Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All set? All right, good afternoon, everyone. I would like to call to order the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors for our July 15th, 2026, 1 p.m. meeting here in Lane Auditorium. Let's see, the supervisors who are present, Supervisor Mike Pruitt of the Scottsville District, Supervisor Ann Malik of the Whitehall District, Supervisor Fred Missel of the Samuel Miller District, and Supervisor Bea Lepisto-Kirtley of the Ravana District, myself, Ned Galloway of the Rio District, Supervisor Sally Duncan is traveling, so she will not be joining us today. We do have a quorum present. We also have with us our County Executive, Mr. Jeff Richardson, our County Attorney, Mr. Andy Herrick, our Board Clerk, Ms. Claudette Borgeson, our Senior Deputy Clerk, Mr. Travis Morris, are all with us. And thank you to our officers that are with us today. Officer Joshua Penn, thank you, sir. And Officer Lieutenant Angela Jamerson, thank you for both being here with us. And now, if everyone would please rise as you are able for our Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America,

and if everyone would please join in a brief moment of silence

All right, thank you, everyone. All right, Board, number four, the adoption of the final agenda. Do we have any changes, adjustments, amendments to the agenda? Is there a motion to adopt the final agenda?

So moved.

Second. All right, the motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lepisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Mallett? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye.

Great. Thank you, Board. Number five today, we have our brief announcements by Board members. And Supervisor Pruitt, you're up first today. I have nothing at this time. Thank you. Supervisor Missel.

Thank you. I just need one second. A couple of quick announcements. One is just to highlight the great news. for the county and and the commonwealth in terms of the final budget being approved and we i think it requested one point four eight million to build a trail at biscuit run park that got voted uh... vetoed last year but we were persistent and the new governor signed it which is great thanks to senator deeds and delegates colson and lawford as well as county staff and our partners for making this happen uh... the new trail as you probably all know will connect the monica nation tribute park and southwood to the new Biscuit Run stream restoration project and the new pedestrian bridge, which is under construction. So you can see more information on that on the daily progress. And then the second thing I'll just mention is this coming Saturday, there is a Motown fundraiser at the Yancey Community Center for the food pantry. All are welcome, and all the proceeds will benefit the food pantry. So that's it. Very good. Thank you.

Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtland?

Yes, just a reminder for everyone, early voting is in process. I was going to leave that to Supervisor Mike Pruitt, but he forgot. And early voting is now taking place, so please, everybody, get out and vote. Thank you.

Supervisor Malik.

Thank you very much. An announcement from Urbana Water and Sewer Authority. As of yesterday, our region has been declared in a drought watch. So this is not mandatory yet, but it will be soon if people ignore the situation. So in order to prolong the ability to use any water for much of anything, we all need to conserve a lot and to not use water for anything that is not essential and to take care of our reservoirs. South Fork is already down over five inches. It supplies 10 to 12 million gallons per day to the urban ring in the county. And so we have basically a 200-day supply, which is if we're in the beginning of a drought of record, that will not last us very long at all, especially when the students are not here and when they come back and that extra water use kicks up in September, the water volumes will dramatically change. So please, everybody, think about everything you can do to conserve water so we do not have to go to mandatory restrictions. Thank you.

Very good. And I wanted to note that the federal government passed the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. And the fact that it passed with bipartisan support is probably enough to say that is the surprise. but I've been poring through it just to see how it would impact things that we do here locally, and I'm sure we'll be learning more and more about that as we go. And I'll be attending the National Association of Counties annual conference. I leave tomorrow for that, so I'll report back. But I serve on the Community Economic Development and Workforce Development Steering Committee, so I'm sure they'll be doing an overview of that act in the meeting on Friday. So I'll be bringing any info I have back, and I'm sure our team's been pouring through it as well. So I'd just like to call attention to that. All right. We have no proclamations or recognitions today, so we will move to item number seven, public comment on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than that scheduled for public hearings. And the vice chair will read the rules and take us through our speakers.

Thank you, Chair. I'd be happy to. During this portion of the meeting, individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board. We're currently pending before the board other than items scheduled for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one opportunity of up to three minutes per meeting. In person, speakers will be heard first, followed by online participants coordinated by the clerk. To ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers, the board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County, your magisterial district, comments should be directed to the board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back-and-forth debate is not permitted, and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. For in-person speakers, the podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun. Yellow means one minute remains. And the red indicates your time has expired. If participating by Zoom, please remain muted until you are called to speak. You will be verbally notified when the time has expired. And microphones will be muted shortly thereafter. All comments are recorded, live streamed, and published on the county website. If participating by phone, press star 9 to let us know. you want to speak and press star six from a landline to unmute. The sign-up period is closed once public comment begins. The podium is adjustable. Speakers are encouraged to raise or lower it so they are able to speak directly into the microphone. Looks like we have, let's see, six signed up in person and one online. So we'll start with Christine Putnam. And Zach Landsman is on deck.

All right. Hello. My name is Christine Putnam, and I live in the Scottsville district. And I'm here to ask you to protect our farmland, waterways, and natural ecosystems by moving forward on a biosolids ordinance and taking steps to regulate confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs. I serve on two board-appointed citizen advisory committees, the Solid Waste Alternative Advisories Committee and the Natural Heritage Committee. Both of these committees have spent time learning about the potential threats posed by PFAS found in biosolids applied to farmland. And both of these committees have sent letters to you recommending the adoption of an ordinance that would establish testing and monitoring program for land application. I also live in southern Albemarle in close proximity to two farms with a permit from Synegro. Synegro delivers biosolids from Washington, D.C.'s Blue Plains Wastewater Treatment Facility, so PFAS. are used in everyday products and industrial processes, they easily find their ways into waste water and accumulate in biosolids. The health threat that PFAS pose to is well established, and this is why I urge you to join the other 25 counties in Virginia who have already taken action to establish a biosolids ordinance. My other concern is the proliferation of CAFOs and the impact these operations will have on our land and water. I hope that Albemarle County will be proactive in doing what it can to address the waste generated by these operations. What is at stake is the health of our community, our farmland, and our waterways. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Zach Landsman and Frances Lee Vandell is on deck.

Hi, everyone. My name is Zach Landsman. I'm a PhD student at the University of Virginia. And today, I'm here to ask the board to sign onto a letter to the Virginia General Assembly in support of a bottle deposit bill out of the 2027 legislative section. The purpose of this bill is to address Virginia's poor plastic bottle recycling rate. We're only at 8%, and we're not asking you to create something new or untested. We're looking to follow a proven solution that's already working in 10 other states. And it's one that reduces costs, protects our environment, creates jobs, and keeps our waterways and landscapes clean. The bottle bill deposit creates a refundable deposit system. That $0.05 or $0.10 return rate that's labeled on the bottles And since these 10 states have already implemented it, we have a nice model of not only how to implement it, but how we can follow and learn from mistakes we've made in the past. These 10 states that have this system only account for 27% of the US population, but they account for almost half of our recycled plastic and glass in the country. Michigan has maintained a 93% return rate since 1990 on these labeled products, and Oregon achieves 87%. This bottle bill allows for a proactive solution instead of a reactive one, such as picking up litter or trying to collect and encourage residents to recycle. An incentive has been shown to greatly increase the rate of recycling in the states that adopt it. The bill matters for Albemarle County because it reduces costs to local government. Right now we're paying for litter cleanup, landfill disposal, and storm drain maintenance of this waste. But a bottle bill shifts that burden onto the beverage industry, creating a tax saving for taxpayers as well as jobs locally. And it is able to align with our county's climate action plan as well as the comprehensive plan list. In AC44, Objective 8, looking at increasing recycling. And for cultural resources of Objective 5, looking to preserve and protect our county's just general environment. Thank you so much. We have the letter submitted and are available for more information.

Thank you. Francis Lee Vandell and Stuart Overby is on deck.

Thank you, Supervisors, for considering housing over and over and over again, and including the public for your discussions. I'm here to ask, and I have been talking with Virginia organizing this time, for a local housing voucher program. funded so that we get people off the streets, a local voucher program. And that program is a tool that you can use to prevent this homelessness, but please, would you consider how to make a pathway for people going into the voucher program to go on to home ownership? because the problem has mushroomed so badly that people who could be homeowners are homeless. Therefore, if you have a voucher program with pathways, a pathway, not pathways, a pathway to homeownership, it would benefit the county. They would finally be back into our tax rolls.

Thank you. Stuart Overby and Cook Harvey is on deck.

Hello, everyone. I'm Stuart Overby. I live in the Samuel Miller District in Southern Albemarle, and I'm with Don't Spread on Me. I'm here to speak about a biosolids ordinance. Maybe a month ago, our coalition of local conservation groups sent you all a draft ordinance that we had crafted and hopefully a good summary of the most important provisions in it in a letter. that went along with it, along with a way to contact us. So I'm just here to point out that, yes, these counties' biosolids ordinances can establish a testing and monitoring program, including testing for PFAS now, but that's not the only thing they can do. There are other provisions that would serve to raise awareness to landowners of potential hazards of biosolids and also make Albemarle less attractive in general to sludge-spreading companies. At Don't Spread on Me, we've done a lot of research of consulted attorneys, consulted scientists, and other subject matter experts and put considerable effort into drafting this ordinance. We have SOPs for PFAS sampling to share and lists of laboratories that can do the testing. We stand ready and willing as a resource for any of you or any county staff to contact us and let us tell you all that we've learned. I hope you'll get in touch and I look forward to working on this next month. Okay, thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Cook Harvey and Phil Reese is on deck.

Thank you all for the opportunity. If you can't hear, I'm humbled to be here in my voice. I'm just here to introduce myself to the board and the people of Albemarle County. My name is Cook Costa Harvey, and I'm running for the 5th Congressional District. I love the people and the idea of a self-determined government, and I feel like the two-party system prevents us from moving forward as a united people. I'll leave you with most of your time, and please know that there is another choice on the ballot, that we can be united and independent. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Phil Reese, and then we would move to online. Freddie Weinberg.

Chair Galloway, members of the board, my name is Phil Reese. I live in the Ribana District. Tonight we're voting on whether to send a 1% sales tax to the November ballot. I'm here because there's one question this board has not answered, and voters need the answer before they vote. Here's the question. Will this additional tax add to what the county already spends on school construction, or will it replace funding that property taxpayers currently provide? School construction today is repaid mostly through property taxes. Will you reduce property taxes if the sales tax passes? Or is this simply another tax increase on residents who are already overburdened? A sales tax hits hardest the families at or below the poverty level. And your ballot language says nothing about any of this. If every new dollar goes on top of our current tax burden, say so today and put it in writing before the people vote on it. There's a trust problem, too. The school board just agreed to pay former superintendent Matt Haas more than a quarter of a million dollars for a year he will not work, even though the board itself says he kept them in the dark for five months about a criminal investigation at Hollywood Elementary. left in the dark, and they still gave Haas a huge severance. Now we're asked to trust the system with over a half of a billion dollars in new tax revenue without even knowing how it would be spent. This takes the sales tax rate from 5.3 to 6.3%. Many will call that an increase of just 1%, but it's effectively an 18% increase in the tax we currently pay. collecting more than $27 million a year through 2046. That's over a half billion dollars. Divide that by the number of residents in Albemarle, and it works out to roughly $1,160 a year for a family of five. Yet this ballot question means no schools, no costs, no timelines. Enrollment at schools has grown by just 49 students since 2018, while the school budget has skyrocketed in that same time. This is a half billion dollar blank check. Some of our schools are aging and deserve real investment. Show voters which ones, what they cost, and when they'd be built. And nothing in this new law requires this tax to last 20 years. The expiration date of the tax is this board's choice. And your own capital investment plan looks out just five years. Match the tax expiration to the capital investment plan. Sunset this new tax to five years. And if the county delivers, come back and ask voters to renew it. Put the plan on the table before you put the question on the ballot. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. And last, we have Freddie Weinberg online.

Hello, all. I am Freddie Weinberg. I live in the Whitehall District and got a whole new subject that I don't think has ever been discussed, and that is the takeover of kudzu of our trees along the roads, in our lots, and everywhere. If you all don't know what kudzu is, that's a weed that was brought over the United States to supply ground cover but it got out of hand and you see it climbing up the trees right along Interstate 64, 250, and you will see it just climbing up the trees. And guess what, folks? It kills the trees. Kudzu is really tough to kill. It has very deep roots, loves this hot weather, these roots being so deep that it has plenty of water down there. But there are ways to slow it down. I have contacted VDOT, who doesn't seem interested, The Sierra Club, who just throws their hands up. And the only folks around here that are doing anything about it is Charlottesville. And you'll see Charlottesville kudzu trucks running around, cutting that stuff back. And the way to slow it down, and we really need to protect it, protect our trees. The way to slow it down is one, encourage homeowners to look in their backyards and front yards and cut the weed down at the root level. You could also put chemicals on it, but people aren't going to do that. Up above where the root is, it will die. Now, what do we do along our roads? That's a great question, but right now getting rid of it is almost impossible, but reducing the takeover that is doing is possible. We need, the county needs to get out there with crews and go along and cut this stuff at the root. Like I said, it kills what's above and saves our trees. Again, ride along 64 and see what's happening there. And that's all I got to say. I would really love to see that as an issue now. And y'all like, Ms. Malik just encouraged everybody to conserve their water. Let's encourage everybody to get in their yards and cut this stuff back, what they can do, and hopefully the county, the city, VDOT, whoever else has any power will get into the lots and public areas. Thanks so much. You all have a good day. Thank you. That concludes our list, Chair.

All right. Thank you to all those who provided comment today. Board, we will move to item number eight, our consent agenda. Are there any items that need to be pulled from consent? All right. Seeing none, is there a motion to adopt or approve the consent agenda?

So moved. Second.

All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lepisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Mallet? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye. Great. Thank you, Board. And now that will move us to item number nine, Virginia Department of Transportation Quarterly Report. And Carrie Shepard is with us today. Good afternoon. Hi.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, members of the Board. I am Carrie Shepard, here to provide the quarterly report for VDOT. And I might need a little assistance.

I do.

Can I do this?

I could start talking if you would prefer. I can just talk through the first slide of projects, unless you'd like me to wait.

Yeah, we'll... Yeah, if you want to pull up, if you all have access in the packet... It'll just take a minute to get the report.

While we're waiting, I'll butt in to say thank you for your help with helping me understand the Firefly Connection the other day.

Yes, no problem.

Life is complicated, that's for sure.

It is, very much so.

I think we have it up if you do.

Do you have the report, like, you've got it written down, or do you need it for your present?

The PowerPoint?

Yeah, yeah. I'm just, I haven't got it open yet.

That's what I'm trying to do. There it is.

Has everyone got their report open?

Basically, yeah.

Yeah, Kara, if you just want to tell us what slide you're on, then we can walk through your report.

Sure. Okay. So I'm on the preliminary engineering slide, the one I usually start with. And these are projects in development that have not quite reached advertisement. So some changes on this slide for Fifth Street Hub and Trails project. Our next milestone is advertisement. That was supposed to go to add in May of 2026. It was delayed for some right-of-way issues and is going to add this month. For the intersection improvements at Route 20 and the Route 250 access management corridor improvements, that next milestone is also advertisement. They're currently acquiring right-of-way, and that advertisement is expected January of 2027. For the Connector Road from Brookmar Drive to Airport Road, that is in the right-of-way phase as well, and we expect that add date. It has shifted somewhat, but the add date is now fall of 2028 because of some right-of-way delays. For Avon Street, the next milestone is a public hearing. Tentative timeframe for the public hearing is late October, early November. So more information will be coming out about that as that date approaches. And no changes to the 250 Rolkin Road and Peter Jefferson Parkway improvements.

Adobe's taking over. There's a click here to skip install, Terry. I don't know if you see that. There's a click here. Okay.

And then. Looks like I just need to scroll. Yeah. Okay. Yep. Okay.

Great. Okay. So that was the preliminary engineering slide. Next is our design build bundles. So the very first bundle, which is the four roundabouts in the Belvedere Green T, Route 240, 250 roundabout, I think final striping was just completed yesterday. Final completion of this project is August 1st. So just a couple weeks, these next couple weeks we'll be focusing on punch list items. The old Lynchburg Fifth Street roundabout, that construction is also underway. as the same with John Warner Parkway and Raya Road roundabout and the Belvedere Green Tee. That construction is also underway. And last for this bundle, the Route 53, Route 20 roundabout utility relocations will begin later this month or in August with construction starting in September to miss a lot of the events that were happening at Monticello this year. For the next bundle, which is the hydraulic and Cedar Avenue roundabout and the changes at Fontaine and the shared use path in the city, this project is in the final steps of right-of-way approval. Construction is expected to begin in the fall. And for District Avenue, the right-of-way plans are currently under review. Next is our rural rustic updates. We just recently paved Blair Park Road, Burton Lane, and Burton Road. We put the final surface on so those projects are complete. Our next round of projects includes Gilbert Station, Giannini Lane, and Murray Lane. And at this point, since the plan has been approved as of July 1, we just need to wait for the funding verifications and the projects to be open to funding before we can begin. And last, I left the 601 Old Ivy Road bridge project on here as complete, even though I know we're all aware of that. But just to note that that project was finished early in June and definitely a big help over there to have that road reopened. Also, Fontaine Avenue, that's still underway. That expected completion is spring of 2027. And then two of our other projects under construction is the Route 29 shared juice path. Utilities are being relocated at this time. And the Exit 107 Park and Ride project, grading and earthwork for the parking lot and bus loop is underway at this point in time. And that is the end of my formal presentation. So I will take any questions or concerns that you may have for me.

Thank you, Carrie. Supervisor Pruitt? What were the right-of-way issues at the 5th Street Trail component?

We had proposed a certain path for our vehicles to come into Wegmans Way and reach the site where they need to do the work near the trail hub. And the developer preferred a different route to go behind the buildings to minimize upset in the shopping center area. And so we were making that change.

Got it. Thank you. And this is me just wanting a refresher on the process. Proposed scope. Is that something that ever meaningfully changes or expands during the community meeting process?

During the community meeting process? Yes, it can.

I, just to know where my head's at, the Avon Street multimodal improvements I'm excited about and also deeply frustrated about. Because it's just enough to be... appetizing while useless for my constituents. It extends a sidewalk into the city, but not actually to where the people live. I can only actually see maybe if someone who works at Afton Scientific lives at the Mountain View trailer park in the city. That's the only user I see of a shared use path. Everyone else is going to be riding the bus, and it's not going to connect to anyone else on Avon. And it very much frustrates me because if it went to the light, that would not be true. So I guess I will see if I can get a community members to show up at the community meeting in October. But it's probably not the place for that. Thank you.

Supervisor Missel?

Thanks. Thanks. I appreciate the update. Quick question. It's not on here, but exit 118?

Yes.

I'm just curious. Do you have any updates on that? Is there... funding strategy? Any updates on any of the studies that I think are underway?

Not at this time. We've decided to continue that study to look at it more holistically, but it's just in the beginning stages and I don't have any updates today.

Any idea when we might get an update on that next? I can check.

I can check and try to give you some more information.

That'd be great. Thank you. That's all. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley.

Thank you for your presentation. You had three streets that were listed that you're waiting for funding, Gilbert Station Road and a couple others. Can you tell me approximate timeline when you might know whether or not that funding will come in?

The funding, we should get the funding probably in August through our process to get it open to charges. So that's what we're expecting is the fall. And then we'll continue work as much as we can until probably November time frame. And then, you know, if we can get them paved in that time, depending on their length, we will. If not, it will wait until spring and we'll finish them in the spring. Understood. Thank you.

Supervisor Malik.

Thank you very much. So just to follow up on the 118 clarification, there is a separate project going forward now that's going to take the loop around for the trucks who want to go northbound to west. Correct. That's separate from the study you're talking about that is going to into the way, way future. Correct. To find the real solution. Okay. Just wanted to make sure we hadn't lost ground on that one that took so many years to get here. Fantastic. the almost came upon, let's put it that way, the huge paving truck and steam and everything like that at Earlysville Forest Drive this morning. So that's regular maintenance. That's every seven years or ten years or whatever that VDOT goes out to do these public roads, right, based on traffic.

Yes, and that in particular is the full depth reclamation.

Right, and separate from all the other remedial work you had to do last year. Is there more, just to clarify for the public, the side streets that were going to be also paved are now going to be paved this time around?

They are going to remain a surface treatment.

Okay, well, is there any reason for that change? Because it was a full paving in the past, so I was just wondering what the reason was for the change.

When we decided to go with the full depth reclamation.

For real asphalt to slurry, which is everybody hates slurry because it sticks to their shoes and clothes and dogs and old people fall down on the way to the mailbox. So it's not well loved in the county for sure.

