City Council Work Session

Catherine ReadThank you. Good evening and welcome to our work session of March 3rd, 2026. I'd like to call the meeting to order. and before we begin the work session I would like to invite Cub Scout Pack 882 to come up stand up and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance so if you are able and choose to please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Speaker 5Thank

Catherine Readyou, Cub Scout Pack 882. We appreciate you being here with us. I will now recognize Ms. Shinneberry for the first work session item for discussion.

Ms. ShinneberrystaffOur first item is a FY27 budget presentation by schools. I'm going to recognize Dustin Wright, our school superintendent, for the presentation.

Dustin WrightstaffThank you, Ms. Shinneberry. Good evening, Mayor Reed, members of the city council, members of the school board, and other members of the city leadership team. PROUD SUPERINTENDENT HERE IN THE CITY OF FAIRFAC SCHOOLS. IT'S A PLEASURE TO BE WITH YOU TONIGHT FOR THIS JOINT WORK SESSION. BEFORE WE BEGIN, I WANT TO START WITH A BRIEF NOTE OF GRATITUDE. I STEPPED INTO THIS ROLE JUST ABOUT THREE MONTHS AGO AND IT'S BEEN A WONDERFUL TRANSITION AND I'M DEEPLY APPRECIATIVE OF ALL THE SUPPORT FROM LOTS OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE. THIS COUNCIL, THE SCHOOL BOARD, THE MEMBERS OF THE CITY GOVERNMENT, THEIR SUPPORT AND GUIDANCE HAS BEEN CRITICAL TO our school leaders and staff, the engaged residents, and most of all, a big thank you to our students.

They're why we're here, here in the city of Fairfax Schools, and we're so proud of what they do every single day. Tonight's presentation is a discussion about the FY27 advertised budget for this school system. We hope that it reflects three consistent priorities throughout the presentation. The first is strengthening the connection between our schools and our broader community. Second is supporting and empowering our educators and staff. And third is keeping students at the center of everything that we do. I want to briefly orient everyone about the structure of this presentation and where we'll be going tonight. We'll begin with who we serve and how our system is organized. I know that there's a lot of knowledge about that in this room,

but I think it's helpful for the public and anybody listening to have that information available. services agreement and the tuition related to that because that's a primary cost driver in this budget and then we'll conclude with the actual FY 27 operating budget and the timeline ahead I think we all know that we have four wonderful schools and an academy here in the city of Fairfax but we have Daniels run Providence Elementary School Catherine Johnson Middle School and then Fairfax High School in the Fairfax Academy each school has its own identity but they share expectations programming and outcomes. Last night we heard a state of the schools presentation at the school board's work session and then an elementary specific presentation and we got to see

firsthand a lot of the amazing work that's happening. I was so impressed by the depth and the breadth of what's happening but also the intentionality and the strategic coherence of what's happening in their schools and how they're using their resources in a way that benefits every single student. With these five programs, they provide a continuum of early learning all the way to graduation. While we are a small school division, our students have access to a broad academic options and extracurricular pathways. I think that's one of the things that makes our school division so unique. Our size allows for personalization, and our partnerships allow for scale. JUST TO ORIENT THE MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC IN THIS ROOM WITH SOME OF THE NUMBERS FOR

THE CITY OF FAIRFAC SCHOOLS, I THINK YOU CAN SEE SOME OF THE KEY STATISTICS. WE HAVE ABOUT 5400 STUDENTS THAT ATTEND OUR SCHOOLS. 2900 OF THOSE STUDENTS ARE CITY RESIDENTS AND 2500 ARE COUNTY RESIDENTS. AND I THINK THAT'S ANOTHER GREAT COMPONENT OF OUR PARTNERSHIP. GOVERNANCE IS PROVIDED BY THIS FIVE-MEMBER ELECTED SCHOOL BOARD THAT IS UP HERE WITH ME AND ONE SUPERINTENDENT AND THEN A GREAT CENTRAL OFFICE STAFF. OUR SCHOOL SERVICES AGREEMENT, WHICH WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1962 AND THEN REVISED IN 1978 AND HAS BEEN IN PLACE SINCE THEN, IS WHAT GUIDES THIS PARTNERSHIP AND WILL FRAME A LOT OF THE COMPONENTS OF THE BUDGET THAT WE'LL SEE THIS EVENING. speaking specifically about that school services agreement with fairfax county public schools we'll

take just a brief second to unpack that that agreement is between four parties the city council that i'm speaking to today the school board that's right up here with me and then the fairfax county public school system and the fairfax county government the the way in the structure of this County Public Schools managing and operating the city schools on a day-to-day basis, including the staffing and curriculum. And then our city school board provides governance and contract oversight. It provides supplemental investments and budgeting, and it maintains the four city-owned schools. And I'd like to clarify that word maintain. That's around the capital improvements and capital upgrades to the schools.

The actual day-to-day maintenance is part of the contract with Fairfax County Public Schools. This model gives our city students access to specialized services, advanced programming, academy programs, and other regional opportunities. And it also places a responsibility on our city to invest deliberately in our facilities and our supplemental supports. Now we're going to take a look a little bit of those students that I was talking about earlier about who they are and how many are in our schools currently. The information that you see on the screen is enrollment information or membership information from September 30th of 2025, so the start of this school year. And what you're seeing is two sets of information.

One is on the left is our city students, and on the right is Fairfax County Public Schools overall. And it's a comparison between the first day of school this year and the first day of school last year. And so you can see a lot of blue down arrows. And what we saw regionally in Northern Virginia is a downward trend in enrollment. So students that ended last year on the last day of school, a smaller amount of students showed up on the first day of school. And this is not anything that was unique to the city of Fairfax or Fairfax County Public School. There were measurable decreases in Loudoun, Arlington, Prince William, Montgomery County, Maryland, and several of our surrounding districts. now then the next piece of information we want we want to provide is the comparison between our

membership in september that you were just looking at and something called the adm or the average daily membership and all of this information is important context to helping understand the contract that we have with fairfax county public schools and the tuition bills that we receive THE ADM IS AN IMPORTANT METRIC BECAUSE IT'S NOT A ONE DAY SNAPSHOT. THAT MEMBERSHIP NUMBER IS ON SEPTEMBER 30TH, HOW MANY KIDS WERE IN SCHOOL. THE ADM ACTUALLY REFLECTS STUDENT PARTICIPATION OVER THE COURSE OF THE YEAR. WE GET A FINAL NUMBER ON WHAT THAT IS AT THE END OF MARCH EVERY SINGLE YEAR. THIS NUMBER IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT NOT ONLY IS THE KEY DRIVER OF THE CALCULATIONS IN OUR SCHOOL SERVICES AGREEMENT, but it's also the number they use for state funding, which we'll talk about in a minute.

It's also the number that helps drive the local composite index, which is another key local funding metric from the state. For tuition purposes, we always want to understand how the city's ADM compares relative to FCPS's ADM because if both are going down, our percentage is going to stay relative, but if we see different directions for those memberships, we're going to see impacts on the tuition bill. long-term planning must also account for development trends within the city as it relates to our membership this slide gives an overview historically of the tuition payments related to the school services agreement what you're going to see are that there are two forces consistently at work as this tuition bill has gone up we've seen incremental changes in the city's ADM

key driver is on the increase of this is are the increases in the operating costs we see with our partner in Fairfax County Public Schools. So yes, our enrollment fluctuations will impact this, but what is driving the increases that you see year over year are related to those FCPS operating costs. I think it's important to note that these figures include the actual tuition bill and the rental credits that we receive for Fairfax County students that attend our schools, AND IT ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR-END TRUE-UP. THAT YEAR-END TRUE-UP IS THE REASON THAT FY26 IS ESTIMATED AT THIS POINT BECAUSE WE WON'T HAVE THE EXACT NUMBER UNTIL THE FISCAL YEAR CLOSES OUT THIS SUMMER. ON THIS SCREEN, YOU'LL SEE SOME OF THE FACTORS

THAT ARE IMPACTING THE TUITION BILL, AND WE TALKED ABOUT THOSE PRIMARY FACTORS ALREADY. AGAIN, OUR ENROLLMENT IS A COMPONENT OF THIS, the operating costs are the key driver some of the secondary factors include the proportional enrollment so when we were talking about our ADM's being relative between the city and Fairfax County that's a that's what we're referring to there the grade level distribution there are minor differences between the costs of an elementary middle school and high school student in the school services agreement and then those classroom rental adjustments and year-end true ups the boundary process and utilization IN OUR BUILDINGS CAN ALSO BE SECONDARY FACTORS RELATED TO THIS OVER TIME.

WE'RE GOING TO SHOW THREE SLIDES, AND I THINK SOME OF THESE WERE IN THE CITY MANAGER'S PRESENTATION THAT YOU RECEIVED LAST TUESDAY NIGHT. I THINK WHAT WE'RE TRYING TO POINT OUT ON ALL THREE OF THESE SLIDES IS A SIMILAR SHAPE. AS YOU SEE, YOU'RE GOING TO SEE A SLIDE ON OUR ENROLLMENT, WHICH IS ON THE SCREEN NOW AND THEN A SLIDE ON THE OPERATING COSTS AND THEN OUR TUITION COSTS. I THINK ONE THING THAT'S IMPORTANT TO POINT OUT WITH THE ENROLLMENT NUMBERS THAT YOU SEE HERE IS THAT ALL THOSE YELLOW ONES ARE PROJECTED. WE ARE CURRENTLY FAR UNDER THE PROJECTION FOR THE CURRENT YEAR. SO THE PROJECTION AND WHAT THE BUDGET WAS BUILT ON WAS 3,077 STUDENTS. You saw on that opening slide of where our September numbers were of 2,942, so almost 130 students lower than that projection.

And that lower than expected projection has stayed steady throughout the school year. As of the end of January, we had 2,947 students, so we're still significantly below that projection. And you can see that 3,103 students is the projection for next year. That's going to come up here in a minute. It's our anticipation. We have calibrated that with Eric Foreman and his team that that number is again going to be lower as well. Here's that aforementioned picture about the FCPS operating costs that are that similar shape as our enrollment projections. The operating costs are continuing to go up. And then you'll see this is the exact chart that I showed you on a vertical table form. but here's just a graphic presentation of it to show again that similar shape.

At the end of January, Dr. Michelle Reed, the Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent, presented her proposed budget to the Fairfax County Public Schools School Board. You'll see some of the basic information that was in that proposed budget. A few weeks ago, Mr. Brian Hill, the Fairfax County Executive, presented his proposed budget to the Board of Supervisors. What he's proposing for the school transfer is significantly lower than the $197 million increase that you're seeing here. So I think the proposed budget will undergo some changes between what was presented to the public and what will be approved by FCPS. What's important to note is on that second bullet, in this proposed budget, Fairfax County

estimated that the city of Fairfax tuition bill would be approximately $77 million. In working with the city government's financial team led by Mr. Martinez, the chief financial officer, we looked at that number, looked at some of the past history around the tuition bill and also looked at that enrollment projection and you can see that 77 million dollars is based on that enrollment projection of 3100 and what you'll see in the city of fairfax schools budget is a lower tuition number than that 77 million dollars because we want to we want to be realistic about where we think it's going to end up but we also have some budgetary tools available and in the event that something changes in terms of that final amount.

On this screen, you'll see a high-level summary of the city of Fairfax Schools operating budget. I'll orient everyone to where we are in terms of last year's budget. FY26 is in that estimated column because there are some things that we don't know until the end of the school year. And then you can see in that third column what we're proposing for the upcoming fiscal year. The operating costs, which includes salaries and communications and legal fees and compliance fees, are across that top line. I'm going to skip the CIP maintenance and come back and reference that specifically at the end. The tuition bill, where we talked about it being estimated right now, and that delta between the $77 million, Fairfax County estimated,

you can see we're estimating just below $74 million. and then debt service for some of the capital projects that have happened with the schools in the past that improvements line is something that will probably in future budgets go to the operating funds it's related to maintenance on our turf fields but to keep with past practices it's in there and then you can see the totals at the bottom as you heard mr. Alexander give a great presentation last Tuesday citywide across the city government and the city schools we've made some SHIFTS IN OUR CIP PROCESS FOR ANNUAL, EVERY YEAR MAINTENANCE THINGS, PAINTING, CONCRETE WORK THAT HAVE BEEN IN THE CIP TO ACTUALLY BRING THEM INTO THE OPERATING BUDGETS.

AND SO WHAT YOU'LL SEE THERE IS WE ARE FOLLOWING THAT SAME PRACTICE IN THE CITY OF HEREFAC SCHOOLS. AND OF NOTE IS THE SIGNIFICANT DECREASE, APPROXIMATELY A HALF A MILLION DOLLARS IN those CIP maintenance items because we were able to do an analysis and find existing balances in many of those accounts that we, it's our belief that that will cover what we need for this year and we felt that was the fiscally prudent thing to do moving forward. So that's the explanation between the significant decrease in that category. There's two more slides that I'd like to share before we open it up for conversation. THIS IS RELATED TO OUR ESTIMATED STATE REVENUE. IN THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, THERE ARE TWO LARGE

BUCKETS OF STATE FUNDING THAT GO DIRECTLY TO SUPPORTING SCHOOL SYSTEMS. YOU CAN SEE THE SALES TAX AND THE BASIC SCHOOL AID. THESE ARE CALCULATED FROM THAT ADM NUMBER, THAT AVERAGE DAILY MEMBERSHIP THAT WE WERE TALKING ABOUT BEFORE. WE DID SOME GREAT WORK WITH MR. MARTINEZ AND MS. RIDDELL ABOUT ESTIMATING WHERE WE THINK WE'RE GOING TO BE FOR THIS I GOT SOME GOOD INDICATIONS FROM THE PREVIOUS GOVERNOR, HIS PROPOSED BUDGET THAT WAS PUT OUT IN DECEMBER. AND THEN WE'LL HAVE TO SEE WHERE THINGS END UP THROUGH THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS IN RICHMOND TO SEE WHAT THAT FINAL FY 2027 BUDGET IS. I DON'T, MY READING OF THE TEA LEAVES IS I WOULD NOT EXPECT IT TO BE LESS THAN THE NUMBER THAT WE ESTIMATED IN DECEMBER, BUT WE'RE MONITORING THAT CLOSELY.

I think it's important to note that within the overall schools budget that you saw on the previous screen, that bottom line number, that's inclusive of this funding. So about $15 million of that is directly from the state funding, and then the rest is from a few other sources and then the city transfer to the schools. THE LAST SLIDE THAT WE'LL LOOK AT IS THE COMPARISON OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE GENERAL FUND IN LOCALITIES FOR SCHOOL-RELATED EXPENSES. YOU CAN SEE THIS ACROSS THE NORTHERN VIRGINIA REGION WHERE THE CITY OF FAIRFAX LANDS IN COMPARISON TO OTHER JURISDICTIONS. AS WE MENTIONED ON THAT LAST SLIDE, THAT 38% IS INCLUSIVE OF THAT STATE FUNDING. WOULD SHARE THAT MOST OF THESE OTHER ONES DO NOT INCLUDE THAT STATE

FUNDING. OUR NUMBER MIGHT BE A LITTLE BIT SMALLER IF THAT STATE FUNDING WAS REMOVED. REGARDLESS, WE THINK THAT THIS DEMONSTRATES A REALLY IMPRESSIVE COMMITMENT TO THE SCHOOLS AND THE CITY OF FAIRFACTS. WE'RE VERY GRATEFUL FOR THAT. IN TERMS OF TIMELINE IN THE BUDGET PROCESS, WE, ON THE SCHOOL SIDE, WE WENT THROUGH A PROPOSED AND ADVERTISED BUDGET IN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY. OR PUBLIC HEARINGS ON BOTH OF THOSE. AND NOW WE'RE IN THIS PROCESS OF MOVING THROUGH THE CITY COUNCIL'S PROCESS. SO WE'VE GOT THIS JOINT SESSION TONIGHT. THERE WILL BE PUBLIC HEARINGS THROUGHOUT THE REST OF THIS MONTH IN APRIL AND THEN A VOTING PROCEDURE IN MAY. I WOULD JUST CLOSE BY SHARING OUR GRATITUDE FOR THE SUPPORT. WE'RE VERY FORTUNATE TO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY THIS EVENING

TO WALK THROUGH THIS BUDGET AND TO BE ABLE TO ANSWER ANY OF YOUR QUESTIONS. or reflects stewardship, strategic content, and a clear focus on our students here in the city of Fairfax. So with that, I appreciate the dialogue and welcome any of your questions.

