All right, good evening. This is the Joint City Council School Board budget work session. And due to a scheduling error, our city council members are going to be arriving at 7 p.m. So we are going to, the school board is going to go into a recess until 7 p.m. And we will start our work session at 7 p.m. Thank you so much. Okay, good evening everyone. It's 701, so we're going to go ahead and start our joint work session. Vice Mayor Bagley is going to be remote this evening and upon advice of our City Attorney's office, Council needs to adopt an electronic participation resolution. So we're going to go ahead and take that vote and then we'll enter into the meeting. So is there a motion to adopt an electronic participation resolution for Vice Mayor Bagley? Okay, it has been motion by Councilman McPike, seconded by Councilwoman Green, to adopt the electronic participation resolution. This is a resolution, so Madam Clerk, please call the roll. Councilman McPike. Councilwoman Green. Aye. Mayor Gaskins. Aye. Vice Mayor Bagley. Aye. Councilman McGuire. Councilman Chapman. Councilman El Nuby. Okay, the resolution passes. Thank you all for letting us take care of some of our business so that we could get started. We are excited to enter into this conversation. I want to set the agenda. So everyone's aware of just the flow for tonight. We're going to have two presentations. So the first is going to be from Chair Reef on behalf of the school board, and it will review both the operating and capital side. The second presentation I will give, and it will do the same for the city side. We're going to ask that everyone holds their questions. I know that will be a challenge, but everyone has a lovely notebook sitting next to them. And then we will open it up and do all of the questions at once around the operating and the capital. And then we're going to spend some time at the end really closing with some concrete action steps on where do we go from here so that we have that as we carry forward into the budget process. Just to be clear chair, the questions come after both of you speak. Is that right? Yes, that is correct. Okay, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Chair Reef to get us started. all right Well, thank you and why the wilder presentations getting pulled up I just want to take a deep breath personally I know there's a lot going on in the world right now and I I feel the I feel that everyone is feeling that But again, I just want to welcome City Council, City Manager to the school board meeting room here and we want to thank you for the opportunity to present the proposed ACPS budget this evening. I just wanted to start also by saying, last week I had the opportunity to attend the ribbon cutting for the Virginia Tech Innovation Campus. I know several of you were there as well and there were quite a few speakers. And they all seem to talk about what traits are needed in order to solve difficult problems in the world today. And there were three recurring themes that I heard from the different speakers, including Mayor Gaskin, who represented Alexandria well. But the speakers really talked about the importance of innovation and creativity to problem solving, of course the innovation campus. Also collaboration, I know that was something Mayor Gaskin spoke about, the importance of collaboration to solving problems. And then the last thing was leading from the heart and the importance of, this is really heart work that we're doing. And I know that, you know, we're gonna have some tough conversations this evening, but my hope is that we can really lean on those words of wisdom to help guide us to solutions this evening. And so with that, if we could go on to our next slide please. Okay, and I know everyone at this table is here because you care about our city, you care about our young people, and I believe we all share the goal of educational excellence for the city of Alexandria. Next slide please. So I'm going to move through these first few slides a little quickly, but this is just because some of them I think were from our city budget retreat in November. But this is just highlighting some of the recognitions and accomplishments of our students and our staff over the past year that we're very proud of. Next slide please. And this is just some of our data. This is the ACPS graduation rate, which last year saw the second highest rate in 10 years. And we're really continuing to put a lot of focus on increasing our graduation rate and reducing our dropout rate. We have a high school graduation task force, and we're developing alternative pathways to graduation. But generally as a school division, we're really focused on increasing student engagement and connection, especially at Alexandria City High School. And I wanted to mention for the council members, at your seat, you will find what is the ACPS data digest. And this is a compilation of all the data on our school division, how we're doing. And we had a great work session, the school board did last week, talking about this data because it's being used to inform our next strategic plan. So I just wanna encourage you to take that when you have time. I know you have a lot of reading already, but take that in review. And this might be a great thing to spend some time talking to your lies on about in the future. Next slide, please. So this is just looking at some of our math SOL scores. And of course, we know that the pandemic did impact impact academic achievement particularly in the STEM content areas, but we're happy that our data is moving in the right direction across all demographics. And we know, however, we still have some work to do to return to pre-pandemic levels. Next slide, please. And chronic absenteeism is something that has been a big topic nationally as well as here in Alexandria. During the pandemic, we saw chronic absenteeism double in ACPS and we've put a number of initiatives in place to really address this issue. And over the last three years, we're happy to see that we're trending in the right direction. For all demographic groups with the exception of our students receiving specialized instruction. And so we want to continue focusing on combating a chronic absenteeism. Next slide, please. All right, and this is just kind of a highlight. I think everybody knows that we have a very diverse school community. 47% of our students are eligible for free and reduced price meals. 38% are English learners. 12% receive specialized instruction services. So we do have a very diverse population that we serve in Alexandria City Public Schools. Next slide please. This slide here just highlights some of the challenges and opportunities of our school division. Of course, I think something looming over all of us right now is the federal funding uncertainty. Also dealing with the issue around staff retention and recruitment. I feel like we've made some good progress in that area. Continuing to work to raise student academic achievement, maintaining our small class sizes. We also have growing enrollment and addressing student social and emotional needs. And then as far as opportunities, working to provide professional learning and career growth for our staff, compensation enhancements, continuing to again provide that social and emotional support for our young people, expanding extracurricular activities, and our tier one instruction, which is our instruction for all students, and just overall improving the educational environment. Next slide, please. So this slide here is just detailing estimates of federal funding based on our current projection. So you can kind of see a breakdown of the federal funding we receive and the largest category. Now this is a pretty small print for folks, but you can find this slide presentation in board docs on the ACPS website. And the school food nutrition supports our students receiving free and reduced meals, and that's $9.1 million. That's the largest category. We also have funding for our Title I schools, as well as funding for IDEA, which is students receiving specialized instruction. And so it's going to be very challenging if we end up losing some of that federal funding. Because if school, particularly for the free and reduced meals, that's not something that our school division is going to be able to cover without additional support from the city. Should that occur? Next slide, please. And this is just this graphic here. It comes from a study that was commissioned by our General Assembly in 2003 about K-12 funding in the Commonwealth. And one of the things that came out of that study was how Virginia school divisions receive less state funding per pupil than the national average. So you can see how Virginia compares to some of our neighboring states. And as you all know, we also have the Virginia has a local composite index, which requires localities like Alexandria to contribute more to fund their local public school system. Next slide please. Okay, this slide is data that comes from a document called the Washington Area Boards of Education, annual report out on how some of the local school divisions in Northern Virginia are trending or comparing to one another. And so this slide just shows the percentage of city or county general fund support that goes to this public school system. And you can see that we're at 29.5%. This is in FY25, which are our current school year. And then also it lists the percentage of the city or county general fund that goes to debt service. the total city county general fund and you can see the percentage of the city or county general fund that goes to debt service, where the total city county general fund. And you can see the percentage that goes to Alexandria city public schools. Next slide please. And this is just a graph that's showing the trend line of ACPS appropriation as a percentage of the city's general fund over the last few years. So it's trending a bit downward. Next slide please. And then this here, this slide is basically showing the local funding request that is coming from Alexandria City Public Schools. And so you can see we're requesting an increase of 5.6%, which is $15.1 million. And much of that is to support a proposed salary increase of 3.85% on average for our staff. And here you can just see the funding, the local funding requests from some of our neighboring school divisions. I know Fairfax and Loudoun school boards have already adopted this and false church city and Prince William are set to adopt in the next couple weeks here. Next slide please. And this is just a summary of the FY26 school board approved operating budget. And you will see the request for the city appropriation of $288 million. And I just want to highlight that 86% of our operating budget does support staff salaries and benefits. And we know the city manager's proposed budget is $281 million for a variance of $7 million. Next slide please. So this year is just I want to talk about what's driving our funding request this year. And so we are, as I mentioned, it's mostly a compensation for our staff. We are proposing a step increase for all staff and the average step increases at 2.85%. And that totals for our school division, $6.8 million. And then a 1% market rate adjustment for all employees would be an additional $2.7 million. And then this last category here, a couple of years ago, we completed some compensation studies over a course of two years, identifying some of the job positions that we felt were not market competitive. And so we basically had a plan for over a series of three to five years trying to incrementally bring those particular positions up to being market competitive. And so that's just, this is the final year of our targeted market rate adjustments. And so that total of salary enhancements is $9.7 million. Next slide, please. And this is another thing that is driving our funding request, and that is the increased enrollment in Alexandria City Public School. So we are projected to grow by 251 students next year. And just to kind of explain how we think about that from a budget standpoint. If these were 251 third graders, for example, we use a planning factor of 26. So 26 third graders per classroom is our planning factor in the budget. And so that would mean to serve those 251 students, we would need nine new classroom teachers. That would be home room class teachers. And then if the students received English learner services or specialized instruction, that would require some additional teachers who can push into the classroom to support those students. And one other thing I want to point out about this slide is that our English learner and special education students are growing at a slightly faster rate than other student groups in our school division. Next slide please. Okay, there's a lot going on in this slide, but basically this is data that also comes from the Washington Area Awards of Education Guide. And what it is is it's showing you the average number of students per classroom teacher in each of the divisions. And you can see the average at the bottom across our region. And then each division, you can see the average students per classroom teacher for kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and high school. And then in the column to the right, this is the students per teacher scale position. So again, that would include your additional English learner teachers, specialized instruction, other teachers that support and push into the classroom. And so those boxes that are highlighted in red, those are the class sizes that are above average for the region. And so you can see there that our high school classes, our high school ratio of students per classroom teacher are on the higher side. And so one of the things in our proposed budget is six additional teachers for Alexandria City High School and these would be core subject area teachers. Next slide please. Okay, and these are just some of the additional positions. CL stands for Social, Emotional, and Academic Learning. Some additional CL support positions that we are proposing in this budget. So for English learner teachers to support our L population, one specialized instruction teacher, an additional instructional assistant at the elementary school. 2.6 social workers and 2.0 psychologists, and these would be positions that would push in to support some of our larger elementary schools. And then we also have a .5 FTE Advanced Academic Services teacher. Next slide please. Okay. And so this is, again, the funding, the $7 million in the variance between what the school board's proposing and the city manager's proposed budget. This is just what we are going to have to look to do if we have to find ways to meet that funding gap we're going to have to look at. The top thing, they're increasing staff planning factor by two students per class. That's essentially increasing the class size. It's increasing how we plan for class sizes in the budget. And then some of these, I mean all of these other things here are just things that were added as part of our budget proposal this year. So those would be some of the things that we would be looking to cut. Okay, next slide, please. Okay, and at this time, I'm going to just pivot to talking about our proposed capital improvement program budget. So this slide, you know, this is one of my favorite slides, graphs and ACPS because I think it really tells the story of Alexandria City Public Schools. And so what you'll see here is all of our school buildings in the school division, school division, excuse me, and it lists the year that each of the school buildings were built. And of course, some of them have had, you different enhancements over the years. But we start over here in 1923 with the Mount Vernon School. And then of course, this year we opened our ACHS Mini Howard campus. And another thing about this graph, if you didn't notice, is the height of each bar representing each of the schools is indicative of the building square footage. So one of the things you may notice about this is that the newer buildings are larger school buildings so that they can accommodate more students than some of our older school buildings or some of our smaller school buildings. And another thing that I think really stands out about this slide is that line in the middle and that big gap between 1966 and 1999. And for somebody who may not be familiar with this history or this graph, you may wonder what happened during that period of time, that was when our public schools integrated. And that is when there was a lot of white flight out of the city of Alexandria. And enrollment in our schools began to decline. And there was a period of disinvestment from our public schools. And that trend finally started to change around the turn of the century. Enrollment began to increase again. The city began to invest more in our public school buildings. And in the last decade, we have really made historic investments in our school buildings. And if you go to the next slide, please. And this slide highlights some of our major projects over the last five years. And I just want to, what I want to point out about this is how we have maximized our dollars using a two-fold approach. We have invested