Coraggio Consulting
Albemarle County Board of Supervisors Budget Work Session, Monday, March 10, 2025

Date: Monday, March 10, 2025
Place: Albemarle County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 3h 4m (video)
Official meeting video (Granicus): https://albemarle.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1306
Official agenda: https://albemarle.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=1&clip_id=1306

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 2026-10-15. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:01] We call the order of this meeting of the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors on the 10th of March, 3 p.m. on June 241 of the McIntyre office building. At the table we have Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, the Supervisor B. Lapisto-Curdley of the Revenant District, Supervisor Diantha McHeale of the Jack Jewett District, Supervisor Ned Galloway of the Ryan District, Supervisor Ann Malick of the Whitehall District, and myself, Jim Andrews, representing the Samuel Miller District Forum at present.

[00:00:29] We're also joined by a number of illustrious people here. Our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson. Deputy County Executive, Mr. Trevor Henning. Deputy County Executive, Amy Wall. Chief Operating Officer, Christy Schiffler.

[00:00:44] Chief Financial Officer, Jacob Sumner. And Assistant Chief Financial Officer, Andy Bowman. We're also joined by our Clerk, Leonard Corbison, and Deputy Clerk, Robert Moore. And also, please welcome the Albemarle County Police Officers present today, Officer Caleb Painter and Officer Tyler Wong.

[00:01:03] Thank you for your service. We also have our County Attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, standing by. And I will be able to hear from our Fire Rescue Chief, Mr. Dan Nicholson. And our, ah, there you are, Chief of Police, John Rhys.

[00:01:22] Welcome all, all rest. So with that, I believe we can get started. I'm not sure. I'm turning it over to Mr. Richardson. I'll ask our chief finance officer to take a second since this is our first work session, Mr. Chair, and introduce here Mr. Bowman.

[00:01:43] He wanted to introduce our team members that are here from budget and finance. Thank you. They really do a lot of heavy lifting behind the scenes to get us to where we are today, please. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I do want to introduce our office management and budget staff.

[00:01:59] worked diligently over the past several months on not only producing the the document but also working closely with staff and the executive's office to get us to this point we have Thomas Unsworth, T Mitchell, Laura Van Zandt and Ryan Davison and with that I'll turn it over to we also have from our revenue administration folks revenue administration office Jim from Matheny and Robert Wilson helping us with our revenue projections. Now I'll turn it over to

[00:02:36] Mr. Gilbert. Lots of brains here. Thank you for the introduction. So this is the first work session for the fiscal year 26 budget process and I always like to start every work session with the entire path ahead for where we are today through the adoption and appropriation of the budget in May. There are many meetings to be had and that list is going to start to get ticked off very quick in the next couple of weeks today we have a work session that will focus mainly on general fund revenues the non-departmental chapter in public safety and no action is going to be requested from the Board of

[00:03:15] Supervisors today this is an informational work session that will also be true on March 12th and March 17th just for information no action that's going to change on March 19th where the board will be asked to take action to propose a budget and set a maximum rate for advertisement what that means is the board will advertise a tax rate they can adopt that rate or less than they cannot do more than that for both real personal property real property personal property and any other rates they choose so that is really where we're working for is that really over these next few work sessions so staff can support the board so they can feel as comfortable as they can with that decision that

[00:03:54] happens on the March 18th knowing that's not a final decision that's an important milestone in the budget process just for the process and how we we work through our work session staff is going to be presenting information in small chunks it's going to be more detailed than the county executive's presentation but it is not going to be detailed as the 300 page document that we have out there we will allow as much time as we can for the board to have discussion so there will be a time for staff we give a brief presentation the board will go through their order questions comments will be taking notes on everything if there is not a question we can respond to on the spot that'll be posted on the website for transparency for anyone who's here or

[00:04:34] listening who wonders what the answer to a question may be. The other real big thing we're listening for is any potential adjustments the board may desire to the county executive's recommendation. Rather when those come up rather than kind of discuss them one by one, our approach in the past that's worked for the board is to bring them back as a package and then on the fourth work session evaluate what options may be to address that package as a whole rather than to address kind of up or down on every single item as we work through the budget. So we'll be taking notes on both of those and we'll make sure we end and begin each board session very clearly

[00:05:07] particularly on what those list for potential adjustment items are. So the agenda for today we're going to start with the total budget and then we're going to go through in general fund revenues. We'll go through our non-departmental chapter which is again out of order but this is the chapter that signifies what the transfers to public schools and capital will be and so today is really what is the basis of those transfers. A week from Monday will be what are those transfers from when the public schools are here, and we discuss the capital program as well.

[00:05:38] I would recommend a break at that time if the board would desire, and then we would focus as much time as we can on public safety. I am hoping that we can be about 90 minutes into the work session and split that difference because this is such a significant driver in the budget. I don't allow as much time for both the chiefs to tell their stories and also for the board to engage with that, given that is where the majority of the recommended tax increase is supporting. So stepping back first at a 30,000 foot new level before we dive into the document, this is the board's strategic plan adopted in October of 2022. This is the

[00:06:16] roadmap and the basis and the doorstone, doorstar, pick whichever analogy you'd like to that we use and develop in the budget. How are we aligning our expenditures and those changes to what are those things that will drive forward the strategic plan? Not all of those will take funding in the same way as others do. This budget really speaks to that where those first on the left, those three boxes of safety and well-being, workforce and customer service and education and learning really drive where most of the dollars go in this budget. I also like this visual with workforce and customer service at the center because as we've seen when we are more successful in that and the

[00:06:50] recruitment, retention and training of our staff that helps support all of the other goals move forward. In addition to the strategic plan, just a couple more refresher slides for the board and for the public who may just be tuning in the first time.

[00:07:07] Obligations have been a very large part of the budget for the past few years. This is a board slide over the last three budgets, whether it be FEMA Safer Grants, implementing other programs, our core systems modernization, UCAPITAL facilities. All of that has been part of the budget that leads to where we are in Fiscal Year 26.

[00:07:25] That will continue into next year from the county executive's presentation, where there will certainly be obligations out there, But the ones in this fiscal year 26 loom very large compared to other budgets in recent history So staff in preparing this recommended budget is taking a look at the strategic plan the obligations The board's adopted financial policy. It's our economic outlook everything that you see on the slide put together What is the total recommended budget? So now I'll get to the real the first part of the budget when you go together go through together today and that is the total budget of age 50 and 51 of the total budget

[00:08:03] it rarely represents every dollar that passes through the county every year. That is true for our operating budget, any debt service, the capital budget, and any grant funds both for us and the school division. The total budget is not though a great comparison in terms of what is the story year-to-year taking place. And this is a good example this year where we look at what is the actual change in the budget. It is essentially flat, a less than one-tenth of one percent increase in $190,000. To explain why that is, because this is a year where we have a recommended tax increase. If we look at our revenue size on the general fund, we can see our

[00:08:40] local revenues tax and other local revenues are up about $46 million. Total budget is not a great track of what changes year to year because of the capital budget. For example, last year the Southern Elementary School was appropriated for construction. That doesn't get appropriated again.

[00:08:56] Those funds roll forward year to year. So just taking out the revenue from that essentially explains why we are relatively flat. And so, again, total budget's often a headline. It's part of our story. But again, we don't focus on the total budget very much because of the year-to-year nature of fluctuation that can happen in the capital budget. But what we instead focus on is the general fund. And I'll just do a quick look to the board because we're about to dive into the first content so far. Are there just any questions or anything

[00:09:29] that anyone has to date about process or total budget before I dive into this? And I will say in this chapter, I say short staff presentations. This is going to be one of the longer ones. I'm actually going to break this into two. So I'm going to talk about our tax revenues and then I'll take a break and then I'll go and talk about state, federal, and the others because there's a lot to cover and I've tried to respond to as many of the board's questions from the county executive's presentation as I can through this material. So again, with the general fund, we focus on this for three reasons. It's where all property tax revenue is received. It's where the board of

[00:10:04] Supervisors has the maximum amount of discretionary authority, and it's the primary funding source for the public schools and the capital programs. These are the rates that we're balanced on. Personal property in the upper right returns a pre-pandemic rate of $4.28.

[00:10:23] Real property in the upper left is a $0.04 increase. Food and beverage is unchanged because we're at the maximum. Transit occupancy, we are not in the maximum and I'll go into a few more slides about what that could look like if the board wanted to explore that first This is the overall donut chart of where the dollars come from in the general fund two quick observations I would share general property taxes and the the big kind of dark blue piece is two-thirds of the revenues and then State revenue is in the light blue at six percent of the budget and federal is in the yellow piece at two percent

[00:11:01] Those two portions often when I talk to people in the community, they expect they are larger, but in the general fund, they are relatively small pieces. So with that, let's turn our attention to real estate tax revenue. This is revenue that is assessed by our county assessor and his team.

[00:11:19] Peter Lynch was before the board in January. He went through a very exhaustive presentation of how they assess property, what are their measures of success, all of the things that go through. So I will not be repeating any of that today. But by code, he is, and our office is required to assess property.

[00:11:35] 100 percent of market value, fair market value. Before we dive into numbers, I'll put a quick plug for the real estate tax relief in editing disabled. If there's anyone listening who is eligible or may be eligible or knows someone, this is a program that can provide relief for applicants who are 65 years or older, may be mentally disabled, or not using their property as a business and the other criteria. If you know anyone who may be eligible or would like to pursue this further, please contact the Department of Finance and Budget, and we will assist you in process. So get into some actual numbers. The real estate tax revenue for next year is projected to

[00:12:14] increase $29 million or about 12%. The primary reasons for that is the recommended tax increase which is $12.4 million of that increase. We also had an increase in the overall reassessments in calendar year 25 from calendar year 24. That's a 5.1 increase. Again, Mr. Lynch told the board in detail about that in January. We also have every year an impact in new construction land divisions where property values are increasing not for reasons of the market, but changes have happened to those properties, and that is factored in that number as well.

[00:12:47] The tax rate, as I said, is recommended at 89.4 cents per $100 assessed value, and this next term is going to be part of the board's budget add, is the lowered or the effective tax rate. What this tax rate means is that if the board wanted to set a tax rate that would offset the increase in reassessments only, that rate would be 81.3 cents per $100 of value.

[00:13:09] That is one that would not include any changes due to new construction or land divisions or those others. It's really just the reassessments, and that is something we are legally required to include as part of the publication and advertisement process. The next slide speaks to what is the value of the video on the tax rate.

[00:13:31] Right now, all available revenues are programmed for expenditures in the budget. As the board, if they were to consider scenarios, whether that be adding to or taking away from the county executive's recommended budget, If that real estate tax rate was adjusted, for every full penny, it would generate $3.1 million.

[00:13:48] If it were to be allocated by the split that we have with schools and county government and the capital program, those are the amounts shown on the slide. If the board wanted to make other non-dedicated splits, about each tenth of a penny is a little over $300,000.

[00:14:04] So that it can be, depending on what the board desires, that can be a split that we examine in future work sessions. Moving on from real estate, I'm going to go into personal property next. And I'm going to go into a little more detail because personal property is a broad category that includes many small Categories within it. These properties are assessed Using the clean trade-in value based on the JD power car guide that's published in January The state of Virginia allows us to use a few different methods And this is the one the county has adopted and had in place for some time other personal property

[00:14:39] That's not in that car guide would be subject to the percentage of cost basis or something similar depending on the state code So there is tax relief for personal property, but it functions very differently than the real estate tax relief. Where real estate tax relief is for the elderly and disabled and is provided locally.

[00:14:58] Personal property tax relief is provided by the state. We've received about every year an amount of about $15 million that gets applied towards individuals' vehicle tax bills. So the way this works is if you have a vehicle assessment that is $1,000 or less, you do not receive a tax bill.

[00:15:16] State tax relief covers that. If you have a vehicle above that, the first $1,000 to $20,000 worth of that vehicle in the county, you receive 42% tax relief. And then if you have, for any amount of the vehicle over $20,000, there is no relief.

[00:15:34] So as an example, if you had a $20,000 car, you'd get 42% tax relief. You had a $30,000 car that the first $20,000 would get 42% tax relief. And then the amount from $20,000 to $30,000 would be taxed at the full rate. This is a unique structure that exists for personal property and how those are allocated is not available for other taxes in terms of the regressive nature of them.

[00:15:58] I'll say that amount for 42%. If you look historically, that does go down over time because as our population grows, as businesses open, vehicles are added. Sorry, not vehicles. This doesn't apply to businesses. As the personal property increases over time, the amount of that flat amount from the state revenue can't go as far around the total pot of 118,000 people in the county.

[00:16:24] So taking a look at the different components of personal property, personal vehicles is the overwhelming majority of this. Almost 88% of the revenue comes from that. They are taxed based on that assessment method, and they have the tax relief applied to that. But there are some smaller categories, and historically the Board of Supervisors has had the same rate for all of these categories. So first up is business tangible personal property. That makes up 11% of personal property. It is assessed the exact same as personal property. The difference is there is no tax relief from the state. So if you have a business and your vehicles, you don't get a share of that 42%

[00:16:58] or that amount for less than $1,000 that I discussed on the previous slide. The other limit the state has is that must be the same rate as personal property. The board cannot set a different rate for business property and personal property. The other much smaller group, and there's a very long section code with all different categories of boats, airplanes, manufactured homes, and others, they make up less than two percent of personal property tax revenue every category has a different assessment as prescribed by the state code this is another one where the rate cannot exceed personal property or in some cases the machinery and tools tax rate i'll speak about machinery and tools in

[00:17:37] just a case but right now if the board wanted to set a rate for any of these that would be different it would need to be in a downward direction or the overall personal property would be would need to increase further finally moving to machinery and tools which historically has had the same rate as the county that rate under the state code cannot exceed the personal property rate work and adopt a lower amount but the county's practice is to have the same rate for all of these revenues this is a really for equipment use in manufacturing process is the most common type of business total is just about seven hundred thousand dollars and is only made about 30 taxpayers

[00:18:14] it's a relatively small group in our overall tax base for personal property machinery and tools this the math on the split just like we had for real estate the value of a penny is much smaller here of just under 100 000 those splits are shown on the slide based on the 54 36 10 allocation so moving on from personal property i'm sorry not moving on yet i wanted to talk about the history of the tax rate and where we've been uh so this uh shows that actually since the 90s the county had

[00:18:48] a personal property tax rate of four dollars and 28 cents uh many on this board or listening may recall that in 2022 there was a dramatic change in the value of used vehicles that was really unprecedented and at that time the board dropped the rate about 86 cents or 20 down to 342 to offset that unusual increase that rate remained that way through calendar year 23 before increasing back over the last two years to the previous rate of four dollars and 28 cents so there's a history but what i've asked our revenue team to do is just to take some of the most popular vehicles

[00:19:25] that are in now morrow county what would happen to their tax bill over this entire five-year period and these are we picked it's five of the most popular vehicles and two of the higher end ones and of these seven i should clarify everyone's individual experience if you're not one of these vehicles will be different but at least of these five of these seven only two of them have a higher rate than they had in the prior year those are the ford f-150 and the toyota rav4 and so again we can see that in some ways as we show about the big increase in values and how that fluctuated you You can see how this normalizes a little bit more over time with how that tax bill plays out.

[00:20:07] Thank you again to our revenue administration team for putting together this data. So moving on from property taxes, I want to talk a little bit about the other local taxes out there before I open up to more questions. One of the things we use and weigh on quite a bit in our economic projections is a report from Dr. Cheryl Bailey, who was before the board this fall.

