Commission - Regular Meeting

Time to go. All right. We are excited to have with us several of our quasi governmental agencies tonight. Here is part of our regular budget process. It's Thursday, May 21st. Just to remind the public, we have a series of meetings in the forthcoming weeks. Tuesday, June 2nd will be our taxpayer bill of rights hearing number 2. we had the 1st 1 last night. Thursday, June 4th, we will have a budget review and taxpayer bill of rights hearing. And then Tuesday, June 9th is our intended date to vote on the budget. And of course, the budget's a big, complex creature. And part of that are those quasi-governmental entities that either have a designation by the state or are a state entity themselves. And one of those is the Classic Center Authority. So General recommendation is about a 10 minute presentation and 10 minutes for Q and a, you go over 10 minute presentation. You're cutting into the Q and a Paul from the classic centers with a.

Thank you all very, very much for giving me an opportunity to present our budget. I think as we go through the slide deck, 3 things should hopefully sort of jump off the page. The 1st would be that we are living the very mission that you gave us to live. 31 years ago, and hopefully we will very clearly show you how we're living that mission. 2nd, is that we're maintaining your facilities in a state of the art condition. I say that because many people may not know that the theater convention center arena. they're all your facilities our job is to operate those and keep them in a state-of-the-art condition along with that we've worked very seriously on workforce development to make sure it's not just the physical attributes but we have the work staff ready to continue to grow uh the visitor industry as we go forward and finally the economic impact uh we have grown that every year and i think now with the arena you'll see some impressive numbers But we'll start out with showing you that mission. Again, I won't read all of these to you, but you know that we're here to drive the economic impact, serving the larger community as a civic, cultural, and social center while maximizing that economic impact. Some of the highlights that I will bring forward though is hockey, I think has taken off much bigger than any of us anticipated. And I will tell you that today we just made a major announcement that we've signed a arena football team and that franchise and their 10 owners came and did a major press release at the building today. Secondly, I think it's pretty awesome that we have brought. the Music Hall of Fame memorabilia out of the archives and into the arena for all to see and now have become a partner with the Black History Museum, which will also be on our campus. This slide, I'm probably more proud of than any slide. I still remember lobbying the lost folks telling them that I really believe that if we build this arena, we would grow from 60Million a year and economic impact to 90Million a year. Even as I said that it was hard for me to believe, but that's what the study said. And today I can tell you, we sit at 89Million the 90Million was to come in our 3rd year of operation. We've been 2 years into it and I think we're doing really, really well. Um. Some would say, but Paul, is it a good return on investment? You've received a good portion of loss funding and you've received your portion of hotel tax and now some short term rental tax. So, I've stacked up all of those funds that we have ever received in the last 31 years is the column on the left. And then on the column on the right, you see, what is the return on investment when you look at economic impact capital investment and what our cultural foundation has been able to pour back into your facilities from the private sector investment. I would dare stand this up to any other public assembly facility anywhere in the country. I think this is super impressive. To bring the capital reinvestment to life. Many of you go to many other facilities across the state. And when you walk in either, they don't smell quite like ours do the paint isn't quite as fresh. The carpets are a bit torn apart, but I wanted to say in the past 31 years, your authority has submitted 20Million dollars. Back into your facility, super impressive and right now we're in the midst of changing over our ballroom, which is now, I think, 12 years old and somewhat outdated. So we'll be upgrading that. We have tucked those funds away. Last year was the flooring throughout. 58,000 square feet of exhibit space. We've just replaced the escalator, which was over a million dollars. And during COVID, we totally redid the performing arts theater top to bottom. I mentioned that we're also working on workforce development. Many of you that know us know that we have several initiatives here, but the most recent and what I'm very proud of is we created a brand new event management program for high school students in conjunction with our career academy. That development took years to bring about, and then we were able to get it accepted throughout the state of Georgia and this fall throughout the state. We know that 241 students are now enrolling in a program that started right here in Athens, Georgia. Make it even more special our association, the International Association of venue management. Wrote the final exam for this particular program and the 1st, 4 students will graduate from Clark county. And the president of IBM is flying out to personally give them a certificate. IBM just gave us an award, which was an international award for workforce development, because no 1 has really focused on the younger generation. They tend to wait until they're in college to begin to advance them in this career path. Wanted to put a few key performance indicators up and again, I'm not going to read them all to you, but I think what we're seeing is the events that we're having are well over 600. 350 is typical of our venues, but to do 600 events is amazing. And in this next fiscal year, we will grow that to 650. The other thing that I think is pretty amazing is what's happened with the new arena. Prior to the arena, we did about $2 million pretty consistently in ticket sales annually. By the end of this budget, we will be at $11.8 million in ticket revenue. And then space rent, you can see growing from $3 million to $3.65, rather impressive as well. One of the things that I almost couldn't believe was when marketing brought me this slide, you know, when we started, we thought we have always served about a five county area around Clark County. But the idea was with the arena, we'd be able to serve 150 to 200 mile radius. And when I looked at how many impressions we had over this past year, 2.2 billion sort of solidifies that indeed we are bringing people in from a much wider area than ever before. Um, a few of the highlights on the revenue side, many of you may remember when we went for the bonds, we had to create a sheet with David sheet would that told us what we expected to make in each of these various areas. Well, 1 of those was sweet premium revenue coming in marketing. And we had budgeted 1.1 million coming in from that category. Very proud to say that currently we're at 4.2 million. And those are contracts that reach out seven to 10 years. And then on Levy's side, another one of our big food and beverage partners, They have grown from 6.5Million to 10.8Million. And importantly, our take of that has grown from 22% to 27% of the top line revenue. And then Pacquiao and I had mentioned the 2Million to 11.4Million in ticket sales. Those ticket fees also have helped us. We sort of allocated those directly to go back to bond payments from the start. So that has helped. But look beyond all of it, right? Beyond the workforce development, beyond the capital, a brand is not what I say the brand is. A brand is what your customers say you are. And again and again and again, my staff keep bringing me these comments, which are pretty hard for me to read from here, but I'll simply paraphrase. You know, I've been in many arenas all over the world, and I have never had the level of service. Your staff seems genuinely happy to be there. They're very helpful. It's almost frictionless when I come to the Aiken Sport Arena. These are the kinds of comments that you would only dream of. And I want you to think for a second how important these comments are on the cusp of our developing the entertainment district. If people know that they are treated this way at the Classic Center at the Aiken Sport Arena, and again, it's not my staff saying this, it's the actual end customer. I think you're going to have people clamoring to come in and build out those other areas. Again, your authority, I'm just really proud of. And I want to illustrate this because sometimes I think it gets lost in the overall picture. But your authority, who does not own those buildings, has contributed, raised, managed, reinvested $60.5 million to go directly towards this new asset that is now driving $90 million a year in economic impact. And then many of you are thinking about the fund repayment and so I wanted to report in something that I think is very important when we 1st, took out the bonds. We capitalize the interest, so we would have no bond payment whatsoever for the 1st, 3 years. That was a baked in part of what we did. However, we didn't finish the project on time. It was 2 and a half years late. So, bond payments came due immediately when we open the doors. And by the end of 26, your authority has already paid 9.1Million in bond payments. And by the end of this budget that we're talking about, we will be at 15.6Million towards bond payments. Um. But we know that there is some debate as to the interest that was earned on these bond payments. And I'm just telling you, we need that interest to be able to make good on our 10.9. And I also know that there is a settlement that has to, we have to finalize things with the builder and everything else. No, no, I'm just saying we haven't yet finalized our payments of that. Um, that being said, uh. 1 of the solutions that I brought up when you met as merit commission was the thought of selling 1 of the parcels of property. Which would provide additional resources to be able to wrap everything up and allow us to continue to move forward and not miss upon. We would, if we did that, we would also have additional funding for parking hotel inventory coming in as well as potential infrastructure that may be needed to build out the overall district. The district itself, I think, is a huge opportunity because not only will it help with the bond payments, but it will also create new jobs and add yet more economic impact as we continue to go forward. We didn't want to sit back or let you think we are sitting back. We know that infrastructure costs are high and that that's always a challenge as we bring in developers. So we took the time to go out with the Chamber of Commerce and ask our federally elected officials for support. We've also been working with state elected officials as we continue to move forward. Which we've had some degree of luck with you might remember that we did a capital campaign of five point seven before we built the arena and two point seven of that came from the state. So, in the end, I want to say, thank you, thank you for your confidence. Thank you for your partnership. I think together we have built something that is incredible in Athens, Clark county, and is only going to get better and really help every single citizen in our community. Thanks for all question or 2. yeah.

