Planning District Commission Meeting   6/5/2025

We'll call it over for your meeting of the jurisdiction of fine history.

Mr. Smith?

Supervisor Goolsby?

Supervisor Barlow?

Here.

Supervisor Reed?

Well, I have a motion to move Mr. Woodward.

Is there a move?

I'll second.

Motion.

Hello, so we have a second motion from Mr. O'Brien to the meeting, I was a failure.

I have.

Very well, turn it outside, I'll pass.

Next, do we have anyone from the public wishing to speak?

Mr. Payne is joining us, that's great.

Nobody here to speak, anything via email, phone, online?

All right, we'll begin with our presentations.

with the meeting commissioners.

I'm Lori Jean Tulum, Regional, when is my computer?

As of a year ago, Regional Program Manager here at TJPDC.

I'm really excited to introduce you to our partners who are here virtually.

They are located down at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and in Richmond, respectively.

They are going to be working with us for the next two years on our regional housing study.

So that's what we want to present to you tonight.

Also, you'll have an opportunity, like we have about 15 minutes tonight, but you'll have an opportunity for a full 45-minute presentation if you want to join us for the kickoff next Wednesday at 2.30.

We should all have received it in your email, so just search kickoff.

You'll get another email about it on Monday.

But please join us if you can to explore it more and just know more about it.

So I'll start just by sharing.

This is Mel Jones right there.

She is leading our team from the Virginia Center for Housing Research at Virginia Tech.

She is a research scientist and the co-director of VCHR.

Her work has included leading housing studies like this one across the country and throughout the state and many localities like ours.

She specializes in connecting housing to other important issues such as economic development, public health, and community well-being.

Her most recent work demonstrates her expertise, the West Pima Planning District Commission Regional Housing Study, the Virginia Beach Housing Affordability Study, and the Bluefield West Virginia Housing Study and Implementation Plan.

And you can see links to see all of those existing studies at the bottom of that email that I'm referencing.

And again, you'll get another one on Monday if you didn't get it yet.

And then Jonathan Knopf.

will be a central partner on our team as well.

He is from Housing Board Virginia, where he serves as the executive director for programs.

In this role, he helps local officials, planners, and community members craft evidence-based policies and design effective communication strategies.

He has helped develop the first combined community land trust on Nanbank and the Pinching, Virginia's first regional housing trust fund, and he has addressed the needs of manufactured home communities in offensive Virginia.

He has contributed to numerous state, regional, and local housing studies throughout Virginia.

And he is a member of policy advisory committees for Home of Virginia and the Virginia Housing Alliance.

So we have been working closely with them for quite a few months now, getting ready for this study to start.

And here we are at the starting line with all the funding lined up and everything in place.

So I'm really excited for you to hear from them tonight about what's coming.

Okay, now hopefully everybody can see the slides and not anything else.

I definitely had a bunch of pop ups as we were going, but I think I can see on your screen in the background that it looks right.

Good.

Okay, well, we are thrilled to begin working on the TJPDC Regional Housing Study.

I'm

You know, we've been thinking a lot about the TJPDC because we've just finished the Central Shenandoah PDC and you guys are neighbors.

So in that study, you know, we're thinking about in commuting from you guys into Central Shenandoah, what that meant for housing and

who from, you know, Central Shenandoah was commuting out to you guys.

And so it's fun to be able to follow one study with another adjacent partner that, you know, allows us to think more deeply.

So I'm super excited to begin.

We do regional housing studies because when people are looking for houses, they are trying to choose the best economic package that they can for themselves, and that includes all of their social network, their job opportunities, their spouse's job opportunities, their kids' futures, the sticks and bricks, the size of the yard, the farm, all kinds of different things, right?

One of their considerations, but not a primary consideration, is necessarily the jurisdictional boundary.

So we find that people will commute all over a region or move all over a region within a reasonable commute of their job.

And in order to understand what role each jurisdiction plays or even each neighborhood plays, we have to think about the market as a whole.

And so generally we like to do regional housing studies because it allows us to take that market as a whole perspective and then think about the roles that each submarket plays in the region.

We have done a lot of these regional housing studies.

Way back, it feels like 100 years ago, we did a statewide housing study.

And then Jonathan did another one after that.

I'm talking about the first one.

One of our major findings was that we need to start taking a regional approach to housing.

And in Virginia, housing heard that loud and clear and started funding regional approaches to housing.

And so since that time, the very first one that we did together was the New River Valley.

And since that time, we've done many other regional housing studies and delighted to do one more.

So we'll start with the data.

And I say that we'll start with the data, but we'll start first by listening to folk across the region, primarily decision makers, representatives from

We want local governments to understand what they want out of the study and what their housing goals are and use that input to use our resources most efficiently and think about what data we need, who we need to talk to, what questions we can answer.

And that's sort of the first bit of qualitative data that we will collect.

Then we'll also collect data from local experts.

And this is really important because when we're looking at quantitative data, trying to analyze it,

One of the most important things in that analysis is intuition about what the data should say.

And if it's not saying that, why?

So we have to get to know a community where we work in order to identify mistakes in the data, identify mistakes in our analysis, or identify complex ideas that aren't just giving evidence on the very surface.

So to that end, we conduct focus groups with local experts, and that's who you have in these blocks here.

So housing related folk, realtors, builders, very often employers and educators will have a good idea of people's needs.

So my employees can't find this type of housing, or we're seeing families in the public school system experience these struggles.

So we talk a lot to them, lenders, of course,

and housing service providers, lots of different people and different people will crop up along the way, right?

