Human Services Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Welcome to the 04/08/2026 early meeting of the human services advisory board. I'm calling you to order at 06:01PM. Thank you everyone for attending. This evening, Alyssa Ramirez is attending the meeting on audio only, so she will not count toward the forum and not allowed to go since she is not visible in the camera. But she will be able to the meetings, ask questions, and such. Carol, will you please call and roll for the record of board member attendance?

Okay. Yancey Aravallo?

Present.

Raymond Best?

Here.

Linda Harper Williams?

Here.

Ethan Graves?

Here.

Sharif Gassiz?

Here.

And Madeline Smith? Here. And that's all advocacy.

Great. With six out of seven voting members sentenced, we do not have a forum. So now it is time for the citizen comment period. Anyone is allowed to speak on any topic for every three minutes. If you'd like to speak during the citizen comment period, we can't have anyone online, personally.

So the only citizens we have that are not members of the board, etcetera, are Alexis Jaramillo and Joe Castillo. Anyone? Nope? Okay.

We're moving on to minutes. Minutes from the March meeting have not been written and will be provided to the board prior to a later meeting. Presentation. Now we will receive an approval from the internal participation by the following applicant agencies for each program for which an agency has applied for human services grant funding. Each presentation will be followed by a ten minute question and answer session between board members and the agency regarding the program or application. And Kara will will introduce each presentation and will prepare for the time. Alright, Kara. Go ahead.

Okay. First up is Faith Helping Hands. With us today, we have Joe Castillo. He's the president. Joe, if you could go ahead and move up to the table, that might be better. First, he'll be presenting on the community assistance program, and

then second, on shoes and coats. What we do ask is that each presentation is separate,

so you're considering each program separately. So first one is community assistance. And, Joe, you're welcome to begin. Joe, if you'll give Lorena one, she's city staff, she's in my place, and we'll be sure Yes.

We'll send send it

to everybody else. Yeah. And

I'll send y'all a electronic copy. That way, you don't have to scan it.

Okay. Great.

And

my name is Joe Castillo. I'm the president of Hays Helping Hands, formerly Nosotrojente. And I would like to thank the human service adviser board for giving me the opportunity to speak to you this evening. For over twenty five years, our organization has served our community by providing essential needs that possibly impact lives. With precise providing schoolchildren with new pair of shoes or winter coat, the organization has provided funds for funeral, rent, utilities, and medical assistance.

So and, of course, our organization has no paid staff. So but due to the increase and, also, I would like to thank you all for, you know, providing us funds for the current fiscal year. It's something that I think has will definitely benefit the organization. But due to an increase in the number of requests we continue to receive, on average, five by eight requests a week, and it varies from time of the month. So, usually, the middle of the month is kinda quiet, but towards the end or at the beginning, you know, everybody's trying to pay their bills.

So that's when we we usually get our spike in our inquiry and request. And then if you speak to other social agencies like Southside or Saint Vincent de Paul, South Asian Army, Enhanced Canada will tell you that they have seen a spike in the number of people requesting assistance. And to be able to assist the growing needs of the citizens in our county, the agencies have actually partnered together our resources. That way, not one one agency isn't, you know, funding the entire request. So which then helps us provide assistance for more more people.

And I I did a quick count from and I basically just started keeping track of the numbers from, like, 2024 or 2025 and and the current year. So back in 2024, we had about total of 66 requests. And the bulk of and here in San Marcos, which is obviously more focused for what y'all are looking at is we had, like, 59 requests of citizens living in San Marcos. And then for 2025, we had a total of 323, and 242 of those were from San Marcos. And for the current calendar year, we've had a total of 88.

64 of those are from San Marcos. So it it continues to and a lot of people, like, we're one of the few agencies that provides utility assistance. So, you know, they'll go to, like, Saint Vincent de Paul or Salvation Army. But a lot of times, if they get medical assistance, they can't go back to the agency. Yes.

So they'll they'll approach us. So that's the thing that's kinda I know the city has a utility assistance program. Not sure where the funds are for that, but that seems to be the prevailing thing that and a lot of these are first time clients that have never requested assistance in the past. And so they're they're kind of not sure where to go, so we kinda try to do the best. And the bulk of the requests I get are referred from Southside.

So, obviously, they already have kind of evaluated their situation for that client, and then they refer them to us, and then we're able to and the max we've been doing is about a 150 per per request. So whether it's utilities, rent, not really a whole lot of funeral, but mainly it's the utilities and rent is what what we're experiencing. And I think that's pretty much all I have. And as far as, like, the name change, our founder of our organization passed away over a year ago, and the board met, and we just kinda decided to, you know, continue our current our original mission, but under a different name. So and and I don't know.

Something had to and that's thing we're trying to deal with is, you know, the branding of the new name because people don't I don't realize it's the same organization. So that's been a kind of a challenge, but we have a board that's very energetic. Just once we've kinda stabilized the new name, hopefully, we'll be able to do some some fundraising and things like that here going forward. But that that's pretty much all I I have on authorization. Okay.

So then we could go ahead and start the question and answer period. Alright. The people who are like, board members who are online, I've muted all of you, so you'll have to unmute. You're welcome to ask any questions, and we usually just roll into speaking. You don't have to raise your hand unless it gets awkward, and then we'll start doing that. So please feel free to start that phase.

I guess we can go ahead and start out it. We have the numbers. Like, we all had surveyed.

I'm sorry, Ethan. I'm having trouble hearing you, so I think everybody else is too, probably. Yeah. Actually that'd be great. It just seemed muffled.

Okay.

So are you guys do you think you're roughly on track to be the same number of people this year that you did last year, or do you think it'll end up being more by the time you get to it?

It'll probably be more. More. I I have because it's I have a part time jobs that I do also. So and so, I mean, I'm pretty much the only one that oversees the the process of the request. And I'm probably about a week behind process of request I have and report I mean, first big stack of them. So, yeah, I don't see things slowing down at all, which is kind of a sad thing. I mean, it'd be better if things were would decrease, and there'll be no need for for I mean, we can help other things. But just the way the economy is and where people are struggling, I don't see it decreasing.

I know we asked you this the last time about parent liaison.

Yes.

Has that been about the same type of situation? Not having the parent liaison still?

Well, for this particular program, we really don't

Oh, sorry.

Yeah. Well, but we we kinda well, we kinda do news the the parent liaison or school counselors. One that we're we're that kinda refers a lot to me is Diana Romero over at the Miller Middle School. The other schools, I don't think they're really one time to time, but majority of them are coming from from her school. And she kinda screens them for us. But, yeah, you you're right. And we'll get to that in the next step. Oh, no. No. No. No problem. But it's still but it's still related. Mean Yes.

It's

Okay. I wanna know. Can you tell me what fundraisers you all did last year for the year?

Mainly, we like, we have a gumball machine in a couple of local restaurants, so we we get donations from that. And just and mainly the part of problem was is that the name transitioned, so we're kinda holding off on on change before the name change or to actually send out requests. So that's the thing I'm hope planning on doing here in the next few months. And then I know we're talking about maybe doing some other fundraising this coming this year to kinda offset. Luckily, we've had some reserves from past years that we didn't use.

So I've been we've been using that, but we can only do that for so long. And so but and we have enough there that we can kinda complement what, hopefully, y'all will approve for us and and kinda leverage both funds to provide the assistance that people are needing. But I think that the board itself, the the people that we still have on the board, I think we'll probably be to get more engaged as far as doing some fundraising because that's something we we definitely need to do.

Anyone else have questions? Oh, go ahead.

Yeah. So one more. For y'all's community assistance or funds on one time, do you all allow people to, like, come back after a certain period? Or, like, what sells

Yeah. The guidelines we have is they cannot apply they have to wait six months. Six months? Yeah. So they'll apply, and and that's what it kinda slows the process to them because I have to go and evaluate, make sure they haven't approved the submitted one. So that kinda slows things down. But, yeah, it's a six month. So, basically, people can apply twice a year. You know? And then there's no continuous service. I know some people I get requests, and a lot of them is kinda funny. They they mark it on their calendar, I guess, then no one's like, you know, this date, I'm I'm now eligible again. So they'll submit a new request. You know? So so even they're kinda mean, people are just kinda human nature, I guess, just knows, like, okay.

On this date, I'm I'm eligible again. You know? So but yeah. And, of course, we do get funding from the county, so we kinda leverage the for those residents that live here in San Marcos, also, we're able to use the funds that the this body is able to approve for us. And then from the county, we can leverage out to, like, Draper Springs, Buttercup, where we're all the neighboring communities within Hays County.

And so but as I the numbers I've read earlier, both of those are from from San Marcos. Yeah. And I'll get I'll get you that spreadsheet of numbers I read off. That way, you'll have it for you also this deliberation too.

Any other questions? Anyone?

Okay.

Why don't we go on to the next one? And, next is, again, Hayes Helping Hands. This will be about the shoes and coats program specifically. And, again, it's Joe Castillo, the president of the organization. And go ahead.

Okay. And thank you once again for letting me be here for y'all to do my presentation. And our we've been doing the shoe program probably the last over twenty five years. And during the pandemic, we added coats per part of the program. And then recently, the the the board decided, you know, when they approved our funding was to combine the shoe and coats program, which makes a lot more sense, you know, because I was getting a separate application for shoes, one for the coats.