in modernizing our aging school buildings while also increasing their size to accommodate additional students. So since 2007, we have modernized and enlarged both campuses of Alexandria City High School, as well as Jefferson Houston and Patrick Henry K to eight schools. We also purchased a vacant office building and converted it into Ferdinand T. Dale Elementary School. We just opened Douglas MacArthur in 2023. And in the next decade, we plan to modernize George Mason and Core Kelly. And over this time, from 2007 until today, our population, our school enrollment has grown from over 10,000 students to over 16,000 now. So if you could go back to the previous slide, please. The point that I wanna really make here is that we've been playing a game of catch-up for those years of under-investment in our public schools. And I think we've made a lot of progress. We have a lot to be proud of. When George Mason and Kourkelly open in the next 10 years, they're going to move over from the red over to the blue, their bars are going to get higher. We're making a lot of progress, but while the half of our schools will be modernized at that point, in 2035 half of our school buildings will be 70 years old or older. So if we were to modernize two schools every decade, it's gonna take us 50 years to modernize the rest of our school buildings. So I just put that out there because I think that's really the context that we're in in terms of our school, our school buildings. So if you could go two slides down. Okay, thank you. So this is just the summary of our capacity and utilization by school, this current school year. So I know some of you are probably familiar with this slide, but this basically shows you the current enrollment at each of our schools, the capacity that's designated for the school based on the programming in the school. And then the utilization is how utilized the school is in relation to the capacity number, is the enrollment over or under. And you can see that that varies across our elementary schools. But when you look at the elementary school total, that's what I want to bring your attention to. The elementary school total is 100%. So right now we're at 100% where the optimal utilization range. And we can, through this process of redistricting, we're going to be balancing out the utilization at all of our schools through a process of adjusting our school boundaries. So we are going to accomplish that through redistricting. But if you look at the middle school line for Francis Ham and George Washington, those are over capacity. We don't have the additional space to try to balance those schools out. And so, again, when, as you know, so we've had that we have this middle school capacity challenge. And you all know we've spoke about this last year in our budget meetings over the course of 2024, ACPS conducted a K-8 analysis. And the study confirmed, yes, we need a new middle school, 1703 Boa Guard. Our swing space is not an optimal site for that in terms of meeting our capacity needs. However, when George Mason and the George Mason and Quora Kelly modernizations are complete, they will be able to accommodate 600 additional elementary school students. And so this presents an opportunity to repurpose one of our existing K-8 schools into a middle school. By moving elementary school students from a K-8 setting into a dedicated elementary school, we can create the space we need to bring all of our K-12 schools within the division's target utilization range. And our view, I believe, my view is that this solution was responsive to the city budget guidance about trying to reign in our capital spending. This will solve the problem of middle school capacity at a cost well below that of purchasing land and building a new building, a new middle school building. And it will free up the new funding that can be used to modernize the remaining nine school buildings that will be over 70 years old by the year 2035. So if you go to the next slide please. This is just a summary of our proposed FY 26 through 35 budget. I want to point out that you'll see the total for the capacity projects and then below that you see the total non capacity proposed line. And that is a reflection of the funding that's going to go into keeping our schools in a state of good repair. I know this is a phrase that the city uses when you talk about your buildings. That is our funding that is used to keep our schools in a state of good repair. And then the additional funding is of course for our projects that add capacity. So just to again say that converting an existing K-8 school into a middle school makes sense because it meets our enrollment needs, it's cost effective and it's something that we can do sooner rather than later. And I also want to share that school conversions are not new in Alexandria. Both George Washington and Francis Hammond were built as high schools. They became junior high schools and then middle schools. Our old mini-houred building was initially an elementary school and then it became a middle school and then it became a ninth grade school. And John Adams was actually built as a middle school and now it's an elementary school in an early childhood education center. So again, converting a K-8 school into a middle school is a responsible approach that meets the needs of our growing student population. It's cost effective and it can be done sooner rather than later. So that is the rationale behind our proposed CIP budget. And that concludes my presentation. Next slide please, I know we have a slide for questions, but I believe we're going to transition into Mayor Gaskin's presentation and then we'll have some discussion after. Okay. Thank you, Chair Efe. I think I need a clicker and then I will be ready to start. Thank you, I appreciate it. Okay. Well, thank you again, Dr. Reef, for setting the context for some of the opportunities and challenges that are facing ACPS and our students at large. I want to use my time to not just cover our operating and capital budgets, but I really want to use this presentation to focus on three things that I hope everyone walks away with. First and foremost, and I think Chair Reeves started us down this path. These are uncertain times and they are tight times. And we are in a very difficult budget season. And I think what the manager has tried to put forth is a budget that responds to a lot of the uncertainty that we're facing and tries to plan and prepare for what we expect to see from changes at the federal administration. The second thing that I hope everyone takes away from this presentation is despite those constraints, we have tried to find ways to invest in and prioritize our youth and in doing so holistically. all of the needs that impact our young people so that they can come into the classrooms and work with your amazing staff and teachers and support staff ready to learn. And the third piece, and we'll get at this as we talk about the CIP, I hope that part of this conversation will focus on the fact that we have to plan together. At the end of the day, the money that we transfer over to the school board, you guys will make decisions about how that is spent. But if we don't plan together, then we will never reach our goal of educational excellence and better outcomes for our young people. If we do, however, shift the way that we are doing this process and find ways to plan together, I think we have an opportunity to make sure that every investment not only benefits more Alexandrians, but also is done so in a way that is aligned with our small area plans, with our city development goals, with our economic goals, and also in a way that is fiscally sustainable because that has to be a top priority. So with that, let's dive in. Do I need to point it out this? Okay. Well. Let's dive in. Do I need to point it out this? Okay, well, do you want, it's next slide, please. We'll try that. Okay. So after the manager presents his budget, I wanted to just give some context and to some of the things that council is considering as we go into the next days of this work. I think sometimes in the community, the conversation can center on, well you guys must not trust each other's data or you might not have confidence in what's being proposed. The reality is, I think council is considering a different set of factors. We have to look at how does this budget impact all 166,000 residents? We have to look at not just the short term needs, but how are we setting up for the long term future? We have to look at what are our legal responsibilities and how do we look at the local, the state, the federal, and other international context as well national contexts as well. And so oftentimes what we are getting at is sort of how do we balance all of these different priorities while also making sure that we are in a place to address our long term needs. I think what I hope we are all in agreement on is that the worst thing we could do is make a short term decision that then prevents our ability to do what we need to do in the long term for our sustainability and resilience as a community. Next slide. So I want to spend a minute before I dive into the actual numbers, just kind of setting the tone for our fiscal policies. As I mentioned, when you think about the totality of our city and all of the needs, all of the priorities, all of the services, we have to put in strong fiscal policies in order to make sure that our investment are sustainable. These are investments that are designed to not just make us a great place to live, but they are also designed to make sure that we are a great investment as it comes to the bond market and protecting our triple A ratings. I know we've heard people ask the question, well why don't you just change your fiscal policies? I think first and foremost, the fact is we have changed our policies. We just did this in 2018. We shifted those policies to give us more capacity so that we could fund mini-howard and some of the other projects that have come up. So I think it's really important to know that that is a change that has been made. I think the second thing that is important to know is the policies that we have adopted now and continue to have in place. These are the very policies that other jurisdictions that we are compared to have as well. And it allows us to have a lower borrowing cost, and allows us to be able to attract hopefully economic development projects that allow us to pay for some of the services and needs that we have. They also give us fiscal flexibility. So let's say we do get into a crisis or there is an economic downturn. We have to have the ability to shift and adjust and our bond rating makes us a good investment so that they know that we are a place that if they put that investment in, it will be paid back. Any downward adjustment that we might see in our rating or our borrowing, the simple is it would just cost more for projects and it would ultimately lean less projects. The other thing is if we see increased borrowing that money to pay that back has to come from somewhere and that would be coming from the general fund, which means less funds available for other city departments and for the ACPS transfer. And so I think it's just really important that when we're going to have this conversation, we know we have large scale projects we need to do. We're going to need money and resources to do them. And so we need policies in place that make us a good place for the bond market to see that these projects are not just good for our city, but they're sustainable and they will be paid back. Next slide. So when we talk about the budget, I think it's really important to just kind of focus on like, how much money do we actually have to work with? When Jim and the wonderful team in our budget office go through this process, they look at kind of what are all the things that we're currently committed to. And then they look at what new money do we have after we assess our property taxes, we look at our commercial revenue what's left. This year essentially is about $30 million dollars. Off the top we said we're going to take about a third of that and put to ACPS. That is for the transfer and that is for our CIP increases. So it's about 10 million gone. After that we looked at it and said okay we have to help pay down some of these CIP projects. We know we're going to have to do bigger things in the future, so we need to start paying down landmark mall. We need to start paying down the Delpepper Center. We need to start paying some of these other investments. That's another 10 million off. So now with the remaining 10 million, we have to look at what is already committed. What is committed to collective bargaining? What is committed to increases related to shelter care, neighborhood health, existing contracts that we have to pay? When you do all that, what's left is about $4.8 million. And I just think that's important context because we had over 30 departments that emit $12 million worth of additional aff that that they will not get, because we don't even have the starting place to work with that. And so with that 4.8, we are looking at what is ACPS need, we are looking at what are all our city departments need, in a place that is growing and where the needs are becoming more complex. My point just being this is going to be a tough year of trade-offs for all of us, and So I think that's why the creativity, the innovation that Cherrieve talked about before is so important as we go into this conversation. Next slide. I think the other piece, and this has been talked about earlier tonight, is it's only gonna get harder. We have about 13,000 federal workers. We too have received about 29 million in direct funding from the federal government. We have to think about the fact that there may be households that have less money to spend, that there may be households where they have to find a different job, and that job pays less. We have to think about the fact that there may be some who move from our region. And when they move, they may be taking another wage earner with them. They'll be taking their local tax contributions with them. They'll be taking their income with them. And all of that could have an impact on sales tax, meals tax, and honestly at some point even our property taxes. We also, I think a lot of people saw in the news, DC announced that they're projecting over the next five years, a $1 billion deficit. What happens in the region is going to happen here and affects us too. We also, I put some of our top employers, if they're no longer located here or they're taking up less space, that also has implications. So the other part of the context we are holding for this budget is honestly a little bit of the impossible, but how do you plan for the insert and how do you plan for the things that we can't predict? And I think that's important context as we go into the dialogue. Next slide, please. I think it's also not just about the programs and the funds that come directly to the city. Later on my slides, I talk a little bit about the number of young people who are living in poverty in our community. In the same way that if you guys lose funding for school meals, we can't absorb what happens if they lose funding for SNAP, for TANF, for Medicaid. I think the one that hit me deeply, we had a number of our refugee resettlement agencies reach out to us because they're supporting many afghan families who are in our schools and in our community. Those agencies cover rent for those families. They have now been told to stop those payments. Those payments, if they're not happening, those families are going to need rental assistance. They go to the city for rental assistance. We don't have the ability to absorb every piece of that. That means a family that might become homeless. Every one of our shelters has a waiting list. We don't have beds or places to put people. And so also thinking about what does that mean and where would those funds come from? Is part of the context we're operating in. Then there are many nonprofits. We all know, know a live Carpenter shelter, neighborhood health, others who also depend on federal funding and we're still collecting data to try and get the scope of just the vulnerabilities that they're facing as well. Next slide, please. So, given that, the city manager and staff tried to put forth a budget that builds on previous investments. They tried to make sure that we were not cutting any funding to programs that are focused on keeping our residents safe. Focus on some of the youth services and out of school time investments that we've tried to increase over the year. Focus on making sure we're providing significant housing stability supports, as well as maintaining our infrastructure. doing so without a tax rate increase, recognizing the hardships that many in our community might face or be on the verge of facing. Next slide, please. They're also put forth a CIP that takes into account that over the last five years, we have increased our debt for many city projects and we have to pay off those projects. The way we fund things on our CIP is we pay it over a course of 20 years. And so making sure that we're able to continue to pay our payments on time, but