meeting to order. Um, madame clerk, will you please call the role? >> Councelor Fleer >> here. >> Vice Mayor Ashin >> here. >> Councelor Payne >> here. Um, councelor Snook has requested to join electronically and Mayor Wait
>> here. Um, councelor Snook is traveling and has requested um to participate electronically. Counselor Snook, are you able to hear us? >> Uh, yes, I can. Can you hear me? >> All right. Yes. Yes, we can. >> Um, could you please state the reason
for your electronic participation and your location? I'm in uh New Delhi, India and there's a family wedding out here. >> All right. Um is there is there a motion to allow Lloyd to participate
electronically? >> So moved. Second. >> Okay. All in favor, please say yes. >> All oppose, please say no. Okay. Um the is there um a motion to approve the agenda? >> There are some notes.
>> Okay. The city manager has requested to extend the work session to 6:00 p. p.m. and we will also not have not have a close session, but we'll vote um on the appointment to the housing advisory committee during the regular business
meeting. Is there a motion to approve um the agenda um with these amendments? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Second. Um all in favor, please say yes. >> Yes. All >> oppose, please say no. Um the motion passes 5-0. This meeting will be um the
meeting would will be divided into three um sections. The work session usually we have a close but not um today but I think we will recess for about 20 minutes or so. Um and then we'll come back at 6:30 for the regular business
meeting. And today we're going to hear um two reports on one is for the V dot stars um um study and then um collective bargaining impacts. >> All right. Good afternoon, council. >> Good afternoon.
>> I'm Ben Chambers with NDS. I'm the transportation planning manager. I'm here to give you an update on the VOTE Stars study at the intersection of West Main and Ridge. Um, this is a study you may have heard quite a bit about in your emails back in January and beginning of February when we had some public
outreach going on about the recommended uh option for for what to do at this intersection. Wanted to give you guys some background on what happened with this project, where it is right now, and when you're going to hear about it next. So, just a little project background. Back
in 2024, VOTE came to us, their their local planning team came to us and said, "We're starting up our STARS studies. These are are studies that we do on two-year cycles. We're looking for some good options." And we were working on our move safely Blue Ridge uh regional
safety action plan. At the time, we had just wrapped up some work on our long range planning for the MO uh called moving towards 2050. And so, we had some pretty good ideas of where to look. um 29 corridor being one of those locations and the ridge uh west main intersection
being the other. Um the other reason that we looked to West Main and Ridge was this had been a project that we had funding for previously. Um we had several projects that we gave funding back to VOTE um because we weren't sure we were going to be able to execute them. Uh the West Main Streetscape was
one of those and so we knew that there was a need here that was not fulfilled. Uh we also knew that we didn't have anything to fill that need and that our previous solution was a little more expensive than what we could afford. Um so we looked to VOTE for support on this for for study. They also were looking to
us to put this forward as a smart scale application. Last round of smart scale they advised please don't go after any statewide funds. You're still trying to work through the funding that you already have and the projects you already have. This round they said we want to get started early. We want to help you with the planning. We want to
get you lined up because we're only going to give you one application. So, you get one shot this next time around. We want to make it good. >> Ben, um I'm sorry, sir. Before you move on, if you could just >> for the um public just and maybe it was going to be part of your discussion like
what is smart scale? >> Yeah. So, smart scale is the way that we get state funds for projects. It's a cycle that happens every two years where we compete with all other localities for funding for state projects. Um it's a pretty arduous process. Got to have a
lot of planning behind it. You also have to work with VOTE to make sure that what you're planning is lining up with state priorities. Um and so as part of the planning for this, we were looking to SmartCale as the funding opportunity for this project because it's sort of a big intersection. It's going to take a lot
of money for us to fix it. um there's a lot of traffic there. There's a lot of things that we need to fix in order to make it work for all users. So, we needed to bring in the state funding to to be able to do anything with it. It's not something we could do alone. Um so, we're going after smart scale for this
one. Um and so we said, well, what do we want to solve here? What are the goals at this intersection? And they're kind of the same as they were for our previous project. We want to make sure that we are improving safety for all road users. This is an intersection where we have had serious uh injuries and fatalities over the past decade. So,
we want to address that. Um, this is also an area where we have a lot of traffic flow. That's both with vehicles, cars, and bicyclists. People are going in all directions at this intersection, and there are a lot of them. Um, we want to make that easy and safe for everyone to get through this intersection. And
there there is sort of a big issue smack dab in the middle of the intersection for achieving that and that there's a pedestal in the middle of this intersection. Um there's no longer a statue on that pedestal. We did talk to our historic resources folks and say, "Is there a use
for this?" And they said, "Not in its current state, but we still want to make sure that there is space reserved in this intersection in some way in case there's an opportunity to celebrate the history of this neighborhood, particularly Dine Hill. So, we wanted to make sure that that space was maintained in some way, but we want to move it to a
better location within their intersection so that we have uh better flow and better safety for the traffic going through there. Um, and lastly, we want to make sure that this is actually going to be a successful smart scale application. Um, some of the rules behind how smart scale projects are evaluated have changed over the past few
years. And so the project that we had a decade ago is not the project that we could get through a smart scale application process today. It has to be cost competitive. So a big $40 million project is not going to do it. And it's got to show some benefits to congestion. Um a lot of the projects in earlier
rounds of smart scale were did have a lot more bike ped. The previous administration that was just outgoing changed some of those rules to make it so that we're focusing more on congestion related issues. So the rules that we're operating under right now, you have to show some congestion uh
improvement in order to get some of those multimodal improvements funded. So with that in mind, we set out to start this project back in 2024 with some traffic traffic data being collected. Um we did a survey on the existing
conditions at this intersection in March 2025. In April, we published those to the public. Um and we had uh public information in August that said here are some options that we can look at with each of these options. VOC said the thing that is going to get you
congestion uh improvement points is making Water Street a oneway. There are different ways that you can achieve that um you can you know put in a oneway on Water Street and put in bike lanes or bigger sidewalks. You could put in a roundabout, that could help, but you're
taking a lot more land and it's a much more expensive proposition. In the end, based on the analysis they did and the feedback they did, they came up with a single uh recommended alternative that um I'll show you in just a second what that looks like in a much more blown up way, but it does not
have a roundabout. It does one-way water street. It does have a protected bicycle facility, um which was something that we had heard in the August feedback. Um, we released that in January at a public session. Um, got a lot of emails to VOTE
and to y'all and to me uh on feedback on that. Um, and VOTE has taken that feedback and is now synthesizing that and figuring out where they can make some adjustments in their design. This is what the design looks like. Um, what you see here is a one-way or a
two-way cycle track on the north side of Main Street coming eastbound into the intersection. It goes across and then it has sort of a little jag. Um, that saves us a a cycle timing in the signals. That saves us timing, but still gets people
through, still provides a safe access for bicyclists. We also have additional space in this for pedestrians to make sure that their crossings have landings where they can wait uh for the the uh signals for the pedestrians. Um and there's some squaring up of some
crossings uh notably across Ridge Street. This does include a oneway of Water Street. Um there are also some uh spaces along Water Street where they've designated that for curbside drop off. Um so this is the the general design.
this is what they would be moving forward with and tweaking along the way. So, what this does is it simplifies this five leg intersection. It's decreasing delays by changing up the signal phasing. Um, that also decreases the
amount of turning movements that you have going through that intersection, which makes it safer. So, you have fewer risks of impact going through the intersection. We also have enlarged spaces for pedestrians and uh leading pedestrian phases for uh and sufficient
walk time at all of the controlled crossings. Um enhanced accessibility for bicyclists and pedestrians. A protected bikeway. Um improved right turn visibility for basically every right turn movement that's associated here. Taking out that pedestal really helps
quite a bit with that. And one thing that you can't see from the overhead view is improved wavefinding signage was a big recommendation from VOTE. Um, we have some very strange signs out there today. We have one out there that just says hotel and it points in one direction. And that may have made sense
30 years ago when the Omni was the only hotel, but now there's five hotels within five blocks of of that sign. So, we've got to do some updating of the signage to make sure that that is uh more accurate to what's today and less confusing to the people who are trying to reach downtown.
So for the next steps, VOTE is refining their their design um based on the feedback that we've received from the public and the uh staff input that we've given them. Uh they have worked up a preliminary cost estimate. Uh they gave it to me on Friday, so it didn't make it into this presentation, but right now
the cost estimate stands at 11 million. Um that's before you inflate it out to when it's actually going to be constructed. Um, so it's going to be a little bit larger than that, but it's actually sort of at the smaller end for a smart scale application. Um, we are working through putting that into what's
called a pre-application that's due on April 1st, and that sends it to VOTE's central office and their consultants who are reviewing all the applications so that they can give us feedback and say, "Oh, you're missing this piece. You need to explain how you plan this piece a little better." Um, while we're working
through that with VOTE and OIPI, the Office of Interotal Planning and Investment in April and May as they're reviewing our pre-application, we're also going to be going back out to downtown businesses and residents. Um, and I'll explain that engagement a little bit more on my next slide. Um,
June through August is when this will come back to you. Um, we're aiming for your single meeting in July to be the time that I come back to you and say, "Hey, would you like to endorse this application to go forward?" it can't go forward without you signing off and saying yes, we would like to move
forward with that. Um, we also have some applications that'll be coming from the MO. They're allowed to put in their own smart scale applications. Those would come to you at the same time just so we're efficient with that. Then we move on to it's in the state's hands. Uh, it
would go to them in August. They would spend September through January reviewing all the applications across the state, figuring out what's competitive, what's not, and then they go before the Commonwealth Transportation Board next spring and say, "This is what we want to put into our six-year improvement program." I'm
going to skip two bullets. That means it goes into the last year of the six-year improvement program. So that means the project that we're talking about right now doesn't get construction funding until fiscal year 2034 or annual year 2033.
