City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening and welcome to all. This Picosen City Council work session is called to order. Very pleased to have with us tonight our school board members. Uh seated to my left is Chair Chris Burbage. Uh to my right, Vice Chair Mike Dubose, our school board members uh Kristen Jones, Miss Caitlyn Osborne, Mr. Chris Maxwell, and Mr. Andrew Dow. So, thank you all for being here. Uh we have two topics on our agenda tonight during the work session. The first is a joint school board and city council budget discussion, followed by a city council budget discussion. But like we talked about in previous joint work sessions we've had, we very much appreciate the mutualistic symbiotic relationship that exists between the two governing bodies. Uh this relationship is vital to the long-term viability and sustainability of the independent city of Picosen. And in the role that I currently occupy, that is my number one priority above and beyond all else. If we if we thrive, we do it together. If we don't, we do that together as well. So, we certainly need each other. Combine my past role as a school board member and my present role as a council member. Uh this is my 15th budget. Uh without a doubt, this one is more difficult than any other that I've encountered. Uh there are three major factors involved. All three of those are beyond our control. Uh those would be the the tax exemptions of which total $2.7 million.

The increased expenses for our employee health care coverage has increased by 19% uh since last year. Uh that totals about $563,000. And then we get to the increased LCI which the state of Virginia recognizes Picosen as a affluent community for that. We're very thankful and uh as a result of that they increased our LCI which has resulted in a hole in the school's budget by 3/4 of a million dollars. And you combine all those three factors together and we are faced with $4 million of headwind at the beginning of the budget development process as they usually do. uh Randy Tanya uh and our exceptional staff have improvised, adapted, and overcome. Uh we're very thankful for them. And I would also like to specifically recognize Miss Robin Bellamy. Uh Robin has come back out of retirement to serve as our acting finance director. So Robin, thank you very much. Really really appreciate your your generosity with with your time. The manager's proposed budget is a result of input from city council uh during our recent budget retreat uh as well as work sessions and one-on-one meetings that that Randy I have with individual council members. As y'all would remember, last year we prioritized uh the compensation pay plan for the school system. Uh we were able to

provide an additional 600,000 combined with the state contributions so that the compensation plan could be implemented. Uh we're very thankful to have been able to do that and from what I can understand uh it's had a very positive impact. So that that's what we're here to do as best we can. In light of that this year, we we need to look after compensation of our city employees. uh the positions that we hold as council members. Uh it is uh of the highest priority to take care of the employees that come to work every day and support the exceptional standards that we've become accustomed to, appreciate and and have come to expect. And the the trick for us is to do that uh while also providing proper support to our school division. Manager's proposed budget uh does just that. Thank you to Randy and staff for for y'all's contributions. And I wanted to open this point work session by providing some context. So I've done that and I'll turn it over to Chair Burbage for his comments. Thank you, Mayor Hu.

Yes, sir. Missing you may. Thank you.

Oh, I don't think we Oh, there we go. We're good. We're good. I can just talk loud. They can hear me back there. Okay. Uh for the citizens of Picosen, I just wanted to give a opening remark from the school board. Uh good evening, mayor, members of city council, and our city manager. On behalf of the Pakosen City School Board, I want to thank you for the opportunity to come together for this annual joint budget work session. We value this time to collaborate, discuss priorities, and continue strengthening the partnership that supports both our schools and our community. I would like to extend our appreciation to each of you for your continued support and commitment to the students and families of Picosen. Your investment in our schools is an investment in the future of our city and we are grateful for that shared vision. Please allow me to offer the superintendent's apologies for not being with us this evening due to a prior commitment. He is attending the Virginia Superintendent Conference in Rowan Oak, Virginia. At this time, I would like to introduce members of the Picosen City Public Schools leadership team who will present an overview of the fiscal year 2027 school budget. Joining us are assistant superintendent of instruction, Miss Ashley, Assistant Superintendent of Operations, Mr. Andrew Roberts, former Chief Financial Officer, Miss Tracy, Mrs. Tracy Spence and our new Chief Financial Officer, Miss Heather McGeligette. Thank you again for your partnership and continued support. We look forward to the discussion this evening. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Burbage. Uh and with that, we will open the floor a discussion by council members and schoolboard members. So, please feel free to chime in. All right. Well, I will start. Um, question. I know that in the presentations there has been a possibility of not just a 2% increase, but a possibility of a 3% increase depending on how the state budget shakes out. Um that 3% would be for the um SOQ positions. Um if that does pass and if the board um takes out 3% across all positions, is there a plan of where that extra funding would come from?

That would Do you want to Yeah. Thank you for that question. Um currently right now um we had a presentation but you have it there at your seats where we had as you said had budgeted 2%. if there and that's also in addition to funding our compensation increases was also funding our additional instructional cost due to um lapsed grant funding opportunities as well as our maintenance and operation due to increased contract cost trying to keep our schools and facilities in operational order. So, if we had, we're waiting to see basically what's going to be done here at the city council level and then we're going to go back and determine at that time with this team and the superintendent to see where the cuts could come from. Of course, we have to um balance the needs of the uh for the our staff as well as all the support services we have for our students as well as in our maintenance area. So that would be uh time in which all the parties will come to the table in the departments and start addressing what can be cut. Some things are contract based. So, with our joint operational um agency in uh agreement with New Horizon, some things we we can't really control because they're already set similar to any type of the city council may have. Um so some things we could we want to make sure that in no way do we um hinder the ability of the staff to

provide an excellent education for the students and and be able to sustain the high performance which Picosen City Public Schools is known for. And am I thinking right? And I might have the wrong number in my head whatsoever, but if there is the additional 1% to make it to the three, would that be you would need to find is it about 216,000? That's right. But the state will fund half of that. So it's the other half.

But like I said, we've not um we know what's in your uh current budget document. What's going on over? We don't know what's in the what's going to be in your approved budget document. So, right now we have found the 50 that we knew there was a gap, but that was based on the Picosa City's uh board approving a 2% raise, which is my understanding is the hope and wishes that a 4% would be given to the school staff um depending on funding. If if I understand it right, Mr. Wheeler can speak to that. But um so it just it just really depends. Right now we know we're we're in about a $49,000 $50 hole and um if we go to the 3% then that would be another hundred and some thousand hole we'll have to find. Now if it's determined in order to have equity among the school staff and the city staff at four, it's a whole different discussion. So,

so I I think to answer your question about the right now we have 2% in the budget if it the the 3% is sitting in the Senate right now and if that gets approved the state would give us funding for the additional or for the 3% for the SOQ positions the nonsoq positions which is approximately what% of our employees 45% 45 that's 45% we would have to come back to city council for those funds to to fund those soq positions because I don't know that we have that money in currently we do not

okay what would be the amount that you would need to come back to request 3% would be oh sorry it's an additional aboutund $156,000 2% was4 433,000. So the 3% additional what? And it will be a total additional 200 but the the state funds 45% of that when I look at the local like 100 change. Thank you. So I and I'm sorry. So this the total is 200 for an additional 1% and then the state would come back with half of

the state would pay 55% of that and the city would have to the additional 45% that's back at the envelope.

Thank you. I have more but I was gonna give you a chance. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I have one and you brought up the the first one. Back in March of last year, Miss Fence, you gave us the thing that talked about the 55% comes from the state, 45 comes from local, but you left out the federal, which based on the numbers I pulled out for the projection, uh, FY27, uh, based on the numbers you'd asked for, it's like 41% local, 55% state, and 3% federal. Um is is that right?

Um the federal was it was left off in purpose because federal grants will fund the federal increase. So the the amount that you're being provided for the 206,000 or over a little over 200 for each 1% that is just for nonfederal grant non-federal grant employees.

Does that answer your question? Well, it it kind of answers the question, but it leaves out the fact that we're going to get about a million dollars from the feds. Um, which goes into the the money asking for to keep the school running for another year. Matter of fact, it's in every year. It's in the front of your nice book. Talks about it. You know, it's right there, local, state, and then federal, but just never mentioned in the presentations. I curious why it's never mentioned in the presentations. That's one of the questions.

Um, are you asking in relation to personnel expenditures or just in general? So, I want to make sure I direct you and I answer the question that you're asking me. Yes, but it's never mentioned in pres section two. So total total funds, total state funds, and total federal funds, right? Spence, why don't you explain where the federal funds go? Okay. A lot of those are

federal Yeah, the federal funds as far as the revenue source is correct. It's just in the the area that you just pointed to, but if you go to the back where it says under grants, that's where it begins with all the grant funding. So when we go through those in the 2006 2020 uh 27 um spend we have 179,000 that's coming from title one 185,000 for the national school food service Carl Perkins is at 23,000 title 2 is 41,000 title 4 is 11 the title 6B is our largest program at $448,000 in dollars which is primarily for salaries and benefits. Title one is primarily for salaries and benefits. Title two is primarily for salaries and benefits. So when personnel increases occur in those grants, they have to fund the grants. And then the last one is our K through five literacy. Um it was a multi-year grant and in 2627 we only have 30,000. the federal funds were reviewed last year during the tariff discussion that they had nationwide and also not only the tariffs but it was the um when you the United States Department of Education there was some issue whether or not what was going to happen with all the federal monies. So at that time it was shared with the city how much we had tied up in federal money and how much was personnel related. help explain the title grants, what they do.

