Central Virginia
Greene County
Budget Workshop 3/5/2026
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Budget Workshop
3/5/2026
1. Call to Order - 4:30 p.m.
2. Pledge of Allegiance; Moment of Silence
3. Capital Improvement Plan - Jim Frydl, Director of Planning & Zoning
a. FY 2027 CIP - Jim Frydl, Director of Planning and Zoning
Memo.pdf
CIP FY2027 Master Draft.pdf
CIP FY2027 Recommendations.pdf
Fact sheet packet.pdf
CIP FY2026 Recommendations List and Approved Items.pdf
CIP Presentation.pdf
4. Budget Presentation - Mike Murphy, CEO of Jaunt
a. Jaunt Budget Presentation
Presentation.pdf
5. Budget Presentation - Thomas Hutka, Director of Water and Sewer
6. Budget Presentation - James Howard, Director of Social Services
7. Budget Presentation - Melissa Meador, Director of Emergency Services
a. FY 2027 EMS Budget Presentation
Presentation.pdf
8. General budget discussion
9. Adjourn
1. Call to Order - 4:30 p.m.
SPEAKER_02
00:01:35
Good thing you're not married because your wife will just take it like that.
SPEAKER_12
00:01:54
Anyone need a pilot?
SPEAKER_02
00:02:02
Good evening, everyone.
00:02:04
Welcome to the second budget workshop of the Greene County Board of Advisors.
2. Pledge of Allegiance; Moment of Silence
SPEAKER_02
00:02:10
First on our agenda tonight, as is customary, we will stand and pledge a flag and follow it with a moment of silence.
SPEAKER_04
00:02:17
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
SPEAKER_05
00:02:48
All right.
3. Capital Improvement Plan - Jim Frydl, Director of Planning & Zoning
SPEAKER_02
00:02:56
First on our agenda tonight, we have Jim Friedl, who will present to us the Capital Improvement Plan, which, as you all know, is essential to some of the long-term planning that we have to deal with in the budget process.
4. Budget Presentation - Mike Murphy, CEO of Jaunt
SPEAKER_02
00:03:08
So Mr. Friedl will go over that with us now.
00:03:11
Welcome, sir.
00:03:12
Thank you.
SPEAKER_03
00:03:13
Good evening.
00:03:16
I'll be brief.
00:03:18
This is the presentation of the capital improvement plan along with some identified items from the Planning Commission regarding the capital improvement budget.
00:03:32
And we'll just take away from there.
00:03:35
So capital improvement plan is just a listing of all the needs.
00:03:40
It's a planning tool.
00:03:42
Part of what Mr. Catalano mentioned last meeting, planning ahead in order to keep from having big swings in the tax rate.
00:03:54
is planning for capital improvements.
00:03:57
So we have a long list of needs, some of them urgent, some of them nice to have, some of them necessary.
00:04:06
And there are things on the master list of the capital improvement plan that are things that aren't intended
00:04:15
for the county taxpayers and the general fund to pay for.
00:04:19
I want to make that very clear.
00:04:20
There was some confusion there in the past, but there are items that have to be listed in order for developers to donate those to the community, in order for us to get grants and money from other funding sources.
00:04:39
If it's not in our capital improvement plan, it makes it more challenging
00:04:45
to get those awards of cash or accept those gifts.
00:04:50
So there are things in there like the things that have been mentioned many times.
00:04:57
Stanardsville improvements for transportation and for extending sewer in Stanardsville.
00:05:04
and Ruckersville, same thing.
00:05:06
Those are put there in place because Stanardsville and Ruckersville are our two key growth areas and if someone wants to expand our system for us we need those reference.
00:05:16
So there are some items in there that are for that particular purpose only and then again it's a list of all things that have been identified
00:05:26
and the master improvement list.
00:05:28
I don't have a slide of it.
00:05:30
It's the large list that you have and it basically lists things that were identified by all departments and it doesn't break them out by anything other than these are items that are needed.
00:05:45
The ones in the earlier years of the five-year plan are typically more
00:05:52
perceived to be more urgent.
00:05:56
So that's a tool to help plan for things that are upcoming and necessary to take care of.
00:06:01
These are the cans that have been kicked down the road.
00:06:05
Some of them, that road's ending and that can's gonna kick back soon.
00:06:08
So that's why they're on the list.
00:06:11
And then secondary from there, there are a number of items that the Planning Commission
00:06:21
I'll scoot forward.
00:06:24
Planning Commission for 2027 budget had recommended these as important issues to tackle, whether they're things that forward the comprehensive plan, things that are directly related to health, safety and welfare, things that are necessary like the vehicles.
00:06:47
So those were the things that were
00:06:49
In your packet, there is a list of the recommendations the Planning Commission made last year.
00:07:04
In that list, you'll see the ones in yellow that are highlighted on the 26th recommendation list.
00:07:11
Those were the things that the board picked to put into the capital improvement budget out of the list of suggestions.
00:07:19
And then you'll note there's some things in blue that are related to water and sewer.
00:07:23
Those things were added to the capital budget later in the year because they were tied to funding and decisions that needed to be made.
00:07:33
and they just weren't ready to be decided at the time of the capital improvement budget.
00:07:39
So those are the main two sheets.
00:07:42
One, the master list of all the things is a good reference for what we need now, what we might need in the future and two, the suggestion list for this year.
00:07:54
It is heavy on the items that were listed for EMS and that's only because
00:08:03
those are issues that are specific to life-saving health safety and the Planning Commission didn't want to pick between those just wanted to highlight that these are important issues obviously the board's probably not going to select every one of those but the Planning Commission felt like that was a decision they better left for the board but they wanted to make sure the board understood that those are key priorities in the comp plan
00:08:30
So that's the list.
00:08:32
The activity today is just if there's any questions about what the Planning Commission came up with about the list, and then just a reminder on the process.
00:08:45
There's no decision required tonight, but when we adopt the final budget,
00:08:52
will adopt two segments of that budget.
00:08:55
One will be the comprehensive improvement plan, which is the master list, right?
00:09:01
And that's the one that we need to have adopted so we can get the grants and so we can just have out for everyone to start thinking about things for the future.
00:09:10
And then whatever the final decision is the board makes on the capital improvement budget.
00:09:17
So one is just a listing of needs and useful things.
00:09:23
The other is what the board decides we can take down this year.
00:09:30
Any questions or comments?
00:09:34
Questions from the board.
SPEAKER_15
00:09:36
Like you said, if it's not on here, that makes it difficult for grant writing and things like that, correct?
SPEAKER_03
00:09:45
Good question.
00:09:46
So this list actually is just a list that the Planning Commission refined
00:09:51
from the master list.
00:09:54
And of course this is just a suggestion of things that are goals in the comprehensive plan that can be achieved if these are selected for the budget.
00:10:03
But the board can pick anything to put in the capital improvement budget.
00:10:09
and that would include something on the master list that the Planning Commission didn't see or didn't have the same sense of urgency that the board might.
00:10:19
But to answer your question, this list is a suggestion, the other list is the Planning Commission's recommendation of the CIP list.
00:10:29
This is a budget recommendation.
00:10:30
That's a CIP list and that does have to be adopted.
00:10:35
And all the items on that should be adopted because those are the ones that have to be there for grants and accepting proffers and different things.
SPEAKER_02
00:10:49
Other questions?
00:10:54
Thank you, sir.
00:10:54
Thank you.
00:10:55
Appreciate it.
a. Jaunt Budget Presentation
SPEAKER_02
00:10:58
Number four, budget presentation, Mr. Mike Murphy, CEO of John.
00:11:05
Welcome, Mr. Murphy.
SPEAKER_04
00:11:14
Welcome, sir.
SPEAKER_02
00:11:19
How are you today?
00:11:20
I'm great.
00:11:20
How are you all?
00:11:21
Excellent.
SPEAKER_00
00:11:22
Well, I'm here to talk with you a little bit about the budget year for JAWS that will start July 1st and update you on some service improvements and some service opportunities since the last time I stood before you.
00:11:37
Well, in September we just noted it had been 50 years since we put our first six passengers in a bus at Jaunt and so during the course of this year we're celebrating and collecting stories trying to let people know more about Jaunt because one of the biggest obstacles to using the service is people knowing enough about it.
00:12:01
and so all of you will be invited in September when we kind of honor the end of our 50th year with an event in Charlottesville.
00:12:11
And you'll see some new rebranding on the buses that are coming to Greene County starting in the next month or two as we talked to stakeholders, local government partners, people who use the service, our staff.
00:12:26
We wanted to really
00:12:28
talk about what distinguishes John from just any transportation service, any bus that you might get on.
00:12:35
We want to emphasize our values, which are people service connection, and that we are serving the whole region, right?
00:12:44
Some people think about
00:12:45
just what happens with ADA passengers in the city.
00:12:49
We're serving 2800 square miles, City of Charlottesville and six surrounding counties.
00:12:54
And we believe that what distinguishes the service is the level of care that our drivers provide to everybody who gets on a bus.
00:13:03
as the services stand today.
00:13:05
You have Monday through Friday service and I know that this lady here asked me last time, what would it take if I wanted Saturday back anyway?
00:13:16
So we haven't really advanced that, but I can talk about some of the things that we are doing, but it's a Monday through Friday service right now.
00:13:24
Part of that is circulating people around Greene County to where they want to go, and part of that is to get people in and out of the urban core of Charlottesville.
00:13:33
to employment centers, medical providers, etc.
00:13:38
And you see in the green on the right hand side here that every one of our metrics about ridership is up.
00:13:47
More people year over year are using the service than ever.
00:13:51
The last time I was here, these next three slides told you a little bit about the idea for the future of how could we incorporate a microtransit concept.
00:14:02
Years ago, when you all operated your own transit service, Greene County Transit, before it was turned over to Jaunt, you had basically a in the moment dial a ride.
00:14:13
It wasn't operating like our service, which is call and make your reservation one to seven days ahead of time.
00:14:19
Well, we went about, you know, following through on this and I have a million and a half dollars from the state of Virginia to purchase new software that enables that and another quarter million dollars to pilot the idea of what would it mean to give rides to people that want to go to Walmart in 20 minutes and they don't know that two to seven days ahead of that, right?
00:14:43
and so these are just a reminder about what microtransit is the capability to still call if you want to but also to use a mobile app or to go on your laptop and book a ride and that's just a reminder that we studied this with a group out of actually Atlanta and Miami called Benish and I showed you this little scatter map here
00:15:06
and you see that while we serve all of Greene County, there's this huge concentration of rides, you know, where all the lines are represented about the pickups and drop-offs.
00:15:18
And that's going to be really relevant when I talk with you about what we're going to be ready to do starting in April.
00:15:25
and so starting in April, if we have somebody who wants to go, who wants to both be picked up and go to, which is 92% of all the trips in Greene County, somewhere in the shaded area, they'll be able to book on their phone or on the website right away.
00:15:45
If you live further out and you know aren't part of one of these destinations, you will still be able to call as you always have and book one to seven days in advance.
00:15:54
and so there is a mobile application.
00:15:57
We're working with a software provider called Via and so if you've been any closer to town and you see the little vans called MicroCat in the northern part of Albemarle County or in the part by Pantops, same software platform but we'll be running that with jaunt drivers rather than hiring people from the outside.
00:16:19
and so as I referenced, 93% of all pickups happen in the shaded area and 94% of all drop-offs happen in that area.
00:16:28
So we think we're providing an incredibly useful service that's gonna give that in-the-moment feeling to people and knowing they still have the comfort of, hey, I prefer to call somebody to make my reservation and talk to one of the folks sitting in the room at Jaunt, that's okay still.
00:16:46
This is a budget presentation and so I want you to know that going into the next year we're not asking Greene County for any additional dollars to do the work.
00:16:57
There's a little bit of shift towards some new capital expenses because of refreshing the fleet but a little bit less in operations.
00:17:08
and so this is just an idea so that you know you're making a significant investment in junk nearly four hundred thousand dollars a year right but that leverages a lot of dollars that we get from the state and from the federal government and so in the case of our operating side it's almost a four to one you know
00:17:31
Well, three dollars plus your dollar makes that four, right?
00:17:35
And then nearly, what, seven to one on the other side for capital.
00:17:41
What you, I don't know what's happening with my slides on your screen where I lost my L. I don't love it, but we'll send you another one.
00:17:50
We set a policy a few years ago because we want to be great stewards of public dollars.
00:17:55
Jaunt is itself a public service corporation.
00:17:58
And with the seven local governments, when we don't spend all the money you send us, we want to send some of those dollars back.
00:18:05
And we have policies about how much we need to retain for our capital improvement projects and how much needs to be in reserve.
00:18:12
But after that,
00:18:14
You can see that we ended the year for fiscal year 25, so the year that ended June 30th of 25.
00:18:21
We've had our complete audit now, had another fully clean audit, which is another thing that speaks to the fiscal responsibility of our folks at Jaunt.
00:18:31
You see that we ended that year with about one and a half million dollars in excess capital, and that's of about 21 million dollars that were in our budget.
00:18:40
and so once we apply those policies about well we have these capital projects that didn't get completed where we're still needing local match or we've got other reserves that need to be attended to we've got this 1.2 million dollars and then I went to the board in February and said look for the purposes of some additional projects at the facility and with our fleet we're going to need about 200,000 that's what that million dollar figure is and we'll call it the salmon colored column
00:19:10
and now I'm gonna tell you in the purple column one recommendation that's really pertinent to Greene County because we surveyed all of our ridership and stakeholders last summer and we also work with the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission and they have the mobility management grant and so they hear from people about what's the thing that they need most and what we've heard from people in Greene County
00:19:39
was that they would like more of the, what we offer in the way of commuter services, connect services, fixed route stops that will get them from Greene County into and out of Charlottesville.
00:19:52
Stopping along the way at key employers, perhaps at the North Fork Research Park or NJIC,
00:20:01
in Hollymede and then hitting UVA.
00:20:04
I will say that whether we're talking about Buckingham, Nelson, Crozet, 29 North, about 84% of our riders are getting off either at academic UVA or hospital UVA for employment purposes.
00:20:21
And so you'll see in this purple column that
00:20:25
as compared to the pink, we will either on July 1st send you a check for $87,000, returning money that you gave us for use between July 1st of 2024 and June 30th of 2025, or we'll send you a reduced amount of $9,700.
00:20:42
You'll still receive that money, but we would retain $77,000 for this purpose.
00:20:50
Oh, no, don't go that way.
00:20:54
So this is the words of what I've just described.
00:20:58
But it would create this demonstration grant project.
00:21:02
And I don't know why we're not seeing this in the way that I sent it, but let me describe it.
00:21:12
So for two full years, this could create the local match for a new commuter service.
00:21:18
And so from July 1 of 2027,
00:21:23
No, July 1 of 2026 until June 30 of 2028, we would have the planning and advertising and then creation of a new service where you would help with county staff determine where will be the key spots that will stop in Greene County and create a new connect service for your residents in and out of the city of Charlottesville.
00:21:49
Happy to answer questions.
00:21:52
Mostly what I want to do is thank you for inviting me every year to spend time with you.
00:21:57
Ask that when we have our event in September that you do think about RSVPing to attend.
00:22:04
We appreciate the long-standing partnership.
00:22:08
There are some transportation bills that are happening at the state level.
00:22:14
So if you're somebody who talks with local legislators about their support for things that are both budget amendments and budget bill items, we would certainly appreciate that.
00:22:25
Because all over the state there is the need for additional dollars for transportation.
00:22:31
and I'll be happy to answer any questions.
00:22:34
Hope I didn't move too quickly.
SPEAKER_06
00:22:35
Questions for Mr. Murphy.
00:22:38
You were talking about having special locations where you pick up.
00:22:43
What happened with the park and ride?
00:22:46
I mean, because you have to have those locations.
SPEAKER_00
00:22:50
That's right.
SPEAKER_06
00:22:51
And I know a lot of people used to park and ride to save the gas and carpool.
SPEAKER_00
00:22:58
Yeah, so carpool would be the sort of thing that might get organized by the Planning District Commission's Mobility Management Grant Managers.
00:23:09
So that's the sort of question that you might ask Lucinda Shannon or Christine Jacobs if she was to make a presentation to you all.
00:23:19
The way that the Connect service works is very similar.
00:23:23
We talk with, let's say, the Food Lion on 29, and the Walmart, and other key places where we think it would make sense in the corridor.
00:23:40
Will it be okay if our buses parked here overnight?
00:23:44
It doesn't matter in Greene County as much because we park in your fleet facility, but that's how we operate it in the other jurisdictions.
00:23:52
And then we will go to those spots at the designated time and people will be allowed to park there for the day.
00:23:58
And so if you can imagine that we stopped at, let's say, four or five places in Greene County where it was agreed that your residents could park there for the day and ride a jaunt bus,
00:24:10
then there would be probably two opportunities in the morning, two opportunities in the evening to get on that bus and circulate back and one thing that we just added back that didn't exist when there was some budget shortfall during my predecessor's term, we took away midday service and now there is a way for people who come in early in the morning
00:24:33
with a reservation for let's say a doctor's appointment at nine.
00:24:36
They don't have to wait till 3 30 in the afternoon anymore.
00:24:39
They can come back at noon.
00:24:40
We do have a new bus for that.
SPEAKER_13
00:24:44
That's good to hear because I haven't been getting any complaints lately.
00:24:48
But that was one of the big ones that I kept hearing.
00:24:53
You know, I've got an appointment at 9.30, but I can't come back until 3.30 or 4 in the afternoon.
00:24:58
So that's good to hear.
SPEAKER_00
00:24:59
Yeah, and I heard you loud and clear about that.