[00:20:30] We stay engaged with her throughout the year. Actually, she was emailing with us this morning to kind of give her thoughts of where we're headed. And really her kind of advice back in the fall was it's prudent for us to expect to slow down in the economy. Really, the conclusion I keep coming to in the picture of my mind from her presentation was the partly sunny, partly cloudy.

[00:20:48] There really are mixed signals in the economy both ways. And we just need to continue to watch and stay very vigilant in our key indicators and see how that plays out. An example of how partly sunny and partly cloudy plays out in our other local taxes, these taxes on the slide make up more than 90% of the taxes we collect.

[00:21:07] We can see in our consumer taxes, primarily sales, food and beverage, and transit occupancy. We have projected in the current budget a slower rate of growth. Coming out of the pandemic, these were growing at historic high rates, and we knew that would not last forever, and we've begun to ratchet down what those projections would be.

[00:21:23] Year-to-date, we are running very close to the budget, and things are playing out as we would expect to. So we are forecasting still continued growth, but not the growth that we saw at the rate coming out of the pandemic. The next category is other business-driven taxes, primarily that's business licenses and bank franchise tax.

[00:21:41] This is one that actually we are projecting to perform very well based on what has happened to date. This revenue, like many, is very backwards looking. The revenue we collected is really based on the prior year gross receipts. And we have not received anything this year to really make a meaningful change.

[00:21:57] It's really based on the backwards activity we saw last year, fiscal year 24, and the other economic data we have at this time. Moving from these revenues into just options for the board out there, I want to highlight this slide right out of the budget on revenue diversification.

[00:22:17] And this shows for the last three years or last two years of actuals, the current budget and recommended, and then in five-year increments going back, I'll have the county's revenues diversified over time. What we can see in that top blue line all the way back in fiscal year 03, the amount of the funding that was relied on property taxes is less than it is today.

[00:22:38] that's really due to a couple of changes. The first, the most notable one, is that gray line, the second from the bottom. State and federal used to make up 18 percent of the budget and now that number is down to eight percent. So that has been a dramatic change as funding sources have shifted over time. The second notable takeaway is we can see that other local taxes, those very taxes I was talking about before with sales, food and beverage, transit occupancy, business licenses, that has shifted down from 23 percent over the budget gradually now to just under 18%. Now a question that may be on the board of the public minds, what can we do about that

[00:23:16] orange line in terms of the other ways? Because the board has taken advantage to diversify revenues with the TOT tax, transit occupancy, and the meals tax in recent years, but unfortunately when we look at what the board can do from here on other local taxes, unfortunately the answer is not very much. And that is due to the Dillon rule. This board understands well it's really that our Our governing body can only do those things expressly given to it by the state.

[00:23:41] So this is a chart of all of the other taxes that are made up in the other local tax category. What amount is brought in in Fiscal Year 26 recommended? What is the rate? And then what is the maximum allowed by state? And I'll share that in just about all of these, we are at the maximum rate with a few exceptions.

[00:24:00] I'll say with business licenses, we are at the maximum for everything we have in existing category. so there's a very low likelihood that we're missing any opportunities there because the rates we could increase are not for businesses currently in the community. Those businesses would be very small as well. Consumer utility is the third one I'll skip down to.

[00:24:19] We're under review right now. It's going to be a very small impact. That total budget is only $4.6 million, about $46,000 every percent. This is paid on utility bills based on a complex calculation. This is one we're looking. Maybe there is a little bit of headroom, but for perspective, would be in the order of, you know, just if a few percent would be less than the impact of even a tenth on the real estate rate. So we're reviewing this to make sure we haven't left any stone unturned.

[00:24:46] That is one that we're continuing to examine and we'll report back should there be an opportunity. The other one that I'll highlight is transit occupancy tax that comes into the general fund at $5.4 million. That is 6% of the 9% rate. The other 3% goes to a different fund. So every every percent of that is around nine hundred thousand dollars and the board may wonder what would it look like if we were to increase that rate so just for perspective if it helps the board our staff pulled just selected comparative rates about where we are with other localities this does not include North

[00:25:23] Virginia does not include Virginia Beach because people who may be traveling to those areas may have different maybe making different choices or different reasons for that but we can certainly provide anywhere else in the state if we need to. We pulled Montgomery County, where Virginia Tech is located, and then kind of grouping together these kind of mid-sized cities throughout the state and the counties that surround them. So two observations is that, you know, not exclusively, but those other localities tend to stay together in their rates, and then also noting that Albemarle and Charlottesville are currently both at 9% right now. The city manager's recommended budget did not include a rate to that, and that is one that we would want to consider

[00:26:02] what I've talking to our tourism experts in the past, individuals will rarely make a decision about where to go based on the tax rate. But if you were a business or professional organization or someone deciding where to hold a conference or some other event, that would be a consideration that you would. It probably doesn't drive your decision, but it would be part of the math as they go into the plan. So, share that from the board's perspective. So, before I move into state revenues, this would probably be a great time for anything, property taxes, other local taxes, Just for any questions that may be on the board's mind or other commentary.

[00:26:38] I'm going to go through an order. Thank you. Thank you. I do appreciate the kind of deep dive that you provided for different taxation tools. I know I've had some idle curiosity I've shared in the past about the machinery and tools, and it seems like, frankly, any desire I had on that is promptly nipped in the bud by how we're restrained in keeping that at or below vehicular personal property, right?

[00:27:05] And my goal, what I had thought of was it seems like something that would be more politically feasible to increase the personal property. So that answers that question. So I appreciate that. I appreciate the additional context that you've done placing the transient occupancy tax into its proper kind of regional context.

[00:27:26] I would always raise, you know, we are, unlike most of these other localities, we are a destination. We are a tourist destination. We are a place that attracts tourists. And in that way, I actually would think of us as having a lot in common potentially with Virginia Beach and other peers like that.

[00:27:45] That being said, TOT is not something I think I have an appetite acting on unless we are confident we can do so in mock stamp with Charlottesville. And given that they have a surplus, even as I raised this during previous conversations, I figured this was something we would get movement on.

[00:28:04] I do appreciate kind of the full listing of all the different tools we have, so that we can quickly see how we are not able to use any of them. And particularly, you know, this board has probably been briefed on it before, maybe even I have before, but I really do want to call out and value the slide 17, the personal property tax breakdown, helping us understand kind of how that baked in relief operates for the individual user.

[00:28:40] Can you remind us what our current cent rate is on personal property? About $4.00-- oh, sorry. Currently, we are at $3.96. Recommended to be increased to $4.28.

[00:28:58] And just as I'm recalling, every 10 cents is roughly a million. Is that about right? Yes, that is correct. I think that's all.

[00:29:12] Thank you very much. A lot of detail and I really do appreciate that. I just have a couple questions on, I guess it'd be slide 18 for this. Okay. Each cat, you listed boats, airplanes, manufactured homes, other, that include RVs, RVs in there?

[00:29:43] That does not. Those are captured in the vehicle. Those are actually captured in the vehicle personal property numbers because we classify those. Anyone that gets a vehicle license and RVs get a vehicle license, it's captured within our personal vehicles or the business vehicles.

[00:30:02] Okay. Got it. Got it. And my other question, because my transient occupancy tax was already answered, and if Charlottesville is not going to go for it, then not a good idea. for us. On page slide 24, the orange line, the other local taxes, the decline, is that due to declining commercial? Yeah, I think part of it is just the fact the board is not

[00:30:36] able to increase those taxes with very limited exceptions, such as the food and beverage tax. And so when the board has made decisions over the last 23 years on this slide, The real estate or the personal property, like real estate, has been the one that's been changed.

[00:30:53] So it hasn't really been that option to increase those revenues. So really that's why, because every time there's been a desire to change it, the blue line has been the only tool available to the board of supervisors. All right, so the other local taxes, that's very limited. Okay, thanks for that.

[00:31:09] All right, thank you, and that's all I have right now. Oh, sure. Thank you for your presentation. I appreciate it. Very concise. I only have two comments or questions, I guess.

[00:31:26] You talk on slide eight, financial policies. I'm still receiving questions from some other board members, not this board, about why our AAA bond rating is so important.

[00:31:47] Because we have policies that are created to protect that AAA. Could you just briefly speak to that one more time so everyone wants me? Sure. I'll be doing the same thing on Wednesday. Oh, okay.

[00:32:02] Well, maybe one way. I'm sorry, Monday. But the short version, for anyone who's listening, is one, it provides the board to get the best possible interest rate when it's issuing bonds that we've paid back over 20 years. The other big takeaway is that it is a sign that it gives you as much flexibility as you can in your operating budget.

[00:32:22] You can think of the county as debt service payment, as really its mortgage payment, or its rent. The less that is over that time, that gives more flexibility for the board to do other things that they would like to do in the budget. So that is really, it's both that financial flexibility and the increased affordability provided by the AAA rate.

[00:32:40] Mr. Sumner is our CFO. Would you like to add anything to that? You've touched him up. I apologize if I stole your thunder. He has plenty of thunder himself. I'll let you take the next one.

[00:32:59] Thank you, Andy. The only other question I have in this room, again, it's not a question, it's just for the public, anyone watching. On slide 24, could you once again just share with the public the state and federal revenues that have gone from and how, because that affects the amount of money we have.

[00:33:23] So I think that's a really important piece. That does. Certainly the state provides a lot of assistance, some to our public safety departments, to our Department of Social Services, our constitutional officers, as well as some other general support they provide. As that amount has kept up, or not kept up, I know that around the Great Recession there was a significant reduction in state funding that happened.

[00:33:45] And the less the state is able to provide for those services, the more pressure that puts on the Board of Supervisors and the real property taxes to fund the difference in the two. So we've gone from, in 03, 17.6% to now, in our recommended budget, down to 8%.

[00:34:07] That is correct. So it's dropped in half. Yes, more than half of the percentage. Yes. Yes. And I should clarify as well, this does not include any support one-time, like ARPA funding or CARES funding from the pandemic.

[00:34:23] That's all accounted for separately. This is just a lot of the funding we receive just to run all of the day-to-day services we provide at the county And as the state and federal monies go down, then we have to pick it up. Correct. All right, and that's all I have. Thank you Can I interject one thing? Ms. McKeel, on the gray line that you're focused on, on state and federal I also want to remind the board because this is fresh of mind from our recent discussions with schools This doesn't include state funding for schools, and this is just general fund for local government.

[00:34:57] So for an example, last year when we went through the local composite index reset from the state, which takes a look at a formula county by county on how much state funding you're going to get for schools, Albemarle County lost $10 million in the last local composite index reset.

[00:35:16] That only happens every two years. And so one of the things that the schools is looking at is for the 27 budget They're looking at next year one year out. They're looking at okay every other year. This happens I wonder what's going to happen next year because a lot of it is based on Per capita income on a county basis and that ten million dollars was a game-changer a year ago And then working with us and being able for us in the schools to make sure that their needs are met and And again, that's outside of what you're seeing on the general fund with the decline in state and federal money.

[00:35:52] Great point, Jeff. Thank you. And lots of people refer to the LCI as the ability to pay, which is what we look like. We have the great ability to pay, so we receive less. That's exactly right. It's a pot of money that the state has. It's a finite amount of money.

[00:36:08] You've got X number of school systems, counties that are competing for that. You're going to stack your county that has the most ability to pay with the expectation that they're going to put the most local funding in. Your county that has the lowest per capita, they're suggesting that's where the state needs to help the most.

[00:36:27] And Albemarle County last year, they did not fare very well in that. And then your school system turns to local government and says, we've got a gap. We need you to help us out. And again, that's not reflected in that, but it's also a similar story from what you were talking to Mr. Bowman about.

[00:36:45] And just to comment, Alamara County Public Schools and Alamara County over the years have tried to impact that formula to no avail by the General Assembly. They're not interested. It's not, so I'm just saying that we have tried to get that formula adjusted and not, that's all I have.

[00:37:07] Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Connell. And specifically the way our revenue share is. The LCI for school funding. So the $20 million we send to the city, the state acts like that's in our coffers and they count it as the LCI for school funding when it's not.

[00:37:24] In some years that can be beneficial to us, in some years that's been detrimental. But the state certainly wasn't interested in just even changing that little nugget to take the $20 million and act like that's not in our coffers. But they said you're, what did they say, your lawyer problem?

[00:37:43] Well, they said you signed it so you live with it. essentially what they said at least that's what they said the year i was there but i mean it could amount back back when we were having that fight in 12 13 14 it was it could have meant the swing of a million million and a half dollars something like oh absolutely so at 20 million that numbers only could only be higher and they said so no so often that i think people have just stepped back and said this is not about what ever going to win do we have a lot of airplanes registered in the

[00:38:18] I'm not sure we can give that as a follow-up. I mean, I'm assuming airplanes get registered like automobiles. Yeah, certainly with the airport here. I'm just curious if we have a lot of, because of all the airplane traffic that we hear and all of the things that are out there, I just wonder if all those airplanes parked out there are actually registered in our county or some other address in some other low-tax state.

[00:38:45] You can take that as a follow-up. Because some people that have two properties can register their car in the other state for a tax advantage. We have a lot of cars registered in Delaware. In Florida? There's property down there.

[00:39:01] So partly sunny, partly cloudy has been what we've had since October when Dr. Bailey was here. But the stock market's going down. The president's even saying that we might not avoid a recession. He just attacked the CHIPS Act and trying to get that business, which that's a whole other thing now that's, you know, just got put up into the tornado.

[00:39:24] But are we really sticking with partly cloudy, partly sunny as our outlook, given the just, I mean, okay, pick a day of the last six weeks, but today would be a great day to pick. But I guess I'm not necessarily looking for the response to that other than to say we're game planning for a recession.

[00:39:47] Because, you know, usually that's a word nobody wants to say out loud. But we're saying, well, we might not even avoid it at the federal level. Matt, do you want to say something? Sure, yeah. You know, one of the things with partly sunny, partly cloudy is uncertainty.

[00:40:05] And I think that's really what we're seeing right now, particularly with the conversations at the federal level, is the uncertainty that that creates. And so for us, as part of contingency planning and working through how do we handle that uncertainty, yes, we are absolutely looking at what are contingency plans, what do we do when, you know, if the economy was to turn differently, if the federal funding was to impact us differently.

[00:40:29] So those are in place. And, you know, as Mr. Bowman mentioned earlier, you know, Dr. Bailey's in regular contact with us about the economy about our forecasts and and this is kind of where we're at right now and it reminds us that that partly south partly sunny partly collie is that uncertainty and so while we're seeing some positive signs in the economy there are some other signs that are are questionable what are the positive signs for us locally and we have a strong housing market you know that's that's a positive sign for us from an economic standpoint job growth has been

[00:41:09] solid so unemployment rate is still fairly low it didn't take up just a little bit in the last release but it is a positive typically compared to what we saw during the pandemic when unemployment was quite high the housing market one especially here with the double hit of tariffs and immigration labor labor shortages coming up that could put a nice dent on our positive housing market the cigarette tax board did they suggest that their sales are

[00:41:46] to decline some next year is that why we were seeing a decrease in that I think I think this current year it was down yes how dad jumping back thank our revenue

[00:42:23] You know, it's Robert Wilson. We have 58 aircraft that are registered in the county in the last calendar year And it's basically where they are hangered. Hangered is a word that I learned They can't hangar them here and register them in another state, is that what you're saying?