But a couple years ago, the decision was to merge them, which I think, like I said, it it was a great idea. And about 80% of the students in the San Marcos District school district are classified as minority. And then today's economic system has made more families in need out of over 6,000 students. There's about 5,000 of them who are on reduced lunch. And then, you know, one of the challenges this past year that we actually did the shoe distribution in person instead of having the parent liaisons or school counselors come to pick up the shoes for them.

So we actually had the kids there on. I think it was, like, second weekend in December, and the kids got to pick up their own pair of shoes. And some walked away with boots or tennis shoes or slippers first because they said, oh, I can wear these during my pajama night. You know? So to me, they end up working better because they actually picked out the shoes that they they wanted.

You know? And but the challenge that we had this past year is because the you know, normally, we would rely on the parent liaisons to identify the kids for us. And but there's only two campus that, like, that have parent liaisons still after the budget cuts the school district did. So I reached out to the the superintendent, and he gave me the contacts. Or, actually, I reached out to all the school all the campuses.

And so they reached they gave me contacts, either a school counselor or if they still have parent liaison. So I went through them, and and we and they identified the kids. And a matter of fact, they were there on that Saturday to kinda help with the the kids running through the process checking process, and and then we paid for the shoes as the kids left. You know? So and a lot of because I think it was the first time that they had experienced that that were very positive.

So they're I mean, we're talking about earlier about doing a a fundraising. I think their will willingness just a matter of me reaching out to them and saying, we have this fundraiser on these days to build help have hopefully have more of them help with that because they know that money is actually going back to the kids that they they, you know, help, you know, at their school. So but yeah. And but then we always mean it just to me, it gives me the satisfaction. I think the rest of our board that those kids that come in there, and some of them, they wanna put shoes on before they leave the store. You know? So it's it's a it's a great thing. Great. And alright. For the holidays too.

So because we always do it in December, usually. You know, if we could ever raise enough more funds, we could do more than once a year. But this this past year, we just did it the one time in December. And then, of course, I would coordinate with the the schools to if they couldn't make it that day, you know, I'd I'd meet them another date that was more convenient for them too. So, yeah, pretty flexible as far as meeting the needs of the the district needed.

And the way it did and like I mentioned, the the schools actually picked the kids. They set up permission to sit home with the with child and get their parents' permission, and then we invite them to Walmart on that Saturday. And and we're usually kinda breaking down either morning for elementary and in the afternoon for secondary. So we were there probably from nine in the morning that day till four, almost five. Yeah.

And

I think that's pretty much all I had on on the SHU program.

Great. Thank you. Alright. So now we'll we'll just open it for I'm just resetting the time. We'll open it, excuse me, for questions from the board.

Would you mind repeating what you said at the beginning about the number of children you usually serve and about the number of items are usually distributed each year?

Yeah. As far as the shoe program, we try our goal is to do 1,200 pair of shoes. Unfortunately, we we haven't been able to do that the last few years. Mainly, the re the contacts, they have been identified, the number of kids that we need. But this best pasture, we did 468 pair of shoes, and then we did 72 coats.

And, of course, obviously, the the cost of of even them doing at Walmart, I mean, things were so expensive even there. So and I I provide y'all a spreadsheet of kind of breakdown of each campus because we also help with some like Head Star, head Henry Bush, and some of the other schools. It didn't necessarily apply to the San Marcos School District. There's some other local private schools that we kinda work with that with the the private list of of the kids. And so but I'll get you this list to to y'all as well. That way, you'll have that for for y'all's record.

Can you please me why your letters were dated from last or the.

Yeah. I think it's mainly because of the timing of when the application was due. And I'm dealing with the community. I I didn't get a chance to get the and I knew the, like, the time before that, they were they were really old. So I'll make sure I I get some updated letters for for for next time. Because a lot a lot some of the people apply the letters to may not even work for the district anymore. I know that. But I was just trying to get the info stuff in in time for the the delay that y'all had, and but I'll make a note to make sure I get some updated letters for y'all.

And sorry if I missed it.

But for the ages that y'all serve, is it all, like, k three twelve?

Mhmm. Yes. Yeah. And there could be even smaller ones. I think some like the the Henry Bush and some of the some of those they have actually preschool. So, like, Bonham is another one because Bonham, I think we we provide that's a prekindle. I think there's, like we had 33 pair of shoes there just at that campus by itself. So it varies from age. We don't really restrict because we even give the advice back for the high school. They never really participate in every now and then, they'll submit names, but it's mainly the elementary is the bulk of the the kids that we help. And then, of course, those prekinders. But yeah. But that that's the reason why.

And then for the you said y'all did about

400 pairs of shoes last year. Yep.

Problem of funding or, like, a problem of, like, identifying students who needed it more?

It was kind of a combination of both, but mainly identifying the kids.

Okay.

So I I think if I do it better because trying to find out who to contact the schools, that was kinda late in the process. And so if I let them know earlier, then I give them opportunity to know. Because, like, when school starts back up in in August, you know, have them start looking at, you know, which kids that they need to have get on the list. And so being a little more proactive of because at that point, I really wasn't sure where the where the organization was going. We had just filing then made a decision on the name change and everything like that.

So but, yeah, you're you're right. I think and I know when our founder, mister Gonzales, was was allowed there a few times that, you know, we were wrapping up everything, and he's out there looking in the store to see if any other kids anybody else needed a pair of shoes, you know, just to reach that magical 1,200 pair of shoes that he always kinda had a goal. And and really should be our our continuing goal of providing at least 1,200 pair of shoes and then having some fundraisers. So whether we do a chicken plate or something else, we just we we something we we need to do an annual turkey dinner, but we haven't done this after but for the pan after the pandemic started that we just stopped doing that. So we just need to find other revenue sources besides y'all and from, you know, like, Walmart.

I know we get a rep from them every year. But just kinda leverage more of our own money that we're able to pull out of the community, not just keep reaching to the same people over and over again.

And for just so for that year, y'all if y'all would have, like, say, gotten the 1,200 request, that's something y'all were prepared to, like, comment?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

This is a comment on the other application that said that's. I personally would like would I write to see letters community members, women help

Okay.

The assistance program

Okay.

And letters.

Right.

Both.

Yeah. Someone in vaccine has benefited from the the service. I mean, obviously, the the the school one, I mean, you could obviously they see the kids benefiting from the shoes, but actually on community assistance, then, obviously, either the client has or someone that that referred them to us that that they interact with them. Yeah. I agree with you on that.

Anyone else have questions for mister Castillo? Alright. Seeing none, we'll go ahead and, end your presentation. And, thank you so very much for coming out. Okay.

Thank you.

And yes. And we're actually almost ready to roll into the next one. So I've gotta make them they're online, and I'm going to move them over to be presenters. One second.

Yeah. Alright. Thank you. And I'll get you those, some of those documents that we're sure with the rest of the board.

So Okay.

That'd be great.

And if there's anything else that they need, just let me know.

K. Sounds good. Will do.

Okay. There oh, let me see if okay. Yeah. So our presenters, I think, are just coming into the meeting. Let's give them just a second.

I don't know why. Let's see. They're muted, but I'm not sure if there's anything wrong. Like, I don't think I can unmute them.

It's in for Gossip.

Yeah. Gossip's left.

Yeah. And they've been right here. Like, they're ready. But for some reason I wonder if something's blocking them from coming in. Why don't we I don't know if they can even see the chat.

Maybe they can. Oh, we are here and ready. See if there's something I can do. Sorry.

Yes. Something

Oh, there she is.

Something you clicked worked.

Okay. Sorry. Yeah. I had moved you. We are just learning this technology. So we also have Marissa Herzog on as well. I wonder if she's having the same issues.

Looks like I can unmute, but I'm not able to get my camera to unlock.

Okay. I don't see a way I don't see a way to help. So is it okay if you're just verbal, or were you planning to be the one to share your screen?

I can do it,

Kara. It's fine. Thank you. Sorry about that.

Sorry. And I we may troubleshoot. Like, I may check with you tomorrow to see what was up, and then we can see if that's happening to other people. So you're our guinea pig. Sorry.

Happy Nord.

Okay. Thanks. And then, Nicole, you should be able to share your screen. And I'll go ahead and introduce, both of them. Okay. So next we have on the agenda CASA, court appointed special advocates of Central Texas Inc. And presenting is Nicole Douglas, who's director of development, and then Marissa Herzog, who is grants manager. I think I got that right. Yes. And so, Nicole, you're welcome to begin whenever you're ready.

Okay.

Alright. Good evening. My name is Nicole Douglas, and I'm the director of development at CASAB Central Texas. I'm also joined with Marissa, as you as Carol mentioned. And we I just wanna thank you for the opportunity to be here and for your service to the city of San Marcos by sitting on this council.

We appreciate the thoughtful work that you do and recognize that it's a difficult task to ensure critical resources reach organizations serving residents of San Marcos with limited amount of funds. So let's see. HASA stands for court appointed special advocates, and we exist to, ensure that every child in foster care has someone whose sole focus is on their best interest. Our vision is a world where every child thrives in a safe and stable loving home. Our mission is carried out by high quality best interest advocacy through trained volunteer advocates.

And when a child enters foster care, a judge may appoint a CASA to serve as guardian ad litem. CASA often becomes one consistent adult in the system that often has so many changes. And in terms of changes, I mean, that may be where the child is placed, the caseworker who might be assigned to as a CPS representative, who their school is, who their teachers are, the service providers who are tasked to ensure that their medical and mental health, dental needs, and other special needs are met wherever they're placed. Even legislative changes can impact policy to the child welfare system. CASA serves as an unduplicated service in our community, and we are not providers.

