City Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, it's 7:30. We all ready? Cameras ready? All righty. Good evening. Welcome to the Monday, May 4th work session. Let's call this to order. Let's start with roll call, please. Good evening, Mayor and Council. Mr. Aan, here. Miss Connley, here. Miss Downs, here. Miss Flynn, here. Mr. Schneider, here. Miss Underh Hill here and Mayor Hardy here. Thank you councel. Already Wyatt.

All right. Good evening council. Um so our first item on the agenda tonight is uh an initiating resolution to take up some changes to the comp plan and to city ordinances with respect to the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. These are compliance items that resulted from um a review of the city's program by the department of environmental quality. This is something that occurs from time to time and uh it inevitably results in a list of todo list and uh and so that's what is before council tonight. We'll have two presentations. first on the updates to the comprehensive plan and then on the city and that would be handled by um Emily Bazemore with our planning department and uh then the second piece relating to uh the ordinances Bahalu Kelay will uh give the presentation on that with our department of public works. So Emily, I'll turn it over to you. Thank you.

Thank you. Good evening council. This is you all. Um, tonight council is requested to review an initiating resolution um to comprehensive plan chapter 5, environment for everyone to incorporate maps and narratives required by the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. This proposed amendment is prompted by a recent review of the city's Chesapeake Bay program with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality, also known as DEQ, um, and is part of a set of relatively minor technical modifications the city is taking following that review. To amend the city's comprehensive plan, council must first adopt an initiating resolution signaling that work has begun and it's appropriate to proceed to next steps. Um, this item is before council for a work session discussion tonight. Staff recommends adoption of TR 2613 at the May 11, 2026 city council action meeting. I'm going to be moving on to line 27 of the staff report. So, a little bit about the audit. The Department of Environmental Quality or the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality conducted a compliance review at the city's Chesapeake Bay program from July 2024 to April of 2025. As part of the compliance review process, deficiencies in the comp plan were identified, thereby making the comp plan non-compliant with the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act. To correct these deficiencies, DEEQ and the city have executed a corrective action agreement. This was attached to the staff report. The CAA notes that the city has agreed to address these deficiencies through corrective actions by a deadline of August 31st, 2026. To address these deficiencies identified by DEEQ, the comp plan must be amended to include the following items. First, a CBPA map showing both resource protection areas or RPAs and resource management areas, RMAs, within city limits. Second, a narrative and a

corresponding map that describes and depicts areas of the city that exhibit physical constraints to developments such as steep slopes, highly erodable soils, and areas prone to prone to flooding. Number three, a narrative and corresponding map that describes and depicts areas of the city with known stream bank erosion issues. And finally, a narrative and corresponding map of existing and potential water pollution sources. So, chapter 5, environment for everyone, was last updated on February 10th of 2020. This will be amended to ensure that the comprehensive plan complies with the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act and its associated reg res regulations. The draft amendment will be shared with DEEQ for review prior to proceeding with the formal adoption process. All of the updates will actually be folded into existing sections. Um, so there won't be any new sections um included in this update. So the staff report highlights the sections where the amendments will be. Um so the storm water streams and natural springs section and then the bulk of them all of the maps will be in appendix B which is our natural resource base. The scope of this amendment is limited to just those highlighted sections to meet the August 2026 deadline that is included in the CAA. In addition to the updates related to the Chesapeake Bay Preservation Act, chapter 5 will also include updates such as a new cover page which will look similar to the chapter 8 cover page. Um enhancements to overall accessibility of the chapter such as increasing the font size, updating our captions, updating um the maps to make sure that they are ADA accessible. Um, appendex C and D will also be updated to reflect the 2026 planning process and approval process of this amendment. Regarding community engagement um to provide updates on this comprehensive plan amendment, a project web page will be created as a subpage to

the existing chapter 5 web page. This lives in our planning library. The web page will include the project schedule, a draft of the amended chapter once it's published, and project staff contact information. Project updates will also be distributed through the city of false church's newsletter, The Focus. Now, I'm going to hop over to timing. So, we're here tonight for an initiating resolution work session on May 4th. We'll be coming back next Monday um for action on initiating resolution. We anticipate coming back to city council with the draft for review in June. and we're targeting a July um final consideration um of this amendment. Thank you.

Do we want to hear from Bahu first and then we'll take questions together? Okay, Bahalu, you're on. Welcome. Yes. I just want to say, can you guys hear me? Yes. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Uh uh good evening uh uh Mayor Lee Hardy and the council. Uh so tonight uh council is requested to review resolution initiation amendment to chapter 38 subdivision article 2 requirement for plats in chapter 48 zoning article 5 uh supplementary regul regulation division 7 site plan uh to address deficiencies identified in the Chesapeake Bay preservation area program audit uh conducted by DEEQ uh to amend the city's land use code council must first adopt an initiation of resolution. Uh the purpose of the this initiation of resolution is solely to authorize uh the initiation of resolution to proceed to update chapter 38 and 48 uh following council initiation detail amendment uh including chapter 35 38 and 48 will be developed uh to address identified uh deficiencies uh from the audit. Uh I will go to the recommendation uh line uh 18 uh staff recommend adoption of uh TR 26 uh 14 and TR 2615 uh at the May 11 26 2026 city council action meeting. Uh just to uh background uh DQ conduct audit uh of the city uh chesape program between July 12 uh 2024 and April 20 April 16, 2025. Um some of the chess picates identified deficiencies are uh line 36 uh ordinance consistency review. Uh one of the uh identified issue was uh establishing a plan of development review process for chapter 35 uh in removal of referencing to the usage of uh uh an agreement in le of the substitution for water quality

impact assessment which is also impacting chapter 35. Uh the third one uh for ordinance consistency review with uh depiction of RPA and uh RMA uh resource protection area and resource management area boundaries on plats and site plants along with notations uh that must include requirement to retain an undeserved and vegetation vegetated 100% footage uh buffer area uh and also limiting uh development within the RPA to weather dependent facilities. Uh I will go to the staff analysis uh to address the deficiencies identified uh above uh DEEQ uh uh and the city executed the corrective action agreement. Uh the corrective action agreement is the same uh as Emily mentioned for the camp plan amendment. Uh so following execution of uh the uh CAE uh staff coordinated with our consultant uh to go over all of the uh charter 35, 38 and 48 to uh accept the deficiencies and outline uh where we need to uh update. Um and I will go to straight the uh timing. Uh so the timing uh will be the same as the comp plan. And uh since uh both of the uh requirement is came from originated from the chesape pig audit we are planning to times uh uh go uh with the 10 with the same timeline uh I don't go over that uh but the timeline is the same at the camp plan uh Emily mentioned and uh thank you and uh any question uh

great thank you bahu uh questions comments for staff All right. Just just one quick one. The not really related to Ches Bay, but when you're reviewing the comp plan chapter, do you also do a a scrub to make sure there isn't some general data in there? I was just looking at it seeing that like the bike master plan when this was adopted, bike master plan was 2015. There's obviously been a newer one. The date needs to be updated. Generic stuff like that. you do a scrub,

right? So, there are several um plans that have since been updated. Um there's information um just throughout the chapter that I think would require like a larger holistic update and we weren't looking at um addressing those at this time just due to the the scope expanding um beyond the Chesapeake Bay item. So that would be part of probably a separate planning process just because there has been so much good work and so many plans and studies that have since occurred since 2020 when this chapter was adopted.

I guess I feel like if we're going through the process of initiating a first reading, second reading and all of that, the little stuff that really is non-controversial, we should just clean it up. Understood. Thank you. Would the scope of the initiating resolution allow for that? I mean, I think it's a good idea like if you're in there, you might as well like just confirm there aren't like new language we should reference the new plans. I guess maybe a question for staff for Sally, I guess, whether the initiating resolution needs to include that or if it's within the purview of SCA staff to do because there's really no policy content changing.

Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Yes, the the initiating resolution would need to be amended to cite the the general the more general clerical changes and corrections um and updates. So if that's what council desires, the initiating resolution can be amended to accommodate that.

Question for planning staff is whether you all intended to take on that work as well. It would certainly expand the scope quite a bit and um I think as long as we're able to continue with our current schedule um and meet that August 2026 deadline, it's something that we can consider. there's um an appendix right before the appendix that will be updated with all of these maps um that includes all of the different plans that we have like the bike master plan and perhaps that would be something that we could go in and and take a look at and update those dates. People have thoughts on that.

May I think it it makes sense to do what Mr. Dragon suggested and Mayor Hardy second that we should take a look at those details just the clerical stuff. Yeah. Yeah. policy. So if we could broaden the initiating resolution to give you guys permission to do that and then we'll leave it up to your discretion of like if you can keep the timelines. I don't think we want scope creep such that this turns into like a September October adoption. Like I think we want to keep it on the schedule, right? But broaden maybe the language so that it gives you that leeway. That makes sense. Other questions or comments? Beth,

is there an August deadline that we're trying to meet outside of our purview or is that just on the schedule where the planning department like to have this happen? So, the August 2026 the August 26, 2026 deadline actually comes from that corrective action agreement. Um, so that is from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. Um that's that's the date that we're aiming for with them. Others Aaron

um I have a couple of questions and then I have a global comment. Um, I was surprised to I guess I'll start with my comment which is that I was surprised to see a corrective action agreement for the first time attached to a staff report as opposed in a fairly like technical corrective action, minor adjustment way. To me, I think council should have visibility into those sorts of agreements and I would have appreciated even like a heads up to we've been audited. There have been these deficiencies. It will require an update to the comp plan. We are going to move ahead with this agreement absent council. You know, like someone raising an issue and this is, you know, the deficiency, the, you know, time that the actions we are agreeing to, the time frame under which we're agreeing to them and the plan for bringing this to you. Um, so it raised in my mind like how how many more of these may exist that we need to actually come into compliance on when we're going to have to do like comp plant amendments in order to come into compliance. Um, and just you know when we do things like council strategies like we do have an oversight responsibility and I would just like to understand like as part of our oversight responsibility does a strategy for something like good governance need to be like ensuring our compliance with the state code requirements even though they can be like highly technical and to the extent we have sort of deficiencies are they recurring? in what sort of way to allow us to troubleshoot like why they're happening? Is it truly like technicalities? Is it not enough of a sort of um regular review of code? Is there sort of a

disconnect between like the state code and the implementation of the code or sort of the staff referring to aspects of the code? Right. Um, and so that's just a a general reaction I had to seeing the um agreement attached for the first time despite it being signed in the fall. Um then as to the specific actions apart from the comp plan uh there were pieces in here that said that staff I guess was going to correct applications checks list protocols like the internal um things that we needed to do to come into compliance. So now that we are taking action on this have those things happened yet? do they still have to happen in terms of being incorporated into our staff review process?

So, first let me just respond to the broader point and um and certainly I take responsibility for that. I did exercise some judgment about this. Um so first to answer your question, there are no other outstanding state level reviews of city programs where there's you know things that the council is going to see soon. So, I wanted to respond to that. It was my judgment that these are things that don't impact property owners in a substantial way. Had they like had they really changed our program and how we administer it and property owners were going to be impacted by it, I would have raised the flag. I viewed this as changes that were pretty inside baseball. Um, and that was just a judgment that I made and I knew the council would ultimately get it and I I didn't think it was kind of worthy of flagging as an issue. So that's my judgment and I certainly can be questioned on that but that I wanted to provide that response.

Now then now is a specific question. Uh, let me ask Mr. Kef to respond to the latter part of your question.