Yes. We do get a lot of complaints about surface treatment. But when we decided to do the full depth reclamation to build up that structure of that pavement, the top of that final surface is going to also be surface treatment. And so it's a consistency between the entire neighborhood and also considering that they're cul-de-sacs that don't serve very much traffic was why we made that decision.

I see. Okay. I will try my best to explain that to people. And the last thing. What is the process for picking up brush when there's been an accident and highway sign and trees and everything all piled up beside the road? Is that something in your depot, people who go to do that?

Yeah, if it's in the right-of-way, yes.

Okay, because I'll mention again the one by Buck Mountain Church that happened right before 4th of July. That email may have gotten caught in your holiday thousands and thousands of emails, but that's still lying there. And it's about three inches off of pavement, so it needs to go away.

And what is that specific location?

It was a car accident, I think, on Tuesday of – or 1st of – 1st of July or the 30th of June, and a car heading into town, crossed the yellow line, took out the highway sign, a tree, and the fence, and flipped over. So it's a big, flat mess, like 20 feet long, but right at the edge, in the verge, right beside the pavement, right next to a Buck Mountain Episcopal Church in the center of Earleysville. That'll make it easy for you to find, between Earleysville Heights and the church. And that will be great. Thank you very much.

Well, you have a very happy Rio District Supervisor because the modified, forgetting the language of the roundabout that's now at Hillsdale and Greenbrier, I've been going through it, watching people navigate it. It's certainly done its job in slowing people down, which is part of the reason for roundabouts, but also seems to be, I mean, people are getting used to it just like they do every other roundabout we put in, but the fact that it's such a tight turn is really slowing folks down. So I'm appreciative of that. My one question that I have, and this is really checking my memory, Kerry. I know that we were like, oh yeah, we've put this in and we just think, bad idea. We can always take it back out at some other point. But did we also say, all right, the way that once it's up and designed, if it needs to be adjusted Because you know after like observation or if certain types of vehicles or whatever with the with the with the little? Posts that go up and everything is that doable, or did we I don't remember us talking about that, but Yeah, I mean we we can we'll continue to monitor it if there are issues And we can make adjustments then then yeah, we can definitely do that is there anything in particular at this point Yeah, okay, not at all the and the folks that have been using it have been have been And I know that the community there has been waiting for that treatment. So I think it's all been positive so far. I mean, other than just general folks that don't like roundabouts or don't understand how to yield or merge. But that's a different animal. But I'm very happy that that project is now in place. Same to be said for Penn Park Road and the reduction in the speed limit there. I think that made sense. So thank you for the efforts to get that done. I know the residents there appreciate that as well. I don't know, in the past, have you had any complaints or done any studies on Panorama Road out off Earleysville Road? I've got a constituent that has raised speed limit issue there and specific, I mean, speed limit issue one, but then also speed as it relates to truck traffic that's happening. And I just don't know if any studies or if there's been any history with that. Because if there is, I'd appreciate knowing that and what that found. But otherwise, it could also be a candidate for – I know sometimes roads can be different speed limits for heavier trucks versus regular traffic. So right now I'm kind of in the let's see what's been studied in the past, but that could be a candidate for a speed study out there at some point just based on some concerns. I'm getting speed concerns on – Huntington Road as well, which is a cut through from Rio over to Kars Brook which all of those parallel roads overlook Northfield and Huntington all are kind of ways to cut over and then cut up to 29 It seems like the speed on Kars Brook while I'm sure folks still see people moving through there but it's the it's the straight cut because Huntington's a pretty straight road after you get past free bridge and and people just let loose. Apparently, I didn't know this, even living there for so long, that they've been calling it the Huntington Raceway.

Dragstrip was what it was called.

I think it's posted at 30 or 35, but folks are flying through there. So it's just two roads that I have that ongoing. Obviously, we'll do what we can locally in terms of enforcement and all that, but just be curious if you have any history on those two roads. Okay. Great to know.

I can check.

And then I know that it makes sense, though, the John Warner Parkway roundabout, and that's underway, and then the green tea will be happening. West Rio Road 999, West Rio Road is a small development right there at the corner of Rio and Belvedere. Is there coordination with that developer while they're doing stuff for any treatment or things that need to happen? I'd hate to see that get developed and then tore back up.

Yeah, when we get site plans or development plans that are near or could conflict with our smart scale projects, we definitely internally share that with the design build group to make sure that we don't have conflicts between the projects.

Just if it's a timing thing, I can't remember if in the design there's a right turn lane or just turn off Rio like it is now. But if there is a new lane, it'll have to cut into that, and I'm just hoping that can be coordinated so it'll be not as disruptive as it could be for two different segments. But thank you. I guess the only other comment I'll make is the MPO last month voted to move the I-64 exit 118 as a location for a STARS and project pipeline study. So that's been officially voted on, but that's just in the start. So there is no update and probably won't be until that process gets underway. And then they'll be rolling out the public engagement process, et cetera. So I don't expect anything to be happening this calendar year in terms of engagement with the community. I suspect VDOT's doing whatever they do to get rolling. But that'll be probably a next calendar year kind of thing, and then years down the road before. Because those studies are, what, 18 months, I think? They try to jam them in before the next smart scale cycle. So the process has to be done before March of 28, I guess. Or as close to it as possible to give you kind of an idea of timeline.

Thank you. I'm guessing the design will probably be influenced by what happens with the success of the Fontaine roundabout, too, or not roundabout, but the redirect of the truck traffic. It's a big part.

Well, I think they've learned that the bad part is the eastbound turn. It used to be the other one, but now it's the eastbound turn. It's the bad part. I do have two things, if you have one.

Yeah, go ahead.

Thankfully, Supervisor Galloway reminded me of two other things. I agree that the Hillsdale delineators are fabulous. Are those limited to the types of roads where they can be placed? Because what popped into my mind as soon as it was opened was this is a perfect solution for WAS while we wait to figure out what's going with Old Trail Drive and whatever. We have 150 feet of right of way across the diagonal there. We've measured it. So there's gobs and gobs of room. While we wait for X number of years to get to the next step, we might be able to solve the management problem there to be able to get that. So I would ask for some information about what the categories are and where those things could be used. You know, my old plan of just putting a hay bale in the middle and making people go around it was a great idea, and it's sort of similar to what the delineators accomplish, actually, but this is much more formal. Secondly, Chris Green, Lake Road. In the Whitehall District, our police department has done a speed study there. I think when people see the counters, they slow down. But we're having a lot of trouble with the walking people who walk to the park on that stretch of road. And the speed is 45 there. So while there is, I don't know what other options there would be, such as signage. Beware pedestrians walking to the park, something, or people won't even, drivers won't even move over when they see a pedestrian. They push the pedestrian off into the grass where there's slopey, you know, people have fallen down. It's just our drivers are rotten. I get that, and that's not your fault. But if there's something we can do to, I think, perhaps put some warnings up that pedestrians other directional, other kinds of informational signs that would help, you know, park project ahead or something. I don't know what's in your library of signs, but I would love to know if you have any suggestions for things we can push on for that. That would be great because we've had pets killed and we don't need to have any of that happen again or any of our neighbors get run over either. Thank you very much.

Great. Any other? Just one thing. I was focused on comments here, but since it sounds like we're a little bit off this I'm going to throw out one other area to think about, maybe, if you're not already doing so. So with all the residential coming online on Old Ivy Road and the development at basically along Ivy, going back towards the university, and the westbound traffic across the bridge that crosses the bypass, In the morning commute, there's a lot of movement from the two lanes down to one lane merge. And that one lane on the left is the one that actually turns into the southbound 29 bypass lane. Is that making sense?

I think so.

So as you're commuting in the morning, there are people who stack up against that westbound, sort of that southbound turn lane that block people from actually being able to turn left on that. because they're waiting to merge into traffic on the right. So as we're talking about traffic delineators, some way to make people merge into a single lane before they block traffic and then cut in on the westbound traffic across the bridge would be a great, I think, a really big help.

Thank you. Okay. Well, any other items? Carrie, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, board. So next is number 10, the Human Services Needs Assessment. Ms. Dimmick is joining us. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, all. Pull up my presentation. Good afternoon, Chair Galloway and members of the board. I'm pleased to be before you today to share the results of the 2026 Human Services Needs Assessment and subsequent recommendations. This needs assessment is a collection of available data on many different metrics of community well-being designed to give us an idea of how Albemarle County members are doing. No one data point is by itself instructive, but to view together, this data allows us to draw more general conclusions. In 2023, we presented an initial human services needs assessment to the board with many of the same data points included. This assessment precipitated a shift in funding for community agencies to include prioritization of those agencies that address the needs of the most vulnerable members of our community through the provision of direct services. I'll share some information about needs assessments, including some assumptions and some caveats, review some data elements and the details, make recommendations on how staff should use the assessment, and then look forward to your feedback. Doing this work is well aligned with the board's strategic plan, in particular with goals 1.1, 1.2, 2.3, and 4.3. Human services needs assessments are, generally speaking, a tool for understanding how community members are faring. They can be broad in scope, as ours is, and focus on general well-being, or narrow in scope and focus on one aspect of human experience, like juvenile justice or unemployment. They can represent primary research or review of available data. Regardless of their structure, needs assessments are used to evaluate community needs and how they change over time. It can be a useful tool to recognize emerging trends as well. They can be used to establish policy or new programs or as the foundation of priority setting, as has been the case here. We're very fortunate in this community to share a community with smart and industrious people and organizations that do their own data collection and research, so there's no need for the county to reinvent the wheel. We benefit from the work listed on the slide and many more. I will mention that each of these organizations collects data on its own timeline, so it is common for us to have recent data from one organization and older data, say from 2023, for another. Data presented today is meant to give you an overview of general community well-being, or a trend line when possible, as opposed to focusing on any one individual data point. Together, this data tells a story of broad community well-being. There are generally three broad themes embedded in the data. One, people have usually more than one need, more than one barrier or burden. They usually struggle with complex or compounded sets of needs that require additional time, skills, or resources to adequately address. There's a significant number of families who are struggling to make ends meet through a variety of different definitions in our community. And many people struggle with mental health concerns like depression or anxiety, sometimes acute, sometimes chronic, sometimes major, sometimes minor, but universal. On the theme of making ends meet, this is a complex slide with three different definitions for making ends meet or self-sufficiency. Overall, you can see that poverty as a number and as a percentage is up between 2022 and 2026, from 7.67 in 2022 to 8.8 for 24. Actually, I think this is data from late 2025. With fewer children under 18 experiencing poverty, but significantly higher number of folks over 65 experiencing poverty. You can see there that the poverty line established by the federal government, which is a national number for a family of four, is identified as $32,980 of household income. You think about our area median income for Albemarle County for our metropolitan service area is $139,800. So this number is exceptionally low for a family of four in our community. You think about the Orange Dot Report, which is established by Ridge Schuyler, who was celebrated in these halls just the last meeting we were here. And he established the Orange Dot Report to identify the number of households in the community who are struggling to make ends meet. And they've established a definition for what that means, their definition of self-sufficiency. And they've identified that for 2024, the baseline minimum income for a family in our community to be able to make ends meet was $63,321.53. Based on that metric, we have twice as number of families who meet that lack of self-sufficiency established by the Orange Dot Report than we did the last time we did this. Thinking about the third definition for what self-sufficiency is or defining self-sufficiency is identified by United Way's ALICE, which stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed. If you think about the group of people who are just above the poverty line, in that workforce housing zone that we look at in terms of that spectrum, that number of folks is actually going down in our community, which is an interesting piece of data, which I'll share in the next slide. Their survival budget for a family of four in our community is $88,848. If you add the cost of childcare, one child in childcare, That's $108,528. If you add a second child, that goes to above $125,000. If you think about United Way is identifying a household budget of over $125,000 as a baseline survival budget compared to what our area median income, again, is $139,800. there's a group of people who are working and have kids or in child care or engaged in our communities in lots of ways that are unable to meet the survival budget identified in three different ways. Here we have the ALICE data broken down by magisterial districts. You'll note that the data here is from 2024 from the United Way ALICE report, which is ultimately derived by data collected by the American Community Survey. The written staff report that you received contains data from 2023. So you'll notice a difference between what was in the written report and what's on this slide. And of course, we'll share these slides with you. All told, there are 16,466 households in our community that are unable to make ends meet given our rising cost of living and general affordability concerns. That includes the number and percentage of families that are living under that poverty line and then the number and percentage of families who meet the ALICE definition. Importantly, you'll note that the number of families meeting the definition of ALICE has dropped pretty steadily from a high in 2016, while the number of families meeting the federal poverty definition actually rose during the same period. Clearly not at the same rate, but there must be a relationship there. Another method for identifying whether folks have access to enough to make ends meet is the use of food banks and food insecurity in general. According to Feeding America in 2025, 10.5% of the people in our community were experiencing food insecurity. That's 11,860 people. That means they went without a meal in the last 30 days because they could not afford it. Blue Ridge Area Food Bank identified 203,817 visits in all of fiscal year 25 and 338,411 visits just through April of fiscal year 26. Loaves and Fishes had identified that Albemarle County visits to Loaves and Fishes doubled between 22 and 25. If you look at the chart, you'll see the number of beneficiaries for SNAP. You'll see that the number of individuals receiving SNAP benefits has gone down in the last year, which reflects federal policy changes impacting who is eligible for assistance, not community need. to think about health and well-being metrics for establishing how a community is doing. There are a number of metrics on this slide. There are many ways to assess health and well-being. You may recall that the American Human Development Index is derived from metrics on health, access to knowledge, and living standards in a given community to determine an overall score. This index was used to inform the Admiral County Community Well-Being Profile, which was produced in partnership with UVA's Center for Community Partnerships and released in July of 2025. Admiral County's score of 7.3 is considerably higher than the state's score of 5.8. A particular note on this slide is that 7% of the county population, or 7,980 people, do not have health insurance. These people are at risk of catastrophic financial impact should they experience a health emergency. Another way of thinking about or one of the benefits we have is in a community that is doing this kind of research and work all the time is that every three years we're required, the health department and the hospitals are required to do a community health assessment, which will then inform the creation of a community health improvement plan, which will inform the activities of the health department, the hospital systems, and nonprofits who do associated work with health. And this 2025 community health assessment identified as the number one health priority chronic health conditions and included obesity and mental health. Mental health came up again and again. Residents want local community-based services and safe places to connect and feel heard. They have really fantastic first-person quotes and research included in their report, and they identified the need for lots of flexible methods of delivering mental health services, not just a traditional clinical setting. You can also see that economic stability is one of the three social drivers of health that are identified as the number three health priority for our community. Additional metrics in this area, particularly focused on health and well-being of families, includes data on benefits and engagement in Department of Social Services programs. You'll note that the number of Medicaid beneficiaries increased every year between 21 and 24, reducing in 25 as a result of changes in eligibility, again, from the federal level. Referrals to child protective services have tripled in the last five years, reflecting a rebound from low numbers in referrals during and immediately following the COVID pandemic. Interestingly, the number of children, however, in foster care has remained fairly stable through the same time period. Finally, I introduce you to the final column, which is Kindergarten Readiness, which could be a proxy for identifying generally how families are faring in our community based on how kids show up to kindergarten. This is a relatively new metric for thinking about this, and it includes, again, lots of different kinds of metrics related to family well-being. Our scores are fairly low, though improving, but considerably higher than scores in the rest of the state. In the area of criminal justice, reflecting a long-term trend of reductions in crime of all kinds, Albemarle County has experienced an overall 18.52% reduction in property and personal crime over the last decade, and of course, subsequent reduction in arrests and stays in the Albemarle County Regional Jail. One of the things we had talked about noting this metric in 2023 when we were before this board is that community members generally do not say they feel safer to match this reduction, almost 20-year trend line in reduction of crime. You can see something for us to pay attention to is the slight increase in misdemeanor bookings to the jail, almost all petty larceny, almost all related to shoplifting, which can be associated with affordability and making ends meet. Talking about homelessness in our community, homelessness is notoriously difficult for us to measure. However, HUD requires that there's an annual point in time count, usually the third weekend in January, where workers are collecting data from anyone who is using a known service, but also they spend 24 hours going out into the community to places where we know people sleep. in parks, tents, sometimes folks who are sleeping in parking lots overnight in other counties as well, to try to get an accurate sense of what's the community need. It's an important data point mostly as a trend line, not necessarily to identify the specific number of people who are in need at any given time, but does that change over time? If your methodology for collecting the data is the same, the trend line should be informative. You can see that there was a spike in the number of folks who were using emergency shelter during the pandemic. The Albemarle County and the City of Charlottesville and the Community Foundation teamed together to create temporary shelters during the COVID pandemic for folks who were in emergency shelter or living outside. You can see the black line at the very bottom is the unsheltered number, and you can see that number spiked a little bit recently and is on the way down. That's an important number to assess whether there are sufficient resources in any given system of care. It is really important to note that the point-in-time count happens in January when our emergency overnight shelter through Pacham, using area churches, is open. If you do this count in the summertime, you have a different result in terms of how many people are accessing emergency shelter versus living outside. The Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless intends to conduct a summertime point-in-time count this year to try to start to improve that data understanding. In 2025, during the point in time count, they ask folks who are willing to go through an intake process to fill out paperwork to identify their level of need and to form what's called a by name list, which is who's in need ranked by their vulnerability. So if a resource becomes available, the person with the highest need gets that resource first. A by name list is a best practice used on a national level. During that time, they're asked what their last known address was. And in 2025, 25.5% of the folks who were identified identified Albemarle County as their last known address. In the most recent year, that was closer to 21.2%. We've spent a lot of time talking about the high cost of housing and it being out of reach for many folks in our community. And so this is data that you all are familiar with. 16% of all homeowners pay more than 30% of household income on housing. And 30% is the identified threshold by HUD for what is affordable. Affordable housing is housing where you pay whatever your household income is, you pay less than 30% of it on housing. In our community, 48% of renters pay more than 30% of their income on housing, and half of them pay more than 50% on housing. We are, at least in the last needs assessment, we're projected to need 10,070 affordable units in our community to meet the demand by 2040. These numbers, of course, change all the time with sales and postings, but the most recent time we looked, the median list price in our community was $630,000 for a home, and our median sales price was $554,000, and our median rent is holding pretty stable at $2,200. There's lots of different data points to look at for mental health. At any given time, a full fifth of the community is struggling with some aspect of their mental health. This is evident in increases in the number of poor mental health days of people of any age experiencing depression and anxiety. Over 800 emergency room visits are related to self-harming behavior, and in an analysis of suicides for the Suicide Prevention Awareness Resource Council, or SPARC, the vast majority were the result of a gun by a male under the age of 30. Every provider who works for the Department of Social Services and all of our community providers, when asked, identify the fact that our community members in need have trouble navigating the system of care. It doesn't matter what the system of care is, whether that's the mental health, community-based mental health care, whether that's the behavioral health crisis continuum, whether that's child welfare or housing, our systems are complex and people's needs are complex and compounded and together that necessitates some additional assistance. And in particular, folks in fire rescue routinely talk about the difficulty in getting somebody connected to a service that might prevent a future deep and more expensive, more catastrophic need. An example of that might be somebody who has fallen down and called 911 and called several times. While our firefighters are there, they're good, smart people, and so they'll do a quick assessment for what hazards might be there and make some guidance, provide some guidance to the household if there's time. They might get called again for that same household for a similar fall, and then again, and those falls get worse and more acute when a simple stair repair might have prevented those. And so what's the next step to connect somebody who is in that need and a need that's been identified and viewed and somebody who does that follow-up? And so there's lots of interest in improved navigation, and we spend a lot of collective time talking about it. In the end, again, none of these individual data points are particularly instructive, but together they demonstrate, they form a picture of need in our community. And so in front of you are some recommendations, recommendations that when we did this in 2023 informed our human services funding process, reviewed in terms of prioritization, and generally inform staff about prioritizing those folks with the most vulnerability first when we're talking about the distribution of limited resources. So we recommend prioritizing services that serve the most vulnerable, defining vulnerability as people experiencing housing instability and homelessness, households with children under five, households with seniors over 65, households with individuals with disabilities or significant medical vulnerability. This has been an important change in our recommendation to expand to include medical vulnerability. Prioritize funding for programs that provide basic needs, including food and shelter. Prioritize funding for organizations providing direct services with direct impact on people's need. And prioritize funding for organizations to provide community-based mental health supports based on the widespread community mental health needs. And that would include traditional clinical settings, but also counseling in a more flexible setting, case management, peer support groups, and navigation. And then to continue to explore flexible, multidisciplinary problem-solving teams like HEART and others to avoid deep-end expense and improved well-being. There's no program development there, just thinking and encouraging us to continue to do that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Happy for your questions and comments.

Thank you, Supervisor Pruitt. Can you help me understand what all is, I'm thinking about the slide that we had on the shelter gap, which you pointed out was taken in December normally, and so it's not reflective of the year. But I'm also in my mind thinking that I feel like I've heard repeated that our total shelter volume is only a little over 100, but we saw even in the non-spike year when we had the Premier Circle shelter operating. It was closer to 125. Is there something else that is being captured in there? Is like some part of permanent supportive housing being captured as emergency shelter?

