Board of Commissioners - Regular Meeting

get everybody's attention that would be great. Um, we have a bit of a uh technical consideration in terms of the microphone today and so we will do our very best to be audible and at a a volume that's accessible for everyone. If you have any issue with that, uh, please come forward and we'll get going, uh, with with the roll call now. Commissioner Bean present. Commissioner Hatch here. Commissioner Lavar here. Commissioner Light. Commissioner Mets here. Commissioner Robbie here. Commissioner Sanders. Commissioner Scott here. Commissioner Summer

here. Uh we will move now to the report from the county administrator. No report. Great. Any report from the director of board operations. Uh yes, chair. I just want to say thank you all for being here today. Um I really appreciate you braving the the weather. Clearly it was not a fun morning drive for most folks. So and thank you for being flexible with the the late start. So, what I would like to do for my report today is just to quickly introduce our facilitator, uh, Pam Smith. And I don't often like to read when I'm and when I'm introducing someone, but I want to make sure I get it right. So, you can make stuff up. It's okay. [laughter]

You you all may know Pam Smith. She's been in this community for quite some time. She is dedicated to strengthening the community through philanthropy, collaboration, and community engagement. Uh she began her career at Washington County at the Ann Arbor hands-on museum as the director of public affairs and marketing. Um she led Childcare Network as their executive director becoming the CEO of United Way Ann Arbor.

So she has raised more than and in that role she raised more than $55 million for our community, opening a volunteer center that engaged more than 11,000 people and developed an initiative for financial stability programming that reached thousands. Uh her vision and leadership guided the equity, diversity, and justice work of the United Way of Washington County. And she brought the 21-day equity challenge to the United Way network, returning learning to network that resulted in more than 350,000 people in 27 states engaging in equity conversations. We're so excited to have her with us today. Um and I would also like to say she's joined by Bridget. Uh Bridget, you may know in her other role, but she is here today as Bridget, president of Michigan. So [laughter] that's it for chair.

Great. So this is technically a working session, but it's obviously our board retreat. And at this point for discussion items, I'm going to turn it over to our board chair, Katie Scott. Hello.

Hi. Good morning. When they said like who's here, I was going to say slip slides away. [laughter] That's how we all made it in here today. Um, Commissioner Machias, he and I were on a call with the roads commission and I was just driving and just said in that typical Michigan way like the roads are horrible and then I was like not you though [laughter] harbor. I was like, I'm not scared of being but um so thanks for being here despite it being a really good thing to think about staying around at at home and there's a also a Scottish word called Derkle Herk and it's like the joy of like lingering around in bed you wake up and this is a dark morning. Um first I want to thank my colleagues for uh completing the survey in advance of today. I think that like having doing that work ahead of time and focusing on some of the things we're going to be talking about is helpful. It will be helpful for us to look at those responses as we go forward. Um I want to talk about uh like I think today is really important for us to try to develop a shared vision of human services post 2027 for really um honing what we do here. um we have to understand the implications of the NHSP ending and then we we need to I think really work hard to agree on guiding principles to sustain and develop uh that funding beyond June 30th 2027. That's really important for us. Uh I also think today what we'll be doing is we're going to be looking at how we can explore equitable and sustainable funding strategies. Um I will now also quote uh my colleague Commissioner Peman who always says we don't make a widget and so our funding is limited. It's and so we have to think about what that means in terms of being sustainable going forward. Um

when we do that I think it means talking about how we are going to acknowledge funding models and also something I'm very interested in is that internal coordination that promotes equitable equitable distribution. Um it had become very clear to me we don't we don't know who's spending what or who's getting what in the community and so we talk a lot about coordinated funding how it works outside of the county but when we don't even know what we're doing inside the county it's hard to direct that outside the county so I'm really interested in how we are looking at that internal funding in the county um I also I'm hoping that today is the first step at building a strategic foundation for next steps so we can start to develop a framework to guide future policy discussions, talk about stakeholder engagement and decision- making related to human service investment. What what in short I'm hoping to do is is I'm going to use an analogy from my [clears throat] this is no disparagement of of ER nurses. They are incredible. The ER nurses will tell you like they're a a jack of all trades and a master of none. And I'm hoping to make us a little bit more like an IC nurse. No bias there at all. And be a little bit more masterful of how we do funding. And so that's this is the first step in our in our training to become become ICU nurses of government.

Okay. Thanks. Joke did not land. [laughter] You've done it. That's the important Hey, did you I'm excited to do the work. Thanks. All right. Thanks. And we'll turn over to you.

I I don't know whether to talk this way or this way, but you're the primary audience today. So, my uh apologies for having my back to you at some point during the day. It's gonna happen. I know it will. Um I wanted to just kind of talk I don't want to stand in that light. Um I also am a terrible sitter. So, um, I will be up and down if that's okay with you all. Um, but I wanted to talk a little bit about how we got here today and kind of the background that led to us having this conversation. Um, so a lot of you have talked about coordinated funding in the past. Um, it was a thing that worked very well for our community. I actually, um, started at United Way and operationalized coordinated funding. So, I was in on the ground floor. Um, Bridget came a year later. So, um, and helped take it to the next level. So, um, we are very well aware of what coordinated funding was able to do for us. And one of the reasons, and I'll I'll put it out there so we can move forward that it disbanded is because a lot of us have great cars and we love our car and we might even keep our car for 10 years. But at the end of 10 years, we knew that there was other things we could do. There was better uh technology available in new car. There were new ways to to use cars. There was electric. There was gas. And we knew it was time to move on and kind of pivot. So that is one of the reasons coordinated funding ended in the manner that it did. There was still great things to learn from it and things that we can still bring forward, but I definitely think there's new ways to do things. Um and so that led us to the new human services partnership. um that was uh only done by the county. It was a $15.2 million investment over 5 years. It does end in 2027. Um and so I was an employee at the county up until uh the end of 2025. And this is one of those

conversations that I started with the chair um about, hey, this is ending. We need to think about what we're going to do next. And I know 2027 sounds like a long way away. But it's also good to start the conversation before you have to hit the brakes or put the pedal to the metal, whichever way you want to think about that car analogy. Um, and let's start now. So, um, Chair Scott was open to having that conversation, but what's important to remember is this 15.2 million is also in partnership with the city of Ann Arbor. Um, and so they do put money into the new human services partnership. And for those of you that don't remember, you can go to washaw.org nhsp um to get a full list of all of the grantees over the last um this is available um over the last four years, three and a half years. But seven organizations received $1.25 million over that fiveyear period. Um three received high impact grants of $1 million over that 5year period. safety net was seven that each received $400,000 and many grants went to 28 different organizations. There's one more grant um that just started um and that was $40,000 a piece. So that is a lot of touch points in the community. That is a lot of money and that is a lot of different nonprofits that have been engaged in this process. So when we talk about human services funding today, we're not only talking about what what we what is possible and where we can go, but we also want to make sure that we're kind of understanding where the community is right now. And that's why I like this quote. The pace of change is so great. I know that you guys all feel it as commissioners. There's always something else going on. What that says is that you have to have a strategic vision and peripheral vision. Strategic vision is the ability to look ahead, which we're going to do today, and

peripheral vision is the ability to look around. And both are important. And that was by Carly Forina from the CEO of Hullet Packard. But I thought that really kind of encapsulated where we're at and what we're going to try to do today. Um, and then the other thing that I wanted to mention about why this is important today is because as Katie alluded to at the beginning, is Katie okay? Would you prefer Commissioner Scott? Okay, [laughter] I'd rather ask than than assume. Um, is that all of the different funding that goes out through the county there there isn't one central location where a commissioner can go and see all of it. So, for human services funding, um, OCED, that's the office of community and economic development does grant funding to human services. The racial equity office, Derek Jackson's in house. Oh, what I wanted to also say, Derek, um about equity and your vision, um I know that at the last working session, you said um you proposed that all resolutions and decision reviews will go through the racial equity office um before they go to the board. Um so that's important to remember that there is uh equity woven through these decisions um and will continue to be woven through these decisions. Um, so the racial equity office, you mentioned that you might start doing some human service funding uh through racial equity grants. Um, CH does some. Um, public health does some and seniors, the new um, senior department will also be doing some human services. Um, and I spoke with the resiliency officer to see if they were doing any. [laughter] So, there's a lot there's a lot going on. Um, and what we're going to try to do is get some kind of coordinated effort. And when we talk about um the internal funding, it's not to say that departments are going to start

sharing dollars. We just wanted them to be sharing information so that we at least know uh the commissioners will know who's doing what, where, and when. And I had an interesting conversation with a nonprofit director who said, you know, we get money from a lot of different departments and we fill out different RFPs. We have different processes. We have different billing and it makes no sense to my finance director why we do things so differently when all the money comes from the county. I think that's an important thing to remember because if we can also bring that to have one standard RFP process or one standard billing process um one standard you know like results reporting all of that would make more sense for the county as well. So that's a that's how we got here today and thanks for being here. Um and so before we go any further uh Bridget is going to run through uh group norms and shared values for the board. I think we moved the thing over there so nobody would trip.

Yep. Um, so we think it's important to make sure everybody's on the same page as we kind of move forward today.

Yeah. Thanks, Pam. Hi. Good morning, everybody. Good morning, everybody. So, just a little bit of logistics. Um, as we move through the day together, we're going to talk about group norms and values. We already have one that I'm going to write up here, which is equity, and that's going to be baked into this process by virtue of how the county is structured and its department. So, we're very grateful for that. The other thing I want to note is there are sticky notes on your tables. So, we're going to have a lot of discussion and it's important to surface ideas. This is brainstorming. We're going to zoom out and zoom in. There might be things that come up that feel important for us to acknowledge but maybe are not directly related to the discussion that uh Cadence outlined. And so, we're offering the parking lot over there. I'm going to be taking notes, but I also think it's important to kind of visualize the things that are coming up for folks as we move through the day together. I don't have a parking lot for you guys, so just take notes over there. Um, before [laughter] I move on, I want to talk about balance and and group norms. And I always like to get us started or group agreements with a few and then we can offer it and see if there are any others that feel important to add in to kind of frame this conversation together. And so the first is speak from your own experience and using eye statements. Be present. We're only one click away or screen away from distraction. We've got a long day ahead. I feel like it'll go quickly, but I invite you to be present. Um, we have a few breaks built into this agenda, but please feel free to resource yourself throughout this time. Take phone calls if you need to. We don't have to agree. I feel like you all know that better than anybody else. So, it doesn't bear repeating, but I'm going to say it anyways. Expect and accept a lack of closure. We're starting a conversation today. Sometimes the process is the outcome of the process of coming together. I hope we can get a little bit further down the road than that. Um, but we're not going to get all the way there. But hopefully there are some bright spots that you all come to agreement around that we can leverage to further move this conversation forward.

And then take space and make space um with audience participation as needed among the commissioners. So those are those are a few that I like to always start the conversation with. Are there other group agreements that you all want to bring into the room and hold yourselves accountable for? No, I'll offer one more. I'll offer the permission to speak in first draft that it doesn't need to be perfect, right? But this is a grounding conversation. um when you all come back together in a working session or at a POC meeting then you can get it perfect but right now it can be a first draft.

We don't get a perfect there. [laughter] What about values? This is strategically placed next to guiding principles and core competencies for reference. So there's a lot of espoused guidelines here. But other than equity, when it comes to this process and this particular work, what are the values that you want that you would want to see reflected at the end of the day? Collaboration. Love it. Okay.

I'd offer effectiveness. Can I add something to the norms, please? Yes. Assume positive intent. Oh, I like that one. It's probably [laughter]

I am a parent and so I often try when I'm working with my children and trying to understand what is happening like let me give it my most generous interpretation kind of a a play on assume positive intent go ahead trying to steal somewhere I'll come through oh I like that Okay.

I mean, I think part of our shared values that everybody at this table has is that and it's I I was trying to think if there's a word for it, but it's community care. Like this is what we think government should be doing. I don't have questions. Is it possible to move this like right there so we're not our neck? Yes. Someone has wonderfully taped this securely. What? We can move it. We can wait. Bridget. Bridget, why don't you take it off the board and and put it behind them so they can see it. Would that work? Oh. Oh, I got you.

I got you. Sorry. This is facilitation in the round, y'all. [laughter] Now, we come back. We're only gonna block it temporarily. Okay, we'll find a spot. Sorry, it's No, no, I can't see you, Patty. Where'd you go? We all have object permanence. Community care. I think that's that's powerful.

Yeah. Okay, please. other values. Okay, [clears throat] let's keep this at the forefront. Uh, thank you for your grace with respect to my penmanship. I am a serial typer, so this is [laughter] this is what I got right now. Um, let me move this to um we'll move this behind, but let's keep it here for right now as we move to um Pam taking us through the survey results. Okay, thanks Bridget.

You're welcome. Um, one other thing that um, I wanted to just touch base on was the 2025 retreat that you did um, and just talk a little bit about what one of the outcomes was that's important especially for this work moving forward. So the budget um, you asked for kind of a comprehensive countywide analysis of how county allocates its financial and staffing resources across programs, services, and mandates. So at the that was that goal was set at that board retreat and there is a financial draft now available to you all um from I believe the finance department um I'm not sure who put that report together but it's comprehensive. It's about a 100 pages. I looked at it. It's really well thought out and kudos to all of the department directors who kind of had to lead their teams through filling it out because it was a heavy lift. Um, so that is a great place to start because when Katie and I were first talking about kind of um understanding human services funding, I was like there has to be a report somewhere where you can press a button and see all outgoing, you know, all outgoing grant dollars. Um, and so there is also that report. It's called a cubes report as I understand it. Um, so we do have some tools in our toolbox to try to help move this work forward. The first report is Catherine. Catherine, thank you. Catherine, you should definitely stand up and take Wow, Catherine.

It's an impressive piece of work. [laughter] [gasps]

Um, and then uh for the audience, the board uh was gracious enough to fill out a very short survey for me to try um to get us to have some basic understanding so of of where they were at. and it was great to understand how much synergy there already is amongst you. Um, you kind of already are well informed and looking in the right direction. So, we're just going to take it a little further today. Um, and then the only other thing that I wanted to just briefly talk about before we jump into the survey results, we're going to try to catch up on time. um was I pulled up all of the countywide millages um because I didn't understand how many millages there were in Washington County and I'm a taxpayer like you guys all are um and so um there's 10 distinct countywide millages so just county that bring in it says 95.4 4 million. Um it lists them um all for the dollars that are coming in. Um and just for human services today, mental health and public safety is 22 million generated. The older person services is 11 million generated. Um and then there's a number of like natural areas, emergency communications, veterans affair, conservation district. Then there is a new career and technical ed millage that just passed. That's $25 million annually. The Intermediate School District also has a millillage and then there's a another tax um state education tax for education. Yeah,

we will get some of those. Yeah, it goes direct to them, right? But it just just so everyone understands there is dollars being generated by taxes that are helping the general population in our community. So, I'm just trying to give people like a a bigger picture of what's going on in the county. Well, it's helpful, too, to understand that those are places that have village dollars going to them. And so, they're maybe to understand there's money out there for those services. So, if we were like, hey, technical education is really important. We should money put money towards that. Oh, wic. You got that. Good. Yeah. So, you can take that off shoulders.

Thank you. Um, so we'll kind of zip through some of this. It's pretty basic. Um, the first question was, um, we were asking commissioners how familiar they were with the current funding systems that were in the county, and they all responded being, uh, somewhat or very familiar with the current system. Some of these get a little longer, so if you will, um, just bear with me. So, what do you think works well with the current human services funding systems, and what could be improved? Um, I thought this was um this was the beginning of understanding how much the commissioners actually understood already about the system. Um, working well. I'm not going to read all of them because there's a lot. Um and just so you know uh some of the commissioners um I really appreciated the indepth answers that you gave and uh when you guys break into small groups you will get the entire survey master so you can read them. Um but I had to kind of group and theme and it was a great three hours. [laughter] Oh no I really appreciated it. Um but community volunteers reviewer community volunteer reviewers ensure diverse perspectives. There's a broad inclusive approach. Uh there were many comments about finance doing a great job with um payouts, contract execution and caring people. Um that truly are we should always assume best intent because you all have other jobs as commissioners. You all have many different things you're balancing. But you do put an inordinate amount of time into trying to understand what the problems are in the community and doing your very best to solve them. Some of the things where improvement was needed, a commissioner, I don't know if you talked to the same nonprofit director I did, but standard RFQ and RFP

processes um would be an improvement um a clear centralized view of how funds flow and how much from all the departments combined go to external partners. Uh the cubes report can help with that. um they'd like it to make sure that it seems fair and equitable um and transparent for how funds are distributed. Many times when allocations are made, nonprofit directors, you know, will share, I didn't see an RP for that. Um you know, so there is always community conversation. I know, no surprise to you. [laughter] Um but we need to be aware of it and we need to be bringing community into those conversations. Um um and then going on circumventing uh established processes in response to preferences or pressure and translating values into more specific issue based priorities. So some of these things um you'll be able to discuss in small group and then when we come back from after lunch kind of moving forward to create some kind of synergy moving forward. So that was your opinions and thoughts on uh what was happening with the current funding system. What challenges or opportunities do you see that would help align funding across county departments? The general themes that rose up there was that there was fragmentation uh with funding, coordinated contracting, uh insufficient systemwide insight. This was one that came up repeatedly that you want to have a better understanding of where those dollars are going and why. and then the erosion of equity and efficiency and unclear priorities opportunities. Um, so this was great because I think that you already are kind of looking forward to what you can be doing. Um, you want to create systemwide visibility, you want to coordinate the processes, align around shared priorities, which we'll be spending some time on later this

afternoon, clarifying roles and delivery, and then invest for impact. Um, one of the questions that we asked was, "What is one focus area that you personally would always want to fund?" Like what's a non-negotiable for you as a commissioner? It's one of your maybe your values. Um and so behavior the uh and the reason these are listed um is because each commissioner has uh not only your own individual voice but you're speaking for your constituents in your district. So I thought it was important to list those. Um so the they're listed and then um the three people declined to commit only because they had multi either multiple wishes or um um some were just blank. So um behavioral health for lower income and underserved areas that could be considered public health governmentrun and publicly accountable services. So that is stuff that go the government is already providing public health this commissioner also added but also access uh to health care and food resource the services that were mandated to provide at optimal levels for example public health services and resource those services to maximize positive outcomes rather than focusing on hitting the minimum mandated amount and then spreading out resources across non-mandated services and external partners um and that was shared by more than one uh one commissioner. That thought process um public health and then three were either blank or declined to commit. But hopefully during the day today you'll be able to talk about it in your small groups um because essentially

priority areas are something that you will have to eventually commit to if you want this to work and move on. That's okay. Sorry, we're having an issue on the stream. I just need to share and unshare and reshare the slides really quickly. I apologize.

