Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

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We're going to call to order the regular meeting of the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors. Madam Clerk, if you could take roll, please.

Supervisor Klein? Here. Supervisor Mulhern? Here. Supervisor Haschak? Here. Supervisor Norvell? Here. Supervisor Williams?

Here.

Thank you. And I've asked Mr. West from SEIU to lead us in the pledge today.

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

Thank you, sir. We're going to move on to public expression. Anybody like to come to the podium and speak about anything not on today's agenda?

Good morning, board. My name is Gizmo. I wanted to come this morning to thank the board for their progression in what's going on with our fire season up and coming and looking forward to the future with our new downtown and our public transit mall. I didn't stay yesterday for the MCOG meeting to finish it out. But I'm hoping that all of the budgets got voted for yesterday in the allocations and we can get that money to continue to work on our roads. And I'm looking forward to the burning of the freeway. I know there may be some people that think it's ugly, but I think it's a really good preventative measure.

Why can you accept the rise of those costs and not accept that the employees face those same rises in costs, but not consider COLA a natural expanse that is just a part of business? This does not give employees a feeling of being appreciated or that you understand that the work that they do is important. With major staffing shortages in almost every department, the county's finances somehow look much better. I would repeat all of the numbers that everyone else here will tell you. You know them. Employees of Mendocino County should be your top priority investment. Investing in your staff helps all of us. That's the roads, that's public health and safety, that's the libraries, that's support for our most vulnerable community members, and more. Dollars spent locally recirculate through the community and are spent many times over from one business to the next, funding the county budget and improving the lives of people who live and work here. If staff can't afford to spend money locally because of rising costs of living and stagnant wages, the discretionary funds available to shop in our area greatly diminish. This harms employees and their families, but it also harms businesses and eventually the bottom line of the county's budget. The wages you pay are part of an ecosystem and not a standalone expansion. This impact on the economics of our county, but also in retention, job satisfaction, and recruitment to county positions. We want quality people who want to do quality work and stay with their experience and knowledge to create a healthy workspace. In order to get that, we need wages that don't diminish over time. Our last contract was an insult. The current offers on the table are an insult. It is time to invest in our employees. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, board. My name is Travis Balzerini. I'm the SEIU 1021 regional vice president. I come out of Sonoma County, and there it's customary to put a 3% marker in the budget for staff wages and benefits, just as a courtesy, if not for good governance. All your costs have gone up. Your employees' costs have equally gone up. We want to attract and retain quality employees. You've got to pay them what they're worth, and so they can live in this community. I've met many of these members. They care deeply about this community. Please, please pay them what they're worth. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Megan Wolf. I'm SEIU 1021 secretary for our executive board, and I'm a library assistant at the Mendocino County Library. And I'm here today because you guys are doing budget hearings. And I want to echo what Travis just said. You could just plan in the budget every year to give us cost of living adjustments. You guys gave yourself raises recently that were significantly more than our regular little steps are that we have as county workers. And right now in negotiations, you're proposing to take away our longevity pay, which is already embarrassingly low. It's after 10 years, we get 1%, and then 15, another 1%, and 20, another 1%. And right now you're saying, we can't even have that? It was already low and embarrassing and not significant. And that altogether is much less than what you gave yourselves recently. What does that say about how the county feels about its workers? As my colleagues have mentioned, we're all working with less. We have less people. We're having to do more. And then you're saying, Even if you stick it out 10 years, you get nothing. We have five steps in our pay. So after five steps, you get nothing after that. And now you want to take away the little bit we were going to get after 10 years. It really feels like a slap in the face. And I... It's very disappointing. And I also want to say that there are many other SEIU members who wanted to be here today, but they had really important meetings with clients, people in the community, running the bookmobile, things like that, that they could not leave to come and be here. And I want to say that I'm also speaking for those people. There's many more of us who are also very upset about last contract and what you're currently offering us right now. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, chair, board. My name is Veronica Wilson, MSW. I work in the social services department on the special projects team. My primary responsibility is to lead the Mendocino County Homeless Services Continuum of Care. I am lucky enough to call myself a homeowner. I'm born and raised in Willits. The only time I didn't live in Willits is whenever I needed to pursue education, which I cannot get in this county. I had to leave. I came back. That's rare. That's very rare. I brought my experience back. I am the only MSW in adults besides our director because we can't attract it because you offer 1%. I started in this county in 2010. July, 2019, I was here just as the pandemic hit and I stayed through the whole thing. I helped. I could take another job, but I don't want to. I want to do what I do, but if you take the longevity pay away right now, what's the point? Why would I stay? When I started, there was a contract that had been negotiated in 2018, and I started in 2019, and it had a 3% COLA. It also aligned wages under the COFF study, but that's not here or there. It had a 3% COLA. That COLA is the only reason I can call myself a homeowner. My husband didn't have two years of back-to-back income beyond working for anchor lucier mortuary as a last responder for people who pass away anywhere north of redwood valley or if they request anchor lucier he gives to this community he's on call he barely makes anything but he does it because we need it i had to have a minimum of three percent income growth qualify for that mortgage. That coal is the only thing that saved my butt and got me as a homeowner. If you don't offer 3%, you're taking that away from every single employee. Do you really want that on your conscience? I wouldn't. The only person on this board who was here during that time was Haschek, and he came in after the contract had been negotiated. Please do better. Please do as good as your predecessors. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Rebecca Britton. I'm also part of the Homekey program. I work at Live Oak as our program specialist, too. I've worked for Mendocino County for a little over five years. I moved here from Fort Bragg because I couldn't find decent housing there that I could afford. So I moved over here to Ukiah. The only thing I could afford was a little tiny studio apartment that was filthy and broken. And before I moved in, I didn't see the cockroaches. After living there a little while, within a few days, It came out of my coffee pot when he turned it on. I lived in that apartment because it was what I could afford for four years. That was it. I couldn't afford anything else but that. So with a broken heart, I finally moved to Lake County. My job is here in Ukiah. But dedicated as I am to what I do and the people that I serve and Mendocino County Social Services, I commuted. I'm commuting. And now it's over $20 more every time I fill up my gas tank. And I'm wondering how long can I do this without having to look for a job over in Lake County, which they're desperate. They're desperate for good people. I wouldn't have a problem getting a job there. I don't want to. I want to stay here. I'm used to the commute now. I drive it. I bring my coffee. I listen to my music. I'm good to go. So back and forth. I spend over an hour a day driving. So I want to stay. So please, please do something about our pay.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Maddie Sample. I'm a proud SCIU member and an information systems technician, too. I've worked for the county for seven years. I started in HR. Some of you may remember me from there. And I started in 2019. So I was here throughout the pandemic. I took air temperatures in the EOC. And when I moved to retirement, I helped manage our retirement funds. I moved to IT. That was a big goal of mine. I had to go to school for that. And I now have a hefty student loan I need to pay off. And part of my job is I have the privilege of working with the staff of Department of Social Services. They are some of the most dedicated people I have the pleasure to know. They work extremely hard. They make themselves sick with worry over their clients. And they deserve better. When I started with the county for the first couple of years, I would talk about to my friends, to anyone who would listen, how much they should work here, how much they should work for the county, and how proud I was to work for you guys. And I can't say that anymore. After seeing what my users go through, and the staff at DSS, Adult and Aging Services specifically, and DSS admin, They go through a lot, and they don't get paid enough for it. They don't get enough longevity pay. And it just feels like you leave us behind. So I can't recommend this place as an employer anymore. And I think you should feel great shame for that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning members of the board and chair. My name is Clarice Sargenti I'm an air quality engineer with Mendocino County air quality management district and I'm just here to mention something about the Contract negotiations that we're going through right now So the reason we have public comment is at the beginning of every board meeting and the reason the public sits at the top of the county's organizational chart is because the public is who you serve as the board and who we serve as county employees and that structure exists for a reason The current contract proposal undermines that purpose. Opening negotiations by eliminating longevity pay while offering a 1% cost of living adjustment is not a raise. That's effectively a pay cut as inflation rises. That proposal takes real money out of people's pockets. And more importantly, what happens to us directly affects the public that you're here to serve. An understaffed, overworked, and underpaid public workforce is not just a labor issue, it's a public safety issue. When we can't retain experienced environmental health staff, public safety staff, social services staff, the people of this county lose access to services they depend on. Institutional knowledge walks out the door and does not come back easily. High turnover is the predictable result of uncompetitive pay. And uncompetitive pay is the predictable result of contracts like the one currently at the table. You cannot attract or keep qualified people when better compensation is available elsewhere. So I'm asking you, as the Board of Supervisors, to fulfill your primary obligation to the public by giving the people who serve the public the benefits and compensation that they deserve. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, all. My name is Tracy Wright. I have been an employee with Mendocino County for 26 years. Remember that, 26 years. I have been here way before COVID. I have been here when the board of supervisors took 10% and made us go to 32 hour work weeks. We never got that back, never. Now you have these younger generations coming in behind us and they're sitting here telling you that they're ready to leave. In social services, there is a handful of us that can say we have been employees of the county for 20 plus years. You're not gonna have that. We have workers coming in, getting trained, and leaving our county because they can go to Sonoma and Lake County and make more money. What is that saying about our county? I was on negotiations last contract when we signed the ink barely dried and you guys did a survey and gave you guys all an increase. Not you new ones. All you ones sitting here. You guys got the increase. We didn't get the increase. Then you come to us sitting on negotiations again this year. with basically $2,000 added to your paycheck that will hit you up to a higher tax bracket, more taxes taken out, and a 1% and a 1%. You've got to be kidding me. Shame on all of you. We are barely surviving. I am lucky that I have a two-income household. My husband works. A lot of my coworkers aren't like that. They are the main breadwinners in their family. And they're not going to be able to make it. You guys, the longevity pay, almost 26 years, I didn't even know what longevity pay was until I looked at my check stub and realized, oh, I have been getting it. That's how much of a difference it makes in my check. $77. $77 for longevity pay for 20 plus years. Going on 26 years, again, shame on all of you for even suggesting that. We, as a bargaining unit, came to you guys with ideas of how to get money, because that's what we were told. You guys want COLAs? Find the money. I don't understand why it's on us, but OK. So we did. That was turned down. Nobody will do that. You guys aren't even negotiating with us. That was just a slap in the face. And then to go back to our coworkers and tell them, yeah, they came with basically nothing one-on-one over three years. You guys want a contract by June 30th. You got to start giving something. You can't predict that you won't have the money, but you can't predict you won't have the money since you've always had cost savings. Invest it in your employees. Otherwise, our county is going to be a joke. Nobody's going to want to work here. So again, think about that. 26 years, and I'm still here. But a lot of us aren't. They've left.

Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning, board. My name is Michael Russ. I'm a social worker with APS here in Ukiah. I would like to read this on behalf of one of my coworkers that I work with, and she's also on the negotiating team for us as well. Today, I would like to address employee compensation. Despite the modest increases secured through the last round of bargaining, some county employees still qualify for assistance programs such as CalFresh and Medi-Cal. That reality alone should raise serious concerns about the wages being paid to the people who provide essential services to this community. There are also many employees who fall into what I would describe as the working poor. Their gross income disqualifies them from public assistance, yet they still do not earn enough to purchase a home in this county. The truth is simple, county employees do not make enough to comfortably live in this community they serve. Housing costs continue to rise and rents have become unaffordable for many families. As a result, multiple generations and families are increasingly forced to live together simply to make ends meet. Against this backdrop, the county's most recent bargaining proposal was deeply disappointing and felt like a dismissal of the sacrifices and dedication demonstrated by employees every day. County employees are held accountable for their actions and performance regardless of staffing shortages, increasing workloads, or inadequate compensation. Employees continue to show up and perform their jobs professionally. It is frustrating to see that same level of accountability not consistently applied to county leadership. The board's response to concerns regarding the CEO's conduct CEOs conduct and the actions of the district attorney has left many employees feeling that there is one standard for workers and another for those in positions of power. Finally, I ask you to consider the impact of inflation on both county employees and the residents. We serve the cost of housing, food, utilities, transportation and health care. has increased dramatically while employee wages have failed to keep pace. Year after year, employees are told that the county has no money, yet year after year, funds remain unspent and budget surpluses are reported. County employees have demonstrated their commitment to this organization and this community. Now it is time for the county to demonstrate its commitment to its employees. We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for fair compensation that reflects the value of work and allows us to live in the community we serve. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name's Henry, and I work for the county assessors. I just want to take a moment to point something out really interesting. I know some of you guys were present yesterday when you guys raised the pride flag. However, I'd like to point out something that might not be realized. As it currently sits, the county does not pay enough for me to afford my medication to afford transitioning. Right now, I am actually using expired medicine because I do not expect I don't expect benefits to continue as they are. This is now the norm. I am actually paid such to the point in where even with disability insurance, even with short-term leave, even if I buy Aflac, I don't think I could actually afford to go get gender-affirming surgery. That is the norm, and that seems to be the reality in this county. I don't think that is, however, the intended consequence of county budgets. I have to ask, at one point, is the point of the flag just merely performative? Or is it rather actually a symbol of, hey, we're an inclusive community? Or like I said, or is it just something that we take up, run up a flagpole, and just simply enjoy it, look at it, and think it's pretty? But that's what I have to say about the new contract. Thank you.

Thank you. There anyone else in the room. Madam clerk.

Seeing 3 online first is Sarah.

Hello I hope everyone can hear me. My name is Sarah I have worked with the county for almost 4 years now I am a transplant from San Diego County. I'm 26 years old, and I can't afford to live without multiple roommates, which I think is absolutely shameful, seeing as I work a very steady 9-to-5 job and was sold on the idea that working for our county was going to provide me with stability, and in fact has provided me the opposite. I took a pay cut to come to the county. I have options to get paid better going to work as a manager at Panda Express with better benefits and assistance in getting education. And I think it's a downright shame because I work in social services doing the eligibility for our Medi-Cal and our CalFresh. And I see on a daily working people still not being able to afford more. And I know that there are county employees who are on assistance. And I know that there are more who are not on assistance, but probably should be because we can't afford it based on the wages that you pay us. I remember being here and not being really eligible to participate too, too much in the negotiations my first or second year here just because I didn't have the stability to do so. And just being able to do the basic math of what you guys had presented to us felt definitely like a slap in the face. And with the proposal being what it is now, it's almost a how dare you situation. There was a $15,000 raise for some of the sitting members on the Board of Supervisors, and the rest of us are stuck here to flounder, trying to pay our bills or wondering if we're going to be able to feed ourselves based on paychecks. I live paycheck to paycheck. I should be able to start saving by now, but I can't, and you're trying to take away more benefits, increase our health insurance premiums, and... offer us basically less pay based on your 1% cola, it's a joke. Um... And I really want to be able to support everything that's going on and be here for our community because they're wonderful. But if you can't pay us, people aren't going to stay. And I do have better offers elsewhere. So I think that that is something you should really think about when your turnover is so high that that becomes your biggest cost. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Akesh.

