Coraggio Consulting
Fairfax County Board of Supervisors Economic Initiatives Committee, Tuesday, May 12, 2026

Date: Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Place: Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, Virginia
Length: 1h 35m (video)
Official meeting video (Fairfax County): https://video.fairfaxcounty.gov/player/clip/4144
Official Board of Supervisors page (Fairfax County): https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/boardofsupervisors/

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-27. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:00:05] Good morning, everybody. We're going to go ahead and get started. I'm Dan Stork, Mount Vernon District Representative, but the chairman of the Economic Initiatives Committee, and we've got a great all-star crew here today, and frankly, I was just telling the chairman we have an all-star day. I am incredibly excited. I think I've shared with some of you how we've put together what is a core concern and, frankly, mission of this board is to how do we bring economic development and address the housing and really address the whole thing that enables us to keep growing strongly and really continue to be a leader not only in Virginia but a leader around the country.

[00:00:42] So we're going to get started with the first question is we have approval of the summary of the February 10th, 2026 meeting. Unless there's any objections, I'm going to go ahead and assume that those have been approved and not seeing and hearing objections.

[00:00:59] I'm going to go on to the next item, which is a presentation by our Economic Competitives Task Force. Fairfax County has positioned itself as a preeminent location where business not only choose to locate, but also thrive and grow. Fairfax County's economic position is built on a strong foundation, and economic indicators show that we continue to benefit from this with remarkable resilience. Obviously, we've had a lot of stuff thrown at us over the past year, year and a half, and we've taken those hits, and we keep growing. So I think that's maybe kind of an ever-ready

[00:01:36] budding strategy, if you will, is we're just going to keep rolling along. And we do that because of the outstanding folks that we have here. The people are what drive our success, and the people are what are going to continue to have us be successful. And we have an amazing leadership group around us today. But we know we can't be complacent. Complacency is where you go if you want to just continue doing what you're doing. We don't ever want to continue doing just what we're doing. We want to continue to do even better. Our economic competitiveness is being challenged by rising costs, the impact of federal workforce reductions, and fierce competition from other

[00:02:14] jurisdictions, especially those in lower-cost regions. With an amazing foresight and, frankly, a lot of hard work, Chairman McKay introduced the Economic Competitive Board Matter in August 2025. It charged county staff with input from external stakeholders to analyze our county's economic position and conduct a thorough review of how we can strengthen our competitive advantage using strategies the county can leverage, economic incentives, workforce development, the regulatory and land development processes, and marketing and communicating our economic

[00:02:48] successes. Today's presentation is the second of two presentations from the Economic Competitiveness Task Force. The first presentation was held on February 10th with a presentation from the Economic Development Authority on the trends impacting our economic position. The task force also delivered a written report on the recommendations, which has been sent in advance of this meeting. We have allocated the entirety of the EIC meeting to this topic today and time for board input and discussion to follow. While we won't have a formal presentation, the meeting materials also include the results of

[00:03:24] the spring 2026 Fairfax County Small Business Pulse Survey, which I'm really pleased that we continue to do. And thank you, Rebecca. I think it's a powerful source. And those of you who know our and been to our board meetings know I always pick a few items out of it just to remind people who don't believe it that this economy still continues to grow here and is the envy of the rest of the state. And even though folks may argue otherwise, I'm proud of it. And this board should be proud of it. And obviously all the folks who are key parts of making that happen. We won't have a

[00:03:59] The third is an ongoing series to monitor our business community's response to the current economic landscape. If we have time at the end, Rebecca will provide a brief summary of the survey findings. With that, I think we can get started.

[00:04:14] Today's meeting is about looking squarely at our economic position, our considerable strengths and assets, and building on these, pivoting where we need to, and being ready to build out opportunities for businesses to continue to want to locate here and find opportunity. I'm going to turn it over now to Jen Miller, our Deputy County Executive, who led the work of both Economic Competitiveness Task Force and the Housing Task Force, and will give us an overview of the structure of today's board presentations.

[00:04:38] Thank you, Supervisor Stork. Jen Miller, Deputy County Executive for Community Development. And that was a great introduction. I think all I will add to that is as a result of the August board matter, I think everyone's tracking the September board matter that was born out of that that addressed one big element of the Economic Competitiveness board matter, and that was housing. So we look forward to discussing that element in the next briefing, which is the Land Use Policy Committee meeting. I just want to say a thanks to our partners at Economic Development Authority and then the team that you see at the table. I know it's atypical to have this size of briefing, but I think it's reflective of the cross-divisional, cross-county

[00:05:15] work that's been done on the various task force and in the subgroup. So I had two rock star project managers on this. So Brie, who you'll hear from in a minute, and Teresa Benacosta, who's here in the back somewhere. And with that, I will turn it over to Brie, and we look forward to your questions at the end. Good morning. My name is Brie Fuller. I'm with the Office of the County Executive. We have, as John mentioned, we have a lot of folks with us today to help with the presentation. We have Tony Castrulli with the Office of Public Affairs, Jamie Gauchet and Rebecca Moundry with the Department of Economic Initiatives, Michael Beckett's, and Daniel

[00:05:53] Mekabib with Family Services, Brandy Mueller with Land Development Services, and Victor Hoskins and Anna Nissenen with the Economic Development Authority. Next slide. Today I will provide some background information and a summary of economic trends, and then I will hand things over to our subgroup leads to report out on our proposed initiatives. Next slide. Fairfax County has long served as the economic engine of the Commonwealth, and this is driven by decades of strategic planning and investments made in various core areas, including quality infrastructure, education,

[00:06:28] and a strong workforce. However, we are facing increasing competition from other jurisdictions in addition to recent pressures, including federal cuts and the rising cost of living. An Economic Competitiveness Task Force was born out of a 2025 board matter to address these issues.

[00:06:46] The task force was comprised of staff from various different departments and our friends at the EDA, as well as some external stakeholder partners as well. The purpose of the task force was to assess current economic trends, to review trends in business attraction and retention, and to analyze our competitors. At the same time, looking at how we do things currently and how we might be able to do things differently to enhance our competitive edge. This is generally to lean even further into a competitive mindset in light of current trends. The task force was concurrent with the housing task force that Jen mentioned that we'll be reporting out today.

[00:07:23] Numerous initiatives are addressed by both task forces, particularly as they pertain to the land development process. And each initiative has a lot of additional details in the report that you all have. There's metrics and more detailed timelines and descriptions. The task force started by creating foundational statements to help guide its work. This gave the task force a common purpose while at the same time addressing the issue from various different angles. Our vision is that

[00:08:01] Fairfax County is a place where diverse businesses and people choose to locate and thrive, and the core mandate was to provide findings and recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. Next slide. The task force was divided into five subgroups, each representing elements that were identified in the board matter itself. These subgroups looked at assessing economic trends over time, marketing successes to residents, evolving the development process, leveraging incentives, and accelerating workforce development. The common purpose of all those together is strengthening Fairfax County's economic competitiveness. Next slide. So after the

[00:08:39] August board matter, the task force kicked off in the fall and started bi-monthly meetings that carried throughout the process. In addition to those bi-monthly meetings, subgroups met in between those meetings. In February, the EDA and DEI presented initial data on economic trends to this committee to provide some baseline information that was requested in the board matter. At the same time, specific initiatives were being finalized by the task force. In March, staff engaged with the development community on the initiatives related to the development process, and those were included with the outreach for the housing task force given the topical overlap between the two. In April,

[00:09:14] the final report was disseminated to the board, leading us to today's report out meeting. Next slide. As I mentioned in the previous slide, the EDA had reported out on initial data to this Committee on February 10th. This included an analysis of key economic trends that highlight the county's competitive position. And I'm just going to briefly recap the analysis to provide some context for the proposed initiatives that we'll be discussing today. Next slide. The EDA's analysis showed that Fairfax County maintains a strong, stable, and resilient economy that is characterized by GDP growth, a highly talented workforce, and consumer spending that

[00:09:52] remains resilient. Despite those assets, 2025 did bring some new challenges. Those include rising unemployment, job losses for federal workers, and challenge growing challenges and attracting younger workers, which are critical to maintaining a robust talent pipeline. There's also increasing competition for emerging sectors. Fairfax County has the highest concentration of professional sector employment in the nation, but the five-year projected growth rate for the sector is lower than that of the U.S. average. While we have higher rates of employers in multiple high-growth sectors, the national averages. Startup formation and scaling for new firms trails peer jurisdictions,

[00:10:31] particularly those in the Sunbelt region. Fairfax County has a lot of assets in our built environment that are attractive to businesses, and office vacancies are showing signs of stabilization. At the same time, the growing costs of living and of doing business are continuing to pose challenges for employers, workers, and residents. These findings provided a baseline for how the task force sought to address the challenges ahead and identify opportunities to enhance our current strategies. So I am now going to turn over the presentation to our subgroup leads to report out on our proposed initiatives. Next slide. And we will start with marketing our successes. Next slide.

