Board of Supervisors Budget Worksession   2/18/2025

I'll call this budget workshop of the Louisa County Board of Supervisors to order.

Today is February the 18th, 2025.

We have a couple items on the agenda today.

One is the discussion fiscal year 2026 operation maintenance and capital improvement budget.

We also have three outside agencies that we've invited to speak to us.

We'll start the meeting off.

Yes, Chairman, members of the board, thank you for meeting today.

In front of you, you have your updated outside agency list.

It's got all the adjustments from last time that y'all gave me and then of course, we'll be talking with three agencies today.

The Planning Commission did meet last week, my days right, and they have approved or to move the capital plan up to you guys for your your review and consideration.

And then

That is the last thing.

We also got numbers from assessment.

So I have adjusted the operational budget a little bit in there for revenues.

So without new construction, comparing last year's real estate to this year's, it's about an 8 point something increase.

I think it's 8.1, 8.2.

And then if you take into account all of it, it's about a 10% increase.

So you will see on that

I've got just a couple of materials so I'll bring those up to you all.

Thank you again for the invitation to present today and answer your questions.

It's my pleasure to be here and introduce myself.

I'm Judith Selzer.

I'm the new CEO of the Jefferson Area Board on Aging.

I started just about five weeks ago, and it's been a great pleasure to get to know our community.

And I spent some time today at our Respite Enrichment Center and our community center down the road.

My colleague, our Chief Human Resources Officer, Christina Evans, who I think many of you know.

Yep, just hello guys.

But we wanted to come by and again just say hello, introduce myself.

Thank you for your years of investment in the senior community.

As you know, the aging community continues to grow tremendously and the investment that you've made in wrapping around services to ensure that they're not being isolated, that they're having community meals, that they're having the aging services, hello, coordination so that way where they run into issues

They have somebody to navigate and case manage and help connect them to services.

I do understand in my short tenure with the organization that over the last year we did have some employee turnover and that there was some disruptions in some of the programs.

And so I apologize for that.

I think some of you have begun to meet our new team members that are here in Luisa, Tony and Emily, who are running our Enrichment Center and our Community Center.

Those of you who've met them I'm sure can attest to that they are passionate, they are very engaged in the community.

Today over at the center when I was there, there was about 30 folks enjoying bingo and starting to get excited hopefully after this next snow for the spring to go outside and garden.

So really excited about that.

I do have for you of course some data that I passed around or Christina passed around.

about our program impact last year and on the very last page you'll see some data about where we are this year because we're halfway through this fiscal year so I won't go through every slide but if you look at the very last slide about how we're doing so far this year this is what I had the team pull for me

And again, I can answer many questions for you, but not all of them, given that I've been here for only five weeks.

So any questions that you have that I don't have the answers for, I promise to write down and get you answers right away about.

But for this current year that we're in, we had projected to see 65 individuals, about 10,000 hours to address social isolation.

And halfway through the year, we're on track for that at about 46 different individuals.

The Community Center Meals, you can see that as well about halfway there.

Home delivered meals are for those folks, of course, who are homebound, who don't have the ability to get to our center for meals.

And so we want to ensure that they have healthy meals at home.

Our information and assistance line where folks can call, whether that's a caregiver or the individual themselves saying,

You know, I've got a broken floor.

I need a ramp.

I need home delivered meals.

I'm not sure how to address this issue.

Our community members can help direct them in different directions.

Our aging service coordinators can even go out to their homes or their facilities.

And then of course we do track satisfaction on all different things and so that is moving forward as well.

But again, I wanted to leave time for questions.

So again, just happy to be here.

Mr.

Chair.

Thank you all both for being here.

I'm really the supervisor that kicked up the dust about the Senior Center and Betty Queen Center.

So I have met.

And Tony Williams?

No.

Yeah, oh it is.

Tony Williams.

It ain't me though.

It's not posture.

Very nice man.

Very nice man.

He actually is a resident of the town of Mineral.

So he lives in the county.

He is splitting his time between the Louisa Senior Center and the Fluvanna from what he told me.

Full of energy.

Yeah.

So that sounds like me.

Well, no comment.

But and also Emily.

Emily actually is sitting in on our meetings with the Commission on Aging.

She participated greatly in that meeting in a wonderful way.

She was at the Betty Queen Center when it was at its height of intergenerationality, I guess, which has really been lacking in that building for a while.

So I left there that Wednesday.

with great anticipation, feeling very, starting to get very comfortable with where we are.

Well thank you so much for spending time with them and getting to know them as well and also for the feedback they shared with me.

We're going to from time to time make mistakes and our goal is to learn from them and to do a better job.

So at any time that you've got questions or concerns you can always reach out to them, you can reach out to us.

While I am not a resident of this county, I just live 30 minutes away.

Christina of course is a resident here as our

As you said, our other team members.

