Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Hi, how are you? [laughter] You just want this hand. [music]

Heat. Heat.

[music] [music]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much for joining us for the December 2nd uh 2025 board of supervisors meeting. I'll call the meeting to order and the roll call, please. Mr. Hoy here. Mrs. Null here. Mr. Drury, present. Mr. R here. Mr. Shepard here. Madam Chairman, you have a quorum. Thank you very much. Tonight, we've got three presentations. The first one is going to be the presentation of the FY20 25 annual comprehensive financial presentation. And Teresa Owens, director of finance, I think you're the one who's going to speak at this. I am up. Yeah. Good evening. Tonight, Is this on? It's not on.

They'll pick you up.

They'll pick me up. Okay. Sorry. Um, tonight we've got with us Danielle Nikolas from Brown Network and she is the partner in charge of the audit. um for us. But before she comes up, I do have to give a huge thank you um to the staff of the accounting and financial reporting. They're over here, Carolyn, um Catherine, Amy, and Heidi, and Katie couldn't be here tonight, but they spend hours and months on the audit and every [clears throat] day getting all the transactions recorded correctly. So, I I need to give them a special thank you for that. So, with that, With that, um, Danielle is here to present, um, the audit, her findings, any findings, and require communication to the board.

Thank you, Daniel. It's okay. [clears throat] Thank you. Um, yes. So, you all should have in front of you the annual comprehensive financial report as well as the required communication. Um I am today just going to go over a high level the audit process and um the results of our audit reports that are embedded in the big financial document. The um unfortunately the nice glossy document that you have in front of you we have nothing to do with um so I won't be talking about that today even though it is it is much more reader user friendly and readable than than what the act presents but

it's the purpose.

Yeah it is the purpose of it. Yes. Um so yes um this is our third year working with the county. Um in addition to our audit of the county, we also audit the school division, the economic develop development authority, and the marquee um CDA. And so all three of those entities are actually um included in the ACT for document. They're required to be reported as component units of the county for financial reporting purposes. So you'll see the information in the act for for all four entities there. Just a high level overview of the audit process. We actually start um audit planning in late spring May June time frame. Um that's when we are conducting our interviews with management. We are walking through financial reporting processes and we're also evaluating internal controls over financial reporting. So we usually spend some time on site with that. Um we also perform an annual risk assessment. Um we consider any changes that occur during the year and key personnel changes in system, new funding sources, new grants, new compliance requirements. Um and that's when we also make our federal program audit determination. Uh we come back out in the summer, usually around the July time frame for interim testing. So that's when we do a lot of our state and federal compliance testing. And then we also perform the testing required over the Virginia retirement system compliance requirements. September is when we perform the audit of the schools and the the two other component units, the EDA and the MCDA. And then finally in October and November, we're out here for the on-site fieldwork for the county audit. Um so as you can tell, this is quite a long comprehensive process. And so I would just like to um reiterate Teresa's thanks to the finance team. you guys have a really good team here and um they really allow us to get in and out and do

what we need to do without complaining [laughter] too much. So, um they're they're wonderful to work with here. Um so, our audit is really broken down into three pieces. We have the federal program audit, we have a state compliance audit, and then we have the core financial statement audit. Um the federal program audit is what we call a single audit. Um it's actually combined between all four entities. Um the EDA and the MCDA don't really have federal programs, so it's really just the schools in the county. Um this year, the major f the major federal program that was selected for testing was actually just one program with the schools because of the large dollar amounts involved. It was the impact aid. Um so that was the program that we tested this year. Um federal programs are over a certain threshold are required to be audited once every three years. um unless something happens that would throw them into the mix more often than that. And then we have to perform a risk assessment over all of the remaining programs on an annual basis. And so we're looking at all of the federal programs annually. We're assessing risk, but we don't necessarily test them on an annual basis. Um the second core piece of our audit um is the state compliance audit. And so annually the um state auditor of public accounts has quite a long list of uh audit requirements they put out. And so we audit um we go to the treasur's office, we look at unclaimed property, we go to the commissioner's office and we look at abatements and exonerations, we look at conflict of interest. Um there is a on page M3 there's a whole listing of state code requirements that they require us to test to. And so that's part of our state compliance audit. Um, additionally, we issue two separate reports, again required by the APA on the sheriff's office internal controls and also on the county's compliance with

the Virginia retirement system compliance requirements, making sure that you're doing everything that you're supposed to do for the retirement plan participation. And those have both been issued. Um and those were essentially clean, no findings [clears throat] as part of those reports. And then the last piece of the audit is of course the financial statement. Um the the audit of the basic financial statements themselves. This is where we're auditing the balances that are reported in the statements as well as the transactions that are reported. Um we vouch balances to third party supporting documentation. We call that independent verification of balances. We look at invoices. we perform analytics. So, it's a it's a whole process. Um there's there's a nice segregation of duties in Virginia local government between the treasurer, the commissioner, and finance. And [clears throat] so, we do a lot of cooperation between the three. And so, um it's it's a full scope, we'll say. Um so, just getting to our audit reports. The um audit report is found on page B1 of the large bound document that you have in front of you. The first paragraph of that just notes exactly what was included in the scope of our audit. So our opinion is on the basic financial statement. So there's quite a lot included in this document. Um and if you look at the table of contents, it's broken down nicely into different sections. Our audit is on the basic financial statement portion of that. That's what our opinion covers. Um

again, where's where's that part? If you look at the table of contents, first page, that's what it normally is. There's a [laughter]

there's a section for the basic financial statements and then it details out all of the statements and the notes that are included under the basic statements. That's the core of our audit. Um everything else in this document we um we look at and we review and we perform various levels of assurance on those sections, but our core opinion is on those basic statements themselves. And so the second paragraph of our audit report, which flipping back to page B1, um is in the second paragraph. And so in our opinion, the financial statements are presented fairly in all material respects. So this is a clean unmodified audit opinion on the basic financial statements. Um our audit report then goes on to describe the basis for our opinions and that's generally accepted auditing standards, government auditing standards as well as the the state specifications audit spec specifications. I will point out there was a change in accounting principle that was implemented this year. Um there there was a new accounting standard that was implemented and as a result of the implementation of that it required the restatement of some balances and so whenever numbers are restated from what they were in a prior year we like to point out that that it's okay it's not because there was an error it was because there was a new accounting standard that was required to be implemented and [clears throat] the effect of that restatement is described in note 16. It's all the way at the back of the um of the notes. Um, it's related to compensated absences. It's it's how you value the leave that's been earned but not yet taken by your employees. And nationwide, it's just made this liability figure larger. Um, and requires some estimates into what's more likely than not to be taken by your employees. So, um, I will say it's been quite a task for accountants this year to try to estimate those figures. a lot of time and effort went into the development of those estimates. Um, and

so we have audited in detail those schedules and we have found them to be um materially correct and we take no exception to anything in there. But it was quite a task this year to to implement that new standard. Who set that standard? The government government [clears throat] accounting standards board. Do that to screw around with people or what? They generally think that localities are not reporting liabilities enough. So the past several set of standards that they have put out just add liabilities to the balance sheet. Generally speaking, it's just screwing around with people. [laughter] Is that is that a state board or federal board?

It it is um I it's not state. Um I I would say it leans more towards federal than than state. So um our audit report then goes on to describe management's responsibilities for the financial statements, our audit, our responsibilities for the audit of the statements and then as I mentioned um there's a couple sections related to the level of assurance that we are providing for the other sections that are um [clears throat] in the act for document. And so there's different pieces and parts and here we describe the level of assurance that we're providing over those sections. And then finally at the end of our audit report we make reference to the second report that we have in the back of the act for document and that's our report on internal controls and compliance. Um as part of our audit we um consider management's internal controls over financial reporting for the purpose of designing our audit procedures. And should we note any material weaknesses in internal controls, we would report those here in this report or we would describe those here in this report. And you'll see in the um well, it's actually on the second page of our report. It's a clean essentially a clean report on our findings of our testing of internal controls. So we noted no material weaknesses internal controls to be reported to you all. Additionally, um the second part of that report is the report on compliance. Had we noted any instances of non-compliance with regard to all of that testing we do with grant requirements and state code requirements, we would describe those in that report and there were none. So we have no compliance findings to report to you all. So essentially the clean unmodified version of the report on internal controls and compliance. And I

will say that um normally there is a third report on federal program our federal program audit like I mentioned we audited the um the school's impact aid grant program program [clears throat] annually the federal government puts out what they call uniform guidance and that's what all federal program audits are supposed to be conducted to in that year um that puts out the guidance that we're supposed to follow for the audit because it's federal um that didn't come out until last week. So, we performed our testing based on a draft that they had issued a few months ago. Um, we have thus far have have no findings as a result of that testing. Right now, we have people in our firm combing through the this newly released document and making sure that we've done everything that we need to do. Um, and then we expect to be able to issue that report in the next couple of weeks. But again, we do expect that to be a clean report on federal program compliance for the um for the impact aid audit this year.

All righty, that's [laughter] it. Wonderful for another year. But let's see if there are any questions. Do you have anybody have any questions on this? Got a couple questions. I'm sure you would. Go ahead. Of course I would. Uh so first of all, congratulations. Always nice to have a clean unmodified report. Mhm. So thrilled to hear that question for you is did we have full unfettered um unrestricted access to all the data and all the personnel that you needed throughout the audit period. Absolutely. Yes. That's my standard project. I don't see the CDA mentioned through the Okay. index and is there a section on on the CDA? Were there any findings on that? We should be aware.

There were no findings. The the information for the CDA are kind of embedded throughout the document. So, like if you're looking at a capital asset disclosure, it breaks it out between county schools, EDA, MCDA. Um there is also um if you look at this D1 and D2, they have um separate rows and columns broken out for the entities. And so you'll see separate columns for the county and the schools and the EDA and MCD. Nothing of concern uh with the numbers reported or the I can't hear you.

I said no concerns on the CDA with respect to where they are versus last year. So for the CDA, we we do issue sort of a modified opinion with regard to the status of their bonds. Yes.

Um and their status of repayment. um that doesn't affect the county's audit report. Um but we do issue separate statements, a separate audit report for the MCD. We issue separate audit reports for all three of those con combined [clears throat] entities. Um and the audit report for the MCDA goes into more detail for them specifically because they are so small combined compared to the county as a whole. They're not necessarily highlighted anywhere, but some of the more sensitive disclosures, especially with regard to the bonds and the the status of the debt repayment, those are [clears throat] included in the debt footnote of these statements. Okay.

So, they are there. Thank you. Thank you very much for another year. Aha, we got another question. Go. Couple real quick just for clarity, everyone's clarity. When we talk about the annual report, we're talking about the fiscal year from July 1st of 2024 to July June 30th of this year. Uh second, my standard question, um are there any opportunities for improvements in our practices that you might recommend from from your from your audit?

So, when we're out here for fieldwork and we come across things that we we feel like could potentially be done differently or we might have suggestions, we provide those to management in real time. We don't necessarily consolidate them and and issue them in writing. Um, I I can certainly sort of look through our files and see what we communicated to them, but there was nothing that we noted that was inappropriate or excessive or

I wouldn't I wouldn't expect a clean audit if if had it, but there's always opportunities for improvement. So, when when you have the opportunity, if you could just give me a summary as I get a summary of of that, that'd be great to have. Sure. So, thank you. Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much. We'll see you next year. Hopefully. I hope so. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Congratulations to the team for clean and what's what's the term clean and clean unmodified. Clean unmodified. Yes. Good job. Modification.

I I think they have a fine reputation for that for over the years that I've been aboard. So come to expect to hear that very when we get a report like this [clears throat] and you have the the triple crown of financial reporting. So you have you have a very I will say you guys have a very good team here. They crown you want to explain that [laughter] they they they take a lot of care in what they do from an audit perspective. We we enjoy working with them. The who's wearing the crown three of them. I'm not sure if that's [laughter] the question. Okay. So, so you want to talk about government mess with you? [laughter] Don't let them get to you.

Thank you. Thank you again to very much. Uh, okay. Our next presentation is the VOTE quarterly update. Rosie Carol. Always good to see you. Good evening, Madam Chair, other distinguished members of the board. Good to be with you tonight. [laughter] You were one of them.

