I never can get 10.

Every time.

1001.

Good morning.

I'd like to go ahead and call the Board of County Commission meeting.

Another exciting workshop day, May 19th, 2026 at 1001.

And Miss Yacobin, would you be so kind considering we have a budget presentation to kick off the salute to the flag?

To the flag of the United States of America.

And to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God and divisible with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you.

Well, of course.

We'll move to roll call, please.

Chair Andrew.

Present.

Vice Chair Garcia.

Here.

Commissioner Hill.

Here.

Commissioner Clark.

Present.

Commissioner Herman.

Here.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Mike Large.

Present.

And I'm Yvonne Strickland, Deputy Clerk.

Madam Chair, you have a point.

Thank you.

We'll move to public comment now, please.

County manager.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We're on item number three, public comment and comment heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person and may pertain to matters both on and off the commission agenda.

Unused time may not be allocated to other speakers, and the commission will also hear public comment during individual action items with comment limited to three minutes per person.

Comments are to be made to the commission as a whole and virtual public comment, maybe make available when facilities are available.

Thank you.

Tammy hold still okay.

Tammy holds still for the record.

What you have before you is after I spoke here last week about the sample ballot.

I posted what I spoke about on Facebook, and I got a response from Washoe County telling me that you can go to the website and you can get that sample ballot.

Well, also by going to the internet, as you see, I replied back stating there are a lot of folks, whether they're seniors, low income, rural areas, internet computers are an issue.

Literacy with computers are an issue.

So I went ahead and I did the www dot and I put it in the Google bar in the center of the computer, and it took me to the voter registrar's office, but not the sample ballot.

So I had to go to the top of the computer and put it in to get what you see right there.

Now you see that is my sample ballot.

Do you see something interesting about that sample ballot?

There's stars on the left, and the people are on the right.

Go ahead and switch it now.

As you can see on the sample ballot booklet and my ballot, the people are on the left, and the bubbles are on the right, and your instructions are to fill the bubbles, not play with stars.

Do you see how confusing this is to everybody?

You have really you really confuse them about the situation.

It is not simple, it's not transparent, it's not clear.

Then you have this last one, Kate.

My phone, to give you even more information about district five.

It really shows you on my little map.

There is a lot of area that people live in that are out in the rurals that don't have proper internet that they can pull up something so complex.

We need to do something different.

This is not correct.

I have sent you an email as soon as last week.

Only one person from that email replied, and that was it.

I think you would be more concerned about this situation, because it's not fair to the people.

Thank you.

Terry Brooks.

Good morning.

It's me, Terry Brooks again.

And today I feel the responsibilities to address discrimination against those with physical disabilities.

Every day a lot of people experience accidents that wind up leaving them with physical impairments.

Some people are even born physically impaired.

And ever since they were born, it's been a burden that they have bear.

One very impairing kind of disability is the kind that really impairs a person's mobility.

So many people spend their lives in a wheelchair, and for them to be discriminated against is absolutely not fair.

Even after some recovery, they still need a walker, crutches, or a cane.

They're gradually gaining ground but still going through a lot of pain.

Some might use, some might lose the use of a leg because of going through some harm, and they might learn how to depend on more use of an arm.

Or someone might lose the use of one arm and then learn to depend on using their other arm.

When someone loses some of their abilities, all their body parts help them to learn more of their capabilities.

When something happens that leads to losing some ability, it can then lead to being open to new possibility.

So anyone who discriminates against others because of their disabilities is someone who really lacks social responsibilities.

Anyone deserves to have a second chance so that they can then learn how to advance.

Each part of our body is a separate tool that works with others to prove themselves above any kind of ridicule.

I would like to thank you all for putting up with me today, and I look forward to being able to come back with a lot more to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Randy McCort.

Good morning.

My name is Randy McCord, and I'm with the Reno Sparks Chamber of Commerce leadership class.

Um it's part of our civic duty project to come here and um make a public comment.

So that's all I have to say.

Thank you for having me.

Kelly McKinnon.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Kelly McKeon.

Similar to Randy McCourt.

I am with the Reno uh Sparks Chamber of Commerce leadership class, and so part of our civic project is to make public comment and put us in really uncomfortable situations.

So thank you guys.

That's my public comment.

Thanks for having us.

Morning, counsel.

My name is Sean Sullivan.

Uh, perhaps you have seen my resume.

I recently applied for the uh library board of trustees position, uh, one of the two.

Uh I spent a lot of time in the libraries as my as a kid.

Uh either when other kids were out socializing, uh, I was usually in the library or the computer lab or the chemistry lab.

Uh I was involved in chess club, and I think all these opportunities are very important for kids.

Um, my kids use the library.

I go to the Spanish Springs Library regularly, and uh they have great facility, great staff, uh, great pretty good selection.

Uh, however, y'all are aware there are some budget issues there with regards to the selection, and I would hope to uh work towards improving that situation.

Um I do have uh uh some experience working with kids uh that are a little older as well.

I was a lab manager at University of Nevada Reno, so I have experience with uh Generation Z kids really kind of the best of the best.

I was in the material science and engineering department, and uh they're all great kids, they're all eager to learn, uh eager to work.

Um I think they need to have all the opportunities that we all had as a kid.

Um libraries are uh suffering from all the same budget shortfalls that many other departments are suffering from, and it's tough situation, and uh it requires uh some dedicated work and some uh service to the community, which is something I uh am also dedicated to.

I'm an Eagle Scout.

I was involved in the American Institute of Chemical Engineers student chapter during my uh time at UNR in the leadership capacities.

Um I also am able to take on serious topics like the Nevada Road Body statutes and fire codes and various other engineering topics.

I uh got used to at Ormat for seven years, uh, another local company.

I'm also uh have handled uh decent chunks of money building pipelines and uh various things like that uh format.

Uh so I think I can handle a budget.

I've written budgets for the plant managers, uh at least my little aspect of the budget.

Um you may have seen hopefully you got to see my letter of recommendation.

Uh the gentleman who wrote that for me has known me for a long time.

He was a mentor in Boy Scouts, and I learned a lot from him.

You can see he has experience on many boards, and uh I think I hope you all will consider his recommendation as a pretty serious uh recommendation.

Uh he's a very serious and busy person as well.

Um my closing statement uh if we all uh my my goal is to give everybody access to all the books, whether they're controversial or not.

I mean controversial books are good for the library.

Uh it even if uh it it just draws attention to the library and put brings in more people.

Um so I want to give it give back to the community for the kids.

Thank you for your time.

Uh and uh hope to see you all later, I guess.

Jacob Claude Felter.

I am not that tall.

Good morning, my name is Jacob Claudvelter.

I am also part of the Reno Sparks Chamber leadership cohort of 2026, and like her, we get to be in fun, uncomfortable positions.

Uh, I do this for my normal job as part of the Nevada Department of Veterans Services, but that's normally in a different form.

Uh so this is part of our civic project to do public comment at one of the local boards.

Thank you.

Laura Wetherington.

Hi, Laura Wetherington for the record.

Um I love the Washoe County Library system, and I want to tell you all why.

I hope you'll forgive me for going big here.

Um, but I think the library is a beacon of democracy.

I believe we live in a pluralistic democracy, which means there are competing interests in the way we run things, and I think that is a part of what makes us strong.

The library is a reflection of this.

Their mission is to connect people with information, ideas, and experiences to support an enriched and engaged community one person at a time.

It's that last part, one person at a time that feels so energizing to me.

It means that the library strives to reflect back to the community the diverse beliefs and interests of its populace.

One person at a time.

For me, pardon me.

For me, this is about the range of books, but also about librarian services.

In another county 20 years ago, I met a public librarian who told me about her job.

She said the thing many people don't realize is that librarians are not just offering books.

They're in some senses like frontline social workers.

Helping people with job searches and finding resources in the community.

Here in Washington County last year, one staff report included the anecdote of a person having been released from a long prison sentence and needing to set up an email address.

I see our librarians as public servants in the highest degree, and I therefore want to commend you all for all the support you lend our library system.

And I realize that being in a pluralistic democracy means there are other people in this community who disagree with me.

And while I support their right to disagree, I don't think a more restrictive form of a library system will be as democratic as the one we have now.

I want my child who is learning to read to have access to all the books that we in our family deem appropriate in our household.

I don't think this is a question the government should be trying to solve for everyone, though I do recognize that raising a child is one of the most complex problems many of us face.

For me, restricting access to library materials and services is like me going into a restaurant and then objecting to the menu because I'm a vegetarian and there are meat options on the menu.

I think the library is a menu and it should have all the options.

The library is for everyone.

I also want to say thank you to Chair Andreola for the budget 101 presentation.

Because it's really helped me to understand that there are complex problems in the child rearing.

So I commend you all for the hard work that you do and for the transparency and invitation to the public to understand what you do.

I'm sorry that I can't stay for the workshop because I love workshops and it looks like you have good snacks.

If you do Penny Brack.

We have an issue.

It's still not available for the public to see.

And I've had um a few people contact me wanting to look at that PowerPoint, but they can't find it.

And I said, well, it's still not posted.

So we have a transparency problem from the beginning.

The other thing is, is there a contract?

It was revealed that there is a cost to taxpayers, despite Commissioner Garcia question what would it cost taxpayers, and the ROV told her none.

In the Washoe County report a day or so later reporting on this, it said there will be a cost to taxpayers because it will involve staff in this project.

It didn't disclose the cost, how many staff?

So they're again another transparency project.

Another transparency project is we don't know what SIS will do with this data.

It will encompass more than just the voter data.

It will probably encompass election data.

What are they going to do with that data?

I, as a taxpayer, do not want this organization to have my voter data.

And I think that will be the how many voters feel.

We do not want SIS to have this data.

We don't know what they're going to do with it.

We know that data is a huge commodity these days.

It can be sold.

So probably the reason SIS is not going to charge Washoe County for it is do they plan to sell the data?

The other issue is the commissioner, the commission as a body did not vote on this project.

It appears that just the commission chair put it and made it so, and that's not the way this is to work.

Another reason, and public comment was not allowed.

Because taxpayer funds are involved, it should have been voted on by the commission, and there should have been public comment.

As we see by just last week, there is lack of transparency, and this is a huge issue.

The other issue that was brought up is at the end of the meeting.

Um, after the last public comment, so I couldn't comment, but the chair mentioned that uh the MIT had come out ranking Nevada number two in elections.

That is from the liberal perspective.

Kate, would you please put up?

This shows that Heritage Foundation ranks Nevada number 47, putting us third from the bottom or worst election.

Alexis Marin.

Hi there, my name is Alexis Miren.

This is my first time giving public comment, so my heart's starting to go a little faster than usual.

Um, but I'm with the Children's Advocacy Alliance.

I'm a new addition to their team.

I'm a health policy manager, and I reside in Southern Nevada, but I'm looking to move up here to Washoe County in the upcoming months to get to know the northern community.

I just wanted to let you know that we have three pillars children, child welfare, children's health, and early childhood.

And we're really interested in creating policy solutions for the state.

So just wanted to put that on your guys' radar that we're really happy to collaborate and learn about.

Um, Southern Nevada doesn't make up the entire pie for the state.

So really interested in learning how to get more involved with Washoe County, but also the other 15 counties too that are part of our state.

So yeah, it's really great to be here and learn from you all today, and really excited to be here.

We have nobody else signed in.

Thank you.

Well, echo.

All right, we'll close public comment and now move to the public hearing.

Um manager Thomas.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We are on item number four, which is discussion and possible action on the Washoe County tentative budget for fiscal year 2027, which is July 1st, 2026 through June 30th, 2027.

And pursuant to NRS 354.596.

The estimated appropriations for this budget are 1,133 million, 146,014.

We are joined this morning by our chief financial officer and our division director for the uh budget division, Lori Cook and Abby Yacobin.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Can you hear me?

Okay.

Good morning again, Abby Yacobin, Chief Financial Officer, joined by my teammate uh division director Lori Cook.

And so this is the public hearing on the tentative budget as certified by the State of Nevada Department of Taxation.

So you'll have the public hearing and then immediately go into the adoption of the final budget.

This is the statutory framework under which this process operates.

I won't go into it into too much detail, but I will introduce the fact that we'll be going at a high level today.

The goal of today is to look to solidify the budget, talk about the changes between the deep dive that you did on April 14th and today, and then adopt the final budget and move forward on July 1st.

So we will not be going into heavy detail.

We have an appendix beginning at the end of this document that does review the economic indicators and many other things that we normally would have presented and did present on April April 14th when you're doing that deep dive, but that is not for today.

And our continued goals, of course, maintain services, keep employees working, and use our reserves wisely as needed.

And so highlights, there's no change here from tentative, the tentative presentation on April 14th.

There may be some language changes, but there's no technical changes from uh from the April 14th presentation.

Uh there'll be there were no net new positions in any fund.

And when we use the word net, we mean that there could be swaps between departments, but no net new positions.

In fact, we're seeing a decline of positions overall and in the general fund.

We for the second year in a row, we are budgeting salary savings across all departments at around three percent.

Uh again, for the second year in a row, if a position upgrade was approved by the job evaluation committee process and the and through that that was collectively bargained many, many years ago and has been used across the county for about 20 years.

Uh, those were absorbed.

Uh departments were absorbed are absorbing those and finding permanent offsets normally through cutting expenditures in other areas.

For the first year, the library budget is entirely budgeted in the general fund.

So operationally, this this isn't a big change, but from a budgetary from a budgetary perspective, uh, there is a change.

We've moved from the expansion fund uh now into the general fund.

Increase of the general fund transfer uh to northern Nevada public health.

We increased from about 9.5 million dollars transfer to 10 and a half last uh in this current fiscal year, and we're proposing for the final budget to change that to 11 and a half uh for next fiscal year as they have some uncertainty in their financial forecast and their grant revenue receipts.

Increase the general fund transfer to the road fund by four million dollars.

As you recall, last year we increased it by five million.

This is an additional four million in addition to the 1.6 million that we transfer over for administrative costs to that that fund so we can ensure the pavement condition index does not further decline from your policy goal of at that 73 number.

The remaining ARPA funded positions that are sitting uh sitting on that grant are moving to the general fund and being offset by the interest that's already accrued on those funds.

So there's your offset for that funding and general fund contingency moving from one and a half percent in the current year to two percent, proposed to be at 2% in the next fiscal year.

And in the five year forecast, we have increased that up to the statutory maximum of 3%.

And the reason for that is the level of uncertainty that we have going forward in the economy and other uh inflationary impacts.

So changes between the tentative budget that you did the deep dive on on April 14th and today are I'm considering them de minimis in a 1.1 billion dollar budget, but I'll go over them just for transparency's sake, so that when you're voting, you're fully informed.

Uh we'll have one new full-time equivalent, a full-time position in the sheriff's office for the alternative sentencing unit.

It was determined between the tentative budget presentation and the final budget presentation that that uh that new unit needed casework support.

So we are proposing to increase uh that and increase the case manager in that area for about 128,000.

But note that the general fund is still seeing a net decrease of 2.78 positions, which is a positive.

As we trued up numbers between the tentative and final on the revenue and the expenditure side, we're seeing about 100,000 uh less in use of uh fund balance in in 2027.

So that's a positive as we trued up those numbers as we had 30 more days of data.

In the capital improvement funds, and director cook will be speaking about this in the CIP portion of the presentation.

The parks capital fund, there are I believe it's four projects that they would like to apply for grants for.

So as we book that grant revenue, we also have to give them the spending authority to spend it, but it will not be spent unless those grant revenues are received.

So those are the changes between the tentative budget and the final budget on a on a broad scale.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Director Cook to uh go into a little bit more detail.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So uh good morning again, Lori Cook, uh division director for budget.

Um, this is the budget for all funds, as you can see, very, very similar to the tentative, and we also show the fiscal year 26 final budget.

And so when we look at what was adopted last year for July 1st, 2025 versus the uh final budget recommended budget for beginning July 1, 2026, we can see those variances, and that's what the variance column shows.

So we do see an increase of overall appropriations of approximately 5% in governmental funds, approximately 12% in internal service funds.

Uh, so total appropriation increases of approximately six percent.

Um, just as a note, total appropriations include expenditures, transfers out contingency.

When we just look at expenditures, not including contingencies or transfers, that number at the bottom, that 987 million is the is the figure is the number.

And these numbers do not include fund balance.

Um agencies present their fund balance, so they present all of their expenditures plus their fund balance is their total budget.

It is part of your budget, but um they're not your appropriations.

Your fund balance, unless you meet certain criteria, you can't just spend your fund balance, at least not in the state of Nevada.

So when we look at um all of our funds, we see and we separate them governmental funds and proprietary funds.

Proprietary funds are different, they're treated differently from a budget perspective, as well as from how we book the actual expenses.

Uh so govern our governmental funds, of course, our largest is the general fund.

That's at the top.

Uh we get through after that on this list, we go through our special revenue funds.

So we see health, which is the Northern Nevada Public Health, library expansion, which you'll see is now zero.

So that goal is to, and I believe it was last week that we had an augmentation so that we could uh fully spend on that fund by the end of this fiscal year, so by June 30th, 26.

Animal services, so on so forth.

I'm gonna read them all.

They continue to the next slide, and then as part as of governmental funds, we also have our capital funds.

So we have those three funds that are listed.

Um capital facilities parks, capital improvement fund.

There'll be more detail in the next presentation related to those funds, as well as the uh five-year CIP, uh, which is always kind of exciting to look at.

And then we have our debt funds.

So we have ad valorum, so that's property tax, property tax uh backed or base debt, um, operating debt, and then SAD, which are special assessment district debt.

So that's the total appropriations.

These are our proprietary funds.

Um, and if the top, so building and safety utilities at golf course, those are enterprise funds.

So for lack of a better term, they're treated like businesses.

There's no general fund subsidy.

Um, they operate on their fees, user fees, and utilities have user fees, rate payers, they have connection fees.

There's different sources of revenue for those.

The largest variance to last year would be, of course, the golf course fund that we talked about, having that one-time transfer with some with repayment from the operator for improvements at CR Sage.

And then we have health benefits, risk management equipment services.

Those are internal service funds.

So they receive charges from our other funds.

So that's internal to the county.

So health benefits is the health benefits fund.

So that's all county employees and retirees also roll through health benefits fund, our risk management fund, and then equipment services, which in this case for us it's almost entirely fleet.

So when we replace sheriff vehicles or CPS vehicles, there's a mechanism that budgets get funded over to equipment service, and then they get purchased through equipment services.

So those are our internal service funds.

A lot of times there's questions of well, what functions do we support or what functions do the budgets does the budget support?

So for the governmental funds, back to that, you know, two pages of list.

We have all governmental funds in this list, and I did, I didn't do this by number, sorry, Kate.

Um I got the at the end of the presentation when they're done by department, I did them by by um material number, so the largest number first.

Um but we can see that public safety obviously is uh the largest with welfare function second.

The two of those together are 54% of our total appropriations.

And then we can see, you know, the follow through or the follow-up to those with 14% judicial and general government, so on so forth.

So we do see that the majority of the budget appropriations center around public safety and welfare, which is not a surprise given uh board direction and strategic plan and community needs.

Here we get into capital improvement.

These are the capital improvement appropriations and the capital funds.

We also have capital appropriations and non-capital funds.

A variance between a capital improvement project and a capital expenditure, a capital improvement project is going to be a project that's 100,000 or more with a useful life of one year or more.

The capital expenditure is going to be anything greater than 10,000.

So when you're looking at those two numbers, they are not going to match because they're looking at different things.

Um, when we talk about other funds, uh, we have capital expenditure authority in the general fund health, animal services, CPS.

There's a lot of different special revenue funds that do have capital purchases, but they're not necessary, they don't necessarily meet the threshold of a capital project.