Catherine ReadAll right. Thank you very much for the presentation. I will call on Council Member Amos.

Anthony AmosNo, thank you for this presentation. This was excellent. I really only have one question, and just for clarity, and this might go to City Manager Alexander. So when it comes to the decline in enrollment numbers from the presentation last week, that was not factored in into the, into what was incorporated into the budget. Is that correct? Just for clarity?

Daniel AlexanderstaffYeah, I'm not understanding your question.

Anthony AmosSo in this presentation, they're reflecting a decline of roughly 130 students from that 77 million that we were looking at. Was that already factored into the budget that was presented or no?

Daniel AlexanderstaffYeah. I turned over to the expert.

JC MartinezstaffThank you, Councillor Amos. Like Dr. Wright mentioned, we do work very collaboratively and we did factor those numbers in, in addition to what we were projecting from Fairfax County on a potential transfer to FCPS as well. I think as Dr. Wright noted, that was one of the reasons why we did not meet that fully funded request from FCPS of 77. We're coming in at 76.4 before the is given.

Anthony AmosUnderstood. And is that also going to be adjusted per whatever the county ends up moving forward with under the county executive?

JC MartinezstaffThat would be something that we would take into consideration and I think this year our budgets kind of align with Fairfax County and ours. I think we're adopting on the same day as well so we would know what that final number will be.

Anthony AmosOkay. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Hall.

Stacy HallI have two questions. The first one is are we at your meeting last night?

Dustin WrightstaffI left the book in my car. I'm sorry. But I can make something happen real quick.

Stacy HallI want to thank you all for being here. Can you maybe, and I don't expect you to know these numbers off the top of your head, but can you maybe just highlight some of the top five or six things that are causing the operating costs from the county side to go up? I know we say operating costs a lot, but what exactly does that mean?

Dustin WrightstaffNo, I really appreciate that question. I think it's a really important one. Some of these numbers are going to be pretty close, but if we want the exact numbers, I would want to go back and get those. I think where you're seeing in any school budget, and this applies to ours even though we have a nontraditional process, but in Fairfax County the last several years, I think it's been between 87% and 88% of their overall budget is all related to employee compensation and employee benefits. So those increases that you're seeing are very much tied to the cost to support the employees. They're not, you know, in my review of their proposed budget, you're not seeing massive increases in their FTEs.

You're not seeing lots of new positions that are coming. You're seeing the agreements that they have with their employees through the collective bargaining process. they're finishing their first year of a CBA and they're moving into their second. Last year had kind of not a, I wouldn't say a catch-up year, but a higher than, it's the highest year in the CBA in terms of the employee compensation. It levels out a little bit this year and stays fairly regular the next few years. I think it's right around 5%. Other big places where you see significant increases is in the cost of benefits. So no different than what we're looking at here in the city government, you know, our health benefits, our retirement benefits, you see those increases.

You know, oftentimes in budgeting practices, at least on the school side, a lot of times a budget will factor in a 10% increase in your medical benefit cost. So I think that's another one, Councilmember Hall. You know, their enrollment is probably not going to continue to go up. again they were expecting about 180,000 and have 177,000 roughly this year and I don't think they're projecting to have a significantly higher enrollment so I think a lot of those increases are all related to those employee compensation

Stacy Hallthank you I expected that was going to be the answer but I think it's helpful for those that are following at home just to know exactly what is in there thank you

Catherine Readother questions council member Peterson

Thomas PetersonWell, I also want to thank you for a really helpful and clear presentation. You mentioned at the outset that one of the roles that the city plays is supplemental programming and supplemental resources. And if you could just unpack that a little bit more, let us know a bit more about what those look like and how they fit into the budget overall.

Dustin WrightstaffThat is a wonderful question. I had a playback. Council member Hall was mentioning me reading a children's book in the school board work session last night or an excerpt of it. But prior to that we received a wonderful presentation from the leadership team in region five that supports our four schools and then from our elementary school principals. And especially the elementary school principals really focused in on what are the benefits and what are the returns on investment, to use a budgetary term, from the supplemental supports that come from the City of Fairfax Schools. So to provide a few examples, if you are in either of our elementary schools, they are going to receive all the staffing allocations

that a typical Fairfax County public school would receive, and that's based on enrollment, and then there's also a needs-based component that Fairfax County Public School uses to determine how many classroom teachers, how many special education teachers. We're very fortunate that through our agreement and through these budgetary numbers that you see we're able to take that allocation of staffing and then supplement it with additional positions. So both of our elementary schools just to start there's three additional positions that each principal uses a little bit differently that provides a full time math resource teacher or a full time science resource teacher that we've had the city of Fairfax schools have

had advanced academic teachers long before they were in our elementary schools. Other things that you'll see that we're supplementing that are not available in other elementary schools, I'm going to tell you a personal anecdote about that in a minute. Both of our elementary schools have full-time security specialists, which is not, there's not another elementary school around that have that. We have AVID at the elementary program, which is a really powerful instructional program that is all around college readiness and a lot is where you'll see it start is in 11th grade. We have it starting in 11th grade, but we also have it in our middle school. I spoke to an 8th grade AVID class last week.

And then we have it in elementary school, and there's not too many programs like that around. We have a teacher that goes back and forth. We have a behavioral specialist teacher that goes back and forth between our two elementary schools. As you move up to our secondary levels, you'll see several other versions of the supplementary staffing positions that we provide. that's one component of the supplement Councilman Peterson I think another key part of it is the supplementary instructional funds that we provide every single year and these are ways for us to work with our school leaders to address specific needs they have in the building or also to express or to address specific areas that they want to innovate

or try new things we have been able to do really great things with our PROGRAMS AT FAIRFACS HIGH SCHOOL. WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO PROVIDE, I WAS AT PROVIDENCE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL AND THEY WERE DOING SOMETHING CALLED MATH LAB SITES WHICH IS A REALLY POWERFUL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT APPROACH WHERE TEACHERS CAN LEARN FROM EACH OTHER. BUT YOU NEED SOME SUBSTITUTE COVERAGE SO THOSE TEACHERS CAN BE IN A CONFERENCE ROOM LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER WHILE THEIR STUDENTS ARE SUPERVISED. THROUGH THE SUPPLEMENTARY INSTRUCTIONAL FUNDS WE'RE ABLE TO PROVIDE THOSE. I WAS A PRINCIPAL NOT IN A CITY OF FAIRFACS SCHOOL AND ALL THE THINGS THAT I JUST DESCRIBED WERE NOT AVAILABLE TO ME. SO HAVING THAT AWARENESS FROM I WAS AN ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL AT DANIEL'S RUN AND BECAME A PRINCIPAL

RIGHT DOWN THE ROAD ABOUT A HALF MILE AWAY. IT WAS A RUDE AWAKENING WHEN I GOT THERE TO SEE ALL THE THINGS THAT I WAS NOT ABLE TO ACCESS THAT I WAS USED TO BEING ABLE TO ACCESS AT DANIEL'S RUN. HOPEFULLY THAT GIVES SOME SENSE OF WHAT THOSE POSITIONS ARE. I WOULD GIVE YOU ONE MORE EXAMPLE THAT IS ONE OF MY FAVORITES. CALLED A TRANSITION COUNSELOR. SO WE HAVE ONE OF THE MOST POWERFUL EDUCATORS I'VE EVER ENCOUNTERED. AND WHAT SHE DOES IS SHE SPENDS THE SPRING AT KATHERINE JOHNSON SUPPORTING OUR 8TH GRADERS WITH THAT TRANSITION WITH CLASS SELECTIONS. AND THEN SHE SPENDS THE FALL AS THEY TRANSITION OVER AS 9TH GRADERS TO MAKING SURE THAT TRANSITION GOES WELL. SHE'S BEEN A CRITICAL PART OF THE 9TH GRADE ACADEMY THAT

HAS BEEN STARTED AT FAIRFACS HIGH SCHOOL IN PART WITH funds. That transition counselor doesn't exist at Oakton High School and its feeders. It doesn't exist at Woodson High School right down the road. It's because of the support of the school board, this council, and our community that we're able to have resources like that. I could keep going on the capital front, but hopefully that gives a good sense right there.

Thomas PetersonWell, thanks. It really does. Just a follow-on and maybe if you could wear your hat for just a minute. How much of a difference does that make in terms of cognitive learning and development for the students and how much difference does it make in their individual health as well as the broader community health that's associated with the school programs?

Dustin WrightstaffI think you're asking me to put on my researcher hat and when I went to, when I did all my RESEARCH CLASSES DURING MY DOCTORATE PROGRAM. I ALSO HAD A TWO-YEAR-OLD AND NEWBORN TWINS. SO I MIGHT HAVE BEEN A LITTLE SLEEPY ON A FEW OF THOSE DAYS. SO, BUT I THINK WHAT WE CAN, SO I WOULD SAY IT MAKES A, YOU KNOW, WE CAN FIND SPECIFIC PROGRAMS THAT ARE SUPPORTED THAT HAVE THOSE COGNITIVE IMPACTS. I'LL GIVE YOU ANOTHER EXAMPLE. THIS IS A PROGRAM THAT EXISTS AT FAIRFORICS HIGH SCHOOL THAT COMES FROM THE CITY FUNDING. When I was in high school and when I was a teacher, Saturday school had a negative connotation. Saturday school at Fairfax High School, there are some students that are invited, absolutely,

but the large majority of the students that I was able to attend in January are students that are there seeking out extra help. There are students that are there seeking out extra help in our advanced classes. So one of the, you know, I was at a table with a bunch of calculus students over there on a Saturday working with one of the math instructors getting that extra help. I think we can find, we could look at a program like that or the AVID program. AVID's an acronym that stands for Advancement Via Individual Determination. We can find some of the return on investment or what is the cognitive impact from some of those students. That's definitely available. And we can look into that a little bit further.

But one of the things I would share, too, is that, and this is how I closed some of the comments last night with the Region 5 team in the presentation, is that as we talk about these supplemental funds, absolutely they make a specific difference with those AVID students, with those Saturday school students, with the students that are accessing the new floor that we put in the auto shop that makes it safe. And when the oil is on the floor, it makes it easier to clean up. All of those are specifically there. those type of supplements kind of ripple out, right? They impact, I think, the overall organization. They impact the entire school. So we make some specific supplemental investments here in the city of Fairfax,

but they impact every student in the school. And then I would say they impact our city students and our county students, and I think that's good for every single person that's there.

Catherine ReadOther questions? Councilmember Bates.

Billy BatesThanks. Just something that just occurred to me and I understand he might not have and actually this might be more city manager but understand if you don't have the answer tonight, but looking at you know the estimate for 2025 to 26 was I believe 3077 and then it's you know 2942 as of September and then And 3103 for the following year, and you were saying that that might come down as well. Is that based on the same ratios and process as the numbers that we see on the development side, like in the fiscal impact analyses and that kind of thing, or is that sort of a different process? I know you mentioned Eric Foreman, but how

Dustin Wrightstaffdoes that work? Yeah, that's a wonderful question. I MIGHT CALL ON A FRIEND AS WELL. SO THESE PROJECTIONS COME FROM THESE SPECIFIC ONES ARE COMING FROM THE FAIRFREX COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS PROJECTIONS THAT THEY USE. WE ALWAYS WORK WITH ERIC TO SAY, HEY, ARE THESE IN THE BALLPARK OF WHAT YOU'RE SEEING? AND THEN AS WE LOOK FARTHER OUT, WE'RE TRYING TO GET predictions I think might be too strong a word of what could be some of the impacts of the development from an enrollment perspective, right? We know that there's a lot of other impacts economically. And so what he's done a really great job for us, there was a November work session we can provide this, Councilman Bates, where he's looked at not only all of the developments that have recently come online,

but also all the developments that are either in permitting process or in construction. ones that are proposed. He's looking at helping us understand the number of units, the type of units that they are, and what are some of the potential generation rates for each of those units. He has some really good estimates on the two-bedroom condos that we're seeing at the new botanist development that's on Eaton Place. We're thinking that it might generate this amount of students. We're definitely going to be able to have decent estimates on I THINK RIGHT NOW, EVEN IF WE ACCOUNT SOME OF THOSE, THESE YELLOW NUMBERS ARE STILL ON THE AGGRESSIVE SIDE FOR HOW MANY STUDENTS WE'RE LOOKING AT. BUT THE DEVELOPMENT QUESTION IS SOMETHING TO CONTINUE TO

MONITOR FROM A SCHOOL ENROLLMENT PERSPECTIVE, JUST FROM OUR CAPACITY. BUT IT'S ALSO GOING TO BE ONE OF THE PRIMARY DRIVERS OVER THE TUITION BILL. HOPEFULLY THAT GIVES SOME INFORMATION. IS THERE ANYTHING YOU WANTED TO ADD?

Chair PitchesI would just say that Eric also works very closely with Fairfax County. So he collaborates with them in terms of using, I think, some of their resources. We have, as I think we've had the conversation before, that he is, when he looks at the type of housing, the same formulas or the same yields that we may have used 10, 15 years ago no longer are accurate. So we are seeing more students out of housing types that we historically have not seen. I think I used the Scout as an example and what was the Moxley. we were slated to have a handful of kids out of Scout and we ended up with more than 50 kids. I think it was 54 to 57 kids. So I think Eric has done a really good job of taking all of that into consideration.

All that to say that we still think these numbers are a little bit high. typically when we get our September the September number is generally historically higher than the ADM comes in so we'll wait and see but I think we'd be hard-pressed to have another hundred and thirty-ish kids by the end

Billy Batesof

Chair Pitchesthe school year.

Dustin WrightstaffNo thank you chair pitches and we receive monthly updates on on on this enrollment and then that ADM number that's going to impact the current fiscal year, we should have that. Usually it's the first or second week in April, which will be able to be information that we can share during this budget cycle.

Billy BatesSo basically these numbers are all from FCPS, even the projected numbers, but with collaboration with Mr. Foreman?

Dustin WrightstaffThat's correct.

Billy BatesOkay, thanks.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hardy-Chandler

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerSo

Gwen Riddlestaffby voicethank you again for your presentation I

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerappreciate the discussion earlier about the impact of the supplements on programming what's available to students can you confirm that the operating costs also include employee professional development I'm talking about teachers and others counselors other people who support the educational programming.

