City Council Budget Work Session - Outside and Non-profit Agencies   3/14/2024

Is there like an albino?

Is there an albino or something?

Good evening.

I'm going to call the City Council work session, budget work session to order.

I think this is our second work session that we've had.

And we're going to be discussing outside and nonprofit agencies.

Here.

Here.

Here.

All right.

So we're going to get a presentation and then we're going to ask some questions if we have any for clarification.

And then we're going to open it up to the public.

All right, so I'll just remind everyone for the public's benefit as well, that the purpose of this evening's work session is to focus on funding outside and nonprofit agencies.

As I see my job in this, the responsibility that I have is to make sure the council has the answers to the questions that they may have in considering the proposed budget, as well as making sure that if there's anything that you would like us to go a little bit deeper and bring your information, we'll be able to do that and bring that back to you.

So these are a couple questions that we got from you all last week and just wanted to follow up on those.

There was a question about how many sworn positions there are in the fire department.

There are 124 total positions with 118 of those being sworn.

There was a question about the $110,000 overall decrease in the streets and sidewalks division.

That is true.

The largest driver of that was actually last year they were budgeted to replace a few more vehicles than they are for 25 just on our rotating replacement schedule.

And that was actually $175,000 decrease.

So there were a couple ads that netted that out to $110,000.

There were questions and a requested discussion regarding the funding to the Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau.

That agreement will be forwarded to council and the city manager is working to schedule a work session with the executive director and that date will be forthcoming.

There was a question about, there's a large increase for 25 in the refuse collection cost contracts.

And there was a question about whether or not we intend to pass that along to those cost increases to customers.

Basically, overall, we're experiencing changes in price increases on both the processing side, which are the tipping fees, as well as the collection side.

RFPs, I believe, are out on the street and are due for resolicitation.

That process is going to take about six to nine months.

And so once those contracts come back in, currently there are no plans to increase the fees.

But once we know what the new market rates are based on the responses to that, we may be coming back to council with a different plan.

How much would it cost to add additional drivers for the CAT optimization plan?

There were two scenarios.

One was an intermediary step, which would bring the total drivers up to a total of 70 drivers, which means we would add 11 additional drivers now.

That's at a cost of just over $835,000.

Brian Pinkston

Garland, Director of Strawberry Transit.

The intermediate step, if you were to authorize the 11 positions, our recruiting process for getting them in the door, probably training, is a minimum of about four months.

Realistically, we've been getting individuals through in about five months.

So our recruitment process in the past has been solely focused on the pupil side.

And now that we're coming out of that, we're going to focus our energy on transit.

So I feel real confident as where we are in being able to potentially get the 11 positions filled.

Thank you.

I know that we have talked about drivers as being one of the critical variables, the other being the number of working buses.

So we are closer than we've ever been in getting buses up and running.

We have a new Assistant Director of Maintenance.

He has a transit background.

We've had substantive conversations in the last week he's been there.

I think we are formulating a plan to have as many vehicles.

We would need 32 vehicles available to us to implement the plan.

So I would say any given day we got about 20.

Yes, that would include the six that are waiting for radios.

We're close to having the radios done, though.

The PO got issued, I believe either Monday or Tuesday.

Now we'll have 26 ready by the time that's ready.

Yes.

So if we get the 32 buses and what was the number of 70 drivers, does that enable us to run any more

It enables us to come out of COVID because we're running what we call our lifeline service.

It restores us to pre-pandemic levels and adds some additional service.

There was a question about what is the plan for the parking enterprise fund?

Currently, as of the year ended June 30th, 2023, there was just over $1.2 million of a fund balance in that fund.

I'll note that 2023 was the first year that all of the parking revenues remained in the parking fund.

Prior to that, we were transferring

The majority of those revenues back to the general fund, but we have weaned the general fund off of those now in an effort to make the parking fund more like an enterprise fund.

That fund balance is intended to cover any major capital repairs or equipment replacement that is not currently budgeted anywhere else.

We don't have budgets for that.

I'm just curious if that $1.2 million, if there's a kind of specific known either capital project or upcoming expense that

So part of the original plan for setting up the parking enterprise fund was to have a means to have the parking garages pay for themselves so they were not being supplemented by tax dollars that the parking revenues were there.

It was also a way in which at the time we were talking about building a new garage

and also major repairs that needed to be done to Marcus Street Garage and in the future to be able to have it so it could sustain its own debt if necessary and so as part of that the decision was made that all those parking revenues would start coming out of the general fund

at the time I think it was about two million dollars and that was a big hole we couldn't absorb the whole thing and so we started transferring that back I think we started at 750 and then went to 500 and dwindled it on down so prior to 23 the fund balance was about a half a million dollars

and then in terms to answer your specific question, are there anything known things right now?

to answer the question about upcoming lease renewals.

The Water Street garage is under a ground lease that resets every 10 years, and this is the year.

Okay.

I don't mind I walk it anyway, but there's people who are a little bit ticked that they haven't had the elevator for two months.

I'll take the last item was what level of support is given to the Lantros.

The HAPS and HOPS and CAF recommendations were published in your packet last night.

There were no applications in regards to the Lantros, so that was not a part of that consideration.

Mr. City Manager, could I ask, relative to the parking enterprise fund, it would be helpful for me and I think for others, if maybe an email or some sort of quick, we don't need like a work session on it, but some sort of statement about kind of what you described earlier, Ms.

Hamel, about

how things were before or how things are now and Mr. Engel, if he has any sense of what the lease was 10 years ago, maybe we double it, I don't know, as a placeholder and what might be some, I don't know, facility rule of thumb in terms of when we are going to need future investments in our parking deck, I guess.

Yes, that would be helpful, I think.

And sort of how the cash flows into that, or how, in terms of what the funds are.

The budget's in the book, but not, I don't think, to the detail.

Yeah, just be interested in what the revenues are, and kind of pretend that it's own little business, which it is.

That would be helpful.

Yeah, I'd like to go back to the trash decals.

Is there a reason why we have to wait six to nine months to pass on cost increases?

I would think that that would we should just be like a I don't know that should be like a pass through sort of like we're just literally the middle men or women or whatever for that and not

basically being the backstop for people who need to take out their trash

Well, so it's an increase.

It was an unanticipated increase at that volume.

So this right now, we're just absorbing the increase.

Well, the service itself is already subsidized.

We're not fully covering.

I don't think ever fully covered the cost of that.

It is a subsidized service that is provided.

And I fully appreciate that.

It's just what I'm hearing now is we're already subsidizing.

We're doing an additional subsidizing because it changes in the market.

So this is something that kind of got lost in the shovel?

Yes.

Yeah.

There's been a change in the market.

I kind of spoke to that a little bit.

Some of the smaller providers that we at this moment would have hoped would still be in existence, that might have ensured that there would be maintaining the current costs or a very slight increase.

Yeah, and I appreciate that.

I just don't think that we should be subsidizing people's trash.

We'll bring that to you.

That that is coming.

Can I ask one question that maybe I misunderstood?

OK.

No, no, no.

I only brought it up because the question came up, and that was the statement, is that we would have those results by the time of this meeting.

anything else?

Hello, Council.

Let's get this everybody again.

I'm Hunter Smith.

How about that?

That's great.

Great follow-up there.

Thank you.

So the process continued to develop this year and previous year's adjustments and changes.

Equity and diversity inclusion continue to be a focus area for all applicants.

And that's kind of asked throughout the application process.

Some other key points.

We continued recruitment of new and emerging applicants into each priority area.

Albemarle County continues to operate an independent process for funding local nonprofits.

They even have a different portal this year, so it's not even a shared portal.

This year we conducted applicant and reviewer feedback sessions post last year's award process in between this year's new process, and we're able to implement some changes from both groups, which was a pretty successful thought.

This year we did in-person and virtual orientations, also hosted office hours for at least two hours a week through the whole application process which was posted and publicized.

We also this year started to put news flashes out through the city communications department which is new.

Housing related applications continue to be in a separate process which is CAF and hops and we did have 12 new applications for this cycle.

The four primary priority areas are similar, youth family education, economic impact and jobs, health and safety and arts and culture.

I don't know if I made a note of this, but this year we blended new and emerging organizations into all the different categories so they could choose an actual category they focus on.

and we trained reviewers and applicants on new and emerging applicants were just reviewed a little bit softly and so there was more back and forth in Q&A with new and emerging since they were newer, typically not as well staffed as more experienced, more kind of applicants had been around for a while.

Applications are ranked by importance in addressing priority area.

essential, important, helpful, no direct connection and by application score, exemplary, solid, fair and weak, which you'll see in the report that we send out.

Like I said earlier, equity questions are included throughout the process.

I wanted to thank the Center for Nonprofit Excellence this year and the UV Equity Center.

The Center for Nonprofit Excellence helped me take the feedback from applicants and kind of drive it into the application process.

