Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I will be calling to order the 04/22/2026 meeting of the Board of Supervisors. And I would like to welcome the supervisors present, Supervisor Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Lapisto Kirtley of the Ravana District, Supervisor Duncan of the Jack Dewitt District, and I am Fred Missal of the Samuel Miller District. Also like to mention that Jeff Richardson is here. From our staff, executive county executive Jennifer Teivendell is here in place of representing the county attorney's office with Andy Herrick absent, and Claudette Bergenson, our clerk, are all present for the meeting.

Thank you, and welcome. Also like to acknowledge our Albemarle County Police Department representatives, Senior Police Officer Christian Hernandez, thank you for wherever you are. Lieutenant Angela Jamieson, thank you as well to both of you for joining us. And in light of the subject matter this evening, the budget conversation, and the fact that I have two empty seats to my right and to my left, without objection, I would like to suggest that we stand in recess until such time as either Chair Galloway or Supervisor Malik are present this evening.

So moved. Seconded.

Think we call the roll, please.

Mr. Missile?

Aye.

Mr. Bruit? Aye. Ms. Duncan? Yes. Ms. Lapisa, currently?

Aye.

Great. Thank you. With that, we'll stand in recess. All right. Good evening, again. We will reconvene the 04/22/2026 meeting of the Board of Supervisors. We have established a quorum. We are out of recess. And I think we will jump right into well, first of all, welcome Thank you. Supervisor Nalek from the Whitehall District.

Glad to have you. And with that, we will jump into our first action item, or I guess it's the only action item, adoption of calendar year 2026 tax rates, proposed ordinance Chapter one, Article five, fee schedule, etcetera. And with that, I'll turn it over to Caitlin Malcolm, our Chief of Budget, for the presentation. Thank you.

Okay. Good evening to the Board and members of the public. We are here to take our final action on the FY 'twenty seven budget this evening. We have a number of items to go through. But before we do that, I'd just like to start by acknowledging and thanking the board for all of your hard work over the course of the budget season this year. Whether it's your first budget, like me, or your twentieth budget, I feel like every year it's a little bit different. We learn more. We are anxious to hear your feedback when this process is over about what we can do better. And we just appreciate all the work that you've put in. We've had five different work sessions, six different town halls, several public hearings that have all led us to this point. So thank you all for your help.

Really, the thanks goes to you and staff. Thank you all.

Thank you. So tonight, we have a few items on our agenda. First, we're going to look through direction that the board provided to staff last week when we met on April 15, and we'll pause after that to get some feedback from the board and see if this is in alignment with your thinking from last week before we move on. After that, I'll go through a presentation of requested approvals that staff would recommend to take the remaining actions on the FY 'twenty seven budget and the related resolutions as part of that process. And then we'll turn things over to the Board of Supervisors for action on these matters.

So first, I'm going to start by going back to a slide that we looked at last week. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on this slide tonight because we covered this extensively last week. But just as a reminder for the board and for members of the public, at the end of the meeting last week, the board provided direction to staff to shift funding around based on your priorities. And the result of that, I'll go through in more detail on the next few slides. So I'm going to go through this slide pretty much word by word, just for clarity and sake of transparency, make sure we're in alignment.

So in the meeting last week, the board provided this direction that you see on the slide in blue text to staff. Everything that's in green text on this slide is staff's response to the board's direction. So first, I want to talk about it based on the funding sources that you directed staff to change in the proposed budget. So first, you asked staff to utilize $313,000 from the ongoing reserve for contingencies, and that would leave a balance in the ongoing reserve for contingencies of $350,000 You also asked staff to move $1,150,000 from the planned general fund transfer to the economic development fund and use that as a funding source. And then you also directed staff to use the remaining balances from the onetime reserve for contingencies, which was sitting at $510,000 as well as the CIP advancing strategic priorities reserve, which is sitting at $394,000 So those are all of our funding sources.

You also directed staff to use that funding source first to add $2,000,000 to the affordable housing investment fund, next to add $117,000 to the Albemarle County Emergency Relief Program or ACERP, And then you directed us to balance the remaining amount, which is $250,000 between priorities D through H that were listed on the previous slide. And finally, you asked us to give consideration to one time versus ongoing funding sources, which I'll speak to in more detail on the next slide. First, I kind of want to paint a picture of how staff went about this approach, particularly for items D through H that were listed on the previous slide. So for the two items that you gave us direction on that are part of the human services funding process that was the Offender Aid Restoration Therapeutic Docket Program and the Foothills Child Advocacy Center we fully funded the request for those agencies for FY 'twenty seven. And so the amounts you see listed here on the slide are the additions to those agencies that are provided in the staff recommendation.

And then for the two organizations that are part of the arts, cultural, and festival agencies process, we restored those agencies to the amount that they were funded in FY 2026. So again, the 3,000 for Charlottesville band and the 2,500 for Charlottesville ballet are the additional funding provided based on your direction to those agencies, based on the direction last week. And then the amount remaining after all of those changes was $136,004, and that amount is provided to the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial Foundation in this recommendation. So you also asked us to give consideration to one time sources versus ongoing funding sources. So I'll walk you through our recommendations with respect to that.

Probably the easiest is it makes the most sense that we would fund additional work in the CIP for the Dogwood Vietnam Memorial Foundation with one time funding. So you see that on the rightmost side of the slide. On the leftmost side of the slide, you have ongoing revenues for programs that have appeared in the budget in years past. That's ACERP, the OAR Therapeutic Docket, Foothills Child Advocacy Center, Charlottesville Band, and Charlottesville Ballet. And then the funding, the additional funding in the middle for the Affordable Housing Investment Fund is funded with a combination of one time money and ongoing money.

So finally, some people process this information better in a table format. So that's what's listed here on this slide. You can see the overall proposed budget in FY 'twenty seven. You can see the revision that was provided and is being provided today based on your direction to staff last week. And then in the very rightmost column, you see the change from last week to this week.

