Board of County Commissioners - workshop

Agenda? Nope. Seeing none, right after that, we'll go into the Washington County Board of Commissioners business meeting. We have 10 items on the consent agenda, one appointment under boards and commissions, a couple of proclamations, and numerous public hearings. I think a lot related to multiple related to annexing the same set of properties but also a first read of an ordinance or no actually the ordinance itself then we have the findings for set ordinance ordinance 914 and then we have another ordinance but this one related to personnel washington county code Does anyone have any questions on that formal agenda? Nope.

Chair Harrington, could I provide an update? Of course. pertaining to your consent agenda. We just realized this morning, I think it was realized late last night, that the collective bargaining agreement for the Federation of Parole and Probation Officer, FAPO, did not make it onto, it was loaded. There was an administrative error, so it didn't make it onto your consent agenda, but it has since been loaded by Clerk Moss. And we'd like that to be considered for your consent agenda today, based on just the timing of the CBA.

Great. So... Is that item number 11? Yes. Okay.

Thank you very much. The online version was just republished. Thank you.

Okay. And that comes from administration? County administrators?

It's coming from Community Corrections. Community Corrections. Thank you. And HR and Partnership. Okay.

Or maybe you and Tonya are switching places.

Oh, yeah.

I don't think she wants your job.

Let me know. She was a couple minutes late. And as you know, she's well-prepared, so she makes sure we always have coverage. So now she's here. Welcome, Ms. Angie. Come on up. Okay. Next on our agenda is the applications for the Aging and Veteran Services Advisory Council. Wayne Vera.

Thank you so much. Well, good morning, Chair Harrington, Board of County Commissioners. My name is Mira Simantel. I serve as the Director of Health and Human Services. With me today, I have Rebecca Miller, who you've met a handful of times now. She is our Disability Aging and Veteran Services Division Manager within HHS, and she will present applications for your consideration for our Aging and Veteran Services Advisory Council, or ABSTAC, as we like

Thanks, Mira.

Good morning. As Mira said, I'm Rebecca Miller, Manager for Disability Aging and Veteran Services. And at the July 21st, 2026 board meeting, we will be asking you to appoint three regular members to our Aging and Veteran Services Advisory Council for a three-year term that ends June 30th, 2029.

Thank you.

So today I'll be giving you just a brief overview of that Aging and Veterans Services Advisory Council, sharing more about our recruitment strategies and offering recommendations for your appointment. Thanks. So the Washington County Aging and Veterans Services Advisory Council, or AFSAC, consists of 13 regular members and up to six alternates. The 19-member council advises the division, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second. Membership is to be comprised of more than 50% of individuals who are age 60 or older, including racial and ethnic minorities. the general public including veterans, unpaid or family caregivers, recipient of day of services, supportive service providers, et cetera, and that's in the Older Americans Act. The member role is to advise the Area Agency on Aging as required by the Older Americans Act, advocate on issues that impact older adults, veterans, and people with disabilities. Priorities are to advocate for system level changes, provide advice to disability, aging, and veteran services regarding policies and programs, and advise days in the development and administration of the area plan and area plan budget, and connect with the broader community to understand the issues and priorities of the populations we serve. Next slide. So we do have 10 open positions. One regular member and one alternate member have expired terms that won't be seeking reappointment. We have 12 new applicants that did apply and three are ready to proceed. You can stay there for just a moment. In addition to, I just want to talk a little bit about our recruitment efforts. So in addition to listing with all the other openings through the general county primary communication and recruitment channels that we do for all the boards and commissions, we also post in our quarterly advisory newsletter. We attend summer and other outreach events and we bring our recruitment flyers in English and Spanish. We post flyers in our lobby, and then we're really looking, this last recruitment, we were looking for individuals interested in advocacy because we added an advocacy committee through our bylaws. So that's something new. So also with 12 new applicants, you can see there's a lot of interest, but there's not always follow through. So we ask folks to come to a meeting, check us out, and make sure it's a good fit. So that's why you see sometimes more applicants than what we actually put forward for recommendation. Just wanted to give you that background.

Graciously put that ready to proceed.

Yes. So how many out of the 12 attended? It kind of varies because sometimes they'll pop in and they'll say that's not for me. And then we get, we wait a month. Is it virtual?

It's hybrid. Hybrid.