Good morning. Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Excellent. Thank you. Good morning, supervisors. And to my union siblings in the room, thank you for coming. I see you, union strong. My name is Akesh Eide, and I'm the chapter president for SEIU 1021 here in Mendocino County. I apologize for not being there in person. I am away at a conference. This morning, I would like to read into the record words that are not mine. This was submitted to me anonymously by a staff member who is reluctant to come forward and speak to the board publicly for fear of retaliation. So to begin now, quote, when is enough enough? We've lost numerous employees, four at last count within our department, and instead of hiring for those positions again or redistributing the workload evenly with other employees in adjacent roles with less on their plates, it gets dumped onto one or two individuals. Two people have a workload of roughly four employees at this point. Everything is urgent and must be done now. It must be done quickly, but not too quickly because you have to check numerous tiny details that literally take more time than we have allotted in the day. Not only that, but when another employee is constantly failing at their tasks, it's left up to the overworked pair to fix the messes. This is an almost daily occurrence. New projects, multiple, are on the horizon and coming swiftly, again, to be spearheaded by those same two people on top of our normal day-to-day tasks. The burnout and fatigue is hitting hard and hitting fast. It is making it hard to ensure that we are hitting all marks that are being thrown at us while trying to keep ourselves strong morally and mentally. There is not enough time in the work week to take on what is being asked of us and performed at 100%. The real crux here is a manager that oversees two departments and while constantly gloating over one department, the one they came from originally, the other side is literally an afterthought. They never come to our side of the building to check in, to let us know of any upcoming changes, issues, kudos, nothing. Radio silence. Thankfully, we have an amazing supervisor that keeps us in the loop and has daily briefings with us. Signed, Anonymous. And that is the end of my comment. Thank you very much, supervisors. I appreciate everyone's time this morning.

Thank you.

Now we have Janine.

Hello, can you hear me? Hi. Okay. Hi, my name is Janine Robberg. I am a social worker assistant in Willits for Family Children's, and I have something that a colleague of mine has shared, and then I have a comment of my own. It was shared, we cannot afford to go to the hospital when we're sick, nor are there options for doctors in our area that accept our insurance Copays are so high and our wages are so low. Another bill will kill us, literally. We cannot attend this meeting in person because we're so significantly understaffed. And then there's a question, why would people want to work here if we have nothing to offer, no housing and terrible healthcare for employees? And as for myself, I just want to point out that recently I had a medical emergency, but because of the insurance options and the doctor options in this area, I had to go down to Sonoma County. I immediately met my deductible. I paid nearly $600 a month for my health insurance. And that's the only option for the type of insurance that I need, along with my husband. And to know that it's proposed that you guys want to increase our insurance premiums is just insane to me. If I didn't live in a two-income household, I would not be able to live and afford to live here or work here. I love working for the county. I want to continue working for the county. I love the people that I serve and help every day. And lastly, I learned that the board is proposing to eliminate overtime pay if we haven't worked more than 40 hours or at least 40 hours in a week. That if we take a vacation day in a week and then work a 16-hour day the next day, which is very common in family children's, we would not be compensated for our overtime. And instead, it would be required to use it on our vacation day that we already took. It's not acceptable. It feels really illegal. We deserve our overtime, especially in this job. And then, actually, lastly, we also learned that you are hiring a private negotiator. And if you can afford to hire them, why can't you afford to pay us more in the county? That's all. Thank you.

Thank you.

And then we have Amy.

Good morning, everyone.

My name is Amy and I work for Social Services Department. I think this morning that you can hear all of the emotion behind everybody and how we are all struggling. In particular, I am the only income in my household. I'm actually trying to support myself. My insurance is over $200 a month just for me, which I think is totally unreasonable, especially for the coverage that we do get. I commute from Lake County, and I think that it is possible you guys underestimate how many people do commute. And Simply put, it's not going to come down to whether or not I love my job and I love my supervisor. It's going to come down to the fact I cannot afford to work in Mendocino County anymore. And that's very sad to me because I came there for a reason and I commute for a reason and I know I'm not the only one. Thank you.

Thank you.

Seeing no further comment online.

Okay, thank you. And again, nobody else in the room? Okay. Thank you. We're going to move on to the consent calendar. Madam Clerk, has proper notice been established?

Proper notice has been established. Okay.

I got no notices about anything being pulled. We'll give the room a minute and then we'll open up public comment for the consent calendar. Is there anyone in the room that would like to speak on the consent calendar? Yes, sir.

Hi, good morning, members of the board, Chair Norvell, Assistant CEO Pierce, and County Council Elliott. My name is Jesse Van Voorhis, Deputy Director of Department of Social Services, and I oversee the Adult and Aging Services Division. And Adult Protective Services is one of the programs in our division. I'm here to bring light to item C31 on the consent calendar, and that's the proclamation recognizing June 2026 as Elder and Dependent Adult Abuse Awareness Month. We've been doing this proclamation for several years with strong support from the board, approving it since 2017, so we appreciate that. The initiative stems from World Elder Abuse Awareness Day, which was originally established in 2006, and then in California, Mendocino County, we recognized the entire month of June to raise awareness. This item aligns directly with the county's strategic plan priority of building a prepared and resilient county. It's the band's all supervisorial districts. As elder and dependent adult abuse crosses all socioeconomic and geographic boundaries, just around elder and dependent adult abuse, it's found that one in 10 elders or dependent adults experience abuse in their lifetime. And it's severely underreported. One in 24 cases are reported of abuse. And for financial abuse, one in 44 cases are abused. So public education is the primary tool we use to shrink that gap. Across California, we have increasing workload because the population is shifting towards an older population. In Mendocino County, the volume has increased. In 2025, we had 1,623 reports of abuse or neglect. In 2021, that number was 1,230. So that's a 30% increase over the last five years. Our Adult Protective Services team at Social Services, it's a small team, but we do great work, respond to reports 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have one supervisor, six social workers, and two social worker assistants. One way we can battle elder-independent adult abuse is to support some of the services that are available and social supports that include senior centers, food programs, things like transportation that reduces isolation, allows people to be more ingrained within the community. So by adopting this proclamation, the board will signal to all residents that Mendocino County stands united in protecting its elder and dependent adults, ensuring they are treated with dignity and respect. They deserve as leaders, mentors, and vital members of our community.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else in the room like to speak on consent? madam clerk seeing no further comment online okay back to the board supervisor williams move approval we have a second second okay madam clerk first by supervisor williams second by hash check we'll vote by the button the motion carries unanimously Thank you brings us to the regular calendar agenda item or one discussion of possible action, including acceptance of informational reports from the assessor clerk recorder register voters ordered a controller treasurer tax collector district attorney shares various county department heads or designees he went in the room.

Good morning. Angela Godwin, Ag Commissioner here, Chair Novell, Honorable Board Members, Assistant CEO Parris, and County Council Elliott. I just want to give you a very brief update on what's become known as the Costco grapevine shipment or the Costco GUIS issue. Put it out front, right now, no GWIS life stages have been confirmed yet, but we have several samples pending that look very much likely to be the glassy-winged sharpshooter. We call it GWIS. We've had a situation where a nursery called Burchell's in Fresno shipped, looks like, about 13,100 plants to the non-infested areas of California through Costco. The shipment started April 20. And it wasn't detected until May 19. So the window we're looking at plants was from almost over a month, April 19 to May 21. Mendocino County, along with other ag commissioners in multiple non-infested counties, 21 to be exact, have launched emergency efforts to identify nursery plants shipped to Costco. I want to state that Costco has, in general, been a great partner as far as resolving this. It was actually a Costco employee in Sonoma County that notified the Ag Department there that these shipments were coming in not properly labeled in their blue tag, which calls for us to inspect. And then when the Sonoma inspector promptly went out, they found all three life stages, viable egg masses, nymphs, and adults. And this is a real tragedy, because for over 25 years since Pierce disease, which is backing up a little bit, that is the issue with these glassy-winged sharpshooters. We have a native version that's a very weak flyer. And we do have some small pockets. I've heard of Pierce disease. But they're much more easily dealt with and eradicated. Pierce disease is fatal to grapevines. And it does affect other crops, but specifically grapevines. It just kills them. So we've been fighting this. It's slowly been creeping up the state, but this is a massive... risk that's approaching our grapevine industry a grape industry uh there was a meeting last friday with the industry um again really concerned because there's about there was a total of 160 plants that went out from the ukiah here just the grapevines there were some other plants mixed in that could possibly have some life stages on there and we have located approximately um 14 of them. Well, 14 trace forwards. So again, this is a real emergency. We're shifting our staff as best we can. We're reaching out to the public. Costco has sent out an email. They're supposed to send another email out to let people know. They're going to refund them to call us immediately. Costco has not provided the ag department or the state ag department with members' actual addresses of purchases. They have a great system with the whole membership thing. They know where the plants at least started out. We found that some went up to, apparently our Ukiah Costco is quite popular. We have people coming down from Benbow, Oregon, coming in from Lake County, Cloverdale from Sonoma. And it fortunately went on for a month. So we are now working with the public to locate and destroy these infested plants. Like I said, I correct that. It was 15 trace forward calls. So those people have been very generous and let us come out, let us know. We're taking proactive measures. On all the ones we found, little nymphs are being analyzed by CDFA's entomology. We've placed additional traps. We're treating this situation with the highest level of attention, because it's a very serious threat to our wine grape industry, which really can't afford to take any massive hit like this. Like I said, Costco's removed all these ones. We're out. We've increased trapping density at all the locations that we know of. We've increased trapping density around any vineyards or resident interfaces. And Anderson Valley did not have a lot of, usually have twist traps. We've completely covered that area now. Just reaching out, I want to let the board stay informed. If we find some more live stages or something happens, I will let you know immediately. Just know that we're trying very hard with our limited resources to be everywhere. A little bit worried about funding because this is taking up a lot of time, but we're trying very hard to protect our industry. And I welcome any questions, and I know we've done a lot of public outreach, too.

Thank you. Supervisor Williams?

Is cost recovery a possibility? Does CDFA have any programs? And are we keeping track of our actual costs?

I'm tracking my hours right now. I'm hoping there might be an emergency contract to come out from this. Some other counties are looking at joining in a civil action, perhaps, against this nursery in Fresno, because they were under a compliance agreement. They signed in 2023. They knew the rules. So they're looking at that, but really hoping the state comes up with some emergency funds. So we are tracking. If this gets bigger, we'll have some other discussions. If it's actually found, there could be treatments. Really hoping we can stop this. But there's a great concern about this, because it's just so widespread. anyway it's what we try to prevent every year and here this just overwhelms us but I appreciate the board your attention and I will keep you updated as soon as I hear anything and again any other questions just clarifying question is council involved in this to make sure if there's a chance for cost recovery we're doing everything necessary I have not, I haven't reached out yet. Like I said, this really started unfolding. Let me introduce you. Okay. I will reach out. I've been working with, but thank you. That would be wonderful because I'm worried about it. Thank you very much and appreciate it. Reach out to me any questions you have.

Thank you.

Good morning, Dr. Jenny Miller, Director of Health Services. I just wanted to give two updates. One is to make sure the board knows that we are going to be a little late with our specialty mental health contracts. We hope to bring them to the July 7th meeting. As you know, with Prop 1, we went from Mental Health Services Act to Behavioral Health Services Act, and so it's a large process to get through and we're still finishing up our RFPs so we want to make sure that we're able to get as much of the RFP into those contracts so we're giving ourselves a little extra time as we finalize moving into Behavioral Health Services Act for the first year starting July 1st. Second, just an update, we're working to make some changes in environmental health and I wanted to make sure the Board knew we've enacted inspector of the day so that there is an inspector on to address any of the public concerns or questions about permits or processing. So every day has an inspector of the day that someone can call and speak to. We're also working to get cross-training done across the department. We currently don't have that cross-training, but all of our REHSs should be cross-trained to be able to answer questions and provide services across the department. So we're working hard on that, and we are working on active data dashboards that will be available to the public to really show our processing timeframes. That's not ready to go, but we're in the process of developing those, and we'll bring those back when they are ready to go. Thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Klein?

Yeah, just a quick comment. I attended the land use stakeholder meeting hosted by Environmental Health and just want to say thank you to Environmental Health for continuing those conversations with the stakeholders and being willing to hear their ideas. And I do see movement in the department. And just thank you to you and your team's work to improve services for our community.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, ladies and gentlemen of the board. I'm Howard DeShield, your Transportation Director. I want to just update you this morning on the direction you gave at the March 10th meeting for us to move forward with trying to develop a measure, a sales tax measure for roads. The executive office and county council's office have been working really hard on putting together the documents that we'll need to present to you. Right now, we're looking at your first meeting in July, which is July 7th. And also for the benefit of the public, we have developed a page on the transportation tab in the county website. If you go there, there is a item you can click called Potential Road. measure, potential road funding measure. And if you go to the transportation area, and even I could do it, and I'm terrible with the internet, and just type in funding, it'll take you right to this. And it's just a one-page summary of what we've been working on, our proposal at this time. And there's also a really great link you can click, and you can leave a comment And if you want to leave your contact information, phone or email, I will get back to you or try to answer your question so the public can just know that. Go to the DOT, the transportation tab, look for potential road funding measure, and leave a comment at the bottom of the page if you have any questions. And I'll take any questions the board might have right now.

I'm not seeing any. Thank you. OK.

If I may, through the chair, Sarah Pierce, we just wanted to remind the board that it's actually a special tax, too, and not just a general tax, the public. Thank you. And in the incorporated areas.

Do you have a question?

Just a comment. I pulled it up as Director DeShield was mentioning it. It was very easy to find.

Okay. Thank you. Any other department heads or staff in the room? Madam Clerk, do we have any online?

Seeing none online.

OK. We'll open this item up to the public. Anybody in the room? Madam Clerk, anyone online?

