City Council Budget Work Session   3/30/2023

I knew about last week, but I wasn't sure about this week.

Mine was blinking last night.

Yeah, but I don't know what it means.

It means when it stops blinking, it's about to go.

Okay.

Thanks.

Oh, well.

Why don't you take this one?

Madam Clerk?

Councillor Payne?

Here.

Councillor Pinkston is joining electronically.

Right.

Mayor Snook?

Here.

Vice Mayor Wade?

Okay.

Mr. Pinkston, are you able to hear me?

MR. I am.

Are participants in the meeting room able to hear Mr. Pinkston?

Yes.

For the record, would you please specify the nature of your personal matter and your remote location?

I am attending a professional conference that's connected to my day job.

Based on compliance with the policy, is there a motion?

I would move to approve Councilor Pinkston's electronic participation in this work session Second All in favor?

Okay Okay, turn the meeting back over to Mayor Snook

Hamill is going to summarize things for us.

in order to do this the school board has worked with staff and they have been working on the application and as part of that application there needs to be a letter of support from council for that we have drafted that letter if do you want to read that Mayor Snook or actually I just gave it back to Miss Thomas

Sincerely yours, Lloyd Snook, Mayor of the City of Charlottesville

and so does that then need to be moved and seconded authorizing me to send that letter is that the deal yes please and just one other note I failed to mention so the part of the grants the if approved they will award either 10 20 or 30 percent of any approved projects so if we were to receive the grant at a minimum if we were to apply this to the Beaufort project we would be in the seven to eight million dollar range

So can I have a motion?

Second.

Thomas, you want to call the roll?

Councillor Payne?

Yes.

Mayor Snook?

Yes.

Vice Mayor Wade?

Yes.

Councillor Pinkston, sorry.

Yes.

Hamill?

And I'm looking at Mike Goddard.

That is right, right?

That's a budget for 23.

I'm sorry, for 24.

For 24, right.

But there, yeah.

So Chrissy, you want to go on to?

Any questions on that before we dive into some more specifics?

Yeah, the police, can you talk a little bit more about that?

Which one?

Public safety.

Just public safety in general or the police ones?

So I see the specifics now because I know that this is not part of this, but is there plans at some point in the future to upgrade their facilities because I know it's kind of old and

it's been talked for several years I don't know if you've heard anything about that so there have been plans or requests that have come forward previously there is currently no plan at this point but you are correct there have been asked and then at one point it was withdrawn and so it has not been fully vetted at this point

Sure, go ahead What request were you referring to, Vice Mayor Wade?

So that's kind of where we are.

Did I miss that?

Well, fully funded at this point based on the request.

Thank you.

Is that still sort of the vague thought?

There's been no further conversation on what to do with that space.

Okay.

It just hasn't risen to that level.

Thank you.

Any other questions before we move on?

Actually, I do have one.

I definitely have some detailed questions, but I think maybe I'll just wait until the end of the presentation.

Do I understand that those are amounts that are added to a fund that continues to be spent down on an annual basis?

That's correct.

I mean, are we close to spending them down, or are we still adding to, I mean, at least at one point, a couple years ago, they were up over half a million dollars in some of those funds, with no spending having been done?

Do you have

That's all I agree.

And Mr. Sanders, we have, I mean, I think you're bringing on new staff, right, to help increase your capacity?

As we get those positions filled, which we have been able to advertise, we haven't been able to fill all of them, it should begin to pick up this year.

Thank you.

MS.

Completely your preference.

MR. Okay.

Is that piece working out in terms of, can you remind me Mr. Rogers of how that was going to work with, I guess, tax deferrals that was going to be used to fund this?

There's been no progress.

And then after that is done, then we will accelerate the construction of the sidewalk so that it aligns with the development itself.

I guess that's something we can talk about at another time.

It will at least eliminate any confusion that may exist, but we have assured the public that that does not stop us from doing the work that needs to be done in the interim.

Is there a special project that's going to be happening there?

That'll be replaced, but this is a singular project, and then the ongoing work will continue in future years.

Is there some basis for it?

So this would be in addition to an existing budget.

Was the question about invasive species, was that something that would have fit here under the trees piece or is that the general fund question?

