County Board - Regular Meeting

What's up? Who's that? Who is it? Oh, I don't think they'll speak back in time for the meeting.

Yeah, we've got a solution. We'll struggle through the sexual assault.

Paging all board members. I think we're ready. seems entire civilization is about.

Yeah, there you go. I thought we are going to LA. Good afternoon. Uh welcome to our work session involving a number of public safety related our commonwealth attorney number of other entities and key pieces to our overall system of governance that seeks to uh serve our community. We have also our electoral board, our magistrate, clerk of the court. I today will send it to Mr. Karen Tonus who's going to lead us in the work session. Mr. Karen Tonus.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh you know in other places they have buck benches, we have side benches. So uh I'm uh going to welcome everybody as well. This is uh yet again a very well attended uh work session on the side of the public. Thank you for taking the time and and uh dedicating the attention uh to to to the work that we're doing here for uh for putting together our budget for this for the coming fiscal year. Uh so we have a full agenda and we are a little bit um behind because of a technical uh problem but we are uh this is just a motivation to jump in uh immediately. So I am uh uh welcoming our commonwealth attorney, Miss Paris Gani Tufty um who is the common attorney for Arlington and the city of false church. Um and uh also in attendance today, Michelle Woolly uh who is the director of administration according to my notes here. Uh thank you so much juggling juggling a 50 people department. Actually this is quite a significant one. We we should always have that in in mind. This is I I misspoke. It's not a department because it's under a constitutional officer. So, uh we contribute a lot to uh and this budget is very is critical to the functioning of this department, but it's not all of it. So, um the floor is yours, madam.

Thank you so much. Um uh can we start?

Okay. Uh, members of the county board, uh, Mr. Schwarz, uh, thank you, uh, uh, DMF, uh, thank you all for, um, uh, DTS, thank you all for being here. And I'd like to thank my friends, um, at We Have Action, uh, for being here to support this. I'd also like to thank the board members of Restorative Arlington and my staff and, um, none of the work that we do would get done without, uh, any of these without all of these warriors. So um thank you to all of them and uh next slide please. Most folks thinks I think think of the role of the prosecutor is just to prosecute cases. Our philosophy is much more holistic. Uh we think about the well-being of victims and we think about um what we can do from where we sit uh to support thriving and safe communities. Next slide please. Uh we know that the county focuses on equity. Uh and and this is something of interest to our office as well. Um one of the ways that we focus on um equity is to address racial disparities which feel intractable these days. Um uh particularly in our office because we don't and can't control who comes into the system and who gets charged to begin with. Uh and there are significant disparities. For example, if you look at the whole population of the U metro area, it's 25% black, but 50% of the cases referred from our law enforcement partners are uh black defendants. Um it's 41% white in the DMV, but only 24% of our referrals have white defendants. And so, but we know that black people are disproportionately represented um in our criminal justice system. And we've worked largely through diversion programs uh to try to address some of those um disparities and reduce those disparities. And I'll get to that a bit later. Next slide, please. Uh this is something we're really

excited about. Uh it's not a secret that we've had challenges with our case management system, which is soon going to be our old case management system. Uh we've been working for years to extract some reliable data from it and are working with Vera on a data walk scheduled for May 16th. um at the city of Paul's church community center and for May and May 17th at Arlington Mill. So we would invite you from 2 pm to 4 pm any of either of those days um to come and see what we have to show. Uh there you know there the community will learn that our diversion and policies have reduced recidivism um for misdemeanors uh over five years in excuse me have reduced recidivism by 22% um over um misdemeanor cases over the course of five years versus um those who ended up in a misdemeanor conviction. That's not pictured here. This is just an example of um what our new case management system is going to look like when we receive when when it goes live which is going to be in May. Uh we are going to be able to you know in real time see if you know the the referrals for and I say referrals because we don't arrest but you know we receive cases um referrals for domestic violence um cases are up. will be able to see, you know, like if like what the gun violence issue is because we can't tell what's a gun what's a case with a gun or not right now bas based on case management system. So we'll be able to see in real time um and over the course of years, you know, not just what is coming in, but what we're doing with it, how we're doing with it, and um what the results of our policies um are. And uh we wouldn't be able to do this if it weren't for our um Basa and for uh our our data manager and uh Michelle and Unique uh and also uh

Carara, our um community engagement specialist. Uh truly it would not have gotten done without uh these folks. Um, and we are also hosting, so what we're about to bring online is so cutting edge that we are hosting the um, uh, third annual American Prosecutor Association data conference uh, to to unveil some of this. So, it's it's a very exciting time. Uh, next slide, please. So, everybody wants to know how we do a trial. Everybody always wants to know how we do at trial. Um and I will talk about diversion and its benefits um in a moment. But one clear benefit is that we can focus on the most serious of cases when we divert um uh other other kinds of cases and when we divert cases where the victims want something other than trial and other than punishment. And we maintained our excellent trial record while staying to true to our reform agenda and um staying true to pre-trial justice and procedural justice. And the bottom line is that we're taking better cases to trial and can resource those trials better because we the of our plea offers and because of our diversion programs. Next slide, please. Uh we try to focus on victims. This is a snapshot. It is um uh sexual assault awareness uh and prevention month. Uh which is why we are wearing teal. So I'd like to acknowledge that. But, you know, we continue to serve victims um even more victims uh even though we're seeing that uh the grant funding for victim witness services is is being reduced year-over-year. Um and the numbers of the the vict the number of victims we serve all across the jurisdiction um are based on crime reporting, not the rate of actual crime and not the rate of um arrests. So, anytime somebody reports a crime and they're a victim, our victim witness specialists reach out and we provide them services. So, there doesn't

even have to be a charge for us to provide victims um uh with services. And another thing that we're doing um that I'm very excited we'll be announcing sort of in a more public way soon is um we've uh created a hope after harm fund and uh the idea is so that victims can get the financial assistance that they need you know for for smaller things and for a wide variety of um of uh crimes and charges. um so they can get what they need when they need it, but also to reduce the burden of restitution on folks who are in indigent and to stop the cycle of, you know, extending probation and putting people in jail simply because they can't pay restitution. Um and then we also have opened our soft interview room. Um you all have or will be receiving um an invitation to our open house on May 1st. Um we'd be delighted if the community would come. Uh it's our it's our continuing work to do better by victims based on uh medical evidence and based on social science. Next slide, please.

So some of Oh, and I'm sorry. I've been just going through. If you have any questions, I'm happy to stop. I would I'm on a roll. I I would I would say so this uh this with this slides that you have right now because it it it lists certain things like expungement clinics etc.

I would say we we stop at this slide and we have a conversation about the the measures that you presented in in quantitative terms but they have a qualitative narrative. uh and then we uh continue after that and the discussion about diversion which you uh call measures of justice but it's actually an entire policy. So uh I would say we do this this slide now or if you want you can slide

slide seven. Yeah slide let's go back to slide seven please. So um uh we've now sort of on a regular cadence are having two expungement clinics every year and each one gets bigger and better. Uh we saw a 23% increase in attendees between our May and our October clinics in 2025. We expect to see more as the expungement law the changes go into effect. Um and we've so our our conviction integrity uh attorney has assisted victims of identity theft in clearing their criminal records and we are really becoming a model for the future where we are working on not just looking backwards which we do plenty of um but also preventing wrongful convictions and this is really nobody else in the country has has done this and I want to thank the board for um providing the the funding and the resources to do this but you Part of the way that that she u prevents wrongful convictions is that she trains attorneys on prosecutors on the causes of wrongful conviction. She provides case- specific consultation. You know, are we using junk science? Are we using reliable science? You know, is um uh is is there this expert that we want appropriate for this case? um you know she pro she's a resource for the public defender's office and and um defense attorneys to reach out to in case that you know there to have sort of a neutral view um of what uh what the evidence in a case is. And she offers objective critical critical reviews to all of the the um both sides of the V uh to help identify blind spots and for us to reduce the risk of tunnel vision. And it's really important to have her embedded in the office because um uh it it builds trust and so you know uh

and it and it allows her to hear the conversations and and understand the culture. Um and so it's it's extremely helpful. And then with the um addressing police misconduct um 19.2201c 2201C that was passed in 2020 uh created a uh system where uh law enforcement agencies have to tell their commonwealth attorneys about every complaint that sort of touches on um constitutional rights whether it's use of force or you know fourth amendment violations or any of those things. Um that's a huge task to sort of call all of that information and you know go back and look at the the um investigations to to make sure that um we are fulfilling our duties as um prosecutors and as attorneys to give over you know potentially impeaching and and uh exculpatory information. And so she's been working with um across our uh our law enforcement partners, meets regularly with them um to discuss required disclosures, to craft the language for those and to track internal and external complaints um as well as what um uh you know what what we think are are things that need to be disclosed. And then um and addressing this this kind of misconduct has everything to do with conviction integrity in case you're wondering why this person is doing it because um we're ensuring that we're you know sort of purport like relying on reliable officers to to make our cases and it's fundamental to upholding our um ethical obligations as prosecutors.

So I will stop now for questions. Thank you Mafy. uh colleagues on what we on the presentation so far um on measures of justice and uh including the last right on on how we ensure that conviction integrity is the leading principle. Uh any questions? Let's see. Oh yes, I see Miss Coffee first and then uh m chair chair deferrant. So it's vice chair coffe and chair deferrant. Thanks. And I cannot see. Yeah. My colleagues are sustained. We got we have a long way to go.

Um just a quick question on the partnership with Vera because I'm so excited to see this and that you're going to launch and everything. Does the partnership go like up to the launch and then they kind of are going to transition it and hand it to your office or do they stay involved in perpetu like what happens next I guess is is my question. So, so Vera has a reshaping prosecution initiative and we've been working with them since 2020. Okay. Um, and we initially worked with them to get um funding for OAR, the diversion program that we have that then ended up getting a million- dollar grant from DOJ. We worked with them um on another uh project with Restorative Arlington and and they helped, you know, it's very little funding, but you know, they helped provide some funding there. Uh, and so our relationship with with Vera runs really really deep and so they will be at the the data walks. Um, and then you know they they're always available for for help. Um, yeah.

No, that's good. We're one of their they're good partners. Awesome. Thank you. Uh, chair the trunk.

Thank you, Mr. Keronus. I should have given context in the effort to be super preuncter in the beginning. We're all sharing who's leading the work sessions. And long ago, Mr. Karen Tonus has been point on that. So that's context. Second, thanks for the report and for to this point and for identifying because I had in our conversations I hadn't thought about the um conviction integrity attorney in a few weeks at least maybe a few months and so that's really helpful. The only piece that I was I'd be interested in in the data walk or later uh is you know and we have to be I think extremely careful in this. You mentioned the the country's history and indeed Arlington County's antilack racist history

is the data is overwhelming. Correct.

But what and so those pieces don't stun there. But the Latino our Latino population of course you know we have a very tiny Native American population and so and our Latino population is larger and we have to be wary of all assumptions. But maybe in your data walk or maybe now whatever you think as to timing for uh providing some illumination because that percentage if you work on painful stereotypes was not as great and I don't know if you have any in the data walk or going forward you might have any insights there being mindful that even asking the question you have to be very careful on stereotypes.

Yes. So yes and yes. Um the DMV um break population breakdown for Hispanic Latino individuals is 18% and they compromise 21% of our referrals from our law enforcement partners. Um it's a lot harder to tell with that population because we're making uh you we're making predictive judgments. Um and there is an algorithm that that VER uses that that's been validated but it's predictive. It's not based on, you know, police reports or objective data. Um, so, uh, yes, but it's not exact. It's not as clear. And much of the Hispanic Latino population actually gets categorized as white in as simply by the fact of being not black. And so, they are going to be over represented in a way that we are not able to identify. So

well that certainly tracks with my understanding of the way the census has been for way too long and so that's very helpful. That's all I have on this section. Thank you. Thanks. Uh so slide eight please. Thank you. Can I ask one clarify question? It may be the same question but the um on page six uh it seems that Hispanic is very low in terms of victims served. Is that because they're actually captured in white or is it more related to reluctance to to report or something else? So, I have theories about that. Um, and my my theories are that thing a lot a lot changed in 2025.

Um, and so that's that's my hypothesis. I I have no way of testing that because I can't go to the people who didn't report and ask them because I don't know who they are.

Great. Thank you. But that's my hypothesis and we've seen that across other you know I've seen you know uh I I know that for people who even who have reported victims have been reluctant to come to court um and those tend to be overwhelmingly Hispanic and Latino. So, you know, that there have been cases that we've had to dismiss um simply because we couldn't get um victims or witnesses to to come to court because they were afraid that, you know, something other than the court system would happen.

But it it's still objective to say that's the only uh measure that really variates here. The the other the other categories uh remain within the same class of expression here. the Hispanic or Latino new victims uh dramatically like orders of magnitude about three orders of magnitude less than the year before uh which you know leaves an a question on the table. Other questions? Uh board member Spain. No, not yet. All right. Okay. I'll try to talk fast. Slide eight, please.

I I just have one that's on uh on your slide number four. So the um the data walk these um this uh deliverables where are they going to to be accessible for the public? I mean I understand that they launch in May but they will they will be somewhere right? So it will be in your office's website or

or do we know that yet? it it's probably a be there and observe it and uh you know we're of course going to make sure that there's press uh there but it's it's a little bit it requires conversations and interaction. Um so it's a gallery format where people will be walking through from one sort of station to another. Um you know first like what our office is and what we do and then the history of you know race and and criminal justice. And so it will be different stations. It's going to be very hard to reproduce that in, you know, without some like really high production value videos that we don't have the resources to make.

Well, I'm I was just referring to the to the just basic accessibility of the data for those who want to uh to be to to be seeing what what is currently the the workload of your department. Just that. Yeah. I mean we'll we'll be a we'll figure something out but it's not going to be the full experience by any stretch of the imagination.

And uh I I find the the discussion conviction integrity absolutely fascinating because it also informs a lot about uh you know what we uh want to uh do in the future on looking the past. So uh how does your office um report on these things? I mean there is a lot of there there are insights that are coming in. I mean you find out so this is what we were were doing very well the other things that we weren't doing very well or the system was failing in XYZ places. So this normally where is it where is it reported?

So our hope is to start now that we have a community engagement specialist and hopefully will be made permanent. Um our hope is to start creating an annual report. We have not had the resources really to do that. um and and it's beyond my skill set. So, uh I I understand that that's my goal, right? This is why I was asking that because I think that these are two things that are uh you know very well uh you know they're hand shaking with each other and it's important for this community to understand in what uh we are investing. So, thank you. You can proceed.

