Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

you . . Thank you. Thank you.

You could? Okay. Madam Clerk, roll call, please.

Supervisor Chavez.

Here.

Supervisor Magsing.

Here.

Supervisor Mendez. Here. Supervisor Pacheco.

Here.

Chairman Bredefield.

Here.

All present, thank you.

Good morning. Welcome to the fiscal year 26-27 budget hearings for the County of Fresno. We're going to begin today with the invocation and the flag salute. The invocation will be led by District 5. After the invocation, please remain standing for the flag salute.

Mr. Chairman and Board, thank you for giving me the opportunity to pray. And I was thinking a little bit today about Philippians and the Apostle Paul. And when he wrote to the Philippians, He basically said, do not allow your circumstances to determine your joy. And he wrote that letter when he was in prison. So I think as we enter into this budget time, there are challenges that we face, but we should be very joyful because we get to live in one of the most bountiful counties in the world when it comes to agriculture. We have some of the most amazing people who live right here in this community, and God has given us the honor to lead. So please bow with me. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you that we can gather today to take a look at the budget of Fresno County. I pray for wisdom and guidance and discernment upon the Board of Supervisors. And I pray for the public that we have the blessing to serve. I pray that you bless this county greatly. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

Amen.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you very much, Supervisor Magzik. Agendas are on the back table for anyone wanting to follow along. The fiscal year 26-27 budget hearings are now open. Madam Clerk, first item please.

We have now opened the public hearings for fiscal 26-27 recommended budgets. We now move to the County Administrative Office and Department presentations of fiscal year 26-27 recommended budget.

Good morning, Chairman and members of the board. It's my privilege to begin the presentation of this year's recommended budget for fiscal year 26-27. I'd like to begin with just a few thank yous for many who are part of this process. And first, I want to begin by just thanking your board for your leadership, for the clear communication about your district priorities, and just the collaborative partnership. in working with my office and department heads. It's my pleasure to work for you. I also want to take a moment and thank our budget director Paige Benavidez. I promise we did not call each other and coordinate my tie and her blazer, but that's just how much we think in sync. I cannot tell you how valuable she is to this organization and to this county. She's not only amazing at what she does, but she's universally respected for the way she conducts herself. I also want to thank our team in the sales office for the hard work of getting this to your board and recommend it as you see it before you today. We have department heads here in the audience today and I want to thank them for their leadership and their hard work. I know that it's been a tougher couple of years and sometimes they've had to be creative and we had many meetings to get to this point. So I want to thank you and your budget team for the work that you did. And then finally, most importantly, I want to thank our employees. If you're listening to this, you are the most important asset that we have in our county. You are the engine that makes the county run, the public servants who do the hard work, and we wouldn't be talking about any of this if it wasn't for you. As we get to the presentation, you're going to hear a lot of numbers today, but really this budget is about priorities. It tells our employees, it tells our residents what matters to this board, and there's decisions that will affect future boards. And as you can see on the screen, the theme, and I know the theme was picked by our chairman, and we'll hear more about it at our State of the County, is building a safer, stronger Fresno County. And I think you'll see that theme throughout the presentation. We'd like to begin by reminding us of our vision and our mission. Working together for a quality of life for all is our vision, and again, our mission is providing excellent public service to our diverse community. As we go forward, we try to remember this, and every single thing we're doing, as we look at numbers, ultimately affects the people that we serve, and that is the focus that we've got here in this process. I traditionally take a look back at the prior year as we talk about decisions for the fiscal year that we're in now, and there's a lot of exciting things that have happened. I couldn't move forward without just a reminder of just the celebrations that we had, from the 250th anniversary of our country, which we celebrated with the planning of the Liberty Detroit Courthouse Park, to Fresno County celebrating 170 years. Looking back to think that this county was carved out of parts of Mariposa, Merced, and Tulare in 1856 and to think of the complexity and how large and important Fresno County is now. When we talk about building and maintaining, I'm going to let Public Works speak more to specifics. But there's been a lot accomplished over the last year, over the last five years, when it comes to paving, when it comes to maintaining, when it comes to the roads that we oversee. It was interesting as we were focused a lot recently on transportation funding with the measures that were being discussed. In the report that came to your board recently, there was some numbers that I just wanted to reshare today. In that report, it talked about the annual average road fund expenditures, and this comes from multiple sources, but the average spend, $110 million annually, and that is a staggering number to think of what's being spent and the results that we're seeing to maintain one of the largest road systems in the state. If we think about just progress, we have made generational facility progress, and I want to note some of those that made progress this past year. The Clovis Library Project, August, just over a year ago, that we were at the groundbreaking ceremony for the library. It's a $25 million project. It'll be over 26,000 square feet, which will make it the largest library project. in the Fresno County Public Library system. That was the picture of how it will look. This is how it looks today. If you've driven by, you can see that great progress is being made, and so we're excited as we get to moving from a groundbreaking this past year to looking to a ribbon-cutting that will be coming. We have the same thing in Reedley. On the same day, we had a Groundbreaking in Reedley for the new branch that is moving. It'll be a 14,000 square foot facility and another beautiful facility. And again, this is current progress to see what it looks like today. As we look at these, we're talking about facilities that will serve Fresno County long after many of us have left county government. We're also focusing on workplaces for the county and where we are. And one of our focuses has been moving out of leased facilities and into owned facilities, especially for departments that have discretionary net county cost. And so probation is part of that. They recently moved into 200 West Pontiac on the Clovis campus. They've completed the first phase of tenant improvements. moved out of a leased facility now into a county-owned asset. And so that is something that we're proud of and a good investment for the residents of Fresno County. As you all know and we're excited about, we purchased a new home. for both sheriff administration and the board and the CAO, where PG&E once was located. Those two office buildings, 650 O Street, 705 P Street, about 102,000 plus square feet, 189,000 plus square feet of parking. And so we're excited as we look at moving to these offices. As I looked on Google Maps, I noticed the sheriff's office was very fast and already it says Fresno County Sheriff HQ on the map. They're very excited in consolidating operations and moving over there. We have a lot of things happening that are community-focused system change, things that we've done the same way for many years that we are now doing differently. I won't steal thunder from behavioral health, but I would just say this in a big picture standpoint, this has been one of the most consequential years of behavioral health change in decades. We've transitioned from what was the Mental Health Services Act to the new Behavioral Health Services Act, implemented SB43, expanded Care Act services, strengthened our youth and adult treatment capacity, and so much more. But it's been an incredible year of change in behavioral health and focus on services this year. The Office of Housing and Homelessness is one that your board created this last year. It was November of 2025 that you created that. And the goal was centralizing homelessness response. And in that, a lot has happened since that. There has been new responsibilities where now we are the lead, the collaborative applicant for the Fresno-Madera Continuum of Care. We have expanded grant funding administration, a stronger connection between housing health and behavioral health. and greater focus on permanent supportive housing. There's a lot of work that will continue to focus on efforts for phase two and three of the Office of Housing and Homelessness. There's so much more that could be said about this last year, but I would just say this for those in the public and our employees. We have an annual report that is now published that... very much like you to read to look at just so many different things that have happened. Even that doesn't fully capture some of the many things that have happened over the past year that we are very proud of. As we now talk about the recommended budget for 26-27 and why we are here today, I'm going to give a brief overview of the budget and again remind us of the principles that guide us in this process and we'll return to these as we go through. We focus on budgeting realistic revenue estimates. A lot of times you'll see budgets, and I won't mention entities, but I will, state of California, where often there is revenue estimates that are in the budget that are just simply not realistic. In our county, we have worked to have very conservative revenue estimates, and although we continue that in this budget, as you'll see in this budget process, the margin is much narrower than it's been in the past. And that is part of budgeting conservatively. Discipline adherence to structural fund balance. Paige will talk more about that. And then use of one-time revenues for one-time purposes. We try not to do that. This year is an exception where we have had to use some one-time dollars to bridge the gap. We do it with our eyes open, knowing that this is something we're being very cautious about. But these are the principles we try to stick to. And if we violate them or make an exception, we explain why we did it. But this is what guides us. we go through the process the recommended budget before you today and I might ask the clerk I'm not sure if the slides if we need the lights out if it's easier to see the slides but as we look at the the recommended positions it is a reduction of 20 positions compared to the prior year's allocation A couple reasons for that, in our public health department, we've had the elimination of 16 positions, which is part of the department's redesign to align staffing with available funding. We had two positions in the DA grant budget based on a reduction in state funding for the welfare grant program. And then the elimination of five positions in the probation grants budget based on a reduction in victim witness funding. Some of those eliminations are offset by the addition of a few positions in the sheriff's office that we'll talk about later. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Paige to talk about our discretionary revenues.

Good morning, Board. Paige Benavides, County Administrative Office. Before we address the total budget and each fund type, I'd like to start with discussing the county's countywide or discretionary revenues that we've budgeted for fiscal year 26-27. Countywide revenues, as shown here, are primarily derived from property tax and sales tax. Secured property taxes and motor taxes in lieu of motor vehicle fees account for more than 80% or approximately 344 million of total discretionary revenues. Growth for these revenues is based on assessed value. And as we'll discuss in the next couple of slides, these are the revenues over which your board has discretion that support the net county cost of general fund departments. Discretionary revenues included in the recommended budget have two components. The first being countywide revenues budget in budget org 0415, and that's property tax, property tax in lieu of vehicle license fees, Bradley burn sales tax, and secondly, general fund balance or carryover from the previous fiscal year. Discretionary revenues fund net county cost, which is the amount needed to cover the shortfall when department appropriations exceed department revenues received from third parties, such as charges for services or state and federal funding. For fiscal year 26-27, countywide revenues are recommended at $425.7 million, which represents a net $7.6 million increase from the prior year. The fund balance available from fiscal year 25-26 is $124 million. and it is from prior year net county cost savings from departments, specifically building and repair and maintenance projects that were not completed during fiscal year 25, 20, primarily maintenance projects, as well as countywide revenues that exceeded prior year budgeted revenues. This amount is allocated and factored in to the total fiscal year 26, 27 general fund budget. And I want to make a note that $3 million of the $124 million was designated in the 25-26 adopted budget for the purchase of a property tax system. And it is now recommended for use in the auditor, controller, treasurer, tax collector, and assessor's budget for this purpose. Net assessed value drives property tax revenue growth. The 26-27 preliminary net assessment roll increased approximately 5.4 billion or 4.6 over the prior year's roll value. This increase is lower than the previous five-year average of 6.1 billion or 6.3%. With costs continuing to outpace revenue growth, this year's recommended budget for the a consecutive second year, excuse me, takes a less conservative approach to budgeting countywide revenues impacted by assessed value. So prior to fiscal year 25-26, as your board is aware, estimates for property tax revenues included only the cost of living increase associated with Prop 13, which is 2%. This year, again, includes a 4% increase. And as Paul mentioned, this amount is even closer to actuals expected. We just want to reiterate that this is a less conservative approach in terms of planning for future stability and sustainability. This pie chart shows the total available discretionary revenue broken out by service type. Of the total 549 million NCC pie, about 58% of the funds support justice services for public safety. And speaking of public safety, another significant revenue source is Proposition 172, or the half-cent sales tax dedicated to local public safety. Unlike discretionary countywide revenues, Prop 172 revenues are restricted to public safety purposes only and support a substantial portion of the general fund budgets for the sheriff's office, the district attorney's office, and the probation department. As we've stated in prior reports to your board, Prop 172 fund balance accumulated following significant increases in fiscal years 22 and 23. This was largely attributable to the impact of the pandemic. And the majority of this fund balance has now been utilized. As a result, total Prop 172 transfers in for the sheriff are lower than in fiscal year 25-26, reflecting a lower one-time allocation for Prop 172 fund balance. The ongoing allocation, however, has increased. This table shows total revenues and financing sources for the general fund. In your budget binder, it's shown as a pie chart. But of the total $912 million shown for general fund sources, $788 million represents revenues accounted for directly in the general fund. A total of $1.7 billion represents other financing sources consisting primarily of operating transfers in of additional state and federal funding initially recorded in special revenue funds outside the general fund and then transferred to the general fund based on available expenditures. We will now discuss budgeted appropriations. The fiscal year 26-27 recommended budget is $5.486 billion in total, of which $2.7 billion is for the general fund, which is the county's primary operating fund. As mentioned, of the $2.7 billion in recommended appropriations for the general fund, only $549 million is funded with countywide discretionary revenues or net county costs. And as we discussed, approximately $290 million is funded by state and federal revenues recognized directly in the general fund, while that $1.7 billion is funded by transfers from restricted special revenue funds. As shown in this chart, a large portion, almost 90% or 2.4 billion of the general fund budget is for human services and justice services. The increase in the general fund of 98 million is largely attributable to significant increases in these two service types. For both service types, increases are primarily driven by higher costs for contracted services, as well as increases in negotiated salaries and benefits. The increases in appropriations for the Human Services Department are primarily funded, again, by state and federal funding sources that are restricted for that purpose. And then moving along to our other fund types, we have capital projects funds, which are used for large or long-term projects for buildings and infrastructure. The net increase of $14 million is primarily attributable to the sheriff, board, and county administration facility at O and P streets, offset by reductions based on the progress of other projects. We'll highlight a few other capital projects to be funded with one-time monies, as well as transfers out from the Hall of Records Improvements Capital Project later in our presentation. I would also like to note that the recommended appropriations include the re-budgeting of approximately 25 million for the purchase of the O&P Street Campus. The transfer from the Hall of Records Improvement Capital Project to the county buildings budget was approved by your board during fiscal year 25-26, but due to the timing of the sale being finalized, we had to re-budget both the transfer out and the appropriations to purchase. Debt service funds are used for payments for our pension obligation bonds, or POB, and our lease revenue refunding bonds, or LRRB. The total increase of $2.3 million approximately is required for the scheduled juvenile court facility, LRRB, and the pension obligation bond debt service payments. Enterprise funds provide services to external users, and those users pay the cost of these services on a reimbursement basis. Examples are the American Avenue landfill and the various disposal sites. The net $3.4 million decrease in appropriations is primarily based on a reduction in anticipated American Avenue disposal site fees. Internal service funds, or ISFs, operate similarly to enterprise funds by providing services on a cost reimbursement basis. The difference is that ISFs provide services to county departments and other governmental agencies. The primary increase in the ISFs is in risk management, and this is due to a budgeting methodology change for greater clarity. Total estimated claim expense and anticipated claim recoveries are now budgeted separately. Special revenue and trust funds account for revenues that are restricted for or committed for specific purposes or expenditures. Most of these revenues are received from the state and federal government, as I stated. For most of these funds, the appropriations are only for transfers to the general fund. These funds are transferred monthly to the general fund departments based on actual eligible expenditures. Total appropriations represent a net decrease of approximately $24 million based on reimbursable expenditures for behavioral health, specifically related to the behavioral health continuum infrastructure program and behavioral health services. And now I will turn it over to Paul for some budget highlights.

