Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

We're starting over with public comment.

Okay.

Okay, we are back. A little echoey. We are back from our break. Thank you for being patient. I think we got all the audio fixed up. Kind of. More or less. A little echoey. We'll try to ignore that. Okay, so since the audio wasn't working before, we're going to re-hear those public comments that we heard. So we'll get back into public comment and give the speakers a chance to speak in if they wish.

Okay, we're going to start over. So, Erica, if you'd like to come back up, please.

All right. Good morning, Chair and members of the board. My name is Erica Valline, and I am a MEG employee. I am a program manager within San Benito County's Health and Human Services Agency, and I am here on my own time because I believe this issue is important enough to speak about. I have been in my current position and part of the med group for almost four years. And prior to that, I served as a health educator within my department for eight years. I care deeply about my work, my department, and the community we serve. As a supervisor responsible for multiple staff and programs, there are many days when an eight-hour workday is not enough to both- One second.

I'm sorry about that. I think we're having- Tech issues. Is there an issue? No.

I know that. Yeah, they do. It's on Zoom. I'm on Facebook and I'm listening to it on Facebook. Yeah, that one's not working right now, but everything else is. It's on the agenda.

Okay. We're going to continue. Sorry about that.

No worries. Okay. As a supervisor responsible for multiple staff and programs, there are many days when an eight-hour workday is not enough to both support my team and complete the administrative and operational responsibilities of my role. As a result, I consistently work more than a 40-hour workweek. Many supervisory responsibilities require focused and interrupted time. During the workday, my priority is being available to staff, responding to questions, and addressing operational needs. As a result, tasks such as performance evaluations, documentation, planning, and follow-up are often completed after hours. Those additional hours are not because the work is not being done during the day, but because the nature of the supervision requires balancing immediate staff support and operational demands with responsibilities that require dedicated time and focus outside of the workday. Sometimes the issue is that we as supervisors cover vacancies when positions go unfilled. step into frontline responsibilities when needed, and attend community meetings after hours, meet grant and deadline requirements, and respond to issues that simply cannot wait until the next business day. Additionally, me personally, when I take time off for any personal matters under four hours, I consistently make up my time within the work week, and at times even work beyond those hours to just make sure that my responsibilities are fully met. As San Benito County MEG employees, our compensation and overall benefits package are often not comparable to those in neighboring counties. For that reason, existing practices such as FSLA time help acknowledge the additional time and effort that many supervisors and managers regularly contribute beyond their standard work schedules. I respectfully ask the board to carefully reconsider the removal of FSLA time. This benefit recognizes the reality of supervisory management responsibilities and the additional hours that many of us contribute to support our staff meet program requirements and continue providing essential services to our community. Thank you for your time.

Ellen. Thank you for this opportunity to speak again mine is probably not going to be exactly the same, because I just have notes and I don't have it written out. But my name is Ellen compost I am the assistant district attorney and the district attorney's office i'm a mega employee i'm here on my own time, although I will say during the break, I was working, but I am going to take it as vacation on my. As the Assistant District Attorney, I have a full caseload, the same size as the other attorneys in the office, and I also have administrative duties, which includes putting out fires a lot in the office, interacting with other agencies, sometimes stepping in when our clerical staff is out sick, dealing with issues with our software program, answering the phone and helping people out the window. It's rare that I work 40 hours, only 40 hours a week, especially if I'm in trial or have serious hearings in court. I mentioned already that I was on vacation last week and often when I'm on vacation on the weekends and at night, I receive work calls. which I take and I don't put that on my time card. I have canceled a vacation in the past due to trial scheduling and because we attorneys don't always have control over our time and our schedules. We are at the mercy of our court. Court will often run overtime into lunch or past five. sometimes we have deadlines for legal briefs and other kinds of documents that we need to submit in cases and we have to stay until they get done because we don't get things done in time they can have serious consequences for our cases I know the one of the biggest sticking points right now and the negotiations for our contract is that the county wants to take away our paid non FSLA hope I'm saying that right time we call it Meg time And I know that it's been brought up that many other counties don't give their employees that. So what I'd like to tell you again is I looked at some of the MOUs for attorneys that do my job in other counties. I couldn't find anybody that had made time, but I have spoken to other attorneys in other offices, including my daughter who's a prosecutor in Southern California. And when I asked them if they had anything like that, they said no, but they said, well, if I need to leave early, they'd usually just let me leave early or take an extra half hour for lunch sometimes or something like that because we're professionals. And they treat them like professionals. Many counties allow their employees in these kind of positions to work telework.

Thank you. We have to be fair to everyone's time. Thank you.

Next, Praxedes Solorio.

My name is Praxedes Solorio, and I am a parent and proud member of this community, San Benito County. Thank you for taking item 144 off the consent agenda today. As a parent, I care deeply about our families and our safety and clear communication. When important decisions are made, we need to review the facts, ask simple questions and understand what's going on. Please make sure to report and share openly with the public with enough time for all of us to learn participate and be heard thank you for listening to our community respectfully prajede solorio san benito county parent thank you next in chambers elias baroccio good morning my name is elias baroccio and i manage a migrant housing center i'm here on my own personal time

In addition to overseeing the Migrant Housing Center, I often address issues involving the multiple programs operating on the Southside property, including the winter shelter, the men's labor camp, CSCC trailers, temporary RV units, and tiny homes that are currently set to be open in the next few months. Because I am on site, I frequently become the point of contact when issues arise after hours, even when they fall outside of my direct program responsibilities. For the past 13 years, I have understood that management requires to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I have been called away from quinceaneras, birthday parties, baptisms, family gatherings, and vacations to respond to emergencies and to make sure our residents are safe and properly housed. And oftentimes, Believe it or not, those happen like 4.55 p.m. when I'm ready to leave, clock out, but duty calls, so I have to respond to those issues. One example I will never forget was during the Lovers Lane flooding a few years ago. I was attending my niece's wedding in Los Banos with my family when I received a phone call that I needed to be at the community center from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. to help families affected by the flooding. After that shift, I also needed to prepare units for families that were being transferred to the Migrant Housing Center. I left the wedding, returned to work, and did what needed to be done. I was not being selfish. I have responded after hours to situations involving intoxicated individuals and individuals under the influence of drugs, particularly during the winter shelter program. When a murder occurred on the property after hours, although it did not involve my program, I helped manage the aftermath, including making sure that the unit was cleaned, repaired, and ready for our migrant families. These responsibilities often require additional hours that we do not receive overtime compensation for. At the same time, county employees are facing a rising cost of living, while many of us have not seen a meaningful increase in our pay. Once employees reach step G, they have effectively reached the top of the pay scale. Benefits like the FLSA benefit are a very important part of our overall compensation. Removing this benefit would have a real financial impact on employees and would further hurt morale. As managers, we are asked to motivate staff, retain experienced employees, and provide quality services. It becomes much harder to do when employees feel that their sacrifices and additional responsibilities are not being recognized. I respectfully ask the board to consider real-world impact of the decision. It is not simply a line item. It affects employees' families, financial stability, morale.

Thank you. Next in chambers, Catherine Ramirez.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors. My name is Catherine Ramirez, and I'm a staff analyst with Public Works, and I'm here on my own time using my accrued leave, and I'm speaking only about my personal experience. I wasn't going to share about my background, but, you know, I come to you as a former program manager managing over $350 million of my own budget in federal and state funding for one of the largest senior companion AmeriCorps programs in the state of California and actually the United States. I'm uniquely positioned because I have the same experience that you have. I sat on school board for 20 years with a $300 million operating budget. and a $250 million building budget. My pay as a staff analyst at Step G is the same as your pay. So I know that you know what it's like living on that pay. I'm proud to serve San Benito County, but over time, the expectations placed on management employees has grown significantly. In addition to my regular responsibilities, I have personally had to take on responsibilities of people who have left the county, stayed late and worked weekends. I do this because the work that we do matters. county services cannot simply stop when there is a vacancy an emergency or a heavy workload we step in because we care about our work and our departments our teams and the residents of san benito county i also forgot to say i'm the meg treasurer and one of our meg members is stepping in as interim public works administrator I understand that the county faces real financial challenges and I'm not here to dismiss those challenges. I've had to make tough decisions myself and they impacted children all of the time. I'm asking the board to recognize the sustained workload, responsibility, and personal sacrifices that management employees make to keep services running. Our dedication should not require employees to routinely absorb additional positions, extended work hours, and uncompensated responsibilities without a fair solution. I respectfully ask the Board to recognize that management employees are contributing and to pursue fair resolution. and reconsider the removal of the FLSA time. Before I finish, I would like to say that silence equals agreement. And so when employees are called selfish and the other supervisors do not speak up immediately and remove themselves from that, you are agreeing to that. And I don't think that I'm a selfish employee. I'll do whatever it takes to get the job done and make employees work to get the job done. Thank you for listening and for your service to this county.

Next in chambers, Enrique Arreola.

Good morning, members of the board. and the public. My name is Enrique Arriola. I am the president of MEG and have proudly served San Benito County for more than 18 years as the deputy director for Health and Human Services Agency. I also want to make it clear that I'm speaking today on my own time using my own accruals. I am here today to correct the record regarding comments made during a board meeting in June. It was implied that MEG has been unwilling to reach agreement that Meg has contributed to increase county costs because we have not settled and that Meg is selfish. Respectfully, those statements simply do not reflect the facts. Meg has participated in the negotiation process in good faith since day one. While we have not reached agreement, that does not mean Meg is responsible for the lack of one. Negotiations require both parties to reach common ground. I also want to address the comments that Meg is selfish. According to information provided by county administration for fiscal year 2526, Meg members contributed 5369 hours of unpaid FLSA time and received 1675 hours of paid FLSA. That means that approximately 69% of the time worked beyond our normal schedules was donated to the county without compensation, while 31% was paid. Using an average fully burdened hourly rate of approximately $80 an hour, those unpaid hours represent an estimated value of $429,000. After accounting the paid FLSA hours, MEC members still donated approximately $295,000. worth of uncompensated time in just one fiscal year. These are not MEG numbers. They are facts provided by county administration. I see that I have one more minute. MEG members routinely step up to cover vacant positions, supervise additional staff, respond to emergencies after hours, work nights and weekends, while on vacation, prepare grant applications to meet reporting deadlines, and keep essential services floating forward for the benefit of the county. Speaking for myself, there have been countless evenings and weekends when I have responded to emergencies without hesitation. During COVID, I often receive calls from the hospital to place patients that have COVID in a county-owned RV, and often after 10 p.m. When homeless clients are locked out in a county housing program, I'm one of the staff that responds to open it, whether it's on weekends or evenings or late at night. As a leader of a grant-funded division with Milk County General Funding, I regularly work mornings, evenings, weekends to complete grant applications to meet deadline and bring in millions of dollars into this county. So again, make.

Thank you. One other here, Joe.

Good morning, supervisors. If we've been talking about the meeting schedule for three years, I've seen no real results, not even one evening meeting per quarter in writing. Compromise clearly isn't happening. Substantive disagreement and bargaining friction persist. I was deflated for a long time, but my optimism and patriotism simply refused to perish. Liberty is everybody's responsibility, myself included. And I've noticed that other people in other counties have also have these same identical frustrations and polls show agreements locally and statewide. We the people stand together against this problem. I have drafted a ballot initiative The purpose of which are to, one, ensure the regular meetings of the San Benito County Board of Supervisors are accessible to the people of San Benito County, the county, not exclusive to special interests and local elites. Two, give the majority of citizens access to regular agenda meetings. Three, protect the rights and quality of life of residents in the county. Four, promote transparency in government. Five, promote accountability among leadership. Six, empower all individuals of the public. And seven, restore the balance of power between the electorate and our public officials. The effect forbids the San Benito County supervisors from scheduling regular agenda meetings during normal work hours and requires county supervisors to finish their regular agenda meetings on the same day that they begin. Findings, we the people of San Benito County find that this initiative establishes, promotes and protects our right to access, participate and provide feedback while improving transparency, empowering the people and enhancing the quality of life of San Benito residents based upon the following findings, any one of which would be sufficient to support the adoption of this initiative. Number one, now is the time to act. Number two, our rights are inherent to ourselves. Number three, all Americans equally deserve respect for our rights. 4. The most basic function of government is to protect our rights. 5. Access to leadership must improve. 6. Our government belongs to us. 7. Our problems are systemic. The system must change. 8. San Benito County's current political paradigm is unjustifiable and unsustainable. 9. This initiative will empower the community to achieve prosperity. Lack of public pressure allowed destructive corruption. 11, lack of public oversight and feedback allowed needless pollution. We tried this the easy way for long enough, three years or so since I first brought it up, and we've had a couple of Board of Supervisors' discussions about it. I will finish college, and when I get back home, we, the people, will launch a campaign. We will settle this matter at the ballot box. I leave you all with a quote. Nothing ever lasts forever. Everybody wants to rule the world, and we will.

Thank you. And that concludes public comment.

Thank you. Moving on to consent agenda. These matters shall be considered as a whole and without discussion unless an item is removed from consent agenda. Do any supervisors have items they wish to pull from consent? Yes.

Okay, I would like to pull item 1.8. Is there anyone here from the Health Foundation? I will pull item 1.9, 1.10, 1.11, 1.20. Two more, sorry. 1.37 and 1.38. Thank you. Sure. Any others? Treasurer. Okay.

I don't know. We're good?

Okay. Is there any public comment on items that were not pulled? Any consent items that were not pulled?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. You can press star nine or the raise hand icon. And we have Joe.

Speaking on item 1.7, I highly recommend we do not, the county does not submit, does not approve or did not appoint Bob Tiffany to a position that he's applied for. I have a folder over there on my chair, kind of detailing as to why. I just, I don't believe the man should have any position of power. Thank you.

