Planning District Commission Meeting   3/6/2025

You should know it before your roll call.

Oh god, you can't ask elected officials that question.

Well, that guy right there.

OK, so there's just one small change on the agenda.

I know 6B, we're going to discuss health insurance as well as

All right, we'll go to the roll call.

Ned Galloway?

Tony O'Brien?

Here.

All right.

Anybody got a participating icon?

Very well.

Any comments from the public?

Anybody wish to address board, commission?

I do.

I do.

And then our public comment is three minutes.

You're welcome.

Could I stand here?

Yes, please.

Perfect.

My name is Manu Kapoor, spelled M-A-N-U-K-A-P-O-O-R.

I'm addressing the Thomas Jefferson Planning Commission at Albemarle County, Virginia.

Today, I met with Ms. Gretchen Thomas, the administrative assistant, earlier.

And I'm requesting your office for all documents

arrangements, leases, contracts, and fiduciary relationship risk management regarding a bus spot located at a time spot by bus 10 at Martha Jefferson Hospital, identified also as Sentara Hospital.

I have been denied access to that bus stop and I need to use it and

I want to bring that to your attention.

So I want to follow up.

I have communicated this concern to the city attorney as well as to the commonwealth who is representing the people at Sentara and the police officers who were called and arrested me and told me that this was Martha Jefferson

property, and that I could not ride the bus from there.

And so I've been classified with misdemeanor class one, and looking to get any documents of M&M domain that have been generated in this contract, which is why I'm here to express this concern to the Thomas Jefferson Planning Commission.

Because somewhere down the line, you are heavily involved with a company called

Fourstop, ITP, and Michael Baker, that you initiated a document regarding transit facilities around bus 10.

It's 127 pages.

I can send it to your office.

I'm just looking for what contracts were made and how did they share responsibility.

That's all I have to say.

Anybody online?

Website comments?

Very well, we'll move on to presentations.

Good evening, everyone.

My name is Lori Allshouse.

I'm the director of the body body program here at TJPDC and tonight I'm just going to provide you with our biannual update on the progress of the project.

So you can see that so

I'm louder, right?

Speak up.

All right.

Okay.

My name is Lori Allshouse.

I'm the body director here at TJPDC and I'm here to speak with you about the broadband project that we're doing, the super regional broadband project that TJPDC is administering.

It's called Rise Project that we support with two VODI grants.

The VODI 22 grant, I'm gonna talk about both of those tonight.

It's a grant from the state, the Department of Housing and Community Development or DHCD.

We also received a second grant called VODI 24.

So you'll hear me referencing VODI 22 and VODI 24 throughout the presentation.

This map is good in that it shows the 13 counties that are involved in this project.

the colored the blue is the Fireflies Footprint which is not being funded by either of the VATI grants and the areas in yellow are the areas that the VATI 22 grant is sponsoring and providing funding for and then the area in red the dots you can see in red and some of the counties

are being supported by the VATI 24 grant.

So you see that the VATI 24 grant has expanded our project and so now we have some new numbers.

So now it's a $336.6 million project, of which $91.2 million comes from the state.

The matching funds is $245.4.

That's 73% of the project is being supported by matching funds, funds from counties and the utility partners.

We have 13 counties in this project.

There's four utilities, one of those which is Firefly, Firefly's utility.

And it's now a $4.4

year project.

Our VATI 24 grant will end in December 2026 and the goal of this project is that 42,000 businesses and residents will have access to high-speed internet throughout these counties.

So tonight I'm just going to provide you with some highlights in these three areas.

We communicate in many ways on the project.

One of the most important ways that we do this is we have a stakeholder meeting every quarter with everyone, representatives from everyone in the project, and we just had one this afternoon.

And basically what happens at this meeting is all the utility partners provide progress for each county, many of the areas in each county,

To those who are in the room and you hear from Dominion, you hear from all the utility partners on their role in the project and the progress they've had to date and what's ahead.

So it was a really good meeting that we had today.

We have them every quarter.

We also speak with anyone who's interested in the project.

We have monthly, we send out progress emails to all the counties and Firefly's website, I'll mention that a couple times tonight.

That's the place to go.

If you are a county that is interested in what's going on in your county or in areas of your county, you go there and you can see the progress in the project.

If you have a resident that wants to know if their address is in the Firefly footprint, they could put their address in, find what area they're in, and then find out information about the project.

and they keep it updated all the time.

One of the main things that we do here at TJPDC is we provide financial management of the project.

So we review, verify and submit all the remittance requests.

We do a lot of pass through.

So basically we're charging the state and the counties for their share of the invoices, then passing it through onto Firefly.

In Body 22, these are just some of the numbers.

To date, this is from the project when it began, TJPDC recognized $64.5 million in funding came through TJPDC's books, included $47 million from DHCD, almost $17 million in the match funding from the counties, and almost $600,000 in administrative funds for TJPDC, again, since the beginning of the VATI 22 project.

And our new project, Body24, which is effective beginning back in November, just a few months ago, we've recognized a small amount, $22,400 in funding just for the administrative costs today.

We submit progress reports to the state every month.

The last progress report we submitted was February 10th.

And you can see these are the milestones that we're collecting data on and sending into the state.

These are always a snapshot in time.

Things change all the time.

So these numbers will be very different if you look at them today.

But you can see, I'm not going to read them all to you, but the bottom one there again is the number of passings.

This is a number of areas that

houses and businesses that can hook up to the internet if they choose to.

There's about 17,000 passings so far in the project.

The 22 grant, you can see that there is another small amount of passings already in that grant because they are connecting the areas that are really close to the footprint of the areas that are supported by the Body 22 grant.

So you can see that it's moving along already.

One of the things that we really like doing is going out and looking at some of the progress.

Every month we go into the field, and I'm just going to share a few slides of some of the pictures we took while we were out looking at some of the sites.

So back in September, we went to Madison County.

You can see on the poles, the fiber that we saw that was completed on Route 29, Gibbs Road and Hemron Valley Road in Madison County.

These slides were taken from, you all knew about the bus tour that TJPDC took back in October through Louisa and Fluvanna Counties.

And along the way there was Firefly Fiber that the staff and representatives on the bus saw along the way and discussed.

So you can see some of the shots that were taken on that trip.

In Louisa County, we were there in November.

And this is a hut located along Jefferson Highway near Mineral.

And staff got to see the work that was being done on the hut, also going inside the hut to see the electronics.

And that was a nice site visit that we often don't get to see actually people working in the area.

Sometimes we just see the completed fiber.

So that was nice in that way.

Another communication hut was placed in Goochland on Sandy Hook Road, so there are pictures of that hut that we visited in December.

And in January, we're out in Madison County again, and we saw the aerial fiber construction along Graves Mill Road.

And since that time, we've had two more visits.

In February, we went out to, I believe, back to Madison County, and look at my notes on that one, saw some completed fiber.

And then just this week, we are in Amherst County.

Up by the Blue Ridge Parkway.

I don't know if any of you are familiar with the Woodruff Pie Shop up in Amherst County.

Apparently it's somewhat famous for really good pies.

Way up in Amherst County now has Firefly fiber.

So that was a visit that was done.

We didn't get to eat any pie, but we did go out to see that area this week.

So that basically concludes my presentation on our project.

Again, we really urge people to go to Firefly's website for any information that you want to see on the project.

