Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Administrative Issues and Updates. On March 3rd, 2026, County Administrator Gary Schmidt, would you please call the roll? Yes. Thank you. Chair. Commissioner Savas is on his way. He'll be joining remotely soon. Roll call in the room. Commissioner helm here. Commissioner Schrader here. Commissioner West. Here. Chair Roberts here. Thank you. Gary. I'll now recess as a board of county commissioners and convene as a housing authority board. Gary, you want to introduce the first of Jim? Yes. Thank you. Where you're now meeting is the housing authority board of Clackamas County. Joining you online is housing resident commissioner and Lane Stre. Good morning, Commissioner Lane staff. Good morning. Thank you for being here. This item is annual plan and moving to work supplemental public hearing preview. This is coming up to your business meeting this Thursday, and staff will give you an update on what's about to happen or come before you. Mary Rumbold, director of health and Human services. Shannon Callahan, division director, health, housing, Human Services. Go ahead. Good morning. Chair Roberts and commissioners. So as as indicated by the title, the housing authority of Clackamas County is required to hold a public hearing to review its draft annual public housing plan and move to work supplemental. This year's plan covers the housing authorities fiscal year from July 2026 through June 2027. I am joined here with Shannon Callahan, the Housing Authority executive director, who's going to give a quick overview of the draft and your plan and next steps. Good morning. Each year, the Housing authority prepares a draft annual public housing plan. For our primary funder, which is housing and urban development, also known as HUD. Our plan requires that we focus on, what hand defines as new activities. So this plan talks about the repositioning work that the Housing Authority has been undertaking for, many years

now, which we estimate to be complete in 2027. And, we are also, as a moving to work designated agency, are required to explain how we will be using our, flexibility that is granted to us with that designation. And so there are three new waivers that we are proposing in this, draft annual plan, which will have a public hearing this Thursday. The first is, asset verification. We are proposing to streamline processes, to reduce administrative burdens and also recognize that a modest savings, including retirement accounts, are consistent with long term financial, sustainability and self-sufficiency. So we're proposing that we would only verify and use assets in excess of $100,000 or more for rent calculations. This is a common, moving to work, exemption that many agencies across the country use. The second is an interim reexamination adjustment. Each year, we confirm and validate a family's income to set the amount of support they would receive from the voucher program. If a family has any income changes during that year, we will do a reexamination process. So we go through an entire revalidation of their income. What we are proposing is that we only do those Re examinations mid-year. For an increase or decrease of 10% or more. So what we're essentially saying is there's a de minimis amount of an income increase that is unlikely to change their rent assistance significantly, within the year. And we would just wait for that

next verification time, which would be could be three months, could be six months. This actually aligns with guidance that had is already provided in a what, what is called a housing opportunity through Modernization Act of 2016. So this is actually guidance that had is telling us we should be moving towards. And then finally the third area of flexibility, that we would be seeking with our moving to work designation this year is to be able to do an inspection up to 90 days before a family moves in. So HUD has very rigid timelines for when we have to inspect a property before someone can, family can move in. We'd like to extend that time to 90 days. We believe that this will allow us to work with more landlords, actually improve our, processing times and help landlords reduce vacancies. When they are offering housing to voucher unit voucher holders. So it's all maybe a little complex. But those are the three areas that, that we're proposing to use are moving to work flexibility next year. So once we accept public comments this Thursday, we will then, keep the record open until, March 15th, as part of our public process and then bring back to you, the final version of the draft plan, incorporating any comments that we've heard through the public process at the hearing. Other submitted comments. And including a meeting we held with our own resident advisory board. And then the board, we would be asking the board to submit the final plan to HUD, no later than April 17th of this year to meet our statutory requirements. And that concludes the overview of the draft annual plan. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

All right. Thank you. Commissioner West. Thank you. Chair. It's very timely. Had discussions around these issues and HUD at Naco. MTC on this issue. I know that myself and I believe Chair Roberts were in the room or some of these conversations and best practices were coming forward. I may have missed something, and you might have already addressed this, but for clarification, when we're doing some of these, verifications and making sure income requirements, things like that, there are some best practices are coming out of Naco or maybe HUD, that it's not done annually, but every three years. Can you where are we at with that? And what is why is that change? It seems somewhat reasonable to not have to have the to be more efficient. I don't know if you could speak to the conversations around that. So we already have been we have already implemented that in the prior plan. And that's only for folks, that are disabled or elderly and essentially folks that that their income is not likely, frankly, to have massive swings. So, but for families that are still, in that age range of a working population, and you could see a differentiation in income, we are we would still be recommending an annual check on certification because there can be changes. And we would we would want to make sure that we're providing the right amount of rent assistance. And frankly, as we get tighter and tighter with our budgets, we'll want to make sure that we can provide as much service as possible through the community where it makes sense. Thank you. Shannon. Could you could you speak to what that process looks like? And what are we verifying? What kind of documents are qualified? And HUD allows us to utilize, for income verification. Yeah. What does that look like? What is that process? I could give you a general idea. I don't that's okay. The process myself, but but essentially we're looking at all sorts of different,

documents related to income. It could be disability checks. It could be, your, general income. Obviously, we look at assets as well. So if someone is maintaining a large amount of assets, we would not be wanting to provide, you know, rent assistance to someone who doesn't have income but has, I don't know, $3 million, right, in assets. And so, you know, it's it's essentially doing a calculation of that type. And looking at a variety of different documents. It could be child support payments that someone is getting. But it's the full gamut of information that would go into a calculation of providing that kind of help and assistance that we would provide. So for financial documentation, that's tax returns. W-2s pay stubs, usually bank statements, usually pay stubs and bank statements and all of that. Yes. Okay. Thank you for the update. Thank you. All right. I'm not seeing any other questions from my colleagues. I want to thank you both. So it sounds like this will have a public hearing during our business meeting on Thursday, March 5th. So, I'll, now adjourn as a housing authority board and reconvene as a board of county commissioners. But before I do so, I want to thank Ann for always joining us. And, just thank you so much for your community involvement in helping our county move forward. So thank you. And you're welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much, Gary. What's next? All right. Sorry. Did you convene as the board of county commissioners to just do that? Yeah. I'm excited. Thank you. Next is Molalla community planning organization bylaws. Tonia. Hello. Director of public and government affairs will present. Go ahead. Please. Good morning, commissioners. I am pleased to be before you today to ask you

to approve the proposed bylaws for the Molalla Community Planning Organization. Them all. Molalla CPO has recently reactivated after becoming inactive in 2019, and the bylaws were updated. Reviewed by county council and are ready for your approval. All right. Any questions or comments? I move to approve the bylaws for the Molalla CPO as proposed. Second. All right. Commissioner helm was moved to approve the bylaws for the mall CPO as proposed. Commissioner Schrader is second to that. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Clerk, would you please call the poll for us? Commissioner West. I Commissioner helm. I, Commissioner Schrader. I used to chair a motion passes 4 to 0, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Andrew. Gary. What's next? Thank you. Tom. Thank you. Next is supplemental budget public hearing preview. This also is on your business meeting for this Thursday. Elizabeth Comfort, finance director, will present. Go ahead please. Thank you. Gary Elizabeth Comfort, finance director. Good morning, chair and commissioners. Today we bring before you a supplemental budget. Oregon budget law found in over us 294 requires a resolution to change or exceed the budgeting limits that you have adopted. This is going to be our third, supplemental budget before you. And it's about a $1.8 million on five items over four funds. And I'll just go briefly over, the changes that we are requesting. The first one is the district attorney's office with the in the general fund is to recognize about $97,000 of a grant revenue and then equally increasing the spending authority and operating expenses and special payments. And that is, a grant and child abuse multi disciplinary intervention. Cammy,

our second item is the inmate welfare special fund as an individual fund from the sheriff's office to recognize 152,000 and beginning fund balance. They initially had, no beginning balance, but we actually, after the end of the audit, recognized that there was, in fact, dollars that we could recognize for this current year. So, equally, increasing the budget authority, in that fund. The third item is in the Department of Transportation and Development within their Property Resources fund. The DTD has about, six funds. I believe I might be understating that. And one of them is the Property Resources Fund. And we're going to be reducing the contingency by about 100 or 459,000 and transferred to a program. The tax title land program is part of a settlement payment, which is related to item number four in that same tax title land program, in that same fund of property resources, we're going to increase the budget for that settlement payment in total of about $2.5 million. So we need to increase the operating expenses. There. The revenue for that payment is coming from four different sources. One is it's own fund transferring dollars from the contingency of just over $1 million. And then the second is about 530,000 recognizing from additional auction proceeds and the aforementioned transfer from DTD of 460,000. And then finally a general fund transfer of 466,000 that we included in the last supplemental budget. And so, that's already been approved. But the total recognition for this, property tax settlement payment would be included in item four. And then finally, the fifth item is in our Technology services fund recognizing additional beginning fund balance.

