Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Okay, I'm going to go ahead and call to order this meeting of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors on Monday, March 9th, 2026. Our first order of business tonight is to go into close meeting. Be it resolved the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors of Montgomery County, Virginia, hereby enters into closed meeting for the purpose of discussing the following. Section 2.2-3711. Discussion, consideration, or interviews of prospective candidates for employment, assignment, appointment, promotion, performance, demotion, salaries, disciplining, or resignation of specific officers, appointees, or employees of any public body. One, planning commission. Is there a motion? Motion. Second.

Okay. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Second. Second. Sorry. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. King. Hi. Mr. Fikowski. Hi. Miss Biggs. Hi. Mr. Graphsky. Hi. Miss Karan. Hi. Chair Deontz. I. Seven eyes. We are in closed meeting.

Okay. Is there a motion to come out of close session? So moved. Second. Thank you. Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. King. I. Mr. Physicowski. I. Miss Biggs. I. Mr. Grassy. Hi. M. Karan. Hi. Mr. Kits. Hi. Chair Demas. I. Seven eyes.

Okay. And now we certify the closed meeting. Whereas the board of supervisors of Montgomery County has convened a closed meeting on this date pursuant to an affir affirmative recorded vote in in accordance with the provisions of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. And whereas section 2.2-3711 of the code of Virginia requires a certification by the board that such closed meeting was conducted in conformity with Virginia law. Now therefore, be it resolved that the board of supervisors of Montgomery County, Virginia, hereby certifies that to the best of each member's knowledge, one, only public business matters lawfully exempted from open meeting requirements by Virginia law were discussed in the closed meeting to which this certification resolution applies, and two, only such public business matters as were identified in the motion conveying the closed meeting were heard, discussed, or considered by the board. Is there a motion? So moved.

Second. Madame Clerk, if you'll call the RO, please. Mr. Fitchikowski I Mr. BS I Mr. Gravski I Mr. Kuran I Mr. Kits I Mr. King. Hi, Chair Demottz. I Seven eyes. Okay. Our next item of business is a moment of silence and the pledge of allegiance led by our county administrator, Angie Hill. Please rise as you're able for a moment of silence and then join me as I lead us in the pledge.

Let us pledge. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

Thank you, Angie. Um, we have several presentations tonight. Uh the first presentation on our agenda was a presentation of a resolution for the American Red Cross um proclaiming March 2026 as American Red Cross month. Unfortunately uh the representative from the American Red Cross was not able to be here tonight. Um so we're just going to take this opportunity to again um just reiterate that March 2026 is American Red Cross month. Um, and then the next item that we have for a presentation is from the Virginia Department of Transportation. We have David Clark from VOTE here to give us some updates on road projects in the county.

Welcome, sir. Thank you for being here tonight. Thank you.

It's always good to be here. Um, couple updates from the last month and they're still not out of all the snow for this past month. So, we had about uh 10 days or so where we had to do uh some responding one way or another. A lot of it was just being there. Uh we had a lot of forecast that called for rain at the or mixed with snow at the 33 degrees and we had a a Monday with some some flash freezing in the morning and just a couple uh kind of lingering annoying things that kept us from getting any kind of other kind of work done, but we had to be ready from case that uh it did turn into something. Um but uh on the days we weren't, we were uh out patching potholes and picking up dead deer basically. Um I think one northern half of the county counted 27 deer they've picked up and uh and one coyote. Um I won't go into all the roads we've patched. We've working mostly on primaries but they have gotten a good number of secondary roads. Um done some patching on some ditching on Happy Hollow Road, shoulder repair on Elllet Tyler. Also some unpaved road. Um this time of year we tend to uh haul stone to some of the gravel roads because we push it off during the winter. um actually has a term called, you know, maintenance replacement stone. So, we're replacing a lot of the stone that uh was pushed off in the winter. We did it on um Poff School Road, Gold Rush, uh in the southern half of the county. Um also some pothole patching on Ron Oak Road um and on Piney Woods. And um that's it for the update. Like I said, it's been a little bit of catchup, a little bit of snow here and there, or at least threat of winter weather and um catching up on some of the other things. Do you have a crystal ball? Do we have any more snow coming?

Well, I always say no plows off and I'm always wrong. I always call first nice day. I said that's it. Winter's over. And I'm generally wrong. Well, let's see if anybody has any questions. Um, we'll start. Supervisor Karan, I have a quick question. Uh, citizen question. When you go up Preston Forest when it turns to Jefferson Forest Lane after the Top Rush Mountain Trail, the double yellow line don't continue. And she claims she lives on Jefferson Forest that there were double yellow lines in the middle of the road, but then after the asphalting is done at one point, the double yellow line never came back.

There has been a a deliberate reduction in the number of miles that that we do. Um we've gone back to basically it's more it's just a strict adherence to what's been our policy if it doesn't have 500 vehicles a day. Okay. Um it's getting to be where we couldn't even keep up with um repainting center lines on roads that meet the policy and uh it's happened in every county. I can double check the the traffic count, but it's probably done intentionally. Yeah, obviously it's not a um you know welltraveled road except those people over there, but she claims some folks drives like it's just a you know oneway street that you don't have to be on one side or the other

for the width. Yeah, as long as you have the right width, you know, center line is probably beneficial on any uh road wide enough. Um but we have to go by traffic just because of the volume and and our our inventory and workload. Sure. Thank you. Mhm. Supervisor Gravki, Supervisor BGS, I've already asked about a um tree situation on Colala that you're still working on. So that back hopefully get that taken care of. I hope it doesn't come to to me out there with a pole saw. I know, but it might. Thank you and thanks for being here. Supervisor King.

Appreciate y'all working on a lot of roads in my district. I've seen a lot of potholes being filled and Paul School Road. I appreciate you working on that one. And have you been out uh Camp Carrey Brook? I have not. No, that's good. If you look at that one, I sure would appreciate it. Okay. Thank you, Supervisor Kits. I haven't asked this question in a while. You've updated me without asking, but uh the status of the contract for the flashing light as you come up uh towards the arsenal. I don't know when they start. It's part of probably I don't know how many. There's several, maybe four in the district, but it's it's getting ready. It'll be it'll start this summer. Okay. This spring. Cool. Thank you very much. I I'll get more because that has been let. I'll find out what their schedule is. Okay. Thank you,

Vice Chair Pigowski. Yeah, that's uh every time uh the snow melts and disappears, the potholes come out. So, uh there's a really big one that's on Alageney Springs Road just north of Sison Hall, which is a private road. Mhm. Um it's fairly large. Um and then there's several of them along the bluffs there, the the cliff along the river that have opened up some in the lane, some right on the center line. So if they could just check that area,

we'll be around all we'll be around to all of them. And I looked up um actually I drove Hastings. You had asked about Hastings and it's a qualification for being on the six-year plan. Um it looked like a good road when I drove down it, a good candidate, but the traffic count is not 50. um we don't we can try them again. Um it would be several years before we got to it even if it put it on the plan now. Um but it seemed to have uh quite a few houses for just I think it was only like a quarter of a mile long road. Yes. Well, I appreciate you uh remembering that.