Yeah, sure. Thank you, White. Um so based on the uh audits uh DEAQ did and identified issues my understanding is it's very minor and not affecting the city residents. It's not changing uh major uh uh codes. It's just to comply with uh uh DEEQ uh state regulation and to be consistent with uh state code. Uh other than the code update uh in the comp plan, RDQ also identified uh RPA development criterias uh that need to be addressed. Uh also updating the uh waste city website. uh we did not have the dedicated dedicated chess p website in the storm motor page but now we created a dedicated chess page coordinating with the uh website manager Joshua uh we already accomplished that uh the RPA development criteria we are also working with the uh uh city consultant on on that uh but the major one that uh city council uh involved with the core amendment in the comp plan but the other ones are going uh in the process uh in try to accomplish all of them because before the August 31st of this year.

Great. And then the and then the comp plan. So we worked with the consultant and I guess the agreement says that we are also going to make sure that DEEQ staff has reviewed all the draft language. So what's getting referred out they've already reviewed at this point during June um when you all review the draft we'll make sure to have shared that draft before it gets referred out to planning commission. Okay. Or their review and comment.

Okay. Um, yeah. I mean, I get it, right? Like I get it at the same time, right? They're they're they're there protections in the resource protection area for a reason. You know, even if it didn't affect specific land owners, like the agreement makes clear that the protections are in place with respect to development or redevelopment, you know, in order for the city to comply with what you know in this state's judgment are important things to ensure you know, water quality um in areas that we have in the city. So, thank you to staff. And I I would just assure the council we do that and we take that responsibility very seriously. Um I don't think there's any identified deficiencies in in our in the way that we're regulating it. It's more kind of how it's being presented.

No, I know. They're identifying things like the checklist and the processes. And so there are things that they identified to put into place to to make sure that the requirements are clear that when when they're triggered, we're both aware that they're triggered and then X Y and Z as to what we need to do. And so like safeguards that are in the process so that regardless of who looks at something that person is aware that x y and z are attached as additional obligations beyond whatever you know normal grading plan come in or anything else that comes in. So that's why I was just making sure that as as to the additional things beyond the comp plan issues that we had incorporated those updates too and it seems as though we have or that we are and that as to the website that we've gone ahead and created the page that we were also obligated to create. So thank you others. Uh so I have kind of a broad thought as well. So, it's good that Wyatt you clarified there's really no impacts, no material impacts either the homeowner or to the compliance with the ordinance, the Ches Bay um water quality stuff we're supposed to be all managing towards. That's good news. I guess my broader question is like how did we come out of compliance for both the comp plan and the ordinance? Like was there like a state code change that we just didn't catch? Like I know that we're trying to get in a better habit of having, you know, July 1 when there's new code in effect, we go then scrub kind of the city code to make sure we're consistent with the new state laws. Like was it just one of those instances? Were we just out of compliance for a while? Like I guess I'm more interested in like the process breakdown that led to this point and then making sure we address it in case there's other things out there that we just don't know about yet.

I might be so bold as to say I don't think we had a process breakdown. I think we had a state official who came and made some judgments and we don't argue with them um and their improvements I think from the state's perspective and we're happy to do them. I am a little uh reluctant to say that we actually had material deficiencies in our program. Okay. But I I don't if if anyone else has a different opinion on that. I certainly don't want anybody else to hold back in saying that. But that's my belief. So whether I guess it's general assembly legislation that goes in effect every year or whether it's state programs, I just want to better understand the connection between how we implement things at the state level and making sure that we're doing it right locally or in their eyes right. And maybe it just requires the audits that happen in this case to tell us that, oh, you missed a few things, but I'd rather we catch it up front rather than get a corrective action agreement, which sounds more serious and sounds like it's more work. Um, like let's figure out the right process going forward. Yes,

I think that's I think that's right. And maybe one other little bit of context, we do have interactions with state agencies. Um, and some examples I I cited earlier where are with respect to say the Aurora House and our accreditation process that is a very intense and serious process. And what the state has as leverage is is they can close the facility. And so you don't need a compliance agreement. There's here's the things you need to do for your reacredititation. If you don't do them, you won't be able to be open. For storm water, it's different. The rain is going to fall and the water is going to move through our system and the state doesn't have the same leverage. I think they're very reluctant to issue fines. It's it's a difficult process. And so I think they kind of amp up sort of the compliance because of that fact. And it is a big statewide issue of having lo local governments administer the chessbay and we're carrying out state policy. And so I kind of get it from the state's perspective that they need to kind of elevate some of their compliance efforts because of they don't have the leverage that BOT does or DCJS. Those are just some thoughts that I have on

that's helpful. Uh I got an alert that there's no audio on the Cox feed if we're aware of that. We're working on it or ten FCC TVR. Anything else on this one? So it sounds like next week maybe we broaden the language and the initiating resolution to give you guys some leeway if we want to make other updates like minor non-policy updates. Um and then we should be good. I just don't want there to be known inaccuracies in there. That's the big thing. It's accurate, but obviously you need to meet our August deadline at the same time. So, thank you all. Great. Thanks, Emily. Thanks, Bahalu. Thank you.

All righty. Only 10 minutes pine so far and only two more items to go. They're just little things. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Moving on to budget work session. So, can I can I make my Oh, yes. my public interest.

The city council is discussing tonight the city's proposed FY2027 budget. I am an employee of the False Church City School Board, which will be affected by the proposed budget amendment. Because I am only one employee among many who may realize a reasonably foreseeable direct or indirect benefit from the proposed ordinance, I am allowed to participate as a council member in this matter under the Conflict of Interest Act. After consideration, I am electing to participate in this transaction because I am confident in my ability to participate fairly objectively and in the public interest.

All right. Well, um tonight is um the final work session on the budget and uh we call it the budget markup session and this is the time for the city council to provide final direction to staff for the president for the production of the budget ordinances, the tax ordinances and the fee ordinances that will be before council for public hearing and final action on uh next Monday, May 11th. And so our finance director, David So has put together a a spreadsheet that is uh that lists the items that council has been discussing in terms of changes. And it might be helpful if we can put that up. Um, one thing that we learned from last year is that uh we shouldn't do this in a PowerPoint because if the council changes the numbers, we want to be able to um change them kind of on the fly as we go. So, it's here is an Excel spreadsheet and um and there are also some blank lines at the bottom if there are other things that the council wants to consider. Um but this is sort of a work out uh for the council to go through the various different options. The um so with that introduction what we have listed maybe David if I'll turn it over to you and you just kind of walk us through how the spreadsheet works. Thank you, Mr. Shields. Uh good good evening, uh council members. Um so tonight we have uh here a spreadsheet of uh six items uh that the council may consider based upon the $700,000 uh increase coming out of the Q3 uh budget and finance committee meeting. Uh and so I'll just quickly go over each one and answer any questions you may have. Uh so starting off with the first one is the uh real estate tax rate

reduction and so for every half a penny uh it will reduce our tax base revenue by 340,000. So we have in column B here kind of the the rate calculation of what um is associated with the options to consider in column A. Uh and in column C is based upon a staff recommendation of uh the proposed changes but again council you have the authority to uh make changes uh as you see fit here. Uh the next item row number two is revenue share with the schools. And so if the tax rate reduction of half a penny does go into effect that would reduce the tax revenue from 700,000 to 360. And so 50% of that would go to the schools based upon that. Um the next item we have here is the personal property tax. So there were previous conversations uh we advertised at the higher rate of $5. And this is just uh another lever that council has if there's additional funding required. This option is still on the table. And so, uh, for every penny, uh, it would generate roughly $17,000 per penny. So, if you were to increase it up to $5, that would be a 20 cent increase or $340,000 of additional revenue. Uh, the next line item uh, is to increase street maintenance funding. And so, this one, there's no limit as to how much you'd like to increase this funding. And again based upon all the different levers um you can increase it um currently up to 180,000 but of course um if you decide to increase personal property tax that could be a much even

higher number. So this row would be the addition to the street maintenance funding of about $1.5 million that we currently have budgeted for. Uh row number five is to reduce capital reserves. So, within our street maintenance budget, about $800,000 of it is using capital reserves. And I do have another tab here to kind of outline um uh what the the rate would need to be in order to kind of uh convert our capital reserves to what we call payo or uh funded through the real estate tax rate. So, we'll get to that shortly. Uh so but that would be the staff recommendation is to keep our street maintenance budget flat but swap out the capital reserve with um with uh the tax revenue that we have here. Uh finally um number six is there's also contingency. Um, we understand that there's still a lot of uncertainty uh going on and so if there's any sort of concerns, there's always the option to uh allocate this tax revenue into the contingency line. And one other note, we did reduce our contingency. Um, so that's another item to consider uh for council. So, in total, we have uh the $700,000 of uh revenue that we have outlined here um that we have. So, uh moving down on the spreadsheet now, we're going to start touching on some of the non local tax revenue that uh we've we've highlighted. Uh so first um one

item that we have here is uh during the April 27th work session I believe uh the sheriff uh provided his needs um he requested one FTE and then uh some additional compensation for his four existing um employees. Uh so this here only outlines the increase. Um and so what uh the staff was able to do was look into um some other sources of funding within sheriff. Uh we did note that he did have some funding available through the jail budget. Uh now reducing this budget puts us at higher risk. Uh generally we've been coming in around half a million at at a peak. uh the budget uh will be reduced from about 570,000 to 550,000 but do note some of the risk areas is uh currently the city of Alexandria is doing a jail study to better determine their utilization um and other sort of needs uh our concern with Arlington who we outsource this um service to they may als also in in follow suit and do their own study. Just note that they have not touched the rates uh that we pay for Arlington. So that is uh a possible risk that the city of false church may have heading into next year. But um we were able to find this this money to help uh fund the increases of the sheriff's request. I'm going to bank on that really low crime rate in 17 years that Chief Farard told us about that will be fine on jail fees.

So, uh that being said, uh moving on to number eight, uh there's been a lot of discussion related to the solar panel. Uh staff's recommendation is that we use one-time funding uh to help pay for the solar panel. Just a few items to note here. Um staff has done further research into the uh federal tax credits. Um there's uh several several items outlined. Uh one of them being um using foreign entity um or in this case specifically panels that are manufactured in China. Um there are concerns um with our ability to source uh Americanmade solar panels in order to meet the deadline as well of December uh 2027. So that being said, um there is a a high probability that we may not be able to get um those uh federal uh tax credits associated with the solar panels. So, our recommendation for council is to view this as a uh just a full-on cost. If we're able to get those credits, that would be a win, but for this exercise to just only view it as a $182,500 project. Uh the last item is in previous um discussions we had uh at the time when the commercial assessed values came in much higher uh there was 174,000 that we had identified and uh for the proposed budget we had placed it in the school CIP and so that is also um for council to consider whether to keep it in the CIP um provide back to the schools or um

appropriate to other projects. So those are the other budget items to consider um that we have outlined in this spreadsheet and uh we can make any sort of changes, tweaks um as council sees fit. Um so moving on to the second tab that we have here. So what we did was we modeled out um here. Oh, and I'll have to zoom in. So here the way this model is is created is we have uh three categories. Um the first few rows is associated with the capital reserve. Uh rows six through 8 is related to PGO. Uh and row 10 is the one-time um funding through our investment revenue in for this year that we've we've allocated. Uh and then row 12 is the total budget for street maintenance that we have here. So uh just to provide some historical context, I provided both the 25 and 26 um amounts. Uh but starting in 27, if we were to begin um reducing the capital reserve um replacing it with PGO, as you can see from row three to seven uh will begin to reduce the um amount of capital reserve that is needed. And so what we've the way we've modeled it out here, and we can change the model as we see fit, but continuing this $180,000 reduction in the use of capital reserves, we're expected to in fiscal year 2031

to uh fully fund our street maintenance budget. So in a span of 5 years at a rate of 180,000 with the exception of the final year where we would only have a balance of $80,000 um have a street maintenance budgets that's going to in perpetuity be funded through the tax rate. Um, so of course these numbers can change. If council feels that we should be more aggressive, we should maybe be a little less aggressive. The model can be adjusted as you see fit. So, uh, that's it for the spreadsheet. So, I will pause here for any questions. Great. Thank you. Uh, David, can we go back to the your first one maybe showing all the different options that we're talking about? I assume that's where you want to or do you want to start with the paving? No. Is that a question?

