City Council - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. I'd like to call to order the meeting of the Board of Supervisors of Alameda County. Today's Tuesday, June 16th. Will the clerk please call roll to establish our quorum?

Supervisor Marquez excused. Supervisor Tam? Present. Supervisor Miley excused. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass? Present. President Hubbard?

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you. Would you all please rise if you can and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. As board of supervisors remarks, anybody have any remarks to share the community? Seeing none, we'll move on to the next item, which is public comment on closed session items. Anybody in the room or online wishing to speak on closed session items? I'll ask the clerk to see, do we have anybody?

There are no public comments.

We have no comments on closed session items. We will now recess into closed session and we will come out later and finish the rest of our meeting. We're now in recess. Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to reconvene from our closed session and I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll to reestablish our quorum.

Supervisor Marquez? Present. Supervisor Tam? Present. Supervisor Miley? Present. Supervisor Fortunato-Bas? Present. President Hubbard?

Present. We have quorum. County Council, do we have anything to report out from closed session?

No, Mr. President. We have no reportable action taken in closed session this morning.

Thank you very much. We will proceed with our 1 p.m. set matters, noting that it is past 1 p.m. We are running behind. We have a lot of work to do today. The one o'clock set matter is first my item to proclaim 6-19-2026 as Juneteenth National Independence Day. And if you'll bear with me, please, I have quite a bit to read about this proclamation and commendation that I'm going to present. And I'm going to be recognizing Phil Long of Longevity Wines, who comes from my district, and I will read a little bit about him and also about Juneteenth. Today, we proudly recognize Juneteenth National Independence Day, a day that commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, finally learned of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Juneteenth is both a celebration of freedom and an opportunity to reflect on our nation's history and the ongoing pursuit of equality, opportunity, and justice. For more than 160 years, Black Americans have made extraordinary contributions to every aspect of American life, including business, education, science, government, agriculture, the arts, and civic leadership. Here in Alameda County, Black residents have played a vital role in shaping our communities From the great migration through today, black leaders, entrepreneurs, advocates, educators, artists, and public servants have helped build the vibrant and diverse country county we know today. Juneteenth is also a time to recognize those who continue that legacy of leadership, innovation, and community impact. Today, I would like to honor Phil Long, whose accomplishments exemplify entrepreneurship, perseverance, and service. As the owner and winemaker of Longevity Wines, Phil Long has helped elevate the reputation of Livermore Valley Wine Country while building a successful family-owned business rooted in hospitality, community, and excellence. His leadership extends well beyond winemaking. Since 2020, Phil has served as president of the Association of African American Vintners, helping increase diversity and opportunity within the wine industry while supporting the next generation of black winemakers and entrepreneurs. Through leadership, mentorship, and advocacy, Phil has helped create pathways for others to succeed in an industry where African Americans have historically been underrepresented. His work demonstrates how leadership can create opportunities, not only for individuals, but for entire communities. I would also like to take a moment to highlight a special exhibition currently here on display at the Alameda County Administration Building. Presented by the Alameda County Arts Commission, the exhibition Inspiration and Improvisation Echoes of Gee's Bend Quilters features 25 quilts created by members of the African American Quilt Guild of Oakland. The guild is dedicated to preserving and continuing the rich traditions of African American quilting through creativity, education, and community engagement. Their work celebrates an important cultural legacy while showcasing the talent, artistry, and stories of Black communities. The exhibition is located on the fifth floor next to the board chambers and will remain on display through July 30th. I encourage everyone to take the opportunity to visit and experience this remarkable collection. As we celebrate Juneteenth, we honor the resilience, achievements, and contributions of black Americans throughout history. We also recognize individuals and organizations such as Phil Long and the African American Quilt Guild of Oakland, whose work continues to enrich our communities, persevere culture, inspire future generations, and strengthen Alameda County. Congratulations, Phil, and thank you for your leadership, your vision, and your commitment to building stronger communities. Thank you all and happy Juneteenth, everyone. Let's go in order of district. District two can go next.

Thank you, President Halbert. Welcome, everyone. We apologize for the delay, but so glad that all of you are here with us. I have the honor to recognize Camarlo Marlowe, the motivator, I'm going to say this right, the motivator, Spooner. Our board is proud to recognize Juneteenth National Independence Day in Alameda County and to honor a leader whose work has helped bring this day to the forefront of our county government. Camarlo Marlowe, the motivator Spooner is a Bay Area author, motivational speaker, labor leader and community advocate. He has been a powerful voice in our labor community through his work with Teamsters Local 70 and the Alameda County Labor Council. Through his leadership in grassroots organizing, Camarlo was instrumental in making Juneteenth an officially recognized paid holiday for Alameda County. Let's clap that up. Marlo's story from childhood trauma, educational struggles and incarceration to faith, higher education and community service is a testament to resilience and transformation. He has earned multiple college degrees, developed curricula, published six books and speaks across California about empowerment, healing and personal growth. On behalf of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, it is my honor to present this commendation to Carmelo Marlowe, the motivator spooner. Thank you so much for your tenacity, your resilience. It's an honor to have you here in your community. And thank you for paving the way for all of us to recognize and celebrate Juneteenth as a holiday here in Alameda County. I want to acknowledge you for your advocacy and efforts and just happy to have your family here, your children. as well as representatives from Teamsters Local 70. Congratulations and thank you. After we acknowledge everyone, we'll have you come up individually to receive your accommodation. But congratulations and thank you for everything you do on behalf of our community.

Supervisor Tam. Miley.

Well, on Juneteenth, I definitely would like to state that on June, to recognize Juneteenth, on June 30th, we, Supervisor Marquez and I, chair the Ad Hoc Committee on Reparations. So on June 30th at 1.30, said item 1.30 on June 30th, our Juneteenth acknowledgement is that the Reparations Commission will be presenting their report and findings and recommendations to the Board of Supervisors. It's a real big deal, so we'd encourage everyone to come out on June 30th here to the Board Chambers at 1.30 to hear their recommendations and to provide comments because they've spent more than a year working on this and have helped many, many listening sessions. So it'll be a tremendous day and a significant accomplishment. The board will accept the recommendations of that day, and then we'll be preparing for our next steps relative to operationalizing Hopefully all of the recommendations, but many of the recommendations over the course of time in the near future. So that's my Juneteenth acknowledgement.

Thank you, Supervisor Miley, Supervisor Fortunato-Bass.

Thank you. It's an honor for myself and my office to join the full board of supervisors in recognizing Juneteenth National Day of Independence and commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. We all know through the ongoing work that we are doing, including through the Reparations Commission, that true freedom and liberation is still a goal that we have to fight for. I am really happy to honor Berkeley Juneteenth Festival. I hope some of you have already participated in the festival, and if not, you can do so this Sunday. The Berkeley Juneteenth Festival was founded in 1986 through the vision, dedication, and leadership of community members who sought to promote community pride, celebrate African American culture, and bring together South Berkeley residents and businesses. In 1987, the first Juneteenth Berkeley Street Festival was successfully held, establishing a tradition that has continued to enrich the community for nearly 40 years. And I do want to make sure that all of you know that you are very welcome to join us this Sunday, June 21st, from 11 to 7 in Berkeley at Adeline and Alcatraz Center. It is an opportunity to experience culture and celebrate diversity with music, food, vendors, information. My staff is going to be out there tabling and engaging folks. And it's also an opportunity to do what the board has described in the commendation and proclamation that we are issuing today. We do want to make sure that not only do we recognize Juneteenth, but that we also continue to engage in education, dialogue, community service, and cultural observance to continue working towards a more just and inclusive society. A representative from Berkeley Juneteenth is on Zoom when it's appropriate to hear from our honorees, and that will be board member Duan Dejoie, who's the political liaison for the Berkeley Juneteenth celebration and festival.

Thank you. Thank you, Supervisor Fortunato-Bass. Now we'll hear from our recipients. Is Phil Long online? I'd like to recognize Phil Long online. Welcome, Phil.

Okay, how about now? Can you hear me?

We can hear you, yes. Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Hubbard. How are you? I just want to thank everyone for their consideration and helping celebrate this upcoming Juneteenth. It's obviously a special day for all of us, for all the African-American communities, and for, as it should be, all communities. You know, what it signifies is a great step in our freedom. And as an African-American winemaker here in the Livermore Valley, you know, we're very, we only make up, we are up to 1% of the entire industry. And that is huge. doubled because we were only at a half a percent for a very long time. But I don't want to take all the time. I just wanted to say thank you. I really appreciate the consideration and look forward to seeing you all soon.

Phil, I'll make sure I get you this commendation. Maybe we'll meet at your winery some afternoon. Let's do that.

I look forward to it. I'm actually in Maryland right now, but when I'm there, we should definitely meet.

I love that. Thank you. Supervisor Marquez, let's invite Marlo Spooner up to come say a few words. and you're gonna explain the motivator? Okay.

Would I be able to ask for a recess? We're having some technical issues with the sound system, so.

Because of technical difficulties, do you want us to pause or take a recess? We'll take a recess for a few minutes to resolve our technical difficulties. Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back. We're going to reconvene from recess, and I'll ask the clerk to please call the roll to reestablish our quorum.

Supervisor Marquez. Present. Supervisor Tam, excused. Supervisor Miley. Present. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass. Present. President Hubbard.

Present.

We have a quorum.

We will now invite, again, Marlo Spooner. to come say a few words about his recognition of Juneteenth.

All right, thank you. Appreciate it. Can you guys hear me? All right, great. I won't go into great detail about how the idea came up, but I stopped They're long enough to say my father was born in Texas in 1929. And I had a conversation with him back in 2020 about the holiday. And he told me about his father, his grandfather, how, you know, they were alive. But when things happen and how the holiday wasn't celebrated as much now as it was then. And he was 85. And I told him I'm going to try to see if perhaps I can, you know, do something small, a small gesture for him. And, you know, in the community. And he passed away in last year, October, on his 86th birthday. But he was here long enough to see that, you know, the county had came together. and decided to, you know, put this forth. So he was happy to hear about it. But I do want to, if it's okay with me, to do some thank yous because I want to, I do want to thank the county for recognizing me, but not only me, I want to thank you guys who recognize the community because though I came forth with the idea, I needed a community support. And so I think the community deserve a thank you for for bagging the idea as well as our community leaders. When it comes to you all, the labor unions and the community based organizations, because everybody, when they heard the idea, said that this is one that we want to support collectively. I do want to thank Supervisor Miley, I know that he co-sponsored it, if I remember correctly, with my friend who I came to in 2020, the late great Supervisor Richard Valle with the idea. And what he said to me was, this is Richard Valle. He said, Marlo, this is a great idea. but you're going to have to get the community support behind you. You got to do some groundwork, dude. That was his word, dude. And so that's what I've done. And so once again, I don't want to take up a lot of time. I do want to thank you all. And I want the layman and woman that's out there thinking about getting involved in the community who don't participate in civic duties. I would say that you, if you're watching this today, that you can have your voice heard and you can incite people change in our community. And Alameda County, I want to thank you guys as we are trailblazers, right? I believe we're the second county in the country, maybe, if I remember correctly, to do that. So thank you guys. I'm going to thank my family, and I appreciate it.

