Richmond Finance and Economic Development Committee Meeting – July 15, 2026
Richmond Finance and Economic Development Standing Committee Meeting – July 15, 2026
The Richmond City Council Finance and Economic Development Standing Committee met on July 15, 2026, at 9:30 AM. The meeting covered board and commission appointments, a major ordinance on the city's payment register, a resolution to investigate payment register failures, and several housing and budget items.
Boards and Commissions Appointments
- The committee approved the reappointment of James Botion and initial appointment of Ingrid Harding to the Participatory Budgeting Steering Commission, and reappointments of Faye Flickpo and Adam Grossman to the Richmond Retirement System. All appointments were approved unanimously.
- The committee voted to continue consideration of Economic Development Authority applications to the October meeting.
Discussion Items
- Ordinance 2026-081 (Payment Register) – The administration presented proposed amendments to the city code governing the payment register, following publication of the FY25 register on June 22, 2026. The FY25 register contained 231,933 rows of payment data. Of these, 82,760 records (36%) contained redactions: ~80,000 rows (34%) redacted via formula (e.g., social services, tax payments, jurors) and ~152,000 rows required manual review. The manual review of 151,000 rows resulted in only 2,799 partial redactions (1.2%). The process required 400+ hours of temporary staff time at a cost of $25,000, plus 80 hours of the Finance Director's time, 375 hours of city staff for training and data organization, and 192 hours of department staff for manual review. The proposed amendments would exclude certain fields (e.g., check numbers, invoice descriptions) and aggregate data at the transaction level rather than payee level, aiming to reduce the burden of redactions while maintaining transparency. Councilmember Gibson raised concerns about the scope of redactions, the exclusion of fields like payment document type, and the discretion given to the Finance Director in the new language. After debate, the committee voted to continue the ordinance to the August 19 committee meeting to allow for further refinement and legal review.
- Resolution 2026-R019 (Investigation of Payment Register Failures) – This resolution would authorize the council's Organizational Development Standing Committee to investigate the city's failure to publish monthly payment registers as required by code, and to review application of FOIA exemptions. Councilmember Gibson noted that the FY25 register had tens of millions of dollars in redactions, and that the council as a governing body could review the document with fewer redactions than the public. The committee voted to forward the resolution to the full council with no recommendation.
Other Agenda Items
- Ordinance 2026-164 (Affordable Housing Trust Fund) – Amended code to ensure principal, interest, penalties, fees, and other receipts from trust fund loans and grants are reserved for the fund. Forwarded to council with approval recommendation.
- Ordinance 2026-165 (512 Hall Street LLC) – Authorized amendment to a grant agreement clarifying affordable housing requirements. Forwarded to council with approval recommendation.
- Ordinance 2026-170 (2811 Rady Street) – Authorized grant agreement for affordable residential development. Forwarded to council with approval recommendation.
- Ordinance 2026-171 (Shockoe Legacy Foundation) – Authorized grant for planning and development of the slavery and freedom heritage site, including Lumpkins Pavilion and National Slave Museum. Forwarded to council with approval recommendation.
- Ordinance 2026-172 (Housing Cost Relief) – Reappropriated $3.1 million from FY25-26 General Fund Committed Fund Balance for housing cost relief initiatives, including $1 million for the family crisis fund. Forwarded to council with approval recommendation.
Key Outcomes
- Appointments: Approved (unanimous) for Participatory Budgeting Commission (Botion, Harding) and Retirement System (Flickpo, Grossman). Economic Development Authority continued to October.
- Ordinance 2026-081 (Payment Register): Continued to August 19 committee meeting for further amendment and legal review.
- Resolution 2026-R019 (Investigation): Forwarded to full council with no recommendation (unanimous).
- Ordinances 2026-164, 165, 170, 171, 172: All forwarded to full council with recommendation to approve (each unanimous).
- The committee agreed to cancel its August 2026 meeting.
Meeting Transcript
On activation of the emergency alarm signal, all persons should immediately exit the building. Please use the exit to the left, right or front of the council chamber or the north or west stairwells outside of the rear doors of the chamber. Do not use elevators or escalators. At the exit in the building, security will direct everyone down 9th Street to the fence area located between Clay and Lee Streets. Able persons should assist visually and hearing a pair of visitors with exiting the building. Persons wishing to speak during the public comment period and or public hearings are generally allowed three minutes to speak. Persons apparent before the committee are now allowed to campaign for public office, promote private business ventures, use language or personal nature, which assaults or demeans any person, including comments directed at public officials or staff members that are not related to the official duties or just to question staff members directly. All questions are to be directed to the committee chair. Fair to adhere to the guidelines and result in speakers forfering any meaning time and further discipline action as necessary, which include borrowing from attendance at future meetings of the committee for a period of six months. Madam Chair's concludes announcements. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Um we'll move to the public comment period. Followed by the approval of the minutes. Seeing none, the public comment period is now closed. The minutes to be approved from the June 17th, 2026 finance and economic development standing committee meeting. If there are no amendments or corrections, then those meeting minutes stand approved as presented. Those minutes have been approved. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Let's move the partners of boards and commissions forward. Good afternoon, Chair Robertson, Vice Chair Jones, Pamela Nichols, Council Management Analysts. The vacancy report before you this afternoon captures current and projected vacancies through November of this year, and it consists of vacancies for the economic development authority, participatory budgeting, and um Richmond retirement system. Madam Chair, there has been a request that the committee will continue consideration of the applications for the economic development standing committee. Um and the request was that you all would continue it to your September meeting. However, the committee could continue it to its October meeting, which would align with our quarterly um review cycle, and it also would allow for the submission of additional um applications. Uh granted, October is great. Continue to October. Yes. One for thank you. And then moving on to the participatory budgeting steering commission. The committee is considering one vacancy for a non-voting member. And I just want to remind the committee at the May 11th council meeting, there was an appointment being considered, but then there was a request by a colleague that that vacancy would be continued and referred back to this body to allow for the submission of James Boshan application to be considered. And so for that one vacancy, um, you all would be considering the reappointment of James Botion. And then we have a list of other um individuals to Tyler Ellis, Hannah Jones, Samuel Jones, Diane O'Libnik, Kawisi Powell, Maya Rogers, and Joy Shaw. And also after meeting with Mr. Slat, um, they have indicated their full support for the reappointment of Mr. Botion. Who offered their full support? I'm sorry, I didn't hear you. Um, Mr. Slat has offered his support, of course, and also uh Mr. Um Councilmember Bretton definitely would like to see Mr. Botion to continue to serve as a representative. Ms. Jones. I just had a quick question. All of these that are listed are how many vacancies do they have? Okay, so um currently they have, and then we're gonna move over to the next page as far as for an individual with a disability, but the current vacancies are for one non-voting um member as well as for a resident of the city who is a person with a disability. Um, and um, as I mentioned earlier, I did meet with Mr. Slat, and they indicated that two of the members who are currently serving as individuals residing in a council district south of the James River has failed to attend meetings. Those um terms actually will end in November.
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