You share those. All commissioners yes, I'm already in the folder.

It's not very helpful to have it, but we just get an advanced.

That's our ability.

We have the digital versions of the presentations and the folder that you can make this. All right.

If I need to send it out to everybody, should we get that?

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's fine. Any other questions about the, about the working class at the center?

Carol.

I think you've done this before, but I'm going to keep asking everyone. I mean, in my time on here, so there's a lot of numbers in my head over the years, but. From your perspective, what is the Athens-Clarke County? What do we owe to the Classic Center in terms of the hotel-motel tax?

So there's a that got developed at the time that we took out the bonds that had in it that you would provide us with fifty four point two nine percent as long as we are making bond payments. So that is a locked in intergovernmental agreement. Fifty four point nine two percent point two nine that's for the classic center. And then the CVB by state law receives another thirty four point. Some percent that must go to the CVB.

And so the most enabling legislation for hotel motel taxes has kind of a comparable bacon or local convention centers and visit authorities. And so the state law started with 5 out of 7 pennies, basically, and expanded to 6 out of 7 pennies for the combination of the classic center and.

Okay, so 6, so you're saying. With all these numbers, it's with the, when did we do this? A year and a half 2 years ago, we did the, but that was that was also you're telling that into the bond repay the bond repayment, right?

It was a part of the agreement when we took out on the bonds, because we knew that that was going to be a critical piece in paying back.

Right? So, previous to that, it was a.

It was the same. I've been here 31 years. We have always received 54.29%. A big part of that is what has allowed us to continue to grow your center. You might remember, I think we've grown four separate construction times before we reached out and did the arena.

Right. Oh, I remember. Yeah. But those are local some of that is local stuff that we've done locally to like, what is the state require?

It says 5 out of 7 pennies have to go to the combination of the classic center authority and the convention of visitors here. That's in state law and then subsequent to that in the, we added the 6th thing.

Have we got to change that at any time?

No, you cannot change that as long as we have the bond payments to pay. If you want to take the bond payments back, then we'll talk.

And that's what I mean. Six, it went up with the six, or we put it in to the six. We said we're going to do with before we had this idea for the bond payment, where are we doing 5? Or did we say it was 6.

All of the pennies, but 1, you have retained since as long as I've been here. Right, right.

Okay.

General use, right?

Not 1%, but 1 now in a future lovely environment in which we had 8 pennies to work with, then there'd be more money available for other activities. Right.

But the, the is a local agreement and I'm just trying to get this. I'm not even I'm not questioning anything.

I'm just is a local agreement. The. The part that goes to the is baked in as a part of the state agreement. And Kelly is right. There's only 1 of the pennies that. Really, there is any discretion over, but that is now baked into a 40 year.

Any other questions for move on to the CVB just to talk a little bit about. Well, now we can't do this. The future of the future what's going to happen on that campus.

Yeah, well, we mentioned a little bit in the slide, but we now have the committee. The committee is hired. Accenture Accenture is in the midst of. doing all of their 90-day pre-development kind of work and really looking at what they think is going to be the highest and best use to return the biggest dollar amount to help out with the bonds. But also I think they're wise enough to look at, we want to create a place that is a great place as well, both for residents and business. so it's kind of that that balance that the committee will have to ultimately decide upon and move forward i think they told us though they gave us some deadlines that they expected by december to have some idea of a master plan um that they were going to recommend and they expected that we would begin receiving uh the first land leases by december of 28 uh which is what i said i think they've said in the last meeting excuse me

Paul, thanks for the time. I appreciate it. All right. Next up is Katie Williams from Visit Athens, formerly the Athens CDB, your visitor's bureau. Thank you for being here. I appreciate it.

Thank you for the opportunity. Good evening. So tonight I want to share with you not just a budget, but truly the strategy behind how Visit Athens continues to grow our community as a destination for tourism, supporting our local economy and positioning Athens for long-term success. A lot of momentum is happening around town and just heard from. Mr. Kramer about the momentum happening at the classic center, but there's also a great momentum at the University of Florida. And then, of course, here look here around downtown as well. College square and 27 visit. Athens wants to continue building on that that momentum growing our visibility and demand. At Visit Athens, our team wears a lot of hats. We are, of course, the marketers for the community. We are relationship builders, advocates, collaborators. We like to call ourselves Athens Hike Team. Our role is not just to market tourism, but to really help shape the way people experience Athens and how they perceive our community. Ultimately, destination marketing is economic development. The work that we do supports local businesses, jobs, tax revenue, and quality of life for our residents. I am extremely proud to share that Visit Athens was recently named the Destination Marketing Organization of the Year by the Georgia Association of Convention and Visitors bureaus out of 30 total nominations. This recognition really reflects the creativity that our team does, the hard work, the commitment we provide to promoting Athens. We are competing at a very high level across the state and this recognition reinforces that Athens is standing out. I love this graphic because what it does is really captures the cycle of destination development. It's a little hard for you to see, but I'll read it. It says, if you build a place where people want to visit, then you build a place where people want to live. And if you build a place where people want to live, you build a place where people want to work and ultimately where business has to be. Tourism is often the front door of economic development. Before a business decides to relocate here, before a student selects University of Georgia, before a new resident comes to move here, they're going to start with a visit. Meisner has a great story of that, about how they visited Athens. And because of that visit, it led to the selection of this site. So that's why the work that Visit Athens does matters more than just tourism. It really is about destination development and economic development. Speaking of economic development, the impact of tourism in Athens continues to grow. Now, these numbers are from 2024. this is the latest numbers I have from the Georgia Department of economic development. So this is prior to the opening of a sport arena and the recent growth of the University of Georgia. But even in 2024. Tourism was generating nearly half a billion dollar industry, but the number that's most impactful for you all to think about when it comes to tourism impact are the tax savings that happened for our county household as a result of the taxes generated from tourism. That's about 600 dollars a year. So, visitor dollars help support our community by reducing the burden on local taxpayers. So how is tourism doing right now? How's the market? Well, demand for Athens continues to grow. Of course, we know that the University of Georgia has just expanded with the track and field facility. Over the last few weeks, we've hosted numerous NCAA events with golf being in town this week. Aikensport Arena is driving big numbers in tourism. Paul showed on his slide that 82% of ticket buyers are coming from outside of Athens-Clarke County and the sellout concerts are driving room nights. and then what's happening in downtown is so exciting too the momentum happening with college square i think it's going to be transformational for our downtown we've also seen huge growth in our short-term rental market so while economic headwinds across the country are having an impact on hotel occupancy This is not surprising, and of course it's happening everywhere right now. Demand for Athens is strong and continues to rise. And as traditional hotel inventory declines, just in the last six months, the closure of The Graduate, we lost 120 rooms. Short-term rentals are helping to fill that gap and supporting the growing visitor demand. So traditionally summer has been viewed as our off season. We've just launched a new summer travel campaign, kind of highlighting the fact that while students leave and some people think that, you know, it's a little bit quieter around town, Athens never really slows down and is still very much on beat during the summer. So we're excited to roll out this campaign in a very big way, targeting our drive markets and high intent travelers. Positioning Athens is a great getaway for summer months. Paul shared the PR numbers that have been for the Classic Center in Akinsport Arena, 2.5 billion alone for those facilities. But you can see here, Athens as a destination, as a whole, has generated 5.6 billion media impressions. That's a 62% year-over-year increase. Our partnership with their PR agency has had huge return. And you can see the places we're getting coverage in are really notable in national brands. So expanding our brand well beyond Georgia. And this is so important because when people read about it versus just seeing an ad, it's influencing their travel decisions through third-party credibility and national exposure.

Could you define media impressions? I'm sorry. Go back up.