Okay, our next item is item... Oh, we have online. Yes, Berkeley, folks.

Yes, I believe Dwayne Dejoie from the Berkeley Juneteenth Celebration Festival is online. And thanks so much for your patience.

Hello?

You may begin your comment.

We can hear you. Oh, OK, great. Supervisor Mickey, thank you very, very much for your kind words about the festival. On behalf of the board, the entire board, I am proud and pleased to accept the recognition this proclamation represents. We appreciate the broad support the board has given to the Berkeley Juneteenth Celebration Festival over the years. And we look forward to seeing you all at our upcoming festival. where you'll see the rich cultural variety the South Berkeley community enjoys on full display. This year, again, as Supervisor Nicky mentioned, June 21st, 11 to 7 p.m., everything you could imagine that's wonderful about South Berkeley will be on display there. We hope to see you there. Understanding that you guys have a lot of work to do, I'll move on, but thank you very much for this recognition. Good day.

Thank you. That concludes item 65 item 66 supervisor Miley proclaiming may 19th 2026 as Alameda County costs on day supervisor Miley.

Thank you president Albert. So have a a proclamation signed by all of the supervisors. And it reads as follows court appointed special advocates cost of Alameda County is a public private organization dedicated to recruiting training and supporting volunteers who advocate for children, youth, and young adults in the foster care system who have experienced abuse or neglect. CASA volunteers are appointed by Alameda County Superior Court Juvenile Division judges to provide consistent one-on-one advocacy, ensuring that each child's voice is heard and their interests and needs are represented in court and in the community. Whereas youth in foster care often face significant challenges, including trauma, instability, and disruptions in relationships, living environments, and education, they also benefit greatly from the support of a caring, committed adult advocate. Alameda County CASA works to improve outcomes for young people by helping them achieve safe, stable, and permanent homes while supporting their overall wellbeing. Alameda CASA conducts community-wide efforts to raise awareness, critical resources, and financial contributions to expand advocacy services for youth in need. The Alameda Casa Day will inspire generosity and increase impact with contributions of time and talent during this day, thereby multiplying support for children served by Casa. So the Board of Supervisors of this state does hereby proclaim, and this was back in May, May 19th is Alameda County Casa Day, and in encourages all of our residents and everyone to remember the great work and mission of Casa through volunteerism advocacy and philanthropy and philanthropy in in our county. And I think accepting the proclamation will be Jenny ring. I think getting

Good afternoon. My name is Ginny Ring. I'm the current Executive Director of Alameda County Court Appointed Special Advocates. And I'd first like to say as a 22-year employee of Alameda County, both for the District Attorney's Office and now with Alameda County Health, I appreciate the support of the Board of Supervisors for all the employees of Alameda County, its constituents, families, and in particular, the children and youth in our juvenile dependency and justice systems who now are provided with advocates for the time that they're in care. And next year, 2027, will be CASA's 40th anniversary in this county. Again, acknowledging the support of the governments who have supported all of the work of our local volunteers and also the employees of the county. Thank you very much for the proclamation, Supervisor Miley, and we are very excited to receive this today. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll come down and take a photo with you and you can receive the proclamation. I should ask, do we have any public comment on item 65 or 66?

There are no public comments.

Then we have concluded item 66. Thank you very much. The next item is a general administration item, item 67, a human resource services asking us to approve some recommendations, basically conducting a public hearing. I will invite our Department Head of Human Resources.

Welcome.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Supervisors. Margarita Zamora, Human Resource Services Director. I'm sorry.

Do we need to make a motion to open this?

I'll second.

Yes.

So we need to vote.

Supervisor Marquez. Aye. Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley. Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Vas.

Aye.

President Hopper. Aye.

And I appreciate our clerk keeping us, you know, on right. You're doing the right thing. Everybody else is over there distracted, but she's on her J-O-B.

Thank you so much. Before I begin, I do want to thank my HRS staff who contributed to this report, including Samji, who's the HRS Human Resource Services Division Manager, Amy Ho, Labor Relations Analyst, and Connie Arana, who's our Business Analyst. There we go. Next slide. I will be providing a brief overview of Assembly Bill 2561. We will be looking at our workforce, some barriers to our recruitment, efficiencies that we have implemented in our progress in filling our vacancies. We'll also review our vacancy data by bargaining unit, some recruitment opportunities, and then we'll turn it over to our employee organizations who may be present, who may want to speak with your board.

Next slide.

So as a background, Assembly Bill 2561 created a new obligation for public agencies to publicly address the status of their vacancies. The basis of this new requirement was a determination that vacancies in local government pose a problem in the public sector, placing a heavier workload on staff, result in overtime and potentially impact public service delivery. Some key provisions of the bill, it requires public agencies to present the status of their budget at full-time vacancies each fiscal year before your board adopts the final budget. The presentation must also address Excuse me, recruitment and retention efforts and discuss changes that can improve hiring. The counties recognize employer organizations also have an opportunity to present to your board. And there's an also a requirement to the employer organizations have an ability to request additional specific information when vacancy data of the full time positions meet or exceed 20%. What is our workforce? Next slide, please. So I'm very proud that the County of Alameda workforce is reflective of the community we serve. It really demonstrates, I believe, our ongoing commitment to the equity and hiring. Interesting in reviewing prior year's demographic data, our demographics of our employees consistently and similarly mirror our population. So for example, if we're looking at the graph above, 25% of our population in Alameda County, our county of Alameda employees are at 25% and our population is 29. For Asian community, it's 34%. Our employee rate is 25%. For Hispanic Latino community is 22%. Our employees are at 21%. Our black African-American in the community are 11%. Our employee population is 23%. Two or more races of 6% and our county population is 5%. Native Hawaiian, other Pacific Islanders at 1%. Same as our employees and American Indian and Alaska Native are less than 1%, both. Next slide. As of May 1st, 2026, we have a total of 7,205 full-time positions and classifications represented by our 10 employee organizations through 20 separate county MOUs. Each mo you covers between one to nine bargaining units totaling 41 distinct bargaining units in our county county of alameda. We also have an additional 480 full time budget positions that are not represented by an employer organization for a total of 7685 represented and unrepresented full time budgeted positions. a note that the total count does exclude less than full-time positions, our services as needed, our TAP, retired annuitants, election workers. So looking at barriers in the county's hiring process. Next slide. We continue to identify opportunities to improve the county's recruitment and appointment processes. And these include needed updates to the county charter, administrative code, our civil service rules. These specific actions that the county continues to explore, we believe will help our overall recruitment and retention. We also need to evaluate and expand and maximize the use of automated systems, using automated platforms and take advantage again, automated progresses to update our internal recruitment and even our promotional processes. This will allow our job seekers to find jobs that they may qualify. So we're looking at these areas as opportunities to continue to fill those gaps critical vacancies throughout the county. We also need to continue to invest in marketing the county as an employer of choice. It cannot be a one and done. We need to continue this effort. Our recruitment and efficiency. So where are we now? Next slide. HRS, in partnership with our county agency department heads and our HR leadership throughout the county, we implemented 47 changes that were part of the recruitment enhancement project. 13 individual initiatives. It's taken us three years, but the results are overwhelmingly positive. Most significant and impactful include those that are highlighted in blue. Initiative number one, which is the re-engineering the recruitment and selection process. Number three, increase more promotional opportunities to employees. Number six, improve recruitment planning and shortening the application process. Number nine, establishing an employee referral incentive program which is incredibly popular. Number 11, make changes to the county charter administrative code and the civil service commission practice. And number 13, we expanded the, and implemented and expanded the county, the recruitment marketing and advertising. Other 2025 highlights, we completed 262 exams. We had over 5.2 million page views on our job posting compared to 3.5 million in 2024. We participated in nine job fairs, previously eight the prior year. We received 21,948 employment applications, a 28.3 increase over 2024. And we reduced the average number of days from application deadline to creating an eligibility list to 53.36 days. Previously, it was 56.44 days. And the process includes receiving the application, reviewing the application, conducting the exam, tallying up the results, submitting it to the Civil Service Commission for their approval and creation of eligibility lists. And our vacancies. Where are we? As of May 1st, compared to last year, we had a 1% increase. It is an increase, improvement, not an increase. It's an improvement. Improvement is great. It's 1%, but we'll take it. We went from 20% to 19%. We're working hard to fill those critical positions. We're working hard to fill many of the county's full-time budgeted positions. Next. and our vacancy data by bargaining unit. Again, only full-time budgeted positions are included in this data. This slide lists six of our MOUs and their bargaining units. The vacancy rates range between 0% for the ACMEA Sheriff's sworn unit 028 division commander with no vacancies to 29% the ACMEA Sheriff's non-sworn with nine vacancies in unit 029, the non-sworn Sheriff's department managers and supervisors. The BOLD, You see, unit R51 is the district attorney inspectors. They are at 26% vacancy rate, where 37 fill positions, 13 vacant for a total of 50 full-time positions. Unit R52, which is the DA inspector supervisors, four filled, one vacant, 20% vacancy. Unit R515 with ACME and general governments, the management analysts, administrative specialists, supervising clerks, 926 full filled positions, 227 unfilled for a vacancy factor of 20%. Unit R44 is public works management, 14 filled, five vacant, 26% vacancy. Unit R48, 14 failed, five vacant, a 26%. Our 48 is public defender investigators. Unit 029, nine sworn sheriff's department. Again, these are the sheriff managers and supervisors. Next slide. In this group, we have 10 MOUs representing 13 separate bargaining units. These show a vacancy rate of 3%, local 21 public defender chapter unit 069, which is a public defender attorneys with three vacant positions to 50% local 21 unit 016, the public works engineers with three vacancies. And each of the bold units, Unit 064 is the welfare fraud investigators. Unit 013 is the deputy sheriffs. Unit 077 is public works civil engineers. And Unit 016 is the public works engineers, which includes environmental compliance specialists, associated environmental compliance specialists, and assistant environmental compliance specialists. Next slide. This final group, we have four MOUs representing 13 bargaining units with a vacancy rate that ranges from 11%, which is SCIU Unit 033, our registered nurses, with 14 vacancies, to 43%, UAPD Unit 016, which is our physicians and dentists, with 16 vacancies. PPOA, the... in our bargaining employee organization, PPOA, Probation Peace Officer Association. Unit 001 is the juvenile institutional officers. Unit 076 is probation non-safety. Those are the probation aid and transportation worker. For SCIU, unit 005 is our social workers. Unit 008 is our mental health specialists, LVNs, licensed vocational nurses. lab assistants and unit 010 is our clerical unit. Teamsters is unit 072, that's our deputy probation officer three and unit 018 is our physicians and dentists. We continue to look for opportunities to expand our recruitment. So right now, in addition to continuing to implement the efficiencies discussed earlier at the top of our list is marketing the county as an employer of choice. We increased our visibility on social media, on job fairs. This past April, we held our second county-only job fair. It was attended by 500 individuals, job seekers, a 35% increase from our first county-wide job fair. We had double the number of concurrent sessions on interviewing, resume writing, navigating the civil service and others with the most popular still meet the recruiter where our recruiters met with individual staff. We had more than six individuals, our recruiters, giving feedback to job seekers on whether it's on their resume, on how to apply for a county job, how to present themselves in interviews. We are also preparing to launch the 10th cohort of our MPO program, which is a partnership with Cal State East Bay, incredibly popular with our employees seeking to enhance their higher education. We're also offering our employee leadership training programs that bolster our own employee development. And we continue to provide hiring incentives for hard-to-recruit classifications for sworn sheriff and forensic behavioral health. who work in the jail. And of course we have an employee referral incentive program, which has been incredibly successful in hiring 73 employees in hard to recruit classifications. Questions.

