 Good morning. I'd like to call to order the May 30th 2023 Board of Supervisors budget hearings for state budget hearings if we could begin with a roll call, please Certainly supervisor Koenig here Cummings Yeah, Hernandez here McPherson and friend here We'll just begin actually with a Pledge of Allegiance if we could to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands One nation under God Morning mr. Plasio, so there any changes to today's agenda. We have no corrections to the agenda. Thank you Good morning, mr. Pimentel. We're gonna begin today with the budget manager's overview. So if we could begin with you, thank you Thank you chair friend and board of supervisors. I am your county budget manager Marcus Pimentel, and I'm pleased to present to you Welcome you to our second day of budget hearings for the 2023-24 proposed budget today's hearings will Continue our hearings that started on April 27th or excuse me May 9th Following the release of our budget on April 27th over these next two days Departments will be providing you presentations and you'll receive Overviews on the consent agenda and departments as a whole by myself This morning and tomorrow morning We ask That we hold questions from my presentation till the end and departments will also have opportunities for you to present questions at the end of Their presentations Members of the public will have an opportunity to offer input into the board items During public comment following the consent agenda items and after each department's presentation The proposed budget and departmental gender reports now include the supplemental budget which reflects adjustments since a publication of The proposed budget the unified fee schedule updates and proposed continuing agreements list Much of this content is also available in our award-winning website on the budget site in our document library As a reminder included within our award-winning budget our segments on the CAO's budget message Outlook our economic outlook and financial budgetary outlooks information about county services how tax dollars are allocated across the county demographic information our 2325 proposed operational plan and certainly details To the end degree within our budget and within the board reports contained today and tomorrow's hearings Today's hearings will focus on the general government departments that are included in your consent agenda Health and human service departments and conclude with the first half for our public safety and justice departments These hearings will continue to tomorrow May 31st to conclude the public safety and justice departments and discuss the land use and community service Departments with capital projects the hearings will then continue and conclude on June 13th 2023 with the last day reports and concluding actions These next six slides are essentially repeats from our May 9th presentation was slight updates. I'll move through them quickly But it is important to to remind our board in our community that we are a County that is systematically Underfunded and challenged by that underfunding status. We are a unique county across the state of California We serve a greater percent of our population than most counties and we receive far less funding than most of our peers and Counties across the state We have like many counties though a deferred capital investment for our aging infrastructure and aging facilities We've provided many updates We are still struggling with the cost of disaster response and recovery of those claims Now dating three years from the COVID in the CZU fires at 2020 and the new 2023 Dual disaster storm events that we've had to respond to we're struggling but moving towards fulfilling gaps in our behavioral health investments and Looking outward we have challenges with financing public safety emergency communications improvements that will improve into our entire accounting systems Included within our 1.1 billion budget is a balanced $738 million general fund with 67 million still outstanding from our COVID in CZU fire claims and over 300 million in unfunded capital investments our new forecast model that we Rebuilt this fall this past fall projects smaller but more credible deficits in our out years between 8 and 10 million and We've showed illustrations in these slides. What it would take to bring bring our reserves up to 15 percent The reason why we're targeting a 15% reserve is at our 10% reserve level we are restrained from Spending and investing in our community especially in the places of health care investments much of our current reserves are include health care funding that To meet our 10% we must hold those reserves and not allocate those towards projects or expanding services When we back out those health funded reserves our reserves dropped to 4% are about 1.8 3 1.8 payroll cycles As a really important reminder are within our general fund this budget proposes to fund 223.4 million of our discretionary general fund revenue. This revenue is based on 210 million in credible revenue coming in so that creates a delta of just under 13 million dollars that we're projecting to Solve through budgetary savings and some planned administrative Management during the year so we're over prescribed in our general fund departments and these investments of 223 million includes substantial investments to retain and sustain our workforce Well over 12 million dollars coming into this year the proposed increases in the entire budget countywide all funds includes 36.45 positions or just over 1% and total expenditures increase of 38.6 million or 3.6% This is an austere budget and we've managed and worked with all of our departments who've done a phenomenal job and keeping our budget balanced and solvent as we look in the out years This chart represents the increases in our major categories proposing to add 14.7 positions in our health and human services six positions in public safety and justice 11.8 positions in land use and community development and four positions across general government Those details will be discussed in department budget hearings or and I'll cover them a little bit in a few minutes as Just a recap or we're approaching the end of our budget cycle. That's that started last November We are on May 30th So we're in the second day of budget hearings tomorrow will be day three and we'll conclude our budget hearings on June 13th Where the board will take action to approve the 23 24 budget Including our consent agenda items are all the general fund Government general government excuse me general governmental departments I'll provide just a brief recap. There are More details in the agenda packet and the individual board reports by each department Within this category of our general government. There's a hundred twenty three point nine million in expenditures proposed of that seventy eight Seventy eight point seven million is our other funds. So when we back that out our general fund portion of this Categories only forty five point two million the biggest Departments and service categories are personnel risk management information services and general services Within these departments, they all some of them rely on general fund contributions to balance their operations Many of these departments are not revenue generating. So they depend they depend on subsidies County admin office and personnel and risk management and county clerk elections are some of the bigger departments with Funding needs to keep their balances whole Across these departments. There are very few increases Personnel risk management are more about setting aside Available fund balances and other funds for claim reserves. So those are not necessarily expenditures Backing those out. They're very modest increases and cross the entire general government department two positions for a county council One position for the Cessar recorder and one position in information services Again, these are described in detail and the individual department budget reports and the consent agenda items Another section on consent is our county financing This is the section that includes the budget for our general fund debt service Our general fund contingency at 1% of our general fund costs and our general county revenue The proposed budget in plans to encumber 41.5 million in expenditures 20 million largely in county financing for debt service and 20.6 million in our capital projects Capital projects will be discussed in more detail tomorrow at the end of tomorrow's hearings Within these segments there are no positions in these departments But the the delta and the changes for each of these areas are expenditures in general county revenue They have some expenditures related to some Transfers out there. They went down 2.5 million debt service went up 1.6 million largely attributed to the South County Government Service Center Contingencies are down and capital projects have gone up and again those will be discussed In detail tomorrow and they are included in the board in the board packets Health and Human Services the two biggest departments in our county will will provide detail presentations when I'm done That's will be covered by health services agency in the Human Services Department and on consent are our other departments child support services and core investments these funds total 45 451.5 million in expenditures for the entire county county-wide of that the bulk of that is general fund 447.2 million with a small amount about 10 percent 4.3 million in other funds for environmental health funds You can see the human and health service departments are some of our biggest departments and some of our biggest service providers in our community Health and Human Services relies on general fund contributions the tune of 23.1 million for human services 14.8 for health services and the core investments is fully funded by a general fund contributions 4.9 million The changes in these departments are largely attributed to the 9.7 positions in health services and five positions being added to Human services both these departments as you'll hear following my presentation I rely on a lot of federal and state funding So they'll have swings in revenues and expenditures that are matches They'll receive a grant and that'll be funded by expenditures So their increases in costs are offset by increases in revenue our public safety and justice departments the three that will present today office of Recovery response resilience our public defender office and probation department and then tomorrow these hearings will continue with the district attorney public Administrator and the sheriff corner and tomorrow's consent agenda item will include the public safety departments As a whole they account to two hundred million dollars the largest departments are a sheriff corner probation and district attorney and public defender and of them about 16.8 million are other funds a largely county fire with some funding for sheriff sheriff special Special district funds in total there's a hundred and eighty three million in general fund financing within these departments proposed in the budget They rely on a total 114 million So about half of their expenditures are covered by the general fund the biggest Support going to the sheriff corner at sixty six point one million of general fund revenue going to support the sheriff corner's department sixteen million for the public defender 17 million for a district attorney and nine point five million going to support the public probation The changes in these departments are largely with the sheriff corner five million dollars attributed as you'll hear in their presentations tomorrow mandated cost increases to provide Increased health care and mental health services to our detainees in our in our sheriff detention centers is also in our Replicating the probation department their costs have gone up for health care and mental health costs The positions are modest across all these departments with three being added to the sheriff corner to the public defender and one for the district attorney That concludes my overview more importantly I want to hand the floor off to the departments who will be coming in behind me and providing a lot more details to their operations But I'm available for questions now before we go into consent Are there questions from any of my colleagues that are honest? Thanks for the presentation wonder if you can go back to the previous slide I'm just curious because I know there's been a number of slides that popped up where you have the orange bars and the blue bars next to each other's I'm just wondering what the relationship is between those the orange bars are position increases and for the departments the blue bars represent Their expenditure cost increases. So in this case the district attorney's adding one position their costs have gone up About seven hundred ten thousand dollars Okay, thank you. Yep Thank you for the question Supervisor McPherson. Yeah, I just wanted to make some general comments and thank you for all the county staff for Developing this budget and presenting it I think you've had it allows for more more public access than I can remember my ten years here as a county supervisor And when I look at the the budget as a whole department by department What I see is a thoughtful strategic plan That addresses how our county is going to operate in this next fiscal year And how our county is situated with the larger statewide and national picture as well I'm glad we've been cautious on our budgeting process and approach and partnering with their workforce I can't say enough about them our employees while ensuring our county remains in good fiscal health As our operation plan shows we have done a great deal of limited resources and Thanks to the dedication of all of the employees and county government It's been these last few years as this has been remarkable of what they have done gone the extra mile And I'm glad this budget allows us to meet our Obligations when it comes to negotiated compensation with our employees That is really great and maintain our reserves, which you said we just can't that's a target all the time Hey, they're there let's spend them know We have to do it wisely and I thank you for your explanation on that And it seems more difficult than ever to remain competitive In our recruitment and retention efforts under the circumstances We have with our housing shortage and comparable housing costs that we have here in Santa Cruz County the transportation needs The fact that other jurisdictions in our our region offer higher Wages thanks to receiving a greater share of the local tax base. And as you stated, we're we're in a position that we can't get out of Not because well, we just can't make that move to get more property tax revenue for instance and so forth But while we work to address these areas I One point I cannot mention enough is that we have to see greater reimbursement from the state and federal government With COVID in the CZU fires and the atmospheric riser of river events that we've had this past couple years It's just over the top We hit one time two times three times and that said I want to say thank you to our own state and federal representatives that we have John Laird state senator John Laird and Robert Reeves who's going to become speaker next month of the assembly and And then Anna issue who is now not our congresswoman. She was drawn out of our county and the new reapportionment, but Jimmy Panetta has been here Often and they get it. They they know what we are facing And have had the the strength to pull the president of the United States here to see what what challenges we face in Santa Cruz County So I'm really pleased with their efforts, but we need to flip the switch somewhere In FEMA in particular to get the Well, it's probably close total to about a hundred million dollars now We're going to be north of yeah north of a hundred million with 50 to 70 million from this year alone. Okay So and the last three years as I said have been really challenging and what has been most frustrating is that Some of the things we want to do and especially in my district where it has completely septic tanks That's overseeing and regulated much by the state and how quickly we can we can Really respond to that Fire access is the second point the fire departments the Cal fire and how what is needed now that wasn't needed before and Have to be part of the rebuilding process And then the geological standards that we have here and some of the limitations we have especially in my fifth district I'm not trying to make excuses. This is just the fact We would all like to move faster than we have but we do have to work with state and federal regulations to Rebuild this county from those three disasters that I've mentioned. So I just want to say I'm really overall Really proud and encouraged by the actions been taken by our whole county workforce They've worked above and beyond the call of duty many extra hours is that many people have seen I look forward to hearing from the departments and We'll bring the proposed budgets We have a lot of uncertainty ahead of us But I think that the projections that you have made the real the realities that you've expressed that combination of Events we just have to keep working on it and I really want to appreciate again The full core of the county employees that we have and what they have done these last three years. It's really remarkable. Thank you Thank you, sir. I was my first and all right. We want to give the community an opportunity to Come speak to us on items in regard in the consent agenda Today, so if there's any member of the community that like to address us on any of the items are on consent before the board It makes comments on consent and also Considered is there anybody from the community that'd like to address us to stay on the consent agenda Or if you're unable to stay for the regular agenda items also for that, please feel free to step forward All right, I'm seeing none in chambers that would like to speak to us on the consent agenda is there anybody online madam clerk I'm not seeing any speakers online chair. Okay. I'll bring it back to the board. Are there any comments on the consent agenda from board members? well, I Just needs to be mentioned item number 15 our county administrative officer Carlos Palacios and his team Once again for their terrific leadership in the past several years There's been a tremendous amount of adjustments that we've had to make and to look forward as best we can Without the funding resources that we need from the state and federal agencies that we that I mentioned earlier We were able to increase the compensation While also making investments in disaster response Climate adaptation public health housing and homeless and other critical areas Without the steady and nimble leadership of car Carlos Palacios and his whole team We would really be in a severe Financial hole much more than we have now I think they have a great foresight and it's much appreciated by this board server by this this supervisor And I'm sure the whole Board of supervisors and and likewise the the county council under county council Jason Heath We've had a lot of issues that we've had to face that we couldn't have foreseen and he's in his team have really responded so well for us for to adjust to what is reality and what's different and For through no fault of anybody else Just the natural COVID fires storms, whatever We've had to make some real adjustments and so I'm really appreciative of that Also on the consent agenda the general services department They called upon to address a host of needs throughout the numerous county facilities and the vehicle fleet that we have the workplace has changed a great deal as a result of COVID and Your hard work to maintain The physical spaces and plan for the future facility needs is really highly appreciated And then on information services number 19 This is another department whose efforts have really Touched so many aspects of our the county and that we are more reliant on than ever The technology that we get and as quickly as we can get it and make it as public as quickly as possible And this budget is an example of that itself I think the information services team does this work while also protecting against the threats of our cybersecurity and That's that's an issue that's going to be become more pronounced as the The weeks and months and years go by now It seems like new things are happening that we have to keep up with and protect our citizens at the same time so those those few on the general services or the The consent agenda I should say I just want to point out what a fantastic job that they have done through this last three years Thank you Thank you. All right, we're gonna reopen public comment. Mr. Whitman, you know, we did make three calls for public comments So I'm gonna I am gonna reopen it up for public comment and give you an opportunity because it's important that people are heard But just when we make the calls it'd be helpful if you could step forward You know, I was trying to respect what you had established which was to just make comments on the consent agenda items So I had a lot more to say than just commenting on item number 24 number 25 Which are both about five point nine billion dollars of a budget. That's a one point one billion So, yeah, there's a lot of things I would actually like to say but I guess so long I Really just kind of question the authority of all of you men and I guess the whole county is very fortunate that You guys are men because the only thing more evil than men or women. So you guys are easier to address. So I will Leave it at that and but I don't know why we don't have three minutes to comment on the consent agenda items or public comments Or any items that come up Now at least the city of Santa Cruz You can comment for three minutes except for public comments on any items and in a citizen can pull an item off the consent agenda But that room is mostly full of women so it's very different than dealing with you gentlemen Morning welcome back. Good morning. My apologies. I didn't realize that item number 24 was on the consent agenda But thank you for reopening that up. First of all, I'm a little curious why this is still here I know one of our community members has raised this issue. So maybe you guys can explain that my concern about item 24, which is the Department of Child Support Services is that There are 4,000 children a day that are currently being family court kidnapped under color of law and there are Thousands if not tens of thousands of cases of child support services Using title for funding to remove children from their parents. I happen to know many of these parents I'm networked with multiple multiple parent groups. So I am not in support of any of this funding I don't understand why we are mandated by title for to give money to the government who then uses it against us kidnaps Our children and as we're seeing by some of the other Entities being put place in Santa Cruz now you want to house these court kidnapped children and expand that so I'm not in support of that. I want to make my Objections known to you and we do not consent to any of this Is there anybody else in chambers? I'd like to address this We'll do one more check online. Yes, we do have a speaker online. Thank you Olivia your microphones now available Yes And I'm here to come on agenda item number five, which is human Budget, so I believe You have 17 Which create the health and safety concern for the community the county it's responsible to Overseas the safety of children this high vacancy you will have problems with workload and Your staff being able to oversee and keep children safe in the community The other issue that we have is a