She got to see firsthand how difficult it is to be a police officer.

Our city deserves better.

Our young people deserve to be able to grow up in a safe environment.

Our adults deserve to be able to have a safe environment.

But if we don't have a strong police department that's compassionate as well, but has the resources and the funding to protect our city, protect our citizens, everything that the gentleman just talked about around our bonding and our ratings won't matter.

So I beg you to please, please pass the police budget.

Thank you, Mr. Williams.

I'm a little shorter than Mr. Williams so let me bring this down Thank you Mayor Snook, council members, city manager's office My name is Annie Kim I've lived in Charlottesville for oh how many years now since 2007 I went to school here at UVA for undergrad in law school and I currently actually came back to work at UVA so I'm kind of a triple who

But I'm here primarily because my background before I came back to law school was working in local government.

So I worked in the county attorney's office in Albemarle County and one of my functions there was to advise the county police department.

So I have a lot of sympathy for you trying to balance budgeting requests and different needs of the community here.

It is not an easy job.

it's not easy sometimes to support police budgets in our community and in times like this excuse me my phone has just gone dead but I'm here also because I was on the New York City subway system last year and I looked up from where I was sitting and saw a giant ad for the Norfolk City Police Department promising beachside views and great pay and benefits in the New York City subway system I looked at my husband and we were just gaping why was this happening

and this is happening because there is a nationwide and statewide and citywide crisis that we don't really talk about and that's the crisis in having and finding and recruiting and retaining good quality, ethical, smart, hard-working, caring police officers.

It is a crisis right now and everyone's fighting for the same people.

There aren't enough people in the pipeline.

I was incredibly encouraged when I had a chance to talk with Chief Kochis recently because I'm also a member of the Charlottesville Police Foundation Board

and hearing his vision for the department and seeing how we can actually turn things around.

But as a resident in the Venable neighborhood, I live close to main grounds.

I live close to Ellywood Avenue where the shootings occurred recently.

I was actually looking at the string of emergency text alerts I got from Chief Longo and UPD and I was with my sister who's, and my nephew, my sister's son, is coming to be a first year student at UVA this fall.

And she was asking me, what's happening with the situation in Charlottesville?

Should I be worried?

So we've got it.

We've got it under control.

The ambassadors are here.

Charlottesville Police Department is under good leadership now.

We will be able to move forward.

But I am concerned.

I'm concerned as a resident, as someone who has family members who are invested in UVA, as someone who loves this community.

And so I would urge you to support the budget funding request from the police department.

Thank you, Ms.

Kim.

Hi there.

I'm a city resident, and I have a question that I think is more on the technical side of things.

You have a lot of visibility into real estate tax receipts, and I know that other revenues, you have to do more projection.

But the projection seemed really conservative to me.

I mean, if you look at the increase in revenues other than real estate taxes, I think it comes out to about 3.5%, which is lower than what inflation is projected to be.

over the course of this year.

So I was just kind of curious how those projections are done and if it's worth revisiting them because conservatism is good.

That's how you get a triple A rating.

But it also means that there are programs, and I can hear from people who are talking, there are a lot of demands for spending that you can't meet those if you're excessively conservative.

So

Thank you, Mr. Heller.

I'm inclined to think we should deal with questions and responses at the end of all of the comments and we may get a lot of

Some of the comments on the same thing.

Is that okay, folks?

Yeah, okay.

All right.

We will address that at least to some extent before we leave, but there may be a more detailed answer coming later.

Who else here in person?

Good evening.

My name is Toya Traeger and I am the Director of Marketing and Administration for Traeger Brothers Coffee, a family owned and operated local business.

I moved to Charlottesville as a teenager and now 30 plus years later live in the Fontaine Avenue area of the city.

I did the math last night, I could not believe it.

It's been over 30 years.

Tonight I appear before you in my capacity as a member of the board at the Child Health Partnership.

As you know, Child Health Partnership provides at-home support to pregnant teens and low-income parents with children from ages zero to six.

Child Health Partnership provides an invaluable service to the families we serve.

Our nurses monitor the health and development of their babies and young children, help families find medical care, and help coordinate care for medically complex children.

