Coraggio Consulting
Henrico County Board of Supervisors Budget Public Hearing, Tuesday, March 24, 2026

Date: Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Place: Henrico County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 15m (video)
Official meeting video (Swagit): https://henricocountyva.new.swagit.com/videos/379062
Official agenda (Henrico County): https://henrico.gov/pdfs/manager/meetings2026/32426ag.pdf
Official minutes (Henrico County, regular meeting): https://henrico.gov/pdfs/manager/meetings2026/032426RegMins.PDF
Agend-O-Gram, Apr 14, 2026 (records the Board's approval of these minutes): https://henrico.gov/pdfs/manager/meetings2026/4-14-26Agend-O-Gram.pdf

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-25. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:02] Welcome to the public hearing for Henrico County's operating and capital annual fiscal plans for 2026-2027 fiscal year. This afternoon, the Board of Supervisors will receive public comments regarding Henrico County's proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year, which will begin July 1st.

[00:00:26] Public comments will be given from the lectern in the back. For everyone who is watching the live stream of tonight's meeting on the county website, you can participate remotely. public comment portion of the meeting. Go to the Board of Supervisors webpage at herico.us backslash supervisors. Click on the guidance for the Board of Supervisors meeting. Scroll down and click on WebEx event. Moderator will let you know when it is your turn to speak. Thank you.

[00:00:55] We will begin this evening with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by the invocation given this evening by Richard Hamilton, chaplain for the Herico County Police Division. Can you stand here, please?

[00:01:22] Throw me as we go to the Lord and plan. Heavenly Father, we just want to stop tonight. And, Lord, just to think that everything comes from you, Lord. As we make these decisions tonight, lead and guide everyone's feelings, emotions, Lord, as we manage and be stewards of everything that you have provided.

[00:01:43] Be with all of our county officials, all of our state officials and governors, Lord, and just be with our troops at this time. As in their own harm's way, be with them and be protecting for all of us. Let us not just forget those that are just not in front of us, but remember everyone and every decision.

[00:02:02] We just thank you for all your blessings come from you in Jesus' name. Amen.

[00:02:21] Mr. Manager.

[00:02:36] Mr. Chair, members of the board, as you go into your budget public hearing, I am going to ask Justin Crawford, our budget director, to offer an overview of the budget that you reviewed last week. So, Mr. Crawford. Thank you, Mr. Manager, and good evening, Mr. Chair, members of the board.

[00:02:56] Tonight's presentation in public hearing is the continuation of the public budget process that started two weeks ago with the introduction of this budget on March 10th and continued with the board's holding of reviews of all agency budgets last week.

[00:03:12] At the conclusion of the public hearing, by law, the board must defer consideration of the budget for at least seven days before it can adopt the budget. Currently, the recommendation is to defer to the next board meeting where it will be considered after public hearings for the tax rates that support its budget.

[00:03:36] I'll note for the public, there are a number of materials in the back of the room, a budget and brief, a copy of the presentation I'll be giving this evening, along with a copy of the budget document itself and the capital improvement program, and our financial trends document is also back there.

[00:03:55] I would also, as if I didn't note, there's an electronic version of the budget available on the county's website. To jump right into the quick overview of the budget, the all-funds budget, close to $2 billion, mostly consists of the general fund budget, which is where the bulk of the county's operations consist.

[00:04:24] The $1.4 billion budget, general fund budget, is balanced within all current tax rates, which includes a real estate tax rate of $0.83 per $100 assessed value, along with the personal property tax rate of $3.35 per $100 assessed value.

[00:04:42] Revenue composition of the budget is shown on the pie chart here. You see three nearly equal thirds with real estate taxes, the county's largest single revenue source, one-third state and federal revenues being roughly another third, and then all of the other local ones.

[00:05:04] Now, the table on the right shows that local revenue growth accounts for over 96% of estimated growth in fiscal year 27. The reasons for this are the fact that the antiquated formula that determines locality's ability to pay for its share of public education produced a result that gave HCPS the sixth largest decrease, dollar-for-dollar decrease in the state out of all 130 school divisions

[00:05:38] By just a point of comparison, Chesterfield received the third largest increase, 26 versus 27. The pieces that contribute to this result was a decrease in the estimated number of students along with number of local economic indicators that improve relative to other parts of the Commonwealth.

[00:06:01] So as a result, estimates for fiscal year 27 are flat when compared to the estimates adopted in the budget for the current fiscal year. I would also make a note that the General Assembly is still working on its budget.