So between now and then, we also have some things to talk about on West Maine. Um we have a large utility project that is coming down West Main starting this year. Um the earliest it will be complete and we'll be able to repave West Main would be 2029. So between now and then we have to talk about how do we
sync up anything that we do on West Main with this project um should we be awarded funding. So lots more touch points to talk about West Main to talk about how it interacts with this intersection specifically and ways to uh refine the design so it's something
that's going to work for everyone. So to that end, uh to touch back on the April engagement, um because we got so much feedback via email back in January, February, we wanted to go back out and talk to businesses and residents downtown and get a little bit more
clarification on their feedback. Um we got a lot of feedback that said things like this is going to be difficult for how we manage deliveries. We want to know how is that going to make it difficult? Where is it going to make it difficult? Are there little design refinements that we can make like adding
in additional drop off space or putting in an additional turn lane somewhere that could make things a little bit smoother? So, we're looking for a way to give people uh information on the feedback that we've collected so far, but also refine that. And to do that,
we're going to invite uh folks to come to an event at Citypace. Um it'll be RSVP only because we have limited space in City Space, but it will be looking at maps. it will be pointing at things and saying this is what we need to make a little bit better. Um we are nailing
down the exact uh details of that event. I'm working with VOTE and our economic development folks and friends of downtown to pull together this event. Right now the tenative date is going to be April 27th. So we should have more feedback as we are going through the refinement of the final smart scale
application um and be able to take some of this into future work on West Main as well. With that, I will open it up to any questions y'all might have. >> Yeah. Um, I don't have any questions. I do recall from my transportation days
those six year plans and you know, you just have to start way way in advance. And, um, so you're looking at, you know, what, eight years out or something before I start getting funding. And >> yeah, it was it was interesting getting fielding questions on this one and when
someone asked when is this going to actually be built and I said 2034 at the earliest they said the whole city could be totally different by then. Said yes that's that's true. We have to work on that too. So >> yeah. >> Um Jen, do you have any questions on this? >> Yeah sure. Thank you Ben. This was
really helpful with the timelines in it. So, just to be clear, the feedback piece will not >> you won't integrate that into the April one pre-app stuff and the feedback and then recreate. >> Well, there's there's several places
where we're going to use this feedback. So, we will use this feedback for our application that will be due in August. So, the one that we'll be bringing to council for its endorsement in July, that will include some of this feedback. Okay. There's also design phases that will have to happen in the future where
we'll have to do more traffic counts, more design, more engineering that will be including some of this feedback into that. Um, and then there's also the West Main Riping project that will happen in a couple years from now that we'll want to make sure that we're including this feedback into that as well.
>> Got it. That was my other question was with West Main and that restriping and the utility project, etc. just to kind of align this with our comprehensive plan to not just deal with congestion but you know help multimodal improve and
cars decrease is um is this alter how does this alternative kind of set up transit to be as smooth as possible? >> Yeah, so this is actually will not really have any impacts on transit. Okay. Um it may make things quicker them
get leaving that intersection at ridge and McIntyre, but they're all move coming down West Main or down water in that direction anyway today. Um and then they're coming on the trolley line down south street today as we're showing that traffic flow would go. So there's really not any changes to the directionality of
where transit would go. The only impact would be the intersection works a little bit better and they may be able to get through it a little faster. >> Great. So, we're kind of set up to succeed for that plug to plugging into that. >> And may I can I have one more question? Yeah. >> Okay. So, um with thinking about the
intersection, the pedestrian, and it's great that there's pedestrian and bike infrastructure built into this, and I think accessibility is the one part, but like the quality of that will be the other. Will um do we know how much this might slow
like calm traffic or if the distance of the recommended alternative for kind of headway length or you know crosswalk length is the most ideal? How does it reflect there? >> Yeah, what this actually does the the
best job of is minimizing the crosswalk length. doesn't do anything with reducing the number of cars that are going to come through here. Doesn't do anything with changing the speed at which they'll come through here. It actually makes them potentially go through slightly faster because they on average are not going to get backed up
through this intersection. Uh not going fast in an unsafe way, but just not being stopped going through the intersection. So there's not exactly traffic calming here, but there are pedestrian accommodations that are improving the pedestrian experience and improving uh the speed at which they can
go through the intersection. >> Fantastic. Thank you. >> Okay, Natalie. >> Hey. Yeah, thank you for the for the details. Um so you you've gone over this slightly that VOTE came up with the three
options. Um and now they've gotten some feedback. Um, how much input do our staff have on the project? What is that back and forth like? How much do they take into account our advice experience? >> Quite a bit because uh so when VOTE is
doing a project outside of the city, they are relying on VOTE standards for everything. When they come into the city, they're relying on city standards. So they're talking with our engineering team and they're saying, "All right, VOTE standards would say this, city standards say this. Where's the right place to land?" And that's really where
a lot of the conversation happens is, you know, our plans say this, our standards say this, yours say that. Where are we going to find the common ground? And mostly they are deferring to us because this is a project that is going to be in our backyard that we're going to have to design around going forward in the years future.
>> Yeah. Great. Okay. Um, so I mean I'm not a civil engineer, but you know, most of this, you know, is the repave the the repainting, restriping to reorient the um the directions. There's signage.
There's kind of the biggest construction area seems to be the closing off of the turn lane that exists now coming from West Main going east. Um,
with most of that feeling like paint and signage, why is it so expensive? >> The the moving that plaza area that is fairly expensive. Um there's some signal work that's going to have to happen with that and there is a protected bike facility in there that isn't just paint.
So that takes up some some budget as well. >> Okay. And can you talk more about the protection that's going into the bike path? >> I'm not sure that we have design designed exactly what the protection is, but there is space available there for us to put in protective uh treatments there. >> So either like
>> like it could be concrete curves >> or even is there any talk about just raising the bike path to sidewalk level? Has that would add on the costs. So really putting in protective uh interventions and not changing the height of the path is probably where we
would end up just to make sure it stays within that uh cost estimate. >> Okay. Um will there be this might be our policy not vot project related but are the right turns engineered to be allowed
to be right turn on red? I think there is one right turn that is engineered with the slip lane in front of the federal courthouse and I don't have it up right now but in front of the federal courthouse where you have that slip lane turn today that would still be there that has to be there kind of because of the geometry of that turn just to make
sure a bus can make that right turn. >> Um otherwise I believe the turns are all at a right angle enough that we would potentially look at employing some of those right turn no right turn on red uh that are triggered by the the button. But given that there is always
pedestrian traffic in that intersection, I would assume that it would likely be on pretty much all the time. >> Okay, great. And then um I mean it is looking at the timeline is a lot uh of waiting and I know you know
there's the various rounds it has to go through involving state money and all of that is great. Is there anything that the city can do in advance to you to get started on the project like when we do you know the paving schedule doesn't include water street at the
moment but um you know if that's happening in two years instead of in six years is that something we could just all right it's one way now and we'll finish the rest of that when we get the project something like that >> that's something I'm going to have to come up with an answer for when we do the restriping planning in a year or
year and a half from now um but figuring out how we approach that intersection is still going to be necessary as part of that restriping plan just because That's that's the furthest extent of that utilities project. We may not be looking further down Water Street and talking about the one weighing of that in that
2029 2030 time frame when we're implementing a restriping plan, but we would want to make sure that we get that uh facility up to West Main and or up to Ridge Street and then figure out how are we going to cross the road here. Um so that would be something that we consider
in our next planning effort next year. >> Okay, great. Um, that is all I have at the moment. Um, I am excited at, you know, more protected bike lanes in town. And I know you said earlier that it's it's not
the congestion mitigation is um, you know, when people say that in VOTE language, that's making cars go through the intersection faster. But the ancillary benefit of more protected bike lanes for congestion is that it allows more people to safely choose a bike
instead of a car. So it can has the potential to reduce car uh congestion just by reducing cars. So not a question, just a a supportive comment. Thank you. >> Uh Michael,
does VOTE still consider the city of Charlottesville to be deficient? We I believe we are still on a performance plan right now that we're working through, but I'm not sure what the status is of our current situation. Vot >> I'll let one of them give an update.
>> I I don't have a lot of details, but from my understanding is the the metrics that VOTE uses is based upon actually spending the construction dollars. So our our standing with VOTE has improved but the metrics have not yet. So
technically we're still deficient >> but we are on the right track. >> So the application is slated for this year. Is it anticipated that us still being considered deficient will make this difficult for us to be successful
in this application process or have we already talked with them and kind of feel confident? >> No. the the bottleneck that the deficiency causes is how many applications they're going to let us put in. Once they allow us to put applications into the process, that performance on previous projects has not
been part of the assessment criteria before. It's really been around how will the project perform if it is constructed. >> And I would also add this is an allowance for us to apply because they have previously told us not to, right? >> So this is progress.
>> Okay, that's right. >> Um that's helpful. Uh thank you. Um the >> the only other question is uh other people touched on this uh but
you mentioned the striping and utilities projects on West Main Street. Is there any plans for how we're going to treat that corridor or like prioritize how changes happen there? At this point, >> we'll be working through that in a
restriping plan that will be kicking off in FY28. So, we are working through the work plan for when exactly that's going to start, but that's where we would talk about that is a restriping plan. So in FY28 would begin a process to determine what we want the future of
West Main to actually look like and prioritize with future funding requests. >> That's right. And that would be happening in parallel with other work that we're doing to figure out the citywide mobility plan. Um I'll talk more about that in June when I come to give an update and I'll probably give a slight update on this project as well.
>> Thank you. >> Uh Lloyd, did you have any questions? Yes, I do. Um, first is the um the part of of Water Street that is proposed to be one way, that would be one way westbound. Is that correct?
>> That's correct. >> And so eastbound traffic along there is now going to be forced onto South Street, which is right now a pretty narrow street. Is there any plan to do something about that? >> Uh, no. Right now, the lane width of
South Street is wide enough for our transit vehicles and our fire trucks to go down. So, it and for delivery trucks to go down, so we don't have any plans to widen it beyond what it is. There's also a counterflow bike lane along South Street. Um, so delivery trucks who are trying to get around somebody who's not,
you know, perfectly parked do have a little bit of space that they can move into so far as there's not a bicyclist coming in the other direction. Um, we did not see any issue in the traffic modeling with sending traffic down South Street. There seems to be sufficient
capacity um on South Street to take that Water Street traffic on going forward. >> I mean, it would seem to me that you're probably going to at least double the traffic on South Street at that point. >> Yes. And and it does have the capacity
to handle that traffic. There really isn't a ton of traffic that is going eastbound on Water Street today. >> Would you need to remove parking from the side of of South Street? >> No, we we did not project any needs for removing parking with the design that we
have right now. If there are issues with uh there was one issue that was pointed out by a few people that if a train had come across the tracks and someone who wanted to turn right onto Second Street Souththeast uh was blocking that lane, would we need
to remove parking so that people could turn left and avoid being blocked right there? That's a design decision that we could potentially work into that. Um and it's not something that's in the design today. So that may be a change that you see between what you're seeing today and what you'll see in July.