All right. So, um, start things off the customer service. The customer service data is from period August 1st to October 31st. When I had to put this together was actually in November. So, I needed a clean month. So, it's backdated just a little bit. However, the the customer service center uh customer concerns come in were for those three months were 451. Uh we finished uh completed 377 of those. The big ticket items were uh obviously drainage, ditching, that type of thing. Uh surface patching and uh this time of year dead animal removal. So they were the big three um that came in through our uh our customer service center. Um with that was 83.6% um completion rate. We also create our own work orders uh through our HMMS system, the highway maintenance management system. Uh we created 146. A lot of times if we see things or have gone out and done inspections and have to schedule work, we put those in the system and we ended up doing completing 145 of the 146 that we put in there. So altogether it was 597 work orders completed 522 of those. There's 75 outstanding with a 87% completion rate. Um, we always tell people to, uh, you know, call our hotline or our, uh, you know, 1800 road for roads, um, if they have any concerns or see anything. It allows us to go out and respond to things quicker versus, you know, us finding it on our own. So, it's great great tool. Uh, a few highlights in the area. We did some tree trimming, Waterview Road, drop inlet repairs on Providence Lane, uh tree

trimming on, uh Yorktown Road, uh concrete ditch replacement on Carlton Drive, uh had a drainage project over on Coington uh Drive, pavement repairs on Weston Road, uh drainage project on Quarterm Drive, we did tree and brush trimming on 17 and Route 238. Uh we did drainage and shoulder repair project on 17 at Alexa Alexander Hamilton Road. Um and I'll also say in that time period tolls were lifted off the Coven Bridge. So some of the plan work we have coming up for maintenance is Route 17 north between uh 1773 and 105 is a uh ditching project. Um, however, we are coordinating that with the utility relocations that are going on out there in the other project because we don't want to add to the queueing and traffic backups that are already present um with all the construction going on in the area. So, uh, it's in our plans. We do have funding for that. Um, we're just trying to fit in with everything else that's going on. Uh, Barllo Road, we have a ditching and bike pipe cleaning project coming up. Skimino, a roadway patching project. Dawson's Crescent uh drainage project that's supposed to have started yesterday, but with the rain and everything, it'll probably be next week before we get out there uh to start that project. Also, Hampton Highway between 1500 and Owens Davis, we got a ditching, pipe cleaning, and tree removal, tree trimming out of the ditch lines uh project coming up. That's probably around March 1st. And then Crawford Road, we have tree trimming and ditch work um scheduled for that as well. uh vot administered projects. We have some on calls. We have the uh guardrail project. Currently uh um we have completed 47 of the 50 hits that we've reported or task orders that we've

submitted to that project. Um there's a project on route 143 over uh 64. That's a on call bridge repair that has that started uh November the 17th. Uh they're doing abupment work now. However, next week they're going to start the anchor bolt replacement which will put them on the 64 side of the bridge, the bottom of the bridge. Um, [clears throat] so you'll see a shift in that and they'll be working on that for the next two or three months. Uh, Pinnamman Road, Government Roadway improvements, that's project is complete. Uh, the Wid Creek Road project, I know it's uh in solely in Picosen, but it includes car's Chapel Road, those type of things. Um, it is currently under construction. Does it say when you going to shut that road down?

Uh, for how long? So, I don't have it in my notes, but I I did I did provide it to you, so I know I can go back to my notes. Damn. Okay, I'll have to go look at my stuff. Um, but yeah, I I'll look back as well, but [clears throat] uh certainly it's going to be closed down for for a bit to try to connect into the bridge where Car's Chapel connects into the bridge. A year. Six months or more? Six, eight months, I believe it was. Try a year. A year's more. Not I don't think it's a year. Okay. Okay. Yeah. But I'll look back and see

push you around like that. [laughter] Uh the construction for this project is scheduled to complete August 8th of 2027. Um what that is August 8, 2027. Construction completion. That's an important date because I want to talk about of what? I missed it. Completing what? The project with Creek project. Oh, with Creek. August 8th. August 8th, 2027.

Oh, 27th. So that is an important date because I'm going to discuss some projects that are in design or are we trying to scope now and where those connect because of the the road you know the traffic impacts. Uh [snorts] route 134 over 17 uh bridge deck replacement that's ongoing right now. Uh that started 6225. The fixed completion date for that is uh 1226 26. Um currently, uh we're back filling the abupments. Um this is a phased, uh project, so they're doing half, then they're going to convert the traffic onto the new deck and then do the other half. So it's two phases to this project. Uh they're still in phase one. Um upcoming major activities, the substructure repairs at the abupment and peers, um forming abupment A's and B's, approach slabs, and then uh they're doing stiffener repairs. uh paving schedule for 2026. Um we are looking at doing 134 eastbound. Great.

Um just south of Victory Boulevard out to the west abovement at Brick Kellen Creek Bridge and then 134 westbound from Big Bethl Road to the Brick Kellen Creek Bridge. I'm trying to get that done prior to future projects. Uh we also have 14th month asphalt schedule that does Grafton Drive, Armory Lane, Old Williamsburg Road, Springfield Terrace, Springfield Drive, Oakmont Circle, Ridgerest Circle, and Hickory Hills Drive. [clears throat] 14 month you mean every do you do it every two years?

So I have I have we did a project. It was sort of a pilot this year. It's a 14-month project. So instead of having November [snorts] the 20th as the completion date Yeah. or fixed completion date, they can either do it this year or they can do it in the spring. So it's you have a 14-month window. Kids in the 14-month window. They have chosen to do it next spring. So uh that's when the work will be complet. Yeah. Sorry about that. Rosie, I didn't hear Feeasant Springs on that list. It is not. And in particular answer why? Um, I can only say that we do evaluations every year and it's based on condition indexes. And

how many times do you have to rip it up before you consider it to be unsatisfactory? I [snorts] don't know. You're talking about the the paving. Yeah. Yeah. Five times it's been under repair this year.

Yeah. Well, I I would say that I would love to pave all of it. Um [clears throat] Okay. But [snorts] we do have CMAC funding project. That's the UPC uh the Victory Boulevard shared use path. [laughter] The scope is to construct a 0.97 segment um shared use path, approve pedestrian access at Tab Tab High School and the community athletic facilities. Um we should close scope sometime in December of this year. Um public uh willingness period closed in November. Uh there were no requests for public hearing. Uh we'll go into FI phase with a ad date of 91427. which is after the completion of W Creek that Victory Boulevard project.

Okay. We also are going to bundle this with another project that I'll talk about here in just a second. Um and that is the capacity enhancements between 134 and Route 600 Big Bethl.

Big Bethl Road. That's yeah, there's intersection turn lane and shoulder improvements with shed use path along Victory Boulevard. Um, and they're looking at that ad date, same ad date, 9:14 2027. So, we're going to bundle those two projects. They have some like scope with the pedestrian um even though they're funded with separate types of funds. Um, but sort of like we did with the project that's under construction right now, which was the Victory Boulevard widening. I was going to ask eastbound, but we also bundled the Kil Creek uh turning extension with that project as well. Um so that currently is under construction that's has a fixed completion date of 42926.

Um the turn lane both of them. Both of them. Yeah. So the turn the turn is pretty much finished. It's pretty much finished but not open. You still have but it's pretty much finished. But we have some some punch list items and stuff of that nature. They will open that up. They're [clears throat] starting construction or not starting but they're working on the eastbound side now. Yes. Um so they're they're cleaning and grubbing. Um well upcoming activities excavating for the new road, demolition of the pavements where they extended the pavements. Um they'll they'll start excavation for the new road. Uh start excavation for the drainage ditches and then start installing the storm sore. What about the landscaping? And

there's a time of year that that has to go down. Um, so it's but it's it's not a lot of landscaping, you know, that it's just a few magnolia trees that are left in there. Magnolia. Yeah. But that's just very small bushes that they put in. Yeah, that's what they are though. They're magnolia. They grow in 20 years. Okay. Well, they're they're actually dwarf magnolia. They're not because of the roadway. Yeah. So what you know how tall will they how tall will they get if they're twice? I would say six to eight 10 foot. Okay. In a 100 years as long as it fills in. [clears throat] Yeah, it'll fill in. They grow.

The way he's not telling you on there is that Victory Boulevard what he just talked about before he jumped over. They're going to shut down Victory Boulevard when they start doing the wide. So the question is how long you gonna shut down because I when I mentioned that the other night at the homeowner association I it was a collective groan followed by you son of a I mean it was they blaming me for the road. So how long are you going to shut Mickey Boulevard down when they start? We're still scoping the project. [clears throat] Um we're still looking at detour routes. They the what we're looking at right now is the eastbound direction will not shut down. It will just be the westbound direction. The eight foot side when they do that.

Yeah. while they're constructing both sides. So, they will put traffic on one side of the road, put the eastbound traffic on the opposite side of the road, okay, as they phase do that. So, eastbound, what they're looking at is eastbound going through for the full length of the project. Um, and then they're looking at So, we have a [clears throat] I know you shut down one side of Victory Boulevard because you're putting eight feet over on that side. That's the side you're talking about shutting down. But but what are you going to Why are you putting down two feet on the other on the what does that be? South side, I guess. Or east and west. Yeah, the west side. Okay. Why? Why two feet? [clears throat] It's what it calls for. I guess you have to wind in to get enough shoulder.

People supposed to walk down there or something or what? No, the pedestrian path in there is separated. I know. That's on the other further up on the I mean it's on the other side. We're talking about the winding of the shoulder. Yeah. [clears throat] So, it's it's my understanding that the reason that's being done is to allow for an evac extra evacuation lane in [snorts] the event of a hurricane out of the coast. Well, it gives you 10 foot total. Correct. That's what it does. Yeah. Is that for the boats floating? [laughter] Yeah. That's Yeah. Victory Boulevard supposed to be a right for that purpose. My recollection of it. Sure. Speaking of it gives you 10 foot total, but they didn't put 10 foot on one side. It's eight and two. Eight and two. Yeah.

Speaking of turn lanes of victory, did did you I lost track. Did you talk about the turn lane on victory in the Kilan Creek? Was that did you cover that? I did. Project she was talking about. That's what you talk about. I lost track. But there's two projects there within one. So I kind of bundled them together. The the additional lane eastbound from 17 to 134. Yeah. Is also included in that same project. Same contractor, same, you know, same timeline. to wrap both those projects act together then correct however the [clears throat] they started on the Kil Creek extension first and it's

we're just going through punch list I hadn't seen a lot of activity there so it's like I feel like you you're all getting close very close yeah so that will open before obviously the eastbound direction so you start doing that wide expansion it's not all that's not going to happen until 27 pretty much based on what I think I'm hearing so You're speaking of 134 to No, I'm speaking of um when you go down there and start putting in a use path, widening the putting in the turn lanes and left hand turn lanes from 134 to 6. That's all going to be that's all going to happen in 2027. That's correct. This doesn't go to ad until 2027. It may not start until 2028.

Oh, okay. Great. Love. Let's keep this pain going forever here. [laughter] Um, so that's that's that project. [laughter] [clears throat]

We also have Smart Scale 22 project, which is Airport Road, Moretown Road, Richmond Road improvements. Um, the advertisement date schedule for that is is a long ways out, but that, you know, that could could be closer. It's like 2030, 312, 2030. Um but they are starting um I've had a few meetings on that. So that project is kicked off. It is in preliminary engineering. It has been some discussions. Uh there is a consultant working on some design for that project. So it's moving along. Uh SG funding that's the uh 143 uh over Queens Creek bridge replacement. um that's currently in the prescoping phase. We have a scope meeting coming up. Some of the things that we're discussing is uh um looking at

stage construction. Yeah. Stage construction versus non-stage construction. Um looking at traffic impacts. Now we looked at time, you know, what what the does with the time. [snorts]

um also does with cost construction all those cost now we're looking at um traffic impacts you know what are the intersections before so some of these roads are managed by the city of Williamsburg so we're trying to get all that information together before we bring them uh in to discuss as well there is some savings that we found but that still doesn't say that it's worth it um until we get all the data back uh traffic impact analysis When would you expect public uh session on that one?

