Central Virginia
Virginia Passenger Rail Authority
Personnel and Compensation Committee Meeting 8/10/2026
Auto-scroll
Personnel and Compensation Committee Meeting
8/10/2026
Attachments
August 2026 Meeting Minutes.pdf
August 2026 P&C Committee Meeting Agenda.pdf
October 2025 P&C Committee Meeting Minutes.pdf
Personnel and Compensation Committee Meeting – Open Session.pdf
1. Welcome and Call to Order
2. Safety Briefing
3. Roll Call Attendance
4. Approval of Meeting Minutes Action: Approve October 28, 2025 minutes
5. Employee Engagement Survey
6. Closed Session
7. Adjournment
SPEAKER_01
00:00:13
Hey Joan, it's Jonathan.
SPEAKER_00
00:00:15
Just testing the audio.
Joan Verbonitz
Chief Administrative Officer
00:14:17
either Mary Estelle or myself out in case we have an emergency.
00:14:22
AED is in the copy room.
00:14:24
If we need the AED, I bet.
00:14:28
Do you know where the copy room is?
00:14:30
Yes, down this hall.
00:14:31
That'd be great if you could get the AED for me if needed.
00:14:33
I am CPR certified, so if we have an incident, I can take those back.
00:14:37
Neil, would you take the lead on calling 911 to see them?
SPEAKER_01
00:14:41
Indeed.
Joan Verbonitz
Chief Administrative Officer
00:14:41
Thank you.
00:14:41
And Mary Estelle, would you meet first for Saunders, please?
00:14:45
The first aid kit is in the kitchen.
00:14:49
Fire alarm is at the stairwell, as is a fire extinguisher.
00:14:53
Please be mindful if we have to evacuate and use the stairwell to maintain three points of contact.
00:14:58
And if we do have to evacuate, our meeting place is over by the Capitol of 9th Street at the statue.
00:15:05
If we in the off chance have an active shooter, we will follow the flea hide fight, trying to evacuate safely in the opposite direction of the sound.
00:15:14
I would be mindful in this room of pitch points between your chair and the table if you're scooting in and out.
00:15:30
Other than that, do you have any questions or concerns about your safety?
00:15:34
All right, hearing none.
00:15:35
Maria, I'll turn it over to you.
00:15:37
Thank you, Jones.
Beth Rhinehart
00:15:39
I appreciate that.
00:15:40
We will go ahead and do a roll call.
00:15:42
I'm sure we have a quorum.
00:15:45
Ms. Bushu?
00:15:46
Here.
00:15:46
Ms. Crawford?
00:15:47
Here.
00:15:49
Ms. Lawrence?
SPEAKER_01
00:15:50
Here.
Beth Rhinehart
00:15:50
Ms. Rhinehart?
SPEAKER_01
00:15:52
Here.
Beth Rhinehart
00:15:53
Ms. Zimmerman?
SPEAKER_01
00:15:54
Here.
Beth Rhinehart
00:15:54
Thank you, Mary Estelle.
00:15:58
With that, we'll move on to approval of the October 28th, 2025 minutes.
00:16:03
You all have those in your packet.
00:16:04
They're also available online.
00:16:06
I will entertain a motion to approve those.
SPEAKER_00
00:16:11
Move to approve.
Beth Rhinehart
00:16:12
Thank you, Neil.
00:16:12
Second.
00:16:16
We have a second?
00:16:17
Second.
00:16:19
Thank you all.
00:16:20
Any discussion?
00:16:22
Hearing no, we will.
SPEAKER_03
00:16:26
Just one thing, I was not here, so I believe I need to stay in, but staff did review it and did not have any concerns with it.
Beth Rhinehart
00:16:35
Perfect, thank you.
00:16:36
One abstention then.
00:16:38
With that, we will all in favor say aye.
00:16:41
Aye.
00:16:42
Any opposed, like, sign?
Joan Verbonitz
Chief Administrative Officer
00:16:44
OK, thank you.
Beth Rhinehart
00:16:45
I want to pass it back over to Joan to talk about the employee engagement survey.
Joan Verbonitz
Chief Administrative Officer
00:16:51
Yep, absolutely.