But we have to report it this way to the state.

So I'll blame them for the confusion, sorry.

Because I didn't know for the first two years.

I don't know why these things don't match.

Um, here we talk about our proprietary funds.

So again, just going back and showing the obviously the size.

So our utilities fund, which should not be a large surprise, is the largest uh enterprise uh fund, followed by golf and building and safety, and then in the internal service funds, health benefits, which also shouldn't you know be a huge shock, is our largest uh fund there, followed by equipment services and then risk management.

So what uh CFO Yacubin mentioned briefly earlier is that we can see so I I I pegged to 2008 because that was our highest FTE count, which was pre-recession.

Uh we get a lot of comparables.

Where were we, where are we compared?

Um, so and we're not the same business, we're not the same county, but it is a data point.

So we have you can see we had the 3,179 FTEs, that's full-time equivalence.

So that's not positions, it's full-time equivalents.

We do have departments that have positions that are not full-time.

We have departments, uh, health and library, or the first two I can think of.

And we also have um departments that utilize pooled.

So when they're on the books and they're pooled, and you know, we get them and they're either part-time or temporary, but they're on our books.

Um, we have had election workers that have whether they're pooled or whether they're contractual, it depends on HR in IRS requirements, but that's like an example of what those FTEs buy.

So if a department has a budget of $10, and somebody's paid $10 an hour, they get an hour, and that is converted into an FTE.

So it's not positions, it's full-time equivalents.

But these are all full-time equivalents as comparison.

So we can see with the population.

So this is per the state demographer.

Um, so we go back to that because it's something we can tie back to and it's something we can audit to.

What we've seen since 2008 is an increase of population in Washoe County of approximately 27% between 2008 and 2027.

What we see in FTE increases is a reduction of 23 FTE or 0.7%, round it to 1% if if we want.

Employee per capita has also decreased almost 22%.

And FTE support per residence.

So when you flip it the other way, has increased 27.9%.

So we've had increased services, increased demand for services, we've expanded service delivery, we've taken things like regional homelessness, and but we've also been able to do that with a technically a reduction in FTE.

What does that mean?

To the department's credit, uh, to employees' credit coming up with um different ways, more efficient ways, our technology services support, human resources, whomever within the county, um, how we figured out how to do things differently.

Um, when we say do more with the same, in reality, that's doing more with less because costs go up.

So this is in my opinion, this is a testament to being able to not just maintain, but we've actually been able to expand service delivery uh without increasing that headcount.

So as the largest fund, we'll jump back into the general fund.

So as we've discussed, we have consolidated tax and property tax are our two largest uh revenue sources in the general fund.

Property tax is actually the largest source of revenue across the entire uh county.

So those are two heavy uh heavily relied upon or depended upon uh revenue sources for the general fund.

Consolidated tax is more volatile, it's gonna follow trends, it's gonna follow economic um much more on a leading economic indicator basis.

The property tax is um more stable.

Um it's even the silver lining to abatement, we talk about that a lot.

The silver lane to abatement is if assessed valuation does not grow as fast if we are eating into that abatement.

That's I say it, that's my my term, my non-technical term, is that we can still see growth at a higher percentage than what the assessed valuation growth is.

So this just shows the sources, the uses, and then the obviously the variance between those two is the budgeted use of fund balance.

This is the exact same information, just in a more of a table format.

Um, and just as a reminder, we have some one-time items in fiscal year 27.

We have miscellaneous one time for fundraising.

So that's our estimate for fundraising for the children's behavioral health center, as well as that um ARPA transfer in that um CFO Yakovan talked about earlier for those positions.

So it's pre-funding those positions moving.

So there's also some one-time transfers out, three million of that is related to the golf course, which will be receiving payment back through the operator, and approximately 400,000 of one-time for the capital improvement fund.

So those are just highlighted as one time, they're not necessarily anomalies, but one time.

But the I didn't want to squish it.

Um, there's there's good information on this slide.

So this five-year forecast has been updated, so it's been updated between what you saw before, which was the tentative and the final recommend.

Obviously, we see a slower rate of growth or anticipated rate of growth of revenues and sources compared to expenditures and transfers out.

Um, better than anticipated fiscal year 25 results, provide us an opportunity per fare for 27, right?

So we we have some time to look at it.

If that were to happen in 26, that would give us the same thing, and we buy by some time is how I how I say it.

Umassigned fund balance remains within the board's policy level of 10 to 17 percent through fiscal year 29, but you can see it's declining, and you can see that that structural deficit uh grows in those outer years.

And but just as a reminder that this forecast represents a baseline projection, assuming the continuation of existing service levels and revenue structures.

So it's kind of the we don't do anything.

We know we can't, we know we have to do something or some things uh rather.

And um, so this is this is part of that um conversation is that this is a kind of I don't want to say do nothing, but nothing changes scenario.

Um, the assumptions that are related to this, you know, it goes into the soup and it comes out are on slide 32 of the presentation.

So it's in that appendix or supplemental information.

So if you're curious, you know, what's driving certain certain things, those assumptions are provided.

And then obviously when we get actuals in and we see things changing or we know about things that are going to change, then we update the we update the forecast.

A large portion of the general fund budget are transfers out.

These transfers out support expenditures and other funds.

So when we look at the indigent services fund, the homelessness fund, the capital improvement fund, right.

Um and these actually um are in numerical order or largest to smallest.

Uh so it's that's the way this one is.

Uh not priority order, anything like that.

So we have indigent homelessness, and those obvious those are related to welfare.

So when we look at that welfare budget, this is this is where that you know that 20 24, 25% is coming from.

Then we talk about road maintenance, that's our roads fund health district.

Uh we've talked about a little bit, our debt service.

So those that's transfers over, that is both our property tax based and our other revenue consolidated tax base.

So that's um everything going from the general fund to support debt, senior services, golf, the um computer aided dispatch records management system.

So that's our requirement to transfer over there for our portion of that regional support, and that's another one of those things that we're talking about regionalization or expansion of services, right?

This is another commitment.

Um, and this is um it's an increased cost.

So the total is 96 million dollars as our largest use of funds as personnel, and we're looking at that.

And okay, I'll hurry up.

I'm I'm seriously almost done.

My one slide, club slides.

So we have um in the general fund, we have a negative 2.78 FTEs, again, FTEs versus positions.

There are 34 um changes for reclassifications, evaluations, title changes.

Title changes are not, um, do not result in pay grade changes, they're literally title changes.

Then when we have other funds, we see a negative 6.9 FTE.

And as a reminder, board direction, only a funded position is an authorized position.

We don't want a bunch of unfunded positions sitting on the books.

So if we have funding that in this case, the district attorney is a good example where grant funding was not um provided or not renewed.

Um, and those positions are vacant.

These are not people being laid off, these are vacant positions.

Um we take them off the books or we remove them.

And then we also have these 13 uh recommended valuations, reclassification, and title changes.

So our budget's many things.

It's our legally approved appropriations, and there's certain statutes that we have to follow to change those.

It's the financial plan, the operations guide.

On June 1st, we have to submit the final budget.

We'll be doing an updated reviewed revamp, whatever we want to call it, budget 101 and review of the Washoe checkbook in July, August.

So in the next couple months.

Uh, we also have to submit to the Department of Taxation the five-year CIP, which is the next item on this agenda, the debt management policy and statement of indebtedness, and those two items are slated for um approval to come to the board on June 23rd.

Okay, I almost made it.

Thank you so much.

Um, this is an actionable item, so I'll call for public comment at this time.

We have no one signed in.

Thank you very much, madam chair.

And great presentation, both of you again.

Uh on the indigent tax levy.

Can you just remind me of the history of that tax, Lori?

I know you're an encyclopedia over there.

So I'm like, please help me remember when that went into place and what exactly that it is taxing and is that the total.

So we're seeing operating transfers out 27 million and then total appropriations 49 million.

Is that when we add in our homeless services funds?

Thank you.

Sure.

So the indigent tax levy fund um is an override.

So it's a legislative override.

Okay.

Um, there's not, it does not sunset, it doesn't expire.

Um, it is we can have between six and 10 cents, but because we're at the cap, we if we increased it, we would have to reduce our operating rate.

Right.

Uh, we're required to make a transfer.

So that 2025, 26 million is a transfer, plus there's the six cents of property tax, plus there's anything with an indigent that they get for whether it's uh say Medicaid admin billing, grant revenues, anything that's related to that fund lives in there.

Okay.

So they have various sources of revenue, but the two largest are the general fund transfer in and the property tax.

And then of course, as we've discussed, there's all kinds of things that we have to pay out nursing home match.

Yeah.

That you know, um, unmet free care.

The hospital, yeah, that's yeah, we don't pay the hospitals directly.

I know that sometimes is a question that we get, um, but we do uh that unmet free care does come through uh the indigent funding uh burials, indigent burials, so there's all kinds of different programmatic areas, and then the indigent fund does send or transfer money to the homelessness fund.

So then within homelessness, you see transfer some indigent transfer from the general fund as well as revenue sources like Medicaid admin billing or other grants.

And then indigent uh we do we use that for any children at all, or is it just adults that we're using that tax for?

I don't know.

I don't know if thank you.

I think the indigent burial is one of the factors there.

I hate to say that that would be one of the categories I could think of off the top of my head, um, getting a nod from our former human services agency director.

So thank you, right?

Um, but I don't think specifically, and then year year 1985.

Is it originally long time ago?

Long, I mean right, and remember too with the indigent fund, it used to be indigent medical, so it was limited to indigent medical, and then through the legislative process, it was expanded to indigent services.

And I do I don't have it right in front of me, I should with the state doc, but I think that for children's services, indigent transfers to CPS rather than having the expenditures hit in the fund.

So they transfer over to the CPS.

But most of that is for adults, I'm assuming.

They also transfer to senior, so there's senior senior support uh um situated in that fund as well.

Okay.

I don't have any other questions, madam chair.

I just wanted clarification.

Thank you.

I might keep something going off.

Any other questions by any of the commissioners?

Commissioner Clark.

I'd like to go back to page uh 14, please.

And uh we'll certainly salute the employees for doing more work with less and uh and a larger population and smaller number of workforce.

Do we see any time in the in the future a point of diminishing returns when uh there's a break?

Is there a breaking point for the employees when when we can't get any more uh work out of them uh for lack of a better word?

Uh how how do we get to a point where this is manageable in the future?

There's a point in time there's each of us only have so many hours in the day, so many days in the week.

Uh when and where does this uh you know reality uh hit and uh things things are going a different way where people are just can't deliver the workload that we're expecting of our employees.

So that that's kind of a general question.

So, Commissioner, through you, madam chair, to Commissioner Clark, thank you for the question.

That's part of the reason that Director Cook had the great idea a couple of years ago of changing the budget process to be more collaborative and having departments work together through the budget, Congress.

Uh so I think it is a good question.

I think at some point that will happen.

We can't out technology our population growth, if I can say it that way.

And and the collaboration and working together is going to be what's going to make the difference.

Sure.

So I'm just wondering when do you see that happening in the future and and when might be the time where that happens?

I mean, we can use AI for lots of things, but we can't use AI to give us extra days in the week.

Uh how how do we how are we going to make sure that the services are delivered to the citizens and and uh and not to the point where our our folks at work here are being uh deluged with uh with extra extra loads of of work, extra workloads.

When could that happen?

How how can we combat that other than just collaborating amongst divisions?

How do you see us?

Well, there's a point in time I think where we're gonna have to add staff to to this.

When do you think that might happen?

I mean, can you project that?

Or you know, again, I'm not gonna put this in stone when you say this, but for future uh boards and future management, they need to look at this.

When do you think that might really happen?

I don't have a technical answer for you, but it's gonna be about leadership listening and understanding the workloads and looking at key performance indicators and seeing those go up with staffing levels staying the same and technology not helping as fast as the numbers in the key performance indicators are going up.

Um so I don't have a year for you on that, but it is gonna be about listening and working together.

And and at some point you you could be right.

You recognize that as something that that we're looking at, we don't know when, but somewhere down the line, the county will be looking at that in uh in a different light than we're looking at it now.

Yes, sir.

And when uh director cook refers to the five-year forecast as being a status quo and we'll need to make changes in order to remain sustainable.

Um, you know, we will have to once we see that beginning to happen and those cracks starting to form, we will have to to change our five-year forecast.

Very well.

My second uh question would be about on page 19.

It's come up before it comes up pretty regular, and I'm just wondering why we've segregated indigent services from the homeless fund.

What for most folks they use indigent and homeless pretty much interchangeable.

Why why do we divide that that group again?

I've I've heard it before, but I just want to make sure we're on the same page today, and and let folks who haven't listened to these uh discussions in the past understand why we're taking what appears to be two very similar, if not identical, situations and and and why they're segregated the way they are.

So um based on recent history, so the homelessness fund is one of the most recent special revenue funds created.

It was to track the expenditures associated with supporting um homelessness initiatives within the county.

So um prior to this, there were various uh initiatives, and they they might have lived in the indigent fund, they might have lived in the child protective services fund, they might have lived in the general fund.

We did have general fund positions um that supported these initiatives.

So the homelessness fund was created as a and I'm not probably gonna say this like with correction, and Ryan can jump in and tell me that this isn't correct, but indigent is a is a larger umbrella.

There's different and there are people, say people, there are indigent services that aren't necessarily only directed towards homeless services.

And not all right, and I don't want to say this wrong, but from my understanding, right?

We have like working homeless, and some of those people might not be by standard definitions considered indigent.

They just don't, you know, they have a lack of options for housing.

And so the idea was to create the homelessness fund to really focus on and be able to identify and financially show what that support looks like in its totality rather than having it in you know nine or ten different funds and or departments.

The indigent fund um has morphed over time.

Um, and as mentioned earlier, it was indigent medical.

So um, and then it was expanded through the legislative process for indigent services.

And so that has changed a little bit over time.

Um, but the indigent fund precedes the homelessness fund, and the homelessness fund was created.

Um there were a couple of commissioners at the time that were um very vocal and um wanted that level of transparency for those.

So they are there is there could be crossover population, um, but they are not um intended to be the same thing.

So I understand what with public safety, we we certainly have some clearer lines with uh law enforcement and and public health, uh, those are things that are still public safety, but they're a lot of difference there there.

But I mean, with this indigent services and homeless fund, I mean somebody could be um uh for breakfast be in the the indigent club and and by uh afternoon be in the homeless fund.

Uh and so it seems a uh a very blurry line, very blurred line there for me as far as you know when when do you cross that line?

It looks like these two are intersecting on a regular basis, and you could certainly be in both categories, probably within the same hour.

And uh I just wanted to further clear program areas within those, and I don't have them right in front of me, but I can you know provide that breakout.

So for instance, in homeless services, we have a sheriff's initiative, so they are deputies that have outreach and outreach program.

We have the homeless shelter, you know, so the CARES campus safe camp, that is another area.

We have coordination of care, we have um the human services, so that is the um our place.

It is TADS.

Uh so there are definitive program areas, and then with an indigent, there's also the these different program areas.

So there are some spec, there's some specificity to it.

I just don't have those numbers in front of me, but I can get them for you where it's broken out.

Sure.

I don't I didn't mean to put you on the spot.

That isn't where I'm going with this, but all the programs you just named if uh the CARES campus, you know, you're there for homelessness, but you could also be getting indigent services there at the same time.

Is that that wouldn't work that way at all?

You wouldn't be getting uh some extra.

We will you like if you had case management services, you would be going through the CARES campus and you would be going through that model.

Um, and so I don't think those would would overlap or intersect in in that manner.

Uh, but again, I'm not that the subject matter expert in that one, but that is more of a for my understanding, the resource center in that case management is more standalone.

Would you mind?

I don't want to interrupt um Commissioner Clark at all.

Um, if you'd like to keep on going, but I do think the county manager may have additional information that might be helpful to your question if you'd like to hear it.

Sure.

Okay.

No, it's a it's a good question, Laura.

You did a great job.

The other thing, I think about indigency with um public defense and things like that.

So NRS, and I'm not trying to play attorney, Mr.

Large, but NRS um defines the care of indigent patients and refers to people who meet specific criteria, insurance coverage, um, program eligibility, um, income thresholds, you're not covered by a policy of health insurance, you're ineligible for Medicare, Medicaid.

Um, you are you have certain income levels, so you're not always homeless.

So indigency, um, there's a determination of indigenous indigency for us to determine whether or not we provide public defense, the court makes that case and such.

So perfect answer as far as being able to say really quickly, because we do get asked.

We took over homelessness in 2021.

It's about the time the fund was created.

How much have we spent on that?

It's an easy way for us to access that versus trying to peel it out of that indigency.

That's a tough one to say, which is a larger bucket if that helps.

Thank you.

Any other questions, Commissioner Clark?

No.

Vice Chair Garcia.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

There's um several members of the public that are here and really passionate and concerned about the future of our library system.

So as we know, um WC One um did not pass in 2024, and we just passed uh uh augmentation last week to spend out the remaining of the library expansion fund balance by June 30th, 2026.

So what can we expect um in terms of operation?

Uh many folks are not aware that you know we don't oversee the budget and and the director and all the day-to-day operations here at the Board of County Commission level.

And so there's a little bit of a distance between um what is discussed at that board and what is discussed at ours.

So it's just a brief overview on on what we can expect in the year to come.

Good morning.

Thank you, uh, Madam Vice Chair.

Uh so from a budgetary perspective, there's a big change.

We moved from the expansion fund into the general fund, but Mr.

Solero uh spent quite a bit of time in the past year doing a heavy heavy duty operational study to make sure that all the uh operations were optimized.

And so to make sure that when we made the proposal of moving that budget into the general fund, it was the right thing to do.

And so from an operational standpoint, there won't be um the the library will be simply treated like all of the other departments from a budgetary perspective and from an operations perspective.

They just don't have a special revenue fund with a two cent tax associated with it, but that two cents went into the general fund for um for your discretion before those operations.

Commissioner Hill, did you have anything you'd like to add?

I mean, always, thank you, Chair.

But uh you had that look.

Well, to Commissioner Garcia's point, I think just to lay it out no one is getting additional money this year.

And it including the libraries, we'd love to give everyone additional money, but sadly we have a budget that is losing money uh because of our broken tax system.

So we're no one is getting additional money, but we're not cutting the library as well.

Depart uh through you, Madam Chair, to Commissioner Hill, certain departments did receive above base uh request recommendations, and when you vote on this budget today, you will be approving those.

Um but the library was treated just like other departments.

Certain certain expanded above base requests were approved as we could, and certain were denied based on how connected they were to your strategic plan and the operations of the county.

So I'm sorry, I'm sorry, most of the above base was because we were moving all the department of alternative sentencing, or we are changing those kind of things, correct?

Yes.

The so to jump in, um, the items really that were approved related to above base, um, they did not fund positions.

Uh, they were mostly related to operational increases that were submitted by departments that they needed to have to operate.

So it could be um, or those things that they wanted to try uh for technology.

So, an example, and this is um in the public defender's office, there's a one-time above base for a technology solution that they are going to um try to use and see if that they can use it.

If it works for them, then maybe it could relate or it could uh work for other, whether it's the alternate public defender or um other judicial, maybe the district attorney, I'm not telling them how to run their operations, but um, do the work that a person normally would do.

So when we're talking about timing, some of the above base were approved as above base because we didn't know about them to make them for base, and they really are services and supplies oriented or contractually oriented.

Um, normally when we're looking at the above base requests, the bulk of those are in terms of FTEs and people and what those costs are, and those those were not approved.

Right.

So but your statement, we took the budget that would have been the budget in the expansion fund, we moved it to the general fund.

So it wasn't a reduction in positions, it wasn't a reduction in budget authority, it's accounting for it in the general fund with the VAT tax offset.