All right, just a few highlights, and we may be reiterating some of the same points as we go through this. We talked about less conservative discretionary revenue, and even though, again, we're budgeting below actuals, it's tighter than what we've been used to, as has already been highlighted. For many years, we budgeted at 2%, even when revenues were coming in at 6%, 7%, or 8%. That difference funded some of the capital projects that we are benefiting from as well, but also just ongoing services. The exhaustion of one-time funding. For the last several years, again, through really good stewardship and good decisions by your board, When we had access Prop 172 funds, rather than spend them operationally, we realized we need to keep this as one-time funding and use it wisely. And that has been what we've been using to get through these years. So again, I commend your board for supporting us in that. We've also had ARPA funding. And even though we've done a lot of things in the community, ARPA funding also helped some county operations that related to ARPA and so a number of these funding sources are now exhausted and so I only say that to say our maneuverability when it comes to things that we might do in the future if revenue does not increase we have to cut and that's that's what it so we've managed to get to this point but that maneuverability will be less going forward. uh... for a number of years we have budgeted what we would call a budget mitigation fund this is separate from the reserve this is funding that is budgeted that is liquid if we need it uh... as a budget mitigation fund and in the last several years it's been in the range of $31 million, $34 million. This year it is $13 million, and it is put aside for that purpose. It's also put aside for some things we expect we will need to use. In our social services department, they project growth in a couple of programs, including in our foster youth area and others, where this funding is put aside that we may need to use a portion of that. But it is still nice to have it, but it's less than what we've had the last two years. And then investment in capital from the buildings that we just talked about to the report that your board just saw at the last meeting. We are trying to focus on not kicking the can down the road any further but making necessary investments in the buildings that we own but also in future assets that are good investments not just for the county but really for the taxpayers to be good stewards of what we have and so some of these things are reflected in the budget. If we move to the next slide, it's just going through a history of the general reserves. have to pause for a minute to think you know 2007-8 is it's really not that long ago but if you look at that chart to think that at that time it reflected about an eight million dollar number in the general reserve so I give credit to the board looking at just the the big increases to get to where we are today which is 90 million dollars this budget does not include further contributions to it because of the fiscal condition we're in But it does preserve, if you will, the reserve. And we want to continue to grow that in future years. we talk about how did we balance the budget we were we were with you just a couple of a number of months ago you know talking about what we projected to be a deficit so by budgeting property tax revenue growth at four percent instead of two or three that allowed us to use that revenue to help bridge that gap Many of our net county cost department budgets took reductions and so when I commended department heads for their leadership that means that they had to make very difficult choices. Maybe that was hiring controls where they kept the positions but they can't fill them this next year because of the budget. It may have meant they eliminated positions and so there's a number of very difficult decisions working with departments that got us to where we are today. We have hiring controls in place, not a hiring freeze. hiring controls and the hiring controls are in place to make sure that looking forward it is sustainable as we work with departments on their needs and then we mentioned earlier the one-time funding that is used to close that gap it does give us time we want to use the time we have with with wisely as we consider some of the challenges going forward and with that I'm going to have Paige talk a little bit more about that one-time funding

The recommended budget includes fund balance usage for budget mitigation, as Paul mentioned, of approximately $13 million, $3.6 million of which may need to be used for the Department of Social Services based on increases in caseloads for the foster care and general relief programs, which will be discussed a little bit more in the department's presentation. $10 million is included to address estimated new costs for indigent health care resulting from the federal bill, H.R. 1. And other one-time funding includes $7 million for critical county repair remodel projects that were rebudgeted from the prior year and $2.7 million for the maintenance and modernization projects at the Juvenile Justice Campus. The recommended budget also includes some usage of one-time funding for the general fund, including $1.5 million in ARPA interest for congregate settings retention pay. The sheriff's budget also includes $3.5 million from the local assistance fund and $1 million from Prop 172 fund balance for jail medical costs. The recommended budget also includes one-time funding from the General Fund for Capital Projects, a few of which are listed here. Total of $20 million is included toward the O&P Streets Campus for Sheriff Administration and the Board and County Administration. $15 million of that is recommended as use of general fund balance, with up to $5 million recommended as a transfer from the Hall of Records Improvement Capital Project for Board and CAO space.

Just want to take a moment to look forward. So as we talk about this recommended budget, we've talked about some of the things that are coming. We go to the next slide. As we look to some of those challenges, In recent years, even though the state of California population growth remains largely stagnant, over the last year, Fresno County has been one of the few counties in the state that continues to grow. And as the county continues to grow, the demand for infrastructure, the demand for public safety, for housing, for behavioral health, for other county services continues to grow. We've already talked about the fiscal pressures that we're facing. But in addition to that, we've got other ongoing risks. Federal funding challenges, some of those are now just coming into effect over this next fiscal year, and how we will handle that. We budgeted funding for indigent care, for example. You'll hear more about that with the public health presentation. But what will that cost ultimately be? That could affect decisions that we make for our county going forward. State fiscal problems. Why do I mention that? The LAO reports that the state faces a significant structural deficit beginning in 27-28 and the state has a history of passing on their fiscal problems to counties. And so we are watching for that. We've already talked about aging infrastructure. The size of our county, we haven't had an emergency or a large wildfire in a number of years and we hope that continues. But these are risks that we face in addition to just changing times. Cybersecurity and AI risks that we didn't even imagine just a couple of years ago. But with that, we've got really historic opportunity. When we look at our county, as we grow, we have a growing regional influence. In a couple of weeks, we'll be joining with other valley counties. And in that group of valley counties, we're trying to make our voice heard through your board and others with the state and the federal government. And so we have a growing regional influence in the state. Economic growth. We are an area, when it comes to the ag industry, ag tech, and other things, where we have a lot of opportunity. We've got a workforce. And so there's a lot of opportunity where I think investors are looking at our county in ways they haven't we've got transformative services from housing behavioral health to public safety that's unique and then we're building for the future we've got investments in this budget from roads to water to broadband to other infrastructure that is really an opportunity and really partnership what we've seen in this county is all the entities that work together we tend to partner when things are difficult we come together and we've seen that time and time again As I am, the remarkable thing about the moment is really a lot of our greatest challenges also are our greatest opportunities, and that growth creates pressure to do things differently. And change can be difficult, but as a county, it's an opportunity for us to take a look at how we do business and see that we can do it even better. And with that, I'm going to turn it back over to Paige, who's going to talk about some of the things that have been done in this year's budget document to modernize it.

Thank you, Paul. As he mentioned, we'd like to highlight some significant improvements to the budget document format.

Our program manager, Jocelyn Cruz, will give you a brief overview.

But before she does that, I just want to thank her for all of her hard work in making these improvements a reality. And now I will turn it over to her.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors. Jocelyn Cruz, Program Manager for Budget with COs. Included in this budget are changes that focused on moving some content away from lengthy and at times redundant narrative formatting towards more concise summary tables and charts within a budget snapshot. The new format has also made greater use of system-generated content, allowing budget preparers to spend more time and effort on content that adds additional value to the budget. This is reflected in the new key budget consideration section. Overall, these changes are intended to improve readability and make the key takeaways from the budget clearer and more accessible to readers. We'd like to thank all the departments for their patience as we implemented these changes, and more importantly, for the time and effort they put into helping us get the finished product you see today. Thanks.

I want to just add another note to say a special thank you to Jocelyn working under Paige. These are the most significant changes in at least 15 years in the budget document. Countless hours put into it. So Jocelyn, thank you for your excellent work. You made our budget process better and easier for the public to read. With that, Chairman, that concludes our presentation. We're able to answer questions now or as we go forward with further presentations.

Any questions from the board? Seeing none. Yeah, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our CEO and our team. Before we get into some of the department presentations, I just want to thank our CAO and his team. We had what we call the yearly town hall budget meeting that we had. And I just want to read off a couple of the surveys, because I think our CEO did a great job of incorporating a lot of the needs that popped out of that community meeting. with regards to roads and infrastructure, potholes, paving, sidewalks, safer after school, the housing and the homeless challenge that we just outlined. Health and human services, as we know, is a big, big need in our community. And then obviously our public safety, always in the top three for our residents. So I just want to probably thank our folks that participated in that. We got a number of surveys. CAO, I think you got a copy of the survey and all that our residents conveyed. I think it's a combination of QR code, which I'm trying to figure out how to use sometimes, and then some folks that mailed it through traditional snail mail for our folks. But I really appreciate that. I think that was something that was very important to me when I came over here to make sure we continue to engage our residents. I think we've done a good job of doing that. And I just want to say a few words. I think oftentimes there's a perception out there that we are not as engaged or participate in the budget process as our friends across the street. And as many of you know, Chairman Bredefil and myself are recovering Fresno City Council members. We don't plan on relapsing, but I just want to make sure the public understands we are such a big organization, as the presentation just outlined. The vast majority of the funds that we distribute are federal and state. They come with their own mandates, requirements, and paperwork, so to speak. But I really see this as kind of the tail end of the ARPA funding cycle that a lot of us went through. And I really want to thank my colleagues here on the dais. And I think it's kind of symbolic in a way where three of my colleagues on here were responsible to making sure that we did have uh you know enough money to say for a rainy day and hopefully it doesn't rain too hard next year um but just want to thank my my colleagues too for for being good fiscal stewards uh and making sure that needs were being met i think that puts us in a position for myself and the new board that will be here next year to really tighten our belts. I think that was the theme that we heard, but I know we're going to get through that together. We already started some of those conversations, CEO, as you know, with all of our other elected officials across the county. with folks here in our urban and rural communities and i think we will come up with a good budget that serves the needs and meets the needs of our residents so thank you again for your team i just want to thank them publicly and again thank my colleagues for being good fiscal stewards thank you for leaving the car tuned up paying it ready to go i'm hoping we don't have to do a lot of flat tire fixes next year so thank you

Thank you. And I, too, just also want to commend you, CAO, as well as you, for doing a great job, Paige. The presentation is very clear for the public. There's nothing hidden. It's all transparent. It's out in the open. And so I'm very appreciative of that. And it's an excellent presentation. So with that, we'll just move forward. Do you want to introduce any who's presenting? Yeah.

As we transition to presentations from departments, just want to note that these departments are the departments that deliver services that have a significant community impact. And I will turn it over to Jocelyn for a brief introduction.

Before we begin, we'd like to provide an overview of what you can expect from today's presentation. Each presentation will include a department budget snapshot with references to the recommended budget book, an overview of key impacts and challenges, and the department's strategic goal for the year. And then time for the department to address any questions from your board. Also, for the benefit of the public, we have included on this slide a list of budgetary terms that may come up during these presentations. Just to highlight a couple, fiscal year represents the period of July 1 through June 30. Although the recommended budget is specific to fiscal year 2026-27, Some departments will reference future years, especially when discussing key impacts and challenges. And the net counted cost for general fund departments is appropriations minus revenues and is funded by discretionary revenues. The departments presenting today fall under three service types and will be presenting in the order listed. Representing justice services will be the district attorney's office, probation, public defender, and Sheriff Coroner Public Administrator's Office. Representing Human Services will be Behavioral Health, Public Health, and the Social Services Department. And finally, representing Land Use and Development will be Public Works and Planning. With that, I'd like to invite the district attorney to begin today's presentations. Thank you.

Good morning, board, CAO, staff. Thank you for this opportunity to present our budget to you. I am present with my business manager, Steve Rusconi, who I always say is the most important person in the district attorney's office because he is a man of integrity. And I know that relationships are very important. Supervisor Chavez, I'm glad to hear that you and Supervisor Bredefield have had the experience of one entity, one board, and now you have another board because you can see how professional things are done here at the County of Fresno. I would be remiss if I did not address Ms. Benavides and Ms. Buck, who are our analysts. They operate with the utmost professionalism, and they keep us organized. The communication that we have and the relationships that we have are a huge part of public safety. And as I tell some of our lay staff in the DA's office, even though you don't wear a badge, you contribute to public safety and you help make it better. Paul, you're a great communicator also and always such a help to us. So with all of that said, thank you, Sam. Thank you, Paige. Thank you, Paul. You can know that, as a board, that you have a great staff working in the CAO's office that supports the department heads, the elected officials, and the community at large. Many people, such as yourselves, you five board members, run on campaigns that say public safety is a priority. And we live in a state now where public safety is not always a priority. I speak with several of my colleagues who are other elected district attorneys in other counties, and they don't have the support of the board. So on behalf of the men and women of the district attorney's office, as well as the community at large, no matter where we come from, what socioeconomic background, what area of the county, rural or urban, what political party we are, what race, religion, creed, you make decisions that affect all of us and affect our safety. So I want to thank you for allowing us the opportunity to be funded. I know that everybody is having to tighten their belts. We're having a lot of issues inside the DA's office that you know, are coming with some of these unfunded state mandates, because I think that the people in Sacramento are completely disconnected from what goes on in the counties, and I see Supervisor Magsik shaking his head, so expect your phone to ring, because you are going to be hearing from me at a whole other level, and hopefully you will be an agent of change up there to stop some of this madness that is putting pressure on all of us here in the county. So improving the budget, I think, is like raising a child. You have to be consistent. You have to be slow and steady. And you have to do the right thing at the DA. And I've been standing here at this podium discussing budgets and other things for 12 years now as the DA. And I'm very proud to say that our budget is strong. It is something that I think this board has prioritized. And we are now here with a recommended fiscal year budget of $55 million. We do have some revenues that come in and brings us to a net county cost of $36 million. We do have the same amount of full-time employees at 217. We would like that number to be higher, but there has been a very big problem over the last, I would say, six to seven years to recruit qualified prosecutors. When I took over as DA, new prosecutors were making just above $50,000. They were unable to support car payments, rent payments, and student loan payments. And with the support of this board and previous boards, we have been able to increase those salaries for prosecutors. Our DA investigators were also grossly underpaid and that has improved over the last decade also. So that is still a challenge for us. We continue to lose prosecutors to civil practice to the Fresno County bench because our salaries are not as competitive as we would like them to be, but it has improved greatly and for that we are very thankful. We are still running at about a 10% vacancy rate for prosecutors. So I'm not here to ask for more positions because quite honestly and frankly, I can't fill the ones I have. And that is, I think, a lot to do with geography and a lot to do with the fact that we do lose people, again, to civil practice and the bench. But it has improved. And so we are steadily sort of becoming a player. And we are very happy about that. So we cannot, I'm not complaining. I'm just sort of stating it how it is. We would like to see some of those salaries increase so that we can be more competitive. Because as we all know, You can have a great sheriff's department. You can have really strong police departments. But if you don't have an effective justice system in the courts, it just becomes a turning. And we have to make criminals accountable, which is very difficult in the state of California. So having qualified prosecutors is a huge part of public safety, as this board is well aware. So we are continuing to sort of scramble, if you will, with the unfunded mandates that continue to come out of Sacramento, which are things that people don't see. They're things that the average person does not know. They are battles that are fought that don't get put in the media. We have five or six lawyers who are dedicated to literally keeping people that we have already lawfully prosecuted and sentenced in prison. And as the governor continues to close prisons, which he's closed five during his reign of terror, which many people think like, oh, we don't need that many prisons. They're too expensive. Well, look at some of the victims of crime that would not have been victimized had we had proper prison population beds commiserate to our state population. But without getting off on all of those tangents, we continue to work hard to put the right people in the right beds at the Fresno County Jail. We have an amazing relationship with the Sheriff's Department and all of our police agencies so that we can find the most serious criminals and make sure that they are the ones who are taken out of society when they prove that they cannot. behave appropriately. And so we continue to do that. We continue to work hard. We do have a lot of frustration and a lot of fatigue within our staff. But we try to do the best that we can to keep morale high. And the support of the board for our professional staff, our investigators, and our prosecutors has really helped over the last five years. And I hope that that will continue. And with that, we are open to questions.