No. The emergency shelter HUD requires that you report on anyone who's in housing but for that housing would be identified as homelessness. So permanent supportive housing is captured but not under the emergency shelter category. So that number should not include anyone who's not currently in either a domestic violence shelter the Salvation Army, Pacham, or any other emergency shelter situation. So if somebody is, for example, provided with a voucher or a hotel stay during that weekend when they're capturing, they would be captured in that category as well.

Could it also be, I might not have been thinking, the data I saw might not have captured she shelter if that would be treated here. Okay. Thank you for this. I particularly want to draw attention to that because this is something I know I get a lot of emails right now about. And the recurring response I have is driven, of course, by the free bridging camp because that is the talk of the town these days. I don't see the county as having a role in the short-term solutions there, but I think we have a role in the medium and long-term solutions. And I see it as a really flashing red light that we have a known total homeless population that floats around 200 to 250, and we have a known total shelter capacity that's just a little over 100. It's a very capturable and understandable problem. And as we've mentioned, that capacity is actually only 50 for most of the year. It's only up to over 100 during the winter. So I appreciate every opportunity we have to see more of that, and thank you.

Supervisor Missel? Great, yeah, thank you. Great presentation. In my mind, I mean, this is one of the most important things we can measure, right? It's the health of our community. It sort of rises to the top. I thought your recommendation slide was great. It actually answered a lot of my questions. I was kind of checking them off as you were going through that. I have a few other questions. One is, there's a value in looking at trends, right? And as you've been involved in this over the years, Are there any key important indicators that you've seen that have really risen to sort of raise red flags that we should be really essentially focused on? And I know maybe you'll say it's those most vulnerable groups. Are there others, housing, affordability, things like that, that you would say this is one of our key priorities that we need to focus on based on the trends?

I think I would say two things. One is the idea that we are a community with a lot of resources, but not with a great connectivity between the people in need and the actual resources. And so social service folks will say there's a thousand reasons why that stickiness doesn't exist, but it's worth some thinking. Because we're paying for and connecting to a lot of resources, supporting a lot of resources, and if they're not serving our need, Because of some lack of stickiness, we ought to identify that. The second that I pay attention to and worry about is this compounded increased acuity. For everyone that we have collective contact with, their level of need is not as simple as the service you're offering. And so it requires a connection with another provider or some additional time or investment And that can swiftly overrun the capacity of your system of care, regardless of what agency you're in. And so I pay attention to that because I think there are potential sort of system or structural changes that we can make. And that's not any one agency, including just the county. It's everyone to try to... do a better job understanding the complex set of needs that people present with us, whether they walked in the door because they need rental assistance or because one of their kids has been referred for counseling, but that we take advantage of that exposure and connection to that individual member of our community and say, what else do you need and how can we help you get that? I think we have an interest in that for well-being, but also in terms of system savings and better outcomes long term. So those are the two things I pay attention to.

Yeah, those are great answers. I think that idea of getting resources to those who need it most and finding that, you said, I think you used the word sticking points.

Stickiness.

Stickiness.

You know, you just wonder, is there a resource? I don't know whether it's a county resource or some other area that could provide the ability to measure the effectiveness of getting those resources to the community and have that be kind of an actual measurement that you put into a dashboard or something that you consider and think through. I don't know this would be a fair question, but so when you think about the use of funding And I appreciate these two subjects being close to each other the the next one that we're also going to review When you think about the use of funding that we we offer at the county to our Residents is there one that stands out as being most effective in? And is there an area that you seem, based on this information, this data, you feel might be an area we should focus on? And you used those most vulnerable communities in that list in your recommendations. That was very helpful. I assume that's what you're suggesting.

I would. I think that it is both best practice and defensible to say we don't have enough money to fund all the things that are good in our community.

Right.

And so what will we focus our money on? And so at least in 23 and since then we have used this idea of focusing our funding on the most vulnerable to sort of prioritize and tier people. funding recommendations to the board I think that that sort of responsive to the need that we see and recognize if trips to the food bank have tripled or doubled and and number of referrals to child welfare have tripled in the last five years those kinds of things worth paying attention to to say who's the most vulnerable in If we have limited dollars, that would continue to be a recommendation. Do you think it is healthy and wise for us to review how we define vulnerability as regularly as we can, which is why we've slightly expanded it to include medical vulnerability and not just the presence of a disability this year?

So as we think through and move into, and this is my first moving into the budget season, it'll be interesting to understand how not only do we understand the funding, and to your point and to Mr. Richardson's point, we have more issues than we have opportunities to be able to support those issues or resources. It's not just about the number of dollars, right? It's about the effectiveness of the organizations. And how are we judging, you know, not judging, but how are we reviewing those as we think about how effectively they're meeting the priorities and those most vulnerable communities. So it's funding and it's information gathering balanced together. This is more of a detailed question. The poverty, Alice, that was interesting, how poverty is increasing. Alice is decreasing, I think. Did the definitions change? Have they remained consistent, or was there like a change?

The definitions have remained the same. The thresholds have changed. So the ALIS sort of survivability budget has changed in response to metrics in our community, which really is designed to reflect affordability concerns, inflation, those kinds of things. which have risen fairly dramatically in our community. So you would expect our ALICE data to rise as well. And so that's an intriguing trend line for me, given, again, what we hear from the community around affordability is not matched by that data. There's still a fairly large subset of the population that's struggling to make ends meet, but it is Very interesting that that number has been going down a little bit over the years. And so because it's not a commensurate increase in poverty, you can't make the assertion that that reflects a bunch of people who were barely making ends meet who are now definitely living in poverty like a sinking. There may be some of that. I think it's an open question. I don't know that I can explain it in the same way that if the criminal justice data is going down and sort of there's less and less crime in our community, but people feel less and less safe, there may be a relationship there as well. It needs to be unpacked.

And then just two more quick questions. One is, you know, we do have an embarrassment of data in this area and lots of folks that provide this information. Have you found any – gosh, we have all of this, but we're really lacking in this one area. Have you found any areas that we – or gaps, any information gaps that might help?

Yes, many. In terms of the broad community metrics around well-being, no. I think we're capturing them. In terms of individual sort of specific systems of care or areas of concern, I think behavioral health crisis is one of them. There's lots of data. We'd like more data, richer data, to understand how people experience a behavioral health crisis and how our system responds. I think we're working on many of those things, the places where we have some influence and control. But in terms of broad well-being, I think we've got pretty good data.

Okay, that's great. And the last question is, and forgive me if this is a rookie question, all of this information is great. Do we have targets? Do we have goals that say in three to five years we see a decrease in, I don't know, fill in the blank, or an increase? How do we come up with measurable goals, or do we have them, and how do we check them in three to five years, and how do we measure how well we're doing every year?

We do not establish goals or metrics for community well-being on our own. We certainly do for our Department of Social Service programs, those kinds of things that we're fully in control of. Nonprofits report to us their expected outcomes, and we measure them against their achievement of those outcomes in the next funding round. But we don't have community well-being goals broadly, and I think that probably reflects an understanding that we're not the primary drivers of many of these metrics. Well, we have some influence over them, but we're not the primary drivers.

We're not, but we're also sort of the guardians of the community in a sense, right, where it might be helpful to have goals that other community organizations are trying to measure up or that help to promote them or to move them towards a goal, something that we can measure. Just a thought.

I pulled up the strategic plan because, of course, that's where such a sort of broad goal might end up living.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you. That's all. Supervisor Lopisto-Kirtley.

Okay. I'm going to go a little bit different way, but hopefully you understand I can make myself clear. I know there are housing needs. We all understand that. But you're also saying there's food insecurity. I hear children under five. We probably need daycare centers, things like that. What I'm wondering is with our limited funds or with the funds that we have, Is there a way, and I may be naive, but is there a way of helping the people who have food insecurities more than we do? Those people with... with child care needs, because if you get the children in there into daycare and you start teaching them how to read, teaching them to do different things, that's going to help them be prepared for kindergarten, because that's a big thing if you're not prepared for kindergarten. If your parents haven't read to you, whoever hasn't read to you, I mean, you could end up being one or two years behind when you start kindergarten, which is a real problem, because then it's hard to ever catch up. I'm wondering if we could look at, or maybe you already are, of helping those people, and I guess I'm talking about the 30% and below of AMI, or maybe even the 60% and below of AMI, because some of the others can kind of manage whether or not they need a type of housing, and it would be maybe a temporary housing until they can get on their feet. But if we can help them with things like food, because part of their... Their paycheck goes for living, yes, housing, but it also goes for food. It also goes for maybe daycare and some other expenses. Is there a way that we could focus on that area? I mean, even if I don't have the best place to live in, if I've got enough food, that's going to make a difference in my life. If I have childcare, daycare for my child, that's going to make a big difference in my life. That's going to enable me to do other things so that I can perhaps make more money and be able to afford better housing. But at the same time, we would also want to provide housing for those, of course, that are very much in need. I'm just throwing this idea out.

I think it's very consistent with the recommendations that are on the sheet, which is to focus on serving the most vulnerable and to focus on those folks who are providing basic services, like food and shelter, and then to focus on those programs that provide direct service, as opposed to a sort of a system kind of service. So I think those top three priorities on that list would help establish what I think you'll hear about soon, which is like the first tier of our funding system to make sure that we're using the bulk of our available human services money to fund folks, the services for people where they have the direct most, the biggest impact for the folks experiencing the most vulnerability.

Right. And I notice your priorities. Is that in priority order? No, ma'am. Okay.

I would say all the same priority for all five of those things.

Different impacts. That's why I'm asking is if maybe food and child care, but especially food, if we could eliminate the need for food instability, how much of a difference could that make in somebody's life? and kind of like going in order, what are the things that would really help the most vulnerable people get out of their condition? I mean, if I have a place to sleep or if I have a place to live, and it's a nicer place to live, but I don't have enough money to buy food, what's the most important thing?

We did not establish this list in priority order, but it's not a bad priority order as it's listed. And I think we have in years past been able to layer prioritization to get to funding decisions for an organization that serves the most vulnerable in providing basic needs and providing direct services. So all three of those top three would be true at a given time.

Because, I mean, providing housing, which is important, that's a huge expense as opposed to providing food. And I guess when I'm, I don't know who agrees with me, but it seems to me you could almost check off helping most vulnerable people in one area, which is food, and get rid of the food insecurity concern. and then move on to the next, if that makes sense. Just throwing out a different way of thinking. Thank you.

OK.

Thank you.

Supervisor Malik.

Good afternoon. Thank you for this. And I have written questions in my notes from your presentation, so it may be a little bit weird order, but I do want to get some clarifications. a pretty big dose of harsh reality here. And I think what's the most troubling is how to focus to get the best help for a person, a family, or whatever, where it's going to stack them up to be more sustainable going forward. But just in the technicals here, I was looking at the ALICE data. And for the Whitehall district, seems very low. And I wonder if you include, because it's not I mean, a lot of people on this board think that it's just a bunch of rich folks out there, and it absolutely is not. And the rural per are not, the less fortunate are not perhaps as visible because they're at the end of a long gravel road. So how much does the data include the rural folks in your statistics so far? That's my question.

It's based on the American Community Survey, and so all of the both benefits and also the caveats that exist for the American Community Survey would exist in this data as well.

So if people are not being contacted by the census? or don't have the capability to respond to the computer thing, then they're not counted, it sounds like.

Correct. That impact should be shared across all the districts.

Yeah, I'm sure it is.

And I think there was a substantial difference in participation over the last several years.

and certainly a drop-off in the federal effort for sure to get the information, which has disabled your ability to get data for sure as far as this whole basis. So I get that, but all right. The pantry changes numbers are just mind-blowing. So we knew that was coming. The kindergarten readiness, those are all things that are just so telling. Is there a connection? You mentioned the need for connections between what ACFR finds when they do a house call and the resources needed. Or is that something that's in development? Is there a person in your office who gets the phone call from the chief that says, here's an address, go get them?

I use that as an example of the sort of opportunity we have when we make contact with folks to be able to try to meet all of their needs or solve an underlying problem if the right folks who are notified are connected. I will say that ACFR, because they're smart and excellent people, immediately try to contact somebody who can solve that problem and work outside of their lanes in order to make that happen. So that was a good example because it's illustrative, but a bad example because it suggests that they aren't doing that extra work, and they definitely are. So their community risk and resilience department certainly would pick up that, make that call and solve that problem pretty readily. However, there are lots of folks in the community who are bumping into somebody who needs a root solution problem, but the service that's being provided is not a root solution solver.

So the root solution is still missing. But there is a navigator person. I mean, I'm just saying it's probably the rescue person is not going to know which of the 30 agencies or easily be able to contact them. They're definitely going to find the right person. So you're connecting them to make that happen, your office.

Or they're doing it, yeah. Okay.

Well, that's important because that really helps to get – I mean, the volunteers for years have – dealt with the lonely single seniors who just really need somebody to talk to. And they know who they're going to visit and so have done a wonderful job. But there need to be other solutions that can come along. Remind me, please, where the budget is for the Second Hearts team to do after hours or the different shift?

The budget exists, and so we've expanded social services staff, peer staff, and fire rescue staff. But because of our personnel struggles with the ACPD, we have not been able to add a second police officer to that team yet. So we have expanded coverage pretty considerably, but not 100% second team.

But we're getting there.

We're getting very, very close.

Wonderful. I think that the board was really impressed with just that first six months number of 700 contacts. It was amazing. Thank you. So one thing that has not perhaps been mentioned, but I'll bring it up in regards to the workforce because it is something I've been working on for 20 years. Many, many years ago, Ken Boyd, who I didn't agree with about much, but he said in his opinion the very best thing to help someone with the cost of housing was a better job. And anything we can do to help people get more skills, and especially in today's economy where everything is shifting in the whole world, there are lots of people who are left behind in their skill set. So there's statement number one. Statement number two, it came to my attention that there's some consideration of closing the Workforce Center and social services. And this would be a tragic consequence. So I'm just jumping in right now to say what's the truth because the person who said, you know, Crystal and Adeline are wonderful and they're helping people and they're thinking of new things and innovating because there's so many different things. But the other thing is that the people in... Sam and Miller and Scottsdale District can go there and may not even make it to Glenwood Station, which is for the northern half of the county. So help me out, please.

I have heard no such thing. Okay. And I cannot imagine that being a real policy consideration. So I'll check with Mary Sebbins, the Director of Social Services, to make sure I'm not missing something. But I have not heard that, and I imagine I would well before implementation. I think that our community members, our usage of that center continues to go up.

And it's certified in everything by the state, so it's incredibly important to keep. So I'm just putting in my two cents that please be aware and try to help them do, especially those two ladies to do especially, continue on with the wonderful work that they are doing. all the different discussions of barriers to workforce that you've touched on that Ridge always talks about, the transportation, the job, the training. They can't get to training if they can't have a place or grandma to take care of their baby or child or whatever. So there's so many different threads that all come together and tie people in knots all the time. But anyway, I appreciate trying to understand this giant challenge a little better. Thank you.

All right, Kaki, I agree with your prioritization, so I'll put that out front. But help me with a couple of things. There were two documents loaded into the board packet, and if you could go to the slide that had the ALICE data. I don't remember which number that is. By district, I think it was. Oh, there we go. All right. So in the staff summary, the executive summary, not the report, it had Rio District of 3290 households of concern. In reading the other document, I arrived at that number using 2517 as the ALICE data. And then as you're going through the presentation for Rio, it says 2464. So which number's right?

This number on this slide is the most current. So to your point, if you go to the ALICE website, you'll see 2025 report by county that reflects 2024 data.

So the report in the packet is just a different point in time?

It was from 2023 report, which might have actually been relying on data prior to 2023. Again, the caveats of the American Community Survey being the foundational document, and then United Way's work on top of it, and then its reporting timeline. And so, which is why I would not want us to rely on any one of these reports on their own, which is why I think in their totality they paint a picture But this report, so this did come out between the staff report and the presentation. This report by Alice is 2024 data that was identified as the 2025 county report. I try so hard not to do things like that. 2023, 2025, 2024. But this is the most current data we've got.

Okay, so I'm seeing now in there where it says 2023. I missed that that was the case for this. All right. There was this point you made about access and connection relative to a service for mental health services. And I think it was based on perhaps state, okay. Concerns expressed by stakeholders and internal provider. No, that's not it.

No.

There was somewhere where it said connect and access, and it seemed to be around social connection.

Was this the?

Oh, go back one.

That one?

Residents want local community-based services and safe places to connect and feel heard. The safe places to connect and feel heard. Is this specifically a service being delivered or they would like community spaces where they can be with other residents to the Surgeon General's report from a handful of years ago about people feeling isolated and not being able to connect? So is this all of the above or is this specific to that?

This is all of the above. So this is about social cohesion. I feel connected to my community. And because I feel connected to my community in this place, I am willing to get served for health care and other services in that same place. And so there was a placemaking sort of theme that emerged in the community health assessment around connection and neighborhood. So, which is sort of why my recommendation is not just that people get community-based mental health care in a traditional clinical setting, but in all of these other kinds of ways, because we're hearing from community members they want to get their services in a place where they feel that they are safe and connected and heard. It wouldn't surprise you to hear that this is feedback that we get all the time about Yancey Community Center, which is why Yancey can be an effective tool to connecting somebody to a service because they trust that place. They know the people who are in there. They know that they're willing to say, this is what I need, and I'll come here to get that need met, as an example.

Thank you. I don't even know what that note says. Oh, pathway. Now I don't know what it was written down for. Check. All right, the next question I have is on, and part of this is going to tie into the next conversation we have on the agenda today. I know in the budget document, for each agency that we fund, there's kind of in the appendix a statement of what they do. And it's some basic kind of informational statistics, count, et cetera. And I'm happy to support prioritization, but where it seems to me that some question came up during the budget time about the fidelity of an organization's ability to deliver their service and are we funding those who aren't just meeting the high priority but if we have four agencies that are hitting the high priority are we giving more deference to those doing a better job meeting the high priority needs than others that might not be doing as well because with limited dollars highest and best use is always going and i'm not saying that that cuts out funding for other places But if I've got four agencies delivering similar functions and one with more support could maybe grow their operation, that may be a higher need or a higher interest to me, maybe, than providing one to somebody that's not maybe being as effective in the delivery of the service. Are we getting at that in our data collection for these agencies?

Yes, in that we ask a variety of threshold information questions as part of our application, including data points about their effectiveness. If we have funded somebody over multiple years, last year they told us they'd 80% of the people that they serve would achieve blank, and in the subsequent application, they have to report out on that, and that is a scored question, and people lose points all the time if they don't meet the thresholds that they had previously or goals that they had previously identified. We also ask a number of questions to make sure that we're making good stewardship decisions. These are going concerns that are compliant with all of the requirements, those kinds of things. We don't have the kind of capacity internally to understand or evaluate every nonprofit top to bottom to evaluate whether the county thinks that it's the best in class for that service delivery versus somebody else. And so yes, we do ask good questions. They're consistent with what other municipalities ask and other grant makers ask to get to that outcome. But we do not send a professional nonprofit development person into each nonprofit to assess all of their inter-operational details. Somewhere in between, we're asking good questions, and we live in a small enough community that we also share clients. We understand how people are experiencing many of the community services that we fund, and our reviewers have practical experience, and we're also not in a position where we can evaluate full compliance on everyone that we fund. So both things are true.