[00:42:39] They would, uh, if they're hangered here, they should be taxed here. Thank you. Thank you. I guess some sticker inspections might be important. That's good. Thank you. We were talking about the tax decisions May and May.

[00:43:00] will impact the June bill which goes back to January so does there any impacts from these decisions which impact the base of the schools going forward into 26 or is all of that baked in right now so I'll discuss that a little bit later but just to kind of elaborate yeah but yeah there will be a fiscal year impact in 25 to the calendar rate impact and that will be programmed it's all one-time money for one-time uses and I'll discuss that a little bit later in But that increase in their receipts will be before the new calendar year, a new fiscal year begins.

[00:43:39] Very good. So on slide 17, you talked about the state reimbursement at $15 million. And I just want you to clarify, that's not a portion coming to the county.

[00:43:55] That's it. And it's divided then among however many vehicles we have as opposed to what they promised us to begin with, that we would be made whole. Correct. That $15 million has been the same amount the county has received every year since about 2007 or 2008 or so. Governor Gilmore. Okay. We've been talking a lot recently about manufactured homes.

[00:44:19] So prices between $70,000 and $90,000 were talked about last week. And they're taxed at $4.28 times $90,000. that that's do I understand that correctly because that's a whole lot more than a comparable value of a house at 83 so I just want to make sure I'm not totally blowing this out of the way. It's a slightly different assessment. Thank you very well.

[00:44:51] Thank you. The manufactured homes are taxed at the real estate rate that they are in personal property so they make up that percentage of personal property but they are not at that personal property rate thank you thank you I apologize this lab was not clear - well there's been a lot of discussion over the last several years

[00:45:26] about how we were going to be obtaining the revenue that were promised to us by the solar projects so I know one solar project has a sighting agreement based on something but the earlier ones do not so at some point in the future not a second I would love to have all of us learn about what that impact is on that particular sector and that's all for me right now thank you

[00:45:53] bring it back 24 again because it's a percentage you know obviously we're seeing one growing and that's occurring in real dollars and other things dated real dollars at the same they would shrink. I know this is the smallest category but I do see other local revenue and transfers have a significant jump up 23 to 24 and then holding steady and I just wondered what's behind that and what is in that category? I would say there's because it's a small category

[00:46:32] I'll give a few examples. Certainly over that time is when the county implemented the EMS cost recovery program as that program was created and as ambulances have been added throughout the county it's a revenue now that generates more than three million dollars that did not exist once upon a time I know that over that 20-year period Department of Community Development has done fee studies and that's been updated there's been water resources revenues that have been updated related to that in terms of permits and those fees so those are just a couple of examples provide more of a breakdown but I think it's one of

[00:47:07] those areas where when we do have those when we do have those changes that were made mindful of that another notable category is our interest earnings and revenues we have restructured part of our finance and budget department to have an increased focus on how we are doing in those returns and so and now part of that is due to rates but part of that is due to structure as well we are seeing a better return on that in more recent years than we had prior that's sufficient, I can stop there, but we can provide more as follows.

[00:47:40] No, that's helpful. And I think, for example, on the blue line, the property tax line, we have this dip in fiscal year 24. It's very small, but I think it's probably just reflected back to the other group, and because these are percentages, that's how that impacts that number, even though the real property tax is increased.

[00:48:00] I mean, tax is totally collected. Yeah, that's helpful. Thank you. Just following up with a question about not about just airplanes, but about anything Is it through only the state or their local mechanisms for just verifying that people really live where they say they live or Otherwise keep things where they say they keep them. We do have a process in place Mr. Finney would you feel like to speak to that?

[00:48:31] I say this just knowing that we feel free to stand up if you're more comfortable here But I know that there are periodically we have had vehicles that have been added to our roles as they've done quality control around that Yeah We use several different resources The main one is the Department of Motor Vehicles from the state and that governs where your garaging jurisdiction is That's a verification method, but we also have access to other tools if there's something that appears to be a discrepancy We also use Carfax reports and those Carfax reports show you where that vehicle's been registered

[00:49:09] if it's been sitting somewhere else and we also have the process in place for people to report untaxed items and we are on the the virginia criminal investigation network v-sin with the state police that we can access and research out of state plates if we're seeing those in our locality to send out notices and and verify where that vehicle is being located based on observations

[00:49:44] of citizens there's something more specific I'm happy to thank you thank you before we move on I recognize more that we do have time constraints I'm not sure we'll be back to slide number 24 as we move through the rest of this and I just wanted to point out that somewhere between fiscal year 18 and fiscal year 23 this board and it was a different board then then the board that's comprised today really flagged for the first time for me our need to work on

[00:50:20] revenue diversification and it's where you saw the top line which is property taxes go from sixty four point seven to sixty six and you said we need to have a concerted effort to try to relieve some of the stress and burden that's on that's on the property tax real estate property tax owner in this county and over time we looked at cigarette tax plastic bag tax we looked at raising under under state law our share for TOT and prepared food meal so we've done some things this

[00:50:56] board has worked hard on that but even with that you've seen the continued growth most of that's due to unusually high reassessment on the residential side and so unless I hear otherwise from this board we're going to continue to worked really hard on looking for revenue diversification strategy, and you've heard me say, and I'll continue to say, that the one-cent sales tax that the General Assembly has considered and will continue to consider, that if allowed for this county to do a referendum

[00:51:32] on, which means the voters decide, would give us a $25 million a year dedicated tax or local school infrastructure that is a game-changer because you can see that with the things that this board has done you work really hard on looking at these things that we could do small but beneficial but with that that the trend line on the blue line continues to go up and so our as mr. Bowman shared showed with the list of all the different types of taxes our options are pretty narrow right now so I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record I know we need to move on

[00:52:09] but slide 24 says a lot right right which is a share it's a shared obligation from people who live here live and and work and buy stuff but it's also capturing taxes from people who may come here that are just here to visit here because of certain needs to shop they're here for a variety of reasons but they leave and pay property taxes somewhere else and so anytime you grow in daytime population you're looking for a tax structure that will in fact capture

[00:52:49] taxes it can help with infrastructure because when your daytime population goes up all of the infrastructure sags it sags because there's more cars on the road there are more people here and there's more service demand and so that's why I continue to be interested in this to be able to turn that trend line that blue line down and it's just going to take a concerted effort on the same thing I would say that it would be helpful for us to understand the blue line in terms of the burden on residential real estate versus commercial industrial real estate that's an amazing point and and I'm really sensitive that

[00:53:28] I'm not taking up too much time but when you break that apart and you look at residences of that 68.4 residences are about 72% in the in the commercial industries about 11.3 used to be around 15 and it's declined and so that would that would ask this board and staff to put some attention at some concerted effort toward what do we need to do to better position ourselves for private investment across the county the great examples Tom Thorpe Afton Scientific where last fall he invested 200 million dollars in his company 200 more jobs

[00:54:06] that's all are now more count and so what that does is it is it has a tendency to put some of that weight that's embedded in that blue line more on industry and commercial and it also there'll be discussion at some point by the board looking at cost for service cost for service delivery where business business industry and commercial is less to serve it costs less to serve than residences if that makes sense and I think that's what you're getting it thank you for the opportunity I apologize for being so long-winded mr.

[00:54:40] chair can I imagine it's a combination of it is the commercial decline lost value or lost businesses I'm assuming it's a combo but do we do we have an understanding of like fashion square mall it's lost value if we if we have a a company that leaves us um just trying to understand which one are we more up against the losing the companies or losing the value to a property i think i think it's a combination you know i think we're absolutely see some decline in certain areas um actually square mall was as

[00:55:20] you you mentioned is an area where there was decline um but there are some businesses that come and go as they they're successful and some others that aren't um i would also say that it's It's also there's strong growth on the residential side, too. So that is because that outweighs the commercial so significantly that it is harder to change that balance just based on the sheer volume of the residential side.

[00:55:46] But it is a true mix on the commercial for the redevelopment efforts that we have and the commercial activity and the commercial base that we see in our community. hard it is to pull that together. I think that would be something when the timing would be appropriate to understand further. Because that's something I think our chamber would be interested, should be interested in, probably our local counties and the city as well.

[00:56:13] Thanks, Mallory. And I need to dig in again to the COSS report, but with all those new houses come all those new services needed for all the different ages involved, like school children or whatever. So there's still a big gap that everybody else the businesses as well I'm picking up too. Yes ma'am. I just want to ask about the split is that with the schools is that something that exists I've heard it's not set in cement that that could be altered by the board is that correct? I'm actually going to speak to that

[00:56:50] and just a little bit later in the work session. Okay I will. Please proceed. All right a few more slides on revenues this is what is included in state revenues right now again making up six percent of our general fund revenues which are actually slightly down compared to last year one of the things we always look for is what's going on in the state budget it's normal not to have a final state budget at this time we'll continue to watch and see how that plays out we have received both surprises pleasant and unpleasant when the state finalizes its numbers so we'll continue to watch that closely for what makes up that 30 million and where our risk is

[00:57:30] I'll share first half of that revenue comes from the personal property tax relief that we've been discussing already. That amount has been fixed for probably coming up close to 20 years now. The other biggest category we look at is the reimbursement we have from the Department of Social Services programs. This includes both funding that the county receives and pass throughs to individuals and it also includes the reimbursement for the staff who are working in social services. We have seen based on the trends of our reimbursement rates, those have not been as strong and so we do have a decrease in revenues for that reason.

[00:58:03] And beyond that, we have support for public safety departments that tends to be a little more steady, as well as telecommunications taxes collected by the state and remitted to localities, support for the comp board, and then some other sources, mostly which are a vehicle rental tax that we see related to kind of just the tourism industry in here as well.

[00:58:22] So as of today, we don't have a strong indication any of those may change, but we continue to watch closely and get any insights we can to how that plays out at the state level. Moving next to federal revenues, this is another one that we were watching very, very closely.

[00:58:40] We do not have anything certain we can report on at this time. So this slide is really to kind of share where the federal revenue is in the budget across all funds and where the biggest risk areas could be. Right now in the general fund, there's a total of about $9 million, which is relatively flat compared to last year.

[00:58:58] Almost all of that goes to the Department of Social Services. That revenue comes from three places. One, it's for the Medicaid unit that we received from reimbursement there. Also to reimburse other staff in the Department of Social Services like the state revenue and also some direct assistance payments that flows to individuals.

[00:59:16] We don't have an indication that will change, but again, monitoring it closely. Outside of the general fund, there are some other significant buckets of federal funding. In the county, there's special revenue funds. A special revenue fund is usually where there's some sort of legal or other requirement for that funding to be accounted for separately.

[00:59:33] We have the federal housing assistance fund. These are the housing vouchers that are provided out in the community almost six million dollars I'm sorry over five million dollars, which is 90% of that federal funding and special revenue funds and Should anything happen to that which you give we have no indication But that is where the biggest impact would be not only for the county's bottom line But the amount of disruption that would cause into the community the schools will be here on the 17th to talk about these next two items There's about 400,000 they have in their school fund budget related to Medicaid and 11.5 million which is primarily through three programs for free to reduce lunch

[01:00:11] Special education and their title one reading and math support they have there They also do not have anything to report in terms of where that is, but they're like us continuing to monitor Viewing the funding in the next budget. We're also tracking our grants very closely We have about roughly 17 million in federal dollars. We're managing right now. This has been awarded We have no indication yet that any of that is in jeopardy, but we are staying in close contact with our grantors through our team in the Office of Grants and Agreements.

[01:00:39] So final revenue I want to talk about is fund balance. And this one is a little bit different because we're not alone really tackling up what we think is going to happen in the future is what has happened in the past in our financial experience and how does that influence where we use this. So in December, the board received the county's audit.

[01:00:57] And in that audit was our general fund fund balance that totaled just under $98 million at the end of fiscal year 24. by and large most of that money is already obligated or spoken for for different reasons in the board's financial management policies we have a reserve of 10 percent for unassigned fund balance this is really to maintain cash flow would be there to avoid any emergency borrowing should the county experience a catastrophe on top of that we have a budget stabilization reserve of just over 10 million dollars that would be for more kind of acute shock that could be addressed there's a school fund balance reserve and also over 20 million dollars obligated in the current

[01:01:36] budget whether it was adopted in the current budget or appropriated from a prior year so that leaves 11.7 million dollars of one-time money that could be used for one-time uses but in addition to that county staff as we manage fiscal year 25 have identified two other one-time sources that can add to that amount to support the budget process the first of which is when we adopted the budget a year ago there was an anticipation around the local funding that would be needed for microcat to operate in the current year good news is based on the extension of that grant and how that's played out we don't need 1.3 million dollars for that service it's now available to be reprogrammed

[01:02:13] secondarily interest rates last year in calendar 24 did not fall as quickly as was forecast which means that we have about additional million dollars of interest money we can consider one-time revenue to program so that 11.7 plus those two changes make up the total amount of one-time funding we have budget of uses are here some in 25 and some in 26 I will highlight that on Wednesday I'll be discussing at length about the county's health fund why a one-time transfer is needed into that fund so I'm not going to elaborate on that today but outside of that the most notable contributions

[01:02:49] are to the CIP it's common for the board to send a couple million or plus in the capital to support equity cash equity into projects we have a Children's services act fund for a mandated program department of social services that would receive support also the septic sewer program there was some funding from uh related to arpa that in december i'm sorry back september the board said we were okay repurposing this now but we'd like that program to come back in the budget that is funded with one-time money again as it is now and we'll speak to that on wednesday also the reserve contingencies there's one-time money to help

[01:03:24] the board should there be unexpected events or also uh during the year or as adjustments as part of finalizing the adopted budget that is one time funding that's available i'll talk about the full reserve in just a couple slides in the next section for now that's where we are on revenues turn it over to chair again for additional questions i want to make sure that we're capturing that i'm accurately i think capturing uh what we just went over these last two slides um the eleven point seven million um that is or is not inclusive of

[01:04:02] the two separate uh savings uh that does not include them so the total amount of one time funding would be uh 14 million and this is the same pot this 14 million pot um that is being drawn down drawn down in the subsequent slide under the recommended budget for for this calendar or for 2026 yeah these are all the uses for funding above the county's financial policies that would be one-time uses um it's fully programmed on this slide which leaves seven

[01:04:36] million remaining unprogrammed from that fund roughly is that about right i'm sorry the total of fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26 total the funding yeah um i'm not sure i have additional questions at this juncture.

[01:04:55] I will say the thing I always say, which is I don't think the role of government is to be a bank. It is not to prepare for tomorrow. It is to realize the needs of citizens today. And I am always, I think, deeply hesitant about reserve funds and the size that they are and whether or not they are as lean as they could be.

[01:05:19] That being said, I know how I shape out on this with my peers and don't need to press the issue. glad you're not pressing that issue I don't have any questions at this time I do understand that so just to recap the 14 million million these these what you're suggesting for 20 26 and 27 well cover because they're one time funding correct yeah these are all one time so they will not create an

[01:05:57] obligation to the fiscal year 27 budget we have any questions right really bad things happen had to come up with payments to general assembly and all kinds of things having a reserve and a fund balance the um what page is the the fund balance off it's page 15 slide 30 is that what

[01:06:36] Oh, you're looking at your other book. I thought I remember seeing it, but now I'm not putting my hand on it. It don't matter. 75? Yes. Well, that's the other question while I'm looking at it.

[01:06:56] So for something like the Septic the Sewer Program, I mean, I agree that it should be here. It's what we talked about previously. But just as it occurred in the previous year where we got to a certain point where we knew the funds weren't going to be used.

