Health & Human Needs Committee - meeting_joint_regular

All right, let's call this meeting to order.

Call this meeting to order.

Advisor Donahue, you said you had something to interject right away.

How about right after we call the roll?

Okay, let's go through the roll call.

Kathy Pazek. notified me that she wouldn't be here. Christy Schuster. Here. Dave Jensen. Here. Claire Mance. Here. And Kate Brutner.

She changed jobs a while back, so I don't know.

Yeah. They're waiting that or not, but I'll have to get ahold of her. Sure. Supervisor Downey.

Is here.

Colin Pan. And Robin Potter. All right, we do have five for the forum then.

Okay, Supervisor Downing, you have the floor. Well, thank you, sir. Well, as I've already seen the ethics review and maybe some other people in the room have also, may we please move it to the end of the agenda so that... I don't have to sit through 20 minutes in the middle of the meeting and I can then leave 20 minutes early.

Anybody have any objections to that? That's a reasonable request. Okay. All right. Thank you. Last item. All those in favor, say aye or raise your hand.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Overall, it was a really wonderful experience. I was able to easily take reservations.

I spoke with the site director, and she was actually there to meet me as I walked out the door.

everything was right there on site, which I know is a little bit different than a lot of the other sites. So they had somebody on staff able to prepare the food and to teach daily, and I got an update about that. But everyone seemed really happy to be sitting there and communicating and engaging with each other is what I had to say. There were a few

Downing with another request.

Could you do something with the sound? It is very unclear.

So the AC is on, and so it makes it difficult to hear unless we're almost shouting in the room.

It's not that. It's that it's sort of almost pixelated sound. It's just not coming through clear.

Is it on anyone else's?

Robin said she can't hear it very well either. You can't either?

I'm going to try and check. I would recommend that the person who's speaking come closer to the microphone, possibly.

I can hear you fine, Lynn.

Well, I'm not in the room. I think the issue is in the room.

I'm standing right below a microphone. Does this sound any better?

That's better. It's a little better.

I'll stand right here. Okay, so I'm trying to What else I haven't addressed already, but everything was a yes in my category with the exception of needing to grab utensils at the beginning of the meal. Everyone was very friendly. The reservation was easy. I don't know why I didn't mark under reservations was parking close to the site. Yes, parking was very close to the site. They had their own parking lot. And also, apologies for missing a couple questions. Transportation is available. It wasn't available to me since I have a unique situation of not being a senior. But yes, it was described to me the different transportation options that folks had to arrive at the dining site. And that seems to be the norm for most diners. The food was really delicious. They do not serve milk at this site since it is not culturally relevant to the population that dines there. And to the question of was there a lot of leftover? No, there was no leftover food on anybody's plate. So I apologize again for missing that question. But overall, it was really pleasant experience and I was invited to come back again. I got a tour of the whole site after my meal. And yes, it was overall really, really well run. Any questions?

but I don't think she's with us today.

No, she can't make it today. So we can discuss it at the next meeting if you want. OK. Otherwise, people can just review her assessment.

OK. All right, then Cambridge Community Center will be next, Robin.

