City Council Work Session

Catherine ReadGood evening, and I would like to call the work session of April 1st, 2025 to order. Thank you all for being here with us today to talk about the important issues surrounding our budget. I am now going to turn it over to our Deputy City Clerk, Ms. Clark.

Ms. ClarkclerkOur first work session item and only work session item is the discussion on the proposed FY26 budget. I will recognize Brian Foster, City Manager, for the discussion.

Brian FosterstaffThank you. Good evening. We are here, of course, to continue our discussions on the proposed budget. At your last work session, there was a lot of discussion about wanting to reduce the potential tax impact and how we might go about doing that. Council had previously also asked for department heads to suggest how they could do 10% reductions to their budget. So we have all the departments here are represented and can certainly answer questions that council may have. But if it is acceptable to mayor and council, this past week we've been working on some alternatives that we'd like to show you all the way up until today. I apologize for not being able to send them out ahead of time but some alternatives

That mr. Martinez can is prepared to go over this evening That can show some different ways That we can reduce the tax impact and what that how that what that would look like in terms of what would not be Included in the budget, but it would be a way to avoid having to do any type of significant cuts to department budgets and things of that nature so if council is amenable we'd like to quickly show you that before we continue our discussion

Catherine Readyes council is amenable to that mr. Martinez

JC MartinezstaffMayor, Council, thank you. As the manager, sorry, allergies are kicking in. As the manager suggested, we would like to try to present some different scenarios, but before doing that, just sort of laying down a potential starting point. To the left of the screen or on the left side of the screen are some assumptions of where we are maintaining the real estate rate as where it currently is no change to the meals tax we have seen a healthy assessment appreciation some of the other items that are listed there that is sort of the starting point in the basis of what what we did when we started the budget back a couple of months ago and given all that information on the left those assumptions it equates to about a hundred and ninety million dollars in revenues that's about

10 million dollars more than what we had budgeted for FY25. Expenditures have also increased most significantly because of the tuition contract, the potential for the school bond referendum, and then also the planned debt service payment that we've discussed previously. When you divide that $16.6 million by the current value of a penny, which is about $835,000. That equates to about $19.86 on the real estate tax rate. So again, that's sort of the starting point. And at any time, please feel free to ask questions or interrupt, and I can try to answer them while we go along. We listed some potential expenditure reductions. communicated before some of them may be new more than happy to address and or

expand on any of them that are listed there sort of the top ones on the left side again are the reductions some of you may be aware of a five million dollar transfer that happened at the end of last year from the city to the EDA for the real estate resource fund that is really an expenditure reduction that would be more of a recapture of that transfer back if need be there was an agreement that was made between the city and the EDA that allowed for that to happen so that would be something that if directed by council we could potentially do as well with those total potential reductions that's about 13 million dollars we rounded a little bit there that would be equivalent to about 15.5 cents, 15.6 cents.

When you compare the starting point to the potential reductions, that lower box in red there sort of shows what the delta would be. So we would need to cover about $3.5 million as is with no changes. It still shows that we would be short about a little over 4 cents. We go to scenario one. Scenario one would be what the city manager proposed at the end of February. In his proposed budget, he did include a 9.5% increase to the real estate tax rate, making it $1.12.5. That would generate about $8 million in additional revenue within that category. We did propose an additional 2% to the meals tax, making it from 4% to 6%. That additional increase is about $4.5 million. And then we would realize some assigned fund balance from FY25 that would be carried over into FY26 in the amount of about $4.1 million.

Everything there that it allows for would be we could start the school bond project at $3 million. The budgeted cash transfer to the CIP was $11.9. fully met as well. We'd cover the one-time debt payment. We did have some planned vacancy savings that was included in the budget that incorporates the current vacant deputy city manager. That is about four or six months, just recurring every single year throughout, not extending it but just sort of it being a natural iteration of vacancy savings that we've planned for that's about two million dollars in the plan budget we would be allowed to have a three and a half percent merit for eligible general service staff and then also the public safety plan stepped

and then the pay study specifically for the property yard individuals no reductions to the renaissance housing the non-profit or travel training and then eda would maintain that five million dollars in the real estate resource fund to the right of the screen top right is sort of budget as proposed with revenues and expenditures equaling, meaning there is no delta. Again this is what was proposed on I think February 25th, at the end of February. Scenario two, this is a new scenario that we sort of just put together. Again this is not necessarily a give and take, this is just more of information sort of giving you how things would look like look like at different either real estate rate increases and

or meals tax increases as well in this scenario it would be a seven and a half cent increase to the real estate tax rate making it a dollar ten and a half the associated revenue with that is a little over six million dollars a one and a half cent increase in addition to the four percent meals tax making it 5.5 again a little over 3.3 million we would carry over a smaller amount of unassigned fund balance from fy 25 to 26 that'd be another 3.3 net change in revenue from scenario one to scenario two is a decrease of about 3.6 and we would have to at this point utilize a portion of that potential expenditure reductions that we covered in one of the first slides of about 3.6 million from the EDA estate resource fund again that would be

needed to ensure that we balance our revenues with our expenditures which they do do on the right hand side there in scenario three further reduction to the real estate tax rate dropping it from the proposed nine and a half to five and a half cents a one percent additional increase to the meals tax bringing it from four to five percent you can see the associated revenues that these changes would do again try to carry over a little over two million dollars from fy25 to fy26 from an assigned fund balance the delta between scenario scenario one and scenario three is about another $7.2 million in these decreased revenues. At this time, we would have to realize, or it's proposed to realize, all of the $5,000

from the EDA real estate resource fund. We would now have to tap into some other potential reductions, about 1.9 reduction in the cash transfer. the minimum given the total expenditures because it's a percentage of that amount and five percent of that which is about ten million so the difference from what was budgeted is what the Delta would be here which is about 1.9 that we would potentially could or we could potentially reduce if need be from what was budgeted from FY 26 and then additionally we would reduce collectively about $317,000 to $318,000 from travel and training from all departments, not one specific one, but collectively we would go through that process and see where we can take out that amount.

That was also part of that 10% reduction exercise that was provided to council last week. moving on to scenario four potential three and a half cent increase to the real estate tax rate making it a dollar six and a half from where we currently are the associated sorry the associated revenue with that a half cent a half percent increase additional to the meals tax rate making at four and a half percent brings in another about 1.1 million dollars again a little less transfer from fy25 assigned fund balance and then the net change there is almost 11 million dollars in reduction of revenue from scenario one to scenario four we would keep on adding other potential expenditure reductions at this point again five million dollars from the eda real estate resource

fund the minimum cash transfer increased ever so slightly because the total expenditure amount decrease and it's a percentage of that so that amount change ever so slightly going up defer school bond project for about seven months which equates to about seven 1.7 million dollars freeze non urgent vacancies for an entire year that's in addition to the planned current vacancies that's already planned that we would be realizing about two million dollars another 300 or 400 000 about for no renaissance housing funding a reduction of 300 000 to the non-profit grants program and then again a reduction to the totality of travel training within the city of about three hundred and twenty six thousand dollars that makes our revenues

and our expenditures balance at a hundred and ninety six million dollars those would be the potential effects on the left-hand side the last scenario here scenario five would be a two and a half cent increase to the real estate tax rate making the new potential rate a dollar five and a half and the associated revenue that that would happen there is about two million dollars no change to the meals tax and then a smaller reduced amount from FY 25 assigned fund balance coming over from FY 25 to FY 26 about 1.2 million there significant reduction in revenue from scenario one which was a city manager's proposed budget to this scenario scenario five in this scenario we would every single potential expenditure reduction to its max five million dollars from the eda

we would defer the schools in totality for one year that's three million dollars there the minimum cash transfer amount would be 2.2 million dollars freeze all non-urgent vacancies for the year no merit or step increase for personnel within the city we would reduce travel and training to its totality of $535,000. No pay study implementation for the property yard of $500,000. The Renaissance Housing and the nonprofit grants would also see no funding for FY26. On the right, please note that there would be a slight positive variance in reductions of revenues to expenditures. This is just to highlight if we were to BASICALLY WE WOULD NEED TO AT LEAST GET ABOUT 2.2 CENTS TO BREAK EVEN. THAT'S WHAT THAT $400,000 DIFFERENCE WOULD BE THERE OR SO.

HAPPY TO TAKE ANY QUESTIONS. THAT WAS THE LAST SLIDE.

Catherine ReadTHANK YOU, MR. MARTINEZ. DO WE HAVE QUESTIONS FROM THE DAIS FOR MR. MARTINEZ? COUNCIL MEMBER HALL.

Stacy HallCAN YOU PLEASE EXPAND WHAT'S INCLUDED IN THE $300,000 FOR NONPROFIT?

Speaker 18the list to see what that was. That was a new program that was started this year where nonprofits could apply for a grant from between I think $15,000 to $25,000. They went through an entire process to review them. There was a team, city team, and they gave out a little less than $200,000 this year. And the nonprofits get it in two pieces. Okay,

Stacy Hallso specifically that was Bright Path. It's not the City of Fairfax banned.

Speaker 18No, no, this is a dedicated nonprofit that they had to apply for. So it has nothing to do with City ban, the FALFA books, or anything that's already in the parks budget. This is a human services. Thank you.

Brian FosterstaffMayor, may I? Yes, Mr. Foster. Just to help clarify, so Mr. Martinez went through all of the lists. of the various scenarios, and of course, those are just ones that we came up with, and there certainly could be different permutations with all of those. The thing I would mention, two things I would mention. First is we're still able, for the most part, we would still be maintaining all services that we currently provide at their current service levels, so it's not impacting that because it's not reducing any staff or programmatic funding that was included in the budget. But the other piece that it does not do is we had been trying to program in or did program in recurring funding for future debt service.

It's building that capacity. So you don't get that in these, or it keeps getting reduced. So we would have the equivalent of about two and a half cents of debt capacity with this, assuming you don't fund any of those things in the future. So obviously you're going to, presumably we're going to fund the school's bond process and some of the other things that are in there, which would take away that two and a half cents because you would need it to fund those things. So it would not give you the debt capacity that we have talked about previously, but it is a way to minimize the impact to service delivery that we're currently doing. So it doesn't reduce programs. And so the 10% scenario, if you've all reviewed that, obviously there was had to be because of the magnitude, you know, service reductions or program reductions.

So this is able, any of those scenarios, to keep those at their current level. So I just wanted to clarify that.

Catherine ReadOkay, appreciate that. Other questions? Councilmember Hull.

Stacy HallThank you. I should have said thank you for doing this. I know this is an extraordinary amount of work, but it's very much appreciated. May I ask how the school board feels about a seven-month delay versus a one-year delay since we have our chair pitches here? Not to put you on the spot, but... I would just say that in terms of the delay,

Speaker 7with every delay comes an increase in the prices of the materials and the labor. We saw that when we did the concession stand from the time it was approved until it got built. The cost of it went up exponentially. So, and now with the tariffs, I'm not so sure we're, honestly, I just can't, how do I feel about it? There's so many other things up in the air with cost of whatever, all these things is going to be seven months a year from now. Could be better if we wait a year. It could be three times more expensive. It's, right now I would say it's a gamble. Can

Stacy Hallyou expand exactly on what the $3 million is going to initially? Yeah.

Speaker 7JC, do you want to talk a little bit more about that since that's the beginning?

JC MartinezstaffCorrect. That's like

Speaker 7the design and all of that.

JC MartinezstaffSo in discussions with the superintendent and also with Mosley and their cash flow forecast, it's my understanding that the initial allocation is really more for design, community engagement, the very beginning stages of what it would take to go ahead and start the whole process going forward. And that is sort of like the minimum that would be needed in year one. It escalates very quickly in year two. But again, it's more about concept design, community engagement within that first year.

Stacy HallOkay. And so to that point, then, it's more of an engagement process. It's more of a conversation. It's more about learning what we need, what we see. taking into consideration actual costs of renovation moving forward yet this is just the let's have the conversation about it

Speaker 7yes but the design all of those things will cost money i i of course those are not affected by things like uh taxes and terror you know all those things but um

Stacy Hallright but we're still looking at where we want something to be versus yes the two by four is needed to build that thing right then and there

Speaker 7yes and keep in mind that a school renovation SO EVERY TIME YOU PUT IT OFF, WE'RE TALKING, YOU KNOW, THAT YEAR, TWO YEARS, YOU'RE PUSHING OFF THE SCHOOLS BEING DONE 10 YEARS FROM NOW. THEY'RE ALREADY 25 YEARS OLD. THEY WILL BE 35 YEARS OLD BY THE TIME IT'S COMPLETE. AND WE'RE LOOKING

Stacy HallMORE LIKE THE COUNTY THEN. THANK YOU. YES.

Catherine ReadCOUNCIL MEMBER HARDY CHANDLER.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerI TOO WANT TO EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE FOR GOING THROUGH THESE SCENARIOS. my interest is not only in the immediate savings, but as I've explained before, the longer-term consequences. Can you explain a little bit more about, well, certainly specifically the real estate EDA resource funds and what might be some of the longer-term implications of that, but are any of these scenarios also impacting things like our bond rating and to what extent some of those longer-term things are impacted.

JC MartinezstaffSure. Let me speak to the easy one, which is the bond rating. I would say, and I have not ran through this with Davenport, but I would say that any scenario that is listed here or that was presented and discussed would not negatively impact our bond rating in the immediate short term. there may be and I think the manager sort of hinted at this every scenario going down from what the city manager proposed is now sort of diluting our long-term dedicated revenue which would be required specifically to fund an issue debt either for the 220 million dollars that has been approved via the bond referendum for schools and or any CIP projects that we adopt and wants to the near term meaning the next two three or four or five years

as i tried to hope and communicated the bond rating and the debt issuers they focus on dedicated recurring funding streams very similar to when we go ask for a loan from the bank they review your financials they want to know that you have financial history and depending on how much you That's sort of where the upper limit of what your loan would be kind of the same thing in a very simplified way for the city so The director of economic development is here if I can ask Chris to sort of come up and expand a little bit more on the second tougher question for me specifically on the EDA resource real estate fund

ChrisstaffGood, thank you. So the real estate resource fund is actually internally within the EDA known as the real estate opportunity fund it functions in parallel next to the economic opportunity fund which is a pool of funding available to the EDA commissioners to invest in this case in property acquisition or redevelopment projects there had been one that was moving forward and we are sort of lightly still involved in it although it does not look like it will require the full amount of funding but some level of funding is still I think hopefully required so that the city and the economic development agency can participate in a future redevelopment project is

Catherine Readthat everything okay councilmember Amos yeah

Anthony Amosif you could just elaborate more on that because I mean we're examining this I'm assuming at it on a recurring standpoint. So what are the factors versus, and I have two questions, so this is just the first one only directed at you, reduction rather than the full amount?

ChrisstaffSo with the Real Estate Opportunity Fund, these funds were initially intended to sit in sort of this bucket, and the commissioners would determine what level would be invested in any particular project at any point in time. with any you know investment fund if if it's reduced it removes the Commissioner's ability to make those future investments but I I do think as JC mentioned most of the proposals before you tonight maintain the same or equivalent level of services for economic development that are funded by other sources of funding not in that bucket

Anthony Amosmy second question is more CIP related which I know my colleague Councilmember Hall wanted to get to at some point tonight as do I. Overall we need to have a discussion on our debt capacity and reducing it for the future which includes reexamining our CIP projects and so I asked it via email and so I wanted to follow up here because that was what was recommended. Do we have something that would tell us what CIP projects have been deferred before by other councils and for how long? Do I projects have been deferred for 10 plus years that we need to get to versus something that's never been deferred before and that might be able to wait until we can focus on prioritizing the school bond

JC MartinezstaffI think there was a tentative answer to that email we don't have a defined spreadsheet or tracking of what in my two plus years of being here i do not recall a single project that's been deferred for longer than two or three years there has been discussion with uh this on on the van dyke park that has sort of been pushed off for the couple of years not because of funding but just because of capacity specifically on that project there's been discussion about the property yard as well that is now sort of coming into fruition where we have a better estimate of what that's going to cost. There are other projects very similar to that where as they become more realized and we have more information and can project and predict better, then they get added to the list.

I can share with you, and it was in the manager's presentation at the end of February, where there was an initial discussion and proposal for FY26 that was presented to the Planning Commission. Since that introduction of the proposed draft CIP, there were changes, pretty significant changes, almost $30 million in deferrals and or reductions. I can share that list with you and bring up the manager's proposed FY26 budget presentation that showed those lists, those projects specifically but that is more just for the current cycle

Anthony Amoslast question and yes please do one more time and last question I wanted to know if we have an update on the PPA for the fire station and or potential for PPA with schools in the school bond

JC MartinezstaffI can answer the information for the fire station that will be presented to council I think at the April 11th work session if I'm not mistaken the Public Works of Fire Department and Procurement and Finance will be present and do a full evaluation and update of where we are with Fire Station 3 in that we did get one response back from our informal request for information and we will be providing that information to council at that time.

Anthony AmosPart of the reason why I bring that up is because I also do know that there were some industry people who contacted me saying that they weren't the day it closed so there may be more appetite than we realize so it may be worth reopening if we don't like what we initially see um but i'd also like to see where we can explore that with our other facilities and cips moving forward i understood

Brian Fosterstaffand just a quick clarification or um regarding the five million for the ed that was a one-time expenditure that is not a recurrent so that that was one time that was done in December not that it can't be done again in the future but there's no that that money is you won't see that in the budget because it was done in back and back in December so it's not a recurring five million just for clarity okay

Catherine Readcouncilmember McQuillan

Rachel McQuillenjust wanted to echo what councilmember Emma said about THE P.P.A. P.P.A. SORRY. MY BRAIN IS NOT. I TOO WANT TO GET MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THAT. I THINK THAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT FOR US TO DISCUSS AND GET AN UPDATE ON. THANK YOU.

Catherine ReadCOUNCIL MEMBER PETERSEN.

Thomas PetersonTHANK YOU. YOU'VE BEEN BUSY. THAT'S PRETTY CLEAR. WE APPRECIATE ALL YOUR HARD WORK ON THIS. I KNOW A LOT GOES INTO THIS. STILL A BIT So thanks a couple things before I ask a CIP question or two for our school board chair And this may be as a question that director summers or others who are veterans of the world of construction can answer here, but The 3 million that would be spent up front on the school design it it's an opportunity. I think as we have in capital intensive infrastructure project that we undertake to forecast where we're headed in terms of prices, whether it's construction materials, et cetera, and hedge, you know, see whether we can actually get options and things that will control some of the risk for inflation. And obviously,

it's a big issue right now with so many balls in the air. Just as a matter of practice, are we using financial mechanisms to try to buy down some of the inflation risk that we're looking into for these kinds of expenditures going forward?

Dave SummersstaffSomewhat. I would say that the most important thing for that initial school board money is the detailed evaluation of the needs. I think so far it's been somewhat of a preliminary evaluation the facilities and I know that some of my staff will be working closely with the school board during the detailed evaluation of the needs to try and get more clarity on what needs to be done. But as far as your question, yes, we always look at options as far as materials when we do something like this. I know I do that with the construction projects.

