Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Budget Policy Committee, Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Date: Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 9m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/2788
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

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 2026-11-04. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:05] going to go ahead and get started. Welcome, everyone, to our budget committee meeting of March 14, 2023. And we have on the agenda only one item today, which is a big one, but only one item, which is the overview of the FY 2024-2028 Capital Improvement Program. And this is something, of course, that we do on an annual basis. And with that, we have with us Christina Jackson, Our Chief Financial Officer, Phil Hagan, Director of Department of Management and Budget.

[00:00:36] Joe Lahate, Deputy Director of the Department of Management and Budget. And Martha Reed, Capital Programs Division Director, Department of Management and Budget. And just so you note on your agenda, our next meeting after this one is only two weeks from now.

[00:00:51] March 28th, where we'll be reviewing third quarter review and a presentation on the FY 2024 budget from the Human Services Council, which is also a tradition of this board. So having said that, this time I will turn it over to Christina.

[00:01:09] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I made a deal with these guys that if I gave the presentation, they would answer all the questions. So feel free to ask away when I'm done. We'll start out by providing an overview of the CIP.

[00:01:26] These are the numbers associated with the five-year plan through 2028. You can see it totals $13.6 billion or $1.6 billion for 2024. That is across all county managed and non-county managed programs, and certainly the focus of the presentation today are going to be on the county managed programs.

[00:01:42] You can see the total CIP includes Nova Parks, includes Fairfax Water, also includes some of our self-supporting programs, such as stormwater, wastewater, et cetera. But really, those last two bullets are where we're going to provide more information today, both in terms of our general fund-supported capital program that we develop and is part of our annual budget, as well as our Geobond program, which also includes some additional financing opportunities such as EDA bonds, which is also developed as part of our CIP.

[00:02:08] And we're really going to be focusing on us in that last bullet, although we'll provide a little bit of information on our general fund program as well. I wanted to hearken back to our joint county school CIP committee. I know Supervisor Smith and Faust really miss all the time that we got to spend together a couple of years ago.

[00:02:25] But I think some good recommendations came out of that committee. You can see the first one was a gradual increase in our annual geo bond sale limits from $300 million to $400 million. As part of this last January bond sale, we actually went from $300 to $350. We'll go up to $400 in January 2025.

[00:02:42] That increase is evenly split between the county and schools. The committee had also dedicated the equivalents of one penny on the real estate tax rate, which we know has increased since the committee was formed. It's now about $31.4 million. We have not gotten to that level of investment yet, but what we have included is $5 million in our base last year, which was split 2.5 million county, 2.5 million schools.

[00:03:05] And the additional debt service associated with the increased bond sale this past January was about $4 million. So we're a little shy of $10 million in terms of total investments as a result of the recommendations of this committee so far. And then the last recommendation coming out of the committee was to increase our allocation for the capital sinking fund.

[00:03:23] Just this past carryover, we bumped it up from 20% of your imbalances to 30%. We were able to do that primarily because we've been really successful in terms of meeting our targeted reserves. We used to set aside 40% of our year imbalances for reserves. We don't need to do that since we're at the 10%.

[00:03:39] So we were able to bump that up to 30. And in addition, we included schools in that allocation for the first time. And in a couple of slides, you'll be able to see how those funds have been allocated since we first started that sinking fund back in 2014. For the general fund capital program, you can see that total is just over $26 million in FY24.

[00:03:59] This includes some pay down, includes athletic field maintenance, environmental initiatives, ADA improvements. For example, there's a chart in the capital program overview that provides some details regarding that $26 million. You can see it's an increase of just over $700,000 from last year, primarily attributable to increase and adjustment associated with maintenance that was previously provided by the community labor force. And now that's something that the county is contracting with vendors, as well as an increase for athletic field maintenance associated with opening of Patriot Park North, and then some additional investments for forestry

[00:04:38] operations for the parks. I'll note, and you'll probably, this will be a consistent theme throughout the presentation, you know, we've been pretty successful in being able to invest in some of our capital needs as part of our quarterly review, and particularly on that last bullet for forestry, I know that there are some concerns about the investment that we've made as part of this annual process. We are planning to release our third quarter recommendations on Monday, I believe, with that going to the board on the 21st for authorization to advertise.

[00:05:07] And just to give a little bit of a preview, there will be some investments in forestry as part of third quarter. So we know that there are a lot of items that we would love to have funded in our baseline budget. We know IT projects are ones, or our capital renewal needs, but we have been successful in addressing some of those needs as part of our quarterlies, and this year is going to be no exception.

[00:05:24] And yeah, and I just skipped ahead to that last bullet, but, and you'll see kind of that I maybe preview a couple of third quarter adjustments a couple of times throughout this presentation. In terms of the capital sinking fund, you can see the chart at the bottom of this page shows how we've allocated those funds since it was created back in 2014.

[00:05:43] You can see it's over $127 million, so a pretty significant investment that we've been able to make, again, just using year-end balances. FCPS was just added to the allocation just this past year, and you can see that was just under $10 million for FCPS.

[00:06:00] Most of the funding is set aside for FMD and parks. We do have a formula kind of allocation that we utilize for year-end balances. And again, I anticipate that we're going to have a fairly healthy investment in capital sinking fund as part of carryover as well. But I think that, you know, it would have been very difficult to be able to program this amount of investment in our annual budget process. And so I think that we're fortunate to be able to rely on some of these year-end balances and have a policy in place in order to be able to fund this sinking fund. Moving on, talk a little bit more about the bond referendum plan. Certainly, our geo bond program gets a lot of attention. We try to put together

[00:06:39] a referendum plan, which we know might get adjusted from year to year, but we try to keep those adjustments relatively small. We wanted the plan to be predictable. As you know, we do include county and schools bond referendum in alternate years. Schools are in odd years, so the next referendum is schools in November. The county's next referendum will be next November.

[00:06:59] And certainly, as we discussed last year, we have experienced some challenges related to our bond program. Some of the bullets that you've seen here before are very similar to what we've included in last year's presentation. We certainly had the restrictions on our annual bond sale amounts. We know that thanks to the recommendation coming out of the committee that we're increasing those.

[00:07:17] That increase is going to help us kind of get out of the position that we're in right now in terms of some of the unsold bonds and allow us to make progress on selling those bonds. And as we'll see in a couple of slides, and we talked about this with the committee as well a couple of years ago, really how metro contributions, our contribution for that metro capital subsidy has increased and really has kind of squeezed out some of the other priorities. And we have a pie chart that you'll be able to see in a couple of slides. And certainly a lot of our projects were impacted by COVID. We had supply chain issues. And so a lot of our projects were delayed and that kind of contributed to the backlog. We can't generally talk about our bond program unless we talk about

[00:07:55] the two primary ratios that we have included in our 10 principles of sound financial management. We benchmark our debt service payments both against our out-year general fund revenues as well as our total assessed value of all the properties in the county. If you start on the one on the right, our limit is 3%.