Okay. Yes. And sometimes they'll apply, they'll attend, wait three months and then apply. Okay. It's just people, schedules. They come when they can make it and then decide if that's for them or not. So now I'm ready for the next slide. So we do have three we'd like to recommend to you today. So Boris Alekseev is a resident of District 4 and is the vice president of CERBO, which is a nonprofit organization that primarily engages with local advocacy groups and community health networks to support underserved populations. He's fluent in Polish, Russian, and English, and is interested in bringing his life experience to our council. He identifies as a veteran and immigrant male over 60 years of age. Laura Dexheimer, she's founder and executive director of the North Plains Food Bank and is a resident also of District 4. She has a really broad work history and is interested in policy and systems work to improve outcomes for older adults and veterans, particularly in the rural area where she lives and works. And she identifies as a 60-year-old white female. Brandy Penner is the executive director of the Oregon LGBTQ Plus Aging Coalition, which is a newly formed organization that will serve the entire state. She's previously served on both the Multnomah County Aging Services Advisory Council, so the counterpart in another county, and the Metro Bond Oversight Committee and has been elected to board service in both public K through 12 and community college settings.

Do you know which bond there's? Oh, I don't. There's zoo, there's the affordable housing bond. I could dig in deeper.

Yeah, I can get back to you. I'm not sure. And if appointed, she's interested in chairing the newly formed advocacy committee. And she identifies as a female and is under 60 years of age. And if all these folks were appointed, we will have three regular positions and four alternate positions available. And then our recruitment focus going forward and the challenge remains to recruit through our own programs and find folks who receive our services who are able to participate.

That's what I have for you today. Questions for you? All right. I have a quick question for you just for my own edification. You said that Brandy is under 60 years of age, but you didn't mark it there.

Because the focus of those is what's required. So we just indicate when they meet some of the certain criteria that are required in our bylaws. So I only put when they kind of hit the threshold of

She sounds very qualified and will be an added value. I've never heard of the LGBTQ organization. Can you repeat that name again?

It's called the Oregon LGBTQ Plus Aging Coalition.

I don't have any other questions.

No, I think Laura's a good choice as well. I've met her at the Plainsford Bank. She does a great job.

Sounds like we're ready to move forward with the appointments. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. We'll see you on July 21st. Great. Okay, now on to some really deep financial policy.

Oh, no, John.

Let's, let's... From the personnel side. Good morning, John and Sarah.

Good morning, Commissioner and Chair. I'm John Steyer. I'm the Chief Financial Officer, and I'm accompanied today by our Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Sarah Dean. Today we're going to talk about financial policies we are working to get in place and replace some of the policies that have been in place here for a long, long time.

I feel like we just finished the budget with you, John. Yes. Back again. I know. We have lots of work to do. That means you're busy. You're busy.

We are trying to get progress. So purpose today is just to review three of the financial policies of the that we're working through for GFOA best practices. The policy question is, does your board support adoption of these policies? We'll review the accounting and financial reporting policy. the expenditures policy and the new revenues policy. I just want to take us back to kind of initial state of the policies as we started this process and the future states of where we're going. Looks like some of my highlights in green did not show up on here, but I will go through the top three of the financial accounting on the right side and highlight the yellow ones we're going to review today. And those are replacing, on the left-hand side, our policy 402, which is travel expense, and the policy 406, comprehensive financial management, 407, employee allowances, and also the fiscal policy, which was created in 2012 and has been around for a long time. So these three policies today will close out most of the policies we had in initial state and leave us with just a couple of them to finish through this fiscal year calendar year and into the fiscal year. The ones that we'll be bringing later this year, hopefully, are the structurally balanced budget policy, which is the new policy, and also a risk management and internal controls policy, which I think is a key policy to have in place for finance. Two others are working. One is long-term financial planning, and then the other, the last one that we'll meet is economic development policy. So we're making good progress. really was very optimistic we'd be farther along, but there is a lot of things going on. So that's all right. Any questions on?

No, John, if I may just add, while we don't see it on the slide within your packet, the green is highlighted. So there's something when it goes to the slide. So I just want to make that note for members of the public. And Mr. Steyer did mention the economic development policy. This would be a comprehensive economic development policy. Right now, your board does have a SIPP policy in place. So that is a good foundation for us to build on. future policies.

Thank you.

At this point, I'm going to pass it to Sarah to talk about the first two policies and I'll come back and talk to revenues and close this out.