number of legibility workers and the vacancy You have a high number of vacancies there, which they provide Prevents Medi-Cal in programs to support also low income family and so we want you to review those staffing variables and Want you to urge that the county work with us We are in the process of fighting different unfair labor practices Because they are not wanting to sit down with us and we didn't confer over the working conditions That these workers are working under so thank you very much. I appreciate you listening to us right now Board again supervisor Cummings Thank you chair. Um I do have a question related to the core funding the first one is that Looking at the budget online, and I actually brought this up previously, but there's no information about how much the various Non-government agencies are receiving if you go online you will see that Encompasses the only agency that where it lists the actual funding of what they're supposed to be getting What they've received previously and what they're receiving in the future and the rest of the Agencies all have zeros listed. So I'm not really comfortable With us taking action that I'd like to continue it to have that transparent But as you can see like these all these agencies have zeros next to how much they're supposed to be getting allocated and we know that Obviously there's funding that's supposed to be ongoing going towards those agencies I brought this up with hsd to have that Be published and be transparent It hasn't been changed and I think in terms of transparency that that item should be continued So the public can see how much money is going towards each of those agencies unless someone can correct me And I'm seeing something that that is an error I can offer some clarity on that the the on the department home page There's a link to the the schedule that has the detail of all the individual agencies that are funded What you're seeing in the transparency portal are a change in accounting where Previously individual Agencies were listed as different line item details and now they're they're no longer from accounting purpose no longer classified that way So there is a supplementary schedule That's there's a link right on the department home page for core on the core investment There's a button that opens up the schedule and there's also the same schedule It's in our department library online that has the detail on all those departments Are excuse me the detail on all the the The agencies that are funded by core It's it's a little confusing because what I did click on and I don't know Which buttons are which but the one that I did click on for core But I can show you right now has everything listed as zeros. So In terms of transparency, it's just hard for me to know where I'm Looking to to understand how much these agencies are receiving and so It's hard. It's it's challenging for me to know what I'm voting on right now If I click on something that's on the county's website, and I see nothing but zeros Versus what there's there's there's there. Um, I we can either work on offline or Around my laptop and so the schedule that's available. Um, there's a there's a button that says core investments On the department page for core 2023 24 core investment schedule And that link will open up the pdf that lists all the agencies that are funded That same schedule is emailed to all the board and their staff A couple weeks back When when we noticed that change And then the other question I have is um, I'd like to understand how much We've asked this question as well previously And I don't think we've received an answer but Trying to get a number on how much we're spending on consultants for the core process So it would be good if we could get that number as well and however we can um, you know make sure that we can Clarify or clean up so that you know for the public that we don't have The individual funding for organizations on one site and then when we click on links that are in core We see zeros. I think that needs to be um, just Cleaned up so that we are being transparent with how we're spending our money Are there any other questions or comments on consent? I'll make some No, all right, I'll make some brief comments just because um, you know some of these One of the things about a consent calendar is we don't Get to appreciate some of these departments the way that they should be appreciated and appreciate supervisor McPherson making some of the statements but In particular, I'd like to call just a couple of these departments are on consent in particular our county council's office that You know hasn't grown well until this budget potentially hasn't grown in staff At least in the entire time that supervisor McPherson and I have been here But the complexity and work of what they've been having to do has grown exponentially from helping Lead during covet and the cz of fires as well as the amount of work that they're doing on all the recovery There's so much that county council does to help Not just keep us compliant with the ever-changing state and federal regulations and laws But just also keep our county the best financial position possible with some of the challenges So mr. Heath you have an outstanding team. I appreciate that some of them are here today You've done a lot with not very without without much and so I appreciate you on that On the information services department Tammy's you know, you're really modernizing the entire team and leading this effort for broadband expansion There's many people in our community That that struggle without access to high quality internet Which really is an essential utility for the future For some reason it's viewed differently as standard infrastructure, but realistically It's equally as important as as all the other elements of infrastructure that we have and so The work that you're doing and your team is doing to to help bridge us Into the future is very very important I second supervisor McPherson's comments on the general services department another department that Um, I mean you can tell us by looking at this building is dealing with aging infrastructure and buildings But it's still doing everything that it can to make sure that that our fleets are modernized That we've moved towards solar that we've moved toward a Zero emission based fleet and they do everything they can to with very limited resources to keep all these buildings Moving forward and last but not least there's a budget for our auditor controller treasurer tax collector This is one of those departments that It's good that you Aren't hearing much about them. There are many counties across the country that don't have that same level Of quality and ethics that your department brings it if you really do keep us I don't think their community realizes that the work that they do behind the scenes and sure there are bond ratings are what they are And that that our finances are as clean as they are Really sets us apart from every communities across this country that don't have that same level of professionalism So I'd like to acknowledge You and your team we could clearly go on but I just wanted to make sure that people know that what the county government is doing You're very fortunate in Santa Cruz county to have a high quality that we have here All right, so we'll bring it for the potential for a motion on the consent agenda. Is there a motion Survisor Koenig move approval of consent Second We have a motion and a second Survisor Koenig's I'd just like to add As a friendly amendment That the core investment budget details reflect what's in the Accompanied PDF For the 2021 22 actuals 2023 adopted budget The estimates for 2023 22 23 and then the budgets for 23 24 We motion a second that under Mr. Pimentel you what the auto controller's office and see if we can Make that happen. Thank you. I mean the numbers are there I think he's just trying to get the transparency portal lined up. That's all it is from a open All right, so we have a motion and second if we got a roll call, please Supervisor Koenig. Hi Cummings. Hi Hernandez. Hi McPherson and friend. Hi that passes unanimously Thank you all for your work or move on to the first item of the regular agenda Which is under health and human services Which is item five to consider approval of the 2023 24 proposed budget for the health services agency Including any supplemental materials and take related actions is outlined in the reference budget And recommended by the county administrative officer We have the board memo the proposed budget the supplemental budget the fixed assets the continuing agreements list the unified Uh fee schedule and presenting today. We have our Director of Health Services Monica Morales, and we have Jen Carrera assistant director of hsa as well Good morning director Morales and assistant director Good morning board. Thank you so much Uh for allowing us today to present to you You know, I really want to start off by thanking all of our team It takes literally hundreds of hours across Our multiple divisions for us to produce a product to you. And so very grateful for all the operations teams budgets teams and special shout out for me to Jessica Randolph and Christine Willems for all of the work that it takes for them to Be following up with all the programs that we have to make sure that, you know, we have a comprehensive budget in front of you With that, I want to just really remind you that we'll focus a little bit of background on the department Just to kind of level set But most of our conversation today will be on our budget and a reflection of what our investments We have and specifically for obviously fiscal year 23 and 24 Want to remind you that our core vision at health services agency is to ensure that our county is a healthy safe and driving community for everyone And we really take that to heart. We know that we serve some of the most vulnerable populations in our county We are the last resort and as a result we have to lead through values such as equity and quality With a sense of collective impact and so forth We are one of the largest departments and we're very proud of that and obviously it does get a little complicated Because we're also very diverse So we can be talking about the quality of water in one meeting and quickly shift for example to what's happening in infectious diseases So we have approximately about 25 or more programs in our department With about 700 plus staff and you'll see more detail in the coming slides So you see for me the diversity the impact of the work that we're doing In our department and very grateful to all the staff that just remain committed to community and improving the lives of our community members What you'll see in our budget is a really kind of focuses around these five goals for us So continuing to increase access to health for example You guys are very aware of all the issues and need that we have around behavioral health Specifically for youth. So you'll see reflections of those investments in our budget In addition, we know that with Cal AIM we're very much taking advantage of the medical Policy changes by embracing Cal AIM Our ecm programs and our mob programs. So you'll see more Discussion of those a little bit further out We really can't do this without our partnerships our contractors our community-based organizations They are key to ensuring that we succeed and that our communities are actually thriving With a strong sense of equity. We are really trying to nail down that We don't want to just speak about equity, but we want to program and move policy around equity One of the key projects we're trying to work on right now is understanding. Where are our investments? Are they equitable? So that'll be something we'll be coming back to the board to and presenting a little further out throughout the year And I can't emphasize our goals around workforce. We're tired. I think you've heard us talk about that We've had a pandemic for three years multiple disasters an increase of need in our community And everyone just continues to show up tirelessly to work And I really want to emphasize the work that we're doing to try to build engagement In our workforce and recruit as quickly as possible The more research I'm doing around this is the faster we can actually Get to recruitment the more likely we are to actually also bring in top candidates And finally the budget reflects our infrastructure We know and we've presented to you on some of those investments. You'll remember our Children's crisis civilization and residential infrastructure opportunities that we're investing in as well as our freedom campus Aligned with our budget goals and agency mission We plan to provide many community benefits in this coming fiscal year After a successful pilot our watsonville health center plans to expand clinic hours to saturdays adding an additional 100 days of service per year Pictured here on this side is our watsonville health center staff in our newly remodeled reception at the freedom campus We also plan to improve our continuum of behavioral health crisis services, which benefits all residents in our county By leveraging mhsa or mental health services act funding and utilizing the evidence-based crisis now model Our behavioral health division will collaborate with partners to develop develop a system that includes 24 7 crisis response And dedicated dispatch and receiving resources In addition to bolstering our direct services, we continue to invest in prevention activities that support overall community health Through our public health division. We administer many health collaboratives including the oral health access steering committee This multi-sector collaborative has has supported improved dental utilization rates among children on medical This next fiscal year oral health access will focus on increasing dental rates among teens on medical and seniors And work to build a dental referral system for those newly diagnosed with diabetes And lastly our environmental health division will leverage grant funds to implement the drought response and outreach plan Or drop a key component of the county's climate action and adaptation plan The drop was adopted by the board in december of 2022 Meeting our state mandate to support drought and water shortage planning for state small water systems and domestic wells in our county Implementation efforts will include outreach to residents with these water systems And a variety of environmental health services to support residents impacted by drought This includes well water level checks water hauling for dry wells water quality testing and point of use treatment Our operational plan objectives highlight additional programming that will benefit the community as well as internal investments That align with our budget goals to support our workforce and infrastructure This includes cultural humility and health equity trainings and redesigning our website to be more accessible for the public This next year we also plan to invest in major capital improvements Including the development of a children's crisis residential facility at 5300 soquel And the revamp of our south county campus with a 1430 freedom campus master plan What we're highlighting for you is really an investment not only in The infrastructure projects that we have to ensure that we're serving our community in the high demand of needs that we see in our community around behavioral health clinical care As well as public health services. So our budget for 23 24 Reflects, um, you know, there's two things going on here for me One is the demand of services the increase of revenue that we're generating But also the staffing needs that we actually need to make sure that we are there for our community So what you'll see in this budget request is our staffing, uh, excuse me A request of 13.70 full time equivalent staff Just a friendly reminder that you actually have approved already The 7.25 fte's through the mid-year process So we really are just asking for an additional 6.45 fte's for this budget We're not requesting additional net county costs or general fund and I'll be a little bit more Uh transparent in this slide here Um, a couple things to note in this slide that I want to highlight for you You'll see that our expenses or our budget is about 246 million dollars However, you see the offset of the revenue For about 231 million dollars that we're projecting for our 23 24 proposed budget for you So that will leave us with the request of net county costs or general fund for about 14.8 million dollars A couple things to highlight for you Over time what we're noticing is that we do are we are increasing our revenue What that means is our staff are writing grants They're taking advantage of medicare reimbursement And as a result we're generating more services for our community What this also tell you is that if we're generating more dollars We're also providing more services. So you see our expenses also increasing over time However, um, our request for general fund tends to be stable or actually decreasing And i'm really proud of that and want to thank our staff members for all of the work that it takes to actually get our department To be self-sustained Obviously with uh fiscal sustainability, there's a lot that we're monitoring right now The positive is that we're taking advantage in combination of our CalAIM our enhanced care management the medicare administrative activities Combined together they offer for us an opportunity To serve more individuals Provide more services and actually be able to reimburse For a workforce that we couldn't before like community health workers or doulas and so forth So we'll be able to meet the demands ideally of um, our community and the various requests that we're getting right now specifically around clinical care and behavioral health With that as you know with new reform comes challenges and those challenges for us our combination of you know one-time um Implementation dollars that come our ways for like CalAIM and behavioral health But also the timelines have really been difficult for us to keep up with um in combination with the high vacancy rates that we have Um and our staff being pretty burned out. It's it's becoming a little difficult for us However, we're very hopeful because we know that this is definitely For us a sustainable model as we move forward It's just going to take us some time to make sure how we maximize the reimbursement with the new um provisions uh that medicare is bringing our way I want to highlight a couple of areas that we are monitoring in the state budget Obviously realignment growth is going to be slowing down Director Marcus Pimentel covered that already But in addition we are monitoring the behavioral health bridge housing program that For us is a great and exciting opportunity. It's 10 million dollars that will be coming to our county We're working in partnership with hsd to leverage and put in place Ideally 34 beds Focusing on the homeless um mental health population So we're monitoring that very excited that those allocations actually remain in the governor's budget In addition our mhsa proposed funding changes that the governor were monitoring that as you recall It's one billion dollars that they're going to be redirecting um two homeless housing opportunities Um, this this is a double-edged sword for us. Obviously we need housing and we know that However, it does put at risk. We're estimating about five million dollars Of our prevention education and training dollars that we use in the county Mainly going to community-based organizations So this is something that we're monitoring and we'll be working very closely with you to ensure That we have the data for you that you might need or need specific information in terms of the impact um hospital funding as you know, we've made a lot of investments in watsa community hospital It remains a key staple in our community And so we are working with their leadership there to remind them of the funding opportunity that the governor just announced It's 150 million dollars. We're working with them to see if they need any technical support It is to our benefit as you know to ensure that this hospital is in place So i want to highlight that for you as something that our um, you know leadership is monitoring and working with watsa community hospital on And then finally we are very grateful that the public health infrastructure dollars remain This was three million dollars for public health funding We will be obtaining about 1.4 for santa cruz ongoing very exciting our public health dollars To focus on epidemiology work on clinical support services such as our deputy to health officers and administrative support for our behavior, excuse me for our public health division And finally something i'll come to the board later in august to give you guys More details on our opiate settlement dollars So we are monitoring this very closely in santa cruz. We've seen Two allocations one that took place in november and one just in february We're quickly trying to wrap that up. Obviously we had no staffing for this But what we do have in plan is we're right now looking at conducting Community survey there's specific requirements so the dollars are connected to in terms of treatment support medication support education prevention support And so what we're trying to do is get a sense from the community. What should the priorities be in our county? We're going to conduct a survey In june We're going to have a town hall in spanish and in english in july To share and hear from our community members and then move through the allocations We do have five years to spend the dollars And so right now we have so far about 2.2 million dollars That we've just received and so we'll be going through the process of distribution in the next coming year So our proposal here really is requesting the approval of our 23 24 budget based on the information We just shared with you and approving the additional 6.45 full-time equivalent staff As new positions. So with that we're here to answer any of your questions Thank you director morales other questions from supervisors supervisor conan Thank you for the presentation director morales, and it's uh, particularly incredible that the discretionary general fund contribution to the department continues to decline Thanks to increased revenues from providing increased services. So Obviously in the perfect world we'd provide more and more services And provide a better outcome for the community with with less local money However, as you mentioned one of the biggest challenges is recruitment and staffing You mentioned we were doing some things to address that issue. Could you go into a little bit more detail? Certainly so in partnership with the director personnel In our ceo, we've been doing uh, you know exploring and comparing some of those hard to fill positions How do we actually Look in terms of pay? And so we're assessing if we have a hard time recruiting. How do we compare to other counties? Can we be competitive so there's there has been some salary increases and some of those hard to fill positions In addition internally to the department. We're trying to move quicker We've hired five new positions in the last Got five months and that's actually for us. I've heard record breaking. So we're trying to move quickly We're also trying to get better Selling the great work that we're doing in Santa Cruz And highlighting the impact that we have Sometimes pay is very important so we can make sure that our staff can live here But we also know that folks feeling like this is a work environment that's Welcoming inclusive and also innovative. I've noticed actually also helps And finally we're doing a lot of work to just Increase our staff engagement. It's been very difficult