Okay,

so I'd like to explain what the title grants do. That might be helpful for you. Um, title one goes to serving students in certain economic subgroups who might fall below uh the poverty level. So we are required in that title one grant to spend money focusing on students who are not achieving and who might fall in those subgroups. So the federal government tells us how we have to spend those monies. And title two that is related to professional learning. Again, we have to spend those monies in that category. Title four is for the well-rounded child. That's about a $10,000 grant. It's very minimal. Again, they tell us exactly where we have to spend that money. Could be related to health, safety, wellness. It could be uh for example, there's it's it's kind of a catch-all in a sense that our other programs don't do. Um, we used it this year to support our new steam classroom at the primary to buy supplies for that classroom that we did not have otherwise. And title 6B is for our students with disabilities. So, what she's saying is when those budgets do increase, but they tell us exactly how to use those federal monies. We don't have any leeway outside of the parameters of that grant. So we can decide within those grant parameters how we spend that money but it has to be databased. Our data has to show that we need to spend it in that category. So for example um it could be a needs assessment that the community or the teachers say we want to increase our STEM offerings and we have to show student achievement data to support that and we cannot spend outside of the rules of that grant.

Is that based on the number of students are in those particular programs? No, it's not based on the numbers that are in those programs except for title one is based off of the number of students receiving free and reduced lunch and it is generally based off of the size of our division. And so there's a pot of money in the state of Virginia will divide that up. Occasionally they'll say um you might get a little bit more. In our case it's been a few thousand dollar and I'm not exaggerating a few hundred or maybe $1,000 that our budget would increase. But again, we have to spend it within the parameters of the grant. Is that what you just explained in here?

That is what she's explaining. And where those federal monies are accounted for in our budget is in the back of that workbook. But is it what you just explained to me in here? I I don't think the definitions of the of the title grants are in there. No, I don't because that's a budget workbook versus a definition. Could you put a section in? I'm sure we can update that to provide an explanation of the title grants. Yes, it would help. I'm almost embarrassed to say I've been here four years and just learning this now, but until I ask know asked the question, right?

For sure. And I know our board just approved uh for example our sped annual plan which is our title 6B and so we do give our board a thorough explanation of that and um those documents are of course attached to our school board docs as well. Kristen was telling me that the other day and I would like to what I got from that discussion was that we get very little federal money and it's mostly designated and I think that's the important point for our stu uh citizens to understand. Yes.

Yes. our federal funds based on the 2324 per pup people expenditure which is published on the sup VDOE superintendent annual report the federal funds only accounted for like 547 uh dollars per pupil for expenditures you can go on to the website again you can just Google VDOE annual superintendent report the 2425 just got posted today and it'll pro bring it up in an Excel file and you can actually see how really little the Kosen gets I think that somewhat speaks to Mayor Hux's original opening remarks about the um you have to consider the demographics of the community. So, um we do receive very little when you see the ones that have the really high per pupil cost like 27,000 per pupil and you look at the total, they get a lot of federal money. So, and we really we really don't. So, I'd like to ask a follow-up question to that. And Carrie, um, you are you were mindmeldding there. Um, so with the federal monies for folks at home and for some of us here at the table,

um, unspent federal monies have to go back. Is that correct?

That is true. We have two years in any given grant cycle. So when we uh had 6B just approved in our last board meeting, uh that would be for this coming school year and the next school year is our deadline to spend that. And if we do send grant money back, they do not take that very well. And so that could affect what we are allotted. So we very much work very hard to spend down every penny of that money. And so the correlary question to that is um do you budget money from the rest of your budget for these grant pro well for the programs that you're designated to. Do you understand what I'm asking?

Yes. And we're always mindful of um supplanting versus supplementing though. So we have to look at the rules and what we have budgeted and how we can allocate and then spend money. Um, so that's always a player in our mind. If it's something that we should be providing anyways, we cannot use a federal grant to do that. For example, textbooks. We need to provide textbooks. I cannot use the federal grant money to buy our highquality instructional materials, HMH, that was required by VLA because we were required to do that. That would be supplanting. So I have to find ways where it is also just supplementing and that takes a lot of needs assessment support creativity. It's the federal grants are asking us to push beyond our regular budget to provide extra if you will. So to take Car's question back to Keith's question, um when you add the definitions, it would be uber helpful uh to have like asterisks by those categories that are non-negotiable funds.

You understand what I'm saying? Because then that would help us know, look, this is a bucket, y'all. We we can't even talk about it afterwards. We can't. Yes. See what I'm saying? Absolutely. So that would be awesome. Mhm. Thanks.

Um, another question. So, I was reading in one of the briefs, this is, um, it looks like you had a big hunk of savings last year for um, operational efficiencies throughout the year. It looks like it was about 135,000. And it says the description, which is wonderful. Well, it's reflect uh it reflects careful monitoring of expenditures, cost controls, and prudent fiscal management across multiple areas of the budget. But then it says that those are one-time operational efficiencies. And I'm wondering if those savings practices that were able to save you $135,000, a big chunk of change, if those were incorporated as best practices moving forward so that that savings can be perpetual throughout the years. Each year they start with a zero budget. They have start with zero budgeting and um for example in those operational efficiencies particularly the maintenance and operation world. Mr. uh Roberts for example the contracts that you saw an increase for FY27 they were actually based on actual contracts and how they were renegotiated so um and the other operational efficiencies if it's in um usually materials and supplies are just one of those things fluctuate that fluctuates but um we do look at bundling purchases when whenever we can in order to save on shipping and things of that nature but if y'all want to add anything else I mean, just to say as anyone would budget, we're always looking for those, but yeartoyear those change. And so we we do employ best practices to be, you know, prudent managers of the tax dollars that we receive, but they're not guaranteed each year because we're not in control of the negotiations necessarily of what our vendors will allow us. I can give you for an example in the instructional world where we were

able to negotiate additional licenses at no additional cost for one of our platforms whereas this year they're providing zero licenses and we are to carry the full burden of that cost. So, we would always do our best. We always use the card, but we're a small school division and it would be really helpful. Thank you.

Um, the proposed 27 budget was presented at the February schoolboard meeting. Um, and I see the slides are here too. They just passed out to us. Under the revenue impact, it mentions a 1,64,000 in change uh increase in the city support. That number comparing FY26 budgeted revenue to proposed FY27 revenues. Uh the comparison is based on the FY26 original budget as amended in June of 2025 and it's comparing to FY27's request. And the um detail for what was asked to be funded is in the other three slides. I think the first one's called uh personnel, the second one's called maintenance and operations, and the third one is called the um uh tech. Yeah, instruction. There you go. Instruction.

Okay. So, basically it's comparing FY26's guesstimate FY267's guesstimate because we don't know what the states give therefore the rest. It's it's based on the FY27 is based on the governor's proposed 2% budget. So, speaking to your the guesstimate comment until we get a final budget that's signed by the governor, that statement is correct. However, we had to present a budget based on that. So, I just want to make sure that old apples apples thing. Um,

just out of curiosity, I was wondering when will the school board get back to us as to what FY26 actual numbers turn out to be? And with that information, will the FY27 projected numbers be adjusted? uh the schools should close up their books mid August and a preliminary carryover request is prepared at that time. And in regards to FY27, they're two distinct different items. So if the FY right now, what we're hearing is possibly a budget in June. If it is in June, um, for example, if the governor signs it mid June, the the VDOE staff has approximately two weeks to get what we call a count tool, which is is basically what drives our revenues, what we're going to get. So, our school board does not meet in July. So, we would have a proposed uh an amended FY27 budget presented in August. that that's if everything falls out good, you know, you know, all the all the stars line up.

Remember in the past there was one year we didn't get a budget and a Cal tool until September. Yeah. So that's hopefully that

I'm not asking for something you don't have. I'm just asking for the first time I saw the numbers for FY26 as far as what actually came down was in the paperwork for this. So, I mean, March seems a little bit long to wait for that kind of information. Um, another thing, back to my original question on that, uh, the 1,64,000 and change increase in city support. It would be nice to know what the overall city support is. I mean, just taking that little piece out, like saying it's going to go up by 5% or going up by a million dollars is nice to know, but nicer to know is is that million part of a hundred million dollar project, therefore it's small, or it's part of a $5 million project, therefore it's large. But we don't mention that in any of those slides.

Uh as far as your total contribution that is located, I know I I I can look it up. I just wondered why it it's in the it's in the school board's on that slide. It's in the long version of the budget in the sort of the pie chart and it's also in the superintendent's um budget transmitt. So

back to you. Okay. Um you had mentioned a slide that I would actually like I do have a couple questions. It's the personnel related costs slide. No, we're good. That has the net total projected cost increase of 656,000. Um the 656,000 that that would be the local portion of the cost. That does not include the state contribution to the cost increase. I guess the state the additional 2% that includes the the total additional 2%. Including the state.

Yes, that is correct.