Last month you approved amendment to the Oracle, PeopleSoft contract. And so we're recognizing additional $94,835 to pay for that amendment in that contract. So, again, we completed the auction. So we trued up all the ending balances, which then transferred to our beginning fund balance, and that recognizes those dollars. Happy to answer any questions. Great. Looking to my colleagues. Any questions? All right. Seeing none that, we'll have this public hearing during our business meeting on Thursday as well on March 5th. So unless there's any other comments or concerns, seeing none, we'll move on. And thank you, Elizabeth. Thank you. Jerry. What's next? All right. Thank you. Next is county budget committee, public member recruitment. An update for you. You recall, generally, public member has resigned from the budget committee. We have an open recruitment right now to fill the remainder of her term. That recruitment is still open. If you know of anyone or those listening who would like to apply, please go to our county website advisory board webpage. You also asked me to inquire with Wendy Rader and Kenneth Schneck, who's terms are expiring July 1st if they would like to continue or not. Staff reached out to both. Both would be grateful to continue on the Budget Committee. So my question for you is, would you like to just reappoint both of those members to the budget committee, or would you like to do a recruitment at which they would have to apply and go through the process, and then you would interview the candidates before you make a decision. All right. So let's go ahead. I'm sure I'm fine to, to go ahead. And we we appoint Wendy and, Kenny, to the budget Committee. I think they have a lot of, historical knowledge that's really important as we're going through the budget process that helps us move through it. All right.

Thank you. Commissioner West. Is it appropriate for us as board members to refer individuals for this appointment process? Yes, it is absolutely appropriate. Okay. And then how long is that process open for? Do you remember Liz? I think it's another two weeks. Another two years. 13 or 14 or 15. It just opened. It opened two weeks ago to the Iowa show that we would have known. I emailed you about it. Yes. In your email. I didn't catch it. Okay. So you and have we had a good response? I have not seen the responses yet. Not yet. Are we not sure yet? Okay, sure. But is that a motion? Commissioner helm. I can make a motion for sure. I just I think he was waiting for comments from you. I would support your, your comments and the a motion to be made to reappoint, both of those members. So would you go ahead and start your motion? I move to reappoint Wendy Rader and Kenny Saranac to the budget committee. I'll second that. All right. Thank you. Commissioner, I will move to reappoint Wendy Radar and Kenny Stern to the budget Committee. Commissioner Schrader seconded that that any further discussion? Seeing none. Clerk, would you please call the poll for us? Commissioner Schrader. I, Commissioner West. I Commissioner helm. I Mister chair, I motion passes 4 to 0, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Andrew. Carrie. What's next? Thank you. Next is a review of your board business meeting agenda for this Thursday, March 5th, 2026 at 10 a.m.. You'll have Public Communication Housing Authority public hearing that you just discussed on the, Moving to Work supplemental program, a public hearing on the county supplemental budget resolution that you just heard about a consent agenda for the Board of county commissioners and for North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District,

and for water environment services. If you have any questions on any item on the agenda, if you please let me know prior to Thursday so that I may answer it or have staff in the room to answer your questions on Thursday. That is that update. Thank you. Next, if commissioners, you'd like to give an update on the National Association of Counties legislative conference. That all of you at the dais attended, and I had the honor of attending as well. We'd love to hear your input and feedback on that conference. Please. All right. Gary, did we, We had one more item, though. Yeah, I'll do that after this. Okay. Well, I'll open it up for the, commissioners. If anybody would like to make a comment about Naco. Do you want to? I am sorry, go ahead. Commissioner West, it looks like you had your hand up. I'm going to just. It was great. Is super busy. Did lots of good stuff. However, I have an action item potentially for us today. I can bring that back later. Or I can just talk about the conference. So a big issue that's come up is the big beautiful bill, also known as H.R. one, removed a professional debt designation. They change the categories and our categories around professional designation with the Department of Education and nurses were removed from that. And that includes advanced practice seeing nurses along. So that means nurse practitioners, CNAs, which are basically they are nurse anesthetists. It also rules. So it removes some of the ability for them to get financial aid for their education. Some of these nurses are already in school working towards their advanced degrees. And this would limit their workforce opportunities to get through the educational process. We are in a workforce shortage. We feel it here in Oregon and throughout Clackamas County. The rest of the nation feels that nurses are picking up that slack and providing advanced medical care,

under their independent license as rounds, as a registered nurse, somebody with a graduate level education, and someone that's care for the population and trying to fill those gaps within our health care system. This is very concerning as we're building out recovery campuses, behavioral health crises. We have, systems that are struggling to keep up, and we need to be able to provide better care. I have reached out to Naco, and they would operate also on our behalf because we would probably have a shared value system with Naco on this. Right now, rulemaking happens. I we're at it. What day is it today? Oh well rulemaking was I, I some time in the beginning of March I might have just ended we might want to follow up on that. I'm not quite sure what rulemaking on that legislation. It might be the 12th. I cannot remember exactly, but if possible, I'm hoping that, county commissioners or ourselves would be able to speak up to the process. The impact on our local, I mean, our local health entities and beyond. And so that was a concern, that we're seeing from federal legislation that does impact care. And so we did some advocacy help put some language, there and Nichols platform to help support nurses, and health care providers, moving forward, had a conversations with the administrator of H.R., H.R., I say there's so many acronyms that we deal with, and they're well aware of it and spoke to some people, the Department of Education. So hopefully this is being remedied. There's also just a long standing I mean, the language is really unfortunate because nurses, since Florence Nightingale, we have had to struggle to be perceived as a professional practice within health care. And I bet you if you speak to most patients, they remember their nurse a little better than they remember their doctor or their surgeon or provider.

And so we've had to really fight for legitimacy with as with within health care practice. And nurses are essential backbone to the to health care as a whole. And I do take it personally when anyone says that I'm not a professional. After all of the work and education we've had to go through and the uniqueness within the practice, I am, very, very much identify with the nursing brain and nursing practice and nursing theory. So, probably starting off that legislation and through their partner education, not classifying as a professional has has real ramifications. And we'll get the nurses haunches up pretty quickly. And so I share that concern. So that is an issue that we might want to see if we are still able to speak to as a county, considering that Nico's taking a position on behalf of counties, and we do have a workforce issue. And, I don't know if the Oregon Nurses Association is also collaborating with other governments on how to to address this, but I think we should be aware of it because it really does impact pipeline workforce issues. And so I just want to bring that forward. That was something that was personal to me that stood out on a very busy week. And we I learned a lot, did a lot. Great networking opportunity was wonderful to spend the time with the colleagues, all my colleagues here on this dias. And what a wonderful opportunity to network together and to, and advance county's issues forward. So I'll leave it at that. But, had a great experience, but I wanted to speak to an issue that might be on a limited time frame for us to potentially address. All right. Thank you, Commissioner Martin. Yeah, basically, I attended the one of the vice chair of the Community Economic Development Committee, and basically, most of our conversation was about housing. So I did have an opportunity to share a little bit, what we've been doing here. So, because we do workforce housing as well, and even in particular, they were interested in our recovery campus.

So that was kind of an interesting thing for me to share that level of information with people. One of the highlights was the work I was doing with the women of Naco. Basically, they are bringing, starting a youth program. And I think the point of the youth program is to teach young people about counties, get them interested in issues. What are their issues? So we gathered a group of students together, and, Kimberly, I wanted to give her some credit. Help me. Pulled together a curriculum called counties 101, where I spent over two hours with a group of young people and then went to hear them speak, on the podium after we had done the teaching piece about what their issues were, how they were interested in county government, and how important it was for them to get involved. So I think that's going to be a continuing program. And, I'm hopeful it will be because I volunteered again. I said, whenever you need me to be there in a teaching capacity to talk about counties, I would really, really, appreciate it. I would like to announce that the Oregon Association of Counties had the largest attendance that they've ever had at an eco conference, which is fantastic. So even not only we are seeing the importance of continuing education, but, our fellow commissioners across the state are saying it's important to be there to network, to help make decisions. And we had a great association welcome reception, reception. And, I did go to the hill, to with them to visit. And I know, Diane, you went the you went the next day to but we had a wonderful conversation with Berkeley enlightened. And they were very gracious. And as you know, both of them, have some seniority in Congress. So they are important to us, not just as a county, but nationally with the things that they're putting in.