Thank you. Uh so, I think we're on slide eight. Yes. So, um we have two main uh uh diversion programs. So I'm going to start with the second one first which is OAR and uh we began work uh with initially with Vera um and then the DOJ has given us a grant that's five $1 million over five years. Uh it's what OAR does is it takes the model that they have for re-entry and applies it to diversion. And so we're doing that now, you know, instead of people become being incarcerated. And it's they provide wraparound case management and connection to mental health resources. They don't actually provide the mental health resources. Um, and you know, they uh, you know, a substance use disorder and basically services for a high-risisk population that keep cycling in and out. You know, these are people with 10, 11, 12 um, cycles in and out of the system where we know the system as it was didn't work. Um and so now we're trying to you know different interventions to to to try to create lower recidivism and you know the safer community. Um we've had a total of 125 participants um with 35 in the program. Each year it's increased. Um, and one of the stories that has come out of that is that we had uh somebody who'd been a witness to a horrible murder and uh was traumatized as a result of it and um was really cycling in and out of the legal system uh with mainly property crimes and disorderly conduct and we sent that person to OAR diversion connected them with sub- w which and then OAR connected them with substance use treatment. um worked with them to pay, you know, months of overdue rent so that they wouldn't be evicted. Um worked with them to create a budget and um that that individual is doing better now and

is closer to stability than they ever have been in their entire lives. Uh our we have other diversion programs as well. We have strong relationships with Alexandria Seapport Foundation, which is an apprenticeship program that pays people for for engaging with it. um Kitchen of Purpose, DC Central Kitchen, and we're working on building um an emerging adult docket of some sort, uh uh even if it's not officially a recognized docket that would connect young offenders with intensive job training like so 18 to 26 with intensive job training, mentoring, RJ conferencing, and we're also um hoping to work with unions to uh you know, put people on an apprenticeship path with uh the local unions as well. And now I'm going I have a number of slides about restorative Arlington and um our higher safety program. Uh we've seen a huge amount of growth in that um c in that program. Every year the number of participants has doubled and the only thing holding us back from more participants is their capacity and and their ability to to uh to to take these cases. But we have more cases than we know what to do with, more cases than they know what to do with. And um the next slide, please. You can see that it's a mixture of adult and juvenile. We have slightly more um larger number of adults uh involved than uh juveniles. And um uh what we've seen is that 37% of the cases are with participants from 22204. Um and that's one of the ways where we're trying to address racial disparities. Um next slide please. Uh you can see what the mo that we use um restorative justice primarily for fairly mostly for felony cases and you

can see that the we use it um like disproportionately but in a good way um for violent cases because those are the cases that have real victims on the other side that have been you know physically harmed. And so you actually get the most I I don't want to say it in a crass way, but it's the most bang for your buck really. Um because you're helping the victims with healing who could then potentially become defendants in in the future if we don't intervene. And then you're also helping um defendants who were, you know, quite threatening to the community to um to to transform. Uh and I want to go to the next slide, please. And oh, this is a little too tiny, but you can see that the we actually have a higher percentage, it's not huge, but a higher percentage of successful completion with felony cases than we do with misdemeanor cases. Um, I'm not sure why that is, but it is contrary to sort of the the common uh assumption about uh you know what where restorative justice works and where it's effective and where it should be applied. So, we actually are are we have we know that it works better and people finish it more when it's more serious cases. Um, and uh to to sort of put the the equity piece of this back in, 44% of the cases that were refer referred to Restorative Arlington included black defendants. 37% were right white, 13% were Hispanic. um and 2% were Asian, 2% were Middle Eastern or Near-African and we get these better outcomes in the diversion cases and the the more the serious cases that or and the cases that we take to trial because and it it takes resources. It doesn't just happen naturally. You know, we're we're um getting to know the victims. we are getting to know, you know, some

information through defense council about defendants and and so we're able to um work with with folks to make sure that uh people are are getting onto a path when you know that's an off-ramp to the system when they can and then you know pro providing the trial resources for when when that's not a possibility. Next slide please. Uh, I've talked a lot about victims, uh, but it's really important to see that victims are responding extremely positively to um, restorative Arlington and and the the work that they're doing. Um all of the victims who who were involved in these processes said that they reflect that the restorative plan reflected their needs that they would recommend um restorative uh justice that they understood the that the person who did the harm understood the impact on their li on the the lives of the person that they harmed. They got that the victims got a sense of relief. Um that they trusted the R.J. facilitators. um that and I'm sorry for the typo at the very end of this um uh and that um the R.J. facilitators were prepared and helped prepare them and the the bottom line is that they felt heard and that they felt that that um that that they were healed and would recommend this. And next slide, please. Oh, I'm sorry. Go back. We're It's too Why? Um so the the question is then like why does prosecutor led diversion matter? Um and you know the answer is that we are in the best position to know the whole picture of of what happened better than any other party um uh in in the process from report to to the end. And we can use our discretion to craft outcomes that are really targeted um to the underlying needs of the victims and the defendants, whether it's mental health

issues, substance use disorder, housing instability, lack of economic opportunity. And you know, we we help both sides of the V stabilize um ultimately. And you know, of course, we can't do this work without our partners. You know, the if the public defenders aren't telling us what's going on with their clients, we can't we can't know. So, um, it takes everybody, but, uh, the prosecutors are sort of the the main party that's making that's that's gathering all of that information and and making those decisions. And as I said, we've seen a 22% reduction in five year in the five-year recidivism rate and a 19% reduction in the the three-year recidivism rate. When you compare our diversion and dismissal cases, misdemeanors to the conviction um cases of misdemeanors and for the same time period. We can't do that with felonies because most of the cases where there would have been um a a legal pathway for for felonies, those people are still incarcerated um or they've only just been out. So, we can't do a five-year um comparison uh for those cases. But, you know, in about five to 10 more years, we will be able to see the the data on that as well. Uh next slide, please. So, thank you for including in the manager's budget, uh the uh FTE for the community engagement. Um uh we couldn't have done the data walk without that position. We couldn't have done the hope without harm fund without that position. It's not just public relations. It's not just comms. It's really truly public engagement and it's enhancing the safety and the understanding of the community of of what we do. Next slide, please. So, uh, we had three asks this year. Um, the first one is is already in the

budget, so I won't repeat that. The second is, um, uh, uh, $250,000 to contract for restorative justice services. That would cover two facilitators. And the reason why the number two is important is because each uh case is facilitated by two people. And um uh they one is takes primary responsibility for working with the victim and one takes primary responsibility for uh working with uh the defendant. And um it's there are other reasons as well, but for me that's the most important reason. It's but you know it's also to train, it's also to share the emotional load. It's also to to you know um to to fill in. But the most important reason in my mind is because, you know, it it creates that sort of ability, you know, that that unique trust with each party that it's not the same person talking to each party. Um, and uh the the third thing I asked for was improved office function. Michelle is uh uh sitting here and supervises 17 people which is uh not tenable to say the least. um in addition to wearing the HR liaison hat and in addition to you know um being the budget liaison and um uh purchasing and all of the other things that she does uh it's it's it's overwhelming um and to rightsize the office and rightsize her her sort of um direct supervisor load uh we think that we need a supervisory parallegal position. Um, I understand that there might be support for shifting a current open parallegal position to that supervisory position. That might work. Um, because we're anticipating and I don't know for sure,

but I'm anticipating that the um the administrative load will be lower uh with our new case management system. Uh, and I'm certainly willing to try that um and and and get back to you next year to see how that went. And next slide please. So the other things that you know I just would like the board to keep in mind is that uh we we are seeing increases in costs for everything from our research databases to evidence.com and to what our old case management system was. For example, last year they raised prices by a third. This year they were going to raise prices by another third. the new case management system that we are bringing on is is going to remain in line with what the increases would have been from the old case management system. So, they won't cost more, but all of the fixed costs are going up. And um you know, we can't we can't function without research. We can't function without evidence.com. Um we can't function without a case management system. Um we are however reducing costs of the county by diverting people from jail and res reducing recidivism. What hap like it's a hundred and The last time I checked it was $190 a night for somebody to to be at the jail. Um so you know over the course of it because we're sending the cases where people would have actually been incarcerated for either at DOC or at the jail at least for a year. um were uh you know the the comparative cost of you know under $5,000 for a restorative process versus you know the the 50 plus,000 that um to to keep that person incarcerated. We are saving costs even even even when it's hard to quantify. And then um I did learn recently that um there is a significant uh pay problem and I would have brought this to the county much sooner if I had known

sooner. But uh it's my understanding that um a brand new ACPD recruit uh is going to be starting at $90,000 a year salary um with the ability to earn overtime. Um I'm already hearing complaints uh from folks in my office about the uh unfairness of that and you know it's that so we have attorneys who have gone gotten their bachelor's degrees, gotten their law degrees, passed the bar and um consistently work well over 40 hours a week. I mean no no attorney works 40 hours a week in our office. Um they all work more than that. And you know, they're sometimes tasked with training police officers on the law and yet they're being paid less than the officers that they're training. And that is it. It it's it's absurd. Um and there's no other way um to to to put that. So, you know, I'd have put this in my ask. Um the sort of learning about this huge pay gap um and the problem is a recent development. Uh, you know, just by comparison, entry- level public defenders in Northern Virginia start at 86,000. They also should be paid more, but at the current at right now, my my income my my brand new attorneys are paid less than than public defenders. And I've always advocated for pay parody. They public defenders shouldn't make less than than prosecutors, but we shouldn't make less either. Um, and then the average salary of the junior level ACAs in Lowden is 93,000. Um and so we are going to have no choice but to ask for a compensation study and try to bring people up as much as we can, you know, using accelerated merit and um uh solving the compression problems that that we are going to see. Um we've already lost people who went to jobs with lower case loads because we have the second highest case loads in Northern Virginia as well. Um, so they

went places with lower case loads and got paid more and were closer to their homes because they could afford to live in Prince William County or Fairfax but can't afford to live in Arlington. Um, and so we're at a position right now where we have a wonderful team. We have the, you know, a team that is all everyone is rowing in the same direction. We've bought really great talent from the Department of Justice. Um, but any attorney could walk out of our office today and walk into another prosecutor office in the area and make $10,000 more than they're making and be able to afford to live in the community that they serve. Is that the last slide? That is the last slide.

So colleagues, um, I see already uh Mr. Spain's light and then uh, chair defant and then

it's okay. Well, thank you, Mr. Chair, and um Madame Commonwealth Attorney for your presentation today. And there's a question that I have. Um but I first I need to set this question up by one thanking you for your hard work uh and diligent efforts over the years uh in this role. I think folks that are listening and folks at this table knew what you were all about and what you promised us on day one. And being the junior member to the county board, uh I can't help but I've been through one budget cycle and I've had a chance to observe and listen and watch how we navigate our value propositions when it comes to finances and funding of offices. What? Starting on slides number I think it's eight is where we're picking up at. Yeah. Diversion restorative justice. Um could you talk a little bit more about what would it look like from an operational uh uh scale? What does right look like with from R.J. in your office? what from a in scale we're right now where you're doing some contracting with Restorative Arlington, but I've done some research and you look in places like Oakland, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Denver, Washington, we're far below par when it comes to restorative justice and doing the right things in our community for diversion. So, can you talk about the art of the apostle? What does right look like? I got your proposal. What your asses is is $250,000. And I've already gone on the record and my colleagues not this that I hope we can get there cuz I fully support it. But it's a tight budget season, right?

But I think we will never get anywhere by giving you or anyone I call it Scooby snacks. If we really want to embrace restorative justice fundamentally and what it means for it is a value case. You have to invest in it. And what I've seen over the years is that there's been not enough investment. There's been a lot of excuses, but not no investment.

Right. And I think we're really going to have to reflect upon the enormity of a $1.7 billion budget and come to some understandings if $250,000 is that really a lot of money in the grand scheme of things because values and diversion works. If we're willing to put more money into public safety in the police department than we are in diversion programs, that's a problem. That's a serious problem. So talk to me about scalability and what would it look like outside of RJ where it is now in your office.

I mean I haven't dared to think about that because it's been such an effort to get even the little Scooby snacks that we've gotten. Um uh I know that we you know the the county board accepted the strategic plan that you know 1300 community members and I have it here that 1300 community me members spent a year putting together and that plan included um you know a legal piece a a schools piece and a community piece and uh and you know we've been sort of bubblegum and taping the legal piece. The schools piece kind of got left behind because all of the resources have gone to the legal piece. And then the community piece is now on a little bit of a horizon because of a $ 1.5 million grant that Restorative Arlington is got from the DOJ where they're partnering with doorways to provide community-based uh restorative justice. and it's only community- based restorative justice. It's not legal referrals um for people who don't want to report and are are victims of intimate partner violence. So that's a that is try that is capturing a category of people that never would have been reporting to police and never would have been in in the court system to begin with. Um uh and particularly when you're looking at, you know, victims of certain backgrounds who are like dramatically now not reporting. Um you know, it it provides an avenue for people to get the the some some kind of help. Um but we haven't we haven't lived up to the promise of the strategic plan. And I,

you know, I' I've been asking for the for the $250,000 now for a few years. Um because we can't have an organization that provides this important a service limping from one year to the next based on grants. Um yeah, and eventually there's going to need to be more investment if we if we want to scale it. right now to keep up where we are and to be able to, you know, increase capacity at all, there needs to be the stability of funding.

So, I know uh the the chair has a few comments or questions, but I was here when this started 5 years ago, and you know what's striking is that we spent a lot of money on public safety budgets. We spent a lot of money on policing. We spend a lot of money on incarceration, but like I said earlier, we suspend significantly less on prevention, diversion, and restorative approaches. That's problematic. And you know, when we want to fund RJ to scale, you're talking about schools and courts and re-entry. I think there's a lot of folks here that really don't understand what restorative justice is really is all about. So, we got some education to do and I would love to work with you after this budget season on the art of the possible and how do we build this out within our community. Um, contractually, wherever you decide for this 250, I have no problems with that. Why? Because a number of our departments have contracts that are long-standing and they come without question

all the time. So, with that being said, uh, thank you for what you're doing. And I know we have a lot of questions coming up, but I view this as what we do, 50% policy, 50% politics. And uh I'm there with your request. Thank you very much.

Um I would just like to say two things if I may in response. Um I made a mistake. Uh it's 1300 hours and 45 people, not 1300 people in the community. And uh the the other um uh the other pieces obviously that that I agree we already have a soul source contract that with the Resort of Arlington that the county has already approved because it was connected to the U BJA grant that we got um the smart prosecution grant that we had for two and a half years. Um and that's how we've been paying but the those grants have don't exist anymore. Um and so it and and foundations are not as as generous with funding as as they were. And so and they're finding themselves in a position where they're funding like housing which is even sort of more basic a need. And so um there's there is no way to continue providing this service to victims and to to you know defendants and the community without investing. Well, thank you for the insightful dialogue. Um, Mrs. Spain, just to uh reiterate in our um uh strategic plan and I recognize Dr. Rosselle who just came in here who who was the uh uh uh you know principal shepherd for for that project back in 2020. Miss Lightly who was the first implementer actually. So uh uh bullet number seven it says seek sustainable funding. Uh that's status of 2021. Uh chair deferrant.