[00:08:11] You can see that we aren't anywhere close to 3%. We aren't concerned about that ratio due to the increases that we're seeing in our real estate tax base. And then on the left side, our debt service payments benchmarked against revenues. We try to be conservative on our revenue estimates.

[00:08:26] really what drives this chart is both interest rates and our revenue projections. You can see right now we're projecting a high in 2031 of 8.77 percent. So we're not overly concerned about getting to that 10 percent target. Really what drives our ability to make changes to our capital program is affordability. And certainly we're in a rising interest rate environment. We have to be wary of the fact that now with our interest rate just the past two years has gone from 1.23 percent to 2.98 percent. It may go up even more. And certainly, you know, we needed this additional capacity in terms of increased bond sales, but it's going to reduce flexibility that we have in

[00:09:02] other areas as a result of the debt service payments that are required. Before we leave that chart, just for clarity, the extra $50 million that kicks in January of 2025 is already captured in this chart, right? Yes, as well as the next increase in January 2025. The January 2025 one was the main one I was focused on, but 2023 is in here and 2021. Yes, everything that we've included in our CIP is included in these numbers, as well as some of the non-geo financing components that we're planning to finance through EDA. Great. Thank you. On slide eight, I had alluded to these

[00:09:37] pie charts. We just thought that they were really helpful. We happened to find a bond sale back in 2007 that was $110 million, and our 2021 bond sale was also $110 million. And certainly how much we sell for different projects varies from year to year, but we thought that this was really telling, particularly if you look at Metro, how Metro was about 10% of our bond sale back in 2007, and in 2021, it was 38%.

[00:10:01] And again, you can see how those other components have really been squeezed. I would say when you look at these 2021 numbers compared to the bond sale that we just had in 2023, they really aren't that different. We were a little bit fortunate, and we'll see it on the next slide, that Metro was down a little bit because they had some stimulus funds that they were able to utilize to offset our capital subsidy. But for the most part, the story kind of stays the same. If you look at these 2021 numbers and the numbers that we are forecasting, that Metro piece really does take up a significant portion. And again, we're so thankful that we've been able to bump up our annual capacity because it's going to help us get through some of our other projects.

[00:10:39] Speaking of that January 23 geo bond sale, it was approved by the board in December. It took place, we can see that we got that interest rate of 2.98%, which is higher than what we've seen over the past few years, but we're actually really pleased with that interest rate.

[00:10:54] We were anticipating that that number might start with a 3, so we're pretty excited when it came in at 2.98%, but certainly there's a big difference from the 1.75% we got last year and, again, that all-time low that we got two years ago of 1.23%. I would note, just kind of for your information, for every 1% increase in the interest rate, it's about another 3.5 million dollars in debt service so certainly we have to make sure that we watch those interest rates to determine make sure our projections are appropriate in some of the out years I'm knowing again that we need to figure in those numbers in our in our budget projections

[00:11:29] you can see the allocations in the chart on the right how we got to the 350 million you can see that schools is at 205 which is up from the 180 that they were previously they'll add another 25 million to that in January 2025. And then again, you can see the spread for the county. Again, WMATA, that metro number is usually in the 40 million, 40 million plus, but we were able to see a little bit of a relief there as a result of some of the stimulus funds that WMATA still had, and we were able to utilize those. Certainly when we look at cash flow for our bond program,

[00:12:04] I like to think of it as, you know, we have a pie and, you know, the pie is getting a little bit bigger because our annual bond sale limits have increased, but really is about moving around those puzzle pieces. We're still kind of limited to those caps. And so every year we're kind of making a determination of kind of what size those pieces are. And these are some of the things that we have to keep in mind. Certainly we know that when we go to referendum, we have eight years to sell the bonds. We can petition the circuit court for an additional two years. We've had to do that now a couple of times over the past couple of years. And we know that we anticipate a two-year extension for the 2015 Public Safety Bond Referendum, and I anticipate that there's going to be some additional two-year extension requests

[00:12:44] coming for some of our other referendum as well. When it comes to determining what we sell every year for these bonds, we work closely with agencies to see what they think the cash flow is going to be for particular projects. We look at project balances. For example, if in a given year, a library says they think they're going to spend $20 million, we sell $20 million worth of bonds, they only spend $10 million, then we know we have $10 million in balance, and then that will impact what we sell for them the next year.

[00:13:12] We try not to sell too far in advance because as soon as you sell, you're paying debt service on that. So we want to try to be, you know, careful in terms of those bond sales. But now we also want to make sure that we're getting through our projects. We don't really want cash flow to impact our ability to progress.

[00:13:29] But certainly timing this referendum is important. We don't want to go to referendum too early if we're not able to sell the bonds, and we don't want to sell too early because we don't want to pay debt service unnecessarily. The chart on slide 11 just shows some of our annual bond sale limits, both back in FY22 before we increased.

[00:13:47] You can see that $350 million total that's in effect for this year, just this past January. Next year, we'll also sell it that $350 million limit, and then in 2025, we're at $400 million. Really, this increase is going to not only provide flexibility, but allow us again to address that backlog of county projects.

[00:14:06] And really, maybe that bullet should be flipped, because the first thing it's going to allow us to do is get through the backlog. And then once we're able to get to the backlog, then we're actually going to see that we have flexibility to increase our investments in our capital program, which I think is going to be really important going forward. When we look at some of the changes that we're recommending to the bond plan this year, certainly for a number of projects, as we're seeing bids come in, they are coming in higher than what we had projected. So we have put an escalator on our projects of 10 to 12 percent, just keeping in mind of this inflationary environment and wanting to make sure that our projections are conservative.

[00:14:41] We have deferred some projects, and we'll talk through those on the next slide. Again, just trying to smooth out our anticipated referendum amounts for the next couple of years, trying to make sure that what we put before the voters for referendum, again, that we're able to sell. And I know we talked about this a lot last year in terms of the recommendation that we had made for parks in order to move from a four-year cycle to a six-year cycle.

[00:15:03] I would note that right now schools remains at a two-year cycle and metro is at a four-year cycle because metro, they're pretty steady payments that we make for metro. Otherwise, everything else is on that six-year cycle. What we had included as a placeholder last year when we moved to the six years for parks was $100 million.

[00:15:22] What we've worked with the parks is $180 million for that next referendum. So they're essentially moving from $25 million a year over four years to $30 million a year over six. So it's about a 20% increase in what we've set aside for parks. And certainly we're going to continue to work with them.

[00:15:39] We know that they have spikes in terms of some of their cash needs when they have some of the larger rec center projects that they're working on. We'll work with them to make sure that we sell the bonds appropriately. And again, very similar to what I talked about earlier with some of our capital renewal where we put in money at quarterlies, we also have an opportunity to use the funding that we have at quarterlies to help out with the bond program as well.