Uh it's going to be a ways out. Um [sighs and gasps] I'm going to say sometime in 27 probably is public hearing for that. Maybe 20 or late 26. Uh that's how far out we are. Um but

okay. Um we will have many discussions between [clears throat] now and then um on what that data is. Uh some of we did a lot of traffic engineering studies over that time frame. Uh I'm just going to go over the ones that were some changes. Uh stop sign requests for Nelson Drive and Brutin Drive. Ended up installing a yield sign there at that intersection. Did a crosswalk review at uh Fort York Hampton Highway. Um we did install uh two pedestrian warning signs. Um, we had a lot of speed studies that did not have recommendations. Um, we did do the route 143 at 199 ramp signing and pavement marking review. Um, and then and added some yield, refreshed some existing pavement markings. Um, did some edge line markings and uh, replaced did not enter signs with picker sign. Um, we did a speed study over on 1050 Fort Houston Boulevard on this side of 17. Um, which reduced the speed from the statutory 5545 to um, 245 miles an hour. And Langley Hunt Military Community Crosswalk Review, we completed that. Um, I need to get with you with that. But, uh,

it's a housing that's military housing that is, um, we [clears throat] recommend retrofitting some pedestrian, some RF, some rapid flashing, rectangular rapid flashing beacons, some crosswalks, all that cost. Um, there's I think we can get a lot of it done in house. Um, but but we're going to have to look at it and get a true estimate, but probably 300,000. Probably. How much? 300. [snorts] Okay. I mean, it's not not terrible, but we do have to do a lane shift um because you have to have a refuge. So, um but I think

good. I mean, the um [clears throat] base commander down there, they've been after this for over probably 15 years now. Yeah, I did a study on it probably at least five or six, maybe even 10. I haven't been around too long. But it' be nice to if it help our military, help especially the dependents, you know, when the because we have a lot of the military leave and go on remotes and stuff like that and they leave our family there and they've got to walk from one side across Big Beasel Road to get over to the other side and it's just done, you know, certainly improved safety. Yeah.

Great. uh route 646 Newman Road. Um speed limit uh we added uh speed limit sign there at fire station 5 for that statue. Didn't change, but we added some speed limit signs. Uh crossover traffic control at 134. We installed the median pavement markings uh for positive traffic control. who stopped stop and one-way signs and stop bars on both sides of the median according to the MUTCD. And then at Mount Vernon Elementary School pedestrian safety review, um we let me see based on recommendations, we re relocated the high the school sign and the school pavement marking closer to the school at Mount Vernon Drive. relocated northbound approach school sign of Villa Way closer to 9440 and added school pavement markings on the north and south approach. Installed school signs and school pavement markings on 1558 which is Coachman Drive and Lawson Drive and installed stop sign at Coachman Drive.

There's not a lot you can do down there. Yeah. Thank thanks for the improvements to tab tab metal villa away. You didn't see where putting flash in pedestrian crossing lights would be helpful there. We can look at it and see. I mean it's trouble is where you going to plug them in. Understand. Yeah, we can look [clears throat] at it and see if that's

thing when kids congregate to cross that lane, cross that lane because the the concern for me and if folks around there when you're coming from 134 going up Yorktown Road, you got that dip and you're just not seeing three foot tall tall kids if if you're not paying attention. Hopefully the lights let people know there's somebody there congregating want to cross you would add some safety to it. But thanks for the other stuff y'all have already tackled there. As usual, thorough

the uh we've got a lot going on and between the district four well three districts a lot and and victory boulevard. People all over the Hampton Roads have heard me harping about uh we got to do something about all the traffic and uh it's pretty amazing the amount of traffic that goes on that road. Um it's just absolutely astounding and [snorts] um u but I appreciate all the hard work. We got to do it when we get the money. You got the money coming in now. So, I really do appreciate the work and and I will say that we have made some thorough um analysis and trying to make the best decisions. Um one to make sure that we're spending the money w money wisely and also trying to create as less impact as possible.

Construction has impacts. Um [clears throat and cough] there are queuing of traffic and stuff of that nature that that's going to impact people around that runs through those corridors where I have under construction. Um, but I just all I can ask is just say, you know, please be patient and uh once we get finished, we'll we'll all reap the benefits of the of the projects. As you know, Rosie, Victory Boulevard is it's almost it's bumper to bumper. I know. I see it. And there's not a thing we can really do to fix that. It's not. All right. Well, that concludes my report. Any other questions?

I do have some more, too. Go. So, um, speaking of queuing, uh, I travel on 17 a lot to northtown going towards Gloucester and it just seems like the queueing on the stop lights is horrendous. Like, um, Dby Boulevard 17 gets locked up there all the time in the afternoon, especially around everybody going home. um Edge Hill that gets locked up but worse up by the intermediate school gets backed up almost through the high school sometimes because they're trying to funnel coming through 23 243 I guess it is and I I just think their queue in there is off. I I think we're not letting enough of the main fourlane traffics go to bring in two lanes of traffic or one lane of traffic.

So in the PM peaks, a lot of that around Dimby is due to the car a lot of the carryover from the queueing that's happening during the day for the utility relocations for the 17 widening project. Yeah, you know, B&G's out there, Verizon's out there. They're the worst ones because their utility is actually underneath the pavement or in the roadway. Um, so they're relocating. They're getting very close. So, it's going to improve. We have adjusted the timing at DB Neck

to try to let more through, but there it's only one lane and you got the turn lane, so you know, that's queuing up even worse. Um, but that is getting close from this point. You know, we got to give us a couple weeks. Then it's going to be some temporary lane closures for when they're going other utilities for more utilities out there. Is there, you know, going underneath the pavement or going, you know, from one side to the other. Those impacts will happen. Thank you very much. I we have a little of a bit of a problem. We're going to take a recess right now with the board. We'll be back shortly. Okay. Thanks, Ros. Do you need me anymore? [clears throat] Okay. Well, I'll talk to you. I'll talk to you. However, I You're going to ask about your so much. Yeah, I'll talk to him at recess here. Just

the equipment upstairs is having issues [clears throat] with the recording and everything else get rebooting everything.

working upstairs. Do I need to make a comment on what happened? Yes. Also, we had technical difficulty. What? Technical difficulty.

Yes. [clears throat] And we're we're back in session, ladies and gentlemen. We had a little bit of a technical difficulty, but now we will resume our board of supervisors meeting for December the 2nd. Uh we've done the presentation on the finances. We've done the quarterly update by POT and now we're going to hear from Ross Rose McKini, director of human resources, who will introduce our speaker for the compensation study report. Rose. [clears throat] Come on up, sir.

So, if one will recall back in April, as we were um contemplating the current budget, we had a conversation. Miss McKenna gave a presentation on uh benefits and compensation for this budget year. And we made some comparisons to some of our neighbors uh for similar jobs. And as a result of that comparison, the board asked us to uh conduct a uh market evaluation and we have done that. Dr. Campbell is here with us tonight and he is prepared to share the results. But before we turn it over directly to him, I think Rose wanted to do a proper introduction.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Bellamy. Madame Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, members of the board, um it is my [clears throat] distinct pleasure to introduce you all to Dr. Russell Campbell. Uh Dr. Campbell before getting into this line of work. Uh he served our country in the United States Air Force.

Um after that [laughter] after that he decided to serve in the local government arena where he held some executive roles and then dove into management consulting which he's been doing for the last 25 years. He's currently with management advisory group, otherwise known as MAG. Um, which was the vendor awarded to do this compensation study for the county. Um, he is the senior vice president at MAG. And he has been our project manager for this study. Um, his expertise has been invaluable to the county. Um, and it is my honor to turn it over to you, sir, now that they know you. So, here you go. You're [clears throat] too showtime. It's showtime. And there's a lot of similarities between combat and working. [laughter]

Thank you for that. Madame Chair, vice chair, board members, on behalf of uh the staff at management advisory group and our president, Dr. Don along, we appreciate the opportunity to assist the county with this most important project. What I'd like to accomplish this evening is to share with you the process uh that's utilized to conduct these types of studies. There are certain things that are universal. In other words, the consultant and the company have to address in order to develop a study uh that's both defensible uh and assist you in making sure that you're in a competitive position uh with respect to compensation. And then there are some things that are unique to management advisory group and how we approach things. And so two things uh really stood out to me as I first stepped on site here in York County. Number one, the number of employees with 25 plus uh years of service. the number of employees with with that type of service was was exceptional. I hadn't seen that in a long time. And number two, the employees here wear many hats. Everybody has a primary role or responsibility, but during the short time I've been here for the past uh probably 3 months working on this project. Uh there have been instances where one employee has been called to step up and step into a a temporary role and they do so continuously without uh hesitating. And I think that speaks to the leadership and the culture of the organization. Just briefly about our firm. Uh our corporate office uh offices are located in Fairfax, Virginia. Our HR staff are split between North Carolina, South Carolina, and Florida. We are a public sector management consulting firm. All our client base or government entities, whether it's a municipality, county, school district, or public safety uh entity. and we've done over 600 uh studies during our 25 years of existence, a number of which are in the state of Virginia. You can see there are several counties and cities here in the Hampton's Roads area that we've worked

for uh over the years. Uh I have personally done over 350 of these classification studies in my almost 25 years uh in the business. The project scope for this particular uh project and I'm not going to read each bullet verbatim. This information comes directly out of your request for proposal. Uh there's approximately 338 unique job classes or titles associated with the study. There was just under 865 employees which made up both full-time and part-time positions. And if I could summarize those six or seven bullets there, the objective was to assist the county with coming up with the compensation philosophy. take a look at the existing compensation system, identify areas that needed to be uh improved upon. Uh make sure overall that all classifications are competitive to allow the county to recruit and retain topflight staff uh to work within the county. Uh make sure that we provided uh policies and guidelines to support uh the new compensation system and study. conduct a market uh assessment of surrounding jurisdictions to look at compensation levels in those jurisdictions and not only local government but also collect data from the private sector as well. Um there are certain ways you have to go about collecting the private sector data that differs a little bit from the uh public sector but we were able to uh accomplish that. Uh we also were asked to applying on two things. uh what would be the most uh effective structure in terms of the compensation system for the county? Should you continue with the open range system which you're currently utilizing or would you be better served to go back to the step and grade system that you had in the past? And then the second item we were asked to upon was [clears throat] what about implementing a merit or performance-based uh pay system either now or sometime in the future. So I'm going to address all those items as I go through my

presentation here. Uh steps to success. There roughly uh seven steps associated with uh a compensation classification study. Uh project initiation of course is step one where we contacted HR after we were awarded contract. We convened for a planning meeting to look at schedules and timelines. Uh make arrangements to meet with department leadership uh and their teams uh to identify the uh uh peer organizations that were going to be surveyed. Uh all those things were worked out in step one. And then step two, we actually came on site, started meeting with department leadership and their key personnel to talk about recruitment and retention issues in their respective departments. Were they planning on doing any restructuring or making any changes that would affect the composition of positions within their respective departments? Uh met with uh senior county leadership, talk about their expectations as well as some of the challenges they've observed or heard about from the departments with respect to the need to enhance the compensation system uh here uh in in the county. Uh step three was more of a diagnostic assessment of your current uh compensation system where we were able to identify that across the board uh across all departments there were positions where the compensational levels had fallen behind the marketplace and was making it difficult for department leaders to recruit uh and retain staff. We identified uh situations such as uh salary compression where you had clusters of employees with varying years of tenure kind of clustered around the lower end of the pay structure and salaries only separated by a few hundred or maybe $1,000 or so. And so we formulated plans to address all those things that we identified in the diagnostics assessment so that we could make sure the new plan was free of those type of issues. Uh in step four uh we drafted uh a customized uh survey instrument. [clears throat] Uh

it went out to uh multiple uh organizations whether you call them competitors or peers where we were collecting information on their pay structures. Um I'll share with you those organizations as I go through the presentation here momentarily. Um and as we collected that information to determine the average annual salary for what we call the benchmark positions. In this process, there's a two component uh method uh [clears throat] methodology in terms of developing a new comp and class study. Method one or the first component is to look at the organization positions under study to rank the jobs under study based on some type of defensible criteria or job factors so that you can rank the jobs based on duties, responsibilities and the qualifications needed to hold the positions. If you did not do this crucial step in the very beginning, you would not be able to justify that certain jobs based on the nature of the work that the job entails and the qualifications needed to hold a job, whether it be a certain type of degree, a lensure or certification, uh you would not be concerned about differentiating based on pay. You'd pay everyone on one significantly elongated salary range. And if you did that, you'd overpay for some jobs and underpay for others. And one of the rules that you adhere to in compensation is not all jobs should be paid the same. Some are more complex, more difficult, some require greater levels of of formal uh uh education and training. So by assessing the jobs based on our 14 job factors, we were able to rank the positions with the within the organization using a quantitative point scoring system where we were able to show the most complex job and then in descending order all the other jobs in the organization down to the very uh least complex position. And we call this internal equity. Making sure there's fairness with respect to the different jobs that compose county the county

workforce. That's step one. Any organization or consultant in this line of business must have some type of criteria and process to distinguish the differences between the different jobs. So you were able to draw a distinction between 338 jobs. Yes sir, we were. All right. [clears throat]