JC MartinezstaffAnd if I could just expand, so specifically Forella was, I want to say, subcontracted or collaborated with Mosley on the feasibility study. They did a very robust projection that incorporated either a 4% or 5% inflation year-over-year projection in these numbers. So that has already been embedded in the $220 million projection going forward. That is up to what was discussed from FY26 to about FY31. anything beyond that then those projections are not as accurate because they didn't they didn't forecast inflation beyond FY 31 so to the school board chairs earlier comment about inflation pushing it off that that's sort of what would need to be taken into consideration if we don't meet within that certain defined timeframe that was presented to us

Thomas Petersonbut to a certain extent we've anticipated best as possible some of that in the Delta. And then we have mechanisms that we're already using to try to hedge some of this with options. And I think the detail, if I understand correctly, that we get from this first phase is exactly what enables us to even be more effective at doing that. So it sounds like there's a little bit of active management that could be applied to these deferral decisions on these capital intensive things, if I hear it right. Yes, sir. Okay, second question since we have you. And on the capital improvement budgets, the reductions in the minimum cash transfers, how much does the change in our expenditure on capital improvement cash transfers

affect our staffing needs and in particular our overtime needs? Do we see a drawdown, a backdown of the expenditures that are necessary in staffing in general and overtime in particular? And if so, is that part of the minimum cash transfer we see here? Or is that resulting in a savings somewhere else in the budget?

Dave SummersstaffI could talk about my capital projects. A lot of my capital projects do require overtime because a lot of the work is done at night. and there's a lot of oversight. So CIP projects that public, a lot of the CIP projects that Public Works does, if they are deferred or reduced, there will be a reduction on overtime and oversight costs from the staff. And just if people are looking for projects, I went through my CIP projects with my key staff, and if we are looking at deferring some CIP projects in public works I'm happy to offer some that I feel would be the least impactful.

Thomas PetersonAnd thank you because I certainly would be interested I presume others would as well to have a better feel from the perspective of all of the department heads on where you would see the best opportunities for these reductions in CIP if you had your magic you could offer that advice from where you sit. It would be very helpful. But just so I understand, I don't know what the total pool of overtime is in the city, and I don't know how much of a dent occurs if we shrink CIP. Does anybody have somewhat of an estimate?

Stacy HallI believe it was about $377,000 per month overall, but that didn't. It wasn't real obvious where it all came from or what could be manipulated.

Dave SummersstaffWell, a lot of my overtime is unforeseen. It's a traffic signal that goes down at night from a storm or something that happens at night with the utility. So I can tell you here that, okay, yeah, maybe my overtime is reduced a certain amount by taking out these CIPs, maybe 10%, 15%. But I don't know how the year is going to go. And it's quite possible things happen during the year that I have to take care of using overtime. Even the refuse crew sometimes has to clean up something after an accident on overtime. So it's hard for me to gauge exactly what the overtime savings will be.

Thomas PetersonAnd how much is your share of Citi overtime?

Dave SummersstaffProbably the largest share because of the things we do, If a pump station goes down in wastewater, we have to get that fixed right away. If there's a guardrail that's damaged or a bridge or some kind of safety issue, if there's something with the traffic signals, if there's something with the concrete repair or a retaining wall, the city is used to us taking care of this right away. Right away. I mean, that's kind of one of our things we offer is we take care of it immediately. I can call somebody 24-7 and they will get a crew out there to fix it. It's been the history of the city to do that.

JC MartinezstaffI'm sorry, if I could just add. We developed, and I thought we forwarded a three-year or four-year look back and then also did a comparison of where we were year-to-date with our overtime. Public Works is a portion of that. They are not the largest. actually it's public safety who is the largest specifically police then fire then public works and then parks and safety and then it dwindles down tremendously from there into mr. Summers remark a lot of public works and parks and recreation there are overtimes associated with either special events and or in this case this recent year with snow removal and or treatment of the roads that was unfortunately more this year than we've had in the past few

years so that's where the majority of the overtime happens from the general fund specifically there is some CIP those get charged back to the project that's budgeted in there but to your point councilmember Peterson if the project did not exist we would not have those associated overtime costs within those CIP projects.

Thomas PetersonAnd is there as we speak now a strategy or a set of scenarios on managing overtime that we could be made aware of? There's some potential. I understand there are limits to that as well, but is that something that has been a focal point of these reduction strategies? yeah

Dave SummersstaffI'm very careful with spending overtime in fact for instance a good example would be depending on who was my city manager certain city managers if they saw illegal signs in the right of way like mattress sales or something or maybe an empty shopping cart they would want me to get somebody out there to get it and that's an overtime cost other city managers would say okay leave it there until Monday and get it on Monday. Anything safety related, I'm required by the city code and by my license to take care of it immediately. But there are times where the overtime is basically a decision on whether to use it or not.

Thomas PetersonWell, and I'm going to yield my time and reserve the opportunity to come back for more questions later. But just at a big picture, I am curious, when we We were together last time, I think it was, and I think, Director Summers, you were actually going through some of the responses that you had developed to the request for taking a look at a 10% reduction in activities. But if I understood it correctly, at the time you said that that did not include CIP. Is that correct?

Dave Summersstaffwe had been given was not looking at the CIP and city manager. It was just operating.

Thomas PetersonIs there a reason it wasn't including everything?

Brian FosterstaffThe CIP is not part of their departmental budget it's separate because it's done by project and again so the was to look at their operating budgets so that's the 10% that That was the 10% we looked at.

Thomas PetersonWas anybody looking at CIP and a 10% goal on 10? I guess I had been under the impression that the request was comprehensive and for us to find a way to do that. It sounds like we're now beginning to see some materialization of that in the scenarios here, but it seems to me that's a fairly important part of this overall search for reduction.

Stacy HallI would absolutely agree with you as the person who kind of initiated the request I I didn't realize that I was excluding or only asking for operating in my request so I was really happy that Mr. Summers brought that up at the last meeting because I think that that's such a huge part of our budget that again we only know what we know at this point and we're trying to dig in deeper but I was very disappointed that that was not something that was suggested by the city manager to be included?

Brian FosterstaffWell, again, the 10%, again, the only way you're, again, reducing the CIP for balancing the current budget is the cash transfer. That's the, I've said, I've been consistent. With the projects, deferring or canceling projects absolutely has a positive impact on future spending in future years. But to balance the FY26 budget, It doesn't matter what you do in the CIP unless you reduce the cash transfer.

Stacy HallTrue as that may be, we're also in the book here coming up with an exercise per the proposed budget to create $9.8 million recurring revenue each year moving forward to prepare ourselves for future CIP things. So if we don't look at the CIP, then maybe we don't need $9.8 million, and we need 5.6 or 2.1 or some other variation. So to me, we're kind of looking at part of the apples, not all the apples, and maybe not even a consideration for the bananas that are factoring into our budget on an annual basis.

Thomas PetersonSo just to conclude my point, I do think it would be enormously helpful, and if possible this evening, for Director Summers and everybody else who is able to share Any thoughts that you have now on CIP reduction opportunities, recognizing there's a direct and indirect cost implication for them? It could be quite significant.

Dave SummersstaffIf willing, I'm happy to go through my list. Page 32, property yard maintenance. FY 26 amount was $605,000. I am comfortable that we could reduce that by 50,000.

Stacy HallI'm sorry, what?

Speaker 28I don't think our page numbers are

Stacy Halllining up.

Dave SummersstaffOh, 10. That would be 10.

Stacy HallOkay, thank you.

Dave SummersstaffI believe I could reduce that 50. page 31 city hall interior maintenance FY 26 request was 125,000 I believe we could reduce that another 50,000 $50,000 that was page 31 city hall maintenance interior reduction of 50,000 they're off by a page sorry this is what I printed out you

Stacy Hallsaid City Hall maintenance interior yes

Dave Summersstaff25

Stacy Hallokay

Dave Summersstaffnext one my page is 32 it's the it's the downtown clock replacement for 42 000 in fy26 i believe that could be deferred one year the next project i have is page 50 it's the blenheim interpretive center parking lot construction fy26 request was six hundred thousand dollars i believe that could be deferred one year

Stacy Hallcan you go back to the page 10 and 32 just what the years were for that was that also one year

Dave Summersstaffeverything is yeah everything is one year that's why 26 um a question on the parking

Billy Bateslot project i read that it says well it says right there this project as originally proposed is no longer needed um can you uh clarify that for us um the end of the first paragraph And that, yeah, historic resources will collaborate with Parks and Rec and Public Works to develop a maintenance plan and schedule for parking lot that is more environmentally friendly than originally proposed.

Dave SummersstaffI'm not sure what the question is.

Billy BatesWell, so what exactly is this funding for?

Dave SummersstaffIt's to pave that. It's to pave that parking lot and do some stormwater work so it doesn't continue to erode.

Ms. ClarkclerkHow is it originally?

Dave SummersstaffIt's gravel, and we feel that we could maintain the gravel surface for another year. It's not ideal, but I feel like in this type of economic times, we could maintain this gravel parking lot for another year, and if the funds are there, we'll do the work in FY27.

Stacy HallI think what they're saying is... This project,

Rachel McQuillenas originally proposed, is no longer needed. Why does it say that? if it's in the CIP does is the project no longer needed is the like as

Dave Summersstafffar as I know the the project is still needed

Speaker 18well yeah

Gwen Riddlestaffit's moved departments but I believe this predates me as well is it was originally proposed to do more of a concrete asphalt parking lot and making some changes to that design so it reduced the cost the way so the way it was originally proposed wasn't needed but it still needed to be done as you can see from the

Speaker 18pictures with the the cracks and things that still need to be taken care of

Stacy Hallso what you're saying is 600 is the revised cost. Okay.

Catherine ReadSo, Council Member Hardy-Chandler is asking, you know, these proposed deferments, could we get a summary of those that you're proposing just as a sort of a easier to follow, I mean, after this meeting? Of course. After this meeting, if you could just, all the things you're going over, if you could just give us a snapshot?

Dave SummersstaffAbsolutely.

Catherine ReadAnd,

Anthony AmosMayor, if I can add, I don't want just pick on director summers I think we should get that from all the proposals and assess that overall not just one department

Dave Summersstaffokay I have about seven left should I continue

Stacy Hallyes please

Dave Summersstaffpage 98 in in my book pedestrian bridge repair and replacement FY 26 request was 200,000 I believe we could reduce that to 100,000

Anthony Amosis that recurring 100

Thomas Peterson,000

Dave Summersstaffno no FY 27 I would want to pull them out this is just FY 26 page 108 independent roadway evaluation my FY 26 request was 65,000 I could reduce that to 30,000 page 123 upgrade traffic signals FY 26 request was 250,000 I can reduce that 50,000 down to 200,000 page 130 historic district, public amenities, and right-of-way. FY26 request was $60,000. I believe I could reduce that to $30,000. And that's for like pots and bike racks and different things in the Old Town area. Page 132 in my book, Concrete Curb and Gutter Maintenance. I believe I could reduce that from $2,100,000. However, I will need $50,000 added to my operating budget for maintaining these areas. So I guess a total savings of $150,000.

But what I'm saying is take $200,000 from the capital request, but put $50,000 in my operating budget so I can maintain what I'm deferring. Same thing with page 134, my annual paving, which my request is $1,200,000. Reduce the CIP by $200,000 but add $50,000 to my operating budget so the roads I'm deferring I could patch and crack seal to make them last another year because I'm deferring some work. Page 155, brick sidewalk and crosswalk maintenance. My FY26 request is $420,000. I can reduce that $50,000. Keep it by, and I talk to all my supervisors about these cuts, making sure that we can still maintain the infrastructure properly. Page 156 in my book, City Sidewalk Handicap Ramp Replacement Program.

FY26 request of $140,000. I can reduce that $50,000. And that's the end of my list. And I'm happy to put that in an email to the finance director and city manager.

Catherine ReadAbsolutely. That would be incredibly helpful for us to be able to follow all of those.

Stacy HallWhat was your total for that? Did you know offhand?

Dave SummersstaffIt's around $2 million, I believe.

Stacy HallThank you.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Bates.

Billy BatesThank you. First off, I just wanted to add that my understanding was that the request was specifically for department heads to reduce their departmental budgets. My understanding is that the CIP fund is totally separate from departmental budgets. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. So I certainly would not fault staff for that.

Stacy HallYou can fault me as a council member for being brand new and thinking I was asking for a 10% overall, but not actually getting it.

Catherine Readrules of order just just for something fun to do tonight so if you'd like to be recognized be recognized thank you councilmember Bates you have the floor

Billy Batesit was not my intention calling anybody out on that I just you know I was afraid that we were sending the message that you know staff was being criticized and that was not something that I wanted to leave us with the impression of so Additionally, the $1 million freeze of non-urgent positions, vacant positions, I recall I asked about that earlier on in the year, and it sounded like aside from perhaps the deputy city manager position, a lot of those were police positions. So now, I know that was a while ago, what are we looking at in that $1 million? Are there any police or fire positions? I'm assuming that the deputy city manager position is in there.

Brian FosterstaffIt is. You're correct. So I think the term we used, we were trying to come up with an appropriate term. I think we settled on non-urgent. But basically, so public safety positions, we would consider those to be an urgent position to fill. Yeah, as an example. Certain positions in public works would be, for example, our fleet mechanics that need to take care of our infrastructure. But if there were, say, certain administrative positions or other things that became vacant, those were the types of positions that would freeze. We have not developed a list. So I can't say it would be these, not these. that would be something if we need to do if that was one of the options that we need to pursue we could certainly do that but again and it's just a best

guess but we already have vacant so this is in addition to the vacancy savings which which is sort of our normal management tool this would basically be an intentional a position becomes vacant you cannot fill it for six months or time, that's how that would work. But again, we would not anticipate certainly public safety would not be in there and certain other key positions that we need to function.

Billy BatesAll right. That's all I have for now. Thanks.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerCouncilmember Hardy Chandler. To follow up on Councilmember Bates' question, if we can go back to Scenario 5, I have a lot of concerns about that bullet point and below I did have a question about what the sort of rubric was that was determining non-urgent and that was helpful city manager I think I just have a lot of concerns about the things below that because even though we have the quantity of the savings I don't think we can certainly capture the quality of the savings when people are not getting merit or their training is reduced or they're not getting the step up or even the non-profits having visited a non-profit that's been a recipient i know that that has a as i mentioned before very high return on investment so i appreciate i do believe scenario

three or above because the ones again regarding well maybe it isn't completely three or some variation on that but the ones from the I'm on the fence with the with the non-urgent vacancies because I also know that when a position is not filled that work then becomes the burden of the remaining staff and you know it's hard to capture the morale impact in those kinds of things. So I think I really appreciate the questions that have been asked. I just have real concerns and would urge consideration of the qualitative potential impacts of some of those staff implications that I think really, although they don't immediately reduce services, they still can have a rippling effect that actually do end up impacting services in some ways.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Peterson.

Thomas PetersonI am wondering whether Director Summerfield might be able to share some of your thoughts about both the general operating aspects of your programs, but also all of the ties to CIP and how we might be thinking in terms of opportunities for that entire set of things.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffYeah. Do you have a specific... Do you want me to do CIP? I mean, there's certainly some reductions that can be made.

Thomas PetersonWhat would help me, and I can't speak on behalf of others, kind of give us a quick thumbnail kind of big picture on how you think about the major areas that then you kind of look at more carefully when you go through this thought process

Ms. Summerfieldstaffyeah I think the biggest thing much like Dave we look at safety first so making sure that all of our parks and facilities are maintained at high safety standards we are required to do a lot of inspections and to have people with specific certifications on staff and so and also do a certain amount of maintenance and repairs to things like playgrounds sports facilities various park items as well as just tree maintenance and things like that so safety is always the first priority and not something that we want to cut and then i think within our cip we have a lot of potential parks plans there's been a lot of momentum since getting the theis pro theis park project off the ground in redeveloping some spaces around the city.

So within our CIP, we have a plan in for, our money set aside for a Pat Rodeo plan, a Westmore school site plan. There's a number of different sites that have parks plans that we could certainly defer. And so those are all amounts, so I can certainly go through the CIP and pull those out. As far as the exercise, we did it through just looking at programming because we are the Parks Department we have a lot of different programming that occurs and so we were able to do our 10% reduction without staff impacts as far as having to eliminate positions we do a lot of our labor for especially special events is temp overtime and part-time labor so it doesn't affect our general staffing but affect our amount that we're paying for temp and overtime staffing.

Thomas PetersonAnd if I could just before you hop in or are allowed to hop in, ask, I think I saw a worksheet that you had developed that focused on festivals just as one example of things to do. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and what that opportunity set looks like and for that?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffYeah, so we, I sat down with all of our division heads, we have six divisions, and we looked at ways to strategically cut the 10% that would certainly affect the community, but limited the effects to the best way we could. So we tried to take cuts out of every division. I would say the smallest group was our senior programming, simply because there is the proposed senior membership as far as this year's rates and we didn't want to both in like to put forth a $60 a year membership fee and then reduce hours that were open so that seemed like a tough one so under special events we looked at reducing eliminating history day that is a combination earth day history day event we used to have a standalone earth day event we combined with

young families to that event movies under the moon which are free movies in the park we eliminated the fishing derby the extreme egg hunt the Labor Day car show support we did all of those as they were kind of smaller events the largest one that you'll certainly see on there is the fourth of July evening show we did that simply because it is an in a large expenditure of overtime and staff at maybe just retaining the parade and then eliminating the evening show just to show kind of what that overall cost is. It's nearly $200,000. MR.

Thomas PetersonAnd do you have a summary for the CIP just as Director Summers, I think, was offering that would sort of summarize what the potential for those adjustments might be that we could see? MS.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffI don't, I can certainly send Council one. I don't have a total. MR. do have ones that I've earmarked as potentially available to defer or yeah defer and then I would say at the beginning of this budget process JC and I worked together to defer the Van Dyke redevelopment project by two years out to FY 28 and that was driven largely by the potential Willard Sherwood project and so the Willard Sherwood facility would change the way that that space is there and a number of other programs so once that project was completed looking at then starting Van Dyke Park so both of those are not running simultaneously and

Thomas Petersoncan I understand that Willard Sherwood project how does that fit into FY 26 and I know there's a beyond but is that part of the opportunity that possibly we have here for some adjustment

Ms. SummerfieldstaffI'm gonna grab Brooke because he has been for the Willard Sherwood?

Brooke HardinstaffSo the request in the FY26 CIP is for $9 million. For Willard Sherwood, this would be year five of the funding, totaling $56 million overall. all we are at about 80% construction drawings at this point so we're still working on what the final number will be at this point the estimates have us tracking below that 56 million that has been included what what we would do is toward the end of this year we would come to council with what's known as a maximum price because this project would be constructed through the construction manager at risk process so we already have the contractor on board he's working with the design team and making recommendations on material choices and value engineering and all those sorts of aspects so at that point the council

would know what the final figure is for construction on that project unlike a typical design bid bid build process we will know that soon hopefully within the next you know eight months has

Thomas Petersonthere been any consideration as a part of this budget process of looking at at least just at a conceptual level alternate design scenarios that might actually be at a smaller scale or something that change the financial outlays associated with that?

Brooke HardinstaffI mean, there were a number of alternatives that were examined through the design process, and council made a decision on the, after the conceptual stage on what the team has moved forward with, and so certainly there were decisions along the way in that regard, and the team has looked at, again, value engineering throughout the project to try to lower costs to the greatest extent possible.

