City Council - Regular Meeting

It's on, but I think it was too fast.

Hello, hello. Okay, good morning, everyone. It is Wednesday, May 27th, 2026. We're gonna call to order the Monterey County Board of Supervisors. We are holding our budget hearings today. So thank you for joining us. It is about just after 9 a.m. And I'll let the record show that all supervisors are present. I'd like to welcome Diego Salas, who's providing Spanish interpretation services. Diego, could you make the announcement about the services we have available today?

Ah, muy buenos dias a todos. Mi nombre es Diego Celis y seré su intérprete de español e inglés para la reunión de hoy. Si usted está planeando hacer un comentario público y necesita servicio de intérprete, favor de hablar lenta y suficientemente fuerte para que yo lo escuche. Favor de hacer una pausa al final de cada oración para asegurarse de que tengo la oportunidad de interpretarle. Muchas gracias.

Thank you, Diego. We appreciate your support of our meetings. We're going to move next to our Pledge of Allegiance. I'm going to invite Ray Buenaventura. This is your first budget hearings here in Monterey County. I believe our public defender to come up and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

All right, are there any additions or corrections to our agenda this morning?

There are none.

There are none, all right. We'll move right along to general public comments. This portion of the meeting is reserved for folks to address the board on any matter that is not on today's agenda but is otherwise under the jurisdiction of this board of supervisors. And welcome and thank you for being here. We'll open public comment, so come on up.

Good morning, Chair Ruud Askew, Vice Chair Daniels, Supervisors Alejo, Church and Lopez. My name is Sean Edwards. I'm coming to you today as a resident of the 5th District, but also as the perspective of a first responder. I'm a fire captain in the Carmel Highlands area for CAL FIRE Local 2 at A1. I am a union representative, and I wanted to give you a perspective on my experiences this weekend. I went down to Big Sur on Saturday. My travel started about 11 o'clock in the morning. Traffic immediately started just at Rio Road going southbound. I want to commend this body from the past. The no parking signs on the eastbound, northbound side at Point Lobos that you guys put up, it greatly improved our safety as first responders responding through that corridor. Going a little bit further south, the next huge traffic jam was Bixby Bridge. I know this was talked about last week so I just want to give my perspective on the issue. I've heard a lot in the past is being a first responder based on the traffic you guys aren't going to be able to make it through and I always say look we got a big red fire engine we got sirens we'll make it through. We might slow down but we'll make it through. What I experienced at the Bixby Bridge it scared me because I knew at that point a fire engine actually could not make it through. You had on the northbound at the bridge, there was an RV parked halfway in the northbound lane. Directly on the southbound lane, there was a car parked halfway in to where it literally bottlenecked people. So people had to stop and say, OK, wave you through. And it prohibited even us from going through. And that scared me. And it puts first responders, the citizens that were sworn to protect, at risk if we can't make it through. And it scares me more because all the traffic seems to be going southbound now, and that's where the big hazards are, the water rescues, the fires, the everything in between. I commend the partnership that we've had with state parks. I think they've done a fantastic job in trying to be as proactive as possible. California Highway Patrol, the Sheriff's Department, all the first responders, I really appreciate the partnership, and I hope that you can take this into consideration. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any other public comment in chambers this morning? I'm seeing no one in chambers for general public comment. We'll go online. We have general public comment. We'll start with, I think that's Marcos. Marcos Foster.

Yes, that's correct. Can you hear me okay?

Thank you for joining us.

Yeah, good morning, supervisors. Following up on that note in our conversation regarding Bixby Bridge, my name is Marcus Foster. I'm a longtime resident of Big Sur and chair of Keep Big Sur Wild, a nonprofit founding on upholding the policies of our land use plan that was certified 40 years ago. The plan was written knowing that increased visitation moving into the future was inevitable. This was front in mind when the policies were then certified by the County and Coastal Commission. There was overwhelming recognition that the highway was built primarily for scenic travel and this was in order to accommodate maximum carrying capacity of a very limited narrow two-lane road due to the geography of the area and to protect the environment and natural scenic beauty. Large-scale destinations along the highway were not appropriate because it would lead to major traffic congestion caused by unsafe roadside parking. Therefore, visual access and scenic recreational driving was deemed the primary activity for visitors. I want to talk about what happened this weekend. And this isn't anything new. This has been happening for 15 years. It's just gone from weekends to then the busy weekends to pretty much every day, even when the highway was closed to the south. I did a video a couple years ago. That was Memorial Day 2024. The highway was not a through highway. So it's not just because of pent-up demand. What we have here is Big Sur is at a breaking point. We have one of the most popular travel destinations in the world, and it truly is just an unmanaged free-for-all. We have one CHP for eight hours a day covering 71 miles of coastline. We need to figure out how to better manage visitation. My Saturday drive was over an hour to get through the bridge, and on Monday there was an ambulance, a child that had a head injury at one of the campgrounds, and the ambulance code 3 from town was delayed due to heavy traffic congestion. It is impossible for emergency vehicles to get through all the traffic backups that are happening all along Highway 1. Thank you. Thank you.

We'll go next to the phone number ending in 902 and then to the phone number ending in 705.

Good morning. This is Nina Beattie. This week, customers received letters from AT&T. AT&T is attacking telephone service in a multi-pronged way. It's urgent that Monterey County protest these moves in the strongest, most effective way they can. Copper Line landlines are essential infrastructure, the most reliable and dependable phone service that exists. In a power outage, the system works, even in most disasters. It doesn't require batteries. When you pick up the phone, there's a dial tone and connection to 911 and emergency responders, medical personnel, your family members, your essential services, your elderly relatives and friends that need assistance. It provides exact location accuracy for emergency responders when seconds count. And its voice quality is superior. It doesn't drop calls either. AT&T wants to eliminate landlines. It has sued the state of California and has also sponsored a constitutional amendment ACA 9 to stop the CPUC from regulating it and stop being considered a public utility. The assembly has already approved this and it's essential that Monterey County oppose this to the Senate. AT&T doesn't want to be a carrier of last resort anymore. Kohler means everyone gets service who asks, but AT&T doesn't care if some people don't have reliable service. Don't let them do it. Voice over Internet protocol and wireless communication, including Starlink, are undependable. They require batteries. When the batteries die, there is no phone service and no way to call 911. And when PG&E turns off the power, the electricity and there's a fire, Californians need access to evacuation notices. People have already died in these situations because they didn't have landlines. many more will. And while the county struggles to balance the budget and fill vacancies and discuss this today, vacancies that are vital to the operation of the county, this proposed constitutional amendment creates another expensive and unnecessary agency to essentially rubber stamp what AT&T wants. So I ask the county to please take action immediately today before the Senate considers this constitutional amendment and oppose AT&T's other measures. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go next to the phone number ending in 705.

Yes, good morning, Supervisors. I'm asking you to carry a resolution to counter the onslaught of us all AI and its demand for energy and water. The only solution to feed their wild appetites for energy is little nuclear power plants. NPR, our public radio station, had an interview recently with a nuclear scientist advertising or should I say brainwashing the public into believing little nuclear power plants were green and safe. Can we trust the government to operate these plants that have already dropped 350 tons of depleted uranium on Iraq without even telling our soldiers what these weapons were made of? Depleted uranium has a half-life of 4.5 billion years. Can we trust a government that lies about nuclear power plants and its radioactive fallout being almost harmless? We are awash with plutonium from the fallout of tested nuclear bombs. Almost everyone is some form of cancer. The nuclear solution is not the answer. Our only solution is to stop reducing our use of AI until we find a solution. Use it for important things, but not games and movies online and information that's non-essential. If we don't, AI will demand energy at any cost to our health and environment. We humans are not good at resisting technologies that are injurious to us, but AI will not only take over our jobs, but our environmental choices for truly a more green energy source. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go next to the phone number ending in 837.

Hello, once again, supervisors of Monterey County. This is Brian Rosen speaking. You know, the way that people are being grabbed because of the color of their skin, tortured, killed, thrown in concentration camps, illegally deported, even though they are legally here often is absolutely shocking to us all. Now, I'm getting texts asking me to support petitions like Trader Joe's, who refuses to not cooperate with ICE. Same with Home Depot. Same with Starbucks coffee. So these corporations are not helping. And they have a responsibility to be good citizens of our country. And I would really appreciate it if all of you would... recommend to put some pressure on these corporations not to cooperate with ICE. This is a terrible, rogue, illegal Nazi agency. And our government is run by Nazi-like fascist people who are very much against the welfare of the American people. Now let's talk about Hawaii. You can't regulate free speech, according to the Supreme Court of corporations, but you can regulate their powers, and that's up to the states. And now Hawaii is doing just that. So corporations will not be able to buy our elections. Other states are following suit, like including our own. So please do a resolution to support this effort in California. We cannot allow corporations and big interest groups like APEC to ruin our elections. Almost every Democrat and every Republican is scared to death of APEC, for instance, and they vote for genocide and to support a genocidal government. The last president that totally opposed Israel was John F. Kennedy, who ended up dying soon after when he tried to stop their nuclear program and wanted to be neutral to not drive the Arab countries over to Russia. So we need you to do this resolution and thank you.

We'll go next to Richard. Richard, we have two minutes on the clock for you. We see that you have unmuted, but we are not getting any audio.

Okay.

There we go. Richard, we've got you now.

I'm trying to unmute.

Yep, we've got you now. Richard, can you hear me now? Yep, we can hear you. Thank you.

I can hear you.

Wonderful. We've got two minutes on the clock for you. Thank you.

I've been driving the road in Big Sur since 1972. I've worked at a major resort for 40 years. I've lived in Big Sur for 30 years. I now commute from town for the last 10 years. I love my job. I love the people I work with. It's a great place to work. The commute is just turning into a nightmare. Between Friday and Monday, four shifts, I spent eight hours getting to work, two hours each day. The commute home is only 45 minutes. So eight hours spent in traffic just trying to get to work. We've had a chronic problem with people showing up late on weekends, chronic call outs, people just not wanting to come to work because of the traffic situation with reservations from our guests. We've got no shows. We've got people showing up late. And it's all due to the parking situation at Point Lobos and the double parking at Bixby Bridge. I've got to the end of my rope where I'm going to start looking for work in Carmel because I just can't take this anymore, the commute. I start monitoring the traffic around noon, and as soon as I know that I can make it to work on time, I leave a little bit early, according to my phone and the traffic, and I still end up sometimes being 30 minutes late. carefully monitoring. I've seen pedestrians come very close to getting hit on several occasions, first responders not being able to get through, people running out of gas in line, people having to take a pee on the side of the road in line. It's just the whole situation is really, really bad and something needs to be done. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. I'm not seeing any additional public comments, so we're gonna close general public comment and move on to our budget public hearing. Starting with item number one, adopting a resolution about our Gantt appropriation limits. We have a brief presentation from our Xiomara-Bajarez, our Chief Deputy Auditor-Controller.

Good morning, Chair Root, Eskew, and members of the Board of Supervisors. I am Seymoura Barajas, Chief Deputy Auditor-Controller, and on behalf of the Auditor-Controller's Office, I'm here today to ask your board to adopt the resolution for the fiscal year 2026-27 Gann Appropriation Limit. This resolution is brought forward pursuant to Article 13B of the California Constitution, which requires appropriation limits to be adopted at the regularly scheduled governance meetings. The appropriation limits have been calculated by our office for those Board-governed jurisdictions determined to be subject to the provisions of Article 13B and are shown in the attached schedule provided to you. The documentation and calculations are available for public inspections at the Auditor-Controller's Office, and the General and Library Fund's computed appropriation limit for this fiscal year is $1,015,171,576. This concludes my presentation, and we're available for any questions that you may have.

All right, thank you. We'll start with the board. Any questions? All right, we'll go to public comment. Any public comment? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the board for... Move adoption of a resolution.

Second.

Thank you. We have a motion from Alejo, a second from Church. All in favor? Aye. Passes unanimously. Thank you. Thank you for your time. All right, we'll move next to item number two, our public hearing to receive a presentation from our Human Resources Department on Assembly Bill 2561.

Good morning members of the board. This is a brief presentation on AB2561 which requires the disclosure of the status of vacancies on the recruitment and retention efforts. The MMBI local agencies have to present the status of vacancies recruitment and retention efforts during the public hearing. The presentation must be made prior to the adoption of the final budget And it entitles a recognized employee organization to also make a presentation at the same meeting. There is one requirement. Next page. There is one additional requirement that any single bargaining unit that has a vacancy rate of 20% or more that show... The agency, meaning us, have to include the following information in the public hearing at the request of that recognised employee organisation. What has to be included is the total number of vacancies, total number of applicants, average number of days, opportunity to improve compensation and other working conditions. There were only two unions concerned and neither of these unions requested the information from the agency. Next page. The following slide provides information on our year-over-year headcount and vacancies. So in 2025, as you can see, we had an authorized FTE of 5,937 with vacancies of 882 and a vacancy rate of 14.8. In 2026, for the same period that we measured, our authorized FTEs went down by 99. around about 5,838 with a total vacancies of 764. What we have is a drop of about 1.76 in our vacancy rate. Next page. I'm pleased to report that for the year over year, the vacancy rate has decreased in all but two of our represented bargaining units. As you can see, those are the vacancy rates there and every other one of the only two that it actually really increased was our next page, the Monterey County Probation Association. It was up by about 2%. And then on the other one was the contract physicians, which was up by 14.1%. In all the other ones, our vacancies actually have steadily decreased. Next page. Here's an important slide that during the reporting here, the following vacancies were created. I'll break it down a little bit later. There were 426 separations. Competitive promotions create a vacancy, newly budgeted allocations, and then, of course, voluntary demotions create vacancies. Not always are these vacancies necessarily need to be filled, but that's what the numbers are. So if we break down next page, if we break down the countywide separations of the 426, 251 were voluntary resignations, 104 were service retirements and 71 were involuntary separations. Next slide. Briefly, the recruitment process. It's a five-step process. It starts with a request for referral, then a job announcement, the examination, which can take on many forms, final selection, and then the employment offer. Next slide. The following illustrates the recruiting process, which is not always as straightforward as it seems and has many nuances and phases. I'll describe just one. We can look at the vacancy created. If we go on to the next slide. As you can see, there are actually 12 ways in which a vacancy can be filled. Anything from an existing eligibility list to a promotional recruitment to flexible staffing to a departmental transfer to voluntary demotion to rehire within two years. So there are many ways to fill a vacancy. Next slide. Here's some other recruitment statistics. Across the county, there were 252 recruitments conducted, 496 people were hired, and competitive promotions to authorize FTEs was 177. Next slide. So recruitment challenges. So the county of Monterey reviewed applicable policies, procedures, and recruitment activities to identify any obstacles in the hiring process. So these are key things that stand out. Number one, we are in a tight labor market. There's a high cost of living and housing, and there's trends in robust recruiting efforts by neighboring agencies and private sector. We are right on the cusp of the Bay Area, San Francisco, San Jose area, which contributes to the challenging, there are a lot of employers in that area. Also the county identified that we still have the GARSA consent decree and sometimes we need to keep positions open for 30 to 60 days per the decree and what that means is that sometimes people are applying for positions and other agencies might only keep it open for 14 days or seven days, whereas by the time we get around to actually doing the selection or getting to interviews, a lot of the other counties have already made the offer. Finally, in summary, I'd just like to mention the county's net turnover rate is only 8.4%, which places us way below the average of any of other counties. In fact, the lowest county has got a net turnover rate of 7.2%. So at 8.4%, what that translates into is this is that We have a retention rate of almost 92% of our employees. As I said, there's only one other county that beats us, funnily enough, and that's LA County. They're at 7.2%, but we're basically the second best in the state of California. We also have a replacement ratio of about 1.16, which basically means that we are filling those vacancies, plus we are able to hire a little bit more. That is also way above the market average. Our vacancy rate of 13.1 is very healthy in this environment that we are in right now. You'll never have a vacancy rate of zero. That won't exist. And according to UC Berkeley's Labor Center, I was looking up the latest numbers, many, many counties are sitting between a 19 and some counties, albeit rural counties, as much as a 30% vacancy rate. So can we do better? Yes, we can. We will always strive to do better. But at this point in time, that's just what I wanted to leave you with. At this point, that's the end of the presentation. If there are any questions from the board.

Questions from the board? Any public comment on this item? Seeing none, we'll bring it back to the board for consideration.

Mr. Heron, do you need a motion? Just to receive.

Just to receive. Okay. We will receive the information. Thank you. We have received the information. Thank you very much. All right. We will now move on to open our public hearing to consider the fiscal year 26-27 recommended budget. And we'll start with our CAO, Sonia De La Rosa's comments on the county budget this year.

yes, so this marks my we're at year 3 and a half for me as a county administrative officer for the county of monterey and still consider it an honor to be here and more so because of the department heads that we have and the team that we have supporting the county as a whole in addition to that the constituents and the involvement from constituents when there's areas where we can do better and how they inform us in the ways that that they would like to see things change or more transparency, more information shared. When I first arrived at the county, we obviously were experiencing a couple of emergencies. We've been, I think like I said before, four for four on the years that I've been here. But most importantly, one of the items that your board wanted to make sure that was supported by the county administrative office in collaboration with the departments was the development of a balanced budget while working with our labor groups and also to prepare strategically for the reduction of force due to reduce funding to review improve or demystify and demystify the budget process to ensure accuracy timely information on status of budget would be conveyed to your board and also to the community throughout the year and also and lastly a fair transparent process for community funding requests during the budget cycle this recommended budget from the county administrative office does all of those things while also planning for the future and I do want to thank our budget team, the CAO's office, but more broadly to all of the departments that have been involved in the creation of this budget that is now available since May 14th for the public's review and also for discussion today. This has been a new process. frustrating it's been a bit of a tug-of-war and then also for many of us just the reality that we're living in today that we cannot continue operations as we have in the past and to be very conscientious of when we add resources whether they're ongoing or one time to be very deliberate and and careful as we do that to try to avoid layoffs and other service reductions and that' s what this budget does it doesn' t include everything we would like it definitely puts the wheels on the car and the motor and we' re going to be able to go down the road but it doesn' t have all of the additional bling that we would like to add and I' m using bling very broadly obviously but I think it provides and supports the strategic plan that this board adopted last year and is in place from 2025 to 2028, which focus on the wellbeing and quality of life, sustainable infrastructure for the present and future, safe, resilient communities, diverse and thriving economy, and dynamic organization and employer of choice. And the recommended budget is balanced as it's presented today. It is fiscally responsible and it's an approach that protects the core county services while continuing investments in community priorities and organizational sustainability. The budget advances the board's priorities. and it includes public safety housing and homelessness response what the economic vitality infrastructure health and human services and organizational excellence. The budget was developed conservatively. in recognition of the ongoing economic uncertainty, inflationary pressures, rising labor and operating costs, and continued volatility at the state and federal funding streams. Despite these challenges, the county remains committed to maintaining essential public services and preserving long-term fiscal stability. The key investments that were included in this recommended budget are public safety and emergency response readiness, behavioral health and homeless services, road maintenance and infrastructure improvements, workforce recruitment and retention, technology modernization and cybersecurity, and support for vulnerable populations and community-based services. The budget continues to prioritize responsible staffing strategies by focusing on critical service needs while carefully evaluating vacancy rates, recruitment realities, and operational efficiencies. The county continues to experience cost pressures related to pension obligations, healthcare, insurance, and negotiated salary increases. This budget addresses these obligations while maintaining a prudent reserve level. The budget also reflects the county's commitment to transparency, accountability, performance-based budgeting to ensure taxpayer dollars are aligned with measurable outcomes and community benefit. The federal and state grant funding continues to play an important role in supporting county programs, but many of these funding sources remain uncertain and time-limited. This budget takes a cautious approach to ongoing commitments tied to one-time revenues. The strategic use of one-time funds allows county to address capital needs, maintain critical services to community, technology and investments, and other non-recurring priorities without creating structural imbalances. The county's financial position remains stable due to disciplined fiscal management, conservative forecasting practices, and ongoing monitoring of revenues and expenditures throughout the fiscal year. This budget reflects extensive collaboration among county departments, elected officials, employees, labor partners, community stakeholders, and the Board of Supervisors. looking ahead the county remains focused on maintaining fiscal resilience improving operational efficiency strengthening service delivery investing in workforce development and supporting economic recovery and community well-being so this budget is a balanced approach that meets current service demands while positioning the county for long-term sustainability and continued public trust and This budget, it's very comprehensive. It was developed with a lot of folks, a lot of discussions, a lot of, like I said, a little bit of tug of war, a little bit of disagreement, and then a lot of concessions being made. It doesn't include everything that, departments requested there's a lot of augmentations that we were not able to address but we also wanted to be very deliberate so that this county was not going to be facing layoffs in the near future as we look to other counties on what they're experiencing and what we learned last week at csac their situation is significantly different than ours and it's all because of the work of other departments in maintaining a steady workforce, but also acknowledging that there's instances where we're just not going to be able to fill positions as much as we would want to. We just can't afford them. With some of our grant funding going away and some of those services being you know adopted by by general fund or by other resources there's also that awareness that we will likely be experiencing additional reductions in staff as is proposed as part of this budget we started last year with reductions and these some of them were vacancies that have been held for many many years there's options that deja and michael will present It's a very comprehensive recommended budget, but certainly needs your board's direction on additional resources that you might want to apply. But what we ask is just in consideration of one-time allocations as opposed to ongoing, because it just makes next year a little more difficult to meet the needs. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Michael and Deesha, and we'll take it from there. Thank you.

