Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Stream test, May 21.

And thank you for joining us today. I'd like to officially welcome you to our May twenty first twenty sixth budget work session. I call the budget work session to order. For today's work session, we have two important items to cover. First, a review of the FY '27 ordinances, and two, the FY '27 recommended budget overview and discussion. And we will now move to our first item on the agenda, a review of the FY '27 ordinance. At this time, I'd like to call Pat and Michelle to the podium.

Hi. Good morning. Happy Thursday. Yeah. So, yes, as chair Miles said, we have a targeted agenda, but it also is hopefully to facilitate your conversation and make you aware of what you'll be adopting on June 1. And so we'll start the morning talking about our budget ordinances, and we're going to start with Pat Flannery, our CFO sharing an adjustment about our property acquisitions. Alright.

Well, morning commissioners and thank you very much. I'm going to start with the really exciting stuff first. So we're going to talk briefly about an adjustment to our budget ordinances for property acquisitions. So currently the county is experiencing a lot of challenges when it comes to executing real estate purchases. And this is for a couple of different reasons.

I think a lot of you are aware of this, but we're in a very kind of aggressive and dynamic real estate market right now. There's extremely high demand for properties And it's just very difficult to find and secure deals right now just to the limited amount of properties that are out there and available in the market and that fit our needs. The other big issue processes. The internal process right now at the county is just really it's just not very conducive to a very aggressive real estate market. It's taking us eight weeks to two months to be able to sign an agreement for a purchase and that is an extremely long time just to get this kind of whole process done and signed in a property under agreement.

So right now our current process, our facilities design and construction group, they're the ones that work on real estate purchases. They identify and negotiate real estate purchases. Once they have an agreement in principle, that kind of kick starts the contract review process and it also kick starts the submitting the agenda item for the board to approve the real estate transaction. And that's what kind of takes that seven to eight week time frame. And unfortunately, in that time frame, the county is unable to sign a purchase agreement until the board of commissioners approve the transaction.

And so that is it's a big issue for many sellers. They're very uncomfortable sitting on their property for that long of time with no signed agreement in place. So just to discuss real quick the market challenges, like I said, the market just is very very competitive which makes it challenging. Without a signed agreement in place, the buyers are continuing to shop their properties for better deals or they're just getting more calls and better offers as they wait for the county to process the agreements. So what does this do?

It leads to the prices quickly escalating on properties. It has caused us at times to lose deals to other buyers due to those higher costs and then these buyers can also offer quicker closings and all cash deals. So what happens in kind of because of that is that the county is just spending a lot of staff time on trying to buy properties and what's costing the county money as well. And then when we do lose a property, there just are not a lot of options in the market and it's very difficult to pivot and find something else. So the last couple months we've been working hard to try to find a proposed solution to this and what we've come up with that we bring to you today is to add a delegation of signature authority for the county manager to sign a purchase contract upon agreement principle with the seller prior to board action and approval.

So in this new delegation language will be added to the adopted budget. I will be within the budget ordinances. There already is signature authority delegation that is spelled out in the budget ordinances today. It would be added to that and it would authorize this delegation of signature authority within the general fund, the county capital fund, and the affordable housing capital fund and that's where we are purchasing properties from. So very simply that proposed budget ordinance language says, the county manager may execute real estate purchase agreements within budgeted appropriations provided all such agreements contain a condition precedent that the Board of Commissioners must approve the transaction prior to closing.

And so I've got those two sections highlighted there for very important reasons. These are kind of the protections that we're putting in place with this language. I'll touch on them a little bit more here in a minute. But we felt those are the key pieces of that that make this language work. So the benefits of this change, it gives us increased credibility with sellers.

It strengthens our negotiations, it gives us more leverage when we are able to sign a contract and close quicker. It helps to stop those costs from escalating, one of the most important aspects of this. Also helps the FD and C staff focus on due diligence rather than struggling to hold the deal together. Right now they spend a lot of time just trying to keep the sellers happy and trying to keep them working through the due diligence with them instead of listening to other offers. So this would help settle them down.

It does save deals as the purchase contract is executed upon agreement. Obviously the efficiency approximately seven weeks is saved and processing that agreement. We can get the closing quicker. And then a big one for finances, it eliminates rushes for signed contracts at the end of the process. Currently, we work through the contract review process, we get the board approved and as soon as the board approves it, those sellers are wanting that contract signed immediately.

And so it ends up coming as a rush to get a signature to finance. So that's an extremely difficult part of the process. This is just a real high level view of kind of what we're doing here. We're just really condensing down that period that we get the contract signed. The board approval process is still the same in this matrix here, but it's just kind of giving you kind of where we're going from negotiate to the contract within a week's time as opposed to eight weeks time.

And that's what we're hoping to change to be able to kind of save these deals and not cost the county more money. So just kind of protections on the process and how this process continues to align with the board's authority and that's why I highlighted those two sections within the language. The purchase must be within budgeted appropriations. So it must be in the adopted budget that you vote on and approve every year or it must be in a previous appropriation that the board has approved. And that's a key protection on this process.

So it has to be we have to have appropriations set aside for the purchase. The purchase agreement is also non binding and subject to board approval and the due diligence by the county staff. And so that's the other big kind of protection in this process. Statute requires that the board approves all transactions and that is still the case. So that contract, while we have a signed agreement, it's still nonbinding upon the due diligence and your approval.

So that does not change. And closing is precedent on all conditions above being met. So we cannot close until these things have happened. If an appropriation does not exist, then we must come back to you for approval of an appropriation before that use of that signature authority delegation can be used. A good and I think it's going to help as well because there are times I'll give an example and that was the Blue Ridge property purchase for DSS.

And the appropriations were not identified when we were in the negotiations. They did not and we knew it was going be behavioral health funds that were appropriated for that purchase. They did that when they approved the transaction at the very end. In this situation with this language, we could have appropriated those dollars while they're in negotiation and then that allows them to go ahead and use the signature authority delegation. They would still have to come back for the board approval. It would just be two separate actions. And finally, this will be effective July 1 when the adopted budget takes effect. And so with that, I'm happy to take any questions discussion that you may have.

Okay Commissioner Admison.

Thank you for bringing this forward because I know when the affordable housing world we've lost some deals on apartment complexes and land because we were slower than everybody else. And it's really frustrating because that's the hardest part is getting the land. So I guess my question was when it comes to the board to vote in the new scenario, worst case scenario happens and the board, whatever board it is, votes to not purchase the property. What does that put us on, know, are we liable for damages? How does that work with the buyer seller relationship at that point?

I may defer to either of the marks on that one. It's a non binding agreement so I believe it nullifies the agreement. I don't know if there would be any conditions set and I think each contract is a little bit different about what's you know there's due diligence and sometimes there may be something that's for I can't tell you all the conditions but potentially yes I'm not sure what always goes into purchase agreements but the agreement would be nullified at that point. If the board did not approve it,

yes. Commission Jackson?

Yes, thank you for this presentation. Before I ask my question, just want to acknowledge Commissioner Thomas is on excused absence celebrating her niece's graduation and it's graduation season everybody. Cheers to all the graduates and we miss her being here. She's on a road trip. Thank you for the presentation laying out the why we're going this way, why this is being proposed, the benefits of it, and I appreciate of course protections being clearly laid out.

My question is wanting to understand just a little bit of context, like the size and scope, like how many deals have we lost, How often do we anticipate activate? How many purchases do we typically make? Just the size and scope and kind of quantify the scale again in the scope of what we're talking about.

Yes. And I'll have to defer to our facility and design and construction folks on that question. They are the ones that are affected most by this as they are out shopping for the deals.

Okay. Yes. How often might this be activated?

Thank you. I'm Mark Edmonson, I'm the real estate person for FDC and we anticipated the question, I went back and looked and there are five acquisitions that were altered. Two that we actually lost over the last two years. So I could stand up here for a long time and tell you why this is a great thing. The number one thing is the volatility of the market and sellers are just antsy.