So quickly, I'll go through an update from the school division before I turn it over to the board for any discussion on the slides I've covered so far. So it's pretty typical at this point in the process that the school division would have an update to their budget based on all the activity that's taken place by the board up to this point. They are scheduled to adopt their budget tomorrow evening, and so we have a few updates from them based on the direction that the board provided in our meeting last week. So the school division is requesting that the board include use of fund balance for the school fund at $3,150,000 So that would be using essentially from reserves that we have on hand specific for schools to fund priorities that their board has decided to fund despite the change in ongoing revenue, despite the outcome. So that would be used specifically for purchases for security equipment, instructional resources, and technology purchases.

And so here, the action for the board's consideration is that staff would recommend that the board include that update to allow the schools to use the use of fund balance in the final adopted budget when you approve the resolutions that are in your agenda packet later this evening. So with that, I will pause for any board discussion before we move on to the recommended resolutions.

All right. Thank you very much. Supervisor Missel?

Thank you. Thanks, Steph. I think you obviously heard exactly what I think the intention was, at least from my perspective. So thank you for that. And I think all of the items listed were appropriate and well considered. So thank you. I don't have any questions.

Supervisor Pruitt? Pruitt:

Thank you. And Chair, just want to reflect. I'm understanding this is being a principal time to discuss the budget before we approve it.

I mean, that was my I mean, unless staff has more GREEN: presentation. I mean, we're so used

to doing questions and discussion. But yes, yeah, have at it.

Great. And if we need to come back. I want to begin by just this is an issue of first impression to me, the new request from the schools. I'm recalling, as someone who's only been on the board now for two and onetwo years, I'm recalling that there is a the schools are only allowed to save 2% of their total budget. And we separately, to allow them to save more than that in a given year, do we separately have a fund that we have for them? Is that what they're asking this to be drawn from? Me understand where the $3,000,000 is coming from and why it's such an easy thing for us to say yes to.

J. Yeah. So under the board's financial management policies, there is 2% of the school fund revenues that they're able to have in their budget. Now based on, I'll say, the current budget for order of magnitude, their budget would be a little over $300,000,000 in 'twenty seven, so that'd be about $6,000,000 in total. So of that 2%, that's sort of the cap they can retain.

So at the end of fiscal year 'twenty five, when the audit was done, that balance available was, I'd say, approximately $4,500,000 In the schools, we use that in a year to say how much of that may be used to advance one time initiatives or be used as part of balancing the budget. Any amount above that would go to the CIP unless otherwise directed by the board. So the schools have about $4,500,000 This uses 3.1 of that. So that's available, and it is part of that 2%.

JOSHUA Sure. Now to make a statement rather than a question. I can see why this would make a lot of sense for the schools, given that we've essentially said we are stepping in almost like a fiscal agent to save 6.4 for you. They are in a position where they can now say, ah, I do not have to save as actively as I had been a few minutes ago. I can be a little bit more forward leaning with my fund set asides.

I guess I'm mostly intrigued that this is even a thing that is sent to us for confirmation if it's on their books. But I gather it is, and I don't know that that needs to be a question. I'm just it would not have occurred to me prior to this that we would have to approve this, if it's 2% that they retain from their budget. If you have something to say to that, but I am surprised.

I would just add that the board having ultimate authority on the preparation side, it would need to be included. And so that's kind of the formality of the board of supervisors having to take action.

JOSHUA Great. I had a brief sidebar with another board member right before we reconvened earlier, but it's quite relevant to this. And I think it deserves to be brought into open discussion for us to engage on. And that's the Dogwood Memorial piece, which I'll begin by saying the Dogwood Memorial piece, I just want to put all cards on the table. We are funding it.

I'm not sure I, counting noses, ever counted more than one and onetwo to two people who were fully full throated in favor of further funding this piece. But we find ourselves in the position where we're funding it. So I'll just say that and keep going from there. The email that we got from the president of the Dogwood Memorial seemed to indicate that there is not a clear way forward for them, that they don't have a concrete plan. I did not get the sense that there's a positive working relationship at this exact moment with the city, which makes it unclear how effectively our funds could be leveraged in the immediate future, and even, I think, fairly if our funds would be leveraged in the immediate future.

I don't want to say that that alone should defeat our intention to fund it, but I think it casts a considerable pall over the decision to fund this improvement. And my understanding, again based on a sidebar I had previously, is that the city is considering possibly additional funding and additional planning support. But any funding from the city is going to be contingent on an operating agreement with the Dogwood Memorial. And if there is a level of prudence that is being exercised by the city on their disbursements, which is smaller right now than ours, I feel like that level of prudence would also be appropriate for us. And I guess I would just say, I find myself a little uncomfortable with this disbursement not having a greater degree of clarity on how, if, and when it is going to be used for a project that otherwise is not capitalized right now.

So I would make that statement. Third thing I think is worth discussing and I'm almost remiss to bring this up, because I like to only bring up things that I think I have a goal or a solution in mind with. And this is almost, again, more of an observation. But I found myself gritting my teeth a little bit over the one time versus recurring allocations. I understand how they got there.

But I also, in my mind, am hearing Chair Galloway, I've heard you say explicitly, like, several times, and it stuck with me. You really got in my head. You said, oh, I would much rather and you threw out arbitrary numbers, but I'd much rather $10 in recurring funds than $100 in one time funds for the housing trust fund, because it's important that we develop that ongoing stream. And so I find myself gritting my teeth in frustration after we have planned to make a 2,000,000 disbursement to AHIP, which I applaud this board for doing. But because so much of our final round of funding adjustments are for agencies who are going to the whole reason we're even having the discussion on agencies is about level funding.

And so if we do it with one time funding, then we're going to have the same conversation again. That the remainder that we're actually discussing with AHIF, which we've said we want to prioritize recurring funding for, a vanishing fraction of it, right? Onetwenty. Am I doing that tabletop math right? Onetwenty is recurring. I find that frustrating. I don't have a solution. I don't have in my mind right now, oh, then we should swap the recurring and the one time for ACERP. I'm not suggesting that, because I also think ACERP needs to be recurring funded better. But I wanted to voice that frustration and my dismay on this, and perhaps pump that up in the air.