with cobit people feeling isolated At the same time offering the flexibility of telework But also having engagement opportunities with their staff face-to-face. So we're convening now more trying to do trainings face-to-face trying to do You know More of the staff engagement through publics for example internally and also some of our Supervisor managers meetings trying to do those internally face-to-face as well So a lot of different strategies and finally I would highlight That we're also trying to provide more support for our staff through counseling services And that we're going to be monitoring also presenting to you some of those results of folks making sure that if they're burned out They have someone to talk to in addition to their co-workers Multiple strategies. We're hoping that all of these will work To just increase our ability to recruit folks Thank you, and then one follow-up question I mean, so obviously a lot of these positions are funded by state and federal grants as you mentioned And you know in the ideal world we'd fill every single one of them Is there ever I mean what are the parameters of those grants? I mean could we you know if we're not filling those positions could we shift Increase some of the salaries and then but have less total positions If we're still not filling them, you know, could we look at moving any of those funds to You know support better health outcomes in a different way other than a position just because We know we're not filling it And is there ever a chance that we would actually lose the grant funding because we haven't filled the position Great questions So it depends on the funding source Most of what we want to do is push everything to reimbursement right so with that What we generate in reimbursement typically is dictated by dhcs They give us a certain allocation and now that it's shifting to who the reimbursing for the provider type We're actually You know trying to navigate. What does that mean for us? Clinicians for example will get reimbursed at higher rates than a community health worker So we'll have to kind of navigate that a little bit more There are grants many grants specifically now reimbursement from state and federal Allocations that do require specific staff. And so if we don't have those in place We do risk the possibility of losing them I've seen that a lot around some of our prevention and behavioral health Prevention funding some of our public health funding. So it is important for us to ensure that we have the capacity to address The the grant there's also a lot of innovation happening and we don't have existing positions for those You'll see that for example on the public health dollars that we're getting You'll we'll see that too in some of the prevention dollars that we're getting for behavioral health So and in the clinic for some of our substance use and addiction treatment So all of those positions do require Us to generate new classifications unfortunately, but where we can our goal is always To shift dollars around And try to we don't want to go through the hiring process to be honest with you guys, right? It takes a year sometimes it takes six months sometimes depending on the On the classification. So if we can avoid that that's to our advantage as much obviously as The county so we don't kind of have existing positions just floating Thank you Supervisor Cummings First I just want to start by appreciating the work that you do and that your department does around public health Because it's so critical to ensure that we're having we have a healthy community and that the Most vulnerable have access to health care as well I was just wanting to ask about I know you mentioned the vacancy rates And I was just wondering if you could maybe expand on what our vacancy rates looking like within the department currently So in some of our divisions, um, we're averaging about 15 to 20 percent Our behavioral health is most impacted Um between 25 to 30 percent The team has done an outstanding job trying to recruit we make, you know, people calling all the time We attend association meetings and promote Some of our vacancies such as check and the behavioral health association as well and even our environmental health team. So We're definitely higher than we want to be And you guys are pretty much have heard the reasons for that housing Expenses now inflation now interest rates that does not help us So we're we're trying to kind of you know be creative, but we do anticipate I anticipate This is going to be an ongoing issue for us for the next 24 months Until we see our economy try to stabilize Until we see if there's drops in inflation and cost of living in our county I think until then we'll continue to struggle, um with the vacancies, but Um, yeah, it's not unique to us. As you know, you've you've heard me talk about that already Well to the extent that we can help support any kind of programs related to Whether it's housing assistance or internships or what have you So that we can help close these gaps that um be very supportive of those kinds of efforts And so thank you for your presentation today Thank you supervisor McPherson. Yeah, thank you. Um the health services for Uh navigating a hugely complicated budget that uh is due that really is dependent on state and federal Grants, I I mean it's 80 per 90 percent of your budget is state and federal Resources financial resources that correct? Yes. Yes more than like 95 percent or 95 percent. Wow. Okay. Yeah So it's uh, it's really uh to your credit that you've been able to provide these New programs that are mandated. Um, this ever-changing system that we have the array of behavioral health and public health And child care and specialty care managed by the county is really kind of staggering, I think And how you were able to get your arms around all of that at the same time when there's changing There's all uh requirements coming from the state. Um, you know, this takes care takes place Just as health care changes day to day With Cal AIM care courts and other major programs that We're gonna have to implement to a stronger degree. I think in the near future And I'm glad to see deeper investments in uh, we are making through this budget in staff safety too. I think that's very important The increase in staff provided to provide the medically assisted Treatment related to substance abuse is also critical Unfortunately, the behavioral health needs of this community and every community throughout california and For that matter, united states have grown and changed substantially in the last years As untreated mental health and substance use have reached crisis levels So I I really can't say enough Give you enough credit for you, uh, miss morales and miss harara For leading this charge to address these issues that are before us Like we've never experienced before And I also think it it needs to be said that uh, the outgoing public health services director gail newl Dr. Dino did a phenomenal job in the coven crisis I think that we had the highest Uh percentage of vaccinations rates in the state and I think the lowest coven deaths are close to it in the state Uh, she was phenomenal in that Um and overseeing that crisis and uh, I want to thank her and uh, thank you for just following her footsteps and doing An equally effective job. So thank you Thank you Um, I'm sure there'll be additional comments before the motion is made But if we'd like to open up for the community of their members of the community like to address us on the health Services agency budget now be an opportunity for you to do it Good morning. Welcome back Yeah, good morning. My name is james ewing wittman. Um You know, I took some notes. It's really quite interesting. Well, what is this budget now to 268 million? Um, I'm actually gonna quote some stuff that bruce mcpherson said You know programs have to be mitigated health care changes talking about the care act Addressed these issues before us And then in particularly the highest vaccination rates in the in the state in this county Well, you know, I'm not really sure what to say with this bureaucracy Uh You know, there's 25 different programs here You know, what what's actually in our water? You know, what's it seems like we may not have a drought but uh In 2019 the state legislators drained trillions of gallons out of the reservoirs. So who knows what's going to happen You know one of the infrastructure things You guys are putting up this county or the state whoever's paying for it They're got a 16 inch pipe that's pumping the sewage Into uh mid county for the water system You know, it's great that the vaccine rates are what they are You know, what about all the damage of everything combined with the frequency weapons? That's not being talked about this board talks about health You know, I will say that I was really happy that about a month ago gail newell came up and said, you know, I really I was talking about the syringes And uh, I believe a lot more of what You were saying then you probably think so I think there's some kind of redemption there I think if people change there's a lot of things possible Um, it's really kind of sad when we have men that are virtue signaling in this room Like usac friend wearing a mask Because that's really not a high sign of intelligence But just slavery because um mask actually had a lot of purposes during the 1918 spanish flu Thank you Thank you for your comments morning. Welcome back Thank you It is written my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge um There seems to be an engineered mental health crisis all around this country And I am concerned about the weaponization of mental health services Which is factually not scientific and is easily manipulated to cause severe harm As I look at this children's crisis center, which is a residential facility. I'm very concerned about state-owned children And I will um share with you that Gina Ramirez in this county is the mental health worker Who made the unconscionable decision to lock my traumatized child up on a 51 50 hold After she had experienced violence by her father in front of multiple witnesses And this Gina Ramirez. I would like to know meet her Decided that because my daughter refused to go home with her violent dad And was screaming for her mother that somehow locking her up for three days Was in her best interest And was safe It's not So I don't have any trust in the mental health services provided here in santa Cruz county And while I do acknowledge there are many well-meaning people In many of the departments in the county I would really like to root out the ones who are not well-meaning. I'm not in favor Of continuing to push an agenda That deprives parents of the rights to make all medical dental and emotional well-being decisions for their children And I just see this as an agenda to do that. I object I do not consent And I reject it all. Thank you Thank you. Is there anybody else in chambers that would like to address us? Good morning. Welcome Good morning, Becky Steinbruner I first of all want to Let you know that none of the information on today's agenda was available on the board of supervisors website calendar The calendar was frozen Usually that's how I go in in advance And review materials, but it was frozen and the materials were not available. I did write your board I did write it as of this morning. It was still broken So I I apologize I arrived late, but I did hear some of the presentation I'm worried that uh, this budget is 14.8 million dollar deficit That's uh, if if I read that slide correctly that worries me I think it follows in a pattern of what, um, our county what our state what our country is doing Which is spending more than we have that never works for our own personal budgets does it So why are we expecting it to work for our local government or our federal government for that matter? so, um, I want you to think about that and uh Over the course of these next couple of days, but with this budget included Human and health services is very important But again, we have to live within our means And Provide what we can to those who most need it I really feel that COVID and our county's reaction to it did a huge disservice to our local economy And we have seen in our budget that it is a lack of reimbursement That is causing us great financial economic difficulty now So I urge you not to go out and spend more and, um I I really am opposed to the vaccine hesitancy data gathering that you have approved I do not think it's ethical and I do not think it's necessary and can be used against the citizens. Thank you Thank you. Is there anybody else in chambers? Madam clerk, is there anybody online? Yes, chair Olivia your microphone is now available Uh, good morning I introduce myself my name is Olivia Martinez. I'm the region 2 director for SEIU So I have requested information. I think among about the vacancies and for the health department I think there was approximately 150 vacancies which is 33 percent of their total staff So that is concerning As to the Sorry echo So it's hard for me to speak Um, so it is concerning in terms of the services that they're providing We're also concerned with our members that work at HP HP And how long it's been taken to um to address their issues under working conditions I don't know if you know but since january they have to resuscitate 15 of their clients They have been working on horrible working conditions and where they didn't have an AC Um, it's overcrowded. They don't have the space The band is not allowed to park in that area. Um, it's taken a long time for this department to address those issues The other concern is with the vacancies is that I think the county's not attracting people because of a lot of different issues and the reputation the county is getting Um, regarding the budget, I've been working with SCAU 14 years now Cardinals has changed this budget to be very complicated to read in comparison to what susan mariello had before Which was very easy to read Um, and now it's very convoluted. It's difficult to find stuff I really recommend this board to go back to an easy way to read this budget. Thank you very much Thank you. Is there anybody else online? No further speakers chair. All right. We'll bring it back to the board Uh for action. I'll just make some brief comments. I The the issue I can't imagine a department or I I don't see a department with more Uh pressures on it in an evolving state and federal landscape than your department with I mean with an entire presentation on cal aim previously care court innumerable number of new state mandates generally with One time funding as opposed to longitudinal funding The pressures on on your department and the importance of your department which was highlighted even more so in the last Few years can't be overstated. And so I appreciate the work and I and I completely understand the sense within your department of employees that that feel overtaxed and feel like they have Been through a lot and by the way, they've also been in some respects. There hasn't been full support from the community. I mean people Step forward and say totally inappropriate things about your team who are just out here doing Quite frankly god's work. I mean defending the most vulnerable within our community Uh people protesting outside your houses is totally inappropriate and uncalled for a real unfortunate reflection on our community So I understand why it can be hard in that context to recruit people To do this work, especially when you could make even more money in other sectors. We're not alone as The director knows I I have the privilege of chairing c-saxe hs committee Statewide and all 58 counties are having recruitment issues It's more acute on the coastal counties because of some of the issues That were mentioned by the director in regards to housing, but we're not we're not alone I mean the the behavioral health vacancy rates psychologists and psychiatrists across the state Some have 50 vacancy rates 25 percent is completely Is a huge challenge, but it's not unique But I think that just as a general community comment. We have to do a better job of actually Caring for those that care for the most vulnerable and showing that support I mean the support would go a long way toward recruitment Even more so in some respects than pay. I don't think the people that Choose this life's work Are doing it exclusively for the money. So I want you to know that that I appreciate you I think this board appreciates I know this board appreciates your work and we've seen it from behind the scenes and also there are a lot of People that are alive in this community because of your work over the last few years That wouldn't wouldn't be here otherwise. So we appreciate that So bringing it back to the board for the motion Supervisor I'll move the health services agency budget. Thank you second. We have a motion from supervisor Cummings a second from supervisor Hernandez if we could have a roll call, please. Oh, I'm sorry on a comment There's one last question you mentioned briefly the 24 7 crisis response around the crisis continuum initiative I'm wondering if you could explain a little bit more because I heard that and I got excited And just wanted to see if you could speak a little bit more about that I I'll definitely give you a high level and I also welcome Karen Kern our interim director if she wants to say a few comments This is a model that we've been exploring To really enhance the work that we're doing It really complements the existing work that we're doing for example when we have A hotline for folks to call A mobile service for folks in our community that might need more than just a phone call to try to help stabilize And then obviously the crisis Residential programming that we're wanting to put in place and stabilization programming but if karen can highlight a few Updates on that model. That'll be great Thank you. Good morning board Yes, we are looking at implementing the crisis now model Which focuses on mobile crisis response receiving centers the 98 call center and the use of evidence-based practices And we'll be coming before this board. Hopefully at the end of june to present our mhsa innovations plan For which we are participating with calveras county in a multi county project And you'll have a lot more information then but the goal for this mobile crisis team is to pair a clinician with a peer or an emt To be available to the community 24 hours a day seven days a week And we'll likely phase that in over time. So it won't be an immediate 24 seven But that's the goal for the mobile crisis team We've received a lot of community feedback as well as stakeholder feedback around the need for that type of Response that also sort of delinks the response from law enforcement. So that is the model that we are looking to adopt Great Thank you for that worse the chair. I just have um, could you give me a little um Describe more about the um, local impact of the increased medic al Eligibility starting next year. Um, is there what do you what you how do you see that? Fiscal impact on santa cruse county. That's a great question. And I we right now at work Assessing for that. So we know that it's now going to be pain us for the provider type So, uh, psychiatrist Licensed therapists, for example, will get a higher payment than a community health worker or behavioral health liaison So we are right now Looking at the new rates that they provided us will come to your board in around august And I think we're scheduled actually in december 2 to give you an update of what those impacts are Right now, we're a little concerned just because the way that we're Generating some of the predictions it looks like it's going to take us a few years Um to actually start generating revenue And that's why we're assuming the state is providing one time funding allocations to help you with implementation changes Um, so more to come on that. I've shared with you guys that we were estimating Potentially a loss anywhere between two to five million dollars again I please don't quote me on that because it's still projections But more to come on that However, it does look I am hopeful that what the state put in place It will provide more services To individuals that we haven't been able to serve before like the justice involved in community or more of You know the homeless community in different ways that we haven't been able to pay for housing For example vouchers Pay for rent for a period of time. I think it's like 30 to 60 days So those are all great opportunities that we think will offset Some additional kind of expenses that we have that we weren't able to reimburse before But we just need a little more time to do that and i'm not sure if either Jen wants to add anything else to that All right, we have a motion to second if we've got a roll call, please Supervisor conic Hi comings. Hi Hernandez. Hi mcpherson and friend. Hi and that passes unanimously. Thank you for the presentation and for your work We'll move on to item six To consider approval of the 2023-24 proposed budget for the human services department Including any supplemental materials and take related actions is outlined in the reference budget documents and recommended by the ceo We have the budget hearings item board membo the proposed budget Line item with budget detail the supplement on budget the fixed assets continuing agreements list an additional documents For this, I know we've got director morris remotely. We can see you director morris. Thank you for being here We have assistant director camberley peterson and we have trish daniels or director of admin services director morris Are you going to kick this off for us? Yes, you are thank you. Okay. Thank you for the accommodation unfortunately due to COVID protocols i'm remote today, but as you said chair friend. Good morning to you and board members And thank you to deputy peterson And i'm getting an echo clerk of the board. Is it coming the echo coming through in chambers as well? Thank you. I'll continue So I also want to take a minute to recognize having trish daniels here Who is our director of admin services and the reason she is here is she oversees our budget office? And as my colleague monica morales recognize the hundreds of hours Our staff and our budget teams go through to build up this budget I want to thank trish and her team our fiscal officer rick heron in particular As well as marcus and our ceo analyst fen who worked so hard over the last Many weeks to get this budget in front of you today I also want to recognize that a pre-covid tradition human services has our department leadership team in The chambers today and they are available to answer any questions from the board during question and answer But also want to thank them for the work we did together in putting this budget together And finally there's been a lot of comments Throughout the board hearing this morning about our workforce We are department of 500 nady employees And what we do is regulated by federal and state law And we are prohibited from contracting out most of our programs and our services So our success is based on our workforce And our workforce has gone through a lot these last three years It's been a very difficult time with deployment to disasters covid And large vacancy rates. So I just want to end my shout outs by saying thank you to the workforce I like all the leadership teams start as a direct service employee in county human services So our success is based on all you do. So thank you So if we could move to the next slide Or maybe queue up the slides if they haven't been shown yet Should be good to go Okay, thank you clerk of the board if you can go to the next slide So on the right is a list of the agenda items, which I will not read But I mostly