And the Equity Center was helpful in helping us get site visits back on this year.

We haven't done site visits since COVID.

And so they were helpful in helping us set that up.

And they're going to continue to work with us on making it more effective in the future years.

Our review team members are recruited in a consistent blend of consumers, citizens with Granite Management experience.

There's some city staff that participate.

And people with non-profit experience, either as consumers or people that are just kind of involved in the process.

This year, we had 21 reviewers and two city staff managing the process.

This year's team.

Just to be clear, if your city staff have to demonstrate that they are doing it outside of their job time, so if city staff have the ability to do it during their work time, they don't get siphons for it, but everyone else gets a siphon based on the amount of applications read, amount of time and meetings, and in-site visits, so they have three categories to choose from.

orientation for applicants and review panel members in here.

We have a scoring matrix directly tied to each question the application.

The applicants get that and the review teams get that too.

That gets sent out via email in the application process that's there for anyone to see.

During orientation, applicants are advised they may reach out to staff for technical assistance on their application, including the office hours I mentioned earlier.

And those are usually well attended in the beginning, the first few weeks of the process.

People come and participate.

The cool part is when people come and then help each other out, it's my favorite part.

People show up together and then they answer each other's questions.

It's wonderful.

I love that.

For this year, the total request of funding was 3.7 million and some change you can see there.

and the budget we had was 2.299 million and those fluctuated throughout the process.

The 3.7 million fluctuated as some people pulled out, some adjusted their numbers so it kind of went up and down throughout the process.

The fundamental organizations which were treated a little bit differently were excluded this year and they're managed separately.

That total request for those applications was 1.3 plus million.

They were told of 66 program applications submitted and 55 of those received between 140% of their request.

This is the impact of equity questions.

Just in a nutshell, the equity questions are really, in some areas you can see where people are really taking a look at that in terms of how it impacts their service, how it impacts their organization, how they do their business and do their work.

It also typically encourages applicants to review their own process more than it does like relate to the application.

And so we're pretty confident that that's having a successful impact on different people when how we ask those questions and read all these points.

But there they are.

Thank you.

I'll see.

Ongoing efforts and future actions.

The Office of Community Solutions is developing a reporting and monitoring process.

We've been working with them on that as well, I think for this coming year and in future years.

We're moving all applications into our portal system next year, including arts and culture, which are currently in a separate process.

Great question.

I can answer by saying it's under development.

It really is a, I can just give you my take on it.

You don't hold me to this, but it's a scalable process based on size of organization and size of request.

And so, you know, organization with like lots of staff and a huge budget and that receives lots of money might get a different type of scaled reporting and monitoring process as opposed to someone who is a smaller, newer, maybe like less staffed organization.

It also depends on what you're requesting.

I actually had that office participate this year so they could see the applicants work.

So we basically, the goal basically be, let's say an organization that got $200,000 for one program, they would be able to say

This is how we're kind of measuring, did you say what you said you were going to do?

What was the impact?

Currently, what's been going for years is typically the next application cycle.

People report on the goals of the most completed fiscal year.

Self-reported?

Right.

How many people they serve or whatever their metrics were from that previous closed fiscal year.

And they can also enter their actuals for the current year.

It's not the greatest.

and so this process is going to, well, I think the process is for that unit to develop a system and then for maybe me and my unit to make sure that system isn't too aggressive or too overly like, what's the word I'm looking for, onerous or burdensome, we like to say burdensome, so that it kind of meets the expectation what we're looking for.

We just want to make sure that the services that are being

We're working continuously to develop parameters for new and emerging organizations, how to recruit them, how to make sure they're getting the help they need, and what is it they may need that we can offer in other ways for those folks.

Discussions to close the gap between the total requests and fund availability.

We're going to continue to offer feedback sessions prior to the next session that gets released that happens in August, September.

And we're still recruiting new members and reviewers most of the time.

Here's the basic matrix that's part of the report that everybody has.

It's beautiful.

You're welcome.

You can just see there basically how we funded this year and how the programs fall.

If you look at this over the years, it's pretty consistent with the number of percentages of applicants in each box that happens to work out that way.

Does it matter what the budget is?

Does it matter who the reviewers are?

It typically falls in this similar pattern.

I'm not the whole let's say about this.

She didn't delete that.

Oh, OK.

The other one shows the percent.

I just didn't.

OK.

And are those unfunded?

Unfunded.

Got it.

OK.

Their application process is slightly different.

And so they don't plot through the same exact questions and criteria that the other applicants do.

And so we separate them out just because it's just different enough where it wouldn't really be

Michael.

Am I wrong?

That is a good observation.

It looks like I added the wrong charts.

I remember I asked somebody about why it was that some of the arts organizations were coming in at 100% when the other organization, when the essential exemplary folks above were only at 95%.

It was essentially yes.

Yes, unless you've done some math that is incorrect.

Yes, that's what that's how we do it.

So it just shows every applicant and it just shows where they fall.

Before we move on to the next slide, I just want to recognize Hunter and his counterpart Reggie Allen.

I know.

Thank you.

Get excited.

Wow.

I don't know if you all caught the numbers there, but that's 21 reviewers.

That's 24 humans that have decided to dedicate their time and energy to work with Hunter and his team to look at these applications, spend hours of time reading them.

and they do that largely because of the training and support that he provides.

He makes it an accessible process for community members.

to engage with the city and take an interest in what people are doing and providing.

And also, I don't know if you noticed that that's 66 applications.

That's 66 programs that are asking Hunter and his team for technical assistance.

Emails, phone calls, office hours.

It's a tremendous amount of time.

This process starts in August.

And here we are in March.

And we will likely start it back in May.

to make our continuous program adjustments to continue to make an accessible process.

And I can attest, you know, the work I've said before, before I got on the school board, while I was on the school board before I got on council, I did this process.

for the county as a citizen route.

I don't know if 20 years have just read.

And the process is so much moving down.

I think you get, you know, better product because of the work that has been done.

And I know I'll refer a lot of people to it's kind of what funding from the city and not sure the process.

And they always say you've been, you're always very helpful.

Thank you so much.

Do you all want to talk about Vibrant Community?

The next few slides are really quick.

So this process has always amazed me because we

relatively speaking, it's not the most money that we allocate and discuss as a council, but it's where we get the most input because these programs really is what the people seeing kind of work in the services of the city kind of touches, you know,

so many individuals and youth more directly.

So, you know, I know that we'll be getting a lot of calls and some of us already have, but I think that's good because it shows that people are really interested and concerned about these programs.

And I know that these non-profits that work

in the city that our community will look and feel a lot different if they weren't there because we couldn't do it all so glad about part of it.

I had some questions about the list of intergovernmental agencies and fundamental agencies and so on.

I mean, the next few slides are just going through that.

So if you all are ready to move on, we certainly can.

Alright, so intergovernmental agencies, we used to call these contractual agencies, everybody still pauses when we try to figure out what to call them, but essentially most of these agencies, the funding are either regional types of agencies or they're governed by some sort of MOU or agreement.

The most of these, the city budget office works closely with the county budget office as well.

So that if there are requests for positions or new things, it doesn't make sense for one of us to do half of it if the other is not meeting in the middle as well.

And so we do consult each other on these agencies.

There were some slight increases for the public defender's office.

We are fully funding their request this year, which does include a supplement for three, I believe it's three additional positions that we have not supplemented in the past.

The regional jail that increase is based on operational increases.

There is also 80, a little over $80,000 in this number related to the projected cost of some interim financing for the renovations.

The Health District, they submitted a request for two additional positions that we decided not to fund.

Correct.

Moving on, Blue Ridge Juvenile Detention Center is basically just operational increases.

The SPCA did submit a request for funding that was a large increase and we are meeting with them to talk about that.

Both the city and the county made a decision to propose funding for them based on the current agreement.

The request was for funding in excess of what the agreement would be.

And so there will be further discussions and probably some conversations with council in the future on that.

Let's see.

That is based on an agreement and they it has to do with assessment increases.

Assessment increase on their property that they own that were they're paying taxes to us.

Correct.

I got you.

Emergency Communication Center.

They had some operational increases that were related to pay changes and also some capital expenditures that were included in their request.

Yeah, and as you're coming up, actually, I know that at one point they were looking for staff as well because it's such a hard position.

They might even start to train someone for several weeks and sometimes it doesn't work out.

Absolutely.

Good afternoon, Council.

The ECC's increases really focus in on their workforce, retainment and development.

The increases include some that they were unfortunately unable to control such as increases in healthcare.

They are part of the county system and the county is very publicly talked about their increases in healthcare.

They also for retirement participate in DRS.

There was an increase in those costs as well.

They requested three new FTEs all who would be they call them they call them something different, but they are the individuals that work

in the call center taking those emergency calls and in their particular methodology they are considered public safety so they have a step system.

It would be also increase, the step increase as required and merit increases.