Yes, media impression is this is the opportunity for so, like, when you look at Southern living, it's how many copies were printed and distributed. Each 1 of those caps isn't actually. So, if you assume that, obviously, it's covering something online, so it's, I mean, there's an estimate of how many people have the opportunity to view that story or that article based on the traffic or printing. Really proud of our sales team who continue to drive economic development for this community through the group room nights contracted. At this point, they have surpassed 56,000 future room nights contracted, really focusing on groups that are spending more and staying longer, higher economic impact value. So those groups in the future equate to 46 million in economic impact from future groups. And that's what our sales team is focused on, bringing meetings and groups here to the convention center and staying in our hotels who... who stay longer, spend more. Our Housing Bureau is the portal that allows meeting planners and attendees to book their rooms directly. It's a super important tool for us to make it a seamless experience. And that is revenue-generated, profit-generated for the CVB through that portal. And what I'm most proud about, though, are the client satisfaction scores. So the experience with Visit Athens is super high and positive. And this is really important because this is what drives our reputation and repeat business. In 26, we launched some really exciting new brand activations and we're continuing. We're going to continue those through 27 designed to increase our visibility drive visitation and create year round economic impact our partnership with Athens pride and huge sponsor stuff at Atlanta pride last year had a great return. These are really important markets for us. And so we are going to continue the presence and sponsorship at these events. Hopefully, everybody's had a chance to listen to our new podcast Athens off the record, which launched in January coinciding with our visitors guide a very intentional way to continue the storytelling inspiring visitors. Not just in the visitors guide, but through the podcast as well in 2 weeks, we're going to roll out shorter summer series designed to promote family travel in the summer around Athens. And then we'll come back with season 2 in January. Again, we are really excited about College Square. I think this is going to be just such a wonderful new asset and attractor, bringing people to downtown. And so we are coming alongside ADDA and Sheraton Construction on the grand opening event for College Square and looking to find other ways to activate that space in the future. And then, of course, everybody's heard that the World Cup is coming to Georgia this year. Opportunities like this are huge. And so we will be having an activation down at the Georgia World Congress Center for all eight matches alongside our other destinations across Georgia. So if you're headed down to the World Cup, check us out in the World Congress Center.

Yeah, tickets for us.

I can work on that. Uh, here you can see some of the highlights marketing is our biggest line item in our budget. These are some of the big things that strategically our team focused on to strengthen our brand expand audience reach. And again, all about sustained visitation through digital engagement and cultural storytelling. VisitAthensGA.com is our biggest tool. It's where everything drives back to. We are completely redesigning this website on the front end and the back end, as well as a new CRM system is what our sales team uses. So this is a big project and investment in FY27. We are really excited to be expanding our partnerships and sponsorships with special events. These special events are driving room nights. We are tracking that data. We are able to look at the, like this, for instance, is a photo of Jam4Cam. I can tell you that Jam4Cam that weekend drove a 98% hotel occupancy. We are tracking the data of our special events and coming along alongside them to help expand their marketing. Expanding advertising, the heart of what we do is advertising and we are gonna be going into new markets outside of Georgia to do paid advertising. And then finally, packaging our cultural and music attractions. We've got the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, the Walk of Fame, really excited about the opening for the Center for Racial Justice, working with Hattie and her team. And so we feel like a package among those three assets is gonna be a really nice attractor for habilitation. So, the budget you can see here, and you've seen it in your packet, the 27 budget, as mentioned before, visit Athens is funded by the dedicated portion of hotel tax required for destination marketing. 31% of total collections. So that number as projected by Athens, Clark county finance department is 2.1Million for 27. We anticipate generating another 190Million from profit from our housing bureau, bringing our total budget to 2.4. We have a huge investment in people in marketing because that's what it takes. Marketing is what we are designed to do. Every dollar is designed to go back into economic development. So marketing people, a huge part of people is our sales team. Then we send them to trade shows and do a lot to outreach with meeting planners. Historic Athens Welcome Center receives 15% of our budget as outlined by the IGA and then a small part of first for operations. But what I'm really proud about is that we are very intentional on reinvesting these dollars, especially on marketing and sales for the greatest return for our. You can see here as we look ahead, there are a few major opportunities that our advisory board is that Athens has identified in our prioritizing 1st, commercial air service remains the largest opportunity. For future growth, and we are working alongside Mike Matthews and the airport authority on moving this forward and hopefully seeing it through to a reality. 2nd, downtown Athens I've mentioned, we're super excited about what's happening at college square and downtown is it is such it is the heart and personality of our of our town. Um, and so important to who we are as a community, it's so important to the classic center into the university and it's really important that we continue to make downtown a priority and make sure that the perception of downtown for both residents and visitors is is top. Finally, hotel development I mentioned is critical. Again, we talked about the hotel rooms that we lost during COVID with the Holiday Inn, with the Marriott Courtyard, now with the Graduate. We have not yet replaced those hotel rooms in the market. And so short-term rentals during that time have been really important to keeping the funnel full and filling that gap. But having the right hotels in the right location so that we can attract conventions, visitors, again, What's happening with the university what's going to be happening with the medical college. It's important. And then finally, the district, probably the biggest opportunity to really carry that momentum forward in a big way alongside our largest new asset. So, the exciting part is that Athens already has strong demand. We've had great momentum. We're looking forward to just keeping that going both with our marketing and sales efforts and advocacy efforts for these priorities. At the end of the day, what I've said before, Visit Athens, we believe that great places to visit become great places to live. And that's why the work that we do is so important. When we invest in destination development and destination marketing, we're also investing in quality of life, economic opportunity, and community pride. So thank you for your support for all that you do to make Athens a great place to visit and to live.

Thanks, Katie. Any questions for Katie? Yeah.

Right now, and I'm not talking about short term hotel room.

It's about 2000. I do have that number. I don't know the exact number off the top of my head.

It's not sort of a corollary to that Katie about what's our deficit right now.

We've done a couple of different studies and. I'd say it's about 300 hotel rooms in is what we, what studies have showed in the downtown area. Yeah, 1, B, I mean, did you think the hotel we used to have lost the holiday and we've lost the courtyard now we've lost the graduate. That. Is about that's like, 500 rooms, if not more altogether.

Good to know, thank you. And well, let me say, so it may be going back in the space. That it was any.

I don't at the holiday and I don't have any update on that.

I mean, we hear those same rumors, but in all fairness, we've been hearing that since they tore it down.

Other questions.

Yes. Yes, sir. Well, yeah, I just want to promote your website. I literally, whenever I do my notes that I check. Oh, yeah. I don't pay some of your stuff, so give it to me. This is a hard sale, but I don't watch that. What is the Housing Bureau?

So the Housing Bureau is, it's a little bit of a weird, it's the portal. It's called PassFeed. It's through CVET. And when groups are coming to Athens for conventions, it allows the meeting planner to give one URL to the meeting attendee to book their rooms. Because often these conventions, we'll have half blocks set up at multiple hotels so this way the attendee doesn't have to call or try to go to eight different links to find a room they can see all the rooms and all the hotels and and book directly it makes it a seamless experience plus it allows you to track the rooms yes anything else david thanks for all the work you do we really appreciate it thank you thank you

All right, get that in favor of health services.

You don't get to drive the ship right there.

Yes. So you'll just advance it like that.

All right, everybody, I think everybody knows Evan Mills from Advantage. Evan, thank you for coming out tonight. Appreciate the work you do and thanks for coming in with us.

Good evening, everybody. I've got, what, a couple of hours this weekend, so I can talk about- You would be speaking to an empty room.

So we're doing that 20 minutes a spot, generally recommending 10 for the freezing patient and 10 for Q and A.

