Good evening everybody, welcome to the Monday May 5th Council work session. Thank you to staff for improvising quickly and moving us to council chambers due to AV issues in dogwood. We have three items on the agenda first up is the ESC annual report and then we'll get to budget and then talk about why it's recommendation on solid waste. Anything to add before we jump in? May I call order this for the record? Yes, this is for your room. Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Connolly, Oh, yes. This is where you're going for a room. Thank you, Mayor. Ms. Connolly. Here. Ms. Downs. Here. Ms. Flynn. Here. Ms. Ciscott. Here. Mr. Schneider. Here. Ms. Underhill is absent for family and Mayor Hardy. Here. Thank you, Mayor. Great. Hi, Mr. Shrezy. Welcome. Hello. I'll get right into it then. I know we're all adjusting to the format too, so. And the pounding of the rain over us. Anyway, very good. So thank you for having me. I'm Joseph Shrezy. I'm the chair of the Environmental Sustainability Council. We write an annual report about all the many recommendations that we've made to ESC over the last year. Somehow it's May. So this is about last year, but also about the early winter and spring of 2025 and kind of what the next 12 months will look like. I'm going to go through each item individually but quickly and try to make some summaries so that we I'm not taking too much of your valuable time. So first I want to thank by I want to start by thanking the City Council for its leadership and excellent work on several things including the bike master plan which was adopted after ESC recommendations and I think is a huge step in improving the transportation mobility in the city and getting us where we need to be there. So thank you for doing that. Thank you for including the maximum tree cover requirements and water runoff requirements that we can have for accessory dwellings and taking the environmental feedback of our citizens really seriously over that process for the last several months. Thank you for the parking update that we did at the end of last year and looking at the environmental impact of parking in our city. I hope that we continue to do that. And most of all, thank you for making the commitment to reduce emissions and follow the original Paris Climate Accord Agreements and reduce emissions to zero by 2050 in false search. So the ESC's primary goals is figuring out how we actually meet those goals that the city has adopted and what are the action items that we have to actually implement here and trying to hold city council accountable to a meeting its goals that it's adopted. So thank you for making those goals. Let's work on them together. And I want to also start and take a second to thank Mike Trauberman and the incredible work that he's done has as both the vice chair of ESC and just a member of our community. His experience really means a lot. We also have John Ward leading our Energy Transition Subcommittee, our Habitat Restoration task group led by Amy Crumpton and our education task group, which runs Operation Earthwatch. Membership of these is open to anyone in the city. If there's anyone watching this video later who is interested in joining, we are always definitely I think looking for more citizen involvement. So just to go through our accomplishments for 2024, I kind of already mentioned a few, but the first is the one-stop shop, which was something an idea that was added in the energy action plans to have this one place where citizens in Falls Church can learn everything about solar, about transitioning to electric appliances and a lot more. And the work of Mr. Lawrence who is our ESC liaison with the city is should not be like understated. I think he's done a lot of really incredible work this year. And if you haven't checked out the one stop shop online, you definitely should. It's very impressive. And I'm pretty happy with how the development on that has been going. ESC reviewed the 80 you code that was passed. ESC reviewed the bike master plan updates that were passed. I'm sorry. Okay. So we've looked at those on the recommendation of City Council and gone through those documents. And there was also this waste to energy facility that asked for an exception around certain emission rules that the city has agreed to and I think it takes some kind it takes a little bit of courage to stand up when people say hey we need an exception and to say, this are the environmental goals we have agreed to. So ESC recommended not to make exceptions. And I think city council followed through on that. So thank you for doing that. I think those kind of things should really be highlighted and everyone should get a pat on the back because it is hard to say no sometimes. We've made recommendations on the city budget and I hope that you will take those into consideration tonight. Let's see. I'm going to keep going. ETS performed a audit on the Cherry Hill farmhouse and those items and findings are still valid so we can still act on those and the habitat restoration task group had several events and has done some great work. The city has been certified as a national wildlife refuge for our 10th year. Operation Earth Watch continued through the school year and is still going this year as well. So just moving through everything, goals for this upcoming year and some of these, you know, we've already started on, all of these goals are in the community energy action plan and the government energy action plan. So I'm not gonna go through everything individually But the primary goals and what does it mean to be an environmental city is just overall reducing our transportation emissions Which is about a third of the emissions in the city? So we need more people walking, we need more people biking, bike master plan, and actually implementing that is a huge part of it. We want a more sustainable built environment. So maybe this year we will work on a green building plan and the built environment also means density and building a way to live and building buildings in such a way that people can live more sustainably and have a lower impact. So a lot of times that means driving less, right? So things are closer together than we don't have to drive as much. It's also about efficiency and there's going to be updates in the lead certification process and goals in the next year coming through the state. So we'll be sure to keep City Council updated on that. And I think that will have a pretty big impact as well. We have climate change mitigation. I think the one stop shop can be a real pillar of that in our community and help people transition their homes and transition their lifestyles to more renewable and more renewable energy and environmental decisions, green space, storm water, you know, also part of the built environment. And ESE is there and has some really incredible people with a lot more experience than I do working on things related to that. So, you know, ESC, I think, should continue to be a resource for city council when you have things related to storm water come up inevitably. Consumption and waste, we're talking about that right now, expanding the city's compost program. I think ESC would be, you know, very strongly in favor of that. And we have the ETS goals which revolve around COG, emissions goals that they have set for the city and how can we reach those. We've got, we have this goal in the Community energy action plan of lowering these emissions and a really big chunk of how do we lower emissions are coming from the state becoming more sustainable in where we get our power. And if that doesn't happen or is not on track, then the city should do more to meet those goals sooner. So ETS, I think has a lot of great ideas for how to do that, doing more residential, energy audit aggregation, possibly looking into an EV tax exemption in the city, working on lead for cities. So lead certifies buildings. They also certified cities as being sustainable or meeting certain energy goals and possibly working on a green building policy this year, like I mentioned. Let's see, I don't wanna take up too much time. I feel like that was already long. But very good. Okay. That's my monologue. Please support the city's urban trees canopy and the habitat restoration task group. Please support Operation Earthwatch and please support implementing the government and community energy action plans. Thank you. Great, thank you. I'm sure we have some questions in your comments, but I guess I'll just open by saying, I'm really grateful for the deep expertise on the ESC. I think every time we get recommendations from you all, it is like very thoughtful and very well researched. And I think it's evident by how passionate your members are. So I'm personally very grateful to know that we have volunteers that really just know their stuff and can really give us some solid recommendations and advice. So I will turn it over to others. I just want to add also I have been thrilled with how many student reps we've had on the ESC this year. We have a big group and I think Joseph and ESC leadership has done a good job of, you know, they had separate assignments, they did their own research and debate and discussion and had, sorry, that started the lights just going down and that's the first thing. For that to be happening. Okay. That's dramatic. That they had their own set aside project where they worked collaboratively and did their research research presentation and letter back to the Impact City Council and I think that is just another step forward in the youth program, CBC Youth Program, which I think is fantastic. And so thank you for your leadership and that amongst all these other things. And yes, I've said it for years now to echo Ledy that we just are so fortunate to have so many talented and incredibly intelligent and dedicated people on the ESC who spend a tremendous amount of their personal time and take their professional expertise and bring it to us in the city so appreciate that. I also know we have an ESC letter coming about the solid waste. There's a lot of discussion and more research and feedback that the ESC will be if they haven't already sent us, I think maybe that was a draw. It's being worked on asynchronously right now because our meeting is after you're voting on that. So, you'll receive it soon. More feedback from them as well. So, thank you. Thank you, Debbie, for being our incredible liaison to City Council. Any other, or excuse me, Council and his Scott. I'll just follow, yeah, echo the Mayor and Vice Mayor's comments and just thank you for all the committee, and subcommittee members continued engagement. I know that you do bring a lot of expertise and that that can also be frustrating because we don't always move at the pace that you would necessarily want us to, but it is important to have that continued conversation and to constantly be reminded of what the city could be doing or within budget constraints what it should be doing. So thank you for kind of the constructive input and feedback that you and the council continue to provide. I'll just jump in there. Yeah, I, to Vice Mayor Hiscock's point about the students, the Operation Earth Watch, is something that's been around a long time. My kids were now in college did it. And so I just, and I know our own Naomi Goodwin helps with that. And so I think that's a terrific way to get our young people involved in environmental causes. And what I really like to know is reading this report is that so much of it, I feel like we've already touched on in different things. We've talked about, I know we've about really trying to encourage more scooters and e-bikes, making things more walkable. I know we've talked about better green building codes. We've talked about that. And, you know, so I guess I love really like to see those same themes that are in your report that we've been discussing. Two questions for you. One was you've mentioned, I guess it was the ETS subcommittee about having financial incentives for electric vehicles. What would, how do you have any more on that? Like what would that look like to you? Would it be like a tax credit or? Yeah, be a credit off the personal property tax or. I'm just curious. I'm your personal property tax. And we haven't pursued it given. Oh no, that's just curious. Yes, it is. We are allowed to do it by state law as a, it's just the administration of it is, we might be challenging so we haven't taken it on, but we did look into the legality of it. Okay. State code and it is something we can do moving forward. Okay. That's great. And then I was, I thought I was interested, I read about the Habitat Restoration Group with invasive plants. I thought that was interesting too. And you did part of that. There was a section that was underlying that there's not enough, I guess, supplies when we have, you know, Boy Scouts come in and try to help with invasive plants. So is that something that you would like to see some funding from city council? Is that something Mr. Shields could maybe fund? I don't know what kind of dollar amount we're talking about here. I don't I don't have a specific ask for that. I think you should definitely ask Amy. Okay. But the the urban forestry team in Fallsturch, we have a whole team for that. You know, they've been asking for more help for a few years. I think actually this paragraph is copied exactly word for word from last year. So, it's been there. And, yeah, we haven't done invasive plant rips. Because we're missing out on staff time and tools as much as I would have liked. And there's also bamboo growing through invasive species, excuse me, growing through native species that the city spent money planting in our parks and are being destroyed by bamboo. I would love to see a bamboo ordinance like Fairfax has here and maybe that's something that could pay for itself. Okay. But yeah, I think I think the urban forestry team has also asked for money to do a tree inventory and we just had few weeks ago. I think everyone loves fallsturch being a tree city. So there's a lot of energy behind those kind of things. And we can also. Right. If there are volunteers, if you are interested in the invasive plant removal, though, we had a very, very long term active volunteer who spent hundreds of hours of a year doing that, who moved away from the city. So if there are people who are interested in that, I'm sure that would be welcomed as well. And it's not that it's not happening at all, like Urban Forestry Commission. So with the Arborist and the Chair of Urban Forestry Commission has been trying to do a lot of efforts with know, efforts with either corporate, like, outings or different Boy Scout troops. And so the chair is leading those with the arborist, but it's just that the amount of work that we need to do in the area versus the amount of resources and the amount of resources that the arborist is able to actually commit to it, given that the smaller team size makes it difficult. Well, so thank you. I agree with all of that. Thank you. Group, God. Thank you for all of that. There are two things that I just wanted to mention. One is the one-stop shop, which I think is great. I don't know how many other people know about it. So I I would request like this is more of staff requests that we do more Promotion of what that means because one stop shop could be all sorts of things But it is actually an environmental one stop shop So how do we get that out into people's hands in my in my last letter to city council? I asked that We asked staff to include various links to it in every news letter that the city sends out. I think it's a really great resource and getting our population in the city to know about it I think is the key. Yes. Right. I'm ready for when I have to get a new water heater because I read the one stop shop. It's been in the focus. It has been promoted and it's been in the focus. It has been. Yeah. It's been a long time. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully you'll keep on that cycle because it's some good stuff. Yeah. Well then I thank staff for their excellent work including it. And then my other question is about Operation Earthwatch. And I mentioned this to Miss Hiscott, who the high school student approached me and others asking for a place to put the Operation Earth Watch plaque. I was asked the same and it was in council requests and I got we got a staff response back in council requests because I was asked as well. I don't know anything about that I'm sorry. Okay. They need new home for their plaque. They need new home for the plaque, right? And it isn't budget council requests from last week. And it's really just a challenge of our facilities. And so the suggestion that went back as maybe it could rotate among the different schools, public private, and kind of be visible to encourage other participants. But we're glad to work with volunteers. We just don't have a permanent home in any of our current facilities. OK, it's not that big, is it? It's just a black. But there's multiple ones, unless we don't post all the years. They've been accumulating. So it's a collection of wonderful kids that have graduated and gone off to college. Maybe it's the one plaque and then a QR code to all the other plaques. So you don't have to post them all. That's a lot, yeah. Thanks. Thank you. Dave, any? Sure, thanks a lot for great work. I'm particularly interested in your analysis of lead version five and what that may do to instruct both the city and private development in the future. So thanks again for all your work and that seems to be emerging and rapidly developing area, whether some great opportunity. And thank you for your continued support for bususser Rapid Transit. It is moving along, believe it or not. And hopefully someday we'll see it. But also the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority is also expanding its look at Busser Rapid Transit through. And one other element of your report, the Cod My Attention, was the idea of things really small vehicles like golf carts and all the rest of that kind of thing. So if you come across any good examples of that where cities have done that, please let us know, and particularly interested in that. Thank you. Very good, I'll be sure to do that. And lead five is very exciting. We have Matthew Cunningham, who is certified in several things. I couldn't tell you what's not my expertise, but we have really incredible expertise on the ESC. Please rely on us. I think lead stuff will all go through the state, so the city probably won't have a say on whether to adopt it or not. But in all our special exceptions, we should start using lead five. The previous version will be discontinued, and the updated version will become the new standard, and there's all this point system and all these things, and it really is more flexible from what I understand, but also more effective in how the points actually work. So a lot of industry professionals are behind it, and we'll rely on the expertise of other ESC members. Thank you. Okay, to wrap up, so first of all, again, thank you. I wanted to point out for both my colleagues as well as kind of pose it as a question. So on page three, you called out that in 2023, we adopted the Go Epe and CEB with a goal for the city to be net zero by 2050. And we are currently not on track to meet that goal. That needs to be like red letters because as council, we committed to that. And in the vein of like holding ourselves ourselves accountable like What do we need to do to get on track and I would like that to be kind of more front and center for counsel That kind of think through and understand what the implications are and I think you outlined a bunch of steps to kind of get us there But so first I think it's one for my colleagues to kind of internalize that second if you had to say here top three recommendations to get us back on track, what would they be? Implement the Community Energy Action Plan. What specifically? It has a list of things, and if you go through it, it has a whole list. This is how much bang for your buck each single item in the list does, right? And it can't be three, it has to be all of them to be on track. Like you said, if we want to reach the goal, it's not our top three. It's all 20 of these things. So it's transitioning a all of them to be on track. Like you said, if we want to reach the goal, it's not our top three, it's all 20 of these things. So it's transitioning a lot of hot water heaters in the city every year. It's getting more residential places to have solar. It's transitioning the city much, much more people to walking and biking. We have zero miles of protected bike lanes in Falls Church. been working on this for years and we still have built zero lanes of protected bike lanes in Falls Church. And we've been working on this for years. And we still have built zero lanes of protected bike lanes. Zero. We don't have any. We have to do that. We have to do that. ESC and I have made my own personal recommendations regarding the budget. Let's get solar on Aurora House. Let's get solar on these places that we've already paid money to figure out what buildings are okay for solar in the city. We already paid money for that. We gotta make the investments. I would love to see the George come back or other transportation innovations that we can come up with are all equally important to me. There's none that is. I know it's really hard to put favorites. It's your job to compromise and figure those out. But it's my job to say do all of them. I think what I need is going back to the original comments. You all are the experts and have deep expertise. I understand we need to do everything we committed to in the plan. I could use help prioritizing. What are the first three to five things the biggest the biggest bang I think that we're gonna for bang for a dollar like how much we're gonna get dollar invested is Really making sure the purchase power agreements go through and that we're able to buy renewable energy for the city and for everyone in the city Really effectively, but where our city is too small so we have to work with larger jurisdictions and That and that's happening. You know, that's going through Kurt's doing incredible work there, but just making sure that it keeps going. And the other ones are, you know, is energy. There's like three major places where emissions come from in the city. Commercial buildings, residential buildings, and transportation. And they're all about a third. And I think the best we can do on transportation is telling NVTA to move their butts and build that rapid transit and let's get it done. And expediting however we can and the other ones are harder. So it takes investment and it could be solar, it could be the work we're done at the community center is a huge step and we've made really great steps. But all the little things add up too. So, okay. Sorry, that's not as helpful as you were hoping for. And I think I think on our budget markup tonight, we'll talk about Aurora House solar panels. I know that's been a very concrete recommendation that many of us are into the idea of being a little fun this year. So hopefully we can make that happen. I think as we wrap our heads around how important this is, I always, Debbie's going to make fun of me think of things in the important by urgent matrix, right? It's very easy for us to go after the high, important, and high urgency things, and we don't often go after the really important, but not quite urgent things, right? And so I think I look to the AC to help us make this feel more urgent, so we can prioritize more resources on it to understand like this isn't, no, if you're gonna hit these goals in 15 years, here's what it's gonna take. Well, the first goal is 50% reduction by 2030. That's five years away. And when they started and came up with that as a goal, it was, years ago. It's like, oh, we got 15 years. We've got plenty of time. Five years creeps up on you very quickly now. So personally, I don't think this is the ESC specifically. But personally, I would really love to see the city tackle parking minimums this year, which I think will have a very big impact on the built environment, which again is like two-thirds of our emissions, and also affects transportation. So, you know, that could be a big effect on all three kind of those focus areas. But like you said, the things that it doesn't seem urgent, the purchase power agreement, or the boss rapid transit, it's kind of ticking along, but anything that we can do to expedite those things has a very big impact on the long term. Great. Thank you. And I want to plus one, plugging the one-stop shop. We made eye contact with Mary Catheryn that would be great to continue focusing in the focus. We all or many of us got our tax bills this weekend, so I think it was great that we made a plug for the focus So in general it encouraged staff to continue to use mailers like that and work across departments to take advantage of those opportunities to communicate to our members of the public who aren't doing that. I'm also interested in the running bamboo ordinance. I just read Fairfax counties. I don't know how easy it is for us to copy and paste what they did there, but that seems like something that feels very tangible and actionable. So if you all have recommendations on how it's gone in Fairvax Counties since they implemented in 2023 till now, I'm open to hearing about it. Oh, I brought this up last spring. And I was told by why I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, in an email that the city already has one on the books, but we don't have the manpower to enforce it. Oh. The invasive species ordinance. For bamboo, we have one on the books already potentially. So this is about invasive species that are crossing property lines. That's right. So we I think when we looked into it it became a bit more complicated than we initially thought when we said yeah let's get it done I think there are some consequences that I can't remember exactly what I don't think they were, but I remember they're being some concerns about it. Okay, I can't remember exactly what they were but I remember they're Being some concerns about it. Okay. I don't That was my recollection Vice mayor I don't know what complications you mean exactly, but I think is definitely worth doing personally, and I'm not's definitely worth doing personally. And I'm not, I'm not recalling exactly what I mean. I don't mean to put you on the spot. I apologize. That was not my goal. Okay. Okay. Any final questions or comments for Joseph? Okay. Very good. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for holding us accountable. Yes. I actually want to add one last thing that the most church climate action networks and in a bunch of questions that here and and staff went back and they are in the budget packet addressing each of the questions that they had submitted. Um, one of which specifically dollar wise we'll be talking about later but there's some replies in there too if you have a chance to see that. Thank you. I could leave you with one last thing. Please be a leader in climate action and inspire the other cities around us and people in the city to take those steps. Thank you for all the work that you've already done and let's keep it up. Thank you. I'm sitting in the rain. You're welcome to hang out, but if you don't want to be in the pouring rain. That's a good news though. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, we're transitioning to the second item, which is our markup for budget. So I think where we left off last week is there was majority majority of us who were became comfortable with kind of the one and a half cent cut which was kind of the compromise we saw between the two and a half cents that was originally part of the plan to the half-cent option. I think our takeaway was we were asking the general government in the schools to kind of sharpen their pencils and identify I think it was 285 each out of of $130 million budget. So we appreciate the work that's been done since then. One thing that are a couple things that are notable. So over the weekend, I think on Friday afternoon, the governor did sign the budget. So I think it would be important to briefly touch on whether there's any impacts based on the signed budget on the school's funding. So we may just ask Indy now to chime in on that. You're correct, Mayor. The Governor did sign the budget. There are 35 vetoes that we're still working our way through on details. The Virginia Department of Education has not issued their budget memo per locality. We haven't seen the exact dollar amounts for the school system. The schools will get that directly and then usually VML will forward it out. All of us are still working through the details so chair I believe they already assumed that this was going to happen. So I think it's neutral is my understanding but would be good to Confirm. Yeah, that's what why I didn't care and need to officially confirm because I can just give the numbers once we get them Okay, and I will say that for the general government side, didn't look like there was anything major on, you know, libraries police. There was more, no new initiative type things, reducing economic development, tourism, school resource officers. Okay, well thank you for that update, because I know that was some uncertainty out there that we were waiting for information on so it's helpful to have that update And if I could just that he did put aside $900 million he's not calling it a contingency. It's unallocated revenue So that if there's a further economic downturn in the commonwealth there is resources to keep the balance budget. So the governor's administration is still feeling relatively positive about their current revenue projections, but from a fiduciary responsibility, put additional side. How much did you say they said a side is a representative? 900 million. Okay. That's a percentage. That's a percentage. They didn't put it out as a percentage and I didn't calculate that. They both mostly reduced one time spending about 600,000 of that's all capital so it's not an ongoing funding. It's deferring state capital projects. I think I read in the news article you said, Cindy, that they expect or they think they might be reconvening this fall. Yes, that's been the anticipation that there'll be a special session. I will note, on a positive front, they did fully fund Medicaid, so they did keep the state budget matched to the federal for a more vulnerable population as we go through an economic downturn. Okay, that is good news. And then I know that we have lots of new budget Q&A added. So thank you to Kiran and Y on that. I think as part of your markup discussion, Y, I think it'd be helpful to go through some of the answers because I think while we've had the benefit of reading through the Q&A, I think it would be helpful for members of the public to understand answers to the questions that we're asking to. So maybe only the new ones, we shouldn't need to go through 20 pages of much of Q&A, but maybe starting the new ones that were added this week. But I will let you take it over from here. Okay, well thank you and we'll be happy to do that. And what we do have is just a few slides prepared to kind of go through some of the scenarios and the numbers associated with those. Test, test. I think I need to be closer. They could, if everybody could bring the microphone closer, it would help just because of the loud rain outside. And why I have stopped sharing so that you can, unless you want me to put the Q&A up. Okay. Maybe we'll just hit some of the, I don't know which questions you wanted to spend sort of the most time on. And one that I'll skip to question. I thought 39 through 43 were especially helpful for me, but I guess I'll look to counsel to see if you all have had a chance or review the answers. Well, 39 is actually kind of a good intro commentary, because while we will spend our time tonight talking about reductions to the budget the underlying context is that the city does have revenue growth that is strong relative to the region and probably what people are saying nationwide as well because we do have significant construction activity and new people moving into the city and that is generated new revenues and it also has presented new costs that we are trying to address in this budget. So if we were to reduce air spending by the $285,000 it is associated with a 1.5 cent tax rate cut relative to the current rate today, then the school transfer would increase by 4.8 percent, and the overall school budget, which including the state revenues that we were discussing just a moment ago, would grow 6.6 percent overall. the general government budget it would increase by 5.9% overall. The general government budget, it would increase by 5.9% overall and the increase from the local tax revenue alone is 4.5%. So we're talking about spending reductions, but that's in the context on the general government side of a budget that's growing, you know, just about 5.9 percent or if we go with other less deep-cut scenarios, you know, it'll be growing something in the nature about 6 percent. 39 I think in 43 actually go together because 43 shows you what our neighbors are seeing. I think I've said several times in my comments that our budget growth even with this reduction in revenue forecast is still two to three times what our neighbors are seeing. I think I've said several times in my comments that our budget growth, even with this reduction and revenue forecast, is still two to three times what our neighbors are seeing. For example, Arlington's budget is growing 2.2%. Certainly compared to the large jurisdictions, Arlington growing 2.2%, Alexandria 3.2, and Fairfax County, the budget growing 4.16%. Fairfax City has some special costs associated with their capital program, as well as their contractual costs for schools. So that's a 14.6% growth in the proposed budget and Vienna 5.1% growth. Thank you. So, I don't know if there are others that the council would like to spend time on. I really want to spend any time on it necessarily other than I think it's a point of pride when you look at number 44 in terms of where the general average merit and cola that we're looking at the 5% and which is higher. It's not higher, nobody else is higher in this list. We are the same as Menace's city, but higher as a percentage than all the other jurisdictions. So I just think that demonstrates a continued commitment to supporting general government and school staff. Yeah, thank you for that comment. And thank you for the context of supporting our workforce. That is a core part of this year's budget is the largest single component of the budget that's proposed in the coming year. Any questions or thoughts on the budget Q&A? So Cindy, if... It's like Dave wants to. Go ahead. I was going to key up some slides, but I'll take your question. Okay. Close the question, I guess. I think we're still gonna be in a drought after this. Are we still gonna be in a drought after this week? I don't know. So, all right. So I'm... ...are with me for just a second. So I want to see if people can sort of see the font on either computers or up on the screen. Can you shift a full screen versus thumb on the side? I think that's good idea. So in terms of context with the impacts to the national capital regional economy, where we have a reduction of 1.2 million in our revenue forecast for the coming year. And we discussed at the last meeting some scenarios where we could address that $1.2 million shortfall. And I'm having a hard time advancing. There we go. And so where the council landed amongst various different scenarios was column C with $570,000 worth of spending reductions. And under the revenue sharing agreement, that would be $285,000 of spending reductions for both the general government and the schools respectively. The impact on the median household in the city for the real estate would be $502 and then 526 altogether including the sanitary sewer fee and the stormwater fee. So the budget reductions, we've been tinkering with them a little bit since the staff report was presented but these numbers sort of the concepts are there and remain intact. And so that's kind of the significant position that would be a reduction, would be the community planning and economic development director position. We discussed the impacts of that at your last meeting and what we can discuss those in more detail tonight. Watch night. The elimination of that, that's the direct cost plus overtime for that event. And those two were the two that the council sort of in a straw poll said, you know, probably keep those on the table, but then identify some additional reductions to hit the $285,000 target. So there are two new ones in human resources. One would be the citywide