And then the second component or second step is to take that market data and remember when we're collecting the market data, we're not looking at what peers in other organizations that are working in the same type of job classification. uh we're looking at what the organization's pay structure values that position at. Because this process is about the value of the position, not the value of the person. So your actual salary is about you as an individual based on your credentials, your qualifications, your experience, and where you started within the pecking order of the compensation plan and organization you work for. So we do not look at personal attributes or performance attributes. We're looking at uh the value of the jobs from an internal and an external perspective. Separately, the data doesn't mean a whole lot. You've got the quantitative point score for all the positions and you've got the annual prevailing salary for a list of benchmark jobs which are the drivers of the study. We do the internal review on every position. We take a sample for the market survey. We take those two sets of data and we use linear regression to look at the fit between the two sets of data to create a pay table. At that juncture, we have the pay table that has all the pay grades listed salary range associated with uh the pay grades and then based on the individual point score for each classification, it's assigned to a pay grade on that pay table. And so there's nothing manual about determining the value of the job. It's all driven in a software application that we designed specifically for this purpose that uses an algorithm tied to linear regression to come up with the value.

So you didn't you're not taking in account the experience level of the person in the job not their individual experience but what is considered uh necessary for the job itself from a best practices or or or class perspective. What's considered the minimum educational experience needed for the position? Was was the scope [clears throat] for your market study just public sector or did you include the private sector as well?

We include the private sector as well. Um Virginia like the other 49 states there are statutes governing uh public information for your requests. So we can for you those local government entities and they are compelled to provide that data to us. Private sector is not compelled by those those statutes. So we have to take kind of an indirect route to get the private sector data and we go through the Bureau of Labor at the federal level. the Bureau of Labor Statistics which collects that information and we get the private sector data from there because that's part of the competitive marketplace. There's other jurisdictions but private sector as well. So

exactly and so uh that what that's what we do with uh the market data and the internal review use linear regression to create the new structure. Um then we start developing the new structure. In this case we develop uh three distinct pay plans from the same statistical tree. We developed a plan for just public safety positions and public safety is the sheriff's office, the fire department and E91 communications. Uh then we developed a pay structure for the executive leadership positions which are generally the deputy directors and above with some chiefs in that mix as well. Uh and then anyone who's not in public safety, not in executive leadership will be on the unified plan, which is where you have the greatest amount or greatest number of jobs and positions uh within the organization. And so as we looked to see the uh uh impact of the recommendations in the new structure, we ran multiple uh implementation scenarios uh to come up with the one that was most effective in terms of allowing the county to compete uh for uh uh staff throughout the organization regardless of of of position uh so that it could put the county in I would say a favorable position in the local uh labor market. Can you just real quick describe the linear regression? You mentioned several times. Can you get a linear regression? Can you explain that?

Sure. If you go back to uh basic algebra, uh we're looking at X and Y ais points. Uh X would be the quantitative point score for those individual benchmark positions. Y would be the average annual market value of the positioning. And so throughout that X and Y axis, we're going to have uh positions varied at different levels, dots on the chart.

Dots on the chart. And so the linear regression model looks at where there's the best relationship, closest fit between those two sets of data. And then it turns that into numerical designations to create a pay pay table. And then of course we turn these out uh with a minimum of 92% accuracy in terms of the two sets of data and the relationship. For this particular study uh the uh hypothesis test generated at 93.5%. So how do you we were 93.5 we're going to get to the numbers but you talk about the accuracy. How do how do you determine accuracy? Statistical testing. Okay that's enough. [laughter]

Big question. you answer [laughter] asked my statistics questions. He was answered. Okay.

And then of course uh we we presented the report uh to the county about a week ago. U and then of course we're here tonight step seven talking about the results uh not only in the in the compensation piece but some of the other uh recommendations and findings that were part of the study. Everything we do in including the uh linear regression analysis is done in this software application called classification manager which is proprietary software of the company. These are the job factors that we use to rank the positions or to grade the jobs uh within the [clears throat] organization. There are 14 uh job factors. When these were developed, we employed a body of individuals that ranged from psychologists to industrial engineers, uh, human resources professionals, compensation experts to come up with factors that were universal. They would apply to any position whether it was management or non-management, uh, whether it was in a union or not in a union. And these are the factors that we use starting with data, which looks at the different types of data, whether it be uh preparation of certain reports, records or documents. What does the uh the employee do with those documents and reports as they put them together? Do they simply put them together and pass them on for further review in another department or do they review them in an effort to achieve uh the job duties and responsibilities they have? We look at judgment uh people responsibility in terms of level of supervision or coordination based on the data people responsibility. We're able to assess the complex complexity of the position. We look at asset responsibility, whether it's a budget uh responsibility or custodian of equipment or materials. We're able to look at uh impact of decisions, whether uh there could be loss of life or injury to a county employee, co-orker, public citizen. Could there be legal liability or exposure uh to the county based on the work that the individual was doing in that position? education experience, not what the employee personally holds, but what's considered uh industry standard

in terms of the minimum level education experience. Uh we look at the equipment that's utilized with computer equipment, diagnostic equipment, any physical requirements requiring lifting, toing, carrying, communication, who are they interacting with inside the organization and outside. Uh could be other agencies, state agencies or other local governments. We look at mathematical computation or statistical analysis in the position. Unavotable hazards. Is the employee exposed to certain things that could cause him or her harm as they fulfill uh their part of the employment uh agreement. Safety responsibility. And so these things are weighted. Some carry more weight than others. I have a patented uh scoring manual that allows me to review the job description and assign a degree rating that ranges from 1 to 10 in each one of those categories. As I do that, the software application keeps the score and then I can print that report showing me the most complex job which is going to be the highest scoring position based on the quantitative score and then in descending order all the other positions in the organization. Don't have to be a consultant to figure out that the top ranked uh ranked job or most complex position is going to be the highest level of leadership. So in this case that was a deputy county administrator position that was the highest uh or level of leadership position exposed in the study. Lowest level generally you can figure that out. It's probably going to be a job that has a lot of manual labor associated with it or very low-end uh uh clerical position. But how those other jobs shake out in between is like splitting hairs in terms of determining what's a fair competitive value for that job uh without any bias uh one way or the other. And this is where this process gives you that credibility in terms of how the jobs were valued. And so those are the factors that were used. The organizations that were surveyed are there in front of you now. Uh James City County, Glouster County, Albright County, Hanover County, Chesterfield

County, Henriiko, City of Newport News, City of Hampton, City of Williamsburg, City of Norolk. And then of course at the bottom it says note onet. That's where we're able to go online and pull the information from the Federal Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. There's about 25 million records in that database. So, we're able to maneuver in there and collect information on jobs that exist within the county as well as the regional private sector. If I knew your uh zip code, I could tell you the medium income on your street uh by going through those records. I guess I'm surprised city wasn't in your scope.

No, it was not. Uh the city outlined in its RFP the jurisdictions that we were to collect the data from. Uh and so after some concerns that we raised about Possen which was initially on that list uh we replaced Pquoan with city of Norol because we had no presence from that particular area of the state. But just because we surveyed the data does not mean the findings were based totally on that data because we had to do some comparative analysis looking at size of workforce and and size of community uh uh average income in in the area but we collected data from all those jurisdictions that are there from more like sampling. Right.

Yeah. Exactly. Okay. [clears throat and cough]

And so what did that market data tells us? Well, it paints a picture. Not a very beautiful picture. It's not a Monae or Mona Lisa, but it's a picture. Uh, for example, deputy [clears throat] sheriffs on average, uh, in terms of starting salaries were about 10% behind the market. Building inspectors were about 10.2% behind the market. Utility construction workers were about 11% behind the market. Parillegals about 13% behind the market. A master firefighter was about 13.4% 4% behind the market on average. Fire lieutenants were about 17.6%. And the tax collection specialist position was about 23.2% uh behind the market. Based [clears throat] on your current composition of of jobs and the salary ranges or values of those positions, you're roughly at the 50th percentile. Anytime you're at the 50th percentile or below, at the 50th percentile, you're in the middle of a lake, whether it's 100 ft deep or 25 ft deep, the water is bound to your nostrils. When you go below 50%, you're underwater. So 50% and below is not where you want to be if your goal is to attract high caliber, well-qualified individuals to come and be a part of your workforce.

Okay. For the listening public though, I think um to clarify that a little bit, if we look at these job positions that you you've described and percentage wise, [clears throat] um essentially you're looking at their pay being and all these cities samples, they're in the middle is what you're saying. [clears throat] You're you're roughly in the middle. You're in the middle, which is which doesn't make you competitive at all against the others. Not at all. Right. In fact, it kind of makes you uncompetitive. It does very much so. So is that does does that mean to say that half of the sample size their survey half the sample size are above you but other half of below us

you're in the below group right in the middle right but I get you okay and and was this and you said is this starting salaries is this reflect this is starting salaries for each of those positions right and so moving to findings or recommendations And I'm going to talk about the financial impact and where you need to be going forward if you want to be an employer of choice. Finding number one, what's the significance of that statement? That statement [clears throat] employee employer of choice.

Good question. Compensation takes two forms. There's direct compensation which is your annual salary or whatever financial incentives with uh performance incentive have you. That's direct compensation. Indirect compensation are those things that are paid for on your behalf by the employer. Health insurance, your vacation, sick time off, uh training, all those things are part of indirect compensation. If you want to be an employee of choice, you've got to make sure that your compensation levels ideally are at least are at least at the 70th percentile. 70th

70th 70. and your benefits are in line with the surrounding markets and jurisdictions that you compete with. Your benefits are actually really good. Uh they're solidly in line with [clears throat] uh the other local governments uh in the area. It's your direct compensation where you have some issues. Okay. Do you put a a percentile on your we call it I used to call it salary related uh costs. Okay. So, do you put a um a percentile for our salary related cost here in the county?

Typically in local government, uh unless the there's a union environment, uh the cost of of of of labor from a fringe benefit perspective, can be as low as about 20% and as high as about 60%. Well, I'm thinking of percentile. We've I mean, I make sure we're doing apples and apples here. [clears throat] So, I'm talking about benefits, not salary. Okay. So I'm looking at percentiles as both if if it's if it's a salary one side and you're doing a range among these governments. Okay. Then on the salary related costs you're doing a comparison of these governments. It's a little harder to come up with actual percentiles for the benefit items.

Um how do you value vacation sely? Are you looking at but how much position how much do you get in that position though? I mean how many days do you get? You can't tie a value to how many days you get because that's going to vary by individual information. I guarantee I can value my vacation hourly rate. You could do it that way, but it it's more of looking at the [clears throat] there's a standard core list of benefit items, everything from health insurance uh to the

Well, if we spend if we spend $2600, for example, um I'll use we'll use our school board and us. Okay, that's a good comparison. So, if the school board at one time was getting $2,600 more on salary related costs or salary related Yeah. salary related costs than the county employees, you would say, "Wow, there's a big difference." It's going to be a rough estimate. It's not going to be very precise because if you work in public safety, your benefit costs are higher than someone that works in public works. So, you're comparing apples and oranges when you talk about that sort of I'll take your word for that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I've done this for a while. Okay, [laughter] we're more concerned with making sure that what's being offered in terms of benefit

line [clears throat] items that you have those same type of benefits here are very well as you've said that our benefits are pretty good. Yes. And we did not find any out there that you're not offering. Right. Over the years, people have worked for the county simply for the benefits because I mean they got a salary out of it, but if the salary is at 50 percentile, the benefits are really good, you know, but a big one's health insurance. Okay. So, there's motivation there. So, I mean, we all we have to always consider this.