Yeah. And it that's the 50 is for um using unpaved road allocation. It can be paved with other funding. Unfortunately, there isn't any other free funding really for the county. In other words, it could be a revenue sharing project sometime in the future if the traffic count isn't there. Um, and we used to do quite a bit of revenue sharing, paving of unpaved roads in McGomery County.

Yeah. I I'll try to get back in touch with the citizen. I'm I'm thinking that he he didn't know what the process was and what the requirements were. He may be satisfied with that and maybe would would be willing to wait a couple years to to see uh something change. Yeah, we we'll we'll check the traffic counts again. Okay. Thank you. Mhm. Okay. Did that bring up anything for anybody else? Seeing none, thank you very much, sir. We appreciate your time tonight and we'll see you again soon. Thank you. Thanks.

Okay. And our next presentation is from the New River Valley Homebuilders Association. Uh we have the Homebuilders Association President, Mr. Ian friend with here with us here this evening and they're going to go over some housing trends. Welcome sir. Thank you for being here.

Thank you. Thank you chair deont. Thank you supervisors. Um my name is Ian friend. As April mentioned I'm the current president of the new valley home builders association and the chair of the government affairs committee. With me today is Steve Simonus. He's a past president of the association and uh also on the committee. New River Valley Home Builders Association represents homebuilders. Anything to do with home building, uh, you know, insurance agents, attorneys, banks, etc. Any member business that has to do with home building or owning a home, that's who we represent. Uh, I've printed out the slides for you all today. On the back is a little cheat sheet. I may get a little technical in some of my terms, so I've explained some of the terms in the back if you get any confusion. And then if you have any questions during it, I'm happy to answer. Yeah, there we go. Okay, so I'm here to talk today to talk about local housing. Housing has had long been identified as a key issue in our area. There are a lot of pressure points and key items resulting in our current housing landscape. We're going to talk about national state trends. You're going to see a lot of data from NHB. NHB is National Association of Home Builders. It's our our national arm. It represents us in a lot of ways, but for this purpose, they have a team of people that collect data related to housing and analyze it and create it in these charts you're going to see. Um, I pulled our members and builders and developers to get local examples of costs and how they've changed over the ne the past 10 years and how the market has changed. And then finally, I don't want to just throw a bunch of, you know, housing expensive at you. I want to end with what are we doing from a legislative stance on how to resolve some of these issues and what can we do locally to resolve some of these issues. First, uh, this first slide kind of shows inflation. We we hear the word inflation a lot. has kind of stabilized recently, but what we don't think about is since 2020, cumulative inflation has been up to 27 five 27.5% overall. So that's a 20 almost a 28% increase in goods and services since 2020, which is pretty large.

Can't talk about housing without talking about mortgage rates. You know, we're never going to see that 3 to 4% we saw in 2020 2021 again. Uh we're hoping it goes down. NHB kind of sees it stabilizing uh in the next few years to around just under 6%. And I think a lot of people are waiting for the decrease to purchase a home. And the NHB just doesn't forecast that. We're seeing it kind of stabilize. Um you're going to see the word Blackburg MSA. That's just what the national calls our area, New River Valley. That's Montgomery County. It's parts of Giles, parts of Plasky, and parts of Floyd. That kind of populative area. So since 2000 um housing price has gone up 174%. Since the recession it's gone up 91% and since co uh we've seen a 55% increase in housing costs. What does that mean for normal people? That means that they're spending about five times their annual household income on housing. Whereas you know in 90s early 80s early 2000s it was about three times. So we've seen a significant increase there. that results in a reduction in home ownership rate. Um early 2000s we saw a 69% home ownership rate. There was some variability in 2020 with those low interest rates but overall we've seen a decrease to 65% uh within the last year. Now what's what's causing all that cost of building materials? So this chart in the red shows between 2020 and 2024 how some of these materials have gone up. Lumber has gone up 8%. Concrete 33% pretty large. Steel while not used residentially a lot does have some as applications 77%. You know back in the day uh actual companies would come in at a discounted rate to bring in the infrastructure because you're providing them customers. Well now where power and distribution transformers and parts have gone up 72%. We're seeing a lot of that cost get passed on to the builder and

then to the homeowner. Gypson building materials. So that's drywall up 48%. brick 29% and other inputs and residential goods up 30%. You know cumively this is a huge cost increase for builders and homeowners. Now locally regulatory what are we seeing? NHB calculates that about due to regulatory cost there's about $93,870 per new home that can be attributed to regul regulations. So that's, you know, during development, that's traffic studies, environmental studies, impact fees, that's about $11,791 per house. Uh land that's dedicated to open space. While important does have a value, so that's about $10,854 and other setbacks and things. During construction, you know, you have connection fees, inspection fees. That's about $12,184 per lot. And over the past 10 years, we've seen huge increases to building codes due to energy efficiency, you know, improved equipment, etc. are well all good. They all have costs, right? And that's about 24,144 per law uh per home, excuse me. Overall, we're kind of seeing that due to all these regulations, we're seeing increase in cost from 2016 to 2021 of 11% overall to $93,870. Now, what can be made more efficient? What regulatory burden could be reduced to help drive down costs? Obviously, there are some state and national things we can't change, but from a local level, what can be looked at to reduce costs? Can we reduce fees, connection fees, resoning, over stringent storm water regulations? Are there things we can look at to help reduce the cost burden to homeowners? So, I talked about local data. Um, we pulled our members and said, what's it cost to build multif family? What's it cost to build single family and town home lots around the area? This slide pertains to multif family. The light blue is a cost per bed and the sorry, the dark blue is a cost per bed and the light blue is cost per unit. There's a

