Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Public Hearing on the CY 24 tax rate, Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Date: Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Place: Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 0h 56m (video)
Official meeting video (Granicus): https://albemarle.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1003
Official agenda: https://albemarle.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1003

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-16. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[00:00:00] Good evening. Welcome to this regular meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on this 24th of March, 6 p.m. in Lane Auditorium in the McIntyre Building. Note that supervisors present here, Supervisor Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Rio District, Supervisor Diantha McKeel of the Jack Jewett District, Supervisor B. Lapisto-Curtley of the Ravenna District, Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, and myself, Jimmy Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District. The quorum is present. We're also joined by our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, County Attorney, Mr. Steve Rosenberg, and our Clerk,

[00:00:36] Claudette Borgerson. Also, let me please welcome Albawa County Police Officers present, Master Police Officer Paul Quollum, and Officer Andy Muncy. We thank you for your service here today and every day, the work you do throughout our county for our safety and security.

[00:00:55] Board, our purpose here tonight is to consider three public hearings relating to our tax rates, the real property, personal property, and to consider a one cent increase in the transient occupancy tax. At this time, I'll turn the meeting over to Mr. Jacob Sumner, our chief financial officer, who I think will lead the presentation. Thank you, Chair Andrews. Good evening, Board.

[00:01:16] My name is Jacob Sumner, chief financial officer for the county. And tonight, as you alluded to, we are going to be holding three different public hearings tonight. One, we'll start with the 2024 real property tax rate, and the second will be the personal property tax rate for 2024, and then we'll wrap up with a public hearing on the transient occupancy tax. We're going to begin with one presentation, however, that will cover all three tax rates before turning it back over to the chair and to conduct the three public hearings. There is no board action being requested

[00:01:50] today, as all tax-related actions will occur at the May 1st board meeting, just public hearings tonight. We've shown this slide many times in our budget discussions this year and we're bringing it back to remind the board and the public that while we budget annually, the decisions from one year affect what happens in the next year. And decisions from last year are part of the budget story for this year. The decisions the board makes for fiscal year 25 will be the driver for fiscal year 26. Focusing on the general fund, as we do the introduction, the proposed general fund budget

[00:02:30] totals $438 million. And while this evening's public hearings focus on tax rates and revenues, we want to highlight how the proposed increase in revenues impact the expenditure side of the budget. In comparing to last year's budget, here are the major areas where we're recommending to allocate new revenues in FY25, including $13 million to schools per our funding formula, $9.3 million to workforce and customer service for salary adjustments, health care costs, and the implementation of the community development system.

[00:02:58] Additional funding is included in our partner agencies, as well as transportation costs with MicroCat and CAT. We are also investing $2.4 million in safety and well-being with operational costs for the General District Court Building, additional firefighters to support ambulance in the Burkmar area, and to address the 24-7 staffing needs at North Garden.

[00:03:15] There is also an investment for an expansion of the HART team, as well as additional sheriff's deputy and police officer. We're going to focus the majority of the time here on General Fund revenues. Again, the General Fund revenues total $438 million.

[00:03:32] On this slide are the four main tax rates set by the board and the proposed budget is balanced on these rates. Tonight, we'll hold public hearings on three of the four rates, the real property, personal property, and transient occupancy.

[00:03:50] The subject of the first public hearing is the real estate tax rate. The current rate is 85.4 cents per $100 of assessed value. Each penny on the tax rate equates to approximately $2.9 million in collectible tax revenue.

[00:04:06] What that means is if the board were to adopt a tax rate one penny lower than the advertised rate, then there would need to be a corresponding expenditure reduction of $2.9 million. Another item to mention is that the advertised rate of $85.4 is a cap.

[00:04:23] By advertising that rate, the board can only adopt a rate at or below the amount advertised, but it cannot adopt a rate higher. The real estate reassessment for 2024 is an increase of 4.07%, And as part of the legal advertisement, we have what is called a lowered or effective tax rate.

[00:04:43] This effective rate is a tax rate we would need to set in order to maintain the same level of real estate revenue only due to the change in reassessments. That is about three cents less or about 82.1 cents per $100 of assessed value. The second public hearing will be on the personal property and machinery and tools tax rate.

[00:05:04] The proposed tax rate is $3.96 per $100 of assessed value. This is a 54-cent increase and would generate approximately $4.5 million. Since this tax is a shared revenue, it is split between capital and debt, public schools, and county government operations.

[00:05:21] The revenue split for the additional revenue generated is in the chart at the bottom of the screen. The final public hearing tonight will be on the transient occupancy tax, which is applied to overnight lodging stays at hotels and B&Bs. The proposed budget includes a rate increase from 8% to 9% and would generate approximately $900,000 in additional revenue.

