City Council Budget Forum/FY2025 Budget Public Hearing #1   3/21/2024

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Here.

Here.

Mr. Sanders

So unless there's anything else that is the presentation that I have prepared for this evening.

Do I have to officially kind of open and close the public hearing?

You have now.

So the first name we have is Shannon Flanagan.

Sorry, this is my mom.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're doing a great job.

The next speaker is Pastor Liz Emory Hey, Liz

Thank you.

The next speaker is Suzanne Bailey.

Thank you.

Fishman, I'm sorry.

And just to reiterate, thank you so much for everything that you've done and we really appreciate your current efforts to make Charlottesville more accessible.

Fishman.

Hey Josie, before you go, was that the Green Bacon Club?

Green Bacon is a segment of that larger club.

Great, thank you.

I was wondering if Green stood for something in particular.

I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Kevin Lynch.

Michael Payne

Thank you.

Thank you, Emily.

Thank you very much.

Sullivan McDonnell McDonnell, I'm sorry.

Thank you for your time and your consideration.

The next speaker is Lila Kaufferman

Thank you.

Would anyone else like to speak on the budget, please?

But at the end of the year, if you have given the city of Charlottesville one million towards combating climate change versus giving the schools a million, I just want you to think about where that would go.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for the time.

I can't remember.

I don't think so, because it sounds like something I would have been into.

They didn't have green bacon, but I'm sorry.

Thank you.

And so I think, Chrissy, you're going to go through some slides and then we can ask questions.

Okay.

Okay, so there was

Chrissy, your mic is muted.

How about now?

You're good.

Any further questions on that before we move to the next piece?

So are those staff with that we pay United Way or they actually in DSS?

So the staff on this bullet are actually city staff.

OK.

That's the extent of my expertise that we'll call in her for other questions.

So what is the limit that a resident can request in, I guess, a calendar year?

I think it's 2000.

Just one second, I can't hear you.

Public to hear it as well just in case we

Misty, can you talk now?

We're moving towards doing some more referrals so that folks can have some additional supports outside of our agency to be able to respond more holistically rather than these one-time emergency funds.

Any other questions on that?

They get to retain 5% of those proceeds, but it's a convenience factor for citizens who can go and pick those stickers up at the store.

Thanks.

Basically, because many of those wheels are already in motion for July, just around the corner, I'm not sure there's enough time to do it well for an impact for the 25 budget.

So if we did

So if we were to increase the price now, it's very possible that we might need to do it again in January.

So there's no glaring negative to that that we're not aware of other than we just have to do it twice.

I'm sorry, I interrupted you.

Well, no, I was just just checking to make sure that there's not like a thing that we don't know about that would cause some kind of problem if we did say, let's just raise each ticker a dollar tomorrow.

But if you're just looking for a price increase, if that's your question, there's nothing holding us back.

Correct.

I don't know exactly, but probably not to the tune of a million dollars, but probably not.

I would say it has always been a subsidized service, but whether it's been a million dollars, I can tell you without looking at that for sure.

I don't know, I feel like this is something that we should address more quickly than Wade.

Maybe you do want to just have a quick clarifying question.

Do these numbers include recycling or is this just trash?

It is the the the curbside recycling is in the expenses that is part of what we are subsidizing as an incentive for people to recycle.

And what are tipping fees?

Those are fees that we have to pay when the trash is taken to the transfer station.

Jolt, possibly, and then we've gone a whole year already having that money in our pockets.

Lloyd and Michael, what are your thoughts on this?

You're going to have to, just as I kind of do a quick analysis here, you're going to have to close to, if you want to eliminate the subsidy, you have to basically double the amount we're charging for all traffic, for all garbage pickup.

So I'm just trying to give staff some direction as to whether it's something to do kind of now or wait until January 2025.

And I have that concern in my default is that I feel like there are things we should look to cut or raise before moving forward with something like doubling the cost of decals.

We now are losing a little bit of our leverage because you've got a whole other pool of people to deal with who are offering that service.

But then it would collectively make some difference for us at a larger scale.

We would have to quadruple it.

Sure, it wouldn't balance it, but it would get us.

Let's do a 20%, 25%.

And it feels like if we could claw back a quarter of that, that would be fantastic.

So is that to say that you're interested in looking at the sticker prices and leaving the annual decals alone?

I hope that isn't particularly onerous.

adding a couple of bucks to the decal sales gets you $15,000, roughly.

Better than a kick in the head.

But it's not the panacea.

And then once, if and when it does change later, it's not as big of a jump.

If you could personally go to the next topic.

