Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Thank you all for being here. Today is Monday, October 5th, 2026. We have about three more months left in 2026. Imagine that. All right, we are here for our monthly work session and i will get us started um with a public charge and um i know we do the land acknowledgement now i'm looking around uh would you be open and doing the land advice vice chair okay all right very good i'm going to start with the public charge and then we'll get started here The Board of Commissioners asks its members and citizens to conduct themselves in a respectful, courteous man

Thank you. As we convene for the Durham County Commissioner's meeting, it's crucial to recognize the painful truth of our history. We stand on the stolen ancestral lands of the Catawba, Eno, Okanichi, Shikori, and Tuscarora peoples, whose deep connection to this land predates our arrival. We acknowledge with humility the unjust displacement and violence that occurred leading to the dispossession of indigenous peoples from their homelands. Their resilience in the face of such adversity is a testament to their strength and spirit. May we humbly honor the ancestors and elders of these nations, bo

Thank you. Is Commissioner Jacobs online? Is she supposed to be online? Oh, she's in? Okay, I thought she was still in Arkansas. All right, if we don't see her, we'll do an excused absence for her. Okay, so the first item on our official agenda here is citizens comments. We have one signed up and we'll do three minutes and that is Antoinette Hall.

Thank you, Ms. Hall. All righty, the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda. Manager Hager.

Thank you. I do have a number of questions about this item. Let me just say first, I absolutely support us. purchasing another transition house i remember when this came up before and the cost to renovate our existing house was going to be very expensive because we have such high standards around buildings being energy efficient so one one question is um first of all will this house have to meet our very high standards and you know i if so i think that we might consider amending our policy uh for when it doesn't really make sense in terms of what is the goal that we're trying to achieve especi

find out more during the inspection period so a portion of that money is just in case we need to you know upgrade a track or something like that okay because the appropriation is 1.3 million is that is that right it's 1 million i'm sorry it's right but the budget is i'm sorry the budget for the item is 1.3 i'm sorry is that what it looks like i i do see the where the item says 1.3 give us a day or two we'll update that and make sure we're looking at what is existing has been spent also maybe some of this in there but we will clarify and make sure to update the item and send an email great and

Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. And then I just want to also understand a few other things. We're taking a million dollars of opioid funding for this, so I would like to understand how that, impacts the opioid settlement funds and also typically we are allowed to use opioid settlement money for housing for people who are recovering from opioid use disorder, but I know that all of our returning residents are not living with opioid use disorder. So I just want to clarify on that issue.

and so um but that's some of that okay so this is a different is it okay great um and then also could you um tell us what are the plans for the existing house and are we going to be selling that um and what where will that the purchase of that well could they go back into this or just in terms of not having to use all of this money, just...

Oh, that's great. And could you tell us what the capacity then will be between the two houses?

That sounds great. Thank you so much. It's really important that we're going to be increasing our capacity. Thank you.

I'm really excited and grateful to the real estate team for finding this property and as well as our justice services team for all the wraparound services. I just wanted to make some comments because I don't think this is the intention, but I just want us to be mindful of when it comes, like when we're talking about the transitional housing, when we talk about like the standards we're setting, of being mindful about, I know it's more so about like the cost effectiveness, but lowering standards and to lower costs when it comes to transitional housing. I don't want that to kind of set a preceden

Thank you. Any other comments? Okay, thank you. Manager Hager.

okay i see commissioner jacobs did you have something commissioner burton thank you chair lee i just wanted to um if someone could come up and explain about how much it has increased due to tariffs and inflation because that's something i know that many of our residents will be interested in knowing understanding because these costs are going up these construction costs are getting more and more expensive Even though we know when the bond passed, it was one amount. Now it's increased to another amount. So thank you.

try to meet the goal they have increased their capital campaign as well as um sort of longer term looking at strategies to to close those gaps and i know commissioner also yeah and i think this is you know i totally understand i think you know when we're just in a different time things are just going up and they're increasing and um making sure that when we go out and talk to our residents like things are increasing we have to absorb the cost as well and we're doing everything we can to use the tax dollars judiciously so i just really wanted to hear what um david had to say county manager had

