Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Budget Policy Committee, Wednesday, September 20, 2023

Date: Wednesday, September 20, 2023
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 22m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/3024
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 2026-11-03. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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

[00:00:04] We're going to go ahead and get started. Welcome everyone to our September 19, 2023 Budget Committee meeting, and everyone should have a copy of the agenda in front of you. We have only two items to go over today, and one is the FY 2023 carryover review, followed by an update on the opioid settlements.

[00:00:28] And so to get us started, I am going to turn over to Phil Hagan, who is the Director of department of management and budget to begin the carryover presentation welcome thank you and so katie horseman my deputy director we're going to tag team this joe lahate our other deputy director is and christina jackson are also here to help out if we get to questions at the end so fy 2023 carryover we can start on slide two where we're looking at the remaining balances as of year end fy 2023 and our recommendations for allocations of those balances so within the

[00:01:04] general fund we ended the year with 203 million dollars in balance and just the the high level summary before we get into the detailed slides first our FY 2023 commitments total 70 million dollars this primarily includes outstanding encumbrances as well as re-appropriation of the 12 million dollar general fund pandemic reserve as well as the balance in the hiring incentive program reserve which is just a little over two million dollars then we have our allocations for reserves and capital, really just capital at this point, combined 50% of the balance

[00:01:41] going towards the capital sinking fund as well as bike and pedestrian projects, totaling $69 million, including the reserve impact. And then we have other requirements, which will be the bulk of this presentation, totaling $60 million. As is typical with our carryover review, we're looking primarily at capital and IT projects for those funds, as well as our environmental and energy strategies and support for our park system.

[00:02:05] So all told, our staff recommendations for the carryover balances total just under $201 million, leaving a net general fund balance of $2.24 million. The-- oh, we have a font issue.

[00:02:21] OK, I apologize for that. So the right-hand column then talking about our ARPA coronavirus state and local recovery funds, where we ended the year with $118.7 million remaining to be spent and Katie will detail that in a couple slides and so we are recommending carryover of those balances so that we're able to spend them in the new year.

[00:02:48] So moving on to slide three, allocations for reserves and for capital. So we have three different policies in place that are the kind of across the top, the first cuts at our balances from carryover. The first being allocating 40% of our year in balances to reserves as has been the case for the past couple of years, we ended the year with our reserves at their target of 10%.

[00:03:11] And so, once again, we do not need to take that first cut for reserves. I would note that we have included reserve loadings on all the adjustments that are included in this package to keep us at the 10% target. So, all told, we have $8.76 million going towards reserves as part of this package.

[00:03:28] The next cut, though, is 30% of the balance targeted towards the capital sinking fund. That totals $39.7 million. Allocating that is out to agencies, $18 million of that to facilities management, $10 million for schools, $6 million for parks, and the remainder for walkways, roads, and revitalization.

[00:03:49] And then the third allocation, 20% of the balance, or $26.5 million, is allocated to support bicycle and pedestrian projects. This, combined with the $30 million that's previously been put towards those projects, we now have reached $56.7 million of the $100 million goal.

[00:04:07] towards those projects Okay, like Phil said, I'm just going to give a brief update on where we are with our stimulus funding So we have recommended a full allocation of our ARPA fiscal recovery funds We did send a memo to the board on Friday on any of those allocation updates So in total just as a reminder we received two hundred and twenty two million dollars in ARPA funding And we allocated more than half of that

[00:04:42] to individuals, small businesses, nonprofits, to aid them in their recovery from the pandemic. And then we also should note that we allocated $55 million to affordable housing initiatives.

[00:04:58] So that's about 25% of the total $222 million allocation, so a significant portion. In order to continue the projects, we do need to reappropriate our balance. like phil said we have 118.71 million left unspent that needs to be reappropriated as part of carryover right now we need to obligate by december of 2024 the full arpa allocation and then we have until december of 2026 to actually spend the arpa allocation moving on to our fema reimbursements

[00:05:35] so fema is reimbursed so as costs are incurred we request them for the federal government to pay us back. So at this point, we have submitted all of our reimbursement requests related to our response to the pandemic. Those total just over $104 million. And if you remember, FEMA, typically there's a cost share associated with it. At the start of the pandemic, that cost share was waived. So the federal government's been reimbursing us at 100%. But beginning in July of 2022, federal government and shifted that cost share to 90% federal and 10% county.

[00:06:13] So we do have some expenses where there will be a county match, but that's we're estimating about just under $500,000. And we have included an allocation in ARPA to account for that $500,000 that we're expecting.

[00:06:29] And then finally on here, we have the balance of our general fund pandemic reserve. We do have just over $12 million left in this reserve. It is largely available to either supplement our current stimulus projects and/or for other county priorities and initiatives.

[00:06:47] We do have one outstanding housing project that we're still working on. We also do recommend leaving a small balance there just in case there's any unforeseen needs in human services throughout this fiscal year. But again, there is a large balance there that's available for other priorities and initiatives at this time.

[00:07:08] Just a quick question, Katie, before we move on. Can you remind us what the peak amount was in that account? Right now the balance is $12.04 million, but what was it at its highest point? $22 million. I mean, when we first started, $22 million. Okay, so roughly about a little over half of it is available.

[00:07:27] Yes. Okay, thank you. So now moving on, looking at those other allocations within the carryover package, we're starting off with some of the board priorities. And as we have done in recent carrier packages, a significant amount of funding going to our environmental and energy strategies, $8 million in this package.

[00:07:47] Just some of the highlights, $3 million is included for building energy improvements. And then we also have $1.8 million for the final year of the LED streetlight conversion program. At this point, 36,000 of the 56,000 streetlights have been converted.

[00:08:03] $1.4 million for solar panel installations at some county facilities, and $1 million for some energy improvements at park authority facilities, including building automation, HVAC, lighting, and bathroom upgrades. We've also included $1 million, $100,000 for each board office for small-scale capital projects in their supervisor districts, and then also a little over half a million dollars in adjustments that are consistent with board action as part of the third quarter review.

[00:08:33] $300,000 to improve library collections. I understand Paw Patrol is top on their list. And then $230,000 for the illegal sign removal program. Partial year funding was put in as part of third quarter, and so this completes the full year funding.

[00:08:55] We have a number of adjustments supporting the park authority. All told in this package, park authority funding totals $15.7 million. $5 million is included for some of the cost escalations that they're experiencing with their capital projects. This is consistent with the actions that we took last carryover as well as this last third quarter to continue to supplement the park authority funds.

[00:09:18] $2.5 million is included for turf field replacements. $740,000 for some of the park's capital equipment. $500,000 to continue to support the forestry operations division. And then these last two are included in the totals on previous slides.

[00:09:34] $6 million is their allocation out of the capital sinking fund and $1 million for energy improvements. And, of course, we also continue to find ways to support parks outside of the annual budget process. As part of the stimulus memo that went out late last week, we've recommended an additional $7.5 million towards park maintenance out of the ARPA funds.

[00:09:54] That's the second tranche of $7.5 million for now a total of $15 million in ARPA funds going to support their maintenance. And then significant investments in our capital program overall, $7 million, supporting improvements at the workhouse campus.

[00:10:13] This is primarily some of the structural repairs at buildings 13 and 15, which are being renovated for new tenants. There's also some initial work assessments, as well as some remediation at four of the unoccupied buildings, and then paving and lighting throughout the site. $5 million is included for our construction escalation reserve.