Well, first off, thank you, Board, Chair Rudasky, CEO De La Rosa. Presenting this item with me today, I'm Assistant CEO Michael Beaton. Presenting this item with me today is your County Budget Director, Deja Serro. Before we really start the presentation, we would like to acknowledge certain team members that really helped prepare for this budget cycle. We'd like to thank the CAO, Sonia De La Rosa, Chief Assistant CAO, Nick Chulos, and Assistant CAO, Debbie Payonelli, for their guidance and support as we develop this very big budget that we have, $2.34 billion. We would also like to singly call out the budget analysts that helped develop this budget with Raquel, Veronica Fernandez, Tricia Hassan, Bella Lessig, Trent Hill, and Rocio Quezada, We would also like to singly thank the county elected officials for their patience and support as we developed this budget, the county department heads as we went forward, and all the department fiscal staff within each department. This budget and this budget book, and I'm just gonna show it real quick, is 650 pages of data and information that requires a village to go through and make sure that every single number ties Every single page is looking good. All the numbers balance. The reconciliations, the fund balances matter. So this book took a village to do it, and I want to say a big thank you to the whole county and all the departments for developing this book. We would also like to take a quick second to thank District 5 for the selection of the photos that are actually on this book. Every year, as part of the recommended budget book, the rotation from each supervisorial district office, next year I think it's District 1, picks the cover of the recommended budget. So on the recommended budget book that we have this year is acknowledging photos from the know-it-alls dedicated docents of Monterey County, a project by photographer Randy Tunnell, which depicts various volunteers throughout the community. So I want to say thank you very much for District 5 for their selection this year. I believe the budget book looks phenomenal on the outside. Okay? With that there, we'll move on to the presentation that we have. We do have about 43 slides today. We will try to go through them as expediently as possible. However, there's going to be some fun discussions that we'll have to have. thank you. our outline today is you' re going to hear a budget overview and the current fiscal environment that we see it and some of the fiscal constraints that we have overall as a county budget. We' re going to review some of the departments funded and unfunded augmentations that were You will then hear departments, I'm sorry, we'll also talk about the strategic reserve, kind of where our current levels are, some additional commitments or investments that we would like to make as part of our recommended budget. And then you'll hear department presentations and comments regarding any augmentations that they may have or any general comments that the departments may have. After that time, we're gonna ask the board to hold off on any comments until we come together at the very end to really discuss the augmentations and items that were presented or brought up by the board for discussion. And then looking at, sorry, go back one more. One more back, sorry. We're close, so close. And then from there, we'll do kind of a back of the napkin about board augmentations and approvals. As part of that process, we will identify certain funding that might be available for the board's consideration if the board wishes to choose to approve some additional augmentations or items as part of the budget. We will then also examine some alternative approaches that we've already presented to the board during the budget workshop. Kind of what we've relied on during the budget and go with some final decisions related to workforce controls. And also discussion of some alternative GFC reductions that we've outlined in the previous budget workshop areas. So to explain a little bit about the budget process in brief, we start the budget process at the very beginning with the department forecasts. This really gives us a kind of a guiding star to identify how the departments are forecasting based on their state and fiscal revenue streams, their local revenue streams and their expense categories that they are projecting. When we did our forecast this year, we were above $100 million short. That's basically what the departments identified walking into 26-27 based on the three-year forecast that we developed in concert with the departments. We then asked the departments to do an initial baseline. And what the initial baseline was, getting no additional GFC from what you currently were adopted or given in 25-26, how do you balance your budget? And so with that was basically, how do you get rid of that hundred plus million dollar forecast shortfall to actually balance your budget? We received that initial baseline, and then we asked the departments to give us augmentation requests. These augmentation requests were areas that we asked the departments to prioritize based on your operations, what are items that you need to have ranked from one down to, in some cases, 50-something for each department. We did try to prioritize based on boards. We did prioritize based on boards' direction, field positions as a priority. So as we analyzed the recommendations that were ultimately put into the CAO-recommended budget, we did prioritize field positions based on boards' direction. So looking at the requested budget and how it kind of converted into the recommended budget, we looked at the countywide needs assessment through the different needs assessments done. We had a department head workshop. where we received inputs and ideas. We had a Board of Supervisors workshop and a pre-workshop to go over different concepts and ideas on how we can help mitigate any significant impact as we develop the budget on operations. And today we have our budget hearings, and then post the budget hearings, we'll return to the board on June 16th for our budget adoption, depending on the inputs that we receive today. So as part of the agenda packet that you have here, we do have a summary that's not included here that was received from the different departments regarding the May revise from the governor's budget and some of the fiscal impacts that each of the departments have. What we're going to show on the next two slides are some of the highlights that come from that document. Now, before I really go through the list of items out of the governor's budget of the May revise, one of the main impacts that we did see was the lack of funding for HR1 impacts on the county and the projections that we are seeing with HR1. That was definitely one of the significant impacts that we saw both on the state level, our associations, the California State Association of Counties, the CHIAC, and our different associations that really help represent county government. So to walk through some of the May revise impacts, one of the first items that the governor's May revise did impose or did recommend is a new digital software sales tax. This is projected to generate about $1.1 billion annually. Now, the bright side with this, and I don't say bright side, probably the wrong word to use, is with that, the county estimate based on that would be about $3 to $4 million additional per year, with about $1.5 million expected in 26-27 as a potential additional revenue source based on the increased sales tax that we would see. So that's something that was a... that we did see out of there. We do have a reduction in CalFresh federal funding that is going to impact the county by about $1.7 million annually with a risk of about $4.4 million. The state did put in the May revise, I would say the governor did put in the May revise about a $30 million one-time state relief to help offset. Then again, that's a one-time augmentation. The state funding for CalConnect and CalReady was also eliminated, which requires the counties responsible to finance a new disease surveillance system. Growth projections for realignment sales tax, which supports our social services and health and behavioral health programs, is not seeing growth. That is maintaining up with costs, which involves additional fiscal pressures for our county. We identified a $20 million reduction in the Judicial Council, which will affect our probation's pretrial program. And then there's some changes in the sharing of the affordable housing, which involves a little bit more of a cost share for the county. Our projection is about $2 million in order for us to be competitive with those grants and allocations that we will also have to find. The last site on the May revised impact is the state regulations still require the county to go to a zero emissions vehicles with no specific funding identified. The Outdoors for All program does invest about $3.6 million into our community with the development of a Fort Ord campground with a promise of ongoing operations. So that is great for our community. Libraries saw an ending of the Diploma for Adults career program Also, Shaw, I'm going to jump down to the bottom one. The Adult Protective Services, one of the things identified here that is going to be an impact to the county if it does pass is the Adult Protective Services, the 2021 expansion is being reverted back to age or recommended to be reverted back to the age of 65. The county impact of that is about $2.2 million annually. So once you take the state reduction component of that and our federal drawdown of that, we're looking at a potential $2.2 million affecting our adult protective services, which is about eight full-time equivalents for our social services programs. So those are just some of the highlights of the May revise that we have that we definitely identify as additional fiscal constraints and risks. All right, now for the fun part. All right. What you're looking at here is basically a chart of the whole county, all funds consideration. What this chart identifies is our budget recommended for today is $2.3 billion. We are looking at an increase of appropriations of about 117 million. The main driver of those increases is salaries and employee benefits of about 66.3. Natividad is also having an increase, primarily related to sellers and benefits, and operational expenses of about $26.5 million. Additional supports or additional... supports for the road fund for construction of 32.6 million. Our total FTE is recommended to be reduced by about 111 FTE, which represents about 1.9 decrease for the adopted budget. All 111.1 positions are identified as vacant. We do have a corrections slide that we'll talk about here a little bit later that does change that number, but we'll get to that slide here in just a second. Those increased costs are financed by about $2.28 billion in revenue, which has an increase of about $139 million, which is about 6.5% over the 25-26 adopted budget. The use of fund balance is a decrease year over year from $87 million down to $63.5 million. Now breaking that down to where we just talked about the general fund component, the general fund of that 2.3 billion, the general fund apprises about almost half of about $1 billion. Again, the main cost drivers that we're seeing out of the general fund is our salaries and benefits, increasing by about $40 million. Salaries and benefits does comprise of our biggest cost driver for our general fund, which equates to about 63% of our expenditures. And again, our reduction here out of the general fund for our positions is primarily related to 68.9 positions. Again, all vacant, which equates to about 1% reduction in the overall authorized FTE. On the revenue side of the house, we are seeing about a $42.6 million increase, primarily related to the effectuation of Measure AA and the full budgeting of Measure AA. as well as some revenue increases with our property tax increases and other non-program and discretionary revenue. For our general fund, we are having to increase a little bit use of fund balance in order to balance our budget. So this goes the opposite direction of what we would be hoping for. So we're 23.5 million in the current budget, moving up to $30.9 million in the following budget. Key takeaways here is while the general fund is balanced, there's ongoing structural pressures due to reoccurring costs increasing more rapidly than sustained revenues. All right, so to talk about some of the cost drivers that we're really seeing here, what this chart represents, and this represents our salaries and employee benefits going back from 2017 all the way through our recommended budget of 2026-27. As you'll see over that time frame, our salaries and benefits have increased 70%, and it tends to be, it is our biggest cost driver out of our general fund component, and again, 63% of our costs. The main increases that we're seeing are related to negotiated wage increases, step increases, implementation of the base wage study that we're still in the process of implementing, increased pension costs and health insurance costs. So with the escalation as the primary driver of pressures for the general fund dollar, we're going to break down sellers and benefits here a little bit more over the next and some of the costs associated with those over the next few slides. So with our workforce comes the cost of our retirement system that we currently are with CalPERS. What this chart identifies, it shows the cost of our retirement system for our workforce increasing year over year over year with a projection that it's going to continue to go a little bit higher. So projected to continue to increase for the next six years in total. So when you look at the horizon of our expenses here related to our pension benefits, the costs are going to continue to rise. The recommended budget includes estimated $54.9 million contribution towards unfunded accrued liability, with all funds estimated at $93.9 million when you factor in the non-general fund funds. The projected increases are driven primarily by the CalPERS actuarial assumptions, amortization policies from CalPERS and unfunded liability obligations. Bless you, yeah. So our key takeaways with this slide is our pension obligations tend to remain a major fixed cost, limiting our budget flexibility with our retirement system. So to break it down a little bit, so when you look at that number that we have for our retirement system, our liability is north of $3 billion based on the actuarial studies. We currently have over $2 billion invested with CalPERS to help with our anticipated retirement. liability, accrued liability for our pension obligations. And what this slide represents is what is the unfunded portion. So when you look at the retirement expenses for our county as related to CalPERS, we have an actuarial study that happens and they determine what our total estimated accrued liability might be. They then determine what our unfunded portion is. And what's identified on this chart is the unfunded portion. And I'm just gonna jump to the last actuarial study that was done, covered the period of June 30th, 2024. At that time, our unfunded liability as a county was just south of $1 billion. Now the liability did decline about 2.4% from the year previous. The recommended budget, again, as part of our fiscal policy, we are recommending to suspend supplemental pension trust contributions to our Section 115 trust fund, which would help pay down this dollar amount. We are also recommending, as part of the recommended budget, that we will be using $2.3 million of that Section 115 trust fund money to help offset the UAL payment or unfunded accrued liability payment. Now, our investments with CalPERS, they did improve relative to the prior cycle, but our amortization schedules and economic assumptions keep our liability elevated at a certain level. So our key takeaway from this slide is the county has made policy progress, but the unfunded pension liability remains a long-term fiscal risk. So jumping over to our health insurance that we have for our workforce. This slide here, you'll definitely see an increase that we are seeing with our costs related to our healthcare. Costs are recommended at 92.9 million for fiscal year 26-27, 7.3 million or 8.5% increase from the current year budget. The $40 million increase, that's a $40 million increase from our 2017 levels or approximately 77%. The recent increases reflect, again, negotiated labor contract premiums, contribution, workforce growth, as well as what CalPERS can negotiate for our area. So our key takeaways with this slide is health insurance inflation compounds the county's broader labor cost pressure. What slide are we on? Looking at some of our workers' comp and general liability insurance components, again, with these fiscal pressures, looking at the slide here, you'll see our workers' comp continues to rise. We are forecasting that we're going to be seeing another 10 to 15 percent as we move forward from 26, 27 to 27, 28 in these expense categories. our general liability as well so this is definitely a continuing cost pressures that we are seeing so our key takeaways from this side is our insurance program costs are are kind of stabilizing but remain sizable and are growing uh every single year based on our current forecasts that we have all right so let's talk about a little bit about the general fund revenue so what this chart rep did you do health did i miss one Yeah, we did health insurance on the slide, this one. Yeah, sorry about that. Next, jumping over to our general fund revenue trend. So what this chart shows, it shows our general fund revenue, both what is considered a non-program revenue, which is revenue that is collected locally, compared to our total revenue, which includes state and federal sources that might be used to offset So what I'd like to focus on real quick is the non-program revenue. So the non-program revenue is primarily driven by our property tax component, which is our main number one revenue stream, transient occupancy tax, sales tax. With the revenue stream, you'll notice it tends to be pretty flat while we are more and more every year relying on state and federal sources in order to maintain our operations throughout our department or throughout our county. So our general fund revenue recommended for the fiscal year 26-27 is $990 million. Our discretionary revenue is increasing by about $39.7 million. The main driver behind that is budgeting full for the Measure AA on the revenue side of the house. We did increase our property tax by about $13.4 million, and we have a slide next that will talk about that a little bit more. Key takeaways with this slide is revenue growth is positive, but the economic sensitivities and one-time funding constraints require conservative planning as we move forward with our revenue. So to break down our general fund discretionary revenue a little bit more. So when we talk about the pot of money that is available to the board at your discretion to allocate anywhere in the operations of the county, we're really looking at about $361 million as we walk into 26, 27. The main funding source behind that, again, is our property tax revenue. We are recommending $247 million, which is about $13.4 million increase. 5.7%. Transient occupancy tax, we're recommending an increase of about $1.7 million, which is about 4.3%. We are seeing a reduction in our cannabis tax, reducing that estimate by $500,000. And also reducing our tobacco settlement funding by about $400,000 as well. So our key takeaways from this slide is the revenue plan relies heavily on property tax, stability, growth, and new Measure A tax proceeds. If we have an economic downturn related to properties or a economic downturn related to sales tax, the volatility is of a concern. So our fiscal year 26-27 recommended budget overview. All funds expenditures total about 2.34 billion. Revenues amount to 2.28 billion, with planned use of fund balance of 63.5 million. General fund expenditures, again, $1.1 billion. Revenues, 990 million, with the fund balance usage of 30.9 million. Our budget is balanced. We did have to use one-time funding that we'll talk about here in a little bit in order to balance. Contingencies are fully funded at $9.5 million to satisfy the county's fiscal policy of 1% of the estimated general fund revenue policy. Our transient occupancy tax allocations remain at our fiscal policy levels, which includes 25% of our TOT estimate assigned to the road fund. The development set aside is being reestablished to our fiscal policy of 7.87%, which is 3.16, which is an increase from the current year for our development set aside agencies. Unfunded augmentation requests are about 16.6 million, which Deja will cover here in a little bit, and that includes about 32 positions that we were not able to put into the recommended budget that your board will hear about today through the augmentation process. uh we were a little dependent on using one-time funding for the ongoing operations and we understand this will create a structural gap in future years and we are working on a plan that we'll talk about uh in part a little bit later on at the end of the presentation as we proceed forward all right So talking about that one-time money, so we came to the board during the budget workshop, or sort of during the budget and a year report, and the board authorized us to maintain $20 million of the fiscal year 24-25 unassigned fund balance to support our recommended augmentations for the department and to support the fiscal year 26-27 budget. The budget recommended also includes $1 million in 1991 realignment funding redirection from health department to social services department to help address the increased cost with social services. It includes section 115 pension drawdown of about $2.3 million from the trust to help apply towards our unaffunded crude liability that departments are seeing as an increased cost. Recommended budget does eliminate 111 positions. 68 of those are coming from the general fund. Position costs are beginning to align with recurring revenues, but again, we had to use one-time money in order to balance the budget for this round. At year end, the available for fiscal year 25-26, if there's unfunded balance, we are going to be requesting that a portion of that help fund the 27-28 budget, and we'll return with that during the budget end-of-year report in December of this year. So with that, I'm going to toss it over to Deja Serro, your county budget director, to review department augmentations.

