Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, FY 2026 Budget Work Session, Monday, March 3, 2025

Date: Monday, March 3, 2025
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 4h 11m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7886
Meeting page: https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/7886

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 2026-10-11. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:07:52] good evening all welcome to the first budget work session the first step in an arduous journey that we take here as a county every year um thank you for all for coming um i just have a couple of administrative announcements to make very briefly and then we will get started pursuant to virginia code 2.2 37 8.3 and the board's rules of order supervisor glass requested to participate in this meeting by electronic communication a physical quorum of the board of supervisors is present in the board room and the board has made arrangements for the voice of supervisor letourneau to be

[00:08:25] heard by all persons in the boardroom supervisor letourneau can you hear us supervisor glass supervisor supervisor glass can you hear us yes i can hear you thank you very much that was a misprint that we meant to say supervisor glass um supervisor glass made this request within the required time frame and the county attorney determined that his request meets the qualifications to participate remotely the board will record in its minutes that supervisor glass participated from a remote location in washington dc due to personal reasons please join me in the pledge of

[00:09:02] allegiance the united states of the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible liberty and justice for all thank you all very much um board members uh i'd like to uh stress the importance of the budget work sessions as the time for us to offer changes additions and deletions to the budget board members should try to offer all desired amendments and ask any

[00:09:37] questions you have during the work sessions please only offer motions that you intend to support so that we can be efficient with our limited time during each session many many years ago there was a habit of board members who would offer motions and then when it came down to the proving the final budget didn't support the motions that they'd offered during the straw poll vote process We do not want to do that, so please only offer motions that you intend to support through the end of the budget.

[00:10:03] In addition, if you'd like to offer motions on items that do not appear in the proposed budget, please work with staff prior to the work session to ensure your motion is accurate and accomplishes your intended result. We have several of those here tonight. When we get to our final vote on April 1st, staff will not be able to make large changes to the budget during the meeting, And the vote on the budget could be delayed if there are substantive changes that were not discussed and voted upon during the work sessions.

[00:10:32] The first up on the agenda is organizational matters. And I'd like, if I could, Ms. Burke, to run through those organizational matters. And then we already have an alternative motion on the dais, which we will take up as soon as we go through the organizational matters.

[00:10:49] The microphone is yours, Ms. Burke. Good evening, Vice Chair Turner and members of the board. We're excited to start FY26 budget deliberations. I'd first just like to reintroduce Mike Frank, sitting next to me, who is our new Assistant Director in the Office of Management and Budget. He supports OMB work on the operating budget as well as revenue forecasting, and he will be at the staff table throughout the budget work sessions with members of his team and department directors. I'll begin my remarks with an overview of this evening's work session packet, which was distributed on Friday. The packet includes responses to just over 30 questions on the operating budget. Responses

[00:11:26] to remaining questions will be included in Wednesday evening's packet ahead of the next operating budget work session on March 6th. The packet also includes responses to questions from the Loudoun County Public Schools. Staff has also received many questions on the CIP, responses to which will be included in the work session packet that will be distributed tomorrow ahead of the Finance Committee's second CIP work session on March 5th.

[00:11:52] The packet also includes item two, budget work sessions organizational matters. The item includes important details about the Tote Board, how motions and straw votes will be tracked, and also includes recommendations for a motion to place the county administrator's proposed budget on the table to begin deliberations at the following tax rates, 80.5 cents for real property, $4.15 for general personal property, $4.15 for personal property on vehicles for tax year 25, and $3.48 for personal property on vehicles for tax year 26.

[00:12:30] Finally, the item includes a second motion that would allow the board to resolve an error in the funding level for the Human Service Nonprofit Grant Program. As staff shares the Tote Board, I'll remind the board that the Tote Board is used to track straw votes and the fiscal impact of those straw votes on the real property tax rate in half penny increments. The value of a half penny of the real property tax rate is $8,650,000 and a full penny is $17.3 million. Currently all available revenue has been programmed. There is no unallocated

[00:13:06] balance of revenue. The county administrator has recommended that the board maintain the proposed personal property tax rates for tax year 26. The board has already set the personal property tax rates for tax year 25. Tax year 26 will be the first time the board intends to establish a separate rate for vehicles with the expected rate change to be significant at 67 cents.

[00:13:29] Further reductions are not recommended. This year the Tote Board will also track the fiscal impact of the board's straw votes on the contribution to the revenue stabilization fund which you can see in row 28 on the screen. Contributions to the Revenue Stabilization Fund can be increased or decreased should the board want to maintain the current real property tax rate, current meaning the proposed rate of 80 and a half cents.

[00:13:56] For example, should the board wish to remove a resource request from the proposed budget, traditionally that reduction could lower the real property tax rate. Alternatively, the board could take that savings and increase the contribution the revenue stabilization fund which would have no effect on the real property tax rate this is a new concept and so more details are included in item two to fully understand the revenue stabilization fund contributions as action during wrap-up staff will request the board provide final guidance on the real property tax rate and the contribution to the revenue stabilization fund

[00:14:33] this concludes my remarks for organizational matters thank you miss burke any questions from the dais on the process the budget process the straw poll process the tote board seeing none we will move on to the alternative motion uh supervisor triccrony has a motion as you noted this can get pretty confusing so as you noted the staff proposed budget sets the general personal property tax rate of four dollars and fifteen cents for tax year 25 and tax year 26. supervisor triccrony's alternate

[00:15:09] motion suggests a correct me if i'm wrong supervisor currently in your motion but i believe you're asking for the general property tax rate to be 415 for tax year 25 and 420 for tax year 26 and we will entertain that motion at this time thank you chair turner so i move that the board of supervisors begin budget deliberations at the real property tax rate of 0.805 for tax year 2025

[00:15:39] the general personal property tax rate of 415 for tax year 2025 and 420 for tax year 2026 the personal property tax rate on vehicles of 415 for tax year 2025 and 325 for tax year 2026 and the appropriations proposed in the county administrators fy 2026 proposed budget and you You heard the motion, is there a second?

[00:16:10] Oh, I'll second. I'm a second. Second. Motion made by Supervisor Crony, seconded by Supervisor Kirshner. Discussion on the motion. Thank you, Chair Turner. So, I am restoring the tax rate to $4.20.

[00:16:28] That rate has been in place for 35 years. From 1987 to 2022, we have had a general rate of $4.20. The rate was lowered in 2023 from 420 to 415 during FY 2024 budget deliberations due to the sunset clause. In 2024, the General Assembly removed the sunset clause and permanently created a separate class of personal property that includes most vehicles, so the board can set

[00:17:03] different rates for data center computer equipment and vehicles. I have been a strong advocate of Retaining the rate on data center computer equipment, which is in the general rate, while lowering the tax on vehicles to provide tax relief to residents.

[00:17:20] Computer equipment in a data center represents 88% of the general rate, so the increase will mainly impact data center computer equipment. Restoring the general rate to the historic rate of 420 that has been in place for 35 years will provide more relief for residents.

[00:17:39] It'll go down, the tax rate for vehicles will go down to $325 for tax year 2026. During this difficult period, when federal workers and contractors are losing jobs, I really feel it's imperative that we look for ways to reduce the burden on residents.

[00:17:57] I believe restoring the general rate to the historic rate will deliver results that directly benefit the hardworking residents of Loudoun County. I do want to say that while the general rate does include, I did put a table on the back of my motion for everybody to look at.

[00:18:17] While it does include computer equipment and some other classes, I do want to make the point that everybody will benefit from this further reduction of the vehicle tax. So, you know, I think even people who have small businesses and employees, everybody will impact from this reduction in the vehicle tax, and I do think people will welcome this relief. So, I hope I can get my colleagues' support. Again, I am restoring

[00:18:50] the rate to 420. That has been the historical rate for 35 years. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Crony, any other comments? Supervisor Umstad. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank Supervisor Crony for calling me this afternoon and going over her thinking on this.

[00:19:17] I wish we were in a better place when it comes to knowing exactly what kind of assistance our fired federal workers and federal contractors were in.

[00:19:35] My concern that we would take away some of our ability to assist them is probably alleviated by the fact that Supervisor Tacroni says there will be a fiscal impact of zero dollars.

[00:19:59] So let me just double-check that with staff. That is your understanding? Yes. Is there a reason why these tax rates were not initially part of the county administrator's budget?

[00:20:18] Well, the county administrator's here. And I know the county administrator has been concerned about trying to find something to do with all the data center revenue. but I'd like to hear staff's reaction to this proposal.

[00:20:37] Mr. Ramsey. Thank you. Just a couple things. One is the rate on, the general rate was lowered not in relation to the sunset of the vehicles and that the rate was lowered because of the board's tax policy, fiscal policy, which you've adopted, that says as part of our tax strategy with respect to data centers and computer equipment that we would try to maintain a floor of at least 51.5% of real property revenue

[00:21:15] in our portfolio. And so lowering, as part of that strategy also, lowering the general rate was a part and is a part of that strategy. And there's a couple reasons for that. One is the ratio. The other reason for that is there is exponential growth in the value of computer equipment. And I'll just remind you, I've made that a central part of my budget presentation to you as part of this year's proposed budget, which is if the board does not start to address the

[00:21:50] general rate, within a few years at the rate you're going, your number one and probably largest revenue source is going to be revenue coming from computer equipment. Because that revenue source at 415-100 has continued to increase by 100-130 million dollars a year. This year at 415, that revenue stream is increasing by 133 million dollars. If you increase that rate,

[00:22:23] It's going to just increase the rate of that revenue stream continues to increase, which will make you even more dependent on that single revenue stream, which as staff, we absolutely cannot recommend that you continue to do. So that's one aspect.

[00:22:39] The second aspect is this is the general rate, right? So I need to make sure the board fully appreciates that this is the general rate on personal property. now we've talked about before how the uh the general rate by law has to be your highest tax rate you can you can have separate categories and have a lower tax rate but your general rate has to be a higher tax rate and data center equipment is something like 10 times the value of anything else right so if you increase the general rate you are increasing taxes on every small business owner

[00:23:14] in Loudoun County that pays personal property taxes. That's a general rate, unless their property is in a category that the board has already established a lower rate on. So unless that's there, you're going to increase taxes on every one of them. The other piece of this, which is something that, which is one of the reasons why I have recommended to you as part of the proposed budget, and then again in the packet that went out today, that you not make adjustments to the personal property tax rate is because this is the first time we are separating out the vehicle classification, and then we are significantly lowering, proposing to lower that tax rate by

[00:23:54] something like 67 cents. Now, it should be fine, should be fine, but it's the first time we're kind of doing that, and so to further lower the tax on that classification, I think Ms. Burke and her team have done the best they can to say that there's no fiscal impact, but the first time we're doing it, probably okay. But we've recommended that you go with the tax rates that we've suggested because we think we've, at the rates that we recommended, we think we've properly mitigated

[00:24:28] or weighed the risks around the tax policy that's going along with the proposed budget. So that's why we didn't make this recommendation and why we recommended the tax rates that are in the proposed budget. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Hamstreet. Supervisor Armstrong, if you want to take a minute to respond? No, no, that answered my question. Thank you so much. Okay. Supervisor Kershner.

[00:24:51] Thank you, Chair. All right, so this motion basically is an increase in taxes for select folks that have computer equipment, computer equipment, data centers, furniture, motorhomes, motorcycles, so a five cent, but then it's a, the other part of the motion is to significantly reduce the car tax because we've created that as a separate category is that correct is that my understanding from staff or from mr hemstreet if i don't you don't yes that's okay further reduce it it would further reduce it so the way the way i kind of look at this motion and and i i i love the concept of it i wish we weren't kind of doing this at the last hour because there are some concerns

[00:25:30] and questions that i have and i've always been kind of opposed to reducing the tax rate and i understand what mr hemstreet has said but really what i think we're trying to get at here is let's put the data center, computer equipment, furniture fixture, kind of the general rate at what we used to be, and so we can give more relief to more people in the county on the car tax.

[00:25:53] Because almost everybody has a car, almost everybody's paying a car tax, and that's ultimately what this motion will do. So I think that's a really, really good thing that we're trying to accomplish through this motion. I guess my question would, and I don't know the full impact, and that's a little bit of the difficulty on the average owner, but can staff tell me what how much uh the average it will lower to 325 and if i recall actually you don't have to tell me that you probably don't have that at your fingertips my recollection um mr hemistry if i can direct it through the chair question when we were during

[00:26:30] your budget presentation one of the questions asked of you was would you be okay with and i think your guidance was yes that would be okay it sounds to me like you're saying yeah but not yet And that is to reduce, to not reduce, you know, data center equipment, but to continue to reduce the car tax in kind of an exchange.

[00:26:51] Is that, that was my understanding of your answer at that time. So I think that's why I looked favorably in large part on this motion. Are you saying now, yes, but not yet, because this is a balance, look at that in the future, depending on how our revenue comes forward. The first thing I'm saying is do not increase the general rate, because all that's going to do is continue to make you more and more dependent on that specific revenue stream, which is what this does, because it's increasing your dependence on computer equipment at the same time lowering revenue that you're going to get from vehicles.

[00:27:24] Okay. So that's what I'm saying. So can we, going into the future, would it be plausible to keep that general rate the same but continue to reduce the car tax? Yes, I would leave the general rate of 415 and then continue to use increasing revenue from computer equipment because the value increases every year and continue to reduce the vehicle tax.

[00:27:46] So I'm not sure where I'm going to stand on this. I mean, I love the idea of reducing car tax. I think everybody hates it. It's a pesky tax, but I know we have kind of a fiscal policy, and we're a little late in the game here. That's all. Thanks. Thank you. Supervisor Seins. Thank you, Vice Chair Turner.

[00:28:02] All right, and I'm going to go back to Mr. Hemstreet, if that's okay. Move you into the microphone a little closer. Yeah, absolutely. Go ahead. I asked my question. So, Mr. Hemstreet, thank you for your answers thus far on this. So, just in plain, you would suggest not doing this, is that correct?

[00:28:20] Yes. Okay. And then even though to Supervisor Tokoni's part, yes, in theory, yes, we're increasing the rate on data centers, but at the same time, we're increasing the rate on, say, a restaurant that might have the equipment, coffee shop, all those type of businesses also. Is that correct? It would be increasing the rate on every business that's subject to the general rate. So, yes. So, it's not just the data centers. Is that correct? Is it correct to say it that way?

[00:28:57] Correct. You could separate computer equipment, but the highest rate has to be the general rate. Okay. So, that still, again, does not just affect data centers. It affects other businesses as well. So from Mr. Hemstreet, you know, he's saying he's not in favor. I cannot support this at this time as well. So, but I applaud the efforts, but it's not the right approach right now. So thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Glass, do you have any comments? Yes. I want to thank

[00:29:30] Mr. Hemstreet for answering that because I was a little concerned about what you're saying about increasing the general rate and us having dependence of, more dependence of the data centers for our revenue.

[00:29:51] I was thinking about this, but I think after we stated that other small businesses may be affected by this, I think maybe next year, if we can look into this and see how we can even lower the the car the tax rate that folks pay on their cars and next time I think I am not going to support it thank you thank you surprise of class

[00:30:27] supervisor Brisbane thank you how many times have we voted on tax or budget guidance so far in our process i believe the board provided uh budget guidance to the county administrator in december but the finance committee discussed the personal property tax rate multiple times last fall right okay thank you um and if i might i don't know if this would be for um miss burke or for mr hemstreet but um are you saying in in what you were saying earlier

[00:31:07] If we were to raise this to $420,000, would that not increase the portion of our revenue pie that data centers are bringing over, or would it reduce below 50% what we're getting in real estate, the stable tax?

[00:31:27] It would not reduce, you would not reduce you below the 51.5% for real property, so that you would still be above that. What it would do is I believe currently data centers are about 75% of the real property portfolio.

[00:31:45] Yeah. Is that accurate? I believe it's accurate. In terms of revenue? Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah, so what it would do is the two would definitely increase that percentage because you're lowering the value of vehicles by going to the 67% reduction, the 348, and then increasing your general rate would then further increase your reliance on revenue from computer equipment.

[00:32:15] Okay. I do want to keep lowering the car tax. I think that we're doing a pretty good chunk of it this year. I kind of wish the Department of Economic Development was here to tell us how this would impact small businesses because I would be a little bit nervous, and I know that, you know, our businesses thrive.

[00:32:38] when there's certainty, there's certainty in the taxes that they're going to have to pay, there's certainty in the economic environment around them. And Lord knows we have enough uncertainty right now when it comes to national politics and what might happen with our economy.

[00:32:56] So I don't think I'm going to support this. I do appreciate the work. I do want to continue to lower the car tax rate. We should not forget why we have the car tax rate, and that was because the state reduced revenues to localities but gave us the authority to have a car tax. So you can call it a pesky tax, but there's a real reason why we have this car tax and that many localities depend on it. But I don't think I'll support the motion tonight. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Briskman.

[00:33:28] I think Minister Hempstreet said it very well, the biggest thing, and Supervisor Brisbane also added the point of uncertainty, I think the most important concept for me here is you don't mess around with the general property tax rate, which is imprecise in this circumstance and leads to unintended consequences.

[00:33:49] This is a very complex budget this year. This is an unusual budget this year, and we're balancing a lot of balls here in the air. And to introduce a general property tax rate change at this point in the process without fully being able to analyze its impact, its collateral impact, I think is a mistake.

[00:34:08] So I won't be supporting it. Closing comments. Thank you, Chair Turner. So I will say that this is the rate we've had for 35 years. 420 was the rate we've had for 35 years. so I know that that's the rate that people have been used to for 35 years.

[00:34:31] I wouldn't have supported lowering it, frankly, going from 420 to 415, I wouldn't have supported that. And when I took office, I didn't support lowering it from 415 to 410, which is what staff recommended, was lowering it from 415 to 410.

[00:34:48] So I don't support lowering the taxes on data center computer equipment. Our residents are feeling the impacts from that industry and I don't support lowering taxes for the data center computer equipment. And I think this provides a really nice relief to residents.

[00:35:06] This is 90 cents of relief on the vehicle tax. 90 cents, which is huge. And I remember during Mr. Hemstreet's presentation, he said it would be two to three years before we could possibly have it where residents aren't paying the vehicle tax.

[00:35:26] And this motion would perhaps get it to two years. Maybe we could do this in two years, a little faster. So this is real relief to residents. I know a lot of residents have told me that with the real property, their assessments have increased, so they're not gonna feel really that reduction in the real property tax rate.

