Good afternoon, members and all present in the chamber.

The organizational development standing committee of the Richmond City Council will now come to order.

Mr.

Clerk, if you would read the chamber emergency evacuation announcement following confirmation of quorum.

Upon activation of the emergency alarm signal, all persons should immediately exit the building.

Please use the exits to the left or right front of the council chamber or the east or west stairwell outside the rear doors of the chamber.

Do not use elevators or escalators.

After exiting the building, security will direct everyone down ninth street to the assembly area located inside the former public safety building parking lot.

Able persons should assist visually and hearing impaired visitors with exiting the building.

Madam Chair, all members of the committee are in attendance this evening, except for members Lynch and Trammell, and you do have a quorum.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Let's proceed with the review of the February 2nd minutes.

Thank you, Mr.

Clerk.

Let's proceed, then we have two reports today, and we have with us, I believe, our superintendent, Mr.

Jason Camris.

Welcome, Mr.

Cameras.

Thank you for having us.

I was going to wait until you'd gotten a little further in, but I appreciate that welcome.

Shall I proceed?

I am not going to go through the whole presentation, which I believe you now have hard copies of, is that correct.

Yes, okay.

But I did want to highlight just a few elements.

At the same time, those students across the commonwealth have gained two points in reading.

In short, economically disadvantaged students in Richmond public schools are growing five times as fast as their peers across the Commonwealth of Virginia.

On the right, we have reading SOL scores for multilingual learners.

These are young people who do not speak English as their first language.

The state overall proficiency is 33.1%, of course, far lower than we at all want it to be.

I do want to note, however, that RPS exceeds the state average, just barely, but we do.

And we exceed the average in our neighboring counties as well, again, for English learners.

So for both of these subpopulations, Richmond Public Schools is making huge strides.

The graduation rate was 88%.

That is the highest in approximately 20 years.

We don't have any more data before that, so the highest on record.

And for our economically disadvantaged students at 84%.

And while not a record just yet, but approaching it, students with disabilities also growing rapidly.

So investments matter.

They make a difference for kids, and we are eternally grateful to the city, both the prior council, this council, the prior mayor, the current mayor, all for their investments in RPS that has made a huge, huge difference.

Let me update you as to where we are now with the budget for FY27.

Before I do that, I want to just note one important factor as it pertains to city and state funding of public education in Virginia, and that is the local composite index, the LCI, which is an estimate of a locality's ability to pay for public education.

The higher the LCI, the higher the state believes is a locality's ability to pay for education, a low LCI, and the state is saying the locality has a lower ability to pay for public education.

I want to note that our LCI is 0.58, meaning the state feels Richmond can pay for about 58% of public education funding, which is higher than the LCI for Hanover, Henrico, and Chesterfield, and is approaching the LCI for Fairfax County.

In other words, according to the state's calculations, Richmond has a higher ability to pay for public education than does Hanover, Henrico, and Chesterfield, and nearly the same ability as one of the wealthiest counties in the United States, Fairfax County.

I only share that to say that there is common understanding across the Commonwealth that the way Virginia funds public education requires revisiting.

And I am cautiously optimistic that in the coming year or two, the General Assembly, in collaboration with Governor Spanberger, will revisit how we fund education in the Commonwealth to ensure that localities like Richmond are even better supported.

I'm now going to go to the proposal on the table.

There have been various iterations of this budget proposal, and what I'm going to share tonight is hot off the presses, as it were.

This is what I will be sharing with the school board tonight.

It is already public.

It changes the proposed 50-50 split on the increase in health insurance costs to a 75-25 split with RPS taking on the line share.

It includes full funding of our mental health and wraparound support contracts, full funding of summer school, and the elimination of the furlough that had been proposed.

I do want to note all of the other reductions outlined in my original proposal, including the closure of the Richmond Virtual Academy and the reduction of 46 central office FTEs are still cut in this most recent proposal.

The reason we were able to add so many of these items back in is that the House and Senate came out with their budgets, and they are far more favorable than Governor Yunkins introduced budget.

The House budget would increase RPS funding by about 20 million dollars.

The Senate budget by about 16 million.

We are optimists, and so we built the budget off of the House's budget, assuming a 20 million dollar increase in state funding for RPS next year.

The balance we are assuming in city funding.

So you may have seen a prior iteration that had the city number at 21 million.

It is now down to a $9 million increase, which is more in line with the fiscally austere period I know the city is currently experiencing.

I want to publicly thank not only all of you, but our delegation in the General Assembly, Senator Bagby, Senator Jones, Delegate Carr, Delegate Cousins, and Delegate Schmidt, along with delegate McQuinn as well, for all of their support and advocacy on behalf of Richmond Public Schools throughout this session, and they continue to do so.

We are truly grateful for their support.

You all know the next steps.

School board is meeting tonight for our work session, then they will vote tomorrow night to approve a budget and send it to the mayor for his consideration before it then comes to all of you for your consideration.

I did want to note just a couple of other items.

We've been asked for the list of the 46 FTEs that will be reduced.

That list is on page 37.

I also wanted to note we have received questions about the impact of the proposed budget, particularly around instruction versus administration attendance and health, as you can see.

Related to that, we've received a number of questions about how does our administrative spend stack up against other jurisdictions in the Commonwealth.

And I want to share this slide, 57.

This is all based on state data.

When you look at the ratio of administrators per 1,000 students, out of 131 school divisions, we rank 120th.