I have no further public comment.

Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the consent items, except for the items that were pulled? Move to approve as recommended.

I'll second.

Great. Give me a roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes.

Great. Thank you. All right. First item pulled was 1.8. Supervisor Sotelo?

Thank you. Hi, Rachel. Just really quickly, I see that the amount doesn't change on this item, but it was a little bit confusing to me. So the rate schedule is to be negotiated every fiscal year. And so I was just hoping you could maybe clarify. I wasn't sure exactly then why the need for this and why are we adjusting these annually, kind of what's going on with that. And then the second part of pulling this item is I think that it would be really wonderful if we can have a whole presentation regarding Pacific clinics about kind of their mobile response times. I know I try to do little, you know, announcements when I can, but I think if we could do a full report to the board and the public might be really great for the future, you know, on the number of people that we're actually helping and, where the calls are coming from, how long our response time is, kind of all that information would be really helpful for future item. But right now, just kind of trying to understand this negotiated rate every year, but there's not a change to the total amount. So if you can kind of explain that a little.

That's not a problem. Each year, the Department of Health Care Services issues new rates to the counties. on how much money will be allocated for mobile as one service. And so each year we have to sit down with our providers and discuss this is a new rate and this is our negotiation based off your previous performance, what your performance looks like this year. And then we provide that rate to that provider, whatever that negotiated rate is. Currently, Pacific Clinics, just to let everybody here in the dais know, is that Pacific Clinic is getting at cost because the amount of Medi-Cal they're generating doesn't cover the services. So they're getting at cost for the care. As soon as their Medi-Cal starts to increase, then we'll be having to sit down with them and do that negotiation with them. But the contract allows us to do that on an annual basis.

Okay, got you. Thank you so much. I'm clear on that. I have no further questions. Thank you. Thank you.

Is there public comment on this item?

If you'd like to make a comment on this item, please press star nine or the raised hand icon on Zoom in Chambers. Please provide a speaker card. And I have no public comment.

Thank you. Professor Crowe?

I really appreciate you pulling this item. I also would like to have a future presentation about the stats so that the public's fully aware of how much including in the stats is what's coming in and reimbursed through Medicare or Medi-Cal. I think those stats and the services being provided would be a wonderful informational piece and help get the information out there. about this program and these services that are available on the mobile clinic. So thank you so much. Thank you.

Is there a motion? I move to approve as recommended.

I'll second.

Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Zenger? Yes. Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes.

Great. Thank you. Next is 1.9.

So I just thought it would be really nice if we can maybe have the Health Foundation join us at the podium. Where do you want us, here or here? Does somebody want to do this proclamation? Do you want me to do it? I just wanted to make sure that we- Take it away. Honor them and recognize them. Okay, thank you. Can we get a motion?

Oh yes, that's a good idea. Well, we should do public comment first then. Can we do public comment, please?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Great. Is there a motion?

I move to approve.

Second. We're first and second. We have roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro? Yes. 4-0 vote. Motion passes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here today. So we want to proclaim that August 2026 as breastfeeding awareness month in San Benito County. Breastfeeding is a natural way to feed an infant and is the foundation for lasting health and infants who breastfeed receiving protection against serious health concerns, including allergies, asthma, respiratory infections, obesity, and sudden infant death syndrome. The County of San Benito acknowledges the importance of breastfeeding to the lifelong health and the well-being of infants and mothers. This year's World Breastfeeding Week theme, Breastfeeding for a Sustainable Start in Life, Strengthen What Works, highlights the importance of collaboration as an essential part of protecting, promoting, and supporting breastfeeding. The month of August is recognized as Breastfeeding Awareness Month around the world, highlighting the bond between mother and baby as a foundation for lifelong health and wellness, which carries through the lifetime protecting and enhancing community health. Now, therefore, it be resolved the County of San Benito Board of Supervisors does hereby proclaim August 2026 as Breastfeeding Awareness Month. And I want to thank all of the work that both San Benito Health Foundation and Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital does. And we have a representative from the Health Foundation if you'd like to say anything. Here's your proclamation. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Angelica Rojas. I am the director of development for San Benito Health Foundation. And I'm also a board member to the California Breastfeeding Coalition. And I just want to say thank you for this proclamation. And the San Benito Health Foundation has a wonderful program, Women, Infants, and Children, the WIC program. And we support new parents in their lactation journey. We have resources for them. And thank you so much.

Thank you. Great, thank you. Move on to item 1.10.

Thank you. I just really wanted to give some special recognition and make sure that we call up. Do you want us to do both of them together or should we, we'll do them separate. And then maybe after we can take a picture or something. But these are both, have been the Keep, well, this one is Keep San Benito Bonito Award. And this is going to Deanna Barth. And so... Do we need a motion for this one?

Oh, we have to do public comment too.

Sorry. Let's do public comment.

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Thank you. Is there a motion? So I approve. I move to approve as recommended.

Is there a second? I'll second. All right. Roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Citillo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes.

Thank you. Deanna and Lori, will you both join me up at the podium, please? Do you want me to do this, or do you want to do this, Dom?

Take it away.

Sorry. Does anybody else want to do it?

OK. Mr. Chair, since we have others for proclamations and recognitions, if they're willing and wanting to take a picture afterward, Certainly we could do all of them, including the Health Foundation of Corsage as well.

Yeah, sure. I don't know. this one or is it it's already on okay Deanna thank you so much I'm gonna have Lori talk a little bit more specifically about this award but thank you for everything you do in our community you are our community hero um I constantly see people reaching out to you and you help so many people and critters in this community and you truly make it a better place and so Thank you so much. This is so easy to honor you and give you recognition. You deserve so much more, but thank you. Thank you so much for what you do. And I'm really, really proud to be able to give you the certificate.

Lori, do you want to say anything about Deanna or about the award? Yes, absolutely. We really wanted to recognize Deanna as she is just a spotlight volunteer. She goes out all the time in her free time on the weekends and goes along and picks up just stretches of road and just picks up the litter and disposes it. And anytime we host a cleanup, we know we can count on her to come over and help us fill up that garbage and really help us pick up and keep San Benito bonito.

and that's exactly why we wanted to recognize her just real quickly i want to thank you for the recognition i mean that's certainly not why i do it but i appreciate it um i've been picking up trash for 35 years started back when i was a teenager volunteering for the wildlife center and What I saw at the Wildlife Center was horrifying, honestly, horrifying and so preventable, which is why I started doing it. We have so many animals that come into the Wildlife Center due to trash entanglements. And people probably don't realize that it's such a normal thing to see. And it's there's no reason for it. Animals, birds with. fishing line wrapped around their legs, string, balloon ribbon, skunks with yogurt cups on their nose, raccoons with heads in a jar, various small animals with those plastic drink lids that have the hole cut out for the straw wearing them as collars around their neck and the list goes on and it's dangerous even compostable items are dangerous and so the next time you think about tossing an apple core or a banana peel out your car window i want people to think twice doing so draws in rodents to the side of the road which in turn draws in predators to the side of the road and that's one of the many reasons why we see hawks and owls get hitting along hit and killed along our roadways like 25 and 156. so the point i want to drive home today is that there is no safe litter I will always pick up trash. I do it every week because I'm trying to prevent unnecessary injury and death to animals. And because I want to keep our community clean, we should all care about what our community looks like. And if me doing this inspires someone else to do the same, then that's the bonus. Thank you.

Thank you. Great. Thank you. Moving on to 1.11.

Deanna, if you'll stay for a minute, we'll get a picture right after this item. I think it'll be the last one that we're doing certificates of recognition and proclamation. So we'll get all of you right after this item. So I pulled this item. Again, just want to give the certificate of recognition to Southside Elementary School for being the Sustainable School Leadership Award. So...

Great. Yeah. Do we have public comment on this item?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Terrific. Is there a motion for this item?

I'll move to approve. Second.

Great. We have first and second. Can we have a vote, please? Roll call vote.

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Citillo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote, motion passes.

Great, thank you very much.

Supervisor Curro, would you, I know Southside School is in your district, and I'd love to have you present this, if you would.

Oh, it doesn't have a light. Oh, very OK. OK, well thank you guys for being here today and I want to recognize all the work Southside School has done and for our children, our youth and the future. My son went for a short period of time at Southside School and I have to tell you the families, the residents and the teachers are just amazing and my heart is going out to you because it's not easy being in education. It's a passion, it's a love for the youth, and it's our future. And I hope, in recognition, also receiving the 2026 Earth Day Celebration, Sustainable Schools Leadership Award for exceptional leadership in waste reduction, recycling, and environmental stewardship. You're teaching our youth how we can keep our planet clean. And I... also pick up trash and people laughed at me in my campaign during my walking because i gave them all little bags that had little plastic bags in there putting the trash in and we collected quite a bit if everyone did a small part it's amazing what it does to our roadways our streams all you have to do is just not walk by it so um thank you for all you guys do and this uh award is really uh wonderful to see that you guys have been recognized and i thank the staff for all their work on this too so here you go if you'd like to make a comment thank you

I would like to talk about them a little bit. I've had the privilege of working and supporting Southside Elementary School through this project and it started a little over a year ago and got them started with the organics. I think you now have about seven stations that the students sort through and the leadership from Superintendent and Principal Dr. Schilling and Food Service Manager Suzanne They took off with it. They made sure that their staff is aware of all of it. So they help train the students. We were even there about a month ago and we were with the K through third grade students and they are just perfectly sorting all of the trash and they are doing a truly wonderful job. And Southside School is paving the way for other schools to also add this in. So, yes, thank you.

Thank you very much. You know, I'd like to ask you, you know, when we grew up, we were taught to throw your aluminum cans and your wasted newspaper into the recycle thing. And that was it. Right. And now when you walk into Starbucks and you buy a cup, do you you know, you finish with your drink. Do you know where the lid goes? Do you know where the cup goes, where the straw goes, where the sugar pack or the cream cup goes? We all stand there and go, I don't know. Let's throw it in here and here because I think I don't know. Well, our students are learning a life skill, something that they can teach to their siblings, things that they can teach to their children about lifelong conservation and recognition of green planet initiatives for the rest of their lives. Thank you. Also, sorry, one more thing. This is all the brainchild of Ms. Yamanishi. She has started this effort a couple of years ago. She is our food service manager at Southside School, and really she deserves the primary amount of recognition because this came from her spirit and within to bring this to our school. So thank you very much, Ms. Yamanishi. Thank you.

I just want to add to this that you also will will be teaching from the youth parents because my son is one of those that tells my husband exactly where things need to go in the trash and recycle and compost so if we could come up and have a photo from from everyone where are we're gonna do three separate three separate photos okay

All right, South Side School. Maureen, do you want to come and take up the chair? Thank you guys so much. Congratulations, really awesome. It's really nice having a speaker.

Yeah, it makes it much easier, doesn't it?

All right, thank you.

We'll keep moving down the consent items that were pulled. 120 is next.

Thank you. I pulled this. I had a couple of correspondence and people were concerned in seeing the title because it said local assistance and tribal consistency fund that I had some questions about are we taking tribal money and putting it into the general fund. And so I just really wanted to make sure to pull this item and get some clarification and information for the public. So if maybe you can clarify. Do we? Sure. Okay. Thank you, Vanessa. Hi.

Good morning. Vanessa Delgado, Clerk of the Board. So, for the LATCF fund, known as the Local Assistance and Tribal Consistency Fund, this is a federal program that was established under Section 605 of the Social Security Act. So the funding allocations for this is for the fiscal year 22-23, there was a total of $2 billion. And each year, $250 million is set aside for eligible tribal governments and then a separate $750 million for eligible revenue-sharing counties. So the funds are split between the tribal governments and eligible sharing counties. So they're two separate funds. That's just the name of the fund, but it's not specifically that.

Thank you for that clarification. So there is no tribal money going into the general fund. Thank you for the clarification.

Thank you. Is there public comment on this item?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on zoom, please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Thank you. Yes.

I would just like to thank staff. This was a long process. We started talking about this, what, three years ago? I think even before some of us were on the board. I think Supervisor Kosmicki had this as an item that was years before talking about safety. I hope everyone understands that this is just hopefully the beginning of making our board chambers more professional and presentable. and looking at future safety needs and how we can make sure that our residents that attend meetings are safe, but also that all of our staff feels comfortable. So I thank all the staff and the support of the board on making sure that we have our first step moving forward with some hiccups, hopefully some lessons learned. So thank you everyone.

Thank you. Is there a motion?

I move to approve as recommended.

Second. Is there a second? Second. Great. We have first and second. Can we have roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curl?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes.

Great. Thank you very much. Moving on to 1.37.

I think I just have some kind of more generalized questions. So if it's okay, if we can do 137, 138, we may have to do them separate, but for public comment purposes, but I think my question is for both items. Okay. And so my question was, and maybe my memory is not correct, but I thought we had a lot of conversations months ago About doing these future annexations etc. And I thought we were looking at The rate that was going in and when I was reading through the background material It stated that we're using the rate from 2018 or 2019 and so I just I wanted to get clarification about you know, are we still doing this are we looking at those numbers and Just I wanted to make sure that we were all on board with what was kind of going on because there's been a lot of conversations around this. And so I just really needed some clarification as to what's going where we're at with all of this.

Yes, hi, good morning. My name is Linda Yang. I am the CSA coordinator with Public Works. So, any annexations will continue to be annexed into CFD 2018, which is the original rate that you will see from 2018. They do get increased annually by the CPI rate. Which is what we established every year on a resolution. The new process is for new applications that I get that gets submitted into the planning department. So these annexations. Specifically more. previously approved by the planning department under the old CFD annexations. I guess verbiage indicating that under the conditions of approval, they have to annex into a CFD.