Thank you.

Any other questions?

Um, I just want to actually thank you.

Um proves my math skills, which I love math works.

Unfortunately, the 27% was not what anyone's to see in terms of growth, and then more doing uh with the same, I think, but it's really more doing with less.

And I do agree that the technology piece can only go so far.

And so I really want to commend everyone on your team for looking at continuing to look at what we're gonna call a hybrid and priority based budgeting, and that I think is going to be a tool and a resource that will help in driving what you all have been doing, but how we move forward because the numbers that we've already had you share, and we were missing those are the NOAA emojis, just to give uh the National Oceanic and Administration, those are NOAA's emojis that you didn't include.

But those are alarming numbers, but that's only if we continue doing the same, and we're not continuing doing the same.

So I think it was we move into that as we see what final numbers come in.

I hope you can keep us informed.

I also think in terms of um the county manager and and your team and the budget Congress and looking at that process and having everyone equally uh feel the responsibility to understand what the constraints are and how to work through those.

So I really want to thank you for that.

And then I think as we move, especially on the FTE piece, that um I think the county managers dedicated through HR's direction on really making a process more transparent for all the departments to follow.

Not that it hasn't been followed, but that there's a real clear picture because some folks may understand it to be one way and other may understand it to be another way.

And I think if that is a policy slash document that everyone can follow, I think it'll help and the and the planning of of how things work.

So, and then lastly, I I would be remiss if I didn't thank you for doing in advance uh talk about doing more with less.

Um, the budget 101 and the Washa checkbook, and I really appreciate and I know we all do because we're all committed to transparency.

So thanks for that.

This is an actionable item, and so I'm gonna entertain a motion unless there's any other comments by any commissioners.

So I'll look for a motion at this time.

So moved.

We have a motion by Commissioner Hill Garcia.

I think for Vice Chair Garcia.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Um, please note that Commissioner Clark is not in the room for the vote.

I'm not sure, but maybe we can ask him when he comes in.

All right, we're gonna go ahead and close item four.

We're moving to item five, which um county manager, please, if you wouldn't mind.

Certainly.

This is discussion and possible action on the county manager's recommended capital improvement plan or RCIP as it's known for fiscal years 2027 to 2031.

It directs the county manager to submit the CIP to the state of Nevada and others by August 1st of 2026 as required by state law.

The fiscal year 2027 of total appropriations for this budget account or for the CIP rather, are 123 million 236,701 dollars.

Again, we have our CFO and budget director here to go over.

I think we just have a brief 10 minute presentation on this one.

So we'll jump right in.

Thank you, Abby and Laurie.

Yeah.

Okay, is it here?

There we go.

Good morning again for the record, Lori Cook, uh division director for budget.

Uh the as county manager opened.

This is the five-year capital improvement plan.

We are required by statute to submit a five-year capital improvement plan.

It goes to the Department of Taxation.

It also goes to the debt management commission of the county, so far as it would be Washoe County Debt Management Commission.

It is the planning tool for the next five years towards the end of the presentation.

But I'll say it here and then I'll reiterate it again.

The budget that was just approved or adopted by the board a minute ago is for year one.

There are no decisions in years two through five.

There's no budget for years two through five yet.

So we adopted one year budget, but we have to submit a five-year CIP.

So the S so again, as for us for it to be a capital project, it's an estimate cost of 100,000 or more with a lifespan of one year or more.

Normally we see purchases, construction, building improvement, sometimes it's purchasing land, large equipment.

We can also have technology systems, so newer upgrade technology systems like case management systems.

We're working on an ERP modernization program process right now, and then maintenance of current physical assets.

So sometimes you'll see those bids come forward and we're redoing HVAC and ref at you know one of the housing units at the jail, those those types of projects.

This is the infrastructure scorecard.

This will be updated again at the end of this fiscal year.

So as of 630, 2026.

This shows the overall grade for the current state of our infrastructure.

When we look at fiscal year 24 on the left to compare to fiscal year 25, uh, we see most conditions uh stayed flat or stayed the same.

Um the sewer collections lately decreased while sewing treatment plants slightly increased, and those are through the utilities fund.

So those projects will be funded through the utilities fund.

Um, just as a reminder that uh the baseline, and again, this is going to continue to grow as costs grow, but the baseline for maintenance repairs, and this is infrastructure.

This doesn't include like technology, is 18 million annually.

And right now we are at a base uh transfer of 14 million.

So one of those assumptions that's in the general fund forecast is that increases a million per year until we meet the annual required contribution.

Sorry, I'm on the wrong page.

Uh this shows the different funds.

So we have the capital improvement fund, the parks capital fund, capital's facility tax, the roads, the other funds that we mentioned.

So general fund, animal services, uh, the utilities fund as well as the equipment services fund.

And the these recommended projects are the CIP committee is composed of the assistant county managers, the chief financial officer, our chief information officer, the comp controller, division director of budget, and the community services director.

So it's not one person.

Um in recent years, we have not had departmental uh submissions uh due to ARPA projects and other time sensitive projects, whether it's grants or whatnot coming coming online.

Um, and we're going to have to fiscal year 27 was the same.

Uh we had infrastructure submissions, technology submissions.

We did have some submissions, but we it wasn't blanket submissions from departments that might, you know, have needs in their office or or or things like that.

Um, we'll have to the CIP committee will be discussing how we're gonna proceed with fiscal year 28, but for fiscal year 27, um, these recommendations are based on what was submitted and the funding available without uh individual department submissions.

When we talk about the um this is the these are new projects on top.

So um these are not all projects, these are the recommended new projects, and these are uh the same as what was um previously presented in April, um, but they are notable.

So we have the um register of voters, that's the ROV uh building automation systems upgrade, which we're pretty excited about.

That ERP modernizum project, there's funding for that.

Um, and then we have existing project carryover.

That's estimated right now at 10.735 million.

So that could have been a project from two years ago or last year that will carry forward.

All of those individual projects are listed in that five-year summary for um that goes to the state.

But that's where the capital improvements fund, fund 402, if you want to look at those, is 32.4 million.

And this is just a way to show it broken out in a different way.

So we have voters' facilities or building projects, technology infrastructure, which includes P25.

So the P25 on the public safety radio that a shared radio system, and then other projects within the other funds.

We have the car parks capital fund.

And these are the recommended new projects, are the two that are on top.

So the Hawkins Amphitheater and North Valleys Regional Park.

The projects that have the asterisk by them, those are the ones that we had to add the budget authority between final and tentative, and they are pending uh grant funding other funding sources rather than the parks capital fund.

The utilities fund um actually has the most of these these very large projects.

And on this list, if you'll note, um, it cites or provides the source of the funding.

So when we have these large capital projects, and they have um right, they're they're named.

Um there's a continuation of the South Chucky Meadows Water Reclamation Facility, Stumwharf.

I think that's what it stands for.

Uh, but you can see where it's funded.

So it's either rates or we have connection fees.

So, right, you've got different funding sources within the utilities funds for these projects.

Um, we have also um some of these projects have also been funded with um SRF, so state revolving fund loans, which technically are bonds, um, but it's through the state, and um, we get some pretty advantageous interest rates on those.

So then we have uh roads, the roads fund, and um I can hand it over to CSD at some point, um, but we still have some pending um the areas for the slurry seal for fiscal year 27.

Uh next week uh there's an item coming forward uh for a bid for slurry seal that's related to fiscal or at least the budget in fiscal year 26.

We have capital equipment services capital, so that's heavy and light fleet, so equipment replacement, some of those are like for roads type vehicles, um, some of those are patrol vehicles, um, other vehicles that are on the replacement schedule.

And then the other fund projects were you know the those items that are meeting the capital uh purchase threshold within um all the special revenue funds and the general fund.

Capital facilities tax.

So the this amount, the this budget is not included in the total CIP because these are not capital projects.

So this is a five cent property tax that is collected and it goes into this fund, and then approximately 72% of it is transferred out per statutory requirements.

So about 60% goes to the state of Nevada Highway Fund, so that's that 7.6 million, then about 11.25% goes to the cities, so that's total for Reno and Sparks, that 1.4 million.

And then we use a portion of the remaining amount to transfer to the roads funds.

So all roads activity and budget lives in the roads fund.

So we again we don't have um, we're not trying to track down split um expenditures, and there's some small services and supplies associated there.

And obviously, as it's an important topic for the board, and you've had separate workshops related to it, um, our long-term capital needs.

Um, this is the list or whatever you might want to call it.

Um, there are um, and these are the the largest that I mean, we know they're likely smaller, but these are some fairly large um items that are outstanding.

We don't necessarily have identified funding sources for all of these.

Um we are making some progress on the first one, the IT infrastructure, that's the ERP modernization.

Um, and sometimes we can do small projects that that help some of these larger needs.

Um, but I would the majority of these the last time that we checked, and it's probably more now because costs are higher.

We're retain 400 and 600 million dollars for these projects.

So the above don't have any final decisions yet.

Um, and like there's no the the board accepting this is not approving more debt, it's not approving funding for these projects in the outer year.

Um it's you know, this is just what's on the plan based on what we have.

So we do know that if we have to issue debt, um, we'd have to look at that because we have to be able to, um, even if we have capacity, we still have to have the ability to pay it back.

So we have to have a repayment source that's not being used for something else.

So that's all I had.

Thank you.

This is an actionable item.

So I'll call for public comment at this time.

We have nobody signed in.

Thank you so much.

I'll call for commissioner comments.

Commissioner Clark.

Commissioner Clark.

Microphone is on.

Uh I'd like to go to page 10, please.

And just curiosity, uh payments to the state highway fund.

What percentage of that money is used strictly in our county?

Do we have any any idea of what that matters?

It would be one we'll let her answer, okay?

Yeah, it would be great to have that information.

And I've actually um there are some funding sources, uh like GST that goes to the state general fund, and we cannot get an accounting on that.

It doesn't mean that we can't try again.

Um, but when it goes to the state highway fund, it but to my knowledge, there's not a requirement or a report that says of the seven million, five million stays within the borders of Washington County.

Yeah.

And the next question is, how does that compare with Clark County?

Do we know uh is it possible to find out what Clark County remits back to the state?

I can find out.

Um Clark County also has supplemental GST, so I'm not sure um how their uh funding structure, like if they have something similar to this just because of the sizes, but I'll look at it.

Sure, I'm just wondering.

Yeah, you know, we know it's disproportionate the population and and everything else that's involved, but be interesting to see if those if those track with the percentages that that we might be sending to the state.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Any other questions?

Oh, sorry, Commissioner Herman.

This am I on?

You are.

Okay.

Um I've been hearing to the great find that we may have a you know, slow down in our economy and whatnot here in the near future.

And how can we protect ourselves from I mean, I know we have to budget for what we know and all that, but which way would it would it affect us?

I mean how can that how will that change what we do?

Uh can you hear me?

Okay.

So, Madam Chair, through you uh to Commissioner Herman, thank you for the question.

This is one of the reasons that we find the five-year forecast to be so important because we're not seeing revenue decline in property tax and consolidated tax, which make up between 80 and 82% of our total general fund revenue, but we're seeing slowing in the growth.

And so that's why we present to you the current budget year and five years of forecast, so we can make informed decisions and work with all 24 departments to do that.

Um so we're we're trying to be as nimble as we possibly can by giving you that forecast and looking at it routinely ourselves and and bringing ideas to you.

So yes, we are noting that, and we noted it when Dr.

Larmore presented to you in January that we were seeing.

I think she said the predictor was broken, and what helped us predict the five-year forecast in the past was no longer going to work.

So we need to get creative and we need to be nimble.

Right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments?

Carrying none, I'll entertain a motion at this time.

Move to approve the capital budget.

We have a motion by Commissioner Hill.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Second by Commissioner Herman.

Any further discussion?

Hearing none, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Motion carries unanimously.

Thank you.

We'll move now, if you will, to a quick break.

We're gonna take a five-minute break and then we'll come back and hear everything about growth and infrastructure and housing.

All right, we're gonna open up the meeting again for eleven twenty-eight, and we'll move now to item six.

Manager Thomas.

Thank you.

We are kicking off our uh second strategic planning but third workshop, and this is a an update for the board for the purpose of the strategic planning, providing the board with information to receive guidance for a unified vision of success and expected outcomes.

Today's topics of discussion include clarifying Washoe County's role, the role of our partners in building housing capacity, concepts to be aware of, and that are important on constraints for future growth, and concepts for possibly prioritizing residual residential growth areas, including incentives, funding benefits, and trade-offs.

The CIP discussion was a perfect lead-in to this with uh our big picture discussion today on housing growth and infrastructure.

I think for those that weren't able to participate in the last two workshops, I'd love to quickly stage that if I can, um, Madam Chair, that this is the second of three on strategic priorities, strategic topics as the board explores areas that we want to move forward from a strategy standpoint.

And we had our first immersive budget workshop.

We had uh an upstream discussion um last time for our strategic planning workshop.

And this is the second on infrastructure.

We'll have one more on June 2nd to talk about another big and important topic around data governance and so forth.

But um today we've got some important members of the community that are here to discuss the topics with us, but I just wanted to make sure everybody understands this is not an action item.

Um it's a lot of really good uh brainstorming and input from the board.

So we're looking forward to the conversation.

I'll turn it over to Mr.

Solera.

Good morning.

Uh as uh manager Thomas said uh Dave Solero assistant county manager uh here with me today.

We've got uh Dr.

Hillary Lopez with uh Reno Housing Authority and Dr.

Jeremy Smith with the uh regional planning agency here in the Truck Meadows.

So I'm gonna just very briefly kind of step us into this first topic that kind of flows between all three of our topics on Washa County's role in regional housing, planning for constrained growth, and then prior towards uh discussion around what we're calling prioritized development areas.

So uh Jeremy, if you wouldn't mind moving forward one one item there.

Oh, maybe two.

Let's give it a third one.

Uh so uh commissioners, as you will recall, uh, you know, there's been a lot of topic of discussion around housing, uh kind of Washa County's role, where we stand through the housing continuum that you see at the bottom of this slide.

You know, as a region, we have had a discussion around housing for quite some time, and all the local jurisdictions really understand uh, you know, that the what the needs are and where the gaps uh contain are contained.

Uh, we also know that not one entity can actually solve this problem.

It's going to take a whole slew of people uh to to work through that.

And so uh, you know, as I mentioned, uh, we've got a couple of experts here uh today to help us through that and to really kind of stage set what else is happening in the region uh outside of Washoe County.

Um, you know, we had the Truckee Meadows housing study in 2026, 2020, or sorry, 2016.

I'm trying to jump ahead here.

Um, you know, that that really identified some of the needs, and and this commission has gone forward with some of the things outlined in there.

Uh, you know, one of them is really the uh setting up the Washa County Housing Trust Fund.

So that was a big step in the region of trying to you know spur some of the the growth and some of the solutions that we need to provide.

Uh there's also a discussion uh which we're going to get into later today, related to the public resource investment.

Like where do we invest our funds in the infrastructure to make these things not only uh you know lower the infrastructure cost, but actually lower the cost of maintenance over time, right?

Uh so you'll hear some some pretty good discussion there.

Uh and then by board direction, we've adopted the envisioned Washa 2040, uh, as well as our current Washa County strategic plan that has set the tone for the unincorporated portions of Washa County.

So the things that we can influence from a development perspective.

And so I really want to take the the chance right now to say what we're doing today is specific to how we can influence housing in unincorporated Washa County.

And this is not a discussion around homeless services and emergency sheltering or permanent supportive housing.

This is really the the right hand side of the of the housing continuum, those things that we've put into place, those things where we're headed uh for affordable rental housing, uh, market rental housing, as well as home ownership.

So just a recap of the Washoe County strategic initiatives that we've put into place over the years.

Uh, you know, all of the things that this board has given Washa County direction through our strategic plan, and that have been or are nearly realized.

That there's I think there's an item next week.

So uh, but these are these are some of the things that we've been able to do, you know, really in trying to uh do our part in the housing study, that middle missing middle housing, uh really diversifying the housing type that's in unincorporated Washoe County, those things that allow the tools for our developers to be able to come in, uh, because you know, it's not only just government entities uh and the residents, it's also the developers that are a partner through this whole process, right?

So we do quite a bit of work uh with uh the residents with ourselves with uh with with the developers, uh, with our uh whole whole community and trying to define and create the toolbox for all of these different solutions.

And so with that, I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Dr.

Jeremy Smith as a you know, as a stage setting for us on really what the regional planning is and how we how we fit into it.

So take it away, Dr.

Smith.

Well, thank you very much, Dave, and thank you all for having me here today.

Appreciate the opportunity.

I'm Jeremy Smith, the director of the Trucky Meadows Regional Planning Agency.

And probably the principal function is to create and administer the regional plan.

And that's the cover of the document you see there on your slide.

Uh in terms of when the regional planning agency was first formed, it was formed by state statute back in 1989.

So through the legislature, and it's really uh it's updated every five years, substantively.

And in 2019, we did a major overhaul.

Many of you serve on the board and were there at that time, so you're aware of what happened.

But uh what it's intended to do is to help foster collaboration amongst the three jurisdictions here in the Truckee Meadows with regard to master planning.

And so that is really the goal of the regional plan.

It's to be a collaborative effort, bring everyone together, including also what we call affected entities, which are organizations such as the school district or the RTC, and to make sure that we're all aware of the same kinds of planning initiatives and where we're all heading so that we're not, you know, so that we're in alignment, which is really key.

Uh, in terms of the map there, you can see I just kind of wanted to point out our jurisdiction, the the shape on the left there of the middle of the slide.

You might be familiar with that as Washoe County.

So, I mean, our jurisdiction really does go all the way up to the Oregon border, but most of what we deal with is focused in what we call the TMSA or Truckee Meadows service area.

And that is that gray blob that you see at the bottom of Washoe County, or if you move over to the topographic looking map, that shaded relief map, you can see a black outline and then lots of colors inside the black outline.

Those colors really represent the intensity of development.

And that is from, I believe I did it from national land cover data set a while back.

But the point being that there are different intensities of development across that Truckee Meadows service area, and in fact, some areas that currently are undeveloped, but inside that boundary.

And it's defined as the boundary within which you could expect to have municipal type services either adequate and available or within a 20-year time frame based on planning for infrastructure.

That is where about 99% of the population resides as well, is inside that boundary, 90, 98 to 99% of the population.

So that's kind of our focus area, and that is the focus of the regional plan, but we do uh sometimes get into uh the rural area, which I'll show you another map in a sec.

Just quickly, our organization is made up of really three levels.

At the very top is the regional planning governing board, and that is you all here are part of that or have been or could be.

And uh that is elected officials from the three jurisdictions that come together to preside over amendments to the plan, budget, the administration of the agency, and any appeals that occur.

Most of the technical work gets done at the level right below that, which is the regional planning commission, made up of three members from each of the local jurisdictions planning commissions.

And then there's a five to six person staff, we're kind of surging with interns right now, so it's really actually happening over there at regional planning.

But it's a small staff, and we try to do a lot uh with what we've got.

So basically, in terms of our regulatory role and casework, there are there are just a few things that trigger our formal regulatory process.

Those are master plan conformance reviews.

So anytime uh this body or that you know, this jurisdiction or any of the jurisdictions or affected entities want to change their master plan or facilities plan, that requires a conformance review versus the regional plan.

So that's most of the work that we do.

But there are also uh cases where the master plan does not need to be changed, but the project is of significant size.

It's called a project of regional significance, and that will also uh create the need to review it against the regional plan.

You know, for example, a threshold on housing units is 625 or more units.

So if you're doing a big subdivision, that would trigger our process, and there are many, many triggers.

And then, of course, regional plan amendments.