Good morning. I get the fun part of the presentation. Thank you, Michael, for going over all the heavy impacts of salary and benefits that are being addressed in this year's budget. And just to make note that we aren't the only county, you know, this is a nationwide project. and it' s a burden for us all but it' s something we have to take a look at and dig deep in addressing in this budget. I' ll go over the department augmentations at a high level and I' m going to show various slides that show it in various ways so we can intricately look at what we have recommended and what is still unfunded going forward. First we will go over the total requested augmentations and here I have a summary by fund. As you can see the majority of the augmentations are on the general fund with a 137.8 FTE requested through augmentations totaling a net request of $43 million. this is about 98% of the net total just on general fund. Other fund for the new JPA agreement. The general fund request covers the 137.8 requested FTEs. Now there is capital infrastructure requests using fund 478 that have been excluded from this augmentation table and will be brought to the board at a later time. As you can see, there's five other funds that are being requested for a total of the 43.7 million in total augmentation requests. The augmentation request summary by category in all funds. So what these categories mean is just how they were submitted for requested augmentations in the budget. And we gave each one of them a category that our elected officials and department heads could choose to categorize what they were requesting as augmentation for the recommended budget. As you can see there is a contribution to other funds again that about 698,000 mostly is the new JPA agreement for animal services with 4.5 FTE. We have new mandated programs and services with general fund requests totaling 614,000. new program services also with general fund requests of about six point three million dollars now we do have new programs and services with outside funds that total just under six hundred thousand with three requests at FTE and that's related to the climate action plan in sustainability there's ten requested new positions for a seven hundred eighty thousand impacted a general fund now our largest status quo filled positions where we heavily focused on this recommended budget is 77.8 positions for 19.4 million dollars on the general fund. Other status quos 8.9 million that would be other programs and existing programs and services that are status quo operations within our departments and then status quo vacant positions of 6.9. This brings us to that 43.7 million and general fund augmentation request. our status quo operational needs which is just the filled other and vacant positions do total 33.6 million of that. 19.4 like I said the filled 7.9 for operating and 6.9 for vacant positions. Augmentation request summary by department so what you're looking at here is that same total of forty three point seven million of the net requested in general fund by your departments a hundred and thirty seven point eight FTE is requested The offsetting revenues include state and federal grants and contributions to other funds the sheriff corner is requesting a total of 15.4 million and 47 full-time equivalents primarily to maintain filled and vacant sworn and correction staffing. Next would be the public works facilities and parks department requesting 6.4 million general fund which come with 16 FTEs primarily to maintain again those filled and vacant positions. And the Department of Social Services requests primarily includes cost pressures for out-of-home care and general assistance. Augmentations request summary. So this is what we're looking at here is your recommended versus unfunded. so here is the total requested of the 137.8 fte for a net request of 43.7 million as you saw in the previous slides all by department we' re recommending 105.8 of those in our rec dca recommended budget for twenty seven point one five two million dollars what's remaining unfunded is 32 fte for 16.6 about 16.6 million. There is a part there are some corrections to be made which will be noting on slide 33 just so you know for the recommended budget. general fund sources used to compile the FY26-27 recommended budget. And we'll review this again with the unassigned fund balance that we were approved from the budget end of year report for $20 million to preserve discretionary capacity to sustain at-risk positions and critical status quo operating costs. measure a tax revenue we used 5.3 million used conservatively to support status quo filled positions in unincorporated areas including sheriff operations cooperative cooperative extension service and district attorney as you will see later the total is 8.4 for measure AA but this is the brand new additions for measure AA in the upcoming budget as the remainder 3.1 were for previously approved items in We also had a health 1991 realignment transfer of $1 million from health to social services. We did refreeze the vamp contribution, so we gained about $760,000 from freezing department contributions for vehicle replacement. And then we also reduce the county accounting auditing charges where it was 200,000 to 100,000 for one-time funding support. This comes up to about 27.2 million net of offsetting revenues to support our funding the recommended augmentations for 26-27. Here is a list of the fiscal year 2026-27 recommended Measure A tax revenue support for augmentations. As you can see up here, we mainly focused on those status quo filled positions as that was our primary focus going into the next fiscal year. For 29.3 total filled, status quo filled positions of about 6.8 million. we have 23.5 in the sheriff coroner's department 1.5 in the district attorney now that is actually six positions at 25 percent for caseload work in the unincorporated areas and the cooperative extension service of 0.3 fte. For other approved items that were previously approved in this fiscal year that we are carrying forward into the next are the axon cameras for the sheriff corner and in the health department for the spay and neuter clinic totaling about 1.5 million. So that's where you'll see the 8.4 million total and measure AA tax revenue use for the 26-27 budget. recommended augmentations by department so here's a list of in a in order of greatest to least of the recommended augmentations by department for the FY 26 27 budget as you can see we have a hundred and five point eight full-time equivalent positions which primarily makes up the entire amount of our recommendation for this next year's budget. General fund at 26.6 million and the contribution to other funds for 517,000. the hundred and five point eight FTEs seventy seven point eight of those are filled positions as of today 19 vacant positions which were pending recruitment for core operations as we were building the budget so these were 19 positions that were posted ready to fill most some with job offers some in this stage of interviews and that we felt were pertinent for our core operations and then nine new positions but of these nine new positions that are supported 98% is with program revenue it's a very small amount that's impacting the general fund which is about twenty six thousand dollars. So here are some of the key highlights for the recommended augmentations. For the Sheriff Corner, there's 19.9 point, sorry, let me correct myself, 9.2 million, which includes 7.6 million in Measure A tax revenue of the 8.4 that we're recommending in the budget, which is to fund 33 filled and four vacant positions. for social services it's 3.9 million includes funding for out-of-home care and general assistance primarily from our unassigned fund balance the district attorney 3.1 million in funds for 10 filled district attorney investor investigator positions public defender at 1.9 million funding six field positions and for the ADO trial related services. Public works facilities and parks 1.9 million to fund 11 field positions, one vacant position and for the fire protection services contract that we took under board direction at the budget workshop. And for the CAO, $194,000 for the Homelessness Strategies and Initiatives Management Analyst that is filled within that program. So the recommended budget focuses on maintaining existing service levels rather than just launching or expanding new programs, heavily focused on what is status quo bringing into the next fiscal year. Public safety, social services, and facility operations represent the most significant areas seeking additional fiscal support. Measure AA revenues really saved us in being able to support these status quo filled positions and they can continue to fund unincorporated area services with notable support for the Sheriff's and Coroner's Office and the Animal Services Department. A substantial number of unfunded requests remain for board consideration, reflecting needs that exceed available resources. So let's move on to the unfunded requested augmentations, which you will be hearing from the departments today as they present for you all to consider going into the adopted budget for FY26-27. Unfunded augmentation summary. We have 16.6 million in unfunded requests that net to 32 full-time equivalent positions, primarily seeking general fund support. other funds account for about 177,000 in unmet needs vacant position augmentation request total 32 FTE and 5.6 million which were not recommended. So as you can see we have four requested new positions and of this is 23.5 actually of those 32 are just vacant positions so the majority of these are vacant but considered by the departments as very needed for our operational needs. Most newer, again, most newer expanded programs remain unfunded due to ongoing resource constraints and prioritization of status quo operations. So again, our focus, maintaining the status quo for all departments. The unfunded augmentations by department. So for the auditor controller, it's eight, is requesting eight FTE. This is going to equate to about $1.7 million of general fund requests. We have the Civil Rights Office for one, requested FTE at $136,000, Cooperative Extension Service. A couple of these you'll notice once we get into the presentation that we have solved and we will again address at a later time that we have solved since we have issued the recommended budget. And the county administrative office, 250,000 for unincorporated encampment outreach. The health department is 4.5, that's primarily for the animal services contract, the new contract. and then going down we have HCD for 800,000 human resources, another one that will meet the list that we have solved since the recommended budget. Probation, 2.54 deputy officers, public defender, two new items that have happened since the recommended budget and we'll be going over those in further detail. the department's present and we go over the augmentations for the voting process. The public works facilities and parks we have four requested FTE but a total GFC request that includes operational needs of 4.5 million in the sheriff coroner's office with 10 requested FTE at 6.2 million. just to take note and again we're going to be going over some of those changes that have happened since we've issued the recommended budget but for the sheriff coroner's office there is a filled position that has since happened a vacant position that has become filled of those 10 and just want to address that and bring that to the board's attention as we move through this process. So other status quo needs not recommended include $2 million for public works, facilities, and parks, which is for unscheduled and preventative maintenance, $1 million each for each of those categories. The new mandated programs not recommended but are potentially Measure AA revenue eligible are the housing and community development, general plan housing and safety element, the county's unincorporated area for a total of $100,000. The fort ord open space maintenance of $150,000 under public works facilities and parks as well as the health department spay there are proposed expanded programs that are not recommended as well these include the sheriff corners recruitment code enforcement of 400,000 and the flock acts on airplane imaging so there's a multiple augment augmentations that would be measure a qualified that total about 1.4 million dollars the health department medical outreach for $750,000 which may be supported with other departmental revenue but may also fall under the measure AA eligibility and the CAO's office for the homelessness strategies and initiatives they have the accountant outreach specifically in unincorporated areas that would be measure AA revenue eligible for $250,000. For this, I will pass it off to Michael to go over the strategic reserve.

Yeah, thank you. So before I start strategic reserve, thank you, Deidre, for going over the augmentations. We did hand out, just for clarity for the board, we did hand out this document which lists all the unfunded augmentations. We did line through anything that was a correction that's been resolved. And we'll go over them in detail, but that's just to explain what this chart is. This is the list of unfunded Augmentations from the different departments. It also includes the new augmentations that were received after our recommended budget was pretty much developed and those are identified in the Orangish color. And we'll go over that in detail at the end here. So jumping over to the next section that we want to talk about is our strategic reserve and our potential new investment or investment into the health of our county for our strategic reserve. So the county has a fiscal policy under this board that identifies our county should have a strategic reserve of about 10% of our estimated revenues. So for the, in our general fund, we really have two different pots of money. The blue identified is the general fund component. You guys okay? No, sorry. Sorry, I just went squirrel. My bad.

We just need more strategic reserves. That's what they're saying.

There we go. We need more strategic reserves. Yeah. So what you have on this chart here, showing for 25-26, the blue column identifies $73.5 million. Based on our current fiscal policy of 10%, that number should be at $99 million. Represented in the orange represents an additional strategic reserve that Natividad Medical Center has. This is ancillary from our current fiscal policy of 10%. So what I'm going to talk about today is this chart shows the strategic reserve that this county has had and their balances at the beginning of each fiscal year from 2016 all the way to forward. So to kind of reiterate, in 25-26, which is the current year, our target is $94.8 million. We are currently sitting at $73.5 million, so we are identifying as short. Our target going into 26-27 increases that strategic reserve minimum by about $5.2 million. No. up to 99 million in total. We do have a recommendation as part of our recommended budget to augment an additional $6 million to the strategic reserve in two parts. The first part is the board recently adopted a compensated absences assignment policy as part of our fiscal policy, which identifies that that reserve should be kept at about 10% of the outstanding obligation for compensated absences. The county current outstanding liabilities about 50 million. So the balance of that account should be about $5 million. It currently has about $8 million. So we're recommending redirecting 3 million of that to our strategic reserve to help out our fiscal sustainability of our county. In addition to that, When we came forward with the budget end of year report, the board was nice enough to help us, not nice enough, wrong wording. The board allocated the $40 million of unassigned fund balance. The board assigned $37 million to different purposes, including 20 million to support our current year budget. But that remained $3 million of remaining unassigned fund balance from 24-25 that was not allocated. We're also recommending that that $3 million be moved to help support the strategic reserve. So we're asking for an increased investment to the strategic reserve by about $6 million. So with that investment, it'll get us to $79.5 million. which still leaves us short about $19.5 million walking into 26-27. So the county is pending certain FEMA money, federal reimbursement money with emergencies. And the next slide, we'll actually just jump right into it. So the chart on top was presented, I believe, back in March. March of this year and this identified the current outstanding estimate that we believe that is coming in from FEMA now a couple takeaways from this some of the money that's on here we were expecting many many many years ago and that we have not received the county has a fiscal policy that identifies that if we use our strategic reserve money that it must be paid back within five years The chart on the bottom shows our current strategic reserve usage over the years. You'll see in 2023, we had to tap into about $52 million of our strategic reserve. Based on our first in, first out, we have repaid it, but we've repaid it from alternate sources while we're still waiting from the money coming back in from FEMA. So that's kind of what this chart is just to represent that we are still expecting about $26 million to come in. We are understanding, yeah hoping, we are understanding that we have received some of this. Social Services has identified that they have received some funding as well as our Public Works and Parks. We're just working on reconciling what those funds are to the different response areas to help us out with our strategic reserve. So key modifications. So this is our corrections slide. So we do have some corrections from the recommended budget, which is this big 650-page book. Some of those recommendations are we are moving 1.25 positions that were identified to be reduced related to the Civil Star Program for Workforce Investment Board. We are moving those to be funded. as part of our corrections or errata, if you would say, utilizing 2425 unassigned fund balance that is remaining identified. These are field positions that were previously identified for the Silver Star program. We'll talk about a little bit later as part of our discretionary programs. Probation has identified that there is an alternate better use instead of using Silver Star, actually using Hartnell's program to help with the education and training for our youth that is actually free to our county to use. So there's a better alternative besides the Silver Star program. However, both these positions are actually filled. So we are working with our social services department and our veterans department to reassign the work for this team to help support veterans. and or education and employment in our community. That's the first item on the list there. The second item is when we did a reconciliation of the sheriff's office, looking at the vacancies that were being recommended as reduction as part of the fiscal year 26-27 budget, our reconciliation identified that one of these positions is actually filled. So as part of our stance of maintaining all filled positions, we are recommending that it get moved back to our funded category using, again, unassigned fund balance identified that wasn't allocated during the budget process. Waters, thanks. And again, that was a field position that we have there. We also had the board approve an item back in April for our emergency services department to add a emergency services planner related to our wildfire prevention. That position got omitted from our budget process. So we're trying to make sure that we ensure that we don't delete it as part of our budget. So we are adding it back. It is fully funded by grant. It just missed our oracle deadline for some reason, but when we did our reconciliation for the department, we caught it, and that's why we're adding it back here. The last correction that we have related to the recommended budget and the augmentation requests is our animal services. We are recommending that, working with the department, that the cost share remain the same as the fiscal year 25-26 levels. The cost share split at that time, which is the current year, is about 51% County share and 49% City of Salinas share. With that there, we're also removing the augmentation need for the 4.5 positions. So instead of them being deleted as part of the recommended budget, We are moving them to unfunded and keeping them on the books for animal services while we work through the cost-sharing component with the City of Salinas and what impacts that may or may not be. So those are the four corrections that we do have related to the proposed budget, recommended budget. Before we jump over to the next slide, I just want to reiterate, or we just want to reiterate, when the departments did the, as part of our budget planning process, we asked departments to do a forecast. We asked them to look at their revenue streams, look at their state sources, look at their cost drivers. This includes cost increases for our workforce. This includes cost escalators for ongoing contracts and community service organizations. We identified for 26-27 that we were $118 million short, right? And so in order to get down to where we're at now, which is a balanced budget, you know, we basically had to remove funding for almost all vacant positions across the board. We then had to have the board approve $20 million of one-time money for the fiscal year 24-25 unassigned fund balance. We had to rely a little bit more on Measure AA than we probably should have, but we had to, as well as departments had to tighten their own ballots significantly in order for us to balance, right? And what I really want to point to on this slide is going into 27-28, when you factor all that fun stuff, we are still another $21 million shortfall on a high-level number that we're looking at. And then the year beyond that, it compounds even more to another $15 million shortfall. So as we go through and hear the department's request for augmentations, I just want to caution the board that we are looking at a financial issue in our county as we proceed forward. if there's any augmentation requests that's a one-time money use one-time funds if it's ongoing just strong caution that we only have one-time money available to help support anything that the board may want to consider as an augmentation request so uh we with one-time options So as the board hears augmentations from the different departments for consideration, we have identified four areas for the board's consideration. The first item is of the $20 million through everything that we've done, we have about $1.2 million that we did not include. incorporate or that we were able to free up out of the fiscal year 24-25 budget for the board's consideration to apply towards any augmentations the board may want to use. We also did put the contingencies at 9.5 million, which matches our fiscal policy. This is an increase of about $2 million from the current year. But again, the caution with contingencies is The different emergencies that happen throughout the year, the federal government budget is still unknown what the impacts are gonna be. And so maintaining certain reserves for us would be very prudent to ensure that as those impacts come, we can at least delay and develop a smarter strategy on how we counteract some of the fiscal and state impacts that we will be seeing as part of the both federal government and state government budgets as they proceed forward. We also identified that we are planning on putting $6 million towards the strategic reserve. The board may, at the discretion here, reduce that amount if need be to help fund augmentation requests. The last item on the list is we did receive a deposit yesterday regarding Measure AA. So with Measure AA, the board has identified that previous direction that we will not spend Measure AA money until the money has actually been received. The board has also identified that any Measure AA funding until we have a policy developed should be used for... high visible projects for the community, but we do have in our current treasury about $3.3 million that has not been assigned for current projects that we would traditionally run through the Measure A committee, but that is also identified from fiscal year 25-26, and this is funds actually in hand as of yesterday for a total of $3.3 million. if the Board wants to approve any augmentations that may be Measure AA eligible. And again, one time only, not as an ongoing operation. So with that there, we will stop our presentation component, and you're going to hear from departments regarding their augmentation requests. And again, we're asking for the board to listen to the departments related to augmentation requests, ask any questions you may have. But at the very end of all the departments and their comments that we may have from other departments is when we will actually discuss the funding of potential augmentations and how we would potentially proceed.

All right?

Any questions from the board before we toss it over to the departments?

Yes, before we go into individual departments, just overall, I just want to express my concerns just on that unassigned, what do you call it, the borrowing from the 115 Pension Trust, because we had instituted that years ago. We had to not contribute to that for the first time last year. last fiscal year and so we're doing that again and actually taking out of it right 2.3 million and and that's just trying to address our unfunded liabilities looking into the future and so I want to keep expressing as a member of the budget committee that I think We're having to make some tough decisions that we'd have to do before, obviously because our budget constraints are getting more difficult for our county. And that's why I think all our county department heads here and our leaders, those who are on Zoom, because this affects the work that they do and their staff. The other thing I wanted to mention just how significant the health insurance increases That's why I brought that up earlier because it's hard to believe 8.5 percent increase from one year to the next with the price tag of seven point three million dollars I mean if it keeps going like that These are funding that we could use for other things and augmentation request it gets eaten up very quickly with those kind of jumps the following year workers comp increasing 10% next year, 15% the following year, all in the millions of dollars. I just wanted to go specifically on the Silver Star program being redirected in probation. Is that an existing program at Rancho Cielo? And so are we taking that staff person from there and redirecting it for veteran services through the Hartnell program you mentioned? I just want to make sure that who are we specifically impacting by making that change at Silver Star Probation? Because I thought that was a program that was based out of Rancho Cielo, focused on youth versus shifting it for veterans at an existing Hartnell College program. Absolutely. I think I need to defer to Chief Ramirez. Well, we can bring it up when probation comes up. I'll just flag it as a question because I know they're going to speak later, so maybe that's the appropriate time. And obviously, on the Measure A, looking at the spay and neuter clinics, the housing element, and the CAO outreach for homeless encampments, I think those go through that separate process through that committee before here. It's not going to be made today, but I wanted to express support for those three items when those items come up. And then just on the JPA, there was that potential proposal they wanted to increase the county's responsibility up to 55%. We're keeping it the same, basically 51, 49, because it was explained that it would be a smaller cost. It ended up being much more costly to the county than it was originally deliberated upon.

Yes, and it'll give us time to explore with the city and also with your board potential changes to the JPA structure. So rather than changing the formula now, we're asking the board to just keep it as it was for fiscal year 25-26.

I agree with that. Thank you very much. Those are the quick comments and questions I had. Thank you.

Just going to the the one-time options with on the fund augmentations Let me see the you said you have down nine point five million contingencies. What was last year's contingencies?

I believe I don't have the exact number for me, but I think it was just north of seven million dollars So the board did allocate a portion of last year's contingency right up front to the elections department And so I think the remaining balance was somewhere just north of seven million.

Okay? And let me see What was six million went to strategic reserve? Curious how you arranged, decided on six instead of seven or instead of four, you know, just what was the formula behind that or was there a formula?

So, no, the formula basically was looking at the different fund balances that we did have with our balance sheet accounts. We looked at what the board adopted. We already knew early on that we wanted to do whatever excess was in compensated absences. It was either maintained in there or move it to our strategic reserve based on our current balance. balance, which is short of our fiscal policy. And then the remaining unassigned fund balance, the original game plan with that was to roll it over to the following year, but we felt it would be more prudent if we moved it to our strategic reserve. So that was really the, it wasn't mathematical or anything.

And on the $3.3 million for our major AA, I think we decided on like 30% of roughly the major AA were going, sort of working into the budget. Is this an addition to that?

Yeah, so what's identified in the current budget is 34%. So we were estimating the, let me take a step back. So we received our deposit yesterday for our Measure AA, and that actually concludes a full year of collections. That full year of collections that we received has now been $26 million. For fiscal year 25-26, based on our fiscal policy, we are budgeting conservatively at $25 million. So if we assume that the $8.4 million that we have in the budget, from the $25 million that we have in the budget, we're looking at about 34% of the costs for Measure AA are included into the next year's budget. So that's looking at 26-27's allocation. the money from the 2526 that was just received which covers the end of March 2026 that would ultimately be coming to the to the measure a committee for after the policy has been developed for potential allocation so that is in addition to it's not part of the 34% I don't know if I said that right okay I got and I guess I said 30% I think was 35% is what we decided on is that right if I remember

Third right around there.

