But it is like five groups of Americans also Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to call to order the Albemarle county Board of Supervisors for our July 15 2020 6:01 p.m. meeting here and Lane auditorium Let's see the supervisors who are present supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville district supervisor, and Mallek of the White Hall District Supervisor Fred Missel of the Samuel Miller district and Supervisor Bea LaPisto-Kirtley, currently of the Rivanna district I myself, Ned Gallaway of the Rio district supervisor there. Sally Duncan is traveling, so she will not be joining us today We do have a quorum present. We also have with us our county executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson our county attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our board clerk, Ms.. Claudette Borgersen, our Senior Deputy clerk, Mr. Travis Morris, are all with us. And thank you to our officers that are with us today Officer Joshua Pen. Thank you. You, sir. And Officer Lieutenant Angela Jamerson,
Thank you for both being here with us. And now, if everyone would please rise as your able for our pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the United states, to Justice One nation under justice for First And if everyone would please join in a brief moment of silence All right. Thank you, everyone All right. Board number Four, the adoption of the final agenda Do we have any changes adjustments, amendments to the agenda? Is there a motion to adopt the final agenda? So moved Second. All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Without objection that the clerk will please call the roll. Mr. Gallaway? Yes, Ms. LaPisto. Kirtley. Ms. Mallek Yes, Mr. Missel, I. Mr. Pruitt. All right great. Thank you.
Board number Five. Today we have our brief announcements by board members and supervisor Pruitt, you're up first today. I have nothing at this time. Thank you. Superb officer. Missel Thank you. I just need One second. A couple of quick announcements. One is just to highlight the great news for the county and the Commonwealth in terms of the final budget being approved. And we I think it requested 1.48 million to build a trail vehicle to run park that got voted vetoed last year But we were persistent and the Governor of new governor signed it, which is great. Thanks to Senator Deeds and delegates, Callsen and Law for as well as county staff and our partners for making this happen. The new trail as you probably all know,
will connect the money condition tribute Park in Southwood to the new biscuit run stream Restoration project and the new pedestrian bridge which is under construction So you can see more information on the Daily progress. And then the second thing I'll just mention is this coming Saturday, there is a Motown fundraiser at the Yancey community Center for the Food Pantry All are welcome and all the proceeds will benefit the food pantry side. That's it Very good. Thank you. Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley. Certainly Yes. Just a reminder for everyone, early voting is in process. I was going to leave that to Supervisor Mike Pruitt, but he forgot. And early voting is now taking place. So please, everybody get out and vote.
Thank you Supervisor Mallek thank you very much. An announcement from Nevada Water and Sewer Authority As of yesterday, our region has been declared in a drought watch. So this is not mandatory yet. But it will be soon if people ignore the situation So in order to prolong the ability to use any water for much of anything we all need to conserve a lot. And to not use water for anything that is not essential oil and to take care of our reservoirs. Southfork is already down over five inches. It supplies 10 to 12 million gallons per day to the urban ring in the county And so we have basically a 200 day supply, which is if we're in the beginning of a drought of record, that will not last us very long at all, especially when the students are
not here. And when they come back. And that extra water use kicks up in September the water volumes will well dramatically change. So please everybody, think about everything you can do to conserve water. So we do not have to code mandatory restrictions. Thank you Very good. And I wanted to note that the federal government passed the 21st Century Road to Housing Act and the fact that it passed with bipartisan support is probably enough to say that is the surprise But I've been poring through it just to see how it would impact things that we do here locally And I'm sure we'll be learning more and more about that as we go. And I'll be attending the National Association of Counties annual Conference. I leave tomorrow for that. All report back that I serve on the Community Economic Development and workforce development steering Committee.
So I'm sure they'll be doing an overview of that act in the in the meeting on Friday. So I'll be for bringing any info i have back and I'm sure our team's been poring through it as well. So I'd just like to call attention to that. All right We have no proclamations or recognitions today, so we will move to item number Seven public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board. Other than that scheduled for public hearings and the vice chair will read the rules and take us through our speakers. Thank you, Chair. Be happy to during this portion of the meeting, individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board. We're currently pending before the board other than the items scheduled for public hearing speakers are limited to one opportunity of up to three minutes per meeting
in person Speakers will be heard first, followed by online participants coordinated by the clerk to ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers. The board requests the following guidelines to be observed. Please state your name. And if you live in Albemarle County your magisterial district. Comments should be directed to the board as a whole Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk if representing a group or organization you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker back and forth debate is not permitted. And speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn for in-person speakers. The podium timer will guide your time green Indicate your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains in the red indicates your time has expired. If participating by zoom, please remain
muted until you are called to speak you will be verbally notified when the time has expired and microphones will be muted shortly thereafter All comments are recorded live streamed and published on the county website If participating by phone Press star Nine to let us know You want to speak and press star six from a landline to unmute the sign up period is closed once public comment begins The podium is adjustable. Speakers are encouraged to raise or lower it. So they are able to speak directly into the microphone Looks like we have, let's see Six signed up in person and one on line. We'll start with Christine Putnam and Zach Landsman is on deck All right. Hello My name is Christine Putnam and I live in the Scottsville district. And I'm here to ask you to protect our farmland waterways
and natural ecosystems by moving forward on a biased solids ordinance and taking steps to regulate confined animal feeding operations Or CFO's I serve on two board appointed citizen advisory committees The Solid Waste Alternative Advisory committee and the Natural heritage Committee. Both of these committees have spent time learning about the potential threats posed by PFAs, found in biosolids applied to farmland And both of these committees have sent letters to you recommending the adoption of an ordinance that would establish test and monitoring program for land application I also live in southern Albemarle and in close proximity to two farms with a permit from Senegal So Nigro delivers biosolids from Washington is Blue Plains Wastewater Trees treatment facility
So p feels we are used in everyday products and industrial process is they easily find their ways into wastewater and accumulate in biosolids The health threat that people pose to what is well established. And this is why I urge you to join the other 25 counties in Virginia who have already taken action to establish a biosolids ordinance. My other concern is the proliferation of CFOs and the impact these operations will have on our land and water. I hope that Albemarle County will be proactive of in doing what it can to address the waste generated by these operations. What is at stake is the health of our community our farmland and our waterways Thank you for your time Thank you. Zach Landsman and Frances Lee.
Vandell is on deck one. My name is Mike Landsman. I'm a student University of Virginia And today I'm here to ask the board to sign on to a letter to the virginia General Assembly in support of a bottle deposit bill ahead of the 2027 legislative section. The purpose of this bill is to address virginia's poor plastic bottle recycling rate. We're only an 8%, and we're not asking you to create something new or untested. We're looking to follow a proven solution that's already working in ten other states. And it's one that reduce cost, protects our environment creates jobs and keeps our waterways and landscapes clean. The bottle bill deposit creates a refundable deposit system that five cent or ten cent return rate that's labeled on the bottles and since these ten states have already implemented it,
we have a nice model of not only how to implement it, but how we can follow and learn from mistakes we made in the past. These ten states that have the system only account for 27% of the US population but they account for almost half of our recycled plastic and glass in the country. Michigan has maintained a 93% return rate since 1990. Honestly, wood products in Oregon achieves 87%. This bottle bill allows for proactive solution instead of a reactive one, such as picking up litter or trying to collect and encourage residents to recycle. An incentive has been shown to greatly increase the rate of recycling in the states that adopt it. The bill matters for Albemarle County because it reduces cost of local government. Right now we're paying for litter cleanup. The landfill disposal and storm drain maintenance of this waste
But a bottle bill ships that burden onto the beverage industry, creating a tax saving for taxpayers as well as jobs locally and is able to align with our county's climate action plan. As well as the comprehensive plan list in AC 44, Objective eight looking at increasing recycling and for cultural resources of objective five Looking to preserve and protect our county's just general environment. Thanks so much. We have the letter submitted and are available for more information Thank you Frances Lee Wendell and Stuart over is on deck Thank you. You, supervisors, for considering housing over and over and over again and including the public for your discussions I'm here to ask and i have been talking with the union organizing this time for a local housing voucher program funded.
So that we get people off the streets A local voucher program and that program is is a tool All that you can use to prevent this homelessness But please would you consider how to make a pathway for people going into the voucher program to go on to home ownership Because the problem has much room. So badly that people who could be home owners are homeless at best ? Or if you have a voucher program with path wait a path away that pathways a pathway to home owners ship It would benefit the county. They would finally be back into our tax rolls Thank you. Thank you Stuart over And kirk Harvey is on deck Hello, everyone. I'm Stuart Overbey, I11 the Samuel Miller
District in southern Albemarle And I'm with Don't Spread on Me. I'm here to speak about a biosolids ordinance Maybe a month ago our Coalition of Local Conservation groups sensual a draft ordinance that we had crafted and hopefully a good summary of the most important provisions and a letter that went along with it, along with a way to contact us So I'm just here to point out that, yes, these county's biosolids ordinances can establish a testing and monitoring program, including testing for fast. But that's not the only thing they can do There are other provisions that would serve to raise awareness to landowners of potential hazard to biosolids, and also make Albemarle less attractive in general to sludge spreading companies that don't spread out.
We've done a lot of research of consulted attorneys consulted scientists and other subject matter experts and put considerable effort into drafting this ordinance We have, as so is for our sampling to share and lists of laboratories that can do the testing. We stand ready and willing as a resource for any of you or any county staff to contact us and let us tell you all that we've learned. Get in touch. And I look forward to working on this next month. OK. Thank you. Thank you. You. Thank you. Cook Harvey and Phil Riese is on deck Thank you all for the opportunity. If you can't hear, I'm humbled to be here. And my voice I'm just here to introduce myself to the board. And the people that are counting. My name is Cooke Costa Harvey and I'm running for the fifth Congressional District I love the people. And the idea of a self-determined government.
And I feel like the two party system prevents us from moving forward as a united people. I'll leave you with most of your time And please know that there is another choice on the ballot that we can be united and independent. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bill Reece. And then we would move to online Freddie Weinberg Chair Gallaway Members of the board. My name is Phil Riese I live in the district Tonight, we're voting on whether to send a 1% sales tax to the November ballot I'm here because there's one question this board has not answered and voters need to answer before they vote. Here's the question Will this additional tax add to what the county already spends on school construction or replace funding that property tax payers currently provide ? School construction today is repaid mostly through property taxes Where will you reduce property taxes
if the sales tax passes Or is it simply another tax increase on residents who are already overburdened? A sales tax hits hardest at the families at or below the poverty level and your ballot language says nothing about any of this. If every new dollar goes on top of our current tax. But tax burden say so today and put it in writing before the people vote on it, there's a trust problem, too. The school board just agreed to pay a former superintend that has more than a quarter of $1 million for a year He will not work even though the board itself says he kept them in the dark for five months about a criminal investigation. How he elementary he left in the dark,
and they still gave Haas a huge severance And now we're asked to trust the system with over a half of $1 billion in new tax revenue without even knowing how it will be spent This takes the sales tax rate from 5.3 to 6 6.3%. Many will call that an increase of just 1%. But it's effectively an 8% increase in the tax we currently pay, collecting more than $27 million a year through 2046. That's nearly half billion dollars Divide that by the number of resident to go below, and it works out to roughly $1,160 a year for a family of five. Yet this ballot question names no schools, no cost, no timelines Enrollment at schools has grown by just 49 students since 2018. While the school budget has skyrocketed in that same time
this is a half billion dollar blame track. Some of our schools are aging and deserve reinvestment Show voters, which ones what they cost, and when they'd be built And working in this new law requires this tax to last 20 years. The expiration date of the tax is this board's choice and your own capital investment plan looks like just five years matched the tax expiration to the Capital Investment Plan. Some said, this new tax two five years. And if the come directors come back and ask voters to renew it, put the plan on the table before you put the question on the ballot. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. You. And last, we have Freddie Weinberg online Hello, all. I am Freddy Weinberg. I live in the White Hall district and got a whole new subject that i don't think has ever been discussed.
And that is the takeover of kudzu of our trees along the roads in our lots and everywhere. If you all know what kazoo is, I'd say we that was brought over the United States to supply groundcover but it got out of hand. And you see it climbing up the trees right along interstate 64 to 50. And you'll see it just climbing up the trees. And guess what, folks? It kills the trees because it. It's really tough to kill It has very deep roots, love is this hot weather that these roots being so deep that it has plenty of water down there. But there are ways to slow it down. I have contacted V dot who doesn't seem interested The Sierra Club who just those are hands up. And the only folks around here that are doing anything about it is Charlottesville And you'll see Charlottesville Kudzu
trucks running around, cutting their stuff back and the way to slow it down and when you really need to protect it, protect our trees. The way to slow it down is one, encourage homeowners to look in their backyards or the front yards and cut these cut at the root. Cut to the weed down at the root level But you could also put chemicals on it. But people aren't going to do that. The up above where the root is, it will die. Now what do we do along our roads ? That's a great question, but right now getting rid of it is almost impossible. But reduce the takeover that is doing is possible, we need the county needs to get out there with crews and go along and cut this stuff at the root that like I said,
it kills what's above and saves our trees again. Right along 64 and see what's happening there And that's all I got to say I would really love to see that as an issue now and you're like My man. Like, just encourage everybody to conserve their water Let's can encourage everybody to get in their yards and cut this stuff back at what they could do. And hopefully the county the city, Vidor and whoever else has any power or get into lots and public areas. Thanks so much. You all have a good day Thank you That concludes our list here. All right. Thank you to all those who provided comment today Forward. We will move to item number eight, our consent agenda. Are there any items that need to be pulled from consent ? All right. Seeing none, is there a motion to adopt or approve the consent agenda? So move second.
All right. The motion has been made and seconded without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll Mr. Gallaway? Yes miss. Looking. So currently I mismatch it. Yes, Mr. Missel. Hi, Mr. Pruitt. I Great. Thank you. Board And now that will move us to item number nine. Virginia department of Transportation Quarterly report Eight and Carrie Shepheard is with us today Good afternoon Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. Members of the board, I am Carrie Shepheard here to provide the quarterly report. It for v dot shows and I might need a little assistance Yes To join us. I do, but I didn't see so just OK Just because there's I could start talking if you would prefer. I can just talk through the the first slide of projects.
Unless you'd like me to wait Yeah, well I have it in our packet as well, so. Yeah. If you want to pull up, if you all have access in the packet it'll just take a minute to get the report while we're waiting I'll button to say thank you for your help and helping me understand the Firefly connection the other day. So, yes. No problem If life is complicated, that's for sure It is very much so I think we have it up if you do public have you do you have the report like you've got a written down Where do you need it for your present? The PowerPoint? Yeah I'm just I haven't got it yet I'm very There is a box Is everyone got their report open basically. Yeah. Care if you just wanted to tell us what slide you're on then we can walk through your report.
Sure. Okay So I'm on the preliminary engineering slide. The one I usually start with, and these are projects in development that has. have not quite reached advertisement So some changes on this slide for our Fifth Street Hub and Trails Project act. Our next milestone is advertisement that was supposed to go to ad of Met in May of 2026. It was delayed for some right away. Issues and is going to add this month for the intersection improvements at Route 20 and that route to 50 access management corridor improvements that next milestone is also advertisement. They're currently acquiring right of way. And that advertisement is expected January of 2027. For the connector Road from Brook Ma Drive to Airport Road, that is in the right of phase as well. And we expect that add date it has shifted somewhat. But the date is now fall of 2028 because of some right
of way delays for Avon Street The next milestone is a public hearing. Tentative timeframe for the public hearing is late October or early November to two. More information will be coming out about that as that date approaches And no changes to the 250 Rock and Road and Peter Jefferson parkway improvements adobe taken over kinloch of There's a click here to skip install cherry I don't I do see that there's a click here or stop okay and then it looks like I just need to scroll. Yeah Okay. I think so. Yeah. OK. Great. OK. So that was the preliminary engineering side. Next is our design build bundles So the very first bundle, which is the four roundabouts in the Belvidere are green tea room 240 to 50 roundabout.
I think final striping was just completed yesterday, final completion of this project is August 1st. So just a couple of weeks. These next couple of weeks, we'll be focusing on punch list items. The old Lynchburg fifth Street Roundabout That construction is also underway as long as the same with John Warner Parkway and Railroad Roundabout and the Belvedere green tee. That construction is also underway And last for this bundle the Route 53, Route 20 Roundabout out. Utility relocations will begin later this month or in August with construction starting in September for two miss a lot of the events that were happening at Monarto. So this year for the next bundle which is the hydraulic and cedar avenue roundabout and the changes at Fontaine and the shared use path in the city This project
is in the final steps of right of way approval. Construction is expected to begin in the fall and for District avenue, the right away plans are currently under review. Next is a holistic updates. We just recently paved Blair Park Road Burton Lane and Burton Road We put the final surface on. So there's projects are complete our next round of projects includes Gilbert Station Genie lane and Murray Lane. And at this point since the plan has been approved as of July 1, we just need to wait for the funding, verifications and the projects to be open to funding before we can begin And last i left the six, and when old Abbey Road Bridge Project on here as complete even though we I know we're all aware of that But just to note that that project was finished early in June and definitely a big help over there
to have that road reopened. Also Fontaine Avenue, that's still underway, that expected completion is spring of 2027. And then Two of our other projects under construction is the Route 29 Shared Use path Utilities are being relocated at this time. And the exact route, one of seven Park and Ride Project grading and earthwork for the parking lot and bus bus loop is underway at this point in time. And that is the end of my formal presentation So I will take any questions or concerns that you may have for me Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt walton, where are the right of way issues? At the first tree trail component, We had proposed a certain path for our vehicles to come into Wegmans way and reach the site where they need to do the work near the Trail Hub
and the developer preferred a different route to go behind the buildings to minimize upset in the shopping center area. And so we were making that change. Thank you. And this is me just wanting a refresher on process. Proposed scope Does that something that ever meaningfully changes or expands during the community meeting process During the community meeting process, yes, it can I just to know when I had set the. Avon Street multimodal improvements, I'm excited about and also deeply frustrated about because it's just enough to be appetizing. While useless for my constituents it extends a sidewalk into the city. But not actually to where the people live I can only actually see maybe if someone who works that afternoon Scientific lives at the Mountain
View trailer park in the city. That's the only user I see of a shared use path. Everyone else is going to be riding the bus and it's not going to connect to anyone else on Avon. And it very much frustrates me because if it weren't for the light That would not be true. Oh, so i guess I will see if I can get community members to show up at the community meeting in October. But it's probably not the place for that. Thank you. Supervisor Missel. Thanks. Thanks. Appreciate the update. Quick question. It's not on here, but exit 118. Yes I'm just curious, do you have any updates on that Is there a funding strategy?