[00:10:33] We certainly continue to see rising costs across all of our capital projects as they go out to bid, and so this has been very helpful to help us deal with some of those cost overruns. $5 million included for emergency systems failures. That's for major system failures such as HVAC and roofs.

[00:10:50] $3 million for space realignment. We continue to try to find ways to reduce agency footprints, hoping for some long-term efficiencies and savings, especially getting us out of some of our leased space. $3,000,000 to temporarily relocate the clinical services that are currently at the Willard Health Center so that that facility can be renovated.

[00:11:10] And then also $800,000 for some security assessments and improvements at county facilities, including at board offices. Also, substantial investments in IT, continuing our trend here as well to invest in IT infrastructure as part of our third quarter in carryover reviews.

[00:11:33] all told $14.5 million. The largest adjustment here is our third tranche of investing in the replacement of voting machines. We previously invested $5 million as part of the last carryover and then $5 million as this past third quarter. And so this gets us through this round of replacement of those voting machines. And then $9.5 million for various other projects. And I won't go through that list just out of. Okay, so we wanted to spend a little bit of time on our expansion of youth mental health services. If you remember, as part of the budget guidance that was

[00:12:09] passed this past spring, staff were directed to develop a recommendation to have a more robust mental health system, specifically focusing on youth and adolescents. So the CSB has come back and provided three different options. We'll get into some more detail on the next slide, but those three options included medication-assisted treatment, youth mental health outreach, engagement, and intervention services, and then the last option was the youth crisis services and re-entry program. So the options provided by CSB, we do want to note that they do address both mental

[00:12:47] health and substance use disorders, since those are often co-occurring disorders, and about 50% of the youth will, if they have a mental health challenge, they will have a substance use disorder challenge. So they do address both of those components. The three options also complement each other. So it's not like we have to implement medication assisted treatment followed by the youth mental health outreach followed by youth crisis.

[00:13:12] So they complement each other but they can be implemented independent of each other. So then over on slide number 10 is just looking at a little bit more detail on each of those three different options and then our proposed path forward with each one. So first one again is our medication assisted treatment. So this is a combination of counseling and behavioral therapies and it's really focusing on substance use disorders and the opioid overdose and preventing those overdoses. We did not include any funding in this carryover package for

[00:13:51] option number one. We think that this would probably be a good use with our opioid settlement funds and Ellen as we know is going to give a presentation following this one on where where she is with that process. Option number two is our youth mental health outreach engagement intervention services. So this is establishing three teams of healthcare professionals working in targeted areas of the county to increase capacity for the youth mental health services each team will be able to serve 300 youth each year so that's a

[00:14:28] total of 900 youth annually it does include an additional 18 merit positions so this budget recommendation does include the additional 18 positions and our program expenses of just under 3 million CSV does have some balances this year that they'll be able to use those balances as well as some revenue so the program will generate revenue. At this point, it's hard to know how much revenue it will generate since it is a new program and we're just getting it up and running. But there will be revenue to offset these expenses as well. So all that being said, we don't need any new resources in 2024.

[00:15:05] We just need the 18 positions in order to move forward with this option. And then lastly, we have option number three, which is a youth crisis services and re-entry program. So this is really a dedicated youth crisis facility with the goal of re-entry back into the community for these youth. So this is a longer-term proposal. We did not include any funding since it is a longer-term proposal. The idea would be that CSB either leased or buy a facility. They did have some one-time balances totaling $15 million that we were able to set aside for this initiative. The

[00:15:44] recommendation at carryover does not include any operating expenses since it is a longer-term project. But at some point, we will need to come back and add those operating expenses in any additional positions if they were needed at that point. So the carryover package does recommend 32 new positions. 18 of those are within the CSB, as Katie just described, and those would be supported by revenue as well as existing CSB balances, at least in the near term. We are recommending as well eight positions and land development services to help with

[00:16:21] their customer technical support center continuing to deal with the call volume there with land development services now being a separate fund those positions would be supported by revenues within that fund and then we have six positions that are recommended that are associated with workload requirements for collective bargaining those include two positions in the Department of Human Resources two in DMV and two in the County Attorney's Office those requiring general fund support of 0.87 million partial year impact and 1.24 million dollars recurring. So we do have currently 10 consideration items that have been

[00:16:58] submitted by the board listed here. So out of our $2.24 million balance that I mentioned, there have been these total $1.9 million in allocations of that balance, as well as two adjustments that would reallocate $9 million. So we have a $500,000 consideration item that would support permanent supportive housing, $500,000 to construct ADA accessible doors and facilities at the old firehouse, a quarter of a million dollars to support the TOPS program, expanding from four to six annual subsidies per participant

[00:17:35] per year, $200,000 for the Lake Anne Economic Visioning Project, $150,000 for the Springfield Branding Project, $125,000 to support SPARK, $100,000 for improvements at the Annandale Civic Space, $75,000 for a survey of people who are panhandling in the county, and then a reallocation of $8 million out of that $12 million balance in the General Fund Pandemic Reserve to support affordable housing, as well as a reallocation of $1 million that is currently in the package to support the Supervisor District Capital Projects to instead support the Park

[00:18:13] Authority for tree removal and maintenance. So looking ahead of the budget calendar, closing out the carryover process will be a public hearing followed by action on carryover at the board meeting next Tuesday, September 26th. Then our staff is also in early development of the FY 2025 budget. You know, certainly not too much has changed since the picture that we painted in our

[00:18:42] We do anticipate this to be another difficult budget year certainly some of the the talk about recession has ebbed but we do know that there's some some headwinds out there the potential for a federal government shutdown coming also the the looming needs of Metro as well as a number of other funding priorities that are out there.

[00:19:03] So based on board budget guidance we are trying to make sure that we continue to have plenty of options on the table as we go into 2025. We have asked our agencies to do a comprehensive review of all of their user fees as well as the rates to look and see what kind of revenue options there are out there.

[00:19:21] We also are asking agencies to come up with those agencies that receive general fund support to come up with reduction options totaling 7% of that support so that we are able to look, primarily trying to find those places where we have efficiencies and other savings that can be taken, lessons learned from the pandemic or places where they realize perhaps based on IT development that they don't need some of the positions that have been vacant for some time.

[00:19:48] Staff are early in reviewing those. We know that we've seen a kind of wide range of what we're getting back from agencies. We see some that are certainly common sense where we have positions that have been vacant for a while and agencies really have learned to work without them. On the other side of the range, we're certainly seeing some options come back that we don't think should be on the table.

[00:20:08] So as we work through the FY 2025 budget process, we'll be reviewing all these options and really trying to come up with a measured approach to come up with a good package for all of you to consider. So our next touch point with you in our FY 2025 development will be the financial forecast, our joint forecast with the school board, which will be presented at the Budget Policy Committee meeting on November 28th, and then we will be presenting the county executive's advertised budget to you on February 20th.

[00:20:39] Okay. Thank you very much for that presentation, and we're going to open it up for questions. Before we do that, I do want to thank staff for their slide on the expansion of youth mental health services. I mean, this is something that I think it started with the summertime task force that was set up after I did my board matter a couple years ago now.

[00:21:04] It feels like it was just yesterday, and I know we've chipped away at this for the last two years, as you mentioned. I guess my only question, and I appreciate the creative use of funding, by the way. I mean, the opioid settlement funds, this is exactly, you know, what they should be being used for, for option number one.