Yeah. People of my generation, in fact, did care a great deal about job security uh and benefits. But today's workforce, particularly uh millennials, they're not concerned with benefits because they think they'll always be healthy and they'll never age. They're concerned about their take-home pay because they got student loans and they want to move out of mom and dad's basement, right? And so you have to recruit those individuals differently. They're not concerned about benefits, about salary and time off primarily. And so you have to be cognizant of what the workforce looks like. Is that a particular generation? It's [clears throat] generational. It's generational.

Okay. Most of us, and I'm in my mid-50s, are still uh uh tied to the World War II generation and and benefits and and the importance of those. I think I'm tied to World War I [laughter] better than the Civil War. So, Dr. Come back on the 70th percentile and how do you how do you define that as the sweet spot because it's probably not clear to to us or the

I'll try to make it as simple as I can. [clears throat] If when you assess all the other peer organizations that you compared the organization to and you rank at least at the seventh percentile and your benefit offerings are consistent with what's being offered in those peer organizations, you're considered an employer of choice from those two perspectives, [clears throat] right? Direct and indirect compensation. And I and I imagine I may be getting ahead of it. Imag your recommendation is to get us from 50 to 70. You got it. Of course. [snorts] Of course. Well, I want to make sure it wasn't 50 to 100. [laughter] 50 to 70.

Yeah, let's get to that side. Uh, just briefly on the findings, uh, current compensation levels, uh, negative impact negatively impact recruiting retention. Salary compression exists [clears throat] throughout the current compensation system. Uh, the organization has a lot of long-term employees, which I alluded to at the beginning. uh over [snorts] the next 10 years, this room could look a lot different in terms of who's sitting in here and who's holding those positions. So, you need to formalize a succession plan for key leadership positions so that you can prepare and develop that next wave of leadership to have the uh training and experience needed to roll into those jobs. If you don't have at least three or four viable candidates for a top leadership position in an organization, you're not doing something right. That's the distinction primarily between public and private sector. In the history of Ford Motor Company, they've only brought in, I think, three or four CEOs from the outside. Now, most of them had the last name Ford, but the point being they developed leadership from within. And so, county government needs to do that uh as well. Uh we've provided some best practices, guidelines in terms of uh uh uh uh policies on hiring uh reclassification, promotions, interim assignments, making sure there consistently in terms of how you value experience when you hire new people. We created a matrix. For example, if you have at least one year of experience but less than three, you come in at the pay grade minimum. But if you have at least uh uh three but less than five, you come in at 3% above the minimum. So it's consistent throughout the county and all the departments. Same for promotion, reclassification, interim assignment.

You also adjust benefits of that benefits like vacation time and such with with speak to that more. Okay. Well, based on how long you've been with We'll get to that later, but

Okay. Uh expand the employee recognition programs using the employee committee. Uh in addition to meeting with the directors and deputy directors, I had the pleasure of speaking with the employee employee committee was a very knowledgeable group of people. uh very vested within the county. I think they would be a great resource uh to speak on behalf of their colleagues and their respective departments on what recognition programs that they think the employee workforce would like to see uh would make a difference. Uh current benefits are competitive as I said and we would we are not recommending any changes with your current benefits. We can v benefits as well as the the compensation levels of those peer organizations. Your benefits are consistent with what we find in the other places. Continuing with findings and recommendations, we suggest as the board member said that you implement to the 70th percentile uh as recommended right now to get you to the 70th percentile uh is 8,40,546 and that includes the market adjustments, adjustment to the minimum and to address uh the most egregious forms of salary compression. Um, [laughter and clears throat] next finding and recommendation has to do with stepping grade versus open range compensation systems. As I talked with staff and employees, there's a contingent of folks who would like to see the county go back to uh a stepping grade approach, but our recommendation is that would be a uh regressive move going backwards. Um, it's more uh cost effect. It's more expensive to operate a stepping grade system because it guarantees a certain level of pay increase. It almost becomes an entitlement uh type of scenario. Um it makes it difficult to move to pay for performance because every time someone gets an increase, they've got to fall on a finite step. Can't fall in between step one and step two. So you always got to round up to the closest step to make sure they follow on a finite step. Uh there are some other uh systematic issues associated with steps. Whereas

with the open range system, it's more cost-effective. Gives you greater flexibility in terms of determining hiring rates, uh, promotional increases, and there's a direct linkage between performance and pay outcomes when you use an open range system. And when I say open range, I mean every job has a pay grade with a minimum salary, a midpoint, and a maximum. That's an open range system. And so, school districts are famous for the step and grade system. That's where they originated actually. Uh last item under step and grade versus open range. The ability to respond quickly to market pressures. As the greater economy changes, so does the organization in in terms of its response to being able to recruit and retain. And you can do that a lot quicker when you have a system that is open rangebased and not a step system that is constrained in terms of you have to

struggling with this open range thing. Okay. The terminology. It sounds like it's um it's pretty much what we're sort of trying to we're doing as a result of the fact that [clears throat] we don't have we're not in a we're not competitive on some positions. We find out uh through the hard way that we can't get candidates to come over and apply. So we then start jacking up the cost or the the salary and then we get you know we throw enough sugar out there you catch the flies. Right. So that is that open range? No. that that that's a product of of frustration recruitment. Uh and and what does it take to get people to apply for the jobs? Right now, the pay ranges or pay levels are so low

that when you post a job, some people will look at that and say, "Well, they may be willing to negotiate to some degree, but if your job's 15 20% behind the market, most figure you're not going to even apply. They're not going to apply. they'll just they'll just move on.

Uh and so that's something that we're going to address with this new uh pay system that we we're advocating that you know you move toward. But to answer your question on stepping grade, 70% of cities and counties use open range. 70%. Whereas 95% of school districts use stepping grade. It's tied to teacher pay. If you go in any school district in the country and [clears throat] you go up to a teacher and say how long have you been here? If that teacher says 20 years, you go to HR, you look at their pay grade uh and step position. It's going to be at whatever pay grade the job is and then at step 22 or step 20, it matches their years of service. So that's where you're going to see that type of system predominantly.

He's described as open range. Yeah. what I'm used to in the corporate world where you where we have bands of of job classifications uh high entry high midpoint um and then that flows with the market typically up I don't really see it go down but typically up but exactly but um you have a very well- definfined range of salaries for a given position dependent upon tenure and experience and all the things personal character I just I just haven't heard of it called open range form, but it's the same thing that I'm that I'm used to. So,

but it's a but it's um but you can bring somebody in at various pay scales or various pay inside the open range. Yes. Okay. Yes. But there's a fixed [snorts] boundary of lowend and highend that that the prospective employer as well as the county knows they're going to fit within that box. So, you know that going going in. That's currently what we have, Mr. Sheepard. We currently have that system. what Dr. Campbell was proposing that we increase increase those ranges it's not gota go up it's gota be adjusted to keep them competitive you do [laughter] adjust them at you know on an annual basis

so so in open range [clears throat] tell me how compression works in the open range let's say for example we've got three employees one has five years with the organization maybe one has [clears throat] 10 and one has 15 years but their salary is only separated by 800 bucks. In other words, the 5-year employee is only making 500 bucks less than the 15-year employee. They're clustered together where you would think based on [clears throat] 10ear longevity, the 15ear employee would be a lot further along within the range in the range itself. But the range has to be elevated though to make it meaningful for everybody that's involved. And you adjust the range on an annual basis.

Well, step you see you get step compression also. If you don't if you don't if you don't step for the steps. That's right. Because we eliminated steps for a while and so we only had like no steps. Yeah. And then we went one or two steps and Okay. Got it. I think the thing you're going to get to here next is merit pay and pay for performance. Yes. That's the next one. That's that's where we need to be. [clears throat] And that to me is where all employees need to be.

We are we are wholeheartedly uh proponents of of merit performance pay. But to go down that road without laying the foundation and doing the work to make sure it's successful uh can create a lot of long-term employee problems that negatively impact morale. Up until 2024, the county was not doing performance reviews of employees. You just started that last year. So to go from that to next year trying to implement pay for performance would be in my opinion too aggressive of a schedule because a you've got some people who've been promoted to supervision for the first time in their lives. And regardless of what some people may think, the hardest job you ever have is to manage people. And you don't come out of the womb learn how to manage people. So those folks aren't going to know how to do the nuances of appraising somebody's performance. They need to be trained and taught. Depends on [clears throat] if you have little brothers.

That may help too. You're right. And so there needs to be more training of employees and managers on how to do it, how to do it uh fairly, how to mitigate bias. Yeah, we're behind the eight-ball. There's no question. And then the system itself, you got to make sure that you one thing about local government, there's a great diversity of jobs.

You have mechanics, you've have parallegals, you've got IT people. Okay? It's not a manufacturing where you may have 2,000 people, but there's only four job titles, some type of engineer. So, you [clears throat] got to make sure that the criteria they're being appraised by fits with the job or the duties they have. And so, that needs to be looked at. There needs to be policies written uh to support that. Uh there needs to be enforcement. uh what happens if a department doesn't support this initiative where they're not scrutinizing the reviews of the supervisors underneath them? They're just letting them give everybody the lowest score or the high score. So my point is before you go down that road, which we think is a road travel,

you've got to do things like the training and look at the system, make sure that's that's appropriate. So, we're saying you need to take at least two years to get everything together, then go down that road. And then, if you're going to go down that road after you've done those things I just talked about, you've got to make sure you put teeth into the program. If I I know there's a a a municipality here in the Hampton Roads where if you got a successful uh performance appraisal, you got an extra 1%. Well, once you pay taxes on that, you may wind up with $25 every two weeks. So you've got to put teeth in it where someone genuinely understands if they give 120% there's something at the end of that effort.

And so sometimes it's hard to maintain that because local government your revenues come from a very finite source. You can't just go out and manufacture more revenue by you know offering some type of new product or service. And so give yourself two years of breathing room. work with the employee committee on training and making sure criteria reflects the nature of the jobs and then roll it out where you got policies to support it. then the likelihood of success are tremendous where I've seen cities and counties go down this road and then after a couple of bad cycles and people start complaining and I've had I got a client right now to be quite frank in North Carolina uh people in your position are getting calls from employees because they don't think it's fair and they think it's it's being politically driven determining who gets what. And so you minimize those things by making sure that when you roll it out, you've done all the heavy lifting and and everything, every eye has been died and every tea [clears throat] has been crossed. So we're saying go down that road, but you need to give yourself two years to get

uh years from now.

Yes. Other key challenges as I said uh subjectivity and evaluations that's a hard one to overcome because we have our personal views and values and those filter in when we uh we we rate another person's performance. So we really have to push uh people to understand to try to minimize that and then the system itself needs to have built-in checks and balances to minimize that. And then cultural resistance. You know, some people uh may view merry pay uh as not uh equitable for whatever reason. Uh they may think that favoritism playing a role because they don't understand how it works. So a lot of education use employee committee to help educate the rank and file uh how to how to how to make it work.

Well, and [clears throat] that can't happen. you know, it it can be unequitable and can be politically swayed and so there has to be stops in place for that. Um I know you haven't finished, but I'm just curious of um step ladders uh career ladders seeing that. Yeah, we did uh we think that's a great thing in terms of advancing skill set. You have some in and in many departments, some of those departments that didn't have some of them, we recommended putting some of those in. Yeah. I think people need to know what they are capable of making it too. Y, you know, you give a mouse a piece of cheese, he knows what he's going to get. But if you don't give any cheese, the mouse just run on the wheel.

You're exactly right. So, Dr. Campbell, that goes to your comment earlier about succession planning and knowing who's who's in a position to take the next role. Exactly. Next man up. And we have we have some issues, I think, with that. And we don't have enough people in place. that we're really going to have to study. I think that was the comment he made at the beginning.