[00:11:08] Thank you. Thank you, Bree. I'm Tony Castorle, Director of the Office of Public Affairs. The marketing and communication team is excited to lead off the subcommittee group lineup here this morning. We began by identifying the key challenges and opportunities shaping Fairfax County's economic future and where our communication efforts could have the biggest impact. One theme rose to the top, helping residents better understand how economic performance connects to the key issues that they care about. In today's fragmented media environment where attention is increasingly divided, our goal

[00:11:48] is to tell the relevant stories that resonate with residents and help them understand why economic performance matters, because it shapes county services, opportunity, affordability, and quality of life. You can go to the next slide. I'm going to spend the most time here.

[00:12:05] These are the primary ways we believe communications can strengthen and support the County's broader economic efforts. First, this committee has developed several actionable initiatives intended to strengthen Fairfax County's economic competitiveness. You'll hear more about all those in a moment, but from a communications perspective, our priority will be to work alongside the team and tell the story of these efforts like incentives and accelerator programs and their impact. Second, we know objective media coverage is still one of the

[00:12:39] most effective ways to significantly amplify our message and expand its reach. We see a real opportunity here. I'll share some successes in a moment, but business media, broadcast outlets, hyper-local media, and influencers have been highly receptive to our stories and pitches regarding Fairfax County's economic work, and we plan to pursue those opportunities intentionally and consistently. Third, OPA already collaborates regularly with agencies like DEI, DMB, and of course EDA. And we have strong working relationships in place. However, we believe there's an opportunity to formalize and strengthen the coordination. So moving forward, OPA will

[00:13:17] convene a multi-agency team to focus on aligning messages and identifying opportunities. This team will reach out to agencies and subject matter experts as we move forward. Fourth, public education will be an important part of this initiative. Economic performance and state funding have a direct effect on our local budget. This committee is very familiar with the Weldon Cooper study, but we believe there's an opportunity to help the broader community better understand these connections. Message development for this work is complete and ready to be deployed as part of the long-term strategy. Fifth, budget season remains a strong opportunity to connect economic success

[00:13:54] to issues residents are already paying attention to. We recommend using our full communications toolkit during the annual budget process to better connect economic performance with our annual budget and policy decisions. One recent example was the March edition of the CEX podcast, Connect with County Leaders with Chairman McKay, which helped reinforce our messaging and provide context for residents. Finally, as we often say, our website is the front door to Fairfax County.

[00:14:18] We are recommending a strong centralized hub for county economic and fiscal information, a single source that can house context, data, tools, and updates, and that can be consistently shared through our social channels and partner communications. You can go to the next slide.

[00:14:34] Here are a few highlights of the Economic Performance Web Hub, which is already ready to launch and designed to serve as a centralized resource for economic and fiscal information. It'll include key indicators, shareable message toolkit for board offices, partners, and stakeholders, information about economic performance, connection to budget decisions, economic data, and it'll have a recent news item section.

[00:14:58] Finally, I want to share a few recent examples of earned media success. We've already seen how this approach works. You can go to the next slide. First is a story from the Washington Business Journal on the Blue Sky Innovators announcement, which resulted from an EDA-led national media campaign.

[00:15:18] Closer to home, Fairfax now covered a county-supported small business assistance program following a county-led news release. And TOP recently revisited the county's pivot grant program after a targeted pitch focused on one simple question, was the program successful?

[00:15:35] And as T.O.P. reported, Terry Clower, director of GMU's Center for Regional Analysis, said, quote, did the program help businesses survive the pandemic? The best evidence we have based on surveys and analysis is yes. Yes, it did. End quote. And I'll end with that positive statement and turn it over to my friends at DEI. Thank you, Tony. Good morning, everyone. Jamie Gauthier, part of the team at the Department of Economic Initiatives. Next slide, please. So what were

[00:16:09] the issues front and center for us. From the chairman's original board matter, we were charged with looking at the effectiveness of both the financial and non-financial incentives. How do we interact with members of the business community, right? As well as future members of the business community, prospects in the economic development world. As has already been stated, there is increase competition nationally around innovation-based economic development. And something

[00:16:42] DEI has been focused on for a couple of years now, how do we increase access to innovation-based funding for entrepreneurs, specifically around venture capital and access to angel capital networks? Regionally, the rate of entrepreneurship is not what it used to be. And then lastly, of course, we want to maximize the leverage for state incentive programs, specifically around identifying options for local match such that we can pull down state incentives. And along those

[00:17:19] lines, next slide, please, our analysis led us to examine several ways in which we can improve the economic development environment. First and foremost, as I just mentioned, expanding the number and type of local match options. As an example, my colleagues at DEI recently used proceeds from the plastic bag tax to pull down a state incentive to help a local entrepreneur

[00:17:52] who has a technology focused on the circular economy recycling. Secondly, as mentioned in the chairman's guidance during the, or the chairman's budget guidance, excuse me, last month, there's an opportunity to look at the EOR, the Economic Opportunity Reserve, and craft a solution that better fits our current economic environment.

[00:18:18] And our group also suggested that we double down on several programs that have demonstrated some success, namely the Founders Fund, the Accelerate Breakfast Series, which continues to be very successful for us. I know my colleagues at the EDA have worked very closely with Connected DMV around Space Next and the Quantum World Congress. We want to continue those efforts, and we want to also continue innovation job fairs. Those have been successful for us. And this morning, we're

[00:18:51] bringing forward a new initiative, specifically a technology business accelerator. So accelerators, Next slide, please. Accelerators exist largely to reduce the time it takes for a young innovation company to bring their technology to market. And by doing that, they also reduce the costs associated with that. They mitigate some of the risks that are inherent in that dynamic.

[00:19:21] And we feel that there is an opportunity specifically around geospatial intelligence, space and aerospace technologies, as well as dual-use technologies, those that have both a military and a civilian or commercial market opportunity. As many accelerators provide, we see this as an opportunity for mentorship and commercialization support, potential outcomes, increase to defense networks, and increase to investment networks, venture capital and angel

[00:19:57] capital investment specifically. We foresee an increase in the number of firms that are created, technology-based firms in these technology disciplines. Their ability to scale would be improved, and we expect additional spinoff activity in the county. And that would increase economic diversity, and we see some activity across innovation-driven sectors. It would require additional resources, specifically support for a contract for the technology accelerator, right?

[00:20:32] We expect someone to manage this on behalf of the county. Next slide, please. If you're unfamiliar with accelerators, generally they help young innovation companies with their technology.

[00:20:49] That technology usually has to be refined or go through some evolution before it's ready for market adoption. They also help young companies with what I refer to as business model clarity. They help identify markets and prioritize markets for these young companies.

[00:21:08] They also help these young companies build out their team. It's not uncommon for a researcher to happen upon a discovery that in turn has some commercial opportunity associated with it, but that researcher probably does not have any entrepreneurial experience or business experience, so they help folks in that situation build out the team. They usually provide some seed investment and warm handoffs to other venture capitals and angel investors, and they provide

[00:21:45] ongoing mentorship and access to networks. I've included some reasonable examples of existing accelerators here. Some of them have been here for over 10 years, maybe 12 years, and some of them are relatively new. There is a life science accelerator in Charlottesville. The Seaville Biohub, Charlottesville Biohub, received $4.3 million from Go Virginia to stand that up, just for reference, right? And they received additional support from

[00:22:24] Albemarle County, from the city of Charlottesville, and from UVA. Some of you might be familiar with that. Secondly, Halcyon, one of the most prolific accelerators in the region. They're based in Washington, D.C. They've been around for quite some time. For reference, they have helped their young member companies develop over $850 million in additional investment capital.

[00:22:54] They focus on health. They focus on equity. They focus on climate-based technologies. Lighthouse Labs is down in Richmond. They are more technology agnostic, but they have helped their member companies access in excess of $450 million of additional investment monies.

[00:23:19] And lastly, a newcomer to the list, Smart City Works. They have recently stood up something they call an actuator. It's an accelerator, and they're focused on what they refer to as urban infrastructure. They are relatively new. And some of you might recognize Smart City Works.