So all the way on that right hand tail.

So in essence, one of the leanest school divisions in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Do you want to go back and touch on one other item?

Our CIP budget, which comes in at about a 10 million dollar request.

You'll see here the list of the proposed projects, electrical, fire safety, HVAC, plumbing, roofs, and structural for a total of 10.3 million.

This latest iteration per the board's guidance includes a $1 million request to address the parking lot and student drop-off area at Westover Hills Elementary in conjunction with the city's planned work on Jank Road.

With that, I'm happy to stop and take any questions the council may have.

Again, want to express my profound gratitude to the council to the city for their continued investments in RPS.

The results, I do believe, speak for themselves, and we are thrilled to continue to make a profound difference for all 22,000 of our students.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Camers.

Members, do we have questions at this time?

I think that everyone should have the have the document before us as well based on what you presented today with the modifications.

And so do you have a couple of questions?

Councilmember Gibson.

Thank you, Madam President.

And thank you for the presentation.

And I hope that the administration and the board is committed to this type of transparency moving forward in the budget process.

And I think that kind of community input and dialogue is important in the budget process.

And something we should celebrate.

So I I wanted to understand the difference between the proposals on the table in terms of that state funding from the House and the Senate.

Thank you for the question, Councilmember Gibson.

Yes, I've actually noted it here on slide 19, third bullet, last sentence.

About 7 million of the new state funding is one-time money unless replaced with other funding.

Using these dollars for recurring costs like raises will create a shortfall in FY28.

We are faced with a difficult choice.

Not using the one-time money for recurring expenses, such as our collective bargaining commitments, and not fulfilling those commitments, or using it, fulfilling those commitments and working advocating to ensure that there's additional funding a year from now from the General Assembly.

And so while not ideal, I would recommend that we go ahead and use these funds.

If we don't, we won't be able to meet our collective bargaining agreements, or we would have to ask the city for 16 million instead of 9 million.

And I'm happy to make that request, but I'm also sensitive to the fact that the city is unlikely able to meet that request.

And you know, I think that a lot of folks are you know have been asking, we've heard questions.

Um, you know, that that Richmond as a school district is is in this financial crisis while you know neighboring counties are able to um you know add and provide raises and and don't have the same critical circumstance that we're in right now.

And I do wonder if the one-time funding is um part of that scenario, although understand that the the school districts are certainly not apples to apples.

You know, that's obvious.

Um my my personal bias, I think I share the perspective of many is that um when it comes to prioritizing funding in these tight times, um, you know, that we want to make sure that there are always enough adults in the building first.

And so, and when I say adults in the building, I'm also I would love to see the virtual school program continue.

I think it's a wonderful program.

I'm talking about adults, period.

Um but I wonder what type of analysis um the board and public have seen in terms of the um non-personnel related expenses.

I mean, I I've seen in the presentation that some of the budget pressures are our contracts.

Um I've often talked a lot about uh you know softwares, and um, and I know that there are many wonderful softwares out there, but if push come to shove, I'm gonna take the the person, the adult, the professional over that program any time of the day.

And I'm wondering if the um what type of uh analysis has been done to show um you know, are there any other places where where funding could be saved to ensure again that that we are doing everything we can to keep every adult in the building?

Thank you, Councilmember Gibson.

Uh on that front, we have provided uh the board and done an analysis of every single contract over $25,000, I believe it was.

Uh we've also reduced several over the last year or plus, uh eliminating some duplicative and unhelpful software programs and and other contracts.

Uh so uh the board has looked at that and reviewed that.

I also want to note vis-a-vis our neighbors.

As you know, we are very different school systems.

We have a poverty rate uh of about 70 percent.

That's twice what it is in Henrico, and it's three times what it is in Chesterfield.

That necessitates, as you well know, a much higher level of spending to provide a high quality education.

At the same time, as I noted earlier, according to the state, those localities have a lower ability to pay for public education, which means proportionally speaking, they're getting more from the state uh than we are.

And so again, I would argue that the very system by which we fund public education in the commonwealth is not an equitable one.

It's not just me saying that.

J.

Lark, the General Assembly's own nonpartisan research firm, literally noted.

The SOQ formula does not adequately account for higher needs students.

State funding for at-risk students, special education students, and English learner students is less than the level of funding determined necessary to educate them in cost studies performed in other states.

We have far more of those students than our neighbors do.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Albacher.

Yes.

Thank you, Madam President.

Um questions is what was the how much were you saving by furloughing the directors and chiefs, and why was that put back on the table as opposed to something else?

It saved us $68,000.

Yeah, that makes sense.

And it understandably was not particularly beneficial for morale.

Yeah.

Um and then my second question is what is the current status of hiring for the RPS auditor.

For the RPS Auditor.

Honor guard.

Auditor auditors.

For that I would defer to Vice President Percival.

Thank you so much for the question.

As the former chair of the Finance Committee for the School Board, we were actively pursuing that role all last year, and we continue to pursue that role this year.

As you may know, RPS recently hired for the chief talent officer, and she is amazing, and she is actually engaged to help us find that role.

It has been very difficult to fill that role, and it's not just us uh auditors, uh you may have gone through this, are hard to come by and hard to fill those spots, but we are actively doing that, and we are hoping within the next few weeks to have a candidate in place.

Thank you.

Thank you, Vice President Personal.

Councilmember Robertson.

Did you say Robertson?