Instead, we are the only role that we have is to solely we're responsible to represent the child's best interest to the court independent of all other parties. Each CASA volunteer serves one case at a time, builds a relationship with the child or the sibling group, monitors educational needs as a surrogate parent, medical care that's necessary, mental health care, and placement stability. And we also bring a consistent child focused voice to those external providers and into court proceedings. This service doesn't exist elsewhere in the system. So last year, we were able to serve a 128 of the 151 Hays County children in foster care, which represented 85% of the children in need.

And of those, 54% were from San Marcos. And while we're proud of that reach, the reality is that 23 of the children in Hays County still went without a CASA advocate. And those gaps reflect limitations in capacity, the lack of the need, and closing that gap requires continued community investment for more volunteers to be trained to serve. San Marcos continues to grow, as we all know, and there are more children entering our community and, unfortunately, foster care. There are longer timelines, which delays permanency outcomes.

Children are removed from more dangerous situations, and there's an increased backlog of placement disruptions. And what that looks like for children who are experiencing foster care is the multiple placements, school instability, interrupted health care, and mental health services, not to mention the compounding trauma that they're already going through. The child welfare system is strained, and having a consistent advocate provides the child centered focus on their needs that permanency is achieved as quickly as possible. And so we have requested $56,000 to support the infrastructure that allows our volunteer advocacy model to function safely and effectively. This support will fund casework supervisors, volunteer recruitment and training, and program infrastructure.

The support represents approximately 15% of our total program costs, and it doesn't create overhead, it creates capacity. And central to that capacity are the casework supervisors who oversee up to 30 volunteers. These supervisors closely support those volunteers and ensure that compliance with court and child welfare standards are maintained and that they maintain the quality of advocacy provided to each child we're appointed to. Without supervision, volunteers cannot safely or responsibly serve as a court appointed advocate, and they ensure that volunteer efforts translate into accountable advocacy for children in San Marcos. So I'd like to pause here briefly to talk about the return on investment and stewardship.

Many of you have worked in a business or affiliated with an organization where you understand that it costs significantly more to hire and train someone new than it does to retain skilled, experienced staff. That is same and true for our volunteer program like CASA. Recruiting, training, and equipping those volunteers is a meaningful investment. And when that investment is retained, it return the return multiplies, and children experience continuity and cases move more efficiently. That's why we're proud to report that we have a 71% retention rate of our volunteers and an even higher retention rate among our paid staff.

This reflects strong supervision and leadership, meaningful engagement, and responsible stewardship of the funds entrusted to us. When the city invests in CASA, that investment continues to work year after year, and children in San Marcos are better served. So with this investment, we project to that 70 San Marcos children will receive individualized advocacy, 34 new volunteers will be recruited from the San Marcos community, and 16 community outreach or engagement activities will be done to build awareness and capacity of our achieved overall goal of serving 100% of the children in care. CASA advocacy is tied to measurable permanency outcomes that include reunification with a safe parent, kinship placement, and adoption. The long term outcomes are greater school stability in our community, improved health care access, reduced homelessness, and justice system involvement that lead to stronger families and more resilient San Marcos residents.

Success for us is not just service delivery, but it's the impact and stability, safety, and the hope that preventing children from reentering the foster care system. CASA is deeply embedded in San Marcos. We've been serving this community for over forty years and working alongside the child welfare partners in San Marcos or in Hays County. So those include the child welfare courts, schools, Department of Family and Protective Services, medical providers, law enforcement, and the other local nonprofit partners to provide resources. And this is with this system, there's so many moving parts.

CASA is often the one consistent thread ensuring that children's voices are carried through every decision that's made on their behalf. So take, for example, a child named Jake. His journey began in foster care in 2017. He was in foster care for eight years, and he faced more changes than any child should. He had two judges, three attorneys, eight case workers, and 18 different placements during those eight years.

But through all of that, one person never changed, and that was his CASA. So take, for example, this quote from Anisha that from about her CASA volunteer. I'm so grateful to have had CASA in my life still to this day. I've known miss Lauren since I was 13. After having so many people in and out of my life, I always knew that I could count on her to answer my calls, visit me, not judge, and understand why I was going what I was going through.

Now I'm a mother, and she still calls and checks up on me when not many others do. She has made such a powerful impact on me, and I couldn't have asked for a better Costa. This is the kind of lifelong impact your funds will support. So with that, Casa has also been a long standing partner with the city of San Marcos. We are proud to be responsible and compliant stewards of the public funds we've been awarded in the past.

And with your support, we can ensure every child in San Marcos has someone standing by sat beside them when it truly matters. And before I officially close, I'd like to extend an invitation and welcome any of you on this council to observe court. Court observation offers a small but powerful window into the lives of an experienced foster care through advocates through one of our advocates and how advocacy shows up in real time. And although what you see in the courtroom is only one piece of the work that our volunteers do, seeing that advocacy in action can really help illustrate the investment. And if you're interested, I'd be happy to coordinate a cohort observation or follow-up with information.

And just lastly, thank you for your time, your service, and consideration, and I'd be happy to answer any of your questions.

Okay. Thank you very much. Now we will go into the question and answer period. We have ten minutes set aside for that, so plenty of time. And just please start. Yeah. Whoever wants to start.

I can go ahead and ask my question first. I was just kind of wondering, like, for someone who's wanting to volunteer for FAFSA, what's the kind of, like, that look like, like, from whenever they're first interested in kind of signing up for your volunteer? And then also, what is the investment on you guys' annual terms of, like, time and, like, money spent to train

the individuals, stuff like that?

It's a great question. Thank you for asking. I think it's a little hard on my end to hear, so I think that you were asking how you became a volunteer and what the time investment and what it all takes to go through training and things like that. Okay. So the minimum expectation is a year commitment.

Just like I pointed out, we don't want we we understand life happens. Right? So I know that it's a big commitment, but we don't want to be another adult in the child's life that often changes. So we want to have that continuity so that they're continuing to have somebody that they know is going to show up every time for them to different meetings and court and those types of things. So these types of cases often last anywhere from twelve to eighteen months, and so that's why we ask for the minimum expectation of a year.

Sometimes, unfortunately, they do last a little bit longer, and those are when children aren't reunified back with a parent and they have other permanency outcomes, like we're looking for other family members or adoptive homes, things like that. So they can last a little bit longer. Like, my example, Jake, you know, he was an older youth, and he aged out of foster care. But so but what we've noticed is, you know, it becomes something super meaningful for our volunteers, and so they will stay on the case as long as they can. We've had volunteers that one volunteer was on his case for those eight years.

We've had volunteers who've been with our program for over twenty years. And then to answer your question in terms of what it takes to become a volunteer, There's no special skill set that we require. We provide all the training. That is what the funding supports. And with that, you go through a forty hour training, which is weekly.

Our next one is coming up in the May through July, so it's six weeks, and that one is in person. Throughout the year, we offer different training opportunities, and those sometimes are a hybrid, like, in person blended with virtual sessions. Those include court observations. They include all of the professionals that are affiliated with the case come and give you explanations of what the what your expectations are of being on the case and who all the players are, the parties are in the case. So it helps you navigate that process when you're signed.

And then I'll also add that, you know, we do do have a great training program, but it's like anything else. You know, you start a job and you've gone through the training program, and it's not until, like, you're actually living that experience that you're learning a little bit more. So we recognize that too. So after the training, you're paired with a case supervisor, which, again, is so essential because they are there to guide you through that process. No case is exactly the same.

And so even some of our more tenured advocates lean on their case supervisors to help them navigate, you know, every situation. And, again, legislative changes sometimes impact some of the things that CPS can do, and it really is helpful to have that case supervisor there to walk alongside the volunteer to kinda let them know what to expect and why these things are are may have been that way, and now they can't do that. So hopefully, answers your question.

I just wanted to note, Norma Blackwell has joined the meeting. Norma, hopefully, you are able to unmute yourself. There you go. Okay. Good. Marissa wasn't able to show herself on camera, but she's also available to us. So I just wanted to bring you in. Norma is executive director of CASA. Hi. Good afternoon. Yeah. Winner question and answer period, and so it's just kind of an open floor at the moment.

Okay. Thank you.

And your publication mentioned that your volunteer retention rate is 71%. Can you share what are some of the reasons volunteers are not able to continue as a cost of volunteer?

I can answer that, Nicole, if you want me to. Yeah. First of all, I I just, you know, wanna praise my staff. They are very committed, have a very high retention rating staff. So we don't have a turnover on staff, and I give them credit for that because the volunteers stay with them.

There's a consistency that, you know, they finish a case and wanna continue taking another case, another case because there's that consistency, with the case supervisors. We have case supervisors that have been with us for twenty three years, you know, eighteen years. So I give them credit. I always tell them that, I praise them because they have to deal with 13 with 30 personalities. And, because there's 30 volunteers with different with 30 personalities.

But once they get to know them, it's just amazing how the volunteer stays. And we try to also do different things every quarter. We try to rotate and, you know, thank them and and do, you know, appreciation for them and and try to thank them for everything they do. And we're always trying to help them as much as we can, you know, for self care because sometimes some of the cases are very difficult. So that's one of our goals as well to take care of our volunteers because they see a lot of things that, you know, me or anybody else, you know, see.

So my kudos to my case supervisors.