[00:23:39] we have worked with them over the years at DEI. So with that, I will appreciate to answer any questions you might have, and I will hand it all to our workforce group at this point in time. Good morning. Michael Beckett's director for the Department of Family Services.

[00:23:58] Over the past several months, the workforce development subgroup took a deep dive to examine our workforce development system and found that while our system partners are doing good work every day, our efforts are not always keeping with the pace of change and lacks coordination. Multiple agencies and organizations, including but not limited to the Department of Family Services, Economic Initiatives, the EDA, our public school systems, community college, sort of partners, are all doing important work to connect the business community to job seekers and job seekers to businesses. But we're doing this without a shared strategy. And without a shared strategy, there's no shared accountability.

[00:24:38] through metrics, outcomes, or coordinated deployment of resources. So the business community and residents experience our system as overly complex and uncoordinated. We also recognize that funding is constrained and inflexible. Our workforce development system relies heavily on WIOA, which is narrow in scope, declining in size, and not easily adjustable to a local economic competitiveness agenda. That makes it hard to invest in innovative or rapid response solutions as employers' needs change, and the lack of coordination leads to inefficiencies.

[00:25:14] We also recognize that education and training programs are not consistently built around employer demand in emerging sectors. Too often, programs are designed from the service provider's perspective and not the employer's, leading to a skills mismatch. Residents who fit the ALIS criteria, being asset-limited, income-constrained, and employed, along with people who are trying to change careers, or are even displaced often can't easily navigate our system or access supports needed to move into better paying roles. These structural issues are shown clearly in the data.

[00:25:51] We've seen about a one percentage point increase year over year in the unemployment rate. Open jobs in Fairfax County have decreased by roughly 20% since January of 2025, and about 13,000 federal workers in Northern Virginia have been impacted through dislocation in the federal workforce. A recent survey of business leaders cite federal cuts as a primary concern in the regional economy. Even when there are improvements in our services and opportunities, our structural challenges remain. We have fragmented governance, constrained funding, misaligned training

[00:26:30] opportunities, and residents falling through the cracks. All of this is happening in a rapidly changing labor market. And these are the problems that we're trying to solve. Daniel and Rebecca would discuss an approach for better coordination across our system.

[00:26:47] Good morning. Daniel McVeve, Assistant Region Director for Workforce Development in Department of Family Services. Before I continue with specific recommendations, I would like to mention that in addition to the entities Michael mentioned earlier, we also engaged the business community in terms of capturing their voice in coming up with the recommendations and also our regional partners, including the community college and, of course, our own Fairfax County public school system. So we have two sets of recommendations. The first one, which we considered the primary

[00:27:25] initiative, and then the secondary initiatives made up of four specific recommendations. The first one is establishing an Office of Workforce Competitiveness and Advancement as a centralized coordinating unit, the strategic engine that coordinates a shared workforce strategy across agencies and organizations mentioned earlier.

[00:27:48] Without such a system-level coordination, the rest of the initiatives that I'll be talking about, while they will continue to be relevant, they could risk staying fragmented. And the second set of recommendations include these four.

[00:28:03] The first one is supporting initiatives in closing the funding gap. This initiative aims at building a flexible capital stock, bringing together different sources of funding, including philanthropy, private investment, and additional public dollars through grants and other vehicles to reduce dependence on the shrinking and inflexible and hard to adjust to local economic competitiveness agenda, this WIOA funds, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funds.

[00:28:37] The second one is continuing our work in supporting the federal talent pipeline initiatives, including focusing on workers affected by the federal workforce reduction, and especially those with security clearance, because one of the priority needs that the business community highlighted is how long it takes to clear individuals and to get them to jobs that they are desperately needed. So we aim to help them transition into federal contracting and local

[00:29:12] jobs as well as private sector roles, retaining their skills in the region and their purchasing power and everything that they would do to support our local economy instead of losing them to other markets. Third, the skills accelerator creates a structured demand-driven channel between employer needs and training supplies.

[00:29:35] And this is primarily to meet the skills gap challenge that continues not only in our area but across the U.S. We work directly with employers in key sectors in education and training institutions to define and map out required skills and then align training programs so residents are job ready for those roles in partnership with all the key actors.

[00:30:00] And finally, the Alice Workforce Pathways Initiative is targeted a solution for working individuals who still struggle to meet their needs and want help to become more economically mobile. The Pathways will be realistic and designed with flexible schedules, support for child care and transportation as needed, and a clear navigation so that the Alice Asset Limited income constraint, but employed segment of our population can move into higher mobility, better wage careers.

[00:30:35] In closing, the Office of Workforce competitiveness and advancement gives us the structure and accountability we need. And these four initiatives, including funding, federal talent, sector skills, and the Alice Pathways are all levers that such an office would use to transform a fragmented, under-resourced system into one that is coordinated, flexible, and inclusive, and that will drive economic competitiveness agenda in Fairfax.

[00:31:03] Good morning. I'm Rebecca Mowdry. I'm the director of the Fairfax County Department of Economic Initiatives, and I'm going to kind of zoom in on what Michael and Daniel just discussed, our primary recommendation, the primary initiative that kind of the other components fall under, which is a workforce competitiveness office or a team. The core function of this officer team would be to better align our workforce and economic development functions. As Michael mentioned, our team has the right players, our system has the right players, and many of those players

[00:31:43] were involved in the creation of this analysis and the recommendations. But what's been missing is a shared strategy and clear accountability. So the Workforce Competitiveness Office would help change that and serve as a designated lead to align partner agencies and private employers, leverage their distinct expertise and distinct roles to drive coordinated impact. So what would this look like? For businesses entering or expanding in Fairfax County, the office would be their dedicated workforce partner, which would be aligned with county agencies and partners and

[00:32:22] focused on workforce and embedded with our economic development teams so that talent strategy and business growth work in tandem. For residents, the office would help remove the maze of disconnected programs that residents may face and create a single access point to navigate to good jobs into training opportunities. So by aligning every partner from agencies, employers, and educators, and education systems, aligning around common outcomes and metrics, the workforce

[00:32:58] competitiveness team ensures efforts build on each other rather than duplicating or work at cross-purposes. Shared accountability would look like a dashboard and an annual scorecard, giving county leaders and partners a common view of the labor market and performance.

[00:33:19] Areas of focus for this office or this team would include the four initiatives that Daniel just walked through, Capital Stack, Federal Talent Pipeline, Sector Skills Accelerator, and ALICE Pathways. This model that we're proposing today follows a growing national trend.

[00:33:39] regions like Opportunity Austin, San Diego, and Seattle King County have similar centralized workforce structures. And those regions show and those systems show that when you align workforce and economic development under one entity and more closely, you can respond faster to employer needs and deliver better outcomes for residents. So the proposed Workforce Competitiveness Office is kind of Fairfax County's opportunity or a way to stay competitive, ensure our workforce system is as proactive, coordinated, and inclusive as possible.

[00:34:18] Thank you. Sorry, I'm turning over to my colleague, Brandy Mueller. Brandy, please go ahead. Hi, good morning. My name is Brandy Mueller. I'm the Director of Permitting and Code Administration with Land Development Services.

[00:34:35] And we're going to talk about evolving the development process. So staff developed a coordinated set of initiatives to support the economic competitiveness effort, and it was focused on evolving and enhancing the development process. These initiatives aim to improve speed, predictability, and transparency, to reduce redundancy, improve the customer experience, and more importantly, provide measurable performance data that will improve that communication with our applicants on where we are.

[00:35:05] Additionally, as noted earlier in the presentation, we have a coordinated set of initiatives that span both this task force as well as the housing production task force. And accordingly, industry stakeholder engagement was performed under that task force, but included all of the development-related initiatives you'll hear about today.

[00:35:24] Additionally, we have expanded on prior proposals and incorporated existing proposals, reflected the board's feedback, as well as incorporated input from recent industry and staff whiteboarding sessions to inform the decisions we have today. Next slide. So we plan to focus on advancing digital modernization and expanding automation by modernizing how our work is tracked, managed, and communicated through improved use of data, dashboards, as well as plus system capabilities. So we're looking at ways to leverage the existing system capabilities to automate and optimize commercial building records

[00:36:04] and the plus system abilities so that we can report more effectively with the use of dashboards, but also improve the efficiencies of the system that we have today. We're also evaluating opportunities for AI-enabled compliance tools to further that availability. Related to that, we will also improve predictability through timelines and, again, performance metrics.