[00:21:22] But I guess on option number three was referred to as a longer term proposal. And with, I guess the logical question is with $15 million sitting there and a mental health crisis real time happening with our young people today, the logical question is why does that have to be part of a longer term proposal and what do we mean by longer term?

[00:21:48] I mean, obviously, we know the logistics of trying to find space and dealing with that is one of those pieces that could be a challenge, but is this something actively being worked on, and what would we define as a longer-term proposal? Yes, so it is actively being worked on right now, longer-term being passed carryover in September, so they are looking for space.

[00:22:12] The funding just wasn't needed in the September timeframe, so yes, they are actively looking for space right now, whether that's the leased space and or purchase. And as soon as they have something, they can come forward and we can bring it back to the board for discussion. Good. Excellent.

[00:22:27] I appreciate that. And then my last question, I'll open up to others, is the, if I was tracking right on the park authority numbers, I know that, you know, there were a number of tranches that you mentioned there, both in this package and then also the $7.5 million ARPA funds that you mentioned in passing that also are being allocated, the $1 million from Supervisor District Capital Projects, I know Supervisor Herdy had put that on the table, was specifically for tree removal and maintenance, and I just want to be clear on this point, are any of

[00:23:04] the funds that are already included in the carryover or related to the ARPA funds that are being transferred to the park authority, do any of them cover the same expense? In other words are any of them specifically targeted for tree removal and maintenance or not and let me ask let me explain why i'm asking that question i mean obviously we we don't want to duplicate but i guess a larger concern is you know these projects that are in the supervisor district account should they be funded at least traditionally have been treated as kind of one-time expenses and

[00:23:40] you're done and this proposal is for tree removal and maintenance which you know the maintenance component of that is not a one and done. Maybe tree removal is, although there are constantly trees in the park's inventory that need to be removed. And so I'm trying to get at making sure this one is not a duplication and two is not being considered as a one-time expense, knowing that it is not a one-time expense. So, you know, I think there's certainly a need there. There's a large need there. What we have programmed within the carryover, I'd say that would be kind of

[00:24:17] Specific to those would be the half million dollars for forestry operations. Then certainly, as we mentioned with ARPA, that second seven and a half million dollar tranche towards maintenance. So $15 million out of ARPA in total going towards those maintenance needs. And the only other thing that I would add is that with some of the funds that we've put in for parks, they've been having to borrow from some of these areas for maintenance.

[00:24:41] And so then to be able to put in money for some of these initiatives, it means they don't have to do so much moving around as well. So it kind of helps to, so they're not having to borrow from one side in order to cover maintenance. It gives them a little bit more flexibility. Okay. I think what would be helpful, at least to me, is I don't doubt that.

[00:24:58] I know they have tremendous needs, would be to see what has happened with that so that we know. Because, for example, I don't know is a $1 million number just happens to be what the supervisor district capital projects are. But that might not be anywhere near what the actual number needs to be in terms of doing what it is we think we're doing with this.

[00:25:19] And so I want to make sure that the number is substantiated and that if what you just described, if you can outline for us what has happened with that. Because my fear of using one-time money for something like maintenance is it's great, it gets you caught up in a year. But then this problem comes back again next year.

[00:25:38] So any help you can give us in understanding, you know, what has been done over the last couple of years, kind of what that hole is, if there's a hole, if there's money that's been used for other things within the park system, if there's a hole there that needs to be filled, what that amount is, I think would be helpful for us to know in considering that particular item that's on the consideration item list.

[00:26:00] And then lastly, and I just want to get a confirmation of this, if we did not reallocate that $1 million, every supervisor could reallocate their portion of it towards that, correct? There's absolutely nothing stopping a supervisor from reallocating that amount to the park authority for that use, even if the board doesn't fully reallocate that entire account, correct?

[00:26:24] That's correct. Okay. I just wanted to make sure, just from a fact standpoint, that that was right. That's all I have in the way of questions. Why don't we start here, especially since we were just talking about the parks item with Supervisor Harry. We'll go down and make sure everyone has a chance.

[00:26:40] Yeah, and I met with the Park Authority, and they are $2.4 million, according to them, in the hole for tree this year. We put a little bit of money, I think, earlier this year towards trees. Primarily, McLean Civic Association did a deep kind of dive in there at their budget committee, and we did that as a result.

[00:26:59] But the problem is they've got to do the tree. It's emergency tree removal. It's not even preventative tree removal. And then they're holding maintenance positions open so that they can pay to have emergency tree removal done. And it's creating the maintenance issues we're seeing in our parks.

[00:27:16] So the $1 million was the one-time kind of hole that they've got this year. We do need to address the ongoing issue, and the time to do that clearly is at budget. I did take $150,000 out of my, I wish I had that to give, but I don't.

[00:27:36] I'd give it back to the taxpayers. But $150,000 and put it into Burke Lake Park to make some much-needed capital improvements there. So I have done that. I'm going to go ahead and ask a follow-up question to your question.

[00:27:52] At the same time, what kind of capital projects were we looking at? Does anybody have a list of – because I think there's a lot. Can we have the list of unspent funds that we have that I used for the park authority thing?

[00:28:08] Because I know there's a bunch of supervisory districts have got unused funds. I actually have a memo on my desk right now that I need to review, and it should be going out in the next couple of days. Perfect. So there's a bunch of districts that have big unused surpluses there. But I think before we, anyway, that's where that came from.

[00:28:27] My question, my other question, so what drove that and which projects are not getting done because of the $100,000 in each supervisory district? So there's no correlation between the amount that's being asked for and the need. That's what I was trying to get at. That's what I wanted to make sure everybody understood here is that this was a number that was in the budget that was used to reallocate so that we wouldn't have to spend additional money.

[00:28:53] but it doesn't have any relationship to what is actually needed for the Park Authority for tree removal and maintenance now. And that's what I was getting at. I think that's what I just heard you say. It gets them close to that $2.4 million, but not entirely to their $2.4 million. Between what we did earlier, this additional $0.5 million plus the million gets you pretty close to $2.4 million.

[00:29:20] So are we done on that? On the Park Authority, I know you had another question. Yeah, to look in at the budget calendar, and then I'll make a general comment. You know, the revenue growth and identified savings are primarily expected to fund employee pay increases, including the impact of what was the revenue growth on real estate that was projected?

[00:29:45] I believe what we had in the multi-year was that residential was going to be flat and that commercial is maybe going to be up a percent or two. I don't know that things have changed that much from what we included in the multi-year, but I think that our multi-year overall revenue increase for all categories was about $50 million, a little over $50 million, primarily based on real estate.

[00:30:09] Okay. All right. Thank you for that. Okay. Okay. Kathy? Okay. So I'll just go with the consideration item for the $1 million. I don't support that. I have used that funding for streetlights, one in an area where there was a lot of crime, And another one that we're using where a pedestrian was killed crossing Route 29.

[00:30:33] So I really value that money to make a difference in my district. And I have been using that money and would like to have that replenished so I can deal with other issues. You know, I'm looking forward to the next year's budget, and I'm hoping we maybe rethink how we do some things.

[00:30:52] I think we have a tendency not to look big picture at what we do. And probably my thinking gets so influenced by spending 14 years on the school board whenever we did have carryover. I mean, money to use, we saved it for carryover for the next budget.