[00:35:49] But this they will feel, the 90 cents they will feel. So I'm gonna continue to support, lowering that to where it is eliminated. And again, I will not be supporting lowering the tax on data center computer equipment.

[00:36:07] I would at some point like to maybe review moving certain classes out if we can so that the highest rate is maybe just computer equipment. But I will continue to advocate for the residents and for getting rid of that computer tax as soon as we can.

[00:36:28] Thank you. - Thank you, Supervisor Tacroni. Motion made by Supervisor Tacroni, seconded by Supervisor Kirschner. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. - Aye. - All those opposed say no. - Nay. - Nay.

[00:36:44] That motion will fail, one, two, three, four, five. That motion will fail five, five, two, two. Five opposed, two ayes, and two absent.

[00:37:01] Do I have that right? I think I do, right? Thank you very much. I'm sorry, the voting in favor were Supervisor Crony, and Super, those not present.

[00:37:17] Those not present was Supervisor Letourneau and Chair Randall. The ayes were Supervisor Tricone and Supervisor Kirshner, and the nays were everybody else. Any other discussion on that? Let's move on to the next item, if we could, which is actually the packet motion for the budget, which I will now make.

[00:37:36] The alternate motion having failed, then I will now make the base motion to introduce the budget. I move that the Board of Supervisors begin budget deliberations at the real property tax rate of .

[00:38:10] 805 for tax year 2025, the general personal property tax rate of . 415 for tax year 2025 and tax year 26, the personal property tax rate on vehicles of . 415 for tax year 2025 and . 348 for tax year 2026, and the appropriations proposed in the county administrator's fiscal year 2026 proposed budget. I further move that the Board of Supervisors increase funding for the Human Service Nonprofit Grant Program by 3% or $86,000. Seconded by Supervisor Brisbane, I have no opening, well, I do have a small one.

[00:38:28] The 3% increase in the Human Service Nonprofit Grant Program was the correct, I think, an error. Ms. Jamstree, can I characterize it? That was a, Ms. Burke? Yes. It was an error. And normally that program goes up 3% if there's no gap in funding. I'm not going to go into the details of what gap funding is. And this year it should have been applied and it was not. So it's $86,000 to correct that. And that's what that's in there for.

[00:38:57] Motion moved and seconded. I have no other intro comments. Any other questions on that motion? Supervisor Kirshner. Just a couple of thoughts and comments real quickly. Obviously, this is our starting point. I am hopeful that our board here will support motions throughout this process that help to continue to give relief. Obviously, the last motion failed. I understand some of the concerns I voted for it. I will just say that the more relief we can give our taxpayers, the better.

[00:39:24] Just to kind of give some perspective, I went back and looked at our last, well, three years, FY23, 24, and 25. We raised the tax rate, the real property tax rate on the average homeowner, 5.4%, 6.8%, and 4.8% respectively for a total of $306, $411, $304 per year, totaling $1,021 per year that the average homeowner had to pay over the last three years.

[00:39:52] this year our proposed budget reduces that thankfully we actually are at the point because we're so flush with cash but we're and we're going to be giving at least on the real property tax rate i understand we're giving some relief in the car the car tax um but by 57 dollars so um i think with as much revenue as we have um we do have a motion tonight i think given that the state is kicking in more for our schools that we'll have some more to work with as well, that we could easily reduce the real property tax rate by another half cent or

[00:40:29] maybe even a whole cent and still really present and get to a full robust budget that we have here in front of us. I think we're going up about 11 percent this year alone, which is higher than the normal 9 percent, and yet we're still giving tax relief, but I quite frankly don't think we're giving enough tax relief as we potentially could.

[00:40:48] So, you know, when you spend an average, when the average homeowner spends $306, $411, $304 over the last three years on average per year because of the increase, and yet we're only, with the amount of cash that we have, giving a tax cut on their real property of $57 this year, I think we can do better as a county and as a board of supervisors for some level of tax relief.

[00:41:12] I'm glad we're moving the car tax in the right direction. We need to get it as far down as we possibly can without losing our state money. I was hopeful with Supervisor Tacroni's motion we could get there, but I understand the concern. But I'm looking forward to next tax year when we get to that, to moving that down even further and significant, assuming our data center, personal property, computer equipment continues to grow in that portfolio.

[00:41:35] Thank you, Chair. Thank you. Supervisor Briskman. Thank you. I think we need to be really careful with our verbiage up here because we have not increased the tax rate on our residents since the majority of us took office in 2020 when we took office in 2020 the real estate tax rate was a dollar four right now we're sitting at about 86 and a half cents and we're about to lower the tax rate another six cents and the headline should be we are full cent below the equalized tax rate

[00:42:12] for all homeowners in the county that's the headline right now and we are doing that while fully funding our schools. Yes, thank you to the state for finally stepping up and lifting the support caps that have been there since the 2009 recession. Thank you, General Assembly, very much for that. Hopefully the governor will agree. We also are going to have $147 million in our reserve fund for the chance or the possibility that we have inconsistent tax revenue from the data centers,

[00:42:43] $147 million in savings. And, you know, some homeowners, yes, have effectively had to pay more out of pocket while we were lowering the tax rate. But that's because our assessments in Loudoun County have been going up consistently. Why do our assessments go up consistently? Because we have fantastic schools, because of where we're located near D.C., because we are a well-managed county the assessments on our homes have been going up and i don't know as a homeowner i kind

[00:43:22] of like the idea of the value of my home going up it might cost me a few more dollars out of pocket but in the end the equity that folks are going to be getting out of their investments in loudon county is going to be incredible so again the headline should be we are lowering the tax rate again if all comes to fruition by the end of the budget the first week of april we will be voting to lower the tax rate another six cents and be a full cent below the equalized tax rate thank you thank you supervisor brisbane and i'll just add on to that uh two years ago i looked at it i believe

[00:43:59] this board and the prior board has lowered the tax rate every year for the last eight years might be nine might be seven but i think it's eight years and i did an analysis a couple years ago that property values have gone up extraordinarily over the last three to five years and the county has absorbed two-thirds of that increase in property values through reductions in the tax rate um and so i i i agree with supervisor briskman that ought to be the story um motions made and seconded all

[00:44:29] those in favor please say aye aye any opposed that motion will pass uh seven zero two and with that we will move on to budget staff updates ms burke i don't have any additional updates um to share right now. Okay. Thank you. Then let's move on to Loudoun County Public Schools. And I believe we don't have a presentation. I think we all attended the presentation at schools the other

[00:45:03] night. Does anyone have any questions of staff on the school's transfer budget? Seeing, Ms. Briskin, yeah. The question that I submitted about the athletic fees, will that be coming back?

[00:45:22] It's not coming back for this meeting, but it'll come back for another budget work session. That question was transmitted at the end of last week, so LCPS has been providing response packets every Thursday for the Friday packet, so it'll be in Friday's packet. Okay, thank you. Supervisor Carney.

[00:45:39] Okay, thank you, Chair Turner. So I was just wondering, I don't know if you can answer this, but I know last year during the FY25 budget discussions, Loudoun County Public Schools was contemplating a $3 million dollar bonus retention effort. I don't know if they were able to execute that. I just want to understand because my understanding with this is it's for retention, bonus retention, bonuses to retain employees. So I'm just wondering if you remember if they were able to do that. I have no information about that bonus program, but we can submit that question for a formal response from

[00:46:16] the school division. Okay, thank you. And Ms. Burke, just for the benefit of the public, can you explain the 15.1 million additional transfer? So the budget that was passed by the General Assembly included an additional 15.1 million dollars of state revenue for the school division in FY26. The General Assembly budget amendment for FY25 included an additional revenue to fund $1,000 bonuses for eligible LCPS employees. LCPS has requested that they can retain $5.6

[00:46:56] million of the additional $15.1 million that the state provided them in FY26 to fully distribute $1,000 bonuses to all eligible staff in LCPS rather than just the ones covered by state SOQ revenue, and so the options in your item this evening are for the board to lower the LCPS transfer by the full amount available in the state budget of $15.1 million, or the staff recommended motion is to lower their contribution by, excuse me, lower the payment

[00:47:34] to LCPS by $9.5 million, which would allow them to retain the amount of funding needed to fully distribute the bonuses between FY25 and '26. So the motion in the packet would result with an additional $9.5 million of available revenue on the TOE board.

[00:47:54] Thank you, Ms. Burton. Any questions at all? Seeing none, I move the Board of Supervisors recognize $15.1 million of state revenue in the Loudoun County Public Schools Operating Fund and lower the county transfer by $9.5 million.

[00:48:09] Second by Ms. Briskman. I have no opening comments, any discussions, any questions? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? That motion will pass 7-0-2.

[00:48:27] And with that, we will move on to, does anyone, the Capital Improvement Program, we have all seen the Capital Improvement Program quite a bit. I think we're pretty familiar with it. Does anybody need a presentation or any questions to ask about the Capital Improvement Program? All right.

[00:48:44] There is a presentation here, Ms. Burke. You don't need to give that, do you? I don't think we need it. No, it's what the Finance Committee saw at their first work session. Okay, great. No motion associated with the Capital Improvement Program, so we will move on to the county department budget and resource requests.

[00:49:05] The first one up will be library services. If we could ask them to come to the table, that would be great.

[00:49:24] Is that list? I keep losing that list.

[00:49:41] Link to the library services. You may proceed. Thank you.

[00:49:56] Good evening, supervisors. I'm Chang Liu, the director of the Loudoun County Public Library System. With me this evening are three trustees who are attending. They're attending in the audience. We have Trustee Kate Gordon from the Kontaktan District, Trustee Stacey Cleveland from the Leesburg District, and Trustee Erica Daly from the Broad Run District.

[00:50:23] And also at the table, I have the Deputy Director Mike Van Kempen with me and the Budget and Finance Manager Nan Peik with me. In the audience, we also have the division manager for branch services, Michael Serawadina, because this position we are requesting is to support the division manager for branch services.

[00:50:45] I want to let you know we are grateful that you funded two additional positions for us last year, FY 2025, one is for the HR technician, and the other is the communication specialist. Both positions have been filled by wonderful employees that are doing great work.

[00:51:04] So we are very grateful for your support. Should I continue to talk about this one resource request? So for F-126, we only have one resource request, one position, and that's to support the division manager for branches.

[00:51:22] So this will be assistant division manager for branch services. Because we are a public service institution with 10 branches opening seven days a week and four or five nights a week, most of our 84% of our staff are in the branches.

[00:51:41] And we have 10 branch managers. Currently, the division manager for branch services oversees all 10 branch managers directly. And it's just not very sustainable. And since FY 2013, because we opened two new libraries, large new libraries, we expanded two other branches, and we acquired the law library, so the branch staffing has increased by 46%, and then branch library square footage increased by 42%.

[00:52:16] So we need someone to provide the support that the division manager for branches needs to really increase, enhance the oversight of branch services, our public service delivery, and to increase the efficiency of our branch operations so that we can continue to be the best library, public library in the country.

[00:52:40] Thank you, Ms. Lill. I appreciate it. Any questions for library services? Supervisor Kirshner. I don't really have any questions. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate all the work that you've done. I know Ms. Gordon gives me regular updates on what's going on in the Catoctin district, and they are tremendous.

[00:52:56] It really helps me understand what the library services are doing for Catoctin. And I know you guys are running a top-notch operation across the county, and I just want to tell you how much I appreciate it. I'm kind of, I don't know, I have a love-hate relationship with the library system.

[00:53:16] My mom was a teacher, and as a young man, I learned how to play all kinds of games in the library. We would go every week, and my mom would check out probably 100 books at a time, and then she would read them to all of us kids. But you learn when you're in the library for an hour and a half or so how to play tag, and we would get in trouble for that.

[00:53:35] How to hide in the books, we'd get in trouble for that. Finally, you know, I learned to read and, you know, settled down a little bit and eventually went to law school and ended up on the Board of Supervisors. So you guys play an incredible role for the education and for the services to our county. I just want to say thank you.

[00:53:51] Thank you. Yeah, I just want to thank you for helping one of my residents with an author's lecture, author's talk. So you guys are amazing. So I really appreciate all that you do. I mean, people will always have positive things to say about our library system.

[00:54:11] So thank you so much for what you do. Thank you. Thank you. I'm just going to pile on. Of course, if the libraries came and asked for the moon, I would try to get you the moon.

[00:54:27] I just had a nice long coffee with my LBOT appointee, Mary Colucci, last week. And the things she shared that you guys are doing were just amazing and incredible. I went to the Cascades Library a month or two ago to meet some Boy Scouts.

[00:54:43] And I heard jazz coming from the conference room A. I was like, what? It was so beautiful. And I did office hours for about three hours on Friday at the library. And I received a little heart craft to do at home.

[00:54:58] And then I received wasabi powder and a recipe for the flavor of the month, the spice of the month. So the programming since I've been going to that library has just gotten better and better. And it was great when I first started going into story time with my kids.

[00:55:16] And I still give Sally a hug because she's still there. So, obviously, you retain your employees because Sally is still there, and she was there when my son was a baby, and he's 20 now, so I really love seeing them. So thank you for everything you do, and I have no problem with this resource request.

[00:55:33] Thank you. Thank you very much. And Sally Appleton was the employee of the month, two months ago. So again, thank you all for the wonderful compliments. The credit really goes to our wonderfully dedicated and creative and hardworking staff members.

[00:55:51] So I'll definitely relay your compliments to the staff. Thank you. If I could just say it on, my experience with the library in high school, I was on the debate team and I spent virtually every day in junior and senior year on the debate team in a debate room at the library, loved every minute of it, but I think it pretty much tells you what my social life was like when I was a junior and senior in high school.

[00:56:14] But thank you very much. think our library system in this county is a showpiece it's just absolutely gorgeous and it's yeah just so just wonderful so any other questions uh just very briefly for the for the public watching the way this works is the proposed budget includes the budget requests of each of the of the offices and they're listed priority one priority two priority three if the priority is listed in the budget request then the budget that is proposed funds that priority request so unless a member of the board of supervisors wants to say take that out or i want to add this in uh

[00:56:50] there were there's no official votes if we you make your presentation and if we don't vote it just means we like everything we're seeing and we'll be passed on to the budget for the final vote in uh in april so that's the way the process works so thank you all very much we appreciate it

[00:57:05] next up is parks and rec yeah yeah yeah you're up you're up mr good evening just a brief one

[00:57:40] that's okay so good evening uh chair turner and board members i appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you the needs for prcs in the upcoming fy26 budget year which can be found beginning on pages 51 through 55 and 106 through 109 in your budget document last year was a very successful year for prcs as i highlighted in our annual review the department was recognized nationally and on a state level for several of our programs facilities tournaments and partnerships but the recognition that we received from the locally based awards were the ones that we really were most proud of because they were given to the department directly from the feedback

[00:58:19] of the loudon residents that we strive to serve each and every day we continue to put an emphasis on staff development and because of this and the state and national recognition of what prds continues to do we once again had several staff who were selected to present at both national and state conferences about our programs and about the operations that are happening here in laden county i would like to thank the board for the support that was given to prcs in the fy25 budget cycle and i'm pleased to report that all of the full-time positions we received have either been

[00:58:55] hired or are in the process of an offer and are working the ones that are hired have already started working with the exception of a few at the ashburn recreation and community center and that simply is because of the appropriate timing that they need to come on board and that will be later this spring and early summer speaking of ashburn we're very excited about that tremendous facility opening which will serve so many loudon residents and that's anticipated for later this summer the part-time staff that you also gave to us have been hired as well as we had a very successful event at the douglas high school back in october for

[00:59:34] utilizing the commemorative money that you gave us or the money for the commemorative event that happened back in october this year there's three categories of enhancements within our request one is a simple fte authority enhancement request there are three departmental enhancement requests and five enhancements that are associated with the board of supervisors initiatives with the fte authority request after the board strategic retreat last summer where childcare was a topic of discussion. PRCS went back and assessed how we could serve more children

[01:00:09] in the CASA program in the immediate future while those discussions surrounding child care continued to go on. What staff was able to determine was that there was the ability to expand certain sites without there being an impact to the quality of the program.

[01:00:25] And we also through the surveying of the parents looked at the CASA academies which was something that we tried several years ago and what we found was that it was better for us to move those programs back into the schools because it made that program more accessible for everybody because the parents, several of the parents were sharing that they could not get to the CASA academies which was housed in recreation centers and community centers.

[01:00:53] So what you'll see in that FTE authority request is this is going to open up new CASA locations in schools, particularly down in the Sterling and Algonquian area, which is something that we haven't seen in a long time, and then expand the program at other locations from 36 to 54 or 54 to 72.

[01:01:16] For the elder resources caregiver case manager moving into the PRCS enhancements, this is another case manager position. As you all know, it's critical to add case managers to keep that quality and reach of services that in the face of the growing needs here in Loudoun County, that was the growth of the county was discussed a little bit earlier this evening.

[01:01:43] Some examples of the case management increases from 20 to 24, FY20 to 24, we saw a 126% increase in what we call case management contacts, and then simply the population growth in the 55 and over population of Loudoun has grown by 81% since 2012, and we're at about 100,000 residents now that are over 55 years old.

[01:02:10] The volunteer engagement and community program manager is a position that takes the very popular and very successful area agency on aging volunteer program and spreads it throughout the entire department. Right now, we've got about 85 different PRCS staff across the department that are working directly with volunteers, but this program, this management program takes that throughout the entire department and helps us to better work with those volunteers, which as you can imagine, helps us to run the programs and the services.

[01:02:46] We also are asking for a data analyst. We collect a lot of data on our programs and the quality of our programs. This analyst position is going to help us design those paths forward, help us with predicting the future trends and measuring those outcomes, and really helping us to better meet the community's needs through data-driven decision-making, which is something that we feel that we need.

[01:03:11] From the Board of Supervisors initiatives or enhancements related to initiatives, The first one, the small one is the ACOIS mini grant program. We picked that up last year as an agreement with the board. We're just bringing that back so that that's added into our budget.

[01:03:27] With the linear parks and trails, there were three separate enhancements. One, the program has been successful and what we are seeing is that just to continue that, as we really get into putting trails on the ground, there's a need for signage, there's a need for equipment.