>> Okay. And there are a couple of other things that I wanted to note uh I'm sure will get resolved along the way. One is that as you're coming southbound uh on Ridge McIntyre, you come through the the main signalized intersection
there and before you go over the bridge, it seems like there's sort of a dip. Uh, I guess that's where the the turn lane for West Main Street comes in. I I would assume that when all this is done, you'd be able to kind of smooth that out so you don't have quite the same whoopsy
daisy effect as you do sometimes. >> Yeah, I think I know where you're talking about. I assume that that would get taken care of as part of the repaving of that intersection just to to even that out, but I'd have to be a little bit more precise about that, though. >> Yeah. By the same token, when you're
coming uh northbound through that intersection, my recollection is that the that that you have to get kind of into the uh into the intersection before you clearly see where the lane lines are on Ridge
McIntyre going north. And I've sometimes had the thought that, you know, if they just extended the the the lines out another five or six feet, it would be a little easier to see. I know sometimes, particularly cuz right there, Ridge
McIntyre actually angles in the middle of the intersection, which I'm sure is not really a very good idea either. And I, as I've seen a number of times when people kind of go, "Whoops, I'm about to run up on the the the little island there that's that's
protecting the slip lane." Anyway, that's just a minor minor kind of problem. Um, and I gathered from what you were saying that there really is not anything that is being proposed for this particular project that is going to
increase the what I'll call the throughput on the north south dimension. Recognizing Natalie's suggestion that if there are more um more bicycles there be fewer cars. Assuming for the moment that that doesn't entirely solve the problem,
that particular area going southbound on uh Ridge McIntyre coming through the intersection uh particularly at 5:00 and then following it on through is one of the areas that is one of the more congested areas and at rush hour. I gather you're
saying there's not going to be anything really that's going to change that throughput. Yeah, the biggest change with the throughput will only be at the West Main intersection and would be associated with the improvements to the signal timing there. The throughput that's associated with the backups that come from the intersection at Ridge and
Monach Lav and then the intersection at Ridge and Cherry that sort of are are the ones that are stacking up backwards through uh the West Main intersection. Those would not be addressed with this project. Um they have been intersections that uh VOTE has looked at in the past
and that we have had funding for projects for in the past that we have uh passed back to to VOTE because we didn't actually think it would solve the problems that are in that area. Um but we have looked at that as a potential next area for stars studies. Um VOTE's
already engaging us and saying you know this was a great experience for us. What's the next one? um going north or south from this intersection either to Preston or to Monach a cherry a uh those intersections might be the next location. We're also looking at some
places like East High. Um all of these are locations that showed up in our Move Safely Blue Ridge project that was pointing out uh regional safety uh needs. So um obviously an issue but not something we can solve specifically with
this project. >> Thank you. That's all. >> Uh, thank you. Um, so, um, Ben, so this is going to be a difficult project. I mean, not physically to do, but from what I heard that we're going to have to
balance the input from the business owners, from the pedestrians, from the cyclists, from the the residents. So, um, you know, we'll it's going to be um some good public input as usual. So the
next steps if you could just kind of say what you over the next um couple of months if you can just lay out the dates or I mean >> I know you may not have the specific dates at this time but >> yeah so in April we'll be coming to the business and downtown resident community
and collecting more feedback from them in a sort of focus group session. Um, and then in uh May, you're going to hear a lot about the mobility uh plan that we're working on and scope for. I'll come back to you beginning of June for
an update on that and an update on this project. And then in July, I'll be coming back to you with the recommended staff alternative for this project that we would be going after a smart scale application for as well as the MO smart scale applications to get your endorsement on those. Um once I have
that endorsement, I put in the application with VOTE. Um and we find out next spring whether we are awarded funding. Um once we're awarded funding, then there's additional design work that needs to happen. There'll be more public input that will be taking as part of that. But that will sort of kick off a
six-year period of us continuing this project if we're awarded funded. >> Yes. >> A question of following up on the the funding award. If we don't get the funding, knock on wood, uh just to prep for that
scenario, do we have time to reapply again within the time frame to still have it, you know, be completed at the same time? Do we if we were not awarded the funding, we would either go after it the next round of smart scale, which means add two more years to that
six-year funding cycle, or we'd be looking for other sources of funding. That could be revenue sharing, which would mean that we would get the funding a little bit sooner, but it would be a lot more on our shoulders because it's a half and half proposition. >> It could mean that we're going after federal sources. Um, there is the safer
streets for all uh federal source that's out there. This is identified in our Move Safely Blue Ridge. If they put out another uh no foe saying that there is federal funding available, we could go after that funding for this project. Right now, the state is probably the safer option for us to go after. Um, but
there might be some federal options we could pursue that could speed this up. >> Okay, great. Thank you. >> Um, and so, um, just a reminder that, you know, as you're getting comments, a lot of people just don't, you know, reach out the normal format.
And so for the businesses as well as for the public, different cyclist groups and things. So we just may have to, you know, for us as counselors and, you know, staff to reach out to our contacts and say, "Well, what do you think about this?" Because I know some people may
not be able to get to the meeting. So um we will so it'll be you'll get be getting input from a lot of different angles. >> Yeah, this has been a great learning experience for our partners at VOTE. They haven't done a lot of work in the city of Charlottesville for planning work. um they've done a lot of
engineering work and supported us through that, but not so much directly engaging with our population on public input. Um and so they came to us with this is our public input plan. This is how we're going to move forward and they're really testing that and finding out what they need to learn for
finishing out this process, but also for any future planning that they want to help us with. >> Good. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Um any other questions, comments on this? Thank you, sir. >> Um >> I have one quick one for you, Ben. the um thinking about that and that
engagement and how that was working out so positively. Does that um evolve into maybe influencing smart scale? Does VOC have any say in what the smart scale eligibility requirements are? >> So you'll you'll hear more about this
through the no um when they update smart scale. Our local planning folks will come to us and explain the kinds of changes that the central office is considering and give you ideas on ways to influence that. Um, but we have a very good relationship with the local office, so they they will know what kind
of changes that you're looking for and how to uh communicate those best to the state government. >> Thank you. >> Yep. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. Do I get an intro? >> The floor is yours, sir.
>> All right. Good evening, counselors and members of the public. Uh, tonight or this afternoon still. I wanted to um bring forward a conversation with you all about collective bargaining. Uh, the impacts of collective bargaining specifically. I have with me our HR
director, Joe Gilkerson, our labor relations manager, Jimmy Moreny, and of course, Chrissy Hamill, budget director, because she'll get me out of trouble when I start using these numbers about budgets and stuff. Um but ultimately because you are in the throws of
considering the um fiscal year 2027 budget, I thought it was important for me to prioritize this particular uh update as to the impacts that collective bargaining is having on uh being able to manage the balancing act of putting your
budget together. Uh it is important for me to state very clearly and emphatically that this is not an anti-colctive bargaining uh presentation from me at all. That is a decision that is for this council to make and you have made it. I am now supporting the implementation of it. The team is
working hard to be supportive of the process uh that is negotiating as well as implementing the changes that come. But this is really a conversation about the tensions and trade-offs. You've heard that reference at your retreat last year and that carries forward because this is a good example of what
that uh really becomes when we start to look at how we're spending the money. So, this is what we're going to do uh in the next few minutes is take a look at collective bargaining in Virginia. We're going to talk about our ordinance here in Charlottesville. We'll talk about the cost of the union contracts for the
city, the contracts that are emerging from the school system as well, the impacts of that bargaining arrangement that we have in proximity to all the other decisions that we're making and then how that really interferes or becomes a part of balancing the budget.
So, the state approved um passage of um collective bargaining in 2021, permitting local governments and school boards to uh adopt ordinances and to get into collective bargaining. Uh there are now four cities and four counties that have uh those agreements in place. Uh
there are pending state matters. Uh the state labor board is going to be established if uh the legislation goes forward as presented. Uh it will mandate that schools and local governments have to coordinate. that has not been a feature up to this point, which is partially why we are facing the issues that we face at this time of having
learned when we have learned the impacts of the school's contracts and the proposed one. And then just today, we learned that binding arbitration has been removed from the version that is going to the governor. So, we will see where that lands. That just simply means that um we will continue to have a
little more ability to avoid uh an impass and an inability to resolve a contract dispute. Uh whereas with binding arbitration, it goes to someone else. They make the decision and we have to live with that. The city approved its ordinance in October of 2022.