[00:31:08] And so, you know, we deal with issues or consideration items, but we don't step back and I think have a good enough knowledge about some of the big picture things we need to invest in. And so I'd like that discussion to happen into the next year's budget.

[00:31:26] I don't have any specific questions right now. Thank you. Thank you, Kathy. Supervisor Stork? Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of points and a question for Chris Leonard. I was surprised the turf field replacement for the Park Authority, it's $2.5 million.

[00:31:45] My understanding is when we do turf fields, we put together a sinking fund. I know on the school side, that's what we did. I thought we did the same thing on the county side. Why do we need $2.5 million for that? I think it's based on the timing of some of the field replacements that right now we just have a dip.

[00:32:02] So we just need a one-time infusion to get us through the next couple of years, and then I think we're going to be on an appropriate cycle. So I don't think there's necessarily a recurring need because we do have funds set aside for turf field replacement. It's just based on some of the timing of some of the replacements coming up, we see a little bit of a funding gap.

[00:32:17] And so we just want to fill that gap to then put us in a good position for going forward. So the $2.5 million is kind of one time. You won't need something. You don't expect to need something. It's just based on kind of the timing of when the fields are getting replaced. The sinking funds should then work from that point forward.

[00:32:35] Have we done something like this in the last year or two, or parks, or any? No, we have not had to put in any one-time infusion for turf field replacement in a few years, I believe. Thank you. I obviously strongly support the mental health improvements that are in here.

[00:32:54] I am concerned because what I read and understand is that we have essentially some maybe one-time money that's being used, but then in FY 2025, we're going to need to make that, those are going to need to be ongoing dollars.

[00:33:09] Did I misunderstand that? Not necessarily. Based on the revenue that comes in from the program, we're also hoping, you know, we were waiting for the state budget to be passed to see if there was any additional funding there that could be put towards the initiative, so not necessarily. So you're expecting Medicaid dollars and state dollars to offset the staffing that's in here for the?

[00:33:31] That's what we're hoping, yes. And do we have any sense of how hopeful that is? Is it X percent or highly likely or reasonably likely? Or in other words, what's your internal calculation that there's a 90% likelihood that or whatever that the state and or Medicaid will pay that?

[00:33:54] So I don't think staff wants to commit since it's a new program. They really are unsure about the revenue, the Medicaid revenue that will come in. You know, they can approximate based on adults, which is very favorable. But, you know, they don't want to say it's going to be completely covered and then have the youth be a completely different model compared to what they see on the adult side.

[00:34:16] And then the state budget was just passed, so they're still working through that. Okay. I mean, we absolutely need more and better youth services, and I just want to understand what that commitment is that we're making. And the last item is I know some of us were provided with a memo from Mary Payton and the NAACP and South County Task Force Ventures and Community, those organizations, about the need for additional dollars, especially for rent, utility, legal relief.

[00:34:48] And I wanted to ask Chris if he could kind of give my concern is clear cut. I don't want to run out of funds, particularly as we transition. We all know that we had a significant amount of money. We're transitioning down a little bit from that, but that transition, in my mind, should still be based upon ensuring that we have sufficient funds to fund the needs that exist not only this year, but also making sure that we don't cut our shelves short for future years.

[00:35:16] And a couple of points that were made is we still have levels of call volumes as well as the still. And one thing that particularly concerned me, because I had not heard this before, and I had a conversation with, I would say, the housing and homeless advocates a week or so ago, and they were advising me that we absolutely do not have sufficient bed space for the folks who may need it on an emergency basis.

[00:35:43] So if you could just wrap those together and give us your comments. And I have a follow-up question to that. Sure. Well, first, to answer the question, I do think I have to provide a little bit of context. pre-pandemic rent assistance program, about $4 million a year. Rent assistance was truly emergency rent assistance. It was only intended to be temporary. A couple of months, somebody lost their job due to injury, due to whatever, and needed a little bit of help. But certainly after a couple months, they'd be able to pick up paying the rent again. That's what the typically operated local

[00:36:17] rent assistance was, and it's why it's kind of operated out of NCS instead of our housing community development department. The pandemic hits, we literally got tens of millions of dollars, but along with that, we got extended capabilities, both in terms of income that we could serve, but then also how much time.

[00:36:40] So we had a number of residents that were able to be helped for 12 months, even some that could go a little bit further than that. That was not in line with anything that we would call a typical local emergency rent assistance.

[00:36:56] But certainly, in recognition of a worldwide pandemic, we had massive job losses. People were trying to figure out ways. We serve people that didn't know what the 222 line. That was all new to them, and they haven't called since. They only needed help to get through that. And fortunately, the federal government came through with literally tens of millions.

[00:37:16] We had $70 million only for rent assistance, and that's on top of the CARES Act, $20 million. Certainly spent close to $100 million on that. We knew last summer, we being our staff, knew that, hey, we're going to be having to transition at some point back to our local rent assistance efforts.

[00:37:35] But we also knew that we couldn't go back to $4 million in 2023. So what we did is we went to Christina and we said, let's see if we can figure out a way to get to a bridge program. So we developed a bridge program with $4 million in our regular general fund and $10 million in ARPA to be able to do that.

[00:37:54] What we did during that time, and I challenged our staff, I need you guys to look at what the needs are, look at what the criterias are. Was it a couple months? Is three months right? Is two months right? What is right? The entire program criteria, because we wanted to make sure in 24 we were ready for the post-pandemic rent assistance.

[00:38:14] And our staff came back with a number of about $7.6 million. So we had $4 million that we could put to that in our general fund, $3.6 million, which is covered, again, via ARPA. I will point out for the board, it's not provided for in 2025, and there is no ARPA in 2025.

[00:38:30] So as I've told the advocates, we don't have this capability, but that is our new rent assistance program at 7.6. I'd also be remiss to tell you that staff, in addition to need and months and all of those sorts of things and looking at what everybody else is doing, I did say we have to be reasonable looking at feasibility of funding asks.

[00:38:55] That 3.6 is a 90% increase from what we were doing pre-pandemic. So that was a data point. It wasn't the data point, but it was a data point that our folks said, okay, what is reasonable to be able to come back to address the need? Now, one other thing I'll just point out, a lot of times the needs out there, it's very high need, but who's eligible for rent assistance?

[00:39:20] Who's eligible for our Housing Choice Voucher Program that does go extended time? It doesn't have a timeline on it. who's eligible for a lot of our homeless folks, especially our families, who's eligible to be able to, if we don't have room in a shelter, can we put them up in a hotel with our partners?

[00:39:38] Those are all different types of needs. It's all being conflated right now, and it's very difficult to pull those out. But we feel very comfortable that 7.6 was the number. But as I told Christina, 7.6 is the number, but we're going to be evaluating that this year to see what we need.

[00:39:56] And if we needed to come back a third quarter, we need to know basically by the time Brian presents his budget in February, we need to know is 7.6 the right number? Is it more? I'm certain it won't be less, but we're doing that evaluation. I've talked to Mary a number of times over the last week.

[00:40:14] I understand. I love her passion for serving. But this is where we are with the 7.6. I think you captured a key part of this, which is I heard you, and I know for me personally, I'm committed to ensuring that we provide the ability for all those who qualify to get that service and not have funding be the limitation on that.

[00:40:39] So you're saying the qualification, the standards that you have now, you believe, and obviously that's something that's been vetted and considered by lots of folks over the last, I don't know, six months or so at a minimum, that that's sufficient fund to take you into next year, through next year to July, if you will, June 30th.