No worries. Um, Commissioner Light went to the uh to the boardroom, so she is on her way here. Yes. Okay, hopefully this works. Sorry everyone.

Thanks Ashley. Um, so question five on the survey, it was a forced ranking for the following funding priorities. On your left, you have the alpha order of in which they were listed. Um, that's not me. I don't know who that is. Okay. Oh, central. Train central. Apologies. [laughter] I don't know who it is. [laughter] Does anyone know how to turn that off? Because I don't. Um,

and then one thing for commissioners that we'd like you to address in your small groups. Originally, there was supposed to be an other line for anything else you wanted to make sure that was included. So, let's make sure that we talk about that in your small group discussion today. and then we'll also include it in the meeting notes and carry those comments forward. Um, so the top five listed by the majority of the commissioners in order were food security, so funding priorities, food security, physical or public health, mental health, uh, safety net services, and then domestic violence, housing and homelessness, and access to services including transportation where uh, in the all receive the same number. So for those of you doing the quick math, what the bottom three then were were elementary to uh CTE and college education, zero to five education and financial stability including financial coaching. So I thought those were interesting. That's something for you to also discuss during your small group and then this afternoon.

Question, can I just make a comment for everybody watching? Yeah. Um because it like in the last question and in this one I think like just to kind of level set we currently fund a number of housing and homelessness services outside of the human services partnership. And so I just want to make that clear that this is like separate from like the other funding that we fund out of our general fund. And that's why we're doing this so we can understand. These are just the prior the priorities people set and like one of my things is yes, we have NHS funding, but there are other streams of money to nobody understands that including

No, I I get that. But like the proposal on the slide earlier said this is about like coordinated funding and I get like any future coordinated funding doesn't preclude the work that we've already done right with our general fund as a general board priorities. I just wanted to make that clear because I think it's confusing for people in the community watching this. Okay. We'll make sure we include it in the notes too. Wanted to add that commentary. Yeah, absolutely. It's hard to get our arms around all all that is. Oh, hey Ashley, when you redid this um or this. Let's see. Says it's on. Sorry.

That way. We can just maybe Wow, it's not even advancing. Just I was an hour 15. [laughter] Oh goodness. There will be prizes at the end for the longest commute today.

Um, one of the questions was what would prevent the BOC to agreeing to fundamental principles around strategic funding around a strategic funding vision? Um, political and structural constraints. So, what that means is that um some commissioners shared that you know there's different priorities in different uh communities. You know, we need to be aware of that and commissioners are acutely aware of what their needs are in community. So, we have to understand what each one of them is dealing with. Um, competing priorities and incentives, uh, trust, understanding, and role clarity, district variation and equity, and then decision- making and change. And many of you commented on how fast things change, like with the federal government and the federal cuts that have come down. those seem to happen overnight sometimes and I think our nonprofit directors will agree um that uh change is constant and and it increases pressures in different ways of operationalizing what can we do what should we be doing or how should we be reacting so

yes additional information on the role clarity piece yes it's kind of I move across. So I'm wondering I'm wondering is it ro clarity amongst the commissioners? Is it ro clarity oh thanks um amongst department heads or administrative staffs that need to carry out initiatives

all of the above. So some of the comments from the survey. So that's the only way that I can speak is from the surveys perspective. This is not my editorializing. This is just what what you said. Um there can be mistrust among commissioners, providers, and administration combined with an uneven understanding of county systems creates friction. Um and so that's where trust, understanding, and real clarity came in. Oh, and then at during the small group, you're going to get the master survey list. We're going to give you time to kind of review it and you'll be able to go through it and kind of dig a little deeper, too. So, I'm going to just take this opportunity. Sure.

publicly to grand stand and say the role clarity could be assisted with what I've been asking for for about four years now, which is commissioner orientation to county services and responsibilities. We have not had that. I think uh chair Scott was the last incoming commissioner group that experienced that orientation and it puts everyone else at an unfair disadvantage.

Would you as commission and this might be for later but um commissioners could consider doing an annual update even they if they've had one orientation just to be brought up to speed on what has happened in community since then. say again do that over and over and over again. Just real quick for clarity sake though I got a orientation between the election in 2012 and the seating in 2013 that was provided by Matt and so I don't know if that is what you're referring to. No, no. Max still does.

No, because there are there are citizens in in within uh the county that if we knew in advance even what they were I don't like relying on people for information all the time. I'd like to be able to figure it out myself. We went on a little tour. Yes. Yeah. So yours was specific to We went to public health roads c Oh yeah, we'll include that in the notes then to make sure we we bring that forward.

Um, all grantees should have a standard financial review before they get funding. That's a best practice. Um, would the BOC endorse a designated staff person that will complete a review before money is granted? Um so um 75% supported a financial review before distribution with varying statements regarding how it should be done. Like for the sake of a question we put a staff person but it could be a process, it could be a department, it could be you know many different things. Um so it doesn't have to be one staff person and we weren't asking you to fund a new position. It was just like can someone make sure a financial review was completed? And that's it's relatively easy. A 990 is is general information. If contracts have been written previously, you already have their 990 on file. Um, you can look at their stated audits. Those should be on their websites. So, the information is out there. We're just saying, has anybody checked? Um, because many times with funding, you have to understand what they're do they have a cash flow, can they? Because the county is you perform the service first and you get reimbursed after. Do they have the dollars to provide those services? Um, so you need to understand um will they be in a financial situation to be able to provide the services that you're granting dollars for.

Pam, is that a recommendation that we have a staff person for that? It doesn't have to be a staff person. It could be a process. It somebody has to accept responsibility. And I think that's for the directors and and Greg as the administrator to really kind of sus out what will the process be. But there should be a process a standard process across the county. I I understand that part but you frame the question the way that you did. So wondering if what is the intent behind how the question to so someone assumes responsibility for it and and it doesn't become I don't know somebody else was supposed to do it.

Got it. Justin, what I was thinking too is that even if there wasn't a designated staff person, which I think I said I would support it, but like I was thinking about the book, the checklist manifesto. Um, and was talking about like pilots have a whole checklist and then it was talking about how you can integrate that into the medical world. But I also thought there's something about doing that in this world too. Like anytime we like we are giving grants, if we have a universal checklist that you have to go through and say these are the things that we expect to be met before grants are given and that's one of them. There's a check and if that check isn't there, you don't move forward.

How many manifesto sounds good but dangerous? I know who supports the county manifesto. you stand. Um, so we have a number of millages that now in in like our own policy require oversight committees that include county staff and citizen bodies. Um, and so I just want to make sure that whatever we move forward with doesn't take away the power that we're trying to give citizens in reviewing who we're giving funding to because we work for them. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. In our experience, this would be another piece of information to deliver. And then the overlaying an equity lens would mean that um there's different levels of diligence required for organizations based on the award amount that they might receive or based on their annual budget. Right? We would not hold an organization with a smaller annual budget to have an audit as an example that they would complete some financial diligence so that you knew that you that those tax dollars were going to a solvent organization at the end of the day. So there are different ways to play it, but yes, I hear what you're saying, Annie. This would add

is that really sorry that part about like them being solutions with too many people having participation and where the money's going because it seems to me like this to me kind of suggests that we want less people to have oversight over recommendations to the board which is concerning. I thought it meant more. Yeah, that's what I feel too that it's it's it's more it's kind of like a one one last review extra step,

I guess. I thought like I don't know. Okay, that's confusing because we have a finance team that already does that part and so that makes it seem to the public that we're already not doing that which is confusing and problematic. From my perspective, I'm one person. Thank you for caring. So

I just want to make clear too with this that this is only focused on the issues of transparency of dollars in a mechanical process rather than a judgment on the purpose of policy or the value of that policy. Right? Does this organization or entity have access to data, comply with federal and state regulations, and provide us enough mechanical information that we can verify they're not cheating us? Rather than do they do good work that we think is good policy, if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes great sense.

So I I my thought was along the same lines as me and you and I I think it's interesting how we can look at this question differently. When I read it, I looked at it as a very mechanical question. Okay. It's a checklist checkbox question. Right. And I but my first thought was don't we need to do this as part of the RFP. Right.

Right. And I think there's a there's another step here of um I think input from the staff side of are if we have an existing relationship with a partner agency, how have they performed in that relationship? Are they reliable in submitting their documentation and requesting cash payment and all those things? And then for me there's another step of if somebody might be deficient in that I think we have a responsibility to help them get to where they need to be and provide that type of assistance with our partners to to get them to a point where they can function. Right. So I it's interesting how different interpretations this question.

Yes. Yeah. And I think this afternoon we can talk more about how do we help build capacity because you need the nonprofits to be strong. You know a strong nonprofits are stronger community. So um welcome commissioner light. [laughter] I can I acknowledge commissioner light coming in the room and also we have another countywide that came into the room too. Another elected the water resources commissioner came too. So just acknowledging other electeds in the room. Thank you. Yes.

Because I think that over the last few years a number of times there have been comments like we should do like bring build more partnerships to bring some of the services internal. Like for example, with some of our senior centers, their capacity and ability to provide things like benefits, retirement benefits and health care um really limit who is even able to take um positions with them. Um, and so I think hopefully we can take a better look at gaps in services and how can we have like partnerships where maybe we have employees that are housed internal to the county that actually perform the work especially like social work related services um or like even if we had people doing work like CBI related work why can't they be internal employees of the county that we need to make sure they have access to health care there's ways to make even And the people doing the human service work have better stability in their own like service and profession.

All right. So, we have three more questions left. Just so you know, in case you're you're thinking you're not on time, Pam, um we're going to get you back on time and we're going to give you plenty of time to talk, not only in small groups, but then as a collective after lunch, um to really dig in some more into some of these findings in the survey. Um so question eight,

sorry, we've all been there. We should have brought like Sage and muted the room. I apologize. It's not even on my screen, so I don't know where that's coming from. Um, we had it. Sorry. It was back.

Okay. [clears throat] Okay. So, we just need to get to questioning. There we go.

Um, so this one is a longer one. Um, and if you would, if you would, you can really dive into some of these longer slides in your small groups. Um, but financial operations are important for evaluating grant benchmarks are important for evaluating. How could these be balanced to ensure fairness and transparency? And um I think the racial equity office can jump in here if they would like, but you all had really great ideas and comments in this section. Like you I think you've got it going on here as far as you want financial and operating data to evaluate impact. You want a public funds to make sure that you're ensuring fairness and accountability, that you have a competitive contracting process. Benchmarks should be clear. Um, you want to understand the portion of an organization's budget from county funds. Um, benchmarks should support improvement, not punishment. Um, and then so on and so forth. Grantees must fully complete the RFPs. Um, and some of you, or one person, I believe it was one person that said, "We already have data, so let's make sure we're following up on that data." And then applying criteria consistently. So, any comments before we go to the next slide on this one?

Good. Okay.

Um, we asked how you would involve stakeholders to make sure there's support and participation and what methods would encourage collaboration. So we had an internal conversation. Um I I was kind of pressing Katie. I was like, well, who are your stakeholders in this process? Because you need the department directors um who are going to speak before lunch um just to make sure that things are operationalized and that you understand what constraints and what opportunities they're they have on a daily basis. So it's important to make sure we're hearing those voices from the people that actually do the work. Um, but then also external stakeholders are important. You want to always make sure that you're talking to your constituents, that you're hearing what is happening in the community. So, this one needs some more conversation, which I hope you'll have. Um, but here's what we got back from at least the survey that were answered. So stakeholder engagement involving diverse stakeholders early and throughout including advisory bodies kind of like the committees that you were talking about Annie um with seats at RFP reviews and direct feedback using varied feedback methods. Um one person shared that they thought the Kofu inclusive model worked well but didn't fully reach smaller nonprofits serving underserved communities. clarifying goals on outcomes um include labor and other beyond providers indecisions. Holding joint meetings of providers and commissioners to identify shared priorities and develop a unified statement defining the systems role. Uh process enhancements. Uh improving community reviewer engagement by enabling commissioners to submit questions anonymously via staff. Um I don't know who said that, but if you want to uh expand on that, feel free to jump in. Um

I said enough. Yeah, sure. So I think um it's very rare that we've had a situation in which commissioners uh make significant changes to the recommendations that we give and we have a community review panel. But I think the criticism that I've heard around the board table when it's one of those items where not all of the commissioners have been involved, subset of us, uh, winds up happening, people that weren't on that team end up having a bunch of questions, but there isn't really a good place for them to ask those questions and and then by the time it comes to the board table, it feels like, well, now I can't ask these questions.

Yeah. So my my suggestion here is that it comes back to the board at an earlier time. So then the commissioners that weren't on whatever subgroup that were working on it can then ask those questions to staff. Staff are still engaged with the community reviewers. That will get us away from the situation where we have people wanting to like directly engage the community reviewers or in a lot of cases the community reviewers are supposed to be anonymous. Um, we've had not people that are currently on the board, but I remember there was a a commissioner who that are no longer with us, uh, who have tried to have the identities of the anonymous reviewers exposed so that they could ask. I got you.

Clearly, no one here has done that, but I I just think some mechanisms were being able to get those questions answered earlier in the process for the people that weren't on the subgroup. What do you think the word commissioner? No, not the comm. Oh, it doesn't necessarily have to maybe maybe I worded that wrong. What I meant to write was that uh the reviewers stay anonymous, but commissioners can still ask the questions. So, we would ask the questions at a board meeting, the staff, and then the staff go and engage the review. I love that. Yeah. Annie. Oh, I don't Andy, this is you like me like Carolyn or Annie? No, please. facilitated. Whoever raised their hand first. You are you are

um I don't know that there was any place in the survey that I can remember, but I want to stick this in. I always ask these questions um specifically of the nonprofits um probably much to their chagrin, but I think as a county we have a racial equity office and we should be applying some sort of expectation to our nonprofits that they look more like the communities that they serve, their boards and their staff. That's not something that can be done overnight, but it needs to be intentional. And whether they've done it in the past, they need to start doing it because otherwise you do have nonprofits that don't look anything like the people that they serve. And I don't know how you can improve on service to individuals that you have no connections with. It's just a job for you. Um, and I think that because it's public dollars, that is a an expectation that we should have across the board. Actually, not just the nonprofits, any of our service providers or contractors, okay?

We should let them know that so they can start to work towards it. So, if you let them know in year one and year five is still looking the same, maybe you're not who we need to be using. Julie noted. Thank you for bringing that up. Annie, um the only comment I see Michelle in the back. Um I know that we're I I think there's been issues recently in the state of Michigan related to RFP reviews and um proposals being recommended to public bodies that have circumvented LMA. So I'm pretty sure Michelle, can you talk about that a little bit? I don't know if like the way we've done things in the past is going to be allowable based on some recent court decisions. Have a seat, Michelle.

Great. Thanks. A seat at the table. Welcome, Michelle. Good morning. For for the people online, will you just state your name and your title? Sure. Michelle Miller, Corporation Council, please. Thank you. [laughter]

Uh, Commissioner Somerville, you are correct. OMA presents some challenges. This new case law presents some challenges for um reviewers being anonymous. The case law is specific to RFPs and decisions that reside with the board. Um that process needs to be open and in a public meeting. So to say that your reviewers are be anonymous, I think could could create some challenge. It's a new thing. I just want to make sure. Yeah, I didn't know that. So thank you. Okay. So, don't leave me. So, um we did this process for was it was it the small community grants

and and I was one of the people that was staunchly against exposing them because these are volunteers and they should not be attacked the same way that we are as elected officials. They should not have their addresses exposed

so that people can just drive by, you know, make lewd comments to them in public. It is for their protection. And I think that we need to find a way to make sure that they are protected, whether or not that is recording their meetings um and making those available without necessarily having a name attached to who is speaking. But I I'm I'm I'm kind of dug in on that because otherwise nobody's going to volunteer. Um if if they were to get just 10% of what we get on a regular basis in terms of disdain from people that think we're not doing what they want us to do, nobody would volunteer. So I think that we need to legally find a way to do to handle that type of um review. I want to echo and endorse what Commissioner Sanders is saying and add this one component to it. OMA has great intent in terms of transparency. It is a barrier to speed of action.

And I would say antiquated some

Yes, we need to also make clear the public accountability part falls to the commissioners to make a public recorded vote. If that advice that ultimately informs their vote is is provided through various mechanisms with different levels of anonymity that shouldn't be judged as much as what did the nine of us sign off to publicly with with our yay or nay. And so I I think if if we can more clearly state that that is that is the mechanism by which we're meeting the spirit of OMA that may be helpful. Also, I think that Justin's pointed though that as commissioners asking questions and those aren't anonymous, we're asking those questions publicly. We also are all very aware of the influence that people try to have over us to get us to look in a certain direction. And that's really hard to ask people who we asking community reviewers who then might be public who then get that pressure from organizations. I don't think that's fair to do to them either. I have a question. Has that been the case in recent years that folks who have served as reviewers or been suspected of serving as reviewers have gotten feedback from community members?

They've been anonymous. There have been attempts people calling it wanted to know who because they didn't like the of course of course to the comment that I made earlier. It was also referenced at the community priority because I was on team Commissioner Sanders and Commissioner that's no longer with us who wanted to try to make it public who the people were. I'm not going to speak to somebody else's intent or motivations, but it would have created a number of challenges if that person had been successful in that.

Sure. I think so. One comment, the actual review that people do, usually that is anonymous, like the comments that you're making about like the scoring that you're doing, that's in my experience and in some of the things that I've served on. So, I think it's just actually like the meetings themselves. If you're making a formal and I'm just paraphrasing what I've learned about recent cases that have gone to court, um that that's all just happened, I think, in the last year years. Michelle, uh, two years. Yeah. Yeah. Like recently. So, this is all like newest and so after the community priorities piece. Um, and so I like just wanted that's why I wanted to flag it here because I don't know if everybody even knows that.