project in 2013 at 911 beds that was built for $50,000 a bed, about $180,000 a unit. Just 7 years later, 209 bed project, 109 unit. See that per bed cost almost double 98,438. And the unit price about the same, but since that first project was mostly beds, that's kind of what we're looking at there. Just two years later, uh a 423 bed project, we see that cost per bed go up another 20,000 and we see a unit price skyrocket of about 60 70,000 unit per cost increase there. So builders looked at and said, what can we do to simplify building? What can we do, you know, garden style, minor amenity? What can we do to reduce the cost? Uh 2026 project, 216 beds, 123,000 a bed. So we didn't see that much increase there. And we actually saw unit cost go down because simplicity to build. Now if you lose the density, if you go to a proposed project in 2026 at 54 beds, you see the per bed price go up and a unit cost go up to 267,000. So what does this all mean? Factors. We need density. We need simplicity to build all together to bring that cost down. So I know Montgomery doesn't see a lot of multif family in the county area. So I wanted to show you all single family and town homes. I asked my realtor friends to pull up MLS data. So on this left side, if there's a lot that can be built with a house on it, what is it? What was it sold for in MLS in 2016? On average, it was about 95,775,000775. Just 9 years later, we see that go up about 30,000 to 126,260. So now I go to developer and builders. If it has utilities, if it if it's developed lot, what are you seeing when you purchase a lot to build on or when you develop a lot? In Montgomery County, the average was 145,000 for a single family lot and 75,000 for a town home.

Blackburg a little larger at 155,000 and uh for a single family and 100,000 for a town home. And Christianber 140,000 for a single family, 100,000 for a town home. Now, we picture an affordable home at 200 250,000. But when you before you even dig a foundation in, if you're at 140,000, um how do you get there with with the cost of bricks and sticks? So that's what the builders are dealing with. Now you can get lots for cheaper in Montgomery County, but maybe they don't have utilities. Maybe you have to put a septic field in. Maybe you have to put a well in. And we averaged that out to where we were still getting to about that 140 number. A builder reached out to me and said, "Well, let's show you a more current example of this." So those developed lots you saw in 2025, those were built two or three years ago, and now they're being built on uh well, the the lot was developed two or three years ago, and now they're being built on by homes. So if if they're studying a project now to develop, what costs are they seeing? So this was a real example. They got the land for 7.5 50 acres, 150 lots. So that raw land is 50,000 per lot. To develop the lot, we're averaging 107,000 per lot and grading utilities, etc. to develop that lot. And then overhead, we didn't put any profit in this. We just said if you just were able to pay your staff and get out of it, what's that percentage? And that's what that is. it comes out to 180,000 what they're seeing in this project to develop lots. So, you know, you might be thinking, okay, costs are up. I'm still seeing a lot of construction activity. Well, the data doesn't really support that. And the MSA apparently y'all had a huge boom in the early 2000s of 946 building permits that were pulled. So, that's a builder going to the building official saying, "I have a plan. Give me a permit." And pulling the permit and building the house. Um, obviously the recession dipped that down tremendously and we stabilized a little bit, but in 2024 we saw a 12% decrease in building permits being pulled. 2025 we saw

another 12% decrease. Um, this is purely uh reduced lots, more costly, and we're not providing enough inventory for what the county needs. So, I promise you I wouldn't just give spout a bunch of numbers and give doom and gloom. I want to talk about how we're trying to address some of these things. And this is how we're doing it legislatively. Uh these are real bills that are in right now and I'm giving you a little update on some of them. HB1 1144 gives localities the option to re option to reimburse connection fees to first-time home buyers and wave fees for affordable housing projects. This is currently awaiting the governor's signature, but this is a great way to reduce costs for first-time home buyers. Excuse me. HB1 1212 requires localities over 20,000 people to create a small lot ordinance. This is also awaiting governor's signature is a great way to bring in more housing. HB 806 allows EDAs to issue bonds for new residential projects. Also awaiting governor signature. You know, we think of EDAs as providing financing for industry, but you know, when we bring in those businesses, those people need homes, too, right? So, this is a great way to provide lowterest bond financing uh in order to finance and reduce the cost of development. HB196, which is something Steve and I have really been working on, has been amended to be just a small pilot program. What the vision of this is is an infrastructure fund where localities can apply for funding and get a large sum of money to put in sewer, water, roads, etc. to reduce that upfront lot cost to bring house prices down. Now, that's state level. What can we do locally? I think we need more by right options. We need mixed type housing, apartments, town homes, single family, small lots, all together by right. that gives more density for builders and developers. Blackburg has started to do this with their small lot ordinance and Bolasi to an extent. You know, I was feeding my son 10 month son two in the morning the other night and I had this fever dream of what can we do when we're mandating a lot of

things. We want affordable housing. We want X and Y. What are we doing to incentivize this? So, you know, my thoughts of this are we want affordable housing. If you make 10% of your units affordable, 80% AMI or less, you get a 20% bed density or density bonus. We want parks and we want trails. If you do that, we get a 10% density bonus. Um, I I feel like we need to find a way to incentivize and bring in uh builders to incentivize them to build more lots and also meeting the county's goals rather than mandating it. And finally, I think we need to find a way to say yes. If we can't do it by right, often times they're going in front of you for reasonzoning and neighborhoods are coming out. They don't want change, etc. But we all recognize that housing is a huge issue. So, we need to find a way to say yes, make it clear, make it easy to understand how to get to a yes so that we can all work together to approve housing. Steve and I know this is a complex issue and many people have differing opinions on how to resolve it. We felt it was critical for us to be transparent with you on the true cost of construction. He and I are available any day of the week to sit down with you, our staff to further brainstorm some of these ideas and solutions and develop a plan to help tackle housing in our area. But I appreciate your time and I hope this was informative. Thank you.

Sorry I turned my mic off. Thank you, sir. Um, we might have some questions for you, but I'll um start just I know you're this is a show that you're taking on the road, correct? You're going to Blackburg and Christiansburg to kind of start the conversation with all three of us. Yeah, this isn't a pointed this is just for the county that we wanted to bring this to all localities going in front of Blackburg next Tuesday at their work session and then uh we're hoping to schedule Christianber here soon. So, we're going to all localities in in Montgomery.

Well, we're glad you came to us first. Um and then I just want to follow up with one additional question. Um this slide where it has the cost per lot 18550. Um, that's the cost per lot before any type of home building. Correct. Correct. Before you put dig a foundation or anything to put the water, sewer, etc. in. For future projects, we're projecting 180,000 per lot.