[00:40:58] And if not, then you are committed to bringing back to the board further considerations that we should have to increase that amount. Absolutely. And I will say that we talked about this last month, I mean last summer when we created. So this has been talked about by our staff, all the experts, for 15 months because I challenged them.

[00:41:19] We got the bridge program. I don't think anybody else in our region did a bridge program the way we did it. But we did that so our staff could have the time to be able to do something to come forward with whatever we were going to be, what the post-pandemic need is going to look like.

[00:41:36] And the last question that I asked, I just want to ask it again, too. If it's a longer explanation, then I'm happy to take it separately. but in a recent meeting and, again, in the e-mail that was given, we were advised that there isn't sufficient bed space, isn't sufficient emergency bed space, there are people that clearly do not have that ability to stay at an emergency center overnight because the list is long and those accommodations aren't available.

[00:42:07] Is that your understanding as well, and have we done any surveys ourselves to know one way or the other if that's accurate? So as the COG information on homelessness for the region came out, everybody was up.

[00:42:24] But what was particularly disturbing was what was driving those increases were families. We're not individuals, we're families. So to the extent we're seeing our hotel use for our families, because when we talk about hotel use, we're really talking about family use of those hotels because we don't want to put individuals in the hotels because we don't have those wraparound services that are provided for in the shelters.

[00:42:49] So I believe that our individuals are accommodated, our families. We have seen an increasing use of hotels for those families to make sure, because we are completely committed that no family is going to stay on the streets in Fairfax County. So it may not be a developed facility now, but we have, obviously, hotel space that we can increase or decrease.

[00:43:11] so that the commitment that we've made is that people who need emergency beds get it. So we're not aware, other than the fact that there may not be something that people can point to, well, we have five spaces over here. It's more a matter of you meet the need when it's brought to your attention, and in turn, that family is accommodated.

[00:43:31] Yes, and I can tell you that our hotel use for families is increasing. It is not decreasing. let's just remind ourselves this is not an HHS meeting and I think we thank you mr. chairman yeah and I just want to make sure because Dan has asked some questions a lot of us have and I just want to remind the board you know let's ask staff those questions get answers to them because these are important subjects that we need to make sure we cover but I also want to make sure we're cognizant of the time and everybody has questions about carryover specifically gets them gets them answered but i would suggest based on the issues that dan raised that this

[00:44:10] would be a good item for us at a future hhs meeting to get updates because one of the things that i think all of us are trying to grapple with is we we know what we had before the pandemic we know what we had during it during the peak of it but in terms of long term you know are we looking at restructuring these types of programs and what is the criteria going to be because as i heard you mentioned earlier and we had some folks who we were assisting for 12 months or more during the peak of the pandemic but I think one of the things we need to understand is the new applications that

[00:44:44] are coming in are they related to the pandemic no they're probably totally unrelated to that but they're related to an an underlying challenge in our community that we might be falsely attaching to the pandemic but realistically have to deal with as a board so I think what has been brought up here is a really important, much larger issue that we need to make sure we drill down on and discuss.

[00:45:07] And I appreciate, because we have had the updates, that staff has been working on this for a long time and has this bridge program, which is outstanding. I mean, that's absolutely where we need to be. I think what we need to see is the flow of monies and whether or not that $7.6 million number is real.

[00:45:25] We certainly need to know, as you mentioned, in advance of the next budget cycle when we may have to adjust that number based on what we're actually seeing in the community. So I think the letter that you have, Dan, I do want to make sure we can get some answers back from staff to come back to the board so that we can communicate back on those issues.

[00:45:44] Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Sure. Thank you. Supervisor Walkinshaw. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just on the youth mental health, so I'm understanding it on slide 10. there we go slide 10 program expenses of 2.89 million so is it the the worst case if we didn't generate a dollar of revenue our annual cost moving forward would be 2.89 million yes okay um i i kind of feel like you know we need to have a range there of what our costs

[00:46:19] could be right it's probably not gonna be 2.89 i appreciate we can't specify don't know the the the amount of revenue that we'll generate. But is our worst case actually $2 million? I feel like we need to drill down a little bit more on that.

[00:46:36] Obviously, we need to do it. I'm a little uncomfortable with just we have no idea. We don't know. The $5 million. Just real quick, related to that, what would also, I think, be helpful for us to know, as you mentioned, this would just set up three teams to serve 900 kids a year, roughly, total.

[00:46:56] what would also be helpful is that $2.89 million is obviously on top of what we already use for these types of programs. So give us an idea of how many more people, it's 900 more people, but how many kids are we serving now and at what cost? I think would be a good thing to put it in context for us, so kind of what the net increase is. On the $5 million construction escalation, Obviously, we went through a time period where construction costs escalated.

[00:47:28] My sense is that's kind of leveled off. Maybe I'm wrong about that, or maybe we're still trying to play catch-up. In other words, costs escalated in our original projections. We're still here, and we're still trying to catch up. If that's the case, how much longer until we're caught up, assuming costs continue to be more or less level?

[00:47:52] I mean, I think there is an aspect of the catch-up, because as we're getting bids in for some of our facilities, they are coming in higher than what we had anticipated. Now, some of it's based on the fact that these projects were scoped out years ago. Sometimes there are scope changes. We know with, you know, our environmental policy that we want to put in energy efficient systems.

[00:48:12] Sometimes that adds a little bit of cost, and so we're using some of these, some of this funding to assist with that as well. I believe that what we put in the construction escalation reserve so far, we've already allocated a significant portion of it. So I anticipate that we're going to use this $5 million in good time.

[00:48:29] I don't know that we're going to need to come back and replenish it. Certainly, that kind of is an outstanding question. But I don't necessarily see that the need is going away just based on the bids that we're seeing as they come in. I mean, obviously, just from a planning perspective, we don't want to be in perpetuity asking for $5 million or $10 million construction escalation.

[00:48:53] At some point, assuming inflation levels off and construction costs level off, we should be caught up. We're also trying to make sure that when we put together our estimates for any of these future facilities, that we're anticipating cost increases in the future, because sometimes there's a timing difference, too, when we scope out the project and then when we actually go out for bid.

[00:49:13] So we want to make sure that we're right-sizing it so we aren't always doing this catch-up, that we're not being too conservative in our initial estimates either. Okay. On the government center reconfiguration, maybe a budget. I mean, I would like to learn a little, I know some of the things we've been working on over the last five to 10 years with the servers and bringing leases, folks who had leases out in the community, bringing them into the government center complex. But if there's an update on that, maybe that's a good budget Q&A.

[00:49:44] I have a particular interest in it, but probably other board members do as well. So maybe a little bit on that and then appreciate the County Executive and others working on the board office security issue that is something that he and I discussed and especially for those of us Supervisor Palchuk and myself whose offices are not co-located with police stations it's a it's a particular challenge and the costs are actually very significant much more than I anticipated they would be just to kind of bring everyone to level so appreciate the attention on that thank Okay, Supervisor Gross.

[00:50:20] Thank you. I want to echo the comments of Supervisor Smith about the capital projects funds. You know, just because we might have a good balance in a district fund doesn't mean that there isn't a project assigned to that at some point.

[00:50:37] I've hoarded money in my capital projects account just to be able to get to something we know that we're going to need to do in three years So I want to associate myself with her comments.