Seeing none.

OK. Back to the board for a motion for acceptance of the reports.

So moved.

Second. OK. We have a first and a second. We'll vote by the button.

The motion carries unanimously.

OK. Next we have R2, notice of public hearing, discussion of possible action including approval of staff presentation in compliance with Assembly Bill AB2561, which requires public agencies to hold on one public hearing per fiscal year to discuss vacancies, recruitment, and retention efforts. Clerk, has proper notice been established?

Proper notice has been established and any correspondence received has been sent to your emails.

Okay. It's 9.52. We'll open the public hearing. The clerk has established proper notice. We'll have staff presentation. We'll have public input. We'll give staff an opportunity to present final remarks. The Board of Supervisors can then ask questions to staff. The public hearing will then be closed and the matter will then be in front of the Board.

Interim County Council and Assistant CEO Pierce, Brandy Dalzell, HR Manager. I'm here to present the annual follow-up on Assembly Bill 2561. If you could change to the next slide, please. Assembly Bill AB2561 was signed by Governor Newsom last September of 24, and last year was our first presentation. We're following up on this, and we do this once a year based on pay period 10 of 2026 is where you'll find our stats in the ensuing slides. This is going to outline any bargaining unit that is at 20% or more in a vacancy rate. Next slide. As you can see from this slide, there are two bargaining units as of pay period 10 ending May 9th of 2026 that were exceeding the 20% vacancy rate, and that would be our Deputy Sheriff's Association, also known as DSA, and the MCPAW. which is Mendocino County Public Attorneys Association. Both of those bargaining units or associations were over the 20%. Leading up to the presentation, we do reach out to all of them and give them the opportunity to inquire for additional information. prior to our presentation at this time. And leading up to this morning, we have not heard anything for additional follow-up from the units. Our overall county vacancy rate for pay period 10 of 26 was below the 20% threshold, and we're running at about 15 and 1 half, a little over 15 and 1 half percent. Next slide. Based on the AB2561, we also do reporting requirements on our recruitment statuses. And unlike the previous slide, the recruitment status is based on the calendar year 26 to current. So it's not based on one pay period, it's based on the pay period one through Pay Period 10. And this slide states our recruitment status that HR recruitment team has done and gone through. So we've had a total of 200 requisitions come through from the various departments. Those requisitions are wanting to add an FTE or more into a particular department. We have ran 151 recruitments. We have also screened 1,500 applications since January 1st. We've conducted the 81 exams based on civil service rules and or what the exams are required for positions recruiting for. And of those we have made a referral, 96 referrals. Next slide. This is just a recap, and again, in accordance with AB2561, this flips back to pay period 10. The retention rate for pay period 10 is about 99%. We will continue doing as we have in the last few years. We are promoting internal growth and succession planning by doing internal recruitments and transfers and promotions. We will continue our professional development with our training series, various training series and doing the engagement survey and we do have continued our onboarding and anniversary surveys that go out for every anniversary. Individuals will get those, they have the opportunity to respond and the leadership team addresses the surveys. And then department specific trainings, they reach out to the HR team and whatever would like to be addressed in-house in their specific departments, our HR team will coordinate with them to facilitate any special trainings. And then as most of you are familiar with, our Coffee with HR is still going on. We have a pretty good turnout, whether it's in person or online, and those are scheduled and planned throughout the year. Next slide. And that is AB2561 presentation.

Thank you. Any questions from the board? Professor Williams?

I think AB2561 affords representatives from the groups to make presentations. Did we make that option available? Yes, we have. And none accepted?

That is correct.

I'm not seeing any more questions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Anybody in the room like to comment? No. Madam Clerk?

Seeing no comment on line.

OK. We'll bring it back to the board for. I'll move acceptance.

Give me one second here. I'm going to close the public hearing at 9.58. And again, we'll entertain a motion. I'll move acceptance of the presentation.

Second.

First by Supervisor Haschek, seconded by Williams. We'll vote by the button. motion carries unanimously thank you item r3 discussion of possible action including adoption of urgency ordinance repealing and replacing mendocino county code section 216080 for the purpose of accelerating the date separating the office of auditor controller tax collector and into the separate offices of auto controller tax collector i believe miss cubison is in the room and she would like to make a comment

Morning, chair, supervisors. I just would like to let the public and the board know that I support this urgency ordinance and moving up the separation of the two offices. There are, as indicated in the agenda, several changes in the treasurer tax collector's office that really require more of my time and dedication. And I'm confident that Ms. Hunter, along with other contract resources and county support, will succeed in the auditor's office. We both have some transitions that need to take place right now. And in order to also continue to work towards addressing issues on the state audit, as well as protecting other county resources, I strongly urge you to support it. Thank you.

OK. Thank you. This is a county council item, I believe.

Yes, thank you, Chair. So the Board took an action already to separate out the two offices. That was going to occur on the beginning of next year after the election. in view of the fact that this is the end of the election today, June 2nd, and that we had no other persons that applied for the two positions, the auditor controller and the treasurer tax collector. And because of the situation with the state audit in terms of trying to move everything forward, it seemed like the best way to move forward is to start this process at the first pay period at the beginning of the fiscal year. All of the offices seem to be in agreement. I think this is a good move for this board to take at this time.

Thank you. Supervisor Wynn, if you had a question.

No, I was going to move the recommended action.

Supervisor Haschek, do you have a question?

Well, I'd just like to say I appreciate everyone's collaboration on this. It seems like, since it's a good move that the board has approved in the past, that we might as well do it sooner than later.

Okay. We'll go to the public for comment.

A clarifying question, was that a second from House Check?

Yes.

Anybody in the room like to comment on this item? Seeing none, Madam Clerk?

Seeing none online.

OK. Back to the board, we do have a first and second. Any discussion on the motion? Supervisor Klein?

And just a question for potentially Stafford County Council did we hear from the assistant auditor controller on this here agreement from our current auditor controller church tax collector want to make sure that there's opportunity for her to weigh in as well.

If I could to the chair. Absolutely. Everybody's been informed. The question was, did she need to come? And I will say, one of the things that occurs in this is Shamice Covenson herself will take a pay decrease, which was not true of Ms. Hunter. So that's why we wanted to make sure we got a statement. Does that make sense?

Sure. Not necessarily what I was asking, but just wanted to make sure there was agreement from both impacted parties. Appreciate Ms. Cubison's comments this morning, but just sense of caution given the board has made decisions in the past maybe without having that input. So just want to be cautious.

So if I could through the chair, I had extensive conversations with Megan Hunter as well as Shamice Cubison before I brought this matter forward and yes, they both are in agreement and I think Happy to be able to sort of move those offices forward sooner rather than later Thank you Okay, now the questions will vote by the button The motion carries unanimously

okay item are for discussion of possible action including adoption of resolution amending the position allocation table as follows budget unit one one zero auditor controller and one f t e auditor controller hundred sixty thousand one hundred eight dollars annually budget unit eleven thirty had one f t e treasure tax collector hundred sixty four thousand five hundred thirty two dollars annually budget unit eleven ten Auditor-controller, delete one FTE. Auditor-controller, tax collector, $179,792.65 annually. And this is human resources.

Yes. Good morning, chair, members of the board. Sherry Johnson, human resource director. This item and the accompanying resolution add the separate positions of auditor-controller and treasurer-tax collector to the position allocation table and deletes the combined auditor-controller-treasurer-tax collector position from the allocation table. This action was contingent upon and concurrent with the adoption of an urgency ordinance to accelerate the effective date of separating the office from January 4, 2027 to July 5, 2026. The urgency ordinance creates vacancies in both departments and a need to fill those vacancies. Pursuant to government code 25304, auditor, controller, treasurer, tax collector, And Treasury tax collector elect Shamise Cubison is recommended to appoint to the newly created vacant position of Treasury tax collector for the remainder of the unexpired term of office. And also pursuant to government code 25304, auditor controller elect Megan Hunter is recommended to appoint to the newly created vacant position of Treasury tax collector for the remainder of the unexpired term of office. This to be effective July 5, 2026. Thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Haschek.

Well, this goes along with what we just did, so I'll move the recommended action. Second.

OK. Anybody in the room like to speak on this item? No. Madam Clerk, anyone online?

Seeing no comment online.

OK. Back to the board. We do have a first and second. Any questions on the motion? No. Vote by the button.

The motion carries unanimously.

Thank you we have item or 5.

If I may to the chair to take a quick break before we get into the budget.

Yeah, we have yeah you want to do it before this item after the sign.

Before this item so we can get staff set up yeah absolutely thank you.

Like a 5 minute break maybe yep thank you we'll come back at. 1010.

Remain self-sufficient for 72 hours. Find a list of supplies for disaster kits on our website, MendoReady.org.

A prepared community is a resilient community that will recover faster from disasters. So take some time today, visit our website, get yourself prepared so you can be MendoReady.

A beautiful, clean river doesn't start here. It starts here. What we put down our storm drains goes straight from our streets into our local creeks. Simple changes can make a big impact. Like when you wash your car. The best solution is washing in a professional car wash. But if you wash at home, divert wash water to an area where it can soak into the ground, like a planter strip. Also, empty your bucket of dirty wash water in a sink. The wash water will make its way to the treatment plant, where it is clean. You probably know how to pick up your pet's poop when you are out on a walk. After all, it's the neighborly thing to do.

But what about the pet waste in your backyard?

Pick it up regularly, and especially before rain or irrigation water washes any of it into a backyard drain. Your pet's poo is full of bacteria and nutrients that can contaminate our creeks. Scoop the poo, bag it, and put it in your garbage. When tending to your yard or garden, check the weather and prevent over irrigation. Runoff of fertilizer, herbicides, landscape materials, compost piles, and leaf debris pollute our creeks. Remember, timing is everything. Pick up any litter or trash that may get into the streets. If you grab it before water or wind arrives, it doesn't have a chance of ending up in our creeks. It's up to each of us to take care of our creeks and rivers. They're ours to protect. Find out more at streets2creeks.org.

Are you prepared? We're the Office of Emergency Services and we're committed to providing the most up-to-date and accurate information so that you and your family can stay safe during an emergency. Visit MendoReady.org. It's our one-stop shop for emergency information. You can sign up for emergency alerts, find your pre-established evacuation zone on our current emergencies map, and find hazard and preparedness information.

Imagine you're faced with a disaster such as a wildfire and you're ordered to evacuate. I'll bet you wish you had more time in that moment. Now's your chance to buy yourself that time. Sign up for Nixle and Mendo Alerts on our website, mendo-ready.org. Do it today.

If you want your family to be as resilient as possible, it's important to take some time today and visit MendoReady.org, where you can look up your pre-established evacuation zones on our current emergencies map. You can also find important tools to help maintain your situational awareness, such as the Alert California Wildfire Cameras and the Caltrans Road Conditions Cameras. We hope you'll take some time today to prepare so that your family can be MendoReady. Thank you.

Thank you.

Regular agenda item number five notice the public hearing discussion and possible action including approval a presentation of medicine and county air quality management districts budget pursuant to California health and safety code four zero one three one possible. Direction to staff so. The board of supervisors will now go into recess for item or five or. convene as the Board of Directors for the Air Quality Management District. The Mendocino County Board of Supervisors does not receive any additional compensation or stipend for acting as the Board of Mendocino County Air Quality Management District. Clerk, has proper notice been established?

Proper notice has been established, and all correspondence, if any, received has been sent to your email.

Thank you. It's 10-13. We'll open the public hearing.

their quality yes sir chair I'm going to Stephen with the Mendocino County air quality management district above is the my letter I wrote to the board basically outlined that the district did present a balanced budget for the upcoming year I'm getting used to the process so bear with me and Right this year of this coming or whether we're expecting a resources of about 2 million dollars if I take and we should be able to balance the budget. In the question for the board.

I'm not seeing any questions.

I'll step down thank you.

We'll open the room up for comment anybody in the room. no clerk see no comments online okay back to the board we will extend fifteen will close the public hearing supervisor Williams move the recommended action

second okay we have a first and a second any questions on the motion being done well i just like to say i appreciate the the balanced budget and the tour that you gave me of the facilities the other day and meeting all your staff and really it seems like things are in good hands thank you we'll vote by the button

The motion carries unanimously.

Thank you. OK. Item R6, notice of public hearing, discussion and action, excuse me, discussion and possible action, including approval of the Mendocino County proposed budget for fiscal year 26-27, including all recommended actions and adjustments and possible continuation to June 3, 2026 at 9 AM if necessary. Madam Clerk, has proper notice been established?

Proper notice has been established, and all correspondence, if any received, has been sent to your email.

Thank you. It's 10-16. We'll open the public hearing.

Good morning, Chair. Darcy Antle, CEO. Good morning. It's a very busy time of year with the legislature halfway through this point for their year. The two houses have presented or dropped their budgets. Assembly's budget was just dropped yesterday. The Senate was dropped on May 28th. HR1 is still a hot topic and how those two houses are going to come together to remediate the damage that HR1 could be doing to this county and to our constituents. Today, being a primary election for many key state and local positions, the county must keep an eye on the governor's election. The top three candidates have very different views on how to move the state of California forward. A lot of work has gone into this county budget, not only by the executive office team, but by public health, HR, auditor controller, treasurer, tax collector. And we certainly appreciate the collaboration from all the departments and consultant, Ben Rosenfeld. Without Ben, I don't know we would have been this far as we have come with these reports this year. It's really been a true joy to have him along our side as we move things forward. And later on, you will see where he presents the roadmap, the fiscal roadmap for moving forward, which was a goal of this board. The budget for 26-27 is balanced. with the use of one-time funds for one-time expenditures. The Executive Office has taken a more active role in the revenue projections based on trends and forecasting. Also, I'd like to note on May 29th, the federal administration released a notice of proposed rulemaking that constitutes sweeping overhaul of federal grants, consolidating the White House power over the process. It's a 412 page proposal. This proposal could halt awards and terminate federal dollars coming to this county. Last year, this county received $57.7 million in federal awards. And I'd also like to remind you that $1 billion is on hold for IHSS. That's for the state of California in general, where they're looking at fraud, waste, and abuse in that program. Constitutional deadline for the passage of the state budget bill is June 15th. And the last day for legislative measures to qualify for November general ballot is June 25th. And July 2nd is the last day for policy committees to meet before the summer recess and legislation adjourns for the end of the day. So there's still a lot for us to do, a lot for us to follow. There is hope in some of the House's bills that put back a little bit of money towards indigent care towards the HR1 gaps, but it will remain to be seen what gaps get filled and what are left for the county to manage moving forward. With that, I'd like to turn it back over to Assistant CEO Sarah Pierce.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors, CEO Mantle, Assistant CEO Sarah Peers. I have nothing to add right now, so I'll turn it over to Deputy CEO, IT Director Tony Rakes.

