Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

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Good morning and welcome to the September 15th meeting of the Tulare County Board of Supervisors We will start this morning with the Pledge of Allegiance led by supervisor Macari and please remain standing for a moment of silence Thank you. All right. We will start our next item, which is Board of Supervisors Matters. And I will start to the far right there with Supervisor Makary.

Well, good morning, everyone. It's great to see everyone here this morning. Just a few things. I think that the biggest thing we have that was our achievement, and I'd like to thank Israel Sotelo and staff, all of them, for putting this together. The governor signed SB 1115, which is the cemetery bill. It's exclusive to Tulare County. And we all know the drama and the challenges we've had regarding people that are wanting to put themselves before the community and the task they have. And the problem was we did appoint them.

However, once appointed, we couldn't remove them.

SB 1115 gives us under very certain circumstances, which were done in the past, the ability to remove a board member that we appoint. This is not for an elected position. This is a position that the Board of Supervisors appoints. And if these people meet that threshold and that criteria, it's very specific. We're able to do it. So it's a huge monumental task that we put together and worked on it and we've achieved it. So I do need to thank staff and everybody for all their hard work on this because it was a lot of work, but it's paid off. And I do believe that we will have a much better results from some of our boards that are challenging. I attended the assessor's ribbon cutting. They're in there at the government plaza now. The assessor's office has moved. It's a beautiful facility. They did a great job and I think that'll be a lot more helpful for the public and for staff because RMA and assessors are constantly communicating and having to go to each other's offices now they can walk across. I attended a few 9-11 events at Tulare County Sheriff's Office and the Fire Department. Thank you for hosting that, putting it on. And they had one in Exeter. Tulare County Fire was also involved with that. And then right after the 9-11 event in Exeter, they brought home Sergeant Adolfo Gary. Sergeant Gary was a World War II airman that went down over Italy. And they've just recently identified his remains and they brought him home. So we were there for the procession that comes in and there's other events that are coming up through the remainder of the week. but i wish his family the best and it's nice to have him have him brought home and then saturday afternoon was hometown emporium they've been there 30 years celebrated their 30th anniversary i was there able to help christian uh celebrate that and uh so it was a great time and i had a great turnout of the community and they're an asset to the community and what they do so i think it paid in dividends it came back everyone's there to support them and that's all i have

Thank you, Supervisor. All right, Supervisor Valero.

Thank you, Chair. Well, great morning, Tulare County. Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the Silver City Annual Cabin Association meeting. I've always connected with the Mineral King Association, the Badger Community Center, and the Wilsonia Cabin Groups, but this was the first time being invited to the Silver City Cabin Association event. IT'S ALWAYS GREAT TO SHARE WHAT THE COUNTY IS DOING, LEARN FROM PEOPLE ABOUT THEIR RESPECTIVE COMMUNITIES AND ENGAGE IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NATIONAL PARK SERVICE AS WELL. I TOO ATTENDED THE COUNTY FIRE AND SHERIFF 911 CEREMONY AND THEN THEREAFTER WE HAD THE CUTLER PRESENTATION AS WELL. THE CUTLER EVENT BRINGS TOGETHER COMMUNITY RESIDENTS, THE CUTLER ROSE FAMILY EDUCATION CENTER STAFF, AND BUSINESSES TO PAY TRIBUTE TO THE FALLEN DURING 9-11. I JUST WANT TO GIVE A SHOUT OUT TO OUR CHIEF NORMAN WHO HELPS ORGANIZE THAT WITH A LOCAL COMMUNITY MEMBER, ROMELIA CASTILLO AS WELL. On Sunday night, the Woodlake Homegrown Project put on an amazing mariachi festival with great ballet folklorico dancers, mariachi, and lots of vendor booths. It was a celebration to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month. Yesterday I attended our Public Law Library meeting. This week includes a Mineral King Association meeting followed by a Proteus board meeting. I also have a meeting with Brooke and the Seville Golden Resources Community Group coming up. I'm attending the CSET 50th anniversary event. The Visalia Breakfast Rotary Impact Alive. And then on Saturday, I will be attending a Sequoia Riverlands Trust outdoor event and then the Cahuilla Health Foundation 30 Years of Heart Program dinner. And then I will also be attending the TCAG meeting on Monday. And that is all I have, Chair.

Thank you. Supervisor Vanderpool.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good morning. How are you?

I'm good. How are you? Good. It's great to see you, Amy.

Good to see you too, Pete. A few items to go over this week. Just want to highlight, especially since Supervisor Townsend is not here, Tulare County's one and only fair kicks off tomorrow. That event is in Tulare. Porterville has a fair too, but I don't really consider it real. So the Tulare Fair, the Tulare County Fair, the only real fair, kicks off tomorrow with the fair parade at 10 o'clock in Tulare. And that fair will run through Sunday. It's always a great event, and lots of kids showing animals, and animals will be sold, lots of family fun, lots of great food, if you like deep fried Oreos. There's a lot of real good stuff for the community to enjoy, art exhibits. So it's a great event and that will be celebrated with a ribbon cutting tomorrow at 12 o'clock. And then afterwards, one unique event that was a tradition that started a few years ago and they've continued with, it's always real fun to participate in and I actually get to emcee and present quilts as well, is the Quilt of Honor Ceremony. The Central Valley Quilters Guild quilts these beautiful patriotic style quilts and they drape them over the shoulders of veterans who live in Tulare County and have served our nation. And I really just give huge kudos to this event. It's so wonderful to see the number of veterans that we live amongst in our own community. In fact, we have so many members of the sheriff's department or police departments throughout the county and fire departments that all have served our country and they come home and they continue their service here and they're even amongst us right now. I thank all of our veterans for their service, and I look forward to a great event tomorrow. That will also be at 12 o'clock at the Tulare County Fairgrounds. I've got various meetings with constituents and departments throughout the week, and then the Tulare County Association of Governments will have its meeting on Monday at 1 o'clock at the Ag Commissioner's Auditorium in Tulare. That's all I've got, Madam Chair.

All right, thank you. And tomorrow morning is the parade. Yes. I'll miss it. Yes. All right, so tomorrow morning, the reason I'll miss the parade is I have a Workforce Investment Board meeting tomorrow and then in the afternoon at 1.30 in these chambers is our monthly Task Force on Homelessness meeting. I too will be attending the 50th anniversary for CSET on Thursday. Saturday, I will be emceeing the PPAV Ladies Society Trees for Charity. It seems a little early for Christmas trees, but Costco has Halloween decorations and Christmas trees right next to each other. And then I, too, will be attending the Cahuilla Health 30 Years of their cardiac program. Monday, as was stated, is our TCAG meeting. We will be meeting next Tuesday, but after that, a lot of us will be heading to our Rural Counties Conference in Santa Barbara County. So with that, we will move on to public comment. Public comment under state law matters presented under this item cannot be discussed or acted upon by the board at this time. Comments should be relevant to matters within the board subject matter jurisdiction and not repetitive of previous speakers. At all times, please use the microphone and state your name for the record. um we do now offer telephonic public comment just a reminder at three minutes the microphone will be muted on the phone and also i will be cutting people off at three minutes here and we have a 15-minute total limit which is at the discretion of myself so we'll see how that goes this morning so madam clerk do we have any public comment today yes robert biggs Good morning, Robert.

Good morning.

Good morning to the entire board.

My name is Robert.

I have spoken to you before and I come to you today with the same issues that we've all had. I'm just asking the board to consider what the union has been asking you for. I know you guys are probably as tired of seeing us as we are of having to come here. This is a struggle back and forth, but we appreciate your time. But we just ask you for a livable, decent wage. Most of us struggle. A lot of our union members have to work two jobs. We try awfully hard to, make ends meet uh some people can't afford their medicines to keep their own bodies healthy so they can continue to take care of the recipients that they take care of my thing is i would just like to ask the board one question and i'll be real quick is your employer offered you a 10 cents an hour raise at your next evaluation or whatever, if they only said that your time was worth 10 cents, how would you feel? You have to go to all these meetings. You have to do all the things that you do. You guys are all in the community. You help a lot. And what if they told you that all you do was only worth a dime? I'd like to thank you for your time.

Thank you, Robert.

Elio Santos.

Good morning, Mr. Santos.

Good morning. Good morning, Chair Chuckland and members of the board. My name is Elio Santos. I am a community worker with California Rural Leo Assistance. I'm here to support Golden Resources of Seville and the Seville community efforts in pursuing funding for the development of a community park. We appreciate the opportunity to speak with you all today, and we appreciate the conversations we've been able to have with Supervisor Valero, about the needs of the Seville community. Today we are here to ask the County of Tulare to consider serving as the applicant for a statewide park program grant on behalf of the Seville community to pursue funding for a community park. For the past year and a half, we've been working with Golden Resources of Seville to identify the community's top needs and priorities. One of the most consistent issues the community has raised is the lack of any public community park. Residents of all ages have expressed the need of a safe, accessible, and welcoming community park space where Seville residents can gather and build a stronger community. The statewide park program presents a rare opportunity to address this important need. Under the statewide park program, jurisdictions like Tulare County can apply for funding to either improve existing parks or create new parks from the ground up and critically underserved communities like Seville. Based on our conversations with the community and our review of the program's eligibility guidelines, We believe Seville will be a strong candidate for this funding. We would also like to explore this opportunity in partnership with the county. Sierra Lea and Golden Resources of Seville have already begun preparing to help with community engagement, outreach, and planning. We're also grateful to have the support of Soncorral Elementary School in Seville, which has offered to partner with us. The grant application window for the statewide program grant is open now and it's set to close on December 17th. In order to be eligible for this grant, the county must work with the community to hold five community meetings before it applies. There's no certainty about when or if an opportunity like this will be available again. TO ENSURE THE RESIDENTS OF SEVILLE HAVE A CHANCE TO BENEFIT FROM THIS RARE OPPORTUNITY, ACTION IS NEEDED NOW SO THAT SEVILLE HAS A FAIR CHANCE TO COMPETE FOR THIS FUNDING DURING THE CURRENT APPLICATION SONGLE. TODAY, WE ARE ASKING THE COUNTY OF TULARE TO SUPPORT THE SEVILLE COMMUNITY TO BRING TOGETHER THE APPROPRIATE COUNTY STAFF TO MEET WITH GRS, CRLA, AND SEVILLE RESIDENTS AND OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS FOR STRATEGIC CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HOW THE COUNTY CAN SERVE AS THE APPLICANT. Lastly, we want to thank Supervisor Valero and General Services Director Brooke Six for being willing to engage in conversations with us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Santos. Sounds like you're on your way.

Rose Renteria.

Good morning, Rose. Good morning, Chair and members of the board. My name is Rose Renteria and I'm a property owner in Seville. I'm here today not only as a property owner, but as a member of the Seville community who cares deeply about the future of our residents. My property, like others in our community, does not have access to basic utilities. Living in these challenges has given me a firsthand understanding of the difficulties our community faces and the importance of investing in Seville. I am also the president of Golden Resources of Seville, a community group that was established in 2024. Our group was created because residents want to come together, speak up, and work toward positive improvements for our community. One of our priorities is advocating for a community park. Our residents, especially our children and families, deserve a safe and welcoming place where they can gather, play, exercise, and build a stronger sense of community. A park would not only provide recreation, it would be an investment in the community, in the health and well-being and the future of Seville. We understand that creating a park takes planning, funding, and partnership. We are asking the county to work with us and help us identify opportunities, resources, and possible funding to make this vision a reality. Seville may be a small community, but our residents matter, our families matter, and our children matter. I respectfully ask the members of this board to listen to our community, support our efforts, and help us move forward toward creating a community park for the residents of Seville. Thank you for your time and for allowing me to speak on behalf of our community.

Thank you.

Thomas?

Good morning, Thomas. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning.

Good morning, Board of Supervisors. My name is Thomas Magana. I'm a proud care provider in Tulare County. As a caregiver, all IHS providers need a strong contract that offers livable wages. When IHS providers have a strong contract, seniors, our clients, and people with disabilities are able to get quality care. They need to remain safely in their homes. Home care providers have only been offered an increase of 10 cents. A 10 cents increase is not enough to help caregivers put food on the table, especially when it comes to cost of living. Cost of living keeps going up. So many caregivers are working long hours and are feeling burnt out because our paychecks can't keep up with the cost of living. In fact, 80% of caregivers are reporting working multiple jobs just to make ends meet. Caregivers need more than 10 cents to make this a career field here in Tulare County. We need to think about how to make caregivers a career field that can support our families without the need of working multiple jobs, just to put food on the table. We know that the board has its challenges and obligations to keep Tulare County running, but IHS caregiver workers must be treated as an essential priority. Investing in IHS caregivers will help Tulare County protect our residents, our communities, and most of all, the vulnerable people. and strengthen local workforces. Help avoid expensive institutional care. IHS caregivers need your support. Work with us and give us more than 10 cents increase. Thank you for your guys' time. We appreciate you guys.