There were smaller increases on the technology side for example and some increases in marketing

but overwhelmingly the increases coming from their workforce sustainability efforts.

We also experienced a slight increase in calls.

So our percentage that that are is attributed to the city also got just a touch higher.

It's about a percent or two if I recall correctly, but it is a little higher where the county went a little lower.

UVA also went a little higher in the amount of calls that were sent.

Alright, so moving along, the decrease for jaunt was at their request that we fully funded their request.

The library had an increase as they continue to work on their pay scales as well.

That was accounted for most of the increase here.

Pathways, we, if you recall, prior to COVID, we funded that at $85,000.

And we soup that up, if you will, using federal one time money.

Could someone remind me how the reporting back works on that?

Is that managed?

Moving along.

No request increases from Region 10.

Very small increase from the Central Virginia Partnership for Economic Development.

Planning District.

Just a small increase, which is basically based on per capita numbers.

Small increase for Thomas Jefferson soil and water.

United Way, an increase there that was largely they requested additional funding for their ELS program to for to help compensate contractors and there were also some just operational adjustments.

And I have that date.

And so all of those together, they totaled out for the budget to just under $17.5 million and represented a $975,000 increase.

So moving on, this year, as Hunter mentioned earlier, through conversations from this process last year, there were certain agencies that were deemed to be fundamental

And they applied in the same way, just like anyone else applying for VCF, but they were not part of the competitive process.

They were reviewed on the merits of their own application.

And those increases are listed here.

Part of the conversation that council had last year was to find a way to a discussion about how could we fund the VCF pool of money more.

And so while we did not specifically do that by pulling these agencies out, we did leave the pot flat with last year, which gave

and so to see them now showing up as a fundamental agency makes me wonder which, I mean there are some programs we have funded, some programs we haven't funded at all.

We didn't, the VCF didn't review the application.

Sorry, if I'm being funded and reviewed the application it was part of the contractual kind of organization.

But when we looked at the

Part I can tell you the reason why they went fundamental basically was a historical analysis of them being funded year to year.

Typically what we would see is if they were funded at a lower rate across all councils, they would be funded anyway at some point.

Yep.

Yeah, so I want to chime in there is because, I mean, one reason I would gather is that, you know, I would talk with them and recommend that they

take you up on your training or they get assistance in writing the application because I know the work that they're doing, they're doing the work but sometimes they weren't putting it on the paper and I know the difference that they make in the community.

And again, obviously, I haven't read the application either, but last year, and I would imagine it was similar, it was for the youth internship program.

Well, I mean, what I'll say to this is what I recall the conversation being that led to the decision for them to be placed this way was that there was the batting around of

far in its work being outreach driven youth engagement as well as training the interns so that they can participate in the transformational redevelopment activities.

All of that collectively spoke to why they were being considered to be eligible for the fundamental category because that was deemed to be that essential work that we wanted done for that population within our community.

And as I appreciated it, the push that was being made was to recognize that, give them this fundamental status, and for that, they wouldn't compete.

and then you all made that decision last year in directing us to integrate them into the fundamental category, which in essence lightened the burden of trying to get funded each year.

So I just offer that as that's my appreciation for what I felt like I witnessed last year that led to the decision of them being placed on this list.

What that did for them is their request is simply a request like the others in this category.

that we review, confirm that they're doing what we thought they were doing.

We're not necessarily evaluating it because that's one of the comments I'll make to you overall about all of this when you finish doing what you're about to do.

But I don't think this was viewed as intended to be as competitive as the rest.

I confess I don't remember, and maybe I wasn't meant to.

I'm just not remembering from what we talked about last year.

I don't remember thinking that FAR was at the same level as drug court and therapeutic docket and so on in terms of the commitments that we've made to the drug court and therapeutic docket.

Frankly, there are the kinds of things that ought to be put in the intergovernmental agencies because we've got MOUs and so on.

I know that there have been times in the last three years, four years, when we have not funded FAR or not funded all of FAR's programs.

Sorry.

I can add one thing.

So what I'm seeing, thank you, what I'm seeing here, and this was part of the discussion that we had.

I'm not sure who was in the part of the discussion from memory, but when I'm looking at the 10 year analysis, they were funded every year, you know, despite the whatever the rating was.

And that went into the kind of touch on what Mayor Wade said.

A lot of times, and I've talked too far about this directly, like their work specifically was hard to put into the application that we have.

It just was one of those applications that didn't quite, despite all the technical assistance we were providing them, and when I'm looking at this 10-year analysis, it was a consistent, not including this year but 10 years prior, they were awarded funds regardless of the scoring, because I think people value what they do, and it's a hyper-specific

type of work they do in the

When I looked at and presented this information to whoever was there, this is the decision we came up with.

And I'm just looking at the historical data.

Well, I would just note there are an awful lot of things in the Vibrant Community Fund that we have funded every year that aren't deemed fundamental.

So that criterion isn't terribly helpful.

And I can, I can, I'm meeting with them tomorrow, some representatives from FAR or something different.

But don't lose sight of the idea that with what Hunter just said, they're funded every year.

And for the past two years, I know I've witnessed that as a part of this particular conversation, changes were made.

also not disclosed in the year.

We have no way of knowing that.

What I do know is that for the last few years we've had complaints about the quality of the application.

So I don't I don't really have anything else to add here.

Other than the agencies that were deemed fundamental.

So that's a lot.

I know you said you had several questions.

So that basically concludes our formal presentation.

I have a couple of questions.

I would be interested in why Region 10 is not asking for more money.

I don't know who's our liaison with Region 10, but I was once on that board and they do really important work, so maybe everything's

Hunky Dory after COVID, but I think we're probably overdue for some sort of presentation or feedback from them.

Before you move on, sir, I just want to chime in.

I'm the rep on there.

And I did attend several of their meetings just as an observer, but I felt that I could sense that that was kind of comfortable for them to have a device mayor sitting in.

And then I was meeting with our community reps on there.

But then I didn't want to get into, like,

3 or 4 of them got together, so it was meeting with two.

Anyway, so I think that, you know, I haven't gotten any really concerns from our citizen reps on it.

And I think, you know, so, or, you know, concern about the budget.

Well, I would actually second the interest in receiving more information from them because it's informal.

But I've heard from community members that particularly since the pandemic and continuing that wait times for basic services have

Skyrocketed and that's not unique to them.

I think that's across the state of Virginia.

I had a brief meeting with Ted before he left.

I remember it not being

considered material in his eyes while it was going down.

It was just what their budget calculation came out to be.

So when he presented it, it wasn't.

I mean, I wasn't going to beg him to increase it either, but he just seemed to be satisfied with what it was.

I know that now that Mike is in place, he did not point out that there was a concern by being less.

They also had a pretty materially increased last year.

And you've probably already said this multiple times, but the distinction between, I understand

Intergovernmental agencies or contractual agencies.

And then I understand fundamental agencies are basically formally where VCF, we feel like they're so important we need to basically just build them into our budget every year essentially.

As non-competitive.

As non-competitive.

And it's

I would say is less stringent, but could very easily not be.

A few questions.

So for

Applications, is there any information that Council is able to see in terms of what the application was or what data was behind it?

I mean, we could provide them.

I mean, the way that it works is applicants have a login, and they submit their application via this process with whatever is required.

And reviewers also get that login.

The process currently has been that the reviewers only ones that review it, and we don't typically share that with other folks who are the ones that are reviewing it.

and the part of the policy too that we have is that we don't we don't share scoring information with applicants till after the budget has been finalized.

We let them know contact council or talk to me about technical assistance but I mean to be honest with you like that would be seems like a touchy thing to do to start sharing individual applications with council members based on

How the process works.

I'm not really sure why I feel that way, but it's just something about it seems interesting to me because a reviewer spends so much time diving to them like in each particular category.

So there's a group for each type of applicant category.

Yeah, we could provide it.

And I do understand and respect that.

It jumps out to me because this is the first year I can remember where there is now an application that is 20% of the total funding.

And to me,

It's the amount of money that it's starting to reach the point where I look at that and think if that's the direction we're going, that's almost becoming like a service that is part of the city.

And I'm very curious to know as much information when there's an application that's reaching the point of receiving almost half a million dollars.

And prior to that, I think the highest that I'd seen the last few years was like,

and somebody had received 380 and so it had been closed and I think OAR gives close to that number two with their combined applications but we noticed that too and so we're reviewing the process because of funding applications really.

We noticed that as well as how it pertains to the city as a whole, so it was not awesome.

It'll just be the portal.

It won't be, their application will be similarly set up.

Gotcha.

We're working with it.

Yeah, so what we call the regular applicants is the bigger pool.

I think there are seven or eight narrative questions that range from what is your equity statement, what is your stance on equity in your organization, how do you define that, how do you act on that, what's your board representation, things like that.

We ask what people's strategies for getting their clients are.

We ask what their outcomes are going to be.