[01:03:42] We've run into situations where in order to work through trail easements. We have to have contractual money to go and do surveying and things along those lines. Also, with the number of miles that we have put in over the last year and what has already been planned to get on the ground, which Supervisor Turner, Chair Turner, I know that you were excited about the signature project and we're working on a southern signature project, which is the same size, This is another 18 mile loop below the W and OD trail that has been planned out

[01:04:20] and we're gonna be coming back to TLUC here shortly for a presentation on that. But that is the maintenance crew for that program. And then if you recall when the board adopted the linear parks and trails plan, there was a position that was called out in there for the natural resources manager.

[01:04:38] We held off on bringing that forward until we kinda got the program off and running. but the fact that we're putting trails on the ground right now, it is necessary for us to bring that person on because that's gonna provide that specialized expertise in helping us to manage the delicate balance between expanding recreational infrastructure while also preserving the natural environment because a lot of those trails are being put in some sensitive areas and we're needing to have that person to help with that.

[01:05:09] And finally is the two positions that you gave to our department in a temporary role two years ago, and that's the arts program manager and the curator position. Those two positions have been very successful in getting us to where we are today.

[01:05:25] As a matter of fact, on the way over here today, I got a draft emailed to me of the countywide comprehensive arts plan that they've been working on for over a year now. And so that's gonna go through some various renditions and come back to you. Those positions are instrumental in the implementation of that countywide arts plan.

[01:05:46] You've probably seen some of the things that the curator has been doing with the county art collection that we have here, now expanding that out, not just to being hung in the government center, but it's now being shared with the public in the community centers, the senior centers.

[01:06:01] We're even working with the courts to get them in there. So those are the positions that we have. With me tonight is Jeremy Payne, my deputy director. Janet Tape, our division manager of operations and budgets, which I rely greatly upon for getting us tonight to tonight.

[01:06:20] Emily Hayes, our liaison from the budget office, and I've got several staff from my executive team in the audience as well. And we would be happy to take any questions that you have right now. - Thank you, Mr. Torpy. Questions for Mr. Torpy and his team, or his team.

[01:06:38] some time uh thank you mr chair uh i noticed that as as i look through the budget you're you're addressing a lot of board priorities um the population increase in the over 55 segment do you feel and i'm not i'm not looking to add anything to the budget this year but going into the future do you feel you may be requesting more staff at the senior centers for example?

[01:07:14] We likely will not be requesting more staff from the senior centers because currently most of our senior centers are at capacity and so to add more staff when we're programming in those locations likely what we would do is is work through DTCI and the capital budget office for another senior center to help take the pressure off of that so from that standpoint that is where those staffing for senior center staff would come okay thank you very much and thanks for all your hard work

[01:07:49] thank you uh mr luterno thank you mr turner mr torby good to see you thank you as always for the good work that you and your team are doing thank you i love driving past our facilities and seeing seeing how full they are. On the CASA and YAS situation, so it seems to me, and you can correct me here, that CASA we have capacity issues with. We need to add more, and you've got a proposal in here. Are we under-enrolled on YAS, and is it possible to sort of slide over some of those

[01:08:21] employees to cover CASA? So we do have less people in the YAS program that we did prior to COVID. and sometimes we are working through some options of how we could look at just child care positions as opposed to them being specific in one area or another the one thing though that we are the children's program area is working very hard on is trying to determine why those those yes folks did

[01:08:55] not come back at the numbers that they did after covid and try to re-pattern or reform that yas program because although casa is where you see the largest number on the wait list we do recognize that that middle school time frame is one where we still need to have that presence and no and i totally understand that i just wondered if if in the short term anyway um if giving you some sort of positional flexibility there maybe you don't need us for that to sort of slide over employees to meet immediate needs while we're sort of rebuilding on middle

[01:09:35] school would make sense well and that's that's one of the things that we did with the casa academies is is we're taking those staff and utilizing them in different locations where there is the potential to serve more people but we also are moving them to areas that are within the same district that the casa academies were originally located in yeah okay as far as the arts manager and curator i think i was a little bit skeptical about this in the first place as temporary

[01:10:11] positions but you think that they are serving a valid useful purpose very much so yes okay i will say there have been a few incidents of art that perhaps generated some controversy and you may or may not be familiar with that i know county administration is in one case um so i would expect the folks in the in the professional positions to sort of just be on the lookout for that i'm not looking to censor anybody but this also needs to be a place that's welcoming to everybody so i would just note that thank you thank you uh mr crony uh thank you

[01:10:50] chair turner and um thank you mr torpe for all that you do in the little river district i'm really excited to hear about um a southern uh el pat trail part of the signature project i'm sure that people look forward to that in the southern part of the county um so the after school uh programs expansion with casa is that all revenue neutral that you're doing yes it is okay and then are you doing the pilot after school program at the five parkview high school cluster elementary schools with the school with leighton county public schools is that part of our that's a

[01:11:25] different program with the schools a different program i thought it was with casa okay maybe we should reach out because i thought it was with casa um regarding yeah i thought it was but regarding your uh art position um so i look forward to getting the comprehensive art plan back but I want to reiterate that it's not just visual art it's literary art performing art you know there's all different art forms will this manager position arts manager be not just for the visual arts will that person be looking taking a comprehensive approach that is correct so one

[01:12:05] of the primary roles of that with the implementation of that county-wide arts plan and that arts plan we'll come back to you all for review and approval but it also uh is that liaison with all those various types of stakeholders that we have within the county all the artists and the different art groups that are out there so it covers the the whole spectrum of the type of art that you're referencing okay the curator is pretty much for the visual right for the for display displays but also uh if you recall in a curator's position there is some programming so working with the site so that there is more art programming that that happens out there as well okay all right

[01:12:43] thank you for clarifying that your scenes uh thank you vice chair turner uh mr turpey thank you for coming um it's not like you had a choice i guess right but um yeah can you clarify because mr crony just asked a question because when we got the briefing from lcps they mentioned expansion in a casa so we figured and they i could have where they did say the staffing was going to be from

[01:13:13] parks and recs but can you so can you clarify yeah so the um yeah i mean we are there are several sites for casa that are being opened in schools that we haven't had casa in like sugarland run rolling ridge so we are expanding those by transferring uh staff from some of the casa academies into those locations that have not had costs in a long time or have had not not had casa the schools i believe and i can't speak in depth about the program that they are trying they're

[01:13:53] trying to do another type of ask for school program but it is different from casa and not shared space of workhouse is going to be located like i believe it's like a tutoring program okay all right we'll have to get clarity on that because it was mentioned and and they did say it was going to be staffed with parks and rec folks so i don't know so okay well we'll get clarity on that but all right but nonetheless it's great to hear that we're expanding into to new our our locations that we had at one time but then closed for various reasons or whatever so thank you to you and your team thank you thank you supervisor briskman uh thank you vice chair

[01:14:31] and thank you so much for um all of your work i'm really excited about the arts programming it's been a long time coming i think we started talking about it when we were doing the committee on committees last term that's correct um i have some questions on on that but i'll talk to you offline um and thank you so much for working on the child care um uh gaps i think we still have a a little ways to go do you know if meadowland has a casa program yeah so we're going from um 36 to 54 okay okay perfect great great thank you so and i can't believe that sugarland didn't have a casa

[01:15:10] program but i'm also after touring that school last year i don't know where they're going to put them but i guess you guys figured it out because that school is has so many different programs um but thank thank you for that work um i guess would it not since we still have a hundred or sorry uh still have some people on the wait list a couple hundred still on the wait list would it not make sense to keep the academies open and also add or was it just too inconvenient for the families so one of the things that um we determined over the course of when the academies

[01:15:47] were open was there are certain areas that could get transportation from the schools and others that could not. And so, but when we did a survey of the parents recently, we were surprised that what came back was 99 and literally 99% of the students or the parents that responded to the survey said the number one reason why they selected CASA was because the child stayed in the school.

[01:16:17] And so where we have the physical space, where schools don't have a lot of other type of programs or the YMCA is in the school, we've tried to expand to a level what we think is appropriate for the quality of the program.

[01:16:37] Okay. And I guess it's hard to say whether the wait list is going to get longer or shorter, given what's going on. I mean, everyone's been ordered to go back to work at the federal government, but then we're also firing a bunch of people.

[01:16:53] So we'll have to see how that shakes out. If a family doesn't think they can afford the $405 a month, what are their options? So if there are individuals that are financially disadvantaged and can't afford it, we do have different options available, including the PRCS CARES program, which offsets some of the costs related to it, as well as grants programs that can assist with that cost of the program.

[01:17:25] Okay. And then I'm not going to be bringing the motion on the adult day, but I understand that people are being turned away maybe because of ratios, but maybe we can keep talking about that to see if we can figure it out. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no other comments, if you don't mind staying at the table, we may have some questions for you in relation to this next motion that's going to come up.

[01:17:49] Supervisor Turoni, I believe you have a motion. Oh, I'm very sorry, Supervisor Glass. I apologize. And you're bigger than life in front of me and behind me, so I should not have missed you. Do you have any questions for Mr. Torpy and his team?

[01:18:06] Yes. Thank you, Chair Turner. And thank you, Mr. Torpy. I have, like, feedback, and it's kind of throwing me off. But it's similar to Supervisor Briskman's question when she was talking about the increase from $385 to $405 per month, which is only $20, but for some families that may be a bit much.

[01:18:32] And you said that there are different programs that parents who may not be able to, may need some extra help. Will these families have to be on certain programs?

[01:18:49] So, like, would they have to be receiving help with, well, like at a certain income level? they may receive, oh my gosh, I can't think, like food help from schools, that sort of thing, in order to receive extra money. In answer to your question, yes, that's one of the methodologies that we use to receive the benefit there is if they are on free or reduced lunch, they qualify.

[01:19:26] Okay. And, well, I'm also thinking of those families that just may be right here and not receive free and reduced are there things that we could do to help those families that may need some additional help currently we don't have uh additional criteria that uh for families that fall into that but that's certainly something that we can look at okay thank you thank you very much uh and now i think we can move on to supervisor crony's motion uh vice chair turner so uh make

[01:20:02] it a motion and thank you for staying i think you have some information to share too i move that the Board of Supervisors add $80,000 to fund an Independence Day event at Howell and Bernie Hanson Regional Park starting in 2026, modeled after the event at Franklin Park.

[01:20:20] Okay, thank you. So in 2024, Brambleton Community Association partnered with the Department of Parks, Recreation and Community Services to hold an Independence Day event at Howell and Bernie Hanson Regional Park.

[01:20:37] The event was free and open to all members of the public. The attendance was approximately 10,000 people. When Brambleton held an Independence Day event in Brambleton, they had an attendance of approximately 2,000 people.

[01:20:55] So the unexpected growth from 2,000 attendees to 10,000 attendees demonstrates the excitement in Ashburn, Dulles North, and Dulles South for a free Independence Day event. This area of the county is mainly HOAs that hold private events.

[01:21:12] Having an event on public property open to everyone created a sense of community that has been missing in this part of the county. PRCS currently hosts the following four free Independence Day events in the county at Claude Moore Park, Sterling Community Center, Franklin Park, and Lovettsville Community Center.

[01:21:33] My motion adds Howland-Bernie Hanson Park to the list of county-sponsored Independence Day events starting in 2026. And in 2025, Brambleton will continue to partner with Parks and Recreation, but they've asked that this become a community event because of the amount of people that attend this event, and it really, really is an exciting festivity, and it will serve all the areas in Dulles South, Dulles North, Ashburn, and the smaller to mid-size HOAs that don't have their own

[01:22:12] Independence Day event. So I thank you for supporting it. I know Steve Torpy has some data he'd like to share, like how much it costs for the other events. Maybe you can explain that for the ones that you do sponsor. So we just looked at the events that we were providing fireworks at, so I don't have the costs on Claude Moore.

[01:22:35] But for Sterling, it's roughly between $13,000 and $14,000. That's a smaller event, and both by the amount of people that come, but also because of the restrictions that we have being around, it's an area that we shoot that limits the size of shells that we can use and things along those lines.

[01:22:59] Covitzville is more of just a fireworks display. There's not a whole lot of activity at the park because there is activities that the town does in the morning with the parade. And then at Franklin Park, it's roughly 53, $54,000 to put that event on.

[01:23:17] And that is similar to the type of event that we would see at Hanson. Only at Hanson, you're talking more than double the amount of people and probably twice the amount of size that the event includes, to include obviously a lot of help from Loudoun County Sheriff's Office with traffic and crowd control and things along those lines.

[01:23:46] Thank you very much. Questions from Mr. Luterno? Yeah, so look, I think if this $80,000 were the difference in the tax rate, I wouldn't have seconded the motion, but you know, that's not the situation we're in. I think you would generally agree that we have been slow to have some of these kind of services and events in the southern part of the county compared to what we've been providing historically elsewhere.

[01:24:10] For this type of event, when we opened Hal and Bernie Hanson, the reason why we did not do that was because there was a significant number of fireworks privately being done. And so, and when you look at where we were providing them elsewhere, they were in areas that did not have HOAs, did not have those types of events going on.

[01:24:34] But with the expansion of Brambleton, they really lost the ability of anywhere where they could hold it. And that's why they came to us and we agreed to partner with them. And, you know, Franklin Park is in Percival. So the town could have supported it if they chose to, right?

[01:24:55] So, look, I think sometimes the larger HOA communities sort of get punished because people are like, well, you've got an HOA they can pay for. Yeah, well, it's, you know, $60,000 to $80,000. It's not free. Like, the citizens are still paying for it. So, to me, if this is something that we offer elsewhere, then it makes sense to have one spread throughout the county.

[01:25:16] And we don't have any county-sponsored event in this part of the county. I'm not going to ask for one in South Riding if we have this. know this is a regional park we only have a couple of those you know but we you know it's recently open beautiful facility i don't think brambleton expected to have 10 000 people show up last year and i don't think they should have to bear the full cost of that because i can guarantee you a good portion of them didn't live in their hoa and so their hoa was paying for it so um you know given our budget situation where you know we are willing to spend some money on some of these things i think this is a really nice quality of life type of thing that we can provide for this part

[01:25:56] of the county it can be a big regional event to cover all of dullest dullest south parts of ashburn and so on which is kind of a hole for some of these things and so i will support supervisor coming's motion uh supervisor um start uh thank you mr chair um steve or jeremy or megan I'm going to support this. My question is, I assume the $80,000 will be spent in the FY26 fiscal year, even though the event will take place after July 1st?

[01:26:33] Actually, for this event, it happens the Saturday before the 4th of July, so it is in this fiscal year. All right. Thank you very much.

[01:26:59] Any other comments? Just on my part, I will not support this. I don't like the precedent. I don't like the precedent of the county funding these kinds of displays. The other three locations where we have these kinds of displays are specifically because they would not otherwise be provided because there aren't any HOAs, as you said. I think there's plenty of opportunity for the HOAs to come together and could they, if they pooled their resources, have an event at Hall and Bernie Hanson Park for the community?

[01:27:20] They could. Typically, like we did with Brambleton, we put stipulations on that it had to be open to the general public unless there was going to be a rental.

[01:27:36] But we typically do not rent the entire park for private events. Okay. I think the other thing is, frankly, just the juxtaposition of this initiative against the fact that we have 18,000 federal workers whose job future in the near term is really up in the air.

[01:27:56] And I just don't know how we can justify this. Now, I realize that's a stretch. I mean, we have a very comfortable budget this year, and we have funding for basically all of our programs. I think it's well intended.

[01:28:11] i'm not going to fall on my sword over either way um i just i just think the visuals of this this kind of event paid for by county dollars in this year is probably not the right thing to do so i will not support it um closing comments supervisor yeah i think thank you uh vice chair turner so i i want to associate myself with uh supervisor letourneau i think this part of the County has, you know, could use something, some kind of event like this, an Independence

[01:28:45] Day event, and it was such a resounding success with an estimate of more than 10,000 attendees, which is larger than any Parks and Rec event in the history of Loudoun County for an Independence Day celebration.

[01:29:02] So it shows that people really want to celebrate. They want to come together. And, I mean, we have such a large budget. We have a $4.7 billion budget, I think $80,000 for a feel-good community event is really something we should be looking at for our residents, you know, for the residents.

[01:29:22] And it will pull lots of people from Ashburn, from Broad Run, from all over. So I really thank you, Mr. Torpy, for partnering with Brambleton. I know Brambleton, you know, is willing to take this on this year working with you, and I really appreciate it.

[01:29:41] But I agree that it's a heavy lift for them when, you know, five times the amount of people show up, and I bet you maybe seven times the amount of people will show up in 2025. I went, and it was really a big success and very well done.

[01:29:58] so I want to thank you. Hopefully my colleagues will support this as something really for the community to celebrate. Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Takarni. Supervisor Glass, I skipped you yet again. I apologize. Do you have any comments? Thank you, Chair Tarni, just that I'll be supporting this motion. Okay, thank you. Motion is moved and seconded. Who was, oh, Supervisor Takarni, you will second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? No.

[01:30:29] that motion will carry seven six to one was with chair Randall off the off the dais thank you very much we appreciate it thank you next up will be the clerk

[01:31:05] of the circuit court if you could come forward sir meeting vice chair ladies gentlemen the board thank you for let me come down and speak with you this evening what I'd like to do first is just share where you can find information about my budget first of all the three resource requests before you you'll find starting on page 59 of the resource request tab in the budget document and if you want to see the narratives about my office you can leaf over to page 178 where there's background about my

[01:31:44] office operations and budget i think as a board you're entitled to know how your investment in my office has been put to work based upon your resource request from last year you graciously provided a resource request for an information technology specialist we filled that position in in September of last year, and that position has been very helpful with our technology initiatives, more particularly with the court.

[01:32:11] Our judges have embraced a lot of courtroom technologies as far as presentation of evidence and other matters that help the litigants and help the court. This position has been helpful and vital to ensuring those technologies work properly, providing orientation and training for the litigants and attorneys who want to use these technologies in the courtroom, providing help desk support for the judges during their proceeding as well as the judicial staff and, of course, my internal staff, updating our website and working on numerous other technology initiatives that otherwise would be delayed and not implemented effectively as they are now.

[01:32:45] So thank you for that investment. The second investment was for my criminal case management division. We have a new deputy clerk there. We also filled that position in September of last year. That position has been vital to help leverage the workload increase that we're seeing by virtue of criminal activity and criminal cases.

[01:33:02] and additional criminal caseload increasing, we've seen a substantial increase in number of KPIs and indictments that are filed in my office by the Commonwealth Attorney. In fact, we've seen a 71% increase since fiscal year 2022 in that volume of caseload.