Any any updates on any of the studies that I think are underway? Not not at this time. We've decided to continue that study to look at it more holistically But it's just in the beginning stages. And I don't have any updates today, any any idea when we might get an update on that next? I can check milestones. I can check. And to give you some more information. That'd be great. Thank you. That's all Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley. Thank you for your presentation, you had three streets that were listed that you're waiting for funding for Station Road and a couple others. Can you tell me approximate timeline when you might know whether or not that funding will come in ? The funding. We should get the funding probably in August. Through our process to get it open to charges Yes.
So that's what we're expecting is the fall. And then we'll continue work as much as we can until probably november timeframe and then you know, if we can get them paved in that time, depending on their length, we will. If not, it'll wait till spring and we'll finish them in the spring. Understood. Thank you Supervisor Mallek thank you very much. So just to follow up on the 118 clarification, there is a separate project going forward. Now that's going to take the loop around for the trucks who want to go northbound to west, correct That's separate from the study you're talking about That is going to. Into the way where future. Correct to find the real solution. OK. I just want to make sure we had lost ground on that one. That took so many years to get here. Fantastic The almost came upon, let's put it that way. The the huge paving truck and steam and everything like that really still for us Drive.
Yeah this morning this morning So that's regular maintenance that's every seven years or ten years or whatever that be that goes out to do these public roads. Right based on traffic Oh yes. And then particular is the full depth reclamation Right. And separate from all the other remedial work you had to do last year, is there more just to clarify for the public? The side streets that we're going to be also paved are now now going to be paved this time around. They're going to remain a surface treatment. OK. That that's okay. is there any reason for that change that because it was a full paving in the past. So I was just wondering what the reason was for the change when we decided to go with the full depth of the slurry. Which is everybody hates slurry because it sticks to their shoes
and clothes, dogs, and people fall down on the way to the mailbox So it's not not well-loved in the county for sure Yes. We do get a lot of complaints about surface treatment but when we decided to do the full dEP reclamation to build up that structure of that pavement. That the top of that final surface is going to also be surface treatment And so it's a consistency between the entire neighborhood and also considering that they're called a sex that don't serve very much traffic Was why we made that decision I see. OK. I will try my best to explain that to people And the last thing what is the process for picking up brush when there's been an accident and highway side and trees and everything all piled up beside the road?
Is that something in your depot People who go to do that? Yes. If it's in the right away. Yes If if it's I and I'll mention again, the one by Park Mountain Church that happened right before 4th of July, that email may have gotten caught in your holiday. Thousands and thousands of emails. But that's still lying there. And it's about three inches off the pavement. So it needs to go away. And what is that specific location? Was a car accident I think on Tuesday of our first of first year, 1st of July or the 30th of June, and a car heading into town across the yellow line took out the highway sign a tree and the fence and flipped over. So it's a big flat mess like 20ft long. But right at the edge, in the verge right beside that pavement right next to A Buck Mountain Episcopal Church in the center of early. So that'll make it easy for you to find between Harleysville heights and the church.
And that will be great. Thank you very much Well, you have a very happy road district supervisor because the modified For getting the language of the roundabout that's now at Hillsdale and Greenbrier I've been going through it watching people navigate it. It's certainly done its job in slowing people down, which is part of the reason for roundabouts but also seems to be I mean, people are getting used to it, just like they do every other roundabout. We put in But the fact that it's such a tight turn is really slowing, Folks down. So appreciative of that. My one question that I have and this is really checking my memory, Carrie, I know that we were like, oh Yeah, we've put this in. And we just think, bad idea. We can always take it back out at some other point But did. We also say, all right, the way that once it's up and designed,
if it needs to be adjusted ? Because, you know, after like observation or if certain types of vehicles or whatever with the little posts that go up and everything, is that doable or that we I don't remember us talking about that. But yeah, I mean, we, we can we'll continue to monitor it. If there are issues. And we can make adjustments, then yeah, we can definitely do that. Is there anything in particular at this point yet ? OK. Not at all. The in the folks that have been using it. Have been they've been you know, and I know that the community there has been waiting for that treatment. So I think it's all been positive so far. I mean, other than just general folks that don't like roundabouts or don't understand how to yield or merge.
But that's on that's a different animal. But that I very happy that project is now in place. Same to be said for Pen Park Road and the reduction in the speed limit there. I think that made sense. So thank you for the efforts to get that done. I know the residents there appreciate that as well. The. I don't know. In the past, have you had any complaints or done any studies on Panama, Panorama Road out off Earlysville Road? I've got a constituent that has raised speed limit issue there. And specifically I mean, speed limit issue one. But then also speed as it relates to truck traffic that's happening And I just don't know if any studies or if there's been any history with that, because if there is, I'd I'd appreciate knowing that. And what that found.
But otherwise, it could also be a candidate for I know sometimes roads can be different speed limits for heavier trucks versus regular traffic So right now, I'm kind of in. Let's see what's been studied in the past. But that could be a candidate for a for a speed study out there at some point just based on some concerns that I've got. I'm getting speed concerns on Huntington Road as well, which is a cut through from Rio over to Carrsbrook which all of those parallel roads overlook Northfield in Huntington, all or kind of ways to cut over and then cut up to 29. It seems like the speed on cars, Brook. I'm sure folks still see people moving through there. But it's the straight cut because Huntington's a pretty straight road after you get past free bridge and people
just let loose, they call Apparently I didn't notice even living there for so long. I think they've been calling it the Huntington Raceway So it was what it was called. It posted it. I think it's posted it 30 or 35. But folks are flying through there. So it's just Two roads that I have that I'm going obviously, we'll do what we can locally in terms of enforcement and all that, but just be curious if you have any history on those two roads. OK, Great to know I can check. And then I know that it makes sense, though. The John Warner Parkway roundabout, and that's underway and then the green tee will be happening. West Railroad. No, no, no 999 West Rio Road is a small development right there at the corner of Rio and Belvedere
Is there coordination with that developer while they're doing stuff for any treatment or things that need to happen? I'd hate to see that get developed and then tour back up. Yeah, when we get site plans or development plans that are near or could conflict with our smart scale projects, we definitely internally share that with the design build group to make sure that we don't have conflicts between the projects Just if it's a timing thing. I don't i can't remember if in the design. There's a right turn lane or just turn off rio like it is now. But if there is a new lane, it'll have to cut into that. And I'm just hoping that can be coordinated. So it'll because, you know, not as disruptive as it could be for two different segments But thank you. I guess the only other comment I'll make is the id, the id,
the MTO last month voted to move the I-64 exit 118 as a location for a stars and Project pipeline study so that's been officially voted on. But that's just in the start. So there is no update and probably won't be until that process gets underway and then they'll be rolling out the public engagement process, etc.. So I don't expect anything to be happening this calendar year in terms of engagement with the community I suspect veto. It's doing whatever they do to get rolling, but that's that'll be probably the next calendar year kind of thing And then years down the road before, Yeah because those studies are what, 18 months? I think they try to jam them in before the next smart skills cycle So the process has to be done before March of 28. I guess it's close to it as possible
to get some kind of an idea of timeline. Thank you. You. I'm guessing the design will probably be influenced by what happens with the success of the Fontaine roundabout there and of the three directed trucks front. Two big part. I think they've learned that the bad part is the eastbound turn. Yeah. Now I used to be the other one, but now it's turned the bad part. Yeah, I do have Two things if you have. Yeah. Good. Thankfully, Supervisor Gallaway reminded me of two of the things I agree that the Hillsdale delineated are fabulous. And so are those limited to the types of roads where they can be placed. Because what popped into my mind as soon as it was open was this is a perfect solution for it was while we wait to figure out. Let's go with Eldridge Drive and whatever we have 150ft of right away across the diagonal there, measured it.
So there's gobs and gobs of room while we wait for X number of years to get to the next step, we might be able to solve the management problem there to be able to get. So I would ask for some information about what the categories are, where those things could be used. You know, my old plan of just putting hay bale in the middle and making people go around, it was a great idea. And it's sort of similar to what the delineated was accomplished actually But this is much more formal. Secondly, a Chris Green lake Road in the White Hall district, our police department has done a speed study there. I think when people see that the see the counters, they slow down. But we're having a lot of trouble with the walking people who walk to the park on that stretch of road and the speed is 45 there.
So while there is I don't know what other options there would be, such as signage, beware pedestrians walking to the park, something or the people want even drivers won't even move over when they see a pedestrian. They push the pedestrian off into the grass where there's sloppy, you know, people are falling down is just our drivers are wasted. I get that. And that's not your fault But if there's something we can do to I think perhaps put some warnings up that other direction other kinds of informational signs that would help, you know, park project ahead or something. I don't know what's in your library of signs, but I would love to know if you have any suggestions for things. We can push on for that. That would be great because the we've had pets killed and we don't need to have any of that happen again
or any of our neighbors get run over either Thank you very much. Good Any other just one thing, it was I was focused on comments here, but it sounds like we're a little bit off this. I'm going to throw out one other area to think about. Maybe if you're not already doing so. So with all the residential coming online and all Ivy Road and the development that basically along Ivy going back towards the university and the westbound traffic across the bridge that crosses the bypass in the morning commute, there is a lot of movement from the two lanes down to one lane merge and that one lane on the left is the one that is actually turns into the southbound 29 bypass lane Is that making sense? I think so. So as you're commuting in the morning there are people who stack up against that westbound sort
of that southbound turn lane that block people from actually being able to turn left on that because they're waiting to merge into traffic on the right. So as we're talking about traffic delineates some way to make people merge into a single lane before they block traffic and then cut in on the westbound traffic across the bridge would be a great I think a really big help. Thank you OK Well, any other items, Carrie thank you so much. We appreciate it. Thank you. You. Yeah All right. Board so next is number or we want to know. Number ten, the human services needs assessment. Ms. Dimmock is joining us. Good afternoon Good afternoon. All. I put my presentation on Good afternoon, Chair Gallaway and members of the board. I'm pleased to be before you today
to share the results of the 26 Human Services needs assessment and subsequent recommendations. This needs assessment is a collection of available data on many different metrics of community well-being designed to give us an idea of how Albemarle County members are doing. No. One data point is by itself instructive, but too viewed together. This data allows us to draw more general conclusions In 2023, we presented an initial human services needs assessment to the board with many of the same data points included. This assessment precipitated a shift in funding for community agencies to include prioritization of those agencies that address the needs of the most vulnerable members of our community through the provision of direct services I'll share some information about needs assessments including some assumptions and some caveats.
Review some data elements and the details Make recommendations on how staff should use the assessment and then look forward to your feedback during this work as well. Aligned with the board's strategic plan, in particular with goals 1.1. 1.2. 2.3 and 4.3 Human Services needs assessments are, generally speaking, a tool for understanding how community members are faring. They can be broad and scope as ours is, or focus on general well-being and focus on general well-being or narrow in scope and focus on one aspect of human experience like juvenile justice or unemployment. They can represent primary research or review of available data. Regardless of their structure needs,
assessments are used to evaluate community needs and how they change over time It can be a useful tool to recognize emerging trends as well. They can be used to establish policy or new programs or as the foundation of priority setting As has been the case here We're very fortunate in this community to be and share a community with smart and industrious people and organizations that do their own data collection and research So there's no need for the county to reinvent the wheel. We benefit from the work listed on the slide and many more. I will mention that each of these organizations collects data on its own timeline and so it is common for us to have recent data from one organization and older data, say from 2023 for another data presented today is meant to give you an overview of general community well-being
or trend line when possible. As opposed to focusing on anyone individual data point. Together, this data tells a story of broad community well-being. There are generally Three broad themes and bedded in the data. One people have usually more than one need one barrier, more than one barrier or burden They usually struggle with complex or compounded sets of needs that require additional time skills or resources to adequately address. There's a significant number of families who are struggling to make ends meet through a variety of different definitions in our community And many people struggle with mental health concerns like depression or anxiety, sometimes acute sometimes chronic, sometimes major or sometimes minor,
but universal on the theme of making ends meet. This is a complex slide with three different definitions for meeting making ends meet or self-sufficiency. Overall, you can see that poverty as a number and are present. And as a percentage is up from 20 between 2022 and 2026. From 7.67 in 2020 to two, 8.8 for 24. Actually I think this is data from late 2025 with fewer for children under 18 experiencing poverty. But significantly higher number of folks over 65 experience in poverty. You can see there that the poverty line established by the federal government, which is a national number for a family four, is identified as $32,980 of household income You think about our area median income for Albemarle County, for our metropolitan service area is $139,800.
So this number is exceptionally low for a family of four in our community You think about the orange Dot report which is established by Ridge Schuyler, who was celebrated in these halls, just the last meeting we were here and he established the Orange Dot report to identify the number of households in the community who are struggling to make ends meet and they've made established a definition for what that means. Their definition of self-serve efficiency and they've identified that the 420, 24, the baseline minimum income for a family in our community to be able to make ends meet was $63,321.53 based on that metric We have twice as number of families who meet that lack of self-sufficiency established by the Orange Diet Report than we did the last time we did this Thinking about the third
definition for what self-sufficiency is or defining self-sufficiency as identified by United Way's our s, which stands for Asset Limited Income Constrained and Employed. If you think about the group of people who are just above the poverty line in that workforce, housing zone that we look at in terms of that spectrum, that that number of folks is actually going down in our community, which is an interesting piece of data, which I'll share in the next slide. Their survival budget for a family of four in our community is $88,848. If you add the cost of childcare, one child and childcare that's 108,528. If you add a second child that goes to above $125,000. If you think about united Way as identifying a household budget of over $125,000 as a baseline survival budget compared to what our area median income, again as a $139,800,
is a group of people who are working and have kids or in childcare or engaged in our communities. Lots of ways that are unable to meet the survival budget, identify right in three different ways Here we have the Alice data broken down by magisterial district. You'll note that the data here is from 2002. More from the United Way. ALICE Report which is ultimately derived by data collected by the American community Survey. The written staff report that you received contains data from 2023, so you'll notice a difference between what was in the written report and what's on this slide. And of course, we'll share these slides with you All told, there are 16,466 for and 66 households in our community that are unable to make ends meet Given our rising cost of living and general affordability concerns That includes
the number and percentage of families that are living under that poverty line and then the number and percentage of families who meet the ALICE definition Importantly, you'll note that the number of families meeting the definition of ALICE has dropped pretty steadily from a high in 2016, while the number of families meeting the federal Poverty definition actually rose during the same period. Clearly not at the same rate, but there must be a relationship there Another method for identify whether folks have access to enough to make ends meet is the use of food banks and food insecurity in general According to Feeding America and 2025 10.5%. And the people in our community were experience seeing food insecurity. So 11,860 people. That means they went without a meal in the last 30 days
because they could not afford it Blue Ridge Area Food Bank identified made 2000 203,817 visits in all of fiscal year 25 and 338,000 visits 411 just through April of fiscal year 26. Loaves and fishes had identified that Albemarle County visits soils and fishes doubled between 22 and 25. If you look at the chart, you'll see the number of beneficiaries for SNAP up, you'll see that the number of individuals receiving SNAP benefits has gone down in the last year, which reflects federal policy changes impacting who is eligible for assistance, not community need You think about health and well-being metrics first, publishing sort of how a community is doing. There are a number of metrics on this slide. There are many ways to assess health and well-being. You may recall that the American Human Development Index is derived from metrics on health access
to knowledge and living standards in a given community to determine an overall score. This index was used to inform the ADM county Community Well-Being Profile, which was produced in partnership with Yuba a Center for Community Partnerships and released in July of 2025. Among counties score of 7.3 is considerably higher than the state score of 5.8. Of particular note on this slide is that 7% of the county population or 7980 people, do not have health insurance These people are at risk of catastrophic financial impact should they experience a health emergency another way of thinking about or one of the benefits we have is in the community that is doing this kind of research and work all the time is that every three years
we're required The health department and the hospitals are required to do a community health assessment, which will then inform the creation of a community health improvement plan, which will inform the activities of the Health Department. The hospital systems and nonprofits who do associated work with health. And this 2025 Community Health Assessment identified as the number one health priority chronic health conditions and included obese and mental health Mental health came up again and again residents want local community based services and safe places to connect and feel heard. They have really fantastic first person quotes and research included in their report, and they identified the need for lots of flexible methods of delivering mental health services, not just a traditional clinical setting.
You can also see that economic stability is one of the three social drivers of health It identified as the number three health priority for our community Additional metrics in this area, particularly focused on health and well-being of families, includes data on benefits and engagement and partment of social services programs. You'll note that the number of Medicaid beneficiaries increased every year between 21 and 24, reducing and 25 as a result of changes in eligibility, again from the Federal level. Referrals to Child Protective Services have tripled in the last five years, reflecting a rebound from low numbers and referrals during and immediately following the pandemic. The Covid pandemic. Interestingly the number of children, however, in foster care has remained fairly
stable through the same time period Finally, I introduce you to the final column, which is kindergarten readiness, which is a could be a proxy for identifying sort of generally how families are faring in our community based on how kids show up to kindergarten This is a relatively new metric for thinking about this and includes, again, lots of different kinds of metrics related to family well-being. Our scores are fairly low, though improving but considerably higher than scores in the rest of the state in criminal the area of criminal justice reflecting a long term trend of reductions in crime of all kinds. Albemarle county has experienced an overall 18.52 reduction percent reduction in property and personal crime over the last decade and of course subsequent reduction
in arrests and stays in the Albemarle County Regional Jail One of the things we have talked about noting this metric in 2023 were before this board is that community members generally do not say they feel safer to match this reduction. Almost 20 the trend line a reduction of crime. You can see something for us to pay attention to as a slight increase in misdemeanor year bookings to the jail. Almost all petty larceny. Almost all related to shoplifting, which can be associated with affordability and making ends meet about homelessness in our community Homelessness is notoriously difficult for us to measure. However HUD requires that there's an annual point in time count. Usually the third weekend in January where workers are collecting data
from anyone who is using a known service but also they spend 24 hours going out into the community to places where we know people sleep in parks tents. Sometimes folks who are sleeping in a parking lots overnight in other counties as well to try to get an accurate sense of what's the community need. It's an important data point mostly as a trend line, not necessarily to identify the specific number of people who are in need at any given time. But does that change over time? If your methodology for collecting the data is the same? The trend lines should be informative. You can see that there was a spike in the number of folks who are using emergency shelter during the pandemic The Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville
and the Community Foundation teamed together to create temporary shelters during the Covid pandemic for folks who are in emergency shelter or living outside. You can see the black line at the very bottom is the unsheltered number, and you can see that number spiked a little bit recently and is on the way down. That's an important number to assess whether there are sufficient resources in any given a system of care. It is really important to note that the point in time cannot happens in January when our emergency overnight shelter through partum using area churches is open. If you do this, count in the summertime, you have a different result in terms of how many people are accessing emergency shelter versus living outside the blue Virginia Coalition for the Homeless
and tends to conduct a summertime point in time count this year to try to start to improve that data. Understanding in 2025 during the point in time count there they ask folks who are willing to go through an intake process to fill out paperwork to identify their level of need and to form what's called a by name list, which is who's in need, ranked by their vulnerability. So often a resource becomes available. The person with the highest need gets that resource first by name list as a best practice to use on a national level. During that time, they're asked with their last known address was in 2025, 25.5% of the folks who were identified and identified Albemarle County as their last known address in the most recent year. That was closer to 21.2% We've spent a lot of time talking about the high cost of housing being out of reach
for many folks in our community. And so this is data that you all are familiar with 16% of all homeowners pay more than 30% of household income on housing and 30% is the identified threshold for HUD for what is affordable, affordable housing is housing where you pay whatever your household income is, you pay less than 30% of it on housing in our community, 48% of renters pay more than 30% of their income on housing, and half of them pay. More than 50% on housing. We are, at least in the last a needs assessment. We're projected to need 10,070 affordable units in our community to meet the demand. And by 2040, this numbers, of course, change all the time with sales and postings But the most recent time we looked, the median list price in our community was 630,000 for a home and our median sales price was 554,000.