Supervisor Marquez.

Thank you so much for this update. I believe this is the second time we've had this. presentation since the law went to went into effect um you have a slide and in the future if we could please number them um but your 2025 highlights um i would encourage us to go back a little bit further because i believe it was march of 2024 where we had the charter amendment to decrease the number of days that uh is it a posting listed so i know you're highlighting on look back but i think it's important that the public know that we've been working on this for quite some time and i think that was a significant um update because it amends our trigger and that's not an easy lift and that was voter approved. So it just demonstrates that this board has been focused on trying to streamline and fill these vacancies as quick as possible. So if we could just add a little bit background and give ourselves that credit because it's meaningful. And then what do you attribute the significant increase in the page views? I know that your office has gone through branding and messaging, and I love the consistent branding of our locally grown talent that works for the county i think it's three specific individuals dr moss someone from the sheriff's department i don't know the other individual but i think that's been um very successful in terms of consistency with branding and the logo and the image so if you could speak to that a little bit and then i have a couple other comments

Most definitely our branding, which includes our community, your purpose, complete redo, completely redoing our web page so that it is more user friendly rather than someone clicking. What we had was you go on our website and it's reading a novella to try to get to where do I find a job? it's much easier to navigate. It's very user-friendly. It's intuitive. So it was a complete overhaul of our website and the marketing with that. So while budgets are always tight, we try to maximize using social media. So whether it's LinkedIn or Instagram, we're trying to put the word out there about who we are as an employer serving our community and making sure, again, focusing part of the marketing that we've done is working with each agency department head so that we can really focus on them as the department, but still under the county umbrella. We are one employer. whether you're with the sheriff, whether you're with AC Health, we're one employer. And the jobs that are out there that we promote is we are one county where we want to, and we are the employer of choice.

Okay. And then I'm sorry if I missed this, but for the SEIU slide, bargaining unit 005 with a 25% vacancy rate, what specific position is that?

005... Those are social workers. That's a social worker unit.

Okay. So when we get this presentation next year, is it possible to include, I want to do a look back on all the positions that have a vacancy rate of 20% or higher to look back to see how long those positions have been vacant and what specific targeting are we doing to bring those numbers down?

Okay.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

Supervisor Marley. Thank you, President Halbert. Supervisor Marquez was right on target with some of the stuff I wanted to ask. So under Assembly Bill 2561, we're required to do this annually. And this is our second time? It's our second time. OK. I assume this is, if the state legislature says it's important, I guess it's important. Not everything they ask us to do is important, but this might be. So one item is to reduce, I think, the vacancy rate to under 20%. Is that a goal or is that just an opportunity for employee bargaining units to speak? I need to understand, is that a goal we're trying to achieve? Because I think Supervisor Marquez kind of raised a similar question I have. Are we trying to get vacancies under or at 20% or lower? Is that a goal in the metrics we're trying to achieve?

There's actually no goal in the legislature.

No, I'm not talking about the legislature. I'm talking about us. Do we need to say that we want to achieve a vacancy rate of 20% or lower as a metrics?

I think that's a policy decision that I would leave to your board and the CAO. My focus is strictly what are we required to provide under the legislation. And the 20% factor, the legislation says that the employee organizations have an opportunity to require specific information related to the classifications in that bargaining agreement that reach the 20% threshold. It's just a trigger for the employer organizations if there's a 20% trigger.

But I kind of believe the state legislature and all their infinite wisdom, if they chose 20%, I think maybe the board needs to take this up and say we want to have a metrics to track, like Supervisor Marquez was saying, to track what progress we're making to get to 20% or below with all of our classifications relative to vacancies. maybe that's more of a discussion we need to have, if not today, in the future. Because I think, you know, I kind of feel the same way she feels. We need to see what kind of progress we're making. And if that 20% threshold isn't something we care about, because it's some arbitrary number that was thrown out there, then maybe we should achieve, I mean, maybe we should establish the number that we want to have as a metric.

It's definitely a policy decision.

Okay. So when you talk about marketing the county as an employer of choice, is it more than just marketing? Because we can go out and tell people we're an employer of choice, but they might not believe it. So how do we measure that, that we're an employer of choice?

Well, I think, and I believe, not just think, I believe we really are a great employer.

Really?

Yes. Our benefits are great. And for the public to not know that we are an amazing employer and not apply for our positions, I think it's a disuse or we're not taking advantage of who we are.

Okay. All right. I hope all of our bargaining units feel that way when they talk to us today. we're doing things to indicate that we're an employer of choice, that we have specific indices that show we're an employee of choice. Because I don't know if some of the employees I've heard from, morale might be an issue. I'm just gonna say it, remote work might be an issue. I know some employees, At their facilities, they have workout facilities. Other employees at the facilities don't have that. We don't offer gym memberships. I'm just throwing stuff out here. So I don't know if everybody would consider us an employer of choice. Obviously, I think we have a pretty good benefit package and salaries, I think. But I think there might be other enhancements that we can be looking at.

I think we're doing a really good job in offering voluntary benefits. An employee has a cornucopia of options that they can choose during their annual open enrollment, whether it's pet insurance or their own individual writing their wills and attorney insurance. What about child care?

We used to have childcare. We used to offer that. Do we offer that anymore then as a benefit?

We actually still have that. And that is something that as the generations change, there's different needs. So it's all based on who you are as an employee, where you are as an employee.

Do we ever take a survey of our employees? You asked him, what would you consider the top 10 incentives for wanting to work in Alameda County.

Well, funny you should say, because we are looking at a survey. We have wellness under HRS now, and that's one of the items that we'll be rolling out for our county employees.

We'd be very curious to know from our employees here in the county, what would you consider the top five to 10 items that you'd like to see in place? Yeah, yeah. And I know remote work is one of those things. Child care is probably another I'm just throwing stuff out there. And then it just gets to the vacancy rate. I know you championed the fact that we went from 20% to 19%, which is 1% improvement. But once again, I just think we should have a metrics to kind of measure whether or not we're improving or not. And we just need to decide what that might be. So we're just not throwing a report out here now that we're really having to do this report annually. And I think, once again, maybe in some of the classifications, the bargaining units, we might not be as concerned about the 20%. But in others, we might be more concerned about wanting to target. I think Supervisor Marquez spoke to that. So I just want to co-sign that particular piece of what she was saying. Then the final thing is we have central HR, but we have some agencies and departments have their own HR unit. And there's cohesion in efficiencies, operational efficiencies, and the ability to hire.

So we have some departments that are decentralized. That includes general services agency, the auditor, Public Works Agency, IT, and Social Services. So those five agencies, they do their own recruitment, their exams. We still... promulgate and submit the eligibility, work with the civil service commission to promulgate the eligibility list. Each department manages the recruitment process based on their own operational lead. HRS doesn't dictate how they manage. We think there's an opportunity for efficiencies in each of those departments. And that's gonna be part of the second phase of our recruitment enhancement project.

Okay, good. Because I know I've gotten feedback from some agencies and or departments that they feel, you know, the hiring is, I don't want to say barriers, but it's too cumbersome and too lengthy. And we do want to make sure we follow everything we need to do. But it's just too many impediments to getting people on board. And obviously, once we get them here, we want to keep them here.

We want to have the applicant experience be seamless, have communication to those applicants be efficient and timely, and then post, if their name is on their eligibility list, then have the interview process also be timely. Because we don't want... Eligibles candidates to be on an eligibility list for months and months and months and nothing happens without communication. So those are some of the internal processes that we're looking at, whether it's centrally central agency or with the department.

My last question, and sorry to belabor this, but of a county the size of Alameda County, about 1.7 million people, roughly 10,000 employees, although for this study we're looking at the full time, are there best practices that kind of mirror, you know, that we would mirror with other counties in the country?

The answer is yes. So not necessarily the country, but we look at California. We look at what are, like you say, the best practices of each phase of the recruitment and the selection process. What's worked with other agencies, what programs they're using, what's their marketing, if any. So we do look at that and glean the best of what is out there.

So one quick question. follow-up, sorry. So with these best practices, do they also have like a central HR decentralized, or do they have just one central What's the answer?

They're decentralized or centralized. They're both. Some are decentralized with a central HR. Some are 100% centralized. So just because you're 100% centralized or decentralized doesn't mean that you can't glean the best practice from those organizations.

All right. So I just want you to know, I feel you're doing a great job. So keep up the good work, but make it even better next year.

HRS is trying to have an amazing team and they've done an amazing job.

Finished. Supervisor Tam.

Thank you, President Halbert. And thank you very much for this presentation. Uh, clearly it shows that, uh, remember we had retained a consultant to look at strategically planning our recruitment and retention efforts and a lot of this I think is showing up in the results. And based on the recruitment that HR conducted for some major department heads, when we had over 300 plus applicants, I think we are an employer of choice here. But needless to say, some of the classifications, and I think it's because of the way HR, the law has us presenting it. You know, like when you have four out of nine people in a department, that's a 44% vacancy, which seems kind of difficult to put your arms around when you're comparing it against, for example, some of the areas where we are in need of, I think, more customized recruitment, for example, the social welfare and child welfare workers in particular, and trying to find ways to to optimize that recruitment. I think it's going to be important. I think prospectively, what I wanted to find out is, you know, when we saw the budget presentation, we saw the economic impact, we saw a lot of layoffs that are happening among the tech sector, among some of the other employers of choice. How do you think that's going to affect the county? Are they just totally different types of skill sets in terms of a potential, um, pool of, uh, applicants, employees?

