Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, FY 2027 Budget Work Session, Thursday, March 12, 2026

Date: Thursday, March 12, 2026
Place: Board Room, First Floor, Government Center, 1 Harrison Street SE, Leesburg, Virginia
Length: 4h 46m (video)
Official meeting video (county, Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/8139
Meeting page (Granicus): https://loudoun.granicus.com/player/clip/8139

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

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[00:03:03] moderator can you hear me tustin tustin so let me know if you can hear me okay thank you turn me on

[00:07:23] am i on yes okay thank you well good evening staff good evening supervisors and good evening loud and i'd like to call to order the march 12 2026 loudon county board of supervisors budget work session board members i'd like to stress that the importance of this budget work session is a time for us to offer changes additions and deletions to the budget budget. You should try to offer all desired amendments and ask any questions you have during the work session. Please only offer motions that you intend to support so we can

[00:07:58] be proficient with our time. When we get to the final vote on April 7th, staff will not be able to make large scale changes to the budget during that meeting and the vote on the budget could be delayed if there are substance changes that were not discussed. I will be making tonight the final motion. Normally that final motion is made by Chair and seconded by the Vice Chair, just out of habit, but I would be making that final motion. Pursuant to Code Section 2.2-3708.3 and the Board of Supervisors Rules of Order, Supervisor Sains

[00:08:34] requested to participate in this meeting by electronic communication. A physical form of the board is present in the boardroom and the board has made arrangements for the voice of Supervisor Sainz to be heard by all persons in the boardroom. Supervisor Sainz 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 recording this as minister by the same participated from a remote location is actually out of the

[00:09:11] country due to personal reasons i want to also say that the vice chair of the school board and donahue is on the line with us she was obviously invited to be here tonight and we knew she was going to be out of the area but she was so gracious to make arrangements to be on the phone with us to be online with us and so first let me ask supervisor sayings can you hear me yes i'm here wonderful uh mr vice chair donahue can you hear me yes thank you very much madam chair and thank you for accommodating me thank you for being here um before we start would everybody

[00:09:47] please join me in the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all i want to also make note that we've had all four seasons in 24 hours here in Loudoun County. Crazy. Okay, we're first going to go to the Tote Board. How y'all doing staff,

[00:10:26] you guys doing okay? Good evening. We are happy to be here. Wonderful. I think they mean it tonight because it's the last day. Hey, we do budget. You actually might mean it this time. This is what we live for. It's the face. It's the face. Your face is not convincing. It's not a convincing face. I'm trying - I'm trying to be professional, Madam Chair.

[00:10:48] Good evening, I have some updates for you. The packet to support today's budget work session went out last evening, and in addition, we sent out a supplemental item today around 3:20, which included a response to the remaining questions from the board members.

[00:11:08] In today's packet, we have under budget updates a tote board transmittal, which summarizes how the Board ended the previous work session, which we'll show at the end of my presentation. In addition, we have the county budget questions, some CIP questions, and the tracker of all the questions, which shows that we are complete.

[00:11:29] Also in your packet is re-issuance of two letters related to a request from the Loudoun Public Defender, as well as a replacement page that was left out of the budgeted document for the Northern Virginia Regional Commission's request for funding.

[00:11:46] And finally, if we can bring up the tote board, I would just add that we are tracking everyone's motions this evening and we'll have the totals being tracked. There remains $3 million available at the current tax rates and so we will be tracking motions just because there are some motions around the vehicle tax rate, We have the ability to track motions related to that as well.

[00:12:16] And we're happy to answer any questions. Thank you. Does anyone have any questions? Mr. Sains, during the night I'm going to probably call on you first just because I don't know. I can't see you and I don't know if you have questions or not. I will also say, Supervisors, when LCPS comes up, I will allow two rounds of questioning if you need it.

[00:12:34] I'll allow two rounds of questioning. There's been so much discussion, so many LCPS questions and discussions, I don't know if we can all get it done in one round. And so if you need to have a second round of questions for LCPS, I will allow that and I will invite the chair of the school board to come to the dais as well when we get to that place.

[00:12:56] But right now we're going to go on -- well, first of all, before I start with family service, I want to say that in this room with us, loud and you cannot really -- you don't know who's in the room, but in this room with us tonight are the heads of the departments or the supervisors other departments. This board, I say this all the time, but I truly mean it, this board understands that we get to cut ribbons and do ground breakings, and we're in the paper, sometimes even we don't want to be in the paper. We're the ones in the paper, but we know for certain who are public servants who are doing the heavy lifting and the work,

[00:13:35] And please, one, accept our appreciation, but also please extend that appreciation to your staffs because we understand how hard they work. I was a county employee for 20 years, a line staff, and I know what that feels like and I know what that is.

[00:13:52] And I really want you to know how very much you are appreciated and how very much your staffs are appreciated. So thank you so much. I'm going to ask Family Services to come to the table today. Family Services is our first one up today, and they are on pages 63 and 64 of your board budget book.

[00:14:17] Thank you for delaying after we heard from some of the nonprofit and community organizations. I just needed to have a couple of meetings and ask some questions, and there are some motions up here and that type of thing. But I really appreciate you all coming tonight, and I appreciate what you do.

[00:14:38] You have a very, very tough job and a very emotionally draining job. So I appreciate you all very much, and we're ready when you are. Good evening, Madam Chair and members of the board. I'm Deidre Bolden, Acting Director of the Department of Family Services.

[00:14:55] With me in the boardroom are members of the DFS leadership team and staff from the Office of Management and Budget. I want to thank you for your continued support and acknowledge the dedicated work of our DFS team who help ensure vulnerable residents of all ages receive the support they need every day.

[00:15:13] As a reminder, our program includes areas such as public benefits, child welfare services, adult services, child protective services, adult protective services, and our staff also manage the information and referral line for the county.

[00:15:30] Before presenting DFS priorities, I want to provide some clarifications regarding a few topics. The Virginia Department of Social Services, of which DFS is a local component, does not manage housing programs. Rather, in Virginia, the Housing Continuum of Care is guided by the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, which is aligned at the federal level with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD.

[00:16:00] Members of the public have provided comments to the board recently requesting the board's support for more permanent support in housing or PSH in Loudoun. As staff have presented in the budget question packets, it is important to note that there are two different PSH programs guided by the federal government by way of HUD and at the state level.

[00:16:26] In Virginia, PSH is a program managed by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services, or DBHDS, which liaises at the local level with MHSADS.

[00:16:43] HUD provides funding opportunities for PSH separate from DBHDS activities. Localities and nonprofits can apply for their federal funding to support the residential needs of unhoused individuals who, in addition to being unhoused, may have a variety of conditions like chronic illness or intellectual or physical disabilities.

[00:17:10] However, Virginia's PSH program is for unhoused individuals with a diagnosis of a serious mental illness or SMI. Loudoun County government as an entity does not currently have PSH beds or units funded by HUD or DBHDS. That does not mean Loudoun County government is not meeting the needs of unhoused residents, as we are an extremely well-resourced organization that

[00:17:44] provides a variety of supports both directly and indirectly for these individuals, including emergency shelter beds, drop-in center services, financial aid for rent and utilities, health care access, workforce development, financial literacy, and more. These supports are provided to unhoused individuals through the board's support to departments like the Department of Family Services, Extension Services, Health, and MHSADS, which utilize direct services

[00:18:19] and contracts to address individual needs. Having said that, these departments and others work together regularly to review data and trends informing our requests to the board. For instance, staff continues to evaluate the mix of the county's emergency shelter services and intends to offer changes to how these services are procured in the future.

[00:18:46] The county's current contract for homeless services expires this year, meaning there are no options in the contract series for the incumbent vendor to negotiate for a rate increase. Further, the county's scope of work associated with this contract, which requires the vendor to address case management services, will need to be updated by staff based on the county's determination of what it wants to source and how.

[00:19:18] Since we do not have an active contract with a vendor, I can speak to that contract which expires this fall. We realize also that program language used at the federal, state, and local levels can mean different things, which can cause confusion, and staff are working to reconcile such language to the extent possible in our documents and on our public-facing information, like permanent supportive housing is one area.

[00:19:54] Given these distinctions, I may pivot to other department directors and staff in attendance this evening should the board have questions that are technically not for the Department of Family Services. For example, should the board have questions specific to HUD programs, the Unmet Housing Needs Plan, or CDBG, I will defer to Eric Keeler, our Director of Housing and Community Development.

[00:20:23] Should the board have questions regarding the state's PSH program, which is for unhoused individuals with a serious mental illness, I will defer to Margaret Graham, our Director of Mental Health, Substance Abuse, and Developmental Services.

[00:20:41] So moving on to DFS's first priority, we are requesting additional public benefits positions to manage increasing caseloads and program requirements. DFS staff handle applications, case updates, renewals, client verifications, system updates, and third-party documentation in accordance with federal and state guidelines.

[00:21:08] These positions will allow us to provide residents with timely services and consistent support during critical transitions for them. High caseloads continue to be driven by ongoing economic hardships and upcoming federal actions that are expected to increase workload through more frequent eligibility verifications and reporting requirements for Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program, and Energy Assistance.

[00:21:43] These positions will reduce average caseloads from approximately 982 cases per worker in FY25 down to 819 cases per worker, moving closer to the recommended benchmark of 600 to 700 cases per worker.

[00:22:03] We are requesting 12 additional full-time public benefits positions, including six program specialists, three child care specialists, two case reviewers, and one supervisors.

[00:22:19] These positions are critical to maintaining timeliness and quality of service. Currently, Medicaid applications processing is at 91% timeliness, and projections show 94% if these positions are approved.

[00:22:36] Meeting the federal 97% standard without them is highly unlikely. For our second priority, the department is requesting one full-time operations and contract administrator to support our overall homeless services management program, which includes facility and property management of county-owned locations.

[00:23:04] This is similar to the board's approval recently of a similar position to help MHSADS manage operations at the new Crisis Receiving and Stabilization Center, which will be managed by a vendor. This operations and contract administrator position will, in part, serve as a liaison between the contracted vendor and staff across multiple departments, not just DFS.

[00:23:34] For instance, the scope of activities required to support this contract frequently extends beyond the vendor stated responsibilities and involves collaboration with the Office of Emergency Management, Safety and Security, General Services, and the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office, in addition to Family Services.

[00:23:57] Currently, the assistant director within the department is attempting to manage this need alongside other duties and responsibilities for managing a departmental division. In short, DFS manages the contract and oversight.

[00:24:14] The vendor delivers operational services and client-facing programs on the behalf of the county and through sites owned by the county. DFS remains committed to serving Loudoun's most vulnerable residents, ensuring programs are delivered efficiently, effectively, and with measurable outcomes.

[00:24:34] Approval of these requests will strengthen our capacity to meet federally and state-mandated responsibilities, maintain service quality, and support successful transitions into stable housing and improve well-being. thank you for your time and consideration I am happy to answer any questions you may have. Well that was excellent and very helpful thank you very much. I do have a point of clarification but a clarifying question before I go to my colleagues did I did I hear you say that you

[00:25:10] all are not operating managing or doing anything at all with any PSH beds and And is that contradictory to what is in the HUD report from 2024 that says that you all are managing nine out of 14 vets?

[00:25:33] So I'm going to defer to Mr. Harrison, who is our assistant director that oversees the contract. Good evening, Mr. Okay, so just to provide a little historical context around permanent supportive housing in Loudoun County, Loudoun County government and Volunteers of America of the Chesapeake and the Carolinas maintained a contractual relationship for about 30 years, which ended in 2021.

[00:25:59] However, during that contractual period, the county applied for and received federal HUD funds for permanent supportive housing from 2014 to 2023 to help support the needs of 16 clients. When the federal HUD PSH funding ended, DFS continued to directly support seven individuals in five units.

[00:26:26] So that is kind of to, that speaks to where there, when federal funding ended, we were able to locally support seven individuals in five units. And that is providing supportive services to individuals.

[00:26:46] And are you still providing that right now? We are currently providing supportive services to those seven individuals. Well, then wouldn't that mean that we are doing, that the county is doing seven permanent supporting housing beds then?

[00:27:05] Wouldn't that, aren't we saying the same thing? We don't have a permanent supportive housing project as funded by our housing urban development or developmental and behavioral services. So I can clarify that as well.

[00:27:20] So permanent supportive housing is a program. So there are two opportunities to participate in a PSH program, either by way of a state, DBHDS, or by way of applying for a federal competitive grant through HUD.

[00:27:41] So currently, DFS does not have a PSH program. Okay. When I get to my questions, I'll dig deeper. I'll dig deeper. Thank you. We define it as locally Loudoun's DFS-sponsored units.

[00:27:59] Is it the same thing by a different name? Well, no, because there's different criteria for permanent supportive housing, which I would defer to Department of Housing and Community Development to speak to that. But there's parameters around permanent supportive housing and conditions for eligibility that we are not currently considering within our operation.

[00:28:23] Okay. I'll come back. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisors, if you have questions, put your light on, please. Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall, and thank you for the presentation. So, DFS manages the shelter house contract, correct?

[00:28:41] Yes. Okay, and that's housing, correct? They are providing an array of services for individuals. So, those services could include a bed for stay. They also provide direct case management services, life skills services, also hygiene services.

[00:29:01] So when the individual enters the Loudon Homeless Services Center, they are first case managing those individuals, and then they are providing them the services that are provided by way of the contract and through LHSC. Okay, and then you are the lead agency for the continuum of care, correct?

[00:29:20] That is correct, yes. Okay. The shelter house said additional case managers would further strengthen housing outcomes and support timely exits to permanent housing. But I think the answer to that question that you guys provided was a no. Why wouldn't we support more case managers? So DFS benchmarks exits from the Emergency Shelter against national averages.

[00:29:54] So exits are tracked in the Homeless Management Information System. That is a system that both Shelter House and DFS uses to as a tracking mechanism. So currently that Homeless Management Information System data shows that 60% of households exit the program to permanent housing.

[00:30:14] Exits to permanent housing are a good indicator that adequate case management and supportive services are occurring. Most recently, at the federal level, data published by HUD indicates that the average access to permanent housing is on average 33%. The benchmarks here in Loudon are for households is 50% and for singles is 25%. And in both of those areas, the current contracted

[00:30:47] vendor are exceeding those benchmarks. But by HUD standards, the average exits are in and around 33.8 percent. Okay, so why is a compliance manager position needed if we're exceeding those standards of 50 percent and 25 percent? Yes, so this position will serve sort of as an ombudsman and a liaison on between the vendor and the county. So a lot of the things that are needed to operate a shelter

[00:31:21] out of a county building requires things that are beyond the scope of the vendor. For example, anything that happens with the facility itself, if something breaks, if the air goes out, if anything happens within that building, then as DFS, we are handling that directly with the Department of General Services. We're not asking the vendor to go to the different departments to handle matters. Another example is anything regarding the lighting at the center or the

[00:31:57] safety measures with locked doors and that sort of thing. We liaison with the Office of Emergency Management and Safety and Security that pretty much gives us recommendations and we liaison with the vendor to say additional lighting may be needed in certain areas of that property and so a lot of the management of the county-owned facility itself we don't want to put that burden of responsibility on the vendor. The other piece of that is it's not just one location. We have the

[00:32:30] Loudoun Homeless Services Center primary shelter over on Meadowview Court. There's also the drop-in Day Center there. There's also hypothermia, the hypothermia location that will be moving to 101 Blue Seal next year, this year. And then we also have the Eastern Drop-In Center over in Sterling.

[00:32:53] So it's multiple locations and multiple facilities that have to be managed, and we don't want to put that burden on the vendor as they're trying to serve and work with individuals that are coming through their doors. All right, if you need me to come back to you for a second round, I can. Ms.

[00:33:10] Bricksman? Thank you, Madam Chair. Given what's happening at the federal level, I have every intention of supporting all 12 of your resource requests. We no doubt will be having impacts with what's been going on that will burden our staff. And we are getting, I think, quarterly reports to finance committee on those impacts do you um do you know offhand how many uh snap recipients we have and what the num what how much money we're processing or how many how much in benefits we're

[00:33:49] processing for snap yes and also for medicaid yes let me give you the current numbers um and then my my next question will be we we have in our did you find it okay go ahead yeah so uh currently are you Are you just interested in SNAP data or Medicaid as well?

[00:34:12] Well, we start with SNAP. Okay. So with SNAP, we're serving about 7,500 SNAP households. Okay. And Medicaid, we are serving a little bit over 30,000 Medicaid recipients.

[00:34:30] Okay. That is significant. Did some of the SNAP beneficiaries fall off after July 1st when the eligibility was implemented that you had to be a U.S. citizen, I believe? Did you see any fall off in July?

[00:34:48] We have seen some, but it's not significant. Okay, good, good. And then I know that in our budget book, the positions that are required because of federal impacts have an asterisk. I also have in my notes that some of your resource requests are coming forth because of federal impacts. Could you let us know how many of those that you're asking for are because of federal impacts? So at this juncture, we don't know what the full outcome of the federal impacts

[00:35:22] would be. Okay. What we're asking for currently is just based on current caseload and our current needs. Okay. But we do know that there will be some level of indirect impact. Okay. Yes. Colleagues, But without objection, I would like to ask staff to report to the Finance Committee the number of resource requests that we are funding in our budget that are directly related to federal impacts in our next Finance Committee report on impacts.

[00:35:51] I think that would be hard to figure out, but I certainly think they should give it a yeoman's try. Okay. All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you for everything you do. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Oh, just a second. Ms. Graham, I'm going to be calling you soon. Soon, not quite yet, but you're on deck.

[00:36:10] You're on deck, Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. That was an excellent presentation, and I especially appreciated your trying to describe the different systems, federal, state, local.

[00:36:31] This may be the first time that has happened in a budget session, but I've found that very helpful. Um, so we recently received an email at the board and I'm wondering if, um, your operations and contract compliance program administrator would have been helpful in avoiding what supposedly happened where an individual was in a, I believe a mental health crisis, was taken to the ER, was delivered to the shelter, was not brought into the shelter,

[00:37:07] it was a cold night, had to be taken back to the ER, and then taken out of county. Would it be helpful to have this compliance officer in place to make sure that kind of situation doesn't happen again?

[00:37:27] Yes, absolutely. And the good news is that for the main Loudoun Homeless Services Center, right next door will be the new MHSAD crisis and stabilization location. So that is going to be added value as well.

[00:37:43] Okay. I will be supporting all your requests. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. First of all, let me just say I think everyone is concerned about all of the residents that sometimes are not always seen.

[00:38:01] So I think any discussions or confusion or whatever all comes from the right place and from concern from the residents just in general. So let me just kind of put that on there, out there. 20% for singles is low, and I'm never going to chase federal numbers because I think those numbers are too low, and I think we can do better.

[00:38:24] So I hear that the family numbers are what they are, and that's good, 60%. 20% for singles are not something that I, that is not satisfactory for me. I need to see, and I know you want to see better numbers for them as well. Is it possible that, you know, in some ways, and I asked Margaret and Ms. Graham this the other day, it does us no good to have case managers if there's nothing to manage because there's not the resources out there anyway.

[00:38:55] And sometimes, you know, we say we want case managers, and we do, but I've been a case manager before, and one of the most frustrating things is to be, you know, to call for a service that doesn't exist in the county or close anyway. So I do think that it's hard to have that whole discussion right here at the budget session.

[00:39:14] But I do think that's a discussion that we need to have. And I know it's a discussion that LHSN wants to lean into and have as well. Like what is the net for some of these, for some of our citizens, our residents who need that net?

[00:39:30] And so that's a discussion for another day, but it will be a discussion. Do you believe two things, three things, five things? I don't know. One, I think the complete count date is ridiculous. I think the complete count date in January is ridiculous.

[00:39:46] I also know that we're one of the only counties that went off in one of the coldest days of the year and did a complete count, so thank you. I believe we should either do a complete count in June or have a second complete count date, just in general. I'd like to have your opinion on that. It sounds like we're being careful with the seven that we're talking about because it almost sounds like we kind of kept them under us because we didn't want to cut them off.