We ask what their outreach to their client base is.

We ask a lot of budget questions.

What would happen if they were unfunded?

What is the need that they've been able to determine that relates to this application?

We ask them for full budget information if the program is different than their full organization.

So this is one program that they're applying for.

We ask for that budget plus the organizational budget.

But if it's really for the organization, just one budget.

And then we are able to look at, I think, the previous two years as well.

And so we see that we can compare the projected year, current year, previous year.

That is a super brief explanation from memory of what we ask.

It's pretty detailed, although this year we kind of scaled back a little bit because we got in that point where each question had like three questions.

It had gotten bloated, so we kind of edited it down to be a little more clear.

And then we have a scoring matrix that's tied to each particular value question.

There's a lot of other questions, too, like background 501c3, what you're saying, and all that stuff, too.

We don't score that.

And then each reviewer has a matrix that's tied to that particular question with similar wording.

And they score it based on whatever scale or whatever weight that question has, between six and 10 points.

And those are the strategies need, what funding impacts

We asked him really to describe what it is they're doing, obviously, and how those things work together.

How it meets the priority of city council and how it meets the overarching goal of diversity equity.

Would it be helpful for you instead of seeing all of the applications to maybe just see the answers to that final question that you just said?

Like the what do you do and how does it

You said it better.

The Viper Community Fund report does show the applicant summary or description of what they do.

So it's in the PDF that was sent out.

But I can run

And as being on the CRHA Board, I know that they currently don't have an MOU with CRHA to operate on their properties.

And from the information I have, I don't even know if it was their request to operate on properties that aren't CRHA.

That's probably too specific for me to answer off memory, to be honest with you, because I would be answering subjectively based on my memory.

If you wanted to catch up and talk about that outside of this, I would need some time, honestly, to review that and give an answer specifically, because there's like 70 applications.

It's hard for me to pull from memory that.

I mean, I have fairly good memory, but not that good.

Yeah, and I just know that that is an ongoing, and Michael, you notice an ongoing issue between those two organizations that they're trying to work it out.

Sam and I met with the Bug Squad last week, and used to talk about their programs, you know, how they work.

and we can't force that marriage to take place but I know that they're working at it so you may know a little bit more because you're on their board.

I just know it's still unresolved.

I hope what I'm raising kind of makes sense.

I think we can look into those details to make sure, but I do want to just say a blanket statement if we start.

So like Hunter said, we noticed that in the funding allocations as that is an outlier that's not historically present.

But we also can't adjust the entire vibrant community fund for one applicant.

So our job is to have an equitable process that's going to apply to all 55 funded applicants and all 66.

We can't just, based on our charge from City Council, have an observation on our own and be able to single out that one application and change our funding matrix based on that outlier.

We recognize the outlier.

But again, our charge was to evaluate everybody on the matrix based on how the review teams assess those applications and that's the way it shook out.

Then we provide the recommendations to you all and you all decide how you want those funding allocations to shift or change.

because you all did not set a cap as an expectation on how the funding could be allocated.

When ABRT and Vibrant Community Funds But if you don't set a cap, you can ask for whatever and if there's enough money available, you would get it.

When ABRT and Vibrant Community Fund split, it was decided this was before I became involved with the Vibrant Community Fund to have a zero-based budget.

I don't know if it was the same time that we asked departments to move towards a zero-based budget, so we decided to have Vibrant Community Fund do that as well.

for the last three years or four years, we have not asked applicants to cap.

But that is on our radar.

That's what we're saying that we're going to review in May about do we need to look at is there a cap?

Do we say different things?

But that's not what was decided for this process.

And so we can't go back and change this process because Hunter

has taken time to do outreach based on the expectations that were set for this year.

And I'll just 100% understand and respect and agree that that makes sense as kind of the way you all have to approach it.

I'll just say, I've said this in years past, I still believe that

There is no way to create a process for this that is going to be perfect.

It can be better.

It can be very good.

And I think we do have a process that is improved and is very good.

But the nature of the beast is it's just never going to be perfect.

And I think it's appropriate for us as counsel to think about what we receive as kind of a scaffolding.

And it's completely appropriate within our purview to

I'm

Do we even need to

particularly for

other non-profits.

I mean, if an application for a million dollars fits in the matrix is getting 100%, I mean, de facto, that means a lot of other non-profits just won't be able to receive funding.

And that's an important question of fairness as well.

Yeah, and I would echo what Councilor Payne just stated.

I think that, first of all, I really, and I mean this sincerely, thank you.

Thank you for all of the work that you and your team do in ranking these.

I know it must be a colossal amount of work.

And you clearly put not just sort of intellectual rigor, but your heart and your passion to make the community a better place.

And I'm very grateful for that.

I'm looking forward to your next iteration of this and then the City Manager has some thoughts.

Maybe I don't see the soapbox over there, but maybe I'll find one.

It's always with me.

I do think a cap is not a bad thing.

I appreciate people wanting to swing for the fences, but it does crowd out other investments.

And I think I agree with

with Michael as well that sometimes we may know things that others may not or there may be other priorities or concerns that we may have as counsel such that we may have to say, I appreciate why you thought they deserve this amount.

We're only going to do this amount.

and that's sort of where I am with the Buck Scott, just cut to the chase, where I am with that request.

I would need more information before about that organization in terms of what they'd be able to stand up.

On a totally different, this is small potatoes, but it's a curiosity.

So I was surprised and it's small potatoes is like $12,000 I think.

But the Freyland Museum is part of the University of Virginia, correct?

I was very surprised to see that

That would be an example of your parameters to not exclude non-profit organizations in association with the university.

And I can also add, we did screen that out.

Like we investigated that, and I was open to them about that.

When I got the application, I just said, I need to clear this first, because I think a lot of people had the same sentiment you did.

But when it came down to it, there was no parameter or no option in place to do that.

And so I was very upfront about them too, about it.

100% understand that, but it's just, it's strange, and I love the Fairland Museum.

It's just curious that city money would be the place to look.

But again, I could be missing something but it definitely jumps out.

The final question I have is, so I know we newly have the hops process.

and others.

Is Hopps considered a more appropriate place for an application like that?

And is there any kind of, is it considered kind of, VCF isn't really the correct place for that to go?

Or is it still the correct place?

Because they're a housing nonprofit, but this is about resident services for people who live there.

It would be the scope of the application.

I don't get that application to know what is more appropriate.

I do make it a point not to comment on specific applicants, because I don't want to come across as saying anything negative about a partner here.

But to answer your question, that is something that, because we switched two different processes, we're talking with people about that, to try to figure out where people should land.

I would say that what I remember from that, it landed in the right spot, but that doesn't mean it needs to stay there.

It really is dependent.

The intention is that it depends on what the scope of work is.

Just because they're a housing organization doesn't mean that everything they do is housing exclusive.

So if they're providing financial education as a program,

They shouldn't be applying for the HOPPS program for that because the financial education is not a housing related activity all into itself.

If it was homebuyer education, that's different.

and I double-checked it.

Yeah, it was for their resident services, which is not strictly youth.

And I'll just, that was the final major thing that jumped out at me.

Again, I'm just thinking of this purely from the perspective of what is kind of the on-the-ground consequence of where we are.

And resident services is a core division of CRA and a core entry point by which residents engage with the agency.

and Michael Payne.

CRHA is in a very strange place in terms of we appoint its entire board.

We fund, obviously, through our CIP, their significant investments.

And I still feel like we need some sort of discussion about what does our funding of their staffing and capacity look like, not just the capital building side, but the staff.

And if it's appropriate for that to come through,

I'm

We appoint their whole board or funding this, and it can be a reasonable outcome of a process that their core staffing positions aren't funded and don't exist.

So I'm not sure if I understand what you mean, Michael.

Don't have enough staff or it should be under the city's HR?

Right.

Right.

And I guess the question is, if CRHA needs to rely on the city for core staffing, does it make more sense to think about that as a

contractual agency or intergovernmental agency rather than a competitive process.

And again, I just, CHA is in a very strange, unique position of us appointing their whole board.

And it just, it's... Don't they get some of their money from the federal government?

Do they get a good part of it from the federal government as well?

Absolutely, they receive funding from HUD and the federal government.

Obviously, every year the amount of that money goes down.

Even under the Biden administration, HUD has a explicit agenda of reducing as much public housing as possible and converting it into Section 8 or privatized housing.

I know they, I think it's a larger conversation, but I think they find themselves in a difficult situation where they've received a ton of money for capital investments that hasn't really been met with any investment on the people side to increase staff capacity.

So if you look at even just the amount of staff per unit compared to our other housing nonprofits like Habitat or Piedmont Housing Alliance, it is dramatically smaller.

And this application is just one component of that larger story.

No, you are.

So let me make sure I understand.

So this is CRHA's resident services program provides a wraparound care for residents in the form of social programming, economic opportunities, and skills development.

