and then we will go into an update from BFAC and a review of their memo. Per usual, all the departments will have one slide, we'll stop and take questions throughout, and then at the end we'll reserve some time for anything that has not been discussed across all of the sessions. With that, I'm going to turn it over to the manager to kick us off and we'll dive right in. Yeah, so thanks Mayor. So this is primarily a portfolio that our Deputy Chief Manager, Mr. Lambert, represents in Lesans too. So we're ready to get going. And I think our first up is our newest, newer police chief, although I would comment that he's injured, but he's playing through it tonight. So I'm going to turn it over to him. So Madam Mayor, Councilor Good evening. Pleasure to sit before you today. Have three primary goals. The first one is to talk about the budgetary efficiencies that the manager has asked us to do. The second I want to just give a brief overview of our staffing model and then the third thing is to answer any relevant questions. So as you all may know or I would assume that you know our police budget is about $75 million a year. The manager has asked us to look at approximately 1% savings. We've done that in three particular areas. As you noted on the slide, that first area is going to be administrative supported efficiencies. The first section is going to deal with counter-tell communications. That's going to deal with our mobile data devices that normally are MDCs inside of patrol vehicles, dealing with cell phones and other cable networking features, copier in leasing rentals inside the police department, and then office supplies and professional services. So some of those professional services deal with landscaping, deal with lead mitigation at the firing range. And then the second area I would point to is going to be our residential office of vacancy and we actually have two of these inside the city but these are locations that this first location is noted as a location is kind of been open as relates to officers recent retirement and they're just has been no desire to fill inside the PD and so there's is a cost associated with maintaining their property that the city pays as a release to taxes of the search art such as cable and electrical features such as lighting equipment. The last thing I will say is going to be in our criminal investigation section. As you all know that we have officers in our city that work in covert capacity, multiple capacities. Like any other police department, we have rental car agreements to switch and interchange those cars out. And this has been a identified efficiency to reduce that fleet for our personnel to result in that savings in that section. What I will tell you is is that out of all of these areas that have been identified, there will be no degradation in service to the community. But in many of these areas, we have somewhat over budgeted historically. That's how we're able to identify those, I'm sorry, those savings. The last thing I'll talk about before I answer any questions, it's just kind of our staffing. As a police department, regarding our sworn staffing, we're slated for 322 police officers, and then our support personnel is about 114. Right now, we have about 22 vacancies as are released on sworn personnel, so on average, the department loses about two to two and a half employees a month. And then on our non sworn side, our professional staff side, we have about 34 vacancies out of 114, as are released a full-time employees. And then the part-time section is going to be probably about 18 vacancies. Those are going to be associated with our security guards and our parking enforcement officers. One thing I will point out is that in that area, you all may be aware of this. We have a contract right with the agency that helps support some of those vacancies as it relates to our school crossing guards. And so we've kind of been continuing that to offset those areas. So that's all I have and I'm subjecting the questions. Okay, Councilman McPike. Thank you, Chief. I hope you didn't get hurt, drag racing. It's the jobs, sir. No, okay. Pickle ball. Pickle ball, very dangerous. I'm curious about like you mentioned rental cars here. What's the status of our just vehicle fleet than the officers use on a day-to-day basis? So, you know, I think this, and it's just got a lot. I think that's something that we're continuing to evolve and look at, right? And here's what I mean by that. There's several things that impact our vehicle fleet. Number one, we do have a take home vehicle program, right? And so we're trying to work to evaluate that across the board period. And so that take home vehicle program really says that simply if you live in the city right we will provide a vehicle to you as a take on car program. The second thing is what impacts vehicle fleet is the amount of accidents that officers have on a daily basis. If you know right now we're on Twitter or so so think about their driving all their driving all the time. And so accidents do happen. And so then that will take away, right? Fleet out of service and then another challenge there is going to be a repair cost time, right? I will tell you that I have spoken to the manager about this. We are evaluating a number one. I take on vehicle program. But number two, it's incumbent upon me as the police chief to really look at a five year plan, purchase plan on on cars for the PV. I think on average, we are purchasing about 30 cars a year. But if you kind of go back to COVID, you also have to think about the availability of vehicles. So one thing that I asked when I became chief here is, you know, we drive forward explorers. What I see so many different variations, right, and the color of some of the vehicles. So my goal has been as chief every marked vehicle that we have that striped out that says police on the side, right, I want patrol officers in those particular vehicles. The cars that you probably see on March, are more so going to be supervisory staff or our investigators. But I have to work on a plan to ensure that we have sustainability and the purchasing of our fleet. But they are down in some areas. But we are fortunate to where we can operate in the capacity that we have where we're having individual office in each car not double in go Right and during a shift in individual officers in a car and at the end of that shift They obviously leave it. It's not a sign to them. It that car could go right back out on the next shift So it's actually out there driving around 24 hours a day. Yeah, and I you know, I give The other thing that we're working on right now to answer that question. Yes, sir. But the only cars that do go home are those that live in the city, right? And that's something that we have to figure out the balance over time because we are having some officers that are staying in the city, right? That are awaiting a car, right? And so that's something that I'm trying to, again, we're trying to evaluate right now where we are. And the city general maintenance does, maintenance on the car, please. Yes. Is that working well? Do you think that saving money? You know, I think I think like you know, the city would depend upon workload, right? Some cars do have to go back to the manufacturer based off of, with the issue maybe, so I'll just give this example. The vehicle that I got most recently, it was out of service for several weeks because the backup camera wasn't working. That vehicle had to go back to four, but for the most part, you know, it's about, I think, about workload and influx of those things. The last thing I will say is, when you also look at kind of vehicle fleet maintenance, you're looking at the life cycle of that vehicle, which you will see from a deterrent standpoint, it's us asking to maybe hold on to cars a little bit longer, especially when we have a crime, and this is where we're trying to deter crime. And so we do put those cars out which are going to be some older cars. I normally refer to those as sunset vehicles, but those are cars that could be sold but you want to hold on to for a few more years to help with the crime and issues that we have on the road. And how does our take home vehicle policy compare to other jurisdictions? Like our bit, it's a little bit different. Right. We want people to stay within the city, but we also have policy that speaks to 50 miles, right, to stay outside of the city. But I think it varies, right? If you look at Montgomery County, Maryland, right, or Fairfax County, you're looking at a larger jurisdiction, a larger area. You know, look at PG County population, the problem about a million people. So the visibility of cops are probably needed more in a larger significant amount of area. The childhood thing about the DMV is, you know, you can drive across the George Washington Bridge and you're here in another state. And so we have to take those things into consideration. But my goal is to present the manager with a long-term plan on vehicle purchasing and try to figure out what are those policy implications from this place. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to go to Vice Mayor Bagley, but I guess two quick follow-ups. In terms of the take-home fleet, is how many officers currently have a a take home vehicle? That I'd have to get back to you on. But what I will tell you is, so some of those points that I just told you, I'm sorry that I just shared, we have officers that are waiting for take home vehicles. And so we're doing a full inventory of that right now. Now what I will say is many of you have done ride outs as a blade. When you come to the rear of the building, you will see a lot of white unmarked vehicles. And so we've got to work to get those in service, which we're doing right now. And then when it comes to vehicles as well, you want to be driven all the time. And so we're working to see evaluate those that have been working for take on be here, but to get those to them. But I don't have the exact number right now. In follow up, I would love to kind of just the number of how many have them now, how many are supposed to have them and the difference between the two. And then it was helpful to hear about the five year purchasing plan. I'm just curious if you have a sense of timeline for when we could expect that plan. Oh, I think they could. And it's just got louder again. It was helpful to hear about the five-year purchasing plan. I'm just curious if you have a sense of timeline when we could expect that plan. I think that could, and it's just got louder again. I think, yeah, I think moving away because my voice cares. But I think that could be completed before the fall. So I do have our team looking at it right now, and they're working on it in concert with the take home vehicle program. Thank you. Vice Mayor Bagley. Thank you. You referenced already the contractors who are helping fill in some of the vacancies with parking enforcement and I sort of have two related questions. One's just generally, how is How is that contracting work affecting hopefully for the better like relative street safety compliance in the zones in which they're working? Do we think it's been an effective contract? Not simply for issuing thousands of tickets. I know they've done that, but are y'all picking up on it just a generalized return to like more normal behavior with parking and respect for sort of parking restrictions. So I think two things, you know, we just had a, let me go to part to answer a question. We just had a celebration of school crossing guards who are recently right and those are contract positions as well. And then there's a variance of what people want and what people desire to do. I think that people are issuing tickets and those zones that have been identified. But I also think that there is that human behavior side where people are like, okay, can I park your floor for a few seconds, get out, run in and not risk getting a ticket. And so I think it's too important. I mean, I think that the part of Ishrunga's citation is to change human behavior, right? And I think that we have been, you know, sometimes we get complaints, right? And when we look at the numbers, there's kind of equality, right? And and how we have issue those tickets. So I will say that you know we are effective in that area and the utilization of those that are contracted but I also think that we have to look at long-term strategies which is kind of what we're doing right now as it relates to and what connects it over the variance between being a school prosecutor and the variance between issuing citations and how do we make those two errors efficient because that's where we have our vacancies at to where we're spending money and I would say that the challenge with the school prosecutor is number one. I want to work two hours in the morning right and then a couple hours in the evening and there's a huge space. And so we're trying to figure out, is there an opportunity to figure out how to combine those efforts to where, hey, maybe I'll just go to school, crossing garden, then I kind of move into just the issue and theation is during the day to help curb some of those vacances that we've continued to see. Sarah, can I just a quick follow up on that one? I guess, and this one's not on YouTube, but maybe, Jan, you can answer this. We're deputy manager at Lambert. I feel like every year we've kind of talked about, we're exploring those strategies, particularly as it relates to crossing guards. I'm wondering is there specific study we're waiting on or like what information are we waiting on in order to figure out whether or not there might be different types of ways to structure the work way or work day or hiring incentives for crossing guards? Well, I think the first thing that we're doing mayor is looking at the contract itself and making sure that the contract works for us is still a fairly new vehicle. Well, I think the first thing that we're doing, Mayor is looking at the contract itself and making sure that the contract works for us is still a fairly new vehicle for us to make sure that we're using this at schools. I mean, I think thus far the department has been pleased and the most important point has been having people actually out in the, with the, at the assignments and at the schools and make sure we've got all the folks filled. I know that that seems like a fairly low threshold to meet, but it had been a significant challenge for a couple of years at both ACPS and the city we're trying to deal with. I think in the longer term, what we will be doing is talking to TNES in particular about actually looking, I think you asked a very good question about the relative safety both related to parking enforcement at schools, and sort of making sure we're seeing reductions in crashes around the schools, and in the parking enforcement zones where we are working. And those are things that we can do with staff. And in particular for the parking enforcement contract, what I wanted to make sure to note is that we built in, we knew that the initial contract, and sort of the initial pilot of that program going to be, we gave ourselves about a year and a half, two years to really evaluate that. We have already begun the negotiations and the discussions between TNES and the police department to sort of make sure that we're asking the right questions right now and then once we get to the midpoint in the sort of the contract, we'll be able to say, these are the outcomes that we wanna look for this is how we're going to evaluate this. That's helpful just I just want to make sure it feels like this one way is when we've been noodling around I think a lot of different ideas have been thrown out and I think you know I want to get clear on like what are our options so we can make a decision Yeah, and the mayor's follow-up is in line with where I was going next, which is I don't think we started this this pilot exclusively to issue tickets, you know, and I think we were looking to change behavior more importantly, and to reestablish safer streets and in double parking and day lighting and all the things that come with proper parking. And I know since we've had the pilot in the limited zone that it's in, I'm hearing from other neighborhoods that are like, I'd love more enforcement. I'd love to see, you know, these shifts and behavior that come hopefully with a, so I share the mayor's interest in, you know, you've, you mentioned the midpoint of the contract. So is that where we're at? Yes, we're, we're really just, remember, I'm, for, I think it for PEOs, We're just about a year into having them out there. Yeah, so I think, I guess what I'd want to flag, and it's outside of sort of any time-sensitive budget question, though, is can we, can we sort of agree that maybe, you know, six months, eight months from now, we come back as a group and talk about how, you know, because that'll be sort