We that ordinance went into effect January of 23. It authorized six bargaining units that you see listed there. police, fire, transit, labor and trades, admin and technical and professional. Today we have four contracts that are live. Uh the first three contracts were police, fire and
transit that went into effect FY24. This repres this identifies the representation that our employee work groups have uh with their bargaining entities uh for police, fire, transit as well as Teamsters is now representing the labor and trades group which had
their first contract approved that went into effect FY25. And then I showed you this slide in the budget presentation that I made just a couple weeks back, but just to also remind you and for those of members of the public who may not have seen that, the fire department uh represented by
the IAFF uh had a wage reopener as a part of this year's activity. Uh we were able to negotiate a new that we were able to negotiate that and execute that particular agreement that goes live FY27. It's one single year of activity
as it relates to compensation only and we will begin a new contract negotiation next year hoping to have a multi-year contract come from that process. Uh labor and trades is in year two of four uh in their union representation with Teamsters. We were able to arrange a
four-year contract. Uh we will negotiate a new contract in FY uh in in fiscal year 28 to actually start in FY29. the police department. Uh we were negotiating with them this year. Uh we have reached the agreement. I have
signed that agreement is now executed and goes into effect FY27. It's a new three-year contract for FY 27, 28, and 29. Uh and they're represented by the Police Benevolent Association. And then ATU is representing transit. Uh we are in contract year three of three. So
we'll be negotiating a new contract with them next year to start in FY28. So again, what I said before and what I remind you of is that we are in a perpetual state of negotiating that God loves to be at the negotiating table. I I said that because I knew he would
react that way. Um but his process, that is his role. He is constantly putting together uh the representation of management priorities, going in and engaging with staff and the union officials, and then coming out of it hopefully with a contract that I would be willing to sign. And if I'm not, then
we have to work through that. So that's our process. This is what the impact is compensation wise. Uh those four contracts represent uh increases in the fiscal budget. Each year when we signed a contract, we have made a decision and it is that arrangement in place for the term of
that contract. Two, three and four years is what we've experienced thus far. Each of these have different features which is why there is no equity in collective bargaining because each contract could be very different as the groups are advocating for what they want and what they feel that they need. And then of
course as a management team we are pushing back andor offering alternatives for consideration. So when you take a look at this you see that there is no par in what each group is going to receive. They are receiving what they were able to negotiate through and some of it also depends on what it is that they were going after when they were
going after it. So it could be light one year, heavy another year. That's something else that we get to we begin to appreciate when we look at contracts over time. It's not just one single year. It's for the entire period of the contract. This is the cost of the contracts for
next year. Each one has a different value because again it represents different things that they went after for that particular contract and are things we agreed to. Uh the transit contract is the biggest of the four for the next year, but that's a $4.2 million
impact to the bottom line of our budget just in one year of contracts uh for the city side. We haven't even talked about school side yet. Now, we're going to talk about schools. So, this the teachers contract is active. It was uh passed uh it went into
effect last year for this fiscal year. They passed it last year to go effective this fiscal year. So FY2627-28 is the three-year contract for the teachers as well as the professional support contract is pending. That is the one that they are looking for this FY27
budget that you pass to fund. Uh it would be for FY27 through 29. I use the images of these bags because they're going to continue to come up throughout the rest of this presentation because this is about money. So I'm trying to use this to help you appreciate the impacts or the the use and consideration
of the size of the bag even. Um but these are represent the various things that we're doing today from a financial perspective. So the operations is the biggest piece because we received the school's budget. We prepare that and then there are three other areas of maintenance, construction
and pupil transit that we support. >> Quick question and you might have said this but I was taking notes and might have missed it. the cost of contracts page. Um that is the difference that the contract is adding to the >> the increase >> the increase that is not the total cost.
>> That's not the total cost for each of those departments. That's correct. >> Thank you. >> Very good. Thank you. >> So yes, those are that reflects uh increases. So everything that we're talking about is the the value of the increase. All right. So, the cost of the school's contracts, uh, the teachers contract for
each of the next three years is 2.7 to $3 million and the support professional contracts go from 1.3 million to 1.6 million. And that in itself means that's a 4 to4.8 million increase over the course of the three contracts, the three
years of contract increases that we are anticipating. What we have to do in this period of time as well is to think about so how much of that is going to be requested of this city because not everything is covered by us. They receive uh funding through formula
through the state. So the way that the uh conversation has gone thus far is that we should anticipate a $3.5 million annual increase uh over the course of these contracts being live. uh the teachers contract which is active represents a 5% increase over each year
and the professional support uh contract which is pending at this time represents a 10 and a half% increase each year. So I use these images again to show you three and a half bags of money is what that relates to for me and we have to be able to work in $3.5 million each year
of an increase and I want to take you through the exercise of what that might feel like if we were to be facing this today. So, back in the presentation of the budget, I showed you that the school's original ask was for $6.4 million back in December when they met with us. They
were able to go back and do some additional work uh and indicated that they were able to get the number down to $2.9 million. But what they heard from me in preparing the budget at that time because we always try to give them an idea of what does it look like based on what the revenue increases are for the
city. So that they would understand one what is the formula that we use that calculates how much they are to receive just based on the formula. What do we think we can get that number up to because we have not really been adhering to the formula itself. And then that gives them a little more guidance on how
to come back with their ask that they would like to make. When we were having the conversation back in December about what the ask was go what the number was going to be from the school's perspective. The number that I gave them was $2 million. The formula said 1.5 million. So I had increased that $2
million based on the conversation with Miss Hamill about the gap, the size of the gap that we faced when we first started putting the budget together. And that gap results from all the requests from all over the place that come into her office and what we need to then pull
the levers to balance. So, we were able to work with the schools over the course of the two months of December and January to get their request down to $2.5 million, which was the final ask, $2.569 million as the increase to the operating costs for the next year.
That's what we're facing right now as a part of the budget request that we have made to you and that's what we're going to be working on over the next few work sessions. Also, just point out that we give 1.4 4 million per year in capital improvements, 1.3 million per year in ongoing maintenance, and we also work in
CIP projects, which the prek center at Walker is the next one that is in our budget. >> And does that additional supports stay pretty stable or that also? Okay. >> Yeah, that is that those represent um each of these represents the the additional support represent individual
allocations each year of the CIP. So the 5-year CIP is accounting for that and then we plug in a project whenever we feel like we uh can afford to make it fit uh into the bond plan as well as debt service. Thank you. So now I'm
using a different image. Now I'm talking about the scale and the balancing. So the goal here again is just to help you appreciate this is what it looks like in my head when I start thinking about how hard it is to balance a budget for a local government. So we have the scale today. The uh basic result that we
presented to you as a as a recommended budget was $279 million to your right, the bigger bag. $279 million is what the proposed FY27 budget is, relying on the 2% real estate tax increase that you see at the bottom. I have been referring to
this as a structural imbalance because we had to raise taxes to be able to afford that. Uh the real estate assessment and all other performance indicators for revenue indicate that we would have $277 million budget, but because of our spending and the things
that we prioritized, we're short. That is the reason why we have the imbalance. And that's the reason why the scale has tilted to the $279 million factor. This is what you're doing with 277 or
$279 million. And I didn't put everything on here, but again, this was just to point out. It was an exercise for me to try to capture visually for you and the public all the many things that we are doing. These are things compounding things of what we have to
do, things that we are choosing to do and the various amounts to indicate how much of it we are doing. I take no pride, no pleasure in judging what is on this screen. So I don't I just made the slide and put all the information on it. This is what we're doing. This little
community of 51,000 people punching above his weight class. This is what that looks like. The challenge is how do we balance that when we have some structural imbalances? And when you add two big bags labeled collective
bargaining contracts, it just gets harder. It doesn't mean you don't do it. It just means you have to start to make changes. And that is what I have been trying to do in sharing with you that I think it is time for us to seriously take a step back and take a look at what
we're allocating in all of our various categories because the runway is shorter than it has been. These are decisions that you have made and this is the reason why it's important for me to express to you that I have no judgment in whatsoever as to what it is that
we're doing because there I'm here to make sure that we get it done. But these are decisions that we've made. We have prioritized transit. We now have a four-year plan that we're working to improve transit. We adopted or endorsed an affordable housing plan. We made a $10 million a year commitment for 10
consecutive years for housing investments. We have exceeded that every year that we have had that in place and we will deliver on that a year early at this point. Our ADA transition plan required a lot of improvement in order for us, a lot of investment in order for
us to improve to reach the culture of compliance that we all believe is important for everyone that lives in this community. And climate action is a big ticket item, a necessary item, and one that we have identified as a value in this community. But I'm pointing out to you that collective bargaining is a
bigger bag, one that will not change. It's a fixed increase. is a fixed expense that we're going to always have to deal with because all it will ever do is go up. Rarely and I don't think ever will it go down. Um but collective bargaining is one of those decisions
that have been made when the ordinance was passed. We also probably did not do the right work at that time uh to make sure that we fully understood the impacts and and again all I say there is it's a trade-off. We make the decision to invest in the people. I absolutely
support the idea of investing on our people. the people that we have, but I have to also do the job that you ask me to do. And sometimes that's going to mean I have to tell you some of the hard things. We might not be able to get too many more of those people because if we're going to continue to invest in those that we have, we're not going to
be able to afford adding to our our senses. So Sam, before you move on, when staff goes into the room or office where you're negotiating with the different unions or organizations,
>> Mhm. >> Do you all provide them with the financial reality of a city of 50,000 people and say, you know, I mean it's supposed to be like a compromise like if
they ask for A and we say well okay but we can only do B because we you know um you know with that imbalance. So h how how exactly does that work? >> Yeah. So I'm not going to go too deep into it because I never want to have any
uh information misconstrued because we have to be very careful in this environment. What I'll say is that um we do provide financial impacts. We do financial analysis. We have our our firm VN that you all know from PFN does a lot
of advising on the cost. We get to talk about the cost of things. We get to express to them what the uh situation may be we may be facing with our budget. Uh that does not work in a system such as collective bargaining when it is a matter of that big slide of bags that I
showed you. When we're doing all of those many things, most of those things are being would be viewed as elective. Those are choices that we are making and in a system like this the question would be can you make a different choice to prioritize this particular matter. So that's why it doesn't necessarily work
that just because we have a hole in our budget this year doesn't mean that we would not we would have been able to win that argument if we were to say we can't give you this increase because we have a hole in our budget. we would have to do a lot more work to prove that because ultimately the question would be
couldn't you do something else instead to make it pay possible to afford this >> but the the final decision is always here >> the final decision comes to you in the current process um that's why we were wondering about what the binding
arbitration aspect of of what that would be like I think it is important for you always to retain the ability to say we can't afford this and make some different decisions if you so choose Um, so I would hope that that continues to be the case, but we don't have control over that at this point. I think
whatever happens, we'll work through the process no matter what. We have no choice in that sense. Um, but ideally, um, if we are at the negotiating table and then they bring to me the results of that and I don't believe that we can afford it, then I would share that information with you. >> Thank you.