[00:05:41] This tax is also a shared revenue, and we go through the same funding allocation formula. The next couple of slides will be a reminder of the adjustments we made to the budget since the county executive's recommended budget and the board's proposed budget. I'll review the technical updates and then address the CIP and general fund budget highlights and highlight the areas updated by the proposed tax rates that are the subject of tonight's public hearings.

[00:06:07] On this slide, we have outlined the technical adjustments that staff have proposed through this point in the budget process. Last week, as part of the proposed budget public hearing, I went over the details of the adjustments with the exception of one. We have an updated technical adjustment regarding the Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail.

[00:06:24] As is common with other regional partners, after the county received the initial estimates from ACRJ, their staff continues to refine their budget. And due to some budget adjustments in the interim, the amount of the county contribution that was part of that budget was reduced by $114,000. So we've included that as a technical update on this slide.

[00:06:42] Also, during last week's proposed budget hearing, we discussed the updates to the capital budget. This slide outlines the total changes for FY25, including the removal of the funding for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank and the RSWA budget adjustment related to the annual contribution to the Ivy Landfill Remediation Project.

[00:07:00] We are also including the movement of Earliesville and Seminole Trail Volunteer Fire Station's community capital requests from FY27 to FY25. Lastly, on this slide, I will bring the Board's attention to the $538,000 figure on the revenue section. You will see this on the next slide, but this is the amount of funding allocated via the shared revenue funding formula to the capital budget.

[00:07:22] Those are all based on the proposed tax rates that we'll be discussing tonight. This is more of a summary slide, so I'm going to take just a minute with this one. The revenue generated from the proposed tax rate increase for personal property and transit occupancy total $5.4 million.

[00:07:38] Based on the shared revenue funding formula, 2.9 of this is allocated to the public schools, and $538,000 is allocated to capital and debt. This is the amount that I referenced on the previous slide. The remaining 1.9 is allocated to local government expenditures. And with this 1.9, we are looking to fund additional firefighters to support an ambulance in the Burkmar area and to address the 24-7 staffing needs at North Garden.

[00:08:03] There's the investment for the expansion of the HART team and also the additional sheriff deputy and a police officer. We've also included operational efficiencies and reserve for contingencies are also adjusted to balance out the local government expenditures. Board, you've seen this slide before, but I want to bring it back one more time because I wanted to highlight one thing on this slide.

[00:08:27] The 19 FTEs added to the budget for the North Garden support, the Burkmaar Ambulance, and the Hart team expansion is only for half of the fiscal year. This is due to the timing for when we hire the staffing and the required training for these teams. Since the FY25 funding is only a partial year, it is important that we acknowledge the full-year costs of these positions in FY26.

[00:08:47] The ongoing costs increased from $800,000 in FY25 to $2 million in FY26. And while there is $830,000 identified as one-time reserve for contingencies in FY25, we are committing to ongoing service efficiencies of $250,000 in FY25 and increasing to $500,000 in FY26 to balance out these ongoing costs.

[00:09:13] And before I turn this back over to the board for questions and to hold the public hearings, Mr. Richardson, would you have anything to add, anything we've covered thus far? Jacob, thank you very much. And members of the board, I'll be brief because I'm sure there are questions for staff.

[00:09:29] And then I know we have three public hearings. Board, I've grown to like this slide. This is a slide that we've used at all seven of our town halls. It's a slide that we've used every step of the way in the budget process, every work session we've talked about. And it's clean, and it looks over a three-year period.

[00:09:48] And what I want to take a minute, board, and remind the board of is the FY24 work that we did. I don't know that I've done an adequate job of really talking about that yellow box at the bottom that says $4.9 million. If the board will remember last year in fiscal year 24, we artificially balanced creating a $4.9 million capacity through the artificial lowering.

[00:10:17] And we took $4.9 million of ongoing money and we put it into the capital fund. And that helped us with our capital debt and our pay for capital projects. But really what it did more than anything else, and I want to remind the board that that 4.9, let's just say 5 million, it's a split.

[00:10:39] It was 3 million from schools and 2 million for local government. and it took some heavy lifting to pull that apart and say, let's stop short and let's not spend all of our ongoing revenue. Because we were looking at fiscal year 25 and we were talking last year about our obligations, obligations that we're going to be required to pay for in fiscal year 25. In addition to that board, we also had the advantage of having a two-year

[00:11:13] relationship with Virginia Tech and with Dr. Cheryl Bailey. And she had come for two years in a row and had said, folks, I believe we're going to see a slight downturn in the growth in your economy. And it didn't happen quickly, but it happened over about a 12 to 18 month period.

[00:11:34] And so that landed us into 25. The yellow box is a $5 million head start that we had on this year's budget. $3 million to schools, $2 million to local government, because we were able to pull that out of the capital and start the process this year ahead by $5 million. Thank you schools for following our example and our recommendation. And I think the schools have had a very difficult and challenging budget process. And so they've needed that. Board, if we take that same concept

[00:12:09] and we look at fiscal year 26, the weight of the obligations in fiscal year 26 are more than they are in fiscal year 25. And we have seen the assessment and the revenue growth go back to what we see in more normal times. Dr. Bailey and her team will be back in the fall. And I would urge the board that as you look at your fund balances, your contingencies, and where we are right now. Let's see if we can manufacture another capacity level that we're going to need in 26.