If we put it here, it would be cash-funded, and those funds would, you know, carry over if they weren't all spent.

or is that for leveraging grants?

So we wanted to give the team some flexibility to be able to do whatever they felt they could do this year as a part of their work plan.

That is not new.

Fontaine.

I'm sorry I didn't hear so that's the Fontaine Streetscape project that is a VDOT funded program we are as we're working through our more or less our reboot to that particular portfolio we've been able to get that project fully funded it is moving forward the university has participated in making that possible so we will begin to see some work coming forward on that particular project okay

Thank you for that.

Is my understanding correct that for the Fontaine project, that was almost like a reallocation of the commitment that had existed for the West Main street scape?

That's the weaving that I've been doing that I referred to before.

And it got up to that $5 million?

Yes.

Well, that's very good to hear because there was a lot of concern that that commitment would just disappear from UVA.

Yes.

So that's very good to hear.

And we will receive half of it next month.

Carry on.

Rittervolt who is going to join us remotely and talk to you about this a little bit.

while that may not be an enormous amount it is a very accessible and a discrete and a quantifiable and frankly a project with a payback that we that we feel strongly would be a good early project to get off our to-do list and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Questions counsel?

I guess, so it's Dominion that will be doing all the work, correct?

So hopefully we can perhaps skip some of the pain points.

Is that something I feel like we're able to kind of be ready for and mitigate?

And there's a lot of benefits to improve lighting.

Yeah, that would be, you know, obviously great to pursue in conjunction with this, but that's all I had, and again, kind of seems like a no-brainer for quick action for the Climate Action Plan.

Thank you.

Thank you.

you know peer that you would like to fund this gives you some flexibility and again the contingency fund if there are surpluses in the general fund that would continue to be replenished

I'm just like, what is your sense of sort of like how easily that 7.8 could go away with inflation?

Is that fair, Mike?

Right.

as a cushion.

We've got to talk about that.

So with that I'll turn it over to Mr. Goddard to talk about the Beaufort Project

I think that based on the bid that we got on this part, we could do it more cheaply ourselves, and I think we can find the money for that in other ways.

Could you just explain what some of those other ways would be?

I'm not comfortable with the number that we got from the contractor for the reasons I stated, but I think we can do it more cheaply and if we can, we can probably find the money.

And that contractor number was what?

Thank you.

198.

Would you say you feel pretty confident this would be able to get done?

So here's that slide I promised with all the particulars.

Hedging our bets that we would be able to offset all of that so we added another 6.5 million which got us to the 72 million dollar number that is currently in the proposed CIP for 24 which got us to a total of 78.3 is what we have available for this project right now and then I'm gonna let you talk about the options so

So the more we can do to get some clarity from you all today, the better.

So if I'm reading the numbers correctly, if we have,

That's just the base bid plus the parking lot.

In the scenario that she's laying out, yes.

So with that scenario, it's using, you're able to identify funds to do option two.

And so all the additional fund numbers are already factoring in that just previous slide?

This one.

Yes.

issuance that we have planned based on the project drawdowns as well.

MR. Mr. Mayor, are you interested in a conversation now about how we feel about this, or do you want to do that later, or what?

We've got the slides up.

if it's possible to spin that off as a second project, you've got the design done, maybe we come back and revisit that in a few years, maybe there's some local funds that are available to fund that particular piece, but my view is that we do option one.

Is there something here that I'm not seeing?

And we have that probably available in our lump sums.

So is the line item for outdoor classroom, does that correspond to the dining terrace?

That's this slide.

Okay.

It serves many purposes, as does any good space, right?

The one that shows this one, yeah.

This one?

No, the previous one.

Oh, this one?

The other one.

The other one.

That's kind of where I am with it.

Thoughts, Michael?

a lot of other big investments we're already committed to and that's just a tough position to be in but that's kind of my thinking on it now.

I mean literally is that members of the community coming in at various points or is it specifically the Buford community or how are we defining community here?

community gardens that are all over town that anybody can come and tend to patch.

particularly if we're going to have any ability to do a number of things that we expect will come up in the next year or so.

But you just approved submittal of a grant application by the school system.

Do you know?

Do you know?

Torres, who knows?