training budget, a reduction of $24,000, so that would reduce what has been a really important program for the city for professional development. We still would have more funding there than we had three years ago because we have consciously grown that. And so the final amount that would be available with the $24,000 reduction is about $76,000. So about $76,000 would remain in our training and development program for citywide training. It is noteworthy that in other departments, there is still funding for continuing education, where staff need it for their credentials, such as engineers and planners, and departments also have training budgets for conferences and things like that. But this is for city-wide training initiatives. The NeoGoV human resources suite is a kind of a hiring and onboarding suite. If this is cut, then we would rely instead on a module that is with Tyler technology that we've not deployed, but we would have another alternative with that to be able to still have some automation still with those processes. The renewable energy credits, the dollar amount for that program that we're using today is 13,000 so that's what that reduction be if we were to stop that program. And we can answer questions about these if there are deeper questions. Emergency assistance at 8,250 dollars we'd bring it up to $25,000 in the coming fiscal year which is a pretty significant that's always been a very small line item in the HHS budget and it had already been increased in the proposed budget but this would take it to $ 25,000. So one of the things I just kind of left here is a blank line. Senior tax relief is something that is going up. We are absorbing that in the abatement line item in the budget, but that does put some vulnerability to the city budget and so so in other options, there might be some thinking to possibly add funding for senior tax relief. I'll stop there just to review that list. And then we can talk other scenarios or answer questions on these. Okay, maybe. The neo-HR suite contract, I feel like I read something about this over the weekend. This is one that has not been enacted yet. The contract was purchased but nothing has happened with it yet. But you didn't want to use the tireless technology, you want originally. I mean, we want. We want this to be something. We want to be able to hire people and get people in on board. Efficiently. Right. And what? So, is this going to be a step back in that effort? I mean, for 10 years, we've been talking about improving this process and fully staffing out all the departments. And one of the big stumbling bugs has been HR, the proper kind of package of software. So we've been looking for tools to help our small staff do that work efficiently and not have to re, you know, to kind of help streamline it. And so we would, if this cut were made, we'd go in a different direction, but we would like to have this resource. It's the bottom line. So you'd prefer not to cut this one? It's in there, but it's. I mean, we would prefer, I mean, all of these. You prefer not to cut any of it. They're all in our, you know, in our original budget, and they've all had thought and planning associated with them. Is there some cost in the Neogov because we've had it and haven't enacted it yet? No, I don't believe so. Jenny is here. She might be able to answer any more detailed questions on it, but I don't believe so. And we have a microphone here or one at the table. Yeah, why don't you put it on the table if you like. Can I ask on the NeoGov contract too? Because I understand wanting to streamline and improve sort of recruitment and onboarding or the applicant experience. But if we're talking about a three-year contract and the three years coincides with a time when we may not have as many postings, like just kind of your view on what it is the the alternative and kind of where the alternative um stacks up in comparison to this suite if we may not be using the full extents extent of the suite given where we are in terms of just hiring generally. So I think it's a it's a good comment I think emerging out of the pandemic with with the growth of the city experienced and the relatively high vacancy rates that we were experiencing onboarding just a significant priority. And we didn't significantly grow our HR staff and so we were looking for tools to make that more efficient. Looking ahead, it likely is going to be a different hiring environment than certainly what we experienced over the last three years. So that's one of the reasons why as we were looking for reductions in spending that's one of the reasons we brought this one forward. And maybe it could just come on why we haven't implemented it. Is it time or functionality or then also does it tie into the conversation you were having doesn't tie into all to the mueness and the alternative that's treasure your treasure and the silver avenue exploring different options are those related off you could just comment on that. So the enterprise resource planning does cover HR functions, financial functions, Commissioner Revenue, Treasury functions. So in that respect, they are tied together. So to go back to your first question, I think was on the whether or not we would, this would be something that we would do. And I think overall we're looking at the enterprise resource planning system right now to so that we can achieve better functionality and efficiency. So looking at what we already have available to make that happen. And so I think it would be in our best interest to not move forward with NeoGov, recruitment suite that we purchased in 2023. And I think it's appropriate to do that when we look at all of the different types of technology that we're using and what we need to achieve the tasks in recruitment. I think that we that that this particular suite is is not what we want at this time. Okay. And it interacts with me as a doctor. that this particular suite is not what we want at this time. Okay. The alternative is better. Is it what I'm hearing you said? Okay. Okay. Other questions or comments on the list? Debbie. I just, um, I know it was hard for you all and to have the chief recommend the red light cameras. That was $80,000, which is why we've come back with these, you know, a number of smaller things. But there was a lot of conversation about that and a lot of concern from the community about that. So, thank you for listening to that and going back and doing what's hard work to then reanalyze everything again. So I just want to thank you all for doing that. I know it's a loss, $80,000 loss to be running those red light cameras, but again, that seems to be the number one priority is public safety from people who are commenting to many of us at least. So thank you for doing that. I know $25,000 is a huge jump in our, in that line item and senior relief is an unknown. Are you thinking that, you know, we might, if we, that our contingency that we're setting aside could be something that we would use for that? Because though $25,000 seems like a big jump. I looked at what we spent on Watch Night was $30,000 for one night for a great fun event, but I'm really concerned about the segment of our population moving forward. So I guess I wanted to talk through whether you are thinking that if we get to more needs in the senior tax relief and in that category that we would use some of that $500,000 contingency, we set aside for those categories. Of course that, were you contemplating it for other emergencies? I think what we were contemplating is that when we're back before you with the year end financials in September, we would have better information about what our usage of the emergency assistance has been and the City Council could either deploy funds from the 500,000 content. We're really considering that a revenue contingency not so much a spending contingency so I will say that that it's not really envisioned that the 500,000 would go for spending that way. But I do think that this emergency assistance is most likely something that could be paid for responsibly out of year-end money or one-time money, that this would not be a level of effort that we would intend to sustain over, you know, in perpetuity. And so with year end funds, that's how we could plug out. If there was an emerging need that the $25,000 wasn't covering, we would do it with one ton money. OK, thank you. Just want to share my own personal concern that that's the area that I look at. And when I look at what we spend on events, other things that you know the balance was striking to me so I want to make sure that we're taking care of that. While we're talking about this safety net I guess question I have is we expect more people to be caught by the net right that's why we're upping the number to 25,000 compared it was last year. Should we be having a discussion on how to expand the net as well? Like, when you say expand, what do you mean by that? Like, how do you qualify currently for emergency rent and food assistance? So they did put in, so they did expand that for, I think it was March through June. And I think they, to capture some of those federal workers that they were seeing. So I think they increased the amount that you have, I can't remember what they're called. Your asset, they increase the asset amount that you could have and still apply. So that people, do you mean federal state, whoever. Residents. Residents. No, I mean who was changing the. We did. HHS. We did. HHS. And that is a local decision versus standard. That's a local decision. We expanded eligibility. Yes. The emergency assistance is all local money to my knowledge. So that is something that we can make the determination on what the guidelines are. So they did already expand that to get to the human services committee and had it approved. And so they're going to keep track of the statistics. Since March, they've been keeping track. I know that the amount for emergency assistance has already been increased by $10,000 for FY26. And that pretty much covers the amount that they've seen historically. So the average has been about $17,000 that they've spent on emergency assistance. And so that's been up to cover that. And then with the increase of the $8,000 bringing it up to roughly $25,000. In talking with Dana and going through some of their data, I think that that would be adequate. We even looked at if I said if you doubled it, that would probably be more than enough to even account for potential federal workers or other workers who are coming in. The federal workers, I don't think they've seen any expansion to that, besides the three or four that came in an originally. So in the last, aren't April two months, it's been four people or four families. So it was essentially doubling the number of people who are coming in. The reason I was getting, I sent this over email, but we, Congressman Byer held that job fair over the weekend. They were expecting a couple hundred. They had 2,400 people show up, and they had 200 people at the doors, even before doors opened half an hour. And so I think there's some other news articles that talked about how administrative leave will end by this fall. I was gonna say the October is the timeframe. The Atlantic article read this morning was saying October is when we're going to see the Trump slump really hit and the number I also read. And that same article is that their anticipating economists are predicting that buying at the same rate, groceries, etc. will be spending $4,900 more for household in the next year for the same goods and services. So those are two data points I had. The June starts, the tick, and then October's when it's really gonna happen. So coming and fall, we may not know until closer to November or December. Anyway, just wanna keep that conversation open and make sure we're supporting our residents. Yeah, so we talked about keeping the statistics as we move along for the emergency assistance covers rent utilities and also food. Food seems to be fairly static in that they buy gift cards of $40 a piece, which is to tide people over because they refer them to the food banks. Now I understand that the food banks might also be suffering as well, but that's usually what the food assistance consists of. Retten utilities, they can have up to $1,000. Each person who's applying. So some of those things could be tweaked, depending on what we're seeing as to the population that's coming in. I guess the good way is let's keep monitoring and decide whether we want to expand eligibility, because I do think the population that is unemployed and going to be hurting if not already is a little different than our traditional population. I don't even know if people are aware that they can come to the city for assistance like this if they're not again traditionally used to coming to help. So I think being really tuned into that's important. So thank you. One thing I would like to just sort of, you know, I know that Ms. Connelly and I at the last meeting, we both, I think Ms. Connelly, you were looking at more of a 0.5 reduction. And I said I prefer a 0.5, but I could go to a cent. And just doing crude math, looking at a cent and a cent and a half. That's the difference of $51 annually for a taxpayer. But if we went with a cent, that would give Mr. Shields $ I think $158,000 more than if we went with $1.5. And so my thought is that could help fund this emergency. To me, of course, we have a high tax rate. I definitely understand that. and people are tax burdened. But again, you're talking about, you know, about 50 bucks, 51 bucks annually between 1.5 and 1 cent for the annual taxpayer. But that would be quite a difference in terms of what Mr. Shields would need to cut in his budget. You're talking, if you look up there, you're talking about cutting 127 instead of 285. And so there's a whole, you know, I would leave that to the majority of the council with how they would want to put that extra money. But, you know, it is something that I know that the majority of the council of our council right now, you know, 1.5 cents. But I, in conversations with several school board members this week, they're understanding that we're in a tough spot. And I think they're trying to really figure out where they could, how they could help out and compromise. And with that, I had talked to a couple people and floated. We've had many, many, many emails and public comments about not sticking with the .5 cents, which I don't think we have the support for that on council. I would note that I, you know, sticking with the point five cents, which I don't think we have the support for that on council. You know, I would note that I, you know, I haven't, we, I haven't personally received, I don't think maybe one email about the tax rate, you know, that there's a tax burden. I just, you know, 98% of the emails I've received have all been about, don't cut the schools., and again, I think we do need to cut the tax, or we need to keep chipping away at it as we can. So, you know, my thought is I'm still at looking at that one-cent cut because I think the school board can get to one-cent. And then I think both sides have shown some compromise there. I do understand 1.5 is a compromise from where we were before, which was 2.5, I get that. But the schools, their perspective is the came in at guidance. They didn't want any kind of cuts. And so now they are entertaining doing that, that would be the equivalent of $127,000 cut to each side. So I just wanted to throw that out there, you know, it's just something to think about as well. Thank you. Other thoughts? I don't want a short chain. Do you want to, do you want more to your presentation still? Well, it could kind of unfold. We did have some looks under a one-cent scenario, but we kind of wanted to sort of see if there's the council desire to look at those scenarios. We also have the CIP that we can talk about, which probably isn't, you know, that's that can probably wait until the end of the meeting. Those aren't too controversial. Oh yeah. I mean, I, I, I will, I appreciate Ms. Downs' comments. I had a lot of those same conversations. I think I've been clear and also clear in those individual conversations with school board colleagues that I would prefer to be at the one and a half since recognizing the year over year tax increases. As I said, community survey results in terms of what we see that isn't always as easy for people to come forward and self-identify as those who are burdened and feeling particularly burdened by the increasing year over year costs, not just what we see in terms of that one answer, but just because of assessed value increasing so much. said, you know, I do an sympathetic to our school board colleagues saying that that they don't feel as though they can sort of responsibly find the $285,000 with the time that they have you know and it raises different process points that, you know, I've discussed with people individually and ways to improve that or what it means for potentially, you know, commitments going forward on where, you know, the school board might be able to start physical year 27, recognizing that we really did want to get to a penny and a half, but that they don't feel as though on their side that they have the level of input they need to get from, you know, $127,500 cut to their budget to a $285,000 cut, which would be 10% of their 2.9 million gross. So, you know, I am kind of more willing to compromise after those conversations than I was when we looked at this a week ago, you know, and would probably be comfortable enough with a scent, but I would want on the general government side for us to keep looking at more than 127.5 and looking at, you know, putting closer to that, like, 250 potentially into increasing the contingency fund or increasing the senior tax relief, increasing the emergency assistance so that it's in the like safety net sort of category of information in terms of like what we're doing on our on our side of the budget that maybe we're not at 285 were something a little bit less maybe you're able to keep you know know the citywide training for another year, but that we are adding to the contingencies while also still trying to be responsive and maintain ongoing relationships that we know are gonna be increasingly difficult around budget issues going forward with the school board and especially since they also have the ability to take more holistic look going forward with the