Yeah. Okay. Uh, thank you, Mr. So, I think this question is probably um I don't know for Mr. Shields, maybe both of you. Um, could you you know, I don't I'm not sure if we ever had a real in-depth discussion about the um if you go down the the 174 um to the school CIP and um I believe Mr. Shields that was um an idea I think perhaps you had or Mr. So had uh if could you speak to that a little bit the idea of keeping that in the CIP?

So uh yes the um uh the school board voted on a budget request and that is what was in the March 23rd presentation. In addition to the school board request, there was sort of the late money that came in through the revised revenue forecast to 340,000 um thereabouts. And so that uh was not included in the school board's vote and therefore it was not what I presented to the city council. Um but following principles revenue sharing I sort of parked that money in the school CIP which does give the city council uh future appropriating authority just in terms of how that money is used in the future. Um but it would be used for one-time expenditures through the school CIP.

Okay. So I guess what I'm trying to get at is um the um so the schools and the cities are undergoing a facilities assessment and um I think some of us feel that um there could be some some um data that comes back on on one school in particular that's going to need some some work. And so, uh, is the thought, I guess what I'm trying to think about is is the thought there to put it into to park it into the school CIP as sort of an investment for some of this improvements that we might need to make when that facilities assessment comes back on the schools.

Um, that is that was on my mind. Um, and uh, the other thing that's powerful about that money is it's built into the tax rate and so it is it's kind of pay as you go money. It's not one-time money and so it seemed to me to be a very useful building block for what um probably will need to be probably a larger level of effort uh to maintain our school facilities. Okay. Thank you. So keep in mind we lost 10 million from the phase two in the CIP. So that's like a big chunk and so having more money in capital just like how we were saving up for Mount Daniel and then the schools is probably prudent.

Uhu. So, I guess this is one that you said was a surprise. You decided to do this, so it wasn't anything that the schools said, "Yeah, great idea. Park it there." You just sort of set it there till we could figure out what to do. But in the spirit of revenue sharing, the schools could have asked for it when they paired down their budget a lot to get it under the number that we thought was the number they were going to have to have in February. So they could have said don't put it in or was it too late? I don't know the timing because I wasn't aware of this until just recently.

So um it happened sort of in the last two weeks of the budget process. Yeah. And um so um but there the money is and and you know the city council in conversation with the school board can determine how you want to do it. But I you know if it had been put elsewhere we kind of would have lost track of it possibly. And so this is allows it to be a point of discussion.

And to be fair I think it was me Laura and then the school board chair and vice chair as long as staff when we found out that commercial revenue was doing better. And I think school staff said hey should we count on this? And because we had a bad experience with Q3 revenue last year, we kind of said, "No, I think it should be conservative." Like we don't know what's going to happen. Q3 is going to come out in three weeks. It could be really bad or we may choose because of revenue um assessments being high. We may choose to do something else with it because we anticipate the general government needs being high. And so we had kind of informally said maybe don't count on it. Um I remember that conversation when the commercial assessments came in higher. So

yeah, somehow I missed that conversation or it wasn't shared with all of council, just the ones who were in the room there. But regardless, what I I think I think you're saying you believe in the revenue sharing agreement, but this sort of says to the like, have we ever put money in the school CIP like this before? Other than what there are two things are unusual. One, I don't think a city manager has ever presented a budget with a larger number than a school board has asked for. I don't in their operating budget. I don't think that's ever happened. So um and uh you know it it's a little bit of a it's a unique situation. Yeah. Yeah.

Um so I I think the question now is how would the council like to handle it?

So personally I would like to handle it putting it back into the revenue share providing it to the schools. The schools are very aware of what that there are big CIP needs coming up. I think in the spirit of sharing the revenue and working together as partners, we should be able to say we're going to give you this money. We're going to give you the 174 and we're going to give you the 1802 180. And um that comes down to almost that same $500,000 that we're always arguing over at the end of the budget. We're always trying to put in the right place. But we set this process back in December and Mr. So said we have a cone of uncertainty and that cone has been closing and closing and closing. So that's because that no one expected that to happen. It's never happened before. So that was like a strange curveball almost that we're not oh well we're going to hold this back from the revenue sharing and we're going to we'll hold on to it and with the intent of giving it to the schools for capital. I just feel like as a if we're in a trusting relationship with the schools and we said these are the rules we're following then we should stick with the rules we're following and if we want to renegotiate the revenue sharing group which I think everyone wants to do and the schools do too we should do that in June and start to really look at what those needs are. What are we what are we trying to figure out here and how are we going to meet the needs of the um all these capital needs that we think are coming down the road. Just one question I have before I get to Justine is how much do we have saved for school capital needs between their fund balances and what may be in the CIP. Like do we feel good about that number? Because what I hate is in six months we're going to get the facilities assessment. There'll be a big bill and we'll be like well darn we should have use the 174 as the beginning piggy bank, right? To save up for those things.

because I think it's very tempting for us to put it more in operating but we know that there's going to be a bill coming in six months and if we have the opportunity to not grow operating budgets by just a little bit especially because it's recurring money that just seems prudent. Now the schools can choose to do what they want but I do think it would be helpful to understand how much we might have in the CIP already allocated towards school needs and if it's not very much then we should think about that and I think u mayor you told me today which I was not aware of that we're the only ones that had the ability to put money into the CIP right the school schools can't put money into the CIP is that correct

um yeah so that happens through the council budget process is how money gets into the CIP. Sorry, Justin. Go ahead.

Just following up on on this point. So, basically, there is a section in the CIP for all the things that the school needs. Um, but the school budget doesn't usually fund like how how does a school budget integrate in with the CIP and how have we been funding a lot of school related projects? So typically, uh, Caitlyn Sabi puts out a call for CIP projects in the fall and the school board participates in that. That's how they get into the CIP for consideration, right? But the formal action is the council's adoption of the budget,

right? But I guess um the school but we fund it. So that's there's a little bit of a lopsidedness there where we're splitting the budget. They have their year-end balances they use for the baseball field concession stand. But like the broad CIP that we all like the six and 10 year plan, we fund it with debt like the high school or we fund it with PGO or we fund it with grants if there's grants. Yeah. But I guess for like pay if we're funding stuff with PGO then that's us. So there's also like there there's a discrepancy there as well where if we're funding certain things in the CIP that are maybe going to the school then it's not truly a 50-50 split.

I don't know. I mean that's what I'm asking. But

uh can we take a hypothetical? We have the uh the facilities assessment coming in. I'm assuming it will tell us there are needs. Don't know which ones they are. There will be needs. Let's say there's a project that's going to cost 500,000 or $300,000. It then get it's going to be a CIP project. Okay. Now, we're looking at FY28. There's a CIP project based on the schools the facilities assessment. It needs to be paid for 300,000. It's critical. draining on the students or something. Where does that money come from?

So, it all the city council appropriates everything. So, the schools other than their state money and you know, maybe their school uh meals, you know, uh you know, lunch programs, all of the money comes to the city council and even those lunch programs get appropriated by the city council. So, uh, the council appropriates every dollar that the school spends. So if we were appropriate taking that $300,000 let's say in FY28 and we said this is a school project we should be sharing the impact of fixing the school this 300,000 would we then hold that back from the number for revenue sharing so that it's it would reduce the revenue sharing in FY28 by but from their perspective from 150 because it's funding a school project. So that we'd be splitting it. So I'm wondering are we looking at just evening out that impact so that

so I would I would say as a general rule CIP is outside of revshare. It's taken out before the revshare number.

Rev revshare really is about operating budgets. And so CIP is when we meet in June, I think what we're going to want to do is write a couple bullet points about capital because it's currently quiet about that. And um so uh for there was an earlier question, what does the what's in the CIP for the schools? And so in next year in FY28 in the CIP, there's a designation of $500,000 of capital reserves for school facilities. And then that follows again in FY29. Um so that's that's what's in the CIP for facilities right now.

We expect the FCA to come in probably higher than 500,000. Yeah. But let let's just use the 500,000 for right now because that's what's there. Come FY28. Here's our here's our um tax revenue. It's X because we have $500,000 in the CIP for school projects. We would reduce the tax revenue by 500,000 prior to splitting. Is that correct?

No, we're using reserves to pay for the school needs right now. Now, if the bill was a million dollars and we have 500 urgent, then we'd be like, "Well, what are you gonna do? Where are we gonna fi find 500,000 new, then you might consider needing operating dollars or some other form of money." So, so the way it works today is that that 500,000 would either come out of the general government's capital reserves or would come out of the general government's operating budget

side of the revenue share. it would not come out the way things work today. That capital project for the schools would not impact the operating budget of the schools. The schools really wouldn't be paying for it at all. The city would be paying for the full amount. Well, I think to Wyatt's point, we haven't had a situation where we need to take operating dollars to pay for CIP needs, right? That impacts revenue share. So the revenue share doesn't talk about that scenario, but we are using reserves essentially. Yeah.

The other thing you mentioned was suppose there's a roof leaking and there's $300,000 needed. So the schools do have a fund balance so that they use for those kind of things for things that are needed that are that are operating things but are outside of what's already in their budget. So they have that fund balance and that would be a fine spot to park this $171,000 and trust that they also know that there are going to be big capital needs and and that this is something that they need and they need to be able to decide what to do to spend it. And and just as one reminder, when the school board does use their fund balance, it still must be appropriated by the city council. So you did that not too long ago

on a a project that the school board wanted to advance out of fund balance. So it's just basically two different piggy banks. The CIP is one way to think of a piggy bank. The school fund balance is another. They all still have to be appropriated by council. That's right. CIP is a program, but it's funded by various pots of money.

Okay. Other thoughts on the school CIP while we're on that one? Well, one quick thought because the letter that we had received prior to last week, they talked about they had come down by right sizing and then they were $25,000 still off because of the increased um I think it was the benefit other things. And so we're still 25 even with the 180 we're 25,000 below that. that I think would be or they take 25 of the school CIP money and that's so that that's what I I mean I think is operational.

I mean I know this is I mean that was one thought I had is to get him to that that number at least. I mean, I just think we still need to talk about Miss um Conniey's, you know, 5050 and um you know, I know that we've we've had that agreement and I also know that um all of us and probably some of the school board want to revisit that this this year. Um you know, I I think with the revenue share um you've heard we heard the term don't don't we want predictability, but it's not predictable. I think Mr. So, you always said the only thing that's predictable is not predictable, right? And so I think, you know, even with the 50/50, it does the um it and the school board would say that it hasn't been 50/50 the past couple years. And I agree. I mean, I used to be on a school board and for different reasons. Um you know, tax cuts or what have you, quarter 3 came in wonky, that kind of thing. Um but I do think that um you know, there needs to be some flexibility. there are going to be some year maybe one year there's 150 more students in the schools and so they need to have their more than 50% to to make up for that and maybe one year we have another snowmageddon we have this and that and we our our expenses are through the roof and we might need more than 50 so I think you know I do think there needs to be a little bit more flexibility on both sides with this revenue share that's a conversation for this summer um you know but there is something to be said for sticking with it um with the 50% as we have agreed to. But on the other hand, I also see it does it does concern me the CIP we've lost we've lost that 10 million. Um you know, we've um I'll just put it out there. I think Oak Street Elementary, I think it's it's going to need some some money, some investment. And so I do see the I do see having that money in the CIP. And Miss Connley, you're right. if if

they could park it and and hold on to it in case something happens um in terms of facilities. Uh so so you know I'm I know I'm going all over the place with my comment but um that's that's part of this is a very messy process, right? It's very so uh but I do agree with you that that art that Mr. that um if we could get him at least to that 205 I think 205 number was so the idea that I'm hearing just makes fully funded

is instead of 174 to the school CIP make it 150 to the school CIP and then take 20 of that operating dollars and share that as operating so it gets them to their maintenance of effort at 200,000 is that the option that I'm hearing correctly asked you So Art said to the school's maintenance of effort was 200,000 short. 205 205 short. Sorry. $5,000. Um so we talked a lot about item nine. So instead of 174 for the school CIP, make it 150. 149. Yeah. Close it off. Thank you for checking my math because they have the 180. David's typing.