[00:40:12] And so we don't got to do that anymore right now. Okay, let's not do that anymore right now. Let's have, that's another discussion too. I am getting the meta message of what you said to me and how we, who those people are and why they got there.

[00:40:28] I'm hearing that meta message. And again, that's a discussion for another time. I don't assume that anyone was, anyone that we were managing from when we had VOH, if they were told, I guess it's a question, were they told that they would not be able to be managed anymore or would happen, that that fall off or would happen with that.

[00:40:54] Do you believe we need more shelter beds or do you believe we just need more homes to put people in? Ms. Graham, if we're saying that we do, seriously, that SMI, does SMI include substance use? Because it is?

[00:41:09] Yes, it does. Okay, you're done now. You're fine. Thanks so much. That's all I got for you. You're good. Good answer. Co-incurring. Co-incurring. Listen, listen. You're saying all the right words. All the right words. All right. Those are the questions, and we may need a second round. For your second question, I would say attainable housing is the answer.

[00:41:30] is the solution. In terms of need for more emergency shelter beds, I would say that we would need more longitudinal data to lean into a steadfast conclusion on that. I think that census fluctuates throughout the year and that there are times where there are more individuals dependent on sheltering services than others. I think we have strong data to support that case management is occurring and that

[00:42:05] exits to permanent housing is happening and that individuals are sustaining that permanent housing. And so there's not been an issue with recidivism per data. And so I think we would need, just to answer your question, I think we would need more longitudinal data as, yes, there are seasons and times and periods where weather-dependent financial pressures and climate kind of dictate that, could kind of dictate utilization.

[00:42:39] But I think we would just need more information over a longer course of period to kind of make... That's a fair answer. I'm going to have a couple more questions. Ms. Kaquon, do you have any more questions? Yes, ma'am. Okay, thank you. I'm still not really understanding the need for the compliance program administrator, you mentioned to help with lighting and some services that frankly, I think general services, that's their responsibility, to take care of the operations of our facilities.

[00:43:12] So I'm still not really understanding the need. I saw that this is flat at 58. Looking at your key measures, it looks pretty flat. the placement rate of approximately 58 percent and of course i don't think shelter house the vendor has changed correct we've had shelter house uh for how many years since 2023 okay so we've had the same vendor so i'm i'm still not really understanding why you need um i'm sorry 2021

[00:43:44] okay a full-time employee for 170 000 you know to take care of some general services needs so i I would say it goes beyond that. There are other responsibilities and duties tied to that other than just that one example. And I would posture it as saying it's sort of liaisoning, not just for those county facility type things, but it's programmatic and just oversight of responsibilities tied to kind of working out of a county facility and would you like to add to

[00:44:23] that Ryan? I know you. I agree. I believe that it is it does it does liaise across multiple departments. I also believe that this position is designed to kind of assess system efficiencies and inefficiencies. I think that when in assessing system performance, having someone who is dedicated and on-site helps and aids in that. I believe you referenced that much of these duties are facilitated by an assistant

[00:44:56] director, myself, that kind of manages this effort and a division of 100-plus employees. And so I think that there's a need for operational support at the Loudon Homeless Services Center and its portfolio of programs.

[00:45:14] As Director Bolden stated, that this is a multi-site operation. And each site having its own unique needs. Individuals who are, in many cases, with our drop-in centers, some are only willing to access drop-in centers.

[00:45:32] and not access any of the other portfolio programs, and so this particular position would be extremely helpful in kind of troubleshooting and liaising between county other county departments and then also implementing another layer there to add additional support to the vendor so that they are having one point of reference for the multitude of needs that they may have across the portfolio program.

[00:46:03] that they facilitate. Okay. Thank you. So I would say this. I'm fine leaving the positions in. I do think, though, when we get to the point when we are doing a new contract, and I know that the RFQ goes out in a couple of months, right, I do think a new contract should look at case managers, and I don't think there's anything wrong with looking at case managers.

[00:46:27] I understand that those are our employees. those are the employees of whoever the vendor is. I don't want to say who the vendor will be but whomever the vendor is. I also want to say that we really haven't even yet had a discussion about emergency shelter and transitional housing. We haven't had a discussion about rapid rehousing. There are so many layers to this that it's impossible to do right here.

[00:46:52] It's impossible to do right here. But whatever case management positions we put in the contract, It flows with the contract. And so if it's Shelter House or VOA or whomever, it flows with the contract. We do work with the Good Shepherd Alliance.

[00:47:08] We work with Mary's House of Hope. We work with Tree of Life. We work with so many different housing service providers that I don't know if we're able to focus in on all the stories right now.

[00:47:27] And my fear is that where it might be, we might know who the family is who could have became homeless because they lost a job and had some medical issues. Okay, that's really important, not the hardest family to rehouse because they have something going for them already, versus the person who's coming out of an incarcerated setting that's been there for 20 years, needs transitional housing, needs to learn how to use a cell phone and from the ground, all of it from the ground, that's much, much harder.

[00:47:59] So it feels like that there is a net there for people who are, you know, have some resources, but the net for people who really are maybe the most vulnerable, we need to figure out what that net looks like and figure out that with LHSN, with all the housing services, kind of a more holistic look.

[00:48:22] And so when we do get to doing the RFQ, I may be more involved in that than I've ever been before. Because I do think that there are some needs that we might just be falling off.

[00:48:37] And I think that homelessness, or whatever the right term, I actually think homelessness is a fine term, right, what that term is, it's hard to see. You don't see homeless people in Loudoun, you know, they're not in the corner, they're pan and you don't see them so it's hard to make sure people don't really realize that they're there but when you look at our numbers you know we're meeting that we're meeting the federal benchmarks those federal benchmarks are the minimum numbers that I want to meet it is not good enough for me for Loudoun County to meet the minimum that's not who we are so we have some work to do and we're

[00:49:13] gonna all do this work together I so appreciate who you all are what you do how hard you work who your clients are what that looks like what the burnout says i i so appreciate you all and i'm sure we're going to be talking a whole lot more as as as we go on i don't have any motions on this dais right now because all the motions i would have go to the contract right um so i'll do that later does anyone else have any emotions on the dais right now

[00:49:40] thank you so much for your service okay um we are going to go on and do lcps right now lcps right now dr spence good to see you chair chandler good to see you as well how how's everybody doing we're doing very well thank you madam chair lovely i don't know about lovely but

[00:50:15] good i'm glad you are though miss chandler lovely's good um so do you have anything you want to report to us or say to us or talk to us about or anything at all before we start peppering you with questions no ma'am we appreciated the opportunity to come before the board prior and share our budget request and the thoughtful questions we've received from the board in the interim and we hope we've been able to answer those and look forward to answering the rest of your questions this evening wonderful miss donahue can you hear us just fine yes madam chair thank you wonderful supervisors if you have questions for and we can again we're going to do two rounds

[00:50:53] If you have questions for LCPS, let's do it. Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, thank you so much for being here today, and thank you for all of your hard work during this budget season. It was a little bit unusual, and I certainly appreciate all of your hard work.

[00:51:13] I have a sort of pie-in-the-sky question for you. What would be your next, say, $10 million in priorities be if you had that much more money in your budget? Thank you for the question, Ms. Brisbane.

[00:51:31] We had substantial conversation during the budget deliberations with the school board on their priorities. What I would say came out most clearly to us in terms of next steps with priorities would be some of the unfilled staffing needs that we had, and specifically those which were related to providing services for our English learner students.

[00:51:53] We do have some of those positions staffed in this budget, but there were additional requests for supportive positions that would be outside of the classroom, but more providing coaching support, for example, for our EL teachers. Okay. All right. Thank you for that. And then you're going to get used to me talking about fees, extracurricular fees.

[00:52:15] We've worked really hard on that, and I'm so appreciative of LCPS and the school board, this school board and previous school boards, working on those fees, which I think can create disparate impacts and reduce opportunities for students who can't pay for those activities.

[00:52:32] One of the ones I've been talking about lately is marching band, and I know it's not funded in this budget. I know that you may be looking at it for the next budget. do you happen to know and i thought i asked this as a budget question but i kind of did some digging and i didn't see the answer and if you don't know the answer offhand you can let me know but do you know how much it would cost to cover say high school marching band fees for those who want to

[00:52:57] participate i don't have an exact dollar amount readily available but i do know it is a significant amount because that is why we have not been able to incorporate it yet into our budgets we do provide you know access to instruments right you know the basic competition fees we have also started a pilot program this year to allow schools to tap into their differentiated allotment for

[00:53:34] some of those marching band competitions that were deemed more extracurricular but recognizing that the marching band is a it's a unit yeah and so for example the international trips that i know sometimes this board um hears about is where we were looking to target usage of that differentiated allotment so we're trying to find other ways to provide flexibility within our existing funds i'm going to run out of time just uh do you think it's in the tens of millions or hundreds of thousands i know for athletic fees it was like 800 000 one year five five millions tens of millions i'd be afraid to venture to guess but i think it's

[00:54:13] over a million at a minimum oh just over a million at a minimum minimum okay thank you Thank you. Just a quick question if there's any update on the LCI and or anything else that's come from the latest in the state budget discussions.

[00:54:33] I know we're just kind of at the proposal stage and there's just conferees at this point, but anything you can tell us might be helpful. - Yeah, I appreciate that. No update on the LCI conversation other than to say that some of the sort of conversations between our staff and some of the delegation has indicated that it would be unusual to create an ad hoc LCI change outside of the normal process for review and that because there's funding in both the Senate and the House budgets for the committee to study the JLARC funding recommendations and bring some proposals to the General Assembly,

[00:55:11] our thought is they'll probably leave LCI conversations to those committees. With regards to other news coming out, obviously, as you noted, they're still in conference, and we do see the potential for additional state funding in both the House and the Senate budget.

[00:55:28] The House would be more of a one-time funding with some flexible dollars that they've put into their budget. The Senate would be less funding, but more long-term structural changes. We're not sure yet where that's going to go. We're waiting to see. I wish there was something we could do about the general message of when the state provides raises for teachers but only covers the basic positions, which very few localities would accept as a reasonable staffing standard, and then the county ends up having to match.

[00:56:00] But everybody in the public thinks, no, the state's paying for it. Yeah, I agree with you. Also, and it's beyond that, because often it's the county matching the SOQ salary. So if they say 2%, we match the 2%, and then we have to backfill all the non-SOQ positions with the, for example, 4%.

[00:56:16] But then if we don't do it, then it's like they get mad, and it looks like we're trying to withhold something. So it's frustrating. Correct, and if we don't do it, then the state withholds those funds. Yeah, so I'm just raising it in case somebody out there cares to call some attention to that continuously frustrating situation.

[00:56:34] Thank you, Mr. Kirshner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for coming this evening. So it was great to see you. I missed the original budget session, so first time I've gotten to talk to you. I'm sure you're well aware you've been following. The sheriff was here before on the SRO program, and so I just had a couple questions along those lines.

[00:56:51] And obviously, we watched the discussion at the school board a week ago, Thursday. And obviously, the school board is not ready yet to adopt a program for the elementary school. But it was kind of the sense that I got listening to that conversation that part of the reasoning was there's no memorandum of understanding in place, at least at this point, for the elementary school.

[00:57:14] And there's still discussion going on to renew the current one that exists for high schools and middle schools. Did I get the right gist about that? I'm not sure that the reason was because we don't have an MOU in place. You are correct that we are in ongoing discussions about the MOU.

[00:57:31] I think the reason more was more aligned to we hadn't brought the conversation before the school board about their interest in that, which would have provided direction for staff that was engaged in those MOU conversations to really dig into that with the parties, which is not just LCSO, but also LBD.

[00:57:49] Well, I know you may or may not know this. I know there are a number of communities who have reached out to me. One specific tonight has actually a resolution on in Lovitzville. Their town is, their government is putting on a motion tonight asking, they would like to obviously have one in their elementary school.

[00:58:09] So I'm just curious, have any of the elementary schools or some of the communities reached out to you and expressed interest in having SROs within their schools themselves specifically? And I'm not going to ask you who, I'm just curious if you've heard any of that.

[00:58:24] I will say I was pleased to hear from the mayor yesterday who gave me a heads up that that was coming down the pike. But no, from my perspective, in terms of what I've seen directed towards me or generally to the school board, we have not heard any specific requests beyond this one.

[00:58:41] Okay. Is there an intention to engage further with the sheriff to discuss this as a possibility for next year's funding? Is that in the works? Our intention is to have a fulsome conversation, and that is essentially what came out of the motion that passed last week, that we want to make sure that we have a transparent process and really engage with the community.

[00:59:05] Okay, and my understanding is that there's discussions in the current MOU that exists, and that's been in discussions for a while. So is it likely that that will get resolved as well? I know it's a little off topic, but obviously it's a fairly significant issue we discussed, so I'm curious as to where we are on that.

[00:59:20] Yeah, so that conversation is ongoing. We, as you discussed a little bit in your last meeting, We did have some conversation before the joint committee of the school board and board of supervisors about that MOU. There was some recommended edits and questions that needed to go back to the parties that are working on this, which include my staff and members of the staffs from LCSO and LPD.

[00:59:45] We've done some crosswalking between some of the recommended changes in the MOU discussions that had already been occurring and what we heard from the joint committee. That was in November, so we put everything on pause because we knew we had a new school board would be coming on in january and that that school would ultimately be the party to this mou we've then been trying to schedule those meetings we had a few weather delays and we do have a meeting actually scheduled for next week so we are carrying forward with our mou discussion with the parties and we're really at this point focused on the issues we've already been trying to resolve that came before the joint committee and then we'll get further direction from the school board about the matter of sros that'd be great hope hopefully you can come to a resolution

[01:00:25] thank you want a clarification madam chair yes ma'am um i just want to make sure there is an mou in place right now yes ma'am okay we are operating under the existing mou it is that's a great point of clarification and we want to be sure everybody understands that we are operating under the existing mou the ongoing negotiations around the mou are simply to update the mou that's required we have reviewed it as required by law we're fine under the existing mou for the remainder of this school year, we need to get this one to whatever changes that all the parties can agree to by the end of this school year and place for next school year.

[01:01:04] Well, don't start my time, on her point of clarification, the new MOU has not been signed. You're still operating under the existing because you are, but it hasn't been re-signed yet. Is that correct?

[01:01:20] It doesn't need to be re-signed. It doesn't need to be re-approved. It needs to be reviewed under code, but not re-signed. changes would need to be approved by all the parties. Okay. First of all, let me say this. I think our educators are heroes. I really do. And you cannot look at LCPS numbers and not realize what a great school system we have. You just can't. Graduation rates and everything else, people who graduate with advanced degrees, it is a phenomenal school system. You can't look at our numbers and think anything else. However, no school system is perfect and there's always issues.

[01:01:57] And so let me start with saying how well we're doing and the questions, because the questions I'm about to ask may not let you know how I realize how well we're doing, but I want to say that first. I am concerned, and I've been concerned ever since my children walked into kindergarten about some of the things I'm still seeing.

[01:02:15] I was chair of MSAC when the first MSAC report was written. I have that report. I look at the report today of what they're doing, and then not much has changed in all those years, from 2008 and all those years. Kids of color are still not graduating with the advanced degrees as high as their counterparts, Hispanic and black kids.

[01:02:35] That is a problem. Discipline numbers are still higher. That is a problem. That's not the sheriff. That's the school system. So I have a couple of different questions. One, when I sent over the question they asked is, are SROs involved in day-to-day discipline? The answer I received back was that no, SROs are not involved in day-to-day discipline, but SSOs may be.

[01:02:57] Why is that? Why would an SSO ever be involved in day-to-day discipline at an elementary school? Second, when we talk about how many times the sheriff's department has been called over to the elementary schools from the middle and high schools, in one year, almost 400 of those times were for crosswalks.

[01:03:19] Why aren't the SSOs doing crosswalks? Why are we calling over highly trained sheriff's deputies to do crosswalk work? That seems kind of a little overqualified to me. Thirdly, I said this a couple of days ago.

[01:03:37] Dr. Ellis Williams, you, Dr. Spence, and maybe five more people in the county really understand the school-to-prison pipeline. I am frustrated by the idea that the school-to-prison pipeline starts and stops only when a call to law enforcement is made. It doesn't make it better by no means.

[01:03:53] But that is not what the school-to-prison pipeline is. And I know that you know that, and you know that I know that, And I need some some some help on helping people understand school to prison pipeline starts in first grade and goes all the way through depending on how kids are treated and all types of other things, which goes back to why are our black and brown kids getting advanced degrees?

[01:04:16] Why are they getting higher levels of disciplines? What is going on? Do you need more training? Do you what do we need to do? We have a phenomenal school system. Let's make it more phenomenal. What should we be doing right now? Okay, you've asked three questions, and I'm going to try to tackle them in simplest and more complicated.

[01:04:37] So simplest was the crossing guards conversation, and in regards to the crossing guards, that program is run by LCSO. And so those are their employees. They make the determinations about where they're placed. But aren't they called over?

[01:04:53] So when the deputies come over, it said crossing guards in their data. I'm not really sure what that is. I don't know if that means that they're filling in for crossing guards, because we have crossing guards at specific locations throughout the county who are employees of LCSO, and they're there every day.

[01:05:09] And I don't know if those 400 instances were instances where they were filling in for crossing guards, because deputies do fill in for crossing guards sometimes when they are not there. So that's the answer to that question. You asked about when an SSO, so to be clear, an SSO is a school security officer.

[01:05:26] We do not have school security officers in our elementary schools. We have regional school security officers who support our allied contractors and our principals in our elementary schools. So that's not an elementary school answer when they said SSOs are involved in discipline.

[01:05:43] The only time a school security officer would be involved in discipline would be when they're intervening in a physical altercation. So they're not involved in the disciplinary discussions that happen after the fact. they may be involved in the incident itself, trying to make sure that students are safe. Once the incident is safe and contained, they're no longer involved in the disciplinary conversations.

[01:06:03] Those would be our assistant principals and deans and principals who are involved in those conversations with our families and the students. So, I'll stop there. Just make sure that those are clear enough in terms of my responses for those two questions. - They're not, but I'll circle back around. - Okay, all right, thank you.

[01:06:19] And the other one is a far more complicated and complex question, as you know, and I agree. And I would actually say that the pipeline between students who are in our schools to anything that happens after school, including prison, starts well before our schools.

[01:06:38] It's a community and a school's issue. It starts at birth and it leads its way into our schools and then either can be ameliorated or proliferated in our schools, depending on our behavior and our actions. And I agree with you, LCPS along with most of the schools in our country have these very similar challenges.

[01:06:58] And I do think there are a number of things that we can do. It's a multi-pronged attack, right? So a lot of it is early intervention. So how well we intervene early and prepare our students for school. A lot of it is training, which you mentioned.

[01:07:14] And so in many respects, it's cultural competency training. So we have teachers who don't necessarily understand the students that they're teaching or the families that they're working with. And one of our responsibilities is to help our teachers really gain some of that understanding because oftentimes if you don't understand a student's behavior, you may respond to that differently.

[01:07:36] And that creates its own problems. One of the things that I work on and we work on with our principals is understanding, taking a really clear and hard look at our discipline data as an example, and a really clear and hard look at our achievement data, and then setting school improvement goals, specifically related to those pieces of data.

[01:07:55] I'm clear, and my expectations are clear with our principals, that we will improve in terms of closing our gaps, and we will improve in terms of closing disproportionality. And I believe we've begun to see some of that in our data, but it's a multi-year process for me to ensure that my leadership teams understand how the school improvement process and how school improvement science works.

[01:08:17] And so I feel really good about the position I'm in in year three with having that process in place and beginning to see the fruits of those conversations. And I do think you'll start to see our data improve and I think it needs to improve over time and we don't make excuses for that. - Thank you.

[01:08:33] Do anyone in the second round before I go again? Okay, first of all, thank you for saying that because it's completely true and it is nationwide. And I'm gonna push back a little bit and say, You know, you said often if teachers don't understand what they're seeing, that they may react differently.

[01:08:51] I would say sometimes people don't, teachers, educators, whomever, don't understand their own subconscious bias. And that's why they're actually acting differently. And that is the cultural competency conversation. And truthfully, and I keep saying this, I say this all the time, I think we're the best county in the country.