Because as we talk to these people, they'll say, well, you actually should talk to so and so.

And so we do our best to learn as much as we can, not only from the quantitative data, but from the qualitative data.

In terms of quantitative data, these are our usual suspects, though sometimes we will integrate

Other sources based on you know questions that a community has or you know one source doesn't provide us the data quality that we want so we go looking for something else that happens a lot.

So here that these are our usual suspects in this list.

And you guys requested something a little bit special, which is more information on a variety of topics that, you know, are not there.

They're happening all over our country and communities are dealing with them in different kinds of ways.

And certainly academics have been thinking about these issues and come up with best practices or things that we should know by researching similar issues throughout the country.

So we will be looking at academic literature and trade literature and what other communities have been up to in these spaces to hopefully provide you guys with beyond the data,

For your community, additional information to help you make good policy and program decisions and help us help you make strategies that really support the specific outcomes that you're looking to achieve.

Well, and thanks, everybody, for letting us chat with you for a few minutes this evening.

This is really just the beginning of a lengthy process that we're excited to undertake.

And Mel, I think if they'll ever let us do a study in Hampton Roads, we'll have finally covered the entire 64 corridor, and we'll have conquered that.

So we're almost there.

You can go ahead and move to the next slide.

So the role that our team plays for this work is designing the solutions or strategies or recommendations, whatever you may want to call them.

And I think you'll just have to click through the different little boxes that will appear here.

But the process that we use to create the recommendations results in us making these

with you, not for you.

We don't just take the data and all the notes from the meetings that we have originally that Mel talked about and go away and then come back and give you a specific prescription and that this is the only way that you will be able to solve your housing challenges.

That is not a recipe for success.

What we would rather do and what ends up producing better results in the long run is working hand in hand with local stakeholders

in the public sector and elsewhere, but primarily the staff at local governments and the PDC staff to understand what issues there are, what are the gaps that need to be filled and where are there opportunities to make progress and develop and craft solutions that these communities, your communities,

can pursue over the next few years.

And what we end up doing is providing each locality and the region as a whole with a small set, respectively, of solutions.

Rather than a list of 10 or 15 different things, we want to focus on two, three, or four things that have some traction.

And so in order to get to those, we take all the listening session notes, we take those conversations, the

O'Brien.

So these are some things that you all probably mentioned in those meetings that you're interested in, programs that you are already doing, but maybe want to change, adapt or expand things that you have heard other communities doing that you are interested in and want to explore if they're feasible in your backyard and things that we bring in from our own experience and

D'Oronzio.

And so we come to local stakeholders initially with a list of these initial ideas and start to bounce them around and say, you know, which ones really seem like they have a chance.

And so we whittle those down and then produce a partial draft

of those solutions, just to flesh them out a little bit more after we've made an initial selection.

We send it to you all for feedback again, and then revise that and build it out into a final draft, which then goes into the kind of the first full draft of the entire report, which then gets another round of review.

And so this is an iterative collaborative process that we hope at the end of the day results in

and some instructions in a roadmap for beginning to tackle some of the housing challenges that were prioritized and identified in all the lead up work to this part.

And so the things that we consider and try to really tease out in the conversations with stakeholders are three things.

What is the expected level of impact from each of the potential recommendations?

How much effort is required both in terms of capacity and

Whether there is legal authority to do it if you have to pursue additional permission from the General Assembly to do that, that certainly is a much harder lift.

And then also just what is the window of opportunity in terms of political feasibility, budgeting required, other competing public policy interests at the local level, education, transportation, economic development.

Housing is really critical to all of those, but we understand how

All those issues can play out and we don't want to upset the apple cart to push a particular housing solution if it comes at the expense of political goodwill that has been built up.

We want this to be successful and productive and build on existing momentum and successes that may be making their way in communities today.

And the key aspect of this approach, in addition to looking at the data at a regional level and assessing patterns across those local boundaries, is to produce not just a series of recommendations for the individual jurisdictions, which are really important to help them tackle issues within their own boundaries and address them through means that really are the key powers that only local governments have

in Virginia, like regulating your land uses and developing and drafting a zoning ordinance.

Those are key things that localities have that really nobody else does unless the state steps in and says otherwise.

So we definitely want to focus a lot of time on those local specific solutions, but we also dedicate a large part of our effort on identifying opportunities for solutions that can address particular issues that may be

spread across two or three different jurisdictions that share boundaries.

If there's a particular corridor or an issue within a certain sub-market, are there things that those localities can collaborate on together that will help solve a common issue?

And then we also want to offer a handful of regional level recommendations to really continue elevating housing as a regional issue.

These are things that the PDC would likely play a role in, but don't have to necessarily if there are other regional actors or entities that could fill that role.

But generally, it's going to be a cadre of different players and practitioners to get that done at the regional level.

Thankfully, there is a lot of success.

although somewhat limited so far, but more and more success that we have seen in regional approaches to addressing housing issues throughout the Commonwealth.

That has just been, I think, the natural fruit born out of all these different regional studies.

And so we hope that TJPDC can be another push in that direction.

And then so within each of the solutions, what you'll find is kind of a common format for them.

And we really want to try to make these approachable and digestible, but we put them in kind of two different forms, which I'll talk about next.

But generally what you'll see is just a simple problem statement of what we're trying to solve, details on what actually is involved in the solution and how it works,

A detailed implementation timeline that we work out in conjunction with ideally the people that would be responsible for implementing these solutions.