Dustin WrightstaffAbsolutely. So the I'll try and just make a few distinctions within our tuition bill that we That goes over to Fairfax County Public Schools. There is significant amounts of professional development. There's also significant amounts of that that that covers our teachers to have access to the world-class LITERACY PROFESSIONALS THAT ARE A PART OF THEIR CENTRAL OFFICE. SO IT DEFINITELY INCLUDES THAT. IT INCLUDES, AGAIN, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS, ADMINISTRATORS, AND THE LIKE. IN TERMS OF THE SUPPLEMENTARY INSTRUCTIONAL FUNDS, WE HAVE A SPECIFIC PART OF THE CITY OF FAIRFAX OPERATING COST. THAT TOP LINE THAT YOU SEE, A GOOD CHUNK OF THAT IS SUPPLEMENTARY INSTRUCTIONAL FUNDS.

AND COUNCIL MEMBER HARDY CHANDLER, I WOULD SAY THE LARGE MAJORITY OF THAT IS TYPICALLY DIRECTED TOWARDS STAFF DEMOLEMENT BY OUR SCHOOLS, THINGS THAT OUR PRINCIPLES ARE USING TO GET EXTRA RESOURCES OR TO SEND THEIR TEACHERS TO A TRAINING, THAT'S PROBABLY THE PRIMARY DRIVER. IT'S A REALLY GOOD LINE ITEM FOR THEM TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT. SO IN THE OVERALL BUDGET, ABSOLUTELY. AND THEN IN THESE, AND THEN OUR SUPPLEMENTAL FUNDS, THAT'S SOMETHING THAT'S A FOCUS AS WELL. UP THE THEY SEND US A PROPOSAL EACH YEAR THAT IS LINED WITH THEIR SCHOOL GOALS AND THEIR SCHOOL NEEDS AND IT'S REALLY THEY DO A REALLY THOUGHTFUL JOB OF MAKING SURE THEY'RE USING IT IN THE RIGHT WAY.

Chair PitchesI WOULD ALSO ADD THAT THE MONEY IS ALSO USED FOR A LOT OF SUMMER PROGRAMMING. OVER THE YEARS WHAT FCPS IS ABLE TO OFFER FOR summer programming has fluctuated so some years they offer everything some years they offer nothing depending on their budget and we're able to provide some of that summer programming such as bridge decay um we've had uh that we have the fairfax um they changed the name i don't

Dustin Wrightstaffthis year i think it's the cat is it the they have a summer jumpstart program there's uh katherine Johnson has something called Eagle Fest. These are all programs that in certain times they've been a part of the tuition bill, but more recently there are things that we are providing support for and it really makes a big impact for our students.

Chair PitchesOver the years we've provided late buses. We've provided money for field trips. Just a variety of things. But as Dr. Wright said, the majority of it is for resources and training that directly affect the students.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Amos?

Anthony AmosThank you. I only have one more question. This might be just more of an educational piece and some historic knowledge. So I'd appreciate some context. So if you could go back to slide 11 for me. I think it was slide 11 with the chart. So I'm just curious about this. So someone could look at this and say, all right, our enrollment this year likely wouldn't meet what it was in 2020. Obviously, pandemic changed a lot for us. And I may be wrong. Let me know if I am. The CBA agreement didn't really start impacting until last year's budget, FY25. So we're talking a $20 million dollar increase within four to five fiscal years essentially what is that distribution like especially considering the cba agreement didn't really start hurting us till last year not hurting

us but more directly impacting us last year was that still for teacher pay was it that we needed additional special needs assistance following the pandemic what exactly happened here just because IT CAN BE A LITTLE CONFUSING. THAT MAY NOT BE A TONIGHT QUESTION, I UNDERSTAND.

Dustin WrightstaffSO YOU ARE POINTING OUT SOME REALLY IMPORTANT FACTS FOR THIS COUNCIL AND FOR OUR PUBLIC. SO IF I WAS HEARING YOU CORRECULATELY, WE STARTED ON SOME OF THE ENROLLMENT PIECE. LET ME ADDRESS THAT REAL QUICK. YOU ARE SEEING A CHART THAT STARTS IN 2020. I THINK THE HIGHEST ENROLLMENT FOR CITY OF FAIRFAX HAS BEEN RIGHT AROUND 3100. IT WAS IN THE 2016-2017 AREA. AND THEN WE SAW THAT DROP ENROLLMENT-WISE. AND YOU CAN SEE IT BUILDING BACK UP. BUT AGAIN, IT'S OUR PROJECTION THAT IT'S STILL GOING TO BE HOVERING RIGHT AROUND WHERE WE WERE LAST YEAR. IN TERMS OF FAIRFAX COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOLS COLLECTIVE BARGAINING AGREEMENT WITH THEIR This FY26 is the first year where it's actually impacted. So they were talking about it last year,

and then the agreements for it impacted the FY26 budget. Some school districts are a little bit different. I used to work for one that they're in year two of the actual contract, so they were about one cycle ahead. There are some, you know, and some of this is just ongoing with the negotiations. THAT SCHOOL DISTRICT THAT I WAS REFERRING TO, THEY'RE ACTUALLY BEGINNING TO RENEGOTIATE THEIR NEXT ROUND. IT'S A FOUR-YEAR CONTRACT, BUT SO IT CAN BE A PART OF THE FISCAL PLANNING PROCESS, THEY HAVE TO DO IT EARLY. IN TERMS OF THE QUESTION AROUND THE INCREASING COST, SO I WOULD SAY, YOU KNOW, IT'S A LOT OF DIFFERENT THINGS. IT IS, AGAIN, THE EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION IS A COMPONENT OF IT. I WOULD SAY YOU'RE HAVING SCHOOLS TRY TO BRING ON ADDITIONAL

resources to address the changing needs. We've seen a greater need for mental health and social emotional supports in our school systems. You've seen greater needs around special education. You've seen other costs that have been increasing over the years, but I think it's a helpful observation that there's been, you know, that our tuition payment has increased at that same rate that we're seeing those operating costs and especially from about 2017 on it's but there's there's been a pretty steady increase each year i

Chair Pitcheswould also say dr it would also some of the funding that we lost after covid those needs didn't change so essentially fairfax county public schools had to pick up the bill to continue providing those services so while operating costs were extremely low in 2020 to 2021 because of covid we weren't We didn't have all the extras, so when we start doing that and we lose the funding from the state and the federal government, then they have to kick in for that. I would say that might be also a factor.

Dustin WrightstaffAbsolutely.

Anthony AmosYeah, and I'm just going to assume these are similar trends we see in other jurisdictions. But thank you. Appreciate that.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Peterson? along

Thomas Petersonthat, do I understand from your earlier comments that that rate of increase in cost is projected to stabilize at the 5% level or so the next couple of years? And then do you have any forecasts beyond that in terms of where this goes, in terms of are we looking at kind of a predictable, more stable situation in the future?

Dustin WrightstaffI think Chair Pitches wants to answer that one. I think that's a really good question. So one of the things that when, if you read in the state code for when superintendents are asked to develop budgets, they're asked to develop a needs-based budget every single year to identify what are the specific needs of the division and to put that in there. What is a useful rule of thumb, not to be quoted on it, not to be splashed across to the headline Dr. Wright says, is to just roll over a school division you're looking at to do nothing new, just to continue it for another year with those employee compensation increases with other contractual increases. THE HVAC MAINTENANCE CONTRACT IS JUST GOING TO INCREASE FROM YEAR TO YEAR.

A LOT OF DIVISIONS USE A RULE OF THUMB OF 3% TO 5% OF JUST ROLLING OVER. AND THEN IF YOU'RE LOOKING AT SPECIFIC ENHANCEMENTS, THAT WILL BE AN ADDITIONAL INCREASE. I THINK, COUNCILMAN PETERSON, I WOULD BE UNABLE TO SAY, IS IT GOING TO STABILIZE FROM THE FAIRFACTS COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOL PERSPECTIVE without kind of knowing, you know, what are the specific programs they're going to be trying to do each year. But I think one of the things that Mr. Martinez has been doing a great job of is helping us have, through looking at some of the historical data and then really staying in close contact with Fairbanks County Public Schools throughout the school year, having a number that we can be much more confident in

in terms of budgeting at this time of year. YEAR WE'LL JUST HAVE TO CONTINUE MONITORING IT. SOME OF IT IS GOING TO BE DRIVEN BY DECISION ENRICHMENT BECAUSE THE MORE SUPPORT THAT THEY CAN GET THERE THEN I THINK YOU'RE GOING TO SEE LESS OF THE IMPACT ON THE OPERATING COST. SO PREDICTING A FEW YEARS OUT WOULD BE I'D PROBABLY HESITATE TO DO THAT. BUT TRYING TO FIND I THINK EVERYBODY'S LOOKING FOR SOME STABILITY AND LOOKING for the ability to plan long-term at this point.

Catherine ReadOther questions or comments? Okay. Trying to figure out enrollment, I think, is difficult, and there's a lot of outside impacts. So there's out-migration from the Northern Virginia region because the shrinking of the federal government, but we don't track how many of the people leaving are families with children. So there's a lag between impacts like the economy has shrunk or jobs have disappeared and families are leaving the area. We do know there's outmigration. We just don't know how many are taking school-aged children with them. The second thing is the birth rate is down. As it has been, it continues to drop, to drop, to drop, which means that there's fewer kindergartners, which means it also dramatically,

and you can't really predict that as far as the city schools. We're very small. And then the other thing is the immigration deportation program, and the government is taking huge numbers of people, including families with children, out of the public school systems and out of the country, and we have no idea how many or even who. And their investment in building these enormous detention centers, kind of signals the fact that this is not going to slow down either, this pulling out of children from schools everywhere in the country, including in Virginia and in northern Virginia. So I think all of this makes it really difficult, aside from the cost per pupil or the ADM, is to figure out in the succeeding years, and we have several more years to go,

of looking at how school populations could shrink because of these factors, and those to me are the three big ones. Outmigration because of the economy, the falling birth rate, and the fact that we have massive deportations. And so I think it's good to be conservative and to stay on track without necessarily thinking about those factors because you can't really predict them and we don't have data on those. There really is no data on those things. So I think it's important to stay conservative and understand that it might be even less than we think it is in the succeeding years. plan for the high side and then adjust if the enrollment isn't what we think. Just my observation if you've got thoughts on that.

Dustin WrightstaffI think that's a great observation and I would agree with the assessment of a lot of the possible reasons that are causing this. I would agree with being conservative and I would agree with it's something that we need to continue to monitor. One of the things that we do in our schools that's happening kind of right now is you know so because the the projections that were higher than we were expected are done with a lot of rigor and by some of the you know some really smart people and we still had students that left in june and did not come back in august we the the schools do a good job of you know intent forms every single year so at some point in the near future for my three students i will fill out a piece of paper that says they're coming

back or they're leaving and typically people are fairly helpful in terms of saying they're leaving to go to a private school moving out of the area home school private you know all those different options so we'll have some of that information but but yeah i definitely agree with you that being conservative and and keeping an eye on this diligently is going to be really really important And it's important planning for our schools as well. The difference between 100 kindergartners and 110 kindergartners is four classrooms and five classrooms, right, which is a human that we need to hire, and we want to hire the best possible teacher. So knowing what that enrollment is as early as possible is critical.

Catherine ReadAll right. Thank you very much. We appreciate you all being here with us. Ms. Shinneberry? Okay,

Ms. Shinneberrystaffour next item is discussion on general fund questions and discussion. I'm going to recognize Daniel Alexander or city manager for the discussion

Daniel AlexanderstaffGood evening. Thank you mayor and council It's been about a week since we made a presentation to you on the managers budget Thank you again for that opportunity. We have staff here available to answer any questions We do have a few discussion items later on real estate tax rate and setting the rate later on agenda for the tough questions. I've got JC Martinez sitting next to me. For the really tough questions, we have Gwen Riddle. That's going to come up to the table. Gwen, thank you. And so look forward to answering any questions you might have on General Fund or, frankly, anything else in the budget. No presentation for this one.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerOh,

Catherine Readno presentation for this one. We're just opening it for questions. All right. Council Member Amos.

Anthony AmosI only have one question which I was going to save for the tax rate discussion later, but obviously we had the discussion back with the Urban Forest Master Plan about the climate and energy manager. That's something that council wants to proceed with. So factoring in this additional position, obviously we need to have a more robust discussion after we all take a little bit more time to absorb this budget. When factoring that in, what exactly do we need to do as a group to accommodate that in this budget if that's something we list as a priority?

Daniel AlexanderstaffYes. So right now, as the budget is presented, the only enhancements are really study-related at about half a million dollars, if I recall correctly. And there aren't any other enhancements included at this time. So if there is an interest by the council to move forward, then we would capacity to do that within the budget or, you know, find additional revenue.

Catherine ReadAny other questions under this item? Just give them a second. Just give them a second. It seems like people are just trying to find their marker. Council Member Bates.

Billy Batesum yeah would could you uh talk a bit about the um the pay study that has been discussed as part of this

Daniel Alexanderstaffyeah generally you know we haven't conducted a really systematic objective review of both classifications which is not just compensation but how we've identified positions within the enterprise the challenges is is that you know if you don't do an objective review then you're left at the vagaries of individual departments creating classifications without concern for objectivity and equity as you look at your workforce so classification is an important part of what we need to do as a government looking at that and then from that doing Comparators around positions throughout the organization on compensation to make sure that you know We're within the market as it relates to the positions So it's really important in my estimation to do both

To understand you know where our classifications are To ensure that there's internal equity and also again kind of comparing against the market to see where we should be as it relates to those classifications within our workforce and then using that to start to look at compensation internal and making sure there's not compression where there may be some and also ensure again that we're being competitive in the larger marketplace.

Billy BatesYeah, thank you for that and fully agree, you know, I think that's a very important first step toward making sure that, as you said, we are looking at both internal comparisons and also how we fit into the market we want to make sure that everybody is compensated fairly and for the hard work that they all do additionally we discussed the so again besides the climate and energy manager we're not talking about any additional FDEs, right? Yeah. And I think that's all I have for now. Thanks.

Catherine ReadOn the pay assessment, is this going to wrap into that? Our ongoing evaluation assessment of the temporary employee situation we've been dealing with for several years? question wrapped up into that

Daniel Alexanderstaffabsolutely it's something that we've paid a lot closer attention to as we've looked at this last fiscal year budget essentially every position that's come open or otherwise has come to our attention we've we've taken a look at not only whether we fill those positions about but also whether it's appropriate that those positions are full-time part-time or temporary and character and so we certainly have seen a lot of temporary positions and be not so And so as part of this overall review, and frankly, as part of what we do looking at efficiency, and as we look at performance management moving forward, all of those things will get a constant look.

Catherine ReadThank you for that. Council Member Hall and then Council Member Hardy-Chandler.

Stacy HallThank you. I have two questions. The first one, and I know you addressed this by email to us, but there was an article that came out today that indicated that James Waukeshell announced that of the $9.2 million in federal funding that's coming to Fairfax County, $1 million was for a 7,000-square-foot expansion of the City of Fairfax Police Department Station aimed at strengthening training capacity, specialty vehicle storage, and community policing resources. If I recall correctly, I think this is actually an $8 million line item that's in the CIP. now been given 1 million out of an 8 million dollar project correct

Daniel Alexanderstaffand so yeah I think

Stacy Hallessentially given 1 million yeah

Daniel AlexanderstaffI did a follow-up email to you later I'm sure you didn't have time to look at

Stacy Hallit so

Daniel Alexanderstaffno and I appreciate the questions that we've received from council around this you typically when you're putting in for these earmarks you're putting in for a percentage of an existing project I think the previous year we put in for or previous go-around we put in for 5.5 million or so for that project and that that percentage of the total project is not going to work from an earmark standpoint they're looking for a much smaller percentage of the overall project from a practical standpoint a project of this nature is probably going to run about a five-year cycle so we're not talking about all of that within you know the one-year period meaning the total cost of 7 million that million would probably be part of our

initial cost I think we've already made some investments on this project they see I don't know if you know the exact number we've made some investments early on and we expect that that would be part of an ongoing and gradual increase in the CIP there will be at some point for that project a significant amount of money probably closer to 2030 or so but it'll be a little bit further out in the correct any of that? No. Oh,

JC Martinezstaffthat's great.

