Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All right. I'll call to order this uh meeting of the King George County Board of Supervisors. Kathy, I'll call to order this meeting the King George County Service Authority Board of Directors.

All right. Please join me in standing for the invocation which will be led by Mr. Lero Botham, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. Dear Lord, we thank you for tonight to the flag of the United States of America. and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Thank you everybody. Do we have any amendments to the agenda tonight? All right. Seeing none, did you have an a minute? Well, Mr. Chairman, I I do know I was made aware this afternoon that on here we had a presentation by PFM03-13.08. I I don't know if we need to pull that off or we can just, you know, they're they're not able to make it tonight. We can just go over it, make the announcement when it comes or you can remove it. So, just want to make you all aware of that. How you want to handle that?

Pull it out. Y'all good with that? Yeah, I think um PFM made the treasur aware of it on the 6th and then he sent an email today saying that they weren't going to make it so we can remove it. Make a motion we remove it from the agenda. Okay, we got a motion on to remove it from the agenda. Second.

Properly seconded. Any discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. I. Chair votes eye. Motion carries. Any other adjustments? All right, we'll move it. We'll open up to a public comment. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person to in order to afford everyone opportunity to speak. Please provide your full name and district when submitting your public comments so they can be properly included in the public record. First up, we have Pastor Davis. Thank you, uh, board. My name is Sherman Davis, pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church here in King George for the past 49 years anyway. And uh I live in Dan and vote in the Dan district. Uh education is a costly, but you do know that ignorance is much more costly. And if you're ignorant about or wrong about who Jesus Christ is, who uh he is and what he has accomplished for us, who he is as God in the flesh, and what he has accomplished for us through his sacrifice, his redemption, it doesn't make any difference what else you're right about. If you're wrong about who Jesus is, nothing else makes any difference. I uh want to read you a verse in Hebrews, chapter number 9 and verse number 27. The Bible says that uh we are appointed under man once to die but after this the judgment. Hebrews 9:27. I have here uh this is uh since I've been in King George County, I have preached over a thousand funerals. I have preached uh folks that uh deputy

sheriffs and citizens from King and George County. I have preached my own steelborn baby's funeral. I preached my mother's funeral, my dad's funeral, stepdad's funeral, my brother's funeral, my sister's funeral. Uh my my grandmother had 15 children. I preached their funerals and their wives funerals and her spouses funerals and their children's funerals, my cousin's funerals. And uh so this verse uh certainly is true. It is appointed unto man once to die but after this the judgment the Bible classes makes people in three classes. God does in the scriptures. He says there's a natural man. That's the lost man. In 1 Corinthians chapter 1, he says there is a spiritual man. That's the saved man. 1 Corinthians chapter 1 also. And then there is the carnal man. The spiritual man of course is a saved man. The carnal man who is is the man who is saved but acts like he's not. So the natural man, lost man, the spiritual man, saved man. And the carnal man which is saved but acts lost. So you have to categorize yourself. Now uh the scripture says in in uh psalm the wicked are estranged from the womb. They go astray as soon as they are born speaking lies. Now I think all of us realize that babies that die go to heaven. But uh but the point is God's getting across to us of where we are how we're born into sin. And u God wants us to know where we are. And so he works in the through the scriptures to show us where we are. And um if you have a GPS or it used to be a map, but it has a place where he says you are here on your GPS shows you where you are so you know how to get to where you're going. The Bible shows us where we are in the psalm when it says we're born into sin. And it tells us how to get to where you really want to go. You do want to go to

heaven, right? Amen. If you don't, well, you'll be at home wherever you go. God bless you. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Uh, next one. I can't quite make out the first name. Uh, Ruford. Yes, sir. Come on up. My name's Mike Rutherford. I've been in this county for a good minute and it's a it's a beautiful thing that you have this program that helps out disabled people. The only kink is I want to know where to go to collect $410,500 because that's what they assess my property at. I want to know where I can go to get that money.

Okay. On the on the real side, this is what it is. You have a program that helps, but it's limited at $40,000. Because of the inflation and increases per government, they gave me a little bit more on my social security. now I don't qualify and I would hate to I don't know if I'd hate to pick up the money but I mean if y'all could increase the value on this program I have the application if anybody wants to see it to say mid50s 52 you know I used to make the six figures too but I had a stroke And now I'm kind of just at the mercy of life and I don't want to talk about no funerals. So what I got. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Um before you take off, um let me grab that from you. Not right now, but before you take off tonight, uh or we can hand it to Jackie. Either one. I don't want to drag you all the way up here, though. Put it down here. Okay, perfect. All right. Thank you, sir. All right. While we're working through that, the next one up is Mr. Ed Rabonte. Roberi. Roberi. Yes. Sorry, sir.

How you do?

Uh, my name is Ed Rudertie. And, uh, I'm a newcomer to this area. I'm here only about three three years or so. I come from New York where we're used to getting robbed. But not for nothing. I don't know what your assesses were your were thinking of when they started assessing our homes. I paid 635,000 for my home 3 years ago. They've assessed it for 853,900. Now, if you guys would like to buy it for that price, I would be glad to sell it, but I can't sell it for 853900. My appraisal from my real estate agent was 705. So you guys have got me about a quarter of a million dollars more than my house is worth. My neighbors also have the same situation. Uh 11732 Orchid Lane. Here's a his uh well he's he actually did pretty good. He bought the house at the same time as me right next door. His is a twotory mine as a rambler. He paid about $649. He put a $100,000 garage on his property. They assessed that for 27,000. His assessment only went to 701. Okay. He paid almost the same price as me. Down the road across the street from me, 11402 Orchid Lane. He paid 499,000 in 2018. They've assessed this house, same house as myself at 8265. 10124 Malbury Court. Uh basically very a brand new house purchased in 2025. Also the same exact house as myself. He

paid 645,000. He they they assessed him at 6735. That's pretty reasonable. That's what my assessment should have been. And my neighbors who have the same type of houses. What are these people? It's called vision assessors. They have no vision. They're blind. They they're basically just going from place to place and not figuring what the houses are really worth. There's no way that I could p buy sell my house for that kind of price. Uh my neighbors also who haven't come are also up in arms about some of these things. Some of the people got decent assessments, but a lot of the ramblers did not. So your your company seems to be picking on people with only one floor and not people with several other floors. That's my story, sir.

All right. Thank you, sir. And can we get your address for the record? Sure. It's 11346 Orchid Lane. All right. Thank you, sir. We're in Oakwood Estates and most of the people in Oakwood Estates, I'm surprised they're not here, are having the same similar problem. Yeah, we're getting a lot of emails and phone calls from all across the county. There's some tells me you're you're not going to be the last one to speak tonight about, right? I mean, they I have the appeal papers and all that. We intend them to appeal it, but

I'm just bringing it across that maybe maybe you guys are not really totally aware of what's going on. It's quite ridiculous. So, we are aware of what's going on. Um, I was going to save this for the board report, but I'll go ahead and uh put it out there now. So, the assessments, the way this happens is, um, the commission of the revenue contracts the company, they go out and do it. That doesn't really have anything to do with the board of supervisors. I don't I don't mean that to be a passing of the buck. That's just the way that's just the way it's uh worked out. When it comes back to us, we look at it from the perspective of we've got the needsbased budgets from the departments all across the county. Uh we uh Mr. Smallik kicks it back a couple times, you know, okay, what do you really need in terms of funding and then we look at the potential for revenue based on the assessments and um after all the appeals have been and taken care of and then we look to decide do we need to raise taxes? Do we take the assessments at face value? There there's a lot of options available to us. So that's where we come in. We can't really do anything about um vision at the moment, but how we handle those assessments and the tax rates and whatnot, that is coming. So we we definitely hear you. So that being said, um thank you for your time.

Thank you for listening. Appreciate it. Yeah, I did. hit it. Sure. Uh, Mr. Roertie. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, can I ask you real quick again? What were the amounts on your property? I I didn't get those when you you passed it. Assessment what you said you paid and then what the assessment was 35 for that in 2022. Okay. And then it was assessed at 8539. Thank you, sir.

All right. Thank you. All right. Next up, we got uh Dr. Griffin, but you're actually on the agenda. Did you think you were supposed to sign up? You're welcome to make public comment. Okay, sounds good. And then we have uh Nicole McConnell. Nope. Okay, no worries. And Pastor Shaw. James Shaw, James Monroe, district columnist for the Northern Next Sentinel, citizen journalist, kgia. Not speaking in my capacity as an EDA member. Speaking as a media guy and citizen, new hat number cruncher. A year and a half ago, I did some rumaging around the internet to get some accurate population figures for King George. That was a tough process. So many conflicting sources. Now, later tonight, under Matt Smolnik's reporting time, you will see the resource that he uses and the resulting number he uses for um uh referencing a population of the county. And I thus will not steal his thunder. what I have. Uh let's see. Um so I'm going to present some numbers based upon uh uh what Matt will later present. Um these numbers are based um upon uh I believe the census from April of uh 2020 uh through uh July of uh last year. And so with those numbers, roughly 1.4% growth, uh we can estimate and project the addition of one new citizen or

resident every 1,479 minutes or a day and 39 minutes. So how do we rural county that we are smartly plan for this inevitable slow growth of around a person a day or 355 people per year? Over time, this will slowly put pressure on many infrastructure things such as schools, roads, traffic lights, fire and EMT, sheriff, water, sewer, etc. We will see this tonight with the budget and the CIP requests that will be presented. The new and better question to ask in all of this is how can we as a county do more by being smarter about providing needed goods and services? One does not quickly answer that question tonight. What one does do is put that farreaching question up near the top when it comes to doing the planning for next year's and all future budgets. The question again, how can we do more by being smarter about providing needed goods and services? God bless the King George Renaissance as we plan for a prosperous, efficient, and low tax future here in our beloved King George County. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. That was all of the folks that signed up, but I see Miss Fairfax coming up. We'll get to you.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. This was not originally what I was intending to speak about. I was going to wait until the second public comment, but since we're on this subject, I will go ahead and um add a few details. So, my farmland increased in value by 60%. I'm sorry. I'm Debbie Fairfax. I'm from the James Madison district. Um my farmland was assessed with a 60% increase. And I was actually notified to go look for my um assessment by senior citizens calling me where I live telling me theirs had increased 127% and 84% and very much like people had expressed to you um in the past, Mr. Davis, they were asking me how they're supposed to function on the senior citizen income with those types of assessments. Um and I know that was something you uh Mr. Straoud were very concerned about the last time with the assessments. Certainly, I think we've got honorable citizens who pay their taxes. They just want it to be fair. Um, I had a question that I wanted to raise that maybe you guys could look into because in in my conversations with people who were talking to me about it, it looked like like one person lived in a double wide trailer. So, you could assume about the value of what that would be, but their neighbor on one side had a million-doll home and their neighbor on another side had a $750,000 home. So, I was wondering if that somehow affected their rate. And additionally with my land, I wondered if the purchase price by the recent industrial entity that borders my property, somehow they looked at the buying price of the of the land that bordered my property on either side and then raised my rate and which led me to wonder is there some sort of program that's asking what's the value of the property on either on the adjacent

properties or is there some sort of AI mechanism that's asking for that and therefore it's not really a visual inspection. It's a program that's not set up to um have the nuances that a human assessor would. I just wanted to offer that. Thank you for your consideration. And and while I'm saying that very quickly, any citizen that's watching, you can flip your document over and it will tell you the percentage that it is increased from last year. Um so that's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else who uh didn't get a chance to sign up would like to speak? Going up. Hi there. I'm Dr. Henry Daryl Webb. I live on 6708 Blackburn Run in the Monroe District and uh I've lived here 25 years. We built our house in 2000. And I think I have discovered a gravitational anomaly over in Blackburn Run because my neighbors and I have basements in our houses that are larger than our house and they haven't collapsed. And that's from documentation from the assessment. My assessment went from 475 to 640. And that's a lot to grow up uh over a period of 2 years, 2 and 1/2 years. Uh nothing has really changed. But I did notice we were getting many more components to the assessment which included my porch, crawl space, a partially finished basement, and a unfinished basement component of it. And these were not included in last uh the last assessments that were there. So, I'm sorry,

where did they get that from? Uh those measurements are are nominally accurate. Um, I'm assuming they got them from the county's uh plans and things like that, but apparently there are inconsistencies and errors in these numbers that are here because it doesn't take but simple addition to figure out that they're incorrect. So, I know at least I and one of my neighbors basements are larger than what our houses are. Anyway, something to consider. Thanks. Okay. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Mr. D, do you have anybody online?

No, Mr. Chairman. All right. Thank you, sir. I will close public comments at this time and we'll move on to uh reports of the board, members of the board. Mr. Robotham, I'll just thank everybody for coming out. Uh I don't I don't have anything for the group today. Thank you, sir. Um, Miss Bender,

you got it right. All right. I got a couple of things. I have been kind of quiet the last couple times not being here, but I wanted to catch up. Um, on the assessments, I have been hearing a lot of from a lot of folks, including quite a few in Oakwood Estates since that is my district and including one of your astute neighbors who has calculated almost everyone's values and put it in a spreadsheet. And one of the biggest things that they have noticed is that in Oakwood estates, the prop properties that are smaller houses than mine, and mine was assessed for less on more land, uh, go anywhere from 700 to $900,000. And for Oakwood estate, I think that's a little large. And then I've also heard from people about their farmland, some of them near where industrial people have purchased the land being 137% higher than and I still remember the folks from in Northern Virginia who told me that is the one problem with data centers is they make the price of the land raise enough that the farmers have to sell out because they can't afford the taxes. And I don't want that to happen to King George is that that happens to us because the assessments are wrong and jack up the land. So our our younger, older, whoever wants to keep their land in their farmland can't afford to do it because the prop big companies can pay a lot more for their land than they can. And I want to make sure that whatever we can do that we find out why those assessments are wild. I mean, I will tell you one of the things you need to do is go and get your field sheet and you can get that from the commissioner of revenue. And I would suggest you get the one from 2026 and the one from the last time in 2022. In 2022, my property, they said I had an outdoor kitchen. I have a barbecue. Uh I had a a a fireplace. I have a I have a son who has asthma, so we don't have a fireplace. And then I had an amazing an amazing plastic shed I bought from Lowe's about 15 years ago that was about $300. It was $15,000, said the assessor. That was in 2022. But got that fixed and

but this time I have an amazing bumpout I didn't know existed. So I I suggest everyone please go and look out your field sheets and come and and and talk to the assessor and and then to the board of equalization if that does not help you. So I just wanted to bring that up. Um I did get a lot of some folks uh calling about the no kings protest that's supposed to be out here March 28th. I've spoken uh to our sheriff Giles, our county administrator and the registar. They they will be at this as of Monday they will be outside of the old courthouse which is just has storage in it nowhere near this part of the building and uh there will be no voting on that day. So I just want to get that out there because I think I've received about five emails concerned about interfering with voting. So I just want everybody to know about that. Um next thing is uh votech building. I got to uh participate with Mr. Smolick on uh helping to look at what we're g and Dr. void what we're going to put in the votech building and then uh there's an RFP to come and then more planning but some of the programs that are probably be offered for the students if it does come to fruition the architects say that that we can do it on the space provided it'll be a really good opportunity for the young folks in the county especially those that aren't going to college or might not really be interested in college and really want to do welding or culinary or things like that so stay tuned and we might even be able to work with Caroline and share programs so that we don't double I'll call it double book but uh because the one in Carolina was pretty impressive and they have an automotive and cosmetology and maybe we can send students there for that and then they can come for our culinary and electrical and HVAC so stay tuned and I think it'll be really positive for our students and let's see what the last thing I want to point out is everyone has heard about the redistricting and the vote yes and vote no and I'm going to stick to one part that I really find troublesome is

the language that was used in the referendum, language that you go to vote on. Someone who used to be in the media business, there's a lot of propaganda words in there. And I would like people to really look at it and and make a choice and really read that before they vote yes or no because what is fairness to one might not be fairness to another. And remember in 1913 the income tax was supposed to be temporary and we still have the income tax. So, I'm just saying whatever you do, please read it and truly understand it. And just don't go in there blindly because someone has convinced you because of a pretty post or a pretty ad or pretty words. So, please just read it and make your decision. And then lastly, some of the bills that went through, as I was talking to uh Mr. Stewart earlier, there's a lot that went through, especially at the very end, and and unfortunately, some of those might have a high cost to our community. and I hope it's all resolved, but you you know wishes or fishes, but I'm really concerned about some of the bills that passed and the costs that could come to our locality. And for those that don't know, one of the bills, the the solar bill is any solar project that we pass has battery energy storage by right, which means it takes it decision-m or anything out of locality. And there was bills like that. So, please, you need to pay attention to what they're doing in the legislature and talk to people. Lobbyists are very strong. I' I've learned that personally with that one bill that lobbyists, they get to them and they they change votes. So, make sure you stay active and you be your own lobbyist for what you believe in. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Bender. Mr. Shout. Thank you, sir. And thank you as well, Miss Bender, for those comments regarding uh especially the vote on the 21st is coming up. Uh I think everybody here is encouraged people to read that because it's not

accurate the way it's worded. So like to appreci uh say thank you to everybody that came out and spoke. Appreciate it, especially regarding the assessment. Um we have all uh as everybody's already said we're getting calls uh thankfully and I appreciate the calls that uh that I've got from people uh identifying the the challenges that they have um with the assessment and as Miss Fairfax pointed out um that was and I think I mentioned the last board that u the assessment was something I ran on because it was pretty jacked up uh the last one and this one appears to be the same. Um, so there's not a lot of rhyme or reason to some of the assessments and uh I'm not happy with the assessments the way they are. Um, and I can't say that I support uh accepting the assessments the way they are. Um, so I I something needs to be done that we need to address as a board regarding that. Um, on 4 March, uh, again, I was blessed to be able to go to the high school uh, and participate in the interviews there with the high school students. Uh, Mr. D. Straws and Mr. Terry Rinko did a do an awesome job as well as the other teachers there. And uh, so I see the superintendent. I know he was there doing interviews as well. Uh but that that is just a good time. It's a fun time and I'm really proud of our students and the way that that our teachers are preparing them. Uh far better than than I know I was as a young person. So but that's all I got to say for now, sir. Thank you. All right. Thank you, sir.