And our median rent is holding pretty stable at 2200. There's lots of different data points to look at for mental health at any given time. A full fifth of the community is struggling with some aspect of their mental health says evidence and increases in the number of poor mental health days of people of any age experiencing depression and anxiety over 800 emergency room visits are related to self-harming behavior, and that now, in an analogous mass of suicides for the suicide Prevention Awareness Resource Council or Spark. The vast majority were the result of a gun fire male under the age of 30 provider who works for the Department of Social Services and all of our community providers, when asked, identify the fact that our community members in need have trouble navigating the system of care.
Doesn't matter what the system of care is, whether that's the mental health, community based mental health care, whether that's the behavioral health crisis continuum, whether that's child welfare or housing Our systems are complex and people's needs are complex and compounded and together that necessitates some additional assistance and a particular for folks in fire Rescue routinely talk about the difficulty in getting somebody connected to a service that might prevent a future deep and more expensive, more catastrophic need An example of that might be somebody who has fallen down and call 911 and called several times while our firefighters are there, they're good, smart people. And so they'll do a quick assessment for what hazards might be there. And make some guidance, provide some guidance to the household
if there's time they might get called again for that same household for a similar fall And then again and those falls get worse. And more acute when a simple stair repair might have prevented those. And so what's the next step to connect somebody who is in that need and a need. That's been identified and viewed and somebody who does that follow up? And so there's lots of interest and improved navigation and we spend a lot of collective time talking about it. In the end Again, none of this is individual data points are particularly instructive, but together, they demonstrate they form a picture of need in our community And so in front of you are some recommended actions, recommendations that when we did this in 2023 and formed our human services funding process, reviewed in terms of prioritization and generally informed staff about prioritizing those folks
with the most vulnerability. First, when we're talking about the distribution of limited resources. So we recommend prioritizing services that serve the most vulnerable. Defining vulnerability as people experiencing housing instability. And homelessness. Households with children under five households with seniors over 65 households with individuals with disabilities or significant medical vulnerability. This is an important change in our recommended mission to expand to include medical vulnerability prioritize funding for programs that provide basic needs including food and shelter. Prioritize funding for organizations providing direct services with direct impact on people's need and prioritize funding for organizations. Provide community based mental health supports based on the widespread community mental health
needs and that would include traditional clinical settings, but also counseling that in a more flexible setting, case management, peer support groups and navigation And then to continue to explore flexible multi-discipline very problem solving teams like heart and others to avoid deep end expense and improve well-being. There's no, no program development there. Just thinking and encouraging us to continue to do that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have you for your questions and comments Thank you. Supervisor Pruitt can you help me understand and what all is? I'm thinking about this slide that we had on the shelter gap and which you pointed out was taken in December normally. And so it's not reflective of the year, but I'm also in my mind thinking that I
feel like I've heard repeated that our total shelter volume is only a little over 100. But we saw even in the non spike year when we had the Premier Circle shelter operating, it was closer to 125. Is there something else that is being captured in there is like some kind of permanent supportive housing being captured as emergency shelter No, the emergency shelter hierarchy requires that you report on anyone who's in a house in housing that but for that, housing would be identified as homelessness. So permanent supportive housing is captured, but not under the emergency shelter category. So that number should not include anyone who's not currently in either a domestic violence shelter. The Salvation Army, PACEM or any other emergency shelter
situation So if somebody is, for example, provided with a voucher or a hotel stay during that weekend when they're capturing, they would be captured in that category as well. Or it could also be I might not have been think the data. I saw might not have captured she shelter, if that's what be treated here. OK Thank you for this. I particularly want to draw attention to that because this is something I know I get a lot of emails right now about and a recurring response. I have is driven, of course, by the Free Virgin Camp because that is the talk of the town these days. I don't see the county as having a role in the short term solutions there. But I think we have a role in the medium and long term solutions. And I see it as a really flashing red light that we have a known total homeless population that floats around 200 to 250.
And we have a known total shelter capacity that's just a little over 100. It's a very capturable and understandable problem. And as we've mentioned that capacity is actually only 50 for most of the year. It's only it's only up to over 100 during the hour during the winter. So I appreciate every opportunity we have to see more of that And thank you Supervisor Mitchell. Great. Yeah. Thank you. Great presentation in my mind, I mean, this is one of the most important things we can measure right? It's the health of our community It sort of rises to the top I thought your recommendation slide was great. It actually answered a lot of my questions. I was kind of checking them off as you were going through that. I have a few other questions. One is there's a value in looking at trends, right. And as you've been involved in this over the years,
are there any key important indicators that you've seen that have really risen to sort of raise red flags that we should be really essentially focused on? And I know you know, maybe you'll say it's those most vulnerable, most vulnerable groups Are there other others that, you know, housing affordability, things like that, that that you would say this is one of our key priorities that we need to focus on based on the trends I think I would say two things. One is the idea that we have our we are a community with a lot of resources, but not with a grid of connectivity between the people in need. And the actual resources. And so there's social service folks will say there's a thousand reasons why that stickiness doesn't
exist, but it's worth some thinking because we're paying for and connecting to a lot of resource is are supporting a lot of resources. And if they're not serving our need because of some lack of stickiness, we ought to identify that. The second is there's the that I pay attention to and worry about. Is this compounded the increased acuity for everyone that we have collective contact with their level of need is not as simple as the services you're offering. And so it requires a connection with another provider or some additional time or investment, and that can swiftly overrun the capacity of your system of care, regardless of what agency you're in And so that's I pay attention to that because I think there are the potential sort of system or structural changes that we can make
And that's not any one agency, including just the county. It's everyone to try to do a better job understanding the complex set of needs that people present with us, whether they walked in the door because they need rental assistance or because they're One of their kids, has been referred for counseling. But we take that advantage of that exposure and connection to that individual member of our community and say, what else do you need. And how can we help you get that? I think we have an interest in that for wellbeing, but also in terms of system savings and better outcomes long term. So those are the two things I'm paying attention to. Yeah, that's a great answer. I think that idea of getting resources to those who need it most. And finding that you said, I think is use the word sticking point stickiness or stickiness. You just wonder, is there a resource
i don't know whether it's a county resource or some other area that could provide the ability to measure the effectiveness of getting those resources to the community and have that be kind of a actual measurement that you put into a dashboard or something that you consider and think through I don't know if this would be a fair question, but so when you think about the use of funding and I appreciate these two subjects being close to each other, the next one that we're also going to review when you think about the use of funding that we offer at the county to our residents is there one that stands out as being most effective And is there an area that you you seem based on this information is data you feel might be an area we should focus on and you use those most vulnerable communities in that list in your recommend actions? That was very helpful.
I assume that's what you're suggest And I would I think that it's different. It is both best practice and defensible to say we don't have enough money to fund all the things that are good in our community, right? And so what will we focus our money on? And so at least in 23 and since then, we have used this idea focusing our funding on the most vulnerable to sort of prioritize and tier our funding recommendations to the board. I think that that sort of responses to the need that we see and recognize if trips to the food bank have tripled or doubled and the number of referrals to each of welfare have tripled in the last five years, those kinds of things worth paying attention to, to say who's the most vulnerable If we have limited
dollars that would be continued to be a recommendation Do you think it is healthy and wise for us to review how we define vulnerability as regularly as we can, which is why we've slowly expanded it to include medical vulnerability and not just the presence of a disability this year So as we think through and move into. And it's my first moving into the budget season, you know, it'll be interesting to understand how not only do we understand the funding and to your point and to Mr. Richardson point, we have more issues than we have opportunities to be able to support those issues or resources It's not just about the number of dollars right? It's about the effectiveness of the organization And how are we judging, you know, not judging, but how are we reviewing those as we think about how effective they are, They're meeting the priorities and the most, most
vulnerable communities. So it's funding and it's information gathering balance together. This is more of a detail question. The poverty Alice that was interesting how poverty is increasing Alice is decreasing. I think did the definitions change and they remain consistent or was there like a definitions have remained the same. The thresholds have changed. So the ALICE sort of survivable survivability budget has changed in response to metrics in our community and what's really designed to reflect affordability concerns, inflow station, those kinds of things which have risen fairly dramatically in our community. So you would expect our Alice data to rise as well. And so that's an intriguing trend line for me
given what again, what we hear from the community around affordability is doesn't is not matched by that data There's still a fairly large subset of the population that's struggling to make ends meet, but it is very interesting that that number has been going down a little bit over the years. And so because it's not come into an increase in poverty, you can't make the assertion that that reflects a bunch of people who were barely making ends meet who are now definitely living in poverty like a sinking there may be some of that I think it's an open question. I don't I don't know that I can explain it in the same way that if the criminal justice data is going down and sort of there's less and less crime in our community, but people feel less and less safe, there may be a relationship there as well. I don't it needs to be unpacked just to more quick questions.
One is we do have an embarrassment of data in this area, and lots of folks that have that provide this information Have you found any Gosh, we have all of this. But we're really lacking in this one area. Have you found any areas that we are gaps any information gaps that might help ? Yes, many in terms of the broad community metrics are, well, well-being No, I think we're capturing them in terms of individuals sort of specific systems of care or areas of concern. I think behavioral health crisis is one of them. There's lots of data, we'd like we'd like more data, richer data. And to understand in how people experience behavioral health crisis and how our system responds. So I think we're working on many of those things.
The places where we have some influence and control. Yeah, but in terms of broad wellbeing I think we've got pretty good data. OK. That's great. Then the last question is, and forgive me, this is a rookie question, all of this information is great Do we have measured do we have target ? We have goals that say in 3, to 5 years, we see you know, we see a decrease in, I don't know, fill in the blank. I mean, are there or an increase, you know, whatever How do we come up with measurable goals or do we have them. And how do we check them in 3, to 5 years and how do we measure how well we're doing every year We do not establish goals are metric metrics for community well-being on our own We certainly do for our Department of Social Service programs, these kinds of things that we're that we're fully
in control of nonprofits report to us their expected outcomes. And we measure them against their achievement of those outcomes. In the next funding round. But we don't have community wellbeing goals broadly, and I think that probably reflects an understanding that we're not the primary driver of many of these metrics. While we have some influence over them. But we're not the primary drivers, we're not, but we're also sort of the guardians of the community in a sense, right? Where might be helpful to have goals that other community organizer actions are trying to measure up or that help to promote them or to move them towards that goal something that we can measure just a thought. I pulled up the strategic plan because of course, that's where such a sort of broad goal might end up living. Yeah OK. Thank you. That's all Supervisor LaPisto currently.
Okay. I'm going to go a little bit different way, but hopefully you understood and I can make myself clear I know there's okay there's there are housing needs. Okay? We're all understand that. But you're also saying there's food and security Oh, I hear And children under five. I've there we probably need daycare centers, things like that. When I'm wondering is with our limited funds or with the funds that we have is there a way. And may this i may be naive, but is there a way of helping the people who have food insecure charities more than we do? Those people with child care needs? Because if you get the children in there to day care and you start teaching them how to read, teaching them
to do different things, that's going to help them be prepared for kindergarten because that's a big thing. If you're not prepared for kindergarten and if your parents haven't read to you, whoever hasn't read to you. I mean you could end up being 1 or 2 years behind when you start kindergarten, which is a real problem because then it's hard to ever catch up I'm wondering if we could look at or maybe you already are, of helping those people. And I guess I'm talking about the 30% below of am I maybe even the 60% and below of am I because some of the others can kind of manage whether or not they need a type of housing. And it would be maybe a temporary housing until they can get on their feet. But if we can help them with things like food where because part of their paycheck goes for living. Yes. Housing, but it also goes for food
It might it also goes for maybe daycare and some other expenses Is there a way that we could focus on that area I mean, even if I don't have the best place to live in, if I've got enough food that's going to make a difference in my life, if I have childcare, daycare for my child, that's going to make a big difference in my life. That's going to enable me to do other things so that I can perhaps, you know, make more money and be able to afford better housing But, you know, at the same time, we would also want to provide housing for those. Of course that are very much in need. I'm just throwing this idea out. I think it's very consistent with the recommendations that are on the sheet, which is to focus on serving the most vulnerable and to focus on those folks who are providing
basic services like food and shelter, and then to focus on those programs that provide direct services opposed to a sort of a system kind of service. So I think those types three priorities on that list would help establish what I think you'll hear about soon which is like the first tier of our funding system to make sure that we're using the bulk of our available human services money to fund folks the services for people where they have the direct most and the biggest impact for the folks experiencing the most vulnerability, right, is this And I noticed that. I notice your prior is that in priority order No, ma'am. Okay. Oh I would say all for all. All the same priority for all fighting for that impacts. But that's why I'm asking is if maybe food and child
care but especially food. If we could eliminate the need for food and stability, would that could that make, how much of a difference could that make in somebodies life And I kind of like going in order. What are the things that would really help the most vulnerable people get out of their condition I mean, if I have a place to sleep or if I have a place to live and it's a nicer place to live, but I don't have enough money to buy food what's the most important thing? We did not establish this list in priority order but it's not a bad priority order as it's listed And I think we're we have in years past been able to layer priorities to get to funding decisions
for an organization that serves the most vulnerable in the base and serving base, providing basic needs and providing direct services. So all three of those top three would be true and are given time because I mean providing housing, which is important that's a huge expense as opposed to you know, providing food. And I guess what I'm and you know, I don't know who agrees with me but it seems to me you can almost check off helping most from of all people in one area, which is food and get rid of the food insecurity concern. And then move on to the next That makes sense Knowing and a different way of thinking. Thank you. OK. Thank you. You. Supervisor Mallek Good afternoon. And thank you for this. And i have written questions in my notes from your presentation,
so it may be a little bit weird order, but i do want to get to some clarifications and it's a pretty big dose of harsh reality here that we, and I think what's the most troubling is how to focus on the to get the best help for a person, a family or whatever, where it's going to stack them up to be more sustainable going forward. But just in the technicals here I was looking at the Alice data and for the white audit strict seems very low and i wonder if you include because it's not I mean, a lot of people on this board think that it's just a bunch of rich folks out there. And it absolutely is not. And the rural poor are not the less fortunate are not perhaps as visible because they're at the end of a long gravel road. So how much does the data include Food, The rural folks in your cities so far? That's my question.
It's based on the American communities survey. And so all of the both benefits and also the caveats that exist for the American community survey would exist in this data as well. So if people are not being contacted by the census or don't have the capability to respond to the computer thing, then they're not count. It sounds like. Correct. There would be that that could impact to should be shared across all the districts. Yeah I'm sure it is. I asked just not the one. Yeah. And I think there was a substantial difference in participation in over the last several years and certainly a drop off in the federal effort for sure to get the information, which is disabled your ability to have get data, for sure as far as this whole basis.
So i get that. But all right the pantry changes. Numbers are just mind blowing. So that we knew that was coming. The kindergarten readiness, those are all things that are just so telling Is there a connection You mentioned the need for connections between this what a CFR finds when they do a house call and there's the resources needed or is that something that's a development? Is there a person in your office who gets the phone call from the chief that says, here's Ant's address, go get them? I use that as an example of the sort of opportunity. We have when we make contact with folks to be able to try to meet all of their needs or solve an underlying problem. If the right folks who are notified are connected,
I will say that a CFR because they're smart and excellent people, immediately try to contact somebody who can solve that problem and work outside of their lanes in order to make that happen. So that was a good example because it's illustrative for the bad example because it suggests that they aren't doing that extra work and they definitely are. So they're community risk and resilience department certainly would pick up that make that call and solve that problem pretty readily. However, there are lots of folks in the community are bumping into somebody who needs a route. So Lucian problem. But the service that's being provided is not a route solution solver. It's not for the route solution is still missing,
but there is a navigator person I mean, I'm just saying it's probably the rescue person is not going to know which of the three agencies are either easily be able to contact them. They're definitely going to find the right person. So you're connecting them to make that happen Your office or they're doing it. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's important because that really helps to get rid and the volunteers for years have dealt with the lonely single seniors who just really need somebody to talk to. And they know who they're going to visit. And so have done a wonderful job, but they really there need to be other solutions that can come along. Is there remind me please, where the budget is for the second parts team to do after hours
or the different shift the their budget exists. And so we've expanded social services staff, peer staff and fire rescue staff. But because of our personnel struggles with ACP we have not been able to add a second police officer to that team yet. So we have expanded coverage pretty considerably, but not a whole percent second tier, but we're getting there, right? We're getting very, very close Wonderful. I think that the board was really impressed with just the first six months, they've done 700 contacts. It was amazing Thank you so One thing that has not perhaps been mentioned but I'll bring it up in regards to the workforce because it is something I've been working on for 20 years, many, many years ago. Ken Boyd who I didn't agree with about much, but he said in his opinion, the very best thing
to help someone with the cost of housing was a really a better job. And anything we can do to help people get more skills and especially in today's economy, where everything is shifting in the whole world, you know, there are lots of people that were left behind in their skill set. So there's statement number one seven. Number two, it came to my attention that there's some consideration of closing the workforce center and Social Services And this would be a tragic consequence. So I'm just jumping in right now to say, what's the truth? Because the person who said, you know, Crystal and Adeline are wonderful and they're helping people and they're thinking of new things and innovating because there's so many different things. But the other thing is that the people in Somerville and Scottsville district can go there
and may not even make it to Glen. But Station, which is for the Northern half of the county. So help me out, please I have heard no such thing. OK And I do I cannot imagine And that being a real policy considerations, I'll check with Mary Stevens, the director of social services, to make sure I'm not missing something. But I have not heard that. And I imagine I would well, well before implementation. OK. Well, I think that our community members are usage of that center continues to go up as certified in everything the exam. So it's incredibly important to keep. So I'm just putting in my $0.02. Thank you. Please be aware and try to help them do especially those two ladies to do, especially, you know, continue on with the wonderful work that they are doing and all the different discussions of barriers
to workforce that you've touched on that ridge always talks about the transportation the job, the training. They can't get to training if they can't have a place or grandma to take care of their baby or a child or whatever. So it is there's so many different threads that all come together and tie people in knots all the time. But anyway, I appreciate trying to understand this giant challenge a little better. Thank you All right, Kaki, I agree with your priorities and so I'll put that out front. But help me with a couple of things in this. And there were two documents loaded into the board packet. And if you could go to the slide that had the Alice data not remember which number that is by district, I think it was Mary go all right So in the staff summary, the executive summary, not the report it had row district of 30
to 90 households of concern in reading the other document, I arrived at that number using 2517 as the Alice data. And then as you're going through the presentation for real it says 2464. So which numbers write this number is the most on this slide is the most current So to your point, if you go to the ALICE website, you will identify you'll see 2025 report by county that reflects 2024 data. So the report in the packet is a just a different point in time, it was from 2023 report short, which might have actually been relying on data prior to 2023. Again, the caveats of the American community Survey being the foundational document and then united Way's work on top of it,
and then it's reporting timeline. And so which is why I would not want us to rely on any one of these reports on their own, which is why I think in their totality of they paint a picture But the this report. So I did this. What did come out between the staff report and the presentation of this report by Alice is 2024 data. So that was identified as the 2025 County Report I try so hard not to do things like that. 20, 23, 2025, 2024. But this is the most current data we've got. Okay. So I'm seeing now in there where it says 2023, I missed that. That was the case for this current The there was a point you made about access
and connection of relative to a service for mental health services. And I think it was based on perhaps state concerns expressed by stakeholders and internal provider No, that's not it. No, it's there was somewhere where it said connect and access and it seemed to be around social connection. Was this the vocabulary that one residents want local community based services and safe places to connect and feel heard? The safe places to connect and feel heard is a specific a service being delivered or they would like community spaces where they can be with other residents to the surgeon General's report from a few handful of years ago about people feeling isolated to not being able to connect. So is this all of the above or is
this specific to that says all of the above. So this is about social cohesion. I feel connect it to my community and because I feel connected to my community in this place, I am willing to get served for health care and other services in that same place. And so there was a placemaking sort of theme that emerged in the community health assessment around connection and neighborhood. So which is sort of why my recommendation often is not just that people get community based mental health care in a traditional clinical setting. But in all of these other kinds of ways. Because we're hearing from community members, they want to get their services in a place where they feel that they are safe and connected and heard. That wouldn't surprise you to hear that this is feedback
that we get all the time about Yancy community Center, which is why Yancey is can be an effective tool to connecting somebody to a service because they trust that place. They know the people who are in there. They know that they can get there. They're willing to say, This is what I need and I'll come here to get that needs met. As an example Thank you I don't even know what that note says maybe to refer a pathway No, I don't know what was written down for the check All right. The next question i have is on. And part of this is going to tie into the next conversation we have on the agenda today. I know in the budget document for each agency see that we fund there's kind of in the appended the appendix a statement of what they do and it's some basic kind of information or statistics count etc..