All right. I think any follow-up comments or questions could happen on the next agenda item. Thank you for that. Thank you. That's helpful for that next conversation. I would agree with Supervisor Pruitt on his comment about the encampment while getting immediate focus and need, especially in the media, and the short-term solution is our neighboring jurisdiction is going to be dealing with that. But I certainly agree that the middle and long-term solutions are contingent on us. And I'll tell you why. Because if you drive around the Rio district, the development area, as frequently as I do, and I'm sure others in their district that have urban ring, you start to see the patterns and behaviors of those who aren't living at the encampment but are still homeless in the county. And while the encampment has collected its own certain society, if you would, there are those that don't want to partake. So there are certainly people living in out-of-the-way spots in the urban ring and camping. And since it's not 40 or 50 or 75 folks and it's not in a floodplain and they're out of sight, out of mind, they're not calling attention to themselves, but that doesn't mean that we can't have some – we have to play a role in the solution of helping them find a place to be at. And the solution for those folks is going to be the same as the solution for the folks that are in the encampment because they're all unhoused. And they're all trying to find a place that's safe for the evening. Now, it's also interesting because we're humans and we develop routines. And it doesn't really matter if you're housed or unhoused. You still develop a routine. And it's how I can tell which folks have been years unhoused residents, for lack of a better word, in the Rio District, versus those I know who are coming through. Again, because they're out of the routine. They're out of the norm. I only see them for 10 days, and I never see them again. Whereas I've seen some individuals, like I said, for eight years. So it's something that shows me, because I know that in the rural areas or our rural counties that are our neighbors, that that is the way homelessness is handled. Well, it's not necessarily seen, but it's how it's playing out and why it's not just contingent on Charlottesville and Albemarle to figure out the solution midterm and long term. It's going to be every county's issue to help figure out because it exists in every county. It's just a matter of how visible is it and perhaps what the count is that you can visibly see or how it impacts you perhaps if you're going out and about. So I just wanted to take a moment to endorse that thought and know that that's for another day conversation, perhaps budget time, but certainly agree with that sentiment. All right, Board, I've not done a good job of holding us on time, so we're already almost 20 minutes past due. So I'd like to go ahead and move us to a quick recess, and then we can go to our next item, which is the funding request. Yes. No, we're gonna move on to the next item, and you can, I think that in the next budget item with the funding process modification, but we're almost 20 minutes past, so any other questions or comments you have, please direct to Ms. Demick. I'd like to keep us not so far behind today, and you can get those questions voiced in the next budget section. So we'll go ahead and take the recess, and we'll move to the agenda item when we come back. Thank you. We're all set. All right. Thank you all. We're back from our recess. And we will now move to item number 11, fiscal year 28 budget process, county funding process modifications. Mr. Bowman, good afternoon.

Good afternoon to the board and thank you to the chair for the introduction. I'm Andy Bowman, assistant chief financial officer. And it's very appropriate this topic follows the prior item that Ms. Dimmick led as we talk first about the human services priorities and now potential modifications to the fiscal year 28 budget process. I have a few slides of background. I'm going to walk through these to summarize the executive summary and really have three distinct points where the board will have some input really to direct staff in the coming months. As a refresher, we have three funding programs that nonprofits in the community are able to apply for and potentially receive funding in the budget process. They are the human services funding process. Currently in fiscal year 27, there were 26 nonprofits who received funding, totaling $1.8 million. We have a process that is smaller and specific to arts and cultural festivals, as the criteria for them is very different than a human services needs approach. There were 13 nonprofits who received just under $90,000 of funding last year. And then finally, third, we have the nonprofit community capital request. This is the newest process the board has had. There were six agencies totaling just under $12 million. But that number is really skewed largely because we've included in that an outside agency, the Jefferson Maginot Regional Library, for the central library renovation. Actually, in today's presentation, I'm not going to discuss anything further around the heat nonprofit process for capital. because there are no changes to that process specific to it this year that are recommended. So a few other slides on background. This slide is a callback to something that I shared with the board in the spring during the budget process, where the evaluation of our nonprofit processes is a continual effort. We're here in the middle of the top of the slide in the summer where we have wrapped up a budget process. We have received some feedback. We have gotten together, put some options together for the board to consider some potential modifications for next year. After today, staff will take direction from the board. We will then implement that, working with partners and our community partners, and we'll come back in a recommended budget and give something to the board to respond to and continue to shape as we are able to do our best to implement the direction the board had. In the spring, as the board is reviewing the budget, also nonprofits and the public have an ability to weigh in on that. All of that culminates in April with the adoption of the budget, and then we do it all again the next year. So this has been a regular process as we go through this, trying to continue to refine it and get the feedback as this has evolved every year. One more slide of background of just how did we come about these options for the Board's consideration today. The first is really rooted and responded to a lot of feedback we have received from the Board of Supervisors, applicants to the process, and the staff involved in the process. During the budget process and the debrief that the board had publicly and also with staff individually, the board members expressed, and this is stated in public, different opinions about how they would like to see the process work, how they may have their funding decisions. And so today is really an opportunity to continue that discussion and see what feedback may the board as a whole have that can shape how we implement this in the upcoming budget process. We also spend time annually with applicants to get their feedback on everything from the staff orientation and technical assistance we provide, the application, the website portal, and all of that. That's feedback that we've gotten every year as well. Second thing I want to highlight is that our staff has done research in other Virginia localities to really learn what are the other practices out there that others have entertained. We look at other localities not to drive what we do in Albemarle, but to inform what are some different ideas out there that we may be able to apply here that may be working elsewhere. Because we know our experience. We see our partners, you know, our adjacent localities next to us. But this was a statewide, just to kind of inform what else might work. Really, when it gets down to the background, these potential modifications are really grounded in a few key intents, the first of which, as was discussed in the prior item, aligning funding to the highest and best use, particularly in human services. Ms. Dimmick shared the slide of the five bullet points, and that would really begin to drive the human services funding recommendations in the coming year. We're really enhancing transparency around the process. We receive some questions from both applicants and the board about how funding decisions get made, and we have some changes that may address that, or at least give an option for the board to consider. Then really right-sizing budget evaluation and reprioritizing staff time. The goal of this is not to make staff's job easier, but that question in that we have a fixed number of hours to develop the budget. If we have some smaller requests, how might we streamline that so staff can assist the board with some of the larger policy questions? So with that, I should also mention that if we do this right, hopefully this process will feel a little simpler every year. Today's discussion, though our intent is to make it simpler, today may not feel simple because there are potentially nine items for the board to provide feedback on. And so I acknowledge that as I'll do my best job to keep it as simple as we can, but this is a lot the board could consider in this topic. Really to assist the board, we've organized this in really three different sections. I want to clarify really all of these options are really options rather than strong recommendations because staff is ready to be moved forward in either direction the board would like to or if there's a third one that is not identified on each of these. So what I'll do is I'll speak to a slide on eligibility criteria and I'll pause for board direction really to endorse that change or any questions or feedback. After that, I'll do a few slides on the changes specific to the human services funding process, those four items shown there. I'll pause and then get board direction on those changes. And then based on that direction, we'll then continue into the arts and cultural process. So with that, just by this structure, I'm going to go into what is the eligibility criteria for all programs. There is only one change this year to the eligibility criteria. They are fully in attachment A in the board's report. But this is an update that I would characterize as consistent with an update that the board has done in the past. So currently, as part of applying and receiving funding, agencies must submit a financial audit to the county. That can be done either once or every three years based on the size of the agency's budget. So currently we have a threshold of $750,000 and that's based on a benchmark of the Federal Office of Inspector General. So right now if you're over $750,000 you need to submit an audit to the county annually. If you're below that you can do that once every three years. That federal benchmark has been increased to $1 million, and so staff would recommend continuing to mirror that. Staff does not view this as a relaxation of the requirement. Rather, it's just as the cost of everything goes up, this is really just a re-benchmarking that the board has supported in the past. So this is perhaps the briefest of the three sections, but I'd like to pause here in case the board has any other comments or questions about eligibility criteria.

Supervisor Pruitt? I have nothing. Supervisor Missel?

Not on this issue, no. Thank you.

Supervisor LaFista-Kirtland?

I like your recommendation.

Supervisor Malik?

I think it's all right also, but this is a one-year snapshot. So we're getting basically one out of every three years for these agencies up to a million dollars.

That would be correct, yes.

You're comfortable with that?

We are, yes.

Okay.

I would say because that is also the current state now, and this is one of many of the areas we look at to what Ms. Dimmick spoke to before. This is not the end-all, be-all, just in the same way someone's metrics and outcomes may not be. This is one piece of the puzzle that we get from agencies.

It just seems like there's a whole lot of unknowns with those other two years that we don't have any idea what's going on. So that's my concern. Thank you.

How often are they doing their own, like we're requiring this audit?

Yes.

But how often are they doing their own audit? And it may vary by organization.

It would vary. There are some, I would expect, who are maybe doing that every other year, annually, or every three. It's just a threshold in there. But I know it's one. This is just as the cost of an audit is something we provide. The county standard is a financial audit, which is a higher standard than some other funders could have. So that's part of it as well. You know, I would encourage folks as a financial professional, having an audit for your organization is a good thing. But I do recognize there are tradeoffs, particularly for some of the small agencies, as we look at providing services and balancing administrative funding.

Great. I'm good with the recommendation.

So this is one. I did not put a motion on these slides because there are a lot of options the board could go in. But for clarity, because this is an action item, I would suggest if the board for this item could perhaps make a motion to recommend the approval of Attachment A, that will give clear direction to staff in moving forward, if Mr. Herrick is okay with that approach.

So moved. Second.

Any additional discussion? All right. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway? Yes. Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye. Got to do more than lean in, Supervisor Pruitt. You've got to speak up. Okay.

I just thought we were going to do the whole long version of it, not just the... I agree.

All right. This one perhaps will be as straightforward, and that's okay. Okay. We have four changes in the human services funding process that staff has considered. Again, those principles of what have we learned from researching other localities, what's the feedback we've received from the board, applicants or staff insights, you know, thinking of highest and best use, the transparency and certainty in the process. How does all that come together? So four changes, and I'll speak to the first one just on this slide. Item A is that every year staff does an annual review of agencies who are in all of our processes. And if you look over time, there may be agencies who have moved from the human services funding process to another process where they submit directly to the Office of Management and Budget. or perhaps others have moved the other way. And so what we would recommend in our review this year is there are four programs who we would actually take out of the human services funding process and have them submit directly to OMB. So typically those requests to OMB are for those agencies, you know, many of them are like the Health Department, Region 10, JAVA, some OAR programs are there. There's another program that is run jointly with the City of Charlottesville. Those are the items where there's some sort of other governmental relationship or some sort of agreement are there where there's a little bit more than the more, I'll say, elective grant programs provided to nonprofits. And so based on SAS review this year, there are four programs where they would submit their request to OMB and go through that process. They still would submit a lot of the same financial information. It's just different than the human services funding process. Next, and I'll move through all four of these together before turning it over to the board. The next item is a change really based on a lot of feedback around a potential change to the program timing. So in this option, the change is option one, where the human services funding process would begin immediately following the appropriation of the fiscal year 20 budget. So currently the Board of Supervisors, when they adopt the budget, is making decisions on, for this process, 20 plus decisions on individual agencies. This would be an approach where the board instead approved a lump sum of, you know, currently if that funding is about $1.8 million, maybe it's $1.8, maybe it's $1.9. They would make that decision in the total cost tax of the budget, and then immediately as soon as it's done, staff would begin the process. And I'll walk through a timeline of what that would look like. Really, one of the intents of this is to help simplify the budget process for the board. In February through April, it's about two months where the board takes the county executive's recommendation and then approves and appropriates that. There's tax rates, there's policy decisions, there's additional work sessions, there's additional public engagement in town halls. It's a very busy time with the board. And so this is one where we think of this, you know, one of the feedback we had from the board is how much you all value in work sessions. You're all discussion with each other. And how much can we spend that time on the larger policy issues? Because usually agency discussions typically don't involve tax rate changes. So how can we support the board by taking some of that discussion? It continues, but it happens more in the summer following the budget than the budget process itself. We did this. We did some self-reflection, and we can pick up our 350-page budget document, and we can see that 15% of that is devoted to less than half percent of the budget in this program. It's good work, but could we do that work after the budget process and get a similar result by helping just, again, streamline some of the decisions that take place in the spring, and then the board would continue to have the final say in agency recommendations in that summer. I'll say the other thing that we would consider is we've seen other localities who are implementing such a process, and the Board of Supervisors has already moved in this direction a little bit with the approach for the Albemarle Housing Investment Fund, where in the most recent budget, the Board of Supervisors was comfortable appropriating a lump sum of $7 million, then launching an application process, knowing those will come back to the Board for decisions this summer. And that is the second year that has taken place. The third thing, just to acknowledge, is there is a timing impact to the nonprofits. It's one where I'll share right now, if you are a nonprofit, you are applying in October, and you are getting certainty of receiving your funding in July. That's a nine-month process. If we took this approach, they would apply really in June, and they could begin receiving that funding in September. So that greatly condenses the timeline for them. Now, some nonprofits, they would receive their funding instead of July, instead of September. That is a two-month delay. Most of the county funding, though, is for agencies of 10% less. And so, to me, that's just a tradeoff. And to me, that doesn't really seem as a – staff would say if the board wanted to go in that direction, that's not a reason not to do it. It's just something to be aware of in the tradeoff of the shorter review time versus the two months. So the option two is really keeping things the same. And if anyone's a visual person, I'll share this next slide that really walks through option one is what is different. Where in April, the board would approve a total amount of funding, $1.8 million or whatever amount the board desires in the context of the budget. In May, staff develops the application materials. We accept applications in June. Staff makes recommendations to the board in July that come back to the board in August, and then funding is distributed in the month following. You can contrast that to option two, which is no change, which is the board currently will give direction to staff in July. Then staff will build the application in August, receive those in October, and so on, concluding with the budget process, which the board experienced this year. So two other items in human services, but again, this is really just trying to spend more time on this one because it is one of the more notable changes, and really going through the rationale of why staff thought this could be an option that could be of interest to the board. The other item I want to spend some time on because it's one of the more complex changes is the introduction of a funding matrix. And so this is really, just like the other ones, two options of a change or the board can continue the current process of where we are. So really the intent of this is to, at the start of the process, really increase the clarity and the predictability for nonprofits and their application. Right now we receive questions from nonprofits or the board when the rec and budget is released. Well, how did you arrive at those numbers? This really takes a lot of that work and publishes it at the very start of the process. And so by giving some guidance on the front end of what agencies may be eligible to receive with some maximums and how they would be prioritized, that may help them prepare better applications and also more realistic budgets as they do all their other operational programming. So there are really two factors that are considered in the funding matrix. The first one is really not changed. It's the priority tier. And so the Board has seen in the past three tiers that really seek to prioritize supporting direct services to the most vulnerable residents. That would continue, but it would be updated with the Human Services Needs Assessment that Ms. Demick shared prior to this item. The second, which is new this year, is really taking an approach to look at the county funding as a percentage of the overall agency budget. The basic idea here is the county is not intending to be a large percentage of an agency's operation. If we are a large percent of the agency's operation, we've probably moved into something different, where it's like a county department or a regional partnership. The idea is the county wants to leverage funding and be the last dollar in some of these partnerships. And so this matrix can also help inform agencies what this may look like. So that's the concept. I'm going to share the next slide I have, which is from the board packet, and it's the busiest one I'll share today, so to talk through this. First, orient the board to how this funding matrix would work. This is just a sample. If the board were to approve the timeline, we could, based on the total amount of funding and the budget, we could revise this a little bit. But starting all the way in the column on the left, we have the priority tier. And so we have Tier 1 at the top for, again, the direct service and vulnerable populations. Tier 2 is what we have classified as important and critical services. And then third is more the positive impact and the protective community factors. All of those programs provide value, but it does prioritize and kind of have a hierarchy of needs that is reflected from the human services needs assessment. As we move from the left to the right, that's the additional dimension we've added this year where there is, based on your total agency budget, what's been used here is under half a million, over two million or in between. Your funding can change based on that. So really, if you look in this chart, the higher you are in the upper right, the more funding you could potentially receive. Those funding are caps. And you can begin to see that there is no percentage cap for Tier 1 because those Tier 1 for the Human Services Needs Assessment may need more funding, and they're so critical to really move the needle in some of the board's strategic plans. strategic goals. The other items where there is a cap, it really speaks to, again, helping manage expectations with applications up front and ensuring that the county doesn't fund an overly large portion of any agency. So that's just how the chart works, but I would like to explain this now of how would staff use this to make recommendations, and then if you're a nonprofit, how would you use this as you prepare your application? So as staff, if we had this, we got all of the data that Ms. Dimmick spoke to earlier. We would then take this and begin to formulate a recommendation for the board. We would start in Tier 1 because those are the highest priority programs. We know they get larger investment because, again, those are the ones that will move the needle the most for the board strategic plan. But we also know those are not the only items the board would want to support. And so we are proposing and saying that 65% at maximum of the human services funding would be for Tier 1. That would allow some funding to continue to support the other important programs in Tiers 2 and 3. So after working through Tier 1, staff would then move to Tier 2. and looking at the programs that would make the most impact there and beginning to place those funding recommendations right-sized based on where they fall in that matrix. And that will continue into the third tier as funding is available. We did an analysis with the sample based on the fiscal year 27 budget. How would this have impacted agencies who are funded right now? So if you're a current agency, everyone in Tier 1 would continue to receive their funding as the Board recommended. I think there were 19 of 21 programs we looked at that would continue to be funded with no impact if this was in effect last year, and those are lower-tier operations on the edges of those caps. So again, these are funding caps. Staff would not recommend more than an agency has requested. This would be shaped as part of the overall budget and the request we receive. That's really how staff would begin to develop this. Now, if you're a nonprofit director and you're looking to prepare your request, hypothetically there's an agency who has a $1 million program. Let's say they know, based on their application and where they fall in, based on the past, they know they are Tier 2, where they provide an important critical service, but they're not hitting something as strong in the human services needs assessment. So if they have $1 million in their Tier 2, they can look at that middle of the box and say, okay, the maximum amount of funding I can get from the county is either $40,000 or 5% of my budget, whichever is less. 5% of $1 million is $50,000, so we're taking whichever is less. So they know they could receive potentially up to $40,000. That's not a guarantee, but that gives them some certainty and some potential clarity in their process heading into their own budget planning next year that currently they don't receive until later in the process. Final thing before I turn it back to the board is a much simpler change. We're really trying to look at a streamlined application process for those smaller nonprofits who are providing services at $25,000 or less. The basic idea is we want to scale the application requirements to the size of the ask. This goes to the principle of staff will do our review, but anything we can do to simplify staff requests on the smaller work allows staff to redirect that time into the larger policy issues and funding requests that we have. Perhaps it would entertain new applications from agencies who have not applied before because it is a process with compliance and details. That will be something agencies will need to decide on themselves. But this is one that if the board is not comfortable with that change, we can continue to keep the status quo of the same requirements for all. So to assist the board in this next discussion, this has been the densest part of today's presentation, I've got these four options out there. Really, again, reviewing the nonprofits for each process. The board could choose to endorse staff's recommendation or not. The shift in the program timing to move that following the adoption of the budget or to keep that as is. to implement in a funding matrix or to continue last year's process in the simplified application. However any changes play out, we'll come back after the process and continue to improve those each year. We've learned from every process when we implement a change that there's usually something we learn along the way that we can continue to modify. Again, these are really grounded in those principles of really trying to hear the board's feedback, applicant feedback, trying to really support the highest and best use of funding and give that transparency in terms of both of the board and nonprofits about how funding recommendations are made. So with that, I'll be happy to answer any questions and really go back to the board. At the end of this discussion, we'd hope for the board to approve Attachment B based on the options that the board as a whole would like to entertain.

All right. Thank you, Eddie. What's the board's pleasure? Would you like to go through these one item at a time? Yep. So Andy, if you could maybe go to the slide for each item. Sure. And then I think this is the cleaner way to handle it. So item one, or item two, and then go to the next.

Yeah, so item one is just noted on the slide.

The annual. Yes. These are all of item one. Yep. Of the four things in this, this is the first?

Yes, the first one where four programs, staff is reviewed and would recommend removing them from the human services funding process to submit their request directly to OMB.

So Supervisor Pruitt? Right. So this is the one that's specifically concerning. I think I actually mentioned this during the budget process, right? Like we have several things that we have a contractual relationship with, that we don't discuss, and they're normally very big expenses. And it felt like some of the ones that we got really wrapped around the axle with this budget year, I was like, well, these feel like very big services. And the answer was some of them had components that we had that contractual relationship with, but not others. Is the goal with this that these are all going to be ones that we transition into a model similar to what we have with Java, or are they going to continue to function the way that they currently do, just in this separate process?

The former, and I think it's one where we've done this in the past as we've moved agencies. We'd say, hey, we've looked at your evaluation, looked at what you provide. It's really appropriate that you submit directly to OMB. So you're going to get an application and instructions that are a little different. And so you'll go through a review process, really manage through our team, partnering with others, rather than the human services funding process.

Great. I like this idea. I think it makes sense for these particular organizations. I have a quick clarifying question about one of them. I think I know what's going on, but I want to make sure. When we're looking at PHA, right, PHA gets money from the county for a few different things. I'm assuming this is for the housing navigator, but I'm not sure. I'm seeing a nod from Ms. Dimmick. So this is for the recurring kind of contractual service that they have. Great. I wanted to make sure this wasn't some kind of jump the line on other funding sources where they might be competing with peer organizations. Thank you. In that case, I'm in favor of this one.

Supervisor Missel?

Yeah, so a few questions. One is thanks, Supervisor Pruitt, for that last question. That was really helpful. And just to clarify, if an agency or organization chooses to have a contractual relationship with the county, that doesn't provide them any additional advantage beyond just that contractual relationship. If they have a direct relationship with OMB as opposed to going through the other process.

Yeah, I think it's more about the nature of the service they provide, the relation they may have to other governments, state or local, rather than just whether do they have a contract with the county or not. Okay.

