Board of County Supervisors - Regular Meeting

All

right, everyone. It is 02:01 on Tuesday, March 10. We are going to begin with a moment of silence. Alright. Thank you.

I'll rise if a if you are able for the pledge of allegiance. All right, we are going to roll right into agenda item number three, and that is public comment time. While we are waiting for the sign up list, if you are new here, you will go to the back of the podium. You will have three minutes to speak. And I always ask that you begin by stating your name and where you generally reside.

Looks like we have two people. We have Martin Jeter and we have Sharon Richardson.

Good afternoon, chair Jefferson, members of the board. My name is Martin Jeter, I live in the Occoquan District. When it comes to parks, I'm not too proud to beg. And since it's funding season, I'm here to beg for a park. And that park is Davis Ford Park, as you see on your screen there, the green area right off the Davis Ford Road and near the Occoquan River.

Now this park, just a little history, that was a sewage treatment facility for the Ocwen Forest community for many years. For environmental reasons, it was decommissioned in the 2007 time frame and turned over to the Board of County Supervisors. That same year, the board issued a directive to form a committee to decide on the free use the the future use of this parcel, and that committee came back a number of months later saying that it's the best use for this would be a passive use park. That makes a lot of sense because it is a 57 acre parcel of heavily wooded, for the most part, wooded, beautiful parcel. And so a couple years later, the service authority now at Prince William Water finished their remediation and declared it safe for the public to use.

It's just been sitting there ever since. It's been sitting there since 2000 around 02/2012. So what I'm asking for today is some money in the CIP for the actual operation of this park. Now the we wouldn't need as much. I know you have some, so far, some funding in there for the Neabsco Park, dollars 5,200,000.0. We wouldn't need anywhere near that much for this park. This already has a gravel parking lot from its previous use, has some roughed in trails. Midco can supply volunteer labor, including me, to help build out the trails and open this park. So we get the trails, throw down a porta john or two, and throw open the gates. So we're looking for some money for that.

We have a master plan process starting for this park, actually this month, and that should be completed from what they tell me by the end of the year. So we are looking forward to getting this park open as soon as possible. People have been waiting a long time. And just to give you an idea of how popular it is, Midco had a Park Walk event two years ago, and you can see it was in January. It was a little overcast.

It was threatening rain or snow, windy, and we had a turnout of well over 100 people at that event. And the people that were there included supervisor Bode, as you see here, numerous other folks from environmental organizations and historical organizations. Kenny and I are trying out some new hand signals here for the future. But in any case, we're asking for money to open this park. Folks at this event thought this was a great idea, a great use for this park, the passive use.

And the cell tower in the background, don't look at that's owned by the service authority and you can't really see that once you get back into the park. We're in the parking lot area here. So in any case, we're hoping for funding in this cycle to get this park open soon. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next speaker, please.

Good

afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, madam chair, Madam County Attorney, Mr. County Executive. My name is Sharon Richardson. I live in the Occoquan District, but I am also the Woodbridge District representative, for now, to the Parks and Rec Commission. And I know later today, you're going to have a work session on the referendum process for parks, libraries, and indoor sports facilities.

And I am just here to ask your support for that. I am also a county government employee, so I realize there are tons of competing needs for the budget that you all will be ultimately approving. But I would like to ask that you seriously consider supporting the referendum process. As you heard from Mr. Jeter, we do need more parks, more trails, more open spaces.

It would be fantastic to have an indoor sports facility of some kind. I go out and talk to parents of children in all sorts of sports, basketball, track and field, and not just on this end of the county, but the other end of the county. Every when you talk to parents, they really want this, our residents want it, and done well, it could be a great form of revenue, potentially for the county, with sports tourism and other things. So, that's all I wanted to say. I thank you for your time and attention, and I really hope you can find it in your hearts to support the referendum process. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so very much. Do we have anyone for virtual? All right. We don't have anyone for virtual, so this ends public comment time. I'm gonna move on to agenda item number four, that's county executive time. Mister Shorter, the floor is yours.

Thank you very much, madam chair. Nothing for me this afternoon.

Madam county attorney.

Thank you, madam chair. No items for closed session.

Alright. That means we're all really excited for the work sessions. Mister Shorter, you can queue those up.

Thank you very much, madam chair. Members of the board, good afternoon. I want to welcome Sarah Frey to come on up. She is with PFM advisory financial advisors. They work with us very closely on all things debt management, and has certainly worked very closely with us on the in our relationship with the bond rating agencies. So, Sarah, I will turn it over to you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, missus Chair and members of the board. I'm happy to be with you today. As mister Shorter mentioned, I am with PFM, the county's financial adviser. We've had the pleasure and honor of serving as the county's financial advisor for twenty five years. I personally have been advising the county for twenty four. So we assist the county with the issuance of its debt, restructuring of debt. Along with that comes credit ratings and other financing strategies. And I'm here to speak with you today about the projected increases in the county's debt. So the county's debt is projected to increase over the next several years.

So I want to show you the current debt, show you the projected increases, talk about what's driving that, and look at debt affordability from a few different perspectives. As you know, debt is one component that the rating agencies look at when they assign credit ratings to the county, so we'll talk about the credit as well. I have a few related recommendations and open it up for questions. So starting with just an overview of the county's existing debt. So at the end of this fiscal year, June 30, the county will have $1,190,000,000 of debt outstanding. 78% of that was used to fund school projects. That's 930,000,000 outstanding for schools.

I wait. I apologize because we have two people who needed to read their statements.

Yeah. So yeah. Thank you, madam chair. We we went flew through so so much of the agenda. We we got here a lot sooner than we thought. So, madam chair, before the presentation, discussion about items six a, six b, and six c on debt capacity, general revenue estimates, and the referendum process, I need to declare a personal interest in these matters. As school as a school's employee, my wife and I are members of a group which is affected by these matters. I will be able to participate in these matters because I'm able to do so fairly, objectively, and in the public interest. Thank you.

Madam Chair, before the presentation and discussions on items six a, 6B, and 6C, and debt capacity, general revenue estimates, and the referendum process, I need to declare a personal interest in these matters. My wife is a school's employee. As a school's employee, my wife and I are members of a group which is affected by these matters. I will be participating in these matters because I am able to do so fairly objectively and in the public interest. Thank you madam chair.

Alright. Thank you and I apologize for that.

That's okay. Alright. So I was just giving an overview of the county's existing data. As I mentioned, $1,190,000,000 outstanding at the end of this fiscal year. 78% of that debt was used to fund school projects. As you know, the schools issue debt annually, typically through the Virginia Public School Authority. That debt is secured by what's called a full faith in credit. So in other words, general obligation pledge of the county. So paid for by the county. 22% of the county's current debt is used for county projects.

That's 260,000,000. The majority of those are for roads and county facilities, but it also includes public safety, parks, and libraries. The graph on the right shows the annual debt service, so the payments you make each year on the bonds. In fiscal twenty six, your debt service payment totals a 152,000,000, of which 120,000,000 is for schools. You can see from the graph, the county does repay your debt rapidly, which is a best practice.

It also keeps your total debt cost down and recycles capacity for future projects. So here we take that 1,190,000,000.00 of debt outstanding in fiscal twenty six and show the projected increase over the next several years. So if you look at the graph, the columns in green are the existing debt. You'll pay that down a little bit each year, and then the new debt is shown in blue. And what we've layered on here for the the county debt is some bonds that have been approved at referendum previously, but have not been issued yet that are planned to be issued.

And then we've layered in the debt related to the proposed CIP, the county's fiscal twenty seven to thirty two CIP. For the schools, we've also layered in their proposed fiscal twenty seven to thirty one CIP. This year, their CIP included two scenarios. There was a scenario A and B. We're using scenario B, which is the lower of their two.

It does not include the cost of the fourteenth high school. So this is the debt that's associated with the proposed scenario B for schools layered in. And so we're showing that over these next five years, the schools are projected to issue 815,000,000 in bonds. So you can see from the graph, the county is projected to add more debt than you are paying off. That 1,190,000,000.00 in fiscal twenty six is projected to increase to just under 2,000,000,000 by fiscal thirty one, so up to 1.94.

That's over a 60% increase in your outstanding debt in five years. So I'm gonna talk about what's driving that and then look at the affordability from a few different perspectives. I'll say from the outset that even with this increase, you are projected to remain within the debt limit set forth in the principles of sound financial management. But if the growth in debt service materially outpaces the growth in your revenue, we are concerned about potential negative credit pressure and the implications on your credit ratings. So the next two slides we'll talk about what's driving the projected increase in debt.

Both on the county side and the school side, it's a relatively high issuance in the near term. On the county side, the largest projects included are the judicial center expansion that's planned with $200,000,000 in debt over the next five years. The county wide space project 220,000,000 in debt. Three fire stations totaling just under 100,000,000. For the schools, they have renovations across multiple schools, three elementary, one middle, and one high school, totaling 365,000,000 in planned debt issuance.

They have renovations and replacements across many schools. The biggest ticket item within those renovations is HVAC replacements at 179,000,000. And they also have planned two new elementary schools totaling 130,000,000. And the schools describes the cost that they're facing now, higher construction costs than they have in years past. So this graph is designed to put what I described as relatively higher debt issuance into perspective.

So we're showing the annual amount of new debt issued for each year for the past ten years compared to what's coming or projected over the next five. So you can see over the past ten years, the annual debt issued by the county averaged a 118,000,000. Schools have issued consistently each year. The county has issued more modestly and periodically as needed over that period. And then what's projected over the next five is really higher debt for both the county and the schools.

So the average new issuance over the next five years is projected to be $285,000,000. So here we're showing the projected cost of that debt. In other words, this is the annual debt service payments that you would make. The green again is the existing debt, and then layered on is the same assumptions we had for the new county and the school issuance. So debt service is projected to increase an average of 9% a year.

That is faster than the county's general fund has grown over the past ten years. Over the past ten years, the average growth in the general fund was around 6%. Obviously had much stronger growth in the past three ranging from eight to 12. If we look at the projections in the county's five year strategic plan, that general fund revenue is estimated to grow at a strong 6%. There's a lot of data center revenue driving that, but what I want to caution here is that if those projections hold, your debt would be growing faster than your budget.

So in other words, your debt service will consume an increasing portion of your budget. It will limit flexibility consume limit flexibility for other county needs and services. As I mentioned earlier, you are projected to remain within the debt limit set forth in the principles of sound financial management. You have three main debt affordability limits within those policies. One measures debt outstanding relative to taxable assessed value.

That max is 3%. You have a limit on annual debt service with total revenues at 10. But what we're showing here is the third metric, and we're showing that one because over the next five years, it's projected to be the most constraining of those three debt metrics. That is debt service relative to the general fund and fire levy expenditures. This is really designed to show the debt service and then the funds that actually go to pay that debt service.

So your policy limit there is 13%, and because that's a max hard limit, expenditures could change at any time. The way we look at this with some sensitivity. So assume that there is a decline in expenditures, a 10% decline, what would that ratio be? That's what you see in orange. So under that conservative assumption, the 10% decline in those expenditures in fiscal twenty six, you're at 8.2, projected to increase to 9.8 in fiscal thirty one.

So again projected to remain within the limits but these limits themselves were not designed in and of itself to maintain the county's credit rating as I'll talk about again. You could have negative credit pressure even if you remain within your adopted debt policy limits. The projections I showed you are based on the bond referendum that I previously approved in the proposed CIP. It does not include any additional debt such as debt the board may consider for future bond referendum. That's not included in the projections here today.

So again, debt is one of the drivers that the rating agencies consider when they assess county's credit health. I want to spend a few minutes discussing the county's credit ratings. I'm just beginning with a reminder of what credit ratings are at a high level. So credit ratings measure the risk to the investor, so both in terms of willingness and ability to pay. Higher credit ratings means lower risk to the investor of the bonds defaulting, and higher credit ratings to you equals a lower borrowing rate.

The three main rating agencies are Moody's, S and P, and Fitch. And in 2010, there's a newer bond rating agency, KBRA. We are monitoring them, discussing it with county staff to see if at some point in the future there may be value to adding them to your your credit ratings, but at this point we have not made that recommendation. So the county maintains triple A from Moody's, S and P, and Fitch, which is a remarkable testament to the strength of the county's economy, your finances, and your management. You received your first triple a twenty two years ago, and you have enjoyed the triple a from all three of those major rating agencies for fifteen consecutive years.

We are one of 32 one of 13 counties in Virginia with that elite status, and one of 55 counties in the nation with that distinction. Each rating agency applies their own criteria for how they assign ratings. All three of the agencies look at economy and demographics, and they all three look at the debt and liability burden that we've been talking about today. For them the debt and liabilities does include your pension payments and your other post employment benefits, your OPEB benefit funding as well. But as you can see from this chart, you know, they assess and how much weight they give to each component differs by agency.

There are two points I want to make here. The first is that certain of these factors are difficult for you to directly control. So for example, some of the demographic factors, population growth, institutional framework, which is the legal environment in which you operate, you have very limited control over those portions of how your credit is assessed. And then secondly, these criteria are subject to change at any time at the rating agencies discretion. They do make changes, significant ones.