Yeah. I can thank you for bringing that in. I was not aware. I want to I want to I wonder about right past president when you I think the county and the staff does such a wonderful job convening a diverse constituency of volunteers. And so there's the other side of this when you can convene a diverse group of volunteers to demonstrate a focus on equity and consideration of experience. And so being able to share who those people are is in a perfect world a demonstration of your values, right? And that those folks don't get harassed because community trust, I see these people, I know these people, these are the right people to be reviewing and supporting these grant investments. So that's that's my my rosecolored glasses view of um sharing that when you can convene the a diverse set of volunteers but it comes with risk in this environment. Can I add to the conversation just my two [clears throat] cents which is I I I don't know this is kind of a very specific poll that we're in right now but um I just want to say that I I am uncomfortable with having anonymous reviewers for public money just as a general principle not specific to anything that's happened in the past but moving forward certainly it's something that is important to me uh and I think that it uh I'm a big fan of OMA I think it's an important piece of legislation the past and uh I want us to be you know following what court president has said but also from even if the court hadn't told us to do it I do think it's important that our reviewers be public um that all having been said I agree with commissioner Haj's suggestion that um commissioners be involved earlier on in the process so that because if if there's anonymous reviewers and we get a fully baked tie at the end then to commissioner Labar's point, yes, we're the final decision makers, but nobody feels like we've had any, you know, impact on it and the pie is already

baked and so you feel like you have to take an up or down vote and it's just not as fair and transparent of a process. So, if there's inclusion of commissioners earlier on, then that allows for us to have our imprint on the final product uh to begin with. So can I circle us back around to this question though that I think it's important we think about how we're involved in this but this question is particularly about the stakeholders. So I'd like us to kind of come out looking at us. This got brought up because of someone else's feedback. I so I think this is related to stakeholders, the reviewers, our stakeholders, our stakeholders.

And that when we did this for the community grants, each one of the commissioners identified one or two reviewers in their districts and then recommended that they be a part of the process.

Yeah. I think that if we're transparent with the public about how that process works and in the in the historical case, I'll speak for myself, I had help identifying two individuals. I interviewed them, moved them forward, and had no other conversation on purpose because I did not I wanted to make sure that no one could say there was an undue influence after they got put on the receiver.

Um, which is also why I was staunchly defensive about protecting their identity. And I think that if we tell our constituents the entire process, they understand there's no sneakiness going on here. This is this is how we did it. Um we did not have any undue influence on them afterwards. They were appointed. We step back hands off until they send us the list that they unanimous that they all agreed. Mhm. So there are ways to make sure that integrity is maintained

without without always necessarily tearing the system apart and causing additional work. Can I clarify? I agree with you. I just just I what I wanted to bring us back to is I felt like we were going down a commissioner hole and so

it's a great segue to question number 10. So we're going to move on to that. And just uh so you know what's coming next, we will take about a 10-minute break and then you'll come back and you'll go into your small groups um for discussion. We also want to make sure we leave enough time for department heads to be able to address this group. So if it's okay with you, that would be at 11:15. So that will shorten your small group discussion, but know that we do have planned time for you to discuss everything as a group after lunch. So, can I ask a question? We get to the end of this. What's the end on the survey responses?

It really depends. Um, some commissioners chose not to answer every question. We had eight out of nine complete a survey and then uh some questions were left blank. So, it can be as low as six but as high as eight. Oh, so this one was as we build this implementation plan, what are key components that you would want in a successful plan? And we saw a lot of clarity, a lot of synergy from your answers um in this answer. So clarity and alignment, [snorts] fair and transparent processes, which I think you guys have just spent some time on, outcomedriven investments, um not legacy allocations, coordination and capacity, and public trust and engagement. Um so communicate decisions and progress clearly, engage stakeholders meaningfully. I think that speaks to what some of the commissioners Carolyn just talked about and closing feedback loops to build confidence in the system. So that was the last question. Um so for time if you need to take a break let's do like a five or 10 minute break. Um, you'll come back to your small groups. And just for clarity, uh, Commissioner Hajj, you're leading your small group, which is Commissioner Somerville and Commissioner Robbie. Andy, uh, Commissioner Labar. Your small group is Commissioner Sanders and Commissioner Macheski. And then Commissioner Bean. Your small group is Commissioner Scott and Commissioner Light. [laughter]

Let's offer some We'll offer some scaffolding. Um, you probably don't need the scaffolding, but we'll offer it anyways as facilitators. You can start on your own, right? And then move into small groups. So, write write what resonates with you. We're going to put up flip chart paper. So, if you're a writer, I invite you to use the sticky notes around um and then have that group conversation. We'll play music while you're discussing. When the music stops, we'll we'll bring it back to the best of our ability. Sound good, P? To the best of our ability. [laughter]

Real quick, when are we reconvening? Um, let's No later than 10 till. No later than 10 till. Yes. So 10:50. 10:50. Yeah. Okay. We're having issues with the slides. So people online are seeing the presenter mute. Okay. Which is fine, but we want them to. Can you mute it, Tabs?

I'm sorry the audio got changed. So, apologies everyone. That should solve the problem. Okay, you should be good. I'm sorry about that.

No, no worries. Um so yeah so everything that uh human said also for CH as most of you know we also have um mostly all mandated services we're almost a 95% funded Medicaid uh program. However we are fortunate enough to to be part of the public safety mental health village which has been a uh a wonderful asset to our community. So I always have to thank uh Commissioner Labar for as a champion on that uh many years ago. But what I do want to say is that yes, so um the mental health portion of the millillage is funding some work at uh at public health where they with their community health workers also with uh the health project um doing a lot of work around uh housing. Um and so when we are you know working in all those sectors however when we started having these conversations it's hea and I like to talk about you know being first generation Hispanic women in this country and so we go and have coffee and wine and then we start talking shop and then we start having conversations about like how we can collaborate. Jeremy always comes to you know comes to me as well and we talk about needs there. So it's it's deliberateish but not really. It's not all that platform. So what I think would be uh something that would be in listening to your discussions and also just our own experiences whether how we still have the CJCC the criminal justice collaborative

um council that this is out maybe an opportunity not that I'm looking for a lot more meetings however that maybe there is a more deliberate opportunity to get the human services departments together and also understand what the county is fun is funding because quite frankly I'm not exactly clear on that either. but to have a conversation around what is the priorities that you're finding through your assessments, my assessments, and how do those all overlap. And I think housing is a perfect example of how much you all are putting into into trying to uh you know help with the funding with the short uh shortfalls in housing and unhoused individuals in county as is OC as is CM you know CH and now um I did meet with Sharon Channon for the first time this week um and I know that there's some funding there as well. So the more that we could all coordinate and help you all understand um and be really really thoughtful about how we braid these funding streams to stretch them to the you know to be the most efficient and have the biggest impact will go a long way.

Thank you. and Derek or Jim where I think Derek wants to be last. So, uh me uh and not wanting to u repeat anything that Jimea and uh Trish Cortez had to say because supporting what they're saying as well. uh and wanting to say that I really feel that having this really transparent um coherent understanding of all of the funding uh that passes through the county or is allocated by the county going out to our community partners is extremely important because it allows for that transparency and deep understanding uh to see where our resource dollars are going, how much we're spending, and each nonprofit is getting and doing a look back perhaps for you know five years so that we see the history as well as what's happening right now and we often have contracts that go as long as five years. So looking forward too to contracts that go into the future and that we're not just looking at the grant awards or the vendor contracts they have for providing services or the direct board allocations but also considering the dollars that come through the county and we leverage and pass that out to community as well as the inind donation the county does. A number of nonprofits are housed inside of county buildings and not only have that uh gift to them but also technology services and other things which also counts as a financial resource uh that the county is providing to the nonprofit organizations. So I think looking at all of that is important. Allowing the commissioners to also think about okay we see the pattern. We know what we've been doing. We know what we've committed to so far for the future. What priorities do we have as a board uh and

what do we want to set a strategy for to fund? How much of those dollars do we want to dedicate to each of those priorities and how we want those funds to go out to community knowing that departments all do various different work with our community partners and taking into consideration as well and not forgetting how do we fund the departments who do this work as part of that strategy as well because of us providing direct services and having staff who do this work. um taking a look as well as uh how we can share information more naturally. I think allowing for us to have the collaborative generative space with you as department heads um to help give information on how we operationalize things, what is necessary for us to carry your direction out well and how we as department heads might be able to collaborate with the board of commissioners and administration more and perhaps uh providing information that you need to set the priorities, strategies and goals for our future. Um, so that's what I'm talking for.

Thank you so much, Tony. Derek Jackson, director of racial equity office. Uh, good afternoon everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. Uh, I didn't want to go last. I just didn't want to go first.

First, let's only have like a minute or two minutes. I I did jot down just a few notes. I I think to the question of like what do we hope to gain from today? I've been telling everyone like I'm really optimistic about at the end of this to have some kind of road mapap or at least pillars to a road map that can help us um operationalize uh those priorities. So, um it really is about and we use equity as a as a as a catchphrase in this room a lot today, but I think it's about embodying equity. So when we look through um and and and highlight some of the things that we could really obtain, I think it's the ability to see exactly who we're reaching through our funding right now and from an equity perspective just to support is like who are we leaving behind like what populations are we really not focused on? Like do we truly know that? I think it is about collective impact. So for all of the money that is leaving the county, if it was uh coordinated in some way, we might actually be able to have even more impact uh collectively. Uh it is about fiscal responsibility like allowing us to identify those gaps and overlaps in funding so that we know every dollar is directed toward seller catchphrase which is root cause is I think we do really well in Washington County with identifying symptoms and uh uh having programs that address those symptoms but can we think about u and maybe through today identifying like how is the funding really targeted and focused on uh root causes. Um it was mentioned I think Pam mentioned and someone else mentioned the idea that um nonprofits like our our service partners might have to go through 10 different reporting features. Um that's an equity issue. We talked about it in the CPF impact thing at the working session the other day. There are some smaller nonprofits in particular who don't have that administrative capacity to even do their work. So they are less likely to apply. So we lose being a really good partner but also some really good potential service to get provided there. So I so I see all of those as like living and embodying equity and it's a small none

of these are small but highly impactful. Some of these are really really big. Um I think just the road map in and of itself to allow us to understand what the direction should be as a county is really really important. Um this uh idea of doing like a comprehensive human service funding analysis that isn't about I think you said Mr. share Scott, not necessarily about uh the impact and effectiveness of individual nonprofit organizations, but really just us understanding as a primary funer um who are we funding, why are we funding them, do we even know those across agencies? Sometimes we do because of personal relationship as Chris described, but sometimes we truly don't. And then the final one I was going to leave you with is the same three questions that I left at the end of the equity presentation today. I think um as a small step but maybe high impact to be able to answer those questions around does the priority center those furthest from the goal as you go through today. Uh will the priority address root cause is is something that I keep trying to harp on and then does the priority allow those closer to the problem to be a part of the solution and one of the questions you asked about stakeholder engagement. How do we ensure um that those who are closer to the problem that we're talking about impacting are part of the conversation? One thing that comes up amongst all of the departments of spoke is how we use community evaluators or community expertise as a part of some of our processes. The idea that we have a really hard time compensating financially those people to do this work is something that seems pretty small but has major impact for each one of us. So those kinds of I think priorities uh will set a framework for us to drive like we got to answer those those questions. So

your first question again that you had to us it was does a priority those furthest from the goal for those people who are really the most marginalized the first question. That's it. Yeah. Thanks Derek. [clears throat] Um Commissioner Lebar would you like to allow five minutes for questions to the directors before we move on to report outs from small group before lunch? Those are the two things we have to do. Sure. Yes. that'd be a good use of that.

Um I I'll I'll I'll start just briefly to say two things and then we can go to any other questions here. Um two things. One, we've talked a lot about human services today. We do nothing else. We might want to have a common definition of what qualifies under county as a county designated human service. So we know what the the the broadest definition is definition is that we're talking about and two part of what um maybe can happen better with collaboration is also understanding just simple things like OCED and REO are discretionary departments that we choose to have that are not governed the way public and mental health are by a state mental health and public health code which are both opportunities and challenges but should just be part of that uh that discussion.

Yeah. Anyone have questions for any of the department directors? I got questions. Okay.

Well, before I get to my question, I also want to recognize Shannon Jeremy uh since Shannon is new and will be providing or leading the provision of human services to older adults in our community and and Jeremy does the work around the health project. So uh I think a lot of the conversation that we're going to have would also include services that are being provided and will be provided in the future. Uh the question I would ask to everyone that wants to answer it, what could we be doing better to uh reduce the duplication of services across departments and to to better align the work that that is currently going on. So you're talking about braiding the funding. How do we make a braid tight? Well, I think part of my suggestion was by having a collaborative council with very specific objectives. One of them and maybe the top one being how what are we each funding out of like what pots of money and and so I think that that is, you know, having very deliberate conversations about it and very strategic conversations about it versus kind of oneoffs that that that seem to happen that, you know, are all aligned and well. I mean, the things that we're doing are great, but I think it not everybody's at the table having the conversation together and and who's missing from that table. Um, you know, I've got two commissioners on the CH board and, you know, a Commissioner Somerville, um, you know, chairs the the millillage. Um, so there's some of you that are very aware of what we're doing, but I think that there's a better way to all collectively work together in a more strategic and deliberate way.

Can I can I say something about that? Like I like when I'm thinking about coordinated internal funding, one of the things I'd love to think about is having a quarterly meeting or a twice a year meeting with the people who in the county are putting those public dollars out in into the world whether through the millillage or through work. You're mandate. You're not getting millage money. You have mandated money, but you're still putting money into the community and the work you're doing. So just to to have that kind of open discussion about where the money is going and what the work is happening so everybody's aware. I I have had that idea. I've talked about that idea for a while now. I don't want to put more work on anybody's shoulders, but I do feel like that's an important first step or for or it's part of the landing of where we go from here. So I love that you said that great lines think alike. will be served by the county. Yes,

if I may, I and I just had we've had a number of conversations over the last couple weeks about doing that very thing, bringing those those unions together and having a strategic conversation around what we're doing, how we're doing it, looking at the resource model, etc. So, we have a loose framework. We're going to put something together. I don't know what the cadence should be, but really trying to bring everyone together so that, you know, we can be more intentional about understanding what we're doing, how we're doing it, and how we disseminate information both internally and externally. Yep.

Eric, I was going to say, Commissioner, to your question too, I wouldn't underestimate the impact of clearly defined and stated values and priorities that you guys are laying out. Um, and and and also how that gets talked about around the board table. And so you all as elected officials have different priorities. I think that was a part of one of the questions and and sometimes those priorities depending on who's on what forward also influences our priorities. So how we might have a stated values that we live by that can be universal that then drives us all in the same direction knowing that we're going to have kind of sub values in between that. Just one thing that I think really important to have those stated values that we know and we talk about all the time.

So I Oh, go ahead. Sorry. I would I would just add also really thinking about leveraging um the expertise and relationships that we have in our departments and through the work that we do. Yep.

Um so for example in the health department we do a lot around communications obviously that's a really big important part of public health especially these days right so that's for example leveraging that kind of expertise and capacity we also have extensive community partnerships with community groups community members organizations how do we leverage those partnerships also um we work very closely with all of our K through2 schools you know, again, really thinking about how we can uh based on the work that we do leverage the expertise and those relationships and partnerships. So, that's just one other thing I would add to. Oh, yeah.

And then also talking about the, you know, amount of money that we leverage through departments, you know, separate from the direct allocation of the board like OCED on an annual basis leverages about hundred billion dollars uh out to community, which is a lot when you think about it. It's complicated all of the different contracts and all of the different streamments and not sure if that's as clear to everyone when they're not directly involved in those processes. And so having a clearer picture for everyone about things of that nature if there's a way to strategically plan a little bit more for the long term uh so there aren't as many perhaps contracts going out or RFPs that benefit staff and productivity uh within the county and and their workloads as well as benefiting our nonprofit partners so they're not having to do as many applications and contracts and could allow them to potentially plan strategically a little bit or long term about their budgets and how they can best serve community. So if we work collaboratively with the departments uh within administration, the BOC uh and the departments and with our community partners to create more strategic planning around funding uh that looks forward into the future just to allow for greater impact and as Derek had mentioned getting to the root causes is easier that way than just addressing symptoms because we've set our priorities and we've set our goals and of course retaining some funds months for emergency situations that you cannot predict as we've seen with the unstable situation related to federal funding and just sheer emergencies that happen in community like COVID or other things that are outside of governmental control. So just wanted to share that. Thanks

or one other thing I wanted to say before I say it want to remind people of our shared values. Uh speaking in first draft speaking first draft and assume positive intent. So, one of the things I've been thinking about, some counties have a Department of Health and Human Services. If we were going to think really critically, Shannon likes this idea, if we were going to think critically about maybe restructuring how we do things. What if we did have a Department of Health and Human Services that maybe was led by a deputy administrator that's focused on health and human services? So, all of our current departments float under that. If anybody wants to make a comment about that, I will assume positive intention. [laughter]

that comment and something to learn about my personality is I just like to look at what all the options are. So I'm not necessarily endorsing this, but it did come to mind with I have a background working in state government. And usually the way state government is structured is that there is that department head that leads the strategic what are our priorities, what are our values, where are we going? So even the questions of like, okay, if we had a regular cadence where we're all coming together, who's leading that, who's coordinating it, who's doing that? and that could be assigned to someone, but who's the leader to make sure that we're keep we're all moving in that one direction. So, the model you just said is an opportunity to do that, but I'm not necessarily endorsing it right now in my very premature tenure with

sounds like you're exploring the idea. Yeah. Okay. You know, I I think that's a good question to ask. One other thing to consider as we do is do we need a department or a different structure or do we need a structure of coordination that is that is staffed specifically to coordinate because one of the things I've heard over the years from department heads is essentially I want to do a better job coordinating but who sets up the meeting who does the followup who does the the connective work and so I think both those are options to consider uh as we go forward

that I think though I I sort of said something about this at the last meeting about how you could restructure administration also and I think like with my ideas about how administration could be restructured that's work with my ideas about how that restructuring would happen that the a restructured administration could do and coordinate.