Okay, something like that just to provide additional clarity on your question. There's a portion of it That's one time and then there's a portion that's ongoing at 34 percent is the total amount. So the ongoing piece We can get that amounts or so you have it.

Okay and And it just since there was discussion here on on Hitchcock Road, I think Just to bring it up that There does need to be some structural changes made on that, and that's a non-budget issue, really, but it's an issue that, since it was brought up, I want to think that we need to address at some point.

And we just need, eventually we'll need concurrence from the board, as one of the recommendations is to keep it at 25-26 level. Yes, please.

So...

Just, I mean, I have comments that I'll save for later, but in regards to what's just come up regarding Measure AA, it does look for the group that is in the ad hoc that somewhat of a policy might be forming on its own. If I understand correctly, you're recommending Measure AA tax revenues to go to Cooperative Extension, District Attorney, Sheriff, Coroner, and Health. And I think that that is public safety related. But what I'd like to say is that then my expectation would be that those entities are not then coming to the ad hoc for funding outside of the budget process. So whether this becomes sort of what the policy starts to look like as it takes shape, it is really important that we understand how we're allocating this money. And from what I've seen, our ad hoc has been able to take into consideration roads projects, highly visible projects, and the budget staff has been able to utilize this money to address some of the public safety side. So I just want to make sure folks aren't, as the policy gets developed, we're not double dipping. We figure out where we go, when we go for this funding, And it's not a free for all. And I think a policy is starting to take shape, even if we weren't intending it to. And I think it's something people should take note of. I also did want to say that the one third funding that just came up, I know that the board or at least it might have happened before I got here. hasn't officially denoted that policy. So I wanna make sure that we do have that opportunity as a board to have that conversation, since I don't think it's official. But that said, I'll save the rest of my comments for later and for after the staff, the department presentations.

It was just a quick question that I didn't see come up. It was concerns regarding the revenue coming into Natividad. And I emailed you earlier, just for the budget committee, because are we seeing significant drops in the census at the hospital, and are we seeing declines in revenue coming in even before HR 1 is fully implemented? Maybe that's a question for Dr. Chad Harris when we talk about Natividad, but I didn't see that addressed or reflected in the forecast for next year's budget, whether some departments may see significant declines, not only Now, are we seeing them already, but when H.R. 1 is implemented, are we going to see millions of dollars of additional losses in one of our key departments that are impacted?

and supervisor that that is one of the concerns that we have with reduction of the contingencies as we will likely need to revisit the impacts to the health department social services and the hospital there has been a drop in census not significant but enough to be noticeable, and certainly we're waiting to hear back. The May revise, obviously the decision making behind that is still up in the air, but the federal government also has specific dates in place that we will see some changes, and then the impact, of course, with folks falling off of Medi-Cal.

I just had a couple questions, and I appreciate the questions about the animal services structure and cost share and positions. I have many more questions on all of that that sounds like we'll have more conversation about. A question about the AA policy, which isn't actually a policy but is maybe becoming one. I think it's important that we clarify that. I did have a question about the—we heard not here this morning, but about the significant losses of the Prevention and Early Intervention Mental Health Services Act services and agencies who are losing funds. There was some discussion when behavioral health was with us that there may be Medi-Cal productivity revenue that kicks into play in future years. Was there any discussion in this budget or about using health dollars or general fund dollars as a bridge for any of those critical programs or services?

In the recommended budget, we'd have to defer to Director Jimenez.

Okay, I can ask that question during the health section. My question was more around the broad, some of those services are critical to cross-departmental benefit, both public safety, health, social services, just a wide variety, they touch on many. They were funded through one particular funding stream for a period of time, and there may be future funding stream available. But in the interim, my question was specific to was there any thought of using general fund to support those while we transition?

At this point, there are a lot of concerns. A lot of our nonprofit organizations or community-based organizations are experiencing losses due to the losses that we're experiencing. So it is compounding, but Preliminarily, we have not set aside general fund dollars to add additional support. The departments do have their own revenues, but it also is the sorting out of the actual implications from the loss in revenue at the federal level and what it means in terms of Prop 1. And our Homeless Services Director is also working with the health department and social services to try to mitigate some of those impacts including the hospital in those discussions I think that is one of the concerns that we have and for the contingency is if we start chipping away at that we will be looking for potential resources or or certain service impacts through our most trusted providers which is which is a huge concern but I think some of the revenues that we were reliant on are not available or not fundable in their current form so I think there's going to be some gymnastics that needs to happen in order for some of these services to continue to be funded but at this point the prevention and early intervention are items that are being rolled back and obviously we've seen some of the benefits of having these services in place so the Health Department and social services will have to take a closer look of where we direct these folks because although the program is going away, we're still going to receive calls of concern from family or the individuals themselves.

Okay, thank you. I can ask more about that I think during, and I think, and I just ask the question because we do have some one-time funds that are available and so that would be, I would consider that more of a one-time need knowing that we've got something on the other side, potentially something on the other side. And then I had one question about one of the conversations that we've kind of not had with depth but have bounced around was if this board were to take action to discontinue the contract, the SCAP data processing contract, there would be a gap in funding for the sheriff's department. Was that considered or contemplated at all?

At this point in the development of the budget, no. We do have contingency plans, of course, if that does happen, which would be our contingency funds and other options.

Okay, great, thank you. Just asking where we're at in terms of thinking about those things. All right, those are my questions. We're gonna take a brief break, three minutes. What time is it? 10.52, we're gonna reconvene back here at 10.55 to continue on with our department presentations. Thank you. All right, we're going to go ahead and get started again here. Thank you for giving us a minute to stretch our legs before we continue on with our departmental presentations. Because we have these listed as individual items, I'm going to open it up for public comment on the CAO's budget, recommended budget as it was presented. If there's any public comment, and we will have more time for public comment before we give direction on the departmental presentations, but I do want to open that up now for any specific comment on the recommended budget presentation. Anyone in chambers? Okay, seeing none, I'm seeing no hands raised either online. I see one hand raised online, a phone number ending in 837. We have the phone number ending in 837. This is just for public comment on the items that we just heard.

Yes, I have a comment on what I've heard over these lengthy presentations. The first comment, this is Brian Rosen, by the way, if you don't recognize my voice. I am very concerned first about the sales tax proposal because that is a brunt on lower income people while the wealthy just don't even pay nearly their fair share. I'm also concerned about the conflict of interest of having the government, namely you, giving yourself and your friends who are bureaucrats raises, and I think it should a more independent, nonpolitical agency, a lot of workers out there are not keeping up with inflation. Things are very bad for people under Trump as he destroys the economy with this crazy war and so forth. So if you're going to raise... You need to treat the workers. Workers need to get their raises, the lower workers, even with inflation. And when you give yourself raises and the more highly paid people, it needs to be tied to the general welfare, how much the average person. is benefiting in the economy. If the average person is losing, then you should lose. If the average person is making 1% wage increase, then it should be that way with you. It should be tied with the people and their overall welfare, which gives you the representatives to have a tremendous incentive to do the right thing for the people instead of the powers that be. So basically, I would like you to save a lot of money by not building the surf project. The public doesn't want it and you need money well spent would be on polling. And so thank you for listening, supervisors. It's always a pleasure to speak with you.

Thank you. We'll go next to the phone number again, 705.

Yes, good morning, supervisors. You have, I understand, $120 million shortfall. And I agree with Mr. Rosen, you know, raising taxes again without lowering your own incomes because they're quite high as supervisors. I understand they're in the thousands, $120,000 or even more. I think you need to lower that and we need to have people that are just dedicated to helping the community by being a supervisor, not because of the income they're getting. And I would like to say that the SURF project definitely is something that could be eliminated for a hundred million and another million and a half could be diverted from the eucalyptus removal pilot program to giving those funds to homeowners who want to fire harden their homes. As the fire scientist Jack Cohen advises, we do not advise for you cutting down the eucalyptus. He says that's not the problem. And addressing the real problem of wildland urban interface fires. And when you cut down trees, regardless of native or non-native status, you increase global warming in our area, more powerful storms, and of course that costs more money because, well, you know why. So please, you know, really budget yourselves and look into programs that are gonna be more helpful towards the community. you can manage your shortfall that way. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we're gonna move into our departmental presentations. They're listed on the agenda by categories. We will take comment and discussion at the conclusion of the departmental presentations from the public and we'll ask the board to engage in questions and then we can give direction as was outlined at the end. But with that, we will start with our auditor controller.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the board, and Edina Garcia, Assistant Auditor-Controller. Thank you for the opportunity to present before you the needs of the Otter Controller's Office. I recognize the challenging times and the difficult decisions that will need to be made throughout this budget cycle. My goal today is to clearly outline the operational impacts we face and the critical importance of the support being requested of you today. Thank you. The current budget for fiscal year 25-26 is a combination of permanent and backfilled positions. The backfilled positions were approved to support the implementation of the county financial system upgrade. These positions, as you know, will be lost through attrition if they're filled. Moving on to current challenges, or if we could go back to the slide. Just to point out, so we have budgeted positions for this fiscal year of 57.5. Of those, we have 37.5 filled, leaving a vacancy of 20 positions for this current fiscal year. So our current challenges, that we have are facing, excuse me, are the understaffing of 10 permanent positions, and this significantly increases the workload for remaining staff that are working on operational tasks. The additional shortage of backfield positions, 10 backfield positions that were originally intended for the support of the upgrade further intensifies the strain on current staffing levels as resources are being shared between the upgrade and operational tasks. Before I move on, I'd like to acknowledge the dedicated efforts of the CAO, IT, HR and ACO teams who have invested countless hours to this upgrade. Also with the UAT sessions recently completed, we have jumped right into training sessions and staff across all departments are also contributing significant time and commitment to the successful implementation of the ERP which is scheduled to go live July. With this upgrade, a lot of work has gone into reviewing work processes, policies, procedures, and MOUs carefully to ensure accurate configurations are built and transitioned over into the new system. Needless to say, our schedule from now to go live, just a little over a month away, is pretty tight and there is increased pressure to ensure we are fully ready to go live. However, that being said, there is still a good amount of work that remains. such as working to address unresolved items or questions that arose from the recently completed UAT sessions, final decisions to be made on certain work processes, regression testing, development of training materials and reports, amongst other items. In addition, some functionalities or processes are being deferred to post go-live because we are approaching critical time limits here, go-live in July. These decisions require thoughtful evaluation to ensure that any risks associated with postponing them are fully understood and acceptable. The project managers on the upgrade are working closely with the teams to identify our go-live readiness criteria and to ensure all items are accounted for. The potential items being deferred create an ongoing need to fill and maintain backfill positions after go-live. As you know, once we reach our go-live, labor costs can no longer be charged to the project, but the work itself will still remain. Because several tasks will be shifted to post-go-live, ongoing funding will still be required to support these positions, and it's likely ACO is not the only department encountering this issue. Additionally, our office is committed to continue working alongside departments to provide training and ongoing support after go-live, helping build confidence and proficiency with the new system. Simultaneously, we have staff working on HCM to prepare for Go Live in January of 2027. While we have a bit more time for HCM, we have not taken our foot off the pedal. HCM UAT sessions have been scheduled, and the first group of four completed their session two weeks ago, and the second group will have their session tomorrow and Friday. After all UAT sessions have been completed, we will proceed with the training sessions.

Next slide.

So all the while, ACO must continue to carry out operational tasks. Here I've listed the various or some of the tasks that we need to ensure that we don't jeopardize these deadlines. So, of course, we have biweekly payroll. I think we would all agree that we all like to get paid on time. Vendor payments need to be made timely so that county services are not interrupted. School bond debt service payments, we have a statutory obligation to make these payments. The ACFER, if not completed timely, could affect our credit ratings. COST PLAN AND SIFA, IF NOT COMPLETED TIMELY, COULD AFFECT OUR GRANT FUNDING. OUR SYSTEM DIVISION PROVIDES SUPPORT TO DEPARTMENTS, THEIR ROUTINE TASKS OR SPECIAL REQUESTS, IF NOT FULFILLED TIMELY THESE COULD IMPACT THE DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS AS WELL. And lastly, we have leave of absence, and this is a major concern given our current vacancy. And this past year, we've had, our office has experienced eight staff on leave at various times, one long-tenured employee that's been on leave since October of 2025. We've also been made aware of three additional staff that have upcoming leave here in the near future. So the next slide, this is just here. I put this here just to let you know of our vacancies. We are actively recruiting, but as our director of HR stated, there is a lengthy process for our recruitment. And so we are not requesting additional GFC or general funding contribution for these positions. I just wanted to let you know these are, The four listed up above are positions that we have been actively recruiting since our last presentation in April. The bottom three, the two accountant auditor three and the payroll technician, those were three vacancies that we had since our last presentation. So in the next slide, these are the three that we're that were requested at the last presentation of your board, one of them being a backfield position and the other two being permanent positions. And I'll move on to the next slide. I can talk about these in a little bit, but the next slide. These are the additional augmentation requests. So these are new requests that we are making today. You'll see that five of those positions are backfield positions with 1.5 of an FTE. So for this is an additional 5.5 which is an additional 1.2 million. On the next slide it's just a combined list of our positions that we are requesting And I'll go into detail here Please note that the positions, the additional request before you today arose from a reassessment of our financial system and the status of the upgrade in addition to the post go live requirement or need that we will continue to work on the project. So the first on the list here is two business analyst positions in the systems division. For this division, we went from six BAs in the division with a division manager. We have now gone down to only two business analysts. And please note that this division supports county departments, all county departments. We're down to two business analysts as three, business analysts were transferred to IT to concentrate specifically on the upgrade project. One BA plus a division manager are currently on leave.

The next is disbursements AP.

We have a auditor controller analyst one as well as an accountant auditor three. For this division or this AP, for the AP section, In the new system, employee reimbursement is in the AP module. Employee reimbursement is in payroll, so we're having to shift that function over to AP, therefore requiring additional staffing need there. The next division is general accounting. This also has, we also have an accountant auditor three as well as an auditor controller analyst two in this division. And here there are various modules in the division. in the new system, cash management, general ledger, reporting, AR, capital assets, just to name a few. These all require ACO to provide training and support to departments for a smooth implementation without jeopardizing deadlines of the critical operations that were listed in the previous slide. The next division is disbursements in the payroll section. Here, the need for, again, to staff appropriately in order to be able to provide support and training to departments for the upgrade. Of the eight staff that I've mentioned earlier on leave, two staff are currently from payroll section. And so those are challenges that we are facing in the payroll section. Internal audits, while this function is not a mandatory function, it does provide significant benefit to the county as this division audits county departments to review processes and provides recommendations on how to improve efficiencies. And administration, this is where we differ from what was recommended or what the CA recommended. I added a half a FTE for our administration division as far as senior HR analyst position. It's currently funded as a half of a FTE, but with the amount of turnover, personnel matters and everything that increase in workload, we do have a need to fill it as a full FTE. So, The total augmentation request from our office is a total of 8.5, which is 1.8 million, that is being requested today. We've gone from, our positions with these additional positions we will have a total of 54 that we are requesting for fiscal year 26-27. So I conclude my presentation by emphasizing that without additional general fund contribution to support these positions, the ACO and the county will be placed in a significantly compromised position. We will be unable to fully implement successfully the financial system upgrade and provide the needed support departments need. We will face substantial risk in meeting critical operational deadlines, and the resulting impact on county operations could be severe and far-reaching. I know this is a difficult request under current budget constraints, but the impact of not funding these positions is much greater. Again, I'd like to emphasize the fact that these positions that are being requested are backfield positions, so meaning Once we've implemented the upgrade and we've evaluated and assessed our positions at that time, these backfilled positions would be lost through attrition. So while there may be some immediate ongoing cost, eventually we would lose them through attrition. So thank you for your time and I'm available to answer any questions at this time.

Thank you, questions from the board?

Yes, thank you so much for your presentation. And this may be a question for either of you up there. I'm trying to understand the backfield positions being lost to attrition. What happens if there's a FTE that's been added to a department? How does that get lost even if the program need is no longer?

great questions advisor so with the implementation of Oracle there were a lot of positions that were added to different departments those positions were added as full-time equivalent positions versus a limited term type position and so the strategy this is well before I got here but the strategy at that time was if it was added to the department we would track it and then once the system was implemented through attrition as layoffs happen those would be reduced down. We do understand that that is a little bit different from somehow how other counties do treat these type of activities where it would be a limited term, the position would only be created for a certain period. The problem with that is you have problems with recruitment, you have problems saying for an employee that would want to come to work for only two years, And so this County took a strategy of adding positions to a department, tracking it off book to identify if it was a backfield position or not. And then once the project was completed, the game plan would be to ultimately control the reduced FTE.

Let me just follow up on that to understand. better, so I still don't understand what happens to that person. We have labor contracts and what happens to that individual?

So my understanding, if I may, it's not that position that would be laid off. It would be through the normal attrition of people leaving the office we wouldn't rehire that position.

We would have to shuffle within the office, the staffing. Okay, so the expectation is you'll have a retirement or something that would then move that individual to another position within the department. So then the question I have, and Ms. Garcia, I'm so sorry, you're the first one, so this is not necessarily pointed at you or your presentation. This is for the entire day. I'm reluctant to support positions when we are only able to look at one-time funding and so my question would be specifically for the auditor controller and this need in particular the financial systems upgrade is for you Mr. Beaton is there any other alternative to funding this need in a different way other than the filling of a position?

Great question. I think the short answer is we would need to rely or we would need to The problem is the expertise in the certain areas that are being implemented in Oracle that are specific to the auto controller's office really can only be managed by the auto controller's office. There would potentially be an option to reach out to other departments, borrowing staff, using staff to really get across the finish line. But the activities of the auto controller's office is very unique, what they do and touch. And it's a portion that the department staff may not actually have. Now, as far as the funding component, we do have... and this county has set aside a funding source where we are using to fund the implementation of Oracle, which includes the software and does include the staff. That funding source sits in Fund 478. With the anticipation that we have gone longer on the implementation of the Oracle project. It was supposed to be implemented over a year ago. We've had to creatively find different mechanisms and ways to continue that funding. I believe the last funding move that we had to do was to help allocate an additional $4 million to that fund, 478, to help afford the additional costs with having both the Oracle system and the CGI Advantage system, because we are currently paying for two financial systems right now. which is part of the reason we really need to get moving on implementing Oracle. That funding source that we've had to use, again, is one-time money, and if it does extend, we're going to have a little bit of an issue. The amount of money that is in there is based on our current projections that are being developed by IT, based on our project costs. It does fund support staff. So if we're talking about backfilling, so the current staff that the Auto Controls Office is using for the Oracle project right now is currently being funded by the 478 fund that we have specifically for the ERP project. So if we did add additional staff, the funding has already been identified. And so we would have to look at that a little bit more deeply for consideration.

Okay, that's very helpful. Thank you so much.

Any other questions? I did have a question, and I'm not sure, again, if this is for you, Andina, or if it's for the team, but I know getting the ERP implemented has had some delays and has had some cost overruns. Are we expecting any additional cost funding needs to get the implementation completed in this budget year that's not already included in the recommended budget?

Short answer is I hope not. Okay. All right. I hope not as well. Sorry. I wish it was a different answer, but we are hoping not. We are anticipating and hopefully everything goes as planned as the current developed budget for the project.

Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. All right, thank you so much. And thank you and Adina too for stepping up and keeping our department running and preparing this budget for us as well. We appreciate your leadership right now, thanks. Okay, we will go next to Department of Emergency Management, thank you. We have Kelsey Scanlon.

Good morning. Thank you so much for having me today. My name is Kelsey Scanlon. I'm the Director of Emergency Management. We are here to present our augmentation request for fiscal year 26-27. Next slide, please. So we had previously asked for two positions. One was full-time filled and we greatly appreciate that augmentation requests be approved prior to this meeting, which remains our one management analyst one position as our ongoing augmentation request with a total of $179,701. This position had originally been allocated by the board I believe in 2019 for the purposes of having a training and exercise coordinator within the Monterey County Department of Emergency Management. This person had intended to be responsible for training all disaster service workers, developing in-house curriculum, identifying training from the state and federal government that could be hosted within the county for all first responders, as well as planning full-scale functional exercises for first responder partners, as well as the emergency operations center. With luck of the draw, we had a vacant position when the hiring freeze went into effect and were unable to fill it. due to a lack of additional revenue. This position remained unfunded and unfilled but within our allocated positions last fiscal year. We're requesting at this time that this position be repurposed by reclassifying it to a management analyst one with the intention of this position focusing fully on a variety of unfunded mandates within our department that have increase throughout this last couple of years, including battery energy storage system, emergency action plan reviews, compliance with a variety of assembly bills, and any additional legal contracts. I will also say that we have a part-time position currently as a management analyst, one that has been assisting us actively with cost recovery. Much of that is, actually 100% of that time is 100% reimbursable. And then we anticipate moving forward that we'll be pursuing additional grant funds from state grant programs to pursue programs such as, sorry, wildfire risk reduction programs for private property owners such as curbside chipping programs. And we anticipate those grant applications will be extremely competitive and approved within this fiscal year coming forward. So there would be additional revenue offsetting this cost. Additionally, we would utilize this position to assist with a short-term project, which is the 2020 wildfire private property debris removal program until such time that an addition or a separate solution can be identified. We are to reducing the overall amount from a full-time MA1 to a part-time MA1 at a total of $86,335 to at least get us through some of the wildfire private property debris removal collection until such time that we can have additional revenue to offset the cost. I will say that there is also a significant backlog with regards to Senate Bill 38 and implementing that unfunded mandate, and this position would greatly alleviate much-needed coordination within our office. And so with that, I will conclude with the next slide, which is a reminder that the Emergency Operations Center budget was not funded this year, and moving into the next fiscal year, anticipating a significant winter storm. season through the um you know anticipated forecasts of the el nino coming up this year will significantly impact our ability to respond effectively and efficiently without immediately accessing strategic reserve funds we are working with the county administrator's office to find a more sustainable solution in the interim though this budget remains unfunded and there are there will likely be consequences to this And so with that, I will conclude my presentation. Thank you so much for your time and your consideration. I certainly do not envy the position that you all are in and appreciate the significance of the challenge that you're up against. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Questions?

On the emergency center there, What is the cost generally when we've, I'm sure it varies, depends how much use it has, but over the last several incidents we've had,

Well, any debt that we have on the Strategic Reserve is generally the amount that it costs, but it ranges anywhere from, I want to say, $5 million to $70 million, depending on the emergency. The $600,000 fund gives us a lot of flexibility leading up to the emergency to mobilize resources before there's a proclamation. For instance, if we wanted to mobilize Triple C crews to do sandbagging, If we wanted to do an emergency berm at a park along a well-known river near the peninsula, if we wanted to do any type of emergency contracting prior to a proclamation, which there is a significant number of emergencies, specifically flooding that are protracted that require activity before there's a significant proclamation. And so it does allow us to be a bit more mobile, especially for emergencies that don't necessarily rise to a federal status, meaning that the county is still expected to respond, but there's no additional reimbursement funds. And those are for smaller emergencies like wildfires before they become FMAGs or public assistance approved disasters. So it is sort of a startup fund, if you will.

I do have a question and I appreciate you continuing to bring this particular need forward. In terms of best practices, government finance, other counties, is there a standard, because it is a concern that I think given the number of disasters that we've had and the need to be responsive, either increasing our strategic reserve in a meaningful way, creating a disaster reserve or putting money into this fund would be appropriate. But it's our guidelines that we can reference back to or what other communities similar to ours have set up.

We're still researching that and trying to identify potential solutions that are meaningful for Monterey County. We do have somewhat of a unique budgeting process and financial system. And so we're very excited to have Michael and DJ on board to help us identify a couple of solutions for the board to choose from, but we're still very much researching potential solutions.

And in theory, this would be a one-time money into a fund that would remain there until and if needed. Yes. But would then need to be refilled over time?

Yeah, unless we can get reimbursement.

Right. Yeah. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. All right, thank you. Thank you. We'll move next to our public defender.

All right, good morning, everybody. Nice to be here. Thank you all for having me appear in front of you once again. So I do have a PowerPoint, but it's about 11 slides, but I'm not gonna go through every one of them because this is now the second time that I presented before you and I've obviously met with several of you individually on a one-on-one basis. So let me just go to the first slide. So as you know, the Public Defender is an office that is constitutionally mandated. And the services we provide are essential to protecting the rights of Monterey County residents. And our mission, as reflected in our departmental overview, is to protect constitutional rights, deliver high-quality legal representation, strengthen attorney-client relationships, and support stronger individuals, families, and communities across the county. So let me go through slowly the next three. So those are the services we provide. You've seen this slide before. It's just sort of a highlight of what we do from felonies, death penalties, misdemeanor, juveniles, and all sorts of other representations that we proudly serve the community with. Number four is some of the consequences of underfunding us, which is detrimental to our community and to the people that we serve. Next slide. This is just a brief summary of our attorney workload distribution in terms of the positions that we have and how we spread the work across our department. Next slide. And that's how we work. We are the public defender. We also have the alternate defender that helps us deal with conflicts. Next slide. And that is the primary driving force of how we represent people. We believe in a holistic defense of representation in trying to tackle the issues that go beyond the person's criminal case. Next slide. And so what we do is we do serve and strengthen our community with all that we do representing people, with reaching out to the community and providing that holistic defense representation that is so badly needed.

Next slide.

Okay, so a moment of gratitude. This is the augmentations that were restored, and I had thanked you previously, and I want to thank you once again for restoring these augmentations. So that's about almost $2 million in augmentations. We did what you asked, which is we put up some numbers, some people, some programs. And thankfully, you all recognize the importance of not giving that up and restoring us to what we had asked for. Next slide. All right. So today, I am here to renew my request for budget augmentations with particular emphasis on number one, which is to preserve the temporary attorney positions. Although I have appeared before you on this very issue in the past, the need has only grown more acute. Let me just address briefly the number two issue. So that request is regarding the ice related issue and that an issue that you deferred in discussing until I think it's in your June 9th meeting. So back to the temporary positions. These positions are attorney positions, essentially, and are a vital resource to our office. They staff two of our departments, and removing them would force us to reassign permanent attorneys who are already carrying heavy caseloads. This disruption would undermine workflow, continuity of representation, and the overall quality of constitutionally mandated services that we provide. Our caseloads remain double the national average, and the consequence of underfunding is great, including greater custody exposure, reduced access to rehabilitation, unnecessary family separation, and reduced retention, are clearly documented here in the slides before you. We are already stretched extremely thin, These temporary attorneys are not optional. They are essential. They show up consistently. They provide excellent legal representation. Their hours are capped, yet their dedication is unwavering. They support the people of this community every day, and their absence would harm both our clients and the system as a whole. I want to also acknowledge and appreciate the board's stated philosophy from your recent budget sessions, which is preserving positions, preserving people. These temporary attorneys are people serving our people. Preserving these positions directly aligns with the priority this board has expressed I hope you will view this request through the same lens. We are not creating new positions. These are temporary positions that we've used and relied on for the past four to five years. Regarding the portion of our request to related ICE at the jail. I understand that the board has chosen to defer making a decision on that issue until June 9th. I fully respect that, and I cannot in good conscience ask for something today that you have signaled you do not wish to take up at this time, so I withdraw that request, and if anything, highlight my emphasis on number one. However, if next month you decide to consider the ice related matter again and you seek our participation, we will be more than happy to present again. This is an important issue for our community, and we stand by ready to provide any information, analysis, or context the board may need as you deliberate on it. I hope you received the memo I prepared, which I hope you can take a look at, and if you have any questions about that, you can ask me that now or at a later date at your choosing. Returning to today's request, preserving these attorney positions is essential for maintaining the stability of our operations, meeting our constitutional obligations, and preventing further strain on our already overburdened system. Without these attorneys, we will be forced to pull staff from other critical assignments, compromising representation and service at every level. 249,000 is, may not be, it's not a great amount, it's a small amount, but the impact on our office is great. Thank you for your time and consideration, and for your continued commitment to justice in Monterey County. I'm available to answer any questions you might have. I believe this is consistent with maintaining the existing service levels that we have, and as CAO De La Rosa indicated, this is not bling. It's part of the wheels that keep our engine going. Thank you.

Yes, I do have a question. Thank you for your presentation. Can you help me understand a little bit better the temporary attorney positions? Because where I got confused was you said you've relied on them for the last four to five years. But I feel like we've had temporary attorney positions, unless I'm confusing them with something else, contracted positions with attorneys in our community supporting the Public Defender's Office for many years.

Yes, supervisor, so the temporary positions I'm talking about are people who, they work about 35 hours a week in our office. They provide in-court services directly in two departments. And so they're there to represent our clients in critical stages. The contract lawyers are essentially the ADO, the alternate defender office. So they work with us, they're on contract with us, they take care of the conflicts. So when I'm asking for temporary attorneys, I'm really talking about temporary deputy public defenders who are serving our courts.

And how many of them are there? Two. Two, okay. Thank you. That is very helpful. And then on the other amount that we're punting to June 9th, If the collaboration that we're discussing were not occurring, would the $250,000 for vulnerable clients be necessary? Would you be in the jail doing this work if that collaboration were not occurring? We would not. Okay, thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Let me just update, we are moving the date from June 9th to a later date to allow us to gather additional information. So we're adding that information out to our public team, but just wanted you to know, since you've mentioned that date, we are looking at a new date in June, but probably towards the end.

Okay, thank you.

So I'd like to keep that second item on the table for discussion now since we're talking about budget, honestly. And a couple questions. One, you made mention on a memo. Yes. I don't recall what was that regarding. When was that sent out?

So that was sent out yesterday. Okay. And it was more of a little bit more detail on what that would look like if we were at the jail.

This is on the number two item?

Yes. Yes, sir.

All right. Sorry, I must have missed that yesterday coming in here, but I guess what I would like to know then, this is probably addressed inside the memo, but maybe you can address it publicly then, is is uh... are these undocumented inmates i think it's like two hundred seventy of them uh... i think if i understand a year come through are they getting the same uh... legal rights as legal residents or citizens that come uh... and it's just just why you're recalling why are you requested to fifty then i'm assuming they're not but perhaps you can fill me in and and just clarify this a little bit yes sir so uh...

When I started to compose the memo, I started to think about what happens at the jail and how it's impacted the immigrant community. And so I actually started the memo talking about the latest grand jury finding, about how there are delays in the processing of people who are at the jail. And then I highlighted that in the memo, which I think results into a lot of problems. When you're in jail and you face immigration consequences, undocumented, deportation, other things that could happen because of your status, you're quickly in a situation where you feel lost, confused, don't know what to do. And so you're in a confined situation where your liberty is restricted, where you're limited to who you can talk to, and you're forced to rely on a piece of paper that explains something. And so I think... obviously the better practice is if you had legal representation at the jail who can explain to you, can advise you as to what these laws mean and what are the consequences and what things needed to be done. And to absolutely know what your rights are and have someone assist you with developing those rights.

So, You're you're seeing that there's a need for an extra step to guarantee the same rights that that others would have that I do what you're saying Okay, well, I'll locate the limo. No, excuse me limo, but the memo During luncheon and take a look at it.

Thank you, sir The question about that the alternate defenders office and I think there were some potential changes that could be in play, apparently not in this budget cycle, but maybe for future budget cycles. Can you just speak at all to what what might be considered?

Yes, so when I took over this office, it was clear to me that the board wanted me to look at everything and to see where efficiencies can be made and see where changes can be made to make us more efficient, more productive, and streamline things. And so I took a look at some of the ADO positions to see if it is something that we can change in terms of the model, in terms of the supervision, in terms of the accountability. And so There are several models that exist elsewhere in other counties that I've taken a look at, and specifically at Los Angeles, in how we can modify our conflict representation. So that's something that has to be done carefully to see if it will truly work here in this county to make sure it's legally sound so that the conflicts are still preserved. And so that's a model I'm taking a look at. It's obviously, thankfully I don't have to look at it this year, but next year I certainly have a mind to keep looking at it and to seek and find ways we can improve.

Thank you, and I'll just, I think, thank you for bringing forward both of the items. I'm with, I think, Supervisor Church, and I do look forward to being able to talk about both of those when we get to that point.

I do as well.

Yeah, thank you. Okay, with that, we can move on to our next presentation from the Sheriff Coroner's Office. We will welcome Sheriff Tina Nieto and Under Sheriff Keith Boyd.

There we go, good morning. Oh, it's on the screen, thank you. Chair, members of the board, before we talk about the budget, I just wanna talk about what this budget actually represents to the community of Monterey County. At its core, it's not just a financial document, it's a reflection of our priorities, values, and ultimately our willingness to protect the people of Monterey County. Public safety is not one program among many. It is a foundation that every other county service to function. When people feel safe, when they trust that someone will come to their call, their crimes will be investigated, and their family's homes and livelihoods are protected, everything else becomes possible. Economic growth, stable communities, Effective delivery systems and social services. I also want to take a moment to thank the other directors and the other electeds Because I know during this budget System that we're working through that the county does face Some harder times and my partners that sit behind me who and some have already presented we've all been talking about what's best for the county and it has been an all-team effort and One thing I want to say about public safety, though, it doesn't happen by accident. It is delivered day in and day out by the men and women of the Sheriff's Office. Deputies covering vast rural areas, responding to emergencies, managing complex jail operations, and adapting to increasingly sophisticated criminal activity. I want to just remind everybody who's watching that our county is almost 4,000 square miles. as you look at the recommended budget on the augmentation request across departments I say you keep one reality front and center. Many of the positions within the sheriff's office particularly those tied to custody and operations are not enhancements they are baseline public safety capacity. This is about maintaining the ability to respond. This is about presenting gaps that the community will fill immediately. This is about ensuring that as the demand grows, our capacity does not shrink. We all understand the fiscal constraints in front of us. We also have to be clear-eyed about the consequences of underinvestment in public safety. Unlike other areas, reductions here are not theoretical. They show up in response times, in investigations not completed, and safety in our community. So as we move through this discussion, I look forward to working with you to ensure that our budget decisions reflect a shared commitment, that public safety remains a core priority, not a residual outcome. Because at the end of the day, it is about the people that we serve in this county, and their expectation is that when they need us, we will be there to respond. At this point, I'd be turning it over to my under sheriff if I'm going to do that, but I'd like to read a public comment that I sent in regarding SCAP because the chair of the board did bring that up as a budget concern. So I want to clarify an issue that has generated significant public concern and frankly, some misunderstanding. there is a narrative circulating that information submitted through the state criminal alien assistance program commonly known as scap somehow leads to ice enforcement actions or immigration arrests that is simply not accurate scap is a federal reimbursement program created in 1994 to help local governments recover a portion of correctional costs associated with housing inmates who meet a very specific criminal conviction Reimbursement mechanism, not an immigration and enforcement, or it is a reimbursement mechanism, not an immigration enforcement program. Let me repeat, not an immigration enforcement program. Participation in SCAP does not require the Sheriff's Office to notify ICE when someone is booked into the jail, when they are released, or where they live or work. The data submitted through SCAP does not include anticipated release dates, fingerprints, biometrics, addresses, or immigration status information. The information provided is limited to basic booking and conviction data that already exists within national criminal justice databases accessible to law enforcement agencies nationwide. Importantly, Monterey County does not investigate immigration status as part of the SCAP process, nor does the county have direct communication with ICE regarding SCAP applications. The program is administered through the U.S. Department of Justice as a reimbursement process. The public really does deserve accurate information regarding the SCAP process. If ICE becomes aware of an individual in custody, that occurs through real-time fingerprint and criminal databases that exist independently of SCAP and have operated for decades nationwide. SCAP applications are actually retrospective and often submitted two to three years after the incarceration occurred. So to be clear, SCAP does not trigger ICE actions, does not direct immigration enforcement, and does not authorize Monterey County to enforce immigration law. What SCAP does do is help reimburse local taxpayers for correctional costs the county has already incurred. These funds can only be used for correctional purposes and health offset expenses borne by Monterey County residents. I believe it is important that this discussion be grounded in facts, transparency, and an honest understanding of what the program actually is and what it is not. Thank you. With that, I'm going to turn it over to my budget expert, my undersheriff, my partner, Undersheriff Keith Boyd.

used to say good afternoon but good morning madam chair members of the board um keith boyd under sheriff presenting our budget presentation for the sheriff's office as i start i want to just open with thanking uh the ceo and her team for the work building this budget we recognize it's a significant challenge this is um our first our fourth budget season with this board and over those four years we feel like we've built a very strong collaborative relationship with the CEOs budget team we may not always agree but we respect each other's positions and and views but but doing that it's allowed us over four years to work to right-size the sheriff's office budget to appropriately allocate funds where they need to be but minimizing the impact year-over-year to on what may be needed to support sheriff's operations by doing that on an annual adjustment Looking at Sheriff's Office FTE staffing since July 1st of 2020, you'll note that in fiscal year 21, the office was budgeted at 473 positions. In fiscal year 22, it dropped to 468 positions, and this was due to a loss of five positions in jail operations. In fiscal year 23, it stayed consistent status quo at 468. then in fiscal year 24 the board added allowed us to add two positions specifically for jail compliance dealing with the Hernandez lawsuit which took the staffing to 470 in fiscal year 25 we grew to 481 positions primarily due to additional staff for jail compliance but also funding for positions via Cal AIM path 3 Noting in fiscal year 25, we were at 481, but then really the tough budget times are starting. We saw them coming, government knew they were coming, and in fiscal year 25, 26, the sheriff's office staffing FTE count was reduced to 461 FTE, but only 456 of those positions were actually funded. The board allowed five to stay on, but they were unfunded. So in essence, they weren't going to support services. In the recommended budget, it is currently sitting at 445 positions. With the adjustment the CEO team mentioned this morning, that's most likely 446 by the recommendation, or excuse me, that's 445. But it could draw to 446 based on that recommended amendment of a vacant position that's actually filled. What we're looking at, and I say a 12-month loss, this is two fiscal years, but from June 30th, 2025 to projected July 1 of 2026, the Sheriff's Office is looking at a net loss of 36 positions. This would be 17 deputy sheriffs and 19 professional staff. That's a significant impact on operations. It's about 7% of what the positional count stood at. But with losing those positions, it's important to note, 17 deputy sheriffs is basically what we have staffing King City. 17 deputy sheriffs is what we have staffing the Coastal Station. We're trying to fill the same duties with a much lower positional count. And these are 17 operations deputy sheriffs in the field. On the professional staff, when you lose that, professional staff are the backbone of the operation serving the public. They're like the hub of a wagon wheel. The deputies are out in the field doing the work, but back at the hub is our baseline professional staff, so critical to what we do. Public coming in working with public answering those calls getting them dealing with records that loss has created an increased burden on the professional staff as well Which led to last this fact during this fiscal year we reduced services at our stations in King City and Monterey for records and then we reduced our office hours in the public safety building in Salinas and We've talked about jail settlement staffing. We're making progress. We're making progress. But it's a daunting challenge. We've been able to maintain our jail staffing levels, and we appreciate that. And most of our impacts have been at this point in the field. One thing I noted at the budget workshop was the sheriff's office saw significant budget cost increases for non-wage factors in this fiscal year of $15.3 million. This is tied to the jail contract for healthcare, an increase there. PERS increase to our budget, Social Security increase to the budget, and just general insurance costs. We know everything's going up. As Supervisor Alejo noted, insurance is getting astronomical, and it's an uncontrolled cost that really hurts our ability to provide services. That $15.3 million number is pretty telling, and you'll see in a future slide here in a moment. Currently, the Sheriff's Office submitted baseline budget sits at $175 million. the augmentation requested for the sheriff's office totals fifteen point four million looking at it's very interesting telling fact when you look at our augmentation requested fifteen point four million is darn near the same amount of the non wage uncontrolled increases the sheriff's office budget face this year fifteen point three million we are pushing fifteen point four million of stuff filled positions and vacant positions into augmentation. And there's a direct correlation to the non-wage uncontrolled increases faced in the office. This slide, what I'd like to note is in the CEO's recommended budget, we're receiving, or it's recommended that we receive $8.6 million for 33 currently filled positions. It's also recommended that we receive $550,000 for one vacant deputy sheriff and three professional staff positions. That brings the cumulative total in the CAO's recommended budget for the sheriff's office to $9.2 million for a total of 34 positions that are deputy sheriffs and three professional staff, noting that 33 of those are currently filled. Currently, the recommended budget that the CAO has presented for the Sheriff's Office sits at $184 million. What we're looking at is of that $15.4 million augmentation request brought forward by the Sheriff's Office, we're looking at a total of 6.2 million is still unfunded and that we're bringing to the Board for consideration. This slide notes that the cumulative unfunded as noted was $6.2 million. BREAKING IT DOWN, THAT 6.2 BREAKS DOWN TO 1.6 TO MAINTAIN STATUS QUO VACANT POSITIONS, 573,000 TO MAINTAIN STATUS QUO SERVICES AND THREE POINT, WE'LL CALL IT FOUR MILLION TO IMPLEMENT NEW SERVICES. When I presented at the workshop, we have done it in the past, but I added the ranking numbers here that are in the augmentation sheets that you all likely received in advance of the hearing. We currently have, that are not included in the CO's recommended budget, 10 unfilled vacant positions. Eight of them are deputy sheriff operations, two in records. It's important to note, we submitted this budget before and it's impossible to change in the system. what you've submitted once it's submitted and entered into Oracle. It's important to note that of these eight that are noted as vacant, one actually has a living human being sitting in it, and it's a filled position. It actually, when we submitted this, it actually was, we had six, but through attrition and retirements that have occurred over the last few months, it's stayed at one and we've been able to maintain it at one. The other services that we're looking to maintain that we currently have in place are to maintain our countywide ALPR surveillance camera system that is using flock cameras. That's a $253,000 investment. One deputy sheriff on patrol full cost is $258,000. Those flock cameras are like putting 60 deputy sheriffs in the county around the clock, no food, no sleep. And that's what they bring. We're looking to seek funding to maintain our Axon Air contract with Axon. It's $20,000. This is the baseline for our drones and our ability to provide and maintain and manage our drone system. It also allows staff to view drones remotely. And we've had multiple saves with our drones. There's actually, we're gonna be participating at a conference in October with what's called Trauma Education Consortium about where one of our drones was intricate in saving a life We're looking to refurbish the evidence lockers at the sheriff's office. Nothing's been done on them since the building was built. So to upgrade them to modern evidentiary procedures and to ensure that we have status quo chain of custody ability and the volume of the lockers that they're down about 50%. We're looking to replace our forensic investigations computers. They conduct these high profile forensic investigations when we're dealing with child sex predators or just sexual predators in general or people using the internet to conduct financial crimes and things of that nature. Our computers are outdated and it's approximately $20,000 a computer to bring them into system. We're looking at an engine overhaul on our airplane. That's an FAA mandate that we're facing. and we're looking to replace our ballistic shields for our SWAT team. It's important to note that many of these items on here could be what we call one-time expenses utilizing Measure AA funds, but that would be up to the AA committee and the board to determine if they deem that appropriate for those expenditures. New services that we're looking at, we really focused on trying to target significant impacts on the community. We've seen significant value from our flock ALPR camera system with aiding in criminal investigations. We've seen that surveillance ALPR cameras across the country have been intricate in identifying suspects of crimes in a rapid period, developing leads. What we're looking to do is add and increase that system by 140 cameras across the county. Now again, the augmentation request was $420,000, but by working with FLOC over that time, we believe we may be able to lower that. But it's important. It's $3,000 a camera. So if the board decided you wanted to allocate some funds to increase in an increment, maybe not the whole $140,000. You could say, how about 20 cameras? That would be $60,000. We're looking to expand our Axon Air system, our fleet of drones. Due to changes in federal law, there are limitations on the types of drones that are going to be able to be used in the United States, depending on what you're using them for, in and around federal installations, or due to a number of drones with the technology that they were originally built with from foreign countries. This would allow us to purchase a number of multi-dimensional drones, small, big, medium, to ensure that we are able to maintain ongoing services. With respect to the next category, 81 vehicle cameras for the fleet car camera system from Axon, we've been working with risk management. Identifying that possible benefits for that would be as well for for litigation defense Collision management it has a number of ways to use other than the evidentiary value it can help us with risk and claims against the county that number though at 452,000 has been refined and it's closer to 250 now because what we did is the first year fee for implementing that system we flattened them and with the vendor over the life of the potential contract to bring that cost down in year one. It would lead to an increase in future years of about $10,000 a year, but it brought year one down. We're looking at what is called a SAR QTAC utility tub. It's like an F550 Ford platform, thinking of a big F550 style truck. For our SAR team, currently their equipment is aging. This will allow them to, for deployment up and down the coast and other areas in the state as needed. It stores equipment, stores gear. It would also be used for rescue operations along the coast. One time purchase, and we expect that vehicle to get 10 to 15 years of service minimum. This vehicle for the search and rescue, this four by four Ford Ranger truck, again, another one time purchase. What our SAR team has found is some of our back roads they can get vehicles into, but they're not big. So they need a small utility vehicle, and they settled on their recommendation would be this Ford Ranger profile, 4x4, and would allow them to get into the backwoods. This would be a one-time purchase that we expect it to last. Because of the volume of use, we foresee that vehicle to be 10 to 15 years lifetime. But that's possibly even like an AA purchase for funding. And any vehicles we're talking about, again, there's concerns with the future of VAMP, but any vehicle that we purchase, we would incorporate into our future VAMP program for the future replacement. So we're asking for a one-time purchase that then we would incorporate that into the vehicle replacement fund for replacement in the future. The next item we're looking for are two 12-passenger Sprinter vans for our search and rescue team. These diesels, our SAR team has grown and it sits at about 45 volunteers now from about when 20, 25 when the sheriff took office. And as we grow, we have a greater opportunity to support not only in-county missions, but out-of-county missions. And some of these areas we go in-county, there's not a lot of places for vehicles. And you're squeezing the vehicles in. And so our SAR teams rally up and deploy in unison at these locations. And so we don't have, we have one currently, but that can move 12 of, let's say if everybody showed up, 40. By looking to add these vehicles that are just built with passenger seats in them, the three, four row systems, it would allow us to provide a greater service to the community. Now this would, again, would be a one-time purchase back, Supported by a vamp contribution in future years for future replacement But with a diesel motor and these these things with the volume use 10 to 15 years of service The next thing we're looking for are to search and rescue what these are Polaris police response to UTVs And fully enclosed so now we're gonna get into those areas that we're not gonna get that Ford Ranger in but And our SAR staff, they'll hike 7, 8, 9, 10 miles. And we've had instances where they've had to stay in overnight because it's just not safe to hike out. But with these fully enclosed, climate-controlled, they can be in inclement weather, they can be in the rain, they can be in the mud, and they're going to stay warm, they're going to stay dry, and they're going to be able to get into those back roads where we can't get these other trucks. And again, another one-time purchase. And you'll notice on the passenger van, the Sprinters, and on the Polaris, it's $75,000 per passenger van. So if the board elected to authorize funding for one, it would be $75,000, not the $150,000. If the board elected to authorize funding for one of the UTVs, it would be $70,000, not $140,000. The next item we're looking at is our airplane. The camera system in use right now, it's old. It's in due of a refurbishment. But our airplane served the county during the critical storms of 2023, doing reconnaissance for the county of river flooding throughout the county. It routinely does work looking for cannabis grows throughout the county It's supported law enforcement operations for our partners When it is it doesn't it's not in the air all the time its mission generally mission-specific What this camera would do is was bring in a an upgraded camera package to allow them to fly at higher altitude See a greater resolution see with more detail The objects that they're being asked to review and search again one-time purchase. It's a four hundred fifty thousand dollar upgrade and The next item on our list, and again, our augmentations were submitted months ago, and I would put this item ahead of the cameras, ahead of the airplane camera, but I left it in order of what sits in your augmentation book, so it wouldn't be confusing, and I wanted to discuss it why. We've currently purchased 160 handguns already. This would cover the other 160 that we need to replace still in the organization. It would require new holsters because each of these handguns is equipped with optics, and the optics allow for greater precision and more accuracy, and it requires a different holster for use. Our current handguns are nearing end of life when you think about their serviceability. The manufacturer for our current handgun is not gonna be making our current handgun anymore, which has partly led to why we're looking into transition away from that model of handgun. The next item we'd like to do and we'd like to seek augmentation for is a full audit of the property and evidence that the sheriff's office holds. Since the sheriff took office, we've been unable to do that because to properly do it, you need to hire an outside company. So it's independent and it's transparent, but that requires additional funding. And unfortunately, as you all know, our budget's run over and we don't take that lightly. in year to year, but we're looking at this as something to focus funds specific for one time that we would be able to get it done and then have an accounting of everything and we know what we have. The last two are a bit unique and They're our lowest priorities. The deputy sheriff recruit pilot program, what we're looking at is, as you know, the sheriff's office historically has run with a high volume of individuals on workers' comp leave or disability leave. Those individuals are off for a considerable period of time. We've worked with the risk director, David Bolton, we've worked with county, and we've tapped the allocation on loan program. during this current year. What that allowed us to do was move deputy sheriffs who were on the books in an FTE position over to the allocation on loan program, and then it opened up a FTE position that we could hire somebody into, get them to the academy, get them trained, and then in time, if somebody falls off the work comp system, we're minimizing the gap between the time somebody departs the county and we have somebody working mitigating overtime. The problem is that program is self-funded. To participate in the program, you have to self-fund that with your existing budget. And we would be using salary savings and such to do that. We're getting pretty thin. Salary savings may be a thing of the past when we think about how many positions we're going to be carrying. What this would be would be a limited-term program. pilot program to get the 1.2 million to fund 10 recruit positions for fiscal year 27 only. We would allow us to hire people in, and then as people retired, we could slide them into an FTE position. We wouldn't hire people at a point later in the year that we would be likely that they'd have to be laid off. We're looking at this to allow us in a position over the next six to eight months, hire people in to deal with our natural attrition of people leaving and to get people in the academy to mitigate that gap between end of county employment and the 12 to 16 months that it takes to hire or train somebody before they're impacting overtime. It's a unique concept, something that, it is expensive, and we recognize that, but we're trying to try something as a pilot that then we can see if there's value for the greater county budget process down the road for the county to look at how this impacts other departments as well. The last item is supplemental code enforcement operations funding. This is seeking $400,000 to assist with overtime expenditures that we're putting out there to fund our code enforcement team to go down and fund, say, areas of the Green Bridge for parking violations, or funding our support of the illegal food vendors, or various things that we work with our partners across the county currently We've been funding that from our county, our sheriff's office budget, because it's a significant quality of life concern brought forth by the residents of this community, and we've tried to address that with our budget. But as the budgets are getting narrow, What we're looking at is, let's look at this as a pilot, take this $400,000, see how effective it is, and then see if a broader county structure can be built, bringing together the departments that are in play with that, and to bring those funds together. Closing out the presentation, we've said this before. I'm not going to belabor you with going through this. These are the statutory obligations for the Office of the Sheriff, a constitutional officer. These are the big challenges though if the sheriff's office is unfunded, underfunded. And we appreciate the recommendation of the CO and the board for considering that filling funding for the filled 33 positions. The concern is we still have seven deputy sheriff vacancies that if they were authorized, we could hire them July 1. We have people. We have 20-plus people, everything done. We have people wanting to come to work for the sheriff's office. It's an anomaly in law enforcement. I talk to my peers across the state, the volume of people we have wanting to work in this county compared to other counties. And then in addition, we have two other records personnel positions that are... But those are our priority. Those 10 potential people are our biggest priorities. Without filling those individuals and having that staff to support county needs, we run into the risk of an inability to respond to quality of life code-related violations. We run into an increased risk of a need to reduce our lobby hours at the sheriff's office headquarters even more due to less staff. We run into a risk of impacting the community's access to the loved ones in the jail. by having to reduce that lobby hours. Attorney visits would not be impacted. We run into the risk of reduction in jail staffing that could lead to the reduction of jail population. We run into the risk of potential progress in the settlement being lost due to insufficient staffing. The public lobbies in King City and Monterey would likely remain closed Loss of these vacancies, these vacant deputy sheriff positions could lead to the minimum staffing across the county. And I found it interesting, I think it was Mr. Rosen earlier said something about, or one of the individuals speaking on Bixby Bridge said, one CHP officer for 71 miles. You know, we have eight deputy sheriffs on for 3,800 square miles right now. And that's one deputy per 450 square miles. one sergeant. We could reduce that by need to four to six deputies countywide. It could force us to double up cars. Now doubling up cars, they show up, but two cars running independent, you have a greater impact on community safety. People see the cars, they think more, but doubling them up. Response times could get delayed significantly because of staffing being cut. Low priority calls may not get a response at all. Violent crime response could be delayed because of distance to be traveled. Proactive policing likely would cease to exist. We could look at taking on the fire department model. Sit at the station, wait for a call, respond to the call. Investigative services are currently fully staffed at 15 deputy sheriff's detectives in our investigative services And we are the entity that everyone relies on in the county when they have a need under the statewide law enforcement mutual aid plan The sheriff is the operational area Director and when an agency needs assistance they go to the the sheriff Which we saw the benefit of this in the King City mass shootings. Unfortunately, the DA recently filed charges on the last Suspect in that case who was outstanding Specialty units that have significant impact in this county, it could lead to the elimination of the Sheriff's Office dive unit, our mounted unit, our air operations unit, which could be the airplane and our drone team. It could lead to the elimination of our bomb team. As we know, we have a lot of ordinance in this county from being a long-term military community. It could also lead to the elimination of the Sheriff's Office SWAT team. And with that, I will close with my final comment of we appreciate what you do serving this community. You have a tough job. We all do. And in these tough times, knowing that the next three years, there's no money. And where that money is going to come from is unfortunately left to the five of you to determine the best resources and allocation of those funds for the county. And we appreciate your consideration for what we believe is for the value of public safety. And we'll have a great impact on this community to support not only public safety, but all the other things that our peer departments are doing. And so with that, if you have any questions, we're here to answer.

Thank you. Questions? Did I?

So thank you for your presentation. I'll start with the slide, which was number two, staffing since 2020-21 through all the way up to the next page. I think this is a question for Mr. Beaton, actually. Is it possible for you to let me know what the growth in the Sheriff's Office budget has been over that period of time?

Thank you. Absolutely. We have a team working on a chart right now and we can have it available fairly shortly.

Would you say that public safety is prioritized by this board, which is demonstrated by a growth in the sheriff's department between 2020, 2021 and 2026, 2027?

Based on the actual expenditures during that time frame and the growth of the overall budget and the continued investment of general fund, I would believe that's a fair assessment to say.

Okay. And in regards to general fund dollars, would you say that it's on par or it's a higher proportion of general fund dollars that go to public safety?

We can do a comparison to other counties and have that information returned here shortly as well.

But in Monterey County?

In Monterey County, I do believe so, yes.

Yeah, I would say it's a higher proportion of general fund dollars, but we can take a look and see. I ask these questions because I'm trying to understand, and I mean this with all due respect, We get a presentation that shows you positions, it shows you technology, showed us even handguns, it showed us flock cameras, all things that could be argued or that you are arguing are necessary to provide public safety. But the Sheriff's Department budget or the Sheriff's Office budget is very different than any other budget. We could sit here today and say we want to fund the axon camera. We want to fund the four by four. We want to fund the position. But the reality is you don't need to use that money for that funding. You get to spend those dollars any way you want. And so it's almost like it feels to me like a game. And if we don't allocate a certain set amount of money that you've identified in this presentation to what you've identified it for, then you can turn around and say this board of supervisors didn't prioritize A, B, C, and D. When the reality is we can allocate a certain amount of money You can say it's for A, B, C, and D, but you don't have to spend it on A, B, C, and D. And so for me, it would be much more beneficial if we had a conversation about the budget allocation, because really you get to determine, unlike any other department, How you spend that money and then we won't be playing this game and and and if instead We want to talk about allocations because my next question to mr Beaton could be have we ever allocated money to you for a certain set thing that you didn't then use it for that certain set thing and Unfortunately, I'm afraid he would tell us yes And so I'm very uncomfortable by the way this happens each and every year. And I think we gotta come up with a new system because we all care about public safety. We all prioritize public safety, and we're not able to have a public safety conversation in this format. And again, I apologize for my frustration, but I don't know where we go from here. And I look forward to those numbers from the budget office.

Supervisor, I agree with you. The public should know what we're spending our money on and we should be spending on things that we're saying to the public. What I would ask is that the county becomes transparent across all departments and not just saying the sheriff's office, the sheriff's office, because we take the biggest chunk out of the general fund, which we really don't because that actually goes to Natividad and behavioral health. But we should do that across the board.

I would agree, but what I'd like us to understand better, and maybe the CAO can help me understand, is the difference, right? We provide the dollars for the sheriff's budget, and you get to determine how those dollars are spent. And that is different than the allocations we make throughout the day today to other

And maybe the CAO can clarify this, but this is all elected positions, correct? Not just the sheriff's office, all electeds.

Supervisor Daniels, our budget roughly has grown about $40 million over that time period. But I think it's also important to note, and I look forward to the data the CO's team is gonna present. It's important to note that Mr. Beaton made in his presentation that over the last nine fiscal years, the county's salary expense has gone up $267 million across the county. I think that's about a 9% increase he noted. So it's not just the sheriff's office budgets that have increased. And that's a cost factor that's due to general costs for personnel. that other departments and offices are the same as us for personnel, insurance, and all of those negotiated labor benefits and cost factors we can't do. So I definitely look forward to it. I agree. It's that cost. It's unfortunate government in general is getting expensive. And so we look forward to having that dialogue and seeing what the CO's team presents.

The microphone.

there's a shared responsibility for everyone. I mean, you're experiencing the jail healthcare costs, you've got obligations that we all recognize. And I think what I'd like to do is have a conversation about those rising costs. and and other mandates and yes labor costs are up across the board around the county and that's something we're here today trying to manage for because that is real and so I'm just asking for we just had a very long presentation about handguns and cameras and four by fours and airplanes and And unlike other departments, and maybe this would be true for all of the elected departments, we don't get to determine or allocate money, really, for handguns and 4x4s and airplanes. It's not how it works. Thank you.

I did want to touch on two things since I think it's important in the information that was provided as part of the recommended budget. There's two pages I want to draw your attention to. The first one is it's numbered page 44. May not be when you search for page 44. It may not take you there, but it's the page number 44 includes the portion of the general fund contribution that goes to the sheriff's department and other departments. It's about 41%. And then you go to page 102, numbered 102, and it gives you the expenditures. Sheriff's Department happens to be on this page, but in those pages it's expenditure and revenue history by department for all funds. Looking at year 22-23, the department received of the general fund contribution 97.8 million. This is the sheriff's office. The recommended budget today that's being discussed today currently has $126.1 million allocated in general fund contribution to the sheriff's office. So in terms of the difference, there is in percentage, you could see that the sheriff's office has had revenue coming in that's non-general fund. And in 22-23, it was about 35%. Today, as part of the recommended budget, it's 32%. oh yes and as to the question about the elected all elected departments uh... and council could probably give you the the exact uh... terminology but yes the board allocates the number of positions and certainly the the uh... related budget the electives do you have as electeds, they can choose where those dollars are assigned. And I think as a public, we hold folks responsible to what the services are. But certainly there is a bit of a different dynamic when it's an elected office.

All right, any other questions? From the board, yes.

I would just point to the budget book, right? Page 362 is you were saying, CAO De La Rosa, and just to Kate's point, Back in 2021, I think the budget was 129 million, and it rose to 184 for this coming fiscal year, which is a 555 million dollar increase. But from the chair's point of view though, there is a decrease in overall positions during that time. It was going up steadily, 22, 23, 24, 25, and then the last two years it dropped off quite a few, several dozen positions on that page according to what's indicated on that budget book. So there's something going on. The funding's going up, but the positions are going down, and I don't know if it's all explained by just the cost of doing government business and all the increase in all these other things, but you look at, there's been a significant increase, but yet the last two years we've seen a significant drop in positions, FTEs in the Sheriff's Office.

I think I'll just echo echo a desire to have some real conversations. I think the actions that I've experienced with this board are really to try our best to prioritize and to meet the requests every year that I've been here that the sheriff brings forward, both pre and before we get to even the augmentation point, having additional funding from the GFC general fund allocated, and then trying to be responsive to additional needs for funding. And I get it, for everyone, we're all, I think across the board, gonna struggle to meet those, to manage the changes to how public government funding works while still delivering quality services. But the point that I do hope that we can get to and that I think the public really does and the media needs to understand is that the point that Supervisor Daniels was was making and and that it's really hard for for us to sit here and be asked to fund additional specific items when the reality is is the the funding for those supplies and services sit as a total in the department and and it really isn't up to us to determine how how how those are prioritized through services and supplies departmentally wide for the sheriff's office. So we could allocate additional funding into that bucket of services and supplies, but the responsibility sits with the sheriff to know where the needs are greatest and to adjust over the course of the year how to allocate those funds where the need is greatest. So by us saying not allocating funding for services say the vehicle or one or the other, the airplane engine, it doesn't mean that the sheriff's office couldn't, within the services and supplies funding that is available, make those prioritizations within that pot of money that is provided. What you're saying though is you need more in order to do all of the things that are necessary to provide for public safety. And I think I just wanna say we hear that. But the point for the public is that we're not saying yes or no as a board of supervisors to any one of those specific things. That really does fall within the authority of the sheriff's office.

And then for the additional funding that we come in, everything that when we make those big purchases, and I think everything here is a big purchase, we do come from in front of the board and we do a report to sign the contracts. It's very transparent, so if somebody wanted to do the work, we don't have the bandwidth, they could look and say, what did the sheriff ask for? Did the sheriff buy that? But apparently, you think that I'm going out and buying a bunch of planes. I don't know, but the money's going for what we're asking for. The money is what I'm saying as the sheriff, and I want the public to hear that. Thank you.

And I'll just also say thank you.

Supervisor, can I just add one thing? Just because you noted it, like our services and supplies budget, year over year, and we could pull the data and I'd ask the CO team to supply that to all the board members. I mean, if we talk about our bug or struggles, that's the one area we've done good, where we've come in under budget on our services and supplies expenses. Pretty sure the last three fiscal years, all three years we've been under for our expenditures. The challenge has been our personnel cost as we have these mandated staffing levels in the jail driving overtime. And so, and that's really ballooned our, that's where we've led being over. But we have, and so we're not just taking that money and buying things because that's how we've been able to be under budget in that area. I just wanted to add that and I'll ask the CEO's team to supply that to the board just for.

content and then again I want to reiterate that so if you could supply that information to the board so we can be transparent with the public that the things that we're asking for that's what we're spending the money on

Thank you. And then the other thing I just wanted to say is thank you for the written statement about SCAP. I think that's literally what I've been asking for is for some additional information to be provided so that we can have a real conversation about the different programs, what they actually are, what information is shared. So thank you for providing that. And I just want to say I appreciate it. Agree with you want everyone to have accurate information about all of the discussions that we're having here So that's what we've been asking for appreciate it to supervisor Lopez.

Yeah, just just a final note on that question about the budget the positions and essentially changing a reduction in the amount of people, but the cost remaining flat. A lot of those decisions, I acknowledge, come from this board in terms of the negotiations over salaries. But I also want to thank this sheriff for the transparency around the overtime. That was always a big thing. We saw savings tucked away in positions that weren't utilized and then that kind of reverted to the question that was brought up by Supervisor Daniels about control. That's what former sheriffs would use to control that overtime piece. It was using empty positions to backfill overtime. And I think what we've received from this sheriff and this administration is a clarity around what those real costs are. And to us, I mean, that's those numbers and the costs of providing for the men and women who keep Monterey County citizens safe, I think there's more transparency in those numbers. I just want to give some appreciation for that. I know that there's a lot of challenges right now and asks at this point, and there's questions about process through Measure AA or direct, and we'll get to that, I think, at the end of the day. But thank you for the presentation and for putting those numbers forward.

Thank you, Supervisor, and I just want to thank all the supervisors because I know it's tough times, but we've really, my philosophy is that we're going to be transparent about their numbers, what we're spending our money on. I hope, my hope as the sheriff and being elected by the entire county is that the board moves out in that direction for the entire county, that our budget represents what it really costs to run our county. And so that's my wish both as a resident of this county and as the sheriff and unfortunately that's your burden to bear To you hold the budgetary strings for all of us and then we have to make decisions operationally

All right, any other questions? No, all right, thank you for the presentation. We're gonna take a lunch break, it's 12.40, we'll reconvene back here at 1.30 to complete our departmental presentations, thank you. All right, everybody. We are going to reconvene this budget hearing. It is just after 1.30 on Wednesday, May 27th. I'll let the record show that all supervisors are present. And we will continue on with our departmental presentations, starting with public works, facilities, and parks. And Randy's all ready to go.

Thank you very much and good afternoon chair members of the board as introduced I'm Randall Ishii director of public works facilities and parks and with me today are various staff members from the department of public works facilities and parks. The staff of the department are the ones who keep the product market infrastructure i.e. the roads open for our public so they can get from point A to point B from their homes to their their workplaces. They also maintain the county buildings so that people can come to the county to conduct their business and they also maintain the park and recreational open spaces that we have for our county constituents. This is a very difficult budget year and the department appreciates the opportunity to be able to parlay to your board for these additional requests that we have for our budget. In terms of the conversation for today, as shown on this presentation overview slide, we'll first talk about, in very brief, the department's overview and core functions, then the general fund budget overview and the unmet needs, then we'll go over our budget augmentations by priority, and then end by asking for a request for your support. This is a very wordy slide, and so in the interest of time, we will be brief in expressing that the department has core functions, which consists of both outside funded duties and general fund funded duties. And the range of the different outside funds ranges from the road fund itself, which is the source for funding the maintenance of the county's 1,260 miles of roads, 175 bridges and the road appurtenances, all the way to the special districts such as the 37 county service areas and the sanitation districts that are run by the county that are dependent special districts and then enterprise funds such as lake nascimento and laguna seca recreation area then moving on the slide captures the core functions that are general fund funded which is the work that the employees do for your county and there's a range of duties they do ranging from 2.7 million square feet of county-owned building space that they maintain and the grounds outside those county-owned buildings they conduct the county's Capital Improvement Program Five-Year Plan, also known as the CIP, they do the property management, they do utilities, they oversee the county disposal sites that have since closed, and host of other duties such as the fleet services for all the county vehicles, mail courier, and records retention for the county, as well as the 30,000 acres of parks and open space. That takes us to the General Fund budget's unmet needs for the department. This matrix is an overview of the general fund budget that was prepared and submitted as part of the baseline budget for this year's budget preparation process. As noted previously at the budget workshop, there were multiple baseline reductions that were needed in order to create a balanced budget. The methodology for the general fund funded units for their budget preparation was the same philosophy used by the other outside funds, such as the road fund. They cut any consulting services that were not necessary. They cut any non-mandatory trainings. They cut supplies. They cut services down as much as they possibly could. And to make a baseline budget that was balanced for the general fund units, they were at, and it took approximately $2.4 million in order to make a balanced budget. Of that currently, there's still two full-time equivalents in parks that the department had to reduce that we will be asking for your consideration for today. And during the budget workshop process, there was a discussion about the need for existing filled positions that would have otherwise have needed to be eliminated with the proposed budget. However, the department is very grateful that through the recommended budget that's brought to you today, the 12 facilities positions have been restored. as well as the A and B fire protection services for various county buildings. So the department greatly appreciates that those positions and that service was restored. But there's a little bit more need that we have in order to conduct county business for this next fiscal year of just existing baseline duties. This pie chart represents the unfunded augmentation requests that was also shown at the budget workshop. At this juncture, the department has pared back some of the requests and refined some of them. And so at this time, we have 22 augmentations that we're bringing forward that total approximately $3.75 million. And of that, a vast majority at almost $2.9 million are just base level services. Another set of services is mandated at $453,000. There's a mission-critical program increase that occurred that we're asking for for today. And then there's the balance of non-mandatory new programs that are being requested. And as noted in the pie chart, most all of these requests are for our facilities. That takes us to our budget augmentations, which are being brought to you in order of priority, with the highest priority first and descending in priority from there. Our first priority that the department has is a request for the parks salary savings at approximately $92,000. This is an augmentation that we brought previously and is also one that the department believes is Measure AA eligible. Our second priority is to restore our two vacant parks positions, one of which is a senior secretary in parks, and the other one being the senior parks utilities and water specialist, which is needed at the county's water treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants at the lakes. And this is also one that the department submits is Measure AA eligible. Our third priority is a mission-critical one that we mentioned in brief earlier, and that is for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, i.e., HVAC maintenance at $150,000. This is one that has liability and risk exposure to it, and it's, again, the ongoing maintenance for the HVAC and county buildings. And as a note, this was one that was supported by the board at the April budget workshop. And then moving on, our fourth priority is the facility unscheduled maintenance at approximately $1 million. This is one that we have brought consistently to the board year after year to the same amount. And historically, it has been funded through Fund 478. And the purpose of this augmentation and this service is that for any work that needs to occur at a county building that requires contractors, this is the funding source for that unscheduled and unanticipated work. Our fifth priority is one of our mandated ones, and that is the Fort Ord open space maintenance. There's... Hundreds of acres of land that had come to the county with the dissolution of the former Fort Ord Reuse Authority and to maintain the park's open space. The department is asking for $150,000 for maintaining that open space, in particular to do fire fuel vegetation management out there through the use of goat services and other means. And this is also one the department submits is Measure AA eligible besides being a mandated service. The next priority is for the Ranger Academy. With the new Rangers that are coming online, they do need training. And so this is one that we believe is both mandated and we submit is Measure AA eligible. The next mandated duty is the ongoing Como River Lagoon interim sandbar management, and that's the duty that usually in the wintertime county works, county public works crews will mobilize out to the Como River State Beach to dig the pilot channel after acquiring the necessary permits from the various regulatory agencies. in order to alleviate the flooding water elevations of the Cumberbatch Lagoon and prevent flooding of homes. This is one that was supported by the board, the April budget workshop. And again, it's a mandated duty. And then moving on, one of our newer services that we had brought forward as a budget augmentation request at the April budget workshop is a request from our special districts for three different Prop 218 studies. And this is a little bit different in terms of the other augmentation requests. This one, Specifically, these three would be structured as loans that, under a successful Prop 218, the 218 process would be structured such that the loan would be repaid back through the new rates established in the 218s. So for these three different CSAs slash special districts of CSA 17, CSA 44, and Bronte County Sanitation District, the values of each of the loan requests are on the screen and in the packets. And this is also one that the department submits is Measure AA eligible and was supported at the April budget workshop. Next priority is the restoration of the Laguna Seca Rifle and Pistol Range operating schedule. Based on the amount of funding that was available, at this juncture, the operating hours of the range being open and available to the general public would need to be decreased from the four days a week that it currently is at down to three days a week for this upcoming fiscal year. However, this request for $40,000 would be able to restore it back to its historical operations of four days per week. And this is also one that the department submits is Measure AA eligible. Moving on to our next priority, in our facilities branch, we need two replacement vehicles at approximately a total of $118,000. And they're both building maintenance vans that would be kitted out in order to mobilize, provide service to our county buildings. Should there be an appetite for that, that would be one that would help our facilities operations. Priority number 11 is a newer request. This is one that we have only recently brought to the board for consideration. This is a new service and it would be to provide facility preventative maintenance at an augmented rate to our county buildings and grounds. And the ask is for approximately a million dollars for this additional facility preventative maintenance. Moving on for our 12th priority, there's a request for installation of security systems at three different county building campuses. One of those is the Pajaro Library and Ad Commissioner's Office. The next one is the Veteran Affairs and the District 4 Office. And then the third one being the Castro Library and the District 2 Office. And as a note, for the Kestrel Library, that security system request came through our library services branch that the department's bringing forward for today. And of these three, two of them are eligible for Measure AA, and the one that does not appear to be is the Veteran Affairs and District 4 office. And so that is our 12th priority, and again, two out of the three are Measure AA eligible. Moving on, our next priority is for the component of our computer maintenance management system, i.e. CMS. We'll repeat that one more time. A computerized maintenance management system for our facilities division. And this is the more modern day way of doing work orders and historical accounting for the work that's needed on various components of county buildings and will give us a better picture into what the deferred maintenance costs are as well as the replacement costs that are necessary to put into our capital improvement program. And adjunct to this is the facilities master plan helps feed into those long-term decisions that are necessary to plan things out. The request here is for $115,000. And the final priority that the department submits is for restoration of some vehicle asset management program or VAMP funding for our general fund funded units. And the request is for approximately $340,000. Most of it is for our parks for the, payments into the program so they can replace some of their aged parks equipment. This matrix summarizes our augmentation priorities and shows them line by line with each of their amounts with the totals of each of the row entries representing each of the budget augmentation requests totalized at the bottom for approximately that same $3.75 million. As we include our presentation, there is a recognition of a loss of service that the department is able to provide if these augmentations are not funded. And some of these near-term decisions that are made could have long-lasting impacts. So one of the things that could occur with the loss of these augmentations is that with the loss of positions across the Parks Division, we would lose operational capacity and it directly impairs our service delivery and response capability. There is an error on the slide that staff is correcting. Positions are two parks positions, not parks and facilities. So it's two positions, not three positions as shown on this top row. Another issue that arises is that there's a regulatory and life safety issue. Without these augmentations it impairs our ability to perform mandated services like at the Fort Ward open space for unscheduled maintenance there And then the training for our Rangers through the Ranger Academy and then the common River Lagoon sandbar management activities leading to long-term issues and What this also could lead to is deferred maintenance and system failures. Without these, we have reduced ability to perform mission critical HVAC and unscheduled facility maintenance, which could lead to accelerated asset deterioration and higher long-term costs. Another result is that there be reduced public services that the department could provide. For instance, it prevents restoring rifle range operations to the four days per week, which is a change from the existing schedule that the public is able to enjoy. And lastly, there's a long term asset impact. Things such as the suspension of our vehicle asset management program or vamp contributions and continued lack of funding for preventive maintenance reduces our fleet replacement planning, and it also accelerates the asset deterioration at county buildings and grounds, as well as our parks. This concludes staff's presentation. We are available for questions or comments and we thank you very much for your audience today and for your consideration and any support that you can provide the department to continue its baseline level services. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Any questions from this board? No one jumped to the microphone. All right then. No questions. Thank you for the presentation and for all the work to that that the public public works facilities and parks team does Every day. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Sure is thanks to the staff

Okay, we're going next to Board of Commons questions. We're gonna continue on with the rest of our department presentations. I am going to ask Diello Salas, who's with us remotely, to make our Spanish interpretation announcement now. We missed that.

Muy buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Diego Salas, y seré su interprete en español para la reunión de hoy. If you are planning to make a public comment and need an interpreter, please speak slowly and loud enough for me to hear you. Please pause at the end of each sentence to make sure I have the opportunity to interpret you. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Diego. So we have some additional departments that we'll just sort of roll through. Michael, do you want to roll through the departments in case there's staff comments? Or would you like me to announce them, ask for comments from our department heads?

Your preference, Chair. If you don't mind, we would appreciate if you did.

Okay, great. So this will be just a chance for our departments to provide any additional information about any department that has not presented today. So I'll name the department if you're planning to speak or would like to make additional comments about a department that didn't have a presentation. If you can move to the front of the room so that we can move our way through these comments. So any comments or questions about the Board of Supervisors?

No.

Any comments or questions about the county administrative office?

No.

Any comments or questions about our CAO non-departmental? No. Our human resources departmental? Is Andreas online? Do you have comments from Andreas? You have a question? Question from the board.

On the county administrative officers and account outreach, You know, for $250,000. Is that just for generally through the county or any particular area that's looking at?

It would be in general, and it would be tied to Roxanne's team. Part of it is the partnership with Public Works as well. But the dollars would actually be allocated at the county administrative office as opposed to another department.

I'm not seeing Andreas raise his hand, so we'll move on to, oh, I see he's online as well. Andreas is everywhere. All right, so this was an opportunity for comment on any of the budget item, no, okay. Civil rights office. The treasurer tax collector. Our assessor clerk, assessor county clerk recorder. County Council departmental? No. County Council non-departmental? No. Clerk of the Board? Elections?

I know she was here earlier. Do you have her online? I just wanted to express for her, I know that she has a surplus for this year, I believe next year is when she may need support, so I wanted her to just let the board know, which I'm letting you know, she might need, this year she's gonna make it work, next year's probably gonna be a problem for her. And last year there was a, I think 144,000 that was placed from contingencies into her budget, this fiscal year, I'm sorry, 2220, I mean 2526, to allow her to provide the services that needed to be done. So just as a heads up that this year she'll have a surplus, she'll need it for next year.

Thank you. Information technology, IT. Anything from emergency communications? District attorney. I did just see our district attorney momentarily. She's there. Are there any comments or anything you want to let us know? Okay. Child support services. Probation.

Yeah, please. I just wanted to follow up on the question that was asked earlier about the Silver Star being moved from Rancho Cielo over to Hartnell College. And the question I have is, is this a change in the students that will receive, the population that will receive the benefits of the program in this shift? Does that mean that it would no longer be the students that were receiving the program at Rancho Cielo. It was something that was said earlier about it moving over to serve veterans?

Yeah, I believe it was one position. I think they said it was being funded through the Workforce Development Board, and it's currently one position that is serving students at Rancho Cielo through the Silver Star program, but then it said it's going to be redirected for veteran services, and then you had mentioned

Through some program that has no charge to the county at Hartnell College So left a lot of questions that we were gonna bring up Let me let me provide some clarification in terms of the Workforce Development Board I think it was a very small number of people that were being supported through that but a chief can share there's the Resource that's available through heart now will allow for us to serve even more people the funding The the concern with the Silver Star is that it was a portion of funding and it wasn't the full funding for the position So that's why we need to put it in a place where it actually is fully funded the one point two five but Chief if you could share as to heart now

Yeah, and you're talking about two different people that we're serving. Silver Star is helping youth, and I checked with Chris Devers, who runs Rancho Cielo. He said this position is currently serving students who supervise the program, and they pick up students from home. They take them home later in the day. And now, then we're switching to say, oh, this position is going to now serve veterans instead, instead of Rancho Cielo youth, and it's going to be through this free program at Harnell. So it's leaving a lot of confusion about what are we actually doing here.