Any questions from the board? Yes.

Just thinking for that presentation, DA Smith-Kemp, and I appreciate your honesty with regard to you being very just upfront about being able to recruit and retain our folks here. I know oftentimes when we're trying to recruit folks to come and work for the public sector, it's very difficult to compete with the private sector. One of those incentives has been where our attorneys would get their loans forgiven if they provided service to a public entity for 10 years what percentage of our attorneys that we currently have under that umbrella and what do you foresee for next year in the next couple years for that cycling out all of them all the ones that come fresh out of law school yeah they sign up for that and so they still the the thing i think that's misleading about that supervisor is they still have to pay them

for 10 years and so they still have you know five six seven hundred dollar payments every every month they it's not a forgiveness of the entire student loan it's a forgiveness of the balance and so they have to pay it while they are accruing that time credit if you will and then at the end of that the balance can be forgiven and for some of these young prosecutors who have You know, it's been very difficult because tuition, even at state and UC schools, is exorbitant. And law school tuition is very, very expensive. So sometimes they come to us with two, $300,000 of loans. And so their payments are in the $700, $800, $900 range. And so it's difficult for them, right? They're living in not great places. They're driving not great cars because they still do have to pay those payments in the first 10 years.

You foresee that being a challenge the next couple of years and not just recruiting folks to come here, but keeping the ones that that we have?

Yeah, I think I think it's going to continue to be a challenge because there is a nationwide shortage of prosecutors. I don't think people really realized when the whole defund the police issue. Arrow was affecting police agencies and sheriff's departments nationwide. It also affected prosecutors. And it took a generation, a very young generation of college students who were very anti-law enforcement. And that definitely affected us. And we're still sort of feeling that. When I became a prosecutor back in 1997, there was a line. to get a job at the DA's office. You had to come in. When I started here in 2001, I started off as an extra help employee because that was the only way in the door. And my salary in the private sector was just a little bit higher than I started to, you know, here at the DA's office, where now, you know, I have a young prosecutor that's been with us for about 15 months, and he just got recruited to a private firm with an offer of $225,000 to start. And although he's a fine young man and an excellent attorney, those kind of salaries weren't heard of even 10 years ago. So we are definitely in competition with the private sector. And so what we try to sell in the office to recruit is the fact that this is an opportunity for you to actually be a trial attorney. Because for many people that go into civil practice, they never get to get in front of a jury. It's all motion work, and they never actually really get to be true, true litigators. And so we sell that, and we also have to find the people that really have that calling. Because this isn't just a job. This isn't just a career. This is something that people are called to do. It's almost like a vocation. And there are warriors in this office. I see these young men and women who are starting families, right? And they don't have the option of sending their kids to private school if they want to. They don't have the option of going on the vacations that their colleagues in civil practice get to go on. And when their kids get to college, they say, I'm sorry, I cannot afford to send you to private school. And those are the compromises and the sacrifices that prosecutors make that people don't see. No one sees that. And they do it because they care. They do it because the work matters. And they do it because no client in a private firm is ever going to give you the personal satisfaction of being a voice for a rape victim or a child molest victim or a family that's been the victim of a murder.

Yeah, and I appreciate that. And I think what the incident recently showed us too is, you know, that's part of the, sadly, the reality of their job right now. And talking with some of our prosecutors, I know they're not covered under the public safety umbrella. So God forbid something happens to them, like what happens to their family, who takes care of their family. I think that that'll be a conversation for later. But just wanted to kind of get a snapshot of what you're seeing on there. So appreciate that. Thank

And I think another thing, Supervisor, people don't realize, prosecutors don't get overtime, whether we work 40 hours a week or we work 80 hours a week. When we're in trial and we're waking up at 2 o'clock in the morning or working until midnight, we don't get overtime. We're all salaried employees. And so, you know, the work definitely ebbs and flows. People get different assignments as they change. Not everyone's in trial every day. But they work very hard and they grind. And, you know, I always say it's like a relay race, right, when you run the 4x100. We're the final race. RUNNER IN THAT RACE. AND WE HAVE TO BRING THAT BATON OVER THE FINISH LINE IN ORDER TO ENSURE PUBLIC SAFETY BECAUSE WE ARE DEALING with the worst of the worst. The police and the sheriff do an amazing job. And they go to calls, and they manage things, and they keep the peace for stuff that never even comes to our office. The stuff that comes to our office is people who have actually committed crimes that are affecting other human beings in the community. And so it's really an important thing for every county to realize the importance of the district attorney's office.

Thank you for that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Well, thank you, Dees McCamp, and thank you to all your folks that are working hard. I think Al and I did quite well, that they do a tremendous service for the community every day.

Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.

Thank you.

Now, if we can have probation, please come up.

Good morning Chairman Britafield and to all of the board members. I'm Kirk Haynes, your Chief Probation Officer for Fresno County. With me I have Song Bang, my newly promoted Deputy Chief over our Administrative Services Department Division. And so I just want to say thank you to all of you for the opportunity to present our fiscal year 26-27 recommended budget. You know, DA Smith Camp is a true friend of mine, but she is a tough act to follow, I'll just tell you that. But really, I really appreciate the relationships that we have in Fresno County with all of our departments, especially with our justice departments. working with the sheriff's office and DA's office, public defender's office, but all of our departments in the county have been very, very good to be able to work with, and your board as well. We appreciate all of your support, and I'll talk about some of the reasons why in my presentation, but I just want to say thank you to the board's support. I want to say thank you to Paul and all of your support of me, and especially of the department, Paige. You're doing a bang-up job, and I appreciate all the work. Sam and Finae, who I know is now gone, but all the work that the CO's office has done to be able to support the probation department, I really, really do appreciate that. So to our budget. And you'll see in this slide that we're going to be providing our recommended budget for 26-27. In the 3434 org, just so that 3430 org, that is our org that takes care of all of our probation services, whether they be in the adult or in the juvenile services realm. There, we're going to be realizing a $66,152,506 appropriations, which represents a 4% decrease in our appropriations in 3430. And that reduction is due mainly to the elimination of lease costs with our transition to the Pontiac campuses. I want to say thank you again for all of your help in getting that done this fiscal year. Also, the discontinuation of financial questionnaire services, we're working with the Superior Court for providing services to our pretrial defendants, and so the elimination of that financial questionnaire also led to a decrease in our appropriations in 3430. Under revenue, we have a revenue that's been received of $55,558,331, which represents a 4% decrease as well. That's due in part to the loss of AB 1869 state funding, which was backfill fees that the probation department had received over the last five years. This year was the first year that those backfill fees were not going to be realized. represented about a $1.4 million decrease in revenue that was coming in to the department. Also, a loss of our Fresno Unified School District contract where we provided nine probation officers to the high school campuses for Fresno Unified. And I just want to make a note that it was not because of the delivery of services of our probation officers to those campuses. It was strictly a financial decision on Fresno Unified's part to try to shore up their budget. And so it's unfortunate, but it was a long-term agreement, hopeful if their budget can be improved over the next year or two that we'd be able to get back onto those high school campuses. For Nett County cost, for 26-27, we received $10,594,175, which represented a 3% decrease. Our staffing will remain in 3430 at 362 positions. Under 3440, which is our JJC Institutions Division, our appropriations there, recommended appropriations, $55,558,331, which represents a 4%. increase over last year. And that's the reason for that increase is it supports contracted services for our Titan Youth Home, which we recently opened and really excited about the work that we'll be able to do there with some of our most at risk and most needed youth. Revenue in 3440 represents $35,130,096, which represents a 4% increase, and that increase is due to available juvenile justice realignment block grant realignment reserves that we're going to have to dip into, and I'll explain why in the next slide. Net county costs received for the 3440 budget, $18,657,445 represents a 1% decrease in our staffing. At the JJC, we'll remain at 241 positions. I'll just make note that despite the reductions in NCC, We're going to keep vacancies in some, just like Paul talked about, not hiring. We're going to, you know, hiring, but not beyond what our allocated positions for in the net county cost realm for 3440 and for 3430. So we're going to have to keep some positions vacant for 2627. Next slide, please. So if we look at significant impacts for this upcoming year, I talked about the Juvenile Justice Realignment Block Grant. There was a new formula that the state of California developed that became effective on July 31st of this year. Think about July 31st of this year is after the 26-27 budget had already been initiated. So the state decided to release this formula to us, which represented a $1.6 million, 20% reduction in our program for our secure youth treatment facility program. And just to remind you, our SYTF program is that program that services those youth who normally would have gone to the state, to the Department of Juvenile Justice for their care and custody, but all those youth had, back in 2021, were realigned back to the counties. And with that formula, brand new formula, like I said, the state in my opinion did not fulfill their obligation to the counties by developing this new formula and giving us a 1.6 million dollar reduction in the fiscal year that we had no idea that it was going to be that low so just unfortunate that we've had to do that and so we've had to bring in reserves fortunately because of some some really good work that was done by Administrative Services Division and our JJC folks is that we did have some reserves that's going to stabilize us for this year for 26-27, but I have a lot of fears about 27-28 and moving forward. based on what this new formula is gonna look like. It's gonna mean you're gonna have some operational adjustments that are gonna have to be made, and also things that may happen with our Titan Youth Home that was just opened, so do some significant reductions that are gonna have to happen with those youth who I said, like I said, the kids that were caring for young adults up to age 25 who've committed murders, and we're realizing a $1.6 million hit in one year. um... challenges if that wasn't enough um... the frequent state and federal program regulatory changes that require ongoing adaptation uh... DA Simicamp is right on the money when we when we think about the things that the state does um... really uh... when it comes to criminal justice matters both adult and in juvenile where um... they make just unfortunate decision. You may know I'm on the Board of State and Community Corrections, which is the regulatory agency that provides the regulations that both jails and juvenile halls have to follow every year. And so we went through this process for updating the regulations. They hadn't been changed since 2022. And just to give this board a heads up, next year the regulations for Title 15 are significantly changed, which we believe is going to cost our counties more money in order to run our halls because of some of the things that the state is asking for counties to do on behalf of the young people that are in our care. Not that these things are bad. It's just that some of the new regulatory changes that are going to happen, Although it's going to cost counties more money, the state is not going to provide any additional funding in order to get those regulations implemented. In addition to that, revenue reductions, including the reductions in NCC amid rising costs, the increased workload, and also operational demands. As we, like I said, we're holding vacancies in those NET County funded positions, both in the juvenile hall area and also on the services side. But the work that we have to do for the courts, the work that we want to make sure that public safety is happening, that our officers are going out into the field on a regular basis, there will be some impacts on how we're able to carry those kinds of things out through the 26-27 work year. Also maintaining compliance with the current staffing capacity. Like I said, court demands, field operations, our work with CVAC. It was mentioned that we deleted five positions from CVAC in this year's budget. It's because of just how the bulk of funding that comes from the state of California, from the feds down to the state of California, unpredictable over the last three years as to whether the funding was going to be there or not or some portion of it. And we've had to deal with that over the last three years. And so this year, given where we were with the VOCA funding for CVAC, we had to make the tough decision to eliminate those positions. And the last thing is just escalating operational costs and the contractual costs for providing essential services for the adults and the youth and the people that we do care for and their families. So those are the biggest things for us. I just want to say thank you. One last thing. In our strategic goal, I do want to talk about that because I am very excited about one of the things that we talk about is developing a comprehensive youth drop-in center program to support prevention and intervention services for our at-risk youth. And doing this under the umbrella of of innovation and being able to meet the challenges of the youth in our families in Fresno County. Oftentimes I've been told by families who struggle with youth who either are out of control or youth who basically are living on their own is that there are no services out there for young people unless they penetrate either my criminal justice system or Director Bugay's Department of Social Services system. And so we are going in the works of developing a drop-in center initially for youth that are under the care of the juvenile court, but eventually to be able to provide essential service to young people and their families, such as substance use, anger management, financial literacy, a plethora of services that we would be able to provide in the community and not for youth that are only in custody. So really looking forward to that work. Hopefully we'll get that done and in place by the end of this fiscal year, June 30th, 27. With that, that's my presentation and I'm available for questions.

Thank you very much. Any questions? Yes, sir.

Chief, thank you for the presentation. Just a couple questions about the JJC. I know that, or I believe it's been operational about 20 years now, correct?

2006 is when it opened, yes.

So some of the deferred maintenance out there, are we looking to apply for grants or partner with the state to make some just improvements out there at that facility? And I know that when it first was built, I think it was able to house between 300 to 400 youth, and right now I think we only have about 100 youth out there. So can you talk a little bit about both some of the deferred maintenance and what we're doing to keep that up and then maybe some plans out there for that campus so it's fully utilized?