Okay. All right. Any other questions for the directors in case they have meetings to attend or anything like that? Well, I know their emails, so in case so do you guys. So, so thank you to all four of you who have short notice made sure that you were here and shared some of your thinking. Um I think thought partnership is the best way to move forward. We really bless you. So, thank you very much. Thanks again. Um we with your grace will um do the small group report outs um and we can take like five minutes per group if you'd like and then we can do lunch right after that. So that would probably put us at about 12:05. Is that okay?

Is that okay? Yes. Sorry. Okay. Great. Sorry. What small group would like to go first? Okay. Oh, we have your papers.

Sure. Sure. I'm gonna put this behind you. And we'll just add

um and Ashley had um just said that they had a hard time hearing me and Bridget. So if you would project a little louder just so the back of the room can put my teacher voice on. There you go. All right. Okay. So, as we were working through the prompts looking at BOC aligned funding priorities, um our personal non-negotiable was uh public health at the foundation, but public health very broadly thinking of public health as one health. So, mental health, housing stability, food and security, all of those things. Brian is our foundation. That is our foundation. campaign coming.

Okay, building up from there.

Uh so moving forward into if we were to achieve this, what would our headline be um in the local papers? And that would be county is the safest and healthiest county in the United States. We're thinking of safety as you know very broad in terms of personal safety. again, housed, fed, warm, in the cool months, cool in the warm months, that type of piece. So, moving into our second piece, the mandated funding review, what was resonating with us, concerns that we may have uh a lot in this case. Um, but sort of thinking about where is the overarching review, what is the last book, you know, the box steps here. um how are we um doing more than what is mandated? So a thought that we had in terms of um looking at sustainability and minimizing risk in this space was a universal application for funding. So I come from the college space we have a universal application where there are mandated questions that come through and then should you select different areas other pieces may pop up based upon that. So could there be for description a front door so that we aren't coming through side doors or garage doors but we are all coming through a front door filling out an application and having the information um in that space. So again, adding some extras for different departments and specifics. Last piece, moving into alignment with the county for human service funding. What are we gaining? Um how will this change the way we serve our community? Like we came back to this universal application.

Yeah. of uh thinking about uh the equitable funding across organizations, whether it's a large organization, a small organization, having a better overview of those dollars. Um again, kind of going into a little bit of solutioning with universal application. Um thinking again, how do we pull people through? Uh but again, just having a better view into what's impacting public health, OCED, uh the senior village dollars, mental health, sheriff's office, all of those different things. One piece that came in is we have some large organizations within the community that will come to different departments for different funding and they'll get a piece here and get a piece there. If it were all again coming through this waterf front door, it would be very obvious as to which organizations were receiving the most funding whether they were the largest or the smallest in that scale.

I summarize.

Yeah, you did. And so I was just when we talked about the universal um application, I stressed that it would have to be equitable um because all of our districts um the need is totally different and we do not want some of the organizations or departments that come in through this front door using this universal to just get pushed to the side because that's the process and the intention right now is everyone go through a process. But sometimes I think it's it's not as um accessible for all organizations at this point and it would have to be very a very tight application and process um so that the organizations andor um departments do not just get pushed to the side because I I just I'm not I would not support it if it did not happen. It was not that transparent was apparent.

Hi. One of the things I'm I'm adding onto our group because we didn't talk about this necessarily, but one of the things that I like I'd like to see though happen though is also as part of this alignment and part of like this discussion about having whatever kind of meetings about coordinated internal fundings. We can talk about the programs that the county like in some ways I feel like the state reduced duplicative efforts because we can talk about the programs the county already does and how we are funding or not funding those programs and is it really necessary to fund an outside entity to do this if we're doing this internally. um and how could we fund that better with what we're doing and does the county have the capacity to do more of it if it's called for?

Thank you so much to the three of you. We really appreciate it. Uh Justin, do you want to do your group next? Because Andy solo right now. So Andy says yes. So [clears throat] you don't want to uh can they hear me? Everybody stand over here. Yeah.

All right. So, we had a lot of alignment around uh what do we want to focus our funding on and friends jump in if I'm missing anything. One of the the key things that jumped out from what we were saying, we want to get the house in order. And what we meant by that is thinking about internal county services that we provide and providing them as effectively as we possibly can uh before we start providing or money externally. And we focused a lot on safety net services. So looking at the survey results even with the category was called safety net for a lot of them uh but some of the other stuff the options fell under safety net in our opinion. So we focused on housing health both public and mental health uh and nutrition could have rolled we were trying to have it be three H's but we couldn't make nutrition work third H but people need adequate and appropriate nutrition for them to be healthy. So we felt like that fit in there really well. Uh we also had a conversation, especially given the people that are on our team here, expanding uh services in-house. Uh if you've heard us talk at board meeting, there are a number of terms that really like for us to expand the services that the county is providing directly. Uh we went as far as talking about perhaps having additional staff uh that work directly with nonprofits or having the staff of some of the large nonprofits that are essentially soul source providers being county employees. Uh we talk more about that. Uh, one of the questions asked if there was a headline that articulated what we were trying to say, ours would be something to the effect of Washington County as a place where all residents have their basic needs met. Uh, another thing we talked about is that our county makes major investments in making basic needs a priority for all residents. Uh, we talked about the mandated services questions too from the report that we had. There wasn't anything in there that gave us pause just that we want to make sure that we're providing the mandated services to the highest quality possible. And again, house and order came up again. We also spent a chunk of time talking about because of the cuts at the federal level, what can we do in county government to make sure that

we're filling those gaps to the extent possible given the funding that we have available. And some of that would involve some tough conversations about maybe not doing as much uh external funding of organizations and making sure that we're fulfilling our duty uh to the taxpayers of walking in our county how the services we provide. How's that? That's uh excellent. The one thing I wanted to throw in is we did talk about like the universality aspect of it too which I think you mentioned briefly but u louder louder

louder but you're asking me to be louder. Uh so what I was saying is one of the things we talked about in our discussion was uh the universality of wanting each of those three uh bullet points to be provided universally to all residents of Washington County too which aligns with some of what the first group was talking about as well. So I just wanted to make sure to throw that in. I'll also throw in one of the other things we mentioned was around this idea of having um nonprofit organization staff actually be county employees and like specifically like the housing providers. We don't really have like duplicative services in that space because we have the folks who do adult care, we have the folks that do emergency family support and then more of the rapid rehousing and so there's not like duplication. Um and so we and we know who those folks are. when we're looking at the federal cuts, it should be really easy for us to understand where the county needs to be supportive. Um, but also just in terms of the way that nonprofit organizations who do equity work are being targeted by the feds, like that's also a perfect time for us to maybe like take in their actual staff and then that way the nonprofit arm of the organization can focus on private fundraising, especially if they're not willing, which I don't blame them, to um movements to to do what the fascist government in Washington DC wants them to do which is um really discriminate against people um and not actually center what they need. So

and so some of that is a model similar to the health problem and how the staffing situation looks with the health project relative to the rest of the county. But again, speaking of first draft, let the camera speak of first draft. Any questions? Question. N

so I'm going to give onethird of the feedback from our group. Um let me try and summarize. I think the first thing we really talked about and maybe both the headline and the the the first question of sharing a non-negotiable the notion of effectiveness and effectiveness in terms of did the thing we need to do get done um and a focus on that rather than presentation of data or uh disproportionate focus on transformative outcomes And the reason there is those can be very subjective. Um having data in terms of did we do the thing I think is a good uh uh foundation point to begin with. We talked a lot about putting the economies of the county to scale and to work for nonprofits in an appropriate way. So an easy thing to think about to the extent it ever be possible is you're a small enough subset of nonprofits out there. Could the county help you provide something like health care by buying in through the county plan? That sort of thinking. Are there things we can do? The tension point there is this. We have a bunch of providers and internal stakeholders where county funding is either a huge or sole proportion of their budget or a drop in a big bucket. And so it's not an even level playing field in terms of analyzing that. Um, one other thing that we talked about is having a common understanding of what we do, where we do it within the organization and candidly among commissioners, how that set of conditions developed over time. So for instance, some of what we do as commissioners now in 2026 is driven by somebody doing something as a commissioner in 1996.

Right? the world has changed a bit in those 30 years doesn't mean it's bad or good but understanding where some of these processes came from is helpful. So when we hear things like, well, we have a policy on that within the county, great. Where did that policy come from? How do I interact with it and should we review it? Should we change it? Should we modify it or keep it in place? You know, who knows? Then the final thing that I think we talked a little bit about is, you know, we have this hybrid structure in county where we get some of the strength and capacity and expertise and position in the community of nonprofits. That comes with the drawback that we've talked about too in terms of how do you as a service recipient and a member of the public draw hey if I'm getting something provided in part with public county dollars what is my accountability structure and my iterative path to give feedback to say this ain't working. Mhm.

The other thing that we never really talk about is if we do more inhouse, we have to address the lag in time that exists as we build the capacity to provide those internally. And we have to answer the fundamental question of if we're gonna do more or do the same with a service unit delivery model that costs more per employee, how and where are we getting the money to get more employees to provide the same amount of service or how and where are we going to accept the cuts that happen because we're providing the same amount of money to more expensive service delivery models and so there'll be less service to be provided. And I I don't know the idea there, but that that was some of what we discussed.

Thank you. Anybody have questions about that or anything you said? I guess the one thing I would say is like I think uh there's an assumption that I would like to understand on what you know what service delivery models cost and that may take some uh exploration as an organization to before we can definitively say that it costs more to provide a service internally than it does externally.

Thank you. All right, with that being said, we have now scheduled uh up until uh 12:45 for lunch, constituent networking, your phone calls, your important emails. Um if there is any public comment that is in the room at 12:45, we were going to let them do that. We are also providing additional public comment at 3:30. So, if there is none, we will just meet back here at 1:00. Oh, go ahead. Tabitha had her hand. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, folks, if you would like to take some leftovers home from breakfast, please go on to your sandwich box so that you can reuse that.

So, with that, we're going to open up lunch. If commissioners want to go first, you're welcome to. Everyone is lunch that natural consequence. Yes.

Fun fact, it's just I mean, I guess I can really mention that for example, rather They were the All right, I'm gonna bring everybody back to order. Vice Chair working session. I'm stepping in or Commissioner Mubar to step away. At this point, we would like to open it up for any public comment.

All right. Not seeing any uh public comments. So, we will go ahead and move on with the meeting. Any additional public comment will be available at the end of the meeting for anyone who does wish to make a comment at that time. Turn it back over to our faculty. Thank you. Do you need to unmute or mute? We're good to go. Okay, great. Do it.

All right. Well, thank you and welcome back. Uh thanks to Katherine's catering you said uh for lunch and breakfast. It was great. we appreciate her and them and um great to support local. So what we wanted to do was kind of just recap your um your small group um recommendations or thoughts and processes and then oh Bridget wants to Oh yeah. That's right. And I are doing dynamic facilitation way to do it. There's so many things people wanted us to do over lunch. We're trying to fit them all in. [laughter]

We know that people were moving in and out and so we're just going to I'm going to do my best to briefly recap what we heard from our department heads before we broke for lunch. And so, um, the first thing that sticks out is something that commissioners, um, addressed earlier on, which is a desire to be better oriented to the county programs and services. So that you would have a clear understanding of what like in particular the departments of health and human services do that foundational understanding of what kind of funding is received, the structure, services, and the outcomes that folks are working towards. All good. So we heard I we heard resonance there between what department heads were uh desiring and what commissioners were also desiring that there are already joint efforts underway. There's already collaboration in place that it's more organic and being undertaken independently by staff versus um ordained by commissioners. Right? So it's it's there but it's more organic versus structured. We heard about mandated services, but that there is acknowledgement that there's a more deliberate opportunity to get department heads together to share priorities through department assessments being undertaken that there's a lot of data that's available to inform the priorities and the movement of county funding to communities. And there's agreement that there there needs to be a braiding of funding streams intentionally to amplify and have the maximum impact possible. the world.

There's also this this notion, I thought this was interesting, of not only visibilizing the resources that we're bringing to bear in a more cohesive fashion, but also visibilizing the inind contributions that the county makes to the human services sector. And so that that feels not like the parking lot, but something that we might also want to solution around at some point as you talk about internal alignment. That feels like an important piece.

Agreed. this piece around having the board of county commissioners convey what their priorities are, what your priorities are, and I think interestingly the percentage allocations that you want to spend on those priorities, right? Versus kind of reacting to this is what we got versus this is how we want to invest these dollars. It's tricky, but I I think there's a there's something there to have a conversation around. Um, always clarity, understanding from department heads, from you all on what is necessary from your point of view to carrying out your directions. Well, right, wanting that clarity from you all on how they can best meet your desired objectives and then a desire, right? at today as an outcome. Maybe we don't get to that roadmap, but at least the pillars of a roadmap, agreement on values, some bright spots, what areas of consensus, and what we want to continue to build around as we work to align internal funding of the county. And then we heard these questions from uh Derek Jackson, right? understanding around root causes, centering those who are furthest from the goal, and do the priorities address those who are furthest from the goal and making sure that those who are closest to the problem are also part of the solution, which we'll talk about more when we talk about stakeholder engagement.

Okay, great. Um, so in front of your uh at each of your seats was a consensus model. We wanted to kind of just ground and have a shared understanding of consensus building and decision-making rights. So um we're just going to walk through that just for um your benefit and feel free to ask questions. But the reason we wanted to do it is is as we move into what are our priority areas this afternoon, what are the goals? How can we accomplish some of those goals? We're going to be using this to kind of gauge your participation or your affirmation um of some of the things that we are developing as we're doing this active listening and active facilitation. Yeah. Let's go to the next slide.

It's coming. Don't worry. That's okay. There. Oh, one more.

One more and then we'll go backwards. Okay. So, I like to ground us in what consensus means because I think it's it's less intense than what I personally always think in my head it is, right? Which is perfect and full alignment. That's what I think about when I think of consensus. That's not true. So, I want to give us the permission to back away and regground in what what we mean by consensus for the purposes of today. And if you bring that forward into future conversations, I think that's great. There's a handout on what we mean by consensus. This means that you can live with the outcome, right? It's not necessarily that you fully endorse the alpha, but consensus means I can live with the outcome, right? And sometimes we can weigh consensus through what I call fits to five, right? Where five is I can enthusiastically endorse this decision, but one is I can one is I can enthusiastically um endorse this decision and five is I do not agree. when I'm working with groups oftent times if people um if we don't have ones twos or threes all the way around we go back right so if people are rating something a four or five it means we need to have further discussion to get to consensus right there is that version of consensus which I think people often conflate in this decision rights matrix and so for our folks in the room you can't really see it but it's up there on the board and so I think what we commonly conflate is consensus is alignment which is totally agreement. That's the best case scenario, right? That's what you want in your marriage if you're married. We don't ever get there either. But what we're working towards here today is consensus. Can I live with some of these solutions? Can I live with these values? And am I willing to move forward and progress in the conversation? So, I want to invite you to use that version of consensus. And I also want to offer what we call the decision rights matrix because importantly you all are talking about stakeholder input and it will be

important to be very clear around what decisions do the do the stakeholders have in this process. It might be that you are deciding you are the leaders but you are seeking input right the subgroup provides feedback but they don't get to decision on what the outcome is. We don't need we don't need to decide that today right typically you are the leaders and you decide with input you take input from stakeholder groups you take input from committees and if that is something that you want to carry out I think being very clear as you engage your internal stakeholders right and your external stakeholders will be valuable to you so there's no confusion right um in the grant making models that you have been part of in the past particularly coordinated funding it was flipped right in some cases the volunteer review teams they decide and you are essentially endorsing. Um, so I think this model provides some clarity on what you want as you move forward in this process with various folks. And so I invite I invite us to consensus, not majority vote today. Um, you can use that at your next county commission meeting or working session. Any questions on that? Okay, rock and roll, Pam. Okay. Thank you. We're gonna go back one. So each small group um you were um you all took the time. I know uh Commissioner Debar is not here and Commissioner Hodgej they were two group leaders so they did synopsis. Commissioner Beman thank you so much for doing a synopsis of your group. Their their notes are on the wall. Uh Commissioner Hodgeges is on the wall and Andy did a verbal one. Um and so what we would like you to do is just do a personal reflection with what's up here. So, take a couple of minutes. You have post-it notes if you want to write if you know you're into journaling and you want to write some things down. But we will come back in five minutes. Um,

but we'd like to know from you. Listen to the highlights from each group. What common threads or of strength or hidden assets did you hear about? They might have been new to you. You might have thought they were a great idea. You wanted to explore it more or you didn't understand it and you want to hear from the group a little bit more about it. What's the most courageous or transformative possibility that has emerged to you based on what you heard? And if we're to take just one collective leap based on these findings, which action would generate the most positive energy and immediate benefit for our county and the community that we serve. So, you might want to jot your thoughts down because we are going to go to each commissioner. Don't worry, we're not calling names. We know it's after lunch. you're going to be tired, but we will invite you into the conversation to share your answers to those questions. So, let's take about five minutes uh for you to consider. These questions are based on what you heard from the small group report outs.

So, that'll be 105. Did you sing forever? No, don't sing for anybody.

Hope y'all like Taylor Swift. Here you go. Right. We're like, where's that coming from? [laughter] No, but when you did the things that you learned that Oh my

Oh my gosh stage I don't believe that. Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy. Christ.

Okay. I appreciate If you can't remember what group said, you can get up and look at their notes also. Oh boy. Questions to yourself. [laughter] I

thought you were joking. I was telling him

somebody I fully endorse for choices.

Pretty soon,

no, not even on Fridays during live. Not a fast fish is good, but can't have that fast. What about fish? It's really good. Clearly did not grow up in the long john's era. [laughter]

I know. Wow. You know how they changed it? I think there's a building on Washington. There used to be one. Yes, there is. We used to live.

I know they changed it because of some former They were trying to run on Okay. It wasn't about also At least at least one.

It can be an inaccuracy. There we go. He also

the point of accountability. All right. I got

rent and like patience likes to say by That's what I think. I love something like this one. It was only three people. You know what I'm saying? One second.