>> And then that would be known to you as you consider the matter. >> So decisions made being the things that you've already done. These are decision decisions that are pending. I didn't really work very hard to figure out what else you have pending. I could assure you there's more, but these are three
big things that have big tickets attached to them as decision decisions that are pending that have to join that slide, the big slide of all the things that we need to do. Fleet conversion is going to be a very expensive proposition, one that we've been talking about now for a few years. Uh we are on schedule to work through uh conversion
of our bus fleet. We have slowed that down a little bit and kind of smooth that out. But still, there are real increases that we know that we're going to endure. We also are working to uh shift some of our fleet of our own vehicles that we use as a city government overall, making changes
there. They come in at a little bit higher price. So, that's going to now be measured and spread out a little bit. Um, Mr. Pilichowski is working with us on that with the public works team to make sure that we can get that done. schools construction. Difference about schools construction on this slide now
is that we have the potential for a funding source with the sales tax. So, if that is able to come through, uh we would be able to deal with that matter as taken care of based on those funds. But that's still an item that has to be signed. And then your parks and wreck master plan. What you saw on the slide
before is just the $500,000 per year that we put in as a placeholder. But we recognize that that plan was about $78 million for all the improvements across the entire system. Question is what portion of that what percentage of that plan are we hoping to implement? And
that would be the dollar amount that we would add to this bag and replace the smaller bag that's on that slide. So, we also have to recognize with this there's more than one structural imbalance. It's not just this year's budget that is off. It is future year's budgets that I am now suggesting could
be off. Uh because of the uh increasing operating expenses, um these are the tensions and the trade-offs. As we are continuing to spend in all the many categories and spend at the levels that we are in all of the categories, eventually you start to have constriction and they won't fit. And
that's what it's beginning to look at look like. Um, and I label this tensions and trade-offs to remind you of the conversation that we had. This is where we have to make decisions. Again, I value the idea of investing in our people. I shouldn't even say an idea. I
value investing in our people. That's what we have to do. But in order to afford that, we're going to have to trade that off with some other places that we've been investing at levels prior so that we can absorb those costs because again, they're going to continue to go up. And that will vary across all
the different things that make up that previous slide. All of our contracts are now identified here on this slide. When you say when I show you four contracts that we have for the city and two contracts uh with the schools if the support professionals
contract goes live that's a lot of money earmarked in these contracts increases every year period. We don't get to go back and have any further conversation about them until the new contract opens and then we negotiate whatever change. I
assure you the numbers will never go down. They will only go up. So we will be in this perpetual state of increase which is what it costs for labor anyway. We have to give a raise or a colo or something every single year. But in the case of these contracts, we're exceeding
those numbers based on some of the various results that they seek. >> So >> same question for this slide. Are these numbers total or change? >> Those are the changes for the period of that contract. >> Okay. Thank you. >> So for the schools, as I recall from my
time on schools, the biggest part are personnel. >> Mhm. >> So, you know, when they come to us with, you know, it was 6 million ultimately two two and a half this year. A lot of
that's based on salary. So do we foresee that in the future at least for the tenure of those contracts that their increase or request to us I should say won't be as high or level or
>> they're reversed. I'm suggesting that they'll be higher because now they're going to be baked in at a higher amount of increase for the contracts. And then the question is going to be how do they then fit what else they ask for new personnel, new equipment, software,
whatever they may put into their particular request. >> That's the challenge of it. >> I see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. because now with the two contracts, the increases are going to be partially shared by us because that's always been the case as they put their contracts their u request together.
So then also one because there the third imbalance that I've looking at at this point is that we have compensation conflicts across classifications. So the classification is a group of employees that fall into this space. They're
different people, different jobs. They get paid roughly the same amount of money, but they are on different pay bands for what it is that their job uh outlines for them. What we start to see is when we are working through establishing contracts, individual
classifications of people then actually jump higher than they have been. What that could lead to is they could jump a pay ban and be over someone that historically has been higher than them and they now are higher than that group.
What that's going to trigger is then when the next negotiation happens for the group that just got jumped, they too then will plan for a jump as a part of their negotiation. So the reconciliation part of it is we begin to recognize who's coming, what are they coming for,
because they're going to want to get their pay band back in the structure that it was before. Uh and they then could ask for more. So an example, employee group A makes $32,000 a year. That's very low. I'm just giving a small
number. $32,000 a year. Through their contract, they jump up to 47. They've negotiated the contract. We've approved the contract. We value that group of employees and we think it's important to pay them significantly more. They then go up to $47,000 a year.
Well, in them going up to $47,000 a year, there's another group of employees that we've been paying $42,000 a year. And we see those individuals as providing a very critical service that that salary is the market. That is what that needs to be paid. We just changed
the market. So, we're now going to have to get that group over the 47 from 42 to 47. And so they're going to come in and negotiate at a minimum of 50. So we just jumped 42 to $50,000 just because the prior contract jumped from 42 to 47. So
there's this game of frogger and hopscotch or whatever game you want to call it that this begins to trigger and it's payband hopping and that's part of one of the concerns that I have at this point because then it becomes harder to reconcile. There's a very simple way for
me to reconcile and that is cut expenses in other places and cover the hopping aspect of what it's going to feel like going forward. I thought it was important for me to be able to point out all of this to you now because again we are at the crossroads that this is happening. It is live. It is getting
harder and it won't stop getting harder. So we need to be able to take stock in understanding that this is a part of what is going on. give you a chance to ask whatever questions that you need to ask. And as we work to fill in the structural imbalance number one that I pointed out, which is the current hole
in the budget of $2.5 million, it's going to get bigger and wider and more consistent is the message from tonight's presentation. So proposing this is the proposed budget with the tax increase. The general fund total would be would be $279 million. It
gives a two two cent uh real estate tax increase. We're going to have a first public hearing this evening. I'm sure you will hear people who will say that they don't believe we should do that. I absolutely understand why individuals would say that. The only reason that the tax increase is included is because of the spending levels that we have. It is
the only thing that we can do to make the numbers work or we can identify for you cuts or alternatives. And I'll have a little bit more for you in a second on that. So that's it. Um, what's next is the public hearing tonight, the community budget forum on Thursday that
gives the public additional opportunities to come and speak to you. You have the CIP budget work session next Thursday night. Uh, you have a public hearing on the budget and the tax rate. That's all a part of the process leading to a I put August 9th. I was so
excited about messing up my slide deck. April 9th, budget adoption. April 9th. We don't have that much time. Uh, April 9th. Um but under the key item on this list is the decision on the tax rate and we we can increase the tax rate. That's
a choice before you or we can implement alternative cuts which we're going to present to you hopefully Thursday night if we have time and if not we'll find time to do that before you get to the final stage of this. Uh we can plug gaps with one-time funds which has been a part of the consideration but does not
come with my recommendation. Uh but ultimately we have very limited options for addressing the hole in the budget. What I'm suggesting that you have to take a look at this from more than just the hole in the budget, but the gap that will continue to grow. So I'm going to stop there and give you a chance to ask
any questions. I'll go back to any slides that you want me to. Um thoughts. >> Yeah, Michael, I'll start with you if you have any questions or comments. Um well, I'll step back for a second
because um I do think collective bargaining is positive, but it's difficult and I think denying that it's difficult won't benefit anyone, including workers. >> That's true. >> Um so I'm glad for this conversation. Um and I mean some of these increases we
would have had to do no matter what because we had lots of vacancies, weren't competitive, inflation, but there's definitely a cost. Um and um in the end I think it will be positive because we'll help regionally set um you
know higher wage floor since we're such a large employer, help multiple departments, but we've got a lot to still figure out. Um a few questions. one, this won't impact us for a few years, but how would things
look differently operationally for us with the new state labor relations board? >> That's a good question. And Jimmy left um he would have been able he had to go. I was trying to wrap up so that he could be here. Uh the state labor relations board actually is a resource number one.
Um, I think we would have benefited from having that state board in existence before any of the cities and counties uh adopted their ordinances. We would have been able to ask questions. We would have hopefully have been able to get guidance on things we could have done. My regret, even though I wasn't in
charge, but my regret is that we did not take you all on a on a journey. I think we should have done that. We made sure that we helped you understand exactly what I just described to you as a possibility so that you would understand what limitations you might have wanted to place initially to then come back and
expand your ordinance later. That probably would have been a better thing to have done. I think we also would have been able to learn uh from the state board how best to approach educating our workforce about collective bargaining coming because we did not do training of
the workforce at all. Once we got to the point of moving forward, we kind of took a hands-off approach because we didn't want to be accused of trying to block or bust a union because that's a thing as well. Um, but I think we would have learned from that state entity hoping that of course it would have been the
kind of entity that would have provided resources that we would have gotten guidance and I think that would have been very helpful. We had to figure this out on our own and being one of the early adopters of uh collective bargaining once it was passed. We had to lean on um individual parties that knew
this and we had to go outside of the state of course because nobody had experience in the state. Um so we had the first firm that we were working with that helped us put the mechanics of it all together. But we eventually learned that we couldn't rely on them because they were seasoned at collective
bargaining and they were coming at it from a very harsh approach and they were pushing back very hard and we knew that that was not um the interest of council by moving forward. It was not the intent. So, we had to use a different firm that would be able to understand
kind of how the eb and flow of Charlottesville goes so that they would appreciate the fact that the goal was to always reach a contract conclusion that was positive. Um, but we were getting uh sometimes getting advice that we had to go back to them and say, "Okay, we're not going to do it like that. I'm going
to need you to lighten up just a little bit." I had to deliver that message a couple times. >> Well, I think one of the positives is now that it's coming statewide to all local governments and schools. Yeah, >> we've got a few years of institutional memory as well as some
planning for budget impacts whereas other places are going to be starting from scratch. >> Yeah, they've been calling. >> Um, so you mentioned there's no binding arbitration. Um, at ultimately city council is the final decision maker for
what a contract will be. walk through what what is that process? If we were to determine, you know, at some point a contract isn't feasible within the budget, what happens and how does it end up as a
decision for city council? >> Yeah, so we we have a negotiating team led by Jimmy. Uh he he comes uh has a conversation. Me, Jimmy, Joe, and Chrissy um regularly are engaged throughout the process. Uh the goal is
to identify what are the management rights that we want to protect and preserve. What are the interests that we have heard from the bargaining unit that they wanted to highlight for us as of interest to them. Uh we cost out everything because everything that is requested comes at a cost. So we have to
figure out what that is. And then ultimately it's it's a horse trade type situation. And in doing that it's a determination of we value this so we want this. Well there's a value to that. So, let's see. Let's try to determine how much of it we think will fit. And all the while that collective bargaining
is going on, Chrissy is working on the budget. So, we have departments submitting their requests. We have all of our various agencies submitting their requests. So, she's pulling all the numbers together and that's how we determine what a gap is. And all the all along the way, we are making adjustments
knowing that the collective bargaining train is coming into the station at some point very soon. It will have a number attached to it. And the question is, can we make it fit? It's the same scenario of what I have to do in working with her to determine what kind of set aside we will do for staff compensation changes,
cola for retirees or what have you. So throughout the negotiation process, the goal is to come to a number that we think can reasonably fit within the budget that we are working on. We're getting revenue projections. We are anticipating what the expenditures are looking like because we're meeting with all the departments. So these are
parallel efforts that are happening. And then we're coming to a conclusion at some point that when a contract comes to me, I'm looking at the contract with Chrissy from an affordability perspective, from Joe and Jimmy from a management perspective of just trying to
verify that we as a team think this works. We feel like operationally it supports what we're trying to get done. Uh and then be able to put it into the budget and make it fit. If there is confusion is what I'll call it. And that is when we don't necessarily agree,
which is a part of the process. If we don't agree, we work through that process. We negotiate where we can. We're pulling levers, the little lever, few levers that we have. And at some point, we might reach an impass. And an impass means we don't have an agreement. Well, we can go to mediation. So, and we
have had to do that where we'll go in and let a third party talk it talk us through that particular scenario. And the goal is to see if we can come to an agreement. You can come out of mediation and not have an agreement. We've done that too. Uh and in that process we would work towards the next item. The
next big part of the process is called factf finding. And factf finding is when we have to qualify ourselves as to why we are unable to do whatever it is that we're being uh being requested of us and we have to go into deep analysis. We're paying for costing work to be done. And
that is why it's not simply a statement of our budget will not allow us to afford this request. It doesn't come that easily because a factfinder is that in individual party who's taking a look at everything. They're neutral. They have no emotion attached to it whatsoever and they ultimately make a
decision. But when they make a decision, it indicates one way or the other who won or who lost because rarely is it going to be perfect between the two. Uh but because it is not what we have agreed to, then we would bring it back to council and say this is the result of
factf finding. it is beyond the budget that we have in place and then you would have the ability to say we cannot afford it and that sends us back to the table and we would have to renegotiate >> and that throws things off in a dramatic way because of how we are in this
perpetual cycle of negotiating. We're trying to get these contracts to a conclusion by the end of January so that we have the detail, the costing detail January, February as we're wrapping up the conclusion of balance in the budget so that I can present it to you the first week of March.