also have a CIP that is sustainable. So given the fiscal uncertainty, but also given the debt that we had already committed to short term projects, projects like Minihower, Douglas McArthur, we started out with a guidance from the very beginning that was we cannot make any major adjustments to the CIP. Anything that we would be doing on the CIP side had to result in reductions. We could not have met increases. That is just the fundamental piece of the guidance. On the city side, the way we achieve that was we saw increases in our needs. We know the state of city hall is more money. We know other projects also had increases to the tune of $96 million. What we did was we took off projects. We took off projects, we reprioritized them and we reshifted them to be able to find money to keep it flat for the city side. And I think that's just really important because this is the kind of difficult work that is happening behind the scenes, so that we could all be responsive to the manager's guidance of no increase. I think the other piece to note is that even though we were able to find some money to keep some of these projects on track, we're still not doing everything. There's a whole list of roads that will not be paved. There's a whole list of facilities that need improvements. I was surprised to learn that 22 buildings in the city are ranked a score of F. As somebody whose office just lost part of their ceiling and had some issues at City Hall. Like these are things that we're not going to be able to sustain. If there are that many buildings that have these condition issues, we've got to find a way to pay for all of these and looking at these needs in the totality. Next slide, please. With that, I think the other piece of this though, and I think this is the piece that we are all aligned on, that children are not just, they're not just here too, they are a priority. There are over 20,000 young people over the age of 18 in our city. There are for every 20 children, there are three who are living in poverty. Many- They are a priority. They're over 20,000 young people over the age of 18 in our city. There are for every 20 children, there are three who are living in poverty. Many, many families with children who are depending on the city for food, for housing, for safety, for medical care, for behavioral health, for mental health, all of these things go on and on. And we tried to ask Jim to put forth a budget that does not cut those other support services but in some areas actually increases them. Next slide. And I think this is important because you guys see it more than we do. You guys know in every conversation you have with your teachers how these needs show up in the classroom when they are not addressed. So the whole budget, we try and look at this holistically and try and put for things that are complement. Are their child care? Are their child nutrition? Is their health care? Is their housing? Is their out of school time? Is their youth employment? How do we think about parks and recreation and the ways in which all these services complement each other? So our full package of youth support that is in the proposed budget is $352 million. I do want to touch on that. The numbers on the side are from FY24, but I asked staff to pull, how many children are we actually serving? What is the scale of these resources we're trying to provide? When it comes to early childhood, that number up there, that's based on things like head start, that is based on early intervention for kids that they come into kindergarten ready to learn. For out of school time, that's things like link club and making sure that kids have an after school program. For youth development, that is everything from project discovery to the peer advisory program, to the substance abuse prevention program, to even everything for our adolescent campaign on pregnancy. We also did not put up there, but I mean just last year we served over a thousand families with rental assistance and we turned away many more than that because we just don't have the resources to do that. Next slide please. So I want to talk a little bit about investments in ACPS and what that has looked like in the general fund. This slide here illustrates the continued increased investment provided for ACPS. The gray color reflects the approved and the proposed FY26 funding, which is increasing and it's increasing at a much greater rate than we see with other city services. I do want to touch on, I know in the presentation we received earlier, there were a couple of things, there were some different data that said, actually it seems like it's decreasing. So I think it's important for us to put that data in context. First and foremost, on slide 11, where it talked about in the previous presentation, the percent of the general fund. When you do the percent of the general fund comparison, there's a couple pieces of data that we have to take into account. The first thing we have to take into account is what do our child populations look like across the different localities that are served? So when you take the, is it Wabi or the way, when you take the wayby divisions and you take the different jurisdictions, the percent of children as part of the 2023 enrollment, that's a percent of the population, 10% in Alexandria, 12% in Arlington, 16% in Fairfax County, 17% in Falls Church, 19% in Loudoun County, and then another 19% in Prince William County. So the first is kind of what is the context of children we are trying to serve? Because that's always going to have a different breakdown in the general fund. I think the second thing that is super important is when we're comparing cities to counties. There are different responsibilities that we have under the law and also different ways that we structure our budget. I think everybody talks about the pie and the pie slices. If we give an example like Loudon, in Loudon, they have a Sheriff's Department. That Sheriff's Department covers also the functions of the police department. If I take their pie, that means I'm taking one section out. So one section out just for that service. Here in our city, we know we have the Sheriff's Department and we have the police department. If it's the same pie, we're now taking two slices for public safety. We have a couple other services that are like that as well, so it continues to shrink the amount of slices that are then available for everyone else. So I think that's another important piece to add to this. I think the other piece when we are looking at our investments, the city always considers the entire transfer. So it is both the transfer as well as the debt service. That's important because we cannot ignore that number. When you buy a house, you budget for the payments, you have to pay every single month. You can't put for the budget, that doesn't include that. And the truth is they're growing, those payments are growing. And so I did ask staff and I'm happy to share these around, but when you look at the numbers with the debt service, it's increasing. And FY22, you guys were 34.8% in FY23. It went to 33, and then the same dip in FY24 to 32. Now in FY25, it rose to 34, and then in FY26 is rising again to 34.4. And so it moved from 28.6 million in terms of our debt service cost in FY22 to 47.8 million. And I think that's a huge part of the conversation that can't be left out because at the end of the day, the debt is what is making the budget so tight and it's making our wiggle room so small. So that's a little bit of the context. I think the other piece of this is we know there are needs. And so part of the way we've been able to do these increases is last year we did do a significant tax increase. We raised taxes by about 2 cent and we gave ACPS 1.85 of that increase so that we could continue to keep some of the other projects on track at that time. We were talking about George Mason and Cora Kelly. Next slide please. So the proposed CIP investment we needed to put forth, you know, a recommendation that was aligned with the manager's guidance, which was to keep the funding level the same. And an increase it just would not be responsive to that. We are trying to make sure that we are able to do this in a way that is sustainable. We're trying to make sure that we pay down some of the projects that we have, and we're trying to make sure that then that gives us the fiscal ability and shifting we need in the out years. The other thing that was really important, and I didn't put this in here because I think we've all seen that slide like so many times. It's a slide with the two lines that begins to show kind of the amount of capacity we're at. The worst years for us to do something in our CIP, our FY29 through FY31. At that point, at some points, we reach almost 96% of our borrowing capacity. That's not a good place to be in for our city, recognizing there may be longer term things we need to do to address the aging schools as chair, chair ref pointed out earlier. Next slide, please. If we were to fully fund the ACPS total operating request, that would be another $7 million of additional cuts. We have taken $6 million of cuts in this budget. As I stated, we started with a guidance to Jim to not do cuts that impact human services and child supports. They would have to come next, that is next. We don't have anywhere else to pull from. So I think that also has to be in context. How do we balance the increasing needs with also the whole needs of that child? If we were not to take the cuts and we were to say we're not going to do that and we were going to do a tax increase instead. We'd be looking at about a 1.5 cent increase and that would be about an additional $109 to the average tax bill. Next slide, please. If we were to add the full ACPS total capital requests, which is about $57 million above the proposed guidance. That would also require a tax increase because the only way we could do it would be to do it without increasing too much additional debt. Because we don't want to trigger some of our fiscal policies and we also recognize that the bulk of the request is coming in FY31, which is at a point where it would take our borrowing capacity to a really, really high level and limit our ability to do many future projects. Next slide. So given that, I think where I really hope that this conversation can focus on, because it's not just an operating conversation, it's not just a capital conversation, but I think it is a conversation around how are we thinking about our young people's needs as a priority within the context of the whole city. I think everyone agrees that where our children learn matters, everyone agrees that we have aging facilities that need fixed. I think everyone agrees and I appreciate the cases that have been made, that we have a middle school capacity problem that we need to do something about. But we have to be thinking about how do we look at that as our broader land use planning? How are we looking at our small area plans? How are we thinking about our roads? How are we thinking about the infrastructure that's required to get those kids true and from school? How are we looking at where development is happening? If we're going to achieve the goals, I love the goal I think I saw in the redistricting slides that talk about minimizing the time that kids are on buses. If we're driving a lot of growth on one side of the city, but that part is far away from a school, then we're not helping you achieve your goals either. So we've all got to be in alignment there. Next slide, please. I think the other thing is important, and this one's a little hard to read, but I ask staff to pull. Like we also have to be thinking about it's not just a land use decision, it's a human decision. Where are our kids? We are seeing when you look at the percent of young people under 18, you're seeing the greatest growth in that age group on the west side of Alexandria and in our landria. And so how are we making sure that if those trends continue, those are where we're going to continue to see the greatest increases of kids and how are we planning for all the resources they need next to them. I also just wanted to say is we're thinking about kind of this overall planning perspective. I think it may be easy for some to say, okay, well, the city is not funding the additional CIP requests because there's a fundamental disagreement in philosophy or alignment with the school board's recommendation. I think there are people in this room who probably have many different opinions about what we should or should not do, but I actually don't think that is the question before us. I think the reality is for the council, no matter how many times we look at this and go back and forth with it, we're in a place where this is just not a year when we can do it. Whatever the increase may be, this is not a year where we have the capacity to absorb it. That the fiscal concerns, the debt capacity, and our other commitments would not have allowed us to support it. But also to support it without it being in the context of other land use impacts, other alignment, other drivers that are happening in our community. I don't think, given the uncertain times, we could take on a big project without that other analysis as well. Next slide, please. I think it's also important to think through, what are all of the drivers we are holding right now on the CIP? Where are they located? What years are they in? What's the timing for which they're happening? Because that is going to be where the opportunity in innovation comes. If we know we need to do a large scale project, then the same exercise that the city went through, of taking things off, moving things around, shifting the capital stacks within projects, that's the only way we're going to be able to add something to this. And I think the good news is there's a lot of possibility and things to work with. This isn't just a question of, well, should land become more available. This is a question of, given the land that we have, given the real estate assets that we have, given the timing of when something shows up, what is that sweet spot of movement that frees up resources so that we could do the long scale investments we're looking for? I think the other piece of it is to why it's so important for us to plan together. There could be cost savings or opportunities when we are working jointly. So I have two examples. One, if you were following the Alex West planning process, you would know that in every single meeting people said there needs to be a rec center on the west side of the city. There's just not enough places for our children, our seniors, or anyone to go and recreate. If you were following that process and you also watched some of the presentations that Stephanie Landrum gave about growth in our city, she talked about the fact that all of the growth opportunities and the places where they're looking at economic development will be on the west side and near some of those various areas where people were saying we want a rec center. If you are looking at even some of the school capacity challenges you guys met Samuel Tucker, John Adams, Patrick, all of these other places, there's some west side concentration there. If we were to look and think about the fact that we have to put a rec center on this chart, if we plan for that together and we're looking at a rec center and a school at the same time, that may be a more expensive process on paper first when you first look at it. But if you look at the potential cost savings that we could have, we deserve it to our community to explore that. What savings would be achieved if we expedited that process? What savings would be achieved if it was one construction process versus two? What savings would be achieved if there were shared operations on that site? I think those are the questions we haven't had a chance to ask and explore, but I think our part of vetting every single option that might be available. I think the other part of that question is, I've heard some people say, well, we can't reassess the CIP if we don't know what land is available. There's a lot of land we are holding in the city. There's some land that we're holding for schools. We need to have that conversation as two bodies, as to, are that the right sites? What would happen if that land was sold or there was a landswap or there was a shift in where we prioritize so that we could identify resources in the short term to be able to pay down debt and accelerate some of these projects. I think that's the type of thing we got to find a way to throw on the whiteboard and figure out how we shift and move there. All that to say and I'm going to wrap up so that we have time for questions. I hope you know and I hope everyone in this room hears that we need to be partners in this and we want to be partners in this. I think that's why Councilman Chapman in our long-range planning meeting, he mentioned the need to kind of bring back our joint planning sessions and where we hold each other accountable for our plans. I know Councilman Aguirre in our last session, he even raised the question of, do we need two middle schools? Should we be planning for that? What is the cost and what would need to