[01:07:16] And that was, you know, we switched where the dollars went, basically, back then. There's probably other programs that are like that. Do we have it? Is it something that happens a lot and don't necessarily think about it when I'm looking at the quarterly financial reports that you put in our packet that, well, to do the example, okay, we're three quarters of the way through the next fiscal year, and there's still $200,000 in the septic sewer program, and it's not going to be used.

[01:07:48] We know it's not going to be used based on applicants, et cetera, et cetera. Is that just something that just comes to the board at that time and we go, we'd like to repurpose that 200 grand for this other use so that it can be realized now? Or would it roll into the next year? Yeah, I think for those large items, and I mean, two really good examples are on the previous slide where, you know, if we did nothing else with microCAD, we would not spend $1.3 million this year.

[01:08:17] So now in the context of the whole budget process, what would be the most, what would be a way to use that now to support the overall budget picture? Same thing on the interest earnings, and I'll say interest earnings is a small one, but we've done revenue updates too after the last three years in the middle of the year.

[01:08:34] So part of that is just the quarterly management we do, and if there's anything significant, bring it to that board so we don't wait to have that conversation six to 12 months later, whenever that timing may be. The reserve, that 400 grand that's going to the reserve contingencies, what's in there now?

[01:08:51] There's about seven hundred thousand total about three hundred seven thousand one going for a thousand one time I'll have that on a slide in just a few minutes Y'all are setting me up really well for later Thank you The DSS state reimbursement and state and federal sorry Money which comes into the DSS for operations and caseworkers, etc. Is there a percentage of that budget which is not?

[01:09:24] Covered by state and federal. Yeah, there are The majority of it is state and federal funded, but there are some local costs that we do pay And as I was worrying at the wonderful mobility some of the other night about our race grant and Someone from a staff from another county said well remember all of your contracts have that little small print at the bottom that says

[01:09:59] supporting this doesn't happen then everything stops and that was sad but also a relief because the feds took our grace grant that I don't know where we find the two million dollars to keep it going so I would just want to share that little bit of another element in the chaos that's all I have right now thank you oh one other thing I do believe the county should have a bank just want to

[01:10:27] Back on slide 28, just a quick comment, and I think we'll hear this with the schools, but I did ask the question when I talked to the schools, that the pre-reduced lunch program is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, but the other two programs are part of the Department of Education may become significant.

[01:10:59] That's true. All right. So I'm going to move to the non-departmental chapters. We move from the revenues to the expenditure side. Some of this chapter I'm going to cover on Wednesday about how it ties together to Goal 6, but I'm going to spend time on big transfers because when we talk about the roughly $42 million revenue growth, the majority of that, I shouldn't say the majority, $20 million of that is to the schools and another $2 million to capital and the revenue sharing agreement as well.

[01:11:28] So this is a picture of the donut chart for the general fund. non-departmental is really a lot of the left part of to visualize how much this makes up the general fund I've got this slide next where the general fund is on the left and non-departmental is the section in blue the other functional areas are in gray and on the right we can see that non-departmental is mainly the transfer to the schools transfer to capital and some other uses of funds and revenue sharing that I'll walk through begin with the revenue sharing agreement that total amount will exceed 20 million dollars in fiscal year 26 that's an

[01:12:03] increase of 2.4 million or 14% that is a multi part formula it's in full detail in the budget document that I won't go through today but the primary factor driving that is the growth in the 2023 tax base not just the growth in the county the growth relative to the city that's not just a percentage change is the actual dollar change so the county being much larger than the city in order for the city to offset that dollar growth they would have to grow a lot faster than the county would to make up just for that deficit and the two two

[01:12:32] pieces of the how big the pie is. Historical comparisons this is the largest increase the county began annual reassessments and over the last two years we've seen a total of 4.5 million and how that is changing. From where we've been on this previous slide we can see going back about the last 10 years or so it certainly had its ups and downs through the years it was relatively stable but we can see in fiscal year 25 and 26 this is a different environment.

[01:12:57] Continuing on to the allocation of shared revenue, this will speak to Supervisor Lupisto's question. A lot of words on this slide, so I'll conceptually talk about what we do here in the board's financial policy. It's really helpful to have a guideline for staff, both county government and public school staff, as we develop the budget.

[01:13:19] The way that guideline works is to take our shared revenues, which are all local tax revenues, and any state revenue that's not designated. So the funding that we get for public safety, that's not shared with the schools. In the same way, public schools don't share their state revenue for education with county government.

[01:13:36] But for some of those other revenues that aren't designated, they're here and kind of developed in step one of the calculation. Step two is we make some deductions from that, many of which are directly related to tax revenue, or the ability for the county to leverage that tax revenue for other services like revenue sharing.

[01:13:54] The tax relief program that we've discussed earlier with the board. Any tax-related performance agreements for the short term, while those agreements are in effect, that revenue would not be split. Once the agreement expires, it would be split. And also a designated transfer of the water resources fund. So after we run through that math, again, the full formula is in the budget, but that remainder of the change in revenues, not all revenues, just the change year to year, is 54, 36 to 10.

[01:14:20] So also the key part is this guideline may be reviewed annually with the Board of Supervisors. And I've received the question, you know, why is the increased real estate taxes not changing by the split? That's a fair question, but to help to answer that, I thought I would provide some historical perspective.

[01:14:37] First, as we look at where these pennies go from the county executive's presentation, four cents of real property allocated 3.2 to public safety, 0.4 for schools, and 0.4 for housing. These four cents are the exception. The remaining kind of 54-36-10 split applies to all the other revenues.

[01:14:55] the increase in personal property, the increase in assessments, all of those are factored in. So the slide for kind of the historical reference is here. What has happened the last five times the real estate tax rate has been changed? Every board and past boards have made different decisions, but it's interesting that in all of those rate changes, this is the first rate change since fiscal year 20 when the board raised the rate 1.5 cents and dedicated that to public school, operation, and capital.

[01:15:23] The situation is different every year, but all five of those changes, going back to fiscal year 14 have been a dedication in one form or the other even in one year where there's a 1.7 cents at fiscal year 15 that last line 1.7 cents was allocated by the funding formula but they still had separate additional breakouts for public schools and operations so i share this not to lean in and revisit the history of every budget because the circumstances were different in all of them but more of kind of leaning backwards at a 30 000 foot view and say that when the real estate tax rate changes i mean it is pretty common for that not to happen through usual split because the board is looking at what are those circumstances in this particular year

[01:16:01] and those unique things that may be driving that may be different than other years and how that's applied so just a slide for perspective so moving on to the uh the transfers to public schools and capital public schools will increase 14.3 million dollars 7.3 cents for the recommended ongoing transfer that amount does include the 0.4 cents dedication supplement the normal formula allocation School will be here on Monday to talk through there.

[01:16:32] They're still working with the school board. They had about a $5 million gap they publicized at their last meeting on Thursday, and they're still continuing to work through that, intending to adopt a school board funding request on Thursday. In addition, the county is recommending a transfer of $6.2 million in one-time funding from fund balance, fund the school share of a health fund transfer.

[01:16:55] Again, I'll discuss that more Wednesday, but that is the source of the county government to provide that to the schools. Finally, we have the transfer to capital and debt service by the formula that increases to $2.4 million. We'll hear next Monday also what that provides in terms of projects.

[01:17:15] Now to Supervisor Malik's question, what about fiscal year 25 when the rate changes? So because we adopt, or the board adopts tax rates on the calendar year, there will be an impact in fiscal year 25 and fiscal year 26. So when the board adopts a rate in May the tax bills that will be you collected in June will be impacted by that rate So with the impact of personal property increasing the four cents on real estate And the we also included in this the impact of the stronger than anticipated reassessment That would generate eleven point one million dollars of one-time money in fiscal year 25

[01:17:52] Staff would recommend the board allocate that as part of the budget process as follows On this one-time money, staff is recommending to use the traditional 54-10-36 split. So this provides $6 million to the public school operations staff would recommend, because that money is not available to June, to direct that one-time into the CIP.

[01:18:13] This helps support the school CIP project as part of the recommended county executive budget. Capital's 10% share does the same thing. It supports the recommended CIP. For county government, that 36% one-time money, staff would recommend allocating that $3 million in the affordable housing investment fund and just under 1 million dollars it rounds up 2 million to the economic development fund a Wednesday we'll discuss really the history of those funds their fellow balances how they've been used so the board can have that information but this is really for what those transfers look like after the board adopts the budget we bring back this as an action for the board to amend 25 for this revenue this is also

[01:18:52] important because if the board considers different rates whether they be more or less. This also can impact these items in fiscal year 25 as well. So other uses of funds for tax relief. We've talked about this a couple times for the presentation. This is the amount based upon what the board approved in January to continue to increase the relief limits every year. That'll grow at 11%. The reserve contingency is to Galloway's question to total $736,000, $322,000 ongoing one-time 413 if the board is desiring amendments to the budget that

[01:19:31] can be a funding source finally other uses of funds includes a few categories that i'm going to discuss on wednesday as part of our overall workforce and customer service discussions the re-engineering savings changes positions salary benefits reserve and of course the health fund with that i'll turn it over to the chair for any questions thank you um yes i want to just drill down make sure i'm understanding the viewer slide on the history of 38 so when we talk since i paid attention which has been after all

[01:20:10] these texts um the the 54 36 uh like aphorism has become like ubiquitous um and i'm wondering do those is that figure a 54 36 split is that captured post these or pre these right like if these are dedicated funding streams then they're still dedicated right um so does that question make sense yeah that is so well if i follow you that's a good question because that's a good distinction where really when these rate changes are happening it's really just just in

[01:20:47] adjusting the base amount and then next year things continue to grow 54 36 with one exception historically and that's the water resources fund which is 0.7 cents that was created during fiscal year 17 where that 0.7 wherever the value of a penny changes for 0.7 that remains with water resources second exception is actually what is recommended in this budget where the affordable housing 0.4 cents that would recommend for that 0.4 to remain with the housing fund and not be split in the future so those would be the two exceptions if I'm hearing your question correctly

[01:21:21] I think I understand which is the simpler version that this could have been right it could have So I appreciate that's the only question I had on this I appreciate the clarification about how that's going to roll into the specials Yes, I also have a question on slide 37 Okay, so if I understand that correctly we're asking we're raising the property tax four cents 3.2 for public safety that is not part of the split

[01:21:59] Four cents for the schools. Since it's going to the schools, that's not part of the split. Correct. Fully dedicated to them. Right. And the four cents for affordable housing, that's not going for the split. Why?

[01:22:16] And not that I wanted to, but I'm just, I understand for understanding public safety in schools, but I'm not understanding if it was affordable housing or some other category, would that be, do we make the decision that goes into the split or not?

[01:22:32] the reason that the reason that I recommended that point four cents four tenths of a penny to affordable housing not go through the split was that we were looking to try to make a meaningful impact and with four tenths of a penny that's 1.2 million of ongoing money that would go directly into affordable housing on an ongoing basis if the board supported that along with the three million of one-time funding that that if the board except for that it'll be ready July the first and so that that point four is 1.2 million and I felt

[01:23:09] like that it was all that we could afford to do and balance given the other obligations that we had but I felt like that was a meaningful enough amount of money to to really talk about in the context of what the the community has been asking for. I hope that answers your question. Question. The fact that the 3.2 cents goes to ongoing for public safety, correct, and is not part of the split, that 4.4 goes to schools, not part of the split, is the fact that it's 0.44 affordable housing ongoing,

[01:23:48] does that make it not part of the split? And I don't. Correct. Okay, that's what I, that's what I was wondering is I'm sorry if I didn't understand but so if it was something else besides affordable housing but it was ongoing that would not be part of the split well the way that the way that this dedicated tax rate increase was designed it was it was designed first of all to take care of the public safety obligations that we're taking on as the FEMA safer money the federal grant goes away and so 3.2 of the four cents was focused 100% on

[01:24:27] local government not going through the split just to the federal just just to the federal funding going away like it's about ten million dollars and that left us with eight tenths of a penny and we were able to look at number one devoting half of that to schools and then what that did was bring them up to a total increase of 7.3 percent I understand all that okay I'm sorry then I don't understand your question I'm just wondering I can understand public safety because it's ongoing schools on going so for affordable housing what makes it not part of the split it is the fact that it's ongoing so if we were to

[01:25:06] switch out that's what I'm saying that at all but something else let's say besides schools we put in something else if it's ongoing that's not part of the split I'm trying to understand how the board has full flexibility On you know what if anything whether it would like to split pennies or whether it would like to dedicate them we're not Dedicated and so this is one and looking at all the six strategic goals and how we move forward on them the county executive felt to make a investment in housing which has not received ongoing funding before that required something different that cannot be Accommodated in the current revenue growth in the split given everything else has gone on in the budget

[01:25:45] Okay, so to be in the split not to be in the split is something we as a board decide yes This is a recommendation for the board's consideration if the If those four pennies were to be and allocated differently that would have a lot of moving parts in the budget that we would need to Assist the board and understanding what other levers made that it would that may impact. Thank you Yeah, I don't have any questions just a comment

[01:26:19] Now, I really appreciate the general principal split because it has taken, and I recognize flexibility is excellent, but it has taken the inconsistency away and made the dollars more stable for us and the schools.

[01:26:45] And I can tell you, before we had that agreed-upon split, we could fill the balcony and the auditorium in the county office building with people upset about school funding. And what happened was our community was pitted against each other on school funding and government.

[01:27:04] So this, in principle, this split has been wonderful for our community and the getting along in this community and not driving fights every year about how much is going to go to schools and how much is going to go to county government.

[01:27:23] Having said that, this chart has been very helpful. I really appreciate it, and I think it is important for everybody to understand that the board of supervisors, at the end of the day, make a decision, and that decision can be around who gets one and what share is.

[01:27:41] It can change, but I'm just saying that this, the idea of a formula has really been beneficial over the last 20 years to our community. It takes the politics out of it. Well, and it just takes the angst that we just were in horrible. Pitying the schools against county government is not helpful to anybody.

[01:28:01] And this has taken that angst away. So just a comment on my part. And that's all. How's it going? Yes, one comment and then a question. On your other use of funds, page 235 and 236.

[01:28:20] I guess I never realized in past years the lapse factor was inside the Department of Legends and not this one. So the comment is I am wholeheartedly endorsed the way that you're going to be able to do this to look at it as an organization here, I've never really taught that before.

[01:28:38] My question is, I can't remember now if this was a school board memory or this board memory, but the 175 being used to calculate, I think it's 175 for the laps. Remind me how that's arrived at.

[01:28:55] We look at our experience and try and target about two-thirds of that Because we don't want to budget labs so aggressively that we are all positions to make that But it's also and again, it's two-thirds of our experience and I'll call what is maybe a normal work environment Certainly the pandemic was a very different experience now that we've implemented common class study We've had some different results But two-thirds of the experience is where 1.75 comes from because it is a credit and it's via budgeting If you made it one and a half just got rid of some credit if you make it two, then you just added some credit. So I know it can be so

[01:29:36] But you're saying the 175 is based on the pre pandemic kind of experience. Yeah, and more recently I would say this is kind of a comfortable risk tolerance We have because there's a risk to going higher or lower as well as we manage that. Thank you Thank you a question to lead is looking at the revenue sharing formula, excruciating page, 239.

[01:30:05] And I feel like I'm going around and around in circles. It's in the book, not in your book. It showed a lower city assessment ratio, significantly lower. So my question to leave for a future day is does this significantly lower the value of the property in the city, which is a major component of the sharing formula?