That's me. I really enjoyed my visit at this site. It was, I can kind of talk about both sites, Cambridge and Warner Park. The food was excellent. I think in both places they get the food from Atlantis Valley. And I was especially impressed and have been impressed as a volunteer at Oregon with the way the vegetables are cooked. Because there was like a peas and carrots and corn mix that is not my favorite, but it was really good. I would say Cambridge, it was like overly small town friendly and coming from Oregon. I didn't ask about transportation cause I didn't expect them to provide it. But, uh, when I walked in the, um, the meal site manager was right there. She's like, Oh, you must be Robin. Oh, come in, you know, and was just very much, you know, kind of showed me where stuff was. Um, and when she walked me into the dining room, everyone was kind of sitting there already. There were about 20 people, I think. And, um, They already, you know, said, oh, well, why don't, you know, so-and-so wants you to sit here and, you know, told me about the people around me. Also said, she said, well, yeah, I asked, I asked, you know, everyone if they knew a new Robin in town. And, you know, so they were already trying to figure out who I was. So I was not, I was not anonymous at all. The, it was just very friendly people, really. You know, there's a lot of conversation. People, most people come on Tuesday and Friday, They all seemed to enjoy each other's company. They were all they kind of helped at the end. They kind of one guy was like stacking dirty plates and stuff and brought him to the window. The one thing that was a little different there that I asked the manager about was the cold food, which was kind of on the table when we got there. There was like a bag of grapes and a cookie and ice. a roll and they were all just served in like fold over sandwich bags. And I just asked why they did that. And she said, well, a lot of people like to take some of it home, you know, like for a snack or whatever. And I did notice, you know, people would had eaten like half of their grapes and then sealed up the bag. And I thought that was just different, but it seemed, you know, and it was just the cold food and it was only things that, you know, wouldn't, wouldn't hurt you if you didn't refrigerate it or whatever. Overall it was just a very pleasant experience. The one guy who was sitting next to me was disabled and he mentioned that there isn't always disabled parking and sort of because of that he gets a ride with two of the other people who are there. And it's also, it's like the senior center and the library and there's a lot of things in the area. But anyway, it was very pleasant. Did anybody have any questions? Warner Park was also very nice, very friendly, different. It was the only place, it was fun. It was the only place that I had gone that I was able to be anonymous through the whole meal. And I used to live in that neighborhood. And the one lady asked me, she said, where do you get your haircut? And it's like, well, I still get my haircut just down the street. So I was, you know, I was able to, you know, I was anonymous. The food is very good. They had a little different way of serving, which I thought was very efficient. They gave people cards that if they had the regular entree or they had a salad and they asked me what kind of milk I wanted. And so I got a little ticket that was on the table. So they put, you know, it was easy for, I think there only seemed like there was just one person who was serving, maybe two people who were serving the food. People were very friendly. I was able to sit where I wanted to sit. And the couple I sat with were very nice. There was the one thing I noticed when I drove in, there was like no place to park. And the meal was at 1130. But the woman when I called, she said, you probably want to get there about 10 minutes early. So I got there about 10 minutes early and I had to park quite a distance away. And there was a woman who asked me, she goes, is this where I would park for the Warner Park Center? And I'm like, yeah. When I asked about that, I noticed there were like a ton of people coming out with yoga mats and they're like, yeah, there's a big yoga class that happens. And it was getting done at about 1130, but they said, normally it's not, parking isn't a problem. What else? That was another one where the system seemed to be that people would bring their dishes to the counter in the kitchen when they were done eating. You know, they obviously, they would pick up things for people who didn't do that. But when I asked if, is that what I'm supposed to do? They're like, yeah, you just bring your dishes up there. You know, everybody was very friendly. It was, I thought it was very nice. Questions about that?

Downing with a question. Say online, going back to Cambridge, the online version didn't show page two.

Oh, yeah. Oh, sure.

Just give us a kind of a quick rundown of your overall. I don't need everything.

Yeah. Yeah. I said it was very pleasant experience. The cold components of the meal I mentioned were served in sandwich bags. and explain that all the all the foods were, you know, the cold stuff was very cold, the hot food was very hot. When I arrived at 1145, most people were there. And I was told the meal was served at noon. So you know, people were kind of in place, I think they came to socialize a little early. So I think that was the only thing that was on the back.

All right, thanks very much. I kind of missed your summation because I was looking for this.

Yeah, and Cindy's going to include it. It'll be in the minutes.

Good enough. Thank you.

Sure.

The next two little things in your center, the community center, Helen.

Helen's not here, so we can either just have you guys preview her. paperwork or we can also add it to the next agenda if you would like.

Just like Kathy's. Maybe it was spot to ask questions. Yeah. Sounds good. All right. And then the next one is Riverdale. So Supervisor Downing.

