Meeting Minutes January 29-30, 2020 RETREAT – DAY 1 The Board of Commissioners of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, met in Informal Session on Wednesday, January 29, 2020 at 8:00 a.m. in the Harris Conference Center of Central Piedmont Community College with Chair Dunlap presiding. Present: Commissioner Chair George Dunlap Commissioner Patricia "Pat" Cotham Commissioner Susan Harden Commissioner Mark Jerrell Commissioner Vilma D. Leake Commissioner Elaine Powell Commissioner Susan Rodriguez-McDowell Absent Until Noted: Commissioner Ella B. Scarborough Absent: Commissioner Trevor M. Fuller CALL TO ORDER Chair Dunlap called the meeting to order, followed by introductions and the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag. SECTION I: CONFERENCE PURPOSE & AGENDA OVERVIEW Welcome Kandi Deitemeyer, Central Piedmont Community College President, gave introductory remarks. County Manager’s Introduction The Chair recognized County Manager Dena Diorio who welcomed everyone to the 2020 Annual Board Retreat and gave the Board an overview of the goals and expectations for the board retreat. She then introduced Michael Bryant, Management & Budget Director. Agenda Overview & Binder Materials Michael Bryant, Management & Budget Director gave a review of the agenda. for the board retreat and reviewed the binder materials and introduced Dr. Monica Allen. SECTION II: 2020 COMMUNITY PULSE REPORT Dr. Monica Allen, Strategic Planning & Evaluation Director, presented the 2020 Community Pulse Report. Population - Although the population rate is still raising, it has slowed down from a 2% to 1.7 % since 2018. Wake County is currently projecting to be the largest County in North Carolina. - Charlotte is currently ranked 6th for young adults and 11th for Senior Citizens Nationally for migration. - In primary language, English is still the most spoken language with Spanish and Asian languages following. Meeting Minutes January 29-30, 2020 Education - Mecklenburg County is doing well in education when compared to the North Carolina and the United States in a whole percentage. Mecklenburg County excelled in the percentage of those who have bachelor’s and Graduate degrees in Mecklenburg County. Income - Although the population rate is growing, so has the poverty rate. - The cost of living is increase in Mecklenburg County is something to keep watch of when it comes to affordability challenges that we are currently monitoring. Housing When prices in the market increase faster than wages and inflation, several things happen: - Gentrification starts to occur. - When it becomes difficult for wealth people to find a house they want, they will purchase down: renovate, teardown or build a new home. Health - Cancer and Heart Disease ranks highest when it comes to leading causes of death for all Race/Ethnicities in Mecklenburg County. Commissioner Leake stated that she kept hearing Ms. Allen state that education improves living conditions for people. She stated the quality of education is most important. When you stated the number of students that’s coming from CMS going into CPCC having to take remedial courses bothers her, that meant someone is failing to provide quality education for the neediest in this community. If we share this information or compare it with the City of Charlotte information on these same topics, if they would be similar or different? Dr. Allen stated they can reach out to the City to see if there is some comparison. Commissioner Harden stated that giving they are in the eleventh year of the longest economic boom Mecklenburg County has ever had, that they need to be aware that the High School graduates are losing ground in a period of extreme economic prosperity. Commissioner Harden asked for explanation of the slides (27 & 28) pertaining to Housing: Neighborhoods with growing poverty concentrations exceed gentrifying ones. She wants to understand the gentrification and where it’s happening better. Dr. Allen stated that the green areas are the economic expanding areas with overall growth. These areas are where there are significant new housing construction and where residents across the overall income spectrum are arriving. It does not specific means there a huge gentrification increase in that area. Commissioner Harden stated that it was different than what she thought. She thought uptown was becoming less income diverse. In your reports, it saying there is income diversity in uptown. Dr. Allen stated that the report is showing that the different neighborhood with incomes profiles are improving while the low-income population is increasing. Not all incomes are improving, there are some challenges where you see low incomes individuals in that area that’s not positively being affected. Commissioner Harden stated that the results from the report surprises her because she was under the impression that the low-income individuals where being moved from uptown. Meeting Minutes January 29-30, 2020 Dr. Allen stated the net effect of what’s occurring with inside of Highway 