And

I'll add to that is, you know, something that I said the other day at another presentation is, you know, many of us have probably worked for someone or worked for a business or been affiliated with an organization where you've been there for several years, and it's attributed to not only because you like to most people don't really enjoy going to work, but you go to work because you believe in what you're doing, and you enjoy the people that you're working with. And that is true for us as well. You know, the volunteers make and build a rapport with their supervisors. So with the supervisors' high retention rate and staff, that's how we're able to keep the high retention of our super of our volunteers too.

Mhmm.

And then sorry. Did you ask, you know, where what how we're doing, how we're retaining, or how we're recruiting?

No. My question was more what is the reason why some volunteers are not able to stay with y'all?

I could jump in here

a little if you like, Nicole.

Yeah. Sure. Go ahead.

I heard that part, and I wanted to make sure in my camera before I had a little red symbol. It's gone now, Carol. I did take a picture for you,

though.

Okay. Good.

But, no. I would say most of it's, know, they're getting older and they're retiring and they, you know, wanna focus on retirement or they move away. It's it's really usually those two reasons, and I would say a lot of it is that we have older volunteers and they are now wanting to focus on retirement. So something awesome that Norma has initiated is the young professionals program that we have going on to kind of recruit and get younger advocates and volunteers involved in their community.

Thank you.

We just had a couple that they were 90 years old, and they wanted to take another case, but their their son and daughter told them not to. So but they were amazing. Amazing.

We also recognize that some people will say, you know, I don't know that I could do that. Right? Like, it it that sounds like a a lot. And we acknowledge that as well, and we offer other ways like the young professionals as an initiative to tap into some of our younger supporters just so they dip their toe into CASA and they figure out if this is a good fit. We also have an advisory council that is like a stepping stone to our board governance.

There's also different committees if you wanted to just, you know, help out at one of our fundraisers, things like that too. So as of course, that's our main focus. We're always looking to recruit more volunteers so that we can meet our overall goal of serving a 100% of the kids in care, but we also know that, you know, that may not be everybody's cup of tea, and they want help in some way.

So I'll step in. I think we're at ten minutes approximately. Approximately. I I honestly honestly started started late, but I'm adding three minutes to what's on the clock. Does anyone else have questions for the members from CASA? Sherif?

Yeah. Have a two part question. I saw that there's an increase in the request amount of $16,000, which is about 40% more than last year. So the first question is what caused that increase? And the second question is how are those funds gonna be used effectively to further process commission?

So the increase is, like everything else, costs are going up for most of everybody. You know, the cost of our training materials cost more. The certifications that our staff have to have to be a trainer cost more. And some of our even overhead expenses, we are run like another any other business. We just have a different tax filing. So some of those expenses have increased as well.

So all the funds are gonna go directly to just training in those expenses? Like, none of this is gonna directly impact the 23 kids of our kid service last year?

Yes. It does. So the the funding goes to support the training and recruitment, and then our service is done by training those volunteers and then pairing them with a supervisor. So we don't have, like, a tangible thing that is provided out to kids that we're serving, but it helps us meet the capacity gap of, you know, we're only able to serve this many because we only had this many volunteers. And if we need this many more volunteers, we're gonna need this much more money so that we can hope to fill that gap if we anticipate, you know, serving more than 23 kids next year or this year because our population growth is expanding.

I see. Yes, sir.

Any other questions? So I think with that, we will wrap it up. So thank you very much for attending and presenting, and we will just move on to the next one.

Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate Thank all of

you.

Especially those of you who are volunteering to do this. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Alright. Thank you. I'm gonna make the three of them an attendee so they won't be able to talk. One second.

Getting used to the controls. Okay. Okay. So now we're back. Next up, as a presentation is Saint Vincent de Paul. In person is Warner Davis. The program that they're asking for funding for is emergency assistance. And Warner Davis is the vice president of the local chapter of Saint Vincent de Paul. And, also, in your packet this week, I did put in the presentation that he's gonna give, and so you already have that as well. Warner, you can get started whenever you are ready.

Thank you, Carl. Well, thank you. I'd like to really thank the advisory board for their consistent support over the years. I started out with doing this with Ben Olczak about ten years ago, maybe longer, and still doing it. Our presentation today is pretty similar to what it was last year than in the past.

Our the mission hasn't changed and except the size of the mission, and that's grown significantly. And we could not have accomplished any of this without the support and the help of the San Marcos community. And it's really a neighbor helping neighbor environment that provides the funds and the support and the volunteers to execute our mission with those that are in need of assistance in the San Marcos area. Today, for example, was my day to work at the office, and we had I came home with 10 we had more than 10 folks there, but I came home with 10 files where we provided financial assistance. Five of them were for gas where we provided $30 each.

Two of them for food where we gave some HEP food cards. Two utilities assist for the city, and one rent assistance for $325. If you've read if you've looked over the my sheet, my presentation, it's I don't know. Don't have much more to say about it. Our conference has 37 members.

They're all volunteers. They come from primarily Saint John's Parish and Our Lady of Wisdom Parish. We have one volunteer that's from neither of those parishes. Actually, she's just wanted to come in and help, so we let her, which is fine. Those that come into the we come into the office or walk in, they're they're generally pretty fraught with with how to keep the power on, how to avoid eviction.

They lost their work, or they've lost their provider. So we take we sit down with them. We listen to them. We try to understand their situation, try to find out what might be the best way to help them, try to come up with at least a short term solution, maybe give some long term guidance, maybe do some budgeting with them, help them understand where their money goes, where it comes from. And then we and we pray with them, and we invite them to take some religious information if they want to help them in their spiritual journey.

And that's pretty much our our mission. We try to see the face of of Christ in every one of those folks that we meet. That's important. One thing I wanted to point out is we didn't ask for an increase a little bit this year for the next one, forty thousand over 35,000. And we decided to not apply for the community development block grant this next year because our service is pretty much the same.

It's it's sort of redundant, and it's just easier if we can try to do it with one grant instead of two grants. Since the the community development block grant seemed like it it was kind of a it was new to us a couple years ago, and we kind of we tried it out and but it it's more project oriented than service oriented. So, like, you know, take that into consideration, please, when you make your awards. And that's all I have, Carol.

Okay. Thank you very much. So we will just start the q and a.

So I see that outreach, you know, word-of-mouth is your most effective type of communication. Have y'all considered having, like, an online presence?

I'm sorry. I'm not understanding.

So on your application that you reach your clients mostly by word-of-mouth.

Yep.

Have y'all considered or tried using social media to do outreach?

Well, we we try to we put our cards out. We have a website now, but we didn't have one a year or so ago, which defines pretty much what we do. We go out in the church bulletins and advertise that way. Word-of-mouth seems to be biggest way to accomplish our mission. It's not that we're we aren't lacking for those that need help.

And we also take care of the homeless. We have a great Lowe's closet that we've had, and Southside just donated their clothes closet to us. So we are kind of, like, the one stop shop for the free clothes. And that's really for anybody that wants to come in. And we don't we try to limit it so that's not all taken from one size.

Anyway.

You said you have 37 members. That's for, like, the local area here.

Mhmm.

And so for staffing, like, Saint Vincent de Paul, there's just kind of, like, a rotation of those 37, like

31? I'm sorry.

It is kind of like rotate between those 37 volunteers, like, who's in the office and who's doing, like, different things.

Most of yeah. We so we'll met the office is manned five days, which and so we have about five, six people on each day. Okay? Some of those folks would rather just full close and tidy up and not feel person to person because it's they it's an emotional issue for them, so they don't wanna do that. And so that's how we we should be.

And, also, it allows for people that are off so we aren't too stressed on any particular day. And all the officers are appointed work a day. I mean, there's there's no exceptions.

For the volunteers who are more person to person, Is there some type of training that they go through? Or

Yes.

Yeah.

Well, we first of all, we have our e EIM training that the diocese provides that we have to take so that there's no it's such an awareness of abuse, I think, for children and adults. And then there's what what we call osinam orientation, which is a training on how we proceed with home visits, how we proceed with a an interview. Our applications ask for a lot of information, and some of it, you know, can be be asking personal questions, trying to to try to get an understanding of the family relationships and who's in the household, and there's some very complicated households in San Marcos.

I have a question on. So I saw in our report from last year that the $20,000 that were granted lasted about 6 months. So if we were to double the grant funding, would it last for about the same time span, or would it extend longer?

Well well, if the funding we've received from the city is based on what we get reimbursed from how I asked in the in the pay request. And I do that primarily with rent and payments to utilities, mostly the city utilities department. And, for instance, our grant from this past year or this year was $35,000. Well, between January, February, and March, I've had put in three pay requests, which absorb all that money. So we have that, and we're spending that.

And, hopefully, that'll last us for a little bit till we can get but, you know, that but but we always seem to have enough without having to reduce the amount of assistance that we give. So that's just the way it is. It's always always been whether we got $15,000 or just $30,000 or whatever the number's been over the years, it's it's been there, and it's always helped. And if you gave us some more, that would help some

more. Does

anybody else have questions for mister Davis? Okay. Seeing none. Thank you very much for coming in. Thank you. Excuse me.

Thank you, Carol.

Thank you, boss. Appreciate it.

Thank you. You're welcome to stay and listen or go.

Oh, okay. I'll Okay.

Our next presenter I've got to make him able to speak. Okay. Our next presenter is, reverend Michael Pig. Maybe it's pastor Michael Pig. He's the board president for School Fuel, and he is here to present about their program, Weekend Food for Hungry Children in San Marcos Consolidated Independent School District. And I've moved him up to presenter. I think, we'll have to see. I'm not sure why there's a big lag in transition, but he's probably having to figure it out.

