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I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to call to order the March 6, 2025, loud and counting boarded supervisors budget work session. Board members, I'd like to stress the importance of this budget work session as the time to offer changes, additions and deletions to the budget. Board members, you should try to offer all desired amendments and ask any questions you have during the work sessions. Please only offer motion that you intend to support so that we can be efficient with our time. And I've said this before, don't vote on something. If you're not willing to support the tax rate at the end of when we finish. In addition, if you'd like to offer motions on items that do not appear in the proposed budget, please work of staff prior to the work session, prior to the work session, prior to the work session to ensure the motion is accurate and accomplished as your intended result. When we get our final vote on April 1st, staff will not be able to make large changes to the budget during the meeting and the budget could be delayed if there are substantive changes that were not discussed and voted on during the work session. I'm going to go one step further, supervisors. If you all need to outvote me, you can. But if I see votes on this day, instead of not being vetted prior to this work session, I am not going to allow them. They can come at the wrap up at the end because it is just too confusing for me, for staff, and it's not for all staff, and it's not respectful to the public. And so don't walk up on here on motions that we haven't seen before because you can bring them to the last session or you can take them back home. But that's what's going to happen. All right, would everyone please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. All. Okay, we may want to ask Miss Burke for some budget staff updates. Do we have any budget staff updates, ma'am? I was just going to review the materials in your packet. From Stravots taken last Monday at last Monday's work session, the real property tax rate on the tote board stands at $0.80 with $455,000 available to allocate before changing the tax rate. And then I would just share that in the packet that went out yesterday was an additional county packet of questions as well as an information item on the public defender proposal that's next on your agenda as well as an information item of accompanying the extension services request to be fully responsive to one of the questions that came in from a board office and that concludes my updates. That was fast. Thank you very much. Where is the tow board? It is under budget staff update. No, no. I'm sorry. Yes, we could share the screen. That's helpful, thank you, appreciate that. Okay, we're going to first, you have a quick question. Oh yeah, sure, does anyone have questions for staff? On this, Mr. Latterno's not on the web, X, is he? He's not. Okay, Mr. Attorney. Thank you, Ms. Burke. My understanding is we are contributing more than required to the revenue stabilization funds. So we are actually over our target for the revenue stabilization funds. And my question is we only have 455,000 left until we go over the next threshold. If we really want to keep this tax rate, can we reduce the revenue stabilization fund enough to keep us under this tax bracket when we're all finished here. I don't understand your question. We have $455,000 until we go up to a half cent on the tax rate. If we want to avoid going up a next or a half cent on the tax rate and we want to fund some of these items and these budget discussions that pushes us up into that higher tax practice. if you you're saying if we want to put some in things. And we do see the amount that we're putting in the revenue stabilization fund, which is already more than what we had planned to put in anywhere. I see your question. He's asking so if we say yes to something other than item requests levels one and two, if we want to go to four Can we do that and then if we hit that if we hit the number can then we then take it off the top of the revenue stabilization fund that is yes That is an option available to the board I think that is one of the conversations that we would like to the board to have that wrap up to choose how you want to proceed with real property tax rate or revenue stabilization. I will note that the tote board is displaying either or option right now. It's not, it's both of them. So you've reduced the tax rate to 80 cents and or if you want to keep the tax rate at 80 and a half cents, you've increased the contribution to revenue stabilization fund. It was proposed at $127 million. It's now, it could be at $136 million depending on how you want to make those adjustments. But that would be something that you would request the board discuss at RAPO. Thank you. I make a request every time, I'm dead serious with this. Every time you talk to talk about what the tax rate is, what we reduced it to, it would be helpful if you say what that is below the equalized tax rate. It is below the homeowners equalized tax rate. It is not below the equalized tax rate. Yes, below the homeowners exactly. 80 cents is 1 below the homeowner's EGLE's tax rate. Dad, that's what I'm saying. Thank you. All right. The first thing we're going to do is take up the Public Defenders office with Miss O'Donnell and any other staff that she'd like to have come to the table with her, come to the table with her. And well, more loud, more loud, and this did not go out in a package. You can see this because this is a decision that the board can make based on really quite frankly, in the beyond, as years of Miss O'Donnell talking to me and to Mr. Himmstery and to other board members. and just to give some background, when I first became chair and Mr. O'Donnell brought to me the discrepancies are the gap between what the public defenders make and people in the Commonwealth Attorney's Office, even though they're not always linear positions, it was pretty big. My response to her was that for at least two sessions, I wasn't going to do anything with this because we were going to work really closely with general assembly members to see if they were willing to do what is actually their employees, to do what they should do by their own employees and make up the difference. And we were shot down time after time after time after time. Mr. Sainson, I went before and had this discussion early in our first term. We were shot down time after time. And I'm going to be completely nonpartisan here when I say neither party was willing to do this and it was it was and remains an issue for me. And so at this point, we're going to do this on the county side. Are we going to do something today on the county side because it is not fair to the public defender staff. of the Fender staff more than show up in court. They are case managers. They do so much more than that. She will lose good people because she cannot keep people in her office. And so at some point it just became untenable for us to do nothing anymore. But we have been, Miss O'Donnell started this conversation with me, my very first year in office, and my first few years, we spent down the General Assembly begging them to do something. And so I am putting everyone in the General Assembly on notice, I don't care who you are, I don't care who your political party, I don't care. It is shameful that you're not, that the General Assembly is not supporting their own employees, salaries, because they know, they know counties will eventually have to do it. So now I'm finished, but that's what happens. Miss O'Donnell, would you like to say anything? Put your mic on. I agree. And I can't tell you how grateful my staff is to the board. The supplement that you've given us to date has made a world of difference. I've been able to keep attorneys in my office longer than normal. I am talking with my executive director because of the supplement you've given us thus far. Our average day of an attorney is above the state average. The state average for public defender to stay in an office is between three, it's right around three years. That's just when an attorney gets good. That's just when the experience starts to kick in. That's just when they develop the credibility and dependability from the courts. So you lose them. I'm kind of now at that situation, which I've told, I think spoken with all of you, that if the board isn't willing to do something, we're going to lose our hot. I'm going to lose my most experienced attorneys because they've got to make more. Yeah, yeah. Superbizers, do you have any questions for Miss O'Donnell? Mr. Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. So, Donald, what's the case load for the public defenders all? Our case load, as supervisor Turner, is we are averaging, and I provided that information. I have all my stacks here in the NNL. We were slightly under 3,000, I want to say 2,800 last year. We go up between 300 and 400 annually, the pandemic office. Obviously we saw a drop. So that is, you divide that 2,800 amongst 12 attorneys. So we're averaging over 200 cases per attorney. I think it's actually 235 cases per attorney. Thank you. And I think the county of turn. I thought I gave those numbers. I think the county of turn is office casead is 70-ish. 75-comwells attorney. Comwells attorney is about 75 cases per attorney just to be clear of the amendment. And so that is a number. So I have that number. I am also responsible for the budget for being here for training supervising mentoring hiring firing and Caring a full-case load. Thank you Anybody else? I'm gonna go to miss for Xpin for emotion. Thank you Madam chair I move that the Board of Supervisors amend the Office of the Public Defender Resource Request to remove the four county positions and direct staff to work with the Virginia Indigent Defense Commission to determine the true cost of the four positions with a maximum amount of county funding dedicated to a 100% supplement of $400,000 for FY 2026. Okay. Let's go show them the motion. Thank you. Ms. O'Donnell, thank you so much for the service that you provided the county. I think that you were last before us in 2020 for a salary supplement. And the idea that there has been no movement since 2020 is absolutely appalling. Your caseloads are huge compared to what the Commonwealth's attorney is carrying. Your salaries are drastically lower than what the Commonwealth's attorneys salaries are. Your staffing is drastically lower. When we first started talking about this, I guess, aside from all the other times we've talked about it. When we first started talking about it in 2024, we thought maybe we could do some attorneys. There was a little bit of uneasiness as to whether the county could actually fund actual new positions for you. And so we agreed on these four positions to provide support to your office. And I hope that they will provide the support to your office that at least eases some of the workload that attorneys are doing that is actually not practicing law. It is practicing a number of other things, translator, investigator, evidence gathering and review, and all of those things. So I'm really proud to have worked with you on it this year. And I kind of like the idea though of preserving that we did not fund actual attorneys because I think that preserves our argument to the General Assembly in our delegations that, you know, the state should be actually providing the attorneys. And I know that your office is actually going to hire these positions and we're funding it, but I think actually not doing attorneys this year helps our argument when we go back. And I would also like to see the General Assembly think about how you are paid and the stepping creases and all of that, right? It just does not seem right that you will be in one position and pay that same salary until the next position above you just opens and then you get to move up. I mean, there should be some way to progress between those positions. So hopefully we can get them to look at that this year. And I know I've told you this before, but my mom's a public defender. I grew up in a household trying to live on a public defender salary. And so I feel the pain. And I can't tell you how much I appreciate the dedication and the passion that you and your team have for your work. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. So I want to be really clear that we're not doing kind of this pitting the comma of the tourney against the public defender's office. That's not what's happening here. Those two offices both have their responsibilities, and that's how the system works. And so the comma of attorney's office, what they should be making, and I have no issue with that at all. And so I don't want to walk out of here with that ideal that we're doing that. We're simply saying that we are aware and we understand that the public defenders office has been under underpaid, understaffed, under resourced, and quite frankly sometimes underappreciated for what they're doing. And that to a degree, I don't know that everyone understands I don't know that everyone understands what the public defenders do. I mean, you know, we see attorneys, and if you're not attorneys, so I mean, both of whom are sitting on this day as to my left, you, attorneys are what's on a television show, right? It's not the same, but a public defender's office does a lot of just community running people down and case management and kind of pseudo therapy and all these kind of things that happen well outside of the courtroom itself. In fact, sometimes if you're doing all those things really well, you never end up in a courtroom at all that be quiet. That's just how it works. And so we know that the Comweather Attorney's Office is important. The Public Defenders Office is important. We're not pushing them against one another. We're saying we value them both and we need them both and we need to not lose season to good people. And that's why again, you came to me in my very first year, my very first term. And we have made a one supplement improvement already, and now we're doing this just because we know the importance of keeping you up. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank everyone in your office as well. Mitch, would you like a closing? Thank you. Well, I was just going to completely agree with you, Madam Chair. It's not that the Commonwealth's attorney doesn't deserve the staffing or the pay that they are getting. It's the idea that we live up to the standards of justice in this country for me that justice is blind and justice can't necessarily be blind if there's such an inequity in the ability to represent not the desire, not the skill, not the passion. It's just the ability to have the bandwidth to give equal representation on either side and our adversarial system. So would you like to make a comment? You look like you wanted to answer a question. I did. And I don't think there's a question out there. But to comment the chair and supervisor Risman, you're so right, we don't. I think when people look at the public defender or when people who don't know what we do, they think all we do is represent the bad guys. We represent the needy. Every now and then we have a bad guy. And the constitutional requires us, mandates that. We represent the mentally ill. We represent the addicted. We represent the kids who've gotten themselves in trouble. We represent the wrongly accused. We represent the truly needy in our community. And we don't just go into court and challenge the Commonwealth and fight with the Commonwealth. We find services, we find placements to make sure that these individuals aren't coming back to court, that they can succeed, they can be successful. So it doesn't start in the courtroom and it doesn't end in the courtroom for us. We try to fix the problem that's in front of them, the charges against them, and do what we can to make sure that they don't repeat that problem, that they have the resources to be successful. Thank you, Ms. O'Donnell, I could not add to that. Thank you, Madam Chair. That was 801 with Mr. Luterno being off the day. I will send shooting a text or something to find out what's going on. Make sure he's okay. Toronto, man, ask a question. I heard the motion for the four positions. So that also include the increase in the supplement. It is all of it at one time. Mr. Home Motion. The Home Motion. Thank you. I miss the good part. Thank you. Yeah, you miss the good part. I heard no. If I could just clarify. So the motion here just would transition from funding for county positions to funding for position. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You didn't need to do that. We didn't need to do it because it's in budget already. It's in the base budget. It's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, somebody takes it out. You didn't need to do that. We didn't need to do it because it's a budget already. It's in the base budget. It's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, it's just, and let somebody takes it out. It's done. Thank you. Somebody takes it out and take the mouse eye. And we'll have that discussion. All right, but I'm not going to be. And I'll wrap it up essentially. I'm very pissed for real. Alright, thank, my bad. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm wrong. You wanted to do a different, no, my bad. I have a definitely on here. I'm sorry, we're going to do the health and well for a people yet. First, so let's do extensive, extensive services. My bad, I apologize. And that is on page 81, extension services. Paul, you were funny. I saw you get up and sit back down. I'm sorry. Didn't mean to confuse you. Good evening, supervisors. My name is Stuart Vomack and I'm the department director for Virginia Corruptive Extension Loudon, known as Extension Services in the proposed budget. The resource request from my department can be found on page 81 of the budget document. Outupartment is the local connection to Virginia's land grant universities, Virginia Tech, and Virginia State University. Outapartment helps the people of Latin County improve their lives through educational programs and trainings based on research, and they are developed with input from local stakeholders. These programs focus on the nutrition and health of families, promoting natural resource conservation and stewardship, improving our food system, increasing the sustainability of agricultural operations, and improving youth well-being by teaching life skills. I'd like to just take a moment to update you on the resource request for our nutrition educator that was approved in the FY25 budget. In mid-August, our department moved to our new facility on Miller Drive, and we unborted Emily Jacobs, our nutrition educator at the beginning of November. With assistance from our unboding plan, Emily has hit the ground running, making connections with county departments primarily and community stakeholders to plan and conduct programming. In December, she participated in the PSES Winterfest. In January, she participated in the Department of Family Services' Fatherhood Initiative program. And in February, she participated in the PRCS International Festival. And some of the plan program for a 2025 already include a balance living with diabetes class with PRCS in July and one at Sterling Library in September. A diabetes support group at Leesburg, senior center in April. Cooking on a budget classes with loud and hunger relief. Healthy together youth obesity program with PRCS and the Virginia Department of Health, canning and food preservation classes at Sterling Library in June through November and speak with a dietician monthly hours at Sterling Library in May. The resource request in the proposed FY26 budget is for a financial literacy educator, which aligns with the expectations for the services of my department and the board's strategic initiatives. The addition of this FTE would provide our residents with an upstream intervention to enhance healthy financial futures for loud and families, working with people of all ages from children to seniors to promote research-based sound practices. This FTE will directly support the efforts of other related activities within this program by providing referrals and coordination to related programs conducted by the nutrition educator which you funded in FY25. Additionally, this FTE will enhance the activities of other departments, such as family services, mental health, substance abuse, and developmental services, the health department, PSES, youth services center, housing and community development, and plans to reach emerging adults via the new youth services Department, in addition to the nonprofit community through collaborative partnerships. For example, this FTE and the resulting volunteer force will conduct programming at libraries, community centers, senior centers, food pantries, with WIC participants, SNAP participants, families, students, and more. Neighboring jurisdictions with this FTE position and volunteer support, such as Prince William, filing to and Alexandria, a city annually provide financial education to well more than a thousand residents. This FTE will recruit and train volunteers through the Master Financial Education Volunteer Program, which focuses on training volunteers to coach financial education to residents and build their financial security. Volunteers receive a minimum of 20 hours of classroom instruction and in return commit to contribute at least 40 hours of service in the next 12 months following the training. Volunteers are typically community members who have financial experience in banking, financial planning taxes, or budgeting, and are passionate about serving their fellow residents. As individuals gain knowledge and skills, they can pass these on to family members and future generations. This has the potential to change the trajectory of individuals and families in our community for generations to come. Finally, this is only the third FTE requested by my department in 26 years. I want to thank you for your continual support of my department and for considering this important position and I'm very happy to answer any questions that you've thrown closing line. That really is. That's a great line. Does anyone have any questions, Mr. Sains? Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for the presentation. I just have a question. Where are you from? Ms. Burke told me how much time I have. So it's a very long story. Originally saw that. have a question where are you from? Ms. Burke told me how much time I have so it's a very long story. Originally South Africa lived in Australia for a while, it being here for a while. I thought you were going to say, no, I thought you were going to say, Matt's chooses. I thought you were going to say Boston. A lot of people guessed that because I packed my account in the yard as well. Yeah. I thought you were going to say Boston because your sound, well, Matt Damien sounds just like you from the departed, so I was going to make it. Appreciate it. That's what it sounded like. I wish he looked like me. So my John F. Kennedy does. Okay, and from Massachusetts we have Miss Eliserno. You know, I could turn that accent on. I have just suppressed it. My ears are prohibited. But they could be to do that actually. Yeah, thank you very much for the presentation. So we do have, and we've had since, I don't know, probably going on 15, 20 years, the financial literacy requirement in schools. I know a couple of my kids have gone through it, it's a pretty good program. How does this, I mean, I feel like the kids going through our high school systems are getting this, I would assume the financial literacy stuff. Is this intended for a different audience? Yeah, absolutely. So this position, you know, the volunteers that this position would train may have interaction with the school system, but this is not a position that's going to be primarily focused in the schools. Otherwise, I would assume LCPS would be asking for it. This position is for our community, for all the other members, for the homeschool community, private school community might interact with as well, but primarily it would be volunteers going in and doing that, not this county FTE. Okay. And then the reality store program, it's only generally getting to a couple schools, five schools maybe a year. Would we be doing more of that with the FTE? Yeah, absolutely. So that position previously was done through a small group of volunteers, but now this position would seek to do that. And that would be one of the programs. And in that information item, we go into more detail about all of the programs and reality stories of one of those. Okay. Thank you. Ms. Berksman. Thank you. I fully support your request. I just wanted to say thank you for, you know, I think for coming and bringing everything alive for us because we look at the budget book, we read through the resource requests and, you know, it's fairly dry until you come and tell us all the great things that you're doing. And so budget time for me is really a time where I learned so much about all the great work in the county. So thank you for all your great work. Thank you. I appreciate. My only question. Do you have any interaction at all with staff recipients and if so how to me how that works? So the nutrition educated that was approved in FY 25, part of the work that we do is looking, we wrote that FTE, that resource request with the equity lens in mind. And so a lot of that programming and this programming, our programs are open to everyone, but we'll certainly be seeking to partner with SNAP recipients and WIC recipients and people who are already receiving and are in need of assistance in some way. And so that's how we would do that. We would intentionally partner with Department of Family Services or Department of Health Department with WIC. That's really so important. But what I've, you know, as I've been on a kind of a clean eating, healthier eating, not buying processed food, place, and it is so expensive to eat healthier. And so the discussion of food on a budget, how to eat healthy on a budget is so important. It costs a lot less to eat terrible food. You pay for it in other ways later on, but it costs just by money after pocket, it costs less. And so that program, and then the financial literacy discussion, overall, all those things go together are really, really so important. So thank you so much, really do appreciate the work you do. So, Vizers, are there any emotions on the table for this department? Seeing none, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay, our next will be family services will be coming toward us. And family services on RMPG is 82 through 85. And a little Miss Fernes. How are you? Good evening, Chair Randall. Good evening. Board members, my name is Ina Fernandez, and I am the Director of the Department of Family Services. With me this evening our staff and our leadership team and partners in finance. Our priorities may be found as the chair said on page 82 and 85 and 219 and 223 of the budget book. Thank you for allowing me to present the Department of Family Services fiscal year 2026 priorities. As you are aware, we have spent the past few years right sizing, stabilizing, reorganizing and professionalizing the department. With your help, we have made great strides. By reducing caseloads, we have reduced turnover and by reducing turnover, we are more able to provide mandated services to our community. We have hired all, but three positions you have proved in this year's budget. We are actively in the interview process for one of them and two others were recently classified and will begin recruitment this month or next month. Our top priority focus is on the public benefits program and reflects the department's commitment to appropriately scale the organization to better serve clients and fulfill our mission, adhere to state and federal mandates, and enhance the operational efficiency. By executing our multi-year staffing plan, the department continues to move forward the goal of achieving manageable case loads for frontline staff thereby improving the customer experience for recipients of public assistance. The positions requested enable staff to deliver more timely but most importantly, accurate benefits to county residents. They will also add a critical position to verify financial integrity, ensure regulatory compliance and promote operational excellence. Moreover these positions will bolster the job development function, increase the department's capacity to support public benefits unit and more broadly the public assistance and supports division as well as expedite job placements for job ready clients in the Virginia initiative and for education and work or the view program. To address our growing demand maintain acceptable service standards and continue to write size organization while enhancing overall efficiency. DFS's second priority poses addition of new staff to the customer services unit. The current client interaction to staff ratio leads to operational strain and reduced service effectiveness. The DFS customer service team operates with six four price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of the price of The surgeon client interaction interaction has string capacity as reflected in our declining call capture rates and increased average response times. The ability to answer calls within the 85% target is consistently not met with an average capture rate of just 63% over the past three years and a drop to 49% last year. Additionally, the average fee to answer calls has deteriorated significantly, surpassing the goal of one minute or less to over six minutes. Our third request to add a senior antique specialist and adult protective services or APS ongoing specialist and a community outreach liaison is critical to our ability to provide timely and effective supports within the adult and aging program. These positions will focus on immediate connections to vital resources, maintain continuity of care for at risk individuals and strengthen our community engagement. The total number of average of adult and aging intake calls has steadily risen over the past five years, highlighting an increased demand for services. From FY 24 calls increased by 72%. With only one in takes specialist to maintain the increased volume, only 75% of the calls are answered live, and other adult aging staff need to be taken from their primary duties to assist with managing these calls. This has led to an increase in staff over time. According to the National Adult Protective Services Association or NAPSA, the recommended caseload for APS workers is 15.7 per month. And in FY24, the department's APS specialist average 22 cases per month exceeding the NAPSA guidelines by 40%. The addition of an APS ongoing specialist will reduce caseloads to more manageable levels, aligning the team with national standards. And establishing a community liaison position will ensure the older adults receive the supports and assistance they require to lead healthy, fulfilling lives in our community and will lead to the planning coordination of community education and outreach events connecting older adults with necessary, reduced or no cost resources. And finally, a domestic and sexual violence service is or DSVS unit is requested to enhance the well-being and safety of the Lownown County community. By addressing the complexities of domestic and sexual violence, human trafficking and stalking. This involves establishing a crucial governance and organizational structure as well as technological supports across a multitude of county departments and community partners. By doing so, enhanced services will be offered leading to improved outcomes for impacted families and individuals. The positions requested for FY26 present the first of a multi-year request for staff in the DSVS to fold them in the to staff the DSVS unit fully. This year we began with a proposed eight positions to support the implementation of a coordinated community response or CCR. An evidence-based outcome driven practice to effectively address the needs in our community. A CCR is a proven strategy that involves organizing leaders and key decision makers in areas such as law enforcement, prosecution, healthcare, advocacy, behavioral health, family or social services, animal services, education, faith communities, and other stakeholders such as those directly impacted., to build a more effective systems response, yield healthier and safer communities. It fosters a shared vision, mission, values, and philosophy, strategic direction, and an organizational structure that bolsters the work of service providers, as well as an integrated data collection, analysis, and reporting system to enhance collaboration and services. The proposed eight positions consists of the following, a program administrator critical to facilitate and manage the activities and work of the community, coordinated community response and operations supervisor and a data and reporting coordinator to support the CCR's work and the organizational structure. A family services supervisor to oversee intensive case management of current and proposed staff. A senior family service specialist to provide intensive case management with a focus on those experiencing human trafficking and another for prevention and education team. A family service specialist to focus on promoting healthy relationships and another to provide intensive case management. These positions proposed will be housed within our family