It, it, it depends honestly, because if the private sector is laying off, we, we could take advantage of that as an employer and take advantage of that in the sense of we conduct an exam, we have greater applicants for whatever position. Um, The challenge is you may have applicants that are way overqualified for the position. And are they going to accept a position that maybe it wasn't their choice? But maybe, in what we think, they will find their calling. Maybe they do want to be a sheriff recruit or a child welfare worker because there's great opportunity for promotion in the county of Alamie. It's just not a one and done. You move up an organization. So I think what's happening statewide with budget cuts and potential layoffs in the private sector, as a county or public employer, we sometimes have a greater applicant pool and have Like I said, we reap a little bit of the benefit from that. So now when they start cutting our county budget, then we have to balance those needs. But certainly I think it would help the hard-to-recruit classifications.

Thank you.

Supervisor Fortunato-Bass.

Thank you so much for this report. I certainly concur with my colleague in terms of looking back further around the highlights as well as really honing in on those vacancies where we have 20% or more positions vacant and hearing more about how long they were vacant and what strategies we can focus on. Just two quick questions. In terms of the five agencies that do their own recruitment, can you name who they are again?

It's the auditor. General Services Agency, Information Technology, Public Works Agency, and Social Services Agency. Thank you.

And I'm also curious what type of hiring incentives we currently offer since that was called out as something we can potentially explore.

So we have our sheriff hiring incentive that I think it was put in place about five years ago, five years ago, that provides financial incentives for recruits to deputy sheriffs who are hired. And then based on their length of service, they receive an allotment at specific target dates and Alameda County, AC Health also created a similar hiring incentive for the forensic behavioral health classifications, those behavioral health classifications that work in the jail. And separately, we have your board-approved employee recruitment and employee referral incentive program. And that's been very successful in having employees refer their friends, their family, whomever individuals that their neighbor to apply for county jobs.

This is a mandated activity. Sacramento leaders make us do this. We also have a job to do, which is staff appropriately hire good people. train them well, keep them happy, retain them to the best of our abilities. Does this help you do that? I mean, it's good information, I guess, but one size fits all to Supervisor Miley's point, 20%. Does every county at all times strive to get 20%? Sometimes it's impossible. Sometimes we should be closer to 0% vacant. But I guess it's a benchmark. So we complied with the state law. That's fine. What I think is more important is the discussion that we have around being the employer of choice, doing the things that we do. I'm glad my colleagues asked about things like hiring bonuses, things like that. We do a great job. We can always do better. And I would say with regard to the discussions that we have with our employee unions, they're generally pretty good. Not always, but for the most part, very good. And that's because you and your team do a good job working with them. I would love to see all of our positions filled to the best of our abilities. I will say that one area, but metrics, if you can measure it, you can maximize it. And one area that I think I consistently hear is from the time a potential employee is identified as that's the person we want to hire to the time we allow them to start. It takes a long time. So I don't know how we can shorten that, but I would like to at least know on average and what is the shortest and the longest time it takes from offer to acceptance, knowing that every situation is different. And maybe it's even more than that. It's once a vacancy is made, how long does it take to fill? Because it's important. And every job that goes vacant means other people have to do more work often. So the comment about 300 applicants for a position. I think sometimes that's because we get applicants that have no way near, they shouldn't even be applying. They found it on LinkedIn and they just clicked on something. So we get a bunch of applicants that very quickly screen out. I'm more interested in how many highly qualified people we get for the applicants for the, for the applications that are open. So anyway, um, I'll end by saying the people in our organization are the most important asset that we have. We can't do it without them. The best people we can find will make our county the best it can be. So thank you for what you do all day, but not only you, your team, and apparently the teams and all five of the agencies that do their own recruiting. It's that's the, thank them all for me that's it do we have we don't have to do anything other than receive the information do we have to vote on receiving the information you also need to determine if some of the labor representatives want to speak do we have anybody from the labor organizations who would like to come on up here sir come on up and give a informational report to be presented welcome good afternoon

It's good to see you all. My name is Peter Serrano. I am the Deputy Sheriff's Association President of Alameda County. I represent currently just under a thousand sworn deputies and sergeants. Our goal is to be over a thousand. It'd be great, but right now we're struggling. I am going to say at least for the most part, our recruitment is amazing. They are leaps and bounds above what I expected them to do. They have presentations that are out there. They're quick and easy to look at. They understand social media better than I could ever do. And that's what we're looking for. We're looking for those looks. We're looking to attract candidates. Unfortunately, when you look at the entire county, it looks like our pool of viable candidates might be decreasing. So we may have tapped into just about everything. So what does that look like to us? Well, maybe we have to start thinking outside the box and start going into Southern California, outside of California. Things like that are very, very, they have to stay first and foremost. Right now, our deputies are still working a tremendous amount of overtime. That is mandatory. It's unhealthy. We all agree. I don't think anyone disagrees with that. but they're doing a great job they're doing their job they're doing their part so they're as a result they're missing family events postponing vacations and they're shouldering these workloads i think i saw on the report it indicated 27 shortage for our deputies which is very significant once our staffing stays below operational needs Public safety suffers, response times increase, proactive enforcement decreases, training opportunities are delayed, specialized assignments, they get eliminated or left vacant. And our workforce, we're doing everything with that small pool of people. So we're stretching them very thin. We are competing right now in a challenging labor market. What I'm seeing is neighboring agencies are all going to the same events that we go to, and they're trying to step in front, throw out a document that says, here, we'll give you a document. This tells you that preconditional offer or whatever they want to call it. But they're trying to get ahead of that. What ends up happening is it just extends our time significantly. we end up weeding those people out and we end up, they get a person that's not a viable candidate as a result. So we end up winning in the end. If we could shorten the process, that'd be great, but without skipping any of the procedural steps or eliminating things that would keep us from getting a viable candidate. I also, too, was interested in when I hear that there's companies laying off in the private sector, I would love to tap into that. That's a great point because you see Google and a lot of the dot-com companies laying off, and we should tap into that. There's a lot of people who came to us as a result of a career change. I wasn't raised as a cop. I worked in the private sector as well, and it was somebody who had an interaction with me that got me to this stage. So that's definitely a thing we want to keep doing. Additionally, what we would like to see also is we'd like the county to have or re-implement some of the programs that some had before. I'm not positive if we had that before, but at one juncture, tuition reimbursement, those things that we can do overall for the whole county to incentivize people to stay and grow from within. Reimplementing a military leave bank of sorts to help those who are shipped away when their leave banks run out so they're not left without pay. And that could go hold true for the entire county because we have over 7,000 employees. I'm sure a lot of them are in the military and we support that.

And

as a result of the rise of medical costs, they're only gonna go up and up. So we should have as a county or at least offer some version of a medical trust that we can pay into as an option if that's not already there. And those are things that we can put on a flyer and keep it real simple and get those candidates. Those are truly the... Benefits that I think will help recruitment and retention. And then last, I just want to say thank you all for letting us speak or letting me speak on behalf of my employees. I do appreciate the time and I'll be here for any other questions if you need.

Would you reduce some of those to an email and send it to us so we can keep record of them?

Oh, absolutely.

I would appreciate that. Thank you for being here. Thank you. Margarita, another question I have. Thank you. Any questions? No? Okay.

Thank you.

Without requiring a work study session or an agendized item on a, say, monthly basis, would you be able to share with us, at least for the most impacted departments, what our rates are monthly, what our vacancy rates are?

Vacancy rates by department?

Just the most impacted ones. I'll just we'll just take DSA for as an example, 27 percent. And, you know, maybe it goes up or down, up or down.

DSA and probation are probably the only two because they have classifications that are specific that don't cross. Deputy sheriffs are only in the sheriff department.

Could we maybe have a committee report to public protections? on a monthly basis on the vacancy of those two departments? Would that be possible? Does it take a lot of work and effort to know what our vacancy rate is each month?

We can run a report and provide that information to the departments. That's absolutely no problem.

Okay. I would appreciate knowing whether it's through the committee or send it to me in an email monthly what our vacancy rates are.

We have to be careful because my data is, again, specific to the requirements under the legislation. You have to do different things if you're looking at overall vacancies.

So I would have to defer to... So if you want specific information related to our classifications and vacancy rates, we can provide that. The Sheriff's Office can. We do our recruiting. We keep our stats. So I can get you that information.

That's better to go to the... department as opposed to the central agency?

They would have their information. Sheriff. Okay. Very good.

Sheriff. And then who would do that for probation?

Each department has the ability to run their vacancy data.

Okay. Thank you. Again, if you can measure it, you can maximize it and we can take a look at it. Not asking for a lot of work, but I want to keep it top of mind. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. And thank you. Any other department that wants to volunteer to send that would be good. Oh, any other labor groups here to present? I don't see any. And Pete, you look different out of uniform. I didn't recognize you back there. So, okay. Okay, very good. Thank you for being here and doing your job. With that, item 67 is concluded. We don't need to do anything else on it.

You need to close the public hearing.

It's a public hearing. Miley motions to close in 10 seconds. Any public comment on that scene? None. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez. Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass. Aye. President Hopper.

I vote yes. The next item is item 68.

Supervisor, you need to take public comment on that item.

I asked for public comment. I heard that there was none, and so we moved on.

Perfect.

Is that right? Okay.

All right, item 68 is a similar report from your fire chief with your board sitting as the board of directors of the Alameda County Fire Department. It is also a public hearing.

Anybody wish to comment on that? Seeing none, we'll take a roll call vote to open public hearing.

Supervisor Marquez? Aye. Supervisor Tam? Aye. Supervisor Miley? Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Vas? Aye. President Hubbard?

I vote yes. The public hearing is now open, and I wasn't sure if I was going to go to Margarita first or Chief. He's here. Are you going to do it by yourself? Chief, the floor is yours.