00:25:01
I heard about that from folks on the staff and your residents about, hey, where did this go?
00:25:08
It was an unpopular thing to take away.
00:25:10
So we're glad to bring it back.
00:25:11
It's been back since July.
SPEAKER_02
00:25:15
Very good.
00:25:17
Other questions?
00:25:19
Thank you, Mr. Murphy.
00:25:20
Appreciate you coming out.
5. Budget Presentation - Thomas Hutka, Director of Water and Sewer
SPEAKER_02
00:25:25
Next we have Tom Huttka, Director of Water and Sewer, to present his budget.
00:25:30
Welcome, sir.
SPEAKER_10
00:25:30
Thank you, sir.
00:25:33
Appreciate it.
00:25:34
Yes, sir.
00:25:35
So in SHORE, the water and sewer system in Greene County is financially healthy, including our plans to build reservoir projects.
00:25:45
We're on track with the financial analysis you first saw in September 2024 and the updates we've done since then.
00:25:55
The reservoir projects are funded by bonds and grants.
00:26:00
Our Stanardsville wastewater treatment plant closure project is funded with a loan.
00:26:06
And the rest are operating costs, which include, as you see all the time, a fair amount of maintenance and everything there.
00:26:14
We're an enterprise fund, which means we're self-supporting financially.
00:26:18
We use user fees, the EDU development fees, and then also connection fees, which are smaller, but they're enough to pay for the cost of those connections.
00:26:29
And I can't stress this enough, we're not using, nor do we plan to use monies from the general fund or from non-customers, people who are not connected to the water service.
00:26:42
This year we're asking for a 3% user fee increase for monthly bills.
00:26:49
And for those of you who were on the board here for the last couple of years, I apologize.
00:26:54
I apologize that I'm going to be boring and tell you that we'll be back to you every year on a regular basis to ask for rate increase for user fees to cover inflation.
00:27:06
Our rates are not self-adjusting with inflation to cover increased costs in pretty much everything we do.
00:27:12
We do need to come back on a regular basis.
00:27:15
The financial plans called for 3%.
00:27:17
Up until last week, I dare say the financial markets looked like 3% inflation, but we're asking for 3%.
00:27:27
That allows us to maintain our healthy and stable financial position.
00:27:34
and one last thing is we are asking for a new position a water and sewer senior accountant largely to handle the extra work when we assume cash and check deposits at our office and it's not just the counter work we have a lot of accounting and office work to support those efforts and then we also have staffing issues that it's
00:28:03
more than recommended.
00:28:04
It's the right thing to do to have two people at the counter or at the counter and behind the counter at all times when we're collecting, when we're dealing in cash.
00:28:14
So in clothing, a short and simple story, but a very good story.
00:28:18
The system is in very good financial health.
SPEAKER_02
00:28:25
Good.
00:28:25
Questions for Mr. Hudka?
SPEAKER_15
00:28:30
I'm sorry, one more time.
00:28:32
The position is an accountant position.
00:28:34
And then you said two people at the counter.
00:28:37
That wasn't additional positions, correct?
00:28:39
It was just the one?
SPEAKER_10
00:28:40
No, just we're asking for one person to supplement our current staff.
00:28:46
And that would give you the two people at the counter, is what you're saying?
00:28:52
Yes, which accounts for vacation, sick leave, and everything else.
00:28:57
we went from with that transition we went from the ladies in my office to billing they'd use they do customer service set up new accounts they were not accepting cash and checks our foot traffic well it's not foot traffic drive up people i daresay is four times what it used to be
SPEAKER_15
00:29:19
And that was the transition, right?
00:29:21
The treasurer's office used to take the payments and now it's you going through your office.
SPEAKER_10
00:29:25
Exactly.
SPEAKER_15
00:29:26
Exactly.
SPEAKER_10
00:29:27
We didn't do it at all.
00:29:28
They did all of it.
00:29:29
Now they don't do it at all.
00:29:30
We do all of it.
00:29:32
Yeah.
00:29:32
Thank you.
00:29:32
No, thank you.
00:29:33
I'm sorry.
00:29:33
You don't know.
SPEAKER_15
00:29:34
Yeah.
00:29:34
I'm just trying to make sure I got things straight.
00:29:36
Right.
00:29:37
So I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02
00:29:38
Other questions?
SPEAKER_06
00:29:42
Mr. Lane?
00:29:44
I saw a backhoe back down at the water treatment plant.
00:29:47
I hope it's going down the hill.
00:29:51
What was there?
00:29:51
A backhoe.
SPEAKER_10
00:29:53
Oh, I think, well, the water treatment plant is a bit of staging area.
00:29:58
Certainly, we're under contract for the new pump station and intake right behind the plant.
00:30:06
So they're mobilizing for that.
00:30:08
You'll see a lot of construction equipment and activity around the plant.
00:30:11
And then also to a certain extent, we're also, the raw water line starts at the plant because that'll continue to be the intake.
00:30:19
So they're doing a little mobilization there too.
00:30:22
Now that the weather's nice and they got all their permits there, they're going to go to town.
00:30:27
Yeah, I like seeing moving dirt.
SPEAKER_02
00:30:30
Absolutely.
00:30:31
Thank you.
00:30:33
Other questions?
00:30:37
Would it be possible to, or do you have a list of your rolling stock equipment-wise, and could you provide that to us before we decide on the budget?
00:30:49
Procurement date, machine hours, and cost new.
00:30:51
Absolutely.
00:30:52
And the same thing with your vehicles.
00:30:54
Procurement date, mileage, cost new.
00:30:58
That would be very helpful.
00:30:59
Sure.
00:31:00
Absolutely.
00:31:02
Okay.
00:31:03
Thank you all.
00:31:05
Thank you.
00:31:05
Appreciate it.
00:31:08
James Howard, Director of Social Services.
00:31:10
He was hiding.
00:31:11
I thought he wasn't here.
6. Budget Presentation - James Howard, Director of Social Services
SPEAKER_02
00:31:12
You can run, but you can't hide.
00:31:15
Apparently I failed.
00:31:16
You stood up.
00:31:19
You didn't stand up.
SPEAKER_14
00:31:19
It would have been all right.
00:31:21
I gave myself away.
00:31:22
That's usually my fault.
00:31:25
So I am James Howard, Director of Greene County Social Services, and I want to thank you all for
00:31:33
Letting me speak tonight about our budget.
00:31:37
For me, I'm like a walking two for one deal because I also get to talk about the Children's Services Act.
00:31:43
And so, one at a time, when I woke up at
00:31:48
three this morning I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to say to you all and so that developed between three and five-ish and fortunately for you all what I came up with was keep it as simple as possible as it would be and so what is it that's happening with social services right now where are where are our points of growth
00:32:18
and there's three.
00:32:19
And so we would see growth this coming year, probably in our 4E foster care line and our 4E adoption subsidy.
00:32:34
And so those are actually good expenditures because number one, we're helping kids, but number two, every dollar spent in those lines is a dollar that's not spent on the CSA
00:32:48
side where there is a pretty substantial local match and there is no match for those budget lines.
00:32:56
So in FY 25 we were actually able to reimburse the county.
00:33:00
$200,000 in 4E funds that would have otherwise been spent through the CSA program.
00:33:08
So it is fairly significant.
00:33:10
They're just difficult programs to apply because the federal government has evolved.
00:33:18
And so
00:33:20
The third place of growth would be, of course, personnel.
00:33:24
So we're looking at a proposed 4% increase.
00:33:29
We're looking at a significant 15% health insurance increase.
00:33:34
And then James Howard is standing here before you asking for two positions.
00:33:39
And so that's what I wanted to spend the majority of my time talking about tonight to explain why we would do such a thing because of my
00:33:49
25 years of presenting budget here.
00:33:51
I don't think I've ever done that.
00:33:55
In fact, when I first came to Greene, we had 15 and three quarters employees and now we have 24 and three quarters employees.
00:34:03
So there were 15 years where I imagine we didn't ask for anybody.
00:34:08
But social services is divided into three basic houses, if you will.
00:34:14
So we have benefits, we have services, and then we have the support unit that of course keeps everybody chugging along.
00:34:24
And so on the benefit side, where we're asking for a position, there are the people who determine eligibility for programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,
00:34:38
or Medicaid, energy assistance, child care, view temporary assistance to needy families.
00:34:46
They're the ones that determine all of those kind of programs.
00:34:49
And if you think those programs, when you think to yourself, well, you know, how significant can that be in little old Greene?
00:34:58
Well, dollar figure wise, we're talking about probably about
00:35:05
45 comes to the tune of about $45 million in benefits that come out of those determinations.
00:35:11
And I'm telling you that because we'll be important in a second.
00:35:16
For SNAP, we have about 940 households in Greene right now, represents just under 2,000 people.
00:35:24
And for Medicaid, it's about
00:35:29
4,150 or so persons in Greene that are receiving Medicaid.
00:35:36
So as you all know, there are some changes, significant changes on the federal level come October 1st that changed some of our requirements.
00:35:47
It put the pressure on the state to become more accountable with how it implements
00:35:53
some of those programs, namely SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance and Medicaid.
00:36:01
And so this year we've been dealing with the changes that came along for SNAP.
00:36:07
Next year we're going to be looking at some pretty significant changes when it comes to Medicaid.
00:36:13
So our caseloads in Greene, I was interested to watch October 1st if they would start to go down some because some of the
00:36:21
you know the federal government came along and implemented requirements that make us look a little more closely at people's income and what they're doing and household composition and all of that their expenses and all that kind of good stuff and so our
00:36:36
I was kind of anticipating our cases would drop more than they have.
00:36:41
And so our cases have stayed pretty level.
00:36:46
There's been a slight drop.
00:36:48
In SNAP, for instance, a year ago, we were probably at 970 cases.
00:36:54
Now we're at 940 cases.
00:36:56
It was not the drop that I was expecting.
00:37:00
So caseloads have stayed up there.
00:37:02
But what the
00:37:03
federal government and the state are doing are telling us to do certain things that require us to touch that case and to touch that person more frequently.
00:37:15
I'm not saying whether that's good.
00:37:16
I'm not saying whether that's bad.
00:37:18
It's just a change.
00:37:19
And so it is far more labor intensive to do the same thing that we've been doing with the same number of cases and hence the
00:37:31
need or the request for another worker.
00:37:34
You know, one of the things the federal government, hence the state, is doing is increasing accountability.
00:37:40
And so they, like in SNAP, they want the, there's an error rate, and so they want that error rate to come down.
00:37:50
And if it doesn't come down, then the federal government is going to shortly impose
00:37:55
If the error rate stays where it's at now, what the federal government is going to do is impose a $280 million fine, if you will, on the state of Virginia.
00:38:04
And so that's significant.
00:38:06
My concern is that what they're already doing is implementing dashboards, if you will, to start showing what each individual locality is doing with its error rate.
00:38:19
And my fear is that if that cost gets passed down to the state,
00:38:23
it's gonna ultimately in some form or fashion get passed down to the locality.
00:38:29
And so, you know, we want to ensure that our cases are being not only for the benefit of the client but we want to make sure that our determinations are correct so that that cost does not get passed along to Greene County and hence the request for the benefits eligibility worker.
00:38:52
On the service side, those are the programs like child protective services, adult protective services, adult services, foster care prevention, foster care itself.
00:39:04
Those would be the main.
00:39:05
So those cases have seen an increase.
00:39:09
We have a substantially increased rate of child protective services.
00:39:13
We have a substantially increased rate of adult protective services.
00:39:17
As more people move into the county, obviously,
00:39:21
that's going to increase regardless of what you do or want to happen is going to increase.
00:39:28
That has resulted for us in an increase in foster care prevention cases as a result as well as foster care.
00:39:36
At least for this past year, we've had an extremely high rate of kids in foster care and that's not
00:39:45
Chief.
00:39:46
In fact, we have a rate of kids in foster care that probably rivals many middle to large size localities.
00:39:56
We've had a considerable substance abuse issue, mental health issue, behavioral health issue that has just
00:40:06
been very difficult.
00:40:07
And so the good news is those foster care numbers are coming down a little bit.
00:40:11
We've seen a number of adoptions this year, and it feels good.
00:40:18
I always enjoy signing the adoption consent orders and the paperwork to see kids finding permanency.
00:40:26
And so on a
00:40:29
at the same time, of course, because it's a recurring theme that seems to be across the locality, do more and pay more, right?
00:40:38
So the state and the federal government come along and they want to extend their control over the minutiae of our processes that we do
00:40:49
through mandates, and they want you to pay for it.
00:40:53
Unfunded mandates, right?
00:40:55
And so, you know, it's a painful process, but at the same time our caseloads and services are increasing, the state is coming along and actively, and I use that word advisedly, very actively wanting to increase our caseloads in, they're finding ways,
00:41:19
Again, not saying good thing, bad thing.
00:41:21
I'm just saying it is an is thing.
00:41:23
And so they're wanting to increase our cases that we accept into Child Protective Services.
00:41:29
They want to extend the cases that we accept into foster care prevention.
00:41:34
And they're removing some of the options that we've had in the past to keep kids out of foster care.
00:41:43
you know that's all fine and dandy if you give us the resources to be able to do that but they're not giving the resources to be able to do that and so we come to the locality and we say hey we need the resources to be able to do those things and so that's kind of where we're at with the two positions you know I love quotes so my quote of the day and my commitment to the community is you know when everyone in a room thinks alike
00:42:11
There's little danger of innovation.
00:42:13
And so I don't want to stand here before you all and tell you that I need you to throw more money at this problem because that's not always the answer.
00:42:26
So if I understand the constraints the county is under, I know it's a difficult time.
00:42:32
What I can tell you is, and my commitment to the community is, if you are unable to fund both or one of the positions, Greene County Social Services is going to continue its commitment to the community.
00:42:44
We're going to continue our customer-focused service.
00:42:49
We're going to continue being accountable to the locality, to the state, and to the federal government.
00:42:53
and we're going to continue our stewardship of the use of taxpayer monies because they're hard to come by and so if you have any questions I would be more than glad to answer them or if you when you're going through line by line and you see a mystery something or other you know I'll try to be available at any point in time whichever budget meeting it is so.
SPEAKER_06
00:43:19
Question for Mr. Howard.
00:43:21
Could you tell me what is the foster care right now for children?
SPEAKER_14
00:43:27
So this past year in FY25, we hit a high of 46, I believe, which is in the teen years.
00:43:36
We had three or four kids in foster care.
00:43:40
We had 46 as a high.
00:43:42
Right now, I believe we're probably at 30.
00:43:47
Five, we're working it down.
00:43:51
We're working hard.
00:43:52
The people in my office are working very hard to get kids adopted or get them reunified with their families or get them to some point of permanency with a relative.
00:44:02
It's been a struggle.
SPEAKER_06
00:44:04
I know you got some adopted and I thought they were probably the happiest in the realm.
00:44:11
It's a good feeling.
00:44:12
It is.
SPEAKER_02
00:44:15
Mr. Howard, if you had to pick between the two positions.
SPEAKER_14
00:44:20
I anticipated such a question.
00:44:22
Which one is the most important to you?
00:44:25
So my initial thought was, to be quite honest, because I've already kind of, I don't know, it was probably around 3.30 or 3.45 this morning, I started thinking, well, what if?
00:44:36
And so that innovation quote comes along where, so my initial thought was, well, it's going to be the service worker because that's where
00:44:45
We have our greatest pressure at this point to make sure that kids are safe and our elderly disabled populations are safe.
00:44:56
But the more I thought about it, the more I thought, well, actually it would probably be the benefits worker because I have more creative options on the service side through the use of interns.
00:45:07
We have an intern right now through George Mason University, a master social worker.
00:45:13
intern who has done a lot, I can envision growing that program at a very low cost and using more interns.
00:45:24
And I don't want to say all that cutting my throat, which is a terrible slogan, but just saying.
00:45:33
But if I had to, I would probably go with the benefits because I have less options to extend getting that work done.
SPEAKER_02
00:45:43
Okay.
SPEAKER_14
00:45:45
We should call each other at 3.30.
00:45:52
So now I am the CPMT chair.
00:45:55
My name is James Howard, which I'd like to talk about the Children's Services Act very briefly, if that would be OK.
00:46:10
What is the Children's Services Act?
00:46:11
It's a multidisciplinary structure at each locality within the state of Virginia because it's a state locally funded program.
00:46:20
It doesn't receive any federal dollars.
00:46:23
is required to implement and so essentially what it entails is there's a family assessment planning team which includes the caseworkers from the schools, from Region 10, from social services, from the court service unit and they get together
00:46:43
and talk about families that intersect kind of all of those entities and so they come up with a collaborative kind of cohesive service plan and the intent is to create this fabric of help for these high-risk families that
00:47:07
is not redundant and it uses funds efficiently across the spectrum of the entities that are around that table.
00:47:16
And so it leaves the family assessment planning team and comes over to my side at the community policy management team.
00:47:24
And we are responsible for developing the policies that guide the implementation of the program within the county.
00:47:31
And then we
00:47:34
approve funding requests that come out of those service plans for the community.
00:47:42
And so the ticket at the end of the day, and there are different forms of how that money is applied.
00:47:50
Some services are required to fund and some services are, if we have the money and we get a pot of money of about
00:48:04
$12,396 that allows us to help some of the people that may not be what is referred to as a mandated service.
00:48:13
And so it's a little pot of money and most of the services are mandated anyway because the entities that sit around the table are very good at focusing those energies on the families that really need the assistance.
00:48:30
but the price tag still adds up.
00:48:33
And so in years past, I've come to y'all and I've sometimes rambled on, I'll admit it about CSA because I could probably talk about CSA all day.