Good question. Thank you, Supervisor Magsik. Yes, we have, over the last two years, we have dedicated some capital funds working with the CAO's office. We recently had the roof replaced on two of the buildings out there, which is where most of the youth are being served right now. So great that we were able to get that done. We're also working in part of the rebudgeting that Paige talked about for some of those services is to be able to get the welding program. think you know that the welding program has been dealing with some electrical challenges just so that some of the new equipment that they have purchased can so the infrastructure of the building can actually allow them to use those those things so we've rebudgeted that funding so hopefully there that'll be a project that will be able to get that done while they get that done it's going to take about about six to nine months to get the work done. So I've talked to Fresno County Superintendent of Schools about a plan about how do we make sure that the youth will still be able to have some work that they can get done while that work is getting done. In regard to other things, yes, there are significant issues with water issues, plumbing issues. I think weekly, my new deputy chief over the juvenile justice campus, over the weekend, we talked about, you know, some of the plumbing challenges that are happening. Our kids like to stuff things down the toilets out there and they get stuck somewhere between that building and where the, you know, where the where the sewage and those kind of things comes out. And these are structural things that we notice from the very beginning of the building. So these aren't things that are brand new. These are infrastructural problems that have been happening from the very beginning. The questions about the state, and there have not really been that many opportunities, not since SB 81, which would allow for us to be able to tap into state funding to be able to fix some of these things we're talking about you know maybe you know 60 70 million dollars in order to kind of fix what the kind of things that need to be happening out there knowing that we don't have that funding in here at the at the county level but Talking to the state about the infrastructure of all of our juvenile halls across the state of California, especially since there has been this realignment of this expectation that we house young people. When this facility was first built, it was intended to hold young people for more than a year. Now I'm going to hold young people up to age 25, up to seven years in custody. And so the redesign of our campus is absolutely needed. There is really no mechanism at the state level for it to be funded. But you, Supervisor, hopefully can help us to make a difference there.

How many youth do you actually, that are on probation, are actually incarcerated?

It's about, I have about 500 youth who are being served out of custody on supervision, and then about 100, yeah, we hover around 100, 110 youth that are in custody at any given time.

So I take it you think of eliminating the California Youth Authority was a lousy idea.

It was a short-sighted idea. It was a fix that they thought was something that they could do to... One good thing is that kids would stay close to their home. Great. I get that. But the flaw in it is that it was under-resourced. The state, for what they ran, DJJ, we got a third across the state in order to run a state program that they used all of that funding. We got a third of that funding to do it. So... No, it was a short-sighted idea. The chief probation officers of California, we opposed the idea when the state was considering it, but they moved forward without really a lot of our input. And so because of that, you see some of the things that are happening now with how the laws and DA Smith Campus touched a little bit on it, on some of the crime that we see amongst young people. Unfortunately, we know that young people who are, you know, 16 17 18 years old 16 17 years old who commit a murder know that they're going to be in custody for five six seven years And so we see the result of that today About nine to ten thousand adults.

Yes. Thank you chief for doing the great job Thank you.

Appreciate it Supervisor Chavez

I don't have any questions, Chief. I just wanted to thank you for the tour that you gave me a couple of months ago and really, I think, seeing up front the work that you and your team do and one of the most professional-run facilities that we have. And oftentimes, people have this perception that, Yes, bad people that people that do bad things go there to serve time and pay their debt to society. But at some point, like you said, they're going to come out. And it was really great to see not just the welding program, but the gardening program that you have there, the Boys and Girls Club program that you have there. And making sure we provide these young people who will at some point be released. a way to make a life, you know, to provide for themselves and their families so that they don't revert back to old habits and doing things and being around bad people. So I really appreciated the work that you and your team did there. I think going into the future, there's going to be some opportunities to maybe augment that and maybe secure some funding from the federal and state level and maybe add to some of this deferred maintenance that we have, because I think if it turns into a hub where you're doing a lot of workforce development for those folks, and I think the young man that I'll never forget, you know, he's 25 years old, I believe, now, but has a skill now, a great welder, and he will be out there in demand, and you could genuinely tell that he appreciated having that skill, because I think that's his safety net, and that's what you and your team do over there, so I really appreciated the work that you do.

I appreciate that. We often remind our officers out there who do an absolutely incredible job at the juvenile justice campus to provide support to young people who probably had very little of that before they came into our institution. But because of the work that they do alongside with many of our partners that are there, despite what you might see out there in the community on the news, we've got young people who are doing incredible things, going to college, getting those jobs with welding careers in order to really change our lives. And so we really appreciate the support, and I'm very, very proud of the work that we do to be able to prepare our young people for departure into the community.

Supervisor Magic?

Yeah, thank you, Chairman. So one of the things I wanted to talk about is I know since 2019, I asked your office to take a look at the correlation between closure of prisons, more and more responsibilities being placed on your department for probation and parole. of tracking individuals who've committed crimes and then looking at the homeless population and how many people were on probation and parole and what we saw in 2019 compared to just when I had you run the numbers a couple months ago is a very significant correlation between prison beds closing and the number of homeless that you supervise increase. So has the state given any recognition to kind of this cause and effect and how your department's being impacted by a lot of people who were formerly incarcerated who end up on the streets where there is really a lack of service and help that a lot of these individuals need. Maybe they have substance abuse issues, but is there more talk coming out of the governor's office or legislature about how we can bridge this gap? Because from my perspective, it appears that as the state moves away from really PUTTING PEOPLE IN PRISON, A LOT OF THEM ARE ENDING UP ON THE STREETS AND REALLY DRIVING THIS HOMELESS PROBLEM.

YEAH, WHAT WE'VE SEEN, I KNOW SOME OF THE RESPONSES TO THE HOMELESS SITUATION, ESPECIALLY FOR PEOPLE WHO MAY BE JUSTICE INVOLVED, CARES ACT WAS ONE OF THOSE KINDS OF THINGS, AND YOU COULD PROBABLY TALK TO DA SMITKAMP OR TO OUR PUBLIC DEFENDER about how even the CARES Act program is being implemented in Fresno County. We just don't have very many people that are participating that are in the realm of the justice-involved adults that are in Fresno County. And I'll tell you, Supervisor, that the numbers that we see in Fresno are not unique. To us, it is a trend across the state of California when we see homeless people who have been released long-term from state prison, mainly because of some substance use issue, but I think the bigger issue is because of just long-term mental health, serious mentally ill people who come out of custody, who didn't really have a whole lot of service delivery while they were at CDCR. So instead of what we used to have to be able to allow people to go into more longer-term mental health facilities, those things don't exist. I'm sure Director Holt can talk a little bit more about that. But you don't really have those facilities anymore that can provide that level of service. And so now our jails and the streets have been pretty much the places where our seriously mentally ill people can be. And so we'll continue to see that until there is a significant investment that does come from the state. But I've not seen really a program that addresses specifically what you're talking about. But yeah, it's a need that at some point is going to come to a head.

I just want to say thank you again for all that you do. I toured your facility, JJC, a year ago, and it's very clear the great work that's taking place there, and you are changing lives. And so we fully support what you're doing.

Thank you. Really appreciate that.

Thank you.

We invite the public defender to please come and present.

Good morning, board members and Mr. Nerlin. It's an honor to be here today. And I also just would like to first thank Paul and his shop, his team, especially Paige and Sam for the support they provided my office throughout this budget process. We truly could not have done this without them. I'm very grateful for their patience and their partnership and assistance. I also want to thank or take this opportunity to thank and recognize the staff that works at the Fresno County Public Defender's Office. The work they do is tireless. They are dedicated. They are committed to upholding the Constitution and fighting every day for fairness and justice. This is an extremely difficult, challenging, and often thankless job. Yet every morning our attorneys and support staff, they show up ready to do the work, they advocate for our clients, they protect constitutional rights, and they work incredibly hard to ensure that justice is served and that it is done well. I am so proud of the work that they do and grateful for their unwavering commitment to the people they serve. It's really been the privilege of a lifetime to lead this amazing staff at the Public Defender's Office. And just along with Lisa Smitkamp's comments about recruitment and retaining, we're in the same boat that they're in. While we really appreciate the board's increasing attorney salaries, we need to still do a better job at figuring out how to retain people and how to recruit. Attorneys and this is really hard work. It's hard work what the district attorney does. It's very hard work what we do And I'm thankful that we have such a great working relationship with our district attorney's office and with our probation department It makes things a lot easier. There's not a lot of counties that can say that a lot of counties have with Public Defender and the DA's office do not work together well. Now, we don't always agree, but I think we have a lot of respect for our different offices, and I appreciate that, and I appreciate the work that Lisa does. So with that, oh, I do want to comment on Supervisor Magsig's prayer and mentioning St. Paul being in prison. You know, perhaps if St. Paul would have had a public defender, he might not have been in. So I just want to put that out there.

The Roman Empire was not a republic.

I know.

So that's the important thing. He was toast.

I just want to remind you all of that. I'm going to have Mr. Lopez, he's our business manager, is going to come up and talk about our first slide. I also have Mr. Sorensen here, the assistant public defender. He's really good with stats. I'm not, so he's going to be the stats guy.

Thank you, Antoinette. I really want to start off by just mentioning that Antoinette and Jason are always really careful. They consider every fiscal decision with a lot of thoughtfulness and integrity. And their attention to detail and their meant to be responsible stewardship sets the tone for our office. And it really makes a difference. They really look at every fiscal decision. And even with the budget that we have, they always make it work. For our budget this year, We are requesting $29,738,893. It's an 11% increase. That is due to some of our revenues not coming in the way that we wanted them to. The state, we lost some revenue primarily with our public defense pilot program, about $600,000 that we lost. And then also, similar to the probation, AB 1869, we lost some revenue there. That sunset was $348,000 there. And so we are at 168 positions, and we are going to be at that level as well this year. I'm going to let AT talk about the impacts and challenges.

Our biggest challenge is retaining and recruiting qualified attorneys. I just lost five attorneys this month. This past month, it's been really difficult. They're going to private sector, going to other county entities where it's not as hard at work. and making the same amount of pay. So it's very hard to compete with that. We are constantly sending out, as I know the district attorney is, to job fairs, to law schools. We've really pumped up our post... What's it called, Jason? A post-bar program where we hire... attorneys coming out of law school pending their results of the bar exam, and we are able to pay them, thanks to the generosity of the board and Mr. Nerland, which a lot of counties aren't able to pay, so that program has been very successful. So hopefully we'll be able to bring in some more folks in that regard. So yeah, that is our biggest challenge right now, is recruiting and retaining attorneys. And we don't, like Lisa said, we don't need any more positions. We've got them. We just need to fill them. So any questions?

Yes, go ahead.

So just to highlight a little bit more, I think to have an effective criminal justice system, you need to have both a strong district attorney's office and a strong public defender. And I want to commend both your office as well as Paul, our CAO, because as you alluded to, state funding is down about $1.4 million. And, you know, this is a tough fiscal year for us. I think we're going to hear from the sheriff shortly who's going to talk about actually going backwards when it comes to, you know, revenues, him giving money back. But with your department, we see an overall increase because NCC, Nett County Contribution, increased close to $3 million to make up the difference between what the state is not helping us with but also trying to make sure that we don't go backwards in your department. So I appreciate the work that you do as well as the CAO recognizing that we need to have both a strong public defender office and a strong prosecuting division. So appreciate that.

Thank you. Yes.

Thank you, public defender, for that presentation. And I think sometimes I don't necessarily support the people that you defend, but I 100% support the right for those folks to have representation, you being part of that due process. I just want you to know that how valuable that is and critical for our folks in the community. I do have a question with regards to the retention. And you mentioned that you just lost number of attorneys recently you still have that obligation to provide representation for folks that come in through through our system um what's the dollar amount right now that you're having to contract that out as a result of not having an office capacity you have that up off the top of your head by any chance we're not in charge of that yeah we'll have to get back to you on that one Okay, not a problem. I'm just trying to kind of get a snapshot of what that looks like, because at the end of the day, folks got to be represented, right? They have to go through the core of the system. And so I think for future conversations, I like to just kind of get what that number roughly looks like on a yearly basis.

We don't contract out.

You don't?

No, that's county.

Yeah, supervisor, we do that in the sales office. And we'll get that. Will this be one of those moments where I say page, what page? Yes.

You know, like Lisa said, this is a calling for our attorneys. They don't go into this to make a lot of money. Neither do her attorneys. They feel very called to serve. And these are important jobs. And like I've said before, you can't send people to prison without a public defender standing there beside them. Their rights are protected, because we would all want that if we were faced in the criminal justice system. And I think we need to try to figure out a better way to compensate our attorneys for the hard work that they're doing.

How many positions are you short right now?

23. 23.

Yeah. Thank you.

And Supervisor, the page is 72. It doesn't have the exact breakout of the contract itself, but the alternate indigent defense budget in Budget Org 2875 is a separate budget under our office.

Yes.

Yes, and we will get you that number.

Any other questions, comments? No? No. Thank you very much.

All right. Thank you. Thanks.

Our next department, the Sheriff's Office.

Good morning, Chairman, members of the board. We have put together a video presentation which you'll be able to see shortly for our budget presentation today. Before we get started, I want to give some special thanks to Paul and Paige and their staff for working through the budget process and getting to this final number and where we are so we can maintain services. I also want to thank Assistant Sheriff Adam Esmay and Captain Brandon Purcell and their staff for working diligently on this as well and working so well with Paul, Paige, and their team. and obviously to the Board of Supervisors for your support of public safety. As you can see on the slide that we have here, this year our total appropriations were $398 million. We did have about a $4 million reduction in our total revenues from various things that occurred throughout the year. And then our net county cost the increase of $17.8 million. Our full-time employees went from 1,275 to 1,278. We did have to cut funding for some deputy sheriff positions due to some third-party funding that was not able to come through. So those were absorbed back into the budget. So we did not have a reduction in deputy sheriff positions. So when we look, we'll play the video in just one second. One thing that I want to talk about is we've been talking throughout the budget presentation here about vacancies. Currently, we have 17 deputy sheriff vacancies, but we also have 34 deputy sheriffs who are out on some sort of long-term OJI, Family Medical Leave Act, and things like that. So essentially, our vacancy rate for deputy sheriffs is 51 right now. That's 51 positions unfilled. And then you look at our correctional officer vacancies, we currently have 29. And in that group, we have 53 correctional officers who are out on long-term leaves. So that's a total of 82 correctional officer positions that currently are not being filled. So when we talk about overtime and other things within the sheriff's office, we run a 24-7 operation. Just because somebody's out or a position's not filled with a body, we still have to find a body to work in that position in order to deliver services 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So we'll go ahead and can we play the video?

Can we?