I'm going to circle back to that in a few slides and talk about a significant recent change from Fitch, which impacts how the county is assessed. So here highlighting the county's strengths and some of its challenges as described by the rating agencies in the most recent review, which was in October, so back in in the fall. So across the board, the county has the highest possible marks for the strength of your management and the tremendous financial planning that is embedded in the county's culture. Particularly in the last few years, your revenues have shown tremendous growth and diversification. Your wealth levels are strong.

Your funding for pension and those other post employment liabilities are also very strong. Your geographic location at times has been a credit strength and at times is a credit risk as your economy is impacted by the federal government and related employment changes. Your reserves are stable, but they're not strong relative to peers or relative to medians, and I'll show you some figures on that in a few minutes. Your debt levels are moderate. Your debt levels throughout the Commonwealth are elevated compared to the nation because here, relative unique in that the counties fund the schools, not the case nationwide.

The rating agencies, both S and P and Moody's have also noted the economic output and growth within the county lags the nation. So certainly, again, the county's credit is very strong with the triple triple a, the highest possible credit ratings, But there are a few potential areas that could put negative credit pressure on the county going forward, and so I wanna dig into those a little bit more. So these are yellow flags, if you will, areas of caution to monitor. So Moody's and SMP are both watching your reserve levels. Again, they lag medians and I'll come back and show you that data in a minute.

SMP noted in the last report that the county's population as it grows it may have expenditure pressures on the county so that's another thing they're monitoring. And then both SMP and Fitch are watching your debt levels. SMP is specifically noted that the rating could be pressured if new debt issuance outpaces your budgetary growth. So that same dynamic we talked about earlier, the debt burden is growing faster than the revenue. They said that could have negative credit pressure.

Fitch also stated a 10% increase in liabilities could lead to a downgrade or negative rating action. I want to spend a few minutes just on your Fitch rating in particular. This is the one that I mentioned back in 2024. There's a significant change in how they assess local governments. So they have moved to a model driven approach to ratings.

So there is less room for analytical judgment than there was in the past. And so here we summarize the the key components of your score back from the last review in the fall. And within the model, again, there are only a few levers that you can directly control. In some of these components, you score the highest possible, for example, resilience. Some of the demographic factors score really well.

The two places within the score that bring you down is your population growth compared Fitch's rated universe, and then your economic concentration brings your score down here. So at your last review, you scored a 10.16. To maintain the triple a with Fitch and their model you have to maintain a 10 or higher. So they categorized that as a low triple A and you're getting closer again to that cutoff of 10 as a hard cutoff under their new methodology. This next graph is a graph that I don't like, but I thought it's important to show to you.

Nonetheless, so this is your most recent Fitch score compared to the most recent Fitch score for the other 12 triple a rated counties in Virginia. So your score is among the lowest of those triple a counties in Virginia, and again, we're showing it next to that cut off of the 10 to maintain the current credit rating. So something to be careful and monitor certainly. And then as I mentioned I wanted to come back to reserves. So here we're showing the way that Moody's evaluates reserves.

So they're looking at all the different buckets of reserves, if you will, that they consider available. In other words, if something unexpected up, these are funds that you as a board, they believe you could redirect if needed. And they measure that against total revenues. So by the way they measure it, in fiscal twenty five, your reserves totaled just under 27%. Compared to the peer median and those peers are you know also triple A similar size localities, that peer median is 43 and the triple A nationwide median is 48%.

On the right hand, we show how Moody's scores this subcomponent of the credit rating, so they have obviously again triple A overall, they have subcomponent scores for reserves to be triple A for reserves in and of itself. They're looking at 35% or higher. And fiscal twenty five, you were in that double A range of 25 to 35%. So with that information regarding your credit rating, you might ask what's the value of your current credit ratings. In other words, hypothetically, if you were to be downgraded, what would that cost?

So based on the planned debt issuance over the next five years, a downgrade would cost the county an estimated $1,100,000 per year. If we present value that and put it in today's dollars, that's $18,300,000. So any increase in debt service costs would divert budget dollars from other county services. I would also note that when there are credit downgrades, there is headline, there is ramifications from a PR perspective that can also be difficult pill to swallow. So given all that information, I wanted to end with a few recommendations before opening up for questions.

Your principles of sound financial management were designed to give you room to accommodate a breadth of projects and to do so even if the budget and the tax base decline. As I described earlier, increases to your debt levels could negatively impact your credit ratings even before you hit those max policy limits. The critical component we recommend in order to maintain your current credit ratings is to manage the debt service growth relative to your revenue growth. So again, if the debt service material outpace outpaces your revenue growth, we foresee negative rating implications. That may capital spending year over year once you see where actual revenues come in.

And it may mean as we spoke about earlier, we're at the precipice of this higher period of projected spending on both the county and the school side. So if it's the board's will, might consider evaluation of the overall debt capacity and how that's allocated between county and schools and balanced over time. And finally, as we think about key rating drivers where you do have control, more direct control over them, reserves is an area where at a minimum they should be maintained. If you are interested, we along with county staff would be happy to talk to you further about how you might increase those to get up towards those median levels, and to get even stronger within that category, but at a minimum maintaining those. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

All right thank you so very much. I want to jump in and this is an excellent presentation one that we really need to think about this budget season. I want to go to slide 18, I'm sorry sixteen first. Because it's saying moderate debt I'm sorry, the economic output slightly below the national average. Does that mean I just want to get more clarity around what that means. Is it talking about our revenue compared to other similar sized jurisdictions or what we're seeing around the nation? What is that exactly?

So that language came from the SMP report and the way SMP looks at that is they measure gross county product per capita relative to The US GDP per capita. So when you look at the national GDP per capita, the county in and of itself is 64% of that national level.

Slide

18. And I know that these are things that we don't control like population trend. Is our population growing too quickly? Is it growing too slow? Is that having an impact on how much we're spending? How much revenue we're taking in? I just want to make sure I understand that one. And it looks like population size and economic concentration.

Yeah, and I'm just flipping for the exact data here. So the way this new model works with Fitch is they compare your trend relative to every credit they rate. So you're kind of stacking up against them. So your population growth was 1.1%, so that did lag the national median. So you were at 1.1% population growth, it was lagging what they're seeing for national growth.

Alright. Because I only have a few more minutes. Can you talk about, well, am interested in knowing what we can do. I know I've had conversations, my staff and I with David's Claire and some others about even looking at our surplus and putting more of that into reserves. But what are some ideas to boost our reserves? Because I think that's something we really need to talk about and discuss now. Because I don't want to have this discussion when it's too late, when we're slipping below credit worthiness or you know our triple triple a bond ratings one of the agencies.

Yeah, well I don't know I'm looking back if anyone wants to talk about where that funding may come from to boost the reserves. I know there's a couple different ways to look at it. And I know there was some recent discussion about how much you would need to increase your reserves in order to hit those medians. So if we just wanted to get, I'm gonna go back to the Moody's. It's that fund balance slide.

So if we were just trying to get up to that triple a range within the Moody's scorecard, it's a $180,000,000 roughly in terms of actual dollars. And even even higher if you wanna get up to the peer median or the AAA median. So those are real dollars.

All right. Thank you very much. I'm going to go over to Supervisor Angry.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Kind of sticking with this slide, is that I think 18? That was the one that you used what is that? Okay. Maybe it's is it 19? What am I writing here? It's the one where we're, like, lowest on the is 18? Yeah. Here, 19. So oh, that is yeah. So I'm just I don't know if you said it, but when were we better than this? Like, what year? Like, if you can tell me when we were placed higher? And then what started happening that maybe we were doing not so great from this board's perspective that dipped us all the way down this low? Yeah,

so again this is methodology from Fitch. And so they, previous to this big change that happened in 2024, they did not have this specific of the scores to come out. When you were initially rated under the new methodology, they were a bit more favorable in how they assess that economic concentration. And then they've tightened up on that methodology. And really what's dragging the county down within that score and brings your score down relative to the peers is that economic concentration, I'll that.

It's a little bit of an odd or complicated calculation they do, but they're looking at income generated in the county, so not who lives here and works elsewhere and brings it home, but actual income generated in the county

by

economic sector, and they compare that to a national median. So for example, they look at the construction sector, the economic sector, the government sector, professional services, and see. So they say if you differ significantly from the national median for those sectors in terms of income, then you're more concentrated.

Okay. So the government sector, I think that's what you term. So we just I don't know if that's the term you said, but we just got a presentation, and we know that a lot of federal jobs got cut, and we know that that could be that's definitely affecting Prince William County, which was born as a bedroom community. Now, because of that so we need to find another way to shift that category to kind of fill that void? Is that what I I guess my overall question is how do we get out of that bottom to the last and get back up to hopefully number one on this list? Very competitive, but I just don't like being that low or that close to losing this rating.

Yeah, and here, this factor is again one that's more difficult to control directly. What this score is showing is you have more government professionals, more education, and less professional service than the national economy, which is why you're scoring low. So I think continued diversification

of the economy will help that particular component of the scorecard.

I I think here controlling that debt level, you can see you're strong, but they you know, as they said, if it goes up 10%, that's gonna knock you down even further. So I think that one and this one is different from Moody's and S and P. The reserves here don't really count for that much. Honestly, you have a low reserve and you kinda get the highest score within the the Fitch. So the the Fitch score is a little bit harder con to control.

I am you know, one of the things that has you know, it's a 10 scale, and you can see some communities all the way up there at thirteen and twelve and eleven and ten. And they are getting a bonus point in a 10 scale, which is huge Okay. Within this methodology. And that is based on the total tax base relative to your population. So if your tax base continues to grow at the pace it has, not for fiscal twenty five and maybe not for fiscal twenty six, I'm optimistic that growing the tax base can get you one of those bonus points and really boost your score. That's why you see some a lot higher here.

Thank

you. So that's something that I think could control and help that particular.

I was going to ask what are they doing, So it sounds like those 10 points. Okay. All right. Thank you.

Supervisor Vega.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I was too slow to get in the queue first, but I wanted to kick off discussion by asking you to highlight the importance and the meaning of having a triple A. I know that you briefly mentioned it in the presentation, but just real quick, why is a triple a rating important?

Well, it it's really you know, it means that of all the the credits that you are the highest most credit worthy. So for investors, the lowest risk of defaulting. It means when you go to sell bonds, you get the lowest possible borrowing rate on that day, so it lowers the cost of your debt overall. It helps in times, particularly of financial stress. And so you can see over time when the markets are a little bit choppier, investors want to buy those those safer credits. You would see even more value for those high credit ratings in those types of periods that the more difficult, more volatile market conditions.

Thank you for that quick refresher. Supervisor Angry, you stole the question out of my mouth, but I just want to expand a little bit on it. I understand that this is a new rating mechanism. However, it's still concerning that we have other jurisdictions be at the higher end, in particular to this graph that you're showing, Prince William County being the second largest county in the Commonwealth. We had a presentation earlier today where we thought that we were perfect without flaw. And here we are, right, seeing the realities of where we stand, at least in regards to our bond rating. And so is there any indicators that could give us more understanding as to why we're so low on this graph in comparison to other jurisdictions?

Yeah. We we can go through the data again. I think the biggest ones where compared to a lot of these is the economic concentration is really pulling you down. I think some of the others on the list have a better score. You can see that kinda yellow mid range, and it's very sensitive, so little changes are really are really driving that. And again, that's difficult to control, but relative to the others, you know, aside from those bonus points we mentioned, which, you know, if your tax base continues to grow, perhaps you can get there, I think, within a few years. Otherwise again you know it's hard to control the income and percent of your population with a bachelor's degree or higher these are the things that are driving their model.

Thank you for that. The chair mentioned you know looking at having a more in-depth conversation surrounding our surplus. You mentioned a lot of the factors that we cannot control aside from increasing our reserves and talking more about surplus. What other factors can we control?

You know, I go back to this list. I think this was clear guidance. These are specific quotes from the most recent reports about, you know, what could pressure the rating. And so fund balance, again, with with Moody's and S and P, they've continued to note stable, which is good. You know, you're triple a, you're stable. There's no room for that to decline. There is room for that to improve relative to the peers and relative to national meetings. So that, I think, is one place you can control. And then I think the debt levels. I think if the debt you know, we have a period that we're showing and debts projected to increase.

I think if your debt grows faster than your revenue, I think we are going to see some negative pressure where we talked about we have some challenges they're monitoring. And so I think that's the other direct place. I think the reserves and then the debt levels are the two areas you can most directly impact.

Okay, thank you for that. Now the $365,000,000 for schools, is that on top of the 57%, 0.23% revenue share agreement?

I'm sorry that

You mentioned $365,000,000 for the school division for their projects. My question is, is that on top of the 57.23% that we give the school division?

This is, yes, this is the debt issuance that would be paid for the county on top of the revenue shared.

Okay, thank you. Dave, do you have more?

Just as a point of clarification, the 57.23% of general revenue that the county transfers to the schools by current policy, of that 57.23%, the schools pay their share of their debt service from that 57.23%.

Okay. Thank you. And then the final question that I have for now is, assuming because our job is to plan, right, for the worst, hoping that doesn't happen. But if it does, if a downgrade to the AA category, were to occur resulting in the estimated $18,300,000 referenced in the presentation in additional debt service, have we discussed any county services that would likely be impacted or diversion of funds?

We have not. We have not.

Do we plan on doing that?

