Durham County FY2027 Budget Priorities Discussed

Welcome to the Durham County Board of Commissioners regular session. Today is March 23rd, 2026. I'll open this session with our public charge. The Board of Commissioners asks its members and residents to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous manner, both with the board and fellow residents.

At any time, should any member of the board or any resident fail to observe this public charge, the chair will ask the offending person to leave the meeting until that individual regains personal control. Should the corum fail to be restored, the chair will recess the meeting until such time that a genuine commitment to the public charge is observed. Commissioner Valentine, would you read the land acknowledgement? Mr. Chair, thank you so much. But could I just take a moment of personal privilege?

Absolutely. The chamber is full of a lot of people here today, and I just want to say thank you. When I look out and see so many unfamiliar faces, I think to myself, we have a community who is committed to change. So thank you for being with us here today.

All right. So the land acknowledgement. As we convene for the Durham County Commissioners meeting, it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of history. We stand on the stolen ancestral lands of the Catawba, the Eno, the Okinichi, the Shakori, and the Tuscarora peoples whose deep connection to this land predates our arrival. We acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred, leading to the dispossession of indigenous peoples from their homelands. Their resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to their strength and

spirit. May we humbly honor the ancestors and elders of these nations, both past and present, by committing ourselves to fostering understanding, healing, and justice for all who inhabit this land. Let us walk forward together with open hearts, acknowledging the past, and embracing a future guided by compassion, respect, and unity. Thank you, Commissioner Valentine.

Appreciate that. Commissioner Burton, would you lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance? Yes.

All right. Thank you very much, Commissioner Burton. The next item on our agenda is Agenda Adjustments. Are there any adjustments to the agenda?

Seeing none, I'll accept a motion to approve the agenda as presented. So moved. Second. It has been moved and properly seconded that we approve the agenda as presented.

Any further discussion? Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye. All opposed, please use the same sign.

Passes unanimously. The next item on our agenda are the announcements. Clerk Wallace. Good evening, everyone.

I will read the announcements published in tonight's agenda. m. at the Holton Resource Center located at 401 North Driver Street.

Letitia McNeil, Greensboro Director of Community Safety, will be the keynote speaker for the session. The initiative is jointly led by Durham County's Justice Services Department and Community Intervention and Support Services Department, along with the City's Police Department and Community Safety Department. gov. m.

The session will include a live Q&A. gov. Registration is now open for the 4-H summer camps. The Durham 4-H summer camps empower youth through meaningful conversations, hands-on experiences, and essential life skills that

support their growth. A limited number of scholarships are available to cover costs. You can learn more and apply and there is a link on the site. The deadline for registration is April 17th.

m. at Hillside Park located at 1301 South Roxborough Street. The celebration brings families, health professionals, and local organizations together to support the well-being of pregnant families and young children. It will also include live entertainment, food trucks, community, I'm sorry, children's activities, health information, and community resources.

Special guests include Pierce Freelon, Emmy award-winning producer and Durham native. He will join and he will also do a live reading and performance featuring his books, Daddy Daughter Day, and Daddy and Me Side by Side. For additional information, you can visit

org. Measles can cause serious illness, especially in young children, adults over 20, pregnant individuals, and those who are immunocompromised. Protect yourself and others by staying up to date on measles vaccination. As cases arise, now is the time to make sure you're vaccinated.

Measles vaccines are available at the Durham County Public Health Immunization Clinic. You can contact 919-560-7608 for more information. Durham County is partnering with Durham Benefits Access Coalition to promote free and accessible tax filing options. You may qualify for valuable tax credits that help with housing, food, child care, and more. Households earning $89,000 or less can file online with chat, email support, or virtual assistance from IRS certified preparers. It is important to know that tax refunds do not count against SNAP, WIC, SSI, Medicaid,

Medicare, TANF, or other benefits. org. Durham County has officially renamed the former Admin 2 building at 200 East Main Street as the William V. Bell Building.

A dedication ceremony was held on Friday, March 20th, celebrating the legacy of former Commissioner and Mayor William V. Bill Bell, whose decades of leadership and service has left a lasting impression on the community. I have two additional announcements that were not included in tonight's agenda. One is that Sheriff Burkhead has been invited to appear and testify on Wednesday, March 25th, at the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution hearing entitled Protecting American Citizenship to Federalism, Sanctuary Cities, and the Rule of Law. m. in

C. And lastly, RDU Airport Authority will hold a public gift card donation drive during the government shutdown. Donations can be dropped off at the Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 TSA supervisor podiums at the deck of the checkpoint or simply ask a supervisor or manager. 250 food line gift cards were delivered to TSA on Friday, March 13th, which were donated by the Food Bank.

That concludes the announcements in tonight's agenda. Thank you. Thank you, Clerk Wallace. And I just wanted to echo the William V.

Bell building ceremony. It was spectacular. It was excellent and it was well deserved. I just have to continue to give praise to the staff that made it happen. It looked, it went very, very smooth. And when something looks smooth and easy,

that means someone behind the scenes was working really hard to make it go smooth and easy. The building looks wonderful. The letters on the building, on the sign, it's just wonderful. Everything involved went great.

And so I just want to lift up the staff again for all the prep they gave to me, you know, to host it, but also everything that they did to make it happen. It was just wonderful. I just want to lift them up for that. Commissioner Alarmo.

Thank you, Chair Lee. Yes, I've seen pictures. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the naming because it was our Eid holiday. But I want to echo the sentiments from the staff.

I saw like a few days before when I was walking on Main Street, I was like, oh, what are they doing? They're pulling out all these letters and new construction. But it was really great to see it, even in the process, the amount of effort that went into it, even the manual labor that the staff also put in to renaming.

But also, Manager Hager, I heard you did an amazing job as MC and keeping the whole program or Chair Lee MC and Manager Hager speaking and Commissioner Valentine. I also had two additional announcements I wanted to share that I know that there's a lot of fear in the community right now with the government shutdown about increased presence of ice in multiple airports. I saw several people posting wondering if, you know, if RDU is one of the airports. RDU is not listed on the current list of airports where ice is going to be, you know, present to step in in the place of the TSA shortages through the government funding shutdown. So I wanted to ease, hopefully, and keep that ease for folks that we don't have that presence of ice in our airport. And also, if, unfortunately, there is still ice presence in areas that if you guys see ice or think you see ice, it's important to reach out to community organizations like Siembra North

Carolina that are doing verification. You can call or text them at 336-543-0353. And it's important to reach out to them and have them conduct a proper verification so that we don't, you know, start fear and instill fear in our community members with unverified sightings. So that's one thing. And then also with this increased threat of ice presence, our immigrant communities, unfortunately, this leads to a lot of community members feeling unsafe to even leave their homes, to drop off their kids to school, to go grocery shopping. So I would urge everyone to support the drive that's happening at RDU airport, but also we have here in Durham and Durham County our Welcome Baby program, which is out of the cooperative extension that collects groceries, formula, baby clothes, all sorts of supplies and things that can help all of our families here in Durham County, but especially our immigrant

community members who may be more fearful of leaving and going out into, you know, grocery stores and public spaces. So I urge everyone, if you have the resources, I've even donated things from my pregnancy that I'm not using anymore that they actually are able to use and have different sanitation tools and resources that a lot of things, if they're in good condition, you can donate and another family can make good use of it. Thank you. All right.

Thank you. Commissioner Burton. Thank you, Chair Lee. And I'm glad that Clerk Wallace mentioned about TSA and about the gift cards that are being donated because a lot of people in our wider community don't realize they haven't been paid for over a month and they have to continue to work because they're considered essential. And many people have been reading about now they're ICE agents. They're not at RDU like Vice Chair Lam said, but however, really concerned about people working without

getting any pay. So just want to lift that up. I'm definitely going to go out to Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 and give some gift cards so people can at least get some food, get some gas in their cars because gas is really expensive. But on a brighter note, I just want to shout out the branch manager at Bragtown Branch Library.

I was there last week and I hadn't been there in a number of years. And it's just a gem in the Bragtown community with the history. It opened in 1964 with the, it was part of the Durham Colored Library System and then it got merged in into the wider Durham County Library System. And it's just a really great resource in our community.

I really enjoy being there. And I told the branch manager, Ms. Brown, that I would shout them out while I was on the dais. And they're open from 10 to 6, Monday through Friday. So if you want to go out there and just see their wonderful collection, their wonderful collection of

children's books, go and see it. So thank you so much. Commissioner Jacobs. Thank you.

I just, first of all, wanted to add to the announcement about people being able to get help with their taxes at the main library. And there's also, will be in our announcements how you can get help locally. This is an effort that is happening in Durham to make sure that people have access to all the benefits that they are eligible for. And Councilmember Rist is one of the folks who is helping to lead that effort. And he wanted me to mention, to remind parents that when you are filing your taxes this year, if you are a parent of a newborn child who has been born since January 1st, 2025, you can register to receive a one-time $1,000 deposit

in what's called a 530A, or the Trump account. And that kids born after January 1st, 2025, but 10 years old or younger. So if you have a child at home who is older, 10 years or younger, you may also qualify for a $250 deposit in a 530A account. And after your children turn 18 years of age, these funds can be used for education, home ownership, or a business startup. So we are locally trying to get the word out about the 530A accounts, or otherwise known as the Trump accounts, to parents when they are filing taxes this year. Also want to highlight

just a few things that were not in our announcements, but are in the Durham County newsletter. And if you do not subscribe to the newsletter, I really encourage you. It is chock full of great information that the county manager puts out every week. And you can go to the Durham County website to sign up.