They have the 180 from the revenue share, but

Okay. So yeah, I'm following you now. But okay, here's here's my view on this 174, I guess, based on where we've ended up with all of these conversations. I you know that when I when I went into the budget, I did not expect the 174 to be used on either the school side or the general government side and then the 174 was put into our budget, you know, for the compensation increases and whatever else in order to fill that gap and sort of have parody with the schools on the things that they were able to accomplish in their budget even with their $25,000 shortfall or whatever we want to call it. I guess having used the 174 on the general government side in our operating budget, I do sort of feel like the school board should have the discretion on their side as to that 174 given that we used it on our side and it kind of wasn't in play in terms of council using those dollars the way we've been talking about the $700,000 and what we're going to do with those separate and apart from the way that the city manager presented his budget. So, I guess I would be fine with saying as to the 174, we used it in our operating budget. We should release it to the schools for their discretion. They have their meeting tomorrow. I think our strong signal is that we think it would be prudent for the schools to decide to put the 174 into their CIP since their answer seemingly says they could do that. But, you know, they have the discretion to use it differently. understanding is I think through conversations I've had with several different school board members that we are concerned about rate of growth and the percentage growth relative to percentage growth that we can continue to expect and that if it like truly goes into operating budget for the schools they may then feel a squeeze on their operating budget in a way that they're

using discretion to park this money wouldn't kind of confront them with that same issue. So, I would just like do the split and let them decide what to do with it. I don't really understand the 205 because I've never understood what school maintenance of effort is. Like I don't understand that 205 in terms of like they were things that they cut the city manager cut things in order to come in at budget. Like I don't know that those things, right? Are they going to fund new things? Are they going to fund things that were cut? If you had an additional $25,000, I don't know that you would put them back to putting, you know, putting them into things that you had cut from your budget. It might be that consistent with priorities. You would use them for something else. So, I feel like the two you came down the same amount and ended up in the same place as your budget overall as the schools did. and we just didn't talk about the numbers the same way of being down 1.3 because of the interjurisdictional agreements and everything else. And so I feel like it's just cleaner to say

use your discretion as to the 174. We'd really prefer you don't start hiring full-time employees with it because it could be more of an issue going forward. But I would just I would prefer to just put the 205 aside in terms of like how we're trying to deal with the 205 and just deal with the numbers that we have and then figure out are we coming down the half penny and then what are we doing with that 360 that remains and do we do a 50/50 split or is it something other than a 50/50 split based on urgent needs we're seeing and have a discussion as to how we've ultimately allocated money for increased fa paving like the mass arm issue, whatever else that we have and and figure out what to do with that 360 if we just at least put to bed the 174 issue.

I jump on.

Um, thank you. And Miss Flynn, um, yeah, and I think that's a great perspective as well. And and Miss Flynn brings up Mr. Shields, I'm going to start a list of all the things we need you to do before you leave. And I'm adding this to the thing. I I think we need to have a discussion. Mr. So needs to be there. But um you know the schools use this term maintenance of effort and we don't know what our maintenance of effort is. So I would before you leave I would love to have you give us a this is sort of every year we need to be doing one mass arm we need to be doing this much in paving. We need, you know, this much say put aside for salaries. All the different things, you know, we need um fleets. We need every year we need to do a new DPW truck. We need to do two police cars. You know, what is our maintenance of effort so that we are better aware of, you know, that number so that when the schools say this is their maintenance of effort, we have an idea of what our maintenance of effort is. So, I would love like before you leave for you to just to help us understand that better. Does that make sense?

It does. And to me, there's a real methodology to that. And to me, it's actually an outstanding thing for a new city manager to do because that's going to be a program that the council is going to have to sort of build towards over time. And so that's just a thought. It's also, I think, requires pretty rigorous analysis that probably can't be done in a in a useful way between now and

Yeah. See, well, you can you can you can move your your end date later. No, but no, but can the basics can I just say one thing real quick? So, I I appreciate that, Mr. Shields. One, I would just say I think to me the mass arms were a big wakeup call. And so, you know, and we have a new DPW, well, she's not so new anymore, but still fresh eyes as a a DPW director. Um, you know, even if you could we could get with U. Miss Brain and and talk about are there things that we need to be doing on a yearly basis? um to you know maybe it's one mass arm a year and then you know two police cars a year, one you know truck a year, whatever it is but but something that um I just don't want us to be sort of taking it back that oh gosh and and some of this is the history of not having this revenue that we have now coming in from commercial development. you know, the city couldn't keep up with things when we didn't have that revenue coming in. And so, a little bit we're playing catch-up now, but we're never going to have money to say, "Okay, let's do 15 mass arms this year." So, let's what is it to just keep chipping away at all these sort of infrastructure issues? And I want to second that it doesn't have to be this deep deep analysis down to the penny because we just got the numbers in the Q&A for the police cars and looking at how many are under six six years old. It's very clear we should be replacing police cars two and a half on average per year. That's the rate that's needed. And over the last six years, we've been replacing one or even less per year. And having that knowledge of, okay, two and a half police cars, that's a line. You know, it's just it doesn't have to be that deep, but at least having that starting point. I think that's part of what's gotten us into the situation we're in now, which is why I'm against the rate cut because I'm looking at the street maintenance. I'm looking at the

sidewalk maintenance. I'm looking at the police cars. And we have been underfunding a lot of things over the last few years. I think partially because we haven't had that knowledge. Well, partially because we've been we've had a 50-50 revenue share and we've been trying to afford a really large debt service while keeping it somewhat affordable for people. Frankly, that's why. Right. So, I think this is why I mean I will plus three that we this would be a helpful like number to wrap our heads around. I do think that knowing why it well now that this is this very soft way of saying it's going to be a big number and we should like think about that. So, and that's what's scary about where we are right now.

So, back to that 174 for the school CIP. I would agree with what Aaron said. I feel like the the mixing of operating and CIP coming out of the revenue share just makes it confusing and not clean. And we need to keep this clean if we want to be able to sit down and rework it again in the future. Because if you go into it and say, "Well, we did change the rules partway through and we had good reasons to change the rules, but we did." Then you're not going in with trust of how you're going to come out. So I think like the surprise to the schools and blending it with CIP is now confusing, right? It doesn't it's hard to figure. I mean, it's all money coming out of people's pockets. It's all grants. It's all money that we're raising through taxes and other things. But I I really I just feel very strongly that we need to put that $174,000 into the school's budget and as well as the additional other revenue. And it comes out to be less than the $500,000 that we're always trying to figure out. And then there's plenty of other money floating around to do the solar panels and the mast arms and we have some ways to do some additional paving as well. Um Mr. So that's my thought on that one. I have other thoughts on other things but I think that is really important as far as our own transparency and our own credibility goes that we don't try to nickel and dime a little bit here and a little bit there. And I would say that to our transparency and our the trust factor is that is say that is their final decision because they are the school board. That's what they got elected for. But we can make recommendations. We can say we think you should take a bunch of that money and have the city hold it in CIP, but leave

it up to the school board to say yes, do that. Um, we can recommend and encourage and do all of that stuff, but so going back to my original question, like how much do we have saved for school CIP? Is it just the 500,000 starting at FY28 and then whatever they have in their fund balance, which they've not projected this year's. So minimum it's 2%. Yes. And so we have half a million for 28 and 29 and then starting in 2030, it's unfunded. Okay. So other than the high school, like how much do school projects normally cost? Like Mount Daniel was I think it was expansion, but like 10 million. 10 million.

It was above 10 because we had to get a we had to do a second referendum, right? So So clearly we're nowhere close to what like a big project is like. So I mean I'd be fine with that. I do think that it should come with a strong recommendation from us that there is a prudent like use of those dollars is to park it in CIP knowing that we only have 500,000 in reserves per year and then only two years. Other thoughts Dave?

I think that's a reasonable way to go. I think making a shift this late in the process creates unnecessary friction. I do hope that this discussion and the strong message we're delivering is please um we're requesting that you make this money available for uh capital CIP type issues um to the extent that you possibly can. And I do think it it is sort of odd that the city picks up all the capital and then that's not somehow included in the discussion with how the money is shared between the two. And so that needs to be a discussion um this fall, but I um and this summer rather, but I think making that switch now sends um a bad signal particularly after a year where the schools I think have made really a good faith effort uh to to meet the uh the the the guidance that we gave.

Okay. Any more discussion on the 174? So on uh on that topic then the what you'll see for Monday night is that will be taken out of CIP the 174 and moved into the school transfer. What's the best way to convey our recommendation?

Um that is a good question. Um, I think it could be a letter from the city council to the school board.

And I think the points I've heard is one, we think we need to be saving for capital needs. Two, we want to constrain operating budget growth because we're worried about FY28 and beyond being harder. Third, we don't recommend FTE usage because those are permanent mouse we have to feed ongoing and again, that will be harder to sustain if we don't have much revenue. Are there other points we want to include in that note or letter? Well, I think just the our our shared I mean every schoolboard member I've talked to has a shared concern of incoming capital needs. So they also share that concern. So I think that's the proper way to couch it is we we all have the same concern that large capital needs are coming. But shouldn't it often be like we're concerned and then we know where the money's going to come from, right? Like to me those should be connected and that's a thing that I I worry we're not thinking about how we're going to pay for these things. Okay. Can we scroll back up to the beginning of your chart, David?

Just timing wise, can we make sure that we communicate that tomorrow because there's a special school board meeting tomorrow night. Thanks. So on that, I will plan to communicate with the superintendent tonight and um and uh so we can get that taken care of. Thank you. So other options that David's put out there. So starting with what to do with the 700,000 revenue reforcast. Can we talk about the paving on the other tab before we get into the tax rate? Okay.

So, there there's two things on here that jump out at me. One is that you have 1520 in 2025 and in the budget book it's 1720. So that's a concern. And I also want to point out that the 1520 looking at the budget book, can you confirm that that level of effort is still that lower level of paving that we heard from Miss Brain is below maintenance of effort on our paving the so we're last year we were at 1,400 year before 870 and this year we're still at that 700. It seems to all kind of be blended into the bigger number along with bridge repair and signals and markings. And I want to make sure that we understand what is what that 1520 is.

You mean 1.5 million? Yeah.

Okay. And is that actually below FY 2025 and below where what I heard was that's below where we're staying we're maintaining our roads that they'll still be degrading at that level of of spending. I think what I recall from that work session is we're getting our next paving conditions assessment, the PCA in 26. The data we had gotten from 23 to 25 was that we were keeping like things steady, which was good, right? Like we're like, well, we clearly want to be improving, but at least we're not going downhill anymore. We don't have any new data or data before that, but the next one will be in 26. And so I think our thought was well we should at least try to get back to our numbers of 25 so that we keep things as is without degrading further. Am I remembering that correctly? I have a slightly different memory which is um well I mean some of this is based on what what Zach had said which is that we needed to be funding close to $2 million a year. Um which somewhat contradicted um anyway. So I I haven't gotten clear numbers is is the

story. I feel like Zach's numbers was an overstatement. What I heard from Tara was that they had been able to do a lot more with what they got than they had anticipated. So I think that increase she received was the equivalent of what they had asked. They were able to do most of what they needed. So, I think Zach's may have been an overstatement, but he but sounded like she needed that 700. She was just able to do a lot with it, which is great.