of a sweet spot. I would think are we doing another contract? Are we revising the pay scale for you know what for what we're doing long term and have that conversation before we get into the next budget cycle? Yes, so that was the it was the intent to be able to come back and in the fall of that some of that some of that. Okay. I'm Councilwoman Green. Thank you Madam Mayor. So my question is also about the school crossing guards. We're kind of talking about, I guess all of the part time positions together with issuing the citations and the crossing guards. I was wondering is that the same company and same contract? Or is it two separate contracts first question? And then second question with it being hard to keep those positions filled, crossing guard positions, are we still having them covered the, actually how many vacancies first, and then how are we covering those vacancies that don't have a crossing guard? Well, Chief is looking up the vacancies. I can let you know, it's two separate contracts with two separate companies. One firm does, is providing us with staff that does crossing guards. And then there's another firm that is providing us with support on the parking force. And we are covering everywhere we're supposed to have a crossing guard, we have that. So that's not. Is that with a higher position or with a police officer coming in? That's that should be with our contractor combo with the staff. The reason we went to the contract, the two contract pieces was to make sure that we always had adequate staff. We always had capacity to provide the service that was necessary and That's that contract can go up or down based on what we need so the more vacant the more positions at the city level or filled The less we need in the contract the more vacancies we have and and that's been intentional. That's how that was set up for the last couple of years. So now sir, a question about Bikes, a chain port on a chain Bikes. At the crossing guard, 18 vacancies. And at last check, I think we have eight vacancies and PEOs. I had a few quick questions. You mentioned the residential officer program and that we're cutting to, I think because we're getting one. I guess my question is that isn't how I frame this. Is that is the area where we are making that reduction still in area that has crime challenges? So I will tell you yes, so where the the residential offices are they are probably where we have some of the largest crime challenges and officers. I guess they're vacant right just in plain terms because there is no desire to probably leave and those neighborhoods. The the persons they have stayed right, in those areas, it's kind of been a way to be more visible in guys in the community. And look at financial opportunities for themselves, and if it's for yes, they are. Before, I guess, cutting this position, did we look at any sort of incentives to, yes, I recognize it's the challenging situation to live in? It's not something everyone wants to do, but are there any types of either pay incentives or other perks that could be offered to try and get someone in a high need area? So in the in the particular cost areas like I think it's like a $10,000 pay incentive that would that we do offer? We advertise it multiple, just multiple times. this particular location has been vacant. Again, it says someone has retired from the agency and we've advertised it all and all again, we talk quite often, it's just been a desire to feel. Okay, I guess it's probably not something that can be solved for this one, but I guess what I'm getting at is still an area where there's a need in some area where we have a challenge. You know, maybe the current structure we have doesn't make this a program that people want to engage in. And so do we need to look at a different sort of incentive structure in order to make it work? So that would be my hope, because I recognize we're probably going to have other RPOs across the cities that retire or leave the force or other things happen. And I don't want this to just become something that's on the chopping block. It's a program that has value. The other question I had was related to the community cookouts. What is the average cost per cookout? That I don't know. I think that I think it's been slated for 10,000 to support the community cookouts for my mistaken. That's a total. Yeah, but I would, I would have to unless y'all know what I would have. This $10,000 will we do about 10 cookouts? So about it's, it's, I would say there's given the number of inkind staffing there, I think it's important to note that the community cookouts have been very successful because they have been supported by so many agencies from across the city. And so we see a lot of benefit in engaging the community in that way. But in terms of like actual materials that supplies for each cookout, it has not been a huge number, but we can certainly get you, but that actual number is. I'd appreciate that. And then I guess I know we've talked about this back and forth, like having performance metrics for the cookout so we can evaluate their impact. Have we developed those? And if so, where are we in terms of meeting some of those impact goals? So what I will tell you is that we do have a count of a community survey and a feedback survey. We have, I haven't been to a community to cook out to it. So this spring or summer, I will be engaged in it. We have starts of pilot that a little bit in Andrew Ackins neighborhood based off of, you know, service and people's relationships and how they see us and things that they may meet, but that probably can be expanded a little bit more to speak to maybe a decided departments and personnel needs. So it's something we can look up on expanding, but we have started to use just a small instrument in the first place of them in directions neighborhood. OK. I mean, it would be helpful for us to, I think it's something we put not just, I mean, it's not like $1,000 in a cookout, but it is a lot of staff time and a lot of other work. I think making sure we have some way of evaluating, like here's the return that we're getting for that. because if it's a good thing, then we should put more to it. If it's an area that needs investments, we should figure out how to do that. The other questions I had, do we have a sense of the average cost per, I guess, sworn professional that they receive for training and professional development? You may have per employee. I didn't know if there was a difference between sworn and in terms of percussion. So there are some, I'll just say this from the executive level, right? I mean, the manager level, there are some some key schools that we do send persons to on an annual basis. Some of those are the FBI academy. There's another one called SMRP that is embossed in. What I've been focused on here lately from a learning space is probably aligned people to come in that are SMEs to conduct training internally inside the organization. And also just looking at how to internalize some of these structured systems. The other place is the DC Police Leadership Academy that's right across the way is relates to a professional staff. We are working to extend some of those opportunities. We do have some professional staff probably attending some of those schools that are more particular to a professional staff. If you're starting to see that her and the reason after the University of Virginia. They just instituted a kind of like a public safety institute. They will support more so non-swarm personnel. I think where the deficiency is is is kind of maybe more so at the line level as relates to the development of people in personnel for future opportunities and that's something that we will be kind of working toward more in a strategic plan. Thank you. I'm curious from the earlier conversations we had as a council about just a workplace of choice and like what's the total package and how training and promotional opportunities fit into that. And then one last question for me and this, I don't mean to put you in a spot because we weren't here, but it does have implications for future budget. Previously, there have been some conversations about a real-time crime center and whether or not that's something to pursue. I think previously we paused it because it takes time to plan and it has a significant cost. Is that something we are still exploring? And if so, when could Council expect a memo or something on that? Yeah, is something we're still exploring. Right now we do have intelligence up inside the PD. But yes, we have to have real time crimes and technology is extremely important. I anticipate, right, once we get through this public safety plan, that we will be looking at those technology impacts and to be able to work through the manager to present something to America. So so when you talk about a time period, I will probably say late summer early early fall. Thank you. Other questions? Okay. Thank you, Chief. Thank you. Other questions? Okay. Thank you Chief. So one of the things that I think at the last, maybe the last public hearing, we had a apparent speak about, that's not so recently incident at Laws Crouch with a young person bringing that gun to school in accidentally. And I know in the ACPS budget, they were interested in having a number of security officers in elementary schools. And in talking to kind of thinking back what the city had was having a number of officers that had relationships of some sort. I don't know how deeper intensive with various elementary schools within the city. And one of the things that I submitted a budget question about was is there kind of a financial cost or a personnel cost to try to set up those relationships or rebuild those relationships again? Because I think some of the things that I'm hearing about are really having somebody with security or law enforcement background to help make sure the building looks and feels secure versus, you know, interacting with young people and particularly young students. I think it's more there for, or having somebody to connect with for assurances for the teachers or for their administration and somebody that they can call on and connect with. And so I'm very interested in seeing how we can rebuild that relationship with ACPS, working with our school board to make sure their staff are making their direct connections with you and folks in the department. So any kind of work to that end or have you tried to reach out to ACPS, maybe not had contact back or what have you, where we can start to look at rebuilding that relationship and is there a cost to that? Your mind? Yes, I would say that I've been in contact with Dr. Mel and K. Why? We talked on a continuous basis. But when you were talking about just kind of the elementary school level and security level, I will tell you that I think any time we place an officer in any school right on the full-time basis, there's a cost associated with it. I will tell you from my just overall law enforcement experience. You know, I have, I left a city that probably had over close to 70 to 80 schools where legislation was passed to ensure that there were some type of law enforcement president in every school from the elementary junior high to the high school level. Where I saw budgetary efficiency was to work with a security company, right? Armed security company to invisibly put them inside of elementary schools versus putting a police officer there and to ensure that there was training, right, on roads and responsibilities and what they would do and working with staff and they were not there really in an enforcement capacity, right? If there was a, the criminal offense, a police officer was called there, but it was more of a deterrent and a situation should a critical incident happen and occur as a first line of defense. And so I think that's one point to answer that the second thing is is that I just think on a more global scale, right, that youth engagement will continue to just be something paramount for us. I think more at the elementary school level, I mean, you see our cops on time posting on social media, they go in and they read to students at the junior high level. It may be a little bit more different engagement. And so I think that that's something we'll continue to see improvement upon, but when you talk about ensuring that there is a security mechanism at the schools, that's a kind of like a law enforcement or marked on presence. You're gonna see more financial efficiencies identifying a security company that can do that versus a actual police officer. Okay. Thank you, Chief. I can't be sure to copy me that can do that versus a actual police officer. Okay, thank you chief. All right, thank you all. I have a good. We're going to move to fire next. Thank you for the fire department. We currently schedule a budget of 75.16 million with an FTE count of 348.5. Overall, this budget helps us to maintain our services and FTEs and actually including adding with FTE at the end. So I definitely appreciate the budget and support we got. In regards to some of those key initiatives, the first one was an additional recruit class for fiscal year 26. Basically, this is going to give us a second recruit class to help us continue our goal of increasing and maintaining our staffing levels for the CBA. Once that's accomplished, we should be able to go back to one recruit class a year after that because we should be at our max at that point. Next initiative is the pharmacy initiative to meet federal regulations. This was an FDA, DEA Board of Pharmacy regulation requiring all agencies that provided EMS services, ALS services in Virginia to have their own pharmacies. It was definitely a tough task, but we were able to accomplish it with the use of this budget. I am proud to say that we did go live this week with our pharmacy. So that's a great news for us that we have those capabilities. Because if not, we would have lost the abilities to provide ALS service in the city. And I'm sure we all agree that that's something we did not want. So next promotional exams for next year, We're going to be doing an EMS and fire captain exam. Promotions are very healthy for the fire department morale so excited to see that moving forward as well. Next is an EMS software update. This is a software licensing for patient care reporting. Originally the funding was covered by the Virginia Department of Health however they stopped stopped the funding, so we had to pick up the cost for that software. Professional standard services is a use of a contractor to provide many services to assist me in the management of the fire department, such as including the development of policies and procedures, coordinating with office of internal audits, creation of professional development manual, and more importantly, ensuring professionalism and objectivity when it comes to internal investigations. In regards to reductions, we do have a reduction of a vacant position of assistant fire marshal. That position has been vacant for a few years now, and we were actually planning on converting that to a deputy chief position. However, I currently do have a deputy chief position in that position. So when that I was able to use that funding towards the medical director, which was needed for the pharmacy at the time. Any questions. Councilwoman Green. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Can you kind of explain to me what goes into a recruiting class and I guess typically how many we would have an recruiting class. Yes, yes, to equate to the $495,000. Yeah, so for that one, most of their equipment is for the PPE and equipment, the training, the CPAD, when it comes to running a recruiter class. So... Yeah, so for that one, most of their equipment is for the PPE and equipment, the training, the CPAT, when it comes to running a recruit class. So to outfit 25 recruits, that's the cost for that. And typically, if we were to have 25 recruits come in, how many would you say would stay with us after? That depends. I mean, usually, last recruit class, we only lost one person. So an average about two or three. As it stands right now, the current recruit class came in at 24. We still have 24. We're just waiting for the EMT testing portion, which should come up shortly. Sometimes we lose one or two, but as a right now we're at 24. And what is the average salary of an assistant fire marshal? Well, I believe the 244 includes the salary puts the health and benefits as well. And I was about to say, son me, son. Yes, no, that's not just the salary. That includes everything. Okay, thank you. Councilman on Newbie. Yes. Thank you. How many vacancies do currently? Okay. So right now we only have 11 vacancies, five in operations and six at admin. So right now our vacancy rate is at 3%. But right now we still have the 24 recruits. So we can't account them out in the field yet to cover overtime class and those kinds of things. And obviously we lose one or two then that number will drop. So once that class is fully trained, figures should go down. We shouldn't have any vacancies. Well, unfortunately we continue to have in a Trishon rate of 2.2 a year, which is why we need the second recruit class. You figure one recruit class basically accounts for a Trishon and then the second one is the growth. The city has provided us with growth opportunities to meet the contractor requirements for the 50th hour work week. So we were given 20 positions in FY 23, 25 and FY 24. So that second class is helping us to reach those non-period workweeks. And where are we now in terms of our workweeks? We're scheduled to start that in July in a couple of months and that's currently what I'm working on regards to meeting that goal. And right now, how many hours are? Right now, they work a 56 hour workweeks. Yes. Yep. Sounds good. Can you tell me about the vehicle apparatus replacement? How does the funding work for that? Because I saw that we're still paying some on some loans for that. So do we issue that service for that? How does that work? So all of our current purchases, we have funding both in the operating budget and the CIP and the Fire Department has combination of light duty SUVs and sedan and then of course the apparatus, the medic units, the fire engines. We have in the past finance the purchase of apparatus. We're no longer doing that. We strictly use cash for payments of purchases now, but we are still I think retiring some of the debt service on those previous purchases. About like how much costs per unit average? I think it's going to vary based on based on the type of apparatus. I don't know if you know for the topic. that go across the chief of a fire engine is about $1.2 million. The ladder truck is about $2.1 million. A ambulance for a medic unit is about $700,000. And then for the Sudan's or the SUV, there are about $50,000 plus additional $20,000. That's with the and the serums and emergency operations. Good. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. And three quick ones. Sure. I know previously we talked about, we had some instances with older buildings where they continue to have fire alarms go off and they end up being false alarms and they're not getting their alarm systems fixed. And could there be the potential to recover fees? Because of that, I'm just wondering where we are and kind of following up on that process. And if we have been able to recoup any resources from that. I believe the last discussions we you guys had about that. I believe we looked into format that wasn't class effective in order to the program that was being used by the previous. And we had one particular location where we were having a number of problems that we have made corrections to. Okay, so we still looking at a different model than for others in case that pops up or where I guess where are we in that conversation? Yeah. Yeah. In the budget shift that was, sorry, that conversation was going on late, but that's budget like a process when we're reviewing the fees for the You have a great memory the other aspect of that was the collection rate we called about a year ago that was a low collection rate for a variety of different non-typical financial service components and I think that was something that we've been starting to look at where we have current collections that are more successful looking at what that could happen and that also relates to the fee structure. Thank you. I look forward to seeing the updated fee structure update. The other question I had, I know we mentioned this a little bit when we're talking about the Alex West plan, but the plan does call for a potential new fire station. Recognizing we're also going to have a station at landmark. Over the next year, will we be doing any studies to kind of look at our current fire station locations, making sure they're in the optimal space, and then looking at our CIP to see if we need to begin planning for a new station. Right, as you mentioned, I mean, we currently do have landmarks that's planning on coming up a couple of years. Currently, we don't have no plans for any re-studies, but that's something we always look in so we need to be very with those things. I guess I'd love to maybe get this question from Morgan, but knowing that we're gonna have to spend some time this fall, repositioning the CIP and thinking about major projects. I think if a fire station is needed, I just want to make sure we have that information so that that can be a part of the larger conversation. Okay. Thank you. Then the last question I had previously we've talked about some relationships with ACPS and their EMS program. whether or not there's a way to provide like an incentive or support for young people who come out of that program to then come or for AFD. Just where are we in that? Yeah, so right now we there's two potential programs going. There's currently an EMS program and they're also planning on the fire program as well. That hasn't started yet. They're looking for that to start next year. I do have my deputy chief of EMS and training on Galvest involved in he's communicating with both programs as well. We recently visited him a bit a month ago, the EMS class to provide some recruitment opportunities. And that's something that we definitely wanted to continue those connections in regards to future recruitment into the fire department. Okay. And I guess given that maybe this, maybe this is a next-year budget, but I'll just put it out here. I think if there is a way to keep our students here and there's some sort of incentives, like having a sense of what that would cost, is that a hiring bonus, is that some other thing we can do. Correct. And we're training them. They're already going to be familiar with your team. So for next year I'll be looking for that one. Okay. Other questions? Thank you. Oh, I miss. I vice-variably. I mean, yeah, just along those lines, um, the, in my couple of years in office, so far I'm surprised by how often I'm asked if we have an employee home ownership program. And I just am mentioning it here in this context because one of the things we've heard a a lot is how far away many of our firefighters live. And so just picking up on this thread, like, are we making efforts during orientation with these new classes to uplift programs like that that we do have employee home ownership program? And are there any ways that we can better work together to sort of make sure that that benefit is known to employees like this who work these long shifts, and want to get home quickly. Yes, no, we definitely offer those to recruit classes as well. But we also have to look at the, once the recruits end, if they meet the minimum requirements, right? So if they're making, if their salary is a bit higher, then that's something we might have to look into to see if there's some adjustments for that in the future, to make it more feasible to offer those opportunities to people in the recruiter class. No, and if there's other feedback, as you're getting settled in and having your recruiting class, I'd love to hear that and find ways to make that program as effective as possible. And then across the entire city wide employment, but in particular, this is something we've heard. I also just wanted to take a brief moment to express my appreciation. My home was the subject of a fire a few days ago and the police department thankfully I still have a home and so I just want to express my appreciation to all the firefighters who responded to that call. Thank you very much. You did a great job. They do a great job every day, thank you. Yeah, thank you. I'm a little newbie. Thank you, man. My question is about response times. So it looks like we're still kind of like trending the same, like, but I'm going in a way. So what are our plans to improve response time? Yeah, I mean, part of it is, part of the reason why it's pantsowing is because obviously the call volume continues to increase. So what we make a promise, but the call volume will increase the increase in traffic, effecting source. I mean, part of the reason why it's pantsowing is because obviously the call volume continues to increase. So what we make improvements, but call values increase the increase in traffic, effects things also calming devices as well. So that's just something that that wise we just got to keep monitoring to see the areas where we could continue to make improvements. Once again, with the adding of the landmark fire station, for example, is an opportunity to spread our services to maybe improve our response times, but also specifically what type of calls we're going on that we need to improve, make improvements off. Thank you. Okay, thank you, Chief. Okay, thank you. We're now gonna turn to the Sheriff's Office. Good evening. Thank you. Good evening. Sheriff Tom. Good evening, everybody. Thanks for being here tonight hearing about our budgets. This year, like everyone else, we were tasked to come up with 1% budget cuts, which I think equated to about $350,000 for the Sheriff's Office. We scoured the non-personnel side of things and with the medical contract or food contract and then just overall jail facility support there really wasn't much that we could cut there to reach that number. So unfortunately we had to look at positions. And so I did suggest the GED position and also the two classification counselor positions that were vacant at the time. And then the two classification counselor positions were the positions that were recommended to be cut. While it's going to be a challenge to continue to provide the high level of service that those classification counselors provide, we'll manage, we'll find a way, we'll adjust the schedule on Saturday and we'll figure out a way to deal with it, luckily or intake numbers have been lower than historically than they have been historically. So I think that's also going to assist, but obviously it's still going to be increased workload on the folks that we have there, but in this type of budget season, we all have to manage the less. And that's what we're gonna do. The increase that we saw in our budget was to our medical contract. So as you know, the inmates are required by state law to have medical care in the jail. We cannot have medical care in the jail. We cannot have medical care in the jail. It's one of those things that's a mandatory issue. And our medical contractor in FY 23, I'm sorry, FY 24 told us that the Senate State termination notice, they said unless you'd give us more money, we're going to terminate the contract. So at that point that initiated a procurement process, we decided to go out for bid would be the smartest thing to do both physically and also looking at the service level where we can be provided for that service. And that result is going out for bid and during that bid process, there was, it wasn't found that there was going to be an increase from what was currently going to be budgeted. And as a result, that was told to be entered in as a supplemental request. And so I put that request in and it's to be determined if that's actually going to be the actual increase. It's really a lot of unknowns right now. I do know that the $3.9 million that is the medical contract, the new one that we have, $468,000 of that is for our medically assisted treatment program. That's four folks that come into the jail who are diagnosed with an opioid use disorder and put on different type of medications associated with that disorder. And that's being covered right now by the opioid settlement funds. So there is an offset in cost there. We also do have 150,000 in there for a contract monitor that we do plan to utilize very soon. So they can help us monitor that complex contract to hopefully look for efficiencies and look for things to make sure that we're obviously providing a high-level care, but also make sure that we're being fiscally responsible. And then lastly, the challenge with this new contract is that we have a cap of $500,000 to cover all off-site pharmacy and off-site medical care costs. Now the challenge with that is our previous contract it was based on per inmate and that was a $30,000 cap per inmate. So we never went over that cap, but now we have to manage a $5,000 total number for all the inmates in the facility. Now, the advantage to that is that the federal inmates, the federal government is responsible for reimbursing us for any off-site costs, for any federal inmates, but local inmates, we have to bear that cost. So we're kind of in the infancy of this contract. We've only been had them now for a month and a half. So we're trying to determine what the actual cost per month going to look like from an off- an off site standpoint But you know, we're going to closely monitor that and see if you know if it goes under budget Then the city will get some of that money back obviously if it goes over budget then we're going to have to look at how we pay those bills so that is the Sheriff's office budget right now. I happen to answer any you might have. Councilwoman Green. Thank you, Sheriff Casey. Can you talk a little bit about the federal contract? Is that something that's renewed yearly or how does that work? And are we seeing a decrease in inmates that are coming from the federal as well as the city or an increase on one side, a decrease in the other? How is, that's a lot of interesting question. In that pre-COVID, the jail population was hovering around 350 to 400 inmates. During COVID and post-COVID, we've been hovering around 270 to 290 inmates. it's usually been pretty even half federal, half local. So we've been hovering around 140 federal inmates right now, and so we really haven't seen a huge increase. It's been pretty consistent. Our contract with them is for a minimum of 150 beds. That's been the contract since 2007. We've had that contract with them since the jail opened back in 1987. And that contract right now is doesn't need to be renewed. It's basically just an ongoing contract. It's one that either party could cancel with written notice. There's no locked in guarantees or anything like that right now with it. But we do have a good relationship with our federal partners that does bring in about $7 million of revenue each year. About 6.5 I'm sorry, it depends if we have more than 150 inmates, then they do get paid more. So on average over the life of the contract has probably been, you know, close to that 7 million range, but we're guaranteeing $6.5 million every year because they pay us not for the best they use, they pay us for 150 beds, whether they're using it or not, which is a pretty good deal. And so that 7 million dollars gets to go back in and help us operate, manage, and supplement our operations here in Alexandria, offset the cost, the taxpayers are running a local jail. Councilman on Newbie. Thank you, Madam Mayor. On that note of the number of image dropping, is there anything we can do to, I know there's a minimum number of staffing that has to be there even as the number of image dropped. So I'm thinking about two things. One, is it dropping around us in the other jurisdictions and what kind of shared service agreements can we do with other jurisdictions that people can house their inmates kind of like we do with the feds, but like say, what the localities around us. The other thing is probably more long term. It's what kind of modifications can we do to the jail. So we don't need that minimal level of staffing, we can use less staffing and find more efficiencies in how the P is structured and how we house in me. So those are great questions. And I can tell you that regionally, everyone's jail population is down. So we're operating right now at 77% capacity. I think Arlington and Fairfax are around 50% capacity. And it's been like that since COVID. And that's kind of the trend in this area, you know, in Northern Virginia area. I don't know about Prince William County. I have a regional jail, but I can just speak for Arlington and Fairfax. So we were lucky enough to be selected by the National Institute of Corrections to do a staffing study for our jail. It's free of charge. It's going to be a lot of staff hours to get done. And they're going to do exactly that. They're going to help tell us, okay, do we have the right number of people for the number of inmates that we have or efficiencies that we can make? What does that look like, right? And that study, hopefully, will be done by mid-summer. But my goal of that study is to tell me, okay, well, how many staff members do we need based on the physical plan of the jail and the current in-may population that we have? Because we've looked at it many different ways. And from what I can see is that if the in-may population who have to drop below 150 for us to actually be able to modify staffing in the jail, so you would see some type of reduction. But the challenge with that is