But some of the things related to children and getting kids engaged in activities for the summer, we know that's one of the most important things we heard in the announcements about the 4-H camps. We also have highlighted Kids Voting Durham through our cooperative extension is having a Kids Voting Durham internship for youth ages 14 to 24. We also have signups for the Durham Pre-K right now that are open. That is, if you can find that also on the Durham County website.

Also Sunbucks, the Sunbucks program is, the deadline is March 31st. This is really important for all school-aged children to get food during the summer. So please look into that if you have if you have school-aged children and you have not signed up for that. And then lastly, another great opportunity for high school students at NC State is the North Carolina Resource Conservation Workshop.

Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Jacobs. Commissioner Valentine. Yes, Chair, I will end our remarks where we started, saying congratulations to our Mayor for life, Mayor Bell.

And thank you to the community. The reason that the naming occurred was because of the push from the community. And so I want to say thank you

to the community for showing up in large numbers to recognize Mayor Bell. And I want to reiterate some comments that you made about our staff, general services, engineering, the manager, and absolutely everyone who played a part in the ceremony. I want to say thank you from the bottom of my heart. And Chair Lee, you did it with class.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner Valentine. Okay, the next item on our agenda, we're moving into ceremonial items.

The first is a resolution recognizing 25 years of farmland protection in Durham County. We do have a resolution. Commissioner Jacobs is going to read it. And I believe we have some people in our audience related to this. And so we'll have you

come speak after the resolution has been read. I'll turn it over to you, Commissioner Jacobs. Thank you. It is my honor to read this resolution.

25 years of Durham County's commitment to farmland preservation. Whereas Durham County recognizes farmland as essential for local food production, water quality, wildlife habitat, and the rural landscapes that define the community. And whereas preserving farmland supports a resilient food system, sound agricultural practices, and access to healthy locally grown food for future generations. And whereas the county's farmland preservation efforts began in 2001 with the Herndon family's first conservation easement, establishing a model of voluntary conservation.

And whereas 2026 marks the 25th anniversary of this work, during which the county has completed 30 easements protecting 2,491 acres and ensuring the viability of 20 family farms. And whereas these efforts strengthen the agricultural economy, support farmers, and enhance environmental resilience by maintaining open space and protecting natural resources. 58 million to protect easements valued

at $15 million. And whereas the program continues to grow with five additional farms totaling 137 farms and $706,000 in, I'm sorry, 137 acres not farms, and 706, I wish 137 farms, and $706,000 in secured funding scheduled to close soon. And whereas Durham County remains committed to advancing farmland preservation through strategic partnerships, innovative policies, and voluntary conservation programs. Now therefore be it resolved that the Durham County Board of Commissioners celebrates 25 years of farmland preservation leadership, expresses gratitude

to landowners, partners, and fiscal supporters, reaffirms its commitment to protecting farmland as a foundation of the county's economy, environment, and heritage, and commits to expanding preservation efforts and supporting the next generation of farmers. This the 23rd day of March 2026, Dr. Mike Lee Chair, NIDA alum Vice Chair, Michelle Burton Commissioner, Wendy Jacobs Commissioner, Stephen Valentine Commissioner. Thank you Commissioner Jacobs.

Wonderful. I'm Nicole Conley. I'm Chair of the Durham County Farmland Preservation Board, and I just wanted to say a few thank yous. First of all, thank you to this board for this resolution and for your ongoing support and commitment to preserving farmland in Durham County and to supporting agriculture and the work that we do at large. We are really grateful and recognize that we are

really blessed to have a board that is so supportive. I would like to thank all of the farmland board members, past and present, who have been part of making this program successful and helping to preserve farmland. And most, well all important, but importantly as well, I would like to thank members of our open space board who have been the real architects and horsepower behind making this happen. Jane Chorist, who over the years worked tirelessly to build this program and help Durham County, frankly, be a leader in the state in the conservation of farmland. I'd like to thank Celeste Burns, who will speak here in a moment, and Jill Fusco as well for their ongoing work that they do here. And then now, most importantly, I'd like to thank the landowners who have made the commitment to protect their farmland so that future generations in Durham

County have a place to farm. We're so grateful. Thank you. Could you please stand?

Could the farmland, could they stand? Yeah, please stand. Can we get the farmland owners who are part of the conservation easement to stand? So we can thank you.

I'm going to hand it over to Celeste. Thank you for letting me take a few moments here. This is work that I'm very passionate about. I'm Celeste Burns, Open Space and Real Estate Manager.

Again, thank you to the Board of County Commissioners, now and in the past. Thank you to the Farmland Preservation Board. Without their understanding of agricultural history and future, their work is really critical.

It's great to work with Sherry and Lisa alongside that board. I'm really appreciative of that. I want to shout out our Open Space and Real Estate team who really helped make the nuts and bolts of these complicated projects fit together. And again, I do want to acknowledge Jane Corris.

She wanted to be here tonight, but is out of town, enjoying her retirement. But she really laid the foundation for this work, worked with so many of y'all over the years. Her foundation is why we can do this. We have some guest stars in the audience.

I want to recognize USDA partners with Natural Resource Conservation Service. Would y'all stand up? Brian Lotholt and Julius George, our Assistant State Conservationists. Thank you. Without that partnership, this work would be really difficult. And their guidance and patience and good sense of humor through lots of bureaucracy,

we are making this happen. And I'm so grateful to be able to work with you. And last but not least, I want to acknowledge our landowners. There are many who aren't with us anymore, and I want to think about them.

And there are people who were not able to make it here tonight. And then we've got this lovely group of people who came out on a Monday night to be recognized. I really appreciate that. I really thank you for your commitment, your vision, your generosity, your patience.

I mean, you're protecting farmland and natural resources and soils, but you're really protecting something that we don't even see in the future with the future generation. It's truly my pleasure and privilege to work with you all. And thank you. I'm going to make sure all of our landowners get

a copy of this signed, if that's possible. Absolutely. We'll make sure that happens. So we're going to do Commissioner comments, and then we're going to invite everyone down.

We'll take a picture with the resolution right here in the front. Okay. Commissioner Jacobs. Well, thank you for your words, Celeste and Nicole.

I also wanted to recognize all of our open space and real estate staff that are here, our soil and water staff that are here, our farmland board members, and our cooperative extension staff. Could you all please stand as well? Everyone who's here. This is truly about teamwork and partnership in Durham County. And also, I am so grateful to each

of the farmers and landowners who are here, as Celeste said, thanks to your generosity, the gift that you are giving to our entire community for generations to come. You really are leaving a legacy, you and your families, and we are so grateful to you. And I think it's fitting that I think it was at our last meeting that we talked about the farm campus, that we are launching Durham County's farm campus, and being able to, we got a grant to hire a director. And that really demonstrates the commitment that we have in Durham County to protecting our soil, our water, our air, and also our soil for food, for healthy local food.

So thank you again to everyone for making this possible, this 25th celebration. Thank you. Thank you so much to the farmland

conservation board, to all our farmland owners, for creating the food that gives us sustenance. So often, we just walk into the grocery store, and we kind of just take for granted, we pick up our groceries and keep moving on with our lives. And don't think about how much hard work and dedication goes in, not just to grow those particular crops and those fruits and vegetables and food, but also when it's not season, the way you all have to work the land to make sure that it's ready. And I think it's important for us to recognize this, not only for farmland conservation, because I know that the resolution on commission recognizes like the positives of it, but also just recognizing what we've lost that like over the last decade, I think it's like nearly 20% of farmland in Durham County has been lost. That in North Carolina, over 8 million acres of farmland has been lost of farm owners just not sometimes not able to sustain the business because of

climate change impacts of shorter seasons, the way that droughts and flooding impacts this possibility to be able to grow the fruits and vegetables that we need. So I think it's really important. I'm glad that we have this opportunity to recognize our farmland owners. And also people may forget that we have farm owners in Durham County, because they think of us as like a more urban hub, an urban center.

But no, we have a lot of folks that are producing so many things that we need not just for us, but for future generations to come. And for our residents and neighbors to recognize the importance of farmland recognition, but also when you go out and buy your groceries, look at the label sometimes and try to buy from local farms as much as you can go to your farmers market, go to your local markets that you see that it's like this is a North Carolina farm and support our local farmers in that way as well. Thank you. All right. Thank

you, Vice Chair Alum. Commissioner Burton. Yeah, I just want to say this is one of the boards that I serve on. And it's been a pleasure being on being the liaison to the Farmland Protection Board.