Thomas PetersonBut theoretically, there's still an opportunity. Should the council be interested in design modification? Sure, yes. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCan I ask a question about the fee for the senior center? because I do think there's a lot of interest and people need to more clarity on why this fee is being proposed, where we are now with that, and sort of the reciprocity agreement between the city and the county vis-a-vis, you know, being able to use all the centers. You went over that, but I think there's a lot of questions in the community about it.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffYes. So they're included in the rates and levies as a $60 yearly membership fee. Currently there is not, for any of the programming within the city for the Parks and Rec Department, there is not a resident, non-resident fee in the way that it's city versus county. So, and I've been talking to Mr. Lubkerman today to determine whether or not there's a formal arrangement. but when I arrived here, a reciprocity agreement was always the way it was phrased because city residents can utilize county recreation for the same price as county members. And so we offer the same reciprocity to county members who come to city programs. Now, there are ways that we do try to give city members benefit in the way that our summer camp,

first registration for bus trips for the senior center you get first registration for those and I know there's been a little confusion with the Vienna programming because the town of Vienna has its own community center that is separate from the county and so some of our seniors do participate in the Vienna programming but that is not a reciprocity agreement because it is town of Vienna's individual community center that is outside the county

Catherine Readso that's a little confusing

Ms. Summerfieldstaffextremely confusing and honestly a lot of our seniors and even for summer camp we talked to a lot of people who are unclear if they live in the city

Catherine Readokay I think that's that's important thank you and mr. Hardin on the Willard Sherwood Center as far as what we do we do it in collaboration with the county it is a project governed by a contract and an agreement is that correct

Brooke Hardinstaffthat that's correct

Catherine Readso we would not be unilaterally making decisions unless it was perhaps space specifically for the city I mean when councilmember Peterson says you know what opportunities are there can you just be a little more clear about what the city has purview over in that project

Brooke Hardinstaffso in terms of the space breakdown the city has about 42 percent of the space in the building county 58% we have moved through the process designing you know in concert but you know could there be opportunities to redesign some of the city spaces could there be opportunities to make some different choice in terms of architecture or you know materials on the exterior of the building those are decisions that will come before before the council for decisions and so there certainly could be opportunities at that point it again we're at we're at 80% construction drawing so anything that that would that would would change the program that that the design team has been working on the city would have to

you know, on its own, as that would be, you know, outside of the scope of what we've tasked the design team with. But there's certainly that potential, if that's something that council wanted to take a look at.

Catherine ReadWell, let's stick a pin in the concept that if we make changes, it's on our nickel, above what has been decided jointly in all of this. Right, so changes would be on our nickel. And you said $9 million left, but in what budget year will that drawdown or allocation take place?

Brooke HardinstaffWell, I may look at finance to help me with this. The $9 million is an allocation in the FY26 CIP. It's the fifth year that the project has been funded. We are doing the procurement in conjunction with Fairfax County. They actually are the lead in terms of the design and the construction process. We would be providing allocations to the county to pay. I think there's been some maybe preliminary conversation between finance staff from city and county to see what that drawdown would be. but it would likely not be all at one time.

Catherine ReadYeah, that's what I'm kind of getting at. Is it $9 million coming out in one budget year? Are we talking a portion in this budget year and possibly the remainder in the following budget year?

Gwen RiddlestaffI mean, up to date, we've only expended about $4 million, a little over $4 million for this project, and we have over almost $40 million budgeted, so it's been a very small amount. I'm assuming the mass majority will not be expended until construction starts or is in process.

Catherine ReadOkay.

Gwen RiddlestaffI'm not sure of the agreement of when we have to, if we're paying directly or if we're paying through the county.

Catherine ReadAnd when do you think construction is going to start, Mr. Harden?

Brooke HardinstaffAnticipated first quarter of calendar year 26.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerOkay. Okay.

Brooke HardinstaffAbout a two-year-ish construction timeline for that project.

Catherine ReadOkay, thank you. Council Member Amos.

Anthony AmosI guess to build on that question, my understanding was that there were also ARPA funds involved in this. Are there any anticipated impacts because of that?

JC MartinezstaffSo there was an error a few years ago when ARPA was identified for this project. It was not communicated with the county that the city wanted to utilize ARPA funds. So when the county went out for bid, they did not put in certain disclosure and language that would be required for utilization, specifically Davis-Bacon language is what it's known as, but was not listed in the term. So we were not able to utilize ARPA funds for this project. We reallocated those ARPA funds to other CIP projects, specifically in parks, thighs, and other things. So we have completely utilized those and we'll be spending those down before December of 2026 when they expire.

Anthony AmosOkay, that's good to know because in the book it still said ARPA. So thank you. I appreciate that. Got you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member McQuillan.

Rachel McQuillenThis is for Ms. Summerfield. Which events have the highest attendance?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffOf the proposed cut events? No, just all of them. The

Rachel McQuillentop three highest.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffSo our landmark events would be the 4th of July, Fall Festival, Chocolate Lovers, those of which we're getting over 10,000 people in attendance. Then we have our kind of mid-tier events, typical Rock the Block, we're looking at 5,000 people. And so we did, we do have a cost breakdown, I believe, that's been shared of each event and the estimated attendance.

Rachel McQuillenThank you. Which of those are the oldest running events? Oh, gosh.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffI think I would have to double check, but I believe it's the 4th of July parade. That is coming up on a big anniversary year. I believe it's at least 30. I'll double check.

Rachel McQuillenOkay. You don't have to be perfect on that. And then aside from 4th of July, which of the events require the most labor and overtime?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffI would say next would be fall festival just because we are looking at a full day of closing down streets utilizing you know police fire public works and our staff and

Rachel McQuillenthen with the The opening of or the start of the new foundation that we just started the Parks and Rec Foundation that we're starting will that open up potential for like council member amos was talking about the ppeas those partnerships would that be a potential yes

Ms. Summerfieldstaffi would say um especially for special events right now we passively bring in about 75 000 we just put up sponsorship back opportunities on the website and people have to contact us the idea with the foundation is to be able to um to actively go out and talk to members of the community mail you know our sponsorship guide out to those individuals and then follow up with them we should definitely see an increase in the sponsorships that we see coming in

Rachel McQuillenand about what's the timeline on that again the foundation is it finished have we gotten everybody or we're still working on we

Ms. Summerfieldstaffare still if you're watching at home we are still looking for three more directors so we are still taking applications for the final three director positions but we are meeting with the first two that were appointed and working on getting the 501c3 and and also setting up kind of our preliminary base. Thank you. Yeah.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hall.

Stacy HallThank you. I have a couple of questions about the, just parks and recs in general, and then I kind of have a cross-school question with parks. So if someone else has a parks question, feel free to jump in before I ask the school accommodation question. So I'll start with maybe the easier ones. I'm looking at the reduction items before. And it looks like some of the money for some of these programs stays in the city, but I understand maybe some of the money then gets donated out elsewhere or things like that. I think you mentioned, I think specifically the Asian Festival that we donate $20,000, and then it looks like maybe the remainder of the $8,000 there goes to Ride of the Patriots. Does that money come back to us? Does it get donated to businesses or organizations in the

city or they donate it elsewhere well

Ms. Summerfieldstaffso specifically Asian festivals so our costs are the costs of shutting down the streets police fire so those are all labor costs we're not giving anyone cash but we're providing services and so it has been I we I'm not sure what the Asian festival budget looks like this year as far as what they're taking in from vendors and what they have remaining. I do know that they work hard to donate to some of the proceeds from the event to various non-profit organizations in the community. So the city is covering the cost of services.

Stacy HallOkay and previously that was paid back but then I think a couple years ago it started not being an item that was reimbursed. Is that correct?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffI believe the first year it was reimbursed and then past that point the city has covered the services. They came to council and that decision was made to cover services.

Stacy HallOkay. And then similar to Ride of the Patriots, I'm just trying to look at some things that are not specifically...

Ms. SummerfieldstaffYes. So that remaining $8,000 is Ride of the Patriots and that is, again, services.

Stacy HallOkay. And that's not reimbursed then. That's a straight cost.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffThat is a straight cost.

Stacy HallOkay. Okay. The Connected Magazine, how often does that go out? Is that a monthly thing or quarterly?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffThree times a year. Three times a year. So we do a summer because that's our biggest issue, a fall, kind of fall winter, and then a winter spring, which kind of splits that winter season because winter is our lowest as far as city events and programs.

Stacy HallAnd we have no idea of the readership of some of these things, right?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffNo, because we print and mail it. So in this eliminating, would be just eliminating the printing and mailing, we would still, of course, have some printed copies available at places like the Senior Center where we see that people really want to have that physical copy, but we would no longer mail them to all the residents in the city.

Stacy HallOkay. I know when we had our two-on-two, I think, with communications, we talked about maybe for some of these things we could do a little game something just to see who's reading it, just get an idea of, I mean, I don't know how you do that, but just something to see if people are actually engaging with it or some sort of, you know, maybe there's a giveaway if you do X, Y, and Z or something. I don't know. I was just trying to make sure we're not wasting a bunch of paper and $60,000 or even 50 of it at this point.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffBased on anecdotal data, anytime we make a mistake, I would say a lot of people are reading it because I don't really hear about it.

Stacy HallExcellent. No one tells you when it's good, but they always tell you when it's bad. Yes. Okay. I think that's my questions on the reductions. So specific on some of the Willard Sherwood questions, the staffing on that, I understand there's a lot of entrances and exits and some other delegation of duties. Can you touch on how many people we think we might need to hire to be able to staff this moving forward?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffYes. So it is a very open building, and the design of the building predates my arrival with the city. And so I believe it was really the will of the council that it be a very open building and available. And so it does require quite a bit of staffing. There's no centralized entrance like a typical rec center. And so the staffing amount that we're looking at, we worked up some conservative numbers working with JC and Gwen. and our estimate was around $2 million a year. We're looking at about 35 part-time and temporary staff members and two full-time staff members to staff three desks throughout, three floors, four desks throughout the building.

Stacy HallAnd is that the city's portion of the staffing or is the county contributing to that or they have their own staff?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffThe county spaces have controlled entrances with lobbies and we have some spaces that we can control, like the fitness center has a desk built within it, but in the gym and running the main desk would be on the city.

Stacy HallUnderstanding this predates you, is there a reason why that was the architecture that was chosen, if it seems that the county was able to control their ongoing operating costs and we weren't?

Brooke Hardinstaffthere are three primary entrances at the ground level to the building one would be through the existing Sherwood Center one facing out on the Blenheim Boulevard and then one facing on the what would be the internal street kind of on the western side of the property where there are some service spaces and a drop-off. The design that moved forward was one as Ms. Summerfield noted was to be to be open to be inviting. The direction was that we wanted a building that didn't appear to be institutional that you know welcomed folks in so the idea of having an entryway on Blenheim Boulevard was very important albeit you know that's not you know there's no parking there in front of that that will be for pedestrians people on bikes people coming

on the bus but that was certainly a value that we wanted to have that kind of presence on such a prominent corner in the city and there were decisions about the fitness center being located there and lots of windows and the gym being located on Blenheim Boulevard. So there are a number of kind of choices in terms of the design and layout, but it's a tight site. And so there were only so many options to Council Member Peterson's question earlier. There were three options that were evaluated. The one that was chosen pushed the parking underground as opposed to above ground. more flexibility in what we could do in terms of layout and made the building not as tall as it may have been. But yes, I mean, you know, could the city say,

you know, we want to close the front door on Blenheim and lock it, you know, like we do here at City Hall? Certainly could. But that was certainly not the design intent or direction that we had to work toward.

Stacy HallYeah, and I can understand that, recognize that. I also, I mean, my son plays basketball pretty much every rec center in the probably 15 mile radius and there's typically one entrance in and there's one exit out and it's you walk in and there's one desk and they might have three staff members there so I can understand this is an extraordinary amount of staff that we're gonna need and two million dollars of ongoing that on its own would be a little over two and a half cents I believe on the tax rate moving forward indefinitely and if I recall correctly from what previous Councilmember Ross said was that we should anticipate about a four to five cent tax increase permanent moving forward, understanding that some of

that might be offset by membership fees, but that it sounded like that was largely going to be a permanent cost. Did that include the

Leslie Abashianstafftwo million for revenue, Mr. Martinez?

Stacy HallI'm sorry, but not for revenue, for staffing, that four to five that he was referring to?

JC MartinezstaffDo you know? I don't recall. I do not recall that per se, but to your point, at a $2.1 million estimated ongoing operating cost every year, that would be about $0.02. I would project and predict that that would increase over time because you have merits and an additional cost with health insurance and VRS as well, so there would be over time a little bit of increase with that as well.

Stacy HallOkay. Thank you. and so this is my kind of joint question with schools and then I actually have a couple other questions for schools but my understanding is that we have a really good community use arrangement that goes on at a lot of our schools right we use them for FPYC basketball and the fields and all of that it seems like we as collective FPYC families things like that is we're missing out on the ability to use the basketball court that already exists at the high school. I mean, there's three or four of them plus the little gym. Has there ever been a consideration of maybe opening that up and having a staff member be there, at least in the interim until this is built potentially, or some other way of having kids be able to access a rec center, not having

to go to the county's facilities all the time?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffFor an open gym program?

Stacy HallOpen gym, yeah. Just, Like I said, we go to the rec center all the time in the county.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffYeah. We certainly could look at something like that. I will say that Rich is our athletic coordinator and works with the schools. We have a great working relationship with them. But I will say gym space is the most limited. And so it is some of the toughest space to get. I know FPYC basketball plays a lot in the county for that reason.

Stacy HallWe do. And it's always been kind of an unfortunate thing that we have these schools right here and we're forced to go to the county all the time Yeah, but I also do feel like as someone who goes to the high school quite a bit Sometimes our gyms could feel a little underutilized maybe a random, you know, it's not a basketball season, but another night Chirpages do you have any comments on that before I ask you questions at the CIP? Recognizing Gisela does a fantastic job of trying to work with the community. So I understand that.

Speaker 7So in terms of the schools and the facilities, that's also through Rich. So if it's open and nobody is using it, youth clubs like FUIC and some of the... Yeah, they don't pay. So the way the hierarchy is is that schools have first right to the facilities, and then it's whoever's going to pay, and then it's the youth clubs that sort of come after that.

Stacy HallBut have Parks and Rec and schools ever talked and said, hey, we have this gym space on Tuesdays from 5 to 9, and the kids can come in and play basketball, so I'm going to my own high school instead of driving to Vienna or to Annandale to go to exactly what's already being offered there, which is literally just an open gym that kids come and pay $5 or $6 to go to every time? To me, I feel like we could have a membership. We could kind of work with something like that.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffI think one of the challenges has been getting regular space. The challenge has been getting regular space. A lot of times things are reserved and then will come open maybe three days in advance. And so it's very difficult to plan around that. And that I think there's a lot of reservations and movement within the school schedule.

Speaker 7Yeah, I would say, and this is not my, I don't schedule the basketball courts or any of those. facilities. But if I understand, if there's an open, if you are trying to start something where it's like open gym and everybody pays $5 to play, that would be something that would have to go through Rich because he would be the one who would know when those openings are. Rich

Stacy HallCrotter of who I see, is that who you're

Speaker 7talking? Rich Wyant. Okay.

Ms. SummerfieldstaffYeah, so Rich is a part-time staff member of ours. He does the scheduling, yes. And we could certainly look at it. We would have to pay to staff it and then also pay the custodial fee. Yeah,

Stacy Hallwhich it's usually open and we're already paying for custodian for some things. No,

Speaker 7whoever is renting pays the custodial fees.

Stacy HallOkay. And how will the proposed basketball work? How will that gym be used at the proposed Willard Sherwood Center?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffThat would be fully controlled by city parks and recs. to share, we would not have to work around a school schedule. I mean, we'd certainly share with the schools if they needed to use it, but it would be fully programmed and scheduled within the rec department.

Stacy HallThank you. I think that's all my parks questions. Can I ask some CIP for the school? Yeah, absolutely. So I understand that certain things have been moved that might not have been notated or been obvious to people that were not aware of it. I know the softball field. Can you kind of comment on some of the CIP items?

Speaker 7We originally, the 1.75 million that you will see in the CIP is now out in FY 2028. The school board pushed that off in response to the need by the city. I had my reservations about that just because of Title IX. We did the baseball field for the, obviously the boys, so the softball field. But I think it's fine, it's close enough that I think it'll be amenable to most people. So that was the thing, that $1.75 million. Mr. Phillips and I were looking through the CIP items, and in terms of FY 2025, which is already adopted, we are not going to spend the $1.2 million on the renovation and the auditorium strip it we would have to cancel too many programs at this point to do that project it's a huge project so we're willing to give that money back to the

city to be reallocated we are also willing to return the fifty four thousand for the marquees because of Blenheim project goes through there's no point in replacing those marquees marquees now we really don't know what that space is you know 100 going to look like so we can give that back as well in terms of the hallway lighting which you'll see in FY 2026 proposed and 2027 proposed we can push that off as well there there is lighting in the hallway it's less than ideal but remember our budget is as I said before is 90% the tuition bill we there's not a whole lot we can you know don't think that schools doesn't want to be a part of this process we just that's a bill we we don't really have much leeway with our budget and you know

the other little bit is staff salary and benefits and you know grounds maintenance it's nothing you know like I said it's not a shopping trip in there but looking at our CIP there are a couple like I said we can give back the $1.2 million to be reallocated we've pushed off the $1.75 million from the softball field we can push off the hallway lighting for Katherine Johnson and the marquees which is a little bit more money the security enhancements that are proposed for FY2026 that might come in lower with FCPS to see if that they would cover that expense so that might be a savings there.

Stacy HallI'm fully aware of what they are and I love them. Can you maybe just tell the rest of council what exactly those are?

Speaker 7The cameras for the schools or the actual badges. Yeah the badges. Okay so we're doing two security things. We're going to have new cameras in the elementary schools, but also we, Dan, do you want to talk about this because you did most of the research on this? Thank you.

Dan PhillipsSo

Thomas Petersonthere's,

Dan Phillipsif you'll remember back, there was a tragedy in Georgia, a school shooting. The teachers in the school were wearing the alert badges. It's sort of a new product. It looks like an ID badge. It's got a push button. And while there were lives lost, the belief is that many people were saved because they alert everyone in the building in real time and then also show where in the building things were happening Fairfax County is in the process of adopting those badges right now for a period of time we thought we might be able to get in early and get something in our schools quicker and some of this funding was for that it does look like we're going to be able to do it and Fairfax County is still in the process and I want to honor that process but we might

be able to do things without any expense to us at the beginning of next school year so that would be a savings but until we we don't want to give that back until we know for sure that we won't have that expense because it would be good for our schools to have

Stacy HallI personally will say I think that's critical funds and money very well spent I think my mom was the one who was like you need to get these and just so those who don't know the teachers had only been trained on them for about a week they had they were totally brand new with that school and like Like Mr. Phillips said, it was the thought that they really cignated a significant amount of lives. And I will just tell for others that don't know about the restroom enhancement for the high school, that is critical, $40,000. The women's restroom entrance is actually on lie and run. So for those that go to a football game and are now on the away team side, it's very dark over there. So this is a reconfiguration to make that less scary.

Speaker 7Yeah, there's really no lighting on that side of the building. There's a lot of screening from trees. It's just not very safe. And, in fact, now we have on the home side, it's fine because we have the new concession stand, which has new bathrooms, but anybody who's sitting on the wayside, that is the restroom that they would use. So we're just, we're not tearing that building down. We're just simply going to redirect a hallway so it comes. Do you want to speak to this? One

Dan Phillipsof the options that the board was considering was the possibility of taking what's now a group restroom and very, very old, not in great shape, turning those into two private, like family-style restrooms on that side. So they would be there for immediate need, AD accessible, and that sort of thing. going back up to the concession stand really wouldn't be that big of an issue. For the whole time the old concession stand was in place, people from the home side walked down to this side, so really the visitors can do the same, just the reverse, going up. But having a few restrooms down there would alleviate the worry. It's not all lighting either. It's just supervision. It's in the back side of the building.