school board. And especially since, you know, they also have the ability to take, you know, more holistic look going forward with their budget. But I think the feedback I heard was that it's very difficult outside of sort of the third rail category. So to speak, to find the 285 at this point in time or the full 285 at this point in time, even if we were to depart somewhat from a 50-50 share, which I could also ask people about. Yeah, and thank you. I just, if that's okay to just respond. And that's, I think what I was trying to get at was, when we were just talking about the senior tax relief and all that, you know, is that a way that we could put some more money into that safety net. But I will say to that, the schools, as we all know, has projected growth of more than 150 students next year. We were all just at the announcement of the new superintendent. There's a little division right now in our community. And so again, my thought is, again, if we could meet at that one cent, I think that would probably heal some wounds. But one thing I will say that I've, in my discussions with school board members, is that going forward and I know Mayor Hardy has said this many times that this is, you know, you often talk about this kind of revenue, it's not, you know, this kind of blood. There's a normal, and we've all talked about years to come are probably going to be more difficult. And so, you know, in my conversations, I've said to the school board, I think you're going to need to have sort of like three budgets going forward to say, you know, worst, you know, best case scenario, middle of the road, and then the worst case scenario. that even if next year we get these revenue productions that are what revenues still not coming in great this time of the year they're ready to go with their worst case scenario budget. So I think that is there's big process piece to that for sure, Ms. Flynn. Thank you. Debbie? Can I just clarify what you guys mean when you're saying? So if you're at one penny that additional balance you're saying would go into just those You go back to that slide to the senior tax relief and rent really I'm not sure if I followed your no, yes So I was saying so of the one twenty seven five my understanding was that you know the school board likely would be prepared to be able to contribute there one twenty seven of their budget, but felt like it would be much harder to get to 285 or could not feel like they could responsibly get to 285 and that on our side, you know, we in order to do 50-50, we would have to get to 127 five, but looking at this list of 285, I personally would prefer that we be up closer, that we start our process on the general government side of starting to get higher to 250 or 240 or 250. So if that's eliminating the CPED director position, yeah, getting rid of the knee of the HR suite contract potentially eliminate renewable energy credits increase the amount over 82 50 on emergency assistance help fill that senior tax relief line item with some money, whether it's out of whatever the addition, you know, that additional tax revenue is or the potential year and surplus, surplus one time funding. And then I think there's also a question when we get to the solid waste fee discussion about are we building in anything in terms of income relief there as a line item that we might need. So we do, we've given some thought to that scenario too and we can kind of share some of our thinking on it. So we'll come back to the playground equipment and to the Rora house. So, I scenarios. And so, one is one where we get to $127,500 in cuts. And we do so by eliminating watch knight and then having the CPEDS director be some of that we begin recruit for and fill mid year. And I think it's worth just pausing again to consider kind of that role in this organization as a partner to the council, to the EDA as a leader for city staff to grow the commercial tax base to help the city navigate through these difficult times. And so that's a scenario there that I think emphasizes that importance. There is a difficulty with this and that we will start then FY27 with needing to fill the full salary. So we'll start 100 and some thousand to the negative. And that's something that does make me uncomfortable with this scenario. But I do think before we move on to the next scenario, I think there is a really important for us to sort of own sort of what the difference is going to be without that CPEDS director position. So here's a scenario where the Watch Night and the CPEDS director are eliminated as discussed. And then what that does is it opens up then $104,000 for senior tax relief or essentially for contingency. In many respects, that's the way that that's kind of function. The senior tax relief program, as I noted before, has been growing. It is currently under budgeted and we're paying for it through the abatement line item and the budget. This would give us more flexibility in addressing other things that could come up including the solid waste as that gets rolled out if there are need to provide relief. Some sort of a programmatic way of relief with with the solid waste fee this would give us some some flexibility. So these are two options that we thought through. I have a question. I just didn't finish. My comments yet I just wanted to pick up on something you said about hearing from public comments. You know it's it's not easy to organize people who are cost burdened. It's not easy to organize. You certainly, there are folks who don't want to put their name in a public comment, which is on public record saying that they're struggling financially, or that they are going to be in relief. It's pretty easy to say I support schools, because we all do. We all love our school system. So I just don't want to do a numbers of how many emails I got for that category and that means that's the only opinion. There are conversations I've had with people that have not been don't want to do a numbers of how many emails I got for that category. That means that's the only opinion. There are conversations I've had with people that have not been on email that have been, like, you know, I'm worried. This doesn't seem like much. This is a lot to my family. This is a lot to me. So I just want to make that comment that, you know, it's not always easy to organize a group that's asking for tax relief or for abatement or for other things or that even know that that's a possibility. So, you know, I've been the PTA president. I know how easy it's really, it's a fantastic community. You can send out one email and a hundred people will respond and pick up an email on that. I think that's a great thing. It's a great community, it's a great support. I just don't want to overlook those who might not have that same support network to provide their insights. That's all I want to say. That doesn't have any reflection on where we, you know, I'm in a panier or whatever. Yeah, no, I think that's a terrific point. I think that definitely the school. Do you see the schools have the organization and they've mobilized definitely. I think that's a great point. But again, if we had some extra money, we could then put it into resources that would be there for some of the folks who need those resources. And I think that's kind of where I am with this too. It was sort of if we're not going to be at a penny and a half and we're going to be at a penny, then I would much prefer the general government piece of that additional tax revenue to be going toward contingency funds, whether it's in the form of the tax relief line items or the assistance line items or the like into the actual contingency fund. Because in my mind, it was sort of like, well, we might be at a penny and a half or at least both the schools and the general government are doing their piece now of trying to bring the fiscal year 26 budgets into more alignment with the economic situation, but that by the fall, we could potentially be that much more of a revenue shortfall and looking to the taxpayer base to help fill some of that revenue. right? So does it make more sense to potentially be at the penny now and start reallocating some of the relief and assistance and contingency, wine items? Then it's not going into spending. It's really going to the need that we are anticipating in terms of helping cost burdened residents and sharing that cost of the thoughts. Dave. So, I had last week and I continue to have a preference for the one and a half cent tax reduction. I think the mayor has laid out that what we're really talking about is something that is a reduction of an expansion in both cases. And that's fundamental to keep in mind. I also think that it's regrettable that the costs of growth are hitting us at the point where citizens are least capable of dealing with those costs, certainly less, least capable in many, many years. But that's reality. And I like the fact that we showed leadership from the city side and said we're willing, we understand this and we're willing to make cuts that no one wants to make. On the other hand, we're maintaining a high level of compensation for our citizens and we're not laying off people. And that's pretty fundamental and we all need to remember that, that almost everybody else, certainly the federal government and many localities are laying off people and they're not coming forward. So we all have to dig in and do as much as we we humanly can and and I know we will and our employees will as well. So I appreciated that and and I asked for the schools the schools did come back to us and indicated that at least the number I heard was 142,000 but something less than matching the city. I would continue to ask the schools, can you do better? And I don't want to then pull the general government away from that level because at that point we're not really showing an example that I thought that we were showing last week and that I wanna continue to show. But if the schools come back and they say they can't, they, that it would materially affect the quality of education, I committed to all those people who wrote letters that I'm gonna support the schools because if the schools failed, so does the city. So I'm reluctant to go off of the target that we set, but in some senses we've done our thing with our general government and we ask the schools to do whatever they can do and I think that will determine the ultimate amount. Now let's say that they're unable to come up with a whole amount. Does that then justify general government reducing its reductions and then funding things like senior tax relief? Well that raises the question. We're already setting aside a $500,000. So we're already holding money, taxpayers' money, that we hope we don't have to spend, but we may very well. And so the other suggestion was that we put even more money in sort of that category. And to some extent, I think we may be overdoing it. the taxpayers need to be able to hold on to their own money, especially in this environment. So I would like to stay with a penny and a half, but if the schools come back and they say they simply can't do it, I think we have to rely on what they say. And then we react accordingly. My view is I would keep the cuts for the city, I would do whatever of the tax rate ended up being at that point. Maybe maybe an odd fraction, but so be it. So that's where I would be tonight. Again, the schools come back and they say they simply can't do it without materially harming the schools that I think that determined that then we have one of two options at that point They've already been discussed tonight one is to maintain the cuts in the city side Or the other is to reduce the city cuts and then put the difference into Some sort of additional contingency of some kind or another. Next day. Other thoughts? Mary Beth. So I'm above the the down more. So so much is already been said. I will say that I agree with Ms. Downs that last week she and I both were wishing for keeping it a half-send cut. I would move to a closure. Sorry. Oh, it's here, yes, yes. Thank you. Sorry. The City Council is discussing the FY26 budget for the City of Falls Church. I am an employee of the Falls Church City School Board, which may be affected by the proposed fiscal policies. As a result, I am in a group of three more people who may realize a reasonably foreseeable indirect or direct benefit from the proposed ordinance. After consideration, I'm electing to participate in this transaction because I am confident in my ability to participate fairly objectively and in the public interest. Okay, so as I was saying, I would I think a one-cent reduction I would be okay with if we could come to that but I really would like to discuss that $500,000 contingency. I raised a question last week, Mr. Schilds, and you and I talked about it, I don't know if others talked about it as well. But how is that actually going to work? Like that $500,000 contingency is taxed money that, like a penny is shown the tax rate that we're holding in reserve just in case. It's outside of the revenue sharing agreement so it's available to the general government and to the schools if needed and how would it be tapped into. So it would require an appropriation by the city council so there need to be a budget amendment to use that 500,000 over the course of this fiscal year. And so that's the first way that it can be used. And then the other thinking is, is that we are going to be going into a budget next year that is significantly harder than this year. We're talking about a gap here of 1.2 million after a significant growing budget. If we simply have a flat revenue picture next year, we start everything with a $4 million gap. If we have declining revenues, we can have the $6 million gap. We've been there before, we've experienced that before. And those are, have lasting impacts on our organizations. And so this is something that would help us over the current fiscal year, and it will help, the City Council Navigate what will be a very difficult budget next year if if forecast hold So two questions on that So if indeed Suppose the schools say okay, we can live in the one-centrex reduction and then There are 200 and more new students in the schools. And schools need to hire a teacher and they realize that in August, how are they going to tap into that money to be able to do that? Would it require a school board meeting and two city council meetings to go through all that? So the revenue contingency, the way it works is we look at our first quarter of ourselves, we'll look at our second quarter results. If our revenues are not coming in at the level we have budgeted, we cut, we'll bring our revenue projections down for the year. So that way we don't have to make any cuts in our expenditures. That's how the revenue contingency works. But if 500,000 is not enough, and our revenues are more and more, and we need to cut down by a million. And we've seen this, I think, 2008 or 2009, in the middle of the year, we had to have the schools make a cut, and we reduced the transfer, and we had to realize cuts. So that's the other extreme. That if we go beyond the revenue shortfall of more than half a million, then that's where we're gonna end up being. Revenue contingency was a helpful phrase when you said that to me it clicked. That's not an expense contingency. What are revenue contingency? There could be either really. No, I mean, it's a... The intent is to have it as a revenue because we revised our revenue projections now just within a month and a half. We don't know how the revenues are going to unfold in the next quarter. We look at the year end in September. That's when we have a good picture of the whole year. But again, the federal activity is moving and the impact could be larger than what we're looking at right now. Mary Beth, I understood it as sort of a member in budget and finance and Kirin and Wyatt showed the, we're at 1.2 but we could be at, you know, this or this or this and we were on this side in the least, the least of the worst case scenarios that this contingency fund is helping to plug if we're further along the scale in fiscal year 26, then we are projecting now because it's getting that much worse without having to kind of actually get into the expenditures, but it's also plugging the whole. Well, that's how I understood it first, too, but then something that you said last week, maybe, think about it the other way. So it makes sense. The first time it made sense to me. So then the other, my other question was, we have this gigantic unassigned fund balance. Is that available to, when is that available to us as an emergency fund? Is it ever available to us as an emergency fund? A couple of things. As a CFO, my recommendation is that you tap into it. No, I didn't say never, but you tap into it only if your revenues are not growing and you're doing poorly year-over-year. Even with the 1.2 million reduction, the general fund tax revenues are growing 4.8%. So this is the time to look for operational efficiencies and cuts within our expenditures and not tap into. And the second thing is we will be issuing debt for the property yard and the stormwater issues, uh, senators who are. So we want to make sure that we are keeping our self-sound, um reserves as well as the policies that we implement for budget, expenditures versus the projections. So that when we go in for another rating agencies, we've done our due diligence for that. That makes sense. That's right. You're going to say. I just want to say it again. again. I'd like to answer your question about what to do if the schools need more. On page 23 of the budget, they presented to us on March 24th. There's 127,000 salary reserve for increase enrollment. So they already have a safety net. But I think that's that 100. If we drop it, if we drop the tax rate, that would be 127,000 dollars. No, I think that's different. But I don't know who knows. Who would know for sure, I guess. I don't know. That's my, I felt that as they got to the end of the budget, they had that amount of money. So that might be what they're cutting. It might not be. I don't know. Why, do you know more? I don't know exactly what their reductions would be. OK. not filling a vacancy with my understanding. And then the other question, this is just a comment. And like all of us, I'm worried about what's happening in the region and the federal government, people losing their jobs, the economy, everything