Daniel Gonzalez.

Good morning.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Daniel. I'm a third generation civilian. Well, I live in Seville. I'm reaching out to you guys to ask for assistance and support with our project. Our community truly needs and honestly is well-deserved, overdue for a park. And I haven't seen no change. You know, we pay taxes and I feel like Tulare County just forgot about Seville. You know, we have to drive like 20 minutes just to get to a park. Over the years, residents lost hope. They're saying that I'm just wasting my time. You know, I'm out here trying to advocate for a park. I sincerely appreciate your time and if you could please help on our goal. Thank you.

Thank you.

Amber Garcia.

Good morning, Amber. Yeah. Thank you, Jennifer.

Thank you. Good morning, Chairman. Good morning, board. Hi, my name is Amber. I'm a proud giver here in Tulare County. I care for two sons who have autism and are nonverbal, so it's been challenging for them to communicate on what they need. Being able to care and knowing that they are getting the support they need gives me comfort and security. That's why in-home care is so important for families. They should not have to choose between providing care for themselves or assigning their parent rights away so they can be placed in more expensive institutional hospitals. We are on the front lines every day caring for people with disabilities in order for them to live in their homes safely and comfortably. Part of the work involves caring for this board's constituents, and this work needs to be treated as an essential priority. The love that I have for my children and the support they need to thrive. I give the love and support that my children need to thrive, but I also want to be able to do my job without worrying whether my paycheck will be able to cover all of my bills. We live in hard economic times. Too many Tulare caregivers are burnt out from having to work multiple jobs and barely be able to pay all the bills. A Tencent increase is not going to really help us because it isn't a real investment in care. We need a livable wage. Do you know 63% of caregivers report having difficulty paying their mortgage each month? We really need, we need you to really listen to us and tell, that's why we tell Tulare, that's why we say Tulare is in a real care crisis. The only way out of care crisis is a livable wage and a better investment in care. Thank you.

That concludes the public comment cards.

Okay, no telephone calls? Okay, thank you. All right, we have timed items at 9.30, so we will skip over to our untimed items at this. Yeah, we'll do that first, but I don't think it'll take that long. So we'll go to the consent calendar, and if there are no items to remove, I'll entertain a motion. Okay, we have a motion by Supervisor McCorry with the Supervisor Valero seconding. Please cast your votes. Motion passes 4-0 with Supervisor Townsend absent. Okay, now we'll move on to our untimed items. And the first being, I have to find it, is to receive a presentation regarding the status of the Tulare County Regional Transit Agency. Mr. Winning, Derek. Either one, Derek. All right. Well, it's my left.

Thank you so much, Chair Shecklin, for inviting me here today. I'm really pleased to be before you. Got a clicker here, I think. Or are we OK with the presentation? Oh, my mistake.

You got to do your own work here.

No problem. All right. Thank you very much. So we just wanted to come by and brief you guys on some of the initiatives that we've undertaken in the last few months. There's actually much more than this that we're working on, but these are some of the highlights where we want to fundamentally improve the service in the region. Um, so, uh, one of the first things we've done is, uh, with the leadership of the board, uh, we engaged in a rebranding effort. Uh, so we're now, uh, branded and known as Ride Tulare County. Um, and, uh, most of that's already reflected in our social media, um, and website and many of our vehicles have been rebranded as well. Um, and we're really proud of that effort and we like the look. We've also, over the past year, worked really hard on an ambitious short-range transit plan to sort of redesign the entire service. We tasked our consultant team with sort of finding the synergy between fixed route and microtransit services, and that enables us to redesign our fixed routes, make them more efficient, but also sort of cut some of the fixed routes that are low performers. um and and sort of backfill that with microtransit and it's kind of hard to see but the graphic on the bottom right is illustrative of a methodology in the sense that we're able to use modern techniques for this redesign we have a lot of access to big data information regarding travel patterns and origins and destinations. And we also use a tool called Remix to test the accessibility. So we're able to test the existing design of the system against our proposed changes in the redesign and ascertain have we improved the accessibility of the riders, how far they can get in 15 minutes, 30 minutes and 45 minutes and so on. This has been really effective in, I believe this is a graphic of the city of Tulare and also the city of Dinuba. For the rural routes, those are considered more lifeline and there's really only one route like connecting the communities, right? So there's not a whole lot of room to make changes there. But we do take a look at them as well. and our microtransit in rural areas. We've also brought on a new operator. They started July 1 via transportation. We became familiar with them as the provider of our microtransit software, and they've been expanding and getting into the full operations business. They have a few of those. One's in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and another in Mobile, Alabama. We're also one of the early adopters of their operating contract, but they have extensive microtransit operation experience. They operate LA Metro microtransit. All the vehicles, drivers, they fully run that operation. They provided a really good bid, and we have a really good alignment on of trying to optimize the system between fixed route and microtransit. They also offer a host of other sort of nontraditional services from transit operators. They really want to engage in and improve the service and not just be dictated on what the service is and how it should run. but they're forward thinking and so they're offering planning, schedules and operation services. They're even providing grant writing services to pursue improvements. So we're working on them with a grant to get 10 more micro vans. You might recognize this graphic from the previous slide, but this is an example from their success in Sioux Falls where they were able to redesign the fixed route system, expand the microtransit service, and get an optimization there, and they were able to get a 28% increase in ridership. So had we not done the short-range transit plan, they would have worked on this kind of study with us. And I'm having them peer review it and to see if we can find any more optimization in order to see whether our ideas with our consultant team were the correct ones. And then lastly, at least with our major endeavors, we've got a contract with a company called Token Transit. They're also a technology company, but it's to bring contactless payment or electronic forms of payment onto the bus system. And so you'll be able to use your credit card or Apple Pay, many different types of payment options to make it easier. That'll also allow for us to cap fares because we'll recognize your card number. And so if you've earned a day pass, then you have a day pass and you won't pay any more than the cost of that in one day or one week or one month. And so we really think that's going to help out some of our lower income riders where maybe they can't afford $50 or $55 at the beginning of the month. but they'll basically be able to kind of pay over time for that monthly pass and they'll never overpay for their transit. It'll also let us seamlessly work with the COS students. As you may know, they all pay $5 in their fare structure and they can ride all of our regional services, Visalia, TCRTA, Porterville. They'll be able to tap their student ID. and there'll be an up-to-date database to ensure that they're a current student. Anyways, we're really excited about this. For me, more so than maybe any of the other initiatives, kind of welcome to the 21st century. Those validators have all been ordered. I think they'll be installed in November, and we should have a February 1 launch date. um i think with that that's all i had planned for today but happy to answer your questions dear quick question can you give a little um explanation of what microtransit is oh yeah for sure um so microtransit is an app-based uh software that we have and it works just like uber or lyft so you download the app it asks you where do you want to go right you type in the address or the place and it will hail a ride for you it'll a van will show up In the urban areas, we try to get there within 30 minutes. In the far rural areas, within one hour. But they'll pick you up right where you're at and take you exactly where you want to go. So it's a more modern way of doing transit. We do charge $5 for that. But we like it. We like it with the fixed route. That enables people to have a choice, right? If you really gotta get someplace quick, you can try the microtransit. Maybe you can't afford to do that every day, but frequently, hopefully, you'll be able to do that. And we're just really excited about that option. What's coming after the token transit is trip planning. So we'll do an RFP and get a trip planning software regionally. And what that'll do is it'll be the same thing. Where do you wanna go? You type it in, but this time you'll get a myriad of options. It'll be like, hey, you could try microtransit. It'll cost you X, take this much time. You could use the fixed route, some combination of, and you'll have how long it will take, how far you need to walk, how much it will cost. You'll have, Rider will have all these options and they can select which works best for them. At least that's the idea behind it.

Supervisor Valero, did you have a question?

So first and foremost, I just want to say thank you so much for your laser-like focus on all things transit in all the communities across Tulare County. When I have received concerns throughout different constituents, you've always gotten to the root of the issue, always quick to respond. So again, thank you for that. And then also thank you for looking at the synergy, right? The synergy, how can everything work together for the good of all residents needing public transportation and for also streamlining the process, right? Because transit can be very overwhelming at times, but it seems like you're looking for the simplicity of the work in order to make sure that the residents don't have to deal with so many of the issues. So again, thank you so much. A question that I do have, Is because I do get this question a lot is about like benches and coverings at certain stations, how does that become priority, how does that become a request is there any way, you can share something to that effect.

Yeah, I think primarily for the request side of it, we sort of rely on the unmet needs process. We also have the ability to do our own analysis where there are some gaps where we have like high ridership onboardings at certain locations. That's sort of the metric that we would use. I believe you need to have 20 boardings a day or something like that for us to get interested in putting a shelter. To be honest, as a newer agency, dealing with many different jurisdictions, that's probably one of the hardest tasks for us is to actually get a permit and have an install done on a shelter. So my staff is working on obtaining those capabilities and getting better at it. It's also we're having a harder time finding a contractor to do the install. You have to have a crane to kind of lift the cap. So I'm even looking at my maybe buying a small truck with a crane on it to get that capability going. But we definitely feel for folks that have to stand in the sun and we do have a few shelters that we can install as soon as we can figure out how to get through the roadblocks of all the paperwork. The other thing I might add that you mentioned on the synergy is one of the highlights of the short-range transit plan I didn't mention was that we really focused on pulsing the routes at the transit center. So right now, you might be coming in on an old TCAT route right to Larry County. into like city of Tulare. And you might have to wait a little bit longer to transfer. And we've really worked hard at both Dinuba and Tulare to have all of the buses coming into the transit center within a 15 minute window. So it makes it really easy for folks to transfer. And we got some comments back from the public where they were like, we've been told that's impossible to do. So it was really, really cool to work on that project.

That's great. All right, Supervisor McCurry.

Well, I want to start off by saying I'm currently the chair of the TCRTA, and we, when I got put on there, it was circling the drain. Transit Tulare County was circling the drain. Nobody got along. Nobody communicated. Visayas, Tulare, and excuse me, Visayan, Porterville, they were all separate agencies, and we were literally in trouble. We got Derek on board and he turned this around immensely and brought us up to the 21st century. We're finding out now, well, not just today, but we've been finding out that the previous vendor hadn't been servicing our vehicles and we had tens of thousands of dollars in damage that TCRT was having to pay when they should have been responsible for that. There's all these things that are nuances that are coming up. VIA has turned around and immediately did an assessment of our routes. We've got one route that was added on prior to me, or just at the beginning when I first came on, but it got added on. It's costing us, what, Derek, $500 per rider because the ridership is so low. And there's assessments being done. I mean, it's a business. We have to make sure that we're using our assets correctly. People don't like the word change, and I understand that because it's uncomfortable. But not only are we saying, hey, we have to make it do something with this route because it's just not cost effective. There's solutions coming up through micro transit through other things that are making sure that those people that need that vehicle and depend on it are gonna get a ride. So the efficiency's really turned around in an extremely short period of time. And it's exciting to see where we've come. We changed the name, we rebranded, because I'll be honest with you, the TCRTA brand was really soiled. People didn't wanna talk to us, people didn't wanna work with us, and we really had to turn it around so we made a fresh, clean cut. And I see it's paying dividends to our communities. And Derek, you're the one we've appointed there, and you're the one doing it, and I thank you. He went from almost like no staff. He was the only guy there for the longest time. He had maybe one or two people. And now he's built his team back up. So he's done an amazing job, and I want to personally thank you for it. And it's just exciting to see where it's coming. And every time we talk, there's something new coming up. And I know that the responsiveness from you and your staff, the, uh, responsive to new vendor and looking forward to the future is really going to take us somewhere. So I just want to say thank you.

You're welcome. And thanks for all the confidence you guys have placed in me and all the support. We really appreciate it. And I do have an awesome staff. I couldn't do any of this without them.

Did you have something?

Yeah, I was just going to add. Derek, you've done a fantastic job. You were basically plucked from a position and put into TCRTA. And not only have you turned the agency around, you've looked at branding, you've looked at improvements, bringing technological advances to a rural area. And you've done all of this in a very short period of time. And you really have put transit this area on the map so relationships that didn't exist or were thought could never exist now collaborate together and you know parties are working together and this just shows what individuals can do when they're dedicated to the job. And they've got a great board behind them. I mean, I think Supervisor Macari and the board have done a great job leading along with the staff to make sure that we in Tulare County offer a great transit program. RATHER THAN OPERATING IN SILOS AND TRYING TO, YOU KNOW, BOOST THEIR OWN POLITICAL PROFILE, THEY'VE WORKED HARD TO REALLY GET DOWN AND DIRTY AND DEDICATED TO THE SERVICES THAT OUR RESIDENTS NEED. SO GREAT JOB TO YOU AND YOUR STAFF AND THEN ALSO TO THE TCRTA BOARD.