Thank you Mr. Kerattonis. I'm I'm happy to go. I also know vice chair coffee will have comments. Uh as you know I once described our criminal justice system as a tanker that needs to change directions and I am grateful for your continued leadership in trying to make that happen. Um and to do so with a sense of urgency. I also want to thank you for gobbling up um one of the perhaps very very few silver linings of our painful last year and a half of this president is that we've been able to get federal employees who are uh excellent and so I'm grateful for being fully staffed. Um seeking to be sort of judicious on the three asks that you have um and surfacing for colleagues. I have had a conversation a little bit about the parallegal position with uh Mr. to Ghani Taffy and and there's some detail yet to be figured out because there's there's compensation and then there's indirect and so I'd like to follow up a little bit with that conversation just to make sure at least that you I understand where you are and I'm also of the view that 17 employees is too much for any human being uh to to with due respect for any human being to supervise

super supervised well and beyond that I hope it's okay if I just kick to a a conversation later being mindful of the great work that you do miss Willie and also the detail that's there in so colleagues I wanted to surface that those conversations happy to engage with you individually directionally on those on the parillegal I thank you I appreciate the thank you on the community engagement uh to the manager I suppose the manager might have embied or been aware from us that we were supportive um not embibed uh I just mean osmosis or picked up that it's not a conversation I wanted to have whether this community engagement person should be ongoing. We had that conversation. Uh we're always trying to do ongoing things effectively with one time when we think they're going to end. This is not. So it's in the budget. Don't want to litigate. All good with that. Um on the dedicated funding, I'll say that I am also committed. We had a uh we have action led on this and they sent a letter last Thursday or Friday. I read it. I am inclined towards dedicated funding. Now I'll be transparent that we've also had a letter from OAR. We have the public defender. We have other and the IPA and I know you know that you got to advocate for your truth and what we need to do. We also as you indicated housing is another as you've led housing is another problem that leads to recidivism. um that were but that does not mean that we should not have dedicated funding towards restorative Arlington. In addition to this strategic plan, I've really felt that the police practices group identified the independent police auditor and restorative as two things we should pursue. And just because it's not 2020 doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue it. And so um all good with that. I have a question. Your argument on the two people resonates with my understanding of conflict resolution and mediation from friends and and my mom a long time ago. It came up in the course of some of the

work sessions earlier. The question is and I there was sort of a little bit of um discussion at our public testimony. When you think of diversion in terms of timing, police go to a scene of a incident. Mhm.

I think there's been some concern raised about the timing of diversion, right? It could be a little from my perspective, not being not knowing criminal laws, well, could be a little challenging to have diversion on site at the start when an officer makes an initial arrest. I'm not saying that it couldn't be right. I'm saying that I haven't envisioned it yet. And so that's not to say that I don't think restorative wouldn't be very appropriate, but I'm sort of trying to think my way through the officer's decision on the elements that lead to the the legal standard being met for an arrest and then the magistrate's choice and wanting, as you recall from long ago, on the on the mental health docket, we wanted to have pre-de pre- diversion, not post- diversion. So can you help me a little bit conceptually to understand if we could still do diversion in that way and address that concern that I feel has been raised by uh perhaps by um our law enforcement of the police our police side with respect to how um diversion and restorative would work when you have an arrest. Would that mean immediately there would be restorative person at the scene or could you do fully restorative while not developing the post arrest process? I need a little help with that

and it if you can't we can also do this later. I just want to understand

um so it it would be possible to divert whether it's to a restorative justice process or some other kind of diversion you know I mean certainly with the most van um and and that kind of thing um people are diverted into um mental health services and that sort of thing. Uh so so it is possible. Um my concern with, you know, one of the the things that we're really cognizant of in our in the office, um is to make sure that we're not net widening, um so that we're not scooping up people into diversionary processes and restorative processes who would not have otherwise been arrested and been fa facing charges or where the case is so weak that you know there's like an element missing or something like that. Um because it's when you give too much it's uh I think that there was at the CCJB meeting where Susan Summer Suzanne Summerrville noted that um sometimes you can give too much and too much actually backfires. Uh and so there's there's places where the police could, you know, take a kid who's shoplifting home and talk to the parents. Um which I know False Church does on a regular basis. um and and that person doesn't ever reaffend again and that's all they needed, right? Um that person doesn't need to go into, you know, a substance use evaluation or a restorative justice process. Um there's and then there's so that would be net widening, right? Um uh then there's, you know, situations where, you know, a victim is asking for that immediately and that could certainly be diverted. um by by law enforcement. It's a little bit strange in Virginia because we're not making so

so we don't make the charging decisions. Our our office doesn't make the charging decisions. So, it's like a few steps down the line where we are we even become aware of a case generally speaking. So, um sometimes we're aware of it during the investigation stage and you know we'll we'll be able to speak to the victim and get a sense of what they want from it from from all of this early. But it's it's you know because the police are making a decision about whether to let somebody go, whether to deescalate something, whether to give a summons or issue a summon or whether to take somebody to the magistrate's office um and ask for an arrest warrant there. And then the magistrate's office is making a decision about charges at that point. Um where we can't intervene as quickly as I would want to. Um, and if we were in a position where um, we got notice and were notified and were able to to contact the victims in real time, then we might be able to actually make those decisions earlier in the process. Um, but uh, as it is there, it is the answer is that's a very long way of saying yes, it's possible. My concern would be net widening. Um, and when it comes to like really serious things, it doesn't bother me to for our office to be involved in that because I feel a duty to protect and to serve our victims. And um, like I said earlier that prosecutor le diversion is particularly help useful and it shouldn't be the only thing. You know, it it absolutely should not be and and pre-charge diversion is extremely important. Um uh but you know it it I feel a response and we're we're often in the best position to know sort of what's going on and of course you need the buyin from you know uh I can conceive of something where the magistrates would be recommending diversion. I could see

something where police department you know police officers would be making um that judgment call. My only concern would be really um net widening.

Great. That's very helpful. Um the most example is good. I may want a conversation with you so that I think a little slowly and not in front of a lot of people um about sort of how to think this through but that's very helpful and I will leave to uh the CIP conversation perhaps the ASAP construction that you that we worked on a couple years ago with respect to your physical space. Um, and I u I do think there there are entities that we all might support that do not have contracts, but I do feel and I am committed to dedicated funding to seek to uh move forward in this area. So, thanks very much. Thank you, Chair Defanti Vice Coffee.

Thank you. I'll try and keep it short because I know we are already way behind. Um, and I didn't even ask for this to be pulled up and yet uh here we are, which is perfect. Um, this is kind of a tour of my greatest hits throughout. Uh, oh, maybe Miss Cunningham was gonna go in the same direction. Um, of all our conversations with our constitutionals. Um, but you know, I think this chart is super interesting to me. We've total of 89 90% increase in expenditures for the Commonwealth attorney over the last 10 years driven by 139% increase in local net tax support versus only 57% increase in our state funding. And that's really I think the story of all our constitutionals right now, right? in order to do the work that we as Arlington County believe in and that we all were elected here locally to achieve. Um we are putting more and more pressure on our local budget because frankly the Commonwealth is not meeting all of our needs. Um, and I think as you referenced, right, we're we're facing all of these new and different pressures that these are all priorities we want to fund, whether it is housing or diversion, restorative justice, um, funding our our public defender, funding the Commonwealth attorney, and um, it's all this this giant mishmash and puzzle that we want to do all the things, but particularly in a period of stagnating revenue, at least at the local level, uh, gets harder and harder to fit fit all those pieces together. Um, and so I think, you know, none of that is going to solve our this year problem, but I do think, um, the board, all our constitutionals, our schools, we need to get together and make sure that our Richmond delegation is understanding of this problem. um because a 139% increase in net tax support is probably not

sustainable when we have a budget that is actually decreasing year-over-year this year. Um as a as a whole county. Um, and so I I just I think I don't know that they're going to give us the direct amount of funds we would like them to, but even having locality adjusted pay for our constitutionals so that when the Virginia Compensation Board says here's the pay scale, it reflects the fact that to do this job in Arlington County is much different than to do that job in handover or wife or Martinsville. Um, and yet at the moment you all are given the same block of money for per position that anywhere else in the Commonwealth of Virginia is. And that's just not fair or reasonable, frankly. Um, and so I do think that there is a long-term strategy around making sure making changes at the state level so that the comp board provides us locality adjusted pay or at least regionally adjusted pay. I don't I I just think it's unsustainable for us to be absorbing all that. And if if the Commonwealth can help us invest in our people, then maybe that gives us some re some net tax support to invest in additional programs that we all believe in and want to fund. Um, and so again, this is I think the conversation we've had with each of our constitutionals is just the Commonwealth has left us on our own because in the past we've historically been able to absorb a lot of this locally and it's been okay and we've we've made it work and you know I think we will find a way to make everything work again this year, but next year and going forward the answer from the Commonwealth can't just be like, well, Arlington will figure it out. Well, I I completely agree with that. And but part of the problems with the pro, excuse me, part of the problem with the way that the Commonwealth

attorneys are funded is that the compensate the state only pays for us to do felony cases. They don't even pay for us to do misdemeanor cases.

And so, and the vast majority of our cases in Arlington are actually misdemeanor cases by a factor of like 3 to one. Um and so I have advocated every single year um for the state to have to to provide more funding. Um and even when it made my fellow Commonwealth attorneys uh in Becca angry, you know, we still and last year we last year um a group of us mostly reform folks but also um uh crossover for with some folks who are Republican and independents. Um they we we created a bill that was the Virginia Access to Justice Act that would have funded public defenders better, that would have funded um a court-appointed council better, that would have created a victim restitution fund that you know we're now creating in Arlington because this the state wouldn't do it. And that would have funded our offices for misdemeanors. So even without sort of locally adjusted pay, it would have funded all of our offices that the ones that do misdemeanors to do misdemeanors. But there, you know, even within the Commonwealth Attorney's Council, there was just a lot of push back on that. Some people saying that they don't want to be forced to do misdemeanors, you know, um uh some people just sort of getting upset because they thought they could advocate better than we could. um just a variety of reasons that um you know we had really great sponsors but it it basically died in the finance committee. Um but every single year I've advocated fiercely just like I advocate with you all and you all know that I'm you know somewhat relentless. Um, but I've been doing the same thing on a on a state level, uh, without a whole lot of luck. And I am a happy partner because I think that we have done criminal justice on the cheap in Virginia and it is it really shows. Um,

yeah. And and as things get harder, the cracks become wider and more problematic.

Yeah. Absolutely. No, I appreciate I appreciate you and I appreciate all that and I look forward to a comprehensive strategy going forward. And then may I also add that up until last year, the increases that our office got were not increases that were sort of priority like they were priorities because they were necessary, but it was you know attorneys because of the um bodywn camera program. It was uh you know it was things that had to be done and not things that sort of pushed the vision of what the office could be and what criminal justice could be into the future. Um, so it was really last year was the first time that we really got funding for um, creating sort of a a a different idea of what a justice system could be.

Yeah. Thanks. Thank you. Um, obviously the the Commonwealth among other problems we we they don't share the same ideas and standards of just justice that that we have here. And this is the political problem behind that. Miss Cunningham.

Yeah, just to to tag on to that and then I have a separate question, but it seems the bodyworn cameras have um amplified that perhaps. And I wonder if in the advocacy with the state, they're missing that point, right? Because if you look at 2022 where we, you know, it was bad before, but now it's kind of like triply bad. Um, and that does sort of track with some of the body warn camera which is both the contracts and the time to do it and it may be that we need to um have that conversation louder.

I I couldn't agree more. Um we tried to uh when we did a time so I advocated for a time study um uh so that we could understand what the work of commonwealth attorneys are and when they they when they created the time study the jurisdictions that had bodywn so all of our bodywn watching hours got distributed throughout the entire commonwealth. So jurisdictions that didn't have body worn got the benefit of an assumption of body worn watching and then the the jurisdictions that did have it because it got spread out we didn't sort of get credit for for it. And so in their wisdom the comp board decided that you know that that was the the the right way to do it and it and it just wasn't. And even the so we had the governor's task force and the the the recommendation for an attorney per every 75 um cameras which was really just out of nowhere. Nobody had any data to support that number. It was you know um uh it I mean even the person that that sort of suggested that number has said I just made that up. you know, I you I had 50, you know, I had one attorney for every 50 and that seemed like too much and so I just, you know, picked 75. Um, and so that's where that number came from. But they also didn't consider all of the administrative tasks that were going to be, you know, accompanying um the the body warn camera. And I know that um Alexandria, the city um comes attorney's office has had to have significant personnel increases uh when their police department um went online with bodywn camera.

Yeah. Great. Well, thank you for that. It kind of clicked for me for the first time that that's part of the part of the puzzle. It is a huge chunk of it.

Yeah. Yes. Uh so my question is around the value proposition and the return on investment. So returning to to that topic, um I think depending whether you're talking about juveniles or adults, it sounds like it's, you know, nationally 3 to 4x in terms of return on investment or as much as 20x. And I I know we haven't had the volume of cases to do a longitudinal study yet. Um, but as you think about do we need one or do we pair with others like what level of cases would be needed to uh truly answer that question for Arlington so that we can continue to invest in the in the highest return?

Um, well I would have to be it would have to be enough to attract researchers which we've really struggled to get researchers interested because of our small numbers. I mean it's great for the safety of the community that we have small numbers but researchers are not particularly interested and um when we did get some interest it was regional um but then the sort of the the plan kind of fell apart because of COVID and then changes in in leadership and that and that sort of thing. Um so I don't know the number. Uh I'm happy to to see if any researchers could could give me that number. Maybe Vera might be able to to help with that, but um we'd have to be we'd have to have numbers enough to garner the interest of

Yeah, I think that might be interesting as you know it's a multi-year effort, but it might be interesting to know what is that threshold so that um we can then measure and refine as we go. Uh last piece is on schools. So you mentioned that we haven't gotten very far with with uh restorative justice with schools. what what would it take and what would we need to to do to support that?