just want to focus on the motto of the human services department Which is dedicated to making a difference And I just want to key off my prior comments of our workforce Our leadership team and even up to and including our budget office Who's dedication to make a difference of the community as a parent every day And I'm honored and very proud to be the department's director We could go to the next slide And this is a listing of our mission and our values For what we do to strengthen our community to protect the most vulnerable Through the values that we embrace of excellent service Compassion integrity partnerships and effective practice If we can go to the next slide So the work we do is delivered through four direct service divisions And I'm just going to take a minute to comment on them because you'll hear more about them in the presentation The first is the public child welfare division, which we call family and children services The second is adult and long-term care Which is where our in-home supportive services program resides As well as adult protective services Veteran services office and our public guardian and public conservator The next is the housing for health division the newest division in our department Which we'll say more about in the presentation And finally by far the largest division we manage employment and benefit services Where one third of community residents get service from this division predominant through our Medi-Cal program But this is also where CalFresh, CalWorks, General Assistance and employment programs including our workforce development board And finally listed at the bottom is the word entitlements This is actually a budget phrase that you'll see and the budget presentation is the second largest item in our budget The word entitlement is tied to federal policy That when the federal and state government mandate that we deliver a service when somebody is entitled to receive it Many times that manifests in the form of a cash payment So in child welfare when resource families Adoption families, kin caregivers, treatment programs are paid to care for our foster youth. That's an entitlement In the ALTC division The providers of care to our in-home supportive service and clients receive a hourly wage and benefits if they work over a certain amount per month And in the Employments and Benefits division the CalWorks cash grants are all referred to as entitlements and just wanted to provide That reference point as you see the presentation So that ends my overview and i'm going to turn it over to kimberley who's going to share some about the operational plan and its nexus with how we built our budget Thank you randy So we currently have nine operational goals, which can be seen on the vision santa cruz county website What you see here is the sampling of those goals representing the different divisions that randy just mentioned First i want to highlight the centering of equity We have a great team dedicated to pooling analyzing and sharing data that will utilize in everything we do daily operations to long-term planning and evaluation As a part of ongoing continuous improvement efforts We will more intentionally focus on including equity data as a part of our practice and implementation of all our goals Second medicow One and every three county residents are on medicow One requirement of medicow is that individual recipients must comply with an annual renewal Over the past four years That requirement has been waived due to the pandemic That waiver is now expiring and medicow recipients must again comply with the renewal process or risk losing their medicow This happens to be occurring at the same time that the computer system that can be used by the public to apply for and renew benefits And the system used by the staff to process that information Is changing to a statewide system Ensuring that the community is aware of the requirement to renew medicow And also follows the steps necessary to successfully renew Is a high priority for our employment and benefit services division The master plan on aging Seniors are the fastest growing demographic in the county and by 2030 over 30 percent of santa cruz residents will be over age 60 The trend is not unique to santa cruz and governor new master plan for aging including That will aid communities in preparing for the demographic change As santa cruz develops its local master plan Including the diverse aging voices of those we are trying to serve will be critical To identify the community's evolving needs And we intend as hsd to get input from at least a thousand county residents as a part of that effort resource families Our family and children services division plans to reduce by 17 percent the number of times kids in foster care change homes A primary way to do that is by recruiting Training and better supporting our local resource families who care for kids out of their homes Housing One of the housing for health goals is to increase the number of supportive housing units by 150 And have those units occupied by june of 2025 So our primary budget goals Some of the drivers behind our budget are strengthening and stabilizing our workforce As you've heard earlier today, we are not alone in experiencing high vacancy rates and in partnership with personnel And partner organizations. We are focusing on recruitment and retention efforts Somewhat related is that as direct service programs grow the need to support the administrative infrastructure finance contracts analysis and reporting Behind those direct service programs is sometimes overlooked yet. It's critically important Later in the presentation randy will talk to you more about the need for stable housing for health funding And then just a moment to go you heard me speak of equity and our intentional centering of equity in all of our goals including our budget planning Thoughtful innovation What we mean by that is that acknowledging the realities of limited resources and at times increasing need We must continuously look to see how we can operate in new ways within our department And in partnership with appropriate stakeholders to achieve our long-term community goals and maintain our basic mandated services Cal aim, which you also heard um health speak of earlier is an opportunity with this approach Then lastly a mass care and shelter We're also applying thoughtful innovation to mass care and shelter efforts in coordination with or three and other departments and community organizations The human services department by state statute is primarily responsible for mass care and shelter during emergencies But there is no funding tied to that responsibility So each emergency is a draw from existing resources We will continue to advocate at the state level for funding to support this effort But short of that we are looking at organizing ourselves in a way that allows us to respond effectively and efficiently in emergencies Without jeopardizing our ongoing operations And i'm going to turn it to trish for more detail in our budget Thank you kimberley For fiscal year 23 24 hsd is requesting approval of 188.6 million dollar budget I'll start with our revenue sources, which are shown on the left 87 percent of the budget is federal and state funding, which is provided to carry out the various services that were described earlier These federal and state programs mandate the counties provide a match to their funding The general fund contribution of 23 million dollars or only 12 percent of our overall budget is used as that match You will also see a couple of slices labeled as realignment in both 1991 and 2011 The state changed the methodology for funding certain programs resulting what is now known as realignment This funding made up of sales tax and vehicle license fees covers various programs including protective services for both children and adults In-home supportive services cal works foster care, etc All of our revenue is then spread across our various divisions as shown on the right As you can see social services, which includes not only our employees in the various direct service divisions of al tc Employment and benefits family and children's and administration also includes our community partner contracts and entitlement costs that Randy alluded to earlier These costs are the bulk of the budget at 87 1 percent Housing for health is an additional 10 percent and our remaining programs are the final 3 percent of the budget We are requesting seven new positions Including supplemental requests which are funded from increased allocations and do not require an additional general fund contribution Beyond what was included in our base budget Four social worker positions are proposed in response to our aging community Three for the in-home supportive services program one for adult protective services In one position to provide standardized training for adult services staff Similar to what our family and children's and employment and benefit services employees receive We are also adding an analyst to the workforce development workforce development board program to provide more focus on our underserved community Including outreach to the monolingual population Lastly the facilities manager position was previously on our books But the vacant position was eliminated at the beginning of the pandemic When the county did a second round of budget cuts Ever-increasing deferred maintenance issues at our various buildings has prompted us to request funding for this position once again And then next i'm going to just share a few items about fiscal sustainability for our department So there are many positive things about our budget The funding is relatively stable and predictable with a small general fund match to draw down large allocations The realignment funding that I spoke to previously can be economy dependent as it is mainly sales tax For the last several years 2011 realignment exceeded what was budgeted which allowed for a reduced general fund contribution Now that the economy is in a bit of a slowdown mode Realignment funding is still projected to grow but at a much slower rate less than 2 for fiscal year 23 24 We are also fortunate to receive support from organizations such as cwda the california welfare directors association And csac the california state associate state association of counties Both of whom have put forth proposals related to mass care and shelter funding homeless funding As well as advocating for fiscal support from other for other social service programs On the challenges side our biggest challenge is our high vacancy rate. We've spoken a lot about that this morning This is not unique to hsd or even the county of santa cruz as a whole This is a statewide issue and not only does it impact the services we provide to our county residents High vacancy rates also impact our ability to draw down those state and federal funds Not to mention create additional stress and burden on our existing staff Another challenge is an area of the budget that we don't have control over And that is entitlements or the cash payments that we administered of the of the various programs that randy described These payments are largely covered by the federal and state government, but they do require a county match So every time those payments are increased the required general fund match also increases Housing for health administrative challenges from the multi multitude of one-time grants as well as a lack of ongoing funding Is an additional challenge randy will provide more information on this in a few minutes Lastly mass care and shelter kimberley spoke to this earlier and i won't repeat those words But it does remain an ongoing challenge from a fiscal staffing and administrative perspective And with that i'm going to pass it back to randy Thank you trish and kimberley So this slide is a snapshot Of the housing for health division and can i just confirm i'm coming through? Yes randy. We can hear you. Thank you. It's great. The echo went away So this is a snapshot of the housing for health division Housing for health is clearly a countywide initiative that is administered in the human services department So we wanted to give it special recognition particularly given the humanitarian crisis that persists and somewhat argue is worsening Three big takeaways from this picture First is it is to show that we have almost a six time increase in the amount of money We've been able to pull from federal and state sources to support our efforts going pre covet to the largest chart there when you look at current fiscal year Second and a big highlight, which i'll share a few times is that these are all one time grants Compared to the human services department budget wide, which is almost 95 predictable and stable allocations The housing for health division is the opposite 95 One time grants which makes it very difficult to administer a safety net system when you have no predictability of what's on the horizon in terms of a budget And then finally is the color coding just to give you an idea of source, which i'll now walk through So the sort of orange brown color is a combination of federal and state one time grants in the amount of 18 million dollars The blue is the continued general fund contribution, which is the only relatively stable source of funding we have But then i want to lift up the green and the yellow The green is project home key and if you recall project room key was the name of the federal and state funded covet intervention to stop the spread Of covet for those who are unsheltered or needed to isolate or quarantine otherwise And then the state and with fed backing came out with project home key to help purchase local affordable housing Such as hotels that had been used for covet sheltering and we were successful in obtaining 19 million dollars of home key awards that are in the process of being built And then the yellow is a one time earmark from the state that was specific to our local community-based organization partner housing matters for some construction related work On their campus, but it was required to go through local government. So that is going to be coming through human services So those are the color codes And I do want to end with highlighting over on the right under home key Your board has authorized already the application for the third round of home key awards And if we are successful in those applications, we could have as much as 40 additional million dollars of home key grants to help build more affordable housing in our community but all of that is At a cost and that is the unprecedented workload that we're all still working on managing given the complexity of these funding streams The reporting requirements and dr. Ratner the division lead and I have shared that with your board prior But I just want to recognize what comes with this volume of new money unprecedented volume is a volume of work. We're still managing So next slide confirming next slide The slides have been updated randy go ahead. Okay. Thank you just showed up on my screen So now this is a quick summary Of the opportunities and the challenges in the housing for health division First is the housing element. This is under rena or the regional housing needs assessment Which is every eight years. There's an opportunity for the community to come together to identify how to build more affordable housing for very low income and all income strata Next opportunity is it was mentioned by trish that there's a strong advocacy in our state associations And uh chair friend mentioned. He's the chair of health and human services at the california state association of counties Where there's a lot of discussion about the need to get cleaner Governance and organization around managing housing and homelessness in local community between cities Counties and the state and most particularly to identify Guaranteed funding rather than living on one-time grants Third is cal aim. I won't repeat what has been mentioned earlier and we had a chance to give a presentation with health last month And finally the vendor pool This is an item we'll be bringing to your board next month Which if adopted by your board will help us manage the volume of grants more expeditiously And then to the challenges As I said the one-time grant funding continues to be an issue that we hope in time The feds and state will invest in stable funding for local government to manage The safety net we run The next is the lack of affordable housing as your board is aware, but worth repeating We are the most expensive rental market in california when you adjust for median income And housing costs to purchase are going up This is not only a challenge for helping those with low income and unsheltered but also workforce Next is construction costs are rising which means there's less money available to build affordable housing even when we get these grants And then finally I want to mention the issue of disaster response As the unsheltered crisis is growing in communities particularly where cost of living is high like the coast During disasters of which we have many The conflation of what communities are to do to help those who are unsheltered And those who are otherwise sheltered but displaced is getting very confusing Who funds it who's responsible and it's an issue that's playing out statewide in a challenge that we're invested in working through So next slide So I will end the presentation with a quick summary of some of the highlights of the proposed state budget The reason this is listed as proposed is The state budget cycle is in january the governor releases a budget mid may It's revised which just came out a few weeks ago And then we wait for the state legislature and governor to adopt the budget by july 1st You've already heard about realignment which is positive that it's still growing, but we have less discretion as it's slowing down I've already mentioned the one-time funding It does continue which given the cooling economy want to express appreciation for the governor and our secretary of health and human services For contuing that funding but balance that with the statement that we need it to be More sustainable than the one-time grants Second to last item in the state budget worth highlighting is Medi-Cal our single largest program in human services Over 90,000 santa cruz residents It was mentioned earlier that everybody who is on Medi-Cal in california did not have to go through a yearly Redetermination until the public health emergency was lifted This next fiscal year everybody will have to and so the State has funded us to be able to have increased capacity to manage those redeterminations And last under Medi-Cal we appreciate the state of california that as of this next fiscal year Makes everyone who is otherwise eligible to their income and assets Eligible for Medi-Cal regardless of immigration status by closing the final cohort of 26 to 49 year olds And this leads to the last item which is in the in-home support of services program. This is a program that serves 3000 santa cruz county residents who are on Medi-Cal Are deemed age blind and disabled and without in-home care would otherwise be placed out of home and institutional care We had increased allocations both for the projected caseload growth because of the growing aging population But also because those who are undocumented are now eligible for Medi-Cal This directly links to why we have in front of you additional budget To add some staffing in the in-home supportive services program because of this increased revenue And then finally I want to recognize the state and the feds adopted in covid a wage supplement for in-home care providers because of the number of providers who are contracting covid and couldn't provide in-home care But the state has decided to make this wage supplement system Permanent and has given us an increased allocation to manage the implementation of that provider backup system Which then leads to the final slide Which is to just simply request your board to approve our proposed 23 24 budget Including the seven new positions the five that were listed and the two in the supplemental And to end just to thank you and an appreciation for the opportunity for us to serve santa cruz county community. Thank you Thank you director morris Are there any questions or comments from board members? As supervisor McPherson Yeah, I want to thank director morris and the whole team of of human services for their innovation and flexibility under the circumstances that we have and Likewise your partners with the health services agency You're always juggling An ever-changing landscape from what the federal and state governments are demanding of us or providing us And You do provide an extraordinary amount of services to our seniors and our Families with children folks with disabilities and those experiencing homelessness. So Um, it's really the target area of what we need to do to serve our people of santa cruz county Um, and you were the in the center of the covet response and the cz u fires When it came to sheltering the most vulnerable can't thank you enough for what you did for that and that said We won't be able to provide it seems the same level of service as we are now During future disasters without greater sustained support as was mentioned by director morris But um, all this comes as the eligibility expansion of medicow Takes place and I'd have a question like I did for the health services Would you describe a little more about the local impact of increased medicow? eligibility starting next year do you do you have a A general thought of what you're gonna have we're going to have to do to meet that I was Kimberly why don't you go ahead kimberley and clarify super or is no person's question. There's a couple different angles on that Budgetarily or program-wise for impact on the community will budgetarily at this point. Yeah, okay, then I'll As randy mentioned we did get increased allocations to assist with those medicow redeterminations Due to our high vacancy rates, we are So really challenged in the employment and benefit services division currently There is a shortage of benefit representatives that are able to process those redeterminations so we have Scheduled the additional allocation to be spent via overtime for our current staff. Okay, and in program-wise I guess that would be for you kimberley, I don't know Sure. Yeah. Yeah, so um program-wise that means that um pretty much anybody in the community who Who is lower income and can apply for medicow and be eligible for full scope what we call full scope medicow Sorry for the lingo. Basically in the past somebody who was undocumented But and too qualified for medicow would only be eligible for Emergency services meaning if somebody was pregnant they could Take advantage of medicow services or if it was really truly like a life or death loss of limb situation Would they be covered for medicow? So that will change and they will be able Eligible for medicow as a normal health care coverage Thank you supervisor mcpherson I want to also piggyback on kimberley statements to recognize some important work in partnership with our community partners One of the primary reasons people Drop off of medicow during annual renewal is because we do not have their correct address The reason we don't have their correct address is people often move they could be unsheltered etc And especially when nobody had to do a renewal for almost three years I want to recognize the partnership we have with many community-based organizations Particularly the health improvement partnership that has been working closely with us to reach out to everybody in the health safety net Anytime somebody comes in to get care in the health safety net To help encourage them provide us with updated address information So