Good afternoon.

The special meeting of the Richmond City Council will now come to order.

Madam Clerk, if you would please provide the chamber emergency evacuation plan announcement.

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.

At this time, I'd like to invite our mayor to come forward and uh join us and uh provide the budget presentation for fiscal year twenty twenty second.

Welcome there.

Thank you, President Newville.

And good afternoon to you, to Vice President Jordan, and to all of the honorable members of council.

Many of whom have joined me here today.

I'll start with Megan Brown and the budget team who are sitting in the second row.

I mean, this is uh your prime time, guys.

Thank you so much for your incredible work.

To the residents that have joined us here either in person or who are watching from home, uh, I want to thank them for actively engaging the work of local government.

Uh and I'm very excited to present our proposed fiscal year 2027 budget to you for all for consideration this afternoon.

Uh this year's budget was developed in a more constrained environment than usual, with both the pause in real estate assessments and the uncertainty that we face around federal funding streams.

And I want to start with the issue that we have been most focused on over this last year.

And I think it's the issue that ultimately led people to vote me into this office, which is the operation of local government.

You know, when people talk about what they want from their city government, they often talk about the big issues housing affordability, safety, schools, economic opportunity.

But to deliver on those priorities, they're also asking for something more foundational.

A government that works, a government that is competent, transparent, responsive, and worthy of the public's trust.

And that's why the first pillar of the mayoral action plan focuses on transforming Richmond's local government into a model public sector organization.

One that stewards resources effectively, meets community needs, and earns the trust of residents.

Over the past year, we have been doing the work required to strengthen the foundation of city government.

We brought in new experienced leadership, including a new chief administrative officer, three new deputy CAOs, and 10 new directors.

We launched a comprehensive assessment of city operations, including CAO Donald's 100-day review, and began implementing improvements across the organization.

We've also done the work to strengthen the relationship between our new administration and you all as council, and I think we have made great strides in that regard.

Together, we've created new rhythms and ways of operating that have served our residents well and will continue to grow their faith in us as the leaders of their city.

After last year's budget cycle, we quickly assembled a team of administration and council members to analyze the process and to make improvements for this year.

We moved the budget introduction date earlier to provide you all more time.

We ramped up public engagement with a series of budget town halls.

We redesigned the council budget work sessions around DCAO portfolios.

And most importantly, we have spent time discussing the ways that we together wanted to fund housing affordability, support frontline workers, invest in public safety, reduce gun violence, increase accountability around how we distribute funds to nonprofits, and look for ways to spend less so that we can work towards lowering the tax burden on our residents.

I've worked to ensure that your priorities, our shared priorities, are reflected clearly in my proposal.

And we'll reconvene again after budget adoption to continue to improve the process.

And I really, really believe that this intentional work is paying off.

Look at what we accomplished together on the Affordable Housing Trust Fund legislation.

We took a well-intended policy that was great in concept but difficult to execute, and we figured out how to effectively implement it.

I think this is a model of how we must work together for the good of our city, pairing good policy with good implementation.

And it's how we will all succeed in delivering for our residents.

And so I want to start with the pillar that we've been the most engaged in during my first year in the seat, the operations of local government.

After last January's water crisis, we have spent the last year overhauling the Department of Public Utilities.

We went and found an experienced leader to take the helm, and Scott Morris immediately identified gaps in expertise and technical knowledge that have now been filled with a total of six professional engineers across the department.

I've spent the last couple of months sharing this department's transformation with our partners across the street.

And thanks to the advocacy of our state delegation and the increase in confidence in our operation.

When the prior governors introduced budget had zero dollars committed to either of those needs.

And we fully staffed our internal compliance team to ensure that all of our procurement activities actually meet regulatory mandates.

We're about to roll out a comprehensive procurement training program to all the departments.

And finally, procurement has completed almost all of the PCART audit recommendations and is prepared to execute a controlled relaunch of the program.

Just last week, I uh signed a proclamation to our procurement department for an award that they won, a national uh recognition for achievement.

And that's the second year in a row that they've won that award.

They also won a Virginia State Procurement Award as well.

And so, Renee and to the whole procurement team, if any of you here are phenomenal work.

Our Citizen Service and Response Department, also known as 311, has continued its focus on delivering top notch customer service.

They've worked with multiple city departments to build better SOPs and improve interdepartmental communications.

They've done an incredible amount of training, and they are piloting new technologies so that every resident gets faster, clearer, and more transparent service than ever before.

And every week I get emails or phone calls from constituents who have had such positive experiences with 311 that they were compelled to reach out to me.