Okay, thank you. So are we confident that the rate right now that we have that base rate, even though I understand that it has the CPI rate adjusted, is that base rate correct based on kind of what we, I mean, costs have really inflated since 2018. Are we confident that we are capturing the actual costs of providing the fire sheriff, like all the things that are that we have to take care of within the CFDs?

So we have to go based off of when the original CFD was developed. So we have to use the rate and method of apportionment that was established when the CFD was created. So in order to, I guess, capture the actual cost of the negative fiscal impact, current negative fiscal impacts, we would have to do a whole new analysis a whole new RMA, which is the rate and method of apportionment, and a whole new CFD would have to be created.

Okay. I guess I thought that's what we were looking at doing as a board. I felt like we had these conversations about looking at those rates. Maybe I'm wrong. But I guess I'd like to hear what my colleagues have to say with it. I thought we had kind of decided we were going to allow the two that were there, but then I thought we were going to take a deeper dive. And so I was a little surprised to see these on today's agenda, just because it didn't seem like we had ever gone back to really studying and looking at what we had talked about originally. So anyways, I don't know. Council, do you maybe have any ideas or comments on this, or my colleagues? I don't know.

Do you have any comments?

I think the direction was slightly different. It was about when to apply the CFDs to the annexations. It's a timeline. In regards to the rates, I understand the concern and I think we need to address those rates because in reality what we're saying today is the adopted rates in 2018 is the one that is showing up in the public hearing because that was adopted at that time. It has not been increased. However, it has some language that says there is a CIP, the consumer price to be applied. I think what the staff is missing in this case is to update that number to today's date. So if you, for example, have $900 in 2018, The idea is to apply all those index prices throughout the years and have the actual number today. That's what we're missing. But the language is there. It's just hidden in the agreement. And I will work with staff to be more clear in the future about what is the actual number today. It is in the approved rates at that time. We will have to do a race study completely for all the CFDs. We're already coordinating with county council to be able to do that in the future. So that way we don't run into this situation.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. And that makes sense. Thank you.

But just, oh, I'm sorry, go ahead. I didn't know. Go ahead. Okay. Just, are you comfortable with what's presented, staff? I mean, as far as the confusion over the CPI.

Yes, because those, so what we're going to do, we're going to update those rates that you are approving today with the CIP. that was approved that is in the contract so that we can have the numbers. We're going to be okay. The process that you mentioned last time that you want to change is the timing. That's a different direction that we'll receive for the upcoming CFDs, not for the previous one. This is an old one. This falls into the previous CFDs that were approved.

Okay. Just as an overall, I've said this before, I think we've talked about, you know, there's different types of revenue generation. There's economic development and then there's these fee structures and taxes. And this is an area where, you know, I think this board has expressed that this is at the highest level of, in that upper echelon of priorities. I don't always say there's these top priorities, but this is up there. And I just, you know, we talked about having a workshop I know the budget process was very challenging, but I still would like to see that. I'd like to see us have a workshop and really just go piece by piece and iron out what are these areas of revenue generation that we need to readdress. And getting on these studies in particular and moving forward on these studies that are required as part of the process legally I think should be really important. in that you know it should be a very um urgent matter basically i'd like to see some timelines as far as if even if they're projections as far as when we're going to see these studies move forward and when we're going to have a workshop so we can have a more all-encompassing discussion on these matters thank you

That's fine. So we're going to include one day of workshop only for planning and public works because those are large departments with different divisions that we need to identify potential issues and all those divisions and restructuring of the two departments as well. So we're going to have a one-day workshop, but we're going to announce it ahead of time. Thank you.

Thank you. I do think we should have, if it's more limited in scope during that conversation, I just... I think we should have a more robust conversation in the near future that's focused on revenue generation where we invite the public in and we can share ideas and really try to move forward on some things. Thank you.

I completely agree with the concerns. When we discussed previously a workshop type of educational, it was CFDs, it was CSAs, it was HOAs. Understanding that even though we don't want CSAs added anymore. There are annexations that need to occur that make sense so that a community is being treated the same. I'm using Ridgemark as an example. I have several Ridgemark residents that have concerns because of their HOA structure, their CSA structure, their CFD structure, and then you add Promontory on top of it for the, I'm not going to say the GHAD, GAD. GAD. I always pronounce it wrong. I don't say GAD. I say something wrong. So I just want in this workshop to understand we need the education of understanding why Prop 218 elections have to occur and why did they stop? that we cannot give funds from the general fund to CSAs. That is an in-kind gift of funds. We have to get our CSAs to understand what is a CSA, why is it there, and that agreement was prior to us being on the board and those residents bought homes that they have to understand what that means and why the CFD restructuring of the fee if that means we have to do a whole new study and then adopt a whole new CFD to be able to get our rates up that's what we need to do and that education needs to happen so I am very supportive of this workshop but making sure that the focus is making sure that number one, CSAs are not on the dime of the county and that they understand any money that's coming out of the general fund to subsidize them has to be paid back. Over time, however, it's not a pretty topic. I've sat with property owners. I know it's tough. But also we have CSAs that have decided that they're not paying anymore. So then we need to have a way, this is all part of also CSAs are part of the LAFCO process. So LAFCO needs to be included in the conversation. They should be doing municipal service reviews. They should be the ones that are actually informing and negotiating with those residents We need better coordination and communication with our residents, and I don't mean to harp on it, but it is a major issue in District 4.

Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. County Council, did you have anything to add?

Yes. Mr. Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors, you are absolutely correct in everything that you are saying. I dealt with this when I was the Riverside County Council, and One of the issues that we dealt with was trying to ensure that the monies available in each CSA were sufficient to pay for the county services. And if the CSA could not continue to fund certain services or enhanced services, then we simply had to reduce services to meet the actual funds that are available in the CSA. So we never put ourselves in a position where the general fund was subsidizing a CSA. So for example, in one CSA, when it was initially formed and the monies that were assessed were sufficient for a certain level of sheriff's patrol. But over time, without having increased the special tax, then the county had to reduce services to meet the available funds. And so I think that's the other side of this, is that we need to ensure that we're only providing services that can be funded by the CSA. So I think that's part of the workshop discussion, is how do we ensure that the CSAs are only receiving the services for which the funds are available? Now, if a CSA of course wants enhanced services, they're free to then agree to tax themselves at a higher rate in order to pay for those enhanced services. And I think that's part of the discussion that needs to be had.

Thank you.

And I completely agree. I want to also make sure that it's understood that if a Prop 218 does not increase the fees, that education and information and feedback from those CSAs has to be heard about what services are being removed. Because several of our CSAs are now unable to, they don't either have an HOA So they have to be educated on could an HOA take over some of those services that they are not paying? But also understanding in the LAFCO process, these CSAs are special districts. And when a special district is formed, they can't just be unformed. There's a process. So including the LAFCO executive director in that conversation, because I think that will help also. But making sure the public has information a say in what services are not going to be fulfilled because of the lack of funds. Thank you.

Thank you. If there's no other questions, we'll separate these out and start going through. Okay, so then with item 1.37, do we have public comment on that item specifically?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press start under the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Great. Is there a motion for item 1.37?

I'll move to approve.

Is there a second? Second. Great. Can we have roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes.

Great. Moving to 1.38. Do we have any public comment?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card. On Zoom, please press star 9 and the raise hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Okay, thank you. Is there a motion for 1.38? I move to approve. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, we have roll call vote, please.

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes.

Okay, thank you very much. That would conclude consent agenda. Now, before going to public hearing, we did want to hear the regular agenda item 3.4, since that's a time issue. So we're going to jump to 3.4, and then we can take a break and do public hearing and all that. So moving to regular item 3.4. This is the letter of support for the submission of a non-binding pre-application for the proposed Maple Street Heat Resilience and Community Resource Hub at the Youth Alliance Facility. staff to present this at all?

Yes, the request is from a non-profit organization, the San Benito Foundation, to apply for a resilience grant to combine efforts with the County Office of Emergency Services in case of emergencies, but also to potentially have a location identifying projects with locations for cooling centers or warming centers. And so we had a conference call about the projects that they're expecting to have in the future. They need to submit a pre-application. This is not the final application. This is a pre-application. And the pre-application is meant to be a stronger application if a government agency will come together with them with a supportive letter, letter of support. So today we have a letter of support, a non-binding letter of support for them to submit a grant application. And if the application becomes successful, then they'll come back to the board of supervisors requesting whether the county wants to be a co-applicant or wants to be a sub-recipient. My opinion, and this is just my manager, as a CEO is to be a sub-recipient, support the nonprofit organization and the Air Force because we want to work as a team with the community, but also to be careful about the commitments that we made in the future considering the financial situation that the county is in today.

Thank you. Let's get a public comment on this item.

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Thank you. Is there any questions or comments from board members on this item?

I just want to say thank you to the groups that have come together and put this grant request together. I think they're really trying to make sure that our community is in a good place. If there are emergencies, there's heat, extreme heat, flooding, all sorts of things. I know they're looking at workforce development. So I appreciate their leadership. I appreciate them coming together. I appreciate them reaching out to the county and asking us to be a part. And I really appreciate the CEO working really hard. It was very last minute. But I think we don't want to lose opportunities like this. And so I appreciate the, you know, your cooperativeness and help on this item. So if there's nothing, I will move to approve.

Second. I'll second. Thank you. We have a first and a second. Can we have a roll call vote on this item, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes.

Great, thank you very much. So we would next move to public hearing. Do we need a five minute break for staff and supervisors or do you want to keep? Yes, we'll take a five minute short break and then we'll move to public hearing, thank you. okay we are back from our break we're gonna move into the public hearing items i'll start with item 2.1 this is uh going to be a public hearing regarding uh county service areas numbers it's on the agenda there's basically almost all of them uh so csa's and cfds i think we have we'll open the public hearing we have a presentation from our csa coordinator i believe okay

Hi, good morning. Good morning, Chair, Board, and members of the public. My name is Linda Young, the CSA Coordinator with the Public Works Department. I am here to present the annual tax levy fees and special taxes for the Prop 218 CSAs and the CFDs. On this slide, you'll see a brief map with all the highlighted areas of the different CSAs and CFDs throughout the county. And this is the presentation overview. So the annual public hearing and tax levy resolutions are required to authorize the annual placement of CSA assessments and CFD special taxes on the county property tax rule, ensuring funding for approved services while providing property owners an opportunity for public review and comment. CSA annual tax levy fees. The county currently has 32 total CSAs with 23 currently being active. Annual tax levy only applies to those CSAs subject to the Prop 218 requirement. This year, there are four CSAs that will receive the consumer price index adjustment of the 1.54%. All other CSA tax levy fees will remain unchanged because they are either at their maximum authorized rate or the current fees are sufficient to fund the required services. The four CSAs highlighted are CSA 21 Long Acres, CSA 24 Santa Ana, CSA 42 Lemon Acres, and CSA 50 Dunnville. so no changes will be made to the other ones because they do have sufficient funds to continue to receive the required benefits the other reason why we want to increase the tax rates for these few four are to be able to increase their revenue funds so that we can start planning for a capital improvement project in the near future The CFD annual tax levy fees will be adjusted in accordance with the approved rate and method of apportionment. CFD 2015, which is also known as Santana Ranch, is based on an annual adjustment where the CFD is, is our annual adjustment. This fiscal year's current rate is 2.18%. The quick summary of Santana Ranch, there is a total of 1,092 parcels approved for development. They are currently at 858. Out of the 858, there are 722 single-family homes and 136 multifamily units. CFD 2018, also known as residential services, and also is the CFD where all the annexations take place under. The annual CPI rate for CFD 2018 occurs in the year ending in April. So their CPI rate for this year is 3.80. There has been a total of 26 completed annexations into the CFD. Three original CFDs and seven annexations are currently being taxed. That's it.

Thank you. Thank you. Do we have any comments from the public on this public hearing item?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card. On Zoom, please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Thank you. We'll be back to the board.

I'm not going to reiterate what we already talked about, but what I want to make sure we understand is these public hearings are required to be able to do this, but I still think we have more to address and we need to engage in the residents. Public hearings, this is a prime example of a meeting that could be held at night that could get more participation. So just food for thought, if this could be a workshop that we could have. And diving more into our we covering the actual resident's understanding of what the services are, not just the bare minimum. Those are my only comments.

Thank you. CEO?

Just for clarification, would you like this workshop to be in the afternoon then?

Just asking questions. Let's work on that. We can discuss that, I think, at another time right now, yeah. Okay, thank you. We'll deal with this first. Any other comments you guys have? Mickey, did you have?

Yeah, I do. Thank you for the presentation. So, can you clarify why certain CSAs have such widely varying CPI numbers attached to them? Because I think that when you look at it just on paper, it doesn't seem logical that you'd have 1.54% for certain CSAs, and then the CFD is 3.8%, which actually seems more in line with probably what inflation is closer to.

So it all depends on the development agreement. So CSAs, when they were created, It's based on the fiscal year CPI calculations, which comes out to 151.54%. CFD 2018 is based on the annual CPI rate. So if you go to the consumer price index page, you have all the different rates. I have to go based on the annual. where CFD 2018, I go based on the year ending in April. So I take the numbers from April, and then I do the calculation for the CPI rate. So they're all different numbers that we're all basing it on, and it all depends, goes back on all the development documents.

It just doesn't seem possible to me that you could have, and I'm not questioning your analysis, but I just, something is off here, whether it's the development agreement or whether it's the data, I go to the store and I know 1.5% is not accurate. So for any period of time, for the fiscal year, the calendar year, 1.54%, I don't know where that could even come from. Again, it just seems off to me. And I think any normal person that would look at this would question, how could a CPI be 1.54? And then I would wonder on The other CSAs, the majority of CSAs, when we're not increasing at all, just because we have funds doesn't mean we don't have costs that aren't necessarily being... I just... Maybe this needs to be a step back sort of thing because... You know, correct me if I'm wrong, but the sheriff's, you know, costs, fire costs, these major costs are incorporated into... CFDs only. Not CSAs then.