YES. SURE.

JUST SO THE PUBLIC UNDERSTANDS WHEN SUPERVISOR VANDERPOOL TALKS ABOUT SILOS, THERE WAS comments made of you're not allowed in our city. And we could only take people, drop them off at the transit center at that local transit center, and it was so horrible, the working relationship. And these people were getting, what would take them normally an hour or two ride was taking them half a day or longer because they had to sit at a transit center and wait. So it was extremely detrimental to our communities. And once we got in there, got to working, and Derek went to work, he got his mission from the board, and he's turned it around. So I cannot give him enough kudos for the amazing job he's done. But I just want the public to know when we talk about silos, we talk about these things, it was bad, really bad.

All right. Thank you. Do we have any public comment on this item? All right, seeing none, Derek, thank you.

All right.

Okay, we're gonna go ahead and take our next untimed item, which is a request from the Resource Management Agency to take action on one of the following options regarding the contract for construction of the Mineral King Road and Wishon Drive Permanent Restoration Project. Mr. Schenke.

I would have sat closer to the front. Yeah, sorry.

I sprung it on you.

So for your consideration with this item is the award of a contract for construction of repairs to Mineral King Road in Three Rivers and Wishon Drive outside of Springville. I'm Reed Shanky with the Resource Management Agency. With this project, we're proposing to permanently repair damages caused during the 2023 storms. RMA previously made temporary repairs consisting of wooden timber structures and, excuse me, so we got wooden timber structures, sorry, got distracted there, and other short-term solutions to open the roads as quickly as possible. We went in right after the storms, made those short-term repairs because both of those locations, the roads were completely eroded and there was no other access beyond. Over the past two years, staff has worked with designers to prepare the plans, complete environmental clearances, and obtain funding authority. We're now ready to return to fully stabilize the roads, the slopes, and the drainage facilities, so make permanent the repairs. Due to the nature of the temporary repairs, the location in higher elevations, as well as the potential for escalated storm systems this winter as we potentially enter into an El Nino pattern, time is of the essence to complete the work this fall. The project was authorized to bid by your board on June 30th and bids were opened August 6th. We received four bids. Low bid was from Synergy Construction and Development Corp and the second low bid was from Walsh Montgomery Construction Incorporated. After the bid opening, Walsh Montgomery submitted a protest against Synergy's low bid based on three items. The first was the bid pages provided by Synergy showing the bid amounts were not on our standard bid forms. The second item of contention is that the contract's unit prices were not written in words as detailed in the instructions to bidders. In the instructions to bidders, we request that they enter written in words, so 1,000, for example, written in words and in numbers, and it was only written in numbers. And then the third item of contention is that the low bidder did not list a subcontractor in which the protester believes the prime contractor does not have the ability to self-perform. County bid documents specifically list non-waivable irregularities or omissions from a bid that would automatically disqualify a bid. The first two items are not on the non-waivable, so double negative, they are waivable, and thus can be decided by the board as to whether they provide the low bidder with an unfair advantage. So that's one of the decisions before you today. It's staff's interpretation that these two irregularities can be waived. The third item that was brought forward in the bid protest contains to California Public Contract Code, which requires that bidders list subcontractors performing portions of the work. So if you're not self-performing and the work exceeds a certain percentage of the bid, then you have to list who the subcontractor is. So in response to the bid protest by Walsh, the low bidder Synergy provided justification supporting their ability to self-perform the work. So their argument is that they are gonna do the work themselves and they didn't need to list the subcontractor. Staff believes that this response is adequate and we will closely monitor this item of work if the contract is awarded to Synergy. Our standard contract does include conditions and penalties for unlisted subcontractors to do the work. So if they bring on a subcontractor that was not listed at a later date, there are conditions in our contract on how to deal with that, and it is ultimately financial penalties. um so thus as outlined in your agenda package we've got three options before you today option a is waive the irregularities in the low bid by synergy and award the project to synergy b is reject the low bid and award the second low bidder walsh montgomery or c is reject all bids and direct staff to rebid the project if awarded today construction could begin in a few weeks and could be completed before the winter weather If we re-bid, we would lose the weather period and would likely begin construction in the spring, so we miss that time and the risk there is that we have these wooden structures on Mineral King and Wishon which could be impacted by the winter weather patterns. Further, RMA plans to be constructing the Mineral King Bridge, which is just up the road from one of these locations, and these two construction efforts wouldn't really be compatible because we would have to close the road down at one location, and so you'd have to delay the bridge project as well. That project has not gone out to bid yet, so that's a potential complication. Funding for the project is through county road funds of which we are adequately budgeted for either bid amount. So that's money's not really the issue here with this one. The work is eligible for reimbursement through FEMA at 93 and three quarter percent rate. We're obligated for one of the locations and we've got authorization but not obligation for the remaining portions. And I think your board's aware of the issues that we've been dealing with FEMA there. Because of the nature of these locations, this is work that needs to be done regardless of the FEMA reimbursement, so we're gonna have to take this one either way. Included in your engendering package are the bids, the bid protest from Walsh Montgomery, and the response to the bid protest from Synergy. Further, I believe that there may be representatives from Walsh Montgomery here today to make their protest, speak with you about that, and possibly from Synergy to respond to their protest. If you have questions for either of them, they may be in the building here today. Our recommendation, to quickly summarize, is because of the needs to meet the weather patterns, staff recommends that you go with option A. and failing that, if the board feels that the irregularities do provide an unfair advantage, then we suggest that you reject all bids and re-bid, so go to option C in that case. So, happy to answer any questions.

Okay, before I open it up for public comment, do we have any questions? Okay. All right. I will now open this up for public comment. Do we have anybody who would like to speak on this item? Jerry Montgomery.

Hi. My name is Jerry Montgomery. I'm with Walsh Montgomery Construction. This is David Walsh, my business partner. He lined it out that they didn't use the bid forms. They didn't follow the bid instructions. His stance is there wasn't an unfair bid advantage. I think there is. We had to close out bid items the night before. This was a 10 a.m. bid. with 120 plus bid items. So we started writing out our bid items in words per the direction of the bid documents the night before. Synergy was able to change their bid up until bid time, print out the documents and walk them in. That's an unfair bidding advantage. We had to close our bid items out the night before for the majority of these items and handwrite them out. That is the definition of an unfair bid advantage. We follow the bid instructions. We've, we used your provided bid documents which is required by all cities and municipalities and it should have been an automatic disqualification for that reason. Um, Synergy also did not list subcontractors. After we protested they reached out to our subcontractors for a quote. I've got my subcontractor right here that he's got a printout of the email that they sent him after our bid protest. For them to get, or actually after bid opening, for them to get numbers from him to do the work. Again, that should have been an automatic disqualification when we brought that up to the city, the county.

GREG BRUDNICKI And what Senator Gee is trying to say is what called the soil nails, right? And, and, and Patrick, this is Patrick Thomas who is our listed subcontractor to do the soil nails. And he can explain to you what Synergy is trying to sell to you guys that is not the same thing.

Hi, my name is Patrick Thomas. I'm with Access Limited Construction. We're a specialty subcontractor that does soil nails and slope stabilization. Synergy did reach out to us on August 11th. I think the bid opening was on August 6th. They reached out to us for a subquote, which I found abnormal, given that typically you receive your subquotes prior to bid opening. And they're also stating that the work that they are doing with a system called ArmorMax They're driven anchors that are driven by handheld equipment that can be pretty much performed by anybody. And that system is designed for surficial erosional stabilization, whereas the spiral nails in these bid documents are for gross stability of your slope. Installing these spiral nails requires an excavator-mounted hammer, which is far more than a handheld jackhammer to install these other anchors. It's kind of like me. I could go buy a framing hammer and a box of nails and lumber, but I'm not going to dare go frame a house because that's not my specialty. I specialize in slope stabilization and earthworks. I've been in the geotech industry for 10 years, and this type of work requires specialty experience. When it comes to testing the nails, the nails need to be pulled out or have a resistance up to 35,000 pounds. Whereas these other cable anchors that they're claiming is their experience are a couple thousand pounds. So I don't feel that that experience that they're claiming coincides with the experience required to perform this work.

And your addendum one specifically calls out the requirements of soil mills on this project.

Thank you, Jim. Oh. One more.

They also failed to list a requirement in the contract is backfilling with lightweight cellular concrete. And they didn't, they failed to list a subcontractor for this work also.

I want you guys to look at what this is required. If you can hand that to everybody. We had an email before we went back.

No, no, this is a separate contract, a subcontractor that we listed and this is a separate specialty item that is required.

Sorry.

This cellular lightweight concrete is not mixed in a ready mix plant. It is mixed on site with specialty equipment that you can see in the documents I just provided you. We listed a subcontractor for this item also. They're trying to say that they self-performed this work also, which I find it hard to believe. I don't think they own this equipment. And you cannot go rent this equipment.

Okay. Thank you for your comments. Do we have any other public comment on this item? Patrick Thomas? Oh, that was, he had his time. That's it? OK, I will bring this back. And I also want to mention this is agendized for closed session. Do any of the board members feel a need for closed session? No? OK, so I'll bring it back for questions. Supervisor Macari?

I guess my first question is, is Synergy here? Is he going to be allowed to speak or is he at a later time?

I opened it up for public comment. So would you like to say anything? You have three minutes. Well, just come up to the microphone, state your name, please, and then we'll start the time.

Hi, good morning. My name is . I'm from Synergy Construction. First thing, we are the licensed bonded contractor for this job, and we have an excellent team. Mr. Curtis, he built a lot of bridges, up to 100 million. And also, I don't know where they get the email, and maybe I don't know, but as a president, and if any project managers send them an email if they receive a bid. And it's typical. Usually we receive the former proposals from the subcontractors after the bid opening. We cannot stop them, anybody. Like, oh, we cannot take your bids or something. And we always collect the data, who will do our next projects, and something like that. Do you have any question for me? That's my question.

No, this is public comment time. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

So, my comments are, we have a forms, we have a process for a reason. And we have these huge major projects going on slopes. I've been on Mineral King. I've been with Sean. And if you can't follow instructions, what kind of a job are you going to do out there in the field? And we've been burned way too many times on very identical protests of this, where somebody comes in and does a bid. It's almost like identical stuff. They're not filling the forms out right. They're not completing everything. they're not listening to their subcontractors, everything. I mean, it's, it's like, it's a playbook. And then we end up turning around, we find some reason to turn around and say, well, okay. And yeah, so, so they didn't write the numbers out. They just, they just wrote numbers. And a minor thing like that. And everyone has come back and bit us in the rear end. And we've had bridge jobs extended and delayed. We've had major construction job extended and delayed. And we had to pay out money and then repay money to get it fixed. And I'm not supportive of it at all. And I know we have weather coming up, and we should have planned for the weather. El Nino, they've been talking about it forever. And it may be a delay. It may cost us a little extra money and extra work. But I want to pay for the job one time. We get FEMA money one time. So I, I don't know what we can do to get these guys to understand they're a business, okay? And I'm not a contractor. What they're talking here is way above my head, but it does make common sense when you're talking about, hey, you can't, you can't have this stuff trucked in. You got to pour it on site because they talk about all the different sciences behind, behind concrete. Well, I mean, that to me, It tells me that there's some, there's some issues and I'm not willing to roll the dice anymore. And I think we need to start holding contractors feet to the fire. Because I've been on this board five years and we've been burned time and time and time again and it has regarding the same issues. So I'm, I think that while it may be detrimental, that we need to delay it. And we need to re-bid. That's my position.

Supervisor Vanderpool?

Yeah, I really hate to go along with a delay, knowing all of the risks that are taken with a delay, but I sure, I'm not a contractor, but for bridge stability, what seems to be something that's jackhammered into the ground, yeah, by hand versus, you know, corkscrew nail that's going to provide more stability just based on weight. I mean, boy, it sure makes sense that a bridge would need that. And, you know, there's a lot of technicalities here and there. There's rules for a reason. You don't follow the rules. I don't think your bid should be accepted. Sometimes it's worthwhile to waive protests, but there are some times where I think that they are warranted. This is a significant bridge. I don't want to approve this and waive the bid protest and end up with a bridge that ends up failing and causes more significant harm, not only to individuals, but to the county in the long run. So I'm with Supervisor McCurry in terms of rebidding.