Our family support workers provide parenting training and connect our clients to various resources including jobs, childcare, food, transportation, housing, and preschool.

In other words, Child Health Partnership is an advocate for families facing many kinds of challenges.

As the mother of a special needs child who

I apologize.

As a mother of a special needs child who required extensive in-home service, I know how much child health support means to these families.

We are advocates for mothers, infants, and children with increased risk of adverse health outcomes.

Our families are racially and ethnically diverse, and health equity has been fundamental to Child Health Partnership's mission since its founding.

With the goal of equitable access to services and empowerment, we serve the city's community members at no cost to them, including public housing residents, refugees speaking many languages, pregnant teens, and more.

Our advocacy work extends to addressing community institutions.

Recently, Child Health Partnerships Health Equity Committee, which I am co-chair of, coordinated a meeting with UVA health officials and our nurses to discuss how families overwhelmingly felt not heard during their doctor visits.

This is something very close to my heart.

So, excuse me.

This dialogue has led Child Health and UVA to now working together to develop concrete systems that can be implemented to address the issue.

It is one step and we hope that this work will benefit not only child health families but all families served by UVA Health.

The need for our services and for addressing health equity is more pressing than ever.

The proposed funding level is a 45% cut from last year's funding while the need for these services has not diminished.

City funding has already been reduced by $55,000 over the past few years and additional funding cuts will further stretch our ability to serve the Charlottesville community.

I implore you to restore the funding to Child Health Partnership.

That's good to hear.

Thank you.

Anybody else in person going across the room?

I've forgotten anybody?

I guess not.

Well, then we can close the public hearing.

If I had a gavel, I would smash it, but anyway.

And then turn to council questions for staff and figure out where we're headed with all this.

Maybe it would be appropriate to start off with a couple of the questions that were posed by the folks in the public.

Like Mr. Heller was asking about the revenue projections for other than the real estate property tax revenues.

We have a very effective revenue team.

Our treasurer, our commissioner of revenue,

and our finance director, budget director, two deputies.

I was saying that we have a very effective revenue team with the director of finance, the commission of revenue, the treasurer, our budget director, and the two deputies, and economic development.

So we look at these revenues very, very carefully and it's a fair comment that they may be conservative but it's better since we have to have a balanced budget it's better to be somewhat conservative not extremely conservative but base the estimate on what you see and land on it

rather than to be short in the course of the year.

So I don't think it is extremely conservative at all.

I think it's about right in terms of what our estimate is.

And we evaluate in the course of the year

How's it doing?

And make adjustments there as well.

And even after the revenue estimate, as we are developing the budget each year, we go back in and see what we see in terms of progress with other revenues.

And then we may adopt a budget knowing that there is some additional room

for revenue growth in the course of the year where council can appropriate for other programs.

Just sort of looking back on the last few years, of course, during COVID, it was really strange because

we were intentionally being very conservative because we had no idea what was gonna happen.

And so we were conservative and I remember thinking at the time, gee that's being, maybe that's being too conservative and I was very glad eventually that

that things worked out the way they did.

That's part of why for the last couple of years we've had pretty significant year-end surpluses, but it's really hard to try to figure out knowing that the cost of getting it wrong is a panic at the end of the fiscal year and suddenly nobody can spend any money on anything because we don't have anything.

We don't want to budget that way.

But it has resulted in a number of, over the last couple of years, we look up in December and we realize, okay, we just got the audit, we know what our money was for the year, for the past fiscal year completed in June, and now we have additional funds that we can do something with.

It's a tough balance.

I would agree with that and agree that we absolutely need to be

Cautious in terms of heavily weighing on the side of not even coming close to spending more money than we have.

That said, I'm still interested in maybe some conversation or more information about some of these estimates because at least in recent years, in my mind, it hasn't been

is extremely cautious.

It hasn't been realistic in terms of where we've been at.

And for us, that means we're operating under constraints where we end up making or feeling like we don't have the room to make certain investments that we ended up having.