I think they're trying to get their funding together before the fiscal year starts.

Yeah, I mean, that's a good point.

I don't know how to .

Perhaps against my better judgment, I remain cautiously optimistic that at some point the state government is at least going to allow localities to do the sales tax or spend more money on schools statewide, although history shows we shouldn't be too optimistic about that.

Do you have anything to add?

Basically that would give us another 10% of $7 million to $700,000 more.

I'll write you a blank check from the federal government, I guess.

just pull back on that.

You could approve it contingent upon receipt of the grant.

We have to have a balanced budget, so we have to have a source for that at this point.

What would the bidder say about something like that?

So, you know, it's certainly a question worth asking, and we would, I would think, get a good answer on it.

We would know the answer over the next 30 days.

Something like that.

Yeah.

or would you structure it some other way?

That's probably the cleanest way to do it from my perspective as long as we had good schedules of values and an agreement that everything would be backed out at full value, then yeah.

And that would be written into the contract?

It would have to be, yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

I will proceed.

Should we ask a share from the school board members who are here?

Torres has some more specific notes on some funding ideas.

So, again, this is all there, and we hoped that this would help for you guys to see this on paper.

Do we know what the CIP dollars originally budgeted, now are not needed, and what that amount is?

We have 750,000 recurring budget for school HVAC and this 475 is just a grant that they have that would offset those costs, a one-time offset Okay, so basically we're talking about taking that 475 and using 90% of it, 95% of it on this

Thank you.

So, Council, after doing our little head count, but before we started thinking about this grant, has the thinking about the grant caused anybody to have some additional thoughts or different thoughts?

I think, I think, go ahead.

If we increase the costs to include the auditorium, that would be to the 93, and the basis of doing so is including the anticipated revenue

Jay we got this and now we can do something else but I think you you know because there is a risk that you might not get it I think you have if you're going to approve it I think you should approve a solid plan to pay for it that would be my recommendation is there any way to

Because maybe the bonding it solves the issue, but I know with contingency there are some things we haven't even touched on yet in terms of the acquisition of KTAC and inflation cost increases for existing projects and other things.

I think you could add in language that basically says we're approving this, we're paying for it this way, should we receive the grant, that will be returned to the CIP, and then you would just reshuffle.

So

Should we go ahead and hear the rest of the presentation and then circle back?

We'll keep going.

So I want to...

So I'm going to stop right there for a second.

Hamill, this number is what, is this the 72.8 that you gave us in our, it's in our book for the school?

So this is slightly lower, but I wouldn't say it's materially lower.

is a higher number based off the charts we saw earlier or the options that are we're talking about for the school project.

But keep in mind that in the scenarios we've presented to you, we are not presenting to issue any additional debt than what was proposed in 23 because we've come up with the other sources that are not debt funds.

Thank you.

Anything on this before we go forward?

I know if we get up towards the 250, but I know that's...

What we have to be concerned about is our long-term affordability and the impact it has on our ability to keep up with the spending demands in the general fund, principally employee costs, cost of health benefits, you know, those kinds of things.

This amount actually would pay for an entire year of rent, which would get them through November, June.

June of about 24th.

I had them in at 4%, this gets them to 6%.

Oh, good.

Yeah, so I had them in, it's basically just the change.

Okay.

But that wouldn't actually materialize until November, December.

So.

10.4 rather, sorry.

10.4.

And it sounds like you're feeling like on the expenses side, where we come in is going to be pretty close to what you budgeted.

We're still steadily filling positions, and some of that may be eaten up between now and the end of the fiscal year.

So your sense is that on the expense side of this ledger, you may come in with, say, $3 million, expend $3 million less than you had thought?

Yes.

So that gives us a... Don't hang on that number.

Right, right.

Understood, but we're talking...

And so to complete your next sentence, what we are saying is that council in November, December will have about probably $13.4 million to allocate for programs and projects in FY24.

or per policy that would go to the CIB to do the same thing.

And that's where we come down to.

Okay.

And as you consider how you want to allocate it, that you give us a message back in terms of how you want to amend the budget.

where other governmental entities are depending on it, where other governmental entities are chipping in 100%, and we apparently have decided in our arrogance that we will not, and I think that's wrong, and I think we should change it, and I'd like to know, not tonight necessarily, but when we get to April 6th, I would like to know what that amount would be.