So we're really excited about continuing to grow and refresh our programs here and serve the community.

But we understand that last year there were some bumps.

And so we're really glad we're on a better track this year.

I would like to thank you both for coming.

And you know I'm a big supporter of yours.

Since being on the board for a little over a year now, the Java board,

I've gotten to know a little bit more of the nuances and how the program runs and what's going on in other counties and I just have great admiration.

I know we went through some bumps and a few hiccups last year as I addressed with you and I spoke to Christian about too, but I feel strong that you guys are on the right track.

I know people who are in your programs, in that Wednesday program, who love the other Toni Williams, and it's a lifeline.

I know one lady who's in the program who wasn't really doing much at home, and she has been looking forward to it.

reading all the events, activities, what she's going to do.

It's something that her daughter said it gets her so excited for her to go to, that there's a place and a purpose for her and a friend of hers goes to.

So the two of them are there.

And it's just the joy hearing it from the daughter who's a coworker of mine.

And I have goosebumps that her mom has kind of a passion and a mission now and gets very excited about the program.

So thank you guys for coming.

It really is our honor and we appreciate that feedback as well.

And my understanding is even in just the few weeks that our new team members have been on the ground, the Parks and Recreation manager there has even enrolled his mom in the community center.

And that's one of the ladies I'm talking about.

Yes.

So to me that's like a huge sign that he's seeing success and you know we're moving in a great direction that he's even like this is this is a great place for my mom to be.

And with Tony's

For folks who know, he's got a musical theater background, and so he's got them line dancing, and they've got plans to take field trips to see shows, and I mean, it just, it's like, man, I want to go there all day.

Exactly.

And I saw that today.

They're really being very thoughtful and intentional about trying to break down boundaries and really just create true community in all the senses of the word.

But again, it wouldn't happen without your financial investment.

And we know that there are so many important needs of the community and the fact that you all have for so many years.

Anybody else have any questions?

I will just point out that, and the board will vote on this later, but the finance committee had recommended that we fully fund your request.

I'm a member of the finance committee.

The other Mr. Williams here is a member of the finance committee.

So thank you.

Does anybody else have any other questions for him?

We appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

Next is the Louisa Historical Society.

Good evening, Mr. Adams and the rest of the board of supervisors.

My name is Vernon Fleming.

I'm the newly elected president of the Lewis County Historical Society.

Caitlin, as you know, is the executive director.

We're here to talk about our budget.

First of all, I guess two years ago we were awarded $42,500.

Last year that was reduced to $5,000.

Reason being we took it as being punitive because of comments made by a person who was operating independently of our organization but made comments regarding the

Data Center and the location of that.

But again, that was a grant funded person.

The cut did not affect that person's salary.

It hurt the community more than anything else.

So we're seeking to get that funding restored.

Not the full amount, but at least $39,000 is what we're asking for.

We think that's reasonable.

Yeah, you all have received your budget financial requests.

So this is a recap for you all.

But the way we broke this down was a little bit differently than we have in the past.

First and foremost, we are asking for $13,260.

And that would offset a portion

of the services we provide as a visitor information center for the county.

A portion of our staff time to man that front desk, get all of the brochures, etc., do all the kind of community liaison work with other visitor centers in the state.

And then an additional part of that would be also coverage to help with cleaning for that portion of the museum.

We've also asked for additional funding to help support our annual Heritage Day, which brings in visitors from outside of the county.

That is hosted in April and some of you have been there before, which is great.

Good thing.

But this would offset some of those costs for outside speakers, promotion of the event throughout the community.

And then the two other additional requests, one would be $15,840, and that is based on the production of additional tours for our tourism app.

We had applied for tourism funding this past cycle, and so this would be an additional, additions to the tourism offerings that we can provide for the community, as well as some of the marketing materials and pamphlets and maps and those sorts of things.

And then the last portion of the request is $7,000 to help support maintenance of the Trevillian Schoolhouse and the Mickey House.

The Trevillian Schoolhouse is the 19th century one-room schoolhouse that's at the museum.

and then the 18th century Mickey House, which was moved from Historic Green Springs to the museum about a little over 10 years ago.

So that would help support kind of the maintenance and preservation of those because as you all I'm sure are aware, old buildings take additional love and support.

So the question is, why fund the museum?

We discover, preserve, and present history of the county.

That discovery, several years ago we did a empty stones to speak.

The team went out and looked at grave sites, identified those grave sites, and tried to develop history on those graves to make sure they were preserved.

If you go down to Shady Grove Roosevelt School in the Gumspring area, that building's been restored with support of the Historical Society.

If you look at the Laurel Hill community, it's going to guide us into trouble, but the objective of that was to make sure that there was no grave sites that was going to be disturbed without being aware of it.

So we were trying to do our due diligence for the good of the county and make sure that there was not going to be any issues long term.

