Coraggio Consulting
City of Fairfax City Council Work Session, Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Date: Tuesday, April 1, 2025
Place: City Hall, City of Fairfax, Virginia
Length: 4h 12m (video)
Official meeting video (city, Granicus): https://fairfax.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4153
Agenda: https://fairfax.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4153
Minutes: https://fairfax.granicus.com/MinutesViewer.php?view_id=13&clip_id=4153&doc_id=0e0ebf4c-10c0-11f0-955d-005056a89546

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 2026-10-13. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:00] good evening and i would like to call the work session of april 1st 2025 to order thank you all for being here with us today to talk about the important issues surrounding our budget i am now going to turn it over to our deputy city clerk ms clark our first work session item and only work session item is the discussion on the proposed fy26 budget i will recognize brian foster city manager for the discussion. Thank you. Good evening. We are here, of course, to continue

[00:00:37] our discussions on the proposed budget. At your last work session, there was a lot of discussion about wanting to reduce the potential tax impact and how we might go about doing that. Council had previously also asked for department heads to suggest how they could do 10% reductions to their budget. So we have all the departments here are represented

[00:01:10] and can certainly answer questions that council may have. But if it is acceptable to mayor Council this past week we've been working on some alternatives that we'd like to show you all the way up till today so I apologize for not being able to send them out ahead of time but some alternatives that mr. Martinez can is prepared to go over this evening that can show some different ways that we can reduce the tax impact and what that how that what that would look like in terms

[00:01:47] of what would not be included in the budget but it would be a way to avoid having to do any type of significant cuts to department budgets and things of that nature so if it if council is amenable we'd like to quickly show you that before we continue our discussion yes council is amenable to that mr.

[00:02:10] Martinez there council thank you as the manager sorry allergies are kicking in as the manager suggested we would like to try to present some different scenarios but before doing that just sort of laying down a potential starting point to the left of the screen or on the left side of the screen are some assumptions of where we are as a starting point maintaining the real estate rate as where it currently is no change to the

[00:02:45] meals tax we have seen a healthy assessment appreciation some of the other items that are listed there that is sort of the starting point in the basis of what what we did when we started the budget back a couple of months ago and given all that information on the left those assumptions it equates to about a hundred and ninety million dollars in revenues that's about ten million dollars more than what we had budgeted for FY25 expenditures have also increased most significantly because of the tuition contract the potential for the school bond referendum and then also the planned debt service payment that we've

[00:03:25] discussed previously. When you divide that $16.6 million by the current value of a penny, which is about $835,000, that equates to about 19.86 cents on the real estate tax rate. So again, that's sort of the starting point. And at any time, please feel free to ask questions or interrupt and I can try to answer them while we go along. We listed some potential expenditure reductions. Some of these we've already communicated before. Some of them may be new. I'm more than happy to address

[00:04:03] and or expand on any of them that are listed there. Sort of the top ones on the left side again are the reductions. Some of you may be aware of a $5 million transfer that happened at the end of last year from the city to the EDA for the real estate resource fund. That is really an expenditure reduction. That would be more of a recapture of that transfer back. If need be, there was an agreement that was made between the city and the EDA that allowed for that to happen. So that would be something that if directed by council, we could potentially do as well. With those total

[00:04:40] potential reductions, that's about $13 million. We rounded a little bit there. That would be equivalent to about 15.5 cents, 15.6 cents. When you compare the starting point to the potential reductions, that lower box in red there sort of shows what the delta would be. So we would need to cover about $3.5 million as is with no changes. It still shows that we would be short about a little over four cents. We go to scenario one. Scenario one would be what the city manager

[00:05:20] proposed at the end of February. In his proposed budget, he did include a 9.5 cent increase to the real estate tax rate, making it $1.12.5. That would generate about $8 million in additional revenue within that category. We did propose an additional 2% to the meals tax, making it from 4 to 6%. That additional increase is about $4.5 million. And then we would realize some assigned fund balance from FY 25 that would be carried over into FY 26 in the amount of about 4.1 million

[00:06:00] dollars everything there that allows for would be we could start the school bond project at three million dollars the budgeted cash transfer to the CIP was 11.9 that would be fully met as well we'd cover the one-time debt payment we did have some planned vacancy sevens that was included in the budget that incorporates the current vacant deputy city manager that is about four or six months just recurring every single year throughout not extending it but just sort of it being a natural

[00:06:37] iteration of vacancy savings that we've planned for and that's about two million dollars in the plan budget we would be allowed to have a three and a half percent merit for eligible general service staff and then also the public safety plan stepped and then the pay study specifically for the property yard individuals no reductions to the Renaissance housing the nonprofit or travel training and then EDA would maintain that five million dollars in the real estate resource fund to the right of the screen top right is sort of showing you it's a balanced budget as

[00:07:11] proposed with revenues and expenditures equally meaning there is no Delta again And this is what was proposed on, I think, February 25th, at the end of February. Scenario two, this is a new scenario that we sort of just put together.

[00:07:31] Again, this is not necessarily a give and take. This is just more of information sort of giving you how things would look like at different either real estate rate increases and or meals tax increases as well. In this scenario, it would be a seven and a half cent increase to the real estate tax rate, making it $1.10 and a half.

[00:07:51] The associated revenue with that is a little over $6 million, a one and a half cent increase in addition to the 4% meals tax, making it 5.5. Again, a little over $3.3 million. We would carry over a smaller amount of unassigned fund balance from FY25 to 26.

[00:08:11] That'd be another 3.3. Net change in revenue from scenario one to scenario two is a decrease of about 3.6, and we would have to, at this point, utilize a portion of that potential expenditure reductions that we covered in one of the first slides of about 3.6 million from the EDA estate resource fund.

[00:08:35] Again, that would be needed to ensure that we balance our revenues with our expenditures, which they do do on the right-hand side there. In Scenario 3, a further reduction to the real estate tax rate, dropping it from the proposed 9.5 to 5.5 cents, a 1% additional increase to the meals tax, bringing it from 4 to 5%.

[00:09:02] You can see the associated revenues that these changes would do. Again, trying to carry over a little over $2 million from FY25 to FY26 from an assigned fund balance. The delta between Scenario 1 and Scenario 3 is about another $7.2 million in decreased revenues.

[00:09:24] At this time, we would have to realize, or it's proposed to realize, all of the $5,000 from the EDA Real Estate Resource Fund. We would now have to tap into some other potential reductions, about 1.9 reduction in the cash transfer.

[00:09:42] the minimum given the total expenditures because it's a percentage of that amount and 5% of that which is about 10 million so the difference from what was budgeted is what the Delta would be here which is about 1.9 that we would potentially could or we could potentially reduce if need be from what was budgeted from FY 26 and then additionally we would reduce collectively about 317 to 318 thousand dollars from uh travel and training from all departments uh not one

[00:10:18] specific one but collectively we would go through that process and see where we can take out that amount that was also part of that 10 reduction exercise that was provided to council last week moving on to scenario four uh potential three and a half cent increase to the real estate tax rate making it a dollar six and a half from where we currently are the associated sorry the associated revenue with that a half cent a half percent increase additional to the meals tax rate making

[00:10:56] it four and a half percent brings in another about 1.1 million dollars again a little less transfer from FY25 assigned fund balance and then the net change there is almost 11 million dollars in reduction of revenue from scenario one to scenario four we would keep on adding other potential expenditure reductions at this point again five million dollars from the EDA real estate resource fund the minimum cash transfer increased ever so slightly because the total expenditure amount decrease and it's a

[00:11:32] percentage of that so that amount change ever so slightly going up defer school bond project for about seven months which equates to about seven one point seven million dollars freeze non-urgent vacancies for an entire year that's in addition to the planned current vacancies that's already planned that we would be realizing about two million dollars another three hundred or four hundred thousand dollars about for no Renaissance housing funding a reduction of three hundred thousand dollars to the nonprofit grants program

[00:12:08] and then again a reduction to the totality of travel training within the city of about three hundred and twenty six thousand dollars that makes our revenues and our expenditures balance at one hundred and ninety six million dollars those would be the potential effects on the left-hand side the last scenario here scenario five would be a two and a half cent increase to the real estate tax rate making the new potential rate a dollar five and a half and the associated revenue that that would happen there is about two million

[00:12:46] no change to the meals tax and then a smaller reduced amount from FY25 assigned fund balance coming over from FY25 to FY26 about 1.2 million there a significant reduction in revenue from scenario one which was a city manager's proposed budget to this scenario scenario five in this scenario we would be utilizing almost exclusively every single potential expenditure reduction to its max. $5 million from the EDA. We would defer the schools in totality for one year. That's $3

[00:13:24] million there. The minimum cash transfer amount would be $2.2 million. Freeze all non-urgent vacancies for the year. No merit or step increase for personnel within the city. We would reduce travel and training to its totality of $535,000. No pay study implementation for the property yard of $500,000, the Renaissance housing and the nonprofit grants would also see no funding for FY26.

[00:13:58] On the right, please note that there would be a slight positive variance in reductions of revenues to expenditures. This is just to highlight if we were to utilize everything, and basically we would need to at least get about $0.02 to sort of break even.

[00:14:17] That's what that $400,000 difference would be there or so. happy to take any questions. That was the last slide. Thank you, Mr. Martinez. Do we have questions from the dais for Mr. Martinez? Council Member Hall. Can you please expand what's included in the $300,000 for non-profit? Is that, I'm just trying to look at the list to see what That was a new program that was started this year where non-profits could apply for a grant

[00:14:53] from between, I think, $15,000 to $25,000. They went through an entire process to review them. There was a team, city team, and they gave out a little less than $200,000 this year, and the profit, the non-profits get it in two pieces.

[00:15:10] Okay, so specifically that was Bright Path, it's not the City of Fairfax ban, it's not No, no, this is a dedicated non-profit that they had to apply for. Okay. So it's not, has nothing to do with city ban, the fall for books, or anything that's already in the parks budget.

[00:15:26] Okay. This would be under, this is a human services. Thank you. mayor yes mr foster just to help clarify so um mr martinez went through all of the list so of the various scenarios and of course those are just ones that we came up with and there certainly could be different permutations with with all of those well the thing i would mention two two things i would mention first is um we're still able for the most part we would still be maintaining all services that we currently provide

[00:16:03] at their current service levels so it's not impacting that because it's not reducing any staff or or programmatic funding that was included in the budget but the other the other piece that that it does not do is we the we had been trying to program in or did program in recurring funding for future debt service it's building that capacity so you don't get that in these or you it keeps getting reduced so all these reductions when you reduce it so we would have the equivalent

[00:16:38] of about two and a half cents of debt capacity with with this assuming you don't fund any of those things in the future so obviously you're going to uh presumably we're going to fund the schools bond process and some of the other things that are in there which would which would take away that two and a half cents because you would need it to fund those things so it would not give you the debt capacity that we have talked about previously but it is a way to minimize the impact to service

[00:17:15] delivery that we're currently doing so it doesn't it doesn't reduce programs And so the 10% scenario, if you've all reviewed that, obviously there was had to be because of the magnitude, you know, service reductions or program reductions.

[00:17:37] So this is able, in any of those scenarios, to keep those at their current level. So I just wanted to clarify that. Okay, appreciate that. Other questions? Oh, sorry. Council Member Hall.

[00:17:54] Thank you. So I should have said thank you for doing this. I know this is an extraordinary amount of work, but it's very much appreciated. May I ask how the school board feels about a seven-month delay versus a one-year delay since we have our chair pitches here? Not to put you on the spot, but.

[00:18:12] In terms of the delay, with every delay comes an increase in the prices of the materials and the labor.

[00:18:31] We saw that when we did the concession stand from the time it was approved until it got built. the cost of it went up exponentially. So, and now with the tariffs, I'm not so sure we're, honestly, I just can't, how do I feel about it?

[00:18:49] There's so many other things up in the air with cost of whatever, all these things is going to be seven months a year from now. It could be better if we wait a year. It could be three times more expensive. It's, right now, I would say it's a gamble.

[00:19:08] And can you expand exactly on what the $3 million is going, I mean, general, what the $3 million is going to initially? Yeah. JC, do you want to talk a little bit more about that since that's the beginning? Correct. That's like the design and all of that. So in discussions with the superintendent and also with Mosley and their cash flow forecast, it's my understanding that the initial allocation is really more for design, community engagement, concept, the very beginning stages of what it would take to go ahead and start the whole process going forward.

[00:19:45] And that is sort of like the minimum that would be needed in year one. It escalates very quickly in year two, but again, it's more about concept design, community engagement within that first year. - Okay, and so to that point then, it's more of an engagement process, it's more of a conversation, it's more about learning what we need, what we see, and then it's really not even taking into consideration actual costs of renovation moving forward yet.

[00:20:12] This is just the, let's have the conversation about it. Yes, but the design, all of those things will cost money. Of course, those are not affected by things like taxes and tariffs, you know, all those things. Right, but we're still looking at where we want something to be versus the 2x4s needed to build that thing right then and there.

[00:20:33] Yes, and keep in mind that a school renovation takes six to eight years, so every time you put it off, we're talking, you know, that year, two years, you're pushing off the schools being done ten years from now. They're already 25 years old.

[00:20:49] They will be 35 years old by the time it's complete. And we're looking more like the county then. Thank you. Yes. Council Member Hardy-Chandler. I, too, want to express my gratitude for going through these scenarios.

[00:21:07] My interest is not only in the immediate savings, but as I've explained before, the longer-term consequences. Can you explain a little bit more about, well, certainly specifically the real estate EDA resource funds and what might be some of the longer-term implications of that, but are any of these scenarios also impacting things like our bond rating and to what extent some of those longer-term things are impacted?

[00:21:37] Sure. So let me speak to the easy one, which is the bond rating. I would say, and I have not ran through this with Davenport, but I would say that any scenario that is listed here or that was presented and discussed would not negatively impact our bond rating in the immediate short term.

[00:21:58] There may be, and I think the manager sort of hinted at this, every scenario going down from what the city manager had proposed is now sort of diluting our long-term dedicated revenue. which would be required specifically to fund and issue debt either for the 220 million dollars that has been approved via the bond referendum for schools and or any cip projects that we adopt and wants to build in the near term meaning the next two three or four or five years as i've

[00:22:36] tried to hope and communicated the bond rating and the debt issuers they focus on dedicated recurring FUNDING STREAMS, VERY SIMILAR TO WHEN WE GO ASK FOR A LOAN FROM THE BANK, THEY REVIEW YOUR FINANCIALS, THEY WANT TO KNOW THAT YOU HAVE FINANCIAL HISTORY, AND DEPENDING ON HOW MUCH YOU MAKE OR HOW MUCH INCOME YOU HAVE, THAT'S SORT OF WHERE THE UPPER LIMIT OF WHAT YOUR LOAN WOULD BE, KIND OF THE SAME THING IN A VERY SIMPLIFIED WAY FOR THE CITY. SO THE DIRECTOR OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IS HERE. IF I CAN ASK CHRIS TO SORT OF COME UP AND EXPAND A LITTLE BIT MORE ON THE

[00:23:13] second tougher question for me specifically on the eda uh research real estate fund thank you uh so the real estate resource fund is actually um internally within the eda known as the real estate opportunity fund it functions in parallel next to the economic opportunity fund which is a pool of funding available to the eda commissioners to invest in in this case in property acquisition or redevelopment projects there had been one that was moving forward and we are sort of lightly still involved in it although it does not look like it will require the full amount of funding but

[00:23:51] some level of funding is still i think hopefully required so that the city and the economic development agency can participate in a future redevelopment project is that everything okay council member amos yeah if you could just elaborate more on that because i mean we're examining this i'm assuming at on a recurring standpoint so what are the factors versus and i have two questions so this is just the first one only directed to you uh reduction rather than

[00:24:27] the full amount um so with the real estate opportunity fund these funds were initially intended to sit in sort of this bucket and the commissioners would determine what level would be invested in any particular project at any point in time um with any you know investment fund if if it's reduced it removes the commissioner's ability to make those future investments but i i do think as jc mentioned most of the proposals before you tonight maintain the same or equivalent level of services for economic development that are funded by other sources of funding not in that

[00:25:03] bucket uh my second question is more cip related which i know my colleague councilmember hall wanted to get to at some point tonight as do i overall we need to have a discussion on our debt capacity and reducing it for the future which includes re-examining our CIP projects and so I asked it via email and so I wanted to follow up here because that was what was recommended do we have something that would tell us what CIP projects have been deferred before by other councils and for how long do I have projects have been deferred for 10 plus years that we need to get to versus

[00:25:42] something that's never been deferred before and that might be able to wait until we can focus on prioritizing the school bond i i think um there was a tentative answer to that email we don't have a defined spreadsheet or or tracking of what has been deferred in my two plus years of being here i do not recall a single project that's been deferred for longer

[00:26:15] than two or three years there has been discussion with uh this on on the van dyke park that has sort of been pushed off for the couple of years not because of funding but just because of capacity specifically on that project there's been discussion about the property yard as well that is now sort of coming into fruition where we have a better estimate of what that's going to cost there are other projects very similar to that where as they become more realized we have more information and can project and predict better then they get added to the list i can share with

[00:26:55] you and it was in the manager's presentation at the end of february where there was an initial discussion and proposal for fy26 that was presented to the planning commission since that introduction of the proposed draft cip there were changes pretty significant changes almost 30 million dollars in deferrals and or reductions i can share that list with you and bring up the managers proposed uh fy 26 budget presentation that showed those lists those projects specifically

[00:27:29] but that is more just for the current cycle uh last question and yes please do uh one more time and last question i wanted to know if we have an update on the ppa for the fire station and or potential for ppa with schools in the school bond i can answer the information for the fire station that will be presented to council i think at the april 11th work session if i'm not mistaken the public works the fire department and procurement and finance will be present and do a full evaluation and update of where we are with fire station three in that we did get one response

[00:28:08] back from our informal request for information and we will be providing that information to council at that time part of the reason why i bring that up is because i also do know that that there were some industry people who contacted me saying that they weren't aware of the PPA until the day it closed.

[00:28:25] So there may be more appetite than we realize, so it may be worth reopening if we don't like what we initially see. But I'd also like to see where we can explore that with our other facilities and CIPs moving forward. Understood. And just a quick clarification, regarding the $5 million for the ED, that was a one-time expenditure.

[00:28:48] That is not a recurrent, So that was one time that was done in December. Not that it can't be done again in the future, but there's no – that money is – you won't see that in the budget because it was done back in December. So it's not a recurring $5 million, just for clarity.

[00:29:05] Okay. Council Member McQuillan. I just wanted to echo what Council Member Emma said about the PPE. Hey, PPE, sorry. My brain's not – I, too, want to get more information about that.

[00:29:24] I think that's really important for us to discuss and get an update on, thank you. - Council Member Peterson. - Thank you. You've been busy. That's pretty clear. We appreciate all your hard work on this.