[00:12:46] You have identified revenue associated with the tax rate considerations for the public safety package. You've done that. And if you're looking at additional revenue, I would urge you to be cautious with that and just be mindful for additional things over and above what you've discussed. And just please keep in the back of your mind the obligations that we know we're going to be into in fiscal year 26. The final thing that I would point for the board's consideration is that we don't have a state budget passed yet. There's continued uncertainty there. We continue

[00:13:22] to have our fingers crossed that they're going to do good work in Richmond for both local government, schools, and our communities, and that's city and county. I have put a very modest middle of next year compensation amount set aside for my staff for us to work through. And in the fall, we're going to work through compensation considerations. And so, there's more to come on that. We're going to learn more about the SAFER grant in the fall, and then that's going to work its way into fiscal year 26 and 27 obligations. And so, I would urge you just to consider the

[00:13:59] strategy that we did last year, and at least think through that as it relates to your FY26 considerations. That's really all I had. I'll be happy to answer any questions, but I know you've probably got a lot of other questions for Jacob and Ryan and the team, but I appreciate your thought, your consideration for these thoughts. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you both for excellent comments, presentation. We will go through our order or comments, starting with questions, starting with Supervisor Calloway. The slide you were just on that looks towards fiscal year 26

[00:14:37] is compensation for staff over and beyond what your mid-year piece, is that considered under the strategic priorities? Is that in the mix of what you're trying to get ahead of and thinking about? That's a fantastic question. I know Ms. Shiflett's here and she's been working really hard with the HR team and the finance team to really be looking not just at next fall for a mid-year adjustment, but also looking into 26, we're going to learn a lot more between now and probably the end of this calendar year about the markets that are around us. We were in a meeting yesterday

[00:15:13] and Ms. Shiflett pointed to the fact that there's been a little bit of a shakeout period, a shakeout time across our region with a lot of local governments that have done pay and classification studies in the last 12 to 18 months. And so we're trying to figure out as these settle in and as local governments move beyond these organization-wide studies, what does it mean for the tempo, the cadence of annual rate increases for employees that are in these pay plans?

[00:15:43] And so Jacob, Christy, and the team are working through that. Christy, I'm not putting you on the spot, but did I answer that to your satisfaction or do you have anything to add? And Supervisor Galloway, I hope that answered your question. Yeah, I mean, we did our own compensation study. We went into last year's not just strategic plan but budget time saying getting us not just caught up or some percent of the market, but getting us to market was important.

[00:16:10] So I'm of the mind that I'd like to be ahead of the market. I don't want to be at market or 90 percent of the market. So I'm just calling that out. A lot of things can be lost in the word strategic priorities, but that was one that we definitely focused on and it's going to take continued effort from the board and future budgets to keep us where we need to be. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt. I have no questions at this time. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. I have no questions right now. Supervisor Malek. Thank you. So this 4.9

[00:16:49] million yellow box has not been established anywhere in the budget yet, or has it? I just missed it. So that was ongoing revenues, and so the ongoing revenues are now in the general fund for FY25. And we have not done the same thing for FY25 going forward as we did at this time last year. I would say we've conducted a very similar exercise, although we've titled it differently. So we didn't move it into capital, but what you'll see we have the reserve for contingencies amount.

[00:17:19] And so it's a very similar strategy to put it into a reserve or to move it into a different location, but it's the same strategy to where it'll be reserved for future. Okay. But it could be used for capital, if we wanted to. That would be up to the board. This is ongoing.

[00:17:36] That is ongoing. A vast majority of those contingencies are one-time. Excuse me. So the 831 is one-time. All right. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto-Curtley. Yes, if you could go to slide 15, please. I guess this would be more for the general audience, if they're listening.

[00:17:57] But just a point of explanation to our community. Can you just go over briefly, like North Garden staffing, why we're asking for a 24-7 there, the situation with the volunteers, the age, you know, what's happening in our community to let people know that we're going to have to have more, we're going to have to bear more of the burden of the cost of our volunteers?

