Friday has rolled around again which means it is time to scramble out another audio edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. This time around there is a big focus on municipal budgeting because the purpose of Town Crier Productions is to focus on the details of revenues and expenditures with a hope toward greater community understanding. At least, that’s the way this version of Sean Tubbs is programmed. In this edition: * Charlottesville City Council has adopted a budget for the next fiscal year that increased the real property tax rate by a penny, one fewer cent than had been proposed (full story below!) * Albemarle Supervisors have a few remaining decisions to make for the county’s FY2027 budget (read the story) * Albemarle and Charlottesville commemorate Dark Sky Week (read the story) * A preview of the Week Ahead Shout-out / PSA #1: Friends of JMRL Book Sale The Friends of the Jefferson Madison Regional Library’s Spring Book Sale is running now through this Sunday from 10:00am to 7:00pm each day at Albemarle Square Shopping Center. Additionally, April 11th and 12th are ½-price days. Choose from thousands of books, DVDs, CDs, LPs, games and puzzles, with restocking occurring throughout the sale. Proceeds benefit our regional public library system. Visit jmrlfriends DOT org for more information Charlottesville goes with penny increase on real property tax rate rather than two Note: The podcast edition of this budget story is stitched together from several reports. This is a consolidated version used for a script and lacks hyperlinks and other resources. One of the most important duties of governing bodies in Virginia localities is to adopt a budget for each fiscal year. For Charlottesville City Council, the process began this year on March 2 when Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders introduced a budget that was built on a two-cent increase in the real property tax rate to an even $1 for every $100 of assessed property. Since then, there have been several work sessions in which Sander’s recommended budget gradually became the one that Council adopted on April 9. These were mostly held on Thursdays beginning on March 5 with a work session dedicated to the Vibrant Community Fund on March 12. That’s the process through which the city provides money to nonprofit organizations. Informal budget hearing On March 19, the city held an informal public hearing during what is billed as the Community Budget Forum. The only speaker was Jim Moore who said he has eight rental properties within Charlottesville. “I tend to try to keep my rents a little below market, and I have some tenants that really can’t afford much more than that,” Moore said. Moore said the property assessment for one of those rental units increased by 74 percent from 2021 to 2025. He asked for the city to lower the anticipated rate increase. The budget forum ended up being more like a work session with staff presenting information to the City Councilors on potential ways to lower the rate. But first, budget director Krisy Hammill explained why the two cent real property rate increase had been proposed. “Most of the new revenue for the tax increase was put in the budget to offset the deeper transit investments, the increased match for the schools, and also the impacts of collective bargaining,” Hammill said. That two cent tax increase generates $2,467,724 a year. To help eliminate one of those pennies, Hammill said staff were comfortable projecting slightly higher revenue forecasts and also showed some ways to reduce revenue, including less funding for Charlottesville Area Transit, tapping into a reserve fund, and eliminating funds for Council Strategic Initiatives. “One other option would be to move the schools back to the original 2 million that we had originally built the budget around, thus reducing their increase by $569,000,” Hammill said. The budget anticipates hiring ten additional drivers for Charlottesville Area Transit. Under one potential scenario to reduce funding, money would be in place to hire five in July and the other five would be hired in January as well as additional mechanics and supervisors. That might also mean scheduled service improvements might be delayed. City Manager Sam Sanders said this would defer spending and Council would have to build positions into next year’s budget. That would create a structural imbalance that would have to be addressed. “Any creation of a structural imbalance is a risk,” Sanders said. “The question is how much of a risk are you willing to take. When you create the imbalance this year and solve it this way next year, you’re saying that your reassessment should be higher to start with. And you can’t guarantee that.” Councilor Jen Fleisher said she liked the idea of limiting the real property tax rate increase to a penny as a middle ground option. Councilor Natalie Oschrin said she did not support delaying expanded transit. “I appreciate coming up with the CAT adjustment scenario to try and make it fit,” Oschrin said. “I would prefer not to do that since it just kind of kicks the can down the road a little bit.” Oschrin said she could support using the reserve and eliminating additional funding for Council’s strategic initiatives. Councilor Michael Payne said he could support a one penny tax rate increase but said the risk to split funding for CAT personnel would be too high. “I don’t like in the past when we’ve set ourselves up with kind of fiscal cliffs,” Payne said. Mayor Juandiego Wade also said he could support a penny increase. “I appreciate the work that I’ve done to kind of bring back because we’ve been hearing from residents about the, the cost of living, the, the tax increase and this I believe is a good, won’t satisfy everyone,” Wade said. “But I think it’s a good, good compromise if we decide to go in this direction.” No decisions on tax rate at March 26 CIP work session The March 26 work session dealt with the Capital Improvement Program. That’s the portion of the budget that sets out what a locality expects to spend on infrastructure over the next five years. “The CIP plan for 27 is just over $47 million with $196 million over the five years,” Hammill said. “If we were to look in terms of dollars spent, education is the highest in this plan, followed by transportation and access, and then affordable housing coming in third.” There were no major changes in this year’s CIP. The Charlottesville Planning Commission had a work session on the capital budget in late November and later had a public hearing in December. The five-year CIP currently includes $500,000 a year for a line item called Parks and Recreation Master Plan Implementation. Sanders said that number will increase in the years to come because the master plan adopted by Council in March 2025 had a $78 million price tag over ten years. “We know that those numbers need to be dramatically different if we’re going to come anywhere close to that,” Sanders said. “But we now have an assistant city manager here who’s going to be working with the team to try to figure out how do we allocate better over the next five year cycle.” Part of the plan calls for major changes to Market Street Park, Court Square Park, Washington Park, and Tonsler Park. Sanders said each will be expensive and staff still needs to work out the timing. Parks and Recreation Director Riaan Anthony said the department will seek grants in addition to tax dollars to pay for the various projects. “In order for us to get there, we have to right size our department and the city,” Anthony said. “We are working in partnership with Public Works, reaching out to their department to say hey, do you have any resources?” There was further discussion of the parks and recreation master plan at the April 6 City Council work session. March 26 work session At the March 26 session there was a further discussion on the possibility of a one cent sales tax increase, what to do with anticipated payment-in-lieu fees for student housing projects, as well as miscellaneous discussions. Toward the end, Sanders hit reset on the discussion of the tax rate. On March 19, there had appeared to be consensus to limit the increase to a penny but Council still had to make decisions. “We’re looking for you to finalize what scenario we are actually going with for offsetting, for addressing the fact that you’re stepping back from two cent increase on the real estate tax to a one cent increase on the real estate tax,” Sanders said. However, that discussion did not happen at the meeting. Instead, Councilors sent suggestions to Sanders and Hammill via email on how to offset the funding if they wanted to proceed. April 2 wrap-up The April 2 budget work session was described as a wrap-up session. “The items that are open for discussion that we’re looking for answers on is closing out the review of the Vibrant Community Fund process and how Council is looking to utilize your Strategic Initiatives fund,” Sanders said. The Vibrant Community Fund process had been covered at the March 12 work session. This is how nonprofit organizations seek funding from Charlottesville. The full report can be seen here. Mayor Wade wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page regarding the penny increase on the real estate tax rate. “We had initially looked at a two cent tax increase, but we saw options where we could do one,” Wade said. “And I just want to make sure if you, if we have that information we can bring them make sure everyone’s on the same page with that. And if I can get a head nod or yes from everyone as we go down the line, make sure we are all okay with that.” As the meeting began, Council had a $228,000 gap to fill if they wanted to go with a penny increase. Hammill displayed the math on a spreadsheet, a spreadsheet made available to the public after I asked for it. T