The Freedom of Choice project, which you all supported and funded a couple years ago, was again presenting history of part of our community.

It had been kind of neglected in the past.

We offer hard cooking, we offer herb gardening, loom weaving.

These are things that our ancestors did in the past that would be lost if it wasn't for the Historical Society presenting classes, teaching folks how that was done.

We recently had an old homes tour to showcase the old homes in Louisa County, which is part of our treasure that brought in about 149 people.

About 40% of those were from outside of the county, so these are dollars coming to the county due to the efforts of this organization.

We present genealogy classes to folks trying to find a history, and oftentimes they come back to the county to do that work, spending money on restaurants, buying gasoline, and sometimes staying overnight, giving a breeze of money at the place.

which again tax dollars goes back to the county.

But what we do is provide a resource for genealogists, for researchers, but the tourism center is one that we see as key for generating revenue for the county.

We have roughly 2,500 visitors last year that was up 4% from the year before.

We've had folks reach out nationally and internationally trying to do research within where they have roots in Louisa County.

And oftentimes they'll call in, sometimes they'll drive in.

We just had a couple come down a few weeks ago because they're performing teachers in the county, but again, spent time in the museum center, planning to come back, they're spending money in the county.

We see that historical society as a valuable resource for this county.

We're serving the community, we're serving folks who have roots in this county, we're presenting an opportunity for folks to come back,

Mr. Chairman, I do.

The total budget is about $120,000 this year.

But it's $120,000.

So based upon what we funded last year and $120,000, how did you make up for that?

That's a significant difference.

So the Old Homes Tour was a big deal in making up for that.

I think we brought in about, I think,

$7,000 from the old home store last year, which we're doing again this year and hoping to increase that as a base.

It's something that we had kind of tested the water on last year.

It was the first time we had done it in 10 years, maybe.

And so we didn't really know what to expect, but that's kind of been added to the rotation.

We have had additional donations from other community members, grant funds have been kind of the other way, and squeaking by has been the biggest way that we've done it, you know, cutting some things that we don't necessarily

I would add, because of the cuts, some folks made a one-time special donation to cover the gap that

Yeah, the other thing, Randy just said this because he's our treasurer, the other thing that we have to note is that we operate on a calendar year.

So we are only seeing this this calendar year has only seen a half a decrease.

So we were, we still had our two quarters of the prior year funding in this calendar year.

So we've seen a decrease, but we haven't seen the full, you know, down to $5,000 this year.

Okay.

So you're requesting 39.6.

You mean as far as our budget goes?

Yeah, so we have a pretty stable base as far as membership goes and donations.

And I don't have the breakdown in front of me, but we bring in about the goal is about $40,000 a year in our annual fund.

We bring in

We apply for grants, that's not guaranteed, but we sometimes get them, sometimes we don't.

yeah and so that's kind of those are bases you know membership we have a business sponsorship program that has fluctuated we're changing the way we're doing that this coming year with kind of more personal one-on-one business coordination rather than mass mailers because I

for those out too, but you know trying to kind of get more one-on-one communication with some of the businesses to increase that.

That's also going to go into our old homes tour to help offset some of the costs associated with that.

We'll have a separate business sponsorship advertising program for the old homes tour in the fall.

and then we have merchandise.

That's something that we're expanding this past week.

We were approved to be a wholesaler for Virginias for Lovers through the Virginia Tourism Commission.

So that's kind of another thing that we're adding to the mix.

The real answer is we try to diversify.

Historically, the museum sent out our membership and annual fund all at once, and that's how they raised money.

In the last two years, we have done that differently.

I've now been here.

But, you know, how do we kind of diversify our audience so that we're getting people in the door purchasing a book?

Also, people who are our constant base of, you know, bigger ticket item donors for events, business sponsorship, those sorts of things.

Mr. Chairman, thank you.

I'm going to ask one other question and I don't know the answer so you may not know the answer now and it's certainly acceptable.

We have some transient occupancy tax money that we can only use on certain things for like visitors and stuff like that.

Would the visitor center stuff here be available for that?

I know we gave them a grant already for some stuff.

I can answer part of that question.

When the grant request came,

To the Tourism Advisory Committee, which Mr. McCotter and I serve as liaisons, part of the grant funding requested was for a position.

The Tourism Advisory Committee, which

I don't have a vote, but I agreed with this.

There was another organization that asked for position two.

Well, what we did fund, which I have in front of me, $19,000

Two meetings ago, we funded $19,000 to the Historical Society, $6,000 for visitor signage signing for the Sargent Museum, $12,000 for the integration of maps and tours into the Louisa's tourism app, and $1,000 for an all-weather brochure, map kiosk, contingent on further evaluation of compatibility with the existing infrastructure.

So on the, let me see.

That's what it is with those monies.

Now, the committee has guidelines that they've adopted, but it has to be focused on tourism and bringing people into the county and focused on that.