00:48:44
But what I wanna do if it's okay with you all for just a couple of minutes is paint you a different picture because if I was you sitting there or if I was the public,
00:48:57
I would still see CSA as a mystery.
00:49:02
And so the picture that I want to paint you all is of a six year old girl who is living in squalid conditions here in the county because there's children in the room.
00:49:17
She is being abused by other male family members, more than one, and her sister lays across her at night to keep her from being bitten by rats.
00:49:32
It's a child that could not develop socially or emotionally or educationally.
00:49:38
She didn't have that opportunity to do that because of her living conditions.
00:49:43
And so when a child like that comes into our care and sometimes for two or three years at a time, you know, we have to house that child.
00:49:51
We have to feed that child and we have to make sure that child has his medical needs met.
00:49:56
And we have to,
00:49:57
provide services to the child for whatever the child may need to deal with the trauma that they've lived through.
00:50:03
We have to help the parents.
00:50:06
Sometimes it's multiple sets of parents that may be involved.
00:50:11
We have to offer services to the relatives.
00:50:14
We have to try to find some way to reunify that child, if at all possible, with some type of relative system within that child's domain.
00:50:25
And so
00:50:28
that child that has experienced so much is expensive.
00:50:33
It's not cheap to do all of those things.
00:50:35
And sometimes those children end up in a residential placement because of the trauma that they've experienced.
00:50:42
And it comes at a price.
00:50:47
But what I can tell you is that six year old little girl that we're talking about two or three years later
00:50:53
has been adopted and has a family now that she can call permanent and forever and it's a family that she can come home to at Christmas when she's grown and it's a family that will help her in college and it's a family that she can rely on through her teenage years and so I don't know how you put a price tag
00:51:22
I know you have to, but I don't know how you put a price tag on getting a result where a child comes out of what she was experiencing and moves into what she's now living.
00:51:34
That's what CSA does.
00:51:41
And so last year in FY 25, there were 117 other kids
00:51:47
just like that, whether they came through the schools or whether they came for whatever reason or whether they came through region 10 or whether they came through the court services unit or whether they came through social services.
00:52:00
There were 118 of them all together last year that we served.
00:52:06
And so the only number I'm going to give you is that across the spectrum, when you look at the state average expenditure for children, it was about $39,000 per
00:52:18
whereas ours was about $28,000.
00:52:20
So I feel like we are spending our money very wisely, even though the price tag is large.
00:52:28
that works very hard to come up with that service plan.
00:52:33
And then CPMT works very hard to go over it all again, review it.
00:52:39
It's not rubber stamped, I can assure you, and looks very hard at, well, are there other options?
00:52:45
Does this make sense?
00:52:46
Is this sufficient?
00:52:47
Is this good for the county?
00:52:48
Is this good for the family or the child?
00:52:51
And so it's an involved process that
00:52:55
We take very seriously because again, we know the price tag is big and we know whose money it is.
00:53:01
And so that's kind of CSA in a nutshell.
00:53:06
So if you have any questions about that, I'm glad to entertain that as well.
SPEAKER_02
00:53:11
Questions about CSA?
00:53:15
We've watched you navigate that minefield for many years and you do it expertly.
SPEAKER_14
00:53:19
Sometimes I feel like I'm throwing darts at them blindly.
00:53:25
could end up anywhere.
00:53:26
But if y'all come up with any questions, you know where to find me.
00:53:29
Yes, sir.
00:53:30
Right back there.
00:53:30
I believe you.
SPEAKER_02
00:53:33
Thank you.
00:53:35
Thank you, sir.
00:53:36
Appreciate it.
7. Budget Presentation - Melissa Meador, Director of Emergency Services
SPEAKER_02
00:53:38
All right.
00:53:39
Budget presentation for EMS.
00:53:42
Melissa Matter.
SPEAKER_09
00:53:45
Welcome.
00:53:46
The press now after Mr. Albert presentation.
00:53:56
Good evening, Mr.
00:53:58
Chair, members of the board.
00:53:59
Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to speak this evening.
00:54:04
We are going to be discussing our staffing request, providing an overview of data from calendar year 2025, and a few highlights that we have towards the end.
00:54:16
Now it is 26 slides, but I talk fast anyway.
00:54:19
I promise we're going to get through this quickly.
00:54:22
With me this evening, I have our EMS operations captain Ali Akbar, our administrative manager, operations manager, Kimberly Morris, our logistics officer, Ed Fisher, also known as Fish.
00:54:34
If you call him Ed, I'm not going to know who you're talking about.
00:54:37
And Lieutenant Chuck Stockton is with us tonight as well.
00:54:41
He is on duty.
00:54:42
So if you see him run out of here, don't worry.
00:54:44
Just has a call he needs to attend to.
00:54:46
Our staffing request this year revolves around two new full-time positions.
00:54:59
These two full-time positions would even out our four shifts.
00:55:02
We have four shifts, A, B, C, D. Two of those shifts have seven providers, two of them have six.
00:55:07
So this would allow us to be consistent across the board in those four shifts.
00:55:13
Having seven providers on each shift would enable us to have three fully staffed ambulances 24-7 and the lieutenant and the QRB, the quick response vehicle.
00:55:26
Our minimum staffing is five providers.
00:55:30
And sometimes, especially those shifts that have six people, if we have like one call out, it kind of cripples us pretty quickly and we go down to that minimum staffing level.
00:55:43
Okay.
00:55:46
Rising call volume.
00:55:47
Ali is going to talk about this in a few minutes as well, but our demand is just continuing to climb every year, requiring additional staffing to maintain that service reliability that we want and we need for the county.
00:56:05
We, from 2024 to 2025 calendar year, our call volume increased 10.76%.
00:56:11
That is the highest it has ever been.
00:56:14
We've never broken 3,000 calls.
00:56:17
Calendar year 25, we had 3,162.
00:56:22
So going to the staffing model would also maintain field supervision, command support, and advanced practice clinical oversight on every shift.
00:56:31
It would support the advanced care delivery.
00:56:34
with enabling the use of advanced practice protocols and consistent on-scene operations that certainly improve patient outcomes.
00:56:43
Again, I already talked about the three ambulances being staffed 24-7.
00:56:47
That ensures appropriate unit availability for simultaneous emergencies and peak call times.
00:56:53
I'm not sure what it is about Greene County, but calls don't like to come one at a time.
00:57:01
You see five or six sometimes in a span of 30 to 40 minutes.
00:57:05
And that happens frequently.
00:57:08
And I just really don't have any rhyme or reason for that, but it does happen a lot.
00:57:12
And then, of course, you know, improves operational readiness.
00:57:15
Like I said, one call out would not cripple us completely.
00:57:25
Reduces NUA occurrences.
00:57:28
NUA is no units available.
00:57:30
Ali's going to talk a little more about that as well.
00:57:33
But additional personnel would directly improve system readiness and reduce delays in our emergency response capabilities.
00:57:40
Meet projected population and call growth.
00:57:43
No secret, county's growing or call volume's growing.
00:57:47
With that, that demand for EMS services is on the forefront every day.
00:57:52
and then I think it would align with our community expectations and the service standards that we have set in-house as well.
00:58:00
Residents and visitors expect timely service, good service, professional service, capable service.
00:58:09
So adequate staffing ensures that we meet those expectations.
00:58:14
Improve safety for staff and residents.
00:58:15
Proper staffing reduces fatigue, burnout and risk of errors.
00:58:19
while allowing safer respect practices.
00:58:22
And then recruitment and retention.
00:58:23
Competitive stable staffing levels help attract and retain qualified providers.
00:58:28
We've had people that have come to work for us simply because we don't hold over.
00:58:35
We try very hard not to hold over.
00:58:38
If we do hold over, we try to keep someone from that current shift 12 hours, and then someone from the next day shift come in 12 hours, so we're not going above 36.
00:58:48
We've had people that have come to work for us that have come from other agencies that are being held 72 hours, 96 hours, and that's just not something we do.
00:58:57
I just, if that means I have to get on a truck, Ali gets on a truck, Fish gets on a truck, that's what we do.
00:59:04
Call volume, you can just see from the chart here how it's
00:59:09
definitely increased from 24 to 25.
00:59:12
Historically, we had only been seeing increases like maybe 1% to 2.5%.
00:59:16
I think the exception of that was 2020 to 2021, we jumped up almost 9%, but we've never been this high from 24 to 25.
00:59:30
Our top 10 call types for 25, very similar to what you saw last year.
00:59:35
Just a couple things of quick note here are sick person calls and
00:59:42
24 were 477 so that did increase up to 585.
00:59:48
Cardiac related type calls in 24 were 226 and that jumped up to 363.
00:59:55
One thing that I found surprising when we were pulling this, motor vehicle crashes.
00:59:59
In 2024 we responded to 239 vehicle crashes and then calendar year 25 was 148.
01:00:09
It just seemed like it was more than that.
01:00:12
So I was a little shocked by that number.
01:00:13
And then, of course, other fall types that we run daily, strokes, allergic reactions, overdoses.
01:00:21
You can see those there.
01:00:25
I'm going to let Captain Akbar start here.
01:00:29
He's going to discuss mutual aid data, NUA data, and call data.
SPEAKER_01
01:00:37
Welcome, sir.
01:00:39
City Board members.
01:00:40
How are you guys?
01:00:41
Awesome.
01:00:43
So mutual aid.
01:00:45
What is mutual aid?
01:00:46
It's when all available units for the county are completely stuck on other calls and we don't have any available units to respond to calls that are coming in.
01:01:00
In 2025, we
01:01:04
requested mutual aid from our neighboring jurisdictions and so our 2025 requests were about 32 which is a decrease in number of requests that we've had to make since 2024 which was 35.
01:01:19
So mutual aid supported about 22 of the 32 requests
01:01:24
As you can see, 15 were answered by Madison.
01:01:27
Five times we placed them in service.
01:01:30
That's what the PIS means.
01:01:32
And then orange, six were answered by orange.
01:01:36
And out of all of our calls, 10 were unanswered.
01:01:41
And it just took us a while to get to that patient.
01:01:45
Three of which were ALS, seven were BLS, so Basic Life Support.
01:01:50
So beyond just, well, mutual aid works both ways.
01:01:57
Sometimes we request, sometimes the other counties request.
01:02:00
So in 2025, surrounding agencies requested Greene County about 27 times, which is a huge decrease in number from before, which is 36.
01:02:12
Or sorry, yeah, I was right.
01:02:17
We were able to support 22 of the 27 requests, which is pretty good overall.
01:02:25
For Madison, we denied them three times but responded to five.
01:02:31
15 for Orange, two were denied.
01:02:34
Two for Albemarle, we were placed in service.
01:02:37
And then five requests were denied completely because we were short-staffed ourselves or didn't have enough units available to go.
01:02:45
But even with everything going on, we've been trying really hard to help our neighboring jurisdictions because they've been super supportive of us.
01:02:58
The overall was pretty good though.
01:03:00
I think we had 27 mutual aid requests, or 2024 was 36.
01:03:10
We were able to respond to more, I feel like 29 over 36.
01:03:15
So before moving on, I do want to sort of highlight the overall growth in demand for EMS services in Greene County.
01:03:24
Can we go back to the bar graph real quick?
01:03:26
One quick thing I just want to point out is the increase in total call volume from 2020 all the way to 2025.
01:03:38
That's an additional 682 calls that we've
01:03:43
added.
01:03:43
That's an increase of about 28%, so 27.5 to be exact, and that's growth over five years.
01:03:51
Now, if you compare that to the population growth, right, along the same lines, the population went from 20,131 to 22,097, which represents about a 9.8% population growth,
01:04:10
So the point of me talking about this is we've had a 28% increase in our call volume, but only a 9% increase in population.
01:04:22
So what that means is the demand for our services are pretty much increasing three times faster than the population growth.
01:04:33
So moving on to our
01:04:38
NUA data, yep.
01:04:41
I feel this is one of the most important things that we've been tracking.
01:04:46
No units available is essentially when we don't have any units available in the county.
01:04:53
How we've been tracking is how many times were all trucks out of the county and we just didn't have any coverage if a call were to come out.
01:05:04
So we documented that by the time how long we were NUA.
01:05:11
The lieutenants have been really good about documenting this and sending out alerts whenever we go NUA.
01:05:17
The part that really sort of
01:05:21
Stakes out is, you know, why is this happening?
01:05:25
Usually it's because of insufficient staffing, because we don't have enough people to staff the units.
01:05:31
And then other issues, the main one is that we have an increase in our call volume.
01:05:39
There's also been extended hospital offload times.
01:05:45
There have been cases where it's taken us four hours to drop the patient off at specific hospitals.
01:05:54
And then road delays, travel delays, stuff like that.
01:05:56
The operational concern from this is that sometimes when we're NUA,
01:06:04
One of our units is going to be outside the county.
01:06:07
They have to respond back to the county and they have to come back license irons.
01:06:11
So not only are we increasing the risk for the public, we're also increasing the risk on our own people having to respond back quickly to go to the call.
01:06:26
The NUA data, as I was mentioning, occurrence wise, we had 177 occurrences of NUA, which is
01:06:37
You know, an increase from 2024 because we had 163 in 2024.
01:06:42
The total number of times that we were NUA for more than 15 minutes was 155 and then 30 minutes was 121 and we were NUA for over an hour 67 times.
01:06:56
So if a call went out within that hour, we would not have any units available.
01:07:01
We would have to ask for mutual aid and that's if we get it.
SPEAKER_09
01:07:04
I just wanted to add in here, I put some of the call types that 67 times when we did not have an ambulance available for over an hour, those were some of the call types that were pending.
SPEAKER_01
01:07:22
The frequency of NUAs will continue to go up as the county grows if we don't continue to increase staffing and placement or number of units staffed.
01:07:36
So next I'll talk about is the call volume sort of distributed by geography across Greene County.
01:07:42
In 2025, if you notice, the Ruckersville area accounted for the most number of calls.
01:07:48
It's about 59%
01:07:50
Now that's an increase from 55% from 2024.
01:07:55
Stanardsville had about 32%, which is a decrease from 2024 because it was 36%.
01:08:02
And Dyke is
01:08:05
8%, but it's increased by about a percent, so 1% increase.
01:08:12
Mutual aid calls wise, we went to Orange 17 times this, or in 2025, and to Madison about six times.
01:08:21
So as you can see, one of the things that sticks out is Ruckersville, because most of our development is in the Ruckersville corridor, that's where most of our call volume is.
01:08:35
The next slide I'll go over is the transport destinations kind of shows where we're taking most of our patients.
01:08:41
So the combined 80% of our patients pretty much go to Martha Jefferson Freestanding and UVA.
01:08:49
Those are the two hospitals that take most of our patients.
01:08:52
UVA actually went down from 40% to 39%, 2024 to 25%.
01:08:59
And the freestanding actually has gone from 39 to 43%, which is great because they're able to take more people, allowing us to come back into the county.
01:09:09
And Martha Jefferson Maine Hospital went from 21% to about 18%.
01:09:17
Also, we've had more transports to Culpeper, which is usually like a mutual aid thing, but you got to think about it in terms of how long it takes our unit to get back into the county.
01:09:27
So we actually went to Culpeper four times less or in 2025.
01:09:34
So now I'll go over some of our response times.
01:09:37
So the average mobilization time from dispatch until a unit begins responding was one minute and 31 seconds, which is pretty great.
01:09:47
We've actually slashed seven seconds off of our mobilization time, which is great.
01:09:52
And our average response time has been 959.
01:09:56
That one's kind of tough to control in 2024, it was about 934.
01:10:01
And then obviously mutual aid calls are going to take longer for us to respond to.
01:10:07
So as you can see, our average on-scene time is now 19 minutes and 24 seconds, which has improved from 19 minutes and 36 seconds.
01:10:15
Our overall average transport time has been 28 minutes and 33 seconds, which is an improvement from 29 to 28.
01:10:29
And as you can see, those are the transport times to different hospitals.
01:10:34
In addition to the response times, we also track the total amount of time an ambulance and crew are committed to a call.
01:10:41
In 2025, the average total time for dispatch until the ambulance returned back in service within the county was approximately one hour and 18 minutes.
01:10:50
The total time includes the response time, time spent on scene with the patient, transport to the hospital, and then the time required to transfer care and return back to the county.
01:11:00
So that's all encompassing.
01:11:02
During that entire period, the ambulance and crews are unavailable to respond to additional emergencies, which adds to our NUA occurrences.
01:11:13
So as call volume increases, longer unit commitment times can quickly reduce the number of available ambulances within our system.
01:11:21
And that's something that we wanted to point out.
SPEAKER_09
01:11:26
Do you all have any questions regarding the statistical data?
01:11:31
That was a lot.
SPEAKER_07
01:11:32
I kind of like rushed through it.
SPEAKER_09
01:11:36
Questions?
SPEAKER_02
01:11:38
Comments, questions?
01:11:40
Thank you all very much.
SPEAKER_09
01:11:41
Oh, we're not done.
01:11:44
He was just done.
SPEAKER_02
01:11:45
He was the appetizer.
SPEAKER_09
01:11:48
Questions about stats.
SPEAKER_02
01:11:50
Ah, no stat questions.
SPEAKER_09
01:11:51
Okay, but I'll go fast, I promise.
SPEAKER_02
01:11:53
Rock on.
SPEAKER_09
01:11:54
Okay, auxiliary status.
01:11:57
This program was launched in early 2025.
01:12:00
and is currently being handled by existing staff, which really was never the intent, but we're making it work.
01:12:07
There are three tiers to the program.
01:12:09
Tier one was public relations and community outreach.