[00:15:58] We put in $5 million for parks last year at carryover. We were able to utilize some of our stimulus funds for the Mount Vernon Rec Center. And we anticipate that we'll be making similar investments using some of the one-time cash that we have at Quarterly's as well. And you'll see some of that in third quarter for some of the projects that we already know have come in over what we anticipated in our bond program.

[00:16:19] Some of the specific project changes in the recommended plan for this year. We've added the Tyson's Fire Station to 2024. The station is Fire and Rescue's top priority. We had originally anticipated that the station was going to be covered with proffers.

[00:16:36] Those proffers have not yet materialized to the extent that we need in order to be able to start construction. So we've put the station in our bond plan. As those proffers come in, we'll be able to utilize those to offset expenses for other public safety projects. You can see as a result of that station moving up, we've bumped back Chantilly Fire Station to 2030, and we've also moved the WellFit training facility to 2030 as well.

[00:16:58] I know that there are some discussions in terms of partnering with police on that facility as well, so we want to make sure that we're able to have those conversations before we move on that. We've also moved up the Criminal Justice Academy to 2024. This is also a very high-priority project just based on the status of that building.

[00:17:16] It's not really appropriate now, given the needs of a 21st century police department, and we also know that a lot of the systems in that facility are failing or close to failing, and we're very concerned. There are some opportunities to potentially co-locate the Criminal Justice Academy, potentially with the EVOC, the Emergency Vehicle Operations Center.

[00:17:36] So we might be able to achieve some efficiencies there. And certainly that's a piece of land that I think that we need to have conversations to determine. If Criminal Justice Academy moves from that location, there might be some opportunities for that land for some other priorities. And then you can see that the Tysons Police Station, in order to accommodate the Criminal Justice Academy, moved back to 2030.

[00:17:55] We're also recommending moving the Chantilly Library from 2026 to 2032. That was the lowest priority of the libraries when they came in to discuss their CIP request with us. And I know that there's also some discussions of potentially some co-location opportunities with that facility as well.

[00:18:11] And then lastly, we've moved the transportation bond from 2026 to 2028. I will say for this, I think that we've been really successful and been able to utilize year-end balances for some of our pedestrian and walkway improvement projects. A lot of those are smaller in nature. Sometimes they can be a little bit difficult to fund with bond proceeds as a result.

[00:18:30] And so I think there's the potential, if we're able to continue funding some of those transportation projects with year imbalances, potentially this comes off of our bond program and gives us flexibility for some of the other initiatives that we know we have. So that's just something that we're looking at. So slide 14, I believe the slide was in the county executive's presentation on February 21st, but this is the bond referendum plan for the next five years.

[00:18:54] as we noted schools will go in november for 360 million dollars we would then have public safety and transportation on the ballot in fall of 2024 schools again in 25 and then for the county side we would have human services libraries and parks in 2026 and so now we're going to have a little bit of fun i'm a visual learner and so when it comes to kind of understanding some of the constraints on our program we thought it might be helpful all the information that is in the next couple of slides is in the CIP, but we decided to try to put together some visuals to be able to

[00:19:30] demonstrate really kind of what we're up against in terms of being able to make sure that we're selling the outstanding bonds that we have, and then keeping in mind what our cap is. So the red line on this chart is, again, our annual bond sell limit. So for this next year, it's at $145 million, and then you can see for January 2025, it goes up to $170 million. So that's the extent of what we can sell every year. You can see the first item on here is the remainder of our 2014 roads referendum. So that's about $25 million that we need to sell next year. 2024 is the last year

[00:20:05] that we are able to sell those bonds. So we need to sell those full bonds next year. When we then add the 2015 referendum, you can see we have that for public safety. Again, 2025 is in the last year we can sell those 2015 public safety bonds. So these two tranches, again, are required in order for us to sell all of those bonds associated with that referendum. Then when we layer on 2016, you can see that we have park bonds that we need to sell next year, as well as some additional bonds associated with the 2016 human services referendum. January 2026 is the last year we can

[00:20:41] sell those bonds for human services. So again, we need to make sure that we get through all of those sales in the next three years. And then we add our 2018 public safety referendum. I should note, 2015 public safety was a special referendum that we did a number of years ago based on some of the unique challenges facing public safety at that time, which is why you see public safety in 2015 and 2018. January 2028 is the last year we can sell those public safety 2018 bonds, which is why you see some pretty significant sales in those last two years of the five-year period for public safety. And then we add our 2020 plan. And you can see that includes not only parks, it includes

[00:21:19] libraries, includes human services, and it also includes WMATA. I will make one quick note. It might be hard to see, but in that very first column for the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, about $3 million that we'd be selling next year. We did make a recommendation last year that we remove the Regional Park Authority from our bond program. It allows us to be a little bit more flexible in terms of some of the requests that come from the Regional Park Authority for us for the bond program. I think it's also more consistent with how other jurisdictions fund the Regional Park Authority. And I know it's small, but it gives us a little bit more flexibility in terms of our annual bond sales as well if we take that out of the bond program. So these are all of

[00:21:57] our referendum through 2020. And then the last thing that I wanted to add in this five-year program is WMATA 2024, because we know on an annual basis we're making those payments to WMATA. So you can see, again, just based on our referendum through 2020, that we are almost up against that $170 million limit, again, not even including any of the referendum that we're planning for 2024 or 2026. So I think it just kind of provides a nice visual in terms of really where we're making the investments in our CIP program over the next few years. And then really just for information, we kind of put together a plan for the following five years. I'll note the farther

[00:22:36] out you go really the more these numbers are illustrative because we know that we're going to be working with the agencies on an annual basis to determine again how much they need to sell based on the progress of each of their projects but again you can see that we're kind of bumping up against the 170 if we're able to take that rose referendum off that gives us more flexibility who knows what might come down the pike in terms of metro funding whether or not we're going to continue to see increases there. And so, again, I think this just kind of provides a nice visual in terms of where our investments are for the next 10 years. Certainly, when we look at our

[00:23:13] CIP program, we look beyond just general obligation bonds. We know there are circumstances where other financing opportunities are more appropriate. Certainly, for any of these, if the county is the one paying the debt service, it does count against those ratios that we went over a little bit earlier but they are not included in our annual sales limit and some of the projects that we know we're looking to finance outside of the geo program include the original mount vernon high school redevelopment we're going to work with fcrha in order to sell those bonds in order to be able to get some historic tax credits which are going to help us offset the cost of those

[00:23:50] renovations as well as the tyson's community center right now we're anticipating that's going to be about 40 million dollars associated with the new affordable housing community in tyson's And then we know we have some out-year projects as well, including the Judicial Center and Ruston Town Center North redevelopments.