[01:33:20] In terms of search warrants, which is one of the major thrusts for my request last year, from fiscal year 2022 to the present, we have seen a 133% increase in search warrants being filed in my office. So we're able to use this position to address those workload increases.

[01:33:38] So thank you for that investment. I thought you were entitled to know how we're using your investment in my office. Now let's move forward to the current fiscal year proposed budget. I have three requests. The first request and priority is a judicial project specialist. This is a top priority because we now have a mandate for clerks statewide to seal expungement cases.

[01:34:02] You may be wondering why I did not pursue this in the past because there's been discussion in the General Assembly for years about this sealing of expungement cases. There are basically several reasons why I did not pursue this in the previous fiscal year.

[01:34:17] because as of November of 2023 and I had to present my budget to our County Administrator, I didn't fully understand the scope or background of this undertaking. I didn't know the scope back in that time or how we prepared that for the budget. I did not know the plan of action being pursued by the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court of Virginia.

[01:34:40] I was also advised by many sources in Richmond that numerous public safety agencies were not prepared and they were asking for extensive the time to implement what they had to implement to fulfill the statutory mandate. I also did not know if the General Assembly would provide any state funding for this initiative.

[01:34:57] So over the past year, I've received much more information and more informed, and that's why I presented this request now. We do have one unknown. We don't know when the deadline's going to be. because as we started the General Assembly session this year, House Bill 2723 established a new deadline of July of 2026. I've heard that a Senate version might be slightly different, but the reason we don't know is this legislation is on the governor's desk. He has not signed it.

[01:35:27] So we don't know the actual deadline yet. Hopefully I'll know at some point in the near future, but regardless, this is going to happen. It's going to happen either in the next fiscal year or a subsequent physical year, and we need this resource to make that happen. Expungements have increased substantially over the years.

[01:35:45] In fact, over the past four years, they've increased considerably, nearly tripling than they had in previous years. So it's going to take a lot of work to manage this program. There's different types of sealing. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, but there's core areas of how the sealing is going to work.

[01:36:04] There's going to be automatic sealing. The legislation has specified types of criminal charges and cases where they're going to be automatically expunged, no action be required by the individual seeking expungement. Now we're working with the Office of the Executive Secretary of the Supreme Court to identify a technology initiative, and they're working very aggressively to work on this initiative.

[01:36:28] So we're hopeful they can develop a program for clerks statewide for these automatic expungements to create a report we can use to make that process work more effectively and efficiently. There's also automatic sealing but partial sealing of documents in that case.

[01:36:45] So there might be certain records in some of these expunge cases that still can be available for review and dissemination of certain agencies. And then the other function is by petition where the individual has to file a petition with the clerk seeking a court action to expunge those records.

[01:37:04] In this case, the General Assembly has established there will be no filing fees in those types of scenarios. So there's a lot of different ways this is going to operate. It's important to have someone with the right background experience that can manage this program and do it effectively. Not only is it important from a function standpoint to get it done right, but this could impact people's lives.

[01:37:25] If they should have a case expunged by virtue of the statute, and it's not, and they're applying for a job and employers going through a background check or credit check and they see this, this could be the one thing that keeps people being gainfully employed. So that's why it's important among many reasons.

[01:37:41] The other factor that needs to be considered is whether some of these expunge records are going to be available to law enforcement or other public safety agencies or not. There's a lot of things embedded in this legislation where the court may still need to provide access to certain information.

[01:37:56] So you've got to be very careful how you implement these expungement protocols and programs. The other reason this is significant is because of criminal caseload. I talked about this previously. The criminal caseload is going up. In fact, from 2023 to 2024, we saw a 22% increase in number of criminal cases, and this is continuing to rise.

[01:38:18] So presumably in the future, more people will be seeking to expunge their criminal cases if it complies with statute. The other important factor is public awareness, communication, and education. You can only imagine the numerous questions that the public may have in seeking information about expungements.

[01:38:37] Do I qualify? Are you doing this automatically? Do I need to do something? So this position will be instrumental in creating programs for the community to educate people and developing partnerships because a lot of these individuals will probably not seek the help of an attorney. They'll go online trying to find the paperwork and proceed with themselves.

[01:38:55] So we think it's important to essentially have an expungement school where we partner with the local bar association and our law library, have education programs to educate people. What is the process? Where do you have to fall into the expungement process if you want to pursue this?

[01:39:12] Basically, with all this work and the detail involved and how sophisticated it's going to be and how important it's going to be for our citizens, we cannot fulfill this mandate whenever it takes effect with our current staffing. We need to have a specialized management level position at my direction, implement these programs, do them correctly, and make sure every single case by statute is expunged.

[01:39:37] And we're talking about going back to the mid-1980s. The other challenging aspect is even though we're talking about doing some of these things in an automatic technology-driven process, I don't know for sure how my predecessors may have indexed or done data entry of certain civil cases.

[01:39:54] So it's conceivable that there's cases in the system that won't be picked up with this automatic process the Supreme Court's working on. That's why you have to really dig into the record to make sure we're not missing anything in this process. So it's going to be rather complicated.

[01:40:10] I am pleased to report that I received word this morning from the State Compensation Board that the General Assembly did appropriate state funding for clerks of circuit court. This is fresh off the press. They did appropriate funding for clerks of circuit court. We don't know the amount that Loudoun County will receive.

[01:40:28] We're looking at a range of $46,000 to $64,000, depending upon experience and qualifications. So essentially, the expenditure of this resource request in the budget is $127,000, $300 also, $127,300.

[01:40:45] The state grant will essentially cover 36% to 50%, depending upon that range of the investment made by this board, if the board is inclined to include this in the adopted budget. So that's some background on this position. I have other information about the process I plan to pursue for this position, but I'd like to stop now and see if you have any specific questions about this resource request or about expungements.

[01:41:10] Thank you, Mr. Clements. Any questions? Supervisor Armstead. Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, um, it's hard to miss the statements that crime has been going up substantially in this county. And so what I wonder is, is it that crime is going up substantially, or is it that we have a more aggressive Commonwealth's attorney who is seeking indictments? I can tell you from my

[01:41:48] perspective, I can't answer crime. That'd be best to be answered by the sheriff and the Commonwealth's attorney. I just know I have more criminal cases and more criminal transaction circuit court. But to more directly answer your question, we have more indictments. We have more cases being pursued by the commonwealth attorney. So I think part of the answer to your question is, yes, we have a commonwealth attorney. It's more aggressive. And if you look at the indictment numbers, they're definitely going up since this individual took office. All right. Thank you. Any other questions?

[01:42:17] Supervisor Glass, any questions? No questions. Thank you. Any motions? Thank you, sir. We appreciate your time. I have two more, sir. So my second resource request and priority order is a probate specialist position. Just keep running. Just keep going. The pause caught me off guard.

[01:42:38] We do have an increase in population and Supervisor Amstad astutely asked my colleague, Steve Torpy, about the 55 nerve population. It is growing. And unfortunately, when people age, and death is inevitable and probate is definitely increasing in loudon county we've seen a steady increase year after year for the past four fiscal years i'm anticipating over the past five years when we finish 2025 we're going to see a cumulative increase of 48 percent in probate cases loudon county in addition to handling probate my probate team also handles the qualification of guardianships

[01:43:17] Once someone goes to court, there's a process they have to follow with my office. Since 2021, cumulatively adding up through the 2025 to date, we've seen a 55% increase in appointment of guardianship. So both of these workloads are increasing substantially.

[01:43:35] I'm very proud of my probate team. I'm going to brag a little bit. Most of the attorneys in Northern Virginia tell me that my probate team is one of the best in Northern Virginia. We like to keep it that way, but it's important to have a team that's ready to address the needs of the clientele in your community.

[01:43:52] I'm very proud of our response time right now. If someone lodges an inquiry with my office through phone, email, or some other way, we're used to respond to these inquiries within 24 to 48 hours, depending upon the volume of their caseload and depending upon staffing levels in that particular day.

[01:44:11] We're able to set all probate hearings where we meet with the parties involved in the state within nine days once that that inquiry is made for an appointment. My fear is with the growth in probate and guardianships without this resource our response time to initial inquiries could slip to 72 hours instead of 24 to 48 hours. I'm concerned that the time to come in and have your probate hearing could slip from nine days on average to 15 days on average and also we're I'm concerned about the ratio of clients to probate clerks.

[01:44:45] Currently, that ratio of probate caseload to deputy clerk is 22 to 1. I think the ideal threshold is 15 cases to 1. So that's one of the reasons I'm seeking this resource request. But there's one other important element.

[01:45:01] My probate manager is outstanding. And many of you may have known Bill Loy, who served in my office. Well, he went back four clerks, 49 and a half years. he was my probate manager he was outstanding bill decided to retire and unfortunately passed away very soon after he did retire but i've got a new probate manager who has been part of the team a long time who's outstanding she's doing a great job but she needs more time to manage we have some strategic long-term goals that she's not able to tend to because she's actually doing probates on a regular daily basis i'd like for her to be able to devote more time to the strategic

[01:45:38] planning the assessment of technology we've got a great probate technology system but we're always shopping we want to add enhancements we're a very dynamic dynamic county we want to enhance our technologies she doesn't have time to research or look into the technologies we also want to expand our probate services outside the clerk's office i like to team with people in the della south area can we do probates in della south can we go to the far reaches of lowe's island eastern and loud. Can we keep people from congested roadways in a 30-minute drive to the courthouse to do a probate? And if we can't do that, I'm looking at Saturday hours, and I'm going to need

[01:46:18] personnel to offer Saturday hours. So I think that'd be more convenient for our citizens seeking probate services. Maybe they can't come in during the business week. Maybe they can come in on a Saturday. Maybe they can meet us at the community center in South Riding. So we want to be able to expand these services which we cannot do without proper personnel to be part of the team.

[01:46:39] Another initiative I have, and I've shared this vision with my four Golden Virginia colleagues in Arlington, Alexandria, Prince William, Fairfax, is regional collaboration on probate. If we have a disaster or a situation or a pandemic where we need to band together to address a huge surge in probate cases in any of our jurisdictions, how do we do that?

[01:47:03] So they've all bought in. We all agreed to this vision. Now we need to put together our resources to make this cooperative process work within the region so that no matter where a situation occurs, we can work as a team in Northern Virginia to address an unforeseen probate surge.

[01:47:20] Without this position, my manager will not be able to establish that collaboration and that partnership. So these are some of the reasons why I'm seeking the position, and I think this will indeed be a good investment in Loudoun's future. I'm happy to pause for my final comments, see if you have any questions.

[01:47:36] Actually, Mr. Clemens, I think if you'd like to take yes for an answer, you can give an abbreviated presentation for your third position as well. Okay. But I think I should tell you about number three, make sure you know that our judges need another judge. So I have to publicly say that we're hopeful that the General Assembly at some point will see the light and provide a new judge or more position for the 20 judicial circuit, particularly for Loudoun County.

[01:48:01] But until we get there, this third request is definitely needed to support our visiting judge. I just want to share a stat. Seventy-five percent of all court days, we have a visiting judge. I just want to get that out because the media is here. We need to get this information down in the General Assembly.

[01:48:18] Seventy-five percent of every court day, we have a visiting judge. We have three times as many visiting judges coming in this fiscal year, based on our projections, than we did last fiscal year. So we need another judge. And the good thing about this request, ladies and gentlemen, is we get the new judge.

[01:48:38] This position will go from helping visiting judges to helping our sitting new judge in Loudoun County. I really appreciate your time. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to entertain those questions. Thank you very much. Questions, anyone? Any motions? Thank you all very much.

[01:48:54] We appreciate it. Let me thank you all for what you do in service to our community. Thank you. Thank you. One more. One more. I'm going to skip ahead since we have a fairly large contingent from the Sheriff's Office and ask the Sheriff's Office to come up and do their presentation.

[01:49:25] Good evening, Sheriff. It's your microphone. Okay. Good evening, Chair Turner and members of the board. First of all, I want to thank you for the opportunity to address you tonight with regard to Loudoun County budget requests for the upcoming fiscal year.

[01:49:48] Each request reflects our drive to enhance our efficiency and effectiveness, our dedication to provide exemplary service to county residents in our business community and our commitment to implementing recommendations from the 2021 iacp study forgive me i'm a little hoarse i'm just getting over a head cold here before discussing our specific request i want to take a moment to discuss some relevant personal statistics last year we hired 96 staff members including 62 sworn and a staff of 34 civilian so far in 2025 our employment services section has already hired

[01:50:28] 13 employees with 10 more starting next week and we have an additional 86 applicants in background in the background investigation process our turnover rate has stayed incredibly low about six percent last year which is a testament to the dedication of our staff one of the biggest recruiting tools that we have is word of mouth and we do have a very good reputation in the law enforcement community finally i'm proud to report that the louden county sheriff's office has an overall vacancy rate of 8.6 which is well below many other law enforcement agencies

[01:51:06] all of these achievements are a credit to the incredible working men and women every day that come to work and put a lot of effort into their jobs and make sure to keep loud and safe so turning it to our budget request our first request is titled transitioning temporary positions to regular positions our number one priority this fiscal year is the conversion of temporary positions to permanent positions we currently have six temporary positions and keeping them is critical these include an administrative assistant which is vital to supporting the

[01:51:41] administrative workload in the sheriff's office and that includes a multitude of things to include VSI certifications, which is a complex package that has to be put together for our folks to get that particular very important certification. Conferences that myself or lieutenant colonels and others go to, different routine requests that we get every single day, you know, such as patches and badges or other patches and other paraphernalia that we have, and also maintaining work, helping

[01:52:19] us out with our disciplinary meetings that we have. We need a public information officer, we want to change that to a full-time. It's critical to continue the meeting, meet the public information needs of the agency. Everything right now, media is getting more complex every day, as we all know, and we're We're trying to keep up with everything that we do when it comes to media, making sure our outreach, our community outreach is solid.

[01:52:44] One civilian financial crimes detective, which is vital for the increasing volume and sophistication of our financial and cyber crimes. That is really a big deal, as you're seeing in the news frequently now. Two civilian background detectives, which have helped us achieve incredible numbers.

[01:53:03] I read earlier related to our hiring. And one program assistant in our ADC, which is needed to continue managing our volunteer network and supporting our programming at the Adult Detention Center, like our new GED program. Our second request is entitled Enhancing Field Operations Division.

[01:53:24] This request includes 13 positions that will transform our patrol operations in two crucial ways. First, we're kicking off patrol decentralization with the Eastern Loudoun Station. This includes five second lieutenant positions, one for E-Squad and one for the management of the station resources.

[01:53:47] And this is a critical recommendation that was made by the International Association of Chiefs of Police. Operationally, decentralization will enhance responsiveness, reinforce community-oriented policing, maintain supervision levels, and improve professionalism and effectiveness of our patrol operations.

[01:54:06] Our intent is to decentralize one station per fiscal year beginning this year and continuing for the next three years. Our county is growing like crazy. The demands on what we do are getting more and more difficult and complex, and decentralization is really the route that we need to go to keep up with these demands.

[01:54:30] The second part of this request is a second lieutenant -- it's two, rather, second lieutenant and six sergeant positions so that we can transition to a three-shift operational model. That data shows we'll better align staffing with service demands. Our internal analysis shows this new shift schedule will boost our response during peak hours.

[01:54:49] This model will allow us more efficiently to use our resources, requiring fewer additional patrol deputies in the future. Deputy positions are sufficient and will be redeployed to staff this third shift.

[01:55:05] In addition to better covering our busiest hours, this will also provide additional wellness benefits to our midnight shift. Our third request is for our Victim Advocate Unit. This has four positions to build a strong civilian team and our Victim Advocate Unit.

[01:55:23] This is a unit that goes in between when we initially encounter a victim of some sort of a crime involving a physical assault, sexual assault, and it immediately gives them the help that they need prior to them getting into the criminal justice system where then at that point a lot of that goes on to the responsibility of the Commonwealth Attorney's So we have a myriad of resources that we refer them to and we follow up on before it gets to that point.

[01:55:58] We started this in October of 2023, and we've already had 484 follow-ups with our victim advocate unit. So we started this as a soft launch program with two detective positions that have already seen a tremendous community impact.

[01:56:14] This request includes two civilian victim advocates and one civilian manager who will provide specialized expertise before cases enter the judicial process. We're also adding a first lieutenant to tie together leadership for our victim advocate, special victims, and domestic violence unit.

[01:56:30] This structure will allow our uniformed personnel to focus on investigations while providing comprehensive support to the victims. In addition to this request, to the request included in this proposed budget, we also made the following request to the county administration.

[01:56:47] I wanted to mention them for just, just for your awareness so that we have, that you have, that you'll know that we requested these positions and still view them as important in providing high quality law enforcement services to the county. Excuse me. The first was entitled Training Center Staffing.

[01:57:05] This included 10 positions to properly staff our training center and firing range. This gets us closer to the industry standard with two full-time instructors per 100 deputies. It adds seven deputy first-class instructor positions. This would also reduce our reliance on pulling patrol and corrections deputies from their primary duties to perform instructor functions.

[01:57:26] And this request also adds supervisory positions to captain and sergeant to provide dedicated oversight as well as administrative support to manage training records and facilitate curriculum development. The next request was for the expansion of our traffic safety unit. This request included 10 positions to address growing safety concerns. Traffic remains, as you know, one of the top complaints and concerns we receive from residents in this county. Overall, our goal with traffic safety is proactive and preventive, ideally addressing problem areas and behavior prior of crashes. This request included four motor deputies focused on proactive safety and crash

[01:58:04] prevention, four accident reconstruction deputies to handle increasing crash investigation demands of two civilian parking enforcement technicians to handle parking violations, freeing up our deputies for more crucial or critical duties. Our final request was for the starting to add school resource officers in elementary schools. This request included 18 positions to launch the first phase of elementary school sro program one second lieutenant two sarges to provide the proper supervision and coordination 15 deputies spread across school clusters for our smart

[01:58:39] coverage and this is designed to improve safety in our elementary schools across the county in conclusion there are 23 positions currently in the county administrator's proposed budget which equates to a department growth this year of about 2.5 percent the total of all of our requests this year with 61 positions and these requests represent carefully considered additions to meet current demands even if we got all 61 it would still be just under a 7% increase for the LCS so again each request is supported by workload analysis operational needs and we believe these positions will enhance our ability to serve and protect the county we'd be

[01:59:17] pleased to answer any questions you have about any of these these items and and look forward to your questions. And I have, of course, two Lieutenant Colonels here with me, Chris Sawyer and Bob Mosier, and I have other people that can help answer questions should you have questions that require more detail.