The Fresno County Sheriff's Office is and will always be committed to providing the highest level of public safety to the residents we serve, while being responsible stewards of the resources entrusted to us. Through strong fiscal management, creative personnel deployment,

and continued support from the Fresno County Board of Supervisors. We have achieved something we are especially proud of. For the first time in recent memory, the Sheriff's Office returned $16 million from last year's budget back to the county. This accomplishment reflects our commitment to find

efficiencies without compromising the service our residents expect and deserve. A major area of success has been our correctional officer staffing, or we may soon say correctional deputies, as they could gain a peace officer title with the governor's signature following the state's passage of Assembly Bill 2004. The support from the Board of Supervisors, combined with an aggressive recruitment effort, has allowed the Sheriff's Office to make significant progress in reducing job vacancies in our jails. What was once 100 correctional officer vacancies has been reduced 80% to 20 vacancies. That improvement has provided greater stability in our general operations and allowed us to better manage staffing and overtime.

We achieved it in part by expanding our recruitment efforts. You know you can do so much more.

Here's a career change opportunity that can bring out your full potential.

Television ads, setting up recruitment booths at events throughout the year.

One day you could be patrolling down in the Metropolitan area, or you could be up here in the beautiful hills of Millicent Lake.

as well as utilizing the power and scope of our social media channels to reach potential applicants and tell the story of a career with the Fresno County Sheriff's Office. Our personnel have found creative ways to deploy resources both in the jails and out on patrol. By strategically managing staffing and utilizing personnel more efficiently, we have reduced overtime costs. Also influencing this feat was a decline in violent crime and experiencing fewer natural disasters compared with previous years, which traditionally require significant additional resources. But efficiency isn't just about reducing costs. Under the Sheriff's continued focus on fiscal management, we are investing in ways to improve how we serve our communities. Technology is helping us become more efficient, catch criminals faster, deploy resources more effectively, and make better decisions with the information available to us. Our investment in information technology has never been higher, and the Sheriff's Office is grateful to the Board of Supervisors for helping us do it. Looking ahead, a move is underway that will create even more long-term savings for the county. The Sheriff's Office is preparing to relocate to a new county-owned headquarters located at the former PG&E complex in downtown Fresno. We are designing the facility around our operational needs and transitioning several units housed elsewhere to be here under one roof. Consolidating and eliminating those significant lease costs will create substantial long-term savings. We are committed to make every public dollar count. And with the support of the Board of Supervisors, we will continue to build on all of the progress we have made.

All right. We thought that was a creative way to showcase what we do as an agency. And one of the things that stands out to me in that video is the fact that we gave back $16 million this year, or $15.9 million, if you're counting every little dollar. But how do we do that? We did that through salary savings. We did that through a reduction in overtime. And ISFs that weren't spent or lowering cost with our internal service funds. That's three of the major areas how we accomplished that. But look no further to the men and women of the Fresno County Sheriff's Office, whether it was their recruitment efforts to reduce our correctional officer vacancies to cut overtime. I mean, as you could see even in the video, we said we had 20 vacancies, and just in the short period of time since the video was made till today, we're at 29. So that's always a very fluid and a fluctuating number. But over time, how we managed over time, that was really a big deal, is really drilling down and making sure that we are good stewards of the public's money and that if we didn't need a shift, we didn't fill a shift. And obviously there were some things in there this year that were out of our control. When we talk about natural disasters, wildfires, search and rescues, officer-involved shootings, some of these things, homicides and things like that. I mean, homicides are at really an all-time low as we move, I'll knock on wood, as we move through the year here. So really just overall like a perfect storm with our staff, with staff, Assistant Sheriff Esmay and Captain Purcell and everything that they did, being in touch with the budget. This was our first full year, I would say, without an administrative services director. And we had a captain filling that role in our business office. And then the assistant sheriff and myself being engaged in this and really doing actual cost budgeting. In years past, sometimes we would do the mid-year review and things like that, but this year we said, no, this is our actual overtime cost from last year. So we're going to budget based on that, not come in with a $12 million and then come ask for more money mid-year and things like that. We're going to get the money. we're gonna manage the money, and we're gonna live within our means type thing. And that's exactly what we did. And we're more than happy to give that money back. I believe some of it was rolled into our budget this year for 26 and 27, but it's also available to other county departments, other county entities. So if you give us the money, we'll be responsible. We'll make sure that we do our very, very best to manage it, to spend it wisely. And as this year, we were able to give back $16 million. I also want to thank Tony Boddy, our public information officer, who put together that video, because I think he did a really good job with it. His skill set for that is far beyond mine. And then the only other thing that I will talk about here that we have talked about time and time again and talking about Sacramento and the things that we have to deal with in Sacramento and the laws and Title 15 and incarcerated persons health care. Our jail medical contract is the highest priced, most expensive contract within the county of Fresno. I believe it's in excess of $42 million or more for the upcoming year for health care for incarcerated persons. I will tell you, those individuals in custody get good health care. They go to the doctor and get medical treatments more than most of us do. I believe they're going for 15 to 17 medical treatment visits a year at minimum when you take the total number of treatments provided with the number of individuals in custody. Obviously, people come in and go out, but they're getting a significant level of health care from WellPath, from our jail medical provider. So with that, I will open it up to any questions that members of the board or Paul or anyone has.

Any questions from the board? Yes, Supervisor Chavez.

I don't have any questions, Sheriff. Just want to thank you for your work this last year. I know it's been a little bit challenging. We've had to help some of our rural cities when they lost some of their police department folks, and we step in and kind of fill that void. But I also want to thank you for making yourself available to the community. I think the feedback I've heard from our residents is that you're not, you know, afraid of doing media, you're not afraid of going out to community events. I've had community events where your office has been there, the town halls we've had, whether it was under Sheriff McComas or Lieutenant, sorry, Captain, Captain Purcell, I almost devoted you. has been very, very open and helpful. And so I really just want to say thank you to you and your team for the work that you guys have been doing. I know it hasn't been easy. I know it's going to probably get a little bit challenging, but thanks again for the work and look forward to this upcoming year as well.

Yes, Supervisor Magic.

Yeah, I do want to echo those sentiments, but also highlight some of the volunteer groups, search and rescue groups that are part of your organization. So there are dozens of men and women who volunteer and assist in the mountain communities with rescues and really appreciate the work that they do because they step up, provide their time, and they do that work without compensation, but they do it to try to enhance their the level of service that we have at the Sheriff's Department, and I appreciate their sacrifice and shameless plug for them as well. I think they've got some fundraisers coming up to raise revenues to assist them with some of those search and rescues that take place really over the spring, summer, and fall months. And if you want to talk a little bit about those different groups that work with you, I think that would be great.

Well, we do have our uniform field reserves, which are a lot of volunteers, which is separate from our Criminology 108 reserve program. And you will see those individuals out on Christmas Tree Lane at various other community events. And in fact, you will see them working at Fresno State football games when we have a home football game. As you saw this last Saturday night, our reserves were walking with the coach of the Sacramento State team, which was probably a tough walk after that. win by Fresno State. But we have our volunteer search and rescue unit. We have our sheriff's mounted posse, our volunteers there. And we have our sheriff's air squadron. So we have, and I'm probably missing a couple, but we have in our volunteer chaplaincy program as well. So throughout the office, these individuals are committed to improving the level of service that the sheriff's office delivers to all of us here in Fresno County. And when you talk about search and rescue, that really is That's a big component in the posse going up and riding in and helping individuals get out. Yesterday or the other day, they weren't utilized, but we had to fly an individual out from Edison Lake who had altitude sickness and to get him down to an ambulance so he could be transported to a local hospital. Believe me, there are times when you go out in the volunteer Jeep unit. I can't forget them either. If you go out, I was on search and rescue. You go out on these incidents, sometimes you'll arrive and there'll be more volunteers there when you first get there than there are paid staff. And many times that's the case throughout some of the incidents because they step up, they come out and they serve this community and they don't get a dime for it, but they get a thank you from all of us and they get the satisfaction of knowing that they are helping people in our community.

Yeah, I also just wanna recognize not only those members of your department, but you have the dive team, you have ATV, the SASNA, air squadron. I mean, some of those things we highlighted in our video that's gonna be for the state of the county. Building a safer, stronger county is about law enforcement. It's about the DA. It's about probation. And it's also about all the other departments that are working to make the community healthy as well as safe. So that's the highlight. That's what it's about. And you personify that with all of the great people who make up your department. and are doing it every day, covering 6,000 square miles. 6,000 square miles. So thank you for all that you do, all the people who work for your department, every single day putting on that uniform and making us safer and stronger. So we really appreciate it.

Thank you, Chairman.

Okay, thank you.

Our next department presenting is Behavioral Health.

Susan.

Good morning, Chairman, Supervisors. I'm Susan Holt, your Behavioral Health Director and Public Guardian. With me today is Sean Patterson, Division Manager of our department. He oversees our finance team, including the budget. Like my colleagues, I'd like to first start thanking the board for your unrelenting support. You've always held our department accountable, asked us the hard questions, and we've always been fortunate to earn your support and appreciate that very much. I'd also like to thank CAO Paul Nerland, Deputy CAO Amina Flores-Becker, our analyst Ron Alexander, Paige and Jocelyn for all things money, and then, of course, most importantly, the employees of our department for their hard work. All of them work hard all year long, and today is the Super Bowl for our budget team. They look forward to today all throughout the year, so I want to appreciate the budget team's hard work. As you think about the Department of Behavioral Health and the comments that Mr. Nerland made about this year that we've been through is historic. With the passage of Proposition 1 a few years ago, the implementation of the Behavioral Health Services Act is by far the greatest regulatory and fiscal reform that we've seen in my career. For those who don't know, I've been here since 1999. So it's really historic. It's significant. But I also want to highlight that this is a significant regulatory reform on top of annual regulatory reforms dating back to 2021 like we've never seen before. So we've been through quite a lot, and I'm really proud to say that we've been financially stable through that time. including through payment reform, which was topsy-turvy for us, but we've come out ahead and actually have been able to invest in some reinvestment funds to build out some infrastructure, because we know we can't rely on the state to do that. So what you see before you is a summary of our budget. We have a significant increase in appropriations. Remember that, but for the public guardian's office, the entire rest of our department is subventant. So we have all state and federal funds, except for the modest allocation for the public guardian's office. We have not increased deputy public guardian positions since dating back to the data I had accessible to me was 2008. DBH took over the public guardian's office in 2010. There's been seven deputy public guardians since that time. Paul mentioned earlier today about kicking cans down the road, and we've really tried to keep those duties fulfilled to the best of our ability. But the regulatory reforms also have hit the public guardian's office. The time frames by which they must complete investigations have shrunk. We used to have 60 days, now down to 30 days. And they also are responsible for LPS conservatorship investigations. That's Lanterman-Petras Short Act. So those are mental health conservatorship investigations. And the public guardian's office is designated by the state to do those investigations. So with all of those regulatory reforms, such as SB 43, also the CARER Act, we are seeing an increase in referrals and caseload, and we cannot sustain the work for the safety of those we serve and for the well-being of our employees. So we have requested to increase by one deputy public guardian. Just a little overview of the challenges and opportunities before us. The impacts of the department, I've mentioned about fiscal and regulatory reform. BEHSA has completely recategorized the 1% tax on millionaires. That's the original Prop 63. Later, as I mentioned, reformed under Prop 1. So we've had a slight decrease in funding to counties because the state doubled their allocation off the top. But within the funding that we do receive, it was restructured to focus on housing. And we have a little bit less discretion because the dollars are very prescriptive. We also associated with Prop 1 have enormous reporting requirements. And later in our strategic goal, I'll talk a little more about that. We're in the process of preparing for the Behavioral Health Services Outcomes Accountability and Transparency Report. Like all good government agencies, we pronounce our acronyms. So you can call that one the BOADER. That is due in 2029, but it requires us to buckle down and begin preparations for that. We are also preparing for the sunset of the Behavioral Health Bridge housing funding. So that's 180 beds of Behavioral Health Bridge housing. As a reminder, Fresno County was, if we're not mistaken, the first county to actually have people living in behavioral health bridge housing because we have the support of the board to very assertively enter into agreement to build out that capacity. We'll keep those beds in our BHSA housing interventions category. And then the other impact, of course, is HR1 as our department along with other colleagues in social services and the health department are preparing for the impacts of Medi-Cal disenrollment. What I want to make sure that our board and members of the public understand about the impacts to the Department of Behavioral Health is that behavioral health for Medi-Cal members is a bifurcated system. The county behavioral health system is responsible for persons who have the most significant impairments, but our colleagues in the managed care plans, like Kaiser, Anthem Blue Cross, and CalViva Health, they're responsible for folks who have a mild and moderate impairment. As folks lose their Medi-Cal because of the new requirements, those services they were receiving would fall away. They're unlikely to provide services for free, and those persons will have needs that escalate because they're not receiving support, and then they fall into our safety net system. And because of our contract with the state, we do provide services to persons who are uninsured or indigent. And we also believe that the reduction of the availability of those federal funds under Medicaid will increase to us or will decrease to us because the people that we serve will, the people we already are responsible to serve will have higher challenges in retaining their Medi-Cal because of the more frequent redeterminations. I don't know about you, but health care paperwork is really complicated, and a lot of folks don't open their mail, or if it's confusing, they may not follow through with the requirements, and that puts us at risk. And we can't go retroactive as far as we used to. So if they have a hospitalization and it's greater than a month, that's going to be all out of our realignment. So we're watching this very, very carefully. And lastly, our strategic goal. I mentioned the boater earlier. Along with the enormous requirements of the Behavioral Health Services Act is a brand new mandate for reporting expenditures that are not tied to a Medi-Cal claim. Currently, there's no reporting structure for those types of expenditures. So what do I mean? Let's say we have an individual in the state hospital in California. We pay for that out of realignment. There's no Medi-Cal claim associated with it because those facilities are greater than 16 beds. And there's an Institute for Mental Disease Exclusion on facilities greater than that tiny size. So we pay all full freight realignment on that. And there's never been a reporting requirement nor a mechanism. This individual service level reporting requires every dollar that's expended that's tied to an identifiable human being, so not general population. Outreach, for example, but an individual whose name we know and whose information we have, we have to report it. So if we have someone who's been experiencing homelessness, and we bring them into services, and we need to buy them shoes because they've been barefoot for a year, That will be an ISL code, an individual service level code. So this is a project we've been working on for many months. Counties are mandated to go live in January. We're going to try to go live a little early, get our feet wet, but we will be in full compliance, and it's a pretty big lift this year, so that is our goal. And that concludes my prepared remarks.

Any comments from the, yes, Supervisor Maxson.

So there was a presentation that was given several months ago about the true impact of HR1 being anywhere from 60 to 100 million. Really, we don't know until HR1 fully gets implemented. And I believe that Paul's set a little bit of money aside, nowhere near that kind of amount of money. So is your department planning on just kind of on a weekly basis as we fully implement HR1, try to figure out what the true fiscal impact is going to be to your department. That's my first question.