Daniel AlexanderstaffAll right.

Dave SummersstaffI could add something.

Stacy HallYeah, please.

Dave SummersstaffSo this started as a parking garage. That's why we requested $5 million. Then after we had outreach, we got an architect on board. We had some outreach meetings. And it showed that for the future of the police station, they had additional needs like locker rooms and meeting spaces. So that's how it grew from $5 million to $8 million. We've spent probably a couple hundred thousand dollars on concept and preliminary design. And then we applied for this grant. And then the previous city manager, because of the budget situation, had just kind of tabled it.

Stacy HallYeah, and if I recall correctly, last year she was acting chief Hinsley at the time, I believe said that if we didn't get grant funding for this project, it likely was going to be tabled. I might have misinterpreted that to mean more grant funding than, you know, what is it, 12.5% or something, I think you said, or 25%. So I was anticipating more. What would happen if that's a project that we can't complete in X timeframe? Is that money that the county just gets back? go back to the federal government? How does that

Dave Summersstaffwork? My recommendation would be to see if we could reduce the scope of the project. Maybe do something smaller and take advantage of the money if possible. So, you know, I think that's a discussion we could have as a team. But I know the scope, this was a project that had a lot of scope creep.

Stacy HallYeah. Okay. Well, and it sounds like a great thing. I just want to make it really clear to everyone that the $1 million is not nearly the cost of building a 7,000 square foot addition.

Daniel AlexanderstaffGreat point. And I think we do have a pretty significant amount of time in which to spend that money.

Stacy HallOkay.

Daniel AlexanderstaffTen years.

Stacy HallOh, okay. That's great.

Daniel AlexanderstaffSo that's helpful.

Stacy HallOkay. And then I just had one other question, and this was a follow-up. I don't know if all of council received this information or not, but I had asked Mr. Martinez to provide the electricity. And he said that for, you said CY25. So was that calendar year, I assume? Yeah. Calendar year 25. million in electricity and a potential 32% rate hike would add almost $393,000 in expenses for fiscal year 27. So I wanted to make sure everyone knew that number because I know we've been talking about the green building policy and extra staff and things like that that might be needed in order to make some of those things a reality. And so I just wanted to equate potential anticipated costs with the cost of a roll of how much

Increasing costs, so I think that's all I have for now. I'm still working on lots of things in here, but thank you

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Hardy

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerChandler Yes, thank you for your presentation before and

Gwen Riddlestaffby voicefor this health

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerhefty reading I Appreciate that it always starts with our goals and so all of my questions all of them will be all ways Aligning with what we said our city goals are and what our aims are And all of those goals are achieved with people. And I understand that the proposed budget is FTE neutral or no additional FTEs. But we did hear a couple of presentations, as Council Member Amos pointed out, that highlighted some priorities that aligned with people being accountable for those priorities actually happening. In addition to that, on the list of unfunded FTEs that are priorities for FY27 to FY31, are any of these, in your opinion, more urgent than others in terms of where we have stated we want to go as a city?

Daniel AlexanderstaffYes, it's a great question. I think that arguments could be made for all the ones that you see listed there. Of course. know um there are some that are enterprise-wide that that i think uh have a significant impact on the organization um and then there you know others that are are very community-facing that do too and so largely it goes back to council priorities um we presented to you a stability budget and so if we want to go above that then we need to have that larger discussion based on what you see and what we've provided to you and so um i think we have had some around what they ask for for supplemental or enhanced positions. And so, again, on a stability budget, it's tough to advocate for one priority over another.

And so I think the other thing I would say is that there's often a recency effect with governing bodies. We brought you some things of note recently. And so there's there's often a focus on those things oftentimes at the expense of some of the other needs that haven't been presented as a result of a plant or, you know, something that council adopts as a program. So I would just caution us around that to the extent that we're pretty significant enterprise. Not everything comes to your attention, you know, within within a reasonable time frame for us to be thinking about these services. It's just a note of caution as we as we look at these.

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerthat reminder and also recognizing what a significant part of our budget people are, right? And in terms of our approach to our governance policy, starting at the stability level, I think is fine. I think we also need to have discussions about what we really want to build and invest in long term. And so some of those enhancements, I think, are not simply extras or frills. I think there are things that are investments in what we say we want long term. We just talk to a troop of scouts, you know, and thinking about the kind of city they're going to be living in, and we do need people to drive that. So I think there are certain enhancements recognizing that, yes, certain things are going to stand out because we got a presentation from

a committee. Their job is to advise us, but at the same time, just considering what enhancements of discussions in the upcoming um weeks as we're you know making these budget decisions so

Daniel Alexanderstaffyeah i think the other thing to consider is great great points and thank you for that is there are some other um items that we would consider that are not related ftes and i'm going to you know say something against what i just said we housing for example and whether we you know start to fund you know some trust fund around that right is certainly something that we heard about recently and is a non-ft related item that adds value to to communities so there's we have some things we've talked about but i want to be really cautious that we respect council's role in in looking at this and setting priorities

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerso let me clarify when i say more urgent i'm not saying more important right right what i'm saying is that there may be things that set up a sequence that if they are in place earlier, they set the stage for other things to go smoothly. So let's make sure that that question isn't equated to importance. But I do think that in terms of timing, there may be, again, people or programs that are put in place that save us in the long run, that reduce costs further down the line, that make some of the things that we've set our priorities easier to implement. It's not everything is weighted the same. So I'm just wondering in terms of sequence, right, in terms of timing. So what we need for 2027 may have a little bit more weight than what we may have for 2020, what might be a better fit for 2029.

So that kind of feedback would be, you know, a helpful part of the discussion for me. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Bates, did you have something you wanted to?

Billy BatesRight. Yeah. I don't recall for sure but with regards of the police station garage, I think that that might have been with regard to the Or the you know the expansion with regard to the garage component of that expansion In terms of what can be you know possibly tabled for for the time being whereas you know we have other parts of that that are a bit more perhaps of an immediate need such as locker space, training space. So the question that I think we would need to see answered first is, of course, the conditions of this funding. You know, does it have to be the entire thing, including the garage, for us to get that funding to begin with? You know, that kind of thing. But anyway, all things to, you know, think about going forward on that.

Catherine ReadMy memory of this, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Summers, is that when the police station was originally designed and constructed, there was value engineering in the original design, if I'm recalling this correctly. And so that left us without a garage. And, of course, in the intervening, I think, since 2005, has it been 20 years? You know, we've acquired a lot of very expensive, very high-tech, very specific kinds of equipment and vehicles, not just police cars, but very high-tech, very expensive vehicles that now are not in a secure place to protect the value of that investment. So that's something to consider.

Dave SummersstaffWell, that was the first ask was sheltered parking. Sheltered parking, yeah. And then as we met with folks, with the architect that expanded to, like Councilman Bates said, some other significant needs like locker rooms for women.

Catherine ReadFor women. I mean, so, yes, I was getting to that point, too, because back in 2005, the estimate was not that so many women would choose to join the Fairfax City Police Department. But, yes, they have.

Dave SummersstaffNot only that, Mayor, but we built a garage the same time we did the addition to City Hall. and just like a lot of projects you know the bids come in and you have limits especially when the bids are a little bit higher than the money you have and you have to make some cutbacks I know we we made some reductions in the annex for City Hall because of the budget so you know we did as best as we could with the money we had back then but looking back on it it would have been nice if things.

Catherine ReadWell I just I just think we need to think about what what happens when you value engineer. I mean something if you don't have the money you don't have the money so you build what you have the money for but it doesn't get cheaper 20 years later to build the same thing and and then it comes down to an issue of urgency. Is it more urgent or less urgent than other things and so you still have all these vehicles out in the conditions because we have to make these decisions about now what is urgent and what we have the money for. And so I feel good about the fact that we don't have to spend this money. I mean, we can hang on to it for 10 years to figure out what is more urgent as far as being able to use it for this project or something else.

But I do think just when we talk about value engineering things and trying to shrink projects, and I understand the necessity of that, but in the long term it doesn't get easier to build the thing exponentially more money down the road. I think it's one of the toughest things that the dais has to decide is what is the priority? And sometimes things that are very urgent today that need 20 years from now, we will not have done it. And then we're back to square one going, well, we didn't do it 20 years ago, but is it urgent enough to do now, or are all the other intervening urgent things more urgent than that? But ultimately, we do need facilities for the people who work in our police department,

and there are a lot more women than there's capacity for them on our force. And the other thing is very expensive equipment that we have invested in that we need to be a top-drawer, top-flight police force. And so we need to protect that investment, too. These are all really tough, and I think these work sessions are really important for helping everybody to understand just how difficult it is to decide among competing priorities what it is. Is either A, the most urgent thing, or looking at what is the long-term investment, and what are the impacts for not making the long-term investment over the thing that seems most urgent? So just wanted to circle back around on the police station on that.

Speaker 5Thank you, Mr. Summers.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Bates?

Billy BatesCertainly spot on on that and sort of to councilmember Hardy Chandler's point with the garage component itself That may be something that could save us money in the long run in terms of making sure that we have a safe place to store those vehicles But you know again the women's locker room space is something that is really important since you know we kind of more immediately just need space to house that locker room space for our women officers. And that is something that needs to be taken care of. But looking forward, I think that those are all important things, all important points.

Catherine ReadThank you. Council Member

Thomas PetersonPeterson? Big picture question. We're a little bit off cycle in terms of timing for the finance and efficiency audit. yet and yet we're in budget. How have we been handling and how will we handle in the short term as we go through the budget the identification of efficiency opportunities given that we haven't done the full scrub yet but we have a pressing need now?

Daniel AlexanderstaffYeah and we'll talk about that later on as part of the follow-up from our retreat. I think as we've approached this budget we've to identify cost savings where we can. I would say, you know, I wasn't here for it last year, but you all spent a lot of time on last year's budget seeking to achieve efficiencies, many of which we're anchoring off of, you know, in this budget and continuing. And so I would say that we've made some incremental changes to a lot of that work last year, a lot of the work that you all went through relative to the budget with some adjustments that we've highlighted in terms of investments in our employees' travel and training, the salary increases that we've mentioned. So I know it's a little bit off in terms of sequencing.

The efficiency audit will certainly inform us in the future. We can certainly have discussions around where we are now, but I think we've done the best we can at this point to introduce those as part of this overall approach to our fiscal plan.

Thomas PetersonOkay, so it sounds like it'll be a little bit of an organic process here for the budget while we try to build on that, but we also look forward to a bigger opportunity that will emerge from the systematic study.

Daniel AlexanderstaffAnd I would say that, you know, I hope it's part of an overall process that's not a one-off. study. We make adjustments, we put it on the shelf and move on. Part of why we've made the recommendation around performance and innovation over time, performance management, so that this is part of an ongoing process. It's not a budget time only. It's not a one-time efficiency study type of approach. Hopefully that sets us on a course to constantly be looking at refinement as we go.

Thomas PetersonGreat. A couple of more micro level questions. The solid waste enterprise area, I think we heard a presentation earlier, and if I understand the gist of it, it is that there's a potential savings opportunity by going through the creation of an enterprise approach for that. I think I heard figures five, six million in saving something but part of the requirement for that would be a year of lead work on it that, like, ties back to the other questions that would require some staffing. How is that addressed, if at all, in the budget?

Daniel AlexanderstaffYeah, it's a great question. I'm hoping as I turn around that Dave is still in the room to talk a little. It's good. He's here. But it's a great question in terms of sequencing. I think we have funding, obviously, in the budget to take a look at it from a technical assistance standpoint. But Dave might be able to speak more specifically to what we would do.

Dave SummersstaffYeah, well, the first thing we need to do is complete our assessment, which we're starting on. And then once we complete the assessment, we'll have a better idea on how much money we could save and mechanisms for changing the ordinance and instituting the enterprise fund. To me, I don't think we could get it finished with less than two years based on all the work we need to do. The one thing, you know, there's a lot of factors that are going to impact it. For instance, we have a lot of private streets in the city, right? some of those private streets we do leaf collection on some we don't we're going to have to straighten that out we don't pick up trash at apartments and condos but they don't get a discount so if it's a

enterprise fund those folks won't be paying into it just the people who get trash will be paying pickup will be paying into it so there's a lot of things we need to look at and look at the logistics and the mechanisms in order to come up with an enterprise fund that's feasible considering how loose our ordinance is and right now what we pick up. We'll definitely have to tighten that up and limit how much we pick up and what we pick up.

Thomas PetersonIs the assessment then included in our budget so no further action is required on our part for the time being?

Dave SummersstaffThat's correct. Right, that's funded.

Thomas PetersonAnother, as long as you're here, quick question. The weather. So I know we dipped a little bit into our snow removal fund this year, and I had an interesting conversation one Sunday with all the water mains breaking, and Fairfax Water was out repairing them, fortunately, scrambling. There were five in one day in my neighborhood. But my conversation, a manager was out, and when I spoke with her a bit about this, I asked her whether this was different than what happened last year. And the answer was not really. But last year, at first, we thought it was an anomaly. This year, we don't think it's an anomaly. It goes to a longer-term thing, which is changes in the climate and these extreme cold events that are going to increase because of this polar vortex issue.

How long and the short of it is, I know in Fairfax Water's case, they're recalibrating, they're modeling, and they're scheduling of maintenance and repairs, and it's going to get higher. No question about it. I'm wondering what happens to our infrastructure needs, because I know you also are busy keeping up with that.

Dave SummersstaffRight. Well, on the average, we get at least 100 water breaks a year. And our water system is old. And Bobby Cotton, who is the head of design for Fairfax Water, has told us that they have invested heavily in their capital budget, and they're planning on doing a lot of work coming up this spring. We're going to see work on some of our major arterials, like 123 and university. so we're going to have to be careful that we coordinate this work with our transportation work and our maintenance work and things like that. So we work very closely with them. But they're preparing to put a huge investment into replacing the water mains on our roads. And Washington Gas has also been very busy with replacing their gas lines and the gas laterals.

So, yeah, there will be a lot of utility work under the city streets are reaching 60 years old, and it's time for them to be upgraded.

Thomas PetersonWell, again, back to the budget question. Is this enhanced activity level in the budget? Is it something we're going to have to take incremental new action around, or is this really, I want to use the term business as usual, but is it a part of our stable funded program? Fairfax Water pays for

Dave Summersstafftheir

Thomas Petersonwork. But on our side, what is it above and beyond what they do that we need to do? They do

Dave Summersstaffthe repairs, the paving. In fact, you know, sometimes we have economies of scale. If we have a project and they have a project, we can work out a deal on splitting the asphalt costs, splitting the maintenance and traffic costs. So if anything, you know, the work may help us find some economies of scale. But we don't pay for – they have their own inspectors. own MOT, they have their own asphalt crews.

Thomas PetersonAnd I guess my question is then, is there any other form of infrastructure damage that's tied to weather that we are responsible for that's increasing and going to have a budgetary effect on us?