[00:36:26] So a central theme between both the Department of Planning and LDS is to establish clear goal timelines for these key review phases in our various applications and record types, and then to document against those targets and improve transparency through regular reporting of those metrics.

[00:36:45] LDS specifically is working to enhance our customer-facing metric dashboards. We want to provide clear project-based visibility into our timelines and statuses while also incorporating data from both the fire marshal review team as well as zoning permits to inform the overall project status.

[00:37:04] This aligns expectations early and reduces uncertainty while also supporting the board's emphasis, again, on those goal timelines, performance tracking, and understanding the cause of delays when timelines are exceeded. I also want to note that LDS plans to create more project-based tools to allow applicants to see overall what the expectation is to construct or implement that project in Fairfax County, and then to dive deeper into specific applications to know where does my project stand, how long should this step take, and where delays occur and why.

[00:37:38] And we believe over time this consistent performance tracking and visibility can serve as a competitive advantage when coordinated with our economic development partners, such as the EDA, and improving that predictability to construct in Fairfax County. Next slide.

[00:37:55] Our third area of focus is code simplification and elimination of redundancy. LDS is actively working to identify and remove conflicting, redundant, or unnecessarily complex code requirements and policy requirements.

[00:38:10] This includes reviewing the public facilities manual and broader county policies to streamline those provisions and improve overall clarity for staff as well as an applicant or submitter. We're also evaluating specific technical and procedural requirements informed by, again, those stakeholder engagements, such as the reliance on professional engineer PE seals for certain site plan elements and the site plan submission requirements overall in partnership with industry. Additionally, we plan to publish our third-party quality control comment review

[00:38:46] report. This measures staff's effectiveness in meeting our comment expectations and is used to establish a feedback loop both with industry, with the board, and others that are interested and inform coaching and training of how we're doing against those expectations. And our final slide for evolving the development process highlights those initiatives which focus on streamlining planning, entitlement, and permitting pathways. So LDS is developing and formalizing streamlined review pathways for qualifying projects. This includes creating

[00:39:20] tiered building plan review pathways based on project complexity, effectively reducing our standard 39-day review timeline currently for certain commercial projects all the way down to 14 days for tenant fit-out and most impressively one day for commercial fast-track projects that qualify yes pause for Recently, we've also launched the tenant support services pilot program as Tony shared on one of the hubs For small business projects what we're doing is establishing a dedicated point of contact in land development services

[00:40:00] that helps with that early intervention, planning, selecting a space, evaluating the compliance, determining if permitting and what type of permitting is required, and overall providing a faster time to market. Within the first 30 days, we've already assisted eight successful projects. These approaches allow projects to be processed more efficiently by aligning reviews with the overall complexity of the project, and that's how we're getting to streamline. It's not expediting, it's streamlining and matching the complexity with a turnaround. We're also evaluating the feasibility of safely providing field-approved deviations for building-related

[00:40:37] inspections, and hopefully sharing that with our fire marshal partners, in lieu of requiring a formal plan revision, where that makes sense and, again, be performed safely. And also, we're going to be publishing common submission errors that may delay approvals for both site and building submissions, including intake, formal plan review, and inspection deviations. Lastly, we aim to integrate economic development policy plan objectives into our area-wide planning, our studies in zoning entitlement cases. We believe these streamlined mechanisms aim to maintain regulatory integrity, but also improve the overall predictability of the development

[00:41:16] process. And we want to look at that from entitlement all the way through to occupancy. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Jen Miller. Again, thank you for your stamina. This is the final substantive slide before we get to the way ahead. So the real estate opportunities team is not a function that we currently have.

[00:41:34] A lot of our real estate opportunities come to us because a developer identifies an opportunity and we evaluate it. The intent of the real estate opportunity is to really look proactively at residential, commercial, and community-serving infrastructure that we can identify. We're already gathering a wholesale list of all of the county-owned property, starting to partner with the schools and looking where do we have the opportunity to leverage our assets or even acquire additional assets to pursue county priorities.

[00:42:01] So we have one person on this team that, thank you, that was provided and will look to carry over potential funds, but the beauty of this, we've actually done a pretty thorough return on investment, and this will actually be a cost-neutral or cost-beneficial initiative.

[00:42:16] Just an initial return on investment showed us that, just as an example, there's three county-owned properties that we believe are ripe for a P3 partnership that could bring in just under $3 million in new annual real estate. We've also looked at underperforming privately held office buildings. One in Tyson's, for example, just by accelerating it and putting the staff to accelerate that for two years could generate over $4 million in tax revenue. There's a lot of opportunities. We have a long list, and so we look forward to allocating our assets to pursuing those.

[00:42:48] As we conclude the final, before I turn it over to Bree, one thing I would like to emphasize is I know these could sound like theoretical initiatives we've thrown a lot at you. One of the things in the report that I really appreciate is for each one of these, it includes what the description of the initiative is, what the outcome is, what the KPIs are, what our timeline is for accomplishing each of those, and what resources are required so that we can hold the team accountable for implementing and staying on timeline with the implementation of these initiatives.

[00:43:17] Over to you, Bree. Thank you. And just to conclude the presentation, just wanted to note that various initiatives have already begun implementation, and we are expecting implementation to go through early fiscal year 2029. Although, as you've seen and heard, there are various decision points and resource asks.

[00:43:37] There will be ongoing monitoring of the efforts with biannual progress reporting, and we are exploring using a dashboard to report out as well. So thank you all so much, and we are happy to answer any questions you have. Well, thank you all, and it is a lot to throw at us, for sure.

[00:43:54] But I think we all have been feeling and having a sense of how do we get us past where we've been and knowing that we put really this day together essentially to take that deeper dive, which is what, as a board, we don't always get the opportunity to do.

[00:44:12] So having this deeper dive, and this is the first of really two more meetings where we'll be talking about these issues, and we know they're all deeply interrelated. So thank you all very much for getting us started. And with that, I'm going to turn to the chairman. Yeah, thank you, Dan.

[00:44:29] And first, I do want to thank the whole team that's been here, giving this presentation and all the folks that aren't at the table who played a role in getting us to this point as well. And I certainly want to thank my colleagues for supporting the board matter in August. I think for most of us, you know, we pass board matters.

[00:44:48] we hope something positive comes back. In this case, we literally built an army to work on this. And I think that's substantive and important, because if we don't have the collaboration of so many different agencies working together, then we have the stovepipes that get projects and initiatives caught up. And I think what's really important, not only for our staff, but for our residents and the board to see in action is how important economic development is to so many functions we have in the county. It's not just important to DEI. It's not just important to the

[00:45:24] EDA. It's important to the entire community. Without that economic development, you don't have the revenue to pay for the services that people in this county rely on and why they come here in the first place. And so I think this is, I love the tie to the budget. I love the tie to communications. I love the tie down to the technical things that we need to do to continue to be successful. I also love the place setting because we are at the top. But we also acknowledge to stay at the top, you have to always reinvent, re-engineer, you know, think collectively about

[00:46:00] how we can do better. And I, you know, obviously we all acknowledge, and we've talked about this for a long time, there is a federal siege happening. And there's nowhere we can go, there's nowhere I go, where people don't talk about that. From the federal contractors to the federal workforce to our small businesses. And the statistics are clear. I mean, in the Pulse survey that was done, 67% of our businesses have seen a decrease in the last six months in federal

[00:46:32] contracts. 67%. And so the acknowledgement that a lot of things are happening to us that most of us don't support is fine, but it's what are you going to do about it? And I think what we need to realize in the county is we've been put in an uncomfortable position, but uncomfortable positions can also turn into policy changes and realignments that will help long-term the county's support. And so I appreciate that place setting of why are we where we are today, and then what are we going

[00:47:07] to do about it? And so I appreciate that in the presentation. Just a few things I just want to emphasize, because it was a lot to take in, and we've reserved a good amount of time here to have board conversation, but this is going to be an ongoing conversation per your timeline. And I would just say, in the interest of speed, whatever we can do, and I appreciate that a lot of things that have presented here are already ongoing. And Kathy and I have seen this quite clearly when it comes to LDS in the work that's being done with the roundtable, the chairman's roundtable on our

[00:47:43] development process. And Brandy, thank you for you and your team and everything you're doing, because where you're heading in terms of timeframes with LDS is really important. We need to blend that with DPZ and hold ourselves as a board accountable too for how long it takes to get planning and zoning applications approved, but then on the back end, using technology, using transparency, and using predictability for people when they get into the development process is really, really important in that time to market and cost avenue.