And that's just a challenging environment for the community and for us.

that combined with some of the revenue projections I mean I'm not saying it's wrong I'm just interested in more discussion around it so what we'll do for we'll come back we'll ask our the principles of our revenue team to be present and we will discuss those key revenue items and tell you where we

ended up and why we ended up there and what we see going forward.

And I guess I should add that historically we, Council, never thought during the preparation of the next fiscal year's budget

about what we would do to spend the expected surplus from the current fiscal year.

Last year was really the first time I can remember having done so, and largely because, Mr. Rogers, you looked at it and said, if we end up with a $20 million surplus and we've been telling everybody that we can't possibly fund this and this and this and this, there's going to be hell to pay.

And so really for the first time that I can remember, council in

sort of built into the expected expenditure pattern what we were going to do with the surplus for the fiscal year that we were still in.

And that's the first time I can remember sort of reprogramming in that sense.

Historically, that difference has only been certainly single digits of millions, maybe three or four million dollars.

this past year it was so large that something different had to be done.

I don't know whether it's likely to look like that again this year or what.

we have no trends there are no trends that exist for sort of maneuvering through a pandemic and so prior to those we do have multi-year of data that we are tracking trends on those

It would be helpful if you could give us some indication of which revenues you're speaking to specifically that you'd like us to look at I'd also add that most of our surpluses pre-pandemic have typically been in the three to five percent range of the general fund budget which

is kind of a safety.

In an ideal world, we'd have no surplus, but certainly a small surplus is better than, you know, a deficit.

That said, a large portion of those surpluses were actually built on expenditure savings and not revenues.

So all that said, certainly happy to share any of the processes or the methods.

And I guess really for me, the bigger question I've had is a separate issue is in terms of the growth rate we're using to project out the affordability of our CIP, just because that compounds over time and heavily influences what we consider affordable

I'm curious, it's been so out of line with what our historical growth rates have been.

Yeah so I think that's a fair point keeping in mind though the growth rate that impacts the CIP is our debt limit so that speaks to the nine the target of nine or ten percent and when we started the school conversation you're absolutely right we were looking at a growth rate and we were saying hey time out not sure we can get this in and also one other point to the revenues the surpluses in the revenue projections

have been heavily weighted by two anomalies of really high assessment increases.

So, you know, for the CIP, now looking at that growth rate, that's sort of looking at, okay, how much can we issue to keep us at nine or keep us at 10?

But the real issue is not really how much we can get there.

But I think...

So basically what it impacts is how much can you add to the general fund budget to pay your debt service.

Not necessarily how much can you put.

I mean, one sort of leads to the other, right?

But it's more an idea of

Here's how much revenue you think you have.

Now, if we're missing the mark on our revenue projections, you're right, right?

Because we can't, we're saying you can't afford this amount of debt or you can't afford to do these other things.

Thank you.

Well, and to answer, I suppose, the question that Ms.

Hamill put, I

Say I don't have any particular thought that any particular revenue estimation is right or wrong.

And there are only about five or six things that are really kind of meaningful in that respect.

Can I ask one question?

So, Councilor Payne, is your point, you feel like,

That's my point and that's my concern is certainly in COVID I think that's 100% true COVID was such a unique environment it's hard to extrapolate from it but certainly the past few years

I guess the one piece now that

The situation is different now overall for the city because of the school project, right?

I mean, that's an enormous add to the CIP, and we haven't done anything like that in a long time, so I can see how that, we'll talk about that next week, I guess, and I'll be interested to know what the costs are coming in at and how that impacts our future CIP, but

Yeah, I mean, I agree.

I think being as thoughtful as possible about not missing opportunities.

I felt like last year we came kind of close to missing an opportunity with the schools.

And, you know, when we were sort of forced to figure it out, we all came together and figured it out.

Other questions?

I have a couple of questions of mine.

First, we had a number of speakers talking about the Charlottesville Police Department budget.

Is that an issue?

Have we cut something that we were being asked to fund?

I think it's the same with the schools as well.

We received a lot of comments to support the school's budget and I think there was agreement with you and Dr. Gurley as well.

Right.

So one question that was posed by somebody a week or so ago that I've sort of had as one of my pet issues for a while is

Well, with the BCF, there's a certain amount of money that is allocated to that budget.