Daniel AlexanderstaffOne of the things I was thinking about as you talk about infrastructure is taking the opportunity maybe to talk briefly about stormwater wastewater. I know that we saw some increases of 5% and 6%. Right. Well, the wastewater,

Dave Summersstaffthe 6% increase in wastewater, the majority of that is the nomencloth contribution for the treatment of our wastewater. JC can give me the exact percentage, but I'm saying it's probably 20. 20% is actually what the city is spending on pipe repairs, manhole lining, pipe lining, maintaining our delivery system, the pump stations and such. water there's one project in the budget for a hundred thousand dollars to design neighborhood drainage improvements the rest of that money in the stormwater fund is for compliance and maintenance so you know there's really not a lot of wiggle room

JC Martinezstaffif I can really briefly so March 24th I think the THE MAJORITY OF THESE ANSWERS WILL BE OR THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS THAT YOU'RE ASKING COUNCIL MEMBERS WILL BE PROVIDED ON MARCH 24TH. ON THE AGENDA FOR THE WORK SESSION, WE HAVE DISCUSSION ON CAPITAL, WHICH INCLUDES ALSO OUR ENTERPRISE FUNDS FOR STORMWATER AND WASTEWATER. DAVENPORT WILL BE HERE ALONG WITH OUR SATOSHI ITO, THE PROGRAM MANAGER FOR WASTEWATER AND STORMWATER AS WELL.

Thomas PetersonWell, great. Two other quick things. First, before we leave the weather, the flip side of the impacts of these extreme weather events are one of the drivers for those events is the loading of pollution that causes radiative forcing. and that comes from electricity and the drivers in demand there, data centers and AI. And I was at a regional meeting last week on data centers and AI, and the 32% increase in projected energy cost is for real, and the expectation is that we're looking at even greater increases beyond that. I think the big question for us, We are one of the jurisdictions that doesn't have an opportunity, so far as I know, to actually build data centers. So we're not going to be deriving revenue from them the way some of our friends are.

And I know Fairfax County is interested in doing that based on what they said at the meeting. For our jurisdiction, it's really downside. We're looking at increased energy costs for the city, as our CFO has calculated. But then for households, residents, it's going to go up. My understanding from that meeting is it's a difficult situation that hasn't been resolved in terms of what exactly we do. There are some different things that are being discussed. But overall, the biggest thing that can happen and that would help is what we call demand-side management, helping people become more efficient, more able to use less energy. That does not always happen by accident. TO THE GREEN BUILDINGS POLICY, BUT THAT'S ONLY ONE PART OF A BROADER PACKAGE OF WHAT

POTENTIALLY COULD BE DONE TO HELP CITIZENS AND THE CITY ITSELF BECOME MORE EFFICIENT. IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE THAT'S A THIS YEAR ISSUE TO SORT OF PUT THAT FULL PACKAGE TOGETHER, BUT I JUST WANTED TO NOTE THAT THAT IS GOING TO BE AN ISSUE THAT WILL COME BACK LATER THIS YEAR AND SHOW UP IN NEXT YEAR'S BUDGET. I do think we will want to be asking the question of what we would like the General Assembly to do for jurisdictions because one of the models nationwide when we've hit these energy crises have been to mobilize state responses in terms of investment. What does that mean? That means potentially cities like ours would have the benefit of some new funding for energy efficiency budget and in a way that hopefully would really move the needle on this.

I just want to flag that because it's a real issue.

Dave SummersstaffWe have one project you like that we're going to get started on, and that's a citywide conversion of the sodium vapor and murcular halide streetlights to LED, which Stephanie Kupka has been working on. And that's citywide, I think approximately 3,000 lights. and Stephanie has estimated it would save the city a couple hundred thousand dollars a year. And that's something we're working with Dominion on.

Thomas PetersonYeah, and again, I think maybe later on this year we would have an opportunity to understand what we might be doing comprehensively to address this issue and how that would translate into policy and budget. It's a little bit early to do a whole lot with that right now, but it's coming. My final question, I appreciate the discussion on the dilemma on infrastructure decisions like the police station about how much you can do at any given point in time and not being able to do it all, and that creates dilemmas, et cetera. There's this thing called modular design that's adaptive so that whatever you, there's a way that you get started but with a build-out pathway so that if and as funds become available, you can then expand and create these additional capacities with additional funding that's available.

but that's part of a planned potential that exists for these facilities. I'm guessing you're three steps ahead of me in terms of thinking those things through for the police facility and others, but can you comment on this adaptive approach in terms of modular design where we could kind of retain the flexibility of adding things as needed rather than having to do them all at once?

Dave SummersstaffI'm not aware of any parcels where we really have enough land to maybe look into that. It's something that we've thought about a lot of times when you, I mean it's similar to phasing the construction and doing a piece, then another piece, then another piece. And you know fortunately like the projects that i've been involved with Whether it was the gun range or the the fire station. We build on route 50, you know, we didn't need to do that Possibly in the future. We'll have to look at that more carefully

Catherine ReadThanks All right councilmember amos

Anthony AmosI had two quick questions one may not be a tonight question, but since it popped up in my head I'll go ahead and ask in terms of any potential funding from the state and with what's going on with session Are we going to get a debrief on that? I know one of the considerations early on was for example a local excise tax on cannabis sales I don't know where that's in progress. I was kind of focused on other things But we'll be getting a debrief on that or do we know Where we are in terms of progress on some of these funding sources and part of that may include what would be some of the impacts from if they were to get rid of the data center tax break as a part of this?

Daniel AlexanderstaffYeah, I think it's yet the short answer is yes, in the sense that there are some things that are working their way through the legislature right now. Obviously, TOT is one of them. Yeah, and so we really want to see what happens with those. And that certainly could mean that we're not only bringing back information, but recommendations on revenue as a result of some of those actions. as the session moves along. And you'll see some of that reflected in our comments later on about setting the max rate. So that's all in our minds as we think about what revenue might look like as a result of our legislative session.

Anthony AmosThank you. And just a separate logistics question. Are we doing another budget open house? I haven't really heard anything about it, but I wanted to ask about that.

Daniel AlexanderstaffCalendar-wise, we did the one in the fall. I don't think we have one currently scheduled, but we have all the work sessions scheduled as of now, so I don't think we have one scheduled for that purpose.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hall?

Stacy HallOne thing that, and I know this was before your time, but one thing that was removed from the budget last year was the, I think it was a $300,000 contribution to the Fairfax Renaissance Housing Corp. And I don't imagine it made it back into the book this year since it was kind of a bit of a stripped-down version. So I just wanted to put that on your radar so that we could try to maybe revisit some of these things potentially, maybe not this year, but in the future, that we had taken out or had reduced contributions to to kind of get us back to where we were. Yeah, that certainly is another item

Daniel Alexanderstaffthat is not... Certainly one of those items that is certainly not FTE-related, has impact on community, and certainly adds to the quality of life in our community.

Stacy HallYeah. possible I think one of the primary reasons last year why I was willing to remove it from the budget was because based upon the amount and the interest rates we were told that it could only really service about one maybe two loans which seemed like a large amount of money to just benefit one or two houses so I was just curious and I don't need the answer tonight or even next week but now the rates have come down a little bit and are only maybe a little bit more reasonable what kind of bang for our buck could we get with you know putting the 300,000 back in I mean would it be ten loans would it be still two loans just have some idea of where we might be in that

Daniel AlexanderstaffI'll ask JC you know we have the numbers in front of us in terms of what we've done I don't know if you want to hazard a guess on on what we might do with increased funding

JC Martinezstaffsure so the city doesn't actually manage that program that is a separate entity it's also my understanding from conversations with individuals at the Renaissance Housing Corporation that it varies so people apply and they will award a loan between X and X but there is no no standard so it's really dependent upon what the request is so they can give a $10,000 loan or they can give a hundred thousand dollar loan and depending on how much we or the city provides them it can be used or two cases or it could be used up in 10 cases depending on how they decide to parcel that out.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember McCullough?

Rachel McQuillenI too have heard a lot from residents that are really interested in getting that program back. And so if it does come down to the amount isn't great enough or we don't believe that that is enough to support what we're desiring from the outcome, then maybe a strategic plan in which we can, over time, build it up so that our residents that are here and looking forward to using that potential resource could at least see that it's coming into play and that we have a plan to bring it back in. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Bates?

Billy BatesThank you. I certainly have a lot of respect for what the Renaissance Housing Corporation has accomplished in the city, but I want to also keep in mind that last time around I believe we cut a third of the then-new nonprofit grant fund. And that's something that I think, you know, the first time around we were just kind of starting to get the word out about it. and, you know, as it's out there, and if we had kept doing it year over year, then more and more nonprofits might hear about it. So that's something that I want to prioritize even more so, getting back to where it was. And also, we just want to make sure that we are prioritizing compensating our staff, again, with, you know, the proposed increases there as well.

Thanks.

Catherine ReadSo on the Renaissance housing it started in 2000 if I'm correct and the General fund tax dollars that were invested in that program which is the program's only source of funding I believe 24 million

JC MartinezstaffLooking at Christine Well, it's a less than 24 million probably around 2.4, 2.5 million.

Catherine ReadI knew there was a 2 and a 4 in there somewhere. So 2.4 million in the 26 years. We didn't fund it last year. But the only source is the money from basically tax revenue. And so this tax revenue goes to pay the interest on these loans for residents in the city to do these improvements to their homes. And we also provide a a part-time staff person so there's staff hours also that are part of this program too but as far as who is qualified to take advantage of this program there has never been parameters people apply and they go through a process but there's no one of the things one of dr rice's students did a whole project uh from george mason university on the program and who had used it And one interesting thing is there's never been a project in Ardmore that has ever used the Renaissance Housing Program.

So it's kind of interesting if you start to assess who is using the program and the fact that who knows about the program to use the program and what are the parameters for who qualifies to use the program. None of that has ever really been defined. And so I think if you're going to take general taxpayer dollars off residential real estate property taxes to pay the interest on someone's home improvement, that we really need to look at the program, how it's structured, who qualifies, and on all of that. Because there is no funds coming from anywhere except people's tax payments for this program. So I would hope that if we're applying efficiencies and looking at the structure of how money is spent,

that we look at the structure of that if the program is going to be funded in the future. Just something I'd like to add. other questions do we have on this okay okay well there we go thank you so much Ms. Shinneberry what's next

Ms. Shinneberrystaffour next items of discussion on historical real estate tax rates for the city I'll recognize Daniel Alexander our city manager again for the discussion and

Daniel AlexanderstaffI'll quickly recognize our budget team to do a quick presentation on this matter

JC Martinezstaffmayor council thank you for the opportunity next to me or with us as well is our budget director gwen riddle and our real estate assessment director christine johnson really quick just a couple of slides or a handful of slides to sort of provide some historical context if you could go in go to the next one so on the slide here on the screen is just basically a 60-plus year history of where the city has been with its real estate tax rate. The highs, the lows, and in the between. So we started at about $1.38 when the city was founded in the early 1960s. Believe it or not, we actually topped at $1.99 for about three or four years in the early 70s. Came all the way down to 71 cents back in 2006,

PRIMARILY DUE TO THE REAL ESTATE RESIDENTIAL BUBBLE WHERE WE WERE SEEN, YOU WILL SEE THIS ON THE NEXT SLIDE, DOUBLE DIGIT ASSESSMENT GROWTH FOR ABOUT FOUR OR FIVE YEARS. MAKES ABSOLUTE SENSE THAT COUNCIL WOULD REDUCE THE RATE TO SORT OF OFFSET THAT BURDEN ONTO THE RESIDENT. AND THEN CAME BACK UP AS WE RECOVERED FROM THAT TIME FRAME AND ARE CURRENTLY IN 2024 AT OUR CURRENT $0.05. AND A HALF. NEXT SLIDE. ON THIS SCREEN A QUICK COMPARISON OF ABOUT 25 YEARS WORTH OF DATA SHOWN ON THE GRAPH HERE. SO THE BLUE IS THE REAL ESTATE TAX RATE FOR THOSE RESPECTIVE YEARS AND THEN THE LINE IS THE INFLATION RATE TRYING TO DO SOME CORRELATION OR CAUSATION POTENTIALLY OF WHERE THOSE RATES SORT OF ENDED UP. you could see it not 100 percent of a correlation some years were more than others

specifically in the early 2000s or coming into that or out of the bubble in 2008-2009 we had very little inflation and then right after COVID around 2022 we had a massive spike in INFLATION AND SORT OF TRICKLED DOWN TO ABOUT 2.8 TO 2.9% HOLDING STEADY HOPEFULLY FOR THE NEXT FEW YEARS.

Thomas PetersonNEXT SLIDE.

JC MartinezstaffAGAIN ANOTHER 25 YEARS SAME TIME FRAME. SO AGAIN THE BLUE BAR GRAPH IS JUST THE REAL ESTATE TAX RATE. BUT IN THIS INSTANCE OR IN THIS GRAPH THE RED LINE IS REAL ESTATE ASSESSMENTS GOING UP. AND AS I MENTIONED AT THE VERY FIRST SLIDE, THE BEGINNING HERE FROM ABOUT 2000 TO 2006, YOU HAD DOUBLE DIGIT APPRECIATION, ALMOST 20% OR OVER 20% IN 2005. AND THEN THAT BUBBLE POPPED. IT WENT DOWN VERY, VERY QUICK. YOU CAN SEE THAT ASSESSMENT GROWTH WAS ACTUALLY NEGATIVE IN THE EARLY PART OF 2010, 2009 TIME FRAME. real estate rates went up and have been sort of trending about a dollar five to a dollar seven just very quickly in 2022 there was a decrease from a dollar zero seven and a half all the way to a dollar one the majority of that decrease at that time was the implementation of the stormwater

utility previously to that three cents on the real estate tax rate was directly associated TO THAT UTILITY AND THEN COUNCIL AT THAT TIME DECIDED TO REDUCE IT BY THREE CENTS AND THEN A LITTLE BIT MORE AS WELL AND WE'VE BEEN CREEPING BACK UP FOR THE LAST COUPLE OF YEARS. NEXT SLIDE. WE TAKE OUT THE BLUE WHICH IS THE REAL ESTATE TAX RATE AND TRY TO OVERLAY BOTH THE INFLATION RATE IN ORANGE AND THEN THE RESIDENTIAL ASSESSMENT GROWTH OVER THE SAME 25-year period not seeing 100 of either correlation or causation in this graph but just wanted to overlay both to sort of give you all a quick overview of how they may have interacted kind of all over the place there but that was basically it just wanted to give everyone council and the potential

audience at home or in the room a quick history of where the city has been in the last 60 plus years and then more recently in the last 25 years when it comes to real estate tax rates, assessments, and inflation as well and how they sort of compare or maybe not compare. Happy to answer any questions. As I mentioned, our budget director and our assessment director are also in the room ready to answer and field any questions.

Catherine ReadQuestions on this historical tax rate?

JC MartinezstaffCouncilmember

Speaker 5Amos.

Anthony Amosthank you this is helpful uh the only question i have and it's just more of a curiosity question uh looking back when we were having discussions particularly probably around that 2021 2022 knowing some of these projects that we need to do like the property yard and stuff we still decreased it was that part of the discussion or was it really centralized around just the stormwater utility and offsetting that was cip really factored in or future development I say we, but you know what I mean.

JC MartinezstaffI'm going to look to Christine. I think she is probably, her and Melanie might be the, this is going to come out wrong, the two most senior individuals that were here at the time. You can probably expand a little bit more than I can.

Anthony AmosAnd to be fair, I know there were other funds and stuff too, but I was just curious. Longest institutional knowledge.

Speaker 5Well, I was on the budget committee at that time. So, yes. I mean, CIP projects were looked at, but not as granular as we look at them now. A lot of the projects were being bumped from year to year because of lack of funds. So it was kind of an unknown of when projects would actually hit. the processes that we have in place. We know a lot, you know, there's more certainty as far as when we're going to start a project. But was that the primary consideration for the tax rate at the time? I would say no. No.