If we're gonna change the plan, we have to go through the process and make sure everyone agrees it's a collaborative process.

What I've got here are these three pillars.

We've done a lot of work on so the regional plans at the top, that's the policy document.

That's how we address the changes in the conformance review, but underpinning it, you know, we have several sections in there.

We've got a natural resources document and data uh warehouse that really helps create a foundation for our natural resource policies.

There's narratives about different natural resource topics.

We have a public infrastructure document, which talks about uh some of the stuff that came up in the last item that we'll talk about in a bit, but who does what in the region and in certain uh infrastructure domains, and then also how are we spending and where are we spending?

And we're working on that third pillar, which is all about population and housing, and it's all part of our mandate from state law to do these things.

So that's kind of the regulatory structure.

In 2019, when we revamped the plan substantively, we came up with this regional form map.

This is map two of the regional plan.

And in an attempt to stay regional and non-jurisdictional, we uh designated in collaboration again with all jurisdictions and entities, uh, our tiering system or what we call regional land designations, and there's five of them.

So the very darkest blue area in the center, that's the mixed-use core.

That's where we actually see minimum requirements for housing density.

We don't want to put large lots downtown, right?

We want to see the density where we have already built it.

Then we have the next one out, uh, which is that next tier of blue.

That's tier one lands.

That is basically the McCarran Ring area and also the old transit-oriented development corridors along Virginia, north and south, all the way out to the State Airport, all the way down to the Summit Mall and Redfield area.

That's an area of where we want to see growth, where we see no minimum, no maximum.

You can really, you know, leverage the investments we've already made in terms of infrastructure in those areas.

Then the lighter blue is tier two.

That's kind of a suburban tier, limited to a maximum of 30 dwelling units per acre for the regional plan.

And that's where you can expect to see a majority, especially of the single family housing that we have in the region.

Then we have the gray area, which is tier three, and that a lot of that corresponds with unincorporated Washoe County.

And so these areas in tier three are either built to somewhat low density, or at this time lack the necessary infrastructure and service provision to support growth.

And so there's a process, which I'll go over in a sec, in order to change that tiering through a regional plan amendment process for good ideas, right?

Good ideas that meet muster that meet the criteria that can be where we can figure out how we're going to serve it and how we can afford to serve it.

And then finally, everything outside the TMSA is uh what we call the rural area, and that's really five-acre lot minimums, uh, Northern Nevada public health requirements for well-inceptive controlled at some degree, so large large lots, ranches, that kind of thing.

I will point out that we are not an authority in the Tahoe Basin or on tribal lands.

Okay.

So I wanted to give an example of these tiers.

So since we established in 2019, we've seen about maybe one to two percent change of the tiers.

The tier system, the regional land designations are really based on uh three things data analysis of where we have density, where we have infrastructure, where we're planning for infrastructure, what do the local jurisdiction master plans say?

And what are those designations?

And then also negotiations between the jurisdictions to achieve that.

Well, but what we wanted to make sure of is that we had a path, a criteria-based path to actually change tiers when good ideas come up.

So this is an example from a few years back.

It's the chocolate drive example, which took place in unincorporated Washoe County out in Sun Valley.

When we established the tiering system, you can see there in the map.

If you look at that first map on the left, there's a kind of a medium blue color.

That is Sun Valley up at the top there with an orange thing on the left side of it.

And that's the subject site for Chocolate Drive.

And we had drawn a buffer along Sun Valley Boulevard of like half a mile, and that's how we created the tier one uh geography.

But then this project came through, and this project was seeking home funds and it was affordable housing project.

And we thought this is a really good idea, and this is where we want to see density, and this will actually help.

You know, the facilities and services are there, and this can help support what we're trying to achieve in terms of housing choice in the region.

And so uh through collaboration with staff here at Wash County, we initiated this tier change process, and we were able to move through the criteria and actually achieve the change to tier two, which enabled uh 240, an approval at least of 240 affordable housing units out there in Sun Valley.

So pretty exciting, and that's exactly what was intended with this process to have not an arbitrary previously to the 2019 plan.

I'll just point out that this wouldn't have been possible because through the settlement agreement through regional planning legal things that occurred, unincorporated Washington was limited to a maximum of five dwelling units per acre.

Well, this project is six drilling units per acre.

So it just would have been diminished.

We wouldn't have gotten as many affordable units.

But through creating a criteria-based process, and we all working together, you know, we can support good ideas.

So that's a great example in my mind.

And speaking of affordable housing, at the same time, we were updating the plan.

We were participating in a joint effort, a community effort, which ended up being called Housing Our Future, which is a regional strategy for housing affordability, working with enterprise community partners, a national national uh excuse me, nationwide nonprofit uh that uh is an expert in affordable housing methods, you know, protocols and strategies, also with uh the Chucky Mills Healthy Communities and all the jurisdiction partners and just a huge community and put the banks put a bunch of money into.

It was really a great effort.

And it really gave us a community profile.

So in 2017-18, we understood meeting incomes, home prices, what the needs were, and also gave us a list of strategies to protect and preserve affordable housing, and finally also created a set of action items, over 30, I think it was well over 30, that uh we could do as a community with different folks identified or different agencies identified to lead those actions.

So, for example, one action was for TMRPA us to create a map of where do we have these affordable housing properties in town?

And so we have done that, and that's that picture up on the top right.

But and and many of these have been accomplished, some maybe weren't appropriate in the end, or are still something we want to try to achieve.

And so, you know, with that in mind, I'd like to turn it over to Dr.

Hilary Lopez, who's with RHA, the Reno Housing Authority to talk about kind of where they're heading in that in that vein.

Thank you.

There you go.

Um, if you can just hold on, I'll show you our chair has a question.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't want to get too far along before I forget my question.

I took some allergy medicine this morning, so my brain over so the back to the tier, tier two, tier, you know.

This map here?

Yes, yes.

Okay.

So you said that the tiers were established in 2019.

It's correct.

Okay.

And when you were looking at Sun Valley, I represent Sun Valley all the way down to Wooster, Keystone over to East McCairn.

So a lot of the development um is in my district.

And so I'm keenly aware of of the um struggles that many of my constituents face.

So when I, you know, I was in Hidden Valley uh yesterday, and you know, when you look at the infrastructure in uh unincorporated part of Washoe County, you know, the wider streets, no sidewalks, no lighting, you know, the culverts and ditches, and it just makes more sense in those kinds of areas.

But we have the same situation up in Sun Valley, but we have 20,000 plus people.

And so those baseline counting infrastructure amenities.

I don't wouldn't consider them the ditches amenities when your kids are trying to walk from their house to school.

Um, but at what point do you as an organization look at the population increase from 2019 when this was originally being discussed and approved in Sun Valley to what it is facing and feeling right now in terms of traffic in terms of population increase?

Like you made you made the the move.

This was prior to me being on this board to increase the density and designate it as a place that had no minimums and no maximums as somewhere somewhere we wanted to target.

But I'm feeling some heartburn over the changing of the colors of the maps in particular areas of this region because I think it's geographically constrained.

Um we have old or no infrastructure based on how this was an unplanned development, unlike many other parts of the Washoe County.

So I think that history is unique to how Sun Valley came to be.

There's very few places in the county where you see you know these multi-jurisdictional, you know, you've got N DOT and the county roads and then private roads, and then all the serial parceling that happens in between.

So my question to you is is there a point where we've reached like it's it's too congested, it's too chaotic in terms of the traffic flow and peak hours.

Um we don't have any stormwater drainage, and so we're looking at improving um if we're able to get that 25 million dollars in gap funding from the federal government to improve Sun Valley Boulevard.

There's just so many balls up in the air right now.

And I just worry about even though we've designated this as tier two and the changing of the map one by one, is just it's progressively putting more and more constraint on the existing very poorly rated infrastructure.

So at one point do we say enough is enough?

I think it's a great question.

And I believe that you're absolutely right that there is a limit to density, right?

Because you can overwhelm existing infrastructure and service systems that that are there.

I think in the case of Sun Valley, I can think back to 2019.

That the thinking was that it is relatively close into the core, is served by transit, it already serves uh maybe to some degree lower income populations, and there is already density there.

And I think this is potential, this is potential for density.

It's not required density, but through the development process and investment into those kinds of higher density projects, you can get some of the improvements that help, I think, ameliorate what's being what you're discussing.

So I think I think that was the thinking uh in terms of you know, not trying to go out but go up is a thought process uh that led to I think that designation.

But again, it is it's not a requirement.

It is a uh it's a change from you know what would have previously been an arbitrary limitation of five dwelling units per acre in that whole area, which might be appropriate, but doesn't necessarily bring the level of of investment that would lead to uh some of those improvements, I think that are needed.

Yes, and I agree.

There's you know, I think personally, and and Commissioner Herman too have really wanted to shine the light on the possibilities and the potential along the commercial corridor of Sun Valley Boulevard.

What I'm talking about are, you know, the the housing developments that are putting more and more strain on the very um stressed infrastructure system out there.

And I just wanted to shine the light on that on what the day-to-day experiences um and I just wanted to know what the process was for it to ever go back to a tier three.

Uh it could go back, yeah.

That was initiated by your staff because it's my jump in really quick as well, assistant county manager Dave Solero.

Uh, you know, the the regional plan is an enabling document at this point.

It enables Washoe County yourselves to make those policy decisions.

We did not go in and change any zoning or anything associated with any of the land uses around Sun Valley or any other parts of Washa County where we had a tier change, we'll call it.

Uh so they're kind of two different things, but uh certainly we've had many conversations with staff around what does it look like if we want to intensify certain areas?

And I think part of that discussion is gonna come up this afternoon, uh, or at least a little bit later, and you know, as we talk through some of the constraints that we've got and some of the tools we've got available.

So uh, you know, uh, for all intents and purposes, it is, you know, the majority of the area is still we'll consider tier three, um, just because we have not gone in and and updated our zoning and and those and master plan and some of that at the county level.

So this is really just an enabling thing that you know, some of those tools that are out there.

So thanks.

Thank you.

For Dr.

Smith, just before we turn over to Dr.

Lopez?

Excuse me, one more question.

Um, we recently had a very controversial agenda item regarding a development that um was within the TMSA boundary, and a lot of the constituents, including myself had never really even looked at that dotted line in the master plan on what the TM TMSA boundary was.

Does that boundary ever change or is that pretty static?

It's pretty darn static, but it is, it can be changed.

We entertain uh amendments to the TMSA once a year in the October, December time frame since uh I've been involved since about 2011.

We've seen very little change, uh a little bit of expansion to accommodate a school and uh one development in Sparks, and then actually some removal of TMSA out in one of the island things out in Spring Mountain area.

So it it's it's pretty uh pretty static.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Well, welcome, Dr.

Lopez.

Not too many minutes.

Is it on?

Okay, perfect.

Uh good morning.

Uh thank you all for having me.

Uh as mentioned, I'm Dr.

Hilary Lopez, and I'm the executive director of the Reno Housing Authority.

And I just want to also mention that here with me today are our two deputy executive directors, Heidi McKendry and JD Cliffenstein, who are in the audience.

Um, and I really do appreciate the opportunity to talk with all of you today, share more about the Reno Housing Authority or RHA as you may know it, and the many ways that our whole team is working to serve the community.

I do want to go back for a second to what Jeremy said about the regional housing strategy or roadmap as we call it, and just let you know that we have also uh recently reviewed that document and are looking to determine kind of which of the designated strategies that were identified for RHA have been achieved, which are still valid, um, and which may need revisiting.

It's been a number of years our um our community has changed during that time, and so there may be some that need revising.

And so per the recommendations in the report, for example, as I go through my presentation, you'll hear one of the things we were tasked to do was increasing our capacity to undertake development, and we feel like that has uh been something that we've focused on and has been accomplished, and we're also poised to facilitate conversations uh if the community is interested in revisiting the remaining strategies.

So just to touch on that for a minute, and with that, I welcome the opportunity to just tell you more about our agency.

Oh, wrong way.

So RHA was created by the City of Reno in 1943, but since that time, by resolutions, our service area has really grown to include all of Washoe County.

So further um in collaboration right now with the county and city managers, we are working to implement state legislation that transforms and transitions our governance structure to provide for more formal regional representation.

And I'm very pleased to also say that um just recently Commissioner Garcia was appointed to our board and will be joining us as a commissioner starting in starting later this month.

So um through the Reno Housing Authority and our subsidiary, Washo Affordable Housing Corporation, we serve approximately 11,000 Nevadaans annually.

And we serve as a bedrock for local housing solutions and through our MTW designation, which was received in 2013 from HUD, we serve as a national housing policy lab, and we are always seeking ways to evolve and maximize our impact.

Um you have a slide that shows our affordable housing overview.

And though most people associate us with our traditional public housing and housing choice voucher, previously known as Section 8 programs, we really do so much more.

And so, in addition to these programs, we have used various federal, state, and local funds as well as programs to acquire and develop over 900 other affordable housing units which are spread throughout the county.

The majority of our developments house extremely low-income or very low-income seniors, veterans, disabled households, and families who would otherwise struggle to afford housing.

And because of RHA, our tenants and clients have access to attractive, high-quality housing that meets their needs, and that's whether they reside in the North Valleys in South Reno, East Sparks, the Northwest suburbs, or anywhere in between.

In terms of our funding, while the Housing Authority always works to serve as many families as possible through its voucher programs, the reality is that the demand for those services greatly outweighs the supply of our vouchers.

Currently, we have about 10,000 unduplicated households across our wait list.

And although staff is constantly working through applications, it can typically take anywhere from 18 to 24 months or longer for a family to receive voucher assistance.

At the federal level, insufficient funding for the emergency housing voucher program means that RHA has had to shift and prioritize moving these vulnerable households to our regular HCV program or housing choice voucher program.

And the effect of this is that we really have needed to slow the release of our turnover vouchers to new families.

So families will have to wait longer on the wait list before we could provide assistance.

Additionally, in most years, the federal government prorates our housing choice voucher administrative funding, meaning that we must use unrestricted funds or our reserves to fully operate the program.

Public housing has also been underfunded for many years through many years.

And though we maintain high quality public housing, we've had to strategically start repositioning the properties, which really enables us to undertake holistic rehabilitation to preserve these critical units and still ensure the financial viability of the properties moving forward.

Given the significant need for more affordable and attainable housing throughout the county, the authority has recently taken a larger role in preserving and developing housing.

Recent funding and land acquisition opportunities like the state's Home Means Nevada Initiative and the City of Reno's fee waivers really helped push this effort forward.

However, as these funds are drying up and our reserves are limited, we really do need to seek other ways to fill funding gaps and or reduce project costs.

So some of the ways that local governments can help us sustain this momentum are through allocating local funds to the Reno Housing Authority, donating excess land, reducing regulatory fees or barriers such as zoning requirements, and all of these are ways that local governments can work to support the housing authorities projects.

So as I've mentioned, we've really tried to take a larger role in terms of preserving our public housing and then taking undertaking new development in the past years, and feel like this has really helped move the needle on affordable housing while also infusing approximately 200 million dollars into the local economy, where we've leveraged over 68 million dollars in private equity funding and have also provided local construction and property management jobs.

This economic development is slated to continue through our pipelines projects, which are shown on the slide, like Hope Landing, which will break ground on 15 new community-driven permanent supportive housing units later this month, and Reno Avenue, which when we receive full funding will create 42 apartments in a high opportunity neighborhood in Reno.

But we all know that tackling our region's housing problems requires more than one strategy, and that our agency alone cannot do it all.

So to best leverage the housing authority's human and financial resources, we routinely partner with the three jurisdictions, the local continuum of care, local nonprofits, and other stakeholders to ensure that we're making the greatest impact in chipping away at the affordable housing crisis.

So I've provided a sample of some of our more recent partnerships on the slide that demonstrate the breadth of our programs supported through RHA's funds, our project-based vouchers, our resource and referral efforts, and the development of community driven housing.

And you could see that recently with Washoe County, we've partnered to provide funding towards the housing and homeless services.

We recently took on property management of your new CARES campus, permanent supportive housing property.

And then we're also working with all of the jurisdictions on changes at the continuum of care and then other uh variety of other projects.

So, how is RHA different from a regular affordable housing developer?

So I've mentioned that RHA is committed to community-driven housing.

And so by that I mean that as a mission-driven regional public agency.

Our goal really is to work with the local jurisdictions, their elected bodies and RHA's board to undertake demonstration projects, development and preservation that best meets local needs and fills the void within the local housing market.

We are public stewards of high quality, permanently affordable housing and focus on serving those with the lowest incomes, including seniors on fixed incomes, veterans, and households with disabilities.

As part of our mission of providing stable, affordable housing, we see that as the foundation that enables those that we assist to move towards economic self-sufficiency through participating in programs such as RHA's Pathways to Prosperity, where we provide educational enhancement, workforce development training, nutrition and wellness, and other skills to help our clients transform their lives.

And I had provided a couple of handouts on some of those programs ahead of time so that you would have some more information.

And I'm happy to come back at another time and provide more information on that part of our services as well.

And so just looking forward, RHA will continue to be a regional leader and partner in advancing housing solutions and policy.

And we anticipate doing this by continuing to reposition our critical public housing for long-term sustainability, really acting as a convener to bring groups together and facilitate regional discussions and solutions to our communities' housing challenges, increasing the supply of much needed permanent supportive housing and other income-targeted housing, working to secure key parcels and working regionally to either self-develop or partner with others for new community-driven housing, and finally by being innovative in developing new streams of funding, utilizing cutting edge construction practices, expanding our resident programming to support our mission, and overall making housing more attainable for Washoe County residents.

So with that, I really do appreciate the time today, as well as the county's partnership and willingness to discuss ways that you could support the Reno Housing Authority and our efforts to make housing more attainable.

And my team and I are happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Did I pronounce your last name correctly?

On Rado.

Thank you.

With on strategies, um, I apologize that we didn't um recognize you.

Thank you so much, right?

I mean, it's about everybody working together, but I'll open it up to questions at this time if you'd like.

So one other item for you as well.

Yeah, no, no, no.

It helps kind of spurs, right?

So we've got we've got some experts here.

Uh one of the things that we're really trying to work through with the board, yourselves is you know, what are the community concerns that you're actually hearing on housing capacity, not infrastructure and those other things.

We'll get to that uh here in a bit, but really about the housing capacity in our community, uh, kind of, you know, mostly uh again, trying to separate uh homelessness uh with unincorporated Washoe County.

So we're really trying to dig into understand what you're hearing from your constituents in unincorporated Washoe County related to housing capacity that'll really help us kind of drive uh the next phase of our strategic plan.

So just as a you know, an item to think about while you're asking questions.

Thanks.

So while you're pondering that question, Commissioner Hill.

Thank you.

And uh thank you both for coming and joining the board.

And Dr.

Lopez, I just want to give you and your team big kudos.

You've been a great partner with the work that I've been trying to move forward in Incline Village in Crystal Bay with uh ensuring that we lease to low that lease to locals program and you have been a fiscal agent and supporting that program.

Thank you so much.

And you're all your slides are saying we're doing more with less, and you're doing more projects in other parts of the county with less.

And I just want to thank you.

And then I'm so excited for the opportunity to work with you at the old elementary school.

And I don't know how much I've been keeping the board updated, but that it um our um manager wrote a letter of support for Reno Housing Authority helping uh develop a workforce housing project um through RFP, if the um the federal highway administration will support this.

So uh it's gonna take a few steps, but we're moving forward potentially with some workforce housing up there, which will be a game changer.

And so I just want to thank you so much.

And for me, what I hear from the community to answer your question, follow the rules is uh I I hear folks say, hey, I get it.

I moved to this community because it's so amazing.

So I get why people are moving here and why it's growing.

My beef is that it's growing and we have no other infrastructure.