A list of the different actors and their roles and who actually might do what to get this thing done.

where is the money going to come from if this requires money and then what are some metrics what are some benchmarks that we can use to measure the success to know whether or not the solution has actually made any progress if we have given it a shot.

And then finally you'll probably see more as the course of this this whole project goes on on the specific

Deliverables to expect as we begin to kind of form them.

But on the whole, what you can expect is two big products, or two main products.

The first of those is the traditional unabridged technical report, which is, you know, for local government staff, for program administrators, for the folks that will actually be, you know, getting, hopefully getting

these solutions turned into action.

And so generally the people that we are interacting with throughout the development of the study is the primary audience for that full technical report.

The consumer report or what we call the consumer report on the other hand is really just a beefed up executive summary.

We'll still have kind of a simple, you know, one page

summary built into all of this, but we have really kind of found a sweet spot with this type of product that is a really attractive colorful infographic style booklet that is produced by a talented graphic designer that Mel has partnered with and does work for the university that we've used on several occasions so far.

And this report is much more suitable for public consumption and passing out at events.

We'll make sure that a lot of these get printed and made available to everybody.

But this is what you would want to use to lead a conversation about the study with because it is much more attractive, provides a reasonable level of detail and information without getting too far into the weeds.

but still a meaningful level of information beyond maybe just a front and back or kind of four page executive summary handout.

So we look forward to crafting those because we really see them as the kind of most effective messenger for a lot of the content that we'll be producing.

You can see in the links that have gone out

the Central Shenandoah PDC and Southside PDC Consumer Reports.

And Mel and I would be happy to share other examples of studies that we have done in the past if you're interested and are happy to be a resource at any point throughout this whole process.

And Mel, I think that is it.

So that's our contact information.

We're not hard to track down.

I think the key thing also to keep in mind about us is that

Both of the organizations we work for have a continuous permanent mission to serve communities in Virginia on housing policy and housing research.

So even when all of this is done, you'll probably be sick of us, but we don't just disappear.

And you can always find us and track us down to answer housing questions, bounce ideas off of, or just be a resource in whatever way we can be helpful.

Yep.

I don't have a question necessarily, but just as a comment.

Two of our, and I mean one of them, are going to be part of the listening sessions.

So if you haven't been asked yet and you're looking for two supervisors participating in the listening sessions so that

On slide five, you all talked about your kind of focus group sessions for qualitative feedback.

I find it concerning that you don't highlight working with affected populations at all in there.

Yeah, um, we have done that in studies where it has been requested.

But I will mention that reaching out to well, okay, first of all, everyone needs housing.

There are many populations that are impacted by the need for housing or housing insecurity or unmet housing needs.

And so generally when we do this, it's either a full public engagement or specific groups of people who, you know, we're trying to do something more specific to that population.

And so, let's say that in one of our listening groups, someone mentioned that we would like our entire housing goal to be directed to meeting the needs of people experiencing homelessness.

We don't want you to think about anything else.

Then that would mean that we would need to follow up with that subgroup, for example.

But these experts largely are the gatekeepers to those groups, people who, you know,

work with home buyers, people who provide housing services, people who are in the public schools, which, you know, for example, are some of the McKinney-Vento representatives from the public schools are some of the best informants regarding families experiencing homelessness, especially in rural areas.

So I think that with this group, we really have, or with this set of

We really are reaching out to the people who know about most of the populations that either need housing because of something related to insecurity or, like I said, the population writ large because we're not only focused on

You know, people experiencing housing insecurity, for example, we're trying to think about the entire housing market and how everyone is impacted by certain gaps in the market.

I know

It had been previously contemplated that the Regional Housing Study could incorporate what would be a newly due analysis of impediments.

So when we were originally talking with the TJPDC about a housing study, we did talk about an analysis of impediments.

And we referred the PDC staff to Northern Virginia that has done a regional analysis of impediments to respond to HUD requirements.

And the pricing related to that, et cetera, et cetera,

I think they and also the communities Charlottesville and Albemarle who are required to do that analysis decided that it would be better as a separate effort.

In addition to that, our two organizations have not done analysis, the HUD required analysis of impediments.

And so I also recommended that they work with another contractor or we subcontract to someone who has lots of experience in that.

We've done consolidated plans before, but having done that, I know that there are lots of boxes to check and it really helps to have someone experienced.

There will be data from- It'd be cool to have one,

There will be data from this study that will help with any future error.

But I definitely encourage you to have a look at the two, well, the most recent regional AI from Northern Virginia.

I think that the only ones that have taken on like a whole region wide, but I also think that they're the only kind of concentration of entitlement communities that have to do one anyway.

There was also Plan RPA did a regional AI from, I just pulled it up, March of 21.

Thank you.

Yes, yeah, thanks for asking that.

So this is going to be a two-year process.

Most of pulling together all of the data is going to be done within that first year, and we are just getting started.

So the first thing we'll be having are the listening sessions.

And then there's going to be a section of trainings where locality staff and others that we're kind of hand selecting who are interested can learn from Mel about how to gather and how to analyze data.

Meanwhile, her team will also be doing probably the bulk of the data collection and analysis from many different sources.

We'll make sure that you have the scope of work and the timeline.

so that you can see that if you want to see in detail.

But there's a lot of different sources for data.

So they'll be crunching those, they'll be creating the lit review, and then we'll be doing focus groups with the special groups around the region.

And I do believe voices will be part of that, of people who have been impacted.

And so by the end of the first year, there will be kind of a draft initial report or summary of kind of the data,

and the information that we're finding.