Not today.

Oh, okay.

I'll try to chat.

Alright. I'm here. My apologies.

Oh, great. No. Perfect. That's great. So I have introduced you, and so you are welcome to start at your convenience.

Alrighty. Well, thank you very much for your time. I am Michael Pig. I'm from School Fuel. I'm the current chairman of the board, the president of the organization. And so we have been in existence for a little over twelve years now. We started in 2016. There were there was a group of retired teachers who said, you know what I noticed is that kids come to school on Monday mornings, and they haven't had enough to eat. And, I'd like to do something about it. And so they, talked to the principal at, Mendez Elementary and said, could we run a pilot program and see if we could feed 36 kids?

We just wanna send home a sack of food on Fridays to see if we can help because what we noticed is that students would not have enough to eat on throughout the weekend. They would come to school on Monday morning. Sometimes they wouldn't come to school on Monday morning because they hadn't had enough nourishment, and so they were they didn't feel good, and so they didn't come to school. And so but then when they did come to school, they would oftentimes go into the cafeteria where they were receiving a hot meal at breakfast time. And because they hadn't had enough to eat, they were gorging themselves on the meal, oftentimes even borrowing from other people's plates.

And so they said, then they get a full belly for the first time in a few days and they're sick and they're in the nurse's office instead of being in class, because they've upset their own stomach by doing this. And, and then because of all that, they're they're not they're missing out on teaching time. They're missing out on instruction. They don't feel a part of the class. They don't feel connected to what's going on, and they end up having behavioral issues.

So they said we wanna try to combat those four things. Wanna see them come to school more often. Wanna see them spend less time in the school nurse's office. We wanna see them make better grades and have better focus, and and we think that all of that will contribute to fewer behavioral issues. And so they took 36 kids, and they sent a sack of food home with them every Friday of that school year. That was 36 sacks. And it turns out that it really had a it made an improvement in all four of those areas. They came to school more often. They went to school nurse less often. They got better grades, and they because they were connected to what was going on, they didn't have as many behavioral issues.

And they they got, the education that they came to school to get. Oftentimes, say that we are feeding hungry kids, but really what we're trying to do is make sure that they get everything they can out of a school day. And we know that if you, you all know this. I have experienced this. You missed the first day of class, and you missed the syllabus, and the whole year, the whole semester you feel like you're behind even if you're not, even if you actually are catching up and getting everything done, you feel like you missed something.

And when you feel disjointed, you oftentimes, don't know how to conduct yourself. And when you're a child and you're hungry and you're tired because you're hungry and your neighbor seems to be doing well and you are not, then it's really easy to get hangry. We know that a snack and a nap for human beings goes a long way. That that applies to every one of us. And so we can't do anything about the nap, but we could give them a snack for the weekend.

We could see it, that, if we give them 10 to 12 items in a sack of food, it makes a difference on their Monday morning, And their Monday morning has a profound effect on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And if they can be focused in class and they can receive more instruction time, then they can do better in education. And so we know that the sack of food will only last as long as the sack of food will last, but if they can get an education, it will last them a lifetime and they can apply what they learn to making a better life for themselves. And so that's our goal at School Fuel is to do that for kids. We, do that to the tune of 14 around 1,400 students a year.

We committed this last school year and the one that we're in currently to 1,400 students. We have not hit that number yet because this was a year where not that many kids needed it, but we have we have been consistently hitting above 1,300 students. And so the commitment that we made to the school district was to to serve 10 campuses in SMC ISD. That's every campus except for the pre k campus in our program. There are other opportunities for the kids in that age group that and and it doesn't benefit them as well because putting giving them one more thing to carry home, on a on a Friday didn't didn't suit them well.

So, we give 10 to 12 items to every grade level from kindergarten through twelfth grade. At the high school, it's it serves currently serves a 150 students with a pantry, so they have a little more agency. They get to choose from a menu of items. And and that is a developing program. We expect to see some increase in numbers there, and that's actually where we had said we wanted to serve 1,400 students.

We wanted to hit that group to the fullest extent that they need it and that is a developing program. We have some teachers and administrators on that campus who are working hard to make sure that that food gets in their hands with as much dignity as possible. You can imagine that high schoolers sometimes are reluctant to come by and pick up a sack of food. And so figuring out the best way to get that in their hands without also causing any embarrassment, has been a challenge. And so, but currently, like I said, we serve a 150 there, and then we serve 1,150 in our elementary schools and middle schools consistently, and that rises and falls.

When we had the SNAP benefit concerns in November, we had a we had a spike. We actually, as an organization, were able to release some funds, impact more sacks to meet the need. It it wasn't as drastic as we were prepared for, and we're grateful for that. But but we were prepared and the communities came came forward and and helped us out. We raised, enough money in in our community and through grants like this grant, to, to feed 1,400 students, 36 to 38 sacks during the school year.

That's roughly 49,400 sacks. If we did all 1,400 students at 38 sacks, then we would do that'd be 53,200 sacks, which what we're expecting to do in this coming year. And so that that would cost us roughly $240 a kid. When we started out, this cost us $215 per kid, and now through rising costs, it's about 240 per kid to give them 38 sacks during the school year. And so if we're serving 1,400 students, that's about 36 30 336 yeah.

$336,224 is what I have written here. That that's what we project that we'll be spending on food. We don't spend money on anything else. We only buy food with the money that comes in. If someone wants to purchase, gifts in kind, we always have needs of, different, delivery systems And so people do that.

Relocators here in town comes to our warehouse every Friday morning and picks up the food and they deliver it to each of the 10 campuses for us. And they do that at their cost as a donation to us. We have a lot of support in the community through civic organizations like the Lions Club and JC's and Rotary. We have churches and school groups that come and help us out. Sororities and fraternities from Texas State come and help us out.

But we pack we pack those 1,400 a weeks 1,400 sacks a week on Thursdays in our warehouse. The warehouse is provided to us by, San Marcos I CISD because they believe in the program and it benefits their students in a way so that when they built their new admin building out of what was the old ACC building, They there was a garage on the end of it that had been the paint shop, and they left that for us. And they even fixed it up and gave us our space, and so we get to work out of that building. And we invite somewhere between 25 to 50 volunteers to come help us out every Thursday. And so we have a steady flow of people in the community who are coming to help us pack the sacks.

When ACE can't help us, we have a group we have several groups that come with their pickup trucks and load them up and deliver them to the schools. So it's a real community effort to make this happen, and we are grateful for the the fun you've given us in the past. And we are we're facing some increased prices on food, and we're facing really just this year was tough as far as donations go. Our donor base is down. Well, I don't know if it was economic hardships or what we can't haven't identified that quite yet, but we know that our donor base was down and so we're trying to build our donor base. And, so we've asked for a little bit more than we have in the past, and, we we just appreciate your consideration. Do you have any questions for me?

I have a question. Your letters of support, have you considered finding other sources to receive letters of support from?

I'm sorry. Can you say that last I missed that last part. Yes.

Have you considered finding other sources for people to receive letters of support from?

Know, I didn't didn't fill out the application myself, but but I can talk to Diane about that.

Yes. The reason I asked is because I just thought they were the same people from last year. Uh-huh. Pretty much almost the same letters, and I would just like to see some variety

Okay.

You know, from previous years where this we had different people, you know, who received, like, families or just different people in the community.

K. I'll make a note of that.

Yeah.

That certainly won't be a problem. We're we have plenty of folks who would be willing to to write that. I I appreciate you asking for a variety, but we'll do our best to provide that in the future.

You had mentioned that the main reason you were asking for more money is due to an increase in cost. Is any of that also to go towards the developing food pantry you have as well?

Yes. So the the biggest price tag that we have in terms of per student cost is at the high school because the menu at the high school is a little bit different. Some of the some of the things that the little the younger kids will eat, the high schoolers just haven't shown much interest in. And and frankly, you know, the bigger you get, the hungrier you often get. And so we try to offer them some and some of those items are microwavable.

They're there's some food prep to them. Whereas for the younger ones, we wanted everything to be just they could open it and eat it, and it was kid friendly. For the high schoolers, I mean, they're basically adults, and so they can do some food prep on their own. So we offer some items, and those items come with an added cost. But the the students, they just weren't taking the things that were, you know, more for lack of a scientific phrase, that little kiddish.

You know, they didn't strangely enough, the little the little pouches full of applesauce that the little ones love, the big ones think it's kinda gross. So we're you know, we that's kind of an ongoing interview process and just checking in with the kids and this the the and most of our information comes through the the volunteers on campus or the appointed folks on campus because we don't actually engage with the students unless we're volunteers on that campus, unless we're legitimate there because we we try to keep everything as private and preserve the dignity of the students and their families as much as possible. And so we resource the relationship that the school has with them, and oftentimes, we don't get to have a direct relationship with them. So it's a lot of secondhand information from teachers who are collecting that information through the year. So

k. Thank you. Mhmm.

Any other questions? We have plenty of time. Looks like no. So alright. Thank you very much for presenting and giving us information about your application, and that'll be it.

It's my pleasure. Thank you so much for giving me the time. Y'all take care.

Thank you. Okay.

So now he's kinda back on the attendee list, so I think, you know, now we're just back to the regular meeting. So I'm handing it back over to Yancey.