[01:09:08] And I think we have a phenomenal school system. If there's a school system that can get this right, it is us. It is us, but we have to, and that's why I'm so happy to hear you say, there's no excuses. We're going to work toward this. And Dr. Spence, I think you're already doing a good job working toward that. But we do have to do that because the stats right now are not that different than the stats in 2008 when I did the first MSAC report.

[01:09:30] So I appreciate you saying that. I do know that we have hired, that you all have hired with funds, with the transfer of funds, 510 people who are in the school system who deal with either school psychiatrists, school psychologists, mental health people.

[01:09:47] That's a lot. That's a lot. And so that's headed in the right direction, I hope. But I also hope that those people have some cultural competency training as well. I, Ms. Glass, Mr. Sains, we have raised children of colors in your school system.

[01:10:04] I can tell you stories that would make people scream. And I love Loudoun County School System, I do. And they prepared my kids for college well, but there were also a lot of issues. And if I were not the involved parents that we were, and I saw parents who were not as involved, it would have been a problem.

[01:10:25] I saw a kid of color after kid of color after kid of color come out of elementary school with all A's, yet not be referred to taking any honors level classes in middle school. with no reason for that, while their white counterparts who came out of school with lesser grades got referred to honors classes.

[01:10:43] That's how a school-to-prison pipeline starts. And that's an issue, and we're all going to work on that together. I don't understand the crossing guard answer. I don't understand the crossing guard answer because they're still being called over by us, by you.

[01:10:59] Tell me how this is working because 400, almost 400 times, a highly trained sheriff's deputy being a crossing guard. How is that happening? And that's for elementary schools. That's not for all schools. That's just for elementary schools. So is somebody not calling them?

[01:11:18] What am I missing? Yeah, I want to clarify that data that we shared with you. Not all of that data are calls for service from LCPS. So you saw data on there that said directed patrols. That's not an LCPS call for service. That's a patrol that came either through just kind of a regular patrol from LCSO or, you know, they're, they're in the area, you know, and stopping by.

[01:11:44] But it wasn't a call that came to you. Not, not that I'm aware of. And that's good to know with my leadership team. The crossing guard data is not, we're not making calls to ask about crossing guards. If there's a vacancy in the crossing guards, that's handled internally with LCSO, as far as I'm aware, unless we have, and I don't, I'm not aware of a protocol.

[01:12:04] I asked my team, but I'm not aware of a protocol where if we notice that our crossing guard isn't there we call lcso for a vacancy fill-in those are all their employees and all of that is handled through through lcso so okay we we really don't control the crossing guard program we're partners in that program we're by the way i want to express incredibly appreciative of that um the crossing guards do a great job i miss crossing guard dave at blue ridge middle school he was amazing sat out there every day waving to all of us and uh you know they're wonderful parts of our school community, but they aren't our employees, so I don't want to in any way appear to be

[01:12:41] disparaging them. I think they're wonderful, but they're not ours. Okay, well, thank you for that, and Ms. Chandler actually hinted that some of these numbers may not be completely in line with the numbers you've seen, and so it would be good for us to actually see numbers, because those numbers that we received seemed awfully high, and the rationales weren't very clear, so I appreciate you saying that. Please give our appreciation to everyone who works in LCPS, especially our educators. And when I say educators, I mean people who work custodians, people who serve lunches, people working in the, all of, everyone who loves on our children. Thank you all, all

[01:13:21] so much. Supervisors, do we have any questions or any motions up here around the LCPS budget? Ms. Chandler, you rock. Ms. Donahue, thank you.

[01:13:38] chair randall you rock thank you very much dr spence thank you thank you all very much thank you we appreciate you one second i'm sorry don't don't walk away mr sayings i totally forgot about you man my bad thank you jason you're you're fine nope i have no question oh mr sayings can you hear me yes we can hear you okay yeah the mou question that i was going to ask was

[01:14:12] so i'm all good thank you okay and and i i'm sorry i forgot you you're not forgettable i'm sorry i forgot you all right we're good thank you so much okay i'll chime in if i have a question don't worry okay i believe that all right thank you um yeah yeah okay so uh we're going to go to non-departmental services um i think the public defender miss o'donnell is here would you come to the table please and I believe Ms. Bricksman you have a motion I do Madam Chair thank you

[01:14:51] thank you Ms. O'Donnell it's great to see you Ms. O'Donnell hi we're ready when you are light your microphone just hit that button there you go there we go can you tell I don't do this often it's okay

[01:15:24] I see that I'm listed twice I'm assuming that means that You can double whatever Ms. Bixman has asked for. One, to first thank you for the supplement that you all provide and for the four positions that you've provided to our office.

[01:15:46] I'm going to sit here and not get emotional over it, although I easily could. I cannot begin to tell you the difference that it's made. I will tell you that those four positions have allowed us to provide significant additional services to our clients, to streamline what we do in our office, and I think to increase our representation across the board.

[01:16:11] So much so that the BIDC, the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission, went to the General Assembly to ask for additional paralegals throughout the state because they saw what Loudon did. Oh, wow. It's called the Loudon effect. Oh, my gosh.

[01:16:26] Thank you. Something good named after us. Thank you. Yay. Because there's other Loudon effects, so that's good. That's really good. I love that. The other thing they did was go to the General Assembly and ask that the statue allowing localities to provide funding for public defender's office be clarified to indicate that localities could provide funding for attorneys, and that is to be a fully funded position.

[01:17:00] I have emails and correspondence between the VIDC and my executive director that fully funded means benefits, that you are not in federal compliance if you fund a full-time position and do not provide benefits for that position.

[01:17:19] That bill has passed unanimously through the General Assembly. We're just waiting on the governor to sign it. We have every indication that that bill will be passed, will be signed by the governor. with that, I am asking the county to provide us with one attorney position. I'm asking for that one attorney position, and my apologies for doing it late. I need to be better. We also have to wait by General Assembly to meet and get that passed, too. You couldn't have done it before that, so.

[01:17:50] Thank you. Yes. I'm asking for the position because we have had, I brought with me, I could pass them out to you all except for it's got juvenile names on it. We now, there's 12 of us. Our counterparts come with the attorney's office has 29 attorney positions. So we're almost out man, three to one. We have 11 courts that we're in. I was in four different courts this morning before lunch. We had the past two weeks in circuit court, we had 19 cases. In general district court,

[01:18:27] we had 101 cases. The week before, in circuit court, we had 21 cases. In general district court, we had 149 cases. This does not include what we need to do in the office. This does not include the discovery review that we have to do. This does not include what is soon to be four specialty court dockets. We have a full-time member on the recovery court docket, which takes almost all of our Wednesdays, so we lose an attorney to help in the courtrooms.

[01:19:02] We have the behavioral docket in general district court, we have the veterans docket in general district court, and we will soon have the behavioral courts docket in JDR. Those four dockets are an attorney. For us to be effective, for us to provide what is required and needed for those four specialty dockets, we need an attorney's position for that, because it's not just merely showing up, it's preparing, it's reviewing, it's the specialty training which as Chip can account to is going to take almost all of next week for us to get ready for JDR.

[01:19:40] So for all of these reasons, we are asking for this board to do one more thing for us and provide us with one position. I've given the numbers as to what that would cost, that It includes salary, supplement, and benefits.

[01:19:58] Yeah. Okay. I think maybe we can go straight to a motion on this. Are you guys good with that? I do have a question. You have a question? Okay. Yeah, because it may relate to the motion. The letter that you sent mentioned utilizing $100,000 of existing funding to offset a portion of the cost, and I was a little bit confused by that.

[01:20:19] The motion that's here doesn't do that. So can you explain, is the whole $400,000 that we do give committed, Or what did you mean by the opposite? So the $400,000 is committed. We have four employees that are using that money. And I've talked this over and over with my team.

[01:20:36] If I had to pick, which I needed more, one of those paralegals or an attorney, we need an attorney. We need help in the courtrooms. So if the board was not willing and did not have the funding to fully fund this position, That was plan B to see if we could reallocate one of those positions.

[01:20:57] So that's in the event that we didn't fund the full cost. Yes, sir. Thank you. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for doing such a good job explaining the situation you face with a very limited number of attorneys relative to the Commonwealth.

[01:21:21] And it just brought back to my mind the fact that in the Navy, when I was in the JAG Corps, it was one-to-one. We had a prosecutor, one prosecutor, one defense attorney. The defense attorneys were not outnumbered by a factor of two or three.

[01:21:42] So from that perspective, I think you've made a good case, and I'll be supportive. Thank you. Thank you. I will speak inside the motion. Ms. Fixman, would you like to make a motion? I would love to make a motion, Madam Chair. Thank you. I move that the Board of Supervisors add funding to cover the full cost of an attorney position for the Loudoun County Public Defender's Office and direct staff to work with the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission to incorporate this position into the existing memorandum of understanding between the county and VIDC.

[01:22:13] Second. Thank you, Madam Chair. So we've met with Ms. O'Donnell a couple times this year, and I was so pleased to hear that the four positions that we funded last year are helping so much.

[01:22:31] And I advised Ms. O'Donnell to just ask for the attorney rather than splitting up some of that funding because what she shared with me was those four critical positions that were added last year are now functioning so well and they are working, you know, probably over time just doing the load that they have that, as we discussed it, I just hated the idea of trying to readjust the way that she's set up her office now.

[01:23:01] because everything everyone's being fully utilized and I'm really proud that the bill is I think it passed the House and the Senate unanimously and it's just waiting for the governor's signature one thing I the bill that would allow us to fund and kind of brings us into compliance for funding the other positions that we did last year and I will in case my colleagues weren't able to see the letter from VIDC. The one concern I had because we always have a concern that the state is not paying its bills and my concern was if we funded this position that VIDC would drop us down

[01:23:39] in our priority list for getting another state funded attorney and so Ms. O'Donnell went to VIDC and asked for a letter that assures that we will keep our position so that when we rise to the top of the priority list to be getting an attorney either she'll get just another state funded attorney or the state could take over the funding for this attorney. I have a feeling that you would probably prefer to get an additional state funded attorney. So I again thank you for everything you do and I was getting a little bit emotional when we were talking about it as well especially when

[01:24:18] you told me how helpful the translator has been because of how difficult it was for you to work your clients and your office staff in with the limited time you had with the translator that you had to share over at the courthouse. And so I'm so glad that the translator is helping so, so much. And I thank my colleagues for supporting this additional resource request. Thank you,

[01:24:42] Madam Chair. Thank you, Ms. Letourneau. Thank you. I will support the request. You already addressed it, but I think if you think you're going to need it, then let's just go ahead and have you sit down with county administration early while the county administrator is still proposing the budget so that we can just, it can show up in our budget book and then we can ask questions and things like that. It's just a better process for us.

[01:25:04] And I will just know, I mean, it's never going to be one-to-one because obviously a lot of folks in the criminal justice system are not using the public defender's office and have their own attorneys. But I obviously take the point about the volume, which is why I'll support this request. With the usual caveat that I continue to be frustrated by the deficit that we have to deal with in the county.

[01:25:25] And part of me does feel like because the Northern Virginia jurisdictions in particular always step up, they're never going to address it. But I know there is some progress being made, and I appreciate all the work from really everybody in our court system on every side who has been trying to advocate for more resources so it doesn't always fall on the county to provide supplements across the board.

[01:25:46] So thank you. If I just made the letter that we obtained from our executive director, she assured me to assure you all that when we assess needs, this position will not count against us. We right now are operating only at, I believe, 69 percent of the attorneys we need, according to our case statistics.

[01:26:07] That puts us, I think, eighth in the pecking order as to -- there's only seven other jurisdictions above us that have greater needs. Mr. Kirster. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good to see you. I see you a lot. I'm going to support your position.

[01:26:25] I think it's an important position. One of the reasons, and it wasn't even something you said, I was really glad to see the letter from the um indigent defense commission i think that's important that we we because we are stepping up as supervisor letourneau said that we don't get dinged for that and i think it's super super important so please hold their feet to the fire and if anything changes please let us know so we can do anything we can on our side of that um i um i understand it it's very clear to me that there's significant need i mean i um the circuit court recently within the last year has now made Every attorney that appears in front of them, they've put them on the court-appointed list,

[01:27:05] which tells me there's a lack of public defenders that are available. And obviously, those normally faulted conflicts themselves. But that just tells me there's not enough public defenders to cover those who are indigent. So we share with that. And that's fine. That's part of our duty as lawyers.

[01:27:21] But that, to me, is a big selling point of why you need an additional attorney. I am curious, have you seen an increase in your circuit court load of major felonies, that sort of thing, that actually go to circuit court over the last year or so? Or has it been fairly similar?

[01:27:37] I mean, obviously you talked about the specialty dockets. I would say we have probably seen a 30% increase in cases going to circuit court. We are spending more time on sentencing. We're going to trial a lot more often than we ever have been the past three years.

[01:27:57] part of function of the dip change in the commonwealth attorney's office yes okay fair enough i just wanted to make sure i true that out of you make sure i understand it thank you so first of all thank you for what you oh i'm sorry i'm looked right i keep looking at you and you're not forgettable um wait a minute mr saints i will be happy to support these support this motion as we've done a few years now and i wish we didn't have to but i'm glad to do it because the work that they do day in and day out is you

[01:28:32] can't you can't replace it thank you sir mr vice chair thank you matt chair um so this is my six years an elected supervisor and i feel like i'm in groundhog day i mean we have this conversation every year just out of curiosity what would it take to get you well now oh probably five more attorney positions. Three more paralegals and two more secretaries. Noted. We'll see where this

[01:29:04] budget season ends up. Thank you very much. Thank you. It won't end up there. It won't end up there. I can tell you that right now. You know, I'm going to associate myself with Mr. Sains and

[01:29:23] I am both happy to do this and very pleased that Ms. Bricksman has been very diligent about having these meetings and bringing this motion, and thank you, Ms. Bricksman, and very, very, very grateful for you, and I think I've been in office for, I don't know, 15 minutes when we had our first meeting and you brought some of these issues to me, and we've been doing this for years for obvious reasons, because people deserve defense.

[01:29:53] I mean, it's actually part of what makes America, America, and all those things. And so you all are doing phenomenal. It is frustrating that it's not just your department, it's the courts. It's probation and parole. It's so many places where the county is doing state responsibilities.

[01:30:10] And Mr. Letourneau is right. It's like, you know, it's chicken and egg. If we do more, will they expect more from us? But if we don't do it, then our constituents actually suffer. And your employees suffer, and they can go someplace else and make, like, you know, more money, and then you're really in trouble.

[01:30:30] So we're kind of at a catch-22. I never quite know how to do this. And, you know, I remember your first year, we said no to you. I said, no, let me go down to the Junior Assembly and see if I can talk them into it. And you were like, go ahead, right? And then I went down, and then the next year I made the motion for you because it just wasn't going to work.

[01:30:51] And so I just never know, you know, I just never know, you know, how often we're going to do this. I guess we're going to, I guess he's right. It's going to be Groundhog Day. But it's not because your office doesn't need it. Your office doesn't deserve it. And your, the thing about your office is you all do so much more than what people see when you walk in court.

[01:31:13] You actually do the case management. You do resource requests. You all are doing, the breadth of work your office does, the people really understand it, is pretty phenomenal. So there's no way we're going to say no to you, even if it's frustrating that it has to be in this way.

[01:31:29] So thank you for all you do. Please thank everybody in your office, and thank you, Ms. Bricksman, for bringing that request. Anything you want to say before I go to the closing? I could say so much, but just thank you, and thank you for acknowledging it. When I heard some of the prior agencies, I was like, well, I know that.

[01:31:49] I know there's problems with housing, I know there's problems with this, and the positions you've previously given us, they help. They help, they're helping define the shelters, the homing, the housing, the services. So thank you for acknowledging that.

[01:32:05] Thank you. And I will share that with my attorneys and my staff. Please do, please do. Ms. Priestman, would you like a closing? I would. Thank you so much, Madam Chair, and thank you, colleagues. You know, to sound cliche, they say that sometimes things happen for a reason, and I never imagined when I ran for office in 2019, I wasn't thinking about the public defender's office. And I think I've shared with my colleagues and probably you that I was raised by a public defender.

[01:32:36] And it was hard. I mean, it was, you know, three of us in the home and single had a household situation. And there were, I don't know if you've ever done it before, but I remember one time my mom went to court with one blue boot on and one black boot on because she was just so at her wits end with everything she had to do and trying to keep the bank account full and all those things so it has just been such a joy and a pleasure to be able to just make some sort of small impact on the

[01:33:08] lives of the people in your office and because I know personally the work that you do and I know personally that you are literally upholding our American values of equal protection under the law and I'm just I'm proud to know you and proud to be able to support you and thankful for my colleagues for supporting the positions that we supported last year and this position this year thank you. All right Ms. Bixman made the motion I second the motion on paper say aye. Aye. Any

[01:33:38] opposed? That motion will pass 9. Thank you Supervisor Sains. We'll have to dig into that Loudon effect. I want to hear more about that Loudon effect. Supervisor Sains is the reason all this is happening right now. Aye. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. Supervisors, okay, for non-departmental, this is just questions. If you have questions for Ms. Burke, if you have If you have questions for Mr. Hemstreet, if you have questions for anybody, any department

[01:34:14] that you feel like you want to kind of wrap back around to, this is the time for that. And then we have a slew of motions on this dais. So we're going to do this and go through this and then take a break and then just sit here and make motions after motions after motions of which we have a lot of, yeah, we'll do this first.

[01:34:34] lot of motions on the dais and so so we'll do that first so let's just start with I'll just go I'll just go down the line and say if you have any questions for any department for Ms. Burke Mr. Mr. Hemstreet let me know Mr. Sains I will start with you no questions but I do have motions so when it's time for motions just let me know Mr. Sains when we finish the non well when we get to motions would do that. We'll do that. Okay. Ms. Bricksman. I just have one question and

[01:35:13] colleagues I did send a list of alternative alternate resources that I might try to make motions for should we have after we finish our pile here should we have anything left on the tote board. So if I'm not putting Mr. Hemstreet on the spot too much I would like to ask of the two county administration alternate positions one of them is a real estate specialist and one of them is the learning and development supervisor for Mr. Rush's office if you had to pick which

[01:35:48] one the the DEI one is priority one but the real estate specialist is priority two do you kind of have a preference if we can squeeze it in Mr. Hemstreet so I'm not actually you don't have to answer it if you don't want to I can answer it as the county administrator I'm not actually a department head so I would defer to the department on that which would be Mr. Quintine oh okay you want to ask your question one more time while he's walking up yes Mr. Quintine um so the the and I

[01:36:24] don't know if we're going to be able to do either of them but county administration priority two is a real estate specialist and then there's a county administration priority one a learning and development supervisor. Do you have any opinion on which? So I would think given the growth of the county, maybe the RPAMP position would probably be best. Okay, thank you. So you can also take this time to ask questions of one another if you have something that you want to understand with one another. No? You guys good? Okay, because I have some questions. I have two

[01:36:58] questions. I have questions to Mr. Sains and Ms. Glass, and I have questions to Ms. Burke. So a little bit about nonprofits right now. This sometimes is where we will have a discussion about how our nonprofits are doing, the funding, that type of thing. I do know that, gosh, I don't know when we gave them $5 million, that they have those in the Community Foundation, and they're working with and through those funds right now. I do know that the way that we're doing the grant request request is that, you know, we get to the end, we see what's left, and then we go look at

[01:37:38] Thumb Bounce to see if we can close that gap. And you may not know this yet, and I promise it's not a trick question, but do you know at all if we have any -- because I have not received any outstanding or more requests from any particular one nonprofit.

[01:37:57] Have you gotten anything over there on that? Besides the feedback that we got during the public hearing about the overall funding for the grant program, no, I am not aware of any of that feedback. But that's actually kind of addressed with how we do the grants and then going into and closing that gap.

[01:38:16] So as far as I know, we don't have any gaps in the nonprofit request. I don't believe so. Not that I'm aware of. Okay. All right. I don't believe we do either. And, again, I will start going to LHSN just to make sure that I know that I know that's right.