[00:50:53] We sometimes have to cobble together a number of years' worth of funding. I have two questions. One is on the CSB, the 18 positions for the CSB. I'm a little uncomfortable as personnel chair adding positions during careover, but these are really important, I know.

[00:51:12] But it's 18 positions, and we know that these are the very difficult positions to fill. Do we have any confidence that we actually will have people applying for these jobs and qualifying for these jobs, or are we just building ourselves into a deeper hole?

[00:51:29] That's one question. And then I have another comment about the accessibility piece. I'd like to have a response to my CSB positions question, and then I'll ask my other question. So I think we can get some detailed information from CSB and include that in our overall response to the Q&A.

[00:51:51] They have been successful recently in their recruitment efforts. That's not to say that they won't have challenges with these 18, so we can address that as part of the Q&A. Okay. I mean, it sounds good we're going to try and address an issue, but if we don't have the bodies to fill those slots, then we've just had a feel-good motion by the board with no real results.

[00:52:11] And Versaunt? Madam Chair, I mean, Vice Chair Gross brings up a point, And I think when we get more information on that, I would like to know, too, that these are new positions. So we also got to be thinking about if we're filling these new positions aggressively, does that have any effect on the existing positions to do this work that might also have to be addressed?

[00:52:33] I think we just need to be cognizant of that, too. Yes, exactly. The other thing that I wanted to bring up, and it's actually the McLean Community Center's project to construct ADA accessible doors and facilities. and I have no objection to this one, but it does bring up the fact that I think we need to do a survey or an inventory of many of our county facilities, especially those that are serving the community. We've got lots of people coming in and out because there are tripping hazards.

[00:53:04] You might be able to get into the building. I brought this up at the 50-plus meeting a while back. You may be able to get into the building because they have automatic doors, but once you get into the building, the other places that you need to go may not have automatic doors. I know in my case, in my office, we have automatic doors at the front of the building.

[00:53:25] We have an automatic door to get into my office. However, there's a set of double doors between the lobby and the office door that if they're open, fine. If they're closed, somebody's going to struggle. So I think we need to take a look at how we are doing our ADA accessibility. It's really important to be able to serve folks. And I think a lot of the people who come to our offices are going to be older, who need to be able to have some accessibility. So just a thought, not part

[00:54:00] of carryover, but something we need to put on a list to accomplish, especially as we're renovating facilities. Thank you. Supervisor Lusk. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My questions are all going to be principally on the youth mental health services, so I just want to thank Darrell Washington and the team for putting together this series of options. This is very, very helpful, so I want to commend them for it. I'll ask just a couple things, and these can come, I guess, with the same Q&A that you've already started, and I pretty much have the same question that Supervisor

[00:54:39] Groves had in terms of how long do we anticipate taking to fill these 18 positions also wanted to find out on the teams there they're the three teams that will be serving as the chairman indicated 300 people per team 900 for the whole county where will those teams be based and then under the youth crisis services and reentry program which I think is phenomenal and something that certainly we need to have in the community.

[00:55:15] How many youth do we anticipate will be served by that facility? Is there a number or is there a target? Just trying to get a sense of that. And do we have any sense of where it might be located? Is there a location possibly for it?

[00:55:30] I'd be curious to know that. And then last, I'll just point out two things. I appreciate the additional funding for the supervisor's offices. My office is co-located in a police station, and we did a little test pressing a little alarm, and we realized that the response wasn't the response that we had anticipated.

[00:55:53] So I think clearly we've got to continue thinking about how to make these offices safer and then looking at measures and methods for that to happen. So I appreciate some funding for that.

[00:56:08] And then last, on the points that were raised by Mary Payton, I want to also thank Chris Leonard. I did have a conversation with Mary as well and also had a conversation with Chris after. And I respect the methodology by which, you know, we're going to look at the funding that we have, deploy it, and then see if we need additional funding over the course of the fiscal year and have the option to reconsider at that point.

[00:56:37] So I just want to acknowledge that, and with that, I'll conclude. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. Supervisor Faust. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First thing, the consideration item for the ADA at the old firehouse, Supervisor Smith had asked to join that, and I don't think it shows up on the sheet.

[00:57:00] And an amended consideration item was submitted. The $5 million for cost increases reminds me that every single project that goes out of our offices has huge amounts of contingencies built into them.

[00:57:24] Who follows up? I mean, what happens to those contingencies? Why are we now coming back? A county is probably doing a billion dollars' worth of construction or more, and $5 million is going to solve the cost increase challenge.

[00:57:41] That doesn't make sense to me. Well, we do track those contingencies, and when we don't have to utilize those contingencies for a specific project, we're able to reallocate when we have overruns in others. So we aren't necessarily addressing some of the inflationary impacts on our projects only through the construction escalation reserve.

[00:58:00] We're also looking at some of those balances in some of those projects where, you know, maybe we didn't have to touch contingency, we only had to touch part of it, and we have some balances, that we're able to administratively move funding between projects in order to cover some of those unanticipated expenses that weren't in the original project estimate.

[00:58:20] Do you produce a report on that, how contingencies are utilized? I mean, because when we approve a project, it's going to cost a million dollars. And you say, well, we want to put $100,000 of contingency in there. Well, we've approved a million dollar project, and you've now got $1.1 million to spend.

[00:58:40] Who keeps track of where that continues? We do. It's deep in our quarterly packages, but for those of you who really dig down, in our other funds details section of our quarterly reviews, but in our construction funds, we actually have a table for each of the projects, and so we'll outline where we had a balance in this project.

[00:59:00] We reduced the appropriation level for that project, and we're shifting it somewhere. We have a lot of various projects in the county, of course, And so some of those project tables are quite long, but we do try to detail those in the tables in our quarterly review packages.

[00:59:16] Sometimes you're talking about a couple hundred thousand dollars. When you say quarterly review packages, you're talking about third quarter and carryover. Third quarter, okay. Yep, yep. Okay. But if you think $5 million is going to solve the problem, I could think of other ways I'd like to spend that money. I know you do.

[00:59:35] You know I do. ARPA, I mean, we just got a report that totally leaves zero balance for the supervisors to, you know, consider for priorities that we might have had.

[00:59:53] And I look at it, and what you're spending it on, you know, what I see looks good. What I would like to see is a list of, you know, how we've spent the total ARPA funding. And not with a bunch of words and stuff, just, you know, this, boom.

[01:00:13] You know, we had, we spent this much, or we've allocated this much, we've spent this much, this much, you know, remains to be spent in one place so we can see that. And the other list I want to see, okay, so staff decided how to spend, you know, a billion dollars or whatever it is.

[01:00:31] What did you decide not to fund that maybe, you know, if we were to put it on the table, you know, and the board had discussed it, might have come up with different proposals. We know what you did propose to fund, but we don't know what you didn't and what didn't make the list.

[01:00:54] To your first question, which I think is a little bit easier, we can. Katie had worked on a report that Treasury required for ARPA funding, which has a lot of words, but we can forward it.

[01:01:09] But it is a detailed by project of all the ARPA projects of what was allocated, what's been spent, a description. There's also some, and Katie's going to correct me if I get the wrong, but like performance measurements, some of those requirements in terms of some of those ARPA projects.

[01:01:26] We've included a link in the latest stimulus memo for that. Maybe we can actually send that around the report as a NIP so that you can see it so you don't have to go looking around for that report. But it is something that Treasury required, and it has a lot of detail.