And then I think it's really at the beginning of that second year that Jonathan will then be, you know, he's gonna be with us this whole time.

paying attention to what people are saying, what the data is telling us to start crafting that initial portfolio of potential solutions for each locality.

One of the things that appealed to us with working with these particular partners is the former study that we did that was released in 2019 was much more of a we contracted out, they did a data analysis and they brought back to us

More of what I would say a toolkit than tailored strategies to local governments.

And so we were really, what appealed to us is that this was much more comprehensive and that it was building capacity within our local governments to do this work in a continued manner rather than every five years coming back for a major study.

So it does include

training sessions with your staff, training sessions with housing nonprofits, and so that they can pull down information that they need in a much more readily annual fashion than having to wait for a big fiber update of a plan.

It does take time and I want to mention that, you know, when I first tell people it's going to be a two year process, they kind of say, okay, well, I'm not used to that.

I'm used to contracting out and getting sort of quick study and coming back.

But, you know, taking the time to train people about what the data can do, where its limitations are, is extremely helpful in helping them direct us

in what they want to know and when it makes more sense for them to just use their experience than the quantitative data.

So that's one really cool outcome.

But also it allows us to spend so much time with our partners and their partners that we find that these strategies kind of start to develop themselves as we go through this process.

And then Jonathan can really add meat to the bones and work things out with a

Each community such that people are pretty teed up, may have even already started implementation before we published the study.

And so it's just such a cool, like you said, capacity building process, but then it also looks really nice in the end when we publish the study and then bam, people are like starting on the outcomes.

Great.

Anything else?

Well, thank you, Mrs. Jones and Mr. Knopf.

Likewise.

All right.

Next, we have the consent agenda.

Mr.

Chair?

Yes.

We have the consent agenda as presented, if you know.

Wonderful.

We have a second.

I will second that.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Good evening everyone.

I'm Isabella O'Brien, a Regional Planner II with the Thomas Jefferson PDC for three and a half years now.

Tonight I'll provide a quick overview of hazard mitigation planning

and request your support with the TJPDC's grant application to fund the update of the required hazard mitigation plan.

So the Disaster Mitigation Act mandates that local governments develop, adopt and maintain hazard mitigation plans to receive disaster relief and other sources of funding from FEMA.

These plans must be updated every five years to comply with federal law.

The region's original plan was adopted by all localities in 2006 and has undergone three updates since.

The last plan was approved in February of 2023 and the next update is required to be approved by the first locality, VDEM and FEMA, by February of 2028.

We are working to finalize our grant application due to VDEM, July 18th, and this funding is intended to support the planning process well defined by FEMA.

So hazard mitigation planning is a proactive approach to reducing or eliminating long-term risk to life and property from natural disasters.

You can find a version of the scope in the packet for a closer look.

A typical FEMA compliant plan encompasses these key elements.

with the planning process, assembling a dedicated team of experts and organizing working group meetings to support the plan update throughout the process, engaging the community through outreach and input by way of workshops, public meetings, surveys, stakeholder groups that represent sections of the community.

And the risk assessment involves identifying what the potential hazards are that affect our region,

assessing their likelihood and severity with advanced modeling known as HAZUS developed by FEMA and evaluating the vulnerability of our region's critical infrastructure, sensitive environments, and community assets and networks.

The capability assessment is also a part of the risk assessment, which is conducted by your local staff and evaluates the jurisdiction's planning, regulatory, administrative, and technical capabilities

as well as the financial and educational programs supporting hazard mitigation planning and capacity.

The mitigation strategy is really the core of the plan and it's there to develop effective strategies that reduce or eliminate risks and prioritize mitigation actions that are based on the risk assessment.

It considers a wide range of mitigation options and identifies responsible parties to support implementation through the thing.

And then lastly, the adoption, implementation, and maintenance will present to each of your localities, submit to be them for review and comment, and then send it over to FEMA for final approval.

And then we'll be working alongside your localities to implement mitigation actions and monitor progress through annual meetings, and then regularly update the plan to reflect changing conditions and any emergency threats.

So according to federal law, a local jurisdiction must review and revise its plan to reflect changes in development, progress in local mitigation efforts, and changes in priorities, and then resubmit the plan for approval within five years in order to continue to be eligible for mitigation project grant funding.

And this also includes active participation from your staff in the plan update through working group meetings.

So FEMA's grant program supports our local governments in building resilience and capacity to mitigate and respond to hazards.

And these grants can fund anything from projects like new generators, green infrastructure design, public warning systems, floodplain and stream bank restoration, flood proofing and wildfire mitigation, just to name a few.

So like I mentioned,

Our local governments must actively develop and define these mitigation action strategies within our regional hazard mitigation plan.

And this really is a crucial step that makes those projects eligible for investment from FEMA.

So just for an example, since the last plan update, Nelson County needed to replace aging generators at their fire and EMS stations.

The initial grant was ineligible as the project was not identified in the regional plan.

So the solution was working with the TJPDC and Nelson's emergency management staff to define that action and then update the plan with VITA and FEMA.

So proactively defining actions and the plan significantly increases our efficiency for receiving these funds.

And since the 2023 plan update, we've seen multiple grants awarded within the region for Rivanna authorities to replace aging infrastructure and new generators at water treatment plants.

And Greene County received funding for generators at their 911 center, county administration building, and the volunteer fire department through these funds.

So here is a breakdown of the budget for this program.

It's primarily supported by grants, 75% of which is covered by FEMA, 20% is covered by the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, and then 5% is covered by local match.

And this will be through in-kind contribution of staff time.