Okay. Got it. Okay. On the program timing piece. So we're on just the first one. Oh, sorry, just the number one.

So are you good with that one? Yes, I'm good with that. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you. Supervisor LaPista-Kernan.

I'm good with A. Thank you.

Supervisor Malik.

Yes, but amplifying, adding on to what Supervisor Pruitt said, there still is going to be a discussion with the board about

Yes, we will have recommendations for those four agencies. We will need to do our review and justify to the board why we came up with that, and the board will have the full right, as they always do, to make those changes if they would like to from staff's recommendation.

And as part of the OMB evaluation, because I'm not familiar with that at all, Is there research into agency performance, into client satisfaction, into Google reviews or anything else that is out there that we need to know about?

I would say the process, we still will partner closely, I'll say in these examples, because we have a lot of intel, as Ms. Demick spoke to, of the human services agencies. Who are their customers? What are the experiences they are seeing from others? And so really understanding their outcomes, it's one where we try and bring the expertise of financial analysis and the expertise of human services, kind of priorities and programming. How do those pair together when you're looking at an agency?

But you're looking strictly at what they're applying for, which in the navigator section only, not how they're treating their clients across the county and how they're fulfilling their other obligations that are funded by the county.

Yeah, if there are customer service or other concerns outside of the programs, that may not necessarily be picked up by staff.

Because that is a concern for me and has, Kaki's well aware for five years that we've had this ongoing. Okay, having answered, gotten that question discussed a little bit, I'm okay with the first one.

All right, I'm satisfied with that as well. So now we're going to the adjusting program timing item. So item B on this slide, Supervisor Pruitt.

Yes, I very much understand what this is trying to solve for, especially in the context of the immediately preceding budget year. I have a lot of reticence over this recommendation, though. I've previously said there's a very different thing between voting and trying to get public support for a number versus voting and trying to get public support for a project. This is very relevant when we're talking about AHIF, right? very clearly about the goals I have for that, but that's just an abstract number that doesn't mean anything every year. So it feels hard to get the community aligned behind that. That's in the trying to get funding thing. So now my concern with this change, projecting into future years, projecting into when we're all dead in the dust, but somehow this policy is still intact. My concern might be our total human services funding becomes a number. And when there are ill winds in our economic future, it becomes much easier to reduce that number because we are not looking at the Boys and Girls Club. We are not looking at Habitat for Humanity. and it abstracts that number in a way that makes it easier to reduce funding and put less generously. It would become an easy place to plunder to get a quick fix to a budget gap if we do not already have the agencies in front of us. Because what this is doing is it's making it just a lump sum that we vote on for the budget, and then we later figure out who gets the money. or at least that's my understanding of it, right? We do it after the budget process. We assign it to specific agencies after the budget process. I think I would, I am opposed to this change because I see it as making it easier for us to reduce that number in years where we have tighter budgets because we aren't confronting the consequences as directly, and it changes the political calculus for us in a way that I think is just, I think we need to own what we're doing.

All right.

Supervisor Missel? I'm going to riff off of that a little bit because that is a concern. I had a different question, but let's stick on that topic for just a second. So this is a question for staff. Is the establishment of the lump sum, what goes into establishing that lump sum, and how carefully is it tied to the needs of the agencies, partner organizations?

So I'm going to speculate on something we haven't done before. So I would imagine that as we prepare that number, we're going to look across the board's strategic plan, and we know that we need to be making meaningful progress on the budget and those six objectives. And so one of the conversations we would have with our staff, our leadership, Ms. Demick, is that when we look at particularly the objectives around human services, what's the most effective way that we can advance to that in the coming year? Perhaps it's advancing our partners. Perhaps there are some foundational needs in the departments. Perhaps it's a hearts team. Perhaps it's another program. These are all just speculating options. And so I think from that, we would say, really, Board, with your strategic plan, this is where we think we need to kind of prioritize the funding for the coming year. just pick one of those four topics. And also that explains, because we did that, we did not pick some other things. And that same exercise is true whether there's public safety investments, education investments, park investments. So I think that's one where we could take a shot and kind of say, well, we know historically how this funding has grown. We know what some of our cost drivers in the county are. We know how our human services needs are changing. And so I think it would be really putting that together to give really an estimate for what the board has, you know, to give them something to respond to. And I think it would be staff's responsibility to explain how we arrived at that number, and then the board could adjust that as we saw fit.

So the board could adjust that as we solve it, but we can't adjust that number, right? That number's fixed once we go in, because we approve it as part of the budget.

It could be. And so what could happen, thinking about this, is perhaps the board approves $2 million flat. We go through the process. We receive, you know, $3 million in requests, and perhaps we recommend $2 million, and there's some topics on the board that if you really wanted to go a little further on that. If the board is included in their budget or a certificate of agency or something else, there is a potential adjustment we could make still in that summer, because again, Just using this last process, I think the agency changes were under $150,000 that we made based on the board's direction. And so those are things that can be accommodated mid-year because they typically don't involve some of the major programmatic changes and others. Now, if the board were looking to say, let's fully fund that $3 million request, that would be a very different conversation. But I think it depends if the board's approach is really looking to do a wholesale revisiting of that or really just kind of make some modifications around the edges. That would really be kind of a question for the board's comfort in that. But there would be the potential for some modification beyond that $2 million.

So sorry for all these questions. So getting into the process of the budget process that happens in the spring, during that time you all would come to us with a number and you would explain how that number was arrived.

Yes.

And we would have the opportunity, but we wouldn't see what each of the partner organizations was provided, right? Because that gets determined in the summer now.

That's correct. In the first year would be the biggest transition time because at that point we haven't made the awards through the new process yet.

That gets to my other question.

Yeah, so we can certainly give the historical funding about what has been funded historically. where we see the needs changing in our community, which Ms. Dimmick has already overviewed today, really looking at the priorities in human services. And so there would be something to weigh, and I am sure that there is more need because we have that already. There is a greater need than we have that we are currently funding. Ms. Dimmick spoke to that as well. And I think that is the challenge for both staff recommending and, more importantly, the board about how do we balance that versus all the other strategic objectives that the board is looking to advance.

Okay, so this is making sense. So we've got a pot of money. It's got a little bit of fluff around the edges moving it out of the budget season. We have an understanding of how that pot of money has been developed. Then later we determine the allocation of that pot of money.

Yes.

And we can change things around within that allocation.

Yes, certainly. Yeah, the staff will bring a recommendation, but the board is the one who has the final say in what is appropriated to agencies.

So in a nutshell, sorry, taking me a while to get my head around this. It's a pros and cons. It's like, well, not cost benefit, but it's like looking at the benefits and costs, I guess. So one way to think about it is the reason you are suggesting this is primarily because of the amount of workload that we have in the spring. And this pushes some of that workload to the summer, and it actually just simplifies that one category and just has a number.

I hope in the long term it will feel simpler, but I would understand if either today or the first year it will feel different.

Okay. Is that the real, that's the primary reason we would be doing this? So that's what we're gaining.

Yes, I would say that is the biggest benefit we would see that. And if the board does not see that as a benefit, we can continue with the current process.

And what we're losing is the ability to establish that number based on a more bottom-up approach. as opposed to a here's what you've got to spend down, looking at the underlying pieces.

Yeah, it probably feels a little more, I don't know if cloudy is the right word. I think Supervisor Pruitt stated it becomes a little less hard and fast when the particular agencies are not right in front of you in the moment.

And my last question, does this impact in any way the funding If we were to choose to move forward with this, does it impact the funding flow to the organizations? Is there a gap because of this change in timing?

In terms of their cash flow?

Yeah.

I would say potentially. Most agencies who receive funding, our county funding is typically less than 10% of the overall operation.

Okay.

So their first quarter payment, they would get two months later for that. And so there's a potential impact, but hopefully everyone is carrying reserves. They're planning their finances around that. County funding for these grants is also not guaranteed, and so that's something the agencies have to wrestle with. And if I may add, there's a tradeoff, as you said, where They would have that delay, but they would also have a much shorter time frame from when they request funding to when they receive that notification of it. And different agencies may feel differently. I would expect with the dozens we have, there's not one unified answer on what everyone's preference would be.

Have you asked the agencies what their preference would be in terms of this timing issue?

We have not. And I'll say part of that is because really staff, this is primarily first the board's process. Certainly trying to create some certainty with the matrix is one way we responded to that. But it's really I would prioritize what the board is comfortable because ultimately they are the ones who are funding these agencies and would ultimately represent the taxpayer funding that goes into those.

Okay. I'm not ready to say whether I'm supportive or not. I'd rather hear other discussion. Supervisor Lepisto-Cartland.

Thank you very much. I have a couple questions. When you set aside the monies for this, are you also considering board consideration of We want to be able to give more money. These are priority things for us, and we want to be able to give more money. For example, are you saying, well, we're just going to recommend 1.5, knowing that the board may want to do more? Or are you also taking that into consideration when you set the level of how much money related to the budget that you would propose?

Yeah, I think that could be good feedback as we work through the fall and long-range financial planning and the board is discussing their priorities about what are some things they are looking to see more or less of in the budget. So whether that be nonprofits or other investments, the board would have an opportunity to kind of direct staff at some things that perhaps are looking to be different in the budget, the existing budget.

Okay.

Because, I mean, I personally, I like this timing because I think it keeps us from... what happened last year where we came up with things, but we were also, okay, I want this, I want that, and a few more squabbles. And I think that would eliminate that, knowing we have a set amount and can't go over that amount, although I do like the fact that we would have some flexibility. That, I feel, is very important to have some flexibility. And I do want to ask one thing. We could also, if we went through this process for a year, we could also change it after one or two years, seeing how it works and if we're getting a lot of negative feedback or positive feedback.

Yes, certainly. Most summers, I think only once I can remember, it was last year, we had this on the consent agenda. But yeah, every year we'll come back in the summer and get board feedback and continue to modify this. And I would say that's partly shaped by past boards and this board's feedback.

Okay. Thank you. That's all.

Are you prepared to say yes or no to the change?

I'm prepared to say yes.

Supervisor Malik?

Thank you. More uncertainty. Here we come. So... Let me go back to the beginning here. So I am having real difficulty, as I said in my email to you, about this predetermined lump sum for all the reasons that others have already mentioned. Number one, it's abstract. Number two, when needs come up, we have nowhere to go. I'm not put off by the discussion conflict at board meetings deciding which of the agencies need to get their full requests versus others. That's part of what our job is, I think. So I just, not knowing how it would really impact The agencies we have been funding for a while, it's really hard to know whether this is going to be a catastrophe or something useful. The postponing of the receipt of the money is probably not, is the least of my problems because I was gratified to see that we have a benchmark of 10%. because I think that hasn't really been the case before. We've done a lot of, you know, a particular agency that went from $700 to $130 in two years, $130,000. You know, that's just way off the platform as far as that sort of accountability. So some kind of standardization. I'm not sure it's in this section or some other section you talk about overhead percentage at 25%. I think that's way too high. So that's not a five-star agency, you know, charity navigator sort of rating.

Yeah, that is in the eligibility criteria.

Yeah, that wounded warrior thing where they were taking 80% of their money and putting it into overhead was, you know, we don't need to deal with anybody who's got a high overhead. They need to be putting their money, our taxpayer money, into the services and finding their donations to whatever to pay for. all that extra stuff. So I am still very uncertain. The contingencies may look really fulsome at the beginning, but they diminish very, very fast when things come up, so I'm not eager to say that that's where we would go for making any changes. One thing that has occurred to me that might help is similar to what the CDD does for people coming in for an application process. They have a pre-application, and they go in and learn what the rules are, especially helpful for new people who haven't been through it before 500 times. So perhaps that is something that could be added in earlier session. What do you anticipate you might be looking for next year, even though we're not taking applications until June, so that there might be some chance of reality for us having that discussion. I understand what you've been trying to achieve. I really do. And I appreciate the extra work that you all have put in to try to have it go effectively. But that's just sort of the main knowledge gap that I have. And they can all establish a carry forward fund to get them through those last two months if they need to. Like anybody dealing with federal budget, they have to do that between July 1st and October 1st when the federal budget comes in. So that's something that people can manage. I would love to see a list of who the 19 are that would not be impacted at some point. Because I was struggling. I got through all the pages that I took out of the budget from last year, as you had suggested in the homework. But I couldn't really figure out what went where. So that's still my uncertainty. certainly for these ones who are the agencies which are being moved into the OMB process, just as far as your questions, performance standards of how they've delivered their county dollars, what their recruitment and retention, staff training, what their turnover rates are, and client satisfaction is something that we don't know anything about right now. So those are things that I find would be very important to talk about. And I'll stop there with a maybe.

So you're not prepared to support option one?

I'm not prepared yet until I figure out how some of these questions would be answered. And maybe there's some answers today. I don't know.

From where I'm at, I've been torn on this as well. I've done some pros, so I see some cons both ways. But, you know, to Supervisor Pruitt's, I hadn't thought of that point, but you know, now we're determining the size of the pie and then later we're determining the size of the slices. So since it's a different consideration during the budget process, it would require, to Supervisor Missel's point, a different set of information to be provided to help us in an educated way determine the size of the pie. Are you increasing it each year for for inflationary reasons, similar to like our tax relief program. It grows based on something where you don't have to keep coming back and asking us that. Or is it something that sits stagnant for five years and we're like, oh, we haven't adjusted it. We've just kept it at $2 million for the last five years. And then the slices of the pie get smaller and smaller or You know, kind of like transportation funding, some people stop getting slices of the pie. So I'm really torn on this particular one for that reason. I think I would be willing enough to go along with it for a year or vice versa or alternatively. We keep the option two the way we've been doing it. The board has to inflict some discipline on themselves as we talked during our budget evaluation conversation back in May, but you could perhaps do a run through of what it might look like in tandem with the current one. And say, oh, well here's, we're gonna do it the same way we've always done it, but if this alternative way, here's what we would be providing and the board gets a dry run and we're back at asking the question again next year. I don't know if that would even work. It was just a way of going, well, there's some uncomfort I'm hearing from folks. There's an outright no. There's a couple maybes. We've got a yes, but the yes has even got its own questions.

I don't want to interest myself in a really good board discussion, but perhaps if there is an interest in trying something and reevaluating, there are two processes that could be changed. We haven't talked about arts and cultural yet. Perhaps if the board were to say for human services larger funding if that didn't change if the board tried that timeline change for arts and cultural I just see how that was for a year maybe the board would have in a comfort in that I don't mean to steer the board in one direction or another just trying to think of an option knowing that people are in really across the full spectrum of what they're sharing and what I'm hearing today so the pilot would be for this other group of applicants open to that just another option for the board to consider but it's the same point all the points are the same

for this one as it is for that one. It's just level of, oof, then you get into a different qualitative suggestion of one is more important than the other, quote unquote. I'll say very clearly that one is more important than the other. Yeah. I'm going to go just back around to catch on this one because there's been back and forth and other people have had a chance to hear what each other said. Any additional thoughts, Supervisor Pruitt?

Two things. First I'll say I think that splitting the baby as a pilot makes sense. To fill in the rest of the thought, I do think arts and culture is slightly less important than a bunch of life-saving interventions and would therefore be more comfortable piloting the new process. The clarifying question I had, hearing the description of the problem you're trying to solve, it occurred to me there's something I'm not clear on, which is, is the effort to try and solve a workflow problem decision compression problem for the board, or is the effort to try and solve a workflow problem for staff?

I would prioritize the board because, again, hearing the feedback of the board's desire to spend more time in this, staff will proceed with either direction the board would like to. That's not a concern for us. We're used to the status quo and how we do this. There is the tradeoff of how we prioritize our time pre-February versus after. We would adjust that accordingly. I think this is one I really tried to, and this is not a comment about the board's ability, this is just the sheer number of hours in the day for two months for really positioning the board to do their best work.

That is helpful for me, and it strengthens my previous no. I think during this last year's board budget process, part of my kind of takeaway was that we can be more disciplined about how we engage with this part of it to occupy less time. And I felt that as a call forward. And so I can't help but think of this as staff trying to solve something that it's our own business to solve through other processes that don't have these other externalities.

Fair. Supervisor Missel?

Yeah, I had a lot of comments here, but I'm going to keep it short. I agree with what Supervisor Pruitt just said and what Chair said and what staff presented as an alternative to focus on arts and cultural funding for next year. What I would add to that is simply just coming to us next year in the spring and saying this is what From a human services funding, this is the pot we would have provided you in that original scenario. So I think it would be an interesting study to see how we come out in the end. So it's kind of like doing both, but still allowing us that upfront conversation to discuss the slices before we get the full pie.

That's very helpful feedback, and we can prepare that. Great. Supervisor LaPista-Kirchner?

Yeah, I agree with what Supervisor Missel just said. I would support that.

Supervisor Malik?

I think the pilot is a step in the right direction, but... I think one of the solutions that came out of last year's, what some people were offended by, the discussion around agency funding, two of those agencies were moved into where they belonged to begin with. And that never would have happened if people had sat there quietly and said, oh, sure, whatever staff says is fine. Because it's not always perfect. And we all try to make it the best we can and have six different perspectives on this. It is our job to make sure that we understand the backgrounds of everything that's in there, the homework that may not have been written down that others know that we need to find out. I'm glad that there's the opportunity to continue on with that. I still would like to know what are the 19 of the 21 who aren't going to be changed. Someone can send that around by email. And I'm okay to do this sort of parallel process next year and see how it goes.

So keep the option for this group okay with the arts with the change in the timeline.

Well, we haven't talked about the arts yet.

Well, but that's been a proposed pilot that everybody just.

Right, but we're going to talk about that separately.

We will because there's other items attached to it. But it's been endorsed by three others that the pilot of the change in the timeline could be done for the arts program. But keep it the same for human services.

My comment was for the human services to do the parallel, as you described.

But I haven't made a comment about the arts yet because we have to... Good to stay with the current timeline is how I would summarize that with the current process that we've done in the past.

Just to recap, if it helps, I don't mean to step in in front of the chair, but option A, the board is comfortable with the recommendation. Option B, for human services to keep the current program timeline.

Is what I'm hearing.

Yes.

That's the majority opinion at this point. And I'm good with that, keeping it the timeline, and I'm open to the pilot program, and we'll discuss that when we get there. So now we have to deal with item three. Yes. Under human services, which is the funding matrix.

Thank you. When we're discussing this, could we actually have the sample funding matrix? Yes. Thank you. And you're up, Supervisor. I like this in concept. I'm pro in concept. To echo a frequent line from some of my peers, the devil is in the details. The thing that gives me pause is knowing that a yes on this change, I can count very quickly a few agencies that immediately have an effective funding cut. which gets us in the problem that we're trying to get away from of being swayed by our loyalties to individual agencies. But I wonder if, there's two issues here, right? My impulse would be can we raise the upper bounds of these to embrace existing agencies at historic funding levels? I then, of course, critique that in my own mind and say, does that not defeat the purpose of having a funding matrix? Because if everyone's included, it's not doing anything. I am wondering if anyone from our human services department might have thoughts on that and whether or not it can still accomplish any value if it is not ruling any upper bounds out. I'm sorry to put you on the spot, but I could see you engaging with what I was saying, and I struggle with this one.

I think this accomplishes a number of things, regardless of where the cap is set. There's some degree of certainty and predictability that nonprofits get from having a matrix, which allows them to say, whether it's a six-month process or a nine-month process, I've applied here. I know what tier I'm in. I know what my operating budget is. Here's the approximate amount I would be considered for, which I think would be helpful. to nonprofits. Some degree of predictability would be helpful. I understand that the folks at DF&B ran a couple of scenarios to identify whether there would be sort of big traditional losers or winners in this matrix process to see what the impacts would be. and I'm certain Mr. Bowman can share some of the results of those scenarios. As I recall, there weren't big winners or losers in that process, in large part because of the tiering that allowed folks to get into the pools. A number of What would have historically been big winners and losers are actually in the more contractual. And so one of the benefits of separating that group out both visually and process-wise is to clarify that distinction. Sure.

I guess the... Just comparing our current budget to the tier list, not knowing what the respective budget stacks for these agencies look like, I can just, looking only at the rightmost column, it does seem like I can count probably three, not huge, but like 20% losers that are tier three. Our tier three agencies feel like We actually fund our tier three agencies pretty well for tier three. And I wonder, does the Boys and Girls Club, have they come to really depend on 60K from the board as a tier three agency, which would put them in a bad position? I am uneasy with adopting what I think would be an effective funding cut at the levels that are offered here, I really like the idea, and I do think it helps us, it will help us do more actual focus on tier one, right? Like, that should be the direction we're going. And like, looking at our current funding spread, I'm not always sure it feels like we're emphasizing tier one, despite it being the highest emphasized one. But I am curious if Others would be amenable to having, frankly, just the figures in the rightmost column reflect current maximum recipients in each tier. Does that make sense?

