Okay. At the table, joined by mister Andy Bowman, our assistant chief financial officer. Briefly behind him, we have, mister Jacob Sumner, the chief financial officer, and or Jason Albaum, chief of Welcome everyone here. Also, let me please welcome the, Elmo County police officer present, Jason sergeant Jason Freichstead and master police officer Steven McCall. Thank you both for your service today and everything. Elmo County. I will now turn this over to doctor Kemp to open the school board. This December 3 joint meeting,
on the school board is ailing session. Unlike mister Andrews, I will ask my colleagues to introduce themselves around the table, starting with, miss Osborne. Hi. I'm Ellen Osborne from the Scottsville District. Okay. Graham Paige, militants. We're back at Berlin Whitehall And also Matthew Lawson, superintendent. Okay. Hi, everyone. I'm Josiah Blacks, chief legal officer. Monica Mazala, director of budget planning. Thank you. Thank you. The board is this is a scheduled meeting for the board of supervisors. Yes. Confusion. Yes. Yes. He's looking sicker.
Lay high. That was a day. And so now we'll start our joint work session, and I will turn this over for leadership here of Andy Bowman as the chief financial officer and, Mike, as well as the director of budget plan. Thank you. Thank you, mister Andrew. We ask them to the board of supervisors and partnership and really just so many people in the back. You know, I know we're listening online to, really put together this presentation, try and take really complex, good updates,
make them simple, have creative strategy thinking that all of the good things to go to that year round. I really appreciate whether we're talking about the capital budget, to our county's health fund, that's just partnership that we have to abide, that goes through all the thinking year round. And so just to begin to frame today as we dive into what is scheduled to be a three hour work session, as often like to start, with the board of supervisors, framing everything in the context of the board of strategic plan. This is a plan that was adopted three years ago, this fall, and it includes six goals, one of which is education and learning. Now education and learning is one of six,
and it's also, as the board discusses, it is the largest component of the county's operating budget. It is also the largest component of the county's debt service and capital budgets. And so, this is a topic when the school board had this strategic plan, and I'm sure they'll be part of their comments later. But you're really to ground this. As the board of supervisors through October and November are still a lot of time discussing, where are we in different aid areas, whether it's public safety in goal one or the economic development that's part of goal four. But today is really gonna be focused on goal five. And and when I think about the capital budget,
and this is really a forward looking conversation today. And I I think of the partnership and all of the good work and and thought that comes from these teams. I thought, how do I try and encapsulate at least just one slide in a rear view of where have we been? And so perhaps it's because I'm analytically minded, but I said I can make a chart to show that. So if you all can bear with me, this will be the most complicated chart that I showed today. So so what I have here oh, and I'm sorry. The innovations didn't come in in this version. So So bear with me. What this kid shows is the county government and public school debt service for the last ten years and also where it is projected to be based on the adopted
CIP. The public school debt service is the blue line for actual, then we turn to the red for projected. County government is the orange line for the actual, and it is the yellow for projected. Now it is tough to really describe all of the changes that happened in summary. I have some that I'll walk through, but to have such a change, it went from debt service payments of roughly 12 to 13,000,000 and roughly 6,000,000, evolving to the out years of debt service payments of just under 30,000,000 and just under 20,000,000, I think, see, a lot of intentionality, a lot of partnership, a lot of long range multiple years plan.
So just to walk through some of the history of how, this has taken place over time, just as we look ahead, just, you you know, future board or past boards and past staff look ahead to help shape what that trajectory looked like. So I'll start kind of moving left to right in the top. We can see that in fiscal year eighteen. Now let me explain some of the bad debt service charts as well because it looks almost like the the ridges and peaks of the mountain. So the way this works is when the county issued bonds every few years, you'll see a spike in the county's debt services that we need to be repaid over the course of twenty years. When you begin to see a downward slope in the mountain,
that reflects years the county did not issue bonds, but debt has been retired for expenses in the last twenty years. So that's why we have a little bit of those, you know, kind of the mountain ridge outline. So moving left to right at the blue line, there was in 2016, the school board requested, the board of supervisors supported, and the voters approved a general obligation bond reference for a series of projects, some of which are listed on the slide. After that happened, the, the board of supervisors, they issued bonds, to implement those projects. The debt service was paid and the board of supervisors raised the tax rate to support the debt service for that neighborhood's cost.
Moving ahead, we go into fiscal year twenty two, the next county bond issuance, and this included, improvements at Crozet, Red Hill, and Scottsville among the highlights. This also includes a lot of the ongoing maintenance, school buses, all of those things. We're really just trying to highlight on those of more notable items we can think of as the generational investments beyond what is current facilities. Moving ahead to fiscal year twenty six, we see really the, the portions of the Southern Elementary School or the Mountain View Upper Elementary School, the ACE Academy or High School Center two, and the renovation projects really begin to ramp up.
And that's gonna continue with the current adopted CIP right now, into fiscal year twenty seven and twenty nine as we begin to see that debt service, climb as those expenses are, put in, as the buildings are built and the services are being provided and those schools are open. Now we'll talk more about that later. This is a big increase, but it's all built in the county's financial management policies. And this is just a line on the page. It doesn't talk about any partnership that could take place. For example, when schools were contemplating, originally, where to locate Center 2, they were looking at land on the southern end of the county in the Belton area. The board of supervisors donated at no cost to land to the school board to
have the property for this now Mountain View element or the upper Mountain View Elementary site. So that's one example too. It's not always about dollars. What is the partnership and strategies of how that could take place in the future? We'll we'll talk about that more later today. Also, just for a note and not to ignore the county government line for the other five strategic goals, we really see that increase in fiscal year twenty four and plus and beyond. That is primarily driven by the general District Court building downtown that is now open, the renovation of the historic courthouse building for the circuit court, the purchase of the Ravana Futures property,
which we'll talk a little more about today, and the Hisket Run Park with the partnership with the state. So that's just it. In a nutshell, where have we been for those fifteen years? To take just a moment and the rear view, what that is. Now beginning to look a little more forward about where we are headed. So diving into the content today, I always like to ground ourselves on what is all the work that has taken place to get to this meeting, and what is the work that we continue from. As we can see here, the board of supervisors, Texas is black. The school board is in blue, but you can see there's been a lot of long range discussion to date, and this is gonna continue. This is not a action or work session.
No action or the votes are as requested by staff to be taken today. This conversation will start or continue, and it will be picked up in the budget process, through February and through April. Thinking about the, desired outcomes and agenda for today as a staff from, county government public school strategize. One outcome is to take some time to start a meeting and ensure that, all elected officials have the understanding of the county's current financial landscape and what is in the adopted CIB. I spent some time with the board of supervisors in November 19, and I'm gonna hit the highlights of that presentation in just a few moments as
well as review the adopted CIP. Then we'll, we'll shuffle some seats, and, doctor Haas, doctor Aker, and Scuba Zal will go through a review of the capital request. The that was provided, in advance the materials and the schools will be in highlights and, of course, through that, we would allow as much discussion for the boards as possible. After that discussion, it would be a good time for the break, for the boards if they desire, and then we'll come back and I'll do some presentation on strategies and next steps for where we could go today. And, of course, for discussion, which is the most important part of this work session. So I'm gonna go back and just see the highlights from where we were first
at the five year financial plan on November 19. So we're board of supervisors. You all have seen never seen one of these slides before on the nineteenth. So this will be a condensed version of what you saw. So, again, we're all grounded in the the same information about where the county is and maybe headed. So long range financial planning is a regular process the board of supervisors and does to really think through, are the decisions meet be paid today? Can they be afforded tomorrow? And if not, what are the strategies in the out term that could long term that can begin to shape that trajectory very differently? It's not only about just dollars. It could be policy levers. There could be other strategies that could pursue it.
It does provide a framework for the budget, but it's one of those things as we know is that this is the best information we have today. We'll have the best projection we have, and the exercise of planning will be more important to plan itself because we'll continue to adapt to new information, strategies, and how that plays out. So a really good example of that is where are we in the current five year plan? And so I'll jump right to the bottom line that I shared with the board of supervisors that would show a we can see here, it's kind of hard to see on this particular screen. It's a dark red line on top for projected expenditures. This includes me and the county's obligations and also initiatives that we move forward with
the board strategic plan. It also includes the blue line of projected revenue growth. And it's it's okay to have a long range plan that's out of balance. The county is required to balance an annual budget, but it's okay to have a a long term plan that's out of balance because that's at the stage of what can we do differently, what can be to begin to shape those out of years differently. And we're also starting now because sometimes those efforts take a few years to play out. Now I will, clarify that the the gap shown on the screen of, just about a percent or only to 3% is, just a county government gap in this revenue projection, in this or in expenditure projection,
we were just doing the transfers of capital and debt service of public schools would continue to be made by formula. So to take a moment where we talk about as information changes and and how we begin to pivot, I wanna share a comparison to where this plan was, this time, five year last year for five years, compared to where we are now. So in the top line this time a year ago, in fiscal year twenty seven, county government projected a deficit of about 5%, growing to nine by fiscal year thirty. This is a very different picture. I would say this five year plan is someone who's been doing this for several years. This is a very different five year plan compared to one that I've seen before.
Other staff have shared that. So now we see that the gap is about 1%, and it really gets to 3% of about the fiscal year twenty eight and kinda levels off. So there are two major changes driving that. First of which is the board supervisors increased the real estate tax rate, in this calendar year. That input that additional revenue that goes all the way through the five years and funds some of those investments in, public education, public safety, and housing that were contemplated in the last year's five year plan have been unfunded. The second outcome is really the changing tax base and economic in the outlook in the the out years,
and I'll speak to a moment of what that looks like. With the, again, just in summary, this takeaway in the five year plan is we currently have a very different trend than we had in the past. There is opportunity in the horizon and the obvious, but in the short term, in fiscal year 2728, we know in county government, there will be some significant expenditure obligations firefighters, as we fulfill contractual obligations with our regional partners like the regional jail, the regional SPCA. The school board will also have obligations to reopen two schools next year, in other operating pressures as well. So there will be, certainly challenges in the next couple of years to work from,
but by that long term planning and multiyear approach, there is opportunity that can be better on the horizon. So to kind of understand a little more about the opportunity, what are the strategies to really shape that out outcome a little bit differently in the county's revenue picture? I wanna focus on something that the board's been board supervisors have been very focused on this year. What is the makeup of the county's tax base? And so, this is a chart, that shows by category. These are the state code categories and how properties are assessed. We can see that from 2015 to 2025, the county's residential tax base increased from 61% to 68%.
That growth came the, trade off for declines in the commercial and industrial sector as well as agricultural, and you all can see the declines there. So why this matters so much, because a dollar of revenue is a dollar of revenue wherever it comes from, but it's really about the expenditure side. Because while all of these different categories can generate revenue, they're very different in what it cost to provide services in these categories. So earlier this year, the board received a report, for the cost of community services study. And so this is a it's a different breakdown analysis, so the words are the same in terms of residential, commercial,
and industrial, and agricultural. So the the the general point remains the same. I I think we know this intrinsically that when it comes to residential development, it costs more to serve those, residents than it does for the revenue that you collect from those. The opposite is true with commercial industrial. For every dollar of revenue collected, it cost on average 32¢ to provide those services. So as we've seen over ten years, as that has shifted from 60, you know, 61 to 68%, commercial decline from 15% to 11%, that really begins to shift some of the burden onto the residential tax base.
And so and one of the reasons we know residential is the highest is that is where the school population comes from. That is the largest part of the county budget, and that's where, students come from. So this does not mean in when it comes to rebalancing, the county's tax base as a way to generate revenues, it's not done to chase commercial and industrial that regard. There is a plan for that. And earlier this year, as I feel I can give you highlights of the board's work in the last year, the board adopted an upgraded economic development strategic plan. So there's a lot of focus when it comes to commercial, industrial, even agricultural. What does that look like?
Across the top, there are three industries that are targeted, intelligence and national security, bio life sciences, and agribusiness. Now it's not just about attracting business as well. There are strategies and empowering talent competing for investment. There's a lot of alignment when it comes to empowered talent because you may hear phrases such as workforce readiness, workforce development. Another good, synonym added to education. How do we have our, how do we have our future generations ready for this evolving world that we're going into? And so, I was I'll back up. When we talk about that out here, picture the revenues increasing and the governor has been here twice as small for the
announcement ambassadors, and they got located in the northern part of the county. The continued development of Afton Scientific is more homegrown business. And, really, the opportunities that will come with that and even smaller examples, it's not a one size fits all. We have the, Home Depot room development as the value of Fashion Square declined over time. Now there's an anchor tenant there, and we'll see in the future how does that begin to develop. How does all of these other strategies begin to come together to change that tax base and provide something different? What was once a plan a few years ago is now seeing more tangible results of that, and that will continue in the future as this has built up.
So, with that said in the revenues, there is some uncertainty we have to navigate in the short term because all of these changes are not gonna happen overnight. And so, the county consults with, a group from Virginia Tech to do an annual economic outlook report. The big takeaways we had there is first in the national economy. The economy is slowing down, compared to prior years. We are still seeing modest growth. The economy has been very resilient nationally, but we also have this very big issue of uncertainty, federal policy shifts that are occurring. Second is that Virginia's economy is cooling faster than our nation's economy, at least through the first half of this week of '25.
This caused staff's attention because historically, Virginia will have formal in the nation in economic performance. But because Virginia is so heavily leveraged in the federal government and as that federal landscape changes and, about 42% of the Virginia's economy is based out of Northern Virginia. So as that is impacted, that has a disproportionate impact of the overall state. So right now, on the county's revenues, we don't see any impact of this directly. But what might that mean to future state budgets? What might that mean to how that may indirectly impact localities? We'll see as that plays out. We'll continue to watch this closely because right now,
based on our current year performance, Albemarle County has got a strong economic base to work through. And because of that, because of the board's approach and discipline to your planning, thinking ahead, and strategy, that provides us a really good scope to head on to this uncertainty for the next few years. So and, again, in summary, we're in a very different trend from where we were this time last year, the prior years, for the five year plan summary in the past. We do have two very distinct periods in those five years. We've been evolving revenue outlook, revenue we would project to, continue to grow, but it would not be at the rate that we have seen in the last
few years. And also that shifting landscape can can impact expenditures as well. And then in the longer term, the strategies continuing to play out to change that tax base will provide an ability to continue to meet obligations and more robustly advance strategic plan goals. So with that, I'm gonna shift gears, and I'm gonna provide a overview of what is currently in the appropriated capital budget and the adopted CIB. What we hear from today, from the schools, and I'll touch on this briefly for county government, is what is the request in those things ahead? Just to get us grounded, there are some projects we're not talking about because they're under construction or will be
capital agreement plan. We are referring to capital budget. That is the appropriated budget. Legal authority is there. Things are under contract. Dirt is moving. Those are things that are in the capital budget. When we talk about the CIP, it's really referring to years two through five of the plan where, those projects are adopted. Planning is underway to, you know, implement those when it becomes legally appropriate. But it'd be we tend to have some project where those march forward one year at a time. And new projects, when they're added, is we reviewed CIP income in in the later years of the spot either.
