Good afternoon, everyone, on my call to order the Board of Supervisors, Wednesday, 02/25/2026, 12PM meeting here in Room 241. We have with us today, supervisor Sally Duncan of the Jack Jewett District, supervisor V. LaPisa Pertle of the Ramana District, supervisor Fred Missle of the Samuel Miller District, supervisor Mike Schroett of the Scottsville District, supervisor Anne Malek is on the way. She was getting all the red lights, as she was coming here. So she she will be joining us,
as soon as she arrives. Also with us are deputy county executive, mister Jeff Richardson, deputy county executive, mister Trevor Henry, deputy county executive, Anne Wall, chief financial ops officer, Jake Suttner. We have a whole slew of staff and folks with us from, to be in support of what we are meeting for today. Our board clerk, miss Claudette Vargason, is with us as well. A couple of ground rules that somebody's gonna have to give up their chair for the school board chair, please. Welcome to the school board chair. Thank you for and I see other elected school board members here as well and
our superintendent, Doctor. Hass. So thank you all for joining. A couple of ground rules real quick. Room 241 is notorious in terms of sound capability as it goes out into the world in public. So I'd like to remind everyone as you're speaking today that although we seem to be in a closer, more intimate setting that you need to use your presentation voice, because the mics are in the ceiling. So talking down and without some, enunciation and volume is going to not translate out into the world, and there are folks that are listening both here in Lane Auditorium that are online
as well. So I just ask that you do direct your voices, at least up to the ceiling and project, please. And we'll call you out as if needed if we feel like you're getting there. So don't take offense if I give you the a adjust your voice, please. But with that, we're here today to do I mean, we've kicked us feels like we kicked off budget season ten years ago, but today's the official presentation, where the board receives the county executive's budget, and it officially gets handed over to the board for our consideration. And we will begin our
budget work sessions, public hearings, etcetera, that will eventually lead us to taking a final vote on the budget. So with that, Miska County Executive, good afternoon, and I'll turn things over to you. Thank you, mister chair. I think we referred to it feels like we work on the budget year round is because to some degree we do serve, and we're gonna talk about that today in the presentation of some of the work that we have done to get to where we are today. So thank you very much for the introduction, and, Ward, thank you. Thank you very much for your hard work that you put into this job every
day, not just during the budget season, but fifty two weeks during the year. Our staff considers it a partnership with each and every one of you. You have your role. We have ours. Today is the official start of this budget process. We'll recommend it today, and then we've got a series of work sessions where we look really forward to digging in with the board in our community, answering questions, recognizing that the board has a a lot of work ahead. I'll take a second to thank our staff, the county staff, led by Jacob Sumner, our chief finance officer. We have an amazing budget team, an amazing group of people that have worked diligently and very hard to get us
to where we are today, as well as our departments to work collaboratively and cooperatively back through the budget process is a give and take process, and I couldn't be more proud of the team that we work with every day. And finally, I'm gonna take a second to recognize Nat Haas, our superintendent of county schools, because it's not just about county government today. It is about our most valued partner, Almore County Public Schools. Superintendent Haas, texted me this morning early, probably either before or right after his swim, and he said,
good luck today. I hope it goes well. And And one thing I can tell you is that he meant it. He means it every day. There's stress in our budget, in our work with schools. Some of that's designed by the framework in Virginia of how we work together. But behind the scenes, our staffs work really hard to help each other, and do what we can to help each other every day. So, Matt, thank you and thank you to your team for your hard work. Alright, board. Let's go. So we're gonna jump into this. Hey, Lord. I'm gonna warn you before we get started. We went back and looked at the last few years,
and Abby Stump, our community and public engagement director, reminded me that we had about 45 slides last year and the year before. Well, today, I'd like to tell you that we've cut this presentation down to 44 slides. We're working to be more streamlined and more efficient. As I time the the, the presentation out, it usually goes about forty five minutes, and that's without me thanking Matt Haas for his contribution. So today, here we go. We're gonna talk today. Here's our agenda. We're gonna cover for a few minutes how we approach budget development,
the trends and drivers that we're seeing in the local economy, and the impacts that it has on our budget. This board knows that we start those discussions each fall, every year bringing in doctor Cheryl Cheryl Bailey from Virginia Tech, and then that sort of tees up the work we have going through December and in the budget process. We'll spend much of the time today on key investments with our recommended budget for next year, and then we'll, before we wrap up today, we'll give you our next steps. Mister chair, we'll turn it back over to you. And if you've got questions today, we will do our best to answer those questions,
and then, we'll wrap up. The community gauges our county government and how we do our work really in three ways, through three lenses. The first of which is economic vibrancy, the second of which is service delivery, and the third is quality of life. When we talk about economic vibrancy and how our public may think of us, it really has to do with the health and strength of our local economy. What that means to every community member is probably different. But, again, they think of our local government as a connection to our community related to what are you doing to help with economic vibrancy.
Second, and maybe most clearly, is service delivery. That has to do with the responses that our staff, our people do every day to our community members who need our assistance. It has to do with our training, our development, the quality hiring that we make, hanging on to good people that do good work, our policies, our response times, our systems investment, all of this matters whenever we talk about responding to our community and their needs. And finally, quality of life. And quality of life really is the subjective term that everybody in this room we
could take a minute and go, what does quality of life in Albemarle County mean to you? And we would get different answers in the room. It it matters to everyone what they say matters, but there are different answers. And that's some of the challenges that we face in Albemarle County every day, addressing quality of life concerns in our community. So the county has put strategies and policies that are in place to guide where and how our decisions are made And it's in an effort so that we can align our discretionary resources with the biggest opportunities and the biggest problems knowing board,
and you get tired of me saying this, that we will run out of money before we run out of opportunities and problems every year that our community expects us to face. These three documents go a long ways in framing how Albemarle County does its work. To the far right, AC 44 is our twenty year comp plan. It was updated this year, and thank you board for your work in getting that across the goal line. The AC 44, what I will say about it is that the growth management policy is the foundation
of AC 44, serving as a basic framework for the entire plan. The emphasis is on focused growth in the in the county's development areas while protecting the national the natural environment and the character of the rural area. It's a balance. Or you you feel this every two weeks when you have your board meetings that there's a balance and a stress between vibrant development areas, a vibrant economy, and protecting the rural character of our county. To the far left is our economic development strategic plan also updated this past year.
And our economic development strategic plan really helps to define what does good economic development look like in Albemarle County in 2026? It has to do with the county's, efforts to energize the local and regional landscape and the local and regional economy and diversify our tax base, And you'll hear more about that in just a few minutes. And finally, in the middle of these two documents is the board, Board of Supervisors and staff five year strategic plan. And I'll talk just more just a little bit about that,
but that really goes into the board every five years sitting down and saying, what are the things with the money that we have that we need to address now or at least over the next two to five years? Our strategic plan has six strategic goals, and I believe that what we've got in place is a strategic plan that the five year document. We're we're a little over halfway through that doc document, and, let's talk about the strategic plan and how it embodies our board's direction. It's our job to focus on all six strategic areas.
These goals do help to identify what our biggest opportunity areas are. And no matter how much money we have, it's never gonna be enough to adequately move the needle in all six areas. And therein lies the multi year budgeting budgeting process that we do, trying to do the most we can with what we have. The three goals that are the cost drivers, are safety, education, and workforce and customer service. Those are the three that if we look at where our resources are allocated, where we see the most resources currently.
And I'll take a second and tell the board that we're in year three of providing a spear report. That's the strategic plan execution analysis and reporting. So you just received last fall the second annual spear report, two full years under our belt and into year three. Well, what has that gotten us? It's got us improved accountability, better decision making, increased transparency, and improved community outcomes. We measure, our efforts. We measure the resources because you cannot manage what you do not measure, And that's what we are a part of,
continuous improvement. It's not just about our strategic plan and the documents I've talked about. It's also about the board maintaining a set of financial policies and adhering to those policies. Adhering to the policies has allowed Albemarle County to to maintain a triple triple a bond rating, and that allows us to be good steward good stewards of taxpayer funds. Ultimately, this means that we save money and can do more with the money that we have over time. It's also about a commitment to performance improvement and cost savings.
It's not just about the SPEAR report. It's also about investments in our in process optimization and systems modernization, investing in technology to advance government efficiency and customer service. It's also about staffing and efficiency studies. We have done several of these across the departments over the past several years with a focus on effective resource deployment. We want the the level of staffing in the departments that we need to be able to respond to the service demand across county government.
Are we perfect and are we, adequately resourced across all of the departments? We are not. But we are moving in a direction to where I think we're improving every single year. Finally, position reengineering. The county has implemented a more strategic approach to staffing and vacancy management. County government overall in this budget has three fewer positions than we did in f y twenty six. I'm reminded of several years ago where chairman Galloway in a meeting looked at the staff and said, I see the business optimization improvement in investments across county government.