[00:24:08] And then certainly we're always looking for opportunities to provide some efficiencies with some of the co-location opportunities. We have a couple of examples listed here. Martha has been involved with a group of county staff that are together to try to look at some of these potential co-location opportunities, identify them early, and include them as part of our bond program.

[00:24:29] Again, the earlier that we're able to identify some of these, it helps us right-size the program. And I failed to mention another thing that I think is going to be really helpful is some of the funding that we set aside last year, the $2.5 million that we put for pay down, we're actually using a part of that for feasibility studies in advance.

[00:24:49] We're actually going to try to do some of the feasibility studies before we go to referendum so we have a little bit better idea in terms of, again, right-sizing the project and making sure that we get the timing appropriate. Christina, before we leave that last slide, just one question. It might be for Martha, but the staff group that's been organized includes or does not include schools?

[00:25:10] Does not include schools yet. They're on our list to talk to. Martha Reed. They're on our list to talk to along with a whole host of agencies throughout the county. Our idea is to put all of the information that we have on a GIS map so we can start to see where the clumps might be and where we might be able to co-locate different services.

[00:25:35] So they are on our list to talk to, but we haven't yet reached out to them. Okay, I think that's really important, and I appreciate all that background work that's being done to try to come up with some data and some touch points because, you know, clearly as we up the bonding capacity and, you know, they have a lot of land and a lot of property in the county, we have some pre-K needs and other things beyond pre-K to be thinking about.

[00:25:57] And so keeping us up to date on how that internal staff working is and when you're starting to reach out to some of those other agencies, including schools, just maybe giving us a periodic nip of progress with that I think would be helpful for us. And, I mean, I'm delighted to hear that's happening.

[00:26:14] I think all of us on the board have spoken at length in the past about these opportunities for co-locations. And we've had some great success stories that, you know, that we've broken ground on or are under construction or have opened recently where we've been able to take advantage of those opportunities and want to make sure that continues.

[00:26:32] So thank you. And then this last slide just provides a timeline for the CIP. There's a Planning Commission meeting just in two days, on Thursday on the 16th, and then the Planning Commission will provide their updates on March 29th.

[00:26:50] We know CIP is included in our public hearings on April 11th through the 13th. And then the board will take official action on the CIP as part of markup on May 2nd. And again, that was it. These guys are happy to take any of your questions. Great. Thank you for that.

[00:27:06] I know I only have two, but I'm sure others have questions. I think one is going to be impossible to answer. One I think is easy. So let me start with the easy one. On slide 13, you had mentioned the transportation roads money being moved from 26 to 2028, partly because of year-end balances used for kind of some of the smaller-scale projects.

[00:27:28] Do we know in our list of upcoming CIP improvements in terms of transportation what percent of projects roughly that accounts for? Because I know, you know, obviously for some of our bonding money are the big projects. I don't know what percent of the transportation projects we've been able to take off of that list because partly we've used for year-end balances.

[00:27:51] And so I don't need to know the answer to that question now, But just I think having the roads money come back into the picture is really important. But anyone looking at this might think we're very far behind there. And ramping that back up is going to be important, especially when we're talking about pedestrians, some of the other things we just talked about in the last committee.

[00:28:13] So if you could just give us an idea of what percent that is so that we can equate that against whether the ramp up is sufficiently aggressive enough with that coming back into the picture. And then the impossible question, obviously this came up earlier today, too, with the recent bank failures and whether or not that's going to affect the bond market and then also whether or not the Fed is going to finally stop increasing interest rates, which a lot of people seem to be thinking.

[00:28:42] I don't know if you have a magic way of being able to tell where you think that is heading and whether you think any of that affects any of the information you just presented to us. I mean, this stuff is much longer term, but you emphasize correctly the interest rate impacts to our bonding capacity.

[00:29:03] And are we thinking, is the thinking among bond councils out there that we've kind of reached the peak of that and maybe we're going to start to see stuff go down, or is it totally unknown? I mean, I'm not sure if Joe has had conversations with PFM. I do know that these recent activities with the Silicon Valley Bank going under, that there was some talk that maybe it might put pressure on the feds to not increase rates.

[00:29:29] But I think that a lot remains to be seen. I think the only thing that I would note is, you know, even if interest rates go up, we know we're still a triple-triple-A jurisdiction. And so to some extent, I think that that should insulate us, even though rates are going to be potentially going up.

[00:29:45] And I would imagine they're going to go up at least for another year. It's what I would anticipate before maybe they flatten out and who knows when they'll actually start bringing rates down. I think that depends on the inflationary environment. But, you know, certainly we're going to be in a better position than perhaps some of the other jurisdictions. But I do think that it's going to be, you know, it's not like it was a couple of years ago.

[00:30:05] And so we're probably going to be returning to an interest rate environment where we were, you know, maybe a decade ago or so. I don't know if Joel Haidt has anything more he wants to add. I think we would just adjust some of the criteria we have in our internal forecasting. I think for the longest time, we felt 3% was a good discount rate to use for rates.

[00:30:23] But given the fact that we sold essentially right at 3%, when we prepped the CIP this past year, we had bumped it up to 4%. I think that'll probably be the main piece that we monitor very closely, monthly, if not quarterly, having contact with PFM and just adjust that going forward. And I think having anything, the expenditure adjustments within the CIP, I think, Martha, what's it, 10% to 12% bump for the project costs.

[00:30:42] So I think as long as we have both those things in check, I think we've got a pretty good realistic model to move forward on. Okay. Certainly, in light of the last couple of weeks, an important thing to discuss. And then just two comments, and I'll open up to others. One, thank you for, I mean, this is a very good presentation, but thank you for, you know, looking at it.

[00:31:02] I think we all had angst at looking at changing the cycles. And I see Jay Cole over there from the Park Authority. They were kind of the first guinea pigs, so to speak, in terms of reacting to those changes. But I think it's really important, one, to show this long term that it is more revenue, but more importantly, to make sure that we are tracking very closely these projects and their timelines and capacity to do them, because the voters ultimately are voting for these.

[00:31:30] And when they're voting for them, they're expecting that within a reasonable amount of time, those bonds they just supported are being put into facilities that they can use. And so I think it's one of those things we're just going to have to constantly stay on top of, and we know there are delays in some projects for reasons beyond the control necessarily entirely of the county, but what is in our control is moving these levers a little bit to real-time reflect the pipeline of projects and make sure that the bonds that are being approved are being put to good use in a timely, effective way, and so I appreciate the work that's been done on that, and it's clear in this presentation, so thank you.

[00:32:07] With that, I'm going to open up to questions, and I'm also going to invite Phil Nijelski-Eichner who's here, Phil, if you want to come up here and join us at the table. And the reason I say that is because obviously the Planning Commission is a big part of the CIP as well. And if there's any questions or comments that you have, I want to make sure you have an opportunity to ask those as well. And I'm going to start on this end for once because I always start on that end. So I'm going to test something different. Pat, did you have any questions or comments? Okay. Kathy?