Um, so if I can indulge you all in a little bit of history, uh, I I will try to make it short. Um, restorative the county had received a a a VOCA grant uh, for Restorative Arlington in the amount of 4 $450,000. Um, I want to say that was 2021. It might have been 2020, but I think it was 2021. And you know, a restorative Arlington invested, you know, close to $100,000 just in materials and preparing to work with APS um to uh train administrators and teachers so that we could start restorative practices even in the way that um even like with students sort of thinking about like the the community and the impact of their their words and actions on the community. um so that we could then you know turn to like the restorative justice processes when things went wrong to avoid um suspensions and expulsions and that sort of thing. There's a metric ton of books that restorative Arlington spent money on and APS was going to get everybody trained with restorative Arlington but then because of political reasons that money was taken away. Um and uh what what then happened was that APS, you know, when they were no longer getting services for free from Restorative Arlington, um basically stopped engaging. And so what it would take is, you know, enough people to um to train APS and a commitment from APS to have everybody trained. Um, the books are there, the expertise is there, and Restorative Arlington is a internationally recognized organization.

Got it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Cunningham. Um, in the interest of time of this meeting, I'm not going to ask you anything else. I'm going to thank you for for this. I'm going to cite though our strategic plan from the from said year 2021 when we had a pretty clear pretty clear vision of about about how to go about criminal justice reform and not just restorative justice. Restorative justice was a part of all this right

and uh it's actually now five years since uh the total of recommendations of our uh uh policing best practices group. So I do think that colleagues and I I think I mentioned that before that at some point this year we should be revisiting that and just taking stock of where we are. But here are the three citations. 91% of harm people would recommend a restorative conference to a friend. It is up to eight times more expensive eight times to use the court system than restorative justice conferencing. when talking about return on investment using restorative practices in Minnesota schools reduce suspensions by 63%. So uh when this is done well when this is done with conviction and and in the in the frame of um of a criminal justice reform um uh strategy which we do have uh the the results are uh pretty stunning. uh and we have seen a a uh a pre preview of that already in the data that you pro provided today and I and I very much hope to see far more and more far more in detail and vertical detail in the data uh walk in May. So, thank you for all this.

Thank you so much. Oh, last question.

We're way over time and we can answer this later. Um, but I just want to get on the record. Uh, I had the chief of police here a few weeks ago. Um, Madame Com is is homework assignments. Um, I want to be able to understand because we just talked about restorative justice. I asked the chief a a pointed question about memorandum of understanding and working with the commonwealth attorney and restorative justice and he replied I need to hear from you what are the barriers if any from the comwalth attorney's office at working with the police department um on adults and young adults for restorative justice

um we have tried um and we tried for years and theou that we have with Restorative Arlington, which I believe I have a copy of. Um, there are extensive changes that we made to theou. This I'm not sure if this is the most recent one. Um, there are extensive changes that we made. No, this is this is new. um in response to police concerns. In fact, every concern that they had, uh Restorative Arlington's board and my office and court services um agreed to make every single one of the changes that they recommend that that the police asked for and in the end um uh they simply stopped responding. Um they did not respond to Restorative Arlington. did not respond to Judge Lopez who was a member of the board and a and a sitting judge on the circuit court and um and so it fell away.

Okay. And we we proceeded with court services unit and our office and restorative Arlington because we were the three that that were committed to the work. Would it have been an opportunity to re-engage and and work together on some level of partnership with you be willing to do that? um with caution. Okay. Um I'm not interested in wasting any time and um we have a model that works right now with Restorative Arlington that I think we need to to focus on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Uh moving on to uh

our uh our electoral our register and electoral board. Um short intermission until you get settled. Miss Randy Meyer, our register and what is what is even more important is our director of elections, right? Yes. And M sharpa who represents here the electoral board. Thank you for being with us today.

Thank you so much for having us. Let let us see if we there is a presentation, right? Yeah, there is a presentation. We are going to load that. Yep. So today with we also have Dominic Sherpa the secretary of the electoral board right now. So okay

so let's get going. Next slide please. So our mission at the at our office is to maintain an accurate list of registered voters and administer elections fairly and efficiently in an open, transparent and equitable manner. Next slide please. So the full legal title of our office is the office of voter registration and the electoral board. and we spend most of our time focusing on the latter more visible side of our operation elections. Uh but this year I wanted to highlight some of the work we do the other 364 days a year when we aren't running an election and that is voter registration. So Arlington registered over 10,000 new vote new to Virginia voters last year and when we look at the number of new voters in relation to current voters this is the fourth highest rate in Virginia. The only localities onboarding a higher rate of new to Virginia voters are college towns like Harrisonenburgg, Williamsburg and Norfolk with two universities and the Navy. So when we look at this stat over the last four years in any general election, a quarter to a third of the voters on the roles in Arlington could be voting in their first Virginia gubanatorial election, their first Virginia midterm, or their first election with 45 days of early voting, rank choice voting, or any of the other laws that make voting in Arlington, Virginia unique. The only information that these voters receive when they register is a 4x6 postcard letting them know that they're registered and that their d what their districts are in their polling place. So when we think about voter education, it's not just a one-time thing. It really needs to be an ongoing every year. Every election we're going to have new voters. So in terms of total transactions of voters moving in or out of Arlington, we process more than 37,000 transactions. So there's a great deal of work to be done just to keep an accurate list of registered voters here in Arlington. Next slide, please. So now in terms of elections, we had record

turnout last year. Last November was the first non-presidential election where more than 100,000 voters cast ballots and the steady increase in turnout in general elections is largely attributed to an increase in population. The two tend to go hand in hand. Um, we last year we also won an award for using historical data to better allocate resources throughout the election process. So we have a statistically accurate calculator for how many voters will vote each day of early voting and on election day based on turnout the first day of early voting. And knowing this allows us to best allocate resources throughout an election to minimize waste as much as possible. And the final bullet for last year is we also updated our strategic plan um with the electoral board. Next slide please. So this year we have a small increase related to employee salaries and benefit increases and I just want to make clear that we are not proposing a reduction in FTEES. Next slide please. Uh we are proposing a reduction in election day staffing by one pole worker in each precinct for each election. So poll workers are not included in the FTE number for our department. I know there's been some confusion around that. So with the shift of voters from election day to early or male voting, turnout on election day has steadily been declining. Yet we're still budgeting for more staff on election day than we actually end up using. So this reduction reflects what staffing actually is looking like with our office on election day and any impacts. It could lead to longer lines on election day, but we don't anticipate that a reduction in election day staffing would lead to longer lines at this point. Next slide, please. So, I know that you have spent a lot of time this budget cycle talking about a program that costs roughly $2 million and that that only represents.1% of the $ 1.7 billion budget. Uh today, we're going to talk about this $2

million program and some of the challenges that we expect for next year. So, the fiscical year 27 budget proposed last fall was a figment. Uh, we already know going into the fiscal year that staying within our proposed budget will be a challenge. Instead of the two budgeted elections, the November 26 midterm and the 27 primary, we'll have to fund roughly 2.7 elections. So, we now have a primary this August that's going to have to spread across two fiscal years since voting starting June 18th. Some expenses are going to hit fiscal year 26, some will hit 2027. Um, also on the docket, uh, the next year, it looks like we're going to have increased ballot cure requirements for me for for mail ballots and provisional ballots. Um, Arlington has one of the highest provisional ballot rates in the state. So, that's going to hit us disproportionately than it might other parts of the state. We could be looking at additional language translation requirements, mandatory Sunday voting for two Sundays before every election. And we already know going into this fall that we're looking at a ballot with a lot of text. So, we're going to have three constitutional amendments, any bond questions that this board might adopt to be on the ballot, and rank choice voting. So, most of these budget pressures are coming to us from the general assembly. and 90% of our office support comes from local tax revenues um through the budget that we're presenting here today. Next slide, please. I know it sounds like a broken record. I

I will say that we are not here to report that the general assembly is doing their job on this score either. Um they are not funding what they're telling us to do.

Yeah. So to give you an idea of how an election additional election impacts our budget, I've provided a couple of expenses that are one time directly related to running an election. So we're looking at 10% of our proposed budget going towards unanticipated expenses for running an additional election next fiscal year before the fiscal year has even started. So our office does not have a contingency to cover these costs. So if the board is going to require us to keep to our proposed budget, which I want to make clear, nobody has asked me to do. Um but we are seeing electoral boards in other parts of the state being asked to keep to their proposed budgets that the that their county boards had given them. Um so but when we start looking at where else we can cut costs with our existing programs, we have to look to the items that aren't required by law since so much of the work that we do is required by law. So, we start looking at things like the fall voter guide, reducing hours uh for early voting to control for overtime cost, closing during the week potentially to cover the cost for having to opening two Sundays, um or potentially closing dropboxes. I will note that we do anticipate some revenue that we did not anticipate this year for running the current April 21st special election. Um, but I will note the general election only allocated 5 million total in Virginia. And we do know that the cost to run an election for localities in Virginia is closer to 12 million based on the amount that was requested and reimburseing for the last dual presidential primary uh 3 years ago. So we know that 5 million will not be enough to recover cost for the election that we are currently running this year. Next slide please. So the last six years have brought a lot of additional mandates to our office. On top of laws passed by the general assembly, we're also seeing increased regulations from the Virginia Department of Elections. We also expect a new voter registration

system, which is the backbone of everything we do um any day now. And that's not a typo on the slide. Um if we don't see this new voter registration system, which was expected in 2022, next spring, this fiscal year that we're proposing, uh we will not see that new voter registration system before the presidential election. just with the timeline of elections. So, we're either going into the presidential election with a new system, which is going to have all the problems of a new system, or we're going into the presidential with an old system with all the problems that come with the system that should have been replaced four years ago. So, I do want to reassure voters that we will continue to do what we need to do to run fair and efficient elections, but we are pushing against the limits of what our current staffing can sustain. Next slide, please. So to illustrate this, I wanted to take everyone through staffing up to leading up to an election. So we start September 1st with eight FTEs at our courthouse location. For the purposes of this slide, I'll note that I've only included the eight permanent full-time positions that our office has. The other FTE count included in our budget is for temporary staffing, which has limited oversight in what they can actually manage. So on September 15th, we lose an FT to our warehouse to start uh readying the more than 600 pounds of equipment needed to run a polling place on election day. On October 6th, we start to lose an FT to train election officers and staff the polling places. October 15th, we lose an FT to start processing mail ballots. From October 18th to November 5th, we will be open for seven days a week. uh we'll lose another FT to support the multiple early voting sites that we have to run and inevitably another FT during that time period to illness from fatigue. So now we are left with three to four FTEEs on any given day to hold down the fort and answering the phones

and keeping the office running doing the other tasks that we have to do the 364 days a year. While doing this, we're ramping up to open 55 locations for 13 hours on election day with the support of more than 500 election day workers. This cycle is not unique to a general election. It repeats every election. So, two to three times a year, up to six months, we navigate this challenge of juggling staff while trying to meet legal requirements and public expectations. I'll also note that 93% of election day workers in our county residents, 100% are Virginia residents. So any expenses spent on salaries is money going directly back into our community. Retention and recruitment are not our challenges. Funding is. So I know everyone at this table understands how strained we are by election day. Several of you have reached out to me in the final weekend before an election trying to solve parking or construction or staffing issues. And you can see that we just simply run out of resources by the weekend before we get to an election to triage any issues. And I know that we can talk about this being an extraordinary year with so many elections, but we will have run three elections in fiscal year 26, three elections in fiscal year 27, three elections in fiscal year 28 leading up to a presidential in fiscal year 29. So the question for this board moving forward is do you want to continue our funding at the current level or do we need to start having a conversation of what increases should we be considering? And that concludes my presentation. Thank you. I I would note for the chairman of the county board um the early voting coordinator for us manages 50 people across the sites over the early voting period right into

it's cold they're I'm ready to try and answer but early voting I mean yes uh chair defant if you want to go ahead thank you so much for for this I mean uh first of all the person who will you know uh bend uh after so much workload here the the the second to the last right so um chairman I didn't have any questions until the concluding line and the the presentation

and I don't need to be the point on working the problem but I am willing Mr. Schwarz, can you help a little bit with, you know, you asked for reductions from many departments and not this department? Um, can you give a little perspective on how we should think about this challenge and, you know, the lean with so much few employees leveraging 500 plus, you know, trade volunteers. I'm I'm just going to say in the past when these circumstances have arisen, I mean, we've always met the need that's been expressed by the registar, I would just say that they may be despite what Gretchen just said, we I treat them more as one-time needs because we can't be sure what's going to happen going into the future. So, I know that there is uh the availability perhaps as we do the markup of one-time funds, we should try to get a very specific proposal from you about what those needs, incremental needs would be in 27.

I guess I would say I'm fine with that for this year. I'm wondering if you know next year there might be a need to build infrastructure if we're seeing steady, you know, and I'm mindful that we're not in the clear next year,

right? We'd be definitely willing to do that. And also with the replacement of the equipment you talked about. I mean I think we've always been accommodating on that we and one of the challenges is I I just want to be clear the registar has been very forthcoming on whatever information she gets as soon as she gets it. Okay. The problem has been the changing standards and us trying to respond to that and we'll always work with her. We used to have the quadrrenial rush uh but now that seems to have stretched to a annual rush. So, we'll we'll work with that and we make sure in our CIP that we have the capital needed to do that. We've I've never said no to Gretchen, let me put it that way.

Yeah. And I'm I'm comfortable there. I didn't know if you wanted to add anything just to help because that is my understanding. I don't want to be parsimonious about something as sacred as I see it as voting, but I did want to see if you had anything. Gretchen, you wanted to.

Yeah, I will I will say that we tend to spend what we need to spend. So, I just want to make sure that we are all on the same page of what this fiscal year could look like for our office. So, um and I will note that normally when we know we're going to have three elections, we will budget for three elections, but this year we didn't know we were going to have three like I mean we all know we didn't know we were going to have two special elections this year. So, and a shifted primary. So, that's just not something we could budget for. Great. I'm crystal crystal clear and I'm done. Thanks. Yeah, this is a pretty objective reason to more support. Yes,

if I may. Um, the Electoral Board Association for Virginia is on top of this issue and we are lobbying folks in Richmond. Um, but it is always helpful if uh the localities themselves also lobby. Um that list of mandates comes with if you look no fiscal impact statement on the LIS because it to them it has no fiscal impact um because it doesn't affect the state budget. It just affects your budget um and our budget um so if the localities can get to them and put it on the list of things that our delegation in Richmond needs to know um their support is necessary for their mandates. Thank you colleagues. Any other questions? I see Vice Chair Coffin and then Mrs. Spain.