Robertson.

Councilmember Robertson.

I'm sorry, I wasn't didn't recognize my name.

Oh, didn't he clearly?

Okay.

Um before I ask uh superintendent uh Jason question question as it relates to the report itself, because there are several slides that I would like to get more clarification on.

Is there an internal process that we are using that I can send those questions to ask staff and get responses back rather than take each one of these slides one by one and ask questions?

Uh is there an internal process that we could use to do that?

Yes, ma'am.

RJ Warren, Council Chief of Staff, you can email me those questions and I will help facilitate uh getting those answers.

All right.

So um all right.

With that in mind, I would take the time to make sure that my questions are clear and get that information to our staff and back to you, uh Mr.

Superintendent for answers to those questions.

But first of all, I would just like to say thank you for the report.

Um congratulate you and your team on the success that have been made as it relates to improvements.

Um as you very well know, one of the promises that we made to each other from day one is that if our children are not achieving at the academic level that we know that the state and perhaps others use to determine the future of those children in ways that we definitely don't want to see happen, and so I will be asking a little bit more detailed information on those academic scores.

Um also being told that there is uh significant reduction and I shouldn't say significant, there is a reduction in student count population, and I am also being told that we are seeing a significant in decrease in the number of African American, and it may be ratios rather than numbers, but I will be specific with the questions that I will pass on to the staff so they can have a better understanding of that.

But just for uh your feedback on some of the things that I have a concern about, um, you know, I agree that you know uh positions that are no that will not be continued.

Um hopeful that those employees already know that before this document became public.

Okay, good.

Um but just off the top, could we is there are we seeing a trend of less African American students in Richmond Public Schools?

Thank you, Councilmember Robertson.

Um there is a slight decline.

I don't know the exact number off the top of my head, but I'd say um something on the order of a couple hundred.

Um I do think Richmond Public Schools reflects the city of Richmond, and as the city changes, I would imagine Richmond Public Schools will also change to a certain degree.

I do want to note we have had a small dip in what's called average daily membership.

That is different from enrollment.

Our enrollment has actually gone up.

So if you compare last fall to this fall, we actually have a higher enrollment.

Average daily membership is a calculation which takes into consideration how long students are enrolled over the course of the year.

So for example, for enrollment purposes, if you are there on September 30th when we do the count, you're part of our enrollment.

For average daily membership, if you then leave in say January, you are considered essentially 0.5 of a student because you were only there half the year.

School systems that have high transientcy rates sometimes see a misalignment between enrollment and average daily membership because of that movement.

I will also note, though I can't say empirically, we have begun to see some loss of students in our Latino community who have decided to leave the area given federal ICE enforcement in the area, but also more broadly.

I can say that based on what I have uh heard from our principals and our teachers, and we will know more accurately when we do our fall membership number exactly what that looks like.

But that could impact average daily membership as well.

So just to follow up, Madam Chair.

Those are real critical issues that we'll face.

As it relates to the reduction in the African American students, is that due to an increase in other population which percentage-wise would be different, or you actually seeing a true difference in the numbers of African American?

And the other question I would ask in relationship to that is if you see any difference in the number of students of poverty within your school system, and are we seeing a dispar uh a significant difference in particular location of schools, are we seeing that shift?

And so part of the question is we've had a significant increase in new population coming into the city.

And I would think that you would see that same or some of that same change in schools in certain communities versus others.

Are you uh are there any trends that we are seeing that would help us from a policy perspective as well as a budget perspective to see that, see those changes taking place and trying to get in front of preparation for those things?

So I don't want to speak in details because I don't have the data in front of me.

I am happy to provide it and come back and answer questions.

I can say at a high level, the biggest change over the last five, seven years, if you think of the pie of students at RPS, is the pie of our Latino students has grown dramatically.

So when I started in the position, I think we were something on the order of 12, 13 percent Hispanic.

We are now close to 25 percent Hispanic.

Now, given ICE activity and other federal activity, that has created a bit of a dampening effect.

I don't know how big that will be and how sustained it will be, but that has been the biggest demographic shift in RPS over the last several years.

And is that shift primarily in any one sector or community area of the city?

It is primarily in eight and nine.

Eighth and eighth and not districts.

Okay.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

Thank you, madam chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lynch.

Thank you.

Um just a couple of questions, and I think um Councilmember Robertson's questions were really poignant and um well worth tracking.

Um questions about this the different scenarios that you have with the state here and our and our friends over across the street.

Um, you know, assuming that we do, thank you for putting that up.

Assuming that we do um get the 20 million, what what is the so the true delta that we will have to come up with in addition to the 5.8 million that might be may or may not be baked into the mayor's budget is nine million?

That 9 million includes that 5.4.

Okay.

So then we'd have to come up with an additional three and a half, three and some change.

Okay.

And the 7 million, but shaky thing about that number as you're pointing out, is that 7 million of those dollars are one-time funding dollars.

So the question is, do we have your folks ran the numbers on the debt service in the CIP if we were able to replace 7 million of the maintenance line items, because those are one-time funding items.

Um and supplant the one-time funding of 7 million in with the one-time maintenance items and move the general fund budget that you have allocated in your maintenance funds because those are reoccurring in your operating budget.

Could you do that?

I apologize, I am not following.

Could you say it one more time?

All right.

So you have one-time funds and the seven million, right?

You have a maintenance budget that has 11, and that's CIP, but I assume not all that is debt service.

