 It's seven o'clock, so I'd like to call the meeting to order. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to the last meeting of the year. May it be our best. Maybe not. Actually, if you're feeling anything like me, it may just feel like a really long one. So we will be efficient tonight. And since it is your last meeting, I don't want to miss the opportunity to thank you for all of your service and your feedback and the many, many contributions you've made to the board. Thank you. Thank you. You've been a tremendous asset to the community as well, I might add. Thank you. All right. Public invited to be heard. Nicole, I believe you said there are none. Correct. There is none. Let's go ahead and move on to the minutes, everybody should have had an opportunity to review them. Is there a motion to approve the minutes? I motion to approve the minutes. What a way to go out, Anne, with the courageous step, moving to approve the minutes. I like it. I like it. How about a second? Second. Graham, second. Any discussion, corrections to the minutes? OK, then all in favor, please say aye. Any opposed? Polly, it's OK. I saw you put your hand up, but you don't have to be afraid. You're not. You will not be reprimanded. I mistakenly raised my hand to see more people. You can raise your hand as much as you want. It still doesn't count. It still will count it, yeah. Yeah. Any opposed? OK, the minutes are approved. Anne Molly, I'll let you take it away with our next agenda item, which is the TRG recommendations for 2021 CBDG project funding. Great, thank you. So we're first going to have a presentation from Boulder County, the Boulder County Personal Finance Counseling Program. They provide counseling services for the whole county, specifically for our programs, both applicants to the Downpayment Assistance Program and the Rehabilitation Program meet with housing counselors for a budget review and a loan review if they're purchasing a home or if they are refinancing and are in one of our programs. Last year, the board approved doing a set-aside for the counseling program. For this year, it's $50,000. And the board also decided they would like to hear more about the trends that the counseling program is seeing from their clients as opposed to how other applicants usually provide an overview of the history of the organization and the services they provide. So we have Meredith and Darlene, who are from the counseling program. And I believe Meredith is going to give us a presentation with her PowerPoint. Thank you, Molly. And Meredith, just one moment. Just so I'm clear, Molly, is there going to be an actionable item for the board or is this informational tonight? This is information only. So you don't have to take any action. Thank you very much. I'm sorry, Meredith, to interrupt. Did you go ahead? No, it's good to know what you're doing. That's no problem at all. I'm going to attempt to share my screen. So give me just a moment and I'll make sure I can let you guys see the PowerPoint. Right, if someone would let me know if and when you can see it. We can see it. OK, that's great. So again, I am Meredith with the personal finance program with Boulder County and we have partnered with the city of Long Mountain, your CPTG grants for a few years now. So I appreciate you giving me the time to chat with you about what we're seeing, some of the trends and how we're kind of giving a service to the community. And I want to start off by showing a little bit of what we're seeing over the last, excuse me, I think I went back five years. So we've worked with folks, as Molly was saying, around housing topics, but in a holistic way. So we look at the whole financial picture. So if you're looking at doing rehabilitation or if you're looking to buy a home or if you're feeling insecure about making your next mortgage payment, we're the folks that you talk to. So looking back at the last several years, when we work with folks under pre-purchase, so folks who are looking to buy the five-year average, that's about 10% of our clients and 9% of our specific city of Long Mountain clients. And so that's about an average. It used to be a little bit higher, but then we saw shift in folks who really needed to be categorized a little bit more of, I want to buy, but I'm not quite ready. So we focus on the overall financial picture. And again, that comes under financial management. So the majority of the clients that we see and have been seeing over the last five years are for things to get them ready for home ownership or just to make them more stable and sustainable in their rental status, I think you could say. So that would be credit improvement. We look at debt reduction and rental counseling and student loan management and goal setting, and we've started using a coaching model. So we started looking at someone's circumstance and what might help them by meeting them where they are. So it's not just like, here's general advice, but what is your credit report? And what are steps that you would need to take? And so we're finding that we're also tracking results now and it's working really well to have folks have such an individualized approach. So that's the majority of how we approach the housing and the goal setting and the spending plan creation. But we also do reverse mortgage counseling and then post purchase. So that's kind of this general term which is about how we talk about foreclosure intervention or if you're feeling insecure about your next mortgage payment or that can be about refinancing which is sometimes a little bit more positive and rehabilitation loans and working with modeling and saying, hey, is this gonna be affordable for this person? How are they gonna make it work? Have they really taken a deep dive into those numbers and we get to do that with someone in a non-judgmental way? So traditionally, that is about 7% of what we see over the last five years, that's kind of the average. But with foreclosures, we