[00:48:17] Let's just put it that way. I do appreciate the workforce initiatives, the accelerators. I think all of those things are necessary. The point that was made about maximizing state dollars is really important because I have seen firsthand, and I know many of us have seen some recent initiatives at the state level and leadership at the state level that wants to partner with Fairfax County and recognizes the power of our people and our economy.

[00:48:49] And I think we have a beautiful opening right here to take advantage of maximizing every state dollar we can, leaning into folks who understand economic development, understand the powerhouse that is Fairfax County to the overall state's economy and want to continue to make that happen.

[00:49:08] I do want to thank you for the real estate opportunities team. You know, we had the follow-up board matter looking specifically at vacant office space and you've touched on that, but I do think it's going to be really important for us to have this team, because we can no longer just be reactive. We must be proactive. When we see vacant office buildings, and we had the EDA presentations on some of these office buildings that are probably never going to be repopulated, that is hurting not just that owner of that building, it is hurting the entire ecosystem around that building. Having a vacant building

[00:49:47] is the worst thing in terms of economic development, and the faster we can get those either repurposed or redeveloped, recognizing that those 1980s and 90s office buildings are not where people want to work today, that's in everyone's interest to do that. And I think being proactive about that and looking at the ROI pieces is really important. I do, you know, I am excited about the communications piece, and I appreciate what Tony has presented, because I have said this for a long time in the county that we have a lot of different messaging going on depending on who's

[00:50:25] signed up for which service or who's looking at which social media account and I think looking at coordinating and aligning those messages across all of our agencies including EDA I think is really going to be important moving forward. I know there's various different communities that you want to reach and they're going to be more interested in very much more detailed communications.

[00:50:49] I think our overall communication strategy should start with the foundation that was mentioned, which is resident relevant. So many of the CEOs and C-suite people who are making decisions about how they want to grow their businesses or looking at how to expand, many of them are also residents of the county.

[00:51:11] And I think we forget that sometimes. We certainly forget in our messaging with economic development about the tie back to the budget. And I think a lot of times we rest on our laurels as being successful without reminding people how we are successful.

[00:51:27] And I think reminding people how we are successful is really important, not only for growing future business opportunities, but also for reminding our residents. I talk about gratefulness a lot. I think we take for granted the position that we're in, and reminding our residents of that, I think, is a really important thing to do as part of that proactive piece that we're talking about.

[00:51:50] So I know there's a lot more information that's going to come back to us in drips and drabs, so to speak, over the timeline that is here. I do want to acknowledge that there's a lot of this that is ongoing. I want to acknowledge that a lot of this is stuff that people just expect, and they should expect, that a county sophisticated and as forward-thinking as Fairfax County is just doing.

[00:52:15] The use of dashboards, the use of data to drive decision-making is what we assume is happening. We're getting confirmation of that. We want that to continue to happen in an accelerated way. But I'll just close by saying I, for one, appreciate the amount of time and attention that has gone into this.

[00:52:37] I appreciate that there are some new initiatives in here, and there are a lot of things in here that we can just improve upon within our existing organizations. And I appreciate that because the time is now to ratchet up the temperature on this stuff.

[00:52:54] And when you place that at the beginning and you talked about the pressures that we are facing, many of these are pressures people all over the country are facing. These are not unique to Fairfax County. They are not a result of a failure in Fairfax County to lead the state as we continue to do.

[00:53:11] I think it's just a reflection point for us philosophically to think a lot differently in terms of our aggressiveness and our proactive approach to these things. And I think that's really what this is all about in my mind, and that's where speed, consistency, predictability, messaging, innovation, all of those things come together.

[00:53:34] And I'm going to thank everyone who's worked on this, but more importantly, commit to making sure that the things that are on this paper materialize into actual operational efficiencies and improvements across all of our county agencies.

[00:53:50] And I thank you, Jen, for coordinating this because it's a lot to coordinate. I think my colleagues have seen this has been a lot to coordinate and a lot to chew on. But this is first class in terms of responsiveness to an important board matter. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[00:54:07] Did you all have any particular comments you wanted to make on that? Okay. And resident relevant, I think, is the core messaging here. You know, what's the impact on our residents? How is it going to cost me more, cost me less? how do I continue to live and work and play and learn in a place that I love, which is Fairfax County. And if anybody had any doubt about that impact, there was an article in the paper yesterday about the food nutrition services and, frankly, the effort to dismantle that organization, at least locally. And there's no doubt, as somebody who's worked with that organization

[00:54:42] for more than 40 years, there's no doubt the impact will be severe in terms of its efficiency and effectiveness and impact on food and nutrition services, the foundational parts of what we, I think, believe in in terms of people having the right to good health, et cetera.

[00:55:00] Supervisor Palchuk, I have you next, and then I have Supervisor Laskin, then Supervisor Beerman. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate the words of the chairman. Thank you, Jennifer, and the entire team. It's really good to see you all here. This is what I think we all hope is happening all the time, and I know we're a big county where there were a million residents and 400 square miles.

[00:55:19] So how do we bring it down to the individual, the business, and the community level is what I'm always asking. So I agree with the chairman that I think a few of the new initiatives are really important, like the real estate coordination. I know some of that has often been put on each supervisor to kind of think about that, and that's not necessarily our expertise, but we are here to partner with you to help figure out how to bring that forward.

[00:55:47] I have two areas that I think are really exciting, and a couple that I have maybe questions I want to continue to understand further. So in addition to real estate coordination, the permitting, I was just with a longtime resident and small contractor yesterday, and I cannot share his frustration enough, how he felt it was working, and then we've depersonalized it and made it much, much more difficult to answer a quick question that maybe he could get a permit in a day before, and now it takes up to a week just to hear back.

[00:56:20] So I think, to me, when we think about our big businesses, the ones that EDA is bringing in, we can't forget that 95% of our businesses have less than 50 employees, if that's correct. And according to here, 42% are home residents, home businesses, right?

[00:56:40] So to me, it's still how do we make that line between those really, really big, some Fortune 500 companies that may come, may go, have less of an attachment to Fairfax County, and the ones that are starting in people's homes. Appian started in the CEO's basement, right?

[00:56:57] And he's doubled down, and Appian is one of our biggest companies. And so to me, that's the question I still have is from telling the stories and working with each agency to create toolkits that make it easier to tell those personal stories, right?

[00:57:14] Dashboards and data are great, but there's a story and more information behind each of those. So I think that's an area of a lot of growth and opportunity. I'd love to make sure we're really doubling down on those stories. I still haven't quite seen that, and I'll continue to follow that.

[00:57:32] It might even be by geography, 400 square miles, right? But people know they live in Annandale, Tysons, Reston, and each of those has a special sauce, right? So let's not try to water down and have everything everywhere, right? But think about what is, you know, I would say the cultural hub of Fairfax and Mason District, the Silver Line, the innovation corridors, you know, Mount Vernon, each area has its own unique space. So I hope as

[00:58:06] we streamline some of this, we still think about for the tiered businesses, I would also say tiered support across the board, right? So whether it's for our smaller businesses, in-home businesses, permitting and, right, business support, tax understanding support, all of that support, the one door for those businesses understanding that's going to be a little different um and the marketing that i think we need to ramp up and then for our bigger um organizations that are here that we're hoping to attract here what does it look like for them so i hope as we're breaking it down

[00:58:44] to everything we do as a county we are big and that's great but also makes it a challenge to think about our clients um and our residents so that's where i'm hopeful and i guess if you could just share with me in addition to the dashboards, I think it was in here, but what is the plan of iterating, understanding, studying, and bringing the progress back to our board?