Again, they keep it updated all the time.

You can go to your county and just click on the seal and go in and you can see the progress for all the different areas in your counties.

So that concludes my presentation.

Thank you so much for your attention tonight.

I know you have a lot on your agenda.

Good to see everyone again for my annual visit to talk to you about the next year's operating grant for the Rideshare program and the work plan that accompanies it.

So just a quick reminder for anyone this may be new for Rideshare is a program that is funded through

The Department of Rail and Public Transportation and then the local match here in the area.

We provide ride matching services through the Connecting VA app and website.

We also have a trip planning tool where folks can look at bus routes, at biking and walking routes to kind of figure out the best way for them to get from point A to point B.

In addition, one of the biggest hurdles that we hear from folks about not taking alternative forms of transportation is what if something happens and there's an emergency and I need to leave work?

I become ill, my child becomes ill.

So one of the other services that is part of the Rideshare Program is our Guaranteed Ride Home Program.

We also work with area employers to talk about parking concerns or any of their particular needs that they have for their employees with regards to commuting.

And that includes vanpool coordination, which we do with the state with DRPT and Commute with Enterprise.

So like I mentioned, we have an app, but it can also be accessed through the desktop, which is through Connecting VA. Each CAP program has their own kind of interface with that, but it is very connected because sometimes folks travel between the different areas.

So in that app you can log your trips and with each trip you log you earn points that you can cash in for rewards.

It's a really, you know, kind of the best way we can come up with and that they found in the industry to get folks to be able to log those trips.

with some sort of incentive with that, which gives us data to understand how people are commuting in the area.

We also work with VDOT and the park and ride lots in the areas, which is where a lot of the carpooling or vans will start from.

So that's just a quick map of some of those.

Again, back to Guaranteed Ride Home.

This is a really big, I think, important component of this program in the sense that it gives folks

A little bit more flexibility and a little bit more reassurance to know that if they choose to take an alternative form of transportation at least two days each week and if something happens we're going to get them back to wherever they left their vehicle.

So whether that's home or a park and ride lot but we're going to get them back to where they have their vehicle to get where they need to go in an emergency situation.

Just wanted to give you guys a quick snapshot of some of the numbers regarding the program.

I think it's always important to see, especially as we're looking at climate change and those initiatives to see that, you know, 815 tons of admissions were prevented by folks taking the alternative trips that they logged with our program and our app.

I always think, you know, the dollar saved for each of those commuters, you know, collectively tells a really lovely story.

But in addition to that, one of rides or part of Rideshare's main mission is not only to reduce single occupancy vehicle trips, but it's also to enhance the life of folks making long commutes.

In the FY26 work program and what we applied for with our grant, we are looking at doing a little bit of a website redesign and revamp.

We're looking at ways that we can make it more interactive for folks that they can get more out of it other than just being a strictly information resource.

We will also continue to work with DRPT to promote many of their initiatives.

Those include Connecting Communities, which focuses on transit, with Connecting Businesses, which focuses on hybrid work schedules, telework and employer services that are available, Connecting Commuters, which looks specifically at carpooling and vanpooling options,

and then Bike Month in the month of May.

Which leads me to the next item is the Bike Month Business Challenge.

So last year was our inaugural year where we launched the Business Challenge.

We had 14 employers who signed up

to have their employees collectively bike to work during the month of May as much as they were able to.

And then we tracked all of those trips and gave them bragging rights for the most vehicle miles reduced and the most bike trips taken.

So we're very excited since we had such a good response to that last year to continue that program into this year.

And we're looking at ways we can expand that with potential

More incentives and offerings for the folks who participate.

We will of course continue to focus on the app and the rewards utilization.

We know that there's folks out there that are doing these activities that maybe are not necessarily tracking them or logging them in the app and missing out on rewards.

So we definitely want to focus on that as well as getting new individuals to consider different types of transportation options in the area.

And that's kind of the general overview of the program.

I'm happy to take any questions.

Let's see.

So we have 2,241 members.

Obviously not every one of them is logging a trip on a regular basis.

Most people seem to be pretty engaged in logging it at least once a week.

Not at the moment.

We do have, what is it, I think three in the county.

However, one of them at Beaver Dam Church does not get utilized particularly a lot.

But we do do quarterly inventory when I mentioned about the park and ride lot.

So we do go and look at how many cars are parked there.

What's the state of the lot condition to kind of help give us another benchmark

of folks that may be making alternative trips.

By doing the park or ride inventory, we can't always say that necessarily each and every one of those trips is for work, but they are during work hours and during the week.

But yeah, we're always interested in knowing if we see places for new park and ride lots that can be used.

If you're interested in that, we can bring that to us as a presentation.

The performance of the park and ride lots within the planning district and you know that she does a quarterly inventory and reports on the condition of the lots and everything.

Does that make sense?

I live next to Lake Monticello.

It's actually surprising how, I don't know if there are actual cars that are being used.

Yeah, there were five or six when I went by earlier this week.

March is one of our quarterly months that we do those inventories.

Yeah.

Well, and if you think about it, you know,

There could also be people who may be meeting for carpools or things like that that aren't leaving a car as well.

But it's the best number and metric that we can kind of use to kind of get to that.

We have at times thought about, and before I started here, tried to survey folks with a card at the park and ride lots.

That could also be another interesting way to gather data.

Yeah.

To make sure that they actually do it.

But, you know, sometimes you can get some interesting data that way with the logs.

OK, great.

Well, thank you.

Yeah.

All right, so putting on a different hat for you, but still connected in many ways to ride share is talking about our rural work program.

So again, this is an annual thing that we are required to do with the funds.

We work with VDOT for the allocations of the funds.

80% is federal, 20% is from local sources.

And the funds are split into kind of two different buckets per se to run the program.

We look at a lot of different areas or opportunities within the rural areas for how we want to structure this program.

We also have a rural transportation advisory committee, RTAC, that meets every other month and they are kind of, well they're exactly what their name says, they are an advisory committee that helps us come up with what priorities and what things they would like

For the TJPDC to focus on with this particular funding.

So in FY25, we have been working still with the Comprehensive Safety Action Plan.

You may have heard of it as Move Safely Blue Ridge.

This project started in FY24 and is continuing in to FY25.

So we've had several presentations to the RTAC committee, especially around the survey data, the site visits, and the public engagement process.

Another focus during the FY25 year was the Rideshare or the Commuter Assistance Program Strategic Plan, which you guys heard a little bit about and have it on your agenda a little bit later to consider.

That is the first full strategic plan that Rideshare has conducted.

We had some other long-range plans that were done previously, but this was a much more robust process.

And since

Rideshare focuses a lot on folks from the outlying areas coming into here for work.

Part of the time was spent during the rural work program in FY25.

And then of course we had SmartScale.

So those applications were worked on a lot in FY24 in preparation, but they were actually submitted this year.

So, and that is an ongoing support that we offer to our rural localities.

So looking at FY26 and looking ahead, we have taken kind of the idea from the MPO and how they do their unified work plan and worked with VDOT to better align our budget items and instead of line iteming out each individual little tiny project, we've kind of sub-stacked them into a more

into a grouping.

And you'll see that in just a second.

It's short term planning, long term planning, and admin.

And part of the reason for doing this is it eliminates a little bit, well actually, a decent amount of administrative burden on us overseeing how these funds and these programs are looked at and spent.