So it's growing, and we don't have sufficient flat fields for my kids and I to play, and we're having to compete with all sorts of families.

Um it's growing and we're stuck in highway traffic or unsafe traffic, and I feel like we're not moving forward with ensuring that we we're keeping our community safe with the growth.

So that's what that's what I hear from my community members.

Um, and then there's community members who also have a concern about we have housing, but it is it needs to be unlocked.

So that's some of the work that we're doing in Incline because we know that these some of these housing units are not e not even being used for years by the owners, and some of it may be tax sheltering um that's happening in Nevada.

Um, and some of it is um folks who are using it for short-term rentals, and we've put some restrictions on that, but it's tough to really restrict the use of people's private properties.

And so, like figuring out how to unlock housing, and I don't think Incline is alone.

I think it's a more of the extreme uh piece of that, but I think there's more of that that's happening in Washoe County proper as well, and figuring out how we can say, you know, folks who are investing in housing from outside this community and are not using the housing, how we incentivize them to rent their properties or maybe not want to invest in their properties so that real families have access to the housing.

So those are the pieces that I've heard from community members.

Any response or just move on?

I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I don't want to deprive you of the opportunity to address the multitude of points that were brought up.

Uh for the record.

Dr.

Hilary Lopez with uh RHA and thank you for the kind words.

Um, we're we're happy to be able to partner and do these types of projects.

Um, in terms of the infrastructure issues, uh, just wanted to note that when we're looking at where to locate projects, part of what we are doing is looking at um uh either infill sites or other parcels where they're already located near public transportation, near amenities, near employment centers, near existing um community resources and infrastructure, so that we're capitalizing on that as part of the developments that we're doing.

Yeah, and Jeremy Smith of the record, I think uh in the next section, you'll see some of our efforts to try to synthesize what we understand about how infrastructure and services are provided, at least in the domains that team RPA is involved in, and what kind of investments are we doing uh and who who does what and in an attempt to bring together many disparate jurisdictions and organizations that all provide a role in in providing the you know those services into certainly a high level, I think to uh Shalero's point that you know we're we're we're the regional, we're not top down.

We are really more about collecting the information and the consensus at the bottom and memorializing it at the top so that it reflects our our collective vision.

But the the nitty-gritty really does belong still at the local level, but we are trying to synthesize that into a picture uh in terms of infrastructure that addresses how are we or how are we not, you know, keeping up with both maintenance of our existing quality of life and accommodating growth.

Vice Chair Garcia.

How do you know?

Because I just had a film.

Um thank you both for being here.

And you know, I was I didn't realize the housing authority has been around as many years as it has been.

What did you say?

80 years, 80 plus years.

Um, so quite the history.

But I think one of the things that I love most about what RHA does is you know, it provides obviously the roof over the head, but the the wraparound services for the folks, whether they're you know, little ones all the way up to our elderly, um, you really understand how interconnected housing and things like education and healthcare, all those social determinants of health are critical to the success of people being able to stay in their homes.

And I think that um you you've all dialed that in really well.

So compliments to to you and your team for understanding that holistic perspective of housing.

Um so to answer your question, Dave, without talking about infrastructure, because that's the only thing that I want to say.

Um, but just in terms of what I hear, you know, when I talk to constituents, is um just having a more diverse portfolio of housing types, the diversification of housing types.

I think, you know, I came to Washoe County in 1998 for college, and it pretty much seemed then that the only thing you had um for options were single family homes or apartments, multifamily, right?

And not a whole lot has changed in almost 30 years, where you know, there was a huge push and the valleys have filled up from north to south, east to west with a lot of single family.

Um, and we've seen some things hit the market like condos and townhouses and and things that can provide um a different footprint for families and different needs of families at a different price point.

But I know here at the county we've been really pushing things like duplexes, fourplexes, um, those uh cottage courts.

And I know I've talked to Dr.

Lopez about even leaning in more into multi-generational housing types.

So I just I would like to for us to continue to push that narrative.

Like there's a lot of families out there that would love their you know, aging mother or father to be able to comfortably um go towards the back of the property and still have that uh connectedness and that you know to prevent the senior isolation that often happens with our our um constituents.

So that's what I'm hearing, it's just we need more options.

Our recent college graduates, it's just nothing is within their reach.

They're not gonna have 120 or 130,000 to put down as a down payment.

It's just not feasible, you know.

I had to buy my first home with my brothers, and that was in 2000 you know, seven, um, before the the economic, you know, downturn there.

And so it's just as all the jurisdictions move forward, um, just really prioritizing different types.

And I I don't know what the you know, what the builders say, like are certain types of homes more expensive or more difficult to build than others.

Like, is that true?

Townhouses, condos, is it does it not pencil out as easily as single family homes?

I think that's just where I need some education and some professional development, perhaps, because if I'm always pushing condos and townhouses, but the builders are like, we can't do that.

It's too hard or it's too expensive.

I I think we just need to know as policymakers like what is actually happening in the market today.

Take a stab with that.

Jeremy Smith, the record, great, great question.

And we absolutely agree.

And it's been a while since I've looked into the proformas for developers of different housing types.

But that was a focus during our housing study back in 2016 and then onto the strategy.

And I think that uh I've heard this sentiment often that uh, you know, developers go with what they know.

And I think that to some degree uh has fostered the the single family aspect.

But you know, there are there are these costs and these trade-offs with in terms of what you were talking about earlier, with if we want to achieve a missing middle that's higher density, is the infrastructure investment, you know, there to serve it.

Um we ran a model from our consultant from Portland had this model that ran, you know, what if we took all the zoning restrictions off of uh and this was of course back in 2016-17.

So things have changed.

But we were looking at about 21,000 parcels that seem to be what you might even term like shovel ready, like they were within sort of like a suitability zone where they could they could happen and certain housing types built.

But then we took we took everything, all the zoning off, and we let this guy's model run.

And it built something like 300,000 units of garden apartments, because that was the thing that at that time was sort of the economic win, you know, based on that one model.

But I think that kind of work that tries to unpack what are the real costs of different development types and how can we understand those typologies and have that sort of like guidebook to help us in our decision making when we want to try to rehabilitate an area, open up a new area for development would be a really good idea.

And I and I think we have moved away from the single family product since then.

That is in the data.

Thank you.

And going back to my earlier comments about Sun Valley, you know, I benefited from the tier two change.

I purchased, you know, a higher density townhome in Sun Valley.

And so when you look at the map, you can see the changes in the colors.

So I think from what our constituents tell us is they they will support products that people can purchase and buy and have that pride and ownership.

And I think those are easier to get across the finish line because there's this assumption that if you're gonna invest in it yourself and you're gonna be in it for the long term, that the neighborhood and and the quality of life around that development will stay high.

And I think just for so many years, almost three decades of having multifamily.

When you hear high density, you you think high story, multi-story, high density, um multi-family or single family.

And I just feel like we just need to fall more in the middle more often.

I think our constituents would be really pleased.

And I think the thing that keeps me up at night is when you look at the population projections for our seniors over the next 20 years.

I mean, our housing inventory is not going to keep up with the the needs and the demands of our senior uh our aging population.

Again, for the record, Hilary Lopez.

Um just in terms of uh responding to to part of that, um, our village at Hawkview project, uh, one of the things that we're really excited about and proud of is that it does, while it is rental, it does contain a variety of different rental housing types.

So it does have a larger building, uh larger multi-story building, but it also has garden style rental and townhomes as well.

So it's uh laid out to have more of kind of a community feel about it and um provide for a range of different housing types that best meet um those residents' needs.

And then just also I would mention that one of our goals that we've talked about with our board is uh undertaking a homeownership um project, uh development that would be for first-time homebuyers and lower income uh community members, and so we are currently looking at um some potential to move that forward in the north valleys and looking at what makes sense in terms of either a town home design or something that allows us to maximize the density on those parcels, and then as you had referenced, kind of also having conversations about what is multi-generational housing look like and uh being able to meet kind of those needs with on within our community going forward.

One of the things that I will say that is a challenge is typical funding for affordable housing is really geared more towards the rental housing market um and towards a certain type of product, multifamily housing.

Um we recently at the state level um had the enactment of AB 540, which was the governor's housing bill, which has now made some funding available for moving forward, some um homeownership and other types of affordable housing projects.

And so um that has kind of opened up the opportunity to do some of these other types of projects, and we're kind of happy to dip our toe in and and try and and see if we could uh get a project to move forward in that direction.

Any other questions?

Well, I have a couple things.

Um, one, I think that um it's very hard to play by the rules because I want to talk about infrastructure, but um I'm really excited to see the next part come, and I think that there'll be plenty of opportunity for that.

But I do think that there's some forces that are in play, and those are economics 101.

I mean, market-driven, if you're gonna build something, it's got to pencil out.

And 40% approximately increase in construction costs is a deterrent.

And so I think there's a balance, and I'm just gonna share that.

I always remember the January uh workshop where we um had Dr.

Lure Moore, and she specifically spoke about what we have here, and I'll use Washoe County proper, um, is a demographic that is much higher moving in than the national average.

There was 18 to 35.

Those needs are different, obviously, than some other age groups.

It was really surprising to me.

That's why I keep on remembering that, because I would have guessed it to be folks retiring, moving here, and quality of life that we all have and enjoy.

But I think there's a balance, and there's market forces that you can't control.

That's how our economy is put together, but you can in terms of incentives.

And I think that you mentioned a little bit of this, um, Dr.

Lopez, and and and I think actually, Dr.

Smith, you did the same thing in terms of streamlining the process.

If we can streamline the process and look at cutting the costs, not at the expense of the quality and the process and the legal requirements that we have for compliance for anything that's approved.

There are legal requirements, and I can't wait until you get to this next part, because I know you highlighted a lot of that in the next part.

And I've I've looked at this obviously before today.

And um, my point is is that it seems that's to your point, Dr.

Smith, about builders build what they know, but they also are driven by market forces.

And anyone who's in a business, whether you open up a uh lemonade stand or your whatever it is, it has to pencil out.

No one is going to invest any time a dollar if they're not going to get a return on it.

And so I think one of the things that seemed to be missing to me is that, and and you know, I serve um on your board, and and thank you for the small but mighty team and you too, small but mighty team.

But the reality is is that I think if if you could touch upon how you really have a team of jurisdictional representatives that look and talk to you about this at a regional level, I really would like you to talk about that framework.

But in that, I'm also hoping that we could look at the possibility of looking at the economics, for instance.

Look at what Dr.

Laramore, and I'm sure you guys do that, but I do think it's important to look because if there is a market-driven opportunity, there's also a decrease in folks having children.

Not that we're not going to build what what the market um demands.

So I think that the incentives for government to get out of the way, and I don't mean that in a bad way.

But I do think if there's opportunities, and we've seen that at Washoe County, and kudos to the team for doing that with pretty soon our our one of our last packages to AB 540 and even addressing AB241.

But the reality is is that it seems sometimes that it's a silo approach instead of maybe a more connective, interconnective approach with both economics, because if there is going to be a market and it's not being addressed, somebody will find it.

Somebody somebody will look.

That's the way I believe economics 101 and what our country is based on.

So I'm hoping, Dr.

Smith, you could talk about how you put a group, the group together to look at what all the jurisdictions are doing, what they're looking at, and then how from a regional perspective you address that.

Thank you for that question, Jeremy Smith for the record.

I think uh I think you're right.

I mean, obviously, our point is to is to work together.

In advance of the 2019 regional plan, we had a group called the Regional Plan Update Working Group, which is made up of local jurisdiction planning staff, uh, to some degree engineering and public work staff would be involved, and also the affected entities through um our recent regional collaboration efforts.

We've now instituted that as a standing uh group.

So we're gonna start having quarterly meetings of that group where we can raise these topics.

I think the other thing is that we are working on that third pillar, which is seeking to look at more of the economics, more about what are the wage, you know, sort of considerations versus housing prices.

What's the community need uh to how do we match it, right?

And what kinds of products um will do that?

And then also I think so so we're gonna have conversations, we're gonna build that document together, and we're gonna continue to and working with RHA, I think, to keep it updated.

I mean, that's key because things do change, and what's a market opportunity right now uh may not be in five years, and I think we have some of that built into our system because a lot of what has that's out there, which often gets referred to as paper lots, uh, maybe 20 years old based on old market assumptions for products that have been approved that cannot be removed from the legal perspective that do not meet today's needs, and how do we look at those?

You know, maybe they're bereft of infrastructure, and I can talk soon about you know how we've tried to get in front of that a little bit with our approvals now.

How do we get back in time?

And how do we look at those areas and say, could this be better for meeting the challenges of now?

So that's a topic that we're looking to address as well.

Thank you.

Um, and I don't know if you have anything to add, but certainly I too want to say huge appreciation to all you do, and congratulations, Vice Chair, for being on the um on the board.

That's uh a welcome opportunity you'll have right here.

I think she wants sidewalks.

You probably know exactly what she wants.

Did you want to add anything?

I I didn't really have um much in terms of of that, except to say, you know, we we really do welcome the opportunity to to work with the jurisdictions, and I think that um we've continued to kind of strengthen those partnerships.

Uh, we really appreciate the county team and the work that that they've done with us, and um at the federal level, as federal funding continues to change.

I just think it becomes more and more important for all of us to kind of look regionally at how we kind of work together to maximize the resources that we have to um really address the the needs of our community in a variety of ways.

So um, you know, that is kind of where we're all starting to to or continuing to move and um especially as we've been getting more information on the federal level about changes or potential changes to funding to make sure that we could continue to serve the community as best as possible.

Yeah, and then just to follow the rules.

I'm gonna stay away from infrastructure, but it's coming up.

But I mean, the bottom line is is that it is attainability, and it is that's what constituents traffic I'm gonna stay away um to the next um category that we we hear.

But the reality is is that I think we just I hope the message is maybe we need to think differently about how we do things, and I think that you both are leading in that charge.

And I just want to recognize you for that because I know you are, and I think that we as a state, even at the at the legislature and through the governor's guidance, need to also look at how we do things differently and investing, and that's what AB 540 did, invested into our state.

And so I think the last thing I'll say is I do think that um we look at some of the, and that's outside of your scope, I suppose, but you can always be an expert in terms of giving testimony if it comes to the legislature.

But I do think that some of the out-of-state um purchases that are made for folks who don't live here and are raising those prices, and we're not seeing the economic multiplier, because when you live here, you're supporting our community in various capacities, and maybe there's an opportunity um for the county when it comes time to look at having out of state actually pay property tax that would be at the market value and not for the benefit of those who actually live here.

That's a statement, not a question.

But you never know, you might get cold at the legislature if something like that comes up.

Commissioner Clark.

Thank you very much, Chair.

Yeah, yeah.

Um Dr.

Smith brought up a point that I've brought up in the last several meetings is we've got approved subdivisions that have been approved for a number of years and continue uh extensions, and those subdivisions that were approved might not be viable in this market.

So that's why I've asked, and I hope it gets on the agenda sometime in the future to have uh a moratorium or at least a time limit on you know, one, two, three, you pick a number of extensions versus this continuous cycle of extensions for uh um a project that may no longer be viable in this market.

Why keep them on the books?

If I continue to grant extensions for something that may not be ever built, and and that's that's my point is and you brought it up as well, is maybe it's time to shorten those uh uh renewals that we offer and uh and make sure that something gets built and that might help uh the actual uh inventory if if people are put to their feet are put to the fire and they have to build a project instead of just owning it and sitting on it and and continually uh asking for for questions.

So again, I'd ask for that to be on the agenda for for uh a uh discussion in the future about how many extensions are enough extensions and let's time let's get to busy and uh and do do this project or or find somebody else to do the project, but make it come online faster.

And then when we talk about the different between single family homes and and uh multifamily homes, you know, if you're a condo or uh town home, you know, there's another component of the the financing of those.

That's uh principal interest, taxes and insurance, and homeowners association.

So people have to qualify for those properties.

And and you know, it might be an affordable sales price, but when you factor in the uh homeowners uh in uh the homeowners uh uh uh costs for the uh the buyer, that that changes the whole equation.

You you buy you get to buy less and pay more when you have to buy pay for your uh your uh homeowners due.

So those are just considerations that people need to look at.

And lastly, I want to say if you drive around this town, you'll see what entry-level homes used to look like.

There's certain areas in older parts of the town that have one car garage and smaller homes and maybe one bath bathroom, and and those are just not available anymore.

I mean, it's the same thing with automobile industry.

You know, you used to be able to buy a basic car, now everybody has to have leather interior and all the fancy gadgets, and and the more the more you can upgrade a house from a builder's standpoint, the more profitability, and everybody's in it for the money.

I mean, that's what that's what capitalism is.

So it's hard to justify, you know, building entry-level homes that are basic, nice quality homes when you can add on some extra uh carpeting or granite or different things and drive the price up.

So that's another factor that takes place in and in this community is to make uh affordable housing.

Uh it's just hard to find.

You you know, you've got to drive to Fernley or uh, you know, Elko or some other place to find those things that used to be available in this community.

So those are just some comments I wanted to get on the record.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much for the opportunity.

Thanks for all you do.

Thanks for actually changing the landscape, right?

For our community.

And we're going to transition, right?

And Mr.

Smith is staying.

And Mr.

Smith is staying and Mr.

Smith is coming.

That's what I was just going to say.

You know, I was going to say we're doing uh Smith.

Thank you, Dr.

Lopez.

Thank you.

Mr.

Smith.

Mr.

Smith.

You open any of this?

Well, for the record, Dave Solero, uh, says the county manager.

I will just open this up uh very briefly.

Uh we we've had uh Mr.

Dwayne Smith, uh the county engineer and division director of engineering capital projects join us uh for a uh discussion around infrastructure.

So here we go.

Um I do think that this is a good opportunity to hear those things that you're hearing, and and Duane's got a few uh thought-provoking or some provoking thoughts uh to go through uh with you as well.

So I will turn it over to uh Mr.

Smith.

That's a right thought.

Yeah, let's go.

They can flip and decide which one.

Well, I think uh Well, let me let me just jump in and for the record, good morning, everybody.

This is Dwayne Smith, Director of Engineering Capital Projects.

And I also serve as your as your hour.

As your county engineer.

And so we're looking forward to this part of the discussion.

Um I'm gonna turn it over to Dr.

Smith uh to get things going.

But we wanted to put up a few provoking thoughts up on the screen first.

Um so as we're going through these slides, you know, these are the kinds of things that we're gonna be focused on.

There's gonna be uh, I think some good discussion around some of the challenges that we have.

Um, and then we're also gonna set the stage for the next uh folks that will come up after that.

And so with that, I'll just quickly turn it over to you, Dr.

Smith.

Thank you, sir.

Oh, thank you very much, Mr.

Smith.

So I'll try to move to these pretty quick.

Um and remember, we're regional planning, we're the high-level team.

We're not the uh boots on the ground per se, but we are trying to put it all together into a regional picture and make sure that we all have shared common goals and we're moving in a similar direction.

And so that's what we've tried to do with what we call our public infrastructure document or plan.

It's not a plan that we've created per se, but it is a assembly of the different plans, CIPs, and uh, you know, visions of infrastructure provisioning for the future among a long list, which I will share.

And so we have created a couple of things with this a document which uh is available on our website, tmrp.org, uh, that talks about um who's doing what in terms of service provision, again at a high level, but then allows you to be guided to more information at that entity or organization's website.

Uh we have a mandate from state law.

It's actually uh 278.0274, which is the contents of the regional plan.

And it really indicates that we need to be involved in certain aspects of uh infrastructure.

And again, it's it's in service of regionally coordinating our decision making and around infrastructure and service provision.

Here's those five infrastructure domains as we interpret them from looking at that NRS statute.

And so it really comes down to potable water, schools, stormwater and flood control, transportation, and wastewater.