Yeah, thank you. You more or less answered what I was going to ask which is given that we are simply not the only locality facing this what the kind of conversations are across all all of y'all's colleagues. Um so I think that's that's pretty much answered there. Um but I do think that you're right. I think seeing that list of how many things all of which are great things we agree with and support but just fundamentally cost us money. Um I think that's the conversation to have. Um and then I I too support giving Gretchen whatever she asks for. So within reason of course but that's we trust you to only ask for reasonable things. So um I'll leave it there.

Thank you. Um Mrs. Spain. Uh yes, thank you Gretchen and um and the entire team. I just want to go back to slide three. I think all of us uh can appreciate this because you made some emphasis. U one out of three every three voters in Arlington are new to the process. Uh just want to gather your thoughts on, you know, I put a lot of emphasis myself on educating the electorate, especially with implementation of RCV, right? So we have folks coming into a jurisdiction where RCV is new. ever. Can you talk about what that may look like from a education space and financial demand with one in every three voters coming in?

It's a continuum I would I would believe. It's a continual problem which is why one of the things we started doing a couple years ago was that fall voter guide because that's the thing that and when we talk about equed voter in the Commonwealth or sorry in Arlington as of August of that year and it provides them with an overview of options and what to expect that fall when they go vote. Um, and that's where it taking a it's it is hard to get to new voters, but if we instead of sending them a 4x6 postcard saying you're registered to vote, we could take that opportunity to send them something a little bit more substantial for them to review about welcome to voting in Virginia. Here's what you need to know and use that as an opportunity to talk about other things. Um, but right now we can only do what is legally required and that is to send them a voter card. Yeah.

Last thing and and I know this is probably a whole different lane, but well it is quite honestly the u the voting machines. You want to give us a quick little update on that? I mean something something was supposed to happen in 2026. Yeah. No. So So uh it's still Yes. Um, we I tend to focus on the problems of today and worry and not worry about the problems of tomorrow until they become the problems of today. So, we are still slated to get new voting equipment. It is still going to be in place by the primary uh by June 18th. Um, okay.

With I am current I do have a meeting scheduled with the county attorney's office on Monday. So, hopefully we can get everything finalized, but we are ready to move the second this election wraps to start bringing in the new equipment. So thank you for the vendor is just waiting for the sign. We are ready. We like I said we have the roll out in place. We will be moving forward in May and June. Thank you for your leadership. Yeah,

thank you. Uh, in the interest of time and being mindful of that, two questions on your slide number eight where you listed some potential cuts and I just wanted to to to ask what is what kind of thinking is behind these uh the one that they closed dropboxes for for all three elections. Mhm.

Why why would this be something that you would put as a potential cut? It's not a legal requirement. So when we look at the programs that we are running that are optional under 24.2 the code of Virginia dropboxes are an optional program. And so if we cut drop once again this is not a cut I want to take. It's not a smart cut to make because every ballot returned to a dropbox saves us 80 cents in postage that we don't have to pay for that ballot to be returned back to us. Um, but so I do wish more voters would use our dropboxes because every single voter that uses one is saving us 80 cents. Um, but it's not a legal requirement. So when we look for where we can cut in our office, that's one of the things that ends up on the cut list.

Okay. So that that answers the first question. The second question is the the the line above that the closed Tuesday, Wednesday for two weeks during early voting for all three elections. like Tuesday w Wednesday Wednesday and not those are the slowest Tuesday Friday those are the slowest days. So if we're if we're making data informed decisions so if we have to be open on a Sunday once again these are not cuts that I think anybody at this table really wants to take but if we are if we've only budgeted to be open for six days those last two weeks of early voting then where we look to cut is on a on a Tuesday or Wednesday because those tend to be our slower days.

Right. Okay. Thank you. I This is the the insight I was looking for. I I tried to understand why why you put them on the block. And Miss Con, can I just ask um if you were setting the right level of contingency for this year, what would you set it as?

It is uh well, we need to at least fund the additional election costs that I've listed there. So once again, I understand in a $ 1.7 billion budget that doesn't look like a huge amount of money, but for our department, like all of those items, once again, we have the benefit of some things are going to hit in fiscal year 27, some are going to hit next year. So mailing out ballots, so it's the last of the item. So, we're going to mail out the ballots for the August primary um in around June 18th. So, two weeks before the end of fiscal year 2026, we are going to be hit with around a $30,000 invoice to print and mail ballots to voters for the August 4th primary. And my hope is that any revenue that we do get from the state reimbursement that our department is able to hold on to that and apply that to some of these expenses.

And so the number is roughly 215 for the one election that's been added and if more specials it scales.

Well, the good news uh with the special election that so the moving of the primary to August is there will be no more special elections until December. Um so that is the only silver lining for our budget is that it is almost there could potentially be a special in that space between August and uh sep Labor Day. Uh but we the window for that is rapidly closing. Okay. So great. Thank you. And then related safety and security is um always a concern for our voting processes, but are there any budgetary impacts of uh potentially unusual or additional support that you may need this year? Not that I'm aware of at this time. Okay.

Yeah. I don't think that's an that doesn't wind up being an US thing. Um comes to the other side. Yeah. Some of it just gets kind of wrapped up in the county's IT Yeah. infrastructure and others would be if we had an issue that required the public safety system which means rely on others as we usually do. Yeah, we rely on the other we rely heavily on pretty much every Arlington County department. Um we could not do what we need to do uh without support from every department that has also come before you talking about their budgetary needs this year. So I leave it there with a huge thank you. Thank you.

Huge thank you DTO. Uh thank you very much. I I think we will be in conference as they say. Um Mr. Adam, Office of the Magistrate.

Okay. I thought the contingency fund of the K county measure could be taking care of all these things. Hi Mr. Adam, thank you for joining us. Uh we are loading your presentation. It's there. All right, next slide please. Um this is the high-minded version of uh what our position and what we do. Um and uh as I said we're as the magistrates we're the uh next slide. Uh next slide please. Uh, we're the only judicial officer that is operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. I know you have heard me say this before. Um, we only have eight and a half people that does this. Um, I have the ability to sometimes draft people from other jurisdictions and the state pays them overtime under some strange circumstances that you I couldn't explain and sometimes they will, sometimes they won't. Uh, like over the Easter, uh, I had to borrow three people to cover four shifts because I didn't have the staff available. Um, I'm hoping by next year to have nine people in the office rather than eight and a half. Uh, we have the last part-timer in the state of all the magistrates and he's very likely to retire this year. He hasn't formally told me yet, but he's informally told me. So, I'm assuming unless he changes his mind. Uh, and I've reached out to the state since they don't want to hire

a part-timer to give me another half of a person. um that will help me to be able to man our office more and we have a an auxiliary office for lack of a better word in Falls Church and having uh nine people will give me more flexibility to cover both offices at the same time. Um what we do is I said we are got people that issue arrest warrants, search warrants. Uh we hold bond hearings, all the initial bond hearings. Um when the court decides someone needs to leave, we're the ones who process them out. We also issue all the emergency protective orders. Um we do a little e uh emergency substantial risk orders and also mental health and mental emergency custody orders and temporary detention orders. We do other things as well. But um we also administer take acknowledgements and act act as conservators of the peace. Uh next slide please. As I already said, we operate 247. Um, and I just would ask if you think about that tonight when you're going to bed, one of us is going into the office to man it. And if something goes horribly wrong, I will be there. Also, uh, you know, we serve very diverse population. Everyone who has a mental health or criminal problem in in the Arlington or the city of Falls Church, we deal with um both the victims and the

um people they're accusing in the case of criminal matters. also because we have statewide authority in many circumstances uh and we have airports and communication hubs in Arlington. We deal with people who are um have legal processes in Virginia and in some cases other places in the country we end up dealing with.

Mr. Adam, if you allow me, uh can you speak into the microphone or move the microphone because I leaned forward and missed the thing entirely. Uh next uh next slide please. Uh one thing I was going to say is we do um get two of the eight and a half of us get supplement or actually one and a half of the eight and a half of us get uh supplemental pay. um that will probably go away sometime this year because the two people who get supplemental pay are likely to be retiring in the next year. Um so you'll you'll get the windfall of getting that money back. That's my snide comment. Uh uh the next on the uh just so people don't um panic too much, one of the reason the figures are very different this year than were projected is because the state reorganized how we account for things. So, um, the probable cause hearings deal not only with criminal matters, uh, but also with mental health and medical matters that we deal with as well as emergency custody orders, emergency protective orders, things like that. So, it's those would would have been factored in in other places and are now factored in in that category. So, the crime did not go up drastically. Um, and one of the reasons that has gone up is there's been a jump in um in search warrants and things of that nature because there have been some complicated matters that have required multiple search warrants for particular

cases. And also we there have been some task forces looking into crimes in other parts of the state that for certain reasons have been um directed to our office to deal with. And also one of the things I found is that we had not been able to capture previously those requests for um warrants or search warrants or protective orders or other things that were denied because they didn't have enough evidence to do to issue. And I was able this time to factor in processes that were denied and um but took up our time to deal with and go through everything. Uh previously we had not been able to track that. And um the ne uh next slide please. As you know, we sometimes have problems that that happen outside of the uh standard request for monies yearby year because we use whatever we have and until it falls apart. Uh I uh this year I do not have anything I'm expecting to do for well

chairs.

We well we have chairs and uh we uh we have carpeting. Um the only thing we're working on now is uh reached out to the sheriff's department. Um, as you know, we're we're in the uh the side entrance to the jail and we're having trouble with the um you know, air conditioning and heating system. So, we're having, you know, since we're the at the very end of the system, um I'm going to but that shouldn't impact my budget. Uh but I'll be bugging them to uh get that fixed. Uh okay. And the other thing I was going to say is uh my colleague um Mr. Dunny uh Pesa uh mentioned about the um diversion programs. Uh we had one in place in our office for a number of years. The magistrate post booking project. Uh that uh was had to be put aside during the COVID. uh they then had other programs that they used the person that was there was two people originally that were working with us on our program. They got absorbed into other situations. So we have a theoretical program at the moment but no one who can come down and uh evaluate the people and give us and and make a plan for us to divert people. Uh so all we're able to do at this time is to notify the um so the further along the line people can uh re can you know divert these people and u we are however uh it's my understanding uh the jail mental health staff is going to take over this program at some point in the future. It's always

been it's nebulous at the moment, but I'm hoping to have the program up and running on a solid basis in a few months. And uh but since she had talked about the, you know, the diversion programs, we're in favor of it for a number of years. you've had a program until I said it died due to the uh combination of them needing staff elsewhere and people not being able to be around one another for a while.

Thank you, Mr. Adam. Um, as always, it's a small office, but it's very insightful to hear you here. Uh, any questions, colleagues? only to name for uh the ears of God which is Ariel to um the CIP question of the HVAC system. I do want to follow up on and then uh I think probably all colleagues might be interested in understanding more of the uh diversion program that pre-existed and what might be possible not speculating on budget ask I feel like that is an area I want to learn more. Yeah. Yeah, that is noted already. Uh thank you Mr. Adam. Uh, colleagues, we

may I just tag something for the for Ariel as well? I'd be interested in any demographics data that we have about outcomes at the magistrate level and any support you might need for your teams on bias training or anything else. So, we'll take that offline. Uh, we get that through the state. Okay. Um, uh, we get training a couple times a year from the state. Uh, and that's always one of the things that is done. Great. Okay. Okay. So, you get training from the state a couple times a year. Just to recap because you're far. Thank you. All right. Thank you, colleagues. We can have like five minutes of a break, but no, it's about an hour still to go. So, uh let's just keep going.

Let's keep going. So, uh which uh brings us to the office of the public defender. I see Miss Carpenter already coming. All right. Good afternoon, everyone. Sure. Thank you. Um, you may know everyone, but this is Amy Stitzel. Hi, everyone. Miss Stitz,

deputy public defender, and Rachel Collins, senior assistant public defender. Thank you. Thank you for being uh with us. Uh I see your presentation already loaded and ready to go. Okay. Um next slide please. So our mission remains the same to protect and defend the rights and dignity of our clients through zealous, compassionate, highquality legal advocacy. The way that we get clients is through court appointments. Our microphones are really not very sensitive. we economized.

Thank you. The way we get clients is through court appointments. Um so what happens is someone has already been charged, has already either received a summon from a police officer or gone through the magistrate's office and then is held in jail. They come into court. The court assesses their um financial level and ability to pay and then appoint our office. So, um, we cannot go get clients from anyone else. They're they're literally appointed to us straight from the court. Next slide, please. So, in reviewing this, our office has been an essential partner in the county's efforts to build a more evidenceinformed, humane, racially just, and equitable criminal legal system. And uh highlighting the next things is that the needs of those charged with crimes in Arlington really truly do continue to evolve. Um, I know we've all talked about just the increase in mental illness and mental health cases, especially since COVID, but there's just been such a rapid change in the way the the sort of cases that we get and um the expectations of the courts and the communities and things like that in helping to address the situation. And we of course are very privileged to live in Arlington. Um, and we have programs and things that we can help send our clients to. Um, but it's it's a lot of work and um, leg work and all that sort of thing to work with our clients to get them into those sorts of programs. And so with the complexity of programs um this year I guess I could say with the decrease in funding broadly um of programs through federal grants, people losing donations, things like that. Um things just are constantly shifting and um we have to stay on top of all of that in order to know where people can go,

what they would be eligible for and and what sort of things can work for them. Um, of all the things our office is an expert in, I think the number one thing I could say compared to other public defenders offices across Virginia is mental health law. It probably isn't a surprise that Arlington sends the highest number of uh incarcerated detainees um defendants down to the state hospitals for competency restoration. Um there's many theories on why that happens. Um, some is that we're an urban area. Some is that um community tolerance for unhoused people is lower. Some is that um Arlington by virtue of having the federal government here and the Pentagon and things like that attracts um people who may have paranoia about the government. But we have very complex mental health issues um legally and I guess and and social work type of way as well. But there's all sorts of complex mental health law that we have to know about that we litigate and that I think is fairly niche for the state. And so I would consider our office an expert on all of that sort of thing. Um, our office has developed a reputation um, within the area of a model zealous client- centered indigent defense practice. We serve as a resource to other offices if they have questions whether it's research that we've done or things that we have shared with other public defenders offices across Virginia. And one thing that has become particularly important this year and has been has constantly changing rapidly is immigration law. We of course are appointed many people who are immigrants as our clients. Our responsibility according to the Supreme Court has been to advise our non-citizen