We particularly I had an opportunity to speak and thank, Senator Biden for securing rural schools and the other dollars Masshealth built to help us continue to make sure that our counties that have public land get some tax relief, because those public lands are not part of their tax base. And we also talked about increasing timber harvest. So and I know, Ben, you've been working a little bit on that too. But that message came across to them and they were very receptive. So good conference fund people. It's nice to have, all of us there. And we're encouraging, I know our administrator to continue with things like this for his continuing education as well. Thank you. Martha. Right. Commissioner Howard? Yeah, that was, my first Naco conference. Hopefully not my last. I, I really enjoyed it. It was actually my first time to DC, which is a little embarrassing, but that's okay. Gotta gotta start somewhere. Why not your golden years, right? I found it overwhelming, educational. A lot of great networking opportunities. I went to many, many breakout sessions, some of which were relevant, some of which were not. But I think my biggest takeaway, because one of the main themes throughout the conference was telling our stories as a county. And, sometimes I think we could do a better job of that. In, in the spirit of transparency for, our citizens to know how, we're spending their taxpayer dollars in certain departments. So, I have some ideas, that I will share later. I don't want to go into detail now, but, it was great. I did get to go to the hill. Yeah, to, Chair Roberts and I had a tour of the Capitol on, What day was it? Thursday. Friday? And then I went to the Hill again on, on Wednesday and met with

a bunch of our, our leaders, from the state of Oregon. So we got just it itty bitty time with each of them. But, we set our piece and, as as commissioners from throughout the state, I think it's really important that we have a voice, a very unified voice. And we did, and we all share a lot of the same issues. So I think it was a really a really good time to communicate with, with our leaders. Other than that, the next time I go to DC, I'm going to try to do a little sightseeing because it wasn't exactly the the with everyone texting, like, are you caught in the snowstorm? And, you know, it's like we didn't we didn't get caught in the snowstorm, thankfully. But, yeah, I'm definitely going back and, spending a few extra days of my own time there. But it was it was a great conference. Great. Well, thank you, Commissioner, just I'm just going to give a few highlights and I'll touch on a few. Probably this Thursday. I think, a really day one. We had a basically a morning breakfast where we had, individuals from different parts of the country, and that was. And I actually really value that, because we really got to kind of hear about other counties and, kind of the host of our table was a guy named Christian Lee Bok from Pennsylvania. And when he heard I was from Clackamas County, the very first thing out of his mouth was, oh, you're a lucky. I got Martha. And he did speak very highly of Martha and all she's done for a Naco. And, it was very, very kind words. And he and we also had, at our table was, young lady by name of Kenza from she's a policy advisor from Houston, Texas, about, you know, million population. And we talked about, how to tell our story and kind of hearing some of the ways that that they help, communicate in such a large population. And I think we can talk about some of those ideas later.

And I think that, also kind of get back to Christian. One of the things I really learned from him is his experience in data centers and how they are popping up and how policy centers can really, make sure that you're looking out for the population as a whole. And so some requirements they have is they have to provide their own power source, recirculate their own water, and, that they have to have certain restrictions on fans because they, as he explained to me, fans could be heard for two miles. So really, taking lessons learned from some of these other large counties, attended, a lot of, issues on I, attended some, health policy steering committees and shaping crisis response Medicare reforms. This is, Commissioner Western on that and H.R. one. We also, one of the things I can talk more about, maybe on Thursday is kind of some of the, top ten county policy priorities. And when it comes to long term, senior health care and some of the things going on in the country on that issue, the, I also, attended a portion of the Justice and Public Safety Policy Steering Committee and, found it very, informational. One of the some of the things I really valued was really the information technology. And, also the Western States Region board of directors attended that. I know, Commissioner West, you were also at the public lands counties. I was a part of that. And, and also really and this kind of falls along kind of some of the things that we're doing in our county as a continuum of care landscape and examining shifts and homeless response. And it was very really reassuring. As I heard from others, how I ran a firm that I believe we're on the right track of some of the things that we're doing to address that.

And one of the great, portions of the conference I attended, which I very much valued, was county administrator Ideas Exchange. And I got to sit right next to Gary, and we got to hear a lot of the challenges around the United States that commissioners face. And, anyway, Gary is doing a great job on that. And, another what I thought was a very valuable sessions in our government disaster reform task force and, really some of the things that are facing so many states, really from all types of disaster and really the importance of preparedness. So there was a lot more those are some of the highlights. I did on Thursday. I'll talk more about the ten county policy priorities for behavioral health reform. I to me that was really informational. So, I, wanted to also give Gary a chance to comment on your, view of attending Naco and hadn't been there for a while. Gary. Thank you, chair and commissioners, thank you for allowing me to attend this conference. I used to attend this conference when I was your director of Public and Government affairs, but I've not been there as administrator, and I find it very, very valuable to talk to my cohort of other county administrators from across the US who are at this conference. And the session the chair mentioned was probably the best highlight for me, hearing what other county administrator issues they're working on in their counties. And just to spend time with each of you, the networking we do during the hallway time, I probably spent more time with you as commissioners than I do here at the office, and I really appreciated that one on one time group, time to just talk with you, hear your concerns, and talk about how we can work together to achieve your goals. So I really enjoyed the conference. I thank you for allowing me to attend. I'd love to attend in the future with you. Thank you. Great. Thank you for making that time. So with that being said, Gary, what do you have next? Thank you. So we're adding an item to the list that is not currently published, although it will be shortly. That is county administrator compensation. That's me.

This morning I had my annual performance evaluation with you in executive session. I thank you for the feedback that you offered to me. Now is a chance for you to discuss my compensation, if you're so inclined. Yeah. And no one has that piece of paper but you, chair, so. Right? Right. I'm happy to kick it off. And first of all, as I said this morning, I just appreciate all your hard work and, helping us move our strategic plan forward. And, we, had some direct conversations about, sometimes I think you take on too much delegation. So, it says a lot about you that you're wanting to step up time and time again to help accomplish those goals. And we want to help support you in that. And I, since I've been here, I have to say, we you helping me get up to speed on issues, policies and critical issues facing the county has just, made a huge difference. And so I, as I said, I'm very impressed with all your hard work. Appreciate the hours you put in. We're trying to get you to have a little better balance in your life, because I know you live here. So I think that's, the only really kind of downside is just. We want to make sure you're here for the long haul, and appreciate all your hard work and, moving a lot of critical issues forward for us. And, Commissioner wise, I'll just add to that, you know, as we're running around, I spoke to my colleagues about this earlier. I think there was consensus as we're running, having conversations with the Portland Metro Chamber, other elected officials, the Portland metro area at Realtors, different organizations and groups, from trade unions to special interest. And a lot of those conversations happened because we're going into the midterms. And so we are part of that as Electeds

and so one thing that's been really great as a county, as we've been able to just have this extensive list of accomplishments and what good local government looks like. I mean, one thing after another, just like rolling out these things that are really large and important and impact our communities, and there's just such a sense of stability on this board. There's a really a sense of leadership, pragmatism, balance, normalcy about what good local government should look like. And then now we're in the rooms, having big conversations all the way from Washington ADC to the governor's office to the metro area in the legislature that at times, maybe Clackamas County's voice has been a little bit marginalized in the past, or not even invited. But we're in those rooms today, and it speaks to what happens when the outcomes and good local governance and the job in the works being done. It's what it's what good government looks like. And, and I and I say all that to lead to this point and essential team member of and doing that is you Gary essential to helping move a very large organization. I think chair Roberts, you said earlier this morning it's like moving a battleship or aircraft carrier. And it's not easy. But we've been, for our size, nimble and effective. And there's a whole lot to be proud of. We have a lot more to do. But, as we go through the review process and reflect on our practice as you reflected on your practice, this board is, in large effort, moving along in the right direction because you're also at the helm of the organization. So, Gary, just want to publicly thank you for what you've done, your dedication, your work ethic, your your your being a trusted advisor. And we appreciate it. And we see that as a board. And, we look forward to, a continued tenure with you to advance these,