Mr. Mintz,

thank you. On the 9th, I was able to meet with the NAACP chapter. A lot of the same discussions, assessments, legislation, and the Votech building uh were the topics there. Also, um spent some time this week talking with one of our constituents about housing options, particularly as um population is aging and and um sort of the assisted care or lack of assisted care here in the county. So, um probably something more in the planning commission as we're coming through the uh comprehensive plan update to think about those items. Um a number of contacts with uh people concerned about the appraisals. Um and I myself found an error in the basement calculation in my house. So, let me just tell you real quick how I found the error in mine um before even sending an email to the address that's on that uh the assessment card. So, if you go to the county GIS system and you find your property. If you click on um the outline of your property boundaries, a little popup will come up. There's a property card. It it says more info. If you click that more info, it does now take you to the Vision Government's Solutions property card. And you can at least start getting a basic idea of what they use to calculate both the land value and the property value. and they have a drawing of your house and a description of the different values that they put on um even overhangs unfinished basement you know there's a lot in that right so you can at least get that and then that was a good prompt for me to be able to very artic a very specific error I was able to send it in on that email address uh to basically go hey it's a small error on mine I'm not too worried about it but it would be nice to get that card updated some of you have some gross errors and it would be nice to get those fixed. I will note nobody has set a tax rate yet. We haven't even

advertised a tax rate. This is a valuation exercise. It is important to get the valuations correct because that way as your property in relation to the property next to yours across the entire county. If those are correct, then it gives us a better opportunity to set an appropriate tax rate as we work through with administration, the CIP plan, and the budget. And it and we're coming up on that time, right? So, the first usually the first payment on that's due in June. Yeah. So, it's coming fast. So, definitely go check that out. And um I'm glad you guys are looking at those those letters because I was worried they were going to get stuck in the junk junk mail file. That That's all I had.

Mr. Davis. Thank you. Thank you everyone for coming out. Uh before I get started, I want to make a motion to nominate Lisa Lisa Berts to the Landfill Advisory Committee. Second. We have a motion properly made and seconded. Do we have any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Motion carries.

I get she basically turned in a whole resume. So, and she's well qualified to be part of that. I'm glad to see that she wants to I called her today just to thank her for bringing her expertise to that board. it does need some help. The assessments, so I I did the um I like to get out amongst people is where I kind of find out what's kind of going on. So I heard they're having a big event at Creekide this past Saturday and my wife was like, "You want to go over there?" I'm like, "Yeah, it's going to be a lot of people over there and I know what they're going to talk about." And every there's probably I must have been 600 people packed in that place and everywhere I went it was Mr. Davis, Mr. Davis and people I went to school for Billy and that's how you know if someone knew me from when I was a kid they call me Billy it just it jumps out and just talking over and they were just some of them they were in good spirits about it just kind of chuckling about it and things of that nature and and I started bringing up some of the past conversations of last year about this time when we were doing some down zoning and now there's a bunch of fearongering in the building about how we're going to drive everyone's cost of their property down and we're going to ruin King George County and that didn't stick too well did it you know the value didn't go down at all, did it? But that's okay. Maybe they'll get it right next time. I had a constituent name in Shiloh who I've known since I was a child, 80-year-old couple. Their property went up 185%. Now, this family is the same family that's been here. They originally owned Pumpkin Neck before the government took that away from them, you know, and gave them pennies on a dollar for that and got them another hunk of land that they live on. But it just kind of seems like the government doesn't want people to own a lot of land is what I drive it to. They they want to break it. When when you own a lot of land, you got a pond and and you got your own well and you're self-sufficient. They don't like that kind of stuff. And it seems like if I can tax you enough to sell your property, so you got to start chopping

it up and chopping it up. That just kind of seems to be the mindset of where the big government wants to force the small man to go. And I ran against those things from day one. And I ran I didn't run on anything but not raising taxes. And I'm going to stand by what I ran on. I got another constituent. I think it's about it was a half acre or a quarter acre. It's on a slope about like this. So it appraised for $6,000. You can't even put a house on it. It's now $60,000. you know, and what they're getting a little bit confused out there is um what has helped drive this and what I've said since day one is when stuff goes unwatched and you have and I got realtors who are my best friends since I was a little kid and and I have nothing against realtors, but if you have a realtor and a piece of property is valued at $100,000, but he's got developer buddy who he knows is going to pay $250,000 for it, he's going to take that quick flip and sell it to him because that guy knows he can take it and make $100,000 every house he sells. So he don't care. But so are they giving us developer prices or are they giving us realistic prices for the everyday person? And you know that they used a model the other day when we were here. They had a house off of State Road. It was about 1,100 square ft. It didn't look like it had a basement. It was on a quarter acre of land and it was $275,000. So I did a little research on State Road. Well, there's a big humongous housing development to go over there over there with some big mansions and this house is right smack dab in the middle. I wonder who bought that house for $275,000. Was it just another developer and we're going by those prices? I don't know. I could be wrong, but I'm kind of suspicious that I'm not. the state is already looking to raise our taxes across the board and and your way you live and and and they will look at the local guy and local guy going you're doing this but we'll vote for for things and vote for parties that that do

not uphold our rural way of life and the way that we like life to be and now you know we're setting up to where our our little small county can be ruled by crazy delegates from Fairfax and Norolk right now who are passing legislation they're passing legislation and they're also and passing the entire bill to the local. They're picking up zero of it and they're proud of it. I've got clips that I've I've watched and I've watched the people on the House speak and they Yes, we did that. We are passing all this legislation and yes, 100% of it is getting passed to the local. So, congratulations. It's getting passed on to us. My big thing that I would say too about as far as what we do here and you know what they call the slush fund, the general fund. I think last year we lose we used $3 million to budget to to budget to balance our budget. Almost all that money that we use has come back in some form or another. That money is used to balance the budget of this county. It's there to keep this board from raising taxes on its constituents because that $4550 million belongs to you. And if we take portion of that to keep to keep money in your pocket and what we did when we came in is we got tired of people just spending money just to spend money because they get to the end of the budget and say, "Oh, we got $500,000 left over. Let's spend it. Oh, we got this left over. Let's" Well, we cut that out. You know, our superintendent came back and he's done a great job. He came back with $3 million left over from his budget from the schools. Now, he could have easily turned around and said, "Guys, the board's going to give me grief. Let's go spend this money." He didn't. He walked in the He walked in goes, "Man, this money's left over. Here's some things that we might be able to use it for going forward if possible, and brought that money back to the table." And that's almost exactly what we put into the budget for last year. So, we start talking about raising this and raising

meals tax and raising all this stuff. My suggestion to this board is we reject the assessments that they put out this recently and we stick to exactly what we have. Thank you. All right. Thank you, sir. Right. Um, so for mine, I normally run through a bunch of engagements. I'm not going to bother with that tonight. I'm just going to say everybody, thanks for coming. I really appreciate you coming out and uh joining us. um wish it was for happier news, but uh no uh we all pay taxes, too. So, I I absolutely understand where you're coming from on that. So, thank you for staying engaged. Um real quick before I get uh too far down the line, um one of our members that we uh confirmed at the last meeting for the board of equalization um is not interested in participating after all. So, um I would like to nominate uh Mr. Robert Bailey to take that position.

Second. Okay, we got properly seconded. Any com any discussion? Yeah, I Ken, did you want to go first? I I wanted to nominate the the person who we nominated as an alternate to take the spot over appointing somebody. I forgot her name, Carrie. Not not to be argumentative, but if you don't know her name,

Jackie, do you have the alternative name? Arin. Okay. Katherine Parent. So, I will retract my motion. And is that okay? I'll withdraw my motion. And all right. And the other person's name was Robert Bailey. Mhm. And Mr. Davis had made a good point. Why don't we just appoint Mr. Robert Bailey and Katherine Parent as both to be active members of the board? Is that a motion?

I'll make All right. So, I could say I would like to appoint Miss Parent, Katherine Parent, correct? As the regular member and Mr. Robert Bailey as the alternate of the reassessment committee. Second. Motion properly seconded. Any further discussion? Board of Equalization. Sorry. Thank you. Second. Properly seconded. Any other discussion? All in favor? I I I. Any oppose? Chair votes I. Motion carries.

All right. Continuing on with my board report. Okay. So, assessments. I won't go too much um further into that. I've already kind of shared a little bit. Um we did have the people from Vision last week. They or two weeks ago, they they went through their process and explained that to us. So, there there is a structure to it. It's it's way different than it was uh a few years ago with the previous one. They're actually getting out there, getting on property, and walking around and seeing stuff clearly. Um some there are some mistakes. So, I I do encourage you to go through the appeals process. And uh um if you haven't already done so, look at your field sheet, educate yourself, and uh go through that appeals process for the the protest that's supposed to happen on March 28th. Um, like Miss Bender said, um, it's going to be on the other side of the road there or out on the road on the other side of the courthouse. Um, a lot of you saw on Facebook, I know I got a lot of emails, I'm sure a lot of other folks did, too, that it was going to be outside the courthouse here. During that time, they they because there's an election going on, even though the building is closed that day, they're not allowed to do it right outside the building. Um, I did speak with the uh the the chair of the the committee, very gracious gentleman, he said, "Yeah, we no problem at all. We'll we'll take care of it." So that's it's going to be on the other side of the of the courthouse. We're good to go there. Hopefully that word's gotten out and and tempers are kind of simmered down just a little bit, but uh yeah, we're in good shape there. Um on the um the referendum that's coming up, you know, I've I've I've been beating the drum on this, beating the drum on this. Seriously, guys, go vote. Educate yourself. If uh if you're not familiar with uh what I'm talking about, it's the redistricting referendum that's coming up. Um, early voting is going on right now. Uh, you've heard me talk about my family and the fact that they'll get written out of the wheel if they don't vote. Half of them have already voted. Um, we're working on the other half. Um, it's going to get taken care of, but educate yourself. Um, if you go to the registars's office, there is an a a

lengthy explanation of of what this is about, how it works, and why. The the verbiage on the ballot itself is is quite misleading. So, go educate yourself. In a nutshell, if you want to maintain the status quo where our congressional representation is six Democrats and five Republicans, then vote no. If you want to completely upend it and fix it so that they can redraw redraw out of cycle and make it um 10 Democrats and one Republican, then vote yes. I'm not going to tell you how to vote. Facebook's a different story. That's a private account. I'll tell you exactly what I think there. But anyway, go vote, please. That's that's all on that and I think that's it. Let's move on with the meeting. Switching over to uh the consent agenda. Can I get a motion?

I will make a motion to accept the consent agenda as presented. Second. Properly seconded. Do we have any further discussion? All right. Mr. Stra. I. Mr. Matz. Hi. Uh Miss Bender. I. Mr. Davis. Hi. Chair votes eye. Motion carries. Over to constitutional officers. Uh Mr. Randy Jones was supposed to be here tonight but could not make it. Are there other constitutional officers here? Miss.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman, members of the board. Regina Pucket, commissioner of the revenue. So if I understand correctly, um you had appointed Katherine and I didn't catch the last name. Exact. It's her name is um Burman. It sounded like you said um something different. I just Yeah, I think I did because I thought it Burman. Do we need to redo that, Mr. Seart? And also, I would just like to encourage everybody if you need your field sheet, your property information, please feel free to come into the commissioner revenue office. We're always happy to help you there.

All right. So, we need to redo that. Yeah, I think I misunderstood. I thought you said Katherine Parent and I think that's I I think I passed that on down and messed the whole thing up. Robert Bailey. No, I was just writing. We got him. Right. So, I will remake the motion to appoint Katherine Burman to the board of equalization. Correct. And then have the alternate Robert Bailey. I want to make sure I get the names right. Second. Okay. Motion properly seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. Any opposed? Chair Bai. Motion carries. All right. And any other constitutional officers that we miss? All right. Over to you,

Matthew. You're up. All right. Next up is the service service authority meeting. And can I have a motion on the consent agenda? We approve the consent agenda as presented. And motion properly second. And any further discussion by roll call vote. Mr. Robotham. I. Mr. Davis. I. Mr. Sins. I. Mr. Mets. I. Chair. Motion passes. Next up, Mr. from Mark Embodden for the Emboden environmental services monthly report.

Good evening members of the board, board of directors. Good to be with you tonight. So, we'll go over our operational uh overview uh for King George County for February. There it is. All right. So, starting off with water. Uh we had an issue with if you remember last meeting we had an issue with the hopyard backwash valve that has since been resolved uh through the on-site help from the manufacturer Tonka. The chemical dosing equipment uh we had a couple pieces of chemical dosing equipment chlorine namely uh was replaced at circle 2 in the clay well systems and we also collected our first round of PAS samples at the entry point of all of our water systems all of our PWS water systems. And so a second follow-up analysis will be scheduled for six months later on in the year. And uh once we have those analysis, we'll be sending that over to Dan and uh he can distribute those from there. So that's water. We'll move the wastewater uh similar issues uh as we had last month or in the month of January. uh the pattern has um pretty much continued through the month of February and a lot of it's being attributed to unusual or uh interesting influent waist streams particularly at the dog room facility and then Perkins Corner uh we've had issues with uh the DO controllers for both treatment plants and then also the frigid temperatures are making it extremely difficult to maintain viable treatment at those wastewater plants. Uh both the Hopyard and the Fairview Beach plants operated well. Uh but we uh as you can see here in our report uh the Dogrren and the Perkins and Oakland facilities did have exceeded for those respective analytes. Um happy to take questions if you have any.

Does anybody have any questions? Questions. Mr. Hamilton, do you have a question? I do. Mark, I'm sorry I didn't catch this earlier, but the PAS data I know we did the sample collections. How quickly will we get the results? So, we should have results within two weeks. Okay. Um, our our sublab is out of Pennsylvania, Lancaster, and um, we should get those results soon. And this is sampling that's being required for the first time this year. Correct. Correct. Correct. Okay. I know we get a lot of inquiries about that. The PAS is what people know of as forever chemicals. Um, and they're newly regulated. Anyway, thank you, Mark. That's all I had. Certainly.

Does anybody else have any questions? Yeah, let me just follow up on that PA fast question because I I'd asked one and and after leaving I realized I should have asked it a little bit differently. So that testing sampling I think is on our uh wellwater correct from the aquifer. Are we yet being asked to test our wastewater treatment?