I assume that some of that is baked into the out years in your operating budget ongoing, correct?

Uh none of that is debt service.

That's all straight.

That's just all straight general fund.

Yeah, straight CIP dollars.

Yes.

That is our request of the city.

Typically, over the last several years, we've received 2.5 million.

I would love to receive 10 point five.

But I am a realist and understand that we will likely be receiving 2.5.

Is that is that truly CIP?

Is that in debt service or is that in operating fund money?

There's a difference obviously between CIP and operating fund.

How those funds are generated by the city, I would defer to the city.

But they come to us in essence as cash that we spend, for example, replace a roof, 1.9 million.

I'm wondering if someone can answer that question.

I mean, that's an important question because we found ourselves in this quandary.

We're in this quandary because we funded some of these positions with one-time um funding from the ARPA.

So if we if we need to use all 20 million dollars to, you know, restore, which we absolutely want to try to get to, um, you know, restoration of all the collective bargaining commitments, the teacher sell that all the good stuff you have here.

Um we certainly wouldn't want to do that with seven million dollars of one-time funding, not being mindful that that goes that call falls off of a cliff in the next budget year.

So is the the question is is there a wiggle room in any of the expensive.

I mean, I'm looking at maintenance, but any of the expenditures in you that you have in your budget that could potentially be one-time expenditure so you can move.

Um I I do not believe there is anything else at this point.

Um of course we would continue to look, but um but we've scoured pretty hard.

I also don't know that we are legally allowed to use CIP money for operating expenses, but again, unless we are going to be surprised with a $10 million CIP uh allocation, I think it's likely we're going to get $2.5 million, which is well short of the $7 million.

Well, it's a it's a good question, and I would let if we can just follow up on um whether or not legally we have a CIP and we have an operating, but as I understand it, you all just get one lump sum of money.

I don't know that your CIP is necessarily defined in the way that our CIP dollars are, unless it is allocated as a separate budget from the city to RPS.

Not part of the operation.

Not part of your operating budget.

Okay.

Um it would be good though to find out if if we can do a little digging in on how we would finagle that $7 million so that we don't make sure you've thought about it.

But Mr.

N RJ has that on his list and can submit in if there is anything additional.

Yeah.

Vice President Jordan.

Thank you.

Thank you, President.

Really appreciate the presentation and cause for celebration in the early slides with those gains.

We really don't get to celebrate enough.

So thank you for including that in there.

And as well as your information on the key updates from the General Assembly.

My understanding is that if we obviously we want the House version to pass, but is there do you think there's any likelihood we could get the at-risk add-on that's in the Senate's budget to the House?

And then how would that affect the numbers?

And then my second question would be do you think do you feel like the 1% for construction is likely to pass and how would that affect your budget and at what time during the year if it moved as smoothly as it could.

Thank you.

Thank you.

The Senate bill, Senate budget does include uh an increase to at-risk add-on funding.

And so we are advocating that the House's budget adds in that at-risk add-on funding from the Senate bill, which would yield us probably another roughly one million.

Uh so gets us a little bit closer.

Um percent sales tax, yes, that has uh moved through both chambers.

Uh the governor has indicated a likelihood to sign that.

And so I do think that would come before the voters of Richmond uh shortly thereafter uh for a referendum.

Thank you.

Councilman Barton.

I wanted to understand uh similar to Councilmember Lynch's question about the one-time funds, kind of understanding the appropriate and possible uses of it.

So let's say we were really committed and asked you not to spend one-time funds on recurring costs.

What and what are the types of costs that presumably the state legislature is even assuming you would use for one-time funds?

Is that all CIP?

Are there other types of operational funds that a seven million dollar boost of one-time funds could really go a long way on on one-time uses?

So, first some context.

The state has given uh broad latitude on those one-time funds because they know school systems are grappling with how to make all of this work.

Um to my knowledge, most school divisions will be using it for operational expenses.

Um, if we didn't use it, uh I do want to be clear, that means we would not be doing some of the things that I listed up here.

We would not be doing raises or we would not be fulfilling our collective bargaining commitments.

So that's the trade-off.

If that were the case, uh there are things you could spend one-time money on.

Uh maintenance, buses, books.

It's more uh stuff rather than services or people.

Um actually that's a good, I guess, segue back into the question around our you know, the ratio of personnel expenses versus non-personnel.

I see that you know the vast majority of our costs are instruction, right?

And I first assume that that was just the salaries and benefits of our instructors, but I don't know if that's the case.

Is instruction actually a um I was trying to find basically the non-personnel fraction of the budget so I could understand it and it um these are the state function codes, so by law we're required to report accordingly.

So instruction, as you can see, it's principals, APs, teachers, counselors, social workers, library and media specialists, home bound structures, instructional assistance, professional learning, curriculum, textbooks, and other instructional materials.

So it's not all personnel.

Yeah, but it does look like it's the probably a very, very vast majority is personnel, I'm assuming.

We are school system after all.

Yep, yep.

Um I do want to comment also on some of the notion about like getting creative with the funding.

I have I have just been asking also on our side about what whether are there opportunities to find efficiencies in using city funds for RPS facility needs.

I know that there's like we have you know the school funds and then we have the city funds, and they're not supposed to mix.

But you know, if there are opportunities to save money in aggregate by cooperating, right?

I've been you know speaking with my colleague on the school board and trying to speak with our legal team to find out you know what what we are allowed to do if if there could be significant opportunities somehow there.