initiatives and goals that we have as a county. And so pay attention. There are bright spots, like I say, in the metro area and in Oregon, and I believe Clackamas County is one of them. All right. Thank you. Oh, and I was at that breakfast, too. And just to let you know, at the membership breakfast, because I was, I'm one of the ambassadors for the different table. And you can tell Christian line back, I love him too. That's wonderful. It's very nice for Carly. I oh, I'm sorry. So. And I just want to piggyback on what a Commissioner West said, because I am, hearing a lot of great things about Clackamas County. I know the day I was appointed, and Gary took me to the conference room for, a signature. He said, we need a strategic plan. We haven't had a strategic plan since two, 20, 21. And, I want your help with that. And, we accomplished that in June. But I think a lot of the, kudos goes to Gary for once, we got that strategic plan done. The work that came after that was massive, and we know that. And you did an amazing job with it. And getting us our great ideas were just idea bubbles right all over the place. And you got to heard these cats, because we're kind of going all over the place. So you've done a fantastic job. You're you're, you're a great mentor and, kind of bring me down, and I'm, you know, kind of freaking out sometimes in the hallway. So, I appreciate that because there's a lot going on around here, and, you've done a fantastic job, so I can't. I can't say enough. Enough. Good stuff. Thank you. Commissioner Savage has joined the meeting, and his hand is raised. Okay, Go ahead, Commissioner Sauers. Yeah. I'd like to echo, all the comments about, Gary, and his performance. And I will say that the prior strategic plan and the goals that we set there,

and we are now realizing that we've actually built those affordable housing units, we have built those libraries, we have built, built and built. And, we've done a number of things. So, it's, it's, you know, essential that, you know, we focus now on our new strategic plan. We've got a good team here. I appreciate the teamwork of my colleagues. And, and, Gary, you're a big part of that team work. As I said, it's not a team of five. It's a team of six. And, I just appreciate all the hard work. And as I told people, you've heard me say this before, we've accomplished more in the last five years and than, we did in my first ten. So, that that says a lot. And, Gary, I want to give you a lot of credit for that. All right. Thank you, Commissioner. Now, one thing I wanted to just add, and that was, the sheer maybe it had been done in the past. I know it didn't sound like it had been done in years, but to the, we, the county hired executive Performance Review by Executive Forum to come in and have an outside source do Gary's performance evaluation. And I think that really, gives us an unbiased person to come in and take a look at Gary's performance, have people comment on strengths and weaknesses. And I just I just want to read this portion of it because it it really does speak to, Gary's performance and, and it, just read a short paragraph in here. It's just the overall sentiment is positive. Gary is seen as a highly capable, trustworthy and results driven leader who constantly fulfills board priorities, manages complexity, and maintains fiscal discipline. Several commissioners describe him as exceptionally competent, detail oriented, organized, and dependable. He keeps the organization aligned with the strategic plan and prevents drift towards distracting initiatives.

By insisting on trade offs and clear resource allocation. He is widely respected for his profession, responsiveness and ability to handle sensitive or political complex situations with sound judgment and transparent decision making. Multiple commissioners also credit him with helping them succeed in their roles through direct guidance, strategic advice, and steady support. And I think that kind of really sums it up. And, just want to say thank you, Gary, for your hard work and, so I think we're at a point of discussion, having to do with, his call. Is that correct merit increase? Oh, it's a merit increase. Okay. I'm sorry. And, I know we've, had some previous conversation about this as, somebody willing to perhaps make a motion. I move to award the county administrator a 3.5% merit increase. I will gladly second that. All right. Thank you. Commissioner was moved to award the county administrator, Gary Schmidt, a 3.5% merit increase. It's been approved by Commissioner Schrader. Or second, moved by Crusher Schrader, to award the county administrator the 3.5% merit increase. Is there any further discussion? And seeing none. Clerk, would you please call the roll? Commissioner Savas I Commissioner West, I Commissioner helm I Commissioner schrader I Mr. chair I motion passes 5 to 0, Mr. Chair. All right. Thank you, Andrew. And next. Yes. Thank you, commissioners, very much for your positive feedback. And I do have room to grow. I have room to grow, too. You didn't say that today, but there's areas for growth for me to work on my conflict resolution skills,

delegation skills, my defensiveness. I own all that. I'll make it better. But thank you very much. It's an honor to serve you and serve this community. Thank you. Mr.. The final item today is Commissioner Communications. Can I ask you a quick question just for the public, how many departments do you oversee? 11. Okay. Yes. Yeah. Thank you. Commissioner. Communications chairs. Last item. All right. So I think we've kind of had a long day if, folks have any comments, maybe we can. I think we communicated from kind of went through that. Yeah. Can you check with Commissioner Savage? Did you have any comment? I want to make sure you're Commissioner Savage. Do you have any Commissioner communications today? I can hold those till Thursday. Okay. All right. Sounds like we're having consensus on that. So, again, this will conclude administrative issues and updates. We're going to be back here at 130 this afternoon. And thank you all for joining us. Thank you. Back here. Okay. Welcome back to this afternoon session on March 3rd, 2026, County Administrator Gary Schmidt, will you please call the roll again? Yes. Thank you. Chair. Online, Commissioner Savas, resident in the room. Commissioner West here. Mr. Schrader here. Commissioner helm here. Chair Roberts here. Thank you. Gary, and would you please introduce our first policy session? Yes. Thank you. Chair. First session today is housing and homeless services funding overview. Presented today is our Mary run rumba director of health, housing human services Shannon Callahan director, deputy director of housing and community development and executive director of the Housing Authority of Clackamas County. And Vahid Brown, deputy division director of housing and community development. You got it. I think you're close. Almost. All right. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, Chair Roberts and commissioners.

So the goal of today's policy session is to provide the board with a clear and current picture of the federal, state, regional and local funding landscape that supports housing and homeless services here in Clackamas County. Over the past several years, the board has made significant investments in building a comprehensive housing and homelessness response system. Today, we are entering a very different fiscal environment across federal, state and local sources. Revenues are flat or declining, program costs continue to increase, and the community need continues to grow. So while we have built a very strong system, it was built during a period of expansion. We are now in a period of fiscal constraint. So the funding landscape directly impacts the sustainability of our housing continuum and will will require strategic alignment between forecasted revenues and board approved expenditures. And our hope is to help provide you with the foundation. You will need to make informed policy and budget, decisions in the future. So I am joined here today with Shannon Callahan, Housing and Community Development Division director, who's going to start with really providing information on some of the critical programs and investments we have, and then she'll be handing it over to the heat. Brown, deputy director of housing and Community development, Division, deputy director. So I will hand it over to you and I think we can start the slide deck. Thank you. Perfect. So Clackamas County, as Mary noted, has intentionally built a balanced housing continuum that includes prevention, outreach, shelter, permanent housing, and retention. The continuum is supported by complex layering of federal, state, regional, and local resources. The most the majority flows directly to the county. But some flow directly to our provider communities as we move into a period of reduced and stagnating

funding, with increased demand, our challenge is not only managing reductions, it's, ensuring we maintain a system balanced, cuts in one area, ripple across the continuum at the same time. There are external pressures that are increasing the inflow into homelessness, for example, recent, changes to Snap or, what's commonly known as the food stamp program, have just reduced, benefits by about 19%, for 29,000 Oregonians just in the last couple of months due to a utility allowance change. These type of reductions, and outside of the housing system will, cause an, an increase in housing instability and drive demand for our services overall. Next slide please. So taking that slide into account, we're now going to give you a brief overview of the different areas. The that make up the majority of the budget at the housing and Homeless Continuum Disposal. So the first of those is our federal Housing Choice voucher program, which is the housing authority of Clackamas County's largest program. It serves over, 2300 families, investing roughly $26 million annually in rent assistance. In 2026, HUD has let us know that they are increasing our funding by zero, which is what they call an inflation factor. However, their estimates are that our program costs to maintain the same level of service are 3.69%. So this equates to $1 million kind of structural gap in what we are, the families we are currently supporting, and the amount of support that we'll need to continue supporting them next year.