Well, thank you very much. Yes, I was greeted as I came in. These were really friendly folks. This is going to be a rave review of them. I'm not sure if I have to go through everything that I've marked yes on the first side. I will say towards the bottom, the kitchen was way far away from the dining area, and I really didn't think to look in there until everything was over, so I can't tell you if they were wearing hair restraints and gloves. I'll probably pay more attention to that item in future visits. Let's see. Reservations. You didn't have to make reservations here, so I assume they were because you didn't have to reserve. The meal looked great and there was not leftover food on people's plates. As far as transportation, I don't think there's transportation offered at that site. Overall, let's see, what did the clients wish? Somebody said, I wish there were more people here on sunny days. Apparently they'd rather stay outside. And then there was another request that while it's a very complete menu, it's pretty much the same all year round. And she asked, could they offer some specials occasionally? I'm not sure who would make that request of them, but it's a thought. And overall, this was very well-run facility, friendly atmosphere. The owners came out and said hello. And I give them five out of five star rating.

Yeah. I just have a question. Supervisor Downing, was that your first time eating at a restaurant site of ours?

Yes, and I hope my next one is just as enjoyable because I plan to go to the spring, is it called the Spring Garden in Mount Horeb?

Yes.

That's going to be my next stop.

Great. So you enjoyed the restaurant type of setting or no?

Oh, I did. And I made a point to walk around and talk and sometimes sit with the other customers. It was very easy going.

Good. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Then we're up to discussion items. So just kind of a reminder that we each need to do two dining site reviews per year. I've actually got to get it to you. I have yet. My schedule got out to McFarland. I was going to say, I did want to try our newest site out. So if Supervisor Downing, you let me know what day or Wednesday you're going, I will try to stop out there on the same day and meet you and have lunch with you. But otherwise, that's the newest site we have for a restaurant. I wanted to get out there and I haven't gotten out there yet either. So

All right, well, I'll have to look at my calendar. My Wednesdays are not all open. Yeah, same here, so. Okay.

All right, and then the checklist is attached, looks like, along with a calendar of what sites exist and when they were last reviewed. All right, so then we're on to,

reports to the committee uh the first one is the budget update so i'd like to i'd like to back up for one moment and um introduce nelly brown who is sitting next to me okay has been the dietitian the i hate the new shannon thing but i know she's the new shannon

It helps to put the pieces together. Yeah.

So Nellie joined us in June and we had a wonderful experience interviewing folks for this position. I was on that interview panel with Lynn and Nellie has an infectious, I would say, personality that, you know, you just, She could probably sell ice to Eskimos because she's just so cheerful about it. But anyway, she comes with a load of experience having run the managing the entire food service operations at Goodman Community Center, not just the senior meal. So Nellie, did you want to say anything to the group? Going forward, Nellie will be the Shannon at these meetings and help lead and be the liaison with the chair of this committee. But I wanted to introduce her to everyone today for those who have not met her in other meetings.

Thanks, Angela. Yeah, I'm super excited to be here. This is another element to the job that I'm getting under my belt and having some experience in. And it's easy to be excited when you're passionate about your work. I love food and I love people. So it's basically the perfect progression for me. Yeah, my background in community nutrition, working with a wide variety of populations and communities. So I'm excited to be able to really focus in on one specific group, being older adults, and kind of see how I can grow in that realm. I'm from North Carolina. I've been in Wisconsin for four and a half years now. So I'm still kind of learning the landscape and the towns and the cities and the regions. And I'm like, wait, what is that? Where is that? And this is also called that. So bear with me while I try to learn the geography of the land. But yeah, I'm very excited to be here and I'm excited to be a part of this committee, so.