Wonderful, wonderful. Once again, thank you guys. I really appreciate the time and all that you guys do for this community. I was going to take maybe a little bit a little bit just to give an overview. I know Advantage Behavioral Health Systems, we are a somewhat complicated organization. What I love to describe us as is a public nonprofit quasi-governmental entity of the state, which basically means that we are the regional safety net provider for individuals with behavioral health disorders such as intellectual and developmental disability. Being a safety net means that we serve our primary population, our folks that frankly have a lot of barriers, have demonstrated the highest level of need, fall below poverty levels, are underinsured or uninsured, and frankly need a lot of support in so many different ways. I like to say, do not think of Advantage as a behavioral health service provider. Think of us as a provider of services to individuals with behavioral health. And that means that there's a comprehensive and long and extensive process that we that we work to go through. 1 of the things I wanted to highlight particularly is that we are now what you would consider a certified community behavioral health clinic. What that means is that we're able to through a new funding structure and a new evidence based model that's been replicated, emulated across the country. We're able to use this model to expand our services to evenings and weekends and frankly to. incorporate a way of service delivery and data collection and management to demonstrate outcome based services so that we can demonstrate our impact and focus on the populations that we're serving. One of the things that, and this is a graphic I wanted to highlight to kind of give you guys a general idea of what we do and who we serve and how we serve, the comprehensive nature of who we are and what we do. We serve Basically, an individual that has burned a great many number of bridges has a lot of barriers. And so with that, we have had to institute a very broad and comprehensive array of services. We have over 80 distinct separate programs that this graphic that I believe all of you guys have digital format sort of summarizes it in the best way possible. To, but to that point, there is. Approximately 80 to 120 employees that provide a wide range of services in order to basically prevent person centered care and response to the individuals that need that have in addition to their behavioral health needs. Also, housing and stability, transportation barriers, social skills, development pieces as well as a. education and employment needs. So this is sort of a snippet of the comprehensive nature of who we serve and how we serve them. I wanted to take the next couple of slides to sort of give you guys and paint a picture of the Clark County citizens that we serve. And last year we served just under 3000 individuals. You can kind of see the breakdown. It's largely, you know, 50, 50 male, female with a general age distribution. That's, you know, the majority are young adults to, you know, in the early retirement age categories. The most common diagnoses breakdowns are what you would consider new disorders, anxiety disorders, and substance abuse. That is the large presenting factors that come to us for Clark County residents and citizens in this community. This is another kind of dig into some of the demographics that we have that I felt might be of interest to some of you guys. The access to primary care for our population. Fifty-one percent of these guys do not have regular access to primary care. A huge majority of our population suffer from chronic health conditions, and a lot of the, frankly, the behavioral health medication that we provide to them do cause primary care health side effects. So we have worked consistently with the county and other federal and state leveraged resources to integrate primary care into our programs and also partner with a couple of key providers within this community in order to fill that gap. But it is a major gap and it is something that we're ongoingly trying to trying to address. Um, there's the current living situation is also something of note that we are serving. You get 22% live independently 2032% are living independently with family and friends. Another 15% live independently with family and friends, and then we've got. residential treatment programs are living unsheltered or living in homeless shelters. I wanted to highlight to the substance abuse breakdown. We have 4,314 substance use diagnosis for the individuals that are certain. just over 1200 of them the the primary one is alcohol use just under that is the opioid use and so those are the things that we are seeing and those are the programs that we're working on strategically improving access to improving availability to Other key demographics I thought would be interesting is 74% of them are currently unemployed, 52% of them are unable to work due to the disability. That is both either a physical disability, medical disability, and or behavioral health disability. So that's, you know, some of the things that we, as a provider of services, we are working to stabilize these individuals and so many different contextual factors. This third slide is another sort of breakdown of the extent of services. I know I mentioned to you guys, we serve just around 3,000 individuals, Clark County citizens each year. That encompasses around 115,000 actual encounters services. of each of those. So you can see clinical contact, that's basically our outpatient, our evidence-based outpatient programs, around 15,000. And it goes down to psychosocial rehab, group skills training. Yes, sir.

I'm sorry, can I ask a question? Go back over that again. You said you served 3,000 people, but you provided 151,000 clinical contact? 115,000 encounter services.

So those 3,000 individuals received 115,000 encounters. I think that average is out, you know, some or more than others. And you can sort of see the breakdown within the outpatient and, you know, how we broke this down. But we see some of our folks daily. We see some of them weekly, some of them monthly, some of them quarterly. It really depends on the level, you know, of need. And, you know, and I'll show you, you know, a slide later in on the performance and how we are working to get these guys stabilized so that we're not seeing them as frequently. But typically, people come to us initially very acute, very crisis-oriented, and we have Um, and you can kind of see, as it goes down to psychosocial, we have group skills training, uh, the semi independent residential service programs, which is our transitional programs. I'll jump into that a little bit more to another thing. I want to highlight is the crisis serving individuals in crisis. Those figures there. That's our behavioral health crisis 30 beds. We have broken out between temporary observation and prices stabilization units and the 23 hour unit as well. So, 1329 individuals went through the crisis center. Those are not all different folks. There are several of those that are repeating counters, but those are broken down through our 24, 7 prices walk in 361. we're in the temporary observation and 389 in the crisis. Digging into this is sort of our performance. Now, these are just for. Only for encounter or measures that we're used to measure progress. We have. or maybe between 60 and 80 different types of measures across the organization. But I centered on these four because I felt like they were probably the most telling of the population that we're serving. And if you can see just from the, because I can't see, I thankfully have the screen in front of me because there's no way I can see that. But you can kind of see a downward trend across all four screens. That first one, the top left, that's the DSM scores. This is basically focusing on the adults. It ranges across 13 different behavioral health domains ranging from anxiety to psychosis, to depression, to substance use. The one to the right is a similar score, but it's targeting youth ages 4 to 17. And again, you can see the downward trend there. The lower left is the PHQ-9 score that basically measures depression, Levels and then the 4, the 1 on the bottom right is an audit C score that measures the level of alcohol. Again, if anybody's interested, we can dig into other assessment scores by program. This is 1 of the advantages of us having a robust data and evaluation. Service line as well as the, we are learning and learning how to demonstrate the effectiveness, the impact of all services that we're doing. This is just an overview of what it's for. I wanted to also sort of highlight our housing programs. Again, you know, talking earlier, we are not just a behavioral health provider. We are in it to provide the level of services. And frankly, an individual that is in an unstable housing situation is not going to respond very well to the services that we do. So we have worked consistently over the years to really try to build up and available what I like to say a continuum of housing supports. You can sort of last year we serve 660 total total households. That's broken down. You can see on the far left HSP, which is our housing support program shelter plus care, which is another permanent supported housing program. These are longer term permanent type establishments. There's our largest programs and then it goes down to intensive residential, shorter term, higher intensity level services. Our transitional programs are also shorter term. The forensics programs that makes transitional programs are shorter terms. Those are higher staff, higher support services infrastructure. But shorter term housing, and there is some movement from those into those programs into our programs. If you go over to the far right top, you can see the. I'm sorry. Um, the, uh, the success rate, and this is how we're sort of measuring it. Now, I want to spend a little time talking about this overall 67%. I don't really like this factor, but I thought I would include it anyway, because it's not exactly telling that 67% is an average across all of the programs. And you can see rapid rehousing 100% success rate. Versus HSP 38% success rate. I want to explain some of those when you look at forensics and shelter plus came to sort of the lower 3, those percentages reflect a very, very low number of exits because they are permanent housing. So, for example, the forensics that 50% successful exit rate, we had 2. Individuals leave 1 last year. So, 2 individuals, those 2 individuals 1 was a success in that. He graduated the program and was able to find his own place and lived independently. The other 1 did not do well in the program and had to be hospitalized for the judges orders. So that reflects that particular 50%. The HSP that 38%, again, that is a very low number. We're talking 5 households, 6 households. So, you know, when you look at, you know, overall, when you look at the higher numbers, like intensive residential and image transitional programs, you have a higher number of individuals that have successfully moved on into other permanent style living situations, which is how we're defining this particular success. Does that make sense?

I'm confused by some numbers here over there on the left. It says total number of people housed bins and HSP is 347. And then you were just saying down here, HSP over there has 38% successful rate because it was so few, but that looks like there's a lot.

At 38%, that's reflective of those 347 that were housed, the ones who left, exited that program. Oh, who is it? Does that make sense? The successful housing or the people who exited which what is the housing support program? Georgia housing doctor program.

So basically someone who gets off of that program. And how successful they were on the right. Okay. But then then does the. Does the 660 total people house over there? Is that the whole all of advantage or is that Clark county? That is all advantage and the total households on the wait list. And those 2 numbers be like, does that mean that hey, you know, we have 379 people on the wait list, but we actually have 660 people. I mean, are those.

That is a great question. I'm so glad you're asking that. That's 660 households. Those are the individuals that have been housed and were even previously housed in other programs because some of these are permanent programs, but these are existing vouchers that we have to offer. And we're, you know, the indicator here is that they are housed and we're housing them. That's 660 households. The 379 are taken from the Homeless Coalition's coordinated entry system. And so we pulled that.

And it is a little dated. I did this a couple of weeks ago, I guess, for the purpose of this presentation, but those are specific.

Clark county residents who have been enrolled in the coordinated entry system through the homes coalition.

Could some of those people through the coordinated and. Whether coordinated care, could some of those be captured in the 660 as well?

Oh, okay. Those are the ones that are actively homeless or actively working through the program that have not been housed within the 660. Is the 660 is a historical number, right? But it's to show the capacity that we have.

But through the coordinated entry program, some of those people.

Yes, sent to date, but not these individuals that uphold from that existing number in real time.

Maybe some of those could have been house between now and when I pulled it, but they were in that 660. could some of them have been on that?

They could have been historically.

Yeah. Okay. That's that's what I, that's what I meant. So.

Yeah, the point with this is that 660 were currently house. And previously they would have been on that coordinate entry. Okay. That's what it would have been. But, you know, that 379 number reflects the individuals that aren't. Does that make sense?