And I believe that, like Mr. Adams was saying, they're not looking for things that would be an ongoing expense but a one-time expense.

So it wouldn't be something that had to be funded because we don't know.

It's a competitive kind of thing.

People submit applications.

And when the board increased the TOT tax, it should generate, based on projections, about $600,000 annually that would be used specifically for tourism-related activities.

Yeah, we are funding tourism.

We get $600,000 a year.

No.

I can tell you what we have left.

I do not know off the top of my head.

That's fair.

And we haven't like 600,000 was our budget for this year.

My question is, we have and I guess it's a broader question for the board.

We have a facility here that man's

So you're 40 hours a week during the week, but you're asking for 10 hours of support.

Do we have any other thing like this in the county that is a visitor center that is open?

I'm asking, I really don't know the answer to the question.

I'll be honest, there's a whole committee on that.

I'm not on that committee.

But we have with part of the establishment of that TOT tax was it has to be a committee has to be formed of different parts of you know, like people in the hotel business people

Just all the businesses that would be around to promote.

It could be, you know, things like this.

Yes, I think a lot of these things fall, but there are guidelines and then they would apply, which I think y'all did.

Yeah.

Does it always have to be a grant?

It's supposed to.

If we wanted to, I'm asking.

Yeah.

If we wanted to

It should, yes.

Just to give you further clarity, what we allocated in the January 6 meeting was a total of $45,699, which represents 27.2%.

of the $168,756 in a tourism partnership grants budget, leaving $122,057 available for future initiatives.

Some of those things that are under consideration is the gateway signage.

I think there's a second round of grant funding.

Some things were denied, some things were nothing was funded to the full amount.

Mr. McCotter, if I remember right, I think the Ag Fair asked for

A lot of money.

A lot.

A lot.

A couple hundred.

Yeah, and I would just say this is all new, and we kind of were unsure.

Obviously, the funding that we just went through through that grant application process was this past year's funding.

So we applied through it through that program, but we were unsure of how next year looks, how that was going to work, if it was all going to be funneled through.

We have to look at some numbers.

So I hear Mr. Adams saying in one vein that there's $600,000 a year, but then I hear the number there's only $145,000.

So that leaves $450,000 unaccounted for.

And the board approved it.

The committee said, and I don't have the exact numbers, but it was like a third for county operating, a third for programming, and like a third for events.

I'm just going off the top of my head.

I'll have to pull that resolution to get you exact numbers.

The committee approved the other two-thirds as well.

The events and the programming run through the committee.

That's what we applied.

I'd like the guy from the county who's from Java who's really fast and pleasant.

I'm different.

I will add that part of the county's portions to advertise, to promote the historic society, to promote all the arts center and the housing and all the other great things that are happening in the county.

And then there's also salaries for the county that people like our tourism department would be funded there.

But then we did set aside a piece that they do apply for.

Well, I think I'm good enough.

I understand, roughly.

Yeah, I have another question.

Caitlin, the terminology used was visitor center for what y'all are doing over there.

It's true.

Yes.

Yes, statewide, too.

We include brochures for the regional visitor center services.

Yeah, and we have them differentiated both by what they are, so we have a historical section, so are you coming to do history tours?

Here's all the information.

That's what I was getting at.

If you're serving as a visitor center, do you get any funding from the state for serving as a visitor center?

You can apply for separate grants.

There's a grant agency through VTC.

and my understanding is that they will help with getting additional signage.

We've applied to be a what is called a certified tourism information center and my understanding is that when that happens we will get we will have to kind of go through the process of getting the signage etc.

No, it moved.

It moved to us.

That certainly seems like maybe a better gateway than coming all the way into Louisa.

But hey, if you're in Louisa, you're going to have to maybe hit Main Street or something else, or maybe at the Lake Anna.

I don't know.

Right now, we have you.

You are our visitor center.

That is us.

To me, it seems like we got a pretty good value for $5,000 last year for a visitor center.

I don't think we're going to make a decision on this today, but we might.

I absolutely agree with him and I do support additional funding.

I always have because I know the umbrella that you guys are doing for this community and what you are doing.

Yeah, so we, and we'll open the Central Virginian room.

From the newspaper?

All of the papers going back to the 1880s are in the museum.

The actual papers are there, and we need to fund proper storage and handling of that.

I know that this is not lost on all of you.

You all have been involved, have looked at, have seen the growth that's happened at the Historical Society of late.

I do a lot with very little, both in finances,

My husband would also agree.

Both in amount of finances, but time.

I mean, I'm gonna leave here, run home, and I've got a 6.30 virtual presentation on genealogy with the Johnson family that will run for an hour, and I've got a six-year-old and a three-year-old.

Is there a cost for that for people to participate?

It's free and open to the public.

And we had one two weeks ago.