Message received.

And my apologies, I heard you say that last week, and I forgot to put it on the list, so we'll get there.

Let us know if you are on Zoom you may select the raise hand option to be placed in the speaker queue if you're joining by phone and wish to speak please press star nine is there anyone in person who would like to speak come forward please identify yourself tell us where you live

I'm assuming it's going to be posted.

It will be tomorrow.

all right in addition to all the other reasons why I think school board member Torres laid out there's a lot of reasons why you should be doing this and doing it all at once efficiency savings etc let's not look back now a couple years from now and be like oh crap it's 11 million dollars thank you thank you Mr. Meyer okay do we have anyone online who would like to speak to us we do our first speaker is Asia Green Ms.

Green you have three minutes

Thank you so much for your time.

Sure.

so we need to not forget that so again thank you for everything that you have presented hopefully what we presented answers some of the questions or fills in a few of those pieces I mean we're happy to receive questions as well and thank you all.

Do we have someone online?

Yes our next speaker is Vicki Metcalfe.

Metcalfe you have three minutes.

Thank you.

Who's next online?

Karen Little.

Little, you have three minutes.

Thank you for your time and for your support of Charlottesville youth and their families.

Anybody else here in person?

Our next speaker is Sandra Aviles Poe and I apologize if I mispronounced that.

So I think that having these nature-based hands-on projects like the Beaufort Middle School Garden that was discussed today are going to be very, very essential and a very positive effect on our children and should definitely be prioritized I also want to say thank you to everybody that showed up from our community Chris Meyer, Asia Green, Lisa Torres, Vicky Metcalfe, Karen Little Thank you to all of our city council members for your continued efforts and thank you for your time tonight

Thank you.

Okay, our next speaker is Brandon Airtel.

Can you guys hear me?

Yes, we can.

Thank you.

Next.

There are no more hands raised at this time.

What would be useful to you all going forward from us tonight?

Right.

So both with KTAC and Dogwood, kind of what is the next steps to provide clarity on what our decision is and how we're moving forward?

There's an action giving council an opportunity to approve that appropriation with the anticipated funding source being bond proceeds.

I'm sorry.

For Dogwood, right.

Correct.

Yes.

And that'll be Monday night.

And then if we're doing anything with KTEC or what we will be doing with KTEC will also not be in FY24.

That would be bond.

It would be in FY25.

Then bond sales in June.

So for both of these items, you're saying that they will be in FY25?

23.

Okay, so how does that, so I guess you book them, as it were, for this fiscal year, will that end up coming out of our hope for surplus, or how does that work?

So they would just be using up that extra piece, if you will.

So it doesn't materially change the projections we saw earlier tonight?

This is not, neither would be a general fund impact except in terms of bond payments, debt service payments.

and neither of them would reflect anything that would show up directly in the FY24 budget that we're working on in the next few weeks.

Correct.

I would also make the same plea for some of that as you consider that part of that expected surplus for 24.

I'm sorry, for 23.

Improvement Fund, and, you know, going forward, that allows us to do other things.

And I also agree with the Mayor's point about the Public Defender's Office and OAR.

Is that something that we're going to have a decision on in the next week or two, or what?

It'll be coming before you.

As a part of the budget resolution.

The committee has not made that final deliberations yet.

That's right.

It was the CAF that we had.

Right.

Okay.

Is there any thought that we will be wanting to do the same thing with CAF approved funding?

So CAF funding is approved in the CIP as part of the appropriation, the regular budget ordinance, the CIP, and then those allocations, we would do a separate memo.

Be separate.

That would come to council.

But it's not something that we would be expecting to put in this budget document itself the way we do the Vibrant Community Fund awards.

We just have it in as a lump sum.

Now, the hops items that would be listed.

They are.

Because they are formally a part of ECF, so they will actually be listed, and then CAF is separate.

They won't show as individual agencies other than in the budget ordinance.

What would be an appropriate deadline for you to give to us for the suggestions and issues that we might want to raise with you?

If you want to make adjustments within the general fund, I think that's where you are.

I don't want any of us to be making a decision on the fly.