Yes, Supervisor. So one of the Unintended benefits of the state's new mandate for individual service level is we will have greater fiscal data on our expenditures for the care that we deliver across our total population. And we'll be able to sort our data by population by payer source. So if there's no Medi-Cal, if there is... no other funding available, we would be able to report on that. So Sean and his team report daily on things like net county cost and our appropriation management. And so tracking HR1 impacts is absolutely a top priority for Sean and his team.

One thing which I appreciate about your department is behavioral health has always been a part of building affordable housing projects and projects where there's wraparound services. And sometimes your department is not mentioned. And you briefly in your presentation talked about 180 bridge housing beds that are going to be created. But as we do a look back and a look forward, some of the commitments from your department as affordable housing wraparound services are created. It's many decades that your department commits to. So, first question is, do you have a total number of units that right now you're providing wraparound services to? And then also, are you confident that we will have revenues enough moving forward with these changes at the federal and state level to be able to continue to provide these wraparound services?

Thank you for that question. Aside from the 180 behavioral health bridge housing units that also include the supportive services, we're north of 500 units for permanent and supportive housing. I apologize, I don't have the exact figure memorized. And we do have long-term commitments. Some of those commitments are 20 years, and some are 30-year commitments. I'm highly confident that we will be able to continue to fund those services. And I'm confident for two reasons. Three, if you just count that I'm an optimist. But the actual data-driven reasons include Medicaid, although eligibility is changing, Medicaid, Medi-Cal in California, fully funds treatment. And so we've really pivoted our service model to focus on our core mandates of assessment, therapy, case management, peer support, nursing support, psychiatry, and all of those are Medi-Cal claimable. So we've had to rely less on non-federal dollars for those services. The other thing that gives me confidence is our approach to Behavioral Health Services Act, and previously I mentioned payment reform, our approach to that. We've been highly conservative. I take some risks. I'm happy to take calculated risks, but I don't like to play around with money. And so we are very conservative in the way that we've approached, for example, payment reform. We went in very assertive and set rates in our network that were challenging for our community-based organizations to adapt to, but they did. And because of that, we have reinvestment funds available that can float us through these tough economic times. and also help us reinvest in the capital infrastructure that we need for treatment facilities. And the other thing I'm confident about is our BHSA plan. We were very conservative in how we managed our plans. Unfortunately, we did have to sunset a few programs that were at the end of their contract term, but that was strategic because we knew we had these 20- and 30-year commitments. You're welcome.

Just briefly, thank you for that presentation and my colleague touched a little bit on it. The model that we've been recently going down the path with the MOU with the city of Fresno under our new homelessness department I think has been very successful because one, you're eliminating the transportation barrier, but two, you're removing that stigma that folks oftentimes feel for mental health and getting the treatment that they need in order to be healthy and self-sustaining. So I just want to put that on your radar. I think our CAO's office is finalizing that MOU with the City of Fresno that will, Magby, your department has been instrumental and will be instrumental. I think that's a model that we can replicate on an ongoing basis and leverage dollars as, you know, funds shrink everywhere, federal, state. I think those partners are going to be looking for us to partner more locally. And I think your department has done a great job in doing that. We were at the groundbreaking, I think, a couple of months ago, and your department was there. And so we really appreciate the work that we're going to continue to do. And then the last thing I'll say, I think you've done a really good job of not just treating the folks that need that help and support, but doing a lot of preventative work that I think oftentimes gets missed in this conversation. So thank you again for the work that you've been doing. And it's always a pleasure to work with your department.

Thank you. Yeah, and I'd like to also say I appreciate all the work you do, Susan. With my own background, it's been interesting to see how you handle the needs of the county for people who need mental health services. And I think you do an outstanding job. And so I commend all of the people who are working in the department. There's tons of people. And it's not an easy job, as many people find out. So appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you.

OK. Thanks.

Our next department is public health.

Good morning, Chairman and fellow board members, Joe Prado, Director of Public Health. With me today is Irene Parada. She is our Division Manager for Fiscal Services. Also with me is Claudia Sandoval, our Assistant Director. And as you can see in our board, in your packet today, Department of Public Health is having a significant impact in their budget, closely $10 million. You're seeing a reduction in appropriations. But I do want to bring this up to the board that that is a reflection of what we're seeing at a federal and state level. I really appreciate CAO Paul Nerland speaking into HR1 and those impacts there to indigent care. Those HR1 impacts, we are also seeing things in other federal departments like Centers for Disease and Control. We are seeing that department being not funded as much as before. That's important for public health all around because that is actually where we get some of our categorical funding there as well. And so we move into the state, as we mentioned here today, indigent care. This is a significant cost shift to the state and the state is shifting that unfunded mandate to the County of Fresno. So again, I appreciate the CAO setting some dollars aside to see what that could look like and being able to manage that. So with all these challenges that the Department of Public Health faces, we are still able to maintain public safety and still work towards health and wellness. And so on this first slide, as you see the $10 million reduction there, you'll see in that county cost a reduction of $6 million. That is the animal control services. We manage the animal control services program. We're actually moving those costs over to another org, 5621. There have been some questions that has come to my office in regards to how much we are spending on spayed and neutering. That is approximately budgeted $250,000, and that is administered to the Fresno Humane Services contract there. So we wanted to add a little piece there on that net county cost and how that is at zero. We are proposing a reduction of 16 positions overall. Again, this is just a reflection of what we're seeing at the federal and state level. And you're not just seeing, this is not just a local issue. You're seeing this throughout all counties in California, throughout the nation. You're seeing reduction of positions in infrastructure and public health throughout. And so what does the reductions look like? So on the next slide, we'll go into exactly two major categories. So the Department of Public Health, we administer over 70 programs. And so we're not going to get into all 70 programs. But we have two major categories. We have a public safety category and a health and wellness category. So to your left there, the public safety category is environmental health, general medical services, emergency services, and communicable disease control. That represents a $74 million allocation out of our $134 million. That is seeing a 1.5% reduction in public safety from prior fiscal year. When we move over to the right to the health and wellness category, that is direct health services and prevention and wellness, that is seeing approximately a 13% reduction from prior year. And so how do we manage that? You know, this is where I really appreciate our staff at the department. There's a lot of cross-training going on in our department. There's a lot of reassignments happening to realign our priorities. So as I move on to the next piece with impacts and challenges, we want to bring up the jail medical contract. That is something our department pays 42% of that annual contract. This next year, we're seeing an $850,000 increase from prior year. And we've had to mitigate over $7.5 million increase in that jail medical contract from 24-25. That is a real testament to the department to see these increased costs. We're able to reduce costs everywhere else, salaries and benefits, other services and supplies, but that is one where we just don't have any control over, and so we experience those increases on an annual basis. Something I really want to get into is our redesign plan. So about two and a half years ago, we started doing a five-year projection in our department, and we started evaluating when the COVID dollars go away, there is a COVID cliff. These one-time dollars that are here are really going to impact this department. So last year, I was here before your board reducing the position count. Again, I'm here reducing the position count. But we just completed our strategic plan. So where do we take the reductions from? And so that has been a really helpful instrument in being able to redesign the department. We've also tapped into our community health assessment as well. And so as we did that, throughout the whole redesign, we've been able to restructure positions within the entire department. So as you can see, the end result was a minimal impact to public safety, but you saw the more impact to the health and wellness. And this is where I want to thank the department staff. This has been difficult. This transition and change has been difficult for our staff. They're getting reassigned to different programs. So there's new training and then there's cross training. So people are now understanding more about communicable disease investigation throughout our entire department. Why do we do that? We do that when our community needs present, we are ready to serve them in a very high and efficient and effective way. So I really want to thank the staff. I want to thank the management team who, through the redesign, really had to do less, had less resources to do more. And they've been really, they've come to it completely. Our budget team, our assistant director, Claudia, has led those efforts through the redesign. Really appreciate that. And then I have to thank our county administrative office to really guide us during our redesign process, through the budget development process, our county human resources department, going through all these different types of reassignments. As you can see, nobody does this work in a vacuum. This is a team effort, and I just appreciate all the support from our fellow departments, but also from your board, and really supporting us as we come forward with our proposals to you. The challenges I mentioned, the HR, HR1 care expenses, but reduce mobile health services. This is a marquee program for the department. And with less funding available at the federal level, we are going to do less mobile health services. Now, we are communicating with other funders to see if they could fund and increase the amount of services we are providing. So if we are successful in bringing those additional resources, we will bring contracts to your board for consideration. And as we always go through a balancing act of our expenses and public health services, just know that the public safety will be prime and then our health and wellness. There is a lot of innovative things the department is doing, and I really appreciate Supervisor Maxig. He was able to host a meeting with a representative from the U.S. Health and Human Services Agency, and we really had a great conversation about some of the investments our department was making and how it aligned with some of the current federal administration's focus on making America healthy again and we really got great feedback I really appreciate that visit that we are going down the right pathway we just would like to see more resources available at the federal and state level to continue that pathway and so just lastly our strategic goal is accountability and integrity what we noticed through our meeting with stakeholders is they want data from our department they want to be able to see what's going on health-wise within our community and So you're going to see us really focus on HealthyFresnoCountyData.org. It is a highly utilized asset that we really put our data into so people can do research, whether it's students doing paper or actually funders that are looking to see what to fund next in Fresno County. So that concludes my presentation. Available for any questions.

Supervisor Mags. So with the 16 positions that are being reduced, I see that some of them are – well, one of them is a high-level administrative position, so I assume that you've basically reorganized the admin portion. But looking at some of the others, they appear to be somewhat – some of them are entry-level positions. I assume that you're not literally firing people. You're eliminating positions that are open and then consolidating for people who may be like the – the medical social worker one position. I'm sure we've got twos and threes and maybe even fours in that position. So you're moving people along the spectrum who are here. So we keep those individuals that are here in positions where we can consolidate a little bit. That's being done. Is that correct?

Absolutely. So that is our strategy. And really looking at our reorging, as we're deleting these positions, we want to make sure you'll see us do a lot of internal recruitment. We're able to do these internal recruitments because we do have very qualified individuals moving them into the upper levels and then deleting these positions here and there. And so, yes, the deputy health officer, that is a reduction to our department overall. So now we have a full-time health officer. So those duties now are being absorbed by the full-time health officer.

We've heard in the news over the course of the last month or two about rabies, you know, people contracting, or not contracting necessarily, but animals have come in contact with, that have had rabies with people. So with rabies, looking at mosquitoes and other illnesses that can be transmitted to people, what is your department doing to kind of stay on top of this?

Yeah, so that falls under our communicable disease investigation area and also our animal control area there as well. So these are part of the public safety investment, so that's why it's key that we keep those investigated. And so we're able to communicate with individuals that actually, if they did have a dog bite, we're able to communicate with them and see whether or not their treatment that they would like. So there is treatment, prophylaxis treatment for somebody if they are concerned about that, but we do provide them all the data as well as far as what we see, what is contracting rabies in our community. We see our positivity rate is really heavy in bats, but not necessarily, we haven't had one in a domestic dog.

Any other questions?

just director thank you this past year you worked with our office very closely and thank you for mentioning that i flagged that for our cao with regards to a lot of the animal rescue folks that are overwhelmed obviously there's a lot of loose dogs and and thank you for clarifying that um 250 000 that were we will be utilizing for spay and order and it's important to note i think the city of fresno put in 125 but we are we will actually be doing joint uh events with them correct or just for the benefit

This is a great example of cost efficiency. So we actually worked with City of Fresno to share that particular cost. So there's not a mobilization cost they're incurring and we are incurring. We're doing joint events to be able to do that.

Great. I just wanted to make sure the public knew that. I think out of our town hall, that's one of the issues that came up after. And so thank you for clarifying. And then the last thing I'll say is... I think oftentimes folks don't know the work that your department does. I think a couple months ago when we had some of the farm workers that were coming from Arizona to Mendota Fireball area, your office was on top of it, being proactive. I got a couple calls already because you briefed us, so thank you for that. And then the big database system that you're working on that's actually tracking some of those health outcomes for our folks, particularly in underserved communities. What's the status of that? Is it still progressing?

Thank you, Supervisor Chavez. And Supervisor Chavez is speaking to the County Information Exchange. And this is another great investment your board made with ARPA dollars. And so I'm glad to report today the first phase has been implemented. The first phase is youth suicide prevention. We are working with five school districts at this time, so when a child presents with suicidal ideations in any of our emergency rooms in Fresno County, the school district is notified via email that that child has presented with suicidal ideations. What we found out in this process is that every school district has a care team. And so every care team will reach out and check in on that child. So this is a great example of Fresno County's innovation towards, sometimes it's not the best idea to send everybody to an emergency room, but what can we do as a community to support our children? This is just one example. And those five school districts, they have signed, three of them have signed the HIPAA Business Associate Agreement. We have one school district that went live and then, unfortunately, within the first two weeks that one school district went live, there was already one notification sent out. So we look forward to working with the remainder of these school districts to bring them on board. This represents 70% of all school-age children in Fresno County could have another level of support and care if their children present with suicidal ideations. That's the first phase. The second phase is our care coordination. As we talk about reducing budgets and how do we improve our assets, I think we really need alignment. I think there's funding and there's resources on the table, but we need to know who is supporting our families. And so with the county information exchange, you'll be able to see if there's a public health nurse, is there a community-based organization doing case management, who is serving that particular family there. And so maybe we don't need five case managers with one family, maybe we just need one or two. So this is part of the county information exchange that we'll be able to do and then better align our resources and so we can start to see program outcomes. Now that is something that when we started evaluating was like what are the outcomes of these programs we've been administering and so now we'll be able to analyze that even at a higher level to see maybe we don't need all 100 programs maybe we just need 20 or 30 that produce the highest outcomes for our community. So that is now that care coordination piece, the Department of Public Health. We are now in the beta testing of the system at this time. We hope to go live in 2027 with that.

And are we the only county in California doing that?

So county information exchanges, community information exchanges, what we are unique in Fresno County is that we included the school districts. That is unique to California. That is unique to the nation. So we sit on a national community information exchange group, and none of them have school districts at the table. And we thought, if we're going to help our children, how can we not have school districts at the table? So that is something unique Fresno County is doing, is having school districts there, but also now moving into care coordination. And that is something that I get a lot of phone calls from people around California and the nation about, how did we develop the legal framework? And for this, I really need a Rachel Madden from the county council's office worked right along with us to develop the right legal framework. I'm going to throw acronyms at you, HIPAA, FERPA. These are all things that were called out, and we were able to build the right legal framework to do that. So that is something very unique Fresno County is doing throughout the nation. Thank you, Director. Appreciate that.