Well, so to clarify, they do still apply through VCF.

We created a category called fundamental.

We can, if it's council's pleasure to fund those at 100% of their request, we can do that.

It either comes from the pot that we have set aside for VCF, which means everybody else gets a little bit less, or it comes out of the pot for the rest of the general fund.

And so it's essentially a council's decision

as to how you would like to fund those.

If you want to declare that those agencies are fundamental and therefore should be funded at 100% of their request,

then we can do that.

Well, I mean, I guess I've been raising this issue for the last three years and now I'll make it four in a row where we have a memorandum of understanding or a contract, whatever you want to call it, with Albemarle County and with the Virginia Supreme Court and the local courts and everything and the cost allocation is set forth

for the city and for the county, and apparently the county pays 100% of what they're being asked to pay, and we apparently think we can get by with just paying 90% of what we pay simply because that's how we happen to take it out of the budget.

Maybe we ought to be having a different budget category that says if we've got a memorandum agreement for it, we pay what we're supposed to pay under the memorandum agreement.

That would be something I would defer to Ms.

Graves or Hunter or Mr. Smith.

In a similar vein, when it comes to intergovernmental agencies, I guess contractual agencies now, one of the questions I've had is I know last budget cycle we had discussion about CRHA being an intergovernmental agency, and there was never a formal resolution we voted on or anything, but there was serious conversations about

moving in that direction.

I know that hasn't happened this budget cycle but I continue to think that's something we need to just come to a final decision on as a council whether for their operational expenses we want them competing through VCF and hops or whether we consider them more akin to an agency like SPCA and other agencies we fund on a more regular routine basis.

I think

The argument for doing so is obviously that they're not a nonprofit.

They're intertwined as the development arm of the city in a very unique way.

It's not that long ago history that their executive director was the city manager.

I think that was the 90s, early 2000s.

So it's just a very unique agency that I think makes sense to view in that way, especially when we're looking at how much investing, what capital needs.

I think there's a coinciding operational need.

So that's where I'm at, where I think that switch makes sense instead of having them routinely compete through hops and having basic operational expenses being an uncertainty for them.

I'm curious, just unrelated data point, what is the current thought on what one cent on the tax rate, real estate tax rate is equal to?

1.2 million Okay, so that itself is up about 25% over the last couple years, yeah, okay.

And I guess, I don't know whether it would be appropriate at this point, one question I would like to ask

is the reference to the $75,000 for dealing with invasive vegetation.

I don't think we got a recommendation on that from the Planning Commission but I'm pulling that off the top of my head.

It was a new request in 24 along with several others

that we did get in the CIP, that was one that we just did not fund for priority reasons.

One was for the, hold on, actually I have this up.

Let's see

We added $100,000 in all five years for the active life cycle tree management for the downtown mall.

Mm-hmm.

And I think, but I'd have to go back and check my notes, but I believe we increased the urban tree planting.

I think we had that in at 75, and I think we bumped.

It is in at 100 for all five years as well.

I think we bumped at 25,000 a year, but don't quote me on that.

I need to double check that one.

A few questions.

One, maybe this is a question for next week, but the LED street lighting I know has been a topic of discussion in terms of it's been in the budget in the past and now is out.

Is that something that is included in the budget?

The city has the ability to do?

Is that down to Dominion?

That's been an ongoing conversation.

I'm trying to remember if it was in there or not.

I think that it was a request that is not currently in, partly because, one, there was a topic about whether they were Dominion Lights or Our Lights and figuring that piece out.

I also think, but again, don't quote me on this, we can follow up.

I think Crystal had some grant opportunities that she was...

That is true.

Okay.

I think when I asked the question specifically, somebody said, oh, there's that money that's set aside for climate action stuff.

Okay.

Okay.

A question related to one of the questions that came up in public comment.

In terms of how do we define affordability, I know in our affordable housing strategy it says 50 percent of that 10 million a year goes to zero to 30 percent AMI or below, 30 percent up to 60, 20 percent up to 80, and there's been discussion of keeping 50 percent zero to 30, bumping it down to 60.

and that being how we define affordability and structure our investments.