And I'm happy to support prioritization but where it seems to me that some question came up during the budget time about the fidelity of an organizations ability to deliver their service and are we funding those who aren't just meeting the high priority, but if we have for agencies that are hitting the high priority are we giving more deference to those doing a better job meeting the high priority needs than others that might not be doing as well Because with limited dollars the highest and best use is always going to. And I'm not saying that that cuts out funding for other places. But if I've got four agencies delivering similar functions and one with more support could maybe grow their operation that may be a higher need or a higher interest. To me maybe than providing one to somebody that's not maybe being as effective in the delivery of the service
Are we getting at that in our data collection for these agencies? Yes in that we ask a variety of threshold information sort of questions as part of our application portion, including data points that about their effectiveness. If we have funded somebody over multiple years. Last year they told us they did 80% of the people that they serve would achieve blank. And in the subsequent application, they have to report out on that. And that is the scored question. And people is points all the time. If they don't meet the thresholds that they had previously or goals that they had previously identified and we also ask a number of questions to make sure that we're good, making good stewardship decisions. These are going concerns that are compliant with all
of the requirements, those kinds of things We don't have the kind of capacity internally to understand or evaluate every non profit top to bottom to evaluate whether the county thinks that it's the best in class for that service delivery versus somebody else. And so we so we yes, we do ask good questions. There consist with what other municipalities ask and other grant makers ask to get to that outcome. But we do not send professional nonprofit development person into each nonprofit to assess all of their inter operational details. So somewhere in between we're asking good questions. And we live in a small enough community that we also share clients when we understand how people are experiencing the many of the community services that we fund and our reviewers have practical experience
and we're also not in a position where we can evaluate full compliance on everyone that we fund. So both things are true. All right. I think any follow up comments or questions could happen on the next agenda item Thank you for that. Thank you. That's helpful for that. Next conversation I would agree with Supervisor Pruitt on the his comment about the encampment while getting immediate focus and need, especially in the media and the short term solution is our neighboring jurisdiction is going to be dealing with that. But I certainly agree that for middle and long term solutions are contingent on us and I'll tell you why. Because if you drive around the radio district, the development area as frequently as I do, and I'm sure others in their district that have urban room,
you start to see the patterns and behaviors of those who aren't living at the encampment but are still homeless and the county. And while the encampment has collected its own certain society, if you would there are those that don't want to partake So there are certainly people living an out of the way spots in the urban ring and camping. And since it's not 40 or 50 or 75 folks. And it's not in the floodplain and they're out of sight, out of mind they're not calling attention to themselves. But that doesn't mean that we can't have some we have to play a role in the solution of helping them find a place to be at And the solution for those folks is going to be the same as the solution for the folks that are in the encampment, because they're all unhoused and they're all trying to find a place that's
safe for the evening Now, it's also interesting because we're humans and we develop routines and it doesn't really matter if you're housed or unhoused, you still develop a routine And that's how I can tell which folks have been years unhoused residents, for lack of a better word, in the road district versus those I know who are coming through again, because they're out of the routine. They're out of the norm. I only see them for ten days. And I never see them again Whereas I've seen some individuals, like I said, for Eight years. So at something that shows me because i know that in the rural areas or our rural counties that are our neighbors that that is the way homelessness is, is, is well, it's not necessarily seen, but it's how it's playing out. And why it's not just contingent on Charlottesville and Albemarle
to figure out the solution midterm and long term. It's going to be every county's issue to help figure out because it exists in every county. It's just a matter of how visible is it. And perhaps what the count is that you can visibly see or how it impacts you. Perhaps if you're going out and about So I just wanted to take a moment to endorse that thought and know that that's for another day. conversation, perhaps budget time. But I certainly agree with that sentiment. All right. Board were I've not done a good job of holding us on time. So we're already almost 20 minutes past due. So I'd like to go ahead and move us to a quick recess and then we can go to our next item, which is the funding request. Yes. If I could say no, I we're going to move on to the next item. And you can. I think that in the next budget item with the funding process modification,
but we're almost 20 minutes passed. So any other questions or comments you have, please Director. Ms. Dimock I'd like to keep us not so far behind today. And you can get those questions voiced in the next budget section. So we'll go ahead and take the recess and we'll move to the agenda item when we come back. Thank you Frank. It's up to you to decide. Okay. We're all set. All right. Thank you. All are back from our recess. And we will now move to item number 11 fiscal year 28 budget process. This county funding process modifications. Mr. Bowman. Good afternoon Good afternoon to the board and thank you to the Chair for the introduction. I'm Andy Bowman, Assistant Chief Financial officer And it's very appropriate. This topic follows the prior item,
prior item that Mr. Dimock lead, as we talk first about the human services priorities and now potential modifications to the fiscal year 28 budget process, I have a few slides of background I'm going to walk through the summarize the executive summary and really have three distinct points where the board will have some input really to direct staff in the coming months As a refresher, we have three funding programs that nonprofits in the community are able to apply for important newly receive funding in the budget process. They are the human services funding process currently in fiscal year 27, there were 26 nonprofits who received funding totaling $1.8 million. We have a process that is smaller in specific to arts and cultural and festivals as the criteria
for them is very different than a human services needs approach. There were 30 nonprofits who received just under $90,000 of funding last year. And then finally, third, we have the nonprofit community capital request. This is the newest process the board has had There were six agencies totaling just under 12 million. But that number is really skewed, largely because we've included in that an outside agency, the Jefferson National Regional Library for the Central Library. We're renovation actually in today's presentation, I'm not going to discuss anything further around the Heat nonprofit process for capital because there are no changes to that process. Specific to this year that are recommended So a few other slides on background. The slide is callback to something that I shared with the board in the spring during the budget process where the evaluation of our nonprofit processes is a continual effort We're here
in the middle of the top of the slide in the summer where we have wrapped up a budget process. We have received some feedback We have gotten together and put some options together for the board to consider some potential modified options for next year After today, a staff will take direction from the board. We will then implement that working with partners and community partners and will come back and recommend a budget and give something to the board to respond to and continue to shape as we are all to do our best to implement the board at the direction the Board had in the spring is the board is reviewing the budget. Also nonprofits and the public have an ability to weigh in on that All of that culminates in April with the adoption of the budget. And then we do it all again next year So this has been a regular process as we go through this trying to continue to refine it and get the feedback because this
has evolved. You know, every year One more side of background of just how did we come about these options for the board's consideration today The first is really rooted in responded to a lot of feedback we have received from the Board of Supervisors applicants through the process and the staff involved in the process during the budget process and the debrief that the board had publicly and also with the staff individually you know, the board members express And this is stated in public, different opinions about how they would like to see the process work how they have their funding decisions. And so today is really an opportune city to continue that discussion and see that what feedback we have, the board as a whole have that can shape how we implement this in the coming us in the upcoming budget process.
We also spend time annually with Advocate boards to get their feedback on everything from the staff orientation and technical assistance we provide the application and the website portal and all of that as feedback that we've gotten every year as well. Second thing I want to highlight is that our staff has done research into the Virginia localities to really learn what are the other practices out there that others have entertained and we look at other locality is not to drive what we do in Albemarle, but to inform what are some different ideas out there that we may be able to apply here that may be working elsewhere, because we know our experience, we see our partners, you know, our adjacent localities next to us, but this was a statewide just can inform what might else, what else might work It really when it gets down to the background on these potential modifications are really grounded in if you key intents the first of which
as was discussed in the prior item, aligning funding to the highest and best use, particularly in human services. Ms. Dimock shared the slide of the five bullet points, and that would really begin to drive the Human Services funding recommendation in the coming year. Really enhancing transparency around the process We received some questions from both applicants and the board about how funding decisions get made. And we have some changes that may address that, or at least give an option for the board to consider and then really rightsizing, you know, budget evaluation and reprioritizing staff time. The goal of this is not to make staff's job easier, but that question and that we have a fixed number of hours to develop the budget. If we have some smaller request, how may we streamline that so staff can assist the board with some
of the larger policy questions So with that, I'll should also mention that if we do this right, hopefully this process will feel a little simpler every year Today's discussion, though, our intent is to make it simpler. Today may not feel simple because there are potentially nine items for the board to provide feedback on. And so I acknowledge that as I'll do my best job to keep it as simple as we can But there's a lot the board could consider in the staffing the really to assist the board. We've organized this in really three different sections. Now I want to clarify I really all of these options are really options rather than strong recommendations because staff is ready to be moved forward in either direction. The board would like to or if there's a third one that is not identified on each of these
So what I'll do is I'll speak to a slide on eligibility criteria and I pause for board direction really to endorse that change or any questions or feedback After that, I'll do a few slides on the changes specific to the human services funding process. Those four items shown there are piles and then get more direction on those changes and then based on that direction will then continue into the art and cultural process So with that, just by this structure. I'm going to go into, what is the eligibility criteria for all programs There is only one change this year to eligibility criteria They are fully in attachment A and the board's report, but this is an update that I would characterize as consistent with an update that the board has done in the past. So currently, as part of the applying and receiving funding,
the agency is must submit a financial audit of the county that that can be done either once or every three years based on the size of the agency's budget. So currently, we have a threshold of $750,000, and that's based on a benchmark of the federal Office of Inspector general. So right now, if you're over if you're over $750,000, you need to submit an order to the county annually If you're below that, you can do that once every Three years. That federal benchmark has been increased to $1 million. And so staff would recommend continuing to mirror that. Staff does not view this as a relaxing of the requirement, rather it's just as the cost of everything goes up. This is really just a benchmarking that the board has supported in the past So this is perhaps the briefest of the three sections, but I'd like to pause here in case the board has any other comments or questions about eligibility
criteria. Supervisor for I have nothing Supervisor Missel not on this issue, no. Thank you. You. Supervisor LaPisto-Kirtley. I like your recommendation Supervisor Mallek I think it's all right. Or also. But this is a one year snapshot, so we're getting basically one out of every three years for these agencies up to $1 million. That would be correct, yes. You're comfortable with that? We are. Yes OK. I would say because that is also the current state. Now. And this is one of many the areas we look at to what Ms.. Dimock spoke to before This is not the end all biologists in the same where someone's metrics and outcomes may not be. This is one piece of the puzzle that we get from agencies It just seems like there's a whole lot of uncertain unknowns with those other two years that we don't have any idea of what's going on.
So that's my concern. Thank you. How often are they doing their own like we're requiring this on it Yes. But how often are they doing their own on it? And it may vary by organization. It would vary. There are some I would expect, who are maybe doing that every other year, annually or every three. It's just a threshold. And there. But I know it's one. This is just as the cost of an audit is something we provide the county standard is a financial audit, which is a higher standard than some other funders could have. So that's part of it as well. You know I would you know, I would encourage folks as a financial professional, having an audit for your organization is a good thing But I do recognize there are trade, particularly for some of the smaller agencies
as we look at providing services and balancing administrative funding Great great. I'm good with the recommendation. You So this is one I did not put a motion on this was because there are a lot of options. The board can go in for clarity. Yes, this is an action item. I would suggest if the board for this item could perhaps make a motion to recommend the approval of attachment that will give clear direction to staff and moving forward. If Mr. Herrick is okay with that approach, I think it's so moved. Second any additional discussion? All right If the clerk will please call the roll. Mr. Gallaway. Yes, Ms. LaPisto-Kirtley. I Ms. Mallek. Yes. Mr. Missel. All right. Mr. Pruitt. All right.
Got to do more than lean in and supervisor. You got to speak Okay. Thank you. You know, I just thought, what are we going to do? The whole long version of it, not just a i agree All right. This one perhaps will be a straightforward and that's okay We have four changes in the human services funding process. That staff is considered. Again, those principles of what have we learned from researching other localities, what feedback we receive from the board applicants or staff insights, You know, thinking of highest and best use the transparency and certainty in the process. How does all that come together So for changes and I'll speak to the first one just on this slide item A is that every year staff does an annual review of agencies who are in all of our processes And if you look over time, there may
be agencies who have moved from the human services funding process to another process where they submit directly to the Office of Management and Budget or perhaps others have moved to the other way. And so what we would recommend a review this year. Is there are four programs who we would actually take out of the human services funding process and have them submit directly to OMB So typically those request to OMB are for those agencies. You know many of them are like the health department in JABA So the way our programs are there, there's another program that is run jointly with the City of Charlottesville. Those are the items where there's some sort of other government or relationship or something in some sort of agreement or there where there's a little bit more than the more, say, elective grant programs provided to nonprofits And so based on staff's review, this year, there are four programs that were
they would submit their request to OMB and go through that process, but they're still would submit a lot of the same financial information. It's just different than the human services funding process. Right Next and I'll move through all four of these together before turning over to the board. The next item is a change page really based on a lot of feedback around a potential change to the program. Timing So in this option, the change is option one, where the human services funding process would begin immediately following the appropriation of the fiscal year 20 budget. So currently the Board of Supervisors, when they adopt the budget, is making decisions on for this process. 20 plus decisions on individual agencies. So this would be an approach where the board instead
approved their lump sum of you of currently, if that funding is about 1.8 million, baby it's 1.8. Maybe it's 1.9. They would make that decision in the total context of the budget. And then immediately, as soon as it's done, staff would begin the process And I walk through timeline of what that would look like. Really, one of the intent of this is to help simplify the budget process for the board. In February through April. It's about two months where the board takes the count executive's recommendation and then approves and appropriates that There's tax rates, there's policy decisions there's additional work sessions, there's additional public engagement in town halls It's a very busy time with the board. And so this is one where we think of this. You know, one of the feedback we had from the board is how much you all value and work sessions, do all discussion
with each other and how much can we spend that time, or in the larger policy issues, because usually agency discussions typically don't involve tax rate changes. So how can we support the board by taking some of that discussion? It continues but it happens more in the summer following the budget. Then the budget process itself You know, we did this, we did some self-reflection and we could pick up our 350 page budget document We can see that 15% of that is devoted to less than 1/2% of the budget in this program. It's good work but could we do that work after the budget process and get a similar result by helping just again streamline some of the decisions that take place in the spring and then the board will continue to have the final say in agency recommendations in that summer. The I'll say the other thing that we would consider is we've seen other localities who are implementing such
a process and the Board of Supervisors has already moved in this direction a little bit with the approach for the Albemarle Housing Investment fund, where the most recent budget the board supervisors was comfortable appropriating a lump sum of $7 million, then lodging an application process, knowing those will come back to the board for decisions. This summer. And that is the second year that has taken place The third thing just to acknowledge is there is a timing impact. The nonprofits. It's one where I'll share right now if you are a nonprofit, you are applying in in October. And you are getting certainty of receiving your funding in July, that's nine month process. If we took this approach, they would apply really in June and they could begin receiving that funding in September. So that greatly condenses the timeline for them now. So nonprofits there would receive their funding instead of July and September. So that is a two month delay.
Most of the county funding, though, those for agencies are 10% less. And so to me, that's just a trade off. And to me, that doesn't really seem as a staff would say, if the board wanted to go in that direction that's not a reason not to do it. It's just something to be aware of in the trade off of the shorter review time versus the two months So the option two is really keeping things the same. And if anyone's a visual person I'll share this next slide that really walked through Option one is what is different. We're in April. The board would approve a total amount of funding. You know 1.8 million or whatever amount the board desires in the context of the budget In May, staff develops the application materials. We accept applications in June.