[01:30:33] If they are not doing as satisfactory a job as the county is to have their assessment ratios within that state thing, 95 to 100 to 105, they're at 89, which looks like a pretty big difference to me. Then I want to know if they need to do a better job on that or there needs to be an adjustment.

[01:30:53] So please don't try to answer that now because that's a can of worms that I know you didn't prepare for. So just have that on your list. We'll take that as a follow-up. Yes. And on 38, this chart is excellent, but what would also be very instructive is what a penny would work.

[01:31:10] Because back in 14, it was 1.5 million. And the dollars are very, very different than what they can buy as well as the amount. So it's not just 0.2 or whatever. It's $2 million or $10 million. And so I would really appreciate not having you do the math myself.

[01:31:29] Thank you very much. Thank you for that. So as a fine print, this is fiscal year 25, but when we have discussed the fiscal year 26 budget, we've talked about the four cents of a penny calling for the affordable housing as a dedicated stream, but time an additional 3 million.

[01:32:03] Yes. This is, is, that's the source of the 3 million. this is the 3 million so it's the fiscal year 25 that's coming up and same with the economic development fund so these are coming right out of that correct year 25 okay just want to make sure i understood that to reiterate just for the numbers came out that way yeah this is a construct staff has followed the split in this case the board has full freedom to shift among these categories it would just affect the other parts of the budget that it are funding whether it be capital operating yeah part of the reason why I was trouble because the six million public schools doesn't really fit this because there's other

[01:32:42] contributions to that so let me just reiterate I'm good so every time there's is a transfer to school ongoing that becomes automatically part of the base and I keep harping on the base because that's grown so dramatically in a few years that I've been on the board so I've corrected that right spot yes that is yeah that would be the staff's recommendation for the board

[01:33:18] it's there forever thank you one additional clarifying question just the continual conversation about what is and is not ongoing and how ongoing dedicated differs from just dedicated right so my My understanding is that the 3.2 cents for public safety is dedicated for this calendar year, and then moving forward, that will not be an ongoing dedicated element, unlike the housing element, which is ongoing, is dedicated, which means it will go – that that remaining

[01:33:53] 3.6 cents will be – will proceed by split in the future. I'll try maybe explain this so of those four cents next year pretend the board adopts this recommendation next year 3.6 the top two lines are going to change in value however that 3.6 changes in value staff would recommend splitting that 54 36 10 as a point for the board's consideration that point for staff would

[01:34:31] recommend not split in that in the same way that water resources is not split right now that is consistent with what i understood um maybe i articulated it poorly um but the thing that i want to draw attention and make sure i'm understanding is that would mean as a percentage the tax the additional tax rate that we're levying this year that we're proposing to levy this year as a percentage a smaller portion of that next year would be going to public safety

[01:34:59] Right because yes, and I guess I'm asking I would trust that we are art because that's all those are all going to ongoing funding needs Right. Those are all salaries That 3.2 that's dedicated to public safety So if we know that the percentage will be lesser what next year is is there already an assumption based on our projected?

[01:35:27] Revenue like our assessment increases or are we expecting another short? I think really when staff has this it's really trading off the simplicity and communication with financial planning because I'm and I know the schools appreciate that we had this formula in one page and the board was so supportive two or three years ago to simplify the formula to have it be the seven-step calculation versus what it was before so there would be an impact but it would be one impact among all the factors that we would consider in the budget as an example if next year the PRS rate will change in the state if county government were

[01:36:04] to change and schools were to not, that could be an even more impactful change than this potential allocation. And the board will always have the right in any year to adjust that as they've seen it. So if next year we're going with the four cents, okay, next year the board decides to reduce that four cents, reduce the tax rate, how would that change this?

[01:36:35] Would it still be 0.4 for schools, 0.4 for affordable housing, and then we don't know where would be for public safety yeah I kind of think from a year from now that board would have the full flexibility to apply that and the way they felt if it would help we could prepare it sort of the math exercise to show how this would work across fiscal year 26 to 27 I guess I'm just wondering why the I thought and I'm thinking thank you clarifying that but I thought public safety schools and

[01:37:13] affordable housing would be ongoing with the 4 cents. And what you're saying is that won't be ongoing for public safety. Exactly. Or it will be ongoing.

[01:37:29] No, that's what they were saying. It would not be ongoing. It goes into the base. It goes into their base. Once it goes into the base, then as other tax revenues come in, they get split according to the formula. Can I clarify? I may have not said this because it goes back to the allocation of shared revenue it really goes back that first sentence it's really the increase or decrease in shared revenue so it's not the full pennies that would be split it's just that smaller differential that would year to year of every year it's not taking the whole budget and kind of re-carving it up it just is that fractional difference now the board's questions can still remain but it's just if it

[01:38:05] helps now we can also design a budget where that's not split in the future for public safety and education too if that's the board's desire so if i understand it correctly that 3.2 would go into the base for public safety and then because it's in the face then that go is the is attributable to the will the split well yeah that that's part of their split but that's in the face whereas for schools well that that point forward that big part of their that would be the same way affordable housing

[01:38:43] also no I'll try an example so it was just a public safety I'll round it up to $10 million if that $10 million grows 4% next year that would be $400,000 instead of that 400,000 being dedicated to public safety would be split 54 3610 in the same way the school's dedication would be split in that same way the housing would not be split it would remain with housing that's as it's designed in the budget is recommended that is how that would work okay and so But it would just be that point for dedicated housing.

[01:39:22] Correct. We currently have an amount dedicated to the Water Resource Fund in the same way. Correct. But it is something that the board could decide to change in the future. In a year the board can make that change. Thank you. I may have been the only one to misunderstand from the very beginning.

[01:39:39] I thought that 3.2 was going to be dedicated. And that was the way it was being presented to our citizens that way. That was not the way I understood it. And so this is a really important conversation today. because it changes everything as far as the outreach is concerned. I remember back when the water resources was put on, and everybody said, that's great at solving a particular problem.

[01:39:59] I don't have any problem with that. But feeding the base is different. So I will just now let that happen. Okay. I'm still confused about what you're, I'm not. I just had thought it was going to be dedicated in the same way going forward.

[01:40:19] Oh. That's the way it was explained. Okay. What break do you propose? Is it sufficient? Time with me. Yeah, absolutely. We're already a little past. I'm happy to keep going, but that's it.

[01:41:28] Welcome back, everybody.

[01:42:22] I'm Supervisor Gallo. I hope he's returning soon. Recording in progress. Let's start it again. Thank you. All right, so we'll resume now walking through the functional area chapters of the budget document.

[01:42:39] Again, going to add an order today with public safety, which is the largest county-governed functional area. Primarily, we can see it's at 16% of the general fund, and it's mostly made up of the fire rescue and police department also with our community agency such as the regional jail emergency communication center lures juvenile detention center and charles swab our spcab and key partners and part of the overall story of our obligations and our increases that we have so we're joined at the table by uh chief engelson and colonel reed so we're going to walk through this but before they begin their presentations i'm actually going to

[01:43:11] turn it over for an introduction from our chief operating officer christy shiflin hello um i wanted to touch on one thing that the board has already heard about in a previous session and that is that we were going to do a public safety staffing study and so I just want to spend a moment because this is going to this is something that both Chief Eggleston and Chief Reeves have brought from their departments that they're asking you know we'd really like to take a moment to bring in some outside expertise to look at best practices to look at calls for service and and also how we

[01:43:51] schedule and support our community and so because they both wanted to look at this we decided to merge this together in one contract and I just wanted to let you know a little bit about that before they go into what you're going to hear today from them is that they have different challenges and different needs but this study is going to review the department's current and potential staffing levels they're going to look at industry standards and best practices they're going to also look at the evaluation of the current conditions

[01:44:26] that includes staffing levels scheduling operational and administrative staffing and also their response delivery capacity and then they're going to look at future service demand forecast as well and so this is as much about where we're headed and how we need to continue to focus and serve our community as it is about current day and so that study is going on right now they have come on site and they're taking a look at our community and our stations and different things and meeting with staff from both departments and then we expect this to be

[01:45:04] final in the fall of this year. So I just wanted to share that with you before we go into listening about the different departments perspective. If there are any questions, then I'll hand it over to Chief Reaves. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you, Christy. Before we begin, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Mr. Richardson and the County Executive's Office for this opportunity to be before you today to talk about the police department's request for six additional law

[01:45:34] enforcement officers. So to begin, I want to start with where we're at now as a police department and provide an overview of our current staffing levels and how we're deploying, how we're utilizing the officers that we have within our ranks. So currently we have 165 sworn positions and 158 of those are filled. The five vacancies that you do not see up there are already counted for. One of

[01:46:09] is the deputy chief of police position we have two for the hearts position that we are currently advertising internally and externally and then one in patrol and one cid so those positions are already dedicated we have several certified officers in background check plus several slated to go to july's academy so when you look at the current number of 158 it's important to note that 15 of those positions are either in field training or in the academy with four on light duty so the significance of that 15 number is the fact that it usually takes about one year for a brand new

[01:46:47] officer once they get hired to go through pre-academy the training academy post-academy field training before they're released on their own so we're in this constant flux of constantly advertising for vacant positions we're fortunate to have a very talented training recruitment unit within the police department that keeps our staffing levels so high within the police department along with our 663 sworn positions we have 28 professional staff that's our support staff that include our service division staff our analyst and our victim witness staff as well

[01:47:23] and with currently one vacancy in that position and how the breakdown is and how you wouldn't mind going back sorry for patrol operations sixty percent sixty two percent of our sworn staffing goes to patrol and then you can see the continued breakdown of numbers below that on how we allocate the 163 sworn positions that does include myself as well as command staff and supervisor staff in those numbers next please i just want to provide the board with a timeline of uh we are appreciative of the resources that we have been given over the past several years uh starting in

[01:48:02] 2022 we received five sworn officers with the bulk of those positions going into patrol with one going our training officer uh position um the problem origin policing officer or the pop officers you see down below was a grant funded position that the county graciously took up funding for so it was cost neutral and then in the years follow you can see how many uh police officers that have been committed to include last year where we were awarded three sworn field uh full-time employees with two of those positions being committed to hearts the heart team and one

[01:48:38] of those to the tdo transport uh to assist with with those called next slide please so the elmore county police department we practice a geographic policing model meaning that we are currently broken up into two different districts the jefferson district that you see are the orange colors and And then the Blue Ridge District you see in the blue colors.

[01:49:06] Our officers work 10-hour shifts. Again, we're broken up into two different sectors or two different districts with eight sectors altogether and 21 beats that you don't see within these sectors. So that's how we deploy our resources. You can see under daylight, evening, and midnight shift how many officers are allocated and dedicated to each shift.

[01:49:28] And then I want to draw attention to the minimum staffing numbers. That's the minimum amount of officers that we'll have on the street in order to effectively do our job. There are several occasions where we are at our minimum staffing levels right now based on our rotating schedules and how we are deploying our resources.

[01:49:47] Going back to the study Christy referenced earlier on, that is one of the things that we are considering is how we are deploying our resources and are we utilizing our resources in the most effective manner. I want to spend some time talking about our workload and performance measures.

[01:50:12] How we track our performance is with our calls for service. And that's one of the easiest benchmarks to look at is just overall calls for service. And calls for service are broken up into two general categories. Public generated calls for service, that means that somebody has emergency or somebody needs police assistance, they'll pick up the phone and call 911, and we will dispatch an officer or more than one officer out there.

[01:50:37] And then proactive or officer initiated, those are your warrant services, those are your traffic stop, or several administrative services type calls for service. And then there's the proactive service activity that we want to see our officers do. We want them to be engaged with the community.

[01:50:54] We want them building relationships with the community. We want them to be doing proactive patrols in areas within their geographic districts. We want them to be visible in both urban and rural communities. And we want them to be able to do proactive policing and identify those hotspots that are in our community.

[01:51:14] What an ideal metric for our police officers should be, 60% of their available time should be in reactive mode. That means that 60% of their day or their shift should be going to those calls for service with 40% of their day doing what you see under there as a proactive service activity, training, report writing, go to court, things like that.

[01:51:32] That's how they should be spending their time. In 2023, we did an internal review of officers' workload analysis, and that number is 90% of officers' time is in pure reactive mode, leaving only 10% of time to do these extra activities. So you can see the strain that it's putting on our officers just to be purely reactive and go to call-to-call.

[01:51:53] Next slide, please. So I want to take a moment to talk about how our police department comes up with numbers. I'm oftentimes asked, Chief, how many officers do you need to do your job? There was an older metric where police departments looked at population, and I see Ms. McKeel as Malik nodding her head as well.

[01:52:18] And so you would agree that maybe over the past two-plus decades, it was 1.4 per 1,000, and that was the formula that was utilized. There are new ways that law enforcement agencies are looking at how they're deploying resources, and that is a service model.

[01:52:33] What is the community's expectations of their police department? you want our resources deployed so by comparison just side by side comparison if we were to take the almar county police department and we're looking at our next door neighbor in the city of charlesville you can see how we compare on population how we compare on geographic areas with almar county having both urban and rural areas in our in our geographic location but our officer population ratio is 1.4 officers per thousand so you know at you know 20 years ago that's a great number right but in today's market you know right now if we look at what the fbi says

[01:53:13] and the bureau of justice statistics say on average law enforcement agencies within our state have about 2.4 officers per thousand um so the next question is okay chief if we were to to meet that number how many officers were you need that officer that number is 115. that is not what i'm asking this board for and that's not what i'm asking the county executive for that just shows you that that we need to reframe and relook at the way that we're deploying our resources and not just look at sole population numbers well that is a factor that is not the factor it is is our staff doing what needs to be done in order to provide the service our community expects of them so i just

[01:53:50] wanted to call that out that number out because it does get asked quite a bit about the 1.4 per officer ratio next slide please so how do we stand as of last year as of 2024 at the end of 2024 officers responded to over 75 403 calls for service comparing that number to 2021 we saw about 17 increase if we were to look at 2024 2021 over a three-year average from 21 to 23 what we're seeing is about a 2.2 percent increase due to the ebbs and flows of of calls for service what

[01:54:29] i want to spend a moment talking about is our priority one calls for service our priority one calls for service are dispatched through our ecc system through an alert tone some of you sit on this side of the room may have heard a buzzing noise going on in the background a couple times that was the priority one alert tone that was going off those are the most serious calls for service our officers can go to those are the ones where there's a threat of bodily harm those are your in progress calls like a breaking interest entering call for service or it could be a motor vehicle with entrapment and injury we're assisting the fire department with a call and those typically take anywhere from two officers and above depending on the search and circumstance so when you see

[01:55:08] those numbers and that increase of priority one calls those are singular events and what we're seeing over the past several years especially in our urban areas is an increase an overall increase in those priority one calls for service we're compared to 2021 we saw an 88 increase in priority want calls. If you compare it to the three-year average, it's still a 34% increase in the urban areas with 50 and 17 respectively in the rural areas of the county. So our calls are becoming more and more complicated and more and more risky than we're going to because there is a real world risk when our officers are running lights and sirens to a call. It puts our officers at risk

[01:55:47] and puts the community at risk when they're operating their vehicles. So training is essential. But this indicator says that by this stats that our community is going through, use that 911 system, we're getting more and more priority one calls for our staff.