[01:38:32] But I don't think we have any gaps in nonprofit requests. Supervisor Sanders, Supervisor Glass, I am pretty confused about the MVRC discussion or the ask for a couple of reasons. One, if we were to do this, and I'm not likely to, why wouldn't this be a fund balance item since it's really a one-time thing?

[01:38:56] Secondly, I don't know what we're doing. I mean, if we start giving extra monies to our regional commissions or boards and such, then we're, I mean, it's NVTA, it's NVTC, it's COG, it's WAMOT.

[01:39:14] I don't know. This is usually done via contract. And I understand it's for the Ryan White Fund Education, which they have, and I also understand that that's further than just Region 8.

[01:39:31] I know it goes into Stafford County and I think maybe Clark County. I get all that. But they've also been doing the Ryan White Funds for at least 10 years, and so I'm not quite sure how that money would work.

[01:39:47] And my final question is, are they asking each MVRC locality for this infusion of money based on what based on their our population or where they what's what's it based on help me understand why i'm doing this mr i'm going to defer to mr hemstreet okay before you defer to his to mr hemstreet because you're not allowed to do that i'm going to defer to mr sayings you have anything you want to say mr sayings uh yes it's for our strategic uh planning we're doing we have a lot of new members and we have a new executive director that just started

[01:40:26] this year well early uh late last year excuse me um so we had the on nvrc we had the idea to um kind of level set do a strategic planning and and see if there's anything new or new direction we'd like to go with nvrc that we're already doing um now and yes there was a similar request to all localities. I can't tell you exactly the breakdown, how much did we ask for Fairfax and Prince William and the other localities. And the reason why I think it might be better to do this now is because we're actually in that process right now doing the strategic initiatives and planning. So this

[01:41:05] money would go to help pay for the vendor that is helping with the strategic meetings that we've been having um and this does not cover um ryan white um we've there are some issues with the general assembly we lost some funding so we're actually doing uh there's a bill that was brought down to try to get funding for the of ryan white uh from the general assembly so this is just particularly for our strategic plan uh initiatives that we that we um started this year point of clarification mbrc specifically noted that because intergovernmental service agreements revenue is

[01:41:42] primarily covering the strip balls in the wire and right program we do not have the budget capacity to take on any new initiatives so okay why couldn't it be mr sam's why couldn't it be a fund balance we're going through the process right now so i guess i'll defer to mr hemstreet if we could defer this to fund balance but from my understanding like i said we're going through the initiative right now so i'm assuming the vendor would like to get paid now while we're going through this process rather than waiting until november december mr hemstreet are you good you want to you want to say something i just want to add that uh when we're talking about

[01:42:21] increasing the funding because they are it's it's increasing the funding not just a not just a one time um increase in the fund so they're trying to expand this is for every year yes oh Oh. Hmm. Mr. Hemstreet?

[01:42:41] I know. I know it. Yes, I don't want to necessarily repeat everything that Supervisor Sainz, Supervisor Glass has already mentioned. However, the request that came to us through administration in the Northern Virginia Regional Commission does reflect this as an increase in our dues payment, which is done on a per capita basis.

[01:43:03] So I apologize if I wrote it incorrectly. So the purpose of this is NVRC is looking at what additional regional services they can provide to its membership.

[01:43:23] And so there is a series of work sessions that they have been going through, one being housing, and then another one more recently being around stormwater and drainage types of work. They also provide, outside of this effort, other services around watershed, such as the Occoquan Reservoir Watershed and other types of services that are consistent with the regional planning organization.

[01:43:54] So we mentioned the Ryan White Act because there has been a reduction in administrative dollars that have come from the federal government around that, which is a reduction in their level of service towards that program.

[01:44:12] However, this funding is not related to replacing anything having to do with Ryan White. This would be additional services, which is why we reflected it as an add to the budget, because it's not something that is currently being provided. But it would be recurring, and it would be for additional regional-based planning services that the regional planning organization provides.

[01:44:36] Okay. On this issue, we're just going to talk on this issue just now for a second. Mr. Letourneau? All right, Tim. So this is what it says here. It says, when the strategic planning process concludes, it's too late to incorporate new spending requests. As a result, the preliminary budget includes an MVRC strategic initiatives contribution towards whatever initiatives may be determined via the planning process.

[01:45:01] If there is no consensus around what these initiatives should be, the contribution will not be part of the budget. So it sounded more to me that they were asking for the money, but they didn't know what they were actually going to be using it for yet because they haven't completed the process.

[01:45:18] You were like, wasn't it? That's accurate. That's accurate. Okay. Well, wouldn't it be better for them to scope it out and figure out what the strategic initiatives are and then come back to us and ask for an increase? So. Because it sounds to me that they're asking, they're trying to come up with more work to do using money that we haven't given them yet.

[01:45:41] But I'm not sure, would we even want them to do more work? Yeah, so I can explain what they're doing. I will note, just in my defense, it's not in the proposed budget. Okay, all right, fair, fair, fair, fair.

[01:45:57] That is completely... However, they are charging all the members... You know what, just stop there. Oh, gosh. I'll come back to you in just a second, Mr. Sainz.

[01:46:12] Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not sure who can answer this question, but are the other jurisdictions who are members of NVRC also being asked for extra funding? I asked that question. Oh, I missed that answer. I'm sorry. Yes, it's an addition to dues based off the dues formula.

[01:46:29] Population. So, yes. Okay. Yeah, I asked that question. Okay, thank you. Ms. Umstead? Thank you, Madam Chair. I used to represent Leesburg for probably 10 years on NBRC, and they were always in a real bind financially.

[01:46:46] And it was always hard to define what funds were going towards. I would absolutely support this if it were to backfill the stoppage of federal dollars to them, or if it were framed as inflation's been going up and we need $50,000 more each year to just match inflation.

[01:47:20] What makes me a little uncomfortable is that we're being asked to provide money in order to fund potential new initiatives that tend to overlap with the things we already do and have the staff to do.

[01:47:43] So at this time, unless it ends up being framed differently, I probably will not support this. Thank you. miss um the crony yeah thank you chair rindle so i was just looking at how much funding we give them already and it sounds like it would be in addition to their one percent increase that they get every year and it would just be added on so it would be definitely more than a one percent increase than every year right the 50 000 would just be in addition every year right yes it's a

[01:48:17] it is an it is an intended add to their membership dues and their budget okay yeah i i'm not willing to do that without knowing exactly what it's for it sounds like it's still uncertain um what initiatives they may be uh proposing and i i appreciate what supervisor umstead said we we may have some duplicate efforts going on that would would not serve us so um yeah i won't i won't be supporting this thank you mr saynes i know this is so uncomfortable for you and miss glass because

[01:48:55] you're our mvrc members would you like to help us out here i'll just say i think it is a good initiative to do and there are sometimes yes there is some duplication in some of these regional bodies but there's sometimes there are not duplicate efforts in the regional bodies and They pointed out to one earlier that Mr. Hemstreet mentioned was the stormwater.

[01:49:22] They also do partner with our military institutions that are in the area and do programming that we actually bring in revenue for the commission. So there's a lot of things that are not overlapping within VRC to the county programs that we do.

[01:49:41] So I think this is a good initiative. It's only $51,000 and some change, so it's not a huge lift for us at all. So I'll be supportive of it. Well, I'm going to assume that we'll get there.

[01:49:59] Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Just a quick question. I think I heard this. So all of the jurisdictions represented by NVRC are being asked to contribute this amount of money? No, not this amount of money. Some amount of money. Pro-grade amount. yeah based on their based on their formulas because every it's based on population and you know etc so not everybody's playing the exact same amount but everybody's being asked to contribute so we're not just being so it's not like they're only just asking loud and and everybody else is not contributing everybody's being asked to contribute okay i i just in the time i have left

[01:50:30] um if if all the jurisdictions that are members of nvrc are asking to to give a prorated amount and our two representatives are asking us to give our prorated share. I'm going to have faith in our representatives and in the process, so I can support this.

[01:50:47] Thank you. Well, there's not a motion on the table right now. I was just trying to ask questions when we got to a motion. So when we get to a motion, we can decide what we're going to do. But I was trying to get some understanding of it before we got there. So that will be discussed when the motion is made by Supervisor Glass or Supervisor Sainz.

[01:51:05] Did you have something else you wanted to discuss? Any other questions? Were there any other questions on the on the on the dais right now, supervisors, before we go on break and then come back and just work our way through motion after motion after motion? Must well do it. OK, Mr. Sange, want to do this motion right now? Miss Kalash, you want to do this motion right now?

[01:51:30] Sure, I can do the motion. Let me pull this up. I move that the Board of Supervisors add Priority One, Northern Virginia Regional Commission, Strategic Initiatives, Resource, Request, and the non-Department of Budget. Fiscal impact would be $51,089.

[01:51:54] Motion to be in second by Supervisor Glass. Discussion on the motion, Mr. Sains. I won't belabor the point that we've had our discussion. This is, I think, a good request. It's been being asked of all the MVRC members.

[01:52:10] We're doing some rethinking, retooling, repackaging, and these funds will help for that. So I think this is the right time to make this motion, and hopefully my colleagues can support this so the MVRC can continue to work and add extra services to our region that uh that a lot of the localities are providing thank you miss glass thank you madam chair i just like to add that um talk about the the impact that nvrc has had within the region regarding um solar

[01:52:46] going to housing um as well as our parks in our trails um as we try to continue to have that connectivity within the region. I think it's, as well as our housing, working with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, this is a good program that we are with, so I'd ask you all support this. Okay, thank you. Mr. Letourneau? Yeah, I'm not going to be supportive, and it's nothing against my two fantastic colleagues who I know serve on the

[01:53:25] the body. But, and I'm also going to say that if, if there is in fact a need for Loudoun County to provide more money, I am quite sure we're good for it. And we're going to be able to put together $51,000 from our, our, yes, our general fund, which for the last finance committee update is now running a hundred million dollars ahead of budget in the next fiscal year or the current fiscal year. So I think we're going to be good for it, but you know, I'm sorry. I know it's not a lot of money, but you got to have some better definition. When the request actually says if there's no consensus around what the initiatives would be, the contribution will not even be

[01:54:02] included, that doesn't give me a great deal of confidence. This sounds more to me like ask for the money and then we'll figure out what to do with it. And I hate that about government. I'm sorry. I hate that about government. It's exactly what people out there think government does. And I don't think that we do that. But this is what I don't like about government. So if there's a compelling need and we need to fund it, then that's one thing, but right now that is not in front of us, so I'm not voting for it.

[01:54:27] Mr. Turner? Thank you, Madam Chair. I completely agree with Reza Letourneau's assessment, but again, it comes back to me, frankly, of a courtesy vote for our two representatives and for the body and the fact that it's being equitably distributed among all the members of NVRC.

[01:54:43] I can go along with it. Thank you. So if this was written differently, I would have had some time to do some research and ask some questions but the way this is written I haven't I haven't had time to do that and so I don't know what I'm I'm not I don't know what I'm doing right now you know if if it's clarified because the write-up is completely not what has been described as a clarified I'll be happy to come back and maybe do it one time out of fund balance and then put in the budget for next year or something like that but I just don't quite know what what's what

[01:55:18] is happening right now, and NBRC is getting the 1% increase any way that we do every year to the organization, so it's not like we're not doing anything in addition. I think NBRC does do good work, and I certainly know how hard Supervisor's saying, Supervisor Glass work on this, I do, and it's not a ton of money, but I just need a little more clarity around what's happening, and if I can get that, then we can come back and revisit this the next time. But, Supervisor, I hope this is not too tough for you all. If you all get

[01:55:57] to an NVRC meeting, and we're the only ones that didn't do it, then Mr. Kirsten is right, we're going to Venmo you some money. So you all are not sitting in your meeting embarrassed, all right we got you just give me a cash app we got we got you but otherwise i'm gonna say no for now so miss change you want a closing yes i'll take the closing and we'll definitely take you up on your offer if this does not pass but again i'll just like to say again you know sorry if it was not explained as well or written out but again you know this is um more or less if we're going

[01:56:34] through the process if nothing is approved to add into what we're doing at the mvrc uh then the money will not be added to the mvrc's june budget and the county will not be billed for the money in july so more or less yes in some aspects this is a placeholder um asking for the funds but again if nothing is added into mvrc that we're already doing now then the funds would be given back or would not be allocated to mvrc so madam chair if i could uh ask you a question through through uh through you to mr hamistry sure uh mr hamistry so if say if this motion does not pass but

[01:57:12] then after we're done with the strategic initiatives review and nvrc does add some other programming to it and then the funds are needed how would we be able to get the funds to nvrc if that was the case so i think we have for this amount of money which is relatively small we do have some operating contingency that would be available which is likely how we would recommend funding it if that was the board's um desire okay and then we'll just have to monitor the situation to either bring a BMI or something to finance or to the full board in June, July, if this

[01:57:51] was to come to pass somehow? Yeah, I mean, I certainly, board members could bring a BMI if you want to do that. However, we are a member organization of NBRC, so if the executive director just sent me an updated request after NBRC has decided what they're doing with these funds, then I'm happy to present it to the board.

[01:58:12] Okay. Well, again, I think it's a good thing for us to do. I understand some of the heartburn, but we'll see where it goes. But at least we have a recourse to follow if it does not pass. All right. Thank you. Sounds good. Motion was made by Supervisor Sainz, seconded by Supervisor Glass.

[01:58:30] All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed? No. That number will, that motion will fail six to three with Supervisors Glass, Saints, and Vice Chair Turner voting against, sorry, that guy voting against the motion.

[01:58:50] I'm sorry. So before we, yes, voting for the motion, thank you. Before I come back and make a motion that I will make when I come back, let me just go on and ask my question to the appropriate staff right now.

[01:59:07] Dr. Griffin, you mind coming to the dais, please? Someone's coming to the podium. Hello, sir. Dr. Griffin, right now it is my intention when I come back from break to make the motion for your position in your department, the community health worker and supervisor resource request in the health department.

[01:59:33] It was a fourth priority. Now, I believe it was a fourth priority because you had a lot of needs this time, time, but you want them all. Can you answer one question before we go on break? Describe that position again, and will this position have any influence, impacts, or anything on vaccinations? Sure. So what community health workers do in general, and the first ones we received were during COVID, specifically to improve vaccination rates among hard-to-reach

[02:00:11] populations but what community health workers do is they become trusted members of the community particularly for harder to reach populations i think we talked about it a little bit last week when some folks are a little wary of coming to government to have people that they can see their faces in in the community and so their role would be and it would could be anywhere in Loudoun County where there are populations that are harder to reach for an issue and it could be vaccination in in subpopulations of people who choose not to vaccinate but to go out to to give

[02:00:49] information to them to help identify what their needs are what their barriers are for receiving services and and that's what those positions are for now the related to that is also their function and supporting the county's community health assessments as part of transition we received a dedicated community health manager a community health assessment manager and part of doing a community health assessment is to get the voices from all parts of the county okay that it's yet

[02:01:26] we have certain folks that are very eager to complete surveys and tell us their opinions but they're not necessarily representative of the whole county. Okay. And that's what some of these community health workers are for. It's sort of similar to an analogy of doing the census that the large majority of folks will send their census in, but you also have door-to-door folks to get those harder to reach people and get their input as well. Okay. All right. Thank you. Thank you.

[02:01:54] We'll make the motion when we get back. Sure. Thank you. Mr. Torpy, could you come to the deus onto the table but just I have one question for you we got about right before we came on the deus today we got a we got a request from the uh you know I don't I guess the Douglas alumni I guess but from Miss Carter and it was to like add positions that would serve the Douglas alumni our Douglas school I was a little confused you know I'm not making a motion do you know anything

[02:02:30] about that at all and once again let me say is oh somebody's coming down here who looks like you know we're talking about look at this look at this and it is my understanding you have to sit at the table you can sit at the table that's fine it is my understanding that what normally happens as i said before is the the money goes to your department and then you distribute it as you believe it's fit to the different programs in department but this I saw that request today can you tell me what that's about so it's it's likely associate I have not

[02:03:04] seen the request that came in to you all but we do have our priority to which is in the alternative motions does have additional staffing that's associated with the community centers and part of that is staffing for the Douglas community center and so when when we did a when the community center was expanded with the school renovation one of the things that we wanted to do was see what the impact of that renovation was going to have and we did not ask for

[02:03:42] staffing at that time and that is what this request is MOD's and facility supervisors things like that okay well it is possible that that - Mine's on 96.

[02:03:58] - Okay, let me take a look at that while we're on break then. That might, and then go back, I'll take a look at that and I'll go back and check Ms. Carter's email as well to see if those things jive. 'Cause I'm not quite sure, 'cause it just came in today.

[02:04:13] So I wasn't sure if she was asking something different or saying support this. But it was your second request? That was your second request? - That's correct, it was priority two. - Second alternate request, yeah. And yours is the first one. Okay. Okay. Well, you are my favorite department. I've told everybody that already.

[02:04:32] This is my favorite department as well. So we will have that discussion when we come back. Thank you so much. Thank you. You have a question for Mr. Torpy? Yes. Yes. Thank you. Mr. Torpy, so on that number two alternate request, you're asking for six positions.

[02:04:50] Are they interchangeable? Because I think we may run out of money before we can get to all six. Can we just fund four or two or? - So there's a variety that is in there. Some of that is one of the positions is for the Luckett's Community Center and the rest would be for the Douglas Community Center.

[02:05:06] So, and we would have a prioritized list within the Douglas Community Center ones. - Okay, all right. I guess we'll handle that as it comes up. I think we're gonna end up having to split that out, but we'll see. - Okay, so just hang out with us tonight for a little bit. All right, thank you everyone.

[02:05:22] Let's take a 20-minute break.

[02:11:50] Mr. Clemons, Gary, Mr. Clemons, Mr. Clemons, Mr. Clemons, where are you?

[02:37:34] Can you come here for just a second, Mr. Clemons? You all keep talking amongst yourselves. I just need Mr. Clemons and Mr. Torpy real quick. Mr. Torpy, Mr. Clemons, you come up here just for a second for me, please.

[02:39:59] Okay, everybody, we're back, and I'm going to go to Ms. Burke

[02:40:59] because she has a tote board update that I think we're going to like. So over the break, we discovered we had an error in how we were calculating the motion that passed on Monday related to the five SROs and the sergeant, which will result in additional savings and additional money for the Tote Board.

[02:41:19] So we are in the middle of finalizing that calculation, so it's not reflected in the dollars now, but we believe it's a couple hundred thousand dollars more. A couple hundred thousand dollars, sure. No, we included some costs that shouldn't have been in the numbers.

[02:41:36] It's enough for one more public to fill? They haven't put it up yet. They haven't put it up yet. It's not reflected yet. As we get the number, we'll put it on the top board. It's not reflected yet. So you're looking at the same number we looked at before break. It'll be soon, but we're going to start.

[02:41:54] Oh, my gosh. As soon as they get it done. As soon as they get it done. This is why people are surprised if you and I are friends. This right here. This is why people are surprised if we're friends. Oh, Mr. Curtis.

[02:42:13] Yeah, well, that's true. She said a couple hundred thousand, and we will start and see where we go. The supervisors, you know, it's hard to know how to start these motions because, you know, I don't want to feel like I'm leaning one way or leaning the other way toward a certain supervisor's motion that's on this dais because that just seems really unfair.

[02:42:35] And so I'm going to do the best I can to organize these motions in kind of a cross-the-board fair way and try to balance the budget the entire time. Having said that, I'm starting with my own motion. Dr. Goodfell, can you come to the table? That's where it is.

[02:42:56] All right. Mr. Sainz, are you still there? Mr. Sainz? Did we lose Mr. Sainz?

[02:43:16] He's still there, but he's on mute. Can we, can he, Mr. Sainz? Okay, we're going to... Yes, I'm here, Madam Chair. sorry i thought you called dr goodfriend yeah because those two names sound just alike yes i'm here and yeah they look just alike too exactly dr goodfriend how are you okay supervisors i move the board supervisors add priority for community health worker and supervisor resource request to the health department in the health department for a fiscal impact of 246 214 dollars

[02:43:56] Motion is made. Thank you, Ms. Bricksman. Second it. All right. To be very serious right now, there has been, unfortunately, a good deal of misinformation and disinformation about vaccinations and other health issues.