01:12:12
Tier two, education and training.
01:12:14
and Tier 3 was actually getting on the ambulance and responding to calls.
01:12:18
People could choose one, two or all three.
01:12:21
This program has not produced momentum or much interest and I just don't see that changing.
01:12:30
So at this point we do need some board direction.
01:12:33
We don't need it tonight, which is something for you all to think about.
01:12:37
Do we want to give recruitment another shot?
01:12:41
or do we want to eliminate the program?
01:12:44
The insurance for the auxiliary program is about $8,000 a year and only yielding one or two people, is it worth the cost?
01:12:56
So that's something we're going to have to discuss sooner rather than later.
01:13:01
Benefits of approving our staff request.
01:13:03
We are asking for two positions, one paramedic, one EMT, salary and benefits.
01:13:07
Thank you, Dan and Lisa, for getting that.
01:13:10
Insures the coverage, the fully staffed three ambulances and the QRV around the clock.
01:13:17
Increased unit availability allows faster deployment to emergencies.
01:13:21
Assigning the lieutenant to the QRV provides continuous field supervision command support in that advanced scope of practice.
01:13:30
Additional staffing will increase the number of preceptors and reduces delays in bringing new hires into full duty.
01:13:37
And morale and reduces fatigue.
01:13:41
Again, balanced staffing decreases that burnout and creates a healthier, more sustainable work environment.
01:13:51
Fulfilling, excuse me, filling current gaps can decrease overtime and resilience on staff to cover shortages.
01:13:59
personnel will have the capacity for more regular focused and high quality training.
01:14:04
Some days, like today, I didn't see one of the crews.
01:14:08
He's listening to the call.
01:14:10
I didn't see one of the crews.
01:14:11
I got to work about 830 and I didn't see them until almost 2 o'clock.
01:14:14
They were just back to back on stuff today, so that doesn't leave a lot of time for training, and that's something we really focus on and we really want that to be top notch.
01:14:28
Makes minimum staffing the exception, not the norm.
01:14:31
Insures operational resilience even during those high call volume times or absences.
01:14:38
Reduces the need to return from the hospital with lights and sirens solely to cover pending calls.
01:14:43
Reducing that crash risk, injuries, and workers comp exposure.
01:14:48
And then it better aligns with citizen expectations.
01:14:52
Provides the level of EMS service the community expects and the community deserves.
01:14:58
So some of the considerations, overtime costs, if this isn't funded, overtime costs will continue at current levels.
01:15:08
No dedicated supervisor available for two shifts, reducing that oversight, support and accountability.
01:15:14
The underutilization of the QRV.
01:15:17
Limited staffing depth reduces flexibility, response resilience, and the ability to handle simultaneous high acuity calls.
01:15:26
The NUA is going to remain a concern.
01:15:28
And growth, growth pressures, call volume and overall growth.
01:15:34
And I know the one in the middle doesn't want to hear me say this.
01:15:39
We may be getting at the point where we may need a fourth ambulance or a power shift type ambulance for 12 hours during those peak call times.
01:15:50
I thought maybe I would get away with one or two fiscal years not asking for staff after this, but I'm just not sure right now.
01:16:01
So that's something we'll obviously keep an eye on.
01:16:05
Revenue recovery.
01:16:06
We do bill for service.
01:16:09
Calendar year 2025 we took in just over $865,000.
01:16:14
There is an update to our billing schedule that's going to be necessary.
01:16:18
We last updated in 2023
01:16:20
The billing company usually likes us to do that every two-ish years to look at those rates.
01:16:27
So be expecting that soon.
01:16:29
But I will work with Ms. Shafrick to be in sync with any fee changes that you all make this year to take effect July 1 of 2026.
01:16:38
And this in no way affects soft billing of county residents.
01:16:42
Just want to throw that out there.
01:16:46
Okay.
01:16:46
General comments.
01:16:48
Some of you have probably heard me say this before.
01:16:49
There are no
01:16:53
No grants at the state level, at the federal level to assist with EMS only staffing.
01:17:00
You know, at some point, we're going to have to look at COVID by or once we do that, we'll have the safer grant to assist with with that staffing.
01:17:09
We're not eligible for comp board funding.
01:17:11
We don't have any of that.
01:17:14
So
01:17:16
It relies on you all to sustain our operations.
01:17:22
Investing locally is not just a preference.
01:17:25
It's the only viable and sustainable strategy that we have right now.
01:17:31
We're still a relatively new department.
01:17:32
Growth pains are normal.
01:17:35
We're young.
01:17:37
And these type requests, they're normal.
01:17:42
Okay.
01:17:43
You know, in all public safety agencies are normal.
01:17:46
I don't know that there's been a time where I was able to decrease much of anything in our operational budget.
01:17:53
I don't want to speak for the sheriff.
01:17:55
I think he left.
01:17:57
But I think you probably will see the same thing in his budgets.
01:18:00
You know, we just don't have that ability to decrease in a lot of areas.
01:18:05
But our demands keep growing every day.
01:18:09
So, and you know, I still feel like we're in the building stage, right?
01:18:12
We're only five years old.
01:18:13
We just celebrated our five year anniversary.
01:18:16
The decisions that we make now are certainly only going to help this department in the future.
01:18:23
So earlier this evening, you received some information on capital improvement projects.
01:18:28
And yes, we did submit 10 projects.
01:18:32
However,
01:18:34
We work very hard on grants with Miss Biggie.
01:18:40
Grants are important in our department.
01:18:42
We are small.
01:18:43
We are rural.
01:18:45
There's just no way you could ever attack everything that we need.
01:18:48
It's just not going to happen.
01:18:50
So we look for ways to offset.
01:18:53
local tax dollars and we do that with Miss Biggie and I think we do a pretty good job of that.
01:18:59
These are in order of priority and really the only one that I would like for the board to concentrate on this year is that first one, the Ruckersville EMS station, the Ruckersville EMS substation.
01:19:14
That request revolves around life safety.
01:19:18
Plain and simple.
01:19:20
With 59% of all of our EMS calls originating in that Ruckersville district, that is where that greatest need is right now.
01:19:29
And a strategically located facility somewhere in that district has the potential to decrease our response time to that area by 8 to 10 minutes.
01:19:39
Well, cardiac arrests, strokes, heart attacks, traumas, you know, those type things.
01:19:46
Those minutes are going to count.
01:19:47
Eight minutes is going to make a difference.
01:19:49
Nine minutes, ten minutes.
01:19:50
It's going to make a huge difference in whether that person lives or dies.
01:19:56
The growth is coming.
01:19:57
It's already here.
01:19:58
We know that.
01:20:00
Ruckersville is seeing it.
01:20:02
We've got Creekside, Terrace Green and others, the Arbors.
01:20:05
And that senior population is a big portion of our EMS falls.
01:20:11
If we don't build ahead of that demand curve and stay ahead of that demand curve, we're going to be constantly understaffed and under resourced.
01:20:21
So what decisions lie ahead?
01:20:24
You're not just deciding on a simple budget line item.
01:20:26
You're deciding what kind of community Greene County wants to be.
01:20:29
And EMS quality is a direct reflection of that commitment.
01:20:35
Pre-hospital care just isn't an ambulance ride anymore.
01:20:38
I mean, that's kind of how it was back in the day, right?
01:20:41
We threw them in the back and we ran as fast as we could, lights and sirens to the hospital.
01:20:45
It's not what we do anymore.
01:20:47
We are literally bringing an emergency room to your house or to the scene of that accident.
01:20:54
The quality of care matters enormously, and we take pride in that.
01:21:01
Greene County has an opportunity to define what rural EMS excellence looks like across Virginia.
01:21:06
We're doing great.
01:21:07
We are doing extremely well, but there's so much more we can do and so much more we want to do.
01:21:14
The community is growing, expectations continue to rise daily, and our system needs to rise with them, and we can only do that with your help.
01:21:25
So I wanted to take a minute to thank our Greene County EMS staff for everything they've done over the last year.
01:21:31
You have an amazing group of EMS professionals at Greene County EMS.
01:21:36
They are knowledgeable, they are capable, and they are compassionate.
01:21:40
I trust them 100% with my life and I did in 2024 when I had a pretty significant anaphylactic reaction while at work.
01:21:49
and they transported me.
01:21:50
And no one wanted to start the IV on me because they were all nervous, but someone finally did it.
01:21:57
But when I say I trust them with my life, I mean that.
01:21:59
And I trust them with every life in this community.
01:22:02
I would 100% put our folks up against anyone, anywhere, anytime.
01:22:07
I just have that much faith in them and I'm absolutely proud to work with them day in and day out.
01:22:15
A couple of staff highlights.
01:22:17
Did you want to hit this for me?
SPEAKER_01
01:22:20
I'll highlight some of the dedication and professional development from the Greene County EMS team.
01:22:27
Our staff has consistently, they consistently pursue advanced education training to improve level of care we provide to our community.
01:22:36
When we started, we only had two education coordinators, which was me and Fish.
01:22:43
And now we've added five more just training them.
01:22:47
And so now we can do a bunch of in-house training, which has been a huge help for everybody.
01:22:52
Several of our members
01:22:56
or our team members have also gotten advanced certification so they've a couple got their flight paramedic certifications.
01:23:06
There's one who actually became a nurse and got her BSN.
01:23:10
One of them went from nurse to nurse practitioner and one of them also became a PA and they're all practicing now in the hospital and working for us which is great.
01:23:22
Currently four of our employees are certified, or four of our employees who, yeah, new certified paramedics, newly certified rather.
01:23:32
And then we have five who are currently in paramedic class.
01:23:37
Six employees also went from EMT to advanced EMT, which is amazing and helps us provide better care in the field as well.
01:23:48
We did go to 19 extra events.
01:23:50
This past year, which included career fairs, lots of football games, lots of training with the community.
01:23:59
And then we also did the five community events too, which was great PR, like getting involved with the community and teaching them how to save themselves and others.
SPEAKER_09
01:24:14
Just some quick pictures.
01:24:16
We were assisting the fire department with a structure fire.
01:24:19
Middle on the top, that's fish and Frisco Campo modeling our pumps that we were able to purchase from the Lifesaver Gala that we hosted last year.
01:24:30
The one on the right side with me and one of our EMT.
01:24:36
Well, he's an AEMT now, right?
01:24:38
He's an AEMT now.
01:24:39
He's one of those.
01:24:40
Tyler Lowry.
01:24:41
I'm presenting him his stork pen because in 2025 he delivered a healthy baby boy in the back of the ambulance.
01:24:49
So we certainly want to celebrate that.
01:24:52
Steven Carter down below carrying two cases of Monster that was delivered to us for EMS week.
01:24:58
They live off those things, whatever.
01:25:02
The one in the middle, we did some training with members from Stanardsville Volunteer Fire Company.
01:25:08
As far as if we had a cardiac arrest on the scene of a fire, one of our firefighters went down.
01:25:15
We trained on that and then I just thought that was a good picture of two of our D-Shift personnel, Lexus Weekly and Kirsten Parkinson with Santa.
01:25:24
So this is our last slide.
01:25:27
We did want to take an opportunity to thank you for supporting emergency services.
01:25:31
We sincerely appreciate everything that you've done for us and will continue to do to enhance emergency services within the county.
01:25:39
We absolutely would not be where we are or be as successful without the support of all of you and previous boards, the board that made that decision, that hard decision in 2020.
01:25:52
It's been a crazy five years, and we're going to keep moving.
01:25:56
We're going to keep moving.
01:25:58
We would be happy to answer any questions that you may have.
01:26:02
If you have something else you want to see, any other data you want us to pull, just let us know.
01:26:06
We can come back on the 10th or the 12th.
01:26:08
But we'd be happy to entertain any questions.
SPEAKER_02
01:26:11
I'm scared to talk.
01:26:13
Are you done?
01:26:14
Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_09
01:26:16
Just checking.
01:26:17
Sorry.
SPEAKER_02
01:26:17
OK, well, I missed the cue.
01:26:20
I'm sorry.
01:26:22
Any questions for now?
01:26:23
Nothing?
01:26:26
Thank you all for your presentation, very thorough.
01:26:29
And we do value your department.
01:26:33
You are an award-winning department.
01:26:35
and you are a model to all the agencies within our county, frankly.
SPEAKER_09
01:26:41
Our EMS inspection that we had with the beginning of 2025, the state still refers to us as that model agency.
01:26:47
So that's two inspections that we've gone through since 2020 and we get that model agency stamp.
01:26:54
So we're very proud of that.
SPEAKER_02
01:26:56
Perfect.
01:26:57
Thank you.
SPEAKER_09
01:26:57
Thank you.
8. General budget discussion
SPEAKER_02
01:27:00
All right, well, that concludes the budget presentations.
01:27:03
And now it's time for general budget discussion.
01:27:07
So as we discussed in the last meeting, of course, we absorbed all this information, right?
01:27:12
And it gives you a headache.
01:27:13
We were going to go line by line in the big book.
01:27:16
Ms. Shaffer did provide us with kind of a synopsis of where we are with certain agencies within our jurisdiction.
SPEAKER_05
01:27:28
And what we do in the big book today is just ours, right?
SPEAKER_02
01:27:31
It'd be mine in schools because we probably won't get through this today, all this today.
01:27:38
So before we proceed, where we left it at the last meeting also was that we had a board workshop where our original thought process was as relatively flat a budget as possible, add the mandates, add a raise, add a few key personnel, and add limited capital improvements.
01:27:55
That's what our attitude was at that workshop.
01:27:58
So in moving forward today, what I did, I looked through Ms. Shafferty's presentation because there
01:28:05
there's some low-hanging fruit there that will come up in each and every tab that we look at.
01:28:13
Capital improvements being one, positions being one, et cetera, et cetera.
01:28:18
So we have, I think it's on page, if you have Ms. Shafrick's presentation, page 40 are the positions.
01:28:39
the funded positions.
01:28:40
There were some unfunded positions.
01:28:46
So I guess I'd like to know what the board's pleasure is on the positions.
01:28:56
The one thing I would add is that the two EMS positions is the third year of the program that we started three years ago where we were aiming for six functioning people.
01:29:09
So adding the two will conclude that original plan that we have, and we have the equipment for them now, so we need not have the people.
01:29:17
So that's pretty important.
01:29:19
Those two positions.
SPEAKER_05
01:29:20
And that reduces the overtime pay that we're paying now anyway.
SPEAKER_02
01:29:25
Exactly.
01:29:26
The other thing is the clerk of the court is a position that's totally reimbursed by the state, so obviously do not penalize a person that's bearing gifts, right?
01:29:42
And then Mr. Howard has two that have some state funding associated with it, and he
01:29:50
I'm not going to let him hang himself.
01:29:51
Basically what I would say is if we do wind up doing one of those instead of two, I think it should be Mr. Howard's choice.
01:29:56
Maybe he'll have a change of heart at 4.10 tomorrow morning, which one that he would rather have if he's so inclined, if we decide only to fund one of those.
01:30:07
But those are just some highlights that struck me as things that are either subsidized, right?
SPEAKER_15
01:30:16
Yeah, because both of those positions are reimbursed at 70%.
01:30:19
Yeah, that's correct.
SPEAKER_02
01:30:27
Personally, other than maybe those positions, I'm really not a fan of adding any more staff at the time other than those positions, whether they're self-funding or not.
01:30:38
I don't believe that anything self-funding in government, that's just my personal opinion.
01:30:42
But what really scares me is if it's fee-generated,
01:30:45
and there's a downturn, then we're faced with either carrying it or laying people off.
01:30:49
And that's just something that I don't want to do.
01:30:51
That's something that I just don't want to do at all.
01:30:53
Government grabs money here and spends money here, right?
01:30:57
So it winds up washing itself out.
01:30:58
If you grab any of that revenue and spend it as a fee or as an income, you're still losing it somewhere else.
01:31:06
And you're still increasing the size of your staff, which does cost in the long run by people.
01:31:12
And that's just my opinion.
01:31:14
I'm not in favor of any other positions except the ones we talked about here today.
SPEAKER_15
01:31:19
So, just to make sure I'm confirming the same as your list, you said the two paramedic positions, the office clerk, and then the family program specialist and potentially benefit program specialist.
SPEAKER_02
01:31:35
That was my initial thought.
01:31:37
And what I mean is when we go line by line like there's a couple other things that are going to just keep coming up you know because there's like a staff added to that you know that department and raises is another thing we got to talk about because that's in every single department.
SPEAKER_15
01:31:53
The only one I'm not sure about, my understanding of it, not saying I'm not sure about the position is, and you were saying the fees, right?
01:32:04
The stormwater inspector, is that under that category of what you're talking about?
SPEAKER_02
01:32:09
Yeah, it is fee generated.
01:32:11
That is one that is very possible to look at after.
01:32:14
I think what I want to do is establish some kind of dollar and find out where our money is and then
SPEAKER_15
01:32:19
I'm not aware of that.
01:32:28
I know in that particular position it is very
SPEAKER_02
01:32:40
it has a lot of deadlines and it has a lot of moving parts and that would be one that we could support whether we paid for it or it paid for itself because we are not catching some of the things that we need to catch with that position not for any fault of the individuals it's just that it's just not enough time but I would rather look at it without it and say okay we have this amount of money you know what I mean like how do we feel about it
01:33:08
if you guys are good with that.
01:33:09
I just think it gets it back simply.
SPEAKER_13
01:33:11
See what it comes out at the end and then we can always go back.
SPEAKER_02
01:33:14
Finance team understand where we're going with that.
SPEAKER_15
01:33:20
And that's what I'm trying to figure out because when you said the fees and stuff, so the two on here that
01:33:26
I thought had potential like revenue from the department that is essentially paying for them was the stormwater one.