We are we are not yet being asked to test our wastewater treatment. There are some facilities in Virginia that have been requested uh but none of the wastewater treatment plants for King George have been requested. I guess I'd be interested to if because that's where we're going to end up having expense, right? Is if we have PAS and our treated material being released and which if if our wells come back clean, then the the implication is then that means it's being in introduced into our system by some of the users. So, this will be an interesting ongoing conversation as we get more data. Indeed.

Any other questions? It it bioaccumulates though, so potentially we could have levels that are below the safe health standards if I'm thinking of this correctly um for human exposure, but as it moves through the process of basically being recycled into the waist stream, conceivably it wouldn't necessarily be for any other reason than bio acccumulation. And at the moment, I believe we're still able to land apply that sludge at the landfill. which is not necessarily going to be as expensive as if we have to incinerate it which could become very expensive.

Mr. Yeah, it does. King George's does go to the landfill. Mr. Bowen, do you have anything? That's it. They have no more questions. Thank you so much for being here. All right, Mr. Hamilton, the update on the status of the DC water sanitary sewer overflow PTOIC River.

Yes. Um, I don't want to uh give the term dance on anybody's grave. Um, but this has been obviously in the news almost on a daily basis since the middle of January and I've gotten a lot of questions about it and I know there is some misinformation floating around. So, I thought it would be wise to just kind of summarize where we are with that right now. I know there were inquiries maybe a month ago about whether there was any impact on the service authority and the water that we provide and there absolutely is not. Um to be clear which is at the end of this document which I prepared and shared with the board um King George County uses groundwater as its source and the groundwater is under no threat from potential contamination by the spill of sewage um upstream in the Ptoac River. I don't want to imply that there is no environmental consequence, but it has no impact on your source water or your drinking water from your makeoff. Uh just to run through a timeline here, that sewage uh spill was reported, I believe, on the 19th of January 2026 was a 72-in pipeline called the PTOIC Interceptor. It was in Montgomery County uh on National Park Service property I believe in the area of the Clare Barton Parkway and Devel. Um right after that of course DC water mobilized some crews to uh investigate and install a bypass system. Um that bypass system by the 24th of January. So within about 5 or 6 days they made use of the CNO canal in order to pump the sewage around the failed portion of the pipeline. Um the bypass functioned with as an open channel but the the containment of it was completed by the 8th of February. Um so around Super Bowl Sunday was the last time there was actually overflow of sewage into the Ptoac River. Um, following that

around the 18th of February 2026, uh, Mayor Bowser from DC of course requested federal assistance which was approved by President Trump on the 21st of February which put FEMA in direct responsibility for the disaster relief. Um, of course DC water reports directly to the EPA. So the EPA was also involved as a federal agency. But uh on March 2nd of 2026, the DC Department of Health lifted their recreational advisory for Ptoic River um after bacteria levels return to acceptable limits for boating and fishing. So that's upstream of us of course again DC Department of Health on March 2nd. On March 5th, the Virginia Department of Health partially lifted the Battoic River recreational advisory following the major sewage spill. Um, there was still a rec recreational advisory for a portion of the Battoic River upstream from the American Legion Bridge, which is where it crosses from the Bellway crosses out of Virginia into Maryland up to um Route 120 chain bridge due to continued water quality concerns. And then on March 14th, which was just a few days ago, the repairs to the failed pipeline were completed by the DC water crews or subcontract crews. Um, and the flow has now been restored to the original battoic interceptor. So, just in summary, there are three different agencies here that were involved with water quality review. to the Maryland Department of Health. Of course, Maryland owns the Battoomeac River. Um, it's kind of an odd thing, but from a long time ago, um, in cooperation with local health departments and state partners, um, they monitor for guidance from the public's recreational use of the Battoic River based on continuous water quality water quality sampling regards, sorry, water quality sampling results. To date, there have been no reported illnesses in Maryland as a result of the spill. uh and their continued buyer surveillance

efforts are ongoing to protect the health and well-being of Marylanders and any partners that are using the Ptoic River. Um not to make light of um Virginia who has the Department of Envir environmental and Department of Environmental Quality is also conducting intensive regular bacterological monitoring. Uh I know that Senator Stewart actually sent a letter to them asking them about this testing. Um I believe I provided a copy of that to the board a while back. But they have been monitoring the Ptoic River shoreline and the embainments. Um, and the most recent data indicates that bacteria levels are now below a safe threshold for recreation leading to the lifting of most of the Department of Health advisories from Virginia. Um, Prince George's and Charles County over in Maryland also had advisories. Those have been lifted, I believe, as also of March 5th. There was never one in St. Mary's County. Um, and so again, in summary, there is no threat to the drinking water in King George. I don't want to say that we're not concerned. Um, potentially the Ptoonic River could become a source of drinking water for downstream communities like King George in the future, and there's lessons to be learned here, but I'm not here to politic about that tonight. So, that's just an update on the status of things. I encourage anyone that has questions about this, please contact me. There's a lot of information on the regulatory websites. be careful what you read on social media. Um, and I'll try to respond as as um clearly as I can.

Right. Does anybody have any questions on that? Right. I will move on to the proposal for the rate study.

All right. So, uh, we've talked at least briefly a number of times over the last few months about, um, what I believe would be a wise decision for the service authority, which would be ga would be to engage an independent um, experts basically to help guide us with a rate study. I know it has been at least, I believe, four years since there was any type of rate increase in King George Service Authority. Certainly not proposing one today. Um but I do think that it's it's imperative that we um make informed and educated decisions about how our rate structure is set up. Um there are many things that I've observed in the first seven or eight months here that I think are lacking in the current rate structure. I.e. there is no um different classifications in the rate structure between residential and commercial and industrial use customers. We know that there has been some intense um interest if not pressure to begin seeing some types of industry begin to develop in this area uh including the data centers um who are also wanting to use portable water not for cooling but to service their facilities and um again the the the rates are tiered but there's only a two-tiered system and they're out of date. So after a conversation that I had with uh Davenport, which is the financial advisors that I believe the county and the service authority have used for 25 years back in December that u Mr. Smick helped broker. Um I requested that Stantech um through through Davenport provide us a proposal which they did and of course I sent that all to you earlier this week or Sunday night yesterday morning I don't remember. Uh, I want to point out one thing. The the proposal is dated the 26th of February. I believe that they sent that proposal to Davenport. It wasn't presented to me from Davenport

until the day after our last meeting. Um, and it's an extensive proposal, but uh, as I'm sure you saw, there was a letter of reference from Davenport um, recommending that we engage Stantech. They have a history of doing this type of work here in Northern Virginia. Um they provided a 31page proposal which also included a number of of references of local utilities for whom they've done this work which I believe included LDM water, Fairfax Water, Prince William County, um the city of Annapolis um extensive experience. I think they also listed staff with over 600 years of combined experience in doing this type of work. uh and they submitted a proposal that included what I consider to be a comprehensive look at our finances and our rate structure. And um I'm sure you all saw the highlights I sent yesterday, but there would be a cost of service analysis. There would certainly be a rate study. There would be benchmarking and comparisons with other nearby utilities. Um there would be a affordability analysis, an econ an economic analysis, and then a strategy and management in terms of a long-term plan. um not necessarily again establishing a set rate increase every year for however many years or whatever it is, but having a plan that could be updated periodically to help you guide you as the county grows to account for economic growth and to account for the impacts on the service authority facilities. So that proposal was valued at about I think it was $85,000 84,000 something. Um, and recently we were able to identify some leftover money in the purchase order from the automated meter reading program, which I believe concluded in 2023, there was $122,000 or so um remaining in that purchase order that was not spent. So, after a u brief conversation with finance today, I believe they concurred

that it would be possible to use that money. Um, it's consistent with our conversations about potentially having a submeter program, which I know there's been some pressure from people about to not charge them sewer fees for uh, irrigation water. However, we need to be considering what the impact on our income would be. Um, if we were to establish that program, I would assume that we would have the people that are interested in it pay for the infrastructure, i.e. the meters um to measure the amount of water that's not being um using the sewer. However, we need to be cognizant of the impact on our budget for that. And that's another reason why I think it's important that we consider this type of guidance. So, um Mr. Sullins, I know you were not happy about being asked to review and approve something in the same meeting a few weeks ago. I'm not asking for that today, but I did want to present this proposal officially. I wanted to give you my recommendation that I think these are the the right people. They're experts in the field. Um they work well with the current financial advisors and they also basically in their toolbox already have a lot of comparable information from working with other local utilities. Uh again, very thoroughly covered in this proposal. So, uh I would recommend that you consider approving this. Um, I believe the the timeline along this was if they were to start in March, they would wrap this up in about Octo, excuse me, August, it would include conversations with the board. Um, conversations with staff, I'm sure, conversations with county staff as well. Um, all to provide input through this process. I don't anticipate that we would have the study done in time to um use that to forecast anything for the fiscal 2027 budget which I'm hoping to present at the end of next month. But I think the outcome of this would be

something that we could use during outreach over the coming months and would guide us into making some informed decisions for the fiscal 2028 budget which would be July 1, 2027 if I have all that right. So, um, I wanted to present that to you. I wanted to make that recommendation. Again, there is a letter from Davenport in here which I think thoroughly documents their support and I welcome any questions you have. Then we have some questions. Go ahead, Mr. Mets. And I'll get you, Mr. SS. We'll work our way up the line here. Okay.

Um, Mr. Hamilton, are you pretty I did look through what you sent out earlier in the week, but um are you pretty confident that in addition to looking at our rates, this is also going to provide some clarity to what is included in a base rate and a water usage fee because I couldn't have a campaign when I was campaigning. You couldn't have a stop without somebody talking about the debt fee. And when you would dig into it, you understand that debt fee is not just interest on debt. It's depreciation. It's some operating cost. It's some maintenance things, right? There's a lot in what we've been calling a debt fee. And this study should provide some clarity to really what a rate structure needs to be to represent our actual costs.

Correct. So, I know I've said this probably privately to many of you, but the the quote debt fee that it appears on the King George County Service Authority bills, I've never seen another utility call it that. Um, it's considered a base rate. It's established in your bylaws. Um, I'm assuming by the board um or your predecessors, but it's not based on debt service. It was just poorly named debt fee. And frankly, in my opinion, um it's done a great disservice to the service authority over, I believe, the almost 20 years that that's been in place. And it creates a lot of misunderstanding about what that money is for. Uh I've already discussed this with the folks at Davenport and Stantech. And I think there's universal sense that it is we should probably as soon as possible begin calling it a base rate, not a debt fee. If you compare this to other utilities, i.e. Stafford, any of the next door neighbor um utilities and you look at their service authority or whatever it's called, their utility rates, there's never a reference to a debt fee. It's a base rate. That is not to say that in a future budget or in a future bill, I think it would be wise to maybe add a sentence that says this percentage or this dollar amount goes towards service of your debt. But this is the kind of thing that Stantech can help us look at and compare to other utilities and say, you know, all utilities carry some debt. We don't put up a $70 million treatment plant with $70 million we have sitting in a in the bank somewhere. So, we want to make make sure that our debt service is is typical and consistent with other utilities. Of course, that our bond ratings stay strong and those kind of things. And yes, this would absolutely address that. I should have been more clear. Mr. M, do you have any other questions? Mr. Sols.

So, this isn't so much a question as I guess a statement. You mentioned the pilot program for the uh the the water. Um I we owe them a response. Uh that that has uh that was brought up months ago. I'm sorry. You said we owe you a response.

No, no, no. We owe the the people in the hopyard that brought that up a response. it it was brought before us and and we we mentioned it as a possibility months ago and we really haven't done anything with it and and it's gotten quiet which makes me nervous. We have a an expression in the Navy and I see your sweatshirt. I'm going to sanitize this for human consumption. But uh a griping sailor is a happy sailor which sounds kind of counterproductive but when they get quiet they don't trust you anymore and they're going to do a mutiny. So um when the people in Hopyard aren't complaining about their water bills they don't trust us to negotiate with them anymore. So we do owe them a response.

Understood. Um as I said, I don't think there's any reason that we can't proceed to at least I think the tenative discussions prior to my uh tenure here were to install 10 meters or something like that in various properties. I have a list. We've we you know have made some preliminary choices about that. Obviously that represents an investment. Um, I don't want people to walk away with the idea that once they have that meter installed, they're immediately not going to be build for sewage. Um, that's the problem is that we don't have any guidance there on how to do that. And we can start to begin to collect the data so that we have some sense for, you know, is your average home watering their lawn? How much, what percentage, how many gallons would that reduce their bill? I don't think we have any golf courses here that are using King George Service Authority water for irrigation. Um, that's a question that's coming up now with water withdrawal permits, which I'll touch on in a minute. But, um, I I understand that we owe owe people a response and and I want to be responsive, but again, we need to make I think making a a rush decision that turns out not to be correct would be worse than making sure we have enough data and guidance to make a sensible decision. But I understand.

I agree with you 100%. You know, managing expectations and stuff. So, thank you for moving forward with that. Sure. Again, these these folks, they've seen these programs elsewhere, you know, but I've been in the industry a long time, but I'm certainly not an expert on what to expect in terms of the loss of revenue that would come from that. And and we need to be guided by that cuz energy costs, chemical costs, labor costs, all of those things, nothing's getting cheaper. So, losing revenue is is, you know, not a way to go. Mr. is

thank you. I mean something that we talked about, you know, when we came on and something that you have you've reaped the benefits of not knowing and Mr. Mets have reaped the benefits not knowing is, you know, for the first time in 25 and 26, our service authority wasn't fined. We didn't receive the big million-dollar fines at the end of the year, right? And that's what you're in task to keep keep that up, right? So, and and what I talked to my constituents about was, you know, the first thing you have to do, you know, in any situation, if someone's bleeding, you have to stop the bleeding before you start worrying about anything. So, we stopped the bleeding as far as that goes. But, I'd like to look at um a large part of that debt is just fines that were incurred just from negligence over the years. And what we can do is not looking at maybe to start paying off that debt to reduce the water bill. I mean, right now I think it's like 150 bucks for some people just before they even get started. I mean, if we knock somehow start paying down debt to where that gets down to like a hundred bucks, that's a win, you know, especially for small families. I mean, I know tons of people right now, and I know Miss Bender's talked to them, too. People, there's single moms out there who can't afford a bump in any kind of water. I think we really need to start looking at how we're going to tackle um the money that we do have. How we're going to invest that money to make money to pay off things so that the money is working for you and you're not working for the money in a sense, you know, and I'm not looking for response or anything. That's just just my being on this board where I stand on that. I want to start looking at how we're going to reduce those things by getting rid of those fines. We we're not getting any more fines now. We got a great relationship now with DEQ for the first time in forever. and what can we do now to build on that and really start game planning for the future to start really reducing that is is our plan. That's why I hope we're shooting for the same thing.

Understood. Um certainly, you know, my goal here is 100% compliance. Um there has definitely been some lack of maintenance on a lot of very expensive infrastructure. um some of which was inherited when the service authority formed. And perhaps there's been some misguided or unfortunate choices made in the past about how money was spent, but we've got a long way to go. Um and getting good advice from uh folks who are experts in this industry on how to do that, I think is is going to be money well spent in my opinion. Um and I understand what you're saying. I don't want anybody to have to make a choice between drinking water and medicine. Um I think people need to be thinking about the choice between what they spend on the cable in the internet versus what they're spending for drinking water.

Um that's a that's a different dynamic and part of that is is you know just a culture change and people don't realize until there's a spill on the Battoic River or until there's no water when you turn the faucet on how important it is for your daily life. And and again, we need to, you know, protect that. We're complying with two different federal laws here that have been around for over 50 years. Those costs are not going down. Um, we are being hit right now by tariffs on chemicals, by increases in energy costs. I know. I mean, I hear it from my own elderly mother, you know, double our highest electric bill ever, or her highest electric bill ever, ever showed up two weeks ago. Do you not pay the electric bill to pay the water bill or the other way around? That's not choices we want anybody to make. I think one of the other things we can look at is setting up a fund for people that need assistance. Um simple things like rounding up your bill. You know, you go to the drive-thru in a restaurant right now and they say, "Do you want to round up for Ronald McDonald House or whatever?" And people say, "Yep, maybe." And those few pennies, they add up. And you put those in the bank and you make them available. And maybe you have a nonprofit or some other group help give you that up. um that can create a good assistance program because again we're not trying to shut somebody's water off in order to get the bill paid. We want to make it affordable but again it costs a lot and we don't have the luxury here of having 100,000 customers on these systems.