Last week, the snow is messing with my brain.

Last week, we had Dr. Shelley Murphy, who is the genealogy researcher at UVA's descendants.

organization.

She's going through all UVA's records, looking at all the, you know, what the papers actually say and seeing how she can connect them back.

That again, it was a free program for us.

We had 40 people sign online to attend a Tuesday night workshop.

So there are people from the community, there are people who have family that has dispersed into other places in the U.S.

So we try to do things free and accessible to the public as best we can.

I have a couple questions.

I think I heard Mr. McCotter actually ask one that I was going to ask what your total budget is.

I know you did a fundraising campaign last year because I gave you money and I got the letter, which kind of crucified the Board of Supervisors in your letter.

So you raised $4,500 from that and $7,000 from...

So the question I have, and I appreciate this information, I think Mr. Fleming gave it out up in here.

So you have here fiscal year 2024, you received $42,500.

I remember right before that I had a meeting with you and I had a meeting with Breeze and I had a meeting with Mr. Kersey at the Arts Center, or excuse me, at the Historical Society.

And we talked about increasing the amount because I think your original ask was $60,000 and we increased you $35,000 because your historical funding level was $7,500.

So you list here that your fiscal year 2024 was 42.5.

Your fiscal year 2025 was $5,000, $37,000 reduction, an 88% reduction.

And then your request here is for $39,000.

And I recall mentioning to you that I could support an increase.

I supported the $35,000 increase.

But I also remember saying that part of my issue was, and in your fundraising letter, which I kept at home for this meeting, that the board gave you, because the county funding represents 30% of your total budget, which, number one, I think is a problem.

But according to the numbers you just gave us now, the $39,000 that you're requesting out of your $120,000 budget, this year total budget, is at 32% of your total budget.

So it's going up, not down.

The percentage of county funding that you're asking for of your total budget is going in the wrong direction, not the other direction.

But the other thing I wanted to point out, if you look what you left off of this piece of paper,

If you look at

I specifically remember talking about that will help you get over the hump to start fundraising.

Same conversation that we had six, seven years ago, eight years ago with the Arts Center.

Matter of fact, Breeze, if you remember, I kept pointing out the window of the museum to the Arts Center and said, that's a really great example over there for you.

And again, I'm not trying to be adversarial here, but I'm trying to understand how

An organization can base 32% of its annual budget on county funding that's not guaranteed year after year.

I don't know that there was anything punitive last year at all.

I'm not going to agree with that statement at all, especially when you got a 566% increase.

But what I do know, since January the 6th,

that this board has tended, well, first of all, we've funded you to, I want to get the number right because we're on record, $19,000 in a grant, which there's no guarantee that that grant will be there next year.

There's no guarantee for anything.

Just like year over year outside agency funding, there's no guarantee.

Tentatively, the board has looked at a $10,000, which is a 100% increase over what you got last year.

So that's $29,000 that you're being funded.

Yes, but the $19,000 is from last fiscal year, which we were not funded.

So that would be in addition to the $5,000 that we were given this last fiscal year.

It's for fiscal year 25.

Yeah.

And this is for next year.

So this would be the fiscal operation for next year.

So we just had the MOU conversation on Friday about that.

And my understanding is that that will be doled out.

That is project specific.

And we will have to submit invoices for our signs.

We will front the cost for the signs.

So then this number's not right then.

So the fiscal year 25 award, where it says $5,000, should actually say $25,000.

Possibly.

This is where the tourism grant process comes into play because I think that is

That is, I have no idea how that's going to play out next year.

I don't know how the tourism grant cycle works.

I don't know whether we're applying again for other operational things through the tourism fiscal 2026 year or not.

Mr. Barnes.

You're not the other Tony Williams?

You know, I'm certainly, you know, I ain't gonna sit here and be told in the dust.

I do remember when we had a visit some of the Zion Cross Road at the Best Western Hotel, and we got a lot of feedback from that.

But I don't know if y'all, I got this app on my phone, Visit Louisa, and when I go through it, you guys got an excellent

Mobile app on this.

I can get behind giving you more money through that T.O.T.

We got to find a way.

You got to be some kind of way we can give them some more money with that T.O.T.

because that's based off of people staying here in the county.

And history is something big.

I'm a 61-year-old baby, and I'm on AncestryDNA trying to find out who I am, Tony.

I don't know who the hell I am.

But I certainly can support coming from that pool of money.

And Mr. Chairman, I don't know how it's set up, but like I told my friend, we're the Board of Supervisors.

We can do whatever we want to do.

Thank you, Mr. Barnes.

Just to clarify on the fiscal year numbers, that's for the county budget, what we request will be received, not Historic Society fiscal year.

And I apologize for using those big words around here, T.O.T., because the general public

Don't understand what that is.

And like I said, it is a transit occupancy tax.