As I said, this is this is not a one time issue. This is really, a structural mismatch between costs and revenue. In response, we have already implemented some, conservative fiscal measures. So, for instance, we are not issuing any new, vouchers other than those that we've already committed to project based units, which we've discussed with you in the past. And special vouchers, those may include things like Vash or Foster Youth to end dependance, where we have some ability to bring new households on. We'll also be evaluating different kinds of policy adjustments that we may need to make, in the next year and be coming back to the board. As we look at different policies that we may be able to enact to help deal with that shortfall. Next slide, please. Another significant impact that we are preparing for is the loss of the emergency housing voucher program. The emergency Housing Voucher program was initially created in 2021, and was projected to terminate when it was created at the end of 2030. However, HUD has let us know and, housing authorities across the country that they are terminating the program early. So we currently have 39 households, who are receiving this rent assistance. 34 of the 39 are either elderly or disabled. And, it's a it's about 500,000 or half million dollars in funding for the housing authority. We, have informed all households that their, voucher is ending. However, we are working very closely with these households, especially those that are elderly and disabled, to transition them to project based opportunities, namely, buildings that we have

coming online, for instance, at Hillside Park. But this does, of course, mean that people we had hoped to serve new families, it will reduce our capacity to do so. But where we believe that, pivoting and maintaining housing for these families that we've been housing for the last five years is of critical importance. I am now going to, turn the next slide over to Vahid Brown, deputy director, to talk to you about the state dollars. Chair. Roberts. Commissioners. I'm going to continue on this theme, starting with the state funds moving to supportive housing services. So state funding is also, reduced in this current biennium between the 2325 and the 2527 biennium, the county experienced a $3.6 million decrease in eviction prevention. This is about a 70% reduction in our eviction prevention resources provided by the state, $1 million decrease in outreach and shelter funding, $2.7 million decrease in rapid rehousing, and a reduction in the long term Rent Assistance Program funding, which will reduce our ability to serve households from 128 households with the vouchers to 112 for that biennium. These are like with, the HUD funding reductions that Shannon spoke about are ongoing reductions. These are not one time adjustments. These cuts will disproportionately impact rural programing. And Clackamas County, because we use state funds. And in other, other source of funds, prioritizing them for rural communities and communities within the urban growth boundary have access to funded services. The result of these, reductions is fewer flexible state dollars available to the county to stabilize households before they enter homelessness, particularly

in the rural communities of our county. Next slide, Andrew. So turning to supportive housing services. I'm going to break this up between the ongoing revenue and the the carryover revenue. So in terms of ongoing revenue, these are tax dollars that come in every year. And we program and budget for ongoing programing. The supportive housing services revenue has been the primary driver of system expansion since 2021. Forecasted revenue, however, has declined in each of the last three annual forecasts. With the fall 2025 forecast. While the fall 2025 forecast shows a one time increase due to overdue tax collections, this does not represent structural growth. It is a one time tax payment and not ongoing funding. That was one very high income taxpayer made their kind of overdue payment to Metro, and that represented for Clackamas County a $4 million unanticipated payment. That's not an ongoing increase in the revenue. The downward forecast revisions have required us to enact cost containment measures. I've spoken to you about the housing for success program, to suspend our standard 3% contract increases in both fiscal year 2425 and 2526. We did not allow our contractors to, expand their budgets by 3% to account for a cost of living adjustment for their employees. We restricted new program growth, and we are gradually reducing certain programs through attrition, ending pilot programs. In short term limited programs. Our priority has been to protect core system infrastructure, shelter and permanent supportive housing, for example, while limiting new expansion. With the exception, of course, of the board approved cost cutting measures to buy or a measure to buy or build, a new shelter to reduce our ongoing costs. So that is a new program that is that is new funding for Metro that will allow us to bend the cost curve of shelter over the next five years. Overall, we are now in a stabilization phase rather than a growth phase.

With that six next slide into now turning to the, ongoing, budget with respect to the, oh, this is my ongoing slide. So, the county uses annual revenue. This is revenue that comes in from tax collected in the fiscal year to fund essential core programing such as internal personnel, outreach, shelter and permanent supportive housing. In the 2526 fiscal year, Clackamas County was forecasted to receive 24 I'm sorry, $64.32 million. That budget has been fully allocated to support programing across the homeless services continuum, and there is no UN programed ongoing capacity remaining within SRS resources. There's a memo attached to this policy session document that describes the provides examples of the types of programing which are funded in each of these categories. On the slide. In this next slide, this is the one time carryover budget. Now a tiny bit of background about this with the initiation or the passage of the SRS measure in 2020, Clackamas County took a fiscally conservative approach to launching new programing. We didn't borrow money to start programs, and we wanted to wait and see what revenue collections looked like. And we built programing on the basis of what we had in hand and what we were able to to build from. So it took Clackamas County, a little bit longer to build out a new system. We also had very little infrastructure to build from. We were creating from scratch. So it took time for contractors to start new programs. So due to that, we accumulated a significant unspent balance of revenue in the first three years because tax revenue was coming in for all of us, including for the Metro's economists, at a much higher rate than was anticipated when the measure was passed in 2020. So the county has used these One-Time Accumulated Carryover Resources to fund,

one time investments in capital needs, limited duration programing and pilot programs like the city led initiatives. In fiscal year 2526, the county has $108.75 million of SARS carryover. While that might appear large, that carryover budget has been fully allocated to support capital investments and programing across the homeless services continuum. It's now fully committed to budgetary activities with no sustainable, ongoing funding, capacity to expand programing with carryover investments, and the flexibility was previously had to absorb shocks has narrowed significantly. A memo similarly describes provides examples of expenses under each of the categories. On the slide, there. Turning to the last slide. Over the last five years, the county has built the largest homeless services system in its history, but there is still significant unmet need in the community. While the county's homelessness programs can help people, once they need assistance, they cannot address the larger systemic issues such as stagnant wage growth, housing, lack of housing affordability and housing availability. With respect to the vacancy rate, which are pushing people into homelessness, we are currently seeing an average of 582 people in flowing. These are people that are entering the county's homelessness services system per month, and the county's existing programing is moving an average of 332 people into permanent housing program per month. Outflowing. This leaves an average monthly delta of 250 more people entering then exiting our system each month. So at the at the moment, inflow of people newly experiencing homelessness is increasing, is greater than outflow, people exiting homelessness with the assistance of our funded programs. Sorry, could you would you mind repeating the statistics one more time? Us John. Yeah. Thank you.

The the monthly average currently is 582 people entering the county's homelessness services system per month. These are per month newly homeless, 582 and 332 leaving per month into programing. So they're being served out of homelessness for month, with a delta of 250 per month that are that are entering homelessness but not exiting. The constantly evolving fiscal climate for all of our funding sources constrains our ability to build and expand programing. To address this Delta currently. And that concludes our presentation. So who'd be happy to take questions with all the lights are going on the same time. So lots of questions. So I think Diane Helm was first to the end doesn't it doesn't matter. I was just going to ask for heed. What the the, 582 entering per month. Are you seeing? A certain age range, of those coming into the system? Yes. That's a great question, Commissioner Helm. And we have, inflow and outflow data that we could provide kind of broken down by, by age and other factors that we collect data on for the commission. I, I don't want to speak to that data specifically because I don't have it in front of me as far as that goes. But, anecdotally, I'm hearing from our providers, quite a bit, lately that, families and older adults are, are being seen at unexpected rates or, previously, you know, at higher rates than previously seen. Yeah. And I heard this at the Naco conference as well from other states that the one of the highest numbers entering the homeless system are those 55 and older. Yes. So that's a great concern. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Commissioner West. Thank you for your your update.