Or what do you call big? Set. Set that volleyball to see if anyone else has some thoughts that they want to spike with it. And with that, thrown two minds into the middle of the crowd, I think that's the end of my time, Chair.

JOSEPH Got it. Thank you. Supervisor Duncan?

JOSEPH Just a clarification. So Mike had asked if this was, like, a budget free for all. Are we just making comments on the slides presented so far?

I mean

I do

have a comment for slides later on.

At this point, I'm open unless staff would rather us pause, because there could be ongoing information that we might have further question or discussion about.

There's no new information that's

But at point, this is what we worked on the last time, so I'm just at it, and we'll see where we're at.

So taking the volleyball, I am just frustrated in general of yeah, again, I've only followed this a couple of years. But feeling like to get housing funding, we are having to pull from all these things. It came up in one of the discussions today on housing of the TomTom. It's also so unclear to the public of how we're getting like, I don't even understand actually totally what final number we're at with AHIP, because you guys do the math in the air, and you say you've gotten us to some point and I trust you. But it's not clear where this money is coming from.

So yeah, going forward, I would love to see a way that we can get to $10,000,000 ongoing funding without having to do all of this stuff. My other main comment is on the development fees piece. This is going to sound a little bit critical, but it's really my only frustration with this budget process, was going through it for the first time. I feel like the increase in fees ultimately is an increase on new homeowners and new renters. And there was a great quote in one of the presentations today that said, you can't make housing more affordable by driving up the costs.

And so the developers are not paying these fees. But I feel like my frustration is that you knew we had to eventually vote on these as a separate thing. But the estimated increase from the fees is built into the budget. And I was like, where in the budget is this? And I found it, but it's a tiny line mentioned.

And even the $2.56 wasn't like, that was rolled into a different number. And so I feel like that should be part of a work session, because it is, as we're dividing up this extra money, 256,000 is not insignificant. And so I just feel like you know, a discussion over fees, whether they should be increased, how much should be built into a work session. But the other thing I wanted to say is just overall, this process has been fantastic. It has been so well organized. The orientations that we got beforehand, even when you guys would do the presentations in

the work

sessions, the slides literally matched the budget. And so I flipped through the budget and followed along. And so I feel have felt very prepared. Any question has been answered quickly. And I know it can seem obvious that you have a well organized budget. It's easy to read and understand. I've looked through the city budget. I've read the school budget in this process. Not all budgets are even searchable. Not all budgets are organized as easily.

And so just the work that you've done on the budget has been really good, really helpful. Not everybody does it. Not all municipalities give their incoming people training on what a budget is before they're thrown into work sessions. And so I just really sort of appreciate the work that has gone into this, the support that we have. And overall, I feel like it sets me up to do this well going forward. And so I do really, really appreciate all that.

Thank you. Supervisor Malik?

JULIE Oh, goodie. Thank you. I would agree with what others have said about the preparation every year. It gets clearer and clearer to me, and so I'm I'm maybe a slow learner, but I appreciate the 19 times through because it is really getting better and better all the time. Thank you for the question about the school reserves because that was the one I was going to ask to make sure that it was coming out of the holdback as opposed to something over and above the holdback, so that's very clear.

Just a general question, when awards are made for agencies, there are milestones they must reach before funds are distributed. Correct? In other words, we don't just send people a check on the July 1 and say, go spend this some time.

Yes, there's an agreement that they have to sign before we disburse the funds.

So that's going to exist. That's not something that would have to be added on to any project that we're funding, whether it's the Veteran pedestrian bridge or whatever. And there must be in the file somewhere from many years, five years ago or so, there was a support at the county board for considerably more than this amount toward the bridge. So I would be, I guess, very much, if this is the time to re advocate for the spending for that. I would expect that there will be some change of heart in other jurisdictions, who have fallen down on the job on supporting this.

And so I very much support keeping this funding in the budget as we have in the proposal so that the, as it reaches the next stage, mean, there are hundreds of thousands have been spent on on design, and all of that has cleared through city, although it took two and a half years to get the clearance through the city. But those milestones have been met, so they are. And they had four years ago, three years ago, they had a hard figure from, Fielder's Choice to build it for a million 5. And all this delay has caused some increase. I don't know what the increase is, but they were far closer to achieving their goals a few years ago than they are today, but that doesn't mean that they're giving up.

I think they're trying to live long enough to get it done. And I will just add, because it may not be clear to some, that in addition to getting folks to the memorial and also to all of McIntyre Park and the Botanical Garden and the other bridge that's already been built over the railroad tracks over to McIntyre Park and the ball fields Mhmm. And therefore to this the why that this bridge will connect all of the county users who are significantly numerous, who use the shared use path from, McIntyre all the way to Ryle Road, Ryle Point, Belvidere, the senior center, etcetera. So I think it has much more to offer to our wider community than perhaps has been understood at the beginning. And, whoops, regarding the development fees, I will just reiterate that this was based upon 50% cost recovery.

I've been advocating for far more than that because I don't think it's really fair for all the rest of the taxpayers to continually be supporting what is benefiting one section of our applicants. So, anyway, that's just my view. I didn't win on that, and that's fine. But I just want people to appreciate that this is a established formula increase and a very well crafted modification redesign of the fee structure, which I really appreciate and will be much more readable and usable and implementable, one check instead of six is always a good thing. But I really think that this small increase is appropriate. Thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Lopez O'Courtney.

Yes, thank you very much. I also agree with my colleagues. I think this process was frankly outstanding. I thought staff did a really, really good job of presenting us with all the material, especially what we received for today's presentation. I'm just going to hit on first of all, I like everything, what you've done as is.

I don't agree with my esteemed colleague regarding the fees, and that's because I don't want to get I don't understand what costs where. I don't want to get into the nitty gritty. I think that's staff's job, to get into the nitty gritty of what fee we should charge for what. We haven't raised anything since 'twenty two. So I think this is good in that the fees are up to date and it does charge the developers.