And it gives us a little bit more flexibility, especially as the year goes on.

Opportunities come up, perspectives or priorities shift every now and then.

And this gives us the opportunity to actually adapt in the moment to that rather than waiting until next year's work plan, or if that's already done, waiting until the year after that.

So it gives us the more opportunity to be proactive and reactive as things come up.

We will still keep a line item budget internally to keep ourselves on track and then adjust that as those opportunities come up.

So in the program administration, we do reporting compliance with all the regulations that come with federal funding and that we stay in compliance with VDOT for that.

We also staff the RTAC committee that I mentioned and then

There's information sharing with agencies and the public.

So that could be, you know, attending meetings regarding a particular project, VDOT trainings, different things like that, making sure that we're communicating what is happening.

And then in task two, it's broken down into actual programming.

So we have short range, planning, local and state assistance.

So that again is working with grant applications, including SmartScale, but not limited to just SmartScale.

Providing additional assistance to local and state partners.

For example, Fluvanna staff has come to us

with some updates to their comp plan and needing information.

So that would kind of be an example of something that would fall under that category.

And then we have our regional transit partnership, travel demand management, and bicycle and pedestrian activities under that one as well.

And then we decided to break it into the next category, which made the most sense of long range planning.

So this would include the safety action plan.

We're looking at doing a travel demand management study.

So by

Taking the whole region more in a holistic or comprehensive manner and really trying to understand where people are coming from, where they're going, and as much of the why as we can with that, and what infrastructure maybe needs to be in place, for example, like park and ride lots, to make that traveling through the region

A better experience for everybody.

So first we got to get that information.

We are also looking at assisting the state with the coordinated human service mobility plan update.

This is a regular plan update that happens through the state.

Yes.

I'm sorry.

So it mostly works with agencies and programs that help seniors and those with a disability with their transportation needs.

DRPP does a coordinated human services mobility plan called the CHISM plan.

And in order for us to have a mobility management program, we have to be meeting the goals that are stated within the state's mobility plan.

It is quite the mouthful to say.

I'm surprised I got through it actually.

And then the last item on here is identify long range priorities and plans.

So there was a rule long range plan done in 2020.

So going back, looking at the items in that, looking at what has been accomplished since then, and then when it makes sense to do another update to that plan.

This is our internal line-item budget.

So this is what we kind of have pinpointed and earmarked for everything.

Now what will be in the formal plan that will go to VDOT is the bigger numbers for just short-range, long-range, and admin so that that gives us that flexibility.

But we wanted to show you that we did think this through and come up with

And I could also add to that the administrative side.

So the way that these have been done previously is when submitted to VDOT and you give them those line item budgets, they have a policy within VDOT that if you are over by 10% or more, it triggers redoing the plan, like doing a formal amendment, putting it through a process.

And so they're,

Like an amendment.

We have to bring the plan back to you all.

We have to bring it back to the RTAC committee.

We have to propose an amendment to the budget.

What we learned is that if we, instead of having this line item budget, we say task one is this much, and task two is that much, and we can have some flexibility with that 10%, it doesn't trigger that administrative action.

What's really challenging is we're trying to project right now

What our rural governments are going to need in terms of grant application support, right?

So if it comes up that somebody is doing a TAP grant or they want to submit a Safe Streets and Roads for All grant, and it costs us more than that line item, it would trigger an amendment versus us saying, oh, well, we haven't spent it in this area.

Let's just take it from here and add it to that so we can provide that support.

So this instead just allows us to move within those line items, but we still will not exceed the budget in any task, if that makes sense.

And when we started looking at a bunch of other people's rural plans, that's the way they've always been.

So we were almost led to, this is probably more of a best practice, provide less detail to the state, but have detailed information locally on what we're doing.

And not that we're not providing information to the city, but we don't have to budget it down to that small amount.

They are in support of the change we're making.

Frankly, at that threshold, this really is sort of a, it's a nonsense level to create like that threshold where you get to build for 58.

Yeah.

And we will still report on all of the tasks and all of the items in our monthly reports to VDOT.

This just like Christine explained better than I did.

This just gives us the more or the ability to be more reactive and to focus on what is really happening as opposed to being tied to something or having to go through a lot of hoops to change it.

And that is all for rule.

We'll now move on to the consent agenda.

The minutes are February 6th.

Terrific.

And then we also have the great fundamental reports.

Mr.

Moshen, Mr. Robicow, seconded by Mr. Oronzio.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Oronzio aye.

We have the FY 25 amended operating budget resolutions.

So in the February meeting, I brought to you all a draft FY 25 amended budget.

It is coming back to you this month for consideration for approval.

There have been no changes between the previous version and this one, no amendments or changes at all So I am proposing the FY 25 amended budget with projected revenue of $48,257,467 Projected expenditures of $46,276,746 with an anticipated net gain of just over $253,000

Okay, all seconder.

Good questions?

All right, all those in favor?

Aye.

General excited, motion passes.

Next is new business.

So in FY24, the commission and staff developed two new tools to evaluate the executive director.

We came up with two new survey types in order to gather feedback.

I included a copy of both of those in your packet just so that you can see what we used last year.

I wanted to make sure that you advised that we follow the same procedure this year.

If that were to be the case, then the kickoff would begin today.

Staff would receive the instrument tool as soon as the HR director can get it out to them.

with expected responses by March 21st.

She will then summarize all of that data into a summary report that will be provided to the chair.

At the same time, the chair would then send out the survey tool to the commissioners.

You guys would also have it till the 24th, 21st to evaluate me.

It'll come back directly to the chair who will summarize that data.

In the April meeting, there will be a closed session for the chair and you all to be able to discuss the most yourselves, the results of that,

and any discussions that you may have.

The way you did it last year, I believe, is then we spent the month of April, there was a one-on-one meeting between the chair and the executive director to discuss, and then it came back to you all again in the post session in May for final decision.

And it broke.

Mr.

Chair, does the instrument have

Last year I remember Supervisor Barlow talking about the scoring because it was a one, two, and a three.

The original instrument had a one, two, three, four, five type of scale that I think would have addressed the interest of having additional nuance, I think.

Would you like us to go back to that original five score?

I can't remember, but this is basically doesn't meet expectations meets expectations exceeds expectations.

So if you add two more in there, they're going to be between the

that doesn't end the meets, both below and above expectations.

What I would say is that you get the scoring, because with the three, there's room in each item that if you have something in additional,

I'm sure you would anyway.

I mean, I think, I mean, I'm happy, like I said, I think the instrument itself was trying to just get it better than what was there previously.

This is a discussion area here.

We always critique ourselves as to how we do it.

By the time we get around to doing, there is one year we did, one year we did, I don't remember, was the something monkey survey, monkey survey, monkey.

And that was like really cool.

And then we ran into issues of people not doing them.

We only had like five of us.

So whatever method it is, the iQEEB is simple enough to where it will be completed.

Well, we had plenty of practice last year that just went a bit.

And just doing it in the same way that it went very through.

Well, the only thing I would draw would potentially defer Ms. Jacobs in the sense that there's more Brandy Larry that she feels she would give me the feedback as much as she thought.

Yeah.

I'm OK with the one, two, three.

So sometimes, you know,

An individual wants to understand where there might be gaps.

I think really that part to me would come in the comments.