And frankly, it gets out there that between sellers and their brokers, if you do a deal with Wake County, it's gonna take forever. And there are private equity groups that are coming in, snapping up property, and just sitting on them. And they're not selling properties that we've spent a lot of time identifying, saying this is the one we need. So this will give us a lot more flexibility, it'll give us a lot more credibility, and it allows us to do things that other entities, corporations, other municipalities, they're already doing these things. Does that address your question?

Yes, thank you for those numbers and I was happy you prepared with those numbers. I love a good analysis. I appreciate the extra comment. It's very clear the competitive advantage we would gain by going in this direction. Thank you.

Commissioner Evans?

Yes. I just wanted to say that I think this is a very reasonable practical request. I certainly understand the volatility of our market. As Mr. Edmonds has highlighted, when we're trying to locate a piece of property for a specific use, particularly if it's like EMS or a fire station or even a library, we're targeting a particular area.

And then you're lucky if you can even find one piece of property. I mean I think about all the difficulty we had finding property for the Sandy Pine, Sandy Point, the one up north. And so if you finally can actually find a piece of property that meets your needs in the right location, you need to be able to move on it quickly and give the sellers some comfort zone that it's going to happen if we make enter into a purchase agreement. I'm supportive of this. Know, like you said, so long as everything is properly budgeted for one way or the other and then we get sign off on it as the board.

I think it's a win win situation that makes a lot of sense. So thanks to the staff for being forward thinking on this.

Thank you.

Okay, any other questions or comments? Not seeing any.

Okay. Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright, so continuing through the kind of boring business side of things. Just wanted to remind you all again and the public who's watching, the number of the ordinances that will be adopted by you on June 1. And so you can see we have almost 20 ordinances. They cover our operating ordinances, our capital ordinances, our project ordinances, our grants ordinances, and so one of you is usually the lucky person who gets to read the motion reading all of these through. So these will be again those ordinances that you will be highlighting in your adoption.

Here, always just want to share this is an example of how in our ordinance for the general fund we have a special subsection for our appropriation allocation to the school system. It is categorized by what we call purpose and function from NCDPI, and the school system provides us this breakdown about in the way in which they plan to spend their money for the upcoming year, and then we include that in our ordinance. So right now we are talking with them to get that information. And with our guideline, if any of the adjustments between any of these functions goes beyond 15%, they come back and we'll inform you about the changes they've made. Happens very rarely but that is part of our ordinance as well.

And again, picture of that board motion. Of course this year it will be about the 2027 budget and we will provide any adjustments that come out of today or otherwise in that motion to be prepared for you on the first. Any other questions about that fun topic?

Okay.

Alright. So reminder, the county manager's budget is to a little bit under $2,300,000,000 for the FY '27 budget. I pulled frankly just some slides from his presentation that I thought represented the budget that he put forward to the community this year. And so here just highlighting what was some of our considerations as David was preparing his budget. The budget accounts for rising costs that are stemming from some federal decisions.

It subsidizes area where we've identified that the state is falling short, and it supports the growing needs of the school system Wake Tech and Smart Start, our education partners. And then internally for our county operations, it's meeting housing needs of foster youth and our jail residents, and then also growth in EMS and some other health and human services functions, and recognizing pay for our wonderful employees. Again, just restating for you, of course we had traditionally or typically expected forty to fifty million dollars in new revenue particularly from property tax in this year with those impacts from that Blue Ridge loophole and also some of our larger tax appeals and larger corporations coming to appeal those values this year was an $8,000,000 increase. And so as we looked at all of the expenditures that we had identified whether through our base budget, you know what we had funded last year, what cost escalations we anticipated, our health insurance costs rising by about $11,000,000 this year, and then a number of cost escalations and expansions that the manager's office looked at. Then taking a look at what our delta was, we filled that gap by raising the taxes by 2¢ and then also utilizing fund balance, one time fund balance of about $35,000,000 which David again had said we have not done certainly since I've been here in 2008.

And certainly back in 2008, dollars 35,000,000 would have been a lot more of our budget than it is now. So I don't think we would have appropriated that. And so again identifying the $35,000,000 was roughly an equivalent of the loss of the revenue that we had for the year. So where we look at the previous slide, it was usually 40 to 50, subtract eight, you know you get around 35,000,000. And so we just going into next year we're going to be very mindful about we had our first meeting with yesterday on our business planning and taking a look at, you know, preparing for one how to address filling this $35,000,000 one time use of fund balance and also I think we got good news that the loophole is being resolved through the legislature.

I don't speak well in that those terms but it sounds like that has traction to be improved. And so and again keeping a close eye on everything that's happening down the street. Just

for context, can you tell us what our total fund balance is? How much the 35,000,000 is out of the total say as the end of last fiscal year?

Do you know I know we just looked at it and it might be in the materials but I don't know the number. But you might have a better sense of scale either way.

Exact number. On the general fund, I want to say it's

$500,000,000 I'm trying to

think of our combined. We put it together with the debt fund and that's kind of how we measure our metric of having more than 30% for our triple a credit rating. Those combined are about $60,650,000,000, somewhere in that range.

That's helpful. I was gonna state that I'm well aware that one of the reasons we have to keep fairly hefty fund balance is for our debt leveraging and for qualifying for the good ratings. But I just thought it would be helpful to understand the context. I mean $35,000,000 is a lot of money and out of that that's a pretty significant percentage if

Yes, you ask is significant. I think our percentage was around 45% at the end of last fiscal year as far as our metrics are concerned. Sorry, Todd, do you remember how much it affects the long term? He's checking right now. Because what it does is it kind of fund balance number we model over the seven years in the debt and capital plan. And it goes down over time as a concern. What we can't have is that metric ever getting close to that 30% in that seven year debt and capital window.

And I'm not nervous that you all recommended this. In other words, if you've recommended it, I know that the formulas will work. But I'm really just trying to highlight it's not sustainable obviously. Yes, is

correct statement.

And it's unprecedented. Michelle said, this is my eighth budget season. I don't even recall, I think maybe one year since I've been here we might have taken 1 or 2,000,000 out of fund balance one year like 2019. And so these comments are as much for the public and anybody that's listening because we certainly are getting feedback. We understand how nervous, anxious people are about property tax rates.

But I just want people to understand to meet next year's budget, know, this is a huge thing that we're taking this kind of money out of our fund balance and so you know we're really doing the best we can and I just thought for perspective that'd be helpful, but thank you.

Thank you. Todd did you want to share what the metric was or the impact?

Yes, just to reiterate what Pat said, that there is impact to our long term financial model by using this much fund balance. It's not detrimental. We don't get outside of our guardrails. Our AAA rating is not in jeopardy. We're not violating any policies. I will say is this sustainable every year? The answer is no. But it does affect our fund balance ratio, but we're still within the parameters we need to be.

Thanks Todd.

Michelle, I just want to echo what you said yesterday the house was busy down the street. But they did unanimously pass what I call the blue ridge loophole fix bill. And so hopefully the senate will do the same.

Thank you for saying that more accurately. And so at the risk of being doom and gloom, but again like reiterating just if hopefully everything goes swimmingly with that Blue Ridge loophole fix and we will see where any pursuit of a question on a ballot for capping property tax increases goes. And if any combination of those do not go in the direction we're interested in, we will definitely be looking internally and we've already started having some conversations with our senior leadership team yesterday, the similar conversation. You know it could be in a variety of ways. Taking a look at operating hours for certain programs.

Really evaluating program investments that we have. Scaling them back. Revisiting them. What considering what we would be able to continue to fund for education whether the school system, Wake Tech, or Smart Start amongst a host of other things that we always are cognizant to bring ideas to the table.