Good morning, Chair Novell, members of the Board.

Tony Rakes here with your 26-27 fiscal year proposed budget.

We're going to get ourselves started today with two presentations, the first being from Health Services Agency Director Janine Miller regarding opioid settlement funding. And then from there, we will move on to Ben Rosenfield on a financial roadmap presentation. After those, we'll jump into the rest of the proposed budget report and presentation, along with the recommendations that this office is making, and then open for questions. So with that, I believe we can welcome Janine Miller up. And I have her slides that I will share for her.

Director of Health Services. So I'm going to talk a little bit about our Opioid Settlement Funds.

And we can go to the next slide.

So the Opioid Settlement Funds were funds that across the United States, there was lawsuits against different companies and pharmacies for the opioid pandemic. And through that lawsuit, counties, cities were able to recoup some dollars to help with opioid remediation and future remediation for trying to resolve the opioid pandemic that we are experiencing across the United States. Next slide, please. So this just gives kind of a look at how the opioid funds are coming into California and then gets dispersed to the cities and counties in California. So we have three accounts that come in through the state. You have the state fund account, which gets about 15%. Then we have, into Mendocino County, we have both a subdivision fund and an abatement fund. The subdivision fund gets a 15% of the funds that come and go to our subdivision fund. and then 70% goes into our abatement fund. There's a little bit of a difference between the subdivision and the abatement. The subdivision funds, because we were a litigant in the cases, we were able to get subdivision funds. Not all cities or counties got subdivision funds. The funds are supposed to be used towards future opioid remediation or we're able to use them for future prior expenses for like health insurance, coroner cases, and also litigation that we went through to be able to be part of the opioid funds. The abatement funds are a little bit different. They have what they call high-impact areas and the non-high-impact areas. There is a lot of oversight happening by the state of California for any dollar spent in your abatement funds. So they are literally auditing every dollar as we submit at the end of the year what we spent the funds on. And we've had to work with county councils at times to really explain why we feel these are viable expenses to be used against our abatement funds. Next slide. So these just, I'm not going to read them to you, but these are the main high-impact abatement activities that California has designated as the main areas that you have to use at least 50% of those abatement funds. And that's what the state's looking at when they audit us. They're looking at every dollar to see, when did we use that 50%? And did it go to an abatement area that they feel meets the abatement criteria? Just because the county feels that it may not mean that the state of California is in agreement with that abatement. Next slide. So our subdivision funds are not currently overseen by health services, but I'm going to give you what I do know. So we've received a little over a million dollars in subdivision funds. There was 194,000 approximately spent of those subdivision funds. And on health care costs and corner costs, those are reimbursement costs for expenses at the health care. The insurance company you know, because of opioids, it was cost that we spent through the health care insurance cost. And then obviously we went back through and looked at coroner's costs due to opioid cases that the sheriff's office worked with. And then also there was that $57,000 that was part of the council cost. Those were pulled prior to us receiving the funds. Those were for the litigation that we had council participate in to receive these funds. There are no... funds budgeted for fiscal year 26-27. I know that the team has been working to look at where these funds could be utilized. There's been a lot of look at whether or not these funds could be used within the county jail system to help with the NAFCARE contract. Are there things that meet that criteria that we're currently paying for that we could or that we could expand that these subdivisions funds could be utilized for? Next slide. So these are the abatement funds. And looking at the abatement funds, we've received about $4.8 million in abatement funds. We've spent about $339,000 to date. That doesn't get us through all the expenses that could come in through the end of June. We're looking at, we budgeted for fiscal year 26-27 about $1.2 million, but we also realize that we may come back and ask for a budget adjustment. As we look at these funds, there's a list of things we've been planning to spend these funds on. Some we've already done. We have been doing Narcan and Naloxone purchases. We've been doing fentanyl purchases. We've been funding the sum of the sheriff's mat services with these funds in the jail to offset some of the NAFCARE costs and be able to expand mat services within the jail. We developed an opioid task force. And so the task force has really been looking and meeting and talking about what we can do in Mendocino County to get education, awareness, and different programs related to opioids out within the community. And we are looking at, if we continue with a core model, how we can enhance some of these abatement funds to enhance that substance use outreach and treatment for that program. And we also did two fentanyl high showings, one here in Ukiah, one in Fort Bragg. They were both very highly attended. We're continuing to work with Mendocino County Office of Education to look at doing additional showings this next coming year in different areas of our county.

Next slide.

So we also have worked on doing campaigning. These will be our first billboards will be going up. The first ones will go up, projected to go up June 8th. And we have billboards going up in Laytonville, Hoplin, and both in Willits and the outskirts of Ukiah. We are hoping to get a billboard in Fort Bragg. Unfortunately, there are only a few. and they're booked up till January. So we're continuing to look at options. And then there really aren't billboards on the South Coast. So we've been, well, I'll show you the other, what we're kind of doing to get some of the information out there. This billboard here, we worked with our local law enforcement and the county and health services, and you'll see all the badges of all the local law enforcement agencies are on these billboards as a partnership. This is the first part of the campaign to kind of get awareness out there, and then we'll do some additional boards that will focus on education and how to get more information on fentanyl and resources. Next slide. So this is a second billboard. There's three of them, so we'll show you all. I have all three to see. This billboard will be going up in Willits. The prior billboard will be in Hoplin and Laytonville. Next slide. And this billboard will be going up in the Ukiah area. So these are the first four that will be going up. And then, like I said, we're looking for more, and then we'll do a second round and possibly a third round that just gives more information. These campaigns were used both in Fresno and Merced County, and based on their statistics, they saw some reduction and found them to be very beneficial to their communities.

Next slide.

So as we are finding in some areas it is hard to be able to get billboards, we decided to work with MTA and do some bus ads. And so we are making sure that we get on the buses that go into the south coast and into the Fort Bragg area and right through Anderson Valley. Some of it will be on the back of the bus. Some of it will be on the side of the bus. It's what's available that we're looking for. They were willing to work with us and go ahead and put the pill on their form of it. They usually don't like to put a lot of content, words fine, but they didn't want to do a lot of drug paraphernalia or anything, but they were willing to, this design they were able to work with and approve for us. It also has a QR code that will link you to the Good to Know Mendo page for more information on fentanyl and access to resources. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

I've got a little. House cleaning to do here real quick. The dirt the directors will now recesses menacing accounting or quality management district and reconvene as the board of supervisors thank you supervisor warrants.

Sometime back, the board had to make a difficult decision between funding the mental health services in the jail or Ford Street, you might recall. And I think we made a commitment that as more funds come in from this stream, we would at least reconsider Ford Street's potential collaboration with us. Is that still on the horizon? Or where do you see that opportunity being in the future?

So yeah, we did fund about 60,000 of 4th Street's sober living environment. We worked with them for a $60,000 contract to fund and help them get their sober living environment furnished and equipped with what they needed. We are still looking at where other resources. We did an RFP for Measure B funds, and the plan was kind of do whatever we do, we'd have a combo of opioid funds and Measure B funds. We got two proposals in from that. And we've had a couple requests also from the South Coast on some MAP services. So yes, if there's additional funding that any provider needs, we're definitely willing to look at proposals.

Thank you. Supervisor Maher?

Thank you. And thank you, Dr. Miller, for the presentation. I think that the opioid settlement funds might be sort of not top of mind, as they're not in the media as frequently as they have been in the past. And this is a good opportunity for the public to understand how we're spending those funds. There's a couple of key things in your presentation that I wanted to just highlight. One of them is assertive field-based substance services. And I think that that is one of the most important opportunities that we have. to help people in our community that are struggling with substance misuse disorder to really meet them physically where they're at to offer them services. And also, as we continue to talk about substance misuse disorder, I really appreciate, in particular, the bus ad, because I think there are unintended consequences from using medication prescribed to others or that is found on the streets. And I think, generally, that is where some of our people that fall deepest into addiction can begin using substances. And of course, we would just like to continue to call out that many of our overdose related deaths or even a recent incident with the sheriff's office are related to multi drug use. And so while opioids are clearly present in our community, we still struggle with the use of methamphetamine and other drugs. And so I think as much as we can continue to have that conversation as a board and as a community, I think it's valuable. Thank you.

Dr. Miller, I'm not seeing any more questions, so thank you.

Next, this is Tony Riggs here for the budget. Next will be Ben Rosenfield on the financial roadmap.