[00:32:37] There's a couple of Sully projects here that I want to talk off the line with people so that I can understand them. Thank you. Walter. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On slide 7, just a couple of questions about this. So, Joe, I think I heard you say 4 percent was your assumption. Is that so we're assuming that for future bond sales, we'd be at 4 percent, and the chart on the left reflects that. Is that right? Correct. Yes. And it also reflects, I think, would you say 10 to 12 percent inflation of capital? Correct. Costs. And is that 10 to 12 percent over, is that annualized, or is that one time 10% to 12% above what we projected?

[00:33:17] One time. It's just one time. It's one time. Yeah, that's something we're going to have to watch. I mean, I know hopefully the costs will not continue to escalate the way they have in the last 24 months, but that's something we're going to have to watch. My other question was on slide 17.

[00:33:36] I appreciate all that in talking about the other financing mechanisms. Actually, I guess I have two quick questions here. One is I know we really started doing this significantly, what was it, like 20, 25 years ago, something like that, and we're just now paying off a number of those.

[00:33:53] Is that right? Where are we? I mean, I think just for, I mean, I'm just curious, like South County High School, is that paid off now? I think we are literally just in the process of paying that off. Yeah, I think, if I'm not mistaken, originally a secondary school and now a high school by Mount Vernon History School.

[00:34:11] Oh, that's right. Sorry. Yeah. So we now have gone through the complete cycle of using some of these for several projects, I believe, right? Correct. So that's good. I know that was kind of a big jump back then for the board and the county.

[00:34:29] So I think that clearly shows we can do that well. You mentioned that on slide 17, those projects, even if they're not geo-funded, they're still counting towards the ratios. So, I'm just curious, are there estimates for those three bullets in the bottom?

[00:34:46] Are those included in the ratio in slide seven as well? So, we're assuming in there that we're going to have to do these, right? Correct. Yeah, and we have the estimates built into the CIP, I can't remember, table E, I think. We can send a link to you all on that as well, too. But all those costs, project estimates, are built into the ratios as well, too.

[00:35:05] Fantastic. And then on that, Walter, to be clear, the first two bullets anticipated to be sold in early 2024, so they're reflected in the 2025 number on this chart. But the other one, the future Judicial Center, Reston Town Center North redevelopments don't have dates associated to them.

[00:35:23] So they're plugged in. Where are they plugged in in terms of years here? Do you know where you plug them in? Yeah. I just want to make sure we know where that starts. And I know he knows Town Center North because I heard him say it last week, but I'm not sure about the other one. So Judicial Center is plugged in in 26, and Reston Town Center starts in 27, and then again in 28.

[00:35:52] Okay, great. Thank you. No, thank you. And then this truly is last. On slide 18, the chairman asked about the potential co-location opportunities and whether schools was there. That's a great question. I know specifically with Reston Town Center North, you know, the schools say they need an elementary school there at some point.

[00:36:16] And so we may, let's see how things go with the task force, but we may have to look at some of those co-location things sooner than later with the schools. So anyway, great job. Thank you all very much. Yeah, and to Walter's point, I know we've talked about this before with co-location, there is a point in time where if you don't have that conversation with some of these near-term projects, the design starts and then it's just too impossible down the road. And so as a part of the task force work, I mean, obviously you're looking at co-location opportunities. You're also looking at timeliness of those. And so I would hope that we're digging into the ones that are

[00:36:53] coming up sooner first, just to make sure we don't miss that window where we're spending a lot of money on design, in some cases land acquisition or other things that can accommodate that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dan. That's a nice segue for what I was going to do, the co-location piece of that, particularly.

[00:37:13] I know I've raised this about the Mount Vernon Government Center and the library, and there's a huge opportunity there, and I've raised that. I don't know if that's part of the co-location group, what they've been looking at, but I know the police station's in here, so I want to echo those points that we need to be looking at that quickly to see what that future should look like.

[00:37:32] And I don't know if there's anything specific on that that people have done. not heard anything is what i would say yeah and that is one of the first co-location opportunities that we're looking at the sherwood library and the police station i think they're right across the street from each other and there's a lot of opportunity there um there's a fire station there as well and obviously the district offices right and and there's other you know we kind of did a radius around there and there are other um facilities in the area there's the garland center and yeah there's a number of them yes i didn't think about those parts but yes so we're

[00:38:07] looking at that and we are hoping to bring on um you know do a feasibility study of the whole area and see what is what could potentially be done there so that's first on our list excellent i would also urge you to talk to anova mount vernon because there's a lot of property there i know that's they have a hundred year lease that expires in 20 or 30 years i don't know so So it is one of those things that maybe jointly, collaboratively, we could do something that better serves the whole area.

[00:38:38] And the other thing was... Dan, I think on that point, just to add, because you and I have had this conversation before, I just want to make sure it's on the table, that for these co-locations to happen, sometimes it means that one project has to be held back and another one might have to be accelerated. I just want to make sure that's not an impediment to us to look at these...

[00:38:56] I would echo that. I would much rather slow down a county project if in the long term I could pair it up with a school project or even two agency projects within the county. I would not be afraid to come to us and say, we're going to have to make a hard decision to slow one of these down so that the other one can catch up or be expedited because in the long term interest of the county, it's more efficient.

[00:39:16] And so I just don't want us to be, you know, not looking at it from that perspective because I think a number of us would be happy to say we're going to slow one down to pair it up if it's in the long term interest of the county. Dan? That's exactly right. And this one, this case, you have really three projects that are different timelines to be rehabbed, the fire station, the library, and the police station.

[00:39:39] But I think the most important thing is that we get the big picture right, and that's really a point you're making. A decade from now, I want to make sure that this fits in to the urbanization that's happening in the corridor, and it's complementary not only to the efforts of Gum Springs in protecting and preserving their community, but also connects to the hospital on some of the other things in the area. So I think those are the key things I wanted to make sure I got mentioned. Thank you. James. Slide seven, which has gotten a lot of attention.

[00:40:09] Just another question on that. So it assumes 4 percent. And what would it mean if we were at 5 percent or 6 percent rather than 4 percent? So I'm just trying to understand the correlation between the 8.77% debt service payments in 2031, for example, and the interest rate.

[00:40:31] Yeah. Supervisor Walker, Jeff, it's okay. We could probably put a Q&A together and essentially model it based on a couple of different interest rates assumptions and to kind of give you the graphical comparison for each fiscal year. We're interested in knowing what interest rate would push us above. Yeah, that's right there. I didn't want to ask it that directly.