Okay, any other questions? I have a quick one. Is there a way to avoid any of these concerns that Supervisor Macari has stated?

I certainly empathize with the concern about the bid forms not being submitted. That's been a frustration of ours many, many times. In regards to the design and the requirements, the design is very clear and we oversee and monitor, we inspect the contractor's work. So we don't just simply allow them to swap out an alternative method of construction. So the design type that is specified here would be required, and if they're not able to provide that as the awarded contractor, then there would be ramifications for that. So the argument on whether or not they can do it, that's a valid argument, but whether or not we would require them to do it, that's a point that we would hold them to. I have a question.

Sure.

You mentioned that not filling the forms out has been a frustration for RMA for years.

sounds like some time, and I know we've dealt with it some time.

Do we have the authority just to reject it? If they come in and they're not complete right, just say no and turn them away. Do we have that authority, council? Didn't do it. So simple.

If I can maybe expand on that. In our contract we have a list of non-waivable failures. These items that were on there were not one of those. We at staff level I don't think have the authority to turn somebody away. That would if they don't meet those non-waivable items. That would have to be that would have to be your decision. I apologize. You nodded yes to both of them.

What do we need to do to make sure that we fix this? That's all I want to know. If we need to bring it back to the board, let's bring it back to the board at a different time to fix it. But I'm tired of it. We get screwed every time.

Yes, so we can bring this back, that answer to that question back at a different time. What Reid's explaining is there are non-waivable defects which you can reject and then there are waivable defects that can, that need to come to the board for consideration.

All right, so bring it back to us on an agenda item, everything, and let's talk, let's talk about every bit of it. And, and, and it may be a long meeting, I don't know, but i think we you know if you need our authority to fix it then i think we need to fix it because this happens way too much and and you're stuck because we haven't fixed it it's the buck stops with us so let's fix it bring it back please but not this particular item you're just talking in general bring back the the rules and and items that they have what the guidelines they're doing at a separate time okay right now here i'm ready to make a motion if we're done you know

I have one more question.

Sorry, if I can, through the chair.

Yeah, go ahead.

Just to clarify, we are working with council to clean up our contracts, our bids, so we can make them very concrete and take out any aspect of discretion in that. An example of bids that we receive fairly frequently and which are frustrating is we'll get a bid that maybe the unit price is $100 and they'll put a decimal point in the wrong place and they put $1. And it's pretty clear and obvious to everyone what they've intended, but that may throw out the bid because of that simple error. And so those are the nuances that we would have to work through and that cause a real challenge for us. I want to make sure that we get right as far as being very firm, bright line, definitive on a decision versus having some level of discretion.

Look, I don't want to make it to where it's impossible for someone to do a bid. Errors do happen, and I understand. That's why I want to bring back and discuss everything. But when you just don't repeatedly, you don't fill it out right, you don't... complete the forms right, you don't provide your subcontractor, you start having these things that go down the line, I mean, and that all talks about the efficiency of the business, in my opinion, and it doesn't seem like they're gonna be very efficient if they can't even fill a form out right. So I'm not trying to split hairs, and I understand there's things, and that's stuff we're gonna have to make concessions for, and I agree to that, because I don't want to make it impossible for someone to file a bid, but I'm just tired that it becomes our problem. and then we're the ones that approve it and it blows up and it's what was a six-month project is a year and a half, two-year project and we're having to pay double the money. I'm done with that.

Rita, I have a question. You talked about the timing of this. Everything will be void and the whole process will start over again? Everybody would have to put in their bids and whatnot?

If you select option C to reject all bids and go back to re-bid, yeah, we would re-advertise in the newspaper. It usually takes about two months to go through that full process. We'd be back into, what would that put us?

Who's the next lowest bid besides synergy?

That's Walsh Montgomery here.

So that's an option, right? It is. That's option B.

Is there an echo in here? We'll let staff do the commenting. Thank you. All right. Yeah, go ahead.

I know that there's construction up at the national parks as well. And so in terms of the timing, have we timed it okay with our partner? Is it something that will then kind of create hiccups as a result?

It potentially could, yeah. So if you're familiar with Mineral King, it's a one-way road, one way in, one way out. The National Park takes control of the road about halfway up. They've been doing work through there. They closed that gate, and so Mineral King Road is not accessible beyond the gate during the winter. If we award now, then we would be able to work during the winter or the fall and work with that closure. If we delay, then we may be in a window period when they want to open the road up, but we're not allowing access. We expect with this one, it's not taking a bridge out and replacing it. We expect a few days of closure at most. So it wouldn't be a massive month-long closure, most likely. It would be a few days of impact at most. But there would be construction ongoing, so when people want to visit up into Mineral King area, they may experience delays. Yeah.

Okay. All right, so I'll bring this back and entertain a motion. I'll make a motion for option B. Okay, we have a motion by Supervisor McCurry with a second by Supervisor Vanderpool. Please cast your votes. Motion passes 3-0 with Supervisor Valero abstaining and Supervisor Townsend absent.

Thank you. Thank you.

Before we open the public hearings, can I please have the clerk provide instruction to members of the public on our procedures for public testimony at today's budget hearings?

members of the public if you wish to provide public testimony in person please complete and submit a comment card provide your name and agenda item number four if you wish to provide public testimony remotely pre-registration is required please pre-register through the tulare county public comment portal please clearly state your name for the record your statements will go out on the live audio stream and will be included in the audio recording of the meeting the timer will be set to three minutes so please adhere to the time limit You may also participate by submitting an email as this item is being heard. Email should include the sender's name for the record. Email should include the following in the subject, agenda item number four, and sent to the clerk of the board's email address at clerkoftheboard at TulareCounty.ca.gov. Public testimony by email will not be read, but will be made part of the record if received before the close of public testimony. Thank you.

All right, we will now take up agenda item four, our public hearing regarding the fiscal year 26-27 budgets. The public hearing is now open. I'd like to welcome those members of the public who could attend today. At this time, I'd like to outline the process that we are going to follow during these three public hearings. Staff will make its presentations and the board will then ask any questions that they have The public will then be invited to comment on the item During and after public comments the board may ask questions After public comment staff will be asked for its recommendation in the matter Then the matter will be discussed by the board an action taken by the board at the conclusion of the action by the board the public hearings will be closed So staff, if you would please make your presentation.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members of the board, Jason Britt, County Administrative Officer. It is my pleasure today to present to you and the public the recommended budget for fiscal year 26-27. I'd like to thank all the members of public who are able to attend today, and hopefully we'll make this as brief as we can. So just a quick budget recap for 25-26, which was last year's budget. WE DID END THE FISCAL YEAR IN A STRONG FINANCIAL POSITION. WE WERE ABLE TO IMPROVE AND REPLACE ASSETS AND EQUIPMENT. WE CONTRIBUTED TO THE STRATEGIC RESERVE. WE SUPPORTED ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES THROUGHOUT THE COUNTY. WE ENHANCED PUBLIC SAFETY. WE COMPLETED VARIOUS CAPITAL PROJECTS AND BUILDING IMPROVEMENTS. WE FUNDED THE NEGOTIATED COST OF LIVING SALARY ADJUSTMENTS AND WE DECREASED THE COUNTY'S DEBT PORTFOLIO. Some additional accomplishments, more specifically, we transferred $23.1 million to fire for staffing and support and debt service payments. $4.1 million was funded to replace the fire department's self-contained breathing apparatus equipment. $7 million was transferred to the strategic reserve. We had a $5 million contingency. We allocated $14.3 million to establish the career incentive pay program. $5 million was transferred to capital projects, including $1 million for parks. 2 MILLION WERE TRANSFERRED AND ASSIGNED 3 MILLION TO OUR PARS 115 TRUST TO OFFSET FUTURE RETIREMENT LIABILITIES, AND WE ASSIGNED 2.6 MILLION TO THE FUTURE CONSTRUCTION FUND. JUST A SIDE NOTE ON OUR PARS 115 TRUST, OUR BALANCE AS OF JUNE 30, 2026, WAS JUST SLIGHTLY OVER $20 MILLION. SOME ADDITIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS. WE ASSIGNED $1.3 MILLION TO THE FUTURE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT FUND. $7 MILLION ASSIGNED TO HOMELESS AND COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES. $4 MILLION TO THE LITIGATION AND UNALLOWABLE REVERSEMENT FUND. $1.5 MILLION FOR FUTURE ELECTRIC VEHICLE INFRASTRUCTURE MANDATE COMPLIANCE. $1 million to the Step Up program, $1.3 million allocated for IT projects, $2 million transferred and $2 million assigned to the Geomedical Fund, $1 million transferred and $500,000 assigned to the Elections Trust Fund, and $2.2 million transferred to the Vehicle and Equipment Replacement Fund.

Real quick, Madam Chair. Before, I meant to ask this question when you just made the point about the PARS trust or the Section 115 trust. I know that you mentioned that the balance in that trust is over $20 million, right at $20 million. While that sounds great, Can you highlight what just one year, year over year increase could potentially be to our required contributions for retirement? So it sounds like we've got this great reserve, but all of a sudden the retirement, if it's underfunded, that liability falls completely on the shoulders of the plan sponsor. So that reserve could be more than wiped away in one year is a point I'm trying to make. Is that correct?

Yeah, it could be more than wiped away. YES, WITH A NUMBER OF ISSUES. ONE IS IF YOU'LL RECALL THE BOARD ESTABLISHED THIS TRUST WHEN WE TOOK OUT THE PENSION OBLIGATION BOND AND WE'VE BEEN PUTTING MONEY ASIDE INTO IT AND INVESTING IT IN ORDER TO OFFSET FUTURE RETIREMENT LIABILITIES. THAT CAN BE DONE WITH EITHER you know i mean that barely covers probably one year increase in our contributions right and so it sounds like a lot but it to to your point it is not a lot and and so we want to grow that fund keep it going so that down the road if our you know tessera plan gets into trouble um or we get into trouble as the plan sponsor meaning economic situation, county's budget is not as stable as we've been accustomed to, we have a little bit of a bridge to kind of help us band-aid that problem. And I did ask, I'm gonna put the auditor on the spot, but I'm hoping maybe CAS next year can give us a presentation on that fund. So moving on to just a quick high level of the state's budget, because as you know, the vast majority of our budget contains state and federal funds. And it's directed spending, so very little of it is this board's discretion. So we do want to take a quick look at what the state did, because it does impact us. Their budget's roughly $351.7 billion. $251.5 is a state general fund. BALANCED BUDGETS FOR THIS YEAR AND NEXT YEAR. THEY PUT ABOUT 35.2 INTO COMBINED RESERVES. YOU'LL SEE THE BREAKOUT THERE, 3.6 TO BUDGET STABILIZATION ACCOUNT, 4.5 BILLION TO THE SFEU RESERVE, 9.2 TO THE PUBLIC SCHOOL STABILIZATION, 6.4 BILLION TO THE PLACED IN A PROJECTED SURPLUS TEMPORARILY HOLDING ACCOUNT. What I would say here is that a lot of the governor's budget is balanced due to assumptions in about $16 billion in AI stock market driven surges and the managed care organization tax, business tax credits and pre-written software tax. So again, that makes a pretty high assumption for that level. So we'll see if those those revenues come in as projected, but it is a note there that there is quite a bit, in order for the state's budget to continue to be balanced, there's quite a bit riding sort of on the stock market there. Some key impacts to counties for the state budget is, does not provide increased cost to county indigent care programs. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a little bit. It did provide $420 million in one-time funding for county Medi-Cal and CalFresh eligibility determinations and administration. It did reject the governor's proposed immediate Medi-Cal asset limit cuts. Instead, the asset limit decreases to $21,000 in 27-28 rather than the governor's proposed $2,000. It does not shift COST TO THE COUNTIES FOR IHSS. SO THAT'S IMPORTANT BECAUSE THERE WAS SOME SIGNIFICANT COST SHIFTS PROPOSED IN THIS BUDGET TO THE COUNTIES PARTICULARLY IN A PROGRAM THAT CONTINUES TO BE VERY COSTLY TO THE COUNTY. AND IT ALSO PRESERVES THE MEDICAL MOBILE CRISIS BENEFIT FOR AN ADDITIONAL YEAR. AND THEN IT DOES FUND $900 MILLION FOR HAP OR HOMELESS HOUSING ASSISTANCE AND PREVENTION PROGRAM ROUND 7. That money does come with some new standard performance measures, requires a pro-housing designation requirements for big cities and counties, and a local match. And then there's also a mechanism now to claw back and reallocate unused funds. And then $34 million for counties to expedite the vote counting process in the November 2026 election, provide voter outreach and education. So that kind of concludes last year's highlights and the state budget overview. If there's no questions, I'll dive into our county budget.