Thank you. Now on to what Dave's always interested in. So the 2027 budget update, I thought I put 26 on there when I submitted this. Maybe someone thought it was an error, but it wasn't. The 2026 budget update is that we had perceived approximately two months ago, we got information from the state on our final allocation. Generally, we get notice in November of this is how much money you're going to receive. This year, because the federal budget hadn't been passed and it was continuing resolutions and things like that, we got notice of this is what we think you're going to get and we're only going to give you three months of it to start because they were waiting for the federal budget. But then they got that federal budget finally reconciliation finally passed and they sent us the statement that says, okay, now this is how much you're going to get additionally and your final numbers. With that though, I think unbeknownst to this committee, I'm not sure how much awareness you've had over time, but back in 2015 or so, I've sat on a committee with the state to redo their funding formula because their funding formula basically had two categories. It was 90% number of older adult, 90% poverty was the weight. And of course, Dane never seemed to get our share amongst the state. It seemed like we were having to give more and more and more without receiving an equitable type of distribution throughout the state. So there was a committee formed back then to discuss how to change that formula. What factors should be considered? Should it be considered people living alone, which is something we put into our formula locally? Should it be minorities? Should it be people at rural and a person over a certain age? So there were different factors that they were considering. Well, I can tell you it took 10 years. That's how it works. Approximately 10 years for them to determine what they wanted to change the formula to, but then get it approved by the federal level. And during that time, Dane had continued to contribute more and more tax levy because there just wasn't enough funding. In any case, the new formula went into effect in 2023 from the state. But what the state did was because some counties were gonna lose and some counties were going to gain and the pot never got any bigger. So someone's gonna win, someone's gonna lose. There's no more money in the pot. They said, we're going to do this distribution over three years. So in the first year, nobody's gonna gain more or lose more than 10%. And then the second year, nobody's gonna gain more or lose more than 10%. In the third year, someone's not gonna gain more or lose more. And then in the fourth year, we're done holding people harmless, essentially. This is the year they stopped holding harmless and we got to see exactly how much more In federal dollars, Dane County would receive, which necessarily means Milwaukee, large county, lost. Some other counties, lost. There's winners and there's losers. It is where I feel equitable, though. It's about time that playing field was equitable in terms of how many older adults we have, how many live alone. How many are in poverty or just about poverty? So as a result of that, though, we received for the first time $228,000 more in our allocation for congregate meals. As a result of that, it allows us to take a look at not just what can we do this year, but potentially what can we do next year for 27's budget. I'm not going to speak to 27th budget because 27th budget hasn't been released yet by the department that will happen later this month. And then of course we have the budget process and we have the County executive was going to weigh in on her budget, et cetera. But for what, what we can do with this amount and we have proposed to the state, any funding that we get in congregate meals, You can transfer up to 40% of that into home delivered meals if that's where there is need. There is need. So we have put in a request to the state to ask to transfer. It's approximately $123,000 from C1 to C2. Still leaves money, plenty of the money in C1, but it also then shifts to where the need is as well. We're waiting because the state has to get that waiver approved by the feds. But that does mean that there is additional funding. And one of the things that we've looked to do is on a local level, we use a funding formula as well, but we use our own. Ours starts with a base. meaning if you have a site that is open for congregate meals, we give a base amount of labor hours. For example, three. If you do congregate and home-delivered meals, you get six. But that base was always factored on. For many years, it was like under $10 an hour. Well, we know nobody can live and no wage or labor can be done on that level. It was raised to $15 an hour when I was trying to get it to livable wage, but way back, it was raised to $15 an hour in approximately 2016, but it hasn't changed since then. And there's 10 years that have gone by. And if you look at any of the studies with regards to livable wage for employees right now, livable wage is around 27. We were able, so what we've done is for 26, as long as we get the approval to move C1 to C2 from the waiver is to increase the base in our formula to a more livable wage of $22 an hour, which means about 15,000, 10 to 15,000 per site to, better compensate our employees out at our focal points who are serving these meals and running these programs. I can't give you specific amounts per focal point contract until we get that approval from the federal government. I mean, from the state to the fed. But that's one of the things that we intend to propose. The second thing that we have proposed is There has been a desire to relocate a meal site on the south side, whether that be from the Romness closed building where pretty much only the residents who are there eat there. Eventually over time, we'd like to get out of that type of space, but what would that look like and what would replace that? So we have had meetings with New Bridge Madison, about looking for potential five day a week meal sites in the south side where we don't have sites. And then also on the west side to make sure that we have five days of meal program on the west side. This funding allows us to be able to move that forward and to consider those. So we met with New Bridge. We said, this is the parameters. Could you kind of start working on this? One such meal site that I'm somewhat excited about is the Black Business Hub on the south side. It's conveniently located right there at Park Street with all of the other social services. Urban League is there. The library is there. I mean, everything, public health is there. Everything is there. They built in that facility a commercial kitchen. So we're hopeful that potentially that could become a senior meal site with various caterers, maybe one or two different caterers or one similar caterer being able to do a meal site there as well. So I'm just giving you kind of a heads up that there was additional funding. It is desperately needed, and it has to be used to enhance our program. It cannot be used to take county levy back and plug it with this new money. That would be federal supplanting. That is against the rules. We can't do it. So we do need to find ways to use it to enhance the senior nutrition program. One of the other things and the reason we were also asking to move some of that congregate money to home-delivered meals is for the past several years, we have not been able to afford to do so, but we find it is so important. In the winter months when we have our polar vortexes or we have snowstorms and ice storms, We have had seniors having to make a shelf-stable meal, like just giving them a list of items to say, keep on hand in case you lose power, in case we can't get to you, et cetera. Prior to that, we were able to purchase what we called shelf-stable meals that would have the pack of shelf-stable milk and fruit and protein and grains et cetera, that makes these meals nutritious. So this would allow us to purchase three shelf stable meals for every person on home delivered meals to have in case of the winter vortex can't get to you, lack of power, et cetera. So the funding is needed. It will be utilized well. What I'm here to tell you is that same funding is the funding unless they change the formula, which took 10 years to do the last time. But unless they change that formula, we are projected, as long as we're continuing to do what we are doing, to receive similar amount each year going forward. So we can actually start something and continue it versus all... How many times do we get money and it gets one time and you got to spend it on something silly to spend it?