Not CSAs.

So when the sheriff responds to a CSA, there's no... That's not incorporated into that. Okay.

Which is one of the main reasons why CFDs with the transition to CFDs. Okay.

Yeah, that's a big law that I don't know if it's at all possible to address. But I just still, you know, even putting that aside, the public safety cost was just sort of an exaggerated example. I just don't see how we can have no change to the CSAs, brunt of the CSAs, when we know there are issues that maybe aren't being addressed. And then Santana Ranch, even at 2.18%, seems a bit low as well. Um, I hear a lot and I'm not even in that district, but I hear a lot about issues that come up in Santana ranch area. Um, maybe chair Zanger can share more about that when it comes to him, but, and I've brought up the park. Um, I was at the park, uh, and maybe that's not incorporated somehow into the CFD, but you know, I was at the park with my kid at few weeks ago and the grass was brown um so it's not being watered all summer so you know some yeah 2.8 2.18 in in today's world just seems low that's all thank you

Can I just piggyback on Supervisor Kosmicki? I think you nailed it with these development agreements. I think that's another topic. We had brought this topic up two years ago about development agreements that are not benefiting the actual residents and the community long-term. So I know some of these issues that we have right now, we can't retroactively go back and fix. But what we can do is set standards on our development agreement where we won't have this problem moving forward. So I'd really like that topic to be brought back because it's a topic that we, and also how does negotiations of development agreements occur? The rules behind that, giving all of that is the foundation of where we get into these problems. But at the same time, is it true? And tell me, counsel, if I'm completely wrong or CEO, we have to adopt these fees, even though we may not have the power right now to increase them beyond what the calculations are. Because if we don't adopt the fees, they won't go on the tax rolls. If they're not on the tax rolls, they won't be in the tax bills. They're not collected. So even though we may not like where we're at, We need to be looking at where we're going to be in the future and negotiating with residents of what those changes could be. I just want to make sure that it's understood. Putting a pause on this means we're putting a pause on being able to increase anything for this next tax round. This will at least give us something instead of nothing. Am I right or wrong? Sorry.

Honorable Chair and members of the Board of Supervisors, you are absolutely correct.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So what we're going to do during the workshop, we're going to go through each one of those CFDs and CSAs. And what Linda mentioned today about the different rates, what we can do is the exercise of determining how the perceptions are calculated in presence and the blackboard or whiteboard in this case so that everybody has a better understanding of how it's calculated. And so, yes, we have to approve it. You are required to approve it today because otherwise we will not be able to collect those. But also be aware that if any changes need to be made in the future, we can do it in the next year with a full understanding of how it works for each one of those CFDs and CSAs. After the workshops, we will be able to put it together enough. whiteboard and understanding completely and then fix them if it's necessary.

Thank you.

I understand that and I think we're put in a tough spot here, frankly. But as far as Santana Ranch and the 2.18%, that one was calculated based on, did you say that one was calculated based on the calendar year or the fiscal year?

Calendar.

calendar year yeah and the and the cf and the cfd percentage was also i guess it was ending in april in april for 2018 safety 2018 ends in april so you take the numbers from april where uh santana ranch or cfd 2015 it's based on the year the cpi is that just a three month difference that i'm hearing that the cpi fluctuated that much between the 3.8? No.

So I would take 2016's CPI rate in April, and 2026, and then 2025's. So what I have to do is I have to take 2026 CP, or yeah, the rate, minus 2025's divided by 2025's, multiply it by 100, and you get the rate.

Well, we need to fix these things. I think the way that you just explained is not your fault at all, Linda. But these issues need to be addressed because this is a flawed system, very clearly, just based on the sentence that just came out of your mouth that nobody understands. And it's not your fault at all. It's the way this was set up was there are some flaws here that are very significant. So thank you.

Yeah. I would agree. I think we have recognized that there's issues with our CSA process. So we're willing to address that. I'm looking forward to our discussions, our workshop on that. Because Mickey brought up the park at Santana Ranch. I've heard a lot about the park. I have gone to the park several times to see the issues there. I don't need to rehash the whole thing now, but there has been a problem with the contractors and it was addressed and now we're in the process of rectifying what was going wrong with the contractors over there at the park. So things are on the come up when it comes to the park over there and not just the park, but a lot of Santana Ranch, the walking trails in general. There was a lot of neglect and issues going on, but there's been some restructuring over there. So things will be improving shortly. It's for everyone's information. ANY OTHER COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS FROM THE BOARD? IF NOT, CURRENT MOTION.

I'LL MOVE TO APPROVE. SECOND.

WE HAVE A FIRST AND A SECOND. CAN WE HAVE ROLL CALL VOTE, PLEASE?

SUPERVISOR ZANGER?

YES.

SUPERVISOR KOZMICKI?

YES.

SUPERVISOR CITELLO? YES. SUPERVISOR CURRO?

YES.

4-0 VOTE. MOTION PASSES. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU. MOVING ON TO This is our Ag Commissioner has a presentation for us here. This is the public hearing for the mosquito and disease control assessment from Mr. Griffin.

Yeah, good morning, Mr. Chair. I don't have a presentation. Perfect. Mr. Chair, Board of Supervisors, public, welcome. The item before you today is we're holding this public hearing in regard to adopting the resolution to approve the annual engineer's report and to continue the assessment to levy at a rate of $15.78 per ADM. uh that rate we recommend not changing for this year or raising it and then it would authorize the chair to sign uh the resolution thank you uh we will open public hearing do we have any comments in the public if you'd like to make a comment in chambers please provide a speaker card on zoom please press star 9 or the raised hand icon

And I have no public comment.

Okay. Any questions, board members? If not, we'll take a motion. Move to approve. I'll second. We're first and a second. Can we have roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curl?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes. Great.

Thank you. Thank you. Item 2.3 is a public works to accept public input and testimony regarding the proposed annual adjustment to the maximum allowable solid waste collection rates effective July 1st, 2026.

Good morning, Chair Zanger and supervisors. This hearing is being held in accordance with Prop 218 regarding the proposed solid waste service rates. The exclusive solid waste franchise agreement, specifically Article 9 in Attachment E, Contractors' Compensation and Rate Setting, establishes the contractual process for calculating the annual solid waste service rates. Based on that process, the proposed increase for this year is approximately 0.5% overall. Notice of the proposed rates in the Prop 218 protest process was provided to affected customers in accordance with the applicable requirements. The purpose of this morning's hearing is to receive public comments, announce the results of the written protest process, and if a majority protest has not been received, consider adoption of the proposed rates. At this time, I'd recommend that the chair open up the public hearing to receive public testimony. Thank you.

Okay. So open the public hearing to receive public testimony.

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Okay. Thank you. Do you have anything else? Okay. Any questions from? Yes.

Did we receive any letters protesting? I'm just curious how many we received.

We received 90 protests.

Nine?

90. 90.

Okay. Thank you.

And just for clarity, you said 0.5%, correct?

Correct.

Not 5%. Oh, did I say 5%? No, no, you didn't. I just want to make it clear for the record, 0.5%. 0.5%. Increase.

Okay. Yes. Yes.

And we know in the future, because of our landfill situation, which will be a future topic for the board, this is nothing compared to what we may be seeing in the future. I just want to make that comment.

Okay. Is there a motion on this item?

Do we have one?

I'll move to approve. The first. Is there a second?

I'll second.

Thank you. We have a first and a second. Can we have roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kazimicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote. Motion passes.

OK, great. Thank you very much. That brings us to our regular agenda, item 3.1. So there's several different actions we need to take within this item. First would be to open the nomination and conduct an election for vice chair of the Board of Supervisors for the remainder of 2026. Now with this item, I have a question procedurally in terms of public comment. Do we take public comment on altogether, everything within this right now and then we'll move from there? Okay, then we'll start with public comment on item 3.1 if there's any comment on this item.

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card. On Zoom, please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Okay, no public comment. And we'll start with the first item of 3.1 for the open nomination and for the vice chair of the Board of Supervisors. So with that, is there any nominations for vice chair of the Board of Supervisors for the remainder of 2026? Mr. Chair, I'd like to nominate Supervisor Sotelo. Okay, we have a first. I'd like to second it. Great, we have a first and a second. Can we have a roll call vote on that, please?

Supervisor Zinger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelova? Yes. Supervisor Carro?

Yes.

4-0 vote, motion passes.

All right, we have a new vice chair. Great. I don't think you need to move or anything, right? You're good over, yeah, we don't.

Do I need to move?

No, I don't think so, right?

I'm okay, or should I move?

At least be next to the chair.

Oh, I guess you do need to move. Okay, so swap around, I guess. We'll do it when we do closed session. We'll do it after the break, yeah. Perfect.

Mr. Chair? Yes. Can I just thank the board? I feel that our community is divided enough. Showing unity in our roles as leaders is really important. And I am grateful for how, even though we've had some technical difficulty, how well this meeting is going for how large the agenda is. And I just wanted to say thank you because this does display to the community that we are trying to really come together. So thank you so much.

Great. Okay. Moving on to item two within this item. This is for the appointments that are now vacant due to Supervisor Velazquez's absence.

So we have several we need to fill.

I have created a short list we can talk about, but I have some recommendations for how we would fill all of these vacancies. So I will go through that right now. First, AMBAG alternate we need to fill. I would recommend SeaRiser Kuro. Sorry, I mixed a couple of these up in that case. Sorry, redo that. I've made a mistake there. Then the AMBAG alternate would be myself. In this case, I'd recommend myself as the alternate for AMBAG. The COG position, I would recommend, being the current alternate, I recommend myself to step into the position and appoint Supervisor Sotelo as the new alternate. Fire Protection Committee, I'm the current alternate on that already, so I would recommend I step up as the member and Supervisor Curro as the new alternate. LAFCO alternate, I recommend Supervisor Sotelo to fill that. Governance, I recommend Supervisor Curro, I know she sat on it prior. The housing policy reform ad hoc, I'd recommend Supervisor Kozmicki take that spot. The affordable housing ad hoc, I'd recommend Supervisor Kozmicki just in theme of the housing. The library ad hoc, I believe my note was Supervisor Sotelo to fill this spot. And the last one would be the roads ad hoc. And at this point, my recommendation would actually be to eliminate this, or it's actually Rhodes Committee, but eliminate this Rhodes Committee and just go to the updates at the board level as opposed to filling the seat. So those would be my recommendations. Is there any comments, questions about, yes.

Thank you. Thank you. It looks like you gave a lot of thought to this, and I really appreciate all of the thought and consideration with this. My only comment on it would be, and I know it's just an alternate position, but with LAFCO, I really don't have any experience with LAFCO, and I know Supervisor Currow sat on it before, was the chair before, is much more well-versed in the LAFCO world than I am. It's the alternate position, but if it's okay with you, I would rather give that position to her if it's okay with you. If not, I'm willing to learn, but I just thought for purposes of that, but up to you.

Yeah, that's fine with me. If that's Sufraza Kuro.

Thank you for that. It's totally up to the chair, whatever he would like. It's totally up to you.

Well, I appreciate that, but it's going to be a vote either way. So we're going to need to agree either way, but I don't have an issue with that. Mr. Chair, I would support that. I think it makes sense. It's fine. It's perfect with me. Any other questions or comments on that? Yes.

I just have one comment, and it's a conversation that I just happened to have yesterday about the roads committee and some things that my constituents have been asking of me. And I mentioned to the CEO yesterday that I am trying to put together an advisory group from my district because South County Roads, being able to have more – I've been inundated with images of the roads from my constituents, with feedback from my constituents. And I'm trying to consolidate that together. But I'd really like to maybe have a conversation about how we could have district kind of advisory groups, whether it is roads or projects. I'm not sure how this could play out. I know the CEO had some suggestions. I just think it just being at the board level is not enough. And if the board doesn't want to do this, that's totally fine. I plan to have an advisory group within mine. It has no weight. It's just them bringing information forward that I would then be sharing at the board level.

So one of my recommendations after hearing her supervisor's concerns is maybe to create a small advisory committees into each one of the districts And it's made up of community members that live in that specific district. They have connections with the residents and somehow get all the information together and have meetings within once every three months on a quarterly basis to listen to the constituents' concerns through that little advisory committee. And so instead of the board receiving all those, have like a small meeting in the afternoons with that specific group to listen to the comments from the community and then bring it back to the board as a whole to start adopting new ideas and new projects that alleviates the issues that the community members have. I had that experience before and it actually works very well, but it's up to the board to decide whether or not they want to have those advisory committees at the district level. On the other hand too, I would like to request that the AHA Committee for Roads remain because we have several issues and with the upcoming budget and the upcoming grants that we have on the table, I would like to consider to continue having an AHA Committee for Roads. It was very helpful last year to have one so that we were able to move forward with the projects. So I would highly recommend to keep it perhaps for the next quarter because there's funding coming, about $20 million of funding coming our ways. And it will require a lot of feedback and assistance from the perspective of the board as a whole and then coming back to the board.

Okay. Thank you. Supervisor Kosmicki, do you have a comment?