Mr. Robotham, I know you have a question. Yeah. So really my uh my only question I know Mr. Hamilton you brought this up but I want to direct this to Miss Cobb is uh is is this money actually available? Do we have this? Is this usable? I know money can actually be tricky at times. So, put her on the spot. She just saw this yesterday, but we spoke about it today. If we need time, that's fine. I just wanted to ask. Well, actually, um, Mr. Hamilton and I spoke earlier today. And the 122 that he's identifying is a part of the AMI project. And if you remember, that was actually paid for through the $15 million line of credit. That money is no longer available.

So, we can't use that. But I told Mr. Hamilton he can use fund 303 his fund balance from that fund is where he can pull that 845 or 854 from. So we can do it that way. I just want to make sure that we're transparent there. I don't want that mix up with that project.

Thank you for clarifying that. I guess it's my turn. I don't have any questions. I'm just glad this is finally being done because for years I've heard we have the most expensive rates in maybe the world that we hear sometimes east coast whatever and this will show that you know these are what the costs are for and it'll explain it and also I think we'll have evidence to show the citizens why these prices are the way we were and I think it was even over 5 years ago that we actually changed the rates so it's it's been a while and that was all to help with the debt and other things we had to So, I'm glad to finally see this.

To be clear, you know, everybody, I think, who's still working in this room or drawing on social security expects some type of cost of living increase. And when you don't get that, it's a problem. If you have a utility that goes for 5 years without at least a small incremental increase, and then you turn around and you do a study and you realize instead of 3% you need 20%. Well, you're never going to get a 20% rate increase. I'm not proposing that. I don't want anybody to think that. So, we need to have somebody, and again, these are independent people who do this professionally, help guide us to make sure that we're making sensible decisions. And again, be reminded that right now, your commercial groups, your industrial groups, and your residential groups are all paying the same thing. That is not how business is normally done in the water and wastewater industry. And, you know, you're talking about people who can't afford it. I think we need to be looking at that when we reassess this rate structure and and we'll get guidance there.

Do I have any other questions on that one? All right, we'll move on to the general manager report.

All right. Well, you've heard enough for me this evening. Um I'll try to keep it short uh from this point, but um in in summary, um we've been very lucky so far this spring. I think to date, we've had three water main breaks in the last three months. Um during the previous six months or so, we had about 40 or 50. So, we've been lucky. I expected that when we hit the springtime that we would start to see some thaw and with ground shift, there might be some leaks. I do not want to jinx myself or jinx our staff. Um but the the numbers are what the numbers are right now. We have not had a ton of emergencies related to that. We have definitely had some pump failures over the qu the last few weeks in some of our pump stations. Um staff's been working on those. We've also been working on um some compliance issues that were raised during a sanitary survey at a couple of our properties. Um fence repairs, um graffiti that showed up on a wellhead that doesn't look good and obviously proves that people are trespassing in places they shouldn't be, things like that. Um I actually had a kickoff meeting today with the folks from Stantech and in Bowden to help us with the water withdrawal permit uh project, which we discussed two weeks ago. Again, we're on a very tight timeline there. We've got to get a lot of data together, 15 years worth of information that may or may not be in our records, like how many customers did we have in, you know, 2010 and how many did we add in 2011 and 2012 to each of these four systems, all those kind of things. So, we're working on compiling that data. We also did wrap up a desk audit on the dog system. We're still trying to figure out where the disparity is down there between what we're pumping and what we're billing. I will share more information about that. um next time. Uh I also will point out that just yesterday there was an observation made that when the bad weather closed the base

um the times that our pumps are running down the dog system dropped noticeably which um supports my theory that potentially we have a connection into the dog system that we're not aware of and that is where this extra use is coming from. So I don't want to get anybody's hopes up. I'm certainly not making accusations. Um, but we're on that. We're still working on that. I'm trying to avoid having to hire somebody to come in here and go around with microphones looking for a leak that I don't think is out there. Um, so we're we're step by step whittling away at this and we're going to need to resolve that before we get these withdrawal permits renewed. But in any case, um, other than that, I think that's enough for me this evening. I appreciate everybody coming out as well. Um, it's nice for once, I hate to say this, but to hear people talking about assessments instead of water. Uh, but I understand that that's a significant issue. Um, the same problems where I live. So anyway, uh, as always, if you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me and I'll entertain any questions you have now. But otherwise, uh, that should conclude my report.

I have one just for a short update. Can you can you update the citizens on the Arper project? I know they're they're near the presidential village town houses. Is it how is the progress on that going? ARPA project at Hopyard. Yeah. The Hopyard to Perkins Corner interconnect.

Okay. Yeah, there are a number of ARPA projects. So, just quickly, um the project to construct the pipeline between Hopyard, the water man, and the force main that will interconnect here with the courthouse system is probably will be done in May, I think. Um, I just granted them basically a 30-day time extension due to weather. Uh, it's a no cost issue, but they were at about 94% before we added the 30 days in. That puts them at about 87% complete. Um, I expect that project to be done in May. They've completed, I think, almost all of the I'll call it boring drilling holes under the highway. If you've seen pits and crews, there was one today right down across from the junkyard. Um that project is wrapping up. The upgrades to the Hopyard wastewater plant and the decommissioning of the Perkins plant won't be done until about the beginning of November. And that in fact is when all of our ARPA funding requests need to be submitted to make sure that we get reimbursed. We're going to have to push them very hard to get that done in a way that we don't lose any of that funding or reimbursement to that funding. But we're we're on it. We actually DEEQ asked last week for an update by this week on the draw schedule for the remaining six months and we're just compiling that.

Right. Thank you. You're welcome. Appreciate it. All right. With that being said, we're going to go move to secondary public comment comments. Oh, go ahead.

Sorry. Uh Mr. Hamilton, um I'm not sure if this is necessarily a question for you. Uh could be a question for the board here. I'll bring it up during your uh report here, but you mentioned the dorren uh disparity, the water disparity that we were having and I was approached by a uh business last week and they were looking to um expand their business in the Dogrron area and they were wondering if the moratorum or the the basically the stop work in Dogrren was still on due to the water leak that was going on down there in Dogrren. I know uh I haven't heard it addressed recently. I'm not sure if that was um necessarily a service authority decision or if that's more directed at the board, but

there there is no moratorum on development in Dogrren. There is definitely, you know, we have a permit to withdraw a certain amount of water from the groundwater aquifers here and that is actually one of the four permits that we're renewing right now and we have every right and every intention of forecasting growth. There is definitely a developments planned. And I know Mary Washington University or college, forgive me, um there's some housing that's going to come with that. There's some other commercial development that I've seen evidence of at least in coordination with community development and we can absolutely forecast that into our withdrawal permit applications. We just need to be efficient about it. But um there was a car wash that approached me within the last few weeks and and we ran the numbers and it's not a problem. They're actually going to use recycled water. I think 60% 65% of the water car wash gets recycled, which is great, but I'm not aware of any moratorum. Mr. Small Nicknick, am I missing something here? Um there are there are other I don't want to be breaking news on development here, but there are certainly other projects and some of the other systems that we're looking at as well. But one of the good things about these four permits that we're going to have to renew simultaneously is that we have the opportunity to account for growth. Okay, great. I'll let them know. Thank you. All

right, with that, any other questions before we go on to secondary public comment? All right, we will we go to secondary public comment. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person to afford everyone an opportunity to speak. Please provide your full name and district when submitting your public comment so that it can be properly included in the public record. Is there anybody would like to speak just on the service authority? Right. Nobody is there any Miss Fairfax in the green. You said you wanted to speak during the secondary comment. Was there something for the service authority? No. Okay. All right. Uh, Mr. Dyn. Oh, go ahead.

My name is Sorry about David Shar senior. Uh I'm actually here representing prep presidential H property owners association and we were interested in the wellhouse building next to the uh maintenance barn there that actually I think came up for public auction. Uh we were interested in we probably still are. A question arose on whether or not there was asbestous in that building and so that's kind of where we are. We're wondering if there's any information on that, any disclosure on that. Mr. Hamilton,

I heard that rumor. Um, I had received some correspondence from I think one of the officers on your HOA. It may have been the treasurer. I don't want to don't hold me to that. Um, the property is still for sale. I believe the board voted about a month ago now to extend that for 60 days. If there was asbestous on that site, we would be required under a law to disclose that. I'm not aware of that. I don't know if someone else here knows something. I don't know. Um, we are we have no knowledge to that effect. I don't know where that rumor came from. I'm afraid it may have been bad information designed to dissuade somebody. I don't know. Right. Okay.

I could just tell you from the records that I have is that we inherited that system from the original person who put in your wells in presidential way back when way back. And in the documents I have, there's no mention of his spec. It's just talking about how much debt we acquired from it and the purchase price and all those lovely things, but it never really said anything about that building. You can be sure that if either the Department of Health or the Department of Environmental Quality had any knowledge that there was asbestous in a drinking water treatment facility, that that would have long since either been addressed or made public. Like that, you know, this is not something we're going to just bury in a file cabinet,

right? This is and and this is comforting. It's it's great news. I I would say that you can probably look forward to a bid from us. Um but question had to be asked

of course. Nope. I'm I'd much rather you ask and we air this out publicly because as I said someone told me that I don't deal and gossip um that that was why there had been no interest. Again, if we're here to be transparent if there was in any sense that that was the case. Number one, any real estate transaction, I think you're required for to disclose things like that. We we don't have that information. And again, I I would be shocked if in a sanitary survey that had been conducted in the last 30 years since the service authority been here that if something like that had been identified, there would be a record of it. Okay. Thank you very much. I encourage you to just talk to Mr. Hamilton if you want to put in bid for it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dyn. Is there anybody online? No. With that being said, I will I will close public comment. And do I have a motion to adjurnn? And madam chair, I make a motion to adjourn the board of directors to Tuesday, April, it's already April. April 7, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. in the board room of Riverone building located at 10459 Courthouse Drive, King, George, Virginia, 22485. A second. Second. Motion properly second. Any further discussion? All those in favor say I. I. Chair votes I. Motion carries. Board of directors is adjourned. Thank you everyone.

All right. Thank you. Back to the board of supervisors. Uh no public hearings tonight. We'll start off with a presentation from Miss Parnell, president and co-founder of the Exodus Family Institute. Welcome back. Good evening. Thank you. I'm happy to be back. I do have a short presentation and I

So again, thank you for the opportunity to be here. We are still ex Exodus Family Institute. We are 501c3 and many of you remember me from before. And so we are here to continue it with our workforce initiative to move forward with the planning grant for the uh the infrastructure grant for the $2 million roads and infrastructure. So that is our reason for being here this evening. We are all aware of the housing challenges that that we have just everywhere in this community and all over. And so I before when I spoke to you I gave you a lot of information about that. So well don't I don't think I need to review or go through what the challenges are. I just want to go through what our solution is which is this workforce housing initiative that um we have been working on. And now since since last year we did apply for the planning grant that you approved for us to go for and we did not receive it. But what we understand from the feedback in that is that they just ran out of money that it really wasn't anything wrong with necessarily with our concept or or uh or our project. And so, and there is no and and the the DAC encouraged us to move forward with requesting the the $2 million infrastructure again, which is why I'm back tonight. So, on the workforce housing initiative, I just want to go through that just a summary of what our project is. Oh, do I Oh,

you can use the clicker, ma'am.

Okay, so our goal is still the same to create pathways of home ownership and generational stability and expand homeownership opportunities for hardworking families who serve our community but are challenged. And these include the the list that we talked about before. Teachers, health care workers, public safety personnel, retail and service employees, and young working families. This is a description of our project, which you are you've seen pictures and all, but I just wanted to summarize again to bring it uh to the forefront of your memory. We are planning to construct 21 new single family homes within a 24-month time frame. We hope uh we are planning to ensure that all units are sold to buyers earning at or below the 80% of AMI area medium income. The uh we have a 16 acre pro parcel which is parcel ID 24158. The zoning is currently R1 residential and uh proximity. The location offers convenient access to public transportation, elementary, middle, and high schools, grocery store, enhancing the quality of life for future residents. And the design and development will feature three bedrooms, two baths, about 12 to,500 square ft. So that that pretty much summarizes what we've said to you before. We have some strategic housing partners which I think are important for you to know. Virginia Housing, Westbrook Homes, Fredericksburg Habitat for Humanity, Central Virginia Housing, and Central Rapahanic Region Hab Habitat for Humanity. We have community partners as well and

these are folks that actually provided a letter of support for the planning grant that we submitted. The King George County Schools, the King George Department of Social Services, Love Thy Neighbor, and Mahakadak Creek Marina. So we these are we we do have other community supporters but these are folks that actually provided letters to for our project that we were uh planning for the grant. Some of the milestones we have achieved since we were last before you in February of 2025. We were allocated a $1.4 million allocation in the spark program which is sponsoring partnerships and revitalizing communities. This is a Virginia housing program and uh it actually in assists home buyers in an additional 1% mortgage rate reduction. So we were able to to help an additional four families with this allocation just right at the end of 2025. We've also adopted a long-term affordability clause which is drafted and ready for adoption. We've started an annual walkathon here in the community at the Sidel Brooks Park and the date for this year is 41826. Hope you all come out. Uh we secured a grant writer and started a campaign to gain support for our initiative in local churches and we've held several meetings with lenders to secure funding. So, that's the the short presentation, but again, what what we're looking for is to to get your approval again to move forward with

the uh grant. Chip BS is here from GWRC and I'm if you have any questions for me, I'm here to answer. Just to clarify, I I I saw a funny expression behind you when you mentioned uh asking for $2 million. She's not asking us for $2 million. Is this a federal or state grant? I think it's it's federal CDBG. Okay. Yes. Very good. Yes.

It was you, Debbie. You're like, what the heck? All right, Chip, are you ready to take this home? Mr. Chair, board of supervisors, Chip Boles, George Washington Regional Commission. Um, for us, we would not have the capacity to help write the application um for the infrastructure grant. We were dependent upon the planning grant. if it were to get awarded, it would provide the basis for us and give us the necessary financial support to then move forward with the the infrastructure grant. The infrastructure grants much more in detail, much more complicated um that we just currently without a funding source don't have the manpower to put into that. So, that would be something that that the county um as I explained to um oh was talking with Virginia Housing about this because it would be a King George grant application to the Department of Housing and Community Development. It would either be the county who's who's the responsible party, a consultant who could do the the application work, or the organization itself could do that. For us, we just don't have the resources right now to put into that big of a project. should it get awarded and you may want us to administer the grant itself which is a very detailed uh grant and and funding opportunity uh being federal money as as you pointed out earlier all of the construction has to be bid it has to follow Davis Bacon

um labor laws which is inspections interviews with people who are doing the construction production, following their labor rates, making sure it meets the federal minimum labor rates, things like that. Uh, not to mention that everything is procured according to state procurement code. Um, so it it's two years of very detailed work if it's awarded just to administer something like that. We could take a look at it. Probably for us, we would have to try to make a decision of hiring additional staff people person. I mean, you're probably talking about a half of a person for a two-year period. Um, or hiring a consultant that would do this. There are consulting companies. I think Berkeley Group is is one that comes to mind that does this type of work. Um, but at this point, that was a long long answer to to tell you no sir, we aren't quite ready for this right now.

Okay, that that's a little bit different than what I what I was thinking. Okay.

Um, if we do um hire this out, what roughly what are we talking cost? they are a little they are much further along than a than a project just starting from from nothing. A lot of their preliminary engineering reports have been done, their conceptual plans. Um their cost estimate estimating has been done. So the application portion is not as detailed as as a project starting from from ground zero. should it get awarded. Our rule of thumb has always been roughly 15% of the project cost. Um 10% of the project cost you usually lose a little bit of money. 15% you're probably going to be okay. So you're I mean you're in the neighborhood of 15% of $2 million because of you I hate to keep throwing out Davis Bacon but unless if you've never worked with it you don't know how cumbersome that is the senator does. Any other questions? Yeah,

Chip. And I guess Miss Parnell, do you know so a lot of grants in my experience, you're able to bake in part the administration costs into what you're asking for. Could we put that 15% figure out the math because it won't really look like 15 at that point, but can we put that administration half FTE into our proposal? Yeah, it doesn't. It Yes, it doesn't add to it. So of the 2 million max that comes out of it. Yes. As well as like project management. You've got to have inspectors on the job making sure that they're putting the water and sewer in according to the King George water and sewer regulations, things like that.