As part of this process, staff is always available to talk about cuts to services, cuts to our, sort of, some of the programs. But we generally know we have not, scenario'd, what it would what services would be cut if we were in a position where we were double a county versus a triple a county.

Thank you for that. Certainly, it's not our intention or our intent to make any cuts, but I do think that the more we prepare, the better off we will be in case, this does happen. And I think that it would be in the best interest of you, mister county executive, and the team to prepare for the worst in case it does happen. Not saying that it will, but we have to be prepared.

All right. Moving on to the next speaker, Supervisor Bodhi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. When it comes to economic concentration, I know you've talked a little bit about it and I appreciate the the conversation around it. So for clarity, that's economic activity being generated within the locality. Right? Like, are jobs, people that are generating wealth there. And I get why and could you go back to that slide for a second? I get why we are sort of where we are, but it's also surprising that other localities like a Stafford or Fauquier, which I would imagine have even less economic. Like, it it seemed like a weird comparison. They're somehow being rated higher on those things when we have more jobs.

And we as, supervisor Vega said earlier, we had a lot of good information that was given to us even just earlier today that we are actually outpacing a lot of our peer jurisdictions in generating new jobs and things like that. But then here, it seems like it's the opposite where other localities actually probably have less self generating jobs or somehow being rated higher than us. Do you had was there any comparative analysis that was done on of those jurisdictions are somehow scoring higher on that economic concentration specifically?

Yeah. And we do have that detail. I think what's what's a little odd about this again, it's a complicated calculation, but it's about diversification. So you may have more income, but they're looking at how concentrated is by those sectors. So again, within you have more income in the education and government sector than the national, and you have less in professional services. So like another community may have less overall, but if it's equally distributed among the different categories, then they may score better.

Okay. I appreciate that. And my last one is, can you go to slide eight for a second, please? So to me, this bears further conversations. One of the things you mentioned before is us taking considerations of how we balance our debt and the schools and what have you.

And I think Supervisor Vega, you started a good beat on that conversation where, you know, we give the school division the money. We don't control when they take on CIP project, when they decide to to pay down that, what have you. We have a conversation about it. But to me to me, this shows that overall, generally speaking, until the next couple of fiscal years, it's largely the school systems driving the debt and the issuance of this and not the county. And so I don't wanna take a shot at the schools at the same time.

If we have needs, but we're constrained because we're basically in the same sandwich stack, There needs to be a conversation there because I get it. They still have needs. They need to do renovations, what have you, but we're we're in a place where, frankly, they're canceling new schools, but then we're not able to fulfill our need and create new facilities, public facilities, public safety, other recreational facility, things that we will be talking about. To me, there's a real conversation there because if we're not the ones that are the main drivers of the debt, we're not in control of our own destiny around that. So we really need to have a bigger discussion with the schools about that. Thank you. Wasn't really a question, but I just want to do this. I just you're nodding, which means that where I'm saying jives with what you're seeing.

Yes. Well, the schools will be here, and you can ask all the questions in the world. Supervisor Stewart.

So just echoing what Supervisor Bodhi just mentioned, number one. But the other thing where it comes to school and government overweighting because I'm I'm I'm looking at an an Arlington and Fairfax, which are right there. I mean, would seem that they would be way more overweight in government jobs just due to their geographic location than than than than than Prince William. Is it is it Is it that, or is there an underweight that this formulation has changed to discount diversification, and that maybe they over stepped that, like they went too far mathematically with diversification versus overweighting of

That's a good question. I think you guys are picking up on all the nuances here within the score. So again, it's a 10 scale. I mentioned the one point where, you know, if your tax base grows, I think you could get that bonus point. Fairfax and Arlington also get a second bonus point by having the highest contribution to the regional GDP, and they'll only give that to two jurisdictions in any MSA. So here, that's how they assign it. That that's their methodology. So they they get two bonus points on a, you know, a 10 scale. So Yeah. Good for them.

That's how their score is a lot higher. The economic concentration is it's only 9% of the weight, but again, you know, that's you know, if if we were to play around and toggle that and bring that up to strong, you you would look a lot higher up on this this next graph compared to the others.

Right. Because that seems

Speaker:

particularly arbitrary. I mean, we just got a report earlier today about our GDP and what we contribute

Right.

Male to this and they only printed out two certificates to give out to that's you know, because I math is just what it is. Mhmm. Right? And it it's it I'm just gonna say it out loud. Their their Their point system it doesn't work.

It doesn't work, and I see it as a threat to the county and our credit rating, and I think it's something that they need to look at because these are people's lives that we're dealing with, and their approach doesn't need to be this arbitrary. And that's all I got to say about that.

All right, thank you so very much. Supervisor Bailey.

Thank you very much Madam Chair. If I go I want to go back to page 19. That seems to be the popular slide for tonight. But the thing, when I look at it, it says the county's FY twenty twenty four Finch score. Right?

So then I go back to page 17, and I'm looking at the Finch ratings. Yeah, that one. So could possibly, potentially, the reason why we're lower on the spectrum here has to do with the fact because it says here the presence of Quantico and FBI could be good, but yet it could be bad and more volatile because of changes in federal defense spending and that kind of thing. Could that have an impact also on our scoring?

Yeah. And timing, you know, one of the things that, you know, again, you know, we we got these ratings in the fall because you were going to market to sell bonds, and so that's when we needed to get the ratings updated. Mhmm. You know, one of the factors that plays into the score is the unemployment rate, which we've seen vary throughout the year and the timing. So, yes. I mean, these these you know, if you look here, they're all rated at different times.

So yes.

It could. I mean, this is what's you know, it's a big change for Fitch to move to a model driven score. Again, limited room aside from these bonus points, which have specific criteria. There's very limited room for for analytical judgment. So these are the rules we're playing with. And, yes, it does it it is subject to change, and that's why we're noting for you 10.16 is above the triple a, but it's something we need to be very careful about.

Yeah. I I just you know, just as a comment, would say that that would definitely have an impact on what we're seeing here based upon the Georgia's, the rules that they're governing themselves by. And I also, I wanted to ask, as we go forward with this, and really grasping this and understanding this, are there policy choices that we need to be start making now or looking at now? You know, as it relates to really protecting our triple a bond rating. What type of policy changes or choices do we really need to hone in on?

I think if the goal is to maintain the current credit ratings, could come back and consider tightening up those debt policies. I I said a few times that you could get up to the max and not maintain the current triple a. I don't think that those max limits were necessarily set with these rules in mind. I think if you're looking to tighten it up, that's a place. I think we talked about managing it.

I think if you're, again, managing the growth, making sure it's not outpacing each other, to me, that's the critical near term. You know, given the dynamic and projections over the next few years, I think that's extremely critical matter to manage. And then the reserve levels, as we talked about, are the two concrete policy driven steps that you could take that impacts the credit ratings.

And also, term diversification has been mentioned over and over again in the conversations that we've been having here during the budget season. I think we're at that point now where we really need to focus on that in terms of our growth and our revenues. Wouldn't you say?

Yes. And again, that's been a strong point for the county over the past few years. The the growth and diversification of your your revenue source, the growth in the commercial base within the county, those have been strong points. And and that, will will help maintain the credit ratings. Perhaps that takes a little bit more time, little less directly than these immediate financial controls that you have, but certainly that also helps with the credit ratings.

So the last question I have, how much control do we have over being competitive with the Fairfax Arlington thing that we don't really like. I mean is there a way that we could be looked upon or just as competitive as they are as we grow, as we improve?

You know, again, that rating and the Fitch score I think is subject to change and we're monitoring that closely. I mean, ultimately, you do have a choice in who you pay to rate the county. I think if you go back, that's why I mentioned there is a fourth rating agency. We have not recommended that you use them yet. Last year, for the first time, a few localities in Virginia did secure a fit or or KBRA rating.

Mhmm.

One of those localities did not have the higher ratings from the others. So, you know, you do have choices in that. But, again, these are used to go sell your bonds, and so we're looking how do investors do that, what's the right strategy that we're communicating the strength of the county and keeping your borrowing costs as low as possible.

So Mhmm.

You know, if if, you know, we talked about the Fitch methodology and some some challenges with it, some things that are difficult for the county in particular. Do you have a choice in that? Ultimately, yes. But at this point, again, I think, you know, importantly across all three of them, across all three agencies, they all have things they're looking for you to do with respect to reserve and the debt levels.

Yeah. Understanding we got to do the work. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Supervisor Vega.

Just wanted to thank Supervisor Boddy for expanding on the point that I was going to further make, but I'm not going to talk much more about it just to highlight that on slide 22, PFM does recommend careful balancing between county and school needs. And so I look forward to having that conversation with the school division while calling on my board mates to look at this topic holistically and the needs that we actually have on our side and what we can control. Not a question, just a comment. Thank you.

All right. Thank you so very much. I don't see any further questions.

Madam Chair, I wonder if I could just, Sarah, have you talk a bit about the principles of sound financial management. Ultimately, those principles define what our reserve funds will look like. And I wonder if you could talk about the importance of the principles.

Yeah. The principles of sound financial management, mean, I they've been around, as you know, for a long time. They're really, in my view, a bedrock of the county's credit strength. When we look across all three rating agencies, your adherence to those over the long term, your culture of adherence to the policies and the financial planning is one of the greatest credit strengths in in my opinion, even among the triple a's that you really excel in that. For all the policies that you adopted is absolutely critical with the rating agencies that you adhere to those.

You know, it's it's worse to have a policy you don't adopt you don't adhere to. But, you know, having those policies and so, again, those those policies you have cover a variety of topics, including the reserves and the debt metrics that we talked about.

All right. You very much.

Sarah, thank you so much for the presentation, really, and for your service. You said at the beginning of the presentation, twenty four years with the county. So thank you for your support.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, members of the Board, we'll next hear with Item 6B from Leslie Weldon, our Director of Finance and Chief Financial Officer, our general revenue estimate.

Good afternoon, Chair Jefferson and members of the board. I want to start off first of all by thanking Sarah and the team for their continued partnership and for presenting today. I am here to do a follow-up to the February 20 proposed budget presentation. We shared quite a bit of the proposed revenue during that meeting, so today's information, the majority of it, will be a refresher, and then give you an update on what to expect as we come up on recap. All right.

So to start off with this first slide, our proposed revenue is approximately $1,900,000,000 approximately 58% of this is comprised of real estate, and nearly 28% is personal property tax. When you add in our next three highest revenue sources of sales tax, BPOL and food and beverage, that accounts for approximately 95% of our proposed revenue. You've also seen this slide before, which breaks down the proposed revenue at a flat tax rate of 90.6 cent, and projects out the next four years using conservative estimates that approximate about 4% growth. In the bottom section of the table, you'll see the proposed revenue share for schools at the 57.23%, with the county having the remaining 42.77%. For fiscal twenty seven, this would yield approximately 1,120,000,000.00 for schools and about 836,000,000 for the county.

Okay. Here on slide four, we have a high level breakdown of proposed real estate by major category. Residential revenue makes up 64%, followed by data centers at 24%, and public service companies at 2%. I will note, while this slide was in the proposed budget when it was presented, the percentages have not changed, but the dollar amount for residential has been corrected. When we originally put that slide together, we had public service included with residential, and when we broke it out into its own pie slice, the amount did not get pulled out of that as well.

So here to the right side, we have the residential real estate drivers. These are what we are working on updating in preparation for recap. We do have the assessments are done for the real estate side, and assessments will be mailed out tomorrow and go on the website at that point. So we will have those updates and the impact it has to revenue soon. We're expecting that next week.

For slide five, we have a similar layout for property taxes. Business tangible revenue makes up 58% in this category, with the majority of that coming from data centers, with vehicles making up the remaining 42%. Computer equipment and peripheral continue to be the dominant drivers, whereas furnitures and fixtures, the heavy equipment and machinery show more moderate growth. Like real estate, we are working on the analysis to update the drivers for this, as we come up on RECAP. Slide six was not in the proposed budget presentation.

The purpose of this slide is to show that this is the first year that business tangible exceeds vehicles for revenue, and showing that that projection continues is expected to continue in the outer years.

All

right. The items that we are watching as I mentioned, we are in the process of finalizing the updated revenue for recap. Real estate assessments are ready to be released this week. That process begins tomorrow. In addition, we are updating our estimates for tax relief and other possible reductions based on the applications received to date.

For personal property, business tangible filings are due April 1 with extensions allowed through September, so we'll continue to monitor that. And then we have received the updated values, the vehicle values from J. D. Power, and that is under analysis now. For food and beverage, we are monitoring our collections to better estimate the impact of the 1% the reduction reduction by 1% that took effect January 1.

I will note that December rec we had record receipts, and we received that in February. We had $10,000,000 for the month of December, and we are expecting January receipts next week. So we will have a better feel for the impact of that 1% next week when we get the January numbers. Finally, for sales and use tax, we are awaiting the March 26 results from the Virginia Department of Taxation. Okay.

So now I'll summarize what to expect at recap. As noted, appreciating appreciation and growth are expected in real estate. We expect that this will be partially offset by an additional increase in tax relief. For personal property, we expect to update the vehicle units and the values based on the latest data from J. D.

Power. However, at this time, I don't have enough information to give you a direction as to which way that's going to go. We are also evaluating all other sources of revenue for potential changes. Alright. As discussed on the prior slide, tax relief continues to grow, and we are expecting revised estimates for the f y twenty seven budget.