I appreciate what you're saying as far as looking at it from an efficiency standpoint. But I also will say, I think I'm going to respectfully disagree because I just don't think we want to have any even perceptions that certain districts or certain supervisors are sort of, you know, influencing the roads direction more than others, because it is, you know, obviously I talked about that echelon of priorities and roads is always gonna be in there. And I just would rather, to me, I think this would warrant us holding special meetings bringing the public out from all the districts um and maybe you know to me this is you know right in line with that um evening theme as well where you know i think we have to i think we just have to at some point here relatively soon have some sort of uh evening special meeting and then i just i don't have a problem holding special meetings when they when they're warranted with these these well really ever to be honest we can hold them every day if you want. But I just think this rises to that level where you have the notice requirements for special meetings that aren't as stringent, and we can invite the public out if it's urgent. But if it's not as urgent, we can give that notice a week in advance or two or three weeks in advance and just say, hey, we're going to come on out, share. Because if you have an advisory, and I have no problem doing the advisory committee, I think that would be another layer that would be great. But I also will say if you have, for instance, five people on an advisory committee or seven or nine or three, you're still going to be missing. I get calls and texts just like everybody from roads that aren't necessarily going to be on the radar for that specific group of people. So I could give examples like Rose Avenue in Aromas. It's one of those smaller residential streets that's in horrible shape. And I get a lot of concerns about it. But we also have 250 other roads in the county. There are so many. I just would be concerned that you have just a limited scope if it's just an advisory committee. I would like to see us have larger conversations with the public as a whole and invite them out during times that are more convenient.

Thank you. Okay. Any thoughts from the rest of the board on this Rhodes committee, how we want to go about this?

I'm curious. I feel like we're kind of going off agenda a little bit with it in that I get the whole keep it, don't keep it as the appointment. But as part of this larger conversation, I almost feel like maybe if we could bring back something as a future agenda item that we could really look at what exactly we're talking about and how this fits into kind of the bigger picture and the larger conversations and workshops, etc.,

And maybe I'll bring up with some recommendations for the future, some options for the board to approve. Okay, thanks.

Okay.

I have no problem dissolving the roads committee.

Okay. Okay, so then we heard the recommendations. Is there a motion to approve these recommendations with the... correction made by Supervisor, or the change that was recommended by Supervisor Sotelo for LAFCO?

I'll move to approve.

Is there a second? Second. Okay, great. We're in the first and the second on the appointments. Can we have a roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Curro?

Yes.

4-0 vote motion passes.

Okay, great. Now part three of this item is to authorize the chair to sign and send a letter to the governor's appointment secretary advising them of the vacancy and requesting that the governor make an appointment. Is there any questions or discussion on this? Yes.

I'm just curious why there is no attachment of the letter and is the code section that's cited, is it required that we ask for an appointment or is it an option for the board? Is it just a notification to the governor? I don't know.

Honorable Chair, members, support supervisors. Yes, it is a notification to the governor that there is a vacancy. And in doing so, we also must advise his appointment secretary as to the remainder of the term, but more importantly, when is the next general election to fill the vacancy? And so the letter will also advise that We have individuals who qualified for the ballot and that the election will occur in November to fill the seat. So the governor then understands the period in which the appointment would serve should the governor wish to appoint.

So in the letter, because it's specifically since I don't know, I don't have a copy of the letter of the notifying them of the vacancy and requesting the governor to make an appointment. Are we required to make that recommendation as the board because that's the way the code is? Or is it that we say we're notifying the governor and that we are the next general election is is an election to fill the vacancy? We are not. asking for an action are we asking for an action and legally required to ask for an action or are we not no it would be the latter that we would be notifying the governor's appointment secretary of the vacancy and when the next general election will be to fill the vacancy okay i just want that for the record because it specifically states in the agenda item staff recommendations that we are requesting that the governor make an appointment

right that's correct it it's up to the board to decide whether or not you want to make the formal request but at a minimum the letter will have to notify them of the vacancy and the next general election to fill the vacancies thank you for the clarification mr chair

Yeah, I just, you know, considering the timeline here, and we've been through this before, how long it takes to go through applications. There's an application process. There's a review process. Taking all the politics outside of this, just looking at it logically, if somebody was to be appointed, it probably would not happen until... maybe October, probably not even October. The person who wins in November will take the seat immediately, so there isn't even that lag into January. I would rather not request. I personally don't like the idea of if we don't have to, or if there isn't a reason to, to have the governor appoint a county supervisor on the record. Be very clear about that. If there was a longer timeframe where there would be potential issues, um then then you we would have no choice but in this case it's just illogical so i don't want to have language in there that says we're requesting an appointment when just logically speaking there probably won't be an appointment before november and if there is it would probably be in october and then they're going through hr process getting up the speed maybe having one meeting it just doesn't really make any sense thank you

I would agree. And I think there's agreement here on that. So, make that.

Yes. Mr. Chair, members of the Board of Supervisors, I will ensure that the letter so reflects the Board's direction. Thank you.

Thank you. In that case, is there a motion to send this letter with that caveat? So moved. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay, we have a first and a second. Can we have a roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Kosmicki?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Kerr?

Yes.

4-0 vote, motion passes.

Great, thank you very much. Moving to item 3.2, introduce an ordinance title, an ordinance of the Samuel County Board of Supervisors amending Article V of Chapter 5.03 of Title V of the Samuel County Code to implement the voter-approved amendment to the Cannabis Business Activities Tax, et cetera. Thank you.

Good morning. Mr. chair and honorable members of the board of supervisors. I'm Rebecca Mojica, assistant county council, and before you today is an ordinance to adopt the voter approved initiative, which was measure D passed by the voters this June to update the applicable rate. range that the board may adopt for cannabis business activity. And the range available is from $1,000 to $10,000 as approved by the voters. I'm also here seeking direction from the board to, sorry to clarify, this codifies that amendment into our code. And then second, I'm also coming before the board to request direction on the rate that we would like or you would like to implement within that range. So at the next meeting, when we come back for adoption, we also come back with that resolution to set the rate. And as reflected in Abraham's presentation for the budget back in June, the rates, sorry, the acreage currently approved by the county is just under 900 acres with just under 800 actually also having the state approval. So about 100 acres are pending state approval and there's an additional 50 acres or so that are pending an application before the county. At 1,000 acres allowed, which is the maximum for 2026, the rate being 1,000 per acre would have a maximum income to the county of $1 million, up to the $10,000 per acre would have $10 million. And if you guys have any questions on the rates within those, I'm happy to share them. But that is what is before you for consideration today.

Thank you. Do we have public comment on this item?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Now we're going to have a discussion of what we want to do with this. Does any supervisor want to start? Yes.

I really think this is a more in-depth conversation that we need to include the growers with the conversation. I know it's agendized, but I think that we need to actually really understand a little bit more about, you know, if we set a rate, I'm not from this industry. I don't know anything about it. If we set a rate that's too high. where it brings in nothing, if we set it too low and we're being taken advantage of. I mean, I really think we need to have a more in-depth conversation, whether that's a special meeting or I'm open to any suggestions.

I'll just say that the, I appreciate that. The conversations that we did have prior to this, myself and Supervisor Kosmicki, we met with the growers here and we had some discussion about it. I'm open to furthering that as a board, but just my two cents from that discussion. I was going to recommend the rate of 2,500 after discussion with the growers. This seemed like something that would work basically for everyone involved. This would work for the county, this would work for them. It gives us room to go up, go down. It was not cost prohibitive for them in terms of what they, the feedback that we got. And so that would be my recommendation. That wasn't gonna be my recommendation, but I'm open to extending this process if we want. The only thing is we wanna try to bring in this revenue as soon as we can. So I don't know how long we wanna draw this out is the only thing I would bring up. Speaker Kazimicki, did you have anything to add from that discussion?

Yeah, it looks like, Rebecca, you maybe, is there, do you want to add on as far as implications?

Just to clarify on the time frame, so it comes back next meeting for the second reading of the ordinance, and we can have this conversation continue then if we don't want a final resolution. And while the ordinance has a 30-day period before it goes into effect, the resolution can go into effect at that time. So even if it came at a later meeting for further consideration and discussion, that would still follow the same time frame before the board.

okay yeah um yeah no i'm really surprised there's no public comment to be honest um whether it's the growers or others um maybe i'm just not sure what happened there because i i think they were i think they were aware that this was coming yes i can tell you that um you know we during the course of those discussions the 1 000 to 10 000 the 10 000 was meant we didn't want to have to come back you know, for a very long time. So I don't think there was an expectation that this number was going to be close to that. It was the sort of the principle here was to provide a range where you have a starting point that gives you room either way. But the 10,000 is meant as a long-term runway. And the 1,000, I think, was just in the event of if there was some sort of catastrophic downfall in the industry, it would provide us enough wiggle room to get it to a point where we can keep these operations going and generate revenue. I think either way, you're picking a number. I know 2,000 is something that you know, they were certainly comfortable with. Now, these are folks like anybody in business that are trying to make as much profit as possible. So I wouldn't necessarily want to start at 2000. I think don't have strong feelings but i think 2500 sounds about right that would create uh essentially you know roughly two and a half million dollars minus whatever level of costs would be incorporated into that um formula there's some gray area there but that would immediately create 2.5 million dollars in revenue that would escalate over the next two years. If these operations do stay up and running, that would that would basically double in the next couple of years because that thousand acre cap is moving to two thousand acres. So if we start at a thousand acres and and twenty five hundred dollars per acre, obviously the math is two and a half million and then eventually five million. And it would just give us an opportunity to to just survey the landscape. I'm not stuck on it. My biggest concern with delays is that is that delaying anything as far as the revenue? If we pick a number today, we can always make the adjustment and give it some time for further analysis, market analysis from whomever would be assigned to that. But I don't feel like the growers would, based on conversations we had with them, I don't feel like 2,500 would be prohibitive. That's about it. Thank you. Mr. Kuro, you had.

I, because we definitely want this to move forward quickly. I do not want to cause more work. I, because the recommendation is 2,500, I have no problem moving forward with that with the understanding that I will be reaching out to the growers to have a conversation when I'm one. and that I will be encouraging them to come to the next hearing and make comment about how they feel about it. And I will do my own research on how that might work. It's in the ballpark of where I thought it was going to land. So I just want to make sure I understand, are we getting the best that we possibly can in this revenue source? So with that said, unless there's other comments,

So I agree wholeheartedly that I would like a little bit more time. I'm not sure that 2,500, I guess I was hoping for a little bit more, but I definitely don't want to create a situation of what we've had existing. Right. But I would like time to do a little bit more research on this, have more conversations. So I would rather. I feel like if we set 2,500 today, you're not gonna get them to come and be like, well, we could have, yeah, I can do 3,000, right? I'd like to meet, you know, I'd like to have conversations with the sheriff. What does he think this is going to do to his budget? What are the other departments that are going to be affected? How much do we think it's going to cost? we have to make sure that we cover our costs, right? And so I just feel like there's a little bit more research that we need to do before we can come up with a number. Maybe, you know, a million dollars covers what our cost would be. And then, okay, anything over that, we charge $2,500 and you're at close to $2 million. We don't have a thousand acres quite yet. And even if if there's a thousand acres that are grown. There's so many questions I have with the way that this is going to work because somebody, they get their permit for let's say 200 acres, but they're going to phase in. So even though we can max at a thousand this year, from the way that I understand it, they maybe are only gonna grow 50 acres this year. So I think there's a lot of information and data that we really need to be careful and look at. And I feel like I'm comfortable with the rate range that we have of 1,000 to 10,000 and going ahead and adopting, you know, hearing, doing what we need for this first hearing and going to the second hearing. But I really would be very, very careful today making that recommended rate only because I think there's just a lot more information that we need or at least I need to get for myself to feel comfortable. And right now I don't feel comfortable with any number. So thank you.

Mr. Chair? Mm-hmm. What if we, so if we don't move forward with a number today with the notion that that number can be adjusted when we come back, that would essentially put us back by?

No time at all. No time, okay. So before you are two different pieces of this. There's the ordinance that's updating our code. Today is the first introduction and at the next meeting we'll come back for adoption. Thirty days after adoption is when our ordinance is updated. the resolution on the other hand can be brought immediately so if we bring that at the next meeting or the following meeting our ordinance will still not yet be in effect so because the resolution goes into effect immediately that rate by the supervisors within that range will be set at that time but we wouldn't have a resolution with an actual number on it though right that that's if we don't actually move forward with a recommended number today when you bring forward back a resolution

in a month or two weeks, it wouldn't have any number attached to it. Are you saying that we could just go into that meeting from a county council standpoint? We could go into that meeting and essentially say, oh, well, in further review, it's 2,500 or it's 3,000. Are you saying that we could do that at the next gathering?

Yes. We can have it as a ready to go and authorize the board to whatever number we fill in there, authorize him to verify that that number has been updated. It reflects the board's direction and he can sign that resolution following the meeting with that additional number, monetary amount specified.

Okay. In that case, makes perfect sense what Supervisor Sotelo is saying. To bring it back with an understanding, we're kind of in this ballpark range area. Hearing from, I think we have to make sure that we do some firm communication with the stakeholders to make sure they're here and get out the word on

Wherever our channels are to you know, the broader public as well that if there are people that are concerned about too high or too low To come on out and share your views yes, I Completely agree and I appreciate the the understanding that we're still moving forward The resolution is going to be the one that sets the rate with that said clarification because When is the money collected? Is it clearly defined? Is it at the time the permit is being pulled or when the crop is being harvested? And if the crop is not successful, do we not get the tax? I'm still confused about when do we see, how does it get collected at what point in time? And is that part of what the actual ballot measure was or is that part of what we said in the resolution?

So back in the 2018 action, when this first came forward, that was set and it's a quarterly collection is my understanding, is my recollection. And that was not changed by this most recent ordinance and it is not changed by the resolution.

Okay, so it's a quarterly collection, regardless if they have a successful crop or not. That I would need to clarify because if it's based on the amounts recovered, I need to get- I just wanna make sure that we know when we're doing the estimates on the revenue, we understand completely where it's coming from. And then also with Supervisor Sotelo's concerns about the impacts from departments and safety. So I appreciate moving forward with the understanding that the resolution will follow with a number.