Thank you, President Alberts, members of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. I'm Willie McDonald, the Alameda County Fire Chief. I'll be doing a presentation to comply with AB 2561, Government Code Section 3502.3, provides status of Alameda County Fire Department vacancies. Okay, that's right. Thank you. This presentation will include recruitment efficiencies, our vacancy progress, vacancy data by bargaining unit. And I just need to say to the board that we've included all of the information of all of our vacancies in the department. That may make it a little more confusing, but I'll try to clarify as we go along. Then I'll talk about opportunities. There is an opportunity for the union to provide some comments. Don't think that there'll be any, but there is an opportunity. Next slide, please. So in terms of recruitment efficiencies, next slide. We have about an average of 85 calendar days from the application deadline to creating the eligibility list. We have definitely benefited from the enhancements that have been implemented by HRS in terms of recruitment activities, enhancements that have been done, and they have greatly produced greater numbers of applicants to our organizations. In the last, in 2025, we had these recruitments that I've identified, our engineers, We, that's an internal promotional only process. We had 15 applications that were received. We didn't, that's a one-time, we don't do engineer recruitment every year. It's every other year activity as well as our fire captains, generally speaking. And so there's no data to compare with from 2024, but we had 15 applicants in 2025. Most of those, I think 14 of them were actually promoted to engineer. Our firefighter recruit paramedic and firefighter recruit EMT are two separate recruitments, but we do them concurrently. And so we saw an increase in the number of applications received in 2025 over 2024. Fire code compliance officer, we did a continuous recruitment after benefiting from some of the activities of our central HRS in terms of recruitment activities, as well as internal folks going out to recruitment fairs and doing social media outreach. So we ultimately ended up with 47 co-compliance officer applications, and we are completely full in that position. We also did fire dispatch trainee recruitments during the year. It was also continuous recruitment. We were able to hire off of that list to recruit hire five dispatchers in 2024, five additional dispatchers in 2025. We just added six dispatchers to the department in May of 2026. So I believe that we are full in that category. And then fire captains promotional process only, we saw an increase of 33% applicants from the previous year. And again, I do want to say that our fire captains promotional opportunities are generally every other year, the even years as opposed to engineer, but we do on occasion we run an off cycle test and we did that in 2025. Next slide please. But in terms of vacancy progress, Next slide. And again, I just wanted to mention, Board, this includes all of our positions. So we have 521 fully budgeted full-time positions on the department. We have 67 vacancies. That includes... That includes budgeted and not funded, unfunded positions. Our full-time positions filled, again, it includes all of our positions, 454 on the department. So our percent vacancies is down by 4% or 13% this year, 17% last year. Next slide, please. I do want to, as I just mentioned, and I continue to mention, we provided additional information here that was not required. And so in terms of fully budgeted positions, I'm sorry. by bargaining unit, we have three bargaining units within the department, Local 55A, Local 55B, and Local 55C. The information that's provided on this chart includes full-time unfunded positions. So of the vacancies that are identified, we have 55 vacant vacancies, represented positions on the department, 42 of them are unfunded. So that's more information than we should have included. In terms of the actual totals, we have fire captains and 55A, and that includes fire captains, fire engineers, firefighters, and fire code compliance officers. We actually have, as of May 1st, 2026, five captain vacancies and 11 fire engineer vacancies. We actually have 17 more firefighters than we're authorized to have. So our vacancy rate in local 55A is actually 4%. 55B, we have 12 battalion chiefs that are funded. They're all full, those positions. We have two deputy fire marshals that are filled in the department, and we have two vacancies. And Local 55C, as I mentioned, we just filled up all of our positions. We have no vacancies, but on May 1st, we had five vacancies. Next slide, please. In terms of opportunities, next slide, we also want to be seen as the employer of choice. We do lots of activities within our department to make it a great place to work and a great place to be a part of. We also include in all the countywide enhanced recruitment marketing campaigns. We provide recruitment ads. We do broadcast and digital media advertising. targeted, digital targeting, banner ads, streaming TV, streaming audio, Google ads, social platforms, local radio. We were included in billboards along I-580 and I-880. We have exterior and interior building signage that we provide for recruiting opportunities, magnetic signs on some of our vehicles, and we have an enhanced presence at job fairs across the county. We also, I'm sorry, that's fine. We also have community partnerships with California Joint Apprenticeship Committee and with Las Positas and with Chabot Community College. Next slide. That's all the information. Happy to answer any questions the board may have.

Thank you, Chief. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass and then Supervisor Tam.

Thank you. Congratulations on the reduction in the vacancy rates from year to year. I am curious how you prioritize staffing, especially for firefighters, when you're not fully staffed. And the second part of the question, because I sit on the wildfire coalition of governments, is how are we doing in terms of any vacancies related to the hand crew or others who help to prevent wildfires?

So the recruitments, when we have vacancies, actually, we do a recruitment for a firefighter every year, Supervisor Fortunato-Bass. We utilize outreach. We do... Community outreach programs where we go out and meet with the community. We go to career fairs. We take advantage, as I say, of all the activities that our central HR puts together in terms of outreaching folks. We have our employees do recruiting for us. We think that that's a really good resource, folks that are happy about where they're working. And we do a lot of social media advertising as well. as advertising on TV, streaming videos and other types of outreach.

Okay, I think my question was more focused on with the current vacancy rate and not being fully staffed, which of course is not unusual. Does that mean that there's additional overtime or sort of how do you adjust when, there are vacancies and you're not fully staffed.

I'm sorry. I didn't understand that way. Okay. Yes, we do utilize quite a bit of overtime. We did add some additional positions to the department. I think two fiscal years ago where we added a relief personnel positions on each of our shifts to be able to fill some of those vacancies. So we have a, we have a, pool of overtime that we use to fill the vacancies, but we also have relief personnel that we can try to close that gap.

Thank you. And does that impact any staffing issues, for example, wildfire prevention or any other types of issues?

And I'm sorry, I failed to mention our fuel mitigation crew. We do a lot of recruiting, a lot of outreach for that as well. We also use our current members to do recruiting for the fuel mitigation crew. We reach out to our reserve pool as potential applicants to the fuel mitigation crew. We are currently full. I think we have 18 technicians and we're full and we are continuing to do recruitment outreach activities. So the second part of that question, I'm sorry. I'm good. Thank you.

Supervisor Tam, any questions or comments?

Thank you. I appreciate that presentation in terms of your vacancy rate, obviously bringing it down to like 12% with local 55A and 55C. It's really commendable. How does that compare to other fire departments like Berkeley, Alameda, which has their own, and Hayward?

I think our vacancy rate is lower than most. I think that we have good I think we are seen as the employer choice. I think that we have great opportunities for our folks to do outreach, and we spend a lot of time in the communities. I think other fire departments have higher vacancy rates than we do.

usually public safety has a much more rigorous hiring protocol and practice. You, you recruit people, they go through an Academy, then they graduate and they, they get placed. And I know it's, it's difficult, for example, you can't just go to a fair and just hand somebody a conditional offer, right? So do you, at what stage do you do the actual background check? Is it before you hire or is it before they get to the academy?

We do the background checks after we've issued a conditional offer of employment.

After you issue the conditional offer and contingent on the Background checks? Yes. Okay. And the psych evaluation goes with that?

Psych evaluation and medical.

Okay. So, I mean, in light of the rigor that you have to go through, having a very low vacancy rate is a good thing for you. Yes.

Thank you. Supervisor Miley, any? Yeah, thanks, Chief. So, as a dependent special district, so you do your own recruiting. You don't use HR.

Actually, we are a partner with HR. They do a significant amount of work for us in terms of recruitment. The entire process, we partner with our internal unit.

Okay. And then will you be recruiting at the Alameda County Fair?

We use that as an opportunity to recruit, yes. We have a number of our staff. I meant to ask HR that too.

Are you at the fair, the county fair? Yeah. You're not sure. Okay. And I think the sheriff you're on is the county fair recruiting. Okay. Okay. So I thought, okay. And then the big job fair. I can't remember if HR is doing another job fair, a big job fair. Were you at the last one?

We did. You were there? Yes.

Okay. And are you planning to do another large job fair? Just one?

Excuse me, Chief. So Margarita Zamora, Director of HRS. So right now it's on an annual basis. We're hoping to do it twice a year. We've had, like I mentioned earlier, it's out 500.

Yes, it was overwhelmingly successful. Right. How many do you have the job fair? How many folks? I think you mentioned this. How many were actually hired or do you know?

I don't have that data. Okay.

Okay. Just want to check.

So you're at, okay.

Those are my questions. Okay.

Thanks chief. No other questions. Great job. Thank you very much. As always. Is there any public comment on this item?

There are no public comments.

Motion to close the public hearing.

And no presentations from labor. Ah,

don't see anybody from anybody from labor online or in the room see none thank you we're moving to item 60. no i'll move to close the public yeah roll call vote please supervisor marquez hi supervisor tam hi supervisor miley supervisor fortune on the boss president halbert i vote yes all right well let's see we have before us next

Your consent calendar. Before you vote on your consent calendar, I want to read a correction into the record on item 71. It's a public works item. The amount of the contract should be $178,800. It's $100 more than what's listed on the agenda, and that's a correction to read into the record before you take an action.

Thank you. We'll actually take public comment on items that are on the agenda, except for those listed as set matters, which we just concluded. Is there any public comment on items on today's agenda? Either in the room or on line.

We have one in person, but I think he left. Samuel Ramey for item two.

He's gone.

There are no more public comments.

Thank you. Well, we just had public comment. The next is approval of minutes. Make a motion. You want to make a motion with the edit?

Yeah, I'll move to adopt the minutes in our board agenda from. Tuesday, June 2nd and Thursday, June 4th. I just have one minor edit and I think I could just read it into the record. For the meeting on June 4th, under call to order, if we could just capture that I did ask in those opening comments, if we could adjourn the meeting in memory of former council member Pat Gokoskos, which I see is accurately captured in the adjournment, but just want to make sure it's noticed that I made the request in the beginning, just in case people would just read that section.

Thank you. Motion has been made to accept and approve minutes with an amendment. Is there a second? I'll second. Well, let's see. Roll call vote then.

Supervisor Marquez. Wait, should we do public comment?

We did public comment on all the items.

Okay, sorry.

Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley. Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Vas. Aye. President Hubbard.

I vote yes. The next item is consent calendar items 69 through 78. Are there any things to pull or comment on or is there a motion?

I'll move to pass consent calendar. I'll second.

Most have been made to accept the consent calendar and approve it by Supervisor Tam, seconded by Supervisor Marquez. We'll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez. Aye. Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley.

Aye.

Supervisor Fortunato-Bass.

Aye.

President Hubbard.

I vote yes.

And just to clarify, that's with the correction to item 71? Correct.

Ready for the mass motion. When you're ready, Supervisor Tam.

Okay, thank you, President Halbert. I will move items two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12? 12 should not be included. There was a request to pull it out of the motion. 12 is not included. 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39. I have a question on 39. 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50. I have comments on 50. 51. 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59.

Any questions on 57?

60, 61, 62, 63, and 64.

And just for the record, item 34 was pulled by the department and will be brought back at a future date.

And item 16 was also pulled? Item 16 was pulled out of the motion. Right. For discussion.

Mass motion was made. Supervisor Marcus, did you second it?

No, but I'm happy to.

Okay, motion is made and seconded. I just have a question. I'll start with the question that I have on number four. And this is a social services question. And I'll apologize. I didn't take great notes on who has questions on what. So we'll just go down the list the best of our ability. And it's not so much a question about the item itself, but this is a continuing of a contract that's been in place. It's just to continue doing these services. So they've been doing it since 2023, I think? Yes.

Thank you for the question, Supervisor. Albert, Andrea Ford, Agency Director for Social Services. And the answer is yes.

So we have a four-year contract that we're just extending. Do we ever go out to bid and see if anybody else wants to do these services or is capable of doing these services? Or is there a reason we just re-up? Because I see a lot of re-ups.

Yeah, I can't answer any affirmative if we've gone out for bid, but I can find out for you for sure.

Okay. The question about social services agency, do you do your own procurement for these contracts or do you rely on a central agency?

We primarily work with general services agency.