Yeah, I think what we're planning to bring before you is the inclusionary zoning program, and that in itself speaks to 60% AMI.

I've been saying for the past year for sure that the city needs to adopt what we deem to be the appropriate figure as to what is the top for affordability.

My submission is 60% AMI.

There are those who feel as though it should be 50% AMI, but I understand that 60% AMI, if we go down to 50, we're leaving out very vulnerable individuals who would not have an option.

So in my opinion, I think that's why the 60% makes the most sense.

We plan to bring that forward as a part of the second module that will be released with zoning.

That's part of what you'll be getting as a preview next week.

In my mind, one of the critical parts of the definition is in the affordable housing strategy specifying at least half of spending goes to zero to 30% AMI because I think that's some of the concern is that without that being incorporated into our decision making, you know, that level will get ignored.

That's what's in our strategy.

That, to me, I consider the definition.

So even if you're saying 60 percent is the highest it can go, you know, you're still prioritizing zero to 30.

The other question, I know in our affordable housing strategy there were questions about AHIP, home rehab.

makes recommendations about the percentage of that $10 million a year that goes to different, you know, home ownership, home rehab.

We're not there yet, that's the honest answer.

Without having our housing program manager in place to be able to do those assessments, we really can't get to that bottom line.

I can announce that we have an accepted offer, and we do have an individual who will be joining the team May 1st.

That will be the beginning work that needs to get done.

But as it relates to going back over the affordable housing plan, I think part of the work that our new manager will be doing would be to quickly figure out what is it that we need to do to more or less correct this plane that we're flying right now that we're trying to repair at the same time.

Even making those changes to the affordable priorities, those targets,

I don't really have other questions for now, just general comments, you know, and some feedback and anticipation of the other work sessions is, you know, we knew coming into this this is going to be a tighter budget cycle.

This isn't a budget cycle where there's going to be, you know, a major new program we have the capacity to fill.

So I recognize the position we're in.

You know, I'm not expecting that this whole thing is going to get overturned.

but I do feel like we're not quite there yet in terms of what I would like to see in our budget.

I still have questions about funding in the Vibrant Community Fund and some adjustments that could be made there around our commitments to FAR, CRHA, other agencies.

I'd still like further discussion about pathways, just recognizing that the impact that's going to have on evictions, potential homelessness and just the unique situation we're in and trying to build down from that federal money ending and not having a cliff for people who are going to need to rely on that as a final lifeline.

I don't know what the investments are but the conversations around gun violence you know finding out a way even if the first step is just figuring out how we coordinate some of our youth programs across parks and rec social services schools and that being the basis for investments I think we're hearing clearly from the community we need to invest in youth programs we need to invest in neighborhoods and just figure out how to do that and you know council hasn't yet

and you know I this will it's tricky because I know we need a request from CRHA but I am still curious to at least get a sense of West Haven redevelopment what fiscal impact that could have over the next you know five to ten years just so council can at least get a sense of what's needed to prepare for that investment because

I know we need a request from them and there's a process, but I really don't want to have a situation where by the time residents have done that work and the request is coming to us, we feel like we don't have the room to make that investment.

One question that I had that was spurred by something that Councilor Payne said, if we end up adopting this

the inclusionary zoning scheme as it has been suggested in module one or maybe I'll know more next week when module two comes out.

One of the concerns that I've had is that part of what we're thinking we might want to have happen is that let's say you're in an RA zone and you want to build four units on your lot and they would all be affordable units.

and we know from other analyses that have been done by these same consultants that it basically takes nine market rate units to subsidize one affordable unit

The only way that we end up with four units being built or frankly even one unit being built, one affordable unit being built is if somebody else comes along and subsidizes it.

And my assumption is, though nobody has said so explicitly, my assumption is that somebody is going to think that the city is going to subsidize those four affordable units.

and if so, number one, we probably ought to talk about whether we're doing that on purpose or whether we're just sort of backing into it.

Number two, we ought to have a plan for it and how we're going to make it all happen.

Number three, we ought to figure out, that would then be the first time that I can think of that we would have the city subsidizing private ownership

We've not been that way.