And those are really all big topics, and we try to bring quite a bit of information together on it.

But if you want to see, you know, it's really in terms of in lockstep with growth.

How do we allow and account for the orderly management of growth?

How is how do we ensure that we are all making the right decisions in alignment to support what we say we want to do where we say we want to do it?

And again, we're not driving this bus.

We're collecting the information, putting it together so that we can collectively assess are we doing it or do we need to make some changes?

Here's all the the groups that we work with on this particular project.

And of course, we we move out beyond this on all kinds of stuff, but this was for the public infrastructure plan, all of these folks, all three jurisdictions, Tumwa, the school district, Sun Valley GID, the airports, uh the Western Regional Water Commission, and even the flood authority in that stormwater category.

We've created a dashboard where we look at information from both annual comprehensive financial reports that are already we try to, we always try to not add work, but just take work that's been done and bring it to the surface in a different way.

And so every year, all of those organizations have to create an annual comprehensive financial report, which talks about capital improvement assets that have been added to their depreciation list.

And so in those categories, we have worked with staff at each of those entities to pull out those capital improvements.

Further, there's the CIP process, which we saw today, and uh that has to happen every year.

And so that's also already a requirement that we want to tap into and understand where we plan to put stuff.

So that those are the two sources of a lot of this information that we've put together on our dashboard.

And I just before I show you some picks of the dashboard, we have two main categories that we assess those either existing capital improvements that got added or the planned improvements, and that is reinvestment versus growth.

And so reinvestment is everything like rehab, maintenance, replacement, all the stuff that ensures that the quality of our service and our quality of life around that aspect of our community is maintained at the same level, you know, or maybe even better.

And then there's a chunk that is designed for the new stuff that's coming in, the growth areas that we see happening.

And so those are the two divisions that uh you know, lenses we use to look at this.

So if you go to our website at teamrp.org, and then there's the PIP dash dashboard.

We've been doing this for two years now, and uh we're gonna get doing it.

We're starting again for year three right now.

And what it does is it right now we've we've got a pretty good handle on the spending.

We are working currently on the spatial locations because that really has that that that's the overlay between where we have growth areas planned and where we're investing for infrastructure.

And so we're working on that.

But in terms of the dollar bills, we've been able to track in those five service domains what was added the previous fiscal year and what is planned over the next five years.

And so if you go to our dashboard, you'll see that.

And if just quickly you can get a takeaway here from this slide, red in those pie charts is reinvestment, and gray is for growth.

And so, on the order of 75%, give or take, depending on the domain you're looking at and what piece you're looking at, we're reinvesting into our community to maintain service levels.

And the growth often maybe it gets cast or there's this assumption that we're spending all this money to accommodate growth.

And there is a chunk of that.

But really, the the lion's share is to maintain, and I think you'll hear that that can create some uh you know, sustainability challenges, but but that is really where a lot of the investment is going.

I want to just touch briefly on this.

In 2019, we, in addition to adding the regional land designations, we added this concept of the public region-wide public facilities and services standards.

And I think what we were trying to do there was to get in front of uh what Commissioner Clark and I were talking about in terms of uh these languishing projects that get approved and keep persisting.

And often one of the reasons that they don't move forward is the cost to serve that initial cost, right, to get the infrastructure there.

And prior to 2019, regional planning at its decision point did not have uh there were methods like we would rely on the local jurisdictions concurrency management uh programs that basically said at the time of C of O, there will be sewer service, you don't have to worry about it.

You know, it's gonna be fine, which is true and good.

But at the time we enable a master plan change, you know, it's at the end of that maybe review process, but it's at the beginning of the development process that we're enabling now an area to become something it wasn't before.

That's the time to at least have a conversation about how can we serve this?

We can we serve it?

Yeah, okay, how?

And let's have some high level consideration.

And so we've created standards for each of those five domains that must be addressed in our decision making process so that we it's not a it's not a mystery as to how the water's gonna get there and if it's available.

It's not a mystery if the sewer treatment facility can accommodate the units or not.

Again, high level, and you know, Duane's gonna go into the the reality of how to do it.

But we think this is a win for our region by putting this in, and at the point that we're enabling these changes, we're having a better consideration of how they will be served.

And then just really quick during the regional plan update, we we took a look at this concept of scenarios.

There are many ways, right, that the future can unfold.

And it depends on market dynamics.

It depends on politics.

I mean, it depends on all sorts of things that can occur that can change our trajectories.

It depends on what we decide or you decide as the leaders, what you want to see happen.

So we looked at four potential scenarios with the same number of housing units across the region, but built out in different ways to try to understand differential impacts.

And one of the things that stuck with me through that process was yes, if we build out, that's going to create certain impacts.

If we build in, that's going to create certain impacts.

But also there are certain impacts that would be felt no matter how we build.

And we better make sure that we're on top of those, first and foremost, then get to the point of okay, now how are we moving and how does that affect how we want to plan for these differential impacts?

And the final slide here, which will be the turnover, is that in order to create those different scenarios of the future, we looked at sort of underlying assumptions of what potentially can drive growth or where new development will locate.

And we were looking primarily at housing, but I mean it applies to non-residential as well.

And what you've got up there is that weird TMSA shape that uh hopefully now is becoming more familiar to everyone, that's my favorite shape.

But over on the left there, you know, the colors represent what we call suitability, but really it's sort of like, you know, how how well do all the factors we're looking at stack up in terms of the desirability or of you know, ability to accomplish development in the area.

So blue being high, in this case, red being low.

And depending on what you prioritize, and again, this is regional, but depending on what you prioritize in your thinking of how you want to see the future go, you can get very different patterns.

And so on the left, we had the infrastructure-based uh surface, if you will, that looked at where do we have the roads, where do we have the pipes, you know, where does all the things come together that we can say, okay, we could build in this way, and we came up with a scenario called smart greenfield, which kind of emphasized density and preservation of open space, but even at the edges where we had already invested, and we could optimize those investments.

Versus on the right, that surface is driven by a more amenities-based and transit-oriented sort of approach where we lean into the core it's a classic in-fill kind of a scenario.

And so when you think about prioritizing growth areas in unincorporated Washoe County, and again, this is at the regional sort of high-level, more conceptual concept or idea, but thinking about what are your underlying assumptions for why you want to target one area versus another.

You know, is it about infrastructure?

Is it about creating community?

You know, is it about leveraging investments we've already made or some combination therein?

So with that, I would answer questions or turn it over to Mr.

Smith.

Thank you, Mr.

Smith.

Mr.

Smith, it's yours.

Good morning again for the record, Dwayne Smith.

So I'll jump right in and thanks, Jeremy, for kind of setting up the regional perspective on critical infrastructure and kind of outlining some of the form and of the way our region is uh approaching growth.

I wanted to spend just a few moments with you this morning talking about the public infrastructure challenge.

Um, you know, the any time that that we're talking about infrastructure, there are always a lot of costs associated with those those investments.

And I wanted to really uh kind of hammer home some of those issues that we're facing.

So uh, you know, just uh to kind of set the stage.

You know, I've said at the podium in front of you more than than one time that development pays for development.

And while this is true, what I need to do is start emphasizing with you that development pays for development, but once Washoe County accepts that infrastructure, it becomes Washoe County's responsibility to operate, maintain, repair, and replace that infrastructure.

But once Washoe County accepts that infrastructure, it becomes Washoe County's responsibility to operate, maintain, repair, and replace that infrastructure.

That's the expectation of our community, but that carries with it certainly costs.

So the this first slide, I just wanted to kind of hit on a few high points, and I'll I'll speak kind of uh quickly this morning, but certainly uh look forward to questions.

Um public infrastructure carries a lot of responsibility.

Um, you know, from an infrastructure and planning perspective, you know, we're we're responsible both as we consider uh both existing developments and new developments is to protect the existing level of service that this infrastructure provides.

So think roadways, think level of service on roadways, think sewer lines and capacities within sewer lines, think stormwater infrastructure and the ability to safely convey uh stormwater infrastructure.

We we had the responsibility to verify when that development comes in or when we're working with our regional partners that that um that that capacity exists or that there's a plan for that capacity.

Otherwise, if we're if we weren't doing that, uh we would be faced with service degradation, uh increased failures, uh, we would run into regulatory hurdles and challenges.

So I I just want to uh you know really focus on the capacity-based planning.

You know, I'm gonna say the terms, it's not anti-growth, it's really responsible asset management.

So when we think about our responsibilities with infrastructure, we really have to think about how those decisions as we move forward are responsible and that's really capacity based.

The public expects this, right?

So every day the public is going to work, going to school, using the roadways, using the infrastructure.

They have a high expectation that we're gonna continue to maintain, that we're gonna continue to reinvest in our public infrastructure meeting their their requirements, meeting their expectations.

Um, there are certainly minimum standards for public infrastructure.

I want to assure you that as engineering and capital projects and our operations and our facility groups, you know, we spend a lot of time when that new infrastructure is built and dedicated, making sure it complies with those standards.

One of the other things that we really focus on, and you need to know this, is that we want to maximize our existing infrastructure first.

We want to utilize our existing roadways to full capacities.

You all hear it from your constituents.

They come in and they say, traffic is getting horrible.

Well, I want to I want to assure you that there will be increases in traffic.

There, the roadways will see more traffic on those road on those roadways as new development or growth occurs.

But we also understand that based on best practices and standards, that there is a capacity availability in a lot of our roadways.

Uh so we we need to really focus on how to maximize our existing infrastructure first before we start going out and building new infrastructure.

Public infrastructure is a long-term commitment, carries all the benefits and responsibilities in our community.

Um we need to focus on actual capacities, and we need to make sure that as we're looking at new development, where that new development is occurring so that we can leverage and utilize that existing capacity in those areas.

Of course, you can't talk about responsibility without talking about some of our ceilings, our resource ceilings.

And so, you know, I just identified three three of our resource ceilings.

First of all, those physical elements, we talk about water, sewer, we talk about recycled water, roadway, stormwater.

Well, those things have certain levels of capacity, and we need to work within those existing before we start building new fiscal elements.

There's always a financial ceiling associated with the ability for Washoe County to take ownership of that new infrastructure.

Uh so we have to be very sensitive to, and you heard um Division Director Cook kind of speak through some of those challenges with our current budget.

Don't forget staff is another resource that we really need to understand and we need we need to recognize that there is a uh a ceiling for staff that we have only so many staff to do a lot of things to support our community.

And I've heard heard it said around this table already this morning, we're doing a lot with less.

Well, I I think that that is absolutely true, and we need to respect our our staff that are going through those those heavy lifts.

So sustainable growth is not just about um taking on new infrastructure, but it's making sure that we have these ceilings identified and make sure that we're we're we're respectful of those physical elements, those financial elements, and those staff elements.

I just want to throw in a couple of couple of numbers here.

Everybody was talking numbers, I'm not gonna get down in the weeds too much, but you know, we we recognize construction costs are going up.

That's not just impacts to new development, but that is also impacts, as you heard Lori speak to in our CIP budgets, that our cost to either build or provide for our community is increasing along with all of our operation and maintenance costs.

Um I'll quickly mention that our pavement condition index, our PCI for Washoe County's roadway network, it's down to 68.

So this is a this is a big deal.

You know, it hit home for me as I was putting together some of these these slides and thinking about that relationship between new infrastructure, taking on that responsibility of that infrastructure and our commitments, and and some of those commitments include like the Lake Clarity program up at Lake Tahoe.

This is a very important program.

Uh, we and the California jurisdictions have been part of this for almost three decades now.

About 10 years ago, we put together some cost projections on what the increasing maintenance cost for that infrastructure that we've built to obtain those clarity credits is.

That projection, we ran it out 40 years, and it was almost a million dollars.

I was looking at that not too long ago.

Right now, our operational costs just last year in maintaining that infrastructure was almost 300,000.

That's right there in alignment with those projections that we were making for that 40-year period.

So I'm telling you that these increases in our operation and maintenance costs are real, and these are real considerations that are in front of us.

We you, we, we all get a lot of calls regarding pedestrian traffic traffic safety, calming, those types of things.

I was kind of blown away just a few years ago, a traditional speed hump, about seven grand.

Now those things are $15,000.

So we're we're we're really hitting it home, right?

We're we're starting to focus in on and really uh understand that our our infrastructure carries this huge benefit and responsibility to our community, but also has that significant cost for maintaining that infrastructure.

I wanted to be real clear though, because I've talked about new development and what new development does.

And so on the left side there, that traditional building dedicated infrastructure.

These are things that we typically see developers build and dedicate.

This is not an all-encompassing list, but I just wanted to hit a couple of the high points, you know, the stormwater infrastructure, roadways, sewer, and water, those are the types of things that are being built and dedicated to Washoe County or in some cases like water to other other enterprises.

Um, but don't forget, even with all of those responsibilities that come with that infrastructure, we still have our facilities and our jails and our parks and all these other facilities.

So we're really competing for these infrastructure maintenance dollars uh uh, you know, across the board.

You saw the infrastructure scorecard.

We've talked about this in the in the past.

I just want to quickly draw two points.

I spoke a little bit about the Lake Clarity Challenge uh up at Lake Tahoe, fantastic program, but it's costing a lot of money to maintain that infrastructure at that level.

Our roadways uh represent about a 1.7 or excuse me, a 1.1 billion dollar asset.

And look at some of those numbers.

If we don't keep maintaining our roadways, if we continue to let that PCI drop, these are real issues.

And you can see, just look at the color codes up there.

Those those are the ones that are really expensive for us to maintain.

Look at the ones down below that equipment services and down.

I just want to draw your your your attention to those from equipment services on down, those have dedicated funding sources.

Those other items don't have dedicated funding sources.

So this is part of that struggle that we see.

These are forever costs.

We don't get the choice of accepting this infrastructure and not maintaining it.

Well, maybe we do.

Maybe there's a discussion about levels of service, right?

So maybe the roadways are an example of that when we start, you know, thinking about all those potholes and those wide cracks.

There is this balance about budget availability and what that level of services that we're providing.

Roadways are a little different.

Sewer systems, those types of things where we are bound under other considerations, you know, we don't have as as much latitude in those types of infrastructure.

Um we we talk a lot about uh um you know the the fiscal side of it and all the all the things that we're responsible for and that we do.

But I just wanted to uh bring up, and you heard at the at the last board meeting, and you'll hear again next week about the North Spanish Springs flood detention facility.

This is a this is a great example where when the community reached down to us, uh we put a program together, we put a plan together, and we built infrastructure, reduced that impact from that repetitive flooding issues in North Spanish Springs.

So we bonded for that infrastructure.

What we didn't anticipate was the downturn in the economy in the 2008 time frame.

Remember that we all remember what that was like.

Well, when we had built that bond debt uh repayment structure, it was based on connection fees.

We were not seeing new development.

New development was not bringing the dollars in the in the door to pay that debt servicing for that infrastructure.

So we had to shift gears.

We had to go out into the community and in front of in front of you and ask for a rate increase.

We took those rates all the way up to $9.31 per month.

We've now gone through the process of paying off that debt.

We're able to lower that.

But the point that I want to make is is even when we're talking about infrastructure and different ways to go about uh funding it, we have to be cognizant of some of our examples and our experiences.

So we have to really think about how when when as we're moving forward, how we're funding for this long-term investment, you know, called infrastructure.

I've I just wanted to um kind of point out that last bullet point.

I'm I'm kind of jumping over a couple of those pieces, happy to go back.

But the service expectations of one of the other things that we're seeing is that that we get on, we're getting a lot of phone calls where, you know, as as Washoe County has expanded, you know, um those less um those areas that used to be more rural are now becoming more urban.

And so we're seeing um a lot of folks that are now living in areas where roadside ditches were the standard of the practice, right?

Larger lots.

We had um no sidewalks, no lighting.

We had the none of that type of infrastructure.

So now is as our areas expanding, these areas of development are moving into these areas.

Well, infrastructure is always on my mind.

We're thinking about things like the the stormwater infrastructure.

People are asking us, when are you gonna pipe that?

I want to reclaim that area in front of my house.

They're talking about sidewalks.

Hey, I go to visit my neighbor and we go walk the dog on a safe sidewalk, but at home I have to walk on a on a busy roadway.

I was just down on a site last week.

Um, we were down on Fawn Lane.

And these are the types of things that come up in that discussion.

But I want to caution us that there is no funding sources to go build new infrastructure associated with existing developments.

And it's very difficult to go out and try to find a ways to capitalize on new development to bring that infrastructure in.

So not only are we faced with that challenge, but again, the more infrastructure we build, we have to have sustainable funding sources for that so that we can continue to meet the community expectation of that infrastructure and what it does for us.

Um, I'm sure you're thinking about uh a lot of things as I'm speaking quickly.

Um you probably are thinking about development fees, rift fees, regional road impact fees or connection fees or those types of things.

Again, I just want to caution us that that development fees um are there for new capacity, expanded capacity, not for ownership, operation, maintenance, repair and replacement.

I was down at a legislative subcommittee a number of years ago and with a partner Charlie Donahue with uh state lands, and it it was a discussion about you know dedicating significant money to Washoe County for the Lake Tahoe Clarity Program, and that was very welcome.

When I got up, I spoke to that.

We need to not only um identify that that funding for that infrastructure construction, but we need some funding to maintain that.

Those are hard conversations because the expectation is that local government that we're maintaining that infrastructure.

Again, I want to go back to the to the point that that you know there are there is funding out there sometime to build capital, but we have a big lift in front of us about how to maintain that capital as we're going.

So the bottom line, we're struggling with we're struggling to address what that means when we approve development.

We're struggling to to identify ways to pay for that ongoing infrastructure commitment, those sewer lines, stormwater roadways, et cetera.

Um we're exceeding some of these available resource ceilings that we have.

I talked about funding.

I talked about about staff.

We need new approaches to help make sure that this is a sustainable approach.

I spoke about you know some of these challenges with our roadways and that that big number facing us out a number of years from now.

I spoke to the Lake Clarity, you know, program in those big numbers.

I could talk to you all day about what this means, but the but we really do need new ways of approaching things, how we focus in on where the existing infrastructure is, how we make decisions about development.

Development is not a bad thing.

Smart development is the direction, right?

Smart development, how we focus on infill redevelopment where existing sewer lines exist, where existing roadways are, where existing infrastructure is that has existing capacity before we go spend hundreds of millions of dollars investing in other things that maybe the time isn't right or maybe isn't necessary or needed until we can actually utilize the existing capacity that's available.

So I just wanted to um put those provoking thoughts back up on the screen for a second.

And uh I just wanted to quickly run through that.

I hope I hope that uh is a little bit helpful in our in our discussion.

Do you want to add the thought provoking thoughts?

Or sure.

I uh for the record, Dave Solero, uh Cisco manager.

I I really think the the question here at the bottom is is really where we're trying to, you know, is there anything here that you've heard that surprises you?

Is there anything that's new or there any thoughts you know from from your chair uh as you're out in the community again?

Um, you know, we we we need some input from you so that we can kind of help craft things.

Now the next the next discussion is around some of crafting some of the potential solutions.

Uh, but certainly if you've got some thoughts around, you know, is there anything in this presentation that surprises you about kind of the state of where we're at?

I think uh, you know, uh uh Dwayne Smith uh put together, you know, uh the the thought around service levels, right?

That's a discussion we're we're having, and it's not just necessarily to infrastructure, it's the serve all the services Washoe County's puts across uh you know to our community.

Uh that you know that's certainly one area where we can make adjustments.

Um and and um uh just lost train of thought there on the other item, but it may come back to me.

So I'll turn it back over to you.

We're not going anywhere for a minute.

Any questions?

Commissioner Clark.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Uh I'd like to go back to the page.