And to clarify that those numbers brought by Abraham and mentioned today are based on the maximum potential at full capacity. So that's if they were recovering and growing at the full amount. But like Supervisor Sotelo mentioned, there are some instances where they may get permitted for a larger amount by the county and then either a smaller portion by the state or with a plan to phase into that full property or permit.

Mr. Chair, just one last thing. And that's a very good point by Supervisor Curl. I just want to make sure that We're not like, we're not by delaying this by even a couple of weeks or a month, because I don't know the exact, I think they're in the middle of their growing season, but we're not necessarily foregoing a big chunk of money or something. That's.

No, this is continuing on the same timeframe, even if the resolution isn't brought until the next meeting or the following meeting, because the ordinance isn't in effect. All right, great.

Thank you. Okay. Okay. Great. Well then do we, we need to make a motion still though on,

to accept the introduction of the first reading, or in waiving first reading.

Okay. Are you comfortable with that? Move to approve as recommended. Is there a second?

Second.

Okay, with first and second, can we have a roll call vote, please?

Supervisor Zenger?

Yes.

Supervisor Sotelo? Yes. Supervisor Kosmicki? Yes. Supervisor Curro? Yes. 4-0 vote. Motion passes. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, thank you. We'll move to 3.3 before we have to go back for a closed session. This is to receive presentation and discuss a policy establishing standards and procedures for issuing proclamations, certificates of recognition, employee service awards, and more.

Good morning Board. Again, this is Vanessa Delgado, Clerk of the Board. So this item comes from a future agenda item request from Supervisor Sotelo regarding procedures for official recognitions. And the goal will be to clarify current practices, identify opportunities to formalize, and improve the process. So the county currently does not have a comprehensive policy governing proclamations, certificates, and other recognitions. So this tends to cause inconsistencies in criteria, approval processes, formatting, and the distinction between board level and individual supervisor actions. A formal policy would ensure transparency, equity, and consistency and how recognitions requests are submitted and approved. A formal policy would also help categorize which recognitions require board action and which can be handled administratively, improving efficiency. The current county policy was created as part of the Board of Supervisors agenda item procedures and deadlines in which board members route their requests through the clerk of the board for board chair approval. A request form for proclamations and certificates of service was created and is used for staff and members of the public to submit a formal request to the clerk of the board and chair for approval. Proclamations and certificates of service are currently placed on the consent agenda under the existing policy. This process reflects current practice, but does not specify who can make the requests, how many can be made, or if individual supervisors can provide their own certificates of recognition. So I reached out to other clerks for counties across the state to be able to review how other counties manage recognition requests. And counties like Siskiyou and Alameda require CAO approval, while counties like San Bernardino, San Diego, Napa, and Monterey require approval from the board chair. Other counties just placed proclamations and recognitions on consent agenda, have pre-approved lists, are part of the agenda, but do not require board action or do not have them on the agenda at all. and limit the amount of recognitions requested by each board member. Another thing to note is that most counties do not have a formal adopted procedure for recognitions. Many of them stated to me that they have just historically done it that way and is common practice in their county. The counties that did have policies, I attached to the item. And although there are many different ways of managing recognitions, it's very valuable to adopt a structured and consistent policy. so this request highlights the need to have a developed and comprehensive policy that should include how requests are made how they are approved when the county seal may be used and what requires board versus individual supervisor approval this procedure should also include guidelines for letters of support outlined what requires board approval versus individual supervisor approval And having a policy will strengthen transparency, protect consistent use of official symbols, and streamline workflows. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Do we have any public comment on this item?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star 9 or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Thank you. All right. Does anyone want to begin a discussion on any ideas, thoughts on this? Or is it Jotello?

I guess I'll start since it was my idea. And Vanessa, I want to say, and Aurelia, thank you both so much for all of your work on this. I appreciate all the counties that you included and kind of how they're doing it. everybody's doing it differently right like so many things I really really like the form that you guys put together I think that makes things a lot clearer and so I would love to see us use that form personally I like the approval having to go through the chair I think it you know nothing I wholeheartedly think you can do it. But I think it's a nice thing that the chair gets to kind of do. And I think sometimes politically, this is where that heat should lie, right? It kind of keeps you a little bit more neutral. So I would prefer that we keep it with the chair approval. I would like to see it that presentations on the agenda are listed under like presentations instead of the consent. I want to give today as kind of an example, we had several people here that we could have done them immediately, got them kind of in and out. And so many of the people that are here to make public comment could have stayed and really heard the presentation to this person and seen them get their honor, sometimes after people give public comment, they're kind of out. And so sometimes when we leave it on consent, I just worry that it's not getting the proper recognition that it should. So I don't know if there's a way for us to put it as a presentation instead of under consent, but I would like to see that. I don't know that I saw some counties where it's like, hey, you have a maximum that you can do. I don't know that I want to put any restraints on any one of us about what you reached your max. I think if the community is reaching out and they have something that they feel is worthy and we're willing to bring that, I think as long as it's brought in a timely manner or we're willing to bring it forward, I'm OK. The approval, again, for me is the the chair, the use of the county seal. I'm okay with, you know, if some of these, it's really hard to get in a timely manner, get them on. I'm okay with us doing individual ones with the seal. But I understand like if some of you are not comfortable with that, I get that. And so I could go either way on that. And the procedures for the letter of support, I do kind of feel like that has to be, a letter of support really needs to be brought to the full board. Unless, I think as an individual supervisor, it's very clear any of us can write a letter of approval for anything as an individual supervisor. But I don't believe any one of us should ever be speaking for the board. And so if they're asking for a letter of support from the board, that has to be brought, that has to almost be agendized. But as a letter of support from an individual supervisor, you're welcome to do that at any time. But you cannot speak on behalf of the board. So those are a few of my initial comments. I may have a few more later. I would love to hear what my colleagues have to say, though. So thank you.

Thank you. Yeah, thank you very much. So I'm in agreement, I think, with everything Supervisor Sotelo said. You know, we try things. There are certain... eras where meetings are more or less efficient. I think we've done a good job as a whole with meeting efficiency. And you have staff members that you don't want to have to have sitting in the audience for four or five hours when there are items. And so there are a lot of complications when meetings are uncertain or people don't know. We try different things. you know to make it more efficient some some things work some things don't um actually you know i think the proclamations and recognitions um i'm perfectly fine with with i think it's a good thing to um to have it as a separate item at this point seeing with this trial and error we've done considering just the consent agenda thing and having to look in the audience and see who's here who's not here um just do it all in one area i think that's very normal um i think as far as employee service awards um you know we could certainly look at we i don't think you brought maybe you didn't bring that part up i didn't i just wrote that down yeah um Yeah, I mean, I think it's good to... I think we do need to do more to recognize our employees. At a certain time, I think we did. We kind of pushed it all into the annual lunch, and then we had budget problems. We didn't even have an annual lunch. So I think it would be nice to have, like, a quarterly sort of thing maybe for employee recognitions. And then... i think i'm missing something else that you mentioned i think that's pretty much the extent as oh as far as um letters of support i think i'm fine with the chair deciding on proclamations if there is something that's quote unquote controversial um then you just bring it then the chair can just say you know that's Because there are issues that are very political that you might have a three to two vote on it, frankly. So if the chair senses this is one of those three to two, four to one type things, let's just bring it to the board so that the entire board doesn't have to necessarily take responsibility for the chair's decision on a political item. And then also with letters. Agreed the use of the county seal. I think the county seal is basically in the public domain anyway, so we can't really say or somebody can or can't use the county seal as long as it's clear that there's a letter from an individual supervisor. So I think you know we've collaborated on letters and that's something in my district or if it's in. So where is anger curls? It should just very clearly say District 2 at the top or kind this and make sure it's clear in the letter that this is from that supervisor not from the board as a whole and i think that would pretty much um resolve that thank you thank you there's a crow

I think you guys both hit on where my concerns were. I would really like an updated letterhead by district so that we have a standard that we adopt because it just will look more professional. I made mine off of what you sent me and in the policy understanding that you have to say you can't use your title vice chair or chair when you're doing an individual support. You are doing it as a district supervisor and that the district is being listed. The seal, I agree. I think it's kind of a public thing. I wouldn't want to regulate the seal. I do agree with having leeway for the chair to make decisions, especially in tight turnarounds where the chair could sign things. a support letter with the understanding that if there is time in the policy that it's always brought before the board so the board can have the conversation just to keep it clean but if there is that matter that we know we need to get a letter signed and the chair needs to get it out right away and we know we all agree on it we we don't need to have a special meeting to be able to do that so um the um service awards we adopted a we did a one-time service award catch-up And then we adopted a policy for service awards. I don't recall how we structured it. There is a policy that we adopted because we did the one time catch up on all the awards. I had to sign them all. It was a bit much, but then there was a policy about how it was gonna be moving forward. I wanna make sure that everyone's aware of that and that we're fulfilling that policy. And if there's a change that needs to come, bring it back to the board for consideration. But besides that, I agree completely with my colleagues.

Yes. Just one more. I just wanted to ask, as our clerk of the board, both Vanessa Aralia and our CEO, even county council, you all go to different trainings. You've been at different counties. If any of you have any recommendations, I don't want to have any unintended consequences of trying something and it's like, been there done that doesn't work so just if there's i just kind of wanted to open up the floor to any of you um if you you know i don't want to make this a lot harder on any of you i think that was part of the idea of bringing this forward is that it gave us all clear direction on what to do um and so is there any recommendations or things that might help or things that you want us to be cautious of or anything like that and this is to all of all four of you

uh thank you vice chair um i think as long as having a clear policy so that we know where everything falls and how it's going to be agendized and everything it would be it's very helpful definitely okay oh um one other quick thing i we we also removed um and i had a brown act concern with the department head presentations but i don't want department heads to necessarily feel like

they can't come to the board because there's a hassle involved. I think we should make it clear to the departments that as long as they, I don't think they should necessarily have to follow the, is it like 30, there's a certain number of days. As long as it's agendized, my only concern with the way it was done in the past is that you would just have department head announcements and there'd be no details. And then the department heads would come up And they would they would go into things that are and it's not their fault. That's just the way we were doing it. They would go into things that were certainly specific in nature that weren't agendized. So I would I would just as just as part of this conversation, I would just, you know, whether it's the CEO, just making it clear to department heads that we're not trying to. diminish your ability to come to the board to share announcements that as long as we can get it to the clerk and it says at least, you know, this is just my opinion. We haven't even had this conversation, but you know, public works wants to update on you know, sewer line issues or something, just something that provides specificity for the public so that it's not just leaving it out there and we can just have any conversation about, anything as long as it falls under department head conversation. Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, Rosie Carl.

Have we considered, and I completely agree about the department head part. I think we need to have that clarified and agendized so that they can just make an announcement. Sometimes announcements are last minute that we're having a whatever, an event or whatever, and they're just wanting to announce it. I think departments need to know that they can make those kind of announcements. But when it comes to the proclamations and certificates, have we considered having a form that's on the website, whether it's from the public that we can point them to or from a board member, that goes into a database so it's just merged into a template that you have preset templates and when you check that it's a proclamation and we enter it into that online form and hit submit, it just makes them for you. You guys don't have to go through this. If we could use IT to set that up, I know it's been done on other things in other departments, it could make your life so much easier. So utilizing the web submission process and it goes through an approval process. So it says, you know, it was approved by the chair or it was approved by however we're going to do this. But then all you have to do is just print just to make your life easier.

We can definitely look into that. So coming from like the request, the proclamations, and then we just...

It would be like a website from our county website that's on the clerk of the boards. And it's a public request. It's a board member request. What are you requesting? Give the types of items that you can have. And then we enter in the names. And we are responsible for making sure that the names are entered correctly. Okay. or the public is responsible. It's just going to take one thing off of you guys. Just a thought.

Can you clarify that last point? Are you requesting that the public makes proclamations or recognitions? I just want to clarify.

No, no. It's just that if there's a public request for a recognition, that it doesn't have to always come through a board member, that if it's a certificate that they're requesting, it has to be approved, of course, I agree by the chair, but they can enter it so that it's not having to be, oh, I have to contact a board member, a board member has to then submit the form. It could just be done directly.

Yes, you're talking about organizations, not public, individual public. Not individual people.

No, no, this would be organizations. This would be departments. This would be, you know, the people that contact us and say, hey, I'm trying to get a certificate of recognition. How do I go about doing that? We could say, hey, you just go right here on this website and enter it in and the chair will approve it and away it goes. Just a thought.

All righty.

Okay. Yes.

Sorry. Do you like the form that is currently on the attached or do you not like it? Is there modifications that you're...

It's not that I don't like the form. It's that the form could be where it's connected and you're entering it not just to have a piece of paper. Got you. That it's going into a database that allows the information to be utilized without being re-entered. I'm just thinking of efficiencies. Okay.

Okay, but having the form, whether it's like Monterey's form or the form that was attached, love the idea of that and getting all that information. I do agree with you. Sometimes letting the requester put in the names... does help because then we don't, I mean, if there's a typo, it's not our fault. Like how often have we given a bunch of certificates and it's like, oh, the name's not right. So I do think that would help and be much more efficient. And then there's less, you know, on you guys.

Can you reprint another certificate?

Okay. I'm good with that. Thank you.

Okay. Okay. Well, I think there's... Oh, County Council, did you have...