So in previous applications, this 5% local match was covered by our local per capita funding.

However, local staff was already contributing significant time and expertise to the plan's development through the required participation in those working group meetings.

So for this application, we're strategically leveraging this existing staff time as an in-kind contribution for local match.

This doesn't require any additional staff time beyond what was already committed.

But it significantly reduces the burden on our per capita funding, allowing us to meet the match requirement more efficiently.

And then the administrative budget is directly tied to the program budget limited by FEMA to 5% of the overall program funds.

And our actual scope of work for program management does slightly exceed this 5% allocation.

So the remaining $5,000 will be covered by local per capita funds spread out over the program's three year.

So the additional funding will have minimal impact on the overall local budget.

So in the packet, you'll find two items regarding our hazard mitigation planning grant.

The internal governmental review request is just a document for your information.

It's required as part of the federal grant application process.

which promotes intergovernmental partnership in reviewing proposed federal assistance.

And then the resolution regarding hazard mitigation planning will authorize the TJPDC to sign the VITAM grant agreement and take all necessary actions for the hazard mitigation planning grant application and staff recommend the commission approve this resolution to support the TJPDC's application.

Barlow.

Louisa, can I opt to go to the National Floodplain and Sheriff's Bureau of San Francisco?

No, this is for non-emergency federal assistance.

Right.

I think because you don't participate, you're only not eligible for FMA funding, the flood of mitigation assistance.

Any other questions?

That is an action item.

Oh, you got that?

You guys had a presentation previously on the draft plan.

We have also had staff coming out to each of the local jurisdictions presenting to the boards and city council.

So you guys are familiar with the plan.

As you guys know in response to a letter from the US Transportation Secretary that we are required to abide by all of the executive orders.

We had our team go back through the document to ensure that we had

met all of those requirements and as such there's some data changes within the document from the version you previously saw and the one that we're asking you to take action on tonight.

Those are related to removing any reference to the Justice 40 initiative and the environmental justice screening tool, both of which are no longer on USDOT's website.

And so we have pulled those out of the document in order to comply with the requirements.

And instead we have replaced it with data that is coming from several other sources, including census data maps.

So a lot of the substantive information is still the same.

None of the spot improvements or systemic improvements that are recommended in the plan are changing.

However, because of the scoring methodology, they may change in their rank.

So what was recommended as number five might be number six instead of number five, but none of the actual improvements are changed from the first draft that you received in the final draft that was sent to you in the calendar invite.

I'm happy to take any questions about that.

So far, we have four of our six jurisdictions that have already approved the plan.

The other two are slated before the end of the due date, which is June 26 is when we have to submit.

Any questions?

Seeing none, do we have a motion?

Mr.

Chair, I move we approve this

Second.

I have a question.

I just wanted to respond.

Second.

I think Mr. Gail has a vote.

Aye.

Aye.

Mr. Wardle?

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Aye.

and how the vote turns out, our next, our next chair up there, the 7th.

I was planning to join you virtually this evening, but Yona and I are out of the country celebrating our 39th wedding night.

I know, so sorry, Yona.

What we didn't see coming was the French family we stayed with, chefs and dear friends after 15 years of yoga visits decided to shut down their restaurant study to cook a special dinner for us.

They've even invited our local friends and a group of couples who are returning this year.

Folks who belong close to your open leaders.

We need one of those moments that just kills our heart.

That said, I didn't want the evening to pass without saying thank you.

It's a true honor to be asked to serve as chairperson of the Thomas Jefferson Fine District.

I'm grateful for your trust and confidence and I will do my best to lead with the same commitment and collaboration that defines this incredible group.

With gratitude to you.

Thank you.

We wish you a happy anniversary to us and to you.

There's only more to you than you think every year, right?

So with that, we have a nomination.

That we'll say is Mr. Smith, the chair, Mr. Payne for vice chair, Mr. Oronzio for treasurer, and Ms. Jenkins for secretary.

I need changes to the slate.

Let me test the spell a little bit.

I need that.

The question I have is do we agree to the slate?

I suppose so.

Second section.

All right.

Yeah, but I'm just going to call up the other three.

What's that?

I said all of them.

Okay, so in your packet, I have copies of the totals, the revenues, the local per cap, the local contributions, as well as a detailed memo presented the budget to you last month, but also included a memo of some changes between then and now.

So the first one I want to talk about is the more substantive change.

In the May version of the budget, I recommended a one-year implementation of the classification and compensation study.

There are a lot of uncertainties and a lot of unknowns before us in the next fiscal year.

We do know some things, for example, major programs that we have that are one-time opportunities are going to be sunsetting in fiscal year 26, 27, and 28.

Those are large programs for us.

That's body broadband.

That is Virginia Housing Development Grant building houses.

That is IIJA funds for septic and rain barrel.

And so I am revising my recommendation to you all in an abundance of caution.

And it is because I have some pause and there is some uncertainty on the sustainability of doing it all within one year.

That doesn't mean we don't still want to accomplish that same end goal.

But I think the more conservative approach

is to do it across more than one fiscal year.

And so what I'm recommending to you all is rather than 100% of it come as a permanent base salary increase in the first year, that we do 75% of that increase as a base salary

And since we know in FY26 that we have the resources to do it, do the other 25% as a one-time bonus spread across all paychecks through the fiscal year.

That accomplishes a couple of things.

One, it allows the staff to take home the realized benefit of that income.

It allows us to have additional information before making the decision on the final 25% increase.

And by doing 75%, the reason that I'm recommending that particular split is by doing the 75%, it does put every position within the organization passing the 50th percentile so that all positions are then competitive with the market.