MelaniestaffI would agree with her 100%. It was cut because we pulled the three cents out. Let's cut it the three cents. I think also with CIP, it's the transfer of funds into CIP, of do we move a CIP project forward or delay a CIP project, it doesn't really relate to the tax rate issue.

Catherine ReadAny other questions on this? I think it's interesting. I moved here in 2000 and lived in four different neighborhoods, single family homes and a condo. This is kind of interesting because I can't honestly say that it's up space in my brain. The tax rate is what it is and they put it in your escrow on your mortgage payment and you sort of paid it. And I do wonder there are people who definitely pay attention to the tax rate. We love saying that we have one of the lowest tax rates in the region. But the correlation between what we're able to do this discussion about the police station or any of these other CIP projects that have been kicked down the road because it's like, well, you know, either there's a valuing of having a very low tax rate

versus deciding that you're going to make investments in long-term expensive projects in the city. And again, these are the things that we're going to discuss this year. We discussed them last year. It'll be discussed every year as to really what does the community want because you can't really just have the lowest tax rate in the region and be able to fund some of these things that we've all agreed are priorities for the future of the city. But I do appreciate, I know there was discussion last year about the inflation rate. I love the fact that you put that, overlaid that. I don't know that there's a correlation. I don't see one. But it's still interesting to understand what some of the impacts were.

you know the mortgage crisis and the cratering of home values and the 2020 recession of course and yeah i think what i think what it really comes down to and will always come down to is what is the tolerance what is the tolerance for what we're charging people for for the tax rate and the impact that has on what we're able to do for the community and that has impacts far beyond we're talking about 10 years, 20 years down the road, what we did or didn't fund. And so I hope the community understands none of these things are easy, and the people on this dais are really trying to weigh what the community is willing to accept, understanding that there is a direct tie between what we have we can raise

and what we have to spend that are investments and what the people who move to the city say they value and the things that they want. Councilmember Peterson?

Thomas PetersonI may have missed this at the very beginning, and apologies if I did, but do we have a graph that shows the growth rate of the city budget in comparison to the assessment level and growth rate?

JC MartinezstaffWe do not. That was not generated here. If that is something that I think council wants, if the manager directs, we can try to get one of those together.

Thomas PetersonI personally think it would be helpful to certainly heard citizens asking the question, how is our city budget tracking the growth in assessments that take place? Is it outpacing them? Is it even with them? Is it less than them? Et cetera.

Daniel AlexanderstaffSo to be clear, we're looking for assessments and expenditures as a chart to show the distinction. between the two. So we'll make that available at the next workshop.

Thomas PetersonWell, and so the obvious thing that gets added to that then is how much, if you tack on the additional real estate tax on top of that, how much of an impact did that make and how's that tracking against the actual growth in the city's budgets?

Daniel AlexanderstaffSo we want to see that in one chart?

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerWhat do you think?

Thomas PetersonI just think important piece of this that I hear, and I can see this, is the question mark of we're seeing natural growth in value in assessments. That generates revenue for us. Are we living within our means in terms of the growth in the real estate tax assessments? Yes, no, to what degree? And then above and beyond that, there's the question of what are we doing, you know, additionally beyond that. But putting that in perspective, I think would be helpful.

Daniel AlexanderstaffThere's a little bit of challenge correlation to expenditures and the percentage that we're seeing you know increases we're seeing particularly around personnel and things that are very specific to government so it's it's not um it's certainly something we can talk about as we look at the distinctions from year to year so our our and my point i think is that you know some of the percentage increases we're seeing on expenditures you know are are significantly greater than what we typically see and increases in and CPI and inflation. So those are all things that we can certainly pick apart as we go through this discussion.

Catherine ReadOkay. Council Member McQuillan?

Rachel McQuillenI, too, agree that having something to present to the public that would visually showcase that would be very helpful because I, too, get a lot of questions. People are confused as to why it's not enough, why the natural inflation isn't enough for keep up with it and why we have to on top of it then raise I think just having a visual or some kind of really explaining in detail would be really good thank you

Daniel Alexanderstaffgo ahead

JC Martinezstaffso just very briefly I would say just having the numbers together don't tell the full story you're gonna need to have footnotes so I think as was presented earlier by the superintendent of schools unless you can footnote that shows over the last four years or so since 2022 where we've had a 45-degree angle on the tuition cost in excess of 12 to 8 percent per year growth that's the main driver for the last few years we can go back and have to find footnotes for every other year of any other exponential or those variables that sort of skew where we would have normal growth.

Daniel AlexanderstaffSo he said it better. But that's essentially what I was trying to get at with some of these drivers that I think are important to discuss. It's certainly not, you know, something that we're going to say is a functional cause and cause and effect, but it's certainly something we need to discuss as we go through this exercise.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hall and then Council Member Peterson.

Stacy HallThank you. had pulled this up just to kind of pull the same thing. And I don't mean to add more dots or lines to the chart or graph you're going to present to us, but I do think that especially over the past six or eight years with school, I think it's really important to show that because, example, 2020, I'm roughly 50 million, and now you're looking, you know, estimated 2026 is 68 or, you know, close to 70 million. That's $20 million just straight up like you said, and that isn't really seen on here. And, you know, it makes me think also that in some of the years when either there wasn't a tax increase or the tax rate dropped, it seems like maybe there was some disconnect between allocating for schools for the future or, you know, the number of kids that we had enrolled,

or maybe there just wasn't really a whole lot of talk back then about that connection either. I don't know.

Daniel AlexanderstaffSo thank

Stacy Hallyou.

Daniel AlexanderstaffAre we clear on?

Gwen Riddlestaffby voicequestion.

Daniel AlexanderstaffYou

Gwen Riddlestaffby voicementioned budget, but you're looking at history. To me, that's looking at actuals. If you're looking at the tuition contract, it was budgeted at one level, but it came in actual at a higher level. Would you like to see both, one or the other? What's the preference?

Thomas PetersonActuals.

Gwen Riddlestaffby voiceOkay. I've gotten both. Everything. Okay. I've got it. I'm a cash.

Stacy HallIf it's too much work, then just actuals.

Catherine ReadOkay. Thank you. Actuals is what it costs to run the government for that year. So what did it cost to run the government in any given fiscal year, I think, is what we're after. And some of the other expenses, I would say, too, are, you know, the assessments go up because scarcity of housing makes the thing that is scarce more valuable. and so part of the things we have to look at and what we're trying to look at is building more housing in the city that people can afford otherwise what houses are here are going to continue to be more and more expensive because people who want to live here are willing to pay it and so there's nothing that we as a council can do to stop the rise of the value of homes

there just aren't enough for the number of people who want to live in the city so the answer is you build more housing you hope that by building different kinds of housing, you know, you're talking about the number of students who are coming from these, you know, high-density projects like the Scout at the Circle or the Point at Fairfax.

Speaker 5It's the housing families can afford.

Catherine ReadBecause the house, you know, I live on a street where the houses were built in 1953. My house is worth a million dollars. And so families aren't going to be probably moving onto my street. I haven't seen any so far. And so they're moving into the housing that we're building that is a market rate It's what they can afford and so I think we need to keep in mind that real estate assessments are just not random things The value of them also has to do with the scarcity of them And we have to understand that until we have more housing. I don't see I don't see that leveling off councilmember Peterson well

Thomas Petersonjust to go back to to Mr. Martinez, your point. I think there's always a story to tell that gets beyond the numbers and it would be helpful to get your help in telling that story in terms of what happened. And there is this natural rate of increase of one of the underlying asset that's really funding most of the city here. And how is that going in comparison to our revenue into expenditures. There are other factors that go into that, but that would be a starting place. And I encourage us to maybe take a direct look at that and kind of unpack that a bit before we jump too far into some conclusions. I personally don't think that building your way out of financial problems is always necessarily the smartest thing to do. We've talked about

these numbers before we're four times ahead of ourselves in the city in terms of adding housing units in comparison to population and housing growth or one third against commercial vacancy rates in the region so I'm not sure it's the case that that is either the problem or the answer but it seems to me getting a more direct look at this and the factors that are driving this would be a help Thank you.

Catherine ReadYes, Mr. Alexander.

Daniel AlexanderstaffLet's be clear on what we're bringing back to you in terms of chart when you want to express that.

Gwen Riddlestaffby voiceSure. So what I'm hearing is mainly actuals, if I can do budget, pull in budget, looking against assessments, also looking at growth of schools and any other major line items that have changed, that would have dramatic changes in a year.

Daniel AlexanderstaffThere's another element, Council Member Peterson. Well,

Thomas PetersonI think that's all helpful, but I think going back to what Councilmember McCullin reflected based on feedback that I'm sure we're all getting the core of this thing that people are really wondering about is how much growth are we seeing in assessments and how much are we going above and beyond that in terms of expenditures and why? And that's the real core starting place, I think, to address some of these questions that would be helpful to the public.

Daniel AlexanderstaffSo assessed value is an element of that, right?

Gwen Riddlestaffby voiceYeah, I would look to Christine, Ms. Johnson, if she would be able to help pull out the assessment dollar growth for each year.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Bates?

Billy Batesso um you know i want to go back to uh several years ago when i took ap economics in high school um one thing that i recall and please correct me if i'm wrong but uh i believe that the way that um the inflation rate is accounted for you know the inflation rate that we hear about is that a basket of goods is tracked in terms of the increase in the price of that total basket of goods. But the reason why I'd say basket of goods and not just one good chosen at random is that each individual good or service increases in price at different rates. Is that basically accurate?

Chair PitchesYeah,

Billy Batesyeah. So I think that's one thing that we want to keep in mind. increases in salary and fringe. You know, we think about healthcare costs, housing costs, our employees have to pay for housing as well. And if you look at some of the, you know, if you look at the, like, the MIT living wage calculator for Fairfax City, it's, I mean, this is a pretty expensive place to live, and a lot of our employees, you know, may not live in the city. and a lot of them may not be able to afford to, especially just starting out. And we want to make sure that we are, again, giving them an increase that is fair and really kind of something that is part of taking care of our employees. But that also is what the pay study will go into.

and so looking back at the city manager's presentation we have you know a few things on there that appear to roughly kind of add up to the increase in the total expenditures for this budget the tuition contract increase the planned debt issuance the workforce investment and the one-time expenses for associated studies And then a net decrease in net operating maintenance reductions. I mean, those are things that I think are, you know, it's not fluff. You know, this is just really, you know, basic taking care of our employees and taking care of our infrastructure. With regard to building ourselves out of the situation, you know, again, I go back to the housing assessment from 2022. we are in 2026 now we're coming up on halfway through that 10 to that 10-year horizon and I

don't believe that we're brushing up against that projected demand yet so I'm you know I'm not sure about that but again you know supply and demand I'd much rather frankly we're not going to hit that right on the nose if I'd much rather overshoot that than undershoot it because you know supply and demand it's been well established through research that even building market rate housing and we're also building affordable housing even market rate housing helps housing affordability just due to the interactions among the housing market itself now coming back to the budget again you know we talked about the renaissance housing corporation and some other things, but first and foremost, we need to make sure that

we're thinking about, again, totally agree, what this increase is coming from, and a lot of that is taking care of our infrastructure and taking care of our employees, and those are really what we have to look after first. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member McQuillan?

Rachel McQuillenYes. Thank you, Mayor Reed. I don't argue that at all, Council Member Bates. I agree with you that there's a lot of detail in that there's a lot of stuff that we can't even control that gets inflated. I think the important part is that we're educating our public as to exactly how much that natural inflation of real estate costs, how that really is interpreted into our expenses as far as how much that covers, so that they understand the value proposition when we do discuss or have to discuss the potential of increasing real estate taxes. That's really what I see the situation being, and the reason I am requesting that information, because I think it's important to tell the story and just, again, the value proposition.

We talk about all the great amenities and things that we have here in our community. Again, I agree with all of that. It's very important that we ensure that our staff is paid fairly and taken care of. Nobody is discussing or arguing that, I don't believe. I think it's just about ensuring that we're able to educate and inform our community members that are confused. And rightly so, you know, they're seeing costs rise, and they just want to know and understand the details of it. So I think also, to your comment, Mayor Reed, I agree housing is important, but I see that, you know, there's a lot of elements involved. It's not just the housing. We're dealing with a lot of things that are with tariffs that are uncontrollable.

Now we're talking about war. So I think that discussing these things is really important because that's how you come up with the most creative solutions. And I think there's probably even a better solution out there than just continue to develop and build, build, build all this housing. I think there's got to be really strong intention and strategy involved in that. But that's just my perspective. Thank you.

Catherine Readquestions or comments on this particular I oh yes councilmember Bates

Billy Batesso I think that really if you think about it there were actually sort of two different questions that have been raised that I've heard with regard to this issue first off is where is that increase coming from which I think you know to me has sort of been answered but then also how does the growth in the budget compare it to the inflation rate and or the assessment growth. And I totally agree with what staff has brought up that if we do show that, it needs to come with footnotes or context or whatever you want to call it. But again, I want to make sure that we are providing that context as well.

Catherine ReadAnything else on this item before we move along? Apparently not. Ms. Shinneberry, what do we have next?

Ms. ShinneberrystaffOur next item is a discussion on setting the max real estate tax rate action item from March 10, 2026. I'll recognize Daniel Alexander, city manager, for a discussion.

Daniel AlexanderstaffOkay, thank you. Before we move into this discussion, we want to briefly frame the decision and discussion that we have before you as to what we set the advertised tax rate as. We'll begin by reviewing some of the history related to this action and a very brief presentation by Mr. Martinez.

JC MartinezstaffThank you city manager again mayor council thank you for having us just a one slide presentation and again we have director riddle and director johnson available to answer any questions so looking back four years really quickly going to FY 2023 that blue bar is what the city manager at proposed in his budget. The middle or orange bar or column is what was advertised. And then the green is where we were actually adopted for that fiscal year. And you can see that pattern for FY24 and FY25, meaning that whatever the manager proposed was also the max real estate tax rate advertised and then ultimately council came in a little under both of them last year was a little different the manager proposed a dollar twelve and a half there were

multiple discussions if i'm not mistaken actually during a work session like we are having tonight and then actually on the day of the adoption of the maximum real estate tax rate we actually went INTO ANOTHER WORK SESSION TO DISCUSS IT FURTHER. ULTIMATELY COUNCIL DECIDED TO GO A LITTLE HIGHER THAN THE PROPOSED RATE FROM LAST YEAR TO $1.15 AND ULTIMATELY WE ENDED UP AT $1.05. WANTED TO GIVE SOME VERY QUICK HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF WHAT HAS BEEN PROPOSED, WHAT HAS BEEN ADVERTISED, AND WHERE COUNCIL HAS ACTUALLY LANDED WHEN WE'VE ADOPTED THE FISCAL YEAR BUDGET TAX RATE AMOUNT. I'll turn it back over to City Manager.

Daniel AlexanderstaffThank you JC. So under law we all know that we must advertise a maximum rate before the budget can ultimately be adopted. The advertised rate simply establishes the upper limit for that final rate. It does not commit our council to adopting that rate. So we're going to present two options. There's a myriad of options, infinite number of options. We're going to present two just for your consideration tonight. The first which is $1.08, which represents a two-and-a-half-cent increase overall. Advertising this rate keeps the budget aligned with the proposal that we gave you last week. It maintains a balanced budget and funds the services and obligations in the recommended plan. So that's the first option.