[00:18:29] I'm going to give an initial response. We do have our deputy chief, David Puck, in the audience, and David, I'll make eye contact with you if you have anything to add. Ms. Lupisto, currently, I think what you're asking for is what drove, what's the data that drove us to consider additional staffing at Northgarden, and during the budget work sessions this year, we did hear from the Northgarden Volunteer Fire Department, and we had some interesting data that was provided to us where it showed in the aging process of the volunteer fire department, of course it looked at the total number of volunteers. It looked at the

[00:19:05] total number of calls. And there is a correlation in that department with volunteer members over the age of 70 responding to a very high number of calls over a one-year period. And I think in a very diplomatic and collaborative way that they were communicating with us that this is not a sustainable model long-term. And the concern is that when you have volunteer members in their 70s, late 70s, moving into their 80s, running call volumes to the degree that they were,

[00:19:39] that they need our help. And so that's when the board asked for us to begin to look at that. And we were able, with Mr. Puckett and their team, to put together a strategy where we could go after another SAFER grant. We've been successful. This board is fully aware over several years of several SAFER grants, and what that allows the local government to do, if we're successful, and we'll know by September, is to pull down federal money to seed additional staffing, in this case for North Garden, and then over the course of several years, that money slowly goes away, and it's a slow

[00:20:16] shift from federal assistance to full local government support for those services. And so we talked to the board about that, and that's really what we're looking at. That's the uniqueness of that Volunteer Fire Department. Mr. Puckett? Okay, I've got a thumbs up.

[00:20:32] And I think that's very important for everyone to know because we, for, frankly, decades, we've relied upon our Volunteer Fire Department, and things are changing, but we want to continue to support a volunteer fire department so maybe this is a way of doing it where people can still volunteers can still stay involved but they've got the support that they need because we know how how precious a commodity our volunteer firefighters are for our community uh the next one i'd just like briefly because i we all understand about getting additional shares and police and everything

[00:21:06] but the heart team uh expansion uh the success of that and why that's important what we've looked at that is a a team and we've had some amazing performance data that in a six to nine month period of this concept being operationalized and this is a concept that includes a police officer a firefighter and a department of social services social worker this is an interdisciplinary team

[00:21:39] that is on call ready to take calls that are taken through the emergency communication center where the the type of call and the and the problems that are being identified are there it's identified that it could be a distress call and it could be specifically around mental health and so this team has been in effect they've been in the field and over the six to nine month period we've seen amazing statistics on their work in the field not just in getting the the person what they need but also freeing up police and firefighters in

[00:22:15] the field to be doing doing other things the more normal 911 tempo of calls and so what our board considered was basically taking that team and creating a second team and it's going to give us the co it's going to give us a significant amount of more coverage it's going to give us the ability to continue to attack this problem that we see in our community miss dimmick talked about it at one of our budget work sessions. And I think that they're doing amazing work and our police and fire departments are seeing that. And this interdisciplinary approach is able to get the

[00:22:52] person who is in distress what they need more quickly. And I think that's something that this board undertook and is something very special. I don't know how unique we are, but we may be unique in the country. I don't know. But this not only supports our police and fire, but it addresses the needs of those with mental health issues also thank you very much those are all my questions thank you and i have no questions i may have a comment on the slides afterwards but uh at this point board i believe we can open the public hearing and we have she said we have one person

[00:23:32] online and one person signed up here so we are having three public hearings the first is related to the real property tax rate. These are one for real, one for personal. Yeah, but I'm going to read them together. All right. The following rules apply to all public hearings this evening.

[00:24:06] These rules are also included on the published agenda for the meeting, which can be found online and on the sign-up table to the audience right. During public hearings, the board will acknowledge speakers addressing the item listed for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one appearance of three minutes per public hearing item. Community members physically present for the meeting will speak first, then those who are attending the meeting electronically will speak.

[00:24:31] For those attending electronically, the clerk will coordinate with each speaker when it is their turn to speak. For in-person speakers, timekeeping is conducted through a timer and light system at the podium. The green light will go on when you begin speaking, which begins your allotted time.

[00:24:47] The yellow light indicates you have one minute to finish speaking. The red light indicates your time has expired and you will be asked to end your comments. For community members who are attending the meeting electronically, timekeeping is conducted through a timer. The timer will commence when you begin speaking and this begins your allotted time. You will be notified when the three minutes are up and you're requested to bring your comments to close as your microphone will be muted after about five more seconds. To give all speakers equal treatment and courtesy, the board request that speakers adhere to the following guidelines. When addressing the board, state your

[00:25:22] name and if you live in Alomar County, your magisterial district. Address comments directly to the board as a whole. Any written statements or other supporting material may be given to the clerk. If making comments through Zoom, you may upload written comments through the e-comment portal or email your comments to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition speakers may not share any unused time with another speaker back and forth debate is not permitted do not speak from your seat or out of turn all comments are live streamed recorded and published on the almar county website if

[00:26:01] participating by phone press pound nine to let us know if you want to speak and then i'm sorry star nine to let us know that you want to speak and then star six from if you're on a land landline to unmute. If by Zoom please remain muted until you are called to speak. All right so we will start with the real property tax for calendar year 2024 and the first speaker is Emily Dreyfus.