Is it there is an area where you don't think I'm meeting, you would be able to give me ways to then meet, or if there are ways for me to exceed your expectations, you would give me ways to deal with that.

Yeah, that's more helpful to know for.

What is that?

All right, we'll get on then.

We are the executive director?

I put together a memo that is not in the packet.

So this is having to do with looking at the employee benefits

and making a recommendation to commissioners to potentially add an insurance option for our health insurance.

So regarding the health insurance for the TJPDC, we are talking about next fiscal year starting July 1st, but we need to make decisions on what we're going to offer to the staff by April 1st.

So that's why we need to bring it to you tonight.

to make a decision on that to give us the authorization to move forward on our elections that are due by April 1st.

So that's what the health insurance option asks or the questions are around and why they're presented tonight.

So one of the things we've noticed is that our benefit package is probably lagging to the market.

We did have some compensation and survey data that supported that assumption presented earlier this evening.

to the finance and executive team.

So what we were presenting here is that our renewal, we do nothing and offer the same exact benefit.

It's the cost for that plan, health insurance plan, which is health, dental, and vision all in one package.

The increase rate is 12% for just saying what you're saying in place.

It's called the advantage 500.

I think David chimed in some, some experience rates are going at 25%.

One thing that Nelson Kennedy did last year that actually helped our gradients out.

is we also went with allowing an additional product with a highly deductible plan so people could contribute to it all savings account.

And we actually saw that actually helped a lot because our younger clients, employees who aren't necessarily in a health risk situation or they don't have any solid advantage for themselves say, hey, you know, though I have health insurance, if someone catastrophic were

No, because, and she's going to get into this, because of the size of our organization, we're limited in the number of plans we're able to offer.

Unless you do a high deductible, because that's like, we can do as one of the options.

There was a bunch of, I mean,

Some of our solid waste guys, younger guys who drive the truck who aren't really necessarily high risk pay, they can compound it on that.

They threw in the health savings account for attribution.

So with the health savings, it is only available if you do the high deductible sign in.

That's the only way you can get that in there forever.

I understand.

Yeah.

What's the difference between 1,000 and 2,500?

Okay, good question.

It has mostly to do with two factors.

One is the deductible that you pay out-of-pocket to start getting the benefits of the plan.

So the $1,000 means you have to meet a $1,000 out-of-pocket deductible as a single person on the plan before you get your co-pays and your percentages of share of responsibility.

The $500 then becomes a $500 deductible instead of the $1,000 to paying less out-of-pocket

What it also does is also drops the maximum out-of-pocket responsibility.

So with TLC, they offer an advantage plan, a 250 plan, a 500 plan, and then the high deductible plan.

So these two that I'm proposing that we're looking at, and the only reason we can consider offering a second plan

is because we've reached that threshold of going over 14 full-time eligible employees for the plan.

So once we hit that 15 mark, then we were eligible to offer a second plan.

So we are proposing that we offer that second plan of the 500 and the rates that are included in the memo.

When we look at this, we're able to take off

Yeah, you know what, I was just whispering to both of these two and making sure we included the high deductible in the survey.

I think what is more important to us right now is are you guys okay if we offer the 500, which means there is going to be a larger employer contribution.

But I think what we can still discuss, and I hate to step up in front of this without having to discuss it with you first, is instead of the 1,000 and the 500, perhaps it's the 500 and the high deductible.

Because it's unlikely that someone would choose the 1,000 if we're going to pay 100% of the 500.

They wouldn't choose a lesser plan if the employer is already contributing 100% to the employer.

Does that make sense?

I think the danger they have with putting a 500 plan is always great.

O'Brien, and I think that's a mistake.

You can almost guarantee that's going to happen.

So, you know, they've already got the thousand plan.

Personally, you know, I'd go with thousand and high deductible because, quite frankly, you know, they're used to paying, they're used to the idea of a thousand dollars

People that are going to move out into the high trackable plan are going to do it because they think of themselves as relatively, you know, free of health issues and we put some advantage to them.

Well, with the health state of the plan, correct me if anybody knows different, but we set an amount that we will contribute to that plan for each employee that goes into it.

And we also set and determine what they're allowed to

get reimbursed from it, whether it's premiums for an insurance plan or whether it's medical bills, dental bills, or what have you that we define in that plan.

It takes a while to set up an HSA.

So right now, if I go with that and offer it, I've got less than 30 days to make sure I can get it set up to know what it's going to cost to price it all out.

So we just have this small little bit of a window to make all of the

If there is going to be a setup fee for it, there's going to be the monthly administration because we'll have to outsource that to a third party.

We would be administrating HSA?

I don't remember, I mean I could be wrong but I've got one.

I've never paid anybody to ever administer mine.

I think one of the reasons we were having this discussion is in some of the preliminary data, which you guys haven't seen yet, it comes to you in April, but the finance executive committee has this, we are slightly lagging behind in how much we're paying for health insurance for employees compared to our comparative organizations.

And it's because a lot of them are offering that 500 or 250 plan, which we have not

We were looking at if we now have the option to offer two different plans, what should they be?

And so this is a really good discussion for us to hear your feedback on what are the pros and cons of which two plans should be.

And there's always the other situation that just because we've gotten to 16 full time employees, we may not always have that.

So we could

And that's something we talked a lot about is if we go to the $500 and we're now offering $1,000 and a $500 and we drop below $14, are we going to keep only the $500 now at the higher cost?

So we won't have the option.

Yeah.

I think we might, in relationship to some of the other conversations, we might have some budgetary

The first coming here is the key advantage $1,000 plan with the 25 briefs.

So the single premium $738, dual premiums $1365, and family premiums $1992.

Of that, we offer to the employees the 738 for the single dwelling family that we would contribute as the employer.

And the employee would then contribute their share towards their elected plan.

We do have two employees that are grandfathered in where we contribute differently based on a plan that they were given many years ago.

So those are their rates here for that plan in this fiscal year.

just with the increase, the 12% increase which you see here that equates to an $18,400 increase in premium on the lawyer side in dollars.

And what we were proposing was to pay the same and not change the policy on how much we pay towards family or dual membership or premiums.

And then this last column is the new plan that we were offered to consider and paying at that higher rate for this plan for those three tiers.

And that's like 100 people who collect that plan.

Everyone goes there.

It's a difference between the level of $11,250.

If everyone goes through the $500, it's $11,250 for an employee, $1,000 for an employee, and you stay on the other end, it's $10,000, $6,000 in the change.

On an annual basis, yeah, which ain't a lot, but to your point,

Just to give you some, last year was six and a half.

Yeah, but I've seen worse.

I've seen better.

Every year I've had the same argument myself.

That was what we were

Considering and asking for your, and I like the idea of maybe doing the high deductible plan, but I've got some work to do, but that's the direction we would like to look for a second plan.

We didn't get responses from everybody.

That we had more people

So that's really what they were given the options for.

But not if they had to pay the difference in the premium, right?

That is how we presented it.

Let's be clear.

40 times 12 is $480, which is almost $500.

But there's also a difference in the co-insurance of the next year, right?

It's not just CVS.

I don't know if that's listed on it.

I think it is, but you know, I mean, but I mean, that's a bit of a financial imperative.

High use versus low cost.

I mean, if you've got three kids and everyone's going to the doctor, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that adds up a lot.