Yep. Yeah. Not really a question just a comment that in looking ahead to fiscal year twenty eight and these possibilities and the consequences, It's obvious but I just want to point out we are really facing these decisions this year in terms of having to make unprecedented decisions and if we don't, you know, again recognizing the impact all around and we've been you all have been very judicious and bare minimum, but essentially these are things that we would have to do this year if we don't move forward with some of these unprecedented recommendations. So I just want to say that for the record.

Yes. Right, the revenue recommendations. I hear you. Yep. Alright.

And so I probably got ahead of myself here but quite literally at the end of June we have a meeting scheduled with the manager's office and some members of the budget office and might be some other departments. The manager's office will reflect on our FY twenty seven budget cycle and start thinking about how we move into preparing for the planning. And as I said, we started our business planning process kind of with like signaling and we will reflect more on topics that came up this year both budget and then also operational areas that the county has been wanting to address. So we come out of that meeting also with some projects that we want to focus on doing some staff research on. Again, these actions legislator will keep an eye on those to keep informing our revenue projections and then I speak for David in my last bullet as he would say, you know our priorities continue to be providing our core services, advancing the strategic plan, and having a high performing team wake that serves our community.

And next I'm gonna go into a couple of slides that cover what I thought were kind of thematic questions. From the questions that some of you had sent, there's a packet in the larger packet of a word document with a q and a. I haven't there's not a slide for a q and a but highlighted some things that seems thematic and things that might be areas for discussion. So here a slide that we've shared before and again with raising the tax again 2¢. Want you always to be aware of the recent history of the adjustments.

And then here again just sharing that the orange color is the base property tax for that year and then the blue is any amount that was message we had some discussion about one how we have identified some areas that we would indicate from state statute that are responsibilities of the state of which we are supplementing funding, which we calculated at about $600,000,000. And we then in the message tried to convey that if this $600,000,000 was not being funded by our property tax, what that would do to reduce our property tax. And so for this year, a per penny of the tax rate is $31,000,000 I'm sorry, $31,075,000. And for $600,000,000, the equivalent is 19.31¢. Not exactly the 19¢, but we rounded in the message.

And so then when you take a look at what our tax rate was last year for this year that we're currently in a 51.71 and were to subtract that 19.31, our property tax rate simply calculated would be 32.4¢. Again, not exactly 30¢ but rounded for the message. So I just wanted to share that. I got a question about that and certainly think it's just wanted to express that. At your seat, you have a packet of all of the comments that were from the online portal.

And so we've summarized these in BMS with this table here, and so in the portal you'll see there were mostly comments about please don't raise my taxes, I'm concerned about affordability, comments about libraries, and there were six others that were very miscellaneous and not very easy to categorize. And then for the in person hearings, which of course you were there, but here just seeing there were comments about Habitat for Humanity, appreciating our housing programs, comments from urban ministries about the Helen Wright Center, again a number of visitors about the libraries, appreciation of Smart Start, again some not wanting taxes to be increased. So just wanted to summarize all of those for your memory. And then David, the next topic was about food security. We had some questions about the programs that we had funded with ARPA that were focused supporting food security and these were largely delivered by Cooperative Extension and wanting to understand more about what could be lost or what is the impact of these programs and what is the landscape.

And here I just put the questions just to frame it up. There were two in in the same similar category. With demand at record levels and federal and state challenging mounting, what specific steps are we taking to maintain our investments in and collaborations for food and nutrition services? And then what opportunities for supporting food pantries as a horizon issue have been evaluated during this budget? And is there a process for Cooperative Extension to address this emerging issue throughout? And so we staff took a look and we have a map here, and David, I don't know if you and Catherine would like to coordinate on joining us.

I know Duane's on its way, but if

you could

start us off, that'd be helpful.

You can come up here, Catherine. And then this is I mean you know how to use it, but if you want to do the interactive thing. Okay.

Alright, good morning everybody. So I just wanted to provide a little bit of context for this. Duane did reach out and ask us to pull together, as you see here, this is a food locator app that we've been supporting on our website for a while. These are sites available to the general public. I think the reality is that in the current environment that we're in, you know we really are seeing just a significant shift and a return to more of a charity model for food assistance in our community.

Certainly the federal, the impact of that federal legislation, I appreciate the questions that you all are asking, and we are concerned about those. I would say that we have worked very hard to find a way to mobilize and coordinate with partners across our community. There are still gaps and there are still real impacts as a result of a loss of funding to our local food banks. Our ARPA dollars have helped to stand in that gap for a while, and that is going to have an impact when those dollars end in December. But some of the investments that we were able to make in the food system, and Duane, I welcome you to join me at any time you'd like to.

I saw you creep in back there, but I'll just say that we have we made a number of investments that were one time or short term investments in aggregators. One of the largest issues is our pantry partners, of which there are hundreds in our community, do not always have access to produce. People talk a lot about nutrition issues when it comes to food security. And I know that some of what you're asking about is access to local produce and also to protein and dairy as a regular source of what's available through our pantry partners. And our efforts through ARPA have been aimed at trying to increase the quality of nutrition that's available to people across our community.

So, we made a lot of investments in cold storage, some garden infrastructure to community groups, and to aggregators in our community that make it easier for pantries to purchase at a lower cost. Those investments will continue and actually we've seen a pretty good return on investment so far beyond what we expected in terms of some of those markets stabilizing and providing some ongoing relief and access to communities, which is what we hope to see. But in the emergency food space, I'm not going to stand here and say that a community facilitated largely faith based driven system is going to be able to replace the kind of supports that we have seen, you know, through snap, reductions to snap over time, or through some of the other projects, innovative work that we've been able to fund. The manager has continuously challenged us to find step down ways to support folks. So, we're doing things like business meet ups where we're trying to facilitate some alignment between corporate folks who might want to look at funding and inviting our pantry partners.

We have some of those scheduled actually in June and July. And we are also looking at for Nourished Rx in particular a USDA grant that we could submit in the coming year. That will no doubt it will be competitive, but the data coming out of that project, is one of the largest Food as Medicine programs, period, is really good. So maybe there are some chances that we can leverage some private funding for those programs and resources. What other questions would Yeah, you I

just wanted to, as Catherine was making those comments, it just wanted to highlight also in this, like I will say in the our budget and management business plan and in the office of operational excellence, David has put a nonprofit capacity building initiative into our work plans and so that also is Catherine and her staff are part of that team. We have all of the departments that have major relationships and partnerships with nonprofits. And so again it's building on these partnerships and also right how do we pursue grants? How do we, you know, what are ways in which we can support them? You know, like how can we just make our nonprofit community stronger?

So that was just another connection I wanted to make that that is a concerted effort that David has directed to help bolster our nonprofits and appropriately enable us to partner together. So I just wanted to say that but.

Thank you. Commissioner Jackson, Commissioner Waters.

Thank you, Katherine for this and staff for really taking a look at this part of our budget. It's painful to know that even last year's budget didn't fully meet the need and until we have community with no hunger, we have to keep focused on it. So appreciate this map and the work that's being done particularly around public private partnerships. And it's great to hear that those meetings already scheduled and I look forward to hearing how successful they are. In so many cases, we see where the private sector can absolutely deliver by making significant investments that help fill this gap and meet this community needs.

Thank you for and the whole team for the dedication to making sure that the basic need of hunger is addressed and stays on our radar and our priority as we're making difficult cuts and challenging decisions about very few dollars. So, you, and I look forward to following what's happening in that realm. Thank you.

Commissioner Waters?

I echo the appreciation for the work. I know your entire team is really committed to the spectrum of resources that are available to address food security and appreciate the food security work group that meets and really is passionate about bringing in resources and partners and so thank you for that. And as I think about some of the community input that we received, one very special group that we heard from were early childhood programs and I think this comment really sits with me that a child was choosing carrots over cookies and you know making sure that fresh fruits and vegetables which you spoke to earlier. Can you just speak to what it looks like specifically for those early childhood centers and how resources may specifically directed as we really know the benefits of good healthy eating habits early in life as we look at health outcomes at the as a long lifelong goal to have good eating habits.