We've had a large departure of high income earners and businesses in the Portland metro area. That's led, I believe, two significant revenue shortfalls. This is an income tax that pays for the supportive housing services measure. And that's partially, I believe, what's causing these, program reductions and the change in revenue. We've been able to glide path this a little easier than others, just based on our conservative approach and how we building things out for the public's edification. The regional supportive housing services tax are known as QRS. It applies to individuals making more than $125,000 a year, $200,000 for couples income above that is taxed at a additional percentage, and businesses with over 5 million in annual revenue. Is is is who pays this tax? The issue is that we have a weakened tax base because we're not growing the Oregon economy. We've all heard the media reports around this. They don't want to invest in real estate in the state. Businesses don't want to take a risk on this state. There is, businesses are fleeing. And we also in the Portland metro area, specifically in Portland, have the highest marginal tax rate competing with New York City in the nation. And so it's really flat to slow, the income coming from this tax base. My question to you is, is my number correct? It's just over $12 million that we are seeing in lower revenue for FY 2627. Is that correct? Or what is that number

that we're actually seeing a reduction per project? This is also a very volatile way to fund these types of services. And so, so this that that makes it difficult. I didn't know if you guys knew the number of our shortfall. I didn't see it in your slides. The, the, the shortfall against the previous revenue forecast is, is less than 12 million. Commissioner West. Okay. But I will get back to you with the precise number. Okay. I appreciate that. So it has some structural challenges. I know that we were talking about. Do we definitely in the long term assistance. Our long term rental assistance. So we have not ended it. I'm sorry. Can you repeat the question, Commissioner one. So I thought that we had talked about, our regional long term rental assistance. Is that been indefinitely paused? Has that been stopped? Thank you. Yes. We have paused issuance of new vouchers. Yes. So that is, that's that's, a large if not the largest reason why those statistics I cited earlier about inflow and outflow are what they are. Okay. We're full. Right? We've issued as many vouchers as we can afford, and we've initiated the housing for success program that you're familiar with that is moving folks off of permanent assistance long term. They're moving them off of the regional long term rent assistance on to a three year voucher with supportive services to grow their economic independence as we build out our care continuum. Like you said, we legit had really nothing. And so the last few years we've built out a significant amount and we're far ahead of where we started. And we have done a very good job making everyone in this dollar stretch and being creative and responsible and forecasting appropriately. We we really have, and so that's a lot of kudos to Mary and the heat of the team. And and Shannon, thank you for that.

As we go to maintenance mode, as we're not building out as much. How does that look. Right. So like how does that change our picture? Do we have what we need? I mean, we're not we're not providing enough rentals. And I'll have a question after this about sheltering. We don't have enough rental assistance to help people stay, but the inflow versus the outflow. But as we do, this whole behavioral health care housing all kind of wrapped up together. What does the maintenance look like and are spending different than how we've been building out so much in in actual infrastructure recovery infrastructure. That's a great question Commissioner West. I'm happy to speak to it and also turn it to others to speak to that. But for me you know we talk a lot about that balance system and that's the, that's the, the value we're trying to maintain as we in our, in maintenance mode, as you said, we, we were building new programs and new systems. It's all new capacity. And so there was just a lot of movement of folks into programs and then into the next program, into the next program. And there's a cascade. And what we see now, like with the for the program, is that that end of the cascade of programs that folks move through is kind of at capacity. So we need to look at balancing that flow to find other ways to without a permanent long term liability, move folks from one stage like shelter into a permanent housing solution. And so that means working with our providers, creatively, providing trainings for the case managers, looking to, all positive outcomes from shelter, like a recovery housing or an addiction program. That is often the right next positive. Exit. And it's not a rental apartment. That's that's not the positive exit at this time. So it's it's being creative, being networked, being really community wide in our approach to looking for those, those positive next steps and making sure that we're making good use of every dollar in every part of the system.

So if if 1 in 5 people going into a shelter move into permanent housing, that is not a good use of public resources because four out of five people are not. Yeah. And so we we needed to look at our investments by program area across the continuum to ensure that we're we're successfully investing in shelter commensurate with our ability to move people into the next thing of the cascade. That's the that's the sort of the larger philosophical framework that my team has always looking at these things with, and in terms of adding capacity or flexibility or room give or flow across that cascade, it's also looking at other revenue sources, other ways to support people like the Medicaid waiver. So we've we've built stood up a team to integrate Medicaid resources into our programing. Is that the 1115 waiver? Yes. For specifically the population. And we're seeing an increase in homelessness. Yep. That's right. Yeah. So that's a great example. So I think I could, I could speak at much greater length about that question. It's, it's one that it's that's the question that keeps me up at night. Let me ask you a quick follow up to that. Sorry to interrupt. I don't want to not place too much time, but, I would assume and please tell me if I'm wrong and I need to maybe look at it differently. I would assume once we get to, I would consider a more stabilizing maintenance mode that we would see some affordability return on that are we would potentially we would capital is expensive. And some of these onetime costs are expensive. But we start to see some relief with the actual cost and which it takes to maintain the system in which we built. Am I understanding that correctly? And do you think we'll see that? And then how does how with taking in consideration to the the weakened funding base of the tax base that we are legitimately facing? Yeah, absolutely. Commissioner West, the the an example of the the $7 million, metro administrative funds that we, we requested and received

for the purchase of a shelter property that will have an affordability to return as soon as we're able to stand that program up, because we will no longer, rent shelter space on an annual basis. And so that will drive the costs down. We we invest a lot of capital in the standing up of resource centers of permanent supportive housing, using bond resources. Once those are online, they are they're not an ongoing capital cost. Right. There's an ongoing, you know, kind of program operations cost. But, you know, similarly, affordability returns like you're talking about my, my, my, the other thing I want to address really quickly with you is they know we're talking about you just mentioned it, the shelter and we have the additional funds that are going to save us quite a bit of money to move away from hotels, individuals who are paying these exorbitant costs. Now, I'm grateful for the stopgap with hotel services to help house these individuals. Are we looking at the shelter being as low barrier as possible? I believe, and I'll just put on the record I believe needs to be incredibly low barrier. You I believe that it you need to be able to come as you are. There's an ability to do that safely for somebody to shelter overnight. But nobody sleeps on the streets in Clackamas County or has to sleep on the streets or somewhere for them to go, even if it's a temporary overnight shelter. You know, we don't have that yet. And we're talking about transitioning away from that. It's a little bit different than the hotel usage, I believe, but I believe we're missing the component a very low barrier. When Commissioner Schrader and I, were visiting properties, we saw that work very successful. I just saw it work very well with Mayor Wilson in certain parts of Portland. I think we need to be able to provide that also, that capacity, as we're looking at using that set of $1 million for shelter capacity, are we looking at how to do that incredibly low barrier to also be a feeder into the rest of the system? I mean, I think that would be a wise use of the dollars. Yes.

And it's going to be a low barrier. So the population that sometimes is most difficult to get into the system as long as they can safely stay overnight with proper monitoring. It's not I mean, you know, yeah, there are certainly we have to have some restrictions, but overall it allows them to have easy access to the services. Yes. Okay. That's all I have for now. Thank you. Martha. Yeah, I'm I'm looking at your housing and homelessness continuum where the funding comes from. So it looks as if homelessness prevention is SHC, state outreach is SHC state then shelter. And then you start seeing the the dollars from the feds come in the HUD vouchers, the HUD, CSC that we use and what percentage I guess I'm trying to figure out, comparatively speaking, at the federal level, we're also seeing significant cuts. Right? So even though we may still and at the state. So that is really straining the entire system. Would you say what percentage of money did we get from the feds that we're not getting now anymore have any sense of that? Because I think I would, I would, turn to kind of lean on Shannon on the housing Authority side and the kind of the reductions in, federal resources for the, Housing Authority vouchers. With the HUD continuum of care. I mean, overall, that's a relatively small part of the pie. It's about you to 12 million versus 64 from. Yes. Okay. That's okay. Thank you for the question. We were fortunate this year not to take deep cuts, but we have been given flat funding by health, which is an asset I cut, because our costs are going up. And yet there are other costs that they have cut. For instance, the emergency housing voucher program

that I spoke about earlier, that makes up half $1 million in rent assistance for 39 families in Clackamas County. That has been terminated early. So, we're essentially seeing just on the voucher side this year, a mismatch of about $1.5 million in funding for which is that's what we put out the door in rent assistance. That is not our staffing or administrative costs. That is just straight money out the door to support renters and landlords. What's the glide path on that? Half a million that. Well, Commissioner, our, some housing authorities are just cutting off assistance. Some housing authorities are looking at other resources, like Multnomah County is. Housing authority is asking City of Portland to contribute. Last I heard, we are trying to, unfortunately, ask folks to move out of housing of their choice in the community and look to go into project based opportunities that we have with Hillside Park, coming online this spring. And we're looking at 34 of the 39 households that are elderly or disabled, prioritizing those households. And we are in conversations with our, housing for success team to look at those five households that are not elderly or disabled and seeing if they would be a good fit for the housing for success program, which, as we had mentioned earlier, we're looking at folks who are not elderly or disabled to see who may have a chance of increasing their incomes and seeing if we can wrap around intensive employment, and work system services, other assistance with childcare, etc. and seeing if we can help them change their trajectory and either not need rent assistance or need less rent assistance, which allows us to meet our challenges. And I think I would also just echo that.