[02:44:22] And much of that has been purposeful. And it is very hard anyway to try to reach and educate communities that may, for the most part, have a different culture or speak a different language.

[02:44:39] It's hard to do that anyway. If we have people who will go out in the community to reach them and meet them where they are, that is vitally important. I respect every position that people are going to put up in this tonight, but I think this is the only position that could actually save lives, like literally save lives.

[02:45:01] And I believe that we need to have people understanding the culture, speaking the language, going to the doors, going to churches, going to schools, going into the community at large about health issues. And so this was my first goal to bring this back because I do believe that we have quite a few people, well, hopefully not quite a few, but enough people who are not getting the appropriate information about health needs.

[02:45:34] And when we look at numbers right now just across the board, as we talked about before, when we look at especially some of our communicable diseases, they're going up. And so I want people to get information and get appropriate and clear information. That's the reason for this motion.

[02:45:53] Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Through the Chair, may I ask Dr. Goodfriend a couple questions. Dr. Goodfriend, thanks for being here. I am not eager to keep adding things to the budget, so that's the standpoint I'm coming from.

[02:46:09] But I think the Chair made a pretty good point. I know that we have quite a few immigrant members of our community that already go to the free clinic, that already go to HealthWorks.

[02:46:27] So how do you plan to leverage the kind of community interaction that's already happening in the county with this new initiative? So part of it is it does feed into the community health assessment, which we really hope will give us a good idea of who's not accessing services.

[02:46:49] Anecdotally, immigrant adult males are not accessing services. Any dollar amount, anything that takes them away from their job and they may not have sick leave, the uninsured immigrant population is going to be a barrier.

[02:47:05] And men in general tend not to go for services as much. That's my sense of where one great need is. But we also have our non-immigrant populations who are choosing not to get vaccinated. Particularly since COVID, we have more folks going to private schools where they're not pushing vaccinations as much.

[02:47:26] So these workers are really there to go wherever that need is. So right now where measles is a very significant issue, the more we could get everybody vaccinated for measles on time will protect our infants and protect them, but two years from now, five years from now, it could be something else.

[02:47:45] And they have that flexibility to not just focus on one population, but any, and also not just one issue, but any issue that becomes important for the county. - Thank you.

[02:48:00] - All right, so-- - Ms. Oterno? - Yes, I think what this comes down to for me is explain to me that the narrative here says that these are current positions, but there are current part-time positions that are being held by contractors and that we've lost the grant funding for these positions.

[02:48:20] Can you elaborate a little bit there? - So these were part of a COVID era grant that we had that was supposed to run for another year, but the federal government withdrew those funds. So we haven't had contract workers now for several months.

[02:48:39] Oh, so the service stops. We still have the contracts, but we don't have the people in them. Part of it is the fact that a contract worker without benefits, it's hard to keep them. And definitely if we didn't get this as a resource request, we would try to contract for community health workers at least for when we do our assessment.

[02:49:02] But a real challenge for these is you want stability because, again, we want them to be trusted members of the community. so is that why they're not part-time so yeah so these were they were part-time in that uh that's what the contract allowed for i think at its maximum we had five community health workers that were under contract um but would these two full-time essentially be doing the job that that group did that were part-time they'll be doing they'll be doing less uh overall because we have have less capacity, but there'll be the COVID era grant restricted a lot of what they were able to

[02:49:41] do to COVID and related things. This gives them more flexibility because they're not restricted by a grant to go to where the needs are. But overall capacity would be less than when we were fully staffed or fully utilizing contracts. Okay. All right. Thank you. Mr. Crony. Thank you. And - Thank you, Dr. Goodfriend.

[02:50:03] So you mentioned that you have to do the community health assessment? - There's not a requirement for any jurisdiction to do a community health assessment. The board two years ago, I believe it was a part of our FY24 resource request gave us that enhancement to have a dedicated person to conduct community health assessments.

[02:50:29] So we took that as a board direction we would do that it's a good thing to do the large majority of jurisdictions and definitely all of our our northern virginia and national capital region jurisdictions to community health assessments to get a sense of what's important for the community and those are distinct from what our non-profit health care facilities do they're required to do a community health needs assessment but there isn't any other entity that does a community health assessment in the county So what community positions do you currently have?

[02:51:06] It sounds like you have somebody doing the community health assessment. So we have a population health section, which is a population health manager, a manager to overall support that position, and also one person who's dedicated to doing the community health assessment.

[02:51:28] So what she's been doing until we were able to now, we're right now ramping up the process for the community health assessment. But for the time being, she's been learning the community, which is important because, again, it's, you know, Loudoun is very different from Fairfax or Prince William.

[02:51:49] And what's important to, for our residents, both the majority and those that are harder to reach can be very different. So they've been going out, for example, last week they were out in a meeting with the town of Hillsboro.

[02:52:05] Because the western part of Loudoun County is a harder-to-reach community as well. And we want to make sure that our folks have a good sense of all the different aspects of Loudoun County. Now you mentioned if we don't fund this, that you would hire more contract workers?

[02:52:25] So what we would do to the extent that we have money in our operations budget would be to hire contract workers just to do the community health assessment piece. It doesn't do the other parts of what this job does, which is one being, you know, really having that stability in the community.

[02:52:45] So when someone who may be somewhat fearful of government or have some views of government that in general would have them not want to interact with us, has somebody that they can trust and talk to. So it's not a medical position, per se, like a healthcare navigator, but it's sort of that same type of thing of understanding what a community needs and then feeding that back, whether it's to a family services information referrals line or to healthcare delivery folks.

[02:53:21] Okay, thank you. Mr. Sainz, do you have any questions? No, ma'am. Okay. Mr. Kerser. Yeah, thank you, ma'am chair, and thank you, Dr. Friend, for being here. I'm going to support this position. This was probably of all the motions that I have up here, and I'm kind of in the camp with a supervisor from our Leesburg district that I'm not inclined to support a lot of these extra motions, but because we did have a little extra money to your benefit, and you got called first because you were the chair's motion, I'm going to support your motion.

[02:53:53] And we're the second favorite department. You're second favorite. Well, let's put it this way. And you know what? You're the healthiest. But I appreciate all the work that you do, your forthrightness, your honesty to us, and I'm going to certainly support this motion.

[02:54:10] Thank you. All right. Anybody else? All right. I made the motion. Supervisor Brixman seconded the motion. I don't need to close in except for the safe. Thank you for what you all do. We really appreciate it. All in people who say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Aye.

[02:54:32] That's a 9-0. thank you very much dr good friend i appreciate it and we're looking forward to the county staff walk yes i would be there i would be there i would be i do it every year i do it every year so one time i go outside a year i would be there all right um mr sayings i think you i think your motion could take a little bit longer and have a little bit kind of a maybe a bigger effect on on the budget and so we want to it did get updated i just sent it no the tote board we got 600 000. oh okay

[02:55:16] wow it went from 2.7 wow that was that was quite the correction wow okay well thank you thank you thank you thank you um mr sayings supervisors mr sayings's motion is on the piece of uh orange paper I do think as you listen he has some tweaks and what he has sent you he and mr. Turner have worked on this motion all day and mr. Kirshner and I have talked about this emotion everyone's kind of been part of this motion so yes just very quickly I just emailed you all the final version of there's nothing in paper we've just been working on this I just emailed you the final version of

[02:55:55] mr. of Supervisor Sainz's motion but it's gonna be some it's gonna be some minor tweaks no this includes the tweaks that's what i just that's what i meant that's right so you're gonna so you're gonna you're gonna read the motion okay mr flames we're ready for you okay madam chair thank you all right the motion is i move that the board of supervisors add three zoning enforcement positions in the department of planning and zoning to the fiscal year 27 budget i further move that the board of supervisors identify these resource requests as zoning

[02:56:30] compliance positions for non-residential use county-wide inclusive of weekend and night compliance and focus on resolving issues caused by unpermitted uses and investigating activities that may be in violation of virginia code in the loudon county zoning ordinance i further move that the board of supervisors direct staff to return to the board by the end of the fiscal year 26 a presentation and discussion to review existing policy guidance for zoning compliance

[02:57:03] across the county staffing requirements to address the expanded zoning compliance service level and receive direction to reaffirm the existing policy guidance or adapt changes to the policy guidance to include a definition for the levels of zoning compliance second motions made in second with the Zoni staff, please come to the table.

[02:57:24] Thank you. Motion to make and second it. Mr. Sames, would you like to give an opening? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I think we had a good conversation the other day regarding this position and how there's definitely a lot of issues and needs around the county, not just in Western Loudoun, but also in Eastern Loudoun County on various levels and degrees.

[02:57:48] So after talking with Supervisor LeTerno, Supervisor Turner, and Chair Randall, I think this is a good motion. And I believe Supervisor Kushner also said he was supportive of it when he first saw the original motion that I had.

[02:58:04] And then small tweaks to this, just to point out, are instead of using the word rapid response team, we made that one change because technically, yes, they will be doing some rapid response. So to give an example is, for example, if, you know, as right now everybody knows we're having some issues in Sterling with the data center on Davis Drive.

[02:58:24] So say if somebody were to call or email in at, say, a Friday night at 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock at night, the intent for this would be for a zoning person to be available to then go out to the site.

[02:58:40] So technically a rapid response, but again, being initiated and then setting up shop, doing their analysis to see what's going on, and then they'll call backup if need to. But then also, you know, this position would be looking at going to review issues that might be happening where, for example, there's an example where we have an auto mechanic shop that was approved and a set reuse would be, you know, a used car selling.

[02:59:10] but that's an accessory use, so a minor use. But in reality, the used car is being more used as the major use, and the mechanic shop is being more of the accessory. So this zoning team would go out and do those type of investigations and fix some of these issues that are going on.

[02:59:27] The other edit that we did was to put in, bring this back to the board by end of the fiscal year of 26. So that was the other addition that we did besides the name tweak. So hopefully my colleagues can get behind this. I think this is a great idea, but it gives staff the, you know, let's put these positions in, give staff the time to do their homework and do some fine-tuning and come back to us before the end of the fiscal year for us to affirm or not affirm what they're presenting back to us.

[02:59:56] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Oh, no, Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I still have some concerns about this and some questions. would would this I'm sorry I'm looking at the rapid response one that's the right one but he just changed the word to compliance officer right right so would this have potentially county staff zoning ordinance staff responding to noise complaints across the county it's my understanding that that is one of the

[03:00:35] principal intents. Okay. Okay. And then on, there's certain areas of the county, I believe, the suburban, urban areas of the county where they are already, establishments are already regularly visited by the fire marshal and by health inspectors and those sorts of things. So wouldn't wouldn't those areas of the county already have more compliance and maybe not need a rapid response to those sorts of complaints respectfully without having their metrics before

[03:01:14] me it would be pure speculation but presumably yes the more eyes you have the more referrals would presumably be received to address our area of jurisdiction right but there are probably other areas of the county under different zoning that wouldn't have sort of those regular on-site visits by the health department and by the fire department i don't believe it's going to be based on the location but more so the use and the rating of the building assembly right right i guess what i'm getting at is there are parts of the county that already have more enforcement already

[03:01:50] and our concern is really part of the county that has not had enforcement um for one reason or another. Would that not be what the discussion was in TLUC? Unfortunately, I wasn't present at TLUC. Oh, okay. Okay. Supervisor Briskman, I think that's somewhat accurate. I mean, obviously the conversation in TLUC has dealt with matters out in Western Loudoun and the rural policy area. So that's why that discussion has focused on doing additional enforcement out there yeah at this time yeah i guess i i'm just still not comfortable um because i don't think this is

[03:02:28] defined well enough um and i'll say again i fully agree that we have uses in certain parts of the county that are not in compliance or they filed it like they were going to be one use and now there's another use and i agree with the inventory conversation and that we should have an inventory of, you know, certain establishments, non-residential, that might be not as safe as we'd like them to be, maybe have more people in them than they should have, but I'm not comfortable until we do more work on this with supporting three FTEs.

[03:03:07] Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall. I'm wondering if Mr. Kroboth could come up, just because he was involved with TLOC. Sure we can. Thank you, Mr. Kroboth. So, I guess with this motion, and I don't know if you saw it, Mr. Kerbuth, beforehand, does this allow us to do the proactive enforcement we talked about at TLUC, where we would do the inventory, determine if there was a change of use, and actually be able to go out and address, you know, the change of use, the health and safety?

[03:03:45] this is what we talked about in TLUX. So I'm just making sure that this motion, I'm fine calling it a compliance officer, but I'm just making sure that this motion addresses the discussion that we had. We've had a very long discussion.

[03:04:00] - Yes, I believe it does cover that intent and can be refined by the board when the staff brings an item back to the board. And if I could also add on to Supervisor Brisman's comment, One thing that is important to know when we responded to the questions to the board is who the authority having jurisdiction is on fire-related codes, building codes, zoning codes.

[03:04:26] They are all individually different individuals. Yes, when the fire marshal goes to visit a site and if they observe a zoning violation, they can refer that to zoning, but it's to actually perform the enforcement, you need the person who represents authority having jurisdiction overseeing that code excellent thank you for that so i will be um when we discuss this on may 5th when we bring all of these tluck motions to the full board i will be asking to kind of put this on a different track if you will the western loudon because um frankly

[03:05:02] we've like i've said we've been discussing this for two years and it makes sense to um you know know, kind of begin some of this compliance work earlier than we do at countywide because the process is in place. You know, we know we need an inventory, and we know we need to get out and start doing some safety, ensure there's safety, and make sure we take care of the public, especially with large assembly of people. So I'm hoping that we can do that when we talk about it, but right now we haven't had all the motions come, and I think it's It's May 5th, right, Mr. Kroboth, when it will come?

[03:05:41] Yes, that's the intention. Okay, thank you. So I'm happy to support, and I want to thank Supervisor Sains and Supervisor Turner for working together on this. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Kirshner. It can be Letourneau today if you need me to be. You started to say that.

[03:05:57] Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, staff, for speaking on this. So I obviously liked the language, zoning rapid response, because that's what I've been, but I think as it is, works. I'm a little – just let me make sure I understand this, and maybe Mr. Cobreth or other staff members can answer.

[03:06:17] I want to make sure I understand how you feel like this will effectively work. We will put these three positions in place. If they end up being hired and go to work prior to us coming back and defining the scope of exactly what their enforcement duties will be, they will largely respond to complaints as the current system works.

[03:06:40] Am I correct about that? - Well, first of all, these are FY27 funded positions. - Correct. - Unless the board were to advance the funding into FY26, it's highly unlikely that they will be boots on the ground before the interaction with the board occurs for you to define how you-- - And that's fair, but I'm assuming if that did happen in the reverse order for whatever reason.

[03:07:09] - If it were to occur in the reverse order, would simply function as their inspectors do today okay and follow all of their guidelines and that's fine and i think that's you know and that's because i i want them in place how their duties are undertaken what their responsibilities are in terms of because that's one of the things that's bothering me it's one of the things that's bothered almost every single western louden business that's talked to me in terms of the conversation is the word proactive i think that scares the heebie-bejeebies out of most of our businesses and they're very concerned about that and so I think there's a lot more comfort in what we're talking about here and I appreciate

[03:07:45] Supervisor Saints for putting it forward. We currently have a complaint based system and my understanding of the responsibility of these three FTEs is very different than the inventory that Supervisor Tocroni is talking about which was undertaken in the western Loudoun ZOM. This is countywide which would include the west but it would include the east as well for zoning essentially I think for the zoning complaints that come forward or upon how we define this so as I understand it from staff I am in support of this I think it's a good thing it's something I've been

[03:08:20] advocating for for almost two years that we have folks in the zoning department who have an ability and we did leave in and I'm sorry if I missed this supervisor Staines if I could address him through the chair. Sure. We did put in, did we take out the night and day language? It's in there.

[03:08:38] It's in there? Okay. I think that's really, I think that's really, really important because I think that sets what we're trying to get at and that is, you know, really noise complaints in the evening which can't be enforced at a later date. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Turner. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. A couple of things. I've been researching this pretty heavily for the last few weeks. And staff, please correct me if I'm wrong. I think this is what I learned.

[03:09:03] There is a zoning, there are four mechanisms of regulatory regimes that we deal with in the county. The zoning ordinance, the building code, the fire code, and the health code. The health department enforces the health code, the fire department, the fire marshal's office enforces the fire code, the building inspector enforces the building code. If any of those officials go into a location and see what they perceive to be a zoning ordinance non-compliance issue, they can refer it to our zoning enforcement division. Under the current rules, our zoning enforcement division can do nothing about it because they have not received a complaint

[03:09:43] from a citizen about that issue. Is that correct? No, sir. A referral is treated as a complaint would be. That is a notification of a violation potential. So we would go out and investigate. Okay. The second thing is, in my research, there are many instances of apparent or suspected zoning noncompliance.

[03:10:08] It could also be administrative lag, where we have permits that have been requested but they haven't been approved yet. Landmark, that's part of what the inventory is trying to do. But my personal feeling is, and this is really partly, becomes part of the discussion in probably May that we're going to have.

[03:10:27] And all non-residential entities in Loudoun County need to abide by our zoning ordinance. That's pretty simple, and it shouldn't be based on a 19, I think, 92 decision to make it complaint-based, so the average citizen, who then will probably have to appear in court against his or her neighbor, has to complain about a zoning ordinance, perceived zoning ordinance violation.

[03:10:51] It's just an archaic system, and I believe, based on the evidence I've seen, we have probably hundreds of zoning ordinance non-compliance issues that the staff cannot address. They can't do anything until somebody complains about them. This is the first step and I think it's a vital step. More importantly, I think it reflects the discussions over the last two years by a majority of the stakeholders on the TELUC Walrus Committee that the first step is begin to make people comply with our existing zoning ordinance and the first step in

[03:11:29] that is hiring these three people i think the timing is fine the alternative is not hire them now and now we're a year and a half down the road in the next budget before we can get them on board after we have the may discussions i think we we authorize them tonight we have the discussions they start to come on board on july 1st and then we decide what the new mandate is for these positions. So I'm very happy to support this. Thank you. Thank you. So I have always quibbled with the words proactive. I agree with Mr. Kirschner, because how these positions have always been described are not proactive in the way that it is proactive at Sterling.

[03:12:08] They've always been, the appropriate response is rapid response. I guess compliance officer would be just fine. These are not people who are driving around looking for any issues. No one has time to do that. We would need 20, 30 people to do that. They've always been a way to respond at a much faster rate when a zoning, when a call comes in. So a call comes in Friday night at 11 and no one goes out to that house until Wednesday at 2 in the afternoon, what is the point at that point? So they've really always been for that. Secondly,

[03:12:46] it is appropriate, and I understand that this was always discussed in the Walrus discussions, it is appropriate to have these discussions or have these positions be able to be used countywide. When we say non-residential, there are a lot of interesting and different things that you think about that you don't really think about as non-residential. Signage that might be out, people that don't have HOAs, things that might be in the yard, so many things.

[03:13:15] And, you know, you can't both say, well, the greatest population is in eastern Loudoun County, and then also say, but we don't need this zoning enforcement in eastern Loudoun County. Of course you do. It is a countywide, these are countywide positions to be used countywide in the day, in the evening, and really, it is just about being able to respond faster.

[03:13:39] And so I, you know, I appreciate hearing from Ms. Erickson, I appreciate hearing from the community, I appreciate Mr. Sains, Mr. Turner, I talked to Mr. Kirshner today. We have one by one by one in groups of two who's been working on this since the last time we were on this dais, to be honest. And it's so interesting to me that the person that nailed it down is the person who who is probably at one of the more eastern ends of the county who knelt down this language because I think we all understand what this need actually is, this county-wide need actually is.

[03:14:19] So I appreciate it, and Mr. Sains, thanks so much. Would you like a closing? I'll be brief and just say this was, as the chair noted, this has been a bipartisan effort from everybody from representing all the different parts of the county, And we all have our different needs, but I think these positions will fill a lot of them.