That was the ultimate thing that we were trying to accomplish.

I think what we'd like to see is in FY 27, be able to get us to leading the market.

Can you give me the explain like on five version of why the sunsetting of several major pass-through programs affects our position to be able, like in my mind I'm like oh well those are already here Mark, we already know where they're going.

That is revenue that we no longer have to pay the staff salaries.

So the direct revenue from those programs pays the direct cost.

Additionally, the indirect that we receive on those programs contributes towards paying all of our administrative costs.

And so as a, as a really back of the napkin example, we, we try to get folks allocated between 90 and 95% billing to programs, right?

We want most of the cost of our team to be paid for by the revenues we're bringing in.

So that limits our overhead.

If we lose several programs, and I can only allocate staff at 65% or 70%, we are now dramatically increasing that overhead cost because we don't have revenue from which to be able to reimburse ourselves.

And so really, this is a precautionary measure so that we have several more months to see what unfolds

As far as federal funding and whether or not we can identify pipeline opportunities to close some of those gaps, our program's going to come out, you know, discretionary grant programs or one-time opportunities that can fill some of those holes before committing.

One of the things that I had to pause over is once you do the permanent salary increase, you don't go back.

And so we would be committing to something that we have to sustain.

And, you know, it's a difficult landscape right now.

We don't know what's happened with the federal government.

We don't know what we don't know.

The initial 25% will be actualized into a salary action next year by the commission.

But, you know, it'd be terrible to enact these and then have to, you know, change something according, I'm supportive of decision making.

Only negative per se for the employees, I gather, is the bonus.

So there is one other factor that might address Mr. Pruitt's concern and that is that we have a couple of staff members whose salary is entirely paid for by grants and was intended to be for that grant period.

Even accounting for that, we would not be able to maintain the

We will, through our effective rates that we use to bill to those programs, we will approve those bonuses.

So those will be paid through those grants, but then that indirect cost portion will only be based upon that effective billable rate.

Does that make sense?

I don't think I'm answering your question.

The indirect cost is more about how much revenue we have to cover our actual expenses.

than it is about what the bonuses are.

Well, it'll allow us to fully realize the implementation in this year.

It'll then allow us to reassess next year.

If we increase those to be permanent wages, and then I can't allocate people at that 90, 95%, it would impact if we made it a bonus, if we made it a salary.

Yeah, there are a couple within the memo, there are a couple of other small, very minor changes, but those are just updating numbers based on awards that we've actually received.

We had projected numbers and we've received.

So for example, our FTA 5303 was updated.

The home federal fiscal year 25 grant numbers were updated.

All of it.

So would the commission like to approve the fiscal year in 2016?

Yes, I agree.

Mr. Barlow, I have a motion.

Senator Bynum, Mr. Barlow, if you're all in favor.

Aye, aye.

Chair runs out of motion.

That's even now.

All right.

Moving now on to a quick pace here.

As you guys know, we manage a lot of federal state programs related to transportation that come through the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

CTV does require that we have a multi-year master agreement with them before we're allowed to sign any individual project agreements.

So in the past, this has not come before the commission.

But I felt like since there's a lot of change occurring and we've got red line versions versus the new versions that putting it before you all just in transparency that this is what it is that we are agreeing to do was important.

And then also the FTA requires annually for us to certify and assure that we will follow all of the different rules in all of the different areas.

So I wanted that also before you just so you had a copy of what it was that

that were being asked to sign.

Pretty soon a ways is going to be writing checks to the rest of us.

Mr.

Chair, I move we approve this resolution.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Okay, one last item for me.

The commission sets the financial targets for the fiscal administration of the organization.

She's pulling this one up.

You guys have set previously, before I was here, a goal that our net quick assets is a target of five months of average operating expenses.

Another goal that was set was that our unrestricted cash on hand, we were targeting four months of average operating expenses.

You guys also set an alarm that anything below two should be looked at very carefully.

There should be some caution when we get below two months

of unrestricted cash on hand.

And then also there was a goal set to have about a 50,000 target of net gain annually and so we look monthly to see are we on track to meet that gain.

In the past several years we've well exceeded that.

Next slide.

Just to make sure we're all on the same page, net quick assets are our current assets minus all of our liabilities.

You guys also have as a policy goal that restricted capital reserves.

So the capital reserves is any net quick assets minus five months of average operating expenses.

So the average monthly operating is a 12 month rolling average.

For unrestricted cash on hand, that's all cash, all funds held in checking money market VIP.

It does not include pass-through funding that we're receiving and going out to a subrecipient.

And then unrestricted cash also takes into account removing the deferred revenue, anything that we have that's already earmarked to a particular thing that is not unrestricted.

The issue is that we are reporting to you all in the financial dashboard that we are consistently below that four month target of unrestricted cash on hand.

And oftentimes we're below that two month alarm mark.

However, staff's opinion is that is on paper only.

We have

We have ample cash on hand, but the way that the capital reserve policy is set is that we are putting aside the majority of that into a capital reserve, which on paper means we're limiting what's in the operational reserve.

If you go to the next slide, these are really tiny numbers, I put it in paper in front of you because it's going to be impossible to see on the screen.

This is what we are reporting to you all now.

So if you look across this table and it shows that our months of average operating expenses on hand are in the 11 month, 11.4 months, 11.8 months, we're then setting aside anything more than five months to go into a capital reserve account, which when you get to the very bottom of that table, it means we're only reporting that we have 1.4 or 1.8 months of unrestricted cash on hand.