[00:26:34] Good evening. Thank you for the opportunity to speak and for all of your work. I'm sure you're glad to be at this point in the process and it's taken a lot of hours and thought and I appreciate all of your service. This presentation was very informative to me. I don't feel like I'm at all an expert in the budget, but I am a resident of the county. I live at 1221 Swan Lake Drive. I'm not sure of my magisterial district because I'm a pretty recent move there. I've lived in the

[00:27:07] county for about 12 years, but I believe I'm in the Samuel Miller district. And I'm here to say that I support tax increases overall and that's because I support improved human services. I am employed by the Legal Aid Justice Center and I'm also working currently with the Public Housing Association of Residents. Through my job with Legal Aid, I talk with many, many low-income people and they are hurting. I have done quite a bit of outreach over the last few months to apartment residents and talked on the phone with people, been in meetings with people. There are so many

[00:27:47] folks who are paying way more than 50% of their income toward rent. And I know a couple of years ago, there were more federal funds for emergency assistance. And those have dwindled. I think a couple of years ago, you all were funding around $2 million toward emergency relief. And now I believe it's down to about a hundred and no I'm sorry don't actually have the figure in my head so I won't say it but it is much less than two million dollars unfortunately the growth in

[00:28:21] rent burden has dramatically increased because of the prices that are rising so exponentially in our community so I hope that you will look toward the future for how to invest in helping people avoid displacement and homelessness and help to improve family stability. Thank you very much.

[00:28:45] Thank you. And the next speaker is signed up under the personal property. Do we close this public hearing? And I wasn't sure. Claudette indicated to me there was someone online for this particular public hearing, I thought. That's why I was confused. Thank you. All right. So all right. So this is still the real property tax and this person signed up online so chris borts he is not

[00:29:22] in the zoom meeting okay is he here present in person by chance no okay so that must be the one person okay all right um does anyone want to make any additional ask any additional questions before I'll close the public hearing. I'll close the public hearing. Mr. Boards, we're going to have

[00:29:59] two more public hearings. There's a sign-up sheet here. Please sign up at the sheets. I'm not hearing. I can't either, but that will happen. Okay. Well, rather than moving on to the next public hearing, I'll just run through the order again whether there are any comments about the real property tax at this point. Supervisor Galloway? I guess the comment I would make is

[00:30:32] I revisited the sheet that Mr. Lynch sent out to us about, you know, our neighborhoods and the property rate. And what I started to notice were the significant increase in just townhomes. Like, there's still some neighborhoods that were over the average, but there were neighborhoods that were below the average.

[00:30:51] And some even decreased, not much, but, I mean, some stabilization there. But it was interesting to see how townhomes had jumped for some reason. That might be a follow-up someday for Mr. Lynch to learn a little bit more about that. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt.

[00:31:09] I don't believe I have much to add other than the assessments, the way that they have hit neighborhoods is very remarkable. I know we're basically seeing the trailing edge hitting the town of Scottsville, which is why we've seen such dramatic jumps this year when previously during the main spike that everyone else saw.

[00:31:27] So it is important to remember how these affect our localities differently. I would also add for Ms. Dreyfus, you're mine. Scottsville district. Supervisor McKeel. I don't have any comments on that. Thank you. Supervisor Malek. I don't have any questions, but I will add on to Supervisor Galloway to say in the Crozet area, the townhouses are being marketed almost like single-family homes.

[00:31:53] And that's, I think, is happening all across the district as well, which is probably why those values are going up so fast. And there are lots of people who want just that kind of living. so the demand is very high thank you supervisor lapisto kirtley no questions thank you i have no additional questions or comments so we'll close the public hearing unless there are further comments we'll open the public hearing related to the personal property tax rate all right so this is now the public hearing relating to calendar year

[00:32:29] 2024 personal property tax and we have someone signed up we do not we do not okay now I have someone who signed up for the electronic participation it was the same individual it is the same individual so Chris Bortz not there still not in the same meeting thank you without further ado I believe we can close the public hearing and this is the personal property tax and I'll just run through the order if anyone wants to

[00:33:07] make any comments specific to this Supervisor Galloway questions comments no questions or comments here. Supervisor Pruitt. I have no comments. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. No comments. Thank you. Supervisor Malik. No questions, but I am, I think, very appreciative of the work that staff has done to suggest a balanced approach, keeping the decreases in value in line with the increases in this rate. Thank you. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley. No questions or comments. And my only comment earlier, when I was looking at the slides, I think it was actually slide five, if we jump to it,

[00:33:47] I noticed that with this breakdown in our budget, which is a slightly increased amount due to the fact that we're changing the personal property tax and the DOT, that public safety still represents 15 percent in it. This has been updated. I know it has. And it shows that even this is actually a very small fraction.

[00:34:08] 1% of our budget is 4.38 million, obviously. And this adds about a percent to the schools, but less than a percent, half a percent to the rest. And actually, if we look at the comparison of the numbers from before, the administration section actually went down.