When are we gonna begin to see some efficiencies and return on that investment? We're seeing it now. We're seeing it now with a rising level of service demand and at the same time going through our budget and strategically putting more positions in public safety, but having fewer positions across the rest of county government. As we set out to develop a balanced budget, there are multiple considerations that we take into account. Balancing the strategic plan goals and financial considerations are at the heart of the budget planning process. This is a slide board that you see every fall.
Today's budget recommendation is built upon the discussion and guidance received by the board starting with the strategic plan development process and then going into the five year financial plan, which happens every fall. In August, as I mentioned earlier, you receive the spear report. That's a that's a report on how are we performing. It's not just the good areas that we do really well in that our data says that we're doing really well, but it also, highlights the areas that we've gotta be better in. And it could be more resources. It could be better training. It could be any of a number of things,
but we do that every year. In October '25, the board received a presentation on the economic outlook by doctor Bailey. In November '25, the board discussed its five year financial plan. In this and also in November '25, we got an update on our financial policies. And finally, in December, that's the joint, supervisor school board meeting to discuss school capital needs. We've been working on a slide that basically tries to answer one of the most common questions that we get every year during the budget process.
Where does this money go? This graph shows in f y twenty seven an allocation of every dollar that Albemarle County government receives. It's not just local revenue, but it's all the revenues coming in. I'll quickly just hit a couple of those and that is over half of the money, 52%, goes to education. This includes the local transfer to schools operating budget as well as planned projects in the capital improvement program and also the service of our existing debt. The next largest category is public safety, which receives 14¢ of every dollar.
This includes funding for our police, our fire, EMS services, as well as support of all county volunteer fire stations. In fiscal year twenty seven, community development included CIP investments for the build out of Boulders Road out at Ravana Station, and that has moved this investment to 11¢. Within operations at 10¢, you'll find county operations covered, and it also includes investments in the Climate Action Fund. And finally, health and welfare includes the growth of our affordable housing fund.
This budget is balanced on real estate tax rate of 89.4¢ per 100 assessed value. There are no recommended changes to the tax rates from what we adopted in the f y twenty six budget. Navigating the '20, well, let me stop just for a second. Balancing the '27, recommended budget without recommending a tax rate increase or a significant reduction in local government services has been very challenging for this local government staff. I told this board last year when I recommended the 4¢ tax rate increase primarily
to go to public safety with some money carved out for affordable housing and maintaining, adequate funding for schools, I said, I will try really hard in the next year not to come back for a second year in a row even though our obligations continue to mount. I do not want to come back a second year in a row and recommend the tax rate increase. It requires multiyear planning with an eye on the coming year's obligations, positioning the county for future success while creating financial options in the event that our economy worsens.
So navigating the 2728 period, what I have recommended is, that we look at, continuing to undergo departmental studies, making, decisions on how we look in f y twenty eight. So what that means is is that we're not just looking at balancing strategies for f y twenty seven. We really are doing multiyear budgeting maybe like no year before because we're also examining f y twenty eight obligations, and we're really looking at how this strategy sets us up to balance f y twenty eight.
Let's take a look at what I'm referring to. What are examples of this? Look back. This is multiyear obligations going back to fiscal year '24, 2526, and, of course, we're gonna talk about '27. In f y twenty four, we experienced a significant increase in revenue. We purposely set aside 4,900,000 for the f y twenty five obligations, meaning that this money was held in reserve. It was put into capital for capital expenses, which are one time for that year, but then we turned around and had it ready to go to operations in f
y twenty five in partnership with our county schools, knowing that in f y twenty five, we had obligations coming on. We looked at our potential for how much we were gonna grow, and we were concerned that we not plow every piece of revenue into ongoing operations. Or do you know that once you put it in operations, it's hard to take it back out without service reductions and the potential loss losses. And so that was our strategy. Frankly, in hindsight, I don't believe it was enough because I remember the pain we went through in balancing 25,
and I told the budget team I was really proud of the fact that we did 4,900,000.0. In hindsight, I wish we could have got 7 or $8,000,000 in the reserve in the reserve preparing for '25 and '26. I think it's been that demanding. Again, look at something that's similar but different in in fiscal year '26. After several tough budget years with our local government schools combined health fund, we knew that we would need to move one time money, an infusion of money, into the, shared health care fund, in order to do two things,
replenish replenish fund balance and also lessen the premium increase to both local government and schools' employees. So, again, what local government did in '26 was we moved, $9,000,000 over into the health care fund, 2.3, as I recall, for, local government and 7.7 for schools in order to soften the blow with a health care fund that was just not performing well. I've got good news. It's stabilized since that time, and, it's due to a lot of effort from both schools and local government staff.
And, board, the final thing I'd caveat with that is that when we see things happening, and this was over several years, when a school's budget is set up, they usually will not carry reserves that would be adequate to be able to take such a hit as we did last year in f y twenty six. It just suggests that local government must plan for uncertainties, and in doing so, we need to pay attention to our capital reserves and our non committed reserve money for for situations that come up. Here's some specific obligations that we will pick up in f y twenty seven as
other planned expenses will require local funding. Examples of operating costs associated with two new schools. So Matt and his team were gonna open two new schools next year and, they need the operating costs associated with that. We're also picking up the costs associated with the expiring FEMA SAFER grants, And so we're also gonna do that. Key partner agency agreements, Charlottesville Albemarle SPCA, the ECC, the Charlottesville Albemarle Transit, and Ravenna Solid Waste Authority. These are all key partner agencies that we work with,
and they've got escalating calls. Changes at the federal level continue to shift revenues, particularly for some of our partner agencies. The fiscal year twenty seven budget includes increased funding for some of our partner agencies to make up for lost federal money and maintain services to our community. So, board, I want to take a minute and rewind back to November 24. I showed you slides looking at multiyear obligations. This is a slide that our two new board members would not necessarily have seen on the board. They may have been in the audience or been participating,
but one year ago in November 24, we showed you during our five year financial planning work that we had an an an increasingly concerning gap, in fiscal year twenty six through fiscal year thirty. Look at fiscal year twenty six for a minute. We talked about this in November 2024 that we had a 3.1% gap. We were not able to close that gap during the budget process. We had talked for several years, board, that we knew that as we went to our third and fourth FEMA safer grant,
that we were taking three years of federal money. We were hiring firefighters. Those grants fade, and they expect local government to pick up the cost. And by the time we got to fiscal year twenty six, we were seeing some of that, and that that really was what anchored the 4¢ tax rate increase recommendation. So you can see though that grows out through fiscal year 30 to 9%. And so our team was concerned and that's both schools and local government. We were looking at at out year obligations and out year revenue and we were
concerned as to how we were gonna continue to meet obligations and maintain service, adequate service delivery to our, community. This is November 2025. In November 2025, the board had a work session on five year financial plan. This slide was included in the work session. The data on this slide represents that what we've been talking about. That over the next five years as we continue to see obligation growing, what changes is that the revenue picture looks different than it did in the last
iteration one year prior, and it's due to two factors. Number one, the board agreed to increase the tax rate in fiscal twenty six by 4¢. So that has out year, complications related to revenue. Number two is the board's goal to diversify the tax base. And when we look out into fiscal year twenty nine, thirty, and thirty one with some of the work that our economic development team has been doing with this board support, you can begin to see that there's a that there is a brighter picture with
our revenue growth as we look into fiscal year twenty nine and beyond. Let's dig for a second and look at more closely what does that look like. The county county recently undertook a study to understand how different classes of property drive the services that we deliver. In board, we found that for every dollar that we get from residential taxpayers, for every dollar we get, it costs a dollar for each one to serve. As it relates to commercial and industry, for every dollar that we receive in tax revenue it costs 32¢ to serve and
so there's where you see a revenue a positive revenue source that can help to pay for all the services that we provide. And finally, agricultural, which is at 15.1, percent respectfully. It costs 54¢ for every dollar received. I want to focus, though, if I can, on the 11.3 because this board and staff have had some very direct conversations about our need to diversify our tax base. What does that look like? Well, look back at 2015. In 2015,