>> So it's a very tight schedule. >> Um but we we do retain that ability and so >> we do retain that ability. You know, for example, if we were to say this just isn't feasible if city council were to communicate that as part of this
budget process, would that then lead to doing mediation, factf finding, and then >> all of those things could come to pass? Uh ultimately what it does is it reopens the contracts and that's the hard part. We would have to whatever impact that has, we would
have to then determine are there offsets that we think are more worthy to avoid that. I would say to you that we probably would because again these are contracts that we've come to terms on. They're for multiple years and we might have to look at other things that we could do in order to protect those for
what they are. >> But that's a decision. >> And final questions. um you've discussed this before, but for the other uh bargaining units like ATU, >> Teamsters,
>> they negotiate that contract directly with city staff and during those conversations, there's back and forth about the state of our budget, what the budget impact will be. That did not happen with the schools negotiation. That's is that correct? >> Not with city staff.
>> So, city staff and our budget team were just not involved in those conversations at all. Right. We we learned of the results of the contract. The impact of that is what we then had to factor in for going forward. It's led to some of the conversations that we have since had uh and that has been informative for our
budget process because again, you know, that we while we're preparing a one-year budget, we're doing a five-year CIP, we're also thinking about next year. Our budget, she doesn't stop doing budget stuff. we take a break and then we're right back into it because the budget
season opens in August for the next budget cycle. Yeah. So, it's only a few months. >> Well, I I'll just say at this at this point that's my biggest concern. I think the other contracts there's certainly a cost, but I think there was an opportunity for honest back and forth
about the state of our financials, what the impact will be. And it this is nobody's fault cuz it's new, but I think that structure for schools was just a process that doesn't benefit anyone, including the workers, because they're forced into a negotiating environment
with um a lot of incomplete information and they're not dealing with the actual decision makers. And that's nobody's fault, but that's just the reality. And so, >> and it's not unique to us. There are other communities that are having the same issue right now as we speak. Yep. >> And it's a learning experience for everyone, but I think going forward that
definitely, you know, has to change. it sounds like will uh cuz I think we've seen that that like just didn't end up benefiting anyone and created a much more chaotic process. Um and one of the concerns I I have now just to to be blunt is
for the unlicensed professionals the the lowest pay bands are going to go up uh 30%. And that's going to have an enormous impact on wage compression with when that goes up 30% teachers rightly and completely understandably will
demand a significant uh wage increase commensurate with that. And I'm not even saying that we would end up saying oh we can't do that or no don't. But we have not that's an enormous financial impact that we haven't done planning for. We don't even have a number for the financial impact. That is not fair to
anyone because teachers aren't even going to have a clear sense of what we're able or not able to do. And to be able to have an honest back and forth with the relevant decision makers and um and that at this point is my
biggest concern is I just feel like the structure of it has just put us in a place with a tremendous amount of uncertainty where I mean that budget impact is big enough. We should have at least had, you know, 6 months or something to at least be planning for it and thinking through what will that mean
for tax increases, cuts in other areas, or even just a conversation with schools. Are we going to structurally prioritize your operations over capital needs? I mean, there's just so many conversations that needed to happen. And anyway, that that's my biggest concern at this point. And I just feel like
there's a lot more conversation that needs to happen, which again isn't even saying, "Oh, no, we wouldn't approve that or don't want that." But like, >> yeah, >> it's a strange place to be in. >> Sounds like you're in my dreams right now. You just summed up everything that I've been stressing over. That's what
it's become. Cuz again, um it it's not anti-collective bargaining. It's it has an impact. Everything has an impact. Every decision has an impact. And I think that's what we're now having to wrestle with. And it just came to a head just with the fact that this second contract together with the first one and
then taking a look at what it's been like building the budgets each year. It we're at the same place, but now it's just getting bigger and bigger. And I think that's part of where the decision-m has to come. We've got to take a look at those trade-offs because
it's going to come at a cost to rightly impact the salaries and livelihoods of the people who work these important jobs throughout both systems. the city government and the school system. >> Uh we're going to have to pay for it, >> right? And I'll just end by saying I think I absolutely believe that janitors
and support staff in schools need to be paid a living wage. That wage is not there yet, especially given our cost of living. Um and we need to fight to get there. But >> I think to be fair to those workers, we have to be honest about timelines for it and that we've actually done planning to
make it possible. Otherwise, we're promising something that maybe we can't even deliver. And I think that's the most unfair thing to do. >> Yeah, that's true. >> I'm gonna get Lloyd. Lloyd, do you have any um questions?
>> Yeah, a couple of them. Um my first thought u as you were talking about wage compression issues. Are we concerned at all about wage compression comparing uh salaries of school employees, for
example, to city hall employees? I'm thinking janitor is it being an obvious corlary one to the other. Is that a consideration? And if so, is there a plan to remedy that? >> That is a consideration >> or at least or at least to bring it into
the discussion that that both we uh with our union and the schools with their union need to be having. >> Yeah, it is a consideration. It is part of what I know that um that Joe will be perpetually concerned about because he has to do that work for just the city
organization. Um but with the fact that more collective bargaining is coming, he'll be working hard at this and I'm sure asking for additional staff to stay on top of this, looking at how this u market changes as a result because a a custodian in the school system and a
custodian in city hall are the same. And the goal would be for them to be in the same area. And if that were to change dramatically, whichever one is off is the one that's going to have that as a part of their next contract. That is going to be a motivating factor for them to have the the salaries change to
connect to that. It goes beyond that, which is why I identified that structural imbalance number three is payban hopping. It's not just the same uh classification of employees. It's the hopping over of where they have been historically placed that also results.
And then that just means that there's going to be this request for this group to be lifted again higher than the group that just achieved if we go with councelor Payne's suggestion that we're trying to get to a living wage. Well, there are some folks that are already above that living wage. When you move
these folks above the living wage, you've now taken away what they enjoyed before and they're going to ask for that to be restored in their next contract. That's why it's going to be this constant increase over and over and over. I guess one one thing that concerns me
just to thinking again just thinking about the janitor situation in particular since it's one thing that's sort of immediately comparable from one organization to the other is if if we are in the situation and I don't know whether we are but if we're
in the situation where the increase in janitorial salaries in the county in the in city schools might promote some hopping as you refer to it uh over what janitors in city hall
would get. It would seem to me that we ought to be striving for uh par. And if somebody says, "Oh, but I was historically getting paid more than a school janitor. I need to be uh given a raise so I can still be paid more than a
school janitor." My first question is why? On what moral basis do you say that? Why is it not simply permissible to to have parody? And just because you may feel, hey, I want it, doesn't mean that it's it's either morally justified
or fair in some way. Uh, and I any I hope that as we as we look at this sort of concern about hopping that we not simply treat that as I mean it's inevitable that they will ask. It's not inevitable that we have to say yes.