Staff mix recommends issuance to the board in July that come back to the board in August, and then funding is distributed in the month following You can contrast that to option two, which is no change, which is the board currently will give direction to staff in July. That will then staff will build the application in August receive those in October. And so on. Concluding with the budget process, which the board experienced this year. So two other items in human services, but again, this is really just trying to spend more time on this one because it is one of the more notable changes It really goes through the rationale of why staff thought this could be an option that could be of interest to the board The other item I want to spend some time on, because it's one of the more complex changes is the introduction of a funding matrix And so this is really just like the other ones Two
options of a change or the board can continue the current process of where we are So really, the intent of this is to, at the start of the process really increase the clarity and the predictability for nonprofits in their application Right now we receive questions from nonprofits or the board. When the recommended budget is released or how did you arrive at those numbers ? This really takes a lot of that work and publishes it at the very start of the process And so by giving some guidance on the front end of what agency fees may be eligible to receive with some maximums and how they would be prioritized, that may help them prepare better applications and also more realistic budgets as they do all the other operational programming So there are really two factors that are considered in the funding matrix. The first one is really not changed It's the priority tier
and so the board has seen in the past three tiers that really seek to prioritize support and direct services to the most vulnerable residents That would continue, but it would be updated with the human services needs assessment that Ms. Dimock shared prior to this item. The second, which is new this year is really taking an approach to look at the county funding as a percentage of the overall agency budget. The basic idea here is we, the county, is not intending to be a large percentage of an agency's operation. If we are a large percent of these use operation, we've probably moved into something different where it's like a county department or a regional partnership The idea is the county wants to leverage funding and be the last dollar and some of these partnerships And so this matrix can also help inform agencies. What this may look like So that's the concept.
I'm going to share the next slide, I have, which is from the board packet. And it's the busiest one I'll share today. So to talk through this first, to orient the board to how this funding matrix would work, this is just a sample If the board were to approve the timeline, we could based on the total amount of funding in the budget, we could revise this a little bit But starting all the way in the column on the left, we have the priority care and so we have tier one at the top for again the direct service and vulnerable populations or tier two is what we have classified as important critical services. And then third is more the positive impact and the protective community factors You see all of those programs provide value, but it does prioritize a kind of have a hierarchy of needs. That is reflected from the human services needs assessment
As we move from the left to the right. That's the additional dimension we've added this year, where there is total based on your total agency budget, there's what's been used here is under half a million, over $2 million in between Your funding can change based on that. So really, if you look in this chart the higher you are in the upper right, the more funding you could potentially receive. Those funding are caps and you can begin to see that there is no percentage gap for tier one because those tier one for the human services needs assessment may need more funding in there So critical to really move the needle and some of the board's strategic goals. The other items where there is a cap, it really speaks to, again, helping manage expectations
with application sense upfront and ensuring that the county doesn't fund an overly large portion of any agency So that's how the chart works. But I would like to explain this now of how it staff uses to make recommendations and then if you're a nonprofit, how would you use this as you prepare your application So staff, if we had this, we got all of the data that Mr. MC spoke to earlier We would then take this and begin to formulate a recommendation for the board We would start in tier one because those are the highest priority programs. We know they get larger investment because again, those are the ones that will move the needle the most for the board strategic plan. But we also know those are not the only items the board would want to support. And so we are proposing and saying that 65% at maximum of the human services funding would be for tier one. That would allow some funding to continue
to support the other important programs and tiers two and three So after working through Tier one staff within move to tier two and looking at the the programs that would make the most impact there and beginning to place those funding recommendations, right sized based on where they fall in that matrix. And that will continue into the third tier as funding is available. We did an analysis with the sample based on the fiscal year 27 budget. How would this have impacted agencies who are funded right now? So if your current agency, everyone in tier one would continue to receive their funding as the board recommended I think there were 19 of 21 programs that we looked at that would be continued to be funded with no impact. If this was in effect last year. And those are lower tier operations
on the edges of those caps So again, these are funding caps. Staff would not recommend more than an agency is requested. This would be shaped as part of the overall budget In that a request we receive. That's really how staff would begin to develop this. Now, if you're a nonprofit director and you're looking to prepare your request say hypothetically, there's an agency who has a $1 million program and let's say they know based on their application or where they fall in based in the past, they know they are a tier two where they provide an important critical service, but they're not hidden something as strong in the human services needs assessment. So if they had the million dollars and they're tier two, they can look at that middle of the box and say, okay, the maximum amount of funding. I can get from the county is either $40,000 or 5%
of my budget, whichever is less 5% of $1 million is 50,000. So there. We're taking whichever's less. They know they could receive potentially up to $40,000. It's not a guarantee, but that gives them some certainty and some potential clarity in their process heading into their own budget plan in next year that currently they don't receive until later in the process Final thing before I turn it back to the board is a much simpler change where really trying to look at a streamlined application process for those smaller nonprofits who are providing services at $25,000 or less. The basic idea is we want to scale the application requirements, the size of the ask This goes to the principle of staff. We'll do our review, but anything we can do to simplify a staff request on the smaller work allow our staff to redirect that time into the larger policy issues and funding requests that we have Perhaps it
would entertain you applications for agencies who have not applied before because it is a process with compliance and details that it would be something the agencies will need to decide on themselves. But this is one that if the board is not comfortable with that change, we can continue to keep the status quo. The same requirements for all So to assist the board in this next discussion, this is been the densest part of today's presentation. I've got these four options out there really, again, reviewing the nonprofits reach process the board could choose to endorse staff's recommendation or not. The shift in the program timeline to move that following the adoption of the budget or to keep that is is to implement in a funding matrix, or to or to continue last year's process and the simplified application However, any changes play out.
We'll come back after the process and continue to improve those each year. We learn from every process. When we implement a change, there's usually something we learn along the way that we can do, modify it again. These are really grounded in those principles of really trying to hear the board's feedback applicant feedback trying to really support the highest and best use of funding and give that transparency in terms of both to the board and nonprofits about how funding recommendations are made. So with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions and really go back to the board at the end of this discussion. I would hope for the board to approve attachment B based on the options that the board as a whole would like to entertain. All right. Thank you, Eddie What's the board's pleasure? Would you like to go through these one item at a time Yeah.
So, Andy, if you could maybe go to the slide for sure. And then I think this is the cleaner way to handle it. So item one or item 2, and then go to the next item one is just noted on this slide, the annual. Yes these are all of item 1 Yep out of the four things. And this is the first. Yes, the first one. We're for program staff is reviewed and would recommend removing them from the human services funding process to submit their request directly to OMB. So supervise your. Prewitt Right. So this is the one that's specifically concerning I think I actually mentioned this during the budget process, right? Like we have several things that we have a contractual relationship with that. We don't discuss them. They're normally very big expenses. And it felt like some of the ones
that we got really wrapped around the axle with this budget here, I was like, Well, these feel like very big services. And the answer was some of them had components that we had that contractual relationship with but not others So it is the goal with this that these are all going to be ones that we transition into a model similar to like what we have with JABA or are they going to continue to function that way that they currently do just in the separate process The former and I think it's one where we've done this in the past as we moved agencies, we'd say, hey, we've looked at your evaluation looks as to what you provide. It's really appropriate that you submit directly to OMB. So you're going to get an application instructions that are a little different in. So you'll go through a review process, really manage through our team partnering
with others rather than the human services funding process. I, I like this idea. I think it makes sense for these particular organization as I have a quick clarifying question about one of them. I think I know what's going on, but I want to make sure when we're looking at right Page gets money from the county for a few different things. I'm assuming this is for the housing navigate order, but I'm not sure I'm seeing a nod from Ms.. Dimock. So this is for the recurring kind of contractual service that they have great I wanted to make sure this wasn't some kind of jumped the line on other funding sources where they might be competing with with peer organizations. Thank you. That case, I'm in favor of this one supervisor for Missel Yeah. So a few questions. One is.
Thanks. Supervisor Pruitt, for that last question. That was really helpful And just to clarify, if an agency or organization chooses to have a contractual relationship with the county that doesn't provide them any additional advantage beyond just that contractual relationship, if they have a direct relationship with OMB as opposed to going through the other? Yeah, I think it's more about the nature of the service they provide, the relation they may have to other governments, state or local, rather than just whether do they have a contract with the county or not. OK okay. Got it. OK. On the program, timing piece, so we're on just this or. Sorry, just the number one. So are you good with that one? You? Yes, I'm good with that. Thank you. Sorry Thank you. Supervisor Lipstick. I'm good with I think supervise or Mallek?
Yes, but amplifying, adding on to what Rosa Pruitt said, there still is going to be a discussion with the board about this. Yes, we will. We will have recommendations for those for agencies as we will need to do our review just of the board, why we came up that and the board will have the full right as they always do, to make those changes. If they would like to from staff's recommendation and is part of the OMB evaluation because I'm not familiar with that at all. Is there research into agency performance, into client satisfaction into Google reviews, or anything else that is out there that we need to know about? Yeah, I would say the process it's we still will partner closely. I'll say in these examples because we have a lot of Intel,
as Mr. Dimock spoke to, of the human services agencies who are their customers, what are the experiences they are seeing from others. And so really understanding in their outcomes It's one where we try and bring the expertise of financial analysis and the expertise of human services really, you know, kind of priorities and programming. How do those paired together when you're looking at an agency, but you're looking strictly at what they're applying for, which in the navigator section only, not how they're treating their clients across the county, and how they're doing fulfilling their other obligations. You funded by the county? Yeah. If there are customer service or other concerns outside of the programs that may not necessarily be picked up by staff OK. Because that's a concern for me and has khakis well aware for five years that we've had this ongoing.
OK Having answered gotten that question discussed a little bit, I'm okay with the first one, but I'm satisfied with that as well. So now we're going to the adjusting program and timing. Yes. Item. So item B on this slide Supervisor Pruitt. Yes, I very much understand what this is trying to solve for, especially in the context of the immediately preceding budget year I have a lot of reticence over this recommendation. Now. I previously said, there's a very different thing between voting and trying to get public support for a number versus voting and trying to get public support for a project Act. This is very relevant when we're talking about AAF right ? I talked very clearly about the goals. I have for that, but that's just an abstract number. That doesn't mean anything every year. So it feels hard to get the community aligned behind that That's in trying to get funding thing So
now my concern with this change projecting into future years, projecting into when we're all dead in the dust. But somehow this policy is still intact. But my concern might be our total human services funding becomes a number And when there are ill winds in our economic future it becomes much easier to reduce that number because we are not looking at the boys and girls Club. We are not looking at habitat for Humanity and it abstracts that number out in a way that makes it easier to reduce funding and like put less generously it would become an easy place to plunder, to get a quick fix to a budget gap If we do not already have the agency is in front of us because what this is doing is it's making it just a lump sum that we vote on for the budget and then we later figure out who gets the money,
or at least that's my understanding, right? We we do it after the budget process. We assign it to specific agencies after the budget process, I absolutely. I think I would I am opposed to this change because I see it as making it easier for us to reduce that number in years where we have tighter budgets because we aren't confronting the consequences as directly And it changes the political calculus for us in a way that I think is just I think we need to own what we're doing All right. Supervisor Missel. I'm going to riff off of that a little bit because that is a concern. And I had a different question But let's stick on that topic for just a second. So this is the question for staff. Is the the establishment of the lump sum, what
goes into establishing that lump sum and how carefully is it tied to the needs of the agencies, partner organizations So I'm going to speculate on something we haven't done before So I would imagine that as we prepare that number we're going to look across the board strategic plan and we know that we need to be making meaningful progress on the budget in those six objectives. And so one of the conversations we would have with our staff or leadership in the Stimac is that we look at the particularly the objectives around human services. What's the most effective way that we can advance that in the coming year? Perhaps it's advancing and our partners perhaps there are some foundational needs in the departments. Perhaps it's hard steam, perhaps it's perhaps it's another program. These are all just speculating options and so I think from that, we would say really
board with your strategic plan This is where we think we need to, you know, kind of prioritize the funding for the coming year. You know, just pick one of those four topics. Yeah. And also there explains because we did that, we did not pick some other things. And that same exercise is true whether there's public safety investments education, investments, park investments. So I think that's one where we could we could take a shot and kind of say, well, we know historically how this funding has grown. We know what some of our cost drivers in the county are We know how our human services needs are changing. And so I think it would be really putting that together to give a really an estimate for what the board is, you know, to give them something to respond to. And I think it would be this responsibility to explain how we arrived at that number. And then the board could adjust that as we saw fit
if the board saw fit, adjust that as we saw it. But we can't adjust that number, right? That number is fixed once we budget we go in because we approve it as part of the budget. It could be. And so what could happen, you know, thinking about this is, you know, perhaps the board proves $2 million flat. We go through the process, we receive you know, $3 Million request and perhaps we recommend 2 million. And there's some topics on the board that if you really wanted to go a little further on that, if the board is included in their budget or reserve contingency or something else, there is a potential adjustment we could make still in that summer because again, just using this last process, I think the agency changes were under $150,000 that we made based on the board's direction. And so, you those are things that can be accommodated mid-year because they typically
don't involve some of the major programmatic changes and others. Now, if the board were looking to say let's fully fund that 3 million request, that would be very different conversation. But I think it depends if the board's approach is really looking to do a wholesale revisiting of that or really just kind of mixed modifications around the edges, that would really be kind of a question for the board's comfort in that. But there there would be a potential for some modification beyond that $2 million. So sorry for all these questions. So getting into the process of the budget, the budget process that happens in the spring during that time, you all would come to us with a number. And you would explain how that number was arrived. Yes. And we would have the opportunity but we wouldn't see what each of the partner organizations was provided. Right.
Because that gets determined in the summer. That's correct. Here you'd have the in the first year would be the biggest transition time because at that point, we haven't made the awards through the new process yet. That gets to my other question. Yeah. So we can certainly give the historical funding about what has been funded historically where we see the needs change in our community, which mr. is already reviewed today really looking at the priorities and human services. And so there would be something to weigh and I am sure that there is more need than we because we have that already. There is a greater need than we have that we are currently funding. Ms. Dimock spoke to that as well and I think that is the challenge for both staff recommended and more importantly, the board about how do we balance that versus all
the other strategic objectives of the board looking to advance. Okay So that's making sense. So we've got a pot of money it's got a little bit of fluff around the edges moving out of the budget season. We have an understanding of how that pot of money has been developed. Then later, we determine the allocation of that pot of money Yes. And we can change things around within that allocation is certainly he has to bring a recommendation, but the board is the one who has the final say and what is appropriated agencies. So in a nutshell, sorry, taking me a while to get my head around is it's a pros and it's it's a court. Well, not cost benefit, but it's like looking at the benefits and costs. Yes. So one way to think about it is the reason you are suggesting this is primarily because of the amount of workload that we have in the spring And this
pushes some of that workload to the summer because of that. And it actually just simplifies that one category and just has a number, I hope, in the long term, it will feel simpler. But I would understand if either today or the first year it will feel different OK. Is that the real That's the primary reason we would be doing this. So that's what we're gaining. Yes, I would say that is the biggest benefit we would see that. And if the board does not see that as a benefit, we can continue with the current process. And what we're losing is the ability to establish that number based on a more bottom up approach as opposed to a here's the here's what you've got to spend down looking at the underlying pieces. Yeah, it probably feels a little more cloudy is the right word. I think to supervisor approved stated it becomes a little less hard and fast when the particular agencies are knob
right in front of you in the moment And my last question, does this impact in any way the funding between if we were to choose to move where does it impact the funding flow to the organized actions? Is there a gap because of this change in timing in terms of their cash flow Yeah, I would say potentially most agencies who receive funding are county funding is typically less than 10% of the rural operation Okay. So their first quarter payment, they would get two months later for that. And so that's there's a potential impact. But hopefully everyone is kurian reserves their place in their finances around that county Funding for these grants is also not guaranteed. And so that's something the agencies have to wrestle with And if there's a tradeoff, as you said,
where they would have that delay, but they would also have a much shorter time frame from when they request funding to when they received their notification of it. And different agencies may feel differently. I would expect with the dozens we have, there's not one unified answer. And what everyone's preference would be. Have you asked the agencies. What their preference would be in terms of this timing issue? We have not. I mean, I'll say part of that is because really staff. This is primarily first, the board's process. Yeah, certainly trying to create some certainty with the Matrix is one way we responded to that. But it's really I would prioritize what the board is comfortable because ultimately, they're the ones who are funding these agencies and need to be and would ultimately be representing the taxpayer funding that goes into those. OK.
I'm not ready to say whether I'm supportive or not. I'd rather hear other discussion supervisor with a sticker Thank you very much I have a couple questions. When you set aside the moneys for this, are you also considering what board consideration of you know, we want to we want to be able to give more money. We these are priority things for us. And we want to be able to give more money. For example, are you saying, well, we're just going to recommend 1.5 knowing that the board may want to do more? Or are you also taking that into consideration? And when you set the level of how much money, how related to the budgets that you would propose? Yeah, I think that could be good feedback as we work through the fall and long range financial planning
and the board discussed in their priorities about what are some things they are looking to see more or less of in the budget So whether that be nonprofits or other investments, the board would have an opportunity to kind of addressed if it's and things that perhaps are looking to be different in the budget, the existing budget OK. Because I mean, I personally, I like this this timing because I think it keeps us from when what happened is last year where we came up with things, but we were also okay, I want this, I want that in a few more squabbles. And I think that would eliminate that knowing we have a set amount and can't go over that amount, although we i do like the fact that we would have some flexibility that i feel is very important to have some flexibility.
And I do want to ask one thing. We could also, if we went through this process for a year we could also change it after 1 or 2 years, seeing how it works. And if we're getting you know, a lot of negative feedback or positive feedback Yes, certainly. You know, most summers if I think only once I can remember those last year, we had this on the consent agenda. But yeah, every year will come back in the summer and get board feedback and continue to modify this. OK. And I would say that's partly shaped by past boards and this board's feedback Okay. Thank you. That's all. Are you prepared to say yes or no to the change? I'm prepared to say yes. Supervisor Mallek, Thank you. More uncertainty here. We can't.
So think back to the beginning here So I'm having real difficulty, as I said in my email to you about this predetermined lump sum for all the reasons that others have already mentioned Number one, it's abstract Number two, when Knees come up. We have nowhere to go I, I don't I'm not put off by the discussion conflict at board meetings deciding which of the agencies need to get their full requests versus others. That's part of what our job is I think So I just not knowing how it would really impact the people, the agencies. We have been funding for a while it's really hard to know whether this is going to be a catastrophe or something useful to the post. Honing of the receipt of the money is probably not is the least of my problems because i was gratified to see that we're
have a benchmark of 10% because I think that hasn't really been the case before. We have done a lot of you know, a particular agency that went from $700 to 130 in 2 years, 130,000 You know, that's just way off them off the platform. As far as that sort of accountability. So I some kind of standardization. I'm not sure it's in this section or some other section. You talk about overhead percentage at 25%. I think that's way too high. And so that's not a five star agency, you know, Charity Navigator sort of rating Yeah, that is in the eligibility criteria. Yeah That Wounded Warrior thing where they were taking 80% of their money and putting it into overhead was, you know, that's we don't need to deal with anybody who's got a high overhead They need to be doing.