[00:29:40] I know a lot goes into this and still a bit more ahead of us, right? So thanks. A couple things before I ask a CIP question or two for our school board chair, and this maybe is a question that Director Summers others who are veterans of the world of construction can answer here, but the $3 million that would be spent up front on the school design, it's an opportunity, I think, as we have in every

[00:30:13] capital-intensive infrastructure project that we undertake to forecast where we're headed in terms of prices, whether it's construction materials, et cetera, and hedge, you know, see whether we can actually get options and things that will control some of the risk for inflation and obviously it's a big issue right now with so many balls in the air just as a matter of practice are we using financial mechanisms to try to buy down some of the inflation risk that we're looking into for these kinds of

[00:30:50] expenditures going forward somewhat I would say that the the most important thing for that initial school board money is the detailed evaluation of the needs. I think so far it's been somewhat of a preliminary evaluation of the facilities and I know that some of my staff will be working closely with the school board during the detailed evaluation of the needs to try and get more clarity on what needs to be done. But as far as your question, yes, we

[00:31:27] always look at options as far as materials when we do something like this i know i do that with the construction projects and if i can just expand so specifically forella was i want to say subcontracted or collaborated with mosley the on the feasibility study they did a very robust projection that incorporated either a four or five percent inflation year over year projection in these numbers so that has already been embedded in the 220 million dollar projection going forward that is up to what was discussed from FY 26 to about

[00:32:05] FY 31 anything beyond that then those projections are not as accurate because they didn't they didn't forecast inflation beyond FY 31 so to the school board chairs earlier comment about inflation pushing it off that that's sort of what would need to be taken into consideration if we don't we meet within that certain defined time frame that was presented to us.

[00:32:32] But to a certain extent, we've anticipated, best as possible, some of that in the Delta. And then we have mechanisms that we're already using to try to hedge some of this with options. And I think the detail, if I understand correctly, that we get from this first phase is exactly what enables us to even be more effective at doing that.

[00:32:53] So it sounds like there's a little bit of active management that could be applied to these deferral decisions on these capital-intensive things, if I hear it right. Yes, sir. Okay, second question, since we have you. And on the capital improvement budgets, the reductions in the minimum cash transfers, how much does the change in our expenditure on capital improvement cash transfers affect our staffing needs

[00:33:31] and, in particular, our overtime needs? Do we see a drawdown, a backdown of the expenditures that are necessary in staffing in general and overtime in particular? And if so, is that part of the minimum cash transfer we see here?

[00:33:50] Or is that resulting in a savings somewhere else in the budget? I could talk about my capital projects. A lot of my capital projects do require overtime because a lot of the work is done at night and there's a lot of oversight. So a lot of the CIP projects that public works does, if they are deferred or reduced, there will be a reduction on overtime and oversight costs from the staff.

[00:34:19] And just if people are looking for projects, I went through my CIP projects with my key staff. And if we are looking at deferring some CIP projects in public works, I'm happy to offer some that I feel would be the least impactful.

[00:34:41] And thank you, because I certainly would be interested, I presume others would as well, to have a better feel from the perspective of all of the department heads on where you would see the best opportunities for these reductions in CIP if you had your magic wand and you could offer that advice from where you sit.

[00:35:02] It would be very helpful. But just so I understand, I don't know what the total pool of overtime is in the city, and I don't know how much of a dent occurs if we shrink CIP.

[00:35:20] Does anybody have somewhat of an estimate? I believe it was about $377,000 per month overall, but that wasn't real obvious where it all came from or what could be manipulated. Well, a lot of my overtime is unforeseen.

[00:35:38] It's a traffic signal that goes down at night from a storm or something that happens at night with the utility. So I can tell you here that, okay, yeah, maybe my overtime is reduced a certain amount by taking out these CIPs, maybe 10%, 15%, but I don't know how the year's going to go, and it's quite possible things happen during the year that I have to take care of using overtime. Even the refuse crew sometimes has to clean up something after an accident on overtime, so it's hard for me to gauge exactly what the

[00:36:11] overtime savings will be. And how much is your share of Citi overtime? Probably the largest share because of the things we do, whether it's sign and signal, waste water. If a pump station goes down in waste water, we have to get that fixed right away.

[00:36:31] If there's a guardrail that's damaged or a bridge or some kind of safety issue, if there's something with the traffic signals, if there's something with the concrete repair or a retaining wall, the city is used to us taking care of this right away.

[00:36:50] Right away. I mean, that's kind of one of our things we offer, is we take care of it immediately. I can call somebody 24-7, and they will get a crew out there to fix it. And it's been the history of the city to do that. I'm sorry, if I could just add. So we developed, and I thought we forwarded a three-year or four-year look back, and then also did a comparison of where we were year-to-date with our overtime.

[00:37:18] And Public Works is a portion of that. They are not the largest. Actually, it's public safety, who is the largest, specifically police, then fire, then public works, and then parks and safety, and then it dwindles down tremendously from there.

[00:37:33] And to Mr. Summers' remark, a lot of public works and parks and recreation, there are overtimes associated with either special events and or, in this case, this recent year, with snow removal and or treatment of the roads.

[00:37:50] That was, unfortunately, more this year than we've had in the past few years. So that's where the majority of the overtime happens from the general fund. Specifically, there is some CIP. Those get charged back to the project that's budgeted in there. But to your point, Councilmember Peterson, if the project did not exist, we would not have those associated overtime costs within the CIP projects.

[00:38:15] And is there, as we speak now, a strategy or a set of scenarios on managing overtime that we could be made aware of? There's some potential. I understand there are limits to that as well, but is that something that has been a focal point of these reduction strategies?

[00:38:37] Yeah, I'm very careful with spending overtime. In fact, for instance, a good example would be, depending on who is my city manager, certain city managers, if they saw illegal signs in the right-of-way, like mattress sales or something, or maybe an empty shopping cart, they would want me to get somebody out there to get it, and that's an overtime cost.

[00:39:03] Other city managers would say, okay, leave it there until Monday and get it on Monday. Anything safety-related, I'm required by the city code and by my license to take care of it immediately. But there are times where the overtime is basically a decision on whether to use it or not.

[00:39:19] Well, and I'm going to yield my time and reserve the opportunity to come back for more questions later. But just at a big picture, I am curious. When we were together last time, I think it was, and I think, Director Summers, You were actually going through some of the responses that you had developed to the request for taking a look at a 10% reduction in activities.

[00:39:50] But if I understood it correctly at the time, you said that that did not include CIP. Is that correct? The exercise that we had been given was not looking at the CIP, and the city manager could.

[00:40:08] It was just operating. Is there a reason it wasn't including everything? Well, CIP is not part of their departmental budget. It's separate because it's done by project. And again, so it was to look at their operating budget.

[00:40:25] So that was the 10% we looked at. Was anybody looking at CIP and a 10% goal on 10%? I guess I had been under the impression that the request was comprehensive And for us to find a way to do that, it sounds like we're now beginning to see some materialization of that in the scenarios here.

[00:40:50] But it seems to me that's a fairly important part of this overall search for reductions. I would absolutely agree with you. As the person who kind of initiated the request, I didn't realize that I was excluding or only asking for operating in my request.

[00:41:05] So I was really happy when Mr. Summers brought that up at the last meeting because I think that that's such a huge part of our budget that, again, we only know what we know at this point and we're trying to dig in deeper, but I was very disappointed that that was not something that was suggested by the city manager to be included.

[00:41:25] Well, again, the 10%, again, the only way you're, again, reducing the CIP for balancing the current budget is the cash transfer. I've said I've been consistent with the projects. The deferring or canceling projects absolutely has a positive impact on future spending in future years.

[00:41:49] But to balance the FY26 budget, it doesn't matter what you do in the CIP unless you reduce the cash transfer. True as that may be, we're also in the book here coming up with an exercise per the proposed budget to create $9.8 million recurring revenue each year moving forward to prepare ourselves for future CIP things.

[00:42:13] So if we don't look at the CIP, then maybe we don't need $9.8 million and we need $5.6 million or $2.1 million or some other variation. So to me, we're kind of looking at part of the apples, not all the apples, and maybe not even a consideration for the bananas that are factoring into our budget on an annual basis.

[00:42:36] So just to conclude my point, I do think it would be enormously helpful, and if possible this evening, for Director Summers and everybody else who is able to share any thoughts that you have now on CIP reduction opportunities, recognizing there's a direct and indirect cost implication for them that could be quite significant.

[00:43:01] willing I'm happy to go through my list page 32 property yard maintenance FY 26 amount was six hundred and five thousand dollars I am comfortable that we could reduce that by fifty thousand I'm sorry what I don't think our page numbers are lining up oh ten that would be ten okay thank you I believe I could reduce that

[00:43:37] 50 page 31 city hall interior maintenance FY 26 request was 125,000 I believe we could reduce that another 50,000 $50,000 that was page 31 city hall

[00:44:05] maintenance interior reduction of 50,000 they're up by a page sorry this is what I printed out you said city hall maintenance interior 25 next one my page is 32. It's the downtown clock replacement for $42,000 in FY26. I believe that could be deferred

[00:44:41] one year. The next project I have is page 50. It's the Blenheim Interpretive Center parking lot construction. FY26 request was $600,000. I believe that could be deferred one year.

[00:45:00] Can you go back to the page 10 and 32, just what the years were for that? Was that also one year? Everything is, yeah, everything is one year. FY26. Thank you. read that it says uh well it says right there this project as originally proposed is no longer needed um can you uh clarify that for us um the end of the first paragraph and that yeah historic resources will collaborate with parks and rec and public works develop maintenance plan and schedule

[00:45:38] for parking lot is more environmentally friendly than originally proposed i'm not sure what the question is uh will um so what exactly is this funding for it's to pave that it's to to pave that parking lot and do some storm water work so it doesn't continue to erode it's gravel and we feel that we could maintain the gravel surface for another year it's not ideal but i feel like in this type of economic times we could maintain this gravel parking lot for another year and if if the

[00:46:15] funds are there we'll do the work in fy27 i think what they're saying is yeah this project as originally proposed is no longer needed why does it say that if it's in the cip does is the project no longer needed is the like as far as i know the the project is still needed it's well yeah it's moved um departments but i believe um this predates me as well is it was originally proposed

[00:46:52] to do more of a concrete asphalt parking lot and making some changes to that design so it reduced the cost. So the way it was originally proposed wasn't needed, but it still needed to be done, as you can see from the pictures, with the cracks and things that still need to be taken care of.

[00:47:15] So what you're saying is $600 is the revised cost. So Council Member Hardy-Chandler is asking, you know, these proposed deferments, Could we get a summary of those that you're proposing just as a sort of an easier to follow?

[00:47:35] I mean, after this meeting. Of course, yeah. After this meeting, if you could just, all the things you're going over, if you could just give us a snapshot? Absolutely. Okay, that would be helpful. And, Mayor, if I can add, I don't want to just pick on Director Summers. I think we should get that from all the proposals and assess that overall, not just one department.

[00:47:56] Okay. I have about seven left. Should I continue? Yes, please. Page 98 in my book, pedestrian bridge repair and replacement, FY26 request was $200,000.

[00:48:14] I believe we could reduce that to $100,000. Is that recurring, $100,000? No, no. FY27, I would want to pull them out. This is just FY26. Page 108, independent roadway evaluation, my FY26 request was $65,000.

[00:48:38] I believe we could reduce that to 30,000. Page 123, upgrade traffic signals. FY 26 request was 250,000.

[00:48:55] I can reduce that 50,000 down to 200,000. Page 130, historic district public amenities and right-of-way. FY 26 request was 60,000.

[00:49:12] I believe I could reduce that to 30,000. And that's for like pots and bike racks and different things in the Old Town area. Page 132 in my book, Concrete Curb and Gutter Maintenance, I believe I could reduce that from $2,100,000.

[00:49:33] I could reduce that by $200,000. However, I will need $50,000 added to my operating budget for maintaining these areas. So I guess a total savings of $150,000. But what I'm saying is take $200,000 from the capital request, but put $50,000 in my operating budget so I could maintain what I'm deferring.

[00:49:57] Same thing with page 134, my annual paving, which my request is $1,200,000. Reduce the CIP by $200,000, but add $50,000 to my operating budget so the roads I'm deferring I could patch and crack seal to make them last another year because I'm deferring some work.

[00:50:20] Page 155, brick sidewalk and crosswalk maintenance. My FY26 request is $420,000.

[00:50:35] I can reduce that $50,000. Keep it by, and I talk to all my supervisors about these cuts, making sure that we could still maintain the infrastructure properly. Page 156 in my book, City Sidewalk Handicap Ramp Replacement Program, FY26 request of $140,000, I can reduce that $50,000.

[00:50:59] And that's the end of my list. And I'm happy to put that in an email to the finance director and city manager. Absolutely. That would be incredibly helpful for us to be able to follow all of those. What was your total for that, if you know offhand?

[00:51:15] It's around $2 million, I believe. Thank you. Council Member Bates. Thank you. First off, you know, I just wanted to add that my understanding was that the request was specifically for department heads to reduce their departmental budgets.

[00:51:36] My understanding is that the CIP fund is totally separate from departmental budgets. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. So I certainly would not fault staff for that. Couldn't fault me as a council member for being brand new and thinking I was asking for a 10% overall, but not actually getting it.

[00:51:55] Or we could all just, like, follow Robert's rules of order just for something fun to do tonight. So if you'd like to be recognized, be recognized. Thank you. Council Member Bates, you have the floor. It was not my intention to call anybody out on that. I just, you know, I was afraid that we were sending the message that, you know, staff was being criticized, and that was not something that I wanted to leave us with the impression of.

[00:52:20] So additionally, the $1 million freeze of non-urgent positions, vacant positions, I recall I asked about that earlier on in the year, and it sounded like aside from perhaps the deputy city manager position, a lot of those were police positions.

[00:52:45] So now, I know that was a while ago, what are we looking at in that $1 million? Are there any police or fire positions? I'm assuming that the deputy city manager position is in there. It is. You're correct. So I think the term we used, we were trying to come up with an appropriate term.

[00:53:01] I think we settled on non-urgent. But basically, so public safety positions, we would consider those to be an urgent position to fill. Yeah, as an example. certain positions you know in public works would be you know like for example our fleet mechanics that need to take care of our infrastructure but if there were say certain administrative positions or other things that became that became vacant those were the types of positions that would freeze we have

[00:53:35] not developed a list that's why I can't say it would be these not these that That would be something if we need to do, if that was one of the options that we need to pursue, we could certainly do that.

[00:53:51] But again, and it's just a best guess, but we already have vacant, so this is in addition to the vacancy savings, which is sort of our normal management tool. This would basically be an intentional, a position becomes vacant, you cannot fill it for six months or whatever, a period of time, that's how that would work.

[00:54:14] But again, we would not anticipate, certainly public safety would not be in there and certain other key positions that we need to function. All right. That's all I have for now. Thanks. Council Member Hardy Chandler.

[00:54:31] To follow up on Council Member Bates' question, if we can go back to Scenario 5, I have a lot of concerns about that bullet point and below. I did have a question about what the sort of rubric was that was determining non-urgent and that was helpful city manager I think I just have a lot of concerns about the things below that because even though we have the quantity of the savings I don't think we can certainly capture the quality of the savings when people are not getting merit or their training is reduced or

[00:55:09] or they're not getting the step up or even the nonprofits, having visited a nonprofit that's been a recipient, I know that that has, as I mentioned before, a very high return on investment. So I appreciate, I do believe, Scenario 3 or above because the ones, again, regarding, well, maybe it isn't completely 3 or some variation on that, but the ones from the I'm on the fence with the with the non-urgent vacancies because I also know

[00:55:44] that when a position is not filled that work then becomes the burden of the remaining staff and you know it's hard to capture the morale impact in those kinds of things. So I think I really appreciate the questions that have been asked. I just have real concerns and would urge um consideration of the qualitative potential impacts of some of those um staff implications that i think really although they don't immediately reduce services they still can have a rippling

[00:56:18] effect that actually do end up impacting services in some ways council member peterson i am wondering Whether Director Summerfield might be able to share some of your thoughts about both the general operating aspects of your programs, but also all of the ties to CIP and how we might be thinking in terms of opportunities for that entire set of things.

[00:56:55] yeah do you have a specific do you want me to do cip i mean there's certainly some reductions that can be made um what would help me and i can't speak on behalf of others is if you could just kind of give us a quick thumbnail kind of big picture on how you think about the major areas that then you kind of look at more carefully when you go through this thought process yeah i think the biggest thing much like dave we look at safety first so making sure that all of our parks and facilities are maintained at high safety standards we are required to do a lot of inspections and to have people with specific certifications on staff and so

[00:57:34] and also do a certain amount of maintenance and repairs to things like playgrounds sports facilities various park items as well as just tree maintenance and things like that so safety is always the first priority and not something that we want to cut and then I think within our CIP we have a lot of potential parks plans there's been a lot of momentum since getting the Thais Park project off the ground in redeveloping some spaces around the city so within our CIP we have a plan in for our money set aside for a Pat rodeo plan

[00:58:09] a Westmore school site plan a there's a number of different sites that have parks plans that we could certainly defer and so those are all amounts so we can certainly I can certainly go through the CIP and pull those out as far as the exercise we did it through just looking at programming because we are the parks department we have a lot of different programming that occurs and so we were able to do our 10 percent reduction without staff impacts as far as having to eliminate positions we do a lot of our labor for especially special

[00:58:48] events is temp, overtime, and part-time labor. So it doesn't affect our general staffing, but we do bring on, it does affect our amount that we're paying for temp and overtime staffing. And if I could just, before you hop in, or are allowed to hop in, ask, I think I saw a worksheet that you had developed that focused on festivals, just as one example of things to do. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what that opportunity set looks like

[00:59:25] and the implications for that? Yeah. So we, I sat down with all of our division heads. We have six divisions and we looked at ways to strategically cut the 10% that would certainly affect the community, but limited the effects to the best way we could. So we tried to take cuts out of every division. I would say the smallest group was our senior programming simply because there is the proposed senior membership as far as this year's rates, and we didn't want to both

[00:59:59] put forth a $60 a year membership fee and then reduce hours that were open. So that seemed like a tough one. So under special events, we looked at eliminating history day. That is a combination Earth Day, History Day event. We used to have a standalone Earth Day event. We combined with History Day to bring more young families to that event. Movies Under the Moon, which are free movies in the park. We eliminated the Fishing Derby, the Extreme Egg Hunt, the Labor Day car

[01:00:35] show support. We did all of those as they were kind of smaller events. The largest one that you'll certainly see on there is the fourth of July evening show we did that simply because it is in a large expenditure of overtime and staff hours so looking at maybe just retaining the parade and then eliminating the evening show just to show kind of what that overall cost is it's nearly two hundred thousand dollars and do you have a summary for the CIP just as director summers I think was offering that was sort of summarized with the potential for those adjustments

[01:01:15] might be that we could see I don't I can certainly send Council one I don't have a total but I do have ones that I have earmarked as potentially available to defer or yeah defer and then I would say at the beginning of this budget process JC and I worked together to defer the Van Dyke redevelopment project by two years out to FY 28 and that was driven largely by the potential Willard Sherwood project and so the Willard Sherwood facility would change the way that that space is used by bringing the senior center over there and a number of

[01:01:51] other programs so once that project was completed looking at then starting Van Dyke Park so both of those are not running simultaneously and can I understand the Willard Sherwood project how does that fit into FY 26 and I know there's a beyond but is that part of the opportunity that possibly we have here for some adjustment I'm gonna grab Brooke because he has been the project

[01:02:20] manager for the Willard Sherwood so the request and in FY 26 CIP is for 9 million for Willard Sherwood this would be year 5 of the funding totaling 56 million overall we are at about 80% construction drawings at this point so we're still working on what the final number will be at this point the

[01:02:58] estimates have us tracking below that 56 million that has been included what what we would do is toward the end of this year we would come to council with what's known as a guaranteed maximum price because this project would be constructed through the construction manager at risk process so we already have the contractor on board he's working with the design team and making recommendations on material choices and value engineering and all

[01:03:33] those sorts of aspects so at that point the council would know what the final figure is for construction on that project unlike a typical design bid bid build process we will know that soon hopefully within the next you know eight months has there been any consideration as a part of this budget process of looking at at least just at a conceptual level alternate design scenarios that might actually be at a smaller scale or something that might significantly change the financial outlays associated with that?