clients very specifically on what the potential outcomes could be or will be um of criminal charges. And so everything literally from just getting charged to the impact that certain convictions or other outcomes could have. And the law has changed rapidly on this with the Lake and Riley Act. um uh I don't I don't know how long ago it was, maybe maybe even over a year ago. Um and of course the sorts of um things that people could face continue to evolve. Federal law continues to change. Lots of cases are going up to appellet courts. So that is something that we um of course work very closely with our clients on and take our obligations seriously. Um but also something we do constantly need to stay on top of both so we are giving the right advice and also so that we are providing advice um properly. Um next slide please. The small print um our total case numbers have remained high. Uh I did it's not on the the slide deck but I did calculate numbers under a different case management way this year. Um, in some ways it captured numbers better. In some ways, in looking through it later, I realized the other system captures some other numbers better. Um, but I think the main thing that continues is that our serious felony cases uh continue to be high. I think that's probably the area um via metrics that our office has increased the most in over the last three or four years. We are getting the vast majority of those courtappointed cases in Arlington. and um our office is is handling them at a high level. Um we of course continue to have clients with serious mental illness. The county has provided one of our positions as a mental health resource attorney. And so that position continues

to be occupied by someone who has a social work degree and a JD. She works on the diversion courts as part of her job. um attends a lot of the county meetings with DHS, the jail, things like that. And she also works with many of our highest need clients. And so that is a lot of work in and of itself. Um people who have potentially suffered from instability for a long time or just real need a a long-term handholding on what they're going through and helping navigate the system. Um pre-trial reform Evidence shows that pre-trial release is the single most important factor that ultimately contributes to someone's long-term life outcome following criminal charges and uh impacts the ultimate outcome of their trial. And so it's very important to us to advocate as strongly as possible to have people be out of jail while they are facing charges. Um, it helps prevent a bunch of collateral consequences like losing their jobs, losing their housing, all sorts of things that just contribute to instability and cycles of instability. Um, I mean, everything from like pets being left home alone to all sorts of scheduling changes. Um, additionally, if people are out of custody, it's so much easier for them to work on their cases and to help them um represent them properly. they're able to come to our office and, you know, view discovery. Um, I'm sure you're aware with bodyborn cameras, we might have hundreds of hours of discovery in most of our cases. And, um, if someone isn't in jail, we could have them, we can tell them, you can come by during the day and there will be a parallegal who will be available to help you review discovery. Um, so we put a lot of emphasis on this. Also, if someone is doing really well pre-trial,

it of course impacts their ability to continue to remain successful in the community post-trial. And so we we really try hard to put together plans for people to get out pre-trial and post-trial. And so that is where the re-entry parallegal comes into play. um because we now have the parallegal that is state funded um the mental health resource attorney and then with the re-entry parallegal I would say we've been able to double the amount of work that we are doing to help people successfully re-enter and most of the people um that Shazi who is our um person in that position currently is working with are people who are in custody but it's not limited to that um for example there are people who don't have phones And so she may be a resource for them to come check in at our office to figure out next steps. Um or she may help them connect with O so that they can get a phone or a phone number or Google Voice account set up or just get a backpack or clothing or things like that. And so while the majority of things that she's doing would be putting together re-entry plans either programming um pre-trial or post-trial she is available to support many of our clients as they reenter as well. Um, with respect to release planning, what that entails, it's really person dependent, but it really can include anything from, you know, doing program evaluations, referring them to a program, talking through with them what might be appropriate, what sort of needs they have, and then literally scheduling, you know, a three-way call through the jail for the evaluation. Um, but then let's say someone gets into the program, they're going to need transportation to get there. there's going to be a need for a plan on where they're going to go and how they're going to continue to receive services afterwards. And so there's there's just a ton of logistics as well. Um I am certainly more than happy to answer any

questions about that position. We are really thrilled to have Shazi in our office and to have the position. It's really enabled us to do a lot more for our clients and um also to do things more quickly. though before there would be, you know, a longer wait list for people to start getting programming together. Um, with respect to diversion, we do continue to be very involved in those efforts and supportive of county programs, um, allowing people to have their cases diverted in whatever way it looks like. Um, I think a lot of the people here today have just talked about, for example, the magistrate just talked about the diversion program that used to happen in the magistrate's office. Um, there's, of course, the restorative justice programming, which we're very supportive of. Um, and has been a great experience for our office and our clients to participate in. We work a lot, of course, we're on behavioral health docket. Um we're on the recovery court and we work a lot with OIR diversion as the program you know is in its infancy and starting and I know that they are very very committed to having the program um be excellent and so we do work a lot with them and um send many of our clients over to OAR for assistance um regarding community engagement. Um we are we continue to be a resource for for anyone from the county board to the community on what we see. We have a unique experience in that we are in court every day. And so things that we see day after day that are normal to us um are a complete mystery to the vast majority of people in our community. Um and you know we might see 20 cases a day. And so it's just a huge amount of data and information that we're just passively taking in day after day. Um the main other difference that we

received last year that we are really grateful for is bumping up the percentage of supplement to our non- attorney staff. Uh you likely remember my presentation last year, but um their salaries are very low for this area of the state and having them have an increased supplement is very helpful and helping them reside in the community where they work and really having a sustainable way to remain at a job like this. It allows us more broadly, of course, it allows us to attract great candidates and to keep great candidates, cut down on turnover, and continue to do better work. uh with respect to focus on equity. Next slide please. Um we do of course consider racial and economic justice being inseparable from our miss our mission. Um all of the clients coming before us are appointed to our office because they do not have the resources to hire an attorney which is of course very very expensive in the first place for anyone. Um but as a part of that we may be catching people at a unique time in their lives. It is of course usually one of the worst times of their lives but it's also an intersection where all of a sudden they are they are coming into contact with law enforcement with the government and with all sorts of choices that they have to make. And so our goal is to help them help them both with their case but also not coming back and that sort of thing. Um we are committed to a diverse workplace. Our advocacy is at its strongest when there are people who work in our office who can connect with the clients that we represent who understand um the variety of backgrounds of clients that we have here in Arlington. Um, while there are is certainly, um, I

guess I would say racial over representation, um, I mean, we have a there's a lot of different, um, minority groups, immigrant groups, etc. in Arlington that are all unique and have completely different backgrounds that we do work with relatively regularly. And so, um, we want to be able to give voice to their perspectives, to make them feel comfortable talking to us about what has happened, um, and to be able to explain persuasively and adequately, um, from their perspective how life has looked for them and the choices that they have had and been able to make in their life or not. Um I mentioned this already, but of course um the salary supplement overall really does help us um attract and retain a much broader group of people and employees that we than we would otherwise be able to do given the high cost of living here. Um next slide please. So thank you. Um this is your input. Um, so I think the salary supplement, we're we're asking for it to remain the same. Um, I think the adjustment down um for the salary supplement is just some people left and the people currently here make less money and so it's just a little bit less. Um and then we are asking for the one-time funding for the um re-entry parallegal to be extended or continued in or I guess turned into an ongoing position. Um and I think that budget number is the 53,000 for the next fiscal year um on account of where we're at in the year right now. So that position is very important to us and we appreciate that you all appreciate it and know and recognize its

importance. Um, next slide please. Um, I've probably covered most of this, but we do of course continue to advocate for pay and resource parody. Um, our office does a lot. Our our employees work really really hard for their clients. The people who work in our office care about the people they represent and they are here and working with us because they want to make a difference. They want to make a difference broadly and they want to make a difference in our individual clients lives. Um and so we want people who are passionate about that and good at it and want to do it to be able to remain in these jobs. um and not just for a couple years um you know right after school or something like that but we want people to be able to remain in these jobs as a career. Um we are as I mentioned just asking for the same supplement and for the ongoing funding for the re-entry parillegal position.

Yeah. Thank you. Uh thank you as always. Um and thank you for the u extensive work you did in advance of this budget so that uh we could early understand the the needs of the of the office uh s a very significant part of the officers of the court. So um colleagues questions I don't I see uh chair defante

this is my one question that I had lined up and I've added to others areas so I just want to slide six I want to make sure I understand a little bit um which is the it and forgive me colleagues if you're already there the salary supplement costs the salary supplement is in the manager's base budget is that correct yes great the next question is

we want to keep And so from my perspective, no chance I'm getting into not have that there. And I think memorably, I think other colleagues, all of us have shared how important the I sort of my aid and worry worked on this on the onetime re-entry coordinator fellowship. I know the hiring ended up being later than the start of the year significantly, right? So So what is in the base budget? Is it funding to get us one-time funding to get us all the way through to the next not July 1st, next July 1st, or is it funding? That's what's in. So onetime funding.

No, no, wait. Come on. There's ongoing funding for a half year based on the assumption that the leftover funding in this current fiscal year will be carried over to fund the second half the year. So there's enough funding between fiscal 26 and fiscal 27 to cover the position for all of fiscal 27. Got it.

So essentially this is for this is half a pos half a year but this next year will be a full one. So I for my part I hear the request of taking this through ongoing perpetuity and I there's a particularly memorable quote that vice chair coffee had about the importance of this position and I'm not I associate she said you said one of us remembers but no you said there might not be a a single position that is more important to me than this position

and I you know I've come over and you know I the three of you I'm super grateful But I can't tell you for sure whether I'm going to be at ongoing in perpetuity or one time to get us through 27. To be just totally honest, it depends on how the budget looks. I can tell you that unless we have a catastrophe in November or unless we have a continuing like total fiscal contraction when it comes to next year's budget, I am going to be wanting to put it in ongoing. Um but and and you could argue that that means that today I should be ongoing but uh fiscal perfection is not my is not always my thing and so um that's just an honest effort to try and respond to your thing. I have one question which is are there any non-budgetary ways in which any of us as colleagues can support your efforts to retain attorneys keeping in mind that there are experienced attorneys such as yourselves. And then there are new attorneys for which it is it seems to me even if you have you know uh you know the the Justice Project in Alabama and Brian Stevenson's heart and intellect it's still damn hard to start as a as an attorney as a public defender. So, and I'm not speaking for myself to be the need or anyone and it can be whatever you think, but if there are ways in which we can support your efforts at retention, I think that all of us would be interested in that and I don't know if you have a comment on that.

Okay. Um, we will get back to you on it. We did have an offer of furniture during one of our meetings and we appreciate that. Um, we're working on that, but I think we'll think about it a little bit and no need. That's great to get back. I just want to make sure that you hear um that desire because I think that that's been a concern that you all have sort of shared as just a reality of of the work. Thank you, Mr. Mr. Karen Tonus Hall. Thank you. Uh Miss Coffee.

Yeah, thank you. And I appreciate the chair going over how those budget numbers line up because I was a little confused perhaps as well. Um and I think perhaps uh in in a different direction to Mr. Fanti, it sounds like the re-entry uh parallegal has been super helpful and useful um and kind of as we as we think about the many requests we get from our other friends in the justice system and um particularly for increased staffing and increased resources. Um based on what you've seen thus far, is one enough? you know, should we be thinking in the long term about having multiple folks doing re-entry or or even, you know, is there another additional non-legal uh support position that would would help because I know I know the public defender attorneys are often the ones doing so much of this non-legal work on top of all of their legal work. And it really is um when I think about the people closest to the people who really need help and support often you all are on those front lines, you know, directly in contact with the people who are in crisis or in some of the worst positions of their life. And so I just I think you know many others within this system have a level of uh political authority by nature of being elected that you all do not have. and I want to make sure that we are equally serving your needs and making sure that they're spoken for.

The short answer is yes. Um I mean offhand I think our mitigation work we do so much of it. Um and so that's that's like high level. Um I mean our mitigation specialist now is working on our most serious cases in the office. They're very complex. Um and she might be interviewing people from different countries. um doing a lot of social science research uh collecting a lot of collateral records and things like that and then ultimately writing a 10 to 20 page memo for us to file in court. Um but on a practical level, I mean even with the more along the re-entry stuff like case manager,

um I mean we have people who have so many communication difficulties just in all sorts of varieties. Um and want to be able to get to their appointments but don't know how. And so someone who can follow up with people I think would be very helpful. Um those are the along the lines of where I think we could most use extra support. you guys agree or not. Okay.

Yeah, absolutely. And and this may not be the budget year to do it, but I I do think that as we continue to invest in a more progressive criminal justice system, we need to make sure that those needs are also spoken for because it's all, you know, it's all different sides of the same puzzle here. So, um I appreciate you sharing that and would like to to work towards that um if not this year in the longer term. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Spain. Then Mr. K.

Thank you. I'll try to keep it brief here. One, thank you for uh all of your hard work. Um I know you you made mention of some of the the data that you were not you did not have. Uh you have a case management system. As I look in the budget on page 345 and looking at performance measures, right? Uh going back to number of cases per attorney um a lot of that is NA NA NA right we don't have that data I I want to get a better understanding of like your case loads right now and kind of like also the staffing ratios so I can really think about are you kind of right sized right given the case here we go where we at here go on page 345 is this page 345 here.

Yeah. What is this here? So, case loads per attorney. Did I get a update here or something here? Were these were updated following up? Okay. For the best. Probably for the best. Okay. So, I'm I have disregard now I have cuz what I have excuse me y'all does not reflect that in my book here. Anyway, I think can we get that printed for each of us um at some point, whoever is listening, if that's possible.

Yeah, because it's not in our budget binder here. Okay. Um thank you. Back to I'll just be brief on the re-entry coordinator fellowship. Uh sound like, you know, it's a it's a uh you love where it's going. Um you've had an opportunity to look at it over a while and like it's yielding some pretty good benefits. So I'll be very open to that being, you know, ongoing. As I, you know, think about earlier parts of this testimony today where I've stated openly, I think we really need to do more investing in the whole kind of justice system, you know, public safety in of itself and un, you know, if you keep doing one time funding, it's called it's like peace mealing, right? like we got to show a commitment and I think I uh for what we yield and get in return I think it's a really good benefit and the public will get behind it. People are willing to to pay I think it is sacrificed a little bit for good public safety in their communities. So thank you for your service. Thank you Mr. Chair uh uh coordinator Takus.

Thank you. Thank you. I would kind of carry on that as well. Um, in terms of uh the attorney case load, I think there was a note in there that said that that may result in more external referrals to um to attorneys. Can you tell us a little bit about that process? Are we compensating them in a way that we have a deep list? Is there a cost benefit to adding an attorney to your team versus doing that? How should we think about that going forward? Does your pay um that is a great question

and we can take it offline too if it's hard to answer in. No, I I mean, yes. So, the courtappointed attorney list, um I guess I could I'm sure the judges have many thoughts on this, too. It's it's been a communitywide um issue that we've discussed at, you know, bar meetings and things like that. Um I don't think it's a secret that it's way way lower than it was before. A lot of people retired um during COVID and didn't join. Some people moved further out, things like that. And so, it's not a particularly deep list. And under the state statute, our office is the one who is supposed to get the cases um absent another reason, another qualifying reason, some of which would be a conflict on a case. Um you know, multiple codefendants, things like that. Um and obviously in order to keep people on the courtappointed list, they have to get more than one or two cases a year. Um, but I do think we could absorb a lot more of those cases with an additional attorney position. Um, I will comment on the the case load numbers. the number went down when we did add the 13th attorney, which is the mental health attorney.