And so if we were able to either close those or have those locked unless we could supervise, and then on the front side, what's currently the men's room, make those into two single-use restrooms. It would be a good service to the visitor side, and it would still increase the total number of restrooms available in the stadium.

Thomas PetersonFor a relatively minimal

Dan Phillipscost.

Speaker 7And it's any community group that, like all the youth clubs that use the facilities as well. So, and like Dan said, you know, especially during football season when it's dark and we don't have enough administrative staff to be hanging around on the backside of that building seeing everything that's going on in there. So, it's also a safety issue in those terms.

Stacy HallFor sure. Thank you. And yes, especially now that there will be less people probably using the bathroom. It's more reason to have it more visible on the front side. But thank you. It looks like you really took a hard look at your CIP.

Speaker 7Yeah, hopefully it'll be of some help. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Amos.

Anthony AmosJust a quick comment and then a follow-up question. Comment. Oh, breaking news. What's going on? Okay. Well, I was just going to pause and tell my fiance that I love her and I hope to make it back to you So we can watch a retreat tonight, but we'll see what happens And then for a follow-up question on the split car tax payment I know some issues had come up and I was wondering if we get a brief update either from I know we have our treasure here Commissioner for revenue just to kind of explain why there may be some hiccups with that quote-unquote solution I

Speaker 25Thank you very much for the opportunity. We, Tom and I, City Treasurer and I, have some concerns with going with two installments versus one. I'll say at the outset that currently out of the 13 jurisdictions in Northern Virginia, only one has a split tax structure. So every single locality in Northern Virginia except Loudoun assesses and collects personal property once a year. I will say that Loudoun County, as it happens, the commissioner of revenue was previously the deputy commissioner when they did this, and I reached out to him to see why. You know, they did that. And in the early 90s, Loudoun County was experiencing tremendous growth from a rural locality to a suburban locality. And their revenues, tax revenues, were not catching up to the infrastructure that they needed.

So that's essentially why

Speaker 23they did that.

Speaker 25And it's been considered before. Fairfax County you know considered it in 2008 when we went through a recession and essentially you know opted not to do it because as Councilmember Peterson pointed out you know you change the way things work and sometimes it it has the opposite effect of what you're trying to achieve I think and I don't want to speak for him but I think the treasurer has maybe some that doesn't get to where neither the city manager or the director of finance would want to get in terms of, you know, a concrete number for the next fiscal year, but would probably go a long way to getting the money in early and would address your concern, Council Member Amos, and yours as well, Council Member Hall,

And that is, this is quite a bill that is not escrowed, that people have to pay. And I think Tom and I both recognize the value associated with that. So with that, I'll stop talking and let my colleague chime in.

Speaker 23So anyway, I think the most salient point that I have this evening is I'm not sure that this proposal is viable. I don't know that our tax software vendor can create and make the changes necessary to our existing system. in the time frame that we would need it done so i found out on sunday that this was something being discussed first thing yesterday monday when i came in becky and i met becky's our chief deputy and i said get a note to pci our software vendor and ask them tell them what council is considering and find out what it would cost is it feasible based on the system that we have now and how fast could they do it. So I don't have an answer for you yet. We are still waiting. But that's a big if. So we may be premature. But anyway

I'll report back to the city manager and JC on what they tell us about that. You know, as I was looking at this thing, a lot of questions came to mind. You know, of course, the costs, and I think that that was discussed. I watched the work session in earlier March today and the last council meeting today. And so obviously some of the costs are the obvious ones, the postage, the supplies. Programming will be a big one. we have a lockbox system so in essence what you're talking about doing just to give you a reference on the numbers so right now we send out about 20,000 personal property tax bills every year so now we're looking at sending 40,000 personal property tax bills a year and so now some of the obvious costs

applies to postage but some of the things that we that you may not consider that first go around, we have a fairly high percentage of uncollectible, and so we end up sending delinquent notices, and then we send out a final notice, and then we send it to a collection agency when need be. So now some taxpayers are getting three, sometimes four notices. Now we're going to be sending out six, sometimes eight notices. So I'm just sort of going over some of the questions and some of the costs that I thought of. Of course, the big cost is going to be staff. Becky and I chatted and we talked and we've been racking our brains. we don't see how we can maintain our collection levels and our service levels with the existing staff.

I just don't think it's doable. The bulk of our time in Treasury, and I know it is, I don't want to speak for Paige, but I'm sure to agree, the bulk of the time for all staff is spent on personal property. And it's the most complicated, not only for staff, but especially for our taxpayers. But anyway, so my rough guess, we'll need two new staff people to administer one additional billing a year. My staff is eight full-time and one part-time. So that's my guess. I don't know if we would

Speaker 25likely need at least one additional staff person. What happens is when billing time comes around, people all of a sudden realize that they've moved out of the city or made changes to their personal property, and the phone starts to ring and or emails we start to receive. So essentially, we'll be doubling the amount of calls and touches that we have with our taxpayers.

Speaker 23So staffing is a big issue. collections is a combination of good systems of which we have and elbow grease and lots of elbow grease and lots of phone calls and our toughest collection efforts are on personal property second of which is business license but we we work hard to collect personal property so anyway collection rates I'm concerned about but anyway i'm thinking two and those are permanent hires that's not going to go away that won't go away in years two and and beyond um then the other questions i have you know one of the other costs might be this is the most confusing bill there is the most confusing component of this bill is the vehicle registration fee and if we decide to go that route the first thing i'd say

is well we have to jettison that because it's going to overcomplicate things that's 33 bucks it's about three-quarters of a million a year I think that we collect on that another question is and this is something that we need to consider is and I heard city manager talking about it at one of the two previous meetings a prorate not prorate if we're gonna if we're gonna change ordinance do we want to stop prorating or do we want to continue prorating Honestly, I haven't had time to do an analysis because I'm sure it's out there somewhere to find out if we decide to do this and we do decide to not prorate anymore, just go to flat. Is it a revenue generator? Is it a revenue loser? So those are things that I'd like to look into before coming out or at least like to provide that to you

so that council, mayor and council can make an informed decision. you know obviously the good thing about this is that it will increase our debt capacity and it'll help balance this budget the the the downside is of course you know the cost the the permanent cost permanent staff but as i was just sort of thinking about this and Diane and I talking about it. You know, in our little town all over America, life is not less complicated than it used to be, at least not for this old guy. Life is more complicated than it used to be. And in our little town, it's becoming more and more complicated by the day. I heard probably a dozen times in those two council meetings that the most hated tax is the personal property tax.

Speaker 25We can definitely attest to that.

Speaker 23And it is true. You are working from a safe assumption. The personal property tax is the least popular tax that we have. It's the most confusing, and it's the most hated. And so whereas we – I listen to the rationale that, well, you know what? Maybe if we cut it in half, it will be more palatable for taxpayers. It'll be two smaller payments instead of this one gigantuous one because, let's face it, I mean, they are gigantuous now. But I get that. But most of the people I talk to, because when I found out this was a possibility, I started asking people. They said, well, I'll just write one tax. I don't want to be bothered with the second bill. People hate that bill. They hate it with a passion.

So I'm thinking, is this really going to be doing a favor to our taxpayers? to say, hey, you know what, we're going to bother you one more time a year now than we already are. So I guess it's the human cost, because it is more complicated. Let's see. Oh, so, but not being deaf to that concern that it makes it more palatable. I think Councilperson Hall mentioned it and some others. We have a better option, just for your information. So some months ago, before this even came out, I initiated a request to our software vendor, and I said, look, I want our taxpayers to be able to self-guide a pre-tax payment so that they can log into their portal so that they can say, I want to start making monthly, quarterly, semi-annually.

I want to do this, but it could be their choice. We do a similar thing now with debit and forget it, but only for real estate. And it's manual. It's a lot of work for us. We're trying to automate that. But anyway, to me, that would be a better option. That would be the option of providing the option to the taxpayer and saying you could do it and you could pay it however you want. You could pay us weekly if you want, but most likely people are going to want to pay us monthly, quarterly, semi-annually, or just once a year. So those are my concerns. And is it doable? I'll tell you when I find out from the software company, because that's really, that would be a deal killer. They come back and say, there ain't no way we're going to get this done for you by February of 2026.

Well, then it's off the table. I just don't, I don't think it's doable. but I told JC this I am not going to go to them and say hey you're not going to be able to do this are you we asked them genuinely can this be done and I'll let you all know

Speaker 25it seems to me that the juice is not worth the squeeze at least right now

Catherine Readchecks I'm just fascinated by writing checks Council Member McQuillan.

Rachel McQuillenCould you provide a little more detail as to why, if we were to do it just for one year, my understanding is it would just be the split payment one year, why would that create more employees moving forward for the future, aside from just that one year?

Speaker 23That wasn't my impression. I thought this was a permanent change. That

Speaker 25was

Speaker 23my

Speaker 25understanding as well. Is

Speaker 23that not

Brian Fosterstafftrue? The financial gain is for one year. Oh,

Dave Summersstaffokay. You get

Brian Fosterstaffa one-time financial gain, and that just has to do with the accounting year. You would get, in essence, 150%. I understand.

Catherine ReadOther questions, comments? Council Member Peterson.

Thomas PetersonBefore I forget, I want to reach back to a line item on the different reduction scenarios and be sure I understand how that may or may not affect you. And then I would like to ask you a little bit more about the issue that's before us. There's a line item for something having to do with knocking back training and travel. You all rely on mandated certifications, et cetera. Would you be continuing those mandated training exercises to keep current with all the certifications, et cetera, under those scenarios?

Speaker 25I think just speaking for myself and probably for Tom, I think the scenario that at least the language that I've seen in the various scenarios seems to indicate that that would be a reservation for those of us who do need those kinds of certifications. Beyond that, I think, at least for my part, I'm willing to endure a little pain and have a reduction in unnecessary travel and or training.

Speaker 23so I'm not familiar with what the reduction was there a flat percentage rate that was proposed for training so

JC Martinezstaffin reviewing across all departments collectively the travel and training budget when you add all the lines again by all departments equals five hundred and thirty five thousand dollars that as a potential reduction option that was proposed tonight that we would eliminate that entire line by all departments my department myself included were unmandated to maintain licenses and certifications as well those would not be done

Speaker 23okay so yes we have minimums that we have to meet for our department certification and for individuals to continue with their certification. So, for instance, Becky is a certified master governmental deputy treasurer. I am a master governmental treasurer. Amy Ford is on track to become a master governmental deputy treasurer. And for that, when we achieve those statuses, the state increases its contribution to those positions. Also, our department is also certified based on our standards and procedures, and we get audited for that. Not every year, but we do get audited for that regularly. So in answer to your question, yes, it would hurt us. I would probably try and hornswoggle or convince finance and manager to allow us to continue to do that.

We can cut back, and we don't have to do everything, but we can cut back. Just as an example, we can take advantage of every online course because they're quite a bit less expensive. But some courses are not offered online. treasurers, which we would like all of our staff to take at some point in time. That is not offered online. So some are, some not, but we can sharpen our pencil. But I would not want to eliminate our budget altogether just for staff. So I'm a CPA in the state of Virginia, and I have required continuing professional education credits that I have to take. Anything that's not satisfied in my dual certification with Treasurer's Association, I pay for myself. So that's all out-of-pocket stuff.

Speaker 25The same standard applies. Essentially what Tom said applies to the commissioners as well and deputy commissioners.

Thomas PetersonWhen the request was made to have some exploration of a 10% reduction, I think one of the observations at the time is that not all departments and offices are created equal and there would be a differential in terms of potential to respond to that. So certainly appreciate that you all operate on a different basis than other units of government. Just a general comment and question two, and then I'll, I think, wrap it. First, to the extent that all of you have not compared notes and worked jointly on these scenarios and all of the components involved in them, I think it would be, speaking on behalf of the council, helpful to be sure you do that, right? collaboration as possible on these. The second is mention of the 2008 recession. I'm guessing both of you lived through that and probably that's not the only difficult budget period that you've lived through here in this city's history. And here we are one more time, but we've been there before. And y'all are in a unique position, I think, to maybe look backwards a bit.

see some of the takeaways on how we made it through those past episodes successfully and what that general approach, if not magic formula, looks like for where we are today. What is your take on what we could learn from the past and where we are today and how we might act on that?

Speaker 25I'll go first. I'll just simply say, I'll quote, first of all, Otto von Bismarck. no man should see laws or sausage being made and that's kind of the way this process works the budget is a law and that's what you all are struggling with I will I will simply say that the process unfolds like it has has started to unfold tonight in the past that's exactly how it's how it's worked you've step you've seen department heads you know step up and offer you know their assistance you're I think in the final analysis just given you know my my lens on this is what you're going to come up with is a combination of tax increase and budget and or expense reduction and that's going to lead you to a balanced budget.

And I think all of you will be able to hold your heads high and face any of the taxpayers and any of the public having done that. And it appears that you're headed in that direction.

Speaker 23So in 2008, I was not treasurer. I started January 1, 2014. So I wasn't here. I was running my business. and it was a horrible time but I won't bore you with those details but at that at that time it was you know it wasn't just municipalities it was all us small business guys too we were all struggling through that so anyway but but I was not here so I don't have a I don't really have the historical knowledge that Paige would have on that

JC Martinezstaffif I can council member Peterson since you waved at those individuals up here so in 2008 historically and I was not here either but I did go back and look at some of the financials for the city in 2008 the city's tax rate increased by seven cents in 2009 it increased by nine cents in 2010 it increased by seven and a half cents within a three-year window it was almost 24 cents 30 some odd percent increase within that timeframe there was a lot of infrastructure that was being done within the city within that time frame in 2004 the last set of school bonds had been passed for the high school in the middle school additionally where we're sitting right now the annex on City Hall was also started also in addition to that was

the police headquarters was redone the Blundheim internal interpretive center was also done and then there was a bunch of underground cabling and utilities in Old Town as well. So a lot of generational investment done in the city within a very short time frame.

Thomas PetersonOut of curiosity, was the increase in the underlying assessment of real estate increasing at the time the same way, at the same kind of scale it is this year?

Speaker 25I would have to defer to our real estate assessor.

Ms. Summerfieldstaffin

Speaker 14the recession okay so no we had a negative thank

Thomas Petersonyou

Catherine ReadOther questions? Council Member Hall.

Stacy HallNot a question, but just a comment. Thank you very much for that very detailed explanation. Not all departments are created equal when it comes to cuts and reductions and things like that, and I think that you've explained very thoroughly why the splitting of the personal property tax is likely not going to work, and I think also your historical knowledge and information of being here and having lived through some of this and experiences is extremely helpful. And I think sometimes, again, five out of six of us are new up here. There's so many people in finance. We lose that sometimes. And I think it's really valuable. And to all of the other departments that have already come up and spoken, thank you.

I certainly will have questions for the others. But it does sound like everyone's kind of put an extra thinking hat on. I hate that phrase and I just said it. thank you for trying to think outside of the box of just a straight 10% that was asked of you

Speaker 25I'll also thank you all for the opportunity to come up and give our viewpoints on this very very important issue thank you

Speaker 23I can I oh I'm sorry mayor I just wanted to say I love the questions I'm hearing tonight to everybody and the discussion. It's very refreshing and I think it's very constructive. I'm Jazz. As a taxpayer, I think you all are doing great work up here.

Catherine ReadI would agree. The questions and the dialogue are very important. It's certainly better than 10,000 Health and Human Services. Federal workers being terminated today because some people don't think we need anybody to run government. And we do need people to run government and responsibly too. And so I also commend everybody here tonight in the in the hard questions and the amount of energy that is going in to try to be a responsible government entity because certainly we are seeing that other people have different ideas about how you manage government So do we have? Yes, councilmember

Thomas PetersonPeterson I'm Wondering if we might do a check-in with folks with our fire on the budget issues. Is that possible or not possible this evening? Thank you. And so I would just say at the outset that of course safety of all kinds is a top line issue for the city. So I'm personally very, very sensitive to that. But I think you all are a bit unique in a number of ways, do a certain number of things that are very capital intensive buildings equipment etc and then you have your operations you've got at least two different buckets to work with as you have approached this request to kind of explore where there are opportunities for reductions in any of those buckets can you share a little bit with us about how you've been thinking about that and

what you may have found in terms of some opportunities again whether it's the capital intensive investments or the implications of them on operations or other operational issues.

Assistant Chief SeitzstaffYes, sir. So Assistant Chief Seitz, I'm responsible for the Office of Security Administration. So Chief O'Neill and Chief Dunstan are doing our accreditation, as you guys have been made aware, that we got reaccredited again. so anyway I am going to fill in for him and Chief Dunstan so to answer your question I think you've learned this evening that we did not focus a lot on the capital project piece not in the fire department either even though we have a fire station that's part of the capital improvement process we have a ladder truck that's in capital improvement and a couple other items we haven't really focused on that as well. In the 10% reduction, as requested, the only place that we have to cut is personnel.

Our operating, to keep the fire stations open and to keep operations running for fire and EMS, that's essentially a 12% of our budget that we do just to do that alone. So the rest of the places that we have to cut is in personnel, and that's what Chief O'Neill proposes, as an attempt to get to that 10%. Obviously, I think, as JC mentioned, that there's an upcoming presentation on the fire station and where we're at on that as far as the process. So that's sort of where Chief Vanille and the command staff have looked at at this point.

Thomas PetersonThank you. So is there a plan going forward now to take a look at CIP and If so, can you tell us a little bit more about when and how and when we might be able to have a look? Whether it's new buildings whether it's new equipment, you know, etc. etc.

Assistant Chief SeitzstaffI Am certain that when Chief O'Neill is back At the end of this week at the first of next week it'll be a priority for us to look at those opportunities and discuss with city manager and the finance team of all those larger projects that we have with the large ticket dollar amount of what at all we can do with that. I'm sure that's where Chief Renewal want to go. Yes, sir.

Brian FosterstaffCouncilor Pease, in fairness to Chief Sites, he did not, on the operational side, he's in the code, on the code compliance side. As I mentioned, Chief O'Neill and Chief Dunstan would be the more appropriate folks to probably better answer your questions, and they're not here this evening.

Thomas PetersonUnderstood and appreciated very much. Thanks, guys. But we will look forward to more.

Assistant Chief SeitzstaffI'm certain that we'll participate in every way possible. Yes, sir.

Catherine ReadYes, Ms. Riddle.

Gwen RiddlestaffI have spoken with Chief Dunstan, and he is looking into cost savings on especially the larger apparatus. so he's already taken that into account for the vehicles that he's purchasing there in the cip so there's no nothing solid or concrete that we can do right now but he's looking to see how we can save in the future on there's some operas are a three-year wait so it's what the timing is on those, even the budget versus when the cash would be coming out as well.

Thomas PetersonJust to clarify, will we be able to look at the assumptions around CIP, what's in it in FY26 and where there are ongoing efforts to find reductions even in comparison?

Assistant Chief SeitzstaffYes. I can speak briefly to that in what Gwen's saying, that there are vehicles in the capital improvement piece that aren't always front-line pieces, that run the calls every single day, but are valuable pieces to us that I believe we can look at as can we move them out farther and defer them. I believe that knowing that myself, we could certainly look at several of those and look at them versus the

Brooke Hardinstafffront-line pieces are

Assistant Chief Seitzstaffthe ones that are running every day, to make sure we're able to do that. So, yes, sir.