Yeah, I took away from that conversation, too. I thought that it was we were able to do more in fiscal year 26 because of the infusion of money which makes sense and in and maintaining the current levels right we're were a result of that infusion of money and so whatever we would be instead of doing a full backslide whatever we would potentially be able to fund additional would help to go to maintaining as opposed to like continued degradation that might be happening at the fiscal year 25 level without at least something of what we had put in in additional money of fiscal year 26 and

which is why I think we all started talking about how can we potentially find more paving money than the fiscal year 25 budget and what I'm seeing here is no additional money right well I think there's a two policy questions one is do we want to put more towards paving and then two, do we want to wean ourselves off capital reserves,

right? Because we're trying to do both here and if we think that's an important long-term thing is to put it in the operating budget, which Wyatt has said that's like the last structural issue he sees with the budget and it's probably good to start thinking how to taper down in a reasonable way. Like we're not going to solve a $800,000 gap in one year. So those are the two policy questions. You don't solve 800,000 which is a penny and a half on the tax rate or two pennies. I think this is

did I I would agree that tapering it down makes a lot of sense. this is a good plan to wean us off, but it does and I think it's addressing weaning us off of the capital reserves for something that really shouldn't be and I applaud that it's but it's doing it at a level that we may actually be increasing our costs of maintenance as we go along. Um that we're not increasing the paving fund. We're weaning ourselves off, but we're not increasing the funding for for the paving. We're doing one or the other. And I think we kind of need to do some of both. And and I think that as Tara promised, we're going to have better data and better methodology for a maintenance of effort that's more rigorous than we've had in the last couple of years. And so I think that number will change, but kind of what Dave has just modeled off is really just a weaning off the other policy question about growing it or is it right sized will come with more information. I mean before the 700,000 I think this is why we had been talking about the car tax as a potential place with the increase of the vehicles but understanding that wasn't going to grow as a place to potentially find $340,000 by going up the 20 cents where you could both wean the capital reserve number down but also grow the number at the same time and and have a dedicated revenue stream that would be built into the budget as as a place to do that. And then we'd have to carve it out from revenue share as not sort of part of revenue share to actually keep it as some place we need given sort of the long-term year-over-year like hole that we're

going to find ourselves in if we don't actually both grow it and find a place other than capital reserves to generate that money. Now, I don't think this is we're not talking really about growing it. We're talking about maintaining this the number. I know, but I'm looking at 2025 and really off. Yeah, this is just a winning off, but even so, it's at a reduced level from 2025 and much reduced level from 2026. So, isn't this the same as 25 according to this? That's one. That was my other question because according to the book, 2025 was 1,720,000.

Let's answer that one first, I guess. Yeah. So, the 25 numbers based off the budget book um that's the number um that we're looking into um in terms of the funding because the number that I'm showing here is sources of funds. The one in the budget book is uses of funds. And so the $200,000 in 25, how that was funded is something that the team and I will look into. But in terms of strictly payo and use of capital reserves, these numbers are correct. Do we use more onetime money? Yeah, that's my suspicion, but uh that would be something I'd have to go back and look into.

ARPA, which sounds vaguely familiar. Oh, yes, it could be ARPA. Yes, that's I'm not including that in this model. When do we expect the next paving data the condition the PCA? We'll have to get back to you. I don't remember the date. It was like sometime in 26 or end of Do you remember? Yeah, it was like every two years I remember Terara saying. So I think it was three years. I think it was 2023 was the last time we did it. So 26

this summer they would start working on that. But when the data would be available, we'll have to get back to you on that. I think to Wyatt's point like when that comes out like we probably will want to go beyond 1.5 million and the weaning off may not look as easy as this. This seems like a reasonable plan. You know, we may want to be more aggressive. We may decide that, oh my gosh, to really keep us on a good track, we're going to need $2 million every year in street maintenance and then we'll have to figure out how to fund that. And that's why I'm uncomfortable with reducing that from the the amount that we're spending on it because that's that's the difference where we're getting the money versus the numbers in the book or what we're spending it on to reduce the spending this year without having that data to tell us that we can. Um that's scary to me. Dave,

I think we can make a better case to the public um to raise the um if we're going to raise the car tax with hard data in hand rather than speculation, which is what I'm hearing now. I'm hearing different different very different interpretations of what we've been told so far. So I I think uh a stronger case can be made next year for example if in fact the data is there and we can um make a stronger case. Right now I'm not I'm seeing way too much speculation and disagreement over what we really need. Have thoughts?

One other thing just uh we have a July work session plan to talk about CNI as a a possible way to help this problem.

Okay. Can we go back to the options page now? Can I ask where the masks are like so under budget items to consider you know we had the convers so let's say right paving we just kind of had I don't know I I have a sense of where we ended but paving aside we we also had mass arms as an area of concern and had talked about potentially using any year-end surplus to accelerate mass arms but then reading the SA staff report, it seemed to me that there now may be a recommendation of using year-end surplus to fund solar. So, I'm wondering like what happened to the mass arms and where do they stand? Do they stand at being replaced any sooner than the every other whatever year schedule it was in the CIP pages?

So, we've got several that we're working on right now. Um we have a grant from um our kind of congressional uh pro, you know, community project funds grant from a few years ago that we're looking to repurpose uh to cover those. That's a new idea that the team's been working on this past week. Um so I think we're chipping away at kind of some of the priority ones and I think are going to keep ourselves busy for the the next year. Um, we have one on order if I remember correctly, right? The one at West that we're most concerned about.

So, we're planning to use um some of the operating money out of the 2.2 million to do the mass arms at Broaden West this year. We've got um insurance money that's helping us replace the mass arms at Broaden Washington that drivers crashed into. That's why there's insurance money. Yeah. Okay. Um, and we're looking to move up move up one and we're funding one in next year's CIP. So, so we've got, you know, several in the works and I think we're hitting the priority ones that are most uh problematic for us, but I don't I don't have the list in front of me. How many do we have total? I know we talked about that once.

19 intersections for Master Arms at each intersection, but they're not all They're not all bad. They're not all bad, right? And we're losing four at this traffic circle. And Little Falls and both Little Falls. Kim. All right. So, you're saying Andy that to Aaron's question, we have several underway. We have potential sources of money that does not rely on FY FY27 discussions right now. That's correct. Okay.

And and you're and this is the thing like and you're comfortable with the condition of the ones that are in the out years for us to not like be using the 3 50 and dedicating more of it to the master to fund something right now. Yes, that's correct. Okay. Okay. I would say though you should add it to your maintenance of effort like list. Wyatt, it's on there. You got it. Go ahead. No. So, I was going to ask about the preventive maintenance that when I asked about that, you you know, it was like

uh we're so focused on fixing the ones that are in trouble, you know, extending the life of the ones that are in good shape through the preventive maintenance that that they're going to need. I want to make sure we have the funds to not run into this problem again.

So, I think two things. So now having kind of pulled up the CIP and my brain's catching up to me this evening. So um two two things to share. So one is the the cost of these from the initial ones that we're trying to do here in uh 2026 are coming in less than what we'd anticipated. So we think the dollars that we've set aside both in the immediate term and then in FY uh 27 are going to get us a little further along. you know, maybe not quite two for one, but but but they're coming in more affordable than we had we had anticipated. Second thing that I would I would mention is as part of the condition assessment work that DPW did two years ago, I think with these for each of these intersections, they came back with a list of recommendations on preventive maintenance to kind of extend the life of them. So, we'll be following through on that work as well. Is that baked into our operating budget?

We'll have to work it into the, you know, money we've set aside for these things, but yes. Did that answer master arms? Okay. Just a question about the solar, the rooftop solar. What is the payoff on that? Obviously, the sooner we start to use it, the more it will start to pay itself off, but what is the estimated number of years until we come at?

So, it's so it's an interesting math problem, right? Um, so I think the, you know, there's the estimated cost of the project and then which costs do you want to include? Is it just the cost of the contract? Do we include staff costs in it? Um, will we get the tax credit back from the federal government? You know, I was talking with a couple of my colleagues from the ESC earlier this evening trying to kind of work through some of this. The uh Trump administration's new rules that govern kind of these tax credits are somewhat complicated. Um, they issued some new guidance in February that the guys were telling me about. I was super excited. The document's 95 pages long, you know. Um, so, so I don't know that we should count on getting that tax credit. We'll pursue it. But at $183,000, um, of what we've estimated kind of all our all-in cost, and then you make some assumptions on what electricity costs last year, next year, it's it's it's a 22-year payback. So, um, you don't include staff costs. you make a few other assumptions, the number can come down somewhat, but um but it's kind of a lengthy payback. Does that does that answer your question?

Yeah. Do do solar panels last 22 years? That's that's in the ballpark of how long they thought. Um Mr. Senator also mentioned two weeks ago or three weeks ago about foregoing council salaries salary increases. I don't know if that's included in there. I don't know how others feel about that. We sort of a couple said I don't know. Anyway, that's just something worth discussing.

What's the amount built into the budget for council salary increases? 30,000 maybe looks to be about 36,000 for just the compensation piece, not the benefits for the increase is 3 36,000.

Correct. not the total salary, but that's the increase. 36,000 and I think that would go a long way toward uh refurbishing the teen center for example or other expenditures, paving or whatever. I'm I I just I won't take it personally. I won't take the increase. Um, but I really think it's a bad idea for council to um to be approving that pay increase in the environment in which we are now.

Thoughts? I'd be willing to forgo it, too. I guess Debbie's not here, but I will speak up for kind of a shared point of view that we continue to espouse wanting to be welcoming, inclusive, and we want this job served by people who are best reflective of the community. And I think there's an element of like being tax-sensitive and making sure people understand what it's like to be able to do this job. Um, and I think you need more people representative in the community. While going from 11,000 to 16,000 won't make or break someone's decision, um I do think it is a step in the right direction given a vote that we already took last year. So, um just from talking to people who were considering running um who are on the younger side, um you know, this is a I mean, running is a big commitment. It's a lot of time. Um, also serving on council is a lot of time. And so, um, at least from people I've talked to who have been considering running, um, the salary does make a difference, um, in terms of being able to help them with, um, one of them has a young kid, so being able to help them with child

babysitter, right? So, yeah, for for child care and other things like that. Um so I do think from an equity point of view it is um a step in the right direction. Um we do not go to the max I think. Right. Yeah.

Um but I mean for other things like I personally I don't need to travel to um VML or other things like that. like I don't think that so there are certain things that I think um we can certainly cut back on expenses and I think you know there are certain like I would be happy to send a representative or somebody like that um so I think there are other ways that we can cut back but that's my just my thoughts I will say that just overall like an observation I have is that we are like nibbling at edges here like so like when you think about the broad perspective we're going to end with a surplus of in FY26 with 300,000 to share if I remember correctly 350 to share. Uh the commercial revenues came in better than we expected. So that plus up the 174 on both sides. The Q3 revenues are doing better such that we're reforcasting FY27. So we have like three good news stories here where like we're talking about how we have lots of revenue and yet we seem to be really struggling with like spending decisions and we're not really internalizing one like actual hard cuts we may have to make and these nibblinks here aren't really going to do it. Um, I recommend we think hard about that for next year when I think, as David told us, like FY28's going to be tougher. Saving 20 here is not really going to make a difference. Like, we're going to have to think bigger about other revenue levers, about actual cost savings. Like, all the debates we're having now is how to spend more money. And we haven't gotten to the tax rate reduction, which I'm still a fan of getting to because frankly, this budget is on the backs of residential assessments growing. Like, residential AV is growing 7%. our local economy is doing well and exceeding expectations, that's great. That's not going to be forever given that we'd have no commercial growth coming on. And so I want us to pause on the like I think Dave last week mentioned the you know the highest number of federal jobs lost ever. Um like there are definitely people suffering in the community. The broader region is has a lot of uncertainty. Um, so one, I would

encourage us to keep the long term in mind. And then second, think about where taxpayers are at this table because we're really just debating how to spend more money other than talking about a 20,000, you know, change in council salary, which obviously is not going to

Yeah, it doesn't change anything. But I mean, it's part of a when you're just talking about, you know, staff cuts on the school side, like granted vacancies or staff cuts on the city side, granted vacancies, removing part-time positions. I mean, you know, like I would vote to forego if we do a straw poll even, I would vote to forego the council increase recognizing that we decided to do those benefits and the benefits do come in high. And so I don't, you know, I don't think it's changing things one way or another, but I think we should be cognizant of things that have gone unfunded. And when we talk when we talk about taxpayer burden, the same way that Dave said, like is it really the environment in which we say for the the marginal increase it is on any given council paycheck to increase council salary by $5,000. It just doesn't seem like the right year or in general to say we're increasing benefits by $28,000. recognizing the importance of that to people running for council, for example, and then to not recognize like that the salaries are going up by a commensurate amount, too. And and to be adding that cost as opposed to our also finding a way to trim budgets on our growing thing that looks more like a department when we're not actually a department of city government. thoughts.