277 is more on the income is improving because there are a large amount of people moving in the housing options that are there. There are some individuals that are within that area that are being affected. It’s just not to the extent of what’s in the blue area. Commissioner Cotham stated she had some questions regarding the housing shortage for starter homes. She has attended several presentations on economics through the perspective of development and real estate and I was wondering how much you interact with other groups to present these results because I hear them say that during the recession, interest prices went down, and a lot of homeowners refinanced their homes. So, there were a lot of older residents who have very low interest rates and they are not leaving their homes. Also, she heard from developers that the banks don’t want to loan money like they did years ago. Then from the County perspective, the developers tell her that they want to have inspectors dedicated to affordable housing to speed up the process and not have to wait. Also, if they had a reduction in fees and regulatory compliance that would help the developers. So, my question is, as you get to the results of the report, do you ever interact with other groups to see what their point of view is on the results? Dr. Allen we have not. Our results were all internal, but she sees there is a great need for this information. They have attended different events or engaged in presentation from a listening standpoint, but not shared their information with anyone. Commissioner Jerrell stated that in regard to slide 15 (Education: Graduation Rates and Remediation), he is currently on a task force where their focus is on disconnected youth. Youth that are not engaged, educationally or in the workforce; 59% that refers to that needed remediation is really concerning. Do you have any information, based on that number, how many students continue to matriculate through CPCC? Do we know what that dropout looks like? Dr. Allen stated they do not have that information but can reach out to CPCC to obtain it. They do know that it’s about 2,100 students that are enrolling to CPCC from CMS system. It has been very difficult to get this data, because it’s not typically information most people would like to share. Commissioner Jerrell stated he would like to see what the fall through ratio would be. That would perpetuate that underclass that they are seeing in the disconnecting youth. Also do we have any idea from our colleagues from CMS why close to 60% of the students that go to CPCC would need remediation in one or two classes? Commissioner Jerrell asked if the individual earning data could be broken down by race and gender. Ms. Allen responded that she would look into that. Commissioner Jerrell asked if the data of more diversity among income around areas where they did not suspect it could be due to certain people have not been displaced yet. Ms. Allen responded it could be, but it was data for four years but only went up to 2016. She said the University had not produced anything to show if they were eating into a greater percentage of those individuals in terms of displacement and what their income looked like. She said that was the best way they thought to show what was occurring as it related to the overarching story around gentrification and replacement but that they did not have the latest data. She stated the information was based on census tracts. Ms. Harden requested maps by district. Ms. Allen stated they would get that created for them. Commissioner Scarborough arrived at 9:08 p.m. Meeting Minutes January 29-30, 2020 Chair Dunlap requested to know if the companies had incentivized was paying a living wage. Ms. Allen responded that she would bring back that data. Chair Dunlap requested data on home ownership versus home rentals in the areas that were becoming increasingly gentrified. Ms. Allen stated they just produced their 2022 Corporate Strategic Business Plan, and a lot of the things in the plan reflected the Board priorities SECTION III: FY2020 OPERATING BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS The Board received a presentation by Management & Budget Director Michael Bryant, highlighting the investments approved in the adopted FY2020 operating budget, including funding aligned to their five budget priorities. Revenue Neutral Calculation Management & Budget Director Michael Bryant described the calculations used to figure out the FY 2020 Adopted Property Tax Rate of 61.69 cents. *A short video was played. FY2020 Adopted Budget Overview Management & Budget Director Michael Bryant explained the FY2020 adopted budget Revenue and Appropriation changes. FY2015-FY2020 Efficiency Savings & Repurposed Funds Management & Budget Director Michael Bryant explained how County Manager Diorio Repurposed County dollars to benefit Mecklenburg County priority goals. He said that each year a diligent effort would be set forth to identify savings that could be repurposed to offset the need for additional funds.