noticed that in 2017, they took a major dip and they were really down. And then they started creeping up a little bit, people feeling a little insecure, maybe they overbought. And then now we have this interesting and tough time with COVID where we're seeing that foreclosure scares are up a little bit. There are now about 10% of our appointments which is between three and 6% up from previous years. So folks are starting to give us a call and I wanna mention that we actually got six calls on Monday about foreclosure. So we're seeing the writing on the wall that people are starting to get nervous about that again and in the next slide, I'll speak to why that's gonna be. And then we've also picked up this year, COVID response. So we're talking about mortgage and navigation and how you make priority payments, how do you know what's a priority and how to communicate with creditors and what creditors are offering. And really the biggest thing when I was talking to my counselors and coaches about what they're seeing is people are nervous and they're stressed and they wanna figure out a plan to survive this moment but that doesn't shoot them in the foot later. How can they thrive later? And in our appointments again, they're really, really individualized and we work really hard to understand knowledge of the industry. So most people are walking away and saying, hey, I feel like I had a little bit of hope. I understand what I need to know about my debt. I understand what I need to know to get my mortgage working again or how do we finance and hope was the biggest word that I read in our surveys as well. So we've had about 300, a little over 340 contacts in March that were COVID related. People having some financial insecurity. So those are newer things that we're working on. I'm not gonna read this whole list but I wanted to address what people are experiencing and a lot of this, you know, from general living in Boulder County and the high rent and that can sometimes lead to high debts and we have a really well educated population but that also comes with high student loan debt and credit issues and all kinds of things. So over the years we've seen the writing on the wall and we've seen people asking us, we need to know about how to navigate how I can buy a house when I have such high student loan debt. So we got everyone in our program certified in federal student loan debt and navigating those options. So we spend a lot of time making sure that we can address that for folks. And we also this past two years have all gotten certified through HUD. There's a new exam, we all had to pass making sure that we can confidently advise people on their housing issues, their mortgages, their rental issues and on the such. So we're seeing a lot of ways to answer some of these questions that he's having but 2020 has really given us a lot to learn. There's a lot of good but there's also a lot of rough stuff. So job insecurity is up and so we're having to make sure we understand how creditors work and what they're offering and what to scan and what's not. But then there were also really low interest rates. So we're seeing folks wanna refinance and we're seeing them want to take advantage of low cost loans that can be a car loan or getting a mortgage loan. So people are wanting to take on more debt because of the low interest rates which brings us to another thing we're seeing which is they're now tightening mortgage requirements. So if you imagine a mortgage lender wants to pay their investor but they're not receiving payments from a lot of their borrowers because the borrowers can't make it so then maybe they're in a forbearance but they still have to pay their bills. On top of that, they're having to pay out escrow and other things. And then with the low interest rates they're not making very much money right now. So they're tightening all of their requirements. You might need to have a higher credit score, a higher down payment or a lower debt income ratio in order to qualify for a loan right now. So we're making sure that we can prepare people for that and again help them with each individual step they need to have to get there. There are several other things that we're seeing mortgage retention options. Some of them are a little easier if you're mortgage qualified under the CARES Act. A lot of people didn't, but a lot of people did. So there's some easier access to loan forbearance. And then a big change we saw this year is how people access our service. There are a lot of community organizations that refer to us to help folks have a sustainable plan. One of those is the hour center. We partner really heavily with them and if they do rental assistance they require that their participants have a personal finance coaching appointment so we can help kind of attack the root cause. So I can't make my rent. Well, what kind of debts are you paying? Can we help you figure those out? Are student loans an issue or is there just a chronic issue of not having enough money and how do we go ahead and address that now? How's that gonna play into your housing future? And this year because of so many people having job and security and so much rental assistance they stopped that requirement. So we actually saw the last client from the hour center and some of our other community organizations this year not because they didn't think it was important or we don't think it's important but we also realized there was a lot going on and we don't wanna require people to have one extra step if it's just not gonna fit into their capacity at that moment. And we have a couple of concerns for 2021. In the next slide I'll show a little bit more but basically these COVID forbearances will be ending because they're only for 12 months. So people will most likely be experiencing some mortgage insecurity. Also foreclosure and eviction memorandums they're scheduled to end on January 1 but can it be extended till February 1 when those