It's just beautiful.

We have some, yeah.

Most people are on, there's only two individuals in the organization that choose other than the single plan, and they're the two that are on the grandfather's list.

That helps.

But I don't know if it's because premiums, because they're spouses who may be carrying the family, because it's less expensive there,

which will lead to another conversation about stipends here in a minute.

I just know the other side of the coin is taking it away.

So does anybody, do you want to look at the high deductible plan and come back?

We have to go back before you guys meet again.

It's at April 1.

All right.

It was 8,000 votes.

No, not high deductible.

No, if we offer, because we can offer two, right?

We can offer two.

So we offer the high deductible and the really nice five hundred, right?

And that new cost to us is eight grand.

And that's it for what we need the employers to pay.

I think we just do that.

Yeah, that's what I got.

Do you envision anyone paying on the high deductible fine?

It sounds like you're supplying a law school and service.

In the ED evaluation last year, there were some comments made that said, this isn't about the executive director, but we need to be offering more competitive benefits.

It's not only about salary.

That's not what keeps people here.

It's making sure it's the whole package.

So that's one of the things that triggered

Well we would keep it for the year.

And we find out the rates are going up so high that it becomes unaffordable that we readdress it at that time.

We can no longer offer this $500 and afford it.

The high deductible plan for a single

is 682 compared to the 827 or 867.

For family, 6600?

Yeah, yeah.

It's not that much of a premium difference, really, to make up that pretty much.

Their out-of-pocket maximum is 10, I'm sorry, one person, 5,000.

In that way.

It ain't gonna hurt us off, though, anyway.

So I think philosophically, if that's the case, we want to enrich into that.

Let's see what happens next year.

I don't think that the high-deductible plan in the ages is setting.

I mean, if somebody had interest.

We could still offer it.

I think one of the problems we're having as staff is we didn't go to staff with the decision of removing the $1,000.

It was adding the $500.

Not necessarily because if they are a plus one for a family, their employee contribution would increase.

This might address the issue.

We're also asking the commission tonight to consider if someone elects not to enroll in our plan, but they want to go on their spouse's plan.

Right now, we offer nothing towards that premium when they take it on.

You can't do a health insurance statement, but it's considered taxable wages if you don't link it technically to the reimbursement of health insurance.

I thought if the plan was offered by another spouse, that basically people would go on.

Yeah.

The question is, do we then contribute the part of their increase for going on that spouse's plan?

Right?

I think it's dependent upon the terms of the individual plans by the individual employees.

I don't think it's the same across the board by all carriers.

The other is if they wanted to just go out to the marketplace and get a high-deductible premium plan, then we would offer

2K, up to what we would be contributing should they be billed in our plan for them to go and get their own if that were preferable.

Yep.

Yes.

You just select to waive coverage through your employer and then go get what you want.

And some people don't.

You run the risk if you do that, dropping to low.

Can we talk about that too?

16 minus 2 is 14.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's all about eligibility, not enrollment.

It's

That we would be willing to save it?

And it would be with proof of insurance.

Right.

Well, presumably, if you're going on to your spouse's plan and the cost to us goes down soon, because now they're no longer

Maybe they were on our plan to start with, I don't know.

So in other words, what's going to happen are they going to go, I mean, are you going to see an employee-only person go out with their spouse's plan?

Are you going to see an employee in class one move to their spouse's plan?

Are you going to get excitement?

We don't pay the stipend.

What we would be paying is

up to the amount that we are offering to the other pay for the employee only, but only up to that amount.

So if theirs is 400, we'll pay the 400, not the 800.

It is the savings.

The employees who have the option of a spouse's or a partner's plan,

Would you be willing to pay the difference between those two plans so we're not out of pocket getting covered over there and come off of your plan and it'll save you money and it'll help you by getting a better plan?

Fincher is lower by definition.

That's why you're going because the benefits are dramatically worse.

So, yeah, I think, yeah.

All right.

That's why we brought it.

We wanted to make sure that we go forward with the recommended plans, incentives within $4,500 and

So the gym membership plan that we offer the benefit, we have partnerships with ACAC, so employees can enroll there at the discounted rates.

Currently, we have a policy that says that we would pay a very specific dollar, $34.50, if you go to the gym eight times or more a month.

That used to be comparable to 50% of the premium at one time.

But the premiums have gone up.

So we're not keeping up with the premiums as we increase at the gym.

So what we'd like to do in the past, we'll make the change to make it 50% of the premium for the employee only, not the family or the couples, but for the, if they go eight times or more.

Instead of adding use of the gym as a positive health benefit.

Yeah.

We're just letting you know that's going to change for an employee handbook, which you guys ultimately will be approving.

So you'll see that in the next round.

All right.

This will be quick because they have it all written out.

So I don't want to read back to you everything that's in here.

In the previous month, we did have some staff go to the

BLGMA we're a conference, we will also have staff attending that NATO, not NATO, National Association of Development Organizations upcoming.

We've had some staff doing training on procurements.

We've got another coming up in fall for procurements.

We've got a lot of really good training things going on.

There's a lot of transportation updates I'm not gonna read through.

I will say the MPO is gonna be reviewing their unified work program in their next meeting.

They're gonna be taking that up for adoption.

And then rural transportation will also be back to you in April for adoption.

and then lots of good updates on the Safe Streets and Roads for All and the ongoing efforts there and the mobility management program all within the budget.

Only other update is David's legislative that's written into the executive handbook and the Blue Ridge Cigarette Tax Board met in January and received updates on cigarette and vape bills that were introduced at GA and then tax revenues generated for the 10 jurisdictions.

They were updated on those revenues by jurisdiction and the changes over time.

We had a meeting the other day.

We had a lot of disagreements.

We were shocked.

The debate of housing is ongoing.

The arguments of what impacts mean and whether people should have a place to live continue.

There are some community entities that have

really gravitated towards a lot of institutions that are related to us that have definitely been annoying.

I'm sure you guys can relate to some interactions from the constituents.

Thank you.

Sorry.

Beyond that, we did approve that solar entity.

That was a pretty big deal.

And then we have some huge movement at

In Livingston, we have the Livingston Immersion Association now, which is like a small business alliance, struck better than the Chamber of Commerce who had an influence that's now starting to actually grab businesses and start throwing them into buildings, which has been really cool to see.

Beyond that, that's about all I got.

Real estate's expensive, rents keep going up.

Do you guys have a set?

Ongoing right now, so our assessment will be for next year.

So that's, we're expected to have some really major jumps in some areas, 25 to 30% increases in assessment.

So there will be tar and feathers by the end of next year.

And sometimes we just toss it out.

Louise is offering to give us half the money.

I'm still learning those stories.

Everything's kind of the same.

One thing in the town of Louisa that I probably have not proposed years yet, but there was an accident

the scenic railroad that's over in Stampede, Virginia, I think it's actually known by the name of Frank.

They, in fact, they've already started working in a depot.

They're going to start in an extension, at least an excursion train, and they need more of this, hopefully.

Out of the depot, it really is sunk.

The word is that they do about 200,000 people a year over in Stanford.

No, they run one south.

Everything stays in the valley, but one south stays in the valley.

There's one that goes east and actually comes to the college and comes to I-8.

And then I guess they push one way and pull the other way and get up.

So it's a pretty big deal.

They serve vehicles.

Of course, the one in Stanley does the Santa training.

