Albemarle County Executive Presents FY26 Recommended Budget on February 27, 2025
Albemarle County Executive Presents FY26 Recommended Budget on February 27, 2025
County Executive Jeffrey Richardson presented the recommended fiscal year 2026 budget to the Board of Supervisors, outlining a 4-cent real property tax rate increase (from 85.4 to 89.4 cents per $100 valuation) to address public safety obligations, school funding, and affordable housing. The $480.5 million general fund budget represents a 9.7% increase ($42.5 million) over the current year. The presentation emphasized strategic budgeting through three lenses—economic vibrancy, service delivery, and quality of life—and highlighted multi-year financial planning to manage out-year obligations.
Discussion Items
- Tax Rate Increase: The recommended 4-cent increase dedicates 3.2 cents ($10 million) to public safety, 0.4 cents ($1.2 million) to schools (over and above the 54% revenue split), and 0.4 cents ($1.2 million) to create an ongoing affordable housing funding stream. The personal property tax rate is recommended to return to the pre-pandemic rate of 4.28 cents per $100 valuation, completing a two-step restoration. Food and beverage tax remains at 6%, transit occupancy at 9%.
- Public Safety: The budget includes transitioning 57 firefighter positions from FEMA SAFER grants (totaling $12.7 million) to local funding, and adding six new police officers—the largest increase since FY16. A consultant study on police and fire service delivery models is underway. Board members inquired about performance metrics for police additions and the rationale behind the staffing increase.
- Education Funding: Schools receive $14.3 million in additional ongoing operational funding (7.3% increase) plus $6.2 million one-time to support the joint employee health fund. Supervisor McKee requested clarity on the tax revenue split (54% schools, 36% county, 10% capital/debt) and noted concern about federal funding risks to schools.
- Affordable Housing: Total affordable housing investment in the budget is $4.2 million: $3 million one-time and $1.2 million ongoing from the tax increase. Supervisor Protect expressed commitment to a $10 million annual housing trust fund and questioned the low current balance (under $100,000). Supervisor Andrews requested a comprehensive view of all housing-related budget items.
- Economic Development: The budget proposes $1 million for the economic development opportunity fund, continued investment in Rivanna Futures (462-acre campus for federal/private sector growth), and partnerships with Home Depot (Fashion Square Mall redevelopment) and Afton Scientific ($200 million expansion). Supervisor Mallet highlighted workforce training partnerships with PVCC and UVA.
- Workforce and Health: A 3% market adjustment for non-sworn staff and a 2% step adjustment for public safety are included. The county opened its first health clinic in Pantops (99 visits in first two weeks) and will open a second location. Health care rates increased 24%, and the county invested an additional $9 million into the health fund.
- Federal Funding Risks: County Executive noted federal funding is ~2% of the budget ($9 million), and the county is developing contingency plans using its $10–11 million budget stabilization fund. Supervisor McKee asked for scenario planning for potential federal cuts affecting schools.
- Capital Improvements (CIP): FY26–30 CIP includes school renovations, new schools (two opening in FY27), court facilities (opening later FY26), urban pocket park, northern convenience center, and regional transit authority development. Supervisor Protect noted the courts debt service will ramp up, and jail debt service starts at $650,000 in FY26.
- Board Questions and Directions: Supervisors raised topics for future work sessions: climate action plan budget alignment, cost-of-service study (presented March 5), police-to-population ratios, emergency relief program funding ($260,000), transit impact on collective bargaining, and state limitations on tax diversification. Supervisor Cowley requested a document of unfunded departmental requests (similar to last year). Supervisor Pruitt asked for performance metrics for police resource additions.
Key Outcomes
- Next Steps: The budget process includes 16 public meetings and multiple board work sessions. The tax rate will be advertised by March 19, and final adoption is targeted for May 7, 2025. The board will review detailed Q&A published online and receive budget chapters before each work session.
- No Votes Taken: The meeting was a presentation; no formal votes were cast. Board members directed staff to prepare additional information on housing, climate, performance metrics, and contingency plans for federal funding changes.
Meeting Transcript
Thank you. Thank you for your time today. Not only today, but as you know, we've been working in earnest really since we uh put the last year's budget to bed. We started talking uh recently as July, or as far back as July, and we've worked our way through this year, and now we're at that point. I'd also like to welcome our community that's here today, either in person or listening online. Thank you for your interest in Albare County government. We appreciate your leaning in hard and connecting as today we talk about our recommended budget. I also see key partner agencies in the room. Uh, thank you for being here today, certainly our schools uh where we are attached at the hip on a day-to-day basis, and we appreciate everything that they do to make our community better. Uh, Mr. Chair, thank you for recognizing the the staff across the front row. I won't go back through, but we also have our budget team here today that has been working the entire year to get us to where we are, as well as our department heads uh who are connected, connected and far. At the end of today's presentation, I'm going to talk about what's next. And uh I've got 36 slides that I will share with you today and walk you through the the manager's recommended budget. But but you'll see at the end of the meeting today, at least 16 opportunities. 16 opportunities with 16 public meetings. That's that's what we know for sure at this time. That's where we will invite our public in to listen, to learn, and to share at times their thoughts on this recommended budget. This board leans in hard during the budget process with a number of dedicated work sessions, uh, looking more closely at what this budget offers, what's left out, and the board does a great job every year of asking questions and keeping staff on their toes. So, with that, we'll start today, and again, I appreciate the opportunity to be here in my eighth year as county executive. It is an honor to serve this community. So, uh today's agenda. Here's an overview of what I'll be covering today. The first part, really the strategic budgeting, it's how we approach budget development with an eye on our strategic plan. The second part of the agenda is the trends, the drivers that we're seeing in our local economy combined with our revenues, our obligations, and we'll talk a little bit more about that. The third part is key investments, and that's recommendations for initiatives and strategies as we go forward into next fiscal year. And then finally, the fourth part will be next step wrap up, making sure that the board and our community understands that today is really just the beginning of this process. It lasts for several months, and we're going to land this budget uh we hope on May the 7th this year. So we're looking forward to the work that we have ahead of us with the board and with our community. So, first part, strategic budgeting. Let's take a closer look at what we consider when we say strategic budgeting. I really like this slide, and the reason that I like this slide is that I think that it represents lenses, and I'll use that term a lot today: lenses, and what I'm asking for the board to consider is look through these three lenses. I believe that these are the lenses that our community most oftentimes pick up when they think about local government. They think about local government through an economic vibrancy lens, a service delivery lens, and a quality of life lens. Let's take a second to explore just a little bit about economic vibrancy. That's really the health and the competitive strength of our economy. What does that look like? What are attributes like? Attributes would be uh job opportunities, our business environment, the sustainability of funding that would then go and pay for our local services that we provide. Let's take a second and look at service delivery. What are we talking about? We're talking about our workforce, our Albemar County workforce, our ability to uh and the capacity to respond to the service needs of the community. Third, the investment in our business processes and our technology. We'll talk a little bit about that today. That's a refined lens. So the first lens, our economic vibrancy lens, that's a broad lens. The second lens, service delivery, it's more refined. And then finally, our third lens, which is quality of life. And please, board, let's not forget that our ability to serve the public, our our quality of service directly affects the public's quality of life. And that third lens, quality of life, it's subjective.
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