I have learned a lot about easements. I've learned a lot about voluntary protection of farms since I've been on there. It's been a great pleasure and I'm looking forward to continue to serve. And I learned a lot.

There was a farmer's breakfast and an attorney from NC State came and I learned a lot about farm law. Like that was just like, wow, to think about all the things that farmers and growers have to think about with their farms. So it's been such a pleasure being on being the liaison to the Farmland Protection Board. And thank you for all that you do, making sure that farmland is protected here in Durham County.

Mr. Valentine. Yes. Thank you, Chair. First,

let me just say thank you to the Farmland Board for the work that you do in this community. And again, to all of our partners in this work and more especially to our landowners. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for being so gracious. Thank you for the hard work that you put in when no one's looking. Being the grandson of a farmer, Ms.

Carrington asked me earlier, did I farm? No, but I'm the grandson of a farmer. And so thank you for what you do each and every day. And I'll end my comments by saying thank you to our partners from the federal government with the Department of Agriculture.

We couldn't do it without you. Thank you. Vice Chair Long. Yes. I just wanted to add a quick thing. I hope that we're going to bring back the farm campus tour again, where we all hopped on a bus and got to tour our local

farms across Durham County. That was a really great way for me, last board, to I didn't even know there was a blueberry farm right by my house that now my family goes and buys ice cream from. So I would love for us to be able to revamp that as well. All right.

Thank you very much. So we're going to take a picture. We'll go ahead and take a picture and we'll move forward. The picture is for everyone. If you're part of the Cooperative Extension,

farmland owner, USDA, everyone come for the picture.

That's beautiful. All right. We're going to take everyone's picture.

All right.

All right. That is excellent. Excellent. Thank you all.

Congratulations again. All right. If my fellow commissioners would grant me just a moment. We need to step backwards in the agenda to approve the minutes.

I skipped right over it because I was so excited about the proclamation. So I'll accept a motion to approve our Board of Commissioners meeting minutes for February 2nd, 2026. Chair, I'll make a motion to approve. I did have one question related to the minutes. Okay. There are a lot of directives in these minutes and it occurred to me that I don't know what our current system is for actually following up and tracking directives.

So we track the directives, but we can make sure at the next work session that we give the updated list to the Board. Okay. That would be great. Thank you.

So I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the February 2nd, 2026 work session. Well, that's her making the motion, by the way, not entertaining it. What did I say? You said entertain.

Oh, sorry. We'll accept that as the motion. Yes. I think I would make a motion.

Thank you. It's been moved and properly seconded that we approve the meeting minutes for February 2nd, 2026. Any further discussion? All in favor, say aye.

Aye. All opposed, please use the same sign. The meetings have been approved unanimously. Okay. So we have a couple of resolutions. I believe it was a couple of them that we're going to just make note of and we'll have

those come to speak. So the next one, these are to be acknowledged. So the proclamation for National County Government Month 2026. Is anybody going to speak on that?

Okay. Good evening, Chair Lee and Commissioners. I'm Deborah Craig Ray, Chief Communications Officer, and I want to thank you for recognizing National County Government Month. Certainly, this is an activity from the National Association of Counties that began in 1991.

The goal was to recognize our 3,069 counties. The goal is to educate the community about what counties do for them. And certainly, the next objective is to honor our employees who work day in and day out to provide the services. And finally, the goal is to increase civic participation, to have the community attend

meetings and take note of the great things that we're doing in the community. And so that's sort of the background of National County Government Month. I'm going to just mention just a couple of small things that we are working on. And I'm joined by Dawn Dudley of my staff and Dr.

Brent Lewis of Human Resources. We are working as a team this year to provide observance of National County Government Month. Weekly, you'll notice that we highlight a bit of Durham County's history, facilities, and special programs or projects on our social media platforms and internal channels. Among the events that we will host for the community will be a nature walk led by our Open Space Division, a hybrid public artwork, art walk, and what counties do session with local college students. Beginning April 1st, you'll be able to watch a segment of In Touch dedicated to

National County Government Month. And tomorrow, our PIO team will record a session of our DECO Talk session featuring North Carolina Collection Manager Lauren Penny, who will discuss the history of Durham and Durham County Government. So that's just a few things that we're doing. But again, our goal is to celebrate all month.

And thank you, as always, for your support. Thank you very much for that, Ms. Craig Ray. All right, the next proclamation that we...

Oh, I'm sorry. Yes, I just wanted to make a comment. Thank you, Deborah, for highlighting National County Government Month. I think that this is more important than ever, because honestly, what is happening in our country right now, and what is happening at the federal government, that we are all feeling it here the most at the county level. I read over

the NACO, National Association of County Officials newspaper last night, and it was interesting to me. They were recounting speeches from people who were in the federal government, who were in the cabinet, head of different departments, speaking at that conference. And over and over again, they would say, well, you at the county level, you're the ones who are closest to the people. You're where the work really happens.

And that is absolutely true. The problem is right now, is that we are being really left on our own without the support from our federal government. And in a state like North Carolina, where we're the only state that hasn't had an approved budget, so I just think it's, I want to highlight at this moment in time, that we are local county

government. We are the government that is, day in and day out, our employees, our staff, who are taking care of people in our community. And it is just very challenging right now. And we are also the forefront of, we are the front line of democracy.

You know, running elections, things like that, it's all here at the county level. So I want to just, I hope that we'll talk more about that during this month, and also to highlight what is happening at the state level right now. There may be a constitutional amendment on our ballots here in North Carolina coming up in the fall election that could be very frightening to limit the power of local governments at the county level to have control over property taxes. And unfortunately, that is one of the only tools that we have to pay for the services we provide.

And it's estimated that between 70 and 75 percent of our services go to mandated state and federal programs and services. So if we don't have the money to pay for those required services, like law enforcement, like our sheriff, like our EMS, like fire, responding to fires, things like that. And of course, the many other things we do, it is going to be very, very difficult. So I just wanted to take a moment really to highlight this important issue.

Thank you. Okay. Any other comments? All right.

Thank you. The next proclamation we will acknowledge is a proclamation for Second Chance Month 2026. Good evening. I'm Robin Heath. I'm the Assistant Director of the Justice Services Department.

And I want to start by thanking you guys, the board, for your steadfast support of Second Chance efforts and valuing all of our citizens, even those that are just as involved. This month, we have a number of different activities that are planned. And Rashida will share with our calendar to celebrate and recognize the challenges of those that are just as involved. We're going to kick off the month. I hope everyone will have a chance to come through our parking lot because we're going to kind of chalk it up and just really try to start raising awareness with some sidewalk chalk and some artistic abilities of some previous clients and current clients and JSD staff all just to start raising that awareness. And the second week of the month, we have our jail transition staff as well as our local reentry council staff will attend a state conference in Raleigh with the North Carolina Department of Adult Corrections.

And I was at a meeting last week with the North Carolina Joint Reentry Commission, and they were really talking a lot about the reentry 2030 and how far along North Carolina is in, you know, just moving forward on justice involvement and making second chances a reality. So we're excited to see that North Carolina is moving forward, but Durham has always been at the forefront of that in North Carolina. The third week, we're going to be partnering with public health to do a balanced bites where we're going to offer information about hypertension and diabetes and do a nutritious cooking class. And on the 21st, we will have a reentry and reconnection. That'll be a panel and resource fair for families who are having people come back from

incarceration. This will be the first time we have done this, but we have definitely found a need that families need to know how to support their loved ones as they come home. And we're going to kind of close out our month on the 24th with a sock hop. So we hope everybody can join us on that.

We want to have some fun. The admission cost is a pair of socks that will be used for our clients or five dollar value in hygiene products. These are items that we use a lot and we find our clients are consistently in need of these things. And so we thought this would be a way to, you know, raise some supplies and have some fun. There will be food trucks in the parking lot and there we've got some door prizes that have been donated and we will have awards for Best Dancer and that Best Retro Costume or Outfit. So looking forward to everybody.

All right. Thank you very much, Commissioner Comments. I just want to shout out the Justice Resource Center and office for all the work that y'all do to support our justice involved residents and our neighbors who are trying to get back on their feet and support their families and live their lives like all of us are. And so thank you so much for the work that you put in and all the ways that you also support families before they become justice involved as well to make sure that we were able to prevent and have that intervention opportunity to support all of our Durham residents. And also the ways I know it's not it's listed somewhat here with like the family events, but I think it's also important to recognize the work that the Justice Resource Center does with young people whose families and parents may be justice involved and to support the kids here in Durham County's community to make sure that they're taken care of and still feel the love and care of the broader

Durham community and so that they don't get left behind in any way. So really grateful for the work you all do because it truly comes from the heart. And also I know Sheriff Burkett is here. Thank you to Sheriff Burkett and his team for the efforts and work that they do within the jail of providing services and programming through continued education, through MAT, to help our residents get back on their feet when they re-enter into the community.

Commissioner Valentine. Yes, thank you, Chair. So thank you for highlighting the need for a second chance. And it's not just this month, but it's every day.