Do we have any questions? Okay. All right.

So we continue to use 10 county budget protocols that, one, utilize historically conservative and reasonable revenue estimates to ensure a balanced budget. WE FUND ONLY MANDATED SERVICES. THE COUNTY GENERAL FUND WILL NOT BACKFILL REVENUE LOSSES FROM STATE MANDATED OR GOVERNMENT FUNDED PROGRAMS. COUNTY DEPARTMENTS SHALL MINIMIZE ADDITIONAL COMMITMENTS REQUIRING ONGOING GENERAL FUND COVERAGE. Maintain the board's strong commitment to public safety and that proceeds from sales of real property are designated for future capital needs. One-time funds are used for one-time purposes. Limit the issuance of debt. Strive to meet the strategic reserve stated ratio reflected in the financial policies. Nine, collaborate with Tulare County Employee Retirement Association to minimize significant retirement cost increases. And number 10, promote adoption of business practices designed to help departments function more efficiently and effectively. And I'm happy to say that all of these protocols in this recommended budget are incorporated into what you see here today. SO OUR 2627 BUDGET HIGHLIGHTS, SO OUR TOTAL BUDGET WITH ALL FUNDS IS A $2.26 BILLION BUDGET. THAT'S ROUGHLY $166.5 MILLION INCREASE OVER LAST YEAR. WHEN WE BREAK THAT DOWN INTO THE GENERAL FUND BUDGET, THAT'S $1.4 BILLION, ROUGHLY AN $85.3 MILLION INCREASE. Discretionary revenues are $256 million. That's what we're proposing this year. It's about a 12.1 million increase over last year. And just as a reminder to the public and to the board, these discretionary revenues are really what the board has discretionary over. Everything else proposed in this budget is directed spending from the state and federal government.

And can you tell us what those discretionary funds go towards?

Yes, and the majority of those discretionary funds fund our public safety departments, and we'll see a breakdown of that later in our presentation. And then our general fund net county cost this year is recommended to be $333.6 million, which is about a $14.5 million increase over last year. Our general fund unassigned fund balance is 77.7 million, which is about a $2.4 million increase. And our strategic reserve is sitting at 61 million, which is a $4 million increase. And then our contingency is staying the same at 5 million. We're recommending 23.7 million for fire operations and one-time expenditures. We're recommending another five million to be transferred to the capital improvement plan, which this board approved in August, which includes a million for ongoing parks improvements. 1.8 million for operational priorities and future needs. 2.3 million for miscellaneous criminal justice. One and a half million for the equipment and vehicle replacement fund. $2 million for PARS 115 Trust, and $4.3 million for Gell Medical Fund. 750,000 for the future electric vehicle projects, 1.5 million for TCICT projects, that's IT projects around the county mainly for infrastructure, 1 million to the step-up program, 1.4 million for the elections trust fund, 2 million for homeless and community activity fund, 1.5 to be transferred to the economic development fund, and then 15.2 million allocated for the career incentive program And then this budget also funds our total employee compensation increase of $563.5 million. SOME CAPITAL PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS. JUST AS A REMINDER TO THE BOARD AND THE PUBLIC, TCO TRAINING FACILITY AT A TOTAL OF 13 MILLION. JDF FACILITY CONTROL PANEL UPGRADES AND LANDSCAPING AT 12.5 MILLION. BEHAVIORAL HEALTH JOURNEY AND TRANSFORMATIONS AT 11.9 MILLION. GOSHIN FIRE STATION REMAINING TOTAL OF 4.9. THE BEHAVIORAL HEALTH URGENT CARE FACILITY AT THE HOMING CAMPUS 4.3 ANIMAL SERVICES EXPANSION PROJECT 2.9 COURTHOUSE ELEVATORS 2.6 MILLION MOONEY GROVE ELECTRICAL 2.3 MILLION MISCELLANEOUS FIRE STATION IMPROVEMENTS AT 1.6 MILLION AND PARKS PROJECTS AT 1 MILLION And these parks projects are a number of things that are happening throughout our parks, mostly focusing on septic tanks, leach lines, and some other restroom fixtures.

Sexy.

Yes, very important for our parks folks. A quick snapshot of the long-term obligations of the county as of June 30th, 2026. This is our long-term debt. I'm pleased to announce that our long-term debt has decreased to $176 million. That's a 7.7% decrease from last year. What makes up that $176 million is as follows. The pension obligation bonds at $165.5 million. An energy lease at $7.7 million. The Axon Master Services Purchase Agreement is at $2.2 million. Certificates of participation for enterprise funds at $698,000. And then bonds payable for the El Rancho Sewer District at $600.

Let's pay that off right now.

Real quick, Jason, just for historical perspective, long-term debt, what has that looked like, that balance over, say, the last 10 years or so? And then also maybe compare that to what some of our other peer group counties carry in terms of long-term debt. Because I think it's very important to highlight really the strength of Tulare County by not overburdening our taxpayer base with long-term debt.

And also the original POB balance.

So the original POB, so let me take, Madam Chairman, your question first. So the original POB was about $250 million. So we were paying that down. That is on a 19-year payoff schedule. And so we're roughly halfway through that. Not quite, but roughly. And then there's your question, Supervisor Vanderpool. So it's almost like we set that up. So... So this is really the last five years, not 10 years. We could incorporate that next year if you like. So it does show a fairly, when you look at 21, 22, we still owed a lot on the POBs. We still had our Millennium Fund bonds, and we had our fire equipment. So one of the things that you see here, so there's two things that have been removed from this slide that you've seen for a number of years. One is the five-year lease that we did for the fire equipment. That has now been paid off and has been retired. And so for all the apparatus that we've purchased back on that master lease agreement, And then you'll notice that the Millennium Fund bonds are no longer here because those were extinguished last year and paid off and that fund has been REPURPOSED FOR OUR CAPITAL PROJECTS THAT THIS BOARD CONSIDERED EARLIER. SO IT CONTINUES TO LOWER THE DEBT PROFILE. TO THE SECOND POINT OF YOUR QUESTION, SUPERVISOR VANDERPOEL, I DON'T HAVE ALL OF OUR SURROUNDING counties debt burden, but I would suspect that ours is fairly low and much lower, certainly lower than many of our peer counties. And so we wanna continue to be in that category. So we'll continue to pay down debt as we can. And as you said, in the next eight, nine years, we'll see that POB extinguished and even see that long term debt reduction come down even lower. Moving on from debt to our five year general fund budget history that shows you our last five years general fund history. So relatively kind of a big increase back in 2223, but has stayed relatively stable. Here's our ten year general fund net county cost history from 1718 through today's recommended budget. So it has grown. but not super significant, but it is growing and that just reflects the growing county and the growing costs for the county. Our strategic reserve, this is a 10 year history of the strategic reserve. Back in 17, 18, we had a $28 million reserve. Today it's at 61 million if you pass this budget. And so we'll continue to make strides on that. Just as a reminder, the board's adopted financial policies state that we strive to get to an 8% STRATEGIC RESERVE, AND SO BASED ON GFOA'S BEST PRACTICES, THAT WOULD BE, WE WOULD NEED THAT TO BE AT $74.2 MILLION TODAY. SO WE ARE STILL A LITTLE SHORT. of the best practices and what's stated in our goal for the financial policies, but we are making progress and have made significant progress. We have invested in this fund each year except for the COVID year where we weren't really sure what was going to happen in 2020, but we continue to make strides in that. And again, sort of to answer a question based on the pars, this sounds like a lot of money, but this is really probably less than 30 days operating capital for the county. So we'll move on to some other revenues, our sales and use tax allocation. Just a reminder, the dark bars are actual year-end revenues and the light bar is the recommended budget. So as you'll see, we're recommending an $18 million sales and use tax down from 20 million last year. Taxable sales for all of Tulare County has decreased about 1% over the last 13 quarters. In the unincorporated area, sales tax has decreased for building and construction, business and industry, and autos and transportation categories. We did have two major losses in the last year or two to our sales and use tax allocation, and that was one with the Ritchie Brothers relocation into the city of Tulare. So we don't get as large of a share on that. And then, of course, with the confidential tax audit at the state reduced some allocations to the county as well. And so the Tulare County's share of county and state pool continues to decrease to pre-pandemic levels. If you notice, 2020-21, we had a run-up, and so we continue to believe that's going to not come down all the way to the pre-pandemic levels, but our sales tax consultant does continue to expect decrease through 27, 28. Taking a look at our Prop 172 public safety one half cent sales tax, we are recommending 45 million to be budgeted. And again, this is somewhat in consultation with our sales tax consultant who continues to believe that we'll see some modest decreases through this year and the following year. our local assessed evaluation continues to be fairly strong our evaluation without exemptions for fiscal year 26 27 is 57.1 billion that's about a 2.3 billion dollar increase that translates into a 4.13 percent and if you look at that as a growth rate since 2017 that's a 5.57 When we look at the assessed valuation with exemptions, it lowers it a little bit down to 55.1, which is a 2.1 billion increase, but it's different from the top number, which translates into a growth rate of 4.02 and a growth rate of 5.6 since 2017. Our new unincorporated county building permits for 25-26 stands at $3,909. Here's a chart we've been showing you for a number of years that shows you over time what our average annual changes and so again coming still very strong but coming down from some of those years where we saw five and 6% assessed evaluations. So all that translates into general county revenues. So we're recommending that 63.7 million for secure property taxes, that's about a 1.9% increase over last year. uh we're projecting about a 5.9 increase and a percent increase in motor vehicle fees we have local sales tax we're recommending 17.9 million in revenues and prop 172 sales tax at 45.1 and all others at 53.5 which gets us to the 255.9 million dollars in county general revenue A quick comparison of our county funds. If you look at our general fund, we're recommending it's a $1.4 billion fund. It's about a 6.5% change. Other operating funds are a difference between last year and this year is about 69 million at 12.5%. INCREASE COUNTY SERVICE AREAS DECREASING THERE A LITTLE BIT PRIMARILY BECAUSE OF A LOT OF OUR ARPA PROJECTS ARE GETTING COMPLETED AND SO YOU'LL START SEEING THOSE NOT BEING BUDGETED IN THIS CATEGORY AS WE MOVE FORWARD. Enterprise funds at 12.8 million, which is about a 30% change. The vast majority of that is really tied to the construction of our Visalia Landfill Phase 5 expansion project and the Teapot Dome closure. Sounds like a big increase, but it's a very planned, expected increase with expanding our landfill at Visalia and closing the landfill in Porterville. Internal service funds at $1.5 million increase, some modest, less than 1% increase, and then some special districts, a little bit of a decrease there due to the flood control fund balance being used. When we look at a comparison of county staff by functional category, this budget proposes 4,994.48 full-time equivalent positions. That's roughly, if you look down there at the very bottom, the year-end vacancy rate, we'll continue to see a small decline year over year on our vacancy rate. Our Health and Human Services Agency and our public safety departments still continue to be the two top largest functional categories with the number of positions allocated when you compare them to the rest of the county. do want to note that our vacancy rate in 2223 was at 17 so it has started to come down quite quite considerable considerably again that's just another slice of the county's budget by functional category as you see there in the green our biggest slice 48 is our health and human services agency followed then by the yellow slice, which is public safety, and then all the rest sort of pale in comparison. So that does show you where the vast majority of this budget does get spent. And again, the vast majority of this budget is directed spending, meaning that the feds and the state tell us how we have to spend it. We don't get discretion on how to spend that money. This is just breaking out net county cost by functional category. And when we look at just the net county cost, you will see again, you will see the green overtakes the other color, which is public safety. And then the rest are other than general government and operations are pretty small. And with Health and Human Services coming in third there for that.

Oh, go ahead.

I think it's good to highlight though, just public safety people just think law enforcement. There's a whole lot to this. That's fire, law enforcement, DA, detentions, the medical stuff in detentions. I mean, it's, it's very complex and there's a lot of different departments involved in that. Is it correct?