Yes, thank you. So you all know, you've heard this from me before, we recognize that healthy eating is really foundational to good health. And from a prevention standpoint, childhood is one of the greatest opportunities for us to introduce this. We partnered with Smart Start to identify family child care centers primarily who were interested in how they might better source in their child care settings healthier food choices for young people. This particular program genuinely a is $40,000 a year cost.

We have already mentioned to Gail Hayden, our Smart Start director that without this being in the budget next year, maybe we could get together and brainstorm a local, again, private sector partner who might want to pick this up. We have some other childcare centers who are interested in the farm to ECE model, which is farm to early childhood education. It is a good way for us to reach a larger number of young people in the community, and it's more efficient than trying to deliver food to households if you can increase access in a childcare setting where numbers of young people are aggregated together. So, you know, I would just say that we understand the challenging situation that you all have and our team is committed to looking at multiple avenues for how we can continue to support that work. There's also a statewide group that has been really interested in the farm to early childhood education model, and they're also looking at how they could help us fund and support that moving forward.

There's real interest in replicating that model across the state.

Thank you. That's very helpful to know. In the course of the answer, farmers came up and just wondered in terms of what was in our prior budget and available through ARPA dollars collaboration with local farmers, What changes that you could specifically talk about that farmers may feel impacted by? And if you could also speak, I know it's a little bit out of the budget, about access to use of SNAP benefits at the farmers market and those other ways of making sure that there is access to fresh fruits and vegetables, which I hear quite often representing largely 27,610 and a lot of communities that don't have access even to grocery markets in their community.

Pilots that we've had the last three years put in place was a pilot to increase we doubled the amount of bucks available to SNAP recipients at nine of our farmers markets, which is about 50% of our markets in the county. Those dollars of course allow SNAP recipients to basically increase the amount of food that they can receive at the markets and the county's dollars in that pilot or the ARPA funding in this case was used to compensate. Again, that helps ensure a healthier market for local growers who bring their food to the market. We also gave those markets a nominal amount of money to promote to the SNAP audience that this is available at their market, also senior vouchers that are available at their markets. We also ensure, as part of that program, we ensure a pantry adoption.

So if there's produce that is brought that is not purchased at the market on those days, that produce is purchased and donated to the local pantry partner. So those are some of the innovative things that we were able to do with those nine markets and we have seen a significant increase in SNAP participation in these markets. So that is basically what our pilot was about and again we saw good results. It's sort of hard to know how moving forward with the impact, the reductions to SNAP, what you would expect to see is the cost might be the same if people did not come and use SNAP to retrieve the produce for that day, then the food would be donated to a local pantry. So none of the food would go to waste and farmers would be assured that their products would be purchased, which ensures that those markets have farmers who continue to come to the market on those days.

So that's kind of how the process has worked.

Thank you. That's really helpful as we see how interconnected all of these systems are. And do you know the investment among the nine markets?

Yes, those the three the collection of the three things I spoke about, the SNAP funds, the promotional dollars, and the pantry adoption process, those all cost about $70,000 a year for the non markets.

Okay. Thank you. I just again really appreciate how thoughtful and especially your leadership and your entire team looking at ways to meet community needs in a lot of different ways from our youngest citizens to our seniors. So, you for your leadership.

Thank you.

Thank you. Commissioner Admison.

Catherine, thank you. We are all concerned about food insecurity and know that in our community it's rising as we all see the prices increase at the grocery store. And I was reading some credible economists yesterday who said that, you know, the anticipation is we've had record inflation and for the last month and that is supposed to continue through the end of the year. So I had asked David to get dollars because you know we in budgets we put dollars to line items. That's and So the three programs is the farm to early childcare pilot which was about 72,000.

The farmers market snap match pilot which was 72,000. And then you know my favorite program has been the prescription produce box pilot which was 886,000. And that served a thousand residents which is about $900 a year. So that's an expensive program. So I don't know if there's any way to step down and work with those individuals who were getting the boxes.

I know the VA does a very similar program for veterans who are diagnosed with chronic illnesses. And I know there have been some issues with administering it because your doctor has to write it as a prescription. And the doctors have been really confused about that and how to get it moving, but I know that's available to veterans. But I understand we had one of the gentlemen who gets the boxes come talk to us about how valuable that was. But in this budget $886,000 I think is going to be hard to justify.

But the farm to childcare pilot in the farmers market snap, Mr. Manager, I was hoping you could do your budget magic and find us $150,000 somewhere to cover those until you can get those partnerships in place. Because my concern is if we're going to move to more of a private model and there's a period of months or years where there's no service to the early childhood care centers in the Farmers Market match that it'll be an upstart expense to get those going again. So I didn't know if there was any way to maybe do another year to give a chance to put those together. I think it would be hard to justify the produce box deliverance with that.

So this is now y'all's budget. If you all do as a body direct us to find the $150,000 then we will go and do that.

Well I'll support you doing your going to the money tree at the back of the Justice Center and finding a $150,000.

So that money tree is dead.

Because I had the personal experience that I shop at one of the farmers markets and I happened to be at one of the produce vendors and there was an elderly couple who came up with their elder voucher and it was only $25 and I noticed what they were doing and I thought I'm trying not to steer because you know dignity is really important to me. Well of course I have to talk to them because they're cute elderly people. And they were so excited about their voucher that they told me about it and they got it. And so you know in the scope of things that was small money for us. But they were so excited about their vegetables.

So anyway, so I'm sorry the tree's dead but maybe we can water it and you know get some little more life going. So

the if if the board directs us to there are a couple ways. We would have to cut funding somewhere else in my proposed budget direction from you all so we can start working on.

Could you because I know we need to, you know, it's coming to where we need to approve this budget. How long would it take for you to send some options where the money could come from to cover this? Okay.

I

can't speak for my colleagues but I would personally like to see those options.

What I was going to suggest Commissioner Adamson is I think right now I think we're trying to make sure that everything's in by May 27 to staff. So if y'all can get back with me, be reaching back out to everyone here in the next couple of days so that way we can try to start looking at close those gaps and trying to figure out where everybody's are at this particular time. So that way it gives us time to get the information to staff and then give them time to look back and make whatever modification that we are requesting at that time.

Thank you. And I think it would be important for my decision making to see where we would cut versus raise taxes a little more. But I just feel like we get such the bang for buck for these programs that I'd like to see at least another year until they can start developing the private partnerships to cover them.

Okay, great. I mean that's the conversation that we need to have so that way we're all in alignment in terms of where we're going, what we need to look at, and that way then we can present it to staff. That way we won't be all over the place. We need to all come together and give the staff a direction. Okay, Commissioner Jackson.

Yes. Okay. A couple of questions. Commissioner Adamson, thank you for asking the question out loud and in this space. I support that request to staff, and I know I've asked the exact same question and our dollar amounts were exactly the same, 150 ks.

So thank you for naming that in this space and I look forward to seeing what's possible. Again, cuts are painful for very, very basic needs. Two questions. Given the number of stakeholders that benefit from our investment and commitment to food security, early childhood providers, farmers, just residents, seniors, how are you thinking about prioritizing as we're securing additional private funding? How are you thinking about prioritizing the investments when there are a number of places that they could be?

Is that just in the food security space?

Yes, as you're securing additional private contributions partnering. Well, you mentioned specifically pantry partners. So that would be the priority as opposed to some of these other like farm to ECE. Is that correct?

No, I would say that our team had prioritized at the manager's request farm to ECE and the farmers markets. We had given them sort of equal value in terms of our prioritization. Primarily, you know, I will say the return on investment is high as you all pointed out for Nourishing Rx. And that is addressing chronic health in our community. But it is a high price tag.