we see is really negative. The only thing I see that is really positive and different in the city of false churches as we are expecting 150 more students in our schools, that the schools are budgeting for, we're also expecting the families of those 150 students. They're not just gonna come alone as an expense. They going to come along with new population, new people who are going to live here, shop here, register their cars here, buy houses or live in apartments. But there will be. So not in our revenue protection. I mean, I think we're, I think it's, I don't know. I mean, I think all these new people are coming. And we're not, I think we're gonna capture more of that than we are estimated. But what do I know? I'm not the other one. But I think that that's the bright spot for false churches that we do have this population boom that's gonna happen. We're in the midst of that is bringing us students but also bringing us the rest of the population with them. Yeah. My view on it, my concern is like those people are not coming with the spending power. We thought those people had. And so that's the opposite of what we projected. Yeah, that's why our, yeah. And I think what are meals taxis are showing. Yes. This is why the revenue projected enough by 26 is two or three times what others. It's not as bad, but still not as good as we hoped. Wait, sorry, I mean to cut you off, did you have more mayor? No, I just like to find out just that like that school's contingency question, I guess. I don't know how to get that answer. So, to your point about, is it just microphone please? So, to your question about, is it just for us or the schools or both or how it is? Since both our budgets are driven, the general fund tax revenues, so if the tax revenues don't come up, it's going to help both the general government as well as the schools, but in the shortfall, if the revenues don't pan out the way we are projecting, instead of cutting expenditures and using that to fund expenditures, we're going to use that towards shortfall and revenues. And it will help both. Okay. Other thoughts? I did want to go back to Debbie's really good comment about it's not counting how many emails we get on one column with the other because you're right. And many of my conversations, I think there's a fair amount of shame and privacy that people want to maintain when they lose their jobs or worried about their household finances, right? And so I want to make sure we keep that in mind. I think the best thing we have is the data and I think, again, seeing where our actual meals and sales taxes were going, which is again the leading indicator of consumer sentiment and how people are feeling about spending money. Remembering back that I think it's 20% of our owner households are cost burdened and it's 40% of our renter households are cost burdened. And so they may not speak out about $50 here and there, but they really do feel it. And they probably have some savings that they will dip into to pay their taxes. But I do... and it's 40% of our renter households are cost burdened. And so they may not speak out about $50 here and there, but they really do feel it. And they probably have some savings that they will dip into to pay their taxes. But I do think that again, the way we should be making decisions is not who pulls at the heartstrings the hardest, but actually looking at the date of our population and understanding the cost in their households. And I think, to quote actually our new superintendent, I think how we disagree matters a lot. I think he said that actually in his comments of the community tonight, we are gonna disagree, but how we disagree matters. And I think how we disagree matters a lot. I think he said that actually in his comments of the community tonight, we are gonna disagree but how we disagree matters. And I think as we look ahead, I think one of the first things that I wanna hold us to is how do we be good partners in the revenue share? And that is in good times and in bad. And if we think we are having some bad times, how we approach the situation matters a lot, I do not want this to be an email war where we are saying, how many people can we turn out to, you know, Pax City Hall and send comments about how worried they are about class sizes or teacher pay. Of course we all want to fully support everything that we want to do but can we make decisions rationally and I go back to that data. So again under the revenue share we had said 50-50 so when I look at why your scenario up there where we were looking at the one and a half versus one, well I appreciate that I guess what I personally struggle with is not this one the one that showed the two columns. Yes that one. I appreciate all the work that staff did to go back and find the other 80,000 when we weren't willing to eliminate the red light camera immediately because I'm sure it's not great to have to explain. Well, we're not going to support as much training and development or we're not going to do this or not going to do that. But that discipline is important, right? Because I think we may be, even if we don't ask you to do those, we may be asking you to do it later. And that is the discipline that I think I'm looking for everyone in this city to take whether you're in general government or schools because it may not be necessary. I don't ask you to do those now, we may be asking you to do it later. And that is the discipline that I think I'm looking for everyone in the city to take, whether you're in general government or schools, because it may not be necessary now, but it needs to be necessary later. So even if the schools can't come back and find more than 127, we need to be ready and we need to be way more nimble than we're doing now. My understanding is that the schools don't have a meeting between now and when they adopt the budget in two weeks. And so that was the concern about not having a more transparent way of talking about those cuts. That is a concern because we are going to be looking at data as the next six, nine months go on and we'll need to be more react more quickly on how to deal with that changing economic environment and that we need to have things in our back pocket. So going back to this, what I struggle with is, one, I appreciate why you found additional things that we may want to cut. I continue to hold the belief that just because we have the money doesn't mean we should spend it. And I've actually heard pretty compelling reasons why we shouldn't continue the neo-gov. Sounds like we may not be doing much of hiring. And we may have more efficient way of dealing with it through Munis. So even if we don't need the 2016 thousand, sorry, it sounds like it's a reasonable thing to eliminate any way because of other decision management reasons, right? The eliminating the wrecks, I think we've heard from our environmental advocates that that's not the best way to accomplish our goals. So that feels like again, just because we have it, doesn't mean we should spend it, sounds like we should eliminate that. So if we take all those cuts, we will not be at 50.50. And so going back to the first thing I talked about, how do you good partners under the spirit of revenue share? I struggle with them. We are not actually doing a 50.50 split in achieving that. Right? So that's why I'm I guess I'm stuck is I feel like those are reasonable things be cutting anyway based on staff analysis and the work. But the end result is that it is really not a 50-50 split in this period of revenue share and I think it's, it's worked so well ever since we've had in 2019 that I think it would be unfortunate to erode that. So that's kind of first thing. Second, I already talked about how important it is to be nimble in doing the work now. I think we've gotten a few public comments. It actually pointed out some other reasonable ways that we find savings in the school budget. So I would ask that my school board colleagues, again, whether we do it now or three months from now or six months from now and we start the next budget cycle, we need to look at those critically and not again point to the options that draw the most people out to City Hall or send us the most emails because we need to look at realistic ways that don't hurt our kids in the classrooms. And then third, I think for all my colleagues, we have to remember that we on council are the ones that are wholly responsible for the tax rate and balancing the entire city's needs and what again, what our population reflects. 30% of our population have kids in schools. I'm one of them, two other members of council are also one of them. We feel the needs of public education very deeply, and it's very personal for us, but we also are responsible for 70% of the population and what the tax burden is, and the long-term fiscal health of the city. I think we are the ones that are responsible for that and keeping eye on what the regional trends are and what the economy do and what our households are feeling. So I don't know whether we have a very clear answer, but I do want it. and keeping eye on what the regional trends are and what the economy do and what our households are feeling. So I don't know whether we have a very clear answer, but I do want to at least react to kind of the one point, one and a half cent versus one cent, which is kind of ridiculous that we're arguing over that half cent again. Because I do think that again, going back to our new superintendent, how we disagree matters and keeping in mind big picture and the approach going forward will matter a lot more than fighting over half a penny. So in terms of, you know, just to kind of consider other options then if we were to keep these reductions, the 285, and then the schools were at essentially the like $140,000 of reductions, there's then about 145 that's still needed to get to the one and a half cents. And so, I think the goal is to roll up her sleeves at this meeting and figure out different options, so one option would be to reduce the revenue contingency from 500,000 down to, it would be $355,000. So that's less of a safety measure. And we're gonna have a more difficult time next year at this time, but that is one option. The other option is some version of what's shown on this screen of having the tax rate at the 120 rate, but still have then some version of the 104,000 for some additional contingency. This kind of built into the budget as opposed to a rate reduction. Does the council want to sort of flesh out those two options? What do people think? I'll say one thing. If you're going to take 155 out of the contingency, but put 104 extra indices in your tax relief, do that? No. No, that's not what you're talking about. What that would be, so that reduced, could essentially be this, but instead of the schools cutting 285, the schools would be cutting 140 and the difference is 145,000 and that would come out of the revenue contingency. So with that, then the revenue contingency is not 500,000, it's 355. what we leave the road in the vicinity alone and put more into the senior tax relief. That's right. Those are kind of the two lovers to work with. So you know as the. Sorry, orient to HHS. That's right. So, under this scenario with 104,000 for the senior tax relief, that restored funding for the Neo-GoV, restored funding for the REX, restored funding for the training and development. Took those cuts off the table. I guess maybe start there. It sounds like there's head nods around the room that those are the right things to cut anyway. Even if we weren't asking you to do them, is that right? Based on hearing discussion of them. The Neo-Gov. The energy. The Rex. Yeah. I think we have lots of opinion on the training and development one, but. Less my view on if you can keep some training and development, I think it's good to keep training and development, but I just ask you to be judicious about like, you know, what that looks like. I like you said people are not going like off site as much or they're off site for a day, not for overnight. Like those sorts of things, can you bring trainers in instead of sending people out, like those sorts of things? Yeah. This is what that fund is allow us to do is to bring one of the big programs being the University of Virginia's welcome Cooper Center here to the city to train our rising supervisors with that. And even citywide training when people are gonna be, need to be trained around. like resilience issues and like those sorts of that. And even like citywide training when people are gonna be, you know, need to be trained around. Like resilience issues and like those sorts of things. And so for me, you know, at this point in time, if you have a little buffer, I feel personally more comfortable with leaving some of the citywide training and development in and just keeping out the three year contract and the racks and and and and essentially being a head not like a head but a little bit ahead of where we need to be come next year recognizing we need to kind of already make these cuts and then think about what more you need to cut going into fiscal year, 27. I don't really wanna re-inject all of these legs back into the budget. So no, I think we should just do that. I don't mind them, I think we should just do that. So under that scenario, then that 104,000 becomes 133. And so that, you you know in terms of I'm doing it in PowerPoint instead of an Excel for a clunky, but we would restore the 24,000 here. Sorry. So that cut would come off and we would do the 16,000 here and do the 13,000 there. I'm going to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a in here and do the 13,000 there. Because I'd like some feedback from you, Karen White on the 500-355. Like, I mean, it sounds, when you say it, it sounds, okay, that sounds reasonable. It sounds like a way we could get to where everybody's grown in the same direction and meets the balance between schools, general government and taxpayer. But how much are you going to be laying awake at night about that 145 or, you know, let's some feedback. What do you have to guidance wise? Well, um, it sounds reasonable to me. It sounds like it gets to budget. But then I see shaking your hand like it's I have all the options I'm trying to decide. I just, you know, either going through the government process of shedding costs is just brutal. And so next year's budget, I'm just anticipating something really rough. And so any kind of raise of sunshine that you can carry from one year into the next, I think you're going to be deeply appreciated this time next year. Maybe I'm not saying it with the proper gravitas, but it... There's going to be very impactful decisions that we're going to have to make. I think over the coming probably two years. And so we think the revenue contingencies really just four sales and meals. Are worried about exposure anywhere else? I think people as well. So combine that $16, $17 million. If I did my math correctly, I'm more than that. So how much is five? I'm trying to figure out what percentage 500,000 is of the three revenue categories that we're worried about. if it feels enough. So sales tax is 7.8, meals is 6.5, people is 6 millions, it's 6, 12, plus 8, it's 20 million. So 500,000 out of a 20 million dollar total is not a lot for, but in the when you revise down, projections, Karen, revising down by the 1.2 million, that was the best case scenario or that was the middle of the road scenario. That was assuming that we were going to get a 4% growth. We had left it flat at the year of projection of this current year. We would be at a 0% growth. Then we did a scenario of a 4% growth, a 8% growth, and a 4% decline. And 1.2 million represents which one? A 4% growth. Assumes 4% growth over last year already. Years over. Projected. Year in. Yeah. Yeah. In Ms. Bala, Mr. Shields, I remember when you all presented the bad news to us at the budget and finance committee meeting, I think your recommendation was to keep the tax rate flat. Was that correct at the time? We had, sorry, we had proposed the budget in March. And at the time we gave a 1.2 million that was based on the URN projections so that there was no discussion on tax rate that was assuming here's the proposed budget and now we want to revise this down. Let's have a discussion how we want to get there. Okay, because I felt like at one point from you all I thought thought I had heard that flat was sort of where, when we first realized everything was flat with the revenues coming in, I thought I had heard that from your camp that a flat tax rate would be the more sort of prudent way to go instead of a tax cut. Maybe I'm Mr. Remembering that. Yeah maybe it's just the advertising. Yeah maybe it's just the advertising. Yeah thanks. Which we did. Yeah and I mean I think our thinking was to give the council the flexibility knowing that there's going to be a discussion of both reductions as well as that scenario. So when looking at your revised PowerPoint slide, why we now have carried over all the same cuts minus training development, both the dollars are sent and a half and the cent reductions. People look at that and react to that. The finger. It's like, sorry. It's brighter on this side. It's easier maybe. This side's dim for some reason. I guess I remain pretty worried that why you threw out a number that next year you think we're going to be $4 million a part and not $140,000 a part? Like, can we internalize like that, that if we don't have options ready and can't have productive conversations on what those revenue and expense lepers are, like what do we do when we are $4 million a part. Which is again why I've continued to emphasize that I think it's really important discipline to exercise now of how we recently reduced our budget to, you know, a decent pace and growth that we are prepared for that or better prepared for work. The board has an amendment from April 11th since we provided our revised urine. They met last two Tuesdays ago now. The 20, Aaron says the 22nd. I think some of us watched the recorded meeting as well and they did discuss the two and a half-cent reduction in the ask that it would require $600,000 reduction and they objected to it and had concerns. And they met tonight to announce a new superintendent and I, they don't think they have another advertised meeting between now and May 14th when they adopt their budget. So that was one of the concerns is that they wouldn't have the ability