And CAT is developing a plan to have 32 buses available for service within the next eight months.

Are these numbers additional or simply bringing the total up to 30 or 32?

I'm going to let him answer.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

This is making 32 vehicles available for daily service.

That's something you've already got built into the budget that we've got here?

So this is really using our maintenance money that's in our budget a little bit more efficiently and see if we can squeeze out getting some of the repairs done on a faster scale so we'd be able to have 32 vehicles ready by the beginning of the year.

Is that without any significant increase in funds needed?

That's correct.

And I know you answered this for us last week, but to go from 59 drivers to 70 drivers, how much more is that per year?

Chrissy, do you have the?

70 was the second scenario, right, Garland?

The 70 number, though, was that the first?

Correct.

Or is that additional?

No.

In addition, yes.

Any other questions from Mr. Williams?

I just want to make it clear the reason for the six buses sitting at this time.

What happens is we buy the radios, they have to program them and put them together and then they ship them to the local distributor and then they install.

Just want to make that clear.

So we do not have the radios on site now?

No, we're at the radio show.

are so weeks and then after that then they schedule, not on our time here, but they schedule when they will send out the team to do the installation.

It's all paid for, so it's just timing out.

And so that's something we are definitely going to be working on over the, you know, you know, now and into the future.

So therefore, if we can do that, we can remove those radios temporarily because those radios are old, but they will suffice for us temporarily to allow us to get the six buses up and running as soon as we possibly can.

If we retire four or five buses and then get six buses out there, we have a net gain of one or two buses instead of a net gain of six buses.

So we would have all six buses up and running.

So is my understanding right that even if we added 11 drivers, we still haven't even matched service from where it was pre pandemic.

The 82 drivers, which is the optimal, gets partial phasing in of enhancements that are identified in the optimization study.

The 11 drivers are your most basic foundation for that, whenever and however we get to that number, otherwise the transit system is not going to be what it needs to be.

Won't that pretty, I mean, not assured, but won't that stabilize the, the employment, the numbers?

And that's why most processes end with everybody walks away and nobody's really happy.

Garland, you speak to that.

We also had a number of individuals that retired because during the pandemic and we have not been able to replace them.

So just to confirm, Payne for bus drivers does have an effect on the budget, right?

And that's really what we're trying to figure out is what's the right set of steps to take in order to get there.

And I say that for city council in the community, not a criticism of anybody who I know of.

And you don't have to continuously staff a bike lane.

Any other questions on transit?

using less trash it also is that was not taking into account the people for whom buying in bulk is expensive and who might not have the ability to purchase one of the decals for a whole year so they do do it sticker at a time so I just wanted to acknowledge that I had not included them in my initial conversation and so sorry about that and that is a factor and their budgets might be a little tighter than we originally

What other things would you like to talk about and what else can we provide information to you on?

The first thing is, I'm not familiar with the four mile move that's being discussed.

I'm not sure if I know about this.

I mean, I can generally speak to it, but.

But I can find out for you all.

But ideally, we'll try to get our questions answered this week.

What are we doing with them?

Do you have the revenue?

I can't speak as much on the expenditure side.

It can only be used for climate related activities.

But it's even more specific than that.

So the goal would be for the sustainability team to determine how to deploy those funds.

Do I understand that we also are not doing it in 23-24?

So, you can correct.

So, has the city's CIP or General Fund been funding parking garage repairs in this fiscal year?

Yes.

Buildup of the fund was also in part preparation for the construction of an additional parking garage and having the money, you know, kind of in advance to save for that?

And then all of the funds that were set aside for that, there might be a few left, but it was going to be funded by City Bonds because the parking fund didn't have the wherewithal to pay the debt service for that.

So the existing money is really just maintenance in the lease renewal.

Maybe I don't understand how they were getting their money anyway, but is whatever change there is going to be to whatever new vendor we're using, or what's this likely to look like for the next fiscal year?

Chris, do you have anything you want to add?

We expect some efficiencies from a new operator, but we still have to pay people to do the similar job.

Are we getting just a net figure?

That's a condensed version, kind of everything all in revenue and expense.

Thank you.

So I would definitely be curious after April 1st, knowing how those have adjusted, either up or down.

Some of the things that are still materializing personal property, bank tax and people would be the three areas where there might be some change.

of where we're going to come out of the General Assembly with any of these expenditures that would come to us in our school system.

I'm not sure at what level, but we can certainly check in with them.

So my next question is, if on, let's say, the 17th, the week following the budget that we've adopted, is there any reason why we could not have another meeting of council and amend the budget before, for example, before tax notices would have to be set out for the real estate taxes?