It is a good return on investment compared to health care cost related to, you know, it is still a preventative measure based, you know, compared to what we'll pay for those residents and healthcare cost. But it is understandable given the budget situation that we, I am part of this team, you know, that we are all facing and we understand that. I I think our community understands it as well. Know, I'm anxious to sit down with the VA and see maybe there are some efficiencies we could work towards. I don't know what the overlap is.

I don't think there's a substantial overlap in our current populations that we're serving. But there may be some cost savings to be realized. There are things like that that we could do. It is challenging in this environment, you know, even when we consider our school based food resources that we are supporting. Know, I mean to just boil it down to a divide by the number of people you're serving to see what really is the most cost effective benefit.

That's probably not a fair analysis either. So we're trying to recommend investments that have the longest term return for the largest number of citizens and we'll continue to do that analysis. I also think when it comes to private sector funding, you're going to have to shop that, you know, working with our office of organizational excellence. So, of that will also come down to what are people interested in funding. There are some things that may be easier to fund.

Catherine, can you also speak to the role of the Capital Area Food Network serving as our local food council and the role they would play as far as prioritizations?

Absolutely. So we have a capital area food network. This is the local policy council that Cooperative Extension and all of these partners go to in terms of collective decision making, building consensus, that's another vehicle that we would use to recommend investments to the county.

And just for everyone's benefit, can you talk the types of individuals that serve on that council, just so the board is aware?

So, in terms of the infrastructure, we also have worked with our Health and Human Services regional directors. We have regional food security teams across the county that bring partners together at the local level to look at the best strategies to meet the needs locally. These are made up of partners and diverse stakeholders from the community. Then a number of those feed up into the Capital Area Food Network. So we have a range of individuals there including people with lived experience both in terms of serving unhoused individuals as far as serving as well as folks who kind of have a broader understanding system from an economic development lens.

So you've got healthcare advocates there, you have local advocacy individuals, diverse people advocating for the needs of folks who they, their neighbors who they know to be hunger, the school system, many school social workers participate in those regional food security council, as well as the food banks have representation around the table. So it's really the broadest sector engagement that we have on an ongoing basis to tap into. There are more than two fifty partners on this list providing pantry support and a lot of them are small faith based organizations and it's a lot of informal networks which is why it's challenging to coordinate a united agenda in terms of how to move forward. But that's what the Policy Council gives us the best opportunity to do.

Okay. Thank you for that. And it's really good to hear that some of those first dollars in will be invested in the greatest return like ECE and farm to ECE. And so wonderful that the council is so representative of the community and gets away in on the future of our county through the lens of nutrition and food security. Just a couple other questions.

When you think about the current budget and the changes from last year, which populations or which sides of parts of our county do you think will be impacted the most? Also just as a second to that, those dots on the screen represent emergency food distribution resources?

They do. They represent, yes, exactly. That includes pantries, some mobile market distributions, and so Michelle I think you told me that this would work.

Thank you. Yep.

It doesn't like that.

I've hit my limit of technology.

Yeah, it's okay. We Each when you open like when the public goes to open each of those maps, each of those locators, it shows you like who operates, how what the hours are, that kind of thing. So, instance,

this

is New Bethel Baptist Church. Their food distribution, it gives you the time, it gives you the operating hours. When you and work with our VISTAs and we'll have a more coordinated method for keeping our resources updated, working in partnership with our behavioral health team and their network of care resources. But, for right now, like this is how the public can access available resources. And I only return to this map because I mean you can see it's hard to say.

There's a larger population that lives in the city centers, obviously, inside Raleigh. There are a lot of options for those folks. The challenges, I think, might lie more eastern and the southern parts of the county where there are fewer distribution sites and more transportation issues for seniors and other individuals who are challenged to get to those resources. It's I mean honestly I think we'll continue to work to analyze this and to provide you all with you know prioritization of better resources.

Thank you. And if for some reason we are able to find that 150 ks, can you just point out on the map which parts of our county would benefit from that? You mentioned 950% of the farmers markets?

Yeah, the farmers markets are just the nine farmers markets we worked with are distributed across the county. So the Western Wake farmers market is part of that, Rolesville Farmers Market, they are distributed, the Fuquay Varina Farmers Market, like I'm just naming a few, Wake Forest Farmers Market, they are pretty well distributed across the county. That's the increase of SNAP bucks that are available at those markets. So it's not just one area. They are actually spread across the county.

Yes, that's great to hear. That's it. Thank you.

Okay, Commissioner Waters.

Thank you. I am also wanting to lend my support to explore the various options for how we can perhaps extend these pilots that have shown to be really beneficial to our community, and I just wanted to also say that I really appreciate all the creative ways that we are addressing food security as a community. I know there's been work around the Towards Zero Waste program. For those that are not familiar, it allows public schools to redistribute food to children that would otherwise go to waste. And I've seen in my own child's school recently has implemented the toward zero waste model and I have two school age children, one that has universal free lunch and one that has to pay for lunch and the cost escalation even in paying for lunch is really steep.

And so, it's really beneficial to me and to our neighbors for me to see how this could potentially play out if we have options on how to fund food security and I'm side eyeing you again. Thank you.

You're good Commissioner Waters. Okay, Commissioner Evans.

Well, I'm gonna start by saying thank you to Katherine and Sydney and that whole team. I was on the school board when preliminary conversations began about trying to put together a food security task force. And oh my gosh, the work that has happened in ten, twelve years, however long it's been now. And so I mean I just want to commend you all for all the different ways that you've come at this and been creative and structures that you've tried to create and using these ARPA dollars really to get a real big bang for the buck with several different programs. And so that is to be commended.

And I'm thankful to hear that we're going to continue to try to invest in capacity building with our non profits because that's what's going to be key for the future. You know, it's an uncertain environment that we're facing with changes in SNAP benefits and all of that. And I'm really excited to hear about sitting down with private industry folks and trying to get them engaged and to see how they can help as well. I'm on the fence about how I feel about going and looking for more money for these programs until I hear about a few other things, because there are some other things that we heard concerns about. And that will be for Michelle in a few minutes.

Helen Wright Center for One and things like that that I want to understand. But for sure if we decide, this is not for you, that we want to veer off of the county manager's recommended budget. The only items that I would support would be items that are in housing, homelessness, food security. I'll channel Doctor. West since he's not here.

In this eerie time we find ourselves with this budget, you know, I think we have to pay close attention to O'Maslow's hierarchy of needs. So I'll channel that for Doctor. West since he's not here for us.

One of his favorites. Yeah.

So I just want to hear more, want to hear, but I also want to go on a record of saying is I'm not interested in raising taxes anymore. So we're going have to find a creative way. If we're going to start making changes to the manager's budget, I'm open to certain programs and things, but I want us to be cautioned. I want to caution us about opening Pandora's box for this particular budget season. So we have to consider the other things too. But I'm open. That's my thoughts. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other? Yeah, Commissioner Starless.

Thank you, Katherine. I just echo all of what my colleagues said on all your work and all staff's work for that matter because this has just been such a hard budget year, you know, for so many reasons. And I do apologize for being late. I was double booked this morning. I had to be at a county health and human services meeting with county manager, deputy county manager holder and I was the last vote for quorum. So, I had to stay stay for votes. So, one question, have have I missed anything? Has anything else been brought up except for this? Okay. So, that was really my question is I track concerns. I know we have many partners in this work, which is good news. That can be challenges as well, I know. But is

the Poe Health Center, are they partners in this work? Is there a place for them to be in this work?

Yes, they are and Ann Rollins serves on the food security work group which is primarily focused on our school based strategies but they are excellent partners with us and of course do a lot with community gardening.

And what about our Farmers Farm Bureau? Can you just speak to that in terms of our relationship with

our local farmers in this work?