When individuals leave our community, it's important that they re-enter. Re-enter for a spouse who may have gone without a loved one. Re-entry for a family that potentially has lost an income. For a community. And so when we talk

about second chances, we're talking about our neighbors. Just today I had an opportunity to talk to a young man who was doing work in my home and this subject actually came up. And he said, Valentine, you're a commissioner, aren't you? He said, what are you doing about people who are re-entering into our society from prison and they need access to a job and they need access to services?

And so we talked for about an hour as he was doing some work in my home about this very subject. And so although we're celebrating it as a month, and in fact it's every day that we should be concerned about re-integrating people back into our community. And so thank you for the work that you do in this space. Commissioner Burton.

Yeah, I just want to echo what my colleagues have said. Thank you for doing this work. I'm reading a book right now talking about gun violence and that a lot of between the ages of 18 and 30 is the ages where

most people, young people, are affected by gun violence, right? And in many instances it's like a split second decision, right? It's in the heat of the moment. It's not premeditated.

And so as they are unfortunately incarcerated and they get out, they're like, okay, why did I do this? You know, they're mature, they've grown and things like that. And yeah, they need a second chance because if they could go back, they wouldn't have done it. So we appreciate the work that you're doing.

And I'm going to make sure to bring some toiletries because I know that's something that people definitely need as a former educator. That's something that we have to provide a lot to our young people. So thank you so much. And in my haste, I forgot to introduce our new local reentry council coordinator, Rashida Royster, who is standing here beside me. But

she's the one, you know, doing the work every day. So I just want to recognize her here. Commissioner Jacobs. Thank you, Rashida.

I also want to just lift up our Justice Services Department and our, we have our director right here, Roshanna Humphreys, and also our Justice Resource Center. Durham County has been a national model, a national leader in this work. And I want to lift up the meaning of Second Chance Month. People will come back to our community and we want to make sure that they are productive members of our society and also with their family.

We want to give them the support and set them up for success. So thank you to the reentry council for what you do. I want to emphasize that Durham County is a second chance employer. And we practice,

follow the practices of Bay on the Box with our employment practices. And we want to encourage all employers in Durham to be second chance employers. And recently, Duke University announced a new initiative around jobs and workforce development, and they have committed to hiring more people who are reentering and who are just as involved. So I want to applaud our biggest employer in Durham County, Duke University, for doing this.

And Roshanna, are they working with you on that? Well, could we have you come and comment? I see Andy back there too. I apologize.

I tried to give the staff the spotlight tonight. But yes, we have been working with Duke. Andy Miracle and myself, we have been appointed to Duke's Economic Mobility Council.

The council is working on strategies to promote employment across sectors. They have a whole plan that's being laid out. But in addition to that, we were visited at Justice Services Department about two weeks ago from four senior human resource executives from Duke to talk about a pilot project with us to help to bring justice-involved individuals into jobs at Duke. And so we are working with that group to try to figure out what that pilot will look like and how individuals that are working with us and enrolled in our programs can then go into that pilot program.

So we're excited about working with them because we have been trying to get our clients into Duke for many, many years. And so we can't be more happy that they reached out to us and have come to visit. They wanted to see our operation. It was a great visit, and they seem very motivated to move forward with this project.

Well, this is fantastic news. Thank you, Andy and Roshanna, for helping to make this possible. This is an incredible opportunity for people in our

community. Thank you. Thank you so much for your support. And thank you all for this important work.

Very, very important work. So thank you. Thank you. And welcome.

Okay. And our last proclamation for acknowledgement tonight is the Proclamation for Fair Housing Month. Yeah. Yeah, there we are.

Oh, okay. Good evening. Thank you all for having us tonight. My name is Sondra Trice-Jones. I'm the president at the Durham Regional Association of Realtors. And I'd like to acknowledge our DEI chair, Sharon Sunkle, who usually does this,

who said in her big pocketbook she doesn't have her readers, so I have to come up here. I know she's telling a story. So, again, on behalf of the Durham Regional Association of Realtors, we are honored to receive this fair housing proclamation from your board. Yeah, fair housing is about access, equity, and ensuring everyone has a fair chance at home ownership.

And we work to do this every day. So I want to thank you all for acknowledging us again this year. Thanks. And thank you so much, Commissioner Comments, on the proclamation acknowledgement.

Commissioner Valentine. Thank you for bringing forward this resolution. I think as we continue to see, you know, housing prices go up and our community members being pushed out, this is a really important conversation we need to continue to keep at the forefront. Even, I know, Chair Lee, I was in New York this weekend

and was traveling around with a friend who's a community organizer there and through Harlem and just learning about what's happening there that I'm sure is happening all across the country. Thankfully, not here in Durham yet, but of public housing communities, these corporations that are coming in to try to privatize and purchase all of these properties to make it harder and harder for low-income communities, middle-class income families to be able to buy homes. So we appreciate the work that you all are doing to make sure that housing is equitable and bringing this forward to us to help recognize. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair Alum. Commissioner Valentine. Chair, thank you.

Madam President, thank you for being with us here this evening. So the Fair Housing Act, as you know, is very important, particularly in the African-American community. So it's one of the trifecta. The 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and in 1968,

following the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, they had the Fair Housing Act that was passed. And so it's not lost on me that many in our community still are denied access to a very important part of our existence, and that's housing. And so the work that you do every day is important.

And so I want to thank you. And I also want to thank you for appearing here today. And I, too, have readers that I need. Thank you.

All right. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. Okay.

And that is our ceremonial item for tonight. The next item on our agenda is approval of the Consent Agenda. There are a few items on the Consent Agenda, and they've been vetted. We've talked about them in our work session with the staff.

And so I will accept a motion to approve the Consent Agenda. So moved. Second. It's been moved and probably seconded that we approve the Consent Agenda.

Any further discussion on any of the items? All right. Hearing none, all in favor say aye. Aye.

All opposed, please use the same sign. The Consent Agenda passes unanimously. The next item on our agenda are public hearings. I think we have one.

Yep. We have one public hearing, and this is a public hearing to consider an economic development agreement with Wellcome Venture Park, LLC. Matt. Yes, sir.

Good evening. My name is Matthew Filter. I'm the economic development manager for Durham County. Tonight we're holding a public hearing to consider an economic development agreement with Wellcome Venture Park, LLC.

This is honestly just a really unique partnership that the county, particularly economic development and transportation, has undertaken with Wellcome Venture Park. And I'd like to recognize Randy Warren, who's in the audience. He's a representative

from the company who's here tonight. So I just want to spend just a minute or two just kind of presenting the highlights of what this agreement would be, pending your approval. The agreement to be negotiated and executed by the county manager would include three parts. One, it would be a reimbursement payment from the county to the company of $1 million, following satisfactory completion of sewer utility infrastructure necessary to enhance the business prospects of the county.

The next piece would be a real estate option given to us for $1, permitting future acquisition of 1420 Old Oxford Road for a sales price of $1 million, following a due diligence period after which we could decide whether or not we wanted to purchase the property. And then a community benefits package, including community commitments to internships and workforce development programming. For background, Wellcome Venture Park is a 157-acre industrial and business park in North Durham along Hamlin Road. Construction is ongoing. It's

occurring in three phases. And upon completion, it's estimated the site will collectively produce approximately $270 million in new taxable value and support 300 or more new jobs. Both phase one and two, it's being done in multiple phases, have adequate utility capacity. But the third phase does not have adequate sewer capacity.

7 million. The county is being asked to contribute $1 million towards this project, which would only be paid out upon satisfactory completion of the sewer upgrades. Upon buildout and occupancy of phase three, it's estimated that phase three alone would contribute $6 million in new tax revenue to the county over 10 years. The county's willingness to consider financial support for this project is directly linked to the fact that the county also is interested in an undeveloped parcel that the company owns adjacent to the future Durham-Roxboro rail trail. The rail trail plan approved by the

board last year determined that this general location was ideal for a future trailhead. So preliminarily, the parcel that we're considering acquiring could include restrooms, parking, open space, other rail-related programming as that materializes down the road. So to that end, they're going to grant us a six-month option for $1, after which we can either decide to purchase the property for that purpose or not. 1 million.

The parcel is otherwise not for sale and was intended to be used by the company, so this was something we worked with them to negotiate on. It's not out there for sale to just anyone. The most important issue to be studied and resolved during the due diligence period is environmental testing. Currently, this site and several others in the area are considered brownfields, but we don't really have a lot of detailed testing on this particular small parcel alone. So a key part of our due diligence period will just be working with our state partners at DEQ and the developer and our internal folks

to determine if it's an appropriate usage of the property. Then at the end of the due diligence period, we could either buy it or not buy it. Lastly, real quick, we don't historically negotiate community partnerships for real estate deals at the county, typically, is my understanding, or for sewer reimbursement projects, but we thought it was important to ask, and Wellcome Venture Park was a willing partner. So they're going to be offering one paid internship annually to a student at Central or Durham Tech.

They're going to work with us on local hiring and workforce development initiatives with DPS to the tenants in the park, and they're going to facilitate introductions to the different tenants and the owners there to work with the county on possible workforce development partnerships and opportunities. So I'll stop there. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. All right.

So this is our public hearing, which is open, by the way. I don't think I said those words, but we're open. We'll have questions from the commissioners.

Okay, hearing none, and we have no public comments signed up for this particular item. There's a public comment, I mean, public hearing. I will now close the public hearing, and we'll have comments from the commissioners. Commissioner Jacobs.

Thank you. I just, I have a question. Could you tell us about what some of the current companies are, who are there, and the types of jobs they have, and what are, I guess you're in phase one and two now, but phase three, or I don't know if you want to share that, but just curious about what are, who is there now, and what do you project will be there in the future in terms of the types of jobs? Randy, would you like to come up and talk about that? And, you know, just how many companies are there, and how many employees? We're familiar with the Treyburn Industrial Park, and also RTP, but we, this will be our first partnership with the

Venture Park. Good evening. Excuse me, I was trying to get out of it, Matthew. You couldn't keep me there.

Thank you. My name is Randy Warren. I'm with RW2 Development Company. We're the owner's representative for the Welcome Group, who is the developer of Welcome Venture Park.

To answer your question directly, in phase one, our tenant mix is varied. We have some local home improvement type tenants, smaller tenants. We have a mobile communications local tenant that services the local community. We have a local Durham transfer and storage company that is relocating within our phase one.

Also, we have a new tenant to the market, to not only North Carolina, but not only Durham, but also the state of North Carolina, Cavalier Logistics. They service the biopharmaceutical companies that are so predominantly located in RTP. So, this is their first location here in North Carolina. We're talking to them about a second

location at Welcome Venture Park because of its proximity. Also, Durham, or sorry, Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina, their Durham location, just opened. They haven't, we are going to have a grand opening, and hopefully many of you will be able to come and attend that in the month of April. They've taken about 65,000 square feet and have started to process and distribute, take in food and distribute food out of that location.

They're not completely ramped up to their full scale, but they're getting there. We're excited about that. As far as the jobs that are in phase one, we are probably somewhere over, and I'm sorry, I don't know this right off the top of my head, we're somewhere over 55 to 60 full-time day jobs there, and they range from, that doesn't include, let me take Food Bank separately, because they have probably 50 or 60 volunteers a day coming through their facility that help facilitate their food distribution. But within our park,

they range from warehouse workers, office staff, professional scientists in the Cavalier Logistics facilities, and we're also talking with other entertainment or sports-related entertainment type uses for phase one, which they're considering the location primarily because of the growth of the residential and the service that market in the North Durham, Roxborough area. Did I answer your question? Yes, thanks. I mean, it's great to hear about smaller businesses because, you know, typically in RTP and Traber, they're bigger companies, they're national, and the fact that this park can serve some smaller businesses and, of course, still diversity. Sounds like the biopharma, that's part of the whole supply chain kind of pipeline around biopharma, which is great. And even the home improvement, you know, we're looking at in Durham Tech, trying to focus on

skill trades. So, you know, that's even a potential internship right there. But anyway, we're happy to partner with you, and we consider, you know, things like internships and building a workforce development pipeline with you all is one of the things that's one of our priorities as a board, and we recognize that you have to build these partnerships and these relationships. They don't just happen.

So, we're looking forward to partnering with you. Thank you for that. I will point out that we have been in partnership with Durham Tech through a scholarship fund that we contributed early on in the project, specifically focusing the Bragtown community and the students there. Last year, I had the chance to attend the first scholarship breakfast at Durham Tech and met the first recipient of the scholarship. And this year, I plan to go again in April. This will be the second student that this fund has promoted through Durham Tech,

and we've been working with that group and are excited about the internship opportunities that present themselves as we move forward. We talked about the full-time employment. I would just like to point out that currently, in just phase two, which is about half the size of phase one, we probably have 150 to 200 daily construction employees on site, and that was true for phase one and will continue. We estimate that through the life of the construction project, we'll have over 3,000 construction employees visit and spend time on the project as well.

Thank you. And I also want to just thank our staff for making this possible and the creativity. Ellen, sitting over there, our transportation director, being able to implement the rail trail plan in a creative way. Thank you.

Commissioner Valentine. Yes. Mr. Warren, I'd be less than candid if I didn't say that

I've come around to Venture Park. We're happy to be a partner. We're looking forward to the tax revenues, particularly in the out years, the number of jobs that will come to our community as a result of your endeavor. I'm also pleased to say that you're one of the few, and I'm hoping that this will be the trend that has a willingness to address some of our infrastructure needs far in advance.

Also, to the extent that you are adding to our infrastructure, it's going beyond Venture Park and also having an impact on the larger community, and so that doesn't go unnoticed. You mentioned the food bank. Commissioner Valentine was actually over there just last week. I spent some time at the food bank at my church.

They said, we're going to a place called Venture Park. I said, I know where that is. And so we ventured over there, and so we thank you for

partnering with the food bank. Now, my question is about transportation. What are the conversations about the transportation needs in that particular area of North Durham? I know initially when Venture Park was in its infancy, you talked about jobs, particularly for the Bragtown community, which isn't directly in the community but close by.

Are there any more discussions about what's the plan for particularly public transportation to get there? Is there any discussions? There have been discussions, I think, and thank you for pointing out the infrastructure investments that Welcome Group through Welcome Venture Park and working with the city and the county have created. The lift station improvements that we're talking about today are kind of following the tail end of those. We've expanded roadway on Hamlin Road, expanded turn lanes at Old Oxford and Hamlin.

We'll be expanding turn lanes and for safety at Glen School and, oh my gosh, Red Mill Road there as well. In the building of North Durham Parkway, the segment of North Durham Parkway that we've built within the project, we've also included, I think, five bus stops currently there to provide that basis for public transportation to and from the park so we could further attract some of the local employees that don't have transportation readily available. Unfortunately, I would say that bus service doesn't come to our park. So we met early on with some of the transportation leaders and tried to extend that.

We've been told that once the traffic, you know, once that we have enough generation of people there that would warrant the bus service, then we would get that. It's kind of chicken and egg. So we would love to see

bus and public transportation to the park. I think a lot of our companies that are moving there for hiring purposes would love to see that as well. So we're we are open for discussions here. Open for discussions.

Happy to engage and happy to see how we can further create an opportunity for that public transportation to exist. And so I'm going to attest to the improvements on the road, on Hamlin Road. Excellent. Excellent.

And also the unintended impact of the natural trail or roadway that has existed as a result of your development. And so so many members of the community are now using that for exercise and leisure. And so I don't know if that was intended or not, but the people in the community say thank you. Well, I've noticed them early in the morning running and walking. And it's it's been it's been nice. We've also you know, we were preserved about 35 acres of wetland streams, tree protection areas,

which, you know, and through the sidewalk and multi-path inclusion in our development, it does make for a nice walkway. And there are quite a few folks from the neighboring communities doing that. So thank you. Next time you're out at the food bank, please stop in and see us.

I'll do that. I was going to ask Alan just your question about transportation. Alan, I'm sure she knows what I'm going to ask about the on-demand transportation option. Yeah, no, thanks for bringing that up.

I'm Alan Beckman, Transportation Director. You're correct. There is public transportation actually to this area. It's the GoDurham Connect microtransit service that's funded by the county transit plan.

There's a North Durham zone that covers a pretty large area where you can get an on-demand kind of shuttle within that zone. So you can. It's designed to kind of facilitate transportation to some of the areas that are,

you know, less dense and not on the fixed route bus service. But you can take that, and then you can connect to a place like at Durham Regional, where there's a bunch of transit routes that converge there, and then you can transfer to other routes. So how could we work with the venture, Welcome Venture Park, to help get that? Are you aware of that program, the on-demand service?

I am. We can relay that information to our clients and tenants. I think it's really an employee and user-based request. It would be great if we could work together to get that out to all the business owners so they know when they interview people, if they don't have transportation, that would be an option for them possibly. Happy to do that. Happy to work with Ellen and Matt

and Andy on that. All right. Thank you very much. So that is, well, we were on the outside of the public hearing, but that works.

So with all the questions being asked, what I will do is I will accept a motion to authorize the county manager to negotiate and execute an economic development agreement with Welcome Venture Park, LLC. So moved. Second. It's been moved and properly seconded.

Well, we have a motion on the floor that's been moved and properly seconded. Any further discussion? All in favor say aye. Aye.

All opposed, please use the same sign. It passes unanimously. Thank you. And that is it for our public hearings for tonight. We are moving forward with our other business, and that is advanced public comments on the fiscal year 26-27 budget.

Manager Hager. Good evening, commissioners. We will share with the board and community and those who are in attendance tonight a few highlights about our budget process and some of the opportunities and challenges we face as we go into the development process of the 26-27 budget. We have about 12, 14 slides we'll share, and then we will allow for advanced public comments.

We'll quickly talk about some documents that are in the resource materials within the website, share some expenditure and revenue highlights, and then talk about ways we can get public input. This is one of many ways tonight with the advanced public comments, and then some next steps. Next slide. And our budget is anchored on guiding principles, and those principles have

been established many years ago, and there are about 16 of those principles. We'll not go through all of them, but they follow our county's financial policies and our budget policies. They reflect the strategic and operational planning that's within how we do our business in county government, and we also make sure that we maintain adequate fund reserves in the case there are emergencies. Again, there are 16 principles.

We'll not go through them. That is in the supplemental document as well as at the end of the slide deck as well. We started our budget development process back in the fall, shortly after, actually it's probably more summer, after we passed last year's budget because we saw the challenges we would face with this current year. There have been many shifts and changes at the federal and state level that implicate what we

can do and how we can perform services at the county level, and some of that was brought up today, how communities are very reliant on local government. Counties often are close to those services that many of our residents need each day. Those principles, all funded entities that received dollars, went through a budget evaluation and that's continuing to happen, looking at how they're funded, what dollars are locally funded, what's mandated, what's required, and then what's a priority because of community support. Looking at allocations to make sure that their alignment aligns with general statute requirements, whether it's a local mandate or board priorities, as well as looking at how do we assess operationally managing the budget, looking at span of control,

benchmarking costs against peers where appropriate, and many other ways to determine are we as efficient as we should be, and if there are shifts required in the future, making sure that we've thought about those tough questions ahead of that shift. We've also been looking at strategies, contingency strategies, in the event there are federal and state or local revenue shortfalls, and as we go into this, and Mr. Lane will talk about some of those challenges, those are most important. And, of course, we've continued to look at how do we refine our key performance indicators as we help share with our community members what we do and why we do it.

Next slide. Our general fund is funded primarily through property taxes and sales taxes. They comprise almost 80 percent of our budget. The next highest revenue is intergovernmental

revenues at close to 9 percent. I did a quick look before I talked, because this is probably the fourth time we've shared, and I always try to find a new fact. 97 percent, almost 14 percent. 9 percent.

So there's increased pressure on our property taxes and sales taxes. If you go to the next slide, we'll talk about expenditures. Counties and cities are structured with areas of focus for the county. We have several key areas. Our budget is comprised of service level areas, many of which are within our human services, our public health department, our social services department, two of the largest human services areas, our office of the sheriff,

office of emergency management, as well as the libraries. Those are the largest departments. We have about 2,200 employees, and 2,300 when you count all of them for all funds. Beyond those key areas, education is the next largest functional area that we support, and it has always been a tremendous commitment from this community for decades to support education.

We are among the top funded counties per student in the state and have maintained that designation for decades. Durham Public Schools, Durham Technical Community College, and our commitment to pre-K cover those areas. And for a benchmark for that, when looking at it statewide in the education function, it's about 25 percent across when compared to our peers across the state, and we are at 35 percent. But again, that's a reflection of our values and our commitment to

ensure that we support our talent pool that's coming along the pipeline. Next slide. I will next transition to Keith so he can share some fiscal updates. Thank you, Manager Ager.

Good evening, commissioners. It feels a little bit like a road show. As the manager and I have had this presentation with various groups a number of times, and I think the last one we had was with the Board of Education, and I talked about being at an inflection point, and I think we are as a county, and you'll hear me use that term, and what I mean by that in summary is that the growth in revenue is not keeping up with the growth in expenditures, and we're getting to the point if we continue doing some of the things that we want to do and have been doing, that we are looking at property tax rate increases every year just to keep doing things. So I call that an inflection point.

What are some of the major issues that are happening right now for the county? We'll start with some intergovernmental revenue side of things. I noticed the manager talked about how that amount as a part of the total general fund budget has

decreased. It's going to continue to decrease. Part of the reason is we're spending down our ARPA dollars, and we have some holes to fill because ARPA dollars are no longer available. Pre-k support this for this year.

1 million, some pre-k support for DPS, and some school health nurses. Then we get to the big beautiful bill as some people have called it at the federal level that have caused some pain that will cause some pain for Durham County. 4 million dollars, and that's 13 FTEs. It's a program that the county has had for decades that's now in danger of going away. There are other state grants that are being reduced for public health, $737,000 for child health grants, some HIV and STI partner services, another $200,000. There's roughly another million dollar loss in revenue there or a reduction of services.

We look at the Department of Social Services side, we're looking at a two million dollar estimated decrease in revenue funding because of the change in the cost share related to SNAP administrative costs. We're going from what was a 50% county cost share and 50% federal cost share is now going 25% federal and 75% county. That's a loss of two million dollars in revenue. Some other bigger issues that may not happen next year but could happen in the year after that is some of the related to SNAP funding is related to error rates that the state is experiencing right now, and all I want you to see is that circle down at the bottom.

5 million. That's not come to fruition yet and that error rate could stay under the federal guideline minimum, but if it doesn't, this is potentially on the table. That's a major

revenue loss. Thank you. So larger revenue issues, we just went over intergovernmental revenues. Remember the manager showed you our two major revenue sources, property tax and sales tax, make up 80% of all our revenue.

Those are the key revenue sources that sort of drive everything that we think about. Economic growth in the county sort of drives sales tax growth. That growth is slowing and we see it in sales tax growth revenue, and I'll show you a slide in a few minutes that sort of exemplifies that. Our local property market is growing, and thank goodness it is. It's not growing quite as fast as it was five years ago, and even though it has grown significantly, there's still been some heartache around revaluation process and how much that has hurt some people. So even when growth is a good thing, it has some issues with it as well.

Occupancy tax revenue, we talk about we're in the second year of a three-year decrease of that amount to zero as that money now goes to Discover Durham, I believe, and that funding normally goes to support our capital projects, and we have to find and make up that revenue somewhere else. Intergovernmental revenue, we just talked about. Ultimately, what I would sum it up and say is we're seeing growing revenue variability. What I mean by that is we cannot count on standard growth every year that you can then build upon and feel comfortable with.

Our revenue growth is slowing. It's a little bit more chaotic, and I don't see the chaos ending anytime soon at the federal level in particular and even at the state level. This is a complicated slide. It's very impressive.

David and I are really proud of it. All I need you to note is the blue columns. That is new sales tax revenue that the county experienced in that year to be used by county commissioners to pay for salary increases, to pay

for health insurance increases, to expand funding for Durham Public Schools, to pay for new positions. What I'd like you to notice, if this little red, is look at the amount of growth in the past three years, including 26-27 versus previous years. It's not there. Remember, 80 percent of our revenue comes from property tax and from sales tax, and so our second biggest revenue source over the last two years and what I'm estimating for 26-27 coming up is practically zero.

Seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars in new sales tax revenue is not enough to grow to pay for the cost of expenditure increases that the county has, much less consider new initiatives like EMS needing a whole new ambulance group out there, which is like two ambulances and 12 people, and we could go on and on about the different needs that the county departments have. Can't be funded with only seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars in new revenue. Property tax revenue, that's the other

side of that 80 percent coin. That's the only other place that we have as a county to find revenue, significant revenue increases, and what I'd like for you to notice there again is the columns that matter and the blue part of that column is growth in property tax revenue without a property tax rate increase. That's natural growth in property tax revenue. And Keyar can help explain that at a later date, but basically that we get natural growth in property tax revenue when new buildings get built every year, new houses come online, or a building that was half built gets completed.

So we're still growing in that natural growth, but what I'd like you to note is the green part of each of those columns, that's additional property tax revenue that the board has chosen to apply through a property tax rate increase to meet the needs, the expenditure needs the county has. And what I would ask you to note is look at the five years, this is roughly a 10-year graph, look at the first five years versus the second five years. And in particular, look at the last two years. The amount of

additional property tax needed by the county to support the services asked for by citizens and desired by the county commissioners has needed a significant property tax rate increase the last two years. What does one cent on the tax rate bring in? 8 million dollars. 4 million.

8. We're going back to the property tax rate increases. What I would like for you to know is look at that little red circle down at the bottom of that middle table. The last two property tax rate increases for Durham County have been the highest tax rate increases percentage-wise in the last 30 years. We're at an inflection point where we're depending on property tax rate increases to supply the necessary revenue to meet the needs of Durham County residents and the Board of County Commissioners. The question that everyone has to ponder is, is that sustainable?

I will also remind the commissioners, I told you this at the Board retreat, between the city and the county, in the last three years, the property tax rate has gone up 20 cents, or about 19 percent. That's not accounting for revaluation. So literally everyone in the county, or almost everyone in the county, has had close to a 20 percent property tax bill increase, if you're a city resident. What are the 26-27 estimates looking like?

5 million in expenditure increases that we have to take care of. Those are benefits cost increases, some loss in funding, some other places that we have to fill up. 7 million in new revenue between the property tax growth, sales tax growth, and loss in some other revenues.

5 million in known expenditure increases. The way I would frame it is I'm already in a hole $5 million. Before I even get to even ground, I'm in a hole I've got to climb out of just to get to even ground. And this does not include any expansion request yet for education, which, by the way, DPS asked for $19-plus million in additional funding from the county.

This difference right here does not include that, does not include any expansion request for any county department yet, nor does it include salary and benefits cost increases, related benefits cost increases. So we have some hard decisions to make as a county. We are at an inflection point. Again, you can always go back and raise the property tax rate and meet some of this difference, but there are hard choices ahead.

What are some of the key budget takeaways? Slowing revenue and quickening expenditure growth. Economic indicators point to potential for

further challenges. It's a little chaotic out there, and I don't see that changing for the next two to three years. We need to consider long-term sustainability. I say this every time.

The decisions you make today have long-lasting ramifications, and sometimes you have to make tough decisions now to ensure sustainability, fiscal sustainability into the future. We have to begin prioritizing early. The manager and management team have done a great job of that, along with our office and some other ones. We have some difficult decisions coming.

We're going to have to say no to certain things or figure out unique ways to pay for certain things. We have to begin those strategic discussions immediately, which we are, and we're looking forward to hearing from citizens about some of those strategic discussions we need to have. Manager spoke up briefly. We're having monitoring quarterly reports for any earlier warning signs.

I don't see anything terrible yet. We're not stretched too thin yet, but I am concerned and we're paying attention. We will need to probably

to keep our long-term sustainability and fiscal sustainability in line. We'll probably need to limit some of our mid-year fund balance amendments. What does that mean? When departments come to you with a surprise request or something new that's exciting and they want to do, where do we find those funds?

We usually go to our savings account, which is fund balance, and we appropriate that fund balance to do it. We may need to be a little more judicious in doling out those funds when they are requested. Ultimately, again, we have to prioritize our long-term fiscal sustainability. What are some of the headwinds in the next five years?

We've got a huge ERP implementation process to come. We get one shot to do that correctly, and we need to get it right or it will hold us back for a while. I know the managers laser-focused on that and want to make sure it's a success. ARPA backfill. We are going to have a lot of non-profits coming to you that are going to be missing what was funded with ARPA dollars and expecting you to backfill. I just showed you one of the slides where the counties already

got to fund close to two to three million dollars of backfilled ARPA dollars that we used this year and previous years. We have tax rate increases needed just to pay for the debt service on the 22 GO bonds in our CIP. We have other areas pressing that will need to be funded. Building renovations for Durham Public Schools.

Buildings for DTCC. Renovations of some of our own buildings. This detention center across the street, while working right now, is close to, what, 40 years old? It gives me nightmares in terms of how much the cost of keeping that up or doing something new.

So we have major issues also on a whole other side of the budget, which is the capital improvement plan. We have to keep our fiscal foundation in order, keep our fund balance at the right level, keep our AAA bond rating so we can get the lowest interest rates possible. We have, and I'll say it again, there are a lot of state and federal changes happening right now, and it's a little chaotic. We have stagnating revenue growth. There's a certain amount of mission

creep in Durham County. What I mean by that versus mandated services we have to provide versus the non-mandated services we'd like to provide in addition to the things that we have to do. We've had a good 10, 15, 20-year run in revenue growth as we have matured into a hustling and bustling city. Those times may be slowing down, and we may have to consider what services we support in the future.

Are we going to support better the mandated services we have, or we continue to spread our services thin and charge residents for the price of that sort of expansion of services. We have some macroeconomic changes, inflation. Goodness gracious, who knows what wars in the Middle East may or may not do in terms of costing us down the line in any number of different ways, and yet we still have population growth. But I will note that the population growth, and I think I showed you a slide, our population growth is largely going to be in an older age group.

It's not so much younger people. It's largely older folks, and we'll have to figure out how that affects us. The budget

calendar. We are currently in meetings, and we're in the last stages of departments meeting with the manager, and where they are requesting dollars that the manager quietly smiles at and says, we'll see. As she knows, and has told them consistently, we don't, we have very few dollars available for the many requests. The key thing to note is that we will have a budget, Durham County virtual budget discussion on March 30th.

May the 11th is the key date where the manager will present to you the board her manager's recommended budget, and then we will have a month of meetings with the board where you will discuss the manager's budget and make changes as you see fit, and hopefully we will approve a budget on June the 8th. One last thing to note, the manager, there is a, I don't know what happened there, we have a budget survey that you can go find online. I know that I saw in the agenda packet there's a link to that budget survey, so even if you don't have statements you want to make

if you're a resident of Durham County tonight, or even at the virtual meeting on March the 30th, you can always go to this survey and write down your expectations, your wants, your hopes and dreams on that survey, and you can use this quick QR code to get there. And with that, Manager Heidegger, I'm done. Thank you so much, Keith, and those are our remarks, and we welcome the comments. All righty.

Commissioners, do you have any comments? We have one public comment tonight, but do we have commissioner comments? Go ahead, Vice-Chair Alonzo. Yeah, I know we've gotten variations of this presentation ourselves, but I feel like I always learn something new every time we go through it myself. I did have a question for Budget Director Keith, I see him running away from us, or David, or Manager Heidegger, where, just to provide clarification, the slide that says, you know, from the new tax

revenue growth of like new construction, new properties of $10 million, that's not like the net revenue or like balance to say, okay, we're building these new homes and these new families coming in, but also we have to provide all those new families and new community members services, so it's not like the net of like taking out those costs, because there is cost also that revenue. Absolutely. There's always costs indirectly or directly related to that new revenue coming in, which is like, yes, you need more EMS. Ambulance is out on the road for that.

It's also why you do economic development. You hope to get certain buildings that have high dollar valuation that bring in high tax revenue, but don't press on services quite as much. That's the wonderful art and science to mixing and matching residential development versus commercial development. Yeah, no, I just wanted clarification on that, because I think when I was reading it, even though we've heard it so many times, I was just like, so that folks are like, oh, that's

$10 million, that's just like up for grabs, that has no strings attached. That's $10 million in revenue, but we also have to provide services, resources to those construction vendors, yeah. Yeah, Commissioner Burkett. Yes, the question I have is about the ratio of commercial properties to residential properties.

Like, I know, Keyar, you may know the answer, but like, how many commercial properties do we have in Durham County? I know you shared that number before, and the number of residential in Durham, or can you get that number for us again? I can get the specifics, but that is close to roughly 10,000 commercial, and then the rest would be residential. We're talking about 30,000 parcels. Yeah, that's not a lot. So, it's like we're

depending on residential property owners to carry us, correct? Is that? Correct, and then some of that's vacant land versus improved land, so I have to give you the exact figures, but it is definitely about 10,000 commercial properties, and that is improved and vacant. Thank you.

I would ask that, I'm sorry, Keyar, real quick. The trend, though, has been that there's been more residential growth than commercial growth, and that is, I think, what you're getting at. The RTP used to be, provide significant commercial property valuation when it was doing different things 10 years ago. Also, office space, I think we talked about some of the vacancies in the office space has caused the valuation of some of those commercial properties not to grow at their level, so what that does do, ultimately, is put pressure on residential property and the tax rate to be supported by residential property to go up to make up for some of those losses. And so, it's important to note, as well, although

it's 10,000 parcels, we look at what's the value of those parcels, and so that's real important. And so, our mix of valuation of residential to commercial has been in a solid position over the years, and we can confirm that mix. Yeah, that would be helpful, because when talking to our residents, letting them know that's kind of where we are in Durham County, particularly when they ask questions around our commercial businesses paying their fair share and things like that. So, thank you.

Commissioner Jacobs. Well, thank you. I appreciate that this budget information is being presented and shared with the public. We received this at a budget work session and our budget retreat, and I'm

really glad. I think we haven't really done this like this before with a public hearing. Did we do this before? It's been, the last time we did this was in 2015-16, but, yeah, so it's been quite a while.

So, 10 years. Yes, it's been a while. Okay, so I appreciate that. I appreciate the survey that you all are going to do this virtual meeting and trying to make it as easy as possible for residents to receive this information.

And also to provide input. So, thank you to our staff. And I just want to say that our budget director is doing his job, but I want to say to the residents that we understand that we are in challenging times, but this is a national trend and Durham County is not isolated. We are part of what's happening in counties all over the United States, just

from a macro level. And also I would say, especially in North Carolina, where we have seen our state government, since I've been a county commissioner since 2012, we have seen the state reneging on their responsibility to fund public education, not just the option costs and the personnel costs, but also the capital improvements related to school needs, maintenance, and repairs. And that is one of the biggest driving factors that we see. When we looked at those numbers from the last two years of why there have been such high tax increases and why the budget needs were so high, and they have been directly related to funding for Durham Public Schools. So, I think it's important that people see the bigger context here. And I want to say on a positive note that we are also doing great

things in Durham County to make sure that we have a diverse economic base, to make sure that we are having good jobs here for our residents. That's something that we, the county, is very intentional about. We just had the Welcome Venture Park here. We are also investing upstream in things like Durham Pre-K, because we understand that we have to invest in our future. And we are also trying to look at things like how do we create more tourism here so that visitors and other people can help support our businesses and generate sales tax revenue. So, I, and related to what the manager said, I think it is important to look at the distribution of our tax rate, because compared to a lot of other counties, we actually

have a very diverse tax base. And that's something else that we are very aware of, and that's why we support economic development in places like Trayburn and RTP and now the Welcome Park. So, I do think we, and I also want to applaud what our staff does, which is they go after grant funding. They're fantastic at looking at all these other sources of funding.