It is only restricted by that policy.

And so if you go to the next slide, you can see the table.

This is what comes to you monthly in the financial dashboard.

And if our alarm is, or if our goal is 585,000, you can see we are very rarely making that goal on paper.

And so what we brought to the Finance Executive Committee last month and are coming to you all is a recommendation for revising that policy, particularly with the uncertainty ahead of us and making sure that we have very healthy operational reserves, which would all still be commission-driven, any decisions to spend that money.

But our recommendation would be to increase the target for net quick assets from five months to eight months.

So that we are making sure that we have more resources set aside and then revising the capital reserve policy to say anything greater than eight months goes into capital reserve.

So it's pretty much just shifting the balance from one to the other.

So if you look at the table and the next one.

This is what the impact would be of this policy decision.

And so again, you'll look down, we still have the same number of operating expenses, 11.45, 11.8, but then it shifts that balance.

The amount set aside for capital reserves is anything greater than eight months.

And the months of operating expenses, unrestricted cash on hand then gets us above that four minimum and really pushes us into the five, six, seven, which is where I would prefer us to be.

Industry standard is three to six months.

So four is a little low.

My preference would be that we have at least six months of unrestricted cash on hand.

So what we're asking of you all tonight and what the finance executive committee recommended was a motion to adopt and implement effective July one that we would increase the target months of net quick assets from five to eight.

And then we would revise the restricted capital reserve calculation to be anything above eight rather than above five.

Certainly, uncertainties is always the thing business should be passionate for.

And amongst my business, you know, it's six months to a year of some local operating and the assumption that nothing happens good in those six months.

Usually I speculate what those uncertainties are, which is typically not selling things.

Is there any major indications that have trickled down to the other PDCs to indicate this beyond federal funding?

You know, I haven't heard a lot of chatter about that.

I will say compared to our peer

Regional bodies, we have a much healthier operational reserve than many of our counterparts.

And I think that's due to some of the decisions that were made by you all in previous years before I was here about ensuring that there is money set aside and that we don't spend everything we make.

That a healthy net gain every year was the goal rather than breaking even.

But I haven't heard a lot about other, I mean, my concerns are about the programs we know that are going away.

I mean, there was a lot of discretionary one-time federal funds, you know, safe streets.

That alone is something we've been planning for.

We staffed up for those.

We know that the organization may contract when that happens.

It's all of the other uncertainty that I want us to prepare for.

You know, and I don't see us in the next,

O'Brien.

So it seems like having such a huge capital reserve isn't really serving what have been identified as the goals.

That's right.

New to a job that will affect the law in 2021 to increase the target loans of net credit assets and buy between 8 months of average monthly operating expenses and a loss of inventory capital reserves calculation will be based on net assets above the 8 months of average monthly operating expenses.

All those in favor?

Okay, this will be super brief.

The data that we provide every month for the telecommunications initiative for 22 and 24 are both in there.

The only one I want to draw attention to is Blue Ridge Cigarette Tax Board, Rappahannock County, again outside of our planning district, approved a county budget for FY26 that assumes the implementation of a cigarette tax and they have requested to join the Blue Ridge Cigarette Tax Board for FY26 so that will bring the total number of localities up to 11.

That's all I have.

That's it?

Alright, well let's start the discussion and put it around to the officer officer.

Yeah, sure.

We're not done with our budget yet.

Maybe we'll be done Tuesday, maybe we won't.

We've had some issues arise in Nelson,

amongst the school board discussions about the budget.

We have some pretty serious discussions as we look at the TILT chart.

What's the thing that the state gives all the funding for us by the people?

TILT, TIP, I don't know.

You guys know what I'm talking about.

So we're expecting to get kind of hurt pretty hard next budget cycle like we did this last one.

I'm sure Albemarle might be in the same boat again.

So we're expecting to kind of get hit pretty hard next year.

We feel the teams have definitely at least two dollars.

We just don't know how many digits in front of the first pound in there.

That's going to be a massive impact on our school system, so we're

funding the schools with the ask now and giving very strong cautionary dialogue for next year.

This is next year is going to be hurting.

We have a bus situation that we're addressing, trying to get caught up on depreciated buses.

So we've put forth our budget cycle with non-recurring funds and looking to advise the school board some about maybe utilizing some of the funds that we're providing them for purchase of that bus.

You need appropriately 15 or 20, something like that.

Deere, the four minimums, and then we'll start placing other ones that come up and get successful.

And then zoning's underway.

That's still going.

We had some interesting discussions about lot size minimums.

I always appreciate what sometimes consultants produce for you.

Sometimes you have to sit there and then say, maybe that's not the greatest idea.

One of those was 10 acre lot minimums.

I said, absolutely not.

And the agriculture side,

We're looking at adding some overlays, a mountain overlay, a Livingston overlay, and essentially a 151 overlay to allow for different types of zoning uses in a little bit more, especially with the Livingston context.

Allowing for more density from those villages that were built and developed through utility.

And we'll have some infill.

We're having very serious discussions about water and sewer capacity.

We have a lot of

So everything I talked about is tens of millions of dollars.

I'll figure that out.

We just don't have much, and I don't think we're going to be lending them much.

As the train station, we're going to be moving along.

We've got two thousand of them there rolling around.

Now we've started to talk about how best to preserve and rule America in the final minutes.

Well, we'll try to do that with our guests.

Chair, I don't really have anything to add.

Last time we spent a lot of about

I'm sure there were a lot of politics involved in that decision at the federal level, whether the UVA Board of Visitors was involved in lobbying, you know, maybe not.