[01:59:34] Thank you. Thank you, Sheriff. Questions for the Sheriff and his team? Supervisor Umston. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sheriff, you heard our Clerk of Court. Would you agree with his assessment that the increase in criminal cases that he is seeing is based on a more aggressive Commonwealth's attorney, or are you, in fact, seeing an increase in crime in the county?

[02:00:06] No, it's absolutely based on a more effective Commonwealth attorney's office, a more aggressive Commonwealth attorney's office. In fact, many of our crime rates, most violent crime rates, have gone down, and yet we're still getting more prosecutions and more energetic activity by the Commonwealth Attorney's Office, so that's great.

[02:00:22] Okay. Do you see a concerning amount of drunk in public and drunk driving cases coming in? Sure, so I can take that one. So, obviously, we are always concerned with drunk driving and alcohol-related offenses across the board.

[02:00:44] Those are difficult for us to extrapolate trends for multiple reasons. A lot of the DUI enforcement activities and the charges that we see are related to deputy proactivity. So when we have deputies that are out there patrolling the streets, then the more they're on the road, and this gets to some of the staffing and things we talk about, the more they're on the road and available to look for offenders, the more drunk driving arrests that go up.

[02:01:12] That does not mean, when we see DUI arrests go up, that doesn't necessarily mean that more people are driving intoxicated. It just means that we may be catching a higher percentage of the ones that are on the road. So it's difficult for us to extrapolate there. Our deputies are doing a great job.

[02:01:28] We have seen DUI arrests increase. So that's a good thing from an enforcement perspective. But it remains that DUI is a serious problem, and especially in the day and age of Uber and Lyft and all these things, the more we can do to get messaging out and resources out for alternative ways for people to get safely home, the better.

[02:01:51] And finally, thank you for that one final question.

[02:02:07] I had the honor of getting to talk with a Leesburg police officer who talked about the work that the Leesburg police SROs are doing in Leesburg schools, trying to educate young boys and young men on the way our ideals in the U.S. about not beating up women in the home, basically, trying to educate these young men against domestic violence.

[02:02:35] Are your deputies in the rest of the county able to do that similar kind of education through RSROs? We do a lot of education with our SROs.

[02:02:53] I think there's a misconception that an SRO is just an officer or deputy with a gun to protect from, you know, maybe a terrorist activity or something. But we do a lot of education in a myriad of ways from whether it's, you know, drug prevention to just general counseling and, you know, all these other things that happen that people are doing with social media.

[02:03:14] And I would assume that we are doing that as well. So specific education on, you know, anti-battery or that type of thing, I can't speak to that exactly. We are now in partnership with Latin County Public Schools teaching in high school courses where they have a myriad of topics that they're talking over all kinds of different issues, including substance abuse and things like that.

[02:03:42] I'm also not explicitly familiar with the program that Leesburg is running, but we'll take a look at it. Thank you. supervisor glass you have any questions for the sheriff no questions thank you supervisor to crony thank you vice chair turner so welcome thank you so much for that presentation are you asking for 23 um full-time employees i think you asked for the same amount in fy 2025 right it was 23 23 if i'm not mistaken because i heard you say some other positions that wasn't listed in here yeah

[02:04:22] Yeah, this is 23. What we like to do is also let you know that we ask for additional other positions that were not, did not make the final cut of the budget, just so that you're aware of that. But yes, 23 positions just go around. Okay. And how many positions are still needed to bring the sheriff's office closer to the 79 additional full-time deputies recommended in the 2021 International Association of Chiefs of Police Study?

[02:04:47] Sure, I can take that one. So the specific number of deputies at that time was related to the workload that was calculated at that time.

[02:05:03] That workload is always in flux. So we're not our intention is not to go back to that and say because we had 79, we need 79. Two years ago, we got 35 deputies. Last year, we got 14. Our current workload analysis shows that that even over the 2024 numbers, that number of deputies is still right where we need to be. so we don't have any additional field deputy requests at this point and along with that the third shift so as we've been working through analyzing all of our workload data the third shift supervisors that are here would actually allow us to better accommodate the workload as it comes in

[02:05:38] as well which should reduce our need if all things stay stay similar should reduce our need for additional patrol deputies at least for a couple of fiscal years that's what we're hopeful for okay and um i remember uh last uh year we mentioned or you mentioned that there might be some more presence of deputies in western loudon county i just wanted to see how that was going if more deputies were added to western loud and just to improve the response time in that area sure so response time in western loudon is extremely difficult just because it's so geographically

[02:06:13] expansive combined with the factor that the call for service volume is is relatively low compared to the other areas of the county so when you look at the county it is geographically the largest but it is also significantly lower in calls for service and crime rate and things like that so what we do is we we staff all areas of the county based on the workload for for that area we actually increased staffing above that base workload in western loudon so that we have a few extra people because frankly if we just went on workload it would tell us that we would need two to three

[02:06:50] people and that is that's not sufficient so we actually go above that standard there just because it's such a a large geographic area okay and i just want to thank colonel moseyer for the nice lunch that we had thank you for giving me updates on what was needed thank you thank you supervisor Thank you, Vice Chair. Thank you, Sheriff, and your team for the outstanding work. We have a fantastic sheriff's office that has been very positive in the community.

[02:07:19] I do have a couple questions. So I'm very interested in the decentralization. I've been bringing it up for years before even the IACP report. Can you explain how that big field operations sort of rejiggering would actually support that?

[02:07:36] It says, and that's sort of the justification for it. I believe you, but I don't quite understand it. And then give me about a minute left on my time because I have another question. Okay. Don't take the hold of it. I will do my best to do this in a minute and a half. Okay. So there are two things in that field operations request.

[02:07:52] One is staffing for a third shift like I've referenced. The other is the decentralization. So of the second lieutenant positions, there are five second lieutenant positions specifically marked for decentralization of the Eastern London station. Those second lieutenant positions would be assigned one per patrol shift. So we have we currently have four patrol shifts. So one per patrol shift and then one assigned to the station to help manage the station resources. As you know station detectives see our deputies traffic and all that stuff as those resources and that workload has increased as we've added positions to the stations. So the idea is that in every service

[02:08:31] area once decentralization is complete on every service area in every um on every squad there's one sergeant and one second lieutenant working at a time so to be able to accomplish that we need does that then change the command structure at all yes so then the captain of the station end up correct with more authority yes so so that is what we need to be able to move that command structure into the station so then the station commander will then oversee all of those positions that are under including the patrol deputies so yes once this is complete that to me is the key because right now that sort of de-link creates just confusion and issues and who you're talking to

[02:09:10] who if there's an issue with something okay um so we don't have the other requests we only have within the budget i was going to ask a question about parking and traffic um and ask if there was any consideration giving to some parking resources and or traffic particularly in dello south if you look at the metrics and stats this is where they're the it's the biggest service area population wise it's just exploded and we work with you know that deputy and that cr all the time and they're just under the gun constantly so um i would be interested in if you have interest in parking i it's something i may bring back i probably can't do it tonight but if you know

[02:09:50] during our wrap-up i would like to have mr parker's in the back i'd like to have a conversation about it you want to tell us real quick what that was sure so this request was for uh specific to parking it had other things in it but specific to parking it had two civilian parking uh enforcement staff that's us dipping our toe in the water of moving um parking enforcement to a civilian role to see what we could do without in a in a cheaper more fiscally conservative way to be able to do some parking enforcement with civilian staff so there were two people that's obviously not enough to have one at every you know at every you know service area and every station but they would be

[02:10:29] going and specifically working on the parking complaints that that come in that could be handled by a non-sworn person thank you uh supervisor change thank you thank you guys for being with this um all right so we got seven second lieutenants i'm reading this right and six sergeants and one first lieutenant so will the plan be to promote within if we have people that are qualified or is it going to be posted and then anybody can apply?

[02:11:01] We would have to promote from within to start, but we need to backfill those positions at some point, and that's why we would need this. In order to sufficiently do that and to cover each of the shifts properly, you would need all those positions. Decentralization is a big operation, but to adjust to the needs of the growing county and to have more specific responses in an area and be more autonomous in those particular areas is what we have to do.

[02:11:30] But it does require a significant increase in manpower. And which areas were these folks going to? So the second lieutenants that were related to decentralization, five would be going to the Eastern Island Station. That's our plan to start in that area, mostly because that's our most populous area.

[02:11:46] So that would be where we, by populous, I mean as far as call for service volume and things like that. I understand population and different service stations a little bigger. And then the field operations, the one for the field operations, third shift, those would be spread out throughout the county.

[02:12:02] And how many open positions do we currently have open? As far as vacancies? Yeah, just in general. Give me just one second. So total vacancies across the agency, so through the patrol, ADC and everything, is currently 66.

[02:12:25] Okay. Correct me if I'm wrong, it usually takes six months or so to recruit, and then they can do the background check and all this. almost a year yes and that's why the that pool of vacancies um is almost like a continuing that number's always going to be decently high because it you know as soon as some one person retires it takes us a while to be able to fill it so obviously we want to get that number even lower um but if i had to guess we're probably going to have um you know 30 40 50 positions that are going to be vacant in some stage of being vacant or training um you know pretty much at all times so they're

[02:13:04] still needed, they're still needed to be funded positions because we need to be able to hire, do salary worksheets and everything for those positions, but there's going to be a... All right, with the 30 seconds I have left, so to clarify, so these positions you said you're going to have to promote within, so why can't we just promote with, so are we looking to promote within to whatever the level, so to these levels, and then we're going to backfill the positions that they were in?

[02:13:28] Yes, so sergeants who are eligible to be promoted to second lieutenant will be promoted second lieutenant deputies who are eligible be able to be promoted to sergeant and then we would hire additional deputy deputies gotcha and would be higher the deputies from the post the current vacancy we have now um yeah so they are essentially in a pool so um we hire in three different areas these would be specifically for patrol so that currently is a constantly advertised position it's always open on the county website uh for deputy sheriff for patrol so we would be hiring into those positions, yes. All right, thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Kirshner. Thank you, Vice

[02:14:06] Chair. Um, gentlemen, thanks for being here. Thanks for your presentation. I just have one quick question. Um, and it's actually not about, specifically about the budget items you've asked, you've, you've, you're requesting. I know that there has on, I know the SRRs were mentioned up here before, but it's my understanding that not every one of our schools currently has a resource officer, is that correct? Especially at the elementary level, they kind of share schools, Is that correct?

[02:14:30] - No, we have SROs every middle and high school. At the elementary school level, we have about eight or nine, but they're not really SROs, they're DARE instructors, but they bounce from school to school, so they do provide some degree of assistance there, but they're not specifically assigned to a school.

[02:14:47] - Has there ever been any thought in your budget request to try to man all those schools, and if not, why? Can you kind of talk me through your thought process on that? - No, we've always wanted to man all those schools with school resource officers, yes. Okay, but obviously it's not part of your request this year.

[02:15:03] Is that just because these things have higher priority? Is that something that perhaps you could bring to us next year in your next year's budget? We continue to bring it, and I think it's important that we continue to address it. I think it would really be nice to do that. I think it would be of great value because they could not only be the school resource officer, they can educate, do the DARE programs and everything else.

[02:15:24] So I think the more we have there, you know, you'd have to do it incrementally. but the more that you would have, you'd have the ability to cover schools better than just like one for every eight or nine schools. I agree. Okay. That would be something I would, you know, in future budgets, we certainly, I would support.

[02:15:42] I don't know, I can't speak to my fellow colleagues, but I think there would be some support for that. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Bresman. Thank you. I have two questions about the Priority 3. One's about that priority and one's sort of related.

[02:16:00] Did you work with laws or Department of Family Services in designing these positions? And if not, would you? And then also that reminded me that we redid the MOU with LCPS and LCSO to make sure that SROs in high schools and middle schools were age-appropriate trauma-informed.

[02:16:24] And has that been accomplished? And then I have one more question, so leave me some time. Please. Sure. I could take that one as well. So yes, our victim advocate unit works with many, many different nonprofit organizations, including laws. They're very well connected with laws, the Commonwealth Attorney's Victim Assistance, and many, many other community-based organizations to try to make sure we get resources, holistic kind of wraparound resources as quickly as we can to people of all different types of crime.

[02:16:52] And then related to the SROs in schools, yes, they do receive trauma-informed training. Okay, okay, great. And then, I don't know if you're aware of the Human Rights Campaign and their Municipal Equality Index.

[02:17:08] The county submitted to them, I don't know, a little while ago, and we got a score of 81 out of 100. This is an index that indicates if a jurisdiction is welcoming and or serving the LGBTQIA community efficiently and appropriately.

[02:17:27] We did not get 10 points because our law enforcement does not have a liaison or a task force for that specific community. So would you be willing to have a conversation about appointing somebody to be in that position or having a task force for that?

[02:17:51] If you're talking specifically about the LGBTQ community, we recruit from across the board for everybody. This isn't for recruiting. This is a sort of a community liaison person where their name and phone number is on your website for that community to contact if they have concerns or issues in the community.

[02:18:12] Well, we have a wide open website. Heck, I think half the people in this county have my personal phone number. We answer every question, every concern that comes our way. I don't know that we need a specific person in a position like that to handle a question like that. Okay, well, the Human Rights Campaign MEI Index does think that that community wants that position within law enforcement so that there is a direct contact.

[02:18:36] I can send you the information. I would like for you guys to consider that if possible. And also, I just wanted to compliment your staff. Colonel Sawyer, Captain, why do I want to say Miller? That's not true. David have been great, as has been Captain Rogers.

[02:18:55] And I'll send you the information on the MEI index. It could really help the county get more points. Thank you. Thank you. Any other questions for the sheriff and his team? Can I ask one more? Mr. Wester Corny. So the crossing guards, Sheriff Chapman, you put that in last budget.

[02:19:16] Do you need more crossing guards? Because I know that's always talked about, you know, for Loudoun County Public Schools. I'll let Lieutenant Colonel Sawyer address this in a little more detail. but yes we always we always need crossing guards it's a very difficult position to fill because it's so broken up during the day at the morning and then you have the afternoon what do you do during the day it's just a tough position to fill uh we do pretty good but we always need more we're always trying to recruit the best we can okay thank you yeah so specific on on placement placement of crossing guards tends to be the the hottest topic in different areas and a lot of people would

[02:19:50] like crossing guards where they're currently are we work very closely with lcps transportation to identify the specific areas where crossing guards should be for consistency around the county and then our our request when you do see them it's in concert with lcps that that is a location that has been deemed that needs a crossing guard okay wonderful and i want to thank you for putting that victim advocate unit together especially for the domestic violence unit and working with laws i really appreciate that it sounds like you meet regularly for a coordinated community response

[02:20:26] correct like with different different groups we do we're proud of that unit they've been very effective in the short time they've been up okay thank you very much appreciate that any other questions any motions seeing none sheriff thank you very much colonel colonel thank you both can Can I just have a personal point real quick?

[02:20:49] Captain Hill, thank you for all your help. I don't know why I wasn't getting Captain Hill. Major Hill, oh, sorry, Major Hill, nice to see you. I don't know why your name, I blanked on your name. Thank you. We ready for a break?

[02:21:06] We're going to take a 15-minute break for dinner. Thank you all.

[02:35:45] Okay, she is.

[02:45:42] Oh, geez, my little thing is broken. What a surprise.

[02:46:23] Good evening. Mr. Anderson, you are, it's your microphone. Does this green light need to be on? It does well. Thank you all members staff for giving me the opportunity to sit up here and tell you where we are and I would like to Definitely thank you for what has gone on in the past with my presence here And I'll tell you about that in just a minute before I get started. It was

[02:47:02] Enjoyable for me to sit here and listen to Mike Chapman Gary Clemens and I tempted I'm tempted to say I don't have any more to say I agree with those guys works for me all right let me let me get into this first of all um the reason i'm thanking you is because we had two go-arounds last time involving investigators they are heavily involved

[02:47:33] in this office right now serving a huge purpose we are in the process excuse me of setting up participation with a special grand jury with the attorney general's office they will be integral in that process and create a situation where there's improvement now let me go through first of all if i can the request the request that we've made is two and one is an administrative

[02:48:08] assistant and i mean i've gone through this before the caseload increase is tremendous and we need some staff people to help us manage that increase in caseload so the administrative assistant is a position that ensures that a person is there for citizens to speak to they don't get a recording they get somebody from the commonwealth attorney's office that is there and that will get results for them with whatever problem they have i know i've been in the situation where i've called

[02:48:42] the commonwealth attorney's office on numerous occasions i didn't get that and i firm firmly believe that i have an obligation to seek to be able to get that for anybody else that calls that office that position is currently filled by a temporary employee we need it in our ongoing efforts to serve the people of laden county and that's why we have that position as part of our

[02:49:12] request all right the second one it's called sart it's sexual assault response team that's critical because of the influence or the increase in cases that we have and i'm going to read to you what this work scope is the program manager position was previously funded through a federal grant that position which was expired has expired and been converted to a temporary position which has been continuously occupied since 2023 and the need is

[02:49:48] ongoing the program manager position coordinates with other members of start to enhance the reporting capabilities and support the collection and in my opinion a very important issue here and the analysis of aggregate data for instance where are these issues and these cases coming from where is the best place to focus attention and people and resources so it is partly in a position a partly work scope is to perform an analysis to provide the data

[02:50:24] which is critical in identifying the trends and shaping preventive strategies so that we can get proactively involved now we are unique I think this office is with the rest of the county agencies within this Commonwealth and we are because the increase in caseload is tremendous Supervisor Umstead made a comment earlier tonight you know what's what's going on here is there an

[02:51:01] increase in Kate in crime is there something else going on here's the real truth there is no increase in crime no major increase in crime but there is a very large increase in accountability we take these cases when they come in the office to prevent to prepare them for trial they're not looking at we aren't looking at making a plea bargain or doing anything unless the deal is right or unless we're forced into it by circumstances like evidence people

[02:51:38] disappearing doing things that you wouldn't expect them to do we are trial oriented and that's primarily what we're doing that's why that's why there's a 71 percent increase in capias 71% is a huge number that's why there's three times the visiting judges that are here in this jurisdiction hearing these cases because we're focused on going to trial we're not focused on making plea deals

[02:52:08] or anything that we don't have to make up front criminal cases this didn't come from me this came from Gary Clements criminal cases in this county are up 21% resolutions of criminal cases are up 21% and those are due to trials the sheriff's department said they have a victim ad advocate office within their agency we also have a victim advocate agency and we work well with the

[02:52:47] sheriff's department and let me tell you something I am proud to be able to say that the sheriff and the clerk of this court work well with my office and me we have dedicated people in that office that have come from a number of jurisdictions that want to be here in Loudoun County and they're doing a fantastic job and it shows by the results the reason that's happening is is because of preparation.