that then, you know, I don't necessarily see that happening anytime soon. I don't see that kind of a drop from our local and federal and may population. But I'm hoping with this jail staffing study that's going to give us a much better idea how to better utilize the space, what we're doing with it, what there's potential for in the future. Now, there are capital improvement money that has been set aside to kind of modify the first floor of our jail because they don't have full-service cells down there. That was an issue we found during COVID and what I mean by full-service cells, the locking door, a toilet and a sink and a bunk for a bed. Fortunately, there's about 48, 50 cells down there that don't have those. They're supposed to be utilized as kind of new age programming units. And that's how they were built, you know, at the time when the jail was built. I mean, honestly, I think it was mine had just been a cost saving issue, but I understand, you know, the issue of, you know, kind of making it more dormitory style living, which those are. But unfortunately, we can't really utilize those because the folks that we have in the jail are all maximum secured to medium security inmates. And we can't have them endorsed in cells that don't lock and that don't have sinks and toilets. So there is money set aside. I know that DGS is responsible for going out for that. I believe that's going out soon or should be going out soon. They going to couple it with another project that we have at the jail so that could potentially help us utilize and better utilize this space But ultimately I'm hoping the staffing study really gives us a better picture of What it looks like and how we can better utilize this space and what our minimum staffing really needs to be based on the physical plan of the jail and our current image population. Thank you for that. That's very helpful. What I was also would be looking for, I guess, in a study like this, if it's possible, is if we need to modify the building and rebuild some parts of it, what would be the cost of that, but what would be the cost of saving. So maybe we'll have to have a careful cost, but how much would that save us in the long term? And would it be worth the ROI? No, I think from what I'll be able to garner from this is that they'll be able to tell us because of how your jail is constructed, these are the limitations that you have. It was if it's constructed in a different way, than these advantages you could have. I think that's definitely the cost of that. What would that be? Yeah, I don't, they'll probably be some rough estimates maybe, but advantages you could have. I think that's definitely the cost of that. What would that be? Yeah, I don't, they'll probably be to some rough estimates maybe, but ultimately that would have to be a bigger discussion. You know, once we come back with those recommendations, potentially. Yeah, yeah. And the other thing I was talking about about other jurisdictions, if some of them are looking to maybe close their sales or do something, maybe we can house that that's what I was looking at in terms of shirt service. Yeah, that's a look at that's a good question. I don't know kind of where folks are at with that, regionally. So that's a bigger question to ask. I haven't heard anything come out of our own area. Yes, maybe maybe with something we can look into a long term or a bunch of members. Sure. Thanks, Sarah Bagley. Thank you. I'm glad you it's funny. I glad you addressed the capacity question because you gave us the numbers, but I wasn't sure if I'm doing math right, you were over capacity pre-COVID. Correct. 355 400 level of. Good. So now we're at 77%, we're more in line with our capacity. I put in a question and thank you. The answer just came out, I think earlier today, about the retirement fund, which was an issue. We've sort of been talking about for a few years. And I was wondering if you had a chance to see the updated answer. I did. Yes. And I was just wondering if you could just reframe, know sort of why is that sort of an issue that has been raised? Is that still an issue of concern? And what I'm curious about is is there a positive benefit for recruitment and retention or might it have a negative impact on retention? If we you know if the retirement age comes down, do we lose people sooner? Or is there a flip side of it? If we make this change, we have a recruiting and retention advantage. That's a great question. So the first, the biggest change to our retirement came in 2019, when we were able to have a 25 year at age 50 retirement, and 25 years of service over age 50 retirement with VRS. So we have two separate retirement plans. We have the VRS retirement plan and then we have the city supplemental retirement plan and this the VRS plan for a long time prior to 2019 was that you had to do 30 years in order to retire with an unreduced benefit and be 50 years old. The other challenge with that though was that what we see when we're hiring deputy sheriffs is that we're hiring people later in life. So we're hiring more folks that are in their 30s and even in their 40s. And so in that old plan, they would have to work until there are 65 and have five years of service to get an unreduced benefit and the job that we're asking folks to do really isn't a job for a 65-year-old. So the city recognized that and with us contributing additional monies to our city supplemental plan at the time it was what we each employee contributed 1.5% to the city's supplemental plan. We hadn't been doing that before. And the city also giving some additional funds. We were able to convert that 30 year retirement plan and that 65 year retirement age down to the 25 at 50 or five years at 64 VRS. But then the issue became the city supplemental issue was that the city supplemental then became unaligned with the retirement in that the city supplemental, if you do 25 years at age 50, you also get that unreduced. But unfortunately, if you are not, don't have 25 years and you only have five years and you, while you might be vested, you have to be 65 with the city supplemental to get an unreduced benefit. So like I have folks who are working right now past age 60 because they don't want to be hit with that reduction because they might want to retire early. While the VRS they won't hit with a reduction, they will be hit with the supplemental reduction. And so for me I really would like to have a you know workforce that's able to retire at age 60 and 60 is even pushing it. I mean, look at the police and fire plan and there's 55. So, you know, I think age 60 ideally would be the max that I'd want people to feel like that they would have to work past if they're not physically able to. And so I think this would be a good retention tool and also a recruitment tool because I just hired someone that's 40 years old the other day. So, you know, ideally they're probably not going to do 25 years. But if they're able to do 15 or 20 and able to get an unreduced benefit at age 60 with their city supplemental NVRS, it would be very competitive and helpful. So I think there'd be a huge benefit to that for the folks that were hiring. So we wouldn't see any loss of employees as a result of that. We are feeling the effects of the younger retirement because people are taking advantage of that 25 year retirement. Obviously, and that's great, but the city supplemental change, we wouldn't see any issue. And honestly, folks who hit that 60 year old age, I want them to have options and I want them to be able to leave. I have two, three deputies right now who are currently working past 60. I mean, that's a big part of it. I appreciate the breakdown. It can be a little convoluted I think. And but the bottom line that I'm hearing though is it's a potential recruitment tool because often the Sheriff's Department is a second career for some coming from other law enforcement environments. Correct. Yeah coming from other law enforcement just other careers in general you know so to let them know like hey listen you know you do if you're 40 you do 20 years it's 60 you can get an unreduced retirement right as opposed to having to explain when explain, well, you can get this benefit is reduced, but not reduced, you know, it's kind of confusing. Have that consistency would be very, very helpful. Okay. And I appreciate it's already been circulated to us. I think a memo on the recidivism studies as it relates to, I think, some programming, but picking up on my colleagues question about the location of jails and the pros and cons of operating a jail, you know, as a locality. I don't know if there's research or just things you know in practice that you can share with us maybe not tonight, but as a follow-up about the benefit of people being housed locally. Like, you know, do we see benefits in terms of of recidivism or even inmate behavior from proximity to their locality, to their family friends, other connections? I don't know if you can speak to that. I don't know if there's something else you can point us to, but just as we weigh in the future, you know, we're not doing that tonight, but I'm just kind of, is that an element of the analysis? You know, I think when you look at recidivism in a jail, it's very, very hard to come up with that number. It's almost impossible, right? Obviously, I think we do a great job with providing people opportunities before they re-enter society. I think we have a pretty robust programming unit as is Arlington County, as does Fairfax. So I think we're really good in those three areas. I think the issues you have to look at by operating in jail in your locality is you have to look all different stakeholders that are involved in it, right? The public defender's office. The attorneys that serve folks in Alexandria, you have to look at the police department, and their involvement in that, the proximity to the courthouse. I mean, there's all these different things. I think you really have to look at, I think that go into not just the care and the treatment of the inmates, which is important in Paramount. And I think we do a really good job of that, as is Arlington, as is Fairfax. But ultimately, I think there's a lot of other stakeholders that you have to look at. There's a lot of benefits you could say to having a local jail that they would probably refer that, you know, as opposed to any other models, right? But ultimately, that's those are things you have to look at, I think, an examine. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Um, Sheriff Casey, can you, uh, I guess give some clarity around your, the MA population post COVID may be down versus pre COVID, but the complexities of the inmates coming in, it's much greater than pre COVID correct. Yeah. Even health, behavioral, etc. Yeah, we've definitely seen that. I think the, uh, the map program is a great example of that. You know, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, we have a lot of people, people that are diagnosed with opioid use disorder, who are in our jail, which is a good percentage of our in-the-population. So you have that aspect of it, and then you have the mental health aspect of it. And as we saw from the recent presentation, we did in the Health and Safety Committee meeting, I think that our forensic TDOs went up to 41, this most recent year, and there's only 10, I think 10 years ago, 10 years ago we had a lot more people in the jail, but now we have a lot less, we have more people that are going out for impassant mental health hospitalization. So yeah, you know, that definitely is a challenge. There's a lot more of that going on based on all the different substance abuse issues and mental health issues we have in the community and the greater region that we have here. Thank you. I'm not sure if it's for you, Sheriff, or if it's like a larger budget question. But one of the things that stuck with me about your comments is it's obviously not optional. To pay for health care, to pay for food, to pay for any of these expenses, yet the cost continues to go up. And while we may have an estimate now, as these needs get more and more complex, they're only going to get more expensive. I'm just wondering how do we budget budget for contracts like this? Again, I'm not sure if that's a U question, a Morgan question, manager question. So, I think, so for a contract that normally, they're multi-year and so they may have some sort of inflation failure factor built into or something like that. So we will just put that into the base budget each year and as we're preparing each year's budget we'll built in contextual adjustments. When something a large contract like this goes out to bid and that's when, you know, we obviously we go through a competitive process and try to to get the best price and the best service that we can, and then we'll include that into our discussions. Obviously it takes a priority over a new and expanded services because it's something that we have to do, but it's when it's that large, a dollar increase, then we have to weigh that against all of the other choices that we need to make. But as they come up for bid, we work with the departments to track. What are the offers that we're getting in and how are the negotiations going and what's the price likely going to look like? And are they always built into the base budget? it? Not necessarily. Even if it's a new contract, of course, not. Right, I guess. If it's a large contract that's going out to bid and is gonna have a significant increase then it's not necessarily the base, I mean, the base cost of it is, but then the incremental increase is what you see in the supplemental request. So the total contract is $4 million or so. So what you see in the budget, what's does the supplemental request is the increase in that? So the rest of it is in the base budget. Okay. I guess what I'm trying to understand, we're probably going to have this conversation later with the juvenile detention center, that there are a lot of basic costs that we just have to provide for. And I think when I think of supplemental, I think of it as like something above and beyond or like extra we're getting, and I get it's above and beyond the cost. But in many of these cases, we have limited choice over whether or not we're gonna pay this. And I'm worried about a scenario whereas it gets more expensive here. get more sensitive's more expensive with JDC. I mean, ACPS, we heard if they lose their meals contract, it's going to get more expensive over there. I'm just wondering what sort of things do we need to be planning for or thinking about so that we are factoring in all of these accelerated costs over the next several years? Yeah, I think that's an excellent point part of the reason that we do this and just don't have it built into the base budget is to give it that added visibility. Okay. Because it is expensive. And I think people need to understand when all of the choices that you all have to make and the things that you can fund and that you can't fund, there are some of our money needs to go towards these kinds of things. And so we have that as, you know, for the visibility of it. Okay. Okay. Other questions for the Chair? Right. Thank you. We will appreciate it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Other justice services or justice services and other public safety. And I think you want to start with the Commonwealth Attorney. Yes, Mr. Porter is here. Is did you have any? Any questions for the Commonwealth Attorney? Okay. Can you solve that? Off the hook. Okay. The next couple of departments that are here, we should have staff on the given all the attention center. Any of this here or online up there. Sorry, it's the N Annie Rainey as well. So, so the first bullet here is the juvenile detention center. Before you jump into a week of the line. Yeah, forward. And do we have a second chair. We can give it to you. Yeah. I understand for us. Take a little chair. Well, I'm going to feel small now. I know how this works. Anyway, well, we're glad you're here. I'm not going to have this work. Anyway, we're glad you're here. So the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the mayor and councillors. That's kind of, comic. Is seeing about a 9% increase in the city subsidy this year, about $191,000. I think you just basically point about increasing costs over two years. It is a, in the city subsidy, there's been a 53% increase over two years. And what the city's proposed subsidy at the General Center does is fully fund the existing staff at the center. We're fully funding the centers of facility maintenance. And I think it's important to know that for the first time this year, we actually have the General Cension Center in the city CIP. We have sort of a holding number in the city CIP. We actually have the center in the city CIP, not in the current fiscal year or the next fiscal year because it's going to give us we're in the process of doing a facility assessment with general services and with staff with Janita and her team and the other partner jurisdictions. And we estimate that by certainly by fiscal year 28, we should have a good understanding of the capital silly investments that the center needs. But so we essentially have a holding number in the CIP, but I wanted to make sure to point out that we do have a number in the CIP for the first time. And then finally, for the other note that I would just make for the center's budget is that we are fully funding all the centers filled positions and assuming about a 3% increase for staff as well. And then briefly on the shelter care side, it is about a 3.4% increase in the city's subsidy to shelter care. That is about $62,000. And I would also note that for the first time we have shelter care in the city CIP. And that includes $50,000. And the current year CIP so that we can do some important and needed improvements there. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions. And then we've also had Jenny, Jenny McNair, who is the center director and then Annie Ranney, who is shelter care. I guess guess you mentioned that existing positions were filled. To me that raises that there were positions that were not existing but have not been filled. Can we talk a little bit more about what positions were proposed that were not filled? Sure, so essentially what we're doing with the Jivalentension Center is sort of a standard practice for us to assume that there's gonna be some vacancy at the center center. As Ms. McNair and her team know, we've had a challenge, particularly with security at the center itself. We have 53 positions included in the current fully funded and in the current budget, which gives us a room to cover the existing staff. And if that's something that we need to come back to, if utilization remains, I certainly something we can come back to through the course of the year. OK, so I guess I want to break that down a little bit. So there's 53 that are funded. Holy funded. Holy funded. How many were proposed beyond the 53 and what specific types of positions? Like, can I get a list? 66 total. And we can also get you the list of the actual positions. Okay. And then I guess you mentioned this is a practice we've done in the past. I guess is there any way I could get some trends on how many were proposed, how many were funded, and then how many how many vacancy savings we actually achieved versus like. So one thing I would say is that we have been working closely with this big bear really for the first time this year to make sure that we are recognizing all the FTEs that she has in the budget. That's, and I think we've made some, we've improved by leaps and bounds over the past year how we are recognizing FTEs. We can certainly show you what the jurisdictions have funded vis-a-vis the actual commissions requests have been in prior years, but it would be difficult to break down for actual number of FTEs every year. And then I guess Ms. McNair, can you speak to? Can I just add to that? So I think also what Jan was describing was how we do departmental budgets as well, recognizing that through the course think part of what Yon was saying was referencing was we have a full vacancy throughout the entire year, similar approach to how we do that. By the way, those vacancy calculations, isn't the same for everything. Certain departments that probably focus more on public safety, we take less of a vacancy calculator. For some that are a little more flexible, we take a bigger chunk. Okay, thank you. I guess I'm curious, Ms. McNair, like how was the 66 number calculated? And what would be the types of jobs at these positions we fill? Sure. Thank you, Madam Mayor. So the 66 number was calculated by looking at all of the vacancies and our current staffing and what it would cost if we were 100% filled. Now I would like to say in the eight years that I've been at the center that's the first time we submitted a budget that way. Right. So we have always submitted our budget based on current utilization with a typically a 3% increase, 3 to 6%. It was 6% I want to say the first year I got there in 2017 to 2018 and then we reduced it to 3% after that. They're about. So this year was the first year we counted our vacancies and said, OK, how much would it cost if these positions were failed and put that in our budget? So as we've looked at this and what we're actually going to be working with budgetarily from all of our jurisdictions, not just Alexandria. I'm looking at where can we we're cutting those positions. We're just taking them out so that so that we can present a more reasonable budget based on the positions that are field and the ones we have, we that we are required to feel. And that might get us at 75% staffing, but not the 100% that we have put in the budget. Does that make sense? And if I could make sure that I frame this another way, I think the way that the jurisdictions are looking at working with the center in the past, we have looked retroactively and looked at utilization over the past three years to have that create a projection for us for what the budget would mean. I think that's what McNair is referencing. What we want to do is now look both retroactively and forward and also acknowledge that what the jurisdictions feel is most important is to make sure that we are covering the children from Alexandria and Arlington and ballsturch that are using the center and so that we are budgeting appropriately with jurisdictional funds to cover the utilization of the youth from our jurisdictions who are using the center and And then when there are youth from other parts of the state, for which we have a contract with the state, ensuring that we have a viable contract with the state that helps us cover those costs. And so I think that's, it's very important to note that we have a 46-bed facility. We operate as a 46-bed facility, but when you look at the utilization of youth from Alexandria, Arlington, and Falls Church, typically that number is less than 46. And that has been the case at the center for a number of years. And so one thing we want to do is we move forward as the DJ sends us youth from other localities that we have a contract in place that allows us to supplement the costs in a way that those youth are helping us pay for the increased costs of the center. And maybe I'm not, this is my area of expertise, so I'm not always sure how to ask questions in this space. I think what I'm trying to understand is every time we've received presentations on shelter care or the juvenile detention center, we've also had a deep dive in the needs of the young people are there. And we've talked about how, for kids who come in addicted to drugs, that takes not one staff person, but two staff people or three staff people. And so folks who may have been allocated to one job are now doing multiple jobs. And so I think I'm just trying to really understand the staffing as best I can because of, at 75% staffing and then all of those people are being pulled at all, but like a significant portion of people are being pulled away from the jobs that they typically do, how do we make sure that each child is receiving the attention and the support that they need and that we are, I would imagine legally required to provide. So the 70% staffing was based on 46-bed utilization. It was just to staff those beds wherever those children came from. 46 beds which were approved years ago by the commission. Now, what I've started to do with my team is look at is that number realistic. Can we staff for 42 and meet that need, especially if it's jurisdictional, how do we get that number more realistic? And then how do we budget for that staff and budget for that number? But what we need to look at is out of those 46 beds and the utilization, it fluctuates, the 46 beds was predicted again years ago, and there are many years we were only at 19% utilization or 22% utilization. In last fiscal year we were at 47% utilization. The year before that we are 52% utilization. Now it's critical to note that we have never been at 100% staffing even for 46 beds. And we've been well under 75% of that. And we've been able to run the facility efficiently. But when we're doing that, we want to make sure that we're not over stressing staff or using overtime, because that's not the best or most efficient way to find answer, budgetarily to run this center. So I think we're a lot closer. I've been working with my team this week and we have cut those numbers significantly, well, 21% reduction in those staffing numbers than what was originally presented. And that will be presented to my commission at the next commission meeting, my recommendations for a more efficient staffing level so that we can meet the needs of the children, especially our children that are coming in with high needs. We're meeting the needs of children that are 10, 11, 12, that is much different than a 16 year old, right? And that requires a different level of supervision in the center. And we have an 11 year old today, right? And so supervising that child is much different than supervising a 17 year old. And so taking those staffing considerations and those nuances into consideration is critical. And that's what I do and I will do as I'm presenting these changes to the commission moving forward. No, I appreciate you sharing that because that's exactly what I want. I just want to make sure that like we're not just looking at cuts. Yes, staff. We're making sure we have the right support in recognizing the changes in the jobs. Yes, ma'am. I guess if we did get to a point where we needed to increase staffing, you talked about we could use savings. I know when we had our HR presentation, Mr. Lambert, it was talked about that there are incentives for positions that are hard to hire. Do those also apply in this situation? The cities would not put through the commission and working with the team we certainly can make them available and share that information. The centers are operating independently and we certainly are creating new relationships we're doing that with our procurement team this year, certainly a relationship we can set up with our human resources department. And I know that Ms. McNeer and her team have looked at incentives for certain positions in the past. I'm sure there's something that we'll continue to do. So. Okay. And then one other question, I'll go to my colleagues if they have questions. It's my understanding that there have been some changes in the way that food will be provided and that the I guess the DJJ will no longer be over the USA DA contract and that has implications for the city. Can you talk a little bit about what are the financial implications and is that an FY 26 cost that we need to know. Yes, man. Yes, Yes, ma'am. So for both the center and the shelter care combined, that's about $100,000, which is significant to us. It's about $70,000 to the center and about $30,000 to the shelter care. So what we did this week was we met with DJJ. We attended a meeting to see if we could ourself that being able to manage those USDA funds ourselves. Many facilities are just the other 24 facilities in the state, out of them, three of them have already said, we're not going to do USDA. We need that funding. And so we might have to find a staff that we currently have to be certified to work with being able to manage the documentation. And so that we can receive that funding. We're in a very short window to get it done before July 1st, because as a July 1st that money is gone for us. But we are working diligently to see if we can meet the deadlines, get our, we have a chef that supervises our culinary staff. So we're seeing if we can get him certified to be able to manage that contract so we can do it independently. We've also set a meeting with Alexandria ACPS to see if there's any opportunity that we could work with them to have them supervise that portion of the contract, just like DJJ did, and it would be a pass through. The money would be earmarked for us, but it would go through the school system, and then they would cut a check for us. So we're trying to see if that's an option for us as well. Okay, so if I'm interpreting correctly, All of that would have to be solved in this year's budget. I'm in the current budget grant. Yeah. trying to see if that's an option for us as well. Okay, so if I'm interpreting correctly, all of that would have to be solved in this year's budget. I'm in the current budget, we're in. Yeah, I think what we understand is that the commission will be getting an update from Ms. Meenaer and her team in April. And so, through the, since this is all happening essentially in real time, it is certainly possible that once this all plays out, we may have to figure out how we come back and do something mid-year. Okay. I guess maybe more in Cuex. I guess I'm what I'm trying to understand. There's if our ad elites, our things are due on April 3rd, and this is a $100,000 cost that we were not anticipating. It doesn't seem like it could wait until the mid-budget to be adjusted for. So what then becomes our options after we get more information in late April? So I think we could just monitor the situation throughout the course of next fiscal year. And if we need to make an adjustment, we can do so. I mean, it's similar to what we do within city departments where, you know, so if some unexpected circumstance causes one department to exceed their budget, but another department has savings, we have the ability to do that to, you know, our supplemental appropriation. So that's the kind of thing that I think we would I look to do here. Okay. I guess last thing I'll say on this and then I'll get a councilman. I get that. It's just, it's one of those, I think I'm struggling with it because it is, it's food. It's that. It just, it's one of those, I think I'm struggling with it because it is, it's food. It's food, it's like a basic need. And I'm trying to make sure we are able to move as quickly and be a nimble, as flexible as we need to be to make sure that there's no lapse in the nutrition that young people would need. I think the main thing is to know that we wouldn't allow people not to get their food or have their needs met. I think what we do is we weigh the tradeoff of having that flexibility versus in that nimbleness with also putting resources towards something that we might not need. And you know, you know, we in this limited funding environment, we don't want to be tying up resources on things that aren't 100% guaranteed. And so any number of circumstances like this we look at, do we want to put money in the budget for this? Do we want to try to address this through the course of just our ongoing monitoring. I may request that I think two other points that once we know what that number is, the three jurisdictions are going to, so that's not all us is the first thing. And then the second thing I want to note that is that the the center has capital reserves, and we have we have those reserves for a reason. And one other thing about a mayor, I think and members of the City Council, I think what we have also looked at in strategies with my team is that we are finding some success in contracting with other jurisdictions, DJJ and the City of Portsman to house residents. So we have considered raising the per-dem. We've talked to them, they're not opposed to that, but they understand too that this is a loss for us and that we weren't factoring that in because it was USDA funding. And as our children were counted as they were fed, they were automatically considered. So we have discussed with them that there might be an increase in the cost for children to come and be provided services at the center. So even the shell to care, we might have to look at just raising per diems to recoup that funding so that our children can still benefit from the programs that we provide with our culinary program. Council Member Giff Pai. Yeah, thank you Deputy City Manager, Yon Lambert, touched on this a bit. What is the funding formula for this? Like there's a certain budget for your program, Alexandria, Arlington, Falls Church, contribute, is it a set percentage share that each jurisdiction provides, and if so, what's our percentage? We do an annual three-year look back at utilization in the center, and then that helps us determine what proportion of the utilization. We look at the number of bed days by Alexandria, Arlington, and Balls Church youth, and then we apply that, and then that helps us come up with a ratio that lets us know what the operating impacts would be and then we apply that and then that helps us come up with a ratio that lets us know what the operating impact would be and then a portion of the budget for the center we are continually recognizing the per diems and then the state grant funding that is also coming in. So what is our percentage