And I just wanted to add, yeah, just as the liaison for the Museum of Life and Science, that they have, overall, I think the project increase was, as Manager Hager and David mentioned, is like $3.5 million. They have raised about $1 million through private fundraising, and they're still pushing for more private funds to be able to come in through their annual... gala that they do and then also the after dark events that they do for you know community members so if anyone wants to go to the library after dark they have their spooky season event coming i think it's like horror after dark at the

when they do finish this project, which I know does involve upgrading the restaurant. Is there any anticipation of, I'm just curious what the anticipated revenue stream will be from this, the impact, the economic impact, do you know? Or could we get that information?

Yeah, I know there's some great data that's provided about the number of visitors and the number of Durham residents that are taking advantage of the community days. It's fantastic. I'd be curious to know also if they have any data, maybe Discover Durham is tracking around out-of-town visitors to the museum because as we look at ways that we can increase our occupancy tax revenue and sales tax revenue and boost tourism, the museum is a really important part of that. So I would be interested in that. And I'll just say the museum has been voted several years in a row as the number one wedding ve

and leveraging state funding for this. And I also wanted to mention that I went to a celebration of the Sandy Creek Park recently. John Goebbels, who is a Durham resident who's been championing and putting in countless hours for many, many years with many other residents to take care of that park, which is part of This is about protecting Sandy Creek, and the Sandy Creek Park is a city park, also along the corridor, that because of Keep Durham Beautiful, Friends of Sandy Creek, the New Hope Creek Corridor Advisory Committee, the city's parks foundation, all these different groups, have been wo

Okay, any other questions about any of the consent items? All right, hearing none, we'll continue on to the discussion items. We have an update on the ARPA project. ARPA project, Unite Street Medicine. We have 45 minutes allotted for this. That includes questions and answers. Does that work for you all? Either one.

Thank you, Chair Lee. Thank you for this wonderful report. And I really am excited to hear from you, Jillian, because I serve on Central Pines Regional Council and all the work that CPRC does for the region. So thank you so much for this. The question that I had, and I'm going to make a comment first. I'm really glad we're doing this work. I know this was something that was discussed on Alliance Health Board a few months back. I serve on that board about street outreach, health outreach. So I'm really glad that we are doing this. I think the thing, and this is just me saying this, what really

Well, that's good to know. And because we know that's an epidemic that doesn't get talked about a lot. You know, when we think of homelessness or unhoused individuals, people who are on the street or have to access the homeless shelter, but we just have so many people who are living in their cars, they're working, living in their cars, living in a weekly motel where you pay every week and things like that so thank you so much for this report and i'm looking forward to hearing more about what else we can do to make sure people are getting the health care that they need commissioner valentine th

Jillian, thank you for your presentation here today and for what you provided, Russ, right at the end there. I do want to say that I see the van or did see the van from time to time, and visibility in our community is important. You had pointed to the numbers of individuals that you provided service to. Can you bring some context to that? I mean, in light of the challenges that we face in this area across our community, can you sort of explain that number?

So is it safe to say that that number doesn't actually reflect, like, you know, the need in this particular community?

My colleague, Commissioner Burton, had mentioned about this work and it continuing. And so you were operating under one-time money,

Well, thank you so much. This is a really great report, great data. I appreciate how quickly you all pivoted and implemented this program. I just want to say this because it was ARPA funding and it had to be done very quickly and it seems like you all really Um, we're able to develop relationships and partnerships very quickly, which Durham does not always do very well. So, uh, I appreciate that. Um, I guess I'm concerned that we're actually getting this report when the program is over. Um, and I just want to clarify that for commissioner Burton, because, um, it wasn't clear. Um, in the data t

I couldn't hear. Sorry. $1,314,587. Right. So obviously that would be difficult to replicate. But I'd love to hear, like, as a next step, what would that really look like? I mean, you've kind of alluded to it, but.

And is this the Hope Fellow? I know the Duke Office of Community Affairs was the, Homegrown, I'm sorry, Homegrown. they are offering a fellow to support economic mobility for any nonprofit.

