Charles City Board of Supervisors approve $16.3 million budget for FY20-21
Charles City’s Board of Supervisors adopted its FY2020-21 budget at Tuesday night’s regularly scheduled board meeting.
Board members unanimously approved the $16,342,841 budget of local dollars through its online monthly meeting on May 26. In total, Charles City’s budget comes in at a shade over $22 million with additional funding from the state and federal governments.
The process has been long and dubious for county leaders as they continue to deal with the fallout of COVID-19. During a May 14 budget work session, Charles City County administrator Michelle Johnson presented level funding across all county departments. She also recommended that the county’s original Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) of $800,000 be reduced to $393,941 during an update Tuesday night.
Fire and EMS will have a budget of $1.1 million, $504,726 will be allocated to social services (after a motion from District 2 representative Bill Coada to return the department’s amount to its original request), and $5.7 million of local funding will be distributed to county. The school’s CIP for the upcoming year is $675,856 under Johnson’s proposal.
During a May 20 budget hearing work session, only two speakers weighed in on the county’s budget. Former school board member Steve Fuhrmann’s comments centered on the expectation that the county’s revenue will continue to dwindle due to the pandemic. Lloyd Carter Sr. also had questions of when revenue from the sPower Solar would appear in the budget.
Supervisors also took an interest in the county schools at the budget work session. While all three county leaders agreed that a one-time carryover was warranted due to current circumstances, Coada voiced his concern over an energy efficiency contract that school leaders had agreed to enter the day before (May 19).
“We’ve given more than $400,000 in the past five years to help the schools with their HVAC,” Coada commented. “I am wondering if it’s legal for them to enter this contract because it’s dealing with financing.”
While Johnson couldn’t answer the chairman’s question, she did say a letter was sent to the school board opposing the project.
“I believe we need to sit down and have a meeting with them,” said District 3 represent Lewis Black III. “I want to find out what they are doing and if there is any way we can convince them to continue to stay on the path they are now [with us].”
School board leaders commented at the May 19 school board meeting, implicating that entering into the energy efficiency contract will not only address the school’s CIP needs immediately, but save $5.2 million in money to taxpayers over the next 15 years.
County leaders have requested a meeting with school leaders over the energy performance contract, with District 1 representative Gilbert Smith suggesting that the chairmen of each board meet to determine if full boards need to convene. No date for that meeting has been set.
In other action, final preparations are being made for Wireless on Wheels to assist county citizens with Internet services have entered final negotiations.
According to assistant county administrator Rhonda Russell, terms of the contract by both parties have been agreed to, with the expectation that the service will be in place by the end of June. Three mobile wireless units will be able to connect up to 20 people to the Internet. One unit will be placed in each district, with Harrison Park being the District 1 site, the Chickahominy Indian Tribal Center named as the site for District 2, and Mt. Zion Baptist Church being listed as the location for District 3. There is no cost to the citizens as the county will pay the monthly connection fee.