City Council - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon and welcome. At this time, I'd like to call our Suffach City Council work session to order. Uh we have several topics for this afternoon. Our first one will be a fiscal year 202526 city profile and statistical digest presentation. Mr. Manager,

mayor, vice mayor, members of council, as uh we prepare for the 2627 uh operating budget presentation. Uh at our next meeting, we wanted to continue to present some more pertinent data and information as it relates to the city as well as share some comparisons and trends. So, we brought back uh the statistical digest and so walking us through that will be our uh director of finance and budget, Miss Stephanie Wells. Good afternoon, Stephanie.

Good afternoon. I do have a city profile statistical digest to report on tonight. However, don't let the name fool you. It is packed full of lots of information of the city. While it's named a digest, there's a ton of information in there. And this is put out by the budget department every year. and every year it just looks better and better. So kudos to them for all the work that they do to make sure there's lots of information here for the public. I will also have a slide later on to explain how to access for the public how to access this. So the city profile statistical digest has these main components. Government and taxation, demographics, local economy, education, public safety, health and welfare, and parks and recreation. And I have a little bit of about everything in this presentation tonight. Under government and taxation, the most important slide that I rather chart that I thought I should show here tonight is how we split our general fund expenditures. And you can the reason this slide is so important is because you can tell straight off by looking at this in the purple education and the yellow public safety. So the city is definitely making impacts there through public safety and education on what we spend on in the general fund. We've also included bottom right hand side our AAA rating by all three rating agencies. Uh triple AAA combination. Um the reason we get a AAA rating from each of those is a combination of our reserves, our fiscal policy, but also our economic potential for raising revenue if need be. The second slide here talks about a seven cities tax rates comparison. We have two charts here. The reason we use the seven cities is because local counties aren't quite comparable. So in

Hampton Roads, while there's a couple of counties for taxing purposes, it's not really comparable in the chart here. We have different levels of service such as police and sheriff. We also have fulltime paid firefighters. Also, they're typically more of a bedroom community and have less amenities than cities tend to offer. The other issue is scale. The populations tend to be much lower. And where we do see some similarities, unfortunately, I guess you could say, is the cost of our water and sewer utilities, mostly due to land miles and the cost of service to send the that water across long distances without the same level of density that the other cities in Hampton Roads has. So you can see in the bottom left there, real estate tax rate comparison. We are the third lowest in Hampton Roads for the seven cities as well as our personal property tax rate. Were the third lowest of the seven cities. Moving on to tax exemptions. I'm sure you're all familiar with the tax relief for elderly and disabled, but also for our tax relief for veterans. What you may not be aware of is how much the tax relief for veterans has increased. Obviously, we have a strong military community and a lot of those military individuals are um 100% disabled according to VA. And in the state of Virginia, if you're 100% disabled per the VA, you do have a tax exemption both on your real estate and one vehicle. So that has been a huge impact over the last 10 years. We've grown from only 200 in 2015 to over 2600 in 2025. And I'll tell you that is steadily growing because um every week I'm signing off on veterans exemptions. One of the main reasons I wanted to make sure to talk

about this is the impact it has on our budget. these increasing exemptions during our budget presentation. Well, I'll bring it up again during our budget presentation, so I won't talk a long time about that. Moving on to demographics, SUFFK has seen a 10 and a half% change over the last five years in our population. As our population is growing, the cost of services to the citizens is going to grow. More citizens mean a higher cost of service delivery and more need for more infrastructure. Specifically with increased traffic, the city is addressing that gross growth through our CIP projects not just in roads but in schools and public safety as well and also in parks for our quality of life. The operating costs are also going to be impacted and so we'll talk about that during the budget as well budget presentation as well. Moving on to local economy. I included this one here because we do look at this when we are considering what our revenues are probably going to do over the next budget year. And you can see here that our unemployment rate is above that for Virginia and right up with the United States unemployment rate. So, our hope is that this was temporary or will be temporary related to some of the federal government layoffs, but you know, we're hopeful that that will rebound, but we do need to keep an eye on it. The next section for local economy is the distribution of parcels by taxable value. You can see here the four different types. Multifamily changed increased by 1.8%. Agriculture decreased by 1.3%.