And you know, we always do our homework before we come into a new community that that we haven't done any any work in. And so this is my I've done a lot of work in the Hampton Rose area, but I've never done any work specifically for uh for York County. This is a a high value community in terms of of livability. It's a great [cough and laughter] place. It's beautiful. um you want to protect that and and part of the way you protect that is by delivering quality service. Well, you got to have good people to deliver quality service. And so the worst thing can happen is you invest in and in and training and and and and hiring people only to see them stolen away over $3,000 extra a year to one of the neighboring jurisdictions. And when you live in an urban area,

people can often change jobs without having to physically relocate. They just change the direction of their commute. And so that's happening in some some departments. And so pay alone will not be the only reason where someone either comes to work for an organization or stays. But I used to do quality of work life assessments of organizations based on Maslo theory of our needs. Pay is always in the top three. Sometimes advancement may be number one, job security could be number one, but pay will always fall in the top three. And the and the livability of where you live. Exactly. That that's always in the top three.

Exactly. [snorts] And and so in a nutshell, that is what what we have. And [clears throat] just to quickly recap, u we'd like to see the county go from the 50th percentile to the 70th percentile to become an employer of choice. When you factor in uh the quality of the benefits that are being offered, the only missing compet component right now is competitive pay. You add pay to that mix. This is a dynamic place to work. That the culture is really sound. There's a really bluecollar work ethic across the board. uh a lot of team uh uh team uh teamwork. It's a great place to work and so once you get the pay in line uh then I think uh you're going to find that there are a lot of people that would love to come to this community and live [clears throat] and be a part of it. Great question.

Yes, sir. Question I have now I've lived through about three of these um um [clears throat] programs. Okay. I mean in my experience in my life. All right. And you know, I I know we've we've you've you've mentioned there's a lot of work that's got to be done and I I I can tell you right now if you haven't done this, it is a lot of work, a lot of education. It's got to make it work. Okay. So, but the one So, for for a an organization this size, [clears throat] do you you know, because you talked about the teeth and the teeth is money. Yes.

Okay. Motivation, money. All right. Show me the money. And so do you jump out there with money first and then build a program underneath it or do you build a program and then jump out with the money? Well, [clears throat] you you build the base value of the jobs first and then if you want to go to merit pay or performance pay, then you put the teeth into that program. There are multiple programs that need funding. Merit pay is is a program unto itself, but right now the focus is to get the the job values where they need to be to be competitive and then value. Okay.

Yeah. The value of the jobs has to be in place first. Yes. You have my concern to branch out different. My concern is I mean the study the study the study tells us what pretty much we already know. Okay. I mean it's pretty obvious. We talk to the employees all the employees will tell you this.

Um And I have seen these things get so screwed up because the lack of education on how they how they work that it actually has a real negative effect. All right. Um because it affects their careers affects what they want to do and they get tired of the the running around and then they just go somewhere else. The the the other side of this is how long do you you know how long do you stagnate in a study? Okay, I'll say stagnate the results. You don't need this type of study.

You get the study. You're telling us what we got to do. We talk, you give us a nice number, $8 million. That's the that's now money. Okay? Because two years from now, it's going to be more. I guarantee you, unless there something happens. And so the question that always bugs me on these things is when I talk about going in first, you can sit here and build a great beautiful puzzle. Uhhuh.

Okay. Of well, this is what the job looks like. This is the parameters of the job. in and then this is the the mid-range for salaries and all this stuff. And then he says, "Okay, get get us the money so we can make it work." And then you stall out because, you know, you start hearing the what are you doing my taxes? Where are you getting this money from? You know, and all this stuff. And then you got try to, you know, you try to sell it to the community to understand that to get to B, you got to go through A. And that's how you improve your operations. for the employee. They're sitting here going, "Okay, great. We're gonna we're gonna be evaluated. We're going to do this. We're gonna live all through this personnel system." The bottom line though, I how long before I start seeing the money? And so the question to me, for me, and for the employees, is we got to do something for pay [clears throat] now.

Yes. And that Yeah. Yeah. And I think we're conflating two different things. for the the pay. We're saying do that as quickly as possible. For the performance of merit pay, that can wait. When I was talking about jumping out, there was the pay. Yeah.

I'm talking about the pay now. Yes. And let's get the program behind it because and the people, you know, they got to buy, you know, beans put on the table and insurance and all that stuff. Okay. So, we and we got to be competitive. We got people that reach retirement. You know, as you pointed out, we got a bunch of folks that been around for a lot of years. And guess what? This is not new in this county. When I came on 25 years ago, we had people been here 50 years. All right? And so, and it was like, "Oh my god, we're going to lose all these wonderful people." And we did, but somehow we found more wonderful people to come in. But the pay since then has been a little screwed up. It's been lagging [snorts] the fight. So that your my point in this is that we now are going to have to find the $8 million. All right? And that $8 million is the 70th percentile.

Yes, sir.

Right. But we got to base that on something other than we're behind the curve. And that's all the data you're talking about so we can sustain that [clears throat] because that's 70% today. We got to do 70% tomorrow. I mean, you got to be that percentile because everybody else we we put our 70 percentile out there. Guess what? You're going to get Newport News Hampton, everybody else jumping at 70 percentile. at 70th percentile that will position you and we know that when we go into jurisdiction and do this type of work some of the other jurisdictions will want to follow suit and [clears throat] do a study. James City County they implement a study uh recently at this at the about the 65th or 68th percentile somewhere along there at the 70th percentile. This gives you enough of a cushion to where you're going to be fine as long as on an annual basis you adjust the ranges based on some type of index like the CPI or the EPI which only moves it up incrementally over time.

So, and then you don't want to do another study for another 3 to 5 years. Okay. The reality that we face here is that we've got to eight raise $8 million is about just roughly 8 cents on tax rate. Mhm. Okay. So this board has got to suck up got to be step up and say we're going to raise 8 cents or we're going to do 4 cents this year and 4 cents the next year. I mean we got to that's where the teeth is. So to make this count and you jump up and you go I don't know if we can do it and you get to [clears throat] instead of the 70th percentile you get to the 60th percentile. Okay. So that's a trouble that we have to that's a reality that we have to [clears throat] face.

Yeah. Yeah. And and I understand I'm not elected official here and I'm not held accountable by the constituents here, but I can tell you this. If you don't fight that bullet now, you're going to be in perpetual catch-up mode and 8 million is going to go to 10, 11, it's just going to get bigger. And I think most people in the community are rational enough. They understand everything goes up. Labor is a commodity just like earnest juice and gasoline. [clears throat] everything goes up. What we're saying is this is a modest cost figure to get you to where you can stop some of the hemorrhaging in some of the departments. It you should not have to go more than 45 days to fill a vacant job when it's posted. Some of your jobs are taking 60 65 days because you can't get an applicant pool of qualified people. So what do you do in in the absence of that? You wind up putting people in jobs that have to learn on the job,

right? And a lot of them don't work out. So there's a lot of compelling reasons to why as you said you got to find the 8 million. Well [clears throat] that's I I I agree with your assessment. I think I think the the uh the people in this community most of the people the majority of the people will understand that the the significance of having the right having us get the right people [clears throat] in the job and to get the right people a big piece of that is going to be the pay. We're seeing it. We're [clears throat] seeing it right now as we speak. Okay. And my final uh comment is if [clears throat] you implement the study as we've laid it out at the 70th percentile,

the lowest paying position, whether it be full-time or permanent part-time would be $204 per hour. Say that. Say that again. The lowest paying position, no position would pay pay less than $204 per hour. Right? That's the base value of labor in the organization. If you implement the studies we put together, no job would pay less than $204 per hour.

I think also to make people not make people but allow people to understand and for us to communicate this in an open government. Um, you know, when we were talking about where we end up with an annual assessment as opposed to every twoear assessment because what you do then is the incremental increases are smaller. Mhm.

And the things that affect it such as growth and and you know uh inflation and stuff are smaller and people see okay I mean we've that example was a handover county I believe or was it Henriik or one of those anyway it was that people could see what their money was going for why would why did why did it uh if our values are going up 10 to 12%. Okay, we we' make some adjustments on that, but it shows if we do this instead of it being 10 10 or 12% every two years, it would be 6%. Okay, roughly. So, I mean, that's an argument for doing this is kind of get to the teeth part. [clears throat] It's very interesting, you know, assessment. We've we've ignored this for too long and it [clears throat] and we've had troubles hiring people for a long long time and you know yes it is a a big chunk but I think we need to we need to do this so that incrementally it's just going to be a cost of living adjustment a little bit as the years go by. this. We've been behind the eight-ball far too long on this. And I think I think we have people that we have people who will complain about the fact that we're doing this. That's a given. [snorts] All right. But I think we have a whole bunch of people who will say it's about time. [snorts] And we've got families to deal with and we've got loyal employees to deal with. And I think that you know the we've been doing it on our shoestring and we will continue to do it on our shoestring but our employees should not have to do that we [clears throat] should take care of them and I I I you know I think push comes to shove I think I think it was I was happy that we had this compensation

study done because we knew we needed it and I have to tell you that I think Dr. you have done an excellent job on this and you've laid it out in a a very non-judgmental way um and not in an emotional way but facts factual factual step by step by step that people should understand and I can't thank you personally enough for doing [cough and clears throat] this and Rose you know this has been coming and I Yes ma'am I think it's it's well beyond the time that we needed to do this. Well, I think this is far. It should have been done long ago.

We're we're falling behind. We've been falling behind every year. And you know, bits and pieces don't do it. This is a big chunk, but this will get us to the level that we need to be in [clears throat] our employees deserve to have us at that level. We're getting there. So, we have the evaluation, we have the recommendation. What's the road map look like both in compensation and in um We'll come to that. because we got compensation and also getting to that merit the merit based um compensation compensation based upon merit um and two years down the road that that that hurts my feelings but but I like to see that road map so how do how do we get there so [clears throat] two doesn't become three and three doesn't

that's going to take time that's why you I think you got to have that set up it can't take giant I mean we can't [clears throat] be any chinks in the armor we need to get this one and and get Because if it is, you're going to have a mess on your hand. Understand that, but that needs to be a sprint and not not a jar. If I could step in, I had one more question for clarification for Dr. Campbell. We had initially 10 counties listed as the basis for doing the comparison. We ended up with seven.

Uh could you explain that discussion? As I opened, when I started talking about the market data, as we started to peel back the onion and look at some of uh the communities and and the characteristics or traits of some of those communities, three communities really stood out. Uh Henrio, uh Chesterfield, and Hanover. They their compensation levels, I don't know how they're funding it, but their data centers

data centers. Yeah. their their compensation levels were significantly higher than anyone else in in the region. And so we didn't think it was fair to keep them in that mix when those communities are different and a number of respects. And I'm not going to go through all the reasons they're different, but but they're different. And so the conversation and thanks to this gentleman here, he said we should focus on the communities that are like us that we compete with we compete with and so when we heard that and we saw what the impact those three we pulled those out of the regression model statistically it didn't they were too much on that

it didn't line [clears throat] up with those in there. People not leaving your county to go to Henriiko. [clears throat] So the 70% as it's presented to you these are really your peers. These are your peers, which I think comes back to your question. We've tried to do the analysis on the local market. We haven't reached out. We haven't taken the very high price counties and mix that in and gotten an inflated number. This is this is the seven counties around us. This is an [clears throat] compete with our people with Right.

And like and like you observed, the competition isn't all right. If I take this job, I got to pick up my family. your competition is instead of going north to work, I'll just go turn and go south to work. So that's

well part of it is going to be u to I just you know the reality is that we're going to have to educate our uh constituency on why we're doing this and they need to understand uh we got to have some facts. Uh if I recall u there was uh I don't know something like 30 some openings in our fire department. I mean, we had trouble. We were struggling and and because our firefighters were going to a place where they got greater salary. That's a great primary example. If you're talking about just firefighters, talking about EMPs and, you know, our EMTs and all that kind of stuff. So, uh, it all has an effect on quality of life in our in our community.

I'm sorry. When you invited me here, I should have told you I like to talk and I like to express an opinion. One of the things I'd like to see as soon as you have your discussions about the funding mechanisms and and rolling it out, I think it would be incredibly powerful if the board put out a statement saying we understand that families in our communities are hurting. Everything's going up. You know, we've heard a lot about the cost of eggs and milk and butter. We know we've got to do something as one of the larger employers in this area to help our people. And that's why we com commissioned an unbiased study from an outside [clears throat] firm. This wasn't someone internally, you know, trying to elevate pay. This was an outside firm with I'm not paid on commission. So, you know, [clears throat] uh this the numbers are what they are. And I think if you put out something, get out in front and put something out there rationalizing why you did it. Rose has done a phenomenal phenomenal job. her and her staff under Mark's leadership looking at these issues and there's tons of information that is already here as to why this is needed and why now's the time to make it happen. And I think a united front putting out a formal statement supporting this I think will go a long way uh easing uh any you know negative feedback from any constituents. There are some people you're not going to make happy no matter what you do. That's right.