[00:59:06] So Land Development Services, and Brandy touched on it a little bit, has really done an outstanding job of publishing metrics, and it shows every week where they are in terms of every type of permit, what their average turn time is, and then they show in yellow if they are exceeding the permit time. And they have additional rollouts coming of the few areas that they weren't currently measuring. But that's really been a focus. You've heard a couple of the initiatives with residential and commercial upcoming on the fast track, which I think will really help so that we can create the tiering of which type of services we provide. I also think we do have in-house

[00:59:43] personal hand-holding service available. It's spread out right now in the building. When we bring it down to the first floor and anyone can walk in and get the hands-on help in a visible way. I think that will make some progress toward it. When we talk about the Department of Planning and Development, there's a series of published metrics that they are scheduling, you hear about the next meeting, to come out in June with the remainder done through the rest of the year that will be similar to what we have in land development services that shows what the average turn time is for the various processes and whether we're ahead or behind of that process. And of course, there will still be frustrations for every yellow or red where we exceed what the average time is

[01:00:22] there's a story behind it and i've mentioned before one of the things i appreciate that bill and brandy have been able to do is in some areas look at where our bottlenecks are and say if we add one additional person how much permit time could we change for the average turn of this permit i would like to be able to do that with every element of the county so that i know where to reallocate and address the bottlenecks rebecca or brandy i didn't know if you wanted to add anything to that question? Okay. I have a follow-up that's maybe related to you. I know, I think you've had staff over at Refraction and Tyson's in-person offering support. I know that our clerk of the court is going to other parts of the county. Is that something we're looking at,

[01:00:58] that in person, some people just need a place they can walk into and maybe aren't close to the government center, but have we thought about having some hubs where we can really bring all that support in one place um yeah i was actually kind of thinking about your question and in relation to the the enhancements that we've engaged in related to small business assistance and what you're talking about is core in the community and my colleague frank coons has been to many of your your districts to really provide their kind of entrepreneurship hours um right to be kind of in location and offer an opportunity to have that face-to-face contact the whole

[01:01:38] point of that is to bring in have an opportunity to to address issues questions and maybe connect them to you know a project manager at land development services if that's an issue or a business guide one of the other pieces that we've talked about that could be that would really be a big differentiator with a real estate opportunities team is actually being kind of like an entry point hub for some property owners or maybe smaller developers that are not as familiar with our system, to help them get on the right track or get connected with the right people or

[01:02:15] information or documents so that they do have a great submission, providing that early entry level assistance so that the whole process is more efficient. And I appreciate that.

[01:02:30] I think that's an area we need to keep looking at because I think we see that for many, and And on this, for many people, it takes a permit accelerator or a lawyer to get through our process, our system. And that is as inequitable as you get, right? And so I just want to make sure that we're sort of comparing our individual residents or small businesses able to easily have facilitation through our process without having to hire outside help.

[01:02:59] To me, that would be a really important metric to have. So thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Powell. I have Supervisor Loss, then I have Supervisor Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll start by saying this is extraordinarily exciting. As a person who's had the opportunity to work in economic development to be able to see the changes that are being proposed here, it's going to make it a lot easier to do the work of the Economic Development Authority to help us be able to bring in more companies and help us grow our commercial tax base.

[01:03:30] This is foundationally significant and important in helping us do that. On the economic incentives, I just wanted to make the point that, and I think the chairman did talk about this, but we're going to be a lot more competitive in this county as a result of having us look at having a local match option.

[01:03:52] As opposed to having infrastructure, we're going to be able to put something else on the table that will make it a little more attractive for some of the companies. when they make decisions, possibly to locate here in Fairfax County. I think that's going to be significant and important and extremely helpful.

[01:04:10] I also appreciate this idea on the business accelerator, and I'll say supporting businesses of really looking at smaller businesses, but also thinking about medium-sized businesses as well, being able to help them scale and grow in this county is going to make a difference.

[01:04:31] And thinking about how companies have decisions. They can choose to locate in Fairfax County. They can choose to locate in Arlington County. They can choose to locate in Washington, D.C. They can move to different places. And we want to be able to help them make the decision to come here to Fairfax and also to stay in Fairfax County.

[01:04:52] And I think the important thing about all this discussion, too, is, Randy, your comments specifically about how we can streamline the process, how we can even get some of the permits done in a day.

[01:05:08] I mean, to me, that's incredible. Just to hear you say that, when I was at the EDA, one of the things that I did was help shepherd companies through some of our regulatory processes. And I'll be honest, it wasn't always easy.

[01:05:23] And I think companies have decisions to make when they are looking at where are they going to be able to get their operations up quickly because time is money. And when we think about it, it's also helpful for the county to be able to have those companies locate quickly because then we can start to gain some revenue from those companies.

[01:05:49] And I think that's an important thing as well. And I'll just say, overall, thinking about the models that we're looking at, and I appreciate this, that Charlottesville model, because that one's been talked about a lot as it relates to having an accelerator and then thinking about Smart City Works.

[01:06:07] I've seen them over the years, and they've been extraordinarily successful. So there are things that we can do here in our community to make a difference for our companies and for our residents as well. So just excited about that. On the workforce, I might ask, and I get the point about the Atlas workers, but I'll also acknowledge that, you know, the underemployed, the opportunity youth, I mean, we've got some significant challenges in some of these other areas as well.

[01:06:42] And I guess the question I'm trying to vet here is how are we going to use some of the programming here to support those that are unemployed, underemployed, and those that are Opportunity Youth?

[01:07:00] I think that's a great question, and I think that our system – let me take a step back. The reason that we highlighted Alice here is because those are people who typically don't qualify for their services that already exist. And I think that when we are really thinking about success and economic mobility, this is about an opportunity to create an environment where we really see a community where everyone can thrive and grow.

[01:07:29] So I don't necessarily see them as separate. I do see them as integrated sort of from the beginning and that some of the resources and services that we have that are slotted specifically for underemployed, unemployed people, we build on those. No, no, I appreciate that very much. And I'm just, it just wasn't as clear.

[01:07:46] I'm not saying that you're not. I'm just trying to understand, like, how is it going to be supportive of those groups as well? Because we know that there are significant challenges there. I'm Supervisor Loss. May I interject? Sure. What Mr. Beckett said is absolutely correct. And as we did our guaranteed income pilot, we're looking at that data to also understand what we can do as a county to help Alice, the Alice population that's associated with our pilot.

[01:08:13] And once we get that data, I think we'll have a better way of addressing what's next and what might be needed for that segment. But like Supervisor Pouchek said, it's different throughout our county. And we have to really understand the landscape and the scope of what we want to do when it comes to Alice and when it comes to all people in Fairfax County.

[01:08:33] But we're on it with that guaranteed pilot. So Mr. Beckett knows I'm looking at it. Ms. Olakoffer knows I'm looking at it. But that's something we have to get in the forefront. Okay. No, no, I appreciate that clarification. And I'll just conclude by saying, again, just really excited about the initiatives that are being brought forward.

[01:08:51] I see that they're going to certainly help make a difference. And it's going to make Fairfax County more competitive. All the things that we're doing here are going to help make a difference. So thank you so very much. Thank you, Supervisor Lousk. I have Supervisor Smith and Beerman, Herity, and Alcorn. Thank you.

[01:09:07] I'm going to pile on to the chairman's thank yous. He did a great job there. Communication. I think one of the hardest parts about communication is reaching people and understanding how they'll understand it. So I think it's important that we do that, but we also hear from constituents about how they understand and how they need things.

[01:09:30] I had a constituent that met with Dan about budget and just a different perspective to understand things. The Economic Opportunity Reserve has always been frustrating to me because it's part of our 10%. So how do you use it? Because you have to refill it. So I'm looking forward to where we go with that.

[01:09:48] The workforce development, Rebecca said the system has the right players but not a coordinated vision of impact. From somebody that served forever on the school board and we were going to bring in STEM to kids in the elementary and then Northern Virginia Regional Commission that's looking should they get involved in workforce, stuff that's happening at the state. There are all these places where this work is happening. And so how do we really coordinate it? How do we have one place where people go?

[01:10:21] I have been very frustrated from presentations at meetings I've been at forever because you hear this group is doing this work and that group is doing that work. So I will look forward to see if we can really do one-stop shopping. The real estate piece. I have people come to me that want to do affordable housing. I don't know where to direct them. And so one of the women came back. She's still trying to look. And so I think this is going to be important in a lot of ways for us to be able to help lead people to where we need stuff and where they can do work.

[01:10:53] And we'll improve the process. The development process, looking at some of that, I think some of what Supervisor Palchuk said about people come in with projects, and it's maybe a sophisticated company or it's somebody at the first time, so I would think some of these tools need to be different. I am concerned and interested to know, as you look at AI and you look at those tools, are we talking about getting rid of employees? Are we talking about providing better tools for employees to do their work? Because in this day and age, when a lot of people are afraid they're not going to have a job. I think we need to be clear and have our expectations with that.

[01:11:33] Part of this sounds like standard operating procedures. We do have turnovers in staff. How do people know? This is how we do that work. Okay. You said you're going to publish the third party quality control comment review report, just to let me know where and when that will be published so it could be looked at. Brittany Mueller, Land Development Services. So I can tell you, it was published last week, so you can see it today after this meeting. You can either find it if you go to the Land Development Services homepage. We have a very clear central location

[01:12:10] for where metrics are with an icon. You hit the metrics button. You will see the published metrics that we do weekly that Jen mentioned. You'll also see the comment results, the report. It's on that same page, so all of our metrics are colloquial. Supervisor Smith, I'll do one better. We'll send you an email. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciated the comment, not expediting, but streamlining. Because when you have expediting, it comes across like certain people get to use that.