So this isn't like kind of an optional thing that they could sort of do or not.

That is my understanding of it.

This program that already exists.

These are existing staff positions that are funded.

The federal government has the expectation that they will always work to invest in their residents.

They don't necessarily pay for it.

Well, I would be interested in a further conversation.

I don't know.

We have to have it now.

But I think Michael makes a good point.

I think something needs to be done because of my current capacity.

I get

those emails and those calls from the residents that feel like they have not gotten the services support that they need.

And I know the staff there and the people there, they're working hard.

They can only do but so much.

And so

We have to do that follow-up anyway when I get when I get that call from the Resident that's upset because they don't they don't really look at okay.

Well, I'm this they look at themselves as a city resident and they want An answer they want you know resolution to their problem and that's what I want to try to do so reach out to Sam and John and anyone so I don't I don't you know

Is there guidance that you want to offer us this evening?

I'm certainly open to that as well.

I guess I would be interested in a little more context, understanding how they operate.

I appreciate Michael's points and have a lot of confidence in what he's saying, but I think it'd be... I don't know that we need a work session, but I think understanding... You don't think you need one?

Michael's point, we spend a lot of money and a lot of time talking about their capital program and their projects, but it would be interesting to know the rest of the story, the rest of what's involved in actually operating the place, and maybe this connects into FAR as well, and we can say what is the appropriate

If they have certain needs, certain things they're trying to do, and there's a gap there, rather than have them jump and leap every year to sort of go through the motions, maybe we just need to say, well, this is a real need, and let's need it.

So in the frame of vibrant communities, because that's what we're looking at right now, are you wanting to figure a way to add them to the list to be funded?

Or are you just interested in funding this activity?

What is it that you're interested in beyond what I just said that I do believe is a work session to discuss the relationship with CRHA because I would offer

It's a different relationship and a fundamental status is also different.

And they then in a fundamental category would stand out as different because no one else gets what they get already in the various ways that they do.

Well, the bottom line for me is I think finding some way to fund that request.

If it's technically VCF or some other pool of money, I don't care.

But I think it should be, it's critical to be funded and that obviously is beyond VCF and can't really happen in parallel with this budget cycle.

So yes, so I think that work session can take place.

I think it's for this year.

I think that I would like to see it as well, but over the next few weeks as we have the budget discussion, if you're able to do it, we can talk about where that would come from.

Other Councils, how do you feel about that?

Let's come back to that specific item.

because I want to make sure we finish the BCF conversation first.

You all haven't done what you normally do.

I'm waiting to see if we're going to do it or not.

Change anything.

The difference in those is several of the ARVS applicants are like kind of festival related like one time and it's historically it's been a mixture of those

And what we've noticed is that I inherited a separate system, so I don't really know exactly why they were created that way.

I just know that what we've understood is that the way they operate their programs is essentially different.

And typically the general ask is typically lower, honestly too.

It's a different kind of amount that are being requested from those organizations.

What makes your differences is that the regular competitive Vibrant Community Fund process is going to ask things about their outcomes and their beneficiaries and their strategies in an evidence based way that they operate their

And so like in the arts and culture community, like I said, sometimes it's one time funds or it's part of their operations, but there's no outcomes.

There's no like, I guarantee I'm going to serve 200 kids and they're going to successfully complete this program, right?

There's no way to like, there's no metrics.

And that's a large chunk of what the reviewers evaluate their scores is, is this organization effective at

What is your mission?

We're noticing too that there's more kind of programmatic applicants coming into that pool.

So that might need to be some, another discussion for the coming year is maybe some of the arts applicants shouldn't be in the other.

That's also because we don't know who was going to apply every year.

So it does impact how we do it and then how they fall into it.

We had

Because it was a UV organization, it was an incumbent upon us to make sure that we could fund them.

They were eligible.

And what I meant by that is we went through a process to make sure that they were an eligible applicant.

So we were doing a screening process.

We didn't screen them out.

We looked to see if they were eligible for them.

Okay.

Yeah.

That was the basis of the review, to confirm eligibility.

Not need.

Yes.

I can just say they applaud the same way as everyone else.

Whatever the criteria for that application was and the review team determined what they were offering, what their budget looked like.

All that stuff was included in how they were reviewed.

So it was included in that review.

So what everybody else submitted?

We do ask for some for a similar budget information to the arts and culture programs.

I can see Mr. Kilbas is squirming over there.

It seemed to say something.

I'm glad to get an answer.

One frustration overall in that I understand the reasons why we don't want as a council to get into the weeds of the applications.

On the other hand, I had a different feeling about that when the amount of money that was being asked for for a particular organization was maybe $50,000.

One of the things that Mayor Walker kept talking about was how are we measuring outcomes?

Are we measuring outcomes?

Some of these applications, I don't know how many people they think they're going to be helping.

Maybe they provided the information.

Maybe they didn't.

I don't know.

But I sort of feel that we end up on council having to say,

We have no idea, we trusted you all with two million dollars and we don't know whether we have any reason to either agree or disagree and that's very frustrating.

There are a couple of things that I had particular questions about, and they tend to be some of the larger items in all of this, but one of the specific requests, of course, is the Tuck Squad.

I have a lot of the same questions that Michael had.

I note that it represents approximately a tripling of the budget from last year.

which I believe represents a tripling from the budget the year before.

The first two years or three years were specifically off-cycle requests where we didn't have an opportunity even to do any sort of a comparative process of how we think it stacks up against other proposals.

And then, like I said, we tripled it last year to $161,000 and now we're effectively almost tripling it again.

We're being asked to almost triple it again to $456,000.

When the Buck Squad started, their initial request went from the $20,000 that we funded for their training program to being given a request for $1.2 million off budget.

Obviously, we didn't do that, but we've had other general requests that we'd be coming up with a whole lot more money, and it's not really been clear to me to do what.

particularly if they're not the operating on CRHA properties.

And I wonder, process not withstanding, if somebody wants $456,000 for a program that we don't really understand, I think we on council have an obligation to say, somebody explain this.

because I don't know what, I mean, I've supported the Bucks squad from the get-go, but I also don't want to just say, okay, $456,000 here you go.

So that's my first problem that I've pointed out in a memo I sent to other folks on council, a couple of other concerns.

One is the concern that I have about

The money that is being considered here for the Jefferson School, $60,000 is not that much money, and I'm not going to get all that upset about it.

But what I really want to do, and this is something we have talked about on council for at least three years, is to try to figure out

what our ongoing obligations to the Jefferson School are.

We underwrite or maybe even flat out forgive their rent in 200,000 bucks a year.

We have various other connections that we've got to the Jefferson School Foundation, the building itself that we've never really kind of unraveled.

and just seeing that made me think, how many other connections are we going to have before we decide we're really going to figure this thing out?

And it's not something we're going to decide tonight, but it's something that I think if you're looking for other things to talk about,

and

I think that's an organization that we have subsidized to a significant degree, and I don't know what the long-term plan is there either.

For a while, we weren't even allowed to have a representative, although the contract calls for us to have a representative on the board against the foundation, they took the position that it had to be the city manager, and therefore an interim city manager wouldn't qualify, and therefore they wouldn't talk to us.

Yeah, Sam and I talked about that this morning and we're going to be looking into that because apparently it's not, I guess,

part of the contract that we are part of the city managers on the committee, but we're seeing what we can do about it.

Yeah, I've been on council for, this is going into my third year and it seems like every year, every six months we have this conversation and I support what they do.

I think it's great work, but I would like some clarity on the overall financial exposure we have in a long time.

It seems like, yes, we're going through and we're looking at what can be very small amounts of money, but they add up.

And so, like, Piedmont Casa is getting 6,000, and they asked for 10, so they're four short.

Lozen Fishes asked for 50, and they're getting 40, so they're 10 short.

And so together, that's 14,000 that could go toward these two groups that, you know, take that out of 465.

Are they going to notice?

That will be a change to your process.

You can do whatever you want to do, but that would be a change.

So if that's what you're interested in doing, I think what we would have to do is go back and pull together a lot more information in the form of a more expansive briefing so that you better understand the merits of each application so that you can then judge

Michael Payne

This is, again, my third time doing this.

And it's been frustrating each time, I must say.

I thought we were headed to me not being as frustrated tonight, but I can't say that I'm not.

It's better.

OK.

If you say so.

It's different.

Each time it's slightly different.

And I think that's the problem.

I think what we have not done is, and I've written it here, and we'll debrief with the team in that.

It sounds like we probably need a vibrant community fund work session again.

And in that work session, what would be helpful because I don't think anyone has said this to you this way.

And I'm the matter of fact guy you hired who has always been this way.

You're going to have to make some decisions.