Um on that so there are the increases um in that so with the net total projected cost increase of the 656,000 in that calculation anywhere is there an accounting of the VRS rate decrease of 2%. Yes. and the um the compensation 2% salary increase is shown on that slide as 432 that is the net amount. There was a number of variables that went into the total compensation increase and I tried to isolate the ones that are really the high dollar ones. So for example, the raise with benefits for just the general fund, what we call the general fund, not not federal grant funded items, was that 43,2900 as well as the insurance at 145. Then we had uh three other items added together that add that netted to approximately $572,000 cost. And what we found, and we talked about this numerous times in our schoolboard meetings, was when, thank goodness, we had the compensation plan implemented, we ended up having a lot of teachers come back in that were tenure teachers that we didn't have before, which which attributed to that cost, as well as um additional 27 cost uh identified for grants that had um lapsed. One was the DODIA grant. Earlier I mentioned there was only $30,000 for that grant. It started with a couple hundred thousand and a position was funded out of that. We had to absorb that. Now I want I would like to press pause right here speaking to like things like what are we you know how we're doing our savings and our planning. We have uh documents three years out as when these type of big grants are are falling off the falling off the page. So we make sure that we can fund the items

that that are supplying um a budget for things that are proven to work and also yeah in your case essential. Um also there were um we had savings the VRS savings offset that of 419,000 for just general fund alone. So we did so speaking to your point though it's not detailed in the slide it's taken into consideration in the total. So what we could do in the future when we have large variances such as VRS rate reductions, they can be separately identified. That would be really helpful. So to clarify, the 2% decrease is reflected in the 432,900.

And I I would like to press pause right here dealing with VRS. um people that are on the hybrid plan, they're not really taking advantage of the voluntary contribution as much. So, right now we have it budgeted very low. As the staff members get a little older and they start realizing they're not back on the, you know, the old plan, which was much more favorable for the employees, that they may start doing these voluntary contributions, which I hope they do. I think everybody hopes that your your teachers at the age of retirement has something to go to. It's not like it was under plan one. So, I just want to mention that if you see that in the future, Miss McGill would will mention it that we're seeing we're seeing people tracking maybe higher and we have to match that up to a certain percent. So, I just want to mention that to you as well.

Do you know the dollar value of that 2%? Do you happen to have that? It was 419. Are you how much the the savings was for the VRS rate decrease

for for the total savings was 419. Now what it is related to you know you got to understand we're also going from people that were here in FY26 and then they've come and gone and we have to do it as a a flash of time of who we got employed and that's who we have to fund into the next year. Now once they we have some attrition and sometimes we'll have some savings there but we do we budget them at a lower I think it's uh bachelor's five is how we're budgeting it but sometimes that can flip. So what I'm hearing let me know if I'm hearing this right. So the savings was about 419,000.

So if we didn't have that savings that would be added to the 432,000. So the 2% salary increase would be 850,000 approximately.

But I would make a note here. Um Miss IDE did a very great job of going back um and saving another 85,000. We were really speaking to how we challenged how we do business. So, and um she found $85,000 in savings and trying to move classes within the um within the different schools. So, that was another additional 85,000 of savings, but but that's done. That's one and done. Now, we feel pretty situational. It's situational. Yeah. So, we feel like we've identified those one and done. So,

back to me. Um our city treasur does a great job of what he calls his school snapshot about every quarter. Talks about where the money that he's paying to the school system in order to keep things running. Um, and it talks about this here the the budgeted amount and then also prior year unspent money that was uh reappropriated. Um but as you understand spent budgeted money that's often reappropriated uh to cover other school expenses like in the CIP. Uh is it possible for that kind of money to be returned to the city Mr. Wheeler could also speak to this though in the state of Virginia it falls out that um whatever's left we have to it is the city's money. We actually book the payable on the books of the school and then the schools come to city council and request a car, you know, here's how we'd like to spend the carryover. At that time, the council can say yay or nay.

Okay, thank you.

That's it for me. Uh, do you have the current the most recent ADM numbers from March?

Yes, the March 31st ADM for the student verification report that was just signed last week was 2050. And how is that relative to the first part of the year to the fall numbers? Is that we had our budget is based on 2057 and we were hoping that that would be higher. Um but when our data specialist provided the numbers there were some adjustments that had needed to be made than what was previously reported and it g gave us a yield of 2050. The FY27 budget is based on still confident that we will get there. I know we just received last week I believe that um our kindergarter kindergarten new enrollies was 107 and this time last year was in the 80s. So we

still have lots of time to go they they're early adopters you so I just want to so I have a follow on to that that segus into a slightly different uh way of thinking. Um, I'm on the advanced coursework page of the presentation and I'm wondering just curious uh dual enrollment students, do they impact your average daily attendance or are they counting at 100%. They counted they count at 100%.

They do count at 100%. Um, have you all done an analysis at Well, first, um, who funds dual enrollment? Is it BPCC? Is it grants? Is it the high school?

It is. Our local school board approved last year monies to fund our college now program. Um there is some recent legislation that has made some of the coursework free or no cost to us as a division. And so some of our savings that we're able to operationalize from that came from that legislation. Um that is new this year. So we're still feeling that out. Our cohort is also growing. So we started with about five students getting the full associates degree. However, we have as you can see the number much more than that taking advantage of what we call alleart dual enrollment courses that would support whatever their goals are. Some just getting a few credits knocked out of the way, some getting 30. Ultimately that uh associates of social science at 60 credit hours. Um, and so that is already in our approved schoolboard budget last year and this year. We cover that at no cost to our students when that legislation doesn't cover that. So there are specifications in that legislation that at no cost is for the passport in the UCGs, which is a uniform certificate of general studies. That legislation does not cover a full associates degree. So, anything beyond those courses, and I would be happy to provide a handout for that. I did not bring one tonight specific to what classes are in Passport, UCGs, and the associates, we have to cover those costs. If we have an instructor on campus at our high school, we're already covering those costs. For example, uh Mr. Bailey at the high school teaches all of the dual enrollment English classes. He is a saint for that. There's a lot of writing. It's very writing intensive. And so that is already covered in a salary that we provide. We buy the textbook like we would any other course that we provide a textbook for. Um and

so we don't pay Virginia Peninsula Community College for that course. Where we do have to pay is if we have to send that student on campus because it's not available here. So it could be free at no cost if it's offered virtually provided by a Virginia Peninsula facilitator or one of our own staff members. And again under that passport UCGs model when we have to send students on campus for anything beyond that we do have tuition for uh and transportation cost and textbook cost. But our school board has committed that we cover that at no cost to ensure that everyone has access to that opportunity uh irregardless of what maybe their family can provide.

And I remember that vote last year and being part of the conversation. I was for it. Um, you know, one of the growing trends in the world is or in our nation is that students want that dual enrollment credit. My daughter graduated with 21 hours already done. Yes. Um, and that was wonderful. It wasn't an associates degree, but she did the allocart and studied what she wanted to study plus other courses uh that she took during the summer that the school wouldn't allow her to take. She's like, I'm taking them.

Um, and that's wonderful. I'm looking at and this is where I was getting ready to go to with the analysis and this may not be the right venue for this conversation but it would be helpful to understand um what part of the budget is represented by dual enrollment advanced placement and honors courses um and I see because we have significantly more students who are involved in honors and advanced placement and again I'm thinking about future trends and what our students and their families want for them. Um, you get dual enrollment credit, that credit's yours. You take an advanced placement class, you may or may not pass the test. And you have to pay for the test. Correct.

And that's we pay for the test. We pay for commit, but there's still a cost associated cost associated with the test. And honors enrollment, these look good for your uh more advanced schools,

but dual enrollment is the trend that people are looking at. And I'm wondering why we only have 236 in this past year when my daughter probably represented a large chunk of that her junior and senior year just herself. I do have another slide that I didn't have here that related to number of students and course enrollments. It was about and I'm going to ballpark it here a little over 100 students maybe around 125 students and 183 courses that matched up to those students. Uh I want to go back. Honors classes don't cost us any more than an an average class. It just is uh teachers putting in more time to adapt the curriculum to have it at that accelerated or advanced pace. Uh typically they're using the same textbook but they're going a little deeper into it. So there's usually no cost for that. Um AP or advanced placement we budget around 40,000 and the primary cost associated there is the assessments and the training of the teachers. we absorb those textbook costs into our regular textbook fund which we re-evaluate every 5 to seven years or as dictated if a standard changed or something like that. Um and certainly we can take note of that if you'd like to see dual enrollment and AP sectioned out in the budget to to see that. We did propose that to our school board in our presentation and showed them um the amounts that we were requesting and when they approved it.

I'm all for data. Yes. Yes, ma'am.

I do have a question for Miss Spence, please. Uh, this is related to ADM. And just for public information, ADM is average daily membership, which to me is a confusing term. Uh, what that means is enrollment. Uh but when the state provides funding, they look at uh attendance and that's why attendance is so important uh for students to come to school every day because our local school funding is based on that attendance which they call ADM. This year it's my understanding that each student receives $7,500 a year in state funding.

That's an accurate figure. Yes. Okay. So, I just wanted to make that point for the public how important it is that we populate our

$7,500 per student. And going back to my school board days in I remember in 2016, I believe it was, and please forgive me if I'm not spot on with all these figures, but our enrollment peaked in in 2006 at about 262 students there thereabout. Uh since then, well between then, 2006 and 2016, my last year on the school board, uh we had dropped from that figure to uh in the low 2000s. And nobody would have thought, myself included, that that 10 years later, we would still be in 2000s. So, our school system has not grown to the extent that we had hoped for in that amount of time. But we're optimistic based on that, especially with the uh uh new students enrolling in kindergarten class. I I I know that's a a very accurate measure uh to to to where we are are headed. But doing the math on that overall, if we could get those 600 students back times $7,500 per student, think where we would be. And I know when we were at peak enrollment, we were well below physical capacity. Uh so we got room for a lot of students. Of course we would need uh more faculty and staff but from our our physical status. Uh we have plenty of room for improved enrollment. So thank you for the clarification.