Well, I think that's important because when we, when I hear in these housing discussions and the. People who are unhoused and, you know, talking about how many people are unhoused. I often hear you or John or someone else saying yes, but there, I mean, it's maybe it's you because I can hear your voice saying they're more and more more people coming in. So it's not just a static number. So. It's not that we're not housing people. It's just that there are more. We are housing people, but then there's still more people who need to be house emergence. Yes. Yeah.

There's additional emergency, you know, another interesting statistic there. Is you look at the overall census of Athens, Clark county, and how it's continued to rise over the years over the years, but you also look at the homeless census over the same years and frankly, that's remained relatively static. So, you know, if you think about the population increases, and then you, you think about the homeless homeless counts being static, there are a lot of folks that do come in and are being housed through these programs, not just with advantage, but also, you know, with them.

She put that on a billboard for so.

There are some things that people, yeah, recovery is happening. People are being housed. It's interesting. I do like to remind people that you can see some individuals that are highly visible. They're on the sidewalks that are outside the city hall that are downtown. Those are the very visible ones. But a much, much larger majority of the population are the folks that are actually involved in programs. They're selling you coffee, packaging your chicken, changing your oil, going to church with you. That are also in these programs and working through these programs, and that's something to keep in mind. We've got about five more minutes. Really quickly, I did want to throw some stats up around the co-response and the success that we've had there. 584 total encounters. The resolution where they've come through. One of the things I'd like to highlight in regards to the co-response is the partnership that we have with the ACCPD and the nature of it and the success around it. It's been an incredible partnership. I can't say enough about the Clark County Police Department. And the cooperation that we've had with their police officers, particularly within this program, as well as for the industry outreach programs, and the benefit, the fact that we, as the partner provide these clinicians who have access to all of the other robust services within advantage as well as. The ongoing training and ongoing support and evidence based quality service delivery monitoring that provide a level of access that wouldn't necessarily be reflective if the individuals were not. within the Advantage purview and continuum. So that's something to keep in mind when we're looking at the effectiveness of partnerships across agencies with Advantage in the Athens-Clarke County Police Department. Lastly, I did want to highlight our street outreach program, the number of engagements that we've had the number of individuals that we have engaged with and house within this most recent calendar year being 67 individuals, 62 total households and the types of services that we've been able to provide. And, you know, you see that 2,487 engagements, 1,540 care and resource referrals provided. These are not 2,487 individuals. These are 2,487 encounters and engagements that we've been able to move through. So, yeah, and that's generally how that's gone. On the far right is sort of a breakdown of the type of housing we've been able to provide to these individuals who have lived in a sheltered home. And I think that pretty much wraps it up as far as I'm doing. I'll try to do this quickly.

All right, I've got time for one or two more quick questions.

On the voucher program, what type of corporation are we getting locally?

Yeah, we have got some really great relationships with several different landlords. Some of them are local, some of them are regional, some of them are out of state. But, you know, in general, I think, you know, it hasn't always been as great as it currently is now. A lot of that was the stigma associated, but we've done a lot of work educating them. And, you know, frankly, the success has largely been due to our level of response to the individuals. You know, we promise two things to every landlord we work with. They will get the rent paid on time, and we will respond to any type of crisis. We don't promise no crises, but we do promise a response and do promise that damages and everything will be paid. And that's gone a long way. So now we've got landlords that do come to us and say, hey, we've got some units that are available. Do you got any available funds or anything? And so that's kind of where that's going.

And then next, you didn't talk about this, but does Advantage I get asked that question sometimes.

We do serve. And we do not ever turn anyone away. Our primary population are those without insurance or underinsured. If they do have insurance, we work to get our clinicians, the right clinicians, because not all of our clinicians are paneled to serve, say, Anthem or Blue Cross. If someone does come in with something like that, it can be a barrier. But we do work with other partners in order to, if we can't see them, then we refer them to someone who can. We try to work that way.

All right, Evan, thank you. Appreciate your work. One more real quick.

The question this may be for a budget, but I was curious, what is the amount you're asking for? Is it 218?

I believe it is.

So, there are 2 places in the document that we receive where it's not 10,000. And 2004 or 7 is actually 5318. What is the correct number? Over by 26 by 27 numbers to it, it's like a request, but it states in the narrative that it's 10,000 dollars more than by 26. But it's actually 5,300, 5,300 dollars. Yes it is. So I was just curious if we're going to request it for the 218. That's the number incorrect.

The number wasn't correct.

Thank you, Evan. I appreciate it very much. Thank you guys appreciate the time. All right, Beth McIntyre from the Athens Regional Library System come up and introduce your team to us.

We'll be driving.

I will.

So it's all in one document. We'll just advance.

That way, just keep in mind there might be a second today.

Okay. But yeah. Thank you.

Hi, I realize we're last. I'm Beth McIntyre. I'm the director of the Athens Regional Library System. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. To begin, our updated strategic plan serves as our guiding framework for FY28. This budget request directly supports our mission. to welcome, empower, and encourage everyone to discover, imagine, and become lifelong learners.

And hi, I'm Rebecca Beller.

I'm going to go ahead and introduce you. That's okay. Sure. Because I wrote it out. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that early literacy is the foundation of everything that we do at the library. For this slide, I've brought in a special guest, our Children's Services Department head, Rebecca Ballard. Many of you, or perhaps your kids, probably know her best by her local celebrity name, Rebecca Sunshine.

So, turn it over. Hi, again, I'm Rebecca Ballard. I am really excited to share with you some information about Children's Services and our libraries. Last year, our Athens libraries presented over 800 children's library programs with over 30,000 children in attendance. That's just last year. Kids in Athens checked out almost 150,000 books last year. We're constantly developing new programs to meet the needs of our community, like special story times for our neurodiverse patrons, STEM workshops, puppetry, music, and art programs. We are out in the community. We visit our local schools. We're attending community events and presenting story times and CAF programs to our Athens area homeless shelter spreads to homes. We offer programming to meet a huge variety of interests, and you can pop in 7 days a week and find something free and fun to do together as a family. Our programs foster and early lover reading. So our Athens kids are growing up as both better readers and better community members. We're also really proud of the success of our play card, which is our kids library card that every child in Clark county school receives automatically free of charge. Students can check out books and receive and access digital services, and student cards have no late fees. We're excited to remove barriers and offer easy access to research databases and books to kids in all of our schools. I personally hear from Athens families every day about how much they love the library and that the services we provide are an essential part of their children's upbringing. Thank you for helping us to continue to provide the amazing services our community has come to expect and love from our library.

Thank you. For our teams, we served over 69,000 students, especially during the after school hours in FY25. We provide a safe space with interactive programs from the Laughing at the Library Improv Club to the Hug Yourself, Love Yourself series. I think I said that right. We also have host events like Bling Your Prom. This popular program ensures that every student has the chance to snag the fit of their dreams for prom night. We are a hub for cultural and civic engagement. The Live at the Library series offers world-class musical experiences in a comfortable setting. We're proud to support adult literacy by hosting everyday readers and the ESL Conversation Circle. In FY25, we assisted middle school groups with research for National History Day projects. I'm sure you know 2026 is a special year. I hope you will join us at the library for one of our America 250 celebrations or come by and pick up a commemorative America 250 library card. Access to technology, of course, is fundamental in today's world. In FY25, we circulated computers and held technology classes. Our request does include funds to replace 30 to 40 older public computers. Replacing these aging machines will ensure reliable and secure internet access for our patrons. Last year, our social worker and UGA interns provided one-on-one support to over 840 patrons facing housing, food, and healthcare challenges. We hosted over 371 tabling opportunities, acting as a resource center where local nonprofits can connect directly with underserved populations at their point of need. I have some good news. I have a positive update regarding state health benefit plan. We initially anticipated a large increase in state health benefit program cost. However, the increase was still an increase came in lower than initially announced. We will now pay 23,220 annually per full time employee for health insurance instead of 24,336. We will redirect the remaining funds from our original request to support other personnel needs. To calculate your return on investment, we use the American Library Association's Library Value Calculator. In FY25, our services generated more than 9.3 million in estimated community value. This includes physical checkouts, digital resources, educational events, technology access, and more. We issued 5,441 new library cards. That's more than 100 every week. So, I have two parting thoughts. First, before I ask, because I know you will if I don't say it, the Eastside Library is projected to open in late summer or early fall next year, which is in fiscal year 28. Our FY27 request includes several months of salary for the library manager, who we hope to bring on early to help with the final phase of planning for daily operations. And most importantly, on behalf of the library staff, and a lot of us are here, and board members, I thank you for your continued support. We look forward to serving you through 2028 and beyond. Y'all have any questions for me?