Go ahead. This is going in different directions, so I think it can be answered more by Paul and Paige. If we have a... a large water year, meaning that we have kind of a repeat of 23 and 17. And it affects public works and the sheriff's department, your department. Have you guys went back and looked? Because this would be in budget mitigation because you just don't budget for a disaster. I don't know if you can go back, you know, not now, but go back and see, although, you know, both events we had time on our side.

Yeah, Supervisor, if you're talking about where would the funding come from, probably a combination of those things, and we've also learned some good lessons about better documenting those things when we're working with Cal OES and FEMA, because it's very difficult to get reimbursement for those, but I think we're positioned well. I'm thankful that we didn't have something this last couple of years, but even the Sheriff's Office, we're thankful that we have the savings that we did, but A lot of hours, even during the flooding, as you know, came from their office as well.

Yeah, because it becomes a watching deal, which you have to pay people to watch what's going on.

I also think the work that your board has helped us with, and we're about to come to your board later with, is a greater consolidation of our services with Fresno County Fire and Cal Fire. That's also going to increase the coordination on our emergency services front. So you told us the last time that we had a team assembled that was probably one of the best ever. I would say that what we're now trying to do is set up the organizational framework so that it is prepared for the future.

In my experience with floods from the county go way back into 90 so You know, it was the best ever So with just

One question, with the collaboration with the city on the spay and neuter, what to the public, what does the public have to pay if they want to come?

So it's free on spay and neutering services that are available. Okay, it's free.

Okay, so I want the public to know that there's no excuse not to spay and neuter. You can get it done free. And you mentioned about the unfunded mandates with public health, behavioral health has unfunded mandates, law enforcement, AB 109. I mean, it's come down to where the state doesn't want to pay for anything and it falls on the county, which makes it increasingly difficult, which is very, very unfortunate. But I know these two gentlemen are going to change that when they get there. So thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Next department is Social Services.

Good morning, Chairman, members of the board, Sonia Bugay, Department of Social Services, Edwin Meese, Bruna Chavez, our budget guru. I want to start also by saying thank you to the CAO's office and your board for support through this budget process. This was an incredibly tough budget year with federal, state, and county changes. I think we've gone through a budget cycle probably 20 times by now. And I also want to thank our department's budget staff. While Department of Social Services has 2,700 positions doing various work to deliver public services, the budget team really does ensure that funding is sufficient for those programs. So really appreciate this team and what they do. So I want to highlight a few things for our department, starting with that our main administrative and operational budget org is at $481 million for fiscal year 26-27, which is about $1.1 million lower than the prior year, and our current positions are all funded in the proposed budget. I do want to switch rather quickly to this slide because this reflects all of the DSS budget orgs. We have nine nine budget orgs in our general fund budget, three of which are administrative and operational, six are for issuance of benefits to clients and or providers. So our admin budget orgs include 5610, but also Public Authority 5611 and Veterans Services Office at 7110, and then six orgs that are issuance to payments to providers and providers. Clients I do want to highlight that in addition to what's budgeted which is nearly 990 million which is 11 million or nearly 12 million less than occur another prior year we also have five hundred and fifty three million in CalFresh benefits that are transacted and issued by the county but not reflected in our county budget and nine hundred and sixty seven million in in IHSS wages that are also transacted but not part of our budget process. So in total, Department of Social Services has a $2.5 billion budget for 26-27 fiscal year. And with that, number of programs and number of state and federal changes, we have a couple of challenges coming our way. So I want to... The first one for us, probably the most significant thing happening for our department this upcoming year, is implementation of the CARES system. CARES system is a child welfare case management system that's replacing our CWCMS legacy system, which was implemented in the late 90s. So this 30-year-old case management system certainly needs replacing. It has been about a decade in making, and it will be implemented December 7th of this year. And this December 7th timeline just changed this past week. We were actually set to implement at the end of October. This system is going to be great a year from now, but the year of implementation will be tough. We know that the month we implement, we will not have parity with the current system. We have had a very compressed timeline for both system design, testing, data conversion, and training and implementation, and our final Our final programming for the system will actually end November 7th, so we will have only a month of system stability before we implement. What I am grateful for is that our Fresno County team, both the IT departmental team and the implementation team, have been participating at the state level on testing, providing feedback, workarounds, that we are as prepared as any county in the state, and actually, quite honestly, I think we are the most prepared county in the state. when it comes to system implementation, we're gonna have some challenges for sure. And we hope to gain system parity sometime late in the fiscal year, so that all the functionality we have currently will actually be there. But throughout this process, there's just going to be some delays and implementation challenges that are present in any system, but I do think will be higher with CARES.

The second thing I want to highlight for our department is H.R.

1. So I will start with the good news on H.R. 1 for us, that unlike in previous months that we talked about H.R. 1, we really did not anticipate receiving any state dollars for H.R. 1 either. And through the state budget process, we have gotten a substantial increase in state dollars for eligibility for both CalFresh and Medi-Cal program. And more significantly for CalFresh, I'm sure you've heard both the CAO and me, comment about $7.5 million county share of cost. That was a shift from federal government to the county. That has not been eliminated, but it has been delayed by three years. So county match waiver that we've talked about, county cost increasing for CalFresh program, that is $7.5 million. That is not in our budget in 26-27, and it does not need to be. We have a three-year delay for implementation of that. provision, and that will be net county cost that will be necessary. The other part about HR1 for Medi-Cal that will be impact to both our department but also to public health, community hospitals, any deliverer of services and behavioral health, is that interim final rule for Medi-Cal program, the eligibility changes, were only recently shared by the federal government with the state. We are still waiting on the full details of what that will mean for the county. even though the implementation date starts in January. It will take about a full year for all the Medi-Cal eligibility changes to roll out. At the moment, our estimate is that about 150,000 people on Medi-Cal will be impacted by these changes, and our current projection is that about 40,000 would not be eligible for Medi-Cal, though it will take a full year starting January 1st for that to be rolled out. So, with that, our big-picture goal is really about training and implementation of H.R. 1, specifically related to Medi-Cal program. I do want to highlight one more thing in our budget, that based on our current caseloads in both foster care and general relief budget, we do anticipate needing a mid-year change. We likely won't know exactly what that will look like until about March of next year, but our assistance budgets, so those six orgs, are really all based on caseloads, average grants, and then revenues that come in based on the placement types. So we anticipate that we will need a budget correction mid-year sometime in March, and we'll be returning to your board for that. And with that, that concludes my prepared remarks, but I'm available for any questions. Thank you.

Any questions?

yeah just just thank you for that presentation director um i think you probably have one of the hardest jobs in the county because you you do a lot of the federal state but you also deal with probably one of our most precious things and that's children and so i just want to thank you and your team for a lot of the work oftentimes you take a lot of the tomatoes that get thrown at the at the board so appreciate that um i did have just one question i got this from one of our constituents, maybe this is a CAO question. I know we were doing a audit for our foster care system. What's the status of that or approximate timeline?

Yeah, so that question has come up, and the state has said they're doing a very comprehensive process. I don't have an answer on the exact timeline they're coming back. I know they've continued coming back and following up on that, but I will get back to find out what the end result of that will be.

And I just want to make sure that was going forward. I think folks had questions, so you confirmed that now. Appreciate that. We don't want to rush anything. We want to make sure that everything is done thorough and all that. So thank you for that, T.O., and thank you, Director.

Any other questions? Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.

Our next department to present is Public Works and Planning.

Thank you, Chairman of the Board. Our presentation today will be quite brief. We're just presenting one aspect of our business, which is our parks unit. And it's the smallest unit we have, but fortunately I have to give compliment to Mr. Nerland and Paige, for the Duconian style we had to get here, they understood the message. We were going to have mothball parks, which is not what this board wanted, especially since we spent quite a bit of our money in those locations, Kearney, Lost Lake, Skaggs. So this year we're here because of their efforts and diligence. Thank you, Paige. I know you didn't have anything to do with it, but thank you, Paige. So today we're here to say thank you for this board and keep it going on. But I would be remiss if I didn't first off start my presentation by thanking the two people in front of you, Bernard Jimenez, our assistant director, and Lemuel, our business manager. As for their diligence and effort through the process this last year, we're able to run our department very lean, very efficient. And this is the first time ever we're right at 10% vacancy rate. About 57 positions left to be filled. And if everything keeps going in the right direction, then we'll be able to fill those positions. We are holding positions back as a result of the Measure S potential coming at us. So our presentation is quite simple. The formerly known as Measure C is our biggest challenge in front of us today. We don't know what's going to happen at the boardwalks. But we're planning contingencies just in case it doesn't pass. We'll work with the CAO's office and this board to move forward with that. And we'll just see. We're holding positions back for that very reason. But one of the things that we want to point out, for the efforts we put into that 500-page document a couple of weeks ago, was one of the appendices that had telling the stories. 134 miles of roads were paved for five year average. Nobody does that. This year we've had two days in a row that we did 2,500 tons of paving black on ground by our own teams and the like. So our goal is to continue to perform at that level. add more opportunities with chip seals, slurries, so we don't contract that as much, but keep on moving and keep our own resources in-house and employed. The general plan implementation process, I'll turn to Bernard, let him talk about that a little bit. So with that, Bernard.

Thank you, Steve. In 2024, your board approved a comprehensive review and update of our general plan and zoning ordinance. Our focus is now shift to implementation. One of the biggest efforts we're undertaking on that is relative to our climate action plan, which has been on the way. And since then, there has been numerous One would think that after a general plan update, you know, we're sitting good. But since then, there's been dozens of legislations that have been passed that affect our land use and transportation components of our general plan that we need to now focus on integrating so that way our general plan remains compliant with state law. So that will continue to be our focus. We are working on numerous community plan updates to get those completed. So thank you, Steve.

So one of the success stories I want to give Hollis a shout out with her team was the survey series that this board approved a few years ago. We have one position left to fill. We'll hold until we see what's going to happen with Measure S. But because of that and the nudging from Supervisor Matzik's office of turning around the frequency that we process parcel maps, I can say for the second two and a half months into it, we have zero backlog. on our parcel maps, and it was restructuring with those people that allowed us to do that. So thank you, Supervisor, for your nudging on that. And you can keep it up. But it's with the resources this board gave us and tasking those resources appropriately that we were able to manage through the process. So that's probably our second biggest challenge, keeping and retaining our people. It takes five years to teach and train an engineer on the trade skills they need to have so that they can be proficient at what they do. It takes about seven to eight years to teach a surveyor, a minimum of probably five years for a planner, and we're deficient in all of those positions. We just keep doing our best. We've lost over 214 people in the last three years. But we came back net to the good, because if Hollis is team willing to work with us, he has office assistance. We're 74 to the good, and we're going to fill every position we possibly can and keep on delivering every product this board tells us we want to do. 16 capital projects are in the queue this year with this board approval. Today, we'll be off to the races on many of the big high profile ones. Paul went over earlier the PG&E, the central plant, the structure itself, the parking structure, many of you park in here. The two libraries are both on track and running fast. And I'm sorry, Nathan, I think Reedley's going to finish first. So we tried. The key with us is keeping good quality folks and having them run. And they run very, very well. So kudos to this team called Public Works and Planning. They got this business. Let the professionals do what they do and let us run. That concludes my presentation.

Any questions? Go ahead, Supervisor Maxson.

I want to talk a little bit about special districts, and I think, I don't know how many total special districts Public Works is responsible for. I don't know if you have that number off the top of your head. 131. 131. So I know that there was something that was pointed out. I want to make sure that things were corrected specifically with Water Works District 40 regarding the Bricks-Mercer issue. Accounting error where there were there was an appropriation that was put there all of that's been reversed out with no impact to the district Yes, I'll ask them well to speak to that because the brain scratcher for a bit But he came up with the solution or an answer for that one So basically was this is a typos at County air so we it's it's been corrected and None of that impacted of course rates specifically with Waterworks District 40 is that correct?

No, nothing nothing affected that district. I

And I know with Water Works District 40, we've got a number of other water districts. Water Works District 18, we've got one up in Shaver as well that serves the Shaver community. But more specifically with Water Works District 40, I know that my office has been working with your staff, Chris Bump, for several years as it relates to that district specifically. Are you hopeful that we're going to be able to get some additional dollars as it relates to funding? I think we've got about a half million dollars left in a grant that the state gave us last November, but it looked like there might be an opportunity to get some additional dollars to acquire wells or maybe even make some additional infrastructure improvements.

Yes. The first step is we're trying to repurpose the money that we have available to us to see if we can get one of the wells. Your office brought another opportunity for a well. So we're not going to say no to anything right now. We're trying to find any and all other things. What would it cost to do this? What would it cost to do that? You have those two constituents that are very concerned into the neighbors up there and we get it in the state. There's been a lot of dialogue up and with the CEO's office with the state. They're, they're a machine. You have to work the process. So our goal is to try and get water and additional funding to put one of those wells online. If that one fails, we'll go after the second well. And then go after additional funding because in November this year, the state will come back with their technical analysis at no cost to the district or the county with presenting options for the treatment opportunities they have. The challenge is going to be, will they fund that? Using the state process that they recommended, our pressure is going to be, you recommend that you need to fund it and try and get that implemented as soon as possible. The gross output in uranium will be more of a challenge to deal with, but the magnesium and iron, that's common throughout the country. but it discolors water. It doesn't look like it's something you'd want to drink, but people are still drinking it. We're not advocating one way or the other. We're just trying to find anything we possibly can to fund the treatment process and the training that we can afford with that water district.

And then looking at, I think there's two main state agencies we're working with with our water districts. One is DDW, the Department of Drinking Water, and then DWR, which is Department of Water Resources, as well as the Natural Resource Division of the state. So specifically with Department of Drinking Water, it seems like the standards of water drinkability are changing. They're getting more and more strict because as I've gone back and looked at different records, it seems that they're tightening up what kind of constituents are allowable in drinking water. So can you talk a little bit about that and how you think that may impact your department?