Okay. I think that that's a very um important number for us to all be aware of. Let's see if we have any questions. If you've got a few more minutes just to hang out with us. Supervisor Kits, did you have any questions? Supervisor King, do we have any questions down here? All right. Oh, Vice Chair Fijicowski,

I I appreciate you coming and that was a lot of uh valuable information. Um I'm sure many people uh that are watching um this meeting uh are learning something just like I did from your uh from your information. And so I really appreciate you all coming out and doing that for us. Um, I also wanted to thank you and your group for coming out to the McGomery Regional Solid Waste Authority last year and uh listening to us and hopefully that um um your group would uh utilize that facility more which increases the economies of scale which helps the owners of it which are everybody in this room and all the citizens here. It reduces their cost for for that too. So appreciate all the things that you do for us

quietly. Okay. And my thanks as well to the to you in particular and to the New River Valley Home Builders Association for um their presence and ongoing advocacy uh in our whole community. Really really appreciate it. And seeing nothing else, thank you so much. We really appreciate it. Have a good evening. Okay. And our next presentation uh this evening is the county's fiscal year 2027 proposed budget presentation. Angie, I'll let you kick that off. Okay. Thank you. I think Vicki and Chris are passing from the giant books

documents around. I'll uh get started while they do that.

Good evening board members. Thank you for the opportunity to present the McGomery County proposed fiscal year 2026 2027 budget. This budget reflects the vision and priorities we've identified together for McGomery County. It also reflects collaboration between county and school staff throughout the budget development process. We have strategically scheduled the joint meeting with the school board to be held a week from this evening after the presentation of my proposed budget tonight and before your scheduled to set an advertised tax rate at your March 23rd meeting. The joint meeting on March 16th will provide an opportunity to discuss the needs of both the public schools and other government functions. The FY27 proposed budget continues to prioritize education and public safety while also addressing the broader needs of Montgomery County. Although it was not possible to fund every request, each was evaluated and prioritized based on needs and available resources. For FY27, I'm proposing a budget of $285.7 million. I'm recommending a real estate tax rate increase of 5 cents, bringing the rate to 81 cents per $100 of assessed value. To provide some additional context, in order to meet the request received from all county departments and other agencies, including the school board's proposed operating budget, the real estate tax rate would need to be 88 cents per $100 of assessed value. That is an increase of 12 cents over the existing real estate tax rate. Before we review the details of the

proposed FY27 budget, I want to provide you with a few key highlights. In keeping with the board's identified priorities, I'm proposing that $190.7 million or 67% of the total budget be allocated to the McGomery County Public Schools. With the remaining approximately onethird of the total budget, I'm recommending 11% be allocated to public safety. The remaining 22% is allocated for all other county functions including general government, health and welfare, parks and recreation, libraries, judicial administration, general services, utilities, community development, county debt service and capital projects and other agencies. With the 22% of the budget that encompasses general county functions, I've identified four core areas essential to county operations. Providing superior services to our citizens who depend on us for responsive, effective government. Valuing our employees who deliver services each day and are crucial to our organization's success. maintaining our financial strength and security so we can meet today's needs while planning responsibly for the future. Continuing to prioritize our infrastructure to ensure our facilities and systems support a growing and evolving community. You have consistently supported county employees and for that we are all grateful. You demonstrated this commitment by working with me to implement a strategic multi-year staffing plan beginning in fiscal year 25. As new position requests are made each

year, they are evaluated and prioritized in an effort to balance service demands with available funding, facility capacity, and long-term sustainability. For fiscal year 27, departments submitted position request for 22.75 new positions. Each position requested had merit and would support our core areas of focus. However, not all positions could be recommended at this time. Consistent with the strategic approach, I'm recommending six new full-time positions and one new part-time position. Also, in an effort to remain competitive with the New River Valley and especially with our neighboring localities, I'm proposing a 3% compensation increase for county employees. Both the towns and the schools typically implement two annual pay increases for employees, a July 1 acrosstheboard adjustment, and a step or merit-based increase. While the county does not currently provide a formal midyear merit or step increase, we're in the process of designing and implementing a system for next year. Providing a 3% increase for county employees on July 1st will be comparable to both the annual and step increases typically offered by surrounding localities, keeping our compensation competitive. We also have compensation plan funding available to address reclassifications and staffing adjustments. Finally, in December of 2025, the board established a separate classification of personal property for active fire volunteer fire and rescue members providing a potential incentive for these volunteers. Further action related to the incentive will be proposed to the

board during the budget process. Details of the proposed FY27 budget are outlined in the budget document you've received tonight. And at this time, I would like to invite Mark McGreder, our director of management and budget, to present more details of the McGomery County proposed fiscal year 2026 2027 budget. Okay, good evening. Uh, inside your budget books, you will have a copy of my presentation along with a one sheet budget in brief uh that details um information about the budget. So, I want to give a little background information on the county's budget process. The county's budget is built with two major components, the base budget and agenda. The purpose of the two components is to clearly separate the base of operations from the new items or new initiatives that are added to the budget each year. In November of each year, county divisions are provided with base budget targets, which are basically the estimated minimum cost of providing continued services and operations. It shows how much it costs in the next next fiscal year to operate the same programs provided in the current fiscal year. The base budget target provides a base of personnel costs and operating costs for the upcoming fiscal year. And so what we do is we take our personnel costs, we update the current cost of positions and benefits for the year. We cap operation maintenance at the current level. And then we remove one-time items um out of the base budget. Most divisions do not have a capital outlay portion of their budget because it's mostly onetime in nature. However,

there are a few divisions that have a permanent capital outlay allocation for equipment that is purchased annually. Examples include vehicles and computer replacements. Agenda items are for new or expanded initiatives. Requests that are above the base budget target are shown as addenda. Before recommending funding for any agenda request, the base budget is challenged to determine if the request can be funded within the base. In January, the county's leadership team meets and holds an internal budget review process that requires each department present and justifies budget requests to the team. This process ensures all requests undergo a rigorous evaluation before recommendations for general government functions are presented to the board. This next slide shows the detail of what was requested this year uh for the fiscal year 27 budget. On the county side, the county received $ 8.3 million worth of requests. On the schoolboard side, the school board's budget request was right at 8.3 million. That included $7.2 million for school operations and a little over a million for the school nutrition fund. As I shared with you in February, the estimated new undesated revenue for fiscal year 27 was just over $1 million. Total requests both county and the schools were right at 16.6 million. Again, we had an estimated new revenue total of just over a million dollars. The difference between the funds requested and the new revenue was right at 15.6 million. Full funding of these requests would require a real estate tax rate increase of 12 cents. The next slide shows the revenue