[01:04:12] I mean, there were a number of alternatives that were examined through the design process, and council made a decision after the conceptual stage on what the team has moved forward with.

[01:04:30] And so certainly there were decisions along the way in that regard, and the team has looked at, you know, again, value engineering throughout the project to try to lower costs to the greatest extent possible. But theoretically, there's still an opportunity should the council be interested in design modification?

[01:04:53] Sure, yes. Thank you. Can I ask a question about the fee for the senior center? Because I do think there's a lot of interest and people need to more clarity on why this fee is being proposed, where we are now with that, And sort of the reciprocity agreement between the city and the county vis-a-vis, you know, being able to use all the centers.

[01:05:22] You went over that, but I think there's a lot of questions in the community about it. Yes. So they're included in the rates and levies as a $60 yearly membership fee. Currently, there is not, for any of the programming within the city for the Parks and Rec Department, there is not a resident, non-resident fee in the way that it's city versus county.

[01:05:42] So, and I've been talking to Mr. Lubkerman today to determine whether or not there's a formal arrangement. But when I arrived here, reciprocity was always the, a reciprocity agreement was always the way it was phrased because city residents can utilize county recreation for the same price as county members.

[01:06:04] And so we offer the same reciprocity to county members who come to city programs. Now, there are ways that we do try to give city members benefit in the way that our summer camp, if you're a city resident, you get first registration for bus trips for the senior center, you get first registration for those.

[01:06:26] And I know there's been a little confusion with the Vienna programming because the town of Vienna has its own community center that is separate from the county, and so some of our seniors do participate in the Vienna programming, but that is not a reciprocity agreement because it is town of vienna's individual community center that is outside the county so that's a little confusing yes it's extremely confusing and honestly a lot of our um seniors and even for summer camp we talk to a lot of people who are unclear if they live in the city okay i think that's that's important thank you and mr harden on the willard sherwood center

[01:07:02] as far as what we do we do it in collaboration with the county it is a project governed by a contract and an agreement is that correct that that's correct so we would not be unilaterally making decisions unless it was perhaps space specifically for the city i mean when council member peterson says you know what opportunities are there can you just be a little more clear about what the city has purview over in that project so in terms of the space breakdown

[01:07:36] um the city has about 42 percent of the space in the building the county 58 percent we have moved through the process designing you know in in concert um but you know could there be opportunities to redesign some of the city spaces could there be opportunities to make some different choice in terms of architecture or you know materials on the exterior of the building those are decisions that will come before before the council for decisions

[01:08:14] and so there certainly could be opportunities at that point it again we're at we're at 80% construction drawing so anything that that would that would would change the program that that the design team has been working on the city would have to pay for you know on its on its own as that would be you know outside of the scope of what we've what we've tasked the design team with but there's certainly there's certainly that that potential if that's something that

[01:08:53] council wanted to take a look at well that's stick a pin in the in the concept that if we make changes it's on our nickel above what has been decided jointly in all of this right so changes would be on our nickel and you said nine million dollars left but in what budget year will that will that draw down or allocation take place well I may look at finance to help me with this the nine million is is an allocation and in the FY 26 CIP it's the fifth year that the

[01:09:31] project has been funded we are we are doing the procurement in conjunction with Fairfax County they actually are the lead in terms of the design and the construction process we would be providing allocations to the county to pay I think there's been some maybe preliminary conversation between finance staff from from city and county to see what that drawdown would be but it would likely not be all at one time yeah that's that's what I'm kind of getting at is it is it nine million coming out in one budget year are we talking a

[01:10:10] portion in this budget year and possibly the remainder in the following budget year I mean up to date we've only expended about four million little over four million for this project and we have over almost 40 million budgeted so it's been a very small amount I'm assuming the mass majority will not be expended until construction starts or is in process okay I'm not sure the agreement of when we have to if we're paying directly over paying through the county and what do you think construction is going to start mr. Harden

[01:10:49] anticipated first quarter of calendar year 26 to about a two-year ish construction timeline for that project okay thank you councilmember Amos I guess to build on that question my understanding was that there were also ARPA funds involved in this are there any anticipated impacts because of that so there is a error a few years ago when ARPA was identified for this project it was not communicated with the county that the city wanted to utilize ARPA

[01:11:28] funds so when the county went out for bid they did not put in certain disclosure and language that would be required for utilization, specifically Davis-Bacon language is what it's known as, but was not listed in the term, so we were not able to utilize ARPA funds for this project. We reallocated those ARPA funds to other CIP projects, specifically in parks, thighs, and other things. So we have completely utilized those, and we'll be spending those down before December of 2026 when they expire.

[01:11:59] Okay, that's good to know, because in the book it still said ARPA, so thank you. I appreciate that. Gotcha. Councilmember McQuillan. This is for Ms. Summerfield. Which events have the highest attendance? Of the proposed cut events? No, just all of them. The top three highest that grossing of. Yeah, so our landmark events would be the 4th of July, Fall Festival, Chocolate Lovers, those of which we're getting over 10,000 people in attendance. Then we have our kind of

[01:12:35] mid-tier events a typical rock the block we're looking at 5,000 people and so we did we do have a cost breakdown I believe that's been shared of each event and the estimated attendance thank you and then which one of the which of those are the oldest running events oh gosh I think I would have to double check but I believe it's the 4th of July parade that is coming up on a big anniversary year i believe it's at least 30 i've got a i'll double check okay not you don't have to be perfect on that just kind of and then um aside from fourth of july which of the events require the most labor

[01:13:15] and overtime i would say um next would be fall festival just because we are looking at a full day of closing down streets um utilizing um you know police fire public works and our staff and then um with the the opening of or the start of the new foundation that we just started the parks and rec foundation that we're starting will that open up potential for um like uh councilmember amos was talking about the ppeas those partnerships would that be a potential yes i would say um especially for special events right now we passively bring in about 75 000 we just put up

[01:13:55] sponsorship back opportunities on the website and people have to contact us the idea with the foundation is to be able to um to actively go out and talk to members of the community mail you know our sponsorship guide out to those individuals and then follow up with them and hopefully we'll see we should definitely see an increase in the sponsorships that we see coming in and and about what's the timeline on that again the foundation is it finished have we gotten everybody or are we still working on we are still if you're watching at home we are still looking for three more directors so we are still taking applications for the final three director positions but we are meeting with the first two that were appointed and working on getting the 501c3

[01:14:34] and also setting up kind of our preliminary base. Thank you. Councilmember Hall. Thank you. I have a couple of questions about the just parks and recs in general, and then I kind of have a cross-school question with parks.

[01:14:51] So if someone else has a parks question, feel free to jump in before I ask the school accommodation question. So I'll start with maybe the easier ones. I'm looking at the reduction items that you had provided before, and it looks like some of the money for some of these programs stays in the city, but I understand maybe some of the money then gets donated out elsewhere or things like that.

[01:15:14] I think you mentioned, I think specifically the Asian Festival, that we donate $20,000, and then it looks like maybe the remainder of the $8,000 there goes to Ride of the Patriots. Does that money come back to us? Does it get donated to businesses or organizations in the city, or does it donate elsewhere?

[01:15:32] Well, so specifically Asian festivals, so our costs are the costs of shutting down the streets, police, fire, so those are all labor costs. We're not giving anyone cash, but we're providing services, and so it has been – I'm not sure what the Asian festival budget looks like this year as far as what they're taking in from vendors and what they have remaining.

[01:16:01] I do know that they work hard to donate to some of the proceeds from the event to various nonprofit organizations in the community. So the city is covering the cost of services. Okay, and previously that was paid back, but then I think a couple years ago it started not being an item that was reimbursed.

[01:16:18] Is that correct? I believe the first year it was reimbursed, and then past that point the city has covered the services. They came to council, and that decision was made to cover services. Okay. And then similar to Ride of the Patriots, I'm just trying to look at some things that are not specifically.

[01:16:35] Yes. So that remaining $8,000 is Ride of the Patriots, and that is, again, services. Okay. And that's not reimbursed, then? That's a straight cost? That is a straight cost. Okay. Okay. The Connected Magazine, how often does that go out? Is that a monthly thing or quarterly?

[01:16:58] Three times a year. So we do a summer, because that's our biggest issue, a fall, kind of fall-winter, and then a winter-spring, which kind of splits that winter season, because winter is our lowest as far as city events and programs.

[01:17:14] Okay, and we have no idea of the readership of some of these things, right? No, because we print and mail it. So in this eliminating, would be just eliminating the printing and mailing, we would still, of course, have some printed copies available at places like the Senior Center where we see that people really want to have that physical copy, but we would no longer mail them to all the residents in the city.

[01:17:34] Okay. I know when we had our, like our two-on-two, I think with communications, we talked about like maybe for some of these things, we could do like a little game or like find the Fairfax talk, something just to see who's reading it, just get an idea of, I mean, I don't know how you do that, but just something to see if people are actually engaging with it or some sort of, you know, maybe there's a giveaway if you do X, Y, and Z or something. I don't know. I was just trying to make sure we're not wasting a bunch of paper and $60,000 or even $50,000 of it at this point. Based on anecdotal data, anytime we make a mistake, I would say a lot of people are reading it because I definitely hear about it. Excellent. No one tells you when it's good, but they always

[01:18:11] tell you when it's bad. Yes. Okay. I think that's my questions on the reductions. So specific on some of the Willard Sherwood questions. The staffing on that, I understand there's a lot of entrances and exits and some other delegation of duties. Can you touch on how many people we think we might need to hire to be able to staff this moving forward? Yes. So it is a very open building and the design of the building predates my arrival with the city. And so I believe it was

[01:18:45] it was really the will of the council that it be a very open building and available and so it does require quite a bit of staffing there's no centralized entrance like a typical rec center and so the staffing amount that we're looking at we worked up some conservative numbers working with jc and gwen and our estimate was around two million dollars a year we're looking about 35 part-time and temporary staff members and two full-time staff members to staff three desks throughout three floors four desks throughout the building and is that the city's portion of

[01:19:23] the staffing or is the county contributing to that or they have their own staff this the county spaces have controlled entrances with lobbies and we have we have some spaces that we can control like the fitness center has a desk built within it but in the gym and running the main desk would be on the city. Understanding this predates you is there a reason why that was the architecture that was chosen if it seems that the county was able to control their ongoing operating costs and

[01:19:57] we weren't? There are three primary entrances at the ground level to the building. One would be through the existing Sherwood Center. One facing out on the Blenheim Boulevard, and then one facing on what would be the internal street, kind of on the western side of the property, where there are some service spaces and a drop off.

[01:20:26] The design that moved forward was one, as Ms. Summerfield noted, was to be open, to be inviting. The direction was that we wanted a building that didn't appear to be institutional, that, you know, welcomed folks in. So the idea of having an entryway on Blenheim Boulevard was very important, albeit, you know, that's not, you know, there's no parking there

[01:21:01] in front of that. That will be for pedestrians, people on bikes, people coming on the bus. But that was certainly a value that we wanted to have that kind of presence on such a prominent corner in the city. And there were decisions about the fitness center being located there and lots of windows in the gym being located on Blenheim Boulevard.

[01:21:25] So there were a number of kind of choices in terms of the design and layout, but it's a tight site. And so there were only so many options to Council Member Peterson's question earlier. there were three options that were evaluated. The one that was chosen pushed the parking underground as opposed to above ground.

[01:21:45] That gave a little bit more flexibility in what we could do in terms of layout and made the building not as tall as it may have been. But yes, I mean, could the city say, we wanna close the front door on Blenheim and lock it like we do here at City Hall?

[01:22:04] Certainly could. But that was certainly not the design intent or direction that we had to work toward. Yeah, and I can understand that, recognize that. I also, I mean, my son plays basketball at pretty much every rec center in the probably 15-mile radius. And there's typically one entrance in and there's one exit out.

[01:22:23] And you walk in and there's one desk and there might have three staff members there. So I can understand this is an extraordinary amount of staff that we're going to need. And $2 million of ongoing, that on its own would be a little over two and a half cents, I believe, on the tax rate moving forward indefinitely.

[01:22:41] And if I recall correctly from what previous council member Ross said was that we should anticipate about a four to five cent tax increase permanent moving forward, understanding that some of that might be offset by membership fees, but that it sounded like that was largely going to be a permanent cost.

[01:22:59] Did that include the two million for revenue, Mr. Martinez? I'm sorry, but not for revenue, for staffing that four to five that he was referring to? I don't recall, you said Council Member Ross. I do not recall that per se, but to your point, at a $2.1 million estimated ongoing operating cost every year, that would be about two and a half cents.

[01:23:24] And I would project and predict that that would increase over time because you have merits and an additional cost with health insurance and VRS as well. So there would be over time a little bit of increase with that as well. Okay. Thank you. And so this is my kind of joint question with schools, and then I actually have a couple other questions for schools.

[01:23:47] But my understanding is that we have a really good community use arrangement that goes on at a lot of our schools, right? We use them for FPYC basketball and the fields and all of that. It seems like we as collective, FPYC families, things like that, it seems like sometimes we're missing out on the ability to use the basketball court that already exists at the high school.

[01:24:12] I mean, there's three or four of them plus the little gym. Has there ever been a consideration of maybe opening that up and having a staff member be there, at least in the interim until this is built, potentially, or some other way of having kids be able to access a rec center and not having to go to the county's facilities all the time?

[01:24:32] For an open gym program? Open gym, yeah. Just, you know, like I said, we go to the rec center all the time in the county. Yeah. We certainly could look at something like that. I will say that Rich is our athletic coordinator and works with the schools.

[01:24:51] We have a great working relationship with them. But I will say gym space is the most limited. And so it is some of the toughest space to get. I know FPYC basketball plays a lot in the county for that reason. We do. And it's always been kind of an unfortunate thing that we have these schools right here.

[01:25:07] And we're forced to go to the county all the time. Yeah. But I also do feel like as someone who goes to the high school quite a bit, sometimes our gyms could feel a little underutilized, maybe a random, you know, it's not a basketball season, but another night.

[01:25:25] Sherpa, just do you have any comments on that before I ask you questions about the CIP? Recognizing Josela does a fantastic job of trying to work with the community, so I understand that. So in terms of the schools and the facilities, that's also through Rich.

[01:25:44] So if it's open and nobody is using it, youth clubs like FPYC and some of the – yeah, they don't pay. So the way the hierarchy is is that schools have first right to the facilities, and then it's whoever is going to pay, and then it's the youth clubs that sort of come after that.

[01:26:11] But have Parks and Rec and schools ever talked and said, hey, we have this gym space on Tuesdays from 5 to 9, and the kids can come in and play basketball, so I'm going to my own high school instead of driving to Vienna or to Annandale to go to exactly what's already being offered there, which is literally just an open gym that kids come and pay $5 or $6 to go to every time.

[01:26:35] To me, I feel like we could have a membership. We could kind of work with something like that. And the challenge has been getting regular space. A lot of times things are reserved and then will come open maybe three days in advance.

[01:26:53] And so it's very difficult to plan around that. And that I think there's a lot of reservations and movement within the school schedule. Yeah, I would say this is not my I don't schedule the basketball courts or any of those facilities.

[01:27:13] But if I understand, if there's an open, if you are trying to start something where it's like open gym and everybody pays $5 to play, that would be something that would have to go through Rich because he would be the one who would know when those openings are.

[01:27:32] Rich Crowder, is that who you're talking about? Rich Wyant. Okay. Yeah. So Rich is a part-time staff member of ours. He does the scheduling. Oh, Parks and Rec specifically. Okay, yeah. And we could certainly look at it. We would have to pay to staff it and then also pay the custodial fee.

[01:27:48] Yeah. Yeah, which it's usually open and we're already paying for custodian for some things, no? No, whoever is renting pays the custodial fees. Okay. And how will the proposed basketball work?

[01:28:03] How will that gym be used at the proposed Willard Sherwood Center? That would be fully controlled by city parks and recs. So we would not have to work around a school schedule. I mean, we'd certainly share with the schools if they needed to use it, but it would be fully programmed and scheduled within the rec department.

[01:28:22] Thank you. I think that's on my parks questions. Can I ask some CIP for the school? Yeah, absolutely. So I understand that certain things have been moved that might not have been notated or been obvious to people that were not aware of it. I know the softball field.

[01:28:37] Can you kind of comment on some of the CIP items? - So we originally, the 1.75 million that you will see in the CIP is now out in FY 2028. The school board pushed that off in response to the need by the city.

[01:28:57] I had my reservations about that just because of Title IX. We did the baseball field for the, obviously the boys, so the softball field, but I think it's fine. close enough that that it that I that I think it'll be amenable to to most people so that was the the thing that that 1.75 million we mr. Phillips and I were looking through the CIP items and in terms of FY 2025 which is already

[01:29:31] adopted we are not going to spend the 1.2 million dollars on the renovation in the auditorium for the orchestra pit we would have to cancel too many programs at this point to do that project it's a huge project so we're willing to give that money back to the city to be reallocated we are also willing to return the 54,000 for the marquees because of Blenheim project goes through there's no point in replacing those marquees now we really don't know what

[01:30:06] that space is you know 100 going to look like so we can give that back as well in terms of the hallway lighting which you'll see in FY 2026 proposed and 2027 proposed we can push that off as well there there is lighting in the hallway it's less than ideal but remember our budget is as I said before is 90 percent the tuition bill we there's not a whole lot we can you know don't think that schools doesn't want to be a part of this process we just that's a

[01:30:43] bill we we don't really have much leeway with our budget and you know the other little bit is staff salary and benefits and you know grounds maintenance it's nothing you know like I said it's not a shopping trip in there so but looking at our CIP there are a couple like I said we can give back the 1.2 million for it to be reallocated we've pushed off the 1.75 million from the softball field we can push off the hallway lighting for Katherine Johnson and the marquees which

[01:31:19] is a little bit more money the security enhancements that are proposed for FY 2026 that might come in lower and we're working with FCPS to see if that they would cover that expense so that might be a savings there I'm fully aware what they are and I love them can you maybe just tell the rest of council what exactly those are the cameras for the schools or the the actual badges yeah the badges okay so this year we're doing to security thing we're gonna have new cameras in the elementary schools but also we Dan do you want to talk about

[01:31:58] this because you did most of the research on this. So there's a, if you'll remember back, there was a tragedy in Georgia, a school shooting. The teachers in the school were wearing the alert badges. It's sort of a new product. It looks like an ID badge. It's got a push button. And while there were lives lost, the belief is that many people were saved because they were able to alert everyone in the building in real time, and then also show where in the building things were happening Fairfax County is in the process of adopting those badges right now for a period of time we thought we might be able to get in early and get

[01:32:36] something in our schools quicker and some of this funding was for that it does look like we're going to be able to do it and Fairfax County still in the process and I want to honor that process but we might be able to do things without any expense to us at the beginning of next school year so that would be a savings but until we we don't want to give that back until we know for sure that we won't have that expense because it would be good for our schools to have i personally will say i think that's critical funds and money very well spent i think my mom was the one who was like you need to get these and just so those who don't know the teachers had only been trained on them for about a week they had they were totally brand new with

[01:33:12] that school and like mr phillips said it was it was the thought that they really see dave a significant amount of lives um and i will just tell for others that don't know about the restroom enhancement for the high school. That is critical, $40,000. The women's restroom entrance is actually on lie and run. So for those that go to a football game and are now on the away team side, it's very dark over there. So this is a reconfiguration to make that less scary. Yeah, there's really

[01:33:45] no lighting on that side of the building. There's a lot of screening from trees. It's just it's not a very safe um and in fact uh now we have on the home side we it's fine because we have the new concession stand which has um new bathrooms but anybody who's sitting on the way side that is the restroom restroom that they they would use so we're just it's we're not tearing that building down we're just simply going to redirect a hallway so it comes do you want to speak to this one of the options that we the board was considering was the

[01:34:25] possibility of taking what's now a group restroom and very very old not not in great shape turning those into two private like family style restrooms on that side so they would be there for immediate need ad accessible and that sort of thing and then for the bulk of folks going back up to the concession stand really wouldn't be that big of an issue for for the whole time the old concession stand was in place people from the home side walked down to this side so really the visitors can do the same just the reverse going up but having a few restrooms down there would alleviate the worry it's not even it's not all lighting either it's just supervision it's in the back

[01:35:03] side of the building and so if we were able to either close those or have those locked unless we could supervise and then on the front side what's currently the men's room make those into two single-use restrooms it would be a good service to the visitor side and it would still increase the total number of restrooms available in the stadium and it's all any community group that like all the youth clubs that use the facilities as well so and like Dan said you know especially during football season when it's dark and you we don't have enough administrative staff to be

[01:35:43] hanging around on the backside of that building seeing everything that's going on in there so it's also a safety issue and not in in those terms for sure thank you and yes especially now that there will be less people probably using the bathroom it's more reason to have it more visible on the front side but thank you it looks like you really took a hard look at your CIP yeah hopefully it'll be of some help thank you councilmember Amos just a quick comment and then a Follow-up question, comment, oh, breaking news, what's going on?