For tax year '25, it was equivalent to a little more than 5¢ on the tax rate. The tax counts for f y twenty five are as of July 25. So what will happen here is this goes in the annual report, and when we go to put in tax year '26, we will true up the tax year '25 number. So you may look at that and see it looks like the counts are down, but really, we are seeing higher counts looking at the applications so far for this year. And then, on the last slide, we have a jurisdictional comparison of FY '27 average real estate tax bills.

This includes levies where applicable. On the right side, you see the jurisdictions in order from highest to lowest for the average tax bill, with Fairfax being the highest and Prince William being the lowest. In the box in the top left, you'll see the change in the average tax bill compared to prior year, with Arlington having the highest change, and Loudoun having the lowest increase. And now, it for questions.

All right, does anyone have any questions? All right, I'm going to move fast. All right, thank you so very much Where for are your questions?

It's too easy.

We'll let you go unscathed for now.

All right, I'm gone. All

right, thank you very much, Leslie, for the presentation. Madam Chair, members of the Board, we're going to this is with Item 6C, we talked a few times both at Board meetings and at committee meeting, Finance and Budget Committee meeting about the bond referendum process. This is really an opportunity for us to present just that, the process. We did not intend today to come with a presentation on the projects that would be included in the potential referendum. And so with that, madam chair, members of the board, I'm going to turn it over to Tim LeClaire to walk us through this presentation. Tim?

I have one clarification. I'm told I said the wrong word. The highest month for December, that was sales and use tax, not food and beverage.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Sales and use is smoking hot. It's really good, despite what you heard this morning. So good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the board. I'm Tim Leclaire from the finance department. Today, finance is responding to directive 2,534 regarding a possible bond referendum process and timeline.

Our goal is to provide a draft outline based on the 2019 referendum process for the board to consider for a potential 2026 ballot initiative. Today's agenda consists of four concise slides. First, we'll restate the directive. Second, we'll briefly look at the timeline that was followed during the twenty nineteen referendum. Third, we'll propose a draft timeline with critical dates for the possible referendum on election day using the 2019 experience as a benchmark.

And finally, we'll explore next steps followed by board discussion, questions, direction. Directive 2,534 specifically tasks staff with creating a timeline to follow if the board chooses to hold a bond referendum for parks, open space, and libraries. A key distinction this time around is the possible inclusion of an indoor sports complex, which was specifically excluded in 2019 in favor of working with the private sector in a public private partnership, which to date has materialized. So I assume that's why we're going to consider it this time around. If it pleases the board, the new project selection process presented by OMB to the Finance and Budget Committee on December 2 can be leveraged to identify the next tranche of projects that didn't make it into the proposed fiscal year twenty seven to thirty two CIP.

We can use that as a starting point for Finance, Budget Committee, or Board discussion during one or more work sessions, depending on what what the board decides. The twenty nineteen referendum was a long and methodical process, beginning in January with a directive assigned to finance. Then OMB in February 2019 kicked off the process with the proposed CIP presentation and an update or a memo from the CXO at the time, I believe it was Chris Martino, looking at the universe of possible projects that didn't make it into the CIP for possible inclusion in the referendum. OMB then worked with agency directors and executive leadership over the next several months to review projects for board consideration. In early May, finance delivered a debt capacity and referendum timeline presentation to the board.

At the same meeting, agency directors presented mobility and parks improvements projects during a work session, again for board consideration. Later that month, an evening town hall meeting was organized and presented by agency directors, executive leadership, and communications to obtain community input on the prospective referendum projects. After hearing from the community, draft resolutions were prepared by agency directors and reviewed by the county attorney's office and bond counsel. On June 18, during supervisors' time, the board discussed the bond referendum and reviewed the draft resolutions with the proposed questions. They did some straw poll votes and things like that during that process.

It was a couple hours long. Then on June 25, the board approved two of the ballot question resolutions. After a fairly lengthy several hours discussion and directed the county attorney to prepare a request and petition the circuit court for an order to conduct a special election, including the referendum questions for voter consideration. The takeaway here is the final outcome was the board approved ballot questions for roads and outdoor park improvements. The indoor park improvements were not approved at that time.

There were three questions that they voted on, and the third one, mister Angra, I'm sure, remembers since he's the sole remaining board member that was there present during that discussion. There was a lot of conversation by Chair Stewart too about rookies, right? As we look toward 2026, we're specifically revisiting an indoor sports complex along with parks, open space, and library bonds. The 2026 referendum timeline began in October 2025 with this directive. It continued at the December 2 Finance and Budget Committee with the with the new project selection process that the team has put together.

We're currently in the late winter spring phase. On February 10, OMB presented the fiscal year twenty seven to thirty two capital improvement program. Earlier today, a few minutes ago, PFM, the county's financial advisor, continued the timeline with the debt capacity presentation, and this presentation proposes the timeline and process. On this slide, the most critical date is 06/23/2026. It's the most important date on the slide.

This is the last scheduled board meeting where board action can be taken to place a question or questions on the ballot. If we miss this date, we likely miss the twenty twenty six general election. Following board approval, the legal process moves quickly. How about that? A petition is filed by the county attorney.

Target date is July 1. The circuit court must order the election by mid August, and public notice must be out by late October. It all culminates on election day, 11/03/2026. The the 2026 next steps for the referendum include agency directors collaborating with OMB and executive management to propose a list of specific projects for consideration. Upon board direction, one or more work sessions can be scheduled for project discussion in the very near future, possibly right after adoption of the fiscal year '27 budget.

Also, given board direction, communications can coordinate public meetings for board members, agency directors, and executive leadership to obtain community feedback. There's there's no real mandatory process that needs to be followed, but I just laid this out the way the 2019 was laid out. The communication strategy is strictly governed by law. All outreach must be plain English and neutral. Agency directors cannot campaign for the bond.

They can only explain it. Some combination of videos, brochures, and the Speak Up Prince William platform could ensure voters have the facts they need before they see the sample ballot. In conclusion, we are moving from the investigative phase into the project selection phase. Our eyes are fixed on that June 23 deadline to ensure the board has the opportunity to present these options to the voters in November. And that's really all I had.

Alright. Supervisor Vega.

So for clarity, mister Shorter, what is being asked of the board today in regards to this?

So this is this is, coming to you really, after a directive was issued. So there there is no there's nothing that we need in terms of additional direction from the board unless the board would like to move in this direction. Then there is a process that we would need to follow, consistent with what Tim just presented. But we are just following, really coming back to the board based on the request.

I do have some questions, but I will go ahead and wait for others who have been kind of pushing this to take a stab at this first.

Supervisor Bowden.

Yeah. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you, for the presentation, mister Lecourt. I a question for the county exec. You sent us a memo back in October in response to chair Jefferson's directive about master planning for community recreation centers. Near the end of that, and I know these are all very rough timelines, but near the end of it, you did mention that some of the work that's already been done with the recreation master plan may help inform I know we're not talking about projects today, but may inform that. Could you give us an update vis a vis that knowing that that might be part of the larger conversation?

Sure. So Seth actually walked in. So we have we have initiated, as you as you articulated, a countywide master planning process for recreation centers. I believe that that third party has been so we're close. So we we we put the solicitation out, but we have not selected a firm yet to start that master planning process. I imagine given the timeline that's been presented today, we we will be able to use some information from that process to inform our recommendation to the board. Seth would do the heaviest of lifting him and his team in terms of recommendations that will be put forward to the board.

Appreciate that. And, again, not going into specific projects, but I wanted to make sure that folks know that, you know, there's been a lot of talk about some of these specific projects that may be on the bond, and folks feel like, hey. We wanna make sure there's there's, geographic diversity in the things that are considered. So I think that was should be part of the conversation. So that said and the my last question, you know, in terms of bond referendums, just because a bond referendum passes doesn't mean that the board is obligated to actually issue those bonds or the county has to issue those bonds. Can you talk about that a little bit?

That's absolutely correct. One of those sticking points in 2019 over the weekend as I was watching the the videos, it seemed like a lot of the board members were surprised that the chair was driving forward with this referendum. And a lot of the defensive comments were, well, we don't wanna obligate the next board, cause four of those members were already planning not to be part of the new board. But it was explained very clearly that a referendum is the will of the voters. That's what they're telling you.

It does not obligate the next board. If you look at the twenty nineteen referendum, $355,000,000 of of mobility projects were authorized. We've sold zero bonds in support of those so far. So that's 355,000,000 that could have been in there, and we may be in worse shape from our rating perspective if we had sold those bonds. We were lucky enough, and the transportation department did a great job of getting revenues elsewhere, using other people's money instead of the citizens' money to pay debt service.

And I appreciate that, Tim, because that was gonna be my last question. Because even though we didn't issue those bonds, to me, especially Rick Kanisalski, you said, was able to expertly use that to show there was the will of the citizens to get those projects done. So he was able to get NVTA money for that other sources. Could you so could you talk a little bit about that piece as well?

About Rick's

Yeah. Like just mentioned.

Yeah. So Rick

The ability to have the bond if they're approved by the voters, we don't issue them necessarily, but they are sort of a proof of concept to lending folks, to, regional bodies to show that there's support behind the project that we're asking for grants and other things for?

Yes. We've done a terrific job seeking out federal dollars and state dollars and grant dollars. I mean, it's although, I will say there was one the biggest item that was on that referendum was Route 28. And so without Route 28, which would have been a huge, huge bogey, I want to say it was 200,000,000 of the $3.55. And it was for Route 28 widening, and that hasn't taken place at this point. That's been pulled off. And so that's a great example of one board going for something and then another a future board saying, no. I don't think we wanna go down that path. That doesn't make any sense.

And last clarification question if I could, madam chair. I have forty seconds left. What's the do you have the event horizon on how long after a bond referendum is passed for the county or the board to obligate those bonds?

So we you have eight years to sell the bonds, and then you get an extension of two years. So we're coming up on our 2019 deadline here in the not too distant future. We can extend it two years by working with the circuit court and the county attorney's office. And by the way, the the park bonds, there were 41,000,000 authorized in park bonds in 2019. To date, we have only sold $11,840,000 We do have one additional issue in fiscal year twenty six or we've another one this year that's planned that's in the CIP. But we still got a little space there. So

And, madam chair, if I can, I just wanna make sure that, supervisor Bodhi, your question is answered? It seemed like you were asking if having projects listed as part of the bond referendum and voted on, if that benefits us in applying for federal grant federal and state grants. Is that Yes. Yeah. Think it does. Uh-huh. I think it does. Be because what it shows is that the that the community has actually supported and the elected body has actually gone out to the community to get support for the project. So we could certainly expand on that if you wanted to.

Supervisor Bailey.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Tim, let me just say thank you for bringing back a refresher and reminding us of what this process looked like in 2019. And so that says that we've got some best practices that we can pull from as well. In that, will the criteria, if we decide to go in this route, the criteria in selecting projects, how will that be handled? In in a similar way or differently? Because we're in a different financial climate.

It's actually that's at the will of the board. However you would like to approach this. Okay. The chair, the last two boards ago, chair Stuart, was a driving force in trying to get a referendum out there in his last his last year or so that he was on the board. And so he kept pushing and pushing There was a lot of conversations during supervisors time.

But basically, we presented a list of projects that we had put together that did not make it into the CIP. Mhmm. And we can do that same thing this time around. And the board can ask questions, add projects, take projects away. I will say they did it the last minute in 2019.

They did.

It was

like June 18 they were doing it, and the twenty fifth was the last date that they could vote on something. And so a lot of the projects that were tossed out on the eighteenth were well, no one even no one has even estimated this yet. So we we don't even know the order of magnitude is. It's hard to put in a referendum if you don't at least have a lowest price and highest price somewhere in there or a range.

So the other thing thank you for that the other thing too is community engagement. Because that was kind of a that was not a smooth process as well. That will definitely be a part of this, as you've mentioned in your slides. What does that look like? Because it's important that the community does get involved before the June 23 date, if that's what we're going to do.

So I don't have a plan, a communication plan. I was going to work with Nikki.

But it comes from communications, yeah.

And try and come up with a professional communication plan for this process. That does not mean that supervisors shouldn't be out talking to their constituents and finding what the constituents want. Cause when we did have our presentation during the 2019, the agency directors got up and talked about it and some of the projects totally switched because of the feedback that they got from constituents.

And then with that process from communication, that will just help our citizens to understand the cost and the value of what they're investing in from attacking. Okay.

Absolutely. Alright.

Thank you. Great presentation.

Yep. If I can add just, and this may be a repeat, Tim, of what you've said already. We we would actually be working with your individual offices to work with and make sure that the community is informed. Yes. The communications team would make some recommendations on how we could put it on county government platform, But we would be really relying on the board to in your offices to define how you would wanna engage within your magisterial districts, if you're interested in moving forward, how you would wanna engage with the community.

Supervisor Angry.

Thank you, madam chair. Thanks for taking me back down memory lane because this definite was memory lane. And a lot of things have been said here, but I think like, I'm gonna speak to the board, and thanks for the presentation. We did this in 2019. It was the citizens that pointed out indoor sports complex, and it was the citizens that pointed out indoor pools because they wanted a hydraulic track on the indoor sports.