end people's protections are lost and so we will see some housing issues come up. And another issue that has arisen that most people don't realize is that if you're not paying your mortgage you're not paying your escrow which is your insurance and your taxes. And we all get that letter if we go to home once a year that says, oh, we're adjusting your escrow to make sure you're paying the right amount. People will likely see maybe even several hundred dollars worth, excuse me, a hundred dollars or a couple hundred dollars of their payment go up. So we might see a significant increase in people's mortgage payments which I think could cause some housing insecurity as well. So 2020 has brought a lot of new things. We felt pretty comfortable seeing the trends like foreclosure for low and then now we're seeing a little bit of an uptake in those and pre-purchase counseling was high and went down and now it's up again. So bit on a bit of a roller coaster from what was somewhat steady. And the last slide I wanna show you, well, excuse me, not the last slide. The one reason I wanted to show this slide was just to let you guys know that we are always evaluating our approach and how to be approaching our community and having our community access our services and obviously we switch everything to virtual and phone right now. And where I mentioned the coaching model and they were collecting a lot of data from our clients but the biggest thing this year that we've changed is our racial equity lens. That's one of the largest things that we've taken on by looking at who is accessing our services, how they're accessing them. And we've done a lot of research into the history of mortgages and the history of race in housing and how that really plays into what should be fair housing today and how we can really lean on fair housing laws to protect folks that maybe don't even realize that there has a level of discrimination because it's always been the norm. So that's a lens that we're really looking at that I think is really important and I'm more than happy to speak more to that but I do wanna respect your time. So the last slide here, I do wanna talk about our funding and client numbers. So looking back at the last five years at how many clients we are serving, you can see that we started out per year in 2016 as less than 500 a year and then we peaked last year at over 1,000 families that we served. And the residents of the city of Longmont are almost consistently always around 30% which makes sense since we serve the whole county. And so your residents are a little bit higher as of November of this year. Our goal for this year was knowing we had lower numbers was to hit 200 Longmont resident clients. And as of November 30th, when I pulled these numbers we were at 183. So I'm not entirely sure how this number looks. I think we'll be close. But funding I wanna speak to because I think it directly reflects some of these numbers and these numbers directly reflect the funding. So in 2019, we had to give back about $3,000 of the $50,000 CDBG grant that we got from the city of Longmont. And that was because of an administrative error on my part which is really embarrassing to admit but I took the job in October and was transitioning from the previous person and I misunderstood how we were documenting certain funds and at the end of the day it meant that we had returned $3,000. And then again, don't take that lightly. So you think, okay, 2020 I've got it right I've got it all together. And then the pandemic hits and we have less clients and the CDBG funds which I know you're all very aware of are tied to clients. So even though we've been very busy this year doing research and making sure we understand how all of these industries are changing and how to do accurate advising to folks. We don't necessarily have all the as many clients as we normally have that we can build that too to say it was for this particular person situation. So while we had to do a lot more research we can't directly build some of that. So we have yet to see exactly how much we will be spending through the end of December. So that's a little bit up in the air and we'll get to it but I know that our numbers are down this year because of the pandemic and not seeing as many direct clients. And then 2021 we are predicting a pretty heavy year. And I think folks will be resilient but there's gonna be a lot of learning curve. There's gonna be mortgage and securities departments. And I think pre-purchase counseling will go up as folks continue to want to buy with these low interest rates. And then student loan changes have started to happen and then under the Biden administration there are other loan changes that are predicted. And so we are doing our best to be up to date with that as we get a lot of calls from folks about how to navigate the very confusing student loan world. And then our community partners such as our center, EFA and others who lean on us to help navigate the clients who have housing and security and do financial coaching. They have spoken about having to watch you, excuse me, as do their financial counseling as a requirement again so we anticipate those numbers to be up as well. So I just spoke here off for several minutes but I do wanna end with the fact that we love serving the clients in Boulder County and specifically in Longmont. It's a privilege to do that. And if you have any questions I'm more than happy to answer them. I'm gonna close out my presentation and stop sharing. Since I didn't figure out how to do that. Thank you, Meredith. Darlene, is there anything you wanted to add to any of this before we? No, I don't think so. I think the thing that we wanted to stress the most was just that because of the pandemic we have certainly seen a decline in terms of the number of referrals. And I think that a lot of that just has to do with folks being in a state of crisis and financial coaching is not necessarily on the top