Just as I talked about earlier in multiyear planning, we also have to plan for the multiyear impacts. What does it cost to run the day to day impact when those good projects are constructed and then put in the service? Where's the annual debt service? Capital projects are generational investments. And so when it takes twenty years for that debt commitment, that is an ongoing commitment we always have to be preparing for as well as ensuring that we're operationally ready to implement those projects. So at a very high level, we have the CIP revenues, for the five years, total over $300,000,000. The the two big revenues that fund the majority of the CIP are cash equity.
Now that comes from the formula allocations by the board of supervisors. Also, any one time money that either the board or the school board that they come available that can be applied into the capital budget. The, second category is planned borrower proceeds, which is the majority of this, where, again, generational investments, generational paybacks with twenty year debt service. And so the county generational paybacks with twenty year debt service. And so the county will, strategize for those projects that are eligible to be borrowed for. There are criteria that we would meet, to then what is the amount of bonds we would issue and how do we manage that. That. And so one of the ways we manage that is through the board's financial management policies on debt service. So these are two,
charts that if, if the public listening in it or has followed the capital discussion before, they may look familiar. That red line is the policy cap that the board of supervisors has set, and that's informed by national standards of what a triple triple a moderated agency would look like. So currently, based on what's approved, with, major projects like the courts, Provana Futures, the three schools, everything else in the CIP. The county has a CIP that is well within its, margin of capacity. The tightest area, for anyone who may be eagle eyed is actually on the, area on the left where there's about $72,000,000
of capacity if that we were good at 9% on that policy. I'm gonna come back to that at the end of the presentation and talk a little more about that figure and strategies for what we need. But, if charts about debt are one thing, but it really gets back to the question of why did we have a triple triple a bond rating in the first place? This is a common question that I that I may get. And I'll I'll share that, when I'm discussing with, folks in the community or just others, when I talk about municipal bonds, sometimes I can lose someone's attention. So I'm gonna frame this. I mean, I with apologies to our CFO, my supervisor, but this is one where I I wanna put this in the realm of what
does it mean if you're an individual with a triple triple a bond rating. So Albemarle, they had two ratings that retained in 2003. The third was attained in 2013. There are only 54 of the 3,000 plus counties as of last month in the entire United States who have this. Of those 54, 13 are Virginia. So when we look a lot of our peers at benchmarking, they are just like us and their financial management. So there are a lot of it through a moderated agency. And so we we think about this if you're an individual, you have a perfect credit rating if you're in this situation. And so what what does this mean? One element, and I think we can all understand this,
is that future flexibility. If you think of an individual, you think of the first thing they would need to do is pay your mortgage or pay your rent every month. The lower that amount is relative to your overall income, the more flexibility you have to do everything else, whether it be for your quality of life, your basic needs, whatever that's And so they give that future flexibility for localities where they, may not have this rating, that they have much higher debt load. They don't have localities where they, may not have this rating or they have much higher debt load. They don't have as much flexibility to do something different on a year to year basis. It's been debt is an important tool. Bonds are important tool to move forward capital projects, but it's a twenty year commitment. Second is,
when you have such a high credit rating agency, if you're this individual, you get the best possible rates in the market. And so you can imagine a situation if you're an individual and you needed to do a home home renovation project or maybe a major car repair. What would happen if you needed to do that and immediately you had nine mechanics or nine contractors show up at your door to give you quotes and what that would look like? You're probably gonna be in a pretty great situation, and that is what happens when the county issued bonds. 2023, there were nine major financial institutions who were ready to, you know, purchase those bonds, and that allows the county to get the lowest possible interest rate as those bonds
are paid back over twenty years. And finally, in the case of an emergency, if there was every major natural disaster or sudden shock where the county did need to borrow, unexpectedly or short term, the county would be able to access that cash and be able to do so at the best possible rate relative to the market. So that's just a little bit more of kind of some real world examples on how that triple a plays out whether you are a municipality or whether you are an individual with a very high credit rating. So moving from the revenue side now to the expenditure side, what makes up the CIP?
As you can see, just like the operating budget, the public schools are in the majority of this. The current five years is 59%. One of the, major drivers that we talk about, and I know the public schools will have this in the presentation, are these ongoing programs in the CIP. The board has in its financial management policy is the expectation that the county will be doing, responsible for the maintenance of all of its assets to prevent major longer term, cost in the future. So whether it's replacing school buses, ambulances, providing just basic repairs, utility work, to all of these county and schools on properties,
all of these things make up a significant portion, and it's actually 56% of the adopted CIP. So moving on beyond ongoing programs, just walking through the rest of the CIP, what are the highlights that we have? Now begin with fiscal year twenty six, these are the appropriate projects are notably on the right side, the Mountain View Upper Elementary and the ACE Academy. We also had at the start of the year ongoing balance as the schools continue to implement system wide renovations, and there was a small balance to complete the Mountain View expansion that was approved a few years ago. Totally $90,000,000 of what is currently appropriated of ongoing programs underway,
appropriated under contract. Looking on the county government side, and I'll say that I didn't put the dollar amounts on here because the words were a little bit of gotten pretty small. What we have here, these colors codes respond to the color codes of the six schools, the strategic plan. The board has investments in transportation to leverage state funding, to, you know, improve the transportation network. There's an orderly convenience center. This is really the same concept as one that opened at the southern part of the county. One is currently, under design. Highlighting the revanna futures, that is a debt service. I don't mention all the past debt service because that is a one of the
larger projects. I do call that out. And as that property continues to evolve, we'll be continuing to analyze the best way to, to manage that dead service. We have a few community nonprofit projects who have been requested such as volunteer stations, in in recent years. The green category speaks to all of the parks improvements that are underway with this run, athletic fields, and other areas. The, in blue, we have the workforce and customer service. This really speaks to the core service modernization project, core system modernization project, where several years ago, the county developed a multiyear strategy to phase in the replacement of bids.
Very old very, very old antiquated human resources system, followed by a key development system, followed by a financial management system. All three of those are live. You can these were concepts now that we're, you know, just really in the early stages around fiscal year eighteen, and now we've been able to look back and see through multi year planning, phasing in network, having our staff ready, how's that gonna be accomplished. Workforce facility renovations is really speaking to, how the county has managed, space in the new office environment. And then, we also have the quartz constructions as ongoing in renovations of Station 11, which is Monte Chuckle. Moving on what's appropriate and underway,
on the next slide are those projects in fiscal year twenty seven to thirty that are already in the adopted CIP. And all else being equal, we would expect them to march forward in the next CIP, as we have we we support some project cost, evaluate new conditions. But I'll pick out a few ones that are new. There is a central library renovation. This is for the library right down the street off Market Street. It is jointly owned fifty fifty with the city of Charlottesville, and they, surprising fact that the majority of the circulation at that library is from the county, Cox City. A lot of that work is gonna be about, you know, electrical systems, water and sewer systems,
as well as some improvements they're seeking today. The other areas that I'll add, really are continuing from the year, but I'll say the northern feeder pattern that we'll hear more about from public schools soon is to plan to be designed in '27 with construction dollars to follow with fiscal year twenty eight. So finally, I know we'll hear from the schools about their requested needs. I'm not gonna have a detailed review of what the county projects are, but I just want to acknowledge there are other needs on the horizon we're analyzing and think about. Really look at the timeline towards fiscal year thirty one or perhaps beyond. Right now, the Ford's construction is underway, but that's not done. So just like any major project,
we're watching to make sure that budget is on track. We'll continue as the, as the fire rescue system has expanded, to monitor the apparatus replacement cost and any other equipment that meets the capital threshold. We know for we have a regional, ECC, emergency communication facility, that's a partnership with UVA and the city. They have identified space needs on the horizon that we would need to plan for. Then that would be a a, you know, quite a large multimillion dollar facility in regional planning that'll take some time to put together. And then, transportation or abandoned futures continues to be in the mind that we have. So with that,
that really just covers where we have currently in the CIP right now, also the five year plan. And so I'm gonna next gonna turn it over to, doctor Hickup and doctor Hass to walk through the public schools presentation, and I will come back later in the presentation to answer questions and also talk about some strategies. And where do we go from here? Thank you. I Thank you, mister Mullen. That was very, very clear. Good afternoon, chair Andrews, vice chairman Kiel, minutes of the board, mister Richardson, and county staff. On behalf of the school board, doctor Haas, and the ACPS staff,
we welcome this opportunity to discuss how we can best partner to build for the future of our students and the community. We have provided you with the detailed capital priorities and background and information to all of the projects listed, and I hope you've had the opportunity to look out. A discussion of school capital and the opportunity to look out. A discussion of school capital investment is a discussion about building for the county's future. Schools are central to every community. They provide a sense of place where students and families connect and engage in shared life experiences. Schools also reflect the quality and image of the communities that they serve and are
critical drivers of economic development. Each, any family, or business considering locating to the community and the quality schools regularly ranks at or near the top of their list of priorities. We are proud of the learning opportunities we've created for our students and the notable progress we've made to ensure that all students have the chance to learn, dream, and grow into the future they imagine for themselves. We especially wanna thank you, the county, for prioritizing the funding for our new Mountain View Upper Elementary School and Albemarle's Career Exploration Center at LLC,
both of which will open next fall and be wonderful learning environments for our students. We've also begun planning for the opening of Northpointe Elementary School on the 2930 school year. These two elementary schools, plus the 35,000 square foot addition to Crozet Elementary School that opened three years ago, will make a significant dent toward expanding our elementary school capacity. But we are still playing catch up on our capital construction, please. There is no doubt that investment in school capital projects is essential for building a
future for our students and our community. As the Yale School of Economics notes, capital investment in schools improves test scores and raises housing values. So together, we have an obligation to our constituents to provide school facilities that reflect the quality of life families and businesses expect in Alamo County. Our proposed CIP places an emphasis both on new construction to address critical capacity needs and essential renovations to modern
allow us to plan and fund construction is critical. To that end, the school board focused on three criteria. One, improving school capacity two, modernizing school infrastructure and three, creating greater accessibility for our students. Using these criteria, new school construction emerges as a top priority as new schools improve school capacity, promote enhanced learning environments, immediately meet modern construction and equipment standards, and assure that accessibility is factored into the design of the buildings and amenities.
As you have seen, building a new high high school is at the top of our list of priorities. The submittance may have surprised you considering the significant cost of the project. But I urge you to view this and our conversation today as an invitation to think beyond the bricks and mortar of a new traditional high school. My hope is that we can collaborate and establish a vision for how a new high school can be a catalyst, not only for student success, but for your economic development and community development initiatives. How might a new high school and the Northern Feeder pattern improve property values,
attract a diverse workforce, support our growing biotech and life sciences prison sector? Yes. A new high school certainly has a large price tag, but it is invest with it is an investment in the future, and together, I believe we can make it a reality. But today is about more than a new high school. As we will discuss, our aging school facilities require modernization and improved accessibility. Our urban rate elementary schools require particular attention, and we must find a way to support our growing pre k population.
We realize that there are a number of critical unmet needs that need to be addressed, and we are grateful for your continued prioritization of the Albemarle County Public School System. As you well know, the out board of supervisor bears the sub supervisors bears bears heightened unenviable, Thank you. Task of determining the tax rate, identifying how we might fund the CIP, and budgeting for the ongoing debt services that these projects would require. We are all county residents, however, and understand that there are other important needs beyond the important public schools that the
board of supervisors must consider. From responders to first responders to code enforcement, economic development, to social services, recycling centers, to park facility, the needs of our community are immense. However, public schools remain a central part of our joint obligation to the future of our county. Like you, this school board has met with and lobbied our state representatives for the past two years to enact a 1¢ sales tax dedicated to school capital projects, and we have some confidence that it will pass in this legislative session.
That additional funding could be a game changer if ultimately adopted and was certainly easily made forward. However, the projects that we we proposed remain a priority regardless of the outcome of that legislation, and we must identify a pathway forward. I would close that by reiterating that although today we are focused on capital improvements to support our public schools, this CIP ultimately reflects our collective commitment to building a strong future for our community, our students, and for all who will someday become part of the Albemarle County County community.
And with that, I'll turn it over to doctor Hough and his staff to get into the meeting today. Alright. Thanks a lot, doctor Hough. Good afternoon, Cherry Andrews and members of the board of supervisors, school board members, and colleagues. Thank you for the opportunity to be here today, and thank you as well for your ongoing partnership and oversight of the resources ACPS needs for our capital and operational work. We truly value the collaboration between our two boards and with local government staff because
it is this partnership that makes it possible for Albemarle County Public Schools to provide learning opportunities and environments where every student can grow and thrive. On the opening slide, you'll see students from Mountain View Elementary School photographed during the topping out ceremony for Mountain View Upper Elementary this fall. Moments like that remind us of why we do this work. Today's presentation reflects the school board's priorities for ensuring that all students across every school and community have access access to safe,
modern, and engaging learning space. We appreciate your time, your questions, and your commitment to strong public schools for Albemarle County Children. Before we move into the full CIP overview, I want to pause on this slide and thank the Board of Directors for the overview, I want to pause on this slide and thank the Board of Supervisors again for the financial oversight and support that made these projects possible. Because of that partnership, we are making steady progress on three major construction efforts, Mountain View Upper Elementary, ACE Academy at Lamb's Lane Campus, both of which are on track to open for students in the twenty twenty six-twenty
seven school year, and the new 2nd Floor connector at Albemarle High School, which will open in the second semester of the current school year. It's really any any day now. These improvements directly strengthen learning environments, and we are grateful for your continued investment learning, and the board of supervisors is focused on community development. Research shows that construction directly advances both goals. Modern, well designed facilities improve student performance, increase property values, and strengthen local economic growth. One study published in the American economic journal,
Applied Economics, found that students attending newly constructed schools not only make significant gains in test scores, but also attend about four more days per school year. The same study showed a 6% increase in home prices in neighborhoods that received new school buildings. These are investments that support students, families, and the long term strength of Albemarle Chem. Given the strong return on investment that school construction provides, both for students and for the broader community, it is important that our recommendations come from a thoughtful,
data driven process. For ACPS, that process begins with the work of our Long Range Planning Advisory Committee, or LRPAC, as you'll often hear us say. Their recommendations are grounded in five key pillars, creating high quality learning environments, ensuring modern, safe, and accessible buildings, providing more space for a growing county, sequencing projects strategically to to reduce duplication and cost, and making equitable needs based investments across all schools. Every project in RCIP aligns with at least one of these drivers,
and often several. This helps ensure that our capital requests are not only responsive to student needs, but also responsible and forward looking for the entire Outlaw community. Building on those five investment drivers, our long range planning advisory committee brings an important level of independence and community representation to this work. Their strength comes from relying on multi year data and a deep foundation of master planning studies. This allows them to look at the full picture, capacity pressures,
aging buildings, instructional needs, and fiscal realities, and develop recommendations that are strategic and grounded in operational reality. We now have several major master plans that lay the groundwork for our future CIP. The Lambs Lane Campus Master Plan, the 2023 High School Master Plan, the Middle School Master Lands Lane plan, in particular, has moved forward meaningfully with the ACE Academy project, which contributes to bringing that vision to life. This transparent view viewpoint neutral approach ensures that our capital investments deliver long term value for students,
families, and capital investments deliver long term value for students, families, and the entire Albemarle community. Let's just kind of soak up the slide a little bit. Our long range planning and facility study point to an important reality for Albemarle County. Many of our school buildings are aging, and a number are now outdated in terms of infrastructure and instructional design. Over the past fifty years, we have opened only eight new schools, including just one in the last twenty five years. To meet enrollment needs during that time,
our strategy has often been to expand and renovate existing buildings. Renovate existing buildings. That approach has been possible because of the steady support of our community and the board of supervisors, support that is not always present in other parts of Virginia or across the nation. The timeline the timeline on this slide helps put that history into perspective. It shows how rarely we have had the opportunity to bring completely new facilities online and how much our system still relies on building new facilities online and how much our system still relies on building new facilities online and how much our system still relies on buildings constructed decades and almost the same. Additions have helped us meet growth,
but they cannot fully address modern infrastructure needs. As we look toward opening ACE Academy at Lamb's Lane Campus and Mountain View Upper Elementary in the 2026, this timeline underscores the value of continued, thoughtful reinvestments so that our learning environments keep pace with the expectations of our families and the needs of today's students. This is another slide just to kind of pause and get a few to four. As I shared, Albemarle County has long relied on additions and renovations to meet enrollment needs and extend the usefulness of older school buildings.