I also want to mention one thing that really affects the city of Picosen is the LCI as you referred to at the beginning and one of the items is what they call the true value of real estate as reported by the city to the state. And I asked for clarification from Ed Lanza, who's head of part of our budget department for when you calculate the true value, does that do um does it consider uh property that you do not receive real estate revenue for? And he says it does the whole thing. That's what killed city of Pakosen. If you look at how the LCI was calculated two years ago and here, true value just went up. But as you just mentioned, you're not getting the money for that. So, so any and I know there's been a lot of things in the legislator about legislature about that. But definitely reach out to all your constituents to like really because it's really in their pocket because though it's a great item that we provide. I definitely don't want to do that. But I really think it's unfair for a locality to to do that burden, especially a small locality like here. But anyway, that's just fine. That's what killed that LCI.

Uh yes, ma'am. Thank you for your insight on that. And one good thing is the LCI at least next year it'll be a known figure. Yeah.

I mean, we have so many other uncertainties especially with the state budget which is not yet approved as we discussed earlier. at least next year even though it's not a favorable number for us at least we'll know what the LCI is next year so that that that's a known figure uh we're optimistic cautiously that maybe year after next uh it'll reverse uh I know it fluctuates over the years but but we can be hope for that um also superintendent till shared with the manager and I earlier that during the current school year the picosen school system is one of seven in the state, I believe, that actually grew. Uh it wasn't by much, but at least we were one of seven out of 132, I believe, uh school public school systems in the state. So, we can be thankful for that. But that's one of the things that motivates council for for what we do with that uh well well planned uh well-managed uh growth and development strategy is we have to do things to attract young families uh with with students to help populate our schools. And I also want to mention that uh Superintendent Tid Tlet and the um executive leadership team, we were trying to determine how we can assist the city to identify as children are moving maybe from are they are they coming into Picosen from the outside or are they moving and who's coming in that yeah moving within so we're talking um about how to get those type of reports from powers school and if we can go back we may have to stand up another year definitely we could go forward but I think it would be very helpful for the city to know we can actually track like if they live at 100 Bunting Road and they move move into the legacy you can't count that person but who moved into that address that's the piece we're missing now we can see who's moving but

so that's just an idea yes ma'am that was part of the discussion that superintendent Tilllet and chair Burbage and and the manager and and I discussed and and to your point about working together That collaborative approach cannot be overstated and it it's no accident that the school board office is just a few steps down the hall from city manager's office and city finance office. So we would certainly encourage as much collaboration as possible and we sit down and go through these numbers side by side

like like I said from the onset if we thrive we do it together. If we don't that's together as well. So, it's imperative that we work together on this stuff.

I do have another question. Uh I believe it was the last school board meeting. Um and uh there was an approval of uh well, the state contributed uh towards a $1,500 bonus for full-time. uh I think half that for halfime and then again the um school board um made that across a board and that was 270ish,000. Um and in that presentation uh there was a statement that uh the schools do have um enough carryover funds to cover that. What do you have an update on the projected carryover funds for this year?

You want to go ahead? Yeah. Um, we do not at this time. We are still working on end of year numbers. So, as Miss Spence said, um, we work toward the end of the school year and then it's August typically before we have those type of numbers. So, we are still working through all of that um, in order to get you a a solid number. But you know that you have at least the 270,000 to cover Yes. for end of year. Yes. But we do not have an estimate for carryover. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Talk about the ADM got me curious. Is that something like that you do over the an average like every week? Uh how many students are in the classroom or is that like a one spot check one day of the month or something like that?

They provide it monthly. Now we we've started monthly beginning in November, December and she was now she's got her calculations fine-tuned. So when we when we run into March 31st, we'll know what it is. Like for example, um we were waiting for that final number. We thought we knew what it was and now we we just literally just got it, I think, signed off last week. So, but now it's actually we don't start getting it until like October, November because the schools are still still settling down about who's coming and who's going as far as um getting all the data correct. But we really should have that on around November, December each month. And that's very helpful for us because it's been the history to retain 25% of materials and supplies from the schools, but they need that to operate, you know, so we'll be able to make more informed decisions and also keep our funding partners um apprised of what's going on. And if it's going up, we also that's another discussion to have with our funding partners if our ADM's going up. Miss Spence, just just as a point of clarification, you know, we we run ADMs on on a consistent basis,

but it's pulled once. That's right. For funding in October, and and it's not an average. It's pulled once. It's the March 31st count. They'll do their first one in the fall, but it we don't know until we sign that. It goes mid mid April when when that thing is signed. But um we will have an idea and I think that's what we're really trying to operate off here to get some more numbers up front earlier and um so

okay and um Superintendent Till likes to tell the story about um what was it his first year or second year here where they pulled the number and it was 1996 not not the year the number was 1996 was the was the ADM number and it was literally a few days post um a uh a massive adjustment for um from a military standpoint and a whole bunch of military children u moved out of the city and plummeted our ADM for that one single pull. So,

and and speaking to that, just what has happened in the last 12 months with our f at our federal installations. We were watching that really heavy because we get another another federal uh funding called impact aid which we really depend on, you know, it because that's less local money. So, we really try to track those populations. So, okay. Thank you. And still little thunder here. Thank you for your help the last couple years. It's It's really been never not answered a question. Uh and I really appreciate that. Just uh Mr. South Hall, go ahead.

Yeah. Just one question just to make certain this clear my mind. The future budgets will have a breakout for the federal and state monies that are earmarked that can be specifically spent in only certain ways so we can know what those are. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you. Uh concern to federal money. Uh, excuse me, Mr. South Hall. Concerning the federal money at one time, the percentage was about four to 5%. Is that still accurate? It is. I'm going to have to look. It's in here document. Let me look real quick. I don't have the It is um I'll say roughly because only 1 million out of a $33 million budget.

It It's a pretty small percentage. And that's just the point I wanted to share with the public is the federal support for the schools is is pretty minor. Um from the pers yeah from a perspective of time management we're getting close to the end of the hour. Uh if need be uh we can start the the regular session and uh we can continue this joint work session if if there's a need for it. But school board members, council members, are we Mr. That's all my questions. Okay. Thank you, Mr. I just have one comment. Yes, sir.

Way back, and this is no exaggeration. I was on the school board last century and we used to sit with council and they would harass us, do we really need five gallons of paint for that wall or can we thin it and make it four? And I'm so happy that we move to a much higher level discussion. Absolutely. Um, are there any other comments or questions? school board members, council members, cheer it up.

Uh, with that, I would like to make a closing comment if I could. And this goes back to January 4th of 2025. Uh, the the it it was prior to the first council meeting of the present term that we're in. Uh, council held our first ever strategic plan and retreat. Uh, one of the strategic initiatives that came out of that and uh, staff did a great job by the way assisting with that. But that strategic initiative is as follows. Commit to enhancing public employee compensation through targeted efforts in the annual budgeted process. We're in the midst of doing that. But I just wanted to clarify when we say commit to enhancing public employee compensation, that's not just city employees. That's city and school employees. So that was worded like that in intentionally in recognizing that the council does not dictate to the school board precisely how to invest the money that we provide. Considering the emphasis that we're putting on compensation this year, the extra million17,000 that's provided for the school system in the manager's budget. We we hope, but ultimately it'll be y'all's decision, but we had hoped that some money from that million7,000 could be funneled into compensation increases to help supplement that 2% uh that's in the adopted budget for the school system. So, that's our hope recognizing that ultimately it it's all decision uh to do that. So that's all I have. Uh thank you very

much for that. Thank you. Thank you very much. Any any any closing comments? Very well. Uh thank you all so much for being here and and for your contribution. And with that, we will adjourn uh the joint work session. And in just a minute, we'll call to order the regular session. So thanks again.

Good evening and welcome to all. This Possen City Council regular session meeting is called to order. Item B on our agenda is the invocation and pledge of allegiance which will be led by Councilwoman Jeannie Huard.

Rise. Lord, may we enter tonight's work with humility, wisdom, steadiness as we consider the needs of our city, our schools, our employees, and our taxpayers. Remind us that every dollar represents someone's labor, sacrifice, and trust. Help us weigh competing needs with fairness, speak with respect, listen with care, and make decisions that serve not only the present moment, but the long-term good of our neighbors. I aliance 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.

