Charlottesville City Council to continue preliminary review of FY26 budget

The budget cycle really does not stop in large communities with ambitious programs to use local dollars to provide all manner of government services. Two months ago, Charlottesville City Council got a briefing of process for how the budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1, 2025. I wrote a detailed about that work session.

The first item on the agenda for the November 19, 2024 meeting of City Council is another budget briefing, this time on the topic “Organizational Excellence and Equity.” (meeting overview)

“The addition of Budget Briefings in this budget cycle is meant to provide even more transparency into the various considerations and steps to developing the municipal budget,” writes City Manager Sam Sanders in a staff report. 

All of the briefings are tied to the Strategic Plan Framework adopted by Council in September 2023. The November 19 briefing will cover two of the ten items in that framework—Organizational Excellence and Commitment to Justice, Equity Diversity, and Inclusion. 

Strategic plans can be used to justify expenditures. Under “organizational excellence” will come the additional funding that will be required to compensate a workforce with additional unionized employees. Under the JEDI heading comes funding for homeless services, social equity, and complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

There no new details in the staff report, but this could be the time when Sanders will put into writing the “community intervention” items he discussed with Council at a work session on October 21, 2024. I have two stories to offer:

• Charlottesville City Manager Sanders announces upcoming “community interventions” including $5 million for the Salvation Army, October 23, 2024
• Sanders briefs Council on other community interventions such as purchase of portable restrooms, November 1, 2024

The regular meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. The consent agenda gives a sense of how state and federal funding flows into localities like City of Charlottesville. However, this edition is a bit long so I’ll try to include that in the next regular newsletter. 

Under action items:

• There is an ordinance related to the composition of the Police Civilian Oversight Board. This was deferred at the October 21, 2024 meeting. (staff report)
• There is the first of two readings of amendment of an existing ordinance that prohibits the parking of buses, trucks, and other vehicles with more than two wheels per axle on city streets. The intent is to ban the practice of putting a tarp over such a vehicle in a way that obscures the license plate. (staff report)
• There is also a revision that would change guidelines for the Downtown Architectural Design Control District related to outdoor cafes. This is worth a further story as one change would require cafes to remove planters that are on the required railings as well as space heaters. There is no analysis of how much this might cost existing businesses. The idea is to make the Mall more consistent with the intent of the original design by Lawrence Halprin. The Mall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places earlier this year. (staff report)

Before you go: The time to write and research of this article is covered by paid subscribers to Charlottesville Community Engagement. In fact, this particular installment is from the November 18, 2024 Week Ahead edition of the newsletter.