Yeah. I I hate to take away because I I was at your wonderful community engagement event last fall um and it was very well attended. Um I think everybody was a little surprised at how many people were there. Great questions asked. Habitat was there talking about how they would like to support this as well. Um, I want to support your project. I just know that our county staff has a lot of big projects

in their, you know, right in front of them right now. And I would suggest that if we go after this grant, the only way to be successful would be to include that additional half probably half FTE. And I will say the the tough part of it too is the grant if once it's awarded the grant would pay from that point forward for administration project management. It will not pay for any application preparation

and I feel confident in being able to assist in this process. Every grant that we received so far in in this 1.4 4 million allocation that I mentioned that we receive. All of those things I've written and so I have a financial background and and have offered to to assist in whatever way that I can. Also, Virginia Housing has offered to to provide some monetary assistance if if possible as well. And and so in the upfront process, I I really feel confident that that is something that that we'll be able to handle. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? Matt, go ahead.

Mr. Chairman, I I believe I understand this uh correctly. So So the the $2 million grants, these are highly competitive, and we will be competing with the the the far southwest communities, uh the, you know, the coal fields, the mines, and and and the distressed communities. And I mean, those are communities money is going to them to put indoor plumbing into into some parts of the town. So I just want to be make everybody aware that you know this is a very very competitive uh part of the grant. The the planning grant was the easier one and then the implementation is very competitive.

Exactly my my understanding and the the only localities you aren't competing with are cities Richmond, Charlottesville, Alexandria who get funding directly from HUD in Washington. Historically, Southwest Virginia gets the lion share of this money.

I did want to add that DHC was encouraging us to to move forward with this and so that that is one reason I I feel that we can be competitive. also Fredericksburg uh Habitat for Humanity that has pledged to well has indicated that that they are interested in buying some of the lots but by virtue of them being involved in this project their constituents are at the 50% of AMI and so that would be another um I guess something that that would go in our favor that if we can say that we are serving 50 80 80% 50 and also down to 30% of area medium income. That that makes us look good in the process. And that's that came from DHCD and they also offered to help us with this grant as well. They they offered some consulting assistance.

All right. Thank you. All right. Thank you both for coming. Appreciate you. Thank you. Oh, Mr. Chair, I' I'd make a motion that we as a board support Exodus making this grant application. Probably word for it.

M Mr. Chairman, I wasn't clear on what they needed. If if I understood correctly, maybe Chip can help us. I think they're asking you to be the applicant for the grant. Does that mean they'd have to write it, too? And then if you got it, they would you would have to administer it. So, I'm just the lawyer, but you may want to look at how you're going to budget for this. You may need a consultant. You may need a compliance officer. Um, anytime you're dealing with these grants, you're on the hook if something doesn't go the way it was supposed to. But I'd rather you ask Chip. He's had more experience than I have, but I can tell you it is very regimented. It is very detailed, and you're going to need a lot of help, and somebody's got to pay for that help. Is that fair, Chip? I think um I couldn't have said it any more precisely. You may want to may in your budget

upcoming. I do think the the ask at this point is is the application portion of it. I think at that point during the application you can try to figure out what's the best way to administer it. I think right now is is finding out who's going to actually apply, put put the application together because in in the simplest of terms, it's an online application. It's in King George's name and King George has to push the submit button.

Yeah. So, if we don't ask, the answer is no. Something I learned in my career very early on. Right. So, this was an incredible project for 20 How many houses was in this? 21 houses um of a very appropriately sized nicely laid out project. Um and as I understand it, we were just on the cusp of the planning grant. They've simply ran out of money, right? So, I think there's a lot of support within the community. Seems to be a lot of support from the state. I think what I heard was Miss Parnell, you were willing to actually do the leg work on writing the grant. Yes.

And based on my question, it sound like you were agreeable to including the expenses for administering the grant in the grant write up. Yes, that's what Chip mentioned.

So, I think we still have time to work in parallel on whether that administration we will look to something like Mr. Boils organization to to help us there or whether we go out to a consultant. I I still make the motion. I think we should we should maybe it's not a motion, right? If you're willing to write it, could you work on getting us this write up of what we would then have to submit and then we could just authorize Mr. Smallnick at a later point to actually hit submit on this application. A as I understand it, it has to be submitted through CAMS, which is something that goes through the the the county. I'm familiar with it. I've submitted a grant through that process before. So, um I I wouldn't have any problem doing it. I would need access to that and and as far as I understand, that's that's all that would be necessary.

What's the What's the due date on this application? It's June 30. It hasn't even come out yet. Okay. So, we do have a little bit of time to think about this. I'll point out I'll point out that it is under presentations. It's not an action item tonight. And uh we've got a little bit of time. You're you're free to press on with your with your motion. I I withdraw the motion. I think we have actions to go take then and questions. We can work on the how the mechanics of this would work. bring it back up for a so my ask would be let's make sure we bring this back up for an agenda item in the future for action.

So do I need to proceed to get someone to get me on cams or what what are the what what are the things we need to do so that when we come back the next time we'll be able to to get it voted on.

What questions and concerns do you have? So the the platform for submitting the grant I am not familiar with that nor have I you know nor have any of my staff ever said you know they are familiar with that. Now that's you know I haven't questioned everybody on my staff but if it's in King George County's name just some things that I heard I I know you know Mr. Dyn's in the back head of our IT it's it's you know giving somebody access to something that's in King George's name that may be a I I don't know about this but you know that that's something to consider. Um, and then you know if if uh Miss Parnell is is willing to do all the work and it's simply us just hitting a button and logging in, that's that's pretty simple. But as far as, you know, if that's the case, um, if all that work could be done and we just simply have to hit the button for for King George County versus spending staff time learning a new, you know, pro new new program, um, and and, you know, any writing the grant background information that will take some staff's time and some, you know, it'll it'll take away from our other um, job duties that we have.

No, I I don't think any of that will be necessary as far as your staff. As I said, I'm familiar with the with CAMS and and I've submitted it through Exodus. I have not submitted anything, of course, through the county, but uh which is why we would need access to to be able to do that.

Why don't I see chips coming back? If if I could too, just I don't want to make it sound like either I'm washing my hands of of the project and walking out tonight either. Matt knows, our two board members know. We're here to help, too. I mean, it's not as if if we can offer some advice, that type of thing, help walk through some some of the the um procedures, we're around um and we'll be more than happy to help. We just don't have the time and manpower to do all of the work of it. Okay. Yeah.

Mr. Small, then would you maybe work with staff and figure out a good time to meet with Miss Parnell, take a look at the application they're looking at and try to figure out this. Is there an issue with us doing it to start with, right? And then sort of some of the mechanics of how that would work. Okay. So, was that a request for staff time? Minimal amount of staff. All right. The board still needs to agree to that. Are y'all?

Yeah. So, I make a motion that Mr. Smallnick meet with Exodus to lay out the path forward for the de the infrastructure grant. We need a plan. Right. How do we develop that plan if if our staff hasn't even looked at the tools? There's a motion on the floor. We're not to discussion yet. So, do we have a second?

Okay. It sounds like the motion died. Mr. Chair, Mr. Stra first say something. Okay. Go ahead. I I have some questions since this is some information I didn't even know, you know, and we met. I would like to ask more questions before I make a motion and direct staff time because it could be a lot of staff time and I do support the project. It's a good project, but this is a little wrinkle that I didn't know about either. So, but that's all right. We learn as we go. Federal government's a very complicated animal with a lot of grant opportunities uh you know that have a lot of paperwork. So, is that something that we could find out just a little bit more information for the next meeting?

Yeah. so that we can make it Miss Parnell doesn't have to but just to answer those questions before we commit to something. So, is the board okay with putting a little bit of time into getting some of these questions? I don't think we need a motion for that. We just need consensus. Are you all good?

All right. I I I think I I don't want to speak for the whole board, but I I think the bulk of us are, you know, we like this, you know, what you're doing. We just mostly thought that it was going to be just like the previous one where um Mr. Boils and GWRC was going to run with it. We didn't realize there was a little bit more to it, potentially a lot more to it for, you know, for the county to take on. And so we just need to find out, you know, what does that entail financially? What is it going to be in terms of cost and also in terms of uh time and and and people? So um Mr. Smalllet is going to look into that and uh um we'll bring it back in two weeks. Is that going to

I think we Yeah, Miss Per send me an email tomorrow. We'll find a common time. I'll be more than happy to sit down and talk to you. I think we can get this on the next um it would be the April 7 agenda. Okay, perfect. I certainly understand. I didn't find out until we we had a meeting uh later about the the whole process in GWRC, but I really think that we can mitigate all of it and it won't take your staff time, but look forward to meeting with you. We like to blame it on Chip anyway. We're good. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Thank you for your help on this.

We love you, Chip. Well, I love you, Chip. All right. Now, we'll get a presentation from Dr. Tashika Griffith from pres the president of the Germanic Community College.

I'm Debbie Fairfax, um the James Madison district. I get the privilege of introducing Dr. Griffith tonight. This board gave me the honor and privilege of serving on the advisory board for German Community College beginning in June of 2025. As a career educator, it is a joy to serve as a representative for King George in this capacity. My father, who was a lifelong King George resident, was one of the first graduates of German after his service in the US Army. And I obtained my BA and did my graduate work at George Mason University. But before that, as part of my transition from an outofstate college to George Mason, I also attended Germana and obtained my associates degree from there. One of the first opportunities I had as part of serving on the drama board was assisting in the interview process for the new president. An excellent choice from over 80 applicants was made in Dr. Tashika Griffith, who is here to address you tonight. Prior to being appointed as Germana's seventh permanent president, Dr. Griffith served as provost and chief campus officer for the Clearwater campus at St. Petersburg State College in St. Petersburg, Florida. She was affiliated with St. Petersburg College roughly 10 years and served as interim dean of the college of education, assistant provost and provost of the colleg's downtown and Midtown centers. Dr. Griffith has previously served as associate dean of students at the University of Tennessee and Knoxville, assistant dean of students at the University of Miami Florida, at University of Scranton, and at our own Virginia Tech in Blackburg. In addition to 16 years in adjunct teaching possessions positions at several colleges and universities, Dr. Griffith also brings experience gained from teaching public high school and serving in the University Police Department at Florida Atlantic University. She currently serves as an adjunct faculty

member for VCU's School of Education. Dr. Dr. Griffith earned a professional certificate at Harvard University, a BA at Florida Atlantic University, a master's degree at Virginia Tech, and her education doctorate from Northeastern University in Boston. Thus, Dr. Griffith comes with a wealth of experience. But what has been even more impressive is her willingness to use that experience to serve both Germana and the localities whose students attend the college. During the interview process and since onboarding in January, she has resolutely expressed that the vision for Germa's future will be determined through collaboration. Workforce readiness is one priority. Two of the most exciting things that I've seen are the firefighter training and the future educators program offered at Germana's German's Daniel Technology Center in Co Pepper. It would be such a blessing for this county if these same types of programs were somehow offered a little closer to King George so that we could homegrow our own future firefighters and teachers so that those who grew up here and know and love this community could come back here and serve just like I did. I wholeheartedly encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity to engage with Dr. Griffith beyond this evening to better understand how King George might collaborate with German. Without further ado, I present Dr. Tashika Griffith. Good evening board chair, board members. Thank you for having me this evening. It's my honor and privilege to stand before you. I see so many uh welcoming faces this evening. So, it's nice to know we have another board member here, uh, Shirley I, present representing German and our director of finance, u, Miss Nicole Okonnell. So, with that

said, I wanted to make clear why I'm here today. I'm here to introduce myself, but I'm also here to thank you for the commitment that you have already expressed from the county and your partnership with Duma Community College. I think all of you may be a little relieved that I'm not coming here to ask for funding tonight. I'm simply here to show you your investment and what it's made a difference in the lives of many of the students that reside here in King George County. So, let me talk a little bit about who we are as a community college. We are a community college that services over 70 degrees and certificates including workforce credentials throughout the Commonwealth. We are very proud that we offer all of this at a third of a cost of many of our four-year institutions. We do proudly partner with over 45 of those four-year institutions which many of our students transfer to. And you'll see those top transfer partners, VCU, George Mason, Old Dominion, JMU, L University is also in the top 10. And I'm proud to say Virginia Tech Go Hokis is also represented in that number. In terms of who we are, it's important to share how many students we service and that represents over 14,000 students annually. 70% of those students are part-time, which means that they work, they have families, they cannot dedicate their full resources and full day to being a full-time student. So, they take classes with us part-time. you'll see 30% represented full-time. 63% of our students at our college are female. 37% are male students and we always hope to increase that male representation. 22% of our students are adult learners over the age of 25 and 78% of those

students are age 24 and under. And we're proud to express that that's largely in part to our partnership with our dual enrollment program. Obviously, Dr. board. I know you know a thing or two about that. So, who we are represented across the Commonwealth and central uh Virginia, we have campuses in Fredericksburg, our Locust Grove campus which is our original campus, our Daniel Technology Center, our Fredcat, our advanced technology center. We have academy that offers welding and then we have our Stafford County Center that's recently opened that house the majority of our nursing programs as well as our other health sciences programs. So now I want to talk a little bit more about King George specifically and the students that are represented at Germana for the county. Currently we have 397 students nearly 400 students that are represented from the county. You'll see 80% of those students are regular students in our credit programs, academic programs. Dual enrollment is represented at 17% and you'll see workforce at 3%. We talk a lot about workforce and one of the main goals as you heard um Miss Fairfax mentioned is to increase that number from 3% to larger. A lot of our students um come to us because they're looking to us for economic mobility and advancement. And we understand through workforce they're able to get a credential much quicker under two years. Several of our programs as little as 7 weeks. So our aim is to grow that number from 3% to larger. When we look at our students at King George, we see 65% of them are online. That speaks closely. I think it's very closely aligned to the part-time students looking for convenience. they want to take a class online quickly, get to work, um, and then log on. And then you see 35% of the King George County students are represented in person. And then again, for King George

specifically, it's very close to our college number. Um, average, 75% uh, part-time and 25% full-time. So, King George County High School, our top programs, um, again, a lot of our students aim to come to us to transfer to a 4-year institution. So, you'll see the college transfer represented top programs. That's meaning a lot of our students transfer to four years. Next up, we have our business programs, which are very popular for our King George County students, and healthcare and cyber security. So, just wanted to provide you a snapshot of what the students in this county are really gravitating to in terms of uh most interested programs. And then lastly, I wanted to leave you with a student spotlight. A student from King George County who proudly graduated in the fall of last year. He was a part of our student government government association, very actively involved. He interned in our student affairs office. But here's a quote from Mr. Benjamin and he says, "I wanted to come to Germana because I thought that attending community college would first be the best option for me and though there is another community college much closer to where I live and we love that community college too." Uh he noted that he preferred to drive 45 minutes to get to Germana every day because he heard such good things about the offerings and the programs and that is a representation of all the great work that our faculty and our staff do to ensure that every student that touches us whether in person or online gets that small feel and attention that they need to be successful and we're very proud of that at Germana Community College. So with that, I wanted to share that information and thank you again for your time. Thank you for your partnership and thank you for all that you do for our community college. Any questions?

Any questions? Yeah, go ahead. First off, I saw University of Scranton on your resume there. Yes. And I'm a 1991 alumni of Scranton, so I have to say I have to shout out to the Royals even though I still wish they had the Royal Rooster and not the wolf. No. And not the wolf. Yes, it's a lot corner mascot. But anyway, I do have an actual question because I've had this asked of me before is so we pay into Rapahana Community College because we're mandated. Yes. And so we're probably one of the only counties that would put into two divide their love between two community college.