for this coming fiscal year? You have that in front of you Morgan? Yeah, I think that's 60%. Okay, so if we're looking at this $100,000 potential shortfall, and we were thinking in terms of what would be our weight to carry about $60,000. There might be a complication factor here. Oh, yes, that'd be a little bit different because shell to care care is 100% Alex. Okay, so probably it was a 70% of it. So you say we maybe we think about a contingency. Maybe you're saying that there's probably money to move around here to handle that we also have emergency funds for our own sort of shortfall concerns that we have that this would presume would be eligible for since it is some of the city pays for correct. Okay, and I guess depending on the time you know when we get the information if we can if we need to incorporate something we can but if we don't if we don't have it in time then we have ways to address that. I appreciate that. I really, yeah, sorry. No, I'm sorry. And is John pointed out before they do maintain or reserve as well? Well, I know it obviously the manager, honest to the mayor spoke to this. It's incredibly important that we make sure everyone is fed. And I really appreciate the tour I got of the old facilities. A couple of weeks ago you're doing a very valuable service to young people in great need in our community. I appreciate that. Thank you. Councilman Elnubey and then Councilwoman Greene. Thank you Madam Mayor. I'm still stuck a little bit on the staffing piece because and I think it's probably worth talking about them. Mr. Mayor, when I toured your facility, you told me something about when you're understaffed, you can't let the kids out of their cells for an extended number of hours. So they can you talk about this because I think when we're understaffed in any city department, it's I think it's very different than when you're understaffed. So you can talk about this for a second. Sure. Yes, sir. Councilman Elnouby. So when we're understaffed legally, the children can remain confined to their cells until we have a safe number, till we have the right number of staff to supervise them outside of the cells. We're required federally to have one staff for every eight children that are outside of their sleeping cells. When they're in their sleeping cells and if during sleeping hours is one staff to every 16 children. So depending on our staffing ratios, children might not be able to come out of their cells, right? But for us, so I'm completely against disciplinary room confinement. We don't do it. We stopped it when I came to the center. So I'm, I, room confinement is, is not anything I will support ever. So at seven o'clock in the morning, what's the, this should staff get there? If they don't have enough staff to support children, as support staff get to work, they drop down into coverage so that children come out of those rooms. That includes my deputy, that includes me. We're gonna get, we're gonna, we're not gonna leave children confined to those rooms. And we call them rooms, but we're all aware of what they look like, right? And so we have very little room confinement at the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Center in comparison to any other facility, juvenile facility in the state, because we're all suffering with staffing. But our commitment is to the mental health of children. So we know that we've got to get those children those children out of those rooms. So we just drop down into coverage and get those children out of the rooms. But we don't have staff. Basically kids are are going to be you know in their rooms until we can get them out. Thank you. Thank you for that. I don't know if it's too late to get a budget memo to explain. If we would fully fund the staffing request that they originally wanted the 66, I think it was and we're funding 53s, can we get a budget memo to just explain? I know it's maybe late for at the least, but still be helpful. I mean, it's about $750,000 in salaries plus benefits, which is over $100,000. So probably about $900,000. I think to fully fund the positions, I think it's important to make the distinction. I hope this makes sense that the positions aren't vacant because we're not funding them. We're not funding them because they're not filled. If that makes sense. Yeah. But it would be $750,000 for salaries. I'm sorry. I don't catch on that click. Can you explain it to me one more time? Yes, certainly. So it's not that the positions aren't filled because we're not funding them. It's we're not funding them because they're not filled if that makes sense. Like we were talking about our standard policy practice for the city. Schools do the same. We know that we're not going to be 100% funded in every position in the city every year. So we take a deduction from the amount that we budget. From the amount it would cost to fully fund every position in the city because we know that it won't be felt. And the same applies here if that makes sense. I guess the part that's making this challenge, I didn't mean to cut you off, but the part that's making this challenging is yes, we will not be 100% filled. But I think as a council, better understanding of like what percent do we need to be filled in order? I mean, I understand you're saying like we're always going to do it. It's always going to work out, but you're also that's you taking on shifts, that's other people taking on shifts, that's young people not going out of their selves, I just been trying to get a better sense of like, what do we need to be at to provide like the standard of care that is required here? And I just want additional point to make is that that 66 assumes 46 beds. It assumes 100% utilization of 46 beds, which we have not been at. We have been close, but we have not been consistently at 46. So I guess in a different way of asking it, is for the number of beds that we predict to be at, what is the number of staff that we would expect to meet? If we were, if that's 46 beds. We've already agreed we will never be at 46. So at the number we project that we will be at in a range. And then what is this level of staffing that we might need? They're about close to that now in the low 50s. It's where we have settled. I think it's a great conversation. How about we come back with a detail you know exactly what you're looking for? So based on the average number of kids, and based on the complexity of the cases, and assuming some of that, what would be the staffing, the exact staffing model, and what would be the cost of that, and what's the net difference if there is any from what is being budgeted. I got you. We'll put that to. Thank you. And I'll cut you off. I'm sorry. That's all I'm looking for. Thank you. I'm in green. I'm going to go to council and agree. and I'll be back to you. All right, thank you so much for the conversation. This may now, can you tell me the average stay, for a child? I'm going to go to council and I'll be back to you. All right. Thank you so much for the conversation. This meeting, can you tell me the average stay? Pro child, the detention center. So it varies. Right now, we're at about 28 days. OK. But then we have outliers. We have a couple of children. most children, the majority of children are there for maybe 10 to 20 days, somewhere like that. But that number goes up when we have, I have two children in the facility today that have been there over two years, right? And so sometimes when you have those longer lengths of stay, it just throws off the average length of stay because they've been there so long and and it's a hold up in the courts no no me I'm so those children if initially for about a year it was a hold up in the court and then their cases were resolved and it was determined that they will receive treatment at the center. treatment at the center. There are some though that have those difficult cases. So that has started to be more common than it was in previous years, you know, because we're getting more some of the children that we hold have some very violent, you know, crimes that they've been accused of. So those take longer to go through the court system. So I think that has affected our average length of state, even for children who are not committed to the Department of Journal of Justice waiting for a bed or this not put in our post-dispositional program. It's just taken them longer when they have serious offenses to get through the system. Okay, so to clarify, even though we are at capacity of 46 beds, the complexities of the kids coming in as much greater than it was, pre-COVID or whenever we were potentially at 40. Absolutely. Absolutely. Just like in a shared program. Okay. And then as far as the kid, the stay, the kids there, ACPS is educating all kids in the facility, correct? If they do not have a high school diploma or GD, yes, man. And then, okay. And then how's that factored in with how much each jurisdiction gives? So ACPS is paid for independently. Okay. So it's totally separate. Okay. That's the state's got it. State operated programs. Okay, and the facilities assessment on how long when will we be done with that? We've we're actually in the process of going through all that now with the jurisdictions. We expect to be able to share that with the with the commission certainly by the summer. Okay, so we finished that by the summer, but we wouldn't start doing so it was 2025. We wouldn't start doing anything until 2028. And I say that because it's like a very extensive tour of the facility. And it looks like we haven't done anything there for a very long time. Yeah, no, again, that's, I think it's important to note that the center has what we have talked about as a commission is that the center does have an ample capital reserve right now. And so certainly in the first couple of years of this, that's where we would be going to do the needed improvements that we need to make in the first couple of years. In the reserve. We would start doing some things before 28. Correct. Okay. All right. And I also am very appreciative of the tour and learning more about what is done. And you guys do phenomenal work there. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you, Council on the green. To the extent we were to revisit the overall budget for the facility, one thing I just want to be mindful of or have somebody explain to me is. If that the look the cost to other jurisdictions You know if we add staff the look back Shared are we under some of it deserves our agreement with them Obligate us in some way to go back and get approval from them on a changed budget because if we fund more positions I think of like whamata, you know, they can't just suddenly present us a higher bill, you know, beyond sort of the parameters of the agreement. So are there, is there an agreement like that? We that we do have an inter jurisdictional agreements between the all of the jurisdictions now, the way that the inter jurisdictional agreement works. Very simply is that the commission staff presents a budget to the jurisdictions, the jurisdictions weigh and evaluate the budget, provide input on that, make a recommendation on what the jurisdictions can afford, and then a commission typically would adopt or revise budget based on the jurisdictions input. So yes, there would be some discussion with our own then false church if the formula was and if the budgeting would change. I think that's just an important step in this. It's not exclusively our decision about funding levels. It's what I'm hearing. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. Thank you. Thank you, Bob. You want to get on with another chair? Okay. I'm going to then move us to the independent policing. We may we had volunteer Alexandra. I didn't have any questions for. I guess there's no longer questions. Thank you. And the independent policing order. And I just say something since I just will be half of the organization. I mean volunteer Alexandria does an amazing job. And I don't know if we've had a chance to say that too publicly a lot, but really there's a lot that gets done there. I know Alicia has given me a lot of information about volunteer Alexandria. I thought I knew a lot, but clearly I didn't know as much of what's done. I just want to, really from our organization standpoint, they're a great partner, so I just wanted you to hear that too. I know you know that. I just want to emphasize that. Thank you. I guess they are. Thank you. We'll get next slide, maybe. Next slide. Yep. All right. Oh. OK. Well, as you can see, there's plenty to discuss. So our total budget for FY 25 was $653,618. We are projected for an overall 5%, if I did the math right reduction, that'll take us to about 620, okay, for FY26. There was a $6,000 reduction from our non-personnel fund and then in our personnel fund that was realligned to just reflect former director Niel's passing. To highlight just new operational costs that we anticipate in FY26, we are getting a new case management system. We actually have that meeting set up for next week that we're really excited about. We get to try civil for one year free first and then we expect a five year contract in April of 2026 at 30,000 increasing by 10% all the way through 2031. And that is the same system that Arlington uses. So we're going with that. For community engagements, we have a goal to at least host 10 community engagements. So that'll also be a new operational cost, whether it's led by board members or AIPA staff. We also plan to tag along to at least five city-sponsored events to get our face out there. We want to explore new opportunities for board members, meaning getting them to an equal conference last year when we went several jurisdictions, brought some board members, if not all. So that is an opportunity we definitely want to try to extend to them. And then it seems as we finalize the ordinance that the auditor may retain some form of subpoena power. So just keeping in mind, in case we do have to go that route, it is you know, sort of a last resort, but we would have require outside counsel if route. For personnel costs, obviously, Council is considering the recruitment of a new auditor. So whatever comes with that will also affect the 26th. Questions. Thanks for your back. I recognize we're sort of in a little bit of an interim phase here. We haven't passed the final ordinance and my colleague and I and your office and others have been working on it. But I guess without the full council having had the benefit of the potential revisions in the final draft. I just was wondering if you've had a chance to reflect on the work of that subcommittee and whether you have any concerns in light of those proposed changes for impacts to your budget and anything to sort of, for us to think about in light of that. It wasn't something honestly that I was really conscious of in the subcommittee process with any potential changes, but as I've had a little time to reflect on it I just wanted to you know give you a chance to think about that and even if you don't know tonight to just reflect on that and maybe you know share it back with us if possible. Absolutely, I think it's something that I'd like to reflect on a little more, because that isn't, but I went into the subcommittee thinking about. I think that a lot of the compromises allow AIPA to make like discretionary decisions that would allow us to to affect like efficiently use our budget, but I can certainly take some time to to get back to council. Now I appreciate that. I just wanted to flag that for my colleagues. Just like it is an awkwardness, obviously, to the timing of this process when we will, you know, the subcommittee finished its work when we're gonna bring it back to the full council. So, you know, I just wanted to kind of say that out loud here and let the group kind of be conscious of it. And I guess what I would hope maybe to, what Morgan said earlier about shelter care is that there's potentially certain amounts that are within a, you know, and a amount that if we're not able to specifically allocate it in the final ordinance that we pass, because it has a cost, you know, factor that, you know, we can reevaluate that in six months or at the midpoint of the budget year. I don't know if the management is taking that. You know, too, that's exactly how we would do this, recognizing anticipation of an adopted ordinance, the ability for that to function well. I mean, we would look at that. And if we need assistance during the year that is not covered under the current budget, then we would adjust and bring that forward to you. If it's small numbers, we would be able to accommodate that anyway. particularly as it relates to attorneys, much like our city attorney, we will supplement those dollars, should we need a year where we have a lot of litigation, or in some years where we have a little less. And so we monitor that very closely and can make those adjustments. Those don't have to be base budget decisions at this point given that we're not talking $10 million I don't think. So that's how we would approach that. Okay, thank you. Thanks. So we now are gonna go to our BFAT presentation. I think Miss Rielander was at the other room. Yeah, I think BFAT may be in the floor on the way in. She's on a way. Do we have to wait? Yes. You have. They did so we. No. I. We. It would be great. I can post it. Thank you. Thank you. I love you. So excited. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hi. Hi. Hello. Oh, this is okay. And. I'm sorry. We. Right. Oh, so we're saying we haven't. You're a dollar. We are ready whenever you are. Great. Well, is this live going to be? You all have been. We don't have a beer, but they have it in front of them. You all each have a slide from B-Fac in Barbie. There you go. All right. Well, my name is Amy Friedlander and I'm the chair of BFAC and I'm joined here today by several of my committee members including Mark Tonsettic, Dave Malar, Nancy Drain, Rand, Randall, and William, sorry. Thank you. Thank you. Oh, John. John in front of me. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. I miss. uh Williams sorry thank you missing John John in front of me um and Michelle is she online okay that's great um all right so uh we for the new members we come to meet with council twice here once um in the fall and once in the spring and in the fall we typically provide sort of guidance as to how to think about the budget, you know, what to prepare for budget season and then in the spring week. provide feedback on the budget. And in this case, we have also provided a deep dive into some questions about revenue that council has asked about in the past. So I've never really had a slide before, but we're very excited to have one this session. And I was told, you know, really just very high level summary of our 28 pages and then you all assuming Fred all 28 pages can feel free to ask us questions. And or we can have more of a detailed conversation about what was in the package. So I'll start with some of our key findings. So again, the context of this memo was answering questions about some questions that had come up about revenue and what flexibility, but the the council has in terms of spending and overall in the budget process and our key findings were that previous policy decisions have reduced budget flexibility over time. So choices that have been made by council over time has reduced the overall amount of money that is, quote, unreserved. And we defined what reserved meant in the memo. It's very detailed. Mark, can answer, hopefully, lots of questions about that. If there are any, but generally speaking, it is effects observation of that flexibility, not only to spend money in the ways that you choose, but also your ability to cut things if you need to is reduced. that service in particular is increasing fiscal strain. And that includes investments in obviously important projects that have been important to council over time, but you do have to pay. And that includes investments in obviously important projects that have been important to council over time. But you do have to pay for those projects eventually. I think I understand that there was a meeting last night with COG and Northern Virginia Regional Council. and they probably very much more articulately with a lot of very scary data told you about the economic challenges that we as a region and Alexandra are facing. And so that knowing that we have made some recommendations about how do you look forward and how do you prepare yourself or prepare the city to maybe have to make tough choices in the future. Similarly, obviously, not only the sort of external factors, but how they impact revenue that uncertainty, you could be facing some significant future fiscal cliffs and how do you prepare for that. So we have a couple of high level recommendations. Again, you know, I think BFAC probably says this 800 different ways till Sunday, but again, prioritize your spending on needs versus wants. Short-term revenue growth opportunities could be in business retention and real estate development. I think that's something that we've talked about previously. Obviously, there's always discussion about how do we grow revenue overall, but in the short-term, what you have the most control over, those are really the topic areas where you have the most opportunity. It's great that the economic summit's going to be happening later this year. So we look forward to continuing to talk about that. One of the important things that is, I know this is a staff task, but it is something that we think is really important to consider, especially as we're entering this period of incredible uncertainty is, all right, how do you look ahead even further than just the two-year multi-year budget that is included, two or three-year multi-year budget that's included in the documents today? Can we extend that that to five years, can you apply risk fast factors to your various revenue sources and sort of model different scenarios in a way that maybe you wouldn't necessarily have to do in a more typical market cycle where you're likely to see sort of revenue growth trend upwards in a typical fashion. We provide a lot of examples of different jurisdictions across the country that do different pieces of that analysis and present them as sort of like, there might be things in these that you would like to see your staff do. So that was something we hope you will consider. There might be things in these that you would like to see your staff do. So that was something we hope you will consider. Michelle, who's online also wrote a great section about how to potentially advocate for state legislation. As we talk about revenue overall, you know, that's an important part of any potential new revenue sources. Obviously, the state controls what powers you do and do not have. And so how do you think about coordination with other jurisdictions? How do you think about lobbying for those things? And what are those priorities you want to identify to go to the state with and then continue to leverage these alternative analysis, budget analysis tools that the city has already put in place including budget equity tools to help mitigate potential disparities as you're making these stuff choices. So that's the summary. There are 28 pages behind them. So happy to answer questions. Talk about anything. Councilman O'Neubi. Well, thank you for the presentation for all the hard work. My question is actually to the manager and to Morgan probably. What would be the challenge of doing a multi-year budget? I'm going to let Morgan go, but we already do that. You know, so I'll let Morgan go ahead and share that. So we do that to extent, we do have a multi-year forecast as part of the budget document intended to illustrate the future consequences of decisions that we make this year. I mean, that's one of the first pieces of multi-year budgeting. The examples, the BFAC provided, some of them were, considered for elaborate. They're also much bigger cities in New York, San Francisco, probably larger staff. So I think that is, there's a trade off into what's the level of effort and resource required, but into a the year budget versus the return on that investment. I think where, and we have looked into this, we did a fairly robust five year financial plan back in 2015. We've done research into multi year budgeting on multiple occasions. I think where we've ended up was that given our scope, that the size of this organization, and we've sort of scaled our multi-year forecasting to what I think makes sense to the size and the level of staffing, but happy to give you more information on that if you like. That's that's good. And you said we scaled our forecasting to how many years? It's five years. Thank you. And so and that has been part of the council guidance in recent years is that we provide a year two of the current year budget by department and then we also have a five year look that is at a higher level. It's not by department, but it's by character, it's in personnel, non-personnel. What it really does is it takes some assumptions about the growth rate anticipated for what we typically see in salaries and benefits, because that's the biggest drive of our operating budget. But then we also layer in what we typically see in salaries and benefits because that's the biggest drive of our operating budget. But then we also layer in what we know is going to be required to fund the CIP because that is a 10 year plan. And so we have that debt model, we have that cash capital. So we layer those things in and put them against the revenue forecast and seeing what that means in the future. One of the things about multi-year budgeting, is you. in and put them against the revenue forecast and see what that means in the future. One of the things about multi-year budgeting that you'd be wanting to do it in more detail, decision by council, critical decision by council would be what we do now is a forecast and we show what the shortfall would be in the future. If you required it to be balanced in every year, that's an entirely different animal. Because then you're having to make decisions about what things are we gonna need to cut in year four and what things are we gonna need to, or what, you know, we might not be able to invest something this year because, or next year because of the amount. So it's also something to consider. I had two quick questions. When we had our earlier work session with ADP, one of the things we also talked about was business retention as well as business recruitment and looking at some ideas around vacant spaces on King Street. Something we struggled with was kind of identifying like what specific retention tools should we be looking at or what specific examples should we be thinking about from other jurisdictions. I'm just curious in your research where their models or ideas that you guys came up with that we should be investigating further. We did not do, like we just said, business retention is important as an economic development emphasis. If you know if that's something you want us to look at, we can. But I and we can provide feedback as part of the economic summit as well, but I would think ADP He is probably very well positioned to maybe help you with that question. I think it's a question as a city we still need to get an answer to. My other question was in the memo you talk about budget equity tools and I know we currently have a budget equity tool. So I guess I'm trying to to remember, I think you said like Austin and a few other examples where there's specific things about their tools that are not included in ours that be fact was hoping we would use. Or are you just saying like keep using the tool that you're using? So I'm gonna speak on behalf of Antonio who's not here, but this is his part of the memo so I don't want to like speak I hope I get this right but I think what he was trying to say was keep using obviously Alexandria's budget equity tool it's important and also continue to look at other places to see what is working well especially as these are relatively new or tools. There's always opportunities to see what's working and what's not working in other places. So I hope that answers your question for Antonio. Yeah. Councilor Gaye. So this also kind of goes back to The depth of any more one more would be helpful. And I think Austin was kind of one of the localities that was most advanced and their kind of equity grading, if you will. So each department kind of got a grade and that was put out to the public. We're not totally there yet here, but we are definitely doing something similar. So I get it, but I just wanted to provide a little bit of context to what the Austin example is, if you will. Any other questions? I'm, yeah. Well, I was kind of curious around, and like I agree, the spending on needs versus wants. I was trying to find in the memo if you kind of detail the few examples of that. So I will say that you know as a chair as a policy we're not you know that's sort of like we don't want to make policy decisions on behalf of of council in terms of like what is the right thing to spend and not spend on? Because that's sort of like, we don't want to make policy decisions on behalf of council in terms of like, what is the right thing to spend and not spend? Because that's, you know, like, why you've been elected and why you've been chosen to make probably some tough choices. It's really just sort of highlighting, hey, you know, we recognize that those are some really tough choices ahead of you, but keeping in mind that your current choices today may or may not impact your ability to do the things you want to do in the future. No, absolutely. And I appreciate it. You know, when you put no making dust for free as an example and a couple other things. And it makes sense on how it reserves money and it doesn't give other same amount of flexibility. Personally, I don't know how a colleague feel. I think it would be an interesting exercise to kind of, from BFAC as a whole, see how you guys feel for certain things. If you think it's a need versus a want, granted of course, what you just said, we're dealing with other political realities and things that we want to do. But like I said, as an exercise, I find it kind of curious. I'm going to go to Councilman Chapman. I guess there's one thing on that. I thought it was interesting. I think it was last year that year year before, one of the things we said was, even if beef fat couldn't give policy recommendations for recognizing the different spaces we're in, what would it look like to have criteria or a set of questions or a tool that could help us think about the trade-offs between them? And I'm not sure where that conversation went. We can continue to talk about that if that's something that is of interest to everybody. Thank you. To piggyback off what we're just talking about from my colleague, I think one of the things that would be interesting, if we do do an exercise like this, to me, I think the issue is council communicating kind of the wants that we've kind of already said, hey, these are things that we want versus other needs, right? I think for me, the reservations clearly show these are things that we want, whether it's affordable housing, whether it's certain transportation projects because we've reserved that money. That money can be touched. It's not in the flexible. And that's specific and purposeful. It's not a, to me, I guess I always struggle with the idea that all of our money needs to not all of it, but much of our money needs to be super flexible, right? There are certain things that we say we want, we're going to dedicate this, we're going to reserve this, we're going to do that intentionally. And other things that happen within the governmental organization can be things that are thought about, discussed, and the value or resources put to those things can be flexible. If we want to make sure that dash is fair free for the future, is there a conversation about how we reserve that money going into the future and then it's done. It's what we want, what we're going to have, and so on. Kind of like what we've done with affordable housing set aside. So I think I would love to kind of hear in some aspect, if you're doing an exercise like that, how is, I think the feedback I'm interested in receiving is how is council communicating kind of what the, the want is from the community by decisions they've made in a budget sense. And maybe we haven't made those clear. Maybe we have. I think that to me is part of that exercise as well. And so that's one thing off of my colleagues point. I did like the conversations about kind of the economic beginning as well with the economic development work group and it's kind of some of the work groups opportunity to do so. The legislative work the legislative part? Yes. Kind of getting that as the next exercise after the summit that's that's always how I viewed this summit work like it just doesn't culminate one. It then flows into a group that's working to really actualize things that come out of the summit. And so I was glad to see that. And hopefully that something, a concept that sticks and can be mature to make sure it flows right after the summit. Also, I do think council probably needs to have in some form of fashion a conversation about incentives and what those look like, what tools were ready to use, what tools staff, and be fact, think that we should be using, and then start to pinpoint in kind of the various examples of when we would do that. And then be able to talk to industry about, hey, we're looking at doing certain things in our corridors, as you guys mentioned here. And these are some tools that we are already ready to use. So that helps, hopefully, with speed to market as something that you guys outlined as well, because