[01:56:04] And the final thing I'll draw your attention to is when I referenced the beats earlier on. If you look at red, the red areas, there are six police beats that are responsible for over 50% of all calls for service. And then in the burnt orange, if we add those two burnt orange areas in the Crows area and the area around 5th Street, around the Urban Ring, adding those to it, you would have eight sectors that comprise 72% of all calls for service on county is in that geographic region that you see indicated up there.

[01:56:40] Next slide, please. So earlier on when I talked about metrics, I talked about workload balance. This is another key area that we're paying attention to is our response times. Somebody picks up that phone and calls 911 in the urban sector, in the rural sector, and it is a priority one calls for service, how quickly our officers can get there on scene.

[01:57:04] So in 2024, we met that in the urban ranks. Let me take a step back. So in the urban ranks and the urban areas of the county, we have a sub-five-minute response time. That means if our office, if you pick up the phone, there's an emergency, at least one police officer will be on scene in under five minutes, 85 to 100% of the time.

[01:57:25] that's what that that's what our goal is in the rural areas it's 10 minutes just because geography and the way our roads are structured we want officers driving license items very safely on the back roads um 85 to 100 of the time as you can see by the response times in 2024 and we only hit that metric in the urban area 73 of the time and then in the rural areas we still have not been able to break that 50 threshold so getting two emergency calls for service priority run one running lights and sirens Still remains problematic

[01:58:01] Because as you'll see in the next slide because most of our time and our officers resources are being spent in the urban areas So it's going to have an extended response time next slide, please. I apologize There's a there was an additional slide with the this line. Thank you So with so why the six officers now and what do we what's the police department plan on doing with those six officers Those six officers, they're going to be specifically identified for patrol, not the specialty divisions, not special operations, not investigations or any other function.

[01:58:40] It is purely for patrol. And as you can see by those black dots, what that indicates is where our officers are spending the majority of their time on the shift based on call needs and service needs. What those green dots indicate is our intent to place those officers within those two sectors, specifically the west side and the south side, in order to free them up, to provide additional services, backup, and additional coverage in the more rural area parts of the county.

[01:59:08] And because we are a 24-7 service with three different shifts, that is why it's the sixth officer asked. And I don't know if you wanted to cover this. Very briefly, Colonel Reeves has spoke at length about the staffing, performance and all the data they've tracked. I also wanted to acknowledge in the budget are some other notable operational increases related to vehicle replacement and equipment costs. We track a schedule of when those are due and we have a substantial volume that would be recommended for next year's budget. Also included is the ongoing education and

[01:59:44] training. Colonel Reed spoke to that and also the immense amount of training as we onboard new staff and have them ready to perform in the field. And finally, a lot of the physical mental health services we are providing in the police department and we'll have a similar comment to fire rescue for as those costs increase contractually that is factored into the budget as well so these are not the uh the headline of the story with six officers and colonel brief's presentation if you would be to acknowledge them as we would in the other department's notable drivers so with that um perhaps this would be a good time to wrap questions around

[02:00:19] police before we move to fire um i want to begin by saying thank you so much i um was one of the few members of the board who passed I'm not even sure I would say pushed back but had asked for a little bit more of the data story to justify this because we you've seen that in the past from other departments and because frankly I know a lot of the requests for police got left on the cutting room floor during the previous budget cycle this wasn't this wasn't a perspective and a data story I've seen presented and I think this makes the case really compelling I have

[02:00:57] a few questions just because this isn't data that has come before me since I've been on the board since I've been here and I'm just hoping to understand a few things in greater depth can you help me so at the beginning you and I'm missing the slide for I'm sorry I believe this was 47 you talked about your your daily minimum shift staffing is that um that internally generated figure or is that that, like, driven by specific, like, measurable exigent circumstances.

[02:01:32] Yeah, thank you for that question. If you look back at the map, you'll see the way our sectors are set up, one through eight. What those minimum officer numbers do is ensure that there's at least one officer in every sector, with an additional officer that could serve as a backup officer.

[02:01:49] Did that answer your question? It does. That is the exact answer I was looking for. I think you, I wrote this down very early on, but I think you actually answered it in the rest of it. But I feel like I sometimes think of my role in this chair as being the person who tries to interface between technical policy and creating a story that is accessible for it, right?

[02:02:16] We have comms people who tell the individual pieces, but we're over here trying to craft a coherent narrative of what's happening to society in our community, how that translates into policy and vice versa. And something I've found myself, a narrative that I've found myself resonating with is that the world, even if it's not becoming more violent, it's becoming more attuned to violence.

[02:02:41] And with that, I would assume that we see, even if our crime rates aren't shifting dramatically, we see these calls for service significantly increasing. Is that, am I off base with that, I guess is kind of where I would ask. Does that feel, does that resonate with your own experience?

[02:02:58] It does, but I think it's also important to realize that we also live in a relatively safe community as well, especially when you compare it to other comparable jurisdictions. We do have relatively low homicide rates, motor vehicle crashes, but they're not zero.

[02:03:18] And so to your point, yes, we do see what we are seeing is crimes becoming more complex. We're seeing technology touch more of our crimes. We are leveraging relationships within the region with the city and university and our state and federal partners too as a force multiplier and as the board's aware, we're also examining ways that we can utilize technology as a force multiplier with speed cameras, drones, but at the end of the day, you still need humans, you still need people deployed out in the field to do this job.

[02:03:47] And I think it bears worth repeating that when I talk about those priority one calls for service, when somebody picks up the phone calls 911 and those metrics of sub five minutes, sub 10 minutes, that means that one officer is on that seat within sub five minutes, sub 10 minutes.

[02:04:05] And their backup could be further away. So what I'm trying to do with these six officers is close that gap and start looking at how we're providing and deploying resources So we're trying to do this job, to do it safely. On a similar just kind of line of cap-checking, the kind of political narratives that we craft against like the actual factual experience of what it looks like to staff this department.

[02:04:32] A talking point I've used before that people have politely pushed back and said, I'm not sure how accurate that is, is that expanded authority for rural speedcams could potentially, if not reduce staffing demands, could reduce the growth of staffing.

[02:04:48] in the patrol sector but it's been pointed out to me well if we're driven primarily by calls for service that might not actually be correct so I guess I would just ask when we talk about mobile speed enforcement or automated speed enforcement technologies do you see this as having a tangible impact on your staffing needs either in the immediate sense or the further sense that would certainly be a follow-up conversation because it is com it is very complicated right now there's no law that allows us to do that and that what

[02:05:26] those speed cameras do is it catches speeders in that that would be the function it has no bearing on the overall calls for service it might help reduce in certain areas some fatalities or some issues that we have for speeding but just like any piece of technology people humans become accustomed to seeing it and and they'll just go around and it's the behaviors we're trying to change um thank you i wasn't even going to ask that today but uh what you said previously kind of reminded me that i had this outstanding kind of question that i've been wanting to ask um on

[02:06:01] the timeline i had and this is a really minor question and probably my own misunderstanding um this is slide 46 um i remember when we voted on this last year or when the board requested to add an additional hearts team last year i always pluralize it it's not correct i did an additional heart team um at the time there was one heart team we were proposing to add another heart team there was also an additional sworn officer i believe that was added at that time that was

[02:06:38] i thought it was separate from the heart team but this was as uh 2025 two heart officers added and i'm just i guess my understanding was that there were two heart officers fte's positions period but this timeline crafts three and i'm making sure i'm not misunderstanding you're not and what this what this uh slide does is it shows transparency it shows the board what we did with that officer based on the fact that that we're awarded one tdo and oftentimes it takes two officers to do a tdo i made the decision the conscious decision to take that that officer

[02:07:13] position because it's still a sworn position um and allocated to the the hearts team to help offset that demand with mental health okay did that answer your question directly answered my question thank you um and helps me understand it squares it with my own experience and memory at the end i have another note on here and i don't remember what i meant by it so i might try and puzzle out what i meant when i wrote this note and uh mr chair if you want to check back in with me and see if i figured it out by hand yes thank you very much for the presentation i really appreciate

[02:07:48] that. Wanted to know how many two-person cars do you have? Does it vary by morning or morning and midnight shifts with three shifts? We have a grand total of zero, so we have no two-person cars. In situations that you see two-person cars is usually when it's a trainee and their field training officer. So right now, you know, we have a number of those that you see that operate two-person call, but the role of field trainer is to step back and evaluate and grade and watch

[02:08:27] and coach and mentor that young officer, not necessarily interfere unless absolutely necessary. Where we do adjust from that, that two-person car, is on inclement weather days. When there's a blizzard, then we'll pair them up for safety reasons in case there is a priority call and we make sure their officers get their safety but no we do not have two person if you found um there are areas of the county that you would need two-person car let's say in the midnight ship or evening shifts there could be benefits to that but again because the county is so large that'd be something that'd

[02:09:03] be a long-term strategy not a short-term strategy because all you're doing is potentially tying up resources now you have two resources that are now tied up where we're where one would suffice Well, I was thinking more of, you know, maybe a pocket area of also overtime, how much overtime do you?

[02:09:29] I would have to get back to you with the actual numbers, but I can say, and I can check with our finance department. Every quarter we submit a balanced budget on our overtime, so the budget that we place, we operate within our overtime budget, and we're conscious about that, so we operate within the authorized budget.

[02:09:49] Okay, I was just wondering whether or not you're having to do more over time because you don't have enough officers. That's factored in to our request with callbacks and holdovers in those special circumstances, so that's factored in our budget. So right now we're fortunate that we are not over a budget, but as Jake and I have discussed before, all it takes are one or two critical incidents, and those long incidents, and the fire chief's nodding his head.

[02:10:16] And that can really impact our overtime budget. For example, we spent over $20,000 last year supporting a local jurisdiction in a two- to three-day operation. And all six officers you're talking about, including our patrol officers?

[02:10:41] Yes, ma'am. All six would be dedicated to patrol, yes. You don't want me to interrupt you. Mr. Davidson, you had the overtime number for police. Yes, for FY 25 revised budget and what we're proposing for FY, recommending for FY 26 is just under $1.6 million.

[02:11:00] And it's a slight increase from the prior year to adjust for increases in salaries and benefits as we move forward. Okay, and your officers work at 410? Yes. So then if they do any overtime, they're there 12, 14 hours, correct?

[02:11:18] That's their discretion on overtime, yes. I have a philosophy of trying to, for a variety of reasons, keep stay away from 12-hour shifts for our officers because you factor in commute time, rest time, court time, training time, that quickly eats into, you know, you don't want staff working 18, 19-hour days and having to turn right back around and make critical decisions the next day fatigued.

[02:11:40] And I understand that the school zone, in Albemarle High School, there have been a large amount of tickets issued. Yes, there have been. then my I mean a huge ticket and my understanding is if they fight it and they go to court then an officer has to go to court yes that is correct a member of our traffic unit actually reviews the company reviews the the violation and then it's it's sent over to the police department for for a second review and then if it does go to court then an officer goes to court to testify which is more time which is additional time that is correct those are all my

[02:12:20] questions thank you thank you i wasn't going to ask this until right and her question um are you finding a lot of people are going to court over these fines or do you have that it's just a sense i don't have uh the sense i'm received for a traffic unit it's not a it's not a large number a longer number the time issue so just a couple of really easy things for you um you have your pop officer and it would probably be good for the public to understand what a pop officer is Yes. Oh, I agree 100%.

[02:12:56] Y'all know them as Officer Joe George and Officer Steve McColl. No, but what does POP mean? Problem-oriented policing. There you go. That's what I was saying. I'm sorry. What was that? Problem-oriented policing officer. So those are specialty officers that do community events, but as well as if we're having a series of automobile thefts, you know, they can work with patrol.

[02:13:18] And there are jack-of-all-trades in our police department. Just wanted you to explain what POP is. Yes, apologies if I didn't cover her. Oh, that's okay. Just people will look at it and wonder. And one of the questions that I get or receive a lot from the public, probably because of the area that I represent, is are the officers that are directing traffic at Almar High School or at some of the other private schools, because people see officers, they see a uniform, they're not sure what the uniform is.

[02:13:53] So are they, those officers are volunteering, not volunteering, but they are outside of their work with, explain that. Those are, yeah, that's a good question. Those are contractual overtime assignments that are funded through school.

[02:14:09] So it's not, it is not uncommon to see somebody from the Sheriff's Department directing traffic or the Police Department directing traffic at these events, but there's contracted through whatever school wants an officer out there directing traffic. So that's separate from your budget?

[02:14:25] That's separate from a daily, an officer on the street does not get pulled in to do that. So the private schools that are using that, those private schools are paying for those officers? That was correct. Yeah, okay. I said these were the easy ones. I'm just going through my notes here.

[02:14:46] I really found that, well, first of all, I'm really thrilled that you all are doing the study. And I'm thrilled that you're doing it together, even though you'll get separate recommendations. I mean, I get that, but that is really, really neat.

[02:15:03] And just to follow up with that, I really found over the years, using the formula for population was really easy for the community to understand. I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, and I'm happy to move away from it, but just trying to think about how to explain it to the community, it made it simple.

[02:15:27] It does, yeah, I agree. Unfortunately, law enforcement does not have a set formula because every jurisdiction is going to be different. Every jurisdiction is unique and has their own needs. How we explain it sometimes, if we get it down to it. So when we get the study back, we'll see what they're recommending.

[02:15:44] And my only other question is getting at quality of life issues. And probably because a lot of my high-density neighborhoods, apartment complexes, but neighborhoods especially, i have a lot of calls to me around quality of life issues why is this i have a school bus right now parked in a neighborhood and people want to know why that school bus is there or i've had dump

[02:16:20] trucks and construction trucks parked in neighborhoods those quality of life or abandoned cars just on trailers and so trying to figure out sean because i know i was told two police chiefs back that that was coming as we urbanized and that there was going to be a need for the police to figure out how to cover those calls because they were going to just gain momentum. Not so much maybe, I'm sure they come in the rural area, but I think the grunt of them are probably in the development area. Yes. So can you just help me with that a little bit?

[02:16:59] Under current deployment strategies, we prioritize our calls for service because there's only so many resources to go around and that is not to dismiss or diminish the importance it is on those communities but sometimes our officers just don't have time to deploy to some of those lower tier parking violations that is a task I'm getting a little ahead of the county executive's office but a long-term strategy would be to look at a potential you know function of our traffic unit to

[02:17:34] support a a traffic program like you see that that enforces parking violations and things like that we're not even concept phase where it's a discussion phase right now it's something that we've identified that that we would like to have but internally we look at all of our other priorities and what's going on in the grand scheme of things and we are we are prioritizing those type of quality of life. Short-term, we get to those. It might not be immediately, but if people do have concerns, that will be utilized with problem-oriented policing officers in our traffic unit to take

[02:18:10] those enforcement actions and draw attention to those needs. And I get that, and you have to absolutely do that. Having said that, looking to the future, and I wondered if that is part of what, are those quality of life issues a part of the study? We can certainly, I've met with them today, They're doing their rounds.

[02:18:32] That's something that we have asked them to look at is not just quality of life, but all functions of the police department. And do we have the capacity to provide all these services? And if not, what does it take to provide those services? Great. Because I understand you don't now, but it's only going to grow as we are urbanizing and building out.

[02:18:53] And like I said, at some point, I think there's going to be a need, but you certainly have to prioritize it. I'm just putting it on the table. But I am really glad that perhaps the study might address that in some way.

[02:19:08] The consultants receive data from both departments about their calls for service. And so they are looking at the types of calls that they are just receiving as well. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. And that was all. Mr. Calloway. Thank you, Chief.