YES, THANK YOU. SO THE PUBLIC SAFETY FOR THIS SLIDE IS CONSIDERED TO BE THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, THE PROBATION DEPARTMENT, PUBLIC DEFENDER'S OFFICE, THE SHERIFF CORONER, AND ALSO OUR RURAL CRIME PREVENTION, OUR JUVENILE JUSTICE CRIME PREVENTION ACT, AND MISCELLANEOUS CRIMINAL JUSTICE. SO THERE IS A LOT TO THE UMBRELLA OF PUBLIC SAFETY. IT'S NOT JUST THE SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT. BUT YES, THERE'S A LOT. It's almost like I set it up. Thank you. Perfect. This is great. And so again, it just shows you here where that sort of, and this is where the vast, this is where your discretionary dollars are sort of going here. And so this is the pot of money that this board does have discretion to reallocate. That's not directed, but it comes at the sacrifice of those categories. So if we look forward, my crystal ball is still shattered. We try to see what's gonna happen, not only economically, but just what's happening in the world and locally. So we still continue to look at what the significant financial challenges might be that threatens the county's budget. And so again, we've talked a lot about HR1, which requires a bunch more eligibility requirements, frequent determination and cost shifts and administrative burden to the county without added funding. Those roll out over the next couple years. this year you're seeing some you're seeing a lot of most of the effects of those will hit the recipients first and then it'll be followed by the administrative side so just a reminder some of those hr1 issues are increased match for CalFresh administration which is you know which has been which we're gonna get a little bit of a break on, but that is something that we have to look at down the road. And then the big thing here is really about who loses Medi-Cal eligibility and whether or not, and or cover California eligibility and whether or not those people CAN COME TO THE COUNTY FOR WHAT WE CALL INDIGENT HEALTH CARE. AND INDIGENT HEALTH CARE IS WHAT USED TO BE FUNDED BY REALIGNMENT PRE-AFFORDABLE CARE ACT BEFORE 2014. AND THEN THE STATE TOOK THAT MONEY TO PAY FOR MEDICAL. AND NOW THERE'S A POTENTIAL THAT WE'RE GETTING A POPULATION OF THOSE FOLKS BACK WITH NO FUNDING. AND SO THAT IS A BIG RISK. to the county. We will likely be eligible for some of the exemptions to some of these new changes, but we're still not really sure how it's all gonna sort of roll out and where folks are gonna end up landing.

Exemptions are kind of a double-edged sword, right? Because it's based on unemployment rate and because ours is high, we'll get some exemptions, but ours is high.

Right, so the double-edged sword is one, you may get exempt from the Medi-Cal work requirements because you have a unemployment rate. I believe it's three times the national average or 8%. And then if you get the waiver, then unfortunately you have a 8% unemployment rate. So you're exactly correct on that. But I think the bigger message here is that if and when people start losing medical eligibility and they're able and eligible to come back to the county for what we call that indigent care program, Tulare County Medical Services, at least for the foreseeable future, that's going to have to be funded out of county general fund dollars. There is no realignment redirection or anything coming from the state, despite this county's heavy lobbying of the legislature and working with CSAC to try to bring funding for that program. Some additional ones are just, again, we continue to experience rising labor costs and growing wage pressure, rising costs of law enforcement and fire services, decreases in discretionary revenue, growing operational costs due to the impacts of inflation and interest rates. We always have potential increase in annual retirement contributions. I FEEL LIKE THERE'S ALWAYS NEW UNDERFUNDED AND INCREASED FINANCIAL SHARE OF MANDATED PROGRAMS WE'RE STILL GRAPPLING WITH THE IMPACTS OF THE MARCH 2023 STORM ON COUNTY ROADS AS BRIDGES AS YOU HEARD IN THE ITEM EARLIER TODAY AND THEN OF COURSE THERE IS SOME POTENTIAL LEGISLATION THAT CONTINUES TO ROLL AROUND THAT MAY FORCE US TO CREATE AN INDEPENDENT medical examiner's department. At a minimum, they're gonna require us to contract with an independent medical examiner for any in-custody deaths, and so that may cost the county more money than what we normally are accustomed to. SOME SOME ITEMS THAT ARE SORT OF HOT OFF THE PRESS THAT WERE NOT AVAILABLE AT THESE WHEN WE DID THIS POWERPOINT IS THERE'S ALSO A COUPLE NEW BILLS THAT THE GOVERNOR MAY POTENTIALLY SIGN OR AT LEAST ALLOW TO TAKE EFFECT INTO LAW AND THAT IS AB 1383 which may potentially increase some of our retirement costs for our public safety individuals. It kind of moves the formula back to some of our pre-PEPRA um rates and so that could cost if that happens that could be a increased cost to the employer contribution as well as the increased cost to the employee contribution and then ab690 is another one of these when we talk about new underfunded and increased share of mandated programs ab690 is a bill that despite the state DOES NOT CONTRIBUTE ONE PENNY TO THE PUBLIC DEFENDER SYSTEM IN COUNTIES. THEY HAVE DECIDED THAT WE HAVE TO PAY CONFLICT DEFENDERS BY THE HOUR. AND SO INSTEAD OF A FLAT RATE. AND SO FOR WHAT THEY CALL LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE AND DEATH CASES. And so that is gonna be probably a significant increase to our conflict defender contract that we have for the public defender. And so again, not taking a position on whether or not that is how that rolls out, but it's just we've had a process in Tulare County that has worked very well. We've had a great conflict public defender and a good public defender's office. And really this bill was aimed at counties who contract out their entire public defender function, which we don't do, but we're gonna get swept up in that sort of, AND SO I DO THINK THAT THIS AB 690 IS PROBABLY GOING TO ADD PROBABLY IF YOU ASK ME TODAY AND THIS IS JUST AN ESTIMATE SO PLEASE DON'T HOLD ME TO THESE NUMBERS BUT I WOULD SAY TWO TO FIVE MILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY ADDITIONALLY THAN WHAT WE PAY RIGHT NOW BECAUSE WE HAVE A LOT OF LWAP AND LIFE AND DEATH CASES.

And there's no way to avoid that contract, correct? I mean, we can't expand the public health, or I'm sorry, the public defender's office to avoid, the conflict defender exists in cases where we conflict out, correct?

I mean, it is possible we could expand the public defender to lower some of that so they could take on more death and life cases. What it doesn't do is it doesn't guarantee that because Oftentimes, and I'm going to speak a little bit out of turn here because I'm not the public defender, but oftentimes there's multiple defendants in these cases and so we can only defend one and the other has to go to the conflict defender. There's, I mean, I'm not going to say rarely, but it seems rarely that there's like one defendant in these big cases. And so, um, and so we, yes, we could, uh, but it's still going to be a significant cost.

But usually the conflicts with the office, not with the, an individual. So hiring more is not going to make, because it has a conflict with the office and who they've represented in the past and, and It goes on and on. But are we able to, have we taken a position on that? I mean, it's already probably too late, but have we done what we can to?

No, it's already sitting at the governor's desk, so.

Yeah. But again, we'll work on it. We've been engaged with our, with David Allen and folks, and so But again, it's just one of those things that, again, unanticipated. It's also, again, the state provides no funding to public defender services. It's all county discretionary dollars minus a few grant funds. And yet, this is just another way the state's telling us how to spend your taxpayer money when we have a system in Tulare County that works.

Can't we be like the state and just assume that we'll have the money? I'm sorry, I digress.

You may modify the revenues as you see fit, but I would not recommend that. So I don't wanna dwell too much on that, but I just wanted to put that on everyone's radar that these are things that are coming at us that are still a little bit unknown, but have a potential for very high costs. Indigent care has a potential for very high cost. AB 690 has the potential. And so hopefully they come in under budget and under what we think, but there's that potential. So again, just repeating our county budget protocols, conservative or reasonable revenue estimates, fund only mandated services. The county general fund will not backfill revenue losses from state mandated or grant funded programs. County departments shall minimize additional commitments requiring ongoing general fund coverage, maintain the board's strong commitment to public safety, proceeds from sale of real property are designated for future capital needs, One-time funds are used for one-time purposes, limit the issuance of debt, strive to meet the strategic reserve stated ratio reflected in the financial policies, collaborate with TSERA to minimize significant retirement cost increases, and then promote the adoption of business practices designed to help departments function more efficiently and effectively. Finally, I just want to thank the board for your continued support and steadfast commitment to conservative budgeting principles that allows us to have a financially stable budget. If you look around, some of our counties around us are not in the same financial stability as we are, so a lot of this has to do with your discipline and fiscal discipline. uh thanks to the board uh staff uh special thanks to my cao staff they're the ones who do the lion's share of this work and get this prepared to come before you today and so really my hat's off to them and i could not do this without them at all including the clerk of the board staff who make sure our agendas are on time, correct, and our public hearing notice is published, and making sure that we're following all the rules. County council, the auditor, controller, tax collector, HR&D, and of course, all the county department heads and agency heads. We could not bring this budget before you and recommend this today without their leadership and participation and assistance through this process. So it really is, I'm the one that gets to stay up here and present all of it, but really the credit goes to all of our entire county team because if the county departments didn't hold their folks to fiscal discipline and spending money efficiently and effectively, we would not be sitting here with the budget we have today. So I do want to thank all of them. And before we move on to our script today. So Madam Chair, that does conclude my presentation. And if there are no questions, with your permission, I'd like to move forward in the budget hearing process. REFERENCE MATERIALS THAT WE'LL BE WORKING WITH TODAY ARE THE RECOMMENDED BUDGET BOOK AND THE AGENDA ITEM PROVIDING THE ORDER OF ITEMS. FIRST, I WILL PRESENT THE ENTERPRISE FUNDS WITH THE BOARD SITTING AS THE TERRABELLA SEWER MAINTENANCE DISTRICT AND THE SPECIAL DISTRICT FUND WITH THE BOARD SITTING AS THE TELERI COUNTY FUD CONTROL DISTRICT FOR YOUR REVIEW, DISCUSSION, MODIFICATION AND APPROVAL. The remainder of the funds will be presented for your review, discussion, modification, and final approval. At this time, I would ask the board to adjourn as the Tulare County Board of Supervisors and convene as the Tarabella Sewer Maintenance District.

All right. And with that, we will now adjourn as the Tulare County Board of Supervisors and convene as the Tarabella Sewer Maintenance District. At this time, I will now open the public hearing for the Tarabella Sewer Maintenance District fund budget.

Thank you, enterprise funds are used to account for activity for which a fee is charged to external users for goods or services. As such, I'm asking the board to adopt the fiscal year 26-27 final budget for the Tarabella Sewer Maintenance District and authorize the controller, Otter controller to make necessary minor adjustments in order to bring the budget into final balance. If there are no specific questions or comments about this fund, I'll ask the board, I'll ask that the board take the action just described.

Oh, I'm sorry. All right, do any members of the board, it was a fast one. Do any members of the board have questions for the CAO at this time? Okay, not seeing any at this time, we'll now take comments from members of the public. Each interested person will have three minutes to speak. Just a reminder, this is for the Terra Bella Sewer Maintenance District Fund budget. Madam Clerk, do we have any public comment cards?

We do not.

Okay, do we have anybody in the audience who would like to make public comments? Okay, seeing none, there being no more public comments, I will close the public testimony and bring this back to the board for discussion and action. Do any of the board members have questions for the CAO at this time or wish to take more time to review this material? Seeing none at this time I'll entertain a final board discussion or motion and I do see we have a motion by supervisor Vanderpool with a second by supervisor Valero Please cast your votes All right, motion passes 4-0 with Supervisor Townsend absent. The public hearing for the Tarabella Sewer Maintenance District is now closed, and we'll now adjourn as a Tarabella Sewer Maintenance District and convene as the Tulare County Flood Control District. At this time, I will now open the public hearing for the Tulare County Flood Control District budget. Mr. CAO.

Your board reviews plans and project statements throughout the year for the Tulare County Flood Control District. As such, I'm asking the board adopt the fiscal year 26-27 final budget for the Tulare County Flood Control District and authorize the auditor controller to make necessary minor adjustments in order to bring the budget into final balance. If there are no specific comments or questions about this fund, I ask that the board take the action just described.

Okay, do any members of the board have any questions for the CAO at this time? Okay, I'm seeing none. Madam Clerk, do we have public comment cards?

No.

Okay, does anybody in the audience wish to make any public comment on this item? And we have no phone or email public comments, Madam Clerk? That's correct. OK. So there being no more public comments, I will close the public testimony and bring this back to the board for action. We have a motion by Supervisor Macari with a second by Supervisor Valero. Please cast your votes. This item passes 4-0 with Supervisor Townsend absent. All right, public hearing for the Tulare County Flood Control District is now closed. We will now adjourn as the Tulare County Flood Control District and reconvene as the Tulare County Board of Supervisors. At this time, I will now open the public hearing for the remainder of the funds for the fiscal year 26-27 recommended budget.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The remainder of the funds will now be presented for your review, discussion, modification, and final approval. Enterprise and assessment district funds are used to account for an activity for which a fee is charged to the external user for goods or services. The funds include solid waste, transit fund, and L&M funds assessment districts. Incidentally, when you see or hear the term consent budget in our presentation, this means that there are no pending issues or policy considerations and that the department head concurs with the recommended budget. So we have solid waste and transit fund, and then my favorite.

Bingo.