All right, I will call us back to order and turn it over to our Thank you so much, Shannon. Um, so thank you so much for taking some time to just pause and kind of reflect. Um, and so the first question that we would love to hear your responses to is as you listen to the highlights from each group discussion, what common threads of strength or maybe hidden assets did you hear about that you'd like to talk about? And these answers are going to really help shape um action plans and actionable items for the goals that you set for this meeting today. So yeah,

I don't think anyone said anything that was uh wildly different. So I I think and this happens frequently with nine people. I think that we largely want to row the boat in the same direction, but how we get there is different. So maybe it's not the same direction, but I think we want to get to the same place, but how the how is different. It's great sharing that. Oh,

um I thought one of the things it it wasn't it necessarily, but what I felt like the common thread I felt like in all of the discussions was that the people on this board, the county, I would call it the county that is responsive, so tries to be as much as we can to community needs. Um each group tacitly acknowledged this and like what they were doing.

Thank you. that we all have that shared rule of we don't think our job is like just I don't even know what we'd say government work is here but I feel like there's an alignment on what we think the role of the county board is let me rephrase is the the question um just to see if it unlocks anything for you. Um as you listen to the highlights from each group, do you think your constituents or your districts would have any special like aha moments about what you heard? Or is there a viewpoint that you would like to to share from the constituents or your district's needs that might affect this answer? I guess I'll layer on the equity piece that bubbled up ensuring that there's equity uh border to border whether that's urban port suburban forge or work those people that were touching insurance that it's each district throughout the county as we know they're thinking the needs everywhere

this might not be correct But if uh any constituents in the room or are lying want to correct me later, I would get the or I have the impression that I think the public cares less about how we do the thing more so that we do the thing and that we do the thing effectively, efficiently, and are responsible with taxpayer dollars. I I think a lot of what we the nine of us end up getting hung up on is the process piece, like how are we going to do it? I think the outcome is much more important to the people that are going to be experiencing the services. Yeah, very record anybody. I'd like to

I would add that I I I I agree. I think people in my area are focused on what the outcome is at the end of the day. I would also think if you and this is not a generalization about the first district, but I also think that if you popped a group of people from my area down in this room and they heard this discussion, they would be somewhat surprised at the focus that we have because a lot of their focus is on sheriff's patrol, road patrol, uh uh the road commission,

you know, what might be going on in the lakes. um rather than some of the the human services things that were so I think that they they would there may be some realization of what county government really does. Yeah. Once people from my area thank you for sharing that

and for okay to go on for the second question. All right. So, what's the most courageous or transformative possibility that has emerged to you based on what you've heard? What are you gonna think about tonight at 2 am when you're awake thinking, "Man, that was a great idea." Or, "Man, that could really change things for the county. It could be your own idea. It could be your own idea that you want to double down on."

I have I have two bullet points I put. I put the county like WHP health insurance for nonprofit partners. Like I thought, well, like how could we like how could we do that? How could we get closer to increasing access for people um and to help nonprofit partners like have that piece taken off to make sure their people have insurance? I think that's pretty interesting. And also then our our idea like I've talked about it forever but that universal application

and one of the things I love about this universal application is if we can get it done here how we can roll that out to other funders because if there was not just a universal application for the county but for every nonprofit that the equity concerns and the access concerns s go from like here and the workload for the nonprofits to do a different application for every nonprofit funer. They go from here to there. Like I think that would be amazing.

I won't remention my idea about potential department of health and human services. I just mentioned it again. But what I would say is it came up in our group. We didn't share share it in the large group. uh perhaps purchasing a hotel uh and using that space for emergency housing. We've talked about that a little bit, but my groupmate brought that up again. Uh and that we have missed some opportunities to do that because there's a hotel that's going to be demolished for something else. We've missed another opportunity to buy another one. But I think as we are going through these really cold months and our team and administration and the CH team have worked to hotel people as well as community members have done that. Uh that's always a challenge because I I mean it's difficult to do that but if we had the space perhaps that could be a strategy for some of our housing and homelessness challenges in Washington County.

So just um before before you No, I'm going to have Caroline go. Before Caroline goes the uh county Jackson County did do that. So if you want um a kind of a a real life case study, we could certain you can certainly bring them in to talk about it. So you can do it also. I think count. Yes, I've got nods. Yeah, let's get it through. And there were some some things they learned. Yes. Right. So, so let's use right what other let let's use that knowledge that other people have gained through experiment and and bring it to county. True.

We're meeting with both of those counties in the very near future and we'll add that to the operational discussion. We do. I know that when um I met with a a small group of us met with them as soon as they did it and we heard about it um they they raised the money to buy the hotel and then I said, "Well, how are you going to operationalize it and what would that budget be?" And they said, "Well, we have to raise three million a year." But they hadn't put that into place. So, it's just you got to kind of think down the road. Um

um

uh I I had mentioned I I would like to see so you know coordinated funding every time it comes up I I get a crick in my neck because it's like it's over. It's dead. We buried it. Um, but I'd like to see something that was more akin to coordinated services. Let me say coordinated administrative services amongst many of the nonprofits um to reduce duplication. And so the one of the examples would be things like office supplies. uh why do you have 15 nonprofits all doing their own purchasing when perhaps not saying that we have to take it over because we'll get rolling eyes in the room but perhaps the county with its buying power could get an even better price and for those things that are you know like the staples they could order through us or receive through us. I'm not saying we give it to them for free, but they could take advantage of our discount. [clears throat] Um, and and that still wouldn't tie their hands if they needed, you know, something special or an emergency order because they're doing a presentation or something like that. But for those staple things that they use, why couldn't we look at things like that? even to a degree some of the accounting services we know that they can they can be nuanced based on the service that they're providing and maybe grants and things like that but I think there's some things that instead of us having 15 people doing all the same thing yeah

why not because then what we would be able to do is I think shift that funding to providing even more support if that makes sense

um so I would love to be able to see something like that. I also think that it would be beneficial to our residents at large if we were more transparent with them about some of the things that we don't talk to them about. So when we hotel people, the general public doesn't know how much damage is done and how much extra money we spend because the rooms are torn up or they're fighting or doing whatever other stuff.

If we're going to talk about the need for the service, I I need you to tell me the whole story. And I I I would like for our taxpayers to get the whole story because often we're seen as not doing enough and we don't share from the board table some of the truth behind. You [clears throat] know, when you when you're hoteling someone for a long period of time, you know, how much are we paying in damages to that hotel after they're done in that space? I just think that as you know the taxpayers it it's their right to know they're paying for it and they should know the whole story not just the piece of the narrative that um we get in the board meetings.

So thank you for sharing that.

Thank you. I want to I want to build on this that I am hearing a clear desire, right? How do we extend and how do we extend the services and supports and the capacity that we naturally have as a county entity to nonprofits? And it makes me wonder about federal funding shifts and the impact on local nonprofits. We already know that nonprofits have shut their doors in county. I can I can think of one recently that that just dissolved and they were a long-standing youth youth organization. And so it makes me wonder about the county's willingness to your point, right? As you think about internal alignment and the role you want to play in supporting human services of allowing nonprofits to become programs of the county, right, to dissolve as they if dissolving their status is the only way that they can maintain solveny that the program lives on, the service lives on if it's aligned with your priorities that you take that ser that that program on and then that service remains. I think we're going to see more of nonprofits disbanding over the next couple of years. Right. The the changes are in we're seeing that in Wayne Oakland and Mcome counties. Um and so I just I want to offer that as a as a courageous idea that builds on your sentiment.

And I'll add on if I could um I would add on to that in being transparent and honest. We also need to talk about the numbers. What is the return on the investment for, you know, are you putting $500,000 into a nonprofit and they're serving five people and there's they got a staff of seven. We need to look at the whole picture. And we also need to be courageous enough to say, I mean, there have been people that have come to me and said, "I want to prophet. Please don't please do your research and find somebody that is already out there that you can they can be your umbrella, right?

Because it's it's it's just it just puts a drain on the funding and the support that we're already providing, right? Just because you think you got a great idea and you probably do, but how unique is it and how outcome driven is it? going back to shared values. Right. Right.

And that has happened in our community. I know in our previous life, we spent a lot of time with council about, you know, it sounds like it's not a nonprofit. Sounds like it's a great program. Here's four nonprofits that are currently running a program similar. Let us do the introduction and the connection for you to these places to see how you might fit in parallel. So it was a great idea and I hope that um the priority is providing service to residents and not creating a job for yourself. I did say that out loud

end user right you are focused on the end user not the not necessarily the nonprofits that's your not your primary customer but your primary customer people who are most impacted by inequities in our county. Yeah. Okay.

I think that I would I love this kind of this court the coordinated services administration. like and to think about how you might do that almost seems like it's like co-op the county convenes where things like this I like Caroline um and I'm just going to lift up another idea like I'm like the most courageous transformative possibilities emerge based on what you verb I mean I put the last month saying like pay attention to all the things we're talking about at working session and at um uh he's calling mates, somebody I can ignore. Um,

all all the things and what I want to just say one of the other things that like I've found myself thinking about after the meeting like blowd drying my hair or keeping a shower or whatever was thinking about what you talked about up in Texas and about the like small homes or these modular homes because and and I know Commissioner Somerville and I have talked about this too. not everybody wants to be in a congregate setting and so how that seems like a courageous and transformative possibility for us to think about as well and so I just wanted to like lift that idea back up too because when I think about things like that's one of the things and I and I think it's also created some transformative for us to think about we talk about like public housing and I think that's not like that's not a bad idea but I also like the ideas that we have that lead people towards ownership. Um because I think that that becomes more transformative than just public housing, somebody putting a roof over somebody's head. Not that that's not courageous and transformative, Yousef, but I want to talk about how I create ownership that creates generational wealth. Yeah. Katie, for folks who are not at that county commission meeting, can you share a little bit more about the NO homes? Just so that

I'm gonna let Caroline talk about it because it was her findings.

Uh several of us went uh uh Commissioner Haj, Commissioner Light, uh Administrator Bill, uh I hope I'm not leaving anybody out. They uh we went to a conference in Texas and we were toured to a tiny home uh community that was on the outskirts of Austin. Um a rather large community and they had homes that ranged in square footage from 150 square feet up to 500 square feet. Um, if you were under, I think 250 square feet, you did not have a shower in your home, but there was within a 100 ft of your home a communal shower. Um, they had bus transportation, public bus transportation. They had an amazing relationship with their sheriff's department. Um, they self policed. So, if you were seen out in their community and you didn't look familiar, they were calling the ship. Um they had a cemetery which I thought was I was alarmed but they said the average homeless person is 57 years old

and they've been homeless for a while and so they are you know um at risk healthwise and they don't live as long as someone that has been housed and and has not uh struggled that way. They had a community center. They had a a grocery store. I'll call it a store.

Um a garden. They also invited people that had um uh RVs that were traveling. They could come and pay to park and be there for a season or whatever. But the the best thing I think that I liked was they provided employment opportunities because the people didn't live there for free. they paid rent, right? Um but they they provided employment opportunities to help them cover the costs of their rent. So maybe they worked in the commissary or maybe they worked in the community space. Um, it it was it was a sweltering visit. It was over 100 degrees.

But [laughter] I was so pumped about being able to bring something like that back to to our community, right? Because everybody doesn't need 3,000 square feet, nor can they afford it here, right? But uh a 500 square foot individual home is enough for people to be able to afford and they also customized them if I remember correctly. So each person uh that was eligible for a home, they sat down with you and wanted to know what are your colors and what are your themes and

so that it was, you know, tailored to them. And I just really felt like that's something that we could do. If we own the land and we did not have to deal with the zoning requirements of any particular m municipality, it's doable.

And then the other best thing that we saw out there were collapsible housing units. So I don't know, maybe you know something like these these tables made a square together. wasn't huge, but it was it was dorm size. Actually, I think it was a little bigger than a dorm because it was individual. They had air conditioning. They literally were manufactured somewhere. They flatten down and then you ship them, they pop back up and you lock them into place. Um, and it was, you know, you could use it during the winter time to house people. It would certainly be a lot cheaper than hoteling. Yeah.

And when you're done, you can collapse them and move them somewhere else or put them in storage or um but I I loved both of those concepts then and probably pouted for about six months after we came back because we just weren't making it happen. Mr. Sanders, if you don't mind, I wanted to just add on to because I was really impressed with the employment piece, too. And they had multiple employment options there. And then the one that really stuck out to me was the partnership they had with Kendra Scott, you know, the jewelry designer. Yes. So, there were a number of people there that were producing the Kendra Scott jewelry.

And so, I think if you go to the Kendra Scott store here, you could see that they'll probably have like a little card saying like who produced it. So it was it was good employment for the people that were there. Absolutely.

I think this goes back to what you all have kind of been opening up the door around is what do we do and what do we fund, right? And what do we take on on our own? So there's this tension, but your willingness to kind of grapple with that that with that balance of what that looks like. And so I want to reflect that back to you all as something that I've heard a couple of times, right? Like more fully resourcing our own mandated services. So putting your own oxygen mask on before you turn outwards to community and what do we want to do more of and take on as and own, right? And so um not a solution but an observation, right? And I think the the tiny homes would allow intergenerational housing

because you could have aged out foster students being able to afford to live in a in a tiny home. You could have um uh seniors that can't manage the house that they're living in now, but they don't want to leave their community and their friends and their family.

You could have empty nesters. You could have young people that haven't started their own families. It could be it could be a plethora of options that I think would just um enrich any community. I was just going to say another um courageous or transformative possibility is for us to continue to explore all of Washington. We're so set in just places and spaces. And when we talk about our um homes and sheltering, we're always focused on 48197 and 48198 where we don't expand our possibilities. And I think that's something that would be very courageous is for us um to to break up this what I want to call it but to for us to expand our whole county and there are housing opportunities development and housing opportunities all over this county. we need to think about. We can't continue to crowd out one space for um a demographic that we believe, okay, we'll just put them here. And so, we have to expand our thinking and we have to put our our residents all around this county and provide um resources wherever they go. Don't make them go to it, but we take the resources. And so we need to be I think that is something that's going to be courageous with us, you know, allocating all of this funding, doing all of the things, but we need to think about doing it all over and going to where the need is. So that would be something courageous for us to do. And it would, I think, speed up the process if we're not just set to do it in one place. If we move around and expand, it will give us, we can just have all of our tentacles going because we're not just focused on one place to do it that's overcrowded. in place of space. Yeah.

Robbie was trying to get in there. Oh, I'm trying to be respectful. I know I have a a loud voice, but um so make sure the back of the room here.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got a built-in mic, you know. Um so, a few things. I I wanted to respond, you know, and contribute to the housing conversation quickly here because I uh Commissioner Scott, you know, mentioned my name. I I do want to double down on the concept of public housing because uh public housing is broader than just what is typically thought of as public housing with the rental. Um and exactly what Commissioner Sanders was saying is is how I envisioned public housing. All I really, you know, the main thing I care about is underlying public ownership of land because it allows for more flexibility. I think that there's options. you know, rent is one way to do it, but you also have cooperative models and you have, you know, uh, land trust models. You have this tiny home model where you can actually maintain the public ownership of the land to say this, there are some, you know, things that we have to do to maintain affordability in the long term, but allow the person that's in the home to actually acrue some equity in the house that they're living in so that when they move out, they get something at the end. I've also been toying with some uh models and doing some some math around uh even opportunities around rentals where you could like um basically like section off a portion of the monthly rent and invested in an aggregate um to earn returns and then when the person moves out they basically get a dividend for the time that they've lived in their rental facility. And you can, you know, leverage the power of the governmental uh investor along with all the other assets that they're investing on, you know, in various places. You know, the treasurer's office does amazing investing work. Why not, you know, leverage some of those, you know, maybe it's, you know, $10 a month of the rent or something like that from each of the people living there. You invest it and at the end when they move out, here's a check for $3,000 to go to your next thing. Um, so there's a ton of different models that you can use that that public ownership allows flexibility on that I think we should be looking at and the models that Commissioner Sanders brought

back I think are excellent to delve into that. Um, so and then one of the to the question though, one of the things that I really that struck me and I think Commissioner Scott mentioned this in her initial very first comment was around uh the number of folks that talked about universality and I think that I really am a believer that you know we shouldn't try to do too many things uh because when we try to do too many things we do them poorly. I think focus on the top three and let's create universality in that program to say like in if you live in county you get three meals a day if you live in county you have a roof over your head if you live in county your basic health needs are taken care of and I think if we can say those three things in a universal way anybody that lives in our county I think that's what we should be striving for is to say you know we we set that as our as our baseline standard once we've achieved that goal, then we can talk about other things. Um, but we have to meet those basic needs for people in a universal way. The fact that we have 800 plus people that are unhoused right now is not meeting that need. So, how do we get to the place where we're meeting that need in a universal way? I do understand and we have to consider the fact that sort of like making that clear in public will mean that some people will migrate to the county to receive services because unfortunately we don't live in a regional system or a state system that cares for the basic needs of people and so we have to be prepared for some of that and we have to work regionally on many of these issues. It can't be so focused on our own community. We have to think about you know what is Wayne County doing? What is Jackson County doing? what are the surrounding counties doing to also care for the needs of their residents and to make it so that it's not like you know okay everybody moved to but that it's like we want to put pressure on the surrounding communities to say you have to take care of the basic needs of your residents too so that we're all in this together. So I think that needs to be part of the

conversation. I do want to say on the service delivery side um the outcomes piece I I don't disagree with what Commissioner Hop says about we have to measure outcomes but I do think that in government the me you know the means don't always justify the ends you know or or the ends don't always justify the means in terms of uh you do have to have strong process you do have to have strong accountability and you you know and typically those lead to better outcomes and so I do I don't want us to lose that side of things as well. There needs to be accountability for those public dollars and who delivers the service in my opinion actually does really matter um because it signals to the public and to those that are receiving the service a variety of different things. My concern is that um in the nonprofit space and again because we're all this is like first draft thinking but also others have mentioned similar things like I don't want somebody who's receiving a service to feel that they are receiving charity and I know that charity is like a word that has positive affiliation but for me it's not always positive because it implies a separation. There's somebody who has resources that's giving to somebody that doesn't have resources. And the way I want to conceptualize our human service provision in the county is more with a concept of solidarity. It's that you as a member of this community, you get services and you get a roof over your head. And it's not a charitable act. It's an act of humanity that we all have in the space. Everybody has access to it. It's not a question of you're receiving something from someone who has more. It's a question of we all get the same thing. And I think that's fundamental to why I feel so strongly about people knowing that it's county government that's paying for things because I want people to know that this is like something that the whole community has bought into and it's not just some rich guy paying to make sure that you have a house over your head. It's all of us pitching in whatever we have to make that make that happen. And that's really like core and important to

me. I like much of that. I'm not going to disagree with any of it. uh but moving us in a different direction. When I think about the collective leap, I'm thinking about the collective piece uh as being inclusive of many of our nonprofit partners. And sometime ago, we made the arduous request of the county staff that they complete a program inventory of all of the things that all of the departments are doing so we have a better sense of what we're funding and what kind of services we're providing. I would, especially given the huge ecosystem of nonprofit we have in our county, I would love for us to have a program inventory of what all of the nonprofits are doing, particularly the ones that we are funding.