I'm sure they'll do that out with Louisa as well.

Thursday through Sundays.

I have no idea if the town of Louisa is ready for this, but they better be getting it.

Thank goodness that's not Tommy's response.

But we think it's going to be a huge thing.

We all heard it.

You have to get them months in advance.

I have no idea why.

The word really died out because they're buying a group of buildings that are there.

CSX still owns the parking lot and stuff that's there, the depot, which actually comes out to Main Street.

It's not big.

The depot is not big.

So it's going to be really interesting to see how this develops.

But it's really out of the blue.

But Virginia Passenger Rail, they actually purchased the use of that line from south of Dachshund, I think it is.

And that's the line that comes out and goes east and runs all the way to Clifton Forge.

So they, Buckingham Branch, had owned most of that.

So the Jimmy Ray, old fashioned Ray, they bought it.

They get like two or three billion dollars or something like that.

It was some huge amount of money a couple of years ago.

And so they're going around the state buying up these rights on the road.

And so anyway, it's just amazing.

And Louisa's included.

I mean, it just brings 100,000 people into the family.

You can spray us yourself.

Well, absolutely.

I mean, we already think we've got traffic situations.

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, they must have been maintained.

The rest of them get to be out maybe only at certain times.

So anyway, we're happy about that.

There's more money for you to spray it.

Well, hopefully tourism.

More supervisors.

Before I got on there, it was smart.

Your phrasing was interesting.

Before I go... That's right.

I know.

They were smart.

Let's get there.

Thank you very well.

Mr. Eddy.

A 60-second summary.

This evening, the Greene Board of Supervisors convened to deliberate over next year's budget.

This is a reassessment year.

So I and many other Greene residents

are going to be looking on intently at next Tuesday's board meeting to see if the rate stays at 71 cents per $100 of assessed value, goes down or goes up.

We'll find out on Tuesday.

You know what your average assessment was or not?

Looking at what was being said online and social media, some people like myself saw 8%, 9%, others 25%,

even close to 30 or even above 30 percent.

Yeah.

All right.

So in Charlottesville budget rules, Councillor Payne's work session number got held on the budget at this point.

right now.

We did learn from the city manager yesterday that it looks extraordinarily unlikely we're going to have a change in our rate since when it managed to squeeze $12 million out of somewhere that came in that obviated any question Brock raised in there.

Aren't you going to do assessments every week?

You do assessments every week, which helps.

I'm the first out of June, so that's why you ask me.

then our zoning code continues to get its test runs around the track we had our first we had our first sort of round replaced in a special meeting on the 25th

of special exceptions and such which took place in special use permits figuring out sort of, and this is where the state is figuring out practically what is really going to be administratively available under this new code and what is going to find its way in the incentive gap and what we actually have to think about.

And as we work through that process, we follow these little, you know, these little detours of, well, that's got to be rewritten.

And that makes no sense.

We had a couple of those, but it seemed to go very smoothly for all of that.

And I think that's most of what I've got.

CDBG Task Force starts a meeting next week on the assumption that there will be funds forthcoming from that program.

That is sort of that's going to have my attention pretty much from March.

So I got it.

So three things, right?

We are also in our budget process.

We have, I have a thank you to talk about this in the past, but we had a massive, a projected, we had a significant projected shortfall if we could increase our taxes, driven mainly by our public safety investment

specifically hired 57 years fire and SV staff over the last 30 years.

We did that even federal grants and they're facing them.

So we had a really significant shortfall projected.

So we have increased our tax.

We are proposing to increase our real property tax rate by four cents and also normalize our personal property tax rate to a three pandemic.

We did have that last year.

We're doing the same for this year.

Additionally, the four cents increase is not following the normal split formula we use.

Roughly 60 to schools, roughly 430 to us, roughly 10 to capital.

It's instead using a specialized dedicated split formula that is primarily to these public safety investments, specifically to fire rescue and police salaries that are being called for as annuities within the budget.

0.4 cents to housing and 0.4 cents to schools.

I don't think I have that problem.

So still a little bit of extra to schools.

Plus, you know, our normal school-wise, our assessment increase was roughly 5%.

I think I talked about this last month, but in case I didn't, there's an interesting kind of story that I've been trying to highlight out of our assessments, which is single-family cash assessments went up

I think like Peter and I.

The multi-family assessment and attached single families are close to neutral and going down silently, which I think is interesting because the data story I kind of take away from that is the kind of consistent leaning into density in our urban area that we've been doing.

I think

You can make the argument that that's starting to bear fruit, but it's just hit past that supply demand tipping point where we can actually start potentially having impacts on portability from a supply side, at least in that kind of data housing.

But at the same time, you can see the pressures it's creating on our sample family credit.

So that's budget.

We did a working thing on our comprehensive planning

process on parks.

I mentioned this just because we've got several, I think, quite ambitious plans on parks that are going to be very, very significant.

Additionally, there's quite a lot of work that they're kind of

Blue Sky Developing, or continuous Blue Way, Greenway Tails that run along the River River all the way from Midway through Nets District to Midway through my district, which is quite far.

There's a whole city in the Greenway, you know, so that would be a really significant trail network additionally.

Then the big juicy thing I was talking to Zoe about this before everyone else was here,

But we had a really unusual for Albemarle County rezoning request.

So this is in Jim's district.

So basically a little west of the southern border of the county in the rural area in the Samuel Miller district.

There was a 500 acre parcel, most of which is unusable because of the flooding, which I think probably made its market value by blow.

that was proposed to be used for a mobile home park in the rural area.

If that is not, y'all don't remember, which I wouldn't have preferred to you, most of Albemarle County is two acres per unit, and that applies regardless of what kind of unit that is.

So this was a request to opposite to R4 in order to make that possible.

That is kind of unheard of in the rural area.

It is a really great fine rule for us that the rural area is not for residential.

The rural area is not for not-so area.

And it was, I think, quite challenging.

The rural area has also historically been, especially this part of the rural area, has historically been a place of working class homes, which is just not true anymore.

It's no longer in our current environment.

Price of the land, and also the increasing scarcity of development rights in the development area, or sorry, in the rural area, made it so that you can no longer build affordable housing effectively in Albemarle's rural area.

And as we were told several times, they're going value new construction homes in the rural areas, what we're doing now.

These were going to be pretty deeply affordable because they're partnerships.

There was an interesting diverse set of opinions.

So the previous community groups or community work sessions that had happened were quite large and quite close, right?

A lot of my constituents that had been there were quite close.

The, I think, final crowd we got was a little bit more diverse.

There were folks from

Or possibly else, constituents who came out and said, hey, I work with Charlottesville, or I have friends and family in Charlottesville, and I would like this to be here, so that everyone may do that.

We had a few folks who were retired, or working poor, who wedged in the side of the party, cannot make it came and spoke on behalf of it, not me.

A few neighbors who came and spoke opposed some pretty strongly.

And we split.

Ritter, which makes it fail.

It was, I would say, your two urban constituencies who have been in favor of it and I have been in favor of it.

And then the two main rural constituencies, the three main rural constituencies over the year.

That's, I think, maybe a little oversimplifying by one

Yeah, too much of the personality of who that was on that.

Anything you want to add?

Yeah.

We've basically set up where the byway would be six units on two acre lots.