Our cooperative extension is a you know, we are strong partners with Farm Bureau and they have a new liaison, public information liaison with Farm Bureau. Traditionally that person has represented them on the Capital Area Food Network. And we've had a farm advocacy circle, food access circle, also Terrell Debnam who is the Young Farmers and Ranchers Chair for Farm Bureau is on the Cooperative Extension Advisory Board, and has heard some of this discussion recently as well. So there are intentional connections with Farm Bureau as well.

Any other questions or comments? Okay. I'll add my 2¢ of course. Kathryn, it's always good to see you and thank you so much for being here this morning. You can tell we count on your expertise a lot in terms of when we talk about food securities.

And of course, my concern is along with Commissioner Evans, you know, that's one thing that I've been getting a lot of emails and concerns about is is possible additional tax increase. You know, even though we right now looking at possible 2¢, but for a lot of our system, that 2¢ is is really very concerning for them. So I'm hoping that we can support every way we can, but I I would definitely be opposed to any additional tax increase. I think that the manager's budget is pretty solid, but I'm willing to listen to my colleagues, of course, to see if, in fact, there are things that we can do in order to support. But, I'm hoping that we can come in line and, support the manager's budget.

Any other questions or comments?

Katherine? Anything else for Katherine.

Thank

you so much.

So, yes. So this is time for more discussion. So any other topics that you wanted to discuss? These were the only ones that were elevated so anything else for discussion about further funding, understanding?

Yes I

did want to ask for clarification about funding for the Helen White Center, the change is taking place, was that also related to some ARPA funding, what we're hearing about a reduction in funding and what the basis for that is?

Yep, I can certainly start us off. So the funding for Helen Wright was part of Bridge to Home which was funded by ARPA. It was just gonna use loose numbers with my memory. When we last year in the FY twenty six budget through evaluating some of those pilots, we had there had been a request to maintain that program or fund that program at about $2,000,000 and then considering budget considerations, it was scaled to approximately 1,000,000. I'd have to get you the specific numbers.

And so then housing did an RFP, which is part of their program, to then work with those organizations again, whoever was in the first pilot, and then what my understanding is on an annual basis or so, they reach out to the organizations and do an evaluation and identify the organizations with which they will partner and fund the Bridge to Home program. During FY '26, I think it was in the fall, and Duane you'll have to help me a little bit more with this, but there were requests to fund a little bit more on a one time basis than we did out of behavioral health? I know less about the prompting of that.

Yes, we did have a couple of nonprofits that expressed some extreme hardship in transitioning from the ARPA level funding to the new recurring level of Bridge to Home funding. Urban ministries was one of those programs and so there was a one time appropriation of $180,000 additional added one time for the current fiscal year.

For Helen Wright?

Correct.

So again that was a one time appropriation this year supplementing the ongoing funding. Their ongoing funding And is

what the organization has been requesting through public comment and portal entries is sustaining at the additional funding on a recurring basis.

Yeah. And again because it's also part of housing's procedures to just revisit these partnerships every so often to see where the need is, we would not, I wouldn't necessarily expect these organizations to receive the same amount of funding because that's not the way the program is designed. It is designed to evaluate on an ongoing basis.

And I would assume that when that funding was given as transitional funding that that was communicated that that was a one time kind of stop gap thing?

It was communicated at that time. Yes,

do you have the numbers? I believe we were provided that the reoccurring funding is like 500 for the Ellen Wright Center it's like 547,000 and the ARPA level was like 636,000 and we're doing the 547,000 level. Because one of the things we heard during public comment was we had some ladies appear before us that well one was a graduate of the program and one was currently at the Helen Wright Center participating in their programs and they do have unbelievably quality programming. And their concern was that the Hill and Wright Center would close without the additional funding. Is that do you think that Delta is enough to cause closure of the center?

It sounded like we weren't giving them anything and I think that's not the case. Because I know we got an email from David talking about the difference that they were asking for because from the public comment it sounded like we weren't giving them anything. Had cut them off. And I don't think that's the case.

No it's not. We are still funding. I don't have the number.

A base level of approximately $355,000 That's in the base budget continual, again based on evaluation subject to annual but there's a base level of $355,000 that is appropriated to the Helen Wright Center.

What I don't know and couldn't say right now is their entire operating budget but I would suspect we are not funding their operating budget with this bridge to home funding. Say that again. I'm sorry. Couldn't hear you.

Questions that were submitted by the different board members that was turned in. Was attachments

in a Word document.

Okay.

Not in the printout. Not in the printout. It's digital.

Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Yeah. Commissioner Waters.

I just want to make sure there were no other Helen Wright questions before I asked. A different line.

Yeah, you're good. Okay. Oh, no. Oh, well. Commissioner Stalins, Helen Wright?

Yes. Just for clarification, the delta is what for the Helen Wright?

14.

535, right? So

what what was original was March. During the ARPA period, because these numbers aren't always static and based on the utilization of some providers in the Bridge to Home program and how they're spending, numbers can vary. So, at one point, I think it was in fiscal year twenty five, we were able to, because of utilization or underutilization from some, we were able to increase Helen Wright up to, I think it was $614,000 But then back to this year, it went back to the level of $3.55. We gave because of the expressed concerns, we gave an additional $180,000 which took them up to the $5.35.

What's budgeted for FY '27 is $3.55?

Correct.

Okay, did that address your question? Commissioner Stallinger?

Yes, so just to reiterate what Commissioner Evans said, what's budgeted for Helen Wright is $3.55.

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

For the Bridge to Home program.

Bridge to

Home program.

And we can send in an email.

Thank you.

Okay, great. Commissioner Waters.

Thank you. I also had a question about a specific program that was unfunded, the unfunded respite services for kinship caregivers and I guess this would probably be a Duane question. I just wondered if you could speak to kinship caregiving and the impact on preventing children from going into the foster care system and if those kinship caregivers are counted as we look at the numbers of children in foster care, what does that look like? Because I know we've been hearing quite a bit of data about the gap between the number of children who need placements and the number of available families and I'll stop there and then I have some follow-up questions.

Yeah, so the entire kinship initiative is really something that the county started to really invest resources in probably the last two years and actually setting up a kinship care unit and adopting a kind of an evidence based national model as it relates to kinship care. And so, that unit has been stood up within the last year and they are in process now of rolling out that model for kinship care. Data does suggest that we get better outcomes when youth are able to be placed with kin rather than non kin. And so, that's why we've taken that approach. The expansion request for the respite care is like an addition or an add on to the model in an attempt to provide that respite for those families that are willing to step up and take on those placements.

And, based on looking at that, and I'm still trying to understand, do those children who are placed, are they counted in the foster care placement numbers, or is that considered a different category?

I am not 100% sure. I believe that if they do take a form, if it's a formal placement, a formal kinship, because you have some formal and some informal. But, I believe it's if it's formal that it is counted as part of the numbers, but we'll have to get back to confirm that for you.

Okay. And also

And also volume wise what that looks like as far as numbers for us right now.

Yeah, would love to know that. I'm also curious to know what your team is hearing from families and are they at a place where this is something that could influence their decision to continue to care for the children in their care? And are we hearing a lot of feedback and input that this could make a difference whether someone says yes I'll continue to care for my relative or they at a breaking point where this could then result in a child being enter entering into a more traditional foster care placement, that would be helpful for me to know as I was, you know, as we think about how vulnerable many of our children are. Thank you.

Okay. We'll get that information.

Any other questions?

Yes.

Yeah. Commission Jackson.

Yes. Thank you for fielding so many of our questions before this meeting and in this meeting. As you can tell, we're just trying to we're all making tough decisions. Given that we aren't going to mean, there are 15 pages of questions that were submitted before this meeting and since we're not going to walk through those questions, that's about 57 questions. So I know we don't have time to look through all of them. What is our precedent for making these questions available to the public?