[02:53:22] We ingrain within the people that are in that office the purpose of preparation. And there's a unique thing going on in this office, and it's called a murder board. And the murder board is a review of peers with an individual that has a trial that occurs three months before the trial, two months before the trial, so that everything that could possibly be dealt with is.

[02:53:51] I've tried a number of cases in my career, it's always good to be able to look at this through the eyes of somebody else you may have forgotten this we should have done that invaluable that's the type type of preparation that is going on I consider Gary Clemens and Mike Chapman personal friends of mine and that's the way it should be we need to be able to work together and we are let me give you a couple statistics that we

[02:54:25] have compiled two bills that is two bills indictments from a grand jury comparing calendar years I don't want to get into a dart throwing contest but this is just simply comparing years to years comparing calendar years 23 to 24 a 42 percent increase in grand jury returns accepted please 43 percent increase and accepted please by the circuit court that's because cases are

[02:55:04] well prepared so I mean I could go over a number of other things but one other thing I want to talk about is average prosecutor caseload right now calendar you're 70 24 75 prosecutor caseload averages across the board that's an increase from 58 so these people are working harder with more demands placed on them they are extremely professional I am very proud of them I'm not sure what else to say with respect to supporting the

[02:55:41] two requests that we have but you need to know first of all my sense of gratitude and what you did with those two investigators and also you need to know what this office is doing in the rest of the county so that's all i have to say thank you mr anderson i appreciate it questions for the commonwealth's attorney supervisor the crony yeah thank you and thanks for that um bit of information so um in fy uh 2025 um you requested a docket manager paralegal legal service

[02:56:20] assistance and assistant to the chief of staff so i'm just questioning are these positions no longer needed i see you have two other uh positions listed no they are are not no longer needed but i did what i did the first time i came up here and got my head knocked off basically what i did was knocked it down to what was real okay and and that's what i did this time could i need a case manager yeah i could but we have people that at this particular point in time are adjusting to making sure we can do with that maybe we'll come back next year with a request for it but not this

[02:56:53] year okay and i thank you for putting forward the sexual assault um response team program manager it sounds like you work um with laws and with the sheriff um and you're part of that um community response team right right let me just say this part of that job is analysis and it is trying to form a position that would prevent it not just deal with it after it happens so if if if part

[02:57:29] of that is case management uh within the county where is this coming from where is it most prevalent that's part of what that job is all about and then that is about preventing it from happening in the first place and do you have other positions in that uh team or is this the only the program manager this is the only program manager it was a state grant federal grant i'm sorry it was a federal grant it's now attempt we're asking it to be made uh permanent yeah happy to support that thank you very much you're welcome advisor briskman thank you um how many positions

[02:58:07] um did did we allocate last year just one oh as part of the budget because one and that was the investigator right okay so um and do you have any vacancies right now we have uh one two we have four vacancies but we anticipate that they're going to be filled but okay and how big is your office with four of it how many slots we have uh you mean attorneys well just how big is your office how many people 54 60 sorry 60 okay okay great do you know how many um criminal cases

[02:58:43] in loudon county um that require a public defender okay that's a very good question and let me answer it this way within the commonwealth attorney's office we prosecute cases from nine different agencies in the county. Okay, but do you know, I'm on limited time, do you know how many criminal cases require a public defender? Less than we do, okay, and the reason for that is we get all of them, and they get the indigent, and some of the ones that can't afford to hire an attorney, so the answer is, I don't know what that ratio is. 70 percent, 70 percent of criminal cases

[02:59:21] require a public defender. Where did that come from? Public defender's office. They're coming to us with with uh with a request for a supplement and more and more um staff some more support staff i know they are i can tell you that a lot of those people are good friends of mine they're hard-working people and they're real professionals do you think they should be getting paid as much as your attorneys if the money was there i guess but they all have law degrees and actually your office the average um 10 years 3.5 years and they have people that have been there for eight years

[02:59:57] well i that's misleading the three point some years because those are issues that go back to another administration and basically i can tell you this oh because it's an elected office it turns over more i guess that makes sense yeah i guess that makes sense okay i yeah i i can't agree with that i don't i think these people stay a little bit longer oh and you're in the in the office yeah okay okay thank you you're welcome mr anderson i'm going to ask you a question and And this is not a gotcha question.

[03:00:32] It's really not. I'm really curious as to what the answer is, because the answer I got years and years ago baffled me. I've been here since 2005, and I was meeting with a Commonwealth's attorney years ago, and I asked that person, I said, what's your metric for success in the Commonwealth's attorney's office?

[03:00:48] So I'm going to ask you the same question, just open-ended, because I'm just curious as to what the metric for success is. Was justice served? I mean, I have a memory that has seared in my mind when I was in law school. And the question was a little bit different, but it said to our ethics attorney that was teaching the class, how can you possibly defend somebody that's guilty?

[03:01:12] He said, you're not the judge, you're not the jury, you do justice. If you can't do justice, you shouldn't be involved in the criminal justice system. So my metrics is justice. Everybody is entitled to a fair trial, and every prosecutor's office, I would suspect, is extremely concerned about making sure that that's the priority.

[03:01:39] And here's why I asked the question. The answer I got years ago was, well, we don't have one because you can't measure that in the Commonwealth's attorney's office, which obviously didn't ring very true to me. I would consider it's a measure, and I'm the layman, complete layman, I would consider it's a measure of number of indictments as a ratio in the numerator and the denominator, or maybe the other way around, is the number of jury convictions.

[03:02:07] So you can indict all day long, and if a jury of their peers throws it out, that's not a measure of success. If you indict all day long and a jury of their peers finds them guilty the vast majority of the time, then I would say your point of justice is the metric for success is pretty much measured out in that circumstance.

[03:02:27] This is just an academic exercise. It's really truly not intended as a gotcha. I mean, I think your funding request is very reasonable. And I just, that question, the answer I got years ago just stuck in my mind, and I thought, what is the metric for success in a commonwealth attorney's office?

[03:02:43] Yeah, I was the commonwealth attorney back in the late 90s up until 2003. It wasn't me, was it? Was it me? No, no, no, no. God, no, no, no, no, no, no. Truly, I walked into that one. I didn't even know that.

[03:02:59] I walked right into that. My apologies. It was absolutely not you. is jury well there's one other statistic and comparing calendar years 2023 to 24 there was 103 increase in sentences entered in the circuit court okay and well that brings up a question in my last 10 seconds how are most of your indictments finally adjudicated by jury trial by settlement please well it depends i mean we have cases where people disappear we got no witness or there's no

[03:03:34] evidence but if we have the evidence and we have the people the motto in the office is take it to trial yeah thank you very much for engaging in that academic exercise and really I was just curious of what your answer would be and I appreciate it very much you're welcome yeah it's a good answer any other questions any motions I did I was trying to get sorry I missed it I don't want to get off too deep in this tangent but just so I understand we're having a discussion about the public defender's office um most is the is the is there a difference there in the number of

[03:04:12] those that go to trial versus get plead get pled different in terms of the public defender's office allocation of time in other words your office is taking cases to trial all the time which are really time consuming and so on public defender's office it seems statistically may be involved in more pleas and therefore it's different work is that not the case i don't and i'm not necessarily advocating one or the other i'm just trying to understand what the percentages are i mean i never I could tell you that the public defender's office, the people that work in there, are very good friends.

[03:04:47] If I asked them the question, I'd get an answer. I know that. I don't know. Okay. I'm just trying to get an idea of the complaint. Because I do think we're – again, I'm not opposed to what we're trying to do in the public. I feel like there's a lot of stuff that's apples and oranges getting thrown around, and it's hard for us because this isn't our field to really understand it.

[03:05:08] And so that's really what my question was intended to get at. but we can follow up. Supervisor Glass, any questions? No questions. Any motions from the desk? I have a comment.

[03:05:26] Go ahead. I just wanted to say that I support your resources, requests. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Just don't say it and it happens. Next up, let's do community corrections next.

[03:05:44] Good evening.

[03:06:12] Good evening, Vice Chair Turner and board members. Seated next to me is April Higgs, our assistant director. Chad Earhart, our pre-trial manager, and Rhonda Wilson are seated behind me. I'm Chip Sullivan, the director, and I'm pleased to present— Can you pull the mic just a little closer and speak up just a bit?

[03:06:27] Is that better? Yeah, much. I'm Chip Sullivan, and I'm pleased to present our management span of control bundle, which appears on page 67 of the FY26 budget book. Since FY2020, the board has generously added 21.5 FTEs to our staff, And we anticipate having onboarded a total of 34 new employees through FY25, which represents a 42% increase in staffing.

[03:06:53] During this same period, we have only added one supervisory position, an electronic monitoring supervisor, in the FY23 budget. Prior to this time, a reclassification of positions created probation and pretrial supervisor positions in 2018.

[03:07:11] Our managers and supervisors supervise caseloads, manage departmental teams, attend court, cover dockets as needed to include our specialty dockets, complete case reviews, complete performance evaluations, provide coverage of our satellite office at the Eastern Loudoun Services Center, train staff, and address numerous crises, both big and small, which arise every day.

[03:07:34] Our managers and supervisors are stretched very thin. Foot traffic continues to increase at the courthouse and our satellite office, and the cases we supervise continue to require enhanced officer training and supervisory oversight.

[03:07:50] Approving this bundle would assist in preventing burnout by increasing the number of department supervisors, increasing supervisory efficiency, and promoting public safety through training and effective supervision. Thank you for your continued support of our department, and we'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

[03:08:09] Thank you very much, Mr. Sullivan. questions for community corrections anyone rather briskin oh where's the eastern loudon services center yeah i was gonna that's in sterling uh at 21641 ridgetop ridge top okay that's what that's what i thought i was getting it confused with the eastern loudon sheriff's station um and i'm like those are probably not the same thing so it's at ridgetop okay okay thank you that's all i had thank you rather than crony uh thank you vice chair turner so um in fy uh 2025 you um you were able to hire a mental health probation officer and i'm just wondering if the caseloads have been

[03:08:48] reduced significant significantly with that manager and by how much so that position was a juvenile and and domestic relations uh mental health probation officer uh we we hired that person and uh and that person is going to start on march the 13th so the position's been filled okay so you haven't seen the results yet correct you just filled it okay and then all of the positions that you're asking for would be in that eastern uh loud in service center right no ma'am uh um the the position that would be permanently stationed

[03:09:26] out there would be the satellite office supervisor position the other two positions when we have an employee development coordinator which is kind of a training officer and that would be housed at the courthouse okay and the specialty docket would be in the courthouse yes okay thank you very much thank you other questions any motions thank you very much thank you we're going to do something a little bit out of the ordinary next we have a motion to supplement district 25 salaries for the

[03:10:05] from the state probation parole office and i believe we have representatives here i'd like to ask them to come up please good evening good evening how are you i'm great if you could introduce yourselves that'd be terrific yes sir my name is eric fling chief of district 25 probation parole my name is tremaine dameron i'm the deputy chief with district 25. my name is nathan moon i'm I'm a senior probation officer, District 25.

[03:10:36] Well, thank you all for coming. I appreciate it. If you have some words you'd like to say, it's kind of an introduction. If not, we can go straight into a motion and talk from there, and you can answer questions, whatever you prefer. I'll give you a little bit about us. Obviously, we are unique here. We're the only non-county entity coming before you.

[03:10:54] We are a state entity. Similar to Mr. Sullivan, we are probation parole. The differences, other than obviously county versus state, we supervise all felony convictions out of Loudoun Circuit Court as well as any other circuit court in Virginia and the country for that matter, as long as you live here in Loudoun County.

[03:11:15] We supervise currently about 728 cases, which is down from 1,400 pre-COVID. We heard the clerk and the sheriff's office and council attorneys have all cases on the rise. We're the catch-all with that. When they're done with those cases, they all come to us for supervision if it's a felony conviction.

[03:11:36] Our convictions ranging from murder and rape to malicious wounding, aggravated assault, down to nonviolent convictions such as larceny or drug possessions and distribution. We are the only state probation office in northern Virginia that does not receive a stipend from its county.

[03:11:57] Prince William County, Fairfax County, Alexandria, and Arlington all provide a minimum 15% stipend to the state probation offices. I just learned on Thursday last week, Arlington provides a 17%. They just got a pay raise with that. And Alexandria provides a pay raise to their counties, to their state employees every time the state does not give them a raise.

[03:12:21] So I'd say a minimum 15% across the board, some are higher. We have lost our second position in the last five or six months to another Northern Virginia state office only because of the stipend.

[03:12:39] One of the guys actually lives here in Lowland County. He's driving to Arlington because he gets 17% more pay raise like that, and I just can't compete with that. And I'll give you just a little bit of taste, if you will, of what it's like for us to have a vacant caseload.

[03:12:55] That caseload that just went to Arlington supervises all felony sex offense cases. So you know what those crimes consist of, just the nature of the title. That caseload goes unsupervised until I'm able to fill it.

[03:13:12] That's not a caseload we want out on the street without any kind of accountability. That puts our citizens and the public at whole in an unnecessary jeopardized situation. We can do better than that. But I can't obtain and retain competent staff if I can't equal what Alexandria, Fairfax, Prince William, and Arlington are paying them.

[03:13:36] Take the stipends out of it, we all get paid exactly the same from the state. So it's a state, you know, we get state pay raises, 3%. I think we're allocated for this coming July. So it's not that the state is paying them more. They pay equal to what we do, which is the counties are supplementing them, putting them at 15% and 70% above what we are.

[03:13:54] And I just can't compete with that. So I've come before you all in hopes that we can help soften this blow that we receive with our vacancies. Thank you very much. That was very helpful. Questions? Mr. Flynn, right? Flynn, yes, sir.

[03:14:10] Flynn. Questions from Mr. Flynn, Supervisor Crony. Oh, I'm sorry. New glasses. Yeah. Supervisor Saints. Thank you, Vice Chair. And they're clearly not working well.

[03:14:28] Maybe put the wrong one, the old ones back on by mistake, right? Thank you for coming this evening. I have to ask, because you've never been in front of us before asking for this stipend. Correct. So why now? That's number one question. Two, if you have the data, what is your turnover in 24, 23, and 25 thus far, if you have the numbers?

[03:14:49] Sure. So I'm coming to you now because I've only been the chief, the unit head, since August of 2022. I had something I've had on my agenda since becoming the unit head chief, and here we are.

[03:15:05] It expedited when I lost the first person strictly because of the stipend back in October of 24. They went to Arlington for that 17%. And I told myself then, we have to get on this. We then lost another person just February 25th to the same district in Arlington because of 17%.

[03:15:24] um i will say i've been uh since june of 24 trying to get in front of this board and my uh my my attempts were um i could have been a little more aggressive i could have went to different people i i uh sent emails to the wrong information that was that was on my fault uh this is new to me i've never been to the board before asking for money so i wasn't sure how to approach it until more recently when i sent the proposal um our turnover rate i can tell you our office consists of 18 folks so i can't say we have 60 in uh uh vacancies like i heard the sheriff's office

[03:16:01] say because we only have 18 staff in total um we just lost one on uh on the 25th um we lost another one to the same district in arlington in october um we lost a juvenile we lost one of our probation hours to juvenile probation here in loudon county in 2022 2023 we lost another one to alexandria in 2022 lost another once you moved back down to roanoke um so that was not not related and i just had our um office uh our front secretary later retire effective um march one on saturday so

[03:16:39] right now we have two vacancies um so when i say we have two vacancies i know it doesn't sound at the 60 but when we have 18 but total staff and thank you for that i got 30 seconds left so what What is the caseload for one person in your office? About 60.

[03:16:56] 60. Correct. Okay, very good. Is that standard or is that above average? For the state? Yeah, I guess. It's average for our place. Loudoun is a relatively small jurisdiction when we talk about Roanoke and Richmond and Virginia Beach and Fairfax, Fredericksburg, they're much larger districts, but they also have a lot more staff.

[03:17:20] And how many people in Arlington? That's my last question. How many people in Arlington? How many people, like, in the Arlington branch for you, your equivalent? Oh, gosh. I'm not sure how many they – I'm not sure. Thank you. Supervisor Eternal. Thank you. So does your district cover more than just Loudoun?

[03:17:39] Our jurisdiction is Loudoun, Falkyard, and Rappahannock County. Okay. So if we were to give you the supplemental, though, how does that work? So I'm only asking for the 18 staff that work here in Loudoun County. Only Loudoun? Correct. So we're not going to be – I cannot come to you in good faith, and that's for a stipend for folks who don't work in the county.

[03:17:58] Okay, so it would only be for those employees who live in the county. Yes, there are two staff members who are both seniors that work in the warrants in office, but it's a sex offender senior and a gang senior, so they supervise cases here and they supervise staff here. So I'm asking for the two of them as well.

[03:18:15] I see. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor, I'm sorry. Thank you, Mr. Chair. The stipend you're requesting that would only go to the probation and parole officers not to supportive staff No, ma'am. I would request for supportive staff to equal the other Northern Virginia districts Okay, so the code of Virginia Seems to be a bit challenging on on that

[03:18:50] Section fifty three point one dash one forty seven on compensation and expenses talks about each probation and parole officer and then Goes down the second paragraph the governing body of any county or city may add to the fixed Compensation of probation and parole officers such amount as the governing body decides it does not say anything about supporting staff getting us a local

[03:19:26] stipend or supplement yes ma'am I would support that and ask for that because we can lose them just easy as we could a probation officer to those other districts all right I'm at your mercy on that but that would be my request mm-hmm yes ma'am okay I I just don't know if we have the authority to give a stipend to your support staff and i don't know whether that means we should recalculate how much this would cost or get the county attorney to weigh in because he could interpret it differently from the way i

[03:20:00] do so we obviously haven't looked at this so we're waiting for the motion so if the motion goes through we'll go ahead and take a look at it work with the state probation and the county attorney's office and make sure whatever comes back to the board for wrap-up is is correct great thank you so much thank you supervisor kershner thank you vice chair good evening gentlemen thank you for coming today um um my question i have i have a couple questions first of all what's the percentage

[03:20:36] of your workload that is transferred here from other jurisdictions do you have any sense of that and are you higher than others or lower than others in the estate you have any sense of that either. So we, again, we supervise on every state that they live here and committed a crime.