And if they, if you think that'd be 1.2 billion, that that's going to be about three, 4 million.

We're building one and a half, $1.9 million out of here behind the Belvedere.

So I had some thoughts to say about that last one.

There's kind of a thing on this that I've been trying to tease out, I think, over the last year, because I've talked previously, because sometimes we get quite strong opposition when I talk about

and the idea of rural amenities, right?

The idea of community centers, for example, and how I think those are actually desired and we all think they were quite a strong and consistent opposition from rural constituents to that idea of rural areas.

And something I've been trying to tease out, I do think we have two very different rural constituencies.

Speaking, you know, quite bluntly, I think you've got your horse ranch,

And I grew up as a trailer park girl, not a horse ranch girl.

And I'm a little bit more sympathetic to that as a politician.

But that's also a constituency that, not talk to us very often, whereas your horse ranch girl does quite frequently.

There's one, there's a limited set of demographics that came, oh, 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and you say, sure, I'll show up for that meeting.

Yeah.

It doesn't matter.

7 o'clock on a Wednesday, and you got work at 6 in the morning?

Yeah.

You're not yet.

It really does.

I mean, it's kind of your two stories left, for sure, and they're very interesting in the sense

You said maybe reaching the tipping point on multifamily dwellings, reducing the growth on that side in terms of the values and maybe taking the pressure off.

But then on the other hand, you're saying at the same time, you can't build out in the rural areas because it's become so expensive.

So what does that mean?

Just wanting more density here, but yet with that

I love this happening.

We're out of here.

Tommy over here.

Get that shirt.

It just occurred to me.

Anyhow, Mr. Gallaway, you want to add?

I'm going to share some things from, I attended the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference up in DC this past weekend.

What's that like?

It's, it's, it's, I've learned that the federal, the way that BACO works, if you've all been to BACO,

They kind of just skip over the states and they kind of talk directly to you about how the feds and the locals work.

And then a lot of the information you're getting are how decisions up there can impact us locally.

And they all, everybody presenting respects the idea that the locals have the most immediate impact on their constituencies.

So the level of information that they give combined with the level of respect they have for commissioners and supervisors from around the country was pretty phenomenal.

It's the first time I've been to the legislature.

So I'd encourage if y'all are members of ACO, anytime when you're up in DC, plus you can, you know, there's, you can schedule what would be information they give you is very helpful.

And it's at a different level than I find myself thinking about on a day-to-day basis.

There's a couple of things I'll share.

So I serve on the Community Economic Development and Workforce Steering Committee at NACO.

So my whole day was around those issues.

And the gentleman who's the vice president for state and local affairs for the National Association of Home Builders came in and kind of hit us all right between the eyes with some information relative to what's happening with our new administration.

35% of this is national type of information.

35% of labor that's used to construct homes is immigrant labor.

They didn't quite know whether in that 35% what was legal, what was not illegal, but he said, given the current state of things, both aren't showing up to work.

If there's a quarter million dollar shortfall in labor nationwide right now, just in the last few months, because of what's going on with the immigration.

Lumber prices, and you've all heard about the tariff situation going on.

It goes in with Canada, it would be an almost 50% increase in the cost of lumber.

because hardwood lumber apparently only comes out of Canada.

We don't have a whole lot of it here, especially with what's growing us in the Northern part of our country.

And I didn't know that, what's it called?

There's the material that's used to make drywall.

What's it called?

It's only in Mexico.

We can't make it.

We can put it together, but we can't source the material.

So now the lumber coming from Canada, the drywall material coming from Mexico.

And this dude is basically going, y'all need to understand what this is going to mean, especially since you just talked about affordable housing.

Costs are always going to go up.

Well, they're really going to go up now.

And then you throw in labor shortfall.

So he's painting quite a picture of how the National Association of Home Builders, which is typically not an organization that's endorsing people in my party, but he came out hitting us all with information.

There was bipartisan shock in the room based on what he was talking about.

So I thought I'd share some of that.

He did say 75% of homes in the U.S. use Canadian lumber.

And that was like, wow.

If somebody would have asked me to ballpark that, I don't know that I'd throw out 75%.

But the good news is the president signed an executive order allowing him to talk to Linda, temporary to do a national forest sale.

So, well, this gentleman is by no means, like I said, I guess the affiliation based on how he was talking, he's perfectly fine with the admin, but for these particular issues.

We kept catching it in the idea like when you go to steel framing houses and maybe we like well what could you do that if this stuff gets cut off somewhere else and trying to go to America first and doing it here but to the point you can't source the material for the drywall you can't source all the hardwood lumber that you need and then he was talking about the steel would still have to be imported because

Even if you could get all the steel plants back up and running in the United States, that's going to take how long?

So by the time you do, in the meantime, you still have to import it in steel if you go to a steel print.

So just interesting stuff.

They just had their annual association meeting.

So if you go to the National Association of Home Builders, you probably find a lot of information on them if you wanted some more.

So those are kind of the highlights.

The other one I thought he mentioned that this could be of interest to different localities in the room.

He was urging all in the room to write to your, you know, senators and congress folk about the constructs act.

I hadn't heard of the constructs act before.

This is a act to amend the workforce innovation and opportunity act to expand the capacity of junior or community colleges and area career and technical education schools.

to conduct training services, education, and outreach activities for careers in the residential construction industry.

This is something that would hit our community colleges, trade schools, tech schools, if you have them.

So if you want to learn more about that, it's called the Constructs Act.

It sounds like it's a bipartisan type of thing, but it could certainly help offset maybe some of the labor shortages and help getting folks into that field

to help with home building.

A different presenter talked about, it's a group, it's a program called STARS.

Through the Opportunity of Work was the organization they were with.

STARS stands for Skill Through Alternate Routes.

And these are folks that may have some college credits, may not, but they haven't earned a four-year degree, that they have a lot of work experience.

The idea is like if you're an employer and you require a four-year degree, you're basically eliminating all this experience because these folks, these stars wouldn't apply because you put on there the prerequisite that they need the four-year degree.

So the effort to get rid of the four-year degree as the prerequisite for an application so that you open yourself up to these folks who bring a lot of experience and probably work ethic for what you're looking for.

I mean, it was more of a PR campaign to try and spread the word on this, but if you look up STARS or Opportunity Award, you can learn more about that if you want to.

Yeah.

Next week is our, well Keith, next Thursday is the housing summit with the regional housing partnership that's here.

So we hope that we'll see some of you folks there.

And then the last thing that I would say that I have described it to my board last night that it's an asteroid heading, pending for local government CIPs and what VDOT delivered to our NPO about smart scale projects moving forward, at least as currently the current CDP looks at it.

If you're not, if you have a project that's basically over 50 million.

So if you had a 75 million, a hundred million, we had two that were worth of a hundred million put through in smart scale.

that they're going to start looking for the localities that have to do cost reductions if you want to be able to get the smart scale applications approved.

So you might be looking at 30, 40, $50 million costs.

This isn't revenue sharing.

This isn't like, oh, we'll give you 200,000 to get the million dollar.

This is, you happen to have a 70 or $80 million transportation project in your county.

They might think about in the 30 to $50 million range for project approvals.

And if you have something north of that, you'll have to figure out how to get the cost down.

And they didn't, when I started making my snide comments, as I sometimes do when I react to things, VDOT was not doing anything to correct any misunderstandings I had about what it meant.