And when you make those decisions, we will bring you exactly what we believe is the strongest result oriented response to that when we have that clarity.

each conversation has been a little bit different because it's been tied to the set of results and that doesn't support a process that actually undermines the process and that's the word that I've used with you all before

It is necessary to back away from some of the process is what you're hearing from the team if we're going to engage community members to evaluate and then go behind their evaluation and change it.

We probably should not really invest that time and energy and waste their time either.

Or we should minimize how much of that scope is utilized and leave room for a different aspect of the assessment.

I'm not criticizing that.

I'm just saying that's what we're trying to protect here.

That's what you hear these two folks trying to protect.

But what I feel like we are always tempted to do is to then we're at this table and you're judging if you like what you see or not.

And that's hard for this process to support that because you are reacting to the largest grant award, but we don't have a parameter that prevented that larger grant award from being made.

There's nothing that says there's a cap.

There's nothing that says that the university nonprofit organization cannot apply.

There's nothing that says that CRAJ couldn't apply in every single one of the categories if they so choose to do.

Those are things that we could implement and that would take away what I would consider some of the future moments of where this goes off track.

Because those would be parameters that they would put in the packet, put out in front of the groups.

When they review it, they would know does it apply to me or not.

Am I able to apply or not or what limits do I have in my request?

The fundamental agencies, the choice there is about prioritization.

Who do you prioritize over whom else?

That's what we've got to figure out in all of these situations.

The conversation about FAR has always been we value the work that they're doing in the community.

They don't always write a great application, but we still want to give them the money and we have always given them the money.

The process said no, but we always found a way to give it to them.

I'm not criticizing giving them anything.

I support the work, but that's what we've done in this moment tonight.

We were expecting and I'm sure we're all sitting here surprised that you haven't tinkered.

You've talked around it, but you haven't tinkered yet.

We do learn sometimes, maybe, but you usually tinker and that's the heartburn that we have because we've done all of this and now we're kind of backing away from that.

If the thought is to tinker, tonight really is supposed to be about figuring that out.

That's what we wanted to hear from you as is there heartburn about any of these results?

How would you like those results to be affected?

But what I've said to you repeatedly leading to this conversation is I didn't want to up in the process.

I wanted to remind you that you have your strategic initiatives fund.

These would be strategic initiatives.

Use that money to do whatever else you'd like to do.

So in this moment, one choice would be don't bother the other awards if you support those awards.

And if you want to give $6,000 to this group, $4,000 to this group, $5,000 to that, your fund is available for you to be able to do that.

So can I kind of back up

If you are good with it, yes.

If you're not, where are you not good with it specifically?

So even though you don't necessarily want us to tinker because that interferes with the process?

Because that's your choice.

Yes, chance to.

That's correct.

Okay.

And just because, again, you know, someone that was on the other end for many years, we, you know, they have put in the hours and hours of reviewing the application, asking follow-up questions, visiting the site.

I don't think that we have the capacity to do it, and I don't want to do it.

I trust, I sound like the basketball player, I trust the process, you know, and because it's always going to be some things we don't agree with, but I don't want

Sure.

And I think what I think is what I think would be a useful outcome of this is this we trust based off the process we currently have.

A good question would be, how would you like us to give you parameters for the future process?

Like maybe add a parameter that applications coming from UVA are no longer allowed because UVA has a lot of money and they should spend it on their own books.

So like that could be a parameter we want to include for the next go round.

Tonight wouldn't be about the process.

That's what the work session would do.

Tonight would really be, are you supportive of the results as they've been presented to you in the packet?

I'm not going to say I'm having an issue with want.

I don't want you to do anything that you don't want to do.

Because there's so much more about the process that we could go into.

Yeah, and I'll say that, you know, the process, as I read you this,

Michael Payne

And I do feel like things are better than they were two years ago.

So I don't know that we have to feel embarrassed or upset or whatever, frustrated.

I can understand feeling frustrated because people put a lot of work in this.

To me this is a natural kind of thing.

You've had all these folks invest time and effort.

You've had all these people that made applications.

And of course there's going to be some things that aren't

Right.

And so that's where, and I would agree with Councillor Payne when he said this before, maybe scaffolding, maybe it's a little more rigid than a scaffold, but it's, we still, it's our job ultimately to sort of say, okay, why did you do this?

And I appreciate your logic, but we want to do something slightly different.

And I think that that's okay.

And that said, I do think we can continue to tweak.

I think it's a valid question about the university's situation.

It's a valid question about maximum amounts.

I think 250 might be a large enough number for me.

I guess if I could just make a comment on the only really one that I have some concerns about.

I looked through all these.

They seem like reasonable requests and reasonable amounts given.

And I would just say, I think that the Buck Squad is an outlier.

Everyone is agreed as an outlier.

That doesn't mean the work they do isn't good or anything like that.

I agree that this was all very conscientiously done.

No one is questioning that at all.

I have a little bit of an issue with a cap just because that would be an arbitrary number and these are applications based in theoretically budgets and facts in a very long application process that's been detailed and coached along.

I don't know.

I would find it difficult to come up with a number that would be a reasonable cap because it would be, like I said, arbitrary.

And, you know, some people would never get close to that number.

And some people, I mean, Buck Squad's not the only one that's over 200 to 50 here.

So I'm not sure how you would come up with that number based on

So I just wanted to, this is something we can do with a work session.

We're getting down to the process.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm hard to.

So are there other things?

I get why we would want to think about a cap.

So if I could let me summarize then what I've heard so that we feel like we know what we're supposed to do.

You have concern about the allocation for the buck squad and therefore would require additional information to help you determine if you are satisfied with that number or not, therefore interested in possibly making a change and that you are interested in funding CRHA's resident services program.

However, we determine we do that, which there's two opportunities for doing that.

choosing to move money around inside vibrant, which I have expressed what I think about that, or using your strategic initiatives fund.

The rest of what I'm asking and that I'm not encouraging you to do anything.

I'm asking if you have a desire based on how you have reviewed the list.

They are, but they receive less funding.

And I know that the youth that they work with in this summer, the program, particularly I've talked about the Lighthouse Studio, so they just won't be able to serve as a election.

So both of those are increased considerations?

I know it is small, but I would like to reconsider Freiland and any other ones that might be UVA-based that don't appear.

That's harder to tell.

And I support the arts and worked at Freiland when I was at UVA.

I have one question, and maybe I'm

getting a little bit off of your topic here, but I'm looking at the Vibrant Community Fund handout that was given to us tonight, and it shows a proposed distribution for the Jefferson School African American Heritage Center with 246,999.

But that's the grant?

No, it's for their rent.

It's for the rent that we, the city, covers in the budget.

And the reason it's on that list is a little bit confusing and I apologize for that.

We've gone back and forth with an automated system.

It is one agency and so we have to put them on one list or the other and they are an agency that actually has funding in VCF and is in the city budget as well.

I was looking at this and seeing $60,000.

Yeah, no, it's like $186,000 for the rent.

Okay.

There's one or two others and I can't remember right off the top of my head, but that's a little bit of an inconsistency by breaking out vibrant a little bit separately.

And I would second the organizations that the mayor had raised, as well as interested in putting Freyland on that list to understand more about what that situation is.

And as I've already stated, the largest one that's a concern for me is CRHA.

And potentially, I'm curious to learn

More about the investments we've made in gun violence prevention as it relates to the Huru Foundation and how that just intersects with our VCF process and I'll just I've said it previous years and earlier but we'll just reiterate it briefly I do strongly believe it's inherent that this process will just include subjectivity in some level of arbitrariness I think a staff is doing their job

Michael Payne

and I do strongly believe that if 90 to 95% of our funding recommendations are still following in line with the recommendations, that is honoring a process and honoring the work of both staff and the community members on that team.

So to unpack what you just said, though, in reference to, you mentioned Uhuru, so they were on the list, unfunded.

Are you interested in funding them?

I have a quick question.

For the groups that, like maybe you've rated as an essential priority or important, but their application is solid or fair,

Do they get feedback?

Yeah, people can call and we can depends on the questions are typically what I do is I share like a screenshot of their school.

Yeah, I do that way to keep specific names of reviewers off of particular groups.

And if anybody wants to come to that, I advertise it, come in and take advantage of it.

Okay, great.

Cool.

And Councilor Payne, you also referenced gun violence.

So are you wanting to see more in that space?

Is that what the reference is?

Because Uhuru specifically in their application did not apply under gun violence.

Sure.

And maybe I'm not thinking about this properly or it doesn't make sense, but for all these I'm thinking big picture.

We created a fund last year for gun violence prevention.

I know we had a task force looking at recommended investments outside of this process.

Brian Pinkston, Juandiego Wade, Lloyd Snook, Michael Payne, Natalie Oschrin

So I don't know if that's any clear, but No, it helps that I'd see that as a separate action.

That's why I was trying to make sure.

At one point a year or two ago, I thought we had, maybe we do, and I just don't know where to find it, some sort of a fund that was expected to be where requests for assistance for various festivals come from.