[00:34:29] Some of this is rounding, of course, at this level. But I want to applaud that this is a very finely tuned budget and the tax rates are built, you know, to make that work. So I very much appreciate that. Then if we can move on to the third public hearing, I'll open the public hearing relating to the consideration of adoption of an ordinance to amend County Code Chapter 15, Taxation Related to Article 9, Transient Occupancy Tax.

[00:35:04] And we'll open the public hearing. Oh, we have a comment. Mr. Chair, I'm not sure we closed the previous public hearing. I didn't close it, sorry. close the previous public hearing and we'll move on to the transient occupancy tax and open the public hearing do we have anyone signed up to speak we do not we need a chalkboard to keep we do i recognize that i so no one signed up okay okay i mean this is the last opportunity for public

[00:35:34] comment at this meeting tonight okay um well uh board uh having uh i guess run through the order real quickly again. Supervisor Galloway? No questions here. Supervisor Pruitt? I have no questions. Supervisor McKeel? Just a comment on this, and maybe Jeff might speak a little bit to it. This is an attempt on our part to diversify our revenue stream, to try and move away from

[00:36:13] our real estate property tax and while it seems like it hasn't made a huge huge difference it is an important effort to try and have the folks that are coming into our community to visit as tourists but are using our services and driving on our roads to help pay for um that usage and jeff would you speak to that just a few minutes you you you've summarized that quite well and

[00:36:46] I'm continuing to be very interested in our daytime peak population growth. Last week, we talked to our ECC when this board recognized proclaiming ECC 911 telecommunicator month. We had several of the staff here from the ECC, and it was quite interesting to hear that they have to staff for peak demand. And peak demand in Albemarle County is somewhere during the middle of the day. And Mr. Saxton talked about the fact that a nighttime population, which

[00:37:25] is really your residential taxpayers that are sleeping in their beds at home, that he off the top of his head said 150,000 people population. It's more than that, but it's not that much more. And we're talking about Albemarle County in Charlottesville. And he He was looking at peak load demand in the middle of the day, running call volume that may be as much as 100,000 population more than that.

[00:37:51] And Ms. Malik, I believe, asked the question about, and your telecommunicator staff, he's into the '60s, and they will be outgrowing the infrastructure that they're in, and we've got to put on the whiteboard plans for modernization, expansion, and that's a partnership with us, the city, and UVA.

[00:38:11] There's a number of those things in our community that exist today, where as a destination community, you grow significantly from nighttime population to daytime population. This TOT is earmarked for people that are coming and staying for short-term stays in our hotels, and that's part of being a destination community, the things that we have to offer in this community.

[00:38:33] But we're just beginning really to study this and really think through what is that tax burden. And how does that affect? You talked about the diversity, the mix. Mr. Bowman and Jacob's team, they put some stats together for this board looking at the breakdown of that. And we track that over a period of time. And we're looking to try to see if we can lessen the burden on the residential property taxpayer, especially during the day when that population increases and we can feel our infrastructure begin to sag and it really stresses our ability for service delivery in some

[00:39:10] key areas. And so that's something that we've got to continue to keep our eye on. I want the board to know that we're looking at it and that we want to be able to provide you with good meaningful data across the community so that we can say it could inform strategies for the future. It could inform our legislative agenda ask for the future, and also it could inform partnership discussions with the city and also with key partner entities like our university. Thank you, Jeff, and it's interesting in my head the way I sort of think about it, and I don't think it's easy not for the

[00:39:47] public not to really recognize it, but we really have two groups. We have folks that are coming into our community during the daytime because of jobs, which is, and I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it is a fact. They're driving on our roads and using our emergency communications as needed, whatever. And then we have another group of folks that are tourists that are coming in and the same thing is happening. So in a way we're being hit, our infrastructure is being hit by two separate pockets this address is one the tot addresses the tourists and i know and i think i bet everybody at

[00:40:27] this diocese stayed in a hotel and been absolutely surprised at the list of add-ons that you get if you go to a real touristy focused community so i just appreciate staff looking at this through the lens of trying to move at least diversify us and balance us out a little bit so that folks that live in apartments and own property in this community aren't taking the full brunt, that we're balancing it a little bit. Thank you.

[00:40:59] Thank you. Supervisor Malek. No questions. And again, I appreciate this effort to diversify and hopefully also we will continue to make more progress getting some business revenue as well to help that 80-20, 60-40, however we can get there to again take pressure off the residential taxpayer. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupisto Curdley? I do appreciate the diversification of revenue, but I have no other questions, thank you. I believe I closed this public hearing,

[00:41:37] all right? I'm sure I've done all of these correctly. At this point, board, we understand that we've held the public hearings, but we're deferring action until May 1st, at which time the board will consider these rates. I think we should go through again if anyone has any additional comments relating to budget tax matters. Supervisor Galloway?