They may pass the costs on, but nowadays, frankly, what's not being passed on everything is being passed on to us, from the federal government to the state to even local. So I agree with Supervisor Malik regarding the cost recovery. Regarding the Dogwood Memorial, I was deeply disappointed that the fact that another locality right next to us has not chosen to fully participate maybe they'll change their mind. I don't know. I still think it's a good project.

And if you think perhaps providing this money may cause the Dogwood Memorial to actually come up with a different type of plan that would also work, I don't know. I'm just throwing that out. The other one regarding ongoing I think it was ongoing or one time funding for AHIP. I'm sticking by the one time funding. Why?

Because I want flexibility in our budget. Once again, we don't know what's going to happen over the next two years. It's going to it can be very, very dicey with the state and, well, especially with the federal government. So I like to keep flexibility for this board and not tie us down to anything. If we can do it the following years, absolutely.

But I don't want to tie us down with the one time funding to become ongoing. The school division budget update, if I understood you correctly, that this is their money, the 3.15, in their reserves. So that has nothing to do with if we approve our budget, that's 3.15 they can use however they want.

That's correct.

Okay. Then I'm good. Thank you.

All right. Supervisor Missiles, bounce

Thank you. I appreciate it. I kept my comments quick because I was thinking it was just questions. But I have a few questions comments. One is on the 3,150,000. To follow-up on what supervisor Lapisto currently said, have there been similar requests like this in the past where the school has come to us after the fact and said, we want to tap into these funds that are available to us? Or is this sort of a new thing?

Yes.

There have been?

Yes.

Okay. So this is not an uncommon thing. Another question or observation and first of all, I mean, I'm fully supportive of the budget and the way it's been presented, so start with that. If there's uncertainty at the Dogwood Memorial, and I agree with Supervisor Malik, I'm just wondering, would it be helpful from a leverage standpoint for us to make the funding distribution contingent on city participation? Would that be helpful to the memorial foundation or not?

Just a question to throw out there. Maybe not. I'm supportive, again, of the way it is. But trying to think of a way to give them leverage with the city. The other question regarding the ongoing funding to the five organizations, this does not guarantee that they will be funded again next year the same way, right? It's just the source of the funds was from ongoing funding.

That's correct.

So, okay, that's good to know. In terms of the housing fund, I completely agree. I would I mentioned to Supervisor LaFista Curley, I'd like to see those numbers flipped, the ongoing versus the one time. I guess if you were to look at the sources of the funds as ongoing versus one time, you could take the other four exclusive of ACERP, put those four into the one time funding category essentially, which is about $113,500 that could go to AHIP of ongoing funding. Just an option.

It's not that much more, but it's a little bit more. And then you could just shift those categories. On development fees, having lived this for decades, I agree with both supervisors on that. And I'm wondering, at some point, I assume that this would be something we would discuss as we go into the summer and we start to look at the budget earlier, which we didn't have the opportunity of being a part of. But I'm wondering if there would be a possibility of somehow discounting fees for deeply affordable housing units as a possibility and looking at that as maybe a way to get, you know, to work on this. That's all.

Thank you.

Great. Let's see. The, I'll start with Dogwood, I suppose. The, The think the commentary has been made relative to the city of Charlottesville and their contribution or commitment or what have you, so I don't need to revisit that. But I trust that the dollars don't go out the door. I don't know that giving them this 136 gives them any more or less leverage with the city. But I do expect that it could give them leverage with private donors.

And

it is a small amount that gets them up over halfway to what they requested of us, that level of commitment could help with those private folks. And sometimes, in these situations, just knowing how it's worked with other projects, some private donors can then help sway other jurisdictions as well. And I appreciate Supervisor Pruitt's comments about this item, but the last time was more questioning the timing more so than my commitment to it. I'm happy to commit and give full support for providing this. And I don't think 136,000 held if it ends up not going to this project for whatever reason, it's a CIP reserve now, basically.

So I'm not worried at all just knowing how these things have worked out at much larger dollar amounts about how it would be clawed back and or retained until it was a viable project. Yeah, last Wednesday, I was not clear how these numbers were going to fall when we were having our discussions. But now, seeing it laid out, I mean, it was clear that there wasn't going to be that many ongoing dollars. I think the $1.17 in ACERP makes sense to keep with the ongoing. And while I wish there was more ongoing in the AHIF amount, the remaining dollar amounts, on top of the 82.

It's something, but it's not a whole, whole lot. So I mean, I'll continue to we'll have future budgets and future swings at this item. This gets us to did I miss it earlier what the total is for AFib? It's $7,000,000

Yes.

That's what I had, just over $7,000,000 Got it. One time versus ongoing. I think that's all the comments. I'm ready to support what's been presented. I feel like, as with most budgets, there are things here that I wish would have gone different directions.

But the board has certainly had very comprehensive discussions about everything. I think the public was clear where each of us stands on things, know, can arrive at their own decisions on what they think about how we think about things. But we've done our job relative to going through everything in a diligent manner. So I'm ready to take action as well. But if there is further discussion needed relative to how this breakout occurs, I'm just going to look to my right and left and see if there is any additional discussion.

Right.

Ms. Bowman, do we go to the motions? Is that what we're doing next? Or you're going to review it with us first.

Yes, that's correct. Just going to walk through a high level of the FY 'twenty seven budget before we move on to the motions that staff would recommend

ROBERTSON: for the

board's action. So the FY 'twenty seven budget is balanced on the tax rate

Oh, said Ms. Bowman. I just caught that.

JULIEN No wonder they were laughing.

JULIEN I said, you're all going to

be Bowman at some point.

I was like, what the hell are they laughing at?