Are right now.

They are right

now. Is accessible to the public.

Okay. Alright.

Thank you.

Excellent.

Our packets are public.

Yes, that's true. That's true. Well this is a formal invitation then to the public. Anybody that's listening please dive into the questions because we are asking the tough questions and really appreciate that. And just also want to acknowledge that staff and manager have done an excellent job putting together this budget making tough decisions.

And the idea or question about $150,000 for food, I hope doesn't land as a challenge to the budget, but instead a due diligence effort to try and ensure that our values show up even more in this budget than they already do. I support as well, you know, I mean there are questions about should we do 2%, let alone more than that. Just two So want cents. Yeah, not 2%, 2¢ exactly.

Two cents.

Very clear on that and so I just want to acknowledge that that question is not an automatic tax increase and I hope isn't you know communicated as such but a due diligence question to find out what's possible.

That. Just real quickly, I wanted to just clarify as you all deliberate about this, the two pilots that you just asked me about specifically farm to ECE, that is an annual cost of 40,000 not 70,000 as what is reflected in your packet. The farm the farmers market cost is around 70,000 for all three parts of that funding. So I just wanted to provide that clarification, an annualized amount that would be a 110,000 for both of those for FY '27.

Okay, thanks Katherine.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you Katherine. Any other questions or comments?

So I'm just gonna I appreciate all the feedback that you all have given, and we will get responses back to you fairly quickly. But I do want to take a moment and look into my little crystal ball about next year, right? And my crystal ball has been wrong. I thought the Washington commanders were going to win the Super Bowl this past this year and that failed. But I am concerned and senior staff are concerned about what may be coming down the pike, right?

There are a lot of variables out there that we don't have any control over. And so, worst case scenario is what Michelle showed you earlier, where we're making cuts in hours, potentially staffing, and some other things. And one of our biggest layouts is the school system. And so we may not be talking about next year, you know, how much to increase the school system's budget. We may be looking flat at best, as well as maybe not even funding the allocation.

Now again, I'm not saying that's where we're going to end up, but I just want to put those are things that we are actually thinking about now and just want to make sure you all had the full benefit of that. We've had some great conversations with Doctor. Taylor and I know you all have had great conversations with the school board. And so this is a different time right now. And so this is where this will test the relationships that we have built in.

I think one of the things that's been helpful is we've been very transparent with Doctor. Taylor and David Nader about our revenue picture and showing them what we're seeing. And so we're going to continue to do that so that we can get through FY 2028. And hopefully when we start, when we bring you to FY 2028 budget, a lot of factors have changed and we won't you can say, David, you were 100% wrong right now. I'll be like, yes, and I'm happy I was wrong. I just want to put that out to you all as we go forward.

Thank you David.

And Chair Mao can I just say one thing because I just do want to recognize what you said earlier? Right, we have a deadline that would be helpful for us if you give us any more adjustments by the twenty seventh. I think what I'm hearing right now is right now you'd just like us to go explore the additional funding for food security And I think we can get back to you certainly by Monday morning with what that option would look like. Okay. If anything else bubbles up, if you can coordinate with David and Chair Miles by the twenty seventh.

Okay. Yes, Commissioner Admissant.

We have been talking about the things we'd like to change. I just want to take a moment and say that for the situation we're in, this budget is much better than I expected. And I want to thank David for all the work to make that happen. And one of the and I think because we have core responsibilities that are mandated that we have to do and we do things that we like to do because it increases the quality of life. And I think this budget really focuses on our core mission which is basically human services and helping folks.

And I was really pleased to see that you were able to fund what the school system asked for this year. I know their real needs were more like 60,000,000 than what they asked for and they're gonna have to make some really tough cuts this year. And it's just sad to see anything in education cut But that's the reality that we're in. And I was also really happy to see that our staff is going to get some salary increases because our budget is 80% personnel. We're a service organization and without our people that are willing to show up every day and perform these services we really don't have anything.

And they're shopping in the same grocery stores we are. They're pumping their gas at the same gas pumps. We are they're seeing this inflation and their budgets are being eroded. And I do know we have had some requests come in from staff who are unable to live in Wake County who have to drive in. And I know we're a policymaking board, we don't get involved in individual staffing decisions, but they have apparently expressed some interest in some more at home time to save gas money because they're concerned as because I know every day it's like, oh, what's gas prices this morning?

And it doesn't look like there's going to be any quick solution to those dropping back have asked for some more at home time. So I don't know if that's something you're looking at as a policy level is how to work because I know we have quite a number of folks who have to drive it pretty significant distances to get here and perform our services.

Alright. Thank you. Any other question or comment?

Yes. Yes, we have been the number of employees who live in the county has been decreasing, I would say, over the last five to six years, cost of living. We the county currently has a for departments and for employees who are eligible and department heads who feel like it's it it the work is still getting done, folks can work remotely. So in the county manager's office, we offer two days. If folks wanna work two days remote, they can do that.

In public safety over in the sheriff's office, they can't afford to offer that. Right? And so I have I've gotten a couple of those emails, and I've spoken to some department heads. I don't wanna go back to where we were during COVID. While it worked for COVID, we've also had some pieces that we've had to pick up because folks weren't in the office, and you lose that connection. Right? And so I'm not ready to go the year go there yet. I think a lot of our folks do have access to working remotely a couple days a week, but the departments are hesitant and I support them in going full five days a week right now.

Thank you. Yes, Commissioner Jackson, then to come back to Commissioner Starless.

Okay. You want to go first? Okay. So, I know I made a comment about this at the start of the meeting. It's been obviously a current consistent theme throughout this conversation about why we need to make these kinds of revenue decisions. I just want to take for a moment, and this is embedded in the questions that were asked and I even mentioned it a minute ago, there are lots of voices saying not to even do the 2¢. And so, I don't want to gloss over that perspective in this conversation. We are hearing loud and clear, Don't do the 2¢. Find something else. Find alternatives.

Particularly as there's a cumulative effect of some of our municipalities needing to make increases as well. What I would like to see is just a very clearly sort of laid out impact. So we know that schools would be impacted if we did not do 2¢, libraries, essential community county services, public safety, investment in our staff that keeps this organization running. For those that have perspective, a very important perspective to consider, where could we easily see, like if we don't do this increase, here's the list of things that will not get funded. I mean, it's there, it's laid out, it's very clear.

I just want to center that perspective in this conversation as well because it would be what I would call draconian cuts that would significantly impact. I mean it would be $0 for public schools for example. So where can that information be easily found?

We I'm trying to think through the process of this. If that were the case, I would have presented you all with a budget that has flat to less dollars for the school system right off the bat, right? So we're talking 25,300,000, right? You take that 25.3 off, you take Merit off. You pay 20,000,000. Yeah. So we're pretty close to reaching that 60 just in those two aspects. But there's also programming. There's some positions we've added in EMS. We would not be able to add those positions in EMS.

And that means slower response times. EMS is still asked, the positions that they ask for are for to meet the growth demand. It's not even to get ahead of the curve, right? So they had a four percent increase this fiscal year. So I don't have it in mind.

I'm just off the top of my head giving you the big chunks, but there are smaller things in our budget. And I think the bigger thing is, again, the $600,000,000, right, that we believe that the county is filling the gap for the state system. Right? That's a huge problem. And we and as you all know, we were having, you know, folks from the state still ask the county to provide funding for other positions.

Right? And so there's not a I don't have a layout of things that I I don't have anything that would be that would show here's what it would look like, but I can tell you just a couple of those big bucket items as well as some other things is what it would look like.

Yeah. That's helpful. David?

Yeah. It

I I would just add to to your comment. I I think citizens have access to to David's budget message online, which I think captures everything that he just told you. You can read it or you can watch the thirty minute video.

Yes. Okay. Thank you.

Okay. You good, David? I'm good. You good? Commissioner Stallings?

