Council adopts $265.2 million budget after another conversation about transit funding

Charlottesville City Council adopted a $265.2 million budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 at a special meeting on April 14 but not before another review and summary from City Manager Sam Sanders. He had introduced a $264,474,183 budget on March 4.

“Things have changed a little bit, as it always does, from the proposed date to your adoption date,” Sanders said

There have been five budget work sessions and two public hearings on the document itself, but yet to come is a public hearing on the tax rates for 2025.

“What I’ll point out to you just in basic highlights, is that the revenue expenditure at this time has now risen to $265,248,446,” Sanders said.

The tax rates have not changed for 2025, but another year of growth in assessments has resulted in more revenue. The assessor’s office reported an average of a 7.74 percent increase in late January as I reported at the time.

One spending change in the budget is an additional $600,000 for Charlottesville Area Transit which partially came out of a push for local advocates.

“We added a transit mechanic to help with operations,” Sanders said. “We are also maintaining fare free service across the system and absorbing the absence of the flexible federal funds because those funds are now not available to us as they have been.”

Other highlights:

• There’s $5.4 million over the next five years for sidewalk repair and construction
• There’s $12.7 million in spending on affordable housing initiatives in FY26
• The FY26 budget is the first to apply to a fourth collective bargaining unit

City Councilor Michael Payne asked about the status of a $22.4 million surplus from FY2024. Sanders made the decision to keep the amount in reserve and Council has so far agreed. The idea is to keep the money available while a new era for the federal government continues to settle in. He also said he has been meeting with nonprofit groups who have been making presentations on funding they have lost from the federal government.

“So they are first trying to recoup what they’ve spent and hope that they might actually get some continuation,” Sanders said. “So that is beginning to build. We’re beginning to see that finally the city organization itself has not incurred a loss. But we still continue to monitor just believing that it’s just a matter of time. It’s not a matter of if, it is actually a matter of when.”

A generally-held practice in municipal budgeting is to not use one-time money such as surpluses to hire staffing.

“Something like staffing is not ideal because we can’t guarantee that funding to occur year to year,” said City Councilor Natalie Oschrin.

The conversation went back to transit. The City of Charlottesville owns Charlottesville Area Transit and has full control of its operations. Albemarle County and Charlottesville have entered into an entity called the Charlottesville Albemarle Regional Transit Authority but so far that is entirely about planning for transit operations.

• Albemarle Supervisors vote to join Regional Transit Authority, December 15, 2024
• Charlottesville joins regional transit authority; Council holds first reading on federal transit allocations, December 28, 2024

Charlottesville Area Transit has no independent board of directors which makes Council the sole authority over its operations. There had once been an advisory body made up of citizens but that was eliminated sometime during the pandemic.

An advocacy group called IMPACT made up of various churches has been pressuring Albemarle and Charlottesville to increase the amount they spent on transit to hire additional drivers. Their specific number has been 82, a number believed to enable Charlottesville Area Transit to increase service.

“The solution to long wait times is very straightforward: we need more bus drivers,” reads their website. “Right now, Charlottesville Area Transit (CAT) has budgeted 67 drivers. Getting to wait times of half an hour will require at least 80.” 

In Virginia, cities and counties are completely independent of each other. There are regional services such as that provided by the Rivanna Water and Service Authority, but localities have to adopt budgets independently.

IMPACT’s public event was held on April 8, over a month into the budget process for Charlottesville and about six weeks after Albemarle County Executive Jeffrey Richardson introduced that locality’s budget.

At their work session on April 10, City Council indicated they wanted to support IMPACT’s request but the timing is not right for the existing budget. They agreed to hold conversations about how to get there shortly after the budget is adopted.

Vice Mayor Brian Pinkston and Charlottesville City Council were the two members of Council who went to hear from IMPACT at what they call the Nehemiah Action.

“The commitment that the two of us made was to try to get something for this coming the fiscal year that we’re working on now, which means some sort of amendment or whatever,” said City Councilor Brian Pinkston.

Several members of the group were in attendance at the meeting and Pinkston addressed them directly from the dais and encouraged them to get involved earlier in the budget process.

“I want people to know that this is not the end,” Pinkston said. “We heard you last week, we’re working on it. And what you’re hearing now is the sort of public outworking of the conversations that need to happen.”

For over four years of reporting on transit issues, take a look at this tab on Information Charlottesville.

Council adopted the budget after a final explanation of last minute changes such as $30,000 for the Tonsler League to help keep it going after Governor Youngkin vetoed an anticipated $250,000 from Virginia’s budget.

Council will hold a public hearing on the tax rate for 2025 on April 21 and then will hold a special meeting on April 24.

Before you go: This story was published in the April 15, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement. If you’d like to support the continued production of such stories, here’s a place where you can find ways to do so.