[01:01:43] In terms of things that we didn't fund, I think that's harder. For the coronavirus relief funds, we did actually ask agencies to submit requests to us. And there may have been a few here and there that we weren't able to fund, but for the most part, I think that we were able to meet agencies' needs through various means.

[01:02:01] For the ARPA funding, we've handed it a little bit differently because we really have tried to hit some of the board priorities that have come up in these meetings. You know, for example, we know affordable housing. We put aside the $5 million for electric buses to try to further the board's environmental goals.

[01:02:18] And really, I think the point of a lot of the allocations that we made in ARPA were either human services oriented, really trying to get at the needs of our residents in terms of rent relief, food access, and those issues, and then also try to relieve some of the pressure on our general fund where we could.

[01:02:38] So for example, we put in money for our sports courts, outdoor courts renovations because we knew that was going to be a need that was either going to have to be funded through the general fund, but we were able to use ARPA funding for that. And it's a long answer to your question, but I don't know specifically that I have a list of things that we said no to in terms of requests for stimulus funding.

[01:03:05] Okay. Going back then to the list of ARPA things, what I asked for was like a list. I can do a simple chart as well. A memo. That's not what I'm looking for, right? Yeah, we can do a simple chart if that's helpful, kind of by high level.

[01:03:22] Both will be good. Okay. And then just, I don't know if it's the right time to ask, but I understand all the departments were asked to submit budgets that were substantially less than last year. Were they also told to submit a budget that is more what they need?

[01:03:44] Does the budgeting office only have budgets that show the cuts? So it's sort of a two-part exercise, honestly. So we went to all the agencies and put forward a 7% target. We didn't want to give different targets to different agencies, even though we knew getting to the 7% was going to be harder for some agencies than others.

[01:04:05] So that was an exercise. And again, as Phil mentioned, I think there are some agencies that we might be able to take 7% and there won't really be any impact on operations, to be honest. I think for others, we won't be able to cut anything because, honestly, to make any kind of a cut was going to be too difficult. At the same time, agencies are also putting forward addendum requests.

[01:04:24] You know, if they have additional needs or new initiatives or programs that they would like for us to consider. I mean, we've always kind of had the mindset of, tell us what your needs are. we may or may not be able to fund them, but at least let us know so that we can maybe, maybe there will be ARPA balances available if it's one time that we'd be able to meet the needs that way, but at least tell us that also allows us to build our multi-year budgets when we're looking forward to the next couple of years so we know even if it's not something that we would be able to take care of this year, maybe that is something that we would have the flexibility to fund next year. So again, it's kind of two-part. On one hand, the agencies are saying these are

[01:05:02] areas where we might be able to cut back, and then they're also saying that these are also areas where we need, require, would like additional resources. And in some cases, that might be a reallocation. In some cases, there might just be reductions. Or in some cases, there may be no reductions. And we actually fund, if we have the ability, fund new items.

[01:05:19] So we aren't necessarily telling agencies, don't ask for new things. Again, I'd rather know that the need is out there than not. But it doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to be able to fund it. And so just let me put a fine point on that, if I can, because in terms of need is an annual exercise with the agencies while you put together the budget.

[01:05:43] But what is different this time is, and I don't know, the board has not authorized or supported a 7% number, but what we did do in our budget guidance is put very specific language in there about looking for efficiencies, is looking for opportunities where technology has been used through the pandemic that have made things more efficient, where we might not need some positions or other expenditures, knowing that we're going to have a difficult budget year. And so, you know, what we're hearing from some folks is a response to that ask. And I just want to remind everyone listening that regardless of what

[01:06:18] those agencies put forward, it will be the board's decision through the budget process to decide what, if anything, we want to take that is on that list. But the point was to respond to the board's budget guidance. Maybe you can help us understand where this 7% came from because we didn't necessarily pinpoint a percent.

[01:06:39] But my experience with the budget is that the agencies are asked every year what their needs are, what they see, or challenges moving forward. But this time they're also being asked if you had to put forward of budget reduction of 7% for your agency, what would that look like?

[01:06:54] Is that a fair assessment and help us understand how the budget guidance, which I still support because we need to know what's out there in advance of the next budget, but how the budget guidance got translated into the 7% number just so that we are aware of where that came from?

[01:07:12] I mean, it really was an internal exercise. You know, Bill and I came up with a recommendation. And we talked with Brian because there has to be some way of implementing it. You know, we did want to push agencies. I do think that this was a stretch exercise for some agencies.

[01:07:28] But, again, kind of in the environment where Phil mentioned earlier when we were putting together this guidance for agencies a few months ago, the concerns of a recession were much higher than what they are now. And so we wanted to be able to have some options. And knowing that we might have to consider additional revenue to balance the FY25 budget, we certainly wanted to be able to demonstrate to residents that we've turned over every rock and that we've really looked every place that we could.

[01:07:54] Because I think that a lot of times there's this misconception that we can just cut, cut, cut, and that's an easy way to balance the budget. And so we want to be able to put ourselves in a position that we could defend any type of additional revenue that we might recommend for the FY25 budget.

[01:08:11] Again, that we've taken, we've looked at efficiencies, we've looked at areas where we can identify savings and so that we could be really transparent with our residents in terms of if you want us to cut more, there are going to be some consequences. And we'll be able to outline some of those consequences if we went deeper with any of the cuts that we might recommend.

[01:08:29] I don't know overall what level of reduction we'll propose in the county executives recommended in February. I don't know if it's going to be 2%, 4%. Again, we're waiting to see what we get back from agencies. But I still think it is a useful exercise that if there was something that was unanticipated that hit us next year's budget, we would need to know where to go.

[01:08:49] It's not to sort of say that we want to go there, but it's a fact-finding mission. And I think that's important because I understand the anxiety, but I've had people come up to me and say, we've put forward our 7% cuts. And, you know, the reality is this is a planning exercise at this point.

[01:09:08] The only person who can decide on those 7% of cuts are the 10 people sitting around this table. And so I just want to caution about, you know, these are hard conversations to have scenarios that you might have to deal with in a tough budget year. But if we can't even have those conversations, then we've got a problem.

[01:09:26] And we have to be able to have those conversations so that we know what the consequences of those are. And the agencies and the constituents who use the programming by these agencies that might be affected by this have to understand that the board has to have a constructive conversation about what these options are.

[01:09:45] It's called budgeting. And when we know next year is going to be a challenge, and we've been repeatedly told that, we don't want to be starting from scratch when we start our budget process. And so we want you to come into the budget process with what you have heard from these agencies. It could be that this board decides, hey, none of those are good.

[01:10:03] But I do want to caution against some of the anxiety that's out there that we've got to be able to have these conversations, even if they're painful. And we should not draw conclusions from those that the board is going to do X or Y, because we have a whole budget process we go through. We have public hearings.

[01:10:18] We're going to have a lot of input from our residents. We're going to have the county executive's version of which of those things he thinks we should consider further. And so, you know, I appreciate the fact that it's been a relatively internal conversation driven by board direction, but it's important for us to know how the budget office and others determined how to have that conversation with the agencies because we're the ones that hear from people about, hey, we were asked to cut 7%.

[01:10:46] You really weren't. You were asked to put together 7% worth of cuts if the board were to want to consider any of those as a decision that this board makes. And I just want to reemphasize that to everyone who's listening and might be concerned about where we are in the budget process.