01:33:32
And then, and again, correct me if I'm wrong, the senior accountant for the water and sewer, since that's, uh, that's like from the water and sewer budget, right.
01:33:41
Where they're doing that through their rate fees and, uh, yeah, that's true.
01:33:45
Okay.
01:33:46
All right.
01:33:46
All right.
01:33:47
So when we get there, I just, that's what I'm trying to figure out is where's the money coming from and where's it going?
01:33:51
Right.
01:33:51
If they're coming from that department.
SPEAKER_06
01:33:55
Mr. Chairman, how do you feel about the one position for the sheriff?
SPEAKER_02
01:34:02
I don't have a problem with it.
01:34:03
All I was trying to do was establish a baseline and then go back.
01:34:08
The complication that I have with the sheriff's office is that the capital improvement project is lingering around and it's a lot of money now.
01:34:16
It's not 200 grand like it was before.
01:34:20
Do we do that?
01:34:21
Because we had discussed financing that because it is a capital project and it is expensive.
01:34:26
What's the debt service of that rate and then how will that lay back in?
01:34:30
So I'm not opposed to it at all.
01:34:33
I'm looking at numbers.
01:34:34
For me it's numbers.
SPEAKER_05
01:34:36
Big numbers.
01:34:38
That capital improvement on the leave my living in the sheriff's office from the
SPEAKER_02
01:34:42
and probably a million after what we heard the other day.
01:34:48
So if we choose that, I mean it's going to be a year we can't do everything we want, basically.
01:34:56
But I do think that one is absolutely headed for some financing if we decide to do it.
01:35:04
But we can't discount the fact that it's a pretty big cost, so it has to somewhere be reflected in the budget allocation for that office.
SPEAKER_06
01:35:12
That construction is beginning pretty soon.
01:35:16
Am I right, Ms. Sheffrin?
01:35:18
They're waiting on us.
SPEAKER_15
01:35:19
They're waiting for us to approve it, yeah.
SPEAKER_12
01:35:22
The words right out of your mouth.
01:35:24
You got it.
SPEAKER_15
01:35:25
Okay.
SPEAKER_02
01:35:25
yeah I was just trying to track on what we're trying to accomplish as far as we're so we're not discounting any of the positions it's looking at the numbers from each I mean these are the ones I think that we know we gotta do right all right and then and then yeah I was just making sure I didn't hear like a no across yeah then we go then we go back and say all right here we are we found this much money we create you know whatever okay um the other thing is on page
01:35:54
The Rays, Ms. Shafferty, what page is The Rays on?
01:35:58
I don't have that written down.
01:35:59
Because that's going to show up in every single line item budget, and it's advertised at 4%.
01:36:04
And we haven't done that in the past.
01:36:05
I think we've done 3% every year since actually we've been here.
01:36:10
So what's the board's pleasure on that?
01:36:12
18.
01:36:14
H-H-E-N-E.
01:36:18
I know we're saving paper, but I can't stand when it's on the backside because it looks like I'm having a fight with my paper.
01:36:24
Oh, that's all right.
01:36:25
I know why we do it, but it's embarrassing.
01:36:30
I'm scared I'm going to throw it at everybody.
SPEAKER_13
01:36:35
I would love to give them four, but I think with the state that we're in this year financially, we might want to go back now at least to three.
01:36:46
We all appreciate their work.
01:36:47
Don't get us wrong at that.
01:36:48
But financially, we've got to balance this budget with what we've got.
SPEAKER_15
01:36:53
I do understand that perspective I'll just argue for the other side is that I believe right now like COLA right which is the cost of living increase and inflation is like 2.8 right at least that's the last time I saw it online so you're it with three percent
01:37:13
You're keeping up.
01:37:16
Yeah, and that's it.
01:37:18
I do just want to express that they all do a lot of hard work and everything like that.
01:37:24
And it helps people.
01:37:26
The other problem you run into is if you don't have any increase above the bullet and anybody that knows better than me, correct me if I'm wrong, but if you don't do that, then people don't continue to increase.
01:37:38
Then we end up falling further and further behind what that same position in another county
01:37:43
It starts to make it more attractive for them to leave, right?
01:37:45
So I want to totally understand that, think about those things as well.
SPEAKER_05
01:37:49
Long-term, the one thing about these budgets is year to year, right?
SPEAKER_15
01:37:54
And that's, I understand we're looking at this year, but I'm also trying to make sure that we think about, you know, what we can, what is this going to do this year?
SPEAKER_05
01:38:01
And then next year we may have enough to go some more next year or something.
01:38:06
You know, it's one of them, not that I love, like she said, I would love to give everybody the 4%.
SPEAKER_15
01:38:12
Love to get everybody 10%, right?
SPEAKER_02
01:38:18
He's competing to be the board member of the year.
SPEAKER_15
01:38:24
I think for consistency we should plug the three in.
SPEAKER_02
01:38:31
It's consistent with what we've done for the last two years and across everything.
01:38:36
And then again, once we look at all our money, I'm just using that as a term.
01:38:41
I believe we're going to have all that money.
01:38:43
The other thing that goes across multiple budgets would be page 45 on Ms. Shafrick's presentation yesterday, which is vehicles.
01:39:09
I would propose that we get rid of all the vehicles this year and step out of the life cycle.
01:39:14
I understand why we buy vehicles and I understand why we replace vehicles.
01:39:18
And I understand that you don't want to do it for very long.
01:39:21
That is actually my business that I deal with every day.
01:39:24
But in this particular case, with the kind of revenue that we're looking for, it looks to be like 700 grand.
01:39:29
So I think we need to abandon that for this year.
SPEAKER_05
01:39:36
Do we have a maintenance schedule on the vehicle?
01:39:38
We do.
01:39:39
We're going to be breaking them.
01:39:41
Oh yeah.
01:39:42
It's the maintenance schedule that they've allotted so many for so many years anyway at some point.
01:39:47
Yep.
01:39:47
Are these additional to that?
01:39:50
Or is this what they do?
SPEAKER_02
01:39:52
I would say they're replacements in some aspects.
01:39:55
Probably the sheriff, probably the schools for the buses, not necessarily the cars because I know that all the cars that we have are passed downs from the sheriff's office, right?
01:40:05
that wind up in a lot here and the school gets some of those too, I think, that are in better shape because they travel longer distances.
01:40:14
But I don't think it's a long term situation.
01:40:17
I'm just looking at it from a from a nasty year perspective.
01:40:22
We can't take it out of the general fund, right?
01:40:24
Because we've hit that a little bit too hard over the last year and we don't want to finance vehicles.
01:40:29
I mean, capital improvements one thing, but financing vehicles is kind of another thing, so.
01:40:35
That's just my opinion.
01:40:36
And all these are just my opinion.
01:40:37
Tell me to shut up.
SPEAKER_15
01:40:38
I mean, it's an area to look at for sure.
01:40:43
I don't think I know maybe enough about the maintenance schedule or anything else.
01:40:48
So I'll try to circle back and talk with that department.
01:40:52
understand that a little bit more.
01:40:54
I do know that the presentation from the schools on their maintenance program and everything else was pretty in-depth and I don't know the numbers off the top of my head.
01:41:01
I'll have to go back and look at it specifically, but they are looking at, there were like several buses I believe that were purchased in a, do you want to, Dr. Whitmarsh probably can speak on that better than I can.
SPEAKER_11
01:41:16
Let me just say really fast, we are in desperate need of a special education school bus.
SPEAKER_15
01:41:20
Okay.
SPEAKER_11
01:41:21
And that is one of the three that we have requested.
01:41:23
The rest is replacement, but the special education is absolutely a priority when it comes to those three.
SPEAKER_15
01:41:31
All right.
01:41:31
Excellent.
01:41:31
Thank you.
01:41:35
I got to remember to go to the experts.
SPEAKER_02
01:41:37
Right.
01:41:38
All right.
01:41:40
So we'll put an asterisk by the special education bus.
01:41:46
Okay.
01:41:50
There's more chicken scratch.
SPEAKER_04
01:42:01
I think that's it.
SPEAKER_02
01:42:07
Oh, no, it isn't.
01:42:08
Capital improvements.
01:42:11
That's page 42 on Ms. Shafrick's presentation.
01:42:27
Sara, can you explain that whole paging into us from yesterday?
SPEAKER_12
01:42:33
Would you say 42?
01:42:35
I'm trying to keep track.
01:42:36
Yeah, 42.
01:42:41
All right, so on the CIP stuff.
01:42:44
So to be able to do the upgrade of the sheriff's building,
01:42:52
Now that DSS is gone and the extension office is gone, we had 300,000, just a little bit under 300,000, but for simplicity, 300,000 and they need 400,000 more to finish the improvements.
01:43:08
The majority of the money is going toward steel reinforcement for the front bulletproof glass, concrete work.
01:43:17
It needs a new roof.
01:43:20
some of that stuff needed even without doing the interior configuration.
01:43:26
There's more electronic technology things that are needed in there as well.
01:43:34
So this would give them what they need to have it exactly specked out, be able to give them a larger, it's like a crime processing area.
01:43:46
I can't think of the name of it, CSI area.
01:43:50
and if they did that then they would be kind of done for forever.
01:44:00
I asked them to look at staging to see if there were some things that could be done now.
01:44:04
and other things that might be able to be done later.
01:44:07
And as they looked at it, the problem is once you start touching the building, you're forced to upgrade to the steel paintbrush front, the bulletproof glass.
01:44:17
A lot of that work has to be done just because you're doing work inside the building.
SPEAKER_05
01:44:21
It has to be state code.
SPEAKER_12
01:44:22
Yeah, you have to bring the whole thing up to code.
01:44:26
And it used to be a grocery store, so it was never intended to be that type of store.
01:44:32
That's a grocery store, too.
01:44:33
Oh, really?
01:44:34
Somebody told me it was a grocery store.
SPEAKER_02
01:44:36
That was Rethin 10.
SPEAKER_12
01:44:38
Oh, really?
01:44:40
That's a grocery store.
SPEAKER_02
01:44:41
That's a furniture store.
SPEAKER_12
01:44:45
So anyway, because it was never intended to be anything close to that type of use,
01:44:50
that's what's causing all that work to need to be done.
01:44:54
And of course, that was so many decades ago too, a lot of the building codes have changed as well.
01:45:00
But the state mandates those other code requirements.
01:45:06
Now, the other things on that page, the ERP, which we've talked about extensively, the vehicle maintenance, in addition to the sped bus, there might be,
01:45:20
One or two of those other vehicles that are kind of have to have.
01:45:26
I'm not sure we can check with Adam, but those are all replacement vehicles.
SPEAKER_02
01:45:36
Back to the shirts for just a second.
01:45:38
So the grand total on that is how much?
SPEAKER_12
01:45:41
The grand total will be $700,000.
01:45:44
So it'll be the $300,000 plus the $400,000.
01:45:47
All we've done so far is ask ZMM, who we contracted with after the board asked us to get an architect.
01:45:55
They're the architect.
01:45:57
They've done the plans and that's all.
01:46:01
So really they're waiting for us to press go.
01:46:04
And the concern that the sheriff brought up when he was here on Tuesday is that
01:46:11
ZMM in terms of overseeing the project.
01:46:14
They've got a lot of other work in the queue, apparently related to all the new data center development that they have contracts for.
01:46:20
So they're trying to finish this so they can move on to that.
01:46:24
If we don't move forward in the spring, so they actually ideally like to start for this fiscal year, then they'll just hand us the plans they've done and we'll start, you know, in terms of getting a contractor to come in, we'll just
01:46:40
not to hand them those plans and they can do it.
SPEAKER_02
01:46:45
Did you, has anybody calculated what that will cost us?
01:46:49
A quarter, a year, a month, whatever, and once we finance it?
SPEAKER_12
01:46:53
Yes.
01:46:53
So, well, for, you mean for just the, just the sheriff, if you, if you get a bank loan at a five, yeah, four and a half percent over five years, um,
01:47:10
I have to whip out the financial calculator on the phone.
01:47:20
I can get that.
01:47:20
I have an app on my phone.
01:47:22
It's at least $120,000 a year, probably.
SPEAKER_02
01:47:24
About $120,000 a year, probably, for a million bucks.
SPEAKER_12
01:47:27
It's probably great if you're doing it over five years.
01:47:30
But I remember doing it before.
01:47:31
It was just under $100,000.
01:47:33
But I can do that calculation real quick because I have
01:47:38
83, 84,000.
01:47:39
Okay.
SPEAKER_02
01:47:40
And I know the water and sewer bonds stuff.
01:47:46
I know that has to show up on up on that, but like, that's, that's already taken care of.
SPEAKER_12
01:47:52
Actually, in fact, it was Davenport, our financial advisors, we called and asked them, you know, what, what's that going to do?
01:47:59
Cause we don't want to do anything to, you know, like,
01:48:02
how much could we borrow and at that time we were like up to the maximum amount to be able to tell you if you want to do your whole CIP.
01:48:11
They didn't see any problem with that and it doesn't reach that debt percentage that we can't go over.
01:48:20
So we're still good on the debt side if you do it that way.
01:48:25
you know in a perfect world we pay cash for it like we've been doing for the last few years but we've been doing that by taking from unreserved fund balance so working it into the baseline somehow or you know finding the money yeah finding the money the vehicle maintenance
SPEAKER_05
01:48:44
for 700, does that include the 154 letters?
01:48:48
The lift?
01:48:50
That was something in for the lift too, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_15
01:48:52
No, that's just cars.
01:48:52
That was the grant that Terry's writing?
01:48:55
Right.
01:48:56
So we don't even have to allocate anything for that.
SPEAKER_05
01:48:59
That's just our vehicles.
SPEAKER_02
01:49:02
That's 704-518.
01:49:03
And the water and sewer is the bond.
01:49:07
The bond is the issuance.
01:49:09
That's on there.
SPEAKER_12
01:49:10
Right.
01:49:10
Exactly.
SPEAKER_02
01:49:14
Well, again, I just think other than obviously the water and sewer, I just think that those top three, we just need to kind of show for a minute until we go through everything and then just make sure we go back over that, OK?
01:49:26
That's what I'm trying to say.
01:49:27
Let's not forget it.
SPEAKER_12
01:49:28
That's why I was using Excel to keep keep track of it, because you're going to ask me, where are we at?
01:49:33
And I'm able to give you a number.
SPEAKER_02
01:49:36
The biggest problem is the chicken scratch on this end.
SPEAKER_12
01:49:38
So I told you, you can't read my handwriting.
01:49:42
I'm using Excel.
SPEAKER_02
01:49:43
I'm talking about mine.
01:49:45
All right.
01:49:47
So there's a synopsis sheet here and a gigantic three-ring binder.
01:49:56
So let's look at the gigantic three-ring binder.
01:50:00
Unless y'all want to try to use the sheet.
01:50:04
Ms. Shaffer, do you want to explain that sheet that you just gave us?
SPEAKER_12
01:50:06
Sure.
01:50:07
So what I did, because I am, it's easier for me because my handwriting is, I'm sure, worse than yours.
01:50:15
and also it's easier to keep checking the totals and the math.
01:50:20
What I did is at the top I just let you know there's things that were not funded in case you want to go back and revisit them and there are things you know like those positions that weren't funded.
01:50:33
We did go into EMS and take $155,000 out of that budget to be able to help offset the cost of the new positions.
01:50:42
Likewise in the sheriff but I've also been informed and you should know that the money that we took from uniforms he needs for ballistic vests that have to be replaced on an every few years basis so he would like that money back.
01:50:59
We did take some money out of fuel to be able to help offset the position for
01:51:05
the vehicle maintenance that was the additional auto mechanic and it was the fuel and the vehicle maintenance money that we took to offset.
SPEAKER_02
01:51:13
So we should probably put the fuel back in.
SPEAKER_12
01:51:15
Yeah, well, I did that before that.
01:51:18
How many weeks?
SPEAKER_04
01:51:19
That's just been one week.
SPEAKER_12
01:51:21
It's not even been a week.
01:51:22
All right, so I didn't know that was going to be a thing.
01:51:25
So, but yeah, I think you're right about the fuel that, that's why I, that's actually what prompted me to make this part of the list because you need to know
01:51:34
Yes.
SPEAKER_07
01:51:36
I don't know where, if we want to put money back in North, we don't know where to get it from right at this point.
SPEAKER_02
01:51:47
Take it from something that's been proposed.
SPEAKER_12
01:51:50
Right.
01:51:50
Yeah.
01:51:51
So then that, yeah, the next thing on here is the money that was taken out of contingency, that three cents for the TOT for the future rec center, that's
01:52:01
three cents we used to balance the budget last year with the idea that at carryover we would take the equivalent amount of money which is about $341,000 and put it back in that fund so it would continue to accrue at the same rate and since it's a future rec center it's not you know the money's not being spent every year or anything like that but that still needs to be addressed because that's a structural issue.
01:52:27
The CAP projects I just plugged a million in there because you know there's
01:52:32
a lot of stuff that I didn't want to get too into it because I figured the answer was going to be we're not doing them so and a park master plan and then we did fund the some inflationary increases and I took the time to go figure out what that was the four percent salary which we would then go and and adjust as you said there's two hundred thousand dollars that we put in the
01:52:58
the budget for economic development and that was to be able to provide money or loans really to existing landowners to help them do the due diligence and the site assessment and get their land up to a higher tier so that as AstraZeneca and Merck all these are great opportunities with other businesses to be able to keep from being passed over because we get passed over people want
01:53:26
they want
01:53:44
be able to get
01:54:08
put the decrease because really what you're looking for is money so it doesn't help for me to point out where there's a decrease.