Guess do we have thoughts on the biggest dollar amount up there which is the half penny tax rate reduction? I would support the half penny tax rate reduction. Is there

Yeah, consensus. I would support that too. Yeah, I I would and I know that um you know even though Arlington raised their was the real estate tax rate I think up two cents um they're still their average uh increase it was $400 and ours is $600 and that's with them raising their taxes two cents. So, we're still when we look at our neighbors, um you know, those assessments came in high and um you know, with the $600 yearly increase, um average um I think that's the right thing to do is to cut it by a penny, a half a penny. Thanks.

So, obviously on the the other side of the coin where I think we have a lot of uncertainty, we have a lot of increasing costs. the cost of our employees, the cost of the school employees, the changes to the benefits, that 13% increase. I anticipate we'll probably see something, hopefully not 13%, but um we'll probably see something again next year just the way everything has been going. Um we would like to we have inflation. I think next year we're going to be seeing increases to our salaries across the board for our employees. I think we're this is another case of where we've been shortch changing things and we need to figure out what's going on. Take a hard look at is the structure of our our revenue sources the way we want it. Is it encouraging the things we want? I would personally prefer to not reduce just hold the line on the tax rate reduction split that 340 with the schools according to the revenue sharing and take our 170 and not reduce the paving budget because I don't know why it always seems to come out this way but that is exactly the same amount that if you look at it it's from FY25 this year's budget is 170,000 and reduction in paving from 25. And I would rather see that money going into there because we're going to have harder lines. And this is like an FTE. Once you do it, it's pretty permanent. We're not going to pull it back. I mean, yeah, it's not

permanent, but it's it's painful to ratchet back on. I would rather see us hold the line um on the tax rate. Other points of view? I think I heard six or I saw six. I don't know whether it was accurate. We just do the straw poll so we can

get on with the work session. Who would like the half penny? Yeah, I mean I'll do the half penny, but I want the half penny with the understanding that we're actually going to like take up this issue of CNI tax because every time we bring down the half penny, we're reduc, you know, that we do it for taxpayer burden, residential taxpayer burden, but twothirds of it are residential taxpayer burden and then we just lose a third of the revenues which are the commercial real estate and we're doing it because of the way the graph looks and then we're just giving up $113,000 every time we do a half penny reduction. And so

I think for me it's taxpayer burn, but it's also again constraining operating budgets. Like I continue to have concerns that we are just having operating budgets grow too fast and too big that we can't sustain. So So did I hear six, five, six? Okay. Great. Not that it influenced her vote, but I remember the treasur's office saying that half penny does actually make a difference for administration. So, okay. So, that leaves 340 350 left.

Three, the personal property tax. Do people want to raise the car tax? I I think um to Mr. Snider's point um when we have more information that would be something that would be use a a lever that we can use but it's not necessary to use at this exact moment until we get that additional information that we need. Okay, I agree with that. We again we really don't have a revenue problem this year. So, okay.

Mr. Was it 48 or was it higher? It was five. Yep.

Okay.

Okay. Okay. So that leaves 350 if we 360 as proposed by staff. It's 180 for general government operating and 180 for schools operating. And the plan on the city side is to use the 180 to rei reduce reduce our reliance and capital reserves for street maintenance. I I do have one question. So I I'm lost the the amount. So does that mean that we're spending 700 on street paving or 880? Go back to that other tab, I guess.

Well, the other tab had it like as a big piece like it doesn't pull out the pave in particular. According to the book, it's 700. Yeah, 700. Even with that 180.

Yeah. Could you speak to that a little bit? Like I think staff will work out more. So on the topic of maintenance of effort, like there's these are all the things we need to take care of. And so I think from a planning perspective, the staff starts out the year allocating certain amounts.

I think what what we're going through right now here in the spring is reconciling all of that like Wyatt's saying and and paving's kind of the easy button kind of, you know, in the spring to kind of spend the money that we haven't been able to spend on some of those other things. So we would treat FY27 in the same manner. Okay.

We also understand Okay. Thank you.

Okay. So, how do we feel about the weaning off by taking the 180 for the general government's share to reduce our reliance on capital reserves this year by 180 and then next year when we get the latest paving data, we can decide how much more we want to plus that up and how. Sounds like a good plan. That's two. I agree with that.

I kind of feel if the if in the middle of the year, maybe this is something to talk about in the middle of the year because if it looks like the roads need a little bit more, do we have the option of just saying, "Okay, we're going to we put 180 into capital reserves. We can always pull 50 out of capital reserves if we think we need a little bit more for paving. Is that something that could be done in the middle of the year if it looks that we need to season? Yeah, I don't know that we're going to have the granular picture that you're looking for to make a midyear decision on that. Um,

well, it would be probably be like the end of the calendar year and then you're looking at the spring paving season. I don't know. We feels like something that could be tweet could be adjusted. Sure. I mean, I think we could spend we could spend as much money, you know, as we want to come up with on paving, right? Like I think it's because I feel we park it in capital reserves if we parked it in paving 180 is not going to get probably get used until next spring anyway because you already have

180. It's it's not like an additional 180. It's the It's a reduction of the 180 and the 180s in the operating budget. So, it's not like 180 to play with. It's we're at five we're at 520 and 180 instead of 700. Well, I think the difference is that if we weren't putting it into the cap reducing capital reserves and it could be used because that was the the money from the um higher forecast. Correct. That's correct. I think, you know, so um

pluses up the capital reserve balance by $180,000 every year. You don't do that to either spend on some other project or or you could redeploy it on paving. I think feels like it's spring paving money. So it's always later discussion. So I'm fine with it. I guess I guess your point David in the chart is that by fiscal year 31 there's no paving budget unless we start there's no draw down on capital reserves

you know we need to we need to start creating a paving budget somewhere else because by fiscal year 31 there's so I think the draw down and I think with what David's put together makes it neutral so like the paving budget stays whole just how we pay for it shifts over time. I think what we've worried about is continuing to draw $800,000 out of capital reserves. Sooner or later the the merrygoround stops, right? And then and then we have a bigger problem that isn't as easily solvable. And so by chunking this out a little bit at a time, it you know um it makes it more manageable. Um

on the flip side, the money is there, right? And and so like that's I think the debate that we've all got to have. Well, related to the capital discussion we had at the beginning like this with losing the $10 million payment like this gives us more flexibility to take care of capital needs using reserves because we're not using it anymore for operating. So like I I think the plan is reasonable until we get more data next year.

Yeah. And just one other thing I'd like to add is with the capital reserves, it is being used to fund the six-year CIP. So, uh, any reductions through the paving will help replenish funding for the six-year CIP. Um, and to, uh, Miss Miss Hardy's point, uh, when we had the the Westfalls phase 2 built in, there was no cliff, uh, because our capital reserves were were robust enough to support, but with that reduction, the cliff now suddenly did show up in FY 2030.

But to be clear, like I have faith that the land is valuable. So whether it's Hoffman or some other version of phase 2, like as the rest of West Falls builds out, like if anything, I think the land will be more valuable when hit opens and then the metro site opens. And so that is something that we could market sooner than later. So

I would agree with you on that one. Just a paving, this is a paving question probably I should have asked weeks ago. We're talking about paving residential streets, secondary streets, and tertiary streets. But there are like when Fairfax Water rips up a street, they repave the street. That's not in our paving budget, right? And when the the you know, Broad and Washington get repaid with DOT money. That's not in our paving budget either. Correct. That's not in these numbers. In these numbers. That's right. So that's an addition. So there are always streets that are being repaved because of other people digging things up. And the

That's true. Another example is in Greenway Downs, you know, those streets are all zipped up and they're going to be sections of them will be repaved as part of that project or the greening of Lincoln.

Can I I'll So yeah, that's at least from my perspective. Yes, that's correct. Except um actually I believe Fairfax Water uh ripped up this of Lincoln a few years ago and repaved it, but their their repaving is a 2 inch or less. It's just very surface level. And so the the major issue that we're facing is that the the roaded in many places actually needs to be reconstructed, which is a much greater lift than what um Fairfax Water provides. Okay, there were some going back to the other options chart, the sheriff had presented his case wanting an FTE and increasing compensation. Looks like staff has found a way to fund the compensation, the market rate adjustments. Any thoughts on that? Many

and just for um a little bit more information on that. So, this would be for the deputies or the u similar to the police, it's really focused on uh the deputies. So, uh they would be getting a 9% increase in pay. the one animal control would be uh officer would be getting um a uh 12% increase in pay. And so that's that's what it's for. So the um that's what this number represents, the 21,000 the um and so in the ordinance that you're adopting to set compensation, what you'll see is a change after being discussed tonight to reflect those numbers I've just cited.

Um and just like the police pay, was this kind of benchmarked with it's probably harder with sheriffs, but did we benchmark these adjustments with the region sheriffs? We did and it is harder to do kind of that the uh comparison that we did with the police and we did it in a shorter period of time but there was data to back up and justify uh the compensation that that uh is in that 21,000. Yeah, I think this I don't remember exactly if he gave us hard data, but I know he did make reference I feel like when he was presenting that about that the surrounding jurisdictions are

are going up. So, so I I would support definitely the the 21. Um I think um at this time probably not another FTE because I think just um you know we already had to you know seven seven uh positions had are are going to remain vacant. So I think we leave that but I would support the 21K. Can I I would also like to request from the sheriff that because he has said that his department is shrinking, he doesn't have as many staff, could he provide some actual data next year as we're looking at the budget so that we can understand fully what the consequences are of changing numbers of people using jails and, you know, the least crime we've had in decades and and also fewer volunteer sheriff deputies. and what does that mean? He gave us some anecdotes which is good but it would be great to have some data next year to be able to say this is actually the impact. This is whatever that is.

Agreed. We scroll down. There's other markup items. I think we covered solar panel. I think the recommendation was wait till year end. Don't expect to fully get the tax credits. That was a quick summary. We already talked a long time about school CIP. What What about police cars? Can you just talk about that quickly? We think police cars are going to be taken care of, but that was a big conversation we had a couple weeks ago.