I actually think I also was getting the executive side.

Any of y'all in here could get it, I guess.

I love how the letter said, like to summarize very briefly, as you know, we fired most of our staff, but as such, we are liable to make a lot of mistakes.

This was one of them.

Pretty much.

And it was an interesting process in all kind of ways.

I mean, technically, the first use is supposed to be for a homeless shelter.

If anyone submits an application for that, it has to go for that use.

And so the city reached out to HUD to do it.

And HUD would just never respond.

And then HUD said a response saying, there's fuel tankers on site.

Therefore, we refuse to evaluate any application for a homeless shelter, even though you can remediate that easily.

Then it got kicked to DOE and technically the Department of Education makes a recommendation to GSA, but like the city, there's never really been able to get in contact with GSA staff.

So anyway, yes, it's a department of government efficiency.

Clearly, but it seems likely that UVA will get it for their ROTC program in a continuing adult education program.

And of course UVA will pay no property taxes on that site as well.

And they're going to be locked into that use for a minimum of 30 years.

So there you go.

Other than that, I mean, similarly with the century jurisdiction designation, whatever that means, the city of, you know, especially watching

Whether even funding cuts could come to us around a small portion of our surplus, but most of it we're holding on to in anticipation of just what, if anything, may be cut in terms of basic core services that we're used to relying on federal funding for.

So we're definitely also being very cautious in our outlook in terms of our budget.

The annual review of the new zoning ordinance is about to occur or review it and make any changes.

It's interesting, I think,

Experiment and how much zoning is a main factor in suppressing supply versus other market forces.

And I think we're seeing that a lot of market forces that are much larger than zoning are our biggest constrainer of housing production still for Charlottesville.

All right, Mr. Pruitt, you're now the leader of the city.

Mr. Rutherford, can you tell us a little bit about the city?

Oh, I don't have a whole lot to add.

I mean, I agree with you.

That memo, it was like a lettuce and or a set, and, oh, Henry had a baby, and she was in that situation, she was dairying, she was in a little effect.

But, yeah, I don't have a lot to add.

I, in the planning commission, held a work session on this first one that we don't edit.

That was the first planning commission for any meeting with any of the new cities in 2014, but I missed it, so I can't tell you what happened there.

But, a little most of it was focused on

sort of howlers and word salads that somehow made it past, you know, 100 hours, let me know, 16 times, and oh no, this doesn't make sense, we've got to flip these dots, and that number actually, if you add those two, it's actually six and a half hours.

So, you know, that's the material, the low level, and then a whole bunch of people trying to learn the symptomally, informally, or even choice, you know, a big happy weapon starts next.

Last month, Greene County was very much in the news after our board of supervisors met in closed session and decided to prohibit the Rutgers Mill fire department from responding to calls.

The board has commissioned the independent organization to conduct a review and audit of the RFP.

In these next few weeks, we expect a new delivery to the board.

And we anticipate some alterations in policies and procedures on behalf of the board.

On a more salient charity note, this weekend, we have the second annual Black Bear Festival to come down to Stanhardsville.

Last year's festival was a success.

This year, we expect to have more vendors and more exhibitors.

We're hoping for good weather this weekend to make for a truly family fun experience.

Bell, just a celebration of rural culture, environmental stewardship, and a fortuitous and gratifying economy.

That was great.

Mr. Gallaway.

I will pass our budget.

We're set a tax increase amount in law, so that's just the biggest news.

Our real personal property tax, this new storage level is pre-pandemic at $4.28 per 100 vehicles.

The tax increase was dedicated to 3.2 cents public safety to cover fire positions that we've, at DNR safety grants that come online.

Since 21 we've had 97 fire positions, 57 with which it's done to replace

our volunteer stations, beginning with help with pay positions, 0.4 cents to the schools and 0.4 cents to affordable housing.

So that's all dedicated.

We'll see what happens.

We've got some things going on.

We'll see how that shakes out next year, but those tax increases still remain dedicated.

And then Mr. Burke, I do not attend some board meetings last month and they've got

So this is a study that we've been talking about for a while about community services basically saying hey what is the relative cost what is the relative cost benefit revenue cost of services for different types of uses and broken broadly into commercial industrial residential and agricultural

not what housing advocates might want to say, but also apparently not nationally or statewide in existence.

So there's something like $1.30 spent per dollar raised on housing, much lower on industrial and agricultural.

I don't keep the numbers there live in my mind, but there was some discussion on that, but it mostly drove home

Something that we had previously talked about at some length during the budget discussion, which is that we need for revenue diversification in Albemarle County.

They're all at like 10, 12%.

We're working on that pipeline.

And it's been kind of quiet posted on the bucket season.

We settled at 75 cents.

I think that there was a meals tax that was put into place as well too.

Four cents meals tax with 50%

We are starting our Grooviness Grow season, so if you had to come out to Project Grow on the second Saturday, we have a little vendor and beer festival there, but you should be eating them, so we invite all of you to come to that.

We did poach a business from Albemarle, I hate to say it, but now if you need to get your your archery and hunting supplies, it used to be there, I kind of put it there, now located in Freud.

So that's pretty much it.

Keep it short and simple.

And we'll be meeting again in August.

No meeting in July.

So hope you guys have a great time with it.

Thank you.

And from the part of the former to Mr. Galloway, of course, you're all very satisfied with us.

Appreciate it.

Mr. Chairman, I'm a bleacher.

Oh, I'm sorry.

In the radical line of your honor, Chair Walz, I'm on it.