Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, FY24 Budget Work Session, Thursday, March 16, 2023

Date: Thursday, March 16, 2023
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 4h 24m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7220
Agenda (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/AgendaViewer.php?view_id=73&clip_id=7220

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 2026-10-20. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:06:46] Good evening, supervisors. Good evening, staff. Good evening, Loudon. I'd like to call to order the March 16th, 2023 Loudon County Board of Supervisors budget work session. Would everyone please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

[00:07:09] Before we start, I want to wish a happy birthday to Julie Brixman.

[00:07:26] Ms. Brixman, you are, yeah, dress hands. Happy birthday. We're not singing because I'm not leading that, and you don't want me to lead anything in song. Ms. Brickspin, I joke about this all the time with you.

[00:07:42] You are literally the most honest person I've ever met in my entire life. You wear your emotions on your sleeves sometimes. I remember many years ago I called you lightning in a bottle. You are still that.

[00:07:58] Thank you for all the hard work you do for the people of Loudoun County, especially the people of the Algonquian District, and happy birthday, ma'am. Okay, board members, now I'm going to say all this stuff that I say all the time, but clearly y'all ain't been listening to me all this time, but I'm going to say it anyway because I'm supposed to say it.

[00:08:20] I'd like to stress the importance of the budget work session. It's time for us to add changes, additions, and additions to the budget. If you'd like to offer a desired amendment and ask any questions you have, please do that during the work sessions. Please only offer motions that you intend to support so we can be efficient with our limited time during each session.

[00:08:38] In addition, if you'd like to offer motions on items that do not appear in the budget, please work with staff prior to the work session to ensure your motion is accurate and accomplishes all that you help to have a new result. Now, truthfully, you could have been doing that throughout the whole work session, every work session.

[00:08:56] For whatever reason, everyone decided to add all those motions just tonight. And so we have, I don't know, 10 motions on this dais tonight and all kind of colored papers. So we will see how this goes. But if we're on this dais, you know, 9 o'clock at night, while the NCAA is still playing, I'm going to be less happy, and you guys are going to be looking at me.

[00:09:20] Nothing I can do about that. When we get to a final vote, which won't be until April 4th, we can't make any large changes to the budget during the meeting, and the vote on the budget still could be delayed if there are substantive changes.

[00:09:35] I also want to say that Ms. Umstead let me know yesterday that she wouldn't be able to be at the meeting tonight, and so she will not be joining us tonight. Joining us tonight, however, after we get past the update, will be the Loudoun County School Board Chair, the Loudoun County School Board Vice Chair, that I invited to come at this meeting, and we really are very, very grateful for them coming.

[00:10:05] they are a guest in this room for us, and we are going to treat them like they are a guest in this room tonight. So, you know, on the schedule, it says to do the school budget first. However, I'm not sure that's the most logical way to handle that. It might be better, not that I want you all sitting here for a long time, and I'm sorry about this, but it might be better to do some of the other things first so that we know, because the school funding is the largest piece

[00:10:40] of our budget, so it might be able to be more helpful to do other things first so that we know what we're dealing with and what we have available when we get to the school budget. So I am sorry, and if we don't get to you before we take a break, y'all should come eat with us in the back so that you're not sitting here hungry.

[00:11:03] But let's first do this. Mr. Weitz, will you give us an update on the TOE board? - Thank you, Chair Randall. Just a couple things to note on the agenda, if the agenda could be pulled back up. Just wanted to orient the board to what you have tonight on the agenda.

[00:11:22] So there are five departments scheduled, as you just mentioned, that the board had, that were added based on the discussion on Monday night. So those departments are ready to discuss their resource requests tonight. As you already mentioned, the representatives from the school board and LCPS staff are here as well.

[00:11:42] Following that, there is an agenda item for wrap up for the board to consider any additional motions and then finally, if the board is at that point in their deliberations to have a motion directing staff to prepare the appropriations resolution for the April 4th board business meeting.

[00:12:02] In terms of the packet that was distributed yesterday, There were a few items, so there's an additional county budget question that was answered in yesterday's packet. Supplemental information to that question went out via email today. This was related to a question about a commonwealth's attorney's office staffing levels over the board's term.

[00:12:23] So that information is all available in iLegislate. There was an additional budget question packet from LCPS that was distributed yesterday. Additionally, at about 1 p.m. today, Mr. Hemstreet sent out a letter that was received from the schools, which the schools will be going over when they come up and deliver their presentation.

[00:12:48] That also should be available to you and I legislate as well. And then finally, in terms of the status on the tote board, if the tote board could come up now, currently the real property tax rate is sitting at 87 and a half cents based on the board's deliberation so far. At that rate there is an additional approximately 5.7 million dollars available at that rounded tax rate and it would take an approximately 800,000 dollar reduction to return to the 87 cent tax rate. Those are the updates I have. Chair Randall will be happy to

[00:13:26] answer any questions. Do we have any questions before we start? Okay. Sorry, Madam Chair, just a point of clarification. So the thought tonight is we'll do the departments, the county departments, then the schools, and then the wrap-up? Okay. And what I think I might do first is this, because we really need to know where we're starting from. Does anyone have any motions to remove anything from the budget that's already been approved or that's already in the budget? Are any of those motions on the dais right now. Ms. Bricksman, you do? Well, I might during wrap-up. It just depends

[00:14:06] on where we land on the schools. You might during wrap-up. Okay. But you don't right now? I don't right now. Okay. All right. Then let's go on and let's go on and do the departments. And I'm going to try to call the departments that I think have the most budget impacts in them, to be honest, as far as I know from what I've heard from my colleagues. So as a housing and community Development, are you in the room? Can you come on down? Housing and Community Development is on

[00:14:38] page E48 and E49. This department was requested by Mr. Letourneau and Mr. Turner. Good evening.

[00:14:58] Good evening, Chair Randall and members of the board. I'm John Hall with the Department of Housing and Community Development. I will be assisted tonight with my assistant director, Brian Regan, as well as some support staff who will be available. First, I'd like to start with expressing our gratitude. The Department of Housing and Community Development was launched about a year ago, last April, and we are grateful for the sharp focus that the board has put on housing by upgrading us to its own department. We have 33 and a half full-time equivalent staff,

[00:15:37] and we began this fiscal year with about 15 openings. To date, we have four positions that are still in open recruitment and all four of those should be recruited by the end of this fiscal year to be in this year, this month, next week actually. We have also focused this past fiscal year on building coalitions. We've listened to our stakeholders to understand gaps in services, impact on our policies, and we've identified ways to create expedited resource

[00:16:13] delivery. Some of the accomplishments that we've had that are tied to the Unmet Housing Needs Strategic Plan has been of the 143 key action items, 76 items are to be completed by the end of this fiscal year, and staff has done a yeoman's work in having 53 out of 76 key action items either complete or on task to be completed by June of this year. 21 of the items are lagging, and we'll talk about that a bit as we gain momentum going into fiscal year 24.

[00:16:50] Nonetheless, 705 attainable units have been put online or preserved since fiscal year 21, 22, and the first couple of quarters in this fiscal year. Our budget resource requests ideally would ask for two full-time equivalent positions to help us as we gain momentum going into fiscal year 24.

[00:17:13] The priority position is to add an administrative assistant for customer support. This position would facilitate the department's endeavor for operational efficiency. Currently, we are experiencing increased traffic, walk-ins, and phone calls from residents who are experiencing unstable housing.

[00:17:36] Time and time again and increasingly, we're hearing stories of people who are at risk of being displaced,

[00:17:52] Whether it's the female, and I'm giving personal accounts from the customers I've helped, whether it's the female who has been with her spouse for 20 years that they are breaking up and she has no place to go, to affordable dwelling units that are expiring and the owners are taking them up to market, they have no place to go to afford. Our increase in visitations from residents have increased from an average of 120 monthly visits to 146 currently through the first three months of this calendar year.

[00:18:22] We also have other opportunities that we will be working on that will increase the need for this position. We anticipate opening our Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher waiting list later this year. We've also required all of our participants in the Housing Choice Voucher Program to recertify their income based on us increasing our payment standard earlier this calendar year.

[00:18:46] In addition to those items, there are also indirect increases such as mail increases, mail that's coming in with people submitting their paperwork. Oh, mail increases. Mail, M-A-I-L. Okay, right. U.S. Postal Service.

[00:19:01] Yes, I got you. I understand the homonyms. I was like, what? Recruiting for this position is also known as a journeyman level opportunity that would generate sufficient applicants.

[00:19:19] This position would report to the administrative manager who would train and onboard the person for proper guidance. And this would mitigate our subject matter experts who are often called to provide relief at our customer service center so that it would free them up to do other programmatic services and help clients with their housing searches. The secondary position is to add an additional housing program specialist. Adding this position would enable the department to expand its capacity to address unmet housing needs

[00:19:54] among the 0 to 30% area median income and also the 70 to 100% area median income households in the county. Currently both groups have about 30 families combined, and due to developers proffering to meet this full spectrum of housing affordability, the department anticipates about a 5% annual growth that will necessitate a dedicated employee. A new position hasn't been added in over 10 years despite growing programs like the SRAP, State Rental Assistance Program, and so we would ideally ask for the second position as

[00:20:33] well. The capacity to recruit and onboard would be that the position has three other specialists who could provide on-the-job training with appropriate onboarding from supervisors. These conclude the two resource requests that the Department of Housing and Community Development has. Staff and I are available to answer questions that you may have. Okay, Mr. Turner and Mr.

[00:20:58] Letourneau asked for this department to come before us, so I'll go to you first. Supervisors, So let's try to get to motions as fast as possible so that we can, you know. So, Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[00:21:14] I'm happy to make a motion, if you'd like. Okay, give me one second. Mr. Turner, do you want to make a motion or ask a question? Ask a question. Okay, go on, go. Okay. Give me a second. So we dedicated a half penny last year to housing, $6.2 million, of which, unless I'm wrong, I think we had not spent any of until just last week's or this week's finance committee meeting, which we spent $243,000 to $34,000.

[00:21:40] We have $59.3 million sitting in the housing trust fund that I think is unallocated. So I'm trying to understand how to justify putting another half penny in this year, considering we haven't really spent any of it last year, and our housing trust fund number is almost $60 million.

[00:22:05] Thank you for the question, and I want to dive right in with a couple of key responses. A couple of reasons. So we were also fortunate to receive private funding from Amazon Reach, which was $13,475,000.

[00:22:27] And so what staff did, we allocated funds that normally would have been pulled from the trust fund to go to those projects because we were concerned that the state would reallocate those funds to other parts of the Commonwealth. That's one component.

[00:22:42] The second component is that we've had a couple of projects that were committed that fell through for various reasons, such as Somerset Senior Living. Yeah, that happens. Right. And so that totaled over $5 million. But I guess, sorry, I only have a minute. have left already could we even spend this much money next year though i mean it just seems to me unlikely given the rate of these projects coming in that we would even begin to spend down that much money available i'm confident that we could spend the money simply because we've used other

[00:23:16] sources but not 60 million dollars so what i see here is that we have 21 million in the housing fund available so 53 is a total fund they're committed is 31.3 million leaving 21 million and so that that's the number that I'm targeted to to get out out the door and one of the the mechanisms that we are planning to use is to do a consolidated request for proposals where we're we're bundling all of our resources so that the community we have six certified developers who

[00:23:52] or bringing projects to us, as well as other potential developers to say, here are our resources, one time a year we'll present this so that they can present their deals and get them funded and that we can meet the strategic goals of the Unmet Housing Needs strategic plan, which is to have no net loss of affordable units in a given year.

[00:24:13] But you think you can actually push out the door what's available in the fund? Absolutely, by using a consolidated RFP process, yes. Okay, thank you. Mr. Turner, would you like to make a motion? Actually, not yet. Now I have some questions.

[00:24:29] Can you ask? Okay, go. I can ask in the motion if you'd like. Madam Chair, I move that the board fund the administrative assistant customer support FTE for $100,867 and the housing program specialist for $116,693.

[00:24:51] Motion is made and seconded by Supervisor. glass request has been made to divide the motion by the motions requests are always automatically honored so we would divide the motion and do the first part of the motion first which is just the administrative assistant position so the most discussion on this motion is for the administrative position position which is located on E 48 mr. Turner would you like to open thank you madam chair we have just approved the unmet housing needs strategic plan the

[00:25:28] program, I pushed back on the program because there were 160 objectives, and I remember talking with Ms. Turner saying, you've got to triage it down, you've got to narrow it down, get some laser focus, put some priorities on this, and they pushed back, her team pushed back pretty hard and said, no, we want to try all of these 160, and as we move down those paths, as we encounter resistance and realize that is a less productive path, we will abandon that path or delay that path and move on to paths that are more productive, But we don't know yet what we don't know.

[00:26:00] And so let us pursue all 160 of these and then prioritize as we go. And I thought that was an excellent response. And it highlights and underscores the fact that we're only a year, a year and a half into this unmet housing needs strategic plan. And I think it's really, really important that we honor requests of how to flesh out this new department that we have and fully support the unmet housing needs strategic plan.

[00:26:23] Both of these positions, if you look into the description of why they're asking for these positions directly tied to the implementation of the unmet housing needs strategic plan. Additionally, to Supervisor Letourneau's comment, it's persuasive on its face that we have that much money in the fund. Correct me if I'm wrong, housing trust fund money is not fungible. It's not just a slush fund. You can't just pull dollars out for anything related to housing and use it. It has to be used for very narrowly defined purposes. Is that correct? Yes, that's correct. And within the trust is limited between 30 and 70 percent AMI with some exceptions within that right right

[00:27:02] and and so I would certainly entertain the notion that we take this half penny that we're devoting to housing every year and more broadly define it so it's not doesn't go into the housing trust fund it goes into the unmet housing needs strategic plan to be used by that team as they see fit which could put it in the housing trust fund or it could also be used for down payment program assistance programs, closing assistance programs, so I think we may be more flexible with this half-penny, but we haven't even scratched the surface of attainable housing in Loudoun County.

[00:27:32] This is a drop in the bucket from what we need to do, and if you look at some of the surrounding communities in northern Virginia, $60 million is nothing compared to what other communities are putting into attainable housing. This is a gargantuan problem. We've just gotten started, and I think we should give the new department all the FTEs that they're asking for right now. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Brixman. Thank you, Madam Chair. If Mr. Hall, if you had to get one position and forego another position for maybe a year, which one would you prefer?

[00:28:07] The primary would be the customer support just to handle the traffic that we're receiving in the office and phone calls. Okay. I'm happy to support the motion. Right now, this motion's on the admin assistant though right yes okay that's the same thing I mean is the customers listen this is a board priority we've talked about housing since we came in in 2020 and I say it all the time your your policies and and your

[00:28:44] values and stuff that you try to effectuate based on your values and the policies you want to put into place a lot of it just doesn't happen if you don't put skin in the game and you don't put and you don't put some money behind it because it doesn't it doesn't happen it just doesn't work so um thank you madam chair i'm happy to support the motion thank you mr eternal all right specific to this motion so this department was kind of created by moving people around so when that whole process happened and you got up to 33 ftes is it just that you didn't end up with administrative support we currently have one uh administrator or administrator i don't know what the exact title is i call it customer service

[00:29:24] rep okay so we have one so but we had about 15 new positions out of that 33 yeah um and the issue is just there's nobody really to handle that incoming volume right for one person it becomes it becomes burdensome all right of the two positions i'm more inclined to support this one um going back though to the overall first of all i think supervisor turner had an excellent point about the narrow focus of that money and maybe that would get to what some of my concern is and make it more utilized so i think that might be something i could support but um in addition to

[00:30:02] that isn't there also 12 million in federal and 12 million in local money that we also have allocated here the 12 million is the arpa funds that that was allocated a couple months ago that we were right you're going to get out the door yes you're going to get that out the door we have the 21 that's in the trust fund and then there's 12 local or am i wrong on that okay that's just i That would just be the two years together, maybe, the half penny.

[00:30:36] No, the $12 million is ARPA's fund. That's all ARPA, okay. Yeah, that's all ARPA. Okay, okay. Okay, well, I'm still thinking about what I'm going to do, but I think I will be supportive of this position, and then I think it's worth exploring what Supervisor Turner suggested on the half penny dedication.

[00:30:58] Would you have thoughts on that? I agree. I mean, we have several activities and initiatives that we intend to launch, such as down payment closing cost assistance, but really targeted for workforce housing that will help us go up from 70% to 100% AMI, as well as some permanent supportive housing initiatives that will also feed into that.

[00:31:20] So we'll get the money spent appropriately. Okay, thank you. Ms. Glass? Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to say that I will support this motion. My office, I have been receiving emails. I got one today by a constituent that's asking for help in identifying affordable housing options in Ashburn.

[00:31:41] So just whatever we can to help you all support our constituents, I would appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm a little surprised because a couple things happened when we passed that half penny.

[00:31:57] When I said more than once from this day it's a half penny for the trust, Ms. Turner was very clear in correcting me and saying not just for the trust fund but for other housing options. So that was a discussion we had all year already, that this money wasn't just specifically for the housing trust fund.

[00:32:16] We had that discussion already on the motion, and so what Mr. Turner is suggesting can already happen because that's what was said. Secondly, I'm a little surprised we're having this discussion at all, and by the way, I'm going to support this motion because the entire discussion last year was, do we need to have this, quote, dedicated source of revenue?

[00:32:35] And it was, no, we don't, because it's done like this, and once it goes into the budget, Mr. Hempstreet would find place for it and never come out again and never be touched again. Well, the fact that we're having a discussion about whether we should do it again this year makes me think maybe we actually should do a dedicated source for this half penny, because I can't even believe we're having a discussion.

[00:32:54] We haven't had this discussion about other sources of revenue that were put in, and Mr. Hempstreet finds the money like the money was put in for building roads and traffic. So why are we having this discussion right now when the whole premise and promise of this discussion last year was, once we do this, it won't come out.

[00:33:16] He'll find the money. Don't worry about it. And some of us were like, well, maybe not. And we kind of came down on, well, okay. Well, you know, I'm a little concerned that we're having this discussion, and if I am lucky enough to be sitting on this dais next year at this time, and this discussion comes up again, I will put it forward to be an absolute dedicated source of revenue.

[00:33:40] But we've already had the discussion about the fact that the half penny can be used for housing needs. That's already something that's out there and on the table. We don't have to do that again. Mr. Turner, would you like a closing? Yeah, very briefly. Oh, I didn't see you.

[00:33:57] I looked at this Caleb and she said, Caleb, I'm looking at Caleb's light. Chair Randall, all I was going to say is what you have stated is correct. And just a reminder that the housing trust is actually a component of their overall housing fund. The board's half penny dedication goes into the housing fund.

[00:34:15] So the flexibility that you were describing there already exists. Thank you, sir. All right, Mr. Sir Tony, would you like a closing? Thank you. Just very briefly, in a broader sense, it isn't specifically on this. But I would like to point out to my colleagues, if you add up everything we have on the dais right now outside the school budget, the total, in addition to the several others that have been introduced here when I sat down that we're going to talk about, you're going to have about $2 million left within the half penny that we're currently dealing in.

[00:34:48] In other words, if we vote yes on all of the, what I call cats and dogs outside of the school budget right now, we're still going to have $2 million before we go to the next half penny in real property tax. So I would suggest to my colleagues, vote each of these items up or down on their merit, but don't have it in your mind that we don't wanna go to another half penny.

[00:35:08] You're not gonna go to another half penny with these items. The school budget will take us to another half penny, and that's a separate discussion. So please just look at each of these individual ones on their own merit. I think both of these housing positions have plenty of merit, and I urge my colleagues to support them. Thank you.

[00:35:23] - Thank you, sir. All right, motion was made by Supervisor Turner, seconded by Supervisor Glass. All the people who say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will pass 7-2-1? 7-6-2-1.

[00:35:41] With Ms. Umstead not being here for the rest of the evening, and Mr. Buffington and Mr. Kirshner voting against the motion. All right. Mr. Turner, would you like to make a motion on the next item in housing?

[00:35:58] Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the board approve the housing program specialist for $116,693. Motion was made and seconded for the housing program specialist. Would you like a discussion on the motion, Mr. Turner? No discussion. I think we've said it all. Thank you.