Alright. Thank you, Carol, and everyone who presented. We have some action items. And this evening, we have two action items on the agenda. First one is to consider approval of proposed changes to the annual calendar to have another agency meeting for presentations, which will move future meetings forward widely. Carol will provide a brief overview. Go ahead, Carol.

Okay. Here we go. Okay. I'm sharing my screen. Oh, dear. Hang on. I'm so sorry. Okay. Here we go. Here's the calendar.

We realized that now that we have 40 applications, you know, we treat each program separately, we would either have to schedule six programs per meeting or just have another you know, for some meetings or just have another meeting. And so we have gone ahead and scheduled for that new meeting because we try to schedule everybody at once. If we need to, we could, of course if you prefer not to have that meeting and you'd rather have more people at once, on an evening, then we can contact those people and spread them out across the meetings. What it does is changes the meeting schedule because after that last meeting, you have about a week to get me the scores and your recommended allocations. I feel like you need time to wrap everything up and do final prep and so forth.

So that would happen. You would hand it to me on June 3, and then I compile it, and then I send it out to you so you can review it before the next meeting. And so that moves every meeting up one. So generally, the board has two discussion meetings. We always kinda have a third available if needed.

So you would be meeting on June for those two main meetings. You if you guys are ready to make the decision, we post the agenda so that you can make the decision at any of these discussion meetings. But it does push it out a little bit. One thing we are sticking with is we will definitely be presenting recommendations that you come up with on July 7. So, I guess the question for you is, I need to know from you if you approve this calendar or if you disapprove of it, in which case we'll roll back to the the previous one. So back to you, Yancey.

Okay. There any discussion on this audit? We need a welcome to discuss?

Well, just a motion to I'll motion to approve the calendar as of

this second.

Mhmm. Alright. And then we'll.

Let's see. I'll go ahead and call the roll if there's no discussion. So we have Yancey Aravallo.

Yes.

Raymond Best?

Yes.

Linda Harper Williams? Yes. Ethan Graves?

Yes.

Sharif Kasis?

Hey.

And Madeline Smith, I was gonna call you something else. Sorry. I just wrote the initials. I'm so sorry.

Yes.

Okay. Our newest member. So we have six yeses and no nos.

Requested as a future agenda item of the last meeting by. Yeah. Think so. Sorry. We requested that we'll discuss the floor's preference for important of our second two of the rule of regulations of the human clearance advisory board of the cities of Mexico and provide direction. Carol will first give us a few bits of discussion. Go ahead, Carol.

Okay. Can you see my screen, rules and regulations?

Yes.

Okay. So the the section that, pertains to the applications is here. In twenty twenty five, January, we brought, I brought, to the board a request to make it very specific what constitutes an on time application. We were struggling a little bit with people turning in half an application and then kinda wandering through the process and getting it the rest in and staff having to follow-up. So it was written, you know, absolutely no late applications will be accepted, and here's what is on time.

Substantive answer for every question and signed by the representative. And so so we received one late or well, three, really, from Southside this last time. And because this is in the rules written and regulations, this document is under the board's purview. So you can change it. And so staff, like, this kinda went through upper management.

They were they were thinking, well, let's give the board a chance to say whether or not they concur instead of just having it be done by staff. And so that's kind of how it came about. And, honestly, I think if so discussion can happen, of course. Y'all can direct me to change it. If we have any specific, like, legal questions or anything, I will just take a note and then check with our city attorney. But you really have jurisdiction over this document. And that's all I have.

You guys have been helping the session events. Since this is my the item letter was sued. Yeah. I was just thinking about, like, what happened with Southside and everything. And then, also, the more I thought about it, I was just thinking about other reasons, like, agencies may fall into, like, a similar situation, like, whether the power of Wi Fi goes out at the agency on the last day or something like that.

That would, you know, miss them to walk, try to make a request for, like, us to make an exception. So, I mean, my preference would just be for it to read in such a way where we, I guess, don't have the power to make an exception to an agency trying to come forward to get us to make one just so we don't fall into the pitfall of, like, you know, this year with one agency, but future will be five or six or something like that. And, you know, things do happen and everything, but they are a different type of so I'm not sure exactly how long the process is, but, like, a couple of weeks to do this. So I just, you know, as much as we can put in there, they can discourage people from waiting till the last day to get them started as well. It's kind of my idea.

I don't know whether that's explicitly stated or if that's just kind of something that staff can take his direction to just maybe not give the option or not move forward because, you know, how easy the rules are written and, like, any exceptions you guys provide. You provided. If there is you know, that's something that you guys wanna do.

Yeah. This is this. So we're we're discussing basically a very specific situation that happened in my slide. And if you look at a can you put that back down, please? Sorry.

Yeah. Sorry.

The poll. If you look at a and d, they basically in the specific situation that we dealt with, they contribute each other. Because indeed, it says that stuff staffing one by the agency and provide two business days for the revision. They provide attendance. So I think as I think the document as written serves its purpose, and I think in the future, this is probably just one that we we saw. Go ahead.

I wanna it says if required attachments are missing. They weren't missing any attachment. They're missing the

So do we change that wording? Maybe.

Yeah. And that's that's where it's defined, you know, an application. It's like, you have to answer every question and get it signed. And if you're missing attachments, then we'll contact you. You know, we expect people to do the best they can. But if there's one or two missing, then we can they can put those in later.

So in this situation, the signatures were missing. Those were not considered attachments?

Absolutely not. No. They're certifying the application, and it specifically says, has been signed by the representative. Like, that's what constitutes a complete application. Answer for every question and a signature. And this was, of course, on the application form.

So, like, changing the right now to say, like, if application is submitting, would be when staff would notify the agency for my business days just so they don't fall into the trap of, like, thinking they have this two days when it's the signature missing or something like that. I don't know. A good thing. Because, I mean, I,

yeah. I don't wanna, like,

put extra work on staff or anything, but I know, Carol, you are already kind of going through that day and reviewing, like, the agencies and what they have submitted and seeing if, like, the applications are complete or anything. If that's not something that's, like, cumbersome, then I think giving them, like, two days for any part of the application that's incomplete, like, once it's submitted, maybe it'd be something that we could consider. But

Carol, do you think that staff needs some more time to review the application? Because you're getting them in, like, pretty much on the same day. You're trying to review them when they go. So So don't need to go find the review? Well,

the agency could turn it in earlier. So some agencies turned it in Hello? The week before. Oh, am I on mute?

Yeah. You got it.

You okay. I'm sorry. I thought you were telling me you couldn't hear me. So, you know, they're given a month to put together their application and submit it. I think human nature, you know, we tend to wait till the very end, but they have a month. So, like, it's not that we need more time. It's like they need to turn in their application early. We were doing a courtesy. So, for example, we got we got an application the week before, and I was able to just contact the person and say, hey. You missed a question.

You skipped it. And then they fixed it, and we went on. And we did that for every single application. But, you know, the bulk of them, a lot, I'd I'd have to count, but a lot of them were turned in at four or later. And so we couldn't get to those, but it's only a courtesy. You know? So they're supposed to turn in, in my view, an application that's complete. And if they can't do that, you know, like if we were a big funder, we'd be like, oh, this one's out.

Mhmm.

It's on them to do that. And I don't I personally, you can tell I'm like, but I think this is clear, and I I don't think it's asking too much. You know what I'm saying? That's my personal opinion. Y'all get to decide how it's done.

You know, I I agree that this is clear. Like, I have no issue reading this and the understanding that, like, the deadline is the deadline. You know, I think just having something in it that says no exceptions, that's supposed to be my help just hammer that point along to agencies. And, you know, I you really can't stop people from submitting things about things at the last minute. Like, that's just something that's going to happen. But, you know, if they're aware of that consequence fully in advance, which I think they are with how it's written. So, I mean

Well, not necessarily because JC and Lee basically complete the chunk.

I have to Not at all.

At all. So an application so it's the form. So they have to fill out an application form, and they have to attach a list of attachments. So what we're saying in a is, in order to be a complete application, you have to have these things. As a courtesy, we were reviewing them as they came in as a courtesy.

But that doesn't That we don't have to do that.

When wanna

We could just wait till the next day or whenever we get to it and do do the checklist to make sure the applications are all complete and required attachments have been provided. And if you missed it, you missed it. So we could do that. We could stop, you know, our courtesy check. But we complete a checklist, but what we were doing as a courtesy is looking through the application. Is every question answered with some sort of, you know, words? We weren't reading them. We're just like, zoop. And is it signed? Okay.

Next one. So that's the type of review we were doing in a. And c, we're going through every, attachment. So we we have a spreadsheet and we check, you know, like, okay, Carol noted that this one's complete. Lorena noted this one. So it's complete and on time. So then they get the next review. Okay. We're gonna review every attachment to see if they're there. So we check, check, check, check, check.

And then if they're missing something, Lorena calls them and says, hey, please get to us as soon as possible so that we can get it to the board. And so that's where Dee comes in. But we're not talking about the application at that point. Like, if you don't turn in an application with every question answered and signed, you miss the deadline. We we try to make it clear.

I like

the way Go ahead. Oh, okay. I'm I'm gonna out of curiosity, how many okay. So we have 40 applications this time. How many of them because you guys did a courtesy check on all of them, I'm gonna guess. How many of them did you have to go back to someone and say, hey. You forgot this. Hey. You forgot that or whatever beyond the one that we did we we talked about the last meeting?

I wanna say two. The one the week before, and then there was one that came the day of.

And So by and large, people are people are that one time shot. They're getting them all. They're they're they're going down the checklist, and they're getting everything in.