Oh, got it. Sorry. JULIEN

based on the board's direction last week, this slide and the following slides include the current tax rate for personal property, which is $4.28 per $100 evaluation, which is the same as the current rate for calendar year 2025. So these are the calendar rate 2026 proposed tax rates that the budget is balanced on. So just to give the board and the public a high level overview, the total budget for all funds across the county for FY 2027 is proposed to be $727,700,000 And these slides and the following slides include the numbers balanced to all the changes you just reviewed discussed on the previous slides. And the resolutions that are in your packet for approval this evening also include all those changes that we just walked through. So focusing a little bit on the general fund, as the board is very familiar, the general fund revenues totaled to $512,000,000 in FY 2027.

This is balanced with the general fund expenditures, which are also at $512,000,000 As the board and public are aware, we tend to focus on the general fund and the budget process because that's where all tax revenue is received. It's the primary source of funding for the transfer to schools operating as well as the capital and debt programs, and it's where the board has the maximum amount of policy discretion in the budgeting process. So next to give an overview of the capital improvement program. On this slide, you see the total capital improvement program for fiscal years 'twenty seven through 'thirty one. Again, they are balanced at $362,100,000 and that's across the entire five years of the plan.

On the next slide, you see the FY 'twenty seven budget for capital projects. The board, when you take action this evening, you typically, in years past and what we're requesting this year is that you appropriate the funding for the first year of the capital improvement program, which is FY '27, and that's the total you see listed on the slide in front of you of $95,700,000 You will approve the entire capital improvement program that you saw on the prior slide in one of your motions, you'll have that for your consideration. And, the request is that you appropriate the funding for this first year as part of the FY twenty seven budget process. And I should have said previously, the board has seen this slide as well as the prior slides in work session three, where we talked about the capital improvement program in more depth. The only change to this slide from what you saw previously is it now reflects the changes in the transfer to the affordable housing investment program out of the strategic priorities reserve that was in the CIP, and it also now reflects the new number for Dogwood Vietnam Memorial Foundation.

So the agenda and desired outcomes for this evening, I will walk through the six motions that are in front of the board for consideration this evening, and I'll go through all of them. And then I will turn it over to the board for your discussion and action on those. So the budget is balanced on the two tax rates that are shown on the slide here. The real estate tax rate of $0.89 per excuse me $0.894 per $100 of assessed valuation on the real estate tax and 4.28 per $100 of assessed valuation on the personal property tax. And the recommendation from staff is that staff would recommend that the board adopt the resolution to set the calendar year 2026 tax rates that are in attachment a of your packet this evening.

The next is that, staff would recommend that the board adopt the ordinance in attachment b, amending chapter one article five of the county code for the fee schedule, and that is the proposed amendments to chapter one article five that are consistent with the board's adopted financial management policies. And those proposed changes as previously discussed are based on that cumulative cost of living increase since the last fee adjustment, which you discussed, was last in FY 2022. And those would be implemented in January 2027 and would amount to $266,000 in this budget. So the next is that staff recommend that the board adopt the revised FY 'twenty seven operating and capital budget resolution that is in attachment C in your packet tonight and aligns with the information we've discussed on the previous slides. Once you've adopted the budget resolution, staff would recommend that you adopt the annual resolution of appropriations.

The difference here is that the Virginia state code says that the budget, which was on the previous slide in attachment C, is just a plan. You need attachment D, which is the resolution of appropriations, to have the legal authority to spend funding. I do want to draw your attention to a couple of items that are in this resolution that's in attachment d. First is that in that resolution, there's a certain amount of authority that is delegated to the county executive's office for very specific circumstances to make adjustments to the budget. When that's done, it's always used for an administrative purpose in nature, and it's reported to the board by staff on subsequent quarterly financial reports, but sharing that here in the interest of ongoing transparency with the board and members of the public.

The other thing to flag here is that this resolution includes a little more flexibility than what we had in prior years for the opioid abatement fund and clarifies the guidelines around the money that can be used in that fund and who must make the approvals within local government to make that happen. And the final thing I wanted to flag here based on the board's discussion previously, in that resolution on page eight and this is, again, attachment D. So on page eight and paragraph six of that resolution is the language that, requires agreements with agencies that they must adhere to before we can disperse funds to them since you all asked that at several stages tonight. So staff would recommend that the board approve the revised FY twenty seven annual resolution of appropriations. And then the next item is allowing the county to use bond proceeds to reimburse the county for capital program So here, staff recommended the board adopt the resolution of official intent to reimburse expenditures with proceeds of a borrowing.

And then finally is, the recommendation about the FY through 'thirty one capital improvement program. So here, staff would recommend that the board adopt the resolution to adopt the FY27 through 'thirty '1 capital improvement program, which is attachment F in your packet. And so now I'll turn it back over

to the board.

Thank you. And Ms. Tevindale, I have a question. In the past, when we've read these resolutions, we've been very specific in stating the numbers and the rates. So the slides I'm seeing are now referring to attachments as we are used to. Do we need to state all of the language in the rate numbers?

No, you may. Because the resolutions have been provided, and if the board is intending to adopt them as the resolution state with the tax rate that is in it, You do not need to read the resolution. You may adopt the resolution as provided by staff as attachment A, as would be an example.

Got it. So the I just want to clarify, because this is different than what we've seen in the past. So we'll just walk through these. This is the first, and we're looking for the recommended motion there.

I move that the board adopt the resolution to set calendar year 2026 tax rates as shown in attachment A.

Second. All right. And just to check, we're good on that motion?

That's correct.

All right. Without objection as well, is there any further discussion? All right. If you would please call the roll, Ms. Clerk.

Ms. Malik. Yes. Mr. Missal. Aye. Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Ms. Duncan. Yes. Mr. Galloway. Yes. Ms. Lapisto, Kirtley.

Aye.

All right. Motion carries. The next item. Go ahead.

I move that the board adopt the ordinance attachment B, amending chapter one, article five of the county code fee schedule. Second.

Is there any further discussion? All right, if you please call the roll.

JAMES Ms. Malik. JAMES Yes. JAMES Mr. Misal.

JAMES

Aye. Ms. Duncan. JAMES No. JAMES Mr. Galloway. Ms. Alpisto, curtly.