But anyway, that's kind of what's coming with regards to the nutrition program. Does anybody have questions about that aspect of this?

I like the idea of the shelf-stable bills stuff, so I was actually

bags for our conference site on the west side.

So when the winter nuts come, we get that stuff and hand it out for those few days that schools close. And so we close our meal site and that way they've got something to show at home that they could stay. That's great.

Unfortunately, if we were to do that, any time they walk out with that meal versus eat it in place, it's considered home delivered, which means, which means the funding, the funding has to come from the home delivered. That's why we need that waiver transfer move over money. Let me see. Yep, you're next.

Yep. All right. So 2026 state nutrition survey, I'm not sure if all members know, but every three years the state sends out a nutrition survey. And so this year is our year for the fall to have it done. Have them all printed, just have to sort them for each of the sites. But what we ask the sites to do is we, I pull the numbers for how many people get congregate, how many people get home delivered meals, And we usually pick about 20% of that number. And that's how many surveys we send. And we just ask that the centers return 20% of what we give them. So I give them 50 surveys, really all we need back is two or three surveys. But we generally get around 90% of the surveys back. I did increase the numbers a little bit this year since it'll really be a true year of evaluating our new catering. The caterers that we have were last year, it was kind of last time it was kind of in the middle of everything. So hoping that we can get those numbers back sometime in next spring, the state will share that data with us of what people have to say about our meal program. So I'm hoping for good results from that. Any questions on the state survey? Okay. Farmers market voucher program. We're almost done. We're almost there. I have 17 voucher buckets left. So I know a couple of people have reached out, case managers, that they do have a couple of clients sent them an application to help them fill it out and get it back to me so yeah we'll hopefully be wrapping that up by the end of the month and yeah we can see what happens with the data that comes back from all of the redemption and hopefully our redemption rate goes up from last year which was 62 percent so looking forward to getting all that data back and hoping people are using them much more this year, so.