So what can you specifically offer? What what I see the bang, but what what kind of programs that would benefit our students that the bang for the buck, I guess. So I say that that's why I was saying earlier about having love for the other community college. Dr. Kennedy and I in my short tenure here have established a really good relationship. So we talk a lot about not overstepping and kind of co-duplicating efforts to make sure that we're unique in what we offer. They're unique in what they offer. A lot of our students really talk about our business programs and I have to say healthcare stands out as a popular area of interest at your manner for our students. I have to say our future educators academy um is also our teacher prep program and co pepper is also something that's really growing in traction in terms of interest. I know uh Dr. Boyd and I have spoken um in February. So he and I are uh talking about some other opportunities for expanding that partnership as further discussion and planning happens at uh the Vogue Center. So, I'm hoping to get a tour with my team to think about how we can offer welding, some electrician, fiber optics potentially. Again, we're still in conversation about what that would look like. But I think what makes us so um unique is the fact that we're very nimble. Um we look to our business partners and our superintendent to let us know what the needs are. So, our industry partners tell us the direction in which they need our talent pipeline. So, we really do a really great job of reconfiguring and creating programs based on industry needs because the key is we want to make sure that students are placed in high wage jobs. So, we lean to our industry experts to let us know what those highwage jobs are so we can train them to be marketable for those jobs. So, we're very nimble. And you mentioned you have a teacher program in that would be really great in King George especially for teachers that have the specialty of math because we do have a very hard time of attracting those and high level science. So that would be

something great for King George. Yes, absolutely. Like I said, Dr. Boyd and I are going to continue our conversation based on our initial conversation. So I understand that as a former language arts teacher, high school teacher, 10th grade. Yes. Thank you. Uh yes ma'am. I'd like to thank you for coming out tonight and briefing. I have uh one of my daughters graduated from there and then went on to Mary Washington and uh and from from business uh used to be involved. You guys used to come out and ask what do you need

and and asked us what what majors uh and what uh type studies that would benefit us in business and you guys were always very acutely uh attuned to that. Thank you. and have valuable uh degrees, valuable um programs that that do benefit industry and don't just have students that graduate and have nowhere to go. Exactly. You know, and I appreciate that. So, thank you. Thank you very much. I just wanted to say thanks for coming out. It sounds like there's a lot of compatible programs from what you're working and what we're working. So, hopefully there's a lot of good partnership moving forward. welcome to the area.

Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. I'll echo that. Thank you. And uh I'll say all three of my children took advantage of the programs that you've offered and uh were successful in college. All three of them graduated a little bit early, one with honors and they've gone on three different pathways, but uh very successful in life. So, thank you all. Thank you. That's a drama impact. So, thank you. All right. So, we will move on now to item 0316. uh visit King George Virginia tourism commercial Miss South Hall.

Good evening members of the board. Um thank you for having me to update you on some initiatives from our office. Um as you know uh we collect a 5% occupancy tax. Uh and what this transit occy tax is used for it is earmarked by the code of Virginia. That 2% of it goes to the locality to use in the general fund. um and that's why it's an asset to our residents because it helps alleviate the tax burden. But the other 3% um that has to be used towards engaging um our visitors and increasing um visitors to the county. So just a little snapshot from the state um regarding King George County. In 2024, we had over $ 38 million spent in visitor spending in the county and 3 million of that um helped generate state and local tax revenue. So, it's not just the occupancy tax, but it's also sales tax and other taxes that trickle from our visitors. So, with that, um, our office has been focusing on using our advertising dollars to, um, better benefit bang for our buck. Um, and with that, that has had us kind of model after what the state has been doing after their budget um, became a little bit tighter. They're focusing heavily on digital assets. And so we're trying to um try that out this fiscal year and then really ramp that up next fiscal year. So uh from the state data, our primary visitors are from um DC and Richmond. And then our secondary markets that are more likely to spend that occupancy tax are in Philly, uh Baltimore, and Raleigh Durham area. And so over the next few months, we'll be focusing different streaming commercials in those different areas. And this is our first commercial that was for Philly. So this is a quick little 30 second clip that you'll see on streaming services.

Chris, the audio is not working. It is very very low. I couldn't get it to work when I played it at home either. Interesting. I do like the fact that you led with an eagle for a commercial in Philadelphia. And that is props to Kyle Critzer. That was his idea. He joked with it and we ran with it because we thought it was really, really fun. Well,

you have John Denver in the background playing Country Rose. Take me home. Well, I was going to highlight it's actually uh Mr. Trey Henderson is our voice over, but I apologize that it's not working. Um I may have put the wrong I could hear it slightly, but um I may have put the wrong version up on YouTube. Uh but I think it's the correct version. Mine didn't work at home either. There was no audio. the one that you sent the link. Interesting. Well, anyways, that's what's playing. Over 30,000 people have seen it. Um, we still have another week or two that that campaign

um I promise it's working. Uh, we will assess, but um, basically it's just a quick little campaign talking about Eagles playing off of Goirds um, in Philly. And then the next one we're going to be highlighting a shorter version of the video we did over the summer uh of all of our different 35 plus businesses that were highlighted in that video. And that will be focusing on Baltimore and then we'll shift to Raleigh Durham. So that's that bit. Um and then I guess I can just roll into my next roll right the next one. Thank you all very much for that though. Great job. Um, so one of the great uh things about having a new employee Kyle uh is that we're able to expand our initiatives and one of those was we discussed wanting to highlight our residents and um different tourism assets in the county and with that we came up with um revitalizing renovating this outdoor space outside the boardroom. And so now we have a display case and each month we're highlighting different things and uh last month was Black History Month and then this month it's women's history month and we have things um highlighted for the rest of the year. For example, in May will be small businesses and things like that. So we'll do our KG best of the best winners. Uh, and so with that, um, Kyle's been kind of running the whole display and finding different residents in the community to highlight and different, um, just things that might bring in more information to both our residents and our visitors about different assets that we have here. And that's it. If you have any questions,

I have a question. Yes. So this is something that I talked to historical society about when I first came on with your kioses you know post office school what where you know every the courthouse the courthouse is pretty I mean it's pretty empty looking sometimes you walk in what about just some permanent type kioses that are around that we want to change stuff up over time you could keep changing stuff up but having some permanent type kioses in all the kind of buildings that we have

yes Mr. Sullins approached myself about six or so months ago, somewhere in that range. Um, and I did get with it about trying to acquire some um, hardware. We were already on board with the software. Um, and that was already something that we're talking about because of the TVs that are in this building. Um, and you'd be able to remote in and update that content. And then it was really just trying to get that kiosk component that you're talking about and seeing if we could get some hardware we could where we could make it mobile and put it in different places in the community. Um, unfortunately the contractor that we were in touch with kind of just for lack of a better word ghosted us. Um, so it did find a new contractor and has gotten better numbers. So hopefully in the next month or so we'll come with a presentation to discuss what that might look like doing partnerships like that, whether we do a trial run um with the budget we have in this fiscal year, see how it goes and just kind of hone it in on this building and then expand further. Um, but that is something that is on the the agenda and pipeline for us to look into.

All right. Thank you. Any other questions? You know, as the county administrator, I just whenever you bring new staff and new ideas, and you know, Kyle's a great example that, you know, under Amy's leadership, he's got these, you know, the eagle, you know, let's let's run with that. And sometimes it's just a joke, but it it works. So, I appreciate his his forward thinking, his, you know, thinking outside the box, and he's just a great addition to the team. So, I want to, you know, publicly say thank you to Kyle. You're good. All right, we'll move over to the action items now and we'll start with a tourism advisory committee charter. Miss Southall. Yes. So, um, bottle of water.

I'm trying to be fast for you. I'm trying to be quick. Um, so with that, um, again with having Kyle join the team, we kind of took a look at um, best practices for the committee and one of which is to review our charter and our bylaws every year. And so we did that in January. There were some things that we found in the bylaws that were a little outdated. Um, most of which was just the main points were making sure that online participation was more clear that that counts as in-person participation because the way it was written previously is that if someone didn't physically come to a meeting um more than I think a quarter of our meetings, they would be removed from the committee. Uh, and we have some members that that it's an issue with. they need to be able to remote in um participate. So, that was one of the things. And then the other thing was a list of and I don't know if Mr. Dyn is able to pull up the amended because I don't think I remember all the different members, but the members were a bit outdated. If you could scroll down to the members section right there. Yes. Um so, we were talking about uh technically we call it an aggra tourism representative. So, just updating that language. Um the person who is on the committee right now is listed as arts and events but in the charter it just says arts. So small details there. Um we no longer have a local chamber of commerce. So looking at other localities uh some of them have retail as an option. So we do have very limited retail but that is something that we are trying to grow and engage. So um that's another option uh that we we wanted to add as a membership. Um the just to go again parallel with what we list them as currently on the website, cultural and historical is actually listed as culture and history. So just a small update. Um education, that person is listed as marketing and promotion. Um although they are also a teacher um at our high school. Uh and then

restaurants, we wanted to say that that also could include food truck owners. Um and that was a suggestion from our our committee. And lastly, um after Miss Hayes retired from the base, uh no one has filled that position and since it was non- voting, we thought it was better to help represent our wineries, brewer breweries, and ceries that may or may not be in the county. Um I know that someone wanted to add ceries, even though I'm not aware of any right now that are in the county, but that was the main change. Everything else was really just administrative updates. Um for example, it said county administrator shall perform staff support. This was written when it was the county administrator involved. We now have staff. So I just wanted to make it more generic to say staff will support the committee. Um so that's pretty much the overview for the charter changes and our board unanimously voted to adopt the updates and now it just needs to be adopted by the board of supervisors.

All right. Thank you. Do we have a motion? I make a motion that we accept the charter and its changes as presented. Second. Properly seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I chair votes I. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. All right. King George County South staff healthcare. Miss Sus and Courtney, come on up. Ma'am.

Good evening. Good evening. Thanks for having me. Um, I wanted to come here tonight to talk about our our renewal, our healthcare rates for 26 and 27, 2026, 2027. We did and our renewal does reflect a 15.3 increase in total premium cost. Um, so to support the decision for this evening, I have a comparison of two approaches that are provided. I don't Oh, this is a memorandum. Um, this was the memorandum that I sent. This is actually the rates uh the rates the way they are. The starred ones are the plans that we are actively participate in and okay I guess the clicker oh there we go. Okay. So the the two ways that this was broken out um on that screen. There we go. Okay. Uh the first one represents that there would be no premium increases to the staff that the county would absorb all of the cost of the healthcare renewal. U the second one on the right would be that there is a split in the premium is a cost share and that is by percentage. And so you'll see here it'll have the um total cost per month. It'll have the total premium for the year. And then below I highlighted what would be the county's cost annually. And then down below you have counties I mean employees uh share annually. And so the purpose of me being here is for you to make a decision and make have a vote on u which plan that you would like to accept so that I can move forward.

And Mr. Chairman, as I'm preparing my budget, if I if I may, um as I'm preparing my budget, I I went and I'm I'm a little more conservative. I went with the the second option with keeping the percentages the same or the same uh as previous years. You know, the the the countyy's been good to the employees the last couple years of absorbing the full cost and I think it's time that you know there's should be a share between the employee uh and the county. So, as I'm working my preliminary budget, that's what I'm plugging into into my numbers is to keep the percentages the same, but to have the the employee put a little bit more into the plan and just not have the county pick it up if that helps the board.

Okay. And that's the middle one. That's the the second option up there, right? That's the one on the right. It has two columns, but that's the whole plan there. Mr. Chair, I this is from Mr. Small since it's small writing up there. what what would be the share of the employee the percentage

it depends what plan you're on so um if you when you're looking at the I don't know if you can zoom in there Mr. signs, but I'm I'm looking at the top right box, the the uh well, key advantage expanded. So, it's a it depends if you're the single, dual, or family. Uh 93% is the county share for single, 86 for dual, and 82 for family. So, it does go down. It's not uniform across the board. And one thing that I've, you know, in my couple years that I've learned here, the way the county's traditionally done this, they have not looked at the percentage, the 15.3% and do you share that it's, you know, keeping the the the numbers in in check here. Do you want to continue with uh the existing 93 Yeah. 93 versus 7% for single key uh key advantage expanded. Now, you know, one thing that you you and and I I put this as a, you know, a word of caution, but I think it it's just appropriate to talk about it. This is for the for the single plan, that's 93% born by the county. That's that's that's pretty darn good. And if if the county keeps absorbing that, that number is going to start creeping up 94 95 96% and over 270 employees. I think we have 130 103 130 somewhere around there on the single plan. If if that number keeps creeping up, you're you're making it more attractive just to have people get on the plan even if they don't need it, you know, and in that instance, heaven forbid one of those people come on and have a a major claim that could drive the cost up for the entire pool. And that's why we saw the 15.3% increase, just a major um and I think the school had a 22% increase. uh the the and the plan we're on is correct me if I'm wrong Courtney, but this is the plan that uh is used down through the Northern Neck and I I reached out to those county administrators and and they they we all saw double digit increases uh in our premiums for the upcoming year.

All right. Did that answer your question? A little bit extra information, but Okay. Thank you. Just question. Do we know I think the schools were also looking at um splitting the cost. Are they also consistent with that 93 86 82 percentage you got to have that same consistent step down

consistent step down with the philosophy being that you know you cover the employee mostly or less. For those that are online, Dr. Boyd just answered that the exact percentages are probably different than the county's percentages, but generally they're conforming to the same thought process of of uh AC having that percentage across.

So, can you sum up your recommendation again? So, so my recommendation would be to to keep the percentages the same as they were last year, which would be be a shared increase in the 15.3% increase shared between the county and the employee, which is different from past years. I think we put a little bit more onus on the employees themselves. Any other questions? Do we have a motion? It's an action item

or do you want to think about it for another meeting? Unfortunately, I have an April 1st deadline to submit the renewal and there's no exceptions to the, you know, extension. Okay. I definitely support sharing the responsibility with the employee. I'll make a motion to um accept the healthcare plan as highlighted by Mr. Smalling. Second. All right, we have a motion properly seconded. Um yeah, I just want to make sure are are we are we being clear enough on what we're

My understanding is you all would like to renew the health care plan pursuant to the sec second option. um uh brought to you by Mrs. Courtney and that would include cost sharing with the employees at the same percentages uh there currently are so moved second properly second any further discussion all right Miss Bender I Mr. Shout I Mr. Mets I Mr. Davis. Hi, Chair Vai. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Appreciate it. Thank you. All right, Dr. Boyd, come on up, sir.

Thank you, Chairman Sullins, and members of the board. Appreciate the opportunity this evening to uh speak with you about the FY25 fund balance. You should have received a uh some correspondence from the schoolboard office. Uh I do want to say thank you for uh this opportunity and and the consideration of uh allowing us to have access to some of our fund balance. It's certainly a a mutually beneficial process I think for us all. Uh for me as superintendent of the school division, this really creates an opportunity for me to look back at my staff and say, you know, if we remain fiscally responsible, you know, at the end of the year and we don't spend money that we don't need to spend, then we can look at satisfying some of the bigger projects in the school division that we know we need to satisfy, some of our needs, uh versus any type of wants. Uh, as far as your benefits, I I think if we save money throughout the year, then we look at next year's operating budget and when I come to you, uh, I come with you with a much smaller sum. I I try to satisfy many of the one-time expenses that we have in our FY27 budget request, I remove those because hopefully we can satisfy many of those with the fund balance. So, uh, I appreciate the trust that you guys have with school division and the relationship we've been able to build. Uh, and hopefully this is a practice and a process that uh, we can move forward with uh, if you see fit. Uh, I think it was mentioned earlier this evening, our fund balance at the end of last year uh, was $3.7 million. There's a lot that goes into that fund balance. Uh, one of which is is our employees being responsible with the way we spend funds. So, uh, many factors, but one of which is is those employees. Uh, this evening I have about 11 items. I'll go through those quickly. I think at the request of Chairman Sullins, I'll I'll speak to each of those items quickly and if you want to stop me at any time and ask me questions or just ask questions at the end, I can certainly do so. Uh the first item that

we've included in the fund balance conversation is the uh state bonus local share. Right now in Governor Yncan's budget and I think uh pushing through the general assembly in in some form or another is a uh bonus for state for for employees for uh education employees. Those have taken different forms. I I think in Yncan's budget it was a 2% uh bonus. I think right now it's from what I'm hearing sitting at $1,500 per employee. All of those different options require a local match. What we're estimating the local match at right now is $448,000. I think when school divisions receive this bonus, which we appreciate and our employees will certainly appreciate, there is a requirement for a local match. Many school divisions will not be able to match that local match. If we were able to receive this money, uh we could give our employees that full state bonus that was intended by the uh governor and general assembly. That's the first item. Uh the second item, the activity fund reimbursement. This is the same one we had last year. Uh this is mainly our high school and middle school, but some small uh expenses at the elementary level. At the high school level, it's uh reimbursement for some activities like graduation. Uh, also the cost for referees and officials, uh, security is in there for all of our athletic events. We try to reimburse our, uh, schools for those funds so that they can then in turn pay for things that directly influence our students. Uh, the third one is is from our snowcrete episode. This year, we had uh, a lot of expenses that were incurred. Uh, we got graders. Uh fortunately, thanks to the recommendation from uh uh board member Davis and uh we got skid loaders and ice melt and all those kind of things that really got us out from underneath the snowcrete uh but did

incur some costs. We also lost some money with uh our cafeteria program in that process. We lost some food. We lost some income that we would have received if school was in session. Uh the next item there is King George County School's lunch debt. This is an annual occurrence. Uh, ever since CO ended, uh, we are taking on a lot of lunch debt right now. Uh, we're really st I won't go into this in great detail. I can certainly answer any questions, but we're taking on a lot of debt right now. We cannot uh, we serve every student a lunch every day, no questions asked. We cannot not serve a lunch. Uh, we have a difficult time now really getting a lot of our students to fill out the free and reduced lunch form. And as a result, I won't go into greater detail than that, we take on a lot of lunch debt. Usually around this time of year, efforts from our principles, uh, even our our nutrition staff reaches out to our local churches and lo local civic organizations to help us cover that lunch debt. If if we can do it in-house, I think it would alleviate our community from having to to pick up that cost. Uh, as you know, in FY, uh, well, I think I've shared it with Mr. Smallick and you guys have your budget book. The next few items are items in the FY27 budget request uh that we're able to pull out of that budget request if we can satisfy it with fund balance money. The first of which is the history and social science curriculum. The state of Virginia rewrote the history and social science curriculum uh SOS and as a result we're responsible for purchasing a state approved curriculum for that. Uh the next item is King George High School cameras and NVR. NVR is the recording device for the cameras. Right now, we still have about 40 cameras at the high school that are analog and they're they're dying quickly. And so, uh, this cost here in FY, uh, 27 was to replace those existing analog cameras and upgrade our recording software at the high school.