Uh, so we know so we can figure out what services are being duplicated, how can we better deliver services, and what does that look like in relation to our county services? I would not expect the nonprofits to do that themselves because that's an added job that they're not planning for. So, I would love if we had county staff that could support with um with them doing that and have it on our website and have it on our website

because I am in situations sometimes where I'm calling administration and saying, "Do we have a list?" So, if someone comes up to me, I could easily access it instead of sending them to somebody else. I literally could look myself and say, "Well, these are the agencies that handle housing." Um because we take that for granted, but we've got 2,000 nonprofits in Washington County.

And if we did something like that, and to add on to what we're doing with the county, we've talked about King County frequently because they have a lot of visible dashboards and other metrics that are easy for the public to consume as well as the non-public. I would like for us to be able to do that, too. Yeah. Once you put the work in, it's done. Once the work is creating it, and then it's just minimal updating. Well, there are partners in the community that could give you a the a jump start on that. Yeah. Are you going to talk about 211? I am. Okay. [laughter] Got to.

We'd be remiss if we didn't talk about 211 when you're talking about a compendium of currently available services. If you wanted to restrict it to county funded organizations, that's one thing, but to kind of get a current lay of the land. What do you want to say about 211 P? Oh, just that there is a database available that that could lay out all of the services. And then the National Kidney Foundation did a county bycounty, statewide resource guide, and OCD does have some of those printed books. Like, who gave somebody gave me that? Okay. Um, so there are there's jumping off points that could make it relatively easier for our county to get exactly what you're asking.

Well, I'm going to say another thing that may be unpopular, but I think needs to be said. Uh, as we've talked about, we're losing some of our nonprofits because of the challenges with the federal ecosystem. Yes. Uh, and the challenges with the also because of the federal ecosystem. If we had some sort of inventory like that, we could better facilitate a conversation around what might mergers of nonprofits look like by So I don't nonprofit executive directors are not going to like that but you got to think about it I think but you're you're touching on this is a dynamic time

in a similar way that we've experienced during co to know who's open what is your service capacity what programs are you delivering and and we've introduced that level of volatility that we kind of reconciled since co and so I think

the desire is is you know not that you need cooperation but like it's appropriate because things are shifting again, right? Well, I just want to focus when you said that the capacity. I mean, it's I'm a little bit outside of this, but I think that that capacity piece is really important because earlier when I talked about talking about funding programs in the county, some programs have so much more need and they don't have the capacity to be doing it. Do we need to add county resources so the county can actually perform to the capacity that it's needed? what is the capacity we're looking at for some of the nonprofits that it is outstripping the capacity they have. And so sometimes I feel like we get interest in getting county dollars for people who have a a a sense of what they would like their capacity to be without an acknowledgement of whether that capacity is there. Sometimes we are giving money out in county dollars to people who we know can perform to a much higher capacity, but we're limiting them by that. So I'm like, so we miss we give more money to somebody who has this dreaming capacity and then we have an organization that can do it and we're not giving them the funds that they need to do that. like where is there an alignment about what capacity actually means both in and out of the county

capacity doesn't always mean budget as well no and just like return on investment doesn't necessarily always mean like the money you get back but like for instance infrastructure the county had infrastructure right so in lie of always writing a check and I I don't want to offend anybody but it sometimes it gets to that perhaps we have infrastructure for you to leverage space technology etc. Um, so those are all things that I think we can do and be more creative about about how we're supporting those nonprofits.

Yeah. And if I could just build on this, I think it's it's about capacity, but it's also about the ability to scale. So that's what we speak to a lot in the business. How can you scale? How can you reach that next level? Are is it possible for them to scale up as quickly as the funding allows? If there's a sixmon funding program, is it a year? Is it five years? That's different for the growth you're going to see within the organization. So, in addition to capacity, I would look at ability to scale.

That's exactly the word. I think a recent example of that in the county in I could be totally wrong so feel free to to correct me is when you did the transportation grants some agencies got to buy new vans to increase their capacity and some agencies said we can do it with what we already have but we can expand our services exponentially. So that's a that's a big difference. So go ahead. Um, the last thing that I I don't even know how I forgot this, I wondered out loud. So, um, uh, up north, Traverse City like area, they had a building where all of the universities were housed.

All of the off-site centers were in one building. And I'm wondering out loud if we couldn't look at it. Wouldn't be we're too large I think for one building, but why wouldn't we consider asking nonprofits to share space like new? Yes. Well, because because

what no one says out loud, even though they provide a service, you we've got 2,000 nonprofits that are not paying property tax and they're not paying for the infrastructure, fire, police, all of that that they receive. So, what could we do with the money that they use for rent if we didn't have 2,000 that have their own rental contracts? Instead, maybe we've got two or three hubs where they're all stationed or operating out of, right? I think that makes it easier for our residents to access services instead of us saying, "Oh, well, you got to go here and then you got to go over there. Um, but it also helps relieve the strain on the municipalities where some of these nonprofits are, and I know that they're going to think I'm picking on them. I'm not, but anytime you have a nonprofit, whether or not it's a faith-based organization or a service provider, they are not paying property tax. So any way that we can help and make it easier for our residents, I think is just good sense. There's always going to be territorial issues where you're not going to want to give up your office or you're not going to.

But then that's where, like I said before, it's not about you. It's about the people that were served.

Mariline, I am reflecting the throughine, right? We are focused on internal alignment right now but there's a natural through line once once you all come up with the model that you want to have internal alignment on resources that's when you you know there's that beautiful synergy of turning outwards to operationalize those same values because our sector is going to need it right they're going to need to have the scaffolding to better be more effective be collaborative be outcome driven care for their community right and so that's what I I appreciate you naturally turning outwards and you're you're saying the same thing about what you desire internally as externally and so that this is a moment where we need that

and I it's my colleagues um district uh Commissioner Somerville Ipsellany has way more than their share of nonprofits and churches and churches and my alma mater is the biggest land hog respectfully in the city of Pennsylvania and they don't get any money for that. Just imagine if they actually were getting uh property taxes

from all of those nonprofits that are located in this very small community that you can drive through in five minutes. they they would be in a better position to be able to provide better services. Um Annie I could say a lot about that. That's what I was trying to do to the three prompts over here.

Yeah. So one of the like related to like transformative and like a leap. So, like I'm like a now person and like there's so much stuff that we need to fix right now that I hope we can do sooner rather than 2027 when the new human services partnership runs out because quite frankly, I'm like, we know what's happening right now. We know what's going to happen in four months from now. We have the capacity as the county to leverage our resources to actually build out greater capacity to help make sure that we can house every family who's homeless to make sure that we have transitional housing for families or individuals or older adults. We we spent a whole year talking about the senior millillage. So right now we have money sitting that we could hypothetically use to make sure that there's no older adult in county who's currently homeless or currently can't afford where they're living. And so when you can't afford your rent or your mortgage, you're not paying for medication, you're not properly eating. And so like there's things that we could do right now that I think we should do like take a leap and be transformative because if we wait until 2027, we're going to have a lot of people in worse situations. It's going to be more expensive to stabilize them. Um,

and I'm thinking about that like really in the housing and homelessness space because every time we get to the beginning of the month and we run out of barrier busters funding, we're letting people become homeless. And I'm saying we are letting because we are letting them. We're not doing anything different to make sure that we have more capacity to prevent the eviction from happening. And so every time every year we go through the budget cycle and we don't expand our own capacity, we're allowing more people to become homeless um while also not increasing our shelter space, which I find problematic at this point. So those are the things that I'm thinking about. We should be leaping and we should be doing. I mean, I would love to like have something to vote on next week, but I don't. But I'm on the space plan and so I wanted to mention the space plan because there's like this huge overlap that I see with racial equity, climate resiliency, human services, especially older adult um services because we know that every time we have some sort of extreme weather or health related emergency and people are having issues getting access to the services. It's because even with the internet, people don't really know what's available. And so like my vision for this base plan rather than like centralizing everything, I think the county needs to shift our thinking and actually decentralize and make sure that people can get to services quicker from where they live, especially if they can't access transportation. If something crazy happens and we say we have no gas or electricity, how quickly could somebody get to a hub that county government could provide services in like a natural disaster situation? It's not locating everything in one location. It's actually having a number of facilities across the county that people could access and know that they're county buildings. And so those are the things that I'm thinking of.

For the benefit of the audience, could you explain the space plan? It's not Mars. It's

somebody else's going to plan where we look at every single facility and property that we own and we determine is this still working? what investments do we need to make to the infrastructure? Um, some of the conversations have been like recently been about maybe building new buildings, maybe getting rid of some or merging services. Like I represent a district that has a number of county sites in in like separate sides of town. I'm interested in in merging them and re like reusing the other sites for something a different purpose. And so we're taking a look at everything and we will be, but I think it's an opportunity for us to like meet some of our climate goals, meet some of the gaps in services, in human services especially um and plan for future disasters because when every conference that I've gone to, one of the breakouts I went to was about disaster planning. And we have no plans for disasters across any agency really. like when you really think about like what could happen if there are significant flooding or we actually lose power for a really long period of time. We don't have a solid plan right now. And so that those are the things I'm thinking about, but it's all kind of like

it all kind of overlaps with housing access. It kind of it overlaps with basic services like food and and medical care if there's like a need. So I think we need to be thinking more um like neighborhood based like so like that's what I love about resiliency hubs. not just about like a climate related disaster. It's also about other emergencies that we, you know, haven't happened yet that we never had a COVID until we did. And so those are um I think we should use this time as an opportunity to like work with this base plan and improving human services because we do have the capacity right now to help make sure we have more beds for people who are especially older adults who are homeless

that like sleeping on the floor on a mat is not going to serve them well. It's actually going to make their situation far more worse and like reduce their life span quite frankly.

Thank you for sharing that. As you were speaking, Danny, it made me think about I'm gonna say the word coordinated funding, so brace yourselves. In in the era of coordinated funding, we had a we had their very discreet priorities, but was not reflected were the root causes, as Derek alluded to, or the intersectionalities between the environment, space, and some of these other issues that you just raised. And so I'm going back to Pam's the quote around the peripheral vision that any priorities you come to arrive at cannot just be in a vacuum, right? They were really they were discreet, but I think we have a better awareness of how things work and the intersectional nature and the compounding nature of some of these um human and basic needs that you all are charged with addressing. And so I I want to there's a level of complexity now that you're introducing that's necessary as you think about the internal alignment and internal and that you'll need and the different lenses you'll need to be evaluating your priorities through. And so I just want to reflect back that it's gotten more complicated but necessarily so right you're talking about ruons and and the environment impacting human services. Well, and I also think like some of the barriers right now to preventing or getting people out of homelessness is capacity. So like SOS, for example, their rapid rehousing program, they only have so many master leases. And so what are and I've been saying this for three years, what are we doing to help improve the service? And whether it's we start doing some of that or we help them do it better, but they need places for people to be housed. And so is that us building our own socialized housing where we can get people on pathways to home ownership um who are part of our rapid rehousing programs. Um but some of it is like to me some of this like human service side especially in the housing and homelessness space is actually building physical properties differently than we ever have before. And like when we talked about like I'm a big fan of some

of the conversations around tiny homes and pots, but other countries have like a couple story buildings that have micro units in them. Is that better? Would that be better long term just in terms of like infrastructure? Like when you put down like all the things that you need for like plumbing and electrical, would it make more sense to have like a building with micro units rather than separate pods outdoors? And that's all stuff that we could talk about with the space plan and like utilize like our bonding capacity to do quicker rather than kicking the can down the road because whether we're coordinating funding among departments or with external organizations, the need for like physical property is one of our biggest barriers right now. And the physical property that we have capacity to build, we can take out of the whole like complexity of the private market. that is what continues to like marginalize people. And I like the experience that I've had with a huge multi-unit apartment complex in my district has like proven to me that it doesn't matter what the law says, the people who are most marginalized are always going to lose because for whatever reason through the court process, the the land the bad actors are always like they have more money. they win. And at the end of the day, for a year, residents in in one part of our community fought to have better conditions. And now the landlords are getting off. A judge has ordered that they all have to leave. You have to find a new place to live, but like eventually like they're going to be able to write off whatever they've had to spend on that property. They might lose it eventually, whatever. But they're not really being held accountable. And so people who cycle in and out of these really poor conditions or end up homeless, like that's always going to happen unless we have control over the site. And the only way we do that is if we build it ourselves.

And if I can layer on that, I would I want to find the parallel between what Annie has said and what Crystal has said, which are kind of like instead of just a hub, the spokes that are going out with the wheel into the community.

All right, I'll use my teacher voice. I got it. Okay, here we go. Um, you know, instead of the hub, the folks that are in the community, but you know, looking at services coming to the community, but also housing coming to the community. That's something that I've been speaking to for ages with the USBA funding that was there and now possibly isn't there. Um, but there are opportunities to house people throughout, western, eastern, central, north, south, wherever you go, there is a ability to build and rehome and focusing on only specific areas isn't going to be helpful. And that is also inclusive of the services if we're only utilizing and centralizing services in one area when there are people throughout the county that need it. Annie and I have been unfortunately on a parallel path with some bad actors in the apartment space and evictions and some of the very marginalized people in our community losing their homes. that's happened in district three um since these last few months. And again, the bad actors are getting off the hook and the families are the ones who are being seniors um people with mental health issues um are the ones being punished in this case. And so, how do we bring these resources, whether it be housing, mental health, community health, all these different pieces? How do we bring them out into the spaces and not again keep them in these hubs, if you will, not and I have talked about the Westside Center for a while, but we haven't really had the momentum to get that going. We've been having crisis after crisis. It's interrupting uh that that project. But again, thinking holistically about where do we need housing? I have subsidized

housing in my district. I have USDA housing in my district. And so how can we continue that and again not necessarily have this narrow focus but spread the resources and opportunities throughout Washington. Yeah. I something controversial again first draft thought but I just want to say and acknowledge that uh before tiny homes we had something called mobile homes uh which is actually uh

you know not the new sexy thing but it is a serious way that people could create get into the housing market and create equity. Uh it still is. Um and a lot of times the reason that there's negative associations with mobile home parks is because the lot owners the people that own the place there's not the people that live there. Um, and so I just want to note that in the context of this conversation because we do have several uh mobile home parks in our uh county that you know I think we should make sure that we're thinking about that as a potential model of how we can improve on moving forward as an as a way of again it's not the tiny homes but it is um I think u you know something that we need to talk about and think about in the context of this. Um, the other thought that I had unrelated to housing, well somewhat related but somewhat unrelated is I just want to like say out loud that I don't think I I agree with my colleagues that there's some efficiencies that can be had working through the county uh for the nonprofits, but I want us to make sure that we are not becoming a nonprofit support agency. That's not our role. That's like maybe the United Way's role or New Center's role. that is not our role. Um, I believe that our role should be we have services that we need to deliver and if a nonprofit is applying to deliver those services, that's where I think the outcomes based modeling has to come in of like you're delivering a service and it's a service that the county should be doing, but you're the one delivering it. So, how can you know who can deliver it the most effectively and efficiently? And I just don't I don't want us to go down the road of like becoming writ large like a nonprofit support entity where nonprofits come to get money for their basic operational needs. We you're providing a service for the county at the end of the day. The other model to take that in, which we've talked about in our small group, which is getting back to some of these questions of an

idea, is around the idea of maybe there's a few nonprofits that deliver core services that we can sort of in-house as county entities. They maybe maintain their nonprofit status, maybe they don't. um but they're you know we we create those efficiencies by making county employees and by you know cooling resources but at the end of the day it's to effectively and efficiently deliver a service on behalf of the county for something that we've set forward. Um and I do want to just note at the end of the day again getting back to something I was saying earlier about solidarity versus charity. I think having public workers deliver services is the most the best way to do that. And I do think that when we take a step back and we evaluate, we look at the cost of providing services, I do think that public workers providing public services uh is often the most effective both both cost effective and uh efficient ways to provide human services to our communities. Here, may I just want to layer I notice your meeting and I certainly applaud you guys for this conversation and I I love that we're thinking about this in two ways. one where we're doing it internally and and certainly the external impact. So two things number one don't want don't want us to lose sight in the fact that we have mandated or core services that we are struggling to fund and that pressure that tension will continue as we move forward. I'd also say and I don't know how many of my uh colleagues anchor institutional colleagues will be listening to this we can't do this by ourselves and I think that as we move forward we have to put them on notice that they have to come to the table and help us create solutions for Boston if we're going to be successful. So I just want to park that a little bit because resources that's something that we talk about at nauseium around this table and

until we com we have a handle on our resource model moving forward we want to hope strong.

Thank you. Um so to move us along what I'd like you to do we're going to um talk now about on the front page of your agenda there's meeting goals. So there's three meeting goals that we all said uh Chie shared them with you all at the beginning of the meeting. We want to take everything that we've been hearing uh throughout the course of today which I think has been very informative. It's a much deeper conversation um than I had expected and I really am happy for it. Um we're going to move this over here so that uh Commissioner Summerville doesn't have trouble seeing it. So that makes me apologize to you for moving easily to um [laughter] So, if we did a field

Yes. I'm just looking back through my notes to make sure there wasn't anything that we needed to go on to this. Yep. Okay. So, you're going to need to read that. Oh, yeah. This isn't it. You're just going to grab it off the I got two to get Okay, I'll start.