estimates for both the county and the schools. For the county, there's a $4 million increase in new revenue. I want to point out that 2.3 million almost 2.4 million um is from the PSA to cover the new utilities division for fiscal year 27. For the schools, there's a 3.8 increase $3.8 8 million increase in revenue, of which 3.6 million is in new state revenues. The proposed budget includes a 5-cent tax rate increase, which adds 6.4 million in new monies for fiscal year 27. Next slide shows the distribution of new revenue for the proposed budget as presented in the budget document. Undesated revenue is 7.4 million. designated revenue total 6.8 million for a total of $14.2 million in new revenue. As you can see, uh the school's allocation is 56% of that money and the counties is 44%. Typically, the county only sees a modest increase in designated revenues each year. Again, that $2.4 million kind of pushes that number up um of the 3 million in designated revenue. Again, that's money that is coming from the PSA to support the the new utilities division. This next chart shows the historical funding allocation between the county and the schools. The county has consistently provided a significant portion of the total budget to MCPS. Um if you go back to 2022 um we were roughly providing 71% of the total budget to the schools and the county was getting around 29%. For many years that number has has fluctuated around 7030. So historically 2/3s of the budget has been allocated to the schools

and 1/3 going to the county. In fiscal year 23, the county began providing 24-hour u 7-day a week fire and EMS coverage in eastern Montgomery and the Riner area by utilizing career staff. The commitment to providing this service to citizens has necessitated changes to the traditional split of the total budget between the schools in the county. And as you can see in 26 and 27, we're at 67 and 33%. This next slide shows two charts comparing fiscal year 22's approved budget with the fiscical year 27 proposed budget. And this shows the shift between um the schools from 71 to 67%. As you can see from these charts, the allocation of the county's budget reflects the board's top priorities of education and public safety. This next slide shows where the revenue comes from, what sources make up the fiscal year 27 proposed budget. Total budgeted revenues are 285.7 million. Designated revenues, which are earmarked for specific purposes, total 43.1%. Of the county's undesated revenue, real estate taxes make up nearly 36% of the total budget. Next slide shows the county's undesated revenue. Undesated revenues are unrestricted revenues and they can be used for by the board for just about any purpose. Real estate taxes make up the largest revenue source for the county at 63.1%. This next slide shows where the money goes. Total budgeted expenditures are

285.7 million and the schools receive 67% of the total budget. Next slide shows the historical funding um from the county to the school operating budget. And this chart shows you information over the past 14 years. The transfer for fiscal year 27 is set at 69.4 million. And basically this chart shows a steady increase in local funding from year to year. The next slide shows the county school revenue increase by category from fiscal year 22 to fiscal year 27. New county dollars total 4.1 million. As you can see in the chart, the amount of support in blue has increased each year since fiscal year 22. Angie already highlighted some of these items that are listed as county agenda, but here's a comprehensive list. I'll point out a few things. 4.1 million is added to the transfer to the school operating fund. 3% compensation increase at $1.3 million for county employees and roughly $600,000 for new position. Total increases for fiscal year 27 total 8.2 million. Talk a little bit about positions. I'll start with the fiscal year 26 offcycle positions. These were positions that were added to the base budget in 27. There were three positions that were added uh due to um requirements by the state. One position was added in the clerk of the circuit court that was added by the compensation board. One new position was added to the Commonwealth

Attorney's Office. And then one position was added to social services that was a federal grant uh that was supporting um uh family services. Locally, there were uh 22 and a half positions um added. Um these have no cost to the county. 2.4 4 million that I talked about earlier and local recover cost revenue supports 22 positions for the utilities division from the PSA and then the libraryies part-time classified position of.5 of an FTE that was actually a position that was added in last year's budget but when it was originally requested it was requested as a non-classified position and then later was requested to be classified. So all we did was change the classification, but there was no dollars to the the budget. New positions for fiscal year 27. As an Angie explained, we have a multi-year strategic plan in place to address staffing needs for the county. For fiscal year 27, the proposed budget adds 6.75 FTEEs. The director of real estate position is added as a county moves to bianual real estate assessments. The finance manager position is added to supplement existing staff and to assist in completing financial statement audits. The adoption foster coordinator position is added to focus on dog fosters and adoptions. In general services, funds are added to cover the cost of one part-time building inspector, one solid waste manager position, and one HVAC technician position. Finally, one additional family services specialist position is added to provide services and assistance to the adult population as a result of new guardianship requirements by the state. Total increase is 6.75 FTE.

Next slide shows the total proposed budget. Again, it's 285.7 million. Total increase is 14.9 million over last year's budget. And the general government fund again 2.4 is included for the division. This next slide shows budgeted expenditures from fiscal year 22 to fiscal year 26 or sorry fiscal year 27. Um again the total proposed budget for fiscal year 27 is 285.7 million. Talk a little bit about next steps. As Angie already stated, there's a joint meeting with the school system on March 16th. Establish the advertised tax rate and budget on March 23rd. The public hearing was moved from April 2nd to April 9th um due to some additional um advertising requirements. And then the plan is to adopt the budget and tax rate on April 20th. And that's all I have this evening.

Thank you, Mark. I'd like to thank you and all the other staff. Lots of people helped put this together. Lots of people spent many hours um working through these numbers, working through the process, and I and helping us make it look pretty. So, I really do appreciate all the work that went into this. I also wanted to add that with this document that we have that's a one-page uh summary. We have these available for the board and also for citizens if they would like to see them and we'll be able to uh share those as we move forward into the other meetings that we're going to have related to the budget. Thank you.

Great. Thank you all. Um typically on uh for this presentation when we re receive the budget for the first time it's a fairly large document and so we take some time to read and absorb that information and then um come back. We have several meetings on the calendar so we have the opportunity to come back several times with questions. Um and so we are then ready to move to our next item on the agenda. Okay. Thank you Mark. Thank you, Angie. And then the next item on our agenda is um public hearings. And tonight, uh we have a public hearing. We have three different resolutions on our new business section that we have to vote on separately. Um but we're they're all very similar. Um, so the public hearing is regarding temporarily changing the A3, E3, and F3 precinct polling places from Squire Student Center on Virginia Tech's campus to Mccomomas Hall. This is for the April 21st, 2026 special election only and is due to um some construction and renovation that's occurring in Squire's Hall. So, they are not able to hold the elections there. Um, do I need to add anything else before I open the public hearing?

No, I think you covered that one. Thanks.