to talk publicly about other options. One of the things we may have to do next year is because we probably will have the bootlegap is back things up a little bit because we we used to approve the budget at the end of April giving the school board two weeks in there to make any adjustments needed. But we have been pushing it, closer, closer, closer. So now we approve and then they approve the next night. So as we think about levers for next year, one may be to adjust that process a little bit. So that our budget is approved earlier if we think there's going to be need for some other cuts. So the third quarter results cannot be presented anymore than April 11th. Sooner than that. This is literally 11 days after the quarter closed. So we're representing the results. We would really appreciate if the schools have a little lesser time for that contract. And I understand that tightness they have there on the timing. But if we can adopt instead of May 12, two weeks later, May 26th or the Tuesday after the morning, that would be helpful for us. Maybe that's something we need to talk out for next year is the budget schedule to make sure that there's that flexibility in it somehow. And maybe perhaps not having a CFO there has also diminished some of their capacity and looking at the reality of the economics changing within the region also. I think that Q3 data is really important for us. Yeah, so I understand why we've pushed it for that reason, I guess. And my understanding on the, I will say from, I mean at least some of my conversations, my hope that I conveyed to the folks that I spoke with was that in, as I was thinking about fiscal year 27 and what I was trying to emphasize was that if this, even if the schools couldn't get to or didn't feel like they could get to the school board, didn't feel like they could get to 285 now, that they should be thinking over the course of fiscal year 26, right? Like what that 285 reduction would have looked like if they actually had been able to put in the work by the time of their May 13th budget to find the 285 because they should basically be thinking about their fiscal year 27 budget is not being down 127.5 being down 285 and sort of starting any growth down 285,000 if there is, you, then being down $127.5. And my understanding was that even if they were getting the funding in fiscal year 26, that there may at least be a commitment to undertaking that exercise of what that would look like in fiscal year 26, so they're not carrying over that money that they hopefully could have found with more time into their fiscal year 27 budget. You know that they're doing the exercise. It's it could work the way you're saying it and like there are two ways of looking at it. We could reduce both the budgets school and general government by 285 and figure of course the council has a saying what we reduce here and the school board figures what they're going to reduce for 285 and should that not meet their needs it's easier to find your end or find going to tap into the contingency if we really have to an increase it versus adopt a higher number now and then have to go mid-year and reduce it. So there are two approaches and sorry could you repeat that, Karen which one do you recommend? I mean, not. Prudent would be that we reduce both budgets by 285 and should We feel four or five months or six months into the year fiscal year that we just cannot live within that 285 reduction. Then we look at either the contingency or the year end by the time the landscaping on the year end would have come in also the information. So things would have changed and the schools feel that they just cannot live within that 285 cut then we look for funds. So what I'm seeing is adding money is easier, not easier necessarily because we're in constrained budgets, but it's definitely more practical than reducing once a transfer amount has been set. And then you want to go to schools and tell them, okay, because that's what's happened now, right? Exactly. And it's the time of budget. But this could very well have happened in September, October. And we would all be scrambling and trying to make cuts. And it has happened in the past. The hat we had had to reduce their transfer in the middle of the year. And that's my point is that I feel like that's going to happen. And are we ready for that scenario? If we aren't ready in budget season. in the past that we had to reduce their transfer in the middle of the year. And that's my point is that I feel like that's gonna happen. And are we ready for that scenario? If we aren't ready in budget season to find 140,000, are we gonna be ready in September when we actually have all of FY 25 data and be like, well, we actually need to revise revenue projections down further. So that's what I'm trying to say. That's easier to accept that cut now and ask more if we really need it later but instead of... So that's what I'm trying to say. It's easier to accept that cut now and ask more if we really need it later, but instead of adopt a higher number and then go into September, October and say, okay, sorry, we're going to have to cut more. And then what do we do where we have signed the contracts with everybody? And the discretionary money that non personnel for them is much smaller compared to the city side, so then it's gonna be harder. If we are in that bad scenario, maybe then we look at a not 50-50, so it's because of what you were saying, right? That. Yeah, during COVID, just that was a mid-year cut, and that was not-50 the general government did more but the school is participated and That was sort of the flexibility of revenue sharing that I think people appreciated at that time and and there can be flexibility at times But it's better to have a practice of trying to adhere to it. But emergencies are, you know, their emergencies. I would say between, you know, this, this is a scenario that on the board is one going into some some difficult headwinds. This is an indication here that the city is planning for that and is taking prudent steps to allow us to navigate that without doing significant damage, you know, in sort of sudden and dramatic ways to the schools, to general government services, and it will give us time to make the adjustments that I think will need to make. Other thoughts, or should we just go around the room and pick one now? Otherwise, we're gonna just stare at each other till 10 o'clock. Sorry, and I got a little lost on the scenario that you're talking about now. Are you saying we'd be at a 120 tax rate but we would go, we would try to, we would bring down our expenditures more than the 120 but we would leave the schools. We would state 120. You're not talking about plugging up that $140,000 at this point. It's 120. We kind of have the additional contingency, the schools just are at 127, recognizing that, or 140, whatever, 127.5, recognizing that they're going to have it that much harder because they didn't start this process as early as we did. That's right. Yeah. Okay. This is just sort of what you see here in this column. Those are the changes. So the revenue contingencies at 500,000. The schools make 127,500 dollars in reductions to the transfer. And then all these changes on the general government side. It's easy. I'm sure why it's so small up there right now. Why could you make it full screen? It might show easier for the moment. Funnily enough, I'm sure that's good. Yeah, that's bigger. I'm well we need to solve it at markup tonight. Okay, I'm going to start over here. I like the 120 real estate tax solution that we just worked through. Dave, do you have an opinion? Dave. I still think we need to make we need to make the cuts on the general government side ask the schools for the maximum that they can provide and deal with it at that point. I think if we remove the city's cuts at this point, there's no chance of asking the schools for anymore. And then we just collect the money from the taxpayers and put it away away from them. So, I mean, I would in essence go back to the schools and say, we're showing the discipline, we're making cuts that we don't wanna make, but we realize that things are gonna probably get worse rather than get better and ask them one more time. And if they come back and they say they can't do it, that they're at 142 or whatever the number is, then we've got a choice at that point. We can stick with our cuts and the budget rate is whatever it is or we make this decision. But I think if we do it now, we're sending a signal that I don't particularly want to send right now. So if I'm hearing you correctly, you'd prefer at 119-5 and see whether the schools can meet to 85. Yep, and if they can't, then I think we have a decision to make. We're going to end up with probably lower than the 7.5. Do we keep the proposed budget or higher, whatever you don't get to a 7.5? I'm not going to press the schools beyond what they honestly tell me they can cut and still maintain the quality of the schools. If they can't meet the 285, then we have the choice of continuing to make the cuts on the city side, which I would prefer, or it would not be totally responsible then to say the schools can't meet the number and we're going to take the money and put it into some other contingency which would be the senior contingency. But I think we've made the tough decision and I think we ought to maintain it that would be my preference. Okay. I still prefer the one and a half cent scenario given that look ahead. I just add to Mr. Snyder's point, I don't think we're going to have any additional information. There's no additional meeting of the school board or public meeting on what school cuts would be considered between now and next Monday night, which doesn't provide any additional information on decision making. I guess I'm just on the senior tax relief by, you know, a still on maintain flexibility on... I guess I'm just on the senior tax really advice, you know, I still want to maintain flexibility on discussing that, but, you know, I guess to end it out, I'm still looking at 1,195. You want it in my straw pool response., it's difficult. You don't have any more details. Yeah. I mean, I agree with Dave's comments. But yeah, I don't know exactly what the Vice Mayor is saying. I don't think, I don't know, that we're going to get more information. And so I'm going to go in it. I'm comfortable with what the city side of the budget looks the general government side of the budget looks like it. 120. I would prefer to keep that contingency fund at the 500. And it's basically at this point you're saying we're kind of building the contingency to help plug what's going to look worse either later in fiscal year 26 or in the fiscal year 27 budget, right? So that it's not a 4% tax increase, it's a recent tax increase or something like that. So I think I'm at 120. Yeah, I agree with Ms. Flynn's comments and also the 120 scenario from us with the 133 for senior tax relief. So I do like that scenario. So I would support the 120 with meaning one cent reduction. To clarify, the 133 for senior tax relief is funded from general government reductions. That's right. So it's not really a 50-50 split. So that is what we would be doing there, which makes sure we internalize that. Yeah, so this is $260,000 of cuts on the general government side that's paying for 127,000 then and for tax relief and then 133 of that goes into our contingency essentially Because I think we all want to fund the senior tax relief. I think it's just the concern I have again is that we're not really sharing and how to pay for that right and that 1335 could also go into the emergency assistance to That's right. All in the tax relief, but it could move into emergency assistance if needed It would need a council appropriations do that or do that right, you know tonight So, you know you know, I will really... But I hear what you're saying, Litty. About the... Yeah. This is essentially budget night. This is where it all, you know, it needs to end pretty well tonight. The vote is next week, but in order to prepare the documents for you to act on, we'll have to stay here tonight until the council's reaches consensus in terms of how this documents are. Sounds like a three and three and one not here. I feel like that's a trend. I know. It keeps pushing things out. I would be happy actually with the C.H.A.T. actually, if we could take that in a little bit more in the emergency assistance. So bump that up to 25. Virgin, I'm fine with that. The emergency assistance is at 25, but you're adding total. You're adding 8,000 to 25 total. That's the increase. Right, last year's budget. Is that correct? Yeah, it's growing from 6,700 to 25,000. Okay. So like 4x. So you can sort of, for a simple math, do something like that. We can't see it. Need to share it again. Yeah, this is clunky. The same thing. We said the 35,000. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why not leave it in a contingency and then decide what the need for? So could you review, you review, then what is the assumption that the schools are cutting? So the dollar amount is 127,500. Okay, I heard a higher number. So there's, you know, I have heard also that something around 140 is something that the schools felt like they could live with, but that was not like, you know, going through details that sort of was a comment. Well, so either the 120 or the 1.195 are the same to the schools that's 127. That's right. Roughly 127,000. Okay, so we're assuming, so what cuts are we making for the city? Where's, how are we allocating those costs? And then what are we getting from the schools and what to add at all of them? I think why it's identified 285 or two, 60, if we don't take the training out. It's still making $285,000 in cuts. 261,000 in cuts. Just to be precise about it. OK. And I mean, we could switch over to Excel. And it'd be a lot faster. You want to share your screens, put it as a mind. That probably wouldn't be better. Just want to buy you. Are you not on teams? No. I put them. You had a line of inquiry. We could continue with that. We're getting there. OK. And then all of those. OK. So the city is making 260. 61,000 in cuts. Okay. And the schools are making how much the assumption? So under this scenario they are cut, this transfer is being reduced by $127,500. Okay. The theater vacant position or the contingency, we're not sure. wouldn't impact class sizes or teacher pay. Or was it the special ed or security? Yeah, I mean, I would say publicly, my view is that if they were able to make $142,000 that they should stay at their $142 and contribute it toward their shortfall, then being like, oh, well, now this is even better, we're at $127.5, right? So they should just be putting it into it. Just like how we're holding you to the neoogove and the rex. Yeah. Like you identified it. I think we should just because we have it, we shouldn't think. Yeah. And I don't I agree with why I think it was a comment, but I think it might be a position. And so, and I think maybe that position was that was the equivalent of that position was, was 140, which I would be, yeah, I think that would definitely hold them to that. If I'm getting, I mean, nothing was said to me, but that's sort of what I read into the. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. I'm going to go to the office. 261 on the general government side. We think 140 on the school side. 142, 222.. So what we heard? I think I heard. I think we need to confirm that, right? There was a little, we're not sure. We heard 142 here, which way? Yeah. Can you confirm that way? Who can confirm that? Well, did we see for that with chair gold or? So under that scenario, then we would essentially just grow this number by 14,500. Back up. Here, your screen again. Shares screen again. All right, come on. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm I hear in the sun? This number should get bigger. No. Oh, right. I think the frustration I have is that one, we need to confirm the number. But two, we all got the bad news the same day, and budget and finance 3.5 weeks ago, right? When we said he had revised down revenue projections, so we appreciated the work you all did to get us to 263 or 280. And I think I understand that the school where it doesn't have scheduled meetings, they're close to being done at that point. And so, or if not being done already, so I realize it's tough for them, but I think that's my personal frustration, is that we're then operating with a lot less information. So, maybe we should take a quick break and just get this sorted out. This is a ridiculous way to do this on PowerPoint. And so we can get you on Teams, have your spreadsheet up so people can see it and then we can make the changes. That sounds good. Think it will have five minute break. Sounds good. I should make it 10 because it sounds like I agree with people who need to do the bathroom. That's good. Thank you. I'm going to get a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you you I'm going to go to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to go to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. I'm going to the next station. Terri Bay. Tim? Chris, Jim? Jim? Jim? The Graham Road School. The General Youngness Restorance, he's got Fairfax County. We know the area. Go up and herndon I think. Oh, I'm going to get this. Oh, there's a very good beer here. Oh, there's a go. I'm going to get this beer. I don't like that beer. Mmm. Mmm. I have a version of the recruitment. In your own drive? In my drive. How's that around? Okay. Good to be up. Team slaying through their work. We're all out to it. Yeah. We can hold on to it. Yeah. We can hold on to it. Yeah. We can hold on to it. Yeah. We can hold on to it. Yeah. We can hold on to it. Yeah. We can hold on to it. Yeah. We can hold on to it. Yeah. We can hold on to it. Yeah. Good another half inch of rain. That's not good. Local station. Do you not check this? No. Oh, man. This is reengage on the roof here and then the property are as well. I'm kidding. Okay. Okay. Yeah. For some reason, city vote search, we always have to overdo it. I'm going to open up the mic again. The mic is now open for teams. And may I give you a moment and I'll let you know. Mayor we're good with FCC TV now. We're back so I'll play some salty snacks helped. Mayor I don't know if this is official communication but I did text the school board chair And to pick up on where we left off with our conversation, he indicated that if we had the tax rate at one cent, they could cut $145,000. Do we have more details on what that is? Now, have it a position? Is it now? So, I don't know how much that helps, but I did confirm that number at least. So Mary Beth going back to your question, what do they do if they have increased enrollments? It sounds like they still have a separate enrollment reserve that was in that budget page. I pulled up. Yeah, we'll have to ask them if they have that. That would be nice if they did. Well, that was in the budget they presented to us. I know, though. But I'm wondering if that's what the part of what they would cut. But regardless, they just said they could do that. So then that would not be my worry. So up on the screen is what that looks like, and maybe if you can zoom in a click? You can get rid of that column because it's not relevant anymore. This one. Yeah. Well, let's say you can see the screen, but So under this scenario then the general government and the schools net out to $145,000 in net reductions each. On the general government side there's $261,000 of cuts, an increase in emergency rent and increase in the senior tax relief backslash contingency. So that got smaller because we are now realizing kind of a higher net cuts. It was 127,000. Now we're realizing a net 145. So that's why that number shrinks. Can you show the bot there's one more row I think underneath such as schools that It says the same thing as Joe Garland. Oh. It's only thing that's changed is now we're at 145 versus the 127. Is that, the text rate is under that, it's the one standard option. I'm sure we're leaving some revenue over here. Well, that's... that's the difficulty of... There's a lot of balance for you. Right, so when you... It's not exactly 120. add it to the contingency I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm Now we need to consult them to go to four. Oh, but they don't recommend pursuing AC. Oh, that's the difference. It's the difference that That was going to continue in T. And I need my name to 55. 