[03:14:42] And I think if things go well, we'll be, you know, I think the team will be adding on some more positions this time next year for these compliance positions. So thank you, my colleagues, for your support. All right. Thank you.

[03:14:57] The motion was made by Supervisor Sainz. I think we have Supervisor Vice Chair Turner. All the people can say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? I'm abstaining, Madam Chair. That motion will pass 701 with Ms. Brixen abstaining.

[03:15:14] Thank you very much. I'm sorry, 801 with Ms. Brixen abstaining. Yeah. All right. So, again, it's hard to know where to go. I've gone to me. I've gone to Mr. Sainz. I'm going to go to Mr. Cronin.

[03:15:31] You'll be one of the last people I come to. Let's go with Mr. Letourneau. He's sitting next to me. All right. All right. I feel like this is a... It is very random. It's come on down. So my motion is about PRCS. It is. If I may request that Mr. Torpy come on down.

[03:15:48] Come on down. I'm sorry. Budget is... Sorry. Yeah, I know. It's not very... I'm sorry. You want me to just go with a motion? Yes, just go with a motion. I move the Board of Supervisors add funding for Priority 1, Internal Operations Support in the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Services.

[03:16:09] Second. Second. Second. I'm sorry? Okay. Mr. Letourneau. Yeah, so as I pointed out during the work session, the only resource additions that PRCS is getting other than the CASA expansion and I think the pool hours is the arts plan, which is the board priority.

[03:16:35] So, really, PRCS is not actually getting what their request would have been for support for the department. So, this is an internal operations request. It's the very unsexy positions of IT technician and IT analysts and program coordinators.

[03:16:53] But we've been expanding. We've been expanding our services. We're opening new facilities. And these are the kind of things that we kind of don't really think about. But they have to move with the rest of the program. And so I, you know, I did think it's important that just to keep pace that they have this.

[03:17:13] And this is a current service level request, not an enhancement. So that's why I made this motion. Okay. I forgot that. I forgot about that. Any, Mr. Sains, you good?

[03:17:30] Yes, ma'am. I'm good. I support. Okay. Anybody else? I would associate myself with my colleagues' comments. Thank you. Sorry, it's going to be. Do you have a closing? I don't think so. Okay. Ms. Letourna made the motion.

[03:17:46] I second the motion. I'm happy to say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will pass 9-0. Thank you very much. I'll go to Ms. Glass, and then I'll go to Ms. Bricksman.

[03:18:02] Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Board of Supervisors... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Who are we talking about? Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It's from the Department of Housing and Community Department. Okay, can they come down to the table, please? Good evening.

[03:18:28] Good evening. All right. Do you know what page this is on, Ms. Glass? It is on page 85. 85. All right, ready for your motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that the Board of Supervisors add Priority III Housing Choice Voucher HCV Administrative Assistant Resource Request in the Department of Housing and Community Development with a fiscal impact of $98,095.

[03:18:56] dollars. Second. Would you like to do an opening? Yes. I'm happy to hear that Loudoun County was awarded 2.6 million dollars from HUD to support our Housing Choice Voucher Program and it allows us to fund new vouchers. However, I frequently hear from people about the wait list and the time it takes to obtain a Housing Choice Voucher. I'm requesting that we fund the Administrative assistant position understanding that the number of vouchers being awarded increasing

[03:19:31] combined with annual renewals the department currently needs this position to provide the service at the level our county is expected so i ask my colleagues to support this motion thank you discussion on the motion mr sanes i support okay uh mr uh latourno all right so how how are we doing this today this is an administrative support position so how are we kind of handling it today without the position so as noted in the we've used temporary services for the last um couple years started off with a an outside contract and right now it's a it's a

[03:20:11] temporary full-time position currently in in the office what are we do you have any idea what we're spending on that probably about 80 000 i think with you know when you calculate everything in so it's less than this i mean i don't know exactly like i don't i don't know this is one of these budget quirks where that 80 000 would come off the books right and then this fte would get added it's currently be used being um through the vol through um vacancy savings is the way it's being funded okay yeah we don't have enough vacancy savings to keep funding it so luckily we are

[03:20:46] fully staffed, so we do not, yes. I had to ask. I had to ask. Okay, thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Thank you. Again, as I mentioned, and I'm not trying to pick on any, there were a couple of priorities up here in the health department I got convinced on, but I probably will not support this or any other resource going forward, although I haven't seen them all, I don't think, or heard the argument um but let me ask you just a couple of questions if this uh and i and i just want to follow up and supervise leternel if we don't fund this will you continue to have the vacancy funding

[03:21:25] that we spoke about no we we don't we don't project going forward that to have the vacancy so but you have this position currently through the end of this fiscal year through the end of this fiscal year okay all right and what does and just i mean i'm reading it here but in maybe layman's terms talk to me a little bit about what this individual is doing for you so the the main function of the of the position is to support all of the counselors that are working on the the voucher program and to relieve that administrative component of their job so that they can work with the clients directly both that are voucher holders and the people that are on the wait list as we

[03:22:04] recertify them during the year so that's that's the that's the the basic position responsibility all right thanks would this position help um get through the the list faster of who who the voucher list quicker would that do that so the the main component is it makes sure that i think a lot of questions have come up over the years in the last year that i've been here and about making sure that people are recertified and they stay on the list and that we don't they don't get dropped off so this is a component of allowing people to make sure that we coordinate that and we're working

[03:22:41] with them in a timely manner and getting, I think it's noted earlier, the notification out to them so that they can also, people that are on the wait list, get the recertification package. So it's kind of like if your house, let's keep your house. Yeah, and it keeps you on the list. And also to add, it is best practice to purge the wait list at least once a year, and this position would be responsible for contacting those 700, 800 households on the wait list to make sure they're still current with their paperwork and all the information.

[03:23:08] So if you're housed, let's keep your house, and if you don't need it anymore, let's know that as well. Correct. Would this position do anything to, if wraparound services for somebody who may be getting the voucher is needed, would this position do anything to support that effort, support that goal?

[03:23:24] Not specifically for that, but it does free up the ability for our counselors who aren't doing that, it's not really totally in their job description, but to be able to have those conversations with their clients, which can help with referrals to other departments and that, but by learning earlier what an issue might come up by their just constant contact and not having to be doing the additional paperwork and it allows that component.

[03:23:49] Yeah, you know, I've said many, many times I don't -- sometimes, you know, with the General Assembly I have not understood why they don't support the legislation we put down there to keep people in their homes you know i mean like not so much rental assistance but helping people understand their leases and things like that the best way to avoid people being homeless is is to keep them in the homes they have right now and it is so much more expensive to find services for a family once they lose their home it is some

[03:24:23] is some it's it's a cost savings to help people keep people in their houses right now versus when you when you when you're out of your home it is expensive to it's expensive to be homeless and it's more expensive for the family to be home for a family to be homeless then then we're going to pay for this position and so this is this is kind of in the end it's like you know what's the it's penny wise and not pound foolish to do this because it keeps people in their in their current places so i will be supporting this this makes much like a closing I mean, I'm sorry, Ms. Glassman, would you like a closing?

[03:25:01] Thank you, Madam Chair. I think you said it best when you said it's expensive to be homeless. So I appreciate my colleagues listening, and I hope that you support this motion. Thank you, Madam Chair. Wonderful. Now, when the media quotes that, that was my quote, not Ms. Glass's, because Ms. Glass always gets my quotes.

[03:25:19] So make sure you get that right. All right. Ms. Glassman, if the motion I second, do I'm able to say aye? Aye. aye opposed that motion will pass 9-0 um miss uh rixman do you have a motion i do madam chair thank you if if supervisor sayings is okay with it we both had the general services priority um on our list and then i'm if it's okay with uh everyone else i want to wrap up a couple of other smaller ones because i think that i think we have the room for it so uh bear with me well wait a minute i'm

[03:25:58] looking at uh i'm sorry i'm looking at your your motion list that you that you've given me and i don't see there i sent an email at 533. sorry and then and then this is the this is the one from supervisor sayings which is also my which is also something i had on my list okay okay so okay got it okay okay um and then i will have another motion after everything else um i move that the the Board of Supervisors add Priority II Public Works Staff Resource Request in the Department

[03:26:36] of General Services, with a fiscal impact of $384,527. I further move that the Board of Supervisors add Priority II County Administration, AMP, Real Estate Specialist, 147. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[03:26:51] We're going to -- first of all, we're going to ask Mr. Brown to come down to the table. Second, we're going to do one question one at a time. I don't even see where your further move is. I apologize but I'm looking at Mr. Sainz's thing. I'm looking at yours, I don't even see that. That's the language you sent to us?

[03:27:06] - I sent something at five, kind of late, I apologize, but I realized that we could get a couple other alternate resources. I sent it in an email. There's like three other-- - At 5:33, I was sitting here already. - Sorry, when was it? - Well, it's in the email.

[03:27:22] It's like three other smaller, that's why I asked the question of the county administrator. How about we just do this one right now that's in front of me. How's that? How's that? Okay. Well, then can I do the others? No, we're going to do one. We're going to do one motion. We're not going to do many positions at a time.

[03:27:41] We're going to do one at a time. Whatever one you want to do now is fine. We're going to just take one at a time. So which one would you like? That's fine. The one I just said. Okay, wonderful. I'm sorry. Will you read it one more time for us? I move that the Board of Supervisors add priority to public works staff resource requests and the Department of General Services to the FY 2027 budget with a fiscal impact of $384,527.

[03:28:07] Thank you, ma'am. Can you tell me what page that's on? 78. And I think Mr. Sainz just seconded that. Yes. Is that right, Mr. Sainz? Thank you. Thank you. Would you like to open? Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I think through our budget work sessions that county staff has justified their positions and have justified also a lot of their alternate positions, which I know some of the alternate positions were sort of pushed back because of board priorities, which is similar with the parks and rec positions.

[03:28:41] And so this is the one that was my top priority to add, should we have some room. And I'm sure Supervisor Sains may have a few other words, but I just think that staff did, they justified their positions when they came before us in the previous work session. So that's why I'm making this motion.

[03:28:59] okay mr saynes yes um yeah i think this is a good position to add in we heard some struggles well we heard from mr um ernie earlier in the week when we when we first heard this uh this position and i think it's a well well worth adding in for our for our county and the services that we're providing okay all right okay i got you um miss umster uh thank you madam chair um

[03:29:32] Because we have two members of the board who are looking at a further reduction in the vehicle tax rate, I'm going to vote against probably most additional spending motions until I get a better sense of whether those two folks on the board get their reduction passed.

[03:29:58] because I don't know what the net impact of all of these together is going to be. So I will be a no. I may well support them if we can lower the tax rate on vehicles and still afford this. Thanks. Mr. Kirsten.

[03:30:17] Yeah, I just want to reiterate what Supervisor Emson said. I'm kind of in that same boat. I'd like to see some reduction in the car tax. And this is a big resource. There's nothing against your department, but we do appreciate everything you do. But this is a big one. And, you know, this was not, you know, we've pretty much funded all the priority one, with the exception of the enforcement positions, which we've now just refunded.

[03:30:41] So I'm not going to support this this year. But will this be one that will likely come back next year? Madam Chair? Yes. Yes, sir. This will continue to come back because this is a current service level request.

[03:30:56] We will absolutely see reductions in services in the area of supporting our wastewater treatment systems that are managed by the county. This will impact our ability to provide service for snow removal. This particular team is directly responsible for the court system and the snow removal there, and we have more than doubled the size of the service area for that in this last year and a half.

[03:31:20] And so we are seeing significant reductions in these service levels. The one area of service levels that will not be reduced is the stormwater maintenance because that is a regulatory requirement. And the other areas that this particular group does perform will have to be impacted, and that service level will be further reduced in order to maintain and meet our regulatory requirements.

[03:31:42] Thank you. Ms. Brixman? Wait, this is your motion. Yes. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't know yet.

[03:32:00] I'll hear Ms. Brixman closing. If I say no, we're still going to be friends. Well, apparently I'm not the one or two favorite department, so we'll have to kind of see how that works out. Yeah, the answer is no. Mr. Torpy, it's a hard day for us, Mr. Torpy.

[03:32:19] I don't know. You're number one in my book. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Oh, my gracious. Gracious. Ms. Brixman. It's hard not to have Mr. Brown's department be one of your favorites.

[03:32:36] I mean, with the recycling and touring of the landfill and all of the environmental work that you do, including the stream restoration projects. So, I mean, it's really close in my book. But all kidding aside, Mr. Brown, I think that I know that you run a tight ship and you wouldn't be asking for these positions if you didn't need them.

[03:33:01] And that you wouldn't be asking for them unless, you know, you thought it would be more efficient for the county to have these positions to make sure that your department runs smoothly. Thank you, Madam Chair. She got me there. She got me there. See, that's how to go sometimes.

[03:33:18] All right. Ms. Bricksman made the motion. Mr. Sainz seconds the motion, right? That was right? Yeah. All of them say aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. That motion would pass 6-3. With Ms. Umstead, Mr. Kirshner, and Mr. Crony voting no.

[03:33:38] Okay, we're working our way right through them. I'm probably going to go to the motions on the tax rate last.

[03:33:56] So that's why I'm trying to get to anything else we have right now. Vice Chair Turner, I don't think I've gone to you for anything yet. already done the proactive um proactive that was mr sayings uh i is are you doing the tuition tuition assistance you are doing that okay um okay is that that okay go on thank you madam chair these have no uh tote board impact uh both of these have no tote board impact

[03:34:30] um uh let's see here i'm sorry i have to find it here in my is it this one no it's it's it's not that one no one second you can go on to another one well you don't let me do that because it may take all your money away okay i'm gonna i'm gonna do two motions as a further move that's how i can

[03:35:06] combine them and save some time well are they two different positions they're no they're they're programs and they're non-tote balance impact okay and i can i can combine them easily okay i move the board of supervisors send the creation of a five-year five hundred thousand dollar water quality monitoring program for the Goose Creek and Broad Run to the FY26 fund balance process.

[03:35:29] I further move that any remaining funds from the ongoing Goose Creek water quality monitoring program be rolled into this program at the end of FY26. And I move that, I lost it, bear with me, I further move that the Board of Supervisors increase the tuition assistance cap for supervisor board aids from 3,000 to 5,000 per fiscal year. How does that have no fiscal impact, sir?

[03:35:56] Because it's a it's a negative I checked with staff they corrected me it's a negligible increase in the current budget and well absorbed within the existing budget process. It's it's a very small increase and you can you can have staff explain if you like but they corrected me rather than move it to fund balance just increase it within the existing budget. Okay all right well um all All right, I will, for the purpose of the discussion, I will second that, although I do think those are pretty different motions, but I will.

[03:36:27] Split the motions. Okay, let's do the first. Which one do you want to do first? Goose Creek first. Okay, let's do Goose Creek first. All right, so that's fine, and I will second it unless Mr. Crony wants to second the Goose Creek motion. I thought she would want to. All right.

[03:36:43] Yeah, she did that, and she's going to put in balance. Would you like an opening? Sure. We've already funded the Goose Creek Water Quality Monitoring Program with $100,000. It's being administered through GMU to the Goose Creek Association.

[03:37:01] It's been a highly successful program. They're getting very valuable data on cleaning up Goose Creek. They've come back and said we are preparing our report for the first year's progress. We might have a little bit of funds left over. we would like to expand this program to both Goose Creek and Broad Run and I said what would you need to for a five-year program they said we could do it for a hundred thousand a year over the next five years and so that's what we're trying to do is budget in a hundred thousand a year for the next five years this will move five hundred thousand to the fund balance discussion which I think we have and in the in the writing of the motion when we go into

[03:37:37] the fund balance we can specify that it's a hundred thousand a year for the next five years. I think it's a very valuable program. Both of these are scenic waterways for Virginia and both of them are impaired for various reasons. The first step in cleaning them up is a really viable water quality monitoring program. The Goose Creek Association has proven themselves to be highly efficacious and professional in what they're doing and I really would like to support the programs for the next five years.

[03:38:08] Ms. Kennedy, is this you? Okay. Is there any staff that this would apply to? Okay. Let me jump up at once. All right. Anybody else on the motion?

[03:38:25] Ms. Umstead. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Because I don't have this motion, I believe, on the dais. It's on the back of this one. On the back of the blue? Yeah, I just found it. All right, thank you. thank you mike um my understanding is this motion does just sends it to fund balance for consideration or is it a final vote to take it from fund balance it's to fund balance for

[03:39:00] consideration all right i can support it then thank you mr saynes i'm good yeah i mean not to be a little bit of a stickler but i i'm sure what supervisor turner just said is exactly true and right but it would be nice to have something presented to us if we're being asked to make a decision about it we i mean we haven't even finished the first year haven't gotten the report i don't know i mean i this hasn't come back to us so it just let me ask

[03:39:37] a question do we have to send something to fund balance or could it could the board decide to bring it up in fund balance in advance of fund balance don't we usually have that option also through the chair to staff yes yeah so I would probably prefer not to decide to send it to fund balance tonight if we have if we can send it to fund balance later but I'd like to see what the actual request is from them and what what the quality of the report is so okay it's just a bit of a stickler but I mean yeah I'm happy to send this to fund balance absolutely I think the

[03:40:14] Goose Creek Association is a great non-profit dedicated to protecting and preserving our watershed and I like that we're going into the broad run too which just so everybody knows goes around you know our data center community so I think it's really important we're monitoring the quality in the broad run so I am happy to support this and to have the discussion during fund balance. Thank you Vice Chair Turner for bringing this up.

[03:40:44] I'm happy to send this fund balance because I think Mr. Turner what it says is for discussion and so much of the information that we just talked about are you you and I think the questions you're asking are great great questions but those questions and that and those numbers will come back during the discussion and so it's not deciding anything but to but to talk about it later I just I guess I mean I would I would caution my colleagues that to fund balance for discussion means just that and and that doesn't mean that it's going to come out of fund balance with that discussion or even with that with

[03:41:19] that price tag but but I think it's I think it's good to for us to know and for the staff to know what's going to discussion so at the very least they may get some idea of what kind of what kind of funds we're talking about could be used and so I think it gives a kind of a just a hint of what we could be talking about at that time for funds funds that could be used so I'm happy to support this. Michelle like a closing? No closing. All right motion made by Supervisor Turner, seconded by Supervisor DeCrony. All people say aye. Aye. Opposed? That motion will

[03:41:58] pass with Mr. Letourneau, abstaining, so 801. Okay. Well, maybe not. I haven't gotten to anybody twice in a row. Yeah, I guess it is. Yeah, you do. Okay. Mr. Letourneau, because Mr. Letourneau split that motion. I move the Board of Supervisors increase the tuition assistance cap for supervisor board aides from $3,000 to $5,000 per

[03:42:37] fiscal year. This is the tuition assistance cap. I will second that. I was talking to several of the board aides a few months ago I guess and the discussion was since the tuition assistance program is put in place cost of tuition has gone up significantly but the cap is not. $3,000 to $5,000 per fiscal year per board aides that are using it is, could be important for them fairly incidental in our budget process.

[03:43:05] I originally was going to send a fixed amount to fund balance on the assumption that that would cover it. Staff advised me honestly it, the increase from three to five thousand for the board aides that are actually using tuition assistance is a negligible increase in the board supervisor's budgets and easily managed within the current budget process and so they said let's just

[03:43:27] simplify it and write it this way. So that's why I did it. Thank you. Okay. All right. Ms. Um, yes, um, I had seen the previous rendition whereby the, uh, office budgets of the board members were supposed to absorb it. Um, I appreciate, uh, vice chair Turner clarifying that staff felt it was negligible and could be absorbed, I guess, outside the board members offices. Uh, is this in line with the tuition

[03:43:59] assistance that the county provides to regular staff? Megan, can you answer that question? I do want to explain why the motion was edited. I incorrectly informed Vice Chair Turner of where tuition reimbursement was funded. It's actually funded centrally out of HR's budget. So regardless of employee or board aid, it comes out centrally, which that's why the motion had been edited.

[03:44:27] And then I believe the only distinction between the motion and the current program is that the cap is just being raised for board aides, not county employees. So for county employees, it remains at 3,000, or is it some other number?