Like, those things came from the session we had at Performing Arts Center, and then we rolled it all together. Now, I will say it just derailed when we got into the chamber here, and of course, then everything came off. And I I think I was the last one standing with a park and a spooey, which thanks to Rick and his team because I was ready to jump on that bond for the spooey, but he found other means of not having to use it. I think we're gonna use it for the park, though. Am I are we using any? Well, anyway, I don't I don't know if we're doing that or not. We are? Okay. So because I because one of the things that we put all this that the citizens want, but we've never acted on any of it. And I know it's the board's prerogative to do so, but you got to understand, in 2019, that's what the people wanted.

And we're still sitting here in 2025, and the people still want these things. So I think at some point, if going invest in this, we may be looking at what it is we're investing in. I can tell you the roadways are always important. Very happy we were able to pull off this Parkway Minnieville piece that's not going to use the bomb, but it did, to your point, Supervisor Boddie, triggered really a lot of that development to start. And then Rick was able to just find other means, because they're good at that, to find other means. My question for you now, just one. Are there any more projects that we I forget how big that list was that we had in 2019, but it dwindled down to a small list.

It was $2,000,000,000 worth of projects.

Okay.

It's the front and back side of a piece of paper. Most of them were mobility projects.

Okay. And even because you say we still have two years left on this current I think you said we got two years left or

We have roughly a year left and we can get a two year extension.

Uh-huh. And what is on that list

still Through the circuit court. To we

just have to Ortiz.

We certainly probably wouldn't do any

of Exactly.

But we just need lead time to be able to do. Yeah.

I doubt we'd do any of that, to tell the truth. I'm just curious what's left on the list right now, knowing that we still have a year to look at any of these projects.

Well, actually have from your project selection process that you have these scored projects.

Okay. All

right. This was Finance and Budget Committee December 2

when it was presented. I'm going to take a look at that. Thanks.

All right. Before I go to second round, I just wanted to say a couple of things. So I spoke to the county supervisor and did the directive based on what we were hearing from the public. A number of people were looking for additional money for trails. Now talking about the indoor sports complex, we are discussing that as part of the landing, Which I know the economic development is still working on getting out, working on putting together materials.

But the indoor sports complex is part of that discussion. I am fine with moving forward with the referendum, but I have two caveats. One of them is we have to be mindful of the debt we already have and adding more. So I think we need to really again go through the budget process, see how much money we have, what we can accommodate, and have a realistic picture of where we are financially. And taking into account the other things that we've heard concerning our debt and concerning building our reserves.

If the people really truly want something, then they're gonna also have to understand that's part of the communications piece that supervisor Bailey was mentioning, how much more this gonna cost them. Because we have a lot of wants, we have a lot of needs. But really, what are wants versus needs? And that's gonna be an important discussion we have to have this budget season. So it's more of a comment to everyone. I am fine depending on what comes out of this budget season with moving forward with a referendum. But again, we have to be very crystal clear. We're not gonna get everything we want on our wish list. We're not gonna necessarily be able to offer tax relief or do things maybe perhaps to make the county more affordable. We are going to have to strongly prioritize what we as a board want.

And what is the board that we need? What are we hearing from our constituents? I think that keeping our debt low is particularly important to me. And if there are things that we can meet during the budget process or if we already have other ways of getting to those needs like the indoor sports complex, I definitely wanna have those discussions. But if we're gonna talk about taking on more debt, we're really gonna be mindful about the conversation that we had earlier. With that, supervisor Vega.

Thank you, madam chair. And that's really gonna come down to how we convey information neutrally to the voters of this county so that they can understand exactly, what it is that they're, voting. I'm still very much interested in continuing to have dialogue before a final decision is made on this, in regards to a private part, partnership. I know that this is something that we had, discussed so that it wouldn't be an additional burden on the taxpayers of this county, but I, understand that, it seems like the majority is going in the direction of doing this referendum. And so my question to the county executive is, again, for clarity, you stated that pretty much this presentation here today is informational, but that if the board chooses to go in the referendum direction, then we have to obviously do certain things.

My concern in regards to that is that we're up against the clock. There is a clock that is ticking. There is a timeline. And in reality, we don't have that much time. We don't even have a list of projects yet to even consider.

And so if the majority on this board is leaning towards this referendum, I think that that needs to be indicated sooner rather than later if we are to meet these deadlines, if we are to convey this information to the public in a neutral manner. And so I'm not sure, Madam Chair, how you want to handle this or if the county executive has a recommendation, but certainly the timing of this process is concerning to me. And to Supervisor Angry's point, because we keep talking about the history, It's my understanding that in 2019, during that referendum process, the board approved questions for roads and outdoor parks, but specifically specifically rejected the question for improvement. And here we are specifically focusing on an indoor track, an indoor park, whichever way you want to call it. So are we going to have the same issues again that we did in 2019?

I don't know, but that is something that we have to consider. The new directive that was issued talks about parks, open space, and libraries. So now we're throwing in a different element that wasn't included in the 2019 referendum process. And so I say all of this to say that we have to make a decision, and we have to make it fast because our backs are up against the wall and the clock is ticking. So I'll defer to you, madam chair, in regards to how you wanna handle that or if we have some recommendations in regards to a timeline.

So I just wanna answer that briefly. I don't necessarily feel our back is up at the wall. We're getting close. Is March, but we have until June 23. And I don't wanna rush into anything. This is an informational discussion. I think it would be great to take the temperature and to look at specific projects. When I issued it, I was more focused on trails and I think indoor spaces. I know, I believe supervisor Angry might have also added in libraries. Believe he did for certain add on the indoor sports complex.

I still think that there are more discussions that need to be had because again, we need to come back to where's the progress on the landing. That was discussed as a potential site where we could house an indoor sports facility and it was also talked about making that site a public private partnership. A true public partnership. Not that we build it and someone else run it, because that's not a public private partnership in my mind. I would like to get the pulse and we can continue to have discussions. I don't think we are ready to make a final decision right now, I'm sorry. More pressure on staff, I apologize greatly all. But we've gotta let budget season play out. We've gotta see how much money we have. We've gotta see what we're able to take care of during the budget season.

We also have to figure out what it is we're gonna prioritize and let go. There are some things that we may not be able to get around to that people can wait another year or two. But we've gotta have we've gotta complete budget season, in my humble opinion.

Madam chair. Mhmm. I I don't disagree with you. I I agree with everything that you've stated. But again, we have to the deadline to approve the ballot questions is June 23. Yes?

Madam chair, members of the board, I was just gonna say we're gonna need some lead time prior to that June 23 board meeting. We're gonna need to know what the projects are. We need time to coordinate with bond counsel to get the questions in a legally verifiable form Mhmm. And then prepare the agenda item, which would be dispatched ten days beforehand. So we're gonna need lead time before. June 23 will be when the board will vote up or down whether to direct me to file a petition in the circuit court.

Thank you, Michelle.

But again, with lead time, I'm just getting as are you talking about would we be able to finish the budget season? Can we do that in April? Or is that not enough time?

If you're gonna finish the budget season in April, if you're going to be then choosing your projects in May, May

Well even if we do, I mean I guess we can simultaneously do these things. I'm worried about wasting staff time.

Mhmm.

That's why I wanted to wait until budget season. Perhaps we can do things concurrently and I apologize. That's not something because I know we have a lot, everyone has a lot of work on their plate. I do want people to think about this as I go back down the line and call on folks. Where are you guys at? Yes, Lee, already spoke. I just wanted to quickly get where are you on this?

I'm fine letting voters decide so long as the questions clearly state what they're voting for and the cost because there's a cost associated to it. So I support letting the voters decide.

Alright. And everyone else, when you speak for your second time, please let me know where you're at. And I have people who are not in queue for that second time, I will ask you. Supervisor Boddy.

Yeah. Thank you, madam chair. And supervisor Vega, I I agree 100% with what you just said. And I appreciate, Tim, you actually have that up there and that I know, at least by law, the questions have to be neutral. They can't be supportive. They can't be nuanced in favor against. So I I agree with that 100%. I also agree with letting the voters decide, especially as long as they're made clear on the cost and we communicate effectively like, hey. One, this doesn't obviate the the county to do it. But two, if it does, there may be a cost associated with it.

So I agree with that. Two, I like the idea of having a conversation about what those subsequent conversations look like because I think we should move forward in having those subsequent discussions to get between here and that drop dead date. But as in the previous slide, you said there was at least one work session that the board had on that. I think we should have at least one, if not a couple more. My 01/08 or one seventh right now, pending what happens tonight, is that we should probably have a work session on and maybe and also a finance and budget committee discussion as well.

So we could have a couple of discussions between now and then to talk through that. And in terms of earlier questions around how things are sort of what what projects are decided, I know that sort of, Angra, you asked about that list. To me, another great way is to ask staff, hey. Can you guys set up a criteria similar to how you came up with the CIP projects with more information such as the the recreation master plan? And, also, I'm not gonna speak too much for madam chair, but I know that, madam chair, part of your impetus here was that we have that long list of trails and parks projects that we can't get to right now.

There's hundreds of million dollars of park projects that people want to see that the board approved as part of the master plan all the way back in 2020, but it's a long list that we don't have a lot of mechanisms to fund those. So I think having some kind of criteria that we work with in in in coal, collaboration with staff, I think, would be a great way to start to take some of the the politicization out of it, frankly. But, again, that's just my thought. And the last thing I'll say is as Sura Zorvega said, I'm all for letting the voters decide. That's one of reasons why I've been supportive of this process because it's one thing for us to decide just us always, hey. This is CIP. These are the projects, what have you. It's another much different thing for us to go to the voters. Hey. Here are our projects.

We may have our own personal opinions and how we want certain projects to go, whether they're indoor sports complexes, trails, rec facilities, libraries, mobility projects. But until we hear from the voters, we don't really know where the pulse of the of the greater population is. And to me, and I'll just end with this, is we know just sort of macro speaking that we will likely have record turnout in November. What's the best way to have a widest as possible survey of where our constituents are than making sure we're having a bond referendum in a midterm year like this where we're going to have a large swath of folks participating in the franchise. And that's my 2¢. Thank you, madam chair.

Supervisor Bailey.

Thank you, madam chair. I agree with what my colleagues have said. I think we should leave it to the voters. And one thing that I just want to remind us of as we're going through this process of making this decision is number one, what supervisor Vega said about the timeline that's critical in us making distinct decisions and making sure that we're supporting our county attorney as to what her process is and what she has to do. But the other thing that we need to be mindful of is the fact that federal funding is not as lucrative as it was when we did this in 2019.

And so that will have an impact as well. To that was with Senator King yesterday. He and Congressman Vindman, and they were talking about the fact that their portals are open now for that federal funding application process. So I know, Seth, that was something in us that we went through when we were doing this before. So just want to put that out there in terms of using other folks'

money.

So that's good. And then the other thing I agree with Supervisor Boddy, when you said in terms of giving us more time and making a good decision, the finance and budget committee meeting, I think that we need that time as well as a work session. Because we don't want to do it in a vacuum and we want to make sure that we are collaborating ideas before we make a final decision. And we're not doing it hurriedly, but we're doing it so that we have good discussions like we always do. So just wanted to say that.

Alright. Quickly, just wanted to get your pulse. Yay or nay, supervisor Stewart?

I do want to let the voters decide, but just doing a little bit of quick back of the napkin math, it might be irresponsible for us to even ask considering where we are fiscally right But, I'm still going to need some more data to come up with a final point. But we're sitting on a fiscal precipice right now, and it's up to us to keep us from going over that cliff.

Is that a yay or a nay? Or is that an abstain?

That's an abstain. Alright.

Angry.

There's no better time than the present. I remember COVID. I remember all these things. And I say we take it to the people. I say we have another Hilton Performing Arts. Bring the people out, put something on a sheet that they wanna see without Cohergent, and I say we let the people decide what they want to invest in in Prince William County. Yes.

Alright. And then I will work with the county executive about when to discuss this further. We'll have this conversation. So thank you so very much. More work for all of us to do, mostly you guys. Thank you.

Thank you very much Madam Chair, members of the board. With item 6D, we're going to talk development service fees. We talked about this as part of the proposed budget. The board requested that we do a deeper dive. And this is a presentation that really gives a good deal about the history of our development services fees. I want to turn it over to our deputy county executive, Wade Hugh, to walk us through the slides.

Thank you. Madam Chair, members of the board, Wade Hugh, Deputy County Executive for Mobility Economic Growth and Resiliency. And as the County Executive said, I'm pleased to be able to provide you a presentation on the framework for our development fee schedules. Before I get started, would like to just take a second to recognize and appreciate the development agency directors who had just entered the room. As we go through the presentation, if you have questions, if there's ones that I can't answer, they will certainly help me out.

So to start the discussion, what I'd like to do is take a look back in time. I've been with the county almost thirty years and and predating me when I came to the county. The board's direction at that time was development pays itself. So essentially, development fees that we charge need to cover the programs that we offer, which is plan review, permits, inspections, code enforcement, bond administration, all those different components. Now even back then, thirty plus years ago, there were two areas that the board did provide general fund to help subsidize or offset some of the cost. One was in the entitlement process. And again, think about where the county was thirty plus ago. We were really trying to grow. We were really trying to attract businesses here. We certainly had location.