All right, motion carries five to one. We can move to the next.

I move that the board adopt the revised fiscal year 'twenty seven operating and capital budget resolution as written in attachment C.

Second. All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Is there any further discussion? All right. If you'll please call the roll.

Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missal?

Yes.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Apisto, Kirtley?

Aye. All right. I move that the board approve the revised fiscal year 'twenty seven annual resolution of appropriations as written in attachment D. Second.

All right. It has been made and seconded. Is there any further discussion? All right, if you'll please call the roll.

Ms. Malik. Yes. Mr. Missile.

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt.

Aye.

Ms. Duncan. Yes. Mr. Galloway.

Yes.

Ms. Lapisto, curtly.

Aye. I move that the board adopt the resolution of official DUMOULIN: intent to reimburse expenditures with proceeds of

a borrowing as written in attachment E.

Second.

JULIEN All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? If you would please call the roll.

JULIET Ms. Malik. JULIET Yes. DUNKIN: Galloway. JULIET JULIET Ms. Lapiste, Curtley.

JULIET Aye. And I move that the board adopt the resolution to adopt the fiscal year 'twenty July 'thirty one capital improvement plan as written in attachment F.

Second. All right. The motion has been made and seconded. I heard Mr. Missile first. Yes. Probably because he's closer to me. Is there any further discussion? All right. If you will please call the roll.

Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missile?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye.

Ms. Duncan? Yes. Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Elpiezer currently? Aye.

All right. Is that all our motions? Any supervisors would like to make any comments before I complete? I'll just go through real quick to see. Some have made their comments, but we'll just do a round. Supervisor Missile?

Yeah. I just, again, want to thank staff. I mean, is nearly a threefour of $1,000,000,000 budget, and you all make it look easy. And you make our jobs easy. And I just you know, I've been through a lot of budget processes in the past, and I just appreciate your ability to communicate very clearly for people who don't live this on a daily basis, and I'm I'm grateful for that. And I'm also grateful for how well you listen, and for that as well. And so thank you all for this immense lift, and I know this is a great day for all of us to have this behind us. Thank you.

Supervisor Pruitt, any additional comments?

I have no additional comments. Thank you, Chair.

Supervisor Duncan, any additional? Nothing else. Supervisor Malik?

No, thank you very much. Thank you to

all. Supervisor Lapisto Kirtley.

I'm going to ditto what Vice Chair, my esteemed Vice Chair said. Thank you.

I will just add, in addition to the other comments that have been made, and of course I agree with, that we also appreciate all the members of the public who attended town halls, who have written us emails, who have come to public hearings, who have invited us to meetings, one on one conversations. All of that input really matters to go through this process. It's very hard to do when you don't have that type of input, or it makes it more challenging than it already is. So very appreciative to all our constituents for their participation in the budget. I would also like to remark, well done to our two newest supervisors.

It's one of the most difficult tasks to join a Board, whether you've been elected to other positions or not, and then have to jump right into the budget. So well done, and welcome to your first budget, or congratulations on your first budget. I would like to remark, too, I have said publicly on a number of occasions that budgets and the decisions that we make are a reflection of the values we hold. And I still hold that to be true. But I also want to say to the Board that I'm glad for your diligence in doing the budget prep because this is really one of those times where the Board, as Board members, can really get down into the weeds and the details of operations.

It's our job to fund those things. So we must understand what they are. We must question it when we don't. And staff has to stand up and answer for those type of things, as led by Mr. Richardson.

So I appreciate all the supervisors' due diligence in embracing that and knowing that we can get down in there and muck it up in the details, if you would. But now that budget is concluded, we've got to get our noses out of those operational weeds, I guess, in some ways. And then what I would like to do, board, is I know we've offered some comments here, but I will be coming back around to you all. I don't exactly know the form or format yet, but asking you all to maybe do an evaluation of how you felt. In the past, I know Mr.

Bowman and Mr. Sumner have collected comments and feedback on budget process. So I may join with them just to have a discussion. Maybe we could formalize that in a way and perhaps even have some discussion about that at a future meeting to just voice what those things are, because then that will help us have an even tighter and continually improve our budget process moving forward. And I'm sure I know, in fact, that the staff invites that type of feedback as well. So thank you all for the lift and the work. All right, Board, that will take us to item number three. And Mr. Richardson, do you have any would you like to I should invite you if you would like to make any comments now that we've concluded the budget work.

I've got a checklist of items in between all the board members. I've checked every item off, the comments that you've made, and I will be just a bit redundant. I do want Mr. Sumner to talk just for a second about the debt that we issued. We actually sold some bonds today. So that was a parallel process that was necessitated that we do, but it was heavy lifting out of the finance department. And So if I could first ask Jacob just to talk for a couple of minutes about what happened today for the board and community's benefit. Sir, if you would, please.

Sure. Earlier today, we issued little over a $130,000,000 of bonds to help pay for and fund our capital improvement projects, and we've been before the board several times talking about asking for the preparation resolutions and and the authority to do that. So today was the day that we sold the bonds on the on the open market. We had a very successful offering. We had nine bids, so there was very strong interest in in our bonds. And the interest rate, the lowest interest rate that we received was 3.62, which is a very good, very competitive rate over the twenty year life of that of those bonds.

Wow. That's awesome.

It is.

Any questions from the board on

that?

Any questions? No.

I do appreciate Jacob's team and all the hard work they did in heavy lifting. And I would also call out Emily Kilroy from our economic development department. As part of the work that we did with the bond rating agencies, she was especially called out for the good work she did on economic development and how she and the team presented a lot of data to our agencies on the health and vibrancy of our community. So I also want to thank her. Just a couple of closing comments.

I know you're ready to go. Board, I want to give you some data from Abby Stump, our community and public engagement director, that six budget town halls had approximately 200 attendees at six budget town halls. That is an increase year over year from last year. I would especially want to call out the departments, all of our departments that were represented. All of you worked your budget town halls.