So I think this is something that Camp Hitt County is pretty tough because none of us think of our CIPs as having to do everything.

You know, other than maybe some revenue sharing for a transportation project,

If we had to start doing that, completely change, I mean, one transportation project is bigger than our current CIP for our entire local government right there.

Otherwise, it means going after state legislators in some sort of bipartisan way to go, you all need to figure out how to fund these projects better.

They do need to increase the pot relative to even other states that surround us, have revenue coming in and do a better job funding for road projects, both maintenance and or new projects.

And that takes us going to them

and hammering them to say, you know, you need to figure this out.

We've got to find a better funding mechanism.

Otherwise, we're just not going to get transportation projects done in the commonwealth.

It's good to know that inflationary pressures are going to drive interest rates down.

Yeah.

Mr. Smith.

I was just thinking, I now know the definition of a tough act to follow.

So

I didn't curse during that.

No, no, but my hearing aid picked up something out of Mike's mouth.

No, I didn't.

I heard a cough.

I was a couple.

I talked like one.

I'm sorry, I forgot my name.

I wanted to, yeah, I'll make it a little bit, because this I think could be of interest to you.

We used to have the K-Tech,

Education Foundation.

It was specific to KTEC and Albemarle County, and it was a foundation set up to help doing scholarships and things to help folks who may not be able to pay, you know, to go get a certificate in whatever line of work they are there in the trade.

KTEC got sold to the city, so KTEC is a little different.

So this foundation is now called the Trades Plus Tech Education Foundation, and it's not just tied to KTEC and the Piedmont Virginia Community College.

So if you have different community colleges in your area and you all have citizens that could be interested in attending something to get that next certificate or that next level of educational attainment and can't afford it, they provide types of scholarships that could help them do so.

So if you want more information on that, you can see me after.

You can snap a picture of this little hand card.

I used to be on this foundation when it was the KTEC Foundation, but I think this is something I told them I'd be announcing it so that the six counties would know.

But I think this could be something that your workforce folks in each of your counties would be interested in.

All right, I'm done.

Sure.

For real.

You sure?

Yeah.

Good job.

That's what my family does to me.

So good news.

The summit has an extra $5,000 in the pot, so that's great news.

The last time we did it, it cost us about $50,000.

We were $50,000 short, $40,000 short.

some number like that.

So we set a directive for it to self-fund.

So self-funded plus an extra five grand were sold out.

Hope everybody has to take it because being on a commission is not gonna get you a ticket at this particular point in time.

I'll let Tonya- No, you can do it, it's fine, go for it.

No, no, I'm gonna play off of, if you should talk about our reassessment, I'll backstop you with stats.

I do want to dig into what you said, Mike.

No, no, no, no, no.

I'm in it.

You were talking.

I just bought a assessment value.

No, no, no.

So there was a specific, maybe I, seriously, I got 75% hearing loss.

Man, that brother's right.

I might actually have that in a second.

Well, that makes sense, right?

So everybody knows you have to be fair market value, right?

So to let you know in your accounting, 2024 versus 2025, first two months, January, February, sold 2024, your single-family detached median sales price was 653, 2025, 728, that's 12%.

Correct.

I think I heard that single-family attached was slowing down or values were decreasing because they're up 7% here over here.

I appreciate it.

No, I'm in your choice of 3%.

I was.

Now, multifamily is a whole different animal, a whole different number crunching, but your attached actually had a decrease in sales to your point of 12.5% year over year, but went up 7%.

But you're the only county that has comparable, you can look at it and attach it because the rest of us don't.

Right, so Fluvanna County had its assessment.

We do an administrative assessment, every other biennial, and then the full assessment.

And the average increase was 25%.

The highest end was for small homes, so 200,000, 250,000.

Some people have received assessments of over 50%.

I can attest to that because I have one of those that can say that it was 50%.

If you actually do the math and the calculation, even though they say the average is 25%, you've got to factor in all the land that's not being taxed.

And so the true average is closer to about 18% is what it would be.

So you're going to factor that in.

Even with, and, you know, Fluvanna County, you know, to take anything away from a lot of other counties here, but we actually go through the process of equalizing and, you know, change our rates, which is unequal, you know, to some degree, just teasing.

We go through that and, and even at an equalized rate, you would still face, like, let's say you're paying $1,500 or $500 more in taxes for that same $200,000 home that's now $200,000.

A lot of angst in the community about that.

Of course, we're facing budgetary pressure like anyone else does.

From that standpoint, we have set our maximum tax rate at $0.75, the equalized rate would be $0.69.

I suspect it'll fall somewhere between $0.72 and $0.75 somewhere in that neighborhood.

And so we're deep into budget discussions.

Certainly homes that were on the higher end had increases that were a little bit less.

If you were in the rural areas, you had slightly less of an assessment increase.

So we're getting information from a lot of different places, but on average, you can say 25, 30, 35, 40% was what you were seeing out there.

about 23, 24 taxes is really 21, 22 values, right?

So if you take a look at what happens from 21 up until now, so I did 76 CMAs for our county residents that asked me to do that.

Two thirds of them were pretty much spot on market value.

A couple thousand bucks either way, about a quarter of

Good news is the appeal process worked.

It was adjusted because we provided market data.

And I think, you know, I mean, I've tried to say this to my board in the past.

I said, you know, if we deny, throw in

We are essentially passing an effective tax because the pricing of houses is going to go up and you know that is a tax to the tax owner handing it to the taxpayer at the end of the day as they're feeling it from that perspective.

Twelve years ago I had the opposite situation where our property values went down 25-30% during the big depression.

And so, you know, that trying to get it stabilized.

But, you know, because of the pressures that you're seeing in housing, when you have the median price home in Albemarle counted down to that $700,000 range, surrounding counties, of course, are seeing their prices being pushed up from that standpoint.

The median pricing for that accounting is still $350,000.

So if you want, that'd be great.

I think it's in that neighborhood.

390.

390.

So that's how quickly that pressure is revealing from what's happening just in this area passing out to the rest of the county.

So it's not about assessment, it's about how much cash.

My home, the amount of cash I pay, I could live in Glenmore.

And to that point we are considering a meals tax and that will be up for public hearing in a couple of weeks.

I think it's going to happen.

Apparently I've banned from Albemarle County.

We're at 5% but we're earmarking 2% for construction for schools.

How's everybody's pupil counts?

Are you all up now?

But not very much.

And our growth rate for the last four years has been around 1.1.

Reistrick, they don't have a lot of housing, like 7% per year.

And then Colonial Circle, which is our first really multi-residential housing in Savannah County, we have 175

There's a little bit of angst in the community in terms of what that impact is going to be in terms of the pressures both on schools as well as public safety.

Certainly that's coming through by the individual departments during the season as well on their request.

So that's kind of all that's going on at the moment.

So, the JRWA is all the permitting is approved so that the process is going to be started pretty soon.

I think that's the 2020 status.

I think you'll forgive me for not having remembered that exact name.

Yes.

Typically we bring the FY26 budget draft in April for consideration for approval in May.

because of the class and code study and being able to bring you all feedback from the classification and publicization study and then incorporate however you direct us into the budget.

We're proposing to bring the draft in May with the final in June.

Chair?

I have a motion.

I will read.

All right.

Motion to adjourn.

We're on the other side.

Do you want to second that?