[03:44:47] There would be no change for the county employees, and so it's 3,000. And that has to do with collective bargaining negotiations and contract. Okay. I may not support this for that reason. I think board staff aides should probably be treated similarly to county employees. Otherwise, I would have been happy to support it.

[03:45:13] Mr. Sainz, would you like something? Would you like to make a comment? No, no. I'm good with the motion. I'm good with the motion. Okay. I'm going to support this motion. First of all, we will go back into another collective bargaining discussion. And if the bargaining unit wants to take this up, then they can at that time. But the staff aides, they can't be part of the bargaining unit. And so in that way they don't have a voice. And that way this is their voice because they're not, the funny thing is they can be part of the union, but they can't be, but they can't collectively bargain. The only way for them to get it is for us to give it to them. It wouldn't be

[03:45:53] part of the collective bargaining discussion so during the discussion for collective bargaining if they want to bring it up I'm happy to have that discussion but our staff aides don't have that option in addition you know it's actually there's it would actually be used by kind of very few staff aides who are probably right now going to school and and need this tuition I will say that you know I think all of our staff works really really hard all of the staff. I think people don't always understand that the work staff aides do. They are here

[03:46:26] all the time. I mean, they don't really have days off. If I'm working, and I'm always working, some way my staff is working. I have staffs. I had five events last weekend. I had staffing at all five events, and I needed it. And so staff aides don't really have a whole lot of benefits and everything, so, you know, if we can give them a benefit, especially a benefit that helps them go to school with the cost of tuitions, if we can give them the benefit that helps them go to school, I'm certainly going to do that, so I'm glad you brought

[03:47:04] this, and I wish I had thought of it, and I'm more than happy to support it. Should I get closing? Yeah, very briefly, just to Supervisor Armstrong's point, which is a very valid point, this started out as increasing it for everybody, and there was a discussion with, yeah, but we really have to address the union issue first in the collective bargaining process and hold that in that sequence.

[03:47:27] That became an extended process and then the county would come after that and I finally just thought, you know, let's settle for the B minus and not try and fight for the A plus and we know we can do it for the board aides who aren't represented by collective bargaining.

[03:47:42] So that's why it evolved down into this very small program. That's all I have, thank you. - We're getting down, we're getting down. All right. Thank you. Supervisor Turner made the motion. I second the motion on. Please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. That motion will pass 8-1 with Supervisor Umpstead opposing the motion.

[03:47:59] Okay. We're getting down. We are getting down. Again, I want to do the motion for the tax rate last. And so, truthfully, I'm going to go back because the only thing I have in front of me right now, because I have not been able to look at my e-mail since I've been on the day, is Ms. Brickspin.

[03:48:18] So, Ms. Bixman, you're the only motion I have in front of me besides the other ones right now. I don't want to do that one quite yet. After this, I'm going to go to the tax motions. I am. So, I'm going to go to the tax motions. Okay, I wanted to add a couple more resources. The only reason I didn't send out motions for these was because I wasn't sure where the money was going to be.

[03:48:39] All right, you want me to do my other one? That's valid, too, because I mean... All right, I can do... I can try to, all the alternative resources are on page 49 if you want to look, or I can do my Sheriff's Department motion. I can do that one. I do understand what you're saying, because actually the Clerk of the Court's resource, which is 98.

[03:49:06] I wanted to do, well, I'll tell you, Madam Chair, I wanted to do the Administration Real Estate Specialist, the Clerk of the Court Administration Client Services, and then the Priority 1 Learning and Development Supervisor for Mr. Rush's office. So those are those are all very important. You are correct. But because they're all they do have a financial implications, I would have them done separately anyway.

[03:49:28] OK, so. So what I would say is is I would say what I say is do whatever one you have that has the biggest implication on the budget so that we know where we are on the top board and then we'll go from there. OK, that's not my highest priority one, though. So I'll just I'll do the real estate.

[03:49:52] Make a motion. Thank you. I move that the Board of Supervisors add County Administration Priority 2 RPAMP real estate specialist to the FY 2027 budget with a fiscal impact of $147,950.

[03:50:12] Just give us a second, Ms. Bricksman. I hear your motion. Put a pin in it because the number right here is not right. Oh, okay. You think it is? It never updated after the general service. It never updated. We were all watching. That's weird.

[03:50:33] We were all watching it. Did we delete the one below that? Can you just check the rest of it? That's the non- It didn't change. It didn't change.

[03:50:49] Where's the PRCS ones? Well, I just said the real estate specialist. There it is. There we go. No, no, no. That's the new motion that hasn't even been made yet, or just sort of was. Where's the PRCS one? Right there.

[03:51:05] Wait. No, no, no. This right there. No. Wait. Wait. Is it right there? No, it's not. Department of Recreation and Community Services. No, that's not right. It was, yeah, it should have changed. Oh, my God. Look, literally, how many degrees are on this dais right now trying to figure this out?

[03:51:25] A lot. Do you think that's right? Yeah, we've been freezing it and then restarting it after, during each motion, so I think it is correct. You've been freezing it and restarting it? Basically, we freeze it. As you've been debating, he's been putting the cost in, so by the time you vote, the costs are already on the tote board.

[03:51:41] Ah. We used to wait until we actually vote. In case we don't vote for it. Control Z, control Z. Okay. That's why I didn't think it. That's why I didn't change. Thank you for explaining that to us.

[03:51:57] All right. You're running for the most favored department is descending. Ms. Bricksman, would you make your motion again, please? I apologize. Sure, will do, Madam Chair. I move that the Board of Supervisors add county administration priority to RPAMP, real estate specialist, to the FY 2027 budget with a fiscal impact of $147,950.

[03:52:22] Motion made. Is there a second? Thank you. And second Mr. Advisor Glass. Thank you. So colleagues, if you look on page 49 of the budget book, that's where all of the alternate resources are. So you can, you know, follow along maybe or pick and choose if there's any others you want to add.

[03:52:41] But where's the one for this one? - It's there, it's, let's see. - No, I mean, that explains it, the actual page. - County administration. - It's page 60. - Oh, thank you. - Page 60, thank you. - Yeah. So we know that Ms. Marsh has been doing a bang-up job on all of our requests for land banking and all of the individual supervisor's request to work on individual land purchases in our districts.

[03:53:16] And so I think this is an important position. It is a priority too, but I think it's an important position for her to have in her department. - Thank you. Mr. Sange, do you have anything? - No, ma'am. - Okay, anybody else?

[03:53:33] Miss, would you like to have a closing? - Sure. I'll just add that this is a current service level request as the county has acquired several commercial properties inherited several non-county tenants, which has required substantial time and attention. The Office of Real Property and Asset Management and Planning is requesting this position as a real estate agent to sustain current service levels of managing 75 leases.

[03:53:59] That's just the first paragraph. I appreciate my colleagues' support. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Bricksman made the motion. Supervisor Glass seconded the motion. All in favor say aye. Aye. opposed okay um if they're opposing would raise your hands i appreciate so i can see a number this is the nay so the nay this is the name this is a nay so that that motion will fail i'm sorry that motion will fail

[03:54:34] i'm sorry that motion will fail five four doesn't mean we don't like you jackie i promise it doesn't um okay um i'm going to well actually i don't have the language but i wanted to make the position the motion for the clerk of the court i've got it the language would you mind making that motion then please love to make that motion madam consider it mine but it was on the it was my third priority uh so um i move that the board of supervisors add clerk of the circuit court

[03:55:07] Priority 2, Judicial Administration and Client Services, 1 position, to the FY 2027 budget with a fiscal impact of $98,445. Wait, that's $98,000. That's right. I would have seconded that, but Mr. Kirshen beat me to a second.

[03:55:26] Well, Mr. Kirshen seconded. That was my motion. President Brickshen, you seconded. That's right. Discussion on the motion. I mean, Madam Chair, I'm sure we were all listening very closely and intently. when Mr. Clemens came in front of us and told us how he needs this position.

[03:55:47] And let's see, this is for current service level request. It's for one legal records clerk who will be maintaining current and timely processing of legal matters, meeting statutory deadlines, and maintaining accuracy and efficiency that the customers expect.

[03:56:05] The civil division customer traffic and workload have grown significantly. visitor counts increased 14% between FY 2024 and FY 2025 and changes to expungement rules and court severance orders have intensified demands and if mr. Clemens would like to spend one minute of my time advocating for this position I'm happy to give it to him well thank you for the motion and thank you for entertaining the motion I could go back and discuss what I presented to you last time but let me focus on the expungements we are going to see a flurry of activity. We've seen a massive increase as I explained last time. We've

[03:56:42] seen a 37% increase in expungement petitions. That's before the expungement legislation takes effect July 1. I anticipate the volume increase even more because people will be aware of their right to petition the court to have their charges and their convictions expunge consistent with statutory changes. And the reality is we've heard about due process tonight when another agency talked about about their need.

[03:57:07] We wanna make sure we give these people due process because we don't want them not to have their record expunged when they're entitled to it and miss a potential job opportunity. So I think that's empowering people potentially for employment opportunities, but essentially it's making sure we do this the right way consistent with statute.

[03:57:24] As I mentioned previously, we have a 31% increase in the filing of concealed handgun applications. I've had the pleasure of serving as your clerk for nearly three decades. I'm now seeing second generation family members and even third-generation family members following your applications for concealed handguns.

[03:57:40] So it's driven by the population, but also there's just a lot of people that have had this tradition and they will continue to do so. The other thing I mentioned, marriage celebrants. The law is changing. The court now approves marriage celebrants to officiate civil wedding ceremonies. That's gonna become the clerk's responsibility.

[03:57:57] So based upon our current caseload, I will now have an additional 192 cases to authorize and process these marriage celebrants. So, there's a lot of the things I can get into, but I would not have lodged this request of Mr. Hemstreet initially. I understood he could not include it in the proposed budget.

[03:58:14] He graciously included it into the budget now for your consideration, and as I asked you to consider this. It's premature to share this with you, Supervisor Brestman, I was hoping during a break I could give you more information about state funding, but the budget conferrease, to my knowledge, are still debating in Richmond.

[03:58:34] But the reality is that if they do fund the new judge position, they do allocate a certain amount of money from the state compensation board for me to have a deputy clerk to support the judge. And as you heard from Judge Fleming, as you've heard from me, if they get a new judge, it's going to be focused on tackling the civil caseload docket, which is what this position will do as well.

[03:58:54] So if we do get the judge funding, I will receive at least a little bit of state funding, which would use to offset the expense of the county for this position. Thank you for your consideration. happy to entertain more questions. Thank you. Mr. Sains? No questions. No questions.

[03:59:16] This is, I literally just couldn't find the, I didn't have the wording, otherwise this really was my motion. I, you know, what is on someone's record when they go to get a job can impact whether they get that job or their life and their life. So if the state has said things should be automatically expunged, it is important that we do that in the most timely manner possible and not have things sit on someone's record that the state has said, no matter how anyone in particular feels about it, the state has said it should be removed.

[03:59:54] And so the fact that this will do this in a much more timely manner is important to me. It helps people start their lives again, to be quite honest. So I appreciate you bringing this, and I'm happy to support it. What are you looking at me crazy for?

[04:00:10] you're looking at him crazy we're getting tired getting tired would you like a closing uh i don't think i can add anything more thank you all right all in favor say aye aye aye any opposed that motion will pass 8-1 with mr crony wanting to keep people in jail no i'm just kidding you almost you You almost lost me in all those concealed carry comments.

[04:00:41] Don't talk about all that. I'm just messing with you. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Clemson. Are there any other motions on the dais? Ms. Bricksman, you have two more? Yes, ma'am. All right. We're listening. Oh, okay.

[04:00:58] I don't think anyone else has any more, but except... I have one more resource addition, and then I have my other motion. I move that the Board of Supervisors add County Administration Priority One, Learning and Development Supervisor, one position to the FY2027 budget with a fiscal impact of $164,803.

[04:01:24] What page is that? That's on page 59. There we go. They were coming already. 59. Hello, gentlemen. How are you? Ms. Bricksman. Thank you. I've made the motion, and I'm happy to second that motion, discussion of the motion.

[04:01:41] Ms. Bricksman. Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, despite news reports, I was not planning to use all of our savings from the SROs for equity positions.

[04:01:57] I was talking about this position when that was clipped. So this is one position that Mr. Rush has asked for, and as I mentioned, it is a priority one. It is an enhanced service level, and they are requesting a learning and development supervisor to oversee and manage the four learning development specialists in OEI and ensure training programs are strategically aligned with the Loudoun Equity Action Plan.

[04:02:21] This position will provide an enhanced level of service by providing a mid-management layer necessary to sustain and scale countywide initiatives. Mr. Rush, if I might, Madam Chair, ask him a quick question. I think, Mr. Rush, you were asked when you did your presentation, you were talking about how you've had increased numbers of requests for training.

[04:02:43] Could you elaborate on that just a little bit? Yeah, so the numbers that you see on page 59, those are around our four core services, and it looks like it's at a 160 right about now. When we actually pull those numbers up until the end of this fiscal year, we're already at 230.

[04:03:01] So it's above that, and we project that it will still continue to raise, you know, based on the board's strategic initiatives that we're working on and the board priorities, as well as making sure that this is implemented throughout the countywide. Thank you. That's all I have, Madam Chair. I would love my colleagues' support on this. Thank you, Madam Chair.

[04:03:27] Thank you, Ms. Brickson. I'm sorry. Mr. Sains. No questions. Ms. Umstead. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Rush, I want to thank you for meeting with me a few weeks ago, and as I said at that meeting, though I would like to support additional spending, I'm very concerned that we're going to be taking on more staff and providing more services than we might be able to sustain after 2030.

[04:04:06] I'm also waiting to see what the results are if one of my colleagues supports a further reduction in the vehicle tax rate. I believe your position will be funded tonight. There will be a vote to fund it.

[04:04:22] I'm not voting for it at this time, but I will be happy to support it in the final budget if we are able to provide greater tax relief. And I just want to thank you for your kindness and your thorough work and your dedication.

[04:04:45] So first of all, Mr. Rush, right now you have a department on a shoestring, right? You don't have that many employees, and you all are doing a phenomenal job for what you're working with. I do think this is a very good position to be at it.

[04:05:05] I think that working on strategic initiatives is very important, so we know where we're going next. I say this all the time, when we talk about diversity and equity, it applies to everybody, everybody. There's no one person this doesn't apply to.

[04:05:21] When we talk about inclusion and accessibility, I talk about that one all the time. Of all the letters, accessibility is one of the more important letters we talk about. And so people who have disabilities or different abilities, sometimes even hidden disabilities, don't always feel like they can be included and have the same opportunities everyone else has.

[04:05:52] And so that focus is very, very important to me, as well as everything else you do. So I appreciate you coming forth with this request. I definitely appreciate what you all are already doing. And for God's sake, the work that's been done with the Douglas alumni is just absolutely phenomenal.

[04:06:11] They feel heard. They feel seen. So thank you for all that work that you do already. So I will go. Ms. Brixton, do you have a closing? I think I do not, Madam Chair. Thank you. All right. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed?

[04:06:27] Aye. That motion went past 7-2. I'm pretty sure Mr. Sains was an aye. If you're in no range, I'm missing. You guys got to be a little. Okay, that's a six. Okay, I'm sorry, then. That's 5-4. Okay, I'm sorry.

[04:06:42] My bad. I didn't hear those. With Ms. Umset, Mr. Kirchner, and both of you, right? And Mr. Crony and Mr. Letourneau voting no on the motion. All right. Very good. Thank you. Any more motions on the dais? Ms. Bricksman.

[04:07:00] Thank you, Madam Chair. That's a long one, guys. I move the Board of Supervisors withhold the county's portion of pay increase for all employees of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office and withhold position authority 39 FTE and funding in the amount of 9.755 million and $203 for the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office training section ADC expansion CIP phase one of two and medical director adult detention center resource requests and the school resource officer floaters included in

[04:07:35] in the T.O.P. Board in the non-departmental budget of the general fund until such time that the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office terminates its memorandum of agreement for a warrant service officer program with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, I further move that upon termination of the MOA, pay increases for employees of the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office be provided retroactively and position authority and funding be moved from the non-departmental budget to the sheriff's office budget point of clarification how is this fiscal impact zero if

[04:08:10] if if the sheriff doesn't do that what would be the fiscal impact it if the sheriff doesn't do it mr. hemstreet might answer but if the sheriff doesn't do it i think at the end of the fiscal year that those funds would go into our fund balance but right now it's just a freeze that's why it's no it's not affecting the tote board yeah so staff prepares the fiscal impact so the way the motion is drafted the there the funds would be in the budget and she's all the supervisor brisman's motion also provides for retroactive pay which

[04:08:47] means if this motion were to pass if there was an action that's being requested of the sheriff then the funds would be expended so there is no fiscal impact got it so a second on this motion I'm not supporting this motion I do want to have this discussion, I will second the motion because I want to have a discussion.

[04:09:11] Ms. Bricksmann, is that an opening? I appreciate that, Madam Chair. No, don't appreciate it because you're not going to be happy in five minutes. I appreciate the discussion. We know that the LCSO transferred 253 people to ICE based on ICE administrative detainers in 2025.

[04:09:29] I have not received information for the first two months of this year despite requesting such information on March 2nd. We know from the data collected from the deportation data project that none of those with detainers in the Leesburg ADC were flagged as aggravated felons, and some have ICE detainers simply for being charged with a crime, meaning they may be subject to deportation before having their day in court and have not received due process.

[04:09:54] We also know that the current leadership of the Department of Homeland Security is far from professional. Training and operations have been severely diminished, and we've seen on TV how they behave and act outside of the law. We know that this agency cannot be trusted, meaning their detainers in the system that is checked by LCSO cannot be trusted.

[04:10:13] We need to stop splitting hairs in defense of an agreement that allows ICE to take people from our jail. just because they are not being taken from the street our sheriff's deputies are not helping on the street and that we don't see it that does not mean it's okay it's not okay and we now have seen where folks are being housed it's akin to concentration camps i cannot stand by while our taxpayer dollars even a dime of this supports this effort the community has expressed grave concern over the 287g agreement the sheriff's office signed in march of 2025 they have expressed fear, and we have heard stories that children are afraid to go home, parents are afraid to

[04:10:52] attend children's activities, and it was also brought up during the SRO elementary school discussions. The community has said time and again that the 287G agreement creates fear among immigrant families, undermines public trust, and diverts public funds away from services that actually support community safety. It doesn't help that the sheriff stood smiling behind the current president as that president signed mass deportation orders that have kicked off this dystopian era of harassment, arrests, and of residents simply because they happen to be black

[04:11:27] or brown. We shouldn't be all that surprised that they sent us a petition, that's New Virginia majority, signed by 391 residents against SROs in elementary schools. It is all connected. And they largely did not want SROs in their elementary schools because of the ICE agreement, in my opinion. Madam Chair, this is just a freeze of funds until the sheriff terminates the 287G agreement. Thank you. Mr. Zanes, do you have any comments? I'll just say I won't support the motion.

[04:12:04] I understand the reason, but I cannot support. Okay, thank you. Mr. D'Aterno. I'm just going to say simply, the United States Senate voted today for the fourth time to keep the Department of Homeland Security not funded, and ensure that the individuals who were taking care of airport security, TSA, go without a paycheck for several weeks and counting. And this is the kind of thing that they do in Washington, which is to hold people hostage, to try to advance other policy

[04:12:39] agendas or points. I understand that the sheriff's deputies would still get paid, but they wouldn't get the raise until the freeze was lifted on an issue that the General Assembly I think is legislating on anyway. But the reality is we don't want to go down the path of doing that in Loudoun County. There have been many things that people on this board have not agreed with in some of these offices over the years. I had serious concerns about the Office of the Commonwealth Attorney in the past. I know that some of my colleagues had issues with the school board, but never have we

[04:13:15] tried to impact the the pay raises and the pay that the employees get. We always ultimately fund it and then we we have our disagreements and do what we can on those but not by holding pay hostage and that's not a road that this board should ever entertain. Ms. Umstead. Thank you Madam Chair.