in the year ahead we will find out if how successful that is but due to that partnership I think fewer people are going to lose their medicow because we have been able to connect our systems and Reach out to them and get the information to them so they can renew Supervisor conan. Thank you chair. Thank you hsd team My question is about the mass care and shelter. How much did we end up spending in 22 23 on mass care and shelter? I didn't see like a wine item reflected in the budget and then does that just get tacked on to our fema claims I'll I'll start and then I may turn to um Trish for assistance um in terms of In terms of how much we spend I know that if it um if what we spent is eligible for fema it gets tacked on um Typically though in the midst of the emergency we actually charge it to the emergency operations Versus within our hsd budget Does that Help answer the question I don't have the budget numbers in front of me currently, but um, I'm going to assume that it's somewhere in the neighborhood of Seven to ten million dollars is my guess I'm looking to marcus to help confirm that for me But um that that's sort of what my assumption is between staffing time and then the cost of actually running the shelters Particularly with our partnership with monterey county Sheltering the residents from the paharo flood Okay, thank you the ballpark figure is helpful Any idea of what percentage of that is fema eligible? Generally with fema reimbursement They do try to do eligible costs only and once they determine which costs are actually eligible fema will Cover 75 percent of those eligible costs and calo. We ask will generally pick up 75 percent of the remaining 25 percent That's eligible. So it's it ends up being a very Small county match eventually, but as marcus spoke to earlier We are still dealing with outstanding fema funds from three years ago. And so it's It's it can be a little bit of a challenge And I can just clarify marcus. I'm going to tell you county budget manager The although the storms occurred in in january, uh, most of most of the month of january Those claims have just been now compiled and are being submitted to fema So we can provide the board with an update At one of the coming meetings on the projections for those first Storm costs. We're still compiling all the costs for the second event. I think Trish's estimate is probably correct. Um, we're probably in the seven to ten million dollar response range between the two events and looking at 60 million and capital and other recovery costs and damages Yeah, I mean, it seems like Also in general where the capital Cost reimbursement structure is a little bit more solid. It seems like as far as providing mass care and shelter I mean as far as I understand we're still, uh You know negotiating debating with with fema. What percent of that is eligible in terms of Some of the covet shelter we provided so You know nowhere near as is certain that we would get the reimbursement for this, you know 75 percent of the seven to 10 million here I think that's very astute for america conic What we've found with fema in regard to covet is they're going through their the third revision of Care sheltering and eoc response and revising policies They're doing that active now that are retroactive to 2022 or 2020 excuse me So we'll find we expect to find that more of our claims that we submitted per the guidance in 2020 and 2021 are now going to be Ineligible and that's a frustrating effort. We're working with um, so I would expect The 2023 storms when it's 2026 And we're starting to get into those details of responses back from fema. We're gonna have some similar struggles, unfortunately Right. I mean at some point we're going to have to budget For mass care and shelter whether it's you know, knowing that we're going to get a certain amount from the state Or that it's going to have to come out of local revenues. So It sounds like it's still pretty up in the air though in terms of understanding what you know What what will be covered and as they mentioned this particular event is The january event was in the February and march events Combined together our particular challenging in that we had multi county responses combined in one effort So some of it may be maintenance of effort payments. We received from monterey county and others might be claimed we submit to fema In lieu of monterey county. So we've got a lot of work to do and we appreciate that partnership with monterey county Okay, thank you Suvazer Cummings Thank you chair and thank you for the presentation um I had a couple questions one. Um, the first was I know you mentioned The challenges with vacancy rates, which we're seeing throughout the entire county I'm just wondering what those numbers are exactly or if there's a ballpark For 21 22 we had an 11.3 percent vacancy rate, but so far this year Halfway through 22 23 are almost through we are averaging around a nine percent vacancy rate. So we're making some progress um, it has ranged anywhere from 6.84 percent In 18 19 up to the current rate that we have today Okay, thanks, and I just want to um express my appreciation For the work that our county administrative officer calls belacios and that the action of the sport has taken on Really trying to you know fund and support homeless services in the county Oftentimes we'll hear people saying that the county is not doing anything the county is not doing anything But the reality is that the county is working really hard to try to you know Get funding and provide services that are helping to support people experiencing homelessness And so I just wanted to express my appreciation of all the work that's been going That's been happening with the creation of housing for health and for the funding that everybody's working really hard to To bring into the county to address those needs. I'm wondering um If there's an opportunity to see how those funds are are being used in terms of Number of people that are being served and what kinds of services are being provided That's that's kind of a comment, but it's a little bit of a question as well I can actually Share that supervisor Cummings At the six month report and dr. Ratner and I gave you actually had issued additional direction for us to return at our next Six month report to answer that very question And so that is something we are planning to bring in a little more detail in our materials and in our presentation about Outcomes specificity about all those different grants. I know the time we were in front of you last We showed that maze just to highlight where those 40 plus funding streams go but you had asked for more detail, which is in queue for the next presentation in august It's really um important that we're celebrating the achievements that we're making with these funds and and the Work that the county's doing so. Thank you very much supervisor Hernandez I also want to thank you guys on your presentation. Um, you know, there seems to be a recurring theme with recruitment With human services as well as the previous one with health services And and I imagine well, I know that for sure with public safety as well um, is there a way that we can um, I I guess this is more a comment to our our ceo's office if we can collaborate with personnel or the ceo's office to uh Make sure that we create a plan recruitment plan for these critical positions Um, at least for the critical positions that will ensure that we do not let people fall through the cracks and keep people above the safety net as well as positions that that are Not funded but you know, uh self funded that you know, that can get reimbursements from from the position Or that save us money in terms of um less over time. So Thank you I could also make a comment about some of the efforts that we're making with an hsd um, we actually are working with personnel um on a couple different recruitment and Efforts and then um in partnership with the california Cwda that was mentioned earlier. There's actually um a recruitment work group On which we have a number of our divisions represented Where they're putting um sharing best practices on how to recruit and retain employees And then just an example of some of what we're doing We've been a lot more active at job fair is local job fairs and creating internship opportunities Paid internship opportunities within our department whenever possible and then Lastly on a couple of the job classifications in particular the benefit representative job classification I just want to speak to that. Um, since it's come up a couple times There are currently 32 vacancies in that job class. Um, however, um, we're actively hiring 29 People who will um start in august. Um, so that will make a big dent in that um group's vacancy Thanks Thank you I'm also still getting messages that the audio is off for the zoom viewers Okay, we'll open it up for the community as I remember the community like to address this on the human services department budget Thank you. Becky steinbruner Um, I want to thank you for the presentations. I have great respect for for director morris I've I've watched his work and I really want to thank him for his good work um Regarding the the challenge for mass shelter one of those challenges is the Recent problems at the 14th d.a.a. Santa Cruz county fairgrounds with a replacement and a replacement again Of the ceo But I want to urge um your leadership in your department to contact cdfa deputy florist michael florist He has been attending those Fairboard meetings in person and has Guaranteed funding for different projects there I am aware that the mo u between the county and the 14th d.a.a is old And really does need to be updated and I hope that the county staff will do that um, there is A lot of chaos at the 14th d.a.a. I'm sure you've read about it Supervisor anand as you know all about what I'm talking about But I'm confident that um a new ceo will be soon Selected and we'll move forward But the county does need to hammer out some things One thing I saw at the ceo fire that I really questioned was that the kitchens the mass feeding kitchens were not used at all Compartmentalized packaged meals were brought in and that doesn't need to happen Um housing for health matters I really still question why the 12 brand new trailers that the county received from the state For covid isolation were not used for housing after the covid emergency was over They were given to the parks department for potential offices um, I think the property Thank you miss timberner Are there any other members of the public who would like to Speak to you this item that's on our agenda today In public or online We have no speakers online All right, I guess we'll bring it back to the board for uh action deliberation Mike's not working through ahead do Is the board member all of approval of the human services department by second It's a motion by a supervisor Koenig and second by um supervisor Hernandez. I would um Maybe as a as a consideration or a friendly amendment one of the things that um was brought up was just you know the the impacts that we're having and as it relates to homelessness on our community and um, there's a lot that we're doing around getting people off the street, but I I think the one area where we could use some more support is towards town tenant assistance earlier this year for example There was a member of the community who reached out who had received 180 percent rent increase where her rent went from $1,000 per month to $2,800 a month And oftentimes when tenants are in those situations They're the burdens on them to go find an attorney and so having more legal assistance I think is something that would really benefit a lot of folks who are renters in our community. So um as a an amendment or what Maybe could come back during the the final budget determinations whether we could allocate 90 000 towards um tenant sanctuary for tenant legal assistance um I know that tenant sanctuary i've been in contact with them and they've found an attorney who's willing to work at a lower rate than most To help provide this but in the long term I think that it'll be good for the county to consider tenant legal assistance Given that um, we're as was mentioned earlier the second most expensive county in the country actually in terms of Our rental housing market and this type of assistance would go a long way to help keep people housed within our community Just a question. Is there any proposal on where the money would come from specifically? What would be cut uh hsd if they could Work on finding that and I I know that you know, we all get allocations and I'm proposing to allocate 50 000 of My budget towards that. Um to help cover those costs as well Okay, thanks for the clarification All right, so we do have a motion and a second and I'm working a microphone with an additional Uh direction if we could have a roll call, please Yes, and thank you for your patience during the technical difficulties supervisor konegg Hi comings. Hi, hernan does. Hi McPherson and friend. All right And that passes unanimously Uh, what's the will of the board? Would you like a 10 minute break or would you like to continue going forward? Continue. Okay. All right. We'll move on to item seven, which is Uh, the first item in the public safety and justice category, which is to consider approval of the 2023 24 proposed budget for the office of response recovery and resilience including any supplemental materials and take related actions outlined In the budget documents and recommended by the ceo With the budget hearings item board memo the proposed budget in detail the supplemental budget continuing agreements list We have mr. Reed and miss sereno for the presentation. Mr. Director Reed welcome Thank you board. Um, good morning. I want to just start by recognizing that I'm here representing our more small but mighty office So working in or three. Um, as you all know is tatiana brennan any pocket patty ssla And without their hard work, um, much of what we are trying to accomplish Every day would not get done. So I want to just appreciate their work and also The work of deputy ceo melody sereno next to me here. Um in supporting, uh, the budget preparations during two disasters So the main, um Structure of our or three services is shifting this year. Um, so I wanted to highlight that we're adding And I know that there's been some conversation with the prior two budgets. We're adding the disaster response and recovery element to our budget So there are essentially three divisions or three services within our or three budget for your consideration today Um, that standard or three administration, which covers our resilience elements Um, grant administration and kind of post disaster long-term recovery integration with our community partners and our planning department Then obviously our eoc administration. So that's during disaster as well as preparedness and trainings. Um And working with our our jurisdictional partners and then the third and new Service area, um, is really to address some of the comments that were made already around. How do we prepare for? Um future disasters. How do we budget and so with the support of? um, our budget manager, um Marcus pimentel and and melody we've we've created this third division so that we're better positioned and prepared To address the immediate costs of response Um in in disaster Next slide uh here Are you sorry? Um, so I wanted to just take a moment and highlight You know the disasters that we've experienced. Um, this is a screen grab of a of a new live Web application are telling the story of those two disasters In the context of the severe weather and then how does our county and our community respond recover And build resilience to these disasters to try and again Articulate kind of how we showed up as a community as a county as or three So this will be live on our website. I'll share it with your offices in the community Through our standard media channels, but it's uh an amazing product that our ISD GIS team put together to really tell the story Broadly about the two disasters and so more specifically I know that we've had some conversation Um this morning already about the disasters and costs associated with them So at a high level, I wanted to provide a the latest update and some of these numbers actually are outdated And so I wanted to highlight that We have over 4300 Of our county residents who have signed up for FEMA individual assistance between the two disasters The first disaster over 3100 and over 10 million dollars in FEMA individual household Support has been approved. That's the highest number in the state Over 2.2 million dollars and over 1200 residents have signed up for FEMA assistance in the second disaster As well so significant Need by our community in the aftermath of the disaster for financial support and recovery as Mr. Pimentel articulated that public infrastructure damages are substantial Our agricultural damages have been substantial But really what I want to highlight is that in these two disasters recovery journeys are unique Um and each impacted resident Has a constellation of factors that influence their recovery journey And so for many folks this damage is different than our czu when folks lost their whole home but um No less impactful to their day-to-day lives. Um, and so we will see a different scale and and timeline of recovery in the disaster But what we also see is that folks are systematically underinsured That they have insurance insecurity So they're fearful of signing up for FEMA assistance because they're worried that their insurance will get dropped The FEMA assistance available is not enough And so equity in response And recovery is a critical element that we want to track and support our community as they face recovery from these latest two disasters the other thing that came up in prior presentations that I just want to highlight is that the regards to kind of immediate costs, um Supervisor conig in the prior conversation in the prior presentation We are working closely with cal oes In collaboration with cdi the cao's office in our auditor controller staff to secure cda a california disaster assistance act advanced funding To support our category a and category b expenses from these disasters We hope to come back to your board in june with more information But but but what I want to highlight is that instead of having to wait for this traditional FEMA reimbursement process We're trying to get an advance on some of those eligible costs So that that helps our kind of cash flow and bottom line And we're not in this situation as what was articulated before where we're sitting with Tens or close to a hundred million dollars in FEMA claim costs outstanding. So that's a big Big improvement. Hopefully to get that advance moving forward soon So just to highlight some of our operational area An operational plan highlights You know, we've been working the last two items on here have been completed We're working on the first item there. We have an rfp out And we've received responses to update our emergency operations plan, which will be informed by our after action analysis from these two disasters and we're continuing to work on hazardous fuel reduction efforts We've submitted over 30 million dollars in grants to the federal government And are hoping to get word on those soon to continue to address our most pressing climate crisis, which is wildfire Um During a prior presentation. I know supervisor Cummings asked at budgets to get a report back update on the evacuation grant So just to highlight As I said, we're using some of that evacuation grant funding to fund our update to our emergency operations plan The county chipper, which was part of that grant has been purchased. Um, but we're waiting on fall delivery We're still working and expanding and our work on the long pico evacuation route And then our gis team has been doing some really innovative gis analysis on evacuation work So at a high level, um from a budgetary goal standpoint, I just wanted to highlight, you know There are three rs in our name, but there's a lot of work that we want to do Um, and so really we're we're thinking about readiness response equity operational excellence and training and exercise in our budget goals This year and into the future And really our near-term initiatives The top three in bold Are drawn directly out of our January storm after action report We had a consultant that spoke with most of you and many of our county staff and jurisdictional partners and what we heard clearly from our from our county staff and and others is that we need to elevate Um the work of our training and exercises to to better prepare folks. We had a great roster built, you know One of the learnings from czu is we built a roster of who's going to show up and when and when what seat in the emergency operation center And how are we going to serve community and caron shelter with our ds w3 staff? But with turnover and changes training is a key key component to that So we need to elevate our training and exercise work Um at the direction of supervisor friend. We're implementing the crews aware Um alert and warning platform That information will be going out this week to community Um, and we'll be being initial outreach and testing of that system with community next week Um, and then really what we saw um in these disasters was an amazing Rise of our community partners And the jurisdictional relationships We we continue to grow and foster with the city of watsonville the county of monorail And we do need to work on on codifying or or building more formal relationships with with all of those partners So that we're better positioned in disaster And then there's some grant opportunities and obviously the big one And we'll be coming back in june is to discuss the implementation of our climate action and adaptation plan So the main changes and requested changes in this budget are really around adding that third service area Um, so that that's a significant change And then we are converting the wildfire and hazard resilience analyst position, which was grant funded to a permanent position Um, and the budget does reflect um a reduction based on the net county cost base and allow Um, I just wanted to show this slide because um, it actually represents the three years right this This office has only existed for three full budget cycles. So this is the third So this plot actually reflects every budget That has been created for this office and starting with with trish daniels And ryan friedrich and melody. We've tried to refine and improve this budget as we've Learned how this office will exist in community and county And so this next iteration Is I feel like an improvement over those two others as we've learned and grown as a as a small office in the ceo In addition to those those high level changes, I just wanted to highlight that we have put into the budget Um some technology funding to improve our emergency operations center functionality Our shelter and disaster recovery center functionality with technology As well as the new alert and warning platform And we've added um, and we have funding in there to supplement our staff Strategically on consultant support, whether that be for grant writing or other other needs that we have So really um in terms of the long term challenges and opportunities I want to highlight um, obviously that we continue to look at ways to upgrade our emergency operations systems to better deliver response And recovery services to the community With our staff countywide As you heard from the health and human services side the caron shelter is a big part of that We need to continue to outreach and educate our community and preparedness and resilience And we need to build our disaster service worker