You work closely with general service agency. Okay. Well, is there a reason we didn't, oh, you don't know yet if we went out to bid. You can go offline with that, I guess. I'll just say that I have no problem with University of California, Davis, providing work skills and professional development training. I just, as a matter of just good practice, feel that contracts that keep getting renewed over and over and over again might not benefit from current market conditions or current best practices, current market rates, things like that. But I trust that you're happy with this contract and that's why we're extending it.

To answer your last question, the answer is yes. On the first question, the social services agency is very vigilant in procuring contracts. We don't typically roll over and over and over without formally procuring them. Do you think maybe you did go out to bid? I think so, but I'll confirm.

Do we know? Does GSA know? Did we go out to bid for this? Oh, okay. We'll take it offline. Thank you.

Thank you.

Supervisor Tam, I think you had the next question, but I wasn't sure.

On item 39. I'm sorry. You're in the 50s, right?

Okay.

Okay. So item 39 is something we have to adopt under SB 707 in terms of the resolutions with technology disruption. Has there been any formal feedback that we got on this public, on this policy and primarily like ongoing, like for example, today we had a technological glitch We had to stop and then the law allows us to resume after an hour. But I'm just trying to understand in terms of like some people who might have some disabilities that are online and how do we make sure that that gets communicated well?

Let me speak to what the law requires, and I'll let staff talk about the process. But the law requires us to make efforts to correct or address the technology disruption issue for at least an hour. If we are able to fix the problem, then we should resume the meeting as quickly thereafter as we can. So today we were able to fairly quickly address the issue and go back live with your board meetings. And so if we are having a disruption that is an extended period of time or just a disruption at all, your board has the right under statute and under your policy to recess to closed session. And so that was an option to us. The technology disruption today happened after we had already completed the majority of closed session. I believe we have other items to return for. But as to how we engage with the public, I'll leave that to staff to describe for you.

It is noticed on the website and we can update to make sure that it's clear for anyone who has disabilities, the accessibility portion of it. So we can make it more clear on the website.

OK, I guess it's sort of a circular situation, like if you're online and there was a technical problem and you had to cease, does the person online know that your technical issue will be resolved at some point?

Yes, it is put up on the screen. And when you go onto our website, we put a note that says, if there's a disruption, this is our policy. So they know to keep checking that, you know, SB 707 requires us to continue to work on the technology for up to an hour. So it will be noticed ahead of time and the information will be on the website ongoing. Okay.

I guess it's hopeful that that technology issue doesn't affect our ability to notice people online. Okay.

I guess it may. If the computers are all down and you can't even go online, you can maybe put something on the website. So technology has its great benefits, but it has its risks, I think. And once in a while, if the technology goes out, then That's a risk. I view it that way. But I'm glad we have these policies in place. And I'm even more glad that somebody can keep track of them for us and keep us apprised of all of these rules and regulations. Thank you. Any other questions on that item? Supervisor Marquez, I think you're next up for questions.

Just wanted to make a few comments. This is the public defender's board letter with respect to work with consultant on belonging, justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. It's a professional service agreement and just wanted to note for the public's reference that the public protection committee received a presentation on the Racial Justice Act back on Thursday, October 26, 2023. And my office is in conversation with the public defender to bring an update back later this year. So just wanted to note that. Thank you. Yes, the presentation was heard at Public Protection Committee on Thursday, October 26. That doesn't seem right. It was not 23. More than likely. Well, let me verify the year. It seems rather early. It might have been 24. So I'll verify the year. Thank you.

Any other questions on the question on item 57? The seven?

Yes. 57 is with respect to WellPath. And I just wanted to clarify for the public's knowledge, Sheriff, that this contract is not extending the length of time with WellPath. It is solely hiring additional positions to address reentry population and CalAIM and us going live with that feature. If you could just elaborate a little bit.

Yeah, that is correct. It's basically to support our CalAIM initiative as well as our MAT program, our Medication Assisted Treatment program. And that's really just to focus on just discharge services for reentry for those who are leaving custody.

And just want to let the public know that I did take a tour of Santa Rita Jail specifically to learn more about the MAT program. My team and I visited the jail on March 19th of this year, 2026. Thank you.

Does anybody else have any other questions or comments on the items mass motion supervisor?

Yes, thank you. Just one more follow-up regarding number 39, the technology disruption policy. I didn't notice in the packet where it might be posted. Will this be posted somewhere where it's accessible to the public as well as members of the board?

Yes, it will be noticed in the policy section. So we will post the policy.

I'm sorry, where exactly will it be posted online?

It'll be posted on our website, visible for everyone to see.

Okay, the CAO website. Thank you.

The comment I made earlier, it was correct. October 26, 2023. That seemed rather early, but we just verified on the agenda.

Thank you for asking.

Any other questions on items on the mass motion? Seeing none, I'll ask for a roll call vote.

Supervisor Marquez? Aye. Supervisor Tam? Aye. Supervisor Marley? Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass? Aye. President Halbert?

I vote yes. We have a few items pulled out.

Next item is item 12. It's a recommendation from Alameda County Health requesting authorization to make budget adjustments related to Measure C pediatric care safety net funds.

Yes, I pull this item because I'd like the agency director to speak to some questions and maybe make some additional comments as appropriate. So relative to Measure C and the rollover of $11,522,500. The rollovers rolling over to the next fiscal year?

Yes. Anika Chowdhury, Director for Alameda County Health. So this board letter is, as you'll recall, I believe in October or November of 2025, your board approved a three-year spend plan for Measure C pediatric amount. This was 20% of the 20%. delegated to the health account. And so this is administered by our agency. So for the first year, we had about 16.96 million budgeted, and we've been able to expand a little over 5 million. And so we're requesting to roll over the remainder so that it can be in the 26-27 budget. And this is largely because we need to finish up some RFPs. And we're also doing some hiring for some of the the rollover amounts.

Okay, so it's not as though the funding's not needed. Internally, your agency just hasn't been able to get the money out the door. And then 26-27, you're going to get like another $13 million?

For 26-27, we do have $13 million planned, yes.

Do you think you'll be able to get that money out the door?

That is our plan and intent.

OK. And then with the pediatric portion, the county gets, through Measure C, 20% of the 20%. So the other 20%, which is 15%, I guess, 60% of the 20%. goes to children's hospital. Okay. So what's the status of that? Because I think the I think the board provided some kind of guidance on how we'd like to see those resources used. And I don't know if there's consensus around the use of those resources.

Yes. So for the portion that goes to Benioff Children's Hospital of Oakland, 75% is intended to go to trauma services and related services for the hospital. And your board instructed that 5% also go toward training and education and staffing needs. So I do recall that Children's Hospital has come by the Health Committee earlier in the fall, and they presented some of their plans for spending the money. In terms of how the county tracks the expenditures is through the Look Back Committee, which is the Measure A, C, and W Committee. And so we haven't completed the full first fiscal year of 25-26. And so we anticipate that Benioff Children's Hospital will be back at that committee to provide an update on how they've been spending their portion of the pediatric account. Anticipate that to happen in the fall.

Okay, so that will be reported in the fall. And that's a look back, right?

Yes, that committee just looks back where all organizations that receive funding from those three measures come and share with the committee members, how they've spent that money in the past fiscal year.

So if there's a controversy around how the funding should be utilized, when would it be appropriate for the board to weigh in? Because if that's a look back, can we have a more prospective look at this? And give guidance for the future?

I believe that in the initial board letter or the revised board letter that went for the second time around for the allocation.

I'd like to call our meeting back to order. Apologies to everyone. Patience appreciated. Thank you to our technical team for getting us back online. We were in the middle of a dialogue and I think Anika, you were giving an answer? Well, that's a roll call. Yeah, good idea.

Supervisor Marquez, excuse. Supervisor Tam? Present. Supervisor Miley? Here. Supervisor Fortune on bus? Present. President Halbert?

Present.

We have a quorum.

Let's proceed. All right. So we were talking about the pediatric portion of Measure C, the portion that's not the county's 20% where we are and how we can have more direction on the use of those funds if they are being utilized the way we'd like them to be utilized.

Yeah. I can't speak to the direction of the fund supervisor, but I believe that in the board letter where your board approved the funding, there is language that says that Children's Hospital would come back to the board as requested to provide information and updates.

Okay. So I'd like to see if the board could get an update at a work session. Generally, we have a work session once a month. So I don't know if we're going to have one in August because of the recess. But I'd like to see if the county administrator and the president could get this scheduled for board work session.

Could this be something that goes to the health committee?

It's gone to the health committee. I need the full board to kind of weigh in and understand this. So if we can come to a work session, hopefully by the fall at the latest, it'd be helpful. Oh yeah, that's the budget.

Sure.

Either next month or in the fall.

So just to clarify, your question, about whether the spending of this money is being done in accordance with our desires has gone to health committee or not? It has gone to health committee. Okay. And then is there, when this would come to our board, the committee would be able to weigh in? Like, it seems to me it would be something the committee would be bringing to the full board.

The committee can weigh in as well as I think labor will weigh in. Clearly, we'll be speaking in terms of how they have been utilizing their portion of the pediatric funds and whether or not labor finds that to be, you know, palpable. And then whether or not we want to make any changes or direction. And obviously, we can't do it at the work session, but we could take it up and give direction. Bring it back here. Thank you.

Just to clarify, in our board letter, when we gave direction at that time, we also put in some language about the adequacy of staffing as part of that discussion. And so I think when we had the health committee, that was an issue that got presented. And we're trying to understand whether it got resolved.

Understood.

Another item was pulled out. Do you want to take all three? How many items were pulled out in mass motion, two? Do you want to take the other one up and then we'll vote on both at the same time?

The next item is item 16, also from AC Health, requesting that your board approve the Behavioral Health Services Act three-year integrated plan.

So I pulled this because... Behavioral health obviously is one of our, if not, it's probably our largest funded department in the county, in the Healthcare Services Agency. And they're now presenting their three-year plan. And I just didn't think it should go through on consent or in a mass motion that the agency director and maybe even the department director might have comments to present, and then board members in the public might have questions and comments.

Yeah, thank you, Supervisor. I do have ACBH Deputy Director Vanessa Baker on, as well as Tracy Hazelton, who is the Division Director for the BHSA program. And so we'll ask them to join. And while they're joining, I'll just give a high-level overview. I think as we've shared with the health committee as well as the board at various intervals, this particular year as we transition to 26-27 is a big transition for MHSA to BHSA. And as we've done with MHSA, it's a three-year plan. However, with the BHSA, one of the main requirements is that any funding that goes through the Behavioral Health Department outside of BHSA funding as well is also to be included in the plan. And so what Vanessa and Tracy have a few slides that they can go over just to kind of walk through the plan and the process and how we got here and talk a little bit about next steps. And then we're happy to take any questions. And I will share it has been reviewed both by the Behavioral Health Advisory Board as well as the Health Committee and was forwarded by the Health Committee for your full board. Take it away, Vanessa.