and this board has talked about it, we had a commercial and industry tax base that was around 15%. As we look at 2025, it has it has, shrunk to 11.3%. And this board has said openly to me. We've talked about it when we put together our economic development strategic plan. We've got to grow the commercial and industrial tax base. We've got to get more capital investment because that's where we get our positive revenue and that's when we can turn around with that positive revenue and address more opportunities
and more problems across all of our strategic goals. And that's what we intend to do. Specific to the 11.3%, we continue to work to strengthen this tax base, specifically commercial and industry. Examples of this in the last year include, getting Home Depot as the anchor tenant at the Fashion Square Mall. We hope that's going to be a catalyst in turning around that tax base that is at the mall. We've talked specifically about that. It also includes supporting our existing industry and being able to support and be responsive
to them as they position to grow. A great example was Afton Scientific, which in the last year announced 200 of capital investment and 200 more employees. And finally, the AstraZeneca announcement, which, at the when that announcement was made at Ravenna Station, that really is the the private catalyst project for that site. We know that we're positioning ourselves hopefully for future economic growth over the next five to seven years. Ed Board, Jacob and his team have modeled that in the next five years,
if nothing else happens, we're poised with just those announcements to go back to 15%. And so we're on our way to to strengthening our tax base and diversifying our economy. The board I wanna say one more thing about the two periods over the next five years and just state it maybe another way. Two periods within the next five years to help us understand our multi year budgeting strategy. In the shorter term, in fiscal years '27 and '28, our evolving revenue outlook, We have to keep an eye on,
the unpredictability of what could happen that could affect us in a significant way. We have significant expenditure obligations, and so we're gonna have to be mindful and a bit conservative in how we move and navigate through '27 and '28. And then as we look longer into 2029 to '31, we've got strategies that are in place, and we can measure a changing tax base. It's not gonna happen overnight. It's not going to be, it's gonna be, it's not gonna be revolutionary. It's gonna be evolutionary,
and it's gonna happen over time. But the continued, sticking with that plan will help us hopefully to get above 15%. And as some of our benchmark communities suggest, they're into the 17 to 22%, and that may be long term and offer, a goal for us to consider. So it's not just an opportunity to address obligations long term. It could also be an opportunity to more robustly advance the strategic plan. I think I've talked about our multiyear tactics. The f y twenty seven recommended budget will include revenue from the county's budget stabilization
reserve to fund the obligations in local government, really, for the next two years, twenty seven to twenty eight. The budget that I'm recommending is going to ask that you use one quarter of the 2% reserve in '27 and in '28. That will that will keep in place the additional 1% remaining, to provide flexibility should we encounter other unexpected financial needs. This recommended budget also, recommends that we transfer to the CIP. The county executive's proposed budget for f y twenty seven is asking you to consider
a one time $6,400,000 transfer to the CIP. I would suggest you put that in year five and we and that we put to be determined as it relates to the appropriate project. It could be the schools has the highest priority and we earmarked that for schools. We'll know more in the next twenty four months. The school's operating transfer, the county executive's proposed budget for f y twenty seven recommends that should the school's state revenue change substantially in the future. The recommended local government transfer for operating funds could be reprioritized from this CIP placeholder
to replace lost revenue. Now let me give an example of what that looks like. Local composite index, very volatile over the last two years. Two years ago, I believe that it swung against the county to the to the degree of about eleven and eleven I'm sorry. $10,000,000. $10,000,000, of state funding that went away from schools two years ago. This is this is red every two years and adjusted every two years. Recently, we got the report that the LCI had swung back positively in the direction of Albemarle County. I believe it was about $11,500,000
to the good. But you can see just in the last two years with 1 $10,000,000 swing to the bad and one eleven and a half million dollars swing to the good, but that volatility two years from now, if it does it yet again, that we if we've got capital reserve sitting aside as a consideration and we're not yet to a point where we see the level of revenue stabilization that we need, we could make a decision to help the schools with that money. Or if things are stable, we keep it in the reserve and and the discussions continue about what we need
to do with that money long term. We tend to focus on the general fund during the budget season because that's where all the tax revenues are received, the primary funding source for schools, capital, debt, and it's where the board has the maximum amount of policy decision. This budget in the general fund has $512,000,000. It's balanced, and you know that because the recommended expenditures are balanced to, to this base, to this based on revenue. Now let's take a minute. Let's look at key investments in our county that's recommended in this coming budget.
I've recommended that we will put three new police officer positions starting mid mid budget year next year to support public safety. I'd remind this board and thank you for the support that we've added 19 additional police officer positions since 2021. Over the past three years, we had a 19% increase in calls for service in the Albemarle County Police Department. In 2025, calls for service were 92,727 calls. You can take that and divide it by three sixty five to get a flavor
in what the per day average is on call volume in the police department. These officers that we hired along with previous additions and investments in police staffing will help to ensure coverage meets demand across our growing community. In addition to that, we've also undertook a comprehensive public safety staffing study to both address police and fire department, issues to ensure that we're most effectively providing public safety response the best way that we can. The study reviewed industry standards and best practices, made recommendations for infrastructure,
deployment, staffing, and we will begin to address those recommendations over the next five years in order to be able to follow the plan. This budget continues the multi year implementation of those recommendations. And finally, this budget recommends to that we allocate $2,300,000 to keep our police salaries competitive as it relates to recruitment and retention. Public safety pay structure has been reviewed under the county's established market based compensation philosophy. And based on that, that's where, these recommendations come from.
As it relates to fire, Alamar County is also committed to ensuring fire rescue has the resources needed to serve their community effectively. In recent years, the county has successfully leveraged federal grant funding from FEMA's SAFER grant program to hire firefighters. These hires address critical challenges, including volunteer shortages and an increasing demand for fire emergency medical services, especially in our urban ring. While this funding allowed for us to defer the cost of hiring last year, we started transitioning these positions from federal funding to local funding.
That transition continues in f y twenty seven. We have successfully, competed for four FEMA grants since 2021. Those grants totaled $12,700,000 of federal money. And with that, we hired 57 firefighter positions. Now we will pick up the local funding for 30 positions in f y twenty seven, and that amount is $1,700,000. Board, I also want you to know that in this budget, we are recommending that we go after what we will call FEMA five,
and that is a fifth FEMA grant that I believe will fund four positions if we are successful. And we do not if we're not if we're not successful, I think at this point, what we're trying to do is get ahead rather than to be reactive. And so we're gonna compete for FEMA five, and we can dig into what that looks like once we get into the budget work session. Finally, the budget contains $900,000 to keep our fire rescue salaries competitive for recruitment retention. And, again, the fire rescue department, just like police, pay structure was reviewed under the county's market based compensation philosophy,
and these recommend these recommendations come from that analysis. I will also say that the fire department has seen a 14% increase in calls for service over the past three years. Also under public safety, this budget recommends the addition of three new sheriff's deputy positions. With the opening of the new court facilities the past year and more facilities coming online in future years, these positions are being added to assist with day to day operations of the office, including courthouse and courtroom security as well as inmate transport transportation and civil processing.
Emergency management. The Office of Emergency Management, OEM, is being moved from within the fire rescue department to a stand alone office within the public safety function of Alamar County. OEM is what we refer to the Office of Emergency Management. I'll remind the board and our public that is that they are responsible for strategic planning, coordination, and the execution of emergency management activities across all phases of emergency management. This includes preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation. And, board,
several years ago, you emphasized this need as we deal with more and more natural, occurrences that that really stress our community. More and more oftentimes than not, it's weather events. You said let's strengthen that emergency management muscle by pulling it out from under fire rescue, putting it alongside in that public safety umbrella. And I'll note that that this reorganization is budget neutral. We've asked for no new positions with this, but we think we're positioning OEM to continue to make a meaningful,
a a meaningful impact in this community as we strengthen our emergency management work. I've talked a little bit about our investment in schools, but I'll go back and go through it as it relates to our strategic plan. I first say that for fiscal year twenty seven, the total school fund is projected to grow by 7.3%. That's what I'm recommending. That's a $20,700,000 increase. Included in that $20,700,000 increase is a $9,000,000 increase in our local funding to schools.