[00:36:14] Okay. Anybody else? Mr. Letourneau. Yeah. I'm not going to support this one simply because we're growing so fast, and I kind of want to see exactly how it shakes out, and this is a very low priority. I think it's, I can't even find it now, but it's not one of the top county administration priorities.

[00:36:31] Number 17. 17, yeah. So I understand what Supervisor Turner's argument is. However, it's not like the school budget sits outside of this budget, and so whatever is remaining is going to end up coming into play for the school budget. So I will be voting with that in mind.

[00:36:48] I also want to say, with respect, the transportation funding, as soon as the board dedicated that revenue, It was immediately allocated to projects. So the very next budget year, I could see exactly where the money was going. I'm not going to apologize for asking questions about where money is going when it hasn't been allocated.

[00:37:09] And I think we did uncover a little bit of a question because if all of that funding did have flexibility, perhaps some of it could have been allocated previously in the past year to these projects. But I do think dedicated funding or making a commitment is not just throw money at it and then forget it and the board never asks any questions.

[00:37:29] I haven't made a motion. I told you I would ask questions, and here I am asking those questions. And I'm not going to be apologetic for that because I think that's what our job is. I don't want to go out to the public and tell them that we're adding to their tax burden and not at least be able to completely understand why we have big pots of money sitting in a fund that we haven't used.

[00:37:48] Now, I think they've explained that there were some extenuating circumstances in a positive way in terms of private funding that they were able to receive. And most importantly to me, you seem to have confidence that you are going to be able to spend down this money next year. And that's really what I wanted to hear, because I don't want it to go to waste if we're going to allocate it in the budget.

[00:38:09] So that's by far the most important thing. But I still think the board should conduct oversight, and we do on transportation projects. That's the entire CIP discussion. We have dedicated meetings to go over every single project, every single cent we're putting out of that dedicated money.

[00:38:25] We ask questions about. So I don't think it should be any different when we have money in other areas. Thank you. Thank you. First of all, no one's asking anyone to make any apologies. Secondly, the fact that we were even discussing having this money not be allocated this year is an issue.

[00:38:42] And thirdly, we didn't discover anything new. Just because somebody didn't understand what was happening last year doesn't mean we discovered something new this year. It just means you didn't understand what was happening last year. Nothing was discovered. We knew what was happening last year.

[00:38:58] It was said by Ms. Turner numerous times. And so nothing's new. Nothing was discovered. And I will say, again, if I'm blessed enough to sit in this day as next year at this time and this discussion's happening again, I may have a motion. Because I think the housing and the whole discussion around housing and making sure that our teachers and our firefighters and our waitstaff and our nurses and janitorial staff and the people who serve our county, fire and rescue, sheriff's department, deputies, I want them to be able to live in this county.

[00:39:29] And so if I need to make a motion next year, if this comes up, I absolutely will. And let me talk about how I won't be apologizing for that. Mr. Attorney, would you like to make a closing? All right. Mr. Sanchez left the dais. Huh?

[00:39:53] That's not true. Mr. Kirshner. All right. All in favor say aye. Opposed. All right. With the eyes, please raise your hand. I don't know where we're at. That motion will pass. One, two, three, four, three. No, two. They're off the dais. It's two. Yeah. If he's off the dais, he's off the dais. So four, three, two.

[00:40:24] with Mr. Kirshner, Mr. Letourneau, and Mr. Buffington voting against the motion, and Mr. Saines, and Ms. I'm stepping up to this. Thank you very much. I think that takes care of the housing department. I think the other department that could take a little bit long or may have more kind of money attached to it is probably general services.

[00:40:48] Would general services please come to the table? Unfortunately, well, not unfortunately, but I guess unfortunately, Mr. Brown is on military duty, so he is not able to be with us tonight. Good evening, good evening.

[00:41:08] And this, you all have found on pages E33 and E36. Is that right? Yeah, that is right.

[00:41:32] No, it's 33 and 36. I think 33 to 36. E33 to E36. To E36. Good evening. Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board.

[00:41:51] I'm Andy Bollinger. I'm the current acting director of DGS, normally the deputy director of DGS. So Mr. Brown is on military duty, so I'll try to bring his charm to the meeting if I can.

[00:42:06] Oh, please don't bring – please don't. No, that's okay. It's okay. Don't do that. Don't do that. Okay, scratch that last thing. So, I have Michelle Monteith, our division manager for support services, and Mark Aventi, our assistant director of our stormwater and energy programs, with me here tonight.

[00:42:33] So, I'll try to give you a real quick brief of where general services is. Our public works and environmental service programs continue to maintain more than 1,000 miles of stormwater pipe, drainage systems, and over 74,000 stormwater structures, ponds, and other BMPs.

[00:42:54] Stormwater secured over $4 million in competitive grant funding from the Stormwater Local Assistance Fund. FY 23 saw Loudoun County's first ever environmental summit, wherein the Board of Supervisors met with members of the Environmental Commission and DGS staff for a dedicated opportunity to discuss energy and environmental issues.

[00:43:18] In December of 22, DGS presented the board adopted a zero-emission vehicle plug-in hybrid vehicle fleet conversion strategy for the county fleet. The board also adopted to convert the transit bus fleet to compressed natural gas until zero-emission alternatives become available.

[00:43:41] Our facilities team can need to support the maintenance needs of approximately 134 owned and 49 leased county facilities for a total of 4.2 million square feet. In FY24, it is anticipated an additional 29,826,000 square feet will come online to be maintained.

[00:44:05] This division also addressed over 23,000 work orders in FY22. Our Internal Management Support System team provided administration support to DGS. In FY22, the department buyer created over 1,100 POs with an average turnout time of 1.5 days.

[00:44:26] Staff processed 347 janitorial and 402 pest control work orders. The Space Planning and Renovation Division has successfully onboarded 90% of the county's approved FY23 enhancements, updated a space strategy created a programming template and a new design workflow as well as a laser fish form for departments requesting renovations this team has completed 54 projects since the beginning of fy 23 our landfill and waste management division operated eight public

[00:45:03] recycling centers collected approximately 2 000 tons of materials they also collected 400 tons of glass for recycling at the drop-off centers. The landfill buried approximately 203,000 tons of solid waste. Metro revenue service began in November of 2022. The metro garages have seen over 54,000 vehicles utilizing the garage for a revenue of over 273,000 as the end of February.

[00:45:35] There are just a few other highlights of effort over the past year. DGS received 15 FTEs and FY22 budget process. I'm pleased to announce that all those positions have been filled.

[00:45:52] DGS also received 16.52 FTEs and FY23 budget. Out of these five positions have yet to be filled, which most of them are with the landfill. hiring personnel to work at the landfill is becoming increasingly difficult as we are competing with the private sector. There are three positions that are in various stages of hiring. Our objectives through this year's budget requests are to ensure that DGS keeps up with the growth of the county, maintain the current level of service, and remain responsive

[00:46:28] to our internal customers. These requests will prevent a backlog of work or, worse yet, and then ability to keep up with the county operational's needs. To accomplish this, General Service has three resource requests within the budget that are outlined on page E33 and E34.

[00:46:48] These resource requests include systems maintenance staff related to facilities coming online, projects and renovation staffing to keep us up with the workload and the demand that will be funded out of the renovation CIP, and two positions for the landfill that are revenue neutral.

[00:47:06] Additional positions and funding that DGS would like to request are the increased options of 1-33 found on page E28. Item 12, composting. In November 22, the board-directed staff propose expanding the existing Category 1 composting program by upscaling for the increased feedstocks and adding a pilot food waste drop-off center at the county facility.

[00:47:34] The addition of this food waste drop-off center will be implemented with existing staff at the landfill and will require purchase of additional equipment and contracted services. Item 13, the internal support staffing.

[00:47:51] This request has addressed several staffing needs related to the internal support services. The positions being requested include conversion of two temporary positions, executive assistant and property portfolio assistant, into permanent full-time positions as well as a budget analyst.

[00:48:10] These positions are responsible for separate duties. However, they are closely interrelated due to their administrative roles. Item 15, environmental work plan and energy strategy staff and funding. This request is for multiple actions in order to begin implementation of the environmental and energy work plan approved by the board in July 2022.

[00:48:32] The work plan is the result of the board's strategic initiative 1.1 to build a concrete, sustainable environmental planning strategy in alignment with the comprehensive plan. As previously mentioned in July 2022, portions of the work plan were able to be completed using existing resources.

[00:48:53] However, in order to continue with the successful implementation of the work plan, it was discussed that additional personnel and funding would be requested in FY24 budget process. As part of the energy strategy implementation, an energy program manager is being requested.

[00:49:11] The energy program manager will be responsible for developing, implementing, managing, and the oversight of the work plan. Item 18 was a glass recycling expansion staffing. In July of 2022, the board directed staff to propose expanding the glass recycling program beyond the existing county-operated recycling drop-off centers in the FY24 budget process.

[00:49:40] This proposed expansion included a maintenance worker. This position is needed to ensure oversight and upkeep with the demands of the unattended recycling drop-off centers. The ratio of staff resources needed for this recycling, drop-off centers, and glass recycling collection program is recommended by staff to be one employee per five collection sites in order to achieve sufficient upkeep, maintenance, and general cleanliness.

[00:50:07] Adding additional recycling center without additional staff will degrade the level of service. At this point, I'd like to thank the entire DGS crew for their determined efforts to keep the county facilities up and running without question.

[00:50:24] I have witnessed a continuous commitment to integrity, service, and innovation that makes me proud to serve you, Mr. Hemstreet, and the department. Thank you for the opportunity this evening, and I'll make myself and my staff available for questions.

[00:50:41] Well, first of all, thank you. And thank you for your – most people don't know that you're the person who's over the fleet, and so that's also very, very, very appreciated. You all – you guys do amazing work, so we really appreciate it.

[00:50:56] could you remind me i i do believe you said that there was one position that was revenue neutral what position was that that was the uh landfill actually it was two of them for the landfill the scale house operators scale house operators page e27 oh oh okay those are in the funded in the well revenue neutral they're in the base budget okay they're in the base budget okay i thought i was missing something i understand thank you so chair reno i'll just say so on page

[00:51:30] E-33 and E-34, the general services resource requests with the blue heading, those are funded in the proposed budget, the four requests that Mr. Bollinger outlined that are in the increase option are in the green. So no action needs to be taken on the blue one.

[00:51:47] Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. I was wondering what I didn't see what you were saying, and I knew you were correct, so I knew I had to be incorrect, so thank you very much. You're welcome. Mr. Sainz has a motion on the dais about this, and so do we have any questions before motions?

[00:52:02] Because I'd like to go to a motion. We have questions before motions. Yes, Mr. Letourneau. So the internal support services increase option 13, so that's three positions. I really wish we could just, in future years, just unpack these one by one so we could see what each cost is, but it seems like two of those positions you currently have, but they're temporary positions.

[00:52:27] correct sir similar situation to the other night with the commonwealth attorney yes sir um so you're asking basically to make those positions permanent yes sir and you need those you feel like you need those positions yes sir most definitely okay could you can ask that when you talk mr keep going yes well supervisor says is going to ask when do those positions expire how long have we had i'll ask it for them so we can save time yes sir when do those positions expire and or when did we bring them on as temporary positions are we coming up on the two-year which is generally

[00:53:06] our guideline for when we don't like to keep the executive assistant position expires in may and the property portfolio assistant expires in february of next year still before next year's budget okay then could staff get me what the dollar amount is on those two hemp to permanent position. So the executive assistant is $99,647. So $99,647. And then the property portfolio

[00:53:41] assistant is $87,908,87908. Okay. I'll have a motion on this when we're doing motions. I'm struggling on the glass recycling because I understand that we have a standard that says basically you need a supervisor for every five collection sites.

[00:54:06] I believe there was a request from one of my colleagues to add one collection site, right, in the Ashburn area. Yeah, but this is not for a supervisor. This is just for someone to manage, to go around and manage the sites. so it's not to supervise someone it is to actually do the work of cleaning up after the sites and and stay after and we currently don't have anybody doing that we have one person doing they couldn't do one but let's just say that one site was added and only that one site was added we really need to

[00:54:39] add a position just to be able to add that one site i i think we could probably get along but i i don't know whether you get that quality of service of staying after it i don't know whether you've obviously seeing these sites get spun up pretty quick.

[00:54:56] Sure, but it's not like we'll be adding tents. All right, I'll see what happens on that, thank you. For some reason, Mr. Saines is whispering questions he wants everybody else to ask. Well, he gets a chance, he gets a chance.

[00:55:13] Put your microphone on. Exactly, I know, it ain't whispering. We've had that discussion also. Ms. Brixman? Thank you, Madam Chair. On the glass recycling, how many purple cans do we have in the county right now?

[00:55:32] Is it five because you have one maintenance person? Yes. Okay. Five collection sites currently. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So you would be able to potentially add four more glass recycling purple cans if you were able to add this one position?

[00:55:55] Yes, ma'am. Okay. And do you know how much it costs to place a purple recycling bin and buy a purple recycling bin by any chance?

[00:56:21] Okay, to put the pad in and put the bin in, $71,000. $71,000? Yes, ma'am. Okay, great. I think it's kind of outrageous that we only have four purple glass or five purple glass recycling bins and we're calling just for one more.

[00:56:40] I know we've had lots of conversations about this, and anyone in Algonquian District has to drive a minimum of 20 minutes to get to a glass recycling bin. And so it's not promoting recycling glass really as much as we could be, in my opinion.

[00:57:02] I think that Supervisor Glass is going to have a motion on the recycling position, the recycling purple cam position. And I think what I might do is add a friendly to that motion that we send $284,000 for four more cans to our fund balance discussion.

[00:57:21] And that way we will be using the entire capacity of that one position fairly soon. Because we just don't, I mean, we have a county of 430,000 people and we really don't have enough. My other question would be, is there any way, for example, on the environmental work plan that we could...

[00:57:42] that we could, it's one FTE, but it's a million dollars. So I'm just wondering, would we at all be able to send some of that to fund balance, but still hire the FTE for more? Anybody?

[00:57:59] And would that help us progress our plan in the way that we want to? I would say that the... I was just going to offer that the position is the, I understand, the priority to be able to execute any of these priorities.

[00:58:19] and I'll let DGS speak to the details, but any items listed here that are recurring are not appropriate to be sent to the federal. Yeah, I understand that, but if I... Ms. Brick, I'm going to let... Oh, we're out of time. Okay, sorry about that. Answer the question.

[00:58:34] So would you like to answer the question? Thank you. So the position is a priority, as Ms. Burke mentioned. Many of the other activities that are listed there are ongoing, but there are some that could be considered one time, such as a feasibility study for green banks. There might be some items in there that would be appropriate for one-time funding.

[00:58:54] Okay, thank you. I'd like that list. Well, now you've just confused all of us as far as what we're going to do now. No, you haven't confused all of us. It was a great question. Mr. Letourne asked some kind of the same question as well.

[00:59:11] But, okay, I'll go to Mr. Sainz for a motion. Well, now I'm going to ask, well, I guess, no, before my, can I ask a question before my motion? Yes, Mr. Sainz. That's what Ms. Supervisor Brissman asked. So you're saying the energy plan would be, some of it would be one-time funding, but that's just if you're pulling out certain items out of the energy plan. Is that what you're alluding to?

[00:59:36] There's two items here. There's an environmental work plan, which is the 17 items that we talked about at the summit, and that includes both energy and natural resource items. Then there's the energy strategy and the energy program manager, which is part of that overall project. Okay. And you're talking about like the...

[00:59:55] And then there's a list of those in the budget book, all the different items. Gotcha. All right. Thank you. And I know Supervisor Brisbane also mentioned about more stations, but do we have or have we identified possible locations if we were to do other stations, or do we know what would be next to have more locations?

[01:00:21] You're asking now stations for recycling? Yeah. Or like the glass program. I want to make sure we're not getting things mixed up here a little bit. I think we're talking about the glass and all of a sudden. Yeah, glass program, sorry. Yeah, so, and just to clear it up, there's contracted services involved with the cost of that also.

[01:00:42] So you're actually, per can, you build the pad, the cameras that come with it, and all that, you're actually, and the contracted services is about $129,000 per location. But you first would even have to identify locations to build a new pad site and all that stuff.

[01:01:01] Yes, sir. I don't know if we have those lined up or no. We don't at this time because there was no request, obviously, to do that. So we can certainly take a look at it. Ask how long that would take. Yeah, how long would that take? Let's see. I don't know whether we can have it back to you for tomorrow or anything.

[01:01:23] No, it would take some time, wouldn't it? Yeah, it's going to take some time. Because we might have to partner with the schools and talk to them. Possibly because, you know, the county is limited in locations and all that stuff. Correct, sir. So we would probably need 30 to 60 days or something like that, honestly, to work that out.

[01:01:40] All right. Thank you. And I'll go ahead and make my motion now. Sure. Okay. All right. I move that the Board of Supervisors add in, Mr. White's helped me with the number, but I have 105-100 for the composting program for fiscal year 24.

[01:01:59] Well, hold on. I'm not sure we got the motion right yet. Yes, that is the correct number of local tax funding of 105 100 for their composting composting program. Yep. Thank you Okay, motion is made and seconded by mr. Brickson. Is that correct? Miss Brickson? All right, mr. Sandry like to make a no just quickly this was one of our I was that I brought forward as a BMI we approved it and you know the amount is you know as stated 105 100 so I think it's a doable amount and it's option number 12 on the list But I think we should go ahead and fund it in this go-round.

[01:02:35] Thank you. That's your entire opening you got there? Okay. Mr. Sonson-Laterno. So is this like a pilot program? I think my clock needs to reset. I'm still running on Mr. Sonson's time there. It already exists. Well, they need an expansion, sir.

[01:02:52] It's an expansion. So where is it now? At the landfill. At the landfill. And what will we be expanding it to with this particular budget request? yeah so it'll still be at the landfill but it'll be expanding the program itself at the landfill to do what like what what more do we get so we'd be composting more material different types of material and all that would be coming so are we limited right now like if somebody currently we don't have a food waste composting at the landfill so this would allow food waste composting as a

[01:03:29] pilot program to begin at the land it is a pilot that's what it's called in i know that's why i was asking the question i was trying to get that all right so the food pilot but the idea with the land the composting program in general it's a pilot meaning what exactly does it mean it would just become permanent in its current state or would we expand it so according to the item they would purchase equipment to begin composting food waste at the landfill and they would see how that goes and then after a year report back and hopefully expand it so that more food waste could be composted. So when we add this, it's probably not to where we would want to be if we were

[01:04:08] actually to operate it as an ongoing program. Correct. But we are, if we're buying the equipment and stuff, I assume that's sunk costs, so probably wouldn't get rid of it. We would just keep it at a smaller scale? Yes, sir. Not? Okay. If there isn't huge demand or whatever the case is? The recommendation in here is to purchase um a compost screening machine a storage bunker a concrete bunker pad um to begin the composting of vegetative food waste at the landfill right all right i'm just

[01:04:45] i guess i'm just trying to understand what makes it a pilot versus we're just doing it my sense would be that if it's successful it would be expanded we're already like with more equipment or is it going to do more?

[01:05:02] Food waste composting is being looked at as part of overall environmental programs for the county to increase those programs. Okay. So I, okay, again, I say this all the time.

[01:05:21] I think what I know about composting could fit in a thimble. Food products just said on this dais by Ms. Brixman, Caleb and I think alike.

[01:05:39] I don't think that's true. I don't think that's normally true, but okay, we'll go with that on that. All right, so Mark, help me understand what's happening here.

[01:05:54] So food items are actually just biodegrade anyway. They don't actually, they biodegrade naturally because they're food items. So you're saying you want to take these food items and put them in a program that can be composted, so the compost can be used for? To be given back to the, can be reused.

[01:06:12] It could be used to give it back to the community. In a safe and sanitary manner. So food waste could be accepted at the landfill. I believe they're already accepting some. The program could be expanded. More food waste could be accepted from haulers and the public. It could be done in a sanitary manner and produced into a material that could be then given back or reused in the community.

[01:06:30] So when you say food waste, you don't mean like what the three-year-old leaves on his plate when he finishes eating. What do you mean when you say food? People are not hauling food waste to you. How are you? So restaurants typically produce a lot of food waste. Schools produce a lot of food waste. So they literally bring that food waste?