[03:20:53] The ratio, the majority is out of Loudoun County. Yeah. But I don't. And out of your jurisdiction. Fair enough. Correct. Yeah. I just, that was a kind of a curious question. All right. So the proposed motion that Ms. Brisbane has in front of us is to increase, have you seen the proposed motion? Have you spoken with her about that? We spoke. Increase it by 15% recurring, which would be about fiscal impact this year of $202,000. Have you run the numbers on that and how that will impact the salaries within your office? And once that happens, how competitive is that going to make you with Arlington and the other jurisdictions that you mentioned earlier with whom you're losing people? Yes, sir. So will that make an impact? That would be...

[03:21:31] Will it bring you in par? How much further behind will you be? It would set us even with the other four counties in North Virginia financially. As far as the impact on our staff, it would be all but life-changing, you can imagine making $56,000 trying to make an income of that.

[03:21:48] And that's certainly important to us. I think one of the things that's even more important to us if we are to do this is obviously, ultimately this is not our responsibility, but we understand that this impacts our community as well. And if we're authorized to do this, I deal with this all the time.

[03:22:06] I have a number of probably clients with you. I work on not getting them with you, but that doesn't work as well in Mr. Anderson's office anymore. But with that said, I think it's worth looking at and trying to help you because I understand significant turnover and losing folks to other jurisdictions, and certainly that is something, if we can alleviate that with these few dollars, I think I'm probably in favor of that. Thank you.

[03:22:32] Supervisor Brisbane. Thank you, and thanks so much for coming out, and thank you for bringing this to our attention. One of my colleagues wanted to get on the record that the salaries for your office and in the letter that you sent in January, it says the starting salary range for a state probation officer in northern Virginia is $58,000 to $64,783.

[03:22:53] Correct. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay, great. Now, this coming July, that will change because state will, General Assembly's proposed or passed a 3% raise. Yeah, yeah. Raise. As of now, yes. Understood, understood. I have a question, if you don't mind, Mr. Vice Chair, to either Ms. Bork or Mr. Hemstreet.

[03:23:14] Do you know what our salary supplement is to the Juvenile Probation Office? So we'll have to check that. Oh, actually, it was in our question and answer packet, and so I can answer the question.

[03:23:32] The Juvenile Probation Office is receiving a 20% supplement, and you said that Arlington is receiving 17%? Correct. They just increased them from 15 to 17 just now. Okay. And do you happen to know how many years those offices have been receiving the supplements?

[03:23:50] Alexandria and Arlington have been doing it for many years. Many years. Fairfax and Prince William last four, five-ish years. Okay. But Alexandria started first and Arlington came to suit and then Fairfax and Prince William. Okay. But it's not compounding. It's only 15% on top of what the state pays.

[03:24:08] Correct. Flat fee, 15%. Okay. Okay. Um, I'm prepared to, uh, actually, would you be more competitive with the neighboring jurisdictions to whom the, you are losing staffers? Would you be more competitive if the salary supplement were 17%?

[03:24:27] Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. I'm no mathematician, but I can do that math. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you very much. uh thank you um i want to i want to read a statement here and this is not intended to make it this political it it isn't because we go through this discussion every year and my mind is boggled every single year this is put out by the governor's office on february 20th in addition to the december revenue reforecast which reflected a 2.1 billion dollar surplus over the adopted

[03:25:04] budget last May and was assumed in the governor's proposed FY25 budget amendments year to date, total fund general fund revenues are ahead by $114.9 million. And I'm sitting here talking to some very, very dedicated and capable state officials who are asking us for $202,000 and $45. That blows my mind. The level of hypocrisy in those two juxtaposed facts is just obscene. It's just obscene. And this is the second state agency we're going to deal with in this

[03:25:40] budget where we've got to help pay their salaries. That's just gross. Thank you for coming. I do have a question. Why was it? It sounds like the idea started in Alexandria for stipends and kind of flowed west and it's just now getting to Loudoun County. Yes. I kicked myself in the rear for not doing this sooner. Don't. But here I am. Yeah. That's great. That's all I have to say.

[03:26:05] oh god supervisor glass you are not allowed to not be on the dais from now on do you have a question i did have a question but i i had the a similar question that supervisor briskling had but i still wanted to put on the record that um when she had asked about them would they be as competitive uh with the 17 as arlington and he said yes i i would like to see if we could move

[03:26:42] that to 17 it's coming um supervisor brisman i know that's your your motion but um i would be all for it thank you thank you very much and my apologies once again supervisor brisman do you have a motion i do thank you i move that the board of supervisors fund a recurring 17 salary supplement for district 25 state probation and parole office second i'll take that one okay okay thank you uh and thank you again so much for coming and thank you for all the work you do

[03:27:17] um your work is so critically important to the county to be following 728 folks that were convicted of felonies i i see it as a safety consideration for the county and i i do agree that it's completely disappointing that the state is not paying its bills.

[03:27:40] We're getting rather used to that here in Loudoun County, but I will tell you that we are going to be having an item coming back to us that actually itemizes the things that the state is not paying in Loudoun County that they should be paying, and I think that we'll be having a very interesting conversation with our state delegation next year because it's the Public Defender's Office, it's the schools, It's our probation offices, and it's not our responsibility, but again, our constituents are our responsibility, and the safety of our community is our responsibility, and that goes for you guys, for the Public Defender's Office.

[03:28:21] Those folks serve our community, and we want to only have the best and brightest serving our community, and we want to be able to keep folks who are so dedicated as you are in our community and doing these jobs for our community. So I'm extremely thankful for you bringing this. Thank you for coming to meet with me and I'm just hopefully this motion will pass and it will be in the budget on April 7th. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Other comments? Supervisor Returnal. Yeah I will support this ultimately but I'm a process guy. You guys all know that. I really want the staff

[03:28:58] report first. We're out of order here. We should have asked staff. Well, Supervisor Upstead just read us the code, which seems to be in conflict with the request, which leaves the number different potentially. So I just would have wanted to see that. I don't know if it's going to be 202 or a lower number. And we actually are kind of close. So I will ultimately support. We'll be at wrap up anyway. You're going to have to come back anyway, because staff's going to look into that number. So I'm just going to wait to have that information to vote for the motion. But I agree

[03:29:31] with the intent. Supervisor Olmstead. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would agree with Supervisor Letourneau. I mean, my very brief calculations would indicate that the total amount should not exceed $229,000 at the 17%. But it's got to be less than that, because you had assumed you could get the stipend for the support staff. I don't think legally you can, so we don't have a hard

[03:30:05] number yet, but I'll support it. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. I'm going to support it for now. I'm kind of similar. I want to know what the final number is and we'll get to wrap up. I'm not sure why just on the fly we changed it from 15 to 17 percent, because now that changes the whole dynamic. I was prepared to accept it based upon the motion I had in here at 15 percent. Obviously it's only going to affect it somewhere between $10,000 and $20,000, but when I asked the question, does the 15% bring you to par with the surrounding counties, the answer was yes, which tells me

[03:30:40] it makes them plenty competitive, and so I know it's only $10,000, $20,000, but every dollar is important. It's taxpayer dollars, so I would prefer the 15%. For now, I will support it, quite frankly. I want to see what the final numbers are, and there is an issue with staff that's obviously going to bring it down. Thank you. Mr. Turner.

[03:30:59] you. Thank you. Do you know by any chance if your competitor Arlington with the neighboring jurisdictions they have a built-in increase year-over-year with the the supplemental they're doing? Alexandria does. Alexandria gives raises from the county to the state employees. The other three counties do not give raises. It's just a flat 17 for Arlington and 15 for Fairfax and Prince William. Okay. I hope that answered your question. Yep. No, you did. And so Vice Chair Turner can ask a question, Mr. Hemstreet or Ms. Burke, whoever can answer. So yes, traditionally we would get

[03:31:39] more detailed information regarding how many numbers in the department, salaries and whatnot. Is staff going to be able to do that by the time you have wrap up or is that not possible? Yes. okay thank you miss glass do you have any comments i do not thank you for uh uh calling out my name thank you um any other comments any other questions uh final thoughts from supervisor

[03:32:19] yes i mean this this is a budget work session um because it's a work session and we can approximate what 17 percent will be and staff will definitely bring us the final number i don't think it's going to be super significantly uh you know over what is estimated um in our documentation and so again thank you for everything you do i'm really proud to bring this motion and help your office out thank you motion's been made and seconded who seconded this i think i did i did uh no no no i really forgot running a meeting's hard

[03:32:57] um any other comments uh uh motion been made and seconded all those in favor please say aye aye any opposed no opposed any abstentions one abstention so that sounds like um seven one seven zero one one right with chair randall off the desk thank you very much for coming we really appreciate you all so much for the time you bet next up is animal services

[03:33:28] nina you help dogs you could have all the money you want thank you go ahead thank you good evening members of the board i am here with my colleagues on behalf of the department of animal services as we celebrate another successful year serving the people and animals of Loudoun County. I'm happy to announce that the positions awarded to us in the last budget cycle have all been filled, enabling us to improve operations and serve more community

[03:34:08] members than ever. In the 2024 calendar year, more than 59,000 people walked through the front door of Loudoun County Animal Services, and we provided shelter for a record 2,540 animals. Thanks to the hard work of staff and the dedicated community, more than 94% of those animals went home primarily through adoption or through reunion with their owners after being lost while exceeding national averages for live release rates in addition to helping stray and surrendered pets we also provided 623 nights of crisis care for animals who are displaced when their owners were experiencing a

[03:34:45] short-term crisis such as domestic violence homelessness hospitalization or loss of their home due to a fire and we provided more than 15 000 nights of foster care to animals who are too young, too sick, injured, or too fearful to go up for adoption. Our humane law enforcement team has embraced this growth and responded to 5,054 calls for service this past calendar year. And while more than 90% of all of our calls are resolved through education rather than court involvement, the team did see a rise in complex investigations, including a number of felony animal cruelty cases and the department's first enforcement of the recently passed exotic animal ban when our officers

[03:35:25] discovered 21 primates in a garage in Middleburg. In addition to our core purposes of sheltering and enforcement, our staff has continued to provide accessible outreach services to those in need, distributing more than 41,000 pounds of pet food through local pantries, providing 1,505 pets with free or low-cost vaccines or microchips, and partnering with over 600 volunteers so that our mission of service ensures that all people are able to connect with our assets and resources.

[03:35:54] In the past year, our team has presented at state and national conferences, taught webinars attended by hundreds of people, hosted staff from numerous other agencies for professional trainings, and our program for free-roaming cats has seen such exceptional results that in addition to winning a NACO award, a peer-reviewed study on the initiative has been published in the Journal of Shelter Medicine and Community Animal Health.

[03:36:16] The year has been our strongest yet, and our intentions in this cycle's requests are to stabilize our staffing model and establish a long-term structure to provide optimal customer service. We continue to be grateful for the support of the board and the community and look forward to answering any questions you may have on our resource requests.

[03:36:33] As each role will go towards continuing to fulfill our goals of ensuring that Loudoun County is a safe, healthy, happy place for people, pets, livestock, and wildlife. Thank you. Thank you very much. Questions for Ms. Stively. Supervisor Dr. Crony.

[03:36:50] So I want to thank you, Nina, and your team. My dog was actually one of the dogs that came in one day to the shelter. Yeah, he's your dog. I lost my dog, and I had to reunite with my dog at the shelter, and you guys are so nice and great, so I really appreciate the service that you provide.

[03:37:09] I'm a big animal person, and I foster, and maybe one day I'll foster for you guys for the shelter, but do you have a second veterinarian and a vet tech now? Yes, so we were, in the last budget cycle, we were granted a veterinarian and two licensed technicians. The technicians' positions were filled almost immediately in the summer, took a little bit of time to get the veterinarian filled, but that person is starting in April. They have accepted our offer, so we're looking forward to having our second veterinarian on board. Wonderful. So you mentioned complex needs. What kind of, can you describe, I mean, I knew you mentioned exotic animals, but what other complex needs are we looking at? Absolutely. The complex needs are

[03:37:47] really on behalf of the animals that are coming in, in terms of behavioral and medical issues. about 66% of all animals that come into our facility in the past year came in as not healthy. So either they had behavioral or medical complications that required staff intervention.

[03:38:05] That number is consistently very high. We see that in a community such as Loudon where folks often have the resources to get their animals taken care of to the best of their abilities before surrendering them. So by the time the animal comes to us, they're often a little bit more complicated than your average pet.

[03:38:20] We do our very best to get those animals the care needs met when they're with us, but it does create a challenge in terms of making sure they're getting what they need. The other side would be the human element in that we are seeing folks who are definitely challenged by economic situations.

[03:38:36] The prices of everything has gone up, veterinary care, pet food, housing. So when you have those complex matters, it's more than just, "Hey, can I get you a bag of food this week to help you keep your pet?" It is often, here's where you can go for food every week for your pet, or your dog is barking and you're about to get evicted.

[03:38:55] Let's talk you through how you can keep your dog from barking when you're not home at your night shift because you're going to get evicted. We don't want that. We want to keep people and their pets together whenever we can. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for what you're doing. I appreciate it. Supervisor Returnal. Thank you.

[03:39:11] Thank you once again. Your department is just really one of the truly class-leading ones that we have here in the county and a national leader. And I got conned into guinea pigs out of your office and had that interaction, which was very pleasant.

[03:39:28] Man, those things are messy, messy, messy. My daughter loves them, so it is what it is. Congratulations. Yeah. When I have to do it by myself and take care of them, man, they are messy. Anyway, I was just going to ask on the complex needs thing.

[03:39:46] So the only thing that caught my eye with it a little bit is it seems like kind of a big jump up at once. Like it's like sort of did like the dam just break? Because four positions, you know, and I will say I feel like I've noticed more bad cases in the past year or so that your office has announced prosecutions on.

[03:40:07] Is that sort of contributing or just like how do we go from like where we were to all of a sudden it's a half a million dollar problem that we need four people? Absolutely. So I think some of it has been the growth that we did not foresee the volume of growth that we are experiencing.

[03:40:23] When projections were made prior to construction of the facility, we had ballparked how many people would be walking in, what the demand for service would be, and those ballparks were just woefully low. So as we are now experiencing that, we are trying to figure out what it's going to take to make sure we are able to stabilize the staffing.

[03:40:40] My expectation with this request is that this will actually essentially fill out my building. So unless we are going to extend ours, that there is no more staff that I would be asking for for the foreseeable future. Maybe I shouldn't have said that. Famous last words. I've heard that before up here.

[03:40:56] You're being recorded. Not for me, though. True. Fair enough. So I do want to make sure that we are doing our best to be judicious with funds, but I also recognize that we are compromised by the volume of requests that are coming in in so many different ways. I mean, 15,000 nights of foster care, 623 nights of care for just people who are being displaced from their homes, that's almost three times what it was just two years ago.

[03:41:21] Yeah. Okay. No, I'm going to support the request, but that's helpful information, and certainly keep up the good work. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Kirshner. Okay. Did you give her dog a fine like you gave mine a fine? Yep. Sure did. just just double checking you got fine I got fine because my dog was at large okay all right sorry let's stay focused sorry sorry I just I just thought I'd bring that up um we treat everyone equally yeah I found that out the hard way um my question is I kind of agree with Mr. Letourneau

[03:41:56] that was the first thing I noticed like well this is a big jump up now I think your total request is what 480 and that's just a no 355 and yeah um what was it last it was a little larger last year because of the vet position correct yeah in terms of dollar figure in terms of the dollar figure it was close to the same i would have to check but it was pretty comparable and with last year it was six positions okay and you said that you had 5054 cases come through do you remember what it was the year before service uh it's about stable uh so our humane law enforcement number of calls is stable It's just the types of cases are changing slightly.

[03:42:34] So you think it's requiring more resources because of the types of cases? The Humane Law Enforcement Division is actually not requesting for resources except for dispatch. That's a dispatch administrative assistant. About a third of our hours from that team are actually in leave last year. And so we are not able to adequately cover dispatch.

[03:42:52] But otherwise, these resources are going primarily towards sheltering and outreach operations. How has your turnover been? Our turnover in our meeting with HR last year has been about 7% for the past two years. That's significantly lower than national average for animal welfare organizations, which is around 34%.

[03:43:09] Okay, that's good. All right, thank you very much. Yes, sir. Any other questions? Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Those are stellar numbers. Thank you. Good job. So I'm surprised my neighbors didn't call you the other day because I left my dog out from like 1130 to 430.

[03:43:31] They might have. and he was barking and then he finally crawled under the fence and went anyway so but he's okay don't worry and he didn't hurt anyone he's a nice guy do we still have an issue in the county I remember we spoke last year about the fact that the 24-hour emergency vets in the county had kind of all closed and we didn't people didn't have anywhere to go I myself a couple years ago had to drive all the way to Prince William for emergency vet visit that's a whole nother story we'll talk about off the record but um do we haven't has anybody opened up a 24-hour emergency

[03:44:07] vet so should the county worry about it so it's it's an ongoing challenge there is a national veterinary shortage it's part of why it took us so long to fill our position even though it is you know competitively compensated uh with the 24-hour emergency vets between the the two major 24-hour clinics in the county they are covering most hours um loud and urgent vet is an urgent care provider who is open until 10 o'clock at night so that also fills a significant gap and my understanding is approval has just been made for veg which is a veterinary emergency group to open up in leesburg which will also be a 24-hour facility excellent excellent okay thank

[03:44:43] you i won't belabor the dog stories but um thank you i support your request thank you supervisor glass thank you vice chair turner i see how my colleagues like to tell them themselves about their pets um do you all find and thank you for the presentation thank you for um letting us know what your needs are um do you all find that um that you have um pet owners who um turn in their

[03:45:18] pets dogs cats because they're they are moving into an apartment or senior living yes yeah housing is everything in the housing family of challenges essentially makes up our largest reason for pet surrenders. Very often it's breed specific or size bans. So people may be moving into senior housing or some other apartment type housing and they will not be able to take it dogs that look like a certain breed or are even just over a certain size. Very frequently housing will have like a 30 pound weight limit for a pet dog, which excludes of course a lot of pets. And we do very

[03:45:55] routinely receive requests from senior citizens who are trying to figure out what the best option is for their pet when they're going into senior living facilities which are not pet welcoming. And when you have those larger dogs or larger animals, is it hard for you all to find a new home for them or is it just like any other pet that you're all able to find a home for those larger animals? No, larger mixed breed dogs are definitely our hardest category of placement nationwide that has been an issue over the past few years that larger mixed breed dogs are spending more time in shelters. Our length of stay has gone up nationwide. Length of stay has gone up.