We've subsidized nonprofit ownership of certain affordable housing units.

We have not subsidized profit-making people or people who aren't nonprofits and so on.

And that's a major change.

Right.

And I don't, this is module two discussion, but I haven't heard from anybody or seen any planning that that is the expectation or the plan.

And I don't think it would be feasible at all to expect every development is going to have local subsidy.

I would agree with that.

Okay.

Maybe we'll learn more next week.

When I hear people talking about funding inclusionary zoning in some way through our budget, it causes me to go, ah, because if we were to say, I don't know what the appropriate number would be, but some projects we're looking at right now are in the neighborhood of $50,000 per unit, and if we're looking to solve our 3,000 unit shortage that way, we're looking at $150 million, which we ain't got.

which we don't have.

I also had a question about, and maybe this is something that somebody with more, I don't know, maybe Ms.

Marshall needs to be here for this one, I'm just talking about some of the things that did not get funded or did not get funded as much as folks might like through the Vibrant Community Fund.

AHIP is one we've talked about, the Child and Health Partnership is another.

Do we have a reason

or a discussion that we should be having about that?

There was a formula for those requests.

They were rated by category, and category A got 90%, category B got 80%, I think, and then it went down.

90 and then 70 and then 46 and then 22.

Right.

But I guess the CHIP, as it's now being called, a Child Health Partnership,

and I share that perspective about multiple decisions which is why my perspective continues to be even if we build the best process we can for vibrant community fund, there's still going to be some gray areas and room for kind of figuring out because it's just the nature of reality that one committee of people

with a limited amount of funds trying to balance different needs.

Like, there's no absolute correct answers.

And so I do feel like there's room for, you know, additional money or council to have some discretion, not to overturn every decision, but.

And we're not going to solve it this budget cycle, but, you know, I wonder

at core of it is clearly that on a five, 10-year time horizon, the Vibrant Community Fund hasn't even come close to matching inflation and kind of what do we consider the kind of more permanent, sustainable level of increasing funding for Vibrant Community Fund?

Yeah.

Well, and in fact, our budget has gone up roughly

Right.

I noticed looking at the list of people who were on the front cover that there were a number of folks there who had not been there before.

Actually, I see Ms.

Ms.

Sure.

Good evening, Mayor, Vice Mayor, City Council, City Manager and members of the community.

Please forgive me if you hear any outside noise.

I am actually in a class and I stepped outside so I'm on the street to be able to make sure I responded.

As Ms.

Hamill was just sharing, that's exactly what happened is that there are more individuals

who applied for this year's Vibrant Communities Fund.

So we actually received requests that would double the amount of what is allocated if we were to actually provide 100% support for all of them.

In this year, I know that the Vibrant Communities team was very proud that many new individuals received funding and many up and coming nonprofits also were able to receive funding.

But that does mean if you only have five apples,

But now you have 30 people who want one of them.

Not everybody is going to be able to get what they really maybe need to run their programs.

And also that means that some people, unfortunately, are maybe not going to be as competitive as they were because of some of the new applications.

I know that's not necessarily a very satisfying answer.

And as a former nonprofit CEO who's definitely lost grant money, that was kind of the worst because it's not necessarily that you did anything wrong.

It can just be that someone else knew presented something maybe a little novel.

So again, I know that's not

Thank you.

Anybody have questions for Ms.

Not a question, but just again, I'm very interested in a longer term conversation about kind of funding levels for VCF.

I don't think we have a choice on that one, though.

I understand.

Go back to your class.

Could I just add a little clarification on the AHIP application specifically?

We're just reminding you that Ms.

Kelly's presentation to you last week was the explanation of the results of the hops considerations.

There were 14 applications totaling $1.3 million for $575,000 being available.

so that is again the same scenario it's based on the number of applications it's a competitive process it was scored there was a committee seated to actually score those applications

I don't have the results in front of me to be able to tell you anything more, which we describe what we could and then advise any individual organization that could reach out to staff as normal practice to find out how they were scored and what particular learnings they can take away from the process.

So is there still another funding opportunity for AHIP?

That's the CAF process that is currently underway, separate and apart from budgets.