And I thought that the idea was to remove them from the VCF process, but to have some other account that things like that would be funded out of.

So there was an art grants and festivals fund that was funded, a separate fund that was established.

The parameters being what they were, our organizations had a difficult time being able to apply under eligible categories.

We ended up not having

We also did have a generic in the line item budget for arts and festivals.

So as things came up, for example, when we used to do fireworks at Fourth of July and CAT provided bus service and things like that, we we had a small amount of money for that.

Yes.

And we have allowed that.

Okay.

I can also say that saying

It's not as like festival heavy as it used to be.

Sometimes it takes time for people to get the message.

So we continue to honor it.

We don't just move somebody out.

Those are the kind of the outlier things I have in every year, even though we try to do a pretty good campaign to let people know what's going on.

So we stuck in a circle.

Sorry.

The other question helped me understand a little bit.

Last year we had basically 2.3 million in the Vibrant Community Fund.

We've got 2.3 million in the Vibrant Community Fund this year, but we took something like 1.3 million out of the process.

So are we effectively committing 3 to 3.6 million

to the space that last year was 2.3 million?

Yes.

I'll just comment on saying that I share the concern about the buck squad largely because I don't know what they're proposing to do.

and I think I know it's a process question but I don't think we should be in a situation where we're putting half a million dollars into a program that we effectively can't ask questions about.

and whether that means, I'm not prepared to say at this point that we should certainly not eliminate them, whether we continue them at some level.

I want to know what their plans are.

I want to know what they're talking about for tripling the money.

Yeah, I think we definitely can have the discussion on their funding.

But I think a lot of their work is like, you know, it's what's not happening.

It's, you know, you know, some of the, you know, things that they help prevent.

But we can have the discussion on that.

I think that that may be maybe a

and I

First of all, I'd like to thank all of you for your work.

I know it's a lot of work to do this and I appreciate the time and the energy and the passion that you have for the community and also for all of you over here on the side of the table as well.

I know that budgeting is a miserable process.

I just went through three weeks of it myself.

I do want to, some things came to light in this, which concerns me a little bit about the town-gown relationship.

I'm Jody Kilbasa, I'm the Vice Provost for the Arts at the University of Virginia.

I'm also the longtime Executive Director of the Virginia Film Festival here in town.

And I think one of the things that concerned me, Councilman Payne, was when you talked about the university having the money and why does the Frayland need it, the university only pays a fraction of the expenses of all of the arts organizations that it has.

If you can imagine how many programs there are at the university, in spite of the fact that we have two billion dollars,

and we employ 30,000 people here in Charlottesville.

There's a lot of bills to pay.

There's a lot of organizations.

The Frailen has a robust K through 12 program.

So every year you will see, and I know they're right outside my offices, the school buses pull up

and the school children go into the Freyland Museum.

They provide that free of charge.

The university and the university museums don't charge as well, the Kluge Roo does not as well, so they live off of community donations.

When I came to Charlottesville from Sarasota many years ago, and they have very robust arts programs there that are extraordinarily well supported by both the city and the county,

My film festival, the Sarasota Film Festival, used to get $85,000 a year from the city.

So when I came here, I was stunned.

I was stunned, quite frankly, by the lack of professional arts infrastructures here in our community, many of which are provided by the university.

These are public-facing institutions.

When you look at the Freyland, the Kluge Roo, the Virginia Film Festival, the Virginia Theatre Festival, which is Charlottesville's only live professional theatre company, last year's Cabaret was an extraordinary production that brought the community together, particularly in a very timely way.

The festival over time has grown in the last 15 years.

When I came here, the year before I came, I reached 11,000 people.

I brought the attendance up to 17,000.

At our height in 2017, 18, and 19 pre-pandemic, we were averaging over 27,000 people in attendance each and every year.

The community events we did were extraordinary.

After August 11th and 12th, I got a call from Spike Lee, my cell phone.

Imagine.

He said he wanted to come here and do a community event.

He wanted to screen four little girls because the deaths of those four little girls in Alabama reflected what happened here in Charlottesville during August 11th and 12th.

And he flew in.

We had to pay for that.

We put it on at the Paramount.

We had over 1,000 people attend.

He screened four little girls and he spent an hour on the stage talking about those tragic events.

A year later, we screened a Center for Politics documentary about August 11th and 12th, and we brought Martin Luther King III in as well.

This year,

in my 15 years of running the Virginia Film Festival.

Alright, I'll come through with it.

We brought in Ava DuVernay.

It was a U.S.

premiere of Origin.

Why?

Because that film dealt with the tragic events of August 11th and 12th.

Years ago we brought in the Freedom Riders.

We did a screening in Charlottesville High School in front of a thousand high school students.

You know what the most memorable moment of that was?

A student who raised his hand after the film, after he saw these three free and marauded writers now in their 70s, but saw them as young people being firebombed and beaten and having dogs set upon them.

And the young man said,

I never knew.

I had no idea.

Thank you so much.

So work that we're doing in the community brings the community together.

Witness the closing night of this year's Virginia Theatre Festival with 1,000 people seeing in unison when the Saints come marching home with John Batiste in the Paramount Theatre.

So when you cut an organization, even by as little as 50% with us this year, and by the way, the Virginia

I understand that.

I sat through nearly two hours before.

So this is important to me.

No, no, no.

Hold on.

No, sir.

This is our meeting.

I'm sorry.

Fair enough.

Thank you very much.

I do want to I do want to say respectfully thank you for your time tonight.

Good evening.

I'm Marta Kane, CEO with Java.

Wouldn't be a meeting if I didn't get up to say hello.

I wanted to thank everybody up here for such a thoughtful process and particularly recognize the relationship we have with Misty and with Miss Marshall in terms of

being aware of seniors.

And we appreciate the city's commitment to allow Misty to participate in the Charlottesville Area Alliance.

And that really makes a big difference.

Her input has been invaluable and support.

And that really gets to being an age friendly community.

So I just want to thank you for a commitment to seniors, certainly Jabba.

and I appreciate your funding but also showing that commitment broader than just Java and making sure that we can keep seniors in Charlottesville.

Good evening, how are you?

My name is Ricardo Preve.

I'm a local filmmaker.

I've been a resident of Charlottesville for 45 years, so I know this town.

I think this is only the second time in my life that I come to a public meeting, so nobody can accuse me of saying too much.

I am on the advisory board of Lighthouse Studio, and I want to thank the mayor.

for mentioning us.

Frankly, I thought you didn't even know about us, so it's very comforting to know that you know about our work.

I wanted in particular to speak to you on two conditions.

As a teaching artist at Lighthouse Studio, I participated in the Summer Film Academy.

I taught there five or six years.

Every year, we teach literally hundreds of kids.

Elementary, Middle, High School kids who would not have an opportunity to get into the world of cinema and television if it wouldn't be for the work that Lighthouse Studio does.

And in fact, specifically, the operation of the Van Agar Health Theater is crucial for our programs because there are two things

that you cannot get in modern society.

One is silence, the other one is darkness.

And if you're going to teach kids how to operate sound equipment, if you're going to teach them how to light a scene, we need that theater to continue operating in order to be able to do our job.

And the second thing I wanted to talk to you as a local business owner, I sell my films, you know, to platforms or to different channels.

But sometimes I do screenings to benefit the community.

For example, last November, at Vinegar Hill Theatre, we did a screening to benefit Sim Barreras or Without Barriers, which is a local not-for-profit that works for the Hispanic community.

It would have been impossible to do that at a commercial multiplex theater.

We have spent all the money we raised on paying them.

So Vinegar Health Theater and Lighthouse Studio was absolutely crucial to get this done.

We had over 180 people come and attend that benefit screening.

And finally, I would invite you to come sometime to the day when our students graduate from one of their filmmaking courses.

We screened our film on the big screen at Vinegar Hill.

Their grandparents, their parents, all their families come.

We put directors chairs on the front there.

They get to sit, they get to answer the questions like real movie stars and it's a vital part of the cultural growth of this community.

Good evening.

My name is Daniela Pretzer.

I am the executive director of the bridge line and we have been for, I don't know, how many months, how many years, a recipient of the ABRT funding, now, vibrant community funding.

So I really appreciate, well, now, Hunter's work, Misty and

your work and the funding.

So what we do is we provide services for people with brain injuries in a residential program.

Do I need to pay attention?

No.

A residential program.

We have housing in the Belmont area, so we own these homes.

We have case management and also a pre-vocational training program or day program.

and I just kind of wanted to say thank you, introduce myself and hopefully you remember, you know, brain injury can happen to anyone, anytime, anywhere and it includes stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain tumor and also encephalitis and inflammation.

I have still one, almost two minutes.

I do have

I want to know how do I get on that fundamental agency program because then I would save 100, a lot of hours that he has to spend with me.

So that's more what I am curious about and maybe I can talk to somebody.