The second option for your consideration is to advertise a slightly higher rate of $1.95. That is one-and-a-half cents more. And so the context around that again is that does not mean that the council has to adopt that rate as we as we move forward this process. It simply preserves additional flexibility around funding for the remainder of this process as we go through this process. So why create that flexibility? So if needed, it creates capacity to respond to unknown variables from the legislature, economic conditions, or other potentially destabilizing factors affecting our region and beyond. It provides additional space for any additional enhancements that we talked about earlier, and anything that the council may want to consider before final adoption.

So the decision tonight is not about committing to a higher rate. It's simply about determining how much revenue flexibility the council wishes to maintain between now and the adoption of the final budget. Simply, we can advertise at a dollar rate and keep the proposal exactly as presented, which is consistent with, as you see, we've done with the exception of last year, or we could advertise at $1.95, providing a modest additional flexibility as we continue through the process. Certainly, there are other options available. Those are two that we thought might be useful for your discussion as we continue on the process. So those are two considerations. I think again JC I'll put you on the spot a little bit very quickly on what that means in terms of overall revenue

I don't have it before me, but it's about a million a half

JC MartinezstaffSo the additional one and a half cents would generate about 1.3 Almost 1.4 million dollars in additional revenue in FY 27 And

Daniel AlexanderstaffI don't know if I said it clearly but it certainly gives you some flexibility in considering the other revenue options that we've presented to you. We included other rate percentage increases. We included a meals tax increase. And so it not only gives you flexibility in terms of capacity for enhancements, thinking about what might happen as part of the legislative process, but also if you want to do something differently around revenue, it certainly gives you capacity to do that. So those are two points of consideration. happy to answer any any questions all

Catherine Readright questions for the senior manager councilmember Amos well

Anthony Amosjust to go ahead and bring up what I brought up earlier we've already had a discussion about adding a position and obviously we're gonna have a lot of conversations about what should be added what should be reduced all that fun stuff I do agree that we should probably build in some flexibility I probably wouldn't go as high as the I'll call it four simple the 1.095. I would probably say better to go to 3.5, 1.090.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Hall?

Stacy HallI have a question about the meals tax. I'm on page 39 in the budget book where it talks about the proposed rate increase to 4.5%. It says it's an increase of 2.134 million. For some reason, I was thinking that number was like 1.2 or 1.4 million

Gwen Riddlestaffby voiceCorrect. That also includes general increase of what we've been seeing that's coming in for revenue. So that includes that increase that we would have seen in the budget without the rate change. So it is, you are correct with the number.

Stacy HallOkay, so it was like 1.2 or 1.4. So if we didn't want to do a meals rate increase, then we would need to consider, like you said, the 1.1, which is a $1.4 million difference. So if we swapped the real estate tax, I'm sorry took away the meals increase And had to make it up in real estate tax dollars

Daniel Alexanderstaffexcellent point in that What we're recommending would essentially be the same amount that you're increasing around the meals tax

Stacy HallOkay, so make sure I had those numbers correctly. Thank you councilmember Hardy Chandler

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerI think I'll be repeating exactly what I said last year when we had this discussion I think it is a responsible move to allow us that flexibility. We clearly don't have to take it. We haven't in any history led up to it. But to your point, we're living in a world with increased uncertainty. And so to artificially limit ourselves even lower at this point, I don't think is a good idea, particularly since we have the option to go lower in the future. But we cannot go higher. comes up and we do need to really consider that upper limit, I would rather have that opportunity to make that decision. So for me, there is no loss in the advertised tax being at 1.095, right, with, of course, monitoring trends and that kind of thing.

But again, in a world with increased uncertainty and unknowns that are beyond our control, it feels to me like the only responsible thing to do is to allow us that flexibility.

Catherine ReadSpoken like somebody who lived through the 1970s gas shortages where you could only go to the gas pumps every other day based on the odd or even number on your license plate. Anybody else remember that? Yeah, so you can tell who in the room remembers THINGS LIKE THE 1970S. SO THERE ARE THINGS THAT ARE BEYOND OUR CONTROL. THERE ARE THINGS THAT ARE BEYOND OUR CONTROL. YEAH, YOU DON'T, YEAH, OKAY, IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO. TRUST US. TRUST US. IT WAS NOT PLEASANT. IT WAS TOUGH. COUNCILMEMBER PETERSON.

Thomas PetersonA QUESTION FOR OUR CFO. AT SOME POINT, I THINK YOU ARE GOING more about the question mark of how much of an impact happened in Fairfax County from a shift to zero to four cents on a meal's tax rate and whether that had any impact on the city of Fairfax at the same time. But it kind of gets to the question mark of our comfort around that half-cent adjustment on the meal's tax here. And I know we're a little bit early to be able to look for a snapshot comparison, but when could we hear from you about that?

JC MartinezstaffI can give you a little bit of a view into Fairfax County. So they actually reached out to me, coincidentally, last week about meal stacks, asking for historical trends. So these are my words because I don't want to put them on the spot, but they weren't seeing the trends initially because they just started in January 1. And I explained to them it's probably due to the weather. I know internally here we were also impacted because of, was it Snowcrate? I think is what it was called. That really impacted mom and dad businesses when it came to food and going out to eat. So they were seeing the same thing. Fairfax County was kind of panicking of like this is our first month We're not projecting where we needed to be, but a lot of it had to do with the weather.

I think, and I think I may have had this conversation personally with you, was probably after a first good quarter. Hopefully by the end of April we would know where they are. I do have conversations with them probably on a monthly basis along with other items that we're sort of tracking collectively and hopefully be able to report back to council. That'll be helpful, I

Thomas Petersonthink. Big picture, people are obviously concerned in terms of uncertainty about affordability and that's a multifactor issue. It's not just their taxes. It's not just their energy prices. It's their income. There's a series of things. Right now there's a string of them happening all at the same time. And I do think strategically it raises the question mark about whether this is the right time to expand a tax rate and to what degree in the face of that kind of uncertainty and that downward pressure that's taking place for a number of reasons economically. And I would just say, you know, we spend a certain amount of time talking about what others are up to in the region. This is not an easy apples to apples comparison.

We're different. Every jurisdiction is different. On the other hand, I've spoken with colleagues in neighboring jurisdictions about their budget situation and everybody is saying they are pretty much either flat or cutting. Just the overall environment is one of a high level of caution, I would say. I'm not prepared tonight to put a stake in the ground in terms of what we do here except to express the need for some caution in what we do going forward. While it's true that elevating this rate would give us a bit of flexibility on the upside, IT DOES RAISE AN INTERESTING QUESTION ABOUT WHETHER WE'RE QUITE WHETHER WE HAVE FLEXIBILITY ON THE DOWNSIDE AS WELL WHETHER THERE'S SOME EFFICIENCY OPTIONS THAT WE MAY BE ABLE TO FIND I DON'T KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT YET

MAYBE WE CAN TALK MORE ABOUT IT BUT I JUST DO WANT TO EXPRESS SOME CAUTIONARY NOTES AROUND THE ENVIRONMENT WE'RE IN RIGHT NOW AS WE GO INTO THIS DECISION THANKS COUNCIL MEMBER BATES

Billy Batesuh so personally i lean toward the 109.5 option just because um you know hearing about the mules tax increase uncertainty about that um that is within itself a good bit more than a on the real estate tax rate i believe um and then plus we've heard of other things that are not in the proposed budget so i'd lean toward the 1095 but really you know again the secondary council member hardy chandler's comments it certainly i think is responsible to provide that flexibility but it doesn't mean that we're going to go up to that rate thank you

Catherine ReadCouncilmember McQuillan

Rachel McQuillenSure so as is typical I can see both sides of this situation I can see and share a lot of the same sentiments of the benefits of advertising a higher rate as we did last time I like the fact that it brings people in to you hear from them what they care about what they value what they want to see in the budget what things they're okay with cutting. So in that way, I do appreciate that. I do share sentiments with Council Member Amos that that high might be also concerning to our residents during this time. Affordability is a huge issue right now, and it's across the board. So to echo Council Member Peterson's statements, I agree with him that we need to be very cognizant cognizant and aware of what our community is feeling, what they're thinking, what other

regions are doing as well. So I don't know that I have a decision yet. I haven't come to that. But those are my thoughts, and that's my perspective, and that's what I'm seeing. So thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hull.

Stacy HallThank you. I had a question I forgot to ask, but I couldn't find the information quick enough. When's the last time we increased our B-POL tax? And where do we fall with other localities?

JC MartinezstaffI think there's a slide or a page that shows B

Stacy Hall-POL. I could only find the, like I'm on page 88 of the budget book,

JC Martinezstaffand

Stacy Hallit has how much we make, and then on the previous page it talks about the personal property tax rates.

Gwen Riddlestaffby voiceSo it would be in the rates and levies Councilmember Hall, which is towards the back of the book. I believe, and I know it from my last locality. I'm not 100% here, but we had different rates depending on what type of business it is. So it wasn't a flat rate that everyone paid the same. So I believe that is the way it's done. But I have not dug into those rates. Okay.

Stacy HallI guess, and I do personally pay this because I have a small business here, so I'm not advocating for anything specific. I don't know if I'm loud enough or not. I was just curious when the last time that has been adjusted and, again, where we are with other localities, trying to just think of other revenue sources besides just another real estate tax increase rate, right? Right.

JC MartinezstaffSo I don't have the answer right now, but we can definitely get back with you. We can consult with the Commissioner of Revenue, who actually administers people, and ask him those specific questions and definitely get back with Council with the answers to when the last time there was a rate change and how we compare as well.

Stacy HallOkay. And let me be really clear to everyone who is watching. I am not advocating that we increase the personal property rate that you pay on your vehicle. That is not what I am asking. This is completely different. Thank you.

Catherine ReadOther questions, comments? Councilmember McQuillan.

Rachel McQuillenI would like to make a comment regarding advertised tax rate, proposed budget. Those are very specific words, and our community gets very confused. So going into this budget season, as we discuss things like an advertised tax rate, I think it's really imperative that we clearly educate the community on what that means, that it's advertised and that it hasn't been adopted. Because I think the two words, people just, they confuse them and they get very upset. And so I think letting people know that this is the beginning of the process. Now is the time to come in and speak up now. Nothing has been set in stone yet. I think that needs to be very clear.

Catherine ReadThank you. So, Mr. Alexander, we're getting some feedback. Is it enough feedback? What are you looking for out of this work session? In

Daniel Alexanderstafffairness to counsel, you know, we're talking about this tonight. We've heard a little bit of variation of specific numbers. I'll get back to you, which is fine. Hopefully this has informed the discussion. We certainly want to land on a decision next week as we bring this back to you. So certainly helpful, but we're certainly going to need to know more and, again, land on a number next week.

Catherine ReadOkay. So next meeting we need to be a little more specific or having thought through this with the amount of discussion and everybody bringing to the fore their concerns. At some point a decision will be made, must be made.

Daniel AlexanderstaffAnd, again, I think to the point, I need to probably say it more often, advertise, this is the starting point with the understanding that we can't go any higher. We certainly can go lower as we go through the process.

Catherine ReadAnd we can think of different ways to say that. We can say that this is the highest possible rate. Yeah. So upper limit, this is the maximum. We are considering things like that that help people understand it's just a ceiling. a thing, but it'll never be more than that thing. And quite possibly it might be less than that thing. So we'll use all our words. We'll all use all our words. And I think that is just a marvelous, marvelous thing. All right. We're ready to move on. Ms. Shinneberry, what do we have next?

Ms. ShinneberrystaffOur last item is a follow-up on the city council retreat and next steps. I'm going to recognize Daniel Alexander, city manager, for the presentation.

Daniel AlexanderstaffAll right. Thank you very much. retreat follow-up from January, January 10th, I believe, if I recall correctly. And we're primarily going to focus on, as part of the discussion, strategic plan, performance management, and efficiency study. And to make it interesting, Mellie and I will go back and forth on this presentation and hopefully describe what came out of that, but at the same time, talk about some action steps moving forward so that we can continue on the process. Melody, you want to start us out?

MelaniestaffSure. I'm going to go over the parts that came out of the retreat, the council retreat and what was discussed there. So dealing with the strategic plan first, the council expressed a strong consensus that the next plan needs to include these following items, that it needs to be citywide and community-focused, should be a multi-year, maybe a four-year, should have a multi-year horizon with flexibility for annual updates and adjustments, which would be very similar to our other plans like the comp plan. It would be a living framework responsive to the evolving conditions in the region. it would include quarterly updates and an annual review and then clearly define the council's intent the public's role the scope and boundaries

and the formal decision points council emphasized that the plan priorities must align with the organizational capacity and be integrated with existing plans including the budget the CIP and the comp plan

Daniel AlexanderstaffSo as we think about action around this, we want to consider what is a hybrid delivery model and very carefully clarifying the roles between external and internal work. And so from an external perspective, we want to bring someone on that can lead the initial stage data development to include a review and synthesis of existing plans, studies, data sets, looking at community conditions and trend analysis, local and regional, design and facilitate the community engagement process with us as we move forward, the engagement strategy and tools, facilitation of public stakeholder and partner sessions, and the synthesis of community input and themes. It also facilitate early council discussion on vision, values, and strategic priorities,

trade-offs, scope boundaries, and decision points, then provide benchmarking and best practice context to inform direction setting that would be the first part of it in terms of the city staff and what we're involved in with you obviously translating that direction and committee input into more specific strategies initiatives and implementation ensure alignment with the budget CIP and other adopted plans we would then define ownership timelines and resourcing and then manage ongoing monitoring and updates. The council inputs needed early to reduce rework include the purpose and time horizon, desired public role and engagement expectations, scope inclusion, exclusion, kind of what's in and what's out, and formal council decision gates and deliverables.

If Melanie, we'd back up one slide. That's a lot to throw at you at once. So I want to take a break here before we get into the other two elements. Make sure that makes sense to Council. See if you have any questions about scope and action.

Catherine ReadCouncil

Thomas PetersonMember Peterson? It does make sense, and I appreciate that, at least from my perspective. Maybe you're going to talk a little bit more about this, but, you know, there's the obvious question about what's next. the process we go through to translate to budget and policy and program, which is where the rubber hits the road, if you will. So am I correct that we'll hear a little bit more about what that might look and feel like for us as we are implementing this?

Daniel AlexanderstaffYeah, I think we're going to have to get on a rhythm. We're out of cycle to a certain extent of where we are in terms of our cadence. but we're hoping that to get this plan established and allow it to inform all the other processes that we have, you know, coming up through that timeline, if that makes sense. So does that answer your question?

Thomas PetersonPartially.

Daniel AlexanderstaffYeah, I think the challenge is we are coming in the middle of the budget process now. So we see this largely informing the work that's going to occur as we get into November, into, you know, the subsequent time. Does that make sense?

Thomas PetersonYeah, I, it does. My concern wasn't so much the urgency of doing this in time for this budget as it is just an understanding of when it will happen and how we will be involved in making that happen. And it's a this year thing is what I'm hearing. So that's the important takeaway for me.

Daniel AlexanderstaffIt's a really good point. And I think what would be a pretty aggressive timeline to get this in place so that it informs our discussion that typically starts at the end of the year as we move through the budget process which everyone gets really fixated on you know our financial plan occurring in and around this time frame it it does and should start much earlier in that process and so the timeline I think would would take us through you know the end of this year and into that process if that makes sense.