That strategy has been possible because of consistent support from our community and from the board of supervisors, and it has helped us make thoughtful use of our existing facilities. This slide helps show how that approach plays out over time. The weighted age reflects both the original construction date and the age of any additions. Most of our additions are relatively small compared to the total square footage of the school, so even when newer spaces are added, the overall weighted age still reflects the much older portions of the building.
Murray Elementary School is a good example. The school was built in 1960. So chronologically, it is about 65 years old, but because Murray received an addition that updated a portion of the building, the weighted age calculation extends the life of the school by about twenty years, which is shown in the bubble on the left. In the chart on the right, Murray appears closer to fifty years of rated age rather than its actual 65. The small addition pulls the average down, but most of the buildings most of the building still reflects its original 1960 construction.
This illustrates how additions increase capacity and help us stretch the life of older buildings, but they do not fully modernize the infrastructure. As our population continues to grow, the additions alone will not keep pace with future instructional and capacity needs. All of this helps explain the picture we're seeing as we look across the school district. Our renovation efforts, along with the construction of Mountain View Upper Elementary, have gone a long way toward relieving several of our most immediate capacity pressures.
Those projects have helped stabilize enrollment in parts of the county that were experiencing the most significant overcrowding. Even with those improvements, this slide shows several needs that still require attention. We continue to face overcrowding in our urban ring elementary schools, where enrollment growth has been especially strong. All three of our comprehensive high schools are also above capacity, which creates challenges for scheduling, programming, and common spaces. In addition, several of our lowest rated buildings still require modernization to support today's instructional expectations.
So while we've made meaningful progress, the remaining needs in the urban ring at the high school level and in our oldest facilities show why a long term Seaviewitz capital plan remains essential for the school division and for the county as a whole. As we consider the remaining needs in our buildings, it's important to recognize that our capital work is not only about adding space or building new schools. A significant portion of our CIP must also support the day to day functioning of our existing infrastructure.
Our aging equipment and building systems require consistent investment to maintain a modern, reliable, clean room environment. This includes everything from HVAC, roofing, and plumbing to technology, networks, buses, and essential maintenance and replacement cycles. These ongoing programs are projected to cost nearly $25,000,000 per year over the next five years. While these investments don't always generate the same visibility as new construction, they are what allow our schools to operate safely, efficiently, and without interruption. Sustaining these programs ensures that students and staff experience environments that support learning every day,
not just in newly modernized spaces. With both our ongoing maintenance needs and our long term facility challenges in mind, the school board has worked carefully with the Long Beach Planning Advisory Committee to establish clear priorities for future cap future capital investments. To guide that work, the board focused on three critical areas that reflect both current pressures and the long term needs of Algonquin. Increasing capacity where schools are overcrowded, modernizing equipment and facilities to support high quality instruction, and improving accessibility so that every student can fully use and benefit from their school
environment. I think we can all agree that these goals are essential as we plan for the next generation of students and for the county's continued growth. They also provide framework for the specific project recommendations ahead. With that foundation in place, the next slide outlines the projects that rise to the top of the school board's CIP request. With these priorities in mind, this slide shows the full capital improvement program request for building improvements and new construction. These recommendations come from the Long Range Planning Advisory Committee and have been reviewed and
prioritized by the school board as part of the approved CIP system wide look at where capacity needs are most urgent and where modernization will have the greatest instructional impact, and where accessibility improvements are essential for students. There is a great deal of detail behind each of these projects that is found in the school board's approved LRPAC advisory committee report, so you all have a copy of that. And, of course, our staff are always available via email. If you ask questions about the projects, we we promise to give you as much detail as you need.
For the purposes of today's presentation, I'm going to focus on the school board's top five priorities. Those projects that offer the greatest combined impact on capacity, modernization, and accessibility. These represent the most significant steps we can take to ensure that our facilities keep pace with the needs of Albemarle County students and faculty. The first and highest priority project is the recommendation to build a new comprehensive high school. This project has drawn significant interest because it offers the greatest impact across all three of the school board's criteria,
capacity, modernization, and accessibility. A new high school would immediately relieve overcrowding across our current high schools, provide a fully modern facility built to today's instructional and safety standards, and ensure full accessibility for all students. It is also the most costly project for the CIT, so it's important to understand the context behind the recommendation and the long term benefits it provides for the entire county. Up to this point, renovating and expanding our aging facilities has been an effective strategy.
But that approach works best when population growth is relatively stable. The pace of growth we're now seeing in Albemarle County requires us to look ahead with a different level of planning. The graph here illustrates that shift. Albemarle continues to be one of the faster growing counties in Virginia, significantly outpacing statewide growth. Among the 27 Virginia localities with populations over 80,000, Albemarle ranked ninth in growth. This increase has made capacity a central issue for our schools. Together, we've helped make Alval County a place where families and businesses want to be.
The quality of life and the opportunities here have contributed to this growth, and our school facilities must continue to involve evolve in step with the community we serve. As we look ahead to long term capacity, forecasts that are intentionally conservative. There's a saying that goes, it's hard to make a prediction, especially about the future, and that is certainly true in school planning. Even though Albemarle County is projected for considerable population growth, our enrollment model assumes student growth at a slower rate than the overall population growth.
There are many unknowns, future housing starts, shifting market conditions, and the impact of major economic development projects like AstraZeneca. Still, even using the cons these conservative assumptions, we project steady enrollment increases across all levels of the division over the next decade. Objections are built through a very detailed process. We use a cohort progression model, which is the industry standard and also used by Weldon Cooper. This method examines historical enrollment patterns, transitions and
we review outside studies to test our assumptions. We also consider trends in homeschooling and private school enrollment. In addition, we work closely with the county's community development team to model different housing scenarios, and we reviewed outside studies to test our assumptions. To give a sense of how our force forecast compares, Weldon Cooper projects ACPS enrollment growth of six to 7% over 10, while While PowerSchool, which is an application in our student database, that model ranges from eight to 18%. Those differences reflect the various methodologies used,
but the consistent theme is clear. Albemarle County public schools should plan for steady, sustained growth. These enrollment trends lead directly to one of our most pressing challenges. All three of our comprehensive high schools are currently operating in full capacity. Even with careful scheduling and the use of every available instructional space and sometimes non instructional space, the buildings are simply serving more students than they were designed to accommodate. When Base Academy at Lanslin campus opens next year, it will provide some temporary relief,
primarily for Alamoaha High School because of its proximity and the specialized programs offered there. That added space will certainly help, but it will not resolve the overall capacity pressures we face across the division, nor will it meet the level of growth we anticipate in coming years. This is why long term planning for high school facilities, including the recommendation for the new comprehensive high school, remains such a high priority to NCIP. A reasonable question we sometimes hear is, you've known high schools were getting crowded for years.
Why are you recommending a new high school now? The fact is that we have been addressing capacity issues for decades. Albemarle High School and Western Albemarle High School, in particular, have received multiple additions and modernizations over the years to add space and extend the useful life of those buildings. That strategy worked when growth was moderate, and it allowed us to be responsible stewards of our existing facilities. But we have now reached a point where additions alone cannot meet the school board's capital priorities or align with local government's long term vision for economic development.
When we look at comparable jurisdictions, those with a major university present in the vicinity, a similar total population and a similar student population, a fourth high school is the norm at this scale. Our challenge is further compounded by Outlaw County's geographic size. With such a large geographic footprint, it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain attendance boundaries that ensure reasonable commute times for students and families. Given the growth we are experiencing at the current and the current condition and capacity
of our high schools, there's no question that we must invest in our high school facilities to meet the needs of the community. The question of how we fund a project of this magnitude is one that our two boards will need to engage with together, and we welcome that conversation. While ACPS consistently and adequately funds ongoing maintenance, many of our school buildings now require more comprehensive renovations, projects that go beyond routine repairs and allow us to update whole facilities in a more efficient and holistic way.
These renovations will not only increase capacity at the selected schools, they will also modernize aging infrastructure and improve accessibility in the buildings where major upgrades have historically been deferred. The elementary schools identified here represent the highest priority for this type of investment. Their selection is based on a comprehensive facilities conditions assessment conducted across all ACPS buildings. For each of these schools, we also have detailed master planning recommendations that outline the specific improvements needed to bring
the facilities up to concurrent instructional accessibility and operational standards. These renovations will help ensure that our elementary schools provide safe, modern, and inclusive environments that can serve students and families for decades to come. Give me just a moment to digest this one. The blue outlines the capacity and then the purple is the current enrollment. To identify capacity issues, we'd look to our current enrollment, which is anticipated to grow steadily over the next ten years. Our CIP request focuses on the group in the middle,
which includes our urban ring schools, Agner, Greer, and Woodbrook, and our oldest schools, Broadus Wood, Murray, and Stony Point. Even with the recommendation for a new comprehensive high school, it remains essential that we modernize our existing facilities and improve accessibility for all students. The age and condition of Albemarle High School and Western Albemarle High School placed them at the top of that list. The division completed a high school facility planning study in 2017, which identified AHS and WHS as the highest priorities for renovation.
A follow-up master planning study in 2023 provided more detailed recommendations for improvements at both schools. These projects focus on updating instructional spaces, improving circulation and accessibility, enhancing safety systems, and creating collaborative areas for students and staff. These modernization projects do not add new capacity as the board shifted that responsibility to the recommendation to the recommended new high school. Instead, they ensure that our existing high schools, some of the county's oldest and largest buildings,
can provide safe, accessible, and modern learning environments that support today's instructional needs. Finally, the school board has prioritized the construction of a new preschool center to increase capacity in our schools where pre k currently is held and to expand opportunities for those students who qualify for pre k for where we do not have current capacity. The LRPAC recommends continued study to analyze the alternatives for creating a central location for
ACPS preschools in the urban range. Most ACPS elementary schools host these programs with participants living both in the respective elementary school district and participants from neighboring elementary school districts since the programs cannot be offered at all the elementary schools in the students, districts or zoning. Centralizing these services will provide a higher level of service, greater preschool capacities, and program efficiencies, and quality control. With that, thank you again for the opportunity to share the school board's capital priorities and the
work that has informed this plan. We remain committed to partnering closely with the board of supervisors and the county staff to ensure that our school facilities support the needs of Albemarle students, families, and growing community. We appreciate your continued engagement, your questions, and your oversight of resources as we plan for the future of our schools. With that, future of our schools. With that, Chair Andrews, I turn back over to you. Thanks. Thank you very much. As deserved practice, we'll come through questions from the supervisor and turn back to the supervisor. Thank you very much for your very well very well present presentation,
and it's a lot of information for us. I did wanna ask, you had mentioned that 67%, that's the growth of 10, for your school. Is that about the same thing by chance, our staff? That's about the same percentage of more or less of our county, probably and wise. I'm sorry. What? Well, this is not a figure that I have off top of my head. The county's recent rate. I'm giving the fed up during this meeting. Okay. I was just wondering if the county population as a whole is increasing more than
the six to 7% that there are at this rate for schools, if that has any correlation. Regarding the preschool center, and I I know my other supervisors. The other supervisors have a lot of questions also. But would you, give me a little bit more detail? Because you're planning on one preschool, right, center, which would mean that and that would be in the urban room? So that would only service the the students around around that area. And what about preschool services in the other schools? So, thank you very much.
And we certainly as a school system, we value early learning opportunities for students. And then, those programs help to close the achievement gap, which usually is about starts out at eighteen months, for students who do not attend preschool. And one of the things that county executive, mister Richardson, and I did several years ago was passed over the preschool, funding and operations to the school system. For many years, it was forever. The Virginia Preschool Initiative grant was managed by local government, and then we took it over to build,
build it into our, instructional program. So in the in the urban ring, we have several elementary schools in close proximity to one another that host, preschool classrooms in those schools. And what that does is it reduces the overall, kindergarten through fifth grade capacity of the school. It's a good thing because they're at the school, but at the same time, it brings down the capacity of the school. The other thing it does is for those for those students in that in those particular areas that probably need the most access to to quality preschool,
it reduces the consistency of program usage across the schools. Since we have some opportunities, to to bring that all together with limited transportation time, a shared vision that we have is to provide those preschool opportunities in the on one site. It will then open up more capacity at the elementary schools in the urban ring and in that vicinity around it. All the other schools, in the school system provide access to preschool already, and they would just continue to do that. Okay. So all the other schools have a preschool program?
Yep. Yes, ma'am. And do all the urban learning schools have a preschool program? Yes. They all have they all have pre k classrooms. Okay. So this would allow for additional, pre k classes? In the urban? Right. What it would do is it would it would take all the existing classrooms that are in the elementary schools for pre k, and they would those schools would be able to use them for their kindergarten through fifth grade program and relocate those classrooms to one site. And then that way, you don't have to increase class size? Potentially.
I mean, just to add to what doctor Hans said, I mean, we predict, 11 to 14 classrooms are being, dedicated to pre k in our existing urban ring schools. Those schools, especially Woodbrook now, is really coming up with capacity issues. So it would, eliminate the need to add on to three elementary schools that are gonna be long, you know, as as they grow and concentrate the educational experience in which location. I mean, I mean, one of the site, we do have some land in a Crawford in Brookhill,
which is reasonably, you know, approximate to those three schools, and, I think after the Illinois experience, we're gonna be I mean, as you know, in all the planning that we do for schools, one of our chief hurdles is transportation, I mean, we're which is very big. So could possibly Holly Mead or, you elementary schools, you know, participate in that? Yes. But, you know, Scottsdale is, you know, or Quo would say no. I mean, the transportation time would not work. That that's all at this point. Thank you. Thank you. Supervisor Provost.
Have you had any changes in enrollment projections on the ACE Academy? In terms of student enrollment opening in the fall? Yeah. It well, it will be fully enrolled, up but so it will be fully enrolled because there'll be programming there that students will sign up for, but also because students can take classes that would normally be in the Alamo High School facility in the center. So we could have Algebra one class in there and so that would be the
enrollment. We're not going to fully we're not going to fully enroll probably all of the programming classes because to do that, you would need, full enrollment. So you might need to start up some classes. Our minimum typically for new programming classes, like back in the day when we first started offering AP Calculus, would be eight students. So you're not going to have a maximizing of the space. But you also don't want to cut off programs because you won't have the full number of students at 20 yet. Expecting a significant drawdown from other comprehensive high school, daytime student populations during the opening days?