Good morning, supervisors. Ben Rosenfield, as you know, I'm an advisor that's been brought on by the county to assist it as it develops a financial roadmap going forward, steps that the county should undertake to improve its financial management and clear audit findings in recent state audits. Today I'll be walking through four parts of that project, four focus areas. I'll be touching on financial operations and systems, property tax collections, revenue and core financial policies, and lastly, financial forecasting and reporting. These are four key areas highlighted in state audits where I have been spending my time with the executive management team in the county. In each of those cases, I'll briefly highlight what the challenge is, some thoughts on recommended actionable next steps. And in each case, there is a set of timelines and more definitive action steps. They're summarized at the end of the presentation. I won't walk through them today, but know that they are there. Next slide. So I'll start with financial operations and systems. And I know that this board is well aware of the issues here. These were reported in state audits. But the underlying county core financial operational processes are substantially substandard. The root of these challenges are in large part to a long ago and incomplete implementation of the financial system that the county uses to perform the vast majority of this work. These deficiencies have been well documented in the past. This board heard a report from RGS in 2025. I think they did a very strong job of summarizing a lot of those challenges. And again, I want to kind of point to the distant past where I think the root of a lot of these are, which is just fundamentally the county is using a financial system that's in place in many counties across the state of California, but it's not fully utilizing that system. And it's not fully utilizing that system because many years ago it was not implemented to allow it to be usable. This results, therefore, in a whole host of financial activities that requires extensive staff time to navigate what should be more routine transactions, things like processing journal entries, preparing a budget, preparing financial tracking reports. And in other cases, leaves gaps that makes it very challenging even for the county to perform some of these tasks, things like bank reconciliation and others. In working through what next, I think it's clear that given the current misconfiguration of the financial system, the long time since it was last upgraded, the institutionalization of inefficient offline processes over time to work around to make things work without the benefit of that system, I think it's pretty clear that the path forward here is a reimplementation of the financial system rather than a set of incremental changes over time and modest improvements. This is a major project, but I believe it would have the potential for major operating and efficiency benefits for all county operations going forward. Some high-level stats here on kind of what I believe should be expected. This is likely a three-year project to get from beginning to end of. It will take resources, an estimate of approximately $3 to $5 million over that project span. It will take staff time, dedicated staff. I've recommended a staff of three to five staff focused on this project, along with consultant assistance that will be needed from outside to make it work effectively, and then Probably most importantly, effective governance. A steering committee sitting on top of this project, it does touch many county functions and many departments. And it's important to have participation from many of those and regular reports to this board. I thought I would talk very briefly here about what year one of this multi-year project likely looks like. And so this is a summary of that. I would imagine year one of this project being one of designing the way we want the world to look and the way we want our operations and procedures to look. And then years two and three are then implementing that system. We don't want to too quickly jump to simply implementing the financial system without asking ourselves first, what do we want it to do for us? And what do we want those processes to look like? That's a mistake that often happens. And the result is that you end up with financial systems that embed the way you're doing things today. And I think the goal here is to imagine that we can do things in a more standard way that's in place in many other places. So this year one of this process is predominantly one of documenting. both the way each of these individual processes works today and then how we want it to work in the future. It will be important to staff up the project in year one. And I don't imagine this is a massive team required to do this, but I do think it's important to have dedicated resources. It's likely an in-house project manager with two to four other support staff. And there will be the need, as there always is on these sorts of projects, for expert external consulting support. That's really predominantly going to be IT system implementation support, likely from the provider. And it's going to be business process design support, people that have experienced what these processes look like elsewhere. There are going to be a number of key questions to resolve during the first year of this project. And the questions, these aren't known today. These are the questions we want to answer, some of the questions I think we want to answer as a county during that year. Fundamentally, we want to decide relatively early on whether we want to reimplement MUNIS, the system that we're using today, or consider another financial system. That has dramatic impacts on timeline and approach here. The county should kind of work through this process and assess it and come to its conclusion. I will say my instinct today would be that this is likely a reimplementation of the Tyler Muna system that will come with less cost, less risk. And it is a system that is both known to the county and successfully being used in many of our neighbors. So it's a well-regarded system. We will have to answer questions about whether we want to have subsystems interfacing into the system for any of the specialized work that it might do. We have a whole host of choices to make about how ambitious we want the project to be in terms of how many business processes we're trying to rebuild, how we want to phase the modules as we get into implementation. Then importantly, and I think this is going to be a tension that's going to be felt throughout, We have challenges in our processes today. How much time do we want to spend rebuilding those processes only to then replace them when we re-implement the system? And so at what point do we want to kind of freeze development of new procedures, knowing that they will be ultimately redesigned in the project? I think this is a tension you always feel in these kind of projects. And there's a whole set of choices there that that steering committee will have to wade through as we work through it. I do think a key deliverable at the end of the first phase of the project is a detailed work plan that should come forward to this board. And at that point, this board should, I would suggest, will want to have either quarterly or semiannual updates on how the project's going. There's a more detailed set of timelines and tasks in the appendix here and offline. But at a high visual level, I think this is what this project looks like. These are calendar years. The remainder of this calendar year is largely likely prepping for the project. I think it's important to note that, obviously, this is a major effort. And each of the offices that's going to be involved here has a lot of existing work they have to continue to do to keep the lights on. We have an auditor controller that will need to close the books, an issue in ACFER. You're going to be going through transitions in the CEO's office. You will have two new offices created from one. So there's going to be a lot going on in the background here. So I think the first six months is largely prep. It's visiting other neighbors that are using Tyler Muniz differently, getting procurement processes underway to bring on consultant supports, and then seating the steering committee. And so that, come 2027, you're really ready to have a focused effort on redesigning processes and then the years after that, reimplementing the system. Turning to property tax, the second major area that we have been spending time on. Again, kind of a brief synopsis of the problem. And this board's well aware of it, and it's documented in state audits. I'll start here by saying that the California State Auditor recommendation, the first of their recommendations related to property tax, was that the county needed to have tools available to even understand the work in front of it and how to approach it. And there's the so-called aging reports that the auditor referenced and that the team and both the assessor's office and IT have been working on. The good news is that first step has now been partially completed. There are aging reports available in the office that give us a sense of what's in the backlog, which is going to tremendously help the assessor's office as they now begin to chart the work ahead. So that's the good news. The bad news is it gives us clarity into the size of that backlog, and it is significant. We have over 5,000 property ownership or improvement events pending in the system that need to be processed. The next slide is a high level summary of those focusing on these two different property event types. So the left or here are change and ownership events that are pending work and pending completion. And the right side are new construction events, permits that have been pulled in the county that need assessment work. You can see we have approximately 2,600 change in ownership spending in the system, many stretching back many years. And similarly with permits, we have almost 3,000 permits pending, again, many stretching back many years. As this board's aware, there's a four-year statute of limitations on collection of prior year assessment events. So that's kind of a line that's drawn here. And you can see that we now have over 1,300 events that are past that statute of limitations. I want to stress, though, that that is for backwards bills. And ultimately, the assessor's office will need to legally and financially want to work through all of this, because adjusting assessments from even long ago will have an ongoing benefit looking ahead. And that's the predominant financial benefit here, I believe, for the county, the cities, and others that rely on this revenue sources. Not so much the prior year tax bills as the base building effect that kind of getting caught up here will have. I won't dwell here on the impact of what a backlog like this, the challenges it creates, but it really creates three primary ones. One, of course, is reduced revenue available for local services. And of course, it's important to note here the property tax isn't only the single largest single source for county operations, but a portion of property tax flows to the four incorporated cities, school districts, and other special districts in the county. So this is an important source for all of our governments here in Mendocino. Secondly, the backlog drives a massive amount of staff effort that otherwise wouldn't be if we were current. The process for all three primary offices and primary functions, and here I'm speaking to the assessor's function, the auditor controller function, and the treasurer tax collector function, if we are current on these activities going forward, they're more efficient to perform. When we start reaching in and having to issue tax bills for prior years, negotiate payment plans, deal with prior year events, it creates more work for the team. And therefore, it drives you further behind. And then lastly, of course, the backlog creates significant important problems for property taxpayers. It creates uncertainty for them regarding when they will receive prior year bills, and it can lead to unfortunate surprises when the county does finally catch up. At a high level, this would be my assessment of the organizational dynamics in play in the assessor's office. And I do believe they're caught in a negative workload cycle. They've had a huge amount of staff turnover and change. And I'll talk about that briefly in a minute. That means they've lost institutional knowledge necessary to do work. It means they're pulling people off of the floor to train. a never-ending chain of new people coming in the door. They understandably faced with a backlog of work. They're using shortcuts to kind of get things processed quickly. But in doing that, it creates a negative loop where rework is going to be needed later then. There's an understandable short focus on the short-term needs of the backlog, which is distracting from long-term improvements needed to the system and processes to kind of be more efficient with it going forward. And I've been here myself running functions like this. The more urgent today's problems get, the more distracting it gets from being able to plan for the long term. And I think interrupting this cycle is really what we're after here looking ahead. I think there's three key steps to kind of to stabilizing things and catching up on the backlog. The first is to stabilize staffing levels in the office. I'll talk about that in a second. The second is to develop a clear and measurable and public plan to clear the backlog and bringing back to this board and the public kind of quarterly milestones to bring this to kind of work this effort down. And I will say, and I'll touch on this later, that will require resources. I know this is an independently elected office, obviously, that operates operationally independently from this board. The board, though, has a critically important role to engage with the assessor's office and others regarding staffing and workload. And in this case, I do believe additional resources will be needed when the assessor comes forward with a plan to work it. Lastly, I will say while we are stabilizing staffing and working on the backlog, it's important that the department, that the office, continue to dedicate a small amount of resource and staff effort to make long-term improvements that fundamentally will avoid the backlog. So I'll briefly run through each of these. There has been a remarkable amount of turnover and change in the assessor's office over the last five years. This slide summarizes some of that change. This is an office that currently has 19 staff, just for order of magnitude scale. During that almost five year period, they lost 24 people and brought on 23 new ones. So more than a complete turnover of the staff during that four and a half year period. If you look at that on average, it means that every year for the last four, four and a half years, the office has been losing a quarter of their staff and onboarding a quarter of their staff. Just a huge amount of churn and change that obviously would destabilize any office's operations. We've had a number of conversations about what the likely drivers of this are. And while we don't have perfect information, management reports that it's likely a mix of a number of things, workload pressures, challenges with the new property tax system, Potential lack of competitive compensation in certain areas, lack of dedicated staff time focused on training and development, and other challenges. So we know what the problem is here. We don't quite yet know what the solution is. And the recommendation here is really the assessor working with the CEO and the human resource director engage intensively to understand what the drivers of this turnover is and steps needed to intervene and stabilize office. There are tools that are understood by all the offices here to help. We have exit surveys. We know how to benchmark staff compensation to determine whether compensation is an issue. The CEO's office can work with the office to revise hiring procedures, onboarding procedures, and others. So here, I think it's critically important that these three offices work together to kind of assess the problem and then to figure out kind of the next steps. Turning briefly to a plan to eliminate the backlog, I'll start here at a high level just by, again, stressing how significant this backlog is. We're changing ownership events and permitting events. To give you a sense of scale, about 2,500 of these events were processed in 2020. So that's about kind of what our normal coming in the door activity looks like. And we're trying to clear 5,000 prior year events. So if we imagine this is a conveyor belt, we need to increase the speed of the conveyor belt. We need to double it. in order to kind of work this backlog down in a two-year period. So it will be a lot of work, and it will take time. It will require stabilized staffing levels, times, almost certainly additional interim staff, and careful coordination with other offices that are obviously impacted by the backlog as well. So this is not just an assessor's office problem. This is an auditor controller and treasurer tax collector coordinated assignment. That plan, which we've recommended should come forward at the end of the first quarter of the coming fiscal year, should include detailed workload-driven metrics that give us a sense of how that backlog is going to change each quarter until it's eliminated. The plan should include careful work with the other participating departments that are necessary for the work to happen, and consider not just workload impacts in that, in the assessor's function, but in these as well. And again, I think it's important that there be clear public expectations for how this work is going to be performed, clear expectations for this board regarding what the pace looks like. And I've suggested there should be quarterly reports that come forward to the board to show how we're doing against that plan once it's been adopted. So while we are focusing on the shorter term challenge, which is the backlog, as I indicated earlier, it's important that the office retain dedicated hands and energy focused on improving the efficiency of the system that we are using. And I think there is a number of opportunities here to do so. The property taxes, I will say, unlike Tyler Munis, which is in use in many counties all over the state and being used effectively, Aumentum, the system that the county shifted to during the pandemic, is a challenging system. And it's a challenging system everywhere. It's not just Mendocino that's struggling with it. There's a number of counties that are using Aumentum, and it is very much a work in progress. But the system does have functionality that's only being partially used right now because the data in the system in some instances is either incomplete or wrong. And so there's an organized effort here to kind of populate missing data fields, clean up incorrect data. And once that's complete, once these characteristics are built in the system, it has the ability to partially automate functions that today are very manual. And so while we're focused on clearing the backlog, it's important to retain adequate staff time focusing on getting this repopulation and data cleaning so we can prevent the backlog from recurring in the future. briefly here, and the assessor can speak to this more directly. But there is a shorter term resource need here. I don't believe it's significant. I believe it's likely one or two limited term staff for a period of time to just focus exclusively on this data cleanup work. Turning briefly to financial forecasting reporting and policies, and I know this be presented on financial policies at a previous board meeting. And this board adopted a revised financial reserve policy. Obviously, charting a financial path forward for any government requires it to be able to accurately forecast its revenues, create budgets that respond to the trends you see in those forecasts, and then allow a mechanism whereby the CEO and the board can kind of track trend over time to adjust courses you needed. A budget is nothing more than a plan, and it needs to be managed as such. I did spend time kind of reviewing a number of different components of how the county forecasts its revenue, prepares its budget, reports to the board and the public and others. And some of my observations are on the next slide. And I will say, in this case, I believe the county has taken a lot of positive steps over the last 18 months on this front. I think the quality of the quarterly reports is much stronger than early versions of it that I've seen. I think it's very promising that the county is taking steps to stretch its forecasting beyond the 12 months of the budget into future fiscal years. And I generally find, actually, that the accuracy of the county's budget forecasting is actually good compared to many peers. And I can kind of talk about those things But I do think there are important next steps here, and I can kind of talk about those. Briefly on budget forecast accuracy, I mean, obviously this is a critically important question. We want budgets to be realistic expectations of what we expect to occur. We know that actuals will always vary from budgets. The norms I've seen in other local governments in California usually have a goal of being within 2% to 5%. You want your actual revenues to be between 2% and 5%, depending on the place within your budgets. Mendocino in recent period has done well here. If we look at the variances over the last four years, there's less than a 1% variance between the original budget forecasts and the final actual results. And on the right, you can see a comparison for the 23-24 ACFR of how Mendocino's accuracy compared to some of our peers. I believe we're doing a reasonable job in terms of the accuracy of our budget forecasting. Where I think more attention should be spent and has been spent, as I mentioned, is in the reporting about how we're trending against that adopted budget as we go through the year. And these are the quarterly reports that come forward to this board and the public. A lot of these practices for these reports are in line with what you'd expect to see in other counties. I think they, though, can do a better job, to the last bullet point here, of summarizing the big picture, of using the quarterly reports to preview what we expect year-end results to be and providing as a way of minimizing surprises. We will always have variances. If we're being straightforward and in executive summaries highlighting where we expect to be at the end of the year, we can kind of preview those surprises so that they're known as you're building the subsequent year. A lot of the changes here I've recommended on this slide, or some of them have been implemented in Q2 and Q3 reports, as I mentioned. And others are predominantly a function of continuing to build out the executive summary of this report, I believe. I think at a big picture level, any government spends a lot of time developing its annual budget. It tends to be the focus. These quarterly reports should be seen as an opportunity to check in on how that budget is doing. And I think there's opportunities here to use the executive summary to see more forest and less trees in these reports. Turning briefly to long-range financial forecasting, obviously this board's aware of the importance of this work. While we adopt a 12-month budget, this board and the CEO and others are grappling with issues that stretch well beyond 12 months, things like multi-year labor contracts, infrastructure and deferred capital needs that will take often years to implement a given project, and others. So it's important to have our 12-month spending plans anchored in what we think the longer term looks like. Next slide. As I mentioned, I believe the county's taken important steps forward here in the last year. The quote unquote and one projection that accompanied last year's budget was an important effort to kind of preview the second year, get a sense of what you think the longer term trend looked like. And I think the preliminary five year estimates that are presented to this board as part of this year's budget development process are absolutely steps in the right direction. The suggestions here, though, are that we can kind of mature those changes and we can formalize them now, that the board should adopt a formal financial policy requiring a multi-year forecast to be produced each year and on a calendar that would coincide with the beginning of the budget calendar, and that the quality and content of those projections continue to be refined, more nuanced projections and and included in a public report that allows kind of transparency into the assumptions sitting under it. I won't walk through examples of these kinds of reports elsewhere, but just know that there's a lot of examples from very complicated and complex to very simple and helpful from other places to look to as the county kind of works to refine these projections. Lastly, this is a smaller one, but an important one. I know when we think about financial policies, when we talked about this earlier, this board has now adopted a much stronger reserve policy for the county. You did that at a meeting earlier this spring. And I think, for reasons we talked about then, that has the potential to put the county in a much better place in the future to navigate multi-year financial cycles. I think this is a companion policy that the board should consider, which is adopting a formal one-time revenue policy. The county has done a good job in the last two budget cycles of kind of matching ongoing revenue with ongoing expense. and not using one-time revenue sources to kind of mask structural problems going ahead. But this is a hard practice to sustain over time, given kind of demands on public services and workload. And I would suggest here that the adoption of a one-time revenue policy would provide kind of the structure to sustain that best practice the county's employed over the last two cycles going ahead. Again, there are examples from many places, many peers to look to for that. So in summary, the recommended summary steps in the roadmap that we have worked on includes adopting revised financial policies, governing reserves, fund balances, and use of one-time revenues to better safeguard county resources, adopt changes to quarterly financial reporting to more clearly summarize key trends, Create a multi-year financial forecast that frames each year's annual budget process to give a sense of how the annual budget fits into the longer term of the county's goals. Address core financial operational inefficiencies across financial functions by upgrading and re-implementing its financial system, including a careful rebuild of its operating procedures. And then lastly, improving revenue collection and reducing resident impacts by clearing the backlog, assessment events of property tax, stabilizing staffing levels in the assessor's office, and building the most important single revenue source for the general fund for the county. It's property tax. So I will stop there. There's a summary here of the findings. I do believe at the end of the day, The recommendations we have worked to put ahead and are now underway in many instances will go a long way towards strengthening the county's financial strength and resiliency, clearing audit, and clearing audit findings that have been highlighted in recent state audits.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Supervisor Williams?

I have three questions, but first I'd like to express gratitude for all of our staff that worked on this. I think this is the number one greatest, weakest link in the organization and you won't have to hear me complain anymore. I've made a lot of noise about this for a lot of years and I feel like this report and recommendations really exceeds expectations. I appreciate Ben did fine work here, but I know it also took staff in the executive office, information services, auditor, controller, assessor, and probably elsewhere. And the only way we're going to solve this is that sort of collaborative effort because it touches so many people in so many departments. So the three questions I have, does the executive office have what's necessary to carry out these recommendations or will you be needing any sort of approvals from the board? Because this looks like shovel ready, let's do it.

If I made it to the chair, I think CEO Antle came offline.

Yes, if I may really quickly. Supervisor Williams, you know, we're going through our own transition in the executive office. So we are going to need resources. We have this, and you know, I believe in this 100%. So does my team. And again, we've been striving for this. It feels like a long time coming, but we finally got to a roadmap that we can follow. So I really appreciate the support. The team's going to huddle because we are going to need additional resources to make a lot of this happen. And talking through it with Ben at various stages, we're probably gonna need somewhere to three to five additional staff members, not just in the executive office, but to support the other offices as well to move this forward. Again, it's going to take us quite a while, three to five years, but I believe the team is fully committed. We want to make it happen and we will be coming forward asking most likely to hire either full-time or extra help folks to help us carry this out. And I'll let Sarah add additional words if she has some.