01:54:14
What we're looking for is where there's an increase and then a summary of why that increase was there.
01:54:20
So as you go through it kind of helps focus on what does this mean again and I knew we'd be doing that fast so that's why I went and did this along the way.
01:54:31
Florida Supervisor may like, why is our budget going up?
01:54:34
It's because of that fire coordinator.
01:54:35
So if he took the position out, then that would obviously change the math.
01:54:40
My budget went down slightly, so I just put nothing there.
01:54:44
County attorney, we had to add in $115,000 for additional money for lawsuits.
01:54:51
And then as you go down, you can see I just marked inflationary, inflationary,
01:54:55
The other big thing that's new, but it's a every other year thing is we do a reassessment and that costs about $200,000 we always have $20,000 in there for other purposes, but that's why there's all of a sudden it's going to look like a ginormous increase, but it's because we only do the assessment every other year and this is coming up into the year where we would do it and then
01:55:23
You know, and I've mentioned before, we have these three SROs.
01:55:28
The grant funding expired.
01:55:31
We are applying for a continuation or emergency extension of it.
01:55:36
We have been told if we get it, it would probably only be for the high school, but we don't know.
01:55:41
We might get all of it, but we still have to program in that money.
01:55:45
and that was $204,000 there, plus the new deputy that you'll see in the sheriff's budget.
01:55:54
So we already plugged into everybody's budget what we did to balance so that you can see where it is.
01:56:00
So as you're taking things out, these are where the savings show up.
01:56:05
So I don't know if you wanted to go through the book or we can use my sheet if you want.
SPEAKER_02
01:56:12
We'll use your sheet first.
01:56:14
The first question I have, if contingency is down to anything and we seem to be having a rash of these lawsuits against the county for basically the fact that people don't agree with our decisions at this point, none of them have been successful, but we're up to $115,000.
01:56:31
So where will we get more of that if this trend continues?
SPEAKER_12
01:56:35
Well, I put the 115 right in the county attorney's budget.
SPEAKER_02
01:56:39
Now I'm talking about if it goes above that.
SPEAKER_12
01:56:41
Oh, well.
SPEAKER_02
01:56:42
Because we do have a new one that we possibly need to defend.
01:56:46
You know, we're quick approaching the penny on the levy for frivolous lawsuits.
01:56:50
So.
01:56:53
So that duly noted.
SPEAKER_12
01:56:54
We worked with Kelly and I said, give me the worst case.
01:56:58
You know, if it gets appealed, you know, depend, just assume it's going to get appealed to
01:57:03
as many times as you can appeal it and that's how she came up with the 115.
SPEAKER_02
01:57:07
Got you, okay.
SPEAKER_12
01:57:08
So as long as we don't have any new lawsuits, 115 should cover all.
SPEAKER_02
01:57:11
But we have one potential new one, right.
SPEAKER_12
01:57:13
So that included that one.
SPEAKER_02
01:57:14
That one included that one, okay.
01:57:15
All right, well let's hope it stays there or better yet let's just stay out of court.
01:57:20
That's right.
01:57:22
Because that's just a terrible use of money.
01:57:27
The reassessment, do you guys just put like 90 in a year or do you just always do it like every two years like that?
SPEAKER_12
01:57:34
So it's either 20,000 or 200,000.
01:57:37
Every other year.
01:57:41
So last year, when you're looking year over year, it's like, wow, why is it 900 or whatever percent?
01:57:46
It's probably like 1000% or 900% or it's because we didn't do a reassessment this year, but we need it for next year.
SPEAKER_07
01:57:57
Okay.
01:58:00
Other questions off the sheet?
SPEAKER_02
01:58:04
There is a back.
01:58:06
Yeah, I got that.
01:58:07
There's always a back.
01:58:09
The book can't be this thick.
SPEAKER_12
01:58:10
I like the print on both sides because I try to keep the amount of paper down.
01:58:14
I'm sorry.
01:58:15
I won't do that for you guys anymore.
SPEAKER_02
01:58:17
No, it's alright on this one because it's only one sheet.
01:58:20
You can't get into a fight with it.
SPEAKER_12
01:58:21
So I very much hate having a staple paper, so if I can get away with one sheet.
01:58:27
On the other side, you know.
SPEAKER_02
01:58:29
On the sheriff.
01:58:32
the increase of three seventy three five sixty one in the in the parentheses SRO funding two four two twenty eight.
01:58:38
So explain that whole thing to us.
SPEAKER_12
01:58:41
All right.
01:58:41
So they have the largest budget.
01:58:46
So I'm going to flip to that to that tab.
01:58:50
So the numbers that you see on the left are the tab.
01:58:53
So it's tab 16.
01:58:55
All right.
01:58:58
So when you look at
01:59:01
that budget and we stuck the school resource grant in there so right off the top and let's also keep in mind I had already taken the 107 out of his budget so really we would need to add that back in for the ballistic vest is what he's asking for so it's actually gonna be for you know 480 something just doing math real quick in my head so what is that
SPEAKER_15
01:59:28
I guess you can't really answer on behalf of the sheriff, but was that the 107 was contingent on something?
SPEAKER_12
01:59:34
So we had looked at the uniform line item and just looked at the past history, which you have the, um, you have that, the actuals in your book, right.
01:59:45
And just looking at his spending patterns, it looked like we would be able to take that, but he's saying that he needs a ballistic, but yeah.
01:59:53
And we, um, talked to him, but then they realized, oh, that's where we were going to pay for the ballistic.
01:59:57
that they have to replace.
01:59:59
So that's not an every year thing.
02:00:02
Apparently that's a every few years thing.
02:00:04
So they asked for that back.
02:00:09
If we go through, so when you go through, we had added in the one additional deputy position that was actually really the money that we took from the uniform line item and put it back up to fund the position.
02:00:26
But as you look through all his line items, there's other places where they have inflationary increases, they have other expenses that are going up.
02:00:38
and I kind of wish he was here to talk about his line items.
02:00:45
But the biggest part was the SRO and the new deputy is the majority of it, but just the sheer volume of it.
02:00:55
And you have in the very back what the initial request was.
02:00:59
And some of the things they're trying to do more of is community engagement type of events,
02:01:08
and just costs for all, you know, like things, bullets cost more, you know, like stuff costs more.
02:01:14
So just trying to reflect that piece of it.
02:01:19
We also put the confinement of prisoners and some other things in the back, but that's not going up.
02:01:24
So that's good news.
02:01:26
As long as people, you know, have a big crime spree, we should be good on that.
02:01:34
The 204 would be necessary to add
02:01:37
unless you want to reduce the number of SROs.
SPEAKER_02
02:01:41
So the 204s for the SROs?
SPEAKER_12
02:01:43
Yeah, because they have three positions and the grant paid half.
SPEAKER_02
02:01:48
Right.
SPEAKER_12
02:01:49
And so the grant's gone.
02:01:51
And we have to assume the grant's gone because we haven't been told otherwise.
02:01:55
And we've also been told you're probably not going to get it anyway.
02:01:57
But so it's even more important that we put it in.
02:02:02
So we had to fund basically the equivalent of one and a half positions.
02:02:07
which is the 204.
SPEAKER_02
02:02:09
Okay.
02:02:11
So the 204 is got you.
SPEAKER_07
02:02:15
It was a separate person.
SPEAKER_02
02:02:19
Yeah.
SPEAKER_07
02:02:20
Okay.
SPEAKER_02
02:02:21
Totally.
02:02:21
I had heard that the other day, and I needed a little clarification on that.
02:02:25
I guess to be clear, too, we don't want to take the SROs away, right?
02:02:29
We just move them to a different position.
02:02:31
The only position we would be talking about would be the new deputy position.
SPEAKER_05
02:02:35
Exactly, which is the 107.
02:02:36
I think he said that was mainly for a night person.
02:02:42
Yeah, that's what he said.
SPEAKER_02
02:02:45
All right.
02:02:49
The 9-1-1 salaries, obviously all that's going to be adjusted, right, with the rates because that's a percent off of that rate.
SPEAKER_12
02:02:57
Right, exactly.
02:03:00
Well, and what you see there represents last year, applying an extra percent to their salary.
02:03:13
So it's year over year going to be higher.
SPEAKER_02
02:03:18
Um, emergency services.
02:03:24
We didn't talk about that one.
SPEAKER_12
02:03:25
Well, it's your two positions and inflationary increases.
02:03:32
Oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_02
02:03:33
That is.
SPEAKER_09
02:03:34
So it's not, it's EMS.
SPEAKER_02
02:03:36
No, no, this is just emergency services.
02:03:39
Emergency services.
02:03:40
Number 19.
02:03:41
Yeah, no.
02:03:41
20 is the medics and all that good stuff.
SPEAKER_09
02:03:45
Yeah.
02:03:46
So you're looking at 35,500.
SPEAKER_02
02:03:49
$89,550 is what I'm looking at.
SPEAKER_12
02:03:52
Yeah, the big one is the equipment line went up $30,000.
SPEAKER_09
02:04:00
That was some stuff for the fire departments and some new software for them.
SPEAKER_03
02:04:09
Which one was that?
SPEAKER_09
02:04:11
It should be line item 35,500, 8,101 equipment.
SPEAKER_12
02:04:17
Yeah, the big driver of that was that new equipment.
SPEAKER_09
02:04:22
Yeah, that was.
02:04:24
That's the that's I think the only increase.
02:04:28
At a very slight increase in 3310 because one of the lease agreements is going up.
02:04:36
And I believe everything else stayed the same.
02:04:39
Let me just double check.
SPEAKER_12
02:04:41
Yes, just salary increases.
SPEAKER_09
02:04:42
Yep, just salary and benefits and the big jump is the 8101.
02:04:47
to increase that by
02:05:01
We needed a little bit more money for that because the annual maintenance was, we underestimated that.
02:05:06
So we needed to bump that up.
02:05:07
And then 10,000 of that was for something called First Do Software, which helps them with pre-planning and hydrant locations.
02:05:21
And it's just electronic format that they'll be able to pull up in their units as they're responding to calls.
02:05:27
And it would be something for all three.
SPEAKER_02
02:05:30
Yeah, to use.
02:05:31
Is the generator maintenance in that budget or is it in like communications?
02:05:35
The generator maintenance at the, well, you got the shelters and then the ones at the tower.
SPEAKER_09
02:05:39
That's in Mr. Taylor's budget now.
02:05:41
Anything with the generator.
SPEAKER_02
02:05:42
That's not under me.
02:05:45
Okay.
SPEAKER_09
02:05:46
But yeah, we do still maintain the generators that we put in at the fire department.
02:05:50
Yes, sir.
02:05:52
But just not out of this budget.
02:05:53
Right.
02:05:54
Going to be out of facilities.
SPEAKER_02
02:05:58
Now we can flip the page.
SPEAKER_12
02:06:01
All right.
SPEAKER_15
02:06:02
Go ahead, Matt.
02:06:03
No.
02:06:04
I was looking at something else.
02:06:05
We'll get to it later.
02:06:06
All right.
02:06:07
All right.
SPEAKER_12
02:06:08
So we've got another ambulance that we have.
02:06:11
There's some title insurance that we pay.
02:06:13
And then so the next increase is building inspections.
02:06:16
That included that half-time position, the receptionist position.
02:06:22
And then there was just some inflationary increases.
SPEAKER_07
02:06:29
So that's out.
SPEAKER_12
02:06:42
When you say that's not what you mean.
SPEAKER_02
02:06:44
The position, since we removed all those positions for the moment.
SPEAKER_12
02:06:47
Well, yeah, we would we would reduce that expenditure, but also we have to reduce the revenue because that would be.
SPEAKER_02
02:06:55
Like 25, 25, 25.
SPEAKER_06
02:06:56
OK, I was the builder.
SPEAKER_12
02:06:59
It's a what?
SPEAKER_06
02:07:00
Inflationary.
SPEAKER_07
02:07:01
Right.
02:07:02
So if you want, since that's the next thing you mentioned.
SPEAKER_04
02:07:11
So that's what
SPEAKER_02
02:07:17
No, that's fine.
02:07:18
It's just not being spent out.
02:07:19
It's just, it sits there.
SPEAKER_12
02:07:21
Yeah.
02:07:21
So it's not, so just for clarity for everybody else who's like, what are they doing?
02:07:29
Your point is well taken.
02:07:30
And we've talked about this before.
02:07:32
If it's, you know, the workload goes down because this is funded from the, from the fees and people aren't paying fees because they're not building anything or building onto anything.
02:07:45
then we would have the situation where we have a person that we don't have the revenue to support.
02:07:50
So then we would have to tap the general fund.
02:07:53
But for right now, taking that out will reduce the increase, but we'd also have to reduce the revenue because that revenue wouldn't then be.
SPEAKER_02
02:08:02
Right.
02:08:03
The current revenue static for the department as it's done now, except that if less people do more inspections, the revenue goes up.
02:08:10
Am I right?
SPEAKER_12
02:08:11
The revenue goes up, but in terms of balancing out for the general fund, it won't make any difference.
SPEAKER_15
02:08:18
Yeah, we can't pull it into the general fund.
02:08:20
It stays in the...
02:08:21
Right.
02:08:21
Okay.
SPEAKER_12
02:08:22
Yes.
SPEAKER_02
02:08:23
So things will be normal, right?
02:08:25
Basically the way they...
SPEAKER_12
02:08:26
It's basically a wash.
02:08:27
It's a wash. Yeah.
02:08:32
All right.
02:08:33
And then the animal shelter, they have some inflationary increases.
02:08:41
Other agencies, which remind me who those other agencies are, those are Piedmont.
02:08:48
Well, it's OAR in corrections, so there's just a really small increase for that.
02:08:56
The supplement to the health department, they've requested an increase of just short of $24,000.
02:09:02
Those are inflationary increases.
02:09:06
We have a contract with them to pay that,
02:09:10
The next one would be general property maintenance.
02:09:16
They're asking for a $56,700 increase and it's the line items for inflationary increases and you know most of what he's buying is the stuff that has been actually really escalating in costs and I'm a little worried that that's actually under, but he would just adjust and you know
02:09:40
to spend less money if he has less money.
02:09:43
Litter grant, no change.
02:09:44
Vehicle maintenance had a new position that they were requesting, but you guys have talked about not doing that.
SPEAKER_15
02:09:55
Say that again.
SPEAKER_12
02:09:56
The vehicle maintenance, they had a request for a new mechanic and just notice the numbers
02:10:06
That's showing up there.
SPEAKER_07
02:10:15
So that she left all the reductions off.
SPEAKER_12
02:10:19
Yeah.
02:10:19
And we did reduce, you know, like we did look to reduce.
02:10:23
Oh, the reason why there's nothing there is because we had taken money out of fuel, which we just talked about.
02:10:29
We need to add back in.
02:10:31
And also some other
02:10:35
vehicle maintenance money that based on the spending patterns look like that was a safe to adjust by $50,000.
02:10:48
So there was really no increase he would ultimately be asking for because the position was going to be offset by the reductions that we took out of the budget.
02:11:00
So not funding the position actually adds in that amount of money.
SPEAKER_15
02:11:06
The 60,000 for the fuel?
02:11:08
Is that what you think?
SPEAKER_12
02:11:11
If you want to add the fuel in, then it becomes...
SPEAKER_15
02:11:15
It was a mechanic.
02:11:16
The mechanic for maintenance.
SPEAKER_12
02:11:19
Yeah, auto technician.
SPEAKER_15
02:11:20
Auto technician.
02:11:22
Thank you.
SPEAKER_12
02:11:23
And then, so is that, so let me just ask for clarity.
02:11:27
Is that what you want to do is put fuel in?
SPEAKER_02
02:11:31
Yeah, I think we better do that because that's just going to be something that we have to deal with at a later time because that won't last long.
SPEAKER_12
02:11:40
Parks and Rec had actually just a very, very slight decrease in their costs, so there's nothing listed there.
02:11:47
Libraries, which were part of the regional library, had an increase of $51,588.
02:11:54
We still put in the money for that Dolly Parton Imagination Library, $4,500 if you want to continue funding that.
SPEAKER_02
02:12:05
But that's the first year we did it was this year?
SPEAKER_12
02:12:07
Yes.
SPEAKER_02
02:12:10
The library was just subject to the contract?
SPEAKER_12
02:12:13
There's no contract.
02:12:14
You just gave them money this year and they requested the same amount for this fiscal year.
02:12:24
That was the program where they send books to every child.
02:12:28
You get like five books a year, I think, depending on your age.
SPEAKER_02
02:12:32
No, that's the 3,500.
02:12:32
I'm talking about the 51558, the library itself.
SPEAKER_12
02:12:36
Yeah, that's for the Jefferson area.
SPEAKER_02
02:12:41
But that's by contract, right?
02:12:43
That's by agreement.
02:12:43
OK, that's what I was talking about.
SPEAKER_12
02:12:45
Sorry.
SPEAKER_02
02:12:45
No, no, it's fine.
02:12:46
So does that mean you can't?
SPEAKER_12
02:12:49
Most of that is health care costs for the staff at the library.
02:12:53
everybody's seeing a tremendous increase of health care and by the way that's also built into all these numbers as well so we don't we just I guess we planned for we thought worst case scenario 15% and we got a bill that was exactly 15% so
02:13:12
just ended up being now just working out that way.
02:13:17
Planning and zoning has an increase of 95,996.
02:13:21
They have a big project and I can actually let Jim talk to converting paper files to electronic and then their printing and binding costs have really gone up so.
SPEAKER_04
02:13:36
Yeah, no, that's well, that's the and I don't think covered anywhere else.