I think the deadline to apply is like October 13th. So this, again, may be October 13th for us to get some more help from Duke on this as well. Yes. Okay.

Okay. Um, and then also related to the medical care, I mean, you look at that, those numbers, I mean, that's significant. And especially if somebody who got cataract surgery, I mean, that's a significant number. so important and um you know my first time going out on the pit count was to your point commissioner burton so upsetting because i'll never forget there was a gentleman who was in his 60s unhoused who had severe i don't remember this rust because i think i might have been with you He was very open about having bipolar disorder, being schizophrenic, having substance use disorder, and ha

So I guess I would encourage, I'm on the Lincoln Board, you're on the Duke Regional Board, for us to really try to have, and you know, thinking of Rod sitting here with public health, for us to really try to dig into this and see what are the opportunities um to partner on this i think one of my big tech takeaways from our inner city trip to grand rapids is partnership and collaboration and also being creative at problem solving that's what we saw in grand rapids people figure out solutions and we have a lot of resources in durham and i think we should be able to figure this out so thank you s

Thank you, Chair Lee. Thank you so much, Jillian and Russ, for coming and all of the work that you have been doing with this time period of the SOAR project, but also outside of this funding allocation. And also, thank you, Russ, for taking my call yesterday on a Sunday afternoon to talk through providing services for some of our unhoused neighbors. I appreciate it. I had two questions I wanted to touch on. First, one on the data piece of I see where the medical services, like the breakdown of what you have been able to provide the most of. During this process or with y'all's work, have you be

And then my final question, and then a quick comment, was around hearing loss. It is a much more expensive treatment and care to get hearing aids, but we've seen that our unhoused neighbors are the percentage of individuals who have suffered from hearing loss in the unhoused population is more than double than the general population. And wondering, are there service providers within Durham County that are able to provide low cost or free hearing aids? And I know Commissioner Jacobs and I actually had a conversation about this recently because we just went through the process of getting my dad

Great. And then also, I want to confirm, you all are connected to the Durham Benefits Access Coalition? Or if you haven't been, I can connect you guys. It's a group of... different nonprofits and Durham Public Health, social services, started by former Mayor Steve Schuel and a researcher from Duke University to try to bring in all the benefits providers and organizations that try to connect folks to see how we can make sure our residents who need benefits aren't leaving anything on the table. Because I think it's like nationally $800 million worth of benefits that are already federally funded.

There are a lot of veterans here in Durham County. I believe there are, what, 14,000? And about only 4,000 get services. And I just want to shout out our Department of Veterans Services because my father's a veteran and I was able to navigate that system to get him his services that were allowed to him. If we can really, really hone in on that, I think because the VA, I mean, once you found out what the VA provides, it's unbelievable. So we got to get as many of our unsheltered veterans connected to veteran services so they can get the support they need. That's the only thing I wanted to say.

oh yeah thank you chair so my questions are actually statements really but I directed at the county manager and so several times today we've heard about the need for better coordination with the city particularly in this this area and so I concur with those comments and so to the extent that we can coordinate better with the city particularly around funding I think I've made that comment on numerous occasions so it's not just in this area but in additional areas I think that we can do a better job and also I think it's lost on our residents I've been hearing a lot of conversations about this b

I just wanted to add, also, I don't think people may not be aware that we provide the majority of funding for Urban Ministries, the building. We also provide funding to other organizations. like Families Moving Forward and Open Table Ministries, other nonprofits, and Project Access is directly funded as a Durham County program that provides respite care and connection to specialty care for unhoused residents. So yes, I agree with what you're saying. Manager Hager and Commissioner Valentine, and what we do upstream that is preventative is very critical. And related to the 18 million, the strate

All right, I just had a very, very brief, I agree with everything you said, the questions, information, I generally don't speak unless I have something completely different from what anybody else says. I am interested in under, so this slide here, I don't know what 219 means, right? I'm interested in understanding what a goal would be to individuals receiving direct medical care. So I don't know if that's high or if that's low. I don't know if this is the type of service that you can say we have a goal of doing this particular number. but maybe this particular percent or something like that so

um and are very much on the front line and so i think that that might give us a good barometer but locally um is to really look at the great work that they're doing that'll be that's excellent but you know i'm not criticizing anything i want people to understand that i just it helps me to kind of place what we're doing and how we can advocate for more absolutely right okay yeah all right thank you all so much thank you very much thank you Okay, the next item on our agenda, we have Hope Day Services Center Pilot Project Update. We have 45 minutes allotted for this as well.