We're expecting what we've always been expecting is significant drawdown from Albemarle High School. I think I remember saying it's about what we looked at in other localities that have opened up centers like this. It's about 10% of the students will move from other schools. Now I think that's an underestimate because I'm I'm very, I wouldn't even say optimistic. I just just from the quality of the facility and the opportunities that are gonna be there, the students will travel to attend this, especially the school the students in the older schools. Can you help me understand more why you would characterize that as an underestimate for
Center two when I mean, I don't want to speak out of turn, but my understanding is that enrollment with Center one has historically struggled and been undermarked. Well, that struggled, but our enrollment at KTEC, we maxed out KTEC. Joshua Foer: I would like to give a little bit more particularity and texture on explaining that gulf in your own projection between Center two two and center one. Is that So with center one, it turns out it's more of a recruitment issue. Will the the entering ninth grade and tenth grade for this year are fully enrolled
as compared to last year, and we're already enrolling students now for ninth grade next year, within two years, they'll be fully enrolled. We'll have a waiting list for it. Joshua George: I worry sometimes we talk past each other in these things. This is out of turn and probably a bad idea, but I'm just going to try and put the tiger on the table and yell at it for a second. We do our operating budget planning on a three to five year basis, not even talking about obviously capital. I generally don't try and question the wisdom of the school board's long range planning
on schools. I'm really excited to be part of a county that is reinvesting in schools and have has with a comprehensive high school that I hear as a Southern District person that I hear people constantly asking for a new comprehensive high school. I got really raked over the coals in an interview with a student asking for a new comprehensive high school. I carried water for the school division's plan, which I said, Well, what they're planning is a control plan and a model that has a drawdown from
all three districts at the same time. That's what they propose. They are currently not moving forward with a comprehensive school model. I've said that to many people in my community again and again. And we built a capital plan designed to accommodate that as our strategy, as our shared strategy between the board of supervisors and the school division. And now having programmed those funds, we it feels like at the eleventh hour, we're receiving a request from school divisions for what?
The public had been bullying us for for a while. And Frankly, my peers on the board of supervisors will tell me this, right, and will not shy away from it. I am not someone who is gun shy about really leaning in on risky financial policy. I am the most comfortable with financial risk on the board. And I say, I don't see a way to literally do it. It does not seem like a possible proposal on the timeline that is presented. Since I was first running for office, you know, I have stood in front of my thousands of people or hundreds of people,
including my own church and my own priest. And I've said that I am going to get $10,000,000 for housing. I'm going somewhere with this. That's a big ask. This ask is 20 times bigger, but that's a big ask. I have owned that, and I have fought for it, and I have proposed a lot of cuts. Right? I have proposed we've taken a pickaxe to every reserve, but I've tried to take a pickaxe to every reserve to accomplish it. I proposed cutting economic development. I proposed not hiring an additional sheriff. I proposed raising our personal property tax rate,
which I did not have anyone raising their hand off. And I didn't have to go and buy those people every day and look my priest in the eye and say, I failed again, and this is what I'm going to try and do next time, even after voting for all these cuts. And it is hard not to look at what's coming to us today as a really significant failure in long range planning. And it's hard not to look at what's happening today as a not staring your priest in the eye and explaining what you tried to do when it's impossible. And so I've I've shared this frustration with my peers on the board.
That doesn't accomplish a damn thing if I don't share it with y'all. So that is my frustration with receiving this. If this is what the school division says they need, we will try and figure out what the hell we can do. But I'm saying right now, if someone does not go and take a laundry list at the existing programming, I literally think what you're asking for is impossible. And I don't say that because glee. I don't say that because I like to not build schools. Fucking love building schools. I talked about it on the campaign. Pardon my French.
And it's not French. But anyway. This is supposed to be questions. Respond accordingly. So we're about to do. Yes. Thank you, Mike. Because I too share your concerns. We're at the questioning and asking question stage right now. I have some thoughts about the need for more data, and I think it's very serious more data if we're gonna move forward with what y'all's request is, or if we're gonna move forward at all with how to position ourselves. And I wanna add point out just a couple of things that I'm concerned about
with data, and I think I do somewhere here. I have a couple of questions. When I look at k 12 Alamarone County, and I'm talking about Alamarone County public schools generally, you know, not one school. In 2018, you all had 13,692 students. In 2025, you have 13,644 students. Just let that sit here. We lost about seven other students till COVID. What I'm saying is in 2018 and 2025, and that is correct.
So the landscape same as COVID. COVID has affected the landscape for everything. School populations all over the state are down. Populate birth rates are down. Our community is changing. We're seeing growth. But I don't and I don't know, Andy, if you have that answer to the growth, just have to carry out since I said growth. I do. So I'll give a shout out to Bart Zmodo, deputy director of Pewdie Mountain who's listening to him. So big thank you to, mister Siboto. The last two years,
they averaged 2.8 a year, over according to Weldon Cooper from their projections from 2020 to 2024, that group was 4.8% over that time. So think of a chance to address and provide a little piece of this question. Yes. And that's population growth in Albemarle County, not schools. Correct. Total poverty. That's what you're addressing. Right? Because we have to keep those separate. So, we know, and I think Andy and folks can comment on this if I'm incorrect, but we know the growth at Almarva County, even over the last decade, has been the people point at fifty five and sixty five years later.
We that's why we have all these retirement communities now, and we have all the, facilities that are taking care of people as they're aging now and needing to go into to places to take care of them in their old age. So we have an older population in this community just like other communities do across the state and across The United States. What I'm looking at is To Kate's point, about the pandemic. Since the pandemic and certainly even prior to the pandemic, fewer chill people are having children.
In this community, we have a lot more homeschoolers coming out of the pandemic. Homeschooling is much more popular than it used to be. I think probably what happened was people stayed home with their kids and homeschooled and said, hey. I can do this. I can do this. And we have a lot lot of families who have mothers who can afford to stay home and home homeschool. We have some that can't, but we have a good number. Let's face it. Our community, in general, at this point, is pretty wealthy. So we have homeschoolers. We have economic development impacts that,
are creating issues around our, our population right now. So just to to frame it a little bit around concerns about data going forward. And I did have a and I'm gonna come back to that in a minute, but I did have a couple of questions. And I really wanna say, I you are all's report was wonderful. It was beautifully done. I appreciated that the, report, I think your your points were well note were well taken and well noted. Noted. And there isn't anyone at this table that doesn't support schools and education in school.
And there's probably not anybody in the audience. We all recognize the importance of education. And I'm getting away from asking questions here, and I apologize. But, I am really I wanna just add, I'm really supportive of the preschool center that you all are talking about. I think that's a great idea, and it really meets a need. So I'm, again, really in favor of that particular so I don't have so much of a question about that. I think it'd be answered to questions that I might have had. I'm a little I agree with Mike, and that I'm taken back because I with the change in the center model,
I pulled out our March 17, and you all were espousing how the center models, what you were putting your money into, is where you were going in this community. That's what all of us thought we were doing, and we've been talking about that now for years. And I'm like, Mike, I've been arguing that in the community too to my constituents that we were utilizing the center model. We had center one, essentially, that this coming year, we were gonna be in our opening, if you wanted to think about it,
a center two. And I know your all's language is tied to the way you're calling me. It's just changed, and I apologize for my old brain. But, I've been arguing and making this case for years for now several years. And we had my understanding was we had a recognition that the Lamb's Lane campus was certainly overcrowded from the because it had so many extraneous facilities on it, and that we were together going to do a master plan, which we did to free up space on the Lans Lane campus for another building,
another school, whatever it might be. And that was part of what we talked about, the center of the model. We have that center going in now. There's lots more space on that campus if it isn't just a gas station for Far West and 200 school buses. Having said that, that goes to my concern about when I look at Alamoire High School, Alamoire High School actually has been losing enrollment for the last few years.
If you look at where they are now, we I hear in the community from certain folks, our high school is approaching 2,200 students. They're actually eighteen seventy five students, and that's fewer than last last year and the year before. I guess I'm talking about data. I am concerned about the data that we're hearing and seeing with our own eyes when we look at your data. And at this point, well, maybe I'll just, let me go back to the questions and see what my other questions were.
Part of your CIP, and I can't remember right now where it is in the placement, where you had a CIP, request of a lot of new school buses. Right? And I don't remember how that was scored. It may not have been been scored terribly high. But with that, I just wanted because we talked about school boards school buses at the last meeting. Your school buses run on diesel? For electric. Right. For electric that you're trying to move to, which are very expensive. I get that. But they're mostly diesel. Have you all done an alternative bus projection
the the the draft about how you need to buy some of these vehicles a year, and all these school buses you need to purchase. But have you done any forward looking projections about what your alternative bus purchases might look like planning for the future as you move to electric or hybrids and how that would impact your need for a new bus facility. You have a very aging, antiquated bus facility that is actually inappropriate for people to be working in.
So antiquated at home. When you have plastic down dropping down to hide up to to shield the base for the workers who were there working in that facility. I'm just saying that facility is 50 years old too. Yes. It needs to be updated and monitored. So but my question was, have you all looked at any sort of a forward looking alternative for your diesel buses and a plan for that? I agree with the cost. As you know, the electric vehicle is prohibitive without six,
grants, to do that. I think the the hub tip school bus request you know, because because of the great recession plus COVID, we got very behind in our 20 school bus, you know, replacement. And so the proposal was for five years to purchase 30 buses a year instead of 20. I think this past budget was 27 buses. We didn't quite get that. We're just trying to catch up on the replacement schedule and keep the same. Right. Right. Which is I think it's about 200,000
miles or or seven fifteen years of service. And that's and and we we know because we have our own mechanics, we can extend that years of service a couple of years, but we're just replacing the older buses. So forward thinking. Forward thinking is an idea. Yeah. We're thinking is all I'm suggesting. That's one case of where forward thinking and looking to the future. I hear a lot about air quality, you know, the environment, congestion, you know, from not only cars, but from from buses as well. And it's just something to think about going forward to look at data that might
be advantageous around your bus purchases. But going back to this let me jump back to this center model. Maybe since Mike and I both have questions about the center model, I guess that's a question that Mike maybe Mike was getting at. I don't but I have the question too because it would appear that between March '17 and now, you're completely and it just surprises us. Can I can hear it again? I mean, we too have had a lot of pushback from the community asking about schools and
also from some of our school board members. And, we asked the Long Range Planning Committee in September to do a deep dive on feasibility on whether what the pros and cons in your high school. And and I have to, confess that I was surprised that it was at the top of their list as well. We, as a school board, looked at it, and we agreed. And that's what we have brought forward. The center model was originally developed both to be a focused center for learning,
but also it would, impact, it would impact capacity. But the original plan was to, a, we should have been on maybe on our third or fourth center by now, in rented or other space, and that would populate around the county. This this this one, you know, was delayed five years, and it's 30% of her salary than it originally was. I'm not not I think that the center model will ease, at least in the short run, our capacity issues. But I think even more important than that,
it will be, I believe, heavily, attended by our students. If you look at what the applications were for if if you give the students what they want, and if we give them KTEC, they go to KTEC. And it doesn't Western students are rep you know, proportionately represented at KTEC. Components there, I I have confidence in that. The center model, I have to say, I too have been a loud proponent of the center model. I have been persuaded that we should consider a new high school. I think that, they're not mutually exclusive,
and I am concerned about, even with the center and even with disproportionate attendance and at least in the up the uptick years of Albemarle High School, we still will have eight trailers behind. I mean, we still can't accommodate that capacity. But, you know, I mean, a new high school, we're having a robust discussion, and that's what we're supposed to be doing. I think, I too, Mike, was concerned about the redistricting. A new high school will require it will be the most expensive,
and it will be the most disruptive in the short run. We will have to redraw the district lines. But if you when I look at the growth, projected up '29, we will have to add and add and add on to Alamo High School is can't get anything bigger. It's just it's too old. The infrastructure is too old. The hallways are too narrow. They were built for 800 students. With the growth going up the northern corridor, I mean, I I guess we could build another center or a different kind of high school. I mean, maybe it's not a high school like,
you know, playing fields and all of that. But this is supposed to generate discussion of our concerns and, what the feasibility is. I think there are possibilities for a new high school and a new learning pattern. That would be a major blow for the entire community. Maybe you could have a, you know, performing arts center, like, you know, whatever. I don't know. But it can be a center where there's a great permeability with business, and it's been a part of that whole process that you all have been doing in terms of economic development.
But I have said, we just I I I feel your pain because I have made the case for centers as well. I think we are we have shifted. We have additional data, and I think it's something we should consider. Well, I really appreciate your speaking to that. And I I'm like, and I I really wanna speak for you, but I think it was helpful to at least have you all speak to that. Hey. You can speak to that. The advantage I don't disagree with you about Albemarle High School and the quarters.
I know you're excited. I agree with what lands my campus provides you with is land that you already own and the cost of land other places. So that's my point is it gives you expansion of building of a building, not to add on to Elmore High School. That would I don't agree with that's only my point because land is what costs us in this community. We all know it's land. Having said that, just a couple of questions about trailers because, you rightfully said, and may know just a minute ago,
Alamar High School has two eight eight classroom units, and one will be removed in '26. That's the plan. In in 2026. So, and I'm noting here that at least a number of the other those old trailer what we call trailers, the trailer classrooms. Yeah. Are not being used by students. And in fact, even more of them than that than the Almore High School will be removed in the near future, in the next year or two. So, Across the county, you're talking? I'm just talking in the schools.
Yeah. I'm looking at Holly Meade has three units that are not used by students daily. Stoney Point has four individuals. Two of them used for only two are used for students. So I get the concern about trailers, but I think the some of the issue is that we're not having to utilize for students as early trailers. Right. Right. Right now, we use 32 classrooms for high school students across And the great news is that one at Amarillo High School, the one at eight classes will be really good. Yes. Yeah. Which is all the good news.
Then still we wanted Western Amarillo. And one at one at Janet wanted I I just saw Western Alamo. It wouldn't have And I already messed that. And I guess I'll wrap up here, because I I do have a suggestion because I think given our concern about what we're seeing with the data, we are all of us around the state will make decisions based on data. I get that. But we have to agree on the data. And I'm concerned about the future and how the data is going to look relevant in
the future, mainly because of one of the big drivers is Raveanna Futures. That's a big cahoon in this community. Ravenna Futures alone is going to be transformational in many ways for our community. But we don't know, because I hear folks say, well, because of brand new brand new ventures, we need a new high school. We need this. We need that. I don't disagree. I would not I'm not opposed right now to you all's having the new high Okay. We see lower population, lower birth rates.
We see people moving out into public schools. We see rivant futures coming in which could bring us more students. So what I'm suggesting at this point, and I know not everybody's had a chance to talk, but I would like to see the school board and the board of supervisors team up like we often do, and reach out to University of Virginia, the Weldon Cooper Center again and say to them, could you help us with what the future might look like in this community?
Because we need more data. Before we spend 200,000,000 on a new high school, before we spend maybe more we're right now, we're redistricting to fill schools up. We're redistricting to elementary schools to give them populations so that they don't get too small. Not a lot of elementary schools. But in my world, in the redistricting world, we redistricted when kids were probably practically falling out of the windows. We were so proud. And now we're actually redistricting children into elementary schools so that they have a discount?