Some of you came to more than one. And you saw our staff from every department line up early with their sandwich boards, department by department. And there was a lot of staff meaningful interactions with our community and our citizens. And over a two week period, over a two and a half week period, did six. I tried to get around and speak to every staff member.

And what I was most reminded of is just how wonderful our staff is, how nice they are to our community, and how appreciative I am that they gave their evening to be there to support these budget town halls. The other thing, board, I wanted to take a minute to do is it's always amazing to watch. Ned called it out about two new board members coming in in January, and you hit the ground running with a 300 page document. And you work through it, lots of information. But you see primarily Mr. Sumner, Ms. Malcolm, who this is her first budget, and boy, you would never know that. She made it look easy. And Mr. Bowman.

But I'd like for Mr. Davidson and the rest of the team to come to the podium, introduce themselves, and let them tell you what they do. Because it's a wonderful team. So please do this for me. And I really appreciate it.

Right. Make sure you have the microphones adjusted to your and you have three minutes to speak.

Evening, board. I'm Ryan Davidson. I'm the deputy chief of budget. I don't know what Jeff means, what we do, because we all have a piece have our hands in all of what you see, kind of the behind the scenes here. We all have our specialties that we dig into. But this is just a full team effort. Thank you.

I'm Thomas Unsworth, budget analyst, working primarily with community development, facilities and engineering, parks and rec, and of course, human services. Thank you very much.

LARA VENZANT, senior budget analyst. I work primarily on the five year plan and then with all of our internal facing departments, so HR, IT, finance, budget. And then I do all of the personnel information for the budget.

I am Tia Mitchell, and I am a senior budget analyst. And I work primarily alongside Laura with the capital improvement five year plan, and then also with our fire rescue department and economic development.

Awesome.

So I guess since they called called out all their departments, have to speak to you. I work primarily with the police department and the other constitutional officers and elected officials.

Thank you very much.

So Chair, we really get nitty gritty when we come back from holiday starting in January. So it's really about three, three and a half months where we're meeting with this team on a weekly basis. And we see them as much as we see any senior level management weekly, ninety minutes, one hundred and twenty minutes. And we're having big meetings, discussing stuff, trying to get it to you, meet your expectations, and hope that you understand the work that we do so that you can do your work whenever the budget's handed over to you. But I wrap up by saying this is an amazing team.

So when I wrap up tonight, I'm tired and I'm ready to move on from the budget, but I will miss working with this team to the level that we worked together for the last three months because they are fun people to be around. They work really hard. They take their work seriously, but they are really good people to be around. They've got a great team and budget. And so thank you for the opportunity for us to introduce them tonight. And again, I'll close by saying to Abby in community engagement, thank you for the work that you did to help push the information to the public, to help us with our town halls. And yes, sir, we really do want to get feedback from you on how this went, ideas you have for making it better. And we'll take that feedback very seriously, and we want to try to make it better every year. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Richardson. It occurs to me that the work, sometimes the, when you mentioned Abby, both with communications, but the team getting the questions answered and posted online. But it also matters for our not just our legal department, but our clerk, who does have to make sure that FOIA and information is presented in a timely way so that citizens can do that. And that's not just in response to our I always say our community my Rio District watchdog, Mr.

Grant, is definitely in on the FOIA rules. And that's not to catch us. That's to help protect us. So having that information ready for everyone at the same time that we have it is an important piece that all public bodies hold to. So thank you for those efforts as well. And Supervisor Malik, had an additional.

I was so struck by the interest rate that you reported. And some of that amount that was sold is to refinance higher interest rates. Is that 10%, 15%? Do you have a guess?

So we had a very small portion, about $11,000,000 of that $130,000,000 plus, that was for the refunding. And we did did see some savings on that as well. It's probably around over the ten year remaining of those bonds, about $250,000

Every penny counts. Thank you very much.

Great. All right, board. We will go to number three from the board. My honor is not listed on the agenda. Supervisor Missile,

any items? Sure. Thank you. Just three items real quick. I participated in three, I guess, advisory committees or committees last week. One was the local emergency planning committee meeting. And I'll just call everyone's attention to, if you don't already know this, the city and county websites that are, Community Connect. And Community Connect is a free, secure, and easy to use platform that allows you to share critical information about your household that will aid first responders and emergency response personnel when responding to your residents. Both of the city and the county have those. They're very similar.

Also mentioned there's a CERT program, which many of you know about, I'm sure, community emergency response team training, which is being offered. And that's an eight session, two week training opportunity. The second one I attended was the Albemarle County Broadband Authority, which is monitoring the Virginia Telecommunication Initiatives, or VAATI. And VAATI 2021, I guess they're unsure of the timing for completion of that, VAATI twenty twenty two. There's been a shift of all project areas spring of twenty twenty six, and they're confident that will be completed in fiscal year twenty twenty six by June 30.

There's a couple of things that are remaining for people in Ragged Mountain Sherwood Farms area. There's some VDOT permits and rail crossings that may delay Firefly getting to them, but, that is definitely on the list to get completed. And the majority of that work is going to be coming to an end in July. And then the third was the fifth and Avon CAC, and I'll leave Supervisor Pruitt to report out on that.

Sure thing. So our CAC, we received two presentations and then one CAC led presentation, which was a fun change of pace. The two staff led presentations, first was on a footpath that's actually in progress. A very small, very modest footpath, but I think is going to be actually a really critical connector. So, this is going up from the Timberland Apartments up toward Azalea, which is very frequently trafficked, is a very high speed blind curve coming out of the city into the county.

And there's just not a realistic place to walk. There's brush too much off the road, and there's very little median or shoulder for folks to walk on. So a very dangerous place that kids walk every day, just getting to and from school. And so there's a very brief connector that's being built underneath the bridge, and it's going to make a whole world difference. Then the commission also received an update on just how to monitor projects and civic access.