I don't know quite what you mean. I mean, every year their staff and application is going to be different, so I don't want to make any guarantees. Sure. What page are you looking at?

So I'm comparing the budget on, it's page 175 in the document, 172 as actually numbered on it. This is the columns. So just a quick poll in Tier 2, the Charlottesville Free Clinic gets over $100,000 from us every year.

Yeah, so... Y'all bought me enough time to pull this up. I think part of the reason we didn't include the full detail was to make a discussion about process rather than individual agencies. But to answer the board's question... The free clinic would be one of the ones who would be impacted. They're currently funded at about $130,000, and they are in Tier 2 at a large operation. So that is the one exception that's out there. I'll clarify Boys and Girls Club would be in Tier 2 as we look ahead next year, and their total funding of $60,000 would have them. I should also clarify, because some agencies have multiple programs, We're looking at this by program, and so those programs may help those, but certainly to... For example, She Shelter, which I mentioned earlier, has a Tier 1 and a Tier 3.

It would reduce their Tier 3, but... Theoretically, make it easier for them to seek funding under Tier 1 by freeing up other funding in the stack.

Correct. They would have a much greater chance in ceiling now in Tier 1, but it would impact Tier 3. And so I think this is one where, as we've run these scenarios, it's tough to design something that quite fits what we do. So trying to fall back to the principles of how are we setting something up to both – Create expectations on the front end to community nonprofits. Give clarity and how staff work through this matrix to prepare this. Put the dollars, especially new dollars, to the highest priorities, which at times that could mean some other lower priorities don't receive as much funding, and to try and right-size that funding. Now, this is just like the others. This is an option to try and accomplish all those things, recognizing this is a change in the board. Whatever direction they have, staff is happy to proceed in either direction.

Mr. Bowman, I know you try and always be a neutral arbiter of facts, but I will say I feel slightly chastened by the way you characterized that a moment ago when you said that we tried to present this without those agencies named on here so that this can be a discussion about policy. rather than individual agencies, and I remembered my own personal beat that I pounded from this dais earlier this year during budget about process vice individual agencies. I apologize for that.

No, it was well taken.

And I also, I think, take some comfort from realizing in real time that I think there is a thought about reevaluating how individual agencies are being categorized with respect to the way this will shape funding decisions. Both are moving together rather than one moving and then the other responding. So I will note my concern, but I'm still, I think, supportive of this change. All right.

Supervisor Missel?

Yeah, thanks. So when I was thinking about this kind of subject as a whole, I was thinking about four areas. Accountability, objectivity, transparency, and predictability are one. And simplicity is the other. So what are we gaining in each of those categories? And so I think from the standpoint of the matrix, I think the accountability piece is this provides some measure of accountability. and measurability. That's a long word. I think from an objective standpoint, it provides a fixed matrix approach, so it eliminates some subjectivity and does allow for transparency and predictability. So that seems like it's a helpful thing, and it also then, I guess in a sense, helps to simplify for both the board, staff, and more importantly, probably the agencies. I would echo the concern and probably want to understand better who is going to receive, just by the simple process move, who is going to receive impactful or meaningful budget cuts because of this broad swath. And I would want to make sure that we're, I guess a couple of things, are aware of that and that we give the organizations enough lead time to understand what that's going to mean for them but also potentially consider, and maybe this is more complication than anything else, but just, I don't know, this is a total, thinking out loud here, is there a way that we can help them sort of unwind their predicted funding based on the old system, ramping up to this new funding process? Is there a timeline or a... a couple of years or something that we can give to help them transition out of what might be a higher amount.

Yeah, we had not considered that, but that could be an option for, let's say, for example, if the free clinic would have a reduction in the Tier 3 SHE program. Perhaps if there's an agency who would make a case to reprioritize funding from a lower priority to a higher priority, perhaps there's something. Perhaps staff could also recommend that we would phase that in over two years. WHERE THIS IS THE DIRECTION WE WOULD RECOMMEND HEADING IN, BUT RECOGNIZING WE ALSO DON'T WANT TO DISRUPT AN AGENCY. THAT WOULD BE SOMETHING THE BOARD COULD WEIGH EITHER. THIS IS REALLY ABOUT THE BOARD'S DIRECTION OF HOW STAFF WORKS FROM NOW TO THE TIME OF THE RECOMMENDED BUDGET. BUT THERE COULD BE OPTIONS TO MITIGATE SOME OF THOSE THINGS.

I SUPPORT EVERYTHING YOU JUST SAID. I THINK THAT'S GREAT. YEP, THANK YOU. SUPERVISOR LAPISTO-CURTLEY?

YEAH, I LIKE THE OPTIONS THAT YOU JUST SAID. I LIKE THE IDEA OF THE MATRIX. I LIKE THE TRANSPARENCY. AND I THINK, ONCE AGAIN, seeing how this works out for a year or two. But we're giving the agencies enough time, lead time, so that they figure this out. Because I think we've agreed as a board that we're not their main funding source. Is that correct? We should not be the main funding source of everything.

Yes, that is the intent.

Right. So this way gives them additional time with the matrix. They can... figure it out and a lot of these organizations I mean they really do donations really come in and they really do get a lot of money I'm not saying which ones but as much once again as much preparation as we can give them ahead of time by letting them know what we're doing I think that that is helpful I think they will then adjust and if there's something that we then as a board need to adjust then we can do that the following year. So I'm in favor.

Supervisor Malik?

Well, I'm getting there, but as I've been listening, the other suggestion I would put on the consideration table for you all, and perhaps we need to come back in a month and hash this some more. The two agencies which were mentioned, Loaves and Fishes and Free Clinic, both have had astonishing increases in their service demand due to the federal cuts.

To clarify, and listen to Spoke, Lowe's and Fish's is not impacted by a reduction of this. It would be the shelter help for an emergency, their priority in the third tier for outreach services.

Okay. Well, anyway, these agencies which were mentioned in the assessment earlier, perhaps some of them should be put into the other process as we took care of Foothills and OAR this past year after those big discussions in order to focus the regular budget work that the budget office does on OAR. actually the institutions that allow the county to get on and do other things because they're there providing their services. The but for that we would be doing it ourselves as other jurisdictions do. So anyway, that's the only thing I had to offer here. As I said in my email earlier, without the sort of detail of even what is under in each of these columns, it's really hard for me to say this is a great change.

Well, I'm prepared to support this one. I know that as it comes through the budget cycle next year, this is the one where, in real time, we can make some judgments as we work through the process. I mean, if you come forward and a given agency, like we just talked about, which one was the the main one that was significantly hit.

The free clinic. The free clinic.

So if we have an example like that, and it's in front of us during budget, we have the options to figure out what we could do. Like you just recommended, well, maybe we could phase this in after a couple of years. But it doesn't change our budget decision then. this matrix would still be like, oh, we didn't know this was going to have a $60,000 impact on this agency. We'd still have to go knocking on the door of a reserve fund or some other place in the budget to find that if we wanted to correct course. But at least it gives you the idea of knowing what the facts are for that agency after you go through the application process. So I'm prepared to support this one.

May I follow up on what you just said? So tell me why the free clinic, based on that chart, is having a cut?

Currently, they are classified in Tier 2 as an important and critical services. They currently receive about $133,000. And based on the oversize of the budget, they would be in the middle right there. And so that would be of the agencies, there would be an impact. And so based on the board's conversation, all else being equal, I think we would have to have a conversation with any agency who maybe something changed and they just don't fit in the matrix well. How do we honor our process but also give the board flexibility to address that?

Okay. As the provider of medical care for thousands of people, I had no idea that they were considered ranked so low. So that's my shock value here is understanding this is not counseling or whatever. This is life and death stuff. So I will need to learn more about that.

All right. And then item number, I think it's clear. We had four clear yeses on that one. Then the last item for item two.

Yes, just be a simplifying an application for those requests at less than $25,000. Option two would be just remaining that where really everyone, regardless of ask, would have the more either robust or complex, depending on your point of view, application.

Supervisor Pruitt. In favor. Supervisor Missel. In favor. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtley.

In favor with a question?

Yeah.

If I may. The agencies that we provide funding for, are they all servicing, let's say, distribution of food and such like that? Are they, I'm not making a judgment, but are they all servicing Albemarle County residents.

It is a requirement in the eligibility criteria that must be provided in substantial service to Albemarle County. If they were not providing, or we had doubt that they were providing service to Albemarle County, that would be a major factor in our funding recommendation.

So if they do some funding or some assistance for another county, that...

We would also want to understand that locality's approach in funding them. Okay.

All right. Thank you. That's all.

Supervisor Mallick.

Okay. Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm having a brain off. Oh, the $25,000 or less. So on the list, the only ones I have seen, there are only two on here. And so there was what kind of – would the same – My brain is fried. The process would be just as detailed as far as you getting the information to know if they're actually doing what they said they were going to do, even though it's $25,000, because lots of 25s add up to real money, as they say.

Yeah, I would say that $25,000 is a maximum. And so it's one where we would certainly keep the core requirements of the audit. information on who they're serving, some of the key metrics out there, but where possible, we would streamline that for the agencies and for also just that staff trade-off of not about just trying to redirect some of that time into the larger funding requests we receive.

Well, I would be very much in favor of asking more questions and requiring some kind of verification from the applicants, not putting more burden on staff to chase after them, but to make sure that you're getting the real information that is needed from them. That's their job if they want to have a grant. And so I guess we'll see. I'll be okay with this, and we'll see how it goes.

All right. I think, and I'm supportive, so we're good on that one. So now we need to move to the arts. And you don't need a formal motion on those items. You're just consensus is fine.

I would say it's an action item. So you would like a vote? It would be. And I'll say this out loud. And Mr. Herrick, please correct this. But I think if the board would approve the attachment for human services directing staff to pursue for option A to – sorry, I lost my train of thought here – to realign the agencies based on staff's recommendation, to not change the timing for program, not change the timing for these agencies in the process, to implement the funding matrix, and for the simplified application, that would give the direction we would need. Looking to Mr. Herrick if he would clarify anything.

No, if that's the board's consensus, a so moved on Mr. Bowman's language I think would be sufficient.

So moved. Thank you. Second. All right. The motion has been made and seconded. Any further discussion? All right. If the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Mallett? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye. Okay. Arts, cultural, and festival funding.

This will be a shorter section than the last one. So the first item is adjusting the programming funding. I won't rehash the discussion we had before, but I do want to go all the way back to one of the early slides where I spoke about this being maybe a pilot with potentially lower risk. That is because currently there's about $90,000 for agencies to apply for, which is much, much less than the $1.8 million. And as several board members shared, the Seeing a higher value in serving the direct human services needs and the human services funding process, perhaps there is less risk in trying something new in the arts and cultural. So if the board wanted to modify that timeline, we would take the approach of having a lump sum and following that in the budget. Or we can maintain the status quo for this one as well. And then we can learn from this and how that may apply in the coming years. So just one slide each on the next three items. This idea is creating a funding formula for agencies. Currently, if we receive, as we do receive, funding requests that are far above what's recommended, for perspective, last year we received, I think, from about $350,000 in requests, $88,000 were approved. So this really seeks to create some clarity to agencies on what happens on the front end of the process. This is really where we would take a look at those agencies and prorate them equally if full funding was not available. So if we received, in this really simple example, more than $20,000 of requests, this is an example of how that could be divided up. Chair, I received a question before the meeting of this. Might this encourage agencies to inflate their requests further? I can't speak for agencies, but I would say already most agencies are requesting far beyond what the county is funding. And so this is one where I think it also helps set that expectation with the next one about kind of there's no funding matrix, but we have a funding cap which goes to the next slide. Really for the same principle of at the start of the process set in expectations on applicants about what may be available. Staff has proposed $5,000, but certainly that could be adjusted by the board. Just for perspective, we have a range of agencies who were funded from $2,500 up to $12,500. So this would bring the average at about $7,000. This would really be a change where perhaps instead of investing in larger and a few agencies, there could be an investment in more agencies but at a lower average amount for agencies. I don't know how that would play out until agencies requested, but currently there is a pretty big, I mean relatively big variance in the relative size of these nonprofits. So this is more of a level setting of how that would work. Then finally, in the arts and cultural review process, we would have a simplified review for them as well. This is one because of a lot of the quality of life and the other data. We would really focus on who are eligible agencies And if they are eligible based on their service to the county, meeting the financial standards, all of that, staff would be inclined to recommend really all eligible agencies, recognizing there would be a funding gap, and this would really lead to that approach of more cultural events and arts and recreational things being funded, though probably at smaller amounts, a much broader investment at smaller amounts versus a more focused investment with a few agencies receiving more amounts. So that is the concept, and I'll be happy to turn it over to the chair for direction on this process.

All right. Supervisor Pruitt.

I think this all sounds very good. I also, just looking at our budget, it feels like we're already taking this very structured kind of approach of, we have about three sizes of awards we'll give your agency based on how much you're doing, and this just seems to add an additional level of transparency. The cap seems to be the cap we already actually have, but just don't announce, so. Yes.

To all? Yes. the first points are the new recommendation supervisor muscle so we're not we're not talking about this is a pilot program I think that the if you go back to the slide wealth this'll do it that the adjusting the program timing would be if you're supporters supportive of that you would be okay with that recommendation it would be serve as a pilot with just the arts agencies to inform whether or not we wanted to switch to that perhaps next year with the human

services agencies. I'm sorry, Chair. I think I collapsed discussion of all four of these changes into one.

Which I think is fine because I think we're able to do that with this one.

I agree. I think that's helpful to actually collapse them. So I'll just speak to all of them. One is, yeah, I think adjusting the program timing, having that be a test case is a good thing. I would support that. The funding formula is a good thing. The funding cap's the one that's got me a little bit A concern, you said, and maybe this is just I don't have the experience in this, Supervisor Pruitt mentioned that we kind of already sort of informally say that we have a funding gap. Can you explain that a little bit more?

So I would say currently we distinguish if you are a larger agency who can demonstrate economic development, we're more than likely to fund you at a larger amount. Other agencies tend to be more in that ballpark of that $2,500 to $5,000. I think this is one where we would take an approach and say really everyone's going to be treated equally in this process. And I would share on the funding cap, really what we could do in this is really recommend what that could be as part of how we arrived at that lump sum number in the budget. if that's something the board has to go to, thinking of the feedback of how did we arrive at that number to assist the board.

I think that would be helpful in also understanding kind of where we are today versus where we end up if we follow this funding cap, learning a little bit more about that during the budget process as part of, to your point, establishing that pie would be helpful, if that makes sense.

And I would add, being responsive to prior board comments, if there's maybe a two-year phase-in, if someone's getting a reduction, we could figure out ways to make this, getting this intent, but maybe not make it as impactful as ripping the Band-Aid.

Great. And, D, I'm fine with that as well. I do have one kind of associated question with all these maybe. Are we going to talk at all about the eligibility criteria for grant programs, or is that not something for us to discuss today?

That was really intended with Attachment A. The only change was the audit requirement, but those other criteria are out there if the board would like to revisit any of those.

Okay. We just haven't brought any of that up. I just was curious if that was a concern. I just had one comment on one of those criteria.

Do you want me to share that?

So it's just this keep fundraising slash administration below 25% of program expenses. Seems like a high number to me. 25% seems like a big chunk of the budget for programming. I'm not a, you know, I don't do fundraising, I don't do this. It just is something that I would suggest maybe taking a look at.

If the board's okay, we could take that as a follow-up and share what we find with the board.

Thank you for bringing that up because I saw the same thing, and I was wondering if they're talking about fundraising and the people that fundraise and keeping that under 25%, I guess, or not more than 25%. I guess that's what they're referring to, right? The people who actually are doing fundraising, they can't. They can pay them, but not more than 25% of the funding.

Funding and administration together.

I totally think we should look at that because if they're going out and looking, trying to get donations and such, it shouldn't be a money-making situation for that entity. it should be less, I think, less than 25%. So I agree with looking into that. I also agree with what you said about making this maybe a two-year, kind of like a phase-in type thing, or just two-year pilot program. So I'm in favor.

Supervisor Malik?

Thank you. So it will not surprise anyone because I've been saying this for years. Other counties around the country and other counties in Virginia do much more for arts and culture at all different levels than Albemarle does. And they are the ones who see the community building benefits of this. So this is not incidental. It's just as far as the impacts during COVID and things, the ARPA money that was put toward The arts and culture side sector in other places was astonishing, and how they recovered so much better is pretty astonishing, too. So I have perhaps more difficulty with this in some ways. I don't understand the whole funding formula business. So could you talk about that more? Because it seems...

I would say... Sorry, I lost my spot.

This makes no sense to me. I just don't know what to do with this chart.

I would say currently, if you were to look at agencies who were funded in the budget and how our recommendations compare to the request, it's kind of a little all over the place. It's tough to really draw something how we arrived at that as well. So this is one that I think of not only together, but how that works with a funding cap and the idea to award eligible programs, how they may play together. And so That is the idea to kind of draw a nexus between really just how much of folks request we are funding. But again, we would not recommend more than what is requested from the agency. We currently do have an excess of requests as it is. And if the board is also comfortable with the funding cap, that also will sort of create another expectation that we provide to agencies on what they may receive.

Well, maybe it's the cap that is the biggest problem. because one of the agencies we funded for 50 years or so was funded at $16,000 up until 2009, and then the county wisdom was to cut it in half. And this proposal now would cut it in half again. at a time when costs are up and needs are up. And so that's where I come unglued as far as this cap, which seems to come out of nowhere. Perhaps to discuss, if we are concerned about the amount of money we're spending, then we should not be spending county dollars of any sort when it's an international university-funded, dean-administered film festival. And to say that they bring in more people to Albemarle County than a local musical organization does, there's no substantiation for that whatsoever. It's great for the city, but there's nothing going on in the county. And so if it's county taxpayers putting money into it, I just, this is another example of why I've been saying for years, we are funding live arts. I mean, we're not supposed to mention any names. There are city-based arts agencies arts buildings, arts locations, which are being supported by county taxpayers, that we are not, other than looking good, it is not providing, not doing that could put a whole lot more money into funding true county agencies. Streamlining is great, because I know there are quite a few who just said, I can't jump through all those hoops anymore, even though we're bringing 30,000 people into the county for a studio tour, we're just not going to bother. So Albemarle County, for example, is the only one of the region who doesn't support one of these efforts because it's just too much nuisance. So I appreciate the effort to streamline, but I just have real significant problems with this sort of arbitrary thing of we're going to give somebody another cut on this. So the part I was happy to support is adjusting the timing this year, but I have grave concerns about B and C.

All right, well, to your point, it may be that the ones that are the bigger things that we've been funding are probably the ones that get the cut, and some of the smaller ones that aren't would get some money, based on what I understood.

That understanding is correct. Right now, currently in the budget, the film festival, the festival book, and the theater festival are the largest three who receive funding.

And they would likely, on the funding formula, be the ones that would get cut back.

Yes, their funding would be reallocated in the spirit of trying to spread and fund as many cultural agencies in an amount. That is most likely what would happen.

In an interesting way, it actually would probably address your concerns.

Well, not if all those other things aren't changed as well because it would just go off to the cities.

We are doing that. That's what he's saying, that we could be funding these other things so that more agencies are receiving some of those county dollars, and the first place we would go with it is the excess that would be capped to these other organizations. That money would get redistributed to the other agencies.

Except if they have caps of their own that are below their current budget, then they're screwed no matter what.

Well, or they're adhering to our policy that we're holding all organizations to, whether it's just being willy-nilly. Because right now, they're not being held to that standard equally.

What standard?

The new funding formula standard.

And the basis of the funding formula is not really their need or what they contribute to the community. It's a number came from somewhere. So...

I'm not sure if this is a question for staff.

I still don't understand where this B is really useful.

Well, I'm supportive of this one as well. So if you're not supportive, then we'll have to vote accordingly with that. So at this point, Mr. Bowman, the motion in Mr. Herrick would be to approve all the items as staff has recommended for arts, cultural, and festival funding as listed on this slide.

Yes, clarifying that the timeline would be adjusted. That is actually inconsistent with HSFP because the board said do not change that this year.

Oh, right, right, right. Human services.

And that would be a motion to approve attachment C with the changes just discussed. There it is.

So moved. All right. Is there a second? Second. Is there any further discussion?

I would just want to add the comments that you included, which was sort of the potential of looking at a two-year ramp, helping us understand when we are provided with the total nut in the spring, how it affects each of these organizations.

Yes, thank you for clarifying that. Steph will make that as part of our work as well.

Great, thank you. Any further discussion? All right, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lepisto-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? No. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye.

All right, very good. The motion carries four to one. And Andy?

Yeah, I would say the last one, just for the sake, we do not have any changes to Attachment D, which is the capital, but just to have the board's buy-in, I think it would maybe help staff to give clear direction that the board approves Attachment D, unless there are any further comments from the board. This has been a really good, robust, deep conversation from the board. I just really thank you all for your feedback and time in this.