shift to just in order to do that so we could fully get the scale that we need? I think it's why I even recommended to Jim when we do the real estate assessment. The assessment should be done with somebody from the school system. Being able to say you can assess these buildings all you want, but this may not be the right site for a school. Or actually this would be the right site for a school. What would it take to be able to pull together land and opportunities in order to do that? So all that to say, as we go into last slide please. As we go into our questions and as we go into the conversations, I hope that we are going to have one that really lifts up. How do we look at this in alignment with everything that's happening in the city? How do we pull from previous data? How do we look at it across all different projects? How do we make sure that we vet all options? And then how do we take into account the full scope of these costs? And how do we do that with a way that comes from a place of a full context and totality of the data about what are the kids needs in the city and what is the increasing costs that we are navigating in order to be able to pay for those needs. So I will stop there. And I think we can go ahead and open it up to some questions. Or comments. There's lots taken. Councilman McPite. I appreciate both the presentations and the discussion or the comments that you're making regarding long-term planning facilities and things that nature. I think it's also important for us to look at something that Councilman Elnubi proposed at one of our first meetings, which is shared operational services between the cities and the schools. What overlaps do we have? Where can we combine our resources in ways that don't take dollars out of the school budget, but free up dollars for educational uses within the school budget? Dr. Reeve and then I'm going to Councilman Chapman. Thank you. I appreciate the points you raised. Mayor Gaskin is around planning. I think that is a really important topic. I know when we had the retreat with you all and we prioritized the different projects that we wanted to talk about. actually was the thing that rose to the top. And we talked about discussing that more in the city school subcommittee meeting after we get through the conversation that we're having around a dash and transportation. I was wondering, I'm interested in hearing from staff a little bit about some of the long range planning work because there has been quite a bit of work in the past. was the long range Range Educational Facilities Plan, which was a joint effort by both the City Council and the School Board, and that document came out in 2015, and it included a lot of information that we're still using today around optimal utilization and the capacity in our school buildings. And then after that, there was a joint task force, which set up to prioritize the different projects that the city and the schools had and to try to figure out how to prioritize those. And then they recommended the joint facilities master plan. And I know a couple years ago we had a presentation on this road map which is essentially like a database that shows every single school and city site and how it's rated. It's kind of an inventory of all of the property that the city owns. And then it's just, I'm not sure, I'm sure there's some internal conversations happening, but I'd love to hear more from staff on both the city and the school side about your thought process around kind of where we go from here. We'll start with Dr. Hart and then I'll go to City Manager. Thank you and I'm actually going to defer to Sophie Huma who is on line and would be able to respond to those questions. They are the Director of Capital Programs Planning and Design for the School Division. Good evening Mayor Gaskins, Chair Reef, members of the School Board and City Council. Sophie Hume, our Director of Capital Programs, playing in his sign. So our goal of my department is to really implement the CIP to look at our long range plans and to start answering some of those questions that we have tonight. You know, we have a very close relationship with the planning and zoning department. And so using some of those documents like the LREFP, the JFMP, are really part of those guiding documents that LREFP did make some of those suggestions that we've had in our CIP now for a while. And I think it is time to start looking forward to the next 10 years after FY32-34 and getting into what the capital planning of the future looks like there while addressing some of our more immediate needs. Capital maintenance is also a big part of looking at our long-range planning and so we are also looking at some of those efforts to include that in our long-range planning efforts. So Karl Moritz and I haven't started those conversations quite yet but we are looking that's a goal of both of our departments here for the next year. Great. So, I think it's a great question. So there has been quite a bit of work done historically, particularly as it relates to building and facility assessments. And I think some of that is still very relevant. There's also been long-range plans developed, but conditions of change. I think the long-range plan that I think I reviewed fairly recently did not have the conversion and the transfer. And I guess the point I'm trying to make is while that's some really good historical information that's probably very helpful and can help accelerate this process. Frankly, the times have changed dramatically, even in the very short time that we're all that I've been the same manager. And they're continuing to change pretty dramatically where perhaps some of the work that was done in the past need to be really rethought in relation to what is our future really look like today. Are demographics changing in our city? Are challenges at the federal level? Are probably more acute than ever before? Needs in ACPS in terms of population and special opportunities there. Land costs, real estate values, those all require us probably to think differently than maybe even a short period of time as three, four, five years ago. Probably a little longer than that. And I think so, I think there's been a lot of good work done, but the reality is that times have changed pretty significantly. And some of the needs of the entire community have changed. That generate a need for us to expand dollars in areas that perhaps need to be expanded in certain ways or reduced in certain ways. I think that all goes into this long range planning process that I think is being described. Emily's got probably a little more detail because he's been here longer so I'll ask you if you want to fill any more into Yeah, I'm Emily Baker deputy city manager. I would just like to echo what Sophie said I mean our staffs have been working very closely together and we do have a joint as the lowest master plan that was put together I Think we're constantly you know It's a tool that we can go back and look at over time as needs come up and we of the great things that we discovered is putting that together. We looked at all the sites as I think came up before and what the capacity is at all the sites. And we feel very confident that the land exists to support all of the needs for ACPS over time. And so as you go through, as ACPS goes through redistricting and other things, I think this is a tool for us to revert to to say, what are the needs? Where do we need them? And how do we use the sites, either the existing school sites? We also have land that's been designated in small area plans as school sites. So we have a lot of tools available to us, and I think it's going to be great as we continue to work together. Thank you. I think Councilman Chapman with next. Can we go to the slide that talks about the state investment. It gives a bar graph. That's in the ACPS slides. I think it was number 10. No, I'll just go. I mean, with the bar graph shows that the state continues to underinvest. And I think one of the things that we need to do and definitely come together on and frankly not just going to be us in the city is probably going to be the localities in North Virginia. It is make a much stronger push to the state and with our representation to get the funds that we need. I mean, they finally finished the J-LARC study that continued to show that the state continues to underinvest in education, not in just in North of Virginia, but across the state. And that plays out obviously in a couple of ways. Obviously the purple, excuse me, the purple pupil funding level, as you can see, is clearly below where it needs to be. And I think we need to, as a region, both locality governments and school systems need to be making a strategic, stronger effort to reach and frankly hold our state elected as accountable, particularly if they're up in North of Virginia. You know, a number of our folks are going to come back to us and back to our communities and talk about the amount of state aid that they've given for teacher raises. And we know that that is frankly detrimental because we have a much higher LCI than anybody else. And so a 3% raise is not one that's really paid by the state. It's really one that's paid by the locality. And that does mean that then if we're for paying that we are then not being able to frankly give ACPS additional money for other things because we are paying a much higher rate. I want to say I looked at Hanover County in Virginia that has about the same number of students as ACPS does but obviously they're in a different part of the state and so their formula is 40% where I was 80%. And so the state funding that they get is equal to, almost equal to the locality funding. And so that obviously gives them a much larger flexibility to get things done, whether it's operating in new initiatives or capital. And speaking of capital, can we go to the bar graph with the buildings that are 50 years and older? When we get to that bar graph obviously, we see that a majority of our sites are over 50 years and some are coming up and even pass 100 years. And I'll be bluntly honest in saying if there's, I don't know how we solve that as a problem without state aid. To think that we're going to any locality in Northern Virginia is going to do that. What's what we've put in front of us, I would love to give Fairfax that. I'd love to give loud in that. Well, not loud in because they've got data centers everywhere. But any locality that doesn't have data centers, and give that to them and tell them that they need to fund that locally. And a good portion of that locally, that's not even a serious conversation. And so I do believe that the answer to this particular bar graph is going to be the state giving us grants around the Commonwealth. And I want to also state, and I think we know this, that this is not special compared if we compare other localities in the state. The state average for a school building is 50 plus years. And so around the state, in other places, particularly in the southwest of the regions of the state, they have much, much older buildings and they have a similar bar graph. And so that's why I would renew a call that I've said at these meetings multiple times over multiple years, that the way that we end this bar graph is with specific state grant support. I will say because the public is watching the state has started to try to do revolving loans and the library fun loan and Other things for tools for localities, but it's not grants We need grants that we do not have to pay back and that's not just Alexandria. That's across the state Because as we are talking about now, there's more and more of a burden on localities to be able to handle debt service without some of the other stuff that they're doing. And so again, to my colleagues on council, whenever we are in regional meetings, meeting with regional folks, I think one of the top priorities needs to be around how we organize to talk about education related funding for our region, for our city and and for the Commonwealth. To my school board colleagues, I would say the same thing. When you have an opportunity to connect with a colleague and another part of the state, please make it a point to connect with them about school funding. This is a serious state issue that we are not elevating to the level that we need to. I will say we have a state election coming up with folks who are running for governor, folks who are running for lieutenant governor and others. And delegate and senator, they need to make state funding of education, not just a talking point, but a serious plan that has grant dollars. It is disgusting that we have a billion dollar surplus as a state, and we are unwilling to give grant dollars for some of the oldest buildings to be constructed and renovated or turned down, torn down a new building's build. It is disgusting. And I would say that to you guys, I would say that, and I probably will say that to our delegation, because that needs to be understood. We are past the point of trying to play nice about this, because not just Alexandra has this bar graph. A lot of localities, with the means or without the means whoever decides that, have that similar bar graph. And so I would start our conversation there, trying to get an alignment with our two bodies about how we advocate the state, because if we're serious about this bar graph changing, it is not a local funding issue. It is a state funding issue. And we need to fully understand that. I'll leave other questions for later. Great. Well, I guess while I'm waiting for other people to get their questions together, I do have a quick question. It was on the operating side. Chair, if you mentioned, if we can go back to the graph that has the federal funding impacts. Thank you. So one of the things that you mentioned was, you know, should these funds go away, the school will, the school will not be able to cover this without coming to the city for additional resources. I think what we also mentioned at ours is we won't be able to cover, should our funds go away on the city side. I know the manager has put forth some contingencies. I think those contingencies add up to about six million or five to six million. Altogether though, we're looking at close to 51 million. So I guess I'm just curious, like 51 million of vulnerabilities. What contingency planning are you guys doing or holding back in order to help kind of brace for impact. Yeah, thank you for that question. And I know I can ask our chief financial officer, Mr. Turner, to jump in on this question. But one of the challenges that we have is we have a fun balance policy of a, we can maintain a maximum of a five percent balance. And so that is, we carry over 2% of that every year. So we run a very lean school system, I think as you can see, to do the compensation increase, to try to address our growing enrollment. We are really running a very lean operation. And so to try to set aside that contingency funds, we have our fund balance that we can go to for times like that. That's the purpose of that. But I'll ask if Mr. Turner has anything he wants to add to that. Thank you, you're right on point there, Dr. Veef. So yes, our policy DAB allows us to have up to 5% of our total expenditures in fund balance. And then it also requires us to use or to fund our annual budget up to 2% of our expenditures with that fund balance. And that's the maximum allowable use. And we do that every single year. So we don't, based on policy, we don't have any other ability to use any fund balance for anything else. And then anytime that we exceed the 5%, we've actually over the past couple of years sent $6 million to the city of Alexandria to support the capital improvement program. So our fund balance, our policy requires us to use it to balance our budget. And we do it to the maximum extent. So we don't have any fund balance available for any contingencies at this moment. So therefore, if we lost federal funding for meals, we would have to look at cutting other services to be able to provide our students with breakfast and lunch. Thank you. I just raised it because I do think this is important. We talk about areas where we need to collaborate. This is one where none of us know what it's going to quite look like, but we're all going to have potential impacts if not this year in the coming years. And I think, these are critical, these are critical basic needs for our young people and for their families. And I think whether it's building off of what Councilman Chapman said about what's our state strategy, what's our other resource strategy. But we are not going to be able to absorb these as well as the other cuts that are potentially coming. And so I just think we're going to have to get to a place as two bodies where we don't, the answer can't be we look to the city for support. The answer has to be how do we figure out what we're gonna do. And if we are cutting, how are we making sure that we're not hitting every family, like hit after hit after hit after hit. So I don't know what that collaboration looks like. Maybe there is a special subgroup or a task force looks at this, but I think this one's going to creep up on us more. So, sooner than we know, on both sides. So, I