We've we've gone back and forth on this one a couple of times. We scheduled them, had to reschedule them. So, we're here now to hear these public hearings. I'm going to go ahead and review the guidelines for public address. We do have them on the screens around the room. Um, but the guidelines for public address and for public hearing are the same. So, I'm going to go ahead and review those guidelines and then open the public hearing. Um a public address signup sheet was available outside the meeting room. Speakers can come forward um after anybody that signed up h has already had their chance to speak. Um each speaker has four minutes whether speaking as an individual or representative and all comments must be directed to the chair and other supervisors from the speaker lectern at the front of the room. Please by begin by stating your name and address or where in the county you reside and debate between speakers and members of the audience will not be allowed. Speakers may leave any written statements and/or comments to the supervisors with the board clerk at the end of the um row here. And then speakers will be judged out of order should they engage in personal attacks, use profanity or abusive language or debate with the audience and not address the supervisors. Finally, accepted etiquette is to not applaud or make loud responses. So, first we will open the public hearing. Um, we didn't have anybody to sign up to speak to the temporary change in the polling locations for this public hearing, but if if there's anybody in the room that would like to come forward to talk about these polling locations, please come forward. Now, seeing nobody, we're going to close the public hearing and move to public address. And this is the time where anybody can speak on any issue um for four minutes um anything that's kind of going on. So we do have one speaker that has signed up to speak. Uh Miss Anna Vayan has signed up to speak this evening and then um after uh she is done then anybody else that wants to speak can come forward. Welcome.

Do you all have my handouts? Oh yes, they're coming. We'll wait to start your time until everybody has it.

Thank you. Okay. My name is Anna Vayan and I live in district A and I'm here tonight to talk about trends in per pupil expenditures for MCPS and school divisions across the state. Now I understand that if you fund the entire proposed FY27 school budget, then the raw raw dollar amount of that budget will have increased by 21% since FY24, which is a 21% increase over a period of 3 years, which is a lot. But I'd like to convince you that this is not a case of school budget asks spiraling out of control. Rather, it's a case of the schools asking for what they absolutely need to keep up with the best practices and the ability to compete with other Virginia school districts. If you look back over time, you'll notice that in fact from FY20 to 24, the MCPS budget grew at a significantly slower rate than school budgets across the state, resulting in a widening gap in per pupil expenditures with MCPS lower than the state. Um so the first chart shows per pupil expenditures for general operations that is per pupil expenditures from the school operating fund. Um the red line the top line shows the budget trend for per pupil expenditures um for all school operations across the state. And the blue and purple lines show per pupil expenditures for school operations at MCPS. Um so why are there two lines for MCPS, a blue and a purple? Um well, state data um covers only

through FY24. The purple line for MCPS is based on um state data which is in table 15 of the state superintendent report. Um now that table isn't out yet for subsequent years. So I needed to calculate the appropriate amounts for MCPS um for those last three years using local data. Um I actually did calculations not just for the last 3 years using local data but for each year from FY20 through FY27. And those are the blue that's the blue line there. And so I was pleased that I was able to recreate the purple line with our local data. And that's the blue line. Um, I'm saying I recreated it well because the purple and blue lines almost overlap. Um, so I feel confident that the um estimates for the three years where the state numbers aren't out yet are pretty accurate. Um, so let's see. So you can see that through FY24, which is where the red line stops, um the MCPS line is lower than the state line, meaning that MCPS per pupil expenditures were lower than state per pupil expenditures and the gap was widening. Um so MCPS per pupil expenditures were losing ground relative to state expenditures. Um, now MCPS per pupil expenditures did grow a bit faster in FY25 and 26, but if you eyeball the red line to extend it because they will keep growing through those next three years, um, the gains that we've made in the last two years are likely not enough to close that gap between MCPS and the state. And that's where FY27 budget comes in. Now, it's a

big um leap in funding, but if you eyeball that red line, you're still going to be lower than this than the state, and you're still not going to be as close. Your gap is still going to be wider than it was back in FY20 and FY21. So, I'm asking you to approve the full budget and get us closer to those um state per pupil expenditures. Thank you.

Thank you. And that was the only person that we had um sign up outside the room this evening. Is there anybody else that would like to come forward and address the board on any topic? Welcome Melo live in Charlesville. I just want to give y'all an update on the MVP boost. You step just a teensy bit closer to the mic. There you go.

Just want to give y'all an update on the MVP boost. They sent their second newsletter out last week. Um, and I just want to point out, and I'm not sure, I know y'all intervened, y'all should be getting it, but I don't know if it just goes to the lawyer, and if he gives y'all, do you forward it to him? I don't know if I'm No. Well, he could. And then y'all would know what I'm talking about when I come up here every two weeks to update you. Um, you know, they're they're very proud of this newsletter. Uh, it's got a cute graph on here showing the timeline and they point out their meaningful engagement and all that and how they've been just a great neighbor to everybody and how they want to keep everybody so well informed. But on that graph, they did leave out about the DEEQ, the public hearings that will come with that. And I just think that's a little rude not to add that. It seems it was intentional. Um, but I just want y'all to see how we have to dig for information or be very aware or constantly watching everything because even what they're sending out to the people that live within three miles, they're not including how they can fully engage um the way they brag about in their flyer or their newsletter. I'm sorry. But that's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Would anybody else like to come forward to address the board?

Welcome.

Hi, my name is Joshua Vana. I live in District F. Um here to talk a little bit more about the proposed MVP boost expansion project and the um Swan Compressor Station that MVP wants to build in Ellison. Um and in particular um some of the uh Elliston residents concerns about Norfolk Southern trains being um you know built up in front of road crossings that makes it um you know sort of unsafe and unable to operate uh traffic for folks living on um that side of the highway. Um, back in December on the 15th, a number of Eastmon residents came to communicate those concerns that, you know, NS trains were broken apart and blocking Cove Hollow Road. Um, you know, uh, Cletus Bohan among those testifying that this, you know, often prevented him from getting to and from work on time. Um, and I wanted to uplift in particular a uh a letter and a comment from um Penny Artist Nunees, who is also an Eastmon resident and um was uh worked for Norfick Southern for more than 30 years and is retired now from NS. Um, but she wrote a letter to um I think CC to all the board members and also to the county administrator and emergency services coordinator on February 3rd. Um to address some comments that were made about whether or not those trains were actually blocking. Um I think so I the best way I can do this is try to read as much as her of her letter as I can and um I'm not sure that she's heard back from anyone about it. I checked with her today and I I don't think she had. So, um this is from February 3rd from Penny Artistis Nunez to the county administrator and