[02:19:24] And I apologize if some of these questions can be answered by the study. I didn't even make all of those questions here. You know, future planning or strategic planning, and I would use, I think the schools is the easiest way for me to think about this.

[02:19:45] We get more students, we need more teachers. And if we're currently operating at a 1-4 per 1,000, what's the AC44 population expectation? It was like 31,000 by 21. So that's 40 based at our current level.

[02:20:04] That would be another 40 to 45 officers over the next 15 years. And then that's just to keep pace at a staffing level that we think is not sufficient, or at least in my opinion would be sufficient. Now the study, I guess, will help us understand that.

[02:20:21] I know we all kind of laughed and you were like, well, I'm not here to ask for 115 more officers. But if there were 115 more officers out there, I think about 16,000 calls for service in the Rio District and how those calls for service might change if there was enough staffing out there to deal with that.

[02:20:41] And I don't necessarily guess I think of the first call for service. It's the second, the third, and the fourth. On top of that, when I see 90% of the time is in that reactive mode, and it's supposed to be 60-40, and we're 90-10, not just the strain it puts on, but the work that's not being done in a timely manner, how does that impact operations?

[02:21:08] But to get ahead of that, I mean, it's almost as if you've got a, you know, what's our expected population growth each year? It's like a percent, 2%, something like that. Last year was 5%. So it changes, but I mean, if you average it out of the trend, if we're not adding at least the one to four per thousand every year or whatever, based on the population growth, much in the same way you think of teacher allocation, then we just, you're going to be back here, you get your one or your two, and then every fourth or fifth year you get five or six.

[02:21:37] And it's from a long-term planning standpoint, that's not, I just don't, and that's not a new law. That's not a good planning approach. So maybe the study would help inform, like my question that I wrote down was how many, I think we could figure out what we would need to keep pace with growth and have to commit to that.

[02:22:02] That would be a board discussion. You're putting six, all six of these current positions into traffic, but since you're only getting six, like what's the need next year? Like earlier we were talking about, well, it's not going to be dedicated. It goes to the base, blah, blah, blah. But if it were dedicated to public safety and more specifically to police, is it six more traffic folks next year or is the criminal investigation department or special ops?

[02:22:28] Like what thinking in a five-year plan kind of approach, what would you say the needs are? Is it too early to ask that because we don't really know in the study? Yeah, I'll address some of those. So just for clarification, and forgive me if I wasn't clear, the six officers I'm asking for today are for patrol.

[02:22:50] They're going to go to patrol staff. They're the officers that do some traffic work, but they're the ones who pick up 911 on a domestic call, B&E call. Those are your first responders. So that's what I'm asking for today. As for the future years, what we're hoping for is to look at this study this fall, once it's completed, and then have that assist us in looking at how we're deploying resources and our future resource needs, and then have those discussions internally on what a long-term strategy is to meet those goals what it is we need in the next five years

[02:23:24] and then i would be remiss if i didn't acknowledge the the domino effect while we're specifically talking about the police department now as we grow our police department their internal resources that we need we need support from it we need support for human resources so i'm looking at it from a global perspective too and not just we need all these police officers or public safety officials what internal support staff do we need for the to support those folks I did that easier yeah I just I guess I look to the county executive and just say you know we do so well in five-year planning and a lot of different areas

[02:24:00] the staffing for something like this that really can be population-based the only way to get ahead of creep up on getting more coverage out there as we have to get ahead of the year-over-year growth by a position or two and I guess the math might be informed by the study. But speeding is a good, to me, how it represents in a citizen's eyes on the street. Like speeding, I just had this meeting with an HOA Friday.

[02:24:30] In speeding, everybody gets unhappy about speeding. But they don't see us out there really doing it. And a lot of times, you know, and I have to be careful why I say that is. Oh, we're such a big county and, you know, blah, blah, blah. But it's not necessarily bad is you said damn busy we can't get to this meeting of course because you're so there's too many other calls for service happening um but what but when this cycle i guess with it being on there we'll have a chance to talk to folks about it in public to help tell that story so

[02:25:03] they understand um but i i think this is one where um and i would imagine there's other departments that fall into that same type of thing like just because of population growth they need the extra position or else you fall further and further behind. If I may, I just want to respond to, so one of the things that the consultants are looking at are also the scheduling models and also the way the sectors have been built out. And so they're going to look at, are there any efficiencies we can find in what we're doing today? And also the special units

[02:25:38] that we have, should they be deployed differently or the same? And so we're going to look at how we're working today and then there's also going to be the future planning for the workload needs that we expect are coming and then they're going to lay out for us some options so that's what we're expecting to see to grapple with this challenge that we have and adding the six doesn't change the one for does it does it change it to one five or something like does it actually move the needle it's going to depend on population growth but yeah if you do the

[02:26:12] math and you see we've steadily maintained that 1.4 since 2021 and back further if I remember I guess maybe you were lower ten years ago with one two or one three story all right thank you thank you I hope that you're taking your consultants on a drive-along to the mountains in places where your staff has to go all the time and because they really need to see what it's like out there everybody driving thank you

[02:26:47] okay um so back in 2008 9 and 10 the chief at the time came to the board asking for four each time so that's 12 behind right there um and i was very grateful to finally be able to get a second at some point after that to try to build this but i agree that there is it's impossible to cover to what the citizens want, which is when they see somebody passing them at 80 on a country road, they want somebody to stop them right away and make them be accountable for it. And then

[02:27:22] that's not possible. But I'm excited about your study. I had written down when you were talking about page 47, and my question at that time was, you know, are the meets close enough together for any backup? Because I've never gotten over the young officer who went out to Afton at 12 o'clock at night all by himself very scary but 53 is a great solution if I'm understanding it correctly so you're and I don't know how that works for the three shifts either so where the arrows are going is those long-distance places where it looks like backup might be possible and not have to come from cove

[02:27:58] that let's seem to go out there we have certainly I so appreciate the being able to see the officers cars out in their yards that's a great deterrent right there. So I really hope that we continue to have them living in our neighborhoods for sure.

[02:28:14] I was shocked by the proposal even that 10 minutes response time in the rural area is on the table because 25 is the best I've ever had. So that's just time has changed I guess so good luck with trying for that.

[02:28:30] 54 you talked about the training academy. Is there any I know you were trying very hard to set up more training locally Is that still ongoing or is it still only focused on the place over in the valley? Right now the academy is the only place where officers get certified at this time.

[02:28:48] But pre-academy and post-academy occur within the police department, especially training curves elsewhere. And then you have a whole extra year almost. Yes. Great. So anyway, I really, I guess, don't have any extra questions other than support of all the other questions which were asked.

[02:29:09] Secondly, you can respond to me. A person leading a church funeral jumped out in front of me on Arlaysville Road by the church, by the desk floor, and it scared me because it was like from here to the far wall, and I screeched to a halt, and then they brought out the people leaving the funeral, but there were people going the other direction who just, you know, kept trying to go, I mean, it was a madhouse, so is there a rule about that, that I could then at least, when someone calls me about that, in the future, I will know what to say.

[02:29:44] you're not allowed to jump into the middle of the road and direct traffic without a uniform on I would assume yeah that that that would be the the preference is somebody in uniform some of some of these funeral homes do reach out or turn over job for all sort of support sometimes that does come from officer shift as available but no they're they're not supposed to be doing that but there's some grace in that if they're doing it safely and effectively Thank you very much.

[02:30:12] Thank you. I look forward to the study. I think there's a lot of great justification here, also interesting information. I'd like to know more eventually about rural and urban as well. I very much appreciate the presentation. Thank you, sir.

[02:30:29] We're going to keep waving on it. Just quickly, how many motorcycle officers do you have? I believe we have anywhere from four to six motorcycle officers. Those are specialized from the traffic units. The traffic units, right, exactly.

[02:30:46] Because that's the one complaint I hear about most of all is speeders. That's it, as you know. Thank you. Then I'll turn it over to Chief Eggleston to talk about the Fire Rescue Services portion of Public Safety.

[02:31:05] All right, well, good afternoon, board, and thank you. I too, like Colonel Rees, want to thank the county executive's office and the finance and budget group, because they bought us in fairly early on this process. and you all know this is a tough budget and um i would say it's a very big team effort we worked through a lot of things um and i just really appreciate the early notice and the involvement here out i mean i think we started meeting before the fy25 budget was ink was dry um but it was really beneficial to get in early and and also appreciate uh colonel reeves being here listening to his presentation because there's a lot of parallels uh of what the police department's

[02:31:44] experiencing what fire rescue is experiencing as well so I'm just going to go over some overview of some things talk about some of our demands and trends and then talk about our FEMA grants and and what's required to keep those going so if we go to the next slide just briefly you know a lot of you know this already but our system is made up of 14 fire stations fire rescue stations six of them are fully staffed with career staff and there's a legend there to show you which ones are six of them are a mix of career and volunteer staff and then two of them are fully staffed by volunteer staff so they're strategically

[02:32:23] located throughout the county we also break the county into different planning districts we have 11 different districts that we look at performance of those districts but in aggregate those districts performance really affect overall performance of the county because we're a networked system meaning that oftentimes on large-scale events and even events like a motor vehicle accident with entrapment it takes multiple units from different stations on that type of call so it's really important that those networks remain strong not only in their district but working together and as you all know

[02:33:00] we're a combination system meaning both career and volunteer members work side by side to provide service and you know we're the only county department to that relies heavily on unpaid professionals to provide a very important service so as you all know when when there's decline in our volunteer service we have to invest and make up those services through career staff just to maintain our level of service out there. Next slide. One of our central planning documents that's an industry standard in a best practice is our standards of cover. This is a

[02:33:37] is a fundamental document that you all approved back in 2019 called our Standards of Cover. And it's centrally focused on the risk assessment of our community. So it's designed, we had a group that came in to help us with this, and it's based upon the risk in our community.

[02:33:56] It's about six years old. We're in the process of updating it now. But it includes looking at our fixed and mobile resources. It recommends response times, objectives, which are down there at the bottom. and then we have a process to continuously evaluate our performance against those objectives.

[02:34:12] So right now, our response time objectives are 8 minutes 90% of the time in the development areas and then 21 minutes 90% of the time in the rural areas. I'm not too happy about the 21-minute time just because that's a long time, but we have such a vast area in the rural area to cover.

[02:34:31] It would be really difficult to cover anything more than that. But I thought we'd just briefly go over that and we'll talk about some of the performance at the end of the presentation Relative to these response time standards, so we can go to the next slide This is really talking about our our service demand trends as we say we we constantly evaluate our performance all the time and Like PD we're seeing a dramatic increase in calls for service 21% since 2019 We think that this is related looking at the calls for urbanization driving their growth especially in the development areas

[02:35:09] In what's unusual is it in their call types are increasing across the board including fires Which is not necessarily a good thing some communities the fires are declining We're seeing an increase across the board and I think I'm ready to note and I was over here Nodding a lot when Colonel Reeves was talking about it, but we too are experiencing Complexity of the kind of calls that we have you know technical rescue kind of calls people getting injured in our parks on our rivers Major motor vehicle crashes on the interstate that are very complex situations to mitigate so it's changing We'll say to that

[02:35:47] You know we're the canary in the coal mine when it comes to social issues When there's a social shift down in the community. We're the first person to see it if we have an issue related to overdoses related to domestic violence you know we see it we experience it and you know I've been in the fire service for a long time and I never remember a time where we're involved in so much of that I think it's an important service but I just point that out because it's different than what we're what we're used to you know one other thing too and I know I'm preaching to the choir here but we're seeing a lot more calls related to weather events than we ever have seen or you all

[02:36:25] know that last year about this night had a terrible time with wildfires this past winter a lot of snow we've had flooding um i think personally you know this is effect of what we're seeing in terms of climate change i've even had a chance to testify before congress explaining the same thing and i think we're now seeing it so i just bring that up it's because um that's one more thing that we have to deal with um one other thing too is just like colonel reese pointed out you know um we try to dedicated is enough resources to try to go upstream to solve some of these problems before we experience it because providing a response model that takes

[02:37:05] care of some of these issues is the most expensive way to solve it it's doesn't really solve it just attacks so we're trying our best heart is a great example we're trying to get out of the community deal of some mobile integrated health care to visits our higher utilizers to see it there make sure that they're cared for so they don't rely on 9-1-1 but it's only through our discretionary time which is very little but we try to really work on that as much as we can because you know announced prevention is worth the pound of cure

[02:37:33] right that's no Benjamin Franklin which father the fire service so anyway some of our service demands this is a heat map and Paul probably used to see in some of But this is all relative to because obviously we do have calls in Whitehall area, but it doesn't necessarily show up.

[02:37:59] But this is probably not a surprise for you all. We're seeing most of the calls activity in the development area, some really hot spots along 29 North there in the Rio District there. A lot of that has to do with that's a large population of our elderly care facilities there, which generates a lot of calls, just like Pantops.

[02:38:19] Pantops is one area that has the highest concentration of people over the age of 65, which are more likely to get injured and sick two and a half times more likely to get injured. So it's really important that we look at this. But even, you can see, along the roadways, motor vehicle crashes are a big part of our activity, especially along the interstate.

[02:38:41] We have very, very bad high-speed accidents on that interstate. I'm just amazed at how fast people go here. think sometimes it's like a raceway but but this is not unusual I mean it's the clustered where the people are where the traffic is and the activity so it gives us an idea as we look at this of how you know what to expect again how to pivot and make sure that we are paying attention to the things that are happening around us and also what do we do to reduce the risk of some of these areas really important so if you go to the next slide so this this is where I

[02:39:19] just want to give you a moment and just give some history of our volunteer staffing request goes way back to 97 if you just hit this sort of an animated thing back then we had early spill stony point and seminole trail all about the same time asked the county for daytime help because they were seeing a strain on their services and um so the county stepped up this is before i came to the the county in 2002 and then if you go to the next slide so between 2000 and 2018 we only had two requests um that's a an 18-year period that seems like not a lot now at the same time we were

[02:39:59] building some county stations along the way too so i don't want you to think there were no activity but between 2000 and 2018 we had uh former scottsville rescue ask for daytime people as well as East Ravana. So it was a long period. But if you go to the next part, in 2018, that's where we saw a dramatic increase. So we had in two stations, both Crozet and North Garden asked for daytime assistance. And then now we're starting to see where 24-hour assistance was being requested. So before they ceased to exist, Scottsville Rescue asked for 24-hour

[02:40:37] staffing. Last year, North Garden asked for 24-hour staffing, and then we got a request from Crozet Volunteer Fire Department for 24-hour staffing. So that, I don't know if that trend is going to continue, but I think it tells a story of how stressed our volunteer system is and what we need to do, again, to invest in these places so that we can at least maintain a level of services as the volunteers age out in some cases are unable to meet the community demand.

[02:41:10] If you go to the next slide, I just want to step through some of our strategic investments too, just again to give you an idea back, and I'm not going to go over all these, but the ones highlighted in the green are ones that were funded through a federal SAFER grant, which are really important and a big driver in this 26 budget.

[02:41:30] If you go to the next one in 2022, that's when we added a heart member, you know, North Garden, and then we added some staff a while back through a safer grant to ensure that we all remember back in 2022, we were shutting down rural stations because we didn't have enough staff.