So 9,000,000 of of the total of 20.7. The remainder is made up by state funding. So I would highlight that at this funding level that we believe that the schools will have what they need to open two new schools that will open in 2627 school year. That's Mountain View Elementary, ACE Academy, Lamb's Lane. Also, to fully meet the obligations of the public school, the bargaining agreement that includes salary increases for staff, teachers, and the additional positions for increased planning time and guaranteed,
grants to elementary school teachers. It also is a commitment by schools to, out of their adopted strategic target compensation for teachers and classified employees, and that is 10% above the market average. Another way of saying that is the sixtieth sixtieth percentile. Our county school system continues to rank high across the state for per pupil funding and low class sizes. I'll take a look at public schools' operating budget year to year increased investment and ongoing revenue sources. The board of supervisors' ongoing investment in its education and learning strategic goals are the
story as 72% of school fund operations in f y twenty seven are projected to be funded by the general fund transfer to school operations. This slide shows total increased revenue for public schools operating budget over the past ten years. And in the f y twenty seven budget, On average, the school's funding ongoing operating revenues have grown by 5.8% each year. This period incorporates a wide range of changing circumstances, such as tax rate increases for public education, the opening of, school additions, changes in state funding,
the pandemic's initial initial revenue decline followed by the historically strong revenue growth that followed it. Alright. Going through the, other investments for FY twenty seven for the second year in a row, we have total a total recommended, increase of $5,000,000 for affordable housing investment fund. Investment in affordable housing allows the county to continue to invest in developer incentives and other initiatives to expand affordable housing options. Efforts focus on increasing the supply of affordable homes and rental units,
supporting workforce housing, and assisting residents in securing safe stable housing. I'll take a second, Ward, and just remind you that since the Affordable Housing Investment Fund was created in fiscal year nineteen, Albaou has invested in over $22,000,000 into affordable housing projects and programs, And these investments have helped to support the construction or preservation of over 1,700 units of affordable housing, both renter and middle and owner occupied, shelter and support services for over 280 victims in domestic of domestic violence,
and five hundred and thirty nine individuals experiencing homelessness. Finally, we've also been able to, provide, funding for housing counseling and navigation support for over 788 individuals and families. And before I leave this slide, I'm also and I really give all the credit to this board of supervisors. The f y twenty seven budget also includes a 20% increase to the tax relief for the elderly and disabled program. This provides real estate and mobile home tax exemption for taxpayers who qualify under age,
financial, or medical guidelines. Total funding available for this program in the coming fiscal year is $2,800,000 This increase is due to the expenditure trends of the program and changes in the income thresholds and financial work criteria approved by this board in January. Investment in our environmental services. We have continued 7 tenths of a penny dedicated water resources funding and what will continue to help cover water resources operating and debt service payment costs and also in
reserve for CIP projects. Also embedded in this recommendation is climate action funding for $300,000 in FY '27. It will match the one time funding put into the program in FY '26 along with $221,000 of reappropriated money from the prior fiscal years for programs that are yet to be completed. The Department of Facilities and Environmental Services has also reprioritized staff time in an effort to accelerate project, accelerate our progress on projects.
Examples of that would include residential energy improvements, county building energy efficiency programs, the energy resource hub, climate action collaborative initiative, and the climate resilience cohort support. Also, or before we leave this slide, I wanna bring attention to the plastic bag tax revenue that we predict in 2027 will total $140,000. Several years ago, you approved this program. I believe it's 5¢, per plastic bag in Albemarle County, and we've had to take that money in earmark it for community cleanup efforts.
Over the life of this program, it's been in existence since, I believe, 2023. We've collected $440,000 and funding, that has been collected has been used to support the distribution of reusable shopping bags bags, programs to mitigate riverside litter along with county right of ways, a litter education program along with other efforts to reduce litter in our county rights of way and public waterways. I really thank the community groups, the volunteer community groups in our community that are out there doing these programs every
day to try to keep our community more clean. But with this program, from December 2024 to December 2025, we cleaned 1,023 miles of roads in Albemarle County, and we picked up 3,932 bags of trash. Economic development. We've talked a little bit about the importance of economic development as a strategy to diversify and balance our tax base and reduce the reliance on the residential taxpayer. The f y twenty seven recommended budget includes,
a recommendation of $4,150,000 of additional one time money for the economic development fund. The economic development fund was designed so that we could provide ready, flexible funding to support economic development opportunities. We lived through this during the AstraZeneca attraction effort that that we where we had the ability to quickly respond to their needs, and it was critical in landing the company here in Albemarle County. Economic development opportunities don't come on a predictable schedule.
We've learned that as well. We need to always balance cash on hand against unknown future opportunities. Having a sufficient fund available allows us to have a stronger comfort approving funding for good opportunities aligned with our strategic plan today, knowing that we will have funding for tomorrow. Much of the f y '26 balance in this fund will be used for the local contribution to the Boulders Road Extension Project, which will support the needs of Robanna Station and its existing 3,000 employees with that support of the of the Robanna Station.
It also primes us to be ready to support AstraZeneca, its 600 employees, as well as the movement of materials and projects to and from the site. The new economic development strategic plan provides a focused road map for how to advance our economic development efforts and support in our support of thriving businesses in a in a strong business environment. Awareness and interest in Albemarle County as a place to do business and grow a business, due to our recent announcements, We now are are getting more attention, and we want to invest in this program as we seek,
this moment to sustain momentum going into the future. Several workforce, consistent with past past budgets, the county's compensation philosophy, the FY forty seven budget includes review of our classified pay scale positions. It's on a two year cycle, and it recommends adjustments to market to ensure that positions are meeting average market compensation. Board, thank you for supporting this several years ago because our recruitment efforts are stronger than they were before, our applicant pools are stronger than they were before, and our retention numbers suggest that we're having success with this program,
and I appreciate you supporting it. It also includes a 2% COLA and a one time bonus for classified staff. We will can also continue to invest in staff training and staff development. This total staff training and development budget for all departments is 1,400,000.0 in '20, 2027. As the community grows, the scale of complexity and service delivery increases. Our staff needs to continue to be developed. Our skills need to be developed. As our community changes, we have to be able to pivot and to be able to address changing needs
within our community. Training and development allows us to do that. Finally, our health care cost management, rising health care claims are stabilizing, but the increasing cost for the county and our partner agencies would suggest that we budget 8% in plan year 2027 to cover increased costs to our health care fund. Almore County recognizes that government cannot meet every need alone. By funding local nonprofit community organizations, we strengthen the regional safety net and provide residents access to vital services.
This slide is intentionally busy, overwhelming, and several of our staff said, I I don't like this slide. Well, the $40,700,000 in funding that's recommended to 68 distinct partner agencies, it is somewhat overwhelming. The partnerships that we have in this community are amazing, and without them, we would not be able to provide the services that we that we provide. Let's dig into that just a little more closely. This is a force multiplier in getting vital services to our residents through community partners.
For an example, public safety, $14,500,000 It represents a 20% increase from last year across five partner agencies. Highlights include money for Ash for the, Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail, and that's the county's share of debt service for the renovation funding to improve facility conditions for the first time in fifty years, Emergency Communications Center, e, 911 services and emergency response coordination. It's a partnership with the city and the UVA, and this will cover our increase in operating costs.
And finally, Charlottesville Albemar SPCA. We're in a multiyear contract with SPCA, funding increases to to support operational cost and services, related to the work that they do. Let's look for a minute at transit, eight point two million. That includes increases for Charlotte area transit, CAP, as well as micro CAP, and then also junk. Included in this also is libraries and tourism, $7,700,000 for our libraries along with, Charlottesville Albemarle Convention and Visitors Bureau where we are working every day to strengthen regional
tourism that helps with our economic impact. Health and health and welfare at 4,100,000.0, that includes region ten, the health department, AHIP, and Jefferson Board on Aging. And finally, public works, 3.5. That primarily is the relationship and partnership we have with Ravenna Solid Waste Authority who provides recycling, solid waste, and household hazardous waste disposable for, our community. The human services funding program for our funding, that serves the most vulnerable members of our community,
including elderly, households with kids under the age of six, medically vulnerable individuals. Enhanced compliance ensures that funding programs are effective and accountable. FYI funding is $1,600,000 that's a $110,000 or a 7.2% increase from the previous years, and it covers such critical programs as loans and fissions, child health partnership, and the ready kids, mental health care program for kids and teens. Alright. We're on the home stretch. Let's transition and talk for a couple of minutes about the CIP. Boy,
there's really five projects that are driving our current CIP. But before we wrap up and move on to next steps, let's take a minute to focus on the county's CIP program and debt services. The county is currently in the process of executing the five largest CIP projects in the history of Albemarle County. The county courts project will be on a future property purchase and the construction of three new schools. These five projects have budgets that totaled $296,000,000. As they compete, they create, funding obligation for the next twenty years following the,
issuing the bonds to pay for them. Quartz is around 68,000,000, Ramana Futures, 58, Mountain View Elementary, 50, Ace Academy, 49, and the Northern Theater Pattern, 68. The county's debt service is our mortgage payment. The county's projected debt service is is compliant with the Ford's financial management policies. And over the next five years, if nothing happens to our CIP and it stays just exactly like it is, our CIP debt service payment will go from $27,000,000 a year, which is what it is right now,
to $55,000,000 a year by fiscal year thirty one. That's the last year of the CIP. So that's $28,000,000 of new money that we're gonna have to generate in order to meet our obligations as we move to, 3030 2031. So our CIP, plan school summary, in addition to the operational budget for schools, the county executives recommended capital CIP for the FY twenty seven through thirty one includes $196,800,000 over the next five years of the plan for public schools capital investments.
And those investments are shown on your screen. And as we get into our budget work sessions, we can talk more specifically about about what these are. Related to local government, the local government projects in the CIP includes years three through five being very light with new projects with our focus being on maintaining ongoing programs and paying our current debt service. And again, as we get into our our budget work discussions, we can our budget work sessions, we can talk a little bit more about what these mean.