>> Yeah, I I would say that it is it's a struggle. It's a natural struggle in human resource management. Uh the whole time that I've been here, prior to us applying our class and comp changes, we were unable to um to manage it well
because we had this person coming in asking for an increase based on what the other person was getting based on the fact that they had been here three years longer than the other person. And everybody was doing their own human resources analysis. We even got to a point that we had departments doing their own pay studies because they
didn't believe what HR was saying. All of that is gone today. I've outlawed all of that at this point. Um, but ultimately just said that our HR department is the team of professionals that are working to do that, but they get requests for reclassifications all the time. And those are things that are
just part of the natural process. What I'm suggesting at this point is that this is going to get a little bit more complicated because we're going to not be looking at just onesy twoosy requests. We're going to probably start looking at groupings of people that are changes are going to be necessary to consider. Uh, and while we won't always
have to say yes, we're not going to always get away with saying no. There's going to be a trade-off to what the morale is like if we don't make certain changes. And that is a part of this process. That is why collective bargaining is great in that it empowers the employee to fight for themselves, to
advocate for themselves. And it's an it's supposed to be that moment of we can sit down, talk it out, negotiate, come to a compromise, and walk away. Everybody wins. Uh, but it doesn't always work that way. And sometimes the conversations get heated, then we wrestle and get them back down to where
they need to be and hopefully can shake hands when it's all said and done. That's the way when it works. So far so good. I'm very proud of the fact that we have been able to get all four of our contracts signed. Uh and some of them well beyond time periods than I even anticipated. But I do worry that if we
don't solve the need to address the imbalance in other ways, then we're going to create this tension amongst our people. And there's already a natural one when there are people who are in a unit and not in a unit because they're different. And we have been working very hard for many many years within this
organization to create parity and make everyone believe that equity is a thing that they can achieve and they can get as if you and I have the same job you get roughly about the same amount of money that I get and if you've been here longer is the only reason why you make a little bit more. And we've been able to
fix a lot of that. We've done a lot of good work. But uh I think there's some concern there. >> Do you think that we have I mean it's what struck me about the discussion uh for school support staff was I had not
frankly ever known ever realized that support staff in the schools were as poorly paid as they have been had. There was never any reason I had to cross my radar screen. Um, so the question I guess is are there other places in
either the school's workforce or in the city's workforce where we think there are still major class and comp kinds of adjustments that need to be made to get us perhaps to the point where all we're really talking
about moving forward. uh might be, you know, sort of, you know, to what extent we embrace cost of living and uh and other other issues like that. >> Yeah. I I can't speak for the school side of it. I think to to councelor Payne's point, there are a series of
questions and conversations that we now need to get into. That would be an example of one to get with them to anticipate uh those folks outside of their um bargaining units. what changes might they now be uh needing to receive as a result of everyone else joining
them up the ladder. Um I'll speak for our side of it. I feel good that we have done a really good job of fixing what has been a historical problem. That's why we did our comp and class changes when we did them at the same time as we were doing the implementation of the
first three uh contracts. We ate a lot of expense at that time. Um there are still areas that we know. We're doing some analysis on groups of employees uh for market rate changes that may need to happen because the market has shifted.
What we had done as work might need to be adjusted and there might need to be additional dollars placed in there for us to be able to recruit and retain individuals. But I would not say that we have um a significant categorical identification of groupings of people that are severely underpaid uh and out
of market. Now, we can make various adjustments to ensure that no one is too low on the compensation scale because a living wage is not what some of our jobs pay. Uh, and we can work to fix that over time. And I think that's really where we would like to be able to focus
our attention. Do we have any sense? I mean, I I was just reading today that it now appears that the earliest we would get a state budget agreed to would be April 23rd. And knowing the way this process usually works, just because the House and the
Senate come together on the 23rd, A doesn't mean they come out with at the end of the day on the 23rd with a budget to present to the governor. B, it doesn't mean that the governor is going to say yes, yes, yes. So, it's probably miday before we get a real idea of what
the what the state budget is going to be like. Do we have any major portions of our budget that are dependent upon the state budget? No, I wouldn't say major. We know that um we do have different categories of of state funds, highway funds, various
things like that. We know that the schools um will get some allocation of funds. We don't know if it's going to be a small amount or something dramatically different. That's a lot of what I understand some of the debate to be as to why we don't have a budget at this moment. Uh so there's some things that
we'll have to reconcile as it comes in, but I wouldn't anticipate there's anything that we're concerned about. >> Chrissy. I agree. >> Okay. I didn't think so. >> Okay. And the the last thing I just want to say just as an observation is that it seems to me that it would be useful
uh not only for the body politic but specifically for the collective bargaining process if we had the same if we had distribution to the outside world of the kind of economic analysis that we
got at our retreat that showed not only what what our experts are telling us. They think that the the revenue picture is going to look like for us going forward, but also what our tax burden is relative to others other other
localities. That kind of information I thought was very eyeopening for me and I would think that it would be eye opening to the, you know, the the rest of the folks in Charlottesville and specifically for our city employees to know if we're if we're saying we can't
do any better than, you know, x number of dollars to say we're basically getting to the point where we can't do much more. and to have sort of to continue on with the discussion that you've started now with us to say
council has identified five target areas and to some extent while we can say well okay we'll just buy fewer paper clips that's not going to balance this budget it's going to be one of these five things that would have to take a major hit if we're going to give you a major a
major increase uh to have that kind of honest discussion with people I think might might be helpful in the long Yeah, I would like that. >> Yeah, I would agree with that. And that's the basis for you were supposed to have a parks and wreck presentation today and that's why I bumped it. I thought this was more important more
urgent not important because that matters too, but it was urgent for you to hear this as you wrestle with the decisions that you have in the next couple weeks. >> Thank you. Well, and it also, I think, will help us say to ourselves, we've got five major initiatives out there that
are costing us more significantly more money every year. Maybe five major initiatives is enough for for this moment in time. >> Yep. Thank you, Lloyd. >> Thanks. >> Um, Jen, >> um, thank you the Thank you, Lloyd, for
those um, comments, too. That you kind of covered one of the questions I had. Um, and I'm thinking more of what he was just speaking about, which is like what is our work right now to tackle this? Um, because
is it I are there um what do they call them like uh nonwage benefits that um collective bargaining gets involved in in those discussions. it like um PTO and
uh remote work and things like that that can buy us a little time which seems to be the other piece that we could use to kind of know. Okay. So >> there there's nothing big enough to offset compensation. That's the biggest
that's the biggest expenditure. They we do talk about working conditions and we talk about benefits, but we don't go beyond uh we don't go deep into those conversations because ultimately those are not going to necessarily be easy things to address. When you start trying to change our benefits program, we do
all of our stuff ourselves. So then it becomes a little bit harder for us to figure out how do we do it for you and 20 people and then everybody else, the other,00 people have something different. it cost us more in the long run because then we have to manage multiple things instead of one thing.
But the biggest expenditure uh is compensation. So it's it's hard to to mute that which is why other expenses have to help mute that. >> So that yeah that comes back to what the reality is is which we have to do the work to figure out the levers to pull. I
mean, we're essentially looking at we need a plan to activate to sustain this >> and that we need to do that work which >> well and actually to consider that a part of your plan that investing in the people to this degree is a big feature
of your plan. So then what complements that? >> Right. Um, and so I'm wondering if um in that work if um if we're reflecting what
Charlottesville has told us their priorities are and thus we are leading with those and they are expensive. if um ongoing participatory budgeting work might be a tool that we do in a much longer
timeline in order to get clarity on >> some assumptions we're making. >> Sure. >> Um >> giving you that advice. >> Yeah. Because it seems because my knee-jerk reaction is to say but wait, we're still not talking about that there's two other options for two more
groups to come on board. True. >> And so that's kind of scare intimidating. It's good that it didn't get past you because that could happen now, >> right? And so, um, you know, we're not ready for that conversation. It seems like, uh, we don't have a plan. We
haven't we don't plan for that. So, um, we might get need to get a better handle on what that work looks like. Um, yeah, I think you're helping me focus what our next action items are for that. Thank you.
>> Okay. Hey. Um, so I just want to clarify something I heard earlier. Um, which is the, uh, support professional increase is 10 and a half% each year.
>> Um, and in the chart that we were provided, there was an estimate of what that would be. >> So, we do know approximately what that is, >> right? >> Yeah. Um, the >> and we're not assuming that that's part of the increase. Not everything is going
to come to the city to pay for because their budget is also growing because the state formula is what it is, right? We're just assuming and anticipating through current conversation what we think the increase will be just compensation. >> And then the the part that is still TBD
is the comp and class. We don't know how that's going to play out yet. Even if we have an estimate of what the licensed teacher and the sport professional increases will be over the next three years, that comp class, we're not sure about >> for anybody else that's outside of those contracts. Yes. Uh we don't we don't
have any okay any perspective. >> There's part of it we can anticipate and part of it we can't yet. >> We just know that there's more is the reality. >> Got it. Okay. Thanks. Um, yeah, the the the 10 and a half% it sounds big, but when you look at the
hard numbers because the pay was so low, it ends up not, you know, you know, we're used to hearing two and 3% pay increases across the board. So, half does feel like a lot, but when the number is so small to start with, >> the the actual dollars are not as,
>> you know, um, not as scary looking. Um question about the sales tax for schools. Um if and when that passes and gets signed and isn't continued and all of that, if that finally ever happens, um it's our
that's a a fifth lever we get to pull for taxation, which means it's not necessarily something we just add, but it's something we can swap. So, so some of those other taxes we have maybe scoot down a little bit to allow
room for that. >> I mean, that's a choice, but it's hard to it's hard to see structurally now >> how you might lower something in place of raising that one because of where you are today. >> Yes. Right. Right. I'm not saying it's a
good policy choice. We'll figure that out when we >> It's a good way to look at it from the last conversation when councelor Snook was was describing how the sales tax would work. >> That just simply means that the bag that I labeled schools construction is taken care of
>> because that's the only use of that money. It can't be used for anything else. Um, but I would venture to say that there'll still be a need to have conversation to meet expectations because that money is only going to go so far. And we know that we haven't invested in a school around here prior
to Charlottesville Middle School in quite some time. >> Yeah. >> In a big way. We've always been taking care of them, just not in a big way. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I can appreciate the framing of the presentation. Um the
collective bargaining shift is is an important shift in our budgeting from the last couple of years. But I also think about um I also think about the whole budget and this is >> walk with me into this metaphor um like
a basketball game where you pay attention to the last couple points as the ones that matter but really every point matters because it leads you up to whatever that final is going to be. So we can look at the collective bargaining as being like the big cost driver, but
also that whole that whole slide of bags of money are cost drivers and each of them is crucial and important as well. So, it's yes, this is what we're focusing on because it was the big policy shift in the last couple of years with with the the enabling legislation,
but um it's a piece in that whole whole game where each of those points matters and is important. Um, the reason why I think about it like that is because I don't want there to be like a knee-jerk reaction to this one particular thing because it seems newer
when all of the pieces are right >> are are relevant. Um, it also explains why uh like transit costs more but we're getting the same or less service because >> more money towards the salaries cost more. Right. Um, but I also liked your
framing of the hole in the budget versus a gap that will continue to grow because I think of that as short-term versus long-term >> provided we do something. Yes. >> Yes. >> Well, right. Hopefully, we can figure out a way to close the gap, right? But like in the moment, hole in the budget.