Well, they got a complete application in. Now Lorena could talk more about how many did she have to call. Lorena, do you wanna talk about that for the for the attachment? So she went through to see if

they have the attachment.

You know, if memory if my memory serves me right, I think we called at least 10 or more or not, you know, emailed or called one or the other because they were missing certain documents. Basically, missing documents from the checklist. Not the signature, not that, you know, not any other issues, but missing the documents. I mean, I probably give you an actual count if I go back and say these are all the ones, because we do have that checklist. I don't know if you have it anymore, Carol, where we where I marked off always pending and

Well, now, I think it's all complete. You know what I'm saying?

That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. We wouldn't be able to tell who was missing because we made sure everybody got them in.

I think it's only fair. Maybe ten, twelve of them. That's even, you know what do you remember even more than that, Tara?

No. It's only Lorena who goes through the attachments and calls the

Oh, yeah. So it

looks good. She yeah. So she wouldn't she would know that.

Yeah. I think it was about 12, like I said, 10 to 12 that were missing documents.

So so we do have a a quarter of the groups, basically, that that are, for lack of a better term, and I don't mean this offensively, but sloppy and not getting them in, getting everything in.

Incomplete. Mhmm.

Okay.

I think

But they're getting it in early enough that they're given an opportunity to correct it for the most part.

Well, we set, you know, we set a deadline that had a time and date. Okay. Yeah. And so after that, we expect, okay. We've got all the applications in. Okay. Lorena, start your checking all the attachments, and it takes, you know, a little bit of time to do that. But

yeah. Does Linda have something to say? Whatever you have

I appreciate the fact that we're doing the checklist. That is not a process that needs to be done or have to be done, but it does help us in a way too. Because the more you get done in steps, when you come down to actually grading and looking at the grants, you don't have to spend on the nonsense about what this is missing before and where is it? How do I know what to do here? Now they should take that as a a courtesy and appreciate it.

The other thing is if you've been writing grants, you know this is coming up. You should have it on your calendar anyway. You've been given a whole month to do it. If someone is responsible for writing grants for an agency, that's a priority of your job. So that should be done on time because you're risking the agency not being able to perform services.

The other thing is what if they didn't get it in, nobody said anything about it, they're waiting for this whole process, and then three months later they find out, oh, you're not gonna get funded because you didn't turn in something. When it could have been as easy as to turn in an attachment, you know, two days later if they got notified. And something that wouldn't be minor and wouldn't have been worth losing $56,000 you asked for or whatever. So I think that if they get the notification that, k. You forgot something.

You gotta get that in. And they get it in, we're okay. If they don't get this stuff in by 05:00 on that day, well, I'm sorry. Because that's the deadline. That's what we wrote. It's in writing. The other thing is they can't get comfortable and expect care on them to have all their comments to them by 05:00 because that's something that's a courtesy that they're doing. Unless we're gonna write in there because we are providing comments, everything will still have to be in by five. That's the only thing I can see they may wanna use that as a catch. Well, you're supposed to be looking at them and you didn't call call me.

That was my phone. And it's I like the word, and I think we need to keep it. I appreciate the fact that they're doing the courtesy checks. And if we can keep that going, because it makes a big difference, And then just hold it to the 05:00. I mean, the agency that did not get that application done by 05:00 is one of our oldest funding agencies, and it's been a history of that.

This wasn't the first time it happened. So that can get a little annoying too. They know. They know. They're asking for quite a bit of money also. So they're taking for granted that we're just gonna go ahead and let them slip through because they've been here ninety nine years with us.

Got it.

Yeah. I my guess, like, my intention, like, kind of bringing this was not necessarily to, like, change the regulations, but more so just make it sort of we don't have to consider something like that again and, like, get the inherent study consistency because we don't wanna oh, we need oh, we don't like changing the word. That's

so but, basically, this being your item, do you wanna change the wording? I

And I guess, let me just give you an idea too. Either you can craft the wording and, you know, make a motion and so forth. Or if you're more comfortable, I can check with like, you can tell me what you wanna accomplish, and I can go check with the city attorney. He can word it up, and I can bring it back to you for a vote.

I like that one. You

guys have a motion for that?

Mhmm.

Are you asking me? What you could do is you could move and state what you wanna accomplish. And then somebody here's my thought. And, Sharif, you may have another idea. He's really good at process.

It is. Okay.

So that for the record, it stated what your aim is, and then somebody could second it. And then the board could vote, I think. This is the purpose that we wanna do as a board. That way, we would have board permission from everyone to go to the city attorney's office and work on the wording. And then I could bring it back to you for a vote, you know, next meeting or or a future one.

Or we could accept the wording as it is now and as a board do a better job of enforcing it?

Well, not as board. That's that's not hard for me. It'll be staff that enforces it.

Well Well question is, like necessarily. Yeah. If staff enforces it, are we gonna allow people to come to the board to request an exception?

Because we didn't do that the last time, and that's our fault. And so but the the wording is there. And it it and and I, you know, and I wrestle with this ever since that meeting because the wording is there. The agencies knew the wording was there, and it sounds like we've done a good job of finding ways to get around the wording that's there. And so we can either accept the wording as it is, like she said, or see if we can come up with a better way of doing it.

And and I don't even know if better is the right word. A different way of doing it. But any way we do this, it's gonna give any change from this, we're gonna give agencies an opportunity to go past deadlines. That's my opinion. And so I kinda like the wording as it is, and we as a board need to, if we accept that, back staff better so that they can make sure that people are going by that.

I do agree.

And and

I said all of that with my mic on. Oops.

Ahead, Bella. I'm sorry.

Oh, I was saying I do agree because I feel like if we allow special circumstances to be accepted for the application, then where do we draw that line? And I also feel like some agencies might possibly make things up to be accepted and tab allowance, but I'm not sure.

Carol, how often has the HSAB board or HSAB had to step in like we did last week or two. So

So the wording has only been in place for last fall's round and then this round. And so before that, staff was just having to deal with any applications that came in half done or partially done. We would call them like, hey, y'all. You know, get your stuff in, and so forth. So we just gave them, you know, the as much time as we could, and we just tried to have a deadline in their mind so that we could, all at once, give you all the information.

I know if she's. Yeah. Agree with I'm sorry.

We we couldn't hear. It may be whoever's talking, we we can't hear it.

I was just saying I don't think I'd have a motion consideration on the

I mean, I would say if that's the case, then let's just remove d altogether. So there's not that oh, well, we have two business days and then let us know if it's missing. Because that's how average Reddit number sure organizations will read that way too.

So I would say if you do that, we would have to eliminate 12 agencies. We that's so the attachments are are a burden. So they they easily forget one or whatever. That's where I would say, you know, be careful what you wish for because we would have to turn like Lorena is saying, oh, I I found 12 that didn't have all their stuff on the attachments. And if you take out d, where does that leave us?

What what are the attachments that we've discussed? What's because is that not is that part of the application itself?

Yeah. The list is on the application. Yeah. So let me get an application open real quick. Hang on a sec. Sorry.

So attachments here are basically, but, like, their paperwork and their letters

Right.

Foundation, stuff like that. Again Yeah. Again, you're making one extension for one thing and not making an extension for another. So

Because we had to draw the line. Like, you know, here's where

I I'm I'm agreeing with you, Carol. Because but a is saying one thing and b is saying another. A is saying absolutely no incomplete application is gonna be accepted. And then d is saying, oh, by the way, but if we have if you don't have attachments, then we can if if somebody doesn't turn in the letters, that's an incomplete application. So we're making exceptions for 12 other ones.

Sharia

Let me mention. We're making exceptions for 12 other ones, but then we're focusing on Southside Community Center being two minutes late. So either we reword a or we take out a deal altogether in all applications and final when they receive a message.

So the way it was worded is absolutely no late applications will be accepted, and then we give the definition for what's considered on time. An application will be considered on time if a substantive answer has been provided for every question and it's signed. You made it. That's the definition of an on time application. So we didn't bring in the whole checklist.

We could, you know, like, that would be harsh. We could do that. But we were trying to be soft on attachments because people often drop one, and we have to call them and we're just like, hey, get it in, and they send it in. So I think it's reasonable to expect people to at least fill out the form. So the form that we're talking about is this. So and then all the questions.

Yeah. Please.

And sign it.

And the checklist, Carol?

So the checklist is up here, and these are the attachments. So when so we have a deadline for the application. Next day, Lorraine is like, okay. For every application we've received, she goes through this list to see if everything's here. And then she's marking on a spreadsheet, you know, which one's missing and calling the agency.

And it seems a little bit off that we're saying, oh, you didn't sign your application, so we're gonna reject it. But then you have this checklist. If they didn't turn things on the checklist, they have two more days.

I think, like, the distinction, Jared, is that, like, those are all ancillary documents, whereas the signature is a part of the application. You know, like, those are all kind of sub whole memory to the application.

So why don't we have a checklist and why you don't have the attachments that are not part of the application?

Where is there? There I mean, for me, it's just I don't know if this is the program's answer, but, like, it's comes from a place of, like, their documents that we need for various reasons, whether it's, like, verify. I saw an IRS document up there.

And that's the reason do it. I'm saying it's the reasoning is that we're we're applying a very flawed reasoning to one thing versus the other. That's one of the things.