They're putting their money that our taxpayer money into the services and finding their donations to whatever to pay for all that extra stuff. So I am still very uncertain on the the contingencies may look really fulsome at the beginning but they diminish very, very fast when things come up. So I'm not eager to say that that's where we would go for making any changes. One thing that has occurred to me that might help is a similar to what the city does for people coming in for an application process. They have a pre application and they go in and learn what the rules are, especially helpful for new people who haven't been through it before and 500 times. So perhaps that is something that could be added in the normal in earlier session What do you anticipate you might be looking for next year,
even though we're not taking applications till June so that there might be some chance of reality for us having that discussion. I understand what you've been trying to achieve. I really do. And I appreciate the extra work that you all have put in to try to have it go effective. Oddly but that's just sort of the main knowledge gap that I have. And they can all establish a carryforward fund to get them through those last two months if they need to. Like anybody dealing with federal budget, they have to do that between July 1 and October 1, when the federal budget comes in. So that's something that people can manage the I would love to see a list of who the 19 are. That would not be impacted at some point because I was struggling. I got through all the pages that I took out of the budget from last year, as you had suggested in the in the homework.
But I couldn't really figure out what went where. So that's, you know, still my uncertainty and certainly for these ones who are the agencies which are being moved into the OMB process, just as far as your questions performance standards of how they've how they've delivered their county dollars, what their recruitment and retention Tre staff training, what their turnover rates are and client satisfaction is something that we don't know anything about right now so that those are things that I find would be very important to talk about and I'll stop there with the maybe So you're not prepared to support option one? I'm not prepared yet until I figure out how some of these questions would be answered. And maybe there are some answers today I don't know from where I'm at, I've been torn on this as well. I've done some pros, so I see some cons both ways.
But you know to Supervisor Pruitt I hadn't thought of that point. But, you know, now we're determining the size of the pie. And then later, we're determining the size of the slices So since it's a different consideration during the budget process, it would require two supervisor Missel's point a different set of information to be provided to help us in an educated way determine the size of the pie right. Are you increasing it each year for inflationary reasons? You know, similar to like our tax relief program, it grows based on something where you don't have to keep coming back and asking us that or is it something that sits stagnant for five years? And we're like, oh, I'm going adjusted it. We just kept at it $2 million for the last five years. And then the the slices of the pie gets smaller and smaller. You know, kind of like transportation funding Some people stop getting slices of the pie
So I'm really torn on this particular one for that reason I think I would be willing enough to go along with it for a year or vice versa, or alter actively you. We keep the option to the way we've been doing it. The board has to infliximab discipline on themselves. As we talked during our budget evaluation conversation back in May. But you could perhaps do a run through of what it might look like in tandem with the current one and say, oh well, here's what we're going to do it the same way we've always done it. But if this alternative way, here's what we would be providing and the board gets it gets a dry run and we're back in asking the question again next year, I don't know if that would even work. It was just a way of going, well, there's some comfort. I'm hearing from folks, there's an right.
No, there's a couple of maybes we've got a yes. But this has even got its own questions. So yes, I know we're interested myself in a really good for discussion, but perhaps if there is an interest in trying something and reevaluating and there are two processes that could be changed. We haven't talked about arts and culturally in perhaps if the board were to say for human services larger funding, if that didn't change, if the board tried that time line change for arts and cultural, just see how that was for a year Maybe the board would have been a comfort in that. I don't mean to steer the board in one direction or another, just trying to think of an option, knowing that people are in a really across the full spectrum of what they're sharing. And what I'm hearing today So the pilot would be for this other group of Apple that I'm I'm open to that as an idea. It just another option for the board to consider.
But it's the same point all the points are the same for this one as it is for that one. It's just level of proof. Then you get into a different qualitative suggestion of one is more important than the other. Quote unquote. I'll say very clearly that one is more important. Yeah all right. Other well, we've got some. I'm going to go just back around to catch on this one because there's been back and forth and other people have had a chance to hear what each other said. Any additional thought Supervisor for two things. First, I'll say I think that splitting the baby as a pilot makes sense to fill in the rest of the thought. I do think arts and culture is slightly less important than a bunch of lifesaving interventions
and would therefore be more comfortable piloting the new process. The clarifying question I had hearing the description of the problem you're trying to solve, it occurred to me, there's something I'm not clear on, which is is the effort to try and solve a workflow problem And I like the decision compression problem for the board Or is the effort to try and solve a workflow problem for staff And I would prioritize the board because again, the key here in the feedback from the board's desire to spend more time in this staff will proceed with either direction. The board would like to. That's not a concern for us We're used to the status quo and how we do that. There is the tradeoff of how we prioritize that time free February versus after we adjust that accordingly. But I think this is why we really tried to and it's not a comment about the board's ability This is just the sheer number of hours in the day for two
months for it really position in the board to do their best work. I that is helpful for me. And it strengthens my previous No, I think during this last year's board budget process, part of my kind of take away was we can be more disciplined about how we engage with this part of it. To occupy less time. And I felt that as a call forward And so it's i can't help but think of this as staff trying to solve something that it's our own business to solve through other processes that don't have these other externalities in their supervisor. Missel Yeah I had a lot of comments here, but I'm going to keep it short. I agree with what supervisor burgess said and what chair said and what staff presented as an alternative to focus on arts and cultural funding for next year.
What I would add to that is simply just coming to us next year, in the spring and saying, this is what from a human services funding. This is how we would have this is the pot. We would have provided you in that original scenario. So that I would I think it be an interesting study to see how we come out in the end So it's kind of like doing both, but still allowing us that upfront conversation session to discuss the slices before we get the full pie. That's very helpful feedback. And we can prepare that supervisor for her. Yeah, I agree with what supervisor Missel just said. I would support that supervisor Mallek I think the pilot is a step in the right direction, but i think one of the solutions that came out of last year's what some people were offended by that
is the discussion around agency funding. Two of those agencies were moved into the where they belong to begin with, and that never would have happened if people had sat there quietly and said, oh, sure, whatever. Staff says is fine because it's not always perfect. We all try to make it the best we can and have six different perspectives on this. So it is our job to make sure that we understand the backgrounds of everything that's in there. The homework that may not have been written down that others know that we need to find out. So I'm glad that that there's the opportunity to continue on with that. I still would like to know which One of the 19 of the 21 who are going to be changed. Someone can send that around by email and I'm okay to do the sort of parallel process.
Next year and see how it goes So keep the option for this group. OK with the arts, with the change in the timeline. But we haven't talked about the year yet, so well, but that's been a proposed pilot that everybody just what we're going to talk about that. We will. Yeah because there's other items attached to it. But it's been endorsed by three others that the pilot of the change in the timeline could be done for the arts program, But keep it the same for human services. My comment was for the human services to do the parallel service as you described, and I haven't made a comment about the arts yet because we have to. Good to stay with the current timeline as how I would summarize. Yes, with the current process that we've done in the past. Yeah just to recap of helps, I don't
mean to step in front of the chair, but option a the board is comfortable with the recommendation. Option B for human services to keep the current program timeline is what I'm hearing. Yes that's the majority opinion at this point. Okay And I'm good with that, keeping at the timeline and I'm open to the pilot program and we'll discuss that when we get there. So now we have to deal with item three. Yes. Under Human Services, which is the funding matrix Thank you when we're discussing this, because we actually have to set full funding matrix. Yes. Thank you. And you're a supervisor I like this in concept. I'm pro in concept to you know, echo frequent line from some of my peers. The devil is in the details. The thing that gives me pause is knowing that a yes on this change, I can count very quickly
a few agencies that immediately have an effective funding cut which gets us in the problem that we're trying to get away from of being swayed by our loyalties to individual agencies. But I wonder if there's two issues here, right? My impulse would be, can we raise the upper bounds of these to embrace existing agencies at historic funding levels? I then, of course, critique that in my own mind and say, does that not defeat the purpose of having a funding matrix because if everyone is included, it's not doing anything Oh, I I am wondering if anyone from our human Services department might have thoughts on that and whether or not it can still accomplish any value if it is not ruling any upper bounds out I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but I could see you engaging with what I was saying.
And I. I struggle with this one. I think this accomplishes a number of things Regardless of where the cap is set there's some degree of certainty and predictability that nonprofits get from having a matrix, which allows them to say whether it's a six month process or a nine month process. I replied, Here I know what tier i'm in. I know what my operating budget is. Here's the approximate amount. I would be considered for, which I think would be helpful to nonprofits and some degree of predictability would be helpful. I understand that the folks that DFMA ran a couple of scenarios to identify whether there would be a sort of big traditional losers or winners in this matrix process to see what the impacts would be. And I'm certain Mr. Bowman can chair
some of the results of those scenarios As I recall, there weren't big winners or losers in that process, in large part because of the hearing that allowed folks to get into the pools there A number of what would have historically been big winners and losers are actually in there, more contractual more. And so one of the benefits of separating that group out, both visually and process wise is to clarify that distinction. Sure. Yeah. I guess the look at just comparing our current budget to the tier list, not knowing what the respective budget stacks for these agencies look like, I can just looking only at the right most column, it does seem like I can count probably three. Not huge. But like 20% lose is better tier three are tier three.
Agencies feel like we actually fund our tier three agencies pretty well for tier three. And I wonder, does does the Boys and Girls Club have they come to really depend on 60 K from the board as a tier three agency, which would put them in a bad position I am uneasy with adopting what I think would be an effective funding cut at the levels that are offered here. I really like the idea and I do think it helps us. It will help us to do more actual focus on tier one, right? Like that should be the direction we're going and like looking at our current funding spread, I'm not I'm not always sure it feels like we're emphasizing tier one despite it being the highest emphasized. One of But I am curious, as if others would be amenable to having the frankly, just the figures in the right most column
reflect current maximum recipients in each tier Does that make sense I don't know quite what you mean I mean, every year, their staff and application is going to be different. So I don't want to make any guarantees, but sure, what page are you looking at? So I'm comparing the budget on its page 175 in the document, 172 as actually numbered on it. This is the id, the columns So just a quick poll in tier two, the Charlottesville Free Clinic gets over $100,000 from us every here. Yeah. So you're like enough time to pull this up. I think part of the reason we didn't include the full detail to was makes discussion about process rather than individual agencies. But to answer the board's question, the free clinic would be one of the ones who would be impacted They're currently funded at about $130,000. They are in tier two and a large operation
So that is the one exception. That's out there. A clarifier. Boys and girls Club would be in tier two as we look ahead next year and their total funding of 60,000 is would have them I should also clarify because some agencies have multiple programs we're looking at the spot program And so those programs may help those. But certainly for to shelter, which I mentioned earlier, has a tier one and a tier three. Yes reduce their tier three. But theoretically make it easier for them to seek funding under tier one. They freeing up other funding in the stack ? Correct. They would have a much greater chance and ceiling. In tier one that it would impact tier three. And so I think this is one where as we've run these scenarios, it's tough to design something that quite fits what we do So trying to fall back to the principles of what how are we set in something up to both create expectations
on the front end to community nonprofits give clarity in how staff work through this matrix to prepare this put the dollars, especially new dollars, to the highest priorities which it's on. That could mean some other lower priorities. Don't receive as much funding and to try and rightsize that funding, this is just like the others. This is an option to try and accomplish all those things. Recognizing this is a change in the board. Whatever direction. They have, staff is happy to receive needed direction. Ms. Mr. Bowman, I know you're trying to always be a neutral arbiter of facts, but I will say I feel slightly chasten by the way, you characterize that a moment ago when you said that we tried to present this without those agencies as named on here. So that next can be a discussion about policy rather than individual agencies. And I remembered my own personal like beat
that I pounded from this dais earlier this year during budget about process advice. Individual agencies apologize for that. No, it was well taken And I also, I think, take some comfort realize seeing in real time that I think there is a thought about reevaluating how individual agencies are being categorized with respect to the way this will shape funding decisions as it. Both are moving together rather than one moving. And then the other responds So I will note my concern but I'm still I think, supportive of this change. All right, Supervisor Missel. Yeah. Thanks. So when I was thinking about this kind of subject as a whole, I was thinking about for areas, accountability, objectivity,
transparency and predictability are one. And simplicity is the other. So what are we gaining in each of those categories? And so I think from the standpoint of the matrix, I think the accountability piece is this provides some measure of accountability and measurability. It's a long word I think, from an objective standpoint, it provides a fixed matrix approach. So it eliminates some subjectivity and does allow for transparency and predict ability. So that seems like it's helpful thing. And it also then I guess in a sense helps to simplify for both the board staff and more importantly probably the agencies I would echo the concern and probably want to understand better who is going to receive just by this simple process move,
who is going to receive measure, I mean, impact full or meaningful budget cuts because of this broad swath? And I would want to make sure that we're I guess, a couple of things that are aware of that and that we give the organizations enough lead time to understand what that's going to mean for them, but also potentially consider and maybe this is more complication than anything else. But just I don't know, this is a total thinking out loud here. Is there a way that we can help them sort of unwind their predicted funding based on the old system ramping up to this new funding process? Is there a timeline or a couple of years or something that we can give to help them transition out of what
might be a higher. Yeah, we had not considered that, but that could be an option for, let's say, for example, if the free clinic would have a reduction in the in the tier three C program, perhaps if there is an agency who would make a case to reprioritize funding from a lower priority to a higher priority, perhaps there's something perhaps staff could also recommend that we would phase that in over two years where this is the direction, we would recommend heading in, but recognizing we also don't want to disrupt the agency and that would be something the board could weigh either. This is really about with the board's direction of how staff works from now to the time of the recommended budget. But there could be options to mitigate some of those things. I support everything you just said. I think that's great. Yeah Thank you. The supervisor with Mr. Curley? Yeah. I like the options that you've just said.
I like the idea of the matrix. I like to transfer fancy, and I think once again, seeing how this works out for a year or two. But we're giving the id, the agencies enough time, leave time. So that they figure this out because I think we've agreed as a board that we're not their main funding source. Is that correct We should not be the main funding source of everything Yes, that is the intent. Right. So this way, it gives them additional time with a matrix. They can figure it out. And a lot of these organizations, I mean, they really do donations really come in and they really do get a lot of money. I'm not saying which ones but as much once again, as much preparation as we can give them ahead of time by letting them know what we're doing. I think that is helpful. I think they will then adjust And if there's something
that we then as a board need to adjust, then we can do that the following year. So I'm in favor supervisor, I'm out Well, I'm getting there, but as I've been listening, the other suggestion I would put on the consideration table for you all and perhaps we need to come back in a month and hash this some more The two things, the two agencies, which were mentioned, Lowe's and Fishers and Free Clinic both have had astonishing increases in their service demand due to the federal cuts. You clarify in this in this bill Loaves and Fishes is not impacted by a reduction in this. It would be the shelter help for an emergency. Their third or their priority in the third year for outreach services OK Well, anyway, all these agencies, which were mentioned in the assessment earlier
perhaps some of them should be put into the other process as we took care of Foothills and are this past year after those big discussions in order to focus the regular budget work that the Budget Office does on actually the Institute wins and allow the county to get on and do other things because they're there providing their services. For that we would be doing it ourselves. This other jurisdictions do so anyway. That's the only thing I had to offer here. As I said in my email earlier, without the sort of detail of even what is under in each of these columns, it's really hard for me to say this is a great change So well well, I'm prepared to support this one. I know that as it comes through the budget cycle next year, this is the one where in real time, we can make some judgments. As we work through the process.
I mean, if you come forward and give an agency like we just talked about we which one was the the main one that was significantly hit the free clinic, three clinics. So if we have an example like that. And we're it's in front of us during budget, we have the options to figure out what we could do, like you just recommended. Well, maybe we could phase. This in after a couple of years, but it doesn't change our budget decision. Then this matrix would still be like, oh, we don't know. This is going to have a $60,000 impact on this agency. We'd still have to go knocking on the door of a reserve fund or some other place in the budget to find that if we wanted to correct course. But at least it gives you the idea of knowing what the facts are for that agency after you go through the application process. So I'm prepared to support this one.
May i follow up on what you just said? So tell me why the free clinic based on that chart is having a cut Currently they are a class five and tier two is an important critical services. They are have a they have recurrently receive about 133 throughout $3,000. And based on the oversized the budget. They would be in the middle right there. And so that would be of the agencies that would be there would be an impact. And so based on the board's conversation all else being equal I think we would have to have a conversation with any agency who may be something, something changing. They just don't fit in the matrix. Well, how do we honor our process? But also give the board flexibility to address that ? OK. As a provider of medical care for thousands of people, I had no idea that they were considered right. So low. So that's my shock value here
is understanding this is not counseling or whatever. This is life and death stuff. So I will need to learn more about that. All right. And then item number, I think it's clear we had four clear yeses on that one And then the last item for item two. Yes, just be a simplified an application for those requested less than $25,000 or option two would be yes, remain in that where really everyone regardless of their ask, would have the more either robust or complex, depending on your point of view of application. Supervisor Prewitt in favor supervisor or Missel in favor. Supervisor let this look certainly in favor with a question. Yeah. If I may the agencies that provide that we provide funding for are or they all servicing let's say, for distribution of food and such
like that are they just I'm not making a judgment. But are they all servicing Albemarle County employee and Albemarle county residents? It is a requirement and the eligibility criteria that must be provided in substantial service to Albemarle County if they were not providing or we had doubt that they were providing service to Albemarle County, that would be a major factor in our funding recommendation. So if they do some funding or some assistance for another county that is good. We would also want to understand that localities approach and funding them Okay. All right Thank you. That's all. Supervisor Mallek. OK. Thank you I'm sorry. I'm having a brain off or the 25,000 or less.
So on the list. The only ones that I have seen. There are only two on here And so there was. What kind of about the same. My brain is right The process would be just as detailed as far as you getting the information to know if they're actually doing what they said they were going to do, even though it's $25,000, because lots of 25 add up to real money, as they say. Yeah, I would say that $25,000 is a maximum. And so it's one where we would certainly keep the core the requirements of, you know, the audit information on who their survey and some of the key metrics out there. But where possible would streamline that for the agencies and for also the just that staff trade off of not a doubt You're just trying to redirect some of that time to the larger funding requests we receive Well, I would be very much in favor of asking more questions and requiring some kind of verification
from the applicants, not putting more burden on staff to chase after them, but to make sure that you're getting the real information that is needed from them. That's their job if they want to have a grant And so I guess we'll see. I've be okay with this and we'll see how it goes All right. I think and I'm supportive, so we're good on that one. So now we need to move to the arts and you don't need a formal motion on those items. You're just consensus, as I would say, is an action item, you know, So you would like it would be. And I'll say this out loud and Mr. Eric, please correct this, but I think if the board would approve the attachment for Human Services directing staff to pursue for option A to sorry, I lost my train of thought here to do you know, realign.