So, board, as I wrap up and I'm about wrapped up and then we'll turn it over to, Chair Galloway for questions from the board. Our key takeaways for fiscal year recommended budget, fiscal year twenty seven is no proposed changes to the current tax rates. Our obligations continue to rise, and through multi year budget planning, we're going to meet the expectations that we that we, stay on top of our obligations, stay on top of our increased demands for service, and then strategize as I've discussed today on how we can best,
put our resources to get the most out of our resources and to meet community expectations. Service demands are evolving, and we, need to meet the changing community needs. We have an evolving tax base. We need to plan ahead for significant investments. And finally, as I've said, we are prudent in our multiyear planning and will continue to help shape our future over the next five years. So, board, I'm gonna quickly go over next steps of what happens after today as the board and our community will dive into this document and we will work
through our work sessions. We will begin work sessions in March, wrap those, and hold public hearings and the town halls through April before the adoption of the budget and setting the tax rate on April 22. I will remind the board in our community that our work sessions will start at 5PM and that our town halls are scheduled to start at 6PM. And, board, as you have grown accustomed to expecting We will have staff at these town halls, at our budget town halls representing every single county department.
We'll invite our public in early. We will want our public to engage our staff to understand more about the services that we provide, and then that will lead to our budget town hall. So, board, that is it. Thank you, board. Thank you, staff. I look forward to moving to working more closely at our upcoming budget work sessions. Mister chair, I'm gonna turn it over to you at this time, though, and see if there are questions today that are set and answered. Thank you very much. Alright. Thank you, mister Richardson. Note for the public, the full document of the investment in action recommended budget,
was made available online prior to the meeting start. So for those of you following along, that is, that is there for y'all to go check out if you would like. So now we'll, simply go through and hear from the supervisors. In addition to questions, I would ask that you can, by all means, share initial reactions if you choose, parking lot questions, those sorts of things. So we'll start. Supervisor Mallick. Thank you very much, and thank you for the presentation. I don't have detailed questions because I'm still looking at some firewood here. I would request printed pages from today's presentation that we can add to it going
forward when we're doing presentations that we have things ready to write in the pages. This is the first time we have had that and something in this, so I wanted to share that. The cost shift is something I think we'll have a lot more discussion about. There was certainly a lot of discussion about that in Washington this past weekend. So I'm glad that you were setting aside some revenue for that. And look forward to learning more. Thank you very much. Alright. Supervisor Pruitt? I have quite a few more questions, so apologies in advance. I'm actually gonna pick up immediately where supervisor Malik, set up and wondering if,
if you could quantify or exemplify some of those federal cost shifts. I remember we heard from, doctor Petit a while ago about, I think it was not a bad idea. There's, like, a $100,000 in compliance costs for a public, constituent facing public benefit program that was shifted to us. I know there's, some some of our partner agencies, from that big busy slide are facing, cost shifts that we're picking up, it looks like, 5.8% of slack, an increase on. I'm wondering what are some other, federal cost that we are facing as a locality that we
that would be helpful to have in my back pocket when talking about that. Can can I ask the budgets team? You probably can can reel through those much quicker than I can, and I and I just don't have the knowledge that you've got about that, please. And if the answer is I'll get a follow-up email, I also understand. Yes. So I'll do I'll answer this in two ways. The first is, yes, we will get a follow-up email. And I'll clear for the public who are here or listening. Every question that is not answered in this work sessions, all of that will be posted on the website for transparency. So we'll get a full accounting for that. I'll say there are examples with,
region ten, one of our economic development agencies in the health department, where they do have, funding that has been lost and staff is recommending to continue those services by providing mobile funding. We could provide full accounting of that, as follows to the work section of what those examples are because they are sprinkled through the document. And, I'll say on the, the revenue side, we're continuing to watch very closely with changes in SNAP programs, how that may evolve, how that may play out in the state. So it's not something we have a concrete answer for now other than it's being launched very closely. Related, and this might be something that we would have to pitch separately to our colleagues
in schools. I know some peer localities, in the northern part of the state are facing really direct investigations from the administration onto their continued funding, due to federal regulation compliance. I am not sure that we're facing that same level of direct scrutiny, and so I'm just wondering if there's a a sense that I could get on the security of our federal portion of schools funding. And that might be, again, a parking lot question for Apollo. I would need to defer our school colleagues on that. In knowing that they are here today as audience members,
I think that would be best as a follow-up. Understood. To get that. Something that I do know know, you might have the exact number in your pocket. What is our remaining debt capacity just offhand if we were to issue it as as regular bonds, not as representative? I do not have that either in my pocket or on top of my head. But we do have, the updated chart of what the county's debt capacity would be. And that is on for those of you who are following along online or perhaps here, that is for you on page two eighty one. And so but we do not actually state that dollar amount.
We will make sure we have that by the work session. Back on December 3, I believe that amount was around 72,000,000, and we'll, we'll share where that is, because the, the tightest point of the headroom is in fiscal '31 now. And I want to state something again. This is because it's it's been thrust into square public discourse a little bit more, and I wanna state an understanding I have and make sure just to confirm it. That is under the assumption that it is not issued as a referendum, a a referendum that would give us better point value and thus would have a
larger amount of just raw dollars that we could in reference. That is correct. We are assuming we will issue through the traditional, conduit through EDA for those bonds. So should the board at a future state decide to go with general obligation route, that would generate a rate of about 20 25 basis points or about a quarter better than the rate we would have otherwise. Understood. Very roughly skimming close to a 100,000,000 as opposed to 70 something million. I'm not gonna ask you to check that now. That's something. We will do that as a follow-up, and we'll make it very clear when we come back in the world session with
the CIP. While we're talking about the CIP, I think I know the answer for this, but I want to make sure we're being pretty clear about it. You briefed on the one time transfer of 6.8% to CIP. That is over and above the normals transferred to the CIP that we always do as partners, but was to, general fund. Correct? That is correct. Yes. And yeah. Slide 24. I wanna make sure again, this is confirming something I think I know, but the the increase, and this is also on '25, but it came up first on '24.
Both of these talk about salary comp competitiveness. I assume the budget includes a a colon bump. Is that accurate across staff? We have, so two different sets of pay scales. We have the public safety pay scale, and then we have the classified scale. So the, later on the slide around the workforce stabilization goal, it speaks to the 2% cost of living increase that is included with classified scale. The numbers we have, here for the 2,300,000 on the police scale and the, 900,000 on the fire rescue scale, those are inclusive of the the changes that would be made on those scales.
Okay. Understood. So it would be in addition to because it's separate addition to their own COLA, any addition because there's also set reclassification if I'm recalling. There's an increased granularity of steps. Walk through this in more detail, because there are different scales, there are different criteria, and we'll make it very clear, how the process is in which they are funded. Thank you. To one really big question, and you can answer this level of debt season is appropriate for this moment. In your school capital plan, we have a a notional placeholder for year '32, which I recognize I I won't I think I recognize,
when we were briefed when we were discussing the feasibility of a new high school. There's there would be a tremendous amount of sacrifice that went into it, and the earliest it could be done would be '31. And so I'm assuming that there's a placeholder for if we do all the several different budgetary sacrifices that would be necessary for a new high school construction, that would be the earliest we could start. Is that a correct understanding? Yeah. I will I'm gonna start here, and if if anyone down the line would like to chime in. Really, a lot of that strategy is creating flexibility for the board of supervisors. Back on December 3,
and we'll talk about this at the capital and the other work sessions, we talked about that part of the possible where there's a lot of options and you would need a lot of them, a lot of partnership, and a lot of your planning to make all of that happen. And so this is a strategy that begins to, knowing that, it would take multiple years to get there by putting that nearby. Additionally, to the county executive's point earlier, if we were in a situation by putting that money further out, if we find ourselves with an unfavorable local clause index in two years, there's a way that we'd be able to respond to that better than we could have two years ago. And so part of this is trying to,
begin thinking about multiyear approach about how can we position ourselves now to give flexibility to the board both now and in the future. This is gonna script the difference between a comment and a question. But, our presentation in December was about the art of the possible, and it required some some really serious sacrifice that we have to make to reach this target of roughly $250,000,000 in, to start in '31. This sets aside 6.8 for for capital. As I'm remembering, that is not the degree of sacrifice we need to make starting now to get
to that target, and I want to make sure I'm correctly remembering that. This is not a budget that is, as is currently laid out, out, one that is equipped to be part of a a the plan that we would assume that would be necessary to get to 31. If if to manage the boards and the public expectations in no way is this constructive major capital project, direction to one day give flexibility to the board if that is the direction they would like to head in. And I guess now I will make it explicitly a comment. If we were planning to build a Northern three year patterns or a a new comprehensive high school at the budget level requested,
the capital outlays that I see us making and the planning that we are setting does not get us there. It needs to be significantly more significant with that significantly more strength on our government. 6,800,000.0 is not what we need to be putting away for a year to get there. It would be something much, much more painful than the 6.8. I'm sure we're going to as we continue our budget process, it's already going to be fuel pain. And so I just want to throw that out there for public discussion. Right? And to see this environment as we get into the budget process,
If we want to be serious about what it's going to take upon the high school, this this is putting our toe in the water. This is not walking down the ramp of the school. Is going to be a much more painful process if we are going to walk down that ramp into the pool. Something that actually is a question. So yes. Let me just clarify because we've thrown a lot of numbers around $6,400,000 rather than $6,800,000. Oh, thank you. So I I don't have the slide in front of me. I I will misquote numbers during work sessions too, and I know the the crew around me will correct it.