Thomas PetersonAnd I would just conclude by saying I don't want to stand in the way of other council members who have questions about our fire and safety program, but I would like to turn, actually, as soon as we are able, to our police department and have a conversation with you all as well. So whenever we're able to do that, I'll look forward to that.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hall.

Stacy Halland thank you for coming in and this might be a joint Public Works fire department question but I understand there's been some recent staff time that's been devoted to the fire station despite not really having a full update on the PPE a and some of the other funding kind of questions can you maybe speak to some of that that's been going on

Assistant Chief Seitzstaffwe continue to meet and work with the the contractor that we've hired to do the needs assessment and the actual just conceptual planning so we have had a couple meetings with them just to keep that process rolling in which we've already expended money for so we're just that financial obligation of them to us we continue to meet with them to discuss just a conceptual plan

Speaker 23okay well

Dave Summersstaffjust yet that my project manager Syed has been working and the architect has kept up with this because as we discussed delays in a project raise costs. So what happened was, you know, we continue with the design of the fire station, and at the same time we're doing the PPEA. And where we're at is, you know, let's see what happens with the PPEA, but in the meantime, the fire station is moving forward in a preliminary design. We'll reach a point where we need to know about the PPEA before we move forward to past 20% or 30% design. We would need to know what's going to happen with the PPA. In the meantime, though, we're not there yet, so we're continuing to work on the design.

Stacy HallOkay. Recognizing it's an extraordinary cost, recognizing it's an extraordinary need. Correct me if I'm wrong, okay? It seems like the focus of if we need to delay, if we need to find funds elsewhere, move funds elsewhere, would you agree that the equipment itself is more critical if we had to consider pushing something out a year as far as the building itself goes or not?

Assistant Chief SeitzstaffHonestly, I would want Chief O'Neill to answer that question.

Stacy HallOkay, that's fair. absolutely thank you very much

Catherine Readwell it was a same question about equipment so you're pushing out the equipment but I'm assuming that everything we've budgeted for the equipment if we're pushing it out a year or two it's going to be more expensive would that be fair

Assistant Chief Seitzstaffthat would be a fair assessment just as a person that just bought a vehicle is looking at you know how much it cost three years ago versus this year so I think that's a fair assessment

Catherine ReadI think it's fair I mean that we can do anything about timing, but I just think we have to understand there's a cost of deferment, too, that means we're also kicking the increased cost of everything down the road by one or two years as well, just so that everybody understands you don't really get a free pass. Eventually the bill comes due one way or another.

Assistant Chief SeitzstaffI'll just add to the comment in the direction you were going there that anything that fire police or public safety related is not the same as a consumer buying something. We tack on three to four years just because it says fire or it's special. So it's never easy just to plan that we're going to purchase it next year unless it's an SUV or a pickup. If it has any kind of design to it to do firefighting or police work, then there's an added time. And when you start adding time, there's cost every time. And

Catherine ReadI think there's one piece of equipment that we ordered that we had to set aside the up front. So there is one piece of equipment that's like six years out maybe, Mr. Martinez?

JC MartinezstaffI think you're referencing an apparatus where in that instance the vendor, kind of what the Chief was saying about then, there are limited vendors who actually do apparatuses, maybe two or three in the entire country. They require a purchase order up front in order to even get you in the line for that three-year wait. So we would be required by appropriate the entirety of that if we are going to be issuing a purchase order, which again is required. So, yes ma'am.

Catherine ReadYeah, so we've done at least one of those. Okay, great. Thank you. Appreciate it. If there's no other questions, we'll hear from our law enforcement next.

Speaker 26Good evening, Mayor and Council. Thank you. First, I'll touch on the CIP. We only have two items on our CIP for fiscal 26. We have the garage expansion, which has already been bumped out to fiscal 28 and 29. That was initiated under the hopes of acquiring a grant. The grant was not awarded, so it's possible that that might be pushed out even further than fiscal 28 or 29. unless I'm speaking incorrectly, is probably out of the equation here for our CIP. The other item we have is the renovation of the interior of our station, which would include our dispatch center and a section of our station, which is our community services division, which we would like to expand into a bike division and eventually morph with our patrol operations division.

That I would say, in looking at it, just thinking through it here tonight, because I haven't considered pushing that out or reducing that. My initial request would be, if we are asking to take that off the table, would be to initially only reduce that in half so that we could at least still entertain our dispatch center, which we have outgrown. It's an extremely tight space. That would be the priority for us to still outfit with more terminals, allow more people to work. If we needed to push it off a year, that would be my second recommendation as far as deferring the 400,000 so if reducing it is an option that would be option one and then option two would be to defer it a year for our operating

budget what we had presented to the city manager we presented a five percent reduction as well as a 10 percent reduction my request and really just to to talk through that would be in looking at some of the scenarios up here with the training reductions and the merit and public safety step reduction. My concerns there, we agree with the training reduction. We actually submitted that in our 5% reduction, and I can provide what those looks like for each division. But the merit and the step is concerning just because of being a part of the public safety pay committee that worked to get that approved. It took years to get that approved from council. We worked from 2019 to 2023. Before that, we actually, both of us were in the initial proposals of that back to 2016,

because in 2008, when we had the recession, we paused our public safety pay scale back then. We went to a band. It created a ton of compression issues that we were fighting and battling for years so to go back to that would not be ideal what I would ask is to consider what we've put into this 5% reduction which is just over a million dollars in savings that includes training it includes some of our vacant temp positions it includes positions that are not staffed but does not staff any of does not touch any of our positions that are staffed so as we got into the 10% 10% there was really no way for us to avoid personnel so this 5% I think for us provides a better option to provide a million dollar reduction but not touch

the merits the public safety pay scale or any of our key personnel

Catherine Readcouncilmember Hardy Chandler

Stacey Hardy-Chandlercan you talk a little bit more about the impacts of the dispatch area because I think I'm recalling from your prior presentation It's more than just a tight area that there are actually currently inefficiencies, if I'm recalling it correctly, in that area.

Speaker 26Yeah, there's two terminals. What we're looking to do, years ago our minimum staffing in there was one dispatcher, which is not safe. Currently our dispatch minimum staffing is two. We have two terminals. The ideal staffing during peak hours is three. Right now, there's not that third terminal, if I'm not mistaken, to allow more people to work, which allows another dispatcher to take a break. Right now, it's very difficult for them to even leave for a lunch break because as calls come in and as the call volumes are high, we want at least two people in there. So the positioning itself is tight. I'd have to talk with our ASD commander who has worked through the design. was reconfiguring the space.

As far as the inefficiencies in programs, I'd have to get more information on that, but a lot of the costs were coming in to rewire the electric, redo the terminals, basically redo the entire office space of the 911 center.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Amos.

Anthony AmosJust a question about the garage, and this is just a lack of knowledge on the subject. there ever been a PPA done for a garage and is that something that we could look into I know that's a weird question but

JC MartinezstaffI'm gonna say no we have not looked into it and then two I don't know if it would be allowed or maybe even such a name allows not probably the right word may not be beneficial in the sense that it is probably within a secure area within the police department and you probably don't want to have access unlike maybe the fire department where it's more probable to allow something like that but in the police department in the in the last design or the last work session update this is an actual police garage that holds and secures certain information such as the bikes i think maybe the antique police vehicle and then above that there were other facilities that were already planned, an extension to the locker room and then additional offices

and training areas as well.

Speaker 26Right, yeah, the entire expansion would be behind our security gates. It's really, it's labeled a police garage. It has greatly expanded since then, so it went from initially being a garage to house our specialty vehicles. It's expanded to allow for our canine program, a bike team in the future. It allows an expansion of the women's locker room to include a unisex area within the men's, in between the men's and women's locker room. And then it also provides, like Mr. Martinez said, additional office space. So it's really a departmental expansion. It's not just the garage, but as I said, we were not awarded that grant, which was a huge chunk of the funding, so it is deferred.

Anthony AmosNo, I appreciate that just because, personally, I didn't know, and I was just curious, considering that we also need a lot of workforce housing. I didn't know if there were any opportunities, so thank you.

Catherine ReadAnd just to speak to the women's locker room, because we took a tour, you know, back when it was built, 2005?

Speaker 262007.

Catherine Read2007. Yeah, they dramatically underestimated how many women would be going into law enforcement. So they designed for a much smaller force of women officers, and now you're kind of stuck with this inadequate space. Right. Yeah, right. So I don't know what you do about that other than build more space. So as long as everybody's aware that these things really, you know, when we talk about must-haves and nice-to-haves, you look at issues like how you accommodate your female officers, and that's not really a nice-to-have. that in the other, you know, whether it's dispatch or the other improvements to the police station and the step in merit increases, this is about recruiting and retaining officers

in a regional environment where we are competing with other jurisdictions who are also making decisions about their budget. And, you know, the jurisdictions that can offer the officers what it is they need are going to get the officers. And so we're not on an island deciding just budgetary issues. We're in an ecosystem where, especially in law enforcement and our fire department, we have to provide things that are competitive if we want to be fully staffed. And I just want to bring everybody's attention to the fact that there are unintended consequences of making the numbers work if we're not thinking in terms of the real human impact so councilmember Peterson

Thomas Petersonif you could help maybe unpack just a little bit the relationship between your staffing levels and overtime are these inversely related or is it really built in so that if you increase staff you are by definition increasing the loading of overtime at the same time as you do that Can you sort of help me figure that out a little bit?

Speaker 26I would say when our staffing levels are lower or at their lowest like they were within the last couple years, overtime can go up because of the backfilling of patrol squads to meet minimum staffing. When we're getting held over on mental health cases, it's somebody's coming in for multiple hours at a time. So with shorter staffing, overtime does go up. I also will say we're in the process of reviewing our overtime spending and how that looks. There's been changes over the past couple years as far as practices that we either did or did not do in years past that have also impacted that. So I've been working with our employment attorney. I know that that's an ongoing conversation to develop what that might look like moving forward.

Right now, that's in the beginning stages. so I'm waiting to get some feedback from what that looks like, but I would say they are related.

Thomas PetersonAnd so this is a case where perhaps ironically increasing staffing is actually cost effective in terms of your use of overtime, which is expensive. So again, you want to be a little bit cautious of the false economy of holding things beneath the levels that they need to be. general question last whenever it was October I think the prior council received a presentation on it perhaps were two studies I can't totally track but there was one or more studies that management consulting oriented that took a look at the program and made recommendations for modernization and improvement I'm very curious, and perhaps now is not the time, but I'm very curious to know your take on that and where you think there were gaps and perhaps adjustments to those recommendations.

But I guess the bigger picture question is that it appears that, like all of the programs across the country, you're constantly in the process of trying to stay ahead of the curve here and modernize and be effective. process place you in this sort of onward progression? And we got a snapshot, I guess, last year of kind of the next window of set of things that might involve. But where does this leave you?

Speaker 26Obviously, the PFM presentation would be an ideal scenario to get to, and the way we presented on that was under the goal of having a higher percentage of proactivity than we're able to have with the staffing we currently have or with staffing we've had in years past where we're below our target staffing levels. The more staffing we have, the more proactive we can be, the more specialty teams we can make. Obviously, that's a higher level of service. like to be where we were at where we're at now with what we're doing with our budget the 10% I would say would be a drastic change in service delivery the 5% I do think we can reach without impacting our delivery of service to what we provide the city currently with our current staffing levels some other

things we've been looking at internally is just reallocating our staff based on the recommendations that PFM made, but not necessarily adding all of the FTEs that they recommended. So there are ways to work within that study that does not include having to fund all of the FTEs, but still meeting the goal of being more efficient and aligning our divisions to meet the goals of the city that we would like to do, which is a bike team, crime prevention, more of the proactive items, which would be basically blending our two operational divisions into one division. So those are some things we're looking at trying to do within that study and with some of the recommendations they made without increasing the FTEs. The other thing I can say with trying to

stay ahead of the curve and what you and the mayor had just mentioned, we did a comparison regionally in the fall when we were looking at a different budget season. So we were looking at actually and a pay increase. We're in a different place now. But when we did that, out of the 13 agencies we pulled, we were the fourth lowest in starting salary. We had much less specialty incentives, sign-on bonus, retention bonus. So we were already getting behind that curve. I would say the steps would just not be a good recruiting tool as it relates to where we already are in the region competitively. So I'll just say that as far as staying ahead of the curve.

Catherine ReadThank you. Council Member Hall.

Stacy HallSo a resident had asked me a question previously about the police response to off-leash vehicles, my gosh, off-leash animals. And I understand Officer Carroll is retiring. Thank you for his many, many years of service here. I've had many engagements with him and he's been wonderful. Is there a specific policy on when you respond to an off-leash vehicle, gosh, off-leash animal just kind of when officers are available and things are slow?

Speaker 26No, we would. I mean, if we get the call into our dispatch center, whether it's an emergency or not, obviously that would be a non-emergency call unless the dog was dangerous, vicious, something like that. But whenever we receive a call for service, we would respond to that. So even if our animal control officer is not working, another officer, a patrol officer, would be sent in lieu of the animal control officer. So we would still respond, that my neighbor habitually leaves their dog off their leash, but it's not in progress, that would be something that would be more of a report. But items like those are scenarios where the city's response is a lot different than some other agencies. Some other agencies might put that call on hold.

They might take a phone report. We really have not gotten to those levels of service delivery. There's certainly options, but that's just not how we've operated from the time I've been employed. say Captain Rutter has been very involved in the new search for a replacement ACO so that's promising. We've had several riding along with Officer Carroll to train with him so we have several applicants that are at the tail end of that so we don't foresee a gap in that service as far as hiring a replacement for Terry.

Stacy HallOkay,

Speaker 26thank you.

Stacy HallSo to your point about the 5% reduction and correct me if I'm wrong but the newest, I'm butchering the words, after the newest cadets or whatever has come out of their training, will we be at what is considered fully staffed at this point or we're still

Speaker 26under? No, we're, right now we're six under. That includes the chief and the deputy chief. So we'll be four operationally as far as officers go. We do have three in the hiring process for that currently. One is a cadet. One is an applicant who's a lateral applicant. We're close to being there should those backgrounds pass. A lot happens in the background process where those are unpredictable, but we're hoping to have at least three people for the July Academy. So I would say if that pans out, we would only be one below. Right now we're in a, and I'll discuss this with city leadership as far as where we want to go when we get to those last two positions because obviously those are appointed positions.

if we hire all six people, then it goes into an overhire. So I would say, to answer your question, operationally, we're four short.

Stacy HallOkay. Thank you. And with your proposed potential 5% reduction, do you anticipate additional needs for overtime? Do you think that we could still manage things, recognizing that a lot of overtime goes into the

Speaker 26police department? No, I don't. I think our staffing is what drives our overtime, and some of the procedural changes that we've made to overtime has changed the overtime cost as well. So I don't – what we have listed in the 5%, I don't see having an impact on overtime. The only area that could is the mental health patient sitting, which is our special conservator of the peace program. We put that to be reduced or eliminated. but if we have full staffing levels we would not anticipate needing overtime to fill that okay

Stacy Hallthank you and then my last question is about the police vehicle and equipment replacement it looks like the request for fiscal year 2026 is 1.125 million which includes a number of vehicles. The one I really wanted to ask about is the replacement of the 2001 International Mobile Command Unit. It looks like, and I recognize it's something that doesn't get used a whole lot. I'm sure it's helpful when it's being used, but it has about 7,500 miles on it according to this report. And it looks like the replacement cost is about $800,000. dollars. How frequently is this used? Are there minor upgrades that we could do to it to keep it in service for another year or two or longer, or is it totally kaput? What is the status of that

specifically?

Speaker 26It can certainly stay in service. The issue, the benefit of replacing it is that it would be able to be actually utilized more. Right now, it's a very large unit. You have to be trained on how to drive it. It is not easy to access. It's not a quick and easy take it to a command post vehicle. It's the vehicle you've probably seen at July 4th. We used to position at the fall festival. We've moved toward different command post options for those, but the vehicle we have currently for that is very large. What we would be moving toward would be more of a vehicle that's easier to drive, personnel can operate it. It would be stationed at the believe would be the goal. Right now it's down at the shop or at the fire department. It's not

it's not parked at headquarters so it's logistically not easy to use. We've used it mostly on special events versus critical incidents so the goal for the new one would be to have that more easily accessible for our critical incident and long scene crime scene management.

Stacy HallOkay, so how, recognizing you don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, how, based upon past experiences in the past fiscal year, how often do you think that might be used if it were to be newly acquired?

Speaker 26Probably only, I would say, two to three times a year. Okay. Roughly. Okay.

Stacy HallThank you. I think that's, yeah, all of my questions for you guys. Thank you so much.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Amos.

Anthony Amosone-on-one. I know.

Stacy HallYes, we do.

Catherine ReadCouncilmember Bates.

Billy BatesThank you. To follow up on that, would you anticipate a decrease in maintenance costs with the new vehicle relative to the amount of use?

Speaker 26I can't answer that. I would have to defer to Lee Hall does all of our maintenance items for our fleet and Captain Hawkins works directly with him because he's about the maintenance costs, but I can certainly get that answer.

Billy BatesNot a huge deal. Just more for further consideration. Thank you.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerAny other

Catherine Readquestions for our

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerpolice staff?

Catherine ReadAll right. Thank you both so much for coming tonight. Council Member Peterson.

Thomas PetersonI am wondering whether Director Summers might come back. so successful the first time around. I

Dave Summersstaffdon't think I have much of a choice.

Thomas PetersonI wasn't sure whether the set of things that you covered at that time also included transportation projects. And I'm wondering if it didn't, how we could be understanding, CIP side, whether there are opportunities there. And if you did, just tell me that I missed it, that that actually did cover the sweep of transportation programs.

Dave SummersstaffOne, I would say, Wendy Sanford is here to talk about the funding for transportation projects, but because of the value that we get with all this other funding, transportation projects were not included. Because we went through that exercise before that we put very little investment of city huge payback from the state and federal funds. It would not be cost effective, I feel, to reduce the small amount of local transportation money we use. And I'll...

Thomas PetersonWell, and just to maybe clarify, are you saying that you did consider it as a part of your sweep of CIP things, but they did not? Absolutely.

Dave SummersstaffOkay. Absolutely.

Thomas PetersonAnd then as a part of your response, if you could just help us, recognizing that we're able to leverage dollars, there is still nonetheless a cost of everything we do to run these programs, administer them, et cetera, and there may well be other indirect costs. Can you just sort of clear up how we should be thinking about the transportation opportunity set with respect to CIP and its linkage to operations?

Speaker 28Sure. Well, first, to answer the question about how they're funded, I was just looking back at our list of projects for next year, and I don't believe there's any general fund money. So when we do need what is called a local match to some of our federal money and some of our state money, in those instances, we use primarily C&I funding, which is the commercial and industrial tax. We are not using general fund money. I don't believe that there are any transportation projects in that are using general fund even for the application preparation i believe that that is being i'll ask mr martinez to confirm but i believe that for the application preparation cip project that is also cni so i don't believe again that there's any general fund now yes you're

correct that when we do construct projects with outside money when it comes to maintenance that is then general fund money that is being used. However, and we've discussed this before, oftentimes when we're doing capital projects to replace, to put in a sidewalk, at the same time, we're replacing some of the associated infrastructure. And so it's, we're upgrading infrastructure as a byproduct of doing some of our other capital projects.

Dave SummersstaffYes. So a transportation project has ancillary benefits where I am basically replacing infrastructure whether it's storm sewer or for instance if you relocate sanitary sewer you're basically putting in a new one and abandoning the old one. So all this infrastructure that is replaced in a transportation project I can then remove that from my CIP maintenance. So that's one of the ancillary benefits of these transportation projects.