[01:12:37] And so I think streamlining is really important. Okay. Thank you. Supervisor Smith, the one question that you'd asked in there about the AI not replacing employees, that is not at all the intent. It's just that you can get to things faster and more efficiently leveraging AI. So we're not looking to replace employees. We're looking to speed up the process.

[01:12:56] Thank you very much. I appreciate that answer. And thank you, Vice Chair Smith. I have Supervisor Bierman, Herity, and Al Cohen. Thank you. Michael and Rebecca, where would the Office of Workforce Competitiveness and Advancement be housed? We have talked about it being housed in the Department of Economic Initiatives.

[01:13:18] Okay. So building on what Supervisor Lusk was talking about, I think it's actually really important to some degree that the Office of Workforce Competitiveness and Advancement address those four areas that I'm on the wrong slide that you were talking about, in part because I think the Department of Family Services is already doing a fantastic job in terms of reaching people who are probably at the lower end of the income spectrum who are looking for their foot in the door. I mean,

[01:13:56] 37,000 visits to our training centers last year, 12,000 people helped. But I think that the area where, candidly, we were not reaching as many people in the last year are when people were losing their GS-11 jobs at the federal government, and they needed help with retraining, reskilling, or how to repackage what they had been doing at the middle of our income spectrum to join a business also at the middle of the income spectrum. So I really like the idea of an

[01:14:32] Office of Workforce Competitiveness and Advancement housed in the Department of Economic Initiatives. I also think it is a communications matter because, you know, I was having federal government work, federal workforce people come to me and say, what are you doing? And then sending them to the Department of Family Services didn't make any sense to them. So I think that's a really great initiative that I support, and I thank you for that. Brandy and Bill, I hope you don't have any moral opposition to it, but we need to clone you. The metrics that you are putting together

[01:15:07] for land development services, we need them across government everywhere. And Brandy, what you said when you said in 30 days we've done eight successful projects, that is success. That needs to be the definition of success for every one of our departments here when we are producing things very quickly and we are getting things through. And with that, I'll leave it up to the rest of you. Thanks. Well, Supervisor Behrman, I want to say thank you for that comment. We've been working for the past eight years trying to understand the data and put the dashboards out and actually take the data from the dashboards to figure out what the next steps is. This board has been very good

[01:15:46] with change sometimes and other times not so this is a part about us changing how we do business and it's going to be a little difficult it's going to be continuing to be bumpy but we do appreciate your comments and thank you for your comments mr hill i have supercharity alcorn and sizemore well interestingly i was going to start with exactly what you just said the big thank you for the residential fast track, and industry is really excited.

[01:16:19] To be able to get a building tenant permit under 10,000 square feet turned around in a day or two really makes a big difference to our industry and economic development and everything else. I've been here a long time, and I remember the study of the culture of no, if you remember, Jeff, and we've been talking about this a long time, and I'm happy to see we're actually making progress towards it.

[01:16:48] A quick apology, because I just sent Bill Hicks. DEQ reduced their permit time by 65%, and it's a program called PEEP.

[01:17:04] And I think sitting down with them and getting some additional lessons learned on how they do that would be a real good additional step for us to do. My question was, are we using AI in that process to look at the PFM, to find the duplications, to look at?

[01:17:24] I assume we are because that's the way of the future, but go ahead if you can. Brandy again with LDL Development Services. Yes, the quick answer to that is yes. That's exactly kind of to Jen's point in answering Supervisor Smith's concern. We're using AI as a tool when we're talking about looking for redundant provisions or conflicting provisions.

[01:17:45] part of that initiative is staff with OCA are using AI to comb through the various code and policy requirements to find those very redundancies. And then staff are informing how to update that and go forward. And I want to also add, we've been doing this for probably two to three years using AI to look for those redundancies. I want to thank Bill Hicks and his team. We do have a AI module that we use internal. A lot of folks don't even know we're using to try to get to this.

[01:18:14] So we're trying to do things better and faster. And, you know, to be honest with you, the comp plan is something else I want to take to AI. Absolutely. We should actually be doing that now. I mean, you know. I need you to approve the budget.

[01:18:32] We need budget to do that. We have a systematic way of getting to yes, and these are the things that we're doing to get to yes. But the problem is. What's the budget for that? it's a lot but i'll get that number to you okay because i might use the school board line on you you got to be able to x that out um of the budget this size anyway um speaking of which there is no there are no financials with this on what the what the fiscal impact is of all these plans that we're we're talking about doing i know i think you have them but we haven't seen them are we going to see

[01:19:11] them yes so some of that's contained in the report as an example the technology accelerator we estimate that that would be a $300,000 contract that we would let the, we have the cost costed out for the real estate opportunities team. We think that we're going to be able to do that.

[01:19:26] A little bit of that with carryover, we're repurposing two positions. So what we plan to do, because we knew this wouldn't be a decision meeting in terms of yes to this, it was a rollout of the plan, is that the next steps include coming to the board with the specific asks in the appropriate committee meetings. So if I was to estimate for the economic competitiveness, I mean, the Office of Workforce, now I'm going to forget it.

[01:19:48] I'm not going to be able to say it. Office of Workforce, I'll just call that. That team can start with one person, and then we can expand out. Similarly, the real estate opportunities team, we have one person there. We have one additional funded body. As we show the return on investment, we think that we would love to come back and say, give us an additional person, we'll give you a million dollars in tax revenue.

[01:20:09] That's a hard thing to turn down, right? So it's kind of a prove the model to pursue it. That's what we plan to do. I would say the entirety of the initiatives contained in here, it's the real estate opportunities position, less than $1 million, $1.3 million, so Office of Workforce.

[01:20:26] So we're talking less than $2.5 million for these initiatives, all summed up. And clearly, if it's successful, you see that back in tax return, as we've seen with some of our development programs. Real quick, on workforce development, I know EDA's been working workforce development for sometime. NBRC is looking at it. We've got to be careful we don't create another silo.

[01:20:53] Victor, can you talk a little bit about what you're doing at EDA, workforce development, and what successes or challenges you're having and how this would help? Well, first of all, I want to thank the team. Everything that they presented would help.

[01:21:10] There's nothing that they said that would not help, particularly this permit. Boy, I tell you. Having been in development, private sector real estate development, I know what a challenge it is, and also I've had permit departments and changing them are very difficult, so congratulations on even having the concept laid out.

[01:21:26] But to your question, we really focus on what we call talent and the talent acquisition for our companies, and we offer this talent service to any company actually in all of Northern Virginia. Right now, we have roughly 60,000 open positions among our companies in Northern Virginia, and about 32,000 of those are Fairfax.

[01:21:48] Fairfax is now 50% of all the open positions in Northern Virginia. And what we do is we try to match the talent directly to the need. So just as a quick example, we do a tech event every January. We really focus on military, military in transition, workers that have lost their jobs in the public sector that have clearances, either secret, top secret, or cyber certifications, and really try to meet the need of the company specifically.

[01:22:18] We've done this with students, people who are trying to hire early, people in their career. So our career fairs or hiring events are really targeted at that. Our last event, we had like 800, 900 people there. And in the last couple of years, we've helped 6,000 veterans and their spouses actually get jobs.

[01:22:34] So we're not doing development. We're not, like, taking the talent and training it. We're actually connecting it. That's really our primary function is to connect it. I've got a couple more, but I'll let somebody else go. I understand. We've had a lot of time for questions, but it's not been enough, which is wonderful to some degree.

[01:22:52] So right, Alcorn. Thank you. I'll go quickly. Slide 18, just a couple things to think about as this goes forward. First of all, on the first one, the end of that first bullet, lacks dedicated support to capture this entrepreneur potential.

[01:23:09] You know, many of our government contracting companies do private sector work as well. And a lot of those companies also put a lot of investment in the commercialization of technologies of their activities. So let's just make sure we understand that.

[01:23:26] And, you know, we're not competing or doing anything that is anything other than collaborating on that because that is a big part of what a lot of these companies do. And then lastly on that slide, support for technology accelerator.

[01:23:41] I think this is great. As we go into that, let's also make sure we understand where it didn't work because the country is littered with consultants who show up and promise a lot and don't deliver. And let's do make sure that they're good metrics also with whatever, you know, we do there.

[01:24:01] On slide 28, this is one where the last bullet there, and the last part of the last bullet, zoning entitlement cases. I have real heartburn about that.