Well done, G. Word words of wisdom, I might add. And uh I also clarified that uh the council will resume the budget discussion. um after we complete uh the one topic under new business. I know the manager had a little little bit to share with us on that. So that being said, we'll now move on to item C, which is our audience for visitors. At this time, we will open the floor for public comment related to the city. Uh that is not related to the public hearings uh identified below that we'll get to in just a few minutes. Uh, I have one speaker card, Mr. Paul Schubert. Uh, Mr. Schubert, thank you for being here. Welcome. And, uh, understand you have some general budget comments for us.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want to get too specific. I realized what's on budget. So, if you allow me some grace. Yes, sir.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Mr. Wheeler, city council people. Paul Schubert, 102 Hudins Road, being infamously known for the electric bike highway. Um, I share a lot of your concern. Uh, and as you know, I've been here, uh, watching the budget process come together. Um, I share your frustration with the fact that our commonwealth has yet to come up with a budget. And I don't know how any municipality is supposed to responsibly put a budget together until the state determines what they're going to do. Governor Young had left us with a a $2.7 billion budget surplus, which uh from some reports was in excess of a a half a billion dollars more than forecasted. Um that's supposed to continue now with a new legislature in place and a new governor who's seems to be eager to add some more taxes and fees, uh not give us some tax relief off of personal property and tax on tips. It seems like there's going to be some more revenue available and I'm wondering where's Picosen's increased share as well as any other municipality. Uh I I don't know what she's got in mind or what what the legislature really has to do with that money, but it just seems that there might be an opportunity to stick our hand out. If we're going to become tax and spend, come down and spend it on us. I also heard es especially this evening with the school board that we uh are very dependent and concerned about state and federal contributions that are going to come in and I'm my perspective on this is is maybe we need to be less of a bedroom community and is there some creative incentives to increase the margin of commercial property investment. Um, I'm kind of hoping that gun rage is still on the

table because that certainly would bring in some some revenue as well as visitors that would spend money in Picosen. Um, with Creek, you know, are are there things that we can come up with collectively to improve the appearance of W Creek to make Picosen more attractive? I'm going to pick on the metro gas station. It's stuck in 1970. I don't think it gets a lot of business because people really don't realize that they're open for business because it's just kind of dilapitated. There was a gentleman who spoke here um I think two meetings ago the with the fountains was on the agenda and he made the point it's like there's not a gas station here in Bossen that I can pull my boat trailer in to fill up on gas. He's absolutely right. I rarely buy gas because I go over to uh Walmart or somewhere else where it's a little bit cheaper and and more readily available at 7-Eleven. It's tough to get in and out of. So anyway, um just my thoughts. It's just it's it's a tough budget year and frankly from what I've seen and heard I think our outy years are going to be just as tough unless something turns. maybe more commercial revenue coming in, but um you guys got a tough job in front of you and uh I hope we can find some relief. Thank you,

Paul. Thank you for being here regularly and paying attention to the government. We appreciate your comments and support. Very insightful, Mr. Schubert. Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Uh do we have any other speakers tonight? Very well. Uh we will close the floor for the audience for visitors and move on to item D, approval of the minutes of the regular work session from April 13, 2026. Do we have a motion in a second? So move, Mr. Mayor. Second. Thank you. Questions, comments. Christie, call vote, please. Vice Mayor Bunting.

I Councilman Fi, I wasn't here, but I did watch it on TV. I Councilman Valhall. I. Councilman Freeman. Hi. Councilman Hubard. Hi. Councilwoman EMTT. I. Mayor Hugs. I. Mr. Mayor. The motion carry by a vote of 7 to zero. Thank you, Christie. Uh, do we have a motion in a second to approve the minutes from the special session from April 20th, 2026? So move, Mr. Mayor. Second. Thank you. Questions or comments? Christie. Councilman Freeman. I. Councilwoman EMTT. I. Councilman South Hall. I. Councilman F. I. Councilwoman Hubard. Hi. Vice Mayor Bunting. Hi. Mayor Huts. I.

Mr. Mayor. The motion carried by a vote of seven to zero.

Thank you, Christie. Uh item E is public hearing. We have three separate topics. Uh under the public hearing. Uh we will open each topic separately and then then close. Uh after we offer an opportunity uh for public comment. Uh the first topic is for proposed fiscal year 2027 real estate property tax rate. This is a first reading. Uh there are no actions required by council tonight. So with that we will open the public hearing and open the floor for public comment related to this particular topic. Okay. Seeing none, we will close the public hearing for that topic and we'll move on to the second topic which is a proposed fiscal year 2027 personal property tax rate. This is the first reading and no action is required for this item either. So public hearing is open for public comment on this topic. Seeing none, we will close the public hearing for that topic and move on to the third topic which is proposed fiscal year 27 2027 annual financial plan. This is also the first reading and there is no action required by council tonight as well. The public hearing is now open. The floor is open for public comment related to this topic. Seeing none, we will close the public hearing. And we will move on to item F uh which is new business. Uh we have one topic which is a resolution accepting streets and improvements from the legacy phase 1

subdivision with the exception of Legacy Boulevard into the city of Picosen transportation system. Uh we have with us tonight Mr. Wy Horton. Uh he is the director of community development. So welcome Wy. Appreciate you being with us. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor, vice mayor, members of council, staff, and citizens either here or at home. Uh, this is a consideration for resolution that will accept the streets and subdivision improvements from Legacy 1, phase one. Uh this includes several roads of Big Woods Drive uh Wman's Way Pakosen uh Pocken Path I guess I should say properly pronounced uh Seagull Catch. You'll note on the little illustration that the uh Big Woods drive is in a fire lane and the other two roads uh will have further extension to phase two and phase three. And in fact, SECO catch is already pretty much there, but but that'll be late. Uh we got a bond of warranty bond of $244,963, which will be adequate to cover the cost of the roads in phase one. Uh it is for a 2-year period of time. Um and uh should be sufficient to cover the cost of any repairs. Uh uh Legacy Boulevard is not included because it is still being utilized for phase two and phase three. Still an activ there's still a lot of activity particularly in phase three going on. So the idea was to uh in order to ensure that that street is well taken care of at the end of you know when Tom Gunford already phase two and three it will be wrapped up with that. Uh we did increase the bond amount for uh phase two and

three by $30,000 which brings us to about 1.342 million I believe dollars uh for warranty bond for phase two phase two which uh we we're not there yet but that's that's what we're doing for that time. I think any questions you might have. Hey, Wally. I I uh I I don't have no idea what the the streets are in phase one. I I ride through there regularly. I have relatives that live there and uh there's a number of streets there that are not finished. All the streets that we are approving tonight are completely finished and meet state standards.

They are completely finished. They meet state standards. They have a cover black top. The warranty bond is that you know if anything should go wrong with them in the next two years, we have the money uh by which to have them repaired. But that does not include Legacy Boulevard where the trucks are riding up and down all the time. Right. Okay.

Correct. We'll deal with that uh later. So, bud, I did drive through it this weekend again just to, you know, know what I was looking at because I've been I go through there periodically as well. And I think it's really really neat to watch this happen despite where everyone's from. You know, I was a kid, I used to crawl through houses, right, until they told you you can't be in there. The house is being built. What did I say that out loud? Um, and yeah, there are some roads that don't have that final layer of black top on them, but they are outside. That's up and beyond off to the right and back around. And the area where they still have houses in development, every single road um that is listed is um is in good good shape.

So So that's a map of phase one there. Those over that way, that is phase one. Um that is phase one. Okay. Yes. And I attempted to label the streets uh and of course you can see the dead ends uh for a poxin uh seagull catch and big woods drive. I rode through there on the way here tonight and visually everything looked good to me.

And fisherman's way is complete for that up to that point. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. It is. In fact, we uh staff, we walked it with the uh engineer, the director of public works, and myself uh to make sure that uh everything was done according to specs. I I drove through there not too long ago, about 3 days ago, and where it makes that little S turn in there, that part was definitely not complete. The S. Yeah, there's still some stuff beyond there that's that's in need of uh further repair. Any other questions for Wally?

Wally, thank you very much. Appreciate you being with us. Okay, with that, can we get a motion in a second, please? Mr. Mayor, I uh propose that we uh approve a resolution accepting streets and improvements from the legacy phase 1 subdivision with the exception of Legacy Boulevard into the city of Possen Transportation System. Second. Thank you, Christie. Councilwoman Huard, I. Councilman Southpaw, I. Councilman Freeman, I Councilwoman EMTT. Hi, Vice Mayor Bunting. Hi, Councilman F. Hi, Mayor.

I mayor, the motion carried by a vote of seven to zero. Thanks, Christie. All right. Uh, at this time, we'll continue on with the council discussion on the proposed budget for fiscal year 27, and I'll turn it over to city manager Randy Wheeler for some comments. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, members of council. Just a brief uh item from staff tonight. Uh, as council will recall, at this work session each year, we typically bring you up to date on what we call the add delete list. Um sometimes there are things that happen late uh that require us to amend the budget up or down and it can be revenue or expense. Um uh in this particular case I'll I'll review those in a second. The the most important single element is the fact that we still don't have a state budget as several people including most recently Mr. Schubert pointed out. Um you know we hear that there might be one in June. um that assumes that that actually happens. But then there's a whole process where it goes to the governor and you know it's if the the two houses come together in June, that doesn't necessarily mean we get a actionable state uh budget, you know, right on its heels. But uh just a reminder, this is the uh city's general fund budget. This is the the $41 million at $41.5 million budget approximately. You'll see uh by the by the pie chart sort of where we get the the bulk of our monies, our general property taxes as well as personal property taxes. Uh reminder, this is how um our expenditures are allocated in the general fund. Uh the orange one is education and the and the green one is public safety. And if you squint real

hard at the top, you'll see that the uh in addition to the monies from the orange is the uh debt service related which is uh accounted for separately for the school project. So you can see that the the relative size of that orange being education is actually even a little bigger uh than the orange uh by itself. Um so u as I stated we uh go through the budget continuously uh one last uh time look each month gives us uh less of a working gueststimate for the future because we have one more month of actuals to look at trends we've seen uh improvement I'm looking at the left hand side here um improvement in our revenue estimates in personal property or and sales sales tax collectively for $161,000. Um on the right hand side working uh in no particular order up back um my recommendation for you to consider um with that money is uh one additional percent for a cost of living adjustment for city employees. Mayor spoke to that beginning of his budget comments with the school board. uh the competitive pressures that we have in our region are doing nothing but but be exacerbated. So that is my recommenation. Beyond that, we're all aware uh we recently received correspondence Newport News Waterworks of a rate increase that we can expect. We are uh like everyone else concerned about the price of gas in diesel fuel these days. So gesting that um further increase our gas line items to support our fleet. And last um as council may recall in most years we have a small contingency reserve which is really a

problem solving allocation of money uh that is of the manager. It's ranged from you know 20 $30,000 to maybe 50 over my 17 year. It's currently at zero in the current year and currently in the proposed budget too. So, um you'll see on the right hand side staff's recommendation, including my recommendation on how to um allocate that 161,000. Uh, in the interest of transparency, should the city council decide that it wish instead uh reduce the one cent tax increase that is in the recommended budget, you could use some or all of that $100,000 as the beginning of the down payment of $149,500 necessary to make that math work. And uh that just a reminder to the public uh we have a schedule our budget uh adoption for the regular meeting in May, council does have flexibility both before that meeting to have additional work sessions or special meetings. And then for if for any reason on the 11th of May, council is not prepared to adopt a budget, you have about 10 days or so under city charter beyond that to hold additional meetings uh as may be required. Reminder for the public, copies of the budget are available online in the city manager's office and the finance office and also at the public library.