Thomas PetersonAnd just to clarify, for the future costs, maintenance and operations, however we describe them, with respect to our accounting, does M&O show up in the general fund as a general operating expense?

Dave SummersstaffYes, in the CIP sheet, there'll be something, a box that says operating expenses.

Thomas PetersonOkay, so we do live in the land where if we do, for whatever reason, The actual upfront investment we would be reducing the downstream Concomitantly and

Dave Summersstaffwhen we prepare those you know these sheets to Takes into consideration that in the beginning of a project everything's brand new the maintenance costs are going to be less Than when it's 20 or 30 years down the road

Thomas PetersonMy last question which I'm sure I know the answer to but I'm going to ask it anyway is whether you in particular, have any updates of late that change our perspective on federal funds availability for what we do?

Speaker 28I don't have any update. We actually have a call on Thursday morning with our contact at FHWA regarding our Safe Streets for All grant and it's a new project manager and we'll be asking those questions then, but I have not heard any change in status for our federal funding.

Thomas PetersonThank you.

Catherine ReadOkay, I have some questions. So this budget that we are looking at does not have $3.7 million in repayment funds if we don't build the George Snyder Trail. Is that correct? That's

JC Martinezstaffcorrect.

Catherine ReadRight. So that's hanging out there is a financial liability that is unrealized. So to put a pin in that. We've got other grant money for things like the Country Club Hills Pedestrian. funded

Speaker 28that

Catherine Readis smart that is funded with smart scale funding

Speaker 28it is 100 funded and

Catherine Readthen the picket road pedestrian

Speaker 28also smart scale funding and

Catherine Readthen we have that the smart scale funding right for the wilcoxon trail connection for

Speaker 28the extent the george snyder trail extension correct that comes online i believe in in fiscal 26 or 27 okay

Catherine Readso we've got all these grant funded things and none of them been started and other than the george snyder trail for which we would owe money if it's canceled um would any other money be owed back on any of these other projects or have they not been started or anything invested if for some reason they are canceled so

Speaker 28the the picket trail connection project is in progress and we are um at about 80 plans and we are currently discussing right of way. There's just right of way. It's an easement from Fairfax Water. So that project is very close to construction. The Country Club Commons Trail project has not started. So there has been no expenditure of funding on that project yet.

Catherine ReadIs there some sort of parameters around this money on the Country Club Hills pedestrian?

Speaker 28Yes. The project is active. We have not engaged in an engineering design step is to start the design for that project.

Catherine ReadAnd how much is that grant?

Speaker 28I believe the Country Club Commons is in the $6 million range, but I will need to verify.

Catherine ReadOkay, but around $6 million, just ballpark. I believe so. So we've got all of these grant-funded projects.

Dave SummersstaffThere's many projects Wendy has under design. It's Germantown Road. I mean, she's got a lot of projects that are in the hopper and design.

Catherine ReadRight, right. But these grants, I'm just trying to figure out what our liability is if we don't complete these projects.

Speaker 28Like Mr. Sommer said, in addition to those that you've mentioned, we also have Germantown Road under construction. We're about to, I'm sorry, under design. We're about to go to construction on Government Center Parkway, on Warwick. So there's exposure on a number of projects. The two you're pointing out are trail projects. But we are design underway on many other projects in addition to those.

Dave Summersstaffway it works is we lay the money out and then we get paid back if we do something and there's nothing to show for it they're not gonna pay us back

Catherine Readright so we thought we had 120 days to put the georgesh niter trail out to bid turns out it's 90 days not 120 days so now the deadline is April the 28th is that correct before

Speaker 28our federal authorization would expire and what we were told is that that we can request reauthorization of federal authorization if that date passes okay

Catherine Readbut it's a request right so it is a request so it's not guaranteed that somebody would say sure go ahead take as much time as you need or I'm just looking at risk it's a difficult

Speaker 28question for me to answer it's a difficult question

Catherine Readfor anybody to answer right like the only way in which we have zero risk for the george snyder trail is to build the trail exactly as it's designed at 100 percent design that's the only way in which we have zero risk correct

Speaker 28yes assuming the bids come in and we are within our budget right

Catherine Readbut any other any other scenario means we ask for authorization permission and it is voted on by the ctb any alteration to what we have

Speaker 28that is what we were told last week yes

Catherine Readright so our risk goes from zero if we build the whole trail as designed to some risk however we calculate that if we do anything different which means as i understand mr. Martinez we have to put 3.7 billion dollars into this budget if we do not move forward with this project we

JC Martinezstaffwould either have to put it in the budget or tap into an assigned fund balance

Catherine Readokay so if we don't put it into this budget and we just have to use unassigned fund balance that drops our unassigned fund fund balance if we take 3.7 million dollars down to what

JC Martinezstaffso we are currently at 17.7 percent or 31.7 million 4.8 above the minimum so we would have about five hundred thousand dollars in excess of our 15

Catherine Readpercent minimum threshold so we would not so we wouldn't drop below the 15 percent minimum threshold but are we now moving into the territory where we are compromising our bond rating with that move

JC Martinezstaffpotentially okay

Catherine Readany other questions councilmember Amos

Anthony AmosI know George Snyder trail tends to rile us up a bit so if it's cool with my colleagues I believe do we have a work session on this item I would prefer that doesn't come up tonight in respect for time since we might dedicate a whole work session to it.

Speaker 28We do not have another work session scheduled currently.

Anthony AmosOkay. I thought we were planning to have one ahead of decision, but I know timelines got moved up a bit.

Catherine ReadWell, we're waiting on information from VDOT. Correct. So we don't have a date on the calendar.

Anthony AmosWell, if it's okay with my colleagues, can we await the information from VDOT because we don't even know if the third option is on the table anymore because VDOT questioned that is my understanding. member Peterson has comments but I would request that we save this for a specific meeting on GST because we can easily go another two three hours on the subject alone please as

Speaker 28soon as I have information I will I will request this item on the agenda yes and

Catherine Readabsolutely as soon as we have information it will go on the next available meeting no question because we're again bumping up against an April 28th date now instead of May 28th yes councilmember Peterson

Thomas PetersonI know many people are listening. Many people are interested. Many people have contacted me, as I'm sure they have others. And I don't think we've had a chance to actually share the outcomes of a meeting, a high-level meeting that was held with the Virginia Department of Transportation last week. Councilmember Bates, Mayor Reed Sanford joined five people as I recollect from VDOT at the meeting. I would just say in summary the request that they acted favorably on was a request to explore the potential for modification of the project. It was not a request for project termination and so we are going that we can provide more detail on to actually explore what might be involved in a modification to the project that is specifically designed to alleviate environmental and social conflicts

and perhaps bring a final resolution to the trail. So I think we are looking at what will, as I understand it, be a short-term process to clarify the incremental costs that may be involved in this and in addition to that to come up with conceptual design opportunities for modifications for consideration and they would go through subsequent process in slang terms to go up the flagpole. But I just wanted to be sure that folks who have not already had conversations with me or others were aware of the outcome of that meeting. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil member McQuillan.

Rachel McQuillenMy question is pertaining to a different subject. The gas to LED lights project, where are we? I know we're doing that in phases. How much do we have left of that?

Dave SummersstaffWe have two phases left. The second phase is ongoing. there's a lot of work that was needed in order to coordinate with Washington Gas and Dominion Energy to remove the old gas lines and put in the new electrical lines. So that is one of the reasons why that was not on my CIP list, is because the amount of effort, we already have the lamp, we bought the lamps for Phase II, and to get Washington Gas and Dominion to coordinate this utility relocation. It's a lot of work. We got them on board. Phase two should be finished in, I don't know, six weeks or so, and then we're hoping to wrap it up with phase three.

Rachel McQuillenAnd when will that be complete, phase three?

Dave SummersstaffI would expect phase three to be finished sometime in 2026.

Rachel McQuillenOkay.

Speaker 18That's all.

Catherine Readanything else councilmember Bates

Billy Batesnothing at the moment

Catherine Readokay just checking in because councilmember Amos is trying to keep us focused keep us focused and I appreciate that I appreciate that anything else before we move on okay okay councilmember Hall

Stacy HallI'm sorry I was busy flipping pages you said this should be done in the next how long that the

Dave SummersstaffPhase two should be wrapped up within the next six weeks or so, I would say. Definitely before July 4th. We definitely want it done, you know, when the summer comes. Phase three, which is the final phase, should be wrapped up sometime in 2026. I really can't give you a better date than that because the supply chain of getting the new lights has been very erratic. You know, sometimes we order the lights and they'll say they'll be here in three months and then they can say seven months. because the supply chain issues are still a factor. Plus, the coordination with Dominion Energy and Washington Gas is constantly moving. For instance, if we have a bad hurricane in North Carolina, Dominion Energy is going to defer their work

because they're going to run out to North Carolina. So for phase three, really the best I can tell you is sometime in 2026.

Stacy HallOkay, so then that asks my question further then. So for fiscal year 2026, we have 1.5 allocated, and then for fiscal 2027, there's still 1.7. But if the work is completed in 26, wouldn't?

Dave SummersstaffYeah, we're hoping to finish it in 2026.

Stacy HallSo then would that 1.7 in 27 not need to be there, or that would be accelerated into 26?

Dave SummersstaffHopefully it will not be there.

Stacy HallOkay.

Dave SummersstaffYou know, right now there's a little bit left over, kind of a cushion, what we can't finish, complications that occur. so we always have something that might take us into 2027. I think right now we're really not sure what that number may be.

Stacy HallOkay. I've had a number of residents email me about that one specific item, so that's really helpful if it ideally is all done in 2026. Thank you.

Catherine ReadAll right. Anything else from anybody? Council Member Peterson?

Thomas PetersonWell, not for these patient folks, but for some others who are in the audience. I'm wondering if Director Hardin might join us for a moment. And a general question is just, you know, you're at the interface of these really significant and expenditure decisions which carry on and have implications, et cetera. I appreciate everything you shared with us about the Willard Sherwood Center, but I'm wondering in your span, have you been able to identify any areas where either directly through community development or indirectly working with the other programs there's a potential on the CIP side for reductions or beyond that? when you took a look inside the direct and indirect side of this

Brooke Hardinstaffspeaking for cdnp we included a 10 reduction related to operating costs we are mostly people to get to get to 10 quite frankly for our department we could clear out all of our operating, all of our travel and training, all of our dues and memberships, all of our office supplies, and we don't get to 10%. And so what we proposed is reducing some contract service funds and also reducing the pass-through funds that go through the department for Fairfax Renaissance Housing Corporation. And so that's what we identified that would allow us to maintain the service levels that we're providing. As noted in that 10%, for contract services, there are things that we are supporting that allow us to continue to do the work that we're doing on a day-to-day basis

and meet deadlines and be timely and respond to our customers and city residents for plan review related to site plans, for plan review and permitting related to urban forestry, as well as some of the cases, as you've seen, we contract work for some of the cases that come before the Planning Commission and the City Council. Those functions we would continue to be able to provide based upon the recommendations that we've made. So really what those cuts would amount to is one, for Renaissance Housing would pretty drastically reduce their ability to continue on into FY26. You know, based on the level that was recommended, they could do one, two, three, maybe, loans over the course of the year, where they've been doing, you know, 12, 13, 14, 15, typically, in recent times over the course of the year.

So it would reduce their ability to continue on. In terms of the operational side for community development planning, the work that we've been doing to implement the comprehensive plan and the small area plans that we've contracted for that work would be eliminated so for example right now we've been working on revisiting the zoning regulations for the activity centers to better align what the regulations are with what the plans recommend that type of activity we would we would not do going into the

Thomas Petersonand on CIP is that something you will be looking further at

Brooke Hardinstaffnot necessarily you know we we interact with CIP projects but we are not directly responsible for any CIP projects and community development planning I have personally been involved in Willard Sherwood based upon a request that I participate as a city's representative in that project but it's not something that we do as part of our services and community development planning thank

Catherine Readyou

Brooke Hardinstaffyes sir

Catherine Readcouncilmember Hall

Stacy Hallhas there been any consideration to increasing the revenue side of your department with regard to maybe charging a little bit more for a permit or things along those lines we

Brooke Hardinstafflook at at fees every year in terms of more or less how we compare to others in in the region in FY 26 budget we have proposed increasing resubmission fees for third and additional site plans and that was a recommendation based upon a performance study that was done a couple of years ago where we're trying to encourage our applicants to be submit and ensure that they are making corrections and edits as needed and not spending a lot of staff time kind of being the QC agency for engineers that are out there and so we've recommended increasing those fees to hopefully encourage that typically we see the city's fees relating to planning and zoning permits and plan review we are commensurate with other jurisdictions in

the area of Vienna Herndon Leesburg we are generally not our fees aren't as high as Fairfax County but quite frankly no one's fees are as high as Fairfax County they're quite amazing in some instances when you see them so we it is on an ongoing basis, but by no means, as you can tell in the budget, is the operation self-supporting. We're not an enterprise. I don't think we could set fees in a way that would still continue to serve our customers and be able to 100% fund what we do, but absolutely we look at it every single year.

Stacy HallSo with regard to the possible third and fourth submission, is that something that is being seriously considered and would take effect July 1st? I do think that that's a reasonable request. Yes, it would. Okay.

Brooke HardinstaffAnd I think it's something, you know, we've discussed and is not necessarily unusual. There are other jurisdictions that do have that practice. I don't think it's something we're going to see a lot of pushback necessarily on.

Stacy HallOkay. And I know you touched on the eliminating all the contracted comp plan, small area plan implementations. can you maybe explain a little bit further how that might impact what gets presented to council how the Planning Commission sees things just I can make sure I understand what that detriment might be

Brooke Hardinstaffso in terms of applications that come forward to Planning Commission and City Council it wouldn't affect that at all so the contract services that we have for assistance on the land use cases that would remain based upon what what we proposed for the 10% reduction we would still be able to to fund that we would still be able to fund some services that for for plan review and for urban forestry permitting what would be affected is the city initiated work and so things that not applications not private property owner developer things that the city is is advancing based upon our plans and policies so this year we are moving as I mentioned we're moving forward with some potential zoning text amendments for the activity centers

we've also been working on historic resources assessments of various properties in the city in the coming year we are looking at doing some public improvement planning and level service standards work all of those things that that are really internal initiatives those would either not be completed or would be delayed and some of those things we can take on in time other hiring expertise that just don't exist in the city, so those things we wouldn't advance.

Catherine ReadOkay, thank you for clarifying.

Brooke HardinstaffSure.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Amos?

Anthony AmosThis is a moral question for council. For those we've already spoken with, would we be cool with letting people just go home?

Rachel McQuillenNo, I'm not done. Okay.

Catherine ReadMe

Rachel McQuilleneither.

Catherine ReadOkay. Well, and that was a good question. Let's talk about the Renaissance Housing Program. so do you have a staffer who supports that program we

Anthony Amosdo

Catherine Readyou do so there's there you so you have staff hours that support the Renaissance housing program and a hundred percent of that money is a grant from the city from the general fund maybe that's a question for mr. Martinez it is so none of that is grant funded it is just taxpayer dollars and the program is 25 years old this year 25 years old this

Brooke Hardinstaffyear? 23, 25, yes.

Catherine ReadOkay, so we have staff hours, we have general taxpayer dollars going into the program, and I know it's a wonderful program, done a lot in the city. How many up to this point projects have we actually invested in? Do you have that number, Mr. Martinez?

JC MartinezstaffI don't recall, but maybe Brooke might have that information. We did actually do a report.

Catherine ReadWe're bringing in the special forces. There we go. I appreciate that.

Speaker 14295.

Catherine Read295 projects. And has that been since 2000?

Speaker 14Right. I believe the first loan closed in 2002.

Catherine Read2002. So 295 projects since 2002. And what has been the total investment the city has made in the program, aside from staff hours? Anybody? Is this a trivia question? I mean, maybe it is a trivia question.

Brooke HardinstaffWe have that. I don't have that with me tonight. I

JC Martinezstaffwould say roughly from a year ago, if I recall, it was about $4.3, $4.4 million.

Catherine ReadOkay, so $4.3, $4.4 million plus staff hours since 2002. I'm just trying to put this into perspective, and I agree with Mr. Harden that if you reduce it much further, you're taking a very robust program that has previously existed and you're winnowing it down to just a few a few programs I mean a few loans a few loans okay councilmember Hardie Chandler

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerwhen you talked about contracts and we got a presentation on the zoning alignment project correct and so what are the implications of you put that forward what are the implications of not having those small area planning those small area plans zoning alignment process continue

Brooke Hardinstaffit it will affect the applications that are coming forward to Planning Commission and City Council certainly one of the challenges that I think planning commission of council have had is trying to reconcile the alignment that that doesn't exist between the ordinance and the plans and creates confusion I think in the community for requests that are being made that are that are fully aligned with with what the policy is and what the plans are but the ordinance doesn't work work in conjunction with that and And so the applications become much more complicated. Many more requests are being included than would be otherwise if we made those, potentially made those changes. And so in terms of, I think, clarity in the community about how proposals comport with

our regulations and also the speed in which those can potentially move through the system in making those changes. It would also help to address, the Planning Commission has had some questions over time about their role and how they are a part of the review process. This would help to potentially address some of those issues as well. And it's just really the message that we're sending to those that are interested in investing in the city. And the small area plans have created a lot of interest investing in the city and redeveloping areas that the city has said we would like to see redeveloped because they're aging or obsolete or whatever. But then it's kind of a mixed message that goes out when our regulations don't necessarily

support what the plans and policies have articulated. So, in short, more complex, takes longer, more confusing to the community. Could we continue to, you know, go on the way we have? We certainly could. It's just not an efficient way to do business.

Rachel McQuillenThank you.

Brooke HardinstaffYes, ma

Catherine Read'am. Council Member McQuillan.

Rachel McQuillenThis, well, I'll start with the one that I know goes to you. Can we discuss proffers by chance? So I know that I had asked you about our school buildings, and you had sent me some verbiage related to proffers can only be discussed. And I had asked you about expansion, if maybe that, did we find out that qualifies?

Brooke HardinstaffOr

Rachel McQuillenhow would that work? Sure.

Brooke HardinstaffIf it's possible. This is probably a topic in and of itself, and I don't know if our city attorney, he's here if we need him, is here. I almost made it up.

Rachel McQuillenyou

Brooke Hardinstaffbut so related to school proffers specifically the the language in the state code speaks to an expansion of the facility and so things like you know re turfing fields and repurposing existing spaces and those sorts of things do not typically comport with with the state requirements for proffers related to schools it needs to be expansion of the facility that increases the capacity of

Satoshi Itostaffof

Brooke Hardinstaffthe facilities, so a building addition that adds a classroom or some other type of improvement that increases instructional space. Those aren't the types of projects that have been included in the city's capital improvement program since the schools were renovated now 20 years ago. and so in terms of interacting with the development community we are challenged to point to something to say if you proffer money this is what that money is going to expand the capacity of those facilities and so it's not something that the city has had a policy in place for I will say that there have been school proffers that have been entertained over the years we can with you if we haven't already given where the city potentially is in terms

of of a new level of investment in schools it may be time that we could look at that policy we certainly have have a good template with what Fairfax County does and given our relationship with them in terms of the instructional and just the construction markets, we would be very similar in terms of what our costs would be for additional capacity and program space. And so we may be at a moment now, and again, that's probably a work session that we could have independently on that issue, but it is something we are kind of reaching a point now where maybe we can look at it a little bit differently. But that has really been the challenge, and the state code is pretty explicit about that, on top of making some other changes to proffers that make it a little bit harder for local governments

to negotiate the way that we once did.