engagement preservation services program, which currently has three positions providing intensive case management services to children and families experiencing domestic violence and human trafficking that do not meet the criteria of child protective services. Again, thank you for your attention and support and responsiveness to our community's need. Thank you to county administration for taking the time to understand and realize the department's needs. And finally, most importantly, I want to thank DFS employees for their commitment to loudens infrastructure of care, compassion, and their service to others, and always going above and beyond to aid the most vulnerable in our residents. I am because we are in Boone 2. Thank you, and we are here to answer any questions that you may have. Ms. Fernandez, before I go to my colleagues' question, let's just address the elephant in the room that we've been hearing about for at least a month or more right now. We have a dedicated nonprofit professionals who work in the domestic violence, sexual violence arena already. They have been doing that for years here in Loudoun County. Tell me how you would, how this, how doing, if we, if we approve these positions, it would integrate with any of our, because we have more than one nonprofit that works with sexual violence, sexual assault, domestic violence and domestic assault. We have women giving back, does, laws, does, silence no more. We have others to do. How will you all integrate this with the, our nonprofits that are doing this? why do you think there's a greater need that the county can now Needs to step in and fill because I think those questions have been asked and I think those are fair questions and Let's let's let's do that. Let's just get that right off the table right now So I mean our our request are based on operational need, right? So the positions that we're asking for are county positions that will work amongst with county agencies as well as community nonprofits. The cornyed community response, which is the crux to what we're asking for this year, is really that governing structure. Most of the positions are for that governing structure to allow for great understanding of the need, to allow for leaders in our community to make decisions to lead the community and nonprofit in a way that we are all working towards the same goal together. I think right now there are a lot of silos. There's not a lot of information that is captured across the board and data that is in one location that we can just push a button and say, here is everything that's happening in our county with regards to domestic sexual violence, human trafficking, stalking, etc. These positions will augment some positions that we already have in child protective services for those families that don't raise to the level of CPS. We already have three people that are working in our prevention and education, our family engagement preservation services, with these families. We are always connecting our families, our individuals, with community, whether it's domestic violence, food, whatever it is. We can't do this alone, nonprofits can't do it alone. And so to be able to integrate and provide the services that are needed, if someone doesn't want to go to shelter, they're not gonna go to shelter. If we are seeing them within our caseloads and are able to provide services in house, then let's do so. If someone doesn't want to go to court, maybe they're not gonna go through community corrections. Those are the things that we can do to make sure that folks are getting the services they need, when they need it, where they need it, and with whom they want. Okay, thank you. Questions? Miss Glass, and perhaps a glass. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you all for what you do. It's so important and critical. I have a question. What age does a person need to be to receive adult and aging services? Adult and aging services. It's usually 50 and older or 18 and older if they have a disability. So for adult protective services, do you find that the victims make the initial contact to you all or is it some other person or organization that makes the phone call? Anyone and everyone can call but I will also let Valerie Cuffee who is the assistant director with that program is under her, she may have much more detailed information. Yes, often, excuse me, we received calls from family members and from the community mostly. Sometimes there is the call because of all self neglect. That's few though, but most is from the community and from the families. Thank you. That's a great question. Great question. Ms. Amstuk. Thank you, Madam Chair. I know thank you for all the work you and your folks do. You do great work. I just have a question on whether you can give us an illustration of a situation where a child's case would not merit child protective service attention, but would require attention from the department. Sure, it could be one of several things. So maybe there is the child was, and I will also let Valerie answer. But maybe the child, there's a ledge abuse or neglect, but the child was not allegedly abused or neglected by a caretaker, let's say. Or the child is the, just going to say, sorry, I just went right out on my head. But those are usually, if it's not a caretaker, that's the most important for rising to level of child protective services. There are also very strict criteria that the state provides that allows for screening in a case that child protective services and Valerie can provide more information. Yes, as Ina said, it has to be a caretaker and this is by code of Virginia. It has to be a resident of Louten County and it has to meet the definition of child abuse and neglect. And it has to be child under 17 years of age. some of the instances where we will have often are because of custody disputes, where there is no finding of abuse and neglect, but often in custody cases, there are allegations of neglect and abuse. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Crowdy. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Croney. Thank you, Chair Randall. And thank you, Aynon. I appreciate meeting with me and giving me more information. So I'm going to ask some questions about priority four. So you mentioned that the 12 existing positions, so I think we're in the item from the finance committee actually are not dedicated to domestic and sexual violence that there's only really three, right? They're dedicated? Correct. There are three. They may interact just with many families with which where we work. They may receive services from multiple programs within the Department of Family Services, but there are three family services, social work, family services support workers that work with families. Again, those that don't may not rise to the level of chopper tech services, but have other issues, maybe domestic violence issues like that. Those are three of the 12. Okay. So are there any of the proposed positions? Do you believe duplicating laws services? I do not believe they are duplicating law services. Just as other organizations, we may do very similar work. Sheriff's Office may have advocates. Laws has advocates. We have advocates. They may focus on different areas and specialties. And so the more that we can get out there, so it doesn't matter where a person comes in to be able to receive services, I think that's the most important piece. We are, there's so much work to go around, more work than department family services can do, more work than anyone agency or anyone nonprofit can do. If we all work together and are able to pull our resources, that's the best thing that I believe for our community. Okay, so you don't think the relationship with laws would change due to the county adding these eight positions? No, absolutely not. In fact, there's an RFP out right now. They are a core service provider. There's an RFP out now for core services, domestic violence services. And so that is still going to happen. Okay. And you hope to collect data on the prevalence, right? Of domestic and sexual violence across the community. Because we don't know that right now. Correct. That is one of the, that's one of the positions here is to make sure that we are collecting data. And again, not just from family services, but this will help the CCR to collect data from multiple agencies, multiple nonprofits, so that this community has a true understanding of the prevalence of domestic and sexual licenses. Right, and we don't really know that now. Okay. Okay, so I think I'm getting the point that it's complimentary and that you know there's an opportunity to kind of partner and collect data. I just want to create the CCR. My thank you. Thank you so much. Ms. Brickson. Thank you Madam Chair. On the positions to reduce the caseload, I guess this is your priority one, average caseload per worker that you're trying to get it from 900 cases per worker down to five something. It's my understanding, or I gather, that you're doing this kind of in tranches because you don't necessarily have the capacity to hire everyone, hire and train all that you would need to get your caseload down in the first year. Yes. We have been doing this methodically just like we did with child protective services and we finally got to a place where the caseloads are manageable. We're doing the same thing with the public benefits team. So last year we asked for a team and that actually reduced the caseload by 15% directly by hiring those folks. So what we're trying to do is then again this year ask for another team and technically we'll have to ask for two more down the road to get the caseloads to where we want. Okay, okay. Thank you for that. And I think that I think you with the caseload data that you're really justifying the positions. On your priority number four, have we seen any shrinkage in requests for services out of community fear, what's going on with the threat of mass deportations or anything like that? We and Department of Family Services have not. That's great. Okay. Thank you. Do you think, and I think Mr. Cronie covered this, but you don't think that this budget request takes away from competes or duplicates services that are already out there. I do not think it augments. Okay. And will we continue to work with our nonprofits in the community, have good communication with them as we move forward with your vision of what a CCR is? It's essential and a CCR won't work unless many people are at the table right now. Even when we thought we had a CCR, it was maybe 10 county agencies and two nonprofits. That is not a CCR. Okay. Okay, thank you. I just would request that that communication be maintained and nurtured. Yeah, I'm happy to support your request. Thank you. Mr. Kirersner. Thank you Madam Chair and thank you for all the hard work you do. I know sometimes it's rewarding and heartbreaking work but it's certainly very important and we do appreciate that. Thank you for coming presenting your budget today. I just had obviously Chair addressed some of the concerns at front. I'm obviously a person that is a big in the nonprofit market, and I think they provide a tremendous service. And obviously, there have been some concerns expressed about that, and so some of the questions have been asked. I wanted to follow up on some of those quite, first of all. In any way, is this going to be, how would this not replace or do some things different than the domestic abuse response team are doing currently, if at all. Because you talked about this forming a committee of sorts. Sure, so the dark right now, this is very different than the dark. The dark is more at the staff or mid-level manager. The CCR, I'll give you an example. I'll give you examples of who sits on CCRs and some of our comparator counties. County executives, judges, the CEO. I see. Sorry? I'm listening, yes. Okay. So it's people who can make decisions and move the county. Very similar to what you do. You make policy decisions for the county. This group will make policy decisions with regards to domestic violence for the community. Okay. You said this one large part, you feel like this will augment the services of laws. Can you kind of give me how you believe that? Because I think that would be helpful in our understanding on whether or not to support this resource request one way or the other. Because obviously I think there's an ongoing concern for that. And it would be helpful to hear that public. Of course. And I'll also turn it over to Valerie because she can give you the nuts and bolts of the family engagement preservation program because in that team, what we are trying to do is prevent, prevent whether it's child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, and whether it's primary, secondary, or tertiary prevention. And so, when we receive, when we are working with families who don't necessarily receive services from another nonprofit, whether it's laws or anybody else. Being able to provide those services in-house, so that somebody is not receiving services from DFS, then has to go somewhere else to receive these services as well, and then somewhere else to receive other services. If we can do that in-house also, then let's do it. So that it frees up another organization or a nonprofit to be able to accept more families. But maybe if you can also provide those specific positions. Yes, as I know was saying, certainly with our nonprofit laws in particular provides legal support, advocacy, shelter, which we do not. And those that we serve, I would say less than half actually seek those services. So we provide the intensive case management for the services that they are searching for. And it's up to the client to actually decide what it is that they prefer to do. So we work with them with housing employment, actually working through any other safety issue that may have, particularly around the child. Child care to make sure that the family will be safe with the decision that they have made. In terms of, so we need that sheltering, we need the legal support that's another thing to an advocacy and support groups that actually a nonprofit provides. So it's for those families that do not prefer to have those services that we need other services. Thank you, I'm out of time. Thank you. Mr. Vice Chair Turner. Thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Hernandez is kind of a hypothetical question, but the Congressional Budget Office announced yesterday that there is no way that the Republican budget supported by Mr. Trump can be balanced unless there's pretty significant cuts to both Medicare and Medicaid. You're asking for 15 positions from Medicaid, and I know you can't predict the future. But if those drastic cuts in Medicaid came, they could come presumably in the form of lower benefits. And I would think that that would still justify the 15 positions, because even though you're paying out less money, you still process in the same number of claims. But it could also come in the form of changes to eligibility, which would radically reduce the number of claims that you would receive. Is there a possibility of stranding the costs of these 15 new positions if suddenly caseload drops off from Medicare cases? And can they be crossed resource somehow within the department? I don't think that with this team, our caseloads will still be high or even if they're reduced. Then maybe we don't need the team two and three that we're gonna ask for in future years. I think we still need this team to reduce cases to about 900, which is still really high. That's great, that's what I wanna know. Thank you you very much. Did you say that a wait time right now when someone's calling in is six minutes? Can you say that again? A wait time for a phone call to be six minutes? Yes, ma'am. That's way too long. Exactly. Way too long. And that didn't happen in a year. It didn't go from eight minutes to six minutes in one year. It did not. It was incremental. We haven't asked for any positions. And the people that keep coming in goes up every year. I'm going to say that you've got to ask for that position, because six minutes is a really long time to wait. I have this first statement and then a question. I don't think people always understand what your office does and what you all do. Just the emotional burnout of you all can be so high. It's even higher when you have needs and you have nowhere for those needs to be met. I am always aware that whenever we say yes to a housing development, we need homes in Loudon County. Gosh knows we need a Tainable Homes in Loudon County. But every time we do that, every service, you're part of the infrastructure and that's needed. When I speak on behalf of this board and I say to you, please go back and tell your staff, your line staff. Thank you. I am not joking. It has been the last, I don't know, five years have been hard, and it may get a little harder going forward. And so much of this will follow on our behavioral health jobs. And I know that you don't interact with us that much. We don't see you that much. We're not supposed to. That's the nature of your, because of all, the nature of your job, you're not building development, you're not planning zoning, we're not going to see you as much. And so people can sometimes forget the really hard and good work you're doing, because you're not in front us every week on a land use application. So please go back and tell everyone thank you because all of us realize what a incredibly important and incredibly hard job you all are doing every single day. You all are public servants of the highest order. My only question is this. What we know is that we talk about domestic violence. We talk about sexual violence. often when we talk about domestic violence, it's a bruise we can see. We haven't talked a lot and need to talk more about the emotional abuse, especially in the age of social media and the internet and all those types of things, both in the house and out of the house. We've seen suicide numbers rise. We have 17 veterans a year that commit suicide, 131 veterans a year that die. Our suicide allergy rates among our young people are going up. That's all falls under some emotional things. You may not have this answer now, but try to think about how this department and we can help deal with not just physical abuse but the emotional abuse that we're seeing and that is rising. That's me. 100%. 