Yes. We moved them to Stony Point. We we moved them we moved them to Stony Point because Baker Park has 12 I'm just saying though that they're you have schools that are borderlining on 200 to 250 students. That's an issue. That's not sustainable. I'm just saying and I understand believe me. I understand all about this route and all these problems. I didn't spend 16 years on school board, but I understand those issues. I'm just saying that we have concerns about populations in some of our schools and
how we can deal with them. We have Ryland and Futures coming. Could we together say, okay. We have a CIP, and and we don't have to adjust the CIP immediately. You all have prioritized your CIP. CIPs can change every year. We have time. But let's at least ask Wilman Cooper to help us us with new information going forward even based on what that Robotic Futures Project might be for in the middle of the field of habit. Because they are the experts,
in my opinion, internationally recognized, and they have the capability that our to be honest with you, with all due respect, our school and and county staffs don't have the time to do. And they'll have the bandwidth to do. And when you're predicting into the future, it gets really tricky, and you need experts to be what to be able to do that. I think you're used to the vice president here. We we we use those two words at one of our points, but I do I in my personal my professional, like, outside of the school board,
I I use the statement as a main source of truth. And so maybe we that is not something that we do being a newer person on the board, having looking at common data around the population, school, different types of growth, and so that we all do so that we are agreeing to sources of data, looking at those. And if we together, if you could Yeah. Either fund or ask of this as a piece of their work in our community, to support that. And I know we're looking at that, but I think it's a piece of it. And because we are trying to triangulate multiple pieces,
but what I'm hearing from you and others on the board is that we wanna make sure we're all looking. Right? It's not not the board of supervisors. It's looking at what set of conversations they've been in. And our questions go away. I'm really pleased that he used Wilton Cooper Center. But to to to charge them with looking at it in a different way, Rebecca. Looking at it through over the next ten to fifteen years, and how that Ravenna Futures project would play into what we're doing. They might say, you need two new elementary schools and a new high school.
They may say, no. You can this is what you need. But I think, not only do do these two boards need that information, but our community needs that information. If we're going to sell But our community needs that information. If we're going to sell a referendum to our community, and we talk about the 1¢ tax increase, that has to be that's based on approval by the community. Absolutely. And I'm sitting here telling you that the population in this community,
the older population in this community is diff we are different now than we were when we passed a referendum at 74%. Now I don't I'm not saying that that referendum wouldn't pass in this community, but I'm saying that we're a different community, and we better have the data to show that we that that's what we need to do. Well, I think this is very useful. I mean, I think we we definitely I can say definitely, and develop the questions for Weldon Cooper or whomever we use. And and and we I agree.
We need to have the same set of data, and we need to believe in it. And we need to be able to sell it to a community. Sure. Absolutely. To a community. We need $200,000,000 for this school, or we need these these other 600,000,000 to modernize our older schools so that we don't have to do whatever the new bill might be. And I would argue that and I I don't I'm going to turn to Matt and Jim. I would argue that that data would be informative, not only for the schools,
but for county government as well. We work best when we were as a team. And data, from the about the schools and about our current futures would really help us as well. So I'm very confident that our superintendent, our county executive, to work could work together over the next year or to start that process. I don't know how long it would take to go up to Cooper. But I think for me, and I'm not gonna be here in January, which is why I'm taking up so much time right now. I'm gonna be gone. But it does seem like to me that that would position the two boards in
a much better place to actually determine the CIP that we want to self communicate. And I'll stop, Jim. Chip went to Mallett. Thank you very much. I appreciate all of the comments from colleagues of my cohort because I agree with many of them, and I will point that out as I go along. There were a lot of slides in the presentation about benchmark counties, and I would love to get, in a future time, not right now, information about the more complete picture of those counties that are used as benchmarks for the acreages, for the amounts being spent,
etcetera, etcetera. Like, test score success, like, per child expenses. Because we hear little snippets coming out out of board school meetings or whatever about successes on old fashioned small counties and who are spending far less than we are and what's the difference here. So as I said, looking for information, I read very carefully, miss Little Book Club. And sadly, unfortunately, because I don't live in that world all the time, I found it very superficial and without what I needed to have support for what is said there. So that piles on to what others have said about impartial third party data.
Because I don't know where any of this data came from. I don't know where the data comes from that the long range planning committee uses or if there are people who are not school affiliated who are on the long way plank, and I don't know who they are. So that is part of the, information that I would think would be helpful for us to have more going forward. I looked for the applied economics study that was mentioned and couldn't find it, so if someone could send us all the link to that article, that would be helpful because it made some pretty bold statements about you have to have new buildings for kids to succeed.
And yet, Portland Broadswood is being described as a, you know, fallen down old school and it won a state award for accomplishments of its children. So be careful what you expect people to take and face out. I just want us to all words matter, and we want to make sure we're saying things that are are, given enough information to know. I was surprised by the slide in here that shows that there are schools that brought what is under capacity because just it seems like yesterday, but probably a couple years ago, they were pushing the 400.
So, that's one that I know about. I know that in the mid teens, Crozet Elementary was in danger of losing its librarian because it was, you know, for 300, and now it got its addition and it's pushing 600, and that certainly helped. It's brought to Brownsville, which had a 100 children show up in September a number or August a number of years ago who didn't weren't even on the list, and that was a crisis for them. So, certainly, in the western pattern, there's a lot more balance than used to be among the elementary schools, for which I'm very grateful, and people are happier that their kids aren't sitting on the floor and they're you
know, there wasn't anything people could do about it when people didn't know that these kids would come. It was a very rough couple of months at the beginning. You know, slides thirty four and thirty five, particularly where where that where's the sources of those types of data. On page 40, it shows about the circles in Crozet, which I think out of way more than 1,200 units. So I'd like to understand more about that when we're looking at that kind of data to, say what's coming. Then anyway. I'm interested in learning more about the preschool collection only because when I was subbing in preschool,
before I go to the elementary classrooms, the kids were so excited to come to preschool at the school where their older students were students, and they could not wait to get to kindergarten because they were already part of that emotional connection. So that would be totally erased if they're being bused some distance to some other place. So it's just a thought that I had. And I was surprised that I was surprised that all the elementary remote rural, schools had their own preschool fit because I understood that that was not the case.
I probably missed something in the last year or so that, there were no classrooms for that. The, alright. Let me put it down here. Okay. Talks about that. I understand about how hard it is to predict, and I understand the distances. I mean, I was a student at High School on 64 to '67, and the kids in Scottsdale had an hour ride, and there was no offer, and they didn't drive. The only ones who drove were kids who were at KTech, and they got to jump in their cars and they didn't go to the other half of their school, and everybody else is very,
jealous. But it, the so I I get it as far as the distances are concerned. But I think that since 2008, there's been a continual my mother kids are coming. A thousand kids are coming, and it has not happened. And I understand it's hard to predict, but we I'm I'm just waiting for more detail before I can believe what is, you know, being put out there that, thousands of kids are coming, and we have to start building right now. I really want to see if we're gonna be collaborating with our business community,
I want to see more bonafide collaboration. With our existing, you know, workforce programs that are in the community as well, rather than duplicating them at, at the schools. Because if we're worried about cost of education and other people are doing this work, you know, we can have them do that. And the last thing I will say, maintenance of facilities is important, and I am very offended to see the school bus routinely coming through the northern part of the county whose hood is rusting off. And it could just be sanded and repainted and not look like that because that's
just I don't know what the goal is to why these buses are allowed to look like they are, but it's not that hard to get them to be to look less less dangerous. Let's put it that way. I will stop. Supervisor Gowing? Well, I'm not one to usually get over to a lot of commentary, but boy, I've been motivated. You were looking at me a lot. We've been in three hours for the last time. Yeah. And that's how I just done. Yeah. I mean, really motivated. I like to Jill said, I am just gonna be there, so we have to have another hour. If I could, and I'll try to do this in an organized way just to save time,
but I will focus on some questions. I do have commentary, and and and we can decide if you prefer me to hold off on my commentary for later. I'm happy to do some. We'll have additional presentation of strategies and things like that. So I and they for me, the additional And I'm not saying that as a critique of others. It is what it is, but we do have to get through the meeting, I suppose. So I'm but I I do wanna provide some commentary. My questions. This this the preschool building, I didn't see it in the report. It didn't hear it. So I apologize if it's somewhere I missed it.
How many students will that preschool center be designed to serve? Total like number. We're using 20 classrooms. 20 classrooms and it depends on the composition of students because some, is that Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it depends on if there's special ed students that need smaller classrooms. Alright. 100. I mean, what's the number? Two two to 300. So is two to 300 would would you remove your classrooms from the schools, which I think is very smart, by the way, from a capacity because of the capacity issues you're dealing with.
I don't like because you both you know, we've always when during my time and, you know, you'd like to have the pre k connected to the school that they're gonna transition into. So I'll be curious to see how you keep those relationships going, but that's really none of my business. That's y'all's job. But two to 300, knowing that we have a dearth of just preschool need, how have you done the analysis or had the conversation about 200, two fifty, 300, what that does to the overall need of that that's out there right now, demand for preschool seats.
We are, I don't know who to look at. I'm sorry, Maya. I landed on you. Maya was like, don't look at me. The part the reason why the report doesn't have as as much detail as you might look like is we do have a committee that is studying the issue at a deeper level, engaging with the community, working with other preschool partners to figure out what is that exact need. So that's in process. So it'd be it's fair to say we might not even well, to the data question. We might not even know what the true demand is. Well, we know the demand for the current the preschool students we currently serve, and we know that there is a demand higher than what we can accommodate.
So that's kind of So I guess that's what I'm getting at. Do you think that this capital investment of a preschool center not only frees up the capacity in the elementary schools, but meets the demand that you at least recognize right now? Yeah. There's I'd say there's this what is in our schools? This is an amend part of our community, you know, way in a way is, for the ready to be just for the for the state, and they have done analysis to see what those seats are so we can get those with the time that we are for three years. And then is the site at Brookhill the only site you'd consider?
That seems to be right now, there's a feasible solution, but it's not. There's no decisions made. Okay. Thank you. The upper I'm curious. Now this is just a curiosity. With the southern, I thought it was smart, the how you're breaking out the Southern Elementary School as a lower and an upper as a model. Mhmm. And it's I've been reflecting on the fact that it seems that could help you kind of spread out or ease in the operational impact. Because if you build a new high school, you gotta get all new first grade teachers. You gotta get all new second grade teachers. Well, in this case, you're still gonna need some, I'm guessing,
because of the the growth you're satisfying. But you will be transferring existing in. That's right. So it it to me, that's like, oh, that's kind of interesting how that lessens in some way. It doesn't get rid of the operational impact, but it lessens it. Yeah. For the Northern now did you just do that because of the proximity, or are you thinking about that for the northern school as well? No. We we did that because those schools were right next to each other. And we would rather than redistricting and go through that whole process and not having it also allows students to have parity programming because you won't have some students attending
the old school and some of them do. So there were just overwhelming advantages to do it that way. And that's another suggestion. That's the element. That also came out of a significant, community. Yeah. Like that that I mean, it was both the school No. It seems like I mean, I when I learned that, I was like, oh, that's great idea. I've never been in a division as a student, teacher, or elected that's had upper and lower. So I don't know if other communities do it where it's always proximity makes that the case or if you have an upper elementary school and then six miles away you have a lower.
I just don't know. I don't know enough about it. So I was curious if this was something that you would, if you had thought about or if the Northern is truly going to be just a brand new stand alone k, k k five school. I do wanna foreshadow though for operating conversation. Building a k a separate k five school and separating the schools, there are not significant operating savings. Because even if you build a k five, you're still moving half the kindergarten teachers over. There are a lot of overhead operating costs. Yeah. There's no way to avoid the operational impact.
Yeah. I just didn't wanna make it sound like it wouldn't be costly. It will still be costly. Okay. I wasn't doubting that. I don't thank you. I just got a track of questions. Have you so to jump into the question about the center model, the comprehensive high school and all of that, and and, you know, our we really have to the state puts us immediately at tension a lot of times because you guys have to define the need, come up with a dollar amount to meet it, and then we have to determine capacity or funding or however you wanna put it.
So immediately, it puts us at odds, at attention. And it's it's just baked in. It doesn't exist this way in other states. So, you know, in my I I take it seriously that if you're going to bring forward a request, that this is what we have to figure out how to do. It's a little bit, for me, disconcerting That that was not what I meant. I I knew it would generate a discussion, because it is a priority that the board has approved. And, and Can I ask some questions, though? You may. Has the operational impact of a new comprehensive high school and the strategic plan to
accommodate that over the timeline that you're requesting been done? Yeah. As far as I know. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure that at least some basic It was when we were going through the criteria of different alternatives. We did estimate operational impacts for every alternative, and we have an estimate. Yes. And we don't have a way we don't have a way of knowing how that would be funded. But on the expenditure side, we have this. Okay. So the top priority, which other comments have been made that what's changed from a priority, which other comments have been made that what's changed from last year's top priority to
this comp to this CIP request. I'm Joe. But but we haven't done the full on analysis of what it's going to impact for financial planning in five and ten years. Yet. I mean, this is your first ask. Your first top priority now is this comprehensive high school. Has the decision been made to use the Bergmark piece of property or another piece of property for this comprehensive bicycle been made yet? We we have looked at the Bergmar parcel and to see what whether it was feasible to use it, basically.
And we have we have done that, and we can get a high school a traditional high school with playing fields on that property. There are some as I understand it, and probably they should know it's better than I. There are have been some, issues uncovered with that property in terms of underground water and other things. I don't know if that would be the problem. Pardon? Significant traffic. So we have we have not we have not moved at other parcels, and and, and I know that the land cost Well, what I'm getting at is this is the plan. This is this capital improvement program that we're gonna figure out for the next five
to ten years. When's the decision gonna be made on what piece of property that's going to be built? When's the school board going to decide we're using the Birkmar property or we're acquiring land to do so? Because you can't build. You can't. I'm not I I will not be very supportive of building a high school if I don't know where it's going. I wanna know. Because this isn't you know, we when we titled Overland down at in the southern part for the center, it it was your call. It was your piece of property now to move that over to an elementary school.
I mean, fine. I mean, that's your that's your piece. But this is a little different of an investment. That was handing over land that we owned. We said we're fine with the school division determining what the usage will be. But a 200 and plus million dollar investment and a CIP that has struggled to figure out how to do that. It's just we're taking ourselves out of a hole that we created for ourselves. We all know that. To drop a $220,000,000 investment in there, that's a conundrum. And our guy that's ready to just run up the credit cards just said that
you have to be able to say that. You're fine. No. I mean It's not part of the commentary. Doesn't can't see a way forward, then that's a problem. And and you're asking us to figure that out. So I need some some other decisions to be made that aren't mine to make. And we need to know your decision on the Burke Bar, in my opinion, as soon as possible because there's a project being planned there right now that money is being spent on. Your your facilities I'm sorry. I'm forgetting the last name. Mister It
said this to you in a meeting. Right. So if how do we keep spending money and planning for something that if you decide you wanna use that property for, I don't I don't you said to yourself, Kate, that you didn't wanna recycle it by. You cut yourself off when you want a recycling center by the schools. I don't think it's a place you do. It's, but I'm just saying that I don't think I want a recycling center there either based on just the logistics of running a site. But we need that decision because if we're going to figure out how to work
in 200 plus million dollars into a CIP that we just got told has a capacity of $72,000,000 a 1¢ sales tax or not? We've got to figure that out. And we need to know that. Because if we're not going to use the Birkmar proper, then there's other things that that land can be used for. Mhmm. And then we have to go figure out where the land's going to come from. And you've all had some thoughts on that, about county owned land, and it made some I'm just speaking to your public meetings, your your meetings you've polled, and the commentary I've heard about county owned land.