02:13:42
software that was board-proof last year, the legislative software.
02:13:46
They covered that and also the software that building and the planning used, the electronic software for plants and mills.
02:13:57
So I put both of those full costs in our budget just to make sure.
02:14:02
Last year, some of it was split between planning and the building office, but I want to make sure nobody forgot them.
02:14:12
About, that's about $50,000 with the cost.
02:14:18
I did put in $20,000 for converting the stored files that we have, having someone come converting those into electronic files.
02:14:31
That way they're easily, more easily accessed by staff and for citizens.
02:14:35
But again, that's,
02:14:39
I think that that would get most of those files done, but I split that in over a maximum of two years.
02:14:48
And I didn't want to make it too long.
SPEAKER_02
02:14:53
So that covers that AI software that we did last year?
SPEAKER_04
02:14:57
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
02:14:57
So one is the non-technical description of it.
SPEAKER_04
02:15:00
18 grand.
02:15:03
We're still working through that.
02:15:04
It's learning our system.
02:15:06
We're going to be getting the input.
02:15:08
They're teaching it our document so that we can put online a question where a citizen at three o'clock in the morning change our example.
02:15:19
He can ask a question.
SPEAKER_02
02:15:22
Start harassing y'all at 3.30.
SPEAKER_04
02:15:23
All of our documents, all of our files, then it'll answer that question and source the references to it.
02:15:31
So, you know, we're using it in-house, but soon it will be available for the audit and for citizens to use for just general questions.
02:15:45
And then the one
02:15:46
The other two small, very small things were $5,000 each for the agricultural force of the committee, mostly to help with the producers event to teach people about farming and mid-farming and the other ones for the Ruckersville Advisory Committee in case they have community events for the upcoming comprehensive funding.
SPEAKER_02
02:16:12
Do you have anything in there for the plan?
SPEAKER_04
02:16:15
No, for right now our plan this year is mostly organization and utilizing and setting up the community involvement and that we don't need extra finance for because we can use some of the computer tools that we have and we have a contract with the social planning district that they can help us staff
02:16:41
Next year, the bigger full year where we might have more events, we probably we might have to consider some additional funding for the Hamilton.
SPEAKER_02
02:16:51
Okay, for next year.
SPEAKER_04
02:16:53
Yeah, just for assistance for people for, you know, if we have some big events.
SPEAKER_02
02:16:58
Okay.
SPEAKER_04
02:17:02
All right.
SPEAKER_12
02:17:04
And then you heard from John that inflationary increase will be
02:17:09
I'm just looking at my notes to make sure I get this right.
02:17:32
We've had several investors that are looking for properties for people in the national security space, life science space, biotech sectors.
02:17:42
They're looking for what the state recognizes as tier four and tier five sites.
02:17:48
And they've made it clear that they're not passing along, you know, like they're passing on Greene County properties unless we can provide higher tiered sites.
02:17:59
So,
02:18:01
the proposal is to take $200,000 actually we're getting the $200,000 because with Wawa coming online they're bringing in just a little bit over $200,000 take that new revenue and create the self-sustaining fund that will be administered through EDA where it will be to support site readiness efforts and landowners would repay these loans
02:18:31
and the funds would revolve to support future property.
02:18:34
So it would create a sustainable self replenishing program.
02:18:39
And our return on investment would be realized through increased tax revenues as we get more development that happens, commercial development that happens.
02:18:49
So this would only be for commercial development.
02:18:52
This would not be for residential or anything like that.
02:18:56
So if we had even one single commercially viable property, then we would
02:19:01
recoup that revenue.
02:19:02
The issue is we wouldn't recoup that revenue in the same year as we were doing this program because it takes a while to get the land up to speed.
02:19:12
So that's where that proposal came from.
SPEAKER_02
02:19:16
What would we do if we didn't give that money and somebody came and requested it?
02:19:19
Would we just take it out of the general fund on an individual basis?
SPEAKER_12
02:19:24
Well, it's $100,000, so it'd be really hard, you know, like probably how much they would need to do that soil work.
SPEAKER_02
02:19:32
So that means you can only help two people.
SPEAKER_12
02:19:34
Yeah, well, it's.
02:19:37
There are two people who are interested and we've been actually trying to contact landowners.
02:19:44
Not everybody wants to sell or develop their land right now.
02:19:47
So it's kind of a pilot program and a concept from the people who really want to do it to landowners who really want to do it.
SPEAKER_02
02:19:59
I think the board needs to still stay in control of that because we need we do need to set the parameters of that kind of a program anyway and I don't want to do that with an outside agency I want us to have control of what we're doing because a lot of the things that bother us and I've heard in arguments we don't want to take one person's tax money and subsidize another business that's competing against them and that seems to happen a lot so we have to be really careful with that I would like for the board just to handle that
SPEAKER_12
02:20:27
So to have the, because the program can be structured anyway.
02:20:32
It's not like it's a you have to do it this way on a program.
02:20:35
But your parents won't think once I will leave the money, but we need to restructure the program.
02:20:44
Is that what I'm hearing or are you want to put it outside and still think about it?
SPEAKER_02
02:20:47
I'd rather just put that money somewhere else for now.
SPEAKER_12
02:20:51
Okay.
SPEAKER_02
02:20:51
and we could pull from it if we develop a program.
SPEAKER_12
02:20:54
Well, you could put it in contingency, for example.
SPEAKER_02
02:20:58
You can put it there in your market.
SPEAKER_12
02:20:59
Is that controlled by you?
SPEAKER_02
02:21:00
Yeah, that's what I want.
02:21:01
That's what I want.
SPEAKER_05
02:21:02
Yeah.
SPEAKER_13
02:21:02
I agree with that.
02:21:03
I think we need to have a say, let them come forth just like special use basically and let us inquire more.
SPEAKER_02
02:21:12
It's very sticky.
02:21:13
It sounds like a great idea out there, but it gets really crazy really fast.
02:21:21
There's nothing wrong with doing it and it's how you get people to do it, but I don't.
02:21:25
That's the first I've heard of it coming from a different agency other than the boards of advisors.
SPEAKER_12
02:21:33
Well, yeah, there are other places that do very similar things, and it's always done through the Economic Development Authority, so that's why this was about this, and it was kind of a last minute.
02:21:44
Very last minute thing was a proposal from, you know, late January, so.
02:21:50
It's not like they've been
02:21:52
Working on this for years and just, you know, with it.
SPEAKER_02
02:21:55
I guess that's my problem.
02:21:56
It's not well thought out and it's got a lot of details in it that need to be well thought out.
SPEAKER_12
02:22:01
Well, and I apologize to the ADA if I'm because I'm probably doing a terrible job.
SPEAKER_15
02:22:07
Yeah.
02:22:08
Explaining it.
SPEAKER_08
02:22:09
They did right, you know, like that.
02:22:11
Yeah, we have this narrative here.
02:22:12
Yeah.
SPEAKER_12
02:22:12
Yeah.
02:22:13
So.
SPEAKER_12
02:22:14
Any deficiencies on that I will take the blame for.
02:22:19
Stormwater is the next one they're asking.
02:22:23
It's the new position that we've already talked about.
02:22:28
Soil and water contributions going up about 1,500.
02:22:31
Those are typically just inflationary increases.
02:22:36
Cooperative extension, the same, 2,400.
02:22:40
We do have a large amount of money for the Route 670 project that we are locally administering for VDOT.
02:22:50
So that money is really just passing through us to go to the contractor that we've hired.
02:22:58
The non-departmental, that's where our huge decrease is because we wiped out contingency, but it sounds like we're putting 200 back in.
02:23:06
and then debt service, there's slight decreases, stuff's been coming off debt.
02:23:11
And part of that is the county up until, I guess, three years ago, when we stopped borrowing money, there was always a revolving three-year borrow for vehicles and we stopped doing that.
02:23:26
So that's come off.
02:23:27
So now that that's going down.
02:23:33
and then big transfer out.
02:23:35
We programmed in the increase to schools, the 2.88 million.
02:23:44
Social services, we've already talked about those two positions.
02:23:47
CSA, we talked about those two positions.
02:23:49
That increases 500, but it's offset by state funding, so the county portion's 230.
02:23:54
That's why you see that bigger number.
02:23:58
Solid waste, that's the transfer station.
02:24:02
They have contractual increases, but that's not general fund.
02:24:10
And then we've heard from Mr. Heka on the water fund.
02:24:16
Sewer, actually, the budget that they submitted actually had a slight decrease with a slight increase with the water fund because of the new position.
02:24:26
And then you see the water debt there.
SPEAKER_06
02:24:29
Can I ask you about 57 sewer fund debt?
02:24:34
I was looking at that.
02:24:41
What's left is $282,894, but it would freeze up.
02:24:50
It freezes up $1,011,702.
SPEAKER_10
02:24:55
I'm running to the microphone here.
02:25:01
We should have a celebration.
02:25:03
It's almost the 30 year anniversary of the wastewater plant.
02:25:06
which means 30-year debt is finishing.
02:25:10
That was all accounted for in our financial analysis.
02:25:13
Believe me, if anything, it dovetails nicely with that debt, I should say, that debt drops off and is replaced by the bigger debt for the water.
02:25:22
Oh, okay.
02:25:24
Yeah, reservoir.
SPEAKER_06
02:25:24
Yeah, no, it was a bigger debt.
SPEAKER_02
02:25:28
Clear as mud, just like the county audit.
SPEAKER_06
02:25:31
Thank you, Tom.
SPEAKER_02
02:25:33
Well, that's good that we actually paid something off.
02:25:36
Well, not great.
02:25:37
Sort of kind of.
SPEAKER_12
02:25:39
We got a double A bond rating because we do pay our debts.
SPEAKER_02
02:25:46
Okay.
02:25:48
What you had said in our original workshop, rough, rough, rough number 936 on new revenue.
02:25:58
What is that been tightened up any?
SPEAKER_12
02:26:00
Yes, absolutely.
02:26:01
So I'll give you there.
02:26:03
I can see that they're pulling up the spreadsheet to be able to give you numbers.
02:26:06
But what we ended up doing, typically it's like almost April before we get with the new construction buddy ads, because it's not a reassessment year.
02:26:16
So the nobody's value went out.
02:26:18
But if you finished your basement or you added onto your house or did something like that, then you pay
02:26:24
your assessment goes up and it's dealt with as you're getting your permits and stuff and any new construction like what we're seeing in Creekside.
02:26:36
Normally we wait until all of that's entered into the BRITE system and the Commissioner of Revenue staff is fast and furiously putting that all in.
02:26:46
And it takes a while.
02:26:47
And we also work with Pearson to help us with that too.
02:26:51
But what Kim and I did is we looked at, in Creekside, the houses are pretty much the same cost.
02:26:58
And we know exactly how many are going in.
02:27:00
So the math was pretty easy for us to just do without waiting for bright, you know, to get it all into bright.
02:27:06
so we took those forecasts amount plus we took the time to go through all of them and well not all of them but we went through and we projected we built a lot of that into the forecast because knowing how tight it was we don't want to wait till till April so we we did more of a projection than we normally are able to give you at this time of the year and that total increase number is
SPEAKER_02
02:27:37
I smell smoke.
SPEAKER_12
02:27:38
Okay, there's still, yeah, there's some smoke.
SPEAKER_02
02:27:43
We got their own role, please.
02:27:45
D'Angelo the accountant.
SPEAKER_12
02:27:47
Okay, so you have the number.
SPEAKER_02
02:27:49
$59.86, we're done.
SPEAKER_12
02:27:54
Oh, so they have it in there assuming the nine cents, so that's why it's so much higher.
02:27:59
So let's let them see what it, what is.
SPEAKER_02
02:28:03
Everything stayed the same, what's the new revenue?
SPEAKER_12
02:28:06
They need to figure that out real quick.
SPEAKER_02
02:28:09
Well, they can do it before the next meeting.
02:28:12
They don't have to figure it out this minute because they got a lot of figuring to do.
SPEAKER_12
02:28:17
But it is more, but not as, so I believe, I'm going to say in the neighborhood of like 1.5 million.
02:28:25
1.5 million more than the last year.
SPEAKER_15
02:28:33
That's 69 cents.
02:28:35
at 69 cents.
SPEAKER_07
02:28:37
Right.
02:28:38
So 1.3.
SPEAKER_12
02:28:40
Oh, I said 1.5.
02:28:41
I was overly optimistic.
02:28:43
So about 1.3 million.
SPEAKER_02
02:28:45
Okay.
02:28:45
It'll change five times before we're done.
SPEAKER_12
02:28:47
So actually that number, it's not really, that number is really probably not going to change.
02:28:53
It might change like tens of thousands, but definitely not.
02:28:57
We've, we've changed it hundreds of thousands of dollars in past years.
02:29:01
And that won't be the case at all this year.
02:29:03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
02:29:06
Okay, I have a general question about general property maintenance, the 56-7.
02:29:15
Where is the money for the projects that we've been doing all year, the maintenance projects?
02:29:20
Is that it?
02:29:21
Is that all that you have budgeted for that this year come the new fiscal year?
02:29:25
But what is the current fiscal year on that?
SPEAKER_12
02:29:31
We have projects that pop up all over the county, right?
SPEAKER_02
02:29:40
So where's that money coming from?
02:29:42
Because we haven't appropriated it in the sense that it's appropriated through the budget to fix the old rescue squad building or to fix something at the park.
02:29:54
anything that those guys do.
SPEAKER_12
02:29:56
Yeah, so under tab 33, I'll just say generally, there's certain contracts that we have like for, you know, the park for mowing for snow removal, electrical service, heating service, stuff like that.
02:30:10
so we're not doing anything at the old EMS building that's what we're asking for the grant for but like littler things like the refrigerator when that building was left had food in it and yeah and it was very moldy so
02:30:34
at one point and there was mold on the walls.
02:30:38
Nobody's in that building, so when Mike was in that building to check out something else about the structure, he had to get rid of all that moldy stuff.
02:30:49
The mold's just going to spread, so he had to deal with the mold.
02:30:52
On a maintenance thing, he had a
02:30:55
dumpster pulled there, threw away the refrigerator and all the drywall, you know, like that he had to take out and then had a mold remediation company come in and deal with the mold that they saw.
02:31:08
So that's not, and that's like a regular maintenance expense.
02:31:14
At the elections trailer, there was a window
02:31:18
I mean, those were used trailers when they were bought.
02:31:21
The window was leaking, which has to be addressed.
02:31:26
So he had to buy a new window and a new door.
02:31:28
And then he had
02:31:31
a different dumpster there to be able to pull that out and I think they were throwing some other stuff away too so it wasn't like big dumpster it was like a regular dumpster and then he fixed those things and the floor because the floor was what about like the ramp that was done there I mean it was small but what about like that where does that money come from
02:31:52
The ramp I would have to check with him, but I'm sure it came out of their budget They probably did the ramp themselves bought the wood and did the ramp 56,000 what's the total of that line item?
SPEAKER_02
02:32:03
That's the increase.
02:32:04
What's the total of that line item?
SPEAKER_12
02:32:06
Oh the total line item for maintenance is If you subtract you mean well including that the salaries that also are the salaries for the cleaning staff and
02:32:21
the salaries for facilities manager and then also his two staff.
02:32:28
I have to take a minute to subtract that out unless you want those costs too.
SPEAKER_02
02:32:33
We're looking at the total so yes, subtract it out.
SPEAKER_12
02:32:36
The total total that includes all of the staff is 1.491 million of which a substantial portion is salary two.
02:32:50
salary and all the benefits.
02:32:56
And then there's contracts that are, you know, fixed contracts.
02:33:02
Like we have contracts to make sure that there's the generators of fuel and
02:33:13
I can get somebody who actually does this work to explain it better, but you know, there's insurance costs here.
02:33:20
That's a fixed cost.
02:33:23
The, you know, the landfill disposal fees, you know, janitorial supplies.
02:33:33
They have a couple vehicles, they have uniforms for, you know, staff and bulk fuel generator.
02:33:42
cost that's $30,000 for that.
02:33:47
So all those things are listed out here.
SPEAKER_02
02:33:52
So it's 6007 repairs and maintenance.
02:33:57
Is that of the buildings or is that in general?
SPEAKER_12
02:34:00
So repairs and maintenance.
02:34:03
I'd have to ask Mike or do you guys know?
SPEAKER_07
02:34:06
I mean, repairs and maintenance, it could be any, I'd have to look through the actual system to see exactly what vendors we're talking about, maintenance.
02:34:15
I don't, you know.
SPEAKER_02
02:34:17
I guess I just want to make sure that we know exactly what the number is that we're using to do all the work that we see being done.
02:34:23
And then it's not coming out of the general fund or it's not coming out of, by the way, we had to do it.
02:34:27
I want that to be more structured.
02:34:30
I understand that things break.
02:34:32
HVAC systems are very expensive.
02:34:33
It breaks.
02:34:34
Okay, you got to fix it.
02:34:35
But we've done a lot of extra projects over the last couple of years that I just want to know where that exact pot of money is.
02:34:43
Now, is it in everybody's budget?
02:34:45
Is it like the courthouse, for example?
02:34:46
We need to do some work at the courthouse.
02:34:48
Where's that money?
02:34:48
Is it in the court?
SPEAKER_12
02:34:49
All that stuff's in Mike's budget.
SPEAKER_02
02:34:51
Right, so what's the number?
02:34:53
Because you've got so many different... You'll have to give it to me now.
SPEAKER_12
02:34:59
Yeah, it's good to get back to you because they do a lot of the work themselves, so they're buying materials.