35,000 more. You want to go ahead and add that to the 16? Well, no. This is the expenditure contingency. That's for the general government. That's that. 35 that's going to go into the microphone? Please, sorry, Karen. Sorry. So the revenue contingencies grow in this case is going to be 535,000 and 116,000 for expenditure contingency for the general government to address their needs in the coming year because we have identified more cuts than 145,000. Thoughts from the group? So, do your question, Ms. Connelly, we cannot do a tax rate increase like that's going to be four decimals after. So that's why somebody asked, had asked, what if it was between 1195 and 120? So that would be like a 11975. So that was not going to be doable. I have an idea. I don't know if this will work, but so my understanding from Mr. Schneider is he'd like to get some more information from the schools like how much could they cut more. And then we also don't have Ms. Underhill here. So my thought, there's just, I'm just floating this out there. We do have the mayor's me now Wednesday, which is a public meeting. Could mayor, could you speak to Justin, or maybe Justin would be there Wednesday morning? I don't know. And then talk to the chair of the school board to see if there is any more movement if that 145K is their ceiling. That's the most they could do that would might answer Mr. Siders question. And then we could give Mr. Shields a definitive answer on Wednesday morning. Just a thought because it's a public meeting. But there's no action on the meeting, right? So I mean, if two people think this way and five people are not waiting, we don't know if it's going to be official tonight, right? Because it's not a vote, right? Yeah. It's just a direction. Yeah. I mean, the reason why you want to know tonight is to write the resolutions for Thursday. But you could write. I mean, I think I don't know that there's disagreement on CIP or on stormwater or the, you know, the fees. Those ordinances, I think we were all in agreement on. So if we're waiting for more information, you could have a 1,-5 and a 120. I mean, though, there's a number change in the ordinances, right? That's it. You have two ordinances, one that's written to have 119-5 and one that's written to have 120. I think we've, you know, all moved away from two and a half cents from, you know, like that ship has sailed. We're not talking about anything other than these two scenarios right now we have those two and then we have justine and maybe some more information that could help make decision. Floating another idea. So we're another way to look at this in that. We take the city's cuts at 2.61, and we take the schools at 1.45. And then the choice is, do we equalize... The choice is assuming we keep the city's cuts, then the question is, do we pass that all on or do we reallocate the difference to various contingencies? Is that what we're doing? Yeah, higher tax rate. Yeah. So you're there. How do you take a taxpayer reduction now or take the money from the taxpayer and have it as a contingency? It seems to me actually, both of those are pretty responsible. Right? I mean, one way or another, we're trying to deal with uncertain circumstances. I have a slight preference that it goes to the back to the taxpayers, but the more that I think about it, I think it's we're making the cuts. We're showing that we're able to do that. And the question then becomes a judgment call as to whether you return it to the taxpayers or well,, we are cutting a cent. So we're doing that. So the question is, is the two options or you pass on all the cuts to the taxpayers or you to reallocate the cuts to a conting, which would be spent only if needed, right? And that we could put some controls, will the controls exist on that, right? I think that's what Ms. Flynn and I were talking about, and just having that again with the, yes, obviously two different ways to look at it. I feel better having that safety net myself, but. Today, if you're looking at the one-cent scenario and adding to the contingency, comb D up there. That's the proposal. The other proposal would be you don't add it to the contingency and you pass on as a lower tax, right? You know the the you know the only difficulty is you can't trim that tax rate you know the the slices have to be in half-cent increments. Slicing it more fine than that is uh not a very practical. So, Antifala, Dave's logic, if we completely sliced all contingency, which I'm advocating for, we could lower it a whole other cent, because there we would get rid of the 116,000 and the 500,000 and we'd have $600,000 that we're putting into the budget as contingency that we could take out and not have a contingency at all, reduce the tax rate further or keep that contingency in because of our concerns about what's gonna happen in the future. I think we're talking about loving the contingencies together, but I think of them as two distinct pots, and this just might be my brain, but the 500,000 for the revenue and the rest of it is for actual taxpayer needs for those who can't afford food and rent, etc. Which is honestly the only way that I would think about not being at one half a civic only went to those who are essentially cost burdened, which is the goal of getting a tax rate reduced in the first place. But to Lattice Point, like is it broad enough to, are we catching enough people in that catchment basin of a contingency of a, I'm confusing the two terms myself, but a relief and safety net, a relief fund. I don't wanna mix with with a contingency, which I see as if we don't hit the revenue. I would like them to be too very distinct. Yeah. Maybe we should call it a different name, because it's Senior Taxler slash contingency. Yeah. HHS, I mean, I think of it as HHS funds. Yeah. I mean, that's a thought though, if you had it at the one-cent reduction, then could we, to your point, and the mayor's point, could we expand this in your tax relief? I mean, to me, you know, I, you know, those who can afford the extra 50 bucks annually, but then that gets, then move towards the seniors who can't. I don't know. It's definitely a tough, tough situation. I mean, the reason why you wanted in the tax rate reduction is obviously for longer term, you know, everything that it looks like was just $50 this year. Well, if you've lived here for 30 years, you know, and your house is $200,000, now it's $1.5 million and you're, you know, like it's just compounds, it compounds, compounds. So every year you're like, oh, it's just this much. It's like, oh, it just gained five pounds, five pounds this Christmas, but next Christmas I gained five and five more. It really, you know, it starts to be a challenge. So that's why I'm thinking about it as a tax rate reduction. But why do I want a tax rate reduction? I really want to, well, twofold, one I want residents to recognize the benefit of all the development we have had and the great growth that we have had from all the past 10 years of bringing really hard work on economic economic development. And then separate and apart from that is tax rate reduction for due to the economic situation, like they're two sides of the same coin, I guess, really. So having it in a contingency addresses one side of the coin, it addresses those who really truly will have an impact for this that we talked about aren't the ones you're going to come and tell us that but you know for the average taxpayer too they want to see benefit for all the construction all the you know development that we've had so I guess that's where I'm struggling why you know about two goals for the taxpayer once the average taxpayer benefiting from economic development and when is the seriously cost burden they're constrained. And the third one again, I'm struggling with the best place to try to address both of those. I think the third is the budget discipline that I talk about. Like how do we start thinking about it now for the future years? And while it's just half a penny, I think it's again, it pushes us to think through, what are those hard choices that we have to make? I think again, on the general government side, we are identifying things we don't love to eliminate, but we probably will need to do sooner than later. And you know, to Vice Mayor's point, if we didn't have the development, we wouldn't even be able to talk about a penny. you know, we'd be talking flat or maybe even increasing it. So thank goodness we've had that commercial revenue coming in. So lower back to you. So the choice I guess is we stare at each other longer and make a choice. We could wait for just seen on Wednesday, Laura's idea. Dave, I already say you could live with one-cent reduction. I could, but... that the point that the reason why we're not doing the half-cent is because of the need to establish contingencies created by the environment in which we exist. I'm not comfortable with just putting it in somewhere and encouraging a lot of demand. But rather, we really make clear that these were making the cut. The cuts are hurtful. There are two options to deal with the money that we're cutting. The one is the flow it back to the taxpayers. The other is to assure that we've got a contingency that will keep the government running and meet the extraordinary needs of our citizens that may occur. And in my view, either one is a responsible approach. I have a slight preference for returning it to the taxpayers, but I think either one is responsible. Provided that we're somehow locking up that money and making clear what its Excel spreadsheet. I'm going to put the water in the water. I'll see this is what the... Okay, close down. See you then. So you're up to our team. You can be on the mic, Karen. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to go back to the park. Should we talk about the CIP stuff because that would be a quicker conversation. Let me get back. The parks, the CIP. Do an easy one. Come back. Why not? They're doing that. Why don't we move something forward? That's a good idea. Let's try that. Anybody have anything? I'm just going to throw it out there while I'm there. We've talked about this multiple times. I think we're all in agreement in the ESC recommendation and government energy action plan recommendation on the rural house for all the reasons we've discussed at least a half a dozen times. And then my neighbor Geronon could be happy with me about the park, but taking the crossman, the CIP number, that's just one robe beneath that out. And so that leaves us a net of a couple hundred thousand to quote-unquote save from CIP. Are we all in agreement on that issue I would support the warehouse. I would just say, Mr. Shieldless, I feel like the Crossman Park needs to be revisited completely because the playground climate is definitely old. But as we said, multiple times, just one block away is an enormous playground that Arlington built. So one of the things I was thinking is, this would be a parks and rec decision, but maybe something like, you know how you see that outdoor exercise equipment, chin ups and stuff like that, that might be something that would be to our mayors, no longer fitness a month, but that I think would be something that we don't have in the city and would be different than different than what's just one block away. So my point is that we need to go back to parks and rock and bee. So I think that just should be put on hold for now. Just my thought. By do support Aurora House solar panels. Yeah, whether it's fitness or something, just a complimentary to what's across the street. That trail is used constantly by walkers cutting through there. So maybe it's just more natural park. Something. I heard agreement on adding a row house rooftop solar and then taking out crossman playground. What about taking out Cavalier trail that was briefly discussed? Is that also this year's CIP? Yes. Do we talk about just pushing them back a year or taking them out completely? So we're taking them out of Fiscal Year 26, but staff is looking into reprogramming some of the existing money. So the funding for the projects is going to come from existing sources possibly and we don't need additional cap reserves for those. Funding for the Cavalier project specifically. Yeah, both actually, but we could do one or the other. And but we're looking at the park implementation plan budgets that were set in 24 and 25 and they're revisiting what needs to happen and there may be some funds left to address those. Okay, but still for our purposes tonight, it would be removal of one in addition to one. Yeah, so we'll be sending the difference between 495 and 104 back to the couple reserve, basically. I'm in favor of that. I am too. How do Other thoughts? So sorry that was taking out both Crossman and Cavalier Trail and then maybe using savings to take care of one. Yeah. And the emphasis would be on Cavalier Trail. Yeah, I was just looking at the map of where we have green space and generally I think the South Washington Cavalier Trail area needs more. And so I would also prioritize Cavalier Trail ahead of that. OK, that was easy and good. Anything else on the ad deletes that we've talked about? People have other things on CIP changes. I didn't know it was good. I'm not hearing anything, so I think we're done on markup for CIP. We're done on markup for everything. So we have a, you know, this scenario I think reflects all the comments that we've heard except the comment that, you know, that for those who are concerned that, so we have 535 for the revenue contingency and 116 for a non-departmental sort of as in Debbie's breaking of the two, that's more of a spending contingency. Can we label it expense contingency versus revenue contingency so they know the difference? So the comment that I feel is sort of out there that it hasn't been addressed is that too much in terms of contingency. And, you know, I will make the case that you're going to really appreciate that contingency several months from now. from now. If the council's desire is to reduce that, the other thing that is sort of at your disposal would be the property tax. That's a finer tool to use. That's $20,000 per penny, right? The person with the personal property? So that could be an option if you wanted to trim that to a number that you felt more comfortable with that's that's an option or we can So what is it? 14,000 per penny. Yeah. Is there any any interest in going that direction? In decrease personal property. Increase personal property for additional decrease, decrease so that you could give them trim that so then another option would be if it you know the council and just sort of on sort of Kind of easy to execute items If we were to put more money towards Roadway maintenance that is something that is a big theme We know we still have more to on that, but that could be one other option to put some chunk of money towards sort of core infrastructure in that way. If you're talking about if we have 120, the difference between the two, where how else you could spend it other than a contingency? That's what you're sharing right now. There's 535 and 116 so right now the total sort of unspent funds is The addition of those those to the sum of those two numbers which is bigger than where we started this conversation Of course, there's always the option of leaving a contingency Deciding through the year. That's what was thinking, just hold on to it and then hopefully feel like we're in the clear, you know, then maybe. That would be, I think, a really good strategy. Yeah, that's. Say that again. Well, so just sort of hold on to it and then when they all give us the green light, then maybe we could put it towards paving or something. So that could be a September conversation, see how we're doing, and then we can put that money to work for the taxpayers at that time. Thank you. Or hold on to it because the headwinds are going against us. So to, I guess, put us out of our misery. I can live with a one-cent reduction, but I guess I will have some caveats. So based on all the conversations we've talked about how it's only going to get worse, I would like to see a firm commitment. One, I think Aaron's suggestion of can the school start FY27 with a smaller budget already. And I want that in writing. And two, I want reductions beyond 145 identified this summer to prepare for potentially in