All right. So the first policy, which I believe you all got a copy of, is the accounting and financial reporting policy. This policy is to ensure the county maintains accurate and reliable financial records and supports consistent and timely reporting. It formalizes audit oversight responsibilities and strengthens alignment with GAAP, GASB, and GFOA standards. This will replace Policy 406, as John mentioned, which was identified as outdated and lacked several core components. That was noted in the internal audit review, I believe. Some key points. This policy benchmarks our accounting practices against national standards and outlines expectations for compliance and reporting. It clarifies documentation requirements, year-end processes, internal reporting, and expectations for major reports, such as the ACFER and the single audit. It strengthens our approach to audit management, auditor independence, and follow-up on audit findings. And it also formalizes the role and responsibilities of the audit committee. And the audit committee does have its own separate bylaws, so I'll just point that out.

Okay.

The next policy, this is the much meatier one. This is our expenditures policy. This one is to ensure that public funds are used prudently, transparently, and in alignment with county's mission. It consolidates and replaces several of the older policies, as John noted, and it introduces clearer rules around allowances, travel, and other expenditures. It also aligns expenditure-related guidance with the personnel rules and regulations, hoping to reduce some ambiguity for departments. An important note on this one is that with the adoption of this, we're requesting that it be backdated to January 1. We configured Workday, the new ERP system, in alignment with what changes we knew would happen. Not significant, but mostly around per diem. Some key points on the expenditure policy. It provided clear definition for the duty station, which is used in the personal vehicle allowance and mileage reimbursement areas, so that we're providing more consistent application for mileage and travel rules for employees. It also establishes standards for allowable and prohibited expenses, including meals, travel, recognition items, and gift cards. It defines processes for personnel-related expenses, training, ethics compliance, and procurement of outsourced services. It adds clarity to moving expenses, candidate travel reimbursements, and includes required review, approval, and audit mechanisms to ensure oversight.

I have a question. Sure. The 75 miles is a change from 50, right?

That's correct.

Okay. And I can understand why we did that. But the question always is, so if you go 100 miles, do you qualify for 25 miles or 100 miles of reimbursement?

I will have to look at the policy, because I know that question comes up a lot. And it does outline. Let me look and comment.

And the reason why I ask that is because I have several board meetings that are outside of this radius. And I generally don't even turn it in, because I don't know what the answer is. But I would like to know that.

I think it depends if you're in an overnight status or not.

Let's pause on that question and potentially, depending on how the presentation goes, we may get back to that question at the end. Otherwise, we'll do a follow up. The reason I say that is there's many iterations of questions depending on individual circumstances. So finance wants to always make sure that they do the due diligence going back to the policy because There are many different ways. So I just want to be careful about what staff say on the record.

And we did meet specifically with the government relations team to walk through some scenarios. So I know we have an answer. I just don't want to do it off the cuff.

I would just say on the expenditures policy, that is one of the most detailed policies that we've put out. A lot of information and takes into account some of the other policies that are combined into this. So I think this is a really good policy work that we've done on this. So just on revenues policy, this is new. So this provides guidance designed efficiency and effective revenue systems to generate adequate public resources to make sure we're beating expenditure obligations. This is really a gap that we're filling. to walk through some of the policy that were included in here. One of the key things we've talked about is revenue categories. This will come into play as we look at long-term financial planning and also directly balanced budgets. So when we talk about revenues, we have one-time revenues, things we expect to get one-time or episodic in nature. We don't reasonably expect them to continue in future years. So our one-time grant, for example, Ongoing revenues, we reasonably do expect to receive that year to year, things like property taxes or ongoing user fees and charges. And then there's limited time revenue, which is forecast to be stable on a predictable basis during an authorized term. So it has defined a reasonably anticipated expiration date. So as we try to match expenditures with revenues, these categories will come into play in those other policies. It also sets definitions for types of agreements, for example, grants, financial assistance in the form of funds, property owner support, revenue contract, formal agreement on which the county receives a payment in direct exchange for providing goods or services or access or rights to another party. And then intergovernmental agreements, which are just statutory agreements to money in terms between us and another governmental entity. But these nuances are important in our systems in Workday and also Cobblestone, which is our contracting system to help determine the types of contracts and agreements that we have. There are also fee provisions. So we talked about the fee schedule with the budget process. We review that every year, but we do set the goal in this policy of full cost recovery with some criteria for adoption of fee subsidies and some of those things in there. We talk about subsidies or things that support a public good or that may support a strategic goal that may, those are the things we would want to subsidize. We establish processes for legislative advocacy. So if we do have fees that don't fully cover our costs, we want to work with our government relations and try to mandate to try to get those services funded at another level. And then sets expectations for regular fee updates, which we do each year. A new piece to this policy, or new piece to policy, I think is really critical, one that I've noticed that we needed since I've been part of the county, working in the sheriff's office and now here, is donations. There has not been any guidance around donations. So this sets some thresholds for donation acceptance, approvals, where the VCC gets involved if somebody wants to donate a large capital item like a vehicle or something that requires ongoing maintenance, those things that we would bring into this board for your approval or also just to note for awareness.