think I had Councilman Alnub on us more. So, no, no, run middle school and elementary school routes as well? How many high school routes do we have? I'll have to follow up with that answer. Okay. So I vaguely remember it was around 40 from the budget questions. I think it was board member Reno asked that question. And I bring that up because I know Council Member McPike brought up what we discussed in January. In the spirit of shared services where we're hopefully can find efficiencies on both sides and can save some money. So if we can offload some students of ACPS transportation and hopefully have them be able to use dash that may save you know help with that bus driver shortage right. Hopefully you know if we if you know it ends up being 12 or more routes that we can offload and dash even if we face them in somehow I think that would be beneficial in terms of cost savings but also helping with that bus driver shortage. So I wonder, Mr. City manager, I know city schools are working on that. Is there has been their annual progress on these conversations so far? Yeah, the city schools had a meeting, two meetings. The second meeting really was an opportunity for ACPS and dash to present how the existing services operate. And I think then the next step is to really evaluate where there I think that there was a cost element discussion that's going to follow in terms of how much everything costs sort of way that as well as are there other special requirements you guys might have to help me remember what's on the agenda's but there is progress being made and I think there is a set target schedule to try to get to complete evaluation and then that evaluation would go to the bodies for consideration. Thank you. I'm really glad to hear that. And again, I think the more opportunities we can find, it can help every dollar saved is a dollar for the city, whether it goes to ACPS or goes to other services. So I think that's a really important conversation to continue having. I have another comment actually on the, I know I heard the wrong. Give me one second. I know Dr. Hart wanted to comment as well. I guess what I would just say, and I want to piggyback, because I think not everyone may be following everything that is happening with city schools. I think it's interesting about this conversation and even the memo that Councilman Alnubi and Vice Mayor Bagley put forth is that it was framed as an opportunity. And in there, it specifically says that, you know, this might not be the path. But I think that's part of what this conversation started with earlier. If we don't search for the way out ideas to explore what the path might be, and if every time a new idea comes up, it is immediately shot down, we're always going to be having the same conversation around this table. So I'm going to go to Dr. Hart and then it looked like Dr. K. Wyatt also wanted to respond to this as well. Thank you. So I'm going to go to Dr. Hart and then it looked like Dr. K. Wyatt also wanted to respond to this as well. Thank you. So I just wanted to quickly note that I think that there was a point regarding a potential shift if the high school route were to go to Dash in terms of the number of drivers. I know I shared this earlier, but our high school drivers are also the same drivers that are doing our middle and our elementary school runs. So as we are doing this evaluation at this point, we wouldn't actually reduce drivers. We may reduce the number of hours that they are providing services, but the number of drivers themselves would likely not reduce. So I just wanted to make sure that I'm sharing that as well. And then let me go to Dr. Kay Wyatt. Thank you Mayor. Actually Dr. Hart just shared one of the comments that I was gonna make about. It doesn't reduce the drivers, it just would reduce their contracts, which would also kind of impact us in recruitment. I also wanted to say thank you for the conversation about shared services, but I just want us to be mindful going forward that, you know, we look forward to that conversation, but I think in the immediate future, it's kind of where I'm kind of focused on what we're going to do, because when we're talking about Dash and the subcommittee meetings, that is that for the upcoming year. So I just wanted to make sure that the community was aware of that. As we're talking about the FY26 budget, that dash conversation does not impact that, but I do like I said appreciate the future shared conversations around it. I'm going to go to the city manager on this one. Yeah, I need to follow this up because I think this is indicative of making sure we look at the broadest picture. The evaluation is going to look at all aspects including bus drivers and I get that and it's very clear how ACPS operates today with their bus drivers and that that bus driver has multiple routes in multiple areas. Not just high school. I guess what I would highlight is there is opportunity to look at that broader so that the appropriate level of drivers, serve middle school and elementary schools, and still achieve the dash elements that may allow for this to be a shared or modified shared opportunity. But if we're all looking at how we operate today and don't reference the potential for how we can operate in the future, we're going to have problems in making these decisions. And that's not just on ASPIA, that's also city. We have to look at how dash operates today and realize, well, maybe to serve ACPS in an appropriate way, we may have to adjust that. That's what the evaluation is all about. So I just wanted to be clear that just because we operate a certain way today, are we decide how each entity decides how they're operating. We can't make a decision if we're focused solely on how we do it today. Because I guess the point that tried to make in this budget proposal to the council and certainly to the school board is we have to change how we're doing some things because you've just demonstrated significant needs that we will not be able to achieve if we don't change some of the things that we're doing. And those make really hard choices, but that discussion has to take place and the transportation is just one aspect. It doesn't mean that it will be a good answer, because we don't know yet. But I know when I work my own staff, if we're working on something today that this is the process and we don't look at what the outcome we want to have. Then we're not going to change the process to get to that outcome. I just wanted to highlight that because again, it's indicative of how I think we have to look to the future. And that's collective. That's not one group or the other. Yeah. I appreciate Mr. Manager saying that he said it more eloquently than I was trying to say, which is I think that's the same conversation for when we talk about our schools and the CIP and it goes down to what we don't have to land. Like this is honestly an exercise in thinking that is looking at sort of what is possible and looking at a picture in a vision that is not necessarily, but this is how it is happening now. how we get there, but I think that's going to keep coming up in every aspect of this dialogue. Or again, we're going to have the same conversation a few months from now. I saw a lot of hands go up as we started talking about transportation. So I want to first just check real quick. Are people's comments on this? If not, I do want to go back to Councilmanalobie who had other questions. So I think Vice Chair Booth Booth and then I know Councilwoman Bagley has pointed out several times that I have not called on her. So I got to make sure she wants to talk about transportation too. So yeah, I just want to reiterate since you know there's four of us that are part of the City Schools subcommittee that we are taking this very seriously. I am seeing staff work together. I want to make sure that everyone has looked at some of the different slides, you know, in terms of bus ridership at the high school level. You know, even midday shuttles that we have currently going between both campuses is 70 different routes with 3,150 students transferring between the two campuses in one school day. So this is not to say that this is not something that we can't overcome, I hear you. But I think we have a process in place and I want to make sure that we are going and going through that process, not making a decision without having all of the important information. I think our next conversation is looking at what are some legality things some legality things that we have to do? What are some state codes that we have to take, you know, take into account safety concerns, all of those things, like those are questions that we have conversations that we also have to have and solve. Vice Mayor Bagley, is your question or comments on transportation? Um. I went to the would. How about this? I just wanted to. When Jim started speaking about. We have to be comfortable with change. I couldn't help. I mean, so I want to actually reiterate something, Dr. K, why it said, which is nothing we are talking about in this conversation tonight is about an FY 26 budgetary change. We are studying at the city schools level this topic, you know, because it is an opportunity transportation is something we already do in the city. It's an already existing potential doubling. And what I really appreciate, so I wanted to agree with Dr. K. White on that, and I appreciated her reiterating it for the public. But then as to Jim's point, you know, I, we are talking about revisiting a new way of transporting certain age students to our schools, much like the schools themselves are revisiting the way they educate students in grade 678. And so this idea that we can't step back and go, wait a minute, the system, the method, the program that we designed might not, you know, no longer be the appropriate one. We've done this, you know, we are doing this that that conversation is happening. So it's not, It's not beyond the realm of doable things to step back and say we've done it this way for X number of years, could we do it another way? And I think that's all Councilman Elnubian I were putting forward. And I just wanted to reiterate and I couldn't help it. I mean, I heard as the city manager was speaking, I heard K-8, you know, and the fact there's a currently happening K-8 conversation about revising the way we approach that in the city. And it just struck me as a nice example of, you know, the body's ability to step back and sort of revisit and make substance changes potentially. Thank you. I'll, I'll, I'll I'll I do have another I had another area of question, but I'll respect that the process and the queue that the mayor is trying to maintain. I promise to come back. I'm going to finish with Councilman on Newvey. The nice. Oh wait. Okay. So we got one more transportation question. School board member Harris. Yes. Thank you. I'm just going back to the dash conversation and transportation. And I attended the last subcommittee meeting. And I know we're talking about tough decisions and revenue. And doing things a little bit differently. And my question is, in regard to the shared services of dash, do we, is there a plan or is there a conversation about whether or not we continue to have Dash as a no fee indefinitely? Was there any conversation about reinstate and fees at any time? So I'm going to let the managers be interested in this one. And I think there's a couple of things to recognize here. I would say that there's probably not that conversation for a few reasons. I think there is a conversation about the fiscal sustainability and how we continue to support it. But I think there are fiscal costs. So last year when we got a number of questions about what it would take to bring back fares, it's $9 million right off the front to be able to put those boxes back on the buses. Then you also have to look at how you bring in sort of new fleet. There are millions of dollars that actually go in to bring that back. So I think we can come back with a memo, but I just, I think it's also important to recognize that it's not as simple as you bring back fares and all of a sudden that that costs is decreased or so forth. We are actually at a point now where it's more cost effective for us to keep it that way. I think the other thing is we actually just as we went through our CIP and we're going through our transportation funding, the percentage of funds that we use for transportation, most of that is not coming from city general fund dollars. And a lot of the ways that we've been able to cover dash and cover some of the transportation expenses we've done, the fleet is being paid by grants. The fleet expansion is being supported by grants and smart scale resources. The fair free that was piloted in the beginning through additional funds. So I just think it's more complicated than just bringing it back automatically is a cost savings or something like that. But I will let the manager and staff respond because I can say the numbers better. Better than I can. Actually, you got the numbers right on. I mean, again, I think in this year's budget, I did not propose to the council of changing the structure of Dash-free Fairfee Service. I do think it provides a really needed service across the board to the mayor's point, good deal that funding does come from other sources. So, look at that as well in the proposal. You know, depend on the change of conditions. And whether there's less reliant on those opportunities in the future. I think those would then be change conditions that need to be put front of the council and have that consideration but right now I'm not seeing that and I think the numbers that Mayor Gaskin spoke of are pretty accurate. But again if things change and that's that's part of what's hard to explain in this budget there is just so much uncertainty in doing this budget in the current environment that it's hard to figure out where we're headed. I've seen reports that we might be moving in some type of recessionary period. I've seen reports that the grant threat is more serious today than it was yesterday for instance. The loss of real estate value. Those are all things that are going to be changed conditions that will come in front of the school board and to the council in the future. And those may require us to modify budgets mid-year. I mean, you guys, I went and did this during COVID, right? You had a budget prepared and then it had to shift pretty dramatically. So I think when we think of Dash, I think based on where it's headed, where the future is, if those change conditions, those will be put in front of the Council for consideration. Madam Mayor. Yes, I have councilman Aguirre and then I have another. You're not in transportation, okay? I'll write you a minute. And this is specifically to this question too. There are the hard numbers that we're discussing, but then there are also the soft numbers and the other implications around economic development about people having cars, about transportation and traffic. And if you have more people on buses, people are getting a work faster. They're getting a go spend faster. People making this, yeah, I mean, there's just, there's a myriad of other touch points that happen by maintaining this fair free that frankly, the hard numbers don't even start to tell the story on. And it's just, it's a huge game changer to me. So that's what I wanted to share. OK. Cherry fun transportation. Then I promise that it comes with a newbie. I will come back to you. Yeah. And I just feel the need to just say something that I'm feeling right now, which is just how we think about collaboration and what that looks like. Because I think that collaboration really has to be something that happens between co-equal partners. And I think the challenge going into this dash situation is that it really felt like it was being pushed on us without really inviting us into the conversation. And so I want to say that I'm all about being creative, being innovative, I support doing that. I think we can brainstorm, I think we can come up with solutions to solve our problems. I am not opposed to this concept of doing this exploration, but I do think, I appreciate some of the conversation, earlier about process around collaboration, because I do think we need to find a way to kind of get to that place where we feel like it is really a true and genuine collaboration. So I just want to chime in here because I guess I can tell you, I feel the opposite because I feel like one of the things when my colleagues put forth this memo, there was a way that they could have gone down this path. And they could have said, you know what, we want to move to DASH and we're going to make that decision. Here's what we're going to do. We worked as a team to say, you know what, that's actually not the right way to do this. We don't have the data to be able to make that decision. We need to come up with a process to be able to do this. The first step they did was put that to the city schools. What I tried to do in working with you and the other colleagues on city schools was put forth how do we slow this down? I heard loud and clear from you concerns like our staff are dealing with so much we cannot add another