Okay, so is there any other questions or comments for Andy on all of these items? All right, so we're good. I think you have what you need. Or did you need a motion on D?

I believe the motion would be, looking at Mr. Herrick, that the board would approve attachment D as well.

Correct. Just for the clarification, but nothing's changing in this one. Correct. So we need a motion to approve attachment D. Second.

Second.

All right. Without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lapista-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye. All right. Very good. Thank you. Thank you. A lot of complexity. Good job, board. All right. We are ready for our closed meeting.

Yes, I move that the Board of Supervisors convene a closed meeting pursuant to Section 2.2-3711A of the Code of Virginia. Under subsection 1, to discuss and consider appointments to various boards and commissions, including, without limitation, the Pantops Community Advisory Committee, the Public Defender's Office Citizens Advisory Committee, the Region 10 Community Services Board, the Solid Waste Alternatives Advisory Committee, and the Social Services Advisory Board. And under subsection 8, to consult with legal counsel regarding specific legal matters, including recent amendments to Virginia Code, 58.1-605.1 and 58.1-606.1 requiring the provision of legal advice by such counsel. Second.

All right. The motion has been made and seconded. The clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lepisto-Curtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt?

Aye. Great. We'll be in 241. All right, good evening, everyone. We are coming out of closed session. Do you have the motion to certify closed session?

I do. I move that the Board of Supervisors certify by recorded vote that, to the best of each supervisor's knowledge, only public business matters lawfully exempted from the open meeting requirements of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act and identified in the motion authorizing the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered in the closed meeting.

Second.

All right, without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lepisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Mallett? Yes. Mr. Missel?

Aye.

Mr. Pruitt? Aye.

And are there any motions coming out of closed meeting?

Yes, I do. I have a motion regarding vacancies and appointments. I'd like to move that we assign the following to the following organizations. Pantops Community Advisory Committee, Peter Halleck, Region 10 Community Services Board, Barry Blumenthal and Lisa Hardy. Solid Waste Alternative Advisory Committee, Reed Chobrak.

Second.

All right, without objection, if the clerk will please call the roll.

Mr. Galloway?

Yes.

Ms. Lepisto-Kirtley? Aye. Ms. Malik? Yes. Mr. Missal? Aye. Mr. Pruitt? Aye.

All right, thank you, board. That will take us to... From the County Executive, report on matters not listed on the agenda. Mr. County Executive, any items this evening?

I do, sir. Thank you very much. And as Logan gets this queued up for the July County Executive's report. I do want to recognize Logan Bogart with the CAPE division of Albemarle County. Logan is not someone who traditionally, in her scope of work, comes to the board meetings, but Abby Stump is away this week. And great work coming out of CAPE, as always. And Logan's work leans more into public safety, so she supports our public safety departments as some of her regular routine activities. and so therefore she's going to be operating out of 5th Street more commonly. But, Logan, thank you for being here this evening and supporting the work for the July 4th events. And so Logan is queuing it up and board this month. I want to take a couple of minutes. Thank you, Logan. We did some really good work last week through the emergency management coordinator's position, Johnny Switzer. Johnny is not with us this evening, I don't believe, but he was before the board recently because Trevor Henry and a team of folks recruited for that position, and we've moved that a little closer into the county executive's office recently. And the work has really gone well so far. There was a ton of heavy lifting last week, more than I anticipated. And I'd like to take a couple of minutes. I know Johnny sent some good reporting out to the board in the last several days that you may or may not have had a chance to look through. But I'm going to highlight for the public some of the work that we did on preparedness and response for the July 4th holiday weekend, which also got complicated with some extreme heat. conditions and some severe thunderstorms, okay? Our Office of Emergency Management aligned countywide July 4 planning, really focusing on an extreme heat warning and for Central Virginia. Heat indexes over the 4th of July holiday approached 112 degrees on the ground in that timeframe from Thursday through Saturday. Our Office of Emergency Management cross-referenced the area's full slate of 4th of July and America 250 events. against current weather risk. Our emergency management folks coordinated very closely with our partners with Charlottesville Police, Charlottesville Emergency Management, UVA Emergency Management, UVA Health, and I really appreciate UVA Health. They really stepped up and did a great job supporting our events across the county. and in the city, the Virginia Fusion Center, Scottsville, and the Virginia Department of Emergency Management. All of this was in an effort to make sure that we had the resources we need in this county in case we experienced some severity with the weather or with problems with our public being out in the heat and so forth. And, Board, I'll stop there just for a minute and say one more thing. Oftentimes when we've got the amount of event load that we had last week to support, we're going to go and lean into the state and say we may ask for some regional support. That was not available last week during July 4th because all of our regional neighbors were hosting events and they were stretched. And so we knew we needed to look internally to the university, to the city, and we did lean into the state for some coordination. But we also had a real strong cross-departmental team that worked through the weekend. They gave status updates and made us aware of anything that we needed to be aware of. Okay? So one of the things that we did, and Parks and Recreation really keeps their hand on the pulse on this, is we gave residents more ways to cool off. The county waived all the fees at Chris Green, Mint Springs, Walnut Creek swimming areas from July 2nd through July 4th. A total of 2,593 swimmers. visited the three lakes between the second and fourth, including 595 attendees at Mint Springs on the July 4th holiday. This was a slightly higher than normal turnout, and again, I'm pleased that we were able to waive fees to give people an option that they might not otherwise consider. There was also an increase in public messaging that focused on safety temps and resources that you might have to access during extreme heat waves. Albemarle County Fire and Rescue implemented an internal heat illness tracking tool for staff to monitor rising call volume throughout the holiday weekend. While call volume increased, most calls were not specifically dispatched as heat exhaustion or heat stroke. However, heat was a factor in most of the calls that we responded to. Residents were highly encouraged to stay hydrated. take breaks in the air conditioning and check on older adults, neighbors, outside animals as well as folks that did not have reliable access to cooling. This is an interesting slide. County resources were aligned to support a dozen major community events, including the Monticello Naturalization Ceremony. County staff supported events at Boar's Head, Carter's Mountain, Sismock Manor Farm, Farmington, Glenmore, James Monroe's Highland, Keswick Hall, King Family Vineyard, and Scottsville Parade and Fireworks, alongside the Monticello Ceremony. Our emergency management folks launched a virtual Emergency Operations Center room to maximize cross-communication with all stakeholders ahead of the July 4 activities. Our emergency management team worked closely with Fire Rescue and with our Albemarle County Police Department to provide in-person support at command post for Monticello and the King family event. The naturalization ceremony and the Scottsville parade resulted in multiple people being assessed for heat exhaustion. None required hospital transport. Our fire marshal's office supported seven fireworks shows over the 4th of July weekend. Our fire marshal's office oversees every public and private aerial fireworks display countywide year-round, just not on peak weekends like the 4th of July. Before any display begins, fire marshals are required to inspect the setup, verify fire the credentials of the pyrotechnician that's on site, enforcing safe viewing distances based on mortar size, and then they resolve any issues that arise on site. Our fire marshals stay engaged throughout the show, tracking misfires during the display, searching for undetonated fireworks after to prevent flare-ups. The storm, we had a heavy storm on that evening, and it caused disruptions to many of the firework shows, including Scottsville rescheduling to another day, storm delays at other locations like Carter's Mountain. On Saturday afternoon, we tracked a fast-moving, severe storm that brought 70-mile-an-hour winds, heavy downpours to our area. At 3.30, a weather system moved into the county. Again, we experienced heavy downpours and high winds. The storm generated a spike in increase for calls of service, including several incidents of large trees falling into structures. One incident trapped a family inside their home. Fire rescue crews safely rescued all occupants. Our call volume in fire rescue doubled on July the 4th because of the factors that I've discussed. pleased to report that we were able to work through that and get through the evening our emergency management activated our emergency operations center and so what that does is it pulls together all of our people as well as state officials into one location so that we physically can see each other as well as additional departments with the county that participated virtually Our police department continued operations throughout the weather event, assisting fire rescue with calls, communications, and public engagement, including Logan's folks. They stayed engaged throughout, issuing multiple public alerts. By 9 p.m., our EOC reported incident stabilization and no pending calls for service. In addition to the storm-related calls for service, 5,500 residents lost power during the storm. The Emergency Operations Center coordinated with utility providers, VDOT for downed trees, Human Services reported no outstanding requests for cooling or sheltering support from community members. Most of the outages were restored by the next morning. And that's a concern, Board, because as you know, it was extremely hot on the 4th and 5th for people who lost power. Our county's preparedness and response was a testament to months of planning, quick adjustments based on the severity of our weather and other related conditions. And again, that's just some of our team members. That was up at Monticello for the naturalization ceremony. That event started at 5.30. on Thursday morning and went through the 1 to 2 p.m. time frame. So I know my crews that I work with on a regular basis that were up there, they were quite exhausted when they left that event. I believe we had 4,000 people who were at that event, 74 people that were sworn in by the governor, and as far as I know, everybody left safe and sound. So, Board, I believe that is it. I would take an opportunity to publicly thank our public safety departments as well as our key partner agencies that I've mentioned tonight. They are wonderful partners. Again, I will call out the University of Virginia because they shared their resources handily with us, cooling centers, the spray stations. I know they were downtown on the downtown mall, and I know that our city manager had a lot of things going on with the city. And we're very pleased that our public and our community stayed safe during a really important time for our region. So Mr. Chair, I'll turn it over to you. If the board has questions, we'll be happy to try to answer those. I know that Mr. Henry was really involved before he stepped away on some of the pre-planning. And so Trevor, thank you for your work with all of the partner agencies and our public safety folks. Mr. Chair? All right. We'll see if there's comments or questions. Supervisor Pruitt?

I just want to say thank you for all the incredible work that our public safety teams have been doing over the Fourth of July. I was out there at the Scottsville Parade, as I have been I think every year since I've lived here. Favorite event every year. And boy howdy though, it was hell. It was rough. I have not had that much sweat in my eyes in a long time, and I spent a lot of time outside. It was a deeply dangerous event. event, which I think is really testified by how many comparable events were canceled. So I'm very grateful for all our folks who were out there making sure that we did not have any more serious casualties.

Well, there's video of you scurrying up a hill to make sure kids got candy.

That hill looks so much steeper in person. When I saw the video, I was like, well, this doesn't look impressive. I felt some type of way about it.

Supervisor Missel? Yeah, thanks. Thanks, Mr. Richardson. I just echo the gratitude. You know, being relatively new to this position, I'm constantly amazed at how much goes on behind the scenes that we don't see, that we take for granted every day. And so thank you. Thank you, Mr. Henry, and for your teams and for everyone who's involved in these types of activities and keeping us safe. Supervisor Lapista, currently?

Well, I wasn't present, but I understand our public service departments and everybody, really, you went out of your way to make sure that our residents were all safe and taken care of. I can tell you in other locations, they do not have cooling centers, and they do not take the preparations that you all did in making sure that everyone's safe. So congrats.

Supervisor Malik?

Thank you very much. I can personally attest to the actually positive feedback I received upon canceling the early sale parade to protect the actually volunteers who usually come out with all of their apparatus and heavy equipment and heavy clothing and everything else, plus all the old soldiers who bring out their antique vehicles and everything because it was just too high risk for us for our one-mile walk down the road. but in the afternoon of the 4th, I was at King Family when the storm came over the mountain, and it went from zero to 50 degree wind and horizontal rain in about five minutes. So I was grateful to be sitting in my car when all that happened, but it was still tense for blowing off all over the place. Unfortunately, it all passed over within about 45 minutes, and then everybody was able to get out and enjoy themselves, but it was definitely risky and The pre-planning that's done both for all the agencies and the locations involved, I mean, there were thousands of cars that seamlessly came in and seamlessly went out, and all the intersections were well lit. So I think the extra planning that's required ahead of time by the county safety folks is really well done. Thank you very much.

I join in the appreciation that's been mentioned and especially to the emergency personnel that were involved on a heavy weekend and they're out in the heat themselves. So very appreciative of that. So thank you for the report, Mr. Richardson. Okay, we will move to item number 16, public comments on matters previously considered or currently pending before the board other than scheduled for public hearings. And Vice Chair Missal will read us through the rules and then walk us through our speakers.

Great. Thank you, Chair. During this portion of the meeting, individuals may address the board regarding matters previously considered by the board or currently pending before the board other than items scheduled for public hearing. Speakers are limited to one opportunity of up to three minutes per meeting. In person, speakers will be heard first, followed by online participants coordinated by the clerk. To ensure equal treatment and courtesy for all speakers, the board requests that the following guidelines be observed. Please state your name, and if you live in Albemarle County or Magisterial District, comments should be directed to the board as a whole. Written statements or supporting materials may be provided to the clerk. If representing a group or organization, you may ask others present to raise their hands in recognition. Speakers may not share unused time with another speaker. Back-and-forth debate is not permitted, and speakers should not speak from their seat or out of turn. For in-person speakers, the podium timer will guide your time. Green indicates your time has begun, yellow means one minute remains, and red indicates your time has expired. If participating by Zoom, please remain muted until you are called to speak. You will be verbally notified when time has expired and microphones will be muted shortly thereafter. All comments are recorded, live streamed, and published on the county website. The sign-up period is closed once public comment begins. The podium is adjustable. Speakers are encouraged to raise it or lower it so they are able to speak directly into the microphone. That will begin with Doug Earle, and Bart Tao is on deck.

Good evening. I'm Doug Earle from Scottsville District. I'm here to urge the board to pass ranked choice voting this fall. Ranked choice voting can only be adopted in even-numbered years because the intervening years have elections and the registrar cannot implement ranked choice voting in an election year. It doesn't have the time to do it. So it's very simple. If ranked choice voting is not adopted this fall, it'll wait until 2028. When the Board considered RCV in 2024, two years ago, the Electoral Board was opposed on ideological grounds. Many of you remember that. This is not true today. The Electoral Board has new members who now support RCV. Also this past spring, Governor Spanberger signed into law New legislation that made important technical changes to RCV easier to implement and use. It expanded RCV to towns, like Scottsville, and it made RCV permanent in the Commonwealth. The bills that she signed were sponsored by legislators from Albemarle County, namely Cree Dees and Katrina Carlson. And those two did so, presumably, because they believed that RCV was supported by voters in Albemarle and that it was the right thing to do. RCV has shown time and time again to increase the number and diversity of candidates willing to compete for office. It encourages more civility and constructive dialogue during elections. It reduces strategic voting by the voters. and it elects candidates with deeper and broader voter support. It's the right thing to do to reduce the political polarization that we see today. For these reasons, I urge you to put RCV on your fall agenda. If not, it cannot be considered again until 2028. Thank you.

Thank you. Mark Tao and Sarah Akizondek.

Good evening Chair, members and Albemarle County Board of Supervisors. My name is Bart Tau and I live in Scottsville and I urge you tonight to adapt a resolution of intent to direct staff to promptly draft an ordinance regulating intensive confined animal operations, including CAFOs, in Albemarle County. Our county has worked hard to protect its streams, rivers, groundwater, and drinking water. Those protections should not be undermined by industrial-scale animal operations that generate enormous quantities of untreated manure and other operational wastes. Research has shown that these operations can contribute to nutrition pollution pathogen contamination, harm from air emissions, and increased risk of public health when waste enters our waterways or surrounding communities. Unlike traditional family farming, these industrial operations concentrate thousands of animals in one location. The volume of manure produced can exceed what surrounding land can safely absorb, especially during heavy rains. increase risk of runoff into streams and groundwater. Your own planning efforts recognize the importance of protecting our national resources, and this is a logical next step. This is not about opposing agriculture. I'm a farmer myself. It's about recognizing that industrial-scale confined animal operations are fundamentally different from traditional farming and require regulations that reflect the scale and the potential impact on public health, water quality, and neighborhood property owners. Many neighboring counties have regulations in place already. I respectfully ask you to act now by adapting a resolution of intent and to move expeditiously toward an ordinance to protect the health, safety, welfare and water resources of Albemarle County before these facilities are proposed and after the damage has been done. Thank you for your time, your leadership and your commitment to protecting the citizens of Albemarle County. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thanks for the hand raises too. Sarah Eck and Deirdre Casey Carrington is on deck.

Hi, my name is Sarah Eck. I'm a fairly new resident of the Scottsville District. I'm here to ask the Board of Supervisors to initiate and pass a resolution of intent to create a county ordinance for intensive confined animal operations. Under your leadership, Albemarle County is a highly desirable county within the Commonwealth to live and enjoy a unique mix of urban and rural lifestyles. We ask you to continue that proactive leadership to develop an ordinance to protect our health, water supply, property values, and lifestyles in light of a changing rural agricultural landscape. We know from the multi-year Yale study of the negative health impacts of intensive confined animal operations, which include increased cancer incidence, air and water pollutions, drinking water contamination, and spread of pathogens such as E. coli and salmonella into private wells. This is not conjecture. It is a documented study from a highly respected university that we cannot overlook. To our knowledge, there are 52 counties within the Commonwealth that have developed an ordinance around this issue. This is not an isolated need for Albemarle, but one that has been broadly recognized across the Commonwealth. We recognize the State Right to Farm Act and the Dillon Rule, which impose certain restrictions on what the county can do. But what we can do, however, similar to the other 52 referenced counties, is develop setbacks, buffer zones, and agricultural practices that thoughtfully and proactively cite such operations within the unique context of our county. I've mentioned the health implications, but we also acknowledge that agritourism industry base within our county. We must protect this vital industry for current and future business owners. Under your leadership, you've created an impressive, comprehensive plan for the county. This issue fits squarely within several of the top listed priorities. To summarize, we acknowledge the detrimental impact of confined animal operations to public health, water supply, natural resources, agritourism, property values, and our rural lifestyle, which makes Albemarle so desirable. We can coexist, but we must do it proactively and thoughtfully. I respectfully ask the board to pass a resolution of intent to work to thoughtfully cite any such confined animal operations within our county that will protect the health, safety, and welfare of your constituents. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Deirdre Casey Kerrigan and Tim Schmidt is on deck.

Good evening, everyone. I'm Deirdre Casey Kerrigan. I'm an Albemarle resident, and also I'm at Scottsville District. I'm actually in the town of Scottsville, and I'm vice chair of the planning commission. I'm also a physician and a professor at the University of Virginia. And I speak to you as that, I guess. I respectfully ask the board to take two actions. First, pass a resolution of intent to draft an ordinance regulating intensive confined animal operations, or CAFOs, in Albemarle County. Second, move quickly to adopt that ordinance to protect our water supply and the health, safety, and welfare of our residents. The scientific evidence on the health impact of CAFOs has grown substantially over the past decade. They emit a complex mixture of harmful pollutants, including ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter, VOCs, and bioaerosols containing endotoxins. These pollutants have been linked to respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease, inflammation, oxidative stress, immune dysfunction, and cancer. For example, hydrogen sulfide causes DNA damage while fine particulate matter triggers systemic inflammation. Capos also threaten our water. Large volumes of animal waste contaminate groundwater with nitrates and antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as MRSA. Nitrate-contaminated drinking water has been associated with an increased risk of colorectal and gastric cancers. This is especially concerning in rural communities like ours where many of us depend on private wells. Nutrient runoff also fuels harmful algal blooms that release potent neurotoxins into our ponds and our streams that can kill fish and humans alike. The evidence continues to amount. A 2024 meta-analysis of 76 studies found that people living near CAFOs face higher risks of asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, otherwise known as COPD, and lung cancer. A 2025 Yale study of three states, including Virginia, reported significantly higher mortality from stroke, COPD, and other chronic illnesses among residents living near CAFOs. A 2026 Yale study found higher rates of leukemia, lymphoma, lung, bladder, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers. Many cancers. As physicians, we know that prevention is always better than treatment. Protecting clean air, clean water, and the health of Albemarle County residents is one of this board's most important responsibilities, and I urge you to act now. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Tim Schmidt and Adelaide O'Brien is up on deck.

Yes, hello. I'm Tim Schmidt. I'm a resident of Albemarle County. My wife and I have a farm.

Mr. Schmidt, if you could lift those mics, point them up there. And you can also raise the podium there on the left. This is fine.