emergency services coordinator with U board members CCD. Um I'm writing to writing this email to respond and correct supervisor uh Fijicowski supervisor report statement on January 12th 26 about Kofala road blockage by NS trains. He states that as he drives by uh Terrono, he has not observed the trains blocking Cove Hollow Road, though he has witnessed other road crossings blocked. Um, and she timestamps the um that comment from the document from the meeting. And I'm just going to sort of read excerpts from this. Um, Supervisor Fijicowski stated that folks at the last meeting that brought up a railroad crossing off of Route 460 to Cove Hollow Road in Elliston area. I haven't spoken this, but I have on a regular basis um gone up and down 460 seen the train stopped. The train sometimes sits there for 3 to four hours cuz I've gone back to gone to Rono back come back and the train is still sitting there. It does not block that intersection. Penny says, "I need to correct this statement regarding Cove Hollow Road. The trains that Supervisor Fijicowski sees parked are due to a crew crew change of hours of service." That's hos and they do not block Cove. When the hos are expired for the crew, the train has to stop. This allows them to plan to not block the road crossings. However, I'm talking about the trains that are stopped and blocking Kofala Road crossing number 469404U for convenience so that the Rono yard is less congested for trains getting in and out. NS wants to maximize the operational performance of the trains and crews so they push the trains as close as they can get to the yard irrespective of state law. Um that states that they are never allowed to block road crossings for more than 5 minutes without a train break. So in short um I'm I'm asking that maybe this this re this issue be revisited by the

board. I know understand the board is an intervenor with the fk on the boost project and that it is probably going to you know this is something that is happening is going on and will require um some advocacy from the board probably on behalf of folks uh living in the east area. Thank you very much for your time this evening. Is there anybody else in the room that would like to come forward and speak?

Welcome, sir. Yes, ma'am. Name's David Vanher on property down Py Road. I understand Mr. Lawrence had uh some information for me. I come in here to hear it. Okay. Um I think he has a card for you and then um if you wanted to stay, he can speak with you after the meeting. Okay. You say a card, a business card, just so you have his contact information and then he can speak with you afterwards. Thank you, sir. Is there anybody else in the room that would like to come forward to address the board? Seeing no one, we're going to move on from public address. We do not have an addendum this evening. Is there a motion on the consent agenda? So moved.

Second. Any discussion? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Miss Biggs I Mr. Gravski I Miss Karan I Mr. Kits Hi Mr. King Hi Mr. Fijicowski. I, Chair Demottz, I. Seven eyes. First item of new business. Like I said, when we had the public hearings, we had one public hearing for three actions. And so now we're going to take three separate actions. Uh, so the first is the ordinance to temporary change the A3 polling precinct, excuse me, the A3 precinct polling place from Squire Student Center to MCOMUS Hall due to renovations. Is there a motion regarding A3? Motion

second. Any discussion? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Gravski, I. Miss Karan, I. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. King. Hi. Miss Fijicowski. Hi. Miss bigs. Hi. Chair Dematz. I. Seven eyes. Okay. The next is shockingly similar. This is the ordinance to temporary change the E3 precinct polling place from Squire Student Center to MCOM's Hall. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Miss Karan, I. Mr. Kits, I. Mr. King. Hi. Mr. Ficowski. I. Miss. BGS. I. Mr. Gravsky. I. Chair Demottz. I.

Seven eyes. All right. And triplets here. So the third one is the ordinance to temporary change the F3 precinct polling place from Squire Student Center to MCOMU's Hall. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Madame clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Mr. Kits, hi. Mr. King, I. Mr. Shakowski, I. Miss BS, I. Mr. Gravky, I. Miss Karan, I. Chair Demottz, I. Seven eyes.

Okay. And then the next item of new business is an appropriation for the Longot McCoy Fire and Rescue signage. Um, this was requested by Supervisor Graphsky that we um outfit that facility with signs similar to those seen at other fire and rescue buildings across the county. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Yeah, let's think about it. I appreciate y'all supporting us and I know Chief Sheieler does as well. Thanks for bringing it up. Madame Clerk, would you call the role please? Mr. King, I. Mr. Mr. Fijicowski. Hi, Miss Bgs. I Mr. Ksky, I Miss Karan, hi. Mr. Kits, I chair dematz. I

seven eyes. Okay. The next item is an appropriation. It's a transfer um within MCPS funds to the school nutrition fund. This is related to um school breakfasts. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Is there any discussion? Just one thing. Sure. They want to move from operation budget to nutrition, right? Yes. And I'll let Angie.

When the board of supervisors approved the budget and appropriated the funding for fiscal year 26, um there was a procedural accounting kind of entry that needed to be made and this is just cleaning that up. So the what happens is we transfer the money to the school operating fund and then the school operating fund transfers it to the school nutrition fund. So all those costs can be in that it should been to the nutrition stat operation to start with. Right. That's it. Thank you. Any other discussion? Madame clerk if you'll call the role please. Mr. Fijicowski I. Miss Bgs. I. Mr. Gravski. I. Miss Karan. Hi. Mr. Kits. Hi. Mr. King. Hi. Chair de Matz I.

Seven eyes. Okay. The next item is a Montgomery County public school supplemental appro appropriation. Uh this is for school capital um improvements and this is um out of the bond proceeds. We do have a resolution and a list of the funding requests. Um the school board has approved this request. So the total is $495,500. Is there a motion? So moved. Second. Okay. Is there any discussion?

Yeah, I just wanted to know about the sinkhole at Blackburg High School, like where it is and is it going to be a problem for anything? And the only reason I'm asking that is from my memory of what happened to the old Blackburg High School. And I think we have Mr. Brown here. Um the and I'm not sure if you're director of facilities, director uh of facilities and he can handle that question. And is it Dr. Brown or Mr. Brown. Uh, Dr. Dr. Brown, my apologies, sir.

No, no problem. Uh, the sinkhole at Blackburg High School um is approximately it's near the student parking lot near Brewan Lane. It's not jeopardizing any structures at this time. Um, we were made aware of it um right right around Christmas and began investigating it. And the money that we're asking for right now is just the first phase. It's actually to see what we're dealing with so we can come up with a plan. Uh we've engaged a a civil engineer and a geotechnical engineer to help us with that. So what we're asking for is the ERRI um examination to see where all the little fissures and everything are, but we currently have it blocked off. Um so for safety, we have an actual fence around it right now. Um, I'll try to describe best of where it's at. It's approximately 25 to 30 yards above the student parking lot nearest Breuin Lane.

Okay. Yeah. But it's not near any buildings or anything like that. So, the idea is to to sort of evaluate it and see if it needs to be mitigated in any way. Is is that what you're looking at? Yes, we're going to evaluate it. It will it will need repair. We just need to figure out what type of repair that is. Um so we want to we want to investigate make sure we have the correct plan before we go out and start filling the sinkhole. But we have been made aware that it will continue to grow. So Oh dear. Okay. Well, thank you for that because when I saw that I was of course worried. So thank you.