But I will say that her while on average the case load is um lower per attorney. I would say that probably most people have a similar case load, it's just that we have given her a lot of really complex cases and we are probably providing a lot better service and more wraparound services to those clients that she has. So, while in numbers it certainly helps, I think we all still have a lot of cases, um,

our office has investigators, in-person investigators. Um, we always have a Spanish speaking investigator and Spanish speaking employees. It's it's too important to be able to communicate with people directly and that is something that we we've just all consistently been in agreement that is necessary for our office. um the level of quality of investigation of um connection of our clients to services through our parillegals and through our mitigation department. Um, as well as just the quality of our mitigation is so high right now because the people in those positions in our office are really good at their jobs and um, you know, do a lot and everything is from logistics. Like, you know, if we have a jury trial, every jury trial, we need to be able to have clothing in the jail three days in advance um, that fit our client who may have changed size or, you know, maybe didn't come in in a certain outfit. And so there's just there's just a lot of ongoing support. Um, but by having it all be, you know, having an office that is larger than a small firm or a solo practitioner, we are able to provide a lot of those services and because we do them regularly, we're able to do them relatively quickly. Um, because we might, you know, for example, know all the contacts of who to request medical records from. um and be able to get things pretty quickly and organize them within our office and our our file sharing system.

Great. And then related to that is we've had a conversation across the years, but particularly across this budget season of diversion and restoration, re-entry, and all of those pieces. And I I think there's sort of an appetite of like how do we stitch it all together and understand the whole a little bit better? And this may be offline as well, but I'm interested in your views on like where that might fit. You know, do we tag your office and give you a person to kind of think about that holistically? Does it fit someplace else? Is it an academic exercise? But it feels like we're doing a lot of good things and in an era where there were a lot of federal grants, it got sort of dispersed throughout all of the entities. And in an era where there are not a lot of federal grants, we may need to be a little bit more um crisp about it and learn from what we've done. So, we can take that offline, but interested in your thoughts.

Um, that is a good question and I know I'm sure you know that the Commonwealth does have the position of Grace Woodward and so we do work with her. Um, Grace is obviously a tremendous resource and works very well with um, people in our office. Um, and so I think the main difference is I guess people in our office have the confidentiality with our clients. And so there's always going to be some things that are not going to be able to be communicated between the two offices regardless of the degree of trust simply because of office expectations, you know, etc. legal expectations, ethical expectations. Um, and so I I mean certainly I think that's something that we are well equipped to contribute to. Um, I do think I mean I I do hear what you're saying about, you know, all sorts of things being spread out cuz we are we're going between different branches and organizations and things all the time. And often what we might do is just keep reaching out to the same one because they're the easiest to work with or have the fewest barriers. Um and so I mean certainly we are happy to brainstorm it um with everyone and um let you know who and how we work with all the different partners in the system.

Yeah. Great. Thank you.

Thank you. Um I I want to to thank you for two things. First of all, I I fully realize that you don't earn any reputation of being of excellence in uh mental health law. Uh if your case load is linear and workable, you actually earn that if your case load is very oscillating and pretty tough to work on. So, uh so I really appreciate the the effort that you have been investing in that. It's also a uh segue to understanding the you know the barrier uh between uh uh what you do and uh what other instances of serving justice does like restorative justice that we were talking about uh here which would be actually if it worked really well uh it would it would uh alleviate you from some of the case load but not all of the case load. So, uh I uh I fully appreciate the the complexity of that. Um and that and this is one of the reasons why I think that the re-entry coordinator fellowship is is important to keep because it has proven that it works. Um in addition, I want to ask you to to thank you for uh doing absolutely amazing work with immigrant uh defendants uh this year. uh you may not realize that I think you do but in case you didn't uh it uh replicates with uh a lot of additional competence in how to exist and and be safe in the system far further further in the broader community further away from the particular case that you have. So thank you very very much for that. I heard from many many other places that that Rico could share information to us

uh about your work on this. So uh really very appreciative of that. Um I think colleagues we have uh clarity about what this office needs. Um thank you again and we will be moving on uh with uh our Thank you all

our um uh clerk of the circuit court. Good evening. We will be we'll be loading the u the next presentation. Mr. Taran Conus and Mri, good to see you again. Nice to see you also. Uh,

chairman D Ferrante vice chair pres not loaded yet. So, it's coming now. It's on. Go for it.

Once again, Paul Ferguson, clerk of the circuit court for both Arlington and the city of Falls Church. With me is Chief Deputy Christina Dietrich. Uh, next slide. We'll blow through the mission statement. Next slide. Our civil numbers are up. U, others are relatively flat or unchanged. Next slide. Uh we've implemented a property alert system in our land records office and that is relevant for all of you because you may have constituents contacting you uh concerned about deed fraud. And much like with identity threat theft where you can sign up uh for agencies to let you know if somebody has applied for a loan in your name and it's not you especially. uh we now have that system functioning. So if you're ever contacted by a constituent with that concern, we can't prevent the fraud, but we can let them know if there's any action going on with the title of their property. Um and hopefully that would allow them to in time be able to correct it. It hasn't been a real problem in Arlington. It's been in other places. Uh but that doesn't mean we don't have constituents that aren't concerned about it and I understand their concern. Uh we have uh continued uh we the online payment for uh civil copies of civil records. You would have thought we would have been able to have done that many years ago, but this was implemented uh this year. Uh it used to be if you wanted copies for something you'd have to send a check in the mail and it was uh pretty much of a cumbersome process. So uh we do have an online payment system for that now. And uh the big thing that's changing in our office is the uh automatic sealing of cases uh

which starts on July the 1st. And that's my relevant uh budget portion with all of you. Uh I uh understand your concern about the state not doing their fair share uh with funding and I certainly am committed to doing everything I can to increase that number. Uh both myself personally and through my association of fellow clerks. Uh but I'm one of uh a total of four clerks that gets the legislative duties and spends a lot of time on that. So I can tell you about my uh successes and failures. Um, but the failures uh don't mean I'm going to give up. I'm continuing to try to uh get more money back for us and we can spend some time talking about that. But specifically, this uh bill on ceiling, you talk about equity. Uh you know, this is something that prevents people from getting jobs. Uh they have a criminal record. something uh long in their past uh many many years ago could have been a trespass charge, shoplifting, minor drug charge and uh the state passed legislation which I think is a very good thing um sealing many of those offenses. Can we go to the next slide? I'm going to skip this just for time. So we can come back to it if we have time if you want to talk about some of the other equity things we're doing. Um, so let's uh let's

Yeah. Yeah. This is what I want to talk about. Thanks. So, uh, you see the offenses up there that are automatically sealed. Uh, as I said, from a public policy point of view, this is a good thing. The state realized this is going to cost money. So, they allocated money for one FTE to each locality throughout the Commonwealth. So, uh, clearly it costs more in Northern Virginia than it does in some parts of the state. So, the delta is $28,000. Uh, so we're at you, uh, were kind enough to give us that funding for a position that we hired that is now working on implementing the ceiling legislation. And there's going to be a lot of ongoing cases that will continue to come. So, we're asking you to uh find $28,000 so that we don't have to return the $48,000 in revenue to the to the Commonwealth uh and uh have to make decisions about that staff person that's doing the work on these issues. Uh there are going to be ongoing cases. Uh there's time limits. When you get one of these charges, they're not automatically sealed. So people continuously are going to be getting these charges and we're going to be getting them. We're going to be getting orders uh to seal from uh our judges and from also uh continuing information from the state. So this is something that we really need to have a staff person working on this. It's very important uh that it's done right. Uh there's there's no uh really room for error when you talk about uh this these things not being sealed that are supposed to be sealed. Uh next slide. Is that it?

That's it. I could talk about some of the other things we're doing in our office. Um if you want me to go back to doing that, but that's really the the main thing I want to ask you for is to see if you can find $28,000. It sort of fits your your policy goals as far as supporting what that what that position does. It leverages state money, which is something that you want to do. You don't want to give back state money. And uh I will thank the the staff uh um Schwarz and and your staff for working with me on on this issue and trying to come up with some sort of solution. And also uh thank uh Megan Lawler for her work with us uh during the budget preparation process. If I could just be more precise, thank you for thanking us, but the $28,000 was not included in my proposed budget. So, the board would have to add that at adoption, and we're supportive of that.

It is It is an additional and it's Thank you for explaining that. I mean, I was trying to be as nice as I could. We just didn't. Right. Right. When we were proposing the budget, we didn't get to that. So, right. And it's a I mean I assume this the preferred delivery is out of ongoing funding. Yeah. Right. And Mr. Schwarz, would it be fair to say that uh part of the reason was that the board wants to really examine all the FTEEs that are being approved given this budget situation?

I just say m Mr. Ferguson has always done a good job of staying within budget and he has even offered at times to try to figure out how to pay for it. But I think given the money that the state's putting on the table, adding the $28,000 is reasonable. We didn't get around to including that in the proposed budget for a series of reasons that I don't want to trouble you with. But that's a prelude to the Mark Schwarz Award for budget performance. I Well, thank you, Mr. Schwarz. I I really do appreciate your comments now and and your work with us. So, thank you. Colleagues, any questions? Full agreement. It'll be in the chair's mark unless colleagues say no. The key sentence was full support from the manager and intended to be there and we'll find a way.

Wow. And just because it's a a tradition now if we can put up 304 just to hammer home again. Say that again. Page 304. Page 304. Um which you've got memorized which is of course you know that's why Christina Dietri here. She is great with numbers.

It's all good. I think it's just it's more for our community and our um state delegation to recognize that um shockingly once again uh the net tax support although it's a little better and they're offering you a little money this year um we are subsidizing deeply to to deliver um some of these services and so while we super value you and we are glad that you are here um we've shared in each other budget meeting that that's kind of a collision course where at some point we can't um you do all the other things. It's outrageous. Um, is that an invitation for me to talk for just a minute or two about some of the things that we're trying to do to Yeah. And how you're lobbying, how we can support your one. Don't ask me to say whether high time.

Okay. That's three minutes though. You got

one of the things that we've done uh as soon as assuming that Governor Spanberger signs the bill, which I think she will, is we've increased the uh amount of money it takes to file a civil case so that technology money will flow back to the clerk's office that we can reimburse uh the county for. Uh I can't guarantee it, but I I I don't see why Governor Spamberger wouldn't sign this bill. It's not controversial. Uh it it requires a little hustling on our part. I won't go into all the details as far as trying to get how much of that money we get back, but I am committed to uh standing before you next year and showing that that number that's increased. There's the excess fee uh issue that I've talked about a lot with you and I you know if uh you know basically this budget down there is controlled by Senator Lucas and Delegatorian. They are the key figures. So if any of you have any pull with them, uh that's that's where I have uh really been unsuccessful and run into some brick walls. Uh but uh we lo and we lost delegate sickls who was the vice chair. So he was sort of my end. Uh it used to be before 2009 that uh once we paid back the state all the money that they gave us then for these larger jurisdictions Arlington and about 21 22 other jurisdictions they got money returned to them for any future dollars that came in by a formula of 2/3 going to the locality and one-third going to the state. Well, in 2009, the state just in order to balance their budget said, "We'll just steal from the larger localities, not all localities." And they changed that formula from 2/3 to 1/3 to localities and 2/3 of the state. So, I very much want to get that formula switched back. It's actually in the Virginia code. Uh,

but uh whatever the budget, continuing budget amendments happen take precedent over the code. So when we're asking for this to the state, it's not like we're just making this up. It's it's right there in the code that this is the way it was supposed to be. So uh I hope for maybe we could calculate the gap since 2009 and give them an opportunity to catch up.

Well, they'd owe us a lot of money if they were paying back, but that's that's not what we're just asking for money going forward. So uh the other thing we've done is uh we've gotten the state to do a a study of clerk's offices. we had to fill out time sheets for uh about a three-month period and uh that money that's going to be presented to the state as far as the money that's given to the compensation board they give us and and uh you know this from the uh bonus discussion that we had I shouldn't bring that up but we we had that last year um in that only uh is it Christina is it 22 of our employees 22 of our employees we get some money from the state and then you subsidize the rest of it. Our other 12 employees, we get nothing. You you're subsidizing 100% of that. So, we're hopeful that through this study, we will at least get some money for a few more positions. I can't tell you when that's happened, but we're working very hard on that.

Terrific. Thank you for I went for the minute I could have. Sorry about that. I see Mrs. Spain. And I also hope that this that we can convey successfully that uh the money that the state uh wants or commits to transfer that we have more of a flexible way to uh to pay uh instead of being very specific and narrow which which makes it even even tougher than it already is. Mrs. Spain. Yeah. Uh thank you former chair of the Aronda County Board of P. Oh, clerk eight. Thank you, Mr. You want sat on this side. Look, um I'm surprised you didn't bring up library and that's okay.

That didn't go well last year. So, okay, maybe next year. Um but let me just ask this and um this net tax support that we have, not just with the clerical court, but all of our constitutionals. You know, I serve as a fed before many folks have, right? you think they have a and we think about locality pay and whether it's Wise or Norolk or have you seen or heard of any like studies that have been done down in Richmond based on locality pay for for uh from the state compensation board at all? That that's part of this big study I'm talking about.

But uh I really think we need our our delegation to flex a little bit more muscle on that. And it's not just judicial issues, it's education, it's mental health. I you uh the the issues that you're raising now pertaining to the courts, uh they they apply all over the place as far as uh urban localities getting shortch changed.

Yeah. So, um I think from my my colleagues here, I think I'll be open post budget as we go into our our next cycle seeing what we can do and our legislative package at least working with our delegation to kind of, you know, build a coalition and working with individuals as you said, Luke Torian and and Senator Luis Lucas who will actually be up here in a few months. We could talk about it. Uh I'd like to go with you when they come here. Yeah. And uh yeah, I think that's what we're gonna because at the end of the day, the the locality shouldn't have to bear the burden of the significant cost that's incurred by a lot of these folks. We need to the state needs to pay a little bit more. Right. Thank you very much for your service. Appreciate you, Mr. Spain. I appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Spain. I have nothing else to add. Uh I guess that would conclude if there is anybody else. Thank you. Thank you. uh which is uh an introduction to our last uh presentation. Yeah, I see already. Yes. Just wait and just mate. Good afternoon. Yes.