Cindy or, I would say Cindy or Lynn or someone here, can you remind me, how did we change how we distributed the booklets based on whether or not a person redeemed them the year before? Getting these vouchers and getting them out to see older adults is a very laborious process. And then to see them not be redeemed or used, it's like throwing $25 away. And year over year, we've seen less and less utilization, like where they're actually redeemed. Was the process, I thought I recall hearing something about the process change somewhat this year to kind of, how did it change to where that might have an impact?

It did change because the entire state had a 16% cut in funding. So that was obviously carried out to the counties. And based on how many vouchers we issued last year, the list was already over that. So, I mean, it was over 1,100 people that we signed vouchers to. And so talking with Lynn, you know, we're only getting 800, just over 800 vouchers this year. You know, how are we gonna make this work for new people to also join and sign up for it? The state did provide all the counties with the number from the booklets of the vouchers that were redeemed. And so, Part of my process with it is I log the numbers of the booklet for every person that gets one. So the list from the state, I would just do a search for those numbers and see how many people redeemed. If people did not redeem any vouchers, they were not automatically sent an application, which was done in the past. It didn't matter whether you redeemed them or not. If you got them the previous year, we just sent you an application right off the bat. So it kind of opened up a lot of new people getting into the process. Some people calling a little bit later. I used to get an application, but I haven't gotten one this year. Can I sign up for it yet? So it kind of put those that didn't redeem them last year, and at the back of the list a little bit, if you want to, I mean, if you want to call it that, to give the people that, new people that, you know, really were wanting to get these and hopefully will redeem them.

Or those that used them.

Yep.

Or those that used them in the prior year got that automatic application.

Yes, yep. Everyone that did redeem them got an application automatically from us, so.

It'll be interesting to see what impact that has on the redemption rate. I'm hopeful that it has a positive impact, but it has yet to be seen until everything is done.

It's been interesting because a lot of people that have been getting them for several years has not sent back an application, but there were a few of that list that they didn't even use them. last year, but they haven't even called to request them for this year, so.

Can I jump in one second? Yeah. So we're in Sun Prairie. We have a farmer's market that's fairly close to us. And I went a couple weeks ago, and there were only two vendors that actually sold produce. And I honestly don't even know if either one of them took the vouchers. So some of the redemption problem could be just people who are selling items that can be redeemed for, and are those participating? I was able to get with Claire's help, a farmer to come here three times a year and she accepts them. And so, yeah, I've encouraged everybody in my building to get them and Cindy, you know, got a lot of them but I think part of the issue too is just are there and she even said when she came here she said yeah I was asked to come to another farmer's market and cross plains because there are no farmers with produce at their farmer's market which is counterintuitive but that seems to be the trend is that a lot of them in the smaller areas are becoming craft baked goods maybe or things that just aren't eligible for those vouchers that was going to be my

Other point is that I have heard an increase of frustration this year that the state's telling us, you know, there'll be 10 farmers at this market and there's five, but none of them accept vouchers. So it's been kind of sporadic and I'm not sure why, because the farmers register with the state. And so they supply us with who will accept them, the vouchers. and but it sounds like not all the farmers are taking them or are getting to the farmers markets or you know in one community they moved it from downtown to kind of the outskirts of town and I tried to contact them to see if they would have people there that would take the vouchers because usually we have an issue in that community I'm not having enough farmers and I was basically ghosted, it was crickets. I contacted them once a week for two months and called them, nothing in return. I actually did stop one day, but the owners or people that were running it weren't there. So yeah, I know that that has been a big issue this year of, it seems that the farmers are not wanting to take the vouchers or there's not enough farmers with produce or people to use the vouchers.

That's excellent comments there, Christy. And it's something that the feedback that we give to the state annually at the end of this process to express, I know that I've been involved with this for 15 years now and the number of farmers willing to participate because of what they perceive as too much work, to have to be the redemption, to redeem the vouchers, to sign up for the program, et cetera. And I know it's been something the dietitian in the past has really been doing, especially Shannon, I recall, was doing a lot of outreach in communities where they were having trouble redeeming their vouchers. to get a farmer to come to the senior center one day, or, you know, that was willing to accept. So excellent feedback that I'm sure we can put it on as well.