[01:06:46] That would be part of this, is that we would accept some of that, and we would see what mix, not all things that are in the garbage as food can be used for composting. And so part of this would be to discover which of those items can be safely composted at our landfill. So you get from a restaurant or from the school system, you get leftover food.

[01:07:06] And then somebody goes through it and says, This can be used for composting, and this is a milk carton, so it can't be used. And then you compost that and then offer that back to the community free of charge? Exactly. And so anyone in the community can come say, as long as you have some left, I would like to have this back.

[01:07:26] Correct. We could also use it possibly for our landscaping purposes and other things. We could use it for our municipal functions. But it goes back to any community member. They don't pay for that compost. Correct. And so rather than burying it in the landfill, it would be recycled and reused within the community. So you save room in the landfill, and you can give it back to the community for free.

[01:07:43] Exactly, yes. I understand. Thank you very much. Mrs. Andrews, would you like a closing? No, just, yeah, so we're going to be expanding. Right now we do composting with, say, yard waste, mulch, you know, that nature. The BMI was to do a pilot program to expand into, as you described, food waste.

[01:08:00] And then with this motion, if it's approved, this will help to buy equipment so we can stand up and get going with the food waste program. And depending on if it's successful or not, then we might stand it up and go expand it and go gangbusters with it.

[01:08:18] Yes, sir. Right? Yes, sir. And to clarify, much of the equipment that's being mentioned here is landfill equipment anyway. So it wouldn't be like it's specialized necessarily to food waste grinders and so forth. So it could be used for other functions at the landfill. Okay, good. All right. I hope my colleagues can support it. Thank you.

[01:08:37] His colleagues can't support it. We're done now. We don't even need a vote. The motion was made by Mr. Sainz, seconded by Ms. Bricksman. All in favor can say aye. Any opposed? Okay. I think that's a, well, not a 6-3 vote, but a 5-3-1 vote with supervisors.

[01:09:00] Okay. It's a 5-3, it's a 4-3-1-1 vote with Mr. Turner abstaining, Mr. Kirshner voting against it, Mr. Buffington voted against it, and Ms. Brickson, I mean, I'm not being here tonight. Thank you. Are there any other motions on the dais for general services?

[01:09:19] I think, I don't know whose light came on first. I'll go to Mr. Turner first. I think I saw his light first. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm only going to make this one. I'd like to make it an omnibus motion, but it's going to get split anyway. So I move that the Board of Supervisors amend the general services budget to fund the environmental work plan and energy strategy, the cost of funding the environmental work plan and energy strategy is $1,080,783 in fiscal year 24.

[01:09:50] That motion is made and seconded. Before we do anything else, Mr. Turner, you're right, it is going to be split, but the problem is, I think for tonight, not a problem that anyone's had, but you all may not have known this was coming, so anything that could be a fund balance issue, you haven't gone through haven't pulled those out of this yet and so you don't know what could be or could not be fund balance so what does need to be and maybe some things that may not need to be in this motion at all um I could amend my motion well we wouldn't know what to do with the toe board even if you amended the motion we wouldn't know what to do with the toe board will it take because what we

[01:10:29] could do is if you didn't mind very much table the motion would it take a long time to figure out what might or may not can go to fund balance chair randall yeah that that would be our request if the board is interested in that if you could table it and do it like an hour or something make sure just so we know what because the the entire amount is literally not needed and so we don't want to do the whole thing right now so i'm going to make a motion to table this and do this before before we end tonight, all right?

[01:11:05] Motion to the table has no discussion. - Need to be seconded. - Does need to be seconded, okay, thank you. Motion to the table has no discussion. Are we able to say aye? - Aye. - Any opposed? That motion will pass unanimously. All right, thank you. Ms. Glass, would you like to make a motion?

[01:11:21] - Yes, Madam Chair, thank you. I move that the Board of Supervisors add one FTE position in the fiscal year 2024 budget for one glass recycling expansion maintenance helper in the amount of $202,773 for the Department of General Services.

[01:11:43] Second. Okay, motion is made and seconded by Ms. Bricksman. She beats you, Mr. Sains. Oh, yeah. Ms. Glass, it's glass motion. Would you like to have an opening, ma'am? Yes, Madam Chair. I've heard from a lot of my constituents about having a glass recycling location in Ashburn, which could also serve a large portion of the county's population.

[01:12:15] And as I said before, I continue to hear that they, you know, want to have to recycle their glass at a more convenient location. I'm talking about our senior citizens who are concerned about our environment.

[01:12:37] So I would like to also allow for further expansion of the program in other areas of the county after the capital needs review is complete. Thank you, ma'am. Anybody else on the motion? Mr. Turner? No. No?

[01:12:55] Ms. Bricksman? Thank you, Madam Chair. So with the discussion tonight that Mr. Letourneau raised that one FTE is needed for five purple cans, I'd like to be able to use the full, and I know that we're doing a survey, but I'd like to be able to use the full capacity of that one FTE eventually.

[01:13:23] So if Supervisor Glass would accept a friendly to this motion, I would ask that the Board of Supervisors, I would move further that the Board of Supervisors send $516,000 for the purchase of four recycling cans to the fund balance discussion for FY23.

[01:13:41] Ms. Glass? Unfortunately, Supervisor Dismant, I'm not going to accept the friendly. With the BMI, staff is doing a needs assessment to determine where else in the county, where they should be put.

[01:13:58] They're also determining the additional bins that we should have also. So that is already in place. All right. Anything else? Mr. Letourneau? So just to be clear, I was going to ask about that BMI.

[01:14:17] Supervisor Glass is seeking a bin in her district. is that part of this funding or not this is or is this purely just the position because the wording here makes it seem if the position is not funded the additional glass only recycling site will not move forward as there will not be enough staff to maintain and provide upkeep which i kind of question a little but i think this funding is unrelated to the actual location so we would

[01:14:53] still need to provide funding for that location right the targeted area for this one is ashburn But you told us the cost of adding a site is whatever number that Supervisor Brisbane was using. Correct. But this total is only 202773, so how can it be the site, the equipment, and the position?

[01:15:17] So I can help on this one a little bit. If you look at the personnel for the position, it is only about $65,000. You have then the ongoing maintenance associated with the site and the capital costs for these sites, and that's how you get to the 202-773.

[01:15:41] But is the actual site funded with this request? And why is the personnel only 66? Because we don't have very many positions that are only 66 fully loaded. So it is a position that's on the lower end of our classification scale, and specifically in this request funded are the construction of the concrete pad, The hauling services for the site as part of the O&M, things like that.

[01:16:13] So this is what would be necessary to set up that site. Okay, well, I think Supervisor Glass will have the votes for this. I probably would have been able to support just adding the site. I don't think it's unreasonable to go from five to six and then have a larger discussion about all the other sites we may want.

[01:16:30] And then at that point, if we want to add staff, we add staff, but I'm not convinced we really need to add a full staff member just by adding one site. So that's why I'm voting no on this. Thank you, Mr. Letourneau. I'm sorry. I promised I was listening, but I didn't hear the answer to Mr. Letourneau's question.

[01:16:51] So there's already a site that is going into the Ashburn area, whether it's the Broad Run District or the Ashburn District. There's already a site going there as of now. Is that correct? Madam Chair, so I apologize.

[01:17:10] A bit of disadvantage here because we didn't develop this. But according to what we were told from the landfill, this would allow a new glass-only recycling site in the 201-47 zip code Ashburn during this budget process. This resource enhancement includes one FTE, one full-size pickup truck, site development, and operational costs.

[01:17:32] So then right now there is nothing, we haven't put a site in the 20147 zip code, which is some of Broad Run and some of Ashburn, but it's not all of Broad Run and all of Ashburn.

[01:17:55] I mean, Broad Run and Ashburn both have zip codes that are not 20147. So I just, I guess, let me ask Mr. Turner or Ms. Glass. Ms. Glass, where is the closest Last Recycling Center to your constituents right now?

[01:18:11] I mean, where's the closest one right now? I believe it's the one in Sterling. At Parkview. Which is how far? 15 minutes? Maybe 15 minutes?

[01:18:30] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I drive it all the time. Depending where you are in broad run. Yeah, depending. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Ms. Glass, I have no idea what I'm going to do with this, and so you have a closing. convince me well well madam chair um yeah it is about 15 to 20 minutes um if this position isn't funded the the additional glass only recycling site will it won't be a move forward and what i

[01:19:01] would like for it to i would like to expand our glass recycling and and i think this is a way that we can do it. It won't only benefit 2-0-1-4-7, but it will benefit the other zip codes that are, you know, or different areas that are close to broad run. Okay.

[01:19:34] And just FYI, Ms. Goss, what's the cost? One more time. It's $202,773. All right. All right. Thank you, ma'am. All in favor, please say aye.

[01:19:56] any opposed all right all right that motion will pass 531 with miss umstead being not here and mr. the turno Kirschner and Luffington voting no mr.

[01:20:20] Turner thank you madam chair I'd like to make a motion okay I move as soon as I I put my other glasses on. I move that the Board of Supervisors, wait, we've tabled this one, correct? We have tabled this one. The environmental one.

[01:20:36] Do we have the numbers yet? No. I have one, though. No, we're going to come back. We'll do this. We probably will come back a good deal later for the numbers because they have to go work. Chair Randall. Yes, sir. So we can, the challenge with this item, and I'll just offer, if I may answer the question.

[01:20:56] Sure. So the challenge of this item, if you want to look at page E-36, so there's a list of projects there. And so this is the crux of the issue. So this is coming from the board's, it's a board priority to implement the environmental work plan and the energy strategy.

[01:21:18] And so the intention coming out of the Environmental Commission and from staff is to continue to do this type of work in support of the board's environmental initiatives. And so the elements and items that are listed there are intended to be ongoing.

[01:21:38] And so while, yes, you could take the position that each one of those items there are one and done and are one-time funding, the challenge with that is, for example, I think the board is going to say we want to continue to purchase zero-emissions vehicles.

[01:21:59] I think the board is going to say that we want to continue to invest in green bank or green banks, that we want to continue to implement watershed management projects. And so while, yes, in a way you could consider these one-time expenditures, I think the intent from the Environmental Commission as well as from the staff was to consider these ongoing projects and this level of funding as ongoing funding in order to implement your environmental work plan, which has been and is a priority of the board.

[01:22:35] Otherwise, what happens is we get, we fall back into what happened with the energy strategy or the original energy strategy in 2009 or 2011, whatever year it was, that we take our list of projects, we do it one time, we complete the funding, and then we're done, right?

[01:22:55] So if the intention of the board is to continue that work plan and to continue these efforts, then this is the level of recurring funding that would be appropriate for the board to consider. So that's why it would not be appropriate for the majority of this to go to fund balance. Now, having said that, if you want to do things on a one-and-done basis and then have that come back to the board periodically, we can certainly do that.

[01:23:21] Thank you, Mr. Hemstreet, for that. That was really very helpful. I don't believe we do want to do things on a one-and-done basis. I just don't know if any of it is appropriate for fund balance. But Mr. Turner? Madam Chair, let me try this motion and see if this is amenable to everybody.

[01:23:40] I move the Board of Supervisors amend the general services budget to fund the environmental work plan and energy strategy in the amount of, but not to exceed, $1,080,783 in fiscal year 24 with discretion to fund programs outside of the budget as needed.

[01:24:10] Okay. Is there a second on that? Okay. Motion made and seconded. Staff, do you have any issue with how you heard that motion? I'm not sure of the intent. Issue's not the right word, but you know what I mean. I don't understand the motion.

[01:24:27] Okay. Mr. Turner, would you like to take a shot at? I'll keep you off the clock for a second to explain what you're saying. What I'm trying to do here is establish a top end for this item at the 108, which is what we intended, and then to give the staff flexibility to go after whatever other kind of funding there is, fund balance, grants, whatever there is within those individual projects, and really to have some latitude to get the energy work plan and the energy management position off the ground, but not to exceed the amount that we're talking about here in the budget.

[01:25:00] So this would be a worst-case figure for the budget, and if we can underspend that, then the intent is for staff to do that. So we would put the full amount of this request on the TOTE board? Correct. Okay. Okay.

[01:25:16] All right. now you're on the clock if you'd like an opening. Sure. Very briefly, the Energy Commission put a lot of effort into a truly spectacular energy plan and environmental plan. Everything I've seen out of that commission is that it's one of the highest performing, highest functioning commissions we've ever put together. It is top quality work. And this is, they're right out of the barrel with what I think is an award-winning energy plan, and they're asking us for the resources necessary to implement that plan and I think we all agreed when this plan was presented to the board that when we did this in 2009 we had a great plan and it sat on the

[01:25:56] shelf and gathered dust for 20 years we don't want that to happen and this is the first request for funding for this plan and everything they've done so far indicates that they really understand what they're doing I think this is a reasonable request I think it's a modest request and I think we are funded thank you thank you anybody else like to speak on the motion miss Brixman thank you Madam Chair, I will apologize for trying to throw, I didn't try to throw a wrench in the works, but I did it anyway, just trying to see if we could chunk out some stuff and take a little bit of money off the tote board.

[01:26:31] But after Mr. Hemstreet's explanation, I understand that it's just best to do the motion like it is in the packet and let the full package go as it is so that staff and the Environmental Commission can move forward with what is a board priority And what, you know, from the very beginning, again, of our term, when we put together our priorities, our mission, this was top, top priority.

[01:26:56] And so I'm happy to support the motion. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Sains. I'm sorry, Mr. Bevington, I'm sorry. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not going to support it right now, but if it comes back to wrap up, depending where we are then, I would consider it.

[01:27:11] Thank you. Mr. Sains. Thank you, Madam Chair. Question, Mr. Hemingstreet? Yes, sir. Mr. Hemingstreet. Sam Street, would this motion be to your, I guess, to your liking? Mr. Ham Street, you have to answer. Oh, I'm ready to answer it. So the first part of the motion appropriates the funding and implements the program as the board has done.

[01:27:34] So there's an additional part of the motion which says, with discretion to fund programs outside the budget as needed. That gives me a whole lot of latitude. If you want to give me that level of authority, I'm very comfortable with having it. The only thing I will say to the board is I'm happy if you just stop with the budget request, but I'm just going to say, just for full disclosure, that additional phrase provides me a level of authority that you don't typically provide me, but I'll take it.

[01:28:05] I'll go on the record and say I'm comfortable giving you some extra latitude, so I trust your judgment. Thank you. The team is like, I've got the power. You know, I was back and forth on this for a while, and Mr. Turner, I'll tell you what you said to just pull me over, because you're totally correct.

[01:28:31] Back in, for the, I guess it was the 2008 board, we wrote an energy strategy plan that was, received all kind of awards. And then that board left, and that energy strategy plan sat on the shelf. Now, we did do some things, because I've talked to you all, and I've talked to Mr. Brown about it.

[01:28:51] So there were some things that were accomplished, but for the most part, it really wasn't. A lot of what we're doing today, it harkens back to that energy plan, and these things still need to be done. Had we done that then, had they funded that strategy plan back when it was created, and I'm going to say I would give Andrea McGimsey a lot of credit.

[01:29:13] She was the one that helped write it, put it together, and others. Had we funded that then, we probably wouldn't be sitting here right now having this discussion. We probably would be much further along as a county as far as our sustainability, our energy strategies, all types of things, we'd be much further along.

[01:29:30] Some of these things that we will do today, we might not see a benefit for years. We just might not. It may be a more benefit to even the next generation. But at some point, we have to put our money where our mouth is, and that plan just sat on the shelf, and much of that plan is incorporated in this, but there's also some new things because we're 10 years further down the road, and so there's things we didn't know then that are there now.

[01:30:00] I will also say the other thing that convinced me, Mr. Turner, is you are correct. The energy commission that we have put together really is top-notch, and as much as sometimes we hear some concerns of some of our other commission committees and boards, this one is nothing but every person on that committee and staff.

[01:30:21] It is nothing but how much work they're doing. They have their kind of nose to the grindstone. We have subject matter experts that have come in from all over and contributed to this discussion. And so to have done that much work on this item, on this energy commission, and then not fund it, it would be like repeating the mistake of 10 years ago And I don't particularly want to repeat that mistake.

[01:30:48] So much of what you said, Mr. Turner, certainly turned me around. So thank you. And would you like a closing? No closing, Madam Chair. Okay. Motion was made by Supervisor Turner, seconded by Supervisor Bricksman.

[01:31:04] Supervisor Bricksman. All in favor to say aye. Opposed. That motion, boy, we're getting a pattern here tonight on these motions, how they're going, be 531 with Supervisor Kirshner, Letourneau, and Buffington voting against it, but Mr. Buffington may want to come back later on and change his vote even. And Ms. Umstead's not here.

[01:31:28] All right. Any other motions for general services? Yes? I'm going to try my motion again since it wasn't accepted as a friendly amendment. Okay. I move that the Board of Supervisors send $516,000 for four purple cans to purchase four purple cans to the FY23 fund balance discussion.

[01:31:53] Motion's made. Is there a second on that motion? I'm sorry, Ms. Bricksman, your motion would die for lack of a second. It's my birthday! Okay. Ms. Bricksman said that she thinks every motion she makes should pass because it's her birthday.

[01:32:10] I'm going to save every motion I've ever had for my birthday. We'll see how that goes. I am sorry. Mr. Herner, would you like to make a motion? Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the board fund three full-time employee positions in the internal support services category for $296,146.

[01:32:33] I'm sorry, which one? I'm sorry, what? Item number 13 on page E28, internal support services. Motion is made. Can we split, please? We can split the motion. We can divide the motion. how would you like to I would I was going to make a motion for the two temporary positions which are 187 555 okay so we're gonna split the motion you would prefer to take them up individually that's fine you have something you want I'm sorry chair Randall we didn't catch the second who second the motion we didn't catch that I'm sorry um who did second that motion

[01:33:10] just now oh actually maybe maybe that was my I'll second the motion okay mr. Mr. Letourneau, what split do you want to do on this motion? If it's amenable to you, Madam Chair, I would do the two temporary positions together, which is funded at 187-555.

[01:33:30] Staff can check numbers, but I think that's correct. And then the other one. So a motion to divide is always accepted, so we would do the two temporary positions first, but it's still Mr. Turner's motion, so you can have an opening.

[01:33:47] To be honest, this was not on my original punch list for ones that I really want to get through. But as we've talked about it, this is a number 13 priority overall, just out of the line for the top 11 that the county administrator drew the line and said, we really do need these.

[01:34:05] And it's a number one priority for the department. And if you read with the increased load that they have in general services, I think they've made a sound case. To be honest, I'm amenable if we just fund the two temporary positions. I'm okay with that. So it's been split.

[01:34:23] That's the motion in front of us, and I'm happy to support that. So then the other motion's off the table, and the only motion on the table right now is the motion for the two temporary positions. That's your opening. Mr. Brixman? Thank you. That's what I was just going to say. Thank you, Madam Chair. I can support the two temporary positions, but probably not the third.

[01:34:40] Thank you, Madam Chair. Okay. Mr. Kirshner? Thank you, Madam Chair. I may be inclined to support this, but I do have a question for Mr. Hemstreet or staff, depending on who's like. So given these are two temporary positions, is that okay, Madam Chair, if I direct that? Thank you. Given these are two temporary positions that are currently funded until I think February and June or whatever the dates were exactly, why do we list them as enhanced service level requests?

[01:35:04] And the reason I ask that is because they are currently in use and obviously apparently being needed. Can you help me understand that? Yeah, so temporary positions are created administratively out of the department's existing budget.

[01:35:21] So what they are doing is taking funds and resources that the board has allocated for a different purpose and using them to spend for the temporary purpose. So now there's a lot of reasons why that happens. In some cases, it's because we've got an existing vacancy and we've got something unanticipated that we need to deal with.

[01:35:41] We're not sure if it's a short-term problem or a longer-term problem, or it could be something experimental that we're trying to take a look at. From just a transparency perspective, I have placed a limit on two years for temporary positions because I firmly believe that at that point, the department needs to come to the board to ask the board if it's okay to utilize your resources in this manner.