Thanks Rebecca questions.

Well, I have 2 questions 1 is something that someone asked us last night. So I'm going to ask you about it because I promised I would. And that was someone came and talk to us about the. Digital thing, and that you were cutting that.

We are, I'm kind of excited that you asked that question because I get an opportunity to. To let, you know that we will be investing more in Libby. I don't know if you know about Libby. I use it every day. Me too. So Hoopla is actually a pay per checkout service. So every time somebody checks something out, the library pays for it. It is not a sustainable model. It gets more popular and it gets way too expensive and over our budget. I know that a lot of people love Hoopla because it is simultaneous use, which means everything is always there all the time. But in Libby, we also are adding simultaneous use collections, like our simultaneous use romance collection and simultaneous use mysteries collection. We're also going to be adding a service called Canopy. How are you? Have you all heard of that? It's an app just like Hoopla is, and it is just movies streaming service. So those will be always available all the time for you.

That Kanopy is a new service that's going to have streaming because I know Libby doesn't do the streaming of movies, but what is the difference between Hoopla and Kanopy for streaming?

Hoopla, we actually started going over budget more because of the audio books. Not in Hoopla, because Hoopla has all of it.

Yeah.

Hoopla has audio and streaming video and ebooks and music. But it was the audio books that people were checking out so much, but we had those in Libby. So it was a duplication of effort. Yes, sometimes you do have to wait. in Libby for a very popular title. But what we do in Athens is we buy on top of the consortium. You know, you're accessing the whole state consortium too with Libby, not just the local. So, but what we can do is buy on top of the consortium and those items are just for our patrons. So we do reduce your wait time by investing more in Libby.

But the canopy is the visual, the movie streaming. That's a new thing. And then my other thing is just anticipating. Next year on how on the staff that you're going to need next year. For the East side library, and how that works in terms of at the local funding versus state funding. Can you speak to that at all?

Well, state funding is usually for construction, basically. We do have a state supplement that our library managers get here in Athens, and that's unusual. I've never seen a library system that gave state funding directly to local employees. The state decided a long time ago that as far as routine operations go, The having the professionals to run the libraries was the top priority. The, when we do get materials materials funding from the state, and we buy that out among the counties. That we serve, and then we did get operating and we get some technology brands.

I'm going to say all the, all the staffing will need to be paid for locally then for the East side library. Yes. And do we have any anticipated number estimate of how many people and what that budget will be? We surely do.

We have been working really hard and we've been working with. They have been helping us out with with that, but my business manager is here and she might be able to tell you a little more detail.

I do. We're estimating 3 full time staff members. And we're estimate I actually just put it up on my phone do not think that I have this memorized and then we're estimating about 9 part timers, which would be about 19 hours or less. Is what we're estimating right now you never know. So you get in there and you see how much the community hits it and then we might have to bring in more.

And is there an estimate of what that budget need will be for those salaries?

It's roughly right now. 381,000 for all of those positions. And that's based off of what retirement is as of right now and. So, that includes benefits for the 3 full time employees. Yes. For the 3.

And then there's other operating costs that they've shared around utilities and cleaning and then there will be a cc gov costs related to landscape management and building maintenance. And that a lot of that information is in your budget back in.

Well, I just want to know when we're talking about spending on the, like, the, uh. On the fun, fun balance, you know, that, you know, it might be a bigger bump next year. This is a lot more full time. You know, positions and so having more. A little more fun balance to perhaps use for that to get us going. Might be might be helpful since I mean, how many new positions are we adding in totally this year and total? No, I mean, in the click in Athens.

I think it's 9 across, but not the bulk of those are not general fund dollars.

Right. So, I mean, that's just in terms of. That's 3, just for the library, a full time and then part time. So I just want us to keep that in mind library staff to the East side.

Thank you.

The grand total we were looking was roughly around 600,000. For, like, operations and everything 600.

Yeah, just very quickly how those all patterns.

Oh, they're great. They, they, they work. They make noise when they move. I see my staff trying to park underneath them so they can get the shade.

The other questions for better team.

Thank you.

Thank you. Thanks so much for the work you do. I really appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right, this is a transition point in the meeting to general discussion about the 27 budget, but you got to step out at this point and not because I don't love y'all, but because there's a championship senior league game, but somebody's playing and somebody go check that out. Thank you all. And I'll be here for questions as a follow up.

Actually, this is these guys.

It's fine, I don't want to be interested in early a month ago and now we're over there and watch when the mail recommends budget. Are there any discussion about anything within our budget right now that I want to share with the rest of us and around the room?

So, commission them for the 1st, so just got a question. Um, that I want to see, or you'll see those from my American mission. That isn't we find out the 6,000 knots for code enforcement. Can we, you know, if the and work really hard and got something approval by the for American commission, I think we need to prioritize that and. At least take that consideration and put those items in the budget, but the only thing I can think of and from law, which is the 6,000 off.

Well, there was a prior action on stipends for members, and that is right in the budget, but.

I don't think it was. The opposite of this is approved that in March, I'm moving to 6,000 for that.

That was for the piece we talked about last night.

Yes.

It was on education.

Oh, education because I know we are commissioned. Right, right. That's yeah, but this is just strictly for education.

How is it? Okay. If you guys can consider that. And I mentioned it before project 90,000 for. So, again, that's the need for the. Well, we have to do an RFP. We just can't get them. We can't just.

Process. Maybe another event at this point.

But it's no 1 that said anything about not doing, but could you speak up? I'm sorry his commissioner Fisher's comment was that we have to do an, which I also agree. Then I commented that there's a. There is an agenda item before us for a vote for envision Athens to be the consultant for housing and community development. I think 150,000 dollars and there's no RFP. Right? So, if we do, if we don't, we need to be consistent. That's I agree. Yeah, but with you, but I think we should be consistent with everybody.

But I think that that's different because innovation happens is going to be over. The housing fund, right? Is that separate? Well, I disagree with that too.

I think 2 relevant points here. There still is an option for the commission to do an RFP for the housing fund. If you wish to do so, it would be 6 plus months process to add in. And that's why envision has been recommended. Because as that housing process unfolded. The consultants worked to kind of make assessments of different organizations, but was that 100% inclusive of all organizations in town? No, it was not. It was inclusive of the organizations that engaged in the process and we were working on the fund. So, but I would not tell you that that is the same as an RFP. There is a mechanism by which Athens Clark county does award funds to nonprofit organizations. The community partnership program destined had applied for that in this round and the vision committee does the scoring on that. I believe they were 23rd out of 252121 out of 25. And so it was not recommended for funding in that competitive process.

And to your point, we got to see that we will make as commission. We're going to put that out. Well, our opinion of all the follow the consult with recommendation. Okay.

There's no, there's no question about there's a question about doing an RFP. Is that going to be about 7? It would be a vote. I'm not going to vote.

There'll be a vote. Well, now we're gonna. No, the recommendation, the recommendation, right? We go back to plan B. Who asked the staff to RFP?

Yeah, that's all I'm saying. We have to specify. That's the reason why we vote against whatever the recommendation is.

But I'll vote on June. The 2nd would be well, not to recommend. The consultants.

That's correct. That is correct. I didn't see that. No, and I just, I'm actually kind of agreeing with. Stephanie in that, I mean, the, and actually staff at the same time, because by the fact that staff is pointing that out in the agenda report that there are 3 options here, because it is. That would be irresponsible of them to not point out that it is a little bit different than the usual policy. So, whether or not we go, you know, so I appreciate that. And that might be something that we. As a commission say, hey, it's to wait the 6 months to go through this for the credibility in the community or not.

So it may not be 6 months. I don't think that's the purchasing policy. I think that was just this. What am I trying to say? I think it was an average, but I think the purchasing division is, you can actually execute an in 3030 days and they can and they have boilerplate. Contracts that they can, they provide assistance to departments and writing those. So it's not set a stone next year. It could be a lot sooner. So we could, we could, we could put.

the minimum part of that timing is not only the procurement but you also have the review which can be flexible but then there's the agenda cycles right so your agenda cycles typically run six weeks from the time gender staff generator the time you all vote on them um and so absent the mayor's willingness to have a special called item that's going to run that course and specific to the agenda you're talking about commissioner Item 2, so action item 1 is the staff recommendation to go for without the RFP and efficient in order to gain efficiency. But item 2 action item 2 is staff to do an RFP. So, if this body has concerns about that, and they're willing to exchange time for a more transparent process. That's already.