So when I come in, I tell the employees, [cough] the only thing I can guarantee you is everybody's going to be treated fairly. I'm not here to make you happy. And so I think you get out in front of it, you make your case to the public and let the chips fall where they may.

Well, that's my actually my big concern is um I I want the citizens to truly understand why we're doing. They may not like it. Some of them may not like it, but there's a rationale for us doing it. And there there's a real reason that, you know, we're we're in this job here to make sure that we're taking care of our citizens and our community. And there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. Um we're not going to collapse our our economy uh out of poor out of poor decisions. And um so we're looking, this is a future down the road kind of thing that we're working on now to fix it. So, uh, somewhere in here we're going to we're going to have to talk about how this how to implement it.

And and and and that's the thing. It's it's not the why. I think everybody is on board with the why. It's going to be the how. And that's [clears throat] going to be the challenge. How we're going to make this happen. And that's what we we'll work on. Well, that that $8 million number should probably come down if we're taking those other larger three municipalities out. came out from 10 from 10 it's not going to come. So um so this is going to be all incorporated. I mean I I see this here. I don't know. Yes, we have. We got all the information we need to for implement this thing. But Campbell, thank you very very much for this. Sheila. Sheila. What?

Okay. I'm asking a question here. Okay. That we need to know in this discussion. So the county administrator's got to tell us he can implement this. Well, what so what's Well, whatever this whatever this I just saw it one step at a time. All right. First of all, I'd like to thank Dr. Campbell very much for I don't want to leave. I want to stay here all night talking. [laughter] Say like sto your lip. I'm sorry. You've come a long way and I I know the hours are getting late and I really want to say thank you and have a safe trip home. Thank you, ma'am. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. It's been a pleasure. Where are you from? Great. Uh I live in South Carolina. Oh, wow.

Not too far away. Columbia about five hours. You had it back tonight. He flies out early early tomorrow morning. Okay. Okay. Are you flying out? Okay. Very good. Thank you, sir. Let's talk soon. All right. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for coming. I appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Okay. Now, now that we've [clears throat] had enough discussion, I think I'm going to call on Mr. Hullroy to speak about the proposed resolution that you have before you.

So, we're we're um looking for a motion on this resolution. It's a resolution to authorize the county administrator to implement a countywide compensation study at the 70th percentile level. So whereas the full year fiscal year 2026 budget process, the board of supervisors directed the county administrator to have a comprehensive compensation study conducted. And whereas after formal solicitation process for requests for proposal, management advisory group, MAG, was selected to complete the compensation study. And whereas the results of the study have revealed that the county employee salaries significantly lag the current market with overall compensation aligning at approximately the 50th percentile. And whereas the board of supervisors desires to ensure that your county maintains a competitive and sustainable compos compensation plan that attracts, supports, and retains a high quality workforce. Now therefore, it be resolved by the York County Board of Supervisors [clears throat] that the county administrator is hereby authorized to take all actions necessary to implement the recommendations of the compensation study at the 70th percentile level within the fiscal year 26 and fiscal year 27 budgets. So the proposal is we would close the $8 million gaps by late 26, early 27.

Okay. This is a resolution. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We got a question. Does this need to be advertised? Huh? That's just a resolution. The question is, you don't need to have a public hearing on this. Okay. That was going to be Make sure you've you've seen this. I'm aware of it. Is our attorney are you are we okay with this? Yes, he's okay with this. All right. Okay. So, my question is how are we going to get there financially? I will ask Miss Goodwin to talk to that. Okay. [clears throat]

Because before we authorize this, we need to know what we're authorizing, not just signing anything until I figure out how we're getting there,

right? And so we've worked um with Rose and her team and Theresa and her team to look at different scenarios of how we could implement this in an affordable way. So one thing you'll recall is each year we have usually have a carryover of surplus from one year to the next. We just finished FY25 and when we've been looking at estimating what that uh carryover would be, of course, first we have to address the fund balance policy, our 12% policy, [clears throat] but then anything remaining we can allocate to projects or special initi initiatives. And so each year we, you know, Mark meets with each of you each of you to talk about what those things are. Um we've been holding um uh $3 million of that surplus waiting on the results of this this study. So, right out the gate, we have $3 million. Now, it's onetime funding because it's a carry forward. Um, to address take an initial bite of this apple. Um, we think that we could do this in steps, maybe three to four steps. One is, you know, do something in in the near term, you know, maybe in the spring of this year during FY26, utilizing the $3 million that we have available. Then we could look at um next year's surplus as well. um or um you know we know that we have a reassessment in 27. So there is going to be additional revenue just at because of the reassessment that could be applied toward this too right off the top. So the full implementation cost we probably wouldn't feel [clears throat] until 28 because we have this one-time money that can can be applied to the first the first chunk of it.

How does it mean the the first chunk when you talk about chunks? So you talking about the whole $8 million chunk or are you talking about half of it? I I would we would do it in stages. All right.

What? Okay. Stages. Is it by year stage or budget stage or or every three months stage? How we I mean I don't know the effect on the community for us is the budget. Okay. That's the annual budget. Do we change that? So So we are we're cooking in on this. Okay. A ch a mid change of every two years. As we know, we do a budget and we hardly adjust it much, but so now in the second year, we're going to make another budget adjustment there. There'll be no change. We're as as good just said, we're we're sitting on $3 million, which we set aside for this very purpose. Okay. So,

well, it's still $5 million. Yes, sir. It is. And and I think counting inflation,

she she addressed the rest of it as well. So what we're thinking right now is is that we would start off doing this raise in compensation market adjustment rather [snorts] this market adjustment in stages and the first stage would extend into the next budget year. So it's not going to it's not going to it's not going to affect 26 the year we're in now. It will only start to see an effect at 27, not in whole. And as she just said, you would not see the full implementation until 28 financially. So it's going to be spread across three years. Okay. But I but I mean planning on using year-end extra funding doesn't seem to be a smart move for deliver planning. Well,

I mean, we could do that. It's it's it's just an option. But I mean, if we're going to do this seriously, you would you would build it into your budget and say this is we've got to add this. Absolutely. And that's what we'll [clears throat] be doing in So, we're going to Sorry. So, we're going to do this over three years. So, you're looking at $3 million a year to get you to your eight.

Now, I'm going to clarify that. So, so uh Mr. Bam did talk about over three budget years this is going to have an impact. So, but our intention would not be to to pay this $8 million over three years. We would look to try to incorporate this in Yeah. within the year. And so, what how we would do that is in FY26, we would use that carryover funding of $3 million to take our first bite at the apple, whether that's an across the uh board, you know, percent increase or whatever to kind of get us to it. We're not going to be able to make that step all at once, right?

Okay. Then come into fiscal year 27, um we we don't because we're already so far into 26, we won't have full 12 months of that salary. $8 million is 12 months full value of all the annual salaries, right? So if we implement 26, let's say we implement in, you know, April or May, you only have a couple months worth of that number. Okay? So that's not going to eat much of that 3 million. Then you come July 1, you maybe you make another adjustment and we still have the balance of the $3 million to apply. So we're not going to feel that full effect um in the budget until 28. So in 27 we are going to have to one of the things that comes off the top. We come to you and we tell you this is these are the budget drivers off the top of any new revenue. We need to fund increases in contractual services, increases in salary. A part of that is going to be the implementation of this compensation study. There's no question about that. But because we have that onetime money we can apply to it, the hit on the 27 budget won't be as large. [snorts]

All right. So my question is where are we cutting the budget to get here? Because in three years we're going to have to have an extra 8 million $9 million every single year after that. So how are we going to make that up? And where are we cutting the budget to make this happen instead of surplus? We can't just keep throwing surplus at it every year. There could be there there could be budget reduction to cover this. It has to be. But traditionally, we have growth every year.

So you see the growth. I mean, unless we hit a big hiccup, which we have the ability to throw on the brakes if we're not going to pay it all out at one time, which we are not suggesting. So we have the ability to throw on the brakes if we if we see a downturn. Uh so it doesn't necessarily have to be a reduction in services somewhere where there's a natural growth in in revenue yeartoear.

Yeah. But that that that I understand your growth part but that very sometime that's really unknown based upon unless you build a bunch of houses or businesses or something like that. So where's this extra money going to come from? It's going to it's going to be on a tax increase. Be yearover-year is what I'm saying. There's going to be a tax increase, a tax rate increase or a tax increase. I don't what category you put it in is more more revenue coming in. You got to have more revenue coming in and you got to every year. So you can assessments coming up things. Okay. You you still got just as an example, Mr. Sheepard, as an example.

So I'll I'll talk a little bit if you're okay with the the real estate assessment. I'll talk a little bit about that. So, you know, in our last assessment, um I I know you remember it because there was it was quite a conversation over it. So, at that point, we had a in many cases, folks had a 20% change in real estate values. It will not be like that this year when the bills get sent out later this month, but next year,

right? So, probably somewhere. We're not done yet. There's still some tweaking to be done, but what we believe is going to happen is somewhere between 10 to probably 13% for the two years. So that would equate to about 6%. 6 7% I want an annual assessment. And we're going to work on that for you cuz we all like the idea too.

So that's that is the case, but it would it would have to start in 28. Um, so the revenue that you're talking about, it's not a wish, it's a reality. You're getting ready to get it in your mailbox.

So unless we're going to get a Yeah, I understand what you're saying. Okay. But there's one piece in here that we haven't talked about. We we're going to see the number. Okay. the every every constituent is going to see the number and and um and they're not going to see the whole budget and until we get through the budget which will reflect back on this this uh tax assessment or not assessment but the value of of the homes which is assessment I guess what's what's very very important that we have a capital plan in our our budgeting cycle and we're going to do things like put $45 million on TAB high school and we got all these schools things we've got to do. We still got ditches to fix. We still got cars and trucks to buy and we still all we still have to do that because you cannot just walk away from that stuff because then you end up with another problem. So it there's all this is going to be tied together. All right. And so we're now adding [clears throat] again $8 million or if you want to do it six million or three million, however you want to do it over time, [clears throat] it's there. Okay? I'm not saying don't do this. I'm just saying just be aware of it because we got to talk. I mean, people are watching us on TV and they got to they got to know where this money is coming from and where we're going to get it from them [clears throat] in one form or another. All right. And we have to be able to tell them why we're doing this. Not [clears throat] just saying, "Well, we need a 70%ile on our our system." We've got to be able to really show how how and why this is needed. That's why I gave out that example of the firefighters, okay? Because that was that were year last year. I think it was like 30 some firefighters were holes had to be filled and though we can't find a tax assessor, you know, until we jack this stuff up, which we needed to be able to make our government work. These are things that are important, but th this is not going to be a smoke and mirrors. This is going to be very open

up to the public. It's going to be very clear that what we're doing. Um, the one thing to this kind of I'm really we're gonna, you know, this would be great. All right. The problem is how are we going to implement this in terms of who's getting the first bite of the apple right now? What we're thinking is it'll be an across the board race. It has I don't think so. You can't leave anybody out. No, that [clears throat] is not our intention. Okay. I just want to know I mean that's it have to be all the employees. So of course it would have to be across the board. We're not going to separate one group from another group. That doesn't make sense.

Here's what I'd like to see. I'd like to see if we're going to we're going to implement this that we take we get $4 million out of surplus over the next six 8 10 months and then we get $4 million out of the budget. We trim the budget $4 million and you make it happen. That's my take. I think there's two ways of looking at it and you've already heard the revenue side and part of it is the tax assessments will offset and give us that additional revenue so we can afford this. We can afford it by next year. Mhm.