I know we're gonna have comments and questions, but y'all, this is what a governance presentation looks like here. I want you to go back to your first slide with that one. And see, the thing about this is not everything is gonna look beautiful. Not everything is gonna be on track, not everything is gonna be ahead, but this is what we should talk about here at the board governance level. And we can easily see here how this is going and how we can advocate from a board level. how we can help with partnerships, how we can help with communication and so forth. And they even had a sunset scenario o

Thank you so much, Chair Lee. Thank you. This report is outstanding, and it was easy to digest. So thank you for all the clear numbers, the graphs, And I agree with you, Chair Lee, about the performance scorecard. What really caught my attention is around where people who are unhoused, they're looking for resources to better their situation. Like, where do we go? What's out there? The computers, checking their email to stay connected, right? Device charging so they can stay connected, right? Also, how do I make sure if I stay clean because it's good for health outcomes? Washing my clothes, tak

So I don't have any, more questions right now i may have some later but i just want to say thank you for giving us this update it was really impressive and so i appreciate the work that you all are doing with the day center and um let's see what else we can do so thank you thank you yeah i'm gonna add something um hello again to everybody also at the day center yeah we do have uh employment resources and housing resources but we have a lot of people that come in that want to further their education beyond high school

Yes. I want to echo the sentiments of Chair Lee and Commissioner Burton. Thank you so much for this work and this robust presentation. I just, like, as I'm looking at this and hearing you all speak, really want to see, like, is there an opportunity for us as commissioners to come and, like, tour the space and kind of walk through and learn about, you know, see this all in action, because it's something that I think if we're able to learn from you all also and bring to our other partners, that would be really great.

Yes, thank you so much, and I appreciate us getting this presentation when we're part way through it, because I think it's really important that we discuss what happens on, what is the day, the end of January, right? um you know for me personally i i went to the open house on september 18th is that right and so i got to see the program in action and also just hearing the presentation today it's clear to me that we need to figure out a way to keep this program going some form I'm really appreciative that urban ministries bid on this project because if we didn't have a partner we would not be ab

Okay, thank you. And Dwayne, yes, I'm so grateful for how passionate you are about this and it's important. You care and I know all of your staff really cares who are working there and it really makes a difference. I related to what the chair said. I do want to point out that I remember reading the scope of work for this. So I want to, um, also give kudos to Samantha, who I know who's no longer here, who helped write the scope of work and John your office, because I think this also is a reflection of how we write the scope of work. Um, and, um, and then what ha what we're requiring as part of

And Dwayne, I apologize. I told you I would follow up. I did talk to some people about it, but I haven't sent the email. But that is really essential. There should be snacks there. So managers are a way we could address the contract or connect to Reyna or Cooperative Extension.

And could we also get, if the majority of the board is interested in just what,

All right. And again, thank you all for this presentation. I'm really excited about this. And a couple of the statements I was going to make have already been covered, but I do look forward as well to seeing if we could do a tour. I will be there. Okay. And I will do everything I can to support.

I'm Jonathan Gaddis, Interim Executive Director of Urban Industries of Durham.

All right, very good. The next item on our agenda is an informational item. It's the Orange Factory Heritage Community.

Well, this is amazing. I wonder if you could, could you pull up the link to what you all have created online? Is it possible to do that? Because I don't think the PowerPoint actually does service to the online document that you all have created, if it's possible. While staff is doing that, I will just say that I am so grateful to the planning staff and the community for this heritage community program. Um, this really exemplifies why it's so important. I'm embarrassed to say I have lived in Durham basically since 1979 and I did not know this history. And I just think this, this is reinforces w

Okay, so 1.30 p.m. 1.30 p.m. At the church that you saw. At the church, okay, one of the remaining structures. Okay, wonderful. Yes, and thank you to all of the Orange Factory community members who helped make this happen as well. Thank you. Yeah, thank you.