SPEAKER_02
02:35:04
Yeah, so I want to differentiate.
02:35:07
I'm not complaining, but I just really want to know what that is because I feel like that's a loose end.
SPEAKER_12
02:35:11
Yeah, like, or, you know, I see the treasure, so it comes to mind, but she had, we had to create an ADA accessible window.
02:35:20
So they bought the materials and then came in on a weekend and then some or whatever and did the work.
02:35:27
So.
SPEAKER_15
02:35:32
But it's not, I'll put it, I'll put the note down.
SPEAKER_12
02:35:37
Yeah, these are really, really, really small private CEOs and then the VIP or anything.
SPEAKER_13
02:35:42
What is their lease or rent of a building?
02:35:45
What building are they leasing or renting?
02:35:47
$11,000.
SPEAKER_04
02:35:50
Probably the submission of $11,000.
SPEAKER_12
02:35:54
Oh yeah, that shouldn't be in that, would it?
02:35:57
I have to check.
SPEAKER_02
02:36:01
I think we need a lot of detail in that budget.
SPEAKER_12
02:36:04
Do you want me to ask Mike to come on Tuesday?
SPEAKER_02
02:36:07
I just want some data first and then we can call Mike in.
SPEAKER_12
02:36:09
Okay.
SPEAKER_02
02:36:10
Might be nothing to it.
02:36:14
There's just a lot of vagueness in all these headings and it's a lot of money, right?
02:36:19
We just want a little more detail.
SPEAKER_12
02:36:20
Yeah, I just realized too, on your, in the back, there is a justification of the baseline that's a little more clear.
02:36:28
So what was the one you were asking about the lease of buildings?
02:36:35
So yeah, that is the rent for the Commissioner of Revenue.
02:36:38
That's what that money is.
02:36:40
It's in Mike's budget.
SPEAKER_04
02:36:44
Most of the projects she was talking about, the repairs and things come out of that account that you were just talking about.
02:36:54
The courthouse and the bigger projects are previously approved capital projects.
02:37:00
So the courthouse work was approved, I think, two capital projects maybe.
02:37:06
It's been approved a while and it's taken a while to get all the equipment together and stuff going.
02:37:12
Yeah, and they're some of the big stuff.
02:37:14
The big stuff is in the Capitol Island.
SPEAKER_12
02:37:16
That's where it should be.
02:37:18
Yeah, and they pay the electric bill for the all the county buildings.
02:37:23
They pay for all the gas and propane for all the county buildings.
02:37:26
They pay the water and sewer bill for all the county buildings.
02:37:31
That's what a lot of this stuff is fixed costs, you know, like that.
02:37:36
Unless, you know, I guess we could
SPEAKER_15
02:37:39
So let's try to come back.
02:37:40
The electrical service, the electrical service line is paying the electric bill.
02:37:45
Is that what you're saying?
SPEAKER_12
02:37:47
Yeah, OK, and he has that in this detail on the very last page.
SPEAKER_02
02:37:52
I see that now, OK?
02:37:56
Well, then we really need to look at that capital budget too.
02:38:00
Right, what's already been approved that we haven't done yet, like before we approve this year, we need to look at that.
02:38:07
because that could be where some of the extra is going.
02:38:13
We've done a lot and we needed to do a lot, but we need to stop doing a lot.
02:38:18
We need to just maintain for a little while and figure out where we're at with the world, I guess is my point.
SPEAKER_12
02:38:24
I mean, it's also an option to spread those costs to all the agencies so that each building has to pay their
SPEAKER_02
02:38:30
That's a headache for those guys.
SPEAKER_12
02:38:33
They're just recovering costs so like it doesn't make the bills go down and it just makes it more complicated for the staff that would be better.
SPEAKER_02
02:38:42
It's fine where it is but it just needs to be broken down and the projects need to be like I think clearly identified because then when we get phone calls because we get them all the time, hey what's going on down here I don't remember anybody approving that.
02:38:53
I mean nobody knows anything and that's what I'm worried about.
02:38:57
I want that to stop.
02:38:58
A lot of money going out that way.
SPEAKER_12
02:39:00
Mike does do a monthly report in your package too, but we can add more detail.
SPEAKER_02
02:39:07
That would be great.
02:39:11
I love data.
02:39:12
I know you're the data man.
02:39:16
Hey, you have the right job.
02:39:18
Bea and James will be up all night.
02:39:26
While we have the treasure here, would you like to outline the $52,247 real quick?
02:39:34
That'd be your increase?
02:39:38
Yeah.
SPEAKER_12
02:39:38
Most of hers is salary.
02:39:41
It's salary and benefit.
02:39:43
It's especially, it looks like, yeah.
02:39:47
It looks like people who didn't, like you must have new staff that are taking healthcare
SPEAKER_08
02:39:53
they put that benefit where the staff before them didn't that's what it looks like because it went up so much overall but it was a two percent increase but the majority of that is the salary and then the only thing that really went up there's some stuff for postage or paper just minimal amounts and then that fifteen thousand that I told you about when I spoke the other night
02:40:15
So that is the, um, that's for any of our, they're going to do any tax sales.
02:40:21
It has to be required by code.
SPEAKER_04
02:40:23
Have been busy with that.
02:40:25
Yeah.
SPEAKER_08
02:40:26
So it's required by code that we have an attorney for that.
02:40:29
Okay.
02:40:29
Um, and I just, you know, I don't, they have to do all their legal work as far as tracking down any owners or any heirs.
02:40:37
And you know, that just depends on how much that they have to do.
02:40:42
So I put in 15,000, I've seen one $4,000 bill.
02:40:46
I think another similar one's getting ready to come in.
02:40:48
So that's 8,000 already this year.
SPEAKER_12
02:40:50
Okay.
SPEAKER_08
02:40:50
So I put it at 15,000.
02:40:52
I don't know what that number is going to be.
SPEAKER_13
02:40:54
That can really add up quickly depending on some of those problems.
02:40:58
So they go back for generations.
SPEAKER_08
02:41:00
Exactly.
02:41:01
And unfortunately it hasn't been done in the past several years.
02:41:05
So I think the previous attorney
02:41:10
had retired and I think he had kind of stopped kind of doing anything for a while as he was exiting out the door.
02:41:17
So there's been backlogs, a backlog, exactly.
02:41:21
So that's why we're seeing that.
SPEAKER_02
02:41:23
Well, you're here.
02:41:23
I just want to ask again.
02:41:25
Any other questions tonight on this list?
02:41:38
To recap my scribble, can you all get us a price on the special education bus for next meeting?
02:41:50
For just that one, because it was in a lump on our sheet.
02:41:53
OK. Well, you don't have to give it to us now.
02:41:55
I think that what I would like to see do is take all the changes that we made tonight, then add asterisks for the special education bus,
02:42:06
at asterisks for one sheriff's deputy car in case we hire the sheriff's deputy.
02:42:17
I would like for the sheriff to come to the next meeting and we go through his with him because it's a big budget again.
SPEAKER_12
02:42:23
He was here.
SPEAKER_02
02:42:24
I know he must have had to go do something.
02:42:25
Yeah, but I would like for him to come back on the 10th.
02:42:29
So we can make sure we don't inadvertently do something we're not supposed to do there.
02:42:36
And so we'll have a better grasp at all these numbers by the next meeting to see where we are.
SPEAKER_12
02:42:40
Yeah, it's so many changes that it's going to be real hard for.
02:42:43
I was trying to keep track of it on Excel and it's just in real time.
02:42:48
I think we understand that.
02:42:49
Yeah, we understand the updates.
02:42:50
We'll go back and adjust.
SPEAKER_02
02:42:52
But we have time and we have time as a board to go back through this stuff.
02:42:55
I mean, I have a lot of time this week to really dig in because we've been working hard.
SPEAKER_13
02:43:01
And maybe you can just email us.
SPEAKER_02
02:43:03
I was going to say so we can so we can digest it before the attempt to go.
02:43:06
Oh, it's a great idea.
SPEAKER_12
02:43:07
Help do it.
02:43:08
But we've got to get that out before tomorrow.
SPEAKER_02
02:43:11
Very helpful.
02:43:12
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_12
02:43:13
Okay.
02:43:14
So Cooper, you and I, if I have to do it myself, we'll do it.
02:43:17
We'll get it to you by tomorrow.
02:43:19
It may be really late on Friday, but we'll get it to you so you have it for the weekend.
02:43:24
Okay.
02:43:24
We'll email.
SPEAKER_02
02:43:25
The weather's going to be really nice this weekend, but yeah.
SPEAKER_12
02:43:28
Okay.
02:43:28
Well, I'll be in here too.
02:43:30
We all got this.
SPEAKER_02
02:43:35
No, that's fine.
02:43:36
I'm just kidding around, but that'd be great.
02:43:38
And then this way we can absorb it.
02:43:39
And when we come together on the 10th, we have a pretty short meeting, regular board meeting.
02:43:43
And then what we'll do is we'll go back into workshop immediately after the meeting and stay a while.
02:43:48
And then maybe we can get our stuff done.
02:43:51
And we do have to set a tax rate no later than the 12th, which is Thursday.
SPEAKER_12
02:43:55
Yeah.
02:43:55
When we get the changes in, we'll be able to
02:43:59
I know also we asked the schools to talk about that.
02:44:05
Did you want them to talk about that?
SPEAKER_02
02:44:07
Not tonight, but I want to get our stuff straight and then I want to do that separately is what I would like.
SPEAKER_12
02:44:12
So do you want me to just leave it at 288 or do you want me to for the projections that we show you for schools?
SPEAKER_02
02:44:22
I would think just take it out for an hour so we can...
SPEAKER_12
02:44:25
It's very easy to adjust that because since it's tied 100% to the real estate, it's very easy to change that.
SPEAKER_02
02:44:31
Right, because you just add it back in.
02:44:33
I think it's going to be not confusing, but it's going to be very...
02:44:37
I think we're just trying to figure out our spot first, see if we can raise any money, see what the new revenue is, see if we need to make more cuts depending on what we want to do.
02:44:45
And we'll have that all finished up Tuesday night.
SPEAKER_12
02:44:47
Perfect.
02:44:48
Okay.
SPEAKER_02
02:44:49
and then we'll deal with the school issue next and then we'll set the advertise rate will be after that.
02:44:57
This way it's kind of organized.
02:44:58
Y'all good with that?
02:45:00
You're looking at me funny.
SPEAKER_15
02:45:01
I was I'm trying to think because you just brought up the reserve fund.
02:45:04
I was trying to figure out what that is.
02:45:06
So yeah, yeah.
02:45:09
OK, perfect yeah.
SPEAKER_02
02:45:11
All right.
SPEAKER_12
02:45:11
Oh, on that, I did put, because you had to ask for a copy of the board action in that packet that you've had.
SPEAKER_02
02:45:20
I know the envelope.
SPEAKER_12
02:45:21
It's in there.
SPEAKER_02
02:45:22
Okay, perfect.
SPEAKER_12
02:45:23
We'll review that as well.
02:45:25
So you can see it there.
SPEAKER_02
02:45:26
Okay, sounds good.
02:45:30
Well, everybody has their homework.
02:45:32
Does anybody have anything to add tonight?
SPEAKER_15
02:45:35
Just thank you for everybody that came out because it was a lot and this is my first time in depth.
02:45:42
Having the experts in the room with me is helpful, so I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02
02:45:49
Oh, sure.
02:45:50
Do that now.
02:45:51
So the budget works out.
02:45:52
We're done with Ms. Shafrick's got a piece of legislation we need to talk about real quick.
02:45:56
No, we're not adjourning yet.
02:45:58
No, it's during... Kelly.
02:46:01
We're good.
SPEAKER_12
02:46:02
We're good.
02:46:04
I got you.
02:46:04
We got just this afternoon something from David Blunt at the... Where's my glasses?
SPEAKER_05
02:46:17
Long day.
SPEAKER_12
02:46:20
It wasn't up at three in the morning, but I did get up at five.
02:46:24
It's not my favorite.
02:46:26
So there are two bills that have suddenly surged in terms of looking like there's going to be some actions taken soon and they they impact our budget.
02:46:37
So I think it's important to bring that up because I'm going to ask you to have me
02:46:45
put together a response that basically says what our position is on the bill.
02:46:50
So not to presume what your position will be, but these two bills curtail local authority and create substantial local fiscal impact
02:46:59
by imposing mandatory collective bargaining on local government if a group of employees petition and vote to form a bargaining unit.
02:47:10
So just some details.
02:47:12
There's two different bills, but they're very similar.
02:47:16
the things that aren't similar are stuff that are just like the administration of it which who cares but the main thing is that it eliminates the local option framework which currently exists now where you would have to pass an ordinance allowing for collective bargaining and then that's what kicks off the process this just makes it mandatory state administered collective bargaining system regardless of local governing body preferences or
02:47:45
capacity.
02:47:46
It has binding arbitration that creates outcomes with unpredictable fiscal consequences.
02:47:52
It has new reporting documentation and compliance tracking requirements increasing, you know, that would increase our administrative overhead and it has new procedural timelines and legal standards that
02:48:06
will impact our HR staff, actually it impacts the schools too, county attorneys, everybody that has to meet regardless of what our staffing capacity is.
02:48:18
And local governments lose existing decision-making authority over labor relations policy, and they're creating a state organization to deal with it.
02:48:29
So that's where the arbitration would take place.
02:48:33
The provisions would take effect July 1, 2028, which is not that far away.
02:48:42
So two years from now, which isn't a lot of time to get all this organized.
02:48:46
And I say this as someone who had to do this in another locality.
02:48:50
It is so much more work than you think it is, particularly in Virginia, because we haven't had mandatory collective bargaining.
02:48:58
So it's a whole thing.
02:49:04
Would you like me to respond with our, because they are collecting, um, TJPDC is collecting our, um, localities thoughts.
02:49:13
So how would you, would you like me to respond?
02:49:16
And so how would you like me to respond?
SPEAKER_02
02:49:18
Well, you have the most experience with it of anybody in the room.
02:49:21
So I would like you to respond as strongly as you possibly can that we're not interested in the state.
02:49:28
I mean, I really just...
02:49:47
labor relations right in the same office building, let alone having a state arbiter.
SPEAKER_12
02:49:51
Well, I think that the most frustrating part of this that a lot of localities have, not just us, and especially in other parts of the state, is that it went from being, if you want to do it, you can do it, because we're a Dilma state, so they had to allow us to do it.
02:50:08
But if you didn't want to do it, you didn't have to do it.
02:50:09
But this would mandate it.
02:50:11
And it goes against what you said as a board, your priority was, which was
02:50:16
The Board has no permission to sign it.
SPEAKER_15
02:50:30
These bills move really, really fast.
SPEAKER_12
02:50:38
And so for PDC to collect everybody's stuff and move it forward, it was just really good timing that we had this meeting.
SPEAKER_15
02:50:47
Does it affect the teachers as well, or is it just the government side?
SPEAKER_06
02:50:52
It does.
SPEAKER_15
02:50:57
Yeah, if you could tell us what you know about it because this is the first time I'm seeing it.
SPEAKER_11
02:51:01
So what I can tell you is that the superintendents association and the school board association are lobbying for local control so that it's a local decision.
02:51:10
So it would greatly impact.
02:51:12
And one of the struggles with that for us would be that
02:51:19
We don't control our funding, right?
02:51:22
So we'd have to plan for it.
SPEAKER_12
02:51:28
It's really not even just the funding.
02:51:31
People think, well, it's for salaries and stuff.
02:51:34
And yeah, that's the truth.
02:51:35
But a lot of it ends up relating to what we call employee relations work.
02:51:42
Arbitration.
02:51:44
You have people who aren't even anywhere in this locality making decisions about how to manage our services.
02:51:53
and that's what affects cost too.
02:51:56
And morale.
SPEAKER_02
02:51:58
Incredible story.
02:51:59
Yeah, but if however you guys want to do it, but if if the correspondence is along those lines, can I just sign it?
SPEAKER_12
02:52:06
Yeah, OK, I mean I'll be happy to send it to everybody, but then I'll just have to.
02:52:11
Yeah, that's fine.
SPEAKER_02
02:52:13
Try to track me down tomorrow.
SPEAKER_12
02:52:16
We have to drive to wherever you're going to be.
02:52:18
I'm not driving to West Virginia.
SPEAKER_02
02:52:20
Don't ever say that.
02:52:21
You don't want to attract me.
02:52:24
You don't want to drive 33 over to Virginia.
02:52:26
That's right.
02:52:27
That's right.
02:52:27
You don't want to do that.
02:52:29
OK, good.
9. Adjourn
SPEAKER_02
02:52:30
Well, thank you all very much for being here.
02:52:32
Thank you to the board.
02:52:33
Thank you to staff.
02:52:35
It's a work in progress, but I feel like we got a little bit of a direction tonight, and we'll solidify those numbers next meeting and hopefully have a clearer path forward.
02:52:43
Hopefully we generated some money and we know we got some also.
SPEAKER_05
02:52:47
The old saying is you prepare for the best and you hope for the best and prepare for the worst.
SPEAKER_02
02:52:59
And you'll get with the sheriff tomorrow.
02:53:01
OK, perfect.
02:53:03
All right, now I'm looking for that motion.
02:53:06
I have a motion to second to adjourn.
02:53:12
Roll call vote.
02:53:13
Mr. Lamb?
02:53:14
Aye.
02:53:14
Mr. Hartung?
02:53:15
Aye.
02:53:16
Mr. Guilford?
02:53:17
Aye.
02:53:17
Mr. Durer?
02:53:18
And the Chair votes aye.
02:53:21
7-20.
02:53:23
I don't think I can get up.