We had, you know, cost of land was relatively small compared to our neighboring jurisdictions to the north. But having an entitlement process that was also less costly made it more attractive. The other area we pro the board provided general fund was zoning permits. So your permits for your decks, your sheds, your fences, looking at setbacks. We wanted to set the cost low enough to encourage folks to come in and get their zoning approvals.

So those were the two areas back then. Over time, as the county developed and the board added new programs, new initiatives, many of those programs were funded through general fund. And I'll give you some four examples. So the targeted industry program, very successful. As Christina and her staff are more successful in drawing more business to the county.

Part of being targeted industry is that we provide expedited plan review. So the more projects she brings in, faster we gotta turn those plans, more workloads. So if we need more staff resources, the board had said that would be covered through general fund. We also project management wise for targeted industry, we really roll out the red carpet. We do a lot of step by step handholding, if you will, for businesses to get them through the process.

Code enforcement. So unfortunately, folks do not get their permits for whether they finish their basement or an office expand space without permits and we have to go through the code enforcement process. The board had made the decision to fund that through the general fund. So we're not essentially spreading those costs out to folks that are following the process the way they should. Small business project management program, something the board started pre COVID, wonderful program.

Again, it assigns a project manager to a small business owner who is going through a development application, whether it's just expanding their business, a new location they're going into. Again, programs funded through the general fund. And finally, as the board just adopted the affordable dwelling unit ordinance, a position was provided to development services to help guide those projects and applications through the process. Again, fund. So if you look to the table on the right that says current, so if you add up all that general fund as a percent of expenditures, today's expenditures, you can see it's still relatively small amount of a program budget.

Building development, for example, all their expenses, 9% is offset by general fund. Site development, which is land development, is also planning entitlement process, 12%, and fire marshal's office, 15%. If we look to our neighboring jurisdictions, Loudoun, Fairfax, Stafford, Arlington, what's very interesting, as I mentioned, we've been in the fee game for thirty plus years. Our neighboring jurisdictions are now starting to get into the fee game. Many of them coming from the general fund.

And if you look very recent, Loudoun County 2023 moved to a 100% fee. Fairfax actually is in their final stages in 2026, 100% fee. And Loudoun and Arlington or I'm sorry, Stafford and Arlington just moved in 2025. What I will tell you and having spoken personally to some of their, development agency directors is as they've moved to fees, they're having some pretty substantial fee increases. When they're in the general fund, you may not have the pressure to ratchet the fees as quickly because you're getting the general fund support. Soon as you jump into the fee game, you're operating like a business. And when I say substantial, 5%, 30%, 40 increases, which development community is pushing back in many cases.

Now,

we're often asked about benchmarking our fees, and I'll just say there's some real challenges when you try to benchmark. One, the complexity of the fee schedules. Our fee schedule in land development, for example, is probably 20 plus pages. If you submit a site plan, it's not as simple as there's a single line item that says site plan cost X. There's a lot of add ons when you submit the site plan. How many acres are you disturbing? How many units are being built? What's the square footage of the building? Bond, administration costs, things like that. And that's universal across all Northern Virginia.

We're not unique in that regard. The point is if you try to have staff look at another jurisdiction's fee schedule and say we're trying to figure out how close our fees are, I'll just tell you I would never want to put something in writing on a number because you can miss a fee and it could be a substantial fee. And it's a challenge for consultants too because unless that jurisdiction is willing to really walk you through their fee schedule, you're somewhat taking a little bit of a guess when you look at those figures. Secondly, as you look to benchmark is really understanding that jurisdiction's philosophy on fee collection. I'll give you a for example.

We pay indirect cost in the county for services from the general fund. So for example, our development agencies, if they use the county attorney's office, human resources for recruitment, payroll, procurement when we get consultants, fleet management when we're ordering vehicles. Essentially what is happening is the development agencies are paying back for those services from the general fund. So you truly are a fee supported program. But you may talk to another jurisdiction and they say, yeah, we're 100% fee supported. And then you ask, but do you pay indirect costs? No, we don't. The general fund just absorbs that. Well, then you're not really 100% fee supported. You really need to understand those nuances.

What I will say on the right hand side of the slide here and a tip of the cap to Mandy and Ricky because they were able to work with our neighboring jurisdictions and do what I think is one of the best fee studies you can do. So in 2019, they did a land development fee study, 2021 a building fee study. And what they did is they coordinated with the other jurisdictions, they identified plan types. So say for example on-site development, you may take a small residential project, 10 houses or less, that's very small medium, 50 projects or 50 units and large, let's say 100 units. And so the jurisdictions went and found those types of projects, made copies of the plans, circulated the plans.

So every jurisdiction had the same set, and in each jurisdiction, priced those plans. They provided that information in a spreadsheet. All the agency directors in the jurisdictions signed off that those fees were accurate. And so to me, that is the best way to do a study. I mean, you're getting high level data, but you know it's accurate, and you're all looking apples to apples. You price the same plans. So that was phenomenal work. Here I'm showing now we're drilling back and we're just looking at Prince William County. And you can look at our three main fee schedule areas, land development, building, and the fire marshal. You can see and the board has been very supportive even if I go back to 2008, annually incrementally increasing our fees.

And so what we did here is we just took an eleven year picture from 2016 to 2027, and you can kinda see each year how much these are across the board increase. There were some incremental new fees added. But if you look at this, you see we're running across the board about a 3%. So roughly, you figure inflation 3% a year. Not sure during those exact years if that was inflation, but that's really what it averages out to be. And it's gonna vary a little by each year. There may be a year, if you notice land development 2017, we didn't raise the fees at all. That particular year, we probably weren't doing any program expansions. There may not have been any significant changes legislatively to environmental regulations that required more review. But then another year, you're maybe playing a little catch up in the fees.

I will tell you industry appreciates they don't appreciate paying increased fees, I won't say that, but they appreciate the predictability. They know in the county every it's gonna be about an inflationary increase versus, as I mentioned before, some other jurisdictions that don't raise fees for five or six years and then come back with a 30% increase. I will note down at the bottom footnoted there, the planning fees. As I mentioned, thirty years ago, heavily subsidized by the general fund. As we've grown, as we're at the point where we are now with workload coming in, with the type of projects that we're getting, we're trying now to ratchet those fees to be more cover our cost.

And so you can see there's been some pretty big bumps, 25, 26, 15% across the board in '27. Hopefully, because we just met with industry today and had a great discussion, is you're not hearing any negative talk about a 15% increase on entitlement fees. And I would argue if you're not, the reason you're not is time is money. And with the workload that we have and the great work that the planning office is doing trying to push this stuff through, you know, time is money. A month or two can be $10.20, $30,000 in carrying cost.

So to pay a 15% fee to get these things moving forward, they'll gladly pay that. And what I'd like to kind of end with is when we talk about partnering with industry, three key things. One, we meet with industry every year and industry being your NVBAs, your NAOPS, county commercial development committee, and we talk to them about the fee increases. Here's why we're increasing, here's what we're seeing, here's the program, if there's expansion, staffing needs. So they have a, I'll say a comfort, if you will, in why these fees are going up.

The other thing, and I would like to argue that the county does the best job in the region, is we work so closely with industry on process improvements. We're constantly working in different areas. We have different teams set up. Industry is great. They work with us, whether it's how can we expedite a certain type of inspection, how can we streamline the permitting process, plan review, whatever it is.

And I see our directors are in the trenches in many of those meetings. You don't find that in a lot of other jurisdictions. So I think industry looks also and says, we're going to pay a little more in fees in terms of these annual increases, but we're getting something out of it. We're going to see faster turnaround times, better customer service. And as I mentioned before, third block there, industry does appreciate predictability and not being all over with our fees that we're annually ratcheting these fees each year. So greatly appreciate the board support over the years for that. And with that, I'd be happy to answer any questions.

All right. I'm looking around. All right. Got a couple of takers. Bailey and Vega.

Okay, okay. Wait, thank you. You've not been at the podium in a long time. It's good to see you there. Thank you.

I to ask a question based upon what you were just talking about, industry. If industry says its values consistently and it values consistency and predictability, and I like what you said that because that builds relationships and it builds and also builds value for the county, the predictability, having those conversations. How are we making sure that these annual adjustment adjustments remain disciplined, transparent, and tied to the process improvement rather than simply becoming routine increases? Because I think that's important.

No, and I appreciate that question. So I'll give you actually a great example that's occurring right now. We, again, we just had a meeting with industry this morning Mhmm. Is we're seeing a tremendous amount of workload coming through the entitlement process. All time highs in terms of numbers. But when we look at site plan side, we're seeing a drop off in terms of plans coming in for review. Significant drop off, which isn't adding up. We know there's there's in terms of housing, we know we have shortage. We need to get more units on the market. Why is there that gap?

And so to just jump to your answer to your question, we'll sit on positions. We'll oftentimes not fill a position. You may see when you look at the vacancy reports, which I know you all get copies and look at, you may see in development areas a position that's been vacant for two hundred days, three hundred days.

Mhmm.

I always say that's a good thing because that's showing we're managing like you would a business. If the workload's not there and somebody we have a vacant, let's sit on it. Wait till the workload. Don't just fill to fill and spend money. So we're very careful on how we fill positions, how we spend the money. And the industry will tell us real quick how we're doing back to your question on efficiency. Are we turning things quick enough? If they're not, they usually will let the board know. So I think we just have that great working relationship and have for years. So hopefully that answered your question.

It does answer my question. And I, you know, as we, we have historical industry makers, both with NVBIA as an example, and NAOP as well. What about the new industries that's coming into the community and the new players that's coming into community? How do you how do you bring them into the fold, help them under understand that Prince William County is a place to do business and here's how we do it?

Well, as much outreach as we can do, we have a a newsletter that goes out to I know it's well over 10,000 customers that have signed up. As we meet with even, I'll use the County Commercial Development Committee as an example, is it is a set number of individuals that have positions, if you will, on the committee. But we've always said, we want to open that committee up. We'd love to see fifty, sixty industry members really participating in those meetings. So as new people are coming in, we're trying to get the word out, whether it's through the chamber, through all these different organizations, to get the word out.

We do see new folks. As matter of fact, a new gentleman I met this morning at one of the industry meetings had attended this meeting. And so you really just try to encourage those folks to continue participating.

So my last question is, how are we balancing the goal of full cost recovery with the need to keep Prince William County competitive? That's important as well. We heard that this morning. And not create unnecessary barriers for responsible development.

Well, think that's really through when we do the benchmarking. Okay. Because as we're looking at fees, if staff were to run numbers and come back and say, I'll use just a for example, we're going to need to increase fees 10%, for example. And we look very quickly and say, well, that's going to put us out of sync in terms of benchmark. What is driving that? Are we not being as efficient in our plan reviews? And if we start drilling down, looking at numbers and seeing it's taking us more reviews to approve a plan than maybe we see in our neighboring jurisdictions, then that would be a flag for us to say, okay, wait a minute. We need to drill down a little deeper. We can't go and sell a fee that's higher if the service isn't there. So by having those conversations and the team works exceptionally well together.

So I'm blessed to have a team that, you know, it doesn't matter whose area it's in, let's roll up our sleeves, let's see what's taking place. And we do that on a regular basis.

Thank you, Wade. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Supervisor Vega.

Hi, Wade. You mentioned that we looked at other jurisdictions and their fee schedule. Can you tell me what things were taken into consideration? I'm just curious, I'll name you a few. Did we compare service levels, review timelines, and staffing levels at all? What did we look at to compare those fees?

It was really just, like I said, we distributed the plans, and we just took a set of plans and said, if this plan came to your jurisdiction, what would you charge customer for that particular site plan? And so each jurisdiction did that. So we're really just looking at cost. Now in some cases, we had to look somewhat at service levels because some jurisdictions will say when you pay for a site plan review, that covers a cost of two reviews. If you get bumped to a third review, then here's the additional cost. So as a group in the jurisdictions, we had to agree and say, let's make the assumption this plan that we're all pricing, let's assume it took three reviews to approval so that we're all pricing the same thing. On our end, there isn't an additional cost per review.

That helps us to

kind of benchmark even.

The presentation also, mentions annual fee adjustments moving forward. Will those, proposals to increase said fees come back to the board?

It's part of the budget. Yep.

So every time it's going keep coming to us for us to make that decision. That's correct.

Can you all advertise that as part of your overall advertisement with the tax rate and all the fees?

Thank you for the reassurance. Then the last question that I have, the proposed 15% increase for the planning fees for FY '27 is significantly higher than the 7% and the 10% increase for the two year priors. My question is, can you tell me what specific new services demands justify the increase?

Well, it's kind of twofold. So some of it is, as I mentioned, going back again thirty plus years ago, there was so much subsidy on the fees. If you looked at your neighboring jurisdictions, our fees were so low because they were heavily subsidized by the general fund. So now we're trying to get those fees ratchet up to where they're more comparable. But just with the workload coming in, additional staffing, I know the staffing that we're adding right now is still coming a lot from the general fund and that's largely because we're still playing catch up on the fees. We still haven't gotten the fees high enough yet to balance that.

So you're saying the accelerated hike is due to us basically playing catch up? Okay. That's all I have. Thank you, Wade.

All right, is there anyone else? Going once, going twice. Thank you so very Thank

you.