It's not they're not numbered, but it starts off with Washoe County critical infrastructure juncture, some numbers for perspective.

That one uh talks about that.

Yeah, that's it, too.

So, first of all, I want to salute uh your help from last week, you and uh assistant county manager Solero uh going out meeting with me and the folks on Fawn Lane.

We went out to talk to I thought one person and ended up having about 35 or 40 people on a roadside discussion for about two hours out there.

And and it was about these very same things.

These folks live in a quiet country lane, been there, some of them 67 years on the same street, uh and that that time limit.

And uh, and then we've got a big massive billion dollar project at the end of the street.

So the trucks and the traffic and the roads deteriorating and the speed and the dust, everything else that's taking place here.

And uh so it was interesting to hear their perspective of taking it from a country area and and what's taken place and the damage to the roads that that we own, that we need to maintain and the trucks and whatever's taking place.

But uh I find an interesting uh we call it it used to be called speed bumps, now they're speed cushions.

Is that is that the euphemism for speed bumps now?

Cushions?

Okay, a little different, but yes, okay, similar idea.

I thought it was an interesting uh uh name change.

But uh uh anyhow, it was very nice to have you out and hear the the real life concerns of of real life citizens in our our county and explain what what you're basically explaining, explaining to the commissioners here today and the public here for this meeting.

So thank you for the good work you do and and the public uh appreciates that and then they just need to hear how this is gonna impact their peace and and quiet in their neighborhood.

And and in this particular case it's not.

And uh we need to make sure that we uh keep uh keep their thoughts in the top of uh our mind about how we can do this without having uh uh tremendous impact.

We had one lady who said that she'd been there for a year, had she known it, she would have never never bought there.

And you know, we don't we don't want that either.

So it's important that uh we explain this.

So again, thank you for your help last week.

Commissioner Hill.

Okay.

Well, uh I uh I love the the presentation because I think it's important that the community understands that there's a real lack of sustainability happening.

And I agree with you.

We have to speak a little different about yes, technically growth pays for growth, but not really, because growth pays for uh sustainability of old growth or of old development, because if you're only paying, you know, $2,000 a year in property tax, and someone else is paying $15,000 a year in property tax, who's supplementing who, right?

And figuring out, um, and I know that these are the next slides, but figuring out how we can speak to this because I think that's where there's this perception that we're addicted to growth and uh in this region, and I think in some ways we are, because it's we don't survive without growth, but then growth creates bigger problems for us long term.

And yes, Washoe County owns and maintains it forever, but what funds Washoe County to do that?

And so figuring out how we speak to that to the community, and I I hear what you're saying of um more rural parts expecting a higher level of service because they come from another community, but also I think they're expecting it too because there's more traffic on those roads too.

And so they're like uh I don't feel safe because at one point you could you know have uh a safe walk in the community without a sidewalk, and now it's not as safe.

And uh so uh I think figuring out how we best describe that to community members, but I'm I really appreciate your um outlining it in this way so that the community can understand the struggle that we're in as a county to try to maintain all of these these things.

Commissioner Herman, did you have something?

Can you hear me?

Um, actually, we can't have to now put a click.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

It seems like we've um kind of lost the balance that we should have.

And I I don't know if it's a tax problem.

Um or whether we just allow too much development, you know.

Do we need to regulate it so that we can afford it?

And that's might been my idea all along that somehow, you know, when you're budgeting your family, you have to plan certain way.

I we can't have 10 kids because we're we can't afford them.

So we don't we can't afford 10 housing units or big subdivisions if we haven't prepared for it, if we don't have the money to pay for it.

So I mean that's kind of where we are.

Some like I say, some of our tax structure thing, and sometimes we get too generous.

So we can't afford to um to make just to just be that that entity that makes developers richer.

We've got to stop doing that somehow.

I think the surprising for me uh thing for me today was um seeing that the TMRPA is monitoring the domains in the way that you are.

I I thought that was very enlightening.

And I think as policymakers, we also have to understand that there's two other major arms that we're considering, which is fire and um law enforcement.

So it's really, you know, when you add it all up, that's seven major domains that we're having to monitor and and carefully manage.

And we are stewards of the taxpayer dollar, and you do hear, you know, if we don't grow, we die, and all those commonly used phrases, but we grow too much and we also die.

We're shooting ourselves in the foot.

And so I think that was really kind of the takeaway for me.

Question about the different models on scenario planning slide.

You had a classic scenario, McCarran, smart green, and infill.

You said uh in the little red bubble survey results showed the highest preference was for the infill scenario.

Who was surveyed?

When was that survey done?

Is that still relevant to today's um perceptions?

That's a great question.

This is Jeremy's with the record.

It's an older uh slide that still has that on there.

That was doing our 2019 regional plan updates.

So it was around 2018 or 19 that that sentiment came through.

It was uh several thousand folks responded to an online survey that we had at the time uh from the general population.

If all of the scenarios present opportunities and challenges for sure.

And in fact, if you go to the regional plan, there's sort of like a little vignette in after chapter two that lays out different uh statistics about 16 different metrics for each scenario and to kind of germane to our previous conversation about housing, you know, to achieve the in-fill scenario, we have to turn on more uh core lots with smaller units in a different mix of housing types to even achieve the we we forecast 50,000 units over like a 20 year period at that time.

Um, so it's really interesting if you want to go take a look at land consumption, you know, housing mix, housing price variability, stuff like that.

Um, and that's something that uh as part of that third pillar I was mentioning that we're looking to uh create a more sustainable way for ourselves to keep up with what we've put upon ourselves as well uh to to keep those metrics updated.

Were you gonna say something?

Well, I was just gonna say, and for the record, Wayne Smith, uh Jeremy, I appreciate that comment about the infill.

I was kind of um going over some numbers and thinking about um how infill and redevelopment um could even help us save um dollars on on when staff are traveling out to more distant areas um and and you know that efficiency, that loss of efficiency, and and really focused on the inner areas, and if even from a utility standpoint, if we could experience more infill capitalizing on existing infrastructure, um, and maybe we only save five or ten percent, but that in today's world, five or ten percent is a huge benefit for our rate structures and our operational costs that impact our rate structures.

We've made a commitment as part of the utility to not raise rates.

I made this commitment to you two years ago, two and a half years ago, um, to not raise sewer rates for 10 years.

These are the these small things about infill and leveraging existing infrastructure and making sure that the capacities within a within a sewer pipe, or it could be a water line or a roadway or whatever, are being really maximized, really could speak to those those small numbers, but you add those small things up, that can be very meaningful.

I just wanted to throw it.

Yeah, can I can I just maybe comment on that as well?

I think it's a really great point.

And I used to use the word optimization a lot, which is sort of like you know, the optimal use of the investments we've already made.

We've already made an investment, right?

And we're already maintaining it.

So how do we how do we max it out?

But I will point out that in the precursor to our four scenarios was the housing study that David mentioned early on.

And it was we worked with Echo Northwest, a firm out of Oregon, to really do the fiscal piece that you're speaking to, Commissioner Herman, with regard to unfortunately not the maintenance side, but the capital investment side.

We we took that on at that time, and just moving 20, the top two, the blue and the red really represent these two scenarios, moving 25% of the anticipated growth into the McCarran ring saved over 20 years and estimated 780 million dollars.

And that was in 2016, right?

So now I think it would be even higher.

So I think yes, how can we how to your point?

How do we get to a an understanding of the fiscal implications both for capital investment side, but clearly for the long-term maintenance, and the last point would be as part of our public infrastructure dashboard, we have tried to tease out uh all of the you know how much money is represented by the the facilities like roadways pipes and whatnot that developers build and dedicate, and so that actually is included as a metric in each of those five uh sections.

I just feel like I should do a shout out to all the work that you've done on the dashboard and watching that progression, and so thanks for all of that.

There's more information that I think one could even imagine.

If you are bored and you'd like to analyze, I think you might be able to recruit some other folks if they're really interested in that.

I don't have any real surprises other than the fact that um I I do think this is really probably the best thing that could happen where people truly in our community understand a couple points.

One, we have a systemic challenge in how funding in our state works.

It's a systemic challenge, it's outside the scope of what we as commissioners can do, to be honest with you, in many cases.

But what we can do are some of the things we're gonna see coming up, I think, which are exciting, trying to tee that up, Mr.

Solero.

Um, but I do I do also think that I remember um the first time you said that, um, Mr.

Dwayne Smith about utilizing existing capacity first, and I think that's the pinch point of pain for folks is because while you're experiencing that, and they're like, There's not enough capacity, there's not enough this, there's not enough that, but there is because you're actually there is that capacity, you'd be might be getting close to that capacity, but legally there's uh also the balance of how you can approve those projects if there is capacity, because you can't deny someone in some cases, depending on the circumstance, because they think there isn't capacity, or the community doesn't think that there's capacity, or the community thinks that we've overbuilt.

Is because while you're experiencing that, and they're like, there's not enough capacity, there's not enough this, there's not enough that, but there is because you're actually there is that capacity, you might be getting close to that capacity, but legally, there's a also the balance of how you can approve those projects if there is capacity, because you can't deny someone in some cases, depending on the circumstance, because they think there isn't capacity, or the community doesn't think that there's capacity, or the community thinks that we've overbuilt.

And I think that's the hard part.

And so I think what you've done is highlight that we have a systemic challenge of balance, highlight that was that we only have the ability to work within the configs that we have.

Um, but also the fact that there are different ways of thinking too that are going to be coming up.

And so thanks for all of your hard work on this.

And I think people also understanding the regional and the regional connection to all the jurisdictions, and it isn't a top-down, it's actually all together in one community.

That's what it is.

It's not regional telling the um jurisdictions or the jurisdictions telling regional, it's actually working as one community.

And I think that is something that you've also highlighted here.

So I'd like to thank you, Dr.

Smith, and thank you, Mr.

Dwayne Smith, and thanks for the Smith Brothers, right?

We could have had a little something, but thank you so much for the opportunity.

So I think we're gonna go ahead and move to some solutions and thought-provoking opportunities here with prioritizing development areas.

That is correct.

For the record, Dave Solero, Assistant County Manager.

I'm actually going to turn the table over to uh our assessor, Mr.

Chris Sarman, uh as well as Mr.

Tharma's in the house.

As well as Eric Grump, our community services department director, and Kelly Mullen are planning and building division director.

Thank you.

Whose team is uh he's got those slides.

And this is public uh works week, so we should not forget about public works week.

Right.

Thanks for right.

You're welcome.

Thanks for everybody and what they do.

Right.

Uh so as mentioned, uh, my name's Eric Crump, uh director of the community services department.

Yep.

Do you want to do that?

And then I'll do it by you.

Um so uh this is pretty exciting.

Um we were hoping this would come together like it did.

Uh I think uh a proper stage has been set.

Uh and just kind of recapping some of the things I've heard today about, you know, different approaches and some of the challenges we face.

And so um I think uh this is this is gonna be a great segue.

So we really appreciate the opportunity.

Um I'm gonna kick us off and then I'm gonna kick us over to Division uh Division Director Kelly Mullen and then our assessor Chris Sarman will will wrap it up.

So um so you've you've obviously we started you all you all have heard about the great work that Washoe County and some of our regional partners have been doing in that housing space.

Uh, and then the proper doom and gloom has been set by uh the Smith brothers.

Um so that's gonna stick, by the way.

I don't know why.

But um, but there is there is some different things that we can do.

Um so um, you know, one of those is this concept of prioritized uh development areas.

Um it's actually not a new approach.

Uh you heard uh Dr.

Smith talk about the TMSA.

Uh you talked about uh the tiers that we have.

So that's really the basis of you know identifying develop uh prioritized development areas.

Um but what the county can do is it it can get far more granular.

Uh what's in the regional plan is obviously a regional approach.

Uh and if uh if supported um in in looking at and reviewing prioritized development areas, we can get far more granular.

We can be specific to unincorporated areas of Washoe County, uh, and we can also include incentives uh for growth or development to occur in those specific areas.

So next slide.

Um the the concept of prioritized development areas is really it's a it's a good it's a fiscal discipline tool that the county can do.

Um and we can we can start influencing you know some of those costs of that very costly infrastructure that uh that both uh director Smith and Dr.

Smith talked about earlier.

Um that that rising cost of forever is real.

Um and uh, you know, it's related to to not only repairing and maintaining but replacing that that that expensive infrastructure.

Um and it's the gift that keeps on giving.

Um and it also escalates as you get farther away from existing services and stiff existing infrastructure.

We have pockets in our community that that we live that every day.

It's very expensive for us to serve certain communities based on just pure geography.

Um but uh one way to do this is to actually develop a system that incentivizes development in areas where infrastructure and services already exist, um or they're you know planned for uh in kind of close timing.

Um, this obviously reduces the number of miles, it reduces storm drains, sewer lines, slip stations, uh, and all the services that it takes to maintain that infrastructure.

Um this ultimately leads to better delivery of service and actually leads to better quality of life and has a bunch of other benefits as well.

So uh when we'd be when we would consider identifying potential prioritized development areas, uh, we'd be looking at there's there's a whole host of criteria that we could consider.

Uh this slide kind of represents just a partial list.

Um, but you know, we could come up with a system where those considerations could be weighted uh based on a variety of factors like community benefit or the cost of uh cost of service, return on investment, or infrastructure capacity, uh, and really allowing us to make more data driven decisions around where development occurs.

Um setting the stage on on how we might do that.

Uh I'm gonna kick it over to uh Director Mullen and she'll talk about incentives.

Can you guys hear me?

No.

How about now?

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Kelly Mullen, Waship County Planning and Building Division Director.

Um, so now that you've heard a little bit about some of the challenges that we're facing in terms of infrastructure, now that you've heard um why we need to make some change in order to ensure that our infrastructure is sustainable in the long term.

I'd like to talk a little bit about how we might be able to encourage and focus development in prioritized areas, what um what Erica talked about.

And I want to drive home too that we're not talking necessarily about just encouraging new growth.

We're talking about where we can try to prioritize where that growth occurs.

I think that's an important distinction where we can focus where that actually occurs.

Um, and I'd like to start with, I think a pretty important caveat first about what we're gonna talk about when we look at incentives.

What you're gonna see today is a list of potential incentive options.

So some of these are gonna sound pretty mild, some of them may sound pretty extreme.

Um, and they may appear or not even be feasible.

Um, but what the intent here really is just to show you a range of possibilities to kind of spur some thought and further discussion on the idea of incentives.

We're not gonna dive too deeply into any individual option.

We're not gonna ask you to select any at this time, um, but we will ask at the end if you have any particularly strong thoughts about any of the options listed here today.

If the board wishes to move forward with investigating prioritized development areas, we're gonna go back and we're gonna start doing some additional research.

This is just you know, a starting point on the conversation where we will come back after doing some additional research and provide some recommendations um on moving forward.

Now getting into the slides themselves, um, we've got we've categorized the incentives that we'll talk about today in four major categories, land use, development fees, tax incentives, and kind of the miscellaneous bucket.

Next slide, please.

And then what you'll see on this slide and the slides moving forward, you'll see a couple icons at the bottom and peppered throughout that orange light bulb icon means it's an idea of something that we may already be doing today.

We know how to do it, we might be doing it in other areas.

That green thought cloud is an idea we'd have to do more research on.

It really is just an idea.

Um but we would we would want to, you know, go back if we were looking at pursuing something like that, we would do additional research and try to understand what the feasibility is, what the legal implications, what the financial implications would be.

Um the options on the slide, they're gonna appear familiar, probably for you because we've considered using some of them or have used some of them on some of our our housing, um, our housing work that we've been doing over the last couple of years.

So first one up there, you'll see reducing or eliminating public hearings.

That is an option that of course it saves time for developers and time is money, as you know, and that's something that can be a very strong incentive.

Um offering density bonuses again, similar to what we're doing on our housing items, um, that is a strong potential incentive.

And just to kind of get back to the concept of density bonuses, um, you know, every single single parcel has a zone, has zoning that's applied to it, that has a maximum number of units that could be allowed.

Let's say if it's seven units per acre with a density bonus, maybe they'd be able to develop at 10 10 units per acre or 15 units per acre.

So it allows for additional units, might be able to make a project pencil when otherwise it would not be able to.

Similarly, when we talk about parking, parking can take up a lot of space, a lot of land that can be costly.

So when we look at ways to incentivize development, one of those levers to potentially pull is eliminating or reducing minimum parking requirements.

And then similarly, when we talk about an option like priority processing, um, you know, Dwayne had talked earlier about the cost of sprawl, the crop the cost of developing further out and how there can be infrastructure benefits to building closer in and at higher densities.

And so it may be something that we also want to start looking at prioritizing in those prioritized areas, um, prior providing incentives for higher density development and certainly priority processing of applications is one way of getting at that as well.

And then lastly, uh potentially offering increased flexibility in some of our our development standards specific to infrastructure.

Next slide, please.

Development fee incentives are another bucket of potential levers that we could pull.

Um, you know, we have we have development fees with every new project that comes in, that could be building permit fees, regional road impact fees, sewer connection fees, park construction tax, those are all types of development fees.

And one of the things that we could look at is reducing or waiving those fees in prioritized areas.

And similarly, instead of waiving those fees up front, we could also offer some sort of a performance-based incentive where we are looking at potentially refunding those fees or partial fees after some sort of condition is met, you know, after the project is completed or certain components of it are completed.

And then the next two bullets on this slide, they're kind of two sides of the same coin creating different or tiered fees so that fees are lower for developing at higher densities or in priority areas compared to developing outside of priority areas or developing at lower densities.

And that's one that might feel a little bit more extreme, and that may be because you know that would essentially equate to some sort of subsidization almost of other users or fee fee payers who are helping to subsidize development in the prioritized areas.

And next slide, please.

This next general bucket, um, we're looking at tax incentives.

Most of these would fall under the category associated with tax increment financing, creating those, um, creating a TIFF district in those prioritized areas.

And I think most folks are probably aware one of those most important features of uh a tax using a tax increment, and that um that power of it is the ability to collect that incremental property tax, and it could be used to help fund various infrastructure projects.

Um, but you know, one of the things that we could do to help incentivize development, focus it in those areas, it's creating those TIFFs, potentially offering the property tax reductions or rebates just for developing in those areas, potentially offset infrastructure investment dollars in those areas or matching infrastructure investment dollars at a certain rate.

Next slide, please.

And then we've got our bucket of just kind of the other potential incentives that we could offer.

County using county bonding power is one of those.

We do that now with the county's allocation of private activity bonds for affordable housing.

Um, that is one potential lever to be able to pull.

And then also, I know you know recently I think we've adopted a policy related to special improvement districts, but in those prioritized areas, potentially fully supporting the creation of special assessment districts and special improvement districts as a way of helping developers to be able to fund and finance the infrastructure development that they need to do to bring a development online.

And then one of one of the options that again, it may sound a little bit more extreme is introducing scarcity for developing outside of prioritized areas or for undesirable uses.

And that's not something that we at Washoe County are doing right now, but just to provide a little information on the context, if you're familiar at all with how development is done up at the lake with Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, they use the concept of allocations and the development that occurs each year, it has to be assigned an allocation.

And there's a limited number of allocations that are available.

And that's just a you know a concept that it kind of controls how much development that can occur in each particular in each particular area and the rate at which it can occurs.

And again, this is an idea that may sound a little bit extreme.

It may come there may come a time where something like that might be necessary.

Um, but introducing scarcity in a similar way, and that could look like you know, limiting the number of units um annually in a particular area if it's if it's outside of a prior prioritized area or maybe within those prioritized areas, there isn't a limit.

That's just another example.

And then finally, um potential option is is really providing a higher level of assistance to developers in those prioritized areas.