I'm not aware of any, but I would defer to our city attorney from a practical matter.

I'm not ridden either.

So do we know, do you know anything, Michael, from your, because you, well, you were really tuned into the one, to the,

I definitely don't think there's certainty on what will happen with the budget or legislation in terms of the timeline.

It was late.

Anyway, it doesn't matter for this year, but it's just... I would say I don't know the legal ease.

But there's a lot of behind the scenes work that has to happen to get us up and going by July 1.

Yeah, as you said, it may not matter anyway, but I'm just curious.

In particular, the tax rate.

Payroll, yeah

Thank you.

Is there any way we could still charge them?

Garland, can you address that?

That's more of a conversation between university administration and the city manager's office.

How can you talk a little bit then about the county and how much we get from them and how that works and

Garland, can you take that one too?

We basically, it's a simple math after that, they pay 35% of the total.

But nothing on capital, correct?

Okay, good.

Any other questions on transit so we can, yeah.

Just what's on the docket for them?

And this is a seven member team, I think, if I'm correct, that are doing this all over, as well as doing public outreach and engagement across the community.

Thank you.

Can you put the list of questions?

So I guess if we have additional feedback on VCF, we could email that to you maybe?

E-bikes for the fleet instead of cars, that sort of thing?

Wherever there is a way for us to measure GHG reduction, that's where she's supposed to be with her team in the conversations with all of our employees, trying to figure out what more can we do to achieve that 5% that we really contribute to that.

And if we did what the speaker suggested, where we delayed the investment in that from the CIP for a couple of years, how would that affect their work?

So as they identified specific projects, they would have those resources available to do that.

It was still create, it doesn't create a pot of cash to then be funded for schools.

Would some of the grants that you're talking about, would they be requiring a local match or it's just something we can add to it?

But some of these, because they're sizeable grants, they require a local match just to demonstrate your seriousness about what it is you're doing.

Thanks.

So another example of what we imagine being able to do going forward.

And very complicated.

Yeah, it takes a couple of months to even put some of them together.

We need to, you know, just kind of

It's painful, but I think our priority has to be I won't say a priority one of our priorities Must remain investing in our staff so that we can set ourselves up for the future and unfortunately that means other things aren't funded to the degree that we would like The one thing that I would say is that it is

What what that situation might look like I would like to think about for example if this money does come for allocated allocated for schools Is that money that would come through us or would it go straight to the schools?

Okay, so

second-order decisions that we won't even know whether we can make until after our budget will have been passed.

So translated is that saying that 7 million is your max and anything the schools get you would want to reconsider whether we'd reprogram some of the seven?

For the purposes of what you all have to do in the next two weeks, yes.

So anything above that is the reason for the contingency?

And that then means we either do something with taxes or

That's what I was getting at.

I just think we ought to be thinking about it.

Right, and I want to get other people's thoughts before we say that that's the direction of council.

Yeah, sure.

I will defer.

Well, yeah, it's related.

To the schools?

Because of the large amount that we had questions about the other day, and if that is going to stay that large, is that still the plan, or was that going to be maybe available and we can give another 250 or whatever to the schools?

Well, that's your call.

To give you the data we just got.

Because we see a, okay, yeah, so I'm not ready.

If assuming nothing changed to the BCF, which number would you go with, the 7 or the 9?

I would love to go with the 9.

Am I only worrying about post nine?

That's what I mean.

So anything above nine is where you're interested in a scenario present being presented to you for undoing what that might be?

You know, a lot of it just may not happen, and it'll be a lot of work for you all to do.

Yeah, I mean, it is hard.

So that's the reason for asking for that clarity.

Natalie, you were kind of tying your thoughts on I just want to make sure you have your thoughts on the school budget allocation

But if we are reallocating any money from VCF, I think it should go towards schools.

Okay.

An amount that large.

Michael, any thoughts?

And if those change in a fundamental way, I think we owe it to try to revisit because the assumptions we made about a tax increase being necessary, if those conditions aren't true anymore, I think it's worth us at least having a conversation about it.

and so I agree with others that the floor is seven and you know based on what we hear from the state if we can get to nine and anything over nine we'll look at the taxes and other things that we have done, okay?

Yeah, it would be helpful.

Could be in a surplus.

And we actually give some money back, you know, as people have said, well, not if well, I guess.

All right, where do we want to go with this?

One cent on the real estate, one percent on meals, one percent on lodging?

Yes, and lodging was a little right around a million as well.