[00:42:03] I just appreciate the responsiveness of staff getting everything that we've asked questions for and the information to us in a timely manner so that we've got to pull it all together and make our final call next week. Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt? No, I don't. I know I've been the squeaky wheel on many parts of the budget, but I think one thing I have not been a squeaky wheel on is our proposed revenue structure that we're looking at with these tax sources. And I do want to also extend my appreciation to staff for putting together a very thoughtful presentation, a very thoughtful just set of numbers for us to work with, frankly. I know that the number that we

[00:42:42] seemingly pulled out of the air for personal property was actually very thoughtfully constructed, and I appreciate the work that went into finding that happy medium that I know we were all asking for. And I also do appreciate, while I still have, I think, some fundamental philosophical disagreements, I do appreciate the additional explanation on the equities that are going to be bearing down on us in fiscal year 26 and the logic of keeping that reserve contingency alive.

[00:43:10] I still have my disagreements with it, but I thought that was very well put and I appreciate it. Thank you. Supervisor McKeel. Just a quick comment. I remember, and Anne would remember, because we were on the board together at the time ten years ago nine years ago when we were having discussions about the tsunami that was coming with the retirements for the volunteer fire department and how we were over the next decade going to be moving from volunteers to paid and what that was going to do to our budget and that's where what we're seeing today and i do really appreciate

[00:43:48] staff for all the work that you've done, but for the really creative way that you all have handled that change in our fire staff and moderating it because it's a lot easier to take it in small chunks like you all have done by using the grants, recognizing that it's not free money, we eventually have to pay it back, right? But to sort of let us move into those new paid staff gradually without having a real shock to our to our budget and thank you very much

[00:44:27] thank you supervisor mallock thank you and continuing on in that vein i want to give credit to deputy chief pocket as well as other fire staff as well for really working so hard over the last 10 years to build a much stronger combined system than we had a much more adversarial one before And this has allowed Elmar County's system to really buck the trend that we may have fewer than 450, which is what we had active volunteers 10 years ago, but it is still very vibrant.

[00:45:03] And the millions of dollars in prevention of expense that these volunteers provide and the love of their community and the service that they provide as well is very much appreciated. And I'm very grateful for this board supporting this year two stations and last year another station to have some structural improvements in order to be able to improve that workability for the volunteers as well as for the paid staff who are there during the day.

[00:45:33] Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Lupita. I'm extremely pleased because when I came on the board back in 2020, there was a lot of angst between the fire department volunteers. and a lot of things were changing. And now we've seen all this come to fruition in a good way, frankly, led by our staff, by executive committee and our staff, and frankly, this board.

[00:45:59] I mean, the decisions we've made have slowly taken us to a really, really good point where we're all working together. We're not at odds. We're all working together. And this budget, I think, is exemplary of what has been done, the fact that we have a good budget, we have a balanced budget.

[00:46:19] It's meeting our needs. And I think that's very important for everyone to realize is that this budget is meeting the needs of the community, which is what the board is focused on. That's what we have done. And I really commend you all and, frankly, my colleagues for thinking outside the box and how can we better serve the community and be able to make sure that all of our dollars are well spent.

[00:46:48] Someone, I was told recently, think about this, if you have the same amount of money and taxes coming in every year, how is that going to work out in the long run? How are you going to give raises? How are you going to get good people? How are you going to increase things? you can't. But I think this board and staff, we're doing it in a thoughtful way to make sure we address the needs of the community, which is the most important thing. Thank you.

[00:47:12] Thank you. Board, it's been a fairly quiet evening of our public hearings, but I just, again, we all know that we've had 13 hours of budget meetings before the hearings, probably up to 15 at least by now, seven public town halls, numerous emails from constituents, phone calls from constituents, and a lot of press and interviews and places where we've been able to get feedback from a lot of people. So I really appreciate the fact that this process

[00:47:46] has been ongoing for many months now. And I'm grateful that we got to this point. And I think it's a tribute to the careful organization that at this point we're not surprised by anything so this has been very helpful we are finished with the business portion we now have an opportunity for the board to just report from matters not listed on the agenda we'll go through our order

[00:48:20] supervisor galloway two quick things the we just had our mpo meeting this afternoon but the long range transportation plan is finally coming to close but there's still chance to for the public to make comment or put input in through may 21st you can go to the thomas jefferson planning district commission website also encourage the other members of this board if you want to take a look at it it's in its basic final draft at this point and if you have any comments or questions likewise can submit your submit your feedback and then i just want to thank thank staff thank the police department thank the fire department for the tour today at the public safety operations

[00:49:00] center it was fantastic walking through there today i remember walking through as i mentioned this morning the before picture what it looked like once jc penny was out and before even all the hair salon and things were not a lot of the things were not cleared out of there yet but then to see the after today and what it's turned into was pretty phenomenal and loved hearing the stories of the efficiencies found from having centralized ops happening there and plus the more space and what that is yielding. So just good job all around there from the folks that have made that happen