thing to them. So being able to space this out so that it wasn't a rush to come up with the next week, we're going to have this here. Try to put forth a process where we are saying let's build forth a work plan. Let's make sure everyone's questions get here. Making sure that before every meeting, I know my colleagues have been sending in questions to make sure that everyone's voice is able to be a part of that. So I guess I would just say that we are trying to put forth a new path for collaboration. There's also a reason why we have said in every single meeting, this is in a decision that's being made in this budget or for this time. That was in direct response to trying to be a better partner and to make sure that they're spaced for that data. And so I guess I'm just not sure how many ways we, what it would look like to shift and adjust or create a process where everyone feels part of it. When we are lifting out and putting out an olive branch to say here, let's space this out, let's design this together, let's figure out how we can do it. It's still not resulting in a way where that is being received as a gesture towards collaboration. And thank you for that, Mayor Gaskins. And I think you really have been responsive in that way, so I really appreciate it. I know that a couple of years ago we prioritized some shared services and I know we did the same thing at the retreat and transportation didn't elevate to the top. So I think it's just how all the voices are kind of brought into the process and solicited in terms of determining what are the priorities that we're going to work on. But I just really wanted to say that because I do think that that's a tension that several people have been feeling. Yeah, and I think then to me the question, I think there's a different phrasing between we are not co-equal partners and we have not been brought to the table or invited to be able to shape something versus I see more opportunities for us to bring more people around this table into that. And I think that's something that you and I as the leaders of city schools, we got to figure out how we do that. But I would hope that this transportation process also... people around this table into that. And I think that's something that, you know, UNI is the leaders of city schools. We got to figure out how we do that. But I would hope that this transportation process also becomes somewhat of a model because it could have been done very differently. And I think there's a willingness to say that's actually not the way we want to operate. It's not the way we want to set down a foundation for us to collaborate and plan for any of these services that we want to move forward. And so the good thing is there's multiple more conversations on this. I think there's multiple more opportunities if there are folks. to collaborate and plan for any of these services that we want to move forward. And so the good thing is there's multiple more conversations on this. I think there's multiple more opportunities if there are folks who haven't sat in questions or haven't come to those meetings. I think there's space to design that to be able to do that. And I think coming out of this meeting, we're gonna have to figure out how do you do that for capital? How do you do that for operating? How do you do that for federal threats? Like, we've got to figure that part out. I am going to go back to Councilman on Newbie because he has been waiting patiently. And Ben, I will... How do you do that for operating? How do you do that for federal threats? Like, we've got to figure that part out. I am going to go back to Councilman on Newbie because he has been waiting patiently. And then I will come, I will come back to you, John. I have a schoolwork member, Beatty, I have. I do, I do skip you. You weren't even on my favorite. Yeah. And then we're coming to Ryan, then we're going to John. All right, I'll try it to be quick. I was going to shift gears, all shift gears. I had more to say on this, but I'll digress. So let me shift gears to the Another joint effort that I think was fairly successful, which was brought up by several here, which is the long range educational facilities plan. It was a joint effort between City Council and school board and City staff and school staff. I saw a list of people who were working on this task force years past. And I think yielded pretty good results and it solved some problems that we've had with schools in the city. We rebuilt elementary schools bigger and we addressed high school capacity. So I think it was a very good effort and I would really like to see the effort come back. And I think Councilman Chapman actually brought that up in one of our council meetings. However, one thing that plan recommended and remains to be an open question was the new middle school. So, I think I would like us to come out of this meeting with some process or some way forward of how we're going to carry that middle school conversation forward. Because I think we all agree here that we need a new middle school. And with all the constraints that we're talking about, we really need to be problem solving and creative and work together because as was mentioned, there are things on the city side that schools don't know and things on the school side that city don't know. And the only way I see out of this is us working together. So I don't know if that looks like a subgroup or a subcommittee of school board members and city council members with the support of staff of course, to really dig deep and look at all the options, all the abilities, all the opportunities like Madam Mayor mentioned her presentation and how it can be done. I know a way that capitalizing these opportunities, all these buildings that we may have or maybe able to swap or sell or land that we may able, but some sort of process hopefully we can agree on tonight and get out of this meeting with because I've been at this point maybe to like six or seven of these work sessions and we barely come out with like an action plan of how we're gonna address the big problems that we've discussed in these meetings. So I'm just throwing it out there. I hope my colleagues, you know, I'd like to hear you feedback from my colleagues on this, but yeah, this way. Thank you Madam Mayor. I appreciate that 25 more minutes folks come up with a plan. Uh-huh. It's good. It's just good. Tim, Ryan, John, Bagley. Thanks. Mayor Gaskins. I um, a couple of things. John, your points I thought were very important. We are working pretty hard at the state level on a number of different ways to try and push it exactly the agenda that you are talking about. There was a study as you probably know that was finished a year ago that said the current way that things are finance ain't right. And we're absolutely directly involved with trying to help move that change in a direction that favors greater distribution of funds in our direction. No doubt about it. We have a good lobbying staff in Richmond that we work with. We meet every year multiple times with our delegation that goes there. As I know you do as well, talking about our issues. We try and make friends across Virginia. We make specific friends with the other 80% schools because they're in exactly the same both that we're in, and we try and make friends with others around the state, some of whom like the situation the way it is and don't want it to change, frankly. You know, and I'm not sure we've got to big it up majority, what it would take to get there. We work work actively and hard, as I know you do, to try and help make that happen. And we will continue to work as hard as we can to try and change the way we're financed here to try and pull more money in our direction. Because we deserve it, we need it, and it reflects what we pay into the system in Virginia as well. I only want to make one comment about shared services along the lines. I don't know, we talked about shared services at this meeting a year ago. And I don't know where the break, my understanding is that there are staff level conversations every week going on between folks involved with the particular responsibilities of buildings and budgets and students and transportation and everything else that goes on. I know the two of you meet together weekly is that I think with your current about. So I don't know, I don't think it's for a lack of conversation. I don't know where it's hung up. What I would say is if you and the city think that it's our staff that's slowing stuff down, I'd be happy to hear that at least. I don't, they have a right to have their views in it, but if you're saying we're the problem, our staff is not cooperating. If that's the case, I doubt it is, but if that's the case, I'm happy to hear about that and see if we can push a little bit. I want to have shared services. I want to see if we can have savings along those lines. But I also don't want it to be a situation where we say we want to do this as we, a year ago, and not happen. Obviously, there seems to be a need for some kind of greater conversation about facilities, about real estate, about what we're doing, obviously. the long, we apparently had one. Apparently, it's not as strong as it was at some point, and maybe we need to get back to it. I don't know what exactly the right format is. I'm all for finding that right format to re-prioritize that conversation to make sure we all understand and are on the same page. Having said that, I'm really surprised of the response of some of you on the City Council to our CIP proposal. A year ago, you berated us for not having finished our 10-year plan. You and the mayor both did that. You were angry at us and you expressed that anger in this meeting a year ago that we did not have a done. Now we've got a done in a way I think it's quite creative. A way that tries to meet a very challenging situation with our student population in a way that minimizes the cost and apparently some of you think that this is a bad idea. I don't know, maybe I'm misunderstanding what you're saying. It's not a bad idea, it's an excellent idea. It might not be the idea that you think is the best, but it's an excellent idea within the framework of what you told me anyway when I was sitting here a year ago. What you told me during the CIP discussions that we had as a joint body back before the end of the year. And I'm a little surprised that the reaction is the way that it is. I am confident that you all share the same values on the City Council that we have to do the best for our kids. I have no doubt about that. And inside that context, there can be differences of opinion. But what we propose in the CIP at the very end, the curve goes back down again is a way to try and address some very challenging perspectives on what's happening with our student population here. After the end of the K-8 study helped us to realize we've got a real challenge going forward at the middle school level. And we found, I think, a fairly creative way to try and deal with it. Now, I assume that that creative way was the result and part of conversations going on at the staff level all the time. If I misunderstand that, then I need, but I mean, there's these constant conversations that are going on. I know they are. I don't maybe certain things aren't being discussed, but they're going on. One final point. Our operational budget is a bear bones budget. It is not an extravagant budget. It does not put us anywhere near as competitive as we would like to be, or doing as much of our students as we would like to do. 3.8% is only a little bit above inflation. We've given you the information about the competitive environment that we are in, just as you are in for police and firemen. I know in my neighborhood, you know, it's musical chairs sometimes. We get poached. People go to Fairfax. People go to Arnallick. And I know that happens in some of the other city services. I know you understand well what we're fail to see is a far as competitive environment and keeping our central staff and our teachers in our school district. This barely holds us where we were. This is not an extravagant budget. This is just what we need to do a reasonable job next year. And that's all that we're asking for. I realize this looks like more than your budget can handle. We're not asking for anything out of the normal here. We're asking for a very bare bones kind of an increase this year. The staff increases that are happening are part just because of the population increase. They're in part because we've had some safety issues that we're trying to address. In part because we're trying to continue to rest the social and emotional issues for our kids. And we're trying to do that in a way that as much as we can respects the challenges that you all face in your budget. And all this document does is trying to reflect the minimum that we think we can do to operate well next year. And we're trying to do this in a cooperative way. And I hope we get to a reasonable solution here, but there's nothing at all extravagant about what we're asking for in our operational budget. Thank you, Tim, for your comments. I guess a few thoughts before I go to the next person. I think there is a reason why nobody has used the words that we think your budget is extravagant or that we think Jefferson Houston conversion is a good idea versus a bad idea because that's not the debate. I don't think that's how any people feel about this. They may have opinions and people may have suggestions or things they want to see, but I think we have tried to keep this to at the end of the day, we are not coming here to say we wish you hadn't come up with a plan or we wish you hadn't done the study or we wish you hadn't come up with a plan, or we wish you hadn't done the study, or we wish you hadn't done this. I think what we're saying is, even if we were in a 100% agreement with what has been proposed, the fiscal reality is, we do not have the ability to do that right now. And where it is sitting, if I take just the CIP side, where it is sitting in the CIP is in the very years for the slides that we have shown now for a decade or the years we can't sustain. So I feel like that is part of it. I think the other pieces we if we're going to truly be partners we have to take that what you've given us and then we have to look at the other factors because it's I agree with you it's not just a fiscal decision it is about every child every teacher every person who works within that school, their experience, and the human impacts of this as well. But we've got to overlay that then with our land use projections. We've got to overlay that with our growth and development projections. We've got to bring in all of these other factors to then see, can we support this decision? And so I just want to lift up. I think there's a reason why the language has not been a back and forth on, well, that's not what you should have chosen or that's not the way you should go. I think the language has not been a back and forth on, well, that's not what you should have chosen or that's not the way you should go. I think the language has been, for most people, and even the questions, we know we can't. We know we have a problem. So where do we go from here? I think when it comes to the operating budget, We hear you, it's not like you're proposing these huge, huge programs that we hear you. We solve the slide of the types of positions, the psychologists, these things that are very needed. On the city side, we are also operating at a bare bones operation. And for the past five years, and Jim correct me if I've wrong, we've cut $32 million. We have a city that is growing and yet we are keeping our staff the exact same size That we cannot keep up with all of the permitting that's needed all the police officers that need to be on the street all the firefighters that need to go out We too are scaling back every single piece of this to make it work to ensure that for the new money We have you guys are getting the majority of it So I think I also need it to be part of this conversation that we are coming in as good faith partners as well. This is going to be attention because each thing is needed. Every one of the $12 million that our departments ask and supplemental ask, they are all needed and they would do amazing things to transform this city. They just can't be on the table right now. And I think that's where this is coming from. I don't... If I had heard somebody out here insult one another, or we were going back and forth about the character of each of us as people and how we came to these decisions, that would be a problem. But I don't think that has been the way that this dialogue has been... It has been from a place of like, we know there's a need, We got a ton of them too. We're still trying to figure out how do we respond? How do we give you the increases that we're able to sustain? But also how do we respond, how do we give you the increases that we're able to sustain, but also how do we do that in the context of all there's some things we just can't continue to cut. There are, you know, services were mandated to do. There are things we offer in DCHS, there are programs that we just are reaching the edges of what we can