Thank you, Anika. And I will share a slide deck. Let me go ahead and pull that up. Don't want to cause any more technical difficulties. Okay. Let's see. All right, Tracy, can you give me a, there we go, I see it, okay, excellent. So this is a brief slide deck just to orient your board to the three-year integrated plan. Of course, this is a new plan, a new process through the Behavioral Health Services Act. And I will share the first set of slides and then transition to Tracy. Sorry. Slide two. So just to, again, orient the board, just highlighting some differences. So this board and the community is likely familiar with the Mental Health Services Act plan. Of course, on the left-hand side, this included the funding specific to Mental Health Services Act funding. There was a lot of flexibility in terms of how the plan was written. And then, of course, the different components CSS, PEI, WET workforce education training, for example. And the three-year program and expenditure plan, again, really highlighting it focused only on the Mental Health Services Act funding. And of course, the report included data and engagement of stakeholders, and the goal was to improve local outcomes. So shifting to the Behavioral Health Services Act integrated plan, there are some significant differences So the focus is a county behavioral health system strategy. So rather than being focused really on the Mental Health Services Act piece, it's really the overall system. So looking at the totality. Now this is a really key piece, bullet number two, there is a standardized template. This template is not one that we can modify. There is an associated state portal and it is organized around the now, probably well-known Behavioral Health Services Act components that are different. The Behavioral Health Services and Supports, the FSP component or Full Service Partnership component, and of course the Housing Interventions component. And then a key piece, and I'll tell you a little bit more about this later in this brief presentation, are the focus on the statewide behavioral health goals. And then importantly, moving to bullet number three, the budget is now inclusive of all of our funding. So rather than just MHSA funding, we are required to really be transparent and accountable to all of our funding and how that interacts with the integrated plan. So, of course, that includes just the broader system, what we are doing as a county as a whole. And, of course, this applies to all counties. And then the data collection is standardized and the goal of this is to strengthen engagement, arguably, we do a really robust stakeholder engagement process, but the state really would like to see an increase in that. Again, for those of you who haven't yet had a chance to take a look at the integrated plan. These are the sections. It does look different from the prior Mental Health Services Act plan. It is a little shorter. It is still several hundreds of pages. But again, the template, the plan is organized from the state. There is not as much flexibility or there's limited flexibility in terms of how we can present this plan. So you'll see these different categories, general information, overview, the behavioral health goals, of course, the community planning process, the comment period, public hearing, which are still built into the process, our behavioral health care continuum capacity, then are the funding workforce strategy, a focus on the specific detail to the budget and prudent reserve, and then, of course, the approval and compliance. So those are the different parts of the plan that you will see when you review this plan or hopefully approve it today. And to tell you a little bit more about, of course, a really critical part of our Behavioral Health Services Act planning is our community planning process. So this is a very extensive process, again, taking place for this integrated plan, the first of its kind, January 1st, 2025 through May 15th of 2025. And you will see, again, on the left, the bullets just give you a summary of what that planning process looked like. Over 600 surveys collected. over 30 or 35 listening sessions and the number of participants, 24 stakeholder groups with five diverse viewpoints. This is very critical that we receive a variety of viewpoints for our plan. And then of course, the community feedback that we were able to integrate into the planning. And then to the right, you will see essentially the categories in the upper chart system need rankings. So rank number one, access, coordination and navigation to both our mental health and substance use services. That was really seen as the highest priority. And then coming in a close second, crisis services. So you will really see there's a great focus on access, whether accessing regular or non-crisis services, and then crisis, and then housing, and then working its way down. And then for population need rankings, you'll see that the number one priority is was the needs of children, youth, and transitional age youth, then followed by adults and older adults, and then disability, et cetera, et cetera. So this is really important, not only for us to track this, but also, of course, for your board to see, just to have an in-depth understanding of what information we're receiving through this community planning process. And of course, this is a snapshot. Then again, I mentioned this earlier, there is a focus on statewide goals that are driving, that the state would like to see in terms of driving change. And so there are six required priority goals, and then one additional goal that a behavioral health, a county behavioral health may select. So there are 14 total, and then the starred priority goals that you see here, On the left, access to care. Of course, that's a goal for improvement, so we want to see that go up. And then to the right in the orange section, what we want to see a reduction in, overdoses, which is the priority goal that our county selected, followed by untreated behavioral health conditions, institutionalization, homelessness, justice involvement, and removal of children from the home. So again, the focus, these are behavioral health goals, and then our responsibility is to identify the metrics that can help us speak to our impact around these goals, that is a really key piece in terms of what we are communicating and the metrics that we're able to provide to the state. So next, and I will just briefly touch on the different components again housing interventions. So this is the first time within this Behavioral Health Services Act and the new integrated plan where there is the specific inclusion of a component at 30% funding for housing interventions. So you'll see that this really focuses on supportive services, so subsidies, family housing, and looking at opportunities to provide actual housing services services directly. So to the right, the bullets you will see, for example, operating subsidies, there is an anticipated number of individuals to be served at a little over 900. Moving down to bullet three, rental subsidies. So again, the focus is on really providing that rental and operating services to individuals so that they can benefit from them. And then further, you will see just detail on the different housing services that are a focus of the BHSA funding specific for that housing component at 30% of the budget. Next. I'll share a little bit about the full service partnership component. So again, full service partnership is an evidence based practice. It's the highest level of outpatient services for individuals with serious mental health challenges. It's a whatever it takes model. Follows an assertive community treatment. For those of you who are familiar with this, it's just, again, a very, very A very successful evidence based practice, and it is at 35% of the behavioral health services act funding so that is that component and we do have you'll see here are programming, the number of. FSPs at 10 the act model three in the forensic act model. And then further, you'll see the different types of services that we have. And of course, all of this I'm sharing with you because this is reflected in the integrated plan. And then finally, to close out my portion, just to highlight the third and final component, but arguably the most complex and robust just in terms of how we've managed that within our county, is the behavioral health services and supports. So this is really the all other component And this is where I talked about the limited flexibility or the shift in flexibility. So this particular component under MHSA really, it ended up being many components and moving into this one component of BHSS at 35%. And you'll see on the left, this component includes early intervention, outreach and engagement, workforce education and training, capital facilities, et cetera, et cetera. So it's really a large number of the programs that we were supporting under MHSA have now had to shift into this component. And then further within this component, as has been shared many times, there are further isolated elements. So 51% of this component must be used for early intervention, and then 51% of the early intervention must be used for individuals 25 years of age or younger. So again, the bullets on the right just provide more detailed information, but again, you will see a lot more information in the integrated plan. And now I will pass the mic to Tracy, and I will still drive the PowerPoint.

Thank you, Vanessa and good afternoon supervisors. So I'm just going to go over a little bit around and again, high level information around our public comment period as well as some information around our budget and our timeline process and some resources. So on this slide, this is information around public comment. We put out the integrated plan for 30 days, and we do quite a bit of outreach in the community around the integrated plan being released. That public comment period was between March 19th and April 20th. When we had our Behavioral Health Advisory Board public hearing, we had 103 public comments overall. And then also a number of those public comments did come through the Behavioral Health Advisory Committee or meeting, which was very exciting to see the public so engaged in this new process. That advisory board meeting was held on April 20th. We also offered public comment cards and public comment information in our threshold languages, as you can see here, English, Chinese, Farsi, Spanish, Tagalog, and Vietnamese. And then below, the way the state is requiring us to capture our public comments, they require us to capture stakeholder groups And so here you have the structured way that the state would like us to capture stakeholder groups, And you can see the top stakeholders that commented were individuals that lived in one of the most of the five populous cities in Alameda County. They were families of people with lived experience. They were community-based organizations, providers of mental health services, eligible adults and older adults. It's kind of where the break is right there. And then we also have to capture the type of public comment. So as you can see here, our top four areas of the type of public comment were around school-based mental health, crisis services, housing, and early intervention. In the integrated plan, there is information about all of the public comments that's listed. Next slide. So this will be I have two slides on just high level budget information, there is much more information in the integrated plan itself, but for the Community it's important to highlight the. comparison between the budget in 2526 under MHSA and the breakdown of the components and how we are spending our dollars. And then moving towards 2627 under BHSA, there is a reduced budget based on a reduced allocation from the state. And so this is again to highlight how that those dollars are being spent per the components of the behavioral health services and supports component, BHSS, that's the discretionary component, our housing intervention component, as well as our FSP component. Something that is also has been a topic when we have been presenting is around our carryover or unexpended dollars that are moving from 2526 into 2627. So in this slide, what we are just highlighting is that of, for example, under the BHSS category, we have a budget of 80 million. Of that 80 million, 36.65 is carryover. And then the other portion is revenue from the state. Similarly for the FSP portion down below in dark purple, there we have a budget of 51.9 million. Of that 51.9 to make up that entire budget, we are using 8.5 million in carryover from MHSA moving into BHSA. Also, just as a highlight, this budget of 164.47 does not include our $14 million that we do have in Prudent Reserve. Prudent Reserve is like our savings account, I would say. It has very strict regulations also on when and how you can utilize the Prudent Reserve. But it remains there in terms of, in times of economic uncertainty. instability and we need to get approval from DHCS to use it. So we have not added. Also, I want to highlight to the Prudent Reserve in quite a while, we have been putting out as much of the funding as possible into the community because once we put money in the Prudent Reserve, we know that it is difficult to pull it out or utilize it. Next slide. So again, in just talking about the theme of our carryover or unspent dollars, the area where we are spending the majority of our unspent funding is in the BHSS component, Behavioral Health Services and Supports. And what I want to just highlight here for you is we have to submit in the integrated plan This is a three-year integrated plan, a three-year balanced budget. And in order to do that, we needed to spread our carryover across the three years of the integrated plan. And as you can see, as we move through the next three years, we will be using less and less of the carryover. So our goal is when we get to our next three-year plan, starting in 2930, the hope is that our budget and our revenue from the state are fairly aligned and we will not be having this carryover or these unspent dollars. But this is how the dollars, the carryover is helping us continue our balanced budget in this component over the next three years. And you can just see on the right here, there are some information about what we are spending, our funding on large items in the BHSS component. As an example, the Alameda County Health Epic or electronic health records implementation, as well as our African American Wellness Hub and early intervention provider system support, some bridge funding there. Capacity building funding for early intervention providers. Okay, next slide. We are building out. We have information on our county website as well as we have information on the website. Once the plan is approved. It will be posted here. This is where we are also posting information from the state on updates around BHSA, as well as all things around the behavioral health transformation that the state is promoting. And so we had a external website like this under MHSA, and so we will continue it under BHSA for an easy way for the community to identify and find information and resources. Next slide. So this has been our timeline throughout the year. As you can see over in the left, we started out in January through May of stakeholder engagement. We then, with approval from the county administrator's office, we did submit a draft plan to the Department of Health Care Services on March 31st. that was approved by DHCS. We went forward with our public hearing. We then went and presented at the Health Committee. We are here now on June 16th, and we are hoping then to submit our final and approved plan to DHCS by June 30th to meet the new regulatory requirements around BHSA. And then there is a new, under BHSA, there is a new opportunity to update your plan during the year, and that is called an intermittent update. And the reason that this is important is that under BHSA, we now have to report on all funding streams that are in the behavioral health department, not just the BHSA funding stream. And when there is a cost report that will be coming that the state will want us to do, and part of it is called the BODR, Behavioral Health Outcomes Accountability Transparency Report. A draft of what this new report looks like will come out this summer, but basically it is the cost report to the budget that is in our plan. And so we want to make sure and the state wants to make sure that when we are doing this voter, that it aligns to our most current and most updated budget. And so as we are working through our bridge funding with Measure W, that those dollars are not in our budget right now. And so we will be back in the fall. to submit an intermittent update so we will have an updated budget for the board for your board to be able to see and we will go through the entire process again of community engagement a hearing at our behavioral health advisory board 30-day public comment a presentation at the health committee and then we will we will present here or we'll be on the agenda here to be approved and that will be back in the fall Next slide. And these are some resources that we always promote for the community around just all things that are happening around the behavioral health transition at the state down to the local level. Next slide. And that is the end of the presentation. Thank you.