That well done. Much appreciated. The council members, any questions or comments for Randy? Does the sales tax include meals tax? Is that a part of that?

It's separate. One thing I would like to add, and we talked about this earlier, but just a reminder uh for the public to quantify a one penny tax rate increase with regard to the fact that our average home value in Pakosen is $450,000. A one penny increase to the real estate property tax rate equates to $45 per year and equates to a little less than $4 a month. So, uh, just wanted to quantify so people would understand exactly what that $45 is an addition to what we already pay and I wanted to point that out.

Yes, sir. That that is correct. Thank you.

Staff head, sir. Okay. Well, thank you. We we were working to have conversation. Sure. Sure. Yes, sir. Well, I I don't have a problem with that at all. And u I've been retired for 28 years. My pay hasn't gone up that in that length of time. Okay. And and it's going to hit me like it is everybody else. Yes, sir. Thank you.

I want to add something to that. Um, you know, when you look at our neighbors, um, and by that I mean our local neighbors, the folks that when, um, our city employees are looking for employment, they're looking at those green pastures potentially. Um my concern is that we're not able to retain the talent that we've taken time to cultivate and raise raise up when people come here um for their early careers because it's a place where you can go for early career and then when they get that experience they take that value somewhere else because they have needs. They have needs. Um, and I think that, you know, we all have to think about that. Um, we know that our school staff historically has been paid much less than other school systems. We took, um, a move last year to improve upon that. Um, and then the other school systems go forth and increase salaries again. So, the competition doesn't go away and we have to prioritize our people. You you take care of the people, the rest has got to come. Um I was going to save this comment for the end, but it's very pertinent here. When um when I thought about becoming part of city council, I had all these ideas. Not like, oh, I'm going to change things. Not at all. I was going to sit back and listen for a year before I said anything. That didn't work. But what I have found is how humbling it is to be on this side and to know the stuff we now know and to know the decisions that

have to be made here and to answer the questions from our neighbors and our friends and our families um as best we can and to do the research so that we can answer those questions honestly. and we can't, you know, funnel them to the right people who can answer those questions. This is not an easy job, but it's one that I wouldn't I mean, it's well, what did I write? I wrote down something that was rather piffy. I'd like to share it with you now. I said, "It's not always fun, but I don't want to be anywhere else because I think that these are decisions that I want to be part of." and any decision that's going to come as a result of this budget year um is not going to be easy, but we have to take care of our people or they're going to go somewhere else. As you've said, um you know, this is a bedroom community. We don't have the same revenue streams that other localities have. You look at our peers and I've invoked my friend Chatic BT to see what other communities are paying their staff and what their tax rates are. And it's crazy to see that our median income is where it is, our home income, our house values and incomes and then the sacrifice our city employees make.

I I want I want to build on that. I I didn't really say enough a second ago. Um the everyone I hope there's a lot of people at home listening because I get comments from family saying, "Yeah, you don't don't need to raise my taxes." Okay. Don't. Okay. Well, you made a comment a few minutes earlier that's that was very true. This is hard. And I wish more people then are here and the ones watching, okay, would pay attention to the city government, okay? They need to pay attention to the state government and federal government also. Okay, maybe more, but they can't pay less attention to the city. We we are but a few and we're doing the best we can for the city employees to provide the kind of environment that we live in. I was fortunate enough to be just about raised here. But how many people come in here now because this is a nice place to live, because their schools are good. They were better than they were relative to the state, but we're trying to improve that and make that better. We we we strive to be number one yet. Okay. And they do come here and it's reflected in in the cost of living here. Okay. Um as a result of that, we just heard I had a school board meeting where they talked about the LCI, okay? Where in the state says, "Well, okay, we all are in good shape. you've attracted so many people there who make a fair amount of money that you don't need any money so we're not going to give you any and and so we have to make up the difference same thing for the federal government at the same time we're losing employees okay not bunches but when they get to the ends of their career when they can add 30% more to their paycheck

maybe maybe 50% % more to their paycheck by moving next door. Some of them are doing it. And when we try to hire new people coming back, we can't attract the new people because the people next door are paying much more money just to get them there. And so if we want to retain the talent in this city to keep the city as close to being like it is now, we have to take care of the people. And David, I'm sorry that one cent probably not going to be enough. Uh understood, Mr. Sal. And I think You know, when when I when I I have laid out the numbers, you've seen them. Ry's seen them. All of you have seen them. When we compare ourselves to our neighbors and what we're paying our city employees and our school employees, it's pitiful, right? It's pitiful and it's not sustainable. Neither is increase in taxes sustainable. Well, Paul was right. We need to attract industry. We're working hard on that. Paul, I want to let you know all of us have tried to bring people here. The problem is getting other people to spend their money.

Okay. And and and and I'm I'm actively talking to some people. So probably the rest of the council is all also and the EDA um to get industry here. Okay. And and housing isn't the solution. We need commercial. Okay. We need to make commercial. Okay. That's one of the reasons I voted down the most recent suggestion that we change the business district to a residential district. That isn't what we need. and that that isn't what the citizens want if you look at the that look at the the plan for the city. And so we need to continue to work hard to bring in commercial money so that we don't have to build the citizens. Maybe we can get some industry in here, light industry, business offices, tax offices, get those people here to help our citizens pay it so that we can have a sustainable pay for our workers, okay? And not have to take it from the citizens. But until we get there, we can't let the people we have go. And so we need to work. We're working hard and pass this information on to your neighbors. Tell them they need to come out here. We can't do this by ourselves and we can't do it by everybody getting on Facebook and saying, "Look out. Look what they're doing to us now." Okay? They need to pay attention. And so, um, please pay attention to your city government. Please help us help you. I'll end there. Thank you, Mr. South Hall. Mr. Freeman,

Randy, approximately how many people are we short? I know we trained a lot of people for surrounding communities. I don't need exact number. I mean% vacancies. Six or seven. Ken, is that about right? Current number of vacancies? Six or seven. I didn't hear it. Six or seven? Six or seven. Out of about 150. 150. That's not a real big number if you divide that out percentage price. Um I was just curious and your county right now, Newport News and Hampton pay more than we do. Yes, sir. Presently. Way.

Yeah. And always have. Yes, sir. And so we're running about six or seven at the moment. At the moment. That is before, of course, uh the new pay plan gets put in place in York County that we provided you a copy of last week. Um my point was that uh the world ain't uh ending right this minute. Okay. Thank you, Mr. R.

Any other comments from council members? I'll just say that I think Jeannie made an excellent point about how picosen can often be the training grounds um for careers um and invest the time and invest the resources to train folks up and then they leave. And I think that that was a really excellent point. If I can elaborate a little more, uh John takes folks in right off the street, gets them a commercial heavy equipment operating license, and there's all kinds of jobs around that pay double, but we pay for that. And it's been a training ground ever since I've been on council.

Yes, sir. Thank you. Is there anything wrong with that? I mean other than the fact that you lose are enough staying on to become senior in a particular area. I think the recent or the most current data, correct me if I'm wrong here, Cat, but it's like 2.1 um annual salary to train someone. Isn't that about right?

It's over double to train someone and to bring their job. It takes someone a full year, a full life cycle to understand a job. You don't learn it in two weeks and buy and forget. I don't even care if you've been there 15 or you've you've got years behind you, but it's more than double to train people. So, everyone that we sign on at $38,000 is costing us twice that. Is it

Would you work for that? Well, is it something that could be contractually agreed upon? Um, having worked in a profession where I owed so many years after getting trained. Um, and then at the end of that seven or eight year period, I was open. That's something that's even feasible for something like this. get a person and say, "Okay, you know, we're willing to take a person off the street, get them check checked out and qualified, you know, and at the five-year point or whatever, you know, threeear point, whatever is reasonable. Um, we make a offer to keep them employed as compared to letting them go someplace else. um they don't we don't meet what they need, we thank them and then move them on out.