THE L&M FUNDS. SO I WILL HAVE TO READ ALL OF THESE INTO THE RECORD. L01, AROSI LIGHTING AND LANDSCAPE 9201. L10, SORRY, LO5, AROSI STORM DRAIN 95-720. L10, AROSI STORM DRAIN 98-722. L16, EARLY MART LIGHTING LANDSCAPING 02-01. L17, GOSHIN STORM DRAIN 2A 23-19-003. L18, Goshen Storm Drain 4, 2319-003. L19, Goshen Storm Water Maintenance, 24-23-001. L20, 24-835, Goshen Storm Drain Maintenance. L21, 25-23-001, Goshen 1, Storm Water Maintenance. L2225-23-001, Goshen 2, stormwater maintenance. L2325-19-003, Goshen 2B, stormwater maintenance. L24, 26-19-003, Goshen Stormwater Maintenance. L26, Goshen Village East Landscape and Lighting Assessment. L60, Tipton Storm Drain, 02-748. L65, Early March Storm Drain, 02-748. L70 Cutler Storm Drain, 05-764. L75 Teveston Storm Drain, 04-752. L80 Early March Storm Drain, 04-744. L85 Orosi Storm Drain, 04-754. L86 Visalia Storm Drain, 07-792. L87, Visalia Storm Drain 07-767. L88, Visalia District 13-792. Did I skip one? No. L89, Traverse Storm Drain 14-830. Visalia Storm Drain 14-792. L91, Visalia Storm Drain 16-767. L92, Goshen Storm Drain 18-789. L93, Orosi District 19-1703. L94, Pixley 20-770. L95, Goshen Storm Drain 19-789. L96, Goshen Storm Drain 20-19-03. And L97, Goshen Storm Drain 21-789. BEFORE I MOVE ON I JUST WANT TO ALSO NOTE THAT THE ASTRICS ON ALL OF THESE THE ONES THAT HAVE ASTRICS ARE NEW LIGHTING AND LANDSCAPE OR NEW L&M ASSESSMENT DISTRICTS THAT HAVE BEEN CREATED SINCE LAST YEAR CONTINUING ON WITH THE M FUND DISTRICTS M03 STROTHMORE ROAD 05-773 M04 Porterville Road 06781. M06 Visalia Road 06-772. M17 Goshen Road Maintenance 2A 23-19-003R. M18 Goshen Street Maintenance 23-20-003R. M19 Goshen Street Maintenance 23-20-003R. M20, Goshen Road Maintenance 24-835R. M21, Goshen Road Maintenance 24-23-001R. M22, Goshen Road Maintenance 24-20-003R. M23, Goshen Road Maintenance 24-835R. M2425-23-001R, Goshen 1 Road Maintenance. M2525-23-001R, Goshen 2 Road Maintenance. M2625-19-003R, Goshen 2B Road Maintenance. M2726-19-003R, Goshen Road Maintenance. M2826-20-003R, Goshen Road Maintenance. M86, Visalia Road 07-079R. M87, Visalia Road 07-079R. 07-767R, M88 Goshen Road 09-804R, M89 Goshen 12-804R, M90 Visalia 13-792R, M91 Visalia 14-792R, M92 Visalia Road 16-76R, M93, Goshen Road, 18-789R. M94, Goshen District, 19-17-003R. M95, Pixley, 20-770R. M96, Goshen Road 19-789R, bless you. M97, Portable Street Maintenance 20-20-002R. M98, Goshen Street Maintenance 2019-003R. M99, Goshen Street Maintenance 21-789R, and any if I happen to miss them. So if there are no specific comments or questions about these funds from the board, I'll move forward.

Could you repeat those? I'm kidding. Go ahead.

So we'll move on to our county service areas one and two. The county service area one and two budgets provide for activities that are specific to areas and projects. Users pay a fee for these activities. The county service area one and twos include the following. C-15 Lemon Cove Water, Z-01 El Rancho Sewer, Z-10 Delft Colony Sewer, Z-11 Delft Colony Water, Z-50 Seville Sewer, Z-60 Tonyville Sewer, Z70 TULIEVILLE SEWER, Z80 TRAVER SEWER, Z90 YEDDUM SEWER, Z91 YEDDUM WATER, Z95 WELLS TRACK WATER, AND Z96 WELLS TRACK SEWER. IF THERE ARE NO SPECIFIC COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE FUNDS FROM THE BOARD, I WILL MOVE FORWARD. INTERNAL SERVICE FUNDS ARE USED TO ACCOUNT FOR GOODS OR SERVICES PROVIDED BY ONE DEPARTMENT OR AGENCY TO OTHER DEPARTMENTS OR AGENCIES. THESE FUNDS OPERATE ON A COST REIMBURSEMENT BASIS. THE INTERNAL SERVICE FUNDS ARE AS FOLLOWS. GENERAL SERVICES AGENCY GROUNDS SERVICES, FACILITIES, CUSTODIAL SERVICES, FLEET SERVICES, PROPERTY MANAGEMENT, MAIL SERVICES, PRINT SERVICES AND UTILITIES. COUNTY COUNCIL RISK MANAGEMENT GENERAL LIABILITY PROPERTY INSURANCE MEDICAL MALPRACTICE AND WORKERS COMPENSATION INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY COMMUNICATIONS INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY AND COPYER SERVICES IF THERE ARE NO SPECIFIC COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS ON ABOUT THESE FUNDS I'LL MOVE FORWARD PROCEED Operating fund budgets are the core funds that provide services within the county. The operating funds include the following, aviation, building debt service, capital projects, child support services, community development block grants, county fire, fish and wildlife, health realignment, home program, housing successor agency, ICT special projects, indigent healthcare, LIBRARY, MENTAL HEALTH REALIGNMENT, PENSION OBLIGATION BOND, ROAD FUND, SOCIAL SERVICES REALIGNMENT, TOBACCO SETTLEMENT, AND WORKFORCE INVESTMENT BOARD. IF THERE ARE NO SPECIFIC COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS ABOUT THESE FUNDS, I'LL MOVE FORWARD. OUR FINAL GROUP OF BUDGETS COMPRISE OF THE GENERAL FUND BUDGET. THE GENERAL FUND BUDGET INCLUDES THE FOLLOWING. AGRICULTURAL COMMISSIONER SEALER OF WEIGHTS AND MEASURES ASSESSOR CLERK RECORDER AUDITOR CONTROLLER TEXTS TREASURE TAX COLLECTOR BOARD OF SUPERVISORS CAPITAL ACQUISITIONS CENTRAL TELEPHONE SERVICES CITIZENS OPTION FOR PUBLIC SAFETY COUNTY ADMINISTRATION COUNTY COUNCIL DISTRICT ATTORNEY GENERAL SERVICES AGENCY Health and Human Services Agency, Human Resource and Development, Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act, Miscellaneous Administration, Miscellaneous Criminal Justice, Probation, Public Defender, Registrar of Voters, Resource Management Agency, Rural Crime Prevention, Sheriff-Coroner, UC Cooperative Extension. If there are no specific comments or questions on these funds, I'll move forward. Sorry. The general revenue budget makes up the bulk of the county's discretionary revenues, and you'll see that here. If there are no specific questions or comments about the budget from the board, I'll move forward. Okay, we'll move to contingency and others as needed. Contingency is recommended to continue to be maintained at $5 million or as modified by your board. If there are no specific comments or questions about this budget, I would like to move forward. Okay, all right, with that, this, MADAM CHAIR, MEMBERS OF THE BOARD, THE FINAL ACTIONS ARE REQUESTED TODAY BEFORE YOU. ONE IS TO CONDUCT A PUBLIC HEARING ON THE FISCAL YEAR 2627 RECOMMENDED BUDGET AND ADOPT THE FISCAL YEAR 2627 FINAL BUDGETS FOR ALL FUNDS AND ACTIVITIES AS MODIFIED DURING THE HEARINGS FOR THE ENTERPRISE AND ASSESSMENT DISTRICT FUNDS, COUNTY SERVICE AREAS 1 AND 2, SPECIAL DISTRICTS, INTERNAL SERVICE FUNDS, OPERATING FUNDS AND THE GENERAL FUND. TO AMEND THE PERSONNEL CLASS SPECIFICATIONS, CLASS DESIGNATIONS AND PROPOSED COMPENSATION CHANGES SUBJECT TO MEET AND CONFER. AMEND THE POSITION ALLOCATION LIST REFLECTING ADD, DELETE, AMENDS AND RECLASSIFICATION SUBJECT TO MEET AND CONFER. APPROVE A 4% COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT FOR THE AUDITOR FOR THE FOLLOWING COUNTY ELECTED OFFICIALS, SHERIFF CORNER, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, COUNTY ASSESSOR, CLERK RECORDER, OTTER CONTROLLER, TREASURE TAX COLLECTOR EFFECTIVE ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST FULL PAY PERIOD FOLLOWING THE ADOPTION OF THE FINAL BUDGET FOR FISCAL YEAR 2627 PER ORDINANCE CODE SECTION 1-07-1060F. Approve a 4% cost of living adjustment for the Board of Supervisors pursuant to the Tulare County ordinance number 3662, effective on the first day of the first full pay period that is at least 60 days after the adoption of the final budget for fiscal year 26-27 per the ordinance code section. Approve the capital asset purchase list and authorize the auditor controller to make necessary minor adjustments to bring the fiscal year 27 a 26-27 budget into final balance. And with that, that does conclude my presentation. Happy to answer any questions.

I don't have a question. Just a comment as far as the 4% COLAs for the electeds and the board. Those are in line with what all our employees received at the beginning of the fiscal year, correct? Correct.

That is correct. That is the same as our negotiated cost of livings with the majority of our units.

Thank you. Any questions for the CAO at this time? At this time, we'll now take comments from members of the public. Each interested person will have three minutes to speak. Madam Clerk, do you have any public comment cards?

Yes. Christina Velazquez.

Christina.

Are you here?

Oh, there you are. Good morning, still. Good morning, everyone.

I'm from Bixly. and I'm from Pixley, and I've come here a couple of times asking for your guys' help in order to fix our streets. Yesterday I picked up a young man who had fallen because the road was dirty with dirt, so he skidded and he fell. He was badly hurt. This is our roads all through town. We've only had three fixed at the most since I've been there 45 years. There are potholes everywhere, there's dirt where there shouldn't be dirt. I called an ambulance, they picked him up. They checked on him and he went home with his sister, but she was gonna take him to the hospital the next day. But this is an occurrence because our roads are so bad. You guys are talking about the storms coming in. We get fog so bad we can't see the roads. Our roads haven't been painted in forever. The school road was painted because it was redone for the school kids. And that was Court Street and School Street. Those are the two main ones. And of course, Terra Bella was done. And I mean, the whole town is falling apart. The second to the last before I came, I asked you guys to please come to our community to drive through it and see what we're having to deal with. Come when it's foggy and see how we drive in the fog. It is so bad. We need help with our roads. Really bad roads. Our community is falling apart. It's a small community. I mean, it's outrageous that it's taken this long for anybody to come out to look at it and fix our roads so we can drive. I mean, right now, the way I am, driving through those roads is really hard for me. But for a young man to fall in the road because the roads are bad, I mean, we have a lot of children in those roads. That's dangerous for them. You know, luckily I came by because, you know, it was a street that's kind of by the seaside and it's not, you know, used a lot. But it's, I was able to stop and help him. But, you know, who's to say how many kids fall? How many kids are hurt? And the parents don't have money to take them to the doctors. So, you know, somebody needs to come and do something for our community. I'm asking you guys to please come and drive in our town. Drive in the daytime, drive at night when you can't see the lines, you can't see anything. Come and drive in the fog especially. Because, I mean, I don't even go out anymore in the fog because I can't see the roads. There's no lines anywhere. And that's all. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for taking the time to come. Madam Chair. Yes.

Reed, will you please get with this lady and discuss her concerns and outline it for the road department? Thank you.

OK, do we have any?

Abby Power?