It's it's not it's not near any any structures. Um, and it's it's quite a distance away from any parking lots or or roads, but it will continue to grow. So, any additional questions. Let's go. Yeah. Just hang out with us for a minute. Um, yeah, I I I didn't want you to walk off and then have to come back. Now, I don't think you were here at the time, but if my memory serves me correct, did we do some roofing replacement at Kips Elementary last summer? Yes, we did. Okay. And we just didn't install snow guards at that time or this is to my knowledge of that or

to my knowledge there was no mention of snow guards needed and the the roof that the snow fell off of was a metal a metal roof. Um once we received information about that u snow falling off the riffic hips, we went around to all of our facilities to to do an evaluation to see what exactly we had uh going on. Um we have snow guards at the majority of our schools and the other schools have a shingle roof with a pitch that does not promote the shedding. It was it was this past snow or the snowrete event as we as we call it um was was a an oddity but still there's exist a possibility the snow could come off and we'd like to address that with the snow

absolutely yeah I don't disagree with that just a step further at the operations facility we actually have a slate roof on that on that building and to my knowledge it's it's been an issue in the past but it it wasn't addressed and we'd like to address that now with some with some snow guards. Now, that's a little bit higher because it's a slate roof, but uh we we do believe that it will help in safety. Oh, absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Sure. Do we have any other questions for Dr. Brown? Okay. I'm not seeing any more questions. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Is there any other discussion before we move to a vote? Okay. Seeing none, Madame Clerk, if you'll call the role, please. Miss Bigs. I. Mr. Mrs. Hi, Miss Karan.

Hi, Mr. Kits. Hi, Mr. King. Hi, Mr. Fijicowski. Hi, Chair Deont. Hi. Seven eyes. Okay. And our final uh new business item this evening. Believe supervisor Biggs, you brought this to us, correct? Right. This is a proclamation um on problem gambling awareness month for March 2026. Is there a motion? Some moved. Second. Okay. Is there any discussion? Would you like to say anything about that? Just that um Mr. Wade from New River Valley Community Services asked if we would do this and uh so I think a lot of localities are doing it. So, thank you for getting it on the agenda.

Of course. And I think as um more and more casinos are opening across the Commonwealth, it is something to be aware of. Is there any other discussion? Madame Clerk, if you'll call the RO, please. Mr. Grassi, I. Miss Karan I Mr. Kitz I Mr. King I Mr. Ficowsky I. Miss BS I. Chair Deontz I. Seven I's. Okay. And now we'll move on to reports. County attorney's report. Uh, no report, Madam Chair.

Disappointing. County administrators report. Already provided a fairly large report. So, I will just update you with a couple dates. We already mentioned um Monday, March 16th will be the joint meeting with the schools here in the government center in MP2. and that will begin with dinner at 6:30 and the meeting will start at 700 p.m. and that will be um livereamed as well and also available later for folks to watch if they would choose to do that. And then there are two onward events this coming week as well. One is on Wednesday evening. It begins at 5:30 and there's one on Thursday from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. If you need more information about that, you can let us know. But I think everyone received those invitations as well. That's all I have. That was a small one. Thank you. Um and now we'll move on to board members reports and I will start with Supervisor Biggs.

I don't have a report tonight, but I do want to thank um staff for organizing this budget and it for some reason it looked bigger than last year, but it looks like it's still got what 300 pages, right? It's like and I think that was Yeah, like 285 and I think last year it was it's close to the same. Yeah, we tried to make it so it will stay together bigger better so it might look bigger. Well, thank you for all the work cuz it's a lot of work. It is a lot of work. I do appreciate the staff. Okay, that's all. Okay. Uh, Supervisor Gravki.

Sure. Um, I was sad that our uh, representative from the American Red Cross couldn't be here because I was so excited to share that I donated my 44th pint of blood last week at the Red Cross. Um, Was that look pale? Pale.

No, now we have these longer days in sunshine and warmth, so that'll change a little bit. Um that and then um also last week I had the opportunity to attend Dr. Gimple's uh final in-person um community um presentation at Prices Fork Elementary. Um so it was great to hear from him. It was great to hear from the parents, the staff, the principal at Price's Fork, you know, talking about the things that are going well in MCPS, the things that they want to see changed. Um, Dr. Gimple was very engaging. I I know several of you have been to some of his other presentations, but it was it was just really nice to kind of see him uh engage and and just have some real conversations with folks. Um, so enjoyed that. looking forward to the outcome of all of those meetings. Um but that's all I have for this evening.

Great. Supervisor Karan.

Um I had a a nice invitation. I I received nice invitation from Margaret Big's um playground opening. They had two playgrounds uh build one on the uh lower end and the one in the upper one for younger kids, one for older kids. And I think the older kids um is done with the county money and it's a beautiful setup and they're very thankful. They had popcorn, a lot of little people which was nice to see little people. I haven't seen little people lately. So I enjoy uh chatting with the parents and the structure is safe and beautiful and they are all very thankful for the board's approval. And then I had a school visit with uh Dr. Gimbo. I visited CHS, CMS, CES, and CPS. That was actually long morning from 8:30 to 1:30. Uh we uh you know to the CHS the first and that took a little longer obviously because we visited the um you know construction site and uh it is going very well. It's going to be very nice and everybody that toured also very thankful and then I attended I think with Miss Speaks to um family night at falling branch at one point and the chambers leadership conference. That's hope.

You've been busy. Great. Supervisor King don't have no report, but remember there's a burn ban on. Don't start outdoor fires until 400 p.m. 12:00 a.m. You cannot put no more fuel on the fire. Thank you.

Thank you. We can always count on you, Supervisor Kits. I'm going to go in a completely different direction right now, but NCAA tournament's coming up. Tech women are uh on the bubble, so hopefully, fingers crossed, they get in. They'll get announced on the 15th. For the men's team, starts out as a proud Hookie alum. I'm just kind of pushing this. Uh starts the ACC tournament. So hopefully they can pull through the ACC and go that way. I've never gone to sports. I always stay government, but I'm pulling for the Hookies this time because they're on the bubble right now and they need to get through the tournament. So that's all I have. Thank you. Vice Chair Physicowski,

I don't really have a report, but I will say that um I'm a little disappointed that uh we're proposing a 5- cent uh tax increase uh this year. I recall that last year uh we were told that the 1-cent increase was only $20 a month on their mortgage payment for a $300,000 home. And so my math is not really good, but I'm thinking this would be a $100 increase on their mortgage payment. And I hope citizens come and share what they think about it. So that's all I got.

And I will uh follow up with some sports news. This is probably one of the very few times that I will ever have anything sporting related. Um, but Virginia Tech men's wrestling uh just became a repeat ACC champion over the weekend. So, they had a really, really great season again this year. So, congratulations to them. And I am not seeing any other comments. So, this meeting is adjourned.