[02:41:46] And I know Ann remembers this because I used to get a lot of emails from you about it. But that's a horrible thing. So we were lucky that at the time the federal government allowed us a grant that we could stop that process because it was just we didn't we didn't think it was a good long-term strategy if we continue on 23 we added emergency management that's when we decided to invest in emergency management within the county and add those positions and then in 24 it was a big one this is the Monticello ladder truck and the Scottsville fire engine down at the former Scottsville rescue

[02:42:22] station they're highlighted in yellow meaning that they're not out yet they haven't graduated out yet but those two services will start this July so there it's right around the corner but I just want to let you know it because it takes about 18 months for us to hire and train those people so there's a way then if we go to the last one we also last year thank you all for approving the match for the North Garden FEMA grant and then of course the big one is the Burke Moore ambulance because when we talk about activity that Burke Moore ambulance runs about 3 400 calls a year we can't get another call out of they're so busy

[02:43:01] it's starting to affect other areas in the county and I think you all recognize that helped us fund that that's going to be in place next July after the folks get out of this recruit school they're in the recruit school today so it just takes them a while to get out and then we have to go the paramedic route in order to start service but if you go to the one more I saw this adds up to 97 people since 2021. Big numbers, I realize that. One more, Andy, please. 40 of those were funded through general fund revenue. 57 of them were funded through safer grants. Now, what we're

[02:43:40] experiencing now, if we go to the next slide, is that those safer grants were awesome. I mean, this is a, I think it's a great program. We just got through working Capitol Hill to ensure that our federal legislators know how important these are to our locality because that paid for people to go to training for three years and then to be deployed. We did $12.7 million in federal jumpstart these folks. But what's happening now with those grants starting to age out. So we have to pick up those expenditures, which is a huge driver in this 2016 budget. So I think it's just

[02:44:19] important to frame all that so if we go to the next slide this is just a history and just a rundown but it gives you an idea at the bottom of the dollar figure required to pick up these positions in the budget which you know so there's 57 positions and you can see it marched out over the years you know we still believe that this is fundamental in terms of being able to help us provide adequate services to our community so although we're not required to continue these beyond the grant periods we have we have four of them work I mean I can't imagine what our county would look like if we did not

[02:44:57] pick this up so you know that I think this is a vital part of our service um so if we go in one more we would talk a little bit return on strategic investments you know there's some good news and all this we've had 2.6 percent reduction in response times on our ambulance performance when we get that Burkmar Ambulance in place I think we'll see that drop even more or increase even more in terms of response time reduction but also the added feature is that now we can guarantee through our partnership with Western Almar rescue in the county staff a paramedical in every critical call which is so important

[02:45:35] because it's such a life-saving of venture if we go to the next we saw some even better performance on our first fire engine 5.6 percent reduction in response times also what's important is we've been able to decrease response time for that second and third arriving apparatus which is so important when you have a structure fire where people need to arrive on scene for suppression and search and rescue and removing victims it's so important to have a full complement so we're like to see those numbers one thing that I'm really proud of and no and remembers all this but because we've invested in resources we've

[02:46:13] been able to transition from from a former contract we had with the city which we were paying close to a million dollars a year to now to a mutual aid agreement at no cost reciprocal agreement so that allows us to use that as a force multiplier for ourselves as well as we can provide the same thing to the city and that's I would say that's working out very well probably better than what we anticipated but that is a benefit and of course our emergency management department now that we've had we're making such group inroads with emergency management in terms of really focusing on the county needs but also be

[02:46:50] regionally connected I would say today we're much more connected with the University in the city in terms of priorities and communications but we've made some great strides in terms of putting policies and procedures and responding to our large-scale emergencies including working with Kristi and her group to develop a continuity plan to ensure that we can have continuity of government should we ourselves have a catastrophe that we have to deal with.

[02:47:17] So we've had a lot of great return on investment from that. I know I probably went through that really quickly, but I wanted to make sure to respect your time. I'll pause to see if there's any questions from you all. I'm sorry. I'll just acknowledge the deal and just as I did for Colonel Reeves' presentation.

[02:47:36] There are some similarities in the cost. We are including for the medical and public safety supplies as we continue to run additional ambulances. We have -- we are responding to the change in regulations for the fire rescue pharmacy located at the Public Safety Operations Center to be compliant with the new way of providing that.

[02:47:55] And again, continuing to support the volunteer fire rescue stations as part of their operating request. We have funding included in there. But I will keep it brief with those comments to allow time for the board. Do you want to do the last -- the next slide as well? Yes, I'll say the last part of public safety, just to acknowledge, we have our partner entities.

[02:48:14] These are the ones included in that. I'll highlight the regional jail. Currently, we have an increase for debt service for the facility that is over 50 years old and has not undergone a major renovation. Also, the new contract for the Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA doesn't include an increase that is based on the board-approved lab.

[02:48:33] The other partners are regional entities that are just funded based on the county share and our share of those costs. We'll go through our order for questions. Mr. Pruitt um help me make sure I'm not telltales out of school here, but my understanding is that there are no new Non-obligate costs from fire in this budget, but am I mistaken on that? That's right We're just asking to plan for picking up these FEMA branch right now Um, I think we kind of gestured toward this last year

[02:49:06] But last year kind of the big story and fire rescue was the to use the phrase data story that the North Garden department shared basically saying strictly speaking we're good but this big shoe is about to fall and I'm curious and maybe this is projected out too far I found something that we've benefited from in the past is being able to plan out in forecast a little bit in the future are there other shoes that you're waiting to see fall as you forecast out in the years to come yes we

[02:49:43] We did receive a letter from Crozet Volunteer Fire Department this year expressing the same concern. And the challenge we have, quite frankly, is it takes us so long to hire and deploy people. We don't have the ability to pivot right away.

[02:49:59] So it's been my experience working with volunteer departments is they work so hard. When they finally do raise their hand and say, I need help, they need help like right there. So we are challenged, react quickly to that kind of request without taking people from other areas of the county to do that.

[02:50:20] So that's our Achilles heel, quite frankly. You touched on this in your presentation. I know a conversation we've had before is about falling volunteerism generally, and a narrative I will sometimes try and tack on to that in addition to just falling global volunteerism, specifically the changing age and demographic composition of this community and specifically what that means related to people's individual work-life balance and different sectors in our

[02:50:53] development. I mention this because something that I've, and this may be frankly getting into a future chapter, there are so few levers we have to work on that with. There's a lot of macro things we can do with policy, right? Like how can we make it easier to volunteer, which is a very big question.

[02:51:14] But in the more immediate sense, at least something that has been suggested to me is that the amenities of stations themselves help generate higher rates of volunteerism and that it is therefore like something that could or should be a capital priority.

[02:51:36] I guess I would ask if you would broadly agree with that sentiment and also how we kind of skim that cat when the volunteer fire departments are not incorporated part of our account i agree with you i think you know having a good station is part of that and i think we use the model it's been a couple years ago when north garden came to the county and asked for us help with their building renovation and construction and and jacob and i worked and putting together a really great framework that was mostly in jacobs shop to how do we do that when we don't own that building and

[02:52:15] it was a combination of a grant and a loan and some oversight that i think if you were to ask north garden they think it was a real success and they've got a beautiful station so i think that's the model that we can use um throughout if other stations are willing to participate in that process uh thank you very much for an excellent presentation actually both of you i really enjoyed that um and i think also a key aspect regarding the volunteer stations is to have a good volunteer

[02:52:48] chief i've seen that stony point that's changed the entire um volunteer fire department around their stony point so that's going to be different but otherwise i have no question and i just wanted to point out too that um we have some stations are doing a wonderful job i don't want you to fact that everybody is you know you importantly we've got some very strong stations that are doing this phenomenal work and you're right the leadership in particularly in Stony Point and doing very well compared to what we saw years

[02:53:19] ago thank you chief the I guess I'd make a couple comments and then tie this into a question and can punt it to the study because it sounds like the study's gonna get out of it. This is probably for both of you, if you have comments or two of you have comments. I feel like you guys max out at your capacity more frequently than we're all willing to admit to. I think of the day where there was an incident over near Belvedere

[02:53:54] with the homeless individual. Now, it happened to be resolved just in time when a call comes in where then you have to go to Planet Fitness for a bogus bomb threat. And everybody on site I mean there was movement so like it's clear something was going on somewhere else and the fact that that was already kind of resolved but it hadn't been resolved what would that have done deal and we've had what just in the last month I think there's been what three or four tractor trailers that have overturned on the interstate and that's not a you're not just sending one or two people out there for that so we oftentimes think that it takes and not

[02:54:33] to mention this the the significant things that we've seen in the last two months we've had a plane crash we've had shooting so in those types of incidents require even more people to attend to that call than the tractor trailer or some of these other type of instances so I'm you know I think we get we the board and perhaps community members get it into our head that it takes major events to stress out the system well I don't consider and I'm not meaning to devalue or say it's not significant that a tractor trailer

[02:55:12] overturns but I think that if you went around and asked people to name significant event they wouldn't say a tractor trailer overturn and this gets to the 1.4 staffing on your side and the staffing issues in the whole mix with volunteerism but as a board member I'm starting to wonder alright we can't we can't put neither the folks that are on your teams nor the community members in the situation where the system is being maxed out every single month for three

[02:55:50] days or five days or whatever the number is it's just not the right way to do this so I'm hoping it sounds like the study will probably help us understand what that max capacity is and how often we're hitting it so that we all just have the truth in front of us but I think I'm starting to become a little bit more interested in looking to the team the finance team and saying what if some of that 3-2 was dedicated moving forward, how you all would react to that?

[02:56:20] I think that's a list question, maybe. It comes back to us and says, because I don't know how else, for similar rationale for why I think it's important to have dedicated ongoing funding for affordable housing, it's the same rationale here. This is not something that's going to go away.

[02:56:37] We know we're going to have population growth, and the types of things that are happening, we have to get ahead of that it doesn't take two events in a given day to stress our system out. the hell do we get in front of that and funding is going to be a big part of it so i don't know how you all react like i hadn't really thought about that coming in today but i don't know if it's all the three two i don't know if it's half the three two but i think i think there should be some discussion about that obviously not tonight because given time we have a follow-up because it's one of uh making sure that we can just have clarity in what we're doing

[02:57:13] for everyone the public the board the partners and the schools are impacted so So we have a couple of ideas we'll look to get to design and make it very clear. That was one of the clearest things I've heard today is getting direction from the board on how that works will be important not only for this budget, but setting the expectation going forward.

[02:57:31] I'm there. I'm interested in having that discussion and exercise about how to carry that public safety dedication forward in the future. We're incredibly lucky to have you guys in the position. I didn't give you a chance to react to some of my comments. Well, I appreciate the question. Rodney, you know, I was before you a year ago in December talking about what we thought five years was going to look like.

[02:57:53] And I know that at the time it was like a shock because they were big numbers. But I would say if you go back and look, we were hitting those things. But when we were talking about this study, like I would love to have somebody validate or read or look over my shoulder to ensure whatever we're working on long term is right.

[02:58:10] Are we heading in the right direction? Do we need to tweak it? What's reasonable? i think that's great work so i appreciate you recognizing that same uh and what you're seeing is um our public safety both on pd and fire rescue their resiliency uh to adapt to situations all they can go from stabbing a shooting a plane crash a blizzard to helping somebody cross the street to do a community engagement all shifting gears within one shift so um but but that that's

[02:58:40] Thank you. Wow, I was afraid you were going to say that that five-year projection won't wear anything. So I'm glad you didn't say that much, but it may be the reality when we get there, I don't know. I'm really glad you're doing things with the standards of cover because that was a real struggle the first time through to understand and so hopefully I'll be able to do a better job on that. The eight minutes in the development area response so many times I think it draws in a backup from a rural station I know there have been comments so why are we putting all this money in the rural stations well we have to because it's

[02:59:20] 30 minutes from station four to so those people deserve at least something getting there even if it's the cellar hole saver as they used to come up but also when eight is out four has to come in when 12 is out for us to go there so So it all is so interconnected, and I think it's really important for everybody to see that big picture.

[02:59:43] Just as a side, I hope the board will think about, and staff as well, raising our standards for zoning decisions would put people in harm's way. And I'm thinking of the two times in one year where there have been major flood rescues in the middle of the night in Greenwood that required very big fire and police and the water rescue boats to rescue more than a dozen people.

[03:00:08] in each instance um so i will ask us to be thinking about that going forward um you're absolutely right that everybody is totally backs out the worst kids did 2,000 calls in 2024 just in uh centered in crozet but they also because of the backing up are calling are coming over to rio sometimes i mean even in the last couple of weeks i think they were backing up the station 8 um and uh ambulance and for some reason i had a mental block i thought we'd already gotten that second ambulance into Station 8, so I missed the boat on that.

[03:00:41] It was there just in training right now. So the people are almost about to be released. They're not starting in July. They're actually... They started in January, so they're in class right now. Oh, okay, so they're not in the ambulance yet. Okay, all right. Very good.

[03:00:59] That map on, I think, slide 60 was really important to see where 11 and 12 and 15 did in that gap, that you worked so hard to persuade the Catholics like me that this is really, really important so I'm glad we got there I would love to talk to you more about ALS on every call just because I'm not you know that sometimes unattainable I know how hard my grandson is working to become a medic but it's not something you send for somebody who just wants to get a ride downstairs and we do that we triage them now we have a system where we don't if it's a less

[03:01:37] priority call we don't send priority one that's the accidents okay you've got that all covered and that's great I know that nationally has been going down but I do hope that we will all consider and celebrate the stations we have as Dan already said who are doing really well and one of the things that is a common thread between four or five and eight particularly is their outreach to young people and bringing in university students for three or six and even they

[03:02:11] love it so much that they come back to Virginia Beach or Medical School in Baltimore to continue running, even though they're long graduated from the university. So someone made a comment about improving the facilities at the stations is really important. The very large investment the county made in Station 8 Seminole Trail to provide the study carols and the better so that they could keep their 120 student volunteers is really, really important. And why, you know, WARS is raising money for the, getting their last plan for their new station there in the center of Jose for that same reason.

[03:02:46] So, um, I don't really have any questions, just thank you for the rant. Thank you for your patience. Thank you, excellent presentation. I, uh, I'm looking at slide 64, I guess it is, I'm shuddering that 63, actually, I'm shuddering that we're really not there yet.

[03:03:08] We've got more to go. But I'm happy to realize that maybe we can start helping this year. So we see this stuff coming forward. 63, actually, this slide. But anyway, looking at the anticipated needs.

[03:03:26] Thank you. Last question. Yeah, quick question. If we were to go, as Supervisor Galloway said, if we did look at that 3.2, it's a dedicated, that wouldn't be part of the split, correct? That's right. Mr. Bowman said that we'll work some financial scenarios up and come back to the board.

[03:03:48] Maybe get in front of you before we get very clear on that. I think that's important. Because going forward, knowing the numbers we're going to need, I think it's also important in next year's budget, future budgets, to start slowly increasing that as a dedicated source until they reach their maximum, which is going to take a while.

[03:04:10] Thank you. That's all. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, appreciate this, I think you have another couple of slides just to tell us where we are going or if we are coming up very soon. Same time, same place, Wednesday, 3 o'clock.

[03:04:27] We continue the rest of the general fund expenditures, thank you all for all the board's attention for a very dense afternoon. Thank you, I want to go to the board to see if there's any additional comments in terms of the matter, then we will adjourn to March 12th, 3:00 PM, 6:41.

[03:04:44] Opportunities for the public to access this meeting are posted on the Albemarle County website on the Board of Supervisors and on the Albemarle County calendar. Thank you. - Thank you. - Thank you.

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