I heard that the

I'm sorry, which agency was that the life arts had an increase that they didn't ask for because of an increase of real estate taxes?

Is that correct?

Okay, I was just wondering, because we pay quite a bit real estate taxes as well because of the two homes in the Belmont area and years and years ago I've tried to talk to this was many years ago how could we as a non-profit organization not pay real estate taxes because that's up to the city and I got the answer from

a grants manager at the time well you get you get a ABRT funding pay your taxes from that the money we receive is for mainly our staff that's our asset these are the people who provide the services whom we need to train whom we need to retain because they provide so great services so that was a question that I would have for the future and if there's a particular person I can talk to about that I'd love to do that

and I think that was pretty much it.

So I really appreciate your patience and listening.

Good evening.

Somebody may remember me from last year when I was the interim director of FAR.

That was a six month commitment that I made and I'm now the non-interim director of the mediation center of Charlottesville.

So I'm back here again and it's great to see everybody and to be part of the process and really just came to see if there were any questions that people had about the mediation project that you've just is listed to be funded.

We're really excited about, I'm very growth oriented in terms of the mediation and we're excited about being able to take a process that's been really helpful to couples that are in the divorce process especially and build that into something that can handle a lot of other disputes in the community.

So this support should really make a difference in terms of what we're able to do and we want to bring in a whole additional group of mediators who right now are not qualified by the Supreme Court's qualifications involved having a college degree and we want to be able to bring in community residents who are really committed to their communities and would be really perfect mediators if they had the training and the opportunity.

Hi, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you all.

I'm Lindsay Hepler from Lighthouse Studio, and I appreciate that Mayor Wade lifted up our application, but we just wanted to make a request as you're considering final budget decisions.

So in fiscal year 24, we requested $40,000 across our two applications for both our educational programs and the community screenings.

We do at Vinegar Hill Theater, and we received an exemplary rating on each application, and we're granted $36,000.

This year we requested study funding that $36,000 across our two applications.

Prior to the pandemic, Lighthouse used to receive as much as $38,320 consecutively for several years.

So we felt like last year achieving that $36,000 was a really good place for us to be.

Currently the Vibrant Community Report recommends funding Lighthouse for a total of $22,800, which is a 37% decrease from last year.

Our needs have not changed, our programs have not changed, and this reduced amount creates a material financial strain for us.

This year our application was rated as solid and important and we're looking forward to the feedback we can receive but at this point we're not really sure what was different and why we received that different rating this year and we recognize that the way the process is and with the rating system you know perhaps we should have recommended perhaps we should have requested more funding to try to play the game of getting in the right spot but we felt like

We were confident in our programs.

Again, the programs haven't changed.

Our reporting hasn't changed.

We're offering the same work for the community.

So we were hopeful to receive an exemplary rating again, and that's why we requested study funding this year.

I wanted to share a quote from one of our partners, Beloved Community Seville, which is a grassroots organization that supports social change and equity here in Charlottesville.

We've worked with them

For many years now to create a total of 16 videos that are part of their racial history tour Going deeper into the story of significant sites around our city So Elizabeth, the founder and director said working with Lighthouse on 16 videos for our racial history tour throughout the city of Charlottesville

has been an amazing experience.

The Lighthouse staff have been thoughtful collaborators in helping us achieve our mission, highlighting stories that reveal a more complete and inclusive history of Charlottesville.

So we're just asking you to consider funding us an additional amount of $13,200 to bring us back up to that $36,000 total for this next year.

Good evening.

I wanted to follow Lindsay.

I'm Dina Gould with Lighthouse Studio, and thank you very much for your consideration and time.

I have timed this to three minutes, so I'm going to read it to make sure I can stay within.

I want to share with you some feedback from our partners.

In 2023, we worked with 58 community partners, including both schools and nonprofits.

We find funding for the majority of these partnerships so that we are able to offer filmmaking education and rental spaces for free or at a greatly reduced rate.

One of our applications was for our educational programs, which increase opportunities for young people.

for whom high quality arts education is often out of reach.

Our workshops provide tuition-free instruction to students that reflect the demographic characteristics of the areas we serve.

Across all programming, 40% of our students are youth of color.

City funding has helped us partner with many organizations, including Boys and Girls Club, YMCA, C4Pay, and CH's AVID program.

In our thank you credits at the end of the partners films, we acknowledge the Vibrant Community Fund.

Here are a few quotes from our educational partners, from Reclaim to Hope initiative.

The campers range from having experienced trauma, been adopted, and having some type of disability or health diagnosis.

It was such a great feeling to see how the Lighthouse team came in without any judgment.

I cannot thank you all enough for fully embracing our chaos and jumping in with us.

From Tech Girls, I love partnering with Lighthouse because it's an inclusive, welcoming space that makes students feel excited to take creative risk.

Our collaborative programs have increased access to computer science,

and helped young women to build confidence with robotics.

I know that Lighthouse's work is an asset to our community.

In a highlight from Lugo McGinnis Academy, a film created there by the Lugo students titled Neighborhood Kitchen has gone on to be accepted to eight national film festivals, winning three awards.

Our second application was for our Vinegar Hill Theatre community screenings and conversations.

We purchased the theater in 2015 and it continues to be an asset for our community.

I think a lot of you probably know it's located at the entrance of the downtown mall.

And in addition to maintaining this entrance, we pay 16,000 in taxes every year.

The Vibrant Community Fund has helped us to host 50 screenings last year alone, and we gave back last year 31,000, which means we waived that much.

We have endorsements from various local filmmakers and nonprofits and I want to share a quote from just one, our IRC partner.

This past year the IRC was able to screen a powerful film and lead a discussion that helped us raise awareness of our valuable work

and the amazing families that we serve.

We were only able to do so because the Vinegar Hill Theater and their affordable programming options.

This is a vital community resource that needs to be protected as a platform for building a stronger, inclusive and well informed Charlottesville.

Thank you.

My name is Wes Bellamy.

I think this fund started from something that we started with the equity fund and then it turned into the vibrant community fund.

So I got a little bit experienced in this regard.

There's two things that come to mind as I'm leaving a housing authority meeting.

The first thing is that I think in order for us to have more attendance, these meetings may need to move from specifically solely being a city space into the portions of the community because I think there's still a great deal of people who aren't aware of the process and they're not necessarily

They don't have the ability to be able to witness and or participate because this place for many just still seems uninclusive.

And I know that's not the intent.

But if you just look around, I think just from even when I was on council, it's kind of the same people who come the same time advocating for the same things.

And that's not a disrespect to them.

It's just a small observation.

The second thing that I want to say very briefly, and they didn't ask me to do this in any capacity, but I did want to speak up for the Yahoo Foundation, and I'm just going to be very candid.

I understand that they didn't receive a favorable application.

I understand that they wrote for something different.

Speaking with the individuals who are the leaders of that organization, I kind of have an understanding of why.

They are

I personally will say on record as a person who spends a lot of time in the community.

From my personal estimation, there is not an organization within our community who does more specifically to intervene and stop violent acts than the Ururu Foundation.

This is not a disrespect or a slight to anyone.

I think there are a lot of different people doing great work.

But when I open up my phone,

and I'm in some of the group chats in which they have with young people and I see some of the work that they're doing on the ground that again often is not recognized.

It's not in the news.

It's not talked about.

They're not going to be in the paper, but they're actually doing it.

I really think that we or you are not we because I'm not in a position.

I'm not in the seat, but I think we collectively as a city

and Michael

They may not enjoy going through the process.

We shouldn't allow process to stop the work from being done if we're truly about healing in the community.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Elizabeth Irvin with the Women's Initiative and I just really actually want to just lift up more I think exactly what Wes was saying is so relevant and so important and I really appreciated the conversation today and the balancing act of all the work that y'all do and the reviewers you're doing in the process with the need for City Council to ask hard questions.

I just I appreciate each role that you're each playing and

specifically thank you for the recommendation for the full funding we're in a similar situation where we used to be funded at a certain level and actually our funding went down previously so while we've been recommended to go back up to forty thousand dollars for this year it's still below funding where we were before while our budget has grown significantly and the women's initiative is mental health counseling and access and specifically looking at just life savings programs such as sister circle and being a star for the for the community

I still have two minutes.

I'm happy to actually answer.

I usually like more of an answer question and answer time, but I just really actually want to lift up the question that came up about Region 10 as well.

And I would really welcome an opportunity for a work session on access and behavioral health generally.

I'm kind of astounded that there wasn't more money.

I want to call Lisa afterwards and be like,

This is a great opportunity because there is such need across whether it's substance abuse, mental health, inpatient, direct services.

So we have a network of care providers and I would really love to have a separate conversation at a different time about what we could be doing to more fully address what we're seeing is rising, rising need in that situation as well.

So thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Elizabeth.

Is there anyone else who would like to speak?

Any other comments or actions?

Sam or counselors?

We stay in adjourn.