00:16:52
So in the spirit of keeping the PNC committee updated on some of the important activities that we're doing, I wanted to introduce the inaugural sleep survey that we had in the organization.
00:17:04
If you recall,
00:17:06
We had over years past done interviews and focus groups to stay connected with our employees to understand what's working and what's not working within the organization.
00:17:17
Now that we're approaching our five year anniversary, we felt like the time was right to do something more formal.
00:17:24
And so we rolled out a few months ago, just a couple of about two months ago, with the help of a third party vendor to ensure anonymity.
00:17:36
We opened the survey up at the end of May and we left it open for a couple of weeks and we had set up the structure honestly very similar to DRPT and I believe we used a similar vendor as well.
00:17:50
The employees were invited to participate in the survey that took about 15 or so minutes responding to 66 statements on a sliding scale and they had the option to respond to one open-ended
Beth Rhinehart
00:18:05
In terms of results, we were really, really happy with the participation rate.
Joan Verbonitz
Chief Administrative Officer
00:18:10
53 of 66 employees responded.
00:18:14
Typically what you'll find in the industry is 30 to 50 percent response rate is typical.
00:18:21
Anything up to 60 percent is good and anything over 60 percent is generally considered pretty excellent.
00:18:27
So we were happy to hear from our folks and give them a chance to share their opinions on how things are going.
00:18:34
Just as an FYI, we did not invite folks who had less than 90 days of tenure to participate because they were just kind of too new to really get a sense of what was going on.
00:18:47
The good news as well is in addition to a strong participation rate, we had a very strong favorability rate.
00:18:54
The favorability is a combination of the statements, responses, did you agree or strongly agree?
00:19:02
This does not include neutral responses, nor does it include disagree or strongly disagree.
00:19:08
So where they were given statements,
00:19:10
83% of the folks were either in agreement or strongly in agreement and so that is a very, very positive thing as well.
00:19:20
Wanted to give you the same snapshot that we provided our employees so far.
00:19:24
The highest scores are listed there and so the good news is they're aware of resources to report things that require investigation and they are aware that they should be escalating things that are of concern.
00:19:39
Folks enjoy working with the folks on the team at VPRA and they are personally
00:19:45
invested in the mission of the organization.
00:19:49
Last one listed there in terms of high score favorability has to do with people treating each other with respect.
00:19:55
So very, very proud of those results.
00:19:58
You'll notice on the right hand side, we did partner with the vendor to compare our scores against global benchmarks
00:20:07
benchmarks in public administration and benchmarks in transportation as well.
00:20:13
And where they had the data and to do a good comparator, you'll see that we not only have a strong showing for our organization, but a very strong showing throughout the benchmarks.
00:20:26
Close there if there are any questions.
00:20:31
Of course, human nature kicks in and we always want to know what we can do better.
00:20:35
And so that takes us to the low scores.
00:20:39
And what I will highlight here is even the low scores aren't terribly low, considering some of the employee engagement surveys I've worked with in the past.
00:20:49
The lowest score by far was having the appropriate number of people and resources.
00:20:55
I'll tie that to the other low scores around folks feeling a lot of stress and feeling that their workload is not necessarily reasonable.
00:21:06
These results, while not surprising, are something we need to pay close attention to because those three in particular are very tied together.
00:21:15
Also opportunities to work more effectively across departments and functions and opportunities to ensure policies and procedures are applied both appropriately and consistently.
00:21:27
What we need to do here is dig in deeper to understand what's at the root of some of these and where.
00:21:34
We do have our results divided up by department and so we're going to start this week meeting with the leadership to understand
00:21:43
What their individual department scores were and what we can do about it.
00:21:49
So in terms of next steps.
00:21:51
We have committed to making sure that we share ongoing updates with employees.
00:21:56
We have shared the preliminary results that we just went over with you.
00:22:02
We also have an upcoming all staff meeting where we're going to continue the conversation.
00:22:07
I'd mentioned already the deep dives by department into the feedback to understand what we can do to further improve the organization.
00:22:16
And then we have in early September,
00:22:20
A comprehensive review scheduled with all staff.
00:22:24
The intent of that conversation is to do a deep dive into the results and to share really the action planning.
00:22:31
My experience with employee engagement surveys is there's nothing more frustrating than when you ask for opinions and you don't do anything with them.