[01:36:22] Okay. Well, I was just going to pause and tell my fiancée that I love her, and I hope to make it back to you so we can watch a retreat tonight, but we'll see what happens. And then for a follow-up question on the split car tax payment, I know some issues had come up, and I was wondering if we could get a brief update either from, I know we have our treasurer here, Commissioner for Revenue, just to kind of explain why there may be some hiccups with that quote-unquote solution.

[01:36:50] Thank you very much for the opportunity. We, Tom and I, City Treasurer and I, have some concerns with going with two installments versus one.

[01:37:18] I'll say at the outset that currently out of the 13 jurisdictions in Northern Virginia, only one has a split tax structure. So every single locality in Northern Virginia except Loudon.

[01:37:35] um assesses and collects personal property once a year i i will say that loudon county as it happens the commissioner revenue was previously the deputy commissioner when they did this and i reached out to him uh to see why you know they did that and in the early 90s loudon county was experiencing tremendous growth from a rural locality to a suburban locality. And their revenues, tax revenues, were not catching up to the infrastructure that they

[01:38:14] needed. So that's essentially why they did that. And it's been considered before. Fairfax County considered it in 2008 when we went through a recession and essentially opted not to do it because, as Councilmember Peterson pointed out, you change the way things work, and sometimes it has the opposite effect of what you're trying to achieve.

[01:38:45] I think, and I don't want to speak for him, but I think the treasurer has maybe some suggestions that doesn't get to where either the city manager or the director of finance would want to get in terms of a concrete number for the next fiscal year, but would probably go a long way to getting the money in early and would address your concern, Council Member Amos, and yours as well, Council Member Hall.

[01:39:22] And that is, you know, this is quite a bill that is not escrowed, you know, that people have to pay. And we, you know, I think Tom and I both, you know, recognize the value, you know, associated with that. So with that, I'll stop talking and, you know, let my colleague chime in.

[01:39:41] So anyway, I think the most salient point that I have this evening is I'm not sure that this proposal is viable.

[01:40:01] I don't know that our tax software vendor can create and make the changes necessary to our existing system in the time frame that we would need it done.

[01:40:18] So I found out on Sunday that this was something being discussed. First thing yesterday, Monday, when I came in, Becky and I met. Becky's our chief deputy, and I said, get a note to PCI, our software vendor, and ask them, tell them what council is considering, and find out what it would cost, is it feasible based on the system that we have now, and how fast could they do it.

[01:40:51] So I don't have an answer for you yet. We are still waiting, but that's a big if. So we may be premature, but anyway, I'll report back to the city manager and JC on what they tell us about that.

[01:41:10] You know, as I was looking at this thing, a lot of questions came to mind. You know, of course, the costs, and I think that that was discussed. I watched the work session in earlier March today and the last council meeting today.

[01:41:28] And so, obviously, some of the costs are the obvious ones, the postage, the supplies. Programming will be a big one. We have a lockbox system. So, in essence, what you're talking about doing, just to give you a reference on the numbers, so right now we send out about 20,000 personal property tax bills every year.

[01:41:52] So now we're looking at sending 40,000 personal property tax bills a year. And so now some of the obvious costs, the supplies, the postage, but some of the things that we, that you may not consider, that first go around, we have a fairly high percentage of uncollectible, and so we end up sending delinquent notices, and then we send out a final notice, and then we send it to a collection agency when need be.

[01:42:26] So now some taxpayers are getting three, sometimes four notices. Now we're going to be sending out six, sometimes eight notices. So I'm just sort of going over some of the questions and some of the costs that I thought of. Of course, the big cost is going to be staff.

[01:42:49] Becky and I chatted and we talked and we've been racking our brains. we don't see how we can maintain our collection levels and our service levels with the existing staff. I just don't think it's doable. The bulk of our time in Treasury, and I know it is, I don't want to speak for Paige, but I'm sure you'd agree, the bulk of the time for all staff is spent on personal property. And it's the most complicated, not only for staff, but especially

[01:43:24] for our taxpayers. But anyway, so my rough guess, we'll need two new staff people to administer one additional billing a year. My staff is eight full-time and one part-time.

[01:43:43] So that's my guess. I don't know if we would... Sorry, we would likely need at least one additional staff person. What happens is when billing time comes around, people all of a sudden realize that they've moved out of the city or made changes to their personal property and the phone starts to ring and or emails we start to receive.

[01:44:06] So essentially we'll be doubling the amount of calls and touches that we have with our taxpayers. So staffing is a big issue. Collections is a combination of good systems, of which we have, and elbow grease, and lots of elbow grease, and lots of phone calls, and our toughest collection efforts are on personal property, second of which is business license, but we work hard to collect

[01:44:43] personal property. So anyway, collection rates I'm concerned about, but anyway, I'm thinking two, and those are permanent hires. That's not going to go away. That won't go away in years two and beyond. Then the other questions I have, you know, one of the other costs might be, This is the most confusing bill there is.

[01:45:04] The most confusing component of this bill is the vehicle registration fee. And if we decide to go that route, the first thing I'd say is, well, we have to jettison that because it's going to overcomplicate things. That's $33. It's about three-quarters of a million a year, I think, that we collect on that.

[01:45:23] Another question is, and this is something that we need to consider, and I heard the city manager talking about it at one of the two previous meetings, Pro-rate, not pro-rate. If we're going to change ordinance, do we want to stop pro-rating or do we want to continue pro-rating?

[01:45:40] Honestly, I haven't had time to do an analysis because I'm sure it's out there somewhere to find out if we decide to do this and we do decide to not pro-rate anymore, just go to flat, is it a revenue generator, is it a revenue loser?

[01:45:56] So those are things that I'd like to look into before coming out or at least like to provide that to you so that council, mayor and council, can make an informed decision. You know, obviously the good thing about this is that it will increase our debt capacity and it will help balance this budget.

[01:46:19] The downside is, of course, you know, the cost, the permanent cost, permanent staff. But as I was just sort of thinking about this and Diane and I talking about it, you know, in our little town all over America, life is not less complicated than it used to be, at least not for this old guy.

[01:46:41] Life is more complicated than it used to be. And in our little town, it's becoming more and more complicated by the day. I heard probably a dozen times in those two council meetings that the most hated tax is the personal property tax.

[01:46:59] We can definitely attest to that. And it is true. You are working from a safe assumption. The personal property tax is the least popular tax that we have. It's the most confusing, and it's the most hated.

[01:47:16] And so whereas I listen to the rationale that, well, you know what? Maybe if we cut it in half, it'll be more palatable for taxpayers. It'll be two smaller payments instead of this one gigantuous one, because let's face it.

[01:47:32] I mean, they are gigantuous now. But I get that. But most of the people I talked to, because when I found out this was a possibility, I started asking people. They said, well, I'll just write one check. I don't want to be bothered with the second bill.

[01:47:48] People hate that bill. They hate it with a passion. So I'm thinking, is this really going to be doing a favor to our taxpayers to say, hey, you know what? We're going to bother you one more time a year now than we already are. And so I guess it's the human cost, because it is more complicated.

[01:48:09] Let's see. Oh, so but not being deaf to that to that concern that it makes it more palatable.

[01:48:27] I think Councilperson Hall mentioned it and some others. We have a better option just for your information. So some months ago, before this even came out, I initiated a request to our software vendor.

[01:48:45] And I said, look, I want our taxpayers to be able to self-guide a pre-tax payment so that they can log into their portal so that they can say, I want to start making monthly, quarterly, semi-annually.

[01:49:04] I want to do this, but it could be their choice. We do a similar thing now with debit and forget it, but only for real estate. And it's manual. It's a lot of work for us. We're trying to automate that. But anyway, to me, that would be a better option.

[01:49:21] That would be the option of providing the option to the taxpayer and saying you could do it and you can pay it however you want. You can pay us weekly if you want, but most likely people are going to want to pay us monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or just once a year.

[01:49:37] So those are my concerns. And is it doable? i'll tell you when i find out from the software company because that's really uh that that would be a deal killer they come back and say there ain't no way we're going to get this done but for you by february of 2026 well then it's off the table i just don't i don't think it's doable but i told jc this i am not going to go to them and say hey you're not going to be able to do this are you i we did we asked them genuinely can this be done and i'll let you all know

[01:50:15] The final point I'll make, it seems to me that the juice is not worth the squeeze, you know, at least right now. Checks. I'm just fascinated by writing checks.

[01:50:32] Council Member McQuillan. Could you provide a little more detail as to why, if we were to do it just for one year, my understanding is it would just be the split payment one year, why would that create more employees moving forward for the future, aside from just that one year?

[01:50:51] uh that wasn't my impression i thought this was a permanent change that was that was our that was our my understanding as well is that not true the the financial gain is for one year the the you get a one-time financial gain that's because and that just has to do with the accounting year you would get in essence 150 other questions comments council member peterson before i forget

[01:51:30] I want to reach back to a line item on the different reduction scenarios and be sure I understand how that may or may not affect you. And then I would like to ask you a little bit more about the issue that's before us.

[01:51:48] There's a line item for something having to do with knocking back training and travel. You all rely on mandated certifications, et cetera. Would you be continuing those mandated training exercises to keep current with all the certifications, et cetera, under those scenarios?

[01:52:13] I think just speaking for myself and probably for Tom, I think the scenario that at least the language that I've seen in the various scenarios seems to indicate that that would be, there would be a reservation for those of us who do need those kinds of certifications.

[01:52:32] So, yeah, but beyond that, I think, you know, at least for my part, that's, I'm willing to, you know, endure a little pain and, you know, have a reduction in, you know, unnecessary, you know, travel and or training.

[01:52:52] So I'm not familiar with what the reduction, was there a flat percentage rate that was proposed for training? So in reviewing across all departments, collectively, the travel and training budget, when you add all the lines again by all departments, equals $535,000.

[01:53:13] That was a potential reduction option that was proposed tonight that we would eliminate that entire line by all departments, my department, myself included, where I'm mandated to maintain licenses and certifications as well. Those would not be done.

[01:53:29] okay so yes we have minimums that we have to meet for our department certification and for individuals to continue with their certification so for instance Becky is a certified man our master governmental deputy treasurer I am a Master Governmental Treasurer.

[01:53:59] Amy Ford is on track to become a Master Governmental Deputy Treasurer. And for that, when we achieve those statuses, the state increases its contribution to those positions.

[01:54:21] Also, our department is also certified based on our standards and procedures, and we get audited for that. Not every year, but we do get audited for that regularly. So in answer to your question, yes, it would hurt us.

[01:54:38] I would probably try and hornswoggle or convince finance and manager to allow us to continue to do that. We can cut back, and we don't have to do everything, but we can cut back. Just as an example, we can take advantage of every online course because they're quite a bit less expensive.

[01:55:00] But some courses are not offered online. Roles and responsibilities for treasurers, which we would like all of our staff to take at some point in time, that is not offered online. So some are, some not, but we can sharpen a pencil. But I would not want to eliminate our budget altogether just for staff.

[01:55:20] So I'm a CPA in the state of Virginia, and I have required continuing professional education credits that I have to take. Anything that's not satisfied in my dual certification with Treasurer's Association, I pay for myself.

[01:55:37] So that's all out-of-pocket stuff. The same standard applies, essentially what Tom said, applies to the commissioners as well and deputy commissioners. When the request was made to have some exploration of a 10% reduction, I think one of the observations at the time is that not all departments and offices are created equal.

[01:56:09] And there would be a differential in terms of the potential to respond to that. So I certainly appreciate that you all operate on a different basis than other units of government. Just a general comment and question. two, and then I'll, I think, wrap it. First, to the extent that all of you have not compared notes and worked jointly on these scenarios and all of the components involved in them, I think it would be, speaking on behalf of the council, helpful to be sure you do that, right? We would encourage as

[01:56:43] much collaboration as possible on these. The second is mention of the 2008 recession. I'm guessing both of you lived through that and probably that's not the only difficult budget period that you've lived through here in this city's history and here we are one more time but we've been there before and y'all are in a unique position I think to maybe look backwards a bit

[01:57:12] and see some of the takeaways on how we made it through those past episodes successfully and what that general approach, if not magic formula, looks like for where we are today. What is your take on what we could learn from the past and where we are today and how we might act on that? I'll go first.

[01:57:36] I'll just simply say, I'll quote, first of all, Otto von Bismarck, no man should see laws or sausage being made. And that's kind of the way this process works. The budget is a law and that's what you all are struggling with. I will simply say that the process unfolds like it has started to unfold tonight in the past. That's exactly how it's worked. You've seen department heads step up

[01:58:10] and offer their assistance. I think in the final analysis, just given my lens on this, is what you're going to come up with is a combination of tax increase and budget and or expense reduction.

[01:58:29] And that's going to lead you to a balanced budget. And I think all of you will be able to hold your heads high and face any of the taxpayers and any of the public having done that. And it appears that you're headed in that direction.

[01:58:48] So in 2008, I was not treasurer. I started January 1, 2014, so I wasn't here. I was running my business, and it was a horrible time, but I won't bore you with those details. But at that time, it wasn't just municipalities.

[01:59:06] It was all us small business guys, too. We were all struggling through that. So anyway, but I was not here, so I don't really have the historical knowledge that Page would have on that. If I can, Council Member Peterson, since you waved at those individuals up here.

[01:59:23] so in 2008 historically and I was not here either but I did go back and look at some of the financials for the city in 2008 the city's tax rate increased by seven cents in 2009 it increased by nine cents in 2010 it increased by seven and a half cents so within a three-year window it was almost 24 cents 30 some odd percent increase within that time frame there was a lot of infrastructure that was being done within the city within that time frame in 2004 the last set of school bonds have been passed for the high school and the middle school additionally where we're sitting right now the annex on City Hall was also

[02:00:02] started also in addition to that was the police headquarters was redone the Blundheim Interpretive Center was also done and then there was a bunch of underground cabling and utilities in Old Town as well so a lot of generational investment done in the city within a very short time frame. Out of curiosity was the increase in the underlying assessment of real estate increasing at the time in the same kind of scale it is this year?

[02:00:37] I would have to defer to our real estate assessor. Session? Okay, so no, we had a negative. Thank you.

[02:01:03] Other questions? Council Member Hull. Not a question, but just a comment. Thank you very much for that very detailed explanation. Not all departments are created equal when it comes to cuts and reductions and things like that.

[02:01:22] And I think that you've explained very thoroughly why the splitting of the personal property tax is likely not going to work. And I think also your historical knowledge and information of being here and having lived through some of this and experiences is extremely helpful.

[02:01:39] And I think sometimes, again, five out of six of us are new up here. There's so many people in finance. We lose that sometimes. And I think it's really valuable. And to all of the other departments that have already come up and spoken, Thank you. I certainly will have questions for the others, but it does sound like everyone's kind of put an extra thinking hat on.

[02:01:58] I hate that phrase and I just said it, but thank you for trying to think outside of the box of just a straight 10% that was asked of you. I'll also thank you all for the opportunity to come up and give our viewpoints on this very, very important issue. Thank you.

[02:02:18] Oh, I'm sorry, Mayor. I just wanted to say I love the questions I'm hearing tonight to everybody in the discussion. It's very refreshing, and I think it's very constructive. I'm Jazz. This taxpayer, I think you all are doing great work up here.

[02:02:36] I would agree. The questions and the dialogue are very important. It's certainly better than 10,000 health and human services. Federal workers being terminated today because some people don't think we need anybody to run government. And we do need people to run government, and responsibly, too.

[02:02:52] And so I also commend everybody here tonight in the hard questions and the amount of energy that is going in to try to be a responsible government entity, because certainly we are seeing that other people have different ideas about how you manage government.

[02:03:10] So do we have, yes, Council Member Peterson. I'm wondering if we might do a check-in with folks with our fire department on the budget issues. Is that possible or not possible this evening?

[02:03:28] Thank you. And so I would just say at the outset that, of course, safety of all kinds is a top-line issue for the city.

[02:03:44] So I'm personally very, very sensitive to that. But I think you all are a bit unique in a number of ways, but you do a certain number of things that are very capital-intensive, buildings, equipment, et cetera, and then you have your operations.

[02:03:59] You've got at least two different buckets to work with. As you have approached this request to kind of explore where there are opportunities for reductions in any of those buckets, can you share a little bit with us about how you've been thinking about that and what you may have found in terms of some opportunities, again, whether it's the capital-intensive investments or the implications of them on operations or other operational issues?

[02:04:30] Yes, sir. So, Assistant Chief Seitz, I'm responsible for the Office of Security Administration. So, Chief O'Neill and Chief Dunstan are doing our accreditation, as you guys have been made aware, that we got re-accredited again.

[02:04:48] So, anyway, I am going to fill in for him and Chief Dunstan. So, to answer your question, I think you've learned this evening that we did not focus a lot on the capital project piece. not in the fire department either even though we have a fire station that's part of the capital improvement process we have a ladder truck that's in capital improvement and a couple other items we haven't really focused on that as as well in the 10 10 reduction as requested the only place that we have to cut is personnel our operating to keep the fire stations open and keep operations

[02:05:26] running for fire and ems um but that's essentially a 12 of our budget that we do just to do that alone so the rest of the places that we have to cut is in personnel and that's that's what chief anneal proposes to attempt to get to that 10 um obviously uh i think as jc mentioned that there's a upcoming presentation on the fire station where we're at on that as far as the process um so that's sort of where chief venial and the command staff have looked at at this point

[02:06:01] thank you is there a plan going forward now to take a look at cip and if so can you tell us a little bit more about when and how and when we might be able to have a look uh whether it's new buildings whether it's new equipment you know etc etc i am certain that when chief venial is back At the end of this week or the first of next week, it will be a priority for us to look at those opportunities

[02:06:36] and discuss with the city manager and the finance team of all those larger projects that we have with the large ticket dollar amount of what at all we can do with that. I'm sure that's where Chief Renewal will want to go. Yes, sir. Councilor Pete, in fairness to Chief Seitz, he did not, on the operational side, He's on the code compliance side, so as I mentioned, Chief O'Neill and Chief Dunstan would be the more appropriate folks to probably better answer your questions, and they're not here this evening.