I just want to say I'm open to that, and I've been trying to keep that line of conversation open as well.

Um last thing I wanted to ask is I think the question about the auditor comes up a lot because people wonder, you know, about how well, you know how well we are tracking our spending and everything.

And I want to know more if it's okay to speak more about the challenges of hiring an auditor, if it's okay about you know what our standards are, what we're looking for, what the market is like and and why it's so difficult.

And as Mr.

Perseval comes up, I do want to note that we publish monthly financial statements.

Uh every expenditure that we make is publicly available, and we invite the public to review it at their leisure.

Thank you so much.

Thanks for the question.

Um I I can bore you as long as you want to talk about auditors, I'm happy to do it.

Uh there are not nine people in this city that want an auditor more than the school board, and we have been actively pursuing this.

What we are extremely concerned with, though, is that we do want a highly credentialed person in the role.

And so you can look at the requirements that we have because it's public and it's for hiring.

But it has been a little bit difficult.

Um, as you may know, we are in an environment where when you're hiring at high levels, a lot of people have hybrid requests.

Um so we've hashed through what is an acceptable hybrid working environment, how much remote, how much on site.

We need someone who can go to schools.

Uh so we need someone who's nearby uh who can be in the buildings.

So we have interviewed quite a few candidates already.

We spent the entire last year doing this.

I was spearheading that myself.

Um we've had some people that got close and they literally moved out of state and they left.

So these are some of the real world.

I I won't go line by line, but these are some of the challenges that you do face.

But the one thing I will say in speaking for the board, if I may, is is that we don't want to just hire to fill the position.

We want to ensure that we have the right person who can balance the analysis of the financials and the audits with the unique requirements of the Richmond Public School system in Richmond in general, because there are a lot of of uh cultural aspects to keep in mind when looking into some of this information, and we want to make sure that that person is capable of doing that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Superintendent Camers, I want to say thank you for the report.

Um I can't be more excited about the significant accomplishments you're articulated across the four areas as well as our graduation rates.

Certainly the advocacy that you all have put in on the state side that's looking like it's going to have some yield.

We'd like it to be more, but some yield we'll accept.

Um I I know we'll continue to look at the local composite index and hopefully at risk will bring something, but ultimately that needs to be fixed.

Um I want to thank you.

I want to thank Vice President uh Percival and our chief of staff, Chang, for all of the work that's gotten us to this place with our 22,000 uh wonderful young persons.

I look forward to continued um work and efforts.

I do have a question, but I'll give that to RJ about some possibility for and that goes maybe in part to Mr.

Bretton.

Can we do some joint purchasing that'll get us because of the weight we purchase would have some savings.

But uh Cinda, I have a couple of other questions.

But overall, I I can't thank you all enough for your due diligence, your care, and uh all of the work within our children.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you.

With that, members, um, we have a report.

Um I believe it's our new directive human services.

I can't see.

Oh, I'm sorry, Ms.

Redman.

I'm sorry, I was looking over our new director there.

With no slight on you.

Uh but this is the second quarter vacancy and turnover report you'll provide for us.

Yes.

Thank you.

Um good afternoon.

Um the HR Senior Deputy Director.

And I'm gonna talk about workforce stability and give you an update on where we are with this.

So first question really is why does workforce stability matter to the city?

Um it matters because workforce stability directly impacts our service delivery and the public trust.

Any time that we have high vacancies and we have high turnover, it strains our operations, and the morale, frankly, of the employees is also impacted.

When we have that high vacancy, employees tend to need to work more hours, and that leads into higher overtime and also employee burnout.

We have to focus on progress here.

We will focus on the organization and the risks to the organization and come up with solutions to maintain a stable workforce.

And this is why it's important and why we need to focus on our workforce stability.

Before we move into what HR is doing in this area, I'm going to stop here and talk about some key wins over the past several years in this area of trying to maintain a workforce stability.

As shown in this chart, our turnover rate has reduced by more than 40% since fiscal year 22.4%.

That's an incredible reduction that we have had in the city's turnover rate.

And the 9.4% is a record low.

Vacancies are also declining instead of growing.

So we are seeing that as an estimate based on the eight months of data of being 12.3%, which is going in the right direction.

A lot of this reduction is attributed to a lot of work in HR, also in partnership with each of the agencies.

Now, all that said, there is a lot of more work to do in this area.

And you know, we will continue to work towards improvement, and that is going to be ongoing.

There are some concentrated risks.

Some departments still exceed 15% in their vacancy rate, and there are recruitment delays that have created some extended vacancies at the city.

And that has led into we do have some process and timing gaps.

Some of these vacancies are remaining open a lot longer than we'd like to see.

Some of this is due to the delay in requisitions in order to start their recruitments.

And some of the recruitments, frankly, have not been initiated.

Improvements in this area are already underway, and we are seeing results that are recently happening here and things that are getting us back on track.

But these are the types of things that we're looking at under our new leadership.

These are seen again as systems and process issues, and we will have a stronger focus here to create some efficiencies that improve those processes and the timing.

However, under some situations, the hiring timeline is going to vary by department.

So the next thing we'll talk about is the momentum that we have achieved so far.

So we are confidently able to say that we believe our momentum has shifted from a stalled to a moving situation.

If you look back to some of the previous reports, there were a lot of positions there that just didn't have a lot of movement.