100%. Supervisors, are there any emotions on the day? Seeing none, thank you very much. All right. Okay, help department and the doctor with the coolest name in the world. It's quite you rejoining us. Good evening. Good evening Madam Chair. I have with me tonight, Harry Wals who are Dr. Goodwin just one second you all are on page 49 and then 96 and 97 yes, thank you. Thank you. I have with me tonight Harry Walsh our operations officer Allison Hubbard who's overseas our patient care and George Khan, who overseas our environmental health services. Page 49 is an item that came before the board in January, which were a request for additional $40,000 for the Loud and Health Commission, which would bring it to budgetate $80,000 a year. The board approved that in the January business meeting and we have that as a board priority. For the two department priorities, the first one is on page 96, as you said. And currently we have the same staff addressing tuberculosis and pre-nursing home screens in the county. And just a second to talk about what each of those do. They're disparate functions, but historically, it worked well to have the same staff do both. So if there was an increased demand in one and less than the other, they could shift and address them because they're both time sensitive issues. For tuberculosis screening because Lown County is an international community and tuberculosis is very common globally. We have a lot of people who've been infected with tuberculosis who are living in Lown County. In general, that's not a problem. They're not infectious. They don't pass it on to anyone. But the goal is to get them identified and treated before they become infectious. Once they do become infectious, then those same nursing staff very quickly need to identify that individual, make sure they get their proper medications, get isolated, and then also find all their contacts to prevent outbreaks of TB in our community. And we've been very fortunate over the last number of years, both because of the work they're doing, our local doctors, and also since our school system has started requiring tuberculosis screening that we haven't seen as many outbreaks. And when we do have cases of tuberculosis that are infectious, that it's contained. Those nurses also are also doing our pre-nursing home screens. These are required for folks to get Medicaid to cover nursing type services. And that has a 30 day expectation between the time when someone requests that service and when it's completed. It's a metric that's a statewide metric that's used. Historically we had been good at it, but as the demand has gone up, we just haven't been able to meet that. And we got to a point last year where we were out of compliance over 70% of the time. And that means a very long delay in services to people. So what we've been doing is we brought on contract support temporarily to assist them. We've also redirected staff from other parts for our health department because these are critical services. But the demand, as you can see on page 96, will just continue to grow as our population ages and as our population grows. The second priority is for our rabies program which is under George. And that's also time sensitive and continuing to grow as our population grows. That when people are on the&A D trail in the parks, being with friends, going out to a winery, they may get bitten by a dog, they may get bitten by a skunk, bats in the house. And as soon as that exposure occurs, the clock starts ticking. That if we can make sure that the animal that bit that individual exposed themselves to that individual did not have rabies within 10 days, that saves that individual from having to go through a series of rabies shots to make sure they're safe. So that becomes difficult as the demand keeps going up and up. Similar to what we're doing with our nursing program, we've had to bring on contract support, and we've also had to redirect other environmental health specialists to support this program. And again, as our population increases, we would just expect more and more people are coming in to contact with animals so that demand is going to go up as well. So I thank you and I appreciate any questions or comments you all have. I think I just heard you say that you don't want me to go out hiking and camping. We do want to do that too. I think you do not want me to go. I think that's what I just heard you say. But if you see it. We really would prefer I don't go. I'm going to take your advice. Thank you very much. No I think extension service would be very mad at me but but if you go out and see a very cute animal do not approach it you do not have to worry about that with me Dr. Good friend anyone have questions to Dr. Goodman Mr. the turno. Thank you So know, it's always hard to come in and try to understand this. So how many people were working specifically on the nursing home and the TB screens? For nursing safe, Ellison. This is in addition to our admin support. How many nurses do we have in the program? So currently we have, let me just get the number right for you. Six. Six that are dedicated to that program entirely and we have a contract worker. Is that TB and nursing or? Yes. Because it's almost double. Six plus the supervisor, so that would be seven. And part of what we want to do is separate out the nursing home screening from the TB. So that if there is a demand in one, it doesn't adversely impact the other. Yeah, so if I'm just, you know, I'm kind of a numbers guy. If I go strictly by the data on the increases, it's not dramatic. I mean, it's like 5% on nursing home in particular. TB is more. It doesn't really net out to doubling the number of positions. But I recognize maybe I'm missing something, so help me out. Well, part of the nursing home screening is also the timeliness of it. So we're doing them, but we may not be doing them as quickly as we should. Right. We're doing everyone that comes in, but as I said, you know, at one point we were set over 70% out of compliance, so they can get done within 30 days. And again, these are folks that are in need of services that are waiting on them, and it may be 45 days and maybe even longer. What was going to ask you? What should be our timeline on that? So the goal historically would be to have less than 5% more than 30 days because sometimes you can't avoid it. People go into individuals go in vacation or they miss appointments. We've gotten within 30 days we want to have them screened. Yes. Okay. And right now we're not. We're- No, even with the additional support that we're bringing on, we have a clinic nurse that's supporting them, we have a contract worker that's supporting them, but even with that, we're significantly above the 5% for 30 days. Okay. And then what about on the TV screenings? So there are a couple issues with that. One is the- we want people to be able to come in and have minimum barriers to getting screened. One of the things that limits the growth is the wait time for an appointment to get a TB screen. There's a requirement for school entry to be TB screened. But in general we would like anybody if they've had an extended period of time in a country that has active TB to come in, get screened, and get treated. Excuse me? Can they go to their own private practice? Yes. Many of them can go to their private practices, particularly now that there's a blood test for TB. But a lot of private practices will refer them to us. And also, if that's the only thing they're interested in, they may not want to go set up an appointment, pay for that appointment, just to get a TB test. They can come to us to have it as stand-alone service. So we really want to have it minimum barriers for someone getting screened and treated so we can have fewer cases spreading in the community. Thank you, Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall and thank you, Dr. Good Friend. So I see that you're hiring two positions for the Rabie support program. Does that mean that you won't need the long term contractor anymore? I saw all of that. Okay. So you're bringing everything in house. Yes. And. And that contractor is not something we were funded for on either side. Those are ones that we just saw that there was an immediate need in order to keep folks safe. So we have been taking that out of our existing operations budget. And so this would allow us to go back to the way it was intended to with having staff provide that. Those are the two staff that you need. Okay, thank you very much. Dr. Goodfriend, right now in the country there's a lot of discussion about vaccinations just in general overall. There is a measles outbreak in West Texas and I think there's been some cases, other places. I recently was in a room with the new deputy of Health and Human Services who questioned out loud whether vaccines or something that are worthwhile and should happen. One of these positions of course is the clinical health service safety net services community health disease prevention specialist. Just in general, how do we tackle this issue? I know this is maybe not one of your positions, but although one of them is for this position, how do we tackle these issues? What do you do if you believe there is an exposure in Loudon County? How do we communicate to people? I mean, overall, we had not seen a measles death in the U.S. in 10 years. And we've had a measles death in the U.S. We've not seen a measles outbreak like this in many years. And I saw something the other day that said, anyone who was born before 1970, may want to go get a booster measles shot if they haven't had one. If they never had a booster, measles shots, since they were a child, they might go get a booster's measles shot. That's actually me. So what do we do right now in this moment where people are questioning do you have an education program that you can say these are safe vaccinations and this how long they've been working and this is what they look like. How do we lean in to wanting to educate and encourage people to get the knowledge that they need so that they feel safe getting vaccinations and having their children vaccinated. And that's an important question one thing that we're actively working on now. A good thing about being in Loudoun County is that in Loudoun County we're always one flight away from any disease that's occurring anywhere in the world. And so, historically, we would get a measles case in Loudoun County every couple years, and a lot of times that could be Loudoun County residents who have a start a family here and go back to their country of origin. And then the child does not yet fully vaccinated. It gets measles there, it comes back in. So we've been working with our medical community for a very long time on educating parents and when it's safe to travel with their kids and the importance of vaccination. And also amongst particularly our pediatricians, the value of vaccination. We tend to have a higher vaccination rate overall than Virginia, but it is a challenge. And coming out of COVID, there were more folks that were choosing to come out of the public schools, go to private schools and may choose not to vaccinate. So that is a risk. And in the past, we've had pertusses outbreaks amongst unvaccinated populations in the county. So it is a continued challenge, one of the things that we're doing. We've just started being part of ANOVA's pediatric meetings to be able to share the most updated information. We send out clinician letters to our local providers and we're working on one right now Specifically about measles because historically we've asked about international travel But now we really have to start talking about domestic travel in addition to that And the other is just being a trusted source for folks On my part I think an part, we meet with our Northern Virginia counterparts on a regular basis to try to find common messaging that we can use. And I think we're fortunate in Northern Virginia to be able to do that being in one media market and to combat with public affairs and others misinformation that may be occurring. Any additional thoughts, Ellison? Well, we're working on a campaign going into- Yeah, Mike, put your mic on a little bit closer. Excuse me. Excuse me. Thank you. We're working on a campaign moving forward with PAC so that we can promote immunizations and preventative healthcare services and adults. So that's coming out. We're really excited about that. That's our initiative for this year. It's very hard to change people's minds. There's a lot of information and misinformation out there. So we're going to continue to use trusted resources and provide the information that we have available. And we're also working on updating our website. So hopefully people can access information a little bit easier. Okay, and also we're just very fortunate to have Dr. Farrell and the Lone Health Commission to help her with messaging as well. Dr. Rose, great. Well thank you. Thank you very, very much.visors, is there a motion on the day? Yes. For the health department. Seeing that, thank you for everything. Thank you for everything. I guess I'm getting a miso shot soon here. You know, 1970. That would be you too too, sir. Okay. Image sats. You are next. Margaret Graham. I don't see you. There she is. She's coming. Superbuzzers, Image sats. This page is 103 to 105. No five. Good evening. Good evening. How are you? I'm here at Margaret Graham from the Department of Mental Health, Substance and Developmental Services. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. As. I'm here this evening with my deputy director, Sher Watson, and the medical director, Dr. Rami Agupta, my budget animalist, Bobby. Doctoralist name, Glantcher. Glantcher, forgive me. I did not just forget Bobby Glantcher's last name. My potential name is like the most well-known name in Lowney County. Forgive me, I'm so sorry. And in the audience is my senior manager of finance, Benach and Valalle. Thank you for this opportunity to talk a bit about the Department of Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Developmental Services. Our mission is to promote mental, behavioral and developmental health and wellness by connecting individuals and their families with person-centered, recovery-oriented services and supports in partnership with the loud and community. MHS-ADS staff engage vulnerable people in treatment and support services for mental illness, substance use disorders, developmental delays, or disabilities. To support this mission and organize the department programs and services clearly, I bring to your attention some restructuring that has occurred. During this fiscal year 25, the crisis services program was established. The department and the budget is now organized across six programs. Residential services, community-based support services, outpatient services, outreach and coordination services, business operations and crisis services. The establishment of crisis services aligns existing operations like emergency and co-responder services and organizes the department for future growth and development in this area. The MHSA DSFI 2626 Request focused on continued development of behavioral health crisis services, support coordination and opioid abatement efforts to mitigate harm to the community. With respect to the FY25 resources, it is my pleasure to report that 14 of the 15 positions approved have been filled, including six in support coordination to increase enrollment in the developmental disabilities waivers, five in early intervention to deliver service coordination to children under the age of three at risk of or experiencing developmental delays, and four in internal operations to support functions in human resources, and budget management. One position is in recruitment and accounting technician to perform revenue collection for billable services. It is also my pleasure to report that the mid-year positions improved by the board for two psychiatrists and one psychologist are in recruitment. In addition to these positions, you supported the construction of the crisis receiving and stabilization center. And construction has begun. Yes, Hans. And in the proposed FY26 budget starting on page 103, I present the CIP priority resource request for operations of this new facility. Specifically, one position for an administrator and a request for $7.25 million to award a contract for operations through a competitive RFP by January 2026. On page 104, I present the priority one resource request for 11 support coordination positions and two reimbursement positions. These positions are required to address the increased enrollment in developmental disability waivers. We anticipate waiver enrollment of an additional 250 individuals. Support coordination is a service mandated by, mandated to be provided by the department and the revenue specialist will process the claims submissions. On page 105, I present the second priority resource request for an opioid response program coordinator. A temporary position was created and the work to mitigate the effects of opiates and other substances on the county is ongoing. Efforts are underway to conduct a community-wide assessment of strengths, gaps and opportunities for services across the opioid use substance use system of care. This is ongoing work requiring a program coordinator to propose data-driven needs that may be best met through the opioid abatement settlement funds. With that, my team and I are happy to answer any questions. Mr. Infrey, is Leo, is somebody, is Leo? Can you come, kind of a quick question for you? By law, is it, does it need to be advertised or call the opioid response program coordinated because it was the opioid abatement money? Or by law, can we add the words opioid and other addictive substance and something like that to the program, to the title when it's advertised? You are able to make that addition to it, It is not required by law. Thank you. Okay, all right, questions for Ms. Graham and her staff. Mr. Lattero. Thank you. Good to see you. Help me just understand a little better the timing on the crisis receiving and stabilization center because it seems like we're planning on it opening in nine months but we have on 27. Nine monthly but we have the positions coming on with like a six month lead time and I may just be missing the timeline there. No, if we can award the contract and start building up the staffing and the training between January through June with an approximate opening July 1 of 27, sorry the years get all, that is what we're shooting for. So you need that full year. Six months, it's six months. Okay, because you're starting, yeah. Okay. Services will start, you know, approximately July 1 at 27. So from January through June 30th, recruitment will happen, training will happen. There's probably- And is this going to be one big contract to one big contractor? That's my hope. Go objective. Is there any concern about the availability of contractors to bid on something like this? Right now I'm going to say no. Okay, we can revisit that. And last question, status of the co-responder program. I feel like up here we made a big deal about it. We had a lot of discussion about it. We kind of discussed potentially adding more to it if it was successful that we haven't really heard much about it. So I'm just kind of wondering how is it going? And do we have all shifts covered that we need to have covered? Do we, you know, is that something we need to look at? I'm sorry, I had a blip for a minute. There's a co-responder. It's a stress. Yeah, when we're dispatching with law enforcement to start calls. So we are in the, this is the first operational year. It kicked off July 1. Yeah. Yeah. 24. Right. Thank you. of the positions for our department have been filled and the team is up and running. We're evaluating the shift that it's operating is roughly 2 to 10 on day through Friday and we're evaluating the calls and the responses to figure out where the expansion will need to happen. I also would like to introduce you, if you would like to meet her, to our newest assistant director, Tamala Watkins, who has joined the department and has been deep diving into this with that team. Okay, I only have 10 seconds left. Oh, sorry. Is there any chance we're going to need that in this coming fiscal year? Because the way this is going to go now, you're not going to, if there isn't need for expansion, it's not going to happen. No, before, as I was preparing for this, we fully talked it out with the team with the Sheriff's Office. And for now, we're good and we're evaluating what we need to come forward in 27. Ms. Watkins can feel free to stand up though. Oh, I'm so nice to meet you. Thank you. And I do plan to bring in information. I don't know about the progress of that team sometime soon. Thank you. Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall. So, and hello. Thank you, good to see you. So, the right help right now, the governor's right help right now plan. Does that include any funding? I mean, it sounds like he's got this plan. And does it include any funding to localities to do this right help right now? I thought I'd just ask. There there was some money for some things but not for the development of the support coordination positions to enroll the expansion of the individuals into the waiver. Okay. Okay, so the priority, yeah with the Medicaid, there's no funding for that from the state, right? The Medicaid wayperse. So to explain this in the simplest way possible. Under his right help right now, he prioritized the elimination of the priority one waiver waiting list across the state. I believe there are about 3500 individuals waiting to access waiver services. order to eliminate that waiting list, the state match has to be put out so that they can draw down the federal match for the services that are funded by Medicaid. Case management support coordination is a required service to enroll somebody in the waiver. Case management is a by code required to be delivered by the CSB's two individuals to access the waiver and they did not It is a Medicaid billable service and the right help right now program didn't advance any money to develop these positions But they've developed the waivers which benefits the people who've been on the waiting list for a very long time. Okay, wow. Thank you for that. That was very comprehensive. Yes, thank you. Thank you. Oh, Miss Graham, how far you have come with these questions for the purchase that have been here. That was fantastic. Mr. Turner. Thank you, Matt Chair. So let me restate that, I think, very briefly. So it sounds to me like the Virginia government provided funding for the waivers, but did not provide funding for the support staff that's going to be necessary to process the waivers. For the case management staff, yes. So what we're funding here is case management staff. The money for the actual waivers is coming from Virginia and the federal government. Yes, it's a partnership between the Department of Medical, Medical Assistance Services and Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. Got it. So in a nutshell, if I have this right and you don't have to answer this as you don't want, Virginia said, we're going to get rid of this waiting list. And we're going to access and we're going to provide the match money so the federal government can provide the money for the waivers. Localities you go out and pay for the support staff to make this program work. Yes, and the services of the case managers as they build up their caseloads are eligible to be billed to Medicaid. But the start-up must happen now. Which is being cut. Yes. Okay. I make it a political point and it's probably not appropriate. I did understand that the money is going to pay for the waivers, but we need to pay for the support staff to the case workers to administer that. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay, well, I'm not going to make political points up here. If I need to do that, I don't know. Com mispronouncement or misdeterno or somebody do that later on. I am after coming back from National Association of Kindans. I am very worried about not Medicare money as much, but Medicaid money as much. And I think that there need to be really smart minds sitting down to figure out how to deal with possible plausible Medicaid cats that are coming down the line. I'm also worried about what we're going to start seeing in home health care and a whole lot of different things that I'm worried about right now. But we'll get there when we have more information right now. It's very, it's up in the air. We just don't know what's going to happen yet. And so as my uncle Charles said, I'm not going to waste a good worry until I need to really get to that place. I have two questions. Mr. Rogers asked, answered one of them. It is so important to me that we don't just talk about a single substance and especially in the, and when advertising for a new position that we don't just talk about the single substance because right now some of the harm we're seeing with vaping with some of the things that are in, are in, that have been added. It's not just opioids and we really have got to get away from talking about a single substance versus the disease of substance-pintness. I know you know that already. I do have one question. I don't remember what I'm going to say the word non-profit, although that may not be the right word. What is the other non-profit agency that gets money through M8SAT, that it travels through M8SAT to that organization. Is it echo? So echo is one of the employment and day support providers that we purchase services for individuals who've completed their high school term. Yes, is there any other program that service that money flows through M8SATs to another to one of our other nonprofits or another organization. Is there anyone? Not that I'm aware of, but we have many agreements that based on the presentation of an individual, we purchase services for them that are within a specialty that maybe we don't have that they need. Maybe I'm thinking of echo. It might be echo. I remember, whatever I'm thinking of, I remember that was the one that came to us. My very first year for more money from the county and then that's when I found out that the relationship with that organization in the county. But I thought it was that COVID maybe not, maybe not. All right, well, as I said to Ms. Fernandez, please go back and think your staff of what you all do. It is amazing work. I think it's going to get harder to be honest for a lot of reasons. Medicare and other reasons being them. But please go back and think, thank you. Dr. Gupta, I think you are a rock star. I think you are just fantastic. Thank you for everything you do. Margaret, great job. Thank you very much. Supervisors. Hi, what? Are there any motions on Margaret Hoda? Oh, by the way, that's Bobby Clancher, I'd like you to meet him. It's a good guy. Really, he's lived alone in like his whole life or something, right? But there you go. Supervisors are in there and emotions on the day is for this department. Seeing none, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Suppose let's do one more. Let's shoot up one more before we get, before we go to a break. And you know what, I'm actually gonna, I'm gonna skip to one, I'm gonna go to the economic development. And I'll come back to building the development and go to the economic development. I think it's a little bit easier and we get to let buddy drive, here's a very long drive home. So let's go back and I'm with the development, which is on pages 78 and 79. Good evening Mr. Reiser and congratulations on all the many, many awards you have been receiving recently. Thank you Chair Randall and good evening everyone. I was on the phone with a colleague from another jurisdiction earlier today and he was telling me how much he was dreading the budget process that he was going to go through this year and reminding me how lucky I am to work in Loudon County. Loudon is one of America's great economic success stories and that success has been driven by, in large part at least by the growth in the commercial tax base, both in square feet and in valuation. As you heard in the county administrator's budget presentation, the increase in assessed value of the commercial property in loudness up 50% this year and is projected to go up another 10% next year. As of today, DED has announced 110 wins, 3,882 jobs, and 7.6 billion in investments so far in this fiscal year. Job growth year over year in loud and is 4.3% the fastest growth of any large county in Virginia. But one of the things that we are very excited about is the amount of businesses that we have been able to touch over the last few years. One of our asks tonight, actually both of our asks tonight, is as a result of our success in these outreaches, our rural programming, our launch loud and program, and our minority own business initiatives have greatly increased the number of businesses that we're working with. In order to serve them with the same high quality our customers are accustomed to, we are asking for a second business assistant specialist or ombudsman to assist these specific businesses. Second, we're asking for another marketing resource to support our outreach and business development efforts. The amount of marketing, earned media, business development support and digital optimization provided by our small team is extraordinary. But in order to meet the needs of our evolving strategy, we need more capacity in that function. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions. That's why I want you to do that. Just that fast. If I was a question of Mr. Ryzer you have enough space in your, I know at one point we were kind of close. Were you able to work that out? Yes. We've actually expanded and we are going through a renovation to have it in a room for each of these and actually a large conference room that will seat 40 people on the part of the county, which is going to be a real benefit, not only to our department, but to other meetings in that part. Yeah, I really love having meetings in your offices, because it's just such a great, not that there's anything wrong with this place, but it's such a great environment. People come in, it's impressive, so a bigger space is fantastic. Yeah, okay, thank you. Good, thank you. Thank you. Well, I actually used to start off by saying why we're successful, but we're successful mostly because thank you. Good, thank you. Thank you. Well, I actually used to start off by saying why we're successful, we're successful mostly because of you. I was very successful. You do an amazing, amazing job. I was also on a phone call with chief elected officials and they were limiting their budget and I told them I have almost a vibrant skill right now without well, we're doing so. Thank you for everything, Mr. Reiser. Let's get you out of here. Supervisors, do you have any motion on the day for this department? Seeing none, thank you very much, Mr. Riser. Congratulations again. Mr. Riser, let's take a 10 minute break. Yeah, this dinner. Let's take a I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. 