The agency is based on staff's recommendation. Do not change the timing for program, not change the timing for these agency is in the process to implement the funding matrix and for the simplified application that would give the direction, we would need. Looking to Mr. Herrick if he would clarify anything? No. If that's the board's consensus I so moved on. Mr. Bowman So language. I think would be sufficient So thank you. Second. All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion ? All right. If the clerk will please call the roll. Mr. Gallaway. Yes please. So currently I miss Mallett. Yes, Mr. Missel. Hi, Mr. Pruitt. I okay. Arts cultural, and festival funding. This will be a shorter section than the last one.
So the first item is adjusting the program in funding. I won't rehash the discussion we had before, but I do want to go all the way back to one of the early slides where I spoke about this being maybe a pilot with potentially lower risk That is because currently, there's about $90,000 for agencies to apply for which is much, much less than the 1.8 million. And as you know, several board members shared that the seen a higher value in serving the direct human services needs and the human services funding process. Perhaps there is less risk in trying something new in the arts and cultural So if the board wanted to modify that timeline, we would take the approach of having a lump sum and following that in the budget or we can maintain the status quo for this one as well, and then we can learn from this
and how that may apply in the coming years. So just one slide each on the next three items. This idea is creating a funding formula for agencies is currently, if we receive as we do receive funding requests that are far above what's recommended for perspective. Last year we received, I think from about 350,000 or dollars and request $88,000 were approved, approved So this really seeks to create some clarity to agencies and what happens on the front end of the process. This is really where we would take a look at those agencies and prorate them equally. If full funding was not available. So if we received in this really simple example more than $20,000 of request, this is an example of how that could be divided up Sure. I received a question before the meeting of this.
Might this encourage agency is to inflate the request further. I can't speak for agencies but I would say already most agencies are requesting far beyond what the county is funding. And so this is one. But I think it also helps set that expectation within next one about kind of there's no funding matrix, but we have a funding cap, which goes to the next slide really for the same principle of at the start of the process at and expectations on applicants about what may be available Staff is proposed $5,000, but certainly that could be adjusted by the board Just for a perspective we have a range of agencies who were funded from $2,500 up to $12,500. So this would bring a the average at about $7,000. This would really be a change where perhaps instead of investing in a larger and a few agencies, there could be an investment in more agencies
but at a lower average amount for agencies. I don't know how that would play out until agencies requested, but currently, there is a pretty big. I mean, relatively big variance. And the relative size of these not profits. So this is more of a level set in how that would work then finally, in the arts and cultural review process we would have a simplified review for them as well. This is one because of the a lot of the quality of life and the other data we would really focus on who are eligible agencies and if they are eligible based on their service to the county meeting. The financial standards all of that staff would be in line to recommend really all eligible agencies recognizing there would be a funding gap And this would really lead to that approach of more and more cultural events and arts and recreational things being funded, though probably at smaller amounts,
a much broader investment at smaller amounts versus a more focused investment with a few agencies receiving more amounts. So that is the concept and I'll be happy to turn it over to the chair for direction on this process. All right. Supervisor Pruitt I think this all sounds very good. I also just looking at our budget, it feels like we're already taking this very structured kind of approach of we have about three size hours of awards. We'll give your agency based on how much you're doing And this just seems to add a additional level of transparency That cap seems to be the cap we already actually have, but just don't announce. So yes to all. Yes. The first points are the new recommendations Supervisor Missel. So we're not we're not talking about this is a pilot program in I think that the if you go back to the slide.
Well this will do it that the adjusting the program timing would be if you're supportive of that you would be okay with that recommendation It would be serve as a pilot with just the arts agencies to inform whether or not we wanted to switch to that. Perhaps next year with the Human Services Agency. I'm sorry, Chair. I think I collapse discussion of all four of the change, which I think is fine because I think we're able to do that with this one before. Yeah I agree. I think that's helpful actually claps. So I'll just speak to all of them kind of. One is. I think adjusting the program, timing, having that be a a test case is a good thing. I would support that The funding form is a good thing. The funding caps the one that's got me a little bit concerned You said maybe this is just I don't have
the experience in this supervisor Pruitt mentioned that we kind of already sort of informally say that we have a funding gap. How do you explain that a little bit more? So I would say currently, we distinguish, if you are a larger agency who can demonstrate economic development we're more than likely to fund you at a larger amount. Other agencies tend to be more in that ballpark Add that to that 2,500 to 5,000. I think this is one where you take an approach and say, really everyone's going to be treated equally in this process. And I would sure in the funding cap really what we could do in this is really recommend what that could be as part of how we arrived at that lump sum number in the budget. If that's something the board has to go do, thinking of the feedback of how did we arrive at that number to assist the board I think that would be helpful. And also understand in kind of where
we are today versus where we end up if we follow this funding cap Learning a little bit more about that during the budget process as part of you, to your point, establishing that Pi would be helpful, that makes sense in, I would add, been responsive to prior board comments. If there is maybe a two year phase in if someone's getting a reduction we could figure out ways to make this getting this intense but maybe not make it as impactful as ripping the Band-Aid Right. And the I'm fine with that as well. I do have one kind of associated question with all these maybe are we going to talk at all about the eligible criteria for grant programs or is that not something for us to discuss that was really intended with attachment? A The only change was the audit requirement but those are the criteria are out there.
If the board would like to revisit any of those. OK, We just haven't brought any of that up. I just was curious if that would seem so. I just have one comment on one of those criteria You have to share that. Yeah. So it's just this keep fund, keep fund fundraising, slash administration below 25% of program expenses. It seems like a high number to me. 25% seems like a big chunk of the budget for a program that I'm not a you know, I don't do fundraising. I don't do this. It just is something that I would suggest maybe taking a look at if the board's okay, we could take that as follow up and share what we find with the board Yeah. Thank you for bringing that up because I saw the same thing. And i was wondering if they're talking about fundraising and the people that fund raise and keeping that under 25%,
I guess or not more than 25%. I guess that's what they're referring to, right? The people who actually are doing fundraising they can pay them but not more than 25% of the funding and administration fund together. I totally think we should look at that, because if it's they're going out and looking, trying to get donations, funds and such, shouldn't be a money making situation for that entity. And it should be less. I think less than 25%. So I agree with looking into that. I also agree with what you said about making this maybe a two year kind of like a Faison type thing or just two year pilot program So I'm in favor. Supervisor Mallek thank you so it will not surprise anyone because I've been saying this for years.
Other counties around the country and other counties in Virginia do much more for arts and culture at all different levels than Albemarle does and they are the ones who see the community building benefits of this. So this is not incidental it's just as far as the impacts during covid and things that they are for money. That was put toward the arts and culture side sector in other places was astonishing and how they recovered. So much better is pretty astonishing to so I have perhaps more difficulty with this in some ways. I don't understand the whole funding formula business. So could you talk about that more because it seems i would say so I lost my spot this. This makes no sense to me. I just don't know what to do with this chart. Yeah. So I would say currently, if you were to look at agencies who are funded in the budget
and how are recommendations compare to the request, it's kind of a little over the place. It's tough to really draw something and how we arrived at that as well And so this is one that I think of not only together, but how that works with a funding cap. And the idea to award eligible programs how they may play together. And so that is the idea to kind of draw a nexus between and really just how much of folks request we are funding But again, we would not recommend more than what is requested from the agency. We currently do have an excess of request as it is, and if the board is also comfortable, the funding cap that also will sort of create another expectation that we provide to agencies on what they may receive. Or maybe it's the cap that is the biggest problem.
Then because one of the agencies we funded for 50 years or so has was funded at 16,000 up until 2009. And then the county wisdom was to cut it in half And this proposal. Now would cut it in half again at a time when costs are up and needs are up. And so that is that's where I come unglued as far as this cap, which seems to come out of nowhere perhaps to discuss if we are concerned about the amount of money we're spending, then we should not be spending county dollars of any sort when it's an international university funded deal administered film festival. And to say that they bring in more people to Albemarle County than a local musical organization does, there's no substantiation for that whatsoever. It's great for the city, but there's nothing
going on in the county. And so if it's county taxpayers putting money into it, I just this is another example of why I've been saying for years, we are funding live arts. I mean, we're not supposed to mention any names. There are city based arts agencies arts buildings, arts locations, which are being supported by county taxpayers that we are not other than looking good, it is not providing it's not doing. That could put a whole lot more money into funding through county agencies Streamlining is great because I know there are quite a few who just said I can't jump through all those hoops anymore, even though we're bringing 30,000 people into the county for a studio tour, we're just not going to bother. So our county, for example, is the only one of the region who doesn't support One of these efforts
because it's just too much visits. So I appreciate the effort to streamline but I just have really never problems with this sort of arbitrary thing. If we're going to give somebody another cut. But on this. So the part I was happy to support, it is adjusting the timing this year, but I have grave concerns about BMC So. All right. to your point, it may be that the ones that are the bigger things that we been funding in front of you are the ones that get the cut in. Some of the smaller ones that aren't would get some money based on what I understood, that understanding is correct. You know, right now, currently in the budget, the film festival or the festival, the book in the Theater Festival or the largest three who receive and they would likely on the funding permanently,
the ones that would get cut. Yes, they would Their funding would be reallocated in the spirit of trying to spread as many culturally spreading fund as many cultural agencies in the amount that is most likely what would happen. So in an interesting way, it actually would probably address your concerns. Well, not if all those other things are changed as well, because well, we are doing that. That's what he's saying, that we would be end up could be funding these other things. So that more agencies are receiving some of those county dollars. And the first place we would go with it is the access that would be capped to these other organizations. That money would get redistributed to the other agencies, except if they have caps of their own that are below their current budget, then they're screwed no matter what.
So well, or they're adhering to our policy that we're holding all organizations to, whether it's just being willy nilly because we're not right now. It's not they're not being held to that standard Equally, what's the new funding formula standard and the basis of the funding formula is not really their need or what they contribute to the community. It's a number came from somewhere. So I would I'm not sure if it's just staff. I just I still don't understand where this be is really useful. Well, I'm supportive of this one as well. So if there's, if you're not supportive, then we'll deal with whatever it accordingly. With that So at this point, Mr. Bowman, the motion in Mr. Herrick would be the motion would be to approve all the items as staff as recommended for our control festival funding,
as is listed on this slide. Yes. Clarifying the timelines would be adjusted. That is actually inconsistent with each SFP because the board said, do not change that this year. Oh right. Right Human services. And that would be a motion to approve attach and see with the changes. Just discussed here. This summer. All right. Is there a second. Is there any further discussion? I would just want to add the comments that you included, which was sort of the potential of looking at a two year ramp, helping us understand when we are provided with the total nut in the spring, how it affects each of these organizations
Yes, Thank you for clarifying that step. Will make that as part of our work as well. Great. Thank you. Any further discussion ? All right. The clerk will please call the roll. Mr. Gallaway. Yes. OK. So I Ms. Mallek. No, Mr. Missel, I Mr. Pruitt. All right. All right. Very good. The motion carries 4 to 1. And Andy, I would say the last one. Just for the sake. We do not have any changes to Attachment D, which is the capital. But just to have the board's buy in, I think it would maybe help staff to give clear direction that the board approves attachment D unless there are any further comments from the board, I would just It's been a really good, robust, deep conversation from the board. And I just really thank you all for your feedback and time in this OK.
So is there any other questions or comments for anybody on all of these items? All right, so we're good Thank you. Have what you need or did you need a motion on D? I believe the motion would be looking to Mr. Herrick that the board would approve attachment D as well. Correct. Just for the clarification, but nothing's changing in this one. Correct. So we need a motion to attach to approve attachment D seven second. All right. If without objection that the clerk, please call the roll. Mr. Gallaway Yes, sir. Curtly. I Ms. Mallek. Yes, Mr. Missel Right. Mr. Pruitt. All right. All right. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. A lot of complexity. Good job, Board. All right, We are ready for our closed meeting.
Yes. I move that the board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting for two into section 2.2-3711A of the code of Virginia under subsection 1 to discuss and consider appointments to various boards and commissions, including without limitation, the patent tops Community Advisory Committee the Public Defender's Office, Citizens Advisory Committee, the Region ten Community Services Board The Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee, and the Social Services Advisory board. And under subsection eight to consult with legal counsel regarding specific legal matters, including recent amendment to Virginia Code 58.1-605.1 and 58.1 dash 6 or 6.1 requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel Second, all right. The motion has been made and seconded with clerk Will please call the roll. Mr. Gallaway Yes.
OK. Ms. LaPisto-Kirtley. Ms. Mallek. Yes. Mr. Missel. All right. Mr. Pruitt I be in 241 All right. Good evening, everyone We are coming out of close session Do you have the motion to certify class? I do. I move that support of supervisors certified by recorded vote that to the best of each supervisor has knowledge. Only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed or considered in the closed meeting. Second. All right. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll Mr. Gallaway. Yes, Mr. LaPisto-Kirtley. Ms. Mallek Yes, Mr. Missel, I. Mr. Pruitt, I.
And are there any motions coming out of closed meeting? Yes. I do. I have a motion regarding vacancies and appointments. I'd like to move that. We assign the following to the following organizations. Pantops Community Advisory Committee Peter Hallock Region Ten Community Services Board, Barry Blumenthal and Lisa Hardy. Solid waste Alternative Advisory Committee Reed Chrobak. All right Without objection of the clerk, please call the roll. Mr. Gallaway. Yes sir. Currently, I Ms. Mallek. Yes, Mr. Missel. Hi, Mr. Pruitt. I All right Thank you. Board. That will take us to from the County Executive report on matters not listed on the agenda. Mr. County Executive Anything. Items this evening? I do, sir. Thank you very much. And as Logan gets this cued up for the July County
Executive report, I do want to recognize is Logan Bogart with the CAPE Division of Albemarle County. Logan is not someone who traditionally in her scope of work, comes to the board meetings. But Abbey Stumpf is away this week and great work coming out of CAPE is always and Logan's work leans more into public safety. So she supports our public safety departments. Is some of her regular routine And so therefore she's going to be operating out of Fifth Street more commonly But Logan, thank you for being here this evening. And supporting the work of for the July 4th event, July 4 event. And so Logan is cueing it up and board this month. I want to take a couple of minutes. Thank you. You Logan. We got we did some really good work last week through the emergency management Coordinators position
on Johnny Switzer. Johnny is not with us this evening. I don't believe. But he was before the board recently because Trevor Henry and a team of folks recruited for that position and we've moved our little closer into the county executive's office and the work is really going well so far There was a ton of heavy lifting last week, more than I anticipated and I'd like to take a couple of minutes. I know Johnny sent some good reporting out to the board in the last several days that you may or may not have had a chance to look through, but I'm going to highlight for the public some of the work that we did on preparedness and response for the July 4th holiday weekend and which also got complicated with some extreme heat conditions in some severe thunderstorms. OK That's our Office of Emergency management.
Align county wide you lot for planning, really focusing on an extreme heat warning for central Virginia heat indexes over the 4th of July holiday approached 112 degrees on the ground in that timeframe from Thursday through Saturday. Our Office of Emergency Management cross-reference the areas for slight a 4th of July in America to 50 events against current weather risk Our emergency management folks coordinated very closely with our partners with Charlottesville Police Charlottesville Emergency Management, UVA Emergency Management UVA Health. And I really appreciate UVA health. They really stepped up and did a great job supporting our events across the county and in the city. The Virginia Fusion Center, Scott Steele and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, all of this was in an effort to make sure
that we had the resources we need in this county in case we experienced some severity with the weather or with problems with our public being out in the heat and so forth. And board. I'll stop there just for a minute and say one more thing that often times when we've got the Mount of event load that we had last week to support, we're going to go and lean into the state and say, we may ask for some regional support that was not available last week during July 4, because all of our regional neighbors were hosting events and they were stretched. And so we knew we needed to look internally to the university, to the city, and we did lean in to the state for some coordinate But we also had a real strong cross-departmental team that worked through the weekend They gave status updates and made us aware of anything that we needed to be aware of.
OK. So One of the things that we did in Parks and Recreation really keeps their hand on the ports on this is we gave residents more ways to cool off. The county waived all the fees at Chris Green Mint Springs, Walnut Creek swimming areas from July 2nd through July 4, a total of 2593 swimmers visited the three lakes between the second, fourth, including 595 attendees at Mint Springs on the July 4th holiday. This was a slightly higher than normal turnout and again, I'm pleased that we were able to waive fees to give people an option that they might not otherwise consider. There was also an increase in public messaging that focused on safety tips and resources that you might have to access during extreme heat waves and our more county risk, our marquee fire and rescue implemented an internal heat illness tracking tool for staff
to monitor rising call volume throughout the holiday weekend. While call volume increased, most calls were not specifically dispatched as heat exhaustion or heat stroke. However, heat was a factor in most of the calls that we responded to. Residence were we highly encouraged to stay hydrated, take breaks in the air conditioning and check on older adults, neighbors outside animals as well as folks that did not have reliable access to cooling. This is an interesting slide County resources were aligned to support a dozen major community events, including the Monticello Naturalization ceremony County staff supported events at Boar's Head, Carters, Mountain Cismont Farm, Farmington and Glenmore, James Monroe's Highland, Keswick Hall, King Family Vineyard and Scottsville Parade and fireworks alongside the Monticello
ceremony. Our emergency management folks launched a virtual emergency operation center room to maximize cross communication with all stakeholders ahead of the July 4th activities. So our emergency management team worked closely with Fire Rescue and with our Albemarle County Police Department to provide in-person support at command post for Monticello and the King family event. The naturalization ceremony and the Scottsville parade resulted in multiple people being assessed for heat exhaustion. None required hospital transport Our fire marshals Office supported seven firework shows over the 4th of July weekend. Our Fire Marshal's office oversees every public and private aerial fireworks display countywide year round, just not on peak weekend is like the 4th of July. Before any display begins.
Fire marshals are required to inspect the setup, verify the credentials of the pyrotechnic technician that's on site enforcing safe viewing distances based on mortar size. And then they resolve any issues that arise on site. Our fire marshals stay engaged throughout the show tracking misfires during the display, searching for undetonated fireworks after to prevent flare ups. The storm when a heavy storm on that evening and it caused disruptions to many of the fireworks shows, including Scottsville rescheduling to another day. Storm delays at other locations like Carter's Mountain On Saturday afternoon, we tracked a fast moving severe storm that brought 70 mile an hour winds, heavy downpour to our area at 3:30, a weather system moving into the county.