00:22:37
So while we are proud of, as I mentioned, the participation rate and the favorability rate, we still are committed to continuous improvement and we want to do a better job for our employees.
00:22:48
So we are going to work on the action planning and do that deep dive with the all staff in early September and then from there continue to work on implementing the good ideas that came from the action planning itself.
00:23:04
It was a great effort.
00:23:05
I want to thank Kim Coleman, who's our director of HR, who spearheaded this opportunity, but it was a really exciting result for us and so
00:23:16
We will continue to focus on the organization and the culture and each and every one what we can to make sure everybody is pleased with their work here.
SPEAKER_03
00:23:26
I think it's great to see those numbers and both that folks are generally feeling pretty good and even on where there's areas for improvement given everything the organization is doing and I don't think I've ever worked anywhere but especially in the public sector where you feel you have
00:23:43
enough staff and resources to be doing what you're required.
00:23:48
And for those percentages, you know, it's at most maybe nine to 10 people who are feeling that, which will be interesting to know kind of where in the organization.
00:23:59
Is it 10 people across the organization?
00:24:01
Is it just the leadership team?
00:24:03
Is it one particular division that might have that?
Beth Rhinehart
00:24:10
Any other questions or comments for Joan?
00:24:12
Anyone online?
00:24:14
Board members.
Joan Verbonitz
Chief Administrative Officer
00:24:21
We will continue, as I mentioned, to do the action planning and defeat dive over the next couple of months.
00:24:25
I'm sure as we shake out some changes and some opportunities for improvement, we'll keep you all posted.
00:24:32
Thank you.
Beth Rhinehart
00:24:32
I appreciate, as you said, the time and the amount of energy that was put around getting this information to us.
00:24:42
Really helpful organizationally to have that.
00:24:45
And you're right, the feedback follow through on that rather than just do it and it gets put on a shelf.
00:24:51
Yeah, it's really important.
SPEAKER_03
00:24:52
So look forward to more information on that.
00:24:55
Absolutely.
00:24:57
Okay.
Beth Rhinehart
00:24:58
Well, thank you.
00:24:59
Well, that actually is last action item short of reading us into closed session.
00:25:06
Neil, would you like to do?
SPEAKER_02
00:25:07
Yes.
00:25:08
I move that the Personnel and Compensation Committee convene in any closed session pursuant to section 2.2-3711A1 of the Code of Virginia for the purpose of discussing the job performance of specific public officers or employees of the VPRA and that the VPRA Chief Administrative Officer attend the closed session because her presence is deemed necessary and will aid the committee in the consideration of these matters.
Beth Rhinehart
00:25:36
So we should have asked for a motion to do so, but that will consider that as a motion.
00:25:40
Neil, thank you.
00:25:40
Do we have a second to move into closed session?
00:25:43
Second.
00:25:43
Thank you.
00:25:44
All in favor say aye.
00:25:47
Aye.
00:25:47
Oh, I second it.
00:25:50
Okay.
00:25:52
Thank you.
00:25:52
We'll move into closed session.
00:25:54
Jonathan, can you
SPEAKER_01
00:26:45
We're now going to take a roll call vote.
SPEAKER_02
00:26:47
I ask that each member indicate their following.
00:26:50
The best of my knowledge during the closed meeting, the only matters heard discussed or considered were those matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements in the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and only those public business matters as were identified in the motion by which the closed meeting was convened.
Joan Verbonitz
Chief Administrative Officer
00:27:08
Cynthia?
Beth Rhinehart
00:27:13
Sandy?
00:27:14
Agree.
00:27:15
Mia?
SPEAKER_03
00:27:16
Agree.
Beth Rhinehart
00:27:17
Neil?
SPEAKER_03
00:27:18
Agree.
Beth Rhinehart
00:27:18
Beth?
00:27:19
Agree.
00:27:22
Thank you.
00:27:24
That will close our meeting tonight.
00:27:27
Unless there is anything else anyone has, will we adjourn?
SPEAKER_01
00:27:31
Great job.
Beth Rhinehart
00:27:32
Yeah, good job.
00:27:33
Thank you.
00:27:33
Thank you all.
00:27:34
Good work.
00:27:35
And we will adjourn.