Yes, yeah, thank you, excuse me, for this presentation and why Commissioner Jacobs, I did not know that was an actual community. When you drive to Northern Durham County and you see Orange Factory Road, I know in my mind I'm thinking, okay, what was that about, right? And I'm always tempted to go down another, I think it's Willard, go down that road to see what's down there. And I also think it speaks to the importance of the Museum of Durham history. and why we want to document the history of Durham City and Durham County because we have so many new people coming into Durham City and County w

Thank you for this. I'm curious, so when this designation, what actually does it mean? Is it a celebration of the history? And the reason I'm asking is I'm curious If this is the full history, on the website, I only see two references to enslaved workers. And I'm curious if people who look like me were able to live there. Because you mentioned people could buy land and so forth. But were the people who were actually mentioned here that were brought here, the people of color, added new people of color to the landscape, were they able to own land here? And do we represent that anywhere in this h

I just want to make sure that we're being honest with ourselves about what we're honoring when we do these sorts of things. Stagville did a really good job with it. They just kind of talked about it and they talk about it and so forth. The further north you go in Durham County, as far as ownership goes, the less black it is or less minority it is. And you see a lot of that. We have this Durham to Roxborough rail trail thing going on. And you see a lot of people, this land's been in my family for hundreds of years and so forth. How did you get that? How did you get that land? It's because peopl

Thank you for that, Chair Lee. I was just wanting to say, I saw on the calendar that it's October 12th that was put on our calendar. I just want to verify if it's the 12th or the 20th.

Okay. Yeah, thank you for your comments, Chair Lee. Yeah, I think that what I think the purpose of this is also just to add to the story of all the different communities in Durham that may not be here anymore, that were here, or that don't fit the normal status of getting recognition like the Merrick Moore community was the first one. But to your point, yes, we absolutely should tell the broader context, and that includes the fact that this was Native American land initially as well and I know there is reference to that so I appreciate you bringing up just the broader context and it does bring

So it will be on the, which websites will this be on? And like, we'll be part of the North Carolina collection as well.

Okay, all right, thank you. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right, so the next item on the agenda is the budget piece, but we're gonna take a little bit of a quick break, get some lunch, and then jump right into it, okay? Is that okay with the budget team? Good, all right, so you wanna say 15 minutes? You good with that, Wendy? 15 minutes? 15 minutes. We'll be back at noon. We are back. Thank you all very much for a little bit of a break. The last item on our agenda today is fiscal year 25-26 budget update and framework for fiscal year 26-27 budget development. We do hav

Does that work for you all? Okay, hopefully, okay, okay. Thank you very much.

Can I just ask if you, Claire, this is like a really big deal. So could you explain how many positions are we talking about locally? And how are the, because these are critical services, right? Taking care of at-risk children and women with at-high-risk pregnancies. How are they going to get these services if it's not going to be through

Can you explain who made this decision? that people like you gave a lot of feedback that this was not a good idea and people would be hurt by this decision in terms of delivery of care and intervention. How was this decision made?

i'm glad you're bringing this to us because i don't think that people know know about this and so ringing the alarm and i hope that um there will be more light shed on this and what what the real impact is going to be and i appreciate that you say that we're going to try to work on solutions but again this is we're talking about very vulnerable populations here and If you're trying to save money, this is not the way to save money because you're going to end up with a much higher cost to our health system if you're not going to intervene in the right way.

Yeah, I was just gonna say if you can explain Yes.

Just a point of clarification for that decision that they make about how they're pulling those cases. Is that something that has been written into the statutes, the bills, or whatever that they use to Decide these are rates or it's just the practice of DHS.

Have we reached out to our representatives, our delegation on this issue? Yes, yes, yes. And they're aware of it? Yes, they are. I just have a general, okay, I don't want to interrupt. I have some questions.