Well, we've got it figured out. And if it's not a piece of property that we currently own, then we've got to acquire it. And if it's acquired in the rural area, how do we get everyone forgets that Albertsboro High School is in the rural area. Exactly. But it's been serviced with water and sewer, and it's been serviced with a lot. We had to we had to do the approval for center two because it was in the rural area. So we've got I mean, there are things here that have to that that seem to me should have taken place before this becomes the top priority on a already overstretched CIP,
where maybe the high school needs to be the top priority for year five or six versus your top priority that you want right right where you're at. Because I still think there's information that now look. God, oh, I man, I'm scolding, aren't I? I feel like I'm scolding. But I'm saying that that's information that I don't really comprehend hasn't occurred yet to make its way all the way up as your top CID. That's how I feel. And I've been getting hammered just like the rest of us of having to defend
the center model, which in your public discussions about it sounds like you've pulled the plug on, frankly, in my opinion. So as a as a supervisor who has to go, we're gonna build q there's no request on here for another center being built in your CID. Your top 20 priority. You can go to. Am I wrong? No. You're not wrong. So my question is how so this is the next part of the discussion that I think should happen, that I think is important, is that how does a center model and a new comprehensive high school coexist?
And what's the educational strategy for that? Because all along, we've done them in isolation of one another. We've talked, well, we wanna do the center model, which happened in 1617, if I remember right. And now this past year, the new high schools moved in. Fine. I mean, if it's if it's a need and it's justified, I'm happy to support it. But there seems to be other curious about as the person or one of the six people that have to figure out how in the heck to get at the dollars needed to pull this off. When I also have heard over eight years your frustrations that I shared when I
was with you about not being able to renovate your schools that you haven't been able to renovate. Because as you say, doctor Acuff, we constantly have to deal with the past issues. Right. Well, and you've also said that, boy, if we do this high school, it's gonna it it crushes our CIP for a long time. Doubles it. So with the with the good news part of it, with the oncoming 25,000,000 potential from a 1¢ sales tax, and some creative solutions of how to maybe build for that, to build to something like a 200,000,000,
how like, I I wonder what the school board's discussion would be if it said, well, if we maybe plan for this high school that you clearly said we need for year five or six or seven, how does that change your priorities ahead of that? Question. Pulling the preschools in, man, that wasn't even on your list. I don't think, like, a year ago. Yeah. So Well, that is was down low. Well, I mean, I listened to your conversation and the rationale for putting that in the top five. Don't disagree with that that at all. There's a huge demand for preschool. The transportation piece,
I'm curious how y'all think about that and you're gonna work that through. But then again, that's your job. Right? You want to figure that out. So but if that's a $54,000,000 ask, that's the price tag on the the the Knowledger Innovation store right now. So I'm struggling with this big one, you know, I guess to bring this all back around to some of the other Urbana futures, which is now yielding something that will be a benefit to our county, started with a Weldon Cooper study about the importance of the defense sector in our in our area.
Yes. But then just doing growth studies didn't lead to that type of report. So in addition to endorsing the idea, and I'll have some comments on how you save that for my commentary later, because clearly I'm not providing commentary right now. Is that the nuances of what we're seeing in both our economic report, our housing report, and then the differences in magisterial districts of living in these units. Not to mention the fact that for the last seven or eight years, we've never really, really contended with affordable housing units.
We still I'm looking at the person that will say we're still not even attending to affordable housing issues. But that matters for school population. I would offer that affordable units in the development impacts you differently than the whole raw number. And right now, I didn't know it. When I was served on the long range planning advisory committee, it was just raw units. Oh, it's 1,200 units over here. There's 500 units over here. There's 600 units over there. And we think just because it's new units that it's gonna blow everything up. Well, guess what? Rydell Point is different than Arrow Road East.
That it's just different who's going to live there, and you only have to look at the rents to be able to tell. And if I could start making anecdotal connections that a $1,900 studio apartment at Royal Point, you're not going to see a lot of families living there. Because the two and the three bedrooms are pushing $28,000 $3,000 And, you know, that, we've never really done into that level of nuance and analysis with what we use for the long range planning counts on, which you all count on and we count on. And I think we can get at that type of stuff.
If it was somebody said earlier ask the right questions. Yeah. But that's you know, I saw how budget town I've been on both sides of the fence on this, from the school board's perspective and from a supervisor's perspective. At the end of the day, I know that the community is going to prefer that we could stand on either side side of the fence and and lob lob things at each other, or we could tear the fence down and figure out what's a real game plan going to be that if if if we need $570,000,000 for school projects,
how are we going to do it? Then we really have to do a different approach. I'm thrilled that we're building two new elementary schools. It took us I joined the school board in 2012. It took it took thirteen years to finally see it get into the CIP. I'm thrilled about that. So I'm not opposed to the new building or the new comprehensive high school. What I what I guess I I do oppose is that it has to be done in a very strategic, well thought way because that's how we earned our triple triple bond rating by doing it that way. And,
I'm saying that as a supervisor that, you know, we'll continue to have this conversation in March, but there are other questions that need to be discussed and answered, in my opinion, by the school board to see whether or not this high school is really the top priority or if we need to figure out a different game plan of how to how to get there. That was all I think I started with a question. I was just saying, we welcome the partnership thing. I think that's part of it. There was a question there. When would the Bergmar site, is that that's present.
Yeah. When is the school board going to decide if that Bergmar site can be used for a high school or not? I mean, and and if you don't wanna say, oh, next month, Ned. But I mean, I'm trying to convey that is a urgent decision. And I think that the this is my newness question is there are my understanding and there are environmental questions around how if if there is remediation that has to happen around ground I mean, ground waters is right, and I could be wrong. So that and so what what do we need to do together to under to
because there would have to be a spend, I believe, to be able to look into some of that feasibility. And then if this is a little bit of a chicken and egg thing, right, like, how much do we have to spend to see if it works or not? And so I think to your point, like, what are the next steps? That's that that is a piece of it. Well, I'm and I'm happy for, you know, Matt and Jeff. I'm sure we'll have a debrief and a conversation after this. But that's pressing because dollars are being spent now. A beer. And I have a beer. I need a beer. So if my fellow supervisors disagree with me, then you don't have to worry one bit about what I'm saying.
But that is a pretty critical, decision that needs to be made That it's not just going to impact your high school, it's going to impact some other CIP projects that are already planned and funded for. Operationally, that I guess the only other thing relative to the comprehensive high school that is and I don't know if it was on your data or not. You did a there was a theoretical redistricting done to show how it could change the racial demographics if you did the theoretical now I know it's not gonna be with the actual one and all that.
There was another piece of data on that chart, but I didn't know what it was. I don't remember it being explained in the meeting when it was presented to you all. Was the economic disadvantaged student population considered in that racial makeup? Yes. Was it on the chart, and it was just a piece of data that I didn't know what the hell it's so for? GAP. We probably use gap, something called gap group one, which is, a combination of free and reduced lunch, EL, special populations.
And what I'd use is an index, and, that indicator did balance out the demographics. So is that on the same slide as the the racial data? There I mean, you had another data point, and it was labeled, but I I missed what that data point I think that's the data point that includes the free and reduced lunch, like gap group one. Say it again, gap group Yes. Thank you for that. Because that was, like, that was, like, what is this? Mister chair, I think those are my questions. This isn't exactly I guess this is a response. I think one of the just one of the points on the comprehensive management's goal,
and I agree. Like, it it is a change. It is a in my mind, it's a both and. Right? We need the the center model as an instructional piece, but as we look at the data, if they're in grade, we need to kind of look together to make sure we're looking at similar data. As you look at long term growth, we are we will continue to have all of our schools hitting the top of capacity for high school, even if you fully if you fully, fully fulfill a center. And so long term, we like, the only way out of this is a comprehensive high school.
And even if I think the reason why, why did it jump to the top? I mean, one of the reasons is it jumps to the top because even if we all agree today, which we're not, we were not taking a vote, we're not doing anything, and you started moving forward, the absolute earliest you could put students there is '31, '32. So that means someone who is in fourth grade right now, right, in '25, '26, would be a ninth grader. And that's the earliest. So, I mean, I think part of this is the long amount of time it takes to,
like, to plan, construct, and then open a comprehensive high school is significant. And so by moving that higher up, we are beginning we we say, how do we begin to do some of this important work? The longer we let it sit further down, then we're talking the fourth grader, you know, kindergartner will not even open a new high school. And I think that's that's his piece is as we're beginning to look at the develop continued development that will will,
we are seeing in the North the northern part. And even if, you know, like, as we are bringing these high quality jobs more and more in, they are going to be dual working. You know, it's like we're not we retirees aren't moving into something into those types of jobs. And if we want this economic development to continue, as as Cherry Theft said at the beginning, like, people will look at the quality of our schools and compete we are we are people are being compared we are being compared to New York and to the New York suburbs, the New Jersey suburbs, the Washington DC suburbs.
And we need kind of it's a modeling model in my mind. I I don't disagree. Yeah. Yeah. But in my mind, I gotta figure out how to Right. How how do we do that? What do we need to do together to figure that out? So last year, I asked specifically about the comprehensive high school, and it was off the table. A year later, it's now back on the table. So from a from when you walk into a CIP, the way that we've we've been looking at budgeting is we don't look at it just to to year in a single snapshot. We're like, man, we gotta do this in year two,
and then we gotta get at this in year three, operational and capital. So up until about a month ago, when you got your long range planning advisory committee report, brainstorming what the budget was going to look like coming out of last budget cycle, this is just you you you've thrown in a big one. Mhmm. Okay. Is this crazy? That was gonna be tough if you didn't throw it in. So we have to start contending with that. So I just, you know, next year at this time, we could all be sitting here. Some of the faces may have changed by then. The CIP has to be committed to and state and the orders stayed in so
that we can figure out how to properly try to invest in it. You know, it's it's just sound planning that I think our I I well, I don't think I know our constituents are speculating of all of us. I do have one other question. Sorry. I looked through myself. You know, there's a lot of people working that are gonna be working on this. Have you all at at the school board level or division level, and and I'm happy to say, yeah, we have thought about this and have some ideas because we it'll have to carry over into other meetings. But have you all thought about,
like, what I just said about we have to figure out ways to do this? Have you come up with ideas of how we could get at the capacity needed to do this and what mechanisms we could pull? Have you all had that discussion as a brainstorm to go, man, the school board the the support supervisor should should really think of this as an idea. Is that have you had any thoughts on that? I mean, I think we're all in agreement on the 1¢ sales tax. I think there are some communities that the school boards and the elect the elected boards will there will be a few. The most I think are in tandem on that, both the local government and the school division side.
Right? You know, I I don't know if anybody stands with Mike on our financial getting creative with our financial stuff. Are there thoughts that you've all had that you think we haven't considered that we should consider about how to open up the capacity, whether it's a high school or your other, I mean, you know, the other needs that we need to meet with CIP. I mean, in addition to the tax, I mean, if part of it says, is it new or is it going back to? I mean, you you know, supervisor Mallett noted that we did a bond referendum in the past. I mean, it is a lot to ask of the community.
But, again, you know, is that something you know, we we have seen a lot of, you know, central, like, in Northern Virginia cities, doing multiple long drive residents to for them to play catch up, which is a hard I understand from our all of our constituents, doing that, is a hard it's a really hard stomach, but I do you know, we need to continue to think about how do we, in a way, play catch up. And are there things that you can do like that or public private partnerships around building that have been done in Paul's church? So I'd love to see that. Think in addition to what supervisor McKeel has called for for the data feeds,
you know, we did a lot of educative meetings when we did our bond referendum. Yeah. I'd love to do that. Because bond referendums don't change anything that we saw in the screen. It doesn't change our capacity. So Fairfax County, I suspect everybody knows they do a lot of bond referendums. They got a $15,000,000,000 CIP budget. They've got a 5,100,000,000 operating budget. When you read their CIP request on page one of their report, it says, we will follow the 10 financial principles that we have outlined this part. And right before that line,
that's the second phrase of the sentence, the first sentence says, we will maintain our turquoise boundary. So what's interesting to me is that a place that does a lot of bond referendums has the same commitment to the financial approach that we did. Mhmm. So bond referendum, while it can maneuver what you can do, doesn't change the overall capacity outlook in a significant way. And private public public private partnerships don't either because you still have to obey your capacity. They are incredibly creative,
and I'm saying, yeah. Go in on that. Discuss it. But I don't like somebody said, it's important to be on the same point information wise. I think the the, 13 of us are probably further along than most than understanding what I just said, but I think there's a lot of folks in our community that have to be reminded about how bond referendums can work as a tool for us to do the things that we're trying to do. And it's probably I mean, I know at the supervisor level, I think my first year on the board, we had a presentation on PPEs and PPEs.
Mhmm. But it's been eight years, so I'm rusty. That it's probably helpful for all of us at some point to get together, I don't know if it's during budget or outside of budget, just remind us that, wow, we've got a we probably have a fifty year problem, if not more here. And if we gotta start clicking away at it, and let's get them all up to speed again on what the tools are given the, given the, the way that we approach financial planning and what our financial strategy. Yeah. I think our board would welcome that to have them to do this together. And to your point, there are presentations that some of you saw that some of us haven't seen in
some threat to kind of become educated and reeducated together, and as well as see what, you know, what has been done to your point and while still maintaining the triple a opportunity. Thank you, mister chair. Thank you. Thank everyone for comments to this point. I've got a few but not very many. I'm gonna link to mister Bowman Hoyer. I know that there is a presentation coming which talks about next steps and it's not just a calendar. It's a discussion of the impacts of a once a sales tax and other possible ramifications that I think might address some of the concerns that have been raised.
But at least start us into the connotation of what is, what is the capacity depending upon which year you might be looking at. We've heard good presentations. The first presentation shows that I think the county relies on very detailed, precise, long range planning. They, work very hard to, very disciplined approach to our finances. The schools have been burned in the past with this board's, renaissance to fund schools a decade or so ago and and to get behind and then put lots of
trailers. And I think that helps fulfill, it's still a sense of urgency to addressing needs that could be seen. That said, I think we've been hearing some important messages that you've heard of data, and nuanced data, looking at, things like, you know, the real impact of the center model. Yes. The community of the ops school, It also, it's a 160 more students predicted on that. Effects of KTEC, private school impacts. Then also looking at the demographics in the county. What's the actual build up, not just what's the theoretical build out or what's the,
approved build out even, but looking at the expected actual build out, the population growth, the demographics of the population growth, the preschool center effects. See, there are a lot of things that we're hearing that that I think are really important, but they maybe just need a little harder look at what could they imply about these needs. So more detail. It is really, I think, call of the day. I will, you know, put back that I think that, if it turns out that, you know, all of this pushes towards a a a need for a new high school,
the question of really important, but if we've already identified that the need is there, then we're gonna have to figure out what we're gonna do about that, whether it's this place or another place. And stop the dollars being spent there now. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So, spent there now. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. So, with that, I I I don't really have probably did have questions, but, I don't know the date of time because I know we're we're running along. Oh, another another data point is the comparables. People, ask questions about the comps that are being used, how do their performances compare. I would be interested in did any of them have a center model?