[00:49:36] and thank you again for the time to let us get in there and take a look. Thank you. Supervisor Proulx? I have nothing at this time. Thank you. Supervisor McHugh? Yeah, the tour today was really wonderful and having um some relief for the fifth street station uh our our station over on fifth it's just wonderful because i can remember i was laughing today and i don't want to take too long but i can remember when my car a picture of my car was in a local newspaper criticizing me for

[00:50:13] parking on the grass and the reason was because there was no parking and we had an event over at fifth street station at the fifth street um station and i had to park on the grass if i was going to make the meeting and so and that was almost a decade ago struggling to keep have the forensic unit and the police and the fire and rescue and all of those vehicles this is just a great facility to expand and to be able to move into as well as having um a presence for fire department and the police on their in our population center which is really nice for them

[00:50:48] they're not having to run back and forth so much and the facilities people have really just done a wonderful job with that with that facility so anyway thank you it's all good supervisor malik thank you my two cents on the tour this morning was 10 years of work on the cip to get there from the evidence garage section that was way back when chief sellers transitioning to chief lance to be able to get better control of the vehicles that needed to be preserved for evidence collection, et cetera.

[00:51:21] And it made my heart sing to walk in the service bay to see in person what Todd Richardson, the chief at Earlisville, was lauding Chip Walker, who's the operations manager for the fire department, about how great it was that we had the ability to upfit the new brush trucks right here because it was a very small percentage of time and much less money to do it here.

[00:51:48] And there were apparently four trucks in process that we'd still be waiting for the first one to get in the queue someplace far away to get the work done. It's just so much better. And we've learned so much from the COVID transition about the supply chain things and how they've very successfully modified their operations to deal with the new reality of what it takes to get parts for things.

[00:52:10] So it was just a great way to start the day. I was so, so happy. And we're so lucky to have a property owner who is so willing to work with us and to help us be very generous and see the importance of these public safety departments for our community.

[00:52:26] In addition, Ned mentioned the LRTP, Long Range Transportation Plan. The vision list is all the projects that we might like to have. The constrain list is the things that we think will fit in the budget that we're given over the next 20 years.

[00:52:41] So this is 2050 is the goal. And so please do cast your eyes upon the draft a little bit and share with either us or directly to Christine through the survey thing the comments that you have. We need to make it as good as we can.

[00:52:57] We can always modify it later, but we have to meet federal standards on that. Two other little things that I learned at the MPO. There are two online resources. One is called On the Map. It's a feature of Census Department. So you can just Google Census on the Map.

[00:53:12] And it's an interactive monster database where you can learn about demographics and all different things and manipulate things. And the second is the Virginia Hazard Mitigation Plan, which Sean Nelson said is one of his go-to things on his desk all the time.

[00:53:28] And it's another interactive resource that we can learn. And there's a lot of background in there as I was looking at it in between meetings that might be very interesting. for everyone and the last thing is i've been working missing most of the meetings but following along with the american farmland trust advisory committee today i finally managed to get in the meeting for a change and get an update on the toolkit for development it's called planning for agriculture in virginia and looking at lots of different ways to strengthen the success and the productivity of agriculture in all of its various sizes from the small truck gardens all the way up

[00:54:07] to the commodities and to forestry as well, and balancing all the different needs of the competing needs of solar, et cetera, and still be able to feed our population, which is really, really important. So there will be a toolkit coming out sometime in the next year. Stephen Burson, who's head of the VDACs under Department of Agriculture in Virginia, is our state person on the board and lots of counties represented who have agriculture coordinators or agriculture directors. So it's been really fascinating to work with this different group of people and I look forward to providing the toolkit draft to everybody to look at when it's ready. Thank you. Thank you.

[00:54:47] Supervisor Lopisto-Kirley. Yes, two quick things. Stony Point Volunteer Fire Department actually benefited from the new facility, Fashion Square, because they were able to build a brush truck in-house and then so it's now it's stony point volunteer fire department which as you know doesn't have as many calls is like seminal trail however they're really they're using their brush truck for all areas in avamora county so that's a good thing and lastly at our cac monday night we had a presentation by the rwsa fascinating if you can get it at your cac i highly recommend it

[00:55:27] learned so much about the water usage and everything they really did a good job and they kept everybody captivated of the rwsa for that presentation at rcac thank you thank you and i have no additional announcements but i'll turn to mr richardson if there's anything from the county executive this evening no sir not this evening then board uh we will adjourn to our next regular meeting on May 1st, 2024, 1 p.m. in Lane Auditorium here. Opportunities for the public to access and participate in this meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website on the Board of Supervisors

[00:56:04] homepage and on the Albemarle County calendar. Participation will include the opportunity to comment on those matters for which comments from the public will be received. Thank you and good evening.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Coraggio Consulting · aguyonx.com