But I just wanna clarify with all the numbers today, that that part. That that could be a fun political strategy for me to just mildly mistake a number. It's like, well, you said 6.8. On the level of more direct question, can you remind me the you know my habit of being skeptical of the one time economic development fund outflows. I'm going to refresh that habit even while I know economic development is going to be a very important direction for our CACFP in the recurring years. Can you remind me what the previous year's onetime fund
fund balance looks like? Yeah. We can provide the full history as follow-up to this. Last year, when the board added was a little under a million dollars, if I respond correctly, if I can be given the grace to be within a few $100,000 either way. Thank you, Stan. And so really, that balance with a lot of the investments with economic development projects, the board is approved. One of the items in the board with the Holders Road being constructed, the the primary funding source of that well, primary funding source is the state, AstraZeneca. The county is also contributing dollars from the economic development fund.
And so that's one where, that that balance has got quite low. We'll get to work session what that dollar amount is. And so this is intended to provide flexibility over those years as the county executive described, but we'll have that back as a work session as well. Just one time finding confusion. That way, is that preemptively required for the Boulders For Road extension? No. We the Boulder's Road can be constructed without a $4,150,000 infusion, but this is really trying to refill that to position the county for the future. Right. And there have been a lot of costs that have been planned for,
for, but my understanding is most of those a lot of our economic development funding gets done through tax expenditures rather through direct expenditures, which is part of where my skepticism almost comes from. The necessity of it being refilled at this level. There is a combination of tax rebates under forms agreements for the cruise, and there is a one time investment, and we can provide that full, reporting as follow-up as well. Thank you. I am not sure. I have another question. A very big picture question. You can answer it as soon as you want,
and then I'll be done. Do you think we could have made it without AstraZeneca, and to plan around? Is it maybe a question more for mister Richardson than anyone else? This is like a big picture question. Could we balance this budget this year without the knowledge that we can rely on future revenue for us? I I would have recommended a tax rate increase. 2 pennies at the minimum. That's what I know. But I wanted to be able to rely on that statement. Thank you. For for for the sec and and that's the first time I've been asked that question by the sport, and that's the first time we've talked about it. We've never talked about it. You've never asked me that question.
But I could not have in good faith recommended that we pull from the budget stabilization fund, which is, a half a percent this year, a half a percent next year. That fund right now has 2% in it, 6,000,000 for each percent, so we've got $12,000,000 And the staff was confident in this strategy because of our out year look in twenty nine through '31. It looks good. All we would have been doing is kicking the can down the road without the AstraZeneca announcement, and I'd had to come to this board for a second year in a row
to recommend a tax rate increase because of this board and, this board's willingness and our needs to address our infrastructure issues that we are tackling, and you can see that in the CIP, every day. So that's that's a really good question. I didn't expect it, but that's that's that's exactly what we were facing. I do have one more question. I apologize. I was thinking through while we were doing this very early on, what are because we always have to justify our new expenses. What are the future expenses? What are the future expenses for '28? Right? And I'm thinking what are the ones that we control?
What are the ones that we don't control? Control, we think control things like new public demands for housing trust, transit expansion through micro cap, increase in police, schools, operating funds, collective bargaining, and potentially a development area expansion which some people are interested in, which would be an increased cost. Things that we've been in control that have gotta happen regardless, I think, salaries, health care costs, and, the continued shift toward professionalizing firefighting, with decreased volunteerism. Are there other big non controlled cost drivers outside of those three that I identified
that you think would be important to to have in my back pocket? Yeah. I will add I went back to this slide on fiscal year twenty seven drivers, many of which were the ones you mentioned. I would it's reasonable to expect that the revenue share in payment with the city will increase in fiscal year twenty eight as well as it has been. I think it's one where in terms of things beyond our control, just watching the changing federal funding landscape, how that may impact the state, something we're being mindful of. But also, as you mentioned, the, the the impact of continuing to pick up expired FEMA grants or regional partners, these other items, those are a lot of the the big buckets.
John, thank you. I'm done. Thank you. Alright. Supervisor Lopisto, currently. Okay. Well, I don't think I have as many questions, but you covered a lot of them for me. Do we have any idea when the federal estate funding for our county when that will be released? So so the theme theme of five? No. Just, you know, any federal funding that we receive, I think, is usually 2% a year or the state, 7% a year. And that may have gone down. But do we know when we will know how much we're receiving from the federal
government and state government? Yeah. So I'll share from the state government. We're watching the state budget process very closely, and it's normal to have some variation happen that as it works through the process. And so and that's when we'll evolve. And part of that will depend on when the, state adopts its budget. It is common for the state to adopt its budget after the the board of supervisors will adopt its budget. Usually, there's enough certainty where we can be pretty close to say budget management versus a policy thing we would need to respond to. For, county government, a lot of our federal funds are reimbursements for,
direct services provided in Missouri and the Department of Social Services. And so that's one where, barring a major policy disruption, we we have some confidence in what those will look like, and we're watching it very closely. Now the other area we have on our mind is, any of our special revenue funds where there may be federal funding designated for particular purposes. That's just something we have to monitor on a regular basis because the federal fiscal year doesn't line up to the the county's fiscal year. Thank you. Okay. Going to the high school, I know that this board has asked for the school division to give us,
more data regarding whether or not how much or when a new high school if and when a new high school is needed. So we're waiting for that data, and I'm assuming that'll come sometime in the next few months, something like that. I'm just, you know I'm I'm not able to give details on that, board member of Pisto currently. I do know that in discussions with school staff that they have had ongoing discussions with the Weldon Cooper Center, team. We also have, as recently as yesterday, because the board asked, I think, in the December 3 meeting,
he said, I want broader discussions at local government with the government with the the team at Weldon Cooper so that we can understand growth and demands, specifically across Albemarle County government as we continue to to to strategize on service delivery. So we're starting those conversations. I know Matt and his team have connected and said we've had ongoing discussions and we'll continue to. And I think at the joint work session, they that might be where they would be prepared to maybe give more of a timeline or how that's going, if that makes sense. And and I know for the Northern Feeder Pattern School,
we're now looking at 68,000,000, whereas before originally, we were looking at 60,000,000 or a little bit less. So that just shows you how prices have changed, unfortunately. So I I know the comprehensive high school that is being asked for by the school division, that that would that was 216. I know that my, supervisor, Pruitt mentioned about 250,000,000. By the year '31, would that be would it be fair to say that could be in the area of 300,000,000? Perhaps.
Pardon? I think that's a fuzzy number that any number thrown out would just be a It'd be but it would probably be more. I mean, unless things drastically change, there would be an increase. So, I guess my question is if because we could go out for a bond referendum, you know, to the localities. How much of an increase in the property taxes would that, let's say, 300,000,000 or a little less go? I think it's something that the board is interested in. We could model if we were looking at increasing our CIP by $250,000,000
to $300,000,000 over a period of time, equating that to a tax rate increase, how that might look mechanically, but also to the team could also talk about, if there are any unintended consequences of taking that additional debt on being the size of organization that we are. So that's that's something that we can take as a take this away and work on and come back to the board. Well, I was actually referring to a a regular bond initiative for the public. Right. And that's what I was asking. Well, I and and the reason I'm hesitant to answer that question is because in in
taking that debt on, there could be other things to discuss other than just the math formula. Right. It's this much of this this this much of a penny increase to pay for. There could could be other things to consider too in terms of our debt capacity and our bond rating, if that makes sense. Would you add is that in alignment with what you Yes. It's a twofold component We look at the debt funding. So it's gonna be the, the affordability but also the capacity component. So to answer your question, we also have to look at the capacity as well.
Okay. And do we have an update regarding, the state what the state is doing with the 1¢ increase, or the ref allowing us to have a referendum for a 1¢ tax sales tax increase that would go solely to school CID. I could ask Emily Kilroy. She's our economic development director, and she spends a good bit of her time in Richmond on legislative issues. Miss Kilroy could give you the latest that she's gotten, specific to the one sent. Yeah. So the bill is still alive, in the general assembly. We passed the crossover midpoint of the general assembly legislative session.