And that only applies to receipts for the county, right? It doesn't apply to the Sheriff's Foundation.

Correct.

Correct. It does apply to Bonnie Hayes. Yes, because Bonnie Hayes is owned and operated by us.

And then it talks about the non-caf donations.

Beyond the Sheriff's Foundation, how many other Washington County-related foundations are there? That's a question for later, but it would be good to know.

There are a couple.

And an associated question is maybe the reverse of that. How many Bonnie Hayes type organizations do we have? I can't think of any others. So I'd like to know what we have is where donations go outside of Bonnie Hayes.

We will take that as a follow up. And we're also working towards building clarity of what constitutes donations. an entity within the county system versus at what point does it need to be outside of the county such as the foundation. So this policy development process has brought that to light that we need to continue to work towards that clarity.

I want to just highlight the other things covered in this policy. Also revenue collection, uncollectable accounts, bankruptcy notices, return checks, methods of payments, and just overall focus on transparency and reporting. So those are the three policies today. They all have very clear definitions in them up front, they have very clear roles and responsibilities at the end, very well structured and really complement the work that we've done and putting policies together. So with that, I'll Ask your board for any comments or take any questions.

Before I open the floor up for commissioner questions and comments, what are the plans for bringing this forward to the board for approval?

So this will come through on a resolution in order on the consent agenda. I'm looking to do that on the 21st.

Yeah, so let me kind of take a step back in our whole process as we develop these 15 policies. You will be seeing these policies as we develop the policies. After the set of policies are developed, then each year that your board adopts the budget, the policies will be included in the budget. as an annual touchpoint to make sure that we are routinely reviewing these. These are in front of your board on a routine basis. So it will feel that it's not a clear cadence, because we're still in the development process, but that will be the annual process moving forward when complete.

This is developing that new foundation. Correct. And then having an annual update process. Correct. Great. Commissioners, questions and comments?

Thank you for your presentation. I don't have any questions for this material. I think you've got your work cut out. But just out of curiosity, non-cash donations, have we made in the past? What examples could you give me non-cash donations we've made to foundations?

We're getting donations.

Donations getting to us. I think a recent example would be a bait bike at the sheriff's office. Someone donated a bike to use for that. And some other would be pet food.

And then, yeah, I think that's one, the animal shelters. cash donations is one thing that was coming to my mind. Okay.

Yeah. I've asked my questions. Thank you. Good job. Willie?

Just a comment and then a question. I was really surprised when I got through this because the question I was asking myself is, don't we have these already? I mean, this seems to be like basic policies. There are a number of these that are in like the 2012 policy. We're updating these employees. It's been 14 years since we touched it. It's been a long time since we touched that one. Shame on us.

So let me just take your board back and just appreciate your board's leadership, both from the process that we put in place for financial policies as well as administrative policies. We are in a robust process to update financial policies as well as administrative policies. So there have been policies that have not been and so we are working through that diligently. This summer, what will be coming in front of your board is also the administrative manual with the administrative policies that have been approved this year, so we're getting on that cycle. Commissioner Willey, I think the other piece that I will say is that we are looking to best practice, whether for financial policies, GFOA, or admin policies, at a baseline, you know, compliance with law, but industry best practice as well. So we are taking the county and just evolving it to the next level, but making sure that we have a business process and rigor in place so that we don't catch ourselves being outdated on any type of policy in the future.

Another question relating to cancer.

So a new software system was approved and that was cobblestone.

And do they integrate?

Yeah, go ahead.