Is it Power? Abby Power, yeah. Good morning. Good morning.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair and members of the board. My name is Abby Power. I work with Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, and I work alongside residents of Pixley, Matheny Tract, and Tuleville. And we're asking for you to allocate Measure R dollars to these communities. According to the budget, it seems like Measure R is going to provide almost $28 million for local projects in Tulare County. And additionally, the local transportation fund is going to provide $6.5 million. And we ask that a portion of these funds be set aside for improvements of the road conditions in Matheny Tract, Pixley, and Tuleville. The pavement conditions of roads in Matheny Tract are currently very poor. There are many potholes and cracked pavement, which needs to be repaved. During periods of rain, this causes water to pool, which can be dangerous for public health and cause damage to cars. We ask that the county allocate funds from Measure R to projects that repave roads in Matheny Tract. In pixley you just heard from Christina. There are also many roads with poor pavement conditions and additionally there's a need for street lighting School Street is one of the streets that residents have also noted needs Speed bumps to prevent dangerous speeding and we ask that the county allocate measure our funds to the funds To fund projects that repave roads in pixley and we appreciate the direction for our may to speak with Christina Thank you for that and lastly the community of tuleville needs investment in walking paths for children going to and from school as well as stop signs and street lights in their neighborhoods and we also ask that the county allocate measure our funds to projects that improve road conditions and provide safe routes to school for the kids Lastly, Tulare County's webpage on Measure R local spending reports only contains reports up to fiscal year 2020. I was not able to view other reports, so we would also just request that all reports are updated and posted to ensure transparency so the public can know where their Measure R dollars are going. To close my comments, the cost of not repairing and prioritizing these roads in the communities is going to grow over time, and it impacts residents' day-to-day lives and poses a safety hazard. These communities have not received significant Measure R fund investment, and we ask that you proactively set aside some of the Measure R funding for street improvement priorities. Thank you so much for listening to our comments and for your work to support residents in these communities. Thank you.

Thank you. And also, as we mentioned earlier, we have a TCAG meeting on Monday and that they oversee the measure R. Just FYI. Thank you.

You bet. We'll make sure to go to that as well.

All right. Jeanette Martinez.

Good morning, Jeanette. Good morning.

I am here on behalf of the small community of Tuleville, which is just outside the city limits of Exeter, as we are on the main road of Spruce leading to Highway 65. I am speaking for public safety, more for children, as we are the main road. Lately, as my daughter has started school, we have seen speeding cars and no respect for the bus stop or the children crossing. as, um, As road work has started lately, they have thrown gravel on the floor, which as this cars has signs that are 25 miles per hour, they are speeding. And most of the kids have complained about getting hit by gravel during the construction, which is something that we should like look into because my daughter one morning said she got hit by a rock and it did leave her like a little scratch. As of the speeding, the first day of school, as I was dropping my daughter off, the bus had pulled in and it has very limited space. As the bus was pulling out, a speeding car almost hit the bus, which could have caused a big accident. So I am here just to seek more public safety for the kids and for the main road. Thank you. Thank you.

Jennifer, give her my card. Ma'am? So, everybody in Tooleville has my card or has my number. You need to call these things and report them and, and thank you for coming. We're going to give you a card. I want you to call me and I'll get the highway patrol out there, see what we can do to fix it, okay?

Okay, thank you.

Maria Aravalo.

Good morning to the Board of Supervisors here in Tulare. My name is Maria Arevalo and I live in Pixley. Amablemente y con todo mi corazón, que Dios toque sus corazones y puedan ayudarnos en la comunidad de Pixley, ya que tenemos muchas necesidades. Estamos ahorita sufriendo porque no tenemos un salón comunitario en Pixley. Hace mucho calor y cuando el frío, la gente se podría refugiar allí para tomar un fresco cuando es calor. Y cuando es frío, pues calentamiento, ¿verdad?

Okay, so I'm here Asking opening my heart to all of you and asking for for God to touch your hearts to help with some of the necessities that we have in Pixley the first one is that we need a community center because a lot of residents suffer from During the cold weather their homes are too cold and during the heat their homes are too hot. They don't have proper air conditioning and

Y también está pidiéndoles que si pueden construir en Pixley casas de bajo ingreso, como Self Help Enterprises, que hacen casas bajo ingreso para gente que no puede pagar una renta alta.

I'm also asking if you could help construct low-income housing in Pixley, maybe by working with self-help enterprises for folks who do not have a very high income in Pixley.

Esa es la razón que pido es porque yo tengo casa gracias a ese programa y porque la gente campesina no gana mucho dinero. Están rentando los apartamentos que cobran $1,500 al mes y no ganan mucho dinero, no les queda para mantener la familia.

and I'm asking for this because I was able to to purchase my house through this program but I'm speaking on behalf of many people who work in the fields who don't make much of an income and are paying $1,500 in rent for apartments in Pixley and also have to feed their families

Estoy pidiendo también ayuda, como dijo la señora anterior, esta Cristina, de la calle, de la escuela. Porque en la calle Corte, cruza de Terrabela Street, corre la calle School, y termina en Hothwar, la calle Hothwar. Porque en Hothwar está unos files de rancheros que están tapando el camino, porque sale hasta la calle, La calle esta, la calle grande que se llama, mira, mira, ya se me olvidó. El caso es que está bloqueada con árboles de almendra de la calle Corte a la calle Hawthorne. Es una sola calle. La calle divide la middle school y la elementary school, están juntas. La calle está en medio de la escuela. Entonces, no pueden salir para el lado del norte. Esa calle no sale y es cortita. Es nomás una manzana. Está tapada con árboles de almendra que bloquean el camino para la gente que viene del lado del norte a traer sus niños a la escuela. Antes los traían por ahí, por esa calle. Ahora tienen que rodear por la calle Elm y meterse a la calle Court para poder entrar a la escuela.

I'm sorry this is paraphrasing um I'm also asking for your help with the streets just as Christina asked earlier one of the issues that we're facing is that Court Street is blocked by almond tree branches and it is causing issues with people who are driving from the north of the school to drop their students off at school and there are a few other streets that were mentioned as well but I just wanted to paraphrase. I didn't get everything. Okay. so okay so the the almond trees are blocking um part of school street and causing if um if parents are dropping their students off it's their it's causing them to have to go around the block instead of just being able to drive straight through to drop their students off at the school and i'm asking for your help with this issue

Sí, también nomás, eso es todo lo que yo quería pedir y tenemos muy mal aire en Pixley, contaminación por los digestadores, el aire está muy contaminado, como los niños padecen de asma. Muchas familias allí usamos, porque yo también uso y cuatro de mi familia, usamos máquinas para respirar durante la noche, máquinas de CPAP con la medicina dicen, y eso tenemos que usar.

And also in Pixley we have very poor air quality due to some of the dairy digesters and the dairies operating there. There are many, many people who have asthma and I know four people who have to use machines to help breathe and I personally use a CPAP machine to breathe.

Y tan tres de mi familia, también un niño de 14 años usa su máquina. Es muy triste para yo, para mí, que ver que niños tienen que limpiar sus propias máquinas. Si no las limpian, un día que no las limpian, se infecta la máquina, se contamina, y ellos van a padecer del pulmón.

You can come you can complete the interpretation and then I'll be time And the last thing that Maria said and also there there I know three people in my family have asthma one of them is 14 and every day he has to clean the The breathing device in order so that it does not become it does not cause an issue with infection

Thank you. Gracias, Maria. Thank you.

Hugo Trujillo.

My name is Hugo Trujillo. I live in the martini trucks community for 26 years. And in the 26 years, we don't have too much help for us county of Tulare. We need help now with the roads, Pratt, Wade, and we have six roads in this area. And I need your help. Quiero ser parte del presupuesto.

I would like for our community to be included in the budget.

Porque es muy necesario para nosotros.

Because it's very necessary for us.

And I want to tell you something. I have two minutes. I want to tell you the Coney of Tulare is like three millions 112,320 acres. And I don't know why the county of Tulare leave the Tulare city to make industrial park in my community and the community of Tulare around to the community. We have 300 properties. It's a lot of children's, a lot of old people, you know, right there, and I don't know why. If it's too big, the county, why you permit to the city make industrial park around to my community? I already talked to the city, and I say, why in my community? Why don't put stores or something to my community? No, they want to put business. They already put a business now. You have to fix a road in my community, but only to cross the trucks, to make that business, a big business, backside to my yard, to my property. I don't know. I need heroes. Maybe one of yours make a hero to my community because we don't want that kind of business. We don't need that kind of business. We don't need that kind of contamination. We don't need traffic, everything in my community. The county is too big. You can make business. to the south to other place, like by Celia, the industrial park over there. are far, far away to the people. I need this for my community. I already talked to the state. The state already helped my community to some allows. Like two months ago, we win. When we go to the Capitolio, every time when we need it, I try to help my community. I go fight for SB 8888 to help. City Tulare give water to my community. I like work for my community. Maybe I don't live too many years more because we are 16 in my family and I have only five more people in my family. Maybe my family died 60, 65 years old. and natural death. But maybe I have 10 more years, five, 10 more years to fight for my community, to fight for this kind of problems. Please help my community. You have the power. Maybe one or yours right here have the power to help my community. Maybe you are a hero right here. Thank you. Thank you very much to help.

Thank you, Mr. Trujillo. It sounds like your community has a hero and it's you, but we do hear you.

Yes, Jennifer, can you meet with him and explain city limits and the authorities there? I mean, he he has a very good point, but and that's why we did the data center thing was we're not going to allow them to be adjacent to our community. So if you can explain that to him, because that that that's a city issue. Thanks.

That concludes the public comment cards and there is no phone call, callers.

Is there anybody else in the audience who would like to speak for public comment that did not fill out a comment card? Okay, not seeing any. Find my place All right, so there being no more public comments I will close the public testimony and bring the matter back to the board for discussion and action Do any of the board members have any questions for the CAO at this time or wish to take more time? to review the material Doesn't sound like it. So we already have a motion by Supervisor Macari, a second by Supervisor Vanderpool to approve the requested actions. Please cast your votes. and it passes 4-0 with Supervisor Townsend absent. I want to thank everybody, especially our CAO and their staff. It's nice to see you guys out of your office. We haven't been much out over the last few months, but we appreciate it. Also, thank you to the Auditor-Controller Cass Cook and his staff for all their hard work on the budgets, and our budget hearings are now concluded.

Yeah, I'll just reiterate those comments and just thank the CAO's office and the staff and all of our department heads, all of our county employees. Everyone works so hard and is fiscally disciplined to put us in the position to put this budget forward that is really a roadmap for the county and its spending plan for this next year. I'm very proud to serve on this board, proud of all our county employees and staff that do work hard and are dedicated to providing the best life that we can here in Tulare County. And I look forward to working with everyone over this next year. There are always challenges, but it seems that Tulare County is able to and will rise to the challenges that come before us and solve the problems and improve lives. So thank you for all of the effort and collaboration that we do put forward.

Supervisor Valero.

Thank you, Chair. What I'd like to share is that while other counties throughout the state are struggling, we have made it steadfast and continuing to have a healthy budget here in the county. With, again, the hard work of staff, it takes a team to fulfill a dream, and I feel like that has been happening here at the county with all departments. heads working with the CAO in order to present a budget that is going to continue to move us forward and strong. I do also want to thank all of the individuals that came up to the podium today and shared and expressed their issues. And so we take those to heart. And again, thank you for taking time out of your schedule to be here as well in sharing those. Again, I just thank you, thank you, thank you to all those involved.

Supervisor McCarrie.

Well, I'd also like to thank staff. I know that, John, you guys are not done because you're starting already for next year. And it's just a continuing process. And yeah, it's a lot of money, a lot of money, but it's not. It doesn't go very far. A lot of it is subvented or mandated. Our discretionary is, what, less than 10% or about 10% of what our total budget is. and it doesn't go very far especially when there's unfunded mandates coming from the state especially when the state can assume how they're going to get their money and not worry about it because they're going to tax us later and uh and then put more on us and we end up having to do it there's a particular board of supervisor i'm not going to mention the name or the county they said hey you know we try to be fiscally responsible but you know what it just doesn't seem right we're just going to give them we're just going to go all out and then we'll just lay people off Well, what kind of a philosophy is that? I mean, we haven't had layoffs in this county for quite some time because we've been fiscally responsible, granted. We can't give as much as we like, but I think we've made a lot of concessions. I was a county employee coming up. Interesting, the comment earlier, like, how would you feel if you were only given a 10 cent raise? Well, under Sheriff Sigley, how did we feel when they told us we got nothing and we didn't deserve it from people on this right up here in this dais? The comment made was, well, if you want a job, apply for welfare on the dais. Jason, you were there. And so we know and we do everything we can to make sure that we're taking care of our staff and making sure we're taking care of our communities. So granted, it is a lot of money, but it doesn't go very far. But the one thing that we are trying to do is take care of our employees. And some stuff we heard earlier, they're not our employees. These are our employees. We're going to make sure we take care of you and make sure we take care of our communities. So we just need to work together. There's going to be bumps in the road coming down. Once we see how the assumptions work out, which they don't, then we're going to have to punt on some things. But I promise you, we'll be there for you and do everything we can.

Thank you, Supervisor McCurry. Okay, Madam Council, do we have a need for closed session?

Yes, Madam Chair, we do have need for closed session. Item A is off calendar, and I do not anticipate any announcement out.

Okay, with that, thank you very much. Meeting adjourned.