of their mind in terms of what they need to do. So we anticipate though that we're going to definitely see a spike after the first of the year and certainly ready and able to serve the community. So. Great, thank you. One question that I have is what's the best your ideal takeaway for us? What would you most want for us to take away from this information? And how can we be most helpful to you? That's a, I think that's a great question. I think knowing that this service any exists and talking about housing insecurity or financial insecurity or even food insecurity, whatever it may be folks are really struggling right now. And it's not maybe the folks that we always traditionally think it is of just someone who's low income. A lot of people can be concerned or insecure about their financial situation. And so this service is out there for everybody and we are super happy to be offering it. And hope that if you know of anyone that might want a little bit of assistance in navigating some of these really tricky worlds, we're here not just for the folks that you might traditionally think of, but for you, for your neighbor, for your family. And it's a non-judgemental environment and way to get some assistance out there. Great, thank you. It's really an impressive range of services that you're offering. Thank you so much. We're happy for your assistance to help make it happen to be right on this. Are there any questions from board members or staff? So a quick question, Meredith. I know it's been some time. So my understanding though, because I see that you're still getting homesteaded clients though, right? From the R Center? We still do get quite a bit of clients from the R Center. They have a particular mental assistance program that they still ask folks and they have a heavy suggestion that folks come and take advantage of the service. Okay, all right. And so two clarifying questions I have. One is you mentioned billing that you had a reduction in billing, I think you said. Who are you billing? Is it agencies or I wasn't clear on that. Great question. So we get a grant from the CBDG grant from the city of Longmont. We also have a few other grants that we administer and they, every time we meet with a client, we are billing every minute of our time to a particular grant, including what we call the city of Longmont grant because we account for everything we're doing and how that relates to an individual or a family. And there are of course requirements for what you can bill and what you can't. And so the city of Longmont grant in particular is very client focused, not so much the research or training part of it, but how you're actually working with that client. So we can bill certain things in time to that grant or to this grant. So we bill our time essentially. Okay, great, thank you. That's really helpful. That's how we spend down the grants. We should also take away the fact that you're billing less right now as a temporary situation because of COVID and does not necessarily reflect on future demand. Yes. I appreciate you clarifying that. Maybe I should have said that myself. Looking at back at the last five years, you can see that we've increased our scope of services and therefore we have a wider range of clients and a lot more clients. In addition to that, we've partnered with more community organizations. So, you know, the our centers and FAs as well as domestic violence shelters or we partner with particular homeless shelters and things like that of folks who might need our services or senior centers and they refer clients. And so as we wind our scope of what we can offer, our clientele has widened as well. And so generally we say an uptick in how many people we meet this year has just been a tough year for everybody. Yeah, yeah, great. Thank you. And I'd forgotten what my other question was. I think it was brilliant. So we'll just have to assume that it was. So any other questions? Okay, well, thank you so much for taking the time to present this information to us. And I wasn't aware of it, so it's very helpful. And I can only imagine you'll unfortunately have a great deal of demand next year. As these programs, as this support network of support that we've had this year really diminishes. We anticipate that. Thank you so much for letting us have the time. It's always a pleasure to let people know about our services and thanks for how you guys do. Thank you. Thank you. Have a great evening. Have a great evening. You too. Bye bye. Okay, wonderful. So Molly, we're on. Are you gonna take item B as well? I am. So the next item is for you all to review and take action on the TRG's recommendation for funding for the Imagine application that they submitted. This was a CDBG application. Their initial request was for 66,000 to do rehabilitation work on their Charles family smart home in Longmont. And so the TRG met with you all when Imagine presented, and then they met separately to discuss the application. And their recommendation is a grant, a CDBG grant for $34,000 to repair the two resident bathrooms that's shoring up the floors, I think making some replacements. And their discussion centered around the fact that they believe Imagine is fairly well funded as well as wanting to make sure that Imagine was also contributing to the rehabilitation work of the home. And so they had some follow up questions for Imagine wanting to know about their reserves, what their future reserves are, as well as if Imagine were to come in for future funding that they be able to present a capital improvement plan for all of their homes in Longmont. I have talked briefly with Imagine about them potentially coming in in the future to purchase single family homes, which would be a companion model where there's a Imagine companion who lives there and then to Imagine residents. So the TRG really wants to make sure that they're in a strong position to maintain those homes as well as their current one into the future. So