You know, how are they distributed? Just to simply say, well, just have this population and they have four high schools. Isn't enough for me to determine that, oh, that means we should have four high schools too. We need a lot more understanding. And I actually think that, deep down, I'm not sure that that's as relevant as the rest of the data that we're getting as to whether we needed, additional high school capacity beyond what we can get with the center model for all of these other factors that go into that. So, and and the differences between population growth projections for the county versus the population growth
projections for the schools and the flat nature of all of the school population over the past few years, needs to be explained better for us to come to a point where we can say, yeah, we really see this, this need at this point. But, you know, the time for a budget is coming up on its path. So, there's a lot to work. Before I turn it back to Andy, I wanna turn it to the school board and allow you additional, you know, a chance to respond and and press any of these, but we will hear more from about the want to do this work?
I think I think it's been covered, but it is definitely a both and because the the center model really serves a great purpose with the specialty instruction there. And it also serves it's really good for the kids who need smaller learning environments where there aren't 1,800 other kids around too. I mean, I I certainly would if the reference you want No. It's not covered. Everything. I'm just saying, you Okay. Well, I'm just like Diane. I'm not gonna be here after Yeah. But I do have a question maybe from my own curiosity,
I guess. I realize how important data is, but how much information do the supervisors try to get with, you know, like a subdivision is planned or approved? How much information do you try to find out or do you try to obtain about what impact that's gonna have on the schools and on the community? Because, I realized too, just like Cal had, it would be hard to get. But I think that would be pretty important that when something is being approved, that some information is being obtained on what impact that's gonna have on the school.
School? That's a great question because it's the same issue you're that we just brought up under Long Beach High School. It's the same data, and it's not nuanced, really. So we see whenever rezoning we get, it tells us what district it's in and then what the projection that the, rezoning will have on each school. So everyone we have, we have usually have conversations about what the transportation and the roads impact will be. What's the school impact? Depending on where it's at in the county, we have a lot of conversation about water. Water? Stormwater runoff. And then schools is always right there about it.
This is going this could mean 13 extra students at Agenhert. Or it could mean and it gives you every school, and then what the impact using the same data that your, Long Range Planning Advisory Committee uses to project out, your growth. So the the formula, I guess, is what I'm saying is nuance to that specific like Arrowwood over on East Trial Road goes to Agner Hurt, if I remember right. I don't think it goes to Jewett, her career. So we saw how many students would probably be projected to come out of that
to go to each of the schools. And the one that always pops up at least in my district and Diantha's district is the impact on Albemarle. Because typically the elementary school students, it can be absorbed in what your current capacity is at Aigner and and, Woodrow. So it's the same data. So we can't And and frankly, it's for the the same reason I would support a new piece. It's it needs to be more nuanced even what we receive. Because at Arrowood, I've seen the rents over there. There will be about 30 units in Arrowood that'll be affordable units. Yeah. It's those 30 units that are gonna produce students.
Right. Oh, all of that, the 30 Not the 300 units. Because the rents are just going to be out of reach for folks that are gonna have families and are, relying on multifamily. That's why multifamily, a lot of times, produces fewer students than single family detached. We all know that. Right. So your biggest concern right now in the road district are all the the Buy Right project going on back behind Belvedere. Not all these multifamily units that we freak out about because the numbers are so high. Just looking at the units. But none of our data right now gets at that level of nuance,
and that's So that we can understand better and plan with some more certainty what those impacts are going to be. Because, I mean, our land use says that if resentings come to us and it's in the development area. So the data with the micro partnership, or your level is or your level is? I I think that I think what everybody has said that I'm just tagging on and saying I agree with that that Diantha started is is that we're basically just using raw units, raw unit count Uh-huh. Yeah. And and and just growth data.
Yeah. That's And we need to start having a we need to ask, you know, you AI is only as good as the inputs you put in. Right. So we have to start we've never really had a heart to heart either or about what what need we need to change the inputs so that we can get better data out. And we need to do that. And that's critical Because our economic value the economic, report we received, like, they say that our poverty levels are dropping in Albemarle County. Right. And what's the reason for that? Right? So to get at that, that data that we need is future looking and to some degree.
Right? Because we it that's right. We have our Vanna futures coming. We have population changes. And you add to that, if we're not expanding the development area, then because we have said consistently we're not expanding the development area. We only have so much development area land. What do what does that mean for not for not needing new schools? I'm just saying. Throw a hold of that in, though. You need some help. But but your question is yeah. Right. Yeah. Every single rezoning, the board of supervisors sees what the impact is on schools.
And to the degree that we have developers that actually have in their notes to us, this is a private school which will reduce the capacity on Almar County Public Schools because we're not going to be putting any school children in your school. For the new private school That's right. Developments that we've And we're seeing a lot of not residential. But that's the they're using that argument with us. It's a good question. That was a great question. And I and I I would confess that we sometimes do things that are not sufficiently nuanced. And not to follow the presentation, but when we talk about a dollar 31 and cost versus a dollar revenue,
that's not a very nuanced number. And it really is is is is take it, but, you know, the team a lot. Part of the reason for that question, I guess, is to take your food too because thinking back when we first talked about the center model, it was with the idea that at the same time that the centers were being built, that all of the high schools would be renovated. And I realized that there was problems with the money at that time, but it looks like we're going down the same road again. You know, it it looks like ten years later, things haven't changed with that conversation.
So I just wanna make sure that maybe we're aware of that too. And we are trying to do something on all levels to make sure that, funds are being received and all of this data is being received. I mean, my takeaway from our conversation today and the many comments is that, a, a new high school or, CIB was a surprise, at least. And, the price tag is such that we need to understand more of background data to support that or not. And, that that is fair.
That is fair. We do need more data. We need to make the case. We need to make case, not only to you all, but we need to have a sufficient argument in there. They were talking about perhaps delaying this. So is this a the priority this next five years, or is it a longer term ask? We could look at that. I know the clock is ticking with respect to budgeting going forward, but, I I think we need to go back and and answer some of the questions that you all have raised. Doctor Hawes, do you have anything to add? No. I just appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. I wanna just point out Ned talks about birthmark,
that piece of property, and the urgency. Our board of supervisors saw several years ago a schematic design that our staff presented to us that had the recycling center and it had the the all of the extraneous, facilities on the Lans Lane campus put on that land on Brookmar, property. It was the gas station, the the the, bus depot, the the car wash, and they put it right. They had a schematic design. Have you all seen that? I think so.
Okay. Because what I'm saying is that that was planned out with that that in design there and the, the recycling center. And it all fit on that one piece of property, and it and that design is somewhere. But to change it to a school now, you're right. That recycling center, all, all of a sudden might be in the wrong place. I'm, a sudden might be in the wrong place. Well, let let's hold that kind of conversation. I'm just adding that that design is out there. I understand. I would like to turn to mister Wilmer. At one point, we had talked about possibly having a break.
I'm not sure how much more we have, and we're looking at twenty minutes left to what we've scheduled. I'd say I I have a ten minute presentation. I'll keep it as short as I can, knowing that the board has a close session scheduled before and other items this evening. That's alright. And then we'll we'll continue on. Thank you. So for the back of the head, this is not a calendar, but this is the work that the staff we are doing to prepare the county executive's recommend budget. We have in place the adopted CIP from fiscal year twenty six to '30,
and really the goal is to keep that on schedule as much as we can as projects move from one year to the next. We'll be updating financial assumptions, looking at what our projected interest rates we're borrowing, how might project cost you, are there timing adjustments that we need to happen. We're here today, and between now and February 25, it's really looking for any additional capacity. What are the projects that can continue to move forward, all six goals in the board's strategic plan? Recognizing those plant those projects tend to enter into the out years unless there's an extenuating circumstance where it's a a some sort of state mandate or there's a very
large amount of funding or other extenuating factors that can add it. So not impossible, but they tend to come into the out years. And these discussions will continue, in March. So the challenge from a financial planning perspective is the board's articulated is all the way back earlier. I talked about $72,000,000 of capacity if the board were to go up to 9% based on the current CIP. 72,000,000 is just a point in time. That number will change, so we'll get attached to it when it comes around in March and April, but the principle will be the same. So the challenge is that, the the current capacity, first,
is not able to use because you need to have the cash on an ongoing basis to pay for that debt service once the bonds are issued. So even though $72,000,000 of bonds could be issued, you see, you still gotta pay them back over the twenty years and have that planned. The second category, is that if for a I'll use the high school as an example, but it's really for any major project or combination of projects. If the 232,000,000 calls, so they're doing this a conventional way, would require $220,000,000 of bonds, which is roughly $150,000,000 more than capacity. So if, the conventional or traditional way to do this and the board is seeking to do
a transformational investment, looking at the out years, that's gonna require some different options of how that could play out. So the workforce at this time is what the boards have alluded to in their comments. Consider what does that impact future flexibility? There'll be debt services, twenty year commitment. What is the operating cost plan for one multi years when when a new facility comes online? And then making sure we have our ability to execute lined up. So, we're not done with these next five slides. Just throw out five options. These are not recommendations. None of these would be easy. A lot of these would, take multi years to implement. But this is really just to spark some discussion of approaching this as a if
there's a long range challenge, what are some of the things in place and how can they manage in order for, you know, to, from a financial perspective, begin to do something like this. So the first step to the board is, talked about just recently with Monday with the state legislature of just the critical reporting 71% sales tax referendum. That would generate, if it existed right now, about $26,000,000 in annual cash. That would be probably the biggest game changer in my memory and the county because that's equivalent to 8.3 on the real estate tax rate, that would now come through sales tax, which is certainly paid by some of our residents.
It's also paid by a lot of out of town residents and visitors when they're drawn to the county, the university, and and everything that comes with that. So, well, $200,000,000 in bonds if that 26,000,000 is coming, in annually, it can't support that, but it could be a reserve that gets built over years to provide additional flexibility. So just kind of in the art of what's possible, not a recommendation, but if you were to think about this, with all of these ifs subject to the bill, if the general assembly approves that, if, the next year, if a local referendum was passed and approved, reasonably,
you know, collections that sales tax begin in fiscal year twenty eight. If for four years from fiscal year to '20, to '31 that is, collected and not spent in the reserve, by the time fiscal year thirty two rolls around, there's a $115,000,000 of cash that provides flexibility to do something with. That itself does not solve the problem. We require a lot of discipline to collect that money and manage public expectations. This is not immediately going going back to improvements. But, again, this is just the art of what could be possible and try and spark discussion about what we may play out over time. So the second strategy,
is just playing out another scenario of trying to take the concept, equip some numbers, and to how that can play out is really a reprioritization of future revenue growth. So right now, as the boards are familiar, I'll share with the public listening, there's a, formula in the county's financial policies that provides a guideline in terms of how revenue allocation is allocated to my, school operations, county government operations, and capital debt. Generally, I'll go through all the math. It's 54% for public go government operations, 36 for county government operations, and 10% for joint capital debt.
So what if it's just a what if. This is not my place to say what school priorities are, but I'm intending to share options and art of possibility. What if the school board were to say that the priorities in capital are so significant? They would say, what if 44% of that revenue growth went to operations, and that 10% was redirected into school capital and school debt. That would have about a $1,900,000 impact. And if the school board, made that decision, that would need to be a twenty year commitment, not a one year commitment. This really would come down to the school board about really weighing relative operating capitals and priority capital and operating priorities.
And I know this from all my coordination with my and their team. There's a lot of school operating priorities, so this would be the trade off. If you had $1,900,000 in the scenario, that implies $23,000,000 of capital projects could be implemented. The trade off would be that there's about 1,900,000.0 in new operations that would not be provided. Now that's about a little less than 1% of this is school operations. So I should have a perspective not to minimize it. I think that is a trade off that the, the schools have to consider in long term planning. I wouldn't expect that to be next year's budget because I would imagine they're very
long as we are working on budget. If we were to plan for three, four, five years out, perhaps that is a lever to do something different. Again, this isn't solving it by itself. Really, the theme you'll hear is adoptions as you would need to explore, several of them, and you will need time and partnership to implement all of them. It's implement all of them. Continuing will be the board of supervisors also has the ability to, allocate that formula differently in the future, though I'll I'll say that it's just technology and that's not a suggestion to revisit that because the board just reaffirmed and updated that policies, just last month. The other key strategy for both boards, and this is one that's an exercise in the past,
is investing as much onetime money as available, whether it be one time unexpected revenues, one time savings, and, putting that into the CIP, whether it be to build up cash reserves. Or to, pay down existing debt. Over the last, five years, I believe, there's been about $34,000,000, just from board supervisors committed. Now the schools have contributed some on top of that as well. That is one of the reasons why we see a CIP that is able to do more than we could historically. So option c is really taking a look of again, not an easy thing to do, but to reallocate existing projects in the CIP.
So this is one. I'll use a school example that could happen for school projects as well. The only ongoing programs in Northern Peter pattern, there's $20,000,000 of school renovation that are programmed in the next three years. That money, if the school board were to say their priorities would change, could be directed to a different source, or it could be put on have a hold, while the school board has time to evaluate these other questions the board has had. Another option out there, more conceptually, is as you would be implementing such a large project, you may need to slow down your rate of implementation before or after the CIP.
I'm not saying stop, but slow down that rate of implementation to give yourself a little bit of the headroom and breathing room, as that major project comes along because we are talking to be such a, large investment. Third is the example of evaluating unused parcels for the highest we've had to use. Both the board of supervisors and the school board, have, properties that are proper to them. They also have properties that they own. And, just as in the way back in 2019 when the board donated the line to the school board that is now supporting the school, which you reduce the cost of that, what else might be used? Would there be property sites that the county owned that could be future school sites?
Would there be sites that the school has perhaps not the use for a future school with that could be used into a housing or economic development project? I say this with no particular parcel in mind or with no particular recommendation. These are some of the partnership discussions they begin to start when we get clarity on on those priorities. And, again, they they would take time. Fourth, finally, property taxes. For perspective, the change in the tax rate, which the board exercised in the most recent year provides 3,100,000.0 for pending on the state. Personal property is about a 100,000, and that would be updated in the upcoming budget.
But also a reminder of the way I talked today to start the presentation around the change in tax base, making those investments differently, restoring economic development strategies, and other things to get that mix to take some of the pressure off the residential tax base in terms of who pays and the cost for service. I ran through that really fast because I won't allow as much time I am for more discussion. So I can't answer questions, but in summary, to pull up something of such a magnitude of the student CIP request, it would need to be several of these options at least. It would require a combination of time, multi year planning,
and also the partnership that we the United put back to. How did we get from this week or fifteenth to here? And this would be in that other long term discussion, whether it be this or any of the the board's multiyear planning that they have talked about. So I'll turn it over to the chair. I'm gonna build for questions. I wanna give as my time and board to discuss. Thank you. And if I may, I will go back to our order again. I have questions, and I'll have to go to this part of the presentation. I'm starting with the. Thank you for all of that. I think we're gonna have to get creative, maybe out of the box to see,
what we can do, what we can do. I don't have any specific questions, on the presentation. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to take this because the board has seen this, previously. I saw this two days ago, I think. Right? Two days ago. Which is why I said earlier, and I just wanna emphasize I don't see a way that it is currently possible. The way we could do it is literally not A or B or C. It is all of them. At The gap, if we put our debts literally to the stops, as high as it can possibly go,
we still have an existing $150,000,000 in projects. If you then implement the largest tax rate increase that we have seen in a generation, that mostly falls on lower income people. And I'm in support of the tax but I want to make sure we're it's not free money. Right? It is the largest tax rate mostly falling on working class people. If we implement that, that does not close the tax gap. If we implement that and don't spend any of it until 31,
it does not close the tax gap. If we then completely reprogram every other priority that we have not yet allocated money to, it still does not close the gap. That is the gulf of this gap and that we're really struggling with. I can imagine for members on the school board, just one element that only gives us $23,000,000 seems almost for you all. A 10% reduction in your new operating cost. That feels untenable for you all. That is a single one of them.