Right, so the, so the, the motion could be directly not to eat it. We could even make a motion not to deny it, but just to go with the other 1. that's right. That's your option too.

Yeah, for this budget can be released due to 6,000.

Okay, I'm not, we're not going to make a decision now, but I mean, we can put the recommendation. Sorry. But the 9000, yes, we're still part of the budget process, but that's right. I wish. Joe was here, but I talked to him about that. We can't with nonprofits. We can't just get them out and obviously process.

Yeah, I don't think it necessarily ties with the RFP. It's some process as. As Andrew mentioned, CPP is the process that you all put in place that way. It's gone through. Competition with the other nonprofits, that's what y'all put in put in with us. If you didn't use that process, you would need another process in order to be able to actually fund a nonprofit because. You can't just provide money to to probably there has to be. Another process to go for.

Yes, the investigator position for. It's my only. Unless we want to pull up a grocery stuff, I don't want to talk about it. I know that's right.

I do want to. And I think we put that in there for the public defenders and investigators. I do want to just don't break the channel.

And we may, so there may be a way to respond to that. That isn't directly tied into the current budget. I think right Andrew, because it exists. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm trying to clarify was whether it was capital or operating operating would have to go in. This is chapter capital.

So, to clarify on that. What you're saying is that there could be some agenda item. I mean, we have the budget, which is an ordinance, right? You know, it's something we vote on. So, but for the, for the, when we put this into the budget, the justice, the, so this would have to come up as another agenda item. And is that something staff is willing to do or or. So, where does that come from to do that?

At the moment? There's already 90,000 dollars of resources available to the center under existing agreements. There's an additional 100,000 that the commission previously authorized for the center and then later supplanted with ARPA funds. But we've kept those funds in their original budget. So, the only thing the commission would need to do should they want to dedicate those into the project would be to amend the intergovernmental agreement with the classic center to add that money in. But you won't actually have to budget for that money because it's held in our accounts already.

And that would be done. We get a separate item. That's right.

I guess. And I'm saying, like, we're not like, 1 of the roles of the mayor's we know from hearing hearing what's going on in our mayor elections is the mayor can set the agenda and add things to the agenda. So, the question I just have here again, not right with it, but well, it is affiliated with the budget. I mean, does it need to be. What do we need to make that happen?

Who's going to make that commissioner? Fisher is already in the process of making that request of the mayor, the mayor.

Okay. So that we don't have to because if we, if it was put into the budget. Where we do have power to do it, we could get it in and voted on everything else, but you're going to follow through on that.

Thanks. And you sent me the information, let me share with America and what we want to want to see. Right. I just want to make sure that it's there. Right. And I don't know what I have to ask. But we do it.

I guess it'd be nice cycle would be probably, I assume the earliest that if it's necessary to amend the to accomplish what they're trying to do, if it's already inside, as Andrew said, 1 of those funding sources and already 1 of those agreement areas, we may be able to do it separate from that. But we have to come back with the idea. We're probably in that in that August cycle. So it'd be on your July agenda setting me.

I guess I was taking July 1, but so we have to wait. A cycle, so I'm going to shoot. Okay. Yeah. And tango, you know, the commission's got anything I'm asked or anything. Oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, I mean, no, I'm just responding to you. Does anyone. Have anything? Yes. So. I just want to reiterate, you know, just so we have it there, we, I guess, in a sense, like, we have a consensus on this, putting the money into the 4% raise for the staff. To up it to the 4%, that was 215,000, I think. And then there were, I made some really poor notes in here. About what else the magistrate court there was. 70,000, and I can't, I have to look more at my notes. They were asking. Or 70. Oh, or for whatever that number is. And then there was also the.

Or over again, and then we've done all right.

I think the best course for us would be to give you a couple of scenarios on that and then you all can kind of consider how you would want to do that.

I would say it was always the issue and it's like this every year. But I wanted to say that I know that we're having a discussion about granting some of these requests that departments are making, but I think it's okay to have a discussion about reducing budgets and about a month and a half ago. There was a discussion collectively and someone asked a question about what. What don't we like what we cut and I think 99 commissioner said consultants. So I would like to see a spreadsheet or something of all the departments in the consulting, the ones that are on that are year round consultants and the ones that are called on just for project here, project there. Because those are worth evaluating because our department directors, most of them have really great salaries. And when you look at why, when you look at the agenda items and you look at the line item for consultants and the work that they say they're going to do, It's it's very similar to what our department director's job description is. So my question is. Why would we hire a consultant if that's something within your wheelhouse as a department director? And there are a couple of departments like that. So I would like us to evaluate reducing our consultants across across the unified government. We don't have money sitting around. We're trying to trade here, not horse trade, but at the same time, trying to figure it out. This is a low-hanging fruit. Nine commissioners said consultants was an issue that they didn't like. We didn't talk about solving the problem, but I'm offering this as a conversation. To see if you all are interested in evaluating that as a line item and by department, some are necessary. Some not so necessary.

So, can we take a look at. Socials that we do.

By department, yeah, I think what we would probably do is. You know, we would exclude obviously consultants, for example, that we retain through lost and T spots because none of the fact what what you're talking here, right? Jacobs would be in that mix and you're already having the mayor's budget proposed to begin the transition away from reliance on outside consultants for project management in those in those regards. So. You know, it would and even I would say, if it's. Grant funded, so, for example, the vision 0 project that you recently looked at was consultant, but it was a federal grant that paid for those. So, I think it sounds like what you're looking for are general fund dollars that have been used for ongoing consulting practices.

You're close, but we do have some grants where, when it runs out the department 100% of the time ask for that position to be covered. Under the general fund, we, that happens. That's that's just a routine. This is very common.

And so there's their grants where I guess that's I think it does happen. I guess that's different than consulting. There's going to be consultant contracts. Those would be. Grant funded positions that then become permanent positions. I mean, for example, you all. As I understand over the last couple of years identified a whole host of funded positions that you wanted or expected to turn into full time permanent positions. So those have occurred and that would be an example of that. They're probably used to be very common in law enforcement. There would be grants that we go 3 or 4 years and then those would become permanent positions. We certainly can look for those to see. There are many of those out there. I don't know how many there are of those any longer. And I, again, on the grant on the consultant, because I just want to make sure it sounds like on the consulting rights pretty much presumed. It's really. For those, it sounds like for kind of ongoing.

Sort of consulting would be envision. That's a great example, but it's not the only 1. it's just the most recent 1 when I read when I read through the agenda item for last week. That's on my mind. I gave me 5 minutes. I could probably list 3 more, but that's just the 1 I just remember recently. There are departments that have consultants doing work that. Individuals within a department are hired to do so. I'm curious. What what are they doing if consultants are there?

Yeah, and yes, we can, we can pull what we have on those. It'll be a little bit of a, it'll be more of a look back. I think and stuff. So, okay. Yeah, we can.

Yeah, it's 70 just to help me out. I mean, the envision Athens. Is not a. I mean, we can debate whether or not we should have contributed money to it over the time, but it's not a part of the government now. So we're not. We're not, you know, we're not, I think last year, did we fund it last year? There was that was out of unity. That was for the CPP process in the CPP process. Right? So, I mean, that's the same as, I mean, all the other. Other non government agencies that were funded through there that we approved or didn't approve.

So, entirely how it worked.

What?

So, last year, and I'm sorry. Yeah, last year there was a line item in the budget to engage in vision Athens to be the facilitator of the CPP process. I believe that same line item line item appears in this current proposed budget. So they did not submit and compete for any grant funding in CPP. All the conversation we just talked about with Destin, it's pretty atypical and it actually diverted from the practice we had of if there's a different outcome you want to see in the community related to youth or homelessness or whatever. The best approach is to articulate that in the CPP and allow that RFP process to unfold.

And that was in response to an added It was an added level of service from the commission. The commission wanted a different process that wasn't currently being done. So to answer part of your question is, you assume the staff is working in full capacity. You added a new item that new people added to manage that new process. And I think the answer at that time and going forward was still, we got a contract with somebody to bring it in. That was, I know how that one evolved. Thing that hadn't been done before and nothing else was taken off of the responsibilities of that department. So they added that that feature and that's why the.

That's why I envision was doing just using that 1 as an example, but that also use the vision committee. Just not not in which the vision committee. Okay. And how much was that for 60,000?

