Reviewing answers to Supervisor questions on the Albemarle budget

The second public hearing for Albemarle County’s proposed budget for FY26 is this Wednesday at 6 p.m. in Lane Auditorium. There is no information that I am aware of since a work session on April 7 when Supervisors agreed to add another $1 million to the housing improvement fund.

To satiate my curiosity of all things Albemarle budget, I went through a list of answers to questions raised by the Board of Supervisors in a series of work sessions. The following information comes from those documents.

• The elementary school planned for the northern feeder pattern is now being planned to have a capacity of 600 students, up from 100 in the current budget. (document 1)
• In 2023, Albemarle County purchased 462 acres around the Rivanna Station military base for $58 million. The county borrowed that money on a “bond anticipation note” that carries an annual debt service of $3.1 million. In FY2024, Albemarle spent $1.8 million from the Economic Development fund for preparation work to develop the property for a future defense and intelligence campus. In FY2025, another $1.8 million was allocated for this purpose but only a third of that has been spent. (document 1)
• As of March 4 of this year, Albemarle had 3,736 parcels under land use taxation where the properties are assessed at lower than market rate to encourage conservation of the rural area. That results in $15,612,538 in deferred taxes. The number of parcels under land use taxation is down from 4,503 in 2019. (document 1)
• Each penny on Albemarle’s real estate tax rate is worth $2,889,947 in FY2025 and has steadily increased in value since FY2014 when each penny was worth just over $1.5 million. (document 2)
• A firm called Emergency Services Consulting International (ECSI) is under contract for the county to study staff levels for Albemarle Fire and Rescue and the Albemarle County Police Department. A report is expected in the fall. (document 2)
• There are 11.7 positions eliminated in the FY26 budget. (document 4)
• There were 15,996 calls for service to the Albemarle County Police Department from January 1 to March 8 of this year. Of these, 170 were Priority 1. Total call volume is up 17.08 percent since 2021. (document 5)
• In the same period, there were 3,488 calls for service for Albemarle Fire Rescue with 2,521 of those being EMS calls and 651 being fire calls. Call volume has increased by 21 percent since 2021 (document 5)

The fourth report has information about how many people have been assisted through the Albemarle County Emergency Relief Program.

In FY2024, there were 646 people who sought assistance with 440 approved for a total of $472,545. Of this, $106,100 was used to avoid utilities being shut off and the rest was used to avoid eviction.

In FY2025, there were 449 callers who sought assistance totaling $120,599. Of this, $85,816 was used to avoid eviction and the rest was used to utility disconnection.

“Staff work with callers to recruit resources from other sources in the community to ensure they can actually avoid the impending shut-off or eviction though there are situations where the amount of arrears is too great to accomplish this goal,” reads the fourth report.

Also on April 7, Supervisors added an additional $200,000 to this program for FY26.

Top photo: A list of the positions eliminated in Albemarle’s FY26 budget (Credit: Albemarle County)

Before you go: This segment was originally sent out in the April 21, 2025 edition of Charlottesville Community Engagement and then posted here two days later. Should the window be tighter? Yes. The system is still being formed. Want to support this work? I’m now routing people to this page.