[02:07:13] Understood and appreciated very much. Thanks, guys, but we will look forward to... I'm certain that we'll participate in every way possible, yes, sir. Yes, Ms. Riddle. I have spoken with Chief Dunstan, and he is looking into cost savings on especially the larger apparatus so he's already taken that into account for the vehicles that he's purchasing there in the CIP so there's no nothing solid or concrete that we can do right now but he's looking to see how we can save in the future on there's

[02:07:52] some operas are a three-year wait so it's what the timing is on those even the budget versus when the cash would be coming out as well well just to clarify, will we be able to look at the assumptions around CIP, what's in it in FY26, and where there are ongoing efforts to find reductions even in comparison?

[02:08:25] Yes. And I can speak briefly to that in what Gwen's saying, that there are vehicles in the capital improvement piece that aren't always front line pieces that run the calls every single day but are valuable pieces to us that I believe we can look at as can we move them out farther and defer them I believe that knowing that myself we could certainly look at several of those and look at them versus the front line pieces are the ones that are running every day and we have to make sure we're able to do that so yes sir and I would just conclude by saying I don't want to stand in

[02:09:02] the way of other council members who have questions about our fire and safety program but I would like to turn actually as soon as we are able to our police department and have a conversation with you all as well so whenever we're able to do that I'll look forward to that councilmember Hall I just have a question first and thank you for coming in and this might be a joint public works fire department question but I understand there's been some recent staff time that's been devoted to the fire station despite not really

[02:09:41] having a full update on the PPEA and some of the other funding kind of questions can you maybe speak to some of that that's been going on we continue to to meet and work with the contractor that we've hired to do the needs assessment and the actual just conceptual planning so we have had a couple meetings with them just to keep that process rolling in which we've expended money for so we're just that financial obligation of them to us we continue to meet with them to discuss just a conceptual plan okay well just that my project manager Syed has been working and the architect has kept up

[02:10:20] with this because as we discussed earlier delays in a project raise costs so what happened was you know we we continue with the design of the fire station and at the same time we're doing the PPEA and where we're at is you know let's see what happens with the PPEA but in the meantime the fire station is moving forward in a preliminary design if we will reach a point where we need to know about the PPEA and before we move forward to like past 20 or 30% design we would need to know what's going to happen with the PPEA so in the

[02:10:58] meantime though we're not there yet so we're continuing to work on the design Okay. Recognizing it's an extraordinary cost. Recognizing it's an extraordinary need. Correct me if I'm wrong, okay? It seems like the focus of if we need to delay, if we need to find funds elsewhere, move funds elsewhere, would you agree that the equipment itself is more critical if we had to consider pushing something out a year as far as the building itself goes?

[02:11:37] or not? Honestly, I would want Chief O'Neill to answer that question. Okay, that's fair. Absolutely. Thank you very much. Well, same question about equipment. So you're pushing out the equipment, but I'm assuming that everything we budgeted for the equipment, if we're pushing it out a year or two, it's going to be more expensive. Would that be fair?

[02:12:05] That would be a fair assessment, just as a person that just bought a vehicle is looking at how much it cost three years ago versus this year so i think that's a fair assessment i think it's fair i mean not that we can do anything about timing but i just think we have to understand there's a cost of deferment too that means we're also kicking the increased cost of everything down the road by one or two years as well just so that everybody understands you don't really get a free pass eventually the bill comes due one way or another i'll just add to the just the comment in the in the direction you you were going

[02:12:40] there that anything that fire police or public safety related is not the same as a consumer buying something we tack on three to four years just because it says fire or it's special so it's never easy just to plan that we're going to purchase it next year unless it's a you know an suv or a pickup if it has any kind of design to it to do firefighting or police work then there's an added time and when you start adding time there's cost every time so yes and i think there's one piece of equipment that we ordered that we had to set aside the money up front so there is one piece of equipment that's like six years out maybe mr.

[02:13:18] Martinez I think it's you're referencing an apparatus where in the in that instance the vendor kind of what the chief was saying about then there are limited vendors who actually do apparatuses maybe two or three in the entire country they require a purchase order up front in order to even get you in the line for that three-year wait.

[02:13:39] So we would be required by Virginia law to appropriate the entirety of that if we are going to be issuing a purchase order, which, again, is required. So, yes, ma'am. Yeah, so we've done at least one of those. Okay, great.

[02:13:54] Thank you. Appreciate it. If there's no other questions, we'll hear from our law enforcement next. Good evening, Mayor and Council.

[02:14:13] Thank you. First, I'll touch on the CIP. We only have two items on our CIP for fiscal 26. we have the garage expansion which has already been bumped out to fiscal 28 and 29 that was initiated under the hopes of acquiring a grant the grant was not awarded so it's possible that they that might be pushed out even further than fiscal 28 or 29 so I think that unless I'm speaking incorrectly is probably out of the equation here for our CIP the other item we have is the renovation of

[02:14:50] the interior of our station which would include our dispatch center and a section of our station which is our community services division which we would like to expand into a bike division and eventually morph with our patrol operations division that I would say in looking at it just thinking through it here tonight because I haven't considered pushing that out or reducing that my initial request would be if we are asking to take that off the table would be to initially only reduce that in half so that we could at least still entertain our dispatch center which we have outgrown it's an extremely

[02:15:27] tight space that would be the priority for us to still outfit with more terminals allow more people to work if we needed to push it off a year that would be my second recommendation as far as deferring the 400,000 so if reducing it is an option that would be option one and then option two would be to defer it a year for our operating budget what we had presented to the city manager we presented a five percent reduction as well as a ten percent reduction my request and really just to to talk through that would be in

[02:16:04] looking at some of the scenarios up here with the training reductions and the merit and public safety step reduction my concerns there we we agree with the training reduction we actually submitted that in our five percent reduction and I can provide what those looks like for each division but the the merit and the step is concerning just because of being a part of the public safety pay committee that worked to get that approved it took years to get that approved

[02:16:35] from council. We worked from 2019 to 2023. Before that, we actually, both of us were in the initial proposals of that back to 2016, because in 2008, when we had the recession, we paused our public safety pay scale back then. We went to a band. It created a ton of compression issues that we were fighting and battling for years. So to go back to that would not be ideal. What I would ask is to consider what we've put into this 5% reduction, which is just over a million dollars in savings.

[02:17:10] That includes training. It includes some of our vacant temp positions. It includes positions that are not staffed, but does not touch any of our positions that are staffed. So as we got into the 10%, there was really no way for us to avoid personnel. So this 5%, I think for us provides a better option to provide a million dollar reduction but not touch the merits the public safety pay scale or any of our key personnel councilmember

[02:17:46] Hardy Chandler can you talk a little bit more about the impacts of the dispatch area because I think I'm recalling from your prior presentation that it's more than just a tight area that there were act that they're actually currently inefficiencies if I'm recalling it correctly in that area is is yeah there's There's two terminals. What we're looking to do, years ago, our minimum staffing in there was one dispatcher, which is not safe. Currently, our dispatch minimum staffing is two. We have two terminals. The ideal staffing during peak hours is three. Right now, there's not that third

[02:18:24] terminal, if I'm not mistaken, to allow more people to work, which allows another dispatcher to take a break. Right now, it's very difficult for them to even leave for a lunch break because as calls come in and as the call volumes are high, we want at least two people in there.

[02:18:43] So the positioning itself is tight. I'd have to talk with our ASD commander who has worked through the design. A lot of the design was reconfiguring the space. As far as the inefficiencies and programs, I'd have to get more information on that. But a lot of the costs were coming in to rewire the electric, redo the terminals, basically redo the entire office space of the 911 center.

[02:19:13] Council Member Amos. Just a question about the garage, and this is just a lack of knowledge on the subject. Has there ever been a PPA done for a garage, and is that something that we could look into? I know that's a weird question, but I'm going to say no, we have not looked into it, and then two, I don't know if it would be allowed or maybe even allowed is not probably the right word.

[02:19:42] May not be beneficial in the sense that it is probably within a secure area within the police department and you probably don't want to have access, unlike maybe the fire department where it's more probable to allow something like that. But in the police department, in the last design or the last work session update, this is an actual police garage that holds and secures certain information, such as the bikes, I think maybe the antique police vehicle.

[02:20:11] And then above that, there were other facilities that were already planned, an extension to the locker room and then additional offices and training areas as well. Right, yeah, the entire expansion would be behind our security gates.

[02:20:27] It's really, it's labeled a police garage. It has greatly expanded since then. So it went from initially being a garage to house our specialty vehicles. It's expanded to allow for our canine program, a bike team in the future. It allows an expansion of the women's locker room to include a unisex area in between the men's and women's locker room.

[02:20:51] And then it also provides, like Mr. Martinez said, additional office space. So it's really a departmental expansion. It's not just the garage. But as I said, we were not awarded that grant, which was a huge chunk of the funding. So it is deferred.

[02:21:08] No, I appreciate that just because personally I didn't know and I was just curious considering that we also need a lot of workforce housing. I didn't know if there were any opportunities. So thank you. And just to speak to the women's locker room because we took a tour.

[02:21:23] You know, back when it was built, 2005? 2007. 2007. Yeah, they dramatically underestimated how many women would be going into law enforcement. So they designed for a much smaller force of women officers and now you're kind of stuck with this inadequate space.

[02:21:44] Yeah, right, so I don't know what you do about that other than build more space. So as long as everybody's aware that these things really, you know, when we talk about must-haves and nice-to-haves, you look at issues like how you accommodate your female officers, and that's not really a nice-to-have.

[02:22:01] We have a lot of women that in the other, you know, whether it's dispatch or the other improvements to the police station and the step in merit increases. This is about recruiting and retaining officers in a regional environment where we are competing with other jurisdictions who are also making decisions about their budget.

[02:22:23] And, you know, the jurisdictions that can offer the officers what it is they need are going to get the officers. And so we're not on an island deciding just budgetary issues. We're in an ecosystem where, especially in law enforcement and our fire department, we have to provide things that are competitive if we want to be fully staffed.

[02:22:49] And I just want to bring everybody's attention to the fact that there are unintended consequences of making the numbers work if we're not thinking in terms of the real human impact. Council Member Peterson.

[02:23:06] If you could help maybe unpack just a little bit the relationship between your staffing levels and overtime, are these inversely related or is it really built in so that if you increase staff, you are by definition increasing the loading of overtime at the same time as you do that?

[02:23:25] Can you sort of help me figure that out a little bit? I would say when our staffing levels are lower or at their lowest like they were within the last couple years, overtime can go up because of the backfilling of patrol squads to meet minimum staffing. When we're getting held over on mental health cases, it's somebody's coming in for multiple hours at a time.

[02:23:47] So with shorter staffing, overtime does go up. I also will say we've reviewed, we're in the process of reviewing our overtime spending and how that looks. There's been changes over the past couple years as far as practices that we either did or did not do in years past that have also impacted that.

[02:24:05] So I've been working with our employment attorney. I know that that's an ongoing conversation to develop what that might look like moving forward. Right now, that's in the beginning stages, so I'm waiting to get some feedback from what that looks like, but I would say they are related.

[02:24:24] And so this is a case where, perhaps ironically, increasing staffing is actually cost effective in terms of your use of overtime, which is expensive. So again, you want to be a little bit cautious of the false economy of holding things beneath the levels that they need to be.

[02:24:44] General question, last, whenever it was, October, I think, the prior council received a presentation on, perhaps were two studies I can't totally track, but there was one or more studies that management consulting oriented that took a look at the program and made recommendations for modernization and improvement. I'm very curious, and perhaps now is not the time, but very curious to know your take on that and where you think there were gaps and perhaps adjustments to those

[02:25:23] recommendations, but I guess the bigger picture question is that it appears that like all of the programs across the country, you're constantly in the process of trying to stay ahead of the curve here and modernize and be effective.

[02:25:40] Where does this budget process place you in this sort of onward progression? And we got a snapshot, I guess, last year of kind of the next window of set of things that might involve, but where does this leave you? Obviously, the PFM presentation would be an ideal scenario to get to, and the way we presented on that was under the goal of having a higher percentage of proactivity than we're able to have with the staffing we currently have or with staffing we've had in years past where we're below our target staffing levels.

[02:26:14] The more staffing we have, the more proactive we can be, the more specialty teams we can make. Obviously, that's a higher level of service. That's where we would ideally like to be. Where we're at now with what we're doing with our budget, the 10%, I would say, would be a drastic change in service delivery.

[02:26:32] The 5%, I do think we can reach without impacting our delivery of service to what we provide the city currently with our current staffing levels. Some other things we've been looking at internally is just reallocating our staff based on the recommendations that PFM made, but not necessarily adding all of the FTEs that they recommended.

[02:26:57] So there are ways to work within that study that does not include having to fund all of the FTEs, but still meeting the goal of being more efficient and aligning our divisions to meet the goals of the city that we would like to do, which is a bike team, crime prevention, more of the proactive items, which would be basically blending our two operational divisions into one division.

[02:27:22] So those are some things we're looking at trying to do within that study and with some of the recommendations they made without increasing the FTEs. The other thing I can say with trying to stay ahead of the curve and what you and the mayor had just mentioned, we did a comparison regionally in the fall when we were looking at a different budget season.

[02:27:43] So we were looking at actually putting in incentives and a pay increase. We're in a different place now. But when we did that, out of the 13 agencies we pulled, we were the fourth lowest in starting salary. We had much less specialty incentives, sign-on bonus, retention bonus.

[02:28:02] So we were already getting behind that curve. I would say the steps would just not be a good recruiting tool as it relates to where we already are in the region competitively.

[02:28:19] So I'll just say that as far as staying ahead of the curve. - Thank you. - Council Member Hall. - So a resident had asked me a question previously about the police response to off-leash vehicles, vehicles, my gosh, off-leash animals.

[02:28:41] And I understand Officer Carroll is retiring. Thank you for his many, many years of service here. I've had many engagements with him and he's been wonderful. Is there a specific policy on when you respond to an off-leash vehicle? Gosh, off-leash animal situation, or is it just kind of when officers are available and things are slow?

[02:29:00] No, we would, I mean, if we get the call into our dispatch center, whether it's an emergency or not, obviously that would be a non-emergency call unless the dog was dangerous, vicious, something like that. But whenever we receive a call for service, we would respond to that. So even if our animal control officer is not working, another officer, a patrol officer, would be sent in lieu of the animal control officer.

[02:29:23] So we would still respond, unless it's delayed or it's a report that my neighbor habitually leaves their dog off their leash, but it's not in progress. That would be something that would be more of a report. But items like those are scenarios where the city's response is a lot different than some other agencies.

[02:29:42] Some other agencies might put that call on hold. They might take a phone report. We really have not gotten to those levels of service delivery. There's certainly options, but that's just not how we've operated from the time I've been employed. I will say Captain Rutter has been very involved in the new search for a replacement ACO, so that's promising.

[02:30:04] We've had several riding along with Officer Carroll to train with him. So we have several applicants that are at the tail end of that. So we don't foresee a gap in that service as far as hiring a replacement for Terry. Thank you. So to your point about the 5% reduction and correct me if I'm wrong, but after the newest, I'm butchering the words, after the newest cadets or whatever has come out of their training, will we be at what is considered fully staffed at this point or we're still under?

[02:30:37] No, we're, right now we're six under. That includes the chief and the deputy chief. So we'll be four operationally as far as officers go. We do have three in the hiring process for that. currently. One is a cadet. One is an applicant who's a lateral applicant. So we're close to being there should those backgrounds pass. A lot happens in the background process where those are unpredictable, but we're hoping to have at least three people for the July Academy. So I would say if that pans out, we would only be one below. Right now we're in a, and I'll discuss this

[02:31:17] with city leadership as far as where we want to go when we get to those last two positions because obviously those are appointed positions. They can go external, they can go internal. If we hire all six people, then it goes into an overhire. So I would say, to answer your question, operationally we're four short.

[02:31:35] Okay, thank you. And with your proposed potential 5% reduction, do you anticipate additional needs for overtime? Do you think that we could still manage things? recognizing that a lot of overtime goes into the police department no i don't i think our staffing is what drives our overtime and some of the procedural changes that we've made to overtime has changed the overtime cost as well so i i don't what we have listed in the five percent i don't see having an impact on overtime the only area that that could is the mental health

[02:32:13] patient sitting which is our special conservator of the peace program we put that to be a to be reduced or eliminated, but if we have full staffing levels, we would not anticipate needing overtime to fill that. Okay, thank you, and then my last question is about the police vehicle and equipment replacement. It looks like the request for fiscal year 2026 is 1.125 million, which includes a number of vehicles. The one I really wanted to ask about is the replacement of the

[02:32:49] 2001 International Mobile Command Unit. It looks like, and I recognize it's something that doesn't get used a whole lot. I'm sure it's helpful when it's being used, but has about 7,500 miles on it according to this report. And it looks like the replacement cost is about $800,000. How frequently is this used? Are there minor upgrades that we could do to it to keep it in service for another year or two or longer or is it totally kaput? What is the status of that specifically? It can

[02:33:24] certainly stay in service. The issue, the benefit of replacing it is that it would be able to be actually utilized more. Right now it's a very large unit. You have to be trained on how to drive it. It is not easy to access. It's not a quick and easy take it to a command post vehicle. It's the vehicle you've probably seen at July 4th. We used to position it at the fall festival. We've moved toward different command post options for those but the vehicle we have currently for that is very large what we would be moving toward would be more of a vehicle that's easier to drive

[02:34:01] personnel can operate it it would be stationed at the department I believe would be the goal right now it's down at the shop or at the fire department it's not it's not parked at headquarters So it's logistically not easy to use.

[02:34:18] We've used it mostly on special events versus critical incidents. So the goal for the new one would be to have that more easily accessible for our critical incident and long-seen crime scene management. Okay, so how, recognizing you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, based upon past experiences in the past fiscal year, how often do you think that might be used if it were to be newly acquired?

[02:34:47] Probably only, I would say, two to three times a year. Okay. Roughly. Thank you. I think that's, yeah, all of my questions for you guys. Thank you so much. Councilmember Amos. We still need to do our one-on-one.

[02:35:02] I know. Yes, we do. Councilmember Bates. Thank you. To follow up on that, would you anticipate a decrease in maintenance costs with the new vehicle relative to the amount of use? I can't answer that.

[02:35:21] would have to defer to lee hall does all of our maintenance items for our fleet and captain hawkins works directly with him because he's overseeing our fleet so i don't know about the maintenance cost but i can certainly i can certainly get that answer not a huge deal more um yeah just more you know for further consideration thank you any other questions for our police staff all right thank you both so much for coming tonight council member peterson i am wondering whether director summers

[02:35:58] might come back you were so successful the first time around i don't think i have much of a choice i wasn't sure whether the set of things that you covered at that time also included transportation projects and i'm wondering if it didn't how we could be understanding the on particularly the CIP side whether there are opportunities there and if you did just tell me

[02:36:37] that I missed it that that actually did cover the sweep of transportation programs one I would say Wendy Sanford is here to talk about the funding for transportation projects but because of the value that we get with all this other funding transportation projects were not included because we went through that exercise before that we put very little investment of city money to get a huge payback from the state and federal funds, it would not be cost-effective, I feel, to reduce the small amount of local transportation money we use.