Thomas PetersonIt does and I also want to really applaud you for the taking a fresh look at information that we have or that we need that's important in terms of developing a strategic plan for the city and that's something that needs to be done on a periodic basis. I think you're setting up a four-year cycle here in terms of the horizon we use but I'm also seeing that this is an annual process we go through to kind of double check this. Really good

Daniel Alexanderstaffquestion. informed quarterly to a certain extent but I think coming back to council and in a you know probably in a retreat environment to say we're gonna look at our goals I think council was really clear on having some freedom within you know these parameters with with the way things change in the environment and our need to be agile and adaptable in this environment so I think on an annual basis we'd want to come back and goal set and that that may you know result in some significant changes hopefully not hopefully put a good structure in place and you know we're just you know making adjustments but certainly it's it's the council's prerogative to to make significant changes on an annual basis again reporting progress as we look at kind of performance

manage management at a granular level but also at a strategic level to kind of show you where we are progress.

Thomas PetersonAnd then to capture the significant change terms that as I understand it includes budget CIP and comprehensive plans. So the result of our strategic planning here would be updating thinking and characterization that's involved in those things based on what we do here. Is that a fair characterization?

Daniel AlexanderstaffIt is to an extent. And I think I've heard feedback on you know some of the other planning that that we do you know you're typically looking at a five-year window on updating your comp plan and so there's a there's kind of a cadence around that um that is upcoming for us as a city um you know there's some other um you know things that we could do um councilman ramus asked a question around visioning and so you know oftentimes um You know, you'll have a 2020 vision, which I don't, we haven't done anything since then. And so there's an opportunity for us to think about even longer term, which will often influence strategic planning and your comp plan and the other plans that are associated with that.

So this is an opportunity, I think, through this discussion to kind of lay out that cadence in a way that makes sense for the city.

Thomas PetersonAnd just to build on that, it would recognize there are different forms of planning on different cycles. But this gives us a chance to map into those cycles the sorts of updates that result from this fresh thinking that is going to happen as I see it in a pretty systematic and well-informed manner. We wouldn't be holding back from mapping into those areas of change that at whatever point is timely will get picked up on those procedures. Is that a fair way to characterize this?

Daniel AlexanderstaffI think as long as we've talked quite a bit up to this point, it's informed by what we're seeing in the data. It's anchored in significant community engagement and council engagement as we go. And we're ensuring that everyone's at the table in the process. Those are things that we've talked about from a values perspective that I think are probably important to community and certainly important to council. MR.

Thomas PetersonAnd you mentioned community, which I think is also really important because two heads are better than one and identifying all the important information and then getting it is a joint process. So it's good to hear that we're envisioning that that would be a collaborative process and even within the council that we would have an opportunity to be involved in identifying those issue areas where it's important to bring new information to bear or review existing whichever the case may be. Is that also a fair characterization?

Daniel AlexanderstaffThat's going to be the importance of any process that I've been in in the past is early and often council engagement around what we're looking at.

Thomas PetersonThanks. I just want to thank you for getting this and getting us organized.

Catherine ReadThanks. Council Member Hardy-Chandler?

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerThank you. I don't feel the need to revisit everything WE DISCUSSED IN THE RETREAT. I DO WANT TO HIGHLIGHT THAT THIS SEEMS TO REFLECT EVERYTHING THAT WE DISCUSSED AND INCORPORATED. IF YOU MOVE TO THE NEXT SLIDE, JUST TO GIVE SOME FEEDBACK. I THINK IT'S REALLY IMPORTANT THAT THIS NOT BE SEEN AS JUST AN EXERCISE. WHEN YOU'RE ASKING ABOUT THE PURPOSE, MY HOPE IS THAT THE PURPOSE WILL BE THIS WILL PROVIDE OUR ONGOING COUNCIL BODY COMMON GROUND TO GO BACK TO WHEN WE'RE HAVING MAYBE DIFFERENCES IN PERCEPTION. THAT'S ALWAYS WELCOME. THAT MAKES FOR A RICH DISCUSSION. BUT IF WE CAN GO BACK TO AN AGREED UPON STRATEGIC PLAN AND THOSE PRIORITIES, HOPEFULLY WE CAN UNITE AROUND THOSE AND GET SOME OF THE THINGS THAT GET STUCK MOVING FORWARD. SO THAT WOULD BE THE PURPOSE THAT I

I would look for. For a time horizon, I think, yeah, this year is pretty ambitious, but I would be excited if something like this is in place. Because if we're talking about a four-year horizon and we take up one of those years doing it, that's quite possible. But, you know, I think we could at least have the foundation. And with an annual refining of it anyway, there is no need to drag it on longer. I think that public engagement is important, but I don't like to say but a lot. And I would like to encourage use of the many ways in which we have already engaged the public so that we're not starting from scratch. It's not like we haven't asked the public anything. We have sources of information from the public, and I would like for us to utilize those toward this

at least a starting point and certainly engagement can be an ongoing part of the cadence. Scope and inclusions, I think whoever we have as a facilitator or whoever facilitates this could help with recognizing those boundaries around governance and I like that it's separated into two parts, the sort of focus of the council and the implementation part. the phase one part of it, and then have that be a separate process with staff and implementation. So, again, gates and key deliverables, I feel like that will evolve around that quarterly update process. Again, not to build in a bunch of new processes or different scheduling. WHERE CAN WE FIND SYNERGY IN WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE AND USE THAT TO MAKE IT EVEN MORE MEANINGFUL.

THAT'S MY FEEDBACK. I KNOW WE HAVE TWO OTHER PRESENTATION TOPICS TO GO THROUGH. I WILL JUST LEAVE IT AT THAT.

Catherine ReadCOUNCIL MEMBER AMOS.

Anthony AmosI WAS GOING TO WAIT UNTIL THE END, DAN. I DIDN'T WANT TO HOG UP THE PRESENTATION. ONE THING I EMAILED IN WAS I KNOW A FEW RESIDENTS MENTIONED THAT ORIGINALLY THERE WAS A 2020 number which includes the city charter amendments was part of it but they had a more robust discussion in a full report back in the 90s of what to expect on transportation zoning and land use housing and a number of other items and when I emailed Dan and staff about it they brought up a great point that we're about to do a review of the comprehensive plan next year and that it would probably be a good idea to maybe update that and do a 2050 visioning committee the 2021 did except let's look at what have we accomplished from that original

one what do we not get done and what's changed or needs to be updated that way we can be ready for the modern times because it is definitely not like how it was in the 90s a lot of things has changed so putting together a citizen led committee probably with some of our BAC appointees on it we could have a more robust discussion about that maybe not tonight I don't know he does yeah Yeah, so true. I wanted my hoverboard, but that's all right. And so I wanted to kind of defer to Dan on that, on what does that look like for staff capacity, but he recommended I bring it up here.

Catherine ReadSo on the 2020 commission, not only have I seen the commission report, and there were a lot of committees. I want to say there were like 12 committees, and it was citizen-led, and they did a big presentation at Old Town Hall. I've seen the video. I have seen the video. other than dale astina but you know we probably need to digitize that because there was a very formal presentation in old town hall of the 2020 plan but it was incredibly robust you know i want to say there were maybe over 100 people involved or well over 100 people involved over these 12 different committees and there are people around who were part of the 2020 commission i think tom ross is one of them and there are probably others who were part of the 2020 commission and then

commission, which was done in the 90s, there was the 2013 charter commission, which was totally different, but there's overlapping people. And again, I think Tom Ross, and Tom Ross may be the person who just connects it all. There might be a few other people, but Tom Ross was also in the 2013 charter commission, which was done in 2013 rather than the 1990s. But there were a lot of things that were achieved. If you look at the 2020 commission board, it's actually remarkable when they set out a vision and benchmarks and they actually did things and it really it ended up being a guiding vision for the city and even though it stretched from the 1990s all the way through to today really there were people who participated who really did have a long-term

decades-long vision for for what they thought the city could and should and would be so those exercises or not, I think that's lift that up, look through it, and see how valuable it was. I think an effort like that could be very beneficial. I think it was beneficial, the 2020 Commission Report. Other thoughts, comments on this? Councilmember Bates.

Billy BatesSo, again, I am still leaning toward the four-year time horizon for this. and you know public engagement is certainly important I think that we want to have you know more than one opportunity for direct in-person community engagement during the process and and then also of course taking advantage of online engagement and yeah so what's in versus what's out I you know I definitely want to see a framework of the city's operational goals and the city's various plans and basically have those fit together I think that's kind of you know just like to see. And, you know, and also I guess thinking about the time horizon, you know, we don't necessarily want to have something that is going way beyond that time horizon

and is set in stone on the other hand, you know, like we talked about before. We want it to be kind of, you know, a bit more short term and, you know, but also open to being flexible and able to be changed and adapted and yeah and I think that with regard to our involvement I you know I think it were quarterly mentioned I think that makes sense you know during the process yes that's kind of where I am thanks

Catherine Readanyone else comments on this particular okay

MelaniestaffOkay, we will move on to performance management. At the retreat, council acknowledged that while the city collects substantial data and performance reporting has not consistently translated into a clear picture of results. The discussion emphasized shifting from isolated department metrics to cross-cutting outcome-focused measures, incorporating resident experience data like the citizen survey, point of contact surveys, and benchmarking, implementing a two-tier performance framework, which would include a council-facing strategic outcomes scorecard or dashboard, and then a detailed internal service area scorecard or dashboard to support operational management and our budget decisions. And then embedding performance management directly within the strategic plan and its reporting cycle.

Daniel AlexanderstaffSo not unlike the previous area, we're talking about an external-internal type of arrangement where from an external technical assistance standpoint, we would get help in identifying and validating our data sources, internal, external, and benchmarked. Defining KRAs or key result areas aligned with council priorities, recommending meaningful outcomes, output, and resident experience metrics. And then the two-tier framework, the design of the two-tier framework that we mentioned, you know, from the outset, one being more strategic, still a core scorecard with high level outcomes concise comparable and decision relevant and then you know that other tier that is more internal focused which will also be a kind of a living

breathing process and adaptable to what we're seeing out in an environment and then providing general guidance on reporting cadence and and dashboard structure there's a lot of what is involved with this that lends itself to staff development and the work that we would be doing from an implementation standpoint which is owning the data governance the collection our system integration populating dashboards and and reports using data for operational management budgeting and continuous improvement and then delivering the quarterly reporting to council and an annual public summaries for us to talk about relative to not only the budget process, but as part of an ongoing cadence around performance management. So I think you know that we've started

a structure around this in terms of, you know, some of the realignment that we've done, creating position to kind of drive this, which I think will pay huge dividends for us over time. And so, you know, generally this is the approach that we're suggesting as it relates to performance Is there any questions on this piece?

Catherine ReadQuestions on this? Okay. Clear

Daniel Alexanderstaffas a bell. Very good.

MelaniestaffAnd we will move on to the efficiency study. At the retreat, Council framed the efficiency study as a comprehensive evaluation of value, capacity, and service expectations, not just cost reduction. some of the topics that were raised included an organizational structure staffing levels and alignment with service demand evaluation of long-standing contracts and our technical assistance arrangements that we have outsourcing versus in-house delivery and a comparison between our peer jurisdictions cost recovery opportunities such as user fees and enterprise style systems and services, use of physical space, telework impacts, and facility utilization, consideration of our gray and green infrastructure responsibilities,

understanding our service expectations and tradeoffs when we're adding or expanding programs, encouraging staff-driven innovation and creating incentives or recognition for efficiency and improvements, Clarifying governance and processes related to technology and the innovation committee. And reviewing council boards and commissions for effectiveness and alignment.

Daniel AlexanderstaffSo this is primarily an external model. You know, as we look at the data that's here, getting a really strong objective perspective on where we can achieve efficiencies. The focus areas are very similar to what we just covered. go into great detail on these but I think we captured a lot of the very specific things that you all mentioned in our retreat and want to be sure certainly that this meets your expectation in terms of the things that that we want to look at and if there's anything missing here please let us know if you have any questions please let us know.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Peterson?

Thomas PetersonIs this scope and focus area listing there going to be updated or at least opened for what I would call a final review bias before we jump in and get started? And that normally I would think would be a role that we would get some assistance on from a facilitator, whomever that might be. But this is sort of right now a set of things that constitute a scope. But is there anything above and beyond that that potentially we will want to be considering in terms of the scoping of this as we actually get started? I

Daniel Alexanderstaffthink

Thomas Petersonthis

Daniel Alexanderstaffis a pretty ambitious scope in a lot of ways. And I think you see some things in here, you know, as we talk about enterprise, that we're going to be doing other of work as it relates to some specific services that we provide. So candidly, it's a great question from the standpoint of, you know, and we'll talk about this later as we move forward and we engage, uh, potential contractors around this, um, you know, what, what is reasonable, what is, um, practical and what feedback can they provide about scope? And we certainly can bring that back to you from a practical standpoint of saying that this is what we can do within a reasonable time frame and anything that they may suggest as an expansion or reduction, if need be, of the scope of the work that we're doing here.

We can certainly bring it as a will to council. We can bring that back to you. I just don't want to take too much time and let grass grow too much.

Thomas PetersonIn terms of the outputs, is this an assessment plus options and possibly recommendation? Is that what this looks and feels like?

Daniel AlexanderstaffI think so. and I think is again as we look at what's available in the market for us on technical assistance then we can get we can get a better understanding of of what they typically produce this again this is a very unique scope because we took all of your your feedback and tried to put it into what amounts to a study framework so I think I think it's logical that we'd come back and talk to you again about how we intend to proceed, particularly on this piece.

Thomas PetersonOkay. Thanks.

Catherine ReadOther questions

Melaniestaffor comments on this?

Catherine ReadAll right, then.

MelaniestaffAll right. Then just wrapping up with the reminder that we would be using technical assistance on the front end. staff would own the data governance the collection the system integration the dashboard population we would envision a quarterly council reporting on strategic outcomes scorecard plus the key narrative insights and then an annual public summary which would include the progress highlights trend lines and the next year's focus areas and then the use results we would use the results to inform our budget decisions, our CIP prioritization, and continuous improvement.

Ms. ShinneberrystaffThat is all we

Melaniestaffhave. Yeah,

Daniel AlexanderstaffI

Melaniestaffthink

Daniel Alexanderstaffwe have one more slide. My

Melaniestaffapologies.

Daniel AlexanderstaffAnd this very much is a summary of essentially, you know, confirming that hybrid delivery model, particularly for strategic planning and the performance management piece. the framework around timelines and decision gates, two-tier approach to the performance management. So the efficiency scope is what it is now, but we'll come back to you, I think, particularly on that to say this is where we are. Here's some suggestions on either expanding or contracting that scope, getting concurrence from council before we proceed with that. And then any additional priorities or guardrails for procurement or schedule, We believe that there is at least you know one vendor that We could currently in essence write a contract on relative to this process and

We'll come back again to you to describe that in greater detail that makes sense

Catherine ReadCouncil member Hall

Stacy Halljust want to say thank you and that I feel like you really heard us And took everything that we said and put it into a very manageable bite-sized documents here that we can really learn from and work from and I think it's great so thank you thank you

Catherine Readother comments or questions on this well very well done obviously you did a great job as councilmember Hall said and listening and putting it all together in a very clear way that now we understand and the public understands this is available to anybody who wants to look at it and think about it further. But it's a good, it is a good blueprint. It's a good template. And it's very aspirational. So if there is nothing else, I am going to go ahead and adjourn this meeting at 9.54 p.m. on Tuesday. Thank you.

Anthony AmosThank you. Thank you.

Billy BatesThank you. Thank you.

Gwen Riddlestaffby voiceThank you. Thank you.

Catherine ReadThank you. Thank you.

Billy BatesThank you.

Thomas PetersonThank you.

Dustin WrightstaffThank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.