For such an informative presentation. All right, we are gonna move into agenda item number seven, that's supervisor's time before we go around to each individual. We are gonna start with seven a, and I'd like to get a motion to move that forward.

So moved.

Second. It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Let's take a vote. Unanimous. All right. Thank you so very much. Supervisor Vega, you are up first.

Thank you, madam chair. It's a work session, so I am not going to drag this out. But I just wanted to close, the loop, if you will, on the discussion around the bond referendum and just wanted to directly ask the county executive if he has or if he's prepared to make any recommendations in regards to that timeline before we adjourn today.

Sure. I'm happy to work with the chair obviously in the clerk's office. As you all were talking, I certainly was looking at the calendar. We have a finance and budget committee on April 7. We could come back on April 7 if and I haven't obviously haven't talked to Chair Bodhi about this.

We could come back on April 7 with a communications and engagement plan, meeting dates that we would recommend, for the for the board so that the committee could, at least discuss. We could also come have agencies come back with the criteria for how they will make recommendations on projects at that, April 7 committee meeting. I believe on April 14, we have budget markup. We could come back with actual recommendations at that time. In the recommendation that we have for communications and engagement, we will lay out recommendations on when potentially we would be able to have community meetings that, when we would potentially be able to have a budget meeting.

In my mind, given the discussion you all just had, we would need to be in a position by the April to have the April, early May to have an actual set of recommendations. So that that is what I would that's what I would wanna work towards. First, the April 7 committee meeting that gives the staff time to work on some recommendations presented at that time. And then that following week, during maybe budget markup, having the board react more formally to either projects themselves or at least a discussion. Thank

you for that. I'm not opposed to that. Madam Chair, your thoughts on bringing recommendations to our Finance and Budget Committee meeting on April 7?

I certainly do not have any objections. I would need to speak to a supervisor, he's giving me a thumbs up. So I do not have any objections.

Okay. The last question that I have in regards to the topic is I'm not sure that time will allow for it. But if it does, maybe you can try to make your rounds to our corresponding offices to talk about what that list is going to look like. Because if I understood you correctly, it would be a list that is put together by staff.

We would first put together a criteria. So really, how each agency will evaluate the projects that they have on their sort of list, and then those criteria would be used to determine the projects. We absolutely can come around, not each agency unless you all will want to have each agency.

I don't think that's necessary.

I'm going to be doing a round with each of your offices prior to budget recap. We could certainly add this to the discussion. I just don't know if we'll be prepared because those meetings actually start next week. So so I don't know that I'll be prepared to unless you all are to actually talk specifics about projects just because this is so fresh.

Yeah. Well, I guess April 7 it is. And once we meet with you in regards to the budget and the conversation begins in regards to the referendum, I'm sure we'll have thoughts.

Very good.

Thank you, madam chair.

All right, Supervisor Bailey.

Hello. That was quick, Madam Chair. Thank you so much. Good evening or good afternoon, everyone. On the March 4, I had the wonderful opportunity of hosting the chair of VPRA and the COO of VPRA to on a tour at Potomac Shores and the c the new CEO, miss Katie Cho, at VRE with the developer to talk about the wonderful things that are happening at Potomac Shores and how do we move forward to get the trains on the track.

So I was very excited about that. And then on the fifth, I joined my colleagues at the Human Trafficking Symposium that was put on by our our own community safety department. It was very enlightening as well as very pointed and necessary. So I think law enforcement is our social services and our advocacy organizations that help to put that on to bring this most important item to fruition. And then, also on the fifth, I had the pleasure of joining vice chair Angry in his district for a groundbreaking ceremony for the Woodbridge Navigation Center on the East.

It was a it what to see a project come to come forward from 2020 is really, really important. To know that we have something coming from on the West is equally important. So congratulations to you, vice chair Angry. On the sixth, I attended the Dominion Energy Tour at the Bramilton Station in Aldie, Virginia. I was in Loudoun and didn't even know I was in Loudoun, but it was it was also informative and enlightening.

And then, on the sixth, I that evening, on a Friday evening at 6PM, 40 citizens joined me to talk about green policy and environmental stewardship in a town hall. And I wanna thank Dale Maderas and from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission and our own David McGettin again from Prince William County to talk to us, enlighten the citizens about that. Also want to apologize to the citizens that participated. We had an unusual happening on that night. Someone got in the system and presented porn during that, and so I was very embarrassed.

But yet our citizens, as they always are, they came through, stayed on online, and learned about green policy and environmental stewardship. So I do wanna thank you and say I'm sorry at the same time. On the seventh, I joined Pi Lambda Lambda of Omega Psi Phi, for their twenty second talent hunt program when they, ushered in, 12 of our youth that were talented, creative, and showed their talents to get scholarships to go forward in their futures. And then that evening, I attended the NASA Symphony Orchestra where my husband and I had an opportunity to partner with the Hilton Performing Arts Center and look at local arts in our community. And then on the eighth, was a keynote speaker at Little Union Baptist Church for their annual Women Who Have Shaped the World Past, Present, and Future.

And boy, did we have a good time. On the ninth, was, I was able to host, senators Kane and congressman Vindman, to have them look at what they have supported, here in our community at our crisis receiving center. And then this morning, joining, madam chair, we also had an opportunity to go to the VRE, station in Woodbridge to collect and embrace and and bring home a million dollar check from from congressman Vin Vinman, as well as he supported the Quantico Creek flood mitigation project and 1,200,000 in Quantico. On the eleventh, I will be attending the women's empowerment conference. The twelfth, first care ribbon cutting.

I'll be, attending there. And then on the fourteenth, Saint Patrick's Day. But lastly, I just want to offer my deepest saddened condolences to the passing of our own Karen Smith, a longtime executive director and Potomac District appointee for the disabilities board. So we will miss her. Her pioneering leadership expanded to opportunities and championing inclusion of people with developmental disabilities across our community for years. Her passion, advocacy, and commitment to dignity and equity will leave a lasting legacy and will be cherished by all of us and the work that she did in this community. Rest well, my friend, Karen Smith.

Alright. Supervisor Ingrahe.

Thank you, madam chair. Let's pull this up right quick. Alright. So first of all, I want to thank the county. I believe the county put this on our human trafficking, symposium. That was really good. We were all in attendance, many of us for that. And, I just gotta say the information presented there, the current information of things that we do not know was so critical. I want to thank you again for putting that on. I do want to just pause for a second because I think what happened to Supervisor Bailey is interesting.

Don't know if you are using Zoom or or or or Teams, but I I I hear that's been happening more frequently than any. So do we have security measures to kinda lock down I don't know. If someone was telling me you could actually do that, there's some technology that can lock people out from actually being able to jump in and do that kinda what happened to her. And if we aren't there, I think we should look at that because I'm hearing more and more stories about that happening. I'm not sure what platform it

would So so the platform itself has has measures to not allow for sharing unless you give the privilege. Right? Yeah. What what I will do is work with do it to first allow PD to investigate, then we will, after that investigation, investigate ourselves from a technology perspective Okay. If there's any additional support we can provide you And

I only say that because I was at a

a

NACO kinda conference piece, and they were talking about this happening. So and but they they were saying they had some type of system. Somebody was doing something behind the scene to make sure whoever was in the room was only allowed to be in the room, no one else would come in and kinda hacked away in if you will. I don't understand that technology. I just know it seems like that's happening a lot and I would sure hate to be on a call and have something like that happen. That would just be crazy. Okay. Just want to put that out there. Okay. So also, I wanna thank all that came out to the groundbreaking for the homeless navigation center.

Great addition to the county, I'll say. Thank you all that were there looking forward to that building. I want to say congratulations to Boxes of Basics. They had their second annual Dueling Keys for a Cause. The event was a great success, so really happy that I was finally able to attend one of those, so we did that. Upcoming, so we still have our Neapsco Residence FY27 Budget Feedback survey. So if you haven't taken that, please take it. It's on the website. It's out there. Please email me, call me, text me, whatever.

We'll get you the link and let you take that. Okay? And then we're gonna be having our next court district and community update. I want to remind everybody of that. This is a community meeting that is going to give the residents the latest and greatest of what is going on and things are moving fast.

There is going to be some big changes happening with the single point urban interchange, is the road construction. So we're gonna be talking a lot about that. That's gonna be Saturday, March 21 from at 11:00 from about eleven to one, and that's over at Fire Station 13, which is the Santo Hall. That's on the corner of Dale Boulevard and Hillandale Road. And just lastly, I just I, you know, I I can't stress this enough, but, you know, we had another horrific accident on Cardinal Drive that I just can't stress enough of.

And so we have two fatalities there. Someone driving up the wrong side of the road at 06:45 in the evening. So sun's still up. I I still don't know. I'm still waiting to hear kind of the finals of that, but all I can say, folks, is we have to pay close attention to how we're driving.

Vehicles are worse than guns, if you ask me. The fact that you can be driving, I don't know where this family was going, but you don't even get to come back home is just heartbreaking for the that family and the family of the other car as well, and the fact that this is still happening. So I would just ask that we pay attention. If this is a a not focusing on the on the on the road because you're on your phone or whatever it like, just pay attention because it takes a split second in a car and you can be gone. And so I just my heart goes out to all those families involved in all that, and and we will kind of we'll press this and figure out what happened if if there's anything different we can do or whatever we can do.

We'll continue looking into this. But again, just really all the condolences go out to all the families involved in this horrible accident. Thank you, madam chair.

Alright. Supervisor Stewart and Bodhi.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I also attended the Human Trafficking Symposium. And, you know, one of the things that I really discovered I mean, I always kind of knew this, but maybe not as deep to this extent is that our children are really in trouble online. Yeah, you know, I have a four year old, and she's not going to be allowed to be on the internet until she's a grandmother. So I also got to work with the or listen in on the Human Trafficking Task Force, and we have a lot of work to do there as well.

I will say, if you're a parent and you can hear the sound of my voice, do check-in on your kids at a 45 degree angle. They're not going to like it, but it's what's necessary to keep them safe. I didn't like it when my parents were doing it, but did you know, in hindsight being twentytwenty, they did the right thing. I wanna also congratulate twenty fourteen base battle 2014 Battlefield High School graduate, Nick Wells. So this guy's a left handed pitcher who's played with the Blue Jays, the Mariners, and the Washington Nationals.

So let's go ahead and wish him success as he prepares to play for the for Great Britain in the twenty twenty six World Baseball Classics. Congratulations to Matthew Arndt. Hopefully, I pronounced your last name right. Also, of Battlefield High School for winning the twenty twenty six Virginia High School League class six Virginia State Championship in wrestling. And congratulations and best of luck to Haymarket resident Sarah Everhart, who's going to compete with the United States team in the ISU Figure Skating World Championships, which are scheduled to run-in Prague from March 24 till the twenty ninth.

So tune in to watch our very own Prince William resident compete in that. And I'm also wishing the best of luck to two time regional spelling bee champion, Saya Sampath. She's a seventh grader from Ronald Reagan Middle School. She's going to be competing tonight at Garfield High School at seven p. M. Against 52 other spellers in the forty eighth Annual Prince William Regional Spelling Bee. So Samantha or Saia, hopefully, is going to be a three peat, and we're rooting for you. With that, thank you very much, madam chair. Pass.

Pass one down. Oh, wait. Okay. Whoo. Alrighty now. I had a little temporary heart attack, but first, I'd like to start with the notice of intent, and that's appoint Joseph LeHyte to the Virginia Other Post Employment Benefits Master Trust. I also like to note that I have a virtual budget town hall coming up on Monday, March 16. Please check my website or Facebook page to sign up. And the other thing that this will take up some time I suspect, but I did a directive last week regarding collective bargaining. I have spoken to a number of people and I would like to go ahead with initiating public hearing.

So I'm going to make a motion to suspend the rules so that we can go ahead hold on, make sure I read everything correctly, I guess. Yes.

Would you like for me to make the motion?

I would love for you to make the motion.

Okay. I'd like to make a motion to waiver this rules of procedure this afternoon to initiate this public hearing for collective bargaining.

I was going read the whole title, but okay, go on. Second. So it's been properly moved and seconded. I'd love to entertain discussion around this. Supervisor Stewart?

Madam Chair, members of the board, is the waiving the rules combined into this or is it gonna be two separate votes? Okay. Then the resolution will have to be

You have to read the I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

It actually might so to Michelle's point, it might be easier to waive rules.

Okay.

As one action.

Okay.

And then to move forward with the authorization as a

separate action. So then let's go ahead with that motion

very much, madam counter. Okay. You want me to read this?

You're gonna waive the rule. Guess we've already had a motion to waive the rules. Uh-huh. And should we make a new motion or just say that the motion is to vote on occasion? Yeah.

Don't don't confuse me, manager.

Alright. Motion passes five to one. Supervisor Vega voting nay.

Alright. Then I'd like to get a motion or I'm gonna move this. I move to authorize public hearing to consider amendments to Prince William County code chapter two, article what is that? Six, collective bargaining Prince William County code section two dash two one seven b three certification and decertification of exclusive bargaining representative countywide.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded. Discussion? Anger than Vega.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have just one question on this. The key here is to collect signatures for our general employees. The question I have is the expiration date of the signatures. So and an example, if an employee is in the county and signs this, nothing no action is done. They for for whatever reason, leave the county. What gets their name off the list assigned? Or if they decide they don't wanna be on it anymore, can they come off this list? So I'm just curious. I don't I I don't see where a language like that kinda makes an exit clause, if you will.