[02:37:16] Well, and just to maybe clarify, are you saying that you did consider it as a part of your sweep of CIP things, but they did not? Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely. And then as a part of your response, if you could just help us, recognizing that we're able to leverage dollars, there is still nonetheless a cost of everything we do to run these programs, administer them, et cetera. And there may well be other indirect costs. Can you just sort of clear up how we should be thinking about the transportation opportunity set with

[02:37:55] respect to CIP and its linkage to operations? Sure. Well, first to answer the question about how they're funded, I was just looking back at our list of projects for next year and I don't believe there is any general fund money. So when we do need what is called a local match to some of our federal money and some of our state money, in those instances we use primarily C&I funding, which is the commercial and industrial tax. We are not using general fund money. I don't believe that there are any transportation projects in the CIP for next year that are using general fund.

[02:38:30] even for the application preparation, I believe that that is being, I'll ask Mr. Martinez to confirm, but I believe that for the application preparation CIP project, that is also C&I. So I don't believe, again, that there's any general fund. Now, yes, you're correct that when we do construct projects with outside money, when it comes to maintenance, that is then general fund money that is being used. However, and we've discussed this before, oftentimes when we're doing capital projects to put in a sidewalk. At the same time, we're replacing some of the

[02:39:06] associated infrastructure. And so we're upgrading infrastructure as a byproduct of doing some of our other capital projects. Yes. So a transportation project has ancillary benefits where I am basically replacing infrastructure, whether it's storm sewer or, for instance, if you relocate sanitary sewer, you're basically putting in a new one and abandoning the old one. So all this infrastructure that is replaced in a transportation project, I can then remove that from my CIP

[02:39:42] maintenance. So that's one of the ancillary benefits of these transportation projects. And just to clarify, for the future costs, maintenance and operations, however we describe them, with respect to our accounting, does MNO show up in the general fund as a general operating expense yes in the cip sheet there'll be something a box that says operating expenses okay so so we are we do live in the land where if we do for whatever reason reduce the actual upfront

[02:40:19] investment we would be reducing the downstream concomitantly and when we prepare those you know these sheets too um takes into consideration that in the beginning of a project everything's brand new, the maintenance costs are going to be less than when it's 20 or 30 years down the road.

[02:40:37] My last question, which I'm sure I know the answer to, but I'm going to ask it anyway, is whether you and Wendy in particular have any updates of late that change our perspective on federal funds availability for what we do.

[02:41:00] I don't have any update. It's a, we actually have a call on Thursday morning with our contact at FHWA regarding our Safe Streets for All grant, and it's a new project manager, and we'll be asking those questions then, but I have not heard any change in status for our federal funding.

[02:41:17] Thank you. Okay, I have some questions. So this budget that we are looking at does not have $3.7 million in repayment funds if we don't build the George Snyder Trail. Is that correct? That's correct.

[02:41:33] Right. So that's hanging out there is a financial liability that is unrealized. So put a pin in that. We've got other grant money for things like the Country Club Hills Pedestrian. Isn't that grant funded? That is funded with SmartScale funding. It is 100% funded.

[02:41:53] And then the Pickett Road Pedestrian? Also SmartScale funding. And then we have the SmartScale funding right for the Wilcoxon Trail Connection? for the extent the george snyder trail extension correct that comes online i believe in in fiscal 26 or 27 okay so we've got all these grant funded things and none of them been started and other than the george snyder trail for which we would owe money if it's canceled um would any other money be owed back on any of these other projects or have they not been started or anything invested if for some reason they are canceled?

[02:42:32] So the Pickett Trail Connection project is in progress and we are at about 80% plans and we are currently discussing right-of-way. There's just right-of-way with, it's an easement from Fairfax Water.

[02:42:48] So that project is very close to construction. The Country Club Commons Trail project has not started. So there has been no expenditure of funding on that project yet. And is there a time, is there some sort of parameters around this money on the Country Club Hills pedestrian?

[02:43:06] Yes. The project is active. We have not engaged in an engineering design consultant, yet that is the next step, is to start the design for that project. And how much is that grant? I believe the Country Club Commons is in the $6 million range, but I will need to verify.

[02:43:24] Okay, but around $6 million, just ballpark. I believe so. So we've got all of these grant-funded projects. There's many projects Wendy has under design. It's Germantown Road. I mean, she's got a lot of projects that are in the hopper and design. Right, right.

[02:43:40] But these grants, I'm just trying to figure out what our liability is if we don't complete these projects. Like Mr. Sommer said, in addition to those that you've mentioned, we also have Germantown Road under construction. We're about to, I'm sorry, under design.

[02:43:55] We're about to go to construction on Government Center Parkway, on Warwick. So there's exposure on a number of projects. The two you're pointing out are trail projects. But we are design underway on many other projects in addition to those. As you know, the way it works is we lay the money out and then we get paid back.

[02:44:15] If we do something and there's nothing to show for it, they're not going to pay us back. Right. So we thought we had 120 days to put the George Schneider Trail out to bid. Turns out it's 90 days, not 120 days. So now the deadline is April the 28th.

[02:44:32] Is that correct? Before our federal authorization would expire. And what we were told is that we can request reauthorization of federal authorization if that date passes. Okay. But it's a request, right? It is a request. So it's not guaranteed that somebody would say, sure, go ahead, take as much time as you need?

[02:44:53] I'm just looking at risk exposure. It's a difficult question for me to answer. Well, it's a difficult question for anybody to answer, right? Like, the only way in which we have zero risk for the George Snyder Trail is to build the trail exactly as it's designed at 100% design.

[02:45:12] That's the only way in which we have zero risk, correct? Yes, assuming the bids come in and we are within our budget. Right, but any other scenario means we ask for authorization, permission, and it is voted on by the CTB, any alteration to what we have.

[02:45:32] That is what we were told last week, yes. Right. So our risk goes from zero, if we build the whole trail as designed, to some risk, however we calculate that, if we do anything different. Which means, as I understand it, Mr. Martinez, we have to put $3.7 billion into this budget if we do not move forward with this project.

[02:46:01] We would either have to put it in the budget or tap into unassigned fund balance. Okay, so if we don't put it into this budget and we just have to use unassigned fund balance, that drops our unassigned fund balance if we take $3.7 million down to what?

[02:46:18] So we are currently at 17.7% or 31.7 million, 4.8 above the minimum. So we would have about $500,000 in excess of our 15% minimum threshold.

[02:46:36] So we would not, so we wouldn't drop below the 15% minimum threshold, but are we now moving into the territory where we are compromising our bond rating with that move? Potentially.

[02:46:52] Okay. Any other questions? Council Member Amos. I know George Snyder Trail tends to rile us up a bit, so if it's cool with my colleagues, I believe, do we have a work session on this item? I would prefer that doesn't come up tonight in respect for time, since we might dedicate a whole work session to it.

[02:47:13] We do not have another work session scheduled currently. Okay. I thought we were planning to have one ahead of decision, but I know timelines got moved up a bit. Well, we're waiting on information from VDOT. Correct. So we don't have a date on the calendar. Well, if it's okay with my colleagues, can we await the information from VDOT because we don't even know if the third option is on the table anymore because VDOT questioned that is my understanding.

[02:47:38] I know Councilmember Peterson has comments, but I would request that we save this for a specific meeting on GST because we can easily go another two, three hours on this subject alone. Please. As soon as I have information, I will request this item on the agenda, yes.

[02:47:54] And absolutely, as soon as we have information, it will go on the next available meeting. No question, because we're, again, bumping up against an April 28th date now instead of May 28th. Yes. Councilmember Peterson. I know many people are listening.

[02:48:13] Many people are interested. Many people have contacted me, as I'm sure they have others. And I don't think we've had a chance to actually share the outcomes of a meeting, a high-level meeting that was held with the Virginia Department of Transportation last week.

[02:48:33] Councilmember Bates, Mayor Reed, Sanford joined five people, as I recollect, from VDOT at the meeting. I would just say, in summary, the request that they acted favorably on was a request to explore the potential for modification of the project.

[02:48:56] It was not a request for project termination. And so we are going through a process now that we can provide more detail on to actually explore what might be involved in a modification to the project that is specifically designed to alleviate environmental and social conflicts and perhaps bring a final resolution to the trail.

[02:49:17] So I think we are looking at what will, as I understand it, be a short-term process to clarify the incremental costs that may be involved in this and in addition to that to come up with conceptual design opportunities for modifications for consideration and they would go through subsequent process in slang terms to go up the flagpole but I just wanted to be sure that folks who've not already had conversations with me or others were aware of the outcome of that

[02:49:50] meeting thank you councilmember McQuillan my question is pertaining to a a different subject um the gas to led lights project where are we i know we're we're doing that in phases how many do we have how much do we have left of that we have two phases left the second phase is ongoing um there's a lot of um work that was needed in order to coordinate with

[02:50:25] Washington Gas and Dominion Energy to remove the old gas lines and put in the new electrical lines. So that is one of the reasons why that was not on my CIP list, is because the amount of effort. We already have the lamp. We bought the lamps for phase two. And to get Washington Gas and Dominion to coordinate this utility relocation, it's a lot of work. We got them on board phase two should be finished in i don't know six weeks or so and then we're hoping to wrap it up with phase three and when will that be complete phase three um i would expect phase three

[02:51:03] to be finished sometime in 2026 okay anything else councilmember bates uh nothing at the moment okay just checking in because councilmember amos is trying to keep us focused keep us focused and i appreciate that i appreciate that anything else before we move on okay councilmember hall I'm sorry. I was busy flipping pages. You said this should be done in the next, how long? The guest LED?

[02:51:43] Phase two should be wrapped up within the next six weeks or so, I would say. Definitely before July 4th. We definitely want it done, you know, when the summer comes. Phase three, which is the final phase, should be wrapped up sometime in 2026.

[02:51:59] I really can't give you a better date than that because the supply chain of getting the new lights has been very erratic. You know, sometimes we order the lights and they'll say they'll be here in three months and then they can say seven months. So, you know, because that's the supply chain issues are still a factor.

[02:52:16] Plus, the coordination with Dominion Energy and Washington Gas is constantly moving. for instance, if we have a bad hurricane in North Carolina, Dominion Energy is going to defer their work because they're going to run out to North Carolina. So for phase three, really the best I can tell you is sometime in 2026. Okay. So then that answers, asks my question further then. So for fiscal year 2026, we have 1.5 allocated. And then for fiscal 2027, there's still 1.7.

[02:52:45] But if the work is completed in 26, wouldn't? Yeah, we're hoping to finish it in 2026. So then would that 1.7 and 27 not need to be there, or that would be accelerated into 26? Hopefully it will not be there. Okay. You know, right now there's a little bit left over, kind of a cushion, what we can't finish, complications that occur.

[02:53:05] So, you know, we always have something that might take us into 2027. I think right now we're really not sure what that number may be. Okay. I've had a number of residents email me about that one specific item, so that's really helpful if it ideally is all done in 2026.

[02:53:23] Thank you. All right. Anything else from anybody? Council Member Peterson? Well, not for these patient folks, but for some others who are in the audience. I'm wondering if Director Hardin might join us for a moment.

[02:53:48] And a general question is just, you know, You're at the interface of these, you know, really significant expenditure decisions which carry on and have implications, et cetera. I appreciate everything you shared with us about the Willard Sherwood Center.

[02:54:08] But I'm wondering, in your span, have you been able to identify any areas where either directly through community development or indirectly working with the other programs, there's a potential on the CIP side for reductions or beyond that?

[02:54:27] What does that look like for you when you took a look inside the direct and indirect side of this? Speaking for CD&P, we included a 10% reduction related to operating costs.

[02:54:43] We are mostly people. To get to 10%, quite frankly, for our department, we could clear out all of our operating, all of our travel and training, all of our dues and memberships, all of our office supplies, we don't get to 10 percent and so what we proposed is reducing some contract service funds and also reducing the pass-through funds that go through the department for fairfax renaissance housing

[02:55:18] corporation and so those that's what we identified that would allow us to maintain the service levels that we're providing as noted in that 10 percent for contract services there are things that we are supporting that allow us to can continue to do the work that we're doing on a day-to-day basis and and meet deadlines and be timely and respond to our customers and city residents for plan review related to site plans for plan review and permitting related to urban forestry

[02:55:56] as well as some of the cases as you've seen we we contract work for some of the cases that come before the planning commission and the city council those functions we would continue to be able to provide based upon the recommendations that that we've made so really what what those cuts would amount to is is one for renaissance housing would pretty drastically reduce their ability to continue on into fy 26 you know based on the level

[02:56:30] that was recommended they could do one two three maybe loans over the course of the year where they've been doing you know 12 13 14 15 typically in recent times over the course of the year so would reduce their ability to continue on in terms of the operational side for community development planning the work that we've been doing to implement the comprehensive plan and the small area plans that we've contracted for that work would be eliminated so for example right now we've been working on revisiting the

[02:57:08] zoning regulations for the activity centers to better align what the regulations are with what the plans recommend that type of activity we would we would not do going into the future and on CIP is that something you will be looking further at not necessarily you know we interact with CIP projects but we are not directly responsible for any CIP projects and community development planning I have personally been involved in Willard Sherwood based upon a

[02:57:47] request that I participate as a city's representative in that project but it's not something that we do as part of our services and community development planning thank you yes sir councilmember Hull has there been any consideration to increasing the revenue side of your department with regard to maybe charging a little bit more for a permit or things along those lines we look at at fees every year in terms of more or less how we compare to others in in the region in

[02:58:23] In FY26 budget, we have proposed increasing resubmission fees for third and additional site plans, and that was a recommendation based upon a performance study that was done a couple of years ago, where we're trying to encourage our applicants to be thoughtful in what they submit and ensure that they are making corrections and edits as needed and not spending a lot of staff time kind of being the QC agency for engineers that are out there and so

[02:59:02] we've recommended increasing those fees to hopefully encourage that typically we see the city's fees relating to planning and zoning permits and plan review we are commensurate with other jurisdictions in the area Vienna Herndon Leesburg we are generally not our fees aren't as high as Fairfax County but quite frankly no one's fees are as high as Fairfax County they're quite amazing

[02:59:36] in some instances when you see them so we it is something that we monitor on an ongoing basis. But by no means, as you can tell in the budget, is the operation self-supporting. We're not an enterprise. I don't think we could set fees in a way that would still continue to serve our customers and be able to 100% fund what we do. But absolutely, we look at it every single year. So with regard to the possible third and fourth submission, is that something that is being seriously considered and would take effect July 1st? I do think that that's a reasonable

[03:00:11] request yes it would and I and I think it's something you know we've we've discussed and is not necessarily unusual there are other jurisdictions that do have that practice I don't think it's something we're gonna see a lot of pushback necessarily on okay and I know you touched on the eliminating all the contracted comp plan small area plan implementations can you maybe explain a little bit further how that might impact what gets presented to council how the Planning Commission sees things just I can make sure I understand what that detriment might be so in terms of applications that come forward to

[03:00:49] Planning Commission and City Council it wouldn't affect that at all so the contract services that we have for assistance on the land use cases that would remain based upon what what we proposed for the 10% reduction we would still be able to to fund that we would still be able to fund some services that for for plan review and for urban forestry permitting what would be affected is the city initiated work and so things that not applications not a

[03:01:24] private property owner developer things that the city is is advancing based upon our plans and policies so this year we are moving as I mentioned we're moving forward with some potential zoning text amendments for the activity centers we've also been working on historic resources assessments of various properties in the city in the coming year we are looking at doing some public improvement planning and level service standards work all of those things that that are really

[03:02:03] internal initiatives those would either not be completed or would be delayed and some of those things we can take on in time other things you know we're hiring expertise that just don't exist in the city so those things we wouldn't advance thank you for clarifying sure councilmember Amos this is more a question for council for those we've already spoken with would we be cool with letting people just go home? No, I'm not done. Okay, me either. Okay, well, good, and that was a good

[03:02:40] question. Let's talk about the Renaissance Housing Program. So, do you have a staffer who supports that program? We do. You do, so there's, there you, so you have staff hours that support the Renaissance Housing Program, and 100% of that money is a grant from the city, from the general fund. Maybe that's a question for Mr. Martinez. It is. So, none of that is grant funded. It is just taxpayer dollars, and the program is 25 years old this year?

[03:03:10] 25 years old this year? 23, 25, yes. Okay, so we have staff hours, we have general taxpayer dollars going into the program, and I know it's a wonderful program, done a lot in the city. How many, up to this point, projects have we actually invested in?

[03:03:29] Do you have that number, Mr. Martinez? I don't recall, but maybe Brooke might have that information. We did actually do a report. Oh, I think we're bringing in the special forces. There we go. I appreciate that. 295. 295 projects.

[03:03:46] And has that been since 2000? Right. I believe the first loan closed in 2002. 2002. So 295 projects since 2002. And what has been the total investment the city has made in the program, aside from staff hours?

[03:04:06] Anybody? Is this a trivia question? I mean, maybe it is a trivia question. We have that. I don't have that with me tonight. I would say roughly from a year ago, if I recall, it was about $4.3, $4.4 million.

[03:04:22] Okay, so $4.3, $4.4 million plus staff hours since 2002. I'm just trying to put this into perspective, and I agree with Mr. Harden that if you reduce it much further, you're taking a very robust program that has previously existed, and you're winnowing it down to just a few programs.

[03:04:45] I mean, a few loans, a few loans. okay councilmember heart Chandler when you talked about contracts and we got a presentation on the zoning alignment project correct and so what are the implications of you put that forward what are the implications of not having those small area planning those small area plans zoning alignment process continue it it it will affect the applications that are coming forward to

[03:05:21] Planning Commission and City Council certainly one of the challenges that I think Planning Commission of Council have had is trying to reconcile the alignment that that doesn't exist between the ordinance and the plans and creates confusion I think in the community for requests that are being made that are that are fully uh aligned with with what the policy is and what the plans are but the ordinance doesn't work uh work in conjunction with that and so the applications become much more

[03:05:58] complicated uh many more requests are being included than would be otherwise if if we made those um potentially made those changes and so in terms of i think clarity in the community about how how proposals comport with with our regulations and also the speed in which those can potentially move through the system would be improved in making those changes it would also help to address you know the Planning Commission has had some questions over time about their role and how they are a part of the

[03:06:37] review process this would help to potentially address some of those issues as well. And it's just really the message that we're sending to those that are interested in investing in the city. And the small area plans have created a lot of interest in investing in the city and redeveloping areas that the city has said we would like to see redeveloped because they're aging or obsolete or whatever. But then it's kind of a mixed message that goes out when our regulations don't necessarily support support what the plans and

[03:07:16] policies have have articulated so in short more complex takes longer more confusing to the community could we continue to you know you know go on the way we have we certainly could it's just not an efficient way to do business this. Thank you. Council Member McQuillan. This, well, I'll start with the one that I know goes to you. Can we discuss proffers by chance? Sure. So I know that I had asked you about our school buildings, and you had sent me some verbiage related to proffers can only be discussed if

[03:07:56] we're, and I had asked you about expansion, if maybe that, did we find out that qualifies? I mean, how would that work? Sure. And this is, this is probably a topic, you know, in and of itself. And I don't know if our city attorney, he's here if we need him, is here. Thank you. But so related to school proffers specifically, the language in the state code speaks to

[03:08:29] an expansion of the facility, and so things like, you know, re-turfing fields and repurposing existing spaces and those sorts of things do not typically comport with the state requirements for proffers related to schools.

[03:08:58] It needs to be expansion of the facility that increases the capacity of the facility. So, you know, a building addition that adds a classroom or, you know, some other type of improvement that increases instructional space.