That is a really complicated I know scenario. Um my first response is called the Air Force, but first of all, we don't just take people off the street. how

but for the folks that we do hire um we don't have the ability to sign long-term enforcable employment contracts with each of our employees. But even if we did, the folks that we're competing with that are paying 10 or $20,000 more to start, they're not doing that. So would you come here for less money for a more rigorous contract period? I I think that u the answer to that is probably unlikely. you asked uh is it okay that we have a certain amount of folks going out the door? Every organization probably except for one and I don't know who that one is, uh has some of that. And so, uh we've been dealing with that for for decades. And um the ones we've been losing lately um have been leaving for significant money, sometimes for lateral moves, sometimes for two and three grade demotion, voluntary demotions. Um that's problematic. Um, what I'm also concerned about is the applicants that we don't get. Uh, because the folks are looking at the available jobs and if you have a choice, if you're coming from someplace other than here, you're going to apply to the one that'll take you off the street or term for considerably more money if you know nothing about the community. So as the gap gets larger that will be more true. Uh we've had as long as I can remember and I'm sure before me in paying under market we were under market by a certain amount and uh some of you have called that the picosen dividend over time. Uh picosen is a nice place to work. It's also a nice community to be in to work. And so

there's there's a market advantage there, but it's not unlimited. And um particularly the uh the moves that York County is anticipated finalizing uh within the next week or so will will move the bar further away than it has ever been for us uh in direct competition with now. So, nothing's easy and there's consequences to doing something and there's consequences to not.

Thank you, Randy. Uh, council members, any other questions? Angie? Well, not a question, just a comment that um one thing that is pretty consistent as far as feedback that come that I hear is that city staff is amazing and they are friendly and they are accessible and there are so many touch points between the city staff and the public. And I bet that they could call any of the offices. They could call the planning office. They could call the engineers's office, the city manager's office if there is a concern and they will get feedback and they will get it reconciled and they will be able to talk to whoever they need to talk to and logistically it just happens like things get taken care of and the staff is so just accessible and like I said that's feedback that I always hear is how friendly the staff is. and and and just to capitalize on that, Angie, uh on a fairly regular basis, we receive letters from citizens around the community that have been the beneficiary of outstanding performance by our city employees. often times that is lifealtering or even lifesaving uh support from our employees. Again, nothing unusual at all for us to get letters like that. And I just feel that in positions of leadership, while we always try to to reach that that balance, I think that we are certainly obligated to to do what we can do uh to take care of the people that that take care of this community, which includes us. And if I could share

some a few facts and statistics, I think the timing is good on this. Uh, fact number one, the employee pay increase that's included in the city manager's budget does not include the compensation city council members. I just want to make that clear to the public. Um, and also to quantify, this is not something that that that gets discussed a lot and I think it's important for people to know this. the the compensation that council members get here in the city of Picosen uh is $100 per month uh which is uh subject to state and federal tax deductions. So, uh when it's all said and done for council members, it's about $75 a month. Uh the mayor's position is eligible for an extra 25. Uh so uh after state and federal tax deductions, it's around 100 bucks a month. Uh to put that in perspective, uh go a few miles down the road to York County and I believe the compensation for York County Board of Supervisor members is about $9,500 a year. So that's about eight times uh what Kosen City Council members receive. uh go a little little ways down the road in in the other direction. Uh if you go to the city of Hampton in the city of Newport News and this trend started with the city of Porchmouth about three or four years ago. It's been pretty recently. Uh their compensation for their mayor and council members is about $45,000 a year. So their compensation is

40 f o r t y 40 times the compensation level of coen city council members. So what y'all are looking at right now uh is is a group of dedicated public servants. Uh we're here for what we can give not for what we can get. We're grateful for the opportunity and proud to serve. Just want to clear that's that's fact number one. Uh fact number two, uh part of what I do in my role is to look at statistics and statistics vary a little bit depending on the source, but the ones I'm going to share are pretty pretty consistent. Uh Mosen when it comes to measuring average household income is in the top 10 in the state of Virginia. If you want to look at affluence, um a a recent statistic placed us at number eight in the entire Commonwealth. Uh out of the top 10, eight of the top 10 are clustered together in Northern Virginia where the cost of living is much higher than it is here. The other outlier besides Picosen is New Kent County, which is also at this time the fastest growing locality in the Commonwealth. So that puts us in some pretty privileged company. If we want to look at Picosen at the regional level, uh Hampton Rose region, there are 17 localities when it comes to average household income because number one in the region.

There's a reason for that, David.

Yes, sir. There there there is a reason for that and that that's because of the standards that we expect and and maintain. Was spoke to this earlier uh during the the joint work session and that's why it's so critical that we take care of the people that that support those standards uh that that we so enjoy and we're we're so thankful for. When it comes to average home value, uh, in the state, I think Picosen's in the top 20 or so, but in the region, we're number two out of 17, second only to James City County. So, thought the public might find that interesting. Um, other other facts while I'm at it, and these are pretty re pretty recent numbers. Uh, actually, they're this year's numbers. and the and these are subject to change moving forward. But when we look at the at the real estate property tax rates in the Hampton Roads region, we're number five. Uh we look at city of Hampton currently is at a $1.15 per 100. City Newport News is a$118. City of Norolk is a$125. The city of Portsmouth, number one in the Hampton Rose region, is a$130. Of course, their home values are are not equal to ours. But when we want to look specifically at the tax rate today, we're number five in in the Hampton Rose region. So, to me, for for what we get as a premium community, that's a that's a bargain. I wouldn't trade places with anywhere that I know of for what we are

so blessed and so fortunate to have in the city of Posen and to be able to maintain that for the tax rate which again my opinion that's all it is is an individual is reasonable compared to the standards that we so ju just some just some facts and statistics there that I thought the public might find interesting that were uh relevant to the to tonight's discussion. With that, any would anybody like to elaborate or comment further?

I would like just to add two points. One, I want to correct a statement earlier. Uh the replacement rate for an employee, uh the Society for Human Resource Managers say it's 50% to 200% of um a person's salary depending on when they're hired. And that's replacement rate. So two times 2.1 times. Correct. but on the high end. Um the other piece, David, is that when you're talking about those communities that um are paying those tax rates, they also have a completely different set of revenue streams that are not open to us. Exactly.

And so when their home values are not as much, they have those gas stations. They've got traffic going through uh Emporia um is 92 cents, I think. Um but yet they have all that business revenue from people because it's a 95 corridor. Um, you know, uh, Petersburg is a$126, but look at all the industrial stuff. And would you live there? No. That's But we live here. So, there's all kinds of, um, stuff that we can't compete on that same level. Our demographic is so very our what do you call that? It's our it's, um, an environmental cons, you know, uh, configuration that makes us very different. We're a very unique community. uh unique unique in the fact that we're on a peninsula uh with two ways in and two ways out. Uh currently uh one of those ways is being modernized. Uh and we're we're grateful for that as well. Temporary inconvenience for long-term gain. Uh but we're we're grateful for the support from uh the state and our friends in Hampton. uh specifically uh city manager uh Miss Mary Bunning uh met with her earlier today. We're grateful for her support as well as Mayor Gray and the council. They've been great friends to us to be able to do that. But to Jeanie's point, uh, the geographic figure that that contributes to our being special and provides us with a little bit of isolation, which also provides easy access to to other communities. We have that isolation, but yet we're close. But that aspect that makes us special is also what makes it difficult for us to compete when it comes to things like that. you know, we're an end of the road community. We're a destination. We don't get any pass through traffic. So, that helps us make a special, but it can also

be a a double-edged sword. And also to your previous comments, that's part of our challenge as council and city staff is to find that happy medium in there, you know, is is to maintain those standards and and to maintain that small town environment. you know, the three pillars that we talk about, schools, public safety, city services, which I consider to be one thing, and then that small town environment. Those three pillars, everything we do feeds in to one, two, all three of those. David, I like I like to expand just a teeny bit. All those numbers you quoted were good numbers for our city. Okay.

Yes, sir. The reason for that is Picosen is a nice place to live and that's why those people come here. Uh that is correct.

And if we're going to keep Picosen the way it is, we need to continue to hire the good people that we hire. And we don't hire just anybody. And most of the people who come here are willing to take the lower pay because it's a nice place to live and it's a nice place to work. But the bottom line is they need to eat also. And when there's not 5% 10% but sometimes a 100% difference in pay grade okay there there reaches a point to where it's not sustainable and if we want to keep picosen the way it is and continue to attract good people okay and have a good way of life to keep picosian way of life is like it is okay we need to keep the people that we have not force them to go someplace because we won't pay them what they're I mean to your point, I mean our employees trying to make a living, trying to raise families, trying to save for college, save for retirement, all those things. And I just feel that in addition to the financial aspect, I I feel that we're morally obligated to take care of those people. I mean I mean there there are friends and our neighbors and you know on on your way home tonight look around you you you can see the fruits of their labor and I would ask all citizens to do that is is just to be aware that it doesn't happen by itself. I mean just a simple example I was down at Municipal Park uh earlier this week and just commented on how nice it looks. It doesn't get that way by itself. let somebody sweat that goes into making it like that. And we're grateful for that. And we need to demonstrate that uh by taking care of them as as best we can. And of course, everybody understands there are limitations as to what we can do. But I think that we can do better

than than we're doing now. And we we need to do better if if we're going to be able to sustain what we have. Now, I would be one to tell you that we can't afford paying more money, but I'm going to tell you, we can't afford not to. Exactly. Thank you. I used to work for a boss that says if you don't have but a dime, you can't spend a quarter. Yes, sir. Understood. State does it all the time. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's always balance. Yes, sir. I have a comment.