We are grappling with four of them at the same time, which is why I I would again say something needs to be radically rethought because we can do all this. But like the the strain on the engine of sleep would be really extraordinary. And I I am not suggesting I know the solution to this, but the thing I and the reason I expressed the tremendous amount of frustration that I know other people share, and maybe I'm just young and I wear it on my sleeve more. We we just laid the final top off beam at a big old school
that's not meeting this need. It's partially meeting this need, but it's not meeting this need. And now I'm being asked to do something I literally can't do. And I I don't know how the school division wants to grapple with that, but that is a problem I'm looking at. They're not the students in that school yet. Supervisor Kiel? Yes. Thank you. Certainly, a new high school right now is beyond our capability. But there is time, and I think the school I'm not gonna be around, but the board of supervisors and the school board are gonna need to put it together. And I think it starts with, and I go back to what I said before,
reaching out to the Logan Cooper Center with the right questions and getting information back about what our future growth really looks like as it impacts schools. We might find we are not going to even need a new high school. Maybe we will, but that's a starting point and you have time to do that. To spend the time to do that and then look at the properties that you already own. What's the best use of Burtland? It may not be a a Northern High School. It might be something else. I don't know.
But I think, looking at what our school growth and our population growth is gonna do in the future will help inform some of the decisions that you have to make going forward. But the other thing that I would ask is for the school board to remember that it's really important when you go out into the public to talk about what's happened today that it not be finger pointing. Because we're in this together, and we're trying to solve it. And to and I'm not saying it's happened very often,
but the public needs to understand that this is not something that the board supervisors have hoisted on you. This is a situation, and we're trying to work it out together. And to turn to somebody and say they've got the money, they need to solve it, is not acceptable. And I'm being harsh when I say that, but I I'm being serious because that's happened before. And so working together to try and solve this is what's really gonna be impactful and make a difference for our community. I have one very quick point that I want to add to the other thing
I was saying, which is just and correct me if this was already baked in, but I would also assume if we execute all parts of this plan, I would imagine we'd still see significant pro project overrun because the estimates you all have given us are current year dollars. This requires us to start as early as possible in fiscal year thirty. Speaker one: They have an inflation factor factor later in them. However But your inflation factor is built on us starting on a sooner time line than this allows because this requires us saving the tax,
rate dividends for five years. Correct? Yes. We can predict because even though the high school assuming an inflation for the school that exceeds the inflation, otherwise, it's a real estate tax and things like that, which may be true, but it's it's it's difficult to do. Yeah. Supervisor. Thank you. Just in closing, I would refer to Andy's number two page because for the first fifteen years I was on the board, the only time that there was the money shortage and the things that were funded for school fees.
And we're finally catching up on the other five categories in the responsibilities of the board. So, that's has to be in everybody's mind, not just ours. The, I also would refer you to the $100,000,000 in extra transfers since fiscal year eighteen that have been provided representatives about how we're not giving them what they need to do the job. So this is why I'm grateful for this information that was provided by staff today. Lots and lots plus the extra money in last year's budget,
the $12,000,000 on top of the $11,000,000. So, working together does not mean just getting a new one because it's got to be seriously the questions that were asked today and making some effort to, to fill some of these information gaps. Two things. Twenty ten or eleven, the buses were taken into the CIP. They had historically been part of the school budget forever. When that happened, I was not in favor of it at the time, but it was assured that state money coming for the buses would keep that pot full. And now we're looking at 5 or $6,000,000 a year.
Out of local government side is where the CMP money comes from. So out of the pitiful 34% or the 40¢ 40 percent of the of the new revenue comes all the money for the CIP. So you get my crabbiness on this. Last question for which I don't expect there's an answer today. Do I understand from the comments made that the Northern Convenience Center is now after a whole lot of millions has been spent on planning a design and approval? That that is now being thrown down the bus because somebody doesn't wanna have a
recycling center next to a school. That was sent here around the table. And at some point, I would appreciate some clarification about that because we have spent fifteen years trying to get something on the northern part of the county, and it's ready to show up as far as I'm concerned. I'd like to know what people are talking about. Thank you. Should probably go. Yeah. Maybe maybe I would imagine the budget time because I thought that'll like, all these scenarios that you ran. Like, one of them, the operating. He said, well, if you chose operating dollars,
put it to CIP. I mean, that's a tough that's a tough ask. But if you took is there a way to theorize how at the end of the year, if we run surplus, that we often use those for one time expenditures? Yes. What the I mean, it's the numb the math doesn't change then because it just comes from surplus instead of operating. It that's correct. And it's, to be the strategy in the second one will be a lot of that 34,000,000 has come from year end fund. Yeah. We, on both sides, the local government, and we often will, commit those dollars before we get to the to the year.
So I I what I'm getting at is a strategy that could say, well, we court comp I mean, years we've taken surplus and put it in the CIP. But if you did a twenty year or a ten year strategy of saying any the first whatever percent of could yield you this as a as an option, then it's not necessarily trading operating dollars for CIP because it's one time money. So if you said, well, the first 2% of any surplus or 10% or whatever, immediately both sides are gonna commit to going to CIP. I'm just curious what that maybe turns into or how can And can you do
a scenario to to walk through with that look like both county government and schools? The other explanation that was frankly difficult walking in, and I'm still not I know it's because of how that service plays out in given years. Like, even if you don't do new projects, what your capacity is can fluctuate because of the way debt service plays out and timing of previous projects. But like last year, we had some capacity if we went to the 90%. This year, it's the 72,000,000. I'm still not got my head wrapped around quite how that plays out year over year. Given, like, if we just didn't do any projects right now,
what does it look like in five years or six years that we held of what that could is it possible to theorize what that capacity could look like in year three or four of that 72,000,000? We could give an example of what that would look like. It would take a pretty big change to alter that over time. I mean, I know which one is, you know, the county, there's not one on the horizon. But if there's an opportunity to refinance, we could take advantage of that. As as we look at debt and other strategies as well as the work for you or our department. But how do we how do we responsibly manage that to stretch the dollars as far as we can within the confines of possible financial management?
I think we could look at a scenario of just I'll call again. Part of what might be possible if, what conditional capacity that could create by doing something different in this year. Part of it's even just understanding year year to year if you don't like, I think it would be, in my brain anyways, like, well, if I don't commit to doing projects this year, that should mean I should have more capacity next year. But it doesn't would take a pretty major change to push something out of the five year picture to really really be on to create that flexibility. Make that note for budget time, maybe we could dig into that. Just because I think to me, it's more of an understanding issue than an option,
if you would. And I just wanna make a comment on the the highest and best use of properties because I think we have an example that's playing out or will play out over the that's that was discussed at the rezoning of Southwood Phase 2. Southwood Phase 2, there was comp there was a school prompt there's a site proper for the schools in Southwood Phase 2. You all have to execute your decision on that by 2027 or it reverts back to the developer. And and why I bring that up, is because we had that conversation when we locked in. We locked in the price of the property,
and I believe we locked in what they were going to do to the property before they handed it over. It's like $620,000 is the locked in price for the piece of property over there. If the school division says we don't need it to one, then it will they'll just use it to develop more units. And that's where those of us that were at the time making that call were like, well, wait. Do we want the because I think if they don't if you don't use it for a school site, it translates to about 50 affordable housing units. Is that So that's a question that, like, you might be like, well, maybe we could use it for I'm I'm trying to think of a low priority
thing. Office. Yeah. I I think if it was like a Yeah. I don't need to be Yeah. And if it was something that wasn't really there and you're saying, well, it'd be this or 50 affordable units. Right. Because in my mind, that was part of the reason why I was okay with the deadline. Yeah. Because I those units are critical in our neighborhoods. Yeah. And if it's not a high and best use for the schools, the unit the affordable units would be a high and best use for a unit. Yeah. So that's an example of how that stuff plays out. But since it's it's, a time determinant, you got I mean, I'll just have to think about that piece of land because it's not like these
others that are, you know, don't have the same time This is an issue in terms of communication. I I know we had conversations early on with the developer about whether we wanted this school site there. We've looked at it for the elementary school site, and the times horizon wasn't good. Well, the site even wasn't great. You'd have to you'd have to think how you're in one time. I don't know. But for a center or a preschool property, you've got some things now that weren't on the radar two years ago for any of us,
I think, that that site could be used for. Yeah. But but it does beg the question of having you all going, well, if we did use it, here's what we think our highest school use would be. Hey, county, what would your highest use be, which we've already defined as affordable units. And then we can all sit there and go which one, maybe, is more important. And just a little nugget because, we just had this conversation with our state legislators, and I love it when certain things can intertwine and we can see how it can impact. I think the supervisor, Makil, is really getting after him again about sunset provisions on developments.
Yeah. Sounds sounds good. So if you have a development that got approved twenty years ago, it got approved twenty different impact on schools than what the current impact is. And if they wait twenty years to build it and they build it in 2026 after sitting idle for so long, right, it it it can catch you off guard. That's a way where old developments can do that. Now I bring it up to say, for everybody, when you're thinking about what you advocate and try to get concrete calls that we offer in pre deeds to do, that sunsetting provision would be a huge help to us not just to be able to predict what's coming out of developments or impacts,
but could also then reset it. Because if they allow the approval to sunset, it has to come back before us, and we get to reconsider what the current day impacts are. So I'm just putting that because I know that a lot of you like to write to your legislators and tell them to do that. But that's a press that's not a real as Mike says often, that's not a real sexy one. But that's one that could have a big impact on all of us that's relevant to what we've discussed. At the end of the day, if the general assembly would do that, it doesn't cost us any you know, any money. It's just the sun's giving us a sunset. That would be a great item for your all's legislative package.
Nez Wright. Thank you, mister George. You're welcome. If I may, I just like to jump to, option e, I guess, and maybe it's Donald. And I I agree with the comments that have been made, and I wanna really wanna hear if the board, if the patient has any feedback yet, but may wanna take this and and discuss it and come back to us. But, the last item a lot of these are quantified very well. The The last item, change in composition of the tax case, is a quantified, and it is one of the things that troubles me in this whole discussion because I know that when AstraZeneca comes up,
we see it as a game changer in some respects with respect to our composition of the tax base. But we also know that there's 600 jobs, but then there are 3,000 add on jobs potentially. Where are those people going to live? So there's a there's a lot of uncertainty associated with that. And and I appear sometimes that people look at it and say, what? You gotta ask for that. That's gonna take care of everything. I think that there there there needs to be a better understanding of what that can mean, and and going forward, how that would impact it. So I just bring that up because it it just it does fundamentally bothered me
when we when we looked at industrial use and said, oh, this is great. We're not looking at all the other trade offs that don't with that. So, but with that, I'd I'd like to turn it to the school board and Well, I, for one, would thank you all for your input. I mean, we use this credit to be a big ass, and, I really did not and do not now wanna set up to be adversarial at all. What I have heard is that we need to go back to the drawing board and get data that, we both can feel comfortable with in terms of supporting the high school.
I think, Mike's comments that if you did all these things, it's still as not feasible. I mean, I think we really have to go back as a school board and look at that. And I think and I'm speaking only to me now. I think part of the data we need is, proof of concept on the on the center, well, on this new center. And as we are, you know, putting having our topping up, topping out ceremony, don't say it wrong, you know, is an exciting new space. It will help somewhat our capacity issues. And it and so my view is I do think at some point,
as a county, we need to have a high school in the Northern New York. I mean, we need to have another one. Although I'm willing to look at additional data to verify that. And, we need as a school board to talk about whether or how we might modify our CIA request. I think, I am I have been persuaded. I don't know if my colleagues are all persuaded that, that the timeline at least needs to be rethought. And, so we get the data that Jim was just talking about about the impact that
that whole development scenario. Get the data that that that several of you, including miss McKeel, has, have raised, and I and we can do that. And I think that's part of our both of our due diligence. So I I really appreciate your comments, and, I was gonna say apologize. I don't and I understand your surprise at, introducing the new high school concept. We have had a lot of feedback from the community about the need for a new high school, but I think we need to, document it later.
And my colleagues, they disagree with me. We're gonna have to have a a fuller discussion at our next school board meeting, but I don't know if anybody else wants to chime in. And I absolutely my goal in this meeting was don't leave with it being an adversarial thing and those battle supervisors aren't gonna find us. That is not our intention. We want your brain power and your expertise to help us figure out what we can do in terms of addressing the high school capacity issues. And shortest so I've done this before.
I'm I've heard times in the past, we've had more education meetings together, so some strategic plan or events, and getting meetings together. And so what I would what we're like, the first thing the first next step, I would say, is, you know, between I don't know who's are the chairs or the clerks or the incoming chairs as we kind of do look into January is what is the way forward with everyone's schedule and everyone's budget schedules and budgets that we begin to that we've done. We plan out both kind of, this mister Gallo has had those education sessions and and what are those pieces that
we look at economic development data, and have a series of learning sessions together even on some of the, these these, the AC five areas of what we could do. And is there anything else out of the box that we can do so that we don't learn separately, but we learn together and we learn together. So that's what I would say. I hope you hear that, but I think maybe we'll have a discussion at some point in the spring that deals with just part of the budget. Yeah. I think that's the I'm doing both of them.
Thank you. Mister chair. Yes. The comment I would just real quick. I I think the high school the the big ask is what data conversation. But, man, it goes beyond It does ask. Any justification. And it goes beyond schools. Like, this could inform early pocket parks. This could inform Absolutely. So I don't I don't want us to think leaving that it's just just to justify whether the the high school's needed. We just need that. We need more nuanced and tighter data for a myriad of things that impacts both of us.
And I said that when I mentioned it because it would inform the Calhoun County government as well as that's why it should be a joint partnership. Okay. Okay. I know. The partnership is part of the right hand. The question was, when do the will the Cooper's out there? And the supervisor Malick also has an additional I have learned over many years that when there are things about word choice, I need to not ignore them. And to me, it's very important that we not say we're going to get data to support a high school. We're going to get data to find out what the data is and then find
out where it's going. Because when people hear in the public, we're going to get data to support what we wanna do. That That rebounds very badly, and so I just want to point that out. Thank you. Excellent point. And Anne makes a really good point because I will say that we talk about Fairfax County a lot. We want to sort of think about what the big cook and food does. You know, it it is what it is. They have 200 schools. They hire a consultant group about every ten to fifteen years to prioritize their CIP
projects because they know they can't do it. They don't have the bandwidth to do it, to wrap their arms around them. 200 schools and the CIP they hire a consultant to do that prioritization. But what then that's fine. I'm not suggesting we do that. But part of that deal is they have the board of supervisors and the school board on record saying that we will maintain that prioritization and will not let pressure from the public and politics change that prioritization.
Because if they do that, if they start letting that creep in, all of a sudden it's all for not. And I'm just putting that on the table. It is important. Thank you.