So I want to thank Tracy and Vanessa for such a thorough You know, it's unfortunate we had to wait until, you know, 5 o'clock on Tuesday because this is really important. The total three-year amount is how much? Is it $210? Yeah.

So 64 per year.

Yes. Yeah. It will change. So that, that is what's in for next year. And then we will also, in addition to an intermittent update to add the measure W dollars, we will come back and do an annual update for 27, 28. And so depending on the revenue from the state, that budget of one 64 may go up or down a little bit, but that's about the range.

Okay. And then the Measure W monies will have to be part of the budget, but we're not penalized or anything like that for having those dollars go towards prevention?

My understanding is no, it's not a penalization. It's just that the requirement is that BHSA dollars cannot go toward prevention. but those are local general fund dollars. So we just need to account for them in the plan.

Yeah, just show it, okay. And looking at that slide that's up here, I think everyone can see that in the past, we were able to put dollars into prevention, but in the future, there's no dollars in the Behavioral Health Services Act for prevention. And that's why You know, we as the board, and fortunately we've had Measure W funds, we've had to allocate funding to help bridge that. And then we're going to be looking at how we're going to help ensure a transition so that we can continue to have prevention services here in the county. Because we know without prevention services, there's going to be consequences as a result of prevention. services and dollars not being available. So I think that that's important to point out. And then I always get confused. What's the distinction between prevention and early intervention? Is there a definition that we follow?

Vanessa or Tracy?

A distinction between prevention and early intervention.

So prevention is the most upstream. It is really addressing individuals who do not have any signs or symptoms of whatever you are trying to prevent. So if you're trying to prevent mental health issues, they're not or substance use disorder issues. So youth are not, for SUD, youth are not using any substances at the time, or for mental health, let's say, youth are not exhibiting, or adults, individuals are not exhibiting signs or symptoms of a mental health issue. And then early intervention, you, and so also under prevention, you're really trying to promote protective factors for those individuals and reduce risk factors. And for early intervention, you are trying to intervene early for individuals who are already showing signs and symptoms of whatever that issue is. So And for us, it would be individuals that are showing signs and symptoms of a mental health issue or a mental health disorder or a substance use disorder and wanting to intervene early to prevent the issue from becoming severe and disabling. And at the same time, then the state under BHS is really pushing. There is more of a definition of what they want to see in an early intervention program. And they are really pushing for billing or Medi-Cal billing under your early intervention and all treatment programs.

And with those two definitions, we're locked into those definitions. There's no or is there wiggle room?

There is no wiggle room in the BHSA policy manual. It explicitly says that prevention is not fundable and that those types of services have been aligned or realigned to the State Department of Public Health. And actually 4% has come off the top of BHSA to go towards population-based prevention services.

And then one other thing, Tracy or Vanessa or Nika, if next year and then the following year the board decides to use Measure W monies around behavioral health, we'll just have to, once again, account for that in the plan. Once again, we're not penalized or anything like that.

No. No. No, we're not penalized. It's just a matter of anything that is in our budget that is in the behavioral health budget, we must account for. There is no penalty for that, at least not as of right now in terms of the information that we have from the state.

Okay. And do you know, and this is my last question, I'm sorry to prolong this, do you know if after three years, if the state has received feedback from counties, emphasis on counties, plural, is there a possibility that there could be some adjustments made with this, you know, DHSS, or would that require, once again, the voters to make those adjustments? Are we locked in?

I think it depends on what components we want to change. So there's certain things like the I believe the components that it can be spent on that was a part of the proposition. And so that if it's locked in at the proposition level, then it requires going back to the ballot. But then there's a lot that is implementation via legislation. And so to the extent that legislature is interested, I know that they have been hearing from all of the behavioral health directors, as well as the health directors that, um, this isn't necessarily playing out as advertised at the local level. And, you know, especially on the prevention side, I just, Tracy mentioned that, you know, some of the prevention funding, so 4% off the top of BHSA is going through the State Department of Public Health, and they're going to implement a statewide prevention program, which is estimated at a little over $100 million per year. And that's statewide, right? So they're trying to put forward those strategies. I think they're going to focus a lot on suicide prevention, you know, but they're going to be limited and not as expansive as a lot of the work we've done locally.

Okay. Because I'm just hoping that there's enough pushback that wherever we have flexibility, we can do that. without violating the proposition. Okay, thanks.

So I have some questions. This almost feels like a good work study session. Could you go back to the slides that talk about housing? Can we make the screen bigger? Rental subsidies 545 that's countywide.

Yes, what you're seeing. I was just going to caveat one thing is that this is. Housing funded strictly by the HSA funding. So that's 545 countywide. But one of the key things here is that these are limited to people with serious mental illness. So we have a variety of other subsidies that, as you know, the H&H department helps to administer.

And that goes through a different department, those other programs, those other subsidies.

So if I recall correctly, Vanessa, you can correct me, but a lot of the housing services that are provided through BHSA are administered through H&H. So Behavioral Health provides the funding and the eligibility requirements, and then H&H helps to administer them.

Correct. Can we get a breakout of each of these where in the county they're going to by district?

We might be able to do that on the back end in terms of clients served.

Yeah. I'd just like to know how many come from the Tri-Valley and how many come from Fremont District 1.

Sure.

The next slide, I think it was, or maybe the slide before that talked about community outreach, community meetings and things like that. Surveys, listening sessions, stakeholder groups. Very good. I would like me and my staff to either help promote these or attend and observe these? Which ones and what dates did these occur in the Tri-Valley or Fremont?

We can provide that information. Tracy, do you have that? readily available or we circle back?

Yeah, I don't have it readily available, but we can circle back. And we are starting to plan now to start this cycle again. We will be hosting these types of events starting in probably August. So we definitely welcome your and your staff's engagement. That would be very exciting. Thank you.

Yeah, as much lead time as you can give us, it can get into our newsletters and things like that.

Yes, thank you. We will get back to you right away.

Thank you. That's it. Appreciate it. Is this an item that we're ready to make a motion on at this point, or do we have other questions, comments? Supervisor Miley, you want to make a motion? Sure, if I can move item 12 and item 16. Did you have any questions on 16, or did we already talk about that? That's what we just talked about. Miley makes a motion on 12 and 16. Fortunato Bass seconded. Sorry, she beat you. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez. Aye. Supervisor Tam. Aye. Supervisor Miley. Aye. Supervisor Fortunato Bass. Aye. President Hubbard.

I vote yes. Thank you. We have ordinances.

You have three ordinances. The first one is item 31. It's a second reading of salary ordinance amendments.

an ordinance amending certain provisions of the 2025-2026 County of Alameda salary ordinance.

Mr. President, I will move to waive the full second reading and adopt the salary ordinance amendments as listed in 31A, Roman I, Roman II, and Roman III. I'll second.

Motion's been made by Supervisor Tam and seconded by Supervisor Fortunato-Bass. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez? Aye. Supervisor Tam? Aye. Supervisor Miley? Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Vas?

Aye.

President Hopper?

Aye. Item 32 is also the second reading of the Salary Ordinance Amendment.

An ordinance amending certain provisions of the 2025-2026 County of Alameda Salary Ordinance.

I will move to waive the full second reading and adopt the Salary Ordinance Amendment to update Article 1, Section 1-1, as described in 32 A and B. I'll second.

Motion's been made by Supervisor Tam, second by Supervisor Fortunato-Bass. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez? Aye. Supervisor Tam? Aye. Supervisor Miley? Aye. Supervisor Fortunato-Bass? Aye. President Hubbard? Aye.

First reading of the salary ordinance amendment related to legal assistant and attorney assistant classifications.

an ordinance amending certain provisions of the 2025-2026 County of Alameda salary ordinance.

Ms. President, I will move to wait to a full first reading and introduce the salary ordinance amendment to reinstate Article 3, Section 3-21 as described in Item 33.

I'll second.

Motion's been made by Supervisor Tam, seconded by Supervisor Fortunato-Bass. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Marquez? Aye. Supervisor Thiem? Aye. Supervisor Miley?

Aye.

Supervisor Fortunato-Bass?

Aye.

President Hopper?

Aye. I think that concludes the regular agenda. We have public comment on items not on today's agenda. Do we have any public comment in the room or online?

There are no public comments.

Seeing none, I would like to make mention of and adjourn this meeting in well before we recess to close session I'm going to announce that we lost a member of our team former member of our team Darlene Smith Darlene was a trailblazing leader and a dedicated public servant whose career with Alameda County spanned nearly four decades. Darlene's career embodied the very best of public service. She began with the county in 1962 as a clerk too, and steadily advanced through the clerical, technical and administrative ranks earning each promotion through her talent, determination, and commitment to excellence. In 1986, she was appointed director of the General Services Agency, becoming only the second person to lead that agency following its creation. She was the first woman in California to serve as a director of a county general services agency. Throughout her distinguished career, Darlene broke barriers, opened the doors for future generations of women in government leadership and helped shape the county's operations through her vision, professionalism, and dedication. Her legacy lives on not only in the organization she helped build, but also in the example she set for all who followed. In recognition of her extraordinary contributions to Alameda County and the people it serves, I ask that today's meeting be adjourned in memory of Darlene Smith. We will recess into closed session. When we come back to close out our meeting, we will do so in her honor. We're in recess. We are reconvening from closed session. I'll ask the clerk to call the roll and reestablish quorum.

Supervisor Marquez? Present. Supervisor Tam? Present. Supervisor Miley? Present. Supervisor Fortunato-Vas? Present. President Hopper?

Present. We have county council. Anything to report out from closed session?

No, President Hopper. Your board took no reportable action in closed session.

Very good. Would you please indulge me in a moment of silence for Darlene Smith? Thank you very much. Seeing that all items before us have been completed, we are now adjourned.