Chair and staff. Okay, chair and staff updates.

Meal costs for 26, 27.

Okay, I'm gonna have Cindy pull up annually, every year. The AAA is required to complete what is called a meal cost workbook. So it's to consider all the costs, whether they are by the county or other providers, et cetera, into what it costs really to produce a meal and serve that meal. Each year this has to be done and can result in an upswing or a downswing in terms of what the cost of the meal is. Generally, the more meals you serve, volume drives price. So you will have a lower meal cost than you did previously. Cindy, I don't know. Oh, there's the 2026. So what you see in front of you is the 2026 meal cost and then the 2027 meal cost. And the reason you see 27 already is our fiscal year, our program year is October 1 of 2026 to September 30 of 2027. So currently in this program year, the cost of a home delivered meal, meaning every cost you can imagine that goes into that labor, transportation, gasoline, food, commodities, all that kind of thing. was $12.86, $12.86 for every meal. And then the cost for the congregate meal was $15.19. Congregate tends to be higher than home delivered because you have space, rent, heating, electric, janitorial, employees working during those times. So it tends to be a little higher. Follow number of meals served, 276, 642. For 2027, doing the meal cost workbook, the total cost per home delivered meal went down one cent. Oh, it went up one penny. It is now for the next program year, it's $12.87 per meal for home delivered that we produce and deliver. And then for congregate meals, it actually went down. So that tells you volume is driving costs down because our costs certainly haven't decreased. Let's put it that way. That's down to $14.65. So these are the prices that we are required then to publish as to the full cost of the meal. So if someone is under age 60 that goes to a congregate meal site, that is the cost we're required to charge them to dine if they're not eligible. It does nothing to change the donation request that this committee decides or looks at annually. We're not suggesting that be changed. It's currently $5 is the suggested minimum donation, but we wanted you to see that the difference between what costs were for this past program year and what they will be for 2027.

So the mill sites will be updated, the concrete mill sites will be updated.

You will get the update for the post, yeah, because now you're using the laminated, wipeable marker to make that change.

Yep. That'll start October 1st. October 1st. Yep.

All right. And then the final thing on my list is Waunakee schools. Wannakee School District has, for as long as I've been involved in Wisconsin, been the provider of the catered meals for the Wannakee Senior Center that were produced. So Wannakee School District has a contract with Taher Catering. Taher Catering. produces all their school lunches. They're in their schools. They look like, I say it looks like a duck packs like a duck, but they're not a duck. They're not a school employee. They work for Topper, but they're in the school, in the kitchen, in the cafeterias producing the school meals. They have for a long time had a partnership with Dane County and the Wannakee School District to produce the meals at the school. package the home delivered meals, get them ready for volunteers to take out, and then bring the meals over to the senior center for them to then serve for congregate meals. We got notice from the Waunakee School District. I wanna say it was, Lynn, help me, I think it was May, June, May or June, that said, We are no longer, the school district is no longer going to allow a contract for anyone outside of the school district under our contract. So I think they do a couple of daycares and stuff. Talker was doing a couple of daycares too and stuff like that. And the school district said, we only want a contract with Talker to do school lunches because they need to focus on our stuff going forward. um so they sent us so we we intend to discontinue doing the meals for dane county as of december 31st of 26. so january 1 would need to be a new caterer um that's not necessarily problematic for dane county because we have so many caterers now and we have such a favorable reputation of our largest caterer atlantic valley foods However, the senior center has really enjoyed that relationship with the school district as well. So, Waunakee Senior Center went to the school district and said, wait, stop, could you reconsider? And the school district said, they took it to their finance board and they said, yes, we would allow them just to do the senior meals to continue that partnership. A, we need more money per meal. because it was ridiculously low, which we could accommodate and was reasonable. And B, they needed to find someone staff-wise to do it for them, though, because the two long-term staff members moved to other positions. So we met with Wanakee Senior Center, who is still weighing their options as to whether or not they should stay with the school district or whether or not they should make the transition like all other senior centers have to our standard caterers. We should know by, we told them we needed a definite answer by September 15th so that we can have everything aligned and ready to go in January. So it's not problematic. I just wanted to alert this committee that Waunakee schools may or may not continue as a caterer with the Senior Nutrition Program. which is not uncommon for the school districts to do.

