Budget Committee - Regular Meeting

Does the Zoom do our Zoom participants have audio?

Yes. We do.

We're gonna try to do this through the laptop so that we can go ahead and get started. So bear with us. Alright. Let's go ahead and call to order the Monterey County Budget Committee meeting of Wednesday, 09/24/2025. It is about 01:08. Supervisor Lopez and Askew are present in the Monterey Room of the Government Center in Salinas. This meeting is also being broadcast via Zoom as well as two Two alternate alternate. Hold on. Hold on.

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Internet audio.

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guys have a good one now. Thank you. Uh-huh. Alright. Can we do we have audio? Yes. We do have audio. Okay. So let's finish this up. So we're calling to order the meeting of the Montgomery County Budget Committee meeting of Wednesday, 09/24/2025.

It is about 01:11, and we are in person at the government center here in Salinas as well as on Zoom as well as at two alternate locations, the district three supervisor's office in Hume City and the district full or supervisor's office in Marina. And we'll go ahead and, so, are there any additions or corrections to the agenda today?

Yes. We have, two items. We're actually recommending, pulling item number 10 and number 12. Staff would like a little bit more time to work with the sheriff's office to potentially determine an alternate funding source and or also look at the sheriff's financial projections for the current year to see if these can be absorbed within their current appropriations.

Any objections, Scott? Does the sheriff object to that out of curiosity? No hands raised.

Alright.

So the CAO Can you

can you repeat that, Wendy?

I'm pulling items number ten and twelve so the CAO can continue working with the sheriff's office on on funding sources for those two items.

Are you on, Jason? Because my people are on. Sorry. I know it's confusing with the how we're trying to do this. So

Yeah. We just wanted to check. It's a CEO recommendation, and it sounds like the the committee is supportive, but I did just wanna give the sheriff an opportunity to comment.

Yeah. Yeah. I wanna make sure that she's reached out to us, and we've had a discussion. But I know that Jason's working on it. So I don't know if Jason, can you hear?

Yeah. I am. I'm on, and they are both technology items of technology that we've been, you know, trying to work through. So, yes, I look forward to, continuing that conversation.

Okay. No no objections from the sheriff's office. Thank you, supervisors.

Okay. Very good. Arthur currently has his hand raised. Arthur had your, Arthur's hand is raised. I will, so no the comments of committee will go to public comment. Arthur, public comment.

I just had a question on that. You said you were pulling it. Does that mean that it will not be able to go to the ten fourteen board of supervisor meeting, that it will have to come back and go to a budget committee prior to going to the full board?

So the the process that we have, and we will be reviewing, as an a separate item. We don't have a formal set of requirements for what has to come through budget committee before it can go to the full board. That not necessarily. However, it it at the request of the CEO's office, things do come through budget committee, but there's nothing that is required to come through budget committee before it can proceed to the full plan.

And, Arthur, do we have to go forward on by that date on that contract?

Yes.

Okay. So just know if we pull it, we're we're gonna ask to bring it to the board because it has to go to the board by then.

It's got to do with planning so that there's no increase in cost.

Got it. So those are things I think it sounds like that the CEO would need to work through. And then if there is an item that the CEO thinks needs to have more discussion, it will possibly come to the board as as a discussion item.

Right.

Right. I just wanna I just wanna make the board the budget committee work since that would be an issue. Alright.

Thank you. Any other corrections to the agenda today? No. There were no corrections. Alright. Great. Alright. We'll move along to, public comments. Is there anyone joining us today who has comments, on items who's in review of the committee or not otherwise, not on the agenda but under our jurisdiction? If you could raise your hand so we can call on you. I'm not seeing any hands raised. Do have quite a few folks with us. Thank you all for joining us. We look forward to having your input, but we'll close public comment and move on to our consent agenda. Give me a couple of minutes.

Items one through eight on the consent agenda. No. We only have item number It's the approval of the minutes. Sorry. Two

So first is approval of the minutes. Yeah.

Oh, I missed our minutes. Okay. Yep. I'll move approval of minutes. Great. Thank you. Sounds good. Any public comments on the minutes? Seeing no hands raised. We can approve a consensus on minutes. And then our consensus agenda items two through eight.

Probably move approval last items ten and twelve based on the fact that

they were in for clarity. Okay. And it's a regular agenda. So Oh,

I'm sorry.

Okay. That's okay. Okay. Any public comment on our consent? Didn't see any hands raised. No hands raised. So we can move forward with the consent via consensus, via approval, and move forward with item number nine. And we'll start by welcoming Michael Vitan, who I think this is your first meeting where we're all here together, and you've had a chance to kinda dig into our county county budget policies and history and role of the committee. And I'm I'm looking forward to the presentation. So we'll pass for you.

Well, thank you, chair. Thank you, board. Been excited to learn quite a bit about the Monterey County, especially the Monterey County budget committee. Like I said, I am new. It's finally my sixth week here now at the Monterey County.

So the timing of this presentation was actually rather, perfect. It helped me actually learn a little bit about the budget committee. So today, wanna do just a small presentation regarding the background of the budget committee that we were able to find, and talk about the current roles and responsibilities about the budget committee, as well as potential recommendations that we we may have a little bit later. The so since I'm new, we really started to go back and really kinda find the history of the budget committee. So we would try to go back as far as possible.

So this presentation is gonna be talking about a little bit about the historical and the current roles, that we have been able to find with the budget committee. We also try to look at what other counties have. So to kinda do a little bit of comparison on how they have and manage their budget committees if they do have a budget committee, as well as highlight some, during this process, we did highlight a small discrepancy with the help of county council between county code and our general financial policies, and we'll talk about that on the, one of the last few slides. And, ultimately, we'll come up with a recommendation, at least a proposed recommendation to, the budget committee to be take take an item to the board to do a little bit of a clarification about what exactly should be coming to the budget committee in total. So this slide, really talks about the historical role.

We went back and tried to find when did the budget committee become an actual committee. And I'll be honest, we couldn't find it. We just couldn't find it. The furthest back we could go is from 1989. So this committee has been in effect for quite some time.

The roles and responsibility of the committee going back to 1989 were significantly different than they are now. So what this slide presents, it just talks about on a high level. In 1989, back then, the budget community focused on an advisory role, which is really around the budget priorities, major budget review, helping with the budget schedule, developing the budget content, that actually is recommended to the board supervisors on behalf of the CEO's office. The next slide, look, is more of the modern role, what the budget committee has, turned into over the years. As you can see from the slide, the role has added capital projects to the component looking at the fiscal aspect of projects.

It was added the debt management, so anything that might be needed to be financed or refunded, would come back to here. Also, the deficit for budget. So any department that's having a budget issue or county having a budget issue, those items are brought here as well. In addition, there were there two years ago, three years ago, we found that the board of supervisors also, empowered the budget committee to oversee the county's audit program, which was a little bit unique. The next slide just really talks about the comparison.

It's just a quick side by side comparison of from 1989 to 2025, and you can kinda see the different areas that have really changed over that time frame. And I just items I basically just went through from there. So we really wanted to look at what other counties, throughout the state of California do with their budget committees. And one of the first surprises that popped up is we were only able to find four counties in the state of California that actually have a formalized budget committee. And so that is a budget committee that has been fully adopted by the board of supervisors under Brown Act, formal meeting, public hearings.

We're only able to identify four. So the four identified are Santa Clara, San Francisco, San Diego, and Monterey County. The slide here also identifies kind of what their key purpose or key role that they actually look at, across the board. All of them do look at budget on a high level. All of them do try to incorporate the community involvement in the budget process, across the board. In addition to those four, we also found a bunch of counties that have ad hoc budget committees. And I say budget committees loosely. Some of them are coined, and created a little bit differently. The focus might be finance and budget. Focus might be legal and budget.

But we did identify an additional six more counties. Wait. One, two, three, four, five. Thank you. Five more counties, on the board here and what they kinda have set up. And, again, this slide just talks about the key features between those, different counties. The next slide kinda looks at, you know, between our county's budget go ahead.

The last one, just a question. The you have Orange listed there as a standing committee?

Yep.

So it's a standing

We were not able to determine if it was an actual ad hoc committee or if it was a separate side meeting that is done with the CEO's office in concert. So it was a we couldn't list it as ad hoc. So right now, we just have it as a standing meeting. Okay. But it is scheduled on a routine basis. Okay. Yeah. So apologize about that. The, next slide really talks takes all those counties that actually have committees, and it really looks at what are some of the similarities, what what are some of the common themes between those counties. Majority have a somewhat component of a financial oversight of the county's budget process, whether it'd be looking at monthly financial reports, major reviews, looking at fund balances.

They definitely all have some flavor of helping with the budget development for the county, whether it be format, whether it be schedule, whether it be input on how it should be addressed to the board, how it should be sent to the public. They all had a somewhat of a a theme with capital projects with being a significant cost for most counties across California, policy strategy, and as well as public engagement across the board. This slide here just represents, you know, looking at those counties. This one here, the slide was designed really just to show this is an example of some of the agenda items or some of the things that have been taken to this budget committee over the last few years. In here, you'll see we bring monthly financial reports, revenue expenditures.

We look at the three year plan. Across the board, we bring the bear here, the budget end of year report. So I'm still working on acronyms. I apologize. Budget calendar comes here.

One of the things that also tends to come here is almost every single board letter that requires budget change, whether it be supported by the CEO's office or not, tends to come through this committee as well. Technology projects and any long term planning, such as pensions, reserves, and structural imbalances across the board. The next slide really talks about since we went back to the roots and we're trying to figure out what a budget committee, does and how it interacts between different counties throughout the state of California and how it acts within our county, We did come across a small discrepancy in our code that we're gonna recommend with the guidance of county council to change. This slide here basically has two excerpts. The first excerpt is just from our current county code, that we have related to noninterference and administrative services.

And the second one is an excerpt from the financial policies, that are adopted and approved by the board. The discrepancy that we're looking to, change is the financial policy says that the budget committee can actually direct staff, to do certain items or whatever it might be. We're recommending that that's gonna get changed to recommend or support, if an item goes forward, and that's just to be a little bit more clear between county code and our financial policies. And, you know, that staff make those financial policies to recommend to the board, and it looks like we had an oversight. So that's on our our part.

So, besides that, the last slide is really a recommendation. With what we've learned here, we're recommending that we do take an item to the board or the budget committee take an item to the board or we, as staff, take an item to the board, to really clarify the, what the focus and role is of the budget committee, acting in an advisory capacity, helping review and analyze financial information from the sales office, as well as clarifying what exact items should be coming here. We're recommending, obviously, monthly financial reports where we look at the forecast of the county, the financial well-being of the county, any legislative issues that might be affecting our budget as a whole for the county, HR one, as an example, coming across the board. Any potential policy changes, budget development, and as well as the audit plan, which I know based on the history, we haven't actually seen here in quite a while. And I know it was identified to come here once a year, and so that's something that we as staff will ensure that we do a better job on bringing to the budget committee.

Besides that, that kinda concludes the presentation. I know it was kinda quick, but we were trying to be brevity sometimes is a leadership trait.

Awesome. Thank you. Yep. I really appreciate the the resource that we're this forward to us, and we're just getting some clarity. And I think, you know, with the transition sort of in CEO's team and in our budget staff, it's been it's it's it's drawn some light to the question among staff, like, what has to go to the committee?

What doesn't have to go to the committee? Bureaucratically, like, how do we make it how do we not create more work than is necessary to move things forward when we when we want them to move forward? And then also when when there are things that we wanna make sure get vetted or have the opportunity to have them vetted before they show up to the full board, You know, where's that where are those opportunities? And so I when we've had this sort of period of time without meetings, there's this informal question that if you need to skip budget, you have to get the approval of the chair. So we have these items coming to me saying, can we can we bypass budget?

And, like, I don't think that would ever need to come to budget in the first place. Like, why why am I being asked to bypass budget? I don't think we like, I don't know why this would have ever needed to come to us. So it raised the question for me, like, why why have we created this additional step in the process? And then what really, what is the what is the clarity for our county staff who are trying to get work done about what we do?

What is the goal of our budget committee, and let's maybe take a minute to look at that. So this is really helpful. And and so within the recommendations that you've outlined here and clarifying what items would be taken to the budget committee, Are there items that you would be that you would be recommending would no longer come to budget that are currently coming to budget committee? Just to be more explicit in what what would fall off of that list.

Right. So, I mean so I think I would flip that question around a little bit. I think from, my standpoint being an outsider that has come in now, really looking at what the budget committee does, one thing I wanna make sure is whatever we do in budget committee is gonna add value to the board because, really, you know, we are at the behest of the board. And so when we bring it on to the to this committee, does it add value to the ultimate decision that the board is gonna have to make? And I know from the the from my perspective, any item that we like, any budget item or board item that we have, I I professionally don't think every single item needs to come to the budget committee.

I definitely think there's if there's an item that's routine in nature that the CEO's office is supportive, it's an item that's fully funded within the department, I believe those items, you know, instead of having an additional step to come here, I think those should go directly to the board of supervisors in total. But I do feel like we should definitely give more information to this committee, about the financial well-being of the county. And so I know that, we're gonna be working together as a team with the budget staff to figure out how we can, aid in the information that should be coming to the search committee, at least the way I feel currently or we feel currently.

Great. Thank you. Your thoughts?

Yeah. You know, my thought is that initially when a body gets created, there's intent. Right? We're looking at the code for that purpose. And then over time, my seventeen years with the county It's been a while. Know. I've seen things get directed, right, from the board where something comes up and they say, well, I I caught this error. Why didn't it go through committee? And even though process wise, it shouldn't have, often, you start hearing things like, well, there should be a quarterly check-in with budget committee, and you start to build sort of a a repertoire or expectations that things come through here that perhaps don't always have to be there at what point. You know, you've heard me say this a few times in the meetings we've had.

Let's let's get that off. Right? Like, no longer necessary or come back once a year. Let's limit the exposure here knowing that that creates work for somebody who doesn't necessarily need to be spending time prepping a report, getting them to report to get here for that based on the current condition. So all that is to say that I'm supportive of sort of the reset that I think we're looking at, right, is kinda going back to this initial policy level guidance that we're being asked to approve to go back so that we're resetting that expectation. We wouldn't do it

at a time.

Because what we're dealing with now, a lot of the things that I see coming through here are things that I heard fifteen years ago or sixteen years that were that were a concern. Right? Like, the health condition the financial health of the tenant. It comes here so routinely, but that was based on

the Anxiety.

Anxiety and trauma. Sorry to use that word. But from what, you know, we had gone through with that institution back when now, it's one of our most financially solvent. Yet we're in this point where it comes here, and Daniel has to come and wait on this meeting to make a presentation. Right. So, again, I'm comfortable with the reset that I see this as kind of grounding ourselves in today with setting a new set of expectations and then moving forward, prepared to amend as we move forward with the expectations of this school.

Mhmm. Is that fair? Yeah. Is there anything that you see on the list that we would wanna keep on on here that's, you know, value added, that fits with sort of where we have need or issues to to the point of you know, we have quarterly check ins, I think. If we go back to our list of, like, what all is on our quarterly check-in list, I think we have an exhibit ad. I think we do. What was that list? I can pull it up from the Apollo reports too. And, like, this list of, like, reports that are all coming back on a quarterly basis. May.

Like, do all of these fall off if we go with this only compared to, like, full reset?

I think that's up to us right

now. Mean I know. That's what I'm like. I'm like, I'm like, I'm I'm here for it, and then I'm also like, what?

What? So if we go through the list, right, we've got the assessor, and I do think that the assessor clerk recorder, as she feels comfortable coming back to us requesting time on our agenda, I think it's more appropriate than expecting a semiannual. Right? She's an elected. And Yeah. In my opinion, she bring that

as What was the what was what like, how did that end up here, I guess? I don't know the history of how that ended up on

the list. One I don't recall.

I don't know the I just I don't know the intent of why how that ended up here. So, like Right. If there isn't a reason for that that we can be clear about, then I don't know that we need it. ITD financial report.

I think given the Oracle project right now, we we wanna know financially sort of what that is. But overall, for, like, the whole institution based on CalCap, that's the history of how it ended up here. A lot of questions around how is this money getting allocated, broken up. Send that to budget committee. I remember that meeting ten years ago.

So maybe maybe one of the items is clarifying items we take into the budget committee. It could just be, like, monitoring, like, specific requested item. It's for, like, monitoring specific issues of concern or financial issues of concern, which would be ERP Right. Which would be Yep.

Do you like, like, massive financial report? That's not necessary.

Well, here's the RP down here at the bottom. Like, reimbursement. Like, that's the one that I think we wanna keep our eye on. So we'd be adding a bullet about, you know, financial issues out

Yes.

To the direction. Mhmm. Yeah. And Seth can definitely

go through the, standing and follow-up reports and make a recommendation, go back and work with the department, try to figure out why this was originally brought here and the items that, and so the next budget committee, we can bring that item back here. Hopefully, we'll just talk about here's what's currently listed. Here's what we're recommending and whatever it might be, if that's acceptable with the

That work. And

yeah. So I think so so so adding sort of a monitoring item issue that and the specific issues are and then the other one that we've been sort of I think the committees had to step into a role when we've had departments that are that just needed needed to like, we're we're struggling with the budget or we're over budget. Yeah. And we needed to just say, like, hey. But like, where we at to be able to have those questions raised. So that would be I'm just trying to look at where that fits on the bullets that you're putting in here. It could be, like, any any issue that the CAO, you know, feels like need more

Need more attention?

Yeah. So at the CAO's discretion, what you know? Like, hey. I need help on this. Or, hey.

This is I need the board to be aware of this issue that is bubbling or fermenting. Yeah. So in doing that, that effectively takes a lot of pressure off of our departments who feel like they've gotta come to us and write a staff report every time they submit a grant, every time. It's like one more committee checkbox that they're pushing paper through, and it alleviates, I mean, I think a lot of the I mean, a lot of the items that are on our report today, but a lot of the ones that people have been asking, hey. Can we bypass budget for?

Can I ask, Michael? Yep. So you came to us from Santa Cruz process wise. What did it look like there for these sort of requests for, like, applying for grants or, right, midyear changes, did those go straight to the board? Did they come to the CEO's office directed to the board? What what was your process?

Yeah. So for applying for grants, so in Santa Cruz County, to apply for a grant, a department technically should come to the board to have the board authorize them to actually apply for the grant. And I I know here it's a lot of departments just apply for grants and then come through Post. Once post. Right? And sometimes it's like, well, we wouldn't accept that money, if it weren't for x y z. Right? So for Santa Cruz, it's little bit that way. Besides that, most everything ran through the CEO's office and was the the main filter with the board. If there was an area of concern with the board, it would be the CEO, analyst, or the team working with each board member to identify and appraise, or the department heads themselves working with the board members to do rounds for an educational component.

But that's primarily how it's it's focused in Santa Cruz.

So I'm supportive of I just speaking to that question about grants process. Let let let the department supply. Right? I mean, I don't see do you feel you need to sign up before somebody applies for her or at the point of acceptance?

I mean, I really don't. Yes. I mean, I think, like, I we have we have exceptionally qualified department heads who are who are politically astute, who know their budgets better than anyone, who are acting on timelines that are you know, if they're gonna apply for funds that they know we're not going to accept, that's a that's a that's a decision that they are calculated in making, and they're gonna have to navigate their decision on the back end. If they have a question about whether or not they think it's gonna be a grant that we would accept later

That'd be

then they have the option of coming to us in advance and getting that approval, of course, which is a insurance policy that, you know, maybe they might choose to use. But for every brand that they apply for, I want them not I want them not applying for every dollar they can get.

Agree. Yeah.

And I'll

be honest. Feel pretty strongly on that point. Yeah.

And I'll be honest. In Santa Cruz, I'd I'd say maybe 50% of the time, they actually make it to the board to ask ahead of time. And then 50% of the time, it's asking for forgiveness. We didn't ask ahead of time. So That's it.

We want them to be nimble. Yeah.

I want them I want them all over it. Yeah. So I don't know. Is that do we have a policy on that? I mean, that's a question. That's also a really big question.

Well, I'll to go back and take a look.

Or is it Yeah.

Because I see the memos. I guess when we get the memo

We see them sometimes.

Yeah.

But then sometimes we don't.

So who knows? But I think being clear is important. So

Yeah.

I just heard it mentioned, and I wanted to call it out because, again, nimble is important for me on that as I heard the supervisor ask you as well. Understood. Thank you.

So so I guess the the other the other question that I have I really I really, really appreciate this this level setting conversation. I I really appreciate it. And I think one of the things that we're doing right now in in the four h committee is every month, we've been having a different department come forward and present their present their their their programs and sort of do a deeper dive into the like, how their, like, how their programs are operated, who they're working with in the community. And I think so often, like, we're here and we see the big picture, and then we're out in the community, and we're, you know, working with all of the different regional bodies of agency that we work with. But there's so much happening within the county.

And and on some level, I know that I have really appreciated the chance to kind of, like, spend that hour, like, understanding the details of those departments at a level that I don't wouldn't normally get to see. So I if we're gonna streamline and, like, really, like, close in our budget committee rather than just saying, okay. Let's just go to, you know, have meetings be shorter. I would love the opportunity to be able to do deeper dives, like our little study like, mini study sessions on our departments to to better understand, you know, how the health department budget you know, what are all the components of the health department budget? What are all the components of, you know, the probation department budget?

Like, how did how where where are the the, you know, the federal streams of money that we're getting, and and how do they how do they flow into the county and flow back out of the county? I would love the opportunity for budget committee to provide some of, like, a higher level or deeper level of understanding into, like, peeling back the curtain on the county budget in in agendas where we have space that we've now created because we're not spending it. You know? But I'm just I'm posing the question, and I don't know that it's shared by by everyone. Sometimes we've got a lot of things at our plate.

But given that, you know, we have a board that I think is super committed to doing the doing their homework. Mhmm. And I really appreciate the fact that our board cares and wants it feels like really wants to understand how things work and where we fit into these pictures. So I'll I'll ask a question to you, Chris, like, what your thoughts are Yeah. I think big how we frame that out.

Yeah. I think big picture, it makes sense that, you know, with the rotating nature of these seats down. Normally, I would have said no. Right? I would've said do it once. Let's learn it. Let's move. But with the rotating nature of the seats, if we can come up with a schedule, my concern so my key concern would be who right. And the way that we're framed now so let's use an exhibit at as an example. If we have Daniel doing the quarterly report, it's it's a quarterly report that he's prepared and comes together.

But if you're asking for a deeper sense of the financial grading that happens to create the budget of the hospital for federal and state reimbursements, partnerships, you know, how doctors are set up with finance versus clinics and the difference in those streams, that's gonna involve more chat. Right? Coming here to help explain sort of the nature of those relationships and the pieces. So understanding that the ask is being shifted. It's it's a different ask and perhaps a little heavier, but less often. Right? So as long as it Every few years. Yeah. That's my thing. As long as it's every few years, you're being asked to do this because it's a good check-in on yourself.

Right? Kind of feel feeling your own pulse and reminding yourself happened in the last couple of years. And with the shifting nature of this board, it's good that it'll be an education for the board members as they rotate it now. I think that's a good thing. I just don't wanna I don't want it to feel like now we're putting on the heads of these department's success with patient that you're constantly writing this report, once every couple years. Yeah. That makes sense. I mean, I think if we formalize a schedule to spread it over a couple years, that would make a lot of sense. I just wouldn't I wouldn't wanna put that burden on, some of those folks we have running these departments at the top quarterly. Right?

Or or or twice a year, maybe even once a year. But I think every other year kinda makes sense to come and check-in with us and explain perhaps with shifting the landscape so that we can help keep our finger on the pulse of where those funding streams are for the different departments.

Yeah. And if you think we have maybe 10 meetings a year and maybe we'd have, you know, half of our meetings, we would have times or something like that. Yeah. And so that's, like, you know, five or six a year, and there's 26 departments. And so, like, really, it would it would be and it would fit maybe into that CAO discretion kind of space. So we we're not adding it in, but it's a a chance to provide that. Mhmm. Agreed. Yeah. Informally. So very broadly speaking. Okay. And just and I'm not sure, Michael, we changed our committee structure a couple years ago. So we rotate

I saw that.

Board members through the committees. So although sometimes we just trade with each other so that we do actually end up staying on

Still more.

Committees. Like yeah. So but, anyway okay. Let me open it up to public comment. Is there anyone in the public who has or anyone with us from our county family who has thoughts about changing? Do you are you happy eliminating the requirement to bring all of these items to budget committee? Do you want to continue bringing all of your items to budget committee? Should we not change anything? Let us know what your your thoughts are. Rupeshat, we've got you up first. Rupeshat.

You're still muted, Rupeshat.

And you are muted, Rupeshat.

Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon, supervisor SQ supervisor. I just wanted to add a comment on a previous reference about internal audit and the audit plan that was included for this budget committee approval and review and approval. So I just wanted to provide a recent past history on what we have been doing, which is that with our two member internal audit staff committee internal audit staff, we have pre we have been preparing two year audit plan, and we have been taking it to the full board.

So, for example, the last the the existing audit plan for these two fiscal years, which includes this fiscal year and the and the last fiscal year was presented to the board in approximately May 2023. Right? Because '24 has passed or no. I take it back. May '24.

So '25 has passed, and we are in the twenty fiscal year '26. So we have that existing two year audit plan in place that was approved by the board in approximately May '24. Similarly, we had the prior audit plan for two years that was approved two years prior to 2024 by the full board. So, essentially, you know, it's the same concept where we haven't seen, you know, really that additional step of taking it to the budget committee because it's not asking for additional appropriation or anything. And, you know, the full board should be made aware of the audit plan and should be, you know, given the opportunity to review, provide comments, and and make the approval.

So that has been the practice and process in place that I just wanted to mention and and let the budget committee know here.

Great. Thank you for that. Any other comments, public comment, input? Do you see Henry? No. They're Henry. Alright. Let me close out a comment. And to to to point having that audit funded to the full board, is that something is it worth keeping that on and bringing it to the the committee as a extra step, or would it just be worth keeping that sending that to the full board? I mean, if we are focused on streamlining and, like, having to be value added. I think we just take it to the full board. Yeah. So we can cross that part off of here.

That's that's good.

Okay. So crossing that line off, but adding the two additional bullets of sort of monitoring specific issues of concern issues, departments of concern, and at CEO discretion. Anything to CEO discretion Yeah. Includes And then a bunch of stuff falls off, and, hopefully, life gets easier for for a lot of our needs to budget. We need to give I guess, if board or supervisor, you'll drop something, and then the board's yeah.

As staff to this committee, we'll work on putting an item together. We'll run it past both of you to ensure that it's the only budget committee because, ultimately, we have a budget committee item to the board for recommendation on a change. So Okay.

Awesome. Thank you. Yep. I'm looking at Okay. The wrong Moving along then to item number 10, and then we'll we'll give, which we remove. Item number 11 is sheriff's item, and then we'll take the sheriff with us to present. Jason Smith. Do we have Jason Smith with us to present? Is that correct? Okay.

I'm random one second, please. Oh, so, yes. Thank you. We're we're asking for, approval. Essentially, after the, cuts to our record staff this last budget round, we did analysis of all of the, basically, the assistance that we provide to all of the cities.

City police departments that were, twenty four hours a day. Essentially, these cities don't operate twenty four hours a day. They operate eight to five Monday through Friday, but their field services units need the assistance from our record staff. So historically, my entire career, they essentially just call the sheriff's office, And we have provided this service to him. Through DOJ and some other checks, we determined that we're not required to do this.

And, we are at the point of we have reached out to seven of the police chiefs and said if you would like for these services to continue, we broke it down between the seven agencies for two records, specialist two positions. We would bring in the revenue of a total of $231,398 that would allow us to essentially hire two additional to continue the services that we are currently providing now. The seven police chiefs have agreed to it. However, upon approval and going through the county system, we would then sign the MOU, and we would be, bringing in those that positive revenue.

Great. Thank you, for that. There was a memo that came out for the CEO's office, with some additional recommendations. I'm gonna let Michael, if you wanna comment on CAO's additional questions or comments on this before we proceed.

Yeah. No. Absolutely. Yeah. So the item that was presented by the sheriff's office, there was just from the budget side of the house, side of the sales office.

There was just a few small concerns that we had. One was the additional staff identified being recommended in the current board letter, whether that be actually warranted based on the current existing stuff and the sheriff office currently handling it. I know we're going into some, what I'm gonna consider, tougher budget times these next few years. So adding bodies is something, I won't say of concern, but, something of caution, that we're definitely looking at. And so I know with the recommendation here, we we do have a, small concern with just adding an additional staff, not necessarily the the workload itself or the MOU. So

Got it. Thank you. And

So

Yeah. Go ahead.

Yeah. I guess my question is and maybe, Jacine, you

could help me with this. We got the law enforcement agency partners of Gonzales, Greenfield, King City, Marina, Sand City, Seaside, and Solidad that is part of those. You know? They obviously operate a little differently. So have the city council signed off signed off on this MOU already, or are we first process wise here at United?

We we are first process. Yeah. It it was presented at the, law chiefs meeting, initially, and then individual meetings with each of the chiefs. They've communicated that through their city leadership. And, essentially, these these cities will not even be able to be in compliance with DOJ standards for time sensitive information that has to be entered.

Missing persons, stolen vehicles, things like that. And when we explained the, skeleton crew that we're on right now and, and, honestly, a lot of sometimes overtime that's costing us, when we're supporting these agencies, they completely understood. When they even looked at it from an analysis on their side where they have they would have to hire, basically, a record specialist to with or equivalent to their city. They're looking at adding three to four additional staff to run twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. So being you know, trying to be the leaders and help them as we always have, We said, look.

This is how we can break this down. You're the participating agencies. We'll continue the support. However, we just can't do it as on our current staffing right now.

So process wise, we're we're have we heard from the city leadership that they're comfortable paying the bill?

I have through all of the chiefs. Yes.

Through the chiefs. Okay. I just Alright.

Each each has met and said, yeah. You know, comparable the the the amount that's broken down between these seven agencies, were hundreds of thousands of dollars cheaper than what they would be able to

Oh, yeah.

It's it's it's really pretty simple for them. It's a good deal.

Okay. Well, I mean, I think just knowing that recently, I I helped the city of Gonzales put together 20,000 pixel roof. Right? And I'm like, alright. So now we're looking at 40 here. I just I'm concerned about, right, that. But if they're telling you if and, again, I'll I'll check-in with the mayors to make sure that it's come across. But I I agree that it's the best possible option. I just don't wanna surprise a partner.

Yeah. The supervisor, this is sheriff Nieto. The other option is that we don't provide the services. And like chief Smith has said, we can't keep providing these services with the staffing that we have now. So they would have to figure out a way to do it. If they don't wanna do it, that again, that's their choice that the city leaders decide that in those cities, but we will no longer be providing those services.

And the other cities that are not partnering, is there

It is because their records can absorb, doing those services, and they're or they're already providing those services to their own people.

Okay.

Supervisor, you have some agencies that are twenty four hours a day, or maybe they've already agreed with a neighboring city, the larger ones generally on the Peninsula, where they would support them for maybe eight hours in the middle of the night or on a holiday. We upon having the conversation, initially, was counting on nine knowing who we support now. We had to say two denied. Said no. We're we're gonna work something else out. So we have those hard conversations about, you know, truly are you. They understood where we were. We understand where they are and got that acknowledgment that, yes, they realized that this was a crucial, support.

K.

So I I am definitely a fan. I'm appreciating the share of getting super creative in terms of trying to figure out working with partners. I'm always thrilled to see our law enforcement, partners working together. I think there's some economies of scale and some coordination that is beneficial to our entire region. And so, like, glad to see that that continues to happen and those conversations continue to to occur.

And I'm also, like, really happy to see that the sheriff is the sheriff's office is looking at how to fund the services that we are providing regionally and and benefit to to our to the jurisdictional partners that we're working with. However, in this case, at least my understanding of and I could be wrong, and I would appreciate understanding more, But the way that I'm understanding this is that that these are services that we are already providing with staff that already are working and hired by the sheriff's office. And and so the the the MOUs that are that that would be put in place would be for cost recovery of a service that we're already providing with staff that we already have and positions that are already in the sheriff's office and already fully funded with with county dollars. So in that in that reality, I I appreciate that there's new revenue coming in, but it's new revenue that's that's that's backfilling services that are that are already being provided. So I'm I'm having a hard time, in this case, agreeing to add new positions, especially considering the challenges that that that the rest of the county that that we're facing across the board.

I think we've we've worked really, really, really hard, to find every way possible to add and meet at the needs of of all of our law enforcement partners in county county departments that provide law enforcement services. And and I'm this one for me that the numbers just aren't adding up in terms of what's being requested. So at this point, this isn't a request that I'm able to support as a recommendation coming out of budget. I we can, you know, we can move along to the full board, but it wouldn't be with for me, it wouldn't be with a recommendation from the budget. I'm not sure where you're at, Chris, but with the unanimous support from the budget committee.

Because it like I said, at this point, it seems like we've been subsidizing the jurisdictions to provide the service, which I think has has been generous of the county, and I love it when we're able to do that. But just to go from subsidizing the jurisdictions to then being able to do cost recovery, I'm not sure how that changes the staffing scenario that's at play here.

Well well, supervisor, that that is a problem. I appreciate where you stand on that issue because, we can't do our own services if we continue under this model because of the cuts. And we did come forward during budget time and ask for these positions, because of the workload. So moving forward, if, the the board decides, the whole board decides that they can't do that, then we won't be providing these services because we have to provide services to our people first, and we're struggling to do that.

Okay. So in that case so in that case, you're saying that the that the sheriff office wouldn't be able to provide this MOU, and that the other jurisdictions would be so, like, the city of Salinas who's the other one that's providing the services, that the that the other these cities would need to just contract with a different jurisdiction.

That's correct.

Okay.

So, I mean, so my my big picture concern is we do have a looking at this kinda as a contractor. Right? So now we're we've got contracted service. What happens if folks choose to go to Salinas? And then do we how often do we reassess this? Right? I guess would be my question based on that. I mean, if half the folks fall out next year, do we come back and kinda reposition that? Because the MOUs I've been looking at it doesn't lock them into, like, four or five years. So how do you how often do you see yourself reassessing the share?

We're we're gonna have to assess it every year when we come to budget season.

Okay. So But stopping.

Because here, it does say that the the subscriber agencies prior to fiscal year will essentially agree to provide their their their dollars prior to July 1. So I saw that. I just didn't see, a you know, if you join, you're locked in for four years or five years. Right? It's like a

Yeah. We we supervisor, we can't lock cities into to things like that. It's something, we're trying to provide we're struggling to just provide these services to our partners. And, you know, we're talking with our partners. They understand that the alternative is either they go they contract with somebody else or they hire people, which is why the cities that did say, yes. We we can do that. Budget wise for them, it makes more sense. It makes more sense when collaboratively we all work together to provide some of these services, whoever does that. Yeah.

So I'm I'm comfortable. I get that it's gonna be a split, but sending it to the board with no recommendation from committee for consideration, I think, is what I'm hearing is our path forward out of out of this body today with the prior to hearing public input.

K. We'll open this one up to public comment. Is there anyone, from the public who has comment on this item? If you want to raise your hand and provide public comment. I don't see any hands raised. Okay. We're not seeing any hands raised. More actually, you should raise your hand. Yes. Moriah? Moriah, I can't see you, but I hear your hand is raised. I'll give her the permission. If you'd like to provide public comment, we'd love to hear it. A second. Oh, maybe.

Okay. Here. She's at the top of the list. You can go ahead and unmute.

Sorry about that. I didn't I was talking, but I couldn't you couldn't hear me.

We can hear you now. You're good.

Yeah. My name is Moira Lamount, and I live in the city of Marina. And I'm wondering, what is the change in workflow that is necessitating this sort of a Was there a reduction of staff? Or I I just I'm I'm confused by this whole process and the request.

Supervisor, would you like me to answer that? This is sheriff Nieto.

Yeah. No. We we don't typically respond to public comment questions, but what I am gonna ask is that when this comes back to the full board, if we could just make sure that the CAO memo, the the the the full context is provided in that. So they just show a stock report and information, and then just an attachment. So Yes. We'll we'll

go we'll cover any questions that you get. I I apologize. I forgot.

Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. And I'm sure the sheriff is always available to answer any questions directly. But, yeah, I think I think it's a the staff report, I think, outlines the what what the changes that have occurred, but I'm just to keep us moving through our through our agenda today. We've got a lot a lot of items left to get through. But thank you. Thank you for joining us, Myra. Okay. So with that, we have a a split. No recommendation, but please move it to the board for additional information. And I think you have clarity on some of the questions that maybe will come from the board. So the sheriff's office is prepared to answer more inform more more answers more prepared in advance with our questions. Thank you. Okay.

The next item is item 13, which is another sheriff's item, acceptance of a grant. And we'll pass that back to the sheriff. Jericho, is this yours? Is

I'm I'm bringing it up right now, supervisor. And then just so I know I have people online to talk about the UWASI grant, and Jason's probably pulling up the report, or he disconnected on purpose. Sorry, Jason.

Sorry. I

I am here. This is a a grant that was oh, confirm 14. Correct?

Yeah. I'm 13. Sorry.

13. Sorry.

Yeah. The $350,000 from the city and county of San Francisco for the UOCSI grant funds.

Yes. This is our our our UASI grant funds items that are, put in for safety equipment that has, been put in from UASI supporting the approving and the increase in appropriations estimate revenues of $350,000. We put in for UASI funds every year. We were granted the $350,000 to, augment, specified equipment that is necessary for the daily operations as well as to support special events, emergency calls for service, etcetera. I hope that helps.

So I'll go first and just say I'm supportive. I was talking about the earlier conversation. This is one of those where, I mean, just to the full board would have been fine with me. Right? Just kinda looking at process and using this as a touchstone for that. But, yes. Yep. Support.

Mhmm. And my only comment was, I think the recommendation we need to when it comes to the board, it would be to receive the fund and amend the budget. I think there's a that's just when I read the report. Through through receiving, approving an increase, and we're gonna amend the budget too to to show that increase. But, yeah, it's a Correct. All things. Yeah, I think I think we're we're good. We're good. Yeah.

Supervisor, this

is Unless I'm missing something. Yeah.

No. You're You're not. This is sheriff Nieto again, and and I agree. This is one that could go directly to the board. It's something we do every year. It's not con it's not controversial, and we are getting the funds back. So, you know, it is in the to the benefit of the county of Monterey.

Alright. Great. Thank you. And then now we're on to item 14, which is also a share of item. Did you call for public comment on the sheriff? I'm sorry. I didn't call for public comment. Public comment on item 13. Thank you. Thank you very much. Keep us honest. Public comment on item 13, receiving grant funds for the sheriff's office. Do you see any hand raised? Hands raised. Okay. No hands raised. We'll close public comment and send that one along to the board with support from the committee. So now we can move on to item number 14.

Sorry. I was jumping ahead there before.

No. I got all excited. I was like, let's go.

I know. I that's what happens when I make my own notes here on the paste paper. So again, it's, this was an ABC, alcohol beverage control, $75,000. Support the approval of the increase in appropriation to the 2526 adopted budget by $75,000 financed by 75,000 from the Department of Alcohol and Beverage, well as policing partnership, APP program, support authorization and direction of auditor controller to amend the sheriff's year budget, number one, and SHE, I believe, three by $75,000 and by the state of California Department of Alcohol and Beverage and Policy and Partnership. This is important because there's a lot of education that comes out of this as well.

When I participated direct supervision, yes, there's the the the the enforcement component of this is minimal and necessary at times. However, this is where we get out and we talk to business owners, put hand out literature, educate, very heavily driven by education. So, again, asking is very important. We have had this in the past, brings in the funds to properly help out in that area of issues without our county.

Great. Copy and paste.

Yeah. Understood. Understood.

Take the money. I guess the only question I I would have is just in terms of, like, accountability or, like, what outcomes are you required to to like, what's required as a as a outcome of this? Like, as a Report. Report reporting outcomes?

End of the year, we report back to ABC and, of our findings or essentially our stats. And to be honest, we have always done very well. They're always very impressed, which that's why we've always been selected for this in in a return.

Great. I I guess the question is, like, what are what are the stats that you're reporting? What are those what are the outcome measurements?

How many citations? How much education time? How much time how many businesses did you visit? Individuals contacted. Your enforcement stats over your educational stats, did you just visit and, essentially hand out literature and educate in those categories?

And supervisor, on these, smaller grants that I think in the future, we're gonna end up bypassing the budget committee if we change how we do it. The really good thing about these grants besides the stats that you asked about, Again, they're looking more at the education piece. We do work with other county partners with this. We've had conversations about these grants in the past, you know, because we're looking at, you know, drinking the businesses, ABC laws. A lot of these smaller grants, the tobacco grants, the ABC grants are are more about helping our youth and also educating our our businesses.

And so that's what they're collecting as far as the numbers when they ask those numbers. They're asking how many operations did you do and what was the result of those operations. Ultimately, it's a it's a big educational campaign that we put money behind, to work. So one, we reduce, in this case, ABC. So we wanna reduce, you know, to, alcohol use by teens. We wanna, educate the businesses how not to sell to teens, etcetera. So, these are big education type of grants.

Okay. And I guess the follow-up to that question, the rest of that question is with the 85 or $75,000, is that does that fully cover the cost of conducting the ten minuteor decoy operations and the four shoulder cap operations and the four trap four and two trapdoor operations? Does that fully cover the cost of performing all of that work, or is there additional, like, match resources that you can

within the budget amount that's allotted. Yeah. We've always operated within the budget amount that's operated. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Yeah. Good. Just a just a question. I know I know I know how expensive our time, the time of our of our, deputies is, and, so just yeah. Thank you. Okay. Any public comment on this item? This is receiving item number 14, receiving an ABC grant. Do you I don't see any. Your hands raised. Okay. Alright. So it's item 14. You're good to go. Good to go. Alright. And our last item for today is item number alright. Item number 15.

This is amending our personal policies and practices resolution onto a appendix a b to adjust the base wage salary range of our registered voters classification as indicated in touchment a with HR preventing.

Good afternoon, supervisors. This is Kim Moore, assistant director of human resources. The item before you is to consider supporting the amendment of the PPTR to increase the base wage salary range of the registrar voters. Regional government services, otherwise known as RGS, conducted the face wage study and found that the registrar of voters is 23.7979% below market. The classification was matched to three counties, and we are recommending that it be implemented in the same manner as the base wage studies were implemented for the fiscal year '20 five, twenty six years, which is bringing the amount down to 20% and then spreading it, the rest of it over the four year period.

So in this instance, bringing it down would bring it to 3.79%, and then a quarter of the remaining 20% would bring it to 8.79% to be implemented after board supervisor's approval. So we are requesting your consideration to move this forward to the full board. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. And just a question in in regards to the So I know our base wage studies that we just completed with a whole number of our positions, we have a tiered implementation. I'm just reading through here again to remind myself. And so this implementation would be following the tiered rate, the tiered implementation that's in place for that we've been following in alignment with all the other units. Correct?

Yes. This would follow the same implementation that was just completed for July 1 when we did the department head studies, the backlog studies, and the current year studies. So all of them were implemented in the same fashion, and we're recommending that it follows.

Okay. And the funding source for the registered voters is it's a combination of general fund and then state dollars for elections?

I would actually have to defer to budget for the answer to that question. I'm not sure if Raquel is on the line.

Streams that make up the baseline budget for that department elections. So are we seeing, state dollars blended with some general fund dollars that would well, they say they can absorb it within the budget, the 17,543 impact for this fiscal year. Long term, the fiscal impact, what are those incoming streams that will cover this?

Yeah. I'll have to defer to our analysts over elections, if they're on.

Good afternoon, supervisor Askew and Lopez.

My

name is Mary Kikuchi. I'm the management analyst for the election department. The funding would come from the general fund along with state grants as well. So those are our two funding sources.

Yeah. Thank you. That's that's I was just wanted to make sure I was correct in that. Yeah. And I think I'm I'm I'll just say, like, I'm really I'm really proud of the fact that the county has worked so hard to to try to get caught up on all of our well, on on some of our backlogged class and pump studies, I think all of our employees deserve to be carried fair fair fair wages, if not competitive wages.

And we've made good progress towards that goal, And and hoping to do it implement those over four years is far from far from what I think anyone wants to do or hear. And the the the challenge of having some of those departments funds come from general fund and some of them come from other fund sources that are fully funded has created a a unique challenge. But without getting into the the nuances of that, I support this. And I think I just wanna be very clear that the ongoing commitment for the positions that we haven't already finished or gotten to or that still need to have a class in comps done even as we head into difficult budget times. I think it is clearly a commitment of this board that we that the employees that have dedicated their career to the county, that we do the work to make sure that the the salary range that you're paid the salary rate that you're paid is a is a fair one, and that we're gonna do what we can to get to get you to that to that to that number as quickly as we can.

So I support this. Chris, are you there Yeah. More comments, thoughts No. Just commentary. I appreciate the

fact that we're following the standard in which we set across the table, whether you're the head of a department or a frontline employee. Right? We are understanding that the approach is something that fits needs to fit everybody. And so I agree that this is necessary, and I appreciate the approach we're taking to right size the pay for this particular position. So I'm just

to all of our employees, we appreciate you. And, yep, I think with that, we have made it through the full agenda. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Michael. Yeah. Oh, I didn't ask if there's any public comment on that item. Is there any public comment on that final item? No hands raised. No hands raised. Alright. With that, I think we're done, and we'll get our updated board budget committee process procedures in place to streamline a lot of this. Our next meeting is scheduled for 10/29/2025 at 02:30 here in the Monterey Room and via the multiple locations via Zoom, and we look forward to continuing the conversation.

Thanks, everybody.

Thank you.