[00:06:22] A special session to do that work on April 23rd. So with the reductions in anticipated State A combined with a more modest growth in the real estate tax base, expense reductions were required to balance this budget.

[00:06:43] The bulk of these reductions is the inclusion of a 3% across-the-board reduction in each agency's FY26. So looking at the expense side of the 27 budget when compared to fiscal year 26 reflects a 44.3%, 3.3% increase with 83% of the growth in the budget dedicated to education and public safety.

[00:07:18] Both with a reflection of the community's longstanding high priorities and 27 continues that. So building on the progress made over the last few years since February of 21, employee salaries have been here since February of 21 have seen an increase on average of 55%.

[00:07:44] Continuing that progress, the FY27 budget includes the recommendation of a 3% salary increase for all employees. It also proposes to pick up the bulk of health care premium costs for employees, maintaining a rough ratio of about 80 percent of the total costs for employee health care picked up by the county. For HCPS, and again, this was a $25.1 million increase in their budget for the items

[00:08:21] you can see here. I would note that nearly 98 percent of that total increase supported by local tax dollars with the difficulties I noted earlier, state education. For public safety, the fiscal year 27 budget captures a number of ems risk and response enhancements that have been approved during the current year continues technology enhancements equipment programs for for our

[00:08:58] public safety teams also funds the fully funds the public safety training facility a 2022 bond referendum project and also begins the annual main program jail facility turning uh to more of a capital look or transitioning more total capital budget uh over 343 million dollars as shown in

[00:09:31] the department and areas on the line that's heavily in maintaining the current infrastructure while building facilities where needed does so with a variety of funding resources uh shown on the right which is a product of decades of planning and website to dedicate sources towards our structure in in the area of schools a number of projects recommended 84 million dollar total

[00:10:06] includes 40 million dollars for a new elementary school the fairfield magisterial district also includes uh 20 million dollars for mechanical funding which is in response to the numerous issues that our school system has experienced with their heating systems over the next couple year so see the funding for the maintenance that are continuing within the capital budget

[00:10:40] of the 134 million water and sewer capital budget 50 million dollars is for the go towards the continuation of the new water transmission line to provide water resiliency in eastern henrico the capital budget also continues a number of programs for county facilities and also adds a new one for placement of turf fields as they are coming on 10 years of their installation of these

[00:11:19] fields so starting to look at placement and then the final look as far as capital needs 36 million dollars of transportation funding all local for transportation and pedestrian improvement projects 16.6 million for a number of environmental efforts.

[00:11:46] Over last week, during the board's line-by-line review of the budget, there were a number of recommended changes listed on this slide. The grand total of the recommended adjustments was just short of $80,000.

[00:12:03] As a note to the board and public, these have a net zero impact on the total budget as the corresponding offset is just an adjustment to the manager's reserve contingency. So with that, as a quick overview of the 27 budget, I'm happy to answer any questions.

[00:12:25] And as a reminder, after the public consideration must be... Thank you so much, Justin, for that presentation. Mr. Manager? Chair, that is the presentation of the staff. We want to see if there's anyone here who wishes to speak to the budget.

[00:12:43] Is there anyone that wishes to speak to the proposed operating capital budget in attendance this afternoon?

[00:13:02] Is there anyone on Webex that wishes to speak to the operating? No, sir. There's no one to speak to this on Webex. Mr. Chair, seeing no speakers, as Mr. Crawford mentioned, and Mr. Newby, if you could help me, the board legally must defer action on this item until the next board meeting, correct?

[00:13:35] Chair, members of the board, state law requires that the board not approve the budget on the same day as the public hearing. and it requires a deferral of at least seven days, the recommendation is to defer to your next board meeting. Ms. Manager, will there be other opportunities for constituents?

[00:13:58] Well, you will, up until the consideration of the budget adoption process, absolutely, residents can email any board member, the county manager, budget director, with any questions or concerns, and we'll make sure if they come to staff that we get them to the board of supervisors, but budget is since in the hands of the...

[00:14:29] Thank you, sir. Ms. Manager Singh, no comments, questions, or concerns tonight? Colleagues, any questions or comments? Well, Mr. Chair, we have to do a motion, correct?

[00:14:45] Chair, I'll move to defer the Resolution 6826 until our next public meeting, which would be April the 14th at 6 p.m. I move and probably second all of this is all right.

[00:15:01] All right, now meeting's adjourned.

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