the recommendation from the TRG is to approve the funding request from Imagine. For 34,000. For 34,000. So half of what Imagine is asking for. And they want it specifically to go to the bathrooms so that we are, it's easier to track if you know exactly what that money is going to be used for. Okay. Any questions for Molly? I guess I'm curious what the net effect is on CBG funding from a big picture. Whether or not the 30 some odd dollars are approved versus the full. Is there a big picture impact there you could fill us in on? So for this latest funding round that they applied under, we had said $345,000 was available. So they were the only applicant. So we will be going out for other funding applications in the first quarter of next year. So there is still funding available. So does that funding, is it use it or lose it? Or does it roll over into the subsequent years or? It rolls over. It rolls over. So you don't lose it if it's not spent or allocated right away. And I have also talked with Cinnamon Park which received an affordable housing loan last year in 2019 for their construction of 26 senior units. And due to the pandemic and a decrease in their tax credit equity and increase in construction costs they have asked about applying for additional city funding. So that's in very initial discussions. So they may be coming in potentially for CBG grant or loan to help close that gap to help that project continue forward. Thank you. Caitlin, you had a question and then Karen, Rony? Yeah, I think my question was to piggyback a little bit off of Graham's around sort of the big picture and the rollover is where we have been. My recollection and I don't have it in front of me is that we have had quite a bit of funding that has rolled over from previous years but I'm not 100% sure. Karen, maybe you remember for some reason something like 600,000 was in my head as something that had rolled over but I'm not sure if I'm like picking that from somewhere else. Karen, Rony? Well, I don't know if I can answer that specifically in terms of the amount but what I will add is that what we have to pay attention to as it relates to our CBG dollars is that we do not have more than one and a half times our allocation in the treasury or we get dinged for that. So it's really about the timeliness of the spending. So staff has done a great job of continuing to monitor that. So come like November 1st of each year we have to make sure that we don't have more than one and a half times our allocation in the treasury. So we do, it will roll over but our focus is to continue to spend that. So we stay below that. It sounds a little bit like that's like a department budget that if you don't spend your budget they are concerned about it and they're gonna reduce it the next time and so they're gonna do that. If you don't need it. So there are large, large cities that seem to, it doesn't matter. But yeah, so that's what we really have to pay attention to is the timeliness of spending those dollars. And we are, and just a reminder we are going out quarterly. So we are releasing funding applications on a quarterly basis for a CBG, affordable housing, other funding. Great, and Karen, did you have a different? No, I just wanted to come make that comment. It's Don Graham's comment. Thank you. And Caitlyn? Yeah, I was gonna say, I think one of the things that struck me, and this isn't really a question but more of a comment. One of the things that struck me when Imagine was doing their presentation was around sort of the things that help bring in funds for them. Everything is fairly limited. So for example, Medicaid funding cannot be used for capital improvements. Whereas things like CBG funding are limited to capital improvements and are sort of very directed at that. And so I guess to me it feels a little bit like, and they are providing something that is desperately needed and that not a lot of people are doing. Like not a lot of organizations are doing. And because it's such long-term care, it's sort of like, it's one of those things that I think like as a community it can be easy to forget that we need long-term care for adults with developmental disabilities. Like those can't just like be institutions or just be families. Like those are things that are just long-term ongoing needs that aren't necessarily flashy or like the current thing that people are concerned about. But those people are in our community and making sure that they have safe and secure housing is something that as a community like that's something that I feel like really strongly about supporting. And so I guess I'm looking at the not helping with like the flooring. And it's like, that's a fairly, like it's a fairly small drop in the bucket for the funding we have. And it seems like the explanation there seemed very like legitimate of like when you've got wheelchairs and you've got eight to 10 people moving through some of these common spaces day to day. Like I guess I'm like not quite sure why we wouldn't fund something like that just because they might have another source of funding. That sort of feels like, oh, we don't want, like I'm not sure there. I had a similar question. Molly, could you speak maybe to more specifically to the rationale for approving the bathrooms and not the rest? Is there a belief that the funding is basically there's opportunity cost of funding the floors? For instance, if they could be funded somewhere else because the CBD funds could be used somewhere else or do you know? No, it was more along the lines of they felt like the bathrooms obviously were a very important part of the repair work to be done. And that it was, they're thinking that provide half of the request and the bathroom costs come to 34,000. Okay. So it seemed that that could just be allocated towards. Are you? Sorry, are you aware of the rationale for half of the request? Is that a financial concern or just? There was a lot of discussion about Imagine's