So I think we can do that next Thursday?

Yeah.

Is that what you mean?

Yeah.

into something that you might... Into our list, yes.

Yeah, so we can have the list to talk through all those items.

to make even a first reading recommendation.

A combination of maybe the 24, well, that comes after the budget, but mostly the year-end surplus, which gives you some opportunities for investment.

so Mr. Sanders just had a good idea if you could shoot for noon on Tuesday we have a standing budget meeting at 2 on Tuesdays okay and that would give us time to sort of coordinate and get things ready and then we could get it to you commit to get it to you back to you by what noon on Wednesday and that would give you Wednesday afternoon and all day Thursday that would make sense

The sixth is not a voting meeting.

We don't need to do it.

It's been a long day, so.

Brian, you with us?

Yeah, I'm with you.

Any first thoughts?

I wonder, I'm just offering that as, you know, I'd be interested in hearing more conversation from you about it, maybe at some other point, but I do think we have some large things we want to do in the future in the city, and even going past five years would be perhaps wise.

Maybe that's just teaching planning the topic.

We usually do.

we won't have that advantage and so we can look at the debt projection and we actually I do have one it's on out there and we can talk about that but you know I guess from a project perspective how comprehensive we can do that I'm not sure but certainly we should look at these big ones if you think about if West Haven is going to be a thing or other projects from the CRHA

Do we need to have further conversation about whether we want to just go ahead and allocate part of the projected surplus to this extra building or do we want to tell him to proceed on a

and then we can adjust once we know more because we're not going to I mean we have to have the budget to issue the contract so it's all got to be in this year and we've got to show how we're going to pay for it we have the ability to change that as we go down the road but we can't do other than the surplus piece is just you know idea at this point so so at this point you have 7.5 million remaining

To fund the auditorium out of that, that would be 6.8, was that the number?

6.9.

And that's a decision that council can make.

And the practice would be, unless further allocated, that any surplus at the end of this year would go back into the capital and contingency fund.

Some portion of it, yes.

Well, anything that wasn't otherwise allocated.

I don't think we should assume that grant is going to happen and we should just go ahead and say, hey, our expectation is that we will have to use the projected surplus to make ourselves whole on this.

I just want to be able to make a decision with full information, I guess.

That's what you can do now, knowing that there's a possibility that we will get the grant, and even if we don't get the grant, you're able to rebuild the contingency and the CIP with the year-end capital surplus.

Does that make sense?

And I'm okay with that and perhaps as an expression of the sentiment of council subject to being officially approved in a couple of weeks.

I think it was school board member Dooley said that it's not going to get any cheaper, so I will support option four, and hopefully we will get that grant, because we have a lot of projects to do, but spending several hours in the Beaufort Auditorium for a project this weekend for something that our fraternity was doing, it's

It's 50 years old?

Yeah, it's in bad shape.

You got a mic?

Thank you.

It's taken a lot of work on y'all's part and your professionalism is really excellent.

Thank you.

Are you, when you reference other escalation, are you talking about other projects that we're committed to, that you're worried about them not necessarily being fully funded?

We know we need to make the investment and we haven't incorporated in our budget yet and then also what is the cost escalation going to be for every other project that's already in our CIP and it's just an unknown that's really hard to game out and that's always what I worry about is just you inadvertently didn't plan for that well enough and that's

Counselor Payne, I think that that is exactly what has been happening to Buford, you know, over the years, that we didn't adequately plan for it, and that's kind of why we

Well, and I agree with that, and, you know, it's why it was such a challenge to get there last year, and, you know, I know we remain committed to it, and you've got the future phases, but again, I mean, it's just how do we look at everything as a whole, and I'm not even saying I wouldn't support it even without the grant, it's just like, I feel like we don't know all the unknowns.

assure you for this one single year that we are referencing in budget planning you have as much comfort as possible I'm thinking of bypass fire station as one thing we will confirm for you he's telling me don't say this but I'm saying it anyway we'll figure out where we are enough to give you as much of an assurance as we can and we'll just have to deal with the out years and out years

Handleable?

I don't know.

We can do a quick scan.

I'm personally willing to go ahead and endorse option four as well, given that fact.

Thank you all for coming.