[01:24:18] And I guess a lot of it stems from the fact that individual entitlement cases do not move the needle unless it's a particularly strategic case. But what moves the needle is systemic change. So for example, approving one data center does not make a big difference in our budget, doesn't make a big difference in our economy.

[01:24:41] But if we change a zoning ordinance and we get 10 data centers, that does start to move the needle. So I think with this one, let's be sure we're thinking systematically because we're so big that any one individual entitlement, it doesn't necessarily.

[01:24:58] And then my last point on slide 29, there is, okay, the last bullet there. Let's do make sure, actually for this whole thing, I want to make sure that this is defined as we learn, as we go into it. The county is sometimes a developer, but in the private sector world, the county is primarily a regulator and primarily a cheerleader and maybe a planner.

[01:25:33] So let's make sure that we're not competing with the private sector because there's a whole lot of stuff here that there are companies out there in the private sector trying to do right now for others for a fee so so let's make sure we're not setting that up as as competition this should really be collaborative and when it's you know county property or you know whatever the particular need is let's be focused definitely agree and if i was to focus on one word from that it's ombudsman they need someone office to reach out to help to walk them through the process and that's

[01:26:06] what we intend to do primarily okay thank you thank you all and supervisor heismar uh heisman You can just say hyzer. It's easier. It's easier. Thank you. I could talk about this for hours. I'll try to keep it really brief as Chairman McKay is giving me this look like, oh, no, she could.

[01:26:26] So I'm not going to repeat. I'm not going to ask all the questions I have. A couple of big things. What I just want to sort of lift up in the Business Pulse Survey, the importance of this work. Forty-six percent of the businesses in the Business Pulse Survey have federal contracts. Forty-seven percent don't.

[01:26:42] So it's almost half of our current, I mean, I know these ones responded. And 67% saw a decrease in federal spending. So I just wanted to put those numbers out in the air to show the importance of the work you all are doing and the coordination, because we as a county can't survive if this atmosphere continues.

[01:27:02] Having said that, I think this is great work. I have some questions about who is the overall coordinating body person and what are the overall metrics i see that there's metrics just they're described and you're still building them for each piece but what's the goal is the goal to have be known for a geospatial intelligence industry is the goal like what's the goal here is it to grow our businesses private sector business by a certain percentage i didn't see a goal and i saw lots of pieces that build to a goal right like if you think of a house i saw all the pieces of a house but i didn't see what the house

[01:27:42] is supposed to look like? So I'll stop there and ask that question. Oh, sorry. No, so that's a great question. So we, this was initially created as a part of the board matter, ensuring that we maintain and sustain the economic competitiveness. So we tried to put that in the vision.

[01:27:58] Fairfax County is a place where diverse businesses and people choose to locate and thrive. How we would be able to show the overall metrics of this is, I think, a cumulative how are we doing on implementing the things that we said we would do. When we come back to the board and say we really think a technology accelerator is important, we would love $300,000. Here's our metrics that we plan on measuring it against to make sure that we're hiring a good entity to do this. We've shown that we have three real estate opportunities folks teams. They are well covering their salary. It is net positive. We would like to add one. So it'll be us coming to the board with periodic updates. We plan to do that biannually. But then it's are we implementing

[01:28:35] the things that we recommended in this task force? And I get that. I think it would be great I just put out there, what are the outcomes of those things building together, right? Like one of the things we talk about is our 19 to 35-year-olds are leaving, right?

[01:28:51] And that's our workforce of the future. Like which of these ties, is that a metric of, hey, look, now these folks are staying because of all these pieces of work. So I think if we can tie it to the building blocks of a strong own economy and then show these pieces lead to it. So I'll stop there because I could talk, but that's, I think, one piece.

[01:29:08] The other thing I think I have a question I really want to mention is on the accelerator, right? I think it's a great idea. I love it. And I love that you looked at accelerators in the Commonwealth. I was curious if you looked at accelerators in areas that have already been successful building the industries you're targeting, right?

[01:29:26] You're targeting very government contract-y focused industries in the private sector, space, defense, tech. You know, we're not looking at AI in this report. We're not looking at cyber. We're not looking at some of these other things. So have you looked at areas like Houston and parts of Florida that have built these industries already and what they've done in those accelerator programs?

[01:29:45] Jamie Gauthier, DEI. We did not look specifically at Houston or Florida. Hey, Jamie, hold on one second. Victor, would you like to take that question? Oh, okay. We did not specifically look at Houston or Florida, but we have looked at a number of models across the Mid-Atlantic and in the Northeast.

[01:30:09] And to your point, each accelerator is focused on a certain subsector of technologies or, you know, a specific set of technologies. We believe these technologies offer a point of differentiation for Fairfax at this time.

[01:30:28] Supervisor Iser Sizemore, Sizemore, thank you, Doc. Thank you, Supervisor Stork. We're going to come back to you with an overall follow-up process of where we're looking at and how we're getting there. I think that has to be something through DEI as well as EDA as a group because answering that question right now is a great question, but there's not enough intelligence behind it to give you an answer.

[01:30:53] So I do want to apologize that we haven't got to that point yet. But with Supervisor Pouchek's board matter, I hope to get there with that type of analysis. Two quick points really quickly, and I'll be done. Very quickly, please. I would love to see something about an innovation hub. Usually accelerator is accelerating an idea that exists or a business exists or trying to help that idea become a business, but an innovation hub to create the next ideas of industry of the future.

[01:31:17] I know Mason has some. And then on the comms, I'd love to not just have, and I'm sure you have this, our success stories, but like the pieces of why businesses should come here, the talent we have, why these industries are chosen, that I think would be helpful. And I have lots more, but I'll stop there.

[01:31:33] Thank you. Thanks, Chief Reiser. And I think as we all know, people are paying attention, are watching, are looking and saying, okay, is Fairfax, there's some great points and great, I think, designs and visions and details here. Can we do what we say we're going to do? And I think that's really for the next many months. And the last slide has a timeline that I think we're all kind of paying attention to and seeing how that goes together. So let's make sure we're doing that. We will have additional Economic Initiatives Committee meetings on this subject, and hopefully we'll be looking at this as we go along.

[01:32:09] And the bottom line to this is that this is in many ways a huge challenge for us, a crisis of sorts because of all the things that are happening. But Fairbanks County has consistently and historically, from the 90s to dot-com to the housing, the great housing recession and so many others, we have accelerated out of those.

[01:32:28] And I think this is our opportunity and this tool, this process here, I think gives us that opportunity. And with that, I'm going to turn to the chairman. Yeah, thank you. first thank my colleagues for their comments on this. I just want to make sure, you know, as we close, we stay laser focused on what we're doing here. Because what I don't want to have is this go down a rabbit hole and head in a different direction and have a task force of 30 people set up to tackle one issue. And we need to make sure that we are, this is an all of county messaging moment about economic competitiveness, you know, competitiveness, where we are as a county and

[01:33:06] where we're cementing our reputation, that we are streamlining, that we are being proactive, that we are getting simpler and more reliable and more predictable, and that we are the county that used to be the county where we used to tell folks, we're wonderful, you're lucky to be here.

[01:33:26] Today, we're the county that says, we're wonderful, we want you to be here, and we want to help you. We want to help you be here. We want to make things simpler, easier. We want to get you through the process more quickly. We want to use technology to follow metrics and have metric-driven reactions to things that are happening.

[01:33:47] We are a large organization, but the challenge that we have faced for a long time is we can easily get stovepiped. And I appreciate that Jennifer Miller has brought together all of you to this table to have this conversation because this only works if it is a focused all-of-county exercise and that everybody plays a role here but understands what their role is and how they can complement the overall mission of being simpler, quicker, more reliable, more predictable.

[01:34:20] We want you here. Those are the things that we need to make sure that we stay focused on with all of the initiatives. Nobody, these are great initiatives, nobody is going to measure us for the initiatives we put in place. they're going to measure us for whether those initiatives work, and if they're focused on the things that I just said, I know they will work, and I have total confidence in this team to continue this momentum moving forward, but let's just make sure that we don't lose that focus.

[01:34:46] Thank you. And Rebecca, I know we haven't gotten any, okay, we have a great Fairfax County Business Pulse Survey. Please take a look at it. I'll mention it at our next Board of Supervisory meeting. And we have a great housing committee meeting as a follow-on to this. So stay tuned for the next iteration of this conversation about how do we make a difference in Fairfax County.

[01:35:08] And with that, this meeting is adjourned.

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