Yeah. Mean, like, my I wouldn't want to eliminate Dee just because this list does seem very cumbersome to me. So, like, you know, if you missed one document on this list, then you're just done. Like, if we were going to, I guess, standardize the application with the extra required documents, I would prefer that it just be, you know, the two day grace period for the entire document for the application and the but then at that point, then why don't we just put the application date two days back? Well, in an episode, that's what

I'm saying is on one hand, it seems kinda harsh. They're like, oh, you forgot to sign it. You're not gonna get anything, especially when it's an organization like

It says that on the rules and regulations. Yeah. It must be signed or otherwise

Yes. But we're making we're making this for staff is making exceptions for other things. So we're penalizing for one thing, but not for them. And be fair. I don't wanna reject any of the 12 organizations for Southside. But if we're gonna we're either gonna be rigid on on everything or we need to change it to so that it's more clear for Pete.

How would you do the way you would change it to make it more clear

I would

think it is is

is to keep it as is or in d?

I would I would leave it as is. But if Alright.

And change something,

I mean, d is kinda like, oh, well, if there's a test, let's say, we have two days. Again, that's giving them a two day break. Right?

Is there a way So of making the part of the process of accepting the application?

What was that?

What do you mean? So

combining maybe of us

have had to personally write a grant or be a check-in balance person and make sure they're ready to be turned in. So if we've ever had experience doing it, y'all would understand the side the d. Having that last person go through and do a check and balance makes a big difference. And a difference that a buyer is usually the one that you need. Now and we wanna be responsible for that? That's up to us, and that's where we decide on d. And we wanna leave that in and make that part of the process that we offer as part of accepting the application. Now the application's turned in. It's signed. Everything's there.

There is a checklist missing of how many days we were open, and we can lose the whole thing because we lost that checklist on the way to turn it in. You know, it just depends on what the attachment could be and how important it is. But the fact that you wanna make it all straight across the board, any attachment, you're being fair. You're not being judgmental. I do appreciate the fact that they wanna do that, and I think it needs to stay in. Now is there a way to combine a and d?

I actually think a and d need to be separate because I do think you are talking about two different things. The application itself and the attachments are two different things.

And, you

know, when you're signing the application, you're signing the application as complete, and you should say the attachments are part of that. But I think think they need to be separate because there are times when attachments do get separate and but they did turn in the application and we're gonna say, okay, so we're gonna you forgot this app this attachment. You've got two days to get it in here, But we've accepted your application because you did sign it and and complete it. That's just nothing.

Mhmm.

I also think we're

not gonna solve this today.

You know? I know we really think we're gonna solve this. Gonna be hard. Some are gonna try and say, well, I turned my application in at 04:00 that day. So you had an hour to check it, where others were in a week ahead, and they had time to check it, but not one that would turn in an hour. Where are they gonna cut us off and judge us on that?

Because we're not check it and then take them all in and then put the hammer on the next day, but we were trying to be Mhmm. You know?

If we don't make it, we're gonna lose 12 good applicants. You know, we would have.

If we make the attachments part

of the deal. Yeah. Mhmm. And and we're trying. We're not perfect. We're trying to get there, and we've noticed a lot of little things like this that need to be changed. So do we need to be so hard right now and just 05:00, Friday? That's it. We're not gonna check them. We're not gonna give you advance anything. If you forgot something, if you didn't turn it in, we're not gonna call. And we know because we've been sitting there to at the little ballot box, wait wait a minute. I haven't seen theirs yet. Where is it? But we're not gonna call because we're being hard.

In my sense, it was

Maybe we ought to Definitely.

My my stance on this is we're we're dealing with people. So when we're especially with people better than me and organizations that help people in need. So we should never just be 100% rigid. It's like, this is it, and that's it. Because, again, we're dealing with people that are losing their home.

They have mental issues. They've been going to jail, and these are the organizations that are helping them. So are we really trying to pull funding from organizations based on couple things that are missing the paperwork? I think we should give them a little bit of latitude. If we need to put that in this bylaws, they include we'll we'll check out or staff and check out the case for a few days and get back to you.

We can do that. I had no issues with going over the south side community center stuff because of the special circumstance that it was. But if somebody turns into the application a day late, I'm not willing to do that. Mhmm. But, again, keep in mind that we're we're dealing with people and small specific people in the on these organizations front of them. That that kinda brings up another question for me.

It's just kinda like, what's even, like, cut off for us to be considering making an exception in the first place? Because, you know, as you said, you wouldn't have considered something that was, like, a day later. You know, like Yeah. If someone had submitted something a day later, would they have even gotten back to us to, like, try to craft an exception for that, or would it have just been something that like, very clearly not going to be accepted? And if that's the case, why was it not just, you know, very clearly not accepted after the 05/2006 deadline? That's kind of the the core of it is, though. I don't necessarily understand kind of the cause behind it coming up for, like, a reconsideration and everything like that, which I mean, if that was a staff decision, that's I'm fine with that. Like, we And so it's been decided.

So

yeah. I feel like I got a question for Yeah. Not just kind of like like what? I understand, like, it was a very specific, like, situation, like, in a very, like, special circumstance, and it was just a couple of minutes. But, like,

what was the kind of process that led to it? When dinner arrives.

Yeah. I us being the kind of, like, decision maker on that, like

So I notified my boss, who's the director of planning and development. Hey, FYI, I just turned south side down because their application was not complete at 05:00 at the deadline. He let the city manager's office know, the assistant city manager that we report to, because we always try to not surprise the people above us. And we figured Southside's gonna come ask for a reconsideration. So I just gave them a heads up so that they're not surprised.

And then I don't know if I don't know in what order it happened, but I just got the word back from the assistant city manager. Let's take it to the board because they have jurisdiction over this document and let them decide. So that's how it went down exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. I guess, like, my ideal scenario is that, like, when there's a quest there like, there is no question of, like, whether or not we need to take this to the board or whether, like, our jurisdictions that we've said things are due at a certain point. Like, as as it's written, it'll be that way. Like, there's not if Southside were to have gone to a reconsideration, you

know, the fact that they

would have gone to for it, it wouldn't have been something that we could sit here and do. You know? Like, I don't and I don't know handcuffing ourselves that way is something that everyone's interested in necessarily. I just I again, I don't want, like, random not random. But, like, you know, this order this agency or that agency coming in and then, you know, if it ends up voting differently, then we voted on Southside with differing circumstances. I don't want facts to them look like, oh, well, they approve Southside because they like that one, they didn't feel as compelled to do it for this one because they didn't feel it was as important or

something like that. You know, I just

I don't you know, I think having this big discussion on whether or not we're deciding to make a reconsideration is kind of, like, where the issue is something for me. Yeah. Yancy?

Can I

take a motion to table? Right. Because we've done that for the presentation as Thank Thank you.

I'm sorry. And who seconded?

Carol. Ethan.

Oh, Ethan. Okay.

I I have more thoughts on it, and if you'd like to develop this a little bit

more part of it.

Alright. So I think we'll made by myself, seconded by Ethan. Carol, will you please That's Wait. Do you need to call the room or what

I need to ask, yeah, ask if there's any discussion.

Oh, is there any discussion on the motion today?

Can can you repeat the motion again? It was I

was looking at I

don't know exactly what it said.

It was just motion to table the discussion this discussion.

Okay. Thank you.

Alright. No discussion to discuss the motion from the table. Carol, will you please call the roll over the vote?

Alright. Yancey.

Yes.

Raymond Best?

Yes.

Linda Harper Williams?

Yes.

Ethan Graves?

Yes.

Sharif Casis?

Yes.

And Madeleine Smith? Yes. Okay. So that's six to zero.

Peter, 1. Alright.

Moving on to the question for now. Can

we get

a ten minute break?

We can get a ten minute break. Alright?

Perfect.

Ten minute break.

Five

minutes. Back at five minutes. 805. 806. 80.

Alright. We are back from break at 08:12PM. Moving on to discussion item number one. Now we are in discussion portion of the meeting. First, we can hold discussion of among board members on programs, agencies, and applications for the purpose of clarification. There is an evaluation and assessment. Would anyone like to discuss what we have reviewed so far?

I just had a quick question for Carol. On the on the minimum minimum request and amount of question on a couple of your organizations that have the the wrong data. For school fuel, it says their their minimum request is 336,900. Is that supposed to be 33,000? Or

I'll check that. And then I can just send y'all a replacement list. I'm sorry about all the replacements.

K. So the only one in the Scheife Center, it says the request is 15,000 and then 60. So

I think we're only discussing alright. Okay.

So Oh, no. We can discuss any applications, any

anything. Necessary.

Yeah. No worries. But I apologize for that.

I And the Shive Center, are we supposed to switch? Fit 60,000, 15,000? Or

Let me look at it. I I think that the requested amount is probably correct. What I did was I brought the minimum in from a different spreadsheet, and I bet I have them out of order. Oh. So I need to check all of that.

I the My one, I kinda took that as 363, like, overall is what they need to, like, function.

So starting

with Well, I don't think they even I don't think they even put in, like, a minimum.

You know?

See what

you're saying?

That's what I took.

They wouldn't accept any time they got to that amount. And

No. She's saying that their entire allocator monthly organization is three from six. Oh. So

I'll definitely check that.

Yeah. Because I was looking at I was like

It was confusing.

Requested 1,600,000.0 total. Was like, where are we gonna cut a

bunch? Yeah.

Okay. I'll I'll put

zero for you.

Okay. And I'll I'll get that to you as soon as I can. Also, I've had two two board members mention that they their USB drives did not have the applications on them. Is that the case for everyone? I don't know what happened.