I'm assuming we're in wrap up mode. Again, this is coming because I was late and I'm sorry. So, I just so I just and that's fine. I So, I've just got some clarifying questions. Some will be easy answers and some will not be. When do property tax bills go

out? July.

Mid? Late?

We don't know, but in July. In July, okay.

Let us ping the revenue folks.

Okay, so in July. All right. And when we talk about the Blue Ridge loophole, we're talking about millions of dollars. And you all, I know you probably talked about it and Ben was at the HHS meeting this morning talking about that. Is there any hope that that's going to get resolved for this budget year or is it more about next budget year? Anybody got a crystal ball on that? Ben?

As I told the HHS board this morning, don't want to give a definitive answer until I can get Marcus and Nicole feedback. Give a little bit of time. I think we can get their input quickly.

Okay. So that's a revenue issue. And remind me on revals, is that mostly commercial revals? No. The appeals.

The dollar amount are mostly commercial.

And those are millions of dollars. And you said this morning Ben that we're expecting a loss. It's possible we'll get some gains but you think overall it's going to be a net loss. Is that your prediction?

Oh yeah, that's going to be a significant loss. That one is not going to sort of self heal anytime soon.

Okay. Okay. So I had a resident ask me this question a couple days ago. Again, have a budget frame work that's talking about 8%. We don't know if that 8% is 4% over two years. We have no idea, right? Yes?

You're talking about teacher pay?

Talking about teacher pay. Yeah, talking about teacher pay. I had a resident say, so if this budget, if the state passes a budget, it's probably definitely going to be passed June 1, which is when we're scheduled to have our own budget. Do we have any estimation on if that raise actually happens, if those raises happen, what potential impact that could have on our property tax bills?

I'm not I'm not sure I know about the topic you're talking about.

What

could be a potential impact on decrease?

You're talking about the cap that the legislature is looking at?

No, I'm talking about if the state legislature moves forward with funding teacher pay. Of course at 8%, is it 8% each year, which I'm doubtful about? Is it 4% over two years? That person was just asking what kind of potential help would that be to the county budget? And can we quantify

that? Commissioner Evans, go ahead.

I would say it's actually gonna be the opposite. And there was an article where the school board discussed this this week. A reminder that we fund a large number of positions for the school district 100% by county funding and so what happens is of course we want the increase in teacher pay, but if all of their state funded positions get the 8% increase or it averages 8%, that's what it's supposed to be, average 8%, we also, they also then have to pay all the employees that are funded by county funding at that same rate, which means they have to take some of their local funding, and I could try to track down that figure because it was in their discussion this week, but I don't remember. It was quite a few, several million dollars, several 100,000,000, I mean several million. And so, in other words, they would, in a perfect world, probably have to come back to us and say they needed more local funding, but

they know they're not going to

be able to do that this year, so what it's actually going to mean is they're going to have to take money that they thought they could use for other purposes and redirect it into salaries for all those county county paid positions that have no state funding attached so that all their employees are on level ground. Does that make sense?

Stephanie's gonna try to find that clip from the school board meeting and just send it out to everybody so he can see.

That'd be great. Did that cover you, Commissioner Stallings?

Everything's connected.

Well, I guess I'll add some good news. Lunch will be here at 11:30.

One specific follow-up. Tax bills go out mid July. They are accessible online in early July.

Have we got any other questions at this time?

And Ben, this is Ben, this is the year that the changes to the is this the year we change what the bill looks like? They changed last year? Okay.

Yeah. And I think what David's referencing is on the physical tax letter there will now be not only a the county logo and the county phone number to call with questions and or complaints, but the municipalities logo and and phone number. And a clear distinction of the rates, yeah.

Which I think everybody's looking forward to that change. Anything else? Okay.

I will just comment and I know everybody else been paying attention to and it was mentioned earlier. I've been watching as each municipality talks about their proposed budget and I've not heard us well maybe only one, one so far that said they're going to be able to hold their tax rate flat. Every other municipality I've seen so far is also including an increase which is unfortunate but I think have to the landscape where we are and be prepared because we'll get all the kickback, a lot of the kickback from that too, but anyway.

And I just like to, I always like to remind people 24,000 people a year move here. You know, you think about the Lenovo Center when the hurricanes win the championship, you can't even fit all of those people who move here in a year in the Lenovo Center. So growth is good, but it does not pay for itself.

Absolutely. Commissioner Stallard?

I was just going to share some information which is probably not going to change this conversation, but NCACC hosted someone from the Trump administration yesterday who helps oversee Medicaid and the implementation parts of HR1. And the purpose of that meeting was to see if North Carolina could ask for an extension in some of the implementation of that to try. And the purpose was because we don't think we're ready from a technology perspective and also from a workforce hiring readiness because the error rates are involved in this work. And if we have error rates to a certain degree, there could be potential callbacks of the funding. So we were asking for an extension.

And he basically said there likely will be no extensions granted, that his role is to see that it's implemented, and he wants us to try. And if we fail, he'll come back in July and talk to us about how he can support that work, not only just in Wake County, but for all of North Carolina. He was very nice about it, very matter of fact, to basically say. He said the bill was voted on, and if we want to see rule changes in the bill, then we have to lobby Congress. That his role is to see that the rollout continues.

And he did say, and you all, the staff may have heard this, but there's supposed to be some kind of information coming from them around June 1 to give us more guidance. And I informed him that we would be passing our budget on June 1. And he said, yeah, that's not going to be really helpful to you probably. I said, No, probably not. So he said there's information coming to help give more specifics from the federal level, but as everyone in the room said, counties and municipalities are dealing with, but particularly counties.

We're we're dealing with budgets right now. So, he said he'd be happy to come back and hear about what's not working and to see if he could provide some support then but there would be no extensions of time. He said it was he said any work in that regard need to be taken out with our congressional delegation. So.

Okay. Yeah. Commissioner Jackson, do you have a comment? Michelle, do you have any?

Oh, nothing. Besides we will get back with you all on Monday. Okay.

Again,

you know, as we're wrapping up, my thoughts are just pinging to all the different stakeholders in this conversation, those who are impacted in all kind of ways. I just want to lift up question number 47 and I just appreciate how our total board is not just thinking one-sided and trying to just recklessly keep things the same or maintain, but really thinking about the revenue, the expenditures, the trends. And I just want to lift up question 47 where I know it says it's being prepared, the response is being prepared and we'll share separately. But just want to also name the perspective of the percent of homeowners anticipate experiencing hardship from this property tax increase and really thinking about anything that can be done to support or mitigate that for residents. None of this is easy and if it were, we would be, you know, not having this level of discussion.

So again, just as we're in this very important and precious time wanting to just name the voices and the perspective of many folks on both sides of this issue and both sides of this budget and what's being recommended. So, thank you. Okay.

Not seeing any, I'll make a last comment here before we adjourn the work session. And that is there's an old German word, Zeitgeist, which means spirit of the time. And that pretty much sums it up in terms of where we are right now. This is definitely some difficult times for us all trying to find solutions, trying to make sure we are providing services to all 1,200,000 people here in Wake County. Public safety is definitely at our forefront in terms of where we're trying to provide, trying to also look to support from our state and also from the federal as well, because more and more the gap is increasing, which is pushing more and more back on the county or local governments.

You have to step up and try to fill those gaps. So, we will continue to look where we can. We will continue to reach out to our colleagues and hopefully that we can come to a conclusion in terms of finding a kind of close that gap because important for us to try to make sure that any concern we have that we can try to meet that that May 27 deadline. And so that way, we can go ahead and close this out and be ready for the vote on June 1 on this budget. Because we know that the county manager and staff has really put forth an honest effort, and we really appreciate all that you guys have done in order to try to bring us a good budget.

So, if there are no other questions or comments, then I will go ahead and call this work session adjourned. Thank you.