If I may to the chair, I have no additional words, but the executive office does back all of this and we're you know in collaboration with all offices so.

Thank you. Second question, I imagine we're prioritizing or we should be prioritizing on the tax collection side so that we go after the largest potential gains. I would think we would focus on taxes that are about to become uncollectible. Once they cross that threshold, it's too late. But I imagine there's also an element of it may take the same amount of work to collect $1,000 as to collect $100,000. Do we have procedures? Do we have the tooling in place to help us rank the tasks that have the greatest financial gain to the organization?

If I may, through the chair, Assessor Clerk Recorder's office is not in here right now. I'm assuming that they're all busy with elections. So I don't know through Ben's work if you were able to identified dollar amounts as well?

I can speak briefly to that, to the question. I know the assessor's office, which is busy running an election today, wasn't able to make it today. But we've had many conversations on the exact questions you're getting to, Supervisor Williams. For the remainder of the year, I think the priorities for the backlog will change at different times of the year. But you're correct that at this time of the year, The office is focused on clearing those events that we're about to lose as prior year tax events, the ones just before that four year. One of the benefits of having the kind of reporting that they have nation versions of now, which they haven't had in the past, is they can kind of see what's pending and focus in different parts of the pipeline. And they are focused on those. just before the four-year horizon. And we have had talk about the importance of having a value consideration in that effort. It doesn't make sense to chase $1,000 that you're about to lose. The other part of the backlog that they also need to keep in mind, the tension will be getting this current year's tax events enrolled so that those processes will work more efficiently in the future. So I think they're working at both ends of that four-year window right now. And I would hope that with the plan coming forward that you'll have that kind of visibility into what parts of the backlog are they trying to work in each quarter and how far do they expect.

Appreciate that. And then last question, and I ask this because inevitably we don't have a PIO. There will be spin out of this discussion. There always is. And a lot of times I read the news and I'm shocked because I was there and that's not quite. Can you, based on your research, can you tell us how you think this problem developed? How far back? And is it fair, my belief is that it's probably nobody with any of the departments today, that these were more institutional legacy decisions that were made piecemeal over a long period of time and some unfortunate tooling with vendors. Because otherwise, I feel like our staff gets unfairly blamed, like somebody failed and we have this problem now, rather than this has been longstanding for decades.

That's my sense as well, Supervisor. I won't say I've studied this extensively, but it does feel like there has been a perfect storm of events over the past five and more years that's kind of driven us to where we are here today. And some of the challenges predate that.

Thanks for your effort.

I have one question for you and it's in reference to page 9 the property assessment backlog for I guess I believe I understand it but for the benefit of the public could you go into a little bit more detail about the statute of limitations the ability to reassess the property but not go back and collect

There is a statute of limitations, but what I need to remind the Board and the public is that there is kind of a tension between needing to look at the dollar value and the year, but there is also a bigger issue, and that is that the prior events still have to be worked and recorded in the system because the changes over the years changes in ownership, changes in boundary line splits, changes in value. That all carries forward. We can't just ignore what happened in the prior years because we can't collect it. It still has to be worked in the system so that when they do get to a year that they can collect on, It's been adjusted by all those previous events. So there's kind of a constant tension between needing to keep current on the ones we can, but then also needing to process the older ones, even if we can't collect. And unfortunately, yes, some of those older ones, we can't collect the tax, but we still owe them the refund. So some of that older stuff isn't generating revenue, but it is impacting the bills that we would be generating. So unfortunately, they can't just say, We're just going to look at the biggest dollar value or the years we can still collect or whatever it is in order to ignore some of the older ones that we may not be able to collect on.

Thank you. Supervisor Klein.

Yeah. Thank you. I want to agree with Supervisor Williams. This is the biggest opportunity for improvement for the county. We have seen lots of comments online, the news articles, the response from the community around particularly the delinquent tax bills that they're receiving or the escaped assessments they're receiving. And it's really one of the biggest shames that this county has, unfortunately. And I agree, it's a multi-decade problem that's accumulated to this point. And it's going to take us some time to dig out of that. We certainly appreciate the work that Ben and the whole county team have done to bring this presentation forward to us. The board has taken the state audit seriously. We made it a priority at the beginning of the year, and this is the start of our roadmap, and the next steps are investing the resources, the staff, the money to set the county up for success moving forward. Otherwise, we're never going to level the county up and we're always going to be playing this game of, you know, being behind financially and not being at the next level where we can instead look at just doing the bare bones essentials, but really what we can do to improve the county as a whole and really level up financially. So I appreciate the roadmap, the staffing needs, the potential timelines. Obviously, this is very early and preliminary. I think the other thing that's really important is the emphasis on the regular reporting to the board. That needs to be tied to those resources, right? The transparency is necessary to show the public what is happening from those additional investments. So thank you.

Thank you. Supervisor Haschuk?

Yeah, I want to basically say the same thing. But really, when we talk about we get criticized a lot for hiring consultants. And I think that in this case, we've had a consultant that's really provided this roadmap that working with all the staff. But this is really critically important for all these reasons stated. And, you know, what I would like to see is a more defined roadmap moving forward to say, okay, this is what the board needs to be looking at, you know, like the one-time only policy and how we're going to increase the staffing and the funding and all those kind of things to move this along. because it is critically important. One question I did have about, you know, those back taxes that, you know, get split up between different entities. Do we have any liability or responsibility for those taxes not being collected? And how does that work?

Auditor, Comptroller, Treasurer, Tax Collector, Shamice Cubison. The majority of the taxes that you're speaking about will be teetered or have been teetered in terms of in the future, your billing versus collecting, that's obviously something different, right, to some extent. I don't see that we have a liability, but maybe there's something I'm not aware of. But these are not all increases. You need to keep that in mind. They are not all increases. And a lot of what we're processing right now are decreases as well. So please do not assume that this is all money that we're not getting, because we are literally issuing refunds in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. So this is not all increases. Yes, some people that you're hearing, you're not hearing from people saying, yay, thank you for giving me a big refund. You're hearing from people saying, we can't pay it, but we are also sending out a lot of money. So you need to keep in mind that this does not represent only increases. And I hate to temper this as part of the discussion in terms of revenue projection, but also keep in mind that part of what we are seeing for the general fund for the property tax, for the secured tax, some of it does involve processing these groups of backlog. And so right now there's an assumption that we're going to process a certain amount and that there are going to be increases and that it's going to add about $2 million to this year's 26-27 budget. But that is assuming that there are increases, and that is above what the normal annual secured original charge bill would be. This is not quite your question, but it's part of your question. So collection, once we bill them, we will be teetering 95 of it to the school districts whether and the special districts and the county whether we've collected it yet or not but also this doesn't just represent additional revenue necessarily because when you look at this time frame you need to remember that the real estate market is coming down and some of the rebuilds or the or the permits are not necessarily all improvements some of them are rebuild probably even still from fire damage. So they're not necessarily all just huge. They could just be coming back online for people who have had to rebuild properties.

OK. So thank you for that explanation. I guess what I'm looking for is this future roadmap, like the concrete steps that we're going to have to take. And is that something that Mr. Rosenfield with the executive office can bring back to the board in the near future?

If I may, through the chair, the beginning of it is in the appendix where it breaks out the timeline quarter by quarter, but we can continue to refine that with Ben.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, the specifics and bringing those back to the board, I think, is just critically important to move this along.

All right, thank you. Supervisor Mohr?

Just while we're on the subject of the particular analysis that we're talking about, I also want to just express appreciation for the independently elected financial representatives that serve our county and just to reflect on, you know, I am not entering anything in Tyler Munis. I do not have a password for Aumentum. I cannot physically help with any of these functions, but I am happy to help support an increase in staffing, to support an increase in consultants, so that we can sort through this. Because yes, while certainly we're not hearing from people that are collecting refunds, I do know that it is having a longer lasting impact on our community to be so far behind in the property tax assessments through just not only for people not being prepared to meet those financial obligations to the county, but also our ability to provide services across the board. So it really is important that we now have this roadmap moving forward. And I do appreciate the layout that was in the end of the presentation and all the work that's been done by Mr. Rosenfeld and and the executive office so that we can hopefully be able to move our community forward with the support of the elected officials.

Thank you.

Tony Rakes here for the rest of the 26-27 proposed budget. OK. So we're going to get ourselves started here with our general fund budget. The highlight here is the general fund budget for fiscal year 26-27 is balanced. We have about $95 million in current general fund net county cost and about 92 in non-department non-departmental revenue, that's ND revenue, that's property tax, sales tax, et cetera. The difference between those is that $2.59 million, which right now is being covered with one-time funding proposed to balance the budget. Now importantly, that one-time funding, just like it was the last year, is only for one-time expenditures. We have a slide coming up that will outline every single one of those expenditures that was earmarked for that one-time funding. And that's coming from the fund balance, the 24-25 fund balance one-time funds. Here we have our revenue projections as we present every year. Our projected revenue for 26-27 is $102 million. The $92.4 million that I had on the prior slide reflects the adjustments in revenue after our operating transfers, so it gets down to what we have available to cover our net county cost. These revenue, the 26-27 projections are based on updated forecasting that the budget team put together. We're going to get into the five-year forecast at a later slide as well. You can see here that we have shown the actuals from 22-23 to 24-25. what we have budgeted for the current fiscal year, the 25-26, the difference between what's now projected as of Q3 and the updated amounts that we have, and then what we've now proposed as part of our forecast for the upcoming fiscal year. Here we have those one-time expenses that we've earmarked for being covered by fund balance, the one-time funds. I won't read off every single one of these, but we can be happy to talk about them. We have anything from Short-term contracts, contracts that are expected to last less than a year, that have short scope or minimal scope work expected to be done. We have services that the department expects to have needing to be accomplished within a certain period of time. We keep these within a year or a definitive amount of time. We have some equipment that we know that we need to purchase that we can cover with these one-time funds. Projects, one-time projects. We have... Within other offices, we have some office expenses that we don't anticipate to continue on through subsequent fiscal year. They're not operational costs. And then anything from short-term extra help coverage and equipment repair. That totals that $2.59 million in one-time funding needed to balance the budget. Moving on, we have our general fund ratios. So this is the ratio of general funding to the county departments. This is sorted by the function areas, which is defined on a subsequent slide. As you can see, the lion's share of what we end up with financing for general fund departments is public safety and general government, or public protection and general government. Here we have an update on our general reserves. Now, we had adopted, the board adopted the revision to policy 32, the general fund reserve. And that updated policy defines three reserves, the contingency reserve, the infrastructure and systems reserve, and the rainy day reserve. The balances here on this chart represent the proposed amounts, the proposed appropriations for 26-27. That leaves $7.1 million in our contingency reserve. As a reminder, the contingency reserve covers short-term shocks during the annual budget. It has 5.4 for both the infrastructure and systems reserve and for 5.4 for the rainy day reserve. Infrastructure and systems, as the name implies, it's for handling larger infrastructure projects or large software or systems implementation or reconfiguration efforts that need to be taken care of. And the target amounts and the target appropriations are specified within policy 32. So now there's this governance structure for how these are handled and then how money is put into these separate reserves at year end. Here we have our five-year budget forecast. This does include, again, the one-time funds that we have that we're proposing to use to balance the 26-27 budget. So we have at 26-27, you'll see the two lines, the red representing expense and blue representing the revenue meeting for both 25-26 and 26-27 representing those balanced budgets. And then moving forward based on the projections where we anticipate the delta to be or the gap between our revenue and expenditures for the general fund. And I know we've talked about this forecast before. It's been refined since prior budget reports. But I want to call out in fiscal year 2030-31, you'll see a jump there in that revenue. That represents expenses falling off from certificates of participation, COP costs that will reflect in the budget as additional revenue but it's expense going down so that helps bump that fiscal year up some we have some significant upcoming impacts that we want to call out for this board's awareness i'm sure many of you already know but this specifically is that the executive office budget team is going to continue to monitor this and communicate back what we learn promptly Federal legislation, we've talked about HR1 quite a lot over the past year and the upcoming impacts. Additional county CMSP, county medical service costs, that we have budgeted some in 26-27, but we anticipate, it's hard to anticipate the full impact of that, especially considering the current state landscape and upcoming changes that are happening, which is the next bullet for the state budget uncertainty. There's the conversation, ongoing conversation, regarding the proposed annexation from the city of Ukiah and the potential impacts there. And the international landscape, changing procurement methods, costs. For example, we have some industries where we purchase from that no longer honor long-term quotes. For example, budgetary quotes that last 30 days are now 10. requiring much faster turnaround time and because of the uncertainty in the international market here we have some budget highlights for the state we have hr1 here and what we've put together here are what we believe the county impacts will be based on these as we know with hr1 the federal legislation there the additional requirements for medical eligibility We know we expect that to impact our caseload here at the county and the programs and the increased demand on that care that the county has to provide for. For in-home support services, there's the proposed asset test being re-implemented that may impact the number of people being able to participate in that program that's going to impact that will probably have an impact on the county support required to carry those out. And, of course, a wider county implication as well. And I believe CEO Antle has her hand up, so I'll pause quickly before I move on.

Thank you, Tony. On this slide, I also wanted to share yesterday I was on a statewide call regarding the Affordable Care Act. And they are looking at about approximately 660,000 people in the state of California falling off that plan. They either won't be able to afford it because there will be no subsidies for that plan. Those folks will either fall to Medi-Cal in some cases or to the indigent program CMSP. And again, CMSP does require a general fund match at this point. There is some funding proposed in the Assembly's budget, but again between the Assembly and the Senate they have a long way to go to mirror those two so we can get to that budget guidelines for the next year. So it's very worrisome all these changes that are happening at once. and how that indigent care is going to come down to us because, again, the county is responsible for the welfare and institution code, $17,000. Thank you, Tony.