The next item there is we're on a cycle uh, every four years, the King George High School laptop replacement for our staff. So this is a renewal time for that. The door and repair replacement, we have uh a cost in the FY27 budget for specifically some doors at King at PTOAC Elementary School. Uh the doors that go from uh the gymnasium to the modular. Many of those doorways just get a lot of use and and need to be replaced and they're expensive security doors that need to be replaced. The next item is lawn lawn mower replacement. We have six lawnmowers, I believe, in the school division, uh, that are all about 10 to 15 years old. They have over 2,000 hours on them. Uh, this past year, they came to me and said, "We need to replace pretty much all of our lawnmowers." Uh, I think we've got two of them that are still in good working condition that we'll continue to use. Uh, but the three that we continue to put in and out of the shop, we we think it would be wise to replace at this point. It would be a cost savings to keep those out of the shop. Um the next item is one that we discussed Mr. Small Nicknik and I and our vocational uh committee most recently uh the relocation of the existing greenhouse as we move forward with the demolition of the vocational center. Uh the greenhouse that we have on the back of that property there is is still in good use. We can move that greenhouse. We would like to move that move that greenhouse uh put down a foundation and run electric and water from the existing high school to where the new greenhouse would be placed which would be uh let's see if if you know where uh the building trades classroom is at the back left hand side of the uh vocational wing of the school building it'd be right there on that uh grass plot there. Uh and then

the final item there is the uh 2627 IEC tuition and curriculum for 10 students. So if you remember, we now have a great partnership with uh IEC, the the electrical apprenticeship program that we've started this year. We've got 10 kids, actually I think we have 12 kids in it right now that are very successful and I think are probably going to be employed here very soon as as apprentice electricians. In order to start that program, Terry Rinko reached out to a lot of local organizations and received a lot of funds to just get that program off the ground. Uh if possible, uh that tuition is $30,000 and would certainly appreciate the ability to uh to enroll the next 10 students into that program in King George County Schools, which we think is very valuable. And I can stop there for any questions. The total request is uh $1.7 million of the $3.7 million fund balance. Mr. Chair,

so if I could just uh sum up, make sure I understand properly. Um, normally y'all give back at the end of the year. Your fund balance is about a million dollars, give or take a little bit. This year, there were some opportunities you weren't able to capitalize on, but people were being very frugal with their money. You're bringing back about 3.7 million. You're requesting 1.7 of that be given back to you and you're using that predominantly to buy down your budget for the coming year. You were originally going to be asking for an increase of about 2 million and this will buy down a portion of that.

That that's very Yeah, very accurate. Uh Chairman Sins and and to be more specific, that budget builder that we put into the that's one of those major components in our budget request. That's the stuff in the budget. When we did the first rendition of this, that budget builder amount was $1.4 million. With these requests satisfied, we dropped that budget builder request down to about $600,000. So, that's $800,000 off the bat there. And we've still got some other things in play with uh state information for the budget. So, I'm feeling very confident about how how we're going to present that final budget to you guys if if we can take care of these things in the fund balance conversation and and get some uh positive information from the state level, which I I think we will.

Okay. I I like the presentation and I think it's great. Um the the only one I've got a question about and I'm afraid I know the answer to this already, the bonuses, are those merit based or are you spreading it like peanut butter? that they're they're spread like peanut butter. Uhuh. From from the state level, I mean those if we take that money, there will be certain strings attached to how we apply it. I understand. I at the same time, I don't want to not reward people who are doing a great job just to you. You You see where I'm going. Understood. Yes, sir. Uh Miss Bender, did you have a question? I thought I saw your hand go up.

No, but I wanted I wanted to make a comment about the electrical. When we toured the classrooms during the votech committee, we always pointed out the gentleman who was there from the electrical union and the kids were very excited about the program. So that was pretty cool to see

it. It's been a great success so far. The gentleman that's coming to teach the program right now is is driving across the state uh actually across a couple states in order to be up in King George uh and teach this program right now. and he's he's the one asking us, hey, if you're interested in doing this again, you've got me to sign on again. Because he's seen a great uh a great kid show up from King George to say, I'm interested in in what you have to offer. Uh we've had Bobby McCllintok from Four Elements Electric interested in these kids. Uh it's it's just really I mean it's inspiring. It's life-changing for these kids what we've been able to provide just with this small uh vocational opportunity for a for a dozen kids. If we can expand this and grow these vocational opportunities, I I think our students here, the next generation in King George County and really the community as a whole is going to benefit greatly from these opportunities.

Go ahead. Uh Dr. Boyd. So on the um MVR upgrade. Yes sir. That software you mentioned software. So in that software is that include uh I mean typically there's sustainment that's going to be required. I mean so you buy the software and then every year you're going to have to pay for you know the security updates and all that. I mean so what's included in that?

Yeah I think you you'll get into a little technical stuff that hopefully I can answer. Uh we currently have the software and we've run it. It's uh the software is a vigilon. Uh we use it now for a camera system I think across the division. Uh what this is more this request is more for the hardware associated uh with replacement at the high school which will still run off of the visual software. Okay. So you're just upgrading some cameras. Yes, sir. Yeah. But more software licenses are going to be required for those cameras. You're No, sir. And that seems like a lot of money for push mowers.

Yeah. So, these are commercial push mowers. I I asked about this. They're about $13,000 a piece. Yeah. They're they're not push these are zero turds. Yeah. So, so since you touched on that one, so I I would suggest I'm good with your numbers for this one. I think it's a great use of of funds for carrying them over. Um I I would suggest between those push mowers and um I think the you said the laptops are only replaced every four years uh at the high school level. Every year we're replacing it's it's either a different school or a different population.

Yeah, that was good. Good to hear that. I think um this previous board had worked really closely with fire and EMS to make sure that some of their equipment was on a regular yes, we'll buy an ambulance every year as opposed to six in one year. So, um, yeah, that maybe lawnmowers and laptops. Lawnmowers. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Need to need to go in that thought process, too. All right. Thank you. Awesome. So, you gave me a good idea. I will point out that when I was back in high school, well, actually, I wasn't in high school. I was in junior high. Um, our PE coach made us actually mow the football field and various things with push mowers. So, the the president's out there. Of course, he's not working there anymore, but hey. Um, so anyway, do I have a motion,

Mr. Mr. Chair, Before we get to that, I would like to clarify for anybody listening. Um, Dr. Boyd is not asking for an additional 1.7 million. This is money that's in the fund balance that's being brought back. It's already been allocated to the school. Was an expense. They're bringing it back. And this is a motion on whether or not to turn that back to them and use that to buy down the coming year's budget. So, not asking for an additional 1.7 million. Go ahead, sir.

So, I reran the numbers with Miss Cobb. So, in addition to the the number there, we and we've tallied this up a couple times with all the individual figures shown there plus $30,000 for IEC tuition. And Dr. Boyd and I talked 45,000 for the greenhouse. This just came up literally last Friday. Um, so, you know, without getting quotes for if it's going to be concrete slab, we decided 45,000. Miss Cobb and I come up with 1,886,398. again 1886 398. Okay. So that number is not the accurate that that is correct. Okay. Thank you.

It's still less than what they're giving back to. So Okay. All right. Do we have a motion? try to make it. Um, I make a motion that we approve uh the 1,886,398 of of funding uh used by the um King George County School Board buyback for their fund balance. So fund balance.

Fun balance. Is it to reappropriate the that set amount from the FY25 into the FY27 FY26 FY26 should be to reappropriate 1,886,398 from FY25 budget to FY26 budget for the King George County Public Schools to be used for such items sir to be used for these items to be used for the items as discussed. So stated as presented. Second. We have a a motion on the floor properly. Second. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Uh Miss Bender. I Mr. Stra. Hi. Mr. Mets. Hi. Mr. Davis. I.

Chair votes. I motion carries. Thank you, sir. Appreciate your work. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chair. Yes, sir. I think we're going to uh Mr. Smallic. Is he up next? Yeah.

So, real real quick before we go into Mr. Mark, before I let you do that, I failed to mention this. So, back in February 6, 2026 of this year, Reverend Leonard Bland and his wife, First Lady Carolyn Anz Bland of Salem Baptist Church, who served here this community for years. Bland is a very old name. Um, they passed away on the exact same day. And a matter of fact, what brought to my attention is I believe tomorrow is Reverend Bran's birthday on the 18th of March. And these people have they've not just served their church, they've served the youth, they they've been just stellar people in this community. And I think it would just be wrong for us to let people who have served our community for this long to go by without us in some form making some form of proclamation in the future to bring their family in to invite their church in just honoring them for the service that they had to this county.

So is that a motion? Yes. Motion properly seconded. Any uh further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. Hi I. Any oppose say nay. Chair votes I. Mot carries. Thank you.

All right. And over to the county administrator. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So the the first item under my county administrator's report uh pertains to the CIP. Now, Miss Cop and Miss Dillard over here. Uh I know we talked about, you know, the the audit and how detail oriented they are. what what you know really Miss Cop led this charge of going back through previously completed CIP projects um and then you know finding the extra money that was left over you'll see Barnesfield playground replacement there was $24 that was allocated the project was built and there's $24 the money is still there but it's it's it's been appropriated to this project so she went through and and then the the item that's on the screen before you you know this is what was in the packet 669,00 02825. Last year, the board of supervisors approved $550,000 for the old courthouse across the parking lot. At our February 11th meeting, we saw that that project uh was was down. It was down quite far in the list as far as what we're going to do about it. So, there's been some money spent there through ECS looking at some of the hazardous materials. So, there's still a chunk of money that's that's left over with that project. and to assist with the the FY27 CIP. In addition to the 66902890 that Miss Cobb found with uh the the projects that were completed, I would recommend another 525,000 uh for the old courthouse repurposing that was allocated last year. Um I would like to to bring that into and then you see that there's a recommended action authorize me to to um allocate the new number be 1 million 19402890 from the completed CIP project list to the CIP construction line item. And this again we talked about CIP we're going to talk about it again here another couple minutes and the public hearing will be at April 7th. Uh this is just a clean up

that finance did to to find additional money and put it towards the FY27 recommendations that I have for for the board. Any questions? Nope. Ju just for clarity. So so this is funding. So last week we heard about the audit or the last meeting we heard about the audit. So this funding today is sitting in the CIP allocated funding lines. This would effectively move it back into the capital projects construction fund which could be used to for projects that will be at the public hearing next meeting. That is correct. Motions able to then use these out of that. That is correct. Yes sir.

Thank thanks for that clarity. And also Mr. Chair to clarify this is all projects that previously done in the last couple years and money that was left over. That is correct.

Mr. this morning. As far as the um believe it or not, I have not gotten a lot of resistance about the removal of the old courthouse building from people, you know, just if that's the the plan. But I have had a lot of people talk to me about how can we save the fac the front facade where the pillars are and things of that nature. you in Frankburg you'll see where they like have buildings propped up where you drive down a road and you see the front of the building but there is no back and somehow you know in that might be sometimes sentiment costs money so I don't know if it's the right way to go or not but there's a lot of people who have reached out said is there any way we can just save the front of the building the doors and all that and just somehow incorporating whatever we're doing so if we look at demolishing the building I'd like to just kind of get it kick that around if it's all right with everyone else and just see what it would take to save that portion of it if possible,

you know, at the board's direction on February 11th. I think that's a good idea. We can look at that, you know, and if the board wants to move that up in the priority list, but I think that was about four or five years down the road. Yeah, there's some things in front of that. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks. I just agree with Mr. Davis. I I'm not against tearing it down, but I what I really don't want to do is to take it down before we've come up with what the plan is for this building and this whole facility here. So, it's not getting bumped up in the list. I'm just talking down the line. I may not be here, you may not be here in five years, my friend. So, plant seeds. Thank you.

My preference would be to uh look for a way to incorporate that into a future build. I mean, but I've seen the the church you're talking about in or the church you're talking about in Falmouth that's, you know, 50 ft high and 3 ft deep. It's kind of neat. Yeah. Very expensive. It It'd be great if we can incorporate that into a uh a future build without having a uh a weird freestanding structure there that doesn't make any sense. But these we're throwing out thoughts and opinions now. Yeah, it's just a thought.

Mr. chair and I just want to visiting Philadelphia last year near the Liberty Bell. They actually preserve the original um building that was for, you know, George Washington, the congressman there, and they actually have parts of it that are still preserved. And then they have like outlines on the bottom, and you know, that could be something to use with the facade that you support that part. And then leave, you know, so you can see where the original building's footprint was because in my research, the bricks on that are actually from the 18, I think it was the 1820s courthouse. It was somewhere over here. and they actually used the bricks from that to build the original section. So, keeping the bricks are important, too.

Okay. So, we've gone down an interesting tangent. Do we have a a motion for this? Yes. So, I make a motion that we authorize the county administrator to transfer 1,194,28.90 from the completed CIP projects listed uh that we see on the screen to the CIP capital projects construction line plus the courthouse for TAC 302, tag 94400, tag 8212. Second properly seconded. Any further discussion? All right. Miss Bender I shout I Mr. Mets

I Davis

I votes I motion carries. Thank you very much. Next item as a followup to my last presentation on the CIP. What I've done uh for this particular meeting, again, the public hearing has been advertised for April 7th, 2026. So, what I've done here, very similar to last year, I've gone through and highlighted my recommendations based on some of the feedback that I received from the planning commission and uh some comments made here two weeks ago at the board of supervisors meeting. So, my recommendation, $650,000 for the school bus refresh. This will uh replenish the the school buses on a on a cycle. So, Dr. Boyd doesn't need to come to us and replace 50 school buses at one time. Um, I'm not sure how many school bus how many does this

it's going down, but it's it's probably about three or four

about three or four buses. So, that's that's what that's what that should cover. Uh, comment that was made two weeks ago at the PTOAC elementary parking lot. I believe Mr. Davis made that. I've I've included that in my recommendations for $100,000. PTOAC Elementary School metal roof $800,000. Again, you know, if we've got a leaky roof, it just leads to disaster and we've got to protect uh that school for our youth. Ambulance replacement program, uh $400,000. This is again very similar to the school bus. So, Chief Moody does not need to come replace all the ambulances in one year for solid waste and recycling. I'm recommending two $265,000 for a rolloff truck. Mr. New has two trucks. One is not roadworthy. One is in the shop seems like every other week. So, this is important to keep if we don't make our pools on the the the Friday at at Perkins Corner that uh that convenience center cannot run during uh during the weekend. So, I will be recommending the the new rolloff truck Perkins Corner office trailer. If you've ever set foot in this, it's it is quite rough. I'm I'm the request was for $80,000. Again, these are the numbers, the value engineering that we've come up with, rough estimates. It doesn't mean it's going to be the construction cost. Hopefully, they're going to be less um than what's presented. Boardroom HVAC. We've all experienced it here. Uh this is a 32y old system, I believe, that is is leaking the old refrigerant type and we've met with train. This says there's really nothing you can do about it. You can't bandaid it anymore. So, I'm recommending 282 350 for the boardroom HVAC unit replacement. $260,000 for fleet vehicle purchase for for Sheriff Giles. This is again very similar to ambulance and the bus. And then also the mobile data terminals in the sheriff's office. $296,824. These MDTs are operating on Windows 10 right now. So they're no longer uh serviced. Uh so so we think that is a a

need to to ensure that our deputies have uh the correct proper communication when they're out in the field. New voting machines. This is the second half of the money appropriated last year. 86,695 for new heart voting machines for a registar. Moving down to parks and recreation, a restroom facility for Sadel Brooks, $850,000. This would be extending the water uh and the be connecting sewer and water is at the corner of uh Ridge and Beverly. Help me out with the road. The road going back to to Sidel Brook. that would be extended uh back to serve the bathroom. And then for Mr. Dyn, we have computer replacement and some server upgrades. So for FY27, you total that all up, I come up with $4,192,869. And we just did transfer uh reallocate funds a couple minutes ago. So really, you're looking at a $2,998,84010. So, I will have this as a we advertise as a public hearing for the entire amount. So, we can still make changes. So, don't worry about that. And I'm here for any uh advice or recommendations from the board of supervisors.