Well, it's still afternoon for us. Good to see you all. And I have with me, as you all know, Judge D. Mateo and our admin Chanela Harg Grove, who does all the hard work in putting our budget together and making sure that we stay in budget uh from year to year. Uh yes, it's loaded. And

all right, I'm also going to skip over our mission and our department overview. You all know what we do um and what our mission is. And so what I really want to talk a little bit about uh Judge D Mateo is here and can talk to the issues with respect to recovery court. Uh but I just wanted to talk real briefly about some of our 2027 budget highlights. We did not ask for anything in the budget this year. Um and so understanding that it was a tight budget that there were a lot of things that the manager was juggling that you all were juggling uh we did not ask uh for any additions to the budget. But I will tell you there are a couple of things that I'm under a lot of pressure uh from people to be looking at ways that we can put this in play going forward. And so perhaps kind of setting the stage for some of the things we may be asking for. One of them is that there is a lot of interest on the part of the judges in our court um and in the juvenile court for adding real-time transcription services to in the courtroom to be able to have AI generated talk to text in real time in the courtroom and that is specifically for bench trials uh where we have to do very detailed factual rulings and having that ability to be able to in real time uh have a transcription and then also after the fact to be able to go back through and find specific places in transcripts uh so that when we're making rulings um that makes it a lot more available. Fairfax is in the forefront of that right now. Judge Ascarott has been piloting that and so there's a lot of interest on our court. Um, we probably can't even think about doing that till we get our court reporter contract renewed, which is up this July, because it is a type of thing that we would likely do in uh conjunction with

the court reporter so that we don't have to have separate staff running that technology and also uh doing the official transcripts. Um, but the cost, just to give you an idea, it's about $7,500 uh per year for a single license. And so if we were looking at that for four circuit courtrooms and as I said, the juvenile court judges have also expressed interest because they also have numerous multi-day hearings, often over months apart. They also have to do very detailed orders and having that ability to be able to go back and do that. they also have found to be useful. The issue we have with the lower courts is they are not courts of record. Uh and so making sure that if we implement something like this, it doesn't become a record for that court because they're not a court of record. So there are things to be worked out. Uh we are hoping maybe to to try to pilot one courtroom next year, but if we do that, we'll do that out of our existing budget. Um, but depending on how that works, we may be coming back next year uh to tell you that we need that in more courtrooms and and that seems to be I can tell you every conference I go to, all we hear about is AI. Um, both the strengths of it and also the things that that we need to be mindful of and and this is a technology that judges are really starting to find to be very helpful. Um, Judge D. Mateo will talk about the recovery court. Um, but one of the things and, uh, the manager was kind enough to give us some funding for some staffing this year to get, uh, some of the paperwork and documentation put together. Uh, but we will be submitting uh, an application to the Commonwealth for a circuit court mental health docket. And the point of this docket is really to deal with uh individuals who

are seriously mentally ill um and where really the only options we have for them right now is housing them in the jail. And uh Mr. Deronte, we've talked about some of that in the CCJB context and how we the problem is a lot of these folks have been banned from shelters. Uh they don't really have any place to go. we don't have a lot of housing options and so housing of course will be a piece of this puzzle. Um but we are in the process of taking a look at trying to get that docket in place so we can start trying to deal with some of the needs of those people in the in a format that is other than incarceration. We anticipate and the way we've kind of structured it and Judge Matteo has worked really hard on this with DHS staff is to try to do it with our existing recovery courts and behavioral health docket staff. So utilizing the GDC behavioral health staff, our recovery court staff. There is some belief that probably some of the people who are now in the GDC behavioral health docket may come up to circuit court because now we sort of push some people down there whose issues really are circuit court issues, but that program is down there. There may be some folks coming up to circuit court and dealing with that. But our hope is that we can put this in place with our existing staffing and that we won't need uh to add a lot of resources to do that. Of course, we won't know right until we start seeing what those dockets look like if it's sufficient. But that is the plan at least for uh the kickoff for that docket. Judge, do you want to add anything on that? I would only say that um recovery court as you all probably remember is an intensive kind of wraparound all hands-on deck kind of setup for people with dual diagnosis with the leading indicator being

addiction and then the secondary co-occurring serious mental illness along with it. It's a a really a tough cohort. Um as you can tell from the slide, we have a lot of different modalities that we're employing and deploying. Um but it has not come from the circuit court um budget, right? It's come primarily from DHS. There's some uh from sheriff, there is some from probation, that kind of thing. So we anticipate those services, as Joe Tweet said to um cross over because you see they're going to be co-occurring in the mental health docket as well. They're going to have serious mental illness illness leading indicator with addiction being second. Behavioral health docket is absorbing some of those cases. They really are felony cases. is they ought to be in circuit court. Our discussions with the prosecutor's office suggests that we're going to be getting those upstairs. So then you have probation involved and it's a little stronger on supervision. That's the plan. Our budget shouldn't really significantly increase. I'm just suggest we're just kind of teeing this up with the idea that depending on how many folks do come over and if it increases the cohort with BHD recovery court and mental health docket, you might see some need in the from um DHS. Okay. but in therapy and treatment and that kind of thing. So that's just a heads up on that. We're hoping to absorb a lot of this uh without that, but again, you know, we can't we can't predict that over the next couple of years, but that's the hope. So that's where we are on that one. You will see that we've reduced uh there's been a reduction in our our budget of uh 20,433 I think is the number. Um, last year you all were kind enough to give us $25,000 for scram monitoring, primarily for people in pre-trial. Uh, it was for DUI uh related matters to have uh individuals be able to be on scram so they wouldn't have to be incarcerated.

Um, the program got off to a little bit of a a slower start. It may have just been those cases weren't quite in the pipeline when the fiscal year started. Uh so we have not used uh the whole amount that you've given us. Um and so our actual for the year is likely to be about $10,000. And so we're going to ask rather than asking for money, we're going to ask if we can just carry over what's left in this year to cover next year. And then we may be looking at $10,000 about $10,000 a year for that program. Um, but it what it does do uh is let the court keep a close eye on individuals who should not be driving uh but otherwise don't necessarily need to be incarcerated. But when you're you're on a second or third DUI, uh particularly if there's been an accident involved, you don't want that person just out on the street without somebody paying close attention. And so we very much appreciate that funding. Some of it is just cyclical, right? when the cases come in uh that you're doing it. But um all of my colleagues are very appreciative because everyone has had some matter where they found a need to use that um and I think it has worked well. The one big change uh that the legislature has imposed uh beginning July, well you've already heard about the ceiling which is a big change. Uh but the other big change for us is that the general assembly uh passed uh legislation which is on the governor's desk to require uh electronic device access in all of the courouses. We previously allowed attorneys to bring in electronic devices, jurors to bring in electronic devices, and then any litigants could, but they'd have to file a motion with the court before they did. Uh the legislature has now given us some leeway to create a policy, but the policy is really everyone needs to be able to bring their devices in. Uh I've been talking with the sheriff's office

since last fall, uh looking at different ways to do that. And I think the general consensus at at this point is that we are we will do it with existing staff. will use utilize existing staff in the courtrooms to monitor um folks bringing things in. Obviously, the legislation requires that people not record in the courtrooms or not, you know, be taking audio uh or photographs in the courtrooms. Um we will not allow people to use devices in the courtrooms without leave of court uh but have them able to do it out in the common areas. and we'll try we'll sort of play it by ear for uh six or eight months and kind of see how it works. Um our sister jurisdictions, some of the Northern Virginia jurisdictions allow that, some do not. Some follow our policy. Uh the ones who do let people in have had mixed success. You have you have a lot of phones going off in court, right? Does anybody who's gone to a concert, you know, knows they tell you 800 times, turn your phone off, and somebody's phone goes off. So, we'll kind of see how that works. The alternative is a a mechanism where we could give people pouches uh like they do at concerts and you put your phone in a pouch and then there's a magnet that's used to open it. Uh there's a pretty substantial cost to that process both in buying the pouches and we would probably need an additional staff person uh at the front of the courthouse to make sure people give them back and take their phones out. Um, so we're going to try not to do that. We're going to try it the other way first. Hopefully it will work. Uh, but if we end up having a lot of problems, uh, we'll let you know. But again, that will not be something that we'll be taking up probably until next year. All right, the final thing I want to talk about and then I'm going to I know

it's late for all of you and I'm happy to answer any questions. Um, as Mr. Ferguson indicated, we have had a tremendous increase uh in the number of civil cases that we've been hearing. Um and that includes not just the number of cases, but we've noticed a ongoing increase in the length and complexity of the trials. So just to give you an example, uh this year in 2026, we now have 42 trials docketed that are scheduled for more than four days each. We have two cases that are docketed for a month a piece. Um, so those cases take up a lot more in terms of clerk's office resources, sheriff's office resources, our resources, managing those kind of cases. I I think that some of that is based on the economic development in Arlington. The companies that have moved to Arlington and are headquartered here. Uh, the types of cases we're seeing are Medau cases, professional liability cases, real estate cases, uh, and product liability cases. And then we also have had a large increase in the number of rape and sexual assault cases that are going to trial. Uh some of that may be from the change in the legislation uh with no longer having jury sentencing. So it's uh people feel more comfortable taking the guilt or innocence phase to a trial, but they tend to be long uh and complex cases. Um, the one other thing I just wanted to talk about was this past year we also uh tried a pilot program with the Arlington Bar Association to hold several specialty dockets for self-represented litigants in uncontested divorce cases. We've always sort of handled those cases uh with extra uh staffing to to get people to get their documents correct, but decided to try something where we had lawyers come in, litigants come in, the lawyers could help them, and the clerks could help them figure out what

they had wrong. They had printers right there, computers right there to be able to change their paperwork, print it all out, it could come into a judge, we could sign it, and they didn't have to submit it back and forth three or four times. I think everybody thought that that was a pretty successful um venture and so we're hoping to do that a couple of times a year and with that uh I'll answer any questions you've all Thank you judge wheat colleagues any questions the first I don't see any uh I see your light chair

all right I want to be succinct um for the manager and this is credit should go to Miss Cunningham on this one for the question about um technology in the courtrooms to enable our police department to testify remotely. That's a CIP question ex almost exclusively. Correct. Or is it operating as well?

Well, there's two pieces to that. One is the technology in the courtrooms and as a matter of fact, I think it's with GDC. You'll have an item coming to the April meeting for a contract for I think it's 10C is the courtroom. Okay. But there is a contractual requirement as part of the collective bargaining agreement with the uh police AOP about the number of hours they get paid for for uh doing the testimony. So I I don't know if the cost avoidance is as much as you might anticipate. So we'll I know Miss Cunningham had asked that question.

Yeah. I mean, maybe the the question was, could we ever get to a place where our public safety um officers who are, you know, there aren't enough of them and so they're doing a lot of overtime, which is costly to us and costly to their families. Um, is there a chance we could get to where they could routinely for traffic tickets and other kind of low stakes things u testify remotely which I understand some other courts allow and we haven't yet either had the technology or had the ability to do it. So that's the overall

you'd have to talk with the general district court judges about that. What I can tell you is there at least in terms of rules in our court, the Supreme Court has set rules for when you can have remote testimony. Um, and generally you have to be a certain distance away from the court. Um, there there's three different pieces to it. I don't remember them off the top of my head. So that if you ha and if there's an objection and you don't meet one of those qualifications because of confrontation rights and so again you might have it in traffic although even traffic cases I'm not sure you would parking tickets maybe

um well you still have confrontation rights in yeah in traffic cases um there there becomes the issue of whether or not uh that violates uh confrontation clause rights whether it's consistent with the rules of our court and whether or not there's an objection. Um I don't I don't know what I I'm not aware of other courts that do that on a routine basis uh because of those issues, but uh that would be probably a better question for the general district court since most of those cases are handled down there.

Well, this is there's one rule about litigating which is know the answer to a question before you ask it and I violated that rule. So I I just wanted to express my own view that you know I get being there in person and I get that piece of litigation. I just for a traffic ticket uh I'll go on record as saying you know it's in collective bargaining. We have to follow the laws and I'll understand judges know more than I do on this whole issue. But I just wanted to at least ask the question. Um, the next question is on um, real time transcription services and I'll take the risk of seeing if the manager might have thoughts subject to your use. You you know I don't want to be you said we'd pilot it.

Yeah. If this is something that you want and it's going to be four or five or six times $7,500. Uh, Mr. Manager, you know, that is a contingency. That is something that I am eager to because it could change the whole momentum of the field in the of the entire building. And so I guess Mr. Manager, what's your I I you know, I'm always going to defer to Judge uh wheat on any of these requests. I think she said she wanted to pilot it and see if the proof of concept worked. And if it did, and this I'm going to sound like I'm I'm just so so easy, but it's like anytime Judge Weed has asked for something, I've said yes. be careful.

Yeah. Don't ask for a whole new building. So, I mean, but is that right? I mean, do we need 8,000 to pilot or do we just need, you know? So, well, so the that would be one that's one license and we were thinking because we had done 10B that we would try it in 10B, sort of see how it works. Um, but I will tell you that my colleagues and my colleagues on the juvenile court are very interested in the general district court is not because of that concern of not wanting to be a court of record. Uh, but there is definitely interest on everyone's part to have that. Don't hesitate. I don't think just just tell your AI to ask our budget AI for this and uh it will be arranged between our AI.

In all seriousness, don't hesitate. I do have I do have one more piece just to give you credit and this also aligns with earlier conversations that several colleagues have had and Miss Cunningham most recently which is uh on diversion on the issue that you and the common attorney Miss Dani Tafty raised you could argue that we haven't made progress but on in some ways we have with respect to some changes in residency that I think came as a result of some of the questions um housing is a piece of diversion and or a piece of keeping people out of jail. I'll just say that. And so to the brainstorming that we identified with a public defender and perhaps additional brainstorming, we may want to reach out to you and just have a conversation over the coming week, 10 days to to understand keeping in mind full respect the ask with respect to restorative Arlington will stand on its own. But there is a component to that where I just personally don't know enough. And because we scheduled CCJB for when you were in court this last time, my mistake, we didn't have any real other option. That may be something where I'd be interested in brainstorming or colleagues may be interested in brainstorming with you like what do we do to make this a a governmentwide effort and your expertise as judges would really be helpful. So

be happy to assist in any way we can. just difficult to get to things uh in those court hours. You're in court. Thank you. Um other questions or remarks. Uh I don't see any. And uh with that, thanking you profusely very much. Uh the AI included. Uh problem with AIS is they they there is something that's called AI drift. So this is an algorithmic thing. they they they get to do whatever they uh think

in quotations in quotation marks. Thank you profusely. Uh this concludes our session here, Mr. Chair. I I return to you for adjournment. Thank you, Mr. Caronus. Thank you everybody. We're journ. Thank you.