Commercial increased by 4.1% and res residential went down by 4.6%. Over the last 10 years, we've obviously had a lot of growth in the real estate values. Um that is probably across the country as the housing crisis has come where housing prices are just so high. So taking that into consideration, our tax rate is $1.7 which is down two cents from just a couple years ago. So while we've had rising values, we are also looking at the rate as well. Moving on to education and how the city funds education in the seven cities. You can see here that we are second for the composite index which is what the state uses to determine how much the city can afford to put towards the cost of education. We are the third highest local per people budgeted funds and I have another slide here. The second slide, school enrollment over the last 10 years has only grown, excuse me, has hasn't grown a lot, but if you look at the bottom right hand corner there, our per pupil expenditure has it's grown exponentially from $9,400 in 2014 to 15,850 in 2024. Moving on to public safety. Our public safety for uh police department calls for service has continued to decline. And so that is a combination of the investment the city has made in making sure that we have sufficient public safety police department positions. For the fire department, their calls for service have increased. their ability to respond to calls for

service has increased and that's also because of the investment that the city has made in adding firefighter positions. A slide that looks at what our per capita expenditures are for law enforcement is here. And so even though we are not as large as Chesapeake and Virginia, we're still spending more per capita on law enforcement. Looking at fire and rescue on the right, we are actually the highest in the seven cities for what we spend on fire and rescue. The last slide I have in the uh different sections of the profile and statistical digest is for parks and recreation. We have four main primary regional parks and Sleepy Hole, Lonear, Bennett Creek, and Lake me. The bottom right hand may be a little bit hard to see, but hopefully the people at home that are watching this on TV can see this pretty well. The lake me has been fairly consistent, but you can see a huge increase in not only Bennett's Creek, but also Lonear Lakes and the city has continued to make investments in quality of life and providing these parks to the citizens. As promised, the last slide here is how the citizens can also get a copy and review a copy of this city profile and statistical digest. If you go to our website that's listed here and go to departments, you click on budget and strategic planning and under it'll bring up the part on the right here and then you just click on city profile and statistical digest. And so I just want to take a moment to thank the budget department especially Danielle Maine Waring. Uh the ladies in the budget have department have done a lot of work on this and it looks great and that's all I have.

Okay. Thank you very much Stephanie. U council questions or comments? Council member Johnson I just want to say as well I was blown away when we got this and I've already been through it two or three times. So it's such good information for us to have to be able to present while we are where we are and how to explain what we do. So thank you and thank you department because very impressive. But now the only catch to that is this is probably a yearly thing now. It is a year old. That is correct. But we will have some more up to-date information when we come with the budget presentation on April 1st and so we will include a few more up-to-date demographics there.

Thank you

council. Any other questions or comments? Um I too want to piggyback on what council member Johnson said. This is a outstanding document for us to have. I actually used it last night, my Facebook live, the big version. It's 25 pages and it's it's pretty much covers our city in a nutshell as to what we look like. There's a lot of information in there that we didn't cover in the work session that had to do with demographics and uh took into consideration uh like I said, the demographics, health and welfare, local ability to pay. There's just a lot a lot of information in there that really does in a lot of ways portray our city in a in a very very positive note when you look at how we compare to other cities and a lot of the information here is based on per capita per cap per capita capita is only one of the main considerations the other is the 430 square miles if you look at Norfolk or Portsouth. I believe they're in the 50s. So, you got to put it all into perspective. So, we're using less police officers than Portsouth is by a long shot in a city that's four times larger as far as what they have to cover. So I think we are doing a very thank the manager and the staff and uh management our personnel because we're doing a lot with what we have uh financially when you look at the numbers once again I mean the the AAA bond ratings that we're getting a lot of it is because of that uh education and public safety as we'll find out in the budget. I mean, it normally over the last years that I can remember, it normally equates to about 60 or 65% of our overall budget every year. And I would assume it's not going