Wraps towards the, mid March time frame, how that fares. And then and then it's to the governor's desk for final action. So we'll know for certain by April 15 what the what that bill will do, and then we're already kinda mapping a sequence of of a schedule for what it would look like to take that forward should that, authority be given to the localities. Okay. Those are all my questions, right? Thank you. Two presentations, Andrew. Thank you. Supervisor Missal? Thank you, chair, and thank you, staff. I know you all approach this with great care and diligence, and I know that needs a great deal of the community.
So thanks for all of the the huge amount of work that goes into this. A lot of my questions really centered around forward thinking. How are we being pro proactive and how are we not just being reactive and trying to adjust to things that are coming down the pipe? So your presentation was really helpful, and I'm looking forward to digging into this in more detail and to the work sessions. This is a big learning curve for me, so I appreciated sort of the spoon feeding that we got today as well as the detail that came across. I have a couple of questions, and I'm gonna try to keep them super high level because I know we'll get into the detail when we do work sessions. One is,
as you think about Albemarle County, do you spend time looking at, I'm sure you do, other communities and think about, where you think about benchmarks as it relates to maybe the percentage of the overall budget allocated to schools or affordable housing or economic development? And if so, how do we fare in terms of that? And are there any goals or objectives that you're striving for, under that heading? I think it's one of the things that local government does, pretty well because 99% of everything we do is not proprietary in nature,
which means that that under a clear request from a neighboring jurisdiction, if they visit it and they said, I want all your documents that support this type of program that you're doing, we'd be required to give it over. But as part of being in the world of local government, we openly share with our colleagues best practices as you referred to. And I do think that we keep an eye We keep a pretty good handle on that through our, professional affiliations, our conferences that we attend. For an example, supervisor Missal, I'm super excited about our upcoming trip to Chapel Hill that's being sponsored through the
chamber because I think that Chapel Hill is a community that has a framework of characteristics that look a lot like this community. And they have we have spent time with them already, looking at potential for best practices in economic development, not just with the towns and cities alone, but with the university, with the foundation, also affordable housing, and and various programs to strengthen their tax base. It's it's not just a town gown, college town. It's also expensive to have challenges just like we do. I can't reel off the top of my head something out there that would be
a best practice that we, lead into today, but I I think that we could take miss Shiflett in her work with performance and strategic planning. She might can come back and and and give several examples, or we can share some information, more specific maybe to what you're interested in after today. It's a wonderful question. That'd be great. Well, part of it came to mind when you were talking about the percentage of real estate taxes Right. That are, right, residential versus commercial. Right. You know, the 11% versus the striving for 15, that that all kind of came across as one of those benchmarks that we're looking
to do. Right. I'd be curious also in some other areas that that you mentioned as well. I'd like to provide that to you. And so I think our team could go back. If we've done that data, we could dust that off and get that in front of the board during your upcoming work sessions to look at something that I think would be meaningful for you to take into account. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. So another broader question generally, and this kind of addresses contingencies and reserves. And you touched on that a little bit throughout this. Is there a big picture view of what the status of our contingencies and reserves
are compared to where we would like them to be? Are they in excess of where we need them to be? I mean, are they right about where we feel is right? And if so, you know, I don't know, any comments on on those? I'll I'll turn it over to our CFO to to respond to because when we when we look to go out and borrow when we when we look at working with our rating agencies and such, they give us feedback on that. So could you take a minute, sir, about that? Sure. So in the board's approved finished policies,
we have two main reserves. The first is our unassigned fund balance, which is our 10% reserve. And that's really the core reserves that the financial rating agencies are looking at to ensure we have stability in our finances and ensure that we have continual cash flow to meet our obligations. So that's really what we call our it's not really Rain Day Fund, it's a fund that we describe it as a hurricane fund once in a lifetime. If we needed to tap into that. We could not intended at all to be used for operations.
It's really there to help out with ongoing cash flow needs. The other reserve is the budget stabilization reserve that we're talking about today. And that has actually given the boards additional flexibility in times like this that was described today. So that reserve, is has an intention to be used at particular times but also with a commitment to replenish that reserve unless we come out of those more challenging issues that we're trying to address. So from that perspective, those are really two strong financial policies that our rating agencies look at and provides
a lot of fiscal stability and financial support for the county in that respect. Got it. Thank you. Just a couple more quick questions. One is partner agencies, right? So $68,000,000 $40,700,000 of funding, if I got those numbers right. So your initial comment was there are more issues and opportunities than we have money for. How do you as you think about this budget, this hopefully is a big picture question, how do you assess need from each of those agencies and needs and priorities?
And does that I mean, I assume that shifts year by year. Is that just from, like, advocacy from each of the agencies? Is it you've made promises in past years to increase certain funds in certain areas and so you're fulfilling those promises. How does thinking go behind prioritizing that? Can I turn it over to Andy and Caitlin and the team because you spend a lot of time leading into the budget learning what the challenges are, what the what they're what they're facing, what their obligations are? So could you talk about it? Sure. I'll say the work session number two, we'll go through some more details.
I'm gonna track you could high level of this. But we have a few processes created by the board of supervisors really with the intent to receive requests, they can all be evaluated at the same time in the budget process. And so, we have, for those of you human services, oriented I'll say the board approves the framework as well at midsummer. So two of our board members were not seeing it last year, so they announced they did not approve that. But it shaped this budget where in partnership with our human services staff, we will evaluate, but what are those agencies that can have services and have the performance that will move the needle most on the board's strategic goal around safety and wellness.
There is a partnership bucket we would have of our volunteer fire rescue system, the support that is provided to them, not for the supplemental staffing, the day to day cost that is provided to those stations. There's some smaller arts and cultural festivals who are funded, and we also have as among those, a lot really a lot of the large ones. There are, the regional library board, the regional jail board. We have members who serve on that board or CFOs who serve on the job board as an example. That's, you know, many of the other colleagues, down this line. And so there's involvement in that, the budget committees,
the part of their audit committees that goes throughout the year. And it's also a partnership that we have have with the city of Charles still working through, the debt debt management. Got it. Thank you. And then last question, AstraZeneca, you know, we've been talking about that a lot. I guess, when you think about impacts to transportation, housing, infrastructure in this community, the 600 jobs plus 3,000 construction workers, etcetera, etcetera, did the budget and we don't have to get into detail, but the big picture, did the budget consider some of the ripple effects of that coming to the area in the next three
years or so? And has it accommodated that in various areas? I think that, I gather from the board in the discussions that we had in December that that's really some of the engagement work with the Weldon Cooper Center, knowing that that probably in the next three to five years, we're going to feel the effect of the build out, the opening of those buildings, also the additional suppliers that could be here, the work force that it's gonna take to put the buildings in the ground and open them up. So we'll be we'll be engaging.
I think you were at the state of the community last Friday, and the Welling Cooper center speaker said AstraZeneca was a godsend. I'm quoting him, and he said, and we need another one. But at but at the same time, I think this board wants that there to be staff dialogue about what else is there to consider with landing in the industry of this size. And I think that we I think that we can have dedicated discussion some of the analysis associated with what you're talking about. The short answer is, and Jacob can correct me or Andy or Caitlin, I don't think I can't think of anything specific as it relates to the planning
for growth that we did specifically in the budget. And I'm planning for growth that we did did specifically in the budget. And I'm leaning to my left and not seeing anybody leaning in. Great. Thank you. That's all. Thank you. Supervisor Duncan? Yeah. Thank you for this. And this is a huge budget, and it is so well organized and easy to sort of find things. So I really appreciate some of that work. Kind of my first, I guess, biggest question is with the schools. It says the total to public schools is 51.8%. Is there a history of that percentage, and does it change every year?