I think that as you, Commissioner West, asked about what we can do to the future, it's kind of innovative. Programs like this that we're piloting that show real promise early on. It would it's going to take a big investment. But if if we are correct in our assumptions and what early data is showing, we will be able to help families achieve long term, financial success. And, you know, ultimately that would be our goal as well. So I think I think closely watching how we're how we're implementing this program is going to be, you know, I know it's important to us, but I think it's also important regionally. We're the first ones really trying it at the scale. So it's it's the combination of state and federal dollars that are crunching. No, no. Continuing. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Can I can I ask a follow up to her. Yeah. Thank you. Chair. So rural Clackamas County, we have had to be really creative to make sure that those needs were really met. Vicky, when I first took the seat and we were working with a very, difficult situation in STK to Sandy, Oregon and Molalla specifically, and we have made huge progress and we've had to be creative and build relationships, and we virtually have got to functional zero, I believe, out on Molalla in certain parts of the of Clackamas County, we're doing a lot better. I know that, that was a huge lift. And here we are. I am very concerned about a funding cliff from the state, which in my opinion, often does not appropriately prioritize rural Oregonians. I and we have the largest rural population of any county in the state. I what is that climate? What does that future look like in reality? And then how are we preparing for that? Because that is essential to the health of the county taking care of that large rural population. And we feel that, you know, directly. And is there any fix coming from the legislature or what what to expect? I don't want to see us go backwards. Yeah. And I mean I can't

I don't have any knowledge of a fix coming from the legislature, Commissioner West that I can speak to, but I think you know, related to one of your previous questions with one of our partners in the rural areas and farm, which has really good relationships and has really demonstrated some success with, with the outcomes in those communities. You mentioned we are using some of our state funding now for capital investments in their infrastructure. So to to that point, earlier, kind of returns on affordability, returns on those things. So there are permanent, infrastructure resources in STK to and Molalla that will be able to continue to serve the community once we've, we've kind of spent the money to make the capital investments. These these reductions in state funding that I reviewed, are not causing us to cut any of the programs that we're currently operating in rural areas. It's really about, not expanding any further. And for and for some programs, that really does seem like a cut when you're when you're operating a housing program and you're told you're not able to admit any new people, that feels like a cut. But they're able to maintain the programs. They've stood up. So that's that's the good news. We just absolutely need a growing economy that allows people to succeed and to stand on their own two feet. We can only do so much as the government, and we are hobbling the state of Oregon from having it. Economic growth necessary, to to help us get out of this tailspin. And the safety net that we built in Clackamas is phenomenal. But we have to grow the economy. We cannot be going into a recession. We have to make this a place where people want to invest and innovate and create jobs, and businesses can thrive, and people can feel like their kids are going to get a good education in their schools. But unfortunately, we are having to like it feels like we're plugging a lot of holes on a sinking ship, and we need the state to be able to be economically viable so we can move people through and onward. And we're now hitting this barrier.

And I'm quite concerned about the overall health of the region. If we can't deal with those economic realities, sorry to get on a soapbox, but it has me quite concerned about how much we can really do. Thank you. Just a short question. And one of the things that, first of all, I think the model that that you've been discussing for some time and seeing what you're doing, I think that that building that economic independence is absolutely key, right. And facing folks on to kind of that next phase and what I guess my question for you is, well, I see a good population are able to do that, but I also see a population that is not which is you touched on it, elderly, seniors, disabled. And so what I guess I would ask, you know, is because individual housing for the older adults is incredibly expensive and can you maybe talk about, perhaps options of, multi-family housing of more than one senior? I mean, what do we have in that category? Is that something we're looking at? Well, thank you for that question. I think that dovetails really nicely into the, strategic goal that this board set for us that we are currently working on in, collaboration, obviously with H3 and, development. We are, looking at, different methods, models of, senior housing right now. And will be bringing back to the board in the coming months, ideas about locations, as well as different types of housing that, that would fit us senior need, and as well as, you know, help address folks that need to age in place, and be better able to support seniors throughout their, aging transition.

And I would like to hear not today, but maybe and, the concept I have heard, it's at home. Share. A concept of seniors living other seniors. At my understanding, that's not really in effect right now, but could it be and what are the pros and cons to it? I don't know, but I would sure love to hear more about love, to have a conversation with you about different home share models. I had a lot of experience with those programs, and that's what is exciting to kind of look at a multitude of issues. I don't think it's all just one thing and it's not one fit. Yeah, yeah. So fantastic presentation. I want to thank all of you. And this is really information only at this point. And unless any of my colleagues have anything else will revolve. Thank you very much. Yes, it was very informative, Gary. Thank you. Next session is wildfire property tax relief resolution. Presenting is a team from assessment and Taxation and county counsel's office and to the county assessor. And Jeff Mons, assistant county counsel. All right. Well, good afternoon. I'm here to talk about wildfire tax relief for the residents as we're burned in the September 2020 fires. This authority comes to us from the legislature and Senate. Bill 1545 from 2024 allows for essentially these residences that were burned, still owned by the owners at that. Yeah, we're at the time of the fire and they've been rebuilt, and we've identified 31 properties in the county where that is the case. And so what these owners will do is file a form, essentially the assessor's office, by April 15th of each year to reset their assessed value to their 2020 levels. The fiscal year 20 2021. And then they'll essentially continue to go up at 3% per year after that, as long as they continue to file that form. And so to effect this, we have a resolution attached

that would lay out the program for these homeowners to apply and continue to apply each year to get that tax benefit and then move forward with this reduced assessed value for their property. There's some additional components to the to the program, but that's the basic outline. Happy to answer any questions and rents or wages here as well to answer questions on how it operates in sustaining taxation. All right. Thank you, Mr. Muns. Commissioner West, thank you. Is this for these specific fires only so we have additional wildfires like next year would not apply to a similar situation. Moving forward. Or is it only for, the fires that, you know, these homes were taken by or with this house or is there anything here forward looking? Also, this is just retroactive. As far as looking back at those fires now, it's doesn't mean the legislature can't authorize something for additional losses in the future. But this is limited to these in particular. It's not open ended in that way. Just for these residences that we've already identified. Is is the legislation specifically to these fires also? And if this was to happen in the future, that would have to be met. Our legislative adjustment or fix for, this similar situation, just case by case a little bit. Yeah. This is my season. You bet. Good question. It's limited. It's limited to these fires in particular, for tax relief, for all the extensive fire damage that occurred in 2020 and not for things going forward, I think it's it's limited to that matter, but it doesn't. Having this on the books certainly would open the question at the future if we had a similar loss or if we continue to suffer this, there would be a broader program. So this is a new piece of legislation that we're that now enacting a procedure in Clackamas County. If you approve the resolution. But it wouldn't apply prospectively to new losses. These fires have become an all too common new normal for us, which is unfortunate.

Moving forward, I hope that the board will consider being cognizant of, policies like this to help bring relief to our constituents. We might have to be more aware of this kind of stuff moving forward to make sure that, we're not capitalizing on someone's loss home because of a wildfire on property taxes and, maybe look towards working with the our legislature, to be forward thinking on this issue. Also, I just support this moving forward. Thanks for all your hard work. On this issue. But I just want to make that aware that we might have to be forward thinking and proactive with these wildfire type policies moving forward. And we've had a very mild winter. I hope we get more rain this spring, but I hope this is not indicative of it. Later this summer might look like it's a little scary. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. And I think just maybe to add to this, yes, that one of the things that but this county is sustained a number of times over the years and in that has been substantial flood and flood damage. You know, it's not wildfire, but, hopefully we haven't don't have another 96 flood. But, you know that a lot of people lost their homes on that as well. So I think that's where we kind of come back to the board and kind of take a look at those and meet with you. Mr. Bronson. And, make sure we're getting your thoughts and input on it as well. So, thank you for your hard work. And wanted to turn it over to you. If you have any other comments before we kind of make a motion. Anything else? The only comment I would have is, is it specific to September 1st, 2020 through September 30th of 2020? So anything that happened outside of that 30 day range doesn't apply to this piece of legislation. Okay. You know, also I had to by by doing this, it creates a new method to capture the data.