3.5 hold on I'm gonna pull up the chart

Real estate was 1.1, meals was $3,054,545, and lodging was $1,062,500.

and a reminder that the budget is based on 1% meals, 1% lodging and 2 cents on the real estate tax, although you're advertising 3 cents so that you would have the ability to make an adjustment if that was what you chose to do.

So Yeah, I agree.

I think we, you know, this passes that we're at the apex of the lodging and meals

We don't have, but the meals taxes and the lodging tax, meals and lodging tax I'm guessing Mr. Divers would be a lot easier to change faster, to reduce.

Well, yeah, and so I guess

I would frankly think that if we end up having the opportunity to take some of that back, I would probably want to first look to the meals and the lodging because I think those are more out of whack than the real estate.

Natalie?

We have a huge structural budget problem because of UVA's tax exempt status, so I'll just offer that.

Most likely.

Is there something you would rather raise?

I feel too late to the game to be able to say that because I wasn't here when all of that was decided.

So where are you on?

Yeah, I mean, it doesn't work.

I'm just making sure I'm capturing what you're saying, what you all are saying.

I mean, the math that I want doesn't work.

Okay, I just wanted to make it clear.

I mean, I'm ready to go with that.

And it makes me think just to scare everybody, next year the budget will include the schools having unionized and then I believe the teamsters just voted to unionize public works, office of community solutions, parks and rec, utilities and anything else.

They're left over, left over fire and police personnel that were not sworn or part of their civilian group.

The garland was going to say something.

No, I think he's just hanging out.

So, if there's any funding for it.

For capital?

The hops is the operating support and CAF would be the funds that were directly dollars directly to be used in the homes.

Sorry.

We could make those adjustments, and you may not have to lean on that fund at all, but that gives us time to go back and rework numbers.

But maybe others might have.

You can get us the numbers, but it does give us the chance that we don't we need every day that we have available to be working through things so we can keep working while you're figuring out some of the other details.

I also

And so I thought that was a big point in their favor.

About the only... Not to put you on the spot, but half of my notes last week you mentioned loaves and fishes.

Yes, that just seemed like it was a small enough amount to... That's what we're looking for.

Because if that's not the choice, then I only have one other choice.

I'm moving things around within VCF.

How much is in the Council strategic?

395.

You haven't in a minute.

And then I think it was the 22 year and put 300,000 back in because it was like $70,000.

And I think we can just guarantee there's going to be stuff that pops up off budget cycle.

Not that what they do is not important.

I would concur with that.

And I think there's a difference between like the film festival that is more like collaborative community co-sponsorship, a lot of other people go towards fulfilling that versus the Freyland which is kind of entirely ensconced within the university.

A lot of folks who come there, who go there from the community.

Maybe he can take this back and have a broader conversation.

And that if the university is going to fall back on, well, we shouldn't be having to do anything like this because we're doing all of these wonderful things for you for free.

I think it's just having the conversation where they somehow are able to conceptualize you doing these great things is great, but it has an impact on the rest of the community.

And let's just talk about it, especially when they can afford to do both.

They're like us.

Exactly.

And they've got a board.

Were there any that you wanted to support?

Yeah.

I don't fault him for that, but given the way that our relationship with money with the university is unfolding, I'm not sure it's the best expenditure of our money right now.

So, but anyway, we do have time and I think we can, we definitely will be able to make it work.

I don't think I can make that work myself, but maybe some others would like to.

And we're not allowed to see the individual application.

A lot of it was sent to you.

Sorry.

We got like six attachments to email.

I'm sorry.

No, I didn't.

and I just say not not funded, not recommended for funded funding through the process.

Holy smokes.

And is there any way to freeze the first line so we can see what each of those is for?

So that, I'll just say that.

That's what the yellow highlight is.

That would mean we would find that money somewhere else because there is no hops money.

I mean, at the end, at the end of the day, it could be a reduction in the total amount of VCF funding or I'm open to whatever source it is.

And that too was a part of the HOPPS consideration.

Got it.

Nothing else that jumped in?

Yeah, yeah.

Who was the second that?

You definitely will probably have more questions in general about the budget, but I think that if you.

I'm curious for a refresher.

Any other questions or comments for tonight?

Let's say Tuesday by noon because we meet Tuesday afternoon.

If there's anything specific that you're interested in, let us know that too so we can address it.

It is on the radar.

We'll update you on that.

Do you actually want CIP questions now, or do you want a Monday?

Oh, you mean right this minute?

Right this minute.

Okay.

There being no other items, we stay in adjourn.