So Madam chair, members of the board, when the board passed the collective bargaining ordinance, that was one of the issues. Maybe the employee changes their mind, the employee leaves, the employee moves, etcetera. So a time period of when those signatures would be valid was instituted, and the motion is now to take that away. So now if an employee signs their their card, that's there forever, and what will happen is the labor relations contractor will have to go through and now look at every single signature to see if they're still here. Not sure what'll happen if the employee says, well, I've changed my mind, etcetera. So now there will be no expiration date on the signatures.

Okay. So with no expiration date, can there still be language in here that says that's happening? I mean, at that point, if we're not validating or we're taking I hear you saying that we're gonna either take the word of validation or

No. This says right now that the signature of an employee of their their intent to be in the bargaining unit Mhmm. Is there. You have to have 30% to be able to go forward with an election to have the exclusive bargaining representative. Right now, your ordinance says after 30 after a year, they have to get another signature. So you have to have 30% of that bargaining unit within a year. This resolution or this intended amendment removes that. There's no proposal for a different time frame to be in place. It'll just go away, period.

And and so I okay. Got that part. Just asking, can language be added then, though? That says, you know You would

need to make a substitute motion to

change the language that is because, I mean, my point is if it's an expiration, okay, okay. I'll I'll I'll pull out. I'll back out. I just I I I'm not I just wanna get some clarification, but okay.

Supervisor Vega. You're spot on, Supervisor Angry. You are quite literally hitting the nail on the head and then some. But before I get to the point that you're trying to make, I want to understand the chair's reasoning. Last week, you issued the directive, and I specifically stated that I wouldn't object to your directive pending the county executive and the team coming back to this board with questions that I wanted answered.

You sent this via email closer to 7PM last night. I have dinner with my family. I didn't get to it this morning. So when we look at how this even started, it shows the lack of proper planning. And I wanna understand, madam chair, why, one, we're not allowing for the directive to come back to this board, and two, why the rush?

I would go with Supervisor Bailey. And then when everyone's spoken, I'll go ahead and make my comments.

Supervisor Bailey? But I'm not done, Madam Chair. And typically, that's kind of how we do it.

Are you done?

Well, I want those questions answered so that I can move down the rest of the questions.

Well, go ahead and move down the list, I'll answer everything at once. Because you're still you have about four minutes.

Madam Chair, you're doing things out of order. I don't understand what the issue is with answering my questions right now so that I can move on to the other ones in the order of fashion that I have them presented here.

I am going to wait until you've gone through everything, I'll address everything at once.

Okay, that's fine. So those are the two questions that I have. Supervisor Angry, to your point, they are removing the twelve month period. And that's alarming and concerning to me because it puts this county, in my opinion, a legal bind, a legal bind, an opinion that we haven't gotten from the attorney. We haven't gotten those questions answered.

But here's the reason why they're asking for this change to be made. It is said that you need 30% signatures in order to move forward. There has been a consensus from the general workforce who is not interested in being a part of the union. They can't even get to 30%, which is why they're asking for this twelve month month clause to be removed. They can't get to 12 they can't get to 30%.

So what they're trying to do is get signatures that they will hold on forever. Employee priorities change. Okay? Employees may have a special interest today in salary and benefits, but I would I would argue that in twelve months, those priorities will change. But what this group wants to do is that they want to hijack those signatures indefinitely, regardless of what the workforce priorities are, if they are a part of this union, and hold on to those And so again, my question is, madam chair, why the rush? Why not allow for the directive that you issued last week to the one that I did not oppose to to come back to this board so that we can make an educated decision on what's happening here? And why are we rushing this?

So I don't see this as a rush quite frankly. And you know what, I was mistaking in making a directive because of the time frame for them to do the activity so they can have chance to participate in the 2027 budget, which starts immediately pretty much after we pass this budget. Now talking about hijacking signatures, I don't think that's a fair characterization. They have a number of people they're going to every year and asking them to sign. It's a small group of people who are really doing a lot of work outside of county hours, outside of their general work time.

This is not the same as with police or fire. They don't have necessarily the same access. Now, from what I understand, they're pretty close. And perhaps this isn't needed but I'd like to go ahead and go through and have the public hearings. There's gonna be additional time for us to talk about this and discuss this. And I know that this is a strong philosophical difference between us. I do support collective bargaining. I do think that in general, unions have been very good for our county and our nation. They're why we have a forty hour work week, why we have weekends off. And I think in a county such as ours, we are behind other similar peer jurisdictions in doing collective bargaining.

Listen, I wanna make sure that our county employees have a voice. I wanna make sure that they have a seat at the table. I don't necessarily think that this is a rush or that this is a bad thing. Again, that's a philosophical difference. Madam Hold on, supervisor Vega. I'm going to ask you very politely because I still have time on the clock and I apologize It's not for your time. My name is up there, your time has run out. I have, and that's one of the reasons I want you to have your time. That's why I wanted you to continue to go through your sheet because I didn't want to interrupt your time. This is now my time.

I have just over three minutes. And I can sit here if I want for those three minutes. What I am gonna say is we can continue to debate this point. I know this is a key philosophical difference.

But it's not and I don't want you to put words in my mouth.

Supervisor Vega?

It's a fiscal concern of mine. That's where it comes from.

I have asked you not to interrupt me.

I'm just making sure that you don't put words in

my mouth. Recess for five minutes.

You can recess all you want. I'm still gonna say what I need to say.

Alright. We are back. And I would like to remind people that when someone is speaking, we are not going to be interrupting. I know that emotions are running high. I know that we have an election next year. But I would ask that over the past few years, we have developed a very good rapport, and that I would like to remind people, when someone's speaking, we shall not interrupt. So with that, I did still have time on the clock. However, I had sue I'm frozen. I believe I had supervisor Angry in queue.

Yeah. Listen. Again, my my just my one point was the expiration date. We can go back.

Is there a problem?

So

we are not rolling? Would you like me to hold a little longer? Alright. Thank you. I apologize, supervisor.

I agree. Did we break something? Did you do you need additional time? Should I extend the recess, or can we proceed? No.

My mind is down. Refresh. Refresh. I refreshed already. Let's see if it does it again. Okay. It looks like I have I can see one person. I don't know. Can someone else try to do request to speak to see if I can see you? Alright. I'm sorry. Alright. So if you wanna speak, speak. If you're just doing the task, you may take yourself out. But I had supervisor are you ready, supervisor Angry? You're in. Yes. So you may go ahead.

Yeah. Thank you, manager. And, look, again, my I made the motion for us to get get down this collective bargaining road in the first place. We took care of police. We took care of fire. I asked the general employees to get in. It's been a while since they got in, so I understand this hold up. But what I just don't like is the fact that there was no way out of signatures. So that concerns me, especially when I haven't gotten a brief from anybody, not even our employees to say, like, what this really is. So I just want to make sure this is done the right way.

And I believe, and I've talked to staff about this a bit, that there's got to be some kind of tracking measure more than if someone's gotta track to see who's still active in this organization, there's gotta be a measure for that, that's what the whole twelve year expiration was. So if it's not gonna be that, what is it gonna be? Because if someone has to count these folks, I need to see some assurance inside of this resolution that says I'm counting active people who are actually employees of Prince William County. That's just my position.

And so then let me post this to the county attorney. Even under or maybe mister Sher, but even under the current system, when people get to that threshold, aren't we looking over and verifying and checking the signatures. Correct?

Yes. We are verifying the signatures. I think what I'm hearing from supervisor Angry or vice chair Angry is that what the what this what we are striking is, yes, we will continue to verify, but there would be expiration.

If there's no expiration, that's just

I wait. I don't wanna understand. So if people leave the what you're asking, if I am a county employee, I signed it, but then I moved to New Jersey the next month. When they go through and verify my signatures, they will catch that. Correct, mister? That I'm no longer

If they are no longer an employee, we should be able to catch that.

And secondly, how about if they say, hey, I really don't want to be a part of this. How are you exited out of that?

That is currently not addressed the language. Alright.

Did we have anyone else who wanted to speak? Supervisor Vega.

Yeah. Maybe I missed it, madam chair, but I I guess wanna hear why not wait for the directive to come back to the board so that we can get all of this clarified, and maybe I don't even have an objection to it. I didn't have an objection to the directive. I just want my questions answered and to ensure that the team along with, Kelly and company have time to properly vet this and inform us. I'm not sure, mister Shorter, if there's a timeline on that directive, if it's something that can be expedited. I just wanna have my questions answered. So I'm not sure if if it can come back to us, madam chair, if you would be agreeing to to to wait for it to come back again. I don't I don't know why not wait for the directive to come back.

I the reason why as I had mentioned earlier, it's considerations with timelines. And to be quite frank with you, I had discussions. You know, I spoke with misters you know, mister Shorter. I spoke with others. There was concern about the time frame and really being able to get everything in process for the next budget cycle.

And so I just wanted to be mindful of that. If the county, if they are able to provide additional information before we have public hearings, that's great. I think that there is time for us to have still robust discussions and to get some of the information that I seek. So for me the reason why I would like to do this now is so that you know the people who want to organize have time to continue to do so in an organized fashion before next budget cycle. So I would like to move forward with this. If this is something that you're uncomfortable with, I respect that, and I would respect the no vote.

Yeah. It's I'm uncomfortable with the process. But just to make sure, you also said that as it stands right now, they can't partake in the county budget process. Is this accurate?

So they right now, for this budget cycle, I think that is pretty much impossible. I'm talking about for fiscal for the next fiscal year because it's gonna take time for them to organize, to have their elections, and to do the entire process to get to that point. So we're looking at giving them time to do so for the next fiscal year.

Madam chair, I think that I've laid out clearly why, this is not a good idea. I understand that I'm gonna be in the minority and that I don't have the votes, but it reeks of bad government. In my opinion, it lacks true leadership because one would think that we would want county staff to be adequately prepared to advise this board before making such a drastic policy change in regards to this ordinance. But go ahead and, call for the vote.

I before I say that, I don't know if anyone else want to speak. I know other people were in the queue. I don't know if this is a drastic policy change because it actually puts us in line with neighboring jurisdictions. And I feel that I was not here for collective bargaining and for working on the ordinance, but this has long been a sticking point. And again, this puts us in line with other jurisdictions. Personally, I don't characterize this as drastic. I think that staff knew that this was coming and this has been a long ongoing discussion. Supervisor Bailey, I welcome to hear from you because you were on the board. Know this is something that you support.

Yeah. Yeah. Majority of us were on the board when when this took place. It's it's not a surprise. And this as I said last week, this is consistent the other collective bargaining ordinances that we have put together that we use as a template as we were putting ours together. So there have been extensive discussion about it. This is not out of the ordinary. It does not legally put us in jeopardy. If an employee is no longer here, then the signature is just gone because they're no longer here. It doesn't put us in any legal jeopardation.

It's us making sure in the discussions that I personally have had with the with the unions understanding our ordinance, this doesn't put us in eagle any legal jeopardy. And if it does, I'd like for the county attorney to say that to us if it does. But it is consistent with what has happened in Fairfax County and in Loudoun County. And so to put our minds and hearts at ease, and I I know Megan is not here, to to come and give us that. But, yeah, we're county attorney, what does it put us in a legal jeopardy as we move forward with this?

Madam chair, members of the board, what will happen is if a bargaining unit states that they have 30% signatures, they will come forward to the labor administrator. We'll have to go through and double check them. If that employee is no longer employed here, that signature will no longer count. A question will be what happens if the employee signed it two years ago and and changed their mind, I don't know the answer to that. But no, this will if the labor relations administrator, who is a neutral person that's discussed in the ordinance, goes through and certifies that there's 30%, then the election will go forward.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

I'm sorry. Supervisor Angry? And then I'm gonna call for the vote.

I just I just got I just got one more. First of all, police and fire did the same thing, so why is it theirs different than this twelve months, if that's the case?

Madam Chair, members of the board, police and fire were able to gain 30% of the votes within twelve months.

This might okay. So so nothing's changed in the language. They just were able to do theirs in the time frame.

They were able to do theirs with showing a 30% interest within twelve months.

My second question. If we approve this today, can we cancel this letter? If we make a resolution, I got it. If we find out this is a bad idea, can we say we don't

like it? Well, is for a public hearing. I just wanna be honest with you. This is just to initiate the public hearing. We're not giving a vote today.

Okay.

This is just to initiate the vote here.

Did say public hearing. That's right. Okay. I had lost that point already. Okay. Alright. Thank you.

Thank I'd like to go ahead and call for the vote.

Motion passes five to one. Supervisor Vega voting nay.

All right. Thank you very much. And we are at the end. Agenda item number nine. Can I get a motion to adjourn?

Move to adjourn, madam. Second.

Alright. So we're probably moving and second it. Let's go ahead and vote. Oh, my screen is down. Hold on. I'm a yay. My screen is down.

Thank you.

Oh, here we go. I got it. I'm a yay.

Sorry. I got it. Vote unanimous. Sorry. I clicked it.

Alright. Thank you, everyone. And our next meeting will be on Tuesday, March 17, and that will be a regular session. Thank you so very much.