[01:11:03] So I'm glad, I'm really glad you brought that up, John, because it's a nice course. I just want to say on that point, you always want to be looking at efficiencies. I think we keep pushing that cost kind. But what happened in this instance, and maybe this is a lesson learned, Now, not necessarily departments, but the users of the services, you know, they heard from, I mean, I didn't even know until I was told.

[01:11:32] I don't think I knew. Maybe we were told that staff had directed the departments to produce budgets, assuming a 7% reduction in cost. And the users whose lives depend upon those services, you know, human services and parks and libraries, they heard that from, and they are, you know, and they didn't deserve, you know, in my opinion, they deserve more of what Jeff just, the message Jeff just delivered is the message that we all should have been given to put out.

[01:12:09] That's all I'm saying, because it really has scared a lot of people who, you know. Yeah, and it's really important that they understand that, how that happened. I mean, obviously, you know, is up to – it's different. It varies by department, and some, you know, are very well connected with the community, and other departments, for various reasons, aren't.

[01:12:30] You know, don't have a stakeholder group, per se. But I do think we need to be cognizant of the messaging on that, because no decisions have been made. It's an internal exercise, and ultimately the 10 of us will make that decision, informed by data and public input that we get through the budget process.

[01:12:48] On that point, yeah. And the other thing that's floating out there is that the direction, it was 7% from non-personnel costs. So if you could clarify that, because that's what I had heard in that kind of. Yeah, I think that the confusion there, we never said non-personnel.

[01:13:06] Anytime I had a conversation with the director, I tried to be clear that the goal here was not to cut filled positions. So what you're saying then is personnel was taken off the table. It's not that personnel was taken off the table. It was that, again, you could have positions to be vacant through attrition, and then you might be able to take positions that are funded.

[01:13:28] I think that there was some miscommunication, misinterpretation, that some agencies just didn't look at personnel at all, even vacant funded positions. You just clarified. So they were allowed to if they were vacant, but not if they weren't vacant. I mean, our goal, I think there are some agencies that in order to get to 7% are having to identify field positions.

[01:13:49] But, and again, that was not, it's just options, it's just information. Our goal, our plan was not to put forward any reductions that actually were going to implement people and impact people's jobs. Okay.

[01:14:07] Supervisor Faust, were you done? Yes, thank you very much. Supervisor Palcic. Thank you. We've gone through a lot, so I'll try to be brief because I still want to hear from Ellen. The only other things I want to add are, well, number one, we'll make sure, and good to hear Chris Leonard talk about looking at third quarter.

[01:14:23] I think the other thing that was there is making sure, I know you all have work with staff to produce this, but also our nonprofit and our faith leaders, so we can come back to a committee meeting, but I know that that work is important to hear from the ground up. On the youth crisis, and appreciate that it's going where Supervisor Gross went on workforce, But is this the same or a separate facility from the regional facility that we've been looking at for youth crisis support?

[01:14:52] Is this the regional sort of facility CSB has been looking at? We'll include that, like what the connection is in the Q&A. Okay. That would be great. Yeah. Thank you. We've heard from many that these are very necessary. And just, are we sure we can't answer that part of it here?

[01:15:11] Because there's two different facilities, right, that we're talking about here? And I just want to make sure, because this is something we get asked a lot about. I don't want to wait a long period of time. I think there are two facilities that are being debated, correct? So it's my understanding there's the youth crisis mental health facility, and then there's an opioid facility that's being discussed.

[01:15:31] So what I would like to see is that there is some synergy between the two. But opioid funding has some requirements that we have to follow that we might not be able to just say, we're going to use opioid funding to stand up this new facility and just serve you know youth with mental health challenges but that's the piece that we need to work through okay so I want to make sure we're looking at both they may end up being weaved together somehow but right now we're looking at both they're two separate needs there we're looking at facilities for both or a facility for both okay thank you and I'm glad we got that clarification as you know there were years past

[01:16:08] when they weren't needed and so I think some of those services went away and so understanding that there is that need to would be wonderful and then my other one the only thing I'm left thinking about this parks conversation and I think we're all absolutely very supportive and I think we're taking the right approach of using those one-time kind of carryover and third quarter funds and continuing to use their 15 million over here to try to sort of catch up as we look at that the longer-term sustainability of the needs in the park authority I share my concern

[01:16:42] And I think when I first came into office wanted to make sure we had those one-time funds for needs like lighting and other safety needs that we don't have already as available in transportation and other projects. So I think those are critical. I share the needs.

[01:16:58] So I don't, I wouldn't support replacing those. I do think both are important. And I think we're moving in the right direction on the parks. But, yeah, I guess if there's another way to help address those needs or continuing to look at the carryover, if there's any other opportunity there for the more immediate maintenance and facility needs of the park authority, you know, I would support that as we look here and also to third quarter, to third quarter funds.

[01:17:28] But both are very critical. And the safety needs we've seen, especially with lighting, I think are important not to remove from carryover. So with that I think that's all I have for this. Thank you. Thank you very much And I know we only have about five minutes left. So I hate to do this to you Ellen We do have one other agenda item which is the opioid Settlements update and was listed for 30 minutes, but the good news is as I know everyone has read ahead the Presentation like I have I think we can actually go to The update on local implementation part because I think all of us are well aware of what the you know what the

[01:18:08] the arrangement is, how the process is for determining funding, and, you know, the legal background of where we got to where we are. So maybe we can just go to the update on local implementation part and kind of tell us where things stand in the county. Sure. So right now, the kind of current thinking around how we'll use these opioid settlement dollars includes essentially two pieces. One is that regional youth project that the board may recall. This was the board item, the authorization to apply, it's that regional project, partnership amongst all the CSBs in Northern Virginia.

[01:18:48] And so, in good news, the OAI did vote this summer to fund that project at a level that requests there would be a ramping up in FY24. On the flip side of that good news, in parallel process to that application, there was a process out to try to identify a vendor.

[01:19:05] No responsive proposals to do so for adolescent services were received through that process. Again, just for clarification, we're talking about youth detox and residential substance use treatment services. And so the CSB exec directs are dialoguing at the regional level, trying to figure out the most efficient path forward on that piece.

[01:19:27] You know, we're well aware of the pressing community need there. And then the second piece of the plan involves a local-level process that we undertook here in Fairfax. As the board knows, for several years we've had a multi-pronged, cross-systems approach to address the opioid epidemic, and so there's a lot of teams throughout the county, inclusive of the public school system, doing opioid work.

[01:19:50] So we created a process for those different teams to request settlement dollars to advance their work. We're currently reviewing those requests, and they'll be reviewed by the Opioid Settlement Executive Committee, which does include schools representation, and we'll come forward later this fall with a funding strategy and recommendations, certainly looking at things like ensuring it's within the requirements of the settlement agreement.

[01:20:13] As you may have seen in the chart in this slide, the funding does vary significantly year over year, so trying to ensure that we move forward in a very fiscally responsible manner, while also trying to ensure we get the funds out in a timely fashion. Excellent.

[01:20:29] I knew you could do it. Any questions for Ellen, and I mean, I almost hate to do this, but since you didn't get the full time, I should say, any questions on opioids? Ellen is the expert, so she's the go-to person on any of these subject matters and is doing an excellent job in handling that for us.

[01:20:51] So if there's not any questions here, feel free to follow up with her at any time. Okay. All right. Thank you all very much. And with that, the Budget Committee of September 19, 2023 is adjourned.

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