Thank you, if it's okay. So when we started looking at the Silver Star program and working with the director of our Workforce Development Board and the operations that we have, we were going through the history of when this program was originally developed and the funding that was assigned to the Workforce Development Board for this population. At one time, the support for the population was, I believe, I don't have the charts in front of me, but I believe it was 50 or so youth or above. Based on the current funding that's available in our discussions with the Workforce Development Board, and I don't know if the director's online right now, he might be able to explain a little bit better than I can, but the projection was that it was only gonna be able to serve about 14 youth, and that's just to help them with getting educational training and kind of job workforce training. We also then had a discussion with Chief Ramirez and his team about the alternative options that are available, at which point we learned about the Hartnell College component, which is free to the youth, I'll say free to the youth, I don't know if I said that right, free to the youth through the Heart Now program that would qualify and provides the same level or if not better educational component to the youth. That is at least our current understanding, and I don't know if the director of our workforce development is online or if Chief Ramirez has anything additional. We also did inquire with Chief Ramirez if there would be an impact to the youth in his system, and I think at the time, I don't want to speak on behalf of anybody, I thought we identified that there would be really no impact to that youth. That's correct.

Well, that's not what I emailed Chris Donnelly, but I think he's out on leave right now. And I reached out to Chris Deavers and he says it's opposite. He said these are Serene Youth. And the information provided on the slide says that it says field positions were previously allocated to the Silver Star program will now be redirected to support social services programs, including direct services for veterans they' re not serving the veterans at rancho cielo and this is a full position 1.0 ft workforce investment board employment program representative and a .25 ft workforce investment board employment program supervisor. So anyways, I would be opposed on making this change without having more facts about what are we switching to and getting more information from Rancho Salo because his director is saying it's serving the program, they're picking up youth, they're serving them in the program, And I don't know if that number is right or not, about how many youth they're serving, but nonetheless, this has been a long-established program that has been one of the greatest partnerships between probation and Rancho Cielo. And then saying they're going to go to some free program at Harnell without getting any details makes me even more reluctant to do that change at this time.

Supervisor, I have a response to your question, and I believe Debbie's also in the room. The issue with the position is that there's lack of funding, so we needed to move the position from where it's currently allocated because of that loss of funds, but we wanted to avoid a filled position layoff, So the way to avoid that is to try to tie it to other services, but it's a reduction in funding from the Workforce Investment Board. So we moved it over just to keep the position and avoid the layoff. We still need to look at it further because the funds that are gonna sustain it for this year are gonna be general fund, but going forward, we need to find another alternative.

but I would say some of this stuff should come through the budget committee. We had a really short budget committee yesterday, right? That's where we could filter and analyze and get more information on it because We have no information on what the Workforce Development Board's budget is. I'm on the board, and I haven't heard that they're having to cut positions until now, so that surprised me. I've been on there for the last two, three years, and they haven't said they're gonna have to cut some of these positions. This is the first time I hear it. It didn't come to budget committee, and so to say, oh, there's not no funding, it'd be nice to get that background in a memo saying, we lost this stream of funding through the federal WIOA, whatever, but there's none of that. We're just saying, The money's not there and we're making these changes without much input from Rancho Cielo and not getting the numbers. How many youth are not going to be served by these positions? And then is really the Hartnell program a true replacement for what this program is doing? It doesn't sound like it. I mean, that's Hartnell. All their services are on-site at Rancho Cielo.

And we could provide additional information for your board to make a decision. It was a reduction in funds at the federal level, and we were working to address it, but we certainly bring it forward. For now, if the board chooses, it is general fund that's funding the position. So if there's a support from the board to ensure that the services are still provided, this individual could potentially still serve that population while also serving individuals that, you know, through our veteran service office as well. As we try to figure out what blend of funding might be able to keep the position, but we understand that in terms of general fund, it's not gonna be sustainable. So we just need to look at those alternatives. For now, this is a stop gap. you know, give us a little bit of time to consider it, take care of it for one more year, and then allow us to look at what's going to serve best. And if it is the partnership with Rancho Cielo, I think just looking at what the funding potentially could cover, and then if there is an ability to also serve the veterans, if that's the will of the board.

Yes, I think we should put on one of those things to poll to get more information and then be able to take further action on down the road rather than approving this at this point in time.

The only thing is the funding's not there, so we do need to support the position with general fund. To continue it? Yes.

Yes, okay.

At least as we explore the other alternatives.

Yeah, if we could put that on the list of items to kind of recap at the end.

if i could just ask one more question so if i'm understanding correctly it's a it's a it's a county position that we're talking about and it was funded by the workforce development fund yes and that is a fund that's impacted by the federal budget cuts yes and and what my commitment was to avoid any layoffs and this is one of those positions that was potentially impacted so

That's one of the corrections that we're asking the board to make to allow us time to take a look at the position and what other revenues might be available. We were working with Roderick's team. It could be that there's an additional support there as well. Thank you, Chief.

If I could just say one thing. So good afternoon. Just a recommendation. It probably needs to be retitled because it's not necessarily a Silver Star position. So we're back there trying. We're talking about it. We went all the way back to 2014 as far as the history on it. But I think it probably needs to be retitled to something else because it will probably continue to come up in a couple of years from now.

Yes, and right now the position is only for the Workforce Investment Board. We do need to work with HR and that'll be part of what happens during the course of the year to try to take a look at that position and what makes sense based on what they could potentially cover, including the Rancho Cielo work.

Thank you.

Anything else from probation? No, thank you. Okay, thank you. All right, we'll move on. Comments, questions about agricultural commissioner's budget? Anything from housing and community development? No, I don't see hands raised. No hands raised. We'll ask for any comment from our health department director. Any comments, nothing? Nope, okay, thank you. We have questions here on the dais.

You brought it up too, Madam Chair, just on the funding for, with the changes of the Mental Health Services Act. And in our past few meetings, we had different community organizations concerned about the steep cuts. I especially wanted to address the concerns about loss of funding for the Alliance on Aging, just because they provide a unique service to our seniors throughout the county and the only organization that does that kind of service for that community. that segment of our communities. And so I wanted, I hope our board would consider at least stepping in here. And I know this is out of your department's hands. These were all changes that the legislator made. Your staff said in our budget hearings and in our 4-H committee that These impacts would happen if Prop 1 passed, and here the moment is, and drastic cuts to these nonprofits that provide critical service to people of all ages. So they've come to us at several meetings and individually, but it's one of those questions to see, can we help mitigate some of that pain in light of this drastic change from one year to the next for these organizations that are on a shoestring budget?

Good afternoon, board chair, members of the board, CAO De La Rosa, and Council Pledge. Miriam Endocin, Assistant Director of Health Services, and Supervisor Alejo, you are correct. The department is out of funds. new BHSA does not make any provision for, does not contain any funding for prevention and early intervention, and we, along with a lot of the population, did not, this is one of the things that we knew was gonna happen, and we didn't want it to happen and unfortunately it came to pass and unfortunately the department at this point has no other funding that is appropriate for us to continue to support these services.

Can you specify how many organizations will, I know some are getting some continued funding, the meetings that happen where some organizations were able to get more, others were cut pretty drastically, and some will get cut to a point where they might not be able to continue providing their service, even with $200,000 or whatever they were receiving from the Behavioral Health Bureau. But how many organizations are impacted, just so we can refresh everybody's memory on

You know, my apologies to you, I don't have that in front of me, but we can make sure to get that to your board for your information.

Okay. Yeah, we got some more time, so I don't know if your staff could get it. What organizations and how much are they being cut? It'd be good to know that, to be able to see the full picture, but then decide if we could provide any assistance to any of those organizations.

Sure, let me connect with the staff and get the information to you as soon as possible. Thank you.

And before you step away, just to follow on that set of questions, in my understanding and in looking at our budget and the BHSA transition from MHSA, my understanding is it's about $8 million that's moving out of that prevention and early intervention into the housing focus. And I think there was a presentation that we received that had a list of every single organization with the specific amounts of money. So thank you for asking, again, to have that refreshed. But the question, my specific question is, as we think about health department and behavioral health specifically, and we understand that there is this future revenue source of the increased Medi-Cal productivity that is about or was previously conveyed to us to be about $8 million a year, which is equivalent roughly to what was lost. When we'd asked about that during the BHSA presentation, it was explained that it would take, you know, right now we're only receiving a portion of that and we're gearing up, so over the coming years, we would have, we would get to that $8 million, and we're only like at what I think was like two or three million currently. But is any of that productivity revenue available in a future year where if we have organizations who are providing essential community services and what they really, if we're able to identify maybe what that pot looks like and what the bridge funding for that to keep that, getting a program up and running is very difficult. But if we have programs that are effective and up and running currently, and all we're needing is a one-time bridge funding to keep those programs going, knowing that on the next year out, we're likely to have additional

revenue available to to to fund those essential programs that's the information that i'm looking for in this conversation so i think i think uh as that additional revenue starts to generate potentially that could be a conversation whether you know it there is a level of funding that can be made available to to um you know to to provide a gap funding for these organizations at this time it's too early to make that determination but that conversation can that can be entertained once we continue to generate that additional revenue.

Maybe I wasn't clear, so I think if we were going to fund, if this board was going to consider funding GAP funding today for the coming year, knowing that there, it's one thing to extend a program that you know is going to come to an end, even when it's important. It's a different thing to say, hey, we know we're going to have funding for this program a year from now, and what we really need to do is keep it running in the interim period of time while we establish the other source of funding. So my question is, what do we know about that future funding and its availability to backfill any of those programs? That's the conversation I'm hoping to have.

So today, for this, for the 27-year budget, there wouldn't be any additional funding. All of the available funding has been obligated in the 26-27 budget. Yeah, I understand that.

But if we were to use, say, one-time general fund money, which would be the option that we have as a board to say these are priorities and we want to make sure that we continue them for one year while we wait for... health department funds to become available.

Okay, so I understand you're saying that general fund would be for this year, and then as we explore behavioral health, additional funding from behavioral health for future years. Is that your question? That's my question. Right, and that's what I'm saying. We would have to continue to evaluate the additional revenue being generated to be able to tell you a... develop a solid projection that is sustainable into the future and that we would be able to sustain these agreements for the foreseeable future. At this point, we don't have that level of confidence to be able to provide you that if we committed to a certain kind of funding that we could go indefinitely into the future. So we're not there today, but that's a conversation that can continue to be had with us, and we can continue to work on that and provide that to you.

Okay, and I think I would like for us to have that conversation. I think that's why I asked the BHSA proposal plan to come before the board before we were facing having to approve it so that we could understand what some of the cuts meant, what some of the options were for either sunsetting on a slower pace that allows some of these organizations to find other options. or to determine which of the organizations and services and programs we might want to take one-time funds to bridge until there is funding on the other side. But if we don't know what that funding is on the other side, if we're not clear about what is eligible, I think we are looking for more information on those points.

Sure, and we can continue to work on that information and provide you an update in the coming months so that we can make a plan for the 2027-28 budget and have a better idea and be able to give you solid information that you can use for future decision making.

Okay, as I know these organizations are losing funding, they're coming to a hard end at the end of June. We don't have a lot of time for us to be able to make some of those choices. So I know the BHSA plan is coming back to this board for approval, and so maybe that's a timeline that we could be prepared to look at some options. But that was my question. Any other questions, Sonia?

I think just in terms of clarification, just given that the BHSA plan is still being reviewed and the Health Department is still assessing and looking at the productivity funds that might be coming in, this may be a situation where you may want to support funding but also reevaluate as to whether or not it's going to be something that's going to be sustainable so i think in terms of that as you look at one time dollars you know eyes wide open that this is only going to be for a certain period of time while we reevaluate and then The other question is also with this service going away, what other resources are people being tied to? And I know certainly we have a hotline that they could call, but are there other resources that are out there now through the health department that may be able to support? You mean in terms of prevention services? Not prevention, but let's say you have somebody that's experiencing, that is working to help somebody that is having suicidal thoughts. or suicidal ideation of some kind, and they're in their 60s or 70s, or the age range that you typically serve through the AAA, I'm just curious of what resources are left that they can go to, and I think that's unclear. I had asked about it, and I was kind of given a number, It's more than a number, right? Because some folks are going to be in a situation where they just need resources.

It really just depends. You know, it depends. There's the hotline, but there are even our own clinics, right? It depends where the individuals call. It can be a crisis situation where, you know, where other partners intervene and step in. But, you know, it just really depends.

Fabricio, you have your hand raised from the Health Department.

I do, and apologies. I was in another meeting, but I believe there was a question asked about the number of entities that were being impacted and the dollar amount as a result of PHSA. And so I'm not sure if Miriam covered this, but we did have meetings one-on-one with them. We also had a meeting with the whole group. And it's a total of 21 entities, and the total cuts for all of them adds up to approximately $6.9 million. $6.7, I apologize.

Thank you, Fabrice. I think that's what we were looking for. And if there's a copy of that slide from that presentation, if you could email that over to the clerk to distribute, we would be grateful. Thank you.

Yes, we can do that.

Okay, thank you. Any other comments?

No, just going back to the seniors and what our CAO was just saying, we know we have a lot of seniors that live alone, live isolated, and as was talked previously by some of the folks, sometimes facing depression and and these this peer and this counseling support has been life-saving and so I think that's right for me it's one of those critical services that we got to take a close look at pay special attention but also look at the other organizations as well but I'm hoping that we might be able to at least mitigate some of the hurt to that service that really serves so many of our seniors throughout Monterey County. And I know MJ Donahues, he'll speak during public comments, so thank you for coming to speak on this later.

Thank you. All right, we can go to social services. Do we have anyone in chambers? No, you guys?

Okay.

Okay. Any questions, social services from the dais? No. Okay, we'll go to library.

Larry Thayer, library director for Monterey County Free Libraries. Listening to the presentation this morning, I just wanted to speak briefly to the item in our budget that is adding 0.7 FTEs in staffing. That may look like it's going against the county direction. It is all funded from the library fund and it is core staffing because we are building two new branch libraries. So the Bradley staff was set to be at a 0.3 FTE, which would open Bradley about 10 hours a week. After consideration of the need, what's going to be in the building, we agreed it was best to raise that to a .5 and change the Bradley hours to the 18 hours a week that our small branches are at. So a .2 of that is being attached to a .3 to become a .5. The additional .5 is the new staff slated to be for the East Garrison branch. We are putting them in our budget this year so we can work with HR on recruitment timelines especially for Bradley we want to do a wide swath recruitment outside of the peninsula area reaching down into Paso and slow and we want to have these employees fully trained having gone out to the communities ready to roll when with these branches open so it is to maintain a core service which is maintaining your branch library hours but we are adding staffing and they're all from the library fund

Thank you. All right, we'll go next to Natividad Medical Center. Any comments from NMC? Any questions from the dais? No. All right, that's everyone. So we, let's see here, we're going to do one other presentation from our Budget Analysis Division about alternatives to the soft hiring freeze, and then we'll have some discussion.

Thank you, Chair. We were planning on doing the, just for order here, we were planning on doing the soft hiring freeze concept after we do the discussion about augmentations availability. This gives us the option if there is a position or positions that get funded through the augmentation process, it'll change the slides or the positions related to the soft hiring freeze. But we can do any order you'd like. I think we've got to hear public comments before we have board deliberation.

Yeah, so we'll bring the soft hiring freeze in back after. Okay, fine, great. Okay, so let's take it open to public comments. This would be public comment on any of our departmental presentations that we heard partly this morning and partly this afternoon. And I've got some... Some names here I can call, or you can come on up. And we've got two minutes on the clock for everyone. And we'll just ask to maintain the decorum of the space, allowing time for whoever is speaking. And if you could help watch the clock so that I don't have to be in a position of interrupting anyone, I would be grateful for that. Thank you.

Hello, everyone. My name is MJ Donahue, Executive Director for Alliance on Aging. I'd like to begin by thanking all of you for your service during these unprecedented times and to thank Behavioral Health for the incredible work they continue to do in our community. I want to touch briefly on a few points I did not mention at our last meeting. Do you know how difficult it is to raise money for seniors and their needs? We're not cute little animals or adorable children, both absolutely deserving of support. We are too often the forgotten as we face the greatest challenges of our lives. Without government support, the majority of senior programs across this nation would cease to exist. More than anyone, seniors need good people like you to stand up for us, to ensure the lives we spent building this county are treated with dignity and respect in the final chapters of our life. The Alliance on Aging Senior Peer Counseling Program has provided more than 38,000 hours of counseling services throughout Monterey County in both English and Spanish. We meet seniors and adults with disabilities where they are often in their homes, and our funding for this program has been completely eliminated. This is not simply a program, it's a lifeline. It is a life-saving service that speaks directly to the dignity, compassion, and human connection that so many other adults deserve, but too often do not receive. I ask you to put yourselves in our shoes, or in the shoes of your parents, your grandparents, tios, tias. What would you want for them? Alliance on Aging does not have the financial reserves to sustain this program on our own. We need the bridge funding at the very minimum. I'm asking you today to restore this funding because without it, this program will end and the consequences will be not theoretical but human. More than 91,000 seniors in this county are watching and they have earned your support. Please restore this funding for we are all in this together and together we can do great things. I thank you for your service.

Adam Chair, Supervisors, Gary Curcio, Director of Government Affairs for the Monterey County Hospitality Association. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today in support of See Monterey and continued investment in destination marketing in Monterey County. See Monterey plays a critical role in bringing high value visitors here from long haul markets. Visitors fly in are extremely valuable to our region. They stay longer, do more, and spend more here. We've earned a new nonstop Chicago flight just launched in this past weekend at Monterey Regional Airport. In addition, we've also earned larger flights to Los Angeles, Denver, Dallas, and Fort Worth. Together, these flights create a tremendous opportunity to market to visitors who will come here and support our small businesses and generate revenue throughout the county. Sea Monterey continues to deliver a very strong return on investment for Monterey County. For every dollar invested in destination marketing, Sea Monterey generates almost $500 in visitor spending back to the local economy. Sea Monterey also serves as a valuable resource and communications hub for local residents and jurisdictions during major events like Car Week, helping to manage communications, and regional coordination. Again, in today's highly competitive environment, destinations must actively compete for visitors, meeting events, and air service. Your investment in Sea Monterey is critical to Monterey County's long-term success as a destination in creating a thriving community to live, work, and play on. Thank you for your leadership and support.

Good afternoon, Chair, Supervisors. I'm Rick Aldinger. I chair the Government Affairs Committee for the Monterey County Hospitality Association. And I am urging you to fund See Monterey once again this year at the full 6% that is outlined in the Development Set-Aside Program. Sea Monterey's efforts for businesses in Big Sur during the three-year closure caused by Paul's and Regent's slides was instrumental in those businesses surviving for that three-year period, allowing them to provide more shifts, more hours for the workforce in Big Sur and up here on the peninsula. Not to mention their efforts in getting the word out when Regent's slide finally was reopened and we needed the tourism to come back. Their efforts helped immeasurably in making that happen for all of us. Sea Monterey also is a critical partner for the small mom-and-pop hospitality businesses in Monterey County. Businesses without their own marketing departments, they partner, we partner with Sea Monterey to amplify our message and get the folks that we need to be successful to come and visit our establishments. And finally, I just want to point out something I think you all know, that when hospitality thrives in Monterey County, we all thrive. Hospitality, the visitors who come here and patronize our businesses, provide the revenue that allow all of us, this board of supervisors and the rest of us, to support the services and needs of our communities. Thank you very much.

Hi, I'm Waverette LaMountain, a resident in Marina. I wanted to extend Alliance on Aging. That's important. Cutting benefits for general assistance, $100, $50, that's life-saving money. I really think we have to prioritize the weakest among us. and give them the opportunity to thrive. Three months is not a long enough time to turn your life around when it's falling apart. I worked in Los Angeles in