overall finances and that they do do a lot of fundraising. They bring in a lot of revenue. So some hesitation in funding the whole project. They also didn't believe that the furnaces should have to be repaired or replaced after only 10 years. So there was uncertainty as to why that would, those two repairs would need to happen. Interesting. Graham? I'm curious if, you know, if we funded the full amount would due diligence require that you receive receipts to confirm the money was spent for the grant request or the funding request or is it just like here's like an insurance payment like here's money for what you requested and then we're not gonna follow up what? No, they would have to turn in everything. So we would reimburse them based on the documentation that they've provided showing the work was done. Okay. Karen, do you, are there any other staff positions on this that the board should consider? I guess the comment that I'll make and I certainly wasn't part of the conversations I think particularly when we have received requests from entities that are that own and operate buildings, the things that we wanna make sure that they are doing is that they have a capital replacements, you know preventive maintenance capital replacement plan because, you know, to keep coming back every so often to CDBG or other sources to fund maintenance for which that entity should be responsible for planning for, I think is probably a major issue and I imagine, you know, Molly, that's a lot of what the TRG, you know, talked about. So again, I think just looking at kind of balancing between the need, what is, you know, what is the organization's responsibility to plan and fund and to an ongoing capital maintenance and replacement program. And again, I didn't see their financials but also what is their capacity to be able to fundraise that. So it sounds like if I'm understanding kind of what Molly is saying is that, yeah, we think that the city should invest some dollars in here that can help leverage the other things that we think that they might be able to raise and it seemed like there's a question about, is it a little premature to be replacing the furnaces? I don't know whether that is correct or not. So I think probably most of it is about sharing that responsibility and making sure they have a capital maintenance. Yeah, okay, that's helpful. Thank you. For myself, I'm like, when it comes to should the furnaces be replaced or not, I'm hesitant to take a position on that kind of thing. I'm not a furnace expert and I have to believe that there's good faith in the information that's presented to the board. And the idea of routine maintenance should be handled as a part of a ongoing fiscally responsible plan, I think makes a lot of sense to me. Yeah, that just makes sense. So are there any other questions for clarification or more information from the board? Okay, so why don't at this point, I think we can entertain a motion and the motion could, we could do this a couple of different ways. If there's anybody who believes that the entire amount should be funded, there could be a motion to that that could be entertained. If somebody wants to make a motion to approve the recommendation as made by TRG, that motion can be made and voting will carry the day in terms of what the outcome is. Caitlin? I'd like to move that we approve funding for everything other than the furnaces. Snap, Caitlin, you came up with a totally different. I'll second that. Okay, Karen. So Molly, are you calculating how much that is? I was going to. Good. Well, I think the- It's 59, I think it comes to 59 because it's 66 and they have 7,000 estimated for the furnaces. Yep. I think the exact amount may not be exactly necessary because staff knows what the exact amount is. I mean, we're approving those items. I think it's helpful to have it in the motion. So yes, it is 59. Okay, great. Okay, so there is a motion on the table that's been seconded to fund the Imagine Request to the tune of 59,000 for the floor and the bathrooms. Any further discussion on the motion? I would, I really take the concern of planning seriously that that is a routine maintenance should be routine and not require necessarily kind of unanticipated outside funding unless this is part of their routine planning that's kind of ask. So I think it would be, if the motion is approved, I would ask that there's communication with Imagine about the specific amount of funding and communication with Imagine about this specific issue and that this will be an item that's highlighted in future requests, at least for consideration from the board. Oh, God, that was a long sentence and I don't know that it made much sense, but why don't we go ahead and take a vote if there's no other discussion. So all in favor of the motion to approve funding at the amount of 59,000 for Imagine, the Imagine project to cover floors and bathrooms, please say aye if you approve or raise your hand. Okay, any opposed, please say nay and any abstentions. Okay, the ayes have it. I show up passing unanimously, right, Chair? Yes, that is correct, Nicole, thank you. I did not raise my hand. I was still kind of on the fence. So I was like, I got a twitch in my elbow, but it never really manifested into anything because I also want to be sensitive to TRG's work and their expertise and the time that they spend and acknowledge that that's respected. And I think it was just a different viewpoint in terms of risk and benefit. Okay, thank you so much, Molly, appreciate it. Thank you. Let's move on to agenda item five, the 2021 Human Service Agency Funding Matrix brought to you by Elliberto. Hello. Well, I want to thank Caitlin for helping me think through this. We had a pretty long discussion last Thursday, I think, just thinking and it's a complicated reality. So I'm going to share my screen. I updated the PowerPoint presentation that I did last meeting in November. I did remove the audience, because that's not the individual, I can bring them back, but the individual limits were approved. That's all fine. It's really on the occasion for me to say that that's really what this PowerPoint has. I'm going to go over the first one I did again quickly. And then I'm going to jump to the other option that Caitlin and I worked out together. And then we're going to have a conversation about trade-offs and the differences between them. And I mean, ultimately, it's the choice of the board. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. Okay, let's see if this works. All right. So as a reminder, can everybody see that? I'm assuming, okay. So option one, we, as a reminder, it minimizes, because I won't be able to see you all, because in order for me to see the actual, I have to minimize everybody. So just speak up if you want me to stop. You know, the option one that we created, we had changed the weights from the questions that the board and staff to answer. We removed those weights and made it all straight. They're all worth what they're worth. And so, and we shifted how the weights points were awarded to the agency. In the past, we did it by activity. And now in this option, we're doing it by just the area, right? And we had shifted. We had created a new schema for the area. So housing stability was number one, got the most points at 35, and it went down by five that way. So that was the changes that we did. And then this is what we got. It shows you the scores, the new ranges. For housing stability, as you can see, it went down, but we didn't have as many points because of removing the weights from the board and staff questions. And then it goes down from there, depending on how many weighted points they get for priority area. You can see that on both sides, it goes down. And that's because these get less points. So I'm gonna go through these real quick. All right. So this is option two. This is what Kayla and I worked on last week and I finalized earlier this week. This option is based basically on two factors. One is the prioritization and weighting has happened in how we assess the priority area. So for example, we gave housing stability 25% of the funding, right? So that's where their prioritization has happened. So we don't necessarily have to do it in the weights. We've done it in how we allocated certain amounts of funding to each area. And then that has some implications that we'll talk about in a second. Then the other thing, the other factor is that in the way that we, in option one, while we honor their priority areas, we don't pay a whole bunch of attention to the activities other than we wanna see that there are happening. In this option, we're actually giving extra points if an agency is serving a priority area and is also doing an activity that we have prioritized or that the human service assessment has identified as a need activity, a needed activity in the community, okay? So hope that makes sense. And I can bring up the, in a second when I get done, I can bring up the actual spreadsheet if you all wanna see it too. So just letting you know. So it's one slide because it does simplify it. So now we are not, it's all about your scores and these are the highest scores that any agency can get perfect. And I can tell you that this is, I chose these numbers arbitrarily again. I always put that caveat because really I just had to choose some numbers. So a 95 is a perfect score. And so I, if you get an 87.5, the way that works to get to 87.5 is that you get an average of four on each of the questions from the board of four, or a 4.5, I forget exactly, but you get, I can go back and look. You get a certain amount for each, you get an average amount for each question in the evaluation you are, you are doing something in a priority and you get extra 10 points if you are actually doing one of the activities that's listed in that priority, okay? And then that gives you a total of 95. So then we'd look at the percentage of requests. So to get 100%, you gotta get an 87.5. And I think that's 4.5. And then it goes down from there. I think it's 4.5, four, and then 3.5. Totally arbitrary. We can change that. I just need to choose something to start from. So that is the other options. Here's a couple of things to think about. And I know Karen had looked at it too and has some thoughts as well. Because we are now using the, in the past, the priority limits were just a guide in this method because we are using those priority limits that 25% of funding, those are broken down. It could mean, it could, doesn't mean it will, but it could mean that in areas where we tend to have lots of applicants asking for lots of funding, if we run out unless we've been able to, and that was one of the things that Kay and I talked about, unless we were able to take from another area that underspent, you technically could score enough to get funded and not receive funding if there was no funding available in that priority era. And we couldn't take an underspent area and transfer funds there. So that is something to think about as well, that it potentially can happen, doesn't mean it will. The only one that I would be concerned about in my short time with the city and looking at the numbers is education, because that tends to be one that gets heavily applied for. So, yeah, that's my presentation and we can have a discussion. I can leave this up here or I can take it down if, I'll take it down and we can start talking. First of all, any questions, or Kaylynn, if you wanna share anything as well, because you really were instrumental in helping me put that together, we talked to this quite a bit. Can you put that last slide back up, Ali Berato actually? Yes, yes. One of the things that I was thinking about with this one is that human services needs assessment identified sort of some really key activities that were needed by our community. And my thinking was that if you're not doing one of those activities, then you're