[01:36:09] and if you say no then they no longer can do whatever the temporary position is being allocated towards but obviously these temporary were put in place for a couple of reasons i think we've seen that a couple departments yeah because you felt they were absolutely needed and apparently i'm assuming yes can you be needed because now we're back here with a resource yes but keep in mind they are using resources that the board has allocated for a different purpose right in order to do the temporary position right okay yeah i think i'm inclined to support this i think that makes sense um uh so i will vote yes mr leturna yeah i don't think anymore needs to be said that's

[01:36:47] was my intent was going to do that because as i as i've stated before when they're temporary positions but they serve a function that really should be permanent then we should just make them permanent wonderful mr um buffington i will support this one wonderful mr turner do you have a closing no y'all are having a good night tonight without ernie call him name no there he's probably on the beach watching it

[01:37:18] oh god exactly all right all people say aye any opposed that motion passed 801 all right are there any other motions on the days seeing none thank you very much oh you're like I'm sorry okay Mr.

[01:37:43] Turner thank you Madam Chair I move that the board fund the equity inclusion specialist I number 27 for that's that's on general services I'm sorry I'm sorry you all actually are done now thank you very much appreciate you thank you very much and thank for your support that you give general services all the time you guys do a wonderful job believe me the staff does really respect what you do oh my gosh no that they you do good things thank you good things also thank you for

[01:38:23] general services so thank you for that thanks okay um I think those were the two heaviest lift general services and housing and community development we have others but I think the the one the wet the rest will go a little little oh whoa whoa hold on just one second mr. mr. Turner the water and soil conservation district I believe is a general service item is it not it is it this come on come on back um is there a motion you'd like to make on that one because that's a

[01:38:58] general services item yes ma'am uh we find it here i'm sorry we sent you guys away hey we're good we're back i got it this is item number 19 for everybody on page 28 um and i'll explain my motion here it's going to be different than what you see here i move that the board support the soil and water conservation district activities and floodplain in the amount of $75,000.

[01:39:27] All right. Motion made. Is there a second to that motion? All right. Motion made. Second by Supervisor Glass. Discussion of motion, Mr. Yeah. Just to refresh everybody's memory, when Loudoun County made all areas of floodplains, minor major floodplains and the stream channel floodplain, FEMA said that's just fine, but if you're going to build or plant anywhere inside that floodplain, you've got to prove with an engineering study that there's no rise anywhere in the floodplain as a result of your activities. And that imposed a really onerous engineering study standard for anybody who wants to do anything in the floodplain to try and improve the quality of the floodplain

[01:40:07] by planting plants in the floodplain. And so in that discussion, the conservation community in Loudoun County said, can you just get us some money to pay for the engineering studies? And Mr. Brown said, we just need $200,000 for this year in order to be able to fund the engineering studies that are currently in the queue, and then we can set up a program in subsequent years.

[01:40:29] I believe this is that program, I believe. And having checked prior to this meeting, as I understand it, there is still $125,000 left in the fund from our original $200,000 stake that we put into the program. And the conservation movement has found a resource for much cheaper engineering studies.

[01:40:48] So I think if we keep a target balance of this year-to-year of $200,000, we should be able to handle all the engineering studies for improving the floodplain from here going forward. So all I'm asking for is $75,000 to bring it up to the $200,000 level at the start of the budget year.

[01:41:05] Understood. Chair, what page is this on? I'm sorry. E28. The description of the resource request is on page E-53 as well. I have a question. So, Supervisor Turner, you had said that there's existing $125,000, but that is one-time funding.

[01:41:26] So, once that's expended, your motion would only add recurring dollars in the amount of $75,000. Was that your intent? It was my intent. Okay. Mr. Buffington? I wasn't expecting that we'd get a motion on this, but I'm actually glad we did tonight and that you reduced it from $200,000.

[01:41:49] This is a big problem in Western Loudoun. I know it's a problem throughout Loudoun, but it's a big problem in Western Loudoun. So I would be remiss, because I've complained about this throughout the year. I would be remiss if I didn't support this, so I will. Wonderful. Mr. Letourneau? So we put $200,000 in on June 21st, right?

[01:42:10] And we've spent $75,000 in nine months? $83,685.71. So are we likely to spend the remaining amounts?

[01:42:28] It's difficult to predict, but spring is the planting season, so we would expect most of these studies have been for tree plantings and fencing, so we would expect that if there's any time when we'll have a lot more applications, it would be the springtime. If we didn't do this and we expended the money, could you come to us and ask for it out of fund balance like we did the first time?

[01:42:49] No. Maybe I'll let you answer that if you want to. The reason why this is in the proposed budget is that the board sent the question of recurring dollars for this program. Yeah, I know. I get it. It wouldn't be recurring dollars.

[01:43:04] Correct. If they did run out of money, I also think we spent less money than we thought we would. So if they happen to run out, which I'm not convinced they would in FY24, but if they did, could they just ask us for more money out of fund balance? If that is a program the board wants to consider during the fund balance process, then we can make that request when the funds need to be replenished.

[01:43:28] Okay. So rather than doing it proactively, I mean, again, you know, if we weren't in a situation, I said at the beginning of this, I was going to try to have a tighter belt this year than normal because we're already raising taxes. So I'd probably do it that way instead. I think because this is the first year, right?

[01:43:51] Correct. I think because it is the first year, and we actually don't know what we're going to be spending or not spending, what we need and don't need, I think this year would tell us a lot. So I'm going to, I think it's a good and worthy effort and cause, but I don't know enough to know what we need this year.

[01:44:09] And I think next year, again, if I'm lucky enough to be here next year, I think next year we'll know a little better. And so I understand that's bringing us to planting season, but there's just, you know, we've spent so little and there's still, you know, there's still such a long way to go.

[01:44:27] And so I'm going to vote no for this because I want to see what the first year numbers look like before we start kind of adding more money to it. So Mr. Turner, would you like a closing?

[01:44:44] No closing. Thank you. No closing. All right. Motion was made by Supervisor Turner, seconded by, who seconded this? I know I heard a second. Submit by Supervisor Glass. I know. Just rolling along up here without no seconds. All in favor, let me say aye.

[01:45:00] Aye. Any opposed? Nay. All right. So if you're an aye. Aye. Yeah. So if you are a nay, will you raise your hand? All right. So that motion will pass with Supervisor Umstead not being here, Supervisor Letourneau, and Chair Randall, is that all?

[01:45:19] Okay, voting against the motion. All right. That's our weirdest one of the votes. That was the weirdest one yet. Yeah, it was. It was. Yes. Okay. All right. Now I think you're finished. Thank you very much.

[01:45:35] Thank you again. I know. All right. We have two more motions, two more departments, and then we're going to take a break. You guys are going to take dinner with us, and then we'll go to the school budget and wrap up.

[01:45:52] Let's do County Admin next, please. And Mr. Hempstree, I think you're going to, are you the person presenting for County Admin? I'm sorry, Mr. Rush is coming down to make the presentation. Ah, Mr. Rush. Mr. Rush, is your bracket busted?

[01:46:10] Is your bracket busted, Mr. Rush? Mr. Rush, is your bracket busted? I'm going to keep asking, is your bracket busted? Virginia was consistent this year. And mine is busted for the same reason. For the same reason. We are now finished.

[01:46:27] This is true. Thank you, sir. ready when you are lost on a Hail Mary by the way just I'm sorry Virginia lost on a Hail Mary uh no that is not what happened we're ready when you are thank you uh good evening chair Randall members of the board my name is Carl Rush I serve as chief equity officer for the county and in this role I oversee the office of equity and inclusion which was established by the board's request in July 2021 from its inception the office of equity inclusion has been charged with developing a plan that promotes equitable community-based outcomes where residents and

[01:47:03] employees can thrive. The creation of the office acknowledges Loudon's dedication to service excellence for the public good and for the investment in its employees. As you're aware, the county has participated in the regional cohort with Metropolitan Washington Council of Government for the past three years, and as a member of COG, we share the following goals and focus areas with our neighboring jurisdictions, namely equity emphasis areas, high capacity transit station areas, 2030 housing targets, and 2030 climate goal and action plans.

[01:47:36] Loudon also holds a seat on the regional equity committee. Although the Office of Equity and Inclusion is primarily focused on internal government operations, externally we often regularly engage with diverse stakeholders, community-based organizations and others to build relationships and garner appropriate feedback and input when necessary. In FY23, the board approved one FTE for an equity and inclusion specialist. Happy to report that we filled this FTE in October 2021. Since then, the equity specialists and I have been diligently working to organize with the organization to normalize and operationalize

[01:48:14] DEI throughout the operations within the government. The primary focus of the equity specialist is to develop and implement a DEI training program, which contains five phases. Throughout the organization, to be clear, this training program is just one facet of what this role actually does when it comes to professional development and education available to the organization.

[01:48:37] To efficiently meet the demand of the organization, the Office of Equity and Inclusion has prioritized training for departments that have the most interaction with the public. However, to effectively and officially implement the county's DEI training program, we have selected one to two trainings with the departments that are planned each week.

[01:48:57] Currently, this would take approximately 54.5 weeks to implement just fees one of that training program and to maintain thereafter. So therefore, our office is requesting one FTE for an additional equity and inclusion specialist to meet this demand more realistically and expeditiously.

[01:49:14] The impact, if this request were not to be filled, would be that the county would have to rethink their strategy and how to effectively meet its DEI priorities. Also, to dedicate that amount of time that would be needed would mean that other important departmental projects in which the OEI is involved would also be delayed at the lease.

[01:49:35] Finally, at the board's direction, the Office of Equity and Inclusion has contracted with a consultant to assist in the creation of the county's equity plan. this plan is scheduled to be completed during the summer of 2023 once the plan is complete oei will brief the board with any plan i expect there will be future resources needed however that will be determined after the plan has been presented i'd like to thank the board for its consideration of this request and with that i yield for questions mr brush thank you so much really do appreciate it um is there um can we go to a motion before we can go to motion

[01:50:12] Mr. Turner asked for this to come to the to the dais. Mr. Turner, would you like to make a motion? Thank you, madam chair Actually, I'll do it on the fly since I thought I had a printed version of it I move that the board approve an equity and inclusion specialist in the amount of 126,656 in the FY 24 budget second I will take that second Mr. Turner would you like to speak on the motion? Thank you madam chair

[01:50:47] I'm going to try and tap dance around the third rail just a bit. I will say in general terms, it is a real shame in our society that this whole subject has become such a politically weaponized for reasons that are just wrong in our society.

[01:51:08] In the face of overwhelming evidence that inequity in a lot of our institutional processes and programs has existed forever, Red lining in real estate, shared use paths that magically stop at the edge of low-income neighborhoods, property-assessed clean energy programs that somehow magically don't work in low-income neighborhoods, and the list goes on and on and on and on.

[01:51:35] And it's a shame that that's not universally recognized, that our whole society and our whole culture has built this inequity over hundreds of years. It doesn't make us bad people, it makes us human beings, but it's obvious now.

[01:51:52] There is overwhelming data that can be measured. There are metrics that clearly identify this problem. This board, as a body, and I'm really, I'm really, I hope this doesn't break along party lines, but I suspect it probably will. This is an important problem.

[01:52:09] It's an important problem for dedicated public servants to sit down in a nonpartisan, nonpolitically charged way and say, is there a problem? I think there's overwhelming data that there is. And if there is a problem, how can we set about fixing it?

[01:52:24] And earlier in this year, this board said, we believe this is an important issue and we want to help address this problem in Loudoun County. And the newly formed office and the newly formed position, the team in that position has come to us and said, we need another specialist in this brand new field, in this brand new endeavor.

[01:52:43] And this board said it's important enough to do this, and if it's important enough to do this, it's important enough to fund this position. Thank you. Thank you. Ms. Brooksman? Thank you, Madam Chair. I have also been incredibly proud of the way our board has handled this topic at the very beginning of our term.

[01:53:02] I feel like I'm mentioning that a lot tonight, but the very beginning of our term, we changed the vision statement of Loudoun County and added the words that we would be inclusive in our county and we would work for equity in our county.

[01:53:19] And so I'm really proud that we're doing that and happy to support this. And I can't wait to see the work this summer that comes out of your office, Mr. Rush. My only question I had was, I think we authorized a position last year.

[01:53:35] That position's been hired and filled? Yes, it has. Okay, I just wanted to confirm. And do you see any problem with recruiting and hiring this position? I do not. Okay, fantastic.

[01:53:50] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau. Thank you. I just want to say to Mr. Turner, because there's a lot of truth to what he said, so I hope you don't take the vote that way, because for me, it's simply a matter of this is increase option 27. And I really told the county minister at the beginning of this that pretty much caught me in for the eight or so that really were critical.

[01:54:15] And then after that, unless somebody really blew me away, I wasn't going to support it. So that's all I would read into, at least for me, where I'm coming down on it. Just simply trusting where the staff is sort of prioritizing where we need to go. Mr. Kirshner.

[01:54:31] Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not going to get into the debate we've had on multiple occasions throughout the last year. That's not my intent here. I kind of agree with Mr. Buffington here. And when I approached this budget, and this just happens to be, what's that? He hasn't talked. He always agrees with me. I meant Turner. My apologies.

[01:54:46] Oh, Mr. Turner. Yeah, yeah. My apologies. I said, I don't, I meant. Just start over. You waste some time. Turner says, so let me, let me just finish. Are you whispering? No one stopped you at all.

[01:55:01] I hear you talking to me. So maybe I used the wrong names. It's been a long couple weeks here. But we've had this discussion for quite some time here on this board. We've made our particular – I don't think we have the kind of issues at all that have been raised or that there's the data to show, et cetera, et cetera, here in Loudoun County.

[01:55:21] I just think, in large part, that we're spending a lot of money that may not necessarily be needed within it. So there are some fundamental differences here. But I think more fundamentally, when I approached this budget, I put a lot of trust and faith in Mr. Hemstreet's decision-making process here.

[01:55:41] I have voted for a few different positions along the way just because it made sense, but as a general rule, if it wasn't in those top five priorities and if it was an enhanced service level, that has generally been my modus operandi here. So for those reasons, I'm not going to support this motion.

[01:55:58] Thank you. Mr. Buffington? Thank you, Madam Chair. I associate my comments with Mr. Letourneau, And I had told Mr. Hemstreet that I would support his top five priorities, which I did. And I've supported very few in addition to that.

[01:56:16] And as Supervisor Letourneau said, I think you're down to like number 27 or 28 here. So that's why I'm not supporting this right now. It has nothing to do with anything partisan. I voted because it made sense.

[01:56:31] I voted for others in the top five because they've made sense. This is exactly pervading the verbiage that Mr. Kirshner just used. I wrote it down. I'm voting for this because it makes sense. I recently attended events with the governor and both our state senators and a whole cadre of people to try to get the FBI in Northern Virginia.

[01:57:02] One of the FBI's top priorities for getting here was, and I quote, advancing equity, unquote. he didn't say advancing opportunities he said advancing equity we are we could literally and will literally lose economic development lose companies that would come here because of what our equity stance is whether people like the word equity or not that is the word right now that is being used when we talk about dei and the the truth is this word and this whole discussion

[01:57:37] has been politicized and the only way to depoliticize this if it is is to have reasonable thoughtful conversations with thought leaders who really want to talk about the issue and not just throw stones at one another. I do believe my Republican colleagues on this board for the reasons they say they're not going to vote for this item but I also believe that I will vote for this because it does make sense to me to vote for it. The one place I disagree with you, Mr.

[01:58:08] Kirshner, is that we don't see equity issues in this county. Loudoun County is as amazing and wonderful and fantastic of a county as we are. We're not separate from any other part of the country. So the fact that every other part of the country might have equity issues but Loudoun County doesn't really make sense. And if you talk to as many Loudoun citizens in as many areas as I have, the equity issues are clear. You see them in our school system. You see them, you know, you see them even in county government. They have gotten so much better in county government than

[01:58:43] they were some years ago. But they're everywhere. Of course they are. And it doesn't mean that we're, you know, evil people. It means that in the past, mistakes were made. And to some degree, we can put some policies in place that recognize mistakes were made and try to address them.

[01:59:02] It also doesn't mean that some people will get less while these people get more or this person who's qualified won't get hired with this person that's not qualified. Well, it doesn't mean any of that. It doesn't mean any of that. It means that we can put some things in place that make sure that in communities that may need more focus on transportation, we can make sure that those focus gets on transportation.

[01:59:25] That's an equity issue. It means that environmental issues are equity issues. There's a lot of county services that speak to equity issues in the county overall. So I am happily going to support this, and Mr. Turner, thank you for bringing this.

[01:59:42] Mr. Turner, do you have a closing? No closing. All right. All in favor, please say aye. All opposed? Okay. That motion will pass with Mr. Buffington, Mr. Kirshner, and Mr. Letourneau voting against the motion, and of course, Ms. Umstead not being here for the motion.

[02:00:01] So 5-3-1. So did you have anything else for county administration anybody? I don't think that was it Thank you so much. Mr. Rush. We have one last one then we'll take a break and come back and take up schools And the last one is building and development. Mr. Brewer, Mr. Walsh, we come to the table, please. Good evening Yes, we already did it. Yeah, that was the just one second Good evening.

[02:00:39] Good evening, Madam Chair and board members. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak this evening. E-47, E-47, guys. With me this evening is Harry Walsh, who is our manager of our administration division in building and development.

[02:00:57] I am happy to report that building and development staff had another very productive year. Last year, our staff permitted 6.8 million square feet of new commercial development, issued 54,000 building zoning and trade permits, and performed over 13,000 erosion and sediment control inspections.

[02:01:21] In addition, the department played a critical role in the development of Landmark, the county's new land management system. This system will replace the current LMIS system from 1999 and will greatly improve transparency, record-keeping, and customer service.

[02:01:39] That landmark system is expected to go live this spring or early summer. Some other accomplishments include the implementation of a new fee schedule to better recover county costs, continued support of our economic development partners through the county's business assistance team and fast-track programs, dedicating staff to the zoning ordinance rewrite, improving employee safety awareness by training 90 field staff in the 30-hour OSHA course for construction site safety.

[02:02:12] We trained 250 employees outside agencies and private sector professionals in electronic submission and plan review to increase efficiency and promote the use of our online services. And lastly, our staff continued to improve their knowledge and skills by obtaining or maintaining over 400 professional certifications.

[02:02:36] I would like to highlight that we are experiencing a bit of challenge with employee turnover and recruitment, which I think you've heard a lot of that this budget session. For example, this year we have processed 43 recruitments since July in my department.

[02:03:00] And to put that number into context, typically we will recruit for between 20 and 25 employees per year. However, we are filling positions. We currently have 12 vacancies, which we are actively recruiting for.

[02:03:18] Last year, the board did approve one enhancement request in building and development to support the unmet housing needs strategic plan, and we have filled that position. Regarding the department's FY24 budget needs, we do have two resource requests, which can be found on page E47 in the budget document.

[02:03:41] Our first request is for an HR payroll liaison. Currently, Mr. Walsh is filling this role amongst his many other duties. So the manager that's fulfilling these duties now has primary responsibility for overseeing the day-to-day operations associated with the department's budget.

[02:04:02] procurement, accounts payable, accounts receivable, human resources, payroll, and FOIA. In a recent time study, we discovered that 60% of this manager's time is spent performing the duties of a human resources liaison alone. This has led to insufficient time to devote to the core responsibilities of the manager. In addition, the payroll liaison responsibilities are currently being performed by my executive assistant who also serves as the department's FOIA coordinator processing over 580 FOIA requests last year alone.