Yes. Mr. Chair Merz, Board of Supervisors, based on the comments, it appears that the Board would be willing to create a ceremonial presentation section on the agenda rather than having these items continue to be on the consent calendar, if I'm reading the Board correctly. So what I would suggest then is... the board's meeting rules actually set the schedule or the process by which the board will conduct its meetings and the sequencing. What I'm suggesting is I come back to you with an amendment that would reflect that we are now including a separate ceremonial presentation component. Those items will no longer appear on the consent agenda and those will be at the beginning of the meeting so that the members of the public, these organizations can receive their ceremonial recognition and they don't have to sit through the balance of the meeting in order to have that occur. I think as I'm understanding the board, that's what you want to see come back. Yes.

And then just to clarify as well, the department had announcements with the language on there from departments. Did you want that to be added as well?

I mean, I throw a wrench into things with that, so I apologize. But that would have to, I think, would be a board rules maybe issue as well.

I think it'll be important to identify exactly what they're going to present on it.

because yeah so if you have department announcements my whole thing is if you have a placeholder a department had you know maybe there's a separate deadline for them it's not the four weeks or whatever it is and if they can get it you know if you have a placeholder and they at least put a line in there about what they're going to be updating um that would make sense and maybe give them a different deadline of maybe a week maybe the monday before the Wednesday when the agenda's starting to get finalized?

What I might suggest is that we have a general presentations section on the agenda. So we don't need to delineate anything separate for the department heads. So if the department heads have an announcement, so for example, let's say that the public works director has now hired a county engineer, and they want to introduce the county engineer to the board. We're not talking about a substantive discussion of a public works issue that would otherwise have to be on the agenda. We're talking about presenting someone to the board, introducing them, things of that nature that are non-substantive. And the department heads can certainly you know, if there are certain events that department heads want to highlight that their department is involved in, those types of things that really are a public announcement, a presentation to the board, we could include that within the general presentation section of the meeting, and they just simply need to notify the CEO and the chair that they would like to make that presentation. And then the chair will make the call, do we add it onto the board meeting presentation section? I think that has worked well with the other agencies that I've worked with and provides that flexibility. So if that reflects the board's will, then I will bring back the amendments to the board meeting rules.

So the one thing that I want to get clarification is how many presentations do you want in each one of those department heads meetings? Department has presentations because you can be running into a situation and would you have maybe three departments wanted to make a presentation that I might extend the board meetings. That's the only concern. If it's an announcement like we're having an event this day, that's not a big problem. But if you're talking about a presentation, then we need to maybe limit it to one or two depending on what you decide today.

Yeah, it wouldn't be a presentation, I think. These would just be quick announcements. If it's going to be a presentation, it needs to be an agenda item, I think, at that point. Dr. Rizzo-Carrillo?

Yeah, I completely agree. This is not for presentations from department heads. This is a short announcement. And this is not an interactive announcement. This is not where board members are going to be asking questions or giving direction. We need to just hear it. And if we have questions after the meeting, we can go and talk to that department head. But make it where it's not interactive.

I actually, just from a Brown Act perspective, I actually feel like if it's agendized, you know, like there might be a substantial thing that, like if we get an award of a $20 million grant or something like that, and to sort of lock our hands is not being able to And it's also going to be open to public comment at that point, I would assume. Maybe I'm wrong on that. I'm not doing this to, I'm not, these are minor small details. Yes.

Supervisor, if a department wishes to make a substantive presentation on an issue that falls within the jurisdiction of this board, that's a separate agendized matter with a staff report and a formal presentation. I think what we're using the term presentations, we're talking about either ceremonial presentations for letters of support, commendations, resolutions things of that nature we could also include within that though presentations and staff announcements for example to be able to mr chair i think it's getting a little i think there's an easy simple and i think we're all on the same page here but proclamations and recognitions that's one thing

And that's the way it's been done in the past and other agencies do. So you have that, to me, at the very top because you don't want the public to be sitting there waiting. And then you would have, like we've done in the past, department head announcements. And that would just be, oh, we just found out on last week that we got a $5 million grant. Just want to let you know, I'm fine with what Supervisor Curl said. Or just for that, you know, if that simplifies things. to to just if anything brief thank yous or whatever but not having dialogue as much and then presentations it sounds like um in line with what the chair mentioned would just basically fall under the regular agenda as it has traditionally is that yes it's good where everybody's at and greg i don't know if that i didn't mean to you just want to make it clear thank you

Okay. Okay, great. So we have consensus on that, I think. Do we need to take any formal action at this point? Or is it just this direction?

We'll be bringing back an item to update as County Council preamble's mentioned for the board rules for the meeting. And then also we'll be bringing back an item to update the procedures as well.

and just to re-clarify as long as there's with department announcements at least something that lets the public know what's going to be discussed that's the key for me on that that's why we had gotten rid of it before because it was just open on it thank you

Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Okay, that concludes regular agenda. We need to go to closed session soon. I think we have someone expecting us around 1230. So try to go take a minute, grab food and be back in there as close to 1230 as you can. Do we have any public comment on the closed session?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on zoom, please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Okay, thank you very much. We will adjourn the closed session and we won't be back for quite a while. There's seven items. So thank you. Okay, we are back from closed session. County Council, do we have anything to report out?

Mr. Chair and members of the Board of Supervisors, having met in closed session this afternoon, there is only one item of reportable action, and that is item 5.7. the board unanimously authorized the County Council to file an action against the Sunny Slope Water District. The reason for filing suit is that back on May 17th, I made a formal Public Records Act request to them for documents that were within their possession. They have refused and continue to refuse to provide any of the public records in their possession. We are therefore authorized to proceed with the litigation and to seek not only the records, but reimbursement of all of our attorney's fees and costs. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to the Audit Committee. Item 4.1, the Board will adjourn as Board of Supervisors and reconvene as the Audit Committee. Is there a motion to acknowledge certificate of posting? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Aye. we have any public comment of um for items not on the agenda if you'd like to make a comment in chambers please provide a speaker card on zoom please press star 9 or the raised hand icon and i have no public comment thank you uh 4.2 approve the action minutes of the june 9th 2026 audit committee meeting uh is there a motion to approve the minutes

I move to approve. I'll second.

You're first and second. All in favor, aye. Aye. 4.3, receive presentation from our, is it the external auditor? From Lindsay Zimmerman, partner Brown Armstrong accountancy regarding the fiscal year 25-26 audit.

Lindsay, let me promote you to panelists and see if that works. Can you accept that, that I just pushed?

Can you speak now?

You have to unmute yourself, though. We can't hear you. jonathan i'm not saying i thought it was just

Lindsay, can you please speak? One second. Lindsay, can you try one more time? One second.

What's the urgency on this? If we were to have to postpone this to next meeting, would that be feasible?

Well, this is the entrance meeting for the audit and it really should take place. Okay. But is there another method that we could use to have her, I don't know, via phone perhaps?

They're saying they can hear her on Zoom. We just can't hear her.

Interesting.

We can't put like, it would be feedback if we put like a mic up to the Zoom.

Yeah, I mean, I could try it, but last time we did it, there was feedback.

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe if you try calling her just on the phone.

let me see but it'd be possible to switch 4.4 and 4.3 while we work this out or is it yes we can let's do that then if we can that way we're not sitting around too much

Let's see if I'm on the right.

OK.

Good afternoon, Chair, Board of Supervisors, Joe Paul-Gonzalez, Auditor-Controller. Today, to give you kind of a brief update of what the audit, to the audit committee, actually, to what we've been doing. First, I'd like to talk a little bit about training. And we've, since the last meeting that we had in June, We had a fiscal Q&A to review any ERP process and year-end tasks. We held that, and various members of the county departments attended on June 17th. On July 21st, we had a training on the schedule of expenditures of federal award, the SIFA. It was quite a, I believe, quite a good training. that included help the departments to be able to be prepared to begin the SEPA, what information and documents they needed to gather to start looking at. We asked the departments to identify federal wards that they have, to verify expenditures. associated with those awards and review of special items and to verify completeness of the SIFA. And so we went, staff went over that with the department thoroughly, and I think it went very successfully. so as it relates to the year and close for 2526 um we as you know uh in april we disseminated the urine schedule for uh you know for the audit schedule um urine close schedule and then um we've you know today we have uh thus far we've had uh five different deadlines that have already passed. April 30th deadline with the reconciliation of the balance sheet accounts for proper recognition of revenue and expenditures. June 30th, we have departmental listing of leases. We've asked the departments to submit any leases that they might have entered throughout the year. We have a checklist for those leases and which departments have provided that lease inventory. Also, we have a checklist for the Sabita inventory, which are the software subscriptions. And the June 30th was the date to provide those. and also under government code we have a inventory listing that's required to be submitted to the uh to the auditor's office these are not capital assets these are controlled assets these would be assets that the department should disclose to the auditor's office uh because you know they have they have value and um they could grow legs. And that's why those government code requires to provide those inventory listings. And July 15th was the date by which all cost reports for programs and projects and the inter-fund dealings should have happened. Unfortunately, that's where we're kind of stuck We're stuck with departments have not completed that work. And we are, you know, we have a bunch of transactions that have been initiated but not completed. And because that's the case, we don't have workers' comp information that was out there that should have been posted already. And what is the other item? The other item is the OPEB transactions. Those have not been posted yet. And it's significant because those items should be included in the quarterly claims for federal programs. And when those are not posted, those quarterly claims don't include those costs. And so in order to get those costs reimbursed, the departments have to, who have federal programs, have to amend their claims to be able to get those costs. So that's why it's very important that these transactions be completed by the departments. But they're in the process of doing that. We're following up with them. That concluded my report to the board.

Thank you. Is there public comment on this, on this item 4.4?

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star nine or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Thank you. Any comments or questions from board members? Mr. Rosicruo.

So the quarterly claims for the federal programs, these are for federal grant funding, when departments do a claim for reimbursement on the grants, they're supposed to be including the OPEB cost. Has that historically been happening in the past on a quarterly basis when they do their bills?

Well, they're supposed to be able to get that information, but if they're not posted, like in this case this year, They haven't been able to include it in their claims.

So just trying to get my head wrapped around it. So the department's done a claim for reimbursement but didn't include OPEB?

That's right.

And so now they're having to do a supplemental claim on OPEB?

Yes.

And so my question is, in the past quarters going, not this year, you know, in the past, were they having to do this again?

in supplemental invoices or were they included and now somehow they've been left out i think they were uh i think i think the to my knowledge they have been they uh at least the annual posting was done timely enough to be captured in the fourth quarter claim for the entire four quarters

Okay, so they weren't doing it quarterly. They were doing it at the end of the last fourth quarter and including the OPEB for all four quarters.

Right. That would be pretty much the fallback position, which they could include in that fourth quarter, and it would be permissible to claim it.

Okay. I'm just trying to understand the why in claims they're not including it. Are these claims when they come in, when they're posted claims and the revenue's coming in and we're not, is it a separate line item for OPEB? Yes. It is? So if we're not seeing it in the first quarter, we should be maybe telling them? Oh, yeah. If we aren't seeing and I'm assuming you guys are and that you guys got to get that department heads have to get the claims updated with the OPEB. And I'm assuming it's the same thing with workers comp. Yes. Okay. Okay. I'm just trying to figure out how we can fix it for the future so that we're not in this position.

Can you please confirm something, Joe? I was just informed that the OPEB and workers' comp is in the system, but they are not balanced. Can you clarify that? Raymond is working with Lorena. That's what I was told. Raymond, come on up. Yes.

So they're technically not balanced due to a clerical error. And that clerical error is caused by the backup that Dulce had, which has a rounding error. It's actually a very simple fix. There is one minor problem with budgeting. Budget for one of the departments, I believe it was the Board of Supervisors, was cut by like $4,250. And we do need a budget adjustment to increase that. But aside from that, that should be the only problem with it.

Okay. Okay. I just want to clarify that. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

That's one of the other issues associated with completing the fiscal year-end close information is that some of the departments needed to have budget adjustments that could only be approved by the board in order to pay invoices associated with last fiscal year. And they also had some, there were some cases where agreements have to be approved retrospectively because we won't make any payments without there being an agreement. And so those are some of the issues that have come up during this year-in-close cycle.

Thank you. Any other questions? Well, thank you. I'm going to try to jump back to 4.3 now. I don't know if we've had any success.

I will have Lindsay on my phone so she can answer.

Okay, great. Let's do it.

Hey, Lindsay, I'm going to put you on speaker really quick. All right, Lindsay, go ahead. Okay, can you all hear me okay?