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceYeah, I think the Shadow City Attorney said it really well. I'm sorry, I took the title away from you. But we are very limited, and Virginia localities are very limited on what you can do in terms of school proffers. We have tried in the past to push the envelope, but the capacity discussion is something that becomes critical. And it's not enough simply to be adding students. It has to be programmatic expansion, programmatic capacity expansion to the facilities.

Rachel McQuillenThe two elementary schools that we're going to be expanding and adding classrooms to, that would then fall under this?

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceI'll give you an attorney answer. Possibly.

Rachel McQuillenOkay.

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceIt does depend. wealth without tipping our hands too much where things like trailers for expansions don't qualify.

Assistant Chief SeitzstaffRight.

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceBuilding expansions do, depending on the circumstance. Proffers have also undergone a significant change over the years. And again, as Mr. Hardin said, probably a work session discussion on proffers would be merited because I think as everything else you all have been talking about this evening, some of these topics are several hour discussions. But we'll be happy to come back to you at an appropriate time.

Rachel McQuillenWould counsel be open to that? to explore that further. Thank you. And then I had a question about code enforcement. I don't know if this would be for you, Mr. Harden, or for the city manager, but how strong is our current code enforcement? And have we explored technology like City Detect, which have you heard of this technology? I'm not

Brooke Hardinstaffsure.

Rachel McQuillenIt's a software program that places cameras on city vehicles, and so it captures code issues with code and so it helps with enforcement and a lot of small municipalities are starting to use it I don't know if it's an issue due to being a Dillon stater and I don't know if that would but I just thought it was creative and interesting when I started to research different potential revenue streams that and this goes back to my comment from the last meeting of you know looking into these creative potential modernization and solutions moving forward. Is that something that we've explored?

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceIn terms of exploring it, I don't know. I have heard of that program. Not familiar about it in Virginia. I do know that it is a tool for discovering potential violations, but citing violations and enforcing violations based on camera activity is problematic on a number of levels. and certainly in Virginia, as we always say, we're a Dillon rule state, so the tools that are available aren't that many. I

Chrisstaffwill

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voicesay from experience, our code enforcement group here in the city is very active, very aggressive, but it's a small shop, can't catch everything, as with everything else. And I'll say on the zoning side, just one example, we have one zoning inspector for the entire city. Which is why

Rachel McQuillenI'm thinking about technology coming

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voicein and helping

Rachel McQuillenus out to alleviate some of the...

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceBut it's a slippery slope. I mean, you know, you have issues like overcrowding and again, discussion for another evening. Right. And using technology for enforcement in those areas is very problematic. And again, it's problematic, not in particular, but Virginia is one of the states that makes the use of tools like that very difficult. But we continue to explore it. I would

Rachel McQuillenstill like it explored. Yeah.

Brian Lubkemanstaffby voiceAbsolutely.

Rachel McQuillenThank you. That's all I have, I think, for planning right now. Thank you. Thank you.

Thomas PetersonCouncilmember Peterson. I don't know how much of this question goes to Director Hardin and how much of it goes to Director Summers, but maybe between the two of you, you'll be able to help. One of, you know, the city has some small, fairly critical programs, and it's easy for them to kind of get lost in this entire exercise, program and included in that in association with that our forestry program urban forestry program etc how are those programs faring and affected by and contributing to this exercise we're going through well

Dave Summersstaffi'd like to ask our sustainability division head to address that

Stefanie Kupkastaffby voiceSo I met with Dave and we evaluated our CIP projects department-wide and discussions on sustainability projects. One of the benefits of sustainability projects there's usually cost savings associated with it like solar installations have a return on investment same with energy efficiency projects help save the city money in the long term so with the urgency of a lot of based on City Council goals and the cost savings associated with them we haven't looked at reducing those projects because the benefits they provide our community

Thomas Petersondoes this include forestry because I always get mixed up where everybody sits

Brooke Hardinstaffeveryone works very closely together urban forestry so Anna Safford and Sophia Chape and work in community development planning but work very closely with Stephanie and Melissa Pennant in Public Works you know really on a day-to-day on a day-to-day basis as Stephanie noted it's not an area that that that we looked at suggesting any reductions I think the challenge in urban forestry going forward is what will happen at the federal level and in the Sprout grant that the city has received. That's something that Ms. Safford is working with our funder on an ongoing basis. As of right now, it looks like we will continue to receive funding going forward through, hopefully through at least the end of the federal fiscal year.

Now, it may change from an upfront allocation to reimbursement, and that's kind of late-breaking, kind of real-time situation. So we will have more for the council on that if it looks like that will materialize. It was a three-year grant. If you recall, $1 million total, basically a third, a third, a third of that. and so we received the first year we were moving into the second year in March and so that's when we started to see some changes our understanding is that funding will be available again at least through the end of this federal fiscal year but we will keep the council apprised on that if if that funding isn't available we've looked at at resources and community development in planning and in public works to try to be able to supplement that work potentially if we need to.

Dave SummersstaffCurrently, the urban forestry program is actually funded by the stormwater utility. Satoshi Ito is here. If you have any questions about how the urban forestry program is funded by the stormwater utility, the enterprise funds, such as the stormwater utility, the waste water utility, the Q-Bus transit, of the budget discussions. They pay for the stormwater utility and the wastewater utility are

Speaker 25based on what we bring in, pays for the program.

Thomas PetersonAnd I know this is a longer term conversation but I think it's important because it gets to a question raised earlier about the potential to generate revenues in these different important areas. The enterprise funds are certainly an example appears to have been quite successful. I don't know what the potential is for expansion, but they certainly are now protecting programs that otherwise would be very much at risk. So I would certainly suggest that we find a way to be supportive of that conversation as we go forward. I think it will contribute to the long-term financial sustainability of the city as well as its environmental sustainability.

Catherine ReadAny other questions from the dice, from these wonderful folks. Council Member Hall.

Stacy HallMy question might be more for Mr. Edo, but you can maybe answer it. Recognizing that the stormwater projects and the wastewater projects pay for themselves with the utility, it's still an increase, right? It's still an added cost that people are asking about and are concerned about, recognizing it's smaller, but it's still there. Is there anything in the CIP that is not critically needed, would not impact our ability to find potential problems and stay on top of them? Are there anything in here that is optional?

Dave SummersstaffFor the wastewater utility, the reason there's an increase is because of our contribution to the Nomen coal plant. So that's basically nothing. We're doing extra maintenance of our wastewater system. The stormwater utility, and Satoshi will talk about this, is one of the things that is part of the stormwater utility is to make neighborhood drainage improvement projects. And if we did not get that increase, we would not be able to fund neighborhood drainage improvement projects. We would just be able to meet the minimum compliance and maintenance requirements. And I'll turn it over to Satoshi.

Satoshi ItostaffCompliance and maintenance is primary. Regulatory compliance and the environmental projects and other initiatives necessary to meet our municipal stormwater permit requirements are not considered. There is some flexibility in some of the discretionary drainage projects. Neighborhood drainage projects address drainage issues that are brought to us by citizens that they are not able to handle themselves, that involve multiple properties and so it becomes a public capital project. The other aspect is flood mitigation and flood resiliency. These are improvements to floodplains. For example, Mosby Woods community, we are conducting a flood study to improve those floodplain conditions by installing another culvert.

Those types of projects, Council would have more discretion on. They are not regulatory requirements and they do not affect maintenance of the existing infrastructure.

JC MartinezstaffWe did collaborate with Satoshi in reviewing the Stormwater Utility Fund. We actually reduced the proposed amount by $950,000, if not mistaken, from what was originally proposed to ensure that it did not go over capacity when it came to what the revenues, what we were projecting them to be bringing in and ensured some type of minimal fund balance as well.

Stacy HallOkay, and that's already been included in what's in the budget box now?

Dave SummersstaffAnd just to clarify, some of these neighborhood drainage projects have been in the hopper for a decade. So these residents have been waiting a long time to get these drainage improvements done.

Stacy HallUnderstood, thank you. we're not able to attend the George Snyder, I'm sorry, the George Snyder Trail walk. Can you maybe just give like a very brief one to two minutes synopsis of what's going on with the stream water restoration along Cardinal? Sure. Thank you.

Satoshi ItostaffThe Stafford Drive stream restoration construction is ongoing. Tree removal has been completed and of course we're getting feedback from residents. They're surprised with the number of trees that are having to be removed the visual is not what they were expecting but this is typical for a stream restoration project not just in in the city but regionally this this concern does come up over the next several months earth work will begin they will be lowering the floodplain and changing the the pathway of the stream and those both help to reduce erosion by giving the stream a larger corridor to flow through. After all of that is done is when the restoration will occur. So we were expecting that to be in fall winter this

coming season and you'll have thousands of plantings going in bushes shrubs live stakes along the stream you'll start to see the existing or the the harvested timber being reused in the stream corridor so that's really when the project takes shape and the visuals start to match what we were presenting to the community at our outreach sessions.

Stacy HallThank you. We had the benefit of being able to walk in Falls Church this past weekend, and I'm totally going to butcher the Herbert something trail.

Catherine ReadHerman

Stacy HallHoward. Thank you, that one. I was going to go Herbert Hoover. I knew that was totally wrong. Oh,

Catherine Readit's Howard Herman. We've got Howard Herman. It was a lovely trail.

Stacy HallIt was lovely, and it was I mean, Council Member Peterson took some photos. It was 10, 15 feet right off of the creek, and it really does make me wonder, is there still potentially an opportunity to put a small trail of some sort with that, what did you call it, Chunin Run or Chubbin Run or something?

Thomas PetersonCrush and Run.

Stacy HallThat one, thank you. Just something that would be really nice to just walk along that part of it. It was like a third of a mile. It was a lovely walk, and I would love to see if that could still be a consideration along the way. Thank you.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Peterson.

Thomas PetersonThe trash and recycling containers, can you let us know status? And my concern, and I'm not in the loop here, is whether either for this program or other programs, we're in a situation where we're counting on grants and they may not materialize, but how is this one going? be able to realize the grant support that we were expecting for it

Stefanie Kupkastaffby voiceyes I actually have good news that the city was awarded a grant through the recycling recycling partnership to help offset the cost for our trash and recycling carts we are working out the exact number they said to actually have additional funds they may be out be able to allocate to us so we're in conversations with them now once we have that exact number we'll we'll be happy to share that with council but happy to share that news with you guys we were waiting to get the final grant award finalized before sharing that with you. So happy I could let you know.

Catherine ReadExcellent news. Other questions? All right. Thank you so much. All right. Other questions? Council Member Hall.

Stacy HallCould we discuss health and human services? Thank you for coming out. No, no. You got your wish. I can assure you I will be. So I've been a little out of pocket for the last couple of days. I've not reviewed any emails. So if something has been sent, my apologies. But can you kind of run through the agreements that we have with the county, what they cover, if you're able to provide the cost and then the number of residents that are served do we pay per resident do we just pay a global amount regardless of what we get just kind of a general overview thank you all

Leslie Abashianstaffright so put on your seat belts there's a lot right and one of the things I would say is that some of those stats were in the presentation that that I gave you so I'll just go over in some of my two-on-twos, we didn't go full over it. But the general services agreement, for the human services side, there's four different things that a city, a locality has to provide, and that's social services, it is behavioral health, public health, and in Virginia we have the Children's Services Act. So those in code, as being a city, you have to have those. So the general services agreement, and it has some other things. I'm just going to speak for the human services part of it. And, you know, I wasn't around when they came up with this because it's been around for a long time.

So when we became a city, we did the general service agreement with the county to be able to provide those four things. and with that we have you know several different agencies that are providing services to the city residents and you know under social services for instance and I it's it okay I'll just go through like each one and y'all can stop me if you need to breathe or I need to breathe or you have questions okay so the first thing is social services and for social services you know there's array of things that have to happen in social services there's the protection like child protection adult protection there's benefits we have workforce access to that and so and then they have like with the benefits you know it's like the TANF Medicaid you know there's a lot of different

that go through the benefits program and the way we pay for those we pay a population percentage and a lot of the things you'll hear me say population percentage so Fairfax County has their budget and their budget includes all the things that they need to do to be able to provide their core services and so we pay two point I think it's 2.05 percent of their overall budget and when we do that then that pays for their operation operating expensive because one of the things that happens with any of these budgets or any of these departments it's not like an a la carte where you can go oh I want to do social services and I would like to do adult protective services but I wouldn't like to do child protective services you know once you take on that that agency you know

like a like a city decided to the agency you have to do everything that's core with that and that This includes the legislative and regulatory requirements. And I know there are local cities that try to do their own, but there's some pros and cons for that. So with the social services, the proposed budget for FY26 is $1,296,244. That's an estimate. these I think we know that Fairfax County is going through their budget process too so there may be some adjustments I know they're going through some reductions but just some numbers and this is from FY 2024 because a lot of times some of these stats I don't get to the end of the fiscal year so you know they're a little behind but like with adult protective services let's see

there were a total of 42 different kinds of abuse that were reported in Adult Protective Services. And sometimes there'd be one person could have physical abuse and self-neglect. So some of that may be a duplicated count. And then I could go into, there's a kind of are the financial exploitation, mental health, neglect, physical abuse, and self-neglect. But the thing with stuff like child protective service and adult protective services, you have to have the capacity there, and you hope that you never have to use it, but it just depends on when something happens with adult services. And for instance, I think some of the things that the adult protective services respond to in the city, for instance, is from the nursing home.

you know. For the Child Protective Services,

Catherine Readlet's see if I've got it here.

Leslie AbashianstaffAll right, first, so Child Protective Services, there were 42 cases in 2024, and that just means a call came, so they have to go out and they have to see if that, it's a, you know, it's a case that this needs some support or it's somebody, It's something they have to take to court. Sorry,

Stacy Hallso 42 for adult and 42 for

Leslie Abashianstaffchildren? No, no, no. That's for children. So 42. So for adults, it was 42. Well, wow. That's why I just wanted to make sure I didn't write it down or get it wrong. Yeah, I didn't even pay attention. Yeah, so it was for that. And with the child protection, under child protective services, that includes, you know, so a lot of times they do protection and preservation. So they don't just go and take the child away. They really try to put services in. So there's some different levels under that. And again, just like with Adult Protective Services, you have to be staffed up. They have the hotline. We can call any time. They have the case managers that follow those kids. And they do parenting education, and they do foster care, and do some different things in there,

depending on what the needs are of the children, trying to keep the kids together. and then with the public assistance and that's with the three big ones are SNAP, Medicaid and TANF and all those they've really been seeing increase and one of the things with the with the public assistance benefits we pay that 2.05 to have like the house you know the frame of the house but then we also would pay the local piece of if somebody's getting Medicaid so Usually you've got 50% or so. The feds cover it. I mean, right now, we don't really know what's going to happen with some of that. But then the state side, the state pays a piece of it, and the locality pays a piece of it. But in 2024, the public assistance, there were 2,022 total cases.

SNAP, 1060 Medicaid, and 144 of TANF. And I can show you like over the year, like I have right here, I have from FY19 to 24. So those are all, you know, the folks that are in our area that need those three main assistance. Yes.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hardy-Chandler.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerCan you talk about how the 2.05% was arrived at? For me, the number of cases, knowing the intensity of what's required in child protection, adult protection, the number is kind of deceptive because it doesn't really tell, you know, you're trying to save lives, right?

Ms. SummerfieldstaffSo

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerit may be helpful to talk a little bit about how the 2.05 was arrived at for that overarching safety net that's required. That's basically a mandate for our city.

Leslie AbashianstaffThe 2.05% was coming. Weldon Cooper every year says this is how many folks live in the estimate of Fairfax County. And then it takes the city, and that's how it came for 2.05. I can tell you the level of services and the regulatory requirements for foster care, it's very, it would be very cost-behibited for us to do it, I think. And I, I mean, that could be a work session on stuff, like all the different things that are required once a family connects with Child Protective Services in regards to the court, the oversight you know the service you know making sure that they have enough services to get them back I think that's what you're talking about right so does anybody have a question I mean this I know that I told you guys

to put your seatbelts on but I'll just keep going down and just you know if you have questions but the other things that happen For social services, and again, that's one of those core things we have to do, is the employment services. So as we know, if you have TANF or SNAP, there's work requirements. And so employment services help support somebody who is trying to get back into work to be able to be self-sufficient. In those cases, we had in 2024, the City of Fairfax view cases, and that's the Virginia Initiative for Education and Work. We had 19 new cases and 28 total, and that would be folks that they were working with. SNAP-IT is another one of those programs that there's a work requirement for some of their assistance.

We had five of those. And then there's the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act, and we had six cases. So not a lot, but they, you know, with those cases, they're usually tied to benefits, you know, requirement.

Stacy HallCan I ask? So I recognize that we have a large number of unhoused in the city.

Leslie AbashianstaffYeah.

Stacy HallWe don't necessarily know that they're city residents or they're not. And that's one of the challenges of the Lamb Center, that they're trying to kind of figure out where people came from, where they sleep last night, where were they before that. When we identify them as a city case, what sort of background goes into determining did they live in the county? Are they from Maryland? or is it because they're here they're considered a city case? I'm just curious how that gets determined.

Leslie AbashianstaffYou mean like in regards to public assistance?

Stacy HallYeah, I mean if we're claiming them as a city case that we're taking on, I mean just like they go to the school system, right? We need to verify where they live.

Leslie AbashianstaffRight. And when somebody goes to the Lamb Center and they say, I'm staying in the city if they do Medicaid for instance they'd have to meet eligibility requirements for Medicaid there's some of those folks that don't meet requirements but if they meet requirements for Medicaid then they would be counted you know as a city resident that would be something Stacy I mean sorry oh I would that's one thing I don't have in front of me right now but I would definitely bring you know could bring that back but I do think that you know with people that are in house if they're in the city and they say this is our my community they are city they're a part of our our community some of those the folks that go to the lamb

center don't stay in the city they stay in the county and so they're considered county residents but there are you know people that are in the city and it's not just in house that go to the folks that are precariously housed or you know barely kind of holding on that may be able to get food stamps or may be able to get you know especially some of the older folks that we're seeing now um are folks that could get medicaid um and it would be where they are at the time okay

Stacy Hallthank you and i think the fact that it's the 2.05 percent first you know it's a percentage as opposed to you know direct number i was just curious yeah yeah

Leslie Abashianstaffand it's i think it's hard um in the stuff with somebody that's in-house, because it really is, where do you, you know, what's your community? And, you know, we have folks that are in-house that have been around here for a long time, and then we have people that are transient that come through. And there's some requirements that, you know, when they're doing some of these benefits that you have to provide, you know, some of them, like, if you have a house, if you're paying electricity. You know, like there's different things that they have to do depending on some of the public assistance. I mean, I could give you more information on some other. I mean, I don't feel like I can answer that question tonight.

Catherine ReadCouncil Member Hardy-Chandler.

Leslie AbashianstaffBut Stacey, I mean.

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerYou may not have this number, but what would be the cost to the city if we were providing all of those human services ourselves and not?

Leslie AbashianstaffI don't feel like I can answer that, but I think that that's something that's come up from time to time. And I think that, you know, when you look at, for instance, the overall budget to have social services and have the staffing and keep consistent staffing to be able to do all the things that you have to do by code and regulation, I think it would be a lot more than we're paying right now. but that's just my assumption I think if that was something the council wanted to look at we could really cost it out but I think it would be hard because even if you only have nine people there's a caseload you have to have base people there even if you only have eight people or 18 people right so and

Stacey Hardy-Chandler24 hours a day and my point is exactly what you're saying is that these are very And, yeah, it would be cost prohibitive for us to provide those services

Leslie Abashianstaffon

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerour own.