Mr. Chairman, just a real quick comment.

I really appreciate, and I think I've shared that with y'all before, what y'all have done and continue to do.

I certainly would like to see you be able to wean more away from county money, and I'm sure nobody would be any happier about that than y'all would.

Yeah.

Instead of having to stand up here and ask.

But where the historical society has come to today is leaps and bounds above.

I mean, it's struggled for years.

And I'm not saying you're not still struggling, but as a historical society, I don't think you are struggling.

It's financially.

And I hope that we're able to find some additional money for y'all because y'all deserve it.

You do a great thing, great service, not just for the people of Louisa County, but people who are ancestors of people in Louisa and just people who are interested in Louisa.

Well, the last thing that I would say is the same thing I told you two years ago.

figure out a way to reduce your reliance on county funding.

Because there's never any outside agency should never expect the same level or an additional level or a 566% increase year over year over year.

And there is a block of money that's available.

That, again, it's grant money, but it's coming from people who are coming to this county.

But I do have a hard time.

And again, I write you a check.

My wife and I write you a personal check every year.

I get a nice note from you every year.

Did you bring a check that day?

I did not bring my check that day.

I left Tony Williams a message, but it was the other Tony Williams, so he didn't show up.

And I'll write you a check this year.

And the board will obviously revisit this, but what I would say to you, any outside entity that has 30 or 32 percent of its total budget

I mean, I can't support that.

I mean, I just can't support that high percentage.

And I do think you do a great job.

I see you at every fair, every festival, everything we go to in period dress and everything else and showing people these things.

And I think you do good work.

I'm a history major.

I appreciate that sort of thing.

But I'll repeat what I said to you all privately two years ago.

I'll help you over the hump.

The Board of

We went through the process of applying for the TOD grant funding and that was a learning curve to begin with because it was unclear exactly how that was going to happen and what that whole process would look like and we're still figuring out, right?

We just had the conversation with Chris and Cindy about the MOU on Friday.

So we're trying to figure that out as it goes and I think

We don't know how that integrates into the fiscal year 2026.

I have no idea how that process works.

So we put this in because in the event that it's all coming out of this process, we wanted you to have that information.

Well, I wouldn't defer it.

I'd take the check.

No, no, no.

I mean, for next year.

Yeah.

2026.

I got you.

Anybody else have any other questions?

All right.

Kim, there you are.

I knew you were here.

The Fluvanna Luisa Housing Foundation.

OK, wonderful, wonderful.

Thanks so much for having me here again this evening.

Good to see you all.

I will try to be quick, though, to keep you guys rolling along.

But please ask questions if you have them.

A reminder, we have five staff.

We recently added Amy Schick, who is a Louisa County resident, as our accounts payable manager.

She took over for Lindell Chavis, who's there for seven years.

And Annabel Anderson's out on maternity leave for just a few weeks.

She just had a baby, so we're really excited for her.

With me today, we have several of our board members and volunteers, Jeff Barton,

is now our board chair for the Fluvanna Louisa Housing Foundation.

You may know that he runs a building company of his own, so he's also been involved with Habitat for Humanity.

Ron Bricker, Joe Griffith, Dennis and Judy Bellomini are all here with us, part of our grant writing staff and hammer and nails volunteers as well.

I'll move forward to that.

This is our list of volunteers.

So we have greatly expanded with kind of taking on the people who used to be a part of the Louisa Habitat group.

They found, I think, that they're able to broaden their horizons working with Fluvanna Louisa Housing Foundation and able to contribute more significantly to the county and to the residents here.

We have added, when I came on, we had

No volunteers really.

So we have really built this out significantly where we have a lot of people engaged in the community with our organization.

So it's something we're hoping to flesh out even more in the future and get more engagement and help bring our costs down.

These are significantly Louisa County residents, which is fantastic.

Is that Tim Hodge?

Yes, I just added him on today actually to this list because he was over at our offices working on our website.

So that's another way we're able to save some costs is to get our board members who have been very engaged in helping us to save costs.

He's a good guy.

He's a terrific guy.

He is fantastic, yeah.

So he has joined our board as well along with Rachel from Louisa County.

So we have a voting member on both boards of supervisors from each county.

No.

We don't?

We actually gave up our voucher program.

The vouchers were disseminated.

We went through an analysis when Sherry retired.

And we spoke to Virginia Housing about it.

It's a difficult to enforce program.

It's been highly abused by the residents.

Virginia Housing wasn't enforcing their own standards.

So people were staying on it.

I asked them for their success rate.

People graduating off the program, they said, what?

So I said, well, how about some statistics on how long people have been on it?

So I can pull those up for you.

One to five years was the lowest percentage.

Five to ten years was a little larger.

Ten to 20 years was the largest percentage of people.

People would specifically quit their jobs once they reached a certain threshold.

So it was highly abused.