not meeting one of those sort of like priorities of the city. And so like, if funding you at 100% doesn't seem like the right thing to do, if you're not doing one of those things that we've identified as like the core needs that our community needs, you know, we shouldn't start with that. Like whereas the ones that are doing the things that are like really increasing housing stability, like we really want those to float to the top, where it's providing rental assistance or those really key things where the human services needs assessment identified big risks for people in our community. So by doing this and making sure that you're actually hitting not only one of these just like big buckets, but one of those activities, that was one of the goals there. So, you know, my reaction is it's, so this looks good. I mean, any framework to me is a great just place to be. I think it's really hard to know whether the distribution is the right one until we actually got all the numbers in and see how that results in funding distribution and reality. So I'm good with it as it is, knowing that we'll probably want to adjust it as we see some of these areas that seem to be out of balance with the original premise and we'll want to adjust some of those percentages. Does that make sense? It does and I want to be careful because it feels like you could put... So the idea behind doing these formulas is to make it a formulaic process, right? And thus, you know, it removes the... You can never remove the humaneness because you all are scoring and you're all humans. But once you put a formula, and I say this, my experience with CSBG in the state, they had a formulaic process that didn't always agree with how it came out, but it was hard to argue because it's a formula. So, not that we can't change the formula. I don't want to say that. I just want us to be thoughtful about it, I guess is what I would say. I mean, I think your point though, Brian, about adjusting the distribution makes sense because typically, rather than numbers, I've seen stuff like this where it's like the top 10% or the top 20% are in that top tier and then the middle 50% is in that middle tier and then the bottom 25% is... And doing it by percentages rather than specific numbers. The specific numbers give us a starting point, but if we have nobody who hits a 90, for example, I mean, I don't necessarily think we should say nobody gets funded at 100%. We may want to adjust that down, but still do it in a formulaic way so that we still use all of our funding and distribute all of it rather than being like, nobody gets it all, nobody met the criteria. I mean, there's some like floor, right? Like if we have a whole bunch of agencies that are not using money well, like we don't want to just like hand them city money to go spend inappropriately, but I don't think we're in that position. Yeah, I agree with that rationale, Caitlin. I think from my standpoint, what's working well about the formula is that one, we have clear criteria that we're evaluating organizations against the most objective extent possible, which is happening. And two, it removes individual favoritism or emotional kind of content because we would all have to have that emotional content in order to move the needle on a specific agency. So that's working. And then I think the question of should it be like the threshold for 100% actually be an 80 instead of an 87? That seems to be to me more of a question of efficiency and distribution of funding. And I'm sensitive to what you mentioned, Elieberto, we don't want to turn, we don't want to start like, well, I really did like that agency and they almost came in. So let's go ahead and drop that. And that's I think certainly something we want to avoid. Okay, so if there's no other feedback, which I'm going to interpret as acquiescence to some extent, do you have what you need, Elieberto? Or are you? Karen has a question. Jesus, you've got to end up. What? Karen, please. So, and maybe we just have to work with that. Again, I think that what we are doing is we're evaluating a long two dimensions. So we're evaluating, are the agencies providing a serve the service in the area that's a priority of the city based on our needs assessment and are they providing the activities? So it's kind of what are they doing and is the what lined up with our needs assessment? And then what we are also evaluating is how well do they do it? So what are they doing and how well do they that they do that? And so that's what we're really trying to work out. My initial concern when I reviewed this was, if you say, okay, if you're doing anything that's in the needs assessment, regardless of how important it was, you all get the same amount of points. You all get the same amount of points for what you're doing. And that did create some concern for me. To the point that Elieberto talked about is that we have moved things around and we had some guidelines in terms of the amount that we set aside, which was which was weighted. But and every year we make some changes based on what we've spent and not spent. And I'm just worried about doing that when we haven't had the, Nicole, you wanna let in Karen Phillips? And so by just saying everyone gets to say, the part of me is like, we don't even need to add those 10 points. That maybe we only add the 10 points for the act if they're at least doing one of the activities because no one should be applying or we should have screened out any entity that is applying for something that's not in one of those overall buckets. So it's science and art. We could certainly try a different approach but the weighting, it does matter. It means something. It means that it is not everything was the highest priority. There was a range of priorities. And so I'm just a little worried about if you get the same amount of points regardless of what priority you're meeting where that might lead us. But I don't know. But I appreciate the simplicