March 18, 2025: Calls for police service in Albemarle down slightly in 2024
Plus: Albemarle Supervisors get a detailed look at revenues for the FY2026 budget
Does the name Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ring a bell? Perhaps Caligula is more familiar. Almost two millennia ago on one March 18, Caligula became Emperor of Rome and many historians describe his reign as one that descended into tyranny before his death at the hands of the Praetorian Guard four years later. Is that what really happened? Charlottesville Community Engagement is not the venue for historic debate, but there may be a few stories about what’s happening now in 2025
In today’s installment:
Some crimes including murder were down in Albemarle County in 2024 according to the police department’s latest annual report
This week is Fix A Leak Week and local utilities have created a scavenger hunt to help you identify water loss spots where you live or work
A look at the revenues in Albemarle County’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2026
First shout-out: Charlottesville Jazz Society presents the Max Johnson Trio
On Friday March 21, the Max Johnson Trio will be performing in The Front Porch space at 221 Water St E Charlottesville, 8-10pm. Described as “an intrepid composer, architect of sound and beast of the bass…” (NYC Jazz Record) composer, bassist, and improviser Max Johnson is one of the most prolific music makers in the jazz, bluegrass, improvised music, and contemporary classical worlds.
Johnson has released nearly 20 albums and performed over three thousand concerts internationally, and can be heard in Spike Lee’s Academy Award winning film, “The BlacKkKlansman”. For this concert, Max Johnson presents his incredible trio with rising star Neta Raanan on tenor saxophone and Connor Parks on drumset, celebrating the trio’s 2024 album, “I’ll see you again.” . This trio explores Johnson’s more traditional jazz compositions inspired by innovators Charles Mingus, Mal Waldron, and Thelonious Monk. [tickets]
Albemarle County Police Department release annual report for 2024
Virginia law requires law enforcement agencies to report certain crime statistics. This takes the form of an annual report and the Albemarle County Police Department (ACPD) published their 2024 edition this morning.
“In 2024, we made significant progress, including a 3 percent decrease in calls for service (CFS), a 22 percent reduction in fatal car crashes, and a dramatic drop in homicides, contributing to an overall 14 percent decrease in Part 1 Crime, with violent crime down by 13 percent,” said Police Chief Sean Reeves in a written message to the community.
Reeves also noted that there was a seven percent increase in calls for service related to mental health. Some of these were answered by the Human Services Alternative Response Team (HART) of which ACPD is a member.
“This co-response unit pairs a trained officer with staff from fire rescue and human services to provide immediate, on-scene support for individuals experiencing a behavioral health crisis,” reads page 13 of the report.
There were 13 graduates from the Albemarle County police academy. The department also began using space in the former J.C. Penney at Fashion Square Mall for the Public Safety Operations Center.
Speed cameras also went live in school zones. There were a total of 10,453 citations issued in 2024, including 5,948 in a 45-day warning period. The report adds this has resulted in a 49 percent reduction in speeding from September to December.
Some other highlights of the report:
There were 75,403 total calls for service, down from 77,793 in 2023
Twenty-seven percent of calls for disorderly conduct and 20 percent were animal-related. Another 10 percent were for shoplifting
There were 891 mental health calls for service, up from 834 in 2023
There were 2,188 vehicular crashes in 2024, up from from 2,035 in 2023
There were seven traffic fatalities compared to ten in 2023
There were two homicides in 2024 compared to six in 2023
Other details on Part I crimes in the image below
Want to know more? Take a look at the report!
Local utilities offer scavenger hunt to help homeowners find water leaks
Is your bill for water suddenly higher than it was in the past even adjusting for higher rates?
Local utilities are participating this week in a federal program that may assist you. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has for many years had a program called WaterSense that offers tips.
“By making fixes, Americans put a stop to the more than one trillion gallons of water being wasted from household leaks each year,” reads an information release put out Monday by the City of Charlottesville.
So far, the website for the WaterSense program is still active despite many cuts ordered to the EPA by the Trump administration. Take a look now.
Locally, Charlottesville is participating in the program along with the Rivanna Water and Sewer Authority and the Albemarle County Service Authority. One of the activities is a home scavenger hunt intended to help track down potential sources of water loss.
Entries can be mailed to the city by April 14 for potential prizes or they can be submitted electronically. Prizes are only open to Albemarle County and Charlottesville residents.
Second-shout out: Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards Tree Sale on April 12
The next shout-out is one I’m very interested in. There is now a big school building behind my house and I am thinking about planting some trees to screen my property. I really have no idea how to do such a thing, but you can bet where I’ll be the morning of April 12, 2025!
That’s when the Charlottesville Area Tree Stewards will be holding their annual tree sale at the Virginia Department of Forestry at 900 Natural Resources Drive in Charlottesville. The group has their own tree nursery, entirely run by volunteers. They plant saplings obtained from multiple sources and nurture them until they are large enough to be planted out. They concentrate on native trees, some of which are hard to find from commercial sources.
They don’t have a list yet, but stay tuned to this space for details. But, this is a good day to get that on your calendar! Click here for more details!
An account of Albemarle County’s first work session on the FY2026 budget
Perhaps I say too often that this newsletter is currently the work of one person. That person is me, someone who decided five years ago to devote most of my time to bringing people information about the community.
What kind of information? Information about the decisions before local elected officials. The world is complex and I believe people who make decisions about who to vote for should have access to the details. If I had free time, I’d love to study political theory. I do not have that free time because there’s a lot I want to get to.
Yesterday’s newsletter has an account of the first public hearing. You can see that story on Information Charlottesville.
Since then there have been three work sessions and the first budget town hall is tonight. There haven’t been many media accounts but I’m glad for the ones that have been published.
The following is an account of the first work session from March 10, 2025. This lasted for nearly three hours so I don’t blame you if you’ve not listened. A purpose of journalism is do that work so others can still be part of the conversation. And now the preamble is over.
The real start of the article
The journey of Albemarle County Executive Jeffrey Richardson’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that begins on July 1 began on February 26 with its introduction. The whittling process began with the first work session as explained by Andy Bowman, Albemarle’s assistant chief financial officer. (view Bowman’s presentation)
“I always like to start every work session with the entire path ahead for where we are today through the adoption and appropriation of the budget in May,” Bowman said.
Supervisors ask questions throughout the process and give notes to staff for follow-up. This is referred to as “the list.” There has already been another work session on March 12 and March 17 and the Board of Supervisors will decide what tax rates to advertise at their meeting on March 19.
“The board will be asked to take action to propose a budget and set a maximum rate for advertisement,” Bowman said. “What that means is the board will advertise a tax rate. They can adopt that rate or less than they cannot do more than that for both the real property, personal property and any other rates they choose.”
Richardson’s budget recommends a four cent increase in the real estate property tax and an increase in the personal property tax back to $4.28 per $100 of assessed value. The food and beverage tax remains at six percent, the higher Albemarle can do under state law. The transient occupancy tax is nine percent.
There’s the general fund and then there’s the capital fund. The general fund totals $480.5 million with 67 percent of that coming from the real property tax rate. Other local taxes make up 18 percent. Bowman described other sources referring to their color in what he called a doughnut chart.
“State revenue is in the light blue at six percent of the budget and federal is in the yellow piece at 2 percent,” Bowman said. “Those two portions, often when I talk to people in the community they expect they are larger, but in the general fund they are relatively small pieces.”
In January, Supervisors learned that real estate assessments increased an average of 5.1 percent in 2025. Bowman said that results in a 12 percent increase in revenue over last year, or $29 million. That’s with increases in the rate and the assessments.
Virginia law requires localities to publish something called the “lowered tax rate” which is the one that would bring in the same amount of revenue as the current fiscal year. That number is $0.813 per $100 of assessed value.
Bowman said each penny on the tax rate brings in $3.1 million in revenue. However, there’s a formula that requires ten percent to go to debt service or cash for capital projects. Another 54 percent goes to Albemarle County Public Schools and 36 percent is available for local government use.
One factor to keep in mind is something called the Local Composite Index which the Virginia Department of Education uses to determine funding for public schools for each locality based on their relative incomes and ability to pay for education. This is updated every two years, and the last calculations reduced funding for both Albemarle County and Charlottesville.
“Albemarle County lost $10 million in the last local composite index reset,” said County Executive Jeffrey Richardson. “It's a pot of money that the state has. It's a finite amount of money. You've got X number of school systems, counties that are competing for that. You're going to stack your county that has the most ability to pay with the expectation that they're going to put the most local funding in your county that has the lowest per capita, they're suggesting that's where the state needs to help the most.”
Another factor is that the revenue sharing payment that Albemarle pays to Charlottesville each year is not taken into consideration in the state’s LCI formula. The payment this year has increased to $20 million.
One federally funded program to watch is the Federal Housing Assistance Fund which covers housing vouchers disbursed by Albemarle County.
“Over $5 million, which is 90 percent of that federal funding and special revenue funds. And should anything happen to that, which again, we have no indication, but that is where the biggest impact would be, not only for the county's bottom line, but the amount of disruption that would cause into the community.”
Another item the county is watching are federal grants. Bowman said the county is currently managing about $17 million.
“We have no indication yet that any of that is in jeopardy,” Bowman said. “But we are staying in close contact with our grantors through our team in the Office of Grants and Agreements.”
One of those grants is a $2 million planning grant for the Three Notched Trail.
Another source of revenue in the budget is something called “Use of Fund Balance” which is funding left over at the end of fiscal year after an audit. Bowman said this amount is just under $98 million.
“By and large, most of that money is already obligated or spoken for for different reasons,” Bowman said. “Under the Board's financial management policies. We have a reserve of 10% for unassigned fund balance. This is really to maintain cash flow and be there to avoid any emergency borrowing should the county experience a catastrophe.”
That ten percent ends up to $50.4 million in the current fiscal year. The financial policies put another $10.1 million in a “Budget Stabilization Reserve,” another $4.6 million for a reserve fund for schools, and $21.1 million the county is spending in the current fiscal year.
“So that leaves $11.7 million of one time money that could be used for one time uses,” Bowman said.
There were more details on this at the March 12 work session, but at this point we’re only one hour into a three hour work session.
Supervisor Mike Pruitt said he felt the fund balance is too high.
“I don't think the role of government is to be a bank,” Pruitt said. “It is not to prepare for tomorrow. It is to realize the needs of citizens today. And I am always, I think, deeply hesitant about reserve funds and the size that they are and whether or not they are as lean as they could be.”
However Pruitt said he realized he was a lone voice on this topic on the Board.
This concluded a review of revenues. One item that made the list is a request for further research into potential revenue from solar siting agreements.
Next up - expenditures!
Reading material:
University acceptance rate decreases after regular decision round, Bertie Azqueta, Cavalier Daily, March 17, 2025
Up to $51B in transportation grant awards at risk, advocacy group says, Dan Zukowski, SmartCitiesDive, March 17, 2025
Charlottesville to unveil new historical marker, Green Book plaque, on site of the former Carver Inn, Erin O’Hare, March 17, 2025
Assault victim found in roadway has now died, CBS19, March 17, 2025
United behind Spanberger, Va.’s Democratic Party reminds voters of Republicans’ three-way primary, Charlotte Rene Woods, Virginia Mercury, March 17, 2025
#833 is not a prime number
That’s because it can be divided by 7, 17, 49, 119, and 833. But this is the 833rd edition of this newsletter. I look back five years into the past when I’d done my fourth edition of what would come to be called The Charlottesville Quarantine Report. I’m not really sure how I’ve made it to here, but here is where I am. The fourth episode from five years ago today focused on Albemarle County. Listen to it here!
I am lamenting that I did not get all the way through the first budget session. I do lament that other information outlets don’t seem to be interested in details. I am. Life is more beautiful with details and nuance and complexity.
When you can take it all in, it may all appear like chaos but there is harmony everywhere. For me at the moment it comes in the form of bird song as the world grows ever closer to spring. I initially lament the end of winter, my favorite season, about a week after the clock change I start to get a little excited.
I wanted to get through all of the budget work sessions before tomorrow when the Albemarle County Supervisors have their fourth work session. If this were eight years ago, I would have gone to tonight’s Budget Town Hall at the Center at Belvedere because that’s what we used to do at the place I worked from 2007 to 2018. They opted to go in a different direction, and it is not for me to lament that.
As I listen to the King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard song “Hypertension” I can state I’m beginning to feel a bit more confidence about the ability to keep doing this work. I know there are steps I need to take to hire people, steps hard to take when all I want to do is research and report.
But, the world has a way of unfolding. Now I’m going to go outside and get that yard ready for spring, happy about the work I had done last year to actually make the backyard nice. I don’t always have to be working.
I am grateful I can if I want. Enough of you are paying and I am so grateful.