Again, we experienced heavy downpours and high winds. The sort the storm generated a spike in increase for calls of service including several incidents of large trees falling into structures. One incident trapped a family inside their home, fire rescue crews safely rescued. All occupants are call volume and fire rescue doubled on July the fourth because of the factors that I've discussed. But I'm pleased to report that we were able to work through that and get through the evening Our emergency management activated our emergency operations center. And so what that does is it pulls together all of our people, as well as state officials into one location so that we physically can see each other as well as additional departments with the county that participated. Virtual our police department continued operations
throughout the weather event, assisting fire rescue with calls, communications and public engagement, including Logan's folks. They stayed engaged throughout, issuing multiple public alerts by 9 p.m., our EOC reported incident Stabilization and no pending calls for service. In addition to the storm related calls for service, 5500 residents lost power during the storm. The Mercy Operations Center, coordinated with utility providers VDOT for downtown. These human services reported no outstanding request for cooling or sheltering support from community members. Most of the outages were restored by the next morning and that's a concern board because as you know, it was extremely hot on the fourth and fifth for people who
lost power Our county's prepared this in response was a testament to months of planning, quick adjustments based on weather the severity of our weather and other related conditions and again, that's just some of our team members that was up at Monticello for the naturalized in ceremony that started at 5:30 on Thursday morning and went through the 1 to 2 p.m. timeframe. So I know my crews that I work with on a regular basis that were up there, they were quite, quite exhausted when they left that mean, I believe we had 4,000 people who were at that event, 74 people that were sworn in by the governor And as far as I know, everybody left safe and sound to board I believe that is it would take an opportune city to publicly thank our public safety departments as well as our key partner agencies that I've mentioned tonight. They are wonderful partners. Again, I will call out the University of Virginia
because they shared their resources handily with school centers, the spray stations. I know they were downtown on the downtown mall. And I know that our city manager had a lot of things going on with the city. And we're very pleased that our public in our community stayed safe during a really important time for our region. So, Mr. Chair, I'll turn it over to you. If the board has questions we'll be happy to try to answer those. I know that Mr. Henry was really involved before he stepped away on some of the pre planning, and so Trevor thank you for your work with all of the partner agencies and our public safety folks. Mr. All right. We'll see if there's comments or questions. Supervisor Brett I just want to say thank you for all the incredible work that our public safety teams have been doing over the 4th of July. I was out there the Scottsville parade as I have been,
I think every year since I've lived here Favorite, favorite event. Every year. And boy, outing. Those hell was rough. I have not had that much sweat in my eyes in a long time. And I spent a lot of time outside It was a deeply dangerous event, which I think is really testified by how many comparable events were canceled. So I'm very grateful for all our folks who were out there making sure that we did not have any more serious casualties. Well, there's video of you scurrying up the hill to make sure kids got candy. So I want to that hill looks so much steeper in person. When I saw the video, I was like, all this doesn't look impressive. I felt some type of way about it.
So. Supervisor Missel? Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for sure And then I just echo the gratitude, you know, being relatively new to this position, I'm constantly amazed at how much goes behind this and behind the scenes that we don't see that we take for granted every day. And so thank you Thank you, Mr. Henry, and for your teams and for everyone who's involved in these types of activities and keeping us safe supervised. All of us are currently. Well, I wasn't present, but I understand our public, sir service departments and everybody. Really. You went out of your way to make sure that our residents were all safe and taking care of. I can tell you, in other locations they do not have cooling centers and they do not take the preparations that you all did and making sure
that everyone's safe. So congrats Supervisor Mallek Thank you very much. I can personally attest to the actually positive feedback I've received upon canceling the early Seal parade to protect the actually volunteers who usually come out with all of their apparatus and heavy equipment and heavy clothing and everything else, plus all the old soldiers who bring out their antique vehicles and everything because it was just too high risk for us for a one mile walk down the road. But in the afternoon of fourth, I was asking family when the storm came over the mountain and it went from 0 to 50 degree wind and horizontal rain in about five minutes. So I was grateful to be sitting in my car when all that happened. But it was still tents were blowing off all over the place. And fortunately, it all passed over within about 45 minutes. And then everybody was able to get out and enjoy themselves.
But it was definitely risky And the pre-planning that's done both for all the agencies and the locations involved, when there were thousands of cars that seamlessly came in and selflessly went out and all the intersections were well lit. So I think the extra planning this required ahead of time by the county safety folks is really well done. Thank you very much. Yeah, I join and appreciation that's been mentioned and the especially the result of the emergency personnel that were involved on a on a heavy weekend because in the end, they're out in the heat themselves. So very appreciative of that. So thank you for the report. Mr. Richardson okay. We will move to item number 16 public comments on matters previously considered or are currently pending before the board. Other than scheduled for public hearings and vice chair Missel
will read us through the rules and then walk us through our speakers. Great. Thank you Chair during the portion during this portion of the meeting, individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board or currently pending before the board, other than the items scheduled for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one opportunity of up to three minutes per meeting in person. Speaker is will be heard first, followed by online participants coordinated by the clerk to ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers. The board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name. And if you live in Albemarle county or magisterial district comments should be directed to the board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk if representing a group
or organization and you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back and forth debate is not permitted. And speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. For in-person speakers the podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow begin means one minute remains and in red indicates your time has expired. If participating by zoom please remain muted until you are called to speak, you will be verbally notified of when time has expired and microphones will be muted shortly thereafter All comments are recorded live, streamed and published on the county website The sign up period is closed. One to public comment begins Podium is adjustable. Speakers are encouraged to raise it or lower it. So they are able to speak directly into the microphone Yeah, that will begin
with Doug Earle and Bart Tau on deck. Doug Earle from Scottsville district. I'm here to urge the board to pass ranked choice voting this fall Ranked choice voting can only be adopted in even numbered years because the intervening years have elections and the registrar cannot implement right choice. Voting in an election year doesn't have the time to do it. So it's very simple. The default choice voting is not adopted. This fall. It'll wait until 2028 when the board considered RACV in 2024. Two years ago, the electoral board was opposed on ideological grounds. Many of you remember that this is not true today the electoral board has new members who now support RCV. Also, this past spring Governor Spanberger
signed into law new legislation that made important tactical changes to RCV be easier to implement and use. It expanded RCV to towns like Scottsville and it made RC the permanent in the Commonwealth The bills that she signed were sponsored by legislators from Albemarle County namely Creigh Deeds and Katrina Colson and those two did so presumably because they believed that RC was supported by voters in Albemarle and that it was the right thing to do. RC v has shown time and time again to increase the number and diversity of candidates willing to compete for office It encourages more civility and constructive dialogue during elections. It reduces strategic voting by the voters and elects candidates with deeper and broader voter support. It's the right thing to do to reduce
the political polarization that we see today. For these reasons, I urge you to put RCD on your foliage. And if not, it cannot be considered again until 2028. Thank you Thank you. You, Bart Tau and Sarah Eck is on deck Good evening, Chair, members and Albemarle County Board of Supervisor. My name is Bart Tau and I live in Scottsville and urge you tonight to adapt a resolution of intent to direct staff to promptly draft an ordinance regulating intensive, confined animal operations include OK, folks in Albemarle County, our county has worked hard to protect its streams, rivers, groundwater and drinking water. Those protections should not be undermined by industrial scale animal operations that generate enormous quantities of untreated manure and other operational waste. Research has shown that these operations
can continue to nutrition pollution pathogen contamination. I'm from air emissions and increased risk of public health and waste enters our waterways or surrounding communities. Unlike traditional family farming, these industry operations concentrate thousands of animals in one location. The volume of you year produced can exceed what surrounding land can safely absorb, especially during heavy rains. Increased risk of runoff into streams and groundwater Your own planning efforts recognize the importance of protect our national resources. And this is a logical next step. This is not about opposing agriculture. I'm the farmer myself It's about recognizing
that industrial scale confined animal operations are fundamentally different from traditional farming and require regulations that reflect the scale and a pretense. The impact on public health water quality and neighborhood for property owners Many neighboring counties have regulators and regulators in place already. I respectfully, respectfully ask you to act now by adopting a resolution of intent to move, expedite OSHA's lead toward an ordinance to protect the health, safety, welfare and water resources of all member county before these facilities are proposed and after the damage has been done. Thank you. you for your time, your leadership, and your commitment to protecting the citizens of Albemarle County. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the hand raises to Sarah and Dierdra Casey Karrigan is on deck Kerrigan's. Hi. My name is Sarah. I'm a fairly new resident of the Scottsville District I'm here to ask the board a supervisors to initiate and pass a resolution of intent to create a county ordinance for intensive, confined animal operations under your leadership. Albemarle county is a highly desirable county within the Commonwealth to live and enjoy a unique mix of urban and rural lifestyle moves. We ask you to continue due that proactive leadership to develop an ordinance to protect our health water supply, property values and lifestyles in light of a changing role. Agricultural landscape We know from the multi-year Yale study on the negative health impacts of intensive, confined animal operation zones, which
include increase to cancer incidence and water pollutions drinking water contamination and spread of cathodes. Such as E coli and salmonella into private wells. This is not conjecture It is the documents study from a highly respected university that we cannot overlook to our knowledge. There are 52 counties within the Commonwealth that have developed an ordinance around this issue. This is not an isolated need for Albemarle, but one that has been broadly recognized across the Commonwealth. We recognize the state right to Farm Act and the Delaware Rule, which imposed certain restrictions on what the county can do. But what we can do, however similar to the other 52 reference to counties is develop setbacks, buffer zones and agriculture rule practices that thoughtfully
and proactively cite such operations within the unique context of our county. I've mentioned the health implications, but we also acknowledge that agritourism industry based within our county. We must protect this vital industry for current and future business owners. Under your leadership, you've created an impressed, comprehensive plan for the county This issue fits squarely within several of the top listed priorities So to summarize, we acknowledge the detrimental impact of confined animal operations to public health. What water supply? Natural resources Agritourism. Property Values. And our rural lifestyle That which makes Alabama also desirable. We can coexist but we must do it proactively and thoughtfully.
I respectfully ask the board to pass a resolution of intent, to work to thoughtfully site any such confined animal, operate within our county. That will protect the health, safety, and welfare of your constituents. Thank you. You. Thank you. Thank you, Deirdre Casey Kerrigan, And Tim Schmidt is on deck Good evening, everyone I'm Deirdre Casey Kerrigan. I'm an Albemarle resident and also I'm at Scottsville District I'm actually in the town of Scottsville. And vice chair of the Planning Commission. I'm also a physician and a professor at the University of Virginia. And I speak to you as at I guess I respectfully ask the board to take two actions.
First, pass a resolution of intent to draft an ordinance, regulate eating intensive, confined animal operations, or CAFOs in Albemarle County. Second, move quickly to adopt that ordinance to protect our water supply and the health, safety, and welfare of our residents. The scientific evidence on the health impact of CFOs has grown substantial daily over the past decade. They emit a complex mixture of harmful pollutants, including ammonia, hydrogen sulfide particulate matter viruses and aerosols containing endo toxins. These pollutants have been linked to respiratory disease, cardiac vascular disease, inflammation, oxidative stress, immune dysfunction and poor and cancer. For example, hydrogen sulfide causes DNA damage
while fine particulate matter triggers stomach inflamed ocean capers. Also threaten our water. Large volumes of animal waste contaminate groundwater with nitrates and antibiotic resistant bacteria such as MRSA Nitrate contaminated drinking water has been associated with an increased risk of colorectal and gastric cancer. This is especially concerning in rural communities like ours, where many of us depend on private wells. Nutrient runoff also fuels harmful algal blooms that release potent neurotoxins into our pons and in our streams that can kill fish and humans alike. The evidence continues to amount. A 2024 meta analysis of 76 studies found that people living near CAFO's face higher risks of asthma. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, otherwise known
as COPD and gallons of water, need it each year for this one. Of course, on this property there were two. As far as the fishes the one tenth of a pound was. With 26,000 birds, it comes out to £950,000 of fishes or a 470 tons of fishes that have to be got rid of every year for just one for what happened to us. A neighbor decided to build two keepers on the adjacent property. No notification to us. No notification to anyone that we know of. No restrictions because Albemarle County has no restrictions or ordinance is involved in people's what we're asking for is no For basically a more orient one. Any other capable of being brought in until some ordinance can ordinances can be drafted because they may have noticed on the news that the poultry association is now advertising
the benefit of keepers for the area supported by the Poultry Cooperative. We are asking to, again, have a moratorium basically on any other growth, any other development of CFO's and coming up with ordinances that fit the needs of the farming community and of the residents of the county. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Adelaide O'Brien and Paula Beazley is on deck Good evening. I'm Adelaide O'Brien. I owe the my sense. Thank you. I'm Adelaide O'Brien. I live in Scottsville. Please pass a resolution of intent tonight to create an ordinance that protects our community from the environmental impact of intensive, confined animal operations.
A study published this April that Dr. Kerrigan just cited found that people living there high concentrations of intensive, confined animal operations in Texas and in Iowa, face 8% higher. Overall cancer rates. And in California, counties had a 4% higher cancer rate versus areas with fewer are known in terms of animal operations. These operations rabies has spread its pollutants into the air and water, including ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter and nitrogen. Having the law also associated with sanitary conditions that can lead to cancer as well as contaminate groundwater, because it's costly to transport animal waste, it's using applied close to the source. And this concentration can reach into creeks, ponds, streams
and wells. The Sierra Club indicates that the malaria of a single case can, quote, rise in the amount of waste produced by an entire population of some cities unquote. And unlike in sewage animal living, it does not require treatment to reduced disease, causing pathogens The Virginia Right to form Act does not provide protections against environmental negligence or water contamination While Albemarle has no ordinances in place to protect us. 52 local cities in Virginia currently have ordinances such as groundwater quality setbacks and minimum acreage zoning permits and stream setbacks from land application of animal waste. We deserve a better community The more dangerous coli and pollutants reach into our groundwater
for our wells, our streams and ponds and eventually into the James River. A respectfully request you to please pass a resolution of intent tonight to create an ordinance that protects our community from the environmental impact of intensive combined animal operations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Paula Beazley and Charles Randleman is on deck Good afternoon or evening. My name is Paula Beasley. Albemarle and Samuel Miller, resident on behalf of several other mom, myself and my husband Jerome Beasley, I am requesting you immediately pass a resolution of intent, then expeditiously, enact an ordinance to regulate intensive confined animal operations also known
as oppose keepers or basically animal factories. Chemicals produce more than double the amount of waste generated by the entire US population. How county will serve as a waste dumping ground out of state corporations will try to supply then let them grow fat, consuming our water and electricity The runoff from leaching and terminating our service ground water supply streams and rivers polluting our air, emitting hazardous waste worsening climate change, contaminating our soils, then ship them out of state or out of country along with any profits they pay for and manner. The damage. We are left with the poisons, pollutants, algae blooms respiratory irritants and diseases, asthma, lies, our headaches, cancer, antibiotic resistance, airborne pathogens and toxins, heavy metals pandemic potential.
The county is left with reduced taxes from declining property values and declining economic drivers Declining quality of life and increased health costs for residents. Albemarle county has been fortunate to have good farming, employing people providing income, supplying nearby Fresh Buy local program, coexisting, enhancing and being synergistic with our enormous tourism viticulture equine agriculture, which are our economic drivers We have one case. All we know of with the possibility of several puppies in overnight and many to follow. You cannot wait until water supplies and soil contaminated. This impacts all of us. Any piece of land worth 20 acres. This can happen on. But the impacts are all across the county. All of us suffer and it will be taxpayer dollars
and we'll have to try to clean up the mess. The 52 counties have than they've been in place for a long time And many of them have more times We need to regulate the public and the public Health safety. Weschler and the Environment will have none. So we're sitting ducks for those operators from the jurisdictions and environmental damage that they have incurred elsewhere. It is imperative you act before the damage is done. Resident lives are endangered and taxpayer dollars wasted, including damage that can be avoided. We have no important prior cities and clean and more profitable businesses. Thank you for your careful consideration and attention. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Charles Rendleman and Phil Riese is on deck
My name is Charles Rendleman and I'm a resident of Scottsville. I grew up in Williamsburg and my wife grew up in Arlington We've been residents of Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia for nearly all of our lives. We've tried to leave twice and have been drawn back by this wonderful, wonderful community and culture I'm here tonight to pleadingly urge you to pass a resolution of intent to pass an ordinance regulating confined animal operations. I don't have that oratorical. I thank talent or skill of all of the people I think who have spoken before me and wish that I could summarize all that they have said because of it signify concerned importance I have strong concerns about the public health safety, welfare,
environmental and other detriments of waste, which are produced by confined animal operation. Since we are facing contaminated water supply, which includes surface and groundwater from waste the emission of air pollution and increased climate change, we are facing containment gated soil and multiple health impacts, which have articulately been described by prior speakers. We also facing the degradation and damage economically of our farming tourism, fish to culture, equine historical structures and museums we're facing the degradation quality of life, property values and decreased tax base and a cost to our community regarding economic benefits to out of state. And you know what?
Forget it. Sorry. As I said, not in order It is intimidating for me to be here to say the least. But I think that I was advised by my wife, who was a fan of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said that speak even though your voice is shaking And so I'm here, you know, out of my pastoral and quiet solitude again to urge you to pass a resolution of intent, to pass an ordinance regulating confined animal operate actions. Thank you all very much for your attention and time and take it easy Thank you, Phil Reese and Shaun Cossette said thank you triggered way members of the board. My name is Phil Reese I'm a parent of three students. How meet elementary school? I'm doing everything in my power as a hanging parent to make sure that your rigid sexual abuse that took place
at my kid's school never happens again in our schools. Tonight, I'm asking you to do everything in your power I'm calling on you tonight to pass a resolution recommending to the school board that they commission a fully independent Third party investigation into how our school division response added to the alleged sexual abuse of children at home. Appreciate it. You know the facts A staff member at my children's school faces 11 felony counts of sexual abuse involving at least four children and police have said that more victims may exist. This alleged abuse occurred over at least two years on school grounds during the school day. Parents have said publicly that their concerns about the suspect were downplayed by school leadership. The school board itself has said it was kept in the dark about the criminal investigation for five
months to CPS leaders have now resigned but a resignation is not an investigation. It's now been 40 days since a suspect has been arrested and the school board still has not initiated an independent investigate. The families of Harmeet still do not know who knew what when they knew it and why warning signs allegedly went unheeded Only an independent investigator with no ties to the division can credibly answer that Now, some of you may be thinking this issue belongs to the school board. And I agree with you. The ultimate decision is theirs to make but you appropriate every dollar our schools spend and you are each elected as leaders of this community A resolution from this board carries more weight that no individual parents boys can match. If you pass this resolution, I believe the school,
the school board will follow your recommendation If you stay silent, you will have told every parent in this county that the sexual abuse of children in our schools is somebody else's problem These were elementary school children. Some of them sat in the same classrooms. My kids sat in. The children deserved to be protected and their families now deserve the full truth about why they weren't the people of this county are watching you. Well, you do the right thing Whatever you say, it's not your problem If you do nothing and say nothing. Your silence would be deafening I ask you to pass a resolution on this tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Sean.
Hi Sorry to hear that about. Holy me. That's very sad And my name is Shaun Cosette.