Moving on, the last item that we have here, there is a proposal with the state budget to increase to apply the state sales tax to digital software sales. So the state's anticipating that going into effect on January 1, 2027. They have a projected state revenue for 26, 27 of about half a billion dollars. A FULL YEAR REVENUE OF ABOUT A BILLION DOLLARS. HOW THAT IMPACTS OUR COUNTY IN TERMS OF ADDITIONAL BRADLEY BURNS SALES TAX REVENUE WE DON'T KNOW YET BUT THAT WILL BE SOMETHING WE'RE GOING TO BE KEEPING AN EYE ON MOVING FORWARD. IT MIGHT BE ADDITIONAL COUNTY REVENUE AND SALES TAX COMING IN AS A RESULT OF THAT. THIS IS OUR OBLIGATORY FUNCTIONAL AREA SLIDE. AND THEN INTO OUR RECOMMENDATIONS. We have a few of these and I will read them out for us. Approve adjustments detailed in the CEO recommended budget adjustments to departments submitted as outlined in attachment B general fund and attachment C non-general fund. Approve the fiscal year 2026 department funding requests in attachment A, directing the auditor controller to return to the board of supervisors on June 23rd, 2026 with a formal resolution adopting the fiscal year 2627 Mendocino County budget based on the above direction. Approve amendments to the position allocation table as listed in attachment D, directing human resources to return to the board of supervisors on June 23rd, 2026 with an updated position allocation table. Approve funded fixed assets and vehicles, structural improvements and projects as listed in attachment F. Approve the fiscal year 2026-27 enterprise internal service fund department allocations listed in attachment H. Approve fiscal year 26-27 microwave public safety radio communications department allocations listed in attachment E. Approve the transfer of any unused fiscal year 25-26 carry forward to reserves per the reserve and fund balance policy, the updated policy 32. Approve appropriation of $2,585,536 in fiscal year 24-25 carry forward funding for fiscal year 26-27 budget. And finally, accept the fiscal year 26-27 proposed budget report. And with that, the team is open for questions, comments, and discussion.

Supervisor Haschuk? Yes, I'm sorry, Ms. Pierce?

Sorry, if I may, through the chair, I just wanted to just close real quickly on some of this. On the upcoming impacts that was just presented, we just want to make clear that those impacts are not factored into this budget. There are a few things like CMSP that we put about $500,000 in, but the other stuff such as federal legislation, state budgetary uncertainty, the proposed annexation, the economic landscape, and what was left off of this slide is we also have some unknowns about retirement in the future. um which could impact us again um so those are not factored into the budget but we are closely watching them and um i can turn it back over for questions now okay thank you supervisor hashtag you have a question yeah going back to page six

where we have the public protection being 68.46. And it seems like in the past years, it's been more like 76%. So what accounts for that change?

If I may, through the chair, Tony Raikes. That change represents, from what we've seen, is the massive effort that's gone into trying to controlling those public safety budgets and relying on other departmental revenue streams to cover costs. So it's really due to the departments and the offices putting additional heavy effort into the budget to try to control costs. And so that's going to change that ratio. of that general fund, that non-departmental general fund that gets appropriated for those departments.

And what I see, I see this balanced budget, which is great. But in addition to those unknowns that we have, we also have negotiations and then we also have the, what Ben Rosenfield just outlined, those costs for the financial modernization. So it seems like we've got a couple areas that aren't reflected in this budget. Along with those others that we just talked about too.

If I may to the chair yes they once again they're not reflected in the budget we are keeping a close eye on them as we learn more will bring them back in front of the board. And potentially identify additional revenue that may be able to offset it potentially one time funds so we are closely watching all of the unknowns right now and we we do believe that. What been presented will be a significant. task to implement, but we do believe it's very important that we continue on that path. It's the only way we can ensure that we are sustainable in our future.

If I may, through the chair, it's also the benefit that this updated reserve policy has provided is that there's money now being set aside for infrastructure and systems projects should the board wish to approve the use of those funds for those projects.

Thank you. Supervisor Williams.

I had asked the executive office about the what used to be called the ALS assist the funding of the three ambulance providers by the county and just for the record she pointed me at page 113 of attachment J and it's actually grouped together under payments to other government agencies as part of the 1.1 million I'm raising it because a lot of years there's concern that we left it out. It's in there. It's just a line item that's not detailed in the budget and Then I noticed the interest for fire because it took us a few years To get the contracts done and pay fire the attack their tax revenue. I Think we accumulated a lot of interest I imagine that'll be paid out because it should have been in their account and they would have received the interest and said it was in ours for an extended period of time Is that a fair assumption?

If I make the chair, I'm going to have to defer to Shamice on that question. I'm not sure I'm fully understanding.

The question is because we didn't pay, we spent a lot of time holding on to money that was going to fire districts. We accumulated interest rather than the districts accumulating interest. Will we make them whole at some point and do those transfers?

I'm going to have to defer to Shamice.

Auditor, Comptroller, Treasurer, Tax Collector, Chamise Cubison, as you are approving the allocations, we are transferring the money into the fire services fund. That fund is generating interest. So at some point, the board can decide how it's going to allocate that interest. That interest includes the money that ended up with the fire chiefs, but not, I mean, because every allocation is technically possibly different.

Right. OK. I appreciate that. That works. And then last, I also had supervisor Haschek's concern that I think there are likely cost escalations. Some of our largest categories are not static. They're going to be increasing year over year. And so it's a balanced budget, but it's a balanced budget because we're not including some likely expenditures.

Any other questions from the board? No? OK. We can go to the public. Anybody in the room?

Good morning, Chair Norvell, members of the board, CEO Antle, County Council Elliott. My name is Patrick Hickey. I'm the field representative with SEIU Local 1021. What we just heard from Ben Rosenthal is, I think, a microcosm of the problem faced by most departments here at the county. As you continue your work here on the County budget for 2026, 2027, there are a few things that we urge you to consider to help stabilize County services and move County government in a more positive direction. County services touch nearly every aspect of daily life here in Mendocino County. From the department of transportation to planning and building, air quality, environmental health, public health, behavioral health, and more. County employees work every day to keep our community safe, our infrastructure functioning, and our social safety net strong. But these services are increasingly at risk. Many departments are understaffed, turnover remains high, employees are carrying overwhelming caseloads and responsibilities. This is not sustainable, and it does not have to be this way. Mendocino County government functions best when it can retain experienced employees and attract new workers with fair wages, strong benefits, and stable working conditions. Investing in county employees is an investment in the quality, reliability, and responsiveness of the services our communities depend on every day. We are dubious of the claims of a structural deficit. It's more of an issue of collecting the funds that the county is due. General fund revenue has grown faster than general fund expenses over the past five years. The fund balance has grown from $29.5 million to $80.5 million over the past seven years. Every year the actual fund balance exceeded the county's final budgeted balance. The county has underspent its operating budget in every single year for seven consecutive years by an average of $27.6 million. This is why we see a regular carry forward of $10 million plus each year. The county has acknowledged that there are roughly $30 million in uncollected property tax revenue and has recently decided to give up collecting delinquent cannabis tax revenue. It's not a revenue problem, it's a collection problem. The county is choosing to leave $30 million on the table while citing budget constraints as the reason it cannot fund services. The county has shrunk its staff level by 155 positions since 2021. Our unit has seen a 19% reduction. The county's budget assumes filling all allocated positions, but we all know that that won't happen. There is a built-in 15% to 20% cushion in the budget. For years, the county has had double-digit vacancy rates, as there is at this moment, 15.5%. So to suggest that there is no funding available to support current staff is false. We heard earlier about the common practice of other counties providing a placeholder for county COLAs. We urge the board to do the same. Why is that a problem? Because by pretending there's a structural deficit, the county's strangling its current services, driving experienced employees out the door and setting itself up for systemic failure. We urge the board to stabilize and support its current staff, retain the experience and wisdom that it already has, and give your current employees a reason to stay and signal to them that they are valued and recognized. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Norvell, members of the board, Matt Kendall, Sheriff. During the presentation, Mr. Rakes brought up the annexation again. I'd like to know how much that's going to cost us. During the last discussion that we had on this, Supervisor Mulherin basically stated it would cost us about $150,000 in the first year. That's a deputy sheriff that we'll lose in the first year. What's it going to look like in the second year? What will it look like in the third year? I think that we need to take a good hard look at this and make a decision. Can we make this net zero? And if we can't make this net zero, then let's not continue down that road. Damaging the county is not going to be helpful. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else in the room? No. Madam Clerk, anyone online?

Seeing no further comment online.

Thank you. Staff, do you have anything further to add?

No further comments.

OK. Any more questions from the board? Ms. Cubison, I have one. The $30 million gets brought up quite a bit in this room and then in public. Could you shed a little bit of light on that for us?

Sure. Thank you. Auditor-Controller, Treasure Tax Collector, Shamice Cubison. The $30 million is a defaulted property tax. that is outstanding. That number fluctuates greatly throughout the year. It's highest at the beginning of July because that's when the tax bills roll to defaulted and then it's continued to be collected throughout the year and it goes down probably again lowest in the end of June and highest in July. That represents the uncollected property tax. That does not represent additional revenue to the county, the special districts or the schools. It represents the reduction of accounts receivable. Those funds have been primarily, with the exception of those for Brook Trails lots that are not teetered, have already been paid out to the schools, the cities, and the special districts and the county. The impact is to the teeter fund. And when the teeter fund tax loss reserve is higher than 25% and there's excess revenue, that can be transferred to the general fund. But that is the only benefit of revenue that would be conceded from collecting the entire amount of that $30 million would be the additional amount that may be sitting in a tax loss reserve account that may be able to be transferred. But that $30 million has already been distributed because the county does teeter the majority. It does not teeter the PACE payments, and it does not teeter some of the Brook Trails direct assessments. But otherwise, those funds have already been received.

Great. Thank you. Any other questions before we close the public hearing?

No okay, you have a question.

It's 1144 will close the public hearing bring it back to the board. Supervisor more.

Over the last six years, one of the things I've struggled with most is how we talk about the budget and our financial outlook. Some call it the sky is falling or doomsday planning. I want to be clear that I absolutely believe that we need to be fiscally responsible. We also have an obligation to tax payers, employees, and future boards to understand the financial impacts of our decisions. Fiscal responsibility requires transparency and context. What concerns me is that budget information can be presented in a way that may be technically accurate, but does not tell the complete story. Recently, the CEO report included an analysis of the future city of Ukiah annexation focused heavily on the loss of county revenue and not the release of obligations, including roads that were not included in the 20-year road maintenance plan, as well as the roads that were in the plan outlined to be an estimated savings of $12 million by our Department of Transportation. That same can be said of the no savings evaluation of the sheriff's office. While that analysis may be technically true, I do not believe that there will be reducing of the sheriff's office staffing after a potential annexation. This does not equally acknowledge that annexation also transfers service obligations for areas with very heavy call volumes from the Sheriff's Office to the Ukiah Police Department, which will allow the Sheriff's Office to meet other community needs in outlying areas. It also didn't address the increased cost to our expenses by the potential of having our own tax, the increased revenue of 2011-91 realignment, And frankly, none of this accurately addresses the infrastructure responsibilities, maintenance, maintenance costs and long term liabilities, including those related to water rights and resources and sewer services that the county will be able to move away from and turn over to the city of Ukiah or that the county doesn't currently serve, but may be obligated to in the future. For me, this is just one recent example. But as with everything that happens with local government, when we present only one side of the story, we risk creating a narrative rather than providing an analysis. That approach has consequences. It erodes trust with the public. It creates frustration among staff who may see the full picture but do not feel empowered to share it or to solve the problems that affect our residents. It makes it harder for elected officials to have honest conversation about policy choices. And I've spent the last six years trying to improve transparency and change the culture around how information is shared. I've advocated for more context, more collaboration, and more open discussion. I thought we were making headway with that in this budget. I continue to see situations where information is filtered through a lens that supports a particular conclusion. And I keep asking myself what can be done differently. The only answer I keep coming back to is that we must be willing to share more information directly with the public. not selected facts, not talking points, not narratives, the full picture. The public and our employees are capable of understanding complexity. They can weigh competing interests. They can understand that a decision may involve both costs and benefits. Our responsibility is not to persuade them to a predetermined outcome. Our responsibility is to provide complete and honest information so they can draw their own conclusions. That's how trust is built. And right now, trust is something we need more in local government, not less. This county has over and over again failed to share a united voice across the agency as elected officials, the executive office, and what is being said by the departments to create a message that is digestible to the public around complicated and nuanced decisions that the board makes. This harms the agency, our employees, our communities, employers, and our residents. So I appreciate... the way that the budget has moved forward and involved, but we have more work to do.

Supervisor Williams. Clarifying question for Supervisor Mulhern. What additional information do you think we should provide? But I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just curious what's not included for public benefit that you think would help broaden everyone's knowledge?

I think that some of the things that Mr. Rosenfeld included in his report, including the future income opportunities, including what future property tax revenues look like, I think future forecasting is really important, but also, I mean, just in addition to including the expenses, I think that, like I said, we've come a long way in the last few years or 18 months, but there's more work to do, and I don't want to sit here and... not say anything out loud when there's clear challenges that we still need to work through.

Supervisor Klein.

Yeah, Supervisor Mulherin, you know, as someone who's on the annexation ad hoc, I want to make sure that All the information is being brought forward, and I think the CEO's report was more focused on the general fund side of things. Can you just repeat again what items you would like to see included in the analysis for the financial impact for annexation? Because I'm happy to make sure that those are addressed and updated. Moving forward. I heard you mention a couple. If you could repeat them.

Sure. The ones that I mentioned in particular were the sheriff's office call volume related to the annexation. And again, absolutely do not think that any deputy sheriffs are going to be laid off or that we won't hire more. I don't think that that's going to happen. But I do think that there should be an analysis done about the reduction in calls and the shift to the sheriff being able to provide more rural policing. And honestly, that was part of the master sales tax agreement. We had 18, 22 months of conversations around this is a balanced agreement. This is not only a loss in revenue to the county, but it's a loss in the obligations and liabilities. so i don't have a full list prepared today i did also reach out to the department of transportation because i was surprised to see that the ceo's office said that there would be no reduction in roads funds and while i understand that it's likely that the funds would be used elsewhere. I think it's disingenuous the way that it was presented. And I do not have prepared a list today of everything that I think should be included that was, again, over 22 months of conversations about the master sales tax sharing agreement and how it balanced the potential annexation area. Happy to share that information, even with the full board, because I don't know that we have an ad hoc. I don't think it's listed on the website as an ad hoc. The chair can create one at any time. It is. OK. Well, I didn't know when that was created. But I'm happy to share sort of, I guess, my list. I clearly presented that multiple times during the sales tax agreement conversation, including the June 5, 2024 meeting. happy to make sure that all of the information is getting out to the public. And just to be clear, spend some time to meet with the CEO, to meet with the city of Ukiah. I reached out to the sheriff. I reached out to the Department of Transportation before preparing my statement today. And my concerns are not just around the annexation. It's around everything that we talk about as the county when we talk about our budget and the impacts that it has in our community, to the other businesses, to the residents. When the county of Mendocino, the agency, is not a strong... reliable agency, that harms. It has a ripple effect to other districts, to other cities, to the entire community, to the businesses that create economic development for us.

Any other questions? No.

Supervisor Williams? Yeah, trying to stay within scope of the agenda item. I think the annexation probably deserves its own agenda item at some point. Should we be allocating any funds for an independent analysis? It's my sense that whether the city does it or the county does it, Supervisor Mulhern, Sheriff Kendall, Not everybody will believe it. There's an assumption that there's some bias, and it's probably just different perspectives, and it may all be true information, but presented towards a certain outcome. Should we be hiring an outside firm? We had great success with creating the roadmap for fixing the financial system. Do we need something similar for clearly documenting what impact the annexation will have on the county and the city. My position is I want the city and county to do well. I think there's an annexation plan that's a win-win. The city can develop more. The county will benefit from that. I don't know if it's the particular plan. I mean, it worries me. The sheriff sees a major hole in service where we are already understaffed and we already have too many calls for service and You know is he right my fear is that he might be he may know something that I don't know and I think Supervisor Mulhern probably has points that I also don't know I would love to see it come together in an independent unbiased report that just conveys the truth Is that something we could budget with one-time funds in the budget? That's how I'm tying it into this agenda item

If I may through the chair, we can take note of it. I don't know that we can bring it back on June 23rd to include in the budget, but it could be an allowable use for one-time funds.

Yeah. And I just want to point out that part of part of the issue is the the annexation in the map is a constantly it's a moving target. Right. And when we were presented in our first ad hoc with that meeting, we were asked very explicitly not to screenshot the map, not to share the map, not to share the information. And then an hour later, the map was presented to the public. I did ask the city of Ukiah over the weekend if they had a timeline for a final map and their answer was not to consider any draft map as a final map and they presented no timeline. We do have a request in for them to have a meeting early next week where we can weigh their interest in any kind of negotiating. I know Supervisor Williams brought it up the last meeting and it seemed like we had board consensus that we wanted to at least get to a net zero. But, you know, we'll see what happens in that meeting. But we have to remember that the city of Ukiah doesn't have to negotiate because with the way that the tax sharing agreement is written, that the county basically has no leverage to force them into a negotiation. Supervisor Haschek.

Yeah, my understanding is that we weren't going to do a financial analysis for any kind of annexation plan that's not really the concrete plan that's presented to the board. And so I thought we were waiting for that. And at the same time, with this analysis, I think it should be a neutral analysis and meaning that the county shouldn't have to bear the whole brunt of that cost. It should be a shared cost of the, in this case, the city of Ukiah and the county to come up with an analysis that both sides agree on.

Yeah, Supervisor Hashtag, to that point, previous annexation proposal when we met and discussed with the City of Ukiah, they did offer to support some of the outside consultant work around financial analysis. CEO, if you could confirm that they did offer that last year. And so I'm happy to bring that up at our upcoming meeting.

Yes, that was an offer last year. And honestly, we had been asked for the impacts of what it was going to look like to the county of Mendocino. and really working through this analysis that Assistant CEO Sarah Pierce created, it is in line with what we saw working with the city. So if there's other information out there that the city has and they're willing to share it, whether it's economic development, how they see that the road fund would be saving funds. Those funds aren't even collected yet. And we do know that revenue for roads is based on miles and population, not only the population, our population ratio to the state, but also our population as a county to the cities. So we don't know exactly what will happen with that revenue. I think we put that in our report. We're not trying to scare anyone. We're not trying to minimize it, but we want to be as transparent as possible. These are unknowns that we don't know. And again, if the city or Supervisor Mulherin knows of something, I believe we asked about economic development. I don't believe the city has spoken forward with any economic development that they're seeing coming forward. in the first few years of this. So again, the more information we have, the more accurate we can be. And again, outside independent analysis would be very much appreciated. And I'll turn it over to Sarah Pearson.

If I may, to the chair, assistant CEO Sarah Pierce. As CEO Antle mentioned, I did create this analysis, and it was based off just the master tax sharing agreement revenues that were called out, specifically Bradley Burns Property Tax, TOT. The property tax is extremely hard to calculate because it's going to be in a manual process. So the initial analysis only looked at Bradley Burns and TOT. And as CEO Antle said, the documents that the city did provide to us are very, very close to our analysis. But we would welcome an independent consultant to vet on both sides. And yeah, I'll just leave it at that.

OK. I'm not seeing any more questions.

So we, yes, Supervisor Haschack. Do we have a motion on the table? We do not. Okay, I'll move to approve the fiscal year 26-27 Mendocino County proposed budget as recommended. Accept the executive office budget report and direct the auditor controller to prepare the required documents for adoption of the fiscal year 26-27 final budget.

Second.

Okay, we have a first by Supervisor Hashtag, second by Williams. Any questions on the motion? Vote by the button.

The motion carries unanimously.

OK.

Thank you. R7, the CEO report?

By means of the chair, no report today.

OK. And then we have no ledge platform today. Supervisor reports? Supervisor Klein?

Thank you, Chair. All right. I spent a couple of days over in Sacramento for the CSAC legislative conference. Most of the focus was on HR1 impact, but there were also some conversations around SGMA, Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, And I also participated in a regional meeting around building a North State Regional Behavioral Health Facility. This conversation started because most of the service providers for this level of behavioral health facilities do not operate north of Sacramento. I also participated in a meeting with governor's office staff, legislative deputy, and members of the legislature, including the Senate budget chair. Unfortunately, the May revise offered nothing on HR 1, as we've heard. It was interesting to hear the governor's office justify that they are balancing the budget and basically leaving decisions around HR 1 to the next governor. Very disappointing. I'm still looking through the offerings from both the Senate and the Assembly. There's a long ways to go, as was recognized by our CEO. I attended the Environmental Health Land Use Stakeholder Meeting, hearing from designers, installers, and others about how they can improve collaboration with the department. I was pleased to hear one participant say, I never go more than 24 hours without my call being returned by Environmental Health, which should always be our standard. Supervisor Mulherrin and I met with county staff around the home grant funds and making sure that the county is considering all options for how to best utilize this funding for our community. I attended a small fundraiser for the Red Valley Farmers Market. The Red Valley Farmers Market will start this Sunday at Lyons Park. LAFCO, yesterday we hosted a public hearing for the City of Point Arena Municipal Services Review. There was also a workshop on the Mendocino Coast Recreation Park District. Tonight in Robe Valley, there will be a community meeting to discuss the vacant Robe Valley Elementary School and efforts to turn it into a community center. All are welcome 6 PM at the Robe Valley Grange. I will be attending RCRC's County of the Chair meeting at the end of this week. Looking forward to spending time with counterparts from other rural counties and some of our key state partners, like the new director of Fish and Wildlife, who's scheduled to attend. I do not have a constituent coffee meeting first Friday for June because of scheduling conflicts. So looking to host something maybe on a weekend in June to have an opportunity to connect with my constituents. It'll be advertised on my Facebook page and in my newsletter. And that's my report.

Thank you. Supervisor Mulher.

Thank you. At the General Government Committee, we heard the annual drought report. And this is something that, if it's not top of mind, most people are not interested in. So it is important in the future. We need to continue to improve ways to share information and collect information, in particular about our water resources. even in non-drought years when you have a drought report the mendocino council of governments met and begrudgingly approved the regional housing needs assessment after many iterations of negotiations we believe that this uh requirement of the amount of housing units that we need to add is unrealistic but approved it because it's required by the state We also approved the budget for the transportation projects throughout the county and it was a good reminder about how many agencies actually touch a project before it begins. The Russian River Watershed Association and EPIC committee met at Pepperwood to view how their attention to the environment reflects all the way down to the Russian River and had our regular meeting. I did enlist Mendocino County in a competition with the city of Santa Rosa for the high school video production. This year's theme I'm currently blanking on, but I will email the flyer to the board and hopefully you can encourage the schools in your areas to participate in this video contest because the city of Santa Rosa won two out of three last year. And I think that Mendocino County needs to be on the map. On Friday I went on an eco flight that went over Lake Mendocino and Lake Pillsbury to see the project from a different perspective. I appreciate that opportunity to view the project from the air. On Wednesday I attended a behavioral health advisory board and measure B meetings. We received reports from the substance use disorders treatment providers and continue the process of approving our mental health services plan and I just want to highlight for the board that the inability to hire staff is for all agencies across the board and hopefully we can use the support of Mendocino College and other online enrollment programs to get people certified in drug and addiction counseling so that we can have more providers. Also, at the Measure B meeting, there was a robust conversation about the need for the behavioral health training facility, and Member Allman highlighted the importance of the two new behavioral health-related capital improvement projects that are opening within the next 90 days. The new wing of the Mendocino County Jail and the psychiatric health facility are two projects that our community has been waiting a long time to be reestablished or established, and so this is an important milestone for our community. The Homeless Ad Hoc continues to meet with agencies to work on a path forward. And we met with the social services director, DeeDee Parker, and special teams lead, Megan Van Sant. The Great Redwood Trail Agency had a meeting and established a consultant for a tribal committee, approved the budget. And the team for that agency is filling out in a way that they're able to provide services and meet the expectations for a growing trails project. We also directed that staff come up with a property policy to allow for the sale of some properties that were acquired by the North Coast Railroad Authority that no longer meet the needs of the future Great Redwood Trail and also to look at opportunities where properties become available that would meet the needs of the Great Railroad Trail. Supervisor Klein already mentioned we met with staff to hear where we can THE BEST USE FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE HOME FUNDS AND I THINK THERE'S AN ITEM COMING FORWARD TO THE BOARD AND AT LAFCO WE MET TO REVIEW THE POINT ARENA MUNICIPAL SERVICE REVIEW AND SPHERE OF INFLUENCE AND HAVE THE WORKSHOP FOR THE MENDESINO COAST PARKS AND REC DISTRICT And I just wanted to comment because there were some comments online and some comments today about raising the pride flag. And I wanted to say that raising the pride flag is about sending a simple message to our community's youth. You belong here and you are valued. For many LGBTQ young people, especially transgender youth, feeling accepted and supported can have a profound impact on their mental health and well-being. Visibility and inclusion help reduce isolation and remind young people that they are not alone. It's only been a decade, in 2015, that marriage equality became law. And for many LGBTQ Americans, it was a milestone that affirmed they deserve the same rights, dignity, and recognition as everyone else. And while our community includes people with different perspectives, I believe we can all agree that every person in Mendocino County deserves to feel safe, supported, and hopeful about their future. Raising the pride flag is a reflection of that commitment to inclusion, respect, and belonging, and is a reminder that all members of our community, especially our youth, should know they are seen, valued, and welcomed here.

Okay, thank you. I'll go real quick. As Supervisor Morher mentioned, we did meet with Social Services. We're trying to schedule a meeting with the District Attorney's Office. A bit of good news, Allegra Post Office, which has been finished for a while but not open, will be opening on June 16th. I sat in for a super hash check on that GGC meeting. We did get some great information from the Department of Water Resources and DOT staff. I was asked to read a proclamation at the Survivors Dinner at Saracena. The dinner reunites survivors and their first responders. It was a great event. Also at the BHAB meeting, the BHAB board approved recommendations for three new members. And then this weekend, on Saturday, the Leggett Mountain Folk Festival is going to go from 10 to 11 in Leggett, next to the Leggett Firehouse. It's a well-attended fundraiser for the Leggett Fire. And then at the request of HR, The vice chair and I will be stepping in to help HR department through the process of CEO and county council recruitment. And then lastly, McAvin is collecting needles. If you need needles, please call McAvin House. Or if you find needles, please call McAvin House at 707-462-1932 or call Joe Ditto directly at 707-727-0402. Supervisor Williams.

The solar ad hoc transferred the list of county developed properties with pg e drops to Sonoma clean power Sonoma clean power is assisting us looking at this project those sites potential viability and next we need the list of all county owned parcels whether or not developed and I understand staff already has an effort to do this. This may be another push to accelerate that but it's already underway.

Thank you supervisor has checked.

All right, being last, I don't have that much to say, because a lot of the stuff has already been covered. So just to say, MSERA interviewed consultants for the overall portfolio. There were four respondents to the first RFP in many years. And we decided to retain Callan, which has been the consultant. The Area Agency on Aging reviewed RFP proposals for Alzheimer care, and the only applicant was Ukiah Senior Center. So we're seeing if that pans out. I appreciate Glenn Stevens touring me of the Air Quality Management District offices. And it was good to see what they're doing and appreciate how we approved their budget and their plan moving forward. Did a tour of the new mental health wing of the jail. And I appreciate Sheriff Kendall's participation in that. I wanted to thank the American Legion chapters who put on Memorial Day celebrations throughout the county. Very important to recognize those people who sacrificed. Mendocino Transit Authority you know dealing with a shrinking budget and so they have a hiring freeze we talked about the electrification of buses but they're having to cut the number of trips from in some cases from every 30 minutes to hourly or from every hour to every two hours to meet their budget balance their budget. And then Sonoma Clean Power customers are eligible for a rebate of up to $2,500 for installing an energy-efficient heat pump water heater. This incentive is available for a limited time through March 1, 2027. It's going into effect today. Shifting from gas to efficient electric water heating helps save energy, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and improve local air quality. And then last night I attended a retirement party for Joe Russ, who's a teacher of 35 years in Covalo. He's a tribal member, grew up in Covalo, went on to graduate from Harvard, and came back to the community to give back to his... and has been teaching there for 35 years. So it was really a great ceremony to a dedicated public servant. That's it. Thanks.

Thank you. That's going to bring us to close. Actually, we need public comment on supervisor reports. Nobody in the room? Madam Clerk?

Seeing none online.

OK. Which is going to bring us to closed session, where we have items CS1 and CS2. Is there any public comment on closed session? Madam Clerk?

Seeing none online.

OK. And the board will reconvene it and open no sooner than 1 o'clock.