Remarks by Vicki L. Lopez
190 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 4 of 8
- Play at 7:19
“Thank you. Second. I have a motion by Commissioner Gonzales, seconded by Commissioner Cohen-Higgins. All in favor?”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 7:27
“Aye. Okay, so I also have a request to waive 3B, 3C, and 3D to the July 21st BCC meeting. Are there any other requests to waive onto the meeting? Okay. Is there anything else remaining, County Attorney, on the agenda?”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 7:50
“Okay, very good. Then we'll move to the discussion item. So we have a budget presentation by the Internal Compliance Department. If you're ready, you may approach.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 8:27
“Thank you so much. You're recognized, Director.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 16:02
“Thank you, director. Are there any questions of the director on her presentation? Commissioner Cohen-Higgins, you're recognized.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 16:47
“Thank you. Any further questions? Seeing none, thank you so much, Director, for your presentation.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 16:53
“Now we'll hear from the Strategic Procurement Department.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 17:05
“Good morning, Director. You're recognized.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 26:34
“Thank you, director. Are there any questions of the director in our presentation? Commissioner Cohen-Higgins, you're recognized.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 33:02
“Yes, Commissioner Gonzalez, you're recognized.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 39:55
“No, but you can come up as well. I have questions for both of you. So we'll start out with vacancies, which has always been a pet peeve of mine in budgeting. So some of you both of you said you were obviously reducing personnel. Do you have a schedule of the remaining vacancies that you have in an aging for those vacancies? You don't have to have them now, but do you have it?”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 40:20
“You do have it. So I'd like to see those. I'm collecting them for all the departments that are making budget presentations. It's important for me to see the aging, because you may have gotten rid of some of the vacancies, but I want to I will need to know how you justify keeping any vacancy in your budget that is greater than 90 days. Okay, so that's just giving you full warning on that. Namida, you talked about the constitutional officers in your presentation. I'm a little confused. So how much of, because we've heard from the constitutional officers on Monday. How much of what you're doing,…”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 41:50
“Sorry to interrupt. I'm referring to who your customers are, and you had constitutional officers as your customers, so I'm trying to... Yes, so sheriff's office... ...as you're giving to which constitutional officers would be helpful for us to...”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 42:30
“Okay, so it'll be helpful for us when you can give us the numbers as to what the value of that service that you're giving them, because then I'm going to ask them what are they doing on their end as well. So I also wanted to talk with you, Namita, about the Strip Committee. So their recommendations, when will those be presented to us?”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 43:03
“That's a great question. I'm not quite sure. It's been a question I've been asking since apparently you've all been doing your work. And it's the one place that I love to drill down on, which is procurement. As you know, as we have seen some of the procurement processes be questioned, I've had concerns about how we procure things. So it's important for me to understand the work of the Strip Committee, its recommendations, and whether or not there were any savings as a result of their recommendations. Because I'm hopeful that not only were we increasing efficiency by having created a Strip…”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 44:27
“So hopefully someone will be able to tell me when I'm going to see those recommendations. That's one question. The other, you mentioned, Namra, that when you were evaluating systems, you mentioned that many don't speak to each other. I'd like a listing. I was a member of the House's IT committee when we did this work and I thought it was a very useful exercise to understand where are the deficits in our IT systems or in any system that doesn't speak to each other. So I'd like a list of all of the systems that are not speaking to each other. And if they are speaking to a system, which ones? I…”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 46:05
“Okay. Yeah, no, just the ones you were referring to. Okay, yes. Because I find it curious that we know that they don't speak to each other. So it is a known fact that we're inefficient, and that's costing us money. So I'd like to know which ones those are. In addition, you mentioned in your proposal, under your priority initiatives, you had budgetary impact. And, you know, I see that there's no budget impact. Where do I see savings? I don't hear savings. Let me tell you why I ask this question. When the governor's budget would come to my committee, I said, great, thank you. Then I would meet…”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 47:10
“That means that what we were spending, so let's assume I was spending $100 million last year. Is there anywhere where you can tell me in that $100 million budget that you were able to achieve some savings?”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 47:46
“So your budget contemplates eliminating 50 positions?”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 47:50
“Okay. So that means, were those filled positions? Yes. So have they been terminated or you just moved them to another department?”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 48:09
“You see where I'm going, right? Yeah. It makes zero sense to me to tell me that you eliminated 50 positions, but then I find out that those 50 people are somewhere else in the budget through the chair.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 49:51
“It doesn't undermine the savings. No, no, I appreciate that very much. However, you know me, truth in budgeting, you're going to hear me say this until we're done. The public deserves to know that that's what you did, right? The public deserves to know that you, one, eliminated vacancies, if they were vacancies. Two, if you had to terminate people, how many left the county and how many did you place in another position within the county? Because in fact, I don't know that that's called a savings. That's called a transfer in my book, in my accounting book. So you have to be very clear when…”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 52:42
“That's exactly what I wanted to hear. I should not have to ask this question is what I'm saying. You should be very clear. We're moving people to the clerk and the clerk's going to need that very money that was in my budget is now going to his budget. So again, it's not a savings. You see where I'm going? This is why the public, listen, I'm just stressed that we are not transparent with every one of these details. because that's what the public is requiring and they deserve. And certainly my colleagues and myself need to, in order to make a decision, in order to go out there and tell the…”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 1:05:19
“I will just say before I recognize Commissioner Cohen-Higgins that not only were we able to save money at the state, we were able to put money in reserve, which is critically important. And currently, as we face what could be a severe reduction of revenues with the property tax reform constitutional amendment, we should really be thinking about saving for that rainy day because it is here. You're absolutely right, Commissioner Gonzalez. It's raining, and it's going to start storming. And we need to be fiscally responsible. And I know that I think I speak for all of the members of this…”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026
- Play at 1:11:58
“Clearly, and I'll ask the Chair to give us the authority to call special meetings to drill down on each and every one of the department's budgets. Vice Chairman, you're recognized.”
Intergovernmental and Economic Impact Committee · Jul 15, 2026