bench beyond Our dsw staff that we have now to potentially additional staff that Live outside the county employment family, but are maybe available during disaster to serve Some of the challenges obviously is training um and getting folks trained and and prepared to respond And then we're obviously working on some major resiliency efforts not only the implementation of the cap but also The boulder creek water quality and recovery project Which is has some initial funding that hopefully will come in this coming fiscal year from the federal government in a grant And then obviously as we've all experienced the increase in frequency of disasters Before I wrap up uh and and take questions. I just wanted to highlight um that or three represents a much broader team Um an integrated uh group So I just want to highlight how this team this county family Weaves together the service we provide during and after disaster And so our health and human services and our housing for health partners as you know, um Stand up our care and shelter mass care and shelter as was discussed previously Our general services department is the backbone of our logistics section in the emergency operations center Getting sand sandbags getting resources from the state or federal government as we need um our cdi community And team as you know was out there for tire tireless hours Um keeping roads open opening roads in 24 hours where roads were washed out Our sheriff and fire um are really managing the evacuation during disaster And then our county parks and animal services support shelter and uh animal service evacuations throughout so The eoc while managed under or three is really a blending and a weaving of Too many staff to name individually, but I wanted to at least give you all A sense of how they all weave together to provide services to our county and our community Without the support of all of these offices and departments and individual staff We wouldn't be able to serve the community as effectively as we have in these first two disasters And there's always always room for improvement for sure So I'll end the presentation with our our request um to approve the or three budget and i'm available for questions Thank you director read other questions from board members Supervisor comings I don't have any questions. I just had a comment so i want to express appreciation for This office being established within the county and all the amazing work that you all have been doing Over the past few years of food as we've been dealing with the fires and recovering from that and then the subsequent Storms which I don't think any of us thought that we would be prepared to take on three months worth of storms this year and it was just um Really great to see how many people stood up and and we're Able to be available and respond to this disaster and we know that we're going to be experiencing these more in the future And so my hope is that we can continue over time expanding the department knowing that how critical it's going to be Um, especially because you know, it's one thing to respond Well, you know as as we are seeing you know recovering from these storms and from these disasters can take a lot longer than anticipated And so being able to provide you all with the support you need to be successful is something I think that we should be investing in and so just wanted to express my appreciation for all your work Thank you Survisor McPherson Yeah, I too want to thank you director reed and uh, they're whole Small but mighty staff as you call them. Um, you've really come Come up front to uh address some The disaster responses the multiple ones that we've had and then overseeing our climate adaptation planning as well um, it's all going to be continuing and uh, it's it's reasonable to say that you need You're going to need more in the future It's been a non-stop race as we know for to uh against the clock to help our community rebound from the fire and the storms that we've had Um, and I appreciate the the modest investment that we've made in this budget And it makes the setting to size specific disaster response budget But um, I I suspect I suspect the board is going to need a lot more than what you're asking for today in the near future um to make a much larger cross departmental investment in This area in the future region And the future year is given the recent storm events that we've had so I do appreciate The the most multifaceted response that you have had in so many areas and to all the departments that have coordinated their efforts It's been really uh an impressive way. We've responded. I know that people I hear it all the time. Why don't you get things done faster so we can do it? We have to work with so many different avenues and Systems that are Related to state, you know our septic requirements that we have and that's that's all there is up in the center Ones of valley in my district and the fire access which is up to the cal fire and their local fire departments uh, they oversee those and remake requirements for those and um, It's just um, it's frustrating that we can't do everything right away, but we have to depend on Others to help us get to where we want to be and to respond to those people who want to rebuild is more quickly and We have special circumstances here and we're dependent on a lot of other agencies to make that happen as quickly as possible But thank you for being there. I don't know what we would do if we wouldn't have to establish this office in 2020 So thank you for everything Thank you. I think the board will be interested in seeing the after action that was done As we had all participated and I appreciated the opportunity to do so Um, I I do appreciate for how small your team is and to supervisor Cummings point. It was just recently uh, created it has that quite a large lift and um, I know you were working Uh an unprecedented number of hours during not just ccu, but also then during the storms I want to appreciate you and your team for the amount of time that you put in to respond Uh to all of our constituents. You've basically been tasked with Addressing preventing and mitigating all climate change related disasters in our community Which is already a disaster prone area by topography Uh and location and so That's that's not a small Issue and we I just want you to know that the board recognizes that mr. Reed, um, you're doing a lot of work and what I've appreciated about your approach is your willingness to once we're out of the heat of the moment to be able to Uh allow for an analysis of things that went well and things that didn't go well So that we can be more prepared for the next one and I feel that that we're moving on a course Of exactly that with some of our communications outreach changes and some of the other work that we're doing But um, I know that we can keep getting better People are relying on us to be to get this right the first time not just in an after action So anything that we can do to be supportive of that. I'd appreciate Um, we'll open it up for the community It's an opportunity for the members of the community to address us on the or three budget if there's any member in chambers Welcome back Thank you Thank you. Becky steinbrunner I do not want to disparage or three But I remember in 2020 when as a budget cut The C. A. O. Did cut the office of emergency response berth mary anderson was doing a phenomenal job With a very small staff With a much smaller budget and it was cut as a fund Cost-saving measure, so I think it's important to look at that And look at what we have now that is much larger much more complicated Um But doing a pretty good job Thank you I just want to recognize rosemary anderson for her her great work. She did a lot of good So, uh, here we are state farm insurance is no longer writing new policies in our county in our state And um, that's of concern to many I would like to see um Roadside mowing throughout the county for for fire protection, especially our evacuation corridors I would like to see our evacuation corridors paved Eureka canyon road San Andreas road are in really bad shape And um, it's uh, we need to be installing turnouts, which is part of the new state fire code anyway So that when evacuations do happen, there's a place where uh, the engines can get through and are not hampered by outgoing residents um I'm happy to hear there was an after action review for the floods There never has been one with county fire for the czu fire And I've mentioned this a lot and it hasn't happened. We've got to do that We've got to involve county fire department for an after action review Of the 2020 czu fire I also um Thank you, mr. Umbrunner Is there anybody else in chambers? Madam cork, is there anybody online? We have no speakers online chair. Okay. Well close public comment bring it back to the board for emotion Is there a motion? We have a motion from supervisor McPherson on the recommended actions in the second from supervisor hernandez I just wanted to make a Quick comment in response to miss dimerner's Um recommendations around the after action due for czu fire And I just wanted to say that I have been in conversation with the county ministry of officer and seeing if we could At some point have some kind of review because um, I think from the perspective of not just the response But the recovery that there is um, um real interest in figuring out, you know What went well where the areas for improvement and how we can do better in the future So just want to let you know that um, you've been heard and we're we've been having those conversations We have a motion and a second if we get a roll call, please supervisor conic. Hi comings. Hi hernandez. Hi mcpherson and friend Hi, and that passes unanimously. Thank you, mr Reed, mr. I know for that item We'll move on to item eight Which is to consider approval of the 23 24 proposed budget for the public defender including any supplemental materials and take related actions Is outlined in the reference budget documents And recommended by the ceo The budget hearings item memo the proposed budget and line item detail the continuing agreements list and the transfer of appropriations And with us today we have Um, as rogers our public defender and mr. Jones the it business systems analyst. Welcome to you both. Thank you for waiting Thank you Thank you so much. We're very happy to be here Press the gray button on the base Thank you Fantastic. Good morning So first I want to introduce my administrative services manager dylan jones who's worked tirelessly on this budget Along with um, as usual the county administrative office team specifically assistant ceo, nicole coburn and principal analyst finn stafford Whose support of our agency has been immeasurable and consistent So 60 years ago an unhoused drifter named clarence url gideon was accused of stealing $55 soda and beer from a pool hall When he asked the judge for a lawyer to defend him at his jury trial the court said no So he defended himself He questioned the prosecutor's witnesses He challenged the state's evidence And he argued his innocence And when he lost that trial and was sentenced to five years in prison, he didn't give up Sitting in a prison cell convicted of something he didn't do Mr. Gideon kept on fighting He picked up a pencil and five pieces of paper He petitioned the supreme court to reconsider his case And in one of the great social justice moments of all time nine justices agreed In gideon versus wainwright decided on march 18th 1963 The supreme court held the constitution requires the state to provide defense counsel For an accused person who can't afford a lawyer And with a public defender by his side mr. Gideon won his trial in less than an hour and was freed Six decades later we stand here in mr. Gideon's debt His courage his tenacity His belief that the constitution is more than parchment Breathed life into the sixth amendment It revolutionized the criminal legal system and it gave us public defenders Mr. Gideon's decision to fight for right in the face of unimaginable odds Made our system fairer for everyone In almost a year ago with your leadership Santa Cruz county opened its first county office of the public defender You answered gideon's call for justice and you took an important step toward fulfilling gideon's promise Together as a community we are fighting for what is right We are demanding equal justice for all and we are elevating public defense one client at a time When we opened our doors last summer We knew this first year would help us clarify what we needed to provide constitutionally effective defense For the people of Santa Cruz county We rolled up our sleeves to serve a community that was reeling from covet forest fires and flooding A community whose most vulnerable members are struggling with mental illness and substance use disorders A community facing job and housing insecurity economic disparity and trauma This year has given us a better idea of what we need to do this work Our proposed budget shores up our staffing to get us closer to meeting the national workload standards for public defense And achieving budget and staffing parity with the prosecutor's office Our proposed budget provides the additional expert funds that we need to advocate for mental health diversion To defend against increasingly more sophisticated Prosecutions and to partner with americor volunteers to shore up our reentry programming and improve our data collection Our proposed budget gives us what we need to provide zealous community-based whole person defense to Santa Cruz county The budget increases our expert fund and it gives us a net total of two staff positions By subtracting one position and adding three Our new staff will include an attorney a legal assistant and a discovery clerk effective public defense is not optional The constitution requires the state to fund public defense at a level That safeguards the fifth and sixth amendment rights to do process a fair trial and effective assistance of counsel The public defender is constitutionally and statutorily mandated to defend people accused of crimes or facing involuntary commitment in Santa Cruz county This can get tricky because unlike other law firms. We can't turn anyone away Prosecutors including the da's office county council and the city attorneys Determine our workload based on how many cases they prosecute and file We defend about 85 to 90 of all prosecutions in Santa Cruz county In our first year of operations We answered gideon's call by accepting representation for 100 of eligible clients who requested public defense For a total of over 5205 cases to date Including felonies misdemeanors juvenile matters mental health and probate cases Record clearance cases and post conviction relief matters Additionally, we took over 3100 cases From the private firm that previously handled public defense Providing consistent representation through the transition We staffed the collaborative courts including behavioral health veteran court and parole reentry court We provided post conviction relief in response to sentencing reform Youthful offender parole advocacy record clearance representation and immigration advice We provided early representation to over 240 clients in custody Getting defenders to clients as soon after arrest as possible to improve outcomes And we provided holistic support to over 570 clients with enmeshed legal and social needs Including benefits housing and employment advocacy and assistance getting supportive services like substance use and mental health treatment We offered 24 hour emergency legal service for youth detained for serious crimes and for incarcerated adults requesting emergency assistance We developed a comprehensive new attorney training program We offered continuing education to all professional staff And we brought a grant funded three day public defender training to santa cruz county We secured two additional grant funded opportunities Totaling about $700,000 to fund post conviction relief and pretrial social service support for our clients We've engaged in extensive community outreach Developing relationships that strengthen our connection to the communities we serve And we did all this while building a new department and transitioning public defense from a private firm model to a county agency These successes highlight the strengths of our team We are committed. We are resilient and we are driven to achieve our mission Our mission is to courageously defend the accused To demand equal justice for all and to empower our clients with inspired advocacy in the courtroom and the community We're on a mission to elevate public defense one client at a time Our vision is to lead the charge in transforming public defense to empower those we serve By honoring their experiences Amplifying their voices and offering real solutions to the root causes of system involvement And our values we share with you and this community We're client focused collaborative courageous creative culturally responsive and compassionate As public servants we focus on upstream interventions to avoid downstream consequences And we are committed to promoting santa cruz county santa cruz county's vision Of creating a healthier and safer community that is culturally diverse and economically inclusive Our commitment to diversity equity and inclusion goes hand in hand with our mission vision and values We stand for racial equality social change and equal justice for all Our executive team includes a director of training equity and development Who helps us embed equity in all that we do And we are extremely proud to provide services throughout this county Including a robust active lively office in watsonville where we have a team of defenders there to serve our community every day We look critically at our policy policies and procedures to make sure that we are doing our part to combat systemic inequities and to promote dei Our community based whole person defense model centers equity by acknowledging and addressing the historic inequities That have led to the mass incarceration of people of color People living in poverty and people suffering from mental illness and substance use disorders We designed this model to meet the unique needs of santa cruz county Understanding that we can't litigate our way out of homelessness Substance use and mental health disorders and hopelessness Instead we combine zealous advocacy with holistic representation and community engagement To assess and address our clients enmeshed legal and social needs We staff our courtrooms with defense teams that include a client advocate attorney investigator and legal assistant We represent our clients as early in the process as possible with pilot projects in the jail and watsonville That give clients access to defenders soon after arrest Our clients get vertical representation. That means they have the same defense team from their first day in court until the end For clients leaving custody or completing a sentence We offer reentry support post conviction relief and record clearance advocacy Our operational plan objectives provide measurable equity based goals for us to strive for as defenders including more robust whole person defense An intake process that allows us to effectively address enmeshed social and legal needs increased early representation increased post conviction relief advocacy And community-based reentry planning and equitable recruitment Our objectives are designed to capitalize on our successes For example in our juvenile unit community-based whole person defense led to our working closely with a child with an intellectual disability Our team worked with his family and educators to ensure That he was getting the services he needed to address the root causes of his system involvement Our social worker collaborated with a school psychologist and an IEP team To address a learning disability and to help this child find a summer job by assisting with job applications and transportation to interviews With our support the child's case was dismissed And the child and his family have renewed hope for their future In our adult unit our holistic teams work every day to identify root causes and offer supportive services to address them Multiple cases have been diverted or dismissed based on these efforts Including the case of a senior citizen client with physical disabilities Whose case was dismissed after we were able to work with the housing for health team to get his living situation stabilized Our operational plan moves us toward realizing more of these results That improve public safety while lifting our clients up and out of the criminal legal system Our budget reflects our goals of having caseloads that meet national standards Interdisciplinary defense teams that can assess and address enmeshed legal and social needs supervision training and mentorship for our defenders Modern technology and analytics to measure results and improve outcomes Early and holistic representation And the ability to pursue equity create strategic partnerships and pursue grants This slide reflects our agency's budget, but the overall public defense budget of 16,754,199 Includes two levels of conflict council the conflict firm of page and dudley and a conflict panel overseen by county council Our proposed budget both the overall budget and our agency's budget Moves us as a community closer to where we want to be to reach our goals of providing public defense that reduces recidivism Reduces incarceration and offers real solutions to the root causes of system involvement We've requested the staff that we need to provide effective public defense While gradually working toward meeting national standards for public defense Currently there are two primary measures for assessing public defender workloads The aba's national workload standard is one benchmark And the other benchmark is to work toward towards parity with prosecution offices such as the da's office Both measures are designed to safeguard the six amendment guarantee of effective public defense And we're working toward both measures. We're not there yet, but we're getting there As you consider our proposed budget, I hope that you'll keep in mind the following The new aba guidelines to be released within the next few months will require lower caseloads than we currently have We're falling behind here and our request will help us to catch up Increases in the prosecution budget must be matched with increases in public defense To correct systemic inequities Emerging mandates to address the state's mental health incarceration crisis such as care court Require stabilization of our core services. So we're prepared to pivot to meet new demands for public defense Prosecutions become more technical and more sophisticated each year Evidence becomes more complex to review and process as data technology Audio video and forensics become more prevalent Public defenders are increasingly at the forefront of policy issues and solutions related to mental health and substance use disorders Investing in public defense does more than put defenders in the courtrooms It allows us as a community to confront the root issues that drive system involvement New mandates such as mental health diversion and care court require adequate funding for training and experts The consequences of providing ineffective public defense are costly and can result in lawsuits And we are confident that upstream solutions Forge through community-based whole person defense will lead to downstream savings and improved outcomes for this community Over a decade after mr. Gideon was buried in an unmarked grave The aclu placed a headstone on his resting place with a quote from a letter he wrote to his lawyer I believe that each era finds an improvement in law for the benefit of mankind 60 