Um, so there were three goals that we talked about. So we wanted to establish a shared vision of human resources funding post 2027. We wanted to explore equitable and sustainable funding strategies and we also wanted to build a strategic foundation for next steps. So we have um we're just going to walk us through some of the things that we've heard today. So I thought it was very helpful and beneficial to have the um department directors here. They gave you some very um good clear ideas of what they thought could be actionable steps in your survey responses. You really kind of came together and coalesed around very specific things. So since we've talked about so many things, we want to kind of pull out what our next kind of next steps are, actionable items that we can move forward with. It's doing my best making this work. Um thanks

and I want to appreciate all of you. you all naturally turn outwards and expand like this is the visionary expansive like you all took it very far a field. So I appreciate you coming back inside to the process and the we're not going to build tiny homes but what is what are actionable next steps that we can take to begin to build the pillars for the foundation of this internal aligned human services. And so this is where we're going to practice consensus. And so I apologize groups. My back is to you. So it's fine. Okay. Thanks. Let me know if you change your mind about that. Um

so this goes back to your consensus sheets that you have in front of you talking about one through five and where you you would be sitting.

So if you're sitting and talking, this is where we can kind of practice this to five, right? And so I'm going to kind of walk you through and you can give me your first draft. As a reminder, one is I love this idea. I think we should do this ASAPly. Five is I I'm not feeling this idea at all. Right. And so these are some of the tangible things that Pam and I heard as you were as you were talking today. So we're going to talk a little bit. We'll give you time not to talk for a little bit. So the first thing that we heard about was this idea of a collaborative council of either internal some constitution of internal department heads and you all they come together to braid funding together in an aligned fashion. How are we feeling about that? this collaborative council. Say it again what how we're defining that. That collaborative council would be department heads and you all coming together to have the discussion around how to bring these resources together some kind of cadence kind of internal internal coordination so that I think it was Trisha's idea to she called it the collaborative council so they could give you updates on what's happening in departments give you information you need to make sure that you're getting all the info that you do need to make decisions. Um, and it's more of a collective kind of just making sure you're you're getting together to talk about what's happening internally.

Let me talk about it another way. This is the container for aligned internal funding to take place. When we talked about where do we do that, right? This would be the space. The how is a second. We'll we'll get to the how. I see a one. One is good. One is good. I thought fist was bad. Well, we're doing fist. fist and then five is a fist, right? I'll give it one, two. Okay. Library Council. Yeah. Coordinating one. So, the container. This is the container. Yeah. Okay. Internal container. This is not an external container. Okay. Great. But I'm not enough about it. So, I'm skeptical. Okay. Three. I'm gonna put a four on it.

Four. Four. Fist. No, I'm not going to go fist. lock it becomes I'm willing to support the decision because I trust the wisdom of the group. I'm gonna put a smiley face here then. Okay, sounds good. That's the official. Okay. Um then then another concrete step is that we heard about a systems analysis by department to kind of understand and this goes this feels connected to me to cadenced communication. So like a cadence level set to commissioners by department heads on what are the current programs and services, what are the funding sources, what are the outcomes. This connects with the orientation piece,

right? But then the ongoing update that's going to be needed in this environment. Yes, I'm giving you one. Okay. [laughter] And for my department heads, I'm sorry in advance if this creates more. We have one left. I think Tony Oh, Ja's here. Did we get that? You kind of talked about it about this. But I think when we talk about where do things break down, this might help with that, right? We'll figure out the how later. Other thoughts? I saw one. One two three. Three. I'm with two.

Shannon, not you're not about that life. I won. Okay, I won. I just dropped it. Oh, drop the one shot. I feel like this this is universal application. Okay, we didn't get to the permutations of it, but this seemed like there were strong this wasn't the oper we're not doing, but we agreed to explore this as a step to get you together. Yes. Yes. Great. You guys are doing awesome. So there's the base of required questions you can customize based on what's required for mandate for count like department. Yes. Okay.

Can I ask for uh maybe some nuance in the creation of consensus because I feel like that was a clear like everybody threw it a one. Maybe that deserves two smiley faces. Yeah. Thank you. That was a super one. It was

super. And I'll underline it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. I I appreciate that. Hold me accountable. Um so then there was also this other piece of building on the cubes report to visibleize the more complete picture of resources flowing to NPOS's. I don't know how we do this. I'm just reflecting that there's a desire to really capture the inind resources that we were that we were bringing to bear on the sector. So an enhanced cubes report. Yes. Okay. Explore what that looks like. But like let's see how far we can go with that. I think that's like Here, where you up that? You won. This is stated.

Underst. Okay. You guys are doing exceptionally well. Six hours in. You're still giving us smile. Eat some more chocolates. You're doing short friendly compared to some of our board.

I love it. Come to all of them if you want. So this this feels like these are kind of like course things and then this does feel like the cart. So I want to talk about coming to consensus on what we mean by human services. Maybe it's very clear uh Andy offered this at something and so maybe we want to go there first and then figure out what falls into what you all define as human services to have that further discussion around what funding do we align around that. Yes.

Okay. Actually, that was a question that was brought to my attention from the um the audience um a break was what what do you guys mean by human services? Because also brought it up. Yes. Uh no, I'm five. It looks like five right there. I have not. Okay. I trust what I'm going to do is is say um you guys have heard me say I would like us to get to some idea like we are all seen human services but I want to funnel us even further. So maybe we need to define human services to get the funnel in even narrower. Yes.

Um because I think it's helpful if we say like these are our top three priorities. Not to say that other things aren't our pri our priorities or other things might come up because I wrote emergency funding down there. And I'm just going to say as an example, some of you know that I taught writing English literature before becoming a nurse. When I taught a creative writing class, I had my students I said like everybody describe a box, a lamp, and a table. And then we like went around the room and people read their descriptions of a box, a table, and a lamp. And they were so buried

about what people describe as a box, a table, and a lamp. And I'm like, those are concrete objects. Everybody knows what you're talking about when you say lamp, right? Like, but if you have such a buried picture in your head when somebody says lamp, what's your buried picture when somebody says racism? What's your very picture when somebody says love? If you if we are buried on a concrete object, where are we on the intangibles? So, I think having some of that work on defining what we mean as a board is really important to make sure we're aligned on our expectations.

Yes. And correct me if I'm wrong. Here you go. in this space unlike a private family foundation there is some there are some boundaries on what is considered human services funding by virtue of the federal guidelines and state right so there's I I want to offer that there's a little scaffolding but then you as a as a body need to refine that further so I appreciate that Katie offering that because even if you think you have it defined maybe not given the values that you want to express and the outcomes I want to show yes you said are we trying to come up with our list now or We're just agreeing that we want We are agreeing that you want to do this. That's another meeting. Well, we already figured it out. Three of us. Okay, good.

I think I Why don't you share your example of like when you guys three ages? What we got? Housing, housing, healthare, and H- nutrition. That's the third H just hunger. Hunger, Caroline. All right, that's it. Those are the three. Those are Thank you. Those were our three. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Housing, food, and healthcare act. So that's we got six members of the board right there. Before 3:30 we can honestly if we can figure out that those are our three then we can just adjourn the whole thing. We're gonna let so happy.

We're gonna get all commissioners present. I want to observe that for you all. It's just Annie. Annie's here, but she's just not. I'm just gonna put an aster. Thank you for that H. I even looked up synonyms on Google. I [laughter] You are the parent of small child right now. Grace H. You actually miss me since. [laughter] Okay. So, I heard smiley face here. We're We're gonna we're define. Oh, yeah. We're okay that three and then we'll we'll let's return back to this, right? And see if we can drive some consensus there. Okay. Then the other thing we heard was that there needed to be

Can you put that back there? Yeah. Okay. Mutually held values for this work for the work of aligning funding of the county internally not at large. And so I think that specificity is important. Right. that and then you were going to hold those values probably a smaller set of values maybe some of which you all came up with here. Um there are probably different values that you hold as a commissioner in a in a county commission meeting right at large but mutually held values I'm defining them and agreeing to them for this search. How are we feeling about that?

Does anybody need any further explanation about what that might be? We're agreeing to establish them or we're acknowledging that we do that you that you want should establish and hold mutually held values for this line of work. Human services. Yeah. When she says this line of work. Yeah. Okay. I think I think I would say too just and just to explain that is like we are all different people and we're not going to 100% align on all of our values, but I think what you mean is like finding the values we share for this work. Yeah.

Right. And maybe it's maybe it's those equity, collaboration, effectiveness. We want the product of internal aligned human services funding to express and espouse those values and that that's what you want that outcome to reflect. But I'll just put one smiley face. So then there's this this is kind of a bigger this feels bigger and not as concrete but it's something that came up that with this work there needed to be clear priorities right maybe it's the three H's that also allow for the flexibility to be responsive and I'm going to say coordinated funding again I'm saying it again

and one of the things about coord I'm sorry Caroline One [laughter] of the things about coordinated funding was that it did not do this. It did not allow the flexibility to be responsive when dates came up. It was good because the priorities were very clear. It was outcome driven, right? However, it did not do this. And so I'm I'm sensing that in this moment based on what you all have shared right about wanting to be dynamic that whatever you come to around this internal alignment and priorities needs to have some element of this. I don't know if it's holding back a a pot of money. I don't know. I'm offering that. You can react to it and say that's terrible. That's okay. That's why I'm here. Listen, Jubra coordinated funding. What happened in the community when coordinated funding was very set and had clear priorities with no wiggle room is private funders did have emergency pots of money that they were using to meet those needs. So just

I think that it's just really important then that we come up with the clear priorities because one of the things that I feel like has happened in the last year year and a month year two months with the you know the advent of the new federal administration is I would hear from people and they would say like this is our priority right now and I was like whoa like we have like hold on like I this seems really big right now, but also like maybe it's not actually the biggest. So like

or maybe there's like a way we think about how we meet what do we want to do if we keep something held back? What do the priority is is what does an emergency mean? Okay. I'd like for us to think about this in the context of that we have four-year terms now and potentially in a four-year or after four years there could be different people here

and then after a census there could be more or less of us here, right? So, I would love for us to think about setting goals and priorities and desired outcomes for a four-year period and then doing something like what we're doing today at the beginning of a four-year term. So, we could get to a space as the group to decide these are the things that we're going to prioritize over the next four years. Ideally, if we're successful, these are the outcomes. We have a way to track that with a successful dashboard or other metrics on online so the community can see that we're making progress for a certain set of outcomes. We keep the flexibility piece because you never know. We have to respond to the external environment. You never know what's going to happen and then we revisit it after the four years and then we decide what do we need to be doing now. Uh and with the potential that there's going to be different people at the table.

I appreciate you introducing the line of sight. Right. And then with priorities again some of this is required. Some of this is decided for you as a county entity by virtue of fed or state requirements. Right. So there there are boundaries there. It seems very clear. County is always about the been about the safety of that, right? But how you define that, right? Is it the four three H's or is it something else, right? Um so this is around are you willing to establish clear priorities with some flexibility and to come to consensus on what those are. Okay, I'm seeing where you at five. Yeah,

I agree with what I said. you twitch that double check. Feels good. I see Katie. I'm like a two just because I feel like that needs it's so broad. It needs a little tightening up. But I'm not opposed to it. And maybe in the process of that we tighten up what that means. First draft. First draft. First draft. This first draft. I can't appreciate that. I think that does that helps us though respond to the community. Yeah.

When we we decided on what the clear priorities are. I think it protects us too because then was saying you don't have everybody banging our door down like sorry we're focused society might be really good and give some people in the community a great out outlet and we're like this sounds like a really great thing but does it meet the the three H's like maybe but like you know what I'm saying I just think it's like like yes this is a good idea but we have to focus on these three things. This is where we've come to as a board and it gives us a little bit of I think that ultimately helps the community too because they like oh board of commissioners this is what they do.

Well I mean I talked to you about this specifically I've talked to you about this too and that if we could make these sorts of decisions it would make it easier for funders in the community to decide or to understand the board the county is going to do these things. Yes. And then and then there's any correct that complimentarity piece. Then we can have a bigger conversation among all funders around what are what are our mutual priorities and how we support the safety net at the county level. Can I ask a clarifying question? I have stuff aside with three hes which thank you because when I initially thought of it I knew I

couldn't figure out the thing. [laughter] Um, so I think for like for example with hunger, we know we have one main hub that does the work of like food pantries and works with all the food pantries. We know that we have many different main center points in various parts of the county that do the like meal delivery through meals on wheels or other like um uh medically tailored meals. Like we know who those folks are. And then we have like other things being done that are more like grassroots where they're pulling in gaps. And so I'm wondering for like all those three hes when we're talking about like clear priorities and like flexibility um and like getting our house in order. Some of getting the house in order I think means means being deliberate around like the partnerships with the known work already being done for not duplication. I just want to make sure to say that um out

that feels important to you as part of this discussion when you think about provider mix. Yeah. Right. focusing on the three H's doesn't mean that there's no collaboration or support for the people that are doing the work on the ground with um with any of those three H's because that I think that's still going to be part has to be part of it because I don't like while we try to merge towards circumstances where we have some maybe some employees from those providers become county employees which I like love and I don't know like maybe there's a way to incentivize that I don't want I for me I like we clearly really still needed to fund that work. Mhm.

And so, yeah. Anyways, I don't know what was said when I wasn't in the room, so you're good. You're good. We're going to do this. That's it. You should do this. Yeah, we're going to do this. You all are going to do this. Um, okay. And then this is a bigger This is a messy one, right? Amazing.

The last one is identifying how or the means by which we will undertake this connective and collaborative work. Right? And so this is the is it who is going to be leading this work? Where does the capacity come from internal to the county? But staff are going to be charged with this. Does it live with the um administrator's office? Does it live somewhere else? Are you contracting out? But you can't contract out for this forever because it has to become part of the fabric of how you do work, right? That's a closed session, right? I'll say so we also can figure out whose job this becomes,

right? But I think the capacity piece is crucial and having that conversation up front around who's going to keep this moving forward. Um that it's going to be imperative to this being successful, right? And so as

and you can think about it in ways that it might break down into different departments, you know, like you if you have this um the the the collaborative units, you know, come together on your twice a year or quarterly meetings, you know, that might be part of it. So it doesn't have to be one be all end all. I think we can get pretty creative um in that in that section. Um but there does have to be somebody driving the work, right? And where does that capacity come from? Who's the most appropriate body team to to carry that out? Is it an interdisciplinary team, interdep departmental? Um, so just wondering this feels like a obvious, but what's how are feeling people feeling about wanting to tackle this one in a fist of five?

Okay, you want to tackle it? Great. Great. I'm gonna put big. [laughter] You have to We don't really have a choice. We have to guess what essential that was a red herring. Um so far when you say this, are you point Can you just read out what you're pointing to? I am pointing to identifying how or the means by which the commissioners will collectively undertake this connective collaborative work. Beautiful. Thank you. So sorry to interrupt.

Yeah. And so some of these what Pam and I can do is I think based on the discussion today we can order these in terms of easiest to tackle the lowhanging fruit versus the this is going to be a more involved conversation so that you all can kind of chip away at it as you see fit as a group. Do you want to go in to the trickiest stuff first or do you want to kind of knock out the easiest stuff first? Well, I remember this was like a board priorities retreat for the year, but even when I was like thinking about it this morning, I was like, it's almost like it's almost outlining the rest of our four-year term, you know, like so this isn't stuff like that we get done by like March 15th. No, this is big stuff.

No, you're building a foundation on which future leaders will will build, right? like this is the foundation and they're going to continue to build on it with you all. Would you all come to consensus or this work? Yeah. Okay, Pam, where are we going next? All right. Uh, we're a little ahead of time. So, if you guys want to take a 10-minute break, we can. We're five is great, too. So then you're going to come back and we're going to just briefly talk about the board of commissioners understanding and desires for internal versus external stakeholders and how we're going to move the work forward. Right? And then we'll be doing a closing and a public comment.

Okay. All right. So it's um about 2:35. So how about 2:40? Good. You all might get time in your life back.

All right, we we are in the home, don't you bet? I if you didn't do a stretch to hear your seventh inning stretch right now as we're in um so there has been conversation earlier today um and actually through a number of different conversations that we had

commissioners wanted to know well who are the stakeholders that we could talking about are they internal stakeholders and who would that be or are they external stakeholders so we want to have a discussion with you about both of those things internal stakeholders, who do you think they are? Who do you need to hear from to have the information that you need to make decisions? And then external, who are they? And how are we going to communicate with them? So, your your public, the general public, your constituents, uh different groups, like when we um I think I identified like 17 16 different groups that I had to communicate with when we started the merger process, right? So, it's all the different people that I wanted to make sure uh knew what we were doing and why we were doing that. So, that's the conversation we'd like to have with you. So, let's start maybe with the easy one. Uh, which do you think is easier? Do you want to start with internal or external? And we want to capture who you think that is so that we make sure they're included in ongoing discussions.

I'll answer both. You want to pick one? I was going to say external because they are partners that have funding that can help us stretch our funding and so that I think that helps you shape the rest of it. So when you talk about external and leveraging other funding all the foundations.

Okay. So are you talking specifically about other possible funding groups? Yes. Oh, okay. So, foundations and whoever at the state might be um uh I don't know if it's LEO or I don't know who but what whatever department at the state might be sort of the conduit for um uh state funding and then whoever federally we we might ever talk to about uh resources and funding that become drums available. All right. What about donors?

Absolutely. And we never talk about this, but I always say this. Corporates cover your ears, Yousef. I am. I'm already feeling it.

I can feel you trembling from here. Yeah, they have money and they operate in our county and and I think that there is a level of nudging that we can do with them like, okay, so you're profiting from being in our county. How are you being a good um a good neighbor? And then last but not least, um labor. Labor has resources. They're going to get me for saying that, but they have resources and we I don't know that we ever ask them uh to contribute.

Okay. So, these are these are external stakeholders that could help with additional funding. What of what other external stakeholders do you want to make sure that you address throughout this process? local units of government and I mean they they vary in what kinds of services and how they provide them. But I think that particularly for the local units of government that don't really provide many or any human services. There should be some conversation around their expectations uh and hopes for what we're providing to our shared residents and how they want to contribute to service provision. I want to switch what he just had to say and say we should talk to them about what our expectations are. We know what theirs are, which is to not give us anything. [laughter]

I did say that. Truth. Yep. I said it. I said it before. So, animal control. Amen. Don't do that. All right. We're gonna stay on the human services. Let's stick with me on the human services. Well, there something that would say they're animal. Yeah. Yeah. And they are they do overlap because if you know if we're not receiving those funds back, then we have less money to spend on human services. So, all right. What other external stakeholders do you want to make sure that you're communicating to? People that receive the services. Okay. End users. Okay. And users. What about um nonprofit partners? Yeah, I think that was you said. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. They can't help with funding, but they can't help with funding. Can I request that you guys write this so we can all see which one? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, because I thought we'd said funders. They can't Maybe they can't give us cash, but they they have a nonprofit status, which means if if I choose faith-based, they're nonprofits.