They'd have additional people living in the unit that weren't supposed to be there and weren't counting their income.

But Virginia Housing refused to kick them off the program, even though they were violating it.

So we decided that's not really the mission we want to continue, and it didn't make a difference if we were supporting it and Cherry was retiring anyway.

So those vouchers were disseminated to other organizations.

Good question, yeah, because that's sort of a part of the history that goes into it.

I do want to address our return on investments real quick.

We have really diversified in the past couple of years.

We have a number of private grants that we get.

I didn't want to go through all of them, but they're between $5,000 and $10,000 usually.

25,000 sometimes, as is the case with this Perry Foundation.

We got $300,000 well and septic program.

220,000 has been awarded from TJPDC towards our project for construction.

283,000 in repairs last year, which are divided between

HPG in-kind donations, volunteer labor, and other grant sources.

We service almost $1.8 million in loans that we hold in-house.

We are building the $4.5 million development on Resource Lane.

And, you know, that doesn't include, so this doesn't include the Fergencliffe funds.

We got about $15,000 from Virginia Housing.

There's sort of a, you know, there's a number of different programs we're accessing for that.

We do anticipate, just to insert in there, once we get those units up and running and rented, that I would foresee a decrease.

So you anticipate an uptick until you get it done and then you anticipate it to go off.

So you're going to take the rental income from that.

But you have a $4.5 million block grant?

Or do you have a $4.5 million loan?

There's a couple of different things we're doing.

There's about one and a half million dollars that has already been identified that's going into this project.

Virginia Housing Workforce, the governor just announced, we anticipate we will be able to get 1.26 million dollars towards this project for the nine two-bedroom units for workforce housing.

D.H.T.D.

Affordable and Special Needs Housing will be a million dollars.

There's also another in Virginia housing, Virginia home ARP funds.

Bottom line, 120% AMI.

We can go up to 120% AMI for area median income.

So right now it's $93,000 for family and poor.

How much is it?

About $93,400, I believe, for Louisa.

So they can't make more than that to be able to rent it?

Right.

Yes.

Yes, that's after the infrastructure.

Correct.

I'm making a point, not for you or against you.

What is it?

Is it a $100,000 unit?

So there's somebody that's doing it as cheaply as they can, and it's a quarter of a million dollars, and that is not affordable for the people unless they're probably making somewhere in that $90,000.

And that's the point I'm getting to.

We are scratching the surface of something that we really would like to deal with.

And we're not prepared to deal with it in the manner it's dealing with it.

Anyway, that's not about you.

That's about conversations we have up here.

Understood.

Understood.

Yeah.

Stay tuned.

It's not going away.

No, it's not getting better, is it, on its own?

So, yeah.

With all of these different grants and opportunities, we're glad to apply on behalf of the county, and we can.

And we just need people to do that.

We do have

It's a nuance, but I want to be clear about it.

You're happy to apply on behalf of the county.

I understand.

Well, it's a nuance, but I want to be clear, because I'm not picking on you, but it's really...

We're helping the residents, but we're getting and accessing loans, but your agency actually owns these.

This is not county-owned housing.

You are accurate in saying that, yes.

Let me make sure I didn't skip any.

Oh, we recently accessed $2.1 million in SPARC funds.

These are mortgage reservations.

So we can go through Virginia Housing and these are mortgage reservations.

So when somebody applies for a mortgage, so long as they don't exceed 100% AMI, area median income, they can apply, access these funds and get a reduced interest rate and it reduces it by 1% of the going rate.

That's just like a first-time homebuyer, like funding service that y'all are helping with, and it helps them to buy down their interest rate 1%, up to $2.1 million in loans.

Okay, I'm just wondering how long it's going to be around, that's all.

Yeah, it might be already gone.

Mr.

Yes, sir.

Kim, the 220,000 Thomas Jefferson Planning District,

Is that a large amount for you to get from them?

That is an unusual one.

So Charlottesville Redevelopment Authority could not use $660,000 that was allotted to them.

OK.

Isn't there some money?

See the third one from the bottom.

OK, so we're designating it.

And what's that money?

H is not for home.

It's obviously an acronym, I guess.

What's that for?

That's a great question.

Because you're not going to build one for $8,000, $9,000, $2,000.

Yes, and we're using it significantly for the infrastructure right now.

Okay.

So the area average income, medium income, you said $92,000.

No, that's 100% for a family of four, so it depends on how many people.

So up to 120%.

OK, OK, that's fine.

No, so this is an unusual, let me go back over to that.

So what the governor was trying to do was stop limiting it so much, not having as many restrictions on how the funds need to be utilized and get workforce housing built in different communities.

I mean, this just goes to show you... No, I think you're misunderstanding a little bit.

This is what we have to at least abide by when we provide the rental housing.

That's rental housing.

That's our family of four.

Mr. Barnes talks about affordable housing all the time.