[00:40:47] Mr. Chairman, could I just jump in on this one too? So I think another thing to see is what the assumption in the increase in general fund revenues and expenditures because I mean if we go on a tax cutting binge we're going to we're going to hit 10 percent. Yeah I think even absent the tax cutting binge you know we could be in an era with rising interest rates and flat revenue right because the real estate market but yeah okay okay Penny. Thank you. On slide four you mentioned that there's an increase partially for the park authorities forestry operations and ground maintenance efforts

[00:41:25] does this include invasives removal um i believe that we have a recommendation in third quarter for some of the invasives removal okay yep i wish we could do it for all the invasives removal we are losing our forests forests in the parks really fast invasives are taking over and so we need to make sure we try we're already behind we need to be able to get a little bit ahead of it thank you um on slide 11 refers to addressing a backlog of county projects could you provide us

[00:42:04] a list of that backlog what those projects are i don't need to know it right now but yeah yep it's a it's a we did a fairly lengthy q a last year but we can recirculate that okay and update it Just add the new ones to last year's answer. On slide 15 and 16, in years past, I've asked if you could provide us what we used to call the mother of all charts.

[00:42:31] This is the new mother of all charts, and it's in color. Thank you. This is what I was, it's in a different format, but it's very helpful. Thank you very much. And finally, on the co-location projects, I want to throw out there, adding or looking at the Wilston Multicultural Center in Seven Corners. There is language in the comprehensive plan that we adopted in 2015 about this. It would be co-location with, you know, we'd maintain the arts, the Multicultural Center. Seven Corners Child Care Center is already there. We had our discussion with the arts folks this morning.

[00:43:09] There's an arts opportunity there. And schools, it's not large enough for a school, but it would be large enough for some school programs. It would need to be a mid-rise or high-rise. It would not be a one- or two-story.

[00:43:25] It would have to be going up, and it would have to have a parking deck. But the opportunity for co-location of a number of services to serve that community, it would be ideal. So please add that to the list. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Penny.

[00:43:40] Rodney? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just very quickly, out of curiosity, do we have any pending bond referenda for our revitalization sales? No. Okay.

[00:43:56] And what is the thought for revitalization in the future, just out of curiosity? Yeah, I mean, to my knowledge, we haven't received any requests, so we have not had discussions.

[00:44:18] Okay. So I guess that's maybe something we have to do on our end. I mean, just thinking out loud, we're going to need to invest in our revite area, so we need to have some funds to be able to do that. So this clearly indicates to me that we don't have any future capacity for that purpose.

[00:44:36] Mr. Hill. I wouldn't say that exactly at this juncture. I understand where you're going. Why don't we huddle up and speak with Supervisor Faust and yourself to come up with a plan to move forward?

[00:44:52] but I know where you're going. So let's take some time to speak to Supervisors Lusk and Faust about how we move forward. Yeah, and I'll say this. I wasn't sure if that was going to be something that would have been bonded through the EDA, through the Industrial Revenue Bond Program, but maybe you guys can tell me where this might naturally land.

[00:45:17] But I guess the question is we'd have to have some number for the bond sale. Yeah, and I think some number for the bond sale, and then also, as Supervisor Luss mentioned, looking at, you know, other sources. I know, for example, the last time revitalization bonds were passed, it was before we had some of the economic incentive money that Supervisor Faust has.

[00:45:40] It was before a lot of public improvement projects that happened in those areas, and some of them have been overtaken by events. But I think we should look at the reason behind why it's not programmed in there and then also what other funding sources for what's on the horizon that might be available to do it.

[00:46:00] Because we do have some new tools that we didn't have the last time, revitalization and bond sale. And I don't remember when that was, but it was like in the 1980s. Yeah, Mr. Chairman. It was a little while ago. Yeah, just, and I'm not quite that old, but I'm close.

[00:46:18] But no, it's, besides that, also the federal government through CDBG used to put significant money. And I've heard noise that there may be some of that coming back. So, yeah, for your other revenue sources. A lot has changed in those almost, what, 30 years, 40 years maybe, 50 maybe.

[00:46:36] So I think a larger revitalization question about what's on the horizon, how would we pay for it, what other tools are available to us now that weren't before and what other ones may be on the horizons. It's a complete, it's a lot, but if we could capture that somehow in a budget Q&A or as you suggested, maybe have this go to the revitalization group to come back to us with some type of presentation.

[00:47:02] Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. John? Yeah, thank you. I think one of the reasons we established, I thought the Economic Development Reserve was investing in those types of projects that would advance in our – so that would be an area I would look.

[00:47:21] I don't know why we tend not to touch that thing, but it's there for that purpose. And my only question, I mean, great presentation, absolutely. But libraries, what are we doing with libraries?

[00:47:41] Just renovations? I mean, have we ever stopped to think about whether we need new libraries? Are there new libraries included in what we're doing here in the bond program? Is everything just renovating what we have?

[00:47:58] Yeah, it's just renovating what we have. Except we just broke ground on a new regional library in Kingstown last week. Kingstown, okay. And that was a small community-based library in a proffer in a shopping center. and we never had a regional library in that part of the county, and we just broke ground on one last week.

[00:48:20] So there are some new projects. So Kingstown and Lorton probably are good. But in this plan, going forward, it is renovations in the future. There's nothing new in the future. The only thing I'll say, Mr. Chairman, is it took us 20 years to get that library.

[00:48:36] 20 years. 27. I stand corrected, 27. How many library facilities do we have across the county, do you know? Even, I mean, I'm not precise, approximate.

[00:48:56] I'm even looking at Chris Leonard and he doesn't know. Okay, I'll make up a number. No, I'm just, I just think that libraries should be, more of the community should be able to walk to and get easier access to libraries.

[00:49:15] It's a huge financial commitment, but it's something that's critically important, I think. So anyway, that's one of the comments on your awesome presentation. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:49:35] And again, I agree with so much of what was said. I didn't have such flowery language for it, but I love the chart. I am also a visual learner. No comment to your predecessor, but I think it's an excellent chart. And I really appreciate that. I know, like U said, I appreciate that the parks had to be the guinea pig, but I'm very happy to see that that means the $20 million additional per year.

[00:50:02] No, I said it wrong. I'm sorry. It's been a long day. Anyway. They would love $20 million additional per year. I know, I was like, that sounds really good. Per year. All of a sudden, per year, yeah. Anyway, but I appreciate the additional funding.

[00:50:17] Ooh, afternoon meetings. And really, I think that's wonderful. I think one, a couple of specific questions. The first one being the, and I should know this, but the Willard Center City County project, where does that fall in to the bond cycle?

[00:50:37] Yeah, so that was a previous bond referendum. Right now, I know there are two options on the table. We do have some additional funding, again, preview of third quarter, some additional funding in third quarter just to bring that project up to what the current estimates are.

[00:50:54] Okay. But most of it's bond funded through a previous bond referendum. And then do they, are they taking out, remind me, additional bonds for their section, and are we, does that come out of our totals as well or no? For Fairfax City? Yes. That's on their side.