Leslie AbashianstaffAnd I think it would be there's some liability to it, too, because once you take it on, then you take on, you know, like keeping the staffing consistent, meeting all the regulations. I think, for instance, with the Medicaid, when they froze Medicaid re-ups during the pandemic, and then they had all of a sudden had all these folks that had Medicaid that they had to do all their applications. You know, that was very time-intensive. But those kind of things, you know, if you do the program, you do all, you know, like I said early on, it's not all a cart. You either do it or you don't do it. and I know that some of my colleagues that run small departments with any of these you know they it's a struggle for them

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerand just to follow up what would you say about the narrative that we have no problems in Fairfax City in fact it's just attracting people from the region I know that that's a narrative that's out there and I don't think that there's a basis for it but what is your response to that

Leslie AbashianstaffYou mean just in general or with the folks that are unhoused or every broader? I think that we have a lot more than folks think. I mean, 2,022 of our residents are needing, you know, TANF and SNAP and Medicaid just to, you know, to meet some of their needs. And one of the things that we know about is the Alice population, which is that next level up that may not be able to get SNAP or TANF, but they're barely, you know, I think that's almost a third of our community of folks that are barely, you know, keeping the roof over their heads. and if one thing happens, you know. I think that in regards to, like, for instance, with the Community Service Board, and that's, you know, like the Behavioral Health Developmental Services

and Substance Use, let's see, in 2024, they serve 474 individuals from the City of Fairfax, and that's not including people that are in-house count them as a city resident so that's 474 people that that needed some kind of a service through the community service board so i would say that there's more need than people know and i think that we're going into a time that we may even see an increase in need and with the community service board during the pandemic i mean it was the perfect storm anyway because there were more people that were struggling with addictions like opiates, mental health, and then the pandemic camp, you know, and folks that maybe we didn't know about were all sudden, there were, you know, like the kids that were at home that were struggling, you know,

folks that were very isolated. And so I think that the community service board is, they're ones that we pay, like there's a formula that we it's not like just the population percentage but there's a lot of requirements on them through a performance contract and also just the service delivery to meet the requirements for the state but also meet for Medicaid and I think our proposed budget is a little over 3 million but I don't think we could put that we could probably have our own CSB I mean I think it would cost so much more but the need is there and I think the point's made that there's a lot of times people are not going to raise their hand and come talk at the council meeting and do their three minutes

to say I have a mental health issue I really need help or I need food stamps to keep food on my table those things so I think a lot of times those are not the residents that are calling you guys they're you know they're the ones sometimes I think with the older adults for instance with family services when we're working with adult protective services we do a lot of work with you know a neighbor calls or somebody calls and says you know I'm worried about Susie and then you get in and find Susie you know is having a lot of issues in regards to meeting their basic needs, being able to take care of themselves. So I do think that people see the city as their home. And I think either if they have a house around them or they don't, or they're barely keeping

a house around them, you know, there's a lot of folks that are hurting right now.

Catherine ReadCan I just jump in to kind of piece some of this together too, the

Leslie AbashianstaffCSB

Catherine Readand our contract with the county and what that costs us but we also have the lamb center here and for a lot of people that is their address because you can't get documents a driver's license you're you have to have an address and so you know they serve as an address but we don't have a shelter in region four right we're in region four as part of the county and so there's no shelter here so even if people are here during the day to get services from facets or the LAM Center. During the winter they're in hypothermia shelters which move around the city in faith communities or they're forced into a county shelter because there isn't one in region 4 which is bigger than just the city itself. And so

when you think about Village in the City which is a program funded by the city which helps older adults to stay in their homes safely they can live as independently as possible. You know, all of these things are interrelated. You know, FACETS is a program that helps to feed people, not that just are unhoused, but people who are food insecure. And it's an ecosystem. I mean, it's a community, and the community includes a lot of different kinds of people. But when we started the grant program last year for the first time, it was $300,000 to help fund the people supporting the people in our community. because that's what nonprofits do, and that's why they get grants from, like, Fairfax County, and we had never had a grant program.

Like, they have the consolidated funding pool of the county that supports these nonprofits to do the services that a government couldn't possibly do. We don't have enough staff. We don't have enough budget. We could never take care of all these people. But by local government giving grants to help the capacity of these nonprofits, to take care of the people in our community. And I don't think people often connect the dots there about we're doing lots of things, not just through human services, but through Village in the City, through the grant program, through a lot of things we do. You know, we have a program to help people on fixed incomes, you know, if they need relief from their property taxes.

We have a program for that. You know, we are doing so many things. It's a very multifaceted, intertwined effort in the city to take care of everyone. And so Leslie is the vase of human services, our one lone person, one person department.

Leslie AbashianstaffWe have three. We

Catherine Readdo. You

Leslie Abashianstaffhave

Catherine Readthe crisis. We haven't talked about the crisis response team, which also alleviates some of the pressure from our law enforcement, too. And again, you know, it comes back to how well are we caring for the people in our community. and in a budget crisis like this and we're looking at all the things that we are trying to trim or whittle down we still have to think about what monies we are spending and how when we invest things like grants to non-profits we're actually making a great investment in capacity building for taking care of people especially the people who need the most care and that's a tough thing I mean, it's a tough thing beyond just looking at the cost of the contract with the county

to understand what we are spending on all of these other programs to take care of the people in our city. So I just wanted to stick a pin in that so that we know that it's not just this one line item, this one budget or this one department. All of this is intertwined and interconnected.

Leslie AbashianstaffWell, and I think the rest of the, you had asked about general service, So we talked about social services, talked about the community service board, which is behavioral health developmental services and substance abuse. Then you have the health department, which that's another requirement, public health. And in 2000, let's see, in 2024, they had 1,489 unduplicated city residents be provided services somehow through the health department. they went through and got immunizations or they do rabies control. Water supply inspections, they check out our restaurants to make sure that they're healthy. But that's another requirement and that's another part of this whole budget, this whole general services agreement.

And the other thing that we do with the Children's Services Act, I mean, that's the fourth thing that I said was a mandate, and that's something that provides services to kids that have complex needs that need something such as a residential for behavioral health. They're in foster care. their families engage in child protective services and you're trying to keep them together they need private day placement outside of a school so that's another service that the county provides to us last year let's see what i have my csa in here i think we had i think we only had like about eight kids go through that last year but they're the height kids and and one of the things that children's services requires is that you

have to have a state and local match you have to do a multi-discipline team process so if a kid that's in foster care or a kid that needs a private day placement you have to go through this whole process so you have to have you know call the different agencies at the table you have to have oversight because there's requirements from the state. And so we had eight cases. It would be really hard for us to staff up the CSA, even though that is something I know about. But it would be hard for me to be the CSA. And, you know, also with the, under the general services agreement, this is something that this kind of an offshoot. It's not a part of the general services agreement, but we get access to

it anyway the neighborhood and community services I mean is one of the agencies that are in the county that they have a lot of their senior centers and their youth centers and some of those things under them but they also have some coordinated service plan unit and that unit is where it's it's the entryway for the homelessness continuum, but it also, they have a whole huge group of nonprofits that anybody in the city can go to, go through that if they're needing basic food assistance or they're needing crisis assistance. I mean, I have a feeling that they'll really be ramping up with some of the federal workers losing their jobs like they did during the pandemic. the coordinating service planning and those non-profits

were lifesavers and that's something that's actually I hope they're not listening to us at the county but they're not even that's not something that we're paying for now but it's something that we have access to because that's their entryway into a lot of their service delivery and in that also neighboring community services they do the child care assistance unit so they're the ones that you know do our permitting for home child care they run the school age child care program that's both the Providence and and Daniel's run and they also I mean now the Department of Education does the licensing on the the bigger centers child care centers but the office for children do a lot of education and work with those child care providers

and as we know those are very important you know to not only keeping kids safe but also getting them ready for school thank

Stacy Hallyou

Leslie Abashianstaffthose are all through and there too i

Stacy Hallreally appreciate it just for us but also for those listening at home or watching this later i think it's really helpful and I also I know we certain members of council have been pushing the schools pretty hard to be negotiating with the county on what we can do to bring that down when was the last time that this was opened up and discussed not in its entirety but amendments or things like that based upon I recognize it's a percentage based thing but it's this is another one of those things where it's an area of our budget that is large that we don't have a whole lot of say in and I think to Mayor Reed's point, there's a lot of different contributions and donations and other organizations that we may give money to. So this $11 million is not the total picture of what health and human

services costs for the city. And I don't think we need to come to that number, but it's just a conversation point of what are we looking at? What could we do?

Leslie AbashianstaffWhen I first came, I've been here six and a half years. And that first year, I was still bright eyed and bushy tail. And I'm like, and it's really old. We probably need to go talk to the county about that. So I took Brian,

Catherine Readif you're still here,

Leslie AbashianstaffBrian and I, and the CFO at the time, we went over and we started talking about it. And the agreement was once we crack it open, we crack it open in regards to, you know, there's potential exposure of things that are covered that we're not paying for. school board stuff that was probably part that you know like there's that pro and con but there has been some updated MOUs with like around the CSB Children's Services Act in the last since I've been here you know so they what we've done is looked at some MOU or addendums to the general without cracking open the general services agreement to look at that. I think that, I mean, that's always, you know, a possibility for us to look at. I think that, you know, right now, I mean, we can do that.

I mean, that's kind of out of my, let's pray out of my pay rate at BJC.

Brian FosterstaffMr. Foster? was the last time to, that's the current agreement we're working on, was it last adjusted in 2003.

Leslie AbashianstaffYeah. And I think the population percentage changes, you know, like it gets updated every year based on a population. I think, you know, one of the things that did happen about three years ago is the Board of Supervisors were doing some, they have like this audit process. I forgot what they called it, but they looked at Department of Family Services, they looked at homelessness, the office of rent and homelessness, and they're like, hey, the city's not paying for everything that they're getting. So we ended up, they didn't open up the general service agreement, but they added stuff to an addendum because we weren't paying, for instance, for the office of rent and homelessness. Right now we pay like $300,000 for the whole, you know, to have access to continuum.

But we weren't paying for a part of the street outreach and the case management stuff. We weren't helping pay for the hypothermias. We weren't helping for a lot. And so they added that, you know, to an MOU. And they added a couple of other things. So I think they've, you know, looked at that. And if you look at, like, even at 2003, there's been a lot added and a lot of requirements. Human Services, we probably have this tattooed on us that unfunded mandates. I know those are in other areas, too. But there's a lot of things that have happened since 2003 that are requirements in all these different departments that weren't added. When you look at the language in the General Service Agreement, which was even before 2003, when they're using, you know, terms and stuff, you're like, where did that even come from?

So what I'm saying is they've added some things in the last couple years, but it hadn't been totally cracked open. But I do, I mean, it's, you know, it is, it's a big money. And when I was going through my 10%, there's not a lot I had, you know, because when you're in an agreement, I couldn't say, oh, I'm just going to take some of that money, you know. So there wasn't a whole lot. you know the two things that I we do have you know control over are the community response team and the Fairfax village in the city and to be honest with you you know I hate to lose the non-profit grant you know I hate to lose some of those kind of things but worked really hard to get that village up and I think it's such a low barrier

program for the money we put into it and we're probably our neighbors safe that weren't, you know, just because we're helping and supporting them. I think that with the community response team, the police and fire and I, you know, working together, I think that's been a great addition to the community. So there's, you know, in my human service, but it was really hard to really look at, you know, what to take away from it, because I do think that our this community is growing and there's a lot of needs and you know I know all of us are kind of tight and we ought to make decisions but I I do appreciate what you're saying about have we looked at the general services agreement maybe we can do that like the day after I retire do

Catherine Readwe have other questions for ms Abashian any other questions okay council member Hardy

Stacey Hardy-ChandlerJust one quick comment that some of the things that you're talking about are prevention. And when we're talking about cost savings, over the long term, we're talking about investing in those things that get people either staying in their

Gwen Riddlestaffhomes safely,

Stacey Hardy-Chandlerwhich if we weren't, would have a cost later on, or early intervention, which if we don't address in terms of the CRT and those kinds of things. you know again having that longer term lens with costs save now pay more later and those are the kinds of things that help us save not only money but in my opinion lives earlier you know in the process and in terms of early identification of issues thank

Catherine Readyou all right does everybody sleep I didn't mean to make you go to sleep we're coming up on the pumpkin pumpkin hour pumpkin hour so thank you Ms. Abashian is there anything else from the dais anyone else from the dais council member McQuillan

Rachel McQuillenone thing I did want to discuss since we haven't talked too much about was the revenue stream ideas one thing that I haven't heard discussed is parking we have a parking garage The one next to the library? Do we know?

Catherine ReadWell, it looks like we don't. But let's hear from the expert.

Speaker 14I don't know if I'm an expert. I just have the historical knowledge. So that's owned by CH Realty. Crow Holdings. Yeah, we lease, I believe it's 100 spaces in that garage.

Rachel McQuillenOkay, my thought process is being the events that we hold into the city and could we consider charging for parking for events, things like that? That's things I haven't heard discussed in the meeting, so I'm just curious.

Brian FosterstaffYou could certainly institute parking for street, on-street parking, where we have on-street parking. You could certainly have parking fees for that.

Rachel McQuillenSure. But

Catherine Readwe're talking about a capital investment to put parking meters or...

Brian FosterstaffNo, that's a technology. that will do that for you. You tap on your phone. Right, Park Mobile and Reston

Catherine Readhas its own

Brian Fosterstaffapp

Catherine Readtoo.

Rachel McQuillenI don't want something permanent. I was more thinking along the lines of when people are coming into our city since we don't charge them to attend our events, usually like our fall festival and things like that, but they do need to drive into our cities usually and most of our residents can walk or take the Q bus or some other form of transportation that doesn't cost them anything, just along the lines of things that we've discussed, proffers, entertainment, things that people coming in would be paying. but just ideas. Yeah.

Catherine ReadYeah, I love Athens, Georgia on game day, man. 20 bucks to park on somebody's front lawn. Somebody's making money down there. Okay. Any, anything else? Council Member Hall.

Stacy HallI have a communications question. Still awake? I want to first of all thank you for putting out the city scene in Spanish. Fantastic.

Mr. KaiserstaffYou're welcome.

Stacy HallReally, really appreciate that. I did notice on the proposed reductions that there, and it's only about $20,000 or $18,000, but it looks like there's a comms part-time obsolete 0.25 position.

Mr. KaiserstaffYes, so that is a leftover 0.25. The other, excuse me, the other 0.5 belong to economic development. So we shared that position. They upped that position to a full-time position. That's Brittany. And so I still have this .25 that someday may become a .5 or .75 or more, but offering it up.

Stacy HallOkay. And then the CCR design and CCR print, what is that?

Mr. KaiserstaffSo you've seen the PAPHR. Before the PAPHR was the... The PAPHR? The Popular Annual Financial Report.

Stacy HallSorry, that term is not in my head yet.

Mr. KaiserstaffSo prior to that, we created the citizen-centric report, which is an association of government accounting

Thomas Petersonproduct.

Mr. KaiserstaffSo the PAPFER replaced it, and also finance pays for the PAPFER. So really what you're seeing there for the CCR was the cost to design and print it. It's kind of a placeholder. We just switched over. It did come out of my budget before, and now it gets billed back to finance.

Stacy HallIt seemed like the city scene that appeared in multiple departments' budgets.

Mr. KaiserstaffSo human resources, that's who Carol in the mail room works for. So you may have seen the postage reflected there. So yeah. Okay. I think I noted it on that sheet that it comes from the mail room, not from the communications budget. We pay for design and printing.

Stacy HallOkay. Do we know what the total cost of the city scene is? Is that an easy number to ascertain? Is it just two departments that it's spread out over?

Mr. KaiserstaffYes.

Stacy HallLet's be clear. I'm not saying we should cut it. I'm just asking what it costs. I think it's fantastic. I

JC Martinezstaffthink it's 60 and 40, 60 within marketing, and then 40 in HR for postage.

Mr. KaiserstaffIs that 100,000? It's probably a little bit more than 50, actually, for postage now. There's 23,000 copies that are printed and mailed. It's about $750 in addition to design. You see the printing costs there. And just so you know, that Spanish edition was about $621.

Stacy Hall621? Yeah. Okay. Is that something we should expect every month moving forward or how is that being done?

Mr. KaiserstaffYeah.

Stacy HallHow is that being done?

Mr. KaiserstaffSo we have a state contract with Lionbridge Technologies. They do the translation. We just send them like we talked about in our two-on-twos, the Word documents, and then I lay it out in Publisher just to try to make it look like the professionally designed city scene, and then we upload it to the website.

Stacy HallAnd if we wanted to add on additional languages, would that be roughly another $621 per month?

Mr. KaiserstaffI think I got it quoted out to about $3,500 a month to do five languages, including English. And that is not budgeted at the moment. NEW MONEY.

Stacy HallTHANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THAT INFORMATION.

Mr. KaiserstaffI CAN'T DO THE EASTERN LANGUAGES MYSELF. THANK

Catherine ReadYOU. ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? MR. KAISER. OKAY. THANK YOU, MR. KAISER. THANK YOU. FOR STAYING UP LATE WITH US.

Mr. KaiserstaffGLAD TO BE HERE.

Catherine ReadAND COUNCILMEMBER HALL.

Stacy Hallno one else being brought up at least on my end did we ever get anything from voter registration

Brian Fosterstaffnot yet

Stacy Hallokay and mr. Martinez the one million dollars in non-urgent vacancies that was addressed in scenario I don't know definitely a five I'm not sure about the others did that include the deputy city manager role?

JC MartinezstaffIt did. It did include it for the entire year.

Stacy HallOkay, so included deputy city manager, included police chief, or what else was included in there roughly?

JC MartinezstaffSo it did not include what we would consider urgent positions. In that instance, it would be potentially the police chief, the deputy police chief, any, I think the manager said, any specific public safety positions, and then any other positions that we would identify as vital or urgent, such as right now Fleet Services is having a difficulty trying to hire and retain mechanics, so those would probably be exempt from that as well.

Stacy HallOkay. Thank you.

Catherine ReadSure. Anyone else? Okay. Anyone else? everybody good

Brian Fosterstaffeverybody

Catherine Readgood mr. Foster

Brian Fosterstaffokay well thank you very much for all the questions we've taken notes I know we owe you some follow-up we will send out JC's presentation tomorrow so you'll have that I know I know a lot of you were taking notes but we'll send that to you so you'll have a copy of that and then just remind everybody our budget open house is tomorrow four to eight at the Sherwood Center and everyone that's here, all the departments, everyone will be represented. It's come and go. You don't have to be there the whole time. There will be representatives from all of our areas and departments with their budget information as well. You can ask questions and get more details about their budget. Real estate assessment will be there.

If people have questions about their assessment, they'll be present as well. We have several members of the staff who are bilingual who will also be there to provide assistance if necessary. And there will be ample opportunity for people to provide feedback. Both will have paper the old-fashioned way. There will be a QR code that they want to do electronically. So hopefully we've covered all the bases. I think it's going to be a good event. So for people who have questions or want to learn more about the budget and the services that the city provides, 4 to 8 tomorrow.

Catherine Read4 to 8 tomorrow. Okay. Everybody go home and get some rest. I am now adjourning this meeting at 11.46 p.m.