[04:13:37] Well I I try not to become uh livid um by um by proposals that are on the dais but I am livid over this one. We have deputies who put their lives on the line every single day and would give their lives to save the lives of all of us up here and every citizen in the county. And this proposal

[04:14:07] would deny them a raise. Men and women who start out making $60,000, $65,000, $67,000 a year sacrificing themselves for us and to say they're not allowed to have a raise when we as board members make a whole lot more than they do and we don't put our lives on the line for them we don't go out and try to get in the way of someone with a gun we avoid it but they go

[04:14:44] towards it to save all of us. I have respect for my colleague who brought this up for her passion in what she believes, but I think this is punishing absolutely the wrong people. And furthermore,

[04:15:06] I do not want violent criminals who happen to be undocumented to be let go because we are preventing our sheriff from cooperating with efforts to remove violent criminals from our community.

[04:15:28] Senator Cain, in the last couple days, has made a statement that our sheriff does an excellent job for our community, our deputies do an excellent job, and he called for us to support them.

[04:15:43] He understands these distinctions. I think most of the board understands these distinctions. But to go after rank and file who are just trying to support their families on very little pay and risking their lives in the balance, I just think, love Supervisor Brisman, though I do as a person, I think this is absolutely the wrong approach. Thank you.

[04:16:15] Before I go to Mr. Kirshner, I'm going to come back to you. Do you all have the average price, average pay for a line deputy? Can you get that for me? Do you all have the average pay for a line deputy?

[04:16:31] I don't have the average. I believe Supervisor Armstead is pretty close on the starting. About $60,000? Yeah, mid-60s. Okay. Mr. Kirshner? Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm a bit shocked by this motion. In my day job, I represent hundreds of police officers day in and day out.

[04:16:48] They put their lives on the line. They get shot at, they get spit on, they get pushed around, they do jobs that most people would never want to do because they love their communities and they love safety.

[04:17:04] Sometimes it's their multi-generations. And to present a motion of this magnitude is essentially to accomplish a political goal of something you don't like that the sheriff's doing, who's a separately elected constitutional officer is the equivalent of a political gun being held to his head and to every single man and woman who is a deputy, a sergeant, or right up on the rank. It is a political gun saying, we are not going to pay you if your sheriff doesn't do what we want you to do. And Supervisor

[04:17:40] Laterno was right on. This is what they do at a national level, and I will be damned if I'm going to let this board, while I'm here, without a tremendous fight ever devolve into such political tactics. I find it abysmal. I find it, quite frankly, shocking. And I agree with Supervisor Umstead that it would potentially, because I just don't think Ms. Brissman understands the dynamics

[04:18:15] of all of this. She has a political position, understands where that puts us ultimately as a community. You don't have to agree with how things are being handled by immigration or even this administration, but there are much of what they do that keep this community safe. And quite frankly, something like this, we would lose dozens, if not hundreds of officers to surrounding jurisdictions who pay far more than we do. Even with the raise that we're giving them, it's only about 95%

[04:18:50] of what other surrounding jurisdictions are giving. They deserve it. They work hard. These are thankless jobs. This is an expensive place to live. Many of them live out in West Virginia and drive in and to suggest we, for any political reason whatsoever, would withhold their funds should be castigated and thrown down. And I hope all my colleagues vote against this.

[04:19:12] So let me do two things first. Not only are we punishing the line officers for something that they have absolutely no control over, we're also punishing the inmates who are in jail right now. The inmates in jail right now need the medical director to stay there. We have inmates who have heart conditions. We have inmates who have diabetes. We may have somebody who's pregnant.

[04:19:40] We may have somebody who needs trauma care because she was just raped. And you're going to tell them that you're not going to give a raise to their medical director who could walk just if that happens, who could very well walk. What is the message that we're giving to our rank and file staff, that they are pawns, that we will use them? Even now, Mr. Kirshner is right. They're still only getting 95% of their counterparts, which is why, actually, I wish they could be eugenized.

[04:20:11] And I would do that if I could tomorrow. But the idea that we're going to use them as pawns, imagine how unappreciated they're going to feel. Imagine how used they will feel. They will walk.

[04:20:27] And when they walk, who comes behind them? People who are less able to do these jobs, less committed, doing these jobs for the wrong reasons. And oh, by the way, when you get those people who are less committed to do these jobs and doing these jobs for the wrong reason, when you get somebody in the jail who is not a good medical director or not a good jail staff, you best believe the immigrant population that you're talking about will suffer more. This is the most cutting off their nose to spite your face thing I've ever seen. They're not going to suffer less. They're going to suffer more under less

[04:21:01] professional officers, because that's who will come in here if we use our rank-and-fowl officers as pawns. They don't deserve that. And no one, and I mean no one, is saying that what we believe ICE is doing is correct. This is not an either-or moment. Either you agree with ICE or you punish the rank-and-fowl. And by the way, costs are going up on all kinds of things. Costs are going up on groceries, on gas, on utilities. So while cost goes up, we don't give our rank and foul the raises that barely keep up with the rising cost. So if they're losing their homes, if they can't

[04:21:41] pay for their bills, then oh well. Is that what we're saying to them? Oh well. We all are worried about what's going on in this country today because it's pretty horrible. All of us are watching it on tv none of this wants this to happen but the but the day that you get a board up here that says unless lcps takes up takes away all dei we're not going to fund school's teachers how how we act when that happens well you do not use the employees in this way those are human beings and that's not how we should treat them and that does not even help the immigrant population

[04:22:17] that you're talking about this is wrong and i hope not one person votes for this Would you like a closing? And by the way, I seconded this so we could have this discussion and no other reason. It is on the record that you seconded for the conversation, Madam Chair.

[04:22:36] Thank you. I do believe that early in our first term, we froze the Commonwealth's attorney's budget request because of some sort of MOU that had not been signed. She wouldn't sign it. She wouldn't sign it. Madam Chair, I think I'm in my time.

[04:22:56] care if you're in your time. You're going to actually give facts on your time. She wouldn't sign it. That's not the same thing. I didn't say it's the exact same thing. I'm saying there's precedent for us to freeze resources because a constitutional officer wasn't doing something.

[04:23:15] And we did it with the commissioner, not the commissioner of the revenue, the treasurer and the Commonwealth's attorney. I obviously support our rank and file. I think they do great work out on the street. I have great relationships with many of them, including two of them sitting right here. I see this as the sheriff refusing to give them their pay raises by keeping this agreement because he wants to support MAGA fear-mongering and false ideology.

[04:23:46] I just cannot believe that we want our taxpayer dollars to be used to support completely heinous and political mass deportations. I don't want our county taxpayer dollars being used for that in any way, shape, or form.

[04:24:02] I don't want to injure or hurt or take paychecks away from anybody. But I see this as the only way to get the message across to the leadership that we don't want our taxpayer dollars supporting this.

[04:24:17] I fear that one day I will be on one side of the street on the right side of history when my colleagues are on the other side of the street along with the folks that are supporting the 287G agreement.

[04:24:34] And that side of the street would be the wrong side of history in my opinion. This is the only thing I see that we can do at the local level to speak for those who are fearful in our community about what is going on in this country.

[04:24:51] The medical director is in new position in order to monitor the contract which was with WellPath but is now under a new rebid. So that position would not be one that wouldn't receive a pay raise. That's a brand new position that wouldn't be funded if this were to pass, which I don't expect it will. But my goal is to have the 287G agreement ended. I don't care if it's 200 people or 2,000 people. That agency can't be trusted. Their administrative warrants can't be trusted i don't trust them and i don't want our taxpayer dollars being used to support

[04:25:30] this mass deportation project thank you point of personal privilege i don't trust them either but i trust our sheriff's deputies motion was made by supervisor brixman and for the purpose of discussion seconded by me on paper say aye opposed no no that motion will fail eight one

[04:25:59] with supervisor brixman being the one two advisors um can you put a little asterisk by my pr so the purpose of discussion asterisk by my i'm i'm dead serious i am i am not joking at all i want a little asterisk by my pr because for the purpose of discussion asterisk could not be more serious

[04:26:31] right now um uh okay okay miss teproni this hopefully be the last motion not the last motion but close close okay okay i move that the board of supervisors reduce the tax year 2027 personal property rate for vehicles by six cents from three dollars to 294 second six six six cents six six

[04:27:07] cents okay six cents okay so the fiscal impact for lowering the rate to 294 is 1.41 million 470 $470. Nobody likes the vehicle property tax. Nobody likes the car tax. I'll just say it that way. Reducing it further provides more relief to Loudoun County residents. This motion will give a $0.15 reduction for tax year 2027 as it goes from $309 in tax year 26 to $294 in tax year

[04:27:44] 2027. Since I took office, this board has been able to lower the tax rate from 415 to now 294, a total reduction of $1.21. This reduction will help offset the rising costs residents continue to face in their daily lives. Electricity prices are increasing in part due to the growing demand from data centers and gas prices are increasing. We all know that. Lowering the vehicle tax provides direct financial relief at a time when many households are managing higher expenses.

[04:28:22] A reduction is manageable while sending a strong signal that the county is committed to thoughtful budgeting and returning savings to its residents. Reducing the vehicle property tax is a practical way to return money back to the taxpayers.

[04:28:38] So I'm very excited that we're able to do this. This has been a goal of mine since taking office, is to reduce the vehicle tax, hopefully to get it down to where we're at zero, still taking the state tax relief.

[04:28:55] But I'm very excited about this, and I thank my colleagues for allowing some savings in our budget so we could do this. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Kirshner. Madam Chair, may I ask Mr. Hemstreet?

[04:29:11] absolutely a question or whomever wishes it what's the minimum before we start losing losing the tax the state tax match it's around a dollar a dollar fifty so this is a good start moving six cents um and i don't i know i say that a little you know tongue-in-cheek right now but i i i mean i may not be in office that long i i think this i think one of these this vehicle tax is one of those tax i know mr hemstreet won't be here that long um i think this vehicle

[04:29:47] taxes one of those taxes that I think everyone hates um and in in obviously there's always revenue sources that we as a county county use and doesn't use but um I think I mean I can't I I grew up in Maryland before I moved here in 96 and uh obviously when when I first got my first car tax bill I was a little shocked and it was around the time um governor at the time candidate Gilmore was running and he ran on that and and it was he won on that um back around that time what's that oh it didn't happen and yeah it didn't get cut all the way it only got cut partially I think yeah but I mean I think it's one of those things

[04:30:26] that kind of just hangs on and hangs on and and I'm really appreciative of the General Assembly when they allowed us to divide this out of the general personal property tax because I think it's one of those things that everybody most everybody in this county who has jobs who travels around it's they have a car i mean we just don't have the same public transportation system that a lot of areas do and so as much relief as we can give them on this um i think we should do it this is a very minimal amount um it's only and and just to correct supervisor to crony and i'm not criticizing or making some motion it's not really giving money back to the taxpayer it's this is their money to

[04:31:05] begin with and they are kind enough to live in the county and live under the tax system that we set So I think ultimately it's a manner in which we can we can say, hey, listen, we appreciate you as taxpayers. We have a robust budget. We have done a really good job over the years of the revenue sources, especially through our commercial base that we bring in.

[04:31:27] And we want you to continue to be residents of this county and giving you reductions, even small reductions where we can, I think, is an important message from this board to our residents of we appreciate you. we like you we want you to stay we continue to build a strong loud and I think it's a re to get under three dollars I think is a really important place to be or excuse me yeah under three under three so we're going to two nine makes I mean we're we're far stronger if you look at any other county around um it's a it's it's it should be a bragging point it is a bragging point but it

[04:32:06] should be a bragging point because of our our fiscal responsibility here thank you thank you Mr. Sainz, do you have anything? No, ma'am. I think this is good. Thank you. Just give me one sec.

[04:32:33] Mr. Torpy, you should not leave this room yet. Mr. Kirshner and Mr. Krohny, I concur with your comments and don't need to say anything else, but I associate myself with your comments.

[04:32:53] So, Mr. Krohny made the motion. I think I'm giving the second to Mr. Kirshner. yeah yeah all in favor say aye any opposed that motion passed 9-0 mr.

[04:33:11] mr. Torby can you come down for just a second yeah it's 8679 you don't know what I have you don't you don't know you don't know what I'm doing so how do you know? I tried. Never mind, Mr. Torpy. I was hoping to be around 90, but it's not. I was going to try to slip one more in to my favorite department chair, but I wasn't able to get

[04:33:50] it in there. So I can't. I'm sorry. I was going to try to get one more in there. Do I have a final, a final motion? I hope so too. Yeah, no, I don't have a final motion. Is it a long

[04:34:26] one? That's, you know what, I trust you too much. All right. I move the Board of Supervisors, direct staff to prepare the FY 2027 appropriations resolution on the FY 2027 proposed budget as amended through straw poll votes taken during the March 5th, March 9th, March 12th work session of a tax year with a tax year 2026 real property tax of 80.5 cents per $100 of assessed value,

[04:35:02] a tax year 2026 and 2027 personal property tax rate of $4.15 per $100 of assessed value, a tax year 2026 personal property tax rate for vehicles of, this is not right, no this is right for now, yes, I'm sorry, of $3.09 per $100 of assessed value, and a tax year 2027 personal property tax for vehicles of $2.94 per $100 of assessed value. Mr. Turner? Second.

[04:35:37] All right, so first of all, when we have these discussions, and I, and I, and we as a board really do appreciate and thank every single county department head and all the administrators, we don't actually stop and thank Mr. Hempstreet. This budget starts in, I think, like July or something and goes all the way through. So actually, it's only a few months a year where he's actually not doing the budget. Mr. Hempstreet, I remember when I was early in

[04:36:17] in my first term and he said to me two budgets are easy when you have no money and when you have a lot of money and now I'm starting to get what he said what he meant because when it's somewhere in the middle hard decisions have to be made I would like everyone under the sound of my voice and out there to know these are hard decisions because we want to fund everything because we understand how valuable all these positions are and we want to fund as much as we possibly can

[04:36:46] We also wanted to lower the car tax this year because, especially in this area, we are having this area, the Washington metro area, is being hit just a little harder with the current economy.

[04:37:04] The doge cuts and everything else has just hit us harder. So to the degree that we can, in county government, kind of even try to mitigate some of the negative effects of the federal government, that's what we're trying to do with the car tax.

[04:37:21] And we hope that that actually absolutely does help. But I will say that, you know, we really do appreciate all of you and appreciate the process. I will also say I appreciate my colleagues. You know, this is my fourth night in a row on this day.

[04:37:40] These moments are a lot of work. I am so happy the big dance starts on Sunday, and so selection Sunday is Sunday. I'm gonna just sit home next week and watch basketball until I can't see anymore, so I'm doing next week. Carl Rush and I are just gonna do basketball, and that's what we'll be doing next week, basketball.

[04:37:59] But colleagues, this is a lot of work, it's a lot of focus, it's a lot of motions. It's a lot, it's a lot. And so I do appreciate you so much, all of you so much, for all the work that we do, that we're doing up here. And I appreciate us as a body.

[04:38:18] I don't know that there's too many more boards that function as we do and actually usually like each other. So I appreciate that very much. So thank all of you as well. Other comments? Mr. Sains. Nope, I'm just glad we got through another budget cycle.

[04:38:44] What can you say? He's in Jamaica. No one knows that. Ms. Bricksman. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. So this was my first budget as finance chair that I started and finished, So I'm really proud of it, and I'm really proud of us for, you know, adhering to our stated goal of a 9% growth rate.

[04:39:16] I'm really proud of the schools for coming in at the 8% growth rate that we asked them to come in at. I think that we are planning smartly for the leveling off of data center revenue coming into our coffers. but I think that we also should just recognize that we are able to do so many great things in this county because of that revenue and so while it's creating a little bit of havoc with our fiscal picture and we want to make sure we manage it we do need to appreciate that we are able to do

[04:39:50] really great things in this county like you know purchase a state park and build a crisis receiving center and fully fund our schools and reduce our car tax and if I am not wrong I think we are the only jurisdiction that has reduced the car tax in the in the commonwealth we have been able to do that and the fact that we have been able to do that I think we should be just really proud of that so thank you Mr. Crony for all of your hard work on that and I just you know I have to chuckle

[04:40:25] every time i hear someone running for state office saying they want to eliminate the car tax because because of you know the reason we have the car tax in the first place but i am really proud of us and i appreciate all of my colleagues viewpoints and our discussions although we don't always agree on everything i think we are thanks to madam chair's leadership we are a collegial board and we can uh disagree without being disagreeable so thank you madam

[04:40:57] chair um mr vice chair turner thank you madam chair um i just i just want to thank the staff everybody out here uh mr hemstreet uh ms burke um nikki spade who is not here uh or maybe she's out in the ascended multitudes.

[04:41:16] Oh, oh, where? Oh, gotcha. Hi, Nikki. I've worked with a lot of staffs in my career. I am continually amazed at how incredibly professional and collegial and coordinated and collaborative this staff is, starting with Mr. Hemstreet and working through the entire staff.

[04:41:42] It's just absolutely, I wish there was some way I could communicate to everybody at home how lucky we are to have this staff in this county at this time undergoing the incredibly complex issues that we do. For those of you who don't see how the sausage is made behind the scenes, this is an incredibly complex process. I want to thank my colleagues. This is a bipartisan board that just put together an amazing budget, highly complex. We didn't get any fist fights. We didn't start pointing fingers, although we came close there at end game but but this is a very very collegial bipartisan board and they are

[04:42:20] few and far between in this society and on this day so I want to thank my colleagues I think you're real pros your friends all of you and I really appreciate working with you thank you everybody this is truly an amazingly complex process and it amazes me every year when we get through it especially when we get through it ahead of schedule with a little bit of a surplus and fund all the key aspects of the budget.

[04:42:44] So thank you all very much. I will say that we will circle back around with the Family Services Board and have those discussions about housing and nonprofits. I'd like to be part of those discussions again, so just know that.

[04:43:04] I really can't let this go without saying that I very much resent being told I'm on the wrong side of the street about something. I am not on the wrong side of the street. I think watching what's happening in this country is heartbreaking every single day. And every single day I'm upset, and every single day I pray about it, and every single day I feel it, and every single day it upsets me. I'm not on the wrong side of this issue, but I also do not punish people when it is not their fault, and it is not our sheriff's

[04:43:42] deputies fault that there is any kind of program in this county and I will not I will not stand for somebody telling me that I'm on the wrong side of history how dare you you don't know me you think you know me sometimes you don't know me that well I am NOT on the wrong side of history I am on the right side of history I fight but I fight fair and I protect the people who need to be protected in the fight and trying to hurt or doing something that hurts our our rank-and-file employees, not hiring a medical staff, not putting in place a behavioral

[04:44:18] health unit that could save people's lives who are having mental health issues because of that issue, including the immigrants. No, no. I am on the right side of history. I am on the right side of the street.

[04:44:34] I am on the right side of history. I love this country every bit as much as you do. We may do things differently, but how dare you tell me that I am on the wrong side of street how dare you i will not tell you you were wrong i would tell you i disagree with you but i will not let you say that about me ever everybody else can do what they want or say what they want but if you think you know me well enough to say that i tell me that then you don't know

[04:45:05] me very well i will not take that from you not ever not here not now not ever thank you supervisors thank you staff i will cancel the saturday meeting all other meetings have been now Council. Wait a minute, one more thing. Jason, stand up. Jason has been with me almost every single day this week. He's 20, are you 21? 21 years old. 20 years, just turned 21. Going to

[04:45:45] George Mason University, will be graduating very soon. He spent his whole spring break in here with me every single day and then did a whole lot of other things with me as well. I don't allow clapping so we're not clapping right now for you but I want to say to you and to all the staff aides you all work so hard you work so hard you're not you don't get noticed enough you don't get appreciated enough so to all of the office staff aides we appreciate you Jason I appreciate you so much you may not cry no crying there's no crying in my office but I really do

[04:46:21] appreciate you so much young man all right we are adjourned madam chair madam chair we didn't vote okay all in favor you're still there on people say aye hi i'm still here all right we're 9-0 thank you

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