[00:51:09] it does not count into ours okay perfect very good to hear um and then finally um i know we're not looking at new projects but since one was brought up and talking about co-location and talking about our partnership with the schools um i do think looking at sites we've got the old mount vernon high school you know i hope we can look at and i'm in conversations with our colleagues on sites like the grand road community building which was uh to be a community uh center and does have quite a few facilities now in a pretty high need area so i think there are definitely

[00:51:46] opportunities that come up for us to review those so if we're adding to a list we'd love to add that one um but thank you that's all mr chairman we have 23 libraries 23 according to the magic of google um yeah all right um let me ask uh phil if you have any questions or comments and then we'll have time for a few more we'll come back thank you for the invitation chairman uh just as a status report because we're in the middle of this as well uh the uh the commission has heard

[00:52:22] from staff a couple times now and they've had good conversation or maybe three times but good conversations uh the this matter of co-location is very significant uh and i wanted to take this opportunity you know this but tremendous effort on the part of staff to make that happen and we've been interacting with staff on this for about three or four years and the the prototypical example that kings down uh co-location is is exactly what we envisioned and hoped that the board would embrace and and staff clearly has so i just a lot of kudos to the staff for that

[00:52:58] The two issues that have come up so far, and we're still in the middle of this, we haven't marked up or anything to give you any final recommendations, but two issues have come up. One is related to this matter of how the backlog of bond sales has impacted the number of years for a bond sale, particularly for your public facilities, and it came up primarily in the context of parks.

[00:53:30] And the question that we're still wrestling with is we understand the six-year extension is a solution to that problem, but do we have enough understanding of the reason for the problem in the first place, and is that then a permanent solution?

[00:53:49] And we're still engaged with staff on that question. The other is related to Tyson's in the sense that is there, are we at the point with Tyson's where the land availability and our interest in terms of making it an urban center, have we matured enough in that context where we need to be thinking about is it appropriate to try to be a catalyst for investment in the public facility, not solely rely on proffers, but is there something that we should be doing,

[00:54:29] for example, a library? If we need a library in Tysons, should we wait for proffers or should there be some investment to catalyze that possibility? As an example, schools are another example.

[00:54:48] And then finally, there was a third, and it's related to parks. There's concern that's been expressed about the age of the centers, rec centers. And, you know, combine the age of rec centers with the six-year bond cycle changing, Are we putting the centers at some maintenance risk or some effective utilization risk by that kind of overall context?

[00:55:24] The example that was primarily focused was in Braddock District, the Audre Moore Center. So anyway, those are the things that came up, and I appreciate the opportunity to raise or at least point that out as to where we are in our process.

[00:55:41] Okay, thank you. And I think on the rec center question, we can get that as a budget Q&A coming back. I think on the Tyson's one, you're exactly right. I mean, I think all of us are thinking that reaching that point in some parts of the county where that type of strategy is what we absolutely need to be thinking about.

[00:55:59] because clearly one way, and that's one of the reasons why when I mentioned about co-location, about not being afraid to accelerate or decelerate something on the schedule if an opportunity comes along, that's exactly the type of thing where, you know, if you have a big assemblage or big development happening in Tyson's and it makes sense to embed a public facility within that, and it might mean we have to move it further up the schedule and bring with it a companion public use at the same time, We absolutely want to be spry, you know, about doing that.

[00:56:30] And so, you know, following the CIP is critically important for long-term planning and for the public's understanding of where things are in the queue. But that should not mean that if some great opportunity comes along, we don't want to hear it and seize on that. And I think that's the sense of the board for sure and where we want staff to be working with us on that.

[00:56:51] Other questions? Let me start here on this corner again, and we'll work our way down. We have about 20 minutes left. Yeah, just to follow up real quickly on the parks question, and, you know, sports, tourism, public-private partnerships is another way to look at that.

[00:57:06] I know there's been some interest in Audrey Moore Rec Center, a competitive swim facility with a separate warm-up pool. I mean, so that's another avenue for us to keep our eye on, and hopefully that RFI will be out of here and out into the public soon, and other jurisdictions have used that to great advantage.

[00:57:28] Slide 16, this was the comment I was going to say, but it looks like WMATA is the only one that's getting their money on time, and that's a little disappointing that our citizens are getting their WMATA money on time, but the rest of the stuff is delayed.

[00:57:44] I know we don't really have a choice there. In terms of Springfield projects, I certainly am happy to see the Community Resource Center because that's been pushed back several times, so I'm glad to see that in there at 2026.

[00:58:01] And just in a high level, and I appreciate Supervisor Lust taking the approach of what's not in here. And the other thing that I think that we might need to do some work around and look at including here, and I heard it last night at Superintendent Reed's Town Hall on opioids, and I heard it back in 2016, is really the lack of detox facilities.

[00:58:28] And I know there's some regional efforts around that and to get those going. But that, to me, and mental health is another area I think we need to really look at. I think it's going to be a growing challenge. Certainly, you know, youth detox centers, you're really looking out of state, I think.

[00:58:49] Correct me if I'm wrong. But it's – so I don't know that's a Fairfax County problem. I think we're a part of the – I mean, it's a Fairfax County problem, but I don't think we're going to be the sole answer. going to have to be a regional so um but hopefully at some point we can look at whether that belongs in here or a piece of that belongs in here kathy the discussion about co-location that's so important but that we think of it and i know you guys don't just schools and county services i mean we were lucky when we did the sully community center that we didn't slow it down but to have

[00:59:24] the health works in there and women infants and children so i'm happy we're we're taking serious looks at that thank you one more thought on the on co-location i i think in this may be particularly true with tyson's but maybe some other places sometimes as you were saying you know something might need to be accelerated in another project you know we have to wait for it or maybe moved up many times i think that's going to involve coordination of parking uh because you know we might we might end up securing more parking now for something that's not needed for 10 years or whatever until another facility gets on.

[01:00:01] But particularly as we're looking at public facilities in Tyson's and maybe some of our areas where, frankly, there's way more privately owned parking than is needed currently, but it's privately owned. And I know this is part of the parking reimagined discussion.

[01:00:17] We're going to be coming back to this. But at some point we may need to be thinking about maybe not building anything new but maybe somehow securing some of that parking for future use of public facilities and maybe for community use as well. So that probably ends up being a CIP thing.

[01:00:36] I'm not sure, but I just wanted to throw that out there because we're starting to look at this period between what we have now in places like Tyson's and when we get to that wonderful nirvana end point where people don't need their cars. And how do we get from here to there?

[01:00:54] So thank you. I think that's a good point. And then, you know, obviously the parking is tied to the functions of those uses, too. And sometimes the uses are totally incompatible, which is good for parking. You know, if you are going to have a lot, why not have it full all the time as opposed to sitting empty half the time?