We saw that tonight as well. I want to also talk about our staff looking at redundancies and effectiveness and efficiency. We have to do that, and that's why we're looking at consolidating our 9-1-1 center. And these are all things that we'll continue to do. And Keith, we appreciate you keeping us grounded, but I also want to really emphasize that it's

not all gloom and doom, and we're going to get through this together. And Durham is still very fortunate compared to other places in the state and in this country. And we will keep making the key investments that we need to do to have a bright future for everyone in our community. Thank you.

Commissioner Valentine. Yes. Director Lane, thank you for your presentation. I just have three sort of questions.

One, you keep referring to an inflection point. So, how am I to understand the inflection point in light of the larger discussion around property tax reform in our state? I mean, this is a trend across our nation, but I believe there is going to be action in this particular area. And so, that's sort of the big elephant.

And so, what are we discussing relative to that? I'm not including that discussion. I know I've seen a few of those meetings on my computer

screen that the state legislature has had, and they are disconcerting at best from a local government standpoint. The inflection point, I mean, is just for Durham County in terms of its growth and expenditures and desires and needs, and particularly supporting Durham Public Schools. The ability to do that using natural growth and revenue has all but dissipated, and we're at the point of needing property tax rate increases every year, potentially just to handle some things that we used to be able to in the past handle with natural growth. That's the inflection point I'm talking about.

When I take into account potential changes at the state level, constitutional amendments and whatnot, then it becomes a whole different ballgame. It may limit your ability as commissioners to raise taxes, but it does not limit expenditure growth. And then we are looking at significantly scaling back the services we provide if you're limited in the revenue growth that you have. That is my deep concern. Unless we bring in some magical commercial property valuations of

sorts, which I'm sure we'll put a high priority on, but that's a whole different ballgame what they're talking about at the state level. And I'm deeply concerned that as well-meaning as many of those legislators are, they do not understand the nuance and some of the possible downstream effects of some of the choices they are pondering at this moment. It is quite scary, frankly. Thank you for that context.

I think that our residents need to be aware. Second, you talked about the cost-sharing shift as it relates to the SNAP program, SNAP benefits program. And you also talked about additional costs that the county would have to bear with regards to administrative error rates. I think that the part that our citizens need to know is that that error rate is not just specific to Durham County.

Is that correct? Statewide, yes, sir. Statewide. And so if Durham County is doing their part, but other parts of the state are

not, Durham County is still going to be paying a price. All right. I just wanted to make sure I was clear. My colleague just moments ago talked about tourism.

And so some of our occupancy tax funds are going to an alternate source with the thought that the return on investment in sales tax will occur. When do we believe that we'll have some return on our investment with respect to that? I am not quite the person to answer that question. I don't know when it will be specifically.

That's a long-term investment of those occupancy tax dollars. It remains to be seen how and when those dollars would come back to us and increase tourism. I can't answer that directly because it just depends. So on the consent agenda today, one of the items talked about surplus, surpluses in sales tax and occupancy tax for this year. And so some of that is coming back in addition to

the small percentage that we're receiving today. Right? Yes, sir. But in the out years, we'll be receiving nothing.

Correct. What is that out year today? Well, next year, 26-27 or is it 27-28, David? I think it's, we built in the second year is 26-27.

The third year, we will go to zero in 27-28. There will be no money collected. Okay. No over collection, no anything.

At that point, the full six to $7 million amount, I think that's roughly the estimate of occupancy tax we'll be going to Discover Durham. County Manager, would you like to add anything with regards to that discussion? I would say that when the decision was made to shift those dollars to Discover Durham, the intent was to create a strategy so that years down the road, dollars would be generated

through expansion of new infrastructure that would come to the community. I can respond as our liaison to the Discover Durham board. Right now, there is a festival study going on, also a sports facility study, and also convention center. These, again, are long-term investments, but in the short term, they are going to be rolling out a grants program related to festivals this coming year.

There are some things that are going to start happening very soon, very quickly, that hopefully we'll see the direct benefits of soon, but then there's some very long-term types of investments that are being looked at. If I may also add, sorry about that, as the liaison for the Downtown Durham, Inc. board for the county, I know that Nicole Thompson has the state of Downtown Durham coming up

on April 22nd because some of the work of this transit of the tourism tax dollars is adjacent to the work of Downtown Durham, Inc. to help support our local businesses in Downtown Durham and the hotels, especially bringing in more folks to Downtown to the hotels around the community, but then also getting them to support the local businesses and shop local and bring in, generate more tax revenue. That's an opportunity to also learn about how, specifically in Downtown, some of that work is going to be hopefully coming forward. I did have another question also. I just wanted to note that, well first I just wanted to piggyback off of a comment Commissioner Jacobs sent and also asking for the budget document for our budget retreat, I think, could we add in the commissioner like priority documents to that county legistar page? So I think it would be also good, since it's a lot of the documents of the presentations from staff, but also for the community to

be able to see like these are also the priorities the commissioners are bringing forward and advocating for alongside staff. And the tax page of showing the tax rate increases over the years, that is solely Durham County, right? That is not the city. Yeah, and so what was the city last year?

Because like I know not everyone is in the city, but most of our residents are in the city of like, were we probably hit like close, wasn't the city like three or four percent last year? It was a four or five cent tax rate increase. I think the net total between the city and the county was eight or nine cents. I know it was not quite double figures, but within spitting distance. So it was eight or nine cents total. I think it'd be, and I know it's like again a city, but maybe like in some of our slides like to include that also, because we're not just, these tax rate increases aren't just in a silo, since we are this city county community that the folks who are being hit with the

county taxes, majority of them are also being hit with the city tax rate increases too. Okay. All right, so that was our comments. Now our public comment comes from Carl Newman.

Good evening commissioners. My name is Carl Newman. I'm here tonight in my capacity as the vice chair of the Durham County Library Board of Trustees. It has been a big calendar year for the library because of course we got our new library system director Dana Connors who started on January 6th.

And I think that her budget asks for the library system were due around the time she knew which printer she printed to. However, she has already had the opportunity to discuss with the board of trustees at the February meeting. The library has asked for this year, which I know are in your departmental budgets. You know, candidly, we've been good, good kids in class and made, you know, budget asks in line with what we

know and have heard why it's going to be such a tough budget year. I just came here tonight on behalf of the board of trustees in support of the library system as you go through this budget process to remind you of a few things about the library. The first of which is in the last several budget cycles, they have been your fifth largest county department, roughly flat in full-time equivalents. And that remains still the case.

And in that time, most recently in the last year, we've added back Sunday hours, which we are all thrilled about. And I know the community here in Durham is too. However, that's just at main library and they have had to do that without any additional staff. And the last thing that I do want to say, there's two things in the budget that, you know, talking with Dana about the libraries asked.

One is a facilities fee that is designed to do multi-year or sort of be a multi-year pot of money to work on projects for facilities expenses. Unfortunately, at Stanford L. Warren Library and elsewhere in public library buildings, we sort of know that deferred maintenance sometimes becomes maintenance delayed. And then actually now it's really expensive because

we should have done it before. And so I'd ask, you know, even to the extent you think of that as new money, we think it's really important for the library facilities as physical places that are sort of an extra room for everyone in Durham to meet. And the last thing that I'll say, of course, is, you know, we know that a budget is not a popularity contest, but if it were, if you look at just about any resident survey you've ever done, it'll probably tell you that the most beloved branch in your Durham County government tree is the Durham County Library System. And so we appreciate this body and board's support of the library over these last few years.

We would hope to encourage you to continue in that trend, even what would, in what we know will be a hard year for the county's budget. That's all I had to say. All right. Thank you, Mr.

Newman. And thank you for hanging in there with us today to, for the end of the meeting here. All right. That was for information, right? Yeah. That

was for information, so we'll move forward. The next item on our agenda is board and commission's appointments. Attorney Williamson. Good evening.

We have five boards here where we have, where the board has selected its candidate. For the Alliance Board of Directors, the board has selected Vandana Munshi. For the Durham Convention Center Authority, the board has selected Kamala Uzell. For the Durham County Women's Commission, we have two positions available.

The board has selected Valerie Parham Thompson and Sarah Cunningham. For the Durham Cultural Advisory Board, the board has selected Mary Lou Flowers Schon. And for the Historic Preservation Commission,

the board has selected Nicholas Treplewy. I apologize if I mispronounced your name. Apologize to all that was selected. All right.

Thank you very much. Next item on our agenda would be for items pulled from the consent agenda, but we did not have any of those. And the last item is the adjournment. I get confused.

Do we vote to adjourn? All right. I'll accept the motion to adjourn. So moved.

Second. It's been moved and probably seconded that we adjourn. All in favor, say aye. Aye.

All opposed, please use the same sign. Passes unanimously. We are adjourned. Thank you all very much.