So, it's a another one of those structural challenges we're going to chip away at, right? So, we've got a total of five already kind of on order for the police department this year. We're going to use we're going to be coming to you all with a proposal in the spring budget amendment to use auction proceeds from some of the cars we've replaced to to buy another one. And then you know there several of the uh police vehicles that'll be priorities for FY27 purchases which we'll get started on in July. So um so that six total six total for this year for this year

and then next year we'll need to do not another six. Right. So we have so so we do so on our kind of the fleet funding we've we've you know historically had around 160,000 for the police department. Several years ago, we added 200,000 in the CIP for kind of the overall city fleet. Um, and then this year, we've started coming to you to uh request redeployment of auction proceeds. So, that's another way we're trying to grow the budget to keep up with it. The city's got a hundred vehicles in its fleet. They all last 10 years. Back to our kind of maintenance of effort, you ought to be buying 10 vehicles a year,

right? And we're not quite there. We've had some injects of um one-time opportunities that have really helped. We're I think deploying eight new vehicles for the Department of Public Works this year. Um as a result of the green fleet grant that Cindy helped us get a few years back. Um those vehicles were older than some of the police vehicles that we're talking about more recently. And so, um, so it's not I, you know, it's not one of those things we're just going to be able to fix in one fell swoop, but I think, you know, we're plugged in with the police chief. We understand his needs. Some of his immediate needs we'll get to here in the next kind of three months.

Well, I appreciate the numbers that were in the Q&A. Um, they they were good. Um, but they're also scary because if I look at this, there's five on order. It sounds like there's you were going to be able to do a six and then it's basically saying the following year he needs 11 more. Um, in addition to that being a really big number, I'm also concerned that six years from now, we're going to need a whole bunch of of cars so that because the five we're buying this year will be six years old. And I I want to make sure we have a solution that gets us back to over time to that two and a half.

I think we all whatever number it is and every year we do a smaller number. I think I think we all agree that that's kind of what we want to work towards. Like it's a so I mean there's two things. It's the kind of overall kind of 10 vehicles a year that city ought to be buying. I think the other thing is when you look at what we've done historically it's lumpy, right? We have some years where the city has bought, you know, more, you know, more vehicles due to end of year money and other reasons. And then we have some, you know, particularly the years around COVID, we didn't buy hardly any. And so, so some some of this is those bills coming due. And it it's going to take us some time to work it through.

Uh, Mr. Young, where are we um with DPW trucks and things? Do we I mean is it the same sort of thing? Are we behind on some of those? I would say before this year I would say yes. I think we've um like I said we we've we've got a whole bunch of new vehicles and those are much obviously much more expensive than a police car. Some of those big huge trucks in Well, so so I think big huge truck, you know, some of the bigger trucks in the city. Um I think you know Mr. Bradley and and Herb, you know, kind of several years back, you know, made some strategic investments in some of the bigger trucks. And so I

we've got a couple that are still pretty old, but but um they they made some good decisions on that a few years ago. The vehicles that we've replaced more recently are more of your kind of get people around and kind of smaller work trucks and so those actually cost less than police vehicles. Okay. So So it's a mix.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to. And I'm sorry if it's probably in some document somewhere that I missed or I'm forgetting, but I actually had a conversation with a former uh DPW uh employee um who you probably know who now works for Vienna, but um he was talking about like the snow, you know, snow trucks and things like that and and that's a hard one because how often do we get snow crete, you know, and and that sort of thing. So, um, yeah. So, I that'd be really interesting to hear, you know, sort of what if there are any bigger ticket items that we have to be planning for in terms of those vehicles. Understood. Yeah. Thank you.

Okay. Is there anything else on your chart, David?

Like further down. further down like or zoom out either. That's it. Can I ask Can I ask one quick question and it just has to do with um when we raise the ARPA funds, do we have any risk exposure from projects, you know, that we're using ARPA dollars for to close out by December 2026 that if they don't stay on track, we won't have the ARPA money because it will lapse and we'll need to fill in in some way with local money, you know, like how we've been making sure that we whatever the close out of the ARPA is that we remain on track to be able to use all of those funds. Um, I'm stepping in because I just did the April 30th uh mandatory report with the deputy finance director and currently all is uh encumbered and expended except for $2,800 and that's on a storm water PO that we're looking to have done and addressed. Should be by the June 30th, but definitely by the December 31 deadline.

That's good news. greenways is progressing so we talked about that a lot for the last six years $18 million worth of discussion yeah there's some really good generational investments remember we talked about kind of principles how to deploy the dollars and I think we lived up to those principles so hopefully the community will see some lasting benefit okay anything else on markup I think we have a number of items for consent preview that you want to talk through quiet.

So, um I'll just go through them real quickly. Um the family services contract that is um the an amendment to reflect the final bill from Fairfax County for family services this year. Um the Cavalier Trail Park playground equipment. Uh council recall that was discussed last year. We did have some under spending in our park master plan budget. So there was 600,000 available. We'd be using a chunk of that for the playground equipment here and we'll have approximately 240,000 left for other park improvements. Uh from that 600,000

two questions on that Wyatt. Yeah. Uh what is the install date for Cavalere Trail? And then we had punted on crossman because we thought there was already banner nearby and so is the 240 gonna be for something there or one of the other parks? I was asked about West End Park recently. So it's not enough to do uh any kind of a big project. I think it's thought to be to do other things on the park master plans, trail improvements and uh furniture replacements and things like that. U I can give a a better list for in the staff report for Monday night

and maybe the staff report can include more like a date on when we expect yeah the playground equipment to be updated. Um I guess related to the community center teen center if we have underspending in that department like should we just do some of that since it was appropriated for recreational uses and improve the teen center? Uh we might have that park master plan. Um so whether community center sort of falls under the scope of that CIP might be a technical question but possibly council could reurpose it for that.

I think because it's a CIP project I don't know that you can use that money. I mean the council can react subject to our actions. Yeah, that's right. But it would need that step. Yeah. Okay. I had forgotten about the 600 under spending that was discussed six months ago. So

is the number for that Cavalere Trail Park like consistent with what how the number that came in for Burman for example? I just I don't have an issue with it, but in terms of like the number, it looked high for a playground equipment replacement that doesn't have like real sight plan work at all, right? They're keeping the footprint and then removing the equipment, installing the equipment, like I guess reurfacing or whatever the treatment is to make it accessible. And so I just did, you know, relative to what the cost ended up coming in, I was just wondering with the 20% contingency, did we sort of expect to get back that contingency plus more given like this number or or do you think it's going to come in at like $320,000 to replace playground equipment? Well, the prices do come off of a price sheet and that price sheet was competitively bid and it's something that, you know, lots of wreck and parts groups go off of. So, I think we feel comfortable with the procurement process and that we're getting a fair price and Danny is always very careful to try to avoid site work because that's where costs get out of control. That now you're not off a price sheet anymore and it's um gets very expensive. But we can compare it to Burman. I think that would be uh

I I do. Yeah. And I was um at that meeting uh where they had the public come in and vote and I do remember this was the middle the three you know were different prices. This was the middle one. So there was actually one that was more expensive than this one. Okay. And after Cavalry Trail then there was the design build versus design bid build.

That's right. Right. And so that is uh an authorization to pursue a design uh build process for uh generation uh the generator project sort of the reconfiguration of our existing generator. So it serves uh really we're trying to get it to it'll serve the whole building and um that generator um has the capacity to do that but it has to be engineered in a careful way to and configured so that it can do that reliably and safely.

I had a question um which or what projects have we I guess we traditionally do design bid build but have we had any projects that use design build? So the schools have built every school they own through design build and um uh the city has uh the city general government has less experience with it and um I am uh someone I'm kind of personally uh fond of the design uh build because I' I've observed the schools and I think they've had success with it. Whereas I my observation about the city is that oftentimes we sort of go through iterations of design. It takes a really long time and u we um end up not meeting our budgets on cost because it takes so long. So um I've been an advocate for sort of moving us in the direction more of of design build. This is a very technical and complex project. So it's good to have the contractor and the designer on the same page right from the beginning. So, we think that will work well for this and I'm hopeful that we'll gain more experience with it and do park projects and do other projects through it in the future.

Okay. And how much will the emergency generator project itself cost? Uh, in the CIP there's an I don't have that number right off the top of my head, but that's there is a budget 300 it's in the uh 330,000 in the FY27, I believe. And so the you know the the cost is really pulling wires through the building so they connect back to the generator. It is not to buy a new generator. Well, we bought one for city hall.

That's right. So that generator is already bought. It's working. We're trying to get it configured so it serves this building uh in a better way. Um, and then I think there's one more EV charging. Ah, and so this is a great program where we've got uh HUD money that one helped us buy the new vehicles that Andy was just mentioning. And so three additional charging stations here at city hall and two additional or two out at the property.

Will the city hall ones be publicly accessible? Are they We'll have to evaluate that, right? Um with the new vehicles going in. So, one of the locations we're going to put it inside the police department garage. So, that one would not be publicly accessible. the others will be out behind um city hall in the parking lot and we'll have to look at that based on we we've added a number of electric vehicles here based at uh city hall and so you know um to be determined

but it might plant the seed that most likely they won't be uh because as we're getting staff particularly our public safety staff to use electric vehicles there is we want it to be a successful program and if they can't charge their vehicles, it's going to be like, you know, like that's going to be a showstopper. So, um I think maybe I think I think the benefit for public charging that you'll see is we'll need to use the public chargers less

outback less for city vehicles with the installation of the new ones. So, the four in front and back here at city hall be available to the public more than they are today. So, the vehicles that we're getting, the police vehicles, are those plug-in hybrids or electric? Because I guess I was thinking they were just hybrids.

We've gotten a a number of different vehicles. So, so the public works um green fleet vehicles we were talking about earlier. I think we got seven or eight hybrid pickup trucks and two fully electric vans for our facilities team. Um we've added a number of vehicles to the motor pool and they're a mix. One's a plug-in hybrid, one's a hybrid van, and two of them are electrics. So, so it's a mix across the board. Um on public access while we're thinking of this um NBRC had talked about maybe one of their like strategic projects was actually thinking about like a regional network like having or strategy around a regional network of public charging because frankly people don't care whether you're in false church or Arlington or where the border is like we should probably think about where it makes sense to put chargers across NOVA and then jurisdictions can help fund them. But I thought that was a smart way to think about using a regional body like NBRC. So just keep that in mind. If before we invest in like public charging of our own, we should figure out whether neighbors at the borders might have some or where it makes sense our should be situated. Okay. Any questions on any of these consent items? Can I just I'm going to retract my question because I just found the February 3rd 25 Burman Park playground authorization authorization consent agenda item. And so it said for just to save staff's time here, $376,000 with the 10% contingency, which seems about consistent with the 370 whatever we just saw with the 20%. So thank you. Okay. Can I just have a go back to the budget really fast because something just occurred to me and that is that when we

had to put the addition on Oak Street Elementary which I think was 2011 um there was a special grant that came remember the QCAB and that helped pay for that and it was sort of a it came out of Richmond and it happened but one of the things we've been talking about is the ability to do a 1% sales tax for schools. Is that possible? It is possible pending May 22nd governor action. Okay. So, that is a possibility there for future. Yeah. Capital needs

as for bonding and with the local referendum and there were some possible changes for whether you could do it for how far back for existing debt and new debt. So, we'll need to track it, but it's a possibility. Okay. And then um with the solar on the community center, we didn't mention of course that that is part of our GOE plan and I think it's important to tie that to it. Is there a time when we're supposed to be getting an update on where we are? Do we get an annual GOE update in June maybe? So the plans to give a go or an energy plan update to the ESC in June. We'll provide that material to council as well.

Okay. Um, and then another question, and this is not anywhere on the agenda. Um, we have that lovely property on Cherro that was just knocked down, and the grass is growing, but the bamboo is growing like crazy. Is there a plan to get rid of that bamboo? It's everywhere. I bet there is. Let me find out from Charles and Lydia. We We cut it all, you know, a while ago, but it's Yeah. Right. spring. So it's the running bamboo and not the clumping kind and so yeah spreads because I have that issue from the previous owners in my house. Right. Right. It just spread. So but it's really like we could feed the panda bears at the zoo at the rate we're going.