[01:01:09] And, I mean, we ran into this issue years ago with John Marshall Library and Rose Hill Elementary School. We were trying to get the two of them on the same page. And at the end of the day, the biggest challenge came down to parking and the elementary school kiss and ride line and how, you know, a lot of people would park in the library so they wouldn't have to get in the kiss and ride line and the kids would walk over and hop in the car.

[01:01:31] So there's some operational things here, and maybe those were not the most compatible uses because of that. But parking can kill a co-location if we're not thinking creatively about it and can also kill the cost of a co-location at times too. So I think it's a really good point.

[01:01:47] Dahlia? Yeah, no, I appreciate that. And I love that we're having this conversation. I think co-location is key. One of the challenges in Tyson's why I think it's important that the Tyson's fire station that's so ready to go can move forward is because we own so little land, right?

[01:02:03] The biggest cost in Tyson's is the land. And so being able to move that over means that we now have the existing station land to be able to work with because, like you, we don't know when those private developments are going to come along. But I think what I'm hearing, I want us to be cautious of, is programming versus facilities.

[01:02:23] I think that, you know, that's why I'm trying to move forward and call things general county facility and proffers because you never know, A, if it's going to be built, when it's going to be built, where it's going to be built, and what the needs are going to be at that time.

[01:02:40] So, you know, we have the small space in Tyson's Corner Center where Visit Fairfax moved out of. So we reached out to all of the agencies. I'm very excited that we'll be, you know, repurposing it, The libraries, Edu Futuro and DFS are excited and have the capacity to program it and hopefully to be able to grow that from there.

[01:03:00] But I think I just want to make sure, like detox, the buildings is just a part of it, but the conversations we're having at the state and local level really is you have to bring in the provider and the provider to do the youth detox versus the adult detox and the facility itself is a part of it. But I guess I want to make sure that we're having that conversation about where is the programming and the need and not just the physical space. Yeah I mean it's a good point and related to that you know the operational savings in the long term for the county that you know isn't really a capital improvement piece but it's important for us when we're adopting the budget every year is where are we getting efficiencies with some of these co-locations too in terms of county personnel

[01:03:39] and there's a lot of different factors here and the operational piece is a totally separate piece But I will say, and you experience it where your office is, the property we just broke ground on last week, the flexibility of our county staff to break down some of the old barriers of a police station can't be with a library or a rec center can't be with a supervisor's office, whatever it happens to be, breaking down barriers.

[01:04:07] Seniors and preschoolers. Exactly. Breaking down those barriers is really important. And we've had a lot of operational barriers in the way for a long time. And I'm starting to see those fall, which is a really good thing for county operational efficiency in the long term. I have Rodney, James, and then Dan, and then we're probably going to be close to time.

[01:04:27] Rodney? Yeah, I'll go quickly. On the co-location, I'd argue or posit, maybe I'll say posit, the idea that what we've done at the Highland Valley Community Center is bringing together a community center and a workforce training program. So I think that could be something that is considered for future community centers as we think about some of the issues that we have with our opportunity youth, acknowledging that we need to give them skills, trades, training, and jobs, that this is a very logical way to provide that access to the youth as they are in the community center and then

[01:05:06] also giving them, as I would argue, an opportunity to learn about what types of jobs, careers they might pursue. So just wanted to make that point. Thank you. Ames. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just to go back to the conversation about being flexible and taking advantage of opportunities as they arise, which might mean slowing down something that's in the plan.

[01:05:30] I agree with that 100%. The only thing I would say is there's some projects that if we slow down, they might fall down. And Audrey Moore is in that category. We can't afford to slow that down. Like everyone, I'm interested to see the sports tourism proposal.

[01:05:48] I have an open mind as long as it's not in the Occoquan down zone. I think I would say, putting on my CFO hat, though, I don't think – I think you could run into real problems if you start privatizing the aspects of the park system that generate revenue. It risks disrupting the model.

[01:06:05] So interested to see what comes forward. I don't know that starting with rec centers is the right way to go, just because that does generate revenue that keeps things moving, but certainly something that will be worth looking at. But we cannot afford to slow down. Audrey Moore. Be consistent on that point.

[01:06:25] Dan? I don't think I was trying to slow it down. I was trying to speed it up. You just want to sell it. Dan? You know, that's just kind of uncalled for. All right. That's completely uncalled for. Okay. I'm chairing this meeting.

[01:06:41] Okay. I think one of the big issues, and I know we all talk about it, and I know we all see the need, and I don't frankly know how we're going to meet it because there's two parts to it. One is early childhood development, getting the money to operate the facilities, but the other is having the facilities to provide. Because we're talking about thousands of children who are going to need early childhood development, and whether you believe it should be available to everybody or you believe that at least at a minimum It should be to the folks who are free and reduced meal population and making sure that they get that.

[01:07:12] We have tremendous needs, and I know we don't really capture that. We have a few things that we're doing. Originally, we were in high school, a couple hundred kids there, but at least along the corridor, I'm going to speak specifically to Richmond Highway just because I don't know the others as well, but I know we have 800,000 children that really could benefit, and we don't have that kind of facility or that kind of capacity.

[01:07:34] Also, we don't have that kind of operational money at the moment, But I know, I think all of us believe, have to believe that by 2030, we're going to find a way to make sure that every three- and four-year-old that needs early childhood development or the parents choose to have early childhood development have access to it.

[01:07:51] So I know that that has to be a county-supportive function, even if the county isn't the only player in that process. So I just would urge you to take a look and help us problem solve that. Thank you. Thank you, Dan.

[01:08:06] And I think it's clear on the pre-K or child development pieces that the county and schools have to be collaborators on this. Neither of us are going to be able to accomplish it alone. And I think that's where I was mentioning earlier, you know, the schools have a lot of property and a lot of buildings.

[01:08:22] It might be more efficient in some cases to do it there. On the other hand, you know, just back to the one we just broke ground on last week, you know, there's a child facility there, the affordable housing project on the government center that has a child daycare center. And so I think, you know, our capacity to be able to provide pre-K services for more people is going to be based almost exclusively on having the capital facilities to be able to do it. I'm less worried about the operational costs and more worried about the capital facilities being in existence. And we know how schools are crunched because we've had this conversation with SAC and SAC programs and how much space challenges the

[01:09:00] schools have already, but, you know, we've talked about early, you know, learning and pre-K for so many years, and I think everyone acknowledges that this has to be a combination effort between schools and county for it to be able to to be successful on the type of volume scale that we'd like to ultimately see it at. Okay, any other questions or comments? If not, we are going to end our meeting about 13 minutes ahead of schedule so thank you very much and our next meeting is three o'clock

[01:09:35] older adults and so we'll have about a 10 15 minute break at max and we'll get started at three o'clock

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