At this point, we have about 50% of our vacant positions that are moving, and there are others that are also in the process to begin to move towards filling those open vacancies.

That too is a lot higher than we'd really like to see here.

So where we are is a goal to reduce this as quickly as we can to 120 days and then incrementally move this down to a more ideal state.

Now that's going to require us to adopt some more modern technology, some systems, and some better processes here, but in the interim, we are working hard to reduce that average time to fill.

Some of the actions we now have underway under the direction of our CAO include the following.

Seeing how we can create some efficiencies, seeing what kind of technology or modern technology we might be able to help us get to where we need to go.

In this area, we're going to work with department staff in the agencies, and this will help us to extend our reach.

We are a smaller department, and we need that help from the departments in order to get where we need to be.

So some calls to action at this point.

We would like really the support of everyone, and that includes council, the administration, the agency heads, the staff, the agencies themselves, because this is going to take all of us.

And also we're going to need a little bit of flexibility here as we process, do some changes to our process, and we have some modernizing that we need to do to our hiring systems.

And this at this point concludes my report.

But otherwise, I am happy to take any questions that you may have.

Ms.

Redman, thank you for the report.

And I think there will be a couple of questions at least.

Council Member Lynch.

Hello.

Hello.

And I know that finance committee, we got a pretty detailed report on what was going on in the finance department, but I I noticed that we am I looking at this correctly that we did not necessarily move the needle on staff vacancies in the finance department from year to year.

And this report, no, but we have removed the needle.

There are positions that are going into recruitment and or filled.

What you have here is a statement as of 220 of what was vacant.

So that many was vacant at that date, but they are moving through, some of them are moving through the recruitment process now, as opposed to stalled there.

Would you say that you all are when you look at this?

I mean, you have a gargantuan task of staffing all of these departments and doing the hard work of recruiting and then getting these folks moved through the process, which we know historically the HR high the hiring process itself has been pretty pretty slow or pretty slow to get folks in the door to to actually in their chairs.

I mean, that's been a historic problem, long, long, long time running problem.

Would you say, how are you kind of prioritizing your focus with all of the different departments needing so much of your attention?

So we do need to look at some of the highest numbers here, but also the most critical and go after those positions.

Improving our time to fill will go a long ways, and some of that is going to be a you know, a I don't want to say a constant reminder, but it is going to be a reminder.

Hey, where are we at with this?

Is this going yet to make sure that everybody stays on we have a vacancy, let's get it filled.

Um, and the sooner the better.

And you know, we we do not want those things to stall just because maybe you've put somebody in there as acting, and now you you can catch your breath and let it ride for a few months, and you know, let's move.

So there will be there will be things like that that we can do, but more to come on exactly how we will get there quicker, but filling those jobs faster when they vacate is key.

Um, and filling the jobs that are mission critical that are causing overtime and they're not filled, and things like that will also be critical to move it.

And again, we're gonna have to work with the departments to make sure that you know they are also moving with us because you know we can do a lot here as HR, but we do need them to be with us on this.

So I mean, what's like the top three departments in your mind from highest priority to lowest, well, not lowest, but the top three printing for I think we would have to sit down and and look at those departments.

I mean, obviously, this well, this slide right here is showing you all pos all departments that have more than 10 vacant positions.

Um those are pretty critical, and you can kind of see the head count as you come down of where those counts are.

So those would be more critical.

On the other hand, I've until we look at who is critical and what positions are critical.

I mean, it could be the other way around, but it is what is needed and what is causing the other time and what is critical that we have in place that is a pain point in those departments and a pain point in those for that personnel staff.

And you'll see on this chart 457 of 536 are really all centered in 10 departments with another 28, which is on the second slide, um having 79 total in the rest.

And it could be that some of those, this is the kind of a strain chart, but this group, a 28, there could be some very critical jobs in here as well that we need to focus on.

Unfortunately, you can't focus on the thing, right?

We will work our way through it.

We do have staff that are are dedicated to certain departments.

So we it's not like we can we only can pick one and forget everybody else.

We we will be going at it.

Um but that will be important to get to the most critical jobs.

Okay.

Thank you.

Councilmember Bretton.

So as we are in budget season, I am wondering what level this vacancy percent is being used in our budget projections.

Are we, you know, budgeting as if we fill everything and then taking the extra and putting it in the reserve at the end of the year, or are we budgeting with a more realistic as you know, assumption?

And not that one of those is necessarily better, but what are we doing?

That I cannot answer you, but I we can take it back and see how budget is going to budget for this.

Um, then I guess I could say if somebody wanted to try to estimate and say and they wanted to budget it for the realistic amount, I mean, would you be able, would your department be able to project?

I think it's reasonable to think that we will fill you know a third of these or something, right?

Like would would that be something that you could do or that you're able to do?

If we could, we would fill all of them.

So uh realistically, I mean our turnover is dropping.

Um would it continues to drop, which means we will get closer and closer to being fully staffed if we have the funds to do those things, obviously, and that does depend on budget.

So I expect budget will be able to either answer that question for you on what they did, or they will address it when they um present to you in March, April.

Yeah.

Because I'm gonna imagine we're we're gonna be asking questions about trying to get the budget as you know close to realistic as possible, and that might include Yeah, like a realistic assessment about how many of these roles we can realistically expect to fill within a fiscal year, right?

Um so I might expect that that type of question would probably come back to your department to say, okay, we would love to do them all, but what are we actually going to get done?