Huge issue, not just here, everywhere.

There is no affordable housing in Louisa County.

You can make $110,400 and qualify for rental assistance because of how expensive it is for housing in the area.

It's not.

And it's not exactly rental assistance.

You can qualify to live in our units.

And what we do is we charge people based on their income.

Yeah, I'm not.

Yeah, and again, it's just kind of blowing my mind that the number would be 110,000.

And for a single person, I'd have to look it up.

It changes every year.

So this is for a family of four, you said?

So if we had somebody take a job locally at AWS, and they wanted to live in one of our units for a year, and they made $70,000, they might qualify.

You would not have to say, no I can't rent to you.

Right.

So it's trying to broaden the net for workforce housing a bit is the intention.

Which I support.

I mean, just that number, though.

Some of the rural areas, you can go up to 150%.

But I think that's because some of the rural areas, like ours is lower than Charlottesville, right?

Yes, sir.

You're the last person today, I think, so stars always last.

Quick question.

So we need to apply for it.

It was that $15 million a year that the governor was releasing for workforce housing.

All right, now the second thing, the money that you requested, OK?

What do we get for that?

No, no, no.

I know.

All right.

The question I'm asking, if we have brevity of the problem, the question I'm asking you, can you do that project, the affordable housing project, without that funding?

Right.

Well, we will utilize that for infrastructure, and it will just take longer.

We'll have to find additional funding sources.

And this is not all.

So $40,000 per unit is a grant.

We will have a $900,000 mortgage on those nine units.

So it's not all grant money.

It is partially loaned.

All right.

I don't know.

I would propose and I want to be very careful here because what I don't want to do is

is, if we did approve some extra money for you for this project, you know, that's the gift that keeps on giving a lot of times at the government level here.

I would propose that if you have some needs for this project, that there are costs to the project, and they should be included in the capital costs of that project.

If you have to hire somebody, and that's $60,000 a year or whatever the number is,

Then if it's an 18-month project, then you have $90,000 more for the cost of your project.

And that's the capturing the cost of the project.

And what we've been funding over the years has been your operations.

That's what we've been funding.

So what you're asking for is you're asking for an employee, I think, or part of an employee or something.

I don't know exactly what you're asking, but something similar to that.

And you're asking for it.

Because you have this project, but the project's going to go away.

And then that's a capital part of the project.

You need to figure out how to finance that in part of the project.

I mean, that's a project cost.

If I'm doing a project for Mr. Tingler sitting here on the front row, and Mr. Tingler has a $2 million project, and I'm going to spend $100,000, or Mr. Martin knows this, and I'm going to spend $100,000

And that's now a cost that they do now.

They used to, when Howard was around them,

They didn't pay that.

And there's additional cost, too, that she has on this slide of what was not paid when Howard was around, and now they are having to pay many more additional.

Yeah, I gave it, and it's our fault that we ran over.

Mainly yours.

Mainly mine, I'm the chairman.

Would you mind, so you're the last outside agency, right?

So we're not going to, we'll give you an hour at the next board meeting.

I mean, I'd like to take a full hour.

I would too.

That was like fun.

I had a sharp stick in the eye, one of the two.

I mean, nothing says more fun than standing before the board, right?

No, and you and I know each other very well.

I mean, the work you do is important.

It's an issue.

I just want to make sure that the money that we give you, which is taxpayer money, it's always taxpayer money.

It's not government money, it's taxpayer money.

is addressing the issues that we're all trying to jointly address.

I mean, again, I have an issue sometimes with funding staff versus projects, right?

No, and this is what I have this fun slide for.

Oh good lord, we need to give you two hours if you're going to get through that slide.

You're going to have to figure out how to do it in one.

This is our main funding source.

This is what's required for every HPG project, even if it's a thousand dollars.

This is the process.

The process for SWOT, which is the septic and well assistance, is three pages of this.

Kim, thank you.

Thank you very much.

We'll see you next meeting.

It's the third, and right now I have it scheduled for four, so did I make it 3.30, so we have enough time in case you want to go.

The board's not rushed and she's not rushed.

She go first?

Yeah, she'll go first.

Because the board does.

We're here to work with you.

We're here for the residents of Louisa County.

This is what we do.

We want to work with you on this and I want there to be transparency.

I feel like I already, when I came into this organization, I went through it and said what's not efficient and what is.

What do we need to do to improve the efficiency of this organization?

Speaking of efficiency, I gotta go.

Mr. Barlow, thank you.

I move that we convene in the closed session pursuant to the following subsections of the Virginia Code section 2.2.37.11.1 in accordance with section 2.2.37.11.a.1 discussion, consideration, or interviews of prospective candidates for employment, assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, discipline, or resignation of specific public offices, appointees, or employees of public body.

And property moved to say that we go into closed session.

Any discussion?

All those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?