[02:04:43] This workload routinely exceeds a standard work week which requires the department to incur costs associated with exchange time and overtime. Lastly, in response to Supervisor Sain's budget question, the Department of Finance and Budget found that all departments of similar size to building and development have at least one dedicated HR or payroll liaison position. I would like to note that because this was a critical need, we did hire a one-year temporary employee in this position. In November of last year, that one-year temporary

[02:05:22] employee position will end November 2023. Our second resource request is for a training administrator. This position would coordinate ongoing training of existing staff, new staff, and the public on landmark, including software updates and new business processes. The position would also coordinate the implementation of the department's succession and professional development plan. This plan was developed by the department to address the significant

[02:05:55] vulnerability of a large number of employees who are eligible to retire. Currently, 18% of my staff is eligible to retire today, with an additional 35 percent eligible to retire within the next five years, essentially meaning that potentially over half of my staff will be retired in the near future. Implementation of this succession plan includes cross-training, job shadowing, job coaching, mentoring, leadership training, and technical skills training programs to lessen the

[02:06:30] impact of employee turnover and with that matter we would be happy to answer any questions you would have you looked up when you said that would mean half my staff would be gone just make sure we knew what that meant that is an issue um all right um do we have questions or you have motion you have a motion can we just go with the motion then mr. Turner would you like to make a motion uh i would uh and i know it's could get split but i'd kind of like to wait to split it until after my opening remarks as a courtesy from the board but if you want to split it right away that's

[02:07:05] fine I move that the board of supervisors fund line 23 the human resources payroll liaison for $89,242 and the training administrator for $117,363 second can we split the motion I will split the motion but I will let you have them opening first thank you the reason I'm asking you not to split the motion is because the case will be the same in both. And here's the case. I don't want to get into the details, but we are going to have an enormous number of buy-right, very controversial

[02:07:41] applications moving through the system in the next year to two years. That is going to land right in this office. And that will be where this office will get to weigh in on those buy-right applications. And I do not want this office to not have all the resources it needs. The one that concerns me the most is the L-Mark system. That's going to require training of the entire B&D staff plus also customers who use that system. And so the logic behind both of these, frankly, is the fact that I think the number of buy-right permits, and if I'm wrong in any of this, or this is where

[02:08:21] a buy-right permit process starts, it's in your office, correct? That's correct. Yeah. I think we're going to have some very controversial by-right movement over the next year or two, and I want this office staff to the maximum extent that they ask for.

[02:08:36] Thank you. All right. Mr. Sange, when you say you want to split the motion, you want to do the human resources position first. Is that what you want to do? Yes, ma'am. All right, Mr. Turner, you've just given the opening because you gave it for both of them. Further discussion on the motion for the human resource position, which is, yeah, the human resource position. Ms. Brixman? The human resource position is the one that's filled for temporary right now. That's correct. Okay, thank you. I'll probably support that one.

[02:09:09] Thank you. Mr. Kirshner? Yeah, I'm going to support. I'm thankful to Mr. Staines for splitting this motion. When I came in here tonight, I'd gone through all the various resource requests, and this is the one I felt I definitely needed to support, given what I was reading through here. When it says that a division manager is spending 60% of their time performing HR liaison-related duties it seems a little bit out that they're taken away from what their responsibilities are so obviously this is also categorized as a current service level request whereas the training administrator would be enhanced um so i i will support uh the first part of this motion but not

[02:09:47] the second there's only this is only this is only the motion on the floor right now this is part right now yeah yeah all right this is um um this is a motion that makes sense to mr kirschner to support very good mr. saying would you like to have a I mean I'm mr. Sains mr.

[02:10:07] Turner which I'd like to have a closing yeah all the people say aye opposed that motion will pass 7 1 1 with mr. maternal opposing and mr. miss miss I'm stat not being here and mr. Turner would you like to make the second motion yes - Yes, Madam Chair, I move that the Board fund the line 31 for the Building and Development Training Administrator for $170,363.

[02:10:42] - Motion made, sir, second the motion. Seeing none, the motion will die for lack of a second. - Thank you all very much. Thank you for all you do. - Thank you. - Appreciate it. Supervisors, let us take a 15-minute break and Dr. Smith is here, Mr. Sorokin is here, Chair Sorokin and Vice Chair Mateve is here And when we come back, they're going to join us at the table.

[02:11:07] And we really appreciate you all being here. But let's take a 15-minute break for dinner. I have to read the information.

[02:25:46] I'm for Supervisor Glass.

[02:27:29] The staff group is on the fourth floor, which you all don't have access to. But if actually, while we're done, any of you want to get something, I can take you up there. There's supposedly, I just asked, there's supposedly a decent amount of food left. So if any of you, including the school board members, because I think their food is now all picked up by, I can take any number of you out.

[02:27:54] I think we'll be good, and I'll look very proud of you.

[02:34:12] Good, good. Okay, we are back, and my school board colleagues are already at the table. Thank you all for coming. I really do appreciate it. Dr. Smith, thank you for being here as well. Mr. Lewis, all the school board staff, LCPS staff, we appreciate you all being here.

[02:34:31] And now we're going to have a discussion about your budget, which has been so confusing for everybody over the past, you know, since we found out about the shortfall that the state did, the administration did. We are still fairly confused. At some point, I'm going to probably ask Jonathan to come up to the podium and talk to us about it.

[02:34:52] But until we get to that point, we are ready if you all want to do any type of presentation. Thank you, Chair Randall and supervisors for having us here tonight. We really appreciate the opportunity to continue to engage with the county on the FY24 budget process.

[02:35:10] To date, since the last time that we met when we presented our adopted budget to you in February, we've answered 61 questions in writing. To date, as far as I know, there's no written questions that are outstanding at this point. But as you mentioned, Chair, we recognize there's still significant questions about the status of the state budget as well as some other changes and things that have been going on.

[02:35:34] So with that in mind, we've prepared a brief presentation to try and address some of those questions in further detail, which I will turn over to Dr. Smith to start. I really do appreciate that. Thank you. Good evening, Chair Randall and Supervisors. We do appreciate the opportunity to come and talk with you tonight about the overall budget.

[02:35:52] With us tonight, I know you acknowledged our Chair Sorotkin and Vice Chair Mejedevi. We also have our Chief Financial Officer to my right, Sharon Willoughby. Chief Operating Officer Kevin Lewis, Dr. Ashley Ellis, our Deputy Superintendent, and Neil Slevin, our Chief of Staff.

[02:36:11] During this budget process, we've worked hard to rebuild trust and transparency across our organizations. I believe we've made great strides. We have a great relationship with Mr. Hemstreet, Ms. Bork, and county staff, and we've been remaining in constant communication throughout the process. So I just wanted to acknowledge that and just say how much we appreciate it and appreciate the communication.

[02:36:30] Dr. Smith, can I, I'd like to echo that, you know, we send emails, you won't answer, you're here, you're here today, it's, it's, you know, there have been obviously tough times in the past three years, but you, you really have, we really do see a shift change in responsiveness, and it is very much noticed and appreciated, thank you.

[02:36:51] thank you for that acknowledgement you recall we met a month ago at the school administration building to present and discuss the fy 24 school board budget requests since that time we have worked hard and answered all the questions that have been presented tonight we are here tonight to return to the work session and as we begin we prepared a few slides to give you updates on what's taking place since that time i'll share some information and updates on the school operating fund focused on the state budget and chair suratkin will follow up and share information on the cip We put together a timeline because, as you mentioned, the state budget is confusing.

[02:37:28] The FY24 budget was built with the county's January 3rd funding guidance in mind. The school board adopted its budget on February 2nd, but you'll note on the timeline that just a few days before that, on January 27th, when the Virginia Department of Education, or VDOE, notified school divisions of an error in their budget calculation tool.

[02:37:48] This left little to no time for an adjustment, and while we had heard positive information from Richmond that the error be remedied in the final state budget. The final action on the funding is not yet complete. This error resulted in a $7.4 million funding shortfall for FY24.

[02:38:04] On February 9th, the House and Senate committees released their budget amendments, and on February 15th, the General Assembly adjourned and passed their skinny budget. VDOE has not released any calculation tools, and only late on Friday, March 10th, did we receive more specific sheets from VDOE to help with our understanding and calculation of numbers. The General Assembly is scheduled to reconvene on April 12th, but could be called back into a special session, although that seems unlikely. Since the General Assembly passed the skinny budget, it's also possible that there may

[02:38:38] be no further action on the FY24 budget. Unfortunately, we just don't know. Virginia adopts a two-year budget, and tonight's discussion on the FY24 budget is the second year of the two-year budget. While technically a budget has been approved, amendments are usually made to the second year of the budget. Given the regularity of the budget process using the governor's proposed budget, these budget numbers are used to develop the initial budget request. This year, in an unprecedented move, the General Assembly reverted back to the biennium budget and revised it when

[02:39:12] they passed the Skinny budget on February 25th. The General Assembly adjourned on Saturday, February 24th, 2023 after passing the Skinny budget as a stopgap measure seeking to address in part the calculation error. As details of the skinny budget were made available, it became apparent that the bill had, in fact, only addressed FY23, and it did not provide additional funds to LCPS, and it effectively reset the baseline for FY24 and reverted back to the original biennium budget.

[02:39:44] It did not include any of the proposals or provisions from the governor's amendments that Virginia school divisions often rely on. This resetting of the baseline resulted in a total revenue reduction of $13 million to LCPS compared to what was included in the FY24 adopted budget.

[02:40:01] This reduction is driven by the $7.4 million calculation tool error, lower sales tax estimates, removal of certain incentive programs, and other basic aid adjustments. Additional uncertainty exists as the General Assembly is expected to reconvene on April 12th. As we try to plan ahead and sift through the multiple state budget amendments, it's difficult to predict what the final outcome and budget impact may be. On this slide, you'll see sample of items that we have seen included in one or both of the proposed state budget. And you'll see they include support cap

[02:40:34] elimination, different bonus packages, expanded reading specialist, a 2% salary increase, and additional basic aid adjustments. Senate amendments could produce a net budget adjustments equaling $12.4 million of additional revenue, and House amendments could produce net budget adjustments that increase costs for LCPS to 7.4 million. While it's more likely that any new budget bill would fall somewhere in the middle, we do recognize that neither scenario completely

[02:41:07] restores LCPS back to the original assumptions relied on for budget adoption. As a reminder, the FY24 school board's adopted county transfer request is an increase of 75.3 million, which is the lowest that it has been in years. This request was in line with the county guidance of the 60-40 split. Only subsequent events since adoption have caused uncertainty and concern for FY24. The state's skinny budget reduces the revenue by $13 million, causing a shortfall for LCPS. Further, the possible approval of collective bargaining will require additional resources for

[02:41:43] LCPS, and that's not included in the budget. We share the frustration of being in the position of being in limbo while trying to finalize the budget and appreciate the Board of Supervisors flexibility and consideration I'll now turn it back over to chair Sirotkin for information on the school board CIP and to close out the presentation dr. Smith before you do that will you will you mostly for the record give your position on what you believe could happen with the money requested by LCPS for collective bargaining I believe that probably best answered by chair

[02:42:22] Sirotkin okay that's how I can answer that thank you are you I want to make sure I understand your question are you are you asking for my opinion on whether the school board is going to pass collective bargaining I'm not asking that okay you're asking I'm assuming that I'm assuming that I'm asking it was my understanding the reason I asked dr. Smith because it's my understanding he had a recommendation that he gave to LCP to the school board already and I didn't know for the record if everyone knew what that recommendation was sir I'm sorry I misunderstood the question so I'm happy to answer that I know yes

[02:42:58] And so when we look at if collective bargaining were to pass, we do estimate right now that it would be no more than $3.5 million is what we've estimated at this time in terms of positions to support that. And so the staff recommendation in working with the school board would be to look at how we can appropriate that and consider the use of end-of-year funds.

[02:43:19] Now, ultimately, that's a school board decision. We know that end-of-year funds are not typically used for reoccurring funds like positions. And so that was a conversation that we had with county staff about how that could possibly work given the situation we are in right now with the budget overall.

[02:43:37] So that was staff's recommendation, and that's what I included in that correspondence, but ultimately would be the school board's decision. Thank you. I just wanted that to be on the record. I appreciate that, Dr. Smith. Mr. Sorokin, Chair Sorokin. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[02:43:58] Just to briefly talk about CIP updates, on our last school board meeting on March 14th, the school board did vote to amend the CIP previously adopted by adding $1. 6 million for Dominion High School weight room renovations and $1. 7 million for the press boxes at Dominion High School, Heritage High School, and Potomac Falls High School in FY24.

[02:44:14] This essentially restores those programs to the year in the CIP that they were during previous CIP adoption years, which would counteract the fact that they had been moved to the right this year to accommodate the Parkview High School replacement instead of renovation.

[02:44:35] And that, I believe, concludes our brief update on things that have happened since we initially presented our adopted budget to you in February. Okay. Is it a point of clarification?

[02:44:52] Yeah. Yes. Just stated that the money for Dominion, Potomac Falls, and Heritage was taken away for the Parkview new bill, but it should be included or stated for the record as Banneker and a couple other things. Is that correct?

[02:45:10] That's true. Yes. That was the primary reason, but everything in the CIP holds together as far as how much can be in any particular fiscal year, but you're right, there were additional considerations beyond Parkview that led to that. I just wanted to put that on the record so people aren't looking at how things go.

[02:45:26] Thank you, I appreciate that clarification. Thank you. Supervisors, if you have questions, you guys, are you finished? You're good? All right. If you have questions for our school board colleagues, our LCPS staff, now is the time to do that. Mr. Turner.

[02:45:43] Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to do a little math exercise here to make sure I've got the math in my head correct. And I'm going to ask for county staff help as well as the members of the school board and the LCPS staff. So you submitted a $75 million budget request this year over last year, right?

[02:46:05] The 75 is the delta over last year, which is the lowest increase in any number of years. And it's based on the strategic plan you presented at our joint meeting, right? And for county staff, that puts us $6.2 million in our planned budget below what the school has requested?

[02:46:25] Yes. Okay. Then there's a $13 million shortfall from the state, from the Yonkut administration's management error. And then as the governor, as I understand it, the governor submitted a budget that the schools anticipated an additional $5 million and change was going to be in that budget he submitted and it was not in there.

[02:46:47] which compounded the $7.4 and turned it into $13 million. So in order to get well here, we are at $6.5 million per half penny. Is that right? $6.5 million per half penny.

[02:47:02] And we are currently at $87.5. So if we, $87.5. $87.75. $87.5. It only goes in half pennies. But where are we at right now?

[02:47:19] $87.5. I know what that is, but I thought I saw something different on the TOE board. Okay. So we're at 87.5, and this is in-house stuff here. At 87.5, so if we honor the $75 million increase and cover the 6.2, 6.3 that we're currently short, we add a half penny and bring us up to 88.

[02:47:46] And if the board decided to fix the entire state problem, we hold it at the current rate of 89 and get an extra $13 million, which fixes the state problem. So that's the binary choice that we have. Solve the 6.2 gap for the current request and go to 88, or solve that gap plus the state's mistake for 13 more million, which takes us to our current rate of 89.

[02:48:13] That's the question before the board. Will that math jibe up with everybody? I think it does. Okay, thank you. That's all I have. Yeah, so understanding what's going on with the state a little bit.

[02:48:30] So I think we think that they're going to go back on April 12th, potentially. That's what the latest intelligence is. It seems to change. Do you happen to know if Fairfax County is having a similar issue with the they are? So that's good news because the reason is it's not good news for them.

[02:48:47] But it could be good news for us because the chairman, as you know, of the Senate Finance Committee and Appropriations are both Fairfax senators. And in my experience, are very attuned to these sorts of issues.

[02:49:07] So if Loudon were to join up with Fairfax and come to them jointly with this problem, and I'm sure you've had some of these conversations already, and maybe you can tell us a little bit about that. It's hard for me to believe that we wouldn't get somewhere. Even understanding we have a House of Delegates and we have a Republican governor and all that stuff, but there is kind of strength in numbers a little bit.

[02:49:31] So have we engaged in this dialogue, and it may not just be Fairfax either, it might be other Northern Virginia districts, with the other districts about this issue? Not with the other districts directly, but we have had a number of, the staff has had a number of conversations with our state delegation regarding this issue.

[02:49:48] I don't know if it would be helpful to talk about some of those conversations and if they've provided any updates. I think the general uptake is that the outlook from them has been more and more pessimistic as time has gone on to the point where they don't know whether any budget beyond the skinny budget they've already passed is going to be adopted down in Richmond.

[02:50:08] But that's somewhat like trying to— It is, but, I mean, we read these tea leaves, too. I actually think in the last few days it's gotten more optimistic, much more optimistic. So, you know, I guess what I'm saying is sometimes a coalition is more useful.

[02:50:25] So if we haven't had those discussions, could we do that? I think there's an opportunity to do that, absolutely. We tend to be ahead of Fairfax and some of the others because we adopt the budget several months earlier. So they have the benefit of most of the time seeing how things have shaken out down in Richmond before finalizing the budget.

[02:50:44] But if they haven't been held harmless either, there are going to be a lot of screaming about it, especially when everybody realizes that Fairfax County and their board of supervisors is going to be saying the same thing to their school board. Yep, very true. Yeah, okay, thank you. Mr. Letourneau, in your time, if you don't mind, if I ask you, so I agree with you, a coalition's always good, and Ms. Senator Howell and Senator Barker and all that you just said.

[02:51:07] My only confusion on what you just said is we pass our final budget on April 4th. They go back, if they go back, they will go back on April 12th. And so even if they made it whole, whether they do or not, how does that impact our budget process that gets passed?

[02:51:25] Well, I guess what I'm saying is if we make it whole right now, it certainly removes any incentive for the state to do it. And I'm sort of opining that I think the state is more likely to do it, mix it, in April. Okay, that's your opine. Given the Fairfax angle.

[02:51:41] Okay. All right. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to clarify, maybe staff can answer the question. In my mind, if the gap is $13 million, then we would just need a full penny.

[02:52:02] The gap is $19.2 million. Okay. All right. All right. What's the pay raise for teachers in your budget? It is a minimum 5%. I think the average is 6.2%, if I'm remembering that number right.

[02:52:22] Ms. Willoughby? Okay, that's fine. You can tell me in a second. And did we accomplish the pay raises with the matches over the last two years that were coming from the previous budget?

[02:52:38] Yes. We did. So was it a full 10%? I think it was a full 10%. It was 5% average pay increase in the FY23 budget. Prior to FY23, that was the previous biennium. So the matches were, the state contribution and the matches were less.

[02:52:57] It was, I think. That's interesting. In his interview with Jake Tapper, the governor, said he gave teachers a 10% raise. I think that's FY23 and FY24 combined, but not any of the years previous to that. Okay, okay. How much is it to fully eliminate the athletic fees?

[02:53:18] That was like a million now, right? It was $800,000 at one point. Now it's about a million. Is that correct? We did half, and I sent them $800,000, and then they didn't do it. It was around $900,000.

[02:53:35] Okay, close to that. Okay. Um, so the, and then in the CIP question, um, are, were you looking to actually ask us to increase the, the, the CIP budget in our volume two, or were you just sort of endorsing the idea of those projects going to the fund balance?

[02:54:01] So there, the CIP works a little differently because we don't have our own CIP. there's only the county CIP at the end of the day. So we added these programs back into FY24 in our recommended CIP or whatever you want to call it. What the Board of Supervisors chooses to do with that, I think is up to you for where you put in and how much you funded and using what funding source. Well, maybe I can ask this another way. If we don't fund that, you'll have to go to reconciliation on your CIP and take those projects back out of your CIP, right, in reconciliation.

[02:54:37] If we don't increase the CIP? I think that's correct. Although we've never done reconciliation on our CIP. We've never, I don't think, have done a supplemental for it before. So maybe we can get some clarification. Thank you.

[02:54:53] Yeah, so what Chair Sorokin characterized as correct, there's only one CIP, which is the county CIP. The concept of reconciliation is on their operating budget. And so we would just have their capital request that is not in sync with the board's capital budget.

[02:55:14] No, Ms. Bixby, the time is up. They do not have to go back and reconcile their CIP. All right. Mr. Buffington. Thank you, Madam Chair. First off, thank you all for being here tonight and for all that you do.

[02:55:30] I know you don't have an easy job, especially lately, so I appreciate it. I just want to verify some numbers that I have written down. The anticipated per-pupil cost next year, is that, am I correct if I say that's $19,898?

[02:55:48] We have it as $19,903. That was $5 off. Thank you. Next questions are about enrollment numbers going back a few years and the difference between your projections and what you ended up actually having.

[02:56:13] I forget what date it is that you put the official number out a few months after school has started. But for next year, you're anticipating an increase. I have two numbers, and I'm trying to figure out which one is right, of either 828 additional students or 1,026.

[02:56:34] Are either of those right? Can I get the LCPS number? I'm not going to do the math in my head, but it's 84, 225, and this year is 83,061.