It may.

And I will say we have dropped, you can see on this chart, we have dropped 123 vacant jobs since June.

And the true focus of that is to come.

So we have been working on it pretty heavy the last uh you know month or so with our new HR director.

Um I expect that this number is going to come down for vacancies.

And that's as good as I mean, I don't want you to answer right now, but I'm saying I'm I'm asking you to be prepared to answer that, I guess, because as these questions come up to say, hey, you know, I know we want to fill 145 spots at DPU, but if we really only are going to fill 50 this year, do we need to budget all 150 or what are we going to do, right?

And so being able to think about what's realistic.

I do really appreciate that, for example, with the police department, we knew we simply could not fill those spots.

So we said let's not pretend and keep these slots open.

I don't know in the other departments you know how we are thinking about all these slots.

We know we need them, we need every single one of them.

Um, but realistically, since we're not going to fill all of them, or I don't know, maybe you tell me about like if there's a more realistic amount, might we want to calculate what that is, make that the budgeted amount, you know, rather than hope for the best and then get a surplus.

Yeah, we'll we'll stay tuned with budget to be prepared to look at that area for you then.

Thank you, Ms.

Redman.

I'm going to ask Audja if you would include that question so that it can go to administration and they will have already had that opportunity to be prepared to respond.

Councilmember Gibson.

Thank you, Madam President.

Thank you for the presentation.

Anytime I see a report that talks about vacancies going down, you know that I am going to say cheers to collective bargaining.

And these things, this is not a coincidence.

This is the real benefit to collective bargaining when people are being compensated fairly, when they are working in improved working conditions.

And so we talk a lot about the cost, but there is a true benefit that has cost as well, and financial benefit that I think we should always be reminding ourselves about.

Another thing that can I think really help morale and ensure that people are looking to stay with the city long term.

You know, the fact that public utilities and finance are at the top.

I mean, I would say most residents would uh not be surprised to see that there when those two departments obviously we've had a lot of headlines with with those departments as of late.

Um and uh you know I it it is it it it it is concerning.

I wonder though, um do you have a sense of how many uh outsourced folks are being you know hired in in these positions?

Public utilities has quite a bit.

I would have to defer to both of those departments to see exactly what they or how many outside sourcing they are using to help cover for those jobs.

Um we do not have a a way to look at a vacancy and in our systems and say, yeah, that one, that one in particular is being outsourced.

So it it is a big vacancy, but they are filling this need with outside agencies, overtime, acting pay, special pay.

Um there are a variety of ways that they are spending that money just without the people in the seats.

Right.

So I mean I think Council Member Gibson will add that question as well so that that can come back.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yes, I mean I think that as we're talking about um the cost of um of turnover, the cost is is high.

It is both because there's less lost expertise, um, mistakes and things that often come at a cost, and as well the cost of um of having to uh pay outside companies to to outsource the cost of overtime, the cost is immense, and so um I I do think that that is important.

So when we look at the fact that, say um, you know, that there's a percentage of these positions that are not funded, um, it's you know, then the that money often I would presume would be going towards all of these other costs.

Um so addressing this problem could could lead to some savings.

Also, as it relates to temporary staff, um, I wonder is there existing policy in place that um or or internal protocols regarding hiring some of the um contractors that might be working with the city.

Um is it generally the practice to um to promote folks that are are brought in through through outside agencies?

They yes, and we have done that before.

Um they you know, people can apply if they want to apply.

Some folks who are outside contractors, they enjoy the benefits of being an outside contractor of hey, I don't have to come in tomorrow and I'm not, you know, as opposed to an employee that you do need you are expected to be here, right?

Um so there are some people that enjoy outside contracting, and some people who want to be employees, and that is one way to get in the door.

Um you come in through an agency or an outside contracting and and apply for this job that is open.

Sure.

Thank you.

Councilmember Lynch, did you?

Thank you.

Okay.

Um so both, I think Councilmember Breton and Councilmember Gibson's questions really lead back to this idea of prioritization.

Um when we asked you, you know, you can't do everything successfully.

You've got a big, you know, gargantuan task here.

Um we should have very clear directional leadership and strategy on how we are focusing on our departments.

And I would say that if it's not finance, finance, and finance, we're in we're in trouble.

Um we have a uh budget that's being presented to us on the 11th.

We have an audit that was late, and then we have a um CAF or whatever we're calling it a different name now, and ASPR that has been taken off of the agenda.

All of those things indicate that we have a finance department that is not functioning in a healthy way and a way that our residents would expect.

Um that's concerning, deeply concerning to look at what we know is the operational outcome of a 39% vacancy rate, right?

And we're not beaten up on you or the finance department.

I mean, that that is that is a symptom of of us not focusing in on staffing and fixing that that department, and that department has been um ailing for a number of years, predates OD predates um, you know, it's been a number of years, maybe ten.

Um and so I guess the question is, and I would push back on the administration just a little bit and say, give you the support that you need to focus in with laser intention on fixing that department.

And I mean, if if you know the other some of the other departments or positions have to go have to not be prioritized for a little bit, so be it, because that's the most important function of the city.

And I I still don't understand why we're not why we don't have why that was removed off the agenda.

There might be a good reason.

Um I'm looking to whoever can answer that.

But um, but it I mean it is concerning that that seems to be a a larger there's a larger endemic issue going on here, and that that is that it is the underpinnings of our whole city is the budget and finance.