In 1972, the EPA came forward with the Water Quality Act. It set forth all the drinking water standards and it's evolved every year, posted in Federal Register every year. As technology gets better, the mass spectrometers they have in the industry now and everything else, the testing protocols, the history, the facts, the studies that are done, they, every year, I can without question say, they've lowered the value that's acceptable without going through the noticing process. We follow their guidelines. We do everything we possibly can. It's not uncommon for iron and manganese in Hill Country It's not uncommon for the gross alpha uranium throughout the area Previous life when we did a test wells when we found those kind of constituents. We walked away from the test Well, that's not an option in a shared area I've lost five wells in 50 years, which means we've got to look at all our alternatives. That's why getting the state involved with their technical expertise and the consulting firm they hire on their dime coming up with solutions, when you get drilling well in that high country and you find a good well and we have somebody that's willing to maybe sell us that well, we need to explore it and we're doing that as fast as we can. We will bring an action back to this board. Drinking water standards are going to get more and more significant and more and more severe, whether it be the primary or secondary, the magnesium and iron or secondary drinking water standards. It doesn't matter. What matters is we have to comply with all of them, notice all of them, and keep on working the best we can to get the state to help us find a path forward and a solution.

Your department, I believe, is still carrying a negative balance. Because I think in 2021, the state said that people didn't have to pay their utility bills, and that affected a lot of our districts. So I think right now, across all the different districts that we represent, it's about $3 million. Is that correct?

Correct. Of the 131 districts that we manage, special districts, and they include road districts, 19 are in the red.

So I think that's significant. I think when did the state reverse itself in regards to people having to pay utility bills? Because I know a lot of folks are being burdened with they didn't pay their bills. They didn't realize that they were going to have to pay them at some point. So the state didn't give us money to forgive these outstanding balances. Is that correct? Correct.

It was three or four years ago after the pandemic. Maybe even further back than that. I don't have that date. But it affected every one of our districts. It didn't affect the road districts. It affected utility districts, whether it be in District 5 or down in District 1 or District 4. It affected them, and it made it very difficult for the district to perform because the bills still have to be paid. And that's what ran into a negative balance in many of our accounts. And that's why we try to diligently, we're trying to average six 218 elections per year. We've had two or three, and they've all been in your district, going through the process. It takes a lot of hours, about 1,000 hours for a 218 election of staff time. And we're trying to turn it to we're doing more and more of that in-house. I'll stand up and sign. But we have to have the technical expertise. And we've got some pretty talented folks in special districts, hardworking, too.

When it comes to waterworks districts, and this is to our county council, as I understand it, waterworks district, there's a provision in law about how they are to operate and how, in this case, the county, as we sit as a board that kind of oversees these districts, how they are structured. Can you just speak to that briefly? Because there's been some confusion from residents thinking that the CPUC, you know, regulates how we operate. But as a public agency, it's different. So if you can speak to that just briefly, I'd appreciate it.

Generally, they should be self-sustaining. They are an entity of themselves, even though the board oversees what they do. They should be both operationally and fiscally self-sustaining.

You've indicated that when it comes to our general fund, we have to be cautious about how we use our general fund when it comes to some of these special districts. But you also opined on to the extent that individual supervisors want to intervene to assist in some of these districts. That may be something that is a little bit more defensible, so to speak. So can you speak to that a little bit on why it's difficult for us just to be able to open up our general fund to help with some of these districts?

Right. The general fund generally should not be used to support special districts. If money has already been budgeted towards a supervisor's district fund, for example, that may be an option, especially if the supervisor can articulate some unique circumstances about what's occurring and what the problem is that needs to be solved.

Thank you. Any other? Okay. Oh, buddy.

I'm going to expand on what you just explained. Now, if it's a CSD, it's a district, and they have financial problems or have problems so bad they have to be taken over. We don't take over them. The Department of Public Health takes over.

Right. Potentially the state could?

Yeah, they will. They have to. That's the fallback deal. And that's why I always said our ancestors started all these CSAs and the Water Works District is basically that's what it is. I mean, that was a huge mistake.

So this board, this body, 25 years ago decided no more CSAs, no more water districts. And 20 or so years ago, I think we found that in your district, Supervisor Bredefeld, that they started maintenance districts, which was not a good idea either. And we just banned those, stopped doing that. So now it's if you have a water system you want to manage, Manage it. Don't bring it to the county because we don't have the resources to do it. And with roads, same kind of condition. 131, only 22 are water and wastewater. The rest of them are roads. And it's really easy for an engineer, having done probably 30 or 40 218 election packages for various different agencies, go in low and let somebody else figure out, kick the can. But that's where we're at right now. That can has been kicked. So a comment came back up in the previous discussions with some of the directors of what are we doing in our department to game plan for the ultimate if El Nino hits us. We bought a product called Cartograph two years ago, three years ago, and we've been diligent retraining our roads people, our parks people, and our landfill people in special districts to be ready in the event of an emergency and working with the health department OES, training up on that stuff. So we're ready. I'm proud to report we gave Paul's office last week recovered 82% of the outstanding balance on that claim from storm one storm two so we've got a team of people that would roll and do the job we didn't have that before now we have it and hopefully it doesn't come down hard but if it does we're ready for it and then when you talked about standards some of the standards I don't think there was

Go back to the Clean Water Act and move forward. I'll use the arsenic standard, for instance. Before, it was 50 parts per billion was okay, and they changed it to 10. They had no study that said 50 was bad. I'm just saying that.

The federal government does unique things many, many times.

Yeah.

That we have to follow the guidelines we're given.

We have to follow them. We don't have any choice. But what I'm saying is they just pick numbers out of the air and use those numbers.

Correct. The other example I'll use is CSA 34 and Supervisor Matzik's district, the disinfection byproducts. And that was the use of a chlorine disinfectant in the water that fractured itself and has three different disinfection byproducts. So we try to look at different options to be able to put a treatment system in, but because of our operators up there, We diligently tweak the plant, tweak the plant, tweak the plant, water plant, and now we're within the limits that the state allows, and we no longer have disinfection byproduct. Right. It turns up there.

But it's the same thing as a CSA that's using, I'll use Westlands, for instance, water, which has... dissolved solids in it. Not anywhere near as bad as a Colorado River water, but it's still bad enough that when you clean the water, so-called clean the water, you end up with water that theoretically isn't drinkable because of the byproduct of what you're doing to clean the water.

So the CSA out on the west side can do a quick report of an error. The state was successful. We know they can fund things if we get in the right position with them. They funded two deep wells out there in a complete infrastructure package for $25 million. That's our mission, trying to get the state to fund whatever is needed to be fund and pay for, if we can, operating costs.

Right.

But that's a very successful delivery out there. We just finished Kentua Creek's roads. We just finished our water system, trying to do the final phases of that right now. But we know the state has funding, but it's highest and worst first. And that's what we're up against right now.

Right. And that was a completely different drilling method.

Yes.

Because rock is completely different. And then you've got whatever's in the granite.

Correct.

no matter what, is there in the water. So I'll get off that.

Yeah, just, Director White, you're our closer, so I'll be brief for the sake of time. Thank you for the update you gave during our town hall on the projects going on in Kalawa and Safe Routes to School and over by Shields and Chestnut. My question has to do with the roads measure conversation that we're having, because I think it affects our planning and budget. So you gave a contingency. If it doesn't pass, obviously, I think we estimated 90 layoffs, and then obviously the money won't be there. However, the contemplation of it does pass, would the conversation next year be just a clean slate and new projects, or do we have something in place already that would continue some of those expenditures?

We have something in place that will continue those expenditures. So those expenditures are going to go through 28, into 28. what we currently have today. If we have money in the account, as you all know, there's different categories of the account. Maintenance is the one we keep talking about, but there's also ADA and bike lanes and stuff like that. We'll go design the world and spend our resources on paying for our staff to design it. Maybe we implement a few, maybe we don't. ADA is one of the things this county has to do more funding into, and that's what we're doing right now. We're out on the second phase of Riverdale on Mount Whitney for a second phase going through there. So our goal is to run two parallel teams. One team to minister the old measure measure C and the other team to mission measure s what we will need your assistance with supervisor is Getting us to the table so we can discuss the implementation Plan and I know you have the ability to get us to the table if we can get that plan It puts another six to ten million dollars in our coffer and we'll spend every penny of it at the direction of this board Where do you want to show put the money out?

I appreciate that clarification and we'll see what happens. I mean at the end of the day our residents will either decide yes or no.

Thank you. If we get the measure, we'll implement. If we don't get the measure, we'll find a path forward to minimize, if completely eliminate. We've already started that process now, sir. We're retasking our T people, contracting out work, putting our engineers on engineering work that we contract out.

Yeah, on the Shaver Springs, I've read where it's indicated that the board raised their rates. That's not accurate, right? They raised their rates and it came to the board for adoption.

It was a 2-18 election process. This board had it put in front of you a few weeks ago, a month or so ago, that that's the 2-18 election process. It goes out there. I'm aware of that. It's a two-step process. And the final step was they had the right to vote against it, and they didn't. So it passed and was presented to this board, and the board acted and implemented the rates that they passed.

Okay, so it's not accurate that the board is raising their rates, is that correct? Correct. Okay, I just want to be clear, it's not the board.

The water district had to raise the rates to pay for the operating costs of that water district, whether it be a roads district or a CSA district, the same process as the 218 process has to be followed. And it comes to them to vote on, and when they didn't vote against it, that's when it came back to the board for the final action.

Okay.

And that's what you approved.

OK, and the climate action plan you alluded to, the climate action plan, what is that?

So every jurisdiction, city, and county is required to prepare one. And essentially, the target is to reduce our greenhouse gas footprint. And so there are different approaches to do that. One benefit is that we have a lot of greenery in our agricultural areas and up in our foothill and mountain areas, which helps us achieve that. But there will need to be a set of policies and implementation programs to help meet our targets. We are just started in that process, so don't know what that will look like. But obviously, as that gets developed, we'll have conversations with the board to make sure we're on the right track.

OK. Yes, go ahead.

So I'm glad you brought that up. With Fresno County being an agricultural hub of the world, plant life takes greenhouse gases out of the air. And so looking at the food that we farm, the permanent crops, the trees, and even like tomatoes, garlic, everything that's grown, anything that uses photosynthesis, also pulls greenhouse gases out of the air. Does the state give us credit for that? And also the forests we have. While there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the forests, our tree stands right now pull out a significant amount of greenhouse gases out of the air. Can you talk about that?

So the credit that we will look to gain is as we develop our plan. We'll take credit for what we have here in Fresno County. The state isn't giving us any credit to not have to do the plan. We're just going to have to demonstrate that whatever our target numbers are, that we can make that. And having those plants, trees, et cetera, will help us to achieve that.

So one last thing for me on talking about trees. We had a good meeting with Kelly, one of the groups you sent our way, supervisor, and she is willing to work with us, Sierra Conservation District, to go after a grant to inventory all the urban trees in the 30 plus islands in the metro area. As I look at you and I look at Supervisor Bredefield, that's one of our biggest concerns because those are not our trees. They're not right away. And we have to inventory them first to be able to work with the public to determine what we can do. If we can get that plan, that will help us with the package of the greenhouse gases, be able to inventory that. You have a lot of trees in the 30-some-odd county islands. There's probably tens of thousands of them. We can inventory them. The City of Clovis has an inventory and the City of Fresno has an inventory. And we'll be trying to use grant money to be able to go do that with our Parks Department.

Okay, thank you very much, Dave. Appreciate it. All right, thank you. Are there any comments from the public on the CAO's presentation or department presentations? Yes, please come forward.

I also have these to dispute. Good afternoon, chair and members of the board. My name is Chris Thompson, and I am the secretary and marketing director for Fresno TNR. Fresno TNR is a volunteer-run nonprofit working every day to reduce animal overpopulation through trap, neuter, return, and affordable spay and neuter services for community and owned cats. To date, we have spayed and neutered more than 26,700 cats since 2023. I was encouraged to hear that spay and neuter was discussed during the public health presentation today. I also heard the statement that these services are free and that there is no excuse not to spay and neuter. I respectfully want to offer another perspective from those of us working directly with the public every day. The problem isn't that people don't want to spay and neuter their animals. The problem is the access. Free services are wonderful when an appointment is available, but when programs are at capacity and people cannot get an appointment, being free doesn't help them. We hear from these residents every day. At the same time, Fresno County is dealing with an animal shelter that is in over capacity. These two problems are directly connected. We have actually been contacted by someone with a rescue that has a direct contact with the County of Fresno. They have adoptable animals right now in your shelter. They can't get out because they're not fixed. So you guys are at over capacity and there's no appointments for these animals to get out. Spay and neuter is the prevention. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else from the public wishing to speak? Okay, seeing none, I'm gonna bring it back to the board. Madam Clerk, next item.

Item number two, general fund 001. You have budgets, agriculture commissioner sealer of weights and measures, assessor recorder, assessor org 0420, auditor, controller, treasurer, tax collector, behavioral health public guardian, board of supervisors, child support services, county administrative office, county administrative office, Org 0120. Alternate Incident Defense. Org 2875. CO Grants. Org 0122. Code Enforcement. Org 4620. Contingencies, General Reserves, and Designations. Org 8210. Countywide Revenues. Org 0415. Court Ancillary Services. Org 2838. Grand Jury. Org 2870. Interests and Miscellaneous Expeditures. Org 2540. Office of Housing and Homelessness. Org 5428. County Clerk Elections, ORG 2850. County Council, ORG 071. District Attorney, Org 0860. District Attorney Grants, Org 2862. General Services Department, County Buildings, Org 0131. Purchasing, Org 440. Human Resources, Org 1010. Library, Librarian, Org 7515. Public Defender, Org 2880. Probation, Org 3430. Probation Grants, Org 3432. Probation Juvenile Justice Campus, Org 3440. Public Health, Org 5620. Animal Control Services, Org 5621. County Medical Services, Org 5240. Public Works and Planning, Org 4360. Community Development Block Grant, Org 7205. Parks and Grounds, Org 7910. Public Works and Planning Grants, Org 5512. Support Services, Org 4365. Transit Services, Org 4700. Sheriff Corner Public Administrator, Org 3111.

Let me just interrupt you for a second. Can we, County Council, just vote on items two through seven?

Yes, out of interest of time, item eight is actually the vote on all of the other items, correct? Yes. So you can move on to item eight and take a vote on everything that's listed.

Okay. Let's do that so I can save you from having to read everything. Okay, so let's move on for items two through eight. Before we take a vote, are there any comments from the board on items two through eight? No, any comments from the public on items two through eight? Seeing none, I'll bring it back. Is there a motion and a second?

I'll second.

To close the budget hearings and adopt the final budget for fiscal year 26-27? motion and there's a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Passes unanimously. Any comments? Oh clerk.

Item number nine public presentations.

Yes. Any comments from the public on any matter not on this agenda? You can come up and speak to that. Okay nobody's online.

No one's online. They were earlier, but they disconnected.

Okay. Here's our motion and second to adjourn.

So moved.

Second.

All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Passes unanimous. Thank you all.

Thank you.