They absolutely have the ability to go to their members and say that you could make a donation. Yep. and we could adopt whatever with your donations um utilizing our nonprofit status. I got it. When I say funders, I mean I want to talk to them about also our goals, our three ages and have it understood as we get more concrete here where we're going the direction of funding so they can also understand that for their works and then eventually be able to take the UA to those funders as well to see if we can get buy in across the board. Okay,

this would likely be included in one of the other categories, but I want to pull them out separately. the health systems especially since we're thinking about legal services and health [laughter] the health systems I think should be in closer partnership and I would hope uh more generous with how we partner in other words they have their handout and we give give and we get very little in return that's what he meant well they they benefit from having a healthier yes yes community I I mean, they're going to have to spend less on provision,

especially with the changes to insurance coverage. Yep. Administrator bills that fall across corporations have been more than others part of the solution. And like I think Trinity Health like their team has been really consistently focused on not just like shortterm but like long-term change and um housing and homelessness. Yep. So it's not just financially money. I I actually has been that Yeah.

and a good partner. So we've talked about the entities that provide money, entities that receive money, the end user. What about those bridges? Like if they are educational system, a social workers that are there that help families find these resources. Do we want to look at any of those types of organizations? But sort of in the middle because they touch all three of those hes. And um I've said this a number of times and I I'm going to say I haven't followed up but we've got Mckin Vento

and I don't know that we've ever like talked about how do we connect what they are able to do with what we need to do right h how do we leverage that so that it's not a duplication with the ISD to to start. Okay, great. Let's talk to them about CTE, too. Oh, I've already Oh, yeah. One bit. I agree. I guess one that comes to mind for me is uh food producers. Since we're talking about hungry, all my rural commissioners just mindmelted that one to me. Farmers, that's what I'm talking about.

Farmers, but also food producers like Jiffy and stuff like that. People that make food are Well, let's not forget to effect like do that and then also leverage the connection food gatherers already has with some of those. Yeah. Well, like we've talked about like we have a food policy council. We talked at one point about having food hubs. I don't know where that's all at, but right, I want to elevate what Yousef just said because there are some convening bodies that exist that you might want to do an inventory of that the county either directly or indirectly has a responsibility for and so we don't need to do an exhaustive list, but I think that's important too. Those are some great groups. Yeah.

All right. Is it okay to go on to internal stakeholders? One second. One chapter. That's what you get. Start thinking while I start writing. Okay. Internal stakeholders. What does that mean to you? And who do you want included? Finance. Finance.

I said just the staff broadly the particularly the frontline staff. I don't none of us are going to be implementing like on the ground doing the kinds of changes that we're talking about here. We're making the policy. Uh I wouldn't want to make any kind of decision without feedback from the people delivering the services. Okay. What's the best way to communicate with the BOC if you're a staff member or someone? Is it going to go back to the collaborative council where only the department heads are going to be speaking to you or I think we should have a number of internal meetings where commissioners can go uh and hear directly from staff about ideas and hear their ideas too and figure out how we go about implementing some of this.

Okay. I also think that maybe we should do this and make sure that it gets emailed out to every single county employee, but county employees, regardless of what department you work in, should always be will like welcome to email us about their opinions about either like a service they provide or other services in other parts of the county because many of them live here. And even if they don't, they're still allowed to have opinions and they're still allowed to communicate with us. And so maybe this is an opportunity to have some sort of like like if an employee wants to give us anonymous feedback like maybe there's a way for them to submit that through the board of commissioners web page. But I I think we should make it clear to employees that they can always reach out to us via email or by phone or schedule a meeting for any reason. But of course for something like this related to human services.

I'm hearing like a comment box. Yeah,

I do I do think so. Like building off of that, I think that we need to provide specific spaces and places where we ask the employees directly because I think it's it's one thing to just make sure that there's open line of communication. It's another thing to say we value your take on this issue. Let's workshop it together and get your because your people on the ground doing the work and seeing the things we know that your opinions can matter more. Yeah. to bounce off that, not to cut you, but what if we did like something like a rotating um like rotating dates for departments could allow commissioners to drop in and allow employees drop in have more like office hours, but like a schedule that way they know like on this day like I'll at least be able to talk to like a commissioner in person.

I see it. I'm not in charge of this meeting. Shannon's in charge of this meeting. Um, Mr. We have a rotating town town hall style meeting with the administrator, we could modify that and create the space offic. So for this purpose, as long as we're clear, it's not for grievances. No, we're not. Exactly. But we need to be clear. Got to get some people in trouble. Um,

frame space. So I've got my Okay. So the internal stakeholders I'm going to say broadly uh the judicial system whether or not it's um what comes to my mind is friend of the court. Uh eviction court.

I think that we need to be asking I've said this before so this is my own personal issue. We should be asking people that come before the judicial system some sort of basic questions like okay are you are you wanting child support are you facing eviction cuz you the other parent is not paying their child support. I think that we need to gather that information to help the already established systems understand that their system is broken and needs to be updated and amended because if I'm if I have a child and I'm getting ch supposed to get child support

and I don't get it and then I'm not able to pay my rent on time and I'm not able to buy groceries, then what that does is that pushes me into having to use human services that I typically would not have to and we need those numbers, right? This goes back to the data that you all need to be making informed decisions, right? You catching that? Yep. Okay. We talked about staff and I think we're talking about like frontline staff, people who are delivering service,

but I really do feel like the internal stakeholder we haven't talked about are the department heads. These are um by and large women who have a lot of systems knowledge about how their department works and how their department works with the external world. We would be remiss if we weren't including them as a central part of stakeholder discussions in talking about where we're going. Okay. Yeah. Yes. So, I agree, but I've got something to lay over on that.

And um the department heads that I've talked to or worked with, you know, they they should not wear their heart on their sleeve when I say this. We do need to talk to the department heads, but we also need to recognize that they sit in a different seat than the people that are actually touching our residents. Yeah. And so I don't want there to be a situation where department heads feel like they have the ability to mute y the staff that may be able to say to us this has been a broken system for 15 years. Agreed. Why can't we fix it? Right.

So I'm not saying that our department heads are not going to be honest with us, but I we do need to give voice. Yeah. To the people that have been raising issues and maybe they've been ignored by the same department heads that we want to talk to. So the conditions must be clear for the norms in that space. Yeah. Yes. And that is equal, right? The department head's voice is not stronger. No. Yes. Than the front line person,

right? The power versus proximity thing. an institutional knowledge for the for some of these department heads I think will be important because some people will say like we should do it like this and the department head could be like hey little known fact we actually tried to get that off the ground two years ago like doesn't necessarily mean not do it but then we can hear what the pitfalls were you know so and in addition to that they'll understand you know as as fresh were saying that there are some statutory restrictions around funding and that sort of thing and the Reason we don't do X is because the paper requires five to do.

It's all important. For instance, both can't talk to the staff without talking to the department heads. You can't talk to department heads without talking to the staff 100%. Who else internally? You going on the road show too? I mean you say staff broadly but I you want to drill down a little bit more? We can't just Well, I'm just going to say Yousef already mentioned some of our ancillary bodies that already I would say their internal stakeholders are some of the committees that are are that already do work like the cabour

like the CAB like the food policy council maybe even things like the CJCC like how how what is the interaction of these if I'm just taking the three H's what is the interaction there with like the with justice you know so I think looking at those obviously there's public health board and CH boards there's a lot of like places I think that that those are internal stakeholders we should use to the the older person services millillage community the older person's commission the youth commission all of these are people that have ideas and are engaged in the community and a vessel of interest

commissions and committees I'd say the countywide elected officials to the extent that it makes sense I mean probably all of them are engaging people and even if it's not human services and that in the way that we've been thinking about it while we still haven't defined it super clearly uh one thing to consider would be the impact on the criminal legal system that countywide elected officials are involved in. Yes. Yes. For sure. They're all interfacing with users.

Yeah. So I'm just underline permission and star it so that we remember this is not an exhaustive list representative. Yes. Um maybe it makes sense for like all of those bodies, the department heads, the countywides if we have some sort of like resolution that we approve that directs like a generalized like both survey for like the individual but also requires that those departments report back on how those three key issues like interact with whatever they're doing. So like that's how we could get the data from like what money this year and for the next like three years is already budgeted for any of these three things or not because some of them it'll be a zero.

Um that's a long way we can start collecting all that information now with getting everybody more involved in like that process thinking through the how data. Yeah. Got that. Thank you. The administrator and the administrative team are of course internal stakeholders. Goes without saying, but we're going to write it down. Yeah. [laughter]

So, kind of capturing all of this with you is so much easier than trying to think of, you know, all everything after the fact. So, um, thank you for coming up with internal and external stakeholders. We can always expand it. anyone in the audience makes public comment that makes us think of one more thing, you know, we'll certainly add it. Oh, go ahead. I thought of one more thing that actually is kind of both, but what about like former county staff? Like people who either they're retired or they left the county and maybe they have some knowledge of a collaborative entity. I think anybody in the room could be included or outside

right now as long as

you on your resume. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that is an interesting constituency to engage, right? Because over the years this body has had more internal alignment, right? The abs and flows. And so if you could find some of those folks that might be interesting.

All right. Are we good? You guys feel comfortable with internal and external? All right. Then the other thing you don't have to consider today or you don't have to make a decision today is um when you talked about decision rights. Um, so when we move forward, when you decide to move forward with if it's the three H's or any of the action items that you talked about today, you also should be thinking, and it goes back to kind of the racial equity office as well, is it's best to put it out there that this was a decision you made and you're seeking input. This was a decision you made that you're moving forward with. So, it just helps the whole transparency and communication process if you tell people right up front, right? What what this was, how you got here, um, and how you're moving forward. So, just something to con consider, and I'm sure Derek will pick it back up, you know, as we move forward. Um, all right. So, decision rights and communication. So, now we're on to this closing discussion. So, I want to talk to you about all the great work that you did today. So you came up you you agreed to the defined goals that were originally shared on the agenda. You move forward on those. You have some action steps, actionable items that you all agreed on through the consensus process. Um those include um a collaborative council um systems analysis so we understand what the giant scope of human services is in Washington County. uh human services funding analysis internally for the for the actual county so you know where your dollars are going and and how we're going to make that accessible to you at all times. Um a coordinated process or a universal application those were both used this in the same way. So, um, to make sure that it is it's an equitable, clear, and transparent process on RFPs, how you gain dollars, how you gain in

and in to the county, which is is what a lot of people think of it as. And then we're going to come up with a human service definition as well. So, so you you've decided on a lot. So, you have really moved the needle on what we were trying to accomplish today. So, I appreciate you for that. Um Bridget and I will do a full kind of report um for you on what we did today, what we captured today. Um we're happy to come back and talk to you about it if you would like us to. We have our action items defined. And then it leads us to any final reflections. So this is a chance for commissioners that if you want to make sure that you had something on your mind you wanted to say as part of this conversation that maybe you haven't had the chance to yet. Any final reflections on the day? Then we'll go to appreciations and public comment.

Oh, look. I was just going to thank the two of you for facilitating. I really appreciate the time and effort that went into this. I'm skipping, I guess, the reflection going to. You're reflecting on the facilitation. I'm reflecting on the facilitation. I thought this went really well. I appreciate all my colleagues for engaging deeply in the the process. Uh especially my small group right here. Really good team. Uh, thank you to Ashley too for the work on your end to to make this happen and to make it a success. Thanks, Ashley.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for being here. I appreciate it. Uh, I think this is probably one of the more productive retreats we've had. Um, I tend to feel like our retreats are a mixing of word salad. You know, this kind of felt like something a little bit more concrete came out of it. The three H's in particular. So, we'll get you a t-shirt. H. Oh, so we decided the t-shirt. We're gonna make merch. Yeah. The merch is going to say uh what is it? Health, housing, hunger. Hell yeah. Oh, yeah. I thought hot. That's right. Jason. Hell yeah.

Uh I want to thank all the staff for who attended today and endured through this. Uh and I agree I agree with you that I feel this been a pretty productive session in order for us to um you know keep moving forward. It's going to take intentionality. Uh, and I guess that balls chair Scott to make sure she maybe Andy too pushing us forward, but uh, yeah, I I think it was a good day. So, thank you very much. Thank you.

Um, thank you to the staff for, you know, putting this together, um, and making it look very seamless as they always do. Um, I would say I think this I don't know if this is my third or fourth, maybe my third retreat. Um, I think this is something we could sink our teeth into. Um, I would like to add though that I would like for us to do a follow so closer to maybe the end of this year actually look and see hold ourselves accountable to see what have we actually done. So we we we had great discussion and ideas, but are we kicking a can forward or are we actually, you know, doing something and what have we done and and to be able to share that out with our residents?

Yes. But I I enjoyed what we've been able to capture and, you know, I'll let them remember that I came up with a better for the service. You get a free t-shirt. want to ask and underneath we'll say commissioner um but I' I've enjoyed it and uh I probably don't say this often enough but I I feel blessed that um I am a part of a board that even you know when we fight like siblings because we do

um we're still all same bloodlines you know this is a democratic board and I think it matters in terms of how we serve residents.

Me um well, I want to say thank everybody, thank you to the staff. This was a a big it's a big day even with a last minute space change um in a room with AB challenges and we made it work. Um and we made it be able so people in here could hear what was happening and at home. So, Ashley, Pam, all the staff, Greg for like supporting staff being here. Um, you being here. Um, I the department heads who came and sat in this meeting all day. The nonprofit partners who came and sat in this meeting all day. Um, I that's the all felt very important to me. I feel like um I had a vision on how I wanted this day to happen and it happened and I was really hopeful we would come out with actual priorities and I was like even though we did a kind of really iterative look at the agenda beforehand I was worried we wouldn't get there and I sort of have this feeling of elation that we did um and also with extra goals for how we can get there and that we did it as a consensus model I think is phenomenal. So that that vision of how we talk about internal coordinating funding and funding and and doing this work today huge and all I can say is thank you to my colleagues for making that happen. That just is um really phenomenal. So thank you.

Yeah, echo a lot of what's already been said. Thank you everyone in the room for being part of this. the big list, the smallest, all of it matters and your input because participation matters. So, thank you for that. Thank you for our facilitators for keeping us on task. It's not easy [laughter] if you've watched our meetings or a bunch of

um so thank you for that and uh for helping to synthesize a lot of this information. What I really appreciated coming out of today is just finding the alignment even though we may have different thoughts that are coming forward. Again, there's that thread through that continues. Um, so it's wonderful to hear that we're all headed down the same path and we may have different ways to get there. So that was really exciting for me and yeah excited to continue to move this forward. Thank you.

Thanks everyone for coming out and thank you all for uh as Shannon say keeping us on task because we can we can get jiggy with it. Um [laughter] also another great shirt another t-shirt idea for you. That's right. [laughter] That'll be the back.

Yes. So we I think it was productive. Um, and we were able to um we ventured off a little bit, but we were able to get out some of the things that we had heavy on our chest. I know I did. And so um I just want to continue building on this. Um but I also want um this to be um the challenge for all nine of us that we have to we have to do it like we have to to get [clears throat] going. um because we have the priorities that we want to we have what we need to do and now we need to do it. I think we drag our feet a bit too much and so today is the challenge that we were able to get done for the time that we said we were going to get done. So it's the kickstart to us getting the priorities moving. We we might not complete them, you know, all okay, we're going to complete them like they said by March, but today was the head start. This is the jump start and we have to get moving on it. We can't drag our feet. We can't prolong. So, this was a good kickstart, a good jump start to get us going. So, thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you. Uh I don't know, uh Commissioner Bean, if you call for public comment, and that's from anyone, uh right in the audience or online. Yes. So, I'll open it up at this moment for public comments. Do you have any public comments in the room? Well, it's also your comment. Um Jonathan, can I even come a little bit further through the mic? You just look so fabulous. Thank you. Yeah, this perfect you or does she have to state her name and whatever?

My mouth sharp township, my commissioner is Caroline Sanders and I want to thank the hospitality team for providing us a delicious breakfast and lunch and for packing it up to go to Alpha House East. Yeah, you

um my name is Bruce Astrid and I'm the vice chair of the commission on Aging. So, I've been working with folks over the last couple of years and I have two really comments. The first is I just want to congratulate you on a really not only positive but a really hopeful day. um last year when you met I came to the um the retreat as well and um it was a really difficult moment because um you guys were not all on the same page and I think what happened was what was starting to happen in the country was also very troubling and we just didn't even know how to begin to think about it and I think the work you did today was really really um Laurville and I think you it's a great and hopeful start for some really important work at this time. One cautionary note that I I offer. Um I've been doing this work for almost six decades and I've been working on many of these same issues. I've done it from in the philanthropic sector. I've done it in the nonprofit sector and I've done it in the public sector. I've worked in three different state governments. The two of the three H's that you've chosen are two of the most broken and intractable areas. healthare and housing

and I would even say I mean I think the hunger stuff is critically important and you're doing some good work there but even and then the inequality question just over the last 40 years it's just gotten worse and worse and my I guess my hope would be that as you think about how to tackle those issues and you rethink about what it means for human services today um that we really do think in ways that are both draw from the best of the ba of of the past and break some ground in some some new areas as well. And I heard a lot of elements of that when people were the trip to Waco or you know hearkening back to I'll just [clears throat] give one example. Um we're going to be meeting in in a week or so or a month or so with the uh AAP folks to talk about um age friendly communities which is a broad concept and really does touch on a lot of this but the origins of that was the Robert Wood Johnson foundation we have to limit the time wrap it up real quick. Thank you. So the Robert Wood Johnson work from over 25 years ago was central to um livable communities and what we need to do more equitable for everybody. So drawing from the past as well as breaking some ground in the future is going to be such an important aspect of your work and I hope you guys continue in the same vein that you uh did today. So thank you.

Thank you. Any others for public comment? No one's online. All right. Move to ajourn. Is that it? Wait really really quickly. Um uh thank you all for being here. If you are a staff person and you're capable of moving tables and chairs around back.

Good job, y'all. Good job.

Mine's Uhhuh.

You won't join. I think That's