Charlottesville City Council begins FY28 budget season by agreeing to keep mid-April adoption

While Charlottesville City Manager Sam Sanders will not publicly reveal his proposed budget for FY2028 until early March 2027, work is already well underway to develop a document that provides a framework for city spending.

On the afternoon of October 5, the five members of City Council were briefed on a plan for Public Works to resume the task of providing trash service with an estimated $2 million for start-up costs and the first year of operations. Details on what the elected officials had to say in a future newsletter.

A few hours later, Charlottesville’s budget director formally kicked off budget season with a briefing to Council in which she said departments turned in their request for capital funding on October 2 and will submit operating budget requests this Friday.

“Each department will be given an opportunity to meet with the budget team to go over their budget proposal,” said Krisy Hammill.

This upcoming year, Council will meet twice with the city School Board before the recommended budget is published. One will be on December 2 and the other will be on February 10.

Sanders will provide specific budget briefings to Council on November 16, December 7, and December 21.

The first real public glimpse into the budget will be at the November 10 Planning Commission meeting when the draft Capital Improvement Program will be up for discussion at a work session. Council will sit in on a joint public hearing with the Planning Commission on December 8.

One outcome of the FY27 process was a request to consider delaying adoption of the city budget in order to give more time for the General Assembly to adopt a state budget. This year was particularly late as the House of Delegates and the Senate still had two different versions fairly late into June. That does not usually happen.

City Treasurer Jason Vandever, elected to the position in April 2013, said he is concerned about changing the adoption date because it would also mean pushing back the day that taxes are due.

“Just changing the due date that has always been June 5th and December 5th could create some confusion for our taxpayers,” Vandever said. “Those dates have been hardcoded into our tax system since its inception, and anytime you start changing those, it certainly opens up opportunities to make mistakes or generate a file with the wrong due date and, you know, potentially make some errors there.”

City Councilor Michael Payne said he thought the change would be worth it because it might give the opportunity of having more information when it comes to knowing how much Charlottesville City Schools would be funded.

“I think it would very much positively impact our ability to coordinate with the School Board and just know what we’re doing when we adopt our budget,” Payne said. “At the last joint session we had with the school board, there was some, I think, friction and bad feelings.”

Read about that tension in this report I eventually wrote.

City Councilor Lloyd Snook said he would consider the move but said it would only give a limited amount of additional time because budgets have to be adopted in time for tax collection to begin.

“In many of the last few years would have been significant,” Snook said. “This last year wouldn’t have mattered one way or the other because they didn’t decide anything until June 29th.”

If Council wants to change the budget’s due date, they first have to amend the city code and then could have the flexibility to adopt the budget as late as April 30.

Councilor Natalie Oschrin said there did not appear to be enough benefit to proceed.

“I’m not champing at the bit to do this because of the onus that it puts on our staff,” Oschrin said. “For years it’s been June 5th and [December 5th.] Yes, it’s a change and people can deal with change eventually but is it worth it?

Consensus was reached to stick with adopting the budget by April 15 in FY28 but some are willing to explore changing the code. However, there’s still time to make a change.

Starting in the red

Hammill concluded the presentation with a look at a very preliminary projection that shows a $3.6 million deficit heading into next year but cautioned it is too early to read much into that number.

“We start from a place like this every single year,” Hammill said. “As you know, by the time we finish the budget process, we will have a balanced budget.”

Many numbers in the forecast are based on projection and the early numbers are based on a growth assumption of three percent in the property assessments. The city also knows how much money is needed to fill collective bargaining requirements for step increases.

Hammill said while the city has always balanced its budget, in recent years there has been additional support available.

“We had all these things, big surpluses, they’re gone,” Hammill said. “And so we really are, you know, back to sort of working with what our normal revenue sources are within our own budget. And so this— we will be having a lot of conversations about, you know, tensions and trade-offs.”

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