I I hear you.

Um we do have new leadership in both HRN and finance, so um we will we hear you and we'll we'll look at that.

We will make sure that gets on to the list of items that will go to the administration for additional clarification.

I will I mean whoops, I lost something here.

Hold on.

I will say that and I've lost my screen now, but here we go.

I will say the turnover in finance is 10%.

Now again, the bleeding has stopped, right?

The bleeding has come down.

We just got to hire the bodies.

So there is um there is some good news in finance here.

Thank you.

Councilmember Trammell.

President.

I just know that um that some of my colleagues used to beat up Sheila White all the time, and I don't know how she would stand there and take the abuse that she took.

And especially in the newspaper, she got criticized for this and that, along with our previous CAO, Sabrina.

Um to me it was wrong, and now here we are.

Um we still don't know what we have, what we don't have.

We were told we had like 12 million, 22 million.

What exactly do we have?

We don't know.

How can this council um do a budget when we don't even know what we have as far as like you don't write checks when you don't know how much money is in your checking account, that's for sure.

So how are we going to be working on a budget without knowing exactly what we have and how do we proceed from there?

Also, Sarah D.

I went to um the mayor's budget meeting over there in my district at the Hickory Hill Community Center.

And this book right here, I'll say this.

This is excellent.

Never seen this presented before.

And I wanted to thank the CAO for, you know.

Well, I guess he's here.

He's here.

But anyway, I just want to say thank him for this.

And also when he was talking, I mean, every department in here is necessary.

And I know that he said we might have to do, we might have to ask every department to do a 2% cut.

Um I know a couple people called me after he left a meeting and said, Did I hear him right?

And I said, Yeah, I think that's what he said.

Um I don't think any department is overstaffed right now, especially in public utilities, public works.

Um, the police, maybe the fire department's good, but they still need equipment and stuff like that to be able to do their job.

The Richmond Anlers Authority, too, they need more money.

Um I don't know, you know, how we go from here to the next meeting and start working on a budget when we really are we gonna have to cut two percent and what departments and all of that, because I will fight tooth and nail, and I and I appreciate Odie saying that public safety is dear to his heart as well as many others because you've got to have public safety in place to have a thriving city.

Thank you, Ms.

Trammell.

And that the question uh relative to, and you had a couple very significant questions, especially relative to the budget.

I'm going to have those go over to Mr.

Donald so that when we get that those work sessions, those questions can come back.

How do we begin to look at budget?

What percent cut and cut where all of that?

So, Mr.

Donald, you get to get a preview in terms of questions that will come that will need to have some response uh in preparation for budget deliberations.

And Madam President, I want to say this too.

I don't want it to look like we are criticizing those workers in finance, because I know that there are a lot of good workers in there that are you know working overtime, they try to get things straight, and so we can't, you know, as they always say, it starts, you know, at the top, and Sheila White is no longer here and needs Sabrina.

But those workers that work behind those counters, they do an excellent job trying to help the citizens, especially when they come in there screaming and hollering as I have witnessed a couple of times.

Thank you.

You're absolutely correct, uh, Ms.

Trammell.

I've observed simulali and um so yes.

I think uh Vice President uh Jordan, did you have a question for Ms.

Redman?

Yeah, um just a quick question, and thank you so much for this presentation.

Um we recently got the overtime report to our GovOps committee, and to your point of sometimes uh when you look at the departments that have the highest number of vacancies, um it's all priority to fill every vacancy, but you know, certainly our fire and our police get hit really hard with overtime needs.

And like to the extent we're working on that, it's it's just interesting to me when I look at the fire over time and I look at the vacancy report.

I thought they were down more in fire.

I know we're down in you know, police, but looks am I reading it correctly, it's only five active vacancies right now?

Yeah, for a fire sworn.

Yes.

And that I think that um if there are recruits, those recruits are added in there.

Sometimes it just takes a minute for them to get out of recruit and to be productive in there, but correct.

There are five vacancies in the sworn fire area, and that's it, which is an incredibly low number considering you know that if you look down this list, that's the only department has that size, um, 480 with five vacancies.

So they are essentially pretty much fully staffed.

Um the thing about fire and police for that matter, is they come in in a group.

So, you know, they all go to recruit school, they all come out.

So there is a big lead.

It's not like recruiting, you know, if you have a vacancy or we have a vacancy, we go look for that one person.

They look for, they leave it open, they look for a group, and then they come out all at one time.

So that number changes a lot in one day, right?

I bet.

Okay.

Got it.

Thank you.

And then so does your department, when you're creating your vacancy reports, compare it to the overtime numbers that come out.

Say that again.

We look at the fact that we have a lot of overtime produced in police and fire.

That's where it's primarily at.

Um given the minimum staffing in the departments or the stations for fire and the staffing in police, the number of events that the city city has that requires additional police.

Some are more squarely with NHR, but we appreciate the report thus far.

Thank you so much.

Members, the next item on the agenda is reports of standing committees.

Yes, you have on your desk the um summaries from uh the committees.

Uh if there is nothing else to be added for your committee for reporting, um we will just accept these.

If there are any members who want to make any additional comment relative to their committee report, please indicate such.

Okay, seeing none, we uh again the document is on the desk uh on our desk that have been prepared by our staff with those summaries.

With that, members, the uh agenda for this meeting, uh we have um we have concluded.

Uh with that the meeting stands adjourned.

Thank you.