to be much different this year. So, of our local tax dollars and budget wise, we are concentrating on education and public safety. Uh the tax relief number for the elderly and disabled. The number of individuals that's being covered is re as you pointed out in here has been reduced substantially from 21108 in fiscal year 19 to 1270 in fiscal year 25. That is a substantial decrease. Uh, and I think I don't know when the last time was we actually looked at adjusting some values for inflation as to what the cut off amounts were, but it may be something that we need to look at because I think that's what's happening. I don't know if we just have that many less disabled people, but I think percentage-wise we're having more people that qualify because their incomes are are higher, but the real value of that money is still we've what am I getting ready to say? The I don't think we've adjusted some of the numbers that we have put in place for who qualifies based on inflation. So, that may be something that we need to look at. that kind of jumped out at me and I think these are individuals that really deserve uh the relief. So, it's something I think we can take a look at. I'll get the manager to take a look at as well. Uh there's a little bit of talk about the unemployment rate and when we're looking at the budget, you know, it's always when you're in a good position, you want to look at it optimistically, but there are individuals when you look at the unemployment and some of the instability that we have, not only, you know, in the state and the United States, but globally and things that could affect the economy. There are some there's a reason to have some type of concern. I mean, we've always been

conservative. I think we need to to keep that in mind as well. And once again, I mean, I'll just wrap it up. This is This document will go nowhere. I promise you. I mean, I got tubs and tubs of stuff that gets printed out. This will stay at the top of the list when people question, you know, have a question as to where we are, how do we compare in, you know, our tax rates across the board versus everyone else. So, once again, thank you. Thank the manager for putting this together. Our next topic is a discussion on detention centers. Mr. Manager,

uh, mayor, vice mayor, members of council, um, based upon some national headlines and some recent discussion uh, at council meetings, wanted to uh, talk very briefly about detention centers as it relates to the city of Suffach. And so, I'm going to just walk you through two slides. Uh, Valerie, if you could go to the next slide. So, um, the unified development ordinance limits what we classify as detention centers, jails, honor camps, and reformatories to only the M2 heavy industrial district. Additionally, they would need to receive a conditional use permit in the city of Suffach per our UDO. I would note that not all industrial projects and sites are zoned M2. We also have another category called M1 which is light industrial that includes uh six different parks including Westport Commerce Center, Virginia Regional, Coastal Logistics, Bridgeway Commerce, and Bridgeway Business Center. Uh Virginia Port Logistics, previously known as Centerpoint, about half of that site is either B2 or M1 as well. So those would not qualify uh per the UDO to uh to be a location for those. Uh it's also important to note that we have some uh private uh as well as profered uh exceptions with some parks, industrial parks including Port 460, Wilroy Industrial Park and Suffach Industrial Park. They either have approved uh profer language in their resonings or existing covenants and restrictions that would prohibit a use uh like this in their sites. That being said, next slide, Valerie. What uh I I've had the opportunity to talk to all the council members about this knowing that we wanted to chat about it at the council meeting and based upon those discussions it appears that there is consensus strong consensus uh for staff to send an official correspondence to every property owner who has a facility over 100,000 square

feet of space and informing them of city council's opposition uh to host or be a future home of a federal detention. center in the city of S. So, we're prepared to move forward with that recommendation. I talked to city attorney. Do we need um an official vote to have that done or or can we just suggested that? If there's no opposition, then it can be just passed by a scent of city council and it sounds like it has been.

Okay. Uh does anyone council have any objection to the city manager? putting that letter together, you know, for review and then we'll send it out. Now, will this only go to property owners in M2 zoning? We would send it out to everybody who has more than 100,000 square feet of of space. Regardless of the zoning. Yes, sir. Okay. Anyone have any questions? If no further discussion, then that concludes our work session. I understand we do have need for a close session this afternoon. Madame clerk, will you please read the motion for consideration?

Pursuant to Virginia Code section 2.2-3711A1, the discussion, consideration or interviews of prospective candidates for appointment and the assignment, appointment, and performance of specific public officers or appointees of the city. Specifically, the appointments as shown on the attached list for vacancies or term expirations for the downtown advisory committee, the early childhood development commission, the human services advisory board, the local board of b building code appeals, the planning council, the senior services of southeastern Virginia board of directors, and the Tidewater Youth Services Commission.

Council, a motion has been presented for consideration. What's your pleasure? Council member Bennett. Move for approval. Got a motion for approval from council member Bennett. Council member Recctor. Second. Second from council member Rector. Is there any discussion of the motion? Hearing none. Council members prepare to vote. Please cast your vote. Madame clerk, kindly record the vote. Motion is approved by a vote of 8 to zero. This meeting stands adjourned and we will reconvene at 6 him.