[03:46:34] Our goal is always to keep pets and people together. Just because someone's moving into an apartment doesn't mean that they're not going to be able to provide really great care to that pet and they have a bond. So animals when they're surrendered to the shelter often end up showing behavioral issues, demonstrating challenges that might have been okay in their home before. So if we have the option of keeping them together, we always try to evaluate that first.

[03:46:58] Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Anyone else? I had down here the Life Center 24-7 Vet Care in Leesburg, and I've used them before. Are they not open anymore? Do we know? They are not presently on a 24-7 model. They are just struggling with staffing challenges. They post regularly on their social media when they are open overnights, but they had previously been rotating essentially with blue ridge veterinary which is also an emergency provider um so that someone would be open weeknights and someone be open um weekends okay interesting yes uh well you guys are doing

[03:47:33] god's work so thank you very much we really do appreciate you coming and uh any motions from the dais at all thank you very much thank you and last but not least chief fire and rescue that's right i feel bad top fire chief in the commonwealth and we kept you to the very end i apologize all All good, sir.

[03:48:11] All good. Good evening. Good evening, Vice Chair Turner and members of the board. Tonight, I'm joined by Assistant Chief James Williams, Operations Bureau, Assistant Chief Travis Probe, Support Services, Volunteer Administration, and Mary McGuire, Manager of Budget, Finance, and Administration.

[03:48:30] I also have Greg Keenan and Daniel Brossant with us tonight. So I'm going to get right to our resource request for FY26. And I want to start off by thanking you for all of our FY25 requests. requests. We have all of our civilian requests filled. We have a few operational requests that will be in the next recruit school. We have a 35-person recruit school in session right now.

[03:48:51] They'll graduate in July, and we'll start the next recruit school. It's already planned for August 14th, so we'll roll right into another school after this one graduates. Been a little busy weekend, as you can imagine. Saturday, we experienced a 100-acre brush fire here in Loudoun County and yesterday's brush fire was simply six acres, but many small ones in between.

[03:49:11] So being quite what you see in the news is happening everywhere with wildfires. It's a problem throughout the United States. But we'll get right into our resource request for FY26. The first request is staffing for our Aldi fire station and which includes our safety 603 position.

[03:49:31] If you've been by Aldi, you can't miss this absolutely gorgeous fire station that is being built and near completion. And we're proposing to, as you've heard for many years, to staff that station once it opens with additional services. Simply the existing station can't fit the services that we want to put into that station.

[03:49:49] So we have a request for 31 FTEs, that'll be 14 firefighters, 8 technicians, 6 lieutenants and 3 captains for the new station. The biggest thing this will accomplish for us will be to put a fourth person on our engines, ALS person which we've been trying to do with every station as we bring on board, eventually all of our stations.

[03:50:07] It will provide a dedicated driver or technician for the tanker, which currently we do not have a tanker there because we couldn't fit one in the station, but when we open the new station we'll have one. And then we'll add dedicated staffing for our heavy rescue, and that's really important.

[03:50:22] That would have been my number one priority ten years ago if we could have actually fit people into the fire station. And that will allow us to staff the engine and the heavy rescue simultaneously. Today they are cross-staffed, so whichever one gets a call, that's the unit they go on. The other one goes unstaffed at that point.

[03:50:39] So again, the station was approved at FY 2019 as part of the CIP. And it's due to open in May of this year, 25, so it's right in line with our FY 26 requests. One of the big things that Supervisor Turner, you may be aware of, that obviously Fairfax County is going through a few budget challenges right now. Fire and Rescue has been no exception to the challenges. Fairfax County is due to close, proposed to close, not final yet, two heavy rescue companies, Rescue 439 and North Point within the Sterling area, but most importantly,

[03:51:13] on the chopping block for that is Rescue 421 in Fir Oaks, which will be a huge hit to us. They come into our area, we go into that area. So our response area for, if we don't have a Rescue 421, for them to do mutual aid to us would be a severe blow to us on the Route 50 corridor in the area of your district, Supervisor Letourneau.

[03:51:35] So the staffing for Rescue 607 in Aldi is really paramount now, if that was decreased staffing in that station. Similar staffing for the Round Hill Station, Round Hill is underway. We're proposing nine FTEs, five firefighters, four technicians for staffing the new Round Hill Station, which is under construction now. That will also include a fourth person ALS on the engine and a dedicated, again, driver for the tanker, which is currently cross staffed with the EMS unit. Again, once the EMS unit goes on a call, the tanker goes out of service and vice versa. That station was approved as final approved in the FY23 CIP and replaced the current

[03:52:15] volunteer-owned fire and rescue station in Round Hill. And that will be scheduled to open in March of uh 26 um could idea about that station you may not remember that that station is due to have a 3 500 square foot community room so that will be our first station really with a dedicated community room for the folks in round hill so we're kind of excited about that remember about round hill we supplied first due ems service to the area philemont you know philemont will is uh soon to be on the the construction, hopefully, and it's done with design right now, and once that happens

[03:52:55] that we'll come back with asking for an EMS unit for Philemon, but right now they do not have one, so Round Hill serves a significant purpose of supplying EMS support to the citizens of the Philemon area. And the last two FTEs are what we're calling associated with our Silver Ridge Incident Report.

[03:53:12] I'm very thankful you provided the behavioral health position in return to work, both of them are hired and doing great work, but these two FTEs are associated with over the 87 recommendations of the Silver Ridge report. They include a field training captain at our training academy for professional development of our existing members and a quality assurance, quality improvement position, a civilian position in our communications center.

[03:53:36] And real briefly, because you haven't heard about those before, the QA/QI position for the Emergency Communication Center is an essential component of ensuring that our 911 call takers are financing the emergency guidelines and meeting all the local, state and federal regulations.

[03:53:53] Having a QA/QI oversight position will lead to enhanced service, higher customer satisfaction by integrating improved culture, identifying areas for improvement, and preventing issues that impact service delivery. While this position is requested by LCFR because we are the PSAP, it would also assist LCSO with acting as a QA/QI position for all universal call taking that has gone on with the center.

[03:54:20] This is very similar to what we do for EMS calls on a routine basis, but we do not have that position in the ECC. Second position associated with Silver Ridge is a professional development captain. The training academy's professional development section is severely understaffed with a single lieutenant partially supported by a firefighter that's for our existing personnel adding capacity to the section is critical and its workload is far exceeded that of a single employee to accomplish existing program the battalion chief captains lieutenants from other sections provide significant support serving and instructors simulations development and for and and assistance

[03:54:59] mostly all on overtime the sections responsibilities have expanded to include curriculum development, budget preparation, staff management, which necessitate the addition of a captain. I'm going to roll right into our revenue request that is a separate item that you had received in a reference to our EMS transport reimbursement program and certainly I have Danielle Brosan, the manager of our EMS revenue section, management section here with us.

[03:55:28] Since the inception of the program in 2015, Loudon has not increased its fees for service, although Medicare allowable amount has increased by 19%. Between 2016 and 2024, Medicare allowances have increased from $356 to $439 for BLS transports, basic life support, $423 to $522 for ALS1, and a higher level of care of $612 to $756 for ALS2 transports.

[03:55:56] Medicare pays 80% of the transport fee up to the allowable amount, although Medicare would reimburse up to $439 for BLS transport, Loudoun typically would only receive $374 based on our current transport fees, and you approve those fees each and every year when we bring them to you.

[03:56:15] You approve that amount. By increasing fees for transport, Loudoun would be more in line with what is allowable through Medicare. This increase would have a minimal impact on citizens since any additional fees would be covered by Medicare and commercial insurance.

[03:56:32] So in summary, many of the proposed enhancements are reflective of the recommendations in the Silver Ridge Investigative Report, and some as far back as the 2008 Meadowood Report, to include the four-person engines I mentioned, the second safety officer assigned to the Aldi Fire Station, the ECC-QA-QI, and increased professional development of what we're calling field training opportunities by employing a field training captain.

[03:56:58] In the coming years, we will continue to prioritize the remaining four-person engines, as well as well as staffing associated with some of the CIP projects such as the Philemont Fire Station. Besides the four-person engines and staffing for new station, our staffing factor positions are needed to meet the growing needs and assist in controlling overtime, and the addition of field battalion chief aides also remain a high priority in the future.

[03:57:22] In closing, I want to speak on all my staff and once again thank you for your continued support of our fire and rescue system. I get the honor of coming before you each quarter and presenting our quarterly report to you, and I always appreciate that time with you, and it goes a long way in your understanding our needs and what we do for our community.

[03:57:42] So I and staff remain available for your questions. Thank you, Chief. Questions for the Chief or his team? Supervisor Luterno. First of all, Chief, this is your last budget presentation to us. This is. So it's bittersweet, and thank you for flagging that issue.

[03:57:59] I'm hopeful that Fairfax board will be able to work on that. I noticed it right away, had the same thought. But I'm glad we're going to be able to have dedicated staff at 607 to be able to handle that. I know I asked a variation of this question last year.

[03:58:15] I'm just, I can't get it out of my head. So it's good that we're adding four to the new stations, but was there any thought to allocating four to some of the heavier volume stations instead of the new stations? So I'll turn it over to Chief Williams in a minute.

[03:58:31] We do have four with this approval that we did for Station 28, which is not built yet, Leesburg South. We'll have four four-person engines. If you would approve the ones we are asking for tonight, that would bring a total of two more. So that would be six total that we'll have on board.

[03:58:47] We have a total of 19 engines. So there is a balance, but we'll continue to bring fill them out when it's done, and the remaining ones will come in a future budget year. But to more specific question. Thank you for the question. I have it here from last year, if you're interested.

[03:59:02] I know. You knew I was going to. So the way that the fire department so far has been looking at it, with the exception of the opening of capital facilities, is actually to work from the outside in. So the more remote areas, and the purpose for that is because they're, while their call volume is a little bit lower, the second and third resources are that much further out.

[03:59:24] So our goal for all of our fire events is to build up that effective response force, which for a single-family home is about 25, 26, for the high-rise is much higher. It takes us longer with the time and distance to build up those resources in the more remote parts of the county.

[03:59:42] I guess that makes sense, yeah. If we had some remainder, would you take some additional funding for another engine or two to be able to get up to four? Or do you want to wait?

[03:59:58] I know. Dangerous question. Just hypothetically. Or do you just want to continue to wait until stations up? Or would you take one or two for an existing? Yes. I'm not making any promises. I mean, there are 13 more engines, right?

[04:00:15] We've been talking about it for a long time. I really want to get us there. It's part of both reports, and it's critical. That's why the Leesburg one many years ago, that was an issue. It was an issue in this one. We got to get there. So, all right, we'll see where we are when we get to a wrap-up.

[04:00:33] Thank you. Supervisor Crony. Yeah, thank you, Vice Chair Turner. And thank you, Chief Johnson. I look forward to the ribbon-cutting of the Aldi Station in May. So you mentioned that the Aldi Station 607 might serve 421 in Fairfax County.

[04:00:57] Did you say they were closing or is that just their heavy rescue? Just their heavy rescue. They have a quite extensive plan to cut a number of units in Fairfax County, de-staffing or combining services. I didn't mention this earlier, but in the Sterling area, it's certainly going to hit hard.

[04:01:14] They're proposing to take out of service Medic 439. We'll put that into a day staff position, into a peak staffing unit. We run a lot into Sterling, and Sterling runs a lot into Loudoun in a mutual aid environment. so we're watching it closely we have some data analysis that we've received today actually on that and it potentially has a what they do in fairfax on the border has a big potential for us so not having that heavy rescue would impact us yes and is the first due area changing then for the new aldi station or no no okay because i was thinking it was going into dull south would be just fine if it went in there but it sounds like that's just for heavy rescue right yeah there is

[04:01:52] no other heavy rescue if you take out 421 that means uh certainly the rest in station would have to come over or sterling heavy rescue would have to come over or even ashburn for that matter um or i mean concora excuse me would have to come over okay and then i noticed you have a dedicated tanker to address water supply challenges you know in the area do you think the tanker will be able to traverse the narrow gravel roads in western loudon do you think that's going to be okay they do it every day in west and loud and so yeah the only reason we don't have it there now is because the volunteers sold the tanker and we just can't fit another we can't fit our standard

[04:02:30] tanker into the current firehouse that's the only reason it's not there okay now all right and thank you so much for your service and congratulations on your retirement thank you yep supervisor brisbane thank you well we'll miss you but i'm sure you won't miss coming into this boardroom i was just saying i feel like every single meeting you are here so um i had a question about the brown out proposal for the um western fairfax and i think that some of them are first due for the algonkian

[04:03:01] and sterling areas so how are we planning to compensate for that if we are so um obviously it's going to be more backfills into you know into into fairfax and again we we benefit um from the services that they provide to us when we get busy so again we did some initial analysis today and bear with me one second the calls the calls by medic 439 going out of service will increase the calls in in sterling and algonka there's no question um the el the

[04:03:38] loudon county fire and rescue medic units at 615 625 635 completed 100 321 trips to fairfax county that is going to increase we're projecting a 10 increase in calls um if those if that units were to close but go to what they're going to a more of a peak staffing unit that's i mean it's not ideal but i think it's manageable we'll have to make it work we have no choice um yeah but we're going to continue to monitor the call volume and again this is all relatively new their budget's not passed yet and hopefully things will change okay um and then i just wanted to um you know

[04:04:15] thank you for the silver ridge incident report and the recommendations that came out of it if there's one thing we can do from this tragedy it's improve how we operate and so i really appreciate those recommendations and really happy to support your requests in that regard thank you chief the only question i had is i never really kind of settled in on the number for the ems transport reimbursement program it looks if i'm looking at the budget it's about a million dollars

[04:04:48] am i misreading that i think just under a million what was it mary go ahead about 2.1 million 2.1 million additional okay okay that includes uh the project what we're recommending for the increase as well as there will be a slight increase due to call volume increase okay all right that's all i have um yeah sylvia sylvia glass do you have any comments you are not allowed to tell the chair that I did this tonight.

[04:05:19] Don't worry. It's already been told. I just want to thank Chief Johnson for his service to the Loudoun County community. You well deserve your retirement.

[04:05:37] We are going to miss you, and I'm sure there are a lot of things that will be said in the coming days, but thank you so much for your service. Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow night and Wednesday night. And I'm sure we're going to have a thousand chances to say congratulations and give you a pat on the back, Chief.

[04:05:53] So thanks for a great job. Thank you all very much for coming tonight. Any other thoughts or any other questions on the dais? The next budget work session will be Thursday, March 6th at 5.30 p.m. I'm sorry, Mr. Amstreet. Yes, I just need to ask a procedural question, if I may.

[04:06:09] Sure. So it's come up a little bit in questions with board offices. it's also come up several times this evening that the board appears to want to add additional options to your budget so is that something the board wants to see because there are several resource there are a lot of resource requests that were not presented as part of the proposed budget so I we can easily put together the next tranche of resource requests that are not funded if that's something the board would like to see for example I don't have a prioritized resource request from

[04:06:46] the fire chief on four-person engines his next priority deals with staffing factor and then there are other priorities that he would have placed ahead of of an acceleration of four-person engines right so there's also other resource requests for at least one board member ask a department do you have everything you need? Is there other things that you would want to see? So I can provide the next, I can give you another $5 million of unfunded requests from the departments in a prioritized list. I can give you another $10 million. As you know, I stopped the list where I stopped it because

[04:07:26] we were at 11% year over year growth. But if the board has a desire to see additional things that are not funded uh that you want to trade out or you you know you just lowered the tax rate by a half penny you could add that back if you want to be at 80 and a half cents that would be approximately 10 million dollars of additional priorities i think i'm going to go out on a limb here and say the consensus is we don't want to break that half penny barrier we got it and we want to keep it there does anybody disagree with that it's more the 11 growth i don't want to break yeah and we don't 11 growth we want to break that um i don't get a sense that there's any burning

[04:08:01] other big resource requests out there do we yeah i withdrew mine so i'm not i was going to do one but then i found out it was a priority six so i just heard it come up several times this evening so i just want to make sure the board is not seeking additional options to fund things um let me uh go ahead the only comment i'll make is i know there may be some other motions coming that are actually a reduction on one particular thing um the only comment i'll make is there are there is sometimes a remainder. Right now, I think it's about four something, not a ton of money.

[04:08:38] It may be helpful to have recommendations in the event that there is a remainder at the tax rate. Are you saying if we break the half cent barrier, now we've got another eight and a half million to go? No, no, no. I'm saying at the current tax rate, there is a remainder. In other words, there's money that we could allocate without going over and raising taxes. Yeah. Could we put this?

[04:09:02] that number right now is about 490,000 put the toe board back i have no idea what's happening with this other issue which is a larger number but that could grow and so it could be helpful about 455,000 especially in the event of people just sort of coming up with things that wrap up because there's money there to have a little bit more analysis around that mr amson maybe a little early to ask how much lead time would you need if there was a resource request to fold it into the next budget work session so it depends on what the board is interested in seeing we have resource requests from departments so if you're looking to see the next round of priorities that i would

[04:09:40] have submitted from the departments then that's we just need a day or two to prepare i wouldn't personally ask for it yet i wait till we were at getting interrupt so we knew what we were if you're talking about brand new things we don't we're not prepared to we haven't analyzed anything all right let's if anybody has any ideas for resource requests don't hold back and don't do it late in the game if you've got any ideas at all that you want us to look at let's get them surfaced up and get them over to mr hamster you take a look at well that would well i want to be clear what i'm saying i'm not asking the board or suggesting that the boards just come up with

[04:10:18] things i know i'm saying no no we know we have additional resource requests that departments submitted that are have not been presented because we hit the cutoff point if the board is interested in seeing some of those or all of those i'm happy to give them to you uh in a prioritized list and so i don't know what you want to see all of them but if you want to see the next five million dollars or you know right now my bet is if you show this board another five million dollars of resource request they will magically figure out how to ask for another five million dollars in resource request i just want to address the board's needs and based off of what i'm hearing

[04:10:54] no i i appreciate that it's proactive and i appreciate it but i think we are good we agree we're good yes yes okay thank you for bringing it up and that will do it for tonight we are adjourned thank you all

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