I think this was a rehash of a previous I think we've been taught this before. And then finally, there was a CAC led, our president, initiated just a quick community chatter over the transportation quarterly report that we received talking about some of the projects that are being funded that are relevant for our area through Smart Scale or rather, not funded through Smart Scale that are being proposed for funding through Smart Scale. I should also mention, while we're talking about the broadband authority, that the thing that I think we all know that we haven't been saying out loud much is it's very near time to sunset the existence of ABBA. As the Vadi projects end with 2022 scheduled to be fully connected by end of year. We'll see how that goes.

The only thing remaining is bead. And our bead right now, we have one applicant still out, we're twiddling our thumbs for the next stage of the 14 step long federal process, during which we have no meaningful next step that we engage in. Which means the only thing that I mean, even our broadband office, right? Their role is transforming. They're transforming into a much more accessibility and access focused role because our expansion is done, or will be done soon. And so with that, this board is probably going to have to be the body that actually entertains that. But it's creeping up on us. It will likely be it may even be before our next reorg meeting.

Very good. Supervisor Duncan? DUNKIN:

Yesterday, I went to the open house that Foothills Child Advocacy Center had invited us to. And they have a new location, but they also are sharing their office space with SARA, the sexual assault resource agency. There were a lot of people there. There was a lot of staff there. And so it was really nice to walk through both sides of the facility and kind of see what they do and hear we've gotten a lot of emails that sort of say what they do, but it was really nice to see the physical spaces and how it works. And so it was really well done. There's a lot of people doing a lot of good work there. And so that was really neat to see that.

Thank you. Supervisor Malik.

Thank you very much. The Crozet Community Advisory Committee last Wednesday, lots of really great discussion about things which have come out of the Crosse Master Plan from five years ago that are really eagerly anticipated but have not yet begun, one of those being the inventory of the naturally occurring affordable houses, or NOAAs, which were a highly supported element of the master plan adopted in 2021. And really important that we don't lose the houses we already have by looking away instead of focusing on all new construction. And an element of that which was brought up by some of our firefighters was when a spouse passes away, the widow, often in her 80s, is left trying to maintain an older home in Orchard Valley or one of those places. And they really need that extra support from their neighbors and community as well as the benefits which LEAP has been providing with weatherization through and now that the regi funds will be coming back, there'll be more outside funding through channel through Dominion, which will improve that.

But I think having some documentation about where those locations are will be especially welcomed. And the Crosse Water study has been postponed from May to October, sadly, so that I don't have to interrogate the Rubana folks to find out what happened to that. But, we're all looking forward to that information as well. As someone mentioned, I guess it was at the MPO meeting that Crozet is nearing its build out. So that'll be a how how Rubana, whose goal is to supply whatever water needs there are, and they know it takes twenty years to make it happen, so they're always eagerly planning ahead.

But there's that balance of we should not be galloping in to make monstrously expensive investments to take water from a pitiful river to take it to Beaver Creek when there is not gonna be the same kind of growth going forward that there has been for the last fifteen years because there's very little land left, which is good. So that would provide some stability for folks out there, which will be great. Questions? There was a lot of discussion about Yancey Mills and how that will be entertained in the next plans going forward. Wait And a minute, that's the wrong notes.

Okay, let me jump over to my today's page. Sorry. The, so that's all from the CCAC. I remember still daily the pain of my first budget in 2008, and the worst thing, which I hope will never happen this year, is in August when the state said, oh, remember that $6,000,000 we were going give you? Well, we're not.

And that threw everybody into a tailspin because it was a much bigger impact because the total budget was so much smaller, like 60% smaller than it is today. I know that in the past, Lori interviewed the board members after the budget to sort of gather that data information, so that may be something that staff wants to do again. Upcoming news this Saturday is the prescription drug take back over six locations in the area, and so I encourage people to clean out your closets. I've got stuff that's been carried around in my car for the last year because I kept meaning to go, and I didn't do it. So that's not a good place to keep all those old jars.

Whitehall Ruritans sale, plant sale, and tree sale is this weekend. Be there by 08:00 in order to get good supplies. This is at the Whitehall Community Building at the corner of Garth Road, Jarman's Gap, and Whitehall Road. And one carry away from the memorial service ceremony on Friday at the Dogwood Memorial, but also all the way through McIntyre Park is just one example. But we also had the same occasion at Biscuit Run, noticed during the dedication we went to in the cold weather last year, is this really nasty plastic netting which is put down on the ground to hold straw or something on top of seed.

And now it is spiraling up, and people, old folks, are getting caught in it. It's just hideous. So I know that VDOT had promised not to use that anymore about two years ago. But I think that there needs to be some MOU or contract supervision or something for the contractors working in our parks, for example, to not use that. There are lots of other things that the jute is heavier and stays in place more and is locally available and does not have plastic fibers in it. And I hope we can get somewhere on that, it being a danger to humans as well as to wildlife. The birds die all the time in the nest. The parents catch that stuff up and then take it home. So anyway, I will stop there, but thank you all very much.

Supervisor Lapisto Kerley?

Thank you very much. I also attended the sixtieth rededication of the Dogwood Memorial with Anne. It was very well attended, and it was very much appreciated. I did want to mention, since you mentioned the prescription drug

Take Back.

Take Back. Both of them take back. That is also at the UVA Emily Couric Cancer Center. You can always drop off your prescriptions. There's a place there you can just Oh, good.

Yeah, drive in, drop it off, and leave. And I did want to commend the staff because I felt that this year's town halls, the way they were set up, encouraged me to attend not only mine, but others also, which I thought was very instructive because we had different groups of people in different town halls. So I thought it was very good. It also helps us educate the populace through emails, phone calls, and face to face settings. That's all I have.

I have not had any CACs. I'm looking forward to one on Monday. And I do have an EDA report, but I'm going to say that for next week, next meeting. Thank you.

All right. I will hold and do my committee reports at the next meeting as well. I'm not ready to process a few that I've had. So that'll give me time to prep. Mr. County Executive, any other?

No, sir. Not at all.

All right. Well, I threw my agenda out. So without objection, the Board will adjourn to 05/06/2026, one p. M. In Late Auditorium. Thank you, everyone.