And you mentioned floods. You mentioned a future fires and other things like this that by having a program like this, you're going to develop data that you can rely upon next time something occurs. You can say that we've been able to show that this has occurred. This has helped these property owners. And that's something that separate from the loss calculations that are done separately as how has this program affected something? So to address your concerns for the future, now you have have something in place that you can build upon with data to support future and a set of efforts. Thank you sir, thank you I move we advance the resolution to a business meeting for criminal approval. Second. All right, Commissioner Hellman's move to advance the resolution to the business meeting for final approval. Commissioner Schrader, a second of that. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Thank you. And, clerk, would you please call the roll Commissioner? Savas, I Commissioner schrader I Commissioner west I you're sure? How am I Mr. chair? I motion passes five zero. Mr. chair. Thank you. Andrew. All right. We will send this to a future business meeting agenda for final approval. And I'm going to turn to Gary. And what do we have next? Thank you. Your next policy session is county internal auditor code amendments. Presenting is Jody Cochran, our county internal auditor from the Office of County Internal Audit. Go ahead please. State. Hello. Good afternoon everyone. Again, chair Roberts, commissioners administrator. My name is Jody Cochran. I am the county's county internal auditor. I really appreciate your time today. This presentation today is designed to address a code amendment that is, trying to reinforce and, support the independence of the position of the county internal auditor and the Office of County internal audit. Two primary updates are being sought.

The first simply clarifies and defines a role that already exists in practice, and that is the internal audit administrator. The second find or is redefining the structure of the internal audit oversight Committee, reducing that committee from a seven member committee to a five member committee. This amendment is being proposed, in response to recommendations made by an external review of the Office of County Internal Audit and our performance. That review was conducted by state auditors in 2025 and applied the Institute of Internal Auditors global internal audit standards. Those are the standards that we operate by. Pleased to, say that we receive the highest rating possible in that review. As many of you know, however, advocating for continuous improvement is just foundational for what we do being better tomorrow than we are today. So these requested reinforcements of the auditor's organizational independence demonstrate that we walk the talk that even though we recognize that there's great work being done, there's always room to improve. So the Office of County Internal Audit is an independent function designed to support the county's achievement of its goals. The office does that by applying those professional standards and organizing under a dual reporting structure. So that looks at a functional oversight and administrative reporting. County code specifies that the county internal auditor reports administer or excuse me functionally to the Internal Audit Oversight Committee and administratively to the County Treasurer acting as the Internal Audit Administrator. The county code also specifies that the current seven members of the Internal Audit Oversight Committee are the chair of the Board of Commissioners, the Vice Chair of the Board of Commissioners, the County Administrator and County Council, as well as three community members.

So this proposal, an amendment, is reclassifying the participation, status and level of the county administrator and county council and reclassifying that in those positions to non-voting participants. This strengthen strengthens the independence of the oversight committee and minimizes the risk of a conflict of interest. Both the County Administrator and County Council oversee, operate, have operational authority over areas that the Office of County Internal Audit has the responsibility to potentially assess and review. So while to engage with the committee in the participation is crucial, that voting impact is a risk and could present, potential undue influence. This proposal also adds a section to define the internal audit administrator role, so there are general responsibilities, authority and objectives of that role. This clarifies the dual reporting nature and minimizes the risk, again of a conflict of interest, real or perceived. This addition is simply codifying the structure and practice that already exist. In addition to these revisions, there are just some general administrative edits, a slight adjustment to the board's representation on the oversight committee as well, rather than a position that's defined by the vice chair. The proposal, is requiring the board to appoint one of its members to the oversight committee for a term of 24 months. So this adjustments is being recommended just simply to strengthen continuity and to maintain that institutional knowledge. Both the Internal Audit Oversight Committee as well as the Internal Audit Administrator, have agreed to these proposed changes at its January 1426 meeting, the Oversight Committee voted unanimously to present this to the board for your consideration. The county's internal audit function was created in 2015, and it was,

Formed and established in code, in county code, then five years later in 2020. So at that time, the board's commitment was demonstrated by putting these into code, supporting this function, recognizing that independent assessment, transparency and accountability were important. They these these actions at that time are still existing today. Right. And and their commitment is directly supporting your goal of public trust in good government. So while that was true yesterday and true today, I really appreciate the continued support and commitment and look forward to that going forward as well. So with that, happy to answer any questions or make a recommendation for the board action. All right. Questions. Did you have some okay. Commissioner West, hi, Jody. You know, I understand that some of these things I knew were common practice weren't even in our code. So, yes, on those, the one thing that did stand up to me is how the changes for the board's representation specifically, and that change would be no longer the vice chair serving, but somebody serving for two years. Yes. And I don't know how I feel about that change. Can you kind of expand about like, what is that? A is that a common practice to have a two year term? Was there any issues with continuity with having it the vice chair. Because if you were vice chair for one year, was this work, is this a best practice I'm not aware of? I two years does seem a little bit like also like a lengthy time. So I don't know if you could speak to it a little further. Absolutely. And that's something that we, you know, are here for your advice, right here for your input. The Oversight Committee took a look at this, and this was their recommendation for the two year continuity. One of the reasons that they were suggesting that no longer be a defined position, both the chair and the vice chair.

Is that rotational aspect, right. And by the time we were bringing someone in and bringing the next person on, it was about a nine month window for that vice chair position to really engage with a committee that's meeting four times a year. And so while that was a wonderful opportunity for the board to have that insight and to have that experience, it was, less efficient for the committee to continue to move forward. So the recommendation was twofold. One, if we took it away from a defined position, then on that annual, assignment of duties, this position could be assigned and potentially reassigned to the same individual and continue that continuity. There was a desire for continuity, and I think that was why the 24 months was suggested is a the board's discretion. So let's say as a commissioner, I get nominated to be on a two year term when your rolls down. And there's another thing I want to take on. I can't do both. Would it be unusual at that point to say, I'd like to offer this to somebody else to finish my term out, or how would how do you see that practically playing out right? I think, again, it is up to the board's discretion. My recommendation would be that the goal is to have a an individual that is attending regularly and not looking at a backup, right. So the goal was to have two standing individuals that would be attending. But if something were to occur, then. Absolutely. So being able to two commissioners, not one now. Right. We have the vote. Currently we have two. So currently it is defined by the chair, the chair and the chair. So it wouldn't just be the chair automatically any more. It would just be two specifically appointed commissioners. The the way the proposal is written right now, it would be the chair and then an appointed position. Okay. So still the chair and appointed okay. Commissioner Savas has his hand. Yes, Commissioner. Service. Go ahead. Yeah.

Thank you, Commissioner West, for bringing this up. We did talked about this at length, and I think Jodi explained this, quite accurately. So just think about consistency, right. I will tell you that, from being, you know, one of the vice chairs, which is once every four years, you know, you get that little short segment and then by that time, everything changes, usually including the chair. And there's no continuity. I had no I had no influence or idea what was going to happen either the year before, you know, the year afterward or the year after that and so on. So it it seems like there is a, a disadvantage for the county if you don't have at least a two year continuum of the same person. So we also talked about it that, you know, what, if it was both the chair and the vice chair positions were not no longer specified. So it was open to two commissioners, you know, and it didn't have to be the chair or the vice chair. And, and I think we found the middle ground of being, having some stability with the chair being, you know, renewing every year. So you have at least one position there with four years, and then you'd have another position for, again, a two year term. I would say the way it was has worked and it only having a four year term and getting it in blocks and pieces and overlap from one year to another, it's broken that, that for that that second commissioner or vice chair position. It's it's not very effective if you don't have any continuity, you know, for at least a couple of years and it's almost wasted is how I would define it. And that's from my experience. I can relate to that. As also vice chair. Yeah.

Okay. Comments. All right. Is there a motion? I move to approve. Oops, sorry. I move to approve the revisions to County Code chapter 2.15 as presented and direct staff to schedule the first required public hearing. I'll second. All right. Commissioner helm has moved to approve the revisions to county code. Chapter 2.15 is presenting direct staff to schedule the first required public hearing. Commissioner West a second. And that motion and I look for any further discussion. Seeing none. Clerk, would you please call the poll commissioner Savas I Commissioner helm I Commissioner schrader I Commissioner west I Mr. chair I motion passes 5 to 0. Mr. chair. Thank you. I will turn to Gary. Do we have any. That is it. You finished your business for today. All right. Well, fantastic. So on behalf of the board, thank you all who are joining us. And we are officially adjourned. Thank you.