And then back in the budget. Did we decide then that we're going to split the 160 with the schools? We kind of skipped over that number. And what's the 160? The 360. I don't know. It's let's like line two of the the 180. The 180. Sorry. The 180. We did. We're going to split that. Okay. All right. Those are all my off-topic questions. Thank you. Other things either on consent or budget or other just council items. We happy to call it a night, get to schedule. We do have office hours on Wednesday at 9:00. network.

I'm only going to be there for short period on Wednesday morning. Another appointment have to get to. You want to get the schedule or just call it a night? Do schedule.

Then you get 30 minutes back on Wednesday. All right. So, on May 11th, uh we'll have final action on all the items we were just discussing. Uh we'll have the initiating resolutions for the Ches Bay ordinances and then we'll have the four items on consent we just discussed. That's okay.

Then uh post budget on May 18th, uh Virginia Village scoping of code amendments and the RFP scope of work. So pursuant to the mayor's uh agenda, the city council agenda schedule meeting from last Wednesday, uh we are um trying to get that scope of work out there and socialized. And so we're planning to go to various different for commissions and discuss it with them while it's still in draft form before it comes to the city council. Uh but I I will email it out to the city council so you'll know what we're discussing with the boards and commission. So we're kind of finishing up sort of our staff crack at it. Um so u I wanted everyone to be aware of that engagement. happens to be a planning commission, housing commission, joint meeting.

I think it's on the agenda. So, that's on the agenda. So, they'll get a preview. I assume the EDA will talk about it. It's already on the It's already linked to on that for the planning commission. So, I think the EDA is going to probably more be talking about it at their next meeting than tomorrow night. I'm not I'm not sure if it's ready for them tomorrow night.

Yeah. Um so uh but uh Virginia Village will be a big part of the May 18th work session uh urban design master plan scoping discussion uh budget amendment number three. So that's the last budget amendment for the current fiscal year and um and then uh financial system RFP support. I I thought of something after our last agenda meeting on that one. So this is the support but because it's on the here are you saying that's above 100,000

which raises questions in my mind just so you know that's big number that so but we'll talk about it then

okay uh then the Versa contract renewal and then May 26th uh CBC youth reps quarterly CIP update. Uh first reading on the budget amendment, urban design master plan initiating resolution, Virginia village initiating resolutions u and Virginia village the uh RF RFP for the sort of the big RFP for Virginia um authorization to release that RFP. I I me just reiterate the concern I have that we've got a week from the work session uh to the um the action item and I know I'm glad to hear efforts will be made to get that scope of work out but that's not a lot of opportunity for community discussion on a major project. Um we've uh then on May 25th the action on the financial system RFP support uh Versa and a post session briefing on the general assembly.

And if I could just note because Mr. Bills was out after I talked to Mr. request for postponing May 26 general brief to June 8th, but we'll have Mr. Snder will be out of town on May 6. So, okay. And would June 1st work? It kind of works better as a work session item anyway, but we'll follow up and talk about that.

It's fine for staff, so I defer to council. All right. Then that June 1st work session, uh, Koya filing as a code update. Um, a scoping discussion about BZA approval authority for parking and landscape modifications. Um, the uh we'll come back with actual code language for the updates to the Ches Bay regulation. Uh this is the item that council will initiate um at your next meeting. And so you'll have code language on June 1st. Uh fuel purchase uh Army Corps of Engineer rightway license and then potentially that uh general assembly briefing at that work session. June 8th action meeting. Delegate Simon will be there for resolutions for employee services um service recognition. Final action on the budget amendment number three initiating resolution on BCA approval authority for parking and landscape mods. Uh first reading on the Ches Bay update code updates and then the three consent items. uh potentially general assembly budget briefing at that meeting as well. So then uh June 15th, Virginia Village uh looking at language for the comp plan, small area plans, and code updates. Uh we'll discuss policy on contract approval by the city council and um and then um a stormwater project contract authorization at Walden Court.

June 22nd. Um the Virginia village. Let's see. So we have the um the Virginia village item referral to the planning commission and first reading of the uh code amendments and small area amendments. Contract approval ordinance. first reading and then the Wen Court storm water improvements contract authorization. So then at end of June we have a fifth Monday and then we have the U 250th anniversary of our nation. So possibly have two weeks of no council meetings there. I put a question mark behind the council. Is everyone okay with that? missing the first MA.

Okay, just real quick, I don't know how this works, but um you mentioned the contract for the Walden Court storm water looks like I'll be gone for the 15th, so not a problem, but we just need to figure out how I don't know how it works that I've recused myself from that. So, we just got to figure that out. Okay, we can talk offline about that. Yeah, maybe talk with the city attorney. Okay. Well, that's why. Can I just ask a a timeline question? Yeah.

So, we have the Virginia Village RFP going out late May, but we're not going to mend the area plans until June. That's right. And so the kind of the road map is to have those sort of those two threads sort of weaving in and out with each other and informing each other. Okay. So there is and I remember when we h having done big RFPs like for the high school there there's opportunity in that RFP while it's out to amend it and be if there are changes that we feel needs to be added.

Yeah. You can make a a uh an addendum to your solicitation. Right. and um so that is a possibility. Okay. Thanks.

The um so second reading on the uh uh Virginia Village comp plan small area plan and code updates on July 13th as well as the Ches Bay uh ordinances second reading and final consideration. Uh the July 20th uh work session uh we'll talk snow removal on commercial sidewalks. Uh we'll have neighborhood traffic calming followup and we'll talk about personal property tax relief. Uh July 27th if we're able to we'll turn around personal property tax relief for first reading on the 27th. Um I think that 27th we'll get populated with some additional items. Then on the August uh we'd be meeting on the 17th and the 24th and so we would have um actual language on BCA approval and parking and landscape modifications and CNI tax analysis and options at that August 17th work session.

So there's a recess in there between July 27th and August 17th. That's what we decided to do. Is everyone okay with that?

It's good to try new things. Yeah, sort of flipping the August schedule. And um then on the 24th, uh quarterly CIP update, personal property tax relief ordinance, second reading and we have started to plug items in for the fall and there will be more coming on that. Uh, one I'll just note on October 5th, uh, we'll be providing an update on the permits process and there were questions about uh, green building and small business incentives. So, we'll be reporting back on some options with that with respect to the fees for uh, uh, building permits.

Actually, can we talk about the August dates for a second because I'm just looking at the 17th is the last week before school starts. I y probably will not make that one, but then we have the 31st with no meeting. It makes sense to bump those two August ones out a week and do, you know, the work session on the 24th and the action meeting on the 31st. Would that be an option?

Sorry, I messed that. Say again. Sorry, I was distracting the mayor with a question. So basically slide instead of the 17th have the work session on the 24th and the action meeting on the 31st because the 17th is still the week before school starts and I think we're looking at we're looking at maybe probably still being away. People have any plans or far enough out why you were out. Yeah. When we were drafting this we kind of like it can go either way. So this is whatever the council preference is. Also, isn't August 31st the last Monday before you

fly off? We're going to make you work that last that fifth Monday. So that should be an act an item on the there whatever that last action meeting is. Wyatt farewell. Don't worry we just put it on there. So, we're saying 24th and 31st instead of the 17th and 24th. Yeah, that's fine. Just throwing that out there. Sounds like it's fine with us unless people have. All right.

Okay. Do I have a few things? Um, we had been talking I I just I don't see it on here and I don't I don't see it in the um uh to be scheduled just any sort of discussion on like road closures. I know that was something that was important to the restaurants.

Um and even if that could be under to be scheduled or it seems like we're having a a wonderful uh meeting. When was it? There's one like on the snow routes and other things like that. like maybe we just have a pedestrian pedestrian fund meeting. Um and so it would be nice to see something even if not there on the to be scheduled um regarding a discussion on street closures and how that process would work. Um I know we'd also talked about uh we had had a discussion on vision zero and complete streets last year. Um, and part of that there was going to be a followup in terms of the criteria that we were going to have for when we're repaving streets. I don't know if that sort of fell off, but it would be nice to even even if it's on the to be scheduled um to have a followup on that and where we are.

Last week when you were at the scheduling meeting, we talked about adding it to July 20th, Wyatt, like a vision zero complete streets follow-up discussion and then the snow removal scope. That discussion was not only snow removal on commercial streets, but also snow emergency routes. We're looking at all of those potentially for the TW. It's a lot. So, we we're working through whether we can do all that in the meeting or not, but uh

we're working on those requests. Um and then my final thing is uh did we want to make I mean given the budget discussion today um and I know gov ops is going to or budget and finance uh is yeah bud budget and finance is going to cover this um is looking at the revenue share agreement. Is that something that we want to have as a full council discussion sometime um over the summer or in the next few months that we want to sort of mark as a to be scheduled just so that that doesn't fall off. Is there a particular I know June we're talking about CNI or no revenue share

June meeting is up about revenue share. So I would just I guess invite everyone to come to the June meeting but we may need to have followup right like after that in terms of what the budget guidance is like going into the next budget. Okay. Cycle. Sure. I just um as long I'm guessing it needs to be more than that one meeting. So, as long as we make sure to keep the conversation going, some months off.

But, but I would to your point about uh budget guidance, I would since we're putting dates on here for October and November, I think we need to have on one of those, you know, discussion about the budget guidance and being more complete than than just a revenue number. Whatever we come up with, let's just put a flag in the the ground. Uh, and then I just wanted to reiterate I I would like to try to get um under to be scheduled the Tener Hill items scheduled before you leave Wyatt. Okay. Um, just because you have a lot of the historical context on that. Okay.

Um, and it may be I hate to say it may be that we need that July 6 work. I mean I I hear a lot of things trying to pile up before you head out. So we may need that July 6th work session. I hate to say, but thanks. I'm talking about those big full agendas that they go real smoothly and go real quickly. And looking at the two to be scheduled, I'm going to harp on it again, which is parking, you know, beyond just code amendments and how many spaces you need, just rules. So, you know, all the different things. What happened to council priorities? is that did we did we format them and roll them out? Um

I actually the CA CIC was looking for them. I tried to find them online and there was no like document that I could we finished them so early this year but then we forgot about them. So uh Mary Katherine did do um a great presentation of it and I kind of dropped the ball on it. I think I think it is good to go. When do we get back in the habit of like updates on where we're like a quarterly send that out to council so everyone can sort of see that presentation with nice pictures and good a good uh good presentation and then feather in like the quarterly updates. Yeah. So uh for those quarterly updates we can provide uh progress and strategic priorities

last year maybe two years ago where we kind of rolled them out to our boards and commissions as well and kind of said here's kind of our council priorities. How do you guys fit in? make sure we're growing in the same direction kind of thing. I guess whenever we do that, is there thought that we should do the same with our boards? I mean, I think when we have the document, I think it would be good to send it to them. I think that's a liaison. Yeah, I think the it doesn't need to be like um Mary Katherine goes to every single board of commission. No, I think I'm asking like do we collectively want to sign up for that? for the we are on we should share it with them and say here's kind of yes I think that would be good

anything else okay well 103 almost so we talked about a letter to the school board or Wyatt speaking to Dr. day tomorrow or tonight or what's the plan to get a letter then we'd all have to like review and approve the letter think of why it talks to Terry tonight or sends him an email kind of the talking points we discuss okay we're not going to easier I don't know are you all comfortable with that a letter might be difficult to get done I would yeah I would agree that's what I was thinking do we have to right now draft a letter at 10 or

so I have Uh, I did sneak a text out to Terry Dade, so he is aware. Um, and uh, I did note the request that it be for capital. He said that was noted and um, I'll talk more with him tomorrow, but so he is aware of it. Anything else? Okay. Well, let's journ. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Hope next week is just as sheriff. You got here at the very end.

Yes. I honestly was not aware to answer any questions. We don't actually