years later the u.s. Is a world leader in incarceration with two million people in prison california imprisoned over 850 000 people a year more than any other state and has the second highest pretrial detention rate in the country The burden of incarceration falls heaviest on people of color with black americans incarcerated at nearly five times the rate of white americans and latino americans imprisoned at 1.3 times that rate Over 40 percent of people in jails and prisons are diagnosed with mental illness So on the 60th anniversary of gideon we are at a reckoning Another moment in history when it's time to rethink what is fair just and possible To end mass incarceration to address the root causes of system involvement and to heal our communities Our office of the public defender is leading the charge to transform public defense to reach better outcomes And our proposed budget gives us what we need to continue to leave this work I ask you to please take the recommended actions laid out in the board memo including approving our proposed budget Thank you, and i'm available for questions Thank you. Ms. Rogers. Other questions from board members Supervisor McPherson Now I I want to just say how tremendously I'm impressed with your first year of the establishment of our public defender office Ms. Rogers and your whole staff year one. It's really been a phenomenal start and the proposed budget really demonstrates that Well, a few adjustments are being made with regards to how personnel are assigned the office is operating well There's more to be done and has been noted with the health and human services budget Addressing the state mandated programs, especially the care court that's going to hit us really next year We have a tough job. You have a tough job ahead of us And there's going to be more to do than what you've asked for today, which i'm totally in support of so It's a critic the office of public defender is a critical partner In the collective responsibility we have to maintain wellness in our community And I thank you for working with with so many people and expanding your efforts I know that you have put more than eight hours a day in this as has your whole staff So I thank you for doing so much with what you have And we're going to need more in the future. I know that I think we all should be recognized that when the care court mandate comes to san jacuzzi county next year So thank you again for everything you've done. I appreciate your service. It's our pleasure. Thank you Thank you supervisor conan Thank you chair. Thank you public defender rogers and mr. Jones Uh, you know, I think everyone I've interacted with that has worked with your department has been really impressed with your whole person care approach And just the level of service that you provide all your clients And the example you shared of getting the um Child young man a job And ultimately resolving his case that way it was You know just demonstrates the the lengths that you will will go To really help turn people's lives around I know you inherited a huge number of cases. I think he said 3,100 What is the number today? I know is the I managed to actually get that down. Um, and then You know, how many are you resolving through, you know, whole person care methods versus in the courtrooms That's a great question and one that I can answer for you partially I may need to follow up on some of it So we took over 3,180 active cases from the law firm and we Got those basically overnight on july 1st. We woke up and took representation of those cases We were lucky to have a lot of the team from the firm with us to provide consistent representation to those clients since then we have Been appointed to or accepted representation in about 5,205 cases We're expecting to accept representation in between 6,000 and 6,500 before the year's end Typically the public defender represents between 6,500 and 10,000 depending on the year In covet our numbers went way down and what we see is they're they're ramping back up as Prosecutions are filed more and more In terms of the amount that we represent today Mr. Jones is showing me some numbers. This doesn't include record clearance or post conviction But right now we have Yeah, that's the number that's Cases assigned and opened right now are 6,257 In terms of what we're resolving through courtroom litigation versus whole person defense I think those really go hand in hand And so the way this typically works unless we can get to the case before it's filed which we are doing through early representation But otherwise the way this works is the case is filed And then our team wraps around the client to make a plan For supportive services and to figure out root causes In cases where we can identify those and provide services We go to the da's office with mitigation packages and plans They've been very receptive to our efforts and often those cases Resolve for reduced charges or get dismissed or diverted Don't have an exact number for you on that but i'm i'm happy to look more into it and report back Okay, thank you Thank you chair and thank you for the presentation I just want to again express my appreciation for the county administrative officer and this board For incorporating the public defender's office into the county and for helping to expand those efforts and I'm fully supportive of what you're asking for today And my hope is that we can actually Under our operations plan prioritize the expansion of the public defender's office I mean, it's clear just based on what you've Told us today about the number of cases that you all have that There's a high need for the service in our county And representation is extremely important. Um, if not critical in our criminal justice system, so I just want to Congratulate you all and you know stepping up this year and the expansion of this program and and you know, whatever we can do to help Increase these services and support you all moving forward. Please don't hesitate to listen out. Thank you so much supervisor Thank you supervisor coming supervisor. Hernandez Just briefly, you know, I want to echo supervisor Cummings comments and you know, I think that for the expanded services You know, you mentioned south county That you know, I'd like to see that happen in the future as well And I think that what you said before too is probably something that we're going to have to prioritize and that's parody with the da's office um, you know, I think that with the caseload And services that are expanded in south county, I think it is something that we are going to have to address So thank you for all the work that you're doing as well. Thank you for your support All right, we'll open it up to the communities and remember the community in chambers that would like to address this on the public defender's budget Thank you, Becky Steinbruner. Thank you for the good report You have done a tremendous amount of work in this first year and thank you um What I didn't see and maybe I just missed it was what are the number of attorneys that you have on staff now? I saw that you want to add some but um that that caseload is huge 6257 active cases um How many how many attorneys are available to handle this case? load because We want to give people good representation and when one attorney has too much to do you can't prepare Properly we also have to really look at the um shortage of judges in our county right now That i'm sure is affecting the quick processing of these things I would like to know How many of these cases were covet related misdemeanors that were Filed by the along local law enforcement during covet. I know many people that got uh tickets for being on the beach during the um The certain times we weren't supposed to be there during covet. How are those are those part of it? I I witnessed one man represent himself related to that um I also wonder how much gang activity is influencing our youth. I I know it's substantial In the in the county and neighboring counties and I worry about our youth falling prey to the gangs and Being urged to to steal to get funding for drug sales So how do we address that and how much of your caseload is that? um The How much as as a board you have the ability to allocate prop 172 money to help this more They do get some but you have the ability to change that formula and I hope you will consider that. Thank you Thank you. Is there anybody else in the chambers? I'd like to address us Seeing none. We'll close the chamber comment. Is there anybody online? Yes, bernie your microphone is now available yeah chair and um bernie gumbel you by I just I'm in full support of this public new public defenders office department its staff uh Much gratitude to heather rogers and their leadership um And just agreeing with uh with the board as your commitment to continue to support this Evolution of this department, right? um, and I just think that This is a first, you know, um for santa cruz county, which is considered like a progressive site You know, and this is what I guess uh progress looks like right having a different type of outlook engagement to old historical um Deficits that our community are facing, right? uh, so yeah, I just I urge you to continue to support but also Think about going above and beyond um in supporting uh, this vision this new uh This new process. I guess uh for santa cruz county because the uh intended impact of this would be uh, we'll see a drop of uh Decreased uh recidivism, right? You know when we talk about root causes really thinking about The root cause why is this happening not what we've seen? In recent years or at least in my lifetime as a formerly carcer individual, right where it was just more Around punishment, right? Of course, there's accountability. Of course, there's uh, um, you know growth, but Yeah, I just want to just want to think that uh The board for for doing this for um Just showing commitment to it and yeah, thank you Thank you Are any additional speakers online? We have no further speakers chair All right, we'll close public comment and bring it back to the board for emotion on this action Is there a motion for supervisor comings? I'll move the public defenders budget second A motion from supervisor. Do you have more? I was gonna go ahead and go ahead Yeah, and just a quick comment to mr. Gomez's point. I think it'd be good to get an update on outcomes. Um Maybe that can come during the budget session next year But just you know continuing to to get updated on the success of the department and and what they're achieving I think will be really helpful for folks in the community to understand the work that you all do Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you a motion from supervisor comings a second from supervisor. Hernandez if we get a roll call Please absolutely supervisor conic. Hi comings. Hi, Hernandez. Hi McPherson and chair friend Hi passes unanimously. Thank you for your work. Thank you so much. All right, we'll move on to item nine Um our final budget item of the day and then we'll have closed session Then we have a one o'clock scheduled item with item nine is to consider approval of the 2023 24 proposed budget for the probation department Including any supplemental materials and take related actions is outlined in the reference budget documents and recommended by the ceo We have the budget hearing memo that the detail the supplemental budget continuing agreements list And uh, mr. Rubble, I believe you're gonna kick it off. Is that correct? Yes Good morning still morning. Yes and chair and supervisors um I will be presenting our 23 24 requested budget and uh as others have already shared just how important Is to have a great fiscal staff? Uh, I have my administrative services manager here Melissa allen right behind me. I want to thank her My administrative services manager officer. Excuse me. Justin newness who's they both did an amazing job Also special thanks to the ceo office. Uh, Nicole coburn Uh as well as david brown for all their support and and of course I want to thank my entire probation staff Their dedicated team Uh continues to really to really support public safety and support in the community in so many ways, which I hope to share with you Today probation operates as an arm of the court and is responsible service for services required by the adult and juvenile courts Including pre-trial assessments probation supervision Pro-strile alternative custody and juvenile detention. The department is divided into four divisions adult juvenile pre-trial and juvenile hall Regarded as a national leader our department promotes public safety and productive lives at all phases of the criminal justice system By focusing on evidence-based practices custody alternatives and the humane treatment of young adults and clients and adult clients this photo Oh, I'm sorry. Let's go to the previous photo. Yeah, sorry Yeah There you go. Yeah, just wanted to show this photo because it highlights the uh family engagement nights in watsonville Is this at the civic plaza and this was probably taken earlier this year in south county? It's um provided in partnership with ppsa and funded co partially funded by the any kasey foundation But really shows one of our many roles is to build capacity for families in need so they can succeed Particularly during and post-covid families are really struggling to connect and find resources So these engagement nights were about that offering free activities food games um specializing in community prevention and diversion and just talks uh practice if you will with families are just about how how to really Work with their children who are really struggling during this time probation's budget requests only includes very few changes These are juvenile hall health enhancements pre-trial staffing support In our mobile service center grant award. I'll be speaking a little bit more in detail about these in just a moment We also made a change for the 23 24 budget and reorganized the budget to break out adult services pre-trial services juvenile services From our general probation and juvenile hall budget. So it just gives us a clear picture of each division does uh Unique work some of it's very similar, but it's unique But it's and allows us to enable to really determine what we need forecast resources and uh and see the impact By budget area the photo you see here shows our probation staff at the county career fair in watsonville recruiting staff for our divisions Like pre-trial services and all other positions across our department These career fairs are really vital to the county as it allows us to continuously build a talent pipeline So this was probably two or three weeks ago. It was a really great event I want to thank personnel for organizing that as we've talked about Uh, fortunately my department doesn't have a high vacancy rate But I know the others do so these are great Okay next slide, please Our mission and vision Won't go into this in too much detail because as we speak we are right now Developing a new strategic plan for 2023 to 2028 So this is based on our most recent strategic plan And I say I won't go into too much detail because I know we'll be modified Our field is evolving the neal the needs of our field have involved And and it will address continue to address race equity inclusion as we speak in this month of may We're actually um taking client surveys from a both juvenile services and adult services and also from Parents guardians and support people. We also reached out to a number of our stakeholders a couple months ago across The county just to get feedback on how we're doing. How can we do better? This photo is a photo of dr. Brian lovens from the advancing probation practices event last november at twin lakes church The purpose of this event was to create a space for authentic partnership and contribution from our partners Particularly with individuals with lived experience to explore different perspectives of what probation's purpose Should be and what policies and practice should be in place to help drive probation success So as a department, we continue to be Committed to continuous improvement and this event was highly successful in supporting the goals of our strategic plan Again, this is a snapshot of our four divisions that do so much. Uh, I would spend uh Too too long going over a detail of what these different divisions do But as you know juvenile hall is established in the welfare and institution code and requires the board of supervisors to provide a and maintain a temporary secure place for youth ages between the 12 and 25 who are under the jurisdiction of the juvenile court who pose a public safety threat Our juvenile division is responsible for a continuum of services focused on investigation diversion pre and post adjudication services and community supervision preventative out of home place services out of home. Um, who are referred to the probation department Um, we're also now responsible to youth who are being ordered into the secure youth facilities track Due to the djj realignment Our adult division very similar to the adult division officer officer full spectrum of services supporting felony and specialty courtrooms Conducting investigations writing pre sentence reports providing community based supervision and also operating our two probation success centers one in south county and one in north county And pretrial, which is our newest division. We've been operating pretrial services for years But sp 129 last year enabled us to stand up our newest division And clearly that's so important as we know that a number of people are held in pretrial detention unnecessarily So we have really great success with our pretrial program in terms of folks being released To our monitoring services, uh, and they have a high rate of success meaning they make it to court And they don't reoffend while they're waiting for trial. So we've demonstrated great success in that My assistant chief. Sorry, I didn't introduce valerie thompson. My assistant chief. Uh, we'll now go over a few slides with you Thank you. Um, so this is a snapshot of our operational plan and these reflect our updates Our operational plans are ambitious and we are confident that our staff who are very talented and committed along with our Community providers will work very hard to contribute to success in each of our goals One thing that we're really proud of as a department is that of 10 of our 11 operational plan objectives all center equity and get at outcomes of well-being And community safety for the community They range from the implementation of cal aim, which is important our department because it now crosses from Our juvenile services over to our adult services where we're already piloting The implementation of cal aim and partnership with our hsa and hsd partners Just a couple of highlights from this is that we hope in our juvenile hall that we will Really be able to focus on hard handoffs for successful transitions in the community from our young people Who are leaving our facility to be directly connected to community services and supports as a transition home Um in our juvenile supervision Division we are looking for a 20 increase in diversions Specifically for our latino youth to not come into our juvenile justice system As you've already heard we have disparities in our justice system and we know that our youth of color Are the most impacted by justice system involvement So we're working very hard with our community partners to prevent them from coming into our system In our adult division Division is really focused on working with our community partners to increase equitable access to services In non-traditional hours. This is something we've been able to accomplish on our juvenile side and on the adult side we want to be able to provide services during evenings and weekends and Contract for a minimum of 20 percent of our services that will provide after hours non-traditional service hours for for um to support the folks that we are working with In our pre-trial division. They are already piloting as I mentioned cal aim implementation with hsd and hsa support And they are already screening at a rate of over 45 clients a week to Assess their appropriateness or eligibility for cal aim One important piece about cal aim that we should mention on both the juvenile and the adult side is this offers a shift in services that were not available to Folks who were incarcerated and our young people who were in custody So as they come out of placements as they come out of services or the jail They will automatically be connected to The supports and services that hsa provides or other service providers provide without interruptions So it provides a continuum of care, which increases successful reentry in the community And then on our probation administrative side, we are really looking at um increasing the capacity of our staff Our chief has implemented a coaching model that our staff are currently being trained in To increase engagement and the relationships that we have with everyone that we supervise and the natural supports who work with them So again, we can create safety nets and positive relationships in order to increase positive outcomes across our department This is a snapshot of our primary budget goals. I won't read them all to you for the purpose of um our time here I'm going to focus on how we really work to embed equity in the culture Procedures and practices in our department One thing that's very important to us and to our county medical and behavioral health providers Was really focusing on our juvenile hall medical services as an example We work with a consultant to help us Solve issues and look at ways to utilize best practices with regards to providing Medical coverage for a seven day a week 24 7 facility And so increased funding is in our budget where we are looking to increase equitable access to medical services We will have increased nursing hours, which will also provide services after hours in the evenings It will include medication distribution We have um The ability to provide more assessments for what are the needs of our young people who are coming into our facilities Especially after hours to be able to ensure that they're immediately connected to the services and the medical treatment that they need And again, this also addresses like a realignment between departments to Work together to to actually provide the coverage that we need in our juvenile hall Um and also be able to meet the guidelines and the regulations of the board of state and community corrections in our title 15 Regulations which govern how we operate our juvenile facility Our request to change although minor will have a major impact on our ability to operate our very important pre trial program Which is a public safety program currently as you can see from the uh The graph there that we are supervising close to our monitoring. We call it close to 300 individuals in the community So you can see how that number has really continually increased the courts are relying on that The jail is relying that that's a a release valve and it really helps avoid overcrowding Which is a something that we do not want any any of our facilities the juvenile hall medical medical improvements are $800,000 from the general fund And but that's very very critical as we really need to meet the needs of those youth Most of the youth in detention are from south county And many of them have not had access to just basic health care Me going to doctors appointments going to the dentist Vision and so on so we're really excited about this and really grateful for our continued partnership with health services To make this happen As you might have been aware something i'm super excited about is the board of state community corrections awarded us a competitive