The CAF funding that's under consideration right now is this year's money, while we're talking about the budget for next year.

Yeah, and some clarification on prior funding for AHIP as well.

In the CIP, there used to be two distinct pots.

One was for rehab, and one was for the Affordable Housing Fund.

It wasn't necessarily competitive at that point.

People could just apply for those funds.

And then at some point, they got combined all into CAF.

So is there a thought about sort of a

What would be a reasonable increase to the VCF going forward?

I think that's part of what he was getting at.

I know we had some things, I guess a few years ago it was the ABRT and now we have a different process and mechanism, but I'm just wondering if we hold the total number the same and inflation is chipping away and we've got more

of people wanting to compete, which I think is great.

One way of looking at those numbers that we only funded half is that we have a really engaged community who wants to do lots of good things.

I think that's a positive spin on it, I suppose.

I guess I'm just trying to wonder if we as council or you all should think about

this pot of money you know what is a reasonable target for it compared to other communities perhaps and what is

We're going to do that.

One thought that I had, I think we came to recognize through the affordable housing plan that the most affordable house is the one that we've already got.

And if we can spend $15,000 in renovations and refurbishing, it's a whole lot cheaper than spending $180,000 on a new unit completely.

and I guess the question that I would have not knowing what was going into the decision-making process for HOPS or what would be going into the decision-making process for Affordable Housing Fund is whether there is a way to make sure that that basic

I guess the question is percent, you know, an allocation of percentage of what's the denominator?

The 10 million annual.

Of the 10 million?

Yeah.

All right, well, that's something I'd like to talk more about.

And now that we've flagged another issue for you, we can be ready to go.

Are there other topics that counselors want to make sure that we're asking the staff to take a look at?

I've been going back through my last emails trying to make sure I pulled out the things that people have been talking about, and we've certainly gotten a number of emails recently about the invasive vegetation

and I remember until about three days ago I hadn't realized that was an issue at all so thank you for the emails.

Do other people have other issues?

One thing I wanted to just say when we talk about the various Vibrant Community Fund allocations,

I will repeat what I've said last year and other years that unless we're going to try to read all of the applications, I don't think it's worthwhile for us to try to get in and tamper with the individual determinations the VCF committee has made unless there is something that is just a simple priority of council that we don't think that the VCF

group fully appreciated the importance that we want to attach to it.

That's the sort of strategic level thinking.

And other than that, I'm really not terribly interested in revisiting individual determinations of whether somebody should get 50,000 here or 25,000 there.

I guess the only thing that I would ask, our next budget meeting is a week from tomorrow, is that correct?

So I will be out of town, I would love to be able to participate It's a week from tonight, isn't it?

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay.

Do you all have what you need from us?

Great.

Okay.

And so...

Yes, our next item for Council is we've got the Joint Planning Commission work session a week from tonight to go over.

Actually, I think what's going to happen is that we will discuss our views on Module 1 and be introduced to Module 2.

The original plan had been that we would have Module 2 by about now, have a week to look at it, and then be able to discuss it.

They're behind, the consultants are behind on that, so I ask them to please let us use next week's meeting.

Be in transit or something, yeah?

And so then Thursday night we'll have the budget meeting.

Tuesday night is, we had moved things intentionally because Tuesday night is when Bryan Stevenson is coming to UVA, the JPJ.

and I know there are a lot of folks who are interested in city council things including yours truly who would very much like to be at Brian Stevenson's talk so that was the reason why we kind of skipped things along a little bit but then we're working toward April 3rd is our next council meeting April 6th

would be, I guess that's technically the first reading of the budget ordinance, is that the way it's working?

And then the sixth would be a work session again where we would hopefully get down to at least identifying just the last few issues that we're really talking about so that on April 11th we will be able to have a fairly short meeting at 5.30 where we say, yes, this is the budget, yes, we approve it, and then we get to go sit with the Planning Commission at 6 o'clock.

Somebody asked me recently how much time council is taking, and I said, well, I figured out that for the month of March, we will have nine official council meetings.

Yes.

Okay.

Great.

Thank you.

Okay.

I think we've done all the damage we can do for one night.

We're adjourned.