[02:56:52] 83,061? Yes, sir. Okay. Let me check. Kevin, do you share about that? I got you want to go ahead I have 83 our projected FY24 enrollment is 83061 this year's actual student count was 82 to 33 yeah that's what I had that's right I'm sorry I was on the wrong line thank you for that and then last year am I correct that what you projected and what you ended up

[02:57:32] actually having you actually had 806 less than you projected or close to it okay you're shaking your head yes so thank you that's correct the year before that and I know these are COVID numbers um you had 4,225 less than you projected in the year the year before that was 4,251 less than you projected yes sir okay thank you thank you madam chair thank you mr. um saints sorry madam Sure. I didn't realize I was not on.

[02:58:12] Sure. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you for being here, first of all. And I agree with Mr. Buffington. Your job has been hard recently, and I agree with Chair Randall that things have gone much more smoothly recently.

[02:58:29] I really appreciate how you have presented the budget as I mentioned this. As far as a shortfall concern, and I'm not sure if you can answer this question, but I have a letter in front of me from the Division of Superintendent, Jillian Bollo, who's the superintendent of public instruction for the Commonwealth. Maybe you can help me understand why we are short given the following line.

[02:58:49] It says all school divisions were made whole through the 90.5 million net increase in FY 2023 funding provided through increased sales tax estimate and the General Assembly's appropriation of an additional 16.8 million in general funds to ensure that no school funding received less funding for basic aid and sales tax that was originally communicated.

[02:59:10] And that's I believe that's referring to 2024. So can you, it says that it's not different. Is that an inaccurate statement in this letter? I think you have to read the words very carefully and how they're phrased.

[02:59:29] So one, in terms of the last statement, unfortunately I don't have that in front of me. I know, I'm sorry, I wish I had a copy because it's on my computer. But I do have the language I think that is similar to that that was part of the skinny bill. And what it mentions is that funding was provided to ensure that the sum of basic aid and sales tax payments the school division receives in fiscal 23 was at least the amount that was originally communicated.

[02:59:55] So what's happening here, though, is that the original communication is what the budget was. And as you know, the budget is an estimate. And so when the state is preparing their budget, they're projecting what their sales tax is going to be for the upcoming year. And then, of course, that becomes funding for their operations and to school divisions.

[03:00:12] So they are comparing and going back to what the budget was and what was communicated. Because it's an estimate, actual revenues can fluctuate, of course. We can have line items that come in above budget, and we have line items that come in below budget.

[03:00:30] Sales tax this year has been coming in above budget. So what is particulars is that the sum of the actual sales tax and basic aid is more for LCPS and many other school divisions in Virginia than what was originally communicated, a.k.a. the budget.

[03:00:49] There were a handful of school divisions, though, that their actual revenues was less than what was originally communicated, again, the budget. That is what was included in funding in the skinny bill and is the hold harmless funding for those handful of school divisions.

[03:01:07] So for LCPS, we have a revenue reduction of three and a half million dollars. And why that is a revenue reduction is because typically there is a funding formula where the state takes the actual sales tax and they distribute it on a monthly basis based on the funding formula.

[03:01:24] what they have done this year and that was unprecedented is that they have capped that to the budget amount whereas in prior years if the budget i mean i'm sorry if the actual sales tax revenue came in higher than budget that was distributed according to the formula across the school divisions so that the school divisions was able to reap the rewards of a good year but then also in a bad year we were also having you know to make adjustments so it's really kind of slicing and dicing the words and for lcps we actually are receiving three and a half million dollars less

[03:02:02] than we would have for fy 23 however i'll also just quickly add that from a financial perspective for fy 23 we are managing that we're not asking the county for any assistance with that we are solely focused on fy24 and the skinny bill did not address fy24 and the calculation error at all mr saynes thank you madam chair i just real quickly want to say thank you to lcps for coming tonight actually brought a whole team with you which is great to see usually it's just a few

[03:02:38] folks up here but you have the whole row fold up so i appreciate the the show of force and be able to answer and have a good dialogue with us tonight so thank you uh jonathan can you come up please and don't start my time until he does come.

[03:03:04] Okay. Mr. Freeman, do you know the surplus that the state has right now? Or the state has, Governor Youngkin has said he has over and over again? It's over $3 billion in general funds. Over $3 billion in general fund surplus that the governor has spoke about many, many times.

[03:03:21] As far as you know, the governor made reference to the fact, or the administration made reference to the fact that they are making the school systems whole for 24. Is that correct? So what the communications that we have gotten is that the technical adjustments were pertaining to FY23.

[03:03:47] FY24 hasn't been hashed out. Okay. Thank you, sir. My frustration is this. $3 billion surplus. A mistake made, and let's assume, let's assume the mistake was made in good faith by BDOE.

[03:04:04] Let's assume it really was a mistake. The way you fix the mistake is to fix the mistake, and if you're sitting on $3 billion, there's no reason we shouldn't be having this conversation right now, none whatsoever. The logical conclusion is somebody's trying to defund some school systems, and that makes me very upset.

[03:04:23] But the problem I'm also having is I am tired of localities picking up state money. I'm tired of paying for state positions in the health department and the court services and probation and parole. In every area, the state underfunds their people or their systems.

[03:04:41] We pick it up, and then they get to brag that they didn't raise taxes. Well, you don't have a surplus until you pay your bills, and they have not paid the bills. I don't know what they're going to do if we don't give it to them. Mr. Turner makes a good point. If we pay it all, what's their incentive to pay it, right?

[03:04:58] Why do that? But if we don't pay it all, what happens with the shortfall? So I am at a quandary, and it's not because of anything that LCPS has done. Dr. Smith, you have given us, I think, the most reasonable, responsible, understandable, explainable budget in many, many years, and I very much appreciate it.

[03:05:19] But I also don't want to continue to pick up the state's issues, especially when they're sitting on a $3 billion surplus. I am furious about this. It is irresponsible, and there's no way to look at this, but there is some purposeful underfunding of school systems.

[03:05:40] And so I understand why you're coming to us to ask for it. Were I you, I would come to us also to ask for it. I would, but I don't know that I want to pick up the responsibility, and I don't know if that just lets them off the hook. And so I'm really at a loss as to what I'm doing tonight, because it's not LCPS's fault, nor any other school system.

[03:06:00] This is a responsibility of the Yonkin administration, and they can fix it since they have a $3 billion plus. Thank you, Mr. Freeman. Okay. So there are no motions on the dais, but I might start off with making the, making, oh gosh, I lost it, making the, well, I don't know if I need this motion.

[03:06:28] No, no, no. I'm sorry. No, speaking to the collective bargaining issue. Do I need a motion to endorse or support Dr. Smith's idea or plan?

[03:06:48] Yes. So, Chair Randall, that item's really not before the board yet. So they, unless you're, unless you want to. It's not before the board because they haven't passed collective bargaining, but aren't you going to vote for this on the 28th?

[03:07:03] On March 28th. So you're going to come back to us anyway, right? Yes. Okay. So I guess at that point we can have that discussion then about supporting Dr. Smith's idea. Or, Chair Randall, if the board wanted to provide an expression of support to the school board, you could do that saying that you would be supportive of their use of end-of-year funds to...

[03:07:21] That is what I'm saying. That would be, you could make that motion. I don't know if I need to make it in a motion, we'll do it, we'll come back, but I think that's probably the will of the board overall, just so you all know that. So let's try this. Chair Randall, can I ask a question?

[03:07:39] Well, only if we're going to go to second round's question, unless you're going to do a motion. Well, no, but it's related to this issue you just raised. Let's just, then let's say if anyone wants a second round of questions, they can have it. Okay. So that's, yeah, yes. So what I wanted to get at was I asked a question today to Mr. Hempstreet about in the event that the state does not close the gap, using fund balance to do that and essentially prioritizing it, which would be somewhere probably between 7.4.

[03:08:10] Using our fund balance. Our fund balance. It's hard for me to believe that nothing's going to happen. I mean, as they said, they haven't addressed the FY24 budget yet at all, the shortfall yet at all. So every school district is in this position, and every school district, every legislator has a school board and a board of supervisors, even the Republican ones that are not going to be happy about it.

[03:08:30] So I have a hard time believing nothing's going to happen. So what I was told by Ms. Bork was, yes, we could do that, provided the school system in this event, not now, but should we go down this path, could identify whatever that amount of money is in one-time funding.

[03:08:47] since that's typically what we use fund ballots for. It would be really hard for me to think that in a $2 billion budget, there isn't somewhere, say, between $5 and $10 million in one-time funding. So I don't know that we would need the school system to specifically identify that now.

[03:09:03] It would have to happen at that time. But first of all, do I have that right from county staff? I'm sorry, before you answer that, were you speaking of collective bargaining or the shortfall overall? No, I'm talking about the funding shortfall. Okay, I'm sorry, I wasn't sure. Okay, thank you. megan or mr hamstreet yes that's correct okay okay so could i'll ask the schools then i'm not asking you to do it on the spot but if this plays out this way and the state doesn't give any more money or the state gives some portion could you identify one-time funding that the county could

[03:09:36] then fund as part of our fund balance process i'm i'm not sure i totally understand what you mean when you say could we identify one-time funding because the are you talking about the portion of the 13 million that would be like one-time purchases and what i'm saying is out of your entire budget if if we chose not to fund that gap right now because we have uncertainty about what's going to happen what i'm saying is if that doesn't happen and let's just say there's a gap let's say it's 13 million um we could still fund that out of our fund balance but it could only go to one-time

[03:10:13] uses on your side instead of ongoing uses now i'm sure like you like us most of yours are contracts and things like that but it's still a two billion dollar budget so i have i think i'm wondering if you have you see what i'm saying yeah so we thanks for that question today we did you know quickly take a look today to see what we could find um as you know most of our funds are caught up in personnel and and compensation increases but you look at that right recurring year right so um we were when we looked at it we could only find uh 2.6 million in terms of the the one-time funds

[03:10:52] But, again, we just looked today because we received the question. But that's what I can share right now. Okay. I got where you're going, though. Yeah. Everyone can have a second round if they need it. Thank you, Madam Chair. As a follow-up to that, I mean, didn't you just have a fund balance of around $20 million that you spent on one-time purchases, most of that, a couple months ago, one-time purchases for next year's?

[03:11:23] I think that's correct in rough terms. I think the difference, and staff can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the difference is those were newly identified things to spend that fund balance on and also staff bonuses that also came into effect there, as opposed to looking for things specifically that are already in the FY24 budget that are one-time purchases that would qualify for what you're talking about.

[03:11:52] Ms. Willoughby, can you provide further? Yes, I'm just having a hard time imagining or assuming that within such a large budget, you couldn't find $13 million of one-time funding priorities.

[03:12:10] As we were driving this budget to come in as close to the county's guidance, we had already scrubbed through the budget and pulled items out. So that's why we don't have as large of an item as we typically do, to Mr. Letourneau's point.

[03:12:26] Typically, during reconciliation, we do have items that we can pull out. But again, we really worked hard to come in close to guidance. So that's why what's left in the budget really is already lean. And as Dr. Lewis said, we have about $2.6 million is what we had identified.

[03:12:46] Oh, today or this week when you looked, you found about $2.5 million? Now, we do appreciate, as Chair Randall said, and I agree with her, we do appreciate the work that you put in. it was obvious that you tried to come in at the at our recommendation so thank you thank you miss rixman thank you madam chair i'll associate my comments with madam chairs by the way um what percentage of your budget is is to salaries and and pay i think you showed it to us when you

[03:13:19] presented your budget it's roughly 90 90 so that does not give a lot of wiggle room for one-time expenses or one time you know to cut something out to to make up for $13 million I just don't see I just don't see how you would be able to do that yeah I think I think that's all I have madam chair I'm prepared to make a motion madam chair thanks miss glass thank you madam chair and with that 90

[03:13:57] percent are you are you finding that it is I'm hard to find educators or staff to fill the roles that you need in the county? Are you finding that you are competing against other jurisdictions for staff and educators or LCPS?

[03:14:22] We are always competing against other jurisdictions for teachers and staff in the Northern Virginia and D.C. metro area, absolutely. There's a nationwide teacher shortage. We have fared much better than most in that regard.

[03:14:37] Even when you look at our attrition numbers, our attrition numbers are up compared to previous years. But when compared to Fairfax and other surrounding districts, we're doing considerably better than them. So we're in one respect where we're doing pretty well when compared to other local comparators and the nationwide averages.

[03:14:56] On the other hand, we are we are not totally immune from those effects and are continuing to see difficulties in hiring and retaining teachers. Thank you. So, listen, I certainly. hope something does happen and i think something probably will happen we just have no idea what's the amount and quite frankly you know the truth is that the young administration knew for quite a quite a few quite a long time before they even informed people that informed the public that that mistake had been made and so we know that it was put in the um the makeup was put in

[03:15:35] the senate budget we know that to cover the 24 we know that something was put in the house budget but they all chose to pass the skinny budget, which is the skinniest budget I've ever seen in my life. I mean, it is really, really, like, skinny. And so they could have fixed this. We don't have to be sitting here. They could have fixed it. As much as I want to do it, I just cannot in good conscience sit here and say that I'm going to cover the shortfall that the state has put in place. It is their responsibility to do that. Now, what I will say is this,

[03:16:11] If they don't do it and we have to come back and do something else with fund balance, I will do that. I will do that. But right now, I need to put the ball in the court where it belongs, and that is in the General Assembly and the Yonkin administration, because that's where this belongs.

[03:16:29] And with a $3 billion surplus, that is where it belongs. So if we have to come back, we will. If we have to talk, have a discussion and fund balance, we will. But right now, I'm not going to cover that amount. Mr. Sorokin, do you have something you want to add? Thank you, Madam Chair. I just, I did, it was in the letter today, but I also did want to mention one thing we are suggesting is that if the Board of Supervisors does provide additional funds to cover that shortfall, that if the state then makes up that difference, that we would return that excess fund.

[03:16:59] Sure, I know. I mean, I think you don't have, I think legally you have to return it. I don't think it's up in the option. So I appreciate you putting in the letter, but I don't think it's an option for LCPS to do that. But it still just lets them off the hook in ways that I don't feel like I can do that right now. But we will come back.

[03:17:15] In other words, I guess I'm saying this. State might leave you short. In the end, we won't, but we can't do it. But I don't think I can do that right now. All right. So if we need motions, then because there are no motions in the package. You all know that, right?

[03:17:35] Well, I guess, yeah, the wrap-up budget does the whole thing. So we're not doing collective bargaining right now. The wrap-up does the gap, the split. That's a better way to say it.

[03:17:52] And so I don't have a motion, any other motion to make right now, knowing what I'm going to do. I don't need to make a motion right now. So I will hand that off to anyone who may have a motion and say thank you. Ms. Bricks, when your light came on first. Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[03:18:10] I'll just try to do this on the fly. I move that the Board of Supervisors increases its year-over-year transfer to LCPS to $81.5 million. I'm not sure.

[03:18:27] Wait. Is that, Ms. Bixman, help me understand what you just did. Were you trying to make up the 6.2? Yes. You're trying to do the 6.40 split? My intention is to make up for the 6.2 local funding gap that we had. That's, I'm sorry? That is the?

[03:18:45] Yes, your motion could be that or just increase the year-over-year transfer by $6.2 million. Okay, I move that Board of Supervisors increases our year-over-year transfer by $6.2 million to LCPS. Okay. Okay, outside of what's already in the request, you're saying increase it by $6.2 million on top of what the request is.

[03:19:07] On top of the 60-40 split. Yes, that's above the 60-40. I just want to make sure that I know what she's saying. Yes, yes, I just want to cover the local funding gap. Yes. I'm really, really, well. Yes, I understand what you're saying. I'm sorry. And it was seconded by Ms. Glass, so now you actually have an opening.

[03:19:22] Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair. Right. So my intention with this motion is to at least cover what we thought was the local funding gap to get us there. I am so torn about what to do about this because I really am not holding out hope that the state is going to come close to fixing the problem, even though they have a $3 billion surplus.

[03:19:55] I find it unnerving. It's not right. But I think we can do this at least to cover what was maybe kind of considered our responsibility in the first place that we you know when we were talking to you guys about the 60-40 split you tried to come in with you know on the 60-40 split recommendation um i feel like you guys made every effort to do that and so um hoping this will get us a little bit farther along and i'm hopeful that you and our other school board members fairfax prince william whoever is facing something similar

[03:20:32] can get together and, as Supervisor LeTrono said, get together with your counterparts in the General Assembly to really put some pressure on this administration to use the $3 billion gap. And I'm actually disgusted by what Ms. Willoughby shared with us, that, in fact, there was an increase in tax revenue that the state is holding back from us right now.

[03:21:00] That's just incredible. That's unprecedented. That literally tax revenue that under every other administration would have gone to local schools on a regular basis is being withheld in Richmond. So I hope my colleagues can support this motion.

[03:21:22] Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau. Thank you. I will not support the motion. I was prepared this evening to add funding in to close the gap. We added about $1.5 million in funding that I voted against earlier tonight.

[03:21:38] As the chair says, you vote with intention. I would have been able to get up to $4.9 million of that 6.2. I could have supported tonight, but the board made other choices and decisions. I think the budget is priorities, so I would have prioritized some of the school funding over some of the things that the board funded previously, which is why I didn't vote for those things.

[03:22:05] So I'll see where I end up in the final analysis of the whole budget. But that's, unfortunately, when things start going a different direction than you want to go with the budget, then you end up in these kind of situations. I do think it would be important for future discussions for the school staff and the county staff to sort of get together on how we're defining one-time purchases.

[03:22:31] Because I think that $2 million is something close to what's in your budget for capital outlays. But I think there are purchases that could qualify under the county's general practice that the county itself has done that are outside of that. So I want to make sure if we're in that situation, we are communicating about that so that we can provide additional funding during fund balance should the state not do that.

[03:22:56] And, you know, we can look at exactly what is defined on our policy. And if we have to get really granular, we can and be creative about a way to try to help make up funding if that doesn't happen. because I don't want you to be that far short of funding. But I also think if the county just simply steps up and funds it, then the state's never going to fix it.

[03:23:17] You know, reading tea leaves is very difficult, but I'm willing to help, if I can, on this side of the aisle with our legislators understanding this problem. If there needs to be a letter to the administration, I'm willing to do that. And perhaps my colleagues on the board on this side of the aisle would as well.

[03:23:35] Things like that that we can do to be helpful, I would be happy to do that. So, Turner, again, in your time, let me understand what you just said. Did you say you'd be willing to support 4.9? Because that would just, it would change the tax rate no matter what, whether it's 6.8.

[03:23:51] No, going into this evening, if you, we just added 1.5, plus we had 3.1. So I voted, just voted against 1.5. Okay, okay, okay. Precisely because I wanted to give it to them. Okay. You're saying going into the vote. Okay, I understand.

[03:24:07] I'm sorry, I misunderstood you. Thank you for that. Mr. Buckington, I think, was next. Thank you, Madam Chair. Supervisor Letourneau, I'm happy to sign a letter to the governor. They need to pay their bills. We shouldn't have to always be fixing their problems when they underfund these things. Madam Chair, can I ask Mr. Hemstreet, Chris?

[03:24:24] Absolutely. Mr. Hemstreet or whomever from county staff would be best to answer this, going back a moment to the idea of if LCPS somehow gets overfunded, In other words, we cover the gap, and then the state also fixes their problem.

[03:24:43] They end up with more than they ever expected or anticipated. My understanding is there would be no responsibility other than their word, and I trust you, Chair Sorokin, 100% that you mean what you say. But legally, would they be required to return any of that funding, the additional funding to us?

[03:25:01] Because I don't think they would be. Yeah, Chair Randall. Yes, Mr. Amster. So the way I interpreted the letter from Dr. Smith was that we would know prior to July 1st whether or not the state funded the budget.

[03:25:21] And so I think with the request here is to cover that gap, we can always amend the budget prior to July 1st to lower the amount that's going to the school division, you know, dollar for dollar for whatever the state provided.

[03:25:38] And my interpretation of their letter is that they're saying they're okay with that, that they would fully support that motion. So I would ask them to confirm that, but that's my understanding of Dr. Smith and Chair Sirach. Thank you, Mr. Hemstreet. I understand that. I agree with Supervisor LeTurneau, though. If the state sees that we've funded the gap, why would they do it?