Yes. Okay, great. Let me go ahead and share my screen. All right, thank you all so much for taking time out of your busy schedule for me to present the entrance meeting for you all for the audit of the County of San Benito for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026. As part of the agenda, I will go over our engagement team, audit objectives, the scope and sampling methodology, our audit timeline, some critical dates, reports expected to be issued, and then leave it open for any questions at the end. And I'm the engagement manager returning on the engagement from engagement partners, sorry, managing the job as a whole, as the partner. I have Zach Houston, who's a CPA out of the Bakersfield office, who's helping me this year as the engagement manager. We have Neeraj Datta, that is the technical review partner that will come in and verify that we have done all of our proper procedures as part of a technical review at the end of the audit, who is a separate from our engagement team. And then I have Gurpreet, who is also CPA, who is a returning senior from last year. So she's familiar with your processes. And then we have Ben and Jonathan. Ben actually just received his CPA license. So happy that he will be working on the engagement along with Jonathan Rodriguez. And in terms of the audit objectives as a whole, we are responsible to report on financial statements for County of San Benito for the year ended June 30, 2026 to issue independent opinions and reports that provide assurance on the financials that is released and prepared by Cosby or County of San Benito. It also is to assist in discharging your government compliance responsibilities as the audit committee and the board. And then for management, we provide observations and any advice on financial reporting, accounting, and any internal control issues from our professional standards. And then we perform our audit in accordance with auditing standards generally accepted in the United States of America. and also gas or government auditing standards as issued by the Comptroller General of the United States. And then that we are engaged to provide reasonable assurance, but not absolute as to whether the financial statements are prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted and they are free of material material misstatements, whether caused by error or fraud. And then also because we can't look at every transactions We provide assurance over whether effective internal controls over financial reporting are being maintained in all material respects. For auditing scope and sampling methodology, because we can't test every individual item, we take the approach of a risk-based approach where that deals with detail of our nature, timing, and extent of our procedures, including our tailored selections based on our risk of misstatement. the scope which covers the basic financial statements, all major funds, and all reporting funds, and requires supplementary information. Our sampling is a risk base where we use our professional judgment based on interviews with management and departments and where we select our test of controls across all of the major funds and more risky departments that we feel needs to be tested further. And then for the single audits, we select our major federal programs to make sure that those are in compliance based on also a risk-based approach. And so we design our sample size and selection based on the risks and characteristics of the populations being tested for both tolerable and performance materiality. So we take materiality into consideration. And then also we determine the scope of testing any significant accounts for the major federal programs based on that risk and materiality as well. the audit timeline and critical dates we performed our interim field work in june which was a result of testing internal controls of all the major processes we deemed necessary we performed walkthroughs of all major processes and updated any any our in our understanding of any key audit areas and any major changes updated minutes, agreements, perform some interviews, like I mentioned earlier, in addition to the walkthroughs to verify that we have all the right information to develop our audit plan for year end. And then we have our year end field work scheduled for, this is an update from your material, but I believe we have it scheduled for November 16. So we're looking forward to that to substantiate all balances and accounts. perform confirmations, verify that we are able to confirm all the appropriate balances, substantiate through vouching, analytics, and several other areas. And the plan is to have the annual comprehensive financial report to us for review in November and December timeframe and perform all of our audit procedures. And the goal is to issue, go through all of our levels of review, senior manager, partner, and then technical review partner, and verify that we're able to issue the audit opinion on or before Christmas. And exports the reports to be expected haven't changed from last year, we have the opinion on the financials as a whole. On the annual comprehensive financial reports we have the required communication to the board and to use the audit committee in accordance with professional standards. We will issue a report on internal controls over financial reporting and on compliance. based on the audit of the financial statements performed in accordance with GAS or government auditing standards. We also will perform a single audit on the federal funding that will occur mainly after we issued the ACFR, the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report in Q1, or I guess it'd be Q3 for your fiscal year end. And then we also issue a report on appropriations limit, Prop 111, agreed upon procedures for the GAN limit. And then if there are any areas that come to our attention that would need to be reported in terms of internal control efficiencies, of the design, of the effectiveness, then we would issue a separate management letter and an agreed upon conditions letter. If it did not rise to the level of a material weakness or significant deficiency. And then with that, I'd like to just open up to any questions that you might have.

Thank you. Really quickly, check for public comment.

If you'd like to make a comment in chambers, please provide a speaker card on Zoom. Please press star 9 or the raised hand icon. And I have no public comment.

Okay. Any questions from board members this time? Yes, Supervisor Currow. Thank you.

And please, Council and CEO, if this is not the appropriate time for these questions, these are just the things that are popping in my head. So, Joe Paul, you might be able to even answer some of these. When I read through the report that was dated June 16th, and it seems like internal controls really are not part of this type of audit. um it it they they don't that's really more internally we look at internal controls what i'm looking at is do we have um policies in the past on handling of cash handling of checks policies on uh how the contracts are selected for the audits? And what sources do we use to be able to like, do we do random selections? Or are they? Are they? Are there certain areas that we we pick which contracts? Or is it I'm trying to think like the 1% manual recount? Do we just like throw all the contracts into a bucket? and then randomly select. And then the last thing is, who handles the security levels and monitors the security levels of employees versus maybe the approval management staff? How's that done? I'm just, I'm not sure if this is an appropriate question with this, but it is all about the auditing and who audits and where the controls are.

First, I'll let Lindsay answer the question related to her, you know, what her firm does to be confident that internal controls are sufficient to be able to rely on.

That would be great. Thank you.

Yes. So, no, those are great questions. Can you still hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Yes. So, as part of the government auditing standards, since the county receives federal funding and funding from the public, we do have to look at the design and the processes over major internal control processes over financial reporting. So with that, we look at a detailed selection of cash receipts through all the different funds and all the different levels. We look at payroll in detail from new hire, terminations, timesheet approval, reconciliation, reporting. We look at cash disbursements and the initiation, the recording, the approval, the reconciliation and reporting. So we go through all of those processes and property taxes. We look at that in detail since that's a major issue. We do the minimum of 40 selections across the funds. And if we determine that there is a riskier department, then we look at that in more detail. And so, yes, as part of the audit, we are required to do that.

Okay, I really appreciate that. Where I'm kind of trying to get to is it when you're auditing, like receivables, are you looking at how long it took before receivables actually got processed in the system and actually posted? Like, is that part of the outside audit process?

well for that one we would just verify to make sure that it was properly recorded initially as a receivable and then when the money did come in they would make sure that it was properly offsetting that receivable and you know recorded in cash so i don't know if there's a way for us to know when it's received in the department versus when it's recorded and reconciled um that part i i would say We're more worried about the presentation and the actual numbers, yeah.

Gotcha. So, Joe Paul, is there a policy on handling of checks and cash that departments have to process within a certain period of time?

We have a cash handling policy that is, you know, it's in our SharePoint.

And do we know, is that being looked at with departments? Is it being monitored that they're actually processing? And where I'm trying to get is do we have issues that we aren't looking at? That's kind of where I'm going with these questions.

Well, there are, you know, frankly, there are issues with when checks arrive, they should be posted immediately with the Treasury. And that, of course, has been a real big issue at the RMA in the past associated with actually developer payments. And that's why we have that policy that they should be making those deposits with the treasurer's office immediately. Especially with large checks. And that hasn't always been the case. And as a result, there have been checks that have been stale dated that have to be reissued and that kind of thing.

Yeah, it's just an area when it comes to you can't do the end of the year, your team can't do the end of the year if you don't have the information in the system that is current and accurate. And you don't know what you don't know. And so I want to make sure whatever we have to do to help enforce a policy about processing of information, If it's to be able to have it where we know a developer is supposed to be paying a fee and a bill goes to a developer, that should be in your system. So, you know, it's revenue that's pending. And if it's not being done, what do you need from us to be able to make sure that that happens? I mean, I see part of there's multiple layers of issues in closing the books, but it's a team effort.

Can I add something? And I think this is when Joe and I can work together. Because we have identified this being a huge issue between him and I. We have identified in the departments. They're sitting on checks. I just received three checks from February and March of this year. They have been sitting in the department. But I guess... It's hard for him to know if they receive a check. It's hard for me as a CEO to be able to see if a check arrived. It's at the department's head level. And so I think auditors and I, the administration office, we need to work together to start implementing a policy what the department has to make them responsible for depositing those checks. Because I have all the checks over here. It's more than a half a million dollars that has not been deposited since March.

Yeah. And your team can't know that. How are we supposed to, as board members, be able to know where our revenues are coming from if we don't even know where the money is being deposited?

Well, one of the things that departments should do, especially if they perform the work they should be using the miscellaneous billing module that the RERP system has to be able to recognize that, hey, this is revenue that's out there that's forthcoming. And when that check comes in, it's posted against that transaction so that, first of all, we know about it, that this check is forthcoming. And then when the check comes in, it gets posted to that so that we know that we got everything we deserved that should have come in. And so that's a very basic thing that departments should know that even when you don't know where that money belongs, that there is an account that the treasurer has to be able to post it to that account so that at least the money's in the county treasurer. And then later they can go back and figure out where those funds actually belong. And so that's something that we try You know, we try to help departments figure out.

And if we can update a policy on, like, checks should never be in files, checks should never be on desks. I mean, you made it very clear working under you, I know how we handled cash, I know how we handled checks. Everything was secured at all times. We need to get back to the basics and make sure that this type of thing, I mean, it's just a lot... It's just a risk area that I think we need to really come down on and get back to the basics and bring the department heads in on how that would be. So I appreciate the candidness.

I just want to add the following, what I have noticed so far, and I apologize because this is a very difficult situation that we're confronting now that we're trying to close the books. The problem is that a lot of the department have people that have been promoted with no knowledge about how to process an upcoming funding, the moment that you submit a request for funding, so let me put, for example, FEMA. You submitted a request, you were approved, you submitted all the paperwork and a reimbursement. The moment that you submit a reimbursement, you have to put it as an accounts receivable. it hasn't been happening. So now we're having the issue that we have in checks sitting that they don't know what that money belongs to it. And they're sitting on the checks because they're trying to figure out what that check means for which project, for which claim. And I'm not saying this is all the departments. There are a few departments that are in this position, in this situation, that we're not able to identify what those checks are for. And so the main issue is at the RMA department. And I'm not saying it's the only department, but the main issue is at that department. And we're fixing it. We're trying to work with staff to have an understanding. The moment that you receive a check, send it away, deposit it under unrecognized revenue. It sits over there until you are able to find out what the money is for. And so I worked with Joe Paul last week in trying to figure out how do we make those departments to come on board and to put it on a bank account.

The auditor accountants, I asked them to be here at the audit committee meetings. Each of them have their own assigned departments, and their job is to help those departments get their job, get their work done. If they have questions regarding a check or whatever, they're there to, you know, to guide them to making the right decisions for posting of those checks and that kind of stuff. That's why each of them specialize in those departments. They get to know the revenue sources, where they're coming, when they normally come in, what time of the year, that kind of thing. So they're expecting that kind of stuff.

But if we don't have a policy in place that when you send a claim for reimbursement, whether it is a invoice, a claim, a funding request, that every one of those when they go out should be in miscellaneous billing. so that you are all aware and you have the information from those departments where that request went and if that money has come in. And we should be able to run a list of where the money is missing.

Well, absolutely. That's why we've been having these trainings. You know, we've had a lot of trainings on that very subject. And we're hopeful that it's sinking in with the departments.

problem also is that we have a lot of revolving stuff in the accounting positions that makes it difficult for them to track because they didn't follow the first step which is have those revenues reimbursement as an accounts receivable waiting for the money to come in and they're not able to recognize what account receivable means because there's not enough documentation that's the issue that we're having well that's what uh that's what the um the the revenue um

recognition module does is it basically posts the receivable. So it makes it easier for departments to be able to make sure they're posting the revenue that should be coming in. Now, you asked about basically the process associated with selection of the external auditor. The audit committee goes through the RFP process. And we basically send out an RFP. We ask that it's sent out throughout the state to CPA firms and to the large CPA firms. The last RFP that we had, the audit committee made the selection. with Brown and Armstrong, there were, at that time, there was, they weren't the lowest, you know, the lowest responsible CPA firm to, but the reason why we selected them is because of their experience associated working in local government. The other CPA firm that was lower had almost no local government experience and that's very important uh associated with you know knowing who the other oddity is um you also asked about um management

management security security within the ERP system and who is overseeing the rights of employees and what rights they have to ensure that we do not have any open areas where people are accessing things they shouldn't be.

So that that is the job of the at the auditor's office to ensure that the employees that are getting access to the ERP system have just enough access to do the work that they need to get done. Nothing more than that. That's kind of the main idea behind security controls. And in the office, there's one person who does those changes, but those changes can only be done with authorization from either assistant audit controller or myself. And the department head has to sign off on the employee that they're being requested to have access and the level of access. The department head is really responsible to make sure that that is the proper amount of access that they should have.

I appreciate all the comments, you know, and I just want to make sure we're having the dialogue, that the departments are hearing it, that where we're trying to get to. And when I referred to contracts, I was referring mostly to a master contract database of where are we selecting from when we do a single audit. Where are we selecting those contracts for the audit? Is there a single source database holding all the contracts? And do we finally have a master list of the contracts by department?

Well, that's really the job of the external auditor to make those selections. And perhaps, Lindsay, if you want to elaborate more on that question.

Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes. So as part of our single audits that have contracts, we look at the procurement process. We verify that the procurement process occurred properly, that the contracts were properly executed, and then they're properly followed as part of our procurement and contract testing. And we do a selection. We also don't test 100% because that would

That makes sense as long as we know that everyone is putting their contracts in the system.

But this is only the single audit. The single audit doesn't address the whole county. It's only addressing the federal money. I just want to clarify that. So it's a bigger problem that we have. Okay.

Thank you.

I appreciate you indulging me with my questions.

Actually, it is true, though, that having a central database for all contracts... is something that the county should aspire to do because we don't have one. And that makes it difficult to be able to measure performance associated with contract performance, with have they met the milestones with multi-year contracts. Those are all things that we should be doing. I know that our current ERP system has a contract module that was provided with the ERP system, but it was a contract module that we tried several attempts to implement that module, but it is insufficient to meet the needs of the county.

Thank you. Oh, thank you for the presentation. Thank you. No more questions, I think, so we'll move on and we'll just accept the presentation. The last item on the audit committee is just if there's any items for future consideration. Do we have any items at this moment to bring up for future consideration?

My future consideration, Mr. Chair, would be that we start to discuss what we need to do to have a single database of contracts and how that can be implemented countywide at any level of contract.

Okay. Yeah, we can work on that and bring it forward. Sounds good. Great. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you guys. Moving on, future agenda items. I don't believe we have any future agenda items requested at this time. There's no questions or comments on the list. Did you have any?

No, just the board had requested to go over the list. So if you still wanted to do that today.

right well maybe we push that one off actually maybe push that one off to next meeting did you have some physical yeah yeah yeah we got that yeah okay um so that will conclude everything uh before we adjourn as supervisor because mickey had requested we're gonna have a moment of silence to close the meeting for former ag commissioner mark tagnazzini Thank you. We are now adjourned.