You're done with that, okay. As I'm listening to both Maggie and Rod with all of these, like, impacts of hr1 and also the stories that you started out with maggie like i don't like when we say 450 non-citizens have just lost their health care i mean the story that you just told i don't want to lose those stories people need to know the impact it is having on individual people and families in our community and i'm just wondering i'm kind of just putting this out here and would love to hear ideas but how can we make sure we we capture them and don't lose them and i guess i'm thinking about john

And after we talk about this, I do have one other follow-up question for Maggie, but go ahead.

I just wanted to add also, it's not only specific to Durham County, but NC Budget and Tax Center also, during a lot of the conversations in the legislation when it was coming through the state legislature, they had made a booklet of stories that they've compiled from individuals all across the state of North Carolina. in very red counties and blue counties everywhere who are being impacted by the Medicaid changes. And so I can get that document. They have a yeah, this through NC Budget and Tax Center that they have all those stories that we should be.

Yeah, I agree with you, Commissioner Jacobs. And also, how do we make this information digestible for our residents? Understanding that, OK, the error rate when I know when I put this out on my social media or talk to people in the community, understanding, okay, what that is, we know what that means. Because I think many people don't quite, get the understanding that they're doing this through paperwork. It's a deliberate way of, okay, you can make one mistake, tiny mistake, that's an error rate, or you didn't get this paperwork in on time, or you lose your benefits. So really making this inf

Yeah, I'll just say I agree with that. I agree with telling the story and showing the impact of it. You know, people look at very high level numbers and there's a lot of people who say if it doesn't directly affect me, it doesn't exist. And we have to show how this could actually actually affect everyone in our community. So I agree with you on that, Wendy. But you had something else?

Yeah, I mean, related to the things that we have to deal with, related to helping able-bodied people either document what they're doing to meet the 80 hours per month, or the second part of it is connecting them to opportunities if they're if they don't have the 80 hours and the issue of the non-able-bodied people making sure that they can document how they are not able-bodied um and then also the issue of six months needing to re-up every six months and so how we how we are doing that could you tell us what is going on right now within our community what are the strategies about all of those

Are you working at all with the nonprofit volunteer and leadership center on that? Yeah, we're going to be, yes. Okay. Yeah, it's for our November event. Thank you.

Yeah, and one quick follow-up about, because it's volunteer work, trainings, like what are we, and I asked this question when Congresswoman Fushi came about are there organizations that

Okay, and 24-25, that dip. There was a dip, you said? Yes, sir. Larger for refunds.

Yeah, I'm glad you pointed that out, Manager Hager, because our sales tax revenue on the whole has increased. We'd be in really big trouble if we actually went down. Um, but I think you're pointing out, this is, we're part of macro economic trends that are going on with the war with Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, you know, the, all of these retaliatory tariffs on items. what's happening to the labor force with the war on immigrants, all of that. I just wanted to raise the issue just to highlight that one of the reasons that we did an inner city trip to Grand Rapids is because they have We have

This is, this is an amazing side because it's, it's just really like you say, when a picture has some words, because when I think about like, we're going to talk about the proposed constitutional amendment and you know, the number flying around, we've heard people been using 2% levy would have a $21 million impact on Durham County. Where are we going to take that? Where are we going to find $21 million out of out of this?

Before you go back, sorry. I had a question just to break it down more. Would you be able to, David, provide us the debt services payments of splitting that also into the debt services payments that also go related to education versus other?

And then the vehicles and IEP, so when you put economic development, those are the incentives. Can you separate those out, too? Okay, yeah. We'll break those out. And also provide for us, like, for us when we're talking to residents and they ask us, they're like, well, you're giving, you know, this amount of money to these economic development incentives. Also, if we can have, like, on the side of that, for that year, how much that project may have brought in revenue. Is there any way to?

And that's also helpful for us as commissioners for that storytelling piece when people want to understand why do you provide economic development incentives to try to paint the picture of how it's creating jobs for residents. And then the last question I had, and this doesn't have to be urgent or anything, but I know we've had lots of conversations about when we brought in the public health nurses or DPS nurses into public health, wondering if there could be a breakdown around the benefits packages that we provide as county employees versus what DPS provides and has available for their employ

We'll do a white paper on the cost. But I would just highlight the fact that right now, 37% of our budget is going to our own county funded employees. So the more people that we put on the county's dime, the less money that we're going to have. Like Keith says over and over again, personnel is our most expensive cost. because of all the benefits and then when people retire. I mean, we can look at that, but I would be

Yeah, and I think what I'm asking for is to have that information, to be able to look at it and say it definitively and know it definitively. Because yes, it will cost us, obviously, to have them on the county, but then also giving it directly to DPS, then we also lose that percentage, almost 20%, to charters. And so where is there that balancing act of like- Is there a way for us to equalize that? Does it overall get more money to DPS by remaining internal to the county, that type of thing?

But we've also been asking DPS to try to reduce the locally funded positions because there have been an over-reliance on that. So that's another part of it is making sure that we have as many positions that are funded through the state just because we can't afford it, all locally funded positions. So it's great to raise the issue, but I just wanted to make sure we're looking at the big picture when we do that.

Yeah, because that's also, and like not just for, sorry, the county, but I know we talked about this on inner city, but also for like parks and rec from the city to be looking at some of the general services and maintenance that they run for parks, like that with the lawn service and maintenance that DPS has to run, is there a collaboration ways that like the city could also be stepping in, but just like knowing what those costs are?

I want to follow up on what you raised about the incentives. I think that's a really great point. And this is, again, beyond what we're talking about here, but to Vice Chair Alam's point, I think there's also the JDIG money that gets pulled in. We get funding from the state that coming into Durham County that would not be there. And then... know first of all they have to meet the basic requirements related to jobs and property investment to get the incentive in the first place so we know that but there is a broader view and i would really be interested in understanding better like the fact tha

Yeah, I just had a question. I know, Commissioner Jacobs, you said about the $21 million. I just want you to explain that a little bit more about... How that works.

Yeah. Okay. We can talk about it. I know you're going to get to it. But the North Carolina Housing Coalition, they have a website page about the impact of a 2% levy. And they've done projections. They have a map. And for each state, I mean each county, they have a, I guess they've done some analysis of what that would be. And so for Durham, it's $21 million. And I think the North Carolina Center for Budget, the Budget and Tax Center, I was trying to find it before a meeting. I couldn't. They've also done some projections as well as to what is the dollar amount. So that's where I got that infor

Keith, before you go though, I just want to, because you said the last three years we've had the

Okay. Not because last year, if you look at that and you look at the other side, we, we actually lowered our tax rate dramatically last year from the, I mean, yes, we went up a little bit from the revenue neutral rate, but we did lower the actual tax rate and go to the next slide. Okay. We. It was the previous three years were the highest. Last year was lower. We did 2.5%. 2.5 cents. 2.5 cent, whereas the previous three years was higher. Okay. So could you set the last three years? It's three out of four, but not last year.

Okay, the percent of increase. Okay. You got it. Percent of increase. Okay, got it.

Okay, and then Keith, the comment you made about what a levy limit would look like, If we continue to have very little natural growth, then that's when a levy limit would actually be most difficult.

All right, there was plenty of discussion during. You want to... Go ahead, Commissioner Jacobs.

Thank you so much. Keith, I'm so glad that you are serving on this statewide commission. That is fantastic.

Even better. So I know that you have a wealth of knowledge to share with colleagues at the state level. So that makes me feel so much better that you are both there. This whole issue was raised because the impact of rising property taxes is a real thing. It is a real thing that is impacting people in our community. And the reasons for why it is happening are very complex. We know because we've done the work in Durham. that we know it's coming from things like less intergovernmental revenue, less state and federal money coming into our counties, less funding for schools because of other voucher

board members if you have questions just let us know all right thank you and I just look forward to the day when you Keith you provide a presentation that doesn't have that storm cloud on there I just I remember saying that when I was on the school board every year so I just hope one day One day while I'm still involved, we get to see like a sunlight, like a rainbow or something. You know, just something.

Be careful what you wish for because Keith will just show up with a gif of a rainbow in his presentations next.

Thank you all. Thank you all. That is the last thing that was on our agenda today. It is a work session. We don't need a vote to adjourn, so I will call us adjourned. Thank you all very much. It is 1.33.