[03:09:15] Those aren't the types of projects that have been included in the city's capital improvement program since the schools were renovated now 20 years ago. so in in terms of interacting with the development community we are challenged to point to something to say if you proffer money this is what that money is going to expand the capacity of those facilities and so it's not something that the city has had a policy in place for I will say that there have been

[03:09:53] school proffers that have been entertained over the years we can certainly share that information with you if we haven't already given where the city potentially is in terms of of a new level of investment in schools it may be time that we could look at that policy we certainly have have a good template with what Fairfax County does and given our relationship with them in terms of the instructional program and just the construction markets we would be very

[03:10:29] similar in terms of what our costs would be for for additional capacity and program space and so we may be at a moment now and and again that's probably a work session that we could have you know can you know independently on that that issue but it is something we are kind of reaching a point now where maybe we can look at it a little bit differently but that is that has really been been the challenge and the state code is pretty explicit about that on top of making some other changes to proffers that they make it a little bit

[03:11:05] harder for local governments to negotiate the way that we once we once did yeah I think the the shadow city attorney said it really well I'm sorry I took the title away from you but we are we are very limited in Virginia localities are very limited on what you can do in terms of school proffers I think we have We've tried in the past to push the envelope, but the capacity discussion is something that becomes critical, and it's not enough, you know, simply to be adding students.

[03:11:32] It has to be programmatic expansion, programmatic capacity expansion to the facilities. So it's the two elementary schools that we're going to be expanding and adding classrooms to that would then fall under this? I'll give you an attorney answer. Possibly.

[03:11:48] Okay. It does depend. I mean, there have been cases around the commonwealth, without tipping our hands too much, where things like trailers for expansions don't qualify. - Right. - Building expansions do, depending on the circumstance.

[03:12:04] Proffers have also undergone a significant change over the years, and again, as Mr. Hardin said, probably a work session discussion on proffers would be merited, because I think, as everything else you all have been talking about this evening, some of these topics are several hour discussions, but we'll be happy to come back to you at an appropriate time.

[03:12:20] - Would council be open to that? I would love to explore that further, thank you. And then I had a question about code enforcement. I don't know if this would be for you, Mr. Harden or for the city manager, but how strong is our current code enforcement?

[03:12:35] And have we explored technology like CityDetect, which have you heard of this technology? - I'm not sure. - It's a software program that places cameras on city vehicles and so it captures code Issues with code and so it helps with enforcement and a lot of small municipalities are starting to use it I don't know if it's an issue due to being a Dillon stater and I don't know if that would But I just thought it was creative and interesting when I started to research different potential revenue streams that this goes back to my comment from the last meeting of

[03:13:11] You know looking into these creative potential modernization and solutions moving forward Is that something that we've explored or in terms? I'm sorry. In terms of exploring it, don't know. I have heard of that program. Not familiar about it in Virginia. I do know that it is a tool for discovering potential violations, but citing violations and enforcing violations based on camera activity is problematic on a number of levels, and certainly in Virginia, as we always say, we're a Dillon rule state, so the tools that are available aren't that many. I will say from experience, our code enforcement

[03:13:49] group here in the city is very active, very aggressive. But it's a small shop, can't catch everything as with everything else. And I'll say on the zoning side, just one example, we have one zoning inspector for the entire city. Which is why I'm thinking about technology coming in and helping us out to alleviate some of the... But it's a slippery slope. I mean, you know, you have issues like overcrowding and again, discussion for another evening. And using technology for enforcement in those areas is very problematic and again it's problematic not in particular but Virginia is one of the states that makes the use of tools like that very difficult but I would

[03:14:29] still like it explored yeah absolutely thank you that's all I have I think for planning right now thank you thank you councilmember Peterson I don't know how much of this question goes to director harden and how much of it goes to director summers but maybe between the two of you you'll be able to help one of you know the city has um some small um fairly critical programs and it's easy for them to kind of get lost in this entire exercise and one of them is the sustainability

[03:15:07] program and included in that in association with that our forestry program urban forestry program etc how are those programs um bearing and affected by and contributing to this exercise we're going through well i'd like to ask our sustainability division head to address that so i met with dave and we evaluated our cip projects department-wide and discussions on

[03:15:45] sustainability projects one of the benefits of sustainability projects there's usually cost savings associated with it like solar installations have a return on investment same with energy efficiency projects to help save the city money in the long term so with the urgency of a lot of sustainability projects based on city council goals and the cost savings associated with them we haven't looked at reducing those projects because of the benefits they provide our community does this include forestry because i always get mixed up where everybody sits

[03:16:22] everyone works very closely together uh urban forestry so anna safford and sophia chapin work in community development planning but work very closely with stephanie and melissa pennant in public works um you know really on a day-to-day on a day-to-day basis as stephanie noted it's not an area that that that we looked at suggesting any reductions I think the challenge in urban forestry going forward is what will happen at the federal level and in particular with the sprout grant that the city has

[03:17:02] received that's something that the Miss Safford is is working with our funder on on a ongoing basis as of right now it looks like we will continue to receive funding going forward through hopefully through the end of at least the end of the federal fiscal year now it may change from an upfront allocation to reimbursement and that's kind of late breaking kind of real-time situation so

[03:17:37] we will have more for the council on that if it looks like that will materialize it was a three year grant if you recall 1 million dollars total basically a third a third a third of that and so we received the first year we were moving into the second year in March and so that's when we started to see some changes our understanding is that funding will be available again at least through the end of this federal fiscal year but we will keep the council

[03:18:12] apprised on that if if that funding isn't available we've looked at at resources and community development planning and in public works to try to be able to supplement that work potentially if we need to currently the urban forestry program is actually funded by the stormwater utility Satoshi Ito is here if you have any questions about how the urban forestry program is funded by the stormwater utility.

[03:18:43] The enterprise funds, such as the stormwater utility, the waste water utility, the Q-Bus transit, they were not part of the budget discussions. They pay for the stormwater utility and the waste water utility are based on what we bring in, pays for the program.

[03:19:01] And I know this is a longer-term conversation, but I think it's important because it gets to a question raised earlier about the potential to generate revenues in these different important areas.

[03:19:18] The enterprise funds are certainly an example of something that appears to have been quite successful. I don't know what the potential is for expansion, but they certainly are now protecting programs that otherwise would be very much at risk. So I would certainly suggest that we find a way to be supportive of that conversation as we go forward.

[03:19:37] I think it will contribute to the long-term financial sustainability of the city as well as its environmental sustainability. Any other questions from the dais, from these wonderful folks? Council Member Hall. My question might be more for Mr. Ito, but you can maybe answer it.

[03:19:59] Recognizing that the stormwater projects and the wastewater projects pay for themselves with the utility, it's still an increase, right? It's still an added cost that people are asking about and are concerned about, recognizing it's smaller, but it's still there. Is there anything in the CIP that is not critically needed, would not impact our ability to find potential problems and stay on top of them?

[03:20:28] Are there anything in here that is optional? For the wastewater utility, the reason there's an increase which is because of our contribution to the Noman Coal Plant. So that's basically nothing. We're doing extra maintenance of our wastewater system.

[03:20:46] With the stormwater utility, and Satoshi will talk about this, is one of the things that is part of the stormwater utility is to make neighborhood drainage improvement projects. And if we did not get that increase, we would not be able to fund neighborhood drainage improvement projects.

[03:21:02] We would just be able to meet the minimum compliance and maintenance requirements. I'll turn it over to Satoshi. Compliance and maintenance is is primary. Regulatory compliance and the environmental projects and other initiatives necessary to meet our municipal stormwater permit requirements are not considered. There is some flexibility in some of the discretionary drainage projects. Neighborhood drainage projects address drainage issues that are brought to us by citizens that they are not able to handle themselves that

[03:21:36] involve multiple properties and so it becomes a public capital project the other aspect is flood mitigation and flood resiliency these are improvements to floodplains for example Mosby Woods community we are conducting a flood study to improve those floodplain conditions by installing another culvert those types of projects council would have more discretion on they are not regulatory requirements and they do not affect maintenance of the existing

[03:22:11] infrastructure we did collaborate with Satoshi in reviewing the stormwater utility fund we actually reduced the proposed amount by nine hundred and fifty thousand if I'm not mistaken from what was originally proposed to ensure that it did not over did not go over capacity when it came to what the revenues but we were projecting them to be bringing in and ensured some type of minimal fund balance as well okay that's already been included in what's in the budget box now and just to just to clarify some of these neighborhood drainage projects have been in a hopper for a decade so these residents have

[03:22:51] been waiting a long time to get these drainage improvements done understood thank you for those that were not able to attend the George Snyder I'm sorry the, um, yeah, the Joe Sider trail walk. Can you maybe just give like a very brief one to two minutes, uh, synopsis of what's going on with the stream water restoration, um, in along, uh, Cardinal? Sure. Please. Thank you. So the, uh, Stafford drive stream restoration construction is ongoing. Uh, tree removal has been completed. And, uh, of course we're getting feedback from, from residents. They're surprised with the number of trees that are having to be removed. Um,

[03:23:27] the visual is not what they were expecting but this is typical for a stream restoration project not just in in the city but regionally this this concern does come up over the next several months birth work will begin they will be lowering the floodplain and changing the the pathway of the stream and those both help to reduce erosion by giving the stream a larger corridor to flow after all of that is done is when the restoration will occur so we were

[03:24:02] expecting that to be in fall winter this coming season and you'll have thousands of plantings going in bushes shrubs live stakes along the stream you'll start to see the existing or the the harvested timber being reused in the stream corridor so that's really when the the project takes shape and the visuals start to match what we were presenting to the community at our outreach sessions thank you um we had the benefit of being able to walk in false church this past weekend and i'm totally going to butcher the

[03:24:41] herbert something trail herman howard thank you that one i was going to go herbert hoover i knew that was totally wrong oh it's howard herman we've got thank you it was lovely trail it was it was lovely, and it was, I mean, Council Member Peterson took some photos. It was 10, 15 feet right off of the creek, and it really does make me wonder, is there still potentially an opportunity to put a small trail of some sort with that, what did you call it, chun and run, or chub and run, or something? Crush and run. That one, thank you. Just something that would be really nice to just walk along that part of it. It was like a third of a mile. It was just, it was a lovely walk,

[03:25:21] and I would love to see if that could still be a consideration along the way. Thank you. Council Member Peterson. The trash and recycling containers, can you let us know status?

[03:25:37] And my concern, and I'm not in the loop here, is whether either for this program or other programs we're in a situation where we're counting on grants and they may not materialize. But how is this one going? And is this going to be able to realize the grant support that we were expecting for it?

[03:25:55] Yes, I actually have good news that the city was awarded a grant through the recycling partnership to help offset the cost for our trash and recycling carts. We are working out the exact number. They said they actually have additional funds they may be able to allocate to us, so we're in conversations with them now.

[03:26:15] Once we have that exact number, we'll be happy to share that with council, but happy to share that news with you guys. We were waiting to get the final grant award finalized before sharing that with you. So happy I could let you know. Excellent news.

[03:26:31] Other questions? All right. Thank you so much. All right. Other questions? Council Member Hall. Could we discuss health and human services?

[03:26:48] Thank you for coming out. Oh, no. You got to your wish. I can assure you I will be.

[03:27:06] so I've been a little out of pocket for the last couple days I've not reviewed any emails so if something has been sent my apologies but can you kind of run through the agreements that we have with the county what they cover what services they provide if you're able to provide the cost and then the number of residents that are served do we pay per resident do we just pay a global amount regardless of what we get just kind of a general overview thank you all right so put on your seatbelts. There's a lot, right? And one of the things I would say is that some of those stats

[03:27:43] were in the presentation that I gave you, so I'll just go over those, because I know we didn't, in some of my two-on-twos, we didn't go full over it. But the general services agreement, for the human services side, there's four different things that a city, a locality has to provide. And that's social services, it is behavioral health, public health, and in Virginia we have the Children's Services Act. So those in code, as being a city, you have to have those.

[03:28:23] So the general services agreement, and it has some other things. I'm just going to speak for the human services part of it. And I wasn't around when they came up with this because it's been around for a long time. So when we became a city we did the general service agreement with the county to be able to provide those four things and with that we have you know several different agencies that are providing services to the city residents and you know under social services for instance and is it okay I'll

[03:28:59] just go through like each one and y'all can stop me if you need to breathe or I need to breathe or If you have questions, okay. So the first thing is social services. And for social services, you know, there's an array of things that have to happen in social services.

[03:29:16] There's the protection, like child protection, adult protection. There's benefits. We have workforce access to that. And so, and then they have, like with the benefits, you know, it's like the TANF, Medicaid.

[03:29:34] you know there's a lot of different things that go through the benefits program and the way we pay for those we pay a population percentage and a lot of the things you'll hear me say population percentage so Fairfax County has their budget and their budget includes all the things that they need to do to be able to provide their core services and so we pay two point I think it's 2.05 percent of their overall budget and when we do that then that pays for their operation operating expensive because one of the things that happens with any of these budgets or any

[03:30:12] of these departments it's not like an a la carte where you can go oh I want to do social services and I would like to do adult protective services but I wouldn't like to do child protective services you know once you take on that that agency you know like a like a city decided to do the agency So you have to do everything that's core with that, and that includes the legislative and regulatory requirements.

[03:30:38] And I know there are local cities that try to do their own, but there's some pros and cons for that. So with the social services, the proposed budget for FY26 is $1,296,244.

[03:31:00] That's an estimate. And with all these, I think we know that Fairfax County is going through their budget process, too, so there may be some adjustments. I know they're going through some reductions. But just some numbers, and this is from FY24, because a lot of times some of these stats I don't get to the end of the fiscal year, so, you know, they're a little behind.

[03:31:25] But like with Adult Protective Services, let's see, there were a total of 42 different kinds of abuse that were reported in Adult Protective Services.

[03:31:43] And sometimes there'd be, you know, one person could have physical abuse and self-neglect. So some of that may be a, you know, duplicated count. And then, you know, I could go into, like, there's kind of abuses or the financial exploitation, mental health, neglect, physical abuse, and self-neglect.

[03:32:06] But the thing with, you know, stuff like Child Protective Services and Adult Protective Services, you have to have the capacity there, and you hope that you never have to use it, but it just depends on, you know, when something happens with Adult Services.

[03:32:21] And, for instance, I think, you know, some of the things that we, the Adult Protective Services respond to in the city, for instance, is from the nursing home, you know. For the Child Protective Services, there were 42 cases in 2024.

[03:32:47] And that just means a call came. So they have to go out and they have to see if it's a case that this needs some support or it's something they have to take to court. Sorry, so 42 for adults and 42 for children?

[03:33:03] No, no, no. That's for children. So 42. So for adults, it was 42. well wow that's why i didn't write it wrong i didn't pay attention yeah so thank you it was with that and with the child protection under child protective services that includes you know so a lot of times they do protection and preservation so they don't just go and take the child away they really try to put services in so there's some different levels under that and again just like with adult protective services you have to have to be staffed up they have like the hotline hot you know we can call anytime they have the case managers that

[03:33:38] follow those kids. And they do parenting education and they do, you know, foster care and do some different things in there depending on what the needs are of the children, you know, with trying to keep the kids together. And then with the public assistance, and that's with the three big ones are SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF, and all those they've really been seeing increase. And one of things with the with the public assistance benefits we pay that 2.05 to have like the

[03:34:15] house you know the frame of the house but then we also would pay the local piece of if somebody's getting medicaid so medicaid usually you've got 50 or so the state the feds cover it i mean right now we don't really know what's going to happen with some of that but then the state side there's The state pays a piece of it, and the locality pays a piece of it.

[03:34:43] But in 2024, the public assistance, there were 2,022 total cases. That was 818 SNAP, 1,060 Medicaid, and 144 of TANF.

[03:35:00] And I can show you, like, over the year. Like, I have right here, I have from FY19 to 24. So those are all, you know, the folks that are in our area that need those three main assistance.

[03:35:17] Yes. Council Member Hardy Chandler. Can you talk about how the 2.05% was arrived at? For me, the number of cases, knowing the intensity of what's required in child protection, adult protection, the number is kind of deceptive because it doesn't really tell, you know, you're trying to save lives, right?

[03:35:43] So it may be helpful to talk a little bit about how the 2.05 was arrived at for that overarching safety net that's required. That's basically a mandate for our city. The 2.05% Weldon Cooper every year says this is how many folks live in the county, the estimate of Fairfax County, and then it takes the city, and that's how it came for 2.05.

[03:36:12] But I can tell you the level of services and the regulatory requirements for foster care. It's very, it would be very cost-behibited for us to do it, I think. And I, I mean, that could be a work session on stuff, like all the different things that are required once a family connects with child protective services in regards to the court, the oversight, you know, the service, you know, making sure that they have enough services.

[03:36:44] get them back um i think that's uh what you're talking about right so does anybody have a question i mean this i know that i told you guys to put your seatbelts on but do but i'll just keep going down and just you know as if you have questions but the other things that happen in um for social services and again that's one of those core things we have to do is the employment services so as we know if you have tana for snap you have um there's work requirements and so

[03:37:18] Employment Services help support somebody who is trying to get back into work to be able to be self-sufficient. In those cases, we had in 2024, the City of Fairfax view cases, and that's the Virginia Initiative for Education and Work.

[03:37:43] We had 19 cases, 19 new cases and 28 total, and that would be, you know, folks that they were working with. SNAP-IT is another one of those programs that there's a work requirement for some of their assistance.

[03:38:01] We had five of those. And then there's the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act, and we had six cases. So not a lot, but they, you know, with those cases, they're usually, they're tied to benefits, you know, requirement.

[03:38:20] Can I ask, so I recognize that we have a large number of unhoused in the city. Yeah. We don't necessarily know that they're city residents or they're not. And, you know, that's one of the challenges of the Lamb Center, that they're trying to kind of figure out, you know, where people came from, where they sleep last night, where were they before that.

[03:38:38] When we identify them as a city case, what sort of background goes into determining, did they live in the county? Are they from Maryland, or is it because they're here they're considered a city case? I'm just curious how that gets determined.

[03:38:53] You mean like in regards to public assistance? Yeah, I mean, if we're claiming them as a city case that we're taking on, I mean, just like they go to the school system, right? We need to verify where they live. Right, and I, when somebody goes to the Lamb Center and they, you know, say I'm staying in the city, if they do Medicaid, for instance, they'd have to meet eligibility requirements for Medicaid.

[03:39:21] There's some of those folks that don't meet requirements, but if they meet requirements for Medicaid, then they would be counted, you know, as a city resident. that would be something stacy um i mean sorry all um i would that's one thing i don't have in front of me right now um but i would definitely bring you know could bring that back but i do think that you know with people that are in house if they're in the city and they say this is our my community they are city they're a part of our our community some of those the folks that go to the lamb center

[03:39:59] don't stay in the city they stay in the county and so they're considered county residents but there are you know people that are in the city and it's not just in house that go to the lamb center there's also folks that are precariously housed or you know barely kind of holding on that may be able to get food stamps or may be able to get you know especially some of the older folks that we're seeing now um are folks that could get medicaid um and it would be where they are at the time okay thank you and i think the fact that it's the 2.05 percent first you know

[03:40:35] it's a percentage as opposed to you know direct number i was just curious yeah yeah and it's i think it's hard um in the stuff with somebody that's in house because it really is where do you know what's your community and you know we have folks that are in house that have been around here for for a long time and then we have people that are transient that come through and there's some requirements that you know when they're doing some of these benefits that you have to provide you know some of them like your you have a house if you're paying electricity you know like there's

[03:41:10] different things that they have to do depending on some of the public assistance that i mean i could give you more information on some other i mean i don't feel like i can answer that question tonight council member Hardy Chandler but Stacey I mean you may not have this number but what would be the cost to the city if we were providing all of those human services ourselves and not I don't feel like I can answer that but I think that that's something that's come up from time to time

[03:41:42] and I think that you know when you look at for instance the overall budget for to have social services and have the staffing and keeps consistent staffing to be able to do all the things that you have to do by code and regulation i think it would be a lot more than we're paying right now um but that's just my you know assumption i think if if that was something the council wanted to look at we could you know we could really cost it out but i think it would be hard because even if you only have nine people you know there's a caseload you have to have like base people there

[03:42:20] even if you only have eight people or 18 people right so and 24 hours a day right right and my That point is exactly what you're saying, is that these are very intense services, and yeah, it would be cost prohibitive for us to provide those services on our own.