August, September, or conversation. Because I think that's that discipline that I think I've looked to the general government for and I'm getting some of that. I think I would hold the entire city to that. because I think that's that discipline that I think I've looked to the general government for and I'm getting some of that I think I would hold the entire city to that Because I think that's an important preparation that we should be doing as we get Q4 data How does that feel for people? We just certainly need to start it earlier because we felt like we started it earlier this year and still bumbled, you know to the and For because there's gonna be some other unforeseen circumstances. We don't know it's gonna happen again Like I get that you know the revenue Production revised revenue projections came in late. They were done and I'm like, okay We'll have more time, but we actually need to actually sharpen our pencils with more time and so we'll adopt the budget on May 12th and 13th and then let's continue looking at where we need to shave things because I do think come this summer we're going to have more information and we're going to have to make more reductions so I'm fine with living with the one 20 now but I do want that commitment from all of us to do the hard work ahead because I don't think we're really done. I think that makes a lot of sense. I would just say I don't know if we can in terms of their budget, I think we also want to see what that enrollment growth looks. It may not materialize. It may be worse. So I think we could sort of put that out there that, this budget, your budget may be smaller than next year. But if they have 250 more, so we just, I think we just have to wait and see. But I do have more data on all around, right? We get more information on enrollment. We'll have more information on what Q4, the rest of the fiscal year looks like. We'll have more information on the broader economy. And I think on the school side, you're going to have a new CFO. You're going to have a new superintendent. I think it's a good fresh start in the sense of this is an exercise both sides need to do. Where are these cuts are going to be made? And we need to be ready for that. Right. To the point about the summer, it's October. We won't know much until October's when the prediction of the, you know, the cliff is, right? We're not going to have, when will you have that information of when, you know, you're on employment, you're all the other factors, economic factors that are going to be your indicators are not going to be known until November, December. So I mean, I think the preparation of scenario planning, like it's almost, you know, the work aim concept of, like, hear all the different scenarios of what could happen. And they're different than they've been in the last, since 2008, right? They really are. So I do think it needs to start in the absence of data, anticipating data, right, channeling here with the, like you did with this 8% growth, 4% growth, flat growth, 4% decline. I mean, like we need to be doing that across all of our, all of our schools in general government. Because that's gonna be, you know, where if we're concerned about the feedback we've gotten over dropping $285,000, I'm really concerned about making sure we've prepped everybody for the next fiscal. For fiscal year 27, yeah. I mean, if we, you know, have really upset people about $285,000. If you're talking about $4 million, where's $2 million gonna come from? Yeah, on either side. On any scenario, because I don't think we can make that up in a tax rate. I don't think you can ask people to pay a tax rate and that, you know, has implications on salary, everything for next year. So. I'm fine with this as displayed under the understanding that the contingency is there for the purposes that we're establishing at four and we're not gonna spend it. We're not gonna spend it. And if we need to deal with the economic environment in which we exist then we'll use it for that purpose but we'll give it back. We're not going to spend it unless we need it for contingency for things that are beyond our control in order to maintain a functioning government and school system. And then I think we look at part of the contingency planning as if it gets worse, what else are we gonna have to do? Yeah. At the fots? It's really we're like arguing over half a penny and we're gonna deal. And the thoughts? Really, we're like arguing over half a penny and we're going to deal with much bigger issues and again, I'm going to go back to like, how we disagree matters a lot. And I think exhibiting some discipline and leadership and encouraging our partners to do the same. Okay, I'm hearing that to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. I'm not going to be able to do that. Nice, he had nods for that, so thank you for consensus from council. Sorry. Yep. I see had nods for that so thank you have consensus from council. Sorry. Okay. Do we have any more budget discussions? The only other thing I will just note is this is related to the budget. In your packet then shift in two solid waste. What this stands for is that what the council is doing is directing the city manager to form this task force and to provide this information back. The city council itself will not be appointing the task force and it won't be kind of an official city council body. The board will meet in public meetings, but it won't have sort of those official trappings of a council board. And the reason for that is for to get it moving as quickly as possible. So just wanted to make sure council is comfortable with that approach. And if so, that's how we will proceed. We're right now actively soliciting people who can serve on this task force with staff and to get going as quickly as possible. Let me just say two things this a public have the right to comment. So we plan to advertise our meetings or let the public know about them. I'm envisioning it being kind of a work session environment where the task force members are going to be doing the work with staff and running those meetings to answer your question. I think we would have a question and comment period as part of the meetings. But I think we want the task force to be able to focus and sort of roll up its leaves and do its work. Okay, fine. And as you know, I'm concerned about taking any options off the table and one of them was taken off in the staff report, even though as I recall, the city manager said he could look at that in one point. So why are we taking that option off the table and the option being to cover the condominiums in the tax rate? So that's an important point for the council to discuss. The feedback that we've gotten so far from the condo associations has been that they are typically not interested in the city kind of as one said it getting between us and our and our trash hauler. And so that's the principal reason for taking that off the option. In addition to some of the administrative concerns that we've expressed before. Okay, other than me, does anyone want that current language maintained? No wait, let me phrase that differently. I would like that option not removed. Does anyone agree with that position? Okay, let's move forward then. Maybe, the other thing someone said in the town hall meeting, I think you were here for that. They were just talking about how Park Towers has a different structure than the Byron does and different amounts of trash. And just hearing like three or four different buildings talk about it seems so complicated. Well, it's complicated to set up a fee arrangement too. And we've got a lot of equity in regard to that. Anyway, it's my preference. I'd like to see that option continue. Discussed along with the others. There's no support for it. Let's move on. Yeah, I mean, in my view, it equates to the payment and a little of service version that I was trying to get at, which is that we wouldn't absorb the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the case of the entire city as we'll see the increase to the curb collection fee for the people who are getting that service. But I don't think it makes sense for the city to get directly into the business of all the multi-family pickups. So that's just like my rationale on it. I had two comments. One was that in terms of the standing up the working group, my expectation, maybe this is just not like written where it says the city manager views is necessary other people and I would envision that including the city attorney because I think the task force is just going to like go awry maybe otherwise in terms of what we can or can't do. And then on, where it says senior relief, I shared what I thought was maybe the governing state code authority is to relief from solid waste fees. And I think it's income tied as opposed to senior disability tax relief tied. And so I would just caution against going too far down the like tethering solid waste fee relief to the disability and senior tax relief program as opposed to looking at the actual state authority which I think is income-based. I think we also ought to think about a hold harmless for those who might end up be paying getting getting the same service but paying more under the fees than they under, than their tax reduction would be. Perhaps a transition period? Can you say a little more, make sure I understand when you say hold harmless? Well, it would be for the transition right now now some people would, a lot actually, would pay more for their tax collection under the fees than their tax reduction is, right? And I'd like to explore what sort of a whole harmless there could be for those people so that you equalize the tax reduction with the amount that they pay and fees. Explored. That is going to be difficult because the math on this is such that money has to come from somewhere, right? I think that's a fundamental question. I think that's the community discussion. I don't want to limit that going in. I mean, we've heard from one group. We haven't heard much from the other group that's going to pay more. And it's very important that their voice be heard in this process. and I would assume that you would make that happen. Well we're gonna, you know, the purpose of the task force really was that we wanted to have come resident involvement and engagement in the issue in a way that we haven't had so far. so far. The math of it is is, I don't know how we would be able to do what you're asking us to do. But the equity issue is a really important one. Well, there are multiple equity issues. Exactly. And that's not just one. And that's where, and may well be, people come forward and say, look, I can go through a smaller bin and by the time I go to a smaller bin, my input is, my payment is more than I'm getting back in lower taxes, but still isn't, I mean, that may be a very reasonable approach for some folks. I think, you know, that's one of the things that we've kind of written in here and kind of the fee structure is to look at are there some options like that that we can do. So I think we're gonna in the brief period of time we've got to look at this and we're gonna try and run some of those to ground and that be part of the discussion. Yeah. And on the compass, can I just make the recourse that you look at? There's the organics recycling, which is guard waste. There's food recycling. There's large bins, small bins. Just look at that range of things so that we can see sign. I think some of the people in Winter Hill probably don't want a third bin because they already have 25 bins out altogether. How do you do that? How do you do that? So I guess that's the, they may want it, they may not want it, they may want to share a third bin. But how do composting bin like the equivalent of a community center? Bin, add a communal bin, add like some of these locations. Right. Right. There are different ways to think about that. Does this mean we get rid of bags and tags. Yes. So what do you do if you have more yard waste than fits in your bin? Do we? Well, it's like you wouldn't trash a couple of specials. I don't know. Anyway, just, I'm just asking, is this part of it? No more bags and tags. And what, what, what are the consequences of that? I think we get the bags and tags myself. Because that's why I want to explore. Yeah, I mean, I just, I'm just throwing that out there because I know that at least on my block, there's bags every week with tags. So. It's been every week. They even have to put a sticker on them. And I'll have to tag it. And just put it all in the bin. You know what I'm saying? They have more trash that's not compost and sound recycling than that will fit into the big bin. Like some of the larger houses with four and five kids generate more trash. Stop this, Tom. I'm sorry, am I misunderstanding? She's talking about bag, like trash bags with tags. Cause they'll take, oh yeah, are you talking about, I was talking about compost bags with tags. I'm sorry, I'm just extra. Are we still gonna use tags? Well more than one bag of trash per week. So we haven't decided that, we'll get that resolved. I'm gonna to use tags. More than one bag of trash per week. So we haven't decided that. We'll get that resolved. I'm going to tag user myself. So I do have tags. On yard waste. You use tags on yard waste. Thanks are very helpful. We'll work it out to the task force. As a resident, you can go to this task force and share your experience. I think I'm going to avail myself. Well, that helps people who have more trash pay more because there's a tag. So if they have more than what their fee is, then they're paying an extra fee. So that is a pay as you throw option. $50 for a tag. If you live on Parker. Thank you for putting a communication ICR communication director and a public service. Thank you for having me. Thank you for putting a communication ICR communication director here on the task force. That's important. And then can you just remind me how we are going to, so I mean, that person would be on that task force to sort of communicate when the decision is made, like how we communicate. But how are we getting, I'm not calling you on you, Ms. Chase, but we also have to, at the front end, you need to communicate about this task force and what exactly is going on. So I'm assuming we'll cover that and focus at some point or. Oh, how the news relates. Oh, okay. I'm sorry to call on you in the audience, but thank you. But you're here. I thank you. Thank you for being here so late at night. OK, thank you. So I envision on the. I'm sorry to call you in the last but thank you but you're here. Thank you. Thank you for being here so late in the night. Okay. Thank you. So I envision on the communication front there's some communication work about the task force and the work we're going to do over the next three months and then there's a separate entire communication effort about what the changes are that end up being proposed and ultimately approved by council and then get rolled out to the public. So we'll try and cover both of us. Other comments? And if we have suggestions of people who would like to serve on this committee, send them to you. Let us know. Thank you for putting this together with some parameters around it because I do think in the limited three months it's important to define the scope of what this group is gonna do two questions. One, when do you anticipate it starting Wyatt? So as soon as we can, so I don't have a date of the first meeting but we'll get that date published. It'll be late May, early June, I would guess. And you know And we'd lay out a schedule of, I mean, it isn't gonna be that many public meetings. We'd do a lot of staff work in between, but call it three to four meetings over the course of the summer to be able to have a report to you all from getting August. Why, we'd heard from the condo groups that they have a recommendation for us, but there were some vacations in there so we need to get back to them on maybe a backup rep or if we don't start till end of May and then maybe it works out with vacations. So just one flag that second. I think the assumption is that the bill change would be in our property tax bill, which is why I think the Treasury was followed by some units. Have we given any thought to whether it could be in the quarterly water bill or does that introduce whole extra complexities we're asking Fairfax Water to do something? So that would be the thing. We have a contract with Fairfax Water to do our sanitary sewer billing and so we've not initiated conversations with them about what this would how they would administer this. It's a conversation we can have. I maybe should reserve judgment until we've had some of those conversations. I only ask because I think in Arlington they charge it that way. And obviously making it four chunks versus two chunks is easier for people to pay. So something to think something to think about, if it is easy to, maybe they have less muonus constraints, or maybe they don't use muonus. So. Okay. That was all. Thank you for putting this together. We look forward to the recommendations in August. Great. Thank you. Okay. I think the last thing we had was... Gadjul. I don't know the change in appointments. It's removing Aaron from Govops due to schedule changes. Do people need to discuss that? There's still plenty of people on Govops. Three. There's Okay sounds like a thread to go for consent Thank you all Do we want to talk schedule or reserve that for Wednesday morning? I'd be happy to do it now, but I don't want to speak to any we do have we have office hours on Wednesday anyway, so we will be in some of us, we'll be in City Hall at 9am. So it's matter whether you're going to be here at 8.30 to do schedule or anything on the year at 9am. I don't know how to do it Wednesday, but that's whatever people want to do. Okay, let's do it. I've only heard one preference, so I'm going to go with that because no one else is speaking up. So 9 a.m. Wednesday. Anything else? I'm not going to be able to do anything. I'm not going to be able to do anything. I'm not going to be able to do anything. I'm not going to be able to do anything. I'm not going to be able to do anything. I'm not going to be able to do anything. I'm not going to be able to do anything. I'm not going to be able to do anything. I'm not going to be able to do anything. Okay, nothing else that I think we are done. Thank you all. Thank you all. Thank you.