[03:25:57] I don't see that happening. So I'd rather not show them that we're funding the gap and then talk about that later if we need to, if they don't fix their own math problem, their problem, and I say that purposely. If they don't fix their problem, then we'll deal with talking about that and how we might fix that.

[03:26:16] For right now, I'm with Chair Randall on this. I'm happy with the 60-40 split. I think we need to pressure the state to fix their problem and not have us fixing their problem like we pretty much always do every year with lots of departments and lots of constitutional offices and all of this.

[03:26:33] It's extremely frustrating when they don't pay their bills. They are able to claim that they cut taxes, and then really what happens is the localities make up the difference. I also think your enrollment is not going to come out to what you anticipate.

[03:26:49] I think there's going to be a big savings there. If, for instance, you were just flat and enrollment stays the same for next year, that's $16.5 million in savings from what you've asked for at the $19,903 per pupil.

[03:27:05] Again, I do think the state is going to fix some, if not all, of their problem. I don't think they want to have this, you know, on them when they don't do that. So as far as collective bargaining, I didn't support it on our side, so I wouldn't be supporting it on your side.

[03:27:22] Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner? Thank you, Madam Chair. This discussion is obviously very interesting. None of these decisions are easy. We obviously hold the purse in this particular case, and we have to make tough decisions. um by from department department and now obviously with you as the school board and members of the our london county public school system in front of us and obviously we want to make sure you are adequately funded um but we also have to kind of balance these things i first of all i want to say we made a decision last year as a board to do a 60 40 split that's a policy that we made i think for us to suddenly run away from that because we're having some budgetary

[03:28:01] issues there's a little bit of a shortfall plus the states um in this this state of limbo i think that is a mistake for us to do. I do think we have some, as Mr. Letourneau said, we do have some backup, and that is in terms of maybe using some fund balance, quite frankly, for some of those one-term things, we could come back if we see there's a real crisis. I find it really hard to believe we only have $2.6 million that we could potentially pay one time, especially given the statement that there was over $20 million, or I think it was around $20 million spent kind of at the end of the year last year, and maybe those weren't one-time expenses and costs. So I'm not

[03:28:39] comfortable with this motion for some of those reasons I stated I'm pretty confident and I think we would be doing ourselves a disservice by funding the the gap that the state budget currently has created because it puts no pressure whatsoever and I will remind everybody how budgets are made yes a budget is sent over by the governor but it is the state legislature that decide and ultimately send it up to the governor so there was obviously an operating budget to suggest that was someone was doing this where it's doing this intentionally I think is uh not not not helping the process

[03:29:18] because clearly it is laid out in the letter this was a it was a budget I'm confident they're going to fix it in April we can't know that for sure and if they fail to do so when we as a board want to help with some one-time funding through fund balance I think we can do that at that time so I won't support this motion as it's currently presented I had kind of similarly voted and counted up my votes, as Mr. Letourneau did, and I think staying within the current rate that we are now is probably really smart, and to stay within our policy of the 60-40 split, which we just started last year, and now we're talking about going far afield of that. So, thank you.

[03:29:56] Thank you. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. My comments are good news, bad news. I'll try and split it 150 for each, or 130 for each. The good news is, kudos to everybody at the table. the strategic plan you laid out of our joint meeting with superb this is the best budget presentation I've heard since I've been a supervisor from London County Public Schools just the tenor alone in the conversation up here is the best I've seen in three years of being at four years now I guess of this process thank you all very much for the hard work you put into this I think you're on

[03:30:33] the right track I think you've turned a corner and I'm very very pleased I'm I'm very happy to support this motion and close the gap. I tend to agree with Supervisor Kirshner that we set the 60-40 limit. But if your request wasn't based on what I think is really solid metrics and analysis and data, then I probably would take a second look.

[03:30:55] But I really, really appreciate the work you put into it, and I'm very happy with this, the bad news. This governor calls himself the education governor and has ad nauseum since the day he was elected. It's a joke. It's a farce. It's been a farce since day one.

[03:31:14] I tried to tune in. I managed the last 20 minutes into the Jake Tapper, Yunkin for President 24 infomercial the other night, and I never heard so many distortions and just flat-out lies by the education governor. An error that remains uncorrected by a person who has the fiscal power to fix that error is no longer an error.

[03:31:37] It's a malevolent act against Virginia communities. He better fix this problem. It's an amateur hour error. And do not be even remotely persuaded that this is just a fluke and that Loudoun County just happens to now have to eat a $13 million mistake.

[03:31:56] It's no longer a mistake. He had an opportunity in the skinny budget or the budget or whatever he does to fix this, and he chose not to do it. I think my colleagues are in la-la land if they think this governor, who is anything but an education governor, is going to fix this problem.

[03:32:12] He is expecting us to clean up his mess, and I am not with Chair Randall on this. I will give up one dime of county dollars when you pry my cold, dead fingers from the county checkbook at the end of this process. This is his problem, and he can clean it up.

[03:32:27] I am happy to put in an extra $6.2 million to reward you for terrific work. But this is Governor Youngkin's, the education governor's problem, and he damn well better fix it. Thank you. Ms. Gliss? Thank you, Madam Chair.

[03:32:44] I don't think I'm as intense as Supervisor Turner. But I just want to say thank you all for coming here. And I would agree that the budget that you had given us is fantastic. It is the best that I've seen in my short three years of being supervisor.

[03:33:06] And I really appreciate that you all have looked at the budget and you've made those changes. And when you said 90% of the funding goes to the educators and to our staff, I just can't say, you know, I can't say that, you know, I'm not going to vote for it.

[03:33:27] Because we are talking about our hardworking educators, people that take care of our students, that do the best, that go the extra yard to get things done. And I just appreciate all that you are doing.

[03:33:45] Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Comas. Mr. Kirsten, just to be sure, this did not happen because Governor Youngkin sent over a budget for the General Assembly to vote on. The Department of Education, the VOE, made the mistake well before a budget was ever sent over, and it could have been corrected by that same department if Governor Youngkin hadn't instructed them, too.

[03:34:09] He did not. So this has nothing to do with a budget that he sent over. That's not how that worked. That's not just what just happened. This was done well before the budget and the budget conferees ever went into session. So let's be real clear about that, and let's not start rewriting history on what just happened.

[03:34:28] Having said that, as thrilled as I am with this whole process, and thank you all so much, the truth is we did actually come over, I mean, like, literally come over to you all and say, we're going to do a 60-40 split, and then ask you all to take it back to your board and vote on it and get back to us and all that jazz.

[03:34:50] And I did go back and look, and with respect, you weren't the chair then, Mrs. O'Rocket, so you may not know this, but it was many, many, many weeks before anyone got back to us when we presented that to the former school board chair.

[03:35:08] And so then we made a vote to do a 60-40 split, having not heard anything from the school, from LCPS. After we made that vote, then we did hear from LCPS. And so I don't really know that I want to change our new policy position either, but I will do this.

[03:35:24] If this vote does not pass, I will make a motion for $3 million, which then, by doing that, that won't change our tax rate at all, and it gets you guys $3 million closer on a $6 million budget shortfall.

[03:35:44] I'll make that motion if this motion doesn't pass. I understand Mr. Turner's statement, and I understand his passion, but the truth is less than $13 million is a lot of money, and I think it would behoove a lot of people to make sure that everyone knows what happened in this budget process with the governor when that comes time.

[03:36:05] But I certainly wouldn't take it out of LCPS because of what Mr. Yunkin did or didn't do incorrectly. So you wouldn't have to pry it out of my coat, dead hand, or checkbook, or whatever he just said over there.

[03:36:21] That wouldn't be necessary. But I do want to try to, for at least one year, I do want to try to stick to what we agreed to do, the 60-40 split plus another $3 million because, again, another $3 million won't change our tax rate. And so if this motion doesn't pass, I will make that next motion, and that gets you all very, very, very close. So thank you. Julie, I'm sorry. God, I'm so sorry. Ms. Bricksman, I'm so sorry.

[03:36:49] Would you like to make a closing remarks of Ms. Bricksman? I would. Thank you, Madam Chair. If I could ask staff a quick question, a half cent is about $6.2 million, so that's what we would need to 6.5 6.5 million so we would need to increase by a half cent a half cent would cost the average household in um loudon county how much 35 per 35 35 a year yes okay so we're talking 30

[03:37:24] that's like that's barely even a dinner um and i know that things are tight for everybody right now but 35 we're talking 35 for the average household in order to close the local funding gap for our school system and tell our community that we care about our kids, we care about the folks who work hard every day, get up early every morning to go and teach our kids, the counselors that get up early every morning and want to help our kids who might have suicidal ideology, who

[03:38:00] might be dealing with all kinds of issues at home, $35 a household. And let's also remember, this is not the 13 million gap from the General Assembly. This was already a local funding gap before we started this process. I'm with Mr. Turner. I don't want to fix the General Assembly or Governor Youngkin's mistake, but I think that we can do something, at least, to close the gap that we already knew was going to be there. And, you know, to Mr. Turner's comments, you know, the governor

[03:38:39] might say education every once in a while, but make no mistake. He's calling himself the parents rights governor so that he can delegitimize and defund education public education at the detriment of our families and our communities so i hope that we can stomach 35 for the average household in the next year i hope my colleagues can support this thank you okay motion was made by supervisor brixman second by supervisor glass all in favor please say aye oppose nay um so i

[03:39:17] I think that was Mr. Turner, Ms. Brixman, and Ms. Glass that voted aye. Is that correct? Am I wrong? I think that's correct.

[03:39:34] I think that's correct. Yeah. So it's 351. Yeah. 351. Yeah. Yep. All right. So I'm going to make a motion. I'm going to make a motion to add $3 million.

[03:39:50] No, it won't. Oh. No, it says available tax. $3 million. Yeah. I keep telling y'all, listen, if you're going to help me, you've got to be right if you're going to help me.

[03:40:10] Don't help me and be wrong. I can be wrong all by myself. So I'm going to make a motion to increase the funding gap by $3 million. Motion's made and seconded really quick by Mr. Letourneau.

[03:40:28] Okay. Ms. Bricksman, you almost had me without comfort with that discussion. I think you make a point when you say $35. First of all, I think $35 in a vacuum with nothing else going on, okay. But I think that this year people have experienced so many $35 that those $35 after a while add up.

[03:40:51] And so I do respect what you're saying and respect what you're doing. But the number of people who I've talked to who have just really are having a hard time is just, you know, very, very a lot.

[03:41:07] And for our school's budget, what is the total budget? I believe it's $1.67 billion. $1.67 billion. Yes. So for $1.67 billion, a $3 million gap is, I don't think, unreasonable.

[03:41:28] You know, people always say to me, you know, will you fully fund the budget? And my response is always the same. It is, I will adequately fund the budget. I do believe that leaving a $3 million gap in a $1.67 billion budget does adequately fund the budget, to be honest.

[03:41:45] And so I think it's a difficult year for a lot of people, for a lot of things. And if I can save someone one more $35, I'll do it. I will say, and I'm not kidding when I say this, in my lifetime, I couldn't have put my hand, not right now, thank God, In my lifetime, I couldn't have put my hand on $35 to save my life.

[03:42:10] I really couldn't. I've been there before where $35 was not available to me at all and not to eat, literally not to eat. And so I don't take small amounts of money for granted because I have been in situations where I needed to eat and didn't have $5.

[03:42:32] I've been there before. I have been there before. So I don't take these numbers for granted. And I'm not saying anybody else does either. I'm just saying those $35 amounts add up and add up and add up and add up and add up. We have groceries when you have gas, when you have all types of other fees.

[03:42:48] Heck, try to buy eggs right now. That stuff adds up. So it's just very tough. And so I'm going to leave it at the $3 million difference. And I do appreciate you all so much. Thank you. Mr. Letourneau?

[03:43:03] Yeah, I'll just make the point. It's not just $35. So this budget that we're looking at right now is an average of 300, I believe, staff can correct me, I think it's a $340 increase overall, which is the largest it's been in quite a while.

[03:43:19] And that's a significant amount of money. The problem with these is we always deal with averages, but that's not how assessments work. So we have people out there for whom this is easily double because their assessment was higher. And, yeah, they have a higher value and all this stuff, but that doesn't help them when it's time to pay the bill.

[03:43:35] The other point I will make is I believe there was something like 32 increased options that were given to us from county staff for what they were asking us to consider. I don't know what the final number is that we funded, but it was less of a percentage than the $3 million gap is of the $1.67 billion budget, to put it that way.

[03:44:01] I think the thing with a budget is everybody walks away with hopefully what they need, but not necessarily everything they want. And that's certainly true on the county side this year. In fact, the county administrator did not even do what he typically does, which is include every departmental request, I believe, in the budget.

[03:44:25] He picks only those things that were the most worthy. So we didn't, we went, that's not our normal process. We usually listen to every department. And we didn't this year because we knew we couldn't fund it all. So I think we're trying to get close.

[03:44:41] Like I said, I appreciate everybody's upset about the error. I am too. I'm not sure that some of the speechifying is going to help us solve it. So maybe we can save that for a little later if it doesn't get solved. But in the meantime, I will do what I can to try to solve it. And that includes talking to people on my side of the political aisle, because this is not a partisan thing.

[03:45:02] This is a county issue now. It is a county problem to solve, regardless of how we got here, and we can do the blame game whenever we want. But let's try to solve it. That's why I think most of us ran for office, so let's try to do that, and let's work with our school board counterparts on that, and then see if we can get somewhere on that side of it.

[03:45:22] But I will support this motion. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner? Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I will support this motion, largely because we're going to stay within, I think, you know, we've moved up a little bit here. I think that would, the previous motion would have brought us to $375 on the average above.

[03:45:39] I appreciate what Mr. Letourneau had to say about number of, you know, taxes people are going to have to pay as a result of, you know, this whole budget process. But when you really look at it, I think this is largely driven by inflation, this current budget. And so we have to kind of parse out the limited resources we have.

[03:45:57] And so I think by giving some to the school, if we do decide when we go to address fund balance that the $2.6 million one-time spending, maybe that's something we could potentially fund. That would bring it up to $5.5 million and nearly to the $7 million that was suggested.

[03:46:14] I think we can certainly address that at that time. We'll know a little more, I think, as we get into the next month or two as to what the state's going to actually do. So I think we have a lot of options, but this gives some money towards kind of where that gap is that you've presented to us and with possibilities into the next month or so.

[03:46:33] And that's all I'm going to say. Thanks. Mr. Buffington? He threw me off with that. I thought I had like another 30 seconds to think about what I was going to say and get everything situated. It's $35 with just this change, but that doesn't account for the increase in real estate assessments.

[03:46:56] And so, as Supervisor Letourneau said, it ends up being a lot more than $35 on average. And as Chair Sorotkin knows, in the Blue Ridge District, it's a lot higher than that. And when you're talking the average, it can be double that for some people. And it's heavily double that throughout a lot of our districts.

[03:47:15] So it's a lot more than $35 that we're talking about. And Chair Randall, if I can ask Mr. Hemstreet another question, that average that we're talking about, can I? Yes, absolutely. That average that we're talking about, the number $35 that you're giving per half cent, that doesn't account for people who live in towns that pay county taxes and town taxes like I do, and Chair Sorokin.

[03:47:38] That's correct. That's just the county tax. So I pay full county taxes and full town of Purcellville, Texas. And a lot of people pay full county taxes and full town of, you name it, taxes. So I don't take the $35 so lightly.

[03:47:55] I don't take the increase so lightly as Supervisor Brisbane seems to this time. I wanted to stay at 87 cents overall. And so, you know, this will be almost a penny over that.

[03:48:11] This will be a penny over that. It's a half penny. It's a half penny over that. You just showed me that. disregard my last i'm tired anyway it's more than i'm comfortable with but the real reason is that i i really don't think they're going to get to the enrollment numbers i think there's going to be savings there i think the state is going to fix most or all of their issue i think you're going to end up with more money than you thought and no gap at all thank you even at the 60 40 thank you so um again you know we we did put this in place last year and i think we the 60 40 and so

[03:48:50] We're $3 million over the 60-40 right now, and I do want to just see how this kind of comes out. And so I don't want to put a policy in place the first year that we go beyond the first year if we don't have to.

[03:49:06] We don't have to go further beyond it. And with due respect to everyone who's going to send me an email tomorrow, I think that on a $1.67 billion budget, $3 million is very much adequately funding the budget, and I'm always very careful to say adequately funding the budget.

[03:49:25] In my last two minutes, I do want to say that, you know, our educators are everyday heroes. They really are. It is the things that have been said to and about our educators this year are absolutely deplorable.

[03:49:44] I have a brother-in-law who is a high school teacher in another state, and my sister caught me last night, and he was attacked by one of his students, this high school student, and pretty seriously hurt. And I just thought, my gosh, this is what we ask our teachers to do now, our educators.

[03:50:01] We ask them to be therapists and nurses and counselors. And what we ask of them is so much more than just teach. And they meet it. They meet it all the time. And so for all the ridiculously horrible, untrue things said about educators overall,

[03:50:25] I want to say that, you know, people who say something sometimes are loud, and in their loudness can be pretty ignorant, but most people, and I do mean the vast majority of people, know what a hard job it is to be an educator, and we appreciate you so much.

[03:50:44] I don't think that is said nearly enough. We appreciate you so much day in and day out. Most educators spend more time with your children than you spend with your own children during the week. Maybe not the weekends, but during the week, more wake hours at least, more wake hours.

[03:51:00] So I don't think we've talked about a lot of things tonight, but we haven't mentioned the boots on the ground in our schools. And that is not just teachers, but educators and all staff and all that they do. So I wanted to thank you all for the amazing process, but also say that about them tonight as well.

[03:51:20] All right, I made a motion to add $3 million. The motion was seconded by Mr. Letourneau. All in favor to say aye. Any opposed? Chance the tax rate? Okay, nay, nay, nay. Okay, nay, nay, nay.

[03:51:35] Is the nay's the answer? Nay's still the answer. That motion will pass 7-1-1 with Mr. Buffington being a nay and Ms. Umstead not being on the dais. So it's 947. I'm sorry we kept you so late. Have a good evening and thank you.

[03:51:52] Madam Chair. Yes, you have something for them? Well, I wanted to do a motion that endorses. He wants to do, he wants, Mr. Sains, it will come back to us, Mr. Sains. Well, but they're not, well, before their vote?

[03:52:11] It's the collective bargaining issue. It'll come back to us after they vote and we will do it at that time. You want to just say, you want to show them what we're going to do. Yes, so what I would like to do, I'd like to make a motion to endorse Dr. Smith's recommendation, our LCPS's status recommendation to the school board for them to use their fund balance to fund the collective bargaining if the school board votes for it.

[03:52:37] Second. So again, it's just to show that we support the LCPS status recommendation to the school board for the funding for collective bargaining if the school board does end up voting for it using their fund balance. Mr. Turner? Mr. Letourneau my thoughts are collective bargaining are pretty well known on the board so I do not want to encourage them to adopt collective bargaining however should they do that I do prefer this approach to funding it so I think I shall abstain from the votes given that

[03:53:14] position anybody else all right um ditto what Mr. Saints just said and I very much support collective bargaining. All in favor say aye. Opposed? Abstaining? Okay. So that motion will pass 5-2-1-1 with Mr. Umstead not being here and Mr. Letourne abstaining. All right.

[03:53:41] I think that's it now for sure. So thank you all very much for being here. We appreciate you very much. Good night. Okay. Are there any... Before we do a wrap-up motion, I think there's some other motions on the dais from past...

[03:54:01] things. And I'll go first to Mr. Turner because his light is on. Thank you, Madam Chair. I've added up all three motions. I think we're going to get in squeaking under the 573, so we'll keep track. I move that the Board of Supervisors fund for Parks, Rec, and Community Services the older resources case manager for 107, 737. Second. I'll give it to Ms. Bricksman.

[03:54:40] It's her birthday, so that's why she's getting all the seconds it's her birthday Mr. Turner would you like to make a motion I mean would you like to speak on the motion yeah if you read the verbiage behind this this failed on a four on a tie vote the first time it came up I'm asking for reconsideration if you read in the background Parks and Rec is really backed up on elder cases and elder service the key thing that jumped out at me was they're they're working on average per year with 600 caregivers um there's probably not a month that I live in Lansdowne Woods where I don't have a resident come up to me and talk about the need for more elder care attention in Parks and Rec.