But you're good. My wife and I own a farm between Keene and Scottsville. So we have been in this area about 30 years. I really appreciate the speeches that have already been given. Very eloquent and very nice and well put together. I'll approach it a little differently to put a little different twist on it. The average turkey drinks about 20 ounces of water a day. And they defecate about half a pound of feces each day. If you dry that feces out, it's probably only a tenth of a pound of feces each day. You say, what's the big deal? Well, the big deal is in each of these CAFOs, at least the ones adjacent to our farm, there are 26,000 turkeys. So if you have 26,000 turkeys that are drinking 20 ounces a day, that comes out to a mere 1.4 million gallons of water needed each year for this one CAFO. Of course, on this property, there were two. As far as the feces, the one-tenth of a pound with 26,000 birds comes out to 950,000 pounds of feces or 470 tons of feces that have to be gotten rid of every year for just one CAFO. What happened to us, a neighbor decided to build two CAFOs on adjacent property. No notification to us, no notification to anyone we know of, and no restrictions because Albemarle County has no restrictions or ordinances involving CAFOs. What we're asking for is for basically a moratorium on any other CAFOs being brought in. until some ordinances can be drafted. Because I may have noticed on the news that the Poultry Association is now advertising the benefits of CAFOs for the area, supported by the Poultry Cooperative. We're asking to, again, have a moratorium, basically, on any other growth, any other development of CAFOs. And coming up with ordinances that fit the needs of both the farming community and of the residents of the county.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Adelaide O'Brien and Paula Beasley is on deck.

Good evening.

I'm Adelaide O'Brien. Pull the mic down.

Thank you. I'm Adelaide O'Brien. I live in Scottsville. Please pass a resolution of intent tonight to create an ordinance that protects our community from the environmental impact of intensive, confined animal operations. A Yale study published this April that Dr. Kerrigan just cited found that people living their high concentrations of intensive confined animal operations in Texas and in Iowa face 8% higher overall cancer rates. And in California, counties had a 4% higher cancer rate versus areas with fewer or no intensive animal operations. These operations release hazardous pollutants into the air and water, including ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter, and nitrogen-heavy manure, all associated with inflammatory conditions that can lead to cancer as well as contaminate groundwater. Because it's costly to transport animal waste, it's usually applied close to the source. and this concentration can leach into creeks, ponds, streams, and wells. The Sierra Club indicates that the manure of a single CAFO can, quote, rival the amount of waste produced by an entire population of some cities, unquote. And unlike human sewage, animal manure does not require treatment to reduce disease-causing pathogens. The Virginia Right to Farm Act does not provide protections against environmental negligence nor water contamination. While Albemarle has no ordinances in place to protect us, 52 localities in Virginia currently have ordinances such as groundwater quality, setbacks, and minimum acreage, zoning permits, and stream setbacks from land application of animal waste. We deserve a better community than one where dangerous E. coli and pollutants leach into our groundwater, our wells, our streams and ponds, and eventually into the James River. I respectfully request you to please pass a resolution of intent tonight to create an ordinance that protects our community from the environmental impact of intensive combined animal operations. Thank you.

Thank you. Paula Beasley and Charles Rendelman is on deck.

Good afternoon, or evening. My name is Paula Beasley, Esmont and Samuel Miller resident. On behalf of Save Rural Albemarle, myself and my husband, Jerome Beasley, I am requesting you immediately pass a resolution of intent, then expeditiously enact an ordinance to regulate intensive confined animal operations. also known as AFOs, CAFOs, or basically animal factories. CAFOs produce more than double the amount of waste generated by the entire U.S. population. Albemarle County will serve as a waste dumping ground. Out-of-state corporations will truck in animal supply, then let them grow fat, consuming our water and electricity. They'll run off in leaching, contaminating our surface ground, water supply, streams, and rivers. polluting our air, emitting hazardous waste, worsening climate change, contaminating our soils, then ship them out of state or out of country along with any profits. They pay for none of the damage. We are left with the poisons, pollutants, algae blooms, respiratory irritants and diseases, asthma, nausea, headaches, cancer, antibiotic resistance, airborne pathogens, endotoxins, heavy metals, pandemic potential. The county is left with reduced taxes from declining property values, declining economic drivers, declining quality of life, and increased health costs for residents. Albemarle County has been fortunate to have good farming, employing people, providing income, supplying your buy fresh, buy local program, coexisting, enhancing, and being synergistic with our enormous tourism, viticulture, equine, and agriculture, which are our economic drivers. We have one CAFO we know of with the possibility of several dozen more overnight and many to follow. You cannot wait until water supplies, air and soil are contaminated. This impacts all of us. Any piece of land with 20 acres, this can happen on, but the impacts are all across the county. All of us suffer and it will be taxpayer dollars that will have to try to clean up the mess. The 52 counties have ordinance. They've been in place for a long time, and many of them have moratoriums. We need to regulate the public health, safety, welfare, and the environment. We have none, so we're sitting ducks for those operators fleeing the jurisdictions and environmental damage that they have incurred elsewhere. It is imperative you act before the damage is done. Resident lives are endangered and taxpayer dollars wasted in cleaning up damage that can be avoided. We have more important priorities in cleaner, more profitable businesses. Thank you for your careful consideration and attention.

Thank you. Thank you. Charles Rendleman and Phil Reese is on deck.

My name is Charles Rendleman, and I'm a resident of Scottsville. I grew up in Williamsburg. My wife grew up in Arlington. We've been residents of Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia, for nearly all of our lives. We've tried to leave twice and have been drawn back by this wonderful, wonderful community and culture. I'm here tonight. to pleadingly urge you to pass a resolution of intent to pass an ordinance regulating confined animal operations. I don't have the oratorical, I think, talent or skill of all of the people I think who have spoken before me and wish that I could summarize all that they have said because of its significance and importance. I have strong concerns about the public health, safety, welfare, environmental, and other detriments of waste which are produced by confined animal operations. We are facing contaminated water supply, which includes surface and groundwater from waste, the emission of air pollutants, and increased climate change. We are facing contaminated soil and multiple health impacts, which have particularly been described by prior speakers. We are also facing the degradation and damage economically of our farming, tourism, fisticulture, equine, and historical structures and museums. We're facing the degradation, quality of life, property values, and decreased tax base and a cost to our community regarding economic benefits to out-of-state You know what? Forget it. Sorry. As I said, not in order. It is intimidating for me to be here, to say the least. But I think that I was advised by my wife, who's a fan of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who said that speak even though your voice is shaking. And so I'm here, you know, out of my pastoral and quiet solitude, again, to urge you to pass a resolution of intent to pass an ordinance regulating confined animal operations. Thank you all very much for your attention and time, and take it easy.

Thank you. Phil Reese and Sean Casale. Who's next? Thank you.

Chair Galloway, members of the board, my name is Phil Reese. I am a parent of three students at Hollymead Elementary School. I'm doing everything in my power as a Hollymead parent to make sure that the alleged sexual abuse that took place at my kid's school never happens again in our schools. Tonight I'm asking you to do everything in your power I'm calling on you tonight to pass a resolution recommending to the school board that they commission a fully independent third party investigation into how our school division responded to the alleged sexual abuse of children at Hollymead. You know the facts. A staff member at my children's school faces 11 felony counts of sexual abuse involving at least four children. And police have said that more victims may exist. This alleged abuse occurred over at least two years on school grounds during the school day. Parents have said publicly that their concerns about the suspect were downplayed by school leadership. The school board itself has said it was kept in the dark about the criminal investigation for five months. Two ACPS leaders have now resigned, but a resignation is not an investigation. It's now been 40 days since the suspect has been arrested, and the school board still has not initiated an independent investigation. The families of Halloween still do not know who knew what, when they knew it, and why warning signs allegedly went unheeded. Only an independent investigator with no ties to the division can credibly answer that. Now, some of you may be thinking this issue belongs to the school board. And I agree with you. The ultimate decision is theirs to make. But you appropriate every dollar our schools spend, and you are each elected as leaders of this community. A resolution from this board carries moral weight that no individual parent's voice can match. If you pass this resolution, I believe the school board will follow your recommendation. If you stay silent, you will have told every parent in this county that the sexual abuse of children in our schools is somebody else's problem. These were elementary school children. Some of them sat in the same classrooms my kids sat in. The children deserved to be protected, and their families now deserve the full truth about why they weren't. The people of this county are watching you. Will you do the right thing, or will you say it's not your problem? If you do nothing and say nothing, your silence would be deafening. I ask you to pass a resolution on this tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Sean?

Hi.

Hi.

Sorry to hear that about Holly Mead. That's very sad. My name is Shawn Cosette. Good evening. I live on Langhorn Road in Scottsville, but in the Samuel Miller District. I'm here tonight alongside my neighbors to voice an urgent concern regarding the rapid large-scale industrialization of our agricultural lands. Historically, Aberbel County rural area has thrived on traditional low-impact agricultural crops, hay, pasture, local CSAs, etc., etc. But our landscape is facing an unprecedented shift. A single coordinated land trust has recently acquired over 1,500 acres and is looking to purchase many more. Intending to bring, it is rumored that they are intending to bring in an intensive high industry poultry and livestock network. Our community has three critical concerns, odor, water safety, and property values. We already know the reality of industrial avian farming. We live just a mile from the sole factory Turkey, Operation Albemarle County, and on spreading days, the stench forces families indoors and diminishes our quality of life. Allowing unmitigated industrial poultry expansion right up to our fence lines directly devalues our homes, the largest financial investment our citizens have made. Under the Virginia Right to Farm Act, this Board has explicit authority to regulate farm structures as it impacts the health, safety, and general welfare of its citizens. Other Virginia counties have used this authority to tighten setbacks and protect residential boundaries. Albemarle, I hope, will do the same. Secondly, the most critically, that this 1,500 acre acquisition sits directly within the Toadier Creek watershed. We are not talking about an isolated farm puddle. We are talking about the primary drinking water supply of the town of Scottsville. And again, I want to reiterate that this is rumored that they are going to be involved in intensive farming but it is my hope and intention that we get some regulations on board in that we are feeling very vulnerable in the southern part of the county and not exactly sure how to navigate this and it isn't what I signed up for when we purchased our property over 23 years ago and have been, you know, so proud to live with our farming community and everybody else and hope that we can continue our wonderful lifestyle. Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes our list, Chair. All right. Thank you for those who came out to speak this evening.

All right, Board, we are going to move to item number 17. This is an action item, a resolution requesting the Circuit Court to order a sales tax referendum. And Mr. Herrick, you're going to walk us through this one?

I am in partnership with Mr. Bowman, who's making his way to the dais there.

Other business.

So good evening, members of the board. Andy Herrick, county attorney, and I'll again be presenting this evening in partnership with Andy Bowman, the deputy chief financial officer. If we go to the first slide there. This is an item for the board to consider adopting a resolution petitioning the circuit court to order a referendum on a one-cent local sales and use tax dedicated exclusively to school capital projects. As the board may recall, this has been a feature of the board's legislative agenda in Richmond for several years now. And as the board may be aware, the General Assembly did adopt an amendment to the law that allows now all localities of the state, not just specified ones, to have this option. If we go to the next slide, please. So again, the Assembly did authorize localities to have the additional one cent sales and use tax for school construction renovation. The tax must be approved by voters in a referendum. It's not solely at the discretion of the local governing body. There are two Virginia Code sections that deal with this. There's a 58.1-605.1. That has to deal with the mechanics of the tax itself. And then Virginia Code section 24.2684 deals with the timing of the referendum. So if we go to the next slide, please. So the referendum, the proposed question on the ballot would be whether voters authorize an additional 1% sales tax dedicated to school capital needs. The law allows the tax to be in effect for up to 20 years from the date of the resolution. We have put in the resolution a suggested sunset date of June 30, 2046, to be within 20 years of today's date. If we could go to the next slide. So at present, the county funds most of its capital improvement program needs through tax revenues and bond issuances. But this dedicated 1% tax would diversify the revenue and support school capital projects. And so with that, I'm going to turn over to Mr. Bowman to talk a little bit more about the revenue and expenditure details of the proposed increased tax.

Thank you, Mr. Herrick. Andy Bowman, Assistant Chief Financial Officer. Just a couple highlights at a high level, two slides, one on revenues, one on expenditures. This is a one percentage point increase in the local sales and use tax. The way the state code is written is there is an exemption for food and personal hygiene products as defined in the state code. So I want to clarify this has been a change from the time the staff report was published. Currently in the general fund we receive one percent sales tax and that totals about twenty seven million dollars. This additional 1% local sales tax has those exemptions. So we are working with the state to really determine what that data would be. But at this point, on July 15th, we're confident we have a floor of at least 20 million. We know it wouldn't be the full 27, but we wanted to share this information with the board as it considers decisions tonight for just the order of magnitude of what this would look like. And that is the annual amount that would then, of course, grow over time as it accumulates. If this was approved through the referendum, a collection could begin as soon as April 1st, 2027. That's based on the guidelines of when the state begins collection. And then, as Mr. Herrick noted, the tax would expire after 20 years as proposed in Detachment A. On the expenditure side, this provides a dedicated revenue stream that's restricted to school capital projects, specifically those that are construction and major renovation projects. This is not something that could be used for operational purposes or for other capital projects. The specific projects is really not a conversation tonight. That would go ahead, if this is approved, as the board begins its next CIP and the next annual budget, how that would shape into the future. So just acknowledging that would be, as I know the board intends to have additional long-range planning discussions with the school board, this would be a dialogue that would continue in the coming months. I'll turn it back over to Mr. Herrick.

So if the board is interested in pursuing this, staff has drafted a proposed resolution that would set the wheels in motion for, that would authorize county staff or that would direct county staff to petition the circuit court to enter an order that would put this on the November ballot. That would be the first step, would be adopting the resolution. And we do have a suggested motion, which is to adopt the resolution attached to the staff report as attachment A. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions that the board might have.

Great. I think what we'll do, if there are questions, we'll ask those. But then you can also make your comments and do that all in one fail round.

Supervisor Pruitt? Quick question. I'm going to steal your thunder, Mr. Messler. Go ahead. You'll ask it better than I will. He raised this question. It was very excellent. What if we decide in five years that's enough? We don't want the tax anymore? Can we do so unilaterally? Can we then reassess it without going back to a... a referendum. Is it the last cent of our sales tax stack that we would remove, if that makes sense?

It does. So the way that it would work logistically is that if this were to be put on the ballot, if the voters were to approve it, what that would do is that would authorize the board to then adopt an ordinance imposing that tax. So this, time-wise, this wouldn't be the last the board would see of this. If this were to be approved by the voters, we would be back in the winter with a proposed ordinance actually imposing the tax. By the same token, at some point down the road, if the board decided it didn't want to continue that, the board could repeal that ordinance at any time within the 20-year window.

Is it fair to do a kind of analogy? It's like the voters giving us General Assembly enabling authority that we can then exercise at our discretion.

Yes, that would be a fair characterization.

Thank you. On the actual issue itself, I've been, I think, somewhat consistent on this in my public statements, but I will just say it again because I don't think it's fair to expect most people to follow every word I've ever said from this dais. I think this is the worst tool to accomplish what we're trying to do personally. I think sales tax is probably the most regressive tool that a local government has. The statement that will sometimes be made is that we're a daytime economy that draws a lot from surrounding localities and thus is particularly well suited to sales tax. In a zero-sum kind of way of looking at it, that's correct. It makes more sense. We're not taxing Albemarle County residents as much, and that is politically convenient. I am also conscious of the fact that the people who are coming to Albemarle County during the day to work are more likely in my estimation, to be people who can't afford to live in Albemarle County and so are living outside of Albemarle County. Those are the people we're additionally taxing. So I personally have a very hard time swallowing this as the tool we use. That being said, we've been really clear, and this kind of gets to one of the public comments we had during the first half of the day, The current plan for school capital I don't think is possible without this. I will see how my peers on the board weigh on this. I know I think at the ballot box I myself am probably going to be voting no on November. I understand it as a tool that we need to execute a county goal.

All right. Supervisor Missel?

Yeah, thanks for the question. I just have one related question to that date. If we were to reverse it and if we were to say that we put an expiration date of June 30th, I don't know, 2030 or 2035, 2031, let's say it's five years from now. Would that then, when 2031 rolled around, what would be the process to reinstate or to continue that tax if we were to move that forward?

So if the board were to choose to have it less than 20 years, at the expiration of that time, the process would have to repeat itself in terms of having another referendum. If the state law hadn't changed, you would go through the same process of having another referendum at that point.

And if this is just my lack of knowledge of the process, if this is approved, in November, and we, the staff, drafts an ordinance for us to review, does that ordinance then go forward with public hearing process?

Ordinances do not require public hearings. It's been the board's practice to have them, though. Yeah.

OK. OK. So that would be likely. OK. So the 20-year window is the maximum, essentially, that would prevent us from having to do that. OK. So a couple things. One is, I guess, I understand Supervisor Pruitt's comments about regressive tax and thinking through those that are coming to the county are often those who can't afford to live here. But there's also tourism. There are other folks that are coming to the county that are spending money here that can't afford to see another bump. I also think that it's a critical component of our capital stack for the future of our school system. I'm heartened to know that, and I think it's very important to know that food and personal hygiene are exempt from the tax. That's what I heard, right?

Yes, that is correct.

And I actually prefer to hear what, rather than sitting here saying I don't think we should put this as a referendum, it seems to me that it would be fair to the general public to ask them what they think. And so that's what I would prefer.

All right. Supervisor Lepisto-Kirtland.

Yes, this has been on our legislative priorities for, what, two, three years now. And this is something that we have been asking the state for is to give us, since we're dealing in rural state, to give us the authority to be able to ask the people who live here, the residents who live here, do you want this or not? I think this is a very democratic way, frankly, of... asking everyone whether or not they want to support our schools in this way. The schools definitely need renovation. That's a given. I know it's also been brought up for a new high school. That's in debate. And even if we were to go through with it, it wouldn't even start, or we wouldn't go there until 31. But I do like the idea that we can... hold either a different date, like Supervisor Missel said, that we can have a different date instead of going out 20 years, maybe 10 years. But I think it's important. And frankly, I wish we knew how much money the schools needed to, because they're going to be getting anywhere from $20 to $27 million a year, how much money they need in order to be able to renovate the schools so that we can have top-notch schools. We can have the amenities that they need for our children. I think that's extremely important. We don't have that number, so I'm comfortable with it. either the 20 or the 10, frankly. I do like the fact that it's food exempt regarding the sales tax. And remember, a sales tax will hit everybody, frankly, not just the people who are homeowners who pay real estate taxes. This will hit everybody. And they have a choice whether or not to buy a certain item or not. And once again, I'm glad that food is exempted. Our tourism brings in, I think it's close to a billion a year or close to that. We bring in a lot of tourism. Those are tourism dollars that we'll be also purchasing things that we'll be paying that one cent sales tax. And I think the people that come into Albemarle, yes, a lot of them can't live here. In fact, even the people that live here can't afford to live here. But they're coming in here to work. They're living in a lower cost area. And they have the choice of whether to spend money or not here, which I think they would. So I know the family council wants their schools renovated. I've been asked to go to different schools, which I have, Albemarle High School, Stony Point Elementary. I'll be going to more in the fall. But they need that renovation. The families of children who are in our schools are asking for these renovations. So I think this is, and we're not able to provide all that. We could. If we increased our real estate sales tax by a lot, I don't think that that's what the residents want either. I think this is a way to do it where the residents don't have the burden of the entire amount of what we would be spending because of the fact that we have tourism and we have outside people coming in. So this is something that I'm in favor of and it's something we've been asking for, and that's why I'll be supportive.

All right, Supervisor Malik.

Thank you, and thank you both for your presentation of all the background. I definitely support doing this. Nine counties in Virginia have for decades had this authority, and seven of them have empowered it and used these revenues to successfully improve their schools. My question to legislators for years has been, why can't Albemarle County residents have the same rights as those in those nine counties who have had this ability for years? It is definitely worth asking, and it's a matter of fairness. Diversifying the revenue also has the chance of reducing the taxpayer's burden or stabilizing the tax burden on county taxpayers, owners, as well as renters who pay taxes through their rent. They do not avoid taxes. They pay them also. And so I definitely think that this will help, as other counties and places do, when you travel to California or Washington, D.C. or whatever, the long list of add-ons every time you go out for a hamburger are considerable to pay for those costs of services in communities where there are many tourists and many visitors. And I do hope that we are successful here. So I will support this. Thank you.

The one question I have I think can be answered at a later point, but if in the state details how renovation is defined. I don't know if there's a certain scope or square footage or if it's just the word renovations. I mean, the General Assembly is known for giving us just words without defining it.

And that's my recollection of that the term renovation is not defined or specified in the state code, as I recall. So it's not a certain scaling or something like that?

That's correct. Yeah, I'm supportive. I'm not blind or not listening or not sympathetic to some of the concerns that have been raised. I mean, I've been after this for three years. I've been supportive. I've won reelection. My constituents know where I stand on this. So for me to do anything other than vote for this would be a complete belt face and, you know, turn me into a big hypocrite. And you could maybe claim that for other things maybe, but I'm not going to have it be this. So I'm going to be supportive of this effort. And just as I supported sending the general obligation bond back in 2016 to the voters, You know, it'll be important to me as an elected official to see what they say. So just if, I guess I'll ask that question. I know with the general obligation bond that If the voters voted down, you could proceed at your own political peril. If they approve it, you don't have to proceed. Is that the same case with this particular referendum?