Right now, um, we do have a what's called a business facilitator who helps some some developers kind of get through the general processes with development processes within Washoe County, but we're talking about going to the next step where potentially hiring somebody who isn't an expert, um, a financial expert in all of those different funding sources for big dollars associated with infrastructure, the grants that are potentially out there, um loans or state and federal incentives and helping developers to navigate that piece.

That is another potential incentive that we could offer for folks developing in the prioritized areas.

Next slide, please.

And then finally, let's talk a little bit about how some of that could get done.

If we offer that suite of incentives or a suite of incentives, you know, the way that we make that happen and how we use those, of course, we can slice and dice that a bunch of different ways.

One potential option is simply selecting incentives that we want to offer for development in those areas, and then just laying them out there and they're available for anyone who wants to do residential development within the prioritized areas.

Um, we potentially also could create a scorecard where, say, desirable characteristics of a development, you know, if it has affordable housing or it's balanced mixed use, something like that, um, that that perhaps that is able to achieve or unlock a higher level of incentives than otherwise.

Um, we could potentially also um limit those incentives that are offered only to highly desirable uses within um the prioritized areas, and what's considered desirable may vary depending on the area that we're talking about.

And then finally, um, I know that this was brought up um by some of the commissioners earlier and part of the conversation about you know, we can't just do this alone, that there's there's benefit in power in partnering with other agencies.

If there are other agencies that may also receive a benefit from development occurring and certainly in certain areas, we could potentially partner with them and see if they're able to offer any incentives as well, so that it could be a packaged approach to make it more feasible to develop in certain areas.

So, again, um, some of these options, they may seem um, some of them may seem mild, some may seem extreme, but that list really is just to get um to spur some thoughts for you today, spur some discussion, and then I am now gonna pass it off to our assessor, Mr.

Chris Sarman.

He's gonna talk a little bit about some of the benefits and trade-offs of incentives in those areas.

Okay.

Uh Eric, are you gonna click for me?

That's okay.

Yeah, so uh good afternoon, everybody.

Um you know, uh first thank you for thinking everybody sitting down here and going through uh all this information, right?

It's a lot of information for you guys to sit down here and go through and and think about and and to discuss.

So I'm gonna add to that, uh, but it won't be that much.

Uh at this point, as are kind of summed up, right?

We've uh we we've had a lot of information with regards to the to the concepts and the variables that are tied to development and growth, current costs, future costs, um, and really just to kind of put it into terms of where we're going here is is how are we gonna do more with less and um you know let's let's call it smart growth, right?

Let's dive into that.

Uh, how are we gonna define what smart growth looks like?

Um the structural deficit, you know, it's uh it's in a it's a simple but very complex equation, right?

So we're talking about the cost.

We've heard a lot about the cost today, uh, whether that's just maintaining um infrastructure or maintaining future infrastructure, um, and and even incentives, right?

There's a cost to the incentives that we got to think about.

But I think if we're strategic and we're and it's cost effective, then we can we can really guide development for the greater good of the community.

Um and so why am I here?

Well, um I want to I want to bring some awareness to what the funding might look like, right?

The revenues that that could be potentially tied to this as well.

Um certainly, of course, if there's legislation or or local governments want to increase taxes, that's one way to increase funding.

But is there another way to expand the tax base, increase values, and um ultimately um increase the quality of life?

Maybe this is a solution to do that, right?

Uh if we can I've been I've been talking to you about changing the slides, huh?

So let's go to slide number three.

Um we're already seeing the state has done this right now.

It's not just now it's not um specific to uh tying it to a prioritized area of growth necessarily, but certainly through economic abatements and tax caps, abatements, affordable housing initiatives that we deal with in our office every day, developer discounts, some of those things already exist, right?

To incentivize um that growth, economic growth.

Uh local incentives, of course, we know that the cities are doing that, uh, redevelopment districts right now.

And and where does Washoe County sit with doing incentives?

Where do where do we sit with that?

What are those considerations?

And so um I think a key, obviously, is that any future tax growth has got to be tied to exceeding what that incentive is going to be.

It's got to outweigh, of course, the the future service costs that we've been talking about, and you've been hearing.

Um, and we got to make sure, as Kelly kind of mentioned, uh, as partnering with other agencies that there's not overlap, right?

Because again, the state's doing stuff, the city's doing stuff.

Where do we fit into that equation?

So to weigh that benefit appropriately, of course, we've got to look at the different multipliers that exist.

You know, maybe we're talking about increased sales tax to an area, maybe we're talking about additional private um uh uh investments, and maybe we're just talking about increasing the property values and assessment.

So um, what are the drivers of the property values as it relates to this concept of prioritizing growth in certain areas?

Um, and I'm just gonna read this.

So property values are strongly influenced by how land is being used, right?

Uh what is it allowed to become, and what is the quality of that new development on a subject parcel or a subject area.

Uh in general, higher and better use of the property tends to support higher assessed values, and over time this is gonna result in additional funding.

The relationship between market value, actual use, and authorized use is important as it relates to our taxable values, assessed values.

Uh, when the land or improvements are being put to its highest and best use, again, we're gonna see those assessed values being higher.

Uh, we talked about zoning, right?

So uh when zoning allows um and there's more intensive use taking place on our property, whether it's a single family home versus a multifamily unit, right?

Um there's a higher use being placed on that property, therefore higher values, right?

Higher revenues.

Um, the quality of that development also is a part of that.

Uh is it vacant land?

Well, of course, we know what that looks like, but is it is it residential, is a commercial?

What's the quality of that development?

And again, that's gonna be uh a higher quality result in those higher assessed values.

Uh there are two ways in which this concept can be applied.

It can be uh we talked about new growth, but it can also be looked at through the redevelopment part of this equation, right?

And the redevive revitalization and redevelopment, um, they're important because it can really materially shift value by improving that quality that we're talking about, um, making a certain supply more attractive.

Um, and that improved supply can increase, of course, demand, which can lead to a stronger market performance and reduce that perceived risk for those developers or investors, you know, anybody for that matter.

It it it boosts investors' confidence.

So uh in either case, I think the public perception, public perception as we look at this is gonna be uh need to be considered right in some form in that um they want to see a return on the investment.

So with that, uh I think that if we focus growth in areas where infrastructure already exists or can be maintained or even expanded efficiently, um, then we're looking at growth in a sustainable way, which uh strengthens our county's financial position and bringing home, I think the uh quality of life that's being improved.

So I'll leave it at that unless you have any other questions.

Uh slide six, I guess is kind of the summary of that.

But um, there's certainly value um that needs to be looked at when we're looking at prioritizing these different areas and and hopefully some of those can get us there.

So I think the next slide has thought provoking question.

It does, and if I could we we have uh kind of two key points that we'd really like input here, but I would like to put a caveat on number two, recognizing that you know, obviously we didn't provide a lot of detailed information on incentives, just kind of a flavor.

Um, so it's not specifically, you know, does one incentive look better than the other?

We just like a general kind of feeling around incentives, but most importantly, that number one is you know, kind of red light, green light on on this alternative approach to planning the development in our community based on all of the things you heard today.

So thanks.

I'll open it up.

Okay, we had a tie going.

Do you want to flip it?

Sure, yeah.

Okay, thank you.

I I think I need some context because I've only been here three and a half years.

I know collectively with Dave and many others, there's decades worth of experience here in Washoe County in terms of how Washoe County is played in this world of incentives.

So can you give me a brief lay of the land?

Is this new to Washoe County?

These land this talk about potential land use incentives, development fee incentives, tax incentives.

Have we already been in the sandbox for a while, or is this kind of new frontier for us?

I'll go ahead and take that uh for the record, Kelly Mullen Planning and Building Division Director.

So using incentives, true incentives on the um planning and development side is relatively new.

We just started offering those um with uh all the housing efforts over the last few years.

Um and certainly the real incentives in terms of like the um density bonuses that are going through the process right now.

Um that is the first set of of real incentives that we have offered.

Now we've certainly you know gone through the effort of trying to streamline processes, make things easier, reduce public hearings, that kind of a thing.

Um we have done that, you know, in the past and kind of ongoing.

There's certainly there's always you know more opportunities for that.

But for true incentives where you're getting bonuses, um, absolutely that is newer for us.

Okay.

I think there's a lot of lessons to be learned from the other jurisdictions, is what I'm hearing.

You mentioned the cities and and other jurisdictions throughout the state.

I just would I would like for us to to do it right the first time, which means collectively getting all the stakeholders together before we start spouting out what we think, because we're not subject matter experts.

We've got to get, you know, the folks that are um building the folks that are on the maybe even the advocacy side of of uh increasing housing stock and on and making sure that the quality of life issues are are maintained.

I I just think it would be smart of us maybe to to be that regional leader and can and convene the groups to get um a litmus test of how people are feeling the county should go, what direction we should go, because I mean I value my colleagues' opinions and everything, but all of those um menu of options that you just offered us, we can't speak to those because we A don't have the details and B, we haven't talked to the subject matter experts.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would uh just offer another development fee disincentive.

Uh using the regional plan work that Dr.

Smith has done.

How can we increase development fees when it's away from infrastructure?

So that may be another way that we can tie in what we like to see versus what we're not as excited about because let's be real, it's on who owns the land, when they've got the capital, when they're coming in, and honestly, this is a perfect time to be considering this.

And I'm totally with Commissioner Garcia on making sure that we convene the stakeholders, our development partners on this um to hear what their thoughts are.

But uh, because we're slowing down with growth.

So let's make the changes while we're in the slowdown.

That way we're ready when uh things start to pick up again.

Uh but making sure that we're using that data because the way that you've uh higher development fees for lower density than higher density, I'm on board with that, and we're looking at that actually in Tahoe.

Um, and seeing if we can do in Tahoe, it's a bigger issue of these, you know, uh developers, billionaires, trillion trillionaires buying uh four um parcels, making a giant com compound and how we can disincentivize doing that.

So and how we can do a fee on that.

But so I'm all about that higher development fees for lower density than higher density, especially because um to many commissioners' points, we people's home families are different.

We're not having as many children.

We don't need the square footage that we've got in our house.

We saw that from Kat when she did that presentation to us.

Um that that makes sense too.

But how can we use the data that we've got to increase those fees when it's away from the infrastructure?

They're already gonna have to pay for the infrastructure, but also making that layer of like, do you want to buy that property?

Like it is gonna be more expensive to do business in the county.

And then on potential mechanisms, what I'm been pushing, especially in the Tahoe area, and I'd like to see us uh limit incentives to highly desirable uses.

So attainable housing, you know, balanced mixed use.

That's what I'd like to see if we're gonna do property tax incentives, because we don't have a property tax enough property tax to pay for things, period today.

So that's my if we're gonna do it, let's do it for the things that we really want to see, especially with um, you know, we don't have enough home credits every year for all the people who want them.

So maybe there's a way that the county can incentivize more of the things that we want to see, especially if there's flexibility, because uh understanding that workforce housing is for higher area median income, and you don't necessarily you can't necessarily get those state credits or federal credits that way.

Maybe there's a way, and that's what we did we done in Tahoe as well is see how we can create those uh incentives on that piece.

And maybe we do that, we can do that both in the Trekkie Meadows and in Tahoe because we're the ones that control the um uh tax incentives for Washoe County, even in Tahoe.

But though those are my thoughts.

But I love all the suite of options I want to talk them through in detail when we're at that point.

And uh I think that it's really cool that the team has come together to present this to the board, and we're these are all different departments and coming together to find this solution of a big problem of sustainability of growth in the region.

So thank you for all of you for your leadership and bringing this to the board and making sure that we have uh the best information to make the best decisions.

Any other comments, Commissioner Clark?

Sure.

Um we've got the assessor here, and uh we keep hearing about the slowdown and growth.

And uh I'm gonna just wanted to hear what what he sees uh he's closer to the closer to the ground than we are uh as commissioners.

What what do you see in the as far as slowdown of uh development in our county?

Yeah, all right, there we go.

I did it right that time.

Uh you know, there has been a slowdown, but from from our perspective, uh Commissioner Clark, um it really hasn't slowed down.

I mean, the values have gone up still through our through our valuations, the permits are still there.

Uh we still had a lot of permits to work this year, the subdivisions from a standpoint of creating subdivision maps out of our office that has slowed down.

Um, but there certainly are subdivisions out there that are not built out yet, right?

That are still being built.

Um, and so we haven't necessarily seen I wouldn't call a dramatic slowdown at this point in time.

Maybe stability is a better word.

Um certainly not, we're not we're not going gangbusters or or booming like we once were for sure.

Um, but yeah, that's stability is uh I would call stable right now.

What are your thoughts about the interest rates now versus three or four years ago with stability and and movement of the market and and growth and development?

Do you think that the that is hampered uh the fast pace that you had a couple of years ago?

Just the doubling of the interest rate over the last several years.

Well, I certainly think that I mean, if you want to talk interest rates, right, that everyone locked into a low interest rate, and as those interest rates climb that everyone's sat on, you know.

There was a statistic at one point in time where I think it was 70% of all people move and like within five years.

I don't think we see that anymore, right?

Nobody wants to move away from that 3% interest rate now, as far as um purchasing power, right?

Because that's really what it comes down to.

What's the purchasing power that someone can afford this house on a monthly payment?

And uh, you know, the interest rates have climbed, obviously.

Um just over the last couple of weeks, actually, it's going back up.

But um the purchasing power is certainly hindered, but I I think also tied to that is the is the cost of that house, right?

I've heard a couple of the commissioners now speak to the point of well, yourself included.

Um, you know what was a an acceptable modest home at one time where you know it was 1600, 800, 1800 square feet with a one-part car garage or two.

Now you see the product being much a much bigger home with a much bigger garage.

Um the amenities within that house are are dramatically different than the house I grew up in, right?

Um, and so maybe that supply of inventory is is so grand that um, you know, it's it's only available to a certain few that can afford it.

I mean, if if we're talking about some of these incentives, maybe the incentive is to um produce a house that is more economically affordable for somebody, right?

That 1600 square foot house is hard to find anymore.

Sure.

And you can go around neighborhoods here in this town with within a mile or two of here and find subdivisions when they were built 30, 40 years ago were 1,200 square foot, 1,100 square foot home.

So the entry-level home is missing in this market, in my opinion.

And and that's that's traditionally how the market works.

You get an entry-level home, you build some equity, you move up, and that's how it moves.

But now it doesn't seem to be that way.

It's like you got to buy a brand new escalade to get a car.

You can't get a transportation car anymore.

You gotta get the one with all the bills and whistles.

Thank you for your your thoughts on that.

I've got another question for for Mr.

Large uh legally uh when we talk about uh uh penalizing folks that uh that buy in and are trying to build a bigger house or put uh put uh properties together and form some sort of a compound or a bigger lot.

Do we have the ability to to penalize people?

And what how would that open up the county to lawsuits if we charge higher fees to people that are trying to do something different?

I like to get a legal opinion on that.

This board has this Michael Large for the record.

This board has a lot of discretion in regard to the fees that we charge for development in regard to each of the whether or not we are going to be crossing the line legally in terms of those.

We we need to look, we need to look at the specific ordinances that would be put in place.

We need to look at the first certain regulations and make a legal determination.

Until we see it in writing, it's a really difficult hypothetically.

Can you do something?

In some ways, yes.

Um, could you cross the line?

Yes, you also could.

So we need to be very careful in terms of how we, you know, we're not doing this as punishment, we're doing this as an incentive and those type of things.

Um, you don't, you know, once you have a property right, it becomes much more difficult.

But if they're trying to obtain a property right, um, this board has a lot of discretion in regard to how we how we make those these those determinations.

Sure.

And a follow-up question with that human nature being what it is, if we if one developer or one group of developers get some type of incentive, uh another folks feel that they didn't get the same consideration.

How is that leaving the county open to treating everyone equally if we offer incentives to one entity and and not to the other, or at least the other person, the other entity feels that they weren't offered the same incentive?

Does that open us up to any type of legal consequences?

It might open us up to an equal protection challenge, it might open us to due process challenges, but we'd have to make a determination based on ordinances.

Thank you.

Anything else?

Um, I really think this demonstrates what a brilliant group of people that we have at the county.

Really?

So thank you for realizing the inevitable in terms of budget constraints.

This isn't new.

Realizing how the systemic model of how government is funded, can't be changed here.

So what can you do?

I really um like the fact that some of these, I'm glad you mentioned uh Kelly, that we didn't have to necessarily go through all of this, because I do think it's really important to get a real broad group of stakeholders broad.

Because I do want to point out that I thought Dr.

Smith, the other Smith brother, when he mentioned that a lot of times developers have a comfort level with what they develop, and that and you can say that about any product, quite frankly.

You don't have to even say developers.

That's just a natural there's efficiencies and economies of scale, there's all kinds of economics that go into that.

But I do think that's I'm only bringing up that point when I say a broad scope of stakeholders, and I think some of the best practices and the research that you'll come up with because you have brilliant folks here.

Thank you, Mr.

Sarman, too, for always trying to think how we can do things better and how we can essentially meet the demand, but again, I'm always cautious of regulations that start tinkering with market forces.

And so I really like the fact on the tiered connection that one size doesn't fit all as an example.

And I also have attended several meetings where somebody said, uh, Nobody at the county and said we should just have TIFFs everywhere, they said.

If we had TIFS everywhere, we would solve everything.

And it is really an interesting, I it just hit me, right?

But thank you for your work on the SIDs.

I was really proud to lead that charge.

And I think the stakeholders that we saw that were a part of that really saw that opportunity.

I think the SADs, SIDs, and the acronym Alphabet Soup that we're now in that I should stay away from, is um really important.

But the bottom line is is that I'm going to follow the rules.

And one of the questions is should we move forward?

Should you move forward and getting feedback from us on this prioritized development?

And from my perspective, I say move on as quick as you can.

You know, because we have things that are coming down the pike that we've already, as a body, approved, and we're in the ninth package soon.

Um, that will be coming.

Is it the ninth package?

Okay, okay.

I'm not pushing it.

I'm just saying the ninth package, but the next package, and then we have other things that are coming down the pike, including way down on the bottom of the list, when I had asked, and the commissioners were kind enough to support us increasing notification, right?

That's on the list for development.

But having said that, it might sound odd with this next statement, but I also think your point on one of the slides about looking at well, you didn't say it this way, I'm saying it this way, in terms of streamlining and looking at what can be done administratively, especially when you have the legalities and the framework to work within that.

And I think if we can look at that, that saves time.

One of you mentioned, right?

Time is money.

And there also is the balance of the staff that we've already spoken about, the 27% of growth and 22% of the folks that you're having to serve at a higher level than you've had in the past.

So I think if there's the balance, I'm eager to see what this, I know we're all eager to see what this looks like.

Thank you, Mr.

Sarman, for your creativity as well.

You're welcome.

Yeah.

This is why Washoe County has like the best staff on the planet, right?

You guys are literally, what is that, 6.1 uh FTEs are are serving, I can't remember the number off the top of my head, 20 22% more because I did the calculations when I read that.

I was like, wow, we've grown 27%, and you're actually serving more than 22% in terms of what you used to.

So I don't think there are any other questions.

And thank you so much.

Boy, when can you come back with all of this?

This is very exciting.

Next meeting.

That's May 26th.

Whoa.

All right.

Well, if there's not anything else, I think that we are going to close out our item number five, right?

I mean six, and we're gonna move now to public comment.

Thank you, madam chair.

This is our final public comment and comment heard under this item will be limited to three minutes per person.

It may pertain to matters both on and off the commission agenda, unused time may not be allocated to other speakers.

And please make your comments to the commission as a whole.

There's nobody signed in.

Thank you, Madam Clark.

Thank you.

So we'll now go ahead and there isn't anything else.

We're gonna close a workshop or 2 p.m.

on the dot.

Thank you.