[03:42:44] And I think it would be there's some liability to it, too, because once you take it on, then you take on, you know, like keeping the staffing consistent, meeting all the regulations. I think, for instance, with the Medicaid, when they froze Medicaid re-ups during the pandemic and then they had all of a sudden had all these folks that had Medicaid that they had to do all their applications, you know, that was very time intensive.

[03:43:14] But those kind of things, you know, if you do the program, you do all, you know, like I said early on, it's not all a cart. You either you do it or you don't do it. And I know that some of my colleagues that run small departments with any of these, you know, it's a struggle for them.

[03:43:34] And just to follow up, what would you say about the narrative that we have no problems in Fairfax City, in fact, is just attracting people from the region? I know that that's a narrative that's out there, and I don't think that there's a basis for it, but what is your response to that?

[03:43:52] You mean just in general or with the folks that are unhoused or every broader? I think that we have a lot more than folks think. I mean, 2022 of our residents are needing, you know, TANF and SNAP and Medicaid just to, you know, to meet some of their needs.

[03:44:15] And one of the things that we know about is the ALIS population, which is that next level up that may not be able to get SNAP or TANF, but they're barely, you know, I think that's almost a third of our community, of folks that are barely, you know, keeping the roof over their heads.

[03:44:34] And if one thing happens, you know, I think that in regards to, like, for instance, with the Community Service Board, and that's, you know, they do Behavioral Health Developmental Services and Substance Use.

[03:44:52] Let's see, in 2024, they serve 474 individuals from the City of Fairfax, and that's not including people that are in-house because if they're in-house, they don't count them as a city resident. So that's 474 people that needed some kind of a service through the Community Service Board.

[03:45:14] So I would say that there's more need than people know, and I think that we're going into a time that we may even see an increase in need. And with the Community Service Board during the pandemic, I mean, it was the perfect storm anyway because there were more people that were struggling with addictions like opiates, mental health, and then the pandemic happened, you know, and folks that maybe we didn't know about were all of a sudden, there were, you know, like the kids that were at home that were struggling.

[03:45:48] you know folks that were very isolated uh and i so i think that the community service board is they they're ones that we pay um like there's a formula that we that it's not like just the population percentage um but there's a lot of requirements on them um through a performance contract uh and also just the service delivery to meet the requirements for the state but also meet for Medicaid and I think our proposed budget is a little over three million but I don't think

[03:46:26] we could put that if we could probably have our own CSB I mean I think it would cost so much more but the need is there and I think you know the point's made that there's there you know a lot of times people are not going to raise their hand and come talk at the at the council meeting and do their three minutes to say you know I have a mental health issue I really need help or I need food stamps to keep food on my table or some of those things so I think a lot of times those are not the residents that are calling you guys they're you know they're the ones sometimes I think with

[03:47:03] the older adults for instance with the family services when we're working with adult protective services we do a lot of work with you know a neighbor calls or somebody calls and says you know, I'm worried about Susie. And then you get in and find Susie, you know, is having a lot of issues in regards to meeting her basic needs, being able to take care of themselves. So I do think that people see the city as their home. And I think either if they have a house around them or they don't, or they're barely keeping a house around them, you know, there's a lot of folks

[03:47:36] that are hurting right now. Can I just jump in? Yeah. To kind of piece some of this together to the csb and our our contract with the county and what that costs us but we also have the lamb center here and for a lot of people that is their address because you can't get documents a driver's license you're you have to have an address and so you know they serve as an address but we don't have a shelter in region four right we're in region four as part of the county and so there's

[03:48:10] is no shelter here so even if people are here during the day to get services from facets or the LAM Center during the winter they're in hypothermia shelters which move around the city in faith communities or they're forced into a county shelter because there isn't one in region four which is bigger than just the city itself and so when you think about village in the city which is a program funded by the city which helps older adults to stay in their homes safely and with some support so that they can live as independently as possible. You know, all of these things are

[03:48:47] interrelated. You know, FACETS is a program that helps to feed people not that just are unhoused but people who are food insecure. And it's an ecosystem. I mean, it's a community and the community includes a lot of different kinds of people. But when we started the grant program last year for the first time, it was $300,000 to help fund the people supporting the people in our community, because that's what nonprofits do, and that's why they get grants from like Fairfax County, and we had never had a grant program, like they have the consolidated funding

[03:49:22] pool of the county that supports these nonprofits to do the services that a government couldn't possibly do. We don't have enough staff. We don't have enough budget. We could never take care of all these people. But by giving, by local government giving grants to help the capacity of these nonprofits, we are helping to take care of the people in our community.

[03:49:45] And I don't think people often connect the dots there about we're doing lots of things, not just through human services, but through Village in the City, through the grant program, through a lot of things we do. You know, we have a program to help people on fixed incomes, you know, if they need relief from their property taxes.

[03:50:03] We have a program for that. You know, we are doing so many things. It's a very multifaceted, intertwined effort in the city to take care of everyone. And so Leslie is the vase of human services, our one-loan-person, one-person department.

[03:50:20] We have three. We do. You have the crisis. We haven't talked about the crisis response team, which also alleviates some of the pressure from our law enforcement, too. And again, you know, it comes back to how well are we caring for the people in our community and you know in a budget crisis like this and we're looking at all the things that we are trying to trim or you know whittle down we still have to think about what monies we are spending and how when we invest things like grants to non-profits we're actually making a great investment in capacity building for taking care of people

[03:50:57] especially the people who need the most care and that's a tough thing I mean it's a tough thing beyond just looking at the cost of the contract with the county to understand what we are spending on all of these other programs to take care of the people in our city. So I just wanted to stick a pin in that so that we know that it's not just this one line item, this one budget or this one department.

[03:51:18] All of this is intertwined and interconnected. Well, and I think the rest of the, you had asked about the general service, so we talked about social services, talked about the community service board, which says behavioral health developmental services and substance abuse then you have the health department which that's another requirement public health and in 2000 let's see in 2024 they had 1489 and duplicated city residents be provided services somehow through the health department now that could have been

[03:51:54] they went through and got immunizations or they were they do rabies control you know water supply Like inspections, they check out our restaurants to make sure that they're healthy.

[03:52:13] But that's another requirement. That's another part of this whole budget, you know, this whole general services agreement. And the other, you know, thing that we do with the Children's Services Act, I mean, that's the fourth thing that I said was a mandate, and that's something.

[03:52:39] that provides services to kids that have complex needs, that need something such as a residential for behavioral health. They're in foster care. Their family's engaged in child protective services, and you're trying to keep them together.

[03:52:57] They need private day placement outside of a school. So that's another service that the county provides to us. Last year, let's see, I have my CSA in here. I think we had, we only had like about eight kids go through that last year.

[03:53:20] But they're the high needs kids. And one of the things that children's services requires is that you have to have a state and local match. You have to do a multi-disciplinary team process. So if a kid that's in foster care or a kid that needs a private day placement, you have to go through this whole process.

[03:53:41] So you have to have, you know, all the different agencies at the table. You have to have oversight because there's requirements from the state. And so we had eight cases. It would be really hard for us to staff up the CSA, even though that is something I know about.

[03:53:57] But it would be hard for me to be the CSA. And, you know, also under the General Services Agreement, this is something that is kind of an offshoot. It's not a part of the General Services Agreement, but we get access to it anyway.

[03:54:13] Neighborhood and Community Services, I mean, is one of the agencies that are in the county that they have a lot of their senior centers and their youth centers and some of those things under them. But they also have something called the Coordinated Service Plan Unit, and that unit is where it's the entryway for the homelessness continuum.

[03:54:36] But it also, they have a whole huge group of nonprofits that anybody in the city can go to, go through that. If they're needing basic food assistance or they're needing crisis assistance, I mean, I have a feeling that they'll really be ramping up with some of the federal workers losing their jobs.

[03:54:57] Like they didn't during the pandemic, the coordinated service planning and those nonprofits were lifesavers. And that's something that's actually, I hope they're not listening to us at the county, but they're not even, that's not something that we're paying for now, but it's something that we have access to because that's their entryway into a lot of their service delivery.

[03:55:21] And in that, also neighboring community services, they do the child care assistance unit. So they're the ones that, you know, do our permitting for home child care. They run the school-age child care program that's both at Providence and Daniel's run.

[03:55:42] And they also, I mean, now the Department of Education does the licensing on the bigger centers, child care centers, but the Office for Children do a lot of education and work with those child care providers.

[03:55:59] And as we know, those are very important, you know, to not only keeping kids safe, but also getting them ready for school thank you those are all through there too I really appreciate it just for us but also for those listening at home or watching this later I think it's really helpful and I also I know we certain members of council have been pushing the schools pretty hard to be negotiating with the county on what we can do to bring that down when was the last time that this was opened up and discussed not in its entirety but amendments or things like that

[03:56:34] based upon, I recognize it's a percentage-based thing, but it's, you know, this is another one of those things where it's an area of our budget that is large that we don't have a whole lot of say in, and I think to Mayor Reed's point, there's a lot of different contributions and donations and other organizations that we, you know, may give money to, so this $11 million is not the total picture of what health and human services costs for the city, and I don't think we need to come to that number, but it's just a conversation point of what are we looking at what could we do when we first when I first came I've been here six and a half

[03:57:10] years and that first year I was still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and I'm like this general service agreement is really old can we we probably need to go talk to the county about that so I took Brian he's still here Brian and I and the CFO at the time we went over and and we talked you know we started talking about it and the agreement was once we crack it open we crack it open in regards to, you know, there's potential exposure of things that are covered that we're not paying for, and I'm sure even with the school board stuff

[03:57:47] that was probably part that, you know, like, there's that pro and con, but there has been some updated MOUs with, like, around the CSB, Children's Services Act in the last, since I've been here, you know, So what we've done is looked at some MOU or addendums without cracking open the general services agreement to look at that.

[03:58:14] I think that, I mean, that's always, you know, a possibility for us to look at. I think that, you know, right now, I mean, we can do that.

[03:58:32] I mean, that's kind of out of my, it's probably out of my pay rate at B.J.C. Mr. Foster? 2003 was the last time to, that's the current agreement we're working on, was last adjusted in 2003. Yeah, and I think the population percentage changes, you know, like it gets updated every year based on a population.

[03:58:55] I think, you know, one of the things that did happen about three years ago is the Board of Supervisors were doing some, they have like this audit process, I forgot what they called it, but they looked at Department of Family Services, They looked at homelessness, the office of rent and homelessness, and they're like, hey, the city's not paying for everything that they're getting.

[03:59:20] So we ended up, they didn't open up the general service agreement, but they added stuff to an addendum because we weren't paying, for instance, for the office of rent and homelessness. Right now we pay like $300,000 for the whole, you know, to have access to Continuum, but we weren't paying for a part of the case, the street outreach and the case management stuff.

[03:59:42] We weren't paying, helping pay for the hypothermias. We weren't, we weren't helping for a lot. And so they added that, you know, to an MOU and they, they added a couple of other things. So I think they've, you know, looked at that. And if you look at, like, even at 2003, there's been a lot added and a lot of requirements.

[04:00:04] And I know a lot of human services, we probably have this tattooed on us, that unfunded mandates. I know those are in other areas, too. But there's a lot of things that have happened since 2003 that are requirements in all these different departments that weren't added.

[04:00:20] When you look at the language in the general service agreement, which was even before 2003, when they're using, you know, terms and stuff, you're like, where did that even come from? So what I'm saying is they've added some things in the last couple years, but it hadn't been totally cracked open.

[04:00:40] But I do, I mean, it's, you know, it is, it's a big money. And when I was going through my 10%, there's not a lot I had, you know, because when you're in an agreement, I couldn't say, oh, I'm just going to take some of that money, you know. So there wasn't a whole lot.

[04:00:56] You know, the two things that we do have, you know, control over are the community response team and the Fairfax Village and the city. And to be honest with you, you know, I hate to lose the nonprofit grant. You know, I hate to lose some of those kind of things, but worked really hard to get that village up.

[04:01:17] And I think it's such a low barrier program for the money we put into it. and we're probably keeping some of our neighbors safe that weren't, you know, just because we're helping and supporting them. I think that with the community response team, the police and fire and I, you know, working together, I think that's been a great addition to the community.

[04:01:41] So there's, you know, in my human service, but it was really hard to really look at, you know, what to take away from it because I do think that this community is growing and there's a lot of needs um and you know i know all of us are kind of tight and we all have to make decisions but i um i do appreciate what you're saying about have we looked at the general services agreement maybe we can do that like the day after i retire do we have other questions for

[04:02:17] ms abashian other questions oh okay councilmember hardy chandler just one quick comment that some of the things that you're talking about are prevention and when we're talking about cost savings over the long term we're talking about investing in those things that get people either staying in their home safely which if we weren't would have a cost later on or early intervention which if we don't address in terms of the crt and those kinds of things um you know again having that

[04:02:51] longer term lens with costs save now pay more later and those are the kinds of things that help us save not only money but in my opinion lives earlier you know um in the process and in terms of early identification of issues thank you all right does everybody sleep well i didn't mean to make you go to sleep that's okay we're coming up on the pumpkin pumpkin hour pumpkin hour um so thank you ms abashian is there anything else from the dais anyone else from the dais

[04:03:30] council member mcquillan one thing i did want to discuss since we haven't talked too much about was the revenue stream ideas one thing that i haven't heard discussed is parking we have a parking garage do we own that garage the one next to the library do we know well looks like we don't but let's hear from the expert nope i'm an expert i just have the historical knowledge so that's owned by um ch realty um crow holdings yeah we we lease um i believe it's a hundred

[04:04:08] spaces in that garage okay my thought process is being the events that we hold into the city bring a lot of visitors in and could we consider charging for parking for events things like that that's things i haven't heard discussed in the meeting so i'm just curious you could certainly institute um parking for street on the street on street parking where we have on street parking um you could certainly have parking fees for that sure but we're talking about a capital investment to put parking meters or work no that's a technology there's companies that will do that for you you

[04:04:47] tap on your phone right reston has its own app too i don't want something permanent i was more thinking along the lines of when people are coming into our city since we don't charge them to attend our events usually like our fall festival and things like that but they do need to drive into our cities usually and most of our residents can walk or take the q bus or some other form of transportation that doesn't cost them anything you know just along the lines of things that we've discussed proffers entertainment things that you know people coming in would be paying but yeah yeah I love Athens Georgia on game

[04:05:24] day man 20 bucks to park on somebody's front lawn somebody's making money down there okay any anything else okay councilmember Hall I have a communications question still awake I want to first of all thank you for putting out the city scene in Spanish. Fantastic. Really, really appreciate that. I did notice on the proposed reductions that there, and it's only about $20,000 or $18,000, but it looks like

[04:06:02] there's a comms part-time obsolete 0.25 position. Yes, so that is a leftover 0.25. The other, excuse me, the other 0.5 belonged to economic development, so we shared that position. They up that position to a full-time position. That's Brittany. And so I still have this 0.25 that someday maybe become a 0.5 or 0.75 or more, but offering it up. Okay. And then the CCR design and CCR print, what is that? So you've seen the PAPHR. Before the PAPHR was the... The PAPHR?

[04:06:42] The Popular Annual Financial Report. Oh, yep. The PAPHR. Okay. Sorry. That term is not in my head Right. So prior to that, we created the citizen-centric report, which is an association of government accounting product.

[04:06:59] So the PAPHA replaced it, and also finance pays for the PAPHA now. So really what you're seeing there for the CCR was the cost to design and print it. It's kind of a placeholder. We just switched over. It did come out of my budget before, and now it gets billed back to finance.

[04:07:18] It seemed like, I think it's the city scene that appeared in multiple departments' budgets. Yes, so Human Resources, that's who Carol in the mailroom works for. So you may have seen the postage reflected there.

[04:07:37] So yeah. Okay. I think I noted it on that sheet that it comes from the mailroom, not from the communications budget. We pay for design and printing. Okay, do we know what the total cost of the city scene is? Is that an easy number to ascertain?

[04:07:54] Is it just two departments that it's spread out over? Yes. Let's be clear. I'm not saying we should cut it. I'm just asking what it costs. I think it's fantastic. I think it's 60 and 40, 60 within marketing and then 40 in HR for postage. It's probably a little bit more than 50, actually, for postage now.

[04:08:13] There's 23,000 copies that are printed and mailed. It's about $750 in addition to design. You see the printing costs there. And just so you know, that Spanish edition was about $621.

[04:08:29] $621? Yeah. Okay. Is that something we should expect every month moving forward, or how is that being done? Yeah. How is that being done? So we have a state contract with Lionbridge Technologies. They do the translation. We just send them, like we talked about in our two-on-twos, the Word documents, and then I lay it out in Publisher just to try to make it look like the professionally designed city scene, and then we upload it to the website.

[04:08:58] And if we wanted to add on additional languages, would that be roughly another 621 per month? I think I got it quoted out to about $3,500 a month to do five languages, including English. And that is not budgeted at the moment. That would be new money.

[04:09:18] Okay. Thank you very much for that information. Because I can't do the Eastern languages myself. Totally understand. Right. Thank you. Any other questions, Mr. Kaiser? Okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Kaiser.

[04:09:34] Thank you. For staying up late with us. Glad to be here. And Council Member Hall. No one else being brought up, at least on my end. Did we ever get anything from voter registration? Not yet. Okay. And Mr. Martinez, the $1 million in non-urgent vacancies that was addressed in scenario, I don't know, definitely a five.

[04:10:00] I'm not sure about the others. Did that include the deputy city manager role? It did. It did include it for the entire year. Okay. So it included deputy city manager, included police chief, or what else was included in there roughly? So it did not include what we would consider urgent positions.

[04:10:22] In that instance, it would be potentially the police chief, the deputy police chief, any, I think the manager said, any specific public safety positions, and then any other positions that we would identify as vital or urgent, such as right now fleet services is having a difficulty trying to hire and retain mechanics.

[04:10:44] so those would probably be exempt from that as well okay thank you sure anyone else okay anyone else everybody good everybody good mr foster uh if they okay well thank you very much for all the questions we've taken notes i know we owe you some follow-up we will send out um jc's presentation tomorrow so you'll have that i know i know a lot of you were taking notes um but we'll send that

[04:11:22] to you so you'll have a copy of that and then just uh remind everybody our budget open house is tomorrow four to eight at the sherwood center and everyone that's here all the departments will everyone will be represented it's uh it's come and go you don't have to be there the whole time there will be representatives from all of our areas and departments with their budget information as well you can ask questions and get more details about their budget real estate assessment will be there people have questions about their assessment

[04:11:59] they can they'll be present as well we will have we have several members of a staff who are bilingual who will also be there to provide assistance if necessary and there will be ample opportunity for people to provide feedback both will have paper uh the old-fashioned way there's all there'll be a qr code that'll they want to do electronically so um hopefully we've covered all the bases um i think it's going to be a good event and so for people um who have questions or want to learn more about the budget

[04:12:35] and and the services that the city provides um four to eight tomorrow four to eight tomorrow Okay, everybody go home, get some rest. I am now adjourning this meeting at 1146 p.m.

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