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I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm going to go to the next room. I'm like, what are you doing? Stop! I have forgotten that. I was like, yeah, this is ridiculous. Don't do that, really, sir. Okay, yes, we are back. More budget, more budget. And now it's building and development. Would everyone please come up, huh? We don't need to hear from them. We're good. I know. You guys just come up, say hi. And we're going to be like, you're good. Thank you. Bye-bye. You're good. Exactly. Page is 56 through 58. Building and development. Okay. Okay. Exactly. Pages 56 through 58, building a development. So good evening to Randall's and board members. I will make it quick. So excuse the mask. If you can't hear me, I can pull it down, but I've got a head cold and I don't want to get anybody else sick. We can hear you find and appreciate you putting the mask on, you're fine. Building a development has identified four resources totaling 10 positions, which we believe will benefit the department. And it's mission to serve the people of Loudon County and align with the border supervisors, goals, and initiatives. Several of these positions were identified in the Alvarez-Morsell assessment presented to you and discussed on December 3, 2024. In addition to this assessment, DVD has embarked on updating or creating a strategic plan for the department which helped inform the most needed positions this year and hopefully into future years. A brief summary of the request as follows. In the permits division we're requesting that the four of the seven temporary technician positions be converted to permanent to allow us to sustain the progress we've made in the permit processing timelines. We are requesting a building permits manager to help support the addition of the new technicians permanently and the call center that we have identified as a tool to assist with our customer service in this area. The second request is a technical administrative support team which will include a FOIA slash records manager. DVD is a large department with a large number of FOIA requests and it houses a lot of documents and therefore there is a need for a designated expert to manage these programs which are currently being led and supported by our customer service on budget, reducing her ability to provide those customer service opportunities. The A&M assessment did identify the need for additional customer service and land development and this position we feel is the best way to accomplish that goal. A training coordinator, which we identified the need for this position to address several recommendations in the A&M report, the succession and development plan, and we believe that training could include landmark training for both internal and external customers, including even your board aids, which we've started to do. Across training program implementation to help support the succession and professional development plan, a safety program, DEIA awareness and training and the management of the certifications for the staff of 200 people. And finally, an admin manager was identified as the need to provide dedicated support team within our admin division to the administrative needs of the department including consistency and recruiting, correspondence, reporting, and other administrative needs department wide. We currently do not have any administrative support in three of our six divisions. And then finally two project manager technicians on our engineering division to support industry in completing the final steps to obtain their approvals and proceed to construction. These positions would also support the FOIA coordinator in gathering information related to engineering applications. And this would allow senior level engineers to complete their more technical detailed work on time and efficiently. We believe the approval of these resources will support the department in developing our five year strategic plan, continuing to implement the succession and professional development, including implementation of our cross training program and the recommendations provided in the A&M report. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. You said you have lots of foyers and Mr. Kirsten both of them are like really, they've just never crossed a mind that you'd be at the department that had lots of fo, but okay Mr. the turno. Yeah, so the chart on our page 56 which is percentage of permits not meeting on time goal because a little alarming It's only alarming where it was but I also Am a little concerned because We don't seem to be mean what 45 45% is the FY27 goal, I guess, or projection, even after you get these positions. And quite frankly, I wonder, no, because that's what it looks like here. In July or August when this was first put together and the data was collected, that was pretty much for February. For-27. We did not yet, even in June and July, if you remember, we had our zoning staff problems in the spring of 2024. And so when we were putting together this budget request and some of that data for this budget request. It was really based on FY24 numbers. And so- We're with 81% it looks like. And so we said our goals based on what we thought was reasonable. We made incredible progress. What do you think, what do you think the new goal is? Well, let me just tell you that I have some numbers today where we are, which I think- And before you do, I was going to ask you whether we're giving you enough, quite frankly, to make sure we get that number down. So that's where I was going. We absolutely believe that you are giving us enough. And again, if not, I don't want to over hire. Okay. But currently, the divisions on time goals are being met currently, 76% of the time. Oh. Okay. It was way better than this. And certain application types. I got to be honest. I didn't, I asked a budget question on this and that was not in the answer. So. So I think there was some confusion in that answer because I read that in the packet that came out and supervisor Sains asked a similar question that was in the packet before and that information wasn't supervisor Sains response but somehow it didn't get incorporated so I don't know where so we can certainly provide that in the next update but we've really done a great job of cross training people which was a lot of our on time Where if somebody was out of the office Applications in a certain category felt well but felt well behind So I have a lot more numbers. I won't share them with you But our overall is about 76% which we think is going to continue to improve a little bit I think we can I think there is a certain amount that you're just never going to get to 100 for various reasons? Absolutely. Okay. Anything you can elaborate on that? It could be information not provided by an applicant that we request. So we start the process, but we can't complete it because we need more information and we sort of set it aside on hold. Computer glitches that we just sort of miss. Okay. We have one of those. Okay, okay, well good. But yeah, we're going to continue to improve that, but we do think we can sustain that with these, well, these five positions because I think the supervisor is as important as the technicians. I currently have a real leadership gap in that group as well. Thank you. Mr. Crony. I thank you, Chair Randall, and thank you, Ms. Smith, for your presentation and all the FTEs. So I have a question. The A and M study recommended a front desk position. Did you hire that or is that not? It's not, I didn't see it in here. So I- So the FOIA and records coordinator position that I requested. Currently, we have a customer service on Buttsman. Okay. Most of you know her. Amy Lerich. Oh yeah. It's our customer service on Buttsman. But she is spending greater than 50% of her time assisting with FOIA records and some of those other administrative functions. It's sort of got assigned because there was nobody else to do it. So we felt that hiring the FOIA position and really allowing Amy to do her job as that front desk service on bloodshed that she was really hired to be the more efficient way to achieve that goal. Okay. One idea, because I see how high it's 780, I guess an FY 2027, FOIA request. So I went to something at Niko and they said that AI could help with some of these record management. I don't know something to think about in the future, but as they increase, maybe look at AI, that was something that was discussed at NICO conference, how we could leverage that where you wouldn't need as many hands on staff and you could do it through technology. So just an idea. I think. I also considered the website. Yeah. And whether there's ways now that landmark is becoming much more efficient, are there ways that we can use standard reports that we do get a lot of FOIA requests from industry on? That's a good idea. Obtain themselves rather than utilizing staff time. Staff time. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Mr. Kirschner. Oh, you took the light off. Yeah, go ahead. Okay. Mr. Bricksman. Thank you Madam Chair. And thank you for this information and for clarifying the percentages that are on time now. I think that's really great, because I think you were rivaling our elections department with the FOIA requests. My question is, as the on time rates improve, do you think the FOIA requests will go down? And maybe I'm making an assumption that people are filing FOIA requests because they're trying to get information as to the delay of their permits or applications. So do you think that the FOIA requests might get reduced as we improve our response time? Unlikely. What we have found is significantly decreased since our on time we Launched a status request form on the web page During the height of the delay, okay, and the number of those requests has significantly reduced over the last couple of months since Applications have been on time and so have the Lex requests related to heritage. So those were more Lex than FOIA. The other thing we've seen is really a decrease in phone calls because people aren't calling them in question where their plans are. We're really finding that it is the ones that are truly stuck somewhere or there's truly a problem So that that efficiency is help the four permit technicians With the so why are the foyers then the foyers are people that want to know what's going on with a data center application Or they want to know what's going on next order them their neighbor has Done some work do they have appropriate permits for it? They want to know how many building permits we've issued this year People just want to know what their neighbors are doing Okay, thank you for that. I'm happy to support learn something new every day. I'm happy to support your request. Thank you. I just love my county. This is the thing. It's up-snitching on people. But much business. What is that? What is that? Don't go, are go talk to your neighbor? I mean, like, no, I am. I am. I'm also bad. So I love to have found the county. But yeah, Snitch Coaches got the little other hand around here a little bit. And just go talk to people. Does anyone else have any questions? You guys have done such a good work. And it's so heavy lift in Loudon County right now. And we know that, and we appreciate that. So thank you very much. Paul, he's going to be a peer for every department with us. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it. You're doing it for every department with us. How are you doing? You're just going to be off the top. Not a problem, sir. Not a problem. All right. So, buzzer, are there any motions on the day? Somebody behind you had a motion? No? You're good? Okay. All right. Seeing no, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you all very, very much. All right. Supervised, let's go to housing and community development. Be all right. If you used to be in here with us, poor Leo, poor Mr. Goldman, he has to come up for two departments. Hello, how are you all doing? For me? There you go. So good evening to Randu and board members. An attendance to my left is the Department Assistant Director, Mr. Brian Regan, and also the program manager for Housing Choice Vouchers, Ms. Timmy Myers. And then we also have our finance program manager in the back behind us to help us as well. And of course you already know our OMB partner, the infamous lobby client. Good job George, you remember his name very good. I practiced to make sure I got that right. Our resources is located on pages 98 through 100 for three positions, housing support specialists, housing inspector and housing counselor. The Department of Housing and Community Development has made some significant achievements, aligned to departments, governance and operations of this program. Several programs being customer service, finance and development, housing choice voucher, entitlement, block grant policy, rental and home ownership, and finance and development. But however, there are still some improvements needed in service delivery of housing assistance programs and program compliance upkeep that the three positions in the department's resource request can help mitigate risk to the department programs. So the housing supports specialist position, also known in a department as the housing generalist, is needed to address the gap in customer service for in person or phone calls from customers primarily, trying to decide what type of housing assistance is needed and what the customer is eligible for. Currently when a customer visits or calls the department about available assistance, there are about 14 different housing assistance programs listed in housing flyers, packets, and online that customers are provided. To navigate a customer to an applicable housing assistance program requires a housing support specialist with a general knowledge of department services. Also, the type of service needed requires more experienced license counselor to handle housing requests for scenarios related to domestic violence, child protective services, or severe health and mental issues. Department staff currently providing service are not qualified in these cases to address the overlying issue for housing assistance. Whereas a housing support specialist can be recruited with qualifications to do so. The department is currently covering this requirement by diverting three personnel assigned to other department programs to provide this level of support. And you know the impact of that is lost time and deliverables for these other program areas. The department tracked the service provided in a number show that between November 2023 to November 2024 staff provided in person support on average of about 37 visitors and then 32 on average 32 phone calls per month. So staff has also responded to requests for information throughout our organizational email box as well. Additionally, the housing inspector position is needed to sustain inspection requirements for initial program certification of housing voucher rental assistance by annual inspections for resortification or when there is an emergency inspection needed for residents. Not only would this position service the housing choice voucher program, but additionally housing inspections are needed to meet the state rental assistance program requirements in support of people with developmental disabilities requiring independent rental housing. This position would also be needed for the county's implementation of a tenant-based rental assistance program using home funds. Currently, there is only one staff member performing all inspections. Should this staff member take leave or be sick? The inspections for that time are rescheduled. Since 2024, the average number of inspections has also increased by about 73%. Additionally, failure to complete time inspections in accordance with HUD's reporting requirements could result in loss of funding or reduction in available vouchers for future fiscal years. And then last, an additional housing choice voucher, Councillor, is needed to improve the program's processing of applicant requests. Currently, there are about six counselors managing an average of 203 caseloads per counselor per year. Adding another counselor will reduce the average caseload to 147 cases per Councillor. To accommodate increased number of 170 households receiving rent subsidies in 2020, fiscal year 2024, and about 76 so far in fiscal year 2025. Providing a manageable caseload size is critical for service to county residents applying for rent subsidies payments to leasing office or landlords and timely completion of annual housing choice voucher reporting requirements. This concludes my comments and we look forward to the opportunity to address any questions from Thank you very much Mr. Gov and supervise those questions for this department, Ms. Amstert. Thank you Madam Chair. George, thanks for pointing out all the different programs that have to be navigated. And do. So I'm going to just say what this apparent law is called, personal responsibility and work opportunity reconciliation act of 1996. That was mentioned in a 2023 congressional report. And it allows for undocumented immigrants to get certain kinds of housing assistance, but not all types of housing assistance. So what I got from this law is the county itself may not be able to give housing assistance to undocumented immigrants, but nonprofits are a curve, a carve out under that law, and they are allowed to provide undocumented immigrants with housing assistance. How do we, when someone contacts us, and I assume many times they might go through the Department of Family Services as their first stop at the county? But how do we determine how to direct these folks, whether we can help them or whether they need to be referred to a nonprofit. When we do intake, do we get information about immigration status that can help us direct them to an entity that can actually help them? So I give you the big picture of the intake process when a customer either comes through our doors or gives us a phone call and then I'll pass to the team to go a little bit deeper into the technical aspects since you identified it act. So from an intake standpoint, as I stated earlier, with the housing support specialist and we have three folks already performing those duties. We sit them down. If we need translation services, we have that ability to perform translation services as well. And then we ask particular questions as far as the locality, how long they've been, those type of of urging type questions how long they've been in the location Here in the county and so forth in order to you know Gleen that level of information and ordered in to determine technically Whether they are Eligible for the different types of services that we there's. Also, I guess the big determinant also is where the source of funds is coming from. Usually with a lot of our federal programs, they do require documentation of some sort. So for as an example, the housing choice voucher program, just one member of the household needs to have legal presence in the United States. Now the assistance will be paraded based on the number of legal residents that are in the household, but they still can participate. Other programs such as the AD rental program, which is a local program, just requires one form of government ID and does not necessarily require legal presence. Thank you. Mr. Croni? Thank you, Chair Randall. Thank you Mr. Havin. So how much it looks like it was the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded the 2.6 million in 2023. How much is left for that housing voucher program. Was that amount for the federal, from a federal government standpoint? We don't have to go back and research that. Okay. We probably can tell you. I don't know that that'll be renewed. So I'm just wondering how much has left and how many more vouchers are we gonna issue or have we issued them all? So from our standpoint, working with our HUD counterparts, we're still seeing funding notices come through for several programs, including our voucher programs. I can have the team talk further about that, but we're in constant coordination and meetings with them and so we have not seen any indication as of yet of any impacts of any executive orders or other actions that's taken. Yeah how many so we continue to get more funding for voucher programs. We do continue to receive our monthly disbursement from HUD to assist the households that we currently have but we do not have any additional funding at this time to issue additional vouchers from our waiting list. What's the waiting list? We have a little over 900 applicants on our waiting list currently and we're not taking any new applications at this time just because the wait time is so long. It's an expected three year wait time. And how many are being, how many are in the housing bachelor program? How many do we have total? How many are getting it? currently have, we're assisting 795 households, which includes port-ins from other jurisdictions. And those are, you know, different varieties of vouchers. We have special purpose vouchers and regular vouchers. Okay, but you said, it looks like it's newly assisted households of 157. So that's the ask for the positions, right right there's going to be more coming is that yes because of the set aside funding that we received in 2023 we were able to bring those additional households onto the program and existing staff covered those new cases it was tough but they made it happen and so, now we're at a position where we need to maintain those households on our program. Okay, thank you. Ms. Brooksman. Thank you Madam Chair. I'm happy to support your requests, your resource requests. I was curious about the housing counselor position. You may recall when we started our rental assistance program that there were some issues with folks being able to fill out the forms. There were language barriers and those sorts of things. And I was sort of advocating for some sort of a liaison that could help with those sorts of forms. Is that what the, is that what this housing Councillor position is going to be? No, it would be the housing support specialist. Okay great. So with the housing support specialists, are you going to make sure that they have the ability to speak multiple languages? That's correct. Right now, prior to coming to the board for that position and the folks that are currently performing that, we have a translation capability for at least what over 10 to 15 languages that we can have access to to support folks and filling out forms or just generally talking to them to understand the different assistance that they're eligible for. But for this position will you try to hire someone or make it a requirement that they speak something other than English one or two? So I will say we would have to work with HR as far as their, you know, competitive recruiting policies in order to make sure, you know, to take advantage of that. Okay. And then, so this position then that will help folks with those services, will we then, I don't know if loan is the right word, but say we have a nonprofit that's processing the rental assistance, like we do now. Will this specialist be able to help them as well or would they be required to have their own sort of liaison? So we coordinate with our nonprofits and we make every available ability to provide them support within the contracts and within the agreements that we have with them. But if there's a need to look at that, we would do that as well. Okay, okay. Thank you so much. George, this may not be, I'm Brian and everyone, this may not be you walls to prop. I'm actually not sure. This may be a planning and zoning question, so if it's not there up next. When we get phone calls of homes apartments that are in not acceptable condition, that they have the water that is not running correctly, that they have fire is one house that had water coming through the roof that literally dislodged a fire extinguisher. So now they have flooding and stuff, but also no fire extinguisher. If they have railing that is shaky, if they have vermin in their apartment buildings, when we get calls of homes of apartments that are just being the standard to just below what is appropriate for human residents to live there, is that a phone call to fair housing? Is it a phone call to plan and zoning? Is it a phone call for this new housing inspector we're going to have? Or is that person, I mean obviously I know that they're doing inspections of new homes. Who are we calling in county government? Because these calls do come. The last time we had this happen at a apartment building in, it was actually still in Agisperus cascades. I made a phone and it's in the letter to Fair Housing which I used to be the chair of. And the landlord ended up selling the apartment building and it got better. But we also have, I have two of these phone calls coming in right now. What we have phone calls coming in right now for two places that are in Leesburg. Where do we put these calls when the landlords are the owners of the apartment buildings are not meeting their tenants basic health and safety requirements that the tenants are paying for? Who takes that call? So I'll talk at a top level. We've have seen instances where we have customer inquiries with challenges, with their living arrangements, their landlords. We first try to itemize a look at what the situation is before we say go to our fair housing coordinator. Our fair housing coordinator would then make contact in order to just make sure that the situation is aligned to the fair housing acts or prickable laws and regulations that's, that's, you know, implied. I'll pass to you. I guess in general, it wouldn't be a question would be settled through the Department of Housing and Community Development. We would refer them to either building a development or planning and zoning for further addressing. Now if it is a program participant like in the Housing Choice Voucher program. Okay. Okay. I see. We could address through the landlord. Okay. I got you. So planning and zoning is up next and so I will ask that question. I guess that last time I made a phone call to Richmond. I'm chair. Yeah. Yes, Mr. Jim? If you're willing to entertain Mr. Croboth can come up and talk a little bit about this issue. I would say if you have that issue to either refer that to me or refer it to Mr. Crabuth It depends on what the issue is definitely if there's if there's code related issues That could be either the building code or it could be or it could be the property maintenance code Which would right now is kind of enforced through our zoning enforcement division? However, I think Mr. Crabuth can talk to some additional sections of the building maintenance code that the county could adopt, that we haven't currently adopted, that would also address some of those concerns with respect to some of the things that you listed, which are, which are kind of building maintenance types things that are code related. But if you're willing to entertain it, I think Mr. Crowbeth can talk'm talking about that. But that would not be DHCD. Okay. All right. So thank you Madam Chair and board members. So Mr. Hemstreet described it very well. There are nuances that determine whether it's a building code issue or a zoning building maintenance code issue. Building maintenance code, the building maintenance code official is the zoning enforcement division director within planning and zoning and there are chapters within the Virginia maintenance code that the board has adopted. predominantly those are around the structural stability of the building or the exterior conditions of the building. We have not adopted those provisions as I interpret the scenario that you described that goes into the building, but Mr. Hemsreys He said it best, funnel those to him, to myself, to director Galindo or to Keith Fairfax. Okay. That's the age and manager. Okay. All right. I'd like to have further conversations because I think we need to do that. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Crowboth. Thank you, everyone, from the housing department. We appreciate you very very much And thank you for all of the briefings you've been giving us throughout the week I think you have what two more to go mr. Latter and I mr. Kirsten everybody else has been down correct. You have those two and one more Supervisor Turner and glass as well. Okay, so you have a lot more to go cuz you said you've done five got four more to go got you Yes, I am though. Because you will have to be a text. That's the red. Supervisor, did we have many motions on the day? I did not think so. Thank you all very much. Appreciate you.. Glantrick, can you go home now? All right. The person that we spend no time with, we barely see, we don't talk too very often. The next department is playing in zoning and some guy named Dan Galindo, who none of us ever get to talk to, it was coming to the table. And Paul. Paul back. You all are on pages one 10, page one 10. We're ready when you are. Thank you Madam Chair. Good evening, I am Daniel Indo, Director of Planning and Zoning. And I'm happy to be before you tonight with Deputy Director Judy Birkett to represent the Department of Planning and Zoning and its hardworking staff. For many years, DPC has maintained a heavy workload of board-directed projects that plan for and or regulate land development and economic development within Loudon County. These assignments include zoning ordinance amendments, comprehensive plan amendments, and historic preservation projects resulting from staff recommendations or board member initiatives. Such projects result in time intensive DPC assignments that are significant importance to loud and county residents and businesses. In addition to these projects that the board receives quarterly updates on with our quarterly development work plan items. The majority of DPC staff handle daily activities related to land development review and enforcement of adopted regulations and customer service. Department's resource requests for fiscal year 2026 are focused on improving our ability to conduct this final work. As the board is aware in 2024, Al-Rezan Marcel conducted assessments of the Logan County legislative and administrative development review processes. These assessments recommended improvements to communication and operating practices, workforce resilience, employee development, and optimization of technology usage as well as the creation of new staff positions. After a thorough review of the assessment findings, Department leadership determined additional key areas work staff and constraints currently result in bottlenecks of review or capacity and managerial oversight that slow the review process. We also identified risk areas where the loss of a single staff member will result in significant negative impact to the department's ability to meet its regulatory mandates and desired service levels. In total, the Department of Planning and Zoning is requesting 10 positions spread across numerous divisions to add staff capacity and reallocate job responsibilities to improve the efficiency and quality of the development review process. Senior planter and planter three positions in proper management, along with planter three and planter two positions in zoning administration, would relieve existing staff of extra assigned activities and enable senior staff to address more complicated applications and respond to higher priority information requests. A new division manager in Lanier's review would provide additional senior management oversight capacity for a division that experiences frequent staffing turnover and a planning technician would assist with the administrative functions associated with the project management of a legislative Lanier's applications. An archaeology technical assistant position and community planning and a a JAS planner in the customer service center would build capacity in areas with no current backup positions within the department. And any significant vacancy of either existing position would result in significant negative impact to the department's ability to meet its regulatory mandates and thirdly review applications. The addition of a training manager position would provide dedicated training for the department staff and customers to improve process efficiency. And a human resources generalist would reduce executive leadership's human resources workload, allowing time to be reallocated to oversight of the development process and other important departmental needs. In the past year, the department has completed phase one of the Preservation Equity Initiative, the Prime Agricultural Soil and Cluster Zoam, the rural historic village classification C-PAM, and achieved a National Historic Landmark designation for the Charles Hamilton Houston Courthouse. In addition, we have initiated and are currently managing 10 C-PAMs and Zoams along with the Runway 30 Aviation Noise Mitigation Project. Meanwhile we continue to process hundreds of active legislative applications and hundreds more reviews and enforcement actions every year. We anticipate and are cautiously looking forward to another busier and we appreciate the boards continued support for the Department of Planning and Zoning staff. This concludes our presentation and we are happy to respond to any questions. As far as there's some good things to eat you sick cautiously like that. No, no. No, it was almost there. Emphasis intended. Supervisors, Mr. Croney. Thank you, Chair Randall. And thank you, Dan and Judy, for all that you guys do. We know that you're very, very busy overworked, frankly. So I'm happy to support all these positions. But I wanted to ask if the six positions in the special project division got hired from last year from FY 2025. So we have currently hired the division manager and one of the five senior planners. We have just finished conducting second interviews for essentially all four of the open senior planner positions and are preparing offers to all two people for all four positions right now. Okay, so you think it'll be done shortly? I hope so. I would love to be. I would love to be. Wonderful. All right, so thank you. Okay, well, Dan, you are. You are. You are just fantastic. Um, no kidding. I mean, just listing off that little bit of what you just listed off of how much your department has done and is doing, it's just amazing. It is absolutely amazing. You need every one of these positions. And I, what is so phenomenal about your staff is, I'm not going to, it's something up to me to see whether you're over it But you all you work very hard and you're very busy But you're also very responsive and I and I appreciate that and then I actually appreciate that you have taught me so much You have slowly walked me through things that I if I didn't understand something about planning and zoning because it's a lot It's a lot to understand you have slowly walked me through things. What you all have done just in the seaport, this rural zone and all those things, it's incredible. So I can't imagine anyone will have any issue of any of these positions, but really seriously thank you and thank your staff because you all work very, very hard. other any motions on this day is I told you next time you cannot meet cut inside of my see see see this is see we're always this close Dan there always this close thank you Dan Judy you keep you nice though yeah I'm trying. Paul, can you now go home? I'm in. Paul, can you now go home? All right, transportation and capital infrastructure. We are in the home stretch now. We have two more to go. Okay. Hello, how are you? All right, transportation and capital infrastructure. Mr. Jones, we are ready when you are. You guys are on page. What? 114. 114. Very good. All right. Thank you, Chair Randall and board members. I'm Vincent Jones and on behalf of DTCI, we appreciate the opportunity to provide an overview of our fiscal year 26 resource request. First I'd like to introduce our team this evening. I have Amber Stals from OMB. We have Lou Moserag, our assistant director for transportation planning and traffic engineering. And also our newest member Heather Deats. She's our assistant director for transportation design and construction. All right. With us in the audience, we have Mr. Don Bredeis, our facilities assistant assistant director, followed by Rosario Laraki, our assistant director for our renovations and design group. We also have some of our support staff here as well, Laura Dove, and Harvey Cornwell, our in the audience. As a brief update, DTCI is actively working to address our fiscal year 25 approved resource requests. Our transportation design and construction division has filled the utility program manager and utility manager positions important to our transportation projects. Our facilities division is currently recruiting for a program manager and two new planning development manager positions. These are new positions to the department, and so they will form a planning team in our facilities division. The department's requests for fiscal year 26 include six positions to improve efficiency, project delivery, and improve management of administrative efforts. A deputy director, a human resources program manager, and an accountant as part of the administrative division. And a transportation planning program manager, a transportation planning assistant program manager, and a transportation planner for the transportation planning and traffic engineering division. In 2024, DTCI began working with the management consulting firms, L.O.s, to conduct an organizational analysis and provide recommendations for focusing the department's operations on the successful and timely delivery of projects and optimizing the department's operations. The firm's initial analysis recommended increased administrative and management staffing to support strategy, policy, leadership, budget, finance, and technology functions. So we have requested a deputy director and a human resources program manager based on their recommendation. The deputy director will allow for a clear organization of DTCI work into two main areas. Right now we have all our Assistant Directors reporting to the Deputy Director. This new position will allow us to have two main areas, transportation and facilities. The benefits are better quality management of the department, improve tracking and reporting of transportation projects, improve communications between our divisions and our other loud and county stakeholders and partners. The more focused on our department's administration will also help with our HR functions as well. If approved, DTCI will have 99 staff members that will require ongoing HR support and subject to hiring, onboarding, training, and development, recruitment, employee relations, and these impacts will be ongoing for the organization. The accountant will provide additional capital project support by processing external reimbursements and reconciling and closing capital projects. As you know, we receive V.Funding through SmartScale and NBTA 70% funding, and they require a complex reimbursement request that impact our timely progress with our funding agencies. The total dollar amount of capital projects has increased by 32% since fiscal year 2020 Create an a parallel increase in our accounting processes So on time processing of capital project we're burst from requests is especially important for the counties transportation projects Operationally DTCI has identified That our transportation planning and traffic engineering team needs more support to complete projects in an efficient and effective manner. So we have identified three positions, the transportation program manager, the transportation planning assistant program manager, and the transportation planner. The transportation program manager will assist a special project team, and this role will also help the organization retain knowledge and improve our capacity with projects. The Transportation Planning Assistant Manager and the Transportation Planager will improve our timeliness and quality control of land development referrals. In this fiscal year alone, DTCI staff could potentially see upwards of 900 plus land development referrals. Staff has consistently been unable to reach our goal of 100% on time completion of these referrals. And we will continue to not meet these if we are not able to have our requested positions approved. These positions will not only handle land development referrals, but they will also serve as planning staff providing support to DPC and BND. Manage our CTP amendments, assist with regional transportation planning efforts, and reviewing other legislative land development applications. So with these additional staff capacity, we expect to be able to meet our on-time goals and improve our on-time performance. All right? I'd like to thank the board for your support during our time of transition with the department and we are here and ready to answer any questions you may have about our resource request. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Jones. That was very, very helpful. If you have questions for your light on Ms. Bricksman. Thank you. I'm happy to support your request, but I also just wanted to say that working with your department has been great over the last several years and really appreciate your responsiveness to what may seem like minor requests from community members, but it's important to them. So and you guys take everything seriously from the huge road projects to the smallest crosswalk. So I just wanted to say thank you for that. Thank you, Chambers. Mr. Crony. Thank you, Chair Randall. And thank you, it's in Lue. So I remember there was an item that came to the Board Finance Committee in December about the sidewalk and trail program. and it was discussed that if we wanted to have more than 1.8 to 2.2 miles of sidewalk and trails being introduced per year, that we might need additional staff to increase that production. So I'm just wondering if any of these staff members are for the sidewalk and trail program or if we're going to be looking. What what our next step is with that. Sure. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Professor. To Cronies. So during that presentation to finance, what we took away from that was we are going to take a look at some operational efficiencies with our transportation design and construction group. So, that means they will look at trying to make sure that there are packages of projects that they could bid together so they may be completed in a quicker manner or designed and completed quicker than we normally would expect. We expect that we'll have a great update for you in the next quarterly report, but we also expect that we were going to bring an item back to you after that quarterly report to report out on how we intend to increase our delivery of STP projects as well as I.P. and bus stops. Okay. Yeah. Because we might be having the safe passages to school projects as well, which are crosswalks and sidewalks that aren't in really the sidewalk and trail program yet I mean they're coming right Lou we discussed how they were gonna come as a separate project Okay, so I sure you miss Deets is working very hard on those projects and we look forward to reporting out to you Okay, thank you so much. I thank you for all your hard work. I appreciate what you do. Mr. Luterto. All right, so two issues, communication and the project referral. So it sounds like the deputy director position and others you described are part of kind of a comprehensive approach to trying to address the referral issue and our degree of confidence is pretty good that we're going to get there. Absolutely. So yes. Okay. Good. I'm going to support the position. I just want to make sure we're solving that problem because I do think it's a significant problem. Going back a ways we at one point added a chief of staff position which morphed into a deputy director position but the chief of staff was supposed to be essentially a communications position coordinating with board offices and so on. I don't feel like we're I stand with two President just said I do think there may be differences in the types of projects we're dealing with, new bill kind of stuff versus maybe smaller requests on existing things. But I kind of feel like we're not really getting that function at this point. So do you have any thoughts about how to improve that? Which positions, if any, can be sort of in that realm? Sure, sure. Thank you, supervisor LeTernos.. Attorney's time. Mr. Attorney, just so curious, are you saying like that person in the Infra-True Department are overall? DTCI, we actually, the board actually added a DTCI remember, a DTCI position specifically to communicate with the board about projects. Okay, thank you. And I don't think it ever happened to be honest with you. Gotcha. So the Zellos Organizational Analysis that's finishing up right now, they have recommended a position that would help us in that capacity. So it is an assistant director for administration that would help us with those issues and we don't need an additional position for that we could reclassify an existing position to take on that role and help us in that. Okay, so it doesn't have to be a new FT. But you could take, it's pretty good head count here, you said 99. You could take one of those folks potentially put them into that role. Yes. Okay. I think that would be helpful. Yeah. And I mean, look, I understand it's difficult because there's nine of us. There's a lot of things going on in the county. You've got to communicate with all of us all the time on everything. But we have had some trouble getting timely answers to questions on projects and things like that, timelines and all that sort of things. And I don't know if there anybody specific under the bus, it's more of a systematic issue. And I think we feel it more probably where we have the more construction kind of stuff happening. So I would appreciate that. I see Mr. Hebschirt has a point. I see that, Mr. Hebschreet. I can wait until Mr. Attorney's Times over if that's... I'm done. So... It... I see Mr. Hebschrik as a board. I see that, Mr. Hebschreet. I can wait until Mr. Eternal's time's over. I'm done. So in addition to what Sue Rezotino just identified, I know based off of feedback from the board, there are a few departments where communication with the board is a concern. So DTCI is one of them. So I have spoken with Mr. Jones as well as Mr. Crowbuth about those departments and our need to improve how we provide information to the board and how we ensure timely information to the board primarily around more minor issues that should we should should be able to provide within a phone call, or an immediate inquiry, and I understand that we are not providing that. So that's not necessarily a staffing issue. That is as much a procedural and operational concern. And so I have taken that back from the feedback I've gone from the board and we will have something for you within next month or so. Okay. Did you say that when you hire these positions up you have 99 employees? Yes. My gosh, you know, for the work you all do, I looked at Mr. Kerstin. I was like, only 99 because you all are doing a whole lot of work with 99 employees. So thank you for all the work you're doing. We appreciate it very much. We know it's a very heavy lift and I don't think again there's going to be anyone who's going to. You all are one of the departments that we get to see all the time, right? so we know how hard you're working, and we do have lots of them interaction with you. So supervisors, are there any... You all are one of the departments that we get to see all the time, right? And so we know how hard you're working and we do have lots of interaction with you. So supervisors, are there any motions on the days? Did not think there would be. Thank you very much. Appreciate you all. And last but certainly not least is our county attorney, Mr. Leo Rogers. Hello, sir. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening. Good evening can be found on page 77. Actually, I have 65, 66. I might have the number wrong. I think I have 65, 66. And the county attorney budget, I have his page 200 that may not be right as well. It is 77. All right. Okay, then I have it wrong here. No, I can't read. I'm sorry. What's that say? Is it on page 7? This is county attorney. What's that say? This is 65. Guess what? I'm doing reading and all that. All by myself. But thank you very much, Mr. Carstere. Just saying once again if y'all gonna help me help me. What's that what's that said? Did you write it in wrong? Did I write that? I don't know. Did you say? No, we won't go say. He won't go say. My, more. Make a motion to impeach Caleb Kursner of the board of supervisors. Bear be careful you might have the votes. Stop it. Please, little Mr. Rogers, be carefully now. It's your budget. All right. We want that position. A lot of stake here. We'll say that over the past few years, the staffing level of the attorney's office has remained flat. The additions that we've received have been for collective bargaining. This position is being recommended by Alvarez and Marcell's report. In addition, I plan to embed an attorney one-third of the time in building and development and with planning and zoning that's with the concurrence of the department directors to improve communication and coordination between the departments. And a new attorney will assist all the new positions that you just approved for the community development agencies. In addition, it's the hope that that attorney will be able to expedite the legislative review process. If you have any questions on this, I'd be happy to address them. Okay, anyone have any questions for Mr. Rogers? Department. Wow, wow, look at that. Supervisors are the emotion for Mr. Rogers Department who's proposed budgets on page 77. You have a motion? You have a motion? You have a motion? No, I just want to make a sweat. That's all. OK. Oh my god. What is wrong with this one tonight? You can't answer my text, but this you can do all night long with me. All right. I don't think there are any motion on the day. Mr. Rogers, you and your staff have had a busy year. And when I compare just the case loads that you have cleaned up in one year, it has been absolutely phenomenal. Not to mention, I will say that your staff is just great. I mean, yes, losing Courtney was a loss, but you hire well. And I want to call all your staff names because I'm a missum. But I will say Teresa and Belkis, you just can't do better. And you all are doing a great job with a lot of moving parts. You're also really, really available when we call and I appreciate that a lot too. So thank you very much for everything, Mr. Rogers. Thank you for those kind words and I'll make sure they're shared with the office. Thank you very much. everything, Mr. Rogers. Thank you for those kind words, and I'll make sure they're shared with the office. Thank you very much. Supervisors, we are going to cancel the budget work session that we would have otherwise had on Saturday. And our next, what's y'all going to do that? Okay, okay. Our next budget work session would be Monday March 10th at 5.30. Seeing no other business, we're gonna be adjourned. Thank you.