grant The mobile probation services Grant which we received a little over $400,000 but the intent and we don't have those vans yet But we are going to purchase a couple sprinter vans that are completely paid for here They're mobile. They're going to be like mobile offices. We're going to call it the mobile success centers and the whole The idea behind this is to really reach the unhoused populations and also those struggling to meet terms of conditions of probation I envision partnering with other service providers as we drive to Different areas of the community so that clients do not have to drive to our offices Which are located all over the county. We'll just give them a time and place. We'll be there We'll be with their provider got internet access We've got a desk and so on so super excited about that and I hope to be the first to to drive that if that's okay so This slide right here really reflects how our department implements strategies with the goal of really achieving measurable outcomes Two examples of this is we and we do this by if we do this This will happen and then what are the results and so we're a very result center department And two examples that we're looking at is if we enhance our juvenile medical juvenile hall medical procedures It will benefit the young people in custody improving their health upon reentry Which then will result in improved equity and access to medical services and public safety And then in our pretrial unit if we increase our staffing to ensure that we can provide the supervision that is needed for folks who will be Leaving custody We will increase the direct support services to our pretrial clients Meaning we will have enough staff to serve the needs and the supervision capacity For those that we will be working with which in turn will then Reduce failures and appearance rates and also reduce new criminal activity because we want to be able to provide equitable And comprehensive services and supervision in ways that don't compromise community safety at all With regards to our juvenile hall medical our data reflects that 70 percent of our young people in detention our latino youth Many of them come from impoverished and limited medical benefits And even routine exams we often find have not been provided And so those services are provided in the juvenile hall And then with regards to pretrial we find that many of our clients are people of color who are overrepresented in arrest rates So additional pretrial services will align with our ability to be able to provide those services reduce the number of folks indeed in the jail But also to safely supervise them in the community And at all times we are always focusing on race equity lens and looking at a targeted population benefit meaning We look at who is the most burden within the the populations that we work with Target our services and supervision strategies to be able to Increase the positive outcomes that they have they're there by increasing community safety and contributing to their outcomes of well-being This is our requested 23 24 probation budget overview as you can see on the far right We have revenues that amount to 24,500,000 The county General fund contribution is 9.5 million so that makes up the gap and helps us meet our expenses Which is 34 million dollars. So that's our proposed budget The county general fund is less than 30 of our entire budget with more than 70 coming from Other revenues general fund contribution mostly supports our juvenile hall adult pretrial And the juvenile services division is funded 85 into Intergovernmental revenues. That's mostly state and federal revenues coming into the department as you recall Last year some of the bigger revenue sources were the cohort 3 prop 47 grant that our county was awarded Where 70 of those dollars actually go to the community based agencies to provide key services for us and then again This budget also includes the new mobile services grant as well And also are the 800,000 dollar general fund contribution to enhance medical services So that just gives you a little breakdown that Pie chart of where Those dollars go to support each of each of the division including the administration Again, this is just another way to actually looks like a duplicate slide in some ways really showing just the cost breakdown of Governmental revenues miscellaneous revenues and the net county cost is what makes up our budget But you could see 70 percent is our intergovernmental revenues. And so Generally stable, but not not always a lot of that relies on vehicle license fees and so on in the state budget And as we know we're forecasting perhaps a little A drop in revenues And that's just our net county cost breakdown, which 50 58 of the nine million dollars goes to support the juvenile hall And 42 the remainder goes to the other divisions, which is pretrial adult services and juvenile services So we do have I've been talking for years about the Capital projects that we have and I hope to someday come here with a and invite you to a grand opening of a gymnasium and A new a new gym that we have and the renovation. So that day hopefully is coming soon We have two current projects, which is that see the table juvenile hall renovation, which we really really need Kitchen upgrade security accessibility and programming space And then a multi-purpose gymnasium. We're desperately in need for that The photo you see here is is our gymnasium Outdoors, we don't have a covered rec facility. Um, you know that this was taken of course, uh You know global warming continues to have significant impacts It was snowing this particular day up at felton and actually Many of these youth if not all hadn't ever seen snow So, um, it was there they were super excited about that but the photo also shows the flip side We just don't have a covered gym renovation and gym You were anticipated to go out to bid this fall. We're with construction starting in late spring of uh, 23 and 24 Um, they continually run into some issues and delays With the office of the state fire marshal basically what happens is we submit plans They have a new head of the state fire marshal and they go Well, I think we need to do things differently They send us something back and then six months have passed and that's pretty much been the big delay So if any of you have connections up there, we could use the the support there So here are some knowns and unknowns What we do know is probation staff comes out. This photo is uh The operation uplift which was a few weeks ago in response to the power out power out flooding And we had a staff person Gina Casaneda who coordinated efforts among another A lot of our partners cleaning the public defender the da's office to really Do an event where we collected prom dresses and suits for these young people in the power of valley who because it was This happened right around prom season. So it was an amazing turnout. We had young folks Coming there Trying on the outfit suits and dresses. We had staff that were hemming and sewing right on the spot So we're just just an amazing. So I just like to share that because Our role is just so broad. It's not, you know This is contributing to public safety and giving youth young people an opportunity to have that that special night So i'm very proud of that So the knowns really are ab 109 growth that has declined significantly in the proposed budget We don't know exactly what that amount will be but base allocations remain steady sp678 and sp129 sp129 is pre-trial funding is consistent The unknowns Is the cal aim? Path round grant to funding that will support there are a lot of unknowns about that We do know what the positive impact will be would be Our young people and adults who are incarcerated being able to get medical 90 days prior to release and the other unknown Is really the rollout of the care act and what impact it will have on on us at probation So future considerations and opportunities One is to really find a permanent South county success center right now one of our partners is leasing a space there Thank you for many of you came out to the grand opening of that But we would like to find a permanent location for that's really needed. It's about equity and accessibility Um, some opportunities are really continued to expand into our departmental collaboration I'm blessed to have So far been chief nine years and i've seen this collaboration with our partners justice partners and all our partners really just grow and I can pick up the phone and we can partner on so many things including grants Um pre-trial data integration is something that we're working on right now As you know, we have the mobile success centers Something to really consider is uh, uh, division of juvenile justice djj. That is closing On june 30th. Uh, we have two youth there who will be returning They will most likely be returning to uh going to sonoma because they have time to complete on their commitment That's where the one secure youth facility track that we have available to us at the moment We have expiring grants, which are risks the possible economic downturn Of course the our facilities we're all experiencing the facilities and aging facilities as well So here's our request like to enhance our juvenile hall medical and behavioral health services Just extra help and overtime to support pre-child services and uh Accept the mobile success center b sec grant funded What will be the mobile um success center And that completes my presentation and i now have time for questions. Thank you chief for the presentation Are there supervisors with questions or comments on this item? That's your advisor Thank the probation department. It's another part of our critical park partner alongside the sheriff and uh, just related departments who we've heard just from Prior to you and our efforts to keep our community safe Especially want to thank you for this budget's uh investments and approving the juvenile hall facilities has been a long time coming It's in my district Our efforts to serve the youth in this area are critical as we know and uh heavily impacting other service departments And like many other departments probation has also had to pivot a great deal in the past year Due to changes in state law And I think how we adjust to cal aim and care act is going to be very interesting and uh, I know you're looking forward to seeing how we can do that To the best of our ability to serve our clients How many uh, how many instances of failure to appear? Do you are there now? We're just with our pre-trial program. No, that's what we monitor Uh, I think our success rate is about uh 87 percent And I think that's comparatively very good. It's very good. Yeah, we have a very low reoffense rate of new arrest Um, which is around um, seven percent. I believe it's I'm pretty close I think in terms of what are those numbers it could be off by one or two percent But a really great success rate even as those numbers increased I was concerned right with staff capacity Having bigger caseloads, but sp129 helped us enhance that so I think public safety Has not been compromised with increased numbers I I want to congratulate you chief probation officer jeraldo and valerie for everything that you have done Uh, really santa cruz county is always at the top of the list of how we should do things in the probation departments throughout the state of california And you've continued that as you've gone I also want to thank the agencies the community service agencies who help Immense, I don't know how much they put in per year, but it's a lot and it's really helped our efforts and To whoever they are and you can't name them all but I want to thank them too There are many and we couldn't do the work without them. We definitely rely on their their support and uh Why we bring in prop 47 grants a lot of work to put that grant together, but that brought in uh About four million to our community agencies. Um, including three, um advocates at the public defender's office as well Thank you supervisor McPherson supervisor comings Thank you for that presentation. I want to thank supervisor McPherson for asking that question because I was I had the same question about, um The failure to appear right and it's great to hear that, um, you know We're doing well on that front that people are you know over overall they're showing up. Um I do think it would be helpful in the future that you know, I I appreciate the budget and i'm fully supportive Um, but I think really again to what I mentioned before the public defender's office as well as highlighting what the successes are right, um in future budgets because um, you know, what you all are asking for today is is reasonable and and um And what we're hoping to see is improved outcomes within our systems And I think being able to highlight, you know, how the funding is going to help Support these services and being able to show the community what the positive outcomes are In areas for improvement. I think it's always really good So the people understand that you know, we're doing a lot of really good work here In santa cruz county and we should be celebrating that when we have our budget reports come before us um and so that's Pretty much all the comments I had. I guess the one last comment would be that um, I know that um with some of the state DOJ facilities shutting down There's a really strong desire to get kids closer to home and I know right now. I think the kids are going to sonoma those that are committed to the security facility track That's that's where they're going. Yes. Yeah, and so I mean if there's you know opportunities for us to advocate On behalf of the county to try to get funding for renovations star facilities So those kids could be closer, you know, whatever we can do to try to get the kids closer to home I think that we should continue to make sure that that's a priority understood and I will share with you And I'll I'll send these to you. We do have annual reports to talk about outcomes and our successes So they're on our website, but I can send those to you We have each of our divisions does a really comprehensive report good good reading to maybe put you to sleep if you're Um, I don't like numbers, but it's a lot of data and outcomes. So I can share that that's We'll probably give you a lot of answers to the questions you have. Thank you. Appreciate it Thank you. We'll now open it up for the community I ask one more thing a couple years ago. We tried to change that formula sure we saved the few Uh clients that we have that were going to Sonoma to try to get them to Santa Clara county It it didn't work they haven't if we have any indication that that can work You let me know I'll try we'll try again. I was just with uh all the chiefs a couple weeks ago And I did my rounds with all their bay area chiefs and no no luck But there's a reason for that's not because they don't like Santa Cruz or our youth They are all dealing with a youth returning from djj and they have to manage their own facilities So they're not they're not taking any any youth in any of the surrounding counties So but I'm going to keep trying for sure and as well as also ideally we envision a A facility here someday that was equipped and had the capacity to really hold a young person Some of them are you know spending up to five to seven years. So you need a really really specialized type of A facility that's equipped to provide that kind of programming so they can safely re-enter One thing we should probably add is that we have received the van that we From the sb8 23 funding to be able to help our families go and visit so the van is In our possession we have policies ready to go and our juvenile hall superintendent sarah ryan has reached out to staff to begin to Schedule opportunities for families to go and visit and we will provide the transportation So that is it's delivered and we are now able to provide that service I just wanted to give a quick shout out to ruby. I didn't see a ruby there ruby marquez is fantastic Spinner county council for years an amazing resource and asset to us. So thank you I'm afraid to interject but I'm going to open up for the committee because you know somebody might jump in no we good All right, I don't want to get an opportunity for the community to Address us on this item. Is there any member of the community like to address us on the probation budget? Thank you for this report Becky steinburner from aptos What I didn't hear was any update on having a farm I know that you're um, there has been funding allocated in past years for a small animal farm That would give therapeutic Value to the juveniles. You're looking like you don't know anything about this, but I remember susan mariello Got the funding for our county So, um, I I'd really like to see something like that up at the gram hill Place I think whenever juveniles in particular have uh too much idle time. It is never a good thing And getting them outdoors Growing things working with animals is a good thing I also think that uh, I would like to see the county juvenile department partner and maybe the adult probation department Partner with calfire and the corrections department Um, there are prison release crews that in the past have been housed up at empire grade Those numbers have shrunk dramatically And um, I think that it would be a great service to the people to the kids to the adults On probation that don't have jobs don't have job skills to partner with calfire And do some vegetation management projects trail building in our county Get them active give them job skills give them skills to help manage money pay them And uh, let's get them back on their feet Um, I wonder how many Of these cases are involving drugs addiction mental health things That's a whole nother ball of wax And finally i'm running out of time, but I want to make you aware that the lions club international Provides free vision and hearing clinic Accessibility surgeries and free eyeglasses if it's needed. So please reach out to the local lions clubs We're here to help. Thank you. We're here to serve. Thank you Is there anybody else in chambers? All right, we'll close the chamber's comment. Is there anybody online? No speakers chair Okay, we'll bring it back to the board for a motion. Is there a motion? Second they have a motion from supervisor McPherson a second from supervisor conig We got a roll call, please Supervisor conig hi Cummings hi Hernandez hi mcpherson and friend Hi that passes unanimously. I had mistakenly said that we have closed session today We have closed session tomorrow. We do have a one o'clock scheduled item with the chair of the Monterey Board of Supervisors. So we'll just do a recess for 30 minutes I would like to call back to order the board of supervisors Meeting or the budget meeting. We have a special presentation a one o'clock presentation This is a non-action item But today's is a presentation from the chair of the Monterey county board of supervisors Louisa lejo chair lejo welcome Thank you very much chair friend and my my esteemed colleagues here on the Santa Cruz county board of supervisors I come from Salinas because I wanted to personally come and pay tribute and thank all the many county of Santa Cruz employees that really came to aid our Monterey county residents the residents of power in particular during our greatest time of need Last Tuesday we passed a resolution thanking all our different partners and agencies but we made sure to include a recognition for the county of Santa Cruz employees because they really Came through for us in a major way on march 11th when the levee broke Hundreds of people were evacuated from Pajaro almost 3,000 At midnight till 3 a.m. And immediately the Santa Cruz county fairgrounds was opened But it was a weekend and it was difficult to get employees in But I think those first few days it was mostly primarily the county of Santa Cruz employees that stepped up And provided a wide range of services and most people didn't see it But those employees came at 7 a.m. Left at 7 p.m. If you had the night shift They were there for the 12 hours from 7 p.m. To 7 a.m. In the morning And they were there day after day even on their weekends And when I talked to your employees they did it with a lot of compassion They treated our residents with a lot of respect and dignity and it really helped our residents in a with a wide range of services I remember there was a young teenager Family from Pajaro and her mom pretty stressed out and it was your behavioral health team that really helped them cope with that very stressful situation that they were undergoing But there's many other examples like that and I wanted just to come and and thank your employees and I got a copy of the resolution that we passed, but I also had this other proclamation And I hope that the county employees will see this because we wanted to really personally thank them And we call them our emergency services heroes for the 2023 Pajaro floods And it says on behalf of the board of supervisors We commend the county of Santa Cruz employees for their dedicated service Assisting the people of Pajaro and other storm victims through the most challenging of times We thank you for your heroic actions and service during the devastating march storms Your selfless efforts and care for the people of Pajaro Another impacted communities is worthy of our highest praise and appreciation and with that we want to just present these to you I don't know to our to you chair or to CAO Carlos Palacios and Actually, uh, since we're all here, why don't we all just come down and meet with uh, charley. Oh, thank you very much You know join us Carlos That's an ongoing debate Thank you very much Thank you Bruce. Yeah, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you Carlos I guess so You know, mr. Chair before he gets away, you know, um, I always have something to say Uh, thank you very much supervisor lejo and uh, you all your your associates too on the county board of supervisors and everybody that helped in that too And there were other agencies too that helped and I know that you have recognized them too I'm a a member of metro and they were providing some bus services for alleviate people when the transportation needs So, um, it's really a pleasure that we can get together For anyone that tragedy hits and we appreciate your recognition of that And to all the county employees. Thank you very much for what you did for Monterey County Thank you. It's an on action item, but there are any other comments from board members or Surveys or Cummings I just want to thank you for the recognition. I also just want to thank, um, our county CAO They call us Palacios and all the staff that were involved with helping, um, with those efforts around Making sure that we were protecting our neighbors in Pajaro and in Monterey County And I know supervisor Hernandez was doing a lot of volunteer work down there and also in Watsonville So just want to also express my appreciation for all the work that we were able to do collaboratively to help people Who were, um, in in need in our community and in our neighboring communities Thank you, uh, mr. Palacios Yeah, on behalf of uh, our employees, uh, we would really like to thank you Supervisor Alejo and our board for your support and recognition They really did go beyond the call of duty and give their heart and soul to this effort Appreciate the recognition. Thank you very much. Thank you. It's an on action item But with any member of the community who happened to all the county staff have any interest in analysis stepping forward All right, see none. Thank you, chair. Alejo that will uh adjourn our meeting We will be back tomorrow for a budget or a second day of budget here our third day budget hearings. Thank you Thank you very much