Oh. I think overall, I generally want to put it out on the table that I am critical of our nonprofit solely because we don't get great performance measure data. We, it's not data that measurable of something that that moves the needle. I'm not saying that our nonprofits don't do great work. I'm not saying that. But what I'm saying is, I can't tell which ones do and which ones do not. And so I'm critical and no 1 asks the questions. And it's. When I volunteer in that space every week and I see people who are in need, and my mom just sent me this text on the way here, what are you guys gonna do about the homeless? And you know what? I just said, there's not enough conversation about it. There are very few people who bring it up and care, but that's me and that's what I see. And I'm not being critical of anyone in the room, but actions are different from talk. And so, when we have our nonprofits, and we give money, money, money. And we don't ask for a very strong performance measures or work with them on developing performance measures that. That match our strategic plan, they're just generic performance measures. That could be because I live on the East side performance measures, so I'm being silly, but at the same time, we have a strategic, right? We have a strategic plan that we say this is important to us. It may not be the greatest, but it could be fantastic. But our nonprofits generally don't look at that to develop. Their performance measures, they just say, this is what we're going to do and this is how we're going to do it. And we're going to really improve and we're going to really reduce. How but how much how many when I talked to a nonprofit to help 1 constituent, they spent all of the money that had been given to them. And how many people did you serve 8 families? I was done, you spent all that money on 8 families. I'm sure this works with the story, but no 1 is asking. And if we won't ask, well, okay. I think it's going to be laborious because they have the vision committee to do that.

I know what you're going to say. I know we got the, we got the.

Well, and it's actually an important point. Because you're correct the former practice of just line item line item line item in organizations in the budget. Which happened even last year with the food bank. Leaves us with a directive, but no contractual terms. The advantage of the is they are actually asked for performance measures and for alignment with our strategic plans, including the plan to reduce and prevent homelessness and affordable housing plans. And then that is tracked on the dashboard. There are other ways that those avenues are shared as well. There's a report that's shared with the commission, kind of a one pager. To your point, there could be other mechanisms of engagement to share that story and to talk about service. I will just speculate here that if you invite these organizations in to provide an annual report, they will walk out with more money.

Well, you know what I've actually called organizations about 7 in the last 3 months asked to sit down with them and they. I've asked, can you show me what you turn in? Can you show me your results? How much money did you get? And I've been disappointed in 6 out of 7. but it's not their fault if they're not asked for it or some people just don't know how to do performance measures. It's not very easy. They know the space and the work that they're in, but how to measure that and how to make it meaningful to us is written very nicely in an agenda item. But when you flesh it out and it's at the end and you see what has changed and our lives improved, no. And so when three of the nonprofits actually gave me what they turned in, I was disappointed, but it wasn't their fault. Because that's what they had, they've done that every year. And so I think it's not to say that they're not doing work.

It's just that being communicated and I think it would be helpful if the condition. Clarify their expectations because commonly we get comments about performance measures and commonly we get comments that staff have created process. That's so laborious and so report intensive that we can't do anything about. And they're, they're in opposition to each other quite frankly. And so we do get proposed performance measures from the organizations. We do also offer and sometimes mandate. Performance outcomes to be tracked 1 example that's. Gone different directions is. We have formally given our money to the school district for youth metric or youth activities and initially there was almost no tracking that was done. And so, in fact, much of the strategy and the team sat down with the school district and agreed on a series of metrics that would be tracked. It's hard to get compliance.

You say that we're working on it. Okay. We're going to get off the minus. So they're not. compliance, then that's a problem. I mean, again, they do, I've gone, let me say this, let me say this. The money that they are using, especially for the youth sports, I've gone to those, I've gained, the place is packed. Now, one thing I asked, I asked several years ago, okay, for those young people playing and these boys So, if we got how much money if they're not being compliant, then maybe we need to pause 65 this year. Okay.

So, you know, I think we should, because their revenue is stronger than ours. So, I mean, I don't think it's 150 that 150,000 dollars is significant at any means for the school district. But I wanted to share, you talked about having clear definitions of our strategic plan during our, my 1st meeting with Bob. We talked about it. How it is really not to document is just doesn't really share or tell you what. We're trying to communicate, so I, you know, no 1 asked me to do this, but I rewrote it and I have it. I've just been carrying it around and I've. I've been wanting to hand it to you.

Well, hand it to them, we'll do a budget.

But I wanted to just, I want someone to review it because I used to do it when I worked in corporate America and they're not easy, but they're clearer and you can drill it down by department. And I still speak to departments, you know, when I engage and out and about, they are really confused about how to fit in and to make what they do every single day match our measures because they're not written very clearly. And I've heard that for years. And so one weekend I wrote this document. I'll share it with you. End of the budget stuff.

We leave.

I just for we leave because I just reviewed the meetings and it looks like we're not discussing this again until June 2nd, which is just where we have a big agenda. There probably be a lot of people right? So, are we going to share this? That's that spreadsheet among us, because, you know, I just. There's only 5 of us here tonight, right? So, um. You know, I like you again in your, your pro 10 leadership role to take what we're doing here and see if we get it into a smooth place because I'm afraid that there's not going to be any discussion between now and then and then all of a sudden. Something else will come out, so anything we all can do together to help that happen, because, you know, everybody knew this budget.

Me schedule. No, no, we're doing what Sarah she is. Well, I'll put something out as a discussion. We have had anything that you see in the budget. We share about all of it, anything in the budget you want to add take out. He's doing doing this time before I was doing the 2nd. Yeah, that you don't care with that.

Yeah, yeah, I just don't want to be I don't want to be put in a position of having to move against a budget because all of a sudden there are things at the last minute that I don't know. And I, and I'm at this point, I feel like I will, even though there's plenty of stuff that I like. So, you know, in there.

I was just going to say, so I was consulting with our budget team before we started the meeting. So we're working hard to get that spreadsheet finalized. Obviously, from the direction that we received in this meeting, we're going to go ahead and pre populate some of these items that there seems to be consensus on just so you have it to react to.

Right.

And we're going to do our best to try to get that in that folder. And I'll also share it by email for those who prefer not to access the folder by Monday. Where is that folder? I don't know. You have it in your email. You have it in your email email.

Is it in 1 drive or is it? Yeah, 1 drive. Okay. I just went, I went into 1 drive. I didn't see it, but I'll find the link.

The 1 item I would say that would be separate and apart from what Sarah mentioned is is what you've raised with the question about the consulting because that's going to take a little bit more time to be able to pull together. But otherwise, I think really, you haven't actually identified too many things on that list. I think it'd be pretty straightforward.

Anything that you see that we add in that you don't agree with. Again, and I stress, I mean, so come June 2nd. Yeah, for people to put whatever input they want to put in there and we won't be voting on the budget.

Right? Right. You're right. But I mean, it's right.

But same time. I agree. Our last meditation, right?

And I don't want us to be adding in, like, 1 thing here. 1 thing there. What? Like, Patrick 1 thing, you know, that kind of thing. I'd like it to not be that. So that spreadsheet, in fact, should be much simpler than the ones that we've seen in past years.

Less help, right?

I think saying that.

Well, there's just 1, something around Monday. Oh, that's right. Perhaps ask about that.

How does it get into a format? Is it 1.

Like, whatever, let's say we have here, I mean, you could, I mean, we've said this before with, I mean, if you really got down to these, say, 5 or 6 numbers. 5 or 6 items and everybody you had consensus on that. I mean, it seems to me, I would validate this with the attorney, but it seems to me that you could, you could say. With those items that are in there, whether that has to go through the formality of a CEO or not. I don't know. I mean, the CEO is a locally created thing anyway, so it's just really making certain that you're right. You're just making certain that you're documenting and what has been mended.

To the mayor's submitted budget for it, but it's also a public way of, I mean, if it is whatever it needs to be, it needs to be something that's publicly available. Right?

So yeah, so folks know what it was that you change. I mean, obviously, it'll be reflected in the budget ordinance in the document.

What am I going to see?

Yeah, I think the key is you want to have reduced to writing what it is that you're doing, whatever mechanisms and publicly available.

Yeah. So, in your emails, you have a link to that folder in that folder. You have access to all the responses we have so far to all of your budget questions. Those questions will be published to the website tomorrow for the members of the public. Like, we do traditionally. So, if you're watching online. Through a power outage, it'll be online on dot com slash budget. And then for y'all, like, the presentations today, those are in the supplemental materials. So we have that as well as some materials that the tax commissioner emailed me that he shared previously.

And then I'll follow up email to all our colleagues and I'll cover the bed. I'll cover everybody. And then saying, you got to do the 2nd.

I'm going to add a story. Process. Oh, well, make a motion make a motion.

I make a motion to adjourn. All right. All right. We are adjourned.