actually cut. I'm gonna go to Ryan and then I have a basement. No, I have Ryan. I have Council Member Chapman. Bye. just are reaching the edges of what we can actually cut. I'm gonna go to Ryan and then I have, Vice Mayor, well, no, I have Ryan. I have Council Member Chapman, Vice Mayor Bagley, and then Abdullahi. Thank you Madam Mayor. I think what I'm hearing pretty consistently is we've got a big set of challenges in front of us. And I think I've been pleased to hear about the desire for sort of confronting them together and I just wanted to go back a little bit to the conversation around how we can work together to try to get towards addressing our capacity needs. You know, we are not lucky or unlucky depending on how you would take it to have the luxury of being loud in our Prince William and just coming up with new space anytime we want it. We do have a lot of competing demands and I think I've been heartened to hear that there's a desire to have real conversations about what it means to work together to come up with a solution that may require some ingenuity and truthfully may require a little bit of pain on both sides. And so personally, I would love to really start this conversation and I appreciate Council member of the newbies' suggestion around can the lecteds come together and really start some of the blue sky thinking I'd like to see some more conversation about what we can do in the six to ten year range, Recognizing that that is the place where we may have a little bit of flexibility. As Madam Mayor, you are suggesting, can we think about what sort of land we can do swaps with, what sort of land we might be able to sell. We need to be thinking about different ways to use cash to try to pay down some of our debt earlier so that it frees up some things in the later years. Do we need to revisit the conversation around co-location and building a rec center at the same place that we're able to build the school? I'm coming to this table open and willing to have those conversations. I'm looking forward to having those conversations and so I would, I think I would join Council Member Elnubi and the suggestion that we actually take this on as a challenge that the electeds need to solve and that we need to be thinking in a blue sky way about that and I would appreciate hearing more about how we can do that, whether that's through city schools or whether that's potentially through a different vehicle. And so I just, I had one quick question just specific to the notion around collaboration. Can you lay out or maybe staff can lay out what are the next upcoming small area plans to be revised and when is the timeline for the suggestion around the real estate assessment that you guys were talking about at your work session last week. Just so I can sort of understand what timeline we're working with. Yeah, I can speak to the real estate assessment. So what that's about is if the council were inclined to adopt a budget with those dollars in it, We would start that process in the summer. This year in the summer, I've done those before. Those will take us somewhere between four and six months. And that should give us enough information to start to evaluate what are some of the potential choices there. And I do think that that has potential real value to both bodies and trying to create more room that you're going to need financially to do the things you want to do. So that'll probably be, there'll be aspects of that will be ready for next fiscal year. I don't think it'll, the money might not be fully there, but you'll know it's coming, so our now forecasting. We could include some of the projection of that. I would love to be able to myself or others volunteer to the extent that it's possible to support you in that. So far as we can try to get to a point where we have some data for our next capital conversations as we expect to approach those towards the end of this year. So I'm glad to hear about that process and really would love to be a partner in it. Thank you, Ryan. And I will, to the other part of your question, we will actually vote on our long range plan in May. So right now there is a proposal on the website, but in May it'll actually have the actual timing of when the different small area plans and everything will come up. Councilmember Chapman, Vice Mayor Bagley, and then school board member Abdelahia. Oh, and then. Thank you. Let me start here. I think one of the ones, one of the shared services, and let me take a step back before I even get into this. I know I'm one of the few that have been through a number of shared services conversations. And I do think to my fellow electives, it's really about how we direct our staff. We come back to us, not just with information about opportunities, but frankly, whether or not we want to get that opportunity done. And as the mayor said, I think there are a number of different ways we can kind of go about trying to do some of these things, whether we work together to figure out what the plan is or we force a plan and say, hey, we want to cut this out the budget, right? I think the, you know, I appreciate the chair's comments about collaboration, but I think we, I think as we try to collaborate, I think we need to be honest with what our relationship is. And I don't, I wanna be blunt, but I don't wanna be disrespectful. We're not necessarily equal partners. The city and board as a supervisors and county boards or across the state have a different charge than the local school system. And I think we just need to be honest about that. Again, our back and forth is not special to us. It happens in jurisdictions across this commonwealth. I've no doubt that continues to happen. People continue to be challenged about how they're going to work together, how they're going to get stuff done for kids, how they're going to spend taxpayer dollars, et cetera. And I think working with our liaisons, having conversations, whether they be in bodies like this or individual, I think is hopefully the way we get through some of the tougher parts of the relationship. One idea that my liaison and I have been talking about is we have a thing we could make as a shared service, if you want to call it that. but sharing resources, I think both of our. You're going to be it wrong. Basically these white cars that drive around everywhere. Everybody has them. We have them that say the city and the city see along them, ACPS has them that say ACPS on. How do we combine our forces and our cars to see if there's a savings on that? That's something that prior councils and school boards have talked about. But we have not taken action on. I put in a budget memo to find out the cost of the savings, but my liaison and I have not talked to our staffs about taking action. Because we know that's a conversation, how does this work? Who uses these things? How much use is needed? Where do we put them in the city? All these things need to be laid out. But again, these are conversations that we can have, but we shouldn't come back to this table and one, two, three, four, five years, but some of these more simple things. And again, that's my opinion on whether it's simple, or not it could have at staff knows, it could have a number of different arms to it. But I do think that's a history lesson for us about there are things that we can do. And I think that the way forward is not just to have the conversation to these meetings, talk with the early A's on about what can get done, and then approach your staff and frankly direct your staff to go work on those items so that we can get to a place where we get this stuff done. It's my intention to get this information to figure out how do we move forward on it? Because I do think it's a simple thing that can see some savings. Are we talking about millions and millions of dollars of savings? I hope not. Because then that means we would have wasted a lot of tax payer money over the years of having duplicative vehicles around the city. But it is a step in the direction where I don't think it's as complicated as the dash, the transportation conversation. But it shows to your point Mr. Beatty, where the issue is. Like who doesn't want to take something and put systems together, systems that don't touch kids, because we're talking about cars that staff use. So getting to that point and see who's the issue or what the issue is, I think, is the purpose of this exercise, because this is something that should have been done a while ago. It's a simple thing. And so hopefully we can move forward and kind of see where the issue breaks down. Where we're not getting information, where we're not moving forward, is it the elected's issue? If we're not following through with our staff, I think that's a much easier one than Dash. I think Dash will tougher more complex, more data, more decisions. But I throw that out there as an example of how do we move forward on shared services or combining our forces, whatever you want to call it. So I would say that one, to. One of the other things that I would ask staff to remind us of with information probably not right tonight. In a future shared, excuse me, a past shared service discussion. We talked about why or why not. We can, I wouldn't say combine healthcare, but try to see if there's an opportunity to look at shared groups. Whether or not, obviously teachers are not a shared group across the state, right? There's something that's special to ACPS, but in terms of certain professionals within the organization, certain management levels, are there opportunities to take another look at that and how do we combine healthcare? I bring healthcare up because it seems to be one of the main drivers. And also, how do we look at retiree healthcare? How are those aligned with what the city's doing, what the schools are doing as well? I think I saw in your budget kind of looking at closing the gap for retiree healthcare as well as a thing you're doing. And I think we're doing that as well. And so kind of looking at some of those pieces as well, not necessarily shared services but there's things that we do and could probably do together or find some creative way to do that. As we kind of, let me stop right there because I don't want to necessarily go off into future stuff. I think I'll bring some of this stuff back up to see the future looking budget, forecasting stuff and you can talk about that there. The last, make sure I cover everything, sorry. Got everything? Yeah, for now. Well, I was gonna say we are approaching the 9 o'clock hour. I am going to go to Vice Mayor Beckley, School Member Abdallahi and Dr. Simpson-Baird. I'll come back to Councilman Aguirre. And then I do want to, I think you've had multiple people lift up kind of a proposal that it sounded like they wanted more discussion on to see if they're interested in working. And I think we want to have some talk about that. So. We also had Mr. Turner's hand, I don't know if. Yeah, so I was just going to respond. One of the things that comes up every so often is the healthcare share cost for healthcare. And one of the things with that is that would increase the cost to ACPS employees significantly because of the difference in the risk pools of employees. So that's one of the things that we have looked at in the past and we can continue to look at obviously because with ACPS budget being 86% people anywhere we can save on healthcare costs as always the win, but to join with the city, the difference of the risk pools would cause the cost to go up for ACPS employees. Thank you. Vice Mayor Bagley. Thanks. Just given the time, although in central time, it's only eight o'clock, so I've got it an hour to kill. Now, but I wanted to switch gears and in light of the time, I don't know that we need to have a full dialogue on this tonight, but a data point that I definitely would like a little more information on is about retention along the staff. I know in last year's ACPS discussion and on the city side budget discussion, there was a lot of discussion about the vacancy rates and over the last year and a lot of work was done in the last budget to transfer like the mayor mentioned, 125 of the two-cent increase over TACPS to help address things like salary and retention issues. We also, one of my colleagues and I, Councilman Pryek and I think set aside a significant fund to try to address retention on the city side and we've seen some positive impacts from that. But I'd really like if there's a brief answer, maybe that someone on this school side can give sort of addressing, you know, has retention improved is vacancy lower. This year, relative to last year's conversation, and then if there's further detail and breakdown on that, that can be provided. I would appreciate that. Yes, Dr. Kay Wyatt has her hand up in response. Yes, thank you, Mayor. I know we shared a little bit of our retention data at the budget meeting in the fall. And so we've been as low as one to three percent, just as a general quick figure. We do have some of that data that we can share with you, vice mayor Bagley, but this year, because of the significant increases that we had in compensation, we were able to retain a much larger person, especially if our instructional staff. And so that was key for us. And so I can pull the information from the November slide as well as provide some updated slide. And I know I do have our chief of staff, Dr. Taylor, who's there who could probably give you a little bit better number of bars today. But we have been trending in the low percentages. So much better than we were in previous years. So thank you for that question. Yes, I'm going to go to Dr. Taylor for numbers on this. That's a great segue, Dr. Kay Wyatt. We are sitting right now with approximately 35 vacancies at a 1.4 vacancy rate, which is we're really on par with last year, so we're really proud of that. Thank you. Vice Chair Boos also has a response. Yeah, I'll just mention that I think I will have you guys got this very pretty data digest, and if you turn to page 63, you'll see the retention rate has gone up to 89% in 2024 versus 2023 was 85%. There's lots of good material in here. Going in the right direction. Thank you Thank you. Bye. I am. Thank you. I'm just going to make it quick. I really appreciate the enthusiasm from everybody wanting to work together and joint collaboration. But one thing I kind of want to emphasize is finding a process that's sustainable. As we can all see there's different people here than there was last year. So we would want a process that's going to be sustainable moving forward that can face leadership change and will still keep the process moving. I think coming up with a process that's going to be left behind after we're done with this one issue and And then a few years later than the same issue arises. And then we talk about, oh, we should come up with another process. I just think coming up with a sustainable process that's going to continue leadership change and provide a lasting solution. Be very beneficial to both elected bodies. That's pretty much it. Thank you. I'm going to turn next to Dr. Simpson-Barrad and then Councilman Ergiri. Thank you, Mayor Gaskinzen. Thank you, Chair. I really appreciate this conversation tonight. Honestly, I think it's probably been the best one that I've been a part of. This is, I guess, my fourth time doing this. I heard a lot of the same ideas come up that we haven't put into practice over four years. And I do echo the need for more intentional and strategic long-term planning. We've also said that in the past, so we really need to start putting some of these things into practice if we're gonna see the results of this work. As Mr. Abdulahi was just saying, when we think about how we can solidify and ensure that these things are in the future, an idea that we have brought to you and still feel very passionately about is having staggered terms for school board members. That is one way that we can ensure this continuity of knowledge and continue this for years to come. So we still have that resolution. We would love to talk to you about action on that because we think that is a good way to ensure that we move the long-term work forward. And then I, because we have, we just love to keep coming back to shared services, I want to say from the perspective of everyone on this use side, we're doing something wrong on our end. If we keep bringing this up and it is not enacted, we haven't done our jobs. And so for me to better do my job, I've loved here from staff and I know we're at time, so this can be later if you want to send us something in writing. But what do you need from us to do the shared services? We throw out a lot of ideas. We say, what about this? What about that? A lot of things have been tried in the past. A lot of things haven't worked. What do you need from us as a vision, as a strategy, to put those things into practice? Are there goals that we need to set? Are there monetary figures we need to point to something? Because I think I've been here for four years hearing this. I'm sure Mr. Chapman has many more years of hearing that and there's something that we haven't done to make that happen. And so if we in fact do want that to happen, I'd love to hear