Or, I guess, kind of is that a standard? I'll say we can provide that. I will say it is normal for that to change year to year because that 51.8 is reflecting all dollars in the budget. And so where their operations may be the more steady debt service continue to be steady over time, when you build capital projects can really shift things. And so we can provide that data going back some years for how that's evolved. That would be great. Thank you. And then I guess, actually, sort of a sort of related question, on the debt service page, you have, like, the chart on page two you want with,
like, the red line at 10%. Is it okay to get to that 10%, or do you have a preferable percentage that you try not to go above? I would say that, passports have taken the approach that it would be unwise to plan to the 10% maximum because if you are at the maximum and you have the economic downturn, all of a sudden you're buttery policy. Also, if you give yourself headroom, it's if a really once in a lifetime opportunity comes along, it gives you the flexibility to accomplish that. And so there there is not a hard and fast number in the board's policies
of what number under 10. It's more of a judgment call when all of the things in the CIP and the question. This might be sort of a work session question. I'm not sure. But is it possible to get, like, detailed reports on, some of the sort of bigger partner agencies? Like, personally, I'd be super interested in, like, Microcat and kind of, like, you know, the details of what that funding goes to and, you know, who's accessing services and that sort of thing. Yes. We we can follow-up with that. I know there's 68. Microcat's a good example. If there are other ones specifically that force is interested,
we can work with those agencies to prepare that. And then I guess just my last, question is the three new police officers, is this from the dedicated tax last year, or is this three new Three three new positions separate from the work that we did last year and in last year's budget. It's a really good question because those positions were budgeted to come on midyear, and these three positions are also budgeted to come on midyear. I'm gonna look at Trevor and make sure that I didn't misspeak. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Thank you. Questions wise,
this is probably not going to happen at this point. This is similar to workforce optimization kind of tracking over time. But as we add the police officers and the firefighters, you know, we did six police officers last year, three recommended today, then how does that impact the current call for service number as we go over? As we add those positions, how are we doing on that, based off of the report that we received, this past fall? The just this is a clarifying question. I think when we were looking at the year over year fund increase to the
school operation, for since fiscal year seventeen, I believe, was on the chart. Did did I hear you right to say that on average over that from '17, it was 5 and a half million per year? Was it I heard 5 and a half million. I heard average. Yes. Sorry. Yes. This is the actual dollars. If you look at that time frame, fiscal year seventeen to fiscal year twenty eight, ongoing dollars to take out a one time transfer use of fund balance, that average would be 5.8%. Then, the 8% increase to the health care fund, what's the dollar amount associated with that? We'll have that also in my head.
We'll have that in the first work session when we speak to that. Thank you. And then I did another clarifying. So it was it's it popped into my head on slide 35. If you total, total all that, that's, what, dollars 38,000,000,000, is that even my math, right, roughly? Is that all in the community services? But then it I'm asking this based on how it presents in the budget document. So when you look at just the community services that we fund, that's not $38,000,000 I know that. So these things show up in other places. But I wanna understand that that the 38,000,000
that's represented here is what is not specific to us that is going out to partner agencies. Yeah. These are really, the way I think about it, they are not under the direct supervision of the board of supervisors or the county executive. Now the board may have appointees to that board, but it's different than a department of the the board or the the county. Great. Thank you. That's helpful for today. I think from a process standpoint, turning to my colleagues, as you go through the budget book, if you have questions, the process has always been to email Andy, as the point person.
I would probably I would recommend strongly that you copy at least the county executive and even Jacob. If you forget to copy the board of supervisors with your questions, they are pretty good at replying back to the whole board. But then all of those questions and answers, as Andy had said stated earlier, will be posted online. So those do get tracked even though they might not necessarily be happening in our meetings, but it's a good question. Also, just kind of as a reminder for those who've been here but for our newest members, there are sometimes our budget items that come up that would benefit from further board
discussion or dialogue, we tend to refer to it as our parking lot. So if you have things that come up that seem like, well, we're probably not going to give it back in the work session, but it's something that's important. It's not that one supervisor can drive the parking lot. There usually needs to be some consensus. But just be ready that if you wanna think of parking lot items, then that's how we'll handle that. And we do purposefully load some work sessions that are not topic specific to see how the budget goes to give us the flexibility to deal with those type of
things as, and put the budget calendar there. Just double check. Before I make some final remarks that I wanna make relative to the budget, just let me look to my left and right. Any additional questions? Very quick. This is, more of a request from anything else. I will normally present the budget separately to Scottsdale Town Council, my partner government. In the past, I've just done it off a notebook. I would probably be better served by presenting the budget to them. And I'm curious if I could ask for something. Can I get a slide that is specific to Scottsdale added in here,
namely in the same way that we're normally presenting on shifts in the budget? Just a quick slide in the same style guide that highlights the levy funding and, any shifts professionalizing of the fire station down there and new, FTVs ahead of that capacity. But there's other things that I'm missing. Sir, you put something together. I'm also looking to, mister Richardson to make sure that is a request I can make. I'm I'm asking your staff for their time. I I think our our pause on it was just making sure what's your timing of that? And we can talk we can talk about I'd like to be able to present it at either the first or second town council meeting next month. K.
We'll work on that and follow-up. Thank you. Any other questions? I'd just like to make a couple of comments into what I heard for clarifying purposes. I had a boy, I love a metaphor, and the walking into the pool metaphor was was a good one, so I'm complimenting supervisor Prick. But I think what we don't wanna do is run on on the diving board, slip the ball, hit the diving board, fly up in the air, look goofy, and then slam into the water. So with the CIP piece, we know that one year fix, regardless if it's a high school or whatever, we're going to have CIP challenges on both sides of the aisle or sides of
the, piece when we think schools and multiple government. And it's gonna take multiple years of strategy, to to get at that. So I think the December numbers that were thrown out there were more theoretical, whereas now we're in an actual budget maybe following the strategy. We're going to start getting into specific numbers and what can we do given the current reality versus what we do in year two, three, four as we as we go over. I also wanna clarify that the data that came out of the joint meeting with the school board in December is not about a high school.
The data is not even just about CIP. What I heard that day was it quickly became, you know what? We could do better with data period for all this this discussions. So, of course, it would inform CIP decisions, but it also could inform things like where does dollars go in a community agency right for review? What are you putting into an affordable housing investment fund, and what does the data speak to that? Hamilton Walmart, definitely, in his state of the community comments, shows that the level of data analysis that can exist out there can really help
inform public policy decision and and dollar programming. So let's make sure that, as I hear, if we keep talking about this well with the Cooper Center just as it relates to high school, I think we're doing we're miscommunicating to the public what we want from that, and I think it's just time in Albemarle that we've outgrown the data that we've done in the past for decisions, and it's time to get better and, to take the steps to do that. I would, like to make a couple comments relative as we get into the budget season. I think that we all recognize that dissent and disagreement is the normal process and
part of a decision making or at least a strong decision making process. So we are going to have dissent disagreement amongst ourselves. We're going to have it with our school board and our other elected offices like our Commonwealth Attorney and our sheriff's office. We're probably going to have it with advocacy groups and the public, etcetera, as we go through budget town halls. That's normal. That's that's what's to be expected, and that's how we arrive at good decisions. Right? So I feel and I've been doing a lot of reflection on this out of my own with the next statement.
The while that is, part of the process, our tone and our tactics is kind of the integrity check of each individual, each board, each advocacy group, and the public, frankly, as we go through it. So I'm just throwing that out as something myself that I'm going to keep under my hat because I know sometimes my tone and tactics can get a little interesting. But I'm gonna be mindful and try to keep stay true to that this year, and I just call on all involved that we can perhaps do the same so that we can show to the public that we can, in Albemarle County,
disagree, dissent on things. But through proper education and information that we all understand each other's budgets and how we do and what our financial policies are, that we can rise to that, show how to have dissent and disagreement in a way, that empowers folks to go. They're doing things pretty good there as when it comes from a planning perspective and now tomorrow, all involved. So, hope everybody would join in that sentiment, as we move forward. And I I recognize that from the public standpoint, no matter what we do, no matter what the context is, there is going to be a certain segment of the population that always says you're
taxing too much and spending too much. There's always going to be a certain segment of the population that says, you know what? You're not taxing enough and you're not spending enough. Most of the folks fall in between those two bookends. And it's about, well, their preference might be I mean, does anybody really wanna see their tax bill go up? But I think a lot of times they go, why is it going up? Can you explain that to me? And if you're not going to give me relief, what's it going to? Can you explain that to me? And then they can make a decision on whether or not they agree or disagree
with us. And I know that that's the work that we're going to do through budget town halls or public hearings and all of the meetings that we do to explain to folks. Here's the reality of what's happening with a tax bill, and here's the reality of how we're going to treat it. And we hope that everybody will if we do our job, you all will be informed as at least to how, at the end of the day, this board and the six supervisors decide what to do with the coming budget. So Jeff, I appreciate the presentation today. I appreciate all the staff. Caitlin, I noticed you were writing pretty diligently throughout the meeting,
capturing all the things there. So thank you for that. Board, do we have any other matters for committee reports or matters not listed on the agenda? Just looking to my left and right. Supervisor Malek and I did just return last evening from DC at the NACO legislative, conference, and we did get to spend time with congressman Maguire and the senior staff of both Kenan and Warner, senators Kenan and Warner. So I know we'll be preparing not just the summary updates, that Trevor and Emily were with us for that, but also what we've learned over the weekend as we did our work on our
committees at at, makeup. So that'll be coming in a in a future board meeting. Mister County executive, any other items from you? I'll look to the the budget staff first and foremost. Anything that we didn't cover that you folks thought that we needed to? K. Are we good? Okay. So we're fine. Great. I usually, at the beginning, like to thank our officers that are able to join us and be with us today. Officer Joshua Cox and master police officer Dana Dana Reeves are here with us to make sure that we remain safe. So thank you both, and my apologies for for not doing that at the beginning,
but thank you so much for being here with us today. And with that, board, we will adjourn to 03/04/2026, 1PM in Lane Auditorium.