Okay. Sales tax rate, you know, we can swing it, but it's not that's our our move. That's what we got. That's what we can do. Um but a gap that can continue to grow. We can't just rely on that indefinitely because as we've gotten
from our our fiscal >> Yep. >> advisors, we are at that stress point. Um the city as a whole is a big boat. >> Another metaphor. >> Another metaphor >> that um you know we've got it's staffed.
We're heading in a certain direction. Um well boat that big it's hard to turn. It's hard to be nimble. So I also appreciate that we are getting this presentation in a way that gives us a lane to think about it. So it is something that it's not a series of short-term decisions we have to make but
we can look at it on the long-term scale. Um which means that we have more options. We are not stuck in a quick last minute fix scenario because now we're looking at okay how can we change the next three five 10 years. Um,
and so the list of of tools we have that increase real estate tax, alternative cuts, and one-time funds, those are short-term fixes. The long-term goal we can plan for now to affect the 3, five, 10 year timeline
is to find that sustainable uh increase in income, make more money by doing X. Um, and we can have different ideas on what that looks like. We've got the time to talk about that now and not that much time because like you said, the next budget starts again
soon. But, you know, that looks like allowing more housing, um, parking increases and parking and permitting fees. You know, we have different levers we can pull to help generate revenue in a in a way that
spreads the pressure out, >> right? um to not just our current residents because you know the load is is getting to the point of of being unbearable for some. Um and so that gives us a chance to have the policy
fill in behind that decision. Um so I appreciate this presentation because it gives us the chance to think about that. But that's something we do need to seriously consider is what is that large infusion of revenue we can be enthusiastically working towards that will sustain us for the next three 510 and beyond.
>> Yeah. Yep. You're in my dream too. That's that's really what it's all about. >> It's why I've been feeling the way I've been feeling because we're in the budget world right now. So >> I just thought it was a timely conversation. >> So you you ready for March Madness? >> Yes. That's what it sounds like.
>> Um thank everyone for their their comments. Yeah. this is, you know, we're just going to have to make some tough decisions um over the next, you know, as we move forward because this is kind of we're just getting into collective bargaining and we're already kind of
stressed on whether we should do the the tax increase is only going to get more difficult, but we have a lot of um as Natie said, a lot of options, but we're just going to have to make the the tough decisions. And we saw it the other night, even though those requests were
at a small scale of the need that is coming um to the city, many of those nonprofits are, you know, um have much bigger budgets and they're doing things um you know, kind of extending the hand
and outreach of of of the the city. Um, so I mean what what I what I heard is that we have these difficult decisions and you all are gathering information. You're going to come to us and say you have to here
we are. You have to do AB or C to um to address this. >> Yep. >> And you are not going to let us get to the what is it the fourth quarter? No, I mean second half with 10 seconds left,
you know, to, you know, to make a decision. >> No, I mean I think that really was the point of trying to figure out where I could squeeze this particular conversation in. I thought it was important. It's not a conversation that we've had. It is the more recent
information that we've gotten that's really pushed me to want to make sure that you had this to wrestle with. I don't know that this changes anything for what you're dealing with at this moment and what it feels like. Um, except the fact that it's clear that
it's going to get harder. It's clear that the hole will be there. The question is, does it grow? How much does it grow? And at what point does it really not be a hole anymore and become a gap? But it is imbalanced. That's the real message that it's imbalanced
because of the fact that we don't have what we need. Well, we've had that before. We've raised taxes before. We've cut expenses before. And that's usually what happens in the budgeting process because remember I gave you two options. Increase revenue, decrease expenses. That's it. So, we're there, but it's
also with the big screen of where all the money is going and all the many ways that it's going. We just can't keep up with all of that and we don't have much of a lever left in pulling when it comes to increasing revenue. And so I think that's the difference between it's zero
sum in the short term and it can be more expansive in the long term. And so that's what we have to plan for. >> Yeah. And you've just got to mitigate it because again it was hard for me even processing folks can tell you that I was challenging them on okay hear me on what I say. I don't want it to come across
negative. I'm not being negative on collective bargaining. I'm just stating the facts. I really focus all of my attention on just trying to do that because the decisions been made. I don't I don't have a lack of clarity on whether or not we're doing collective bargaining. Council voted. We have an
ordinance. It says six bargaining units. Let's go. We implement. It's just now we're having to reconcile with the impact of that. And there's going to be some trade-offs that have to happen on the side because the tension is mounting and it's getting higher and higher. It's the same feeling that I have when I bring you a budget that is balanced on a
tax increase. I'm not asking you for a tax increase. I'm saying to you that you need a tax increase because your spending says you need a tax increase. That's really how it works. I'm just the face of the tax increase because I have to stand here and tell you that that's what it's going to take to balance the
budget. I'm okay doing that because that's what you hired me to do. I put the budget together, make sure with Chrissy's help, it balances, it checks out with the input from the team. We know that everything that we could get accounted for is in there. But the same tough decisions that I'm having to make, whereas in this budget, we cut half a
million dollars worth of expenses to try to get closer to balance, we're going to have to do it on the other side is really where we are. And that's that's what turning the ship is all about. That's what the last few seconds of the basketball game is all about. I want to slam dunk always, but I can't jump that
way anymore. I'm too old. So, >> and and the the to further extend this metaphor, >> Yes. Why not? >> The short-term zero sum or those last five seconds. The long term, it's not just this game. It's
>> planning ahead the whole season. Who are the players? What are our practice schedules like? And so that's where we build those >> which is why we had a retreat last year. The the absolutely, you know, the reasoning that's all part of that. Yep. Um, so now we got to make sure all that
works and and what else can we do to to expand the opportunity for revenue generation. >> It all works together. It's why you had a retreat last fall. There's no question you'll be having a retreat this year. So that's the whole purpose of it. It's why
I added in um Vienn from PFM to come and talk to you about the financial health. It is why it made sense for her to come back in January when we had that retreat because I think you just need to have those continual updates as to where it is, how it looks because that then informs the decision that you have to
make. And if I could, I think um you know I was a very strong supporter of collective bargaining and fought hard to expand the number of units, have wages and benefits included in it, um and fully support it. But we have to
plan for it. And my concern, we've known the cost of that support staff increase for months. And I don't want to be flippant about it, but kind of with a stroke of a pen, that cost we could do. >> But if then the response to that is to come back and say, "Hey, because of wage
compression, we want a commensurate response to our licensed staff." That cost then goes from, you know, 1.5 to like 10 million. And if we're going to do that, we've got to do a lot of planning because for that to fit in our budget, you know, we're potentially
looking at above even what's proposed this year, like 5 cent real estate tax increase to structurally absorb that if we look at the 20-year history of what our historic growth rate has been in our budget and we apply that. Um, and maybe there's a way that we can, you know,
triple what our historic growth rate has been over the past 20 years. But if not, then we are looking at five plus cent tax increases. And we haven't planned for that. And that's my concern. And one
of Lloyd's points is, you know, is it necessary that if you increase the bottom band that you need to increase the upper bands along with it? I think that's a fair question. I mean, I don't there's certainly no um moral reason that that's needed, but one of the
questions I have is is is the teachers union in their negotiation was their position that hey, we want to get these lowest paid workers up as much as we can to a living wage and we're okay if we don't commensurately respond in terms of wage compression. Um maybe that is the
response, but we haven't had the opportunity to have that conversation with them. Um, and that's the kind of thing that I feel like still needs to happen because if their response is that, then okay. But if it is not that, um,
we've got a lot of planning and also a lot of transparency that's needed with the public about basically this will require a structural readjustment in what we consider our baseline tax rate to be. And I'm open to that conversation, but we got to have it.
>> Yeah, I agree. you're you're you're right there on why this is so tense and churning the way that it is. Um, I'll just say to you and and for the public's benefit because collective bargaining, a lot of it is behind closed doors at a table, two parties having conversations,
and it is it's not meant to be battle, but it is. That's what it is because you're not on the same page when you start and you're trying to get each other to the same place. Um, and that is your place and that doesn't always come together as easily. The biggest decision in collective bargaining is who are you
comparing yourself to? And that is not consistent. We know that from the question that was posed to our school's leadership as to who are they comparing themselves to. It's not who we were comparing ourselves to. So that one shift in perspective is why we would
find ourselves at a place that we're surprised at a result or they might be surprised at our result. And I think that's the reason why it probably has occurred to those that have uh pushed for some of the changes in the legislation is that the schools and the local government are now going to be
required to coordinate um because that wasn't a part of the case before. And that's how we could find ourselves at this point that we learn of an impact and then we start processing said impact and with the details we start really seeing, oh, there's a bigger impact.
That's what it's felt like. Um, but I think they're solving for that now for going forward. But we were a part of the pioneering eight. So that's why we have to feel it the way that we're feeling it. >> If it's not mandated though, we would still make an effort >> at this point. Absolutely. The whole
conversation begins to shift on how soon can we talk and let's talk about everything and let's share what we have and you share what you have. But I do think the state board is important to help us determine how to go about having those conversations because one risk that we face is trying to set the
market. That is one of the things that we have to be very careful of because we can get a charge against us. We're trying to set the market and in that that would be an accusation that we're trying to depress the compensation values and we can't do that either. So it's not easy. It is. That's why when I
referred to it early on, this is a structural shift to how this organization operates. It doesn't mean that we can't figure out how to do it. We've had to figure out how to do it. It is one of those things that I've had to learn a lot about, but my mom was in a in a union shop for much of her career.
So, she was a great resource for me to understand what was it like, and she gave me the good, the bad, and the otherwise. So, I think that has been very helpful in my conversations and to help me frame some of the questions that I posed as well. Okay, any other questions? This has been
most helpful particularly kind of right in the middle of our um budget discussions. Um and um it's probably good to do this >> more to come for sure >> periodically. Thank you. So um any other items um Sam?
>> No, that's it. >> So we um will take a break. We'll be back at um 6:30 for regular meetings. So, close session session. So, we'll um I guess suspend the meeting for um until
6:30. Okay. Thank you. This thing