[03:55:18] And it's not done in any kind of a nasty way. It's just that it's clear that the community that I live in is sensitive to this. So I don't think this is an unreasonable request, and I would like to resubmit it to the board for consideration. Thank you. Thank you.

[03:55:34] Mr. Letourneau. Thank you. I was not here for this vote this first time. Supervisor Turner did try to bring it back that night and I did not vote for that because I had not seen the discussion or the presentation or the reasoning why some of my colleagues did not support it. Having seen all that, I will support the motion.

[03:55:52] I will just say that we just discussed the $1.7 billion school budget, but we do have a lot of seniors in our community. We don't spend a fraction of it on them, of course. And so if PRCS comes forward with this as a pressing need um then i will take that seriously and fund it and it's getting late somewhere in here there's probably a supervisor turner elder resources joke but i'm not gonna wow it's not your birthday that's what happens when it's not your it's not your birthday man

[03:56:28] um mr kirschner yeah i did not vote for this originally um largely because as i go through budget you just don't know how things are going to accumulate I think we will be able to stay within our current tax rate right now I you know you always kind of feel a little bad one of the resource requests comes forward for a department that you really appreciate all the hard work that they do I will support this motion given where we are in the budget process in large part deferring to the gentleman from Ashburn on this it was there though it was there it was there it was right there

[03:57:09] I wasn't here for this vote. I would have supported it at the time so he wouldn't have to be back here because it wouldn't have passed if I'd been here. I will, in defense of you, Mr. Turner, say that I don't think anybody else on this day has could ride a bike 15 miles in one day and do all the...

[03:57:27] I think you're probably in the best shape of anybody on this board, and I know you're in better shape than me. So quite frankly, it's kind of impressive, to be honest. All right, would you like a closing? very briefly no no i was walking maggie today and i walked in front of the house and right behind her backyard and all of a sudden she opened her back sliding window and said get off my grass you stupid old man and i looked at her and i walked away with maggie who hadn't done anything and i thought the stupid doesn't bother me but the old man

[03:58:05] I've become very sensitive to those statements. She was in your community? She did. She's your age. I know it. Well, now, now. She's your age. I think we'll move on. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[03:58:22] All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 801. Mr. Torben, you didn't say a word. There you go. Thank you, sir. Any other motions on the dais? Any other wrap-up motions?

[03:58:40] I have a wrap-up motion. You have a wrap-up motion. Let me see it. Why don't I have it? Oh, the office staff budget motion is not a wrap-up motion. Yes, we have to do it now.

[03:58:58] We're $265,000, so if we want to, yeah, yes, make the motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move the Board of Supervisors increase each board district budget and the chair-at-large budget by $70,000 annually by the implementation, but implementing it for January 1st, 2024, in the amount of $35,000 for a total FY 2024 impact of $315,000.

[03:59:26] So I know when we went through, given the recent census and went through, and each office is very different in terms of their needs, but I know specifically for the need of the Catoctin office, we are pretty slammed in terms of the amount of work, constituent outreach.

[03:59:48] There's been no significant increase in the office budgets since I've certainly been on the board. I think this is maybe one every four-year thing that we look at in terms of do the supervisor's office budgets. This is not for us as supervisors individually, but just a slight increase in the actual budget for the supervisor's office.

[04:00:09] So this would start in FY20, or this would start in January of the FY2024, so it would have far less impact on this year's budget in whole. So I hope the supervisors here on this board will support it. You know what your needs are within your particular budget, but certainly in the Catoctin District we are in significant need of at least one additional staffer.

[04:00:31] Okay. Ms. Bricksman? Thank you, Madam Chair. My staff and I have talked a couple times about we could at least use another half person, and we've tried to figure out how to do that in the existing budget. and that haven't quite gotten there so I can probably support this motion tonight mr. Kirshner would you accept the friendly amendment we discussed earlier today no I'm sorry I know we talked about that you want to make a standalone all right I'll have to make a standalone motion thanks madam chair

[04:01:08] thank you mr. Turner oh I am a firm believer since I've started this job that the how anybody does this job part-time is beyond me it's just amazing how I'm sorry I'll just say it underpaid the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors this is this is just for staff this is the motion I understand that okay I understand that in the general sense of whether it funds your county staff budget or your county salary which is coming up right behind this we will undoubtedly get inundated with emails how dare we raise our salaries and raise our county budgets. I am telling you, Loudoun County citizens, you are getting a bargain in

[04:01:47] this board and our staff. I work a minimum of a 60-hour week, and I know my colleagues do as well. Extra staff is needed, better salaries are needed, but this incremental increase is well, well, well deserved, and I think well warranted. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Buffington. Yeah, I just want to clarify from the maker of the motion that this could not go towards supervisor salary, correct? No. This is for your staff. Staff office budget. Yeah, so. Thank you for coming. I think staff budgets definitely need to go up because there's so many constituents. You're so busy.

[04:02:24] It's so hard to answer all of the questions that everyone has and properly follow up, and so what this would allow us to do is have, I guess next year, a half an FTE, and then the year after that, whoever's on the board could have probably like a full FTE, and then you could provide better service to your constituents and that's what it's about it's what we're up here to do and we try our best to do that but you know it's it's limited supervisor turner is right that you really are in loud and are getting a bargain because a lot of our comparative jurisdictions are have much

[04:02:58] higher office budgets and so they have a lot more staff that's able to do you know more work and there's only so many hours in the day so this is good for the constituents for the residents of Loudoun County and this is make no mistake about it this money cannot go to board members this is not a staff this is not a this is not a board member pay raise this is board members have more money in their budget to to hire people to help them serve their constituents so I support that

[04:03:30] thank you um I ask my my colleagues in Fairfax how many people each supervisor has and each supervisor has just over 100,000 constituents, and each supervisor has six to seven staff.

[04:03:47] I have 435,000 constituents, and I have three staff. I called the mayor of Richmond and asked him, as mayor, how many people in your county and how many staff you have in your office.

[04:04:04] Richmond has about 253,000 people. Mayor Stoney has in his office 16 office staff in his office. For the size, for the population of the county, I have less staff than anybody in the Commonwealth of Virginia by population for 435,000 people.

[04:04:32] It is impossible to pay people enough. It just is. I lose staff because I can't pay them enough. It is impossible to keep up with the emails. I mean, it's just my, I mean, no kidding. The amount of emails, and I don't mean the emails I can delete or go away.

[04:04:51] I mean, constituent emails or other emails, you cannot keep up. More often than not, if I get off this dais by 8 o'clock, I go back upstairs and spend another two hours in my office. That's why people normally get emails from me at 9.30 at night. because I go back upstairs, I easily, easily work that many hours, 60 plus hours. And my staff is an incredibly hardworking staff. In addition, the staff of the chair does a lot of different things. I mean, Mr. Rogers, my chief of staff, I mean, literally sat with Mr. Reiser to put

[04:05:27] together sister city agreements. We sat for hours and hours and hours on a union ordinance, Whether you like collective bargaining or not, the amount of time that Matt Rogers spent in collective bargaining meetings and for union ordinance was insanely high.

[04:05:43] There is no reason that we have to keep nickel and diming ourselves and losing good staff because they are so, so overworked and, quite frankly, underpaid. And I will say, if I, you know, all of them, Ray Banks and Ken Irwin and, gosh, gosh, Tom Parker, and we have great, Rachel, Rachel Myers, just kidding me, just kidding me.

[04:06:09] We have great staff, great staff, but we overwork them and underpay them, and we need to do better, Loudoun County. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. No, Matt. No, ma'am. All people say aye. Any opposed?

[04:06:27] That motion will pass 801. I'm just going to watch the Tote Board do the Tote Board thing. Okay, is there another motion on the days?

[04:06:46] Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move the Board of Supervisors set the Board of Supervisors 2024-2027 term maximum annual salaries with an additional increase of $5,000 for a fiscal year 2024 impact of $24,211.

[04:07:06] Motion is made and seconded by Supervisor Glass, Ms. Bricksman. thank you madam chair um i fully agree we shouldn't be nickel and diming our staff and i think that we should not be nickel and diming the the people that actually serve in these seats um one shouldn't have to be retired dual income independently wealthy or have to kill themselves working two full-time jobs um to serve on this board uh i think that you know the folks that serve on this board and again we if we do this tonight it doesn't count until 2024 so um but i I really think that we should be, that the Board of Supervisors, whoever sits here, should be getting paid a fair wage.

[04:07:45] Fairfax just went to $130,000 for a district supervisor. I spoke with a friend of mine in Montgomery County today, and they're at $156,000 per district supervisor. So it's not a huge increase for the 24 budget. The thing that we just voted on increased the 24 budget by $315,000, increased our board office budgets by 35%.

[04:08:06] This would be an impact of $24,000, and it will be an increase overall, including what we already did in January, of 14% only, and even less for the chair and the vice chair. We have one shot to do this right now. We have to do it before July 31st if the board were to do that.

[04:08:26] I think that we actually could increase office budgets, though, midterm if the future boards would want to. And to what we were saying about the time required to serve in these seats and to appropriately represent Loudoun County, if anyone would like to talk to me about that, I'd be happy to discuss that with them, but we have a lot of required board meetings, public hearings at night, committee meetings at night, as well as regional assignments, state assignments, and we really should be representing the county regionally and nationally, and it takes time

[04:09:01] to be able to do that, and it's hard to do it when you have another full-time job and a family as well. And I'll just state that, for example, because I am a member of the National Association of Counties, serve on two committees, the child care needs assessment happened. That never would have happened if I wasn't going to the national conference and the annual conference with the National Association of Counties. And to do these jobs part-time, it's really, really hard to be representing our county appropriately at all those levels. So I would really appreciate my

[04:09:36] colleagues' support on this. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Laterno. Thank you. I will not support the motion. We had a discussion about this earlier in the year. I think we had a good discussion, a comprehensive discussion about salaries. There was a lot of thought put into it. It was a proposal by Supervisor Saints. And then I made the point at the meeting, we had actually talked about adopting it at the same meeting it was introduced this is a topic that the public cares about that we deserve to have scrutiny about it's our salaries not necessarily all of us but it's the next term

[04:10:11] salaries and so we decided to wait until the next meeting and publicize the fact that we were having this discussion certainly I don't think anybody expected this item to come back given that the board had already made a decision and I'm not aware of any prior notice other than a few hours today perhaps to a few people that it was coming back Fairfax County has not adopted a new salary structure yet it was proposed that's going to go to a public discussion pretty comprehensive one from what I'm seeing there's quite a strong feelings about it we'll see how they work out

[04:10:49] we did increase the salaries by over seven and a half percent that's greater than what the county employees received. Now, it made sense to do that, understanding the totality of where we were. But, you know, most folks aren't getting huge raises this year, even with inflation. I will tell you that in my private sector job, I got less than what the county employees got, and I think that's pretty normal. So, you know, I think the number we landed on was fair and reasonable considering where we were we did a big reset at the beginning of the last term um which is actually

[04:11:26] what fairfax is trying to do now i think the way that we did it where there is a little bit of a cost of living adjustment every year is a good way to do it it was baked into it um and so um i'm not going to support this tonight especially given the fact that there was no notice or anything about this discussion and it's really not an item for um anybody would expect it's not to be a a budget item. Mr. Sains. Mr. Buffington. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not going to support the motion. It's no surprise to Supervisor Brissman we talked about this. You know, I feel like,

[04:12:05] you know, do supervisors deserve an extra $5,000 based on how much effort goes into this job? Probably. Is it for the people who are on the board right now if this does pass? No. It's for whoever gets elected or reelected to the next board but that being said I feel like if we were going to do this extra amount we should have done it a month or so ago whatever it was when we when we did it and we did went through the public process and everybody had an opportunity to come in here and talk to us about it let us know how they feel I just think it's a bad look because

[04:12:40] not long ago we did this already and so I don't think we should do it again right now here tonight Thanks. Thank you, Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to abstain from this vote as I did before during the discussion. And the reason is not because I support it or oppose it.

[04:12:55] I personally feel amply compensated for a lot of the work we do. I know it is a very hard job. I know it's a lot of work. Just being a farm boy, you grow up expecting to work really, really hard. And I do believe that a worker is worthy of their hire.

[04:13:13] But I can't speak for the other supervisor's office. And so I just, I want to abstain from this vote. I did ask last time if I was able to take any increase that did come to me and the supervisor of ours and turn it back over. My understanding, we can return some of that to the general fund.

[04:13:29] So certainly, if I am fortunate enough to be in office in January of next year, I'm going to look at those various options. So we'll see if this passes. Mr. Sains. Thank you, Madam Chair. It would be no surprise to Supervisor Brisbane.

[04:13:44] I'm not going to be supporting this motion. had a conversation about it when she reached out to me and let me know she was bringing this motion forward. I would pretty much echo everything that Supervisor Letourneau said. We had this discussion earlier on this year. It was a good discussion, had the public hearing, and I think it was the numbers that we landed on were appropriate. Do we put in a lot of hours of work in these positions? Yes, we do, but I think what we did earlier this year is at the right

[04:14:16] number for the next term to kick in so I cannot support this at this time thank you so I think it's I I honestly believe that a board with the county of this side with a budget this big is is a board that should be paid more I just do it doesn't matter who's on this day is I think the board should be should be paid more I think also increasing salaries will give people more people and option to run for the positions, and the problem is we're all scared to do it because

[04:14:53] it's an election year, and we believe we're going to get thumped about it from the public. I don't know one person on this dais who doesn't think, because we've had these conversations, that we get paid enough, and I know that because we've had the conversations, and I appreciate that very much. I know even the people who have other jobs on this dais work 37 hours, 37.5, 40 hours in this job.

[04:15:17] I don't honestly know how Mr. Letourneau does it. I think he has a secret twin brother somewhere, for gracious sake. I mean, it's just, it is, it's, because what he does at Ramada is probably more than what he does at this job, to be honest. So I'm going to disagree with Mr. Kirshner.

[04:15:34] I know the chair's job is not compensated correctly. And I remember when we increased the budget before, my predecessor got a hold of me and said, can you make that retroactive? And I was like, we can, but I understand. My issue, my only problem is it hasn't been socialized yet or talked about with the constituents.

[04:15:55] And so I think to do it without having that discussion, we've done that before. We've done something kind of on the last minute that we didn't have a discussion with the constituents. We have until July 31st. I do believe this is something that should go before the constituents. I have as many people, if not more people, tell me y'all should be paid more.

[04:16:14] I do. So it's not that everyone thinks we shouldn't be paid more. We're being greedy. But I do think that this is a discussion that we should have with the constituents. And so I will put it in my newsletter. I will put it on my Facebook page. I will put it out there as far and wide as I possibly can.

[04:16:34] But I don't think to do it tonight is the right way to do it, although I do agree that the compensation for supervisors is not enough. And I don't care who's sitting on this day, I think the compensation should be, wait, I do care who's sitting on this day, let's trace that.

[04:16:53] But overall, I think the compensation should absolutely be more. I think the chair of the county should make something comparable to constitutional officers. I do. I do. I don't, I do. This is a full-time plus, plus, plus, plus job. But I do think it's also appropriate to have the discussion with constituents and residents in advance of doing something.

[04:17:18] So that doesn't mean I won't come back, Ms. Bricksman, and maybe support something before July 31st. Chair Randall? Yes. I just want to clarify. The deadline under the code is July 1st. Okay. Not July 31st. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we still have time.

[04:17:34] That's time. That's time. All right. Ms. Bricks, would you like a closing? Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, with all due respect to my colleague all the way to the right, I started socializing this probably well over a week ago. So, yeah, we texted about it, dude. Anyway, so, you know, I don't appreciate the claims that it's coming out of the blue.

[04:17:58] And it certainly didn't come much later than Supervisor Kirshner's motion that we just passed to increase the office budgets. And the same argument could be made that we aren't socializing this and we're not talking about the constituents about increasing the office budgets, which has a far greater impact on the bottom line and the annual budgets.

[04:18:26] And then I just would like to say one more thing to what Supervisor Letourneau said. The increase, we only have the ability to do it. This board only has the ability to do it for the next board and one time for the next board.

[04:18:42] So I think it's a little disingenuous to compare it to the salaries that we're giving, the raises that our county employees are getting, because they're getting them every year, every year, every year at something like 6%, whereas these seats we're getting a little bit every year.

[04:18:59] But it's like to catch up, you do need to do at least a modest increase for the next board so you don't end up being in the situation you were in 2019 and the situation Fairfax is in right now. Madam Chair, I certainly hope if this doesn't pass tonight that we can bring it back.

[04:19:18] It's seriously such a modest increase. I really don't think that constituents are going to freak out about it. And I'm with you. Every time I tell people what I pay, what we get paid, they say it's ridiculous for the work that we do. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Bricksman.

[04:19:35] All right. motion made by supervisor bricksman and seconded by supervisor glass all the people say aye and pose and abstaining okay so we have three people who said aye mr mr turner miss bricksman and miss glass um and mr bovington rant chair randall mr sayings and mr letourneau I've said no, and Mr. Kirsner abstained, and Ms. Umstead's not here.

[04:20:14] Okay, but I might be—I might be—okay, well, I don't know. I don't know how I'll vote. I don't know, so whatever. I want to socialize it first. All right, there's a wrap-up motion.

[04:20:29] There's a wrap-up motion. Everybody do this. There's a wrap-up motion. I'm with the Board of Supervisors, direct staff to prepare the FY 2024 appropriations resolution. budget on the FY 2020 proposed budget as amended through straw poll votes taken during the March 6th, March 9th, March 13th, and March 16th work session, and with a tax year 2023 real property tax of 88, I'm sorry, 87.5, that is right, 87.5 per $100 of assessed value, and a tax year 2024

[04:21:08] personal property tax rate of $4.15 per $100 of assessed value. I'll give the second to Mr. Turner. First of all, Mr. Hemstreet, this was a tough year. People don't realize how early you start this budget. You started basically in August of the year before, so thank you to you and to your entire staff. Ms. Burke, you are absolutely fabulous, and you do such a good job, and thank

[04:21:42] you so much for all that you do we have we have a lot of staff that you can't see on camera sitting out in the audience right now a lot of department heads and the constitutional officer staff listen we I say it all the time we say it all the time we know that that you all are the ones quite honestly doing doing the doing the heavy lifting I was I was interviewed by Lountain Times mirror a couple of days ago, and he said, like, what's working well in the county?

[04:22:14] What's the best thing in the county? And I said, the staff, and it's the truth, the staff, the staff of this county, you are a public servant. And because I worked in county government, because I'm really involved in VACO, because I'm really involved in NACO, I see other staffs all the time. And so when I say how good our staff is, it's true. But I also hear other people say how good you are. I hear it I hear it all the time.

[04:22:35] I see it in Baker when we have the awards ceremonies. Loudoun County is always mentioned. And so I just cannot thank you all enough. You are public servants, and you go about it every single day during the hard work that needs to be done to serve the people of Loudoun County and sometimes even people beyond the people of Loudoun County.

[04:22:56] So thank you to all of you, but please pass that appreciation on to all of the staff because I know what it is to be a line staff. I was a county line staff for 20 years. I was a county line staff when I got elected to this office.

[04:23:13] And so I really do, I know how hard the jobs are and I know how hard you work. And I know that honestly, many of you can go someplace and be in the private sector for more money. You choose to do this. And it is not lost on me. And I appreciate it very, very much. Thank you. Anybody else?

[04:23:29] Ms. Bricksman. Happy to support the motion, Madam Chair. and I have to apologize to Supervisor Letourneau apparently I did not text him about the sorry about that I thought I did we talked about a lot of stuff over the last week and I thought that was one of them so my apologies. You have to forgive her it's her birthday.

[04:23:46] I will forgive her. Thank you. Happy birthday to Supervisor. I was going to say I do forget things but I think I would have remembered that one. Anyway I will support the motions. Alright. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

[04:24:05] that motion will pass 801 and we are finished with a budget process so supervisors the following budget work sessions are canceled March 18th March 20th March 23rd and March 25th have all been canceled yay

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