Yes, ma'am. Please do. Just wanted to you know I think we are all in consensus here at this table that we want to pay our employees same amount that our competitors are and you know so we attract and remain um the realistic part facts you know we don't have that industry we're not getting um you know our our residents our real estate the the people that live in play paying those taxes the real estate taxes they're the ones that are paying the bills and we haven't said anything about them in this discussion. You know, it's a balance. Um it's not an easy balance. It's a very tough decision trying to balance that. You know, the medium income is one thing. The medium housing amount is another, but you know, we have people at the lower end that live in Picosen of those um statistics. And we need to remember those folks as well because when their tax rate goes up, their house payment goes up and um it's not easy. It is it is definitely a delicate balance and I just want um you know everyone to know we need to have a we have a balance. We have the taxpayers on you know what we're going to charge them and then we have all the other stuff that goes into a budget over here and we have got to come to a a balance that that's going to work and it may not even work for everyone. It's it's hard to, you know, it may go one side to the other one year and then the next year it might level out, but it's a lot to consider when when we're considering this budget. And I just want, you know, be mindful and think about those who are, you know, going to be paying those bills as well changes and adopt a budget to to do anything to increase where we were the previous year.

Thank you, David. You're welcome.

Appreciate that. Council members, that was a very healthy debate and discussion. really really appreciate everybody's input and I think that demonstrates good government that that that we can sit and have these public discussions and we can also project how well we work together and and how important it is to for everybody to contribute and work together that collaborative approach as we try to build a consensus on uh the the the best for the most. I think we're obligated to to do the the best for the most is how I've heard it described before. Uh so thank y'all for that and we will that that will conclude the the council budget discussion and we'll move on to comments of our city clerk, Miss Christy Snap.

Mr. Mayor, members of council, the school board has an expired vacancy for the eastern precinct with a term expiring June 30th, 2027 and two large positions with terms expiring June 30th, 2020. Openings are being advertised in the newspaper, the city website, social media, electronic sign, and the city tele. All applications will need to be turned in to the city clerk by May 11th, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. May 11th, 2026 at 7 p.m. a public hearing during the city council regular session at which time any names added during the public hearing for consideration and all interested applicants will be read into record by the city clerk. Only those persons named during public hearing can be appointed. Council members will need to provide recommendations for for those applicants that they would like to interview no later than May 18th. Interviews will be conducted during a close session during the week of May, 2026 or other date as council chooses at June 8th, 2026 regular city council meeting. Cut.

Thank you, Christie. Council members, any questions or comments for Christie? I have a question. Uh Christie, um the people who already have applications on file that we've interviewed in the past and all, those are automatically on the list or do they need to reapply or at least tell you their entire? I will contact the people who currently have applications in for the school board interested and then I will give you those names as well. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Christie. Anything else? Okay, moving on to item H. Comments of the city manager. Randy, I have nothing else tonight, sir. Thank you, Randy. Uh, council directives Keith.

Okay. Uh, two things. One, I got pickle ball contacts of question about the riding of ebikes in municipal park. There's a sign at the entrance from the pool park or parking lot uh that says thou shalt not, but it doesn't necessarily specifically say ebike. Um and there is no sign at the other end from the school school side where they were seeing the people the children entering were helmet wearing helmets which was a good thing but I don't think they should be in there with that maybe we could have some look into that and the second thing is I attended the town hall meeting of delegate Virgil Thornton on Saturday night. Uh also with me there was uh Cornell Owens and Trisha from the Kuanas Club listened to the town hall about 20 people all total and got a good view of uh Thornton who wanted to open up his uh basically his office to get input from the people and he was appreciative of us being there and we were appreciative of him holding it. Keith,

as I mentioned earlier, appreciate you attending that town hall and representing the city. Um, I'm I'm sure you reflected very well on our office, so thank you for that. Uh, Angie.

Oh, well, first off, I would like to thank all of the school board and the school staff for coming. I thought that was an excellent joint work session. I thought there was very productive um discussion and questions. So I think that was invaluable for the budget process moving on and um just understand the mechanics of the school system. Very helpful. So thank you for that. Um thank you to Mr. Schubert for coming up and speaking. Um he often comes up and gives constructive and comments. So I appreciate that. Uh, I wish that more people would I wish that more people would come and talk um or give comments during public hearings. Um, if you don't feel comfortable coming and doing it in person, uh, please feel free to send us emails too if if you have any comments that that you would like us to read. And just thank you for everybody at home for for watching. And um, that's it.

Thank you, Angie, Mr. Freeman. Um, yes. A couple of things. I'm getting a lot of questions on how the community center is coming along and it's going to be uh open back up again. Um, can you elaborate on that a little?

Uh, yeah. I'm not probably not the best person on that, but Tiny's not here today, so I'll uh so I'll try to handle that one. The uh the plan was to have it back in place and in play by the end of the month. So that's uh you know rapidly coming. We've got a issue that we just recently were made aware of pertaining to the bathrooms. So that may depending on how we address it may hold us back a couple of weeks. Uh we were addressing all the issues that we were made aware of and as we were finishing that up we became aware of new issues uh softness or under the bathroom. So uh uh I hope no later than the middle of next month sooner if we can get it done depending on what we find. It may be June.

Um, I'm thinking we can get it knocked out in a couple of weeks. So, I'm still I'm I'm I'm as certain as I can be without being certain that we'll be in the middle of May at the latest. And the only other thing um I'd like to suggest that we go to our city shirts for May, June, July, August, September, and October. Three other folks to agree. Historically, it's been June, July, and August. Did you want to expand on that? Expand on that. Yes. Okay. I

I mean, can we get a consensus on uh Mr. Freeman's? I along with that. Perfect. Executive order might be in order. October September and October. Yeah. And y'all can amend it or if you need to. Sure.

Okay. So, uh we don't need a motion in a second or anything like that. All we all we need is a bunch of head nods. So, uh thank you. Thank you, Mr. Freeman. Uh I I think that that goes through with with with no problems whatsoever. Thank you for that. Uh is that all? Well, I'm almost, however, I I can talk a little more. Okay. Uh, I invite everybody at home, okay, and here to come in and pay attention to the city government. I think it's an important thing to do. Come and visit in person if you can. Um, you get to meet Keith in person and and our ladies. Okay. Maybe you and me, too. Okay. But and and Miss Debbiey's one of my ladies. But um be nice to see you in person, G. That way you we you can actually talk to us. Um I want you to notice that um we have a council that works together. We we are workers together and we're friends together. We agree and sometimes we have to agree to disagree. But when if I want to go go one way and Carrie wants to go another, okay, we'll agree to to disagree and he's wrong and move forward. Okay. However,

you still give me a ride home. It is what it is. And whe whether you agree or not, I still love you. Okay. And um it's a great place to live in this deer city. Well said, Mr. Salo. I'm I'm tired of talking tonight. Well said. recharge for next time. Jeanie,

um I wanted to mention that uh Parks and Wreck is going to be in their new home as of Wednesday, I think it is. Um I think it's 29th, so that's Wednesday. Uh so on social media, um when I saw Gretchen's post, I immediately posted to the Western Precinct page. Um if you're not a member, you may join. Um, but on top of that, Josh Blount commented on her post and then commented on mine. He says, "Gretchen took my took my advice in going over to that building." Right. Like that's how that worked. But that plays into what you said. People in this community care. They go directly to the folks to ask, you know, hey, have you thought about that building or uh that kind of an uh involvement. And that's it's a good thing. It's a beautiful thing. and he's on a firstname basis with her. Um, I also appreciate Mr. Schubert's uh, dedication to our town. Um, I had written some notes in here. Um, I guess we could talk about them later, but we have answers to all your questions, but that tax money has already been earmarked. Yeah. And, um, it's around 50%. I don't know if it's 40 or if it's 60. It's one or the other. is for a highway in DC and then the balance of it is for students with educational needs I believe is how that's earmarked. Um the commercial gun range well we voted for it so now it's up to it's um up to the property owner to make that work and that's then I had the my pippy statement and I don't think we need to say that again. Okay, thank you. That's all I have. Thank you, Jeie. Debbie,

no additional comments tonight, Mr. Mayor.

Okay. Thank you. Um, I I just had a few, as usual, like to extend appreciation to our IT staff, uh, Mr. Barefoot and Miss Allison Croll. Thank you, ladies. And what people don't see watching from home is the fact that we have staff members uh, that work all day and come out to support uh, council for these meetings. So, thank you all for doing that. And just uh another reason that we need to take care of them as best we can, but uh have council members uh walking around during the meeting taking care of little odds and ends that allow C members to to focus as best we can on the business. So, thank you to the staff that takes care of that for us. and would also like to give a special shout out to our exceptional uh assistant city manager, Miss Tanya O'Connell. Uh couldn't be here with us tonight, but knowing her like I do, I'm certain she's watching from home. So Tanya, hope you're having a good night and look forward to having you back soon as possible. So that's all I have. So I'll ask for a motion and a second.

So move. Yes, sir. Thank you. Second. Thank you, Christie. Councilman Thigh. Hi, Vice Mayor Bunting. Hi, Councilwoman EMTT. Hi, Councilman Freeman. Hi, Councilman Southhaul. No, six to one. Councilwoman Huffford, I. Mayor Hut, I. Mr. Mayor, the motion carried by a vote of six to one. Thank you. We are jer.