And then then the question is, do we need to trim elsewhere on our capital spending, etc. to be able to balance a budget? And that's back to Tom's point. We need a balanced budget by May of next year that addresses this increase in compensation. We've got to play pay our employees. You don't have a county if you don't have employees. 100%. It's absolutely imperative that we move forward

and we have the job to then balance a budget and that's our job. and we have to go through that cycle. And so I I can't I can't say here we can cut anything. I you know I'm we always look to cut stuff out of the budget. I mean we've been pretty lean. We got a history of doing that. This is just a hunk of pie. We're going to have to eat here and it's going to be the pie's changed a little bit. So we're going to still have our budget and we're still going to have to take care. We got to step up. It's time to step up and take care of our employees. and issue we're going to have. We've known since last spring that we have an employee issue. Sure, we do. Right. So, this is even before then. It was even before then. Rose made it very clear to us during budget discussions last spring.

But to me, we're talking about eating $8 million every single year after this. Yes. Mhm. [clears throat] That's what I'm talking about. I understand. And you're either going to get it in revenue, you're going to get it in taxes, or you or you find Yes. you trim the budget. So, wait, wait. Are we saying we need to adjust the salary bands by $8 million every year? Yeah. No, that's what it's going to be. No, no, no. That's what that's what that's what I'm thinking. I don't think we need to do this. I don't think we need to It's going to be $8 million more every year. It's because of this.

It's going to be eight. We're going to set $8 million. Okay. Then we're going to adjust it by two or three% this year. It's not going to be another eight on the cost of living part of the base. Is that what you're thinking or not? The cost of living is going to be every year. Yeah. Yeah. But we're not adding $8 million on top. It's not going to be that'll be part of the base budget at this point. Okay. We just this get to that 70 and then CPI or whatever we decide after that.

Okay. Um as far as this goes, I really need to understand the road map or the project plan or how we're going to implement before I can approve say go implement. I need to know how we're going to do it. We talked about it a little bit here about start out with $3 million from here and so forth, but I I need something more concrete I can study to go yes, go do this or no, don't do this or whatever the case is. I can't just say just go and let me know what you did, how you figured it out afterwards. I need to know what we're going to do because I can't buy I can't put I can't put myself in a position of approving to do go do something, then you come back and go, well, you told me to go do it, so you have to do it now. So

authorize the county administrator to pull that plan together and execute. I agree, but that's not what this says. It says to It says to implement the compensation study. It doesn't say yes, it doesn't say it doesn't say put a plan together or how you going to do it. It says do it says across fiscal years 26 and 27. Okay. How again how again how do job to do that? [clears throat] How we how we do that is through the budget approval process. That's that's simply how you do it. Okay, it's going to get to you got to you know what the endg game has got to be. Okay, how you get there is that he is now got to go build a budget that incorporates this.

Okay, it's we're giving him budget guidance is what we're doing with this this resolution. Understand? Let's let's just let's just throw out let's just throw this out. What if what if the plan comes back go, "Oh, in order to do this that you told me to go do you you need to approve a uh a 10 10 cent increase on the real estate tax rate." I'm going to go, "No, but but you said but but you say but you say go do this. I don't want to get I don't want to be in that bind."

We told him to implement it. Okay. A budget. Put it in the budget. So, he has to come back with a budget and whether we approve the budget or or disapprove the budget, it's going to be this is going to be in it because we're saying to implement implement the uh the study. I mean, it's not going to get any better. And I understand exactly [clears throat] what you're saying because that's what my concern is. It's going to end up with a 10-cent increase in the tax rate and it can't. So, it's going to it's going to have to because where are you going to get the money from? This is, you know, and and that's where I want that's what somebody explained it to me. Let him go f let him do his job and go find the money. Let him let him come back with a proposal if we like it or we don't like it. Okay. But that's how you implement this.

And I don't like 10 cent increase. So that's I was talking about an increase. We we know that [clears throat] the value we're putting $8 million in here. Okay. We're told him to go implement the study. Okay. And all he's got to do now is come back with a budget proposal that the study how he's going to do it. That's that's all it is. That's how you implement this thing. As soon as we're clear, that's what we're That's all we're doing. There's no other way to There's no other way to implement this. We're not going to go write a check for $8 million or wait till the end of the budget cycle and come out with our hat in the hand and give us three million or whatever. So, I understand what you're doing here. Okay. And and we're all I think in agreement that our employees need to be paid paid. We got to we got to take care of our people,

right? So, I move 25-177. [clears throat] Yes. Roll call, please. Well, was there any discussion after the move? We've had the discussion R25-177 by Mr. Holoid to approve the proposed resolution R25-17 to authorize the county administrator to implement the countywide compensation study at the 70th percentile. Mr. Holoid. Yes. Mr. Drury. What name did you call?

Mr. Drury. Mr. Drury. I'm thinking how we get there. I'm going s sustain

Mr. Rome. Yes. I want to see what the plan is. Mr. Sheepard. Yes. Mrs. Null. Yes. Motion carry. You're the one talking about pay raise. I I want this pay raise. Well, why did you why didn't you not Hey, hey, don't don't badger the guy over his vote. His vote is his vote. Okay.

It is what it is. Okay, let's move on. We we're down to the consent calendar and we've got board policies. That's item number four, proposed revisions and additions. Number five is the York County personnel policies that have been brought up to date. Item number six is the employee of the quarter. The third quarter is Susan Stro. Item number seven is Lakeside Drive, Yorktown Road sidewalk projects which everybody's interested in. Uh is there anything that you would like to see pulled? Any member? Okay. Discussions? No discussion. Therefore, so I'll ask for a motion.

I move by to move the consent calendar. Thank you very much. Roll call 12, please. Motion made by Mr. to approve the consent calendar as submitted. Mr. Drury, yes. Mr. R. Yes. Mr. Shepard. Yes. Mrs. N. Yes. Mr. Holbury. Yes. Motion carry.

Okay. So, now it's time for open discussion. Does anybody have anything they'd like to discuss? Just real briefly, I want uh HR TAC Hampton Roads Transportation Accountability Commission has been in the process of hiring a new uh executive director. Uh Kevin Page has uh submitted his uh time to retire. It's going to be effective one January. And uh we have a a kind of an acting u he's the assistant. It's Todd Haly. He got a lot of experience. Anyway, so today we went through the uh hiring process. Um started the hire well, we went through the hiring process, okay? And we looked at some uh some various folks, incredibly [clears throat] talented individuals. Oh my gosh, it's amazing. So, we're doing that and um just let you know that's going on.

That's great. Thank you. And Mr. Um, Sheepard, was there any update from last HRAC meeting on the the county administrators getting together to review the one proposal for the general assembly? I at this meeting we had uh we we were only our committee was a hiring committee. Okay, that's all it was. Okay, if I may. Yes, Mr. Hwood to your point that if you recall that I think we're talking about the 3/10en of 1 cent tax. Yes. So if you recall that was going to be sent back to the CAO committee with the PDC. That meeting will be had tomorrow and I will be in attendance. Thank you. Yes, sir. Be interested to hear how I

That's what [clears throat] I was asking about. Yes, sir. Stephen, do you have anything? I I do. I'd like to chat with Mark here real quick. I was looking at the read ahead of material about the um what's that what's that thing called? The um the non Hold on. I got to get the term right here. The non-competitive litter prevention and recycling grant. Um, so a good chunk of change there for for that. Have we, you know, thought about how we're going to utilize that or we're going to the beautifification committee is going to run with that or we too early to ask that question yet?

I think it's a little bit early. I have to get with Sam. She's on the committee and see how the money all plays out and which municipalities get. Okay. All right. Just glad glad to see we got something to work with. And a lot of that money, you know, is restricted to certain types of activities, right? Because right, we got for litter prevention and recycling and and the polystyrene campaign. So, [laughter]

that's enough to say. Okay. Today I attended the Hampton Roads caucus uh overability building and that's of course the the people who serve on the general assembly whether they're senators or or delegates and the purpose of that really was for organizations local organizations to come before them and make requests. Uh, one of the ones that I was most interested in and I I I left my paperwork outside had to do with the uh veterans tax relief and uh the uh Hampton Road Hampton City Manager made an excellent presentation on that and I will give you the the paperwork when I get it copied, But she made some e excellent points and how much it is costing the various jurisdictions and asking for help from the general assembly. Some states have different rules than we have. Ours ours approved it down to the local government 100% whereas other states have have different compensation methods. And not that we would support one or the other. The main thing was to make sure that the those of the general assembly understood what it's costing us all on our tax rate to be able to support [snorts] this. that of course we want to plan on supporting it but that they need to understand that when they pass a bill like this I mean everybody voted for it but then they pass it on down to us without any money coming from the state or any any support from the

state or any qualifications from the state on how you could limit it and there was a talk about some people who are 100% disability are still working but because of the kind of disab ability they have, they can continue to be in the workforce, which puts throws them out, you know, as far as the amount of money in that they're making. And so that hits us in the tax [clears throat] roles. So anyway, that was to me that was the biggest thing because that was the one that I was most interested in on on that score. But versability is amazing what those people do and how the training that they're doing. And also we're talking about businesses c coming into the area and we have there's several businesses that are in line to come in but they need workers and versatility is actually training people to work like in the shipyard and and [clears throat] different areas. And the word really needs to get out to families who have special needs uh children that there are opportunities for them to work and and they want to work but they some of them need training. So they need to know that there is training available regardless of what field it is if they would apply a a contact for ability because it's amazing what they can accomplish. Uh, I was really impressed with that presentation today. So, I won't go into all the others because of the hour. We are definitely going to go into close session. So, that's all I have to say. Mr. Jury, do you have anything you'd like to discuss at this point? Okay. If not, would you please take your You do.

I do. One item, please.

It was a discussion on Florida vacation rentals, and I had forwarded a note to each of you uh on that topic. There was a article out of scripts news regarding the increase in the number of child related drownings at vacation rentals in Florida over a 4-year period and from 2021 through 24 children drowned at vacation rental units. Uh total drownings per year of children in Florida is about 100 per year. Now there's a lot of a lot of sea coast in Florida. So that's not completely surprising number, but to have 40 over over four years die in uh vacation related pools, that's that's disturbing. [clears throat] Florida senator is planning to introduce a bill during the upcoming general assembly to require pool safety features. The bill would require those seeking a new short-term rental license or a license renewal to have at least one of these pool safety features in place if the property has a pool. options. There were five options included a safety feature that included an exit alarm on any doors or windows leading to the pool or a safety pool cover or a swimming pool water alarm or a self-latching device on doors leading to the pools and a [clears throat] barrier that fences and surrounds the swimming pool. Currently, the state residential pool safety law in Florida requires at least one pool safety feature to be applied on properties built after 2000 uh when the law was enacted. But the senator's bill would expand those requirements to all vacation properties seeking short-term rental licenses regardless of when the property was built. So, with the board's agreement, I'd like to have our planning group look at this proposed Florida bill and just determine if there's any changes needed on our board policy on STRs to modify uh for this particular topic. I wouldn't want to be behind the eightball [clears throat] and have child related drownings because we hadn't taken action.

We can look at that, but I can tell you right now, the number one way to prevent drowning is teach your kids to swim. [laughter] Okay? I talk backyard swim. the well the the YMCA has a teach going to teach all second graders how to swim but this is people coming in vacationing so they're

well I mean yeah you put all the you put all these things up kids will grow over walls they do all kind of things the fencing requirements here are kind of a joke but in state of Virginia but um yeah I mean if we wanted to do stuff we would help the YMCA fund a specific program to teach all our second graders to swim, okay? And I don't care if it's a vacation guys coming in or the people living here, we need to teach them how to swim. And they're just amazing. Uh, in fact, one of the I think Isa White has a program where they have the YMCA teach all the second graders in in Isa White to swim. Why aren't we doing something like that?

The the Red Cross used to have a backyard swim program, but we don't have that here. Right. But Victory YMCA does offer swim lessons to anybody in the county regardless of income. So look to your Victory YMCA for help with that. Both YMCA's I just know I just know Victory. So that's right. Okay. We [clears throat] got to pull. There's no more discussion. If the board supports that close session, please. All right. Close session.

Which piece of paper? In accordance with section 2.2-3711A1 of the code of Virginia, I move that the board of supervisors convene in close meeting to consider a personnel matter involving the appointment of individuals to boards and commissions. Roll call. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. Yes. Mr. Drury. Yes. Mrs. Null. Yes. Motion carry. Thank you very much. Chief, can I talk to you for a second?

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