All right, thank you.

All right, future meeting or future meeting items and dates. So our next meeting is Wednesday, November 18th. Yeah, hybrid meeting, just like today, right? And then public comments on items not on the agenda. Do we have any public? And we've got other businesses is allowed by law. I guess, has anybody got anything to add? I will throw out one thing that to be considered, I guess. There's a couple of, I don't know if the other places in Dade County that serve the meal also try to do boating, but I know it affects a couple of new bridge sites. I tend to run one of them at the moment. I would suggest that it would be nice if we could do a cold meal that day. Because we typically have cold meals and they're not asking for anything special, like a bagged lunch or whatever, but the cold meal, it makes it a little bit easier to serve. And if it's going to be on a rotation anyway, if that would work out, we found ways to work around that in our November election, at least for the Meadow Ridge. community center, we won't be able to use the kitchen. So that would mean the site would close down for that Tuesday, which is the way I think it's scheduled right now. But if we had the possibility of having a cold meal, it would be, we could use paper products for plates and stuff that we could stay out of the kitchen area, which now the larger election for November needs. So that would be something I would throw out there that might help. There are several.

I know, like, if I recall, a lot of the, like, McFarland, I think, the municipal centers, sometimes when they don't have their own space, like McFarland does not have their own dining, it's part of their municipal space. My question is, you can't use the kitchen to And you use the dining room to serve people for them to sit and eat.

So they have a gym area that we then would have the tables in and we would use. That's what we did for the last election. And the same thing's happening at Good Shepherd. They also have, we're using a different area actually to do the meal next week. So for the primary election.

That's something that Nellie can work with. You know, consider with the catering operation. Good to know. Yeah, thanks for putting up the radar. All right.

And then before adjournment, we get to watch a little video.

I wanted to recommend how many of the people on this call have seen that video? I know Supervisor Downing, you said you had.

Ed Downing is ready to sign off. I think that still leaves you with a quorum, but if not and you think you need it, I'll simply turn my camera off and listen in while I go and have lunch.

One of the things that we were told was that committees outside of the immediate board structure were not required to watch the whole thing through because it didn't apply to them in the same way that it applies to county board committees. We have not been able to confirm that. But I will say everyone who's watched this from my perspective in the AAA meetings is sitting there going, I don't understand how this applies to me. So one of the things that we were suggesting was whether or not if we provided the link, if people were willing to watch it and bring questions back. Supervisor Downey.

I can tell you a little bit about that because one of the members of the Land Conservation Committee wasn't able to attend and the staff simply sent him the link.

So I think what I'd like to recommend because it's, again, it's educational. Don't know that it rates any higher than bathroom reading, but... I would just urge people to, I think what we will do is we will send the link out and have individuals watch the video. I would caution you that when you try and relate it back to what is your role on these types of this committee to consider that essentially it basically lays the groundwork that if you have a conflict of interest, If you are employed by, if you provide funding for, you donate to, anything that might impede your ability to act fairly and equitably, you need to recuse yourself from that discussion. And in this, it's really, where do you volunteer? Who do you give your money to? Where are you working? Those kind of things that might impact your ability to remain neutral. And it doesn't say you can't serve in this capacity. It simply states you must make the committee aware of that as issues arise and recuse yourself from that discussion. Would that be a fair statement in your mind, Supervisor Downing? You got it, Angela. All right, so what we will do instead of requiring the misery today is Cindy will send out that link. Make sure that you do view it, you are held to it, but essentially it really means what I've just discussed.

Okay.

All right, so then adjournment.

I move to adjourn.

Christy, Christy.

We have a second? I'll second it.

Whoever.

All right.

Thank you all.