how I can be supportive of that process and how we can be a guide, how we can be leaders for that work. Thank you. I thank you for raising that. And I hope that on the U-shaped part of what our legacy can be is that we do transform this conversation. But next year, when we are back here in April, we actually have... Thank you for raising that. And I hope that on the U-shaped part of what our legacy can be is that we do transform this conversation. But next year, when we are back here in April, we actually have some data to say this is the shared service we're proposing right now that we are going to move forward on. Or these are the cuts that we're going to make together. But I agree, I think we're all tired of having the same conversation and whatever we can do. There's been a couple ideas from getting direct feedback from staff on what targets might look like. So I think Ryan suggested, a couple ideas from getting direct feedback from staff on what targets might look like. So I think Ryan suggested is it a role that the electeds need to take up and we need to figure out how we all get on the same page. I don't know that there's an answer here but I think there's a lot of good things floated around that we need to figure out how to act on and move on. Councilor Nguyen. So, collaboration seems to always be the buzz word every time we're together. So, collaboration seems to always be the buzz word every time we're together. So, in the spirit of collaboration, I very much like to see staggered terms with a smaller-sized school board. Continuing along those lines and also to what school board member Beatty brought up if they, if we feel that staff on your end isn't giving us information to let you know. So slide four, I love this slide. I want to push this slide out and tell everybody about it. ACPS or? ACPS, ACPS. Could we go ahead and get slide four from the ACPS stack backup? Thank you so much. This is the diplomas and the graduation rates. But every time I see this, I also get angry because I asked, I put an inquiry in to get a breakdown of information for the diplomas and a demographic breakdown. And we're sitting here now in March, three months later, and still no response. So I would really like to get a response to my question. No, it's not. A breakdown of the diplomas and a demographic breakdown of who is getting those diplomas. Right. A breakdown of this diplomas, right? Is it a standard? Is it a whatever, right? There's three or four types, correct? And I want, yeah, and I want to break down demographically of who is getting those diplomas. So no, my answer's not in here. Can I just say what, and I don't, I just want to, I just want to just acknowledge, because I think it's important for the spirit of collaboration. everyone went to jump to let me prove you that you it's in this book. I'm not saying that it wasn't but I think what I was hearing is that you've been saying I've been asking for it. So the minute it... collaboration, everyone went to jump to let me prove you that you it's in this book. I'm not saying that it wasn't, but I think what I was hearing is that you've been saying I've been asking for it. So the minute it was available, we have to find these ways to share. But I just think we have to also be mindful of the way we are treating each other when we're in these dialogues because it influences whether or not we're going to be able to collaborate. And I literally looked through this book completely before I made this comment to see if it was in here. And the last thing, because in good conscious, I can't let this meeting end without mentioning this. So we always talk about Latino males and the true and C rate. I brought that up before. I'll mention it again. But looking in here, now I'm looking in here. And I love this, by the way, this is great. I really appreciate this. Hispanic students which make up almost 40% of our school system, 18% drop out rate. That's three times higher than African Americans, 18 times higher than white and Asian students. That is not acceptable. Okay, I'm gonna go to Dr. Kay Wyatt, she had her hand up. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to respond to the data request from Councilmember McGarry. We did have that data and then when the school board shifted, we shifted the format of the meetings of Dr. Reef and School Board Leadership. We talked about how to present it. And so I was excited that we were going to bring it to a joint meeting. So we do have that data that he's asking for. And we can definitely share that. Our goal was originally to bring it to when you talked about having the joint work session, but then the format changed to be more collaborative. we know we're talking about collaborative a lot. So we do have that information, and we could just send to you, but we really wanted to present it because I really feel like it needs more of a conversation, especially when you're talking about graduation rates and drop-off rates because there's a lot that goes into how those calculations are made. So we do have that data available that was asked by Council Member Aguieri to share. We just wanted to do it in the right public format. So just wanted to share that. Vice Chair Booth's. And then Councilman Chapman and then, gonna. Yeah, so I'm gonna, I appreciate that question. Mr. Aguieri, because it brings me back to the conversation where we're're having on this current budget year or FY 26 budget in the dollars that we're asking for. So one of the things, you're right. I mean, that's still a very big problem for us to continue to solve. And even though it's not always apples to apples or apples to oranges when we're looking at surrounding jurisdictions, I think it's also still important to say that serving our students with economic disadvantages, our ELL students, our students with special needs, we have a very much significant bigger population within the city of Alexandria. So it also means that we need additional funding to be able to service our students and our community. Falls Church City also 0.8% has 6.7% ELLs to our 39.1% ELLs and 11.7% free and reduced lunch rate. Compared to ours which I now don't have in front of me. But I mean, those are important things to get the public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public public I was a parent liaison. I was a bilingual parent liaison in the school system. I know what it is. We talk about it every year, what our needs are. I understand that there's more funding that's needed for that, but those numbers are still unacceptable anyway you put it. So, yes, this council wants to be supportive. Yes, I want to see this change. Yes, I understand some of that takes money. But there are also things that I'm not going to get into that this division has chosen not to do that could have directly impacted these numbers. I'm going to go to councilman Chapman and then I'm going, I'm sorry, just doing it. Okay. And then I'm going to begin to wrap it up. So I want to ask, I know we talked about, I don't know if you have anybody that can speak to this, but seeing that this is one of kind of a key area and has been a key area of need for ACBS can somebody kind of talk to me about the lobbying work that went to talk to the state about additional money in this particular area. I know there's been some trends in getting money for that, but how has ACPS kind of guided that state conversation? Because that is, we're not the only ones and I know there have been some movements there. And so who can talk to me about what has been done on the lobbying level for the state level? Because again, the state should be giving out more money to localities that have higher need in ESL. This is not kind of something that's specific to Alexandria, North Virginia or not. So Dr. Simpson-Barrick's going to respond to this one. This will be pretty high level summary, but we can definitely get you many more details on the bills we supported and the budget ask that we had from the state level. And I will say from I Chair, our governance committee, which includes our legislative work. And I think this year has been our most impactful in terms of a lobbying perspective. And it's in part because we have a great new representative down in Richmond and it look forward to the work we're going to do in coming years. She's phenomenal. But we have pushed all the J-LARC recommendations. So my prediction is that in the coming years, Virginia is going to reformulate its funding formula. But that was never going to happen at the outset. They have to do these little pieces first, the changing the SOQ cap, like all of these other things. But I think we will get to that point, hopefully, or maybe under a different administration. But it is a slow progress. And we have a lobbyist now in Richmond who understands the intricacies and the nuances of that very clearly. And we are working together to try to make those changes happen along with a lot of the other. She works in partnership with all the K-12 lobbyists and has a lot of coalitions and allegions to try to do that work. So I'm excited about the direction we're moving in and we can definitely put her in touch with your lobbyists to ensure that their messaging is aligned. But yeah, it's been good work. Thank you for that answer. And the reason I say that and I appreciate that answer in particular, because again, I'm going to beat the same drum I started with. We need to lean in on what can be done at the state level. Some of the long term issues that we have as a city, as our makeup, are not going to be fixed by one year budget fixes. That's just not going to happen. You know, if we have special classes of students and those special classes of students exist around the state, we need to make these states step up. We saw the bar graph. We've seen the J-LARC study. And so there is a place for us, for EAA, for others, to lobby and continue to lobby the state to get this right. This is not going to be something that we and us in this room looking at our budgets solve. We need to understand that and so how we lean in on the work and supporting the governance committee. How we do that for our legislative folks, and I know Kirk is on the tip of that. That is the work that needs to be done for the long term, because we're not going to solve. And this is my opinion, you can differ. We're not going to solve the graph for theIP, for all the 50 plus year buildings. We're not gonna solve some of the funding structures that we have as ACPS without additional state support. Okay, I know Chair Rief once they jump in on this one and I think Dr. K. Wyatt does, and then school board member Harris, and then we're wrapping. just really wanted to kind of build on that and really spotlight the work that Dr. Kay Wyatt does, and then School Board Member Harris, and then we're laughing. I just really wanted to kind of build on that and really spotlight the work that Dr. Simpson-Bird and we did as a school board lobbying around the solar connection fees on our new green buildings. As you know, we're being charged over a million dollars by Dominion for the connection. And so Dr. Simpson-Bird was down there testifying before the committee, and it was something that we work with our delegation to really try to bring some change to. So I just wanted to say that and then I know Dr. Kui wanted to say something as well. Yes, thank you Mayor and thank you Madam Chair. I just wanted to say thank you. I know school board members went down to Richmond to lobby. I know superintendents we've gone down from our region and across the state to lobby for the very things that Councilmember Chapman is referring to. I also want to say I'm sure EAA and all of the teachers and educators I've seen their photos and you know they shared stories about how they've gone to Richmond. But I also just want to take this time to say thank you to Katie Brown back to our PTEC president. I know that she works very hard around advocacy and Richmond for our schools. So just wanted to add that because I think the advocacy is bigger than just the board and staff. It's also our parents and we're just really grateful for that. Okay. I think Mr. Mr. Turner had his hand up and then I'm going to remember Harris. Yes, I'm sorry to be that student that raises their hand at the end of the class. But I did just want to point out some of the lobbying efforts and some of the efforts that our staff has been doing to increase our state funding as well. So some of the things that our lobbyists have been supporting are increased funding for EL. We know that our EL population here in Alexandria is higher than the average in Virginia. So we've been working on trying to get additional funding in the formula for EL demographics in our schools. Dr. Rief just talked about the solar bill that our lobbyists have been pushing. But one of the things that our staff, myizing instruction and our budget team, pushed a couple of years ago and actually got additional funding for ACPS was a specializing program and that brought in additional $700,000 from the state to be able to support some of our students that have that need the most support. Right, so there are some things that both our lobbyists are doing for us down in Richmond and there are some things that our staff are doing. So I just wanted to point out and give some numbers that we are actually getting additional state funding and we continue to try to see any programs that the state are offering to bring those in. So again, one of the largest ones that we did was a special regional program which brought in about $700,000 to ACPS to support our students that are experiencing some of the greatest challenges. Thanks. Thank you. School of Member Harris. Thank you Madam Mayor. I just want to say that just going back to our original conversation. I know that these are challenging times. We have a lot of things that we have have to deal not only in our Exandry but also externally that we can't necessarily control. And the four years that I'll be on the board, I know right now this is a budget meeting. We're talking about the fiscal environment that we end. But I think this is a bigger issue of our overall relationship. The four years I've been on the board, let's be honest, the relationship has not been good between us two bodies. And I think in order to move forward to Mr. Chapman's point, we are separate bodies, but we are independent separate bodies. And I think sometimes the tone is that of a parent and child and not that of equals that want to work together. And I think in order to be productive going forward, we have to change that tone. And we have to change that tenor. And I'm not sure how we get there, but us working together is not necessarily optional. It should be a standard and should be mandatory because we can't, we're not going to be the function unless we do. And I think this was a productive meeting. We've kind of gotten a lot out that we know what our challenges are on both sides. But the bigger issue is our overall relationship. And there should be some focus on how we repair that. And many of that, we can move forward collaboratively and collectively for everything we have to deal with in the future. Thank you. No, thank you. And I thank you for teeing up how we move forward, because I think, I mean, there are a number of people who made the comment, we've been in the same conversations. We've talked about this before. Collaborations, the buzz word. I wrote down some of them and I think that's them. If we're not getting to the root at what's behind the tension or the reason why we're struggling to make progress on those, we're going to continue to be in a similar situation. than that, I do want to find a way for us to move forward. I think there were some really positive suggestions that were put out. I think one was, how do we make sure that our staff, it feels comfortable giving us what they need from us, telling us here are the targets we need, here's the direction we need in order to be able to propose a path forward with shared services. I think there was also a recommendation that maybe it's not just city schools, but there needs to be some other type of structure that is sustainable and involves the electeds to move us forward. And we have models like that. I mean, we did that with SLEP. It was time bound. It was really specific and here's what it focused on. I guess what I would offer up then is we do have a city schools meeting coming up in a couple weeks. I think we did shift our agenda to allow for some new business and new conversation at the end. Maybe if everyone can make an action commitment coming out of this to send an idea they have for how we move forward to myself and chair reef, what we can do is commit some time at the next meeting to figure out then the process for moving forward, how we get some specific targets. I know it won't solve this budget and I know there are still tough conversations to have since we are at the start of our budget process, but it is the work that needs to happen together to set us up for the long term. So with that, I thank everyone for their time. I thank you for the meeting and for being open to the conversation and we are going to adjourn.