So, for the 850,000 for the restroom that the bulk of that is for extending the water down there, right? That that is what uh I know with the the proposals with the request sheets the majority was for utility extensions. That is correct. Okay. Now, with that in mind, uh do do local uh businesses or homes or whatever can can they benefit from that upgrade as well or is that strictly for the bathrooms? So, there's there's I think there's two houses on that road. There's only two houses on that road. Yeah. But we've had people look in in that vicinity to try to um bring in businesses and stuff before and the concern was always that uh we didn't have enough capacity with the existing

the line goes down. I know what you're talking about. The line goes down there, but this would be to bring it down past the convenience center down to the park. Okay, that that is correct. Yeah, that is on Ridge Road right now. Right there at the at the stop sign on the Right. Cuz I had a question on this. Um it has irrigation here. I just thought about this looking at this, but we're bringing the line down for the restrooms. Does the irrigation need the line and would it be better to bring it both at the same time and add the irrigation to the park for the field? I'm just asking. I'm not an engineer. I'm I'm I'm guessing you just you size that line appropriately. And you can addation on later, right? Okay. I was just asking that because it would make sense to do it at the same time.

Okay, cool. No, that was just a curiosity for me. Go ahead. Um, I'll bring this up after when our public meeting, but just my real quick glance so far. I I do have quite a bit of heartburn about us funding the HVAC here, but not the King George Elementary School HVAC handlers, which was also rated a number one priority by the planning. I believe during our initial CIP meetings, Mr. Clif, who runs maintenance for the schools, felt that those air handlers could go another year. That was the feedback that I got from school maintenance. Well, let's get a clarity on that before we approve it. Um, just because I'm looking at the ratings here. These are the rankings by the the planning commission,

right? And then um I I see that uh planning commission. So, so we had the ambulance replacement program on there for fire and rescue, but not the replacement of rescue one heavy rescue. given the rural nature of our county, I'd like to kind of get feedback on what does that do to us? Like is is that also something we think we can hobble along for another year with? Um so so and my my thinking of this is so we know one of the data centers has been sold um to to Rowan. I've got a meeting with them tomorrow down in Richmond.

So that's a bad that's a badge zero. That's a badge zero. Right. And there I believe all three data centers that have been approved have a profer and specifically the the most recent two that I've been here there is we're going to give you know money for a ladder truck or for something else or as deemed appropriate by the board of supervisors. There was a lot of leeway built into those profers. Oh, I totally agree. I just if you go back and listen to the planning commission that was part of the discussion of why ladder truck ended up at priority six but heavy rescue still stayed in there at priority one. So if we could get some some info on that. Okay. Otherwise, yeah, thanks for Yes, sir. taking a look.

Oh, Votech, that didn't make the list cuz that would be a a bond.

So, so, uh, we talked about that. We want to get the I sent the the February 11th information back to Davenport that the board did the exercise. They're looking at our different financing options. So the the planning commission did recommend moving $2 million for A&E, typically 10% for A&E, into fiscal year 27. Miss Cobb and I had a discussion and I think it'd be prudent to to wait to hear back from Davenport to see whether or not this is borrowing or do we pull from the the 2023 series bonds for company 2 and the preschool. There are some ways, but we want to hear from our financial advisors some options first. as long as we have options there because that building is being removed this summer is my understanding.

That is correct. The RFP closes next Thursday. We don't have the plan to replace it yet. So the the A&E on at least in our view is necessary. The A&E RFP I've been we we finalized the programs last Friday morning. I've been working with procurement team. We our goal is to have that on the streets by this Friday for A&E services. 45day window then it's review time interview come back to the board. So we're still a couple months, you know, a couple months out from the time it hits the streets still. We're coming back to you with a contract. Okay, good. But that wouldn't be in this CIP funding.

We we think we're going to have enough time to hear back from Davenport on what they recommend.

All right. Yes, sir. So, I'm curious. I mean, I think we all know that we need the rolloff truck. Bad. Is there a certain like do we is is there a certain procurement vehicle we have to use for that? Because I see one for sale right here for $170,000 like brand a brand new Peterbuilt, you know. Um, well, I will get with my my procurement team tomorrow and I'll figure out where Mr. Newuk came up with these numbers. I know there's a vendor, it's a Virginia dealer, I want to say down Emporia away that he he deals with. Um, but if if I I'll double check with my procurement team, ma'am. There there's there's there's specific specs that he needs for for the vehicle, and I believe those were on the lot and can be we could get them probably in a couple of weeks.

I I'd still like to hear those specs and look how it compares to this. We'll do. Yeah, I I see them for, you know, I see other ones that are more expensive. um you know, but there's other ones ready to roll for refu and stuff. Um but good point. I will look into that. Thank you, sir. I'll have some answers for you at the April 7th meeting. I'm all about I know we need it. I'm like go buy the thing tomorrow, but there's some this this Yeah. So, sir, he's picking Picking that up tomorrow.

Picking up a tab tomorrow.

Picking up a tab tomorrow. All right. Next item. All right. Next item, sir. Okay. So, we've got the the Welden Cooper population data. If you could pull that up, Mr. Dine. So, the Welden Cooper numbers. These I think uh Pastor Shaw talked about these go from April 1 of 2020 to July 1 of 2025. So 5 years 3 months or 5.25 years. So what I've done is this is an Excel spreadsheet that they put out was a little delayed this year due to the government shutdown. But I just sorted them based on percentage change uh up at the top. You know 215 is New Kent leading the county and I highlighted King George where we are at 7%. uh based on this 7% over 5.25 years that's 1.33% on an annual basis which is which is healthy growth and if you scroll down a little bit so these are the individual cities and counties and they also I believe Mr. Boils uh came here he talked about the George Washington regional commission Mr. dimes. If you scroll down to the bottom of that page, this is this is a great data set. Just keep on going to the bottom of the there's there's about three or four tables. Keep going. They break it down by metropolitan area. And the very last the geographic area. Keep going. The planning districts. Here we go. So, um 7.8% is the George uh Washington Regional Commission which is of which we are part of planning district 16. You can see they we grew at 7.8%. And of those five localities, we were we were number four out of five as far as growth rate. I believe Fredericksburg was a little slower than us, but I just wanted to share this with the board and with the public. Um, these are good numbers to have. You look at some of the other counties who have lost 6 and a

half% and the discussion from earlier today about competing with Southwest Virginia, the distressed areas, that's where a lot of those are at. So 1.3% is where we're at on an annual basis. Um, I just wanted to pre pro prevent present this information to you. I don't need any action or anything. Just wanted to get it out there for y'all. All right. Is that it? I believe that is the end of my report, sir.

Excellent. So, I want to share something um with everybody. Uh, this comes from the Virginia Association of Counties, and I think some maybe all of us have gotten this, but uh um I I'll go ahead and read the email. It says, "Dear County Administrators, as you're aware, House Bill 1263 and Senate Bill 378 represent a significant change in Virginia's approach to the public sector collective bargaining. These bills shift from a local option framework to a statemandated system carrying substantial fiscal, administrative, and policy implications uh implications for counties. The general assembly has passed this legislation and it now awaits action by Governor Spanberger who must act by April 13th. Veo continues to strongly oppose these measures and is actively communicating our concerns to both the governor and members of the general general assembly. To support this effort, we're asking counties to make immediate local action. Attached is a one-page sample resolution for your board of supervisors to consider adopting to formally express opposition to mandatory collective bargaining. We respectfully request that you place this resolution before your board of supervisors as soon as possible. Upon adoption, transmit the resolution to Governor Spamberger and your legislative delegation and copy Veo and all correspondents so that we could track and amplify local government engagement. Local input is especially important at this stage. A strong unified response from counties across the Commonwealth will help reinforce the importance of preserving local authority, fiscal flexibility, and responsible governance. If your county has already acted, please share your correspondence with us. If you need assistance tailoring the resolution or preparing transmittal letters, ple please do not hesitate to reach out. Thank you for your leadership. There's it goes on to have some points of contact. Now, it does say that she has to act on this by April 13th, which some have interpreted that, oh, we've got till the 13th. She can act anytime before that. Um, it was brought um to my attention, you know, we could put this on the next meeting. I I know we're not big fans and and I'm been a a

table thumper on this one too, but not presenting something and then taking action, but it doesn't cost us anything. Um, as Mr. Davis pointed out earlier, um the the folks down in Richmond are very proud of the fact that they're creating a bunch of personal president company acceptance. the people that are voting for these things are very proud of the fact that uh they're making unfunded mandates and pushing this stuff back down onto the county. So, um I I would like to see us take action on this tonight if if you guys are amanable to it and and I've got a sample resolution that if you want we can I can read through it so you can you know take the appropriate action for the public record should the board want to to take action on this tonight. We did not have it prepared. We just got this late this afternoon and I know the board's policy, but um I'll do whatever the board would like.

Okay, Mr. Chairman, just taking off my hat as county attorney. Um, I think the reason Beeos sent this out there, at least on the Senate floor, there may have been representations that the larger localities supported the bills and understanding that on Saturday their conference reports coming through where you have House and Senate versions of bills that have passed, then they go into conference much like we do the budget to try to figure it out. And a lot of people aren't even sure what came out. What we do know is that the mandate would take effect in 28 to get it passed and so people don't see the budget impacts of it. But there were representations made at least on the Senate floor that Fairfax County supported it when in fact apparently they did not. And I think that that is why Veco is reaching out to the counties to hear directly from the boards to see if in fact you do support um this measure so they can report that to the governor directly and and she may act on this sooner rather than later.

Okay, sir. Mr. Chair, I I I support us doing something. I send emails out to all the delegates opposing it uh myself, but you know any anything we can do to oppose it then I'm for Mr. Mass.

Yeah. So I think you said I don't think I've even seen the language of the compromise of the two coming together. So given I got this at 7:15 tonight, I'm not ready to support it. Um, one of the things that I'm concerned about is the unfunded mandate because some of the numbers that I have seen, I mean, the Richmond area counties have said this could possibly have an impact of over 30 cents on your taxes, you know, to to all of a sudden have to fund all this and there's it's just been kind of rammed through without a lot of thinking about the impact on the locality, whether you support it or not. There needs to be a little more thought before it it goes into act. and even 2028 could be too quickly for a lot of small counties. I mean, Chester, I think it was Chesterfield that I think was like over 37 cents they would have to add to their to their property t to the tax bill.

So, just to clarify for anybody who may be listening online, 30 cents doesn't sound like much, but when you consider that our current rate is 68 cents, you're looking at about a 45% increase on your property taxes. And that's per $100. You have anything? I mean, I'm back to You should write something up. All right. Do we have a motion?

What would that motion be, Mr. Stewart? I think you could it could just be as simple that you instruct the county administrator to draft a motion uh to send to the governor and the legislative delegation to oppose the uh bills passed by the general assembly for collective bargaining so stated. Second. Okay, we have a motion on the floor properly seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. I or nay, I guess. Chair votes I. Motion carries. Nay.

All right. Now, we'll move on to actually we skipped over the the fire department grant thing.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Uh, yes. Yeah. One other item. Let me pull this up. And that's I believe it's on the next page. So there was a uh a memorandum that was included in the the board packet from from fire chief Moody dated March 11. This is a Virginia Department of Fire grants uh grant award. So this is for a gear washer extractor unit for company 3. This is the Fairview Beach Station. Uh the reim it's a 100% reimburseable grant with no match from the locality. We got this literally I think five days ago and we need to have the the wording in or the the approval of this in I believe it is the 1st of April of 2026. So and I sent you some additional information on this. This is a an item that will allow more efficiency within the fire rescue department. Currently there's only one PPE washer extractor. that's a company one and there gets a lot of use especially if you need to do multiple uh pieces of gear at one particular time. So this is again reimburseable grant we have one year to spend the money and there are there may be some some additional costs as far as uh you know utility hookups internal lines that may need to be changed. Chief Moody said that if there are those that they can cover them with the FY26 operating budget, but in order to submit the the grant to um to the uh Virginia Department of Fire Programs, we need a board of supervisors to accept this grant. And I'm looking here. We they do need it. Um yeah, it's it's from May 9 of 2026 to I'm sorry, March 9 of 2026 to March 8 of 2027. That's the performance period. So, we do have one year to spend this particular money. And then if the board does want to accept this, we need to return our Yes, we will accept it no

later than April 3 of 2026. So, this is, I said, new new coming to me, but I did want to put it in front of the board of supervisors. Essentially, it's free money um to to help improve efficiency over in fire rescue. If there are specific questions, I know we've got uh Chief Deputy Chief Henson who can call in and answer specific questions if I'm not able to. So, I mean, you just said this is free money. It costs us nothing and the cost to it's essentially a big washer. It's a big It's a big washer for PP, correct? To install it. They can cover the cost on that. So, there's no additional cost to the citizens. That is correct. And

I make a motion that we authorize the county administrator to accept the grant subject to form from the county attorney. Second. Probably second. Any further discussion? Miss Bender. I Mr. Ms. I Davis. Hi. What? Hey, it's St. Patrick's Day. I votes I. I missed something.

Excellent. All right. Secondary public comment to address meeting items only. Comments will be limited to three minutes per person in order to afford everyone opportunity to speak. Please provide your full name and district when submitting your public comment so that it can be um properly recorded and included in the public record. We have anybody who would like like to make a secondary public comment? Come on up, sir. Good evening, board.

Miles Hastings, James Madison District as uh one of the last full-time farmers in the county and as a land owner, I approached Mr. Smolnik the other day and asked him about the possibility of starting a an agricultural and forestral district here in the county. I know that Faulier has some I think Rockingham uh New Kent where Mr. Smolnik is from has experience with it and he's worked within the framework before but he had never actually set one up. I'm interested in doing that. I have enough acreage where I could start one. But the onus comes back to this board as far as setting one up. It gives y'all some tools to work with as far as uh slowing growth, directing growth. um also gives me some protections. Not every farmer wants to go into a conservation easement. There's many various reasons why you would not want to go into a conservation easement. But I would like for y'all, if you would please, to stay with Mr. Smallnik and encourage him to look into the matter. And I would like for all of y'all to look into that matter. This is not the same as a agricultural zoning. It's actually a district set up in the code of Virginia and see if it might not be of benefit to this governing body in the future

and I would appreciate you looking into the matter. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anyone else? Mr. boy. That's show. All right. Anybody get any correspondence? Mr. D, do you have anybody online? No, Mr. Chairman. All right. I will close this second round of public comments. Can we have a motion to adjurnn? Yes, sir. I'd like to make a motion we adjourn the board of supervisors to Tuesday, April the 7th, 2026 at 5:30 p.m. in the boardroom of the Rivercomm Building located at 10459 Cordell Drive, King George, Virginia 2245. Secondly seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say I.

I. I chie Motion carries. We are now adjourned. Thanks folks. Christ.