we are now saying, hey, come, if you come to this area, you can use this, this, this, and this. We are already ready to roll. I would love kind of to us to mature that conversation as well and see where we land, whether it's out in the West End with Alex West Plan and some of the tools that we can use to keep things moving there, other places as well. Then the last thing that I really liked and I've just been talking about because I do think it is part of the long-term solution for how we afford to do a lot of the things we want is really rolling up our sleeves and having a strong state strategy that does not just incorporate what we have to do but what others around around us need to do as well, and partnering with them, and then really approaching our delegation and others about what's really needed for this community. So I was very glad to see you guys kind of tackle that and lay that out. I think that it's, you know, I'll be honest with you. I would appreciate if you find the opportunity to chat with our colleagues at the schools as well. So they understand that not only the city is kind of putting together a state strategy, they need to continue with the work that they're doing at the state level as well to kind of push for funding. I do think that's hopefully unlocks some real opportunities for us in the future. So I appreciate the report, and I think it's on. Yeah, thanks, Mayor Bagley. The conversation about dedicated funding and the limitations that it places on flexibility. I want to just introduce, or as a thought exercise, the opposite take, which is by dedicating funding to certain things, we're also communicating to potential builders, to potential businesses. This is stuff that we're ready to do. And so I appreciate completely, you know, and admittedly, I haven't gone through all 28 pages. But as I skimmed it and listening to this, you know, I'm conscious of the fact that let's say we commit more dedicated funding to something like housing and we've got 10 million every year ready to join your project, you know, ready to expedite your permitting, that sort of thing. while that constrains our flexibility. If that's what matters to us, it might attract more partners. I mean, I think, you know, my day jobs and housing and I think about this, where there are more tax credits available is where the projects get, you know, more interest and more people are willing to buy those properties because there's tax credits available in those state markets and those tax credit markets. So I don't really have a, you know, it's not really a question, but just listening to my colleague and other conversations about what dedicated funding can do in messaging, which I think is to some extent what what councilman Chapman was getting at as well. And so I don't know if y'all discussed sort of the pros because I appreciate what I feel like what the memo in this conversation this year and last was pointing out is that concerned over increasing dedication of funds. And I'm just wondering in your analysis and your work, you know, was there that discussion as well? What positive messaging or positive opportunities could dedicated funding provide? Yeah, I think maybe it's incumbent on us to talk about the categories that we included in our analysis. Our categories were operating, fortunately, the operating budget that were dedicated because of things like collective bargaining CIP debt service transit increases. It's very limited set of categories So and I think what they now also showed mathematically is If you think of the size of the pie that's the increase That overall pie size has gone down Year-ever-year since FY23 at the same time, the slice that is dedicated just to those categories alone has gone up significantly. And so we didn't necessarily include categories like housing, per se, or other categories that that don't. I think it comes back to, would you include that messaging around transit, CIP, collective bargaining. We were very conservative in this selection of those categories. And I think one of the recommendations is that was based on a, it's not our definitions, not necessarily on these definitions. We collaborate on what we thought would be a very conservative definition, but we do think there has to be some consensus on exactly what does dedicated mean. Absent that definition, what we have to go by are the things that, I think we can all agree or sacri-sync. Like we're probably gonna pay debt service, right? But absent that, that probably is a good council conversation to have is to what truly is dedicated. And then to your point, how would we communicate that proactively as a positive for the city? I mean, I think that's, I'm glad transit is one of those categories because I do think as we talk about economic development, I mean, are committed, dedicated, you know, depending on how it's defined, commitment to transit is a communication to the business community that your employees, your customers, you know, will have free available, you know, access to, you know, getting to work. And so I'm glad you went back over the categories, but this is a line of thinking that I think is going to be valuable, even in the economic summit potentially, you know, what each part of our budget sort of says to the investment community. I also wanted to maybe add a nuance to that and that I think what we have been observing is and I appreciate the conversation about the dedication of certain the dedication itself should indicate that the council's priorities and interest and seeing certain things happen. But I think what we were trying to highlight is there are some pretty unprecedented potential enormous revenue, fiscal cliffs occurring, disruptors, that's a good word. And the more you have in that reserved bucket the less flexibility you have to respond. I mean you have to have a balanced budget. So the more you allocate things to certain things and are saying, hey, this is a priority. We need to spend the money on this. Like, that's great. But what if you don't have the money to pay for it next year? Right? That's what we were really highlighting. And for the housing example, until it's allocated to a specific project, you could probably pull that back. And that was not part of the reserved definition in the first place. But I think I want to make it clear, like the reason we're talking about this I think that's the first point of the discussion. I think that's the first point of the discussion. I think that's the first point of the discussion. I think that's the first point of the discussion. I think that's the first point of the discussion. I think that's the first point that you made in a report, I think, Council, you know, took a large leap or a large step in terms of reserve money by collective bargaining, right? And I think that was one of our conversations in the past with BFACT and with staff. But I would love for us to kind of get to, and I think you hint at it in a strong way with kind of the flexibility conversation, but I think what we need to prepare for kind of in in some ways a lot more specifically is, having the conversation with BFAC and hearing back from BFAC around, frankly, the specifics of what you just said. What happens if we are not, what should council be looking to do policy-wise if we are not able to afford X, Y or Z? Is it rolling back the dedication for the penny fund? Is it when it comes to collective bargaining looking at a specific level of funding and saying if it hits that level of funding, we need to go back and have some additional conversations. If it's the transit, the tip money, you know, how do we look at that? What does that look like with everything that we're dealing with on the transportation side? You know, that reservation, what does that look like? And what level of reservation or no reservations should we have in the future? I think I'd love to hear from B fact kind of that next level of how do we prepare for that and what what conversations should happen in those various areas. Can I ask a question back? Sure. If council can make a list of those things that you want is much easier for us to respond. Okay. Then in the abstract. No, no, definitely. I mean, we can work with the budget folks and kind of work through all the various ways we have a reservation or dedication or some kind of inflexible pocket of money. Just involved to that just to make sure we're all following the right process. I know we had our work session. VFAC was going to go back and come up with a process for how you wanted to receive requests and how you would let us know for what you're working on. Do we have a sense of what that process is? We have been working on it. I will say that the revenue deep dive I think was more pressing, pressing, given what has happened even over the past couple of weeks. So I think we can commit to having something to you, you know, by the end of this session, in terms of this overall fiscal year. So like in May. But yes, we thought revenue was probably more important. Yeah, that's helpful. I just know we heard loud and clear that in these sessions, so many ideas come up and then we don't walk away with like, what are we actually going to be focused on? So I want to make sure we have a path for doing that. Councilman McPick. No, thank you. I appreciate John's sort of delineating the ways that we've created inflexibility on our expense side because it's been important. we did do a lot of that consciously, right? We did talk about how when we get to all the workers in the city who are collectively bargainable, indeclective, bargaining agreements, we're gonna have, you know, we're talking about the whipped cream on top of the pie is all that we're really playing with because everything else is gonna be pretty designate. It's compounded by the other inflexibility that we have, which is our limited revenue tools. So I appreciate the worth of all doing on a revenue master plan, proposal and thoughts of that. And I think that one of the sections you had here was about advocating enrichment for greater flexibility and, you know, for revenue tools to be available to us. And I think you all should lead the charge on that. You should go down to Richmond a lot. So actually, I think this is something that we need to, as elected leaders, talk to our colleagues around Northern Virginia on and have sort of a coordinated strategy here. If there are tools that we think would be useful to us beyond the limited ones that we have available from Richmond, we need to be speaking with a unified regional voice on this matter because you know, I have raised various ideas with legislators as we go down to Richmond and talk and there's some. Yeah, of course, perhaps a city level income tax option is something that you could consider, but that's just one person in one meeting having a like but a regional conversation of what What do we think is a possible if there's a change administration next year in Richmond and What do we think would be useful would be something that we need to be having conversations is Arlington Fairfax Falls church about or you know It beyond I know income can be maybe a lightning rod because it is also how the city can you ask for more power over the funding of the revenue you already get from real estate right yeah can we do different and you do a bank without the weird strings that are attached currently to them so I don't I think that there are plenty of ways I would also say that It seems like if the more you are prescriptive about and right actually write the legislation The better more successful you are. Yes, so you know back that would be something to focus on is like identifying the thing you want to do and then actually Writing the legislation I just just from anecdotally, you know, watching some pro housing related legislation die very quick deaths, but it was pretty predictable that they would not make it through because they weren't written very well. And so just literally as simple as being able to write the legislation in a way that is approachable and that like everybody in the state can get behind is probably would be a huge step. Yeah, we have respected representatives down Richmond who represent the field of Alexandria. We've got good legislative staff here in the city. I presume that our colleagues in neighboring jurisdictions have people of not quite the same quality. They're pretty good too. Working for them and, you know, we should probably take your advice there. I mean, and I think even participating in like the chamber legislative agenda process, it's often like a lot of asks without not like without saying like, and here's actually how you could do it. And doing that step, I think is pretty useful. But I haven't read the entire memory yet because I missed the attachment, but I look forward to thinking through everything I've done. I'm so offended. Oh my god. Please. Better pretended. No, no, I'm very honest person. Thank you very much. I look forward to reading the rest of the memo and I appreciate your. Are there, oh, Councilman Jammu? So as we kind of think more about the opportunity to go down to the stage, advocate to write legislation, I don't know if I call it a deep dive, I don't know what the perfect word for this is, but I think the thing that we probably need to all come together on whether it be council or maybe legislative committee be fact is Really what tools do we think frankly can get through the general assembly? I don't know how to better say it You know because I don't think it's you have very limited political capital I would agree like and so just trying to figure that out on the front end and then kind of as we as you talk about the strategy, as we talk about partners and stuff like that, taking a shot at the things that are gonna get us the most bang for the buck, is it the sales tax designation for schools? Because we know we're gonna do schools in the school construction. I guess as I say that, is it the sales tax designation for schools? Because we know we're going to do schools in the school construction. Is it, and I guess as I say that, is it stuff that is directly aligned with what the city needs or is it stuff we need aligned with one of our biggest partner that needs money, our schools, right? And so are we really going down to advocate for us as a city organization getting more flexibility for our departments and the work that we do? Or are we saying, hey, we need to focus on getting ACPS this amount of money because then we can use that amount of money for funding the stuff we need because they're good on school construction or ELL funding or whatever it may be. I would love to kind of play with that conversation as well. And as we get to a place where we're going to go down enrichment and kind of push, hopefully with some changes down there, you know, we can be a lot more effective in kind of prioritizing what we want to see, how we can go about doing it and then finding those partners. Because I appreciate kind of how you guys have kind of leaned into this because I do think as we lean into it as council as BFAC does and hopefully our schools do as well, I think we can really get some some hopefully momentum and some money back as a work. I will say, oh, go will say, oh, go ahead. I was gonna say an opportunity we have here is we're in the middle of hiring for a new legislative, I guess, director position. And I think maybe making sure that early on and there for something days, that there's an opportunity to meet with BFAC or even thinking about how the legislative committee could start to meet earlier. I think there's some like new structures and capacity we will have in the coming year that we can be more strategic about. It does come like every, you know when it's coming. So I don't know if, you know, I think we all and the same for BFAC like maybe it's even a question of how do you step outside of that normal rhythm of like, oh, it's September. We have to think about the legislative session, but you can be crafting legislation at any point in time in here. And then my other thought was, and now I've lost it, oh, is that there is actually a fascinating article in the cardinal, I think, something out of Richmond about the other jurisdictions in southern Virginia, basically preparing for there to be a significant drop in revenue to them via Northern Virginia. And so they're thinking about it. I don't know, I just popped up in my news view. I don't know. So can I regular it? Any other questions? Okay, thank you. Right? Any other questions for department, other departments? We're here. Okay. I just have one comment because I need to raise it in a work session. As a council, I would like us to be thinking about our partnership with the capital area food bank and the ways in which they support some of the food-based partners that we have and are supporting in our budget. With that, meeting adjourned.