Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

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

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

Mr. Chairman and Board, thank you for giving me the opportunity to pray. And I was thinking a little bit today about Philippians and the Apostle Paul. And when he wrote to the Philippians, He basically said, do not allow your circumstances to determine your joy. And he wrote that letter when he was in prison. So I think as we enter into this budget time, there are challenges that we face, but we should be very joyful because we get to live in one of the most bountiful counties in the world when it comes to agriculture. We have some of the most amazing people who live right here in this communi

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

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

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

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to our CEO and our team. Before we get into some of the department presentations, I just want to thank our CAO and his team. We had what we call the yearly town hall budget meeting that we had. And I just want to read off a couple of the surveys, because I think our CEO did a great job of incorporating a lot of the needs that popped out of that community meeting. with regards to roads and infrastructure, potholes, paving, sidewalks, safer after school, the housing and the homeless challenge that we just outlined. Health and human services, as we know, is a big,

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

Just thinking for that presentation, DA Smith-Kemp, and I appreciate your honesty with regard to you being very just upfront about being able to recruit and retain our folks here. I know oftentimes when we're trying to recruit folks to come and work for the public sector, it's very difficult to compete with the private sector. One of those incentives has been where our attorneys would get their loans forgiven if they provided service to a public entity for 10 years what percentage of our attorneys that we currently have under that umbrella and what do you foresee for next year in the next coup

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

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

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

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

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

Chief, thank you for the presentation. Just a couple questions about the JJC. I know that, or I believe it's been operational about 20 years now, correct? So some of the deferred maintenance out there, are we looking to apply for grants or partner with the state to make some just improvements out there at that facility? And I know that when it first was built, I think it was able to house between 300 to 400 youth, and right now I think we only have about 100 youth out there. So can you talk a little bit about both some of the deferred maintenance and what we're doing to keep that up and then maybe some plans out there for that campus so it's fully utilized?

I don't have any questions, Chief. I just wanted to thank you for the tour that you gave me a couple of months ago and really, I think, seeing up front the work that you and your team do and one of the most professional-run facilities that we have. And oftentimes, people have this perception that, Yes, bad people that people that do bad things go there to serve time and pay their debt to society. But at some point, like you said, they're going to come out. And it was really great to see not just the welding program, but the gardening program that you have there, the Boys and Girls Club program

Yeah, thank you, Chairman. So one of the things I wanted to talk about is I know since 2019, I asked your office to take a look at the correlation between closure of prisons, more and more responsibilities being placed on your department for probation and parole. of tracking individuals who've committed crimes and then looking at the homeless population and how many people were on probation and parole and what we saw in 2019 compared to just when I had you run the numbers a couple months ago is a very significant correlation between prison beds closing and the number of homeless that you super

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

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

So just to highlight a little bit more, I think to have an effective criminal justice system, you need to have both a strong district attorney's office and a strong public defender. And I want to commend both your office as well as Paul, our CAO, because as you alluded to, state funding is down about $1.4 million. And, you know, this is a tough fiscal year for us. I think we're going to hear from the sheriff shortly who's going to talk about actually going backwards when it comes to, you know, revenues, him giving money back. But with your department, we see an overall increase because NCC, Ne

Thank you, public defender, for that presentation. And I think sometimes I don't necessarily support the people that you defend, but I 100% support the right for those folks to have representation, you being part of that due process. I just want you to know that how valuable that is and critical for our folks in the community. I do have a question with regards to the retention. And you mentioned that you just lost number of attorneys recently you still have that obligation to provide representation for folks that come in through through our system um what's the dollar amount right now that you

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

How many positions are you short right now?

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

Any questions from the board? Yes, Supervisor Chavez.

I don't have any questions, Sheriff. Just want to thank you for your work this last year. I know it's been a little bit challenging. We've had to help some of our rural cities when they lost some of their police department folks, and we step in and kind of fill that void. But I also want to thank you for making yourself available to the community. I think the feedback I've heard from our residents is that you're not, you know, afraid of doing media, you're not afraid of going out to community events. I've had community events where your office has been there, the town halls we've had, whether

Yeah, I do want to echo those sentiments, but also highlight some of the volunteer groups, search and rescue groups that are part of your organization. So there are dozens of men and women who volunteer and assist in the mountain communities with rescues and really appreciate the work that they do because they step up, provide their time, and they do that work without compensation, but they do it to try to enhance their the level of service that we have at the Sheriff's Department, and I appreciate their sacrifice and shameless plug for them as well. I think they've got some fundraisers coming

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

Any comments from the, yes, Supervisor Maxson.

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

One thing which I appreciate about your department is behavioral health has always been a part of building affordable housing projects and projects where there's wraparound services. And sometimes your department is not mentioned. And you briefly in your presentation talked about 180 bridge housing beds that are going to be created. But as we do a look back and a look forward, some of the commitments from your department as affordable housing wraparound services are created. It's many decades that your department commits to. So, first question is, do you have a total number of units that right

Just briefly, thank you for that presentation and my colleague touched a little bit on it. The model that we've been recently going down the path with the MOU with the city of Fresno under our new homelessness department I think has been very successful because one, you're eliminating the transportation barrier, but two, you're removing that stigma that folks oftentimes feel for mental health and getting the treatment that they need in order to be healthy and self-sustaining. So I just want to put that on your radar. I think our CAO's office is finalizing that MOU with the City of Fresno that

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

Supervisor Mags. So with the 16 positions that are being reduced, I see that some of them are – well, one of them is a high-level administrative position, so I assume that you've basically reorganized the admin portion. But looking at some of the others, they appear to be somewhat – some of them are entry-level positions. I assume that you're not literally firing people. You're eliminating positions that are open and then consolidating for people who may be like the – the medical social worker one position. I'm sure we've got twos and threes and maybe even fours in that position. So you're mov

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

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

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

And are we the only county in California doing that?

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

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

yeah just just thank you for that presentation director um i think you probably have one of the hardest jobs in the county because you you do a lot of the federal state but you also deal with probably one of our most precious things and that's children and so i just want to thank you and your team for a lot of the work oftentimes you take a lot of the tomatoes that get thrown at the at the board so appreciate that um i did have just one question i got this from one of our constituents, maybe this is a CAO question. I know we were doing a audit for our foster care system. What's the status of t

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

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

Any questions? Go ahead, Supervisor Maxson.

I want to talk a little bit about special districts, and I think, I don't know how many total special districts Public Works is responsible for. I don't know if you have that number off the top of your head. 131. 131. So I know that there was something that was pointed out. I want to make sure that things were corrected specifically with Water Works District 40 regarding the Bricks-Mercer issue. Accounting error where there were there was an appropriation that was put there all of that's been reversed out with no impact to the district Yes, I'll ask them well to speak to that because the brain

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Okay. Let's do that so I can save you from having to read everything. Okay, so let's move on for items two through eight. Before we take a vote, are there any comments from the board on items two through eight? No, any comments from the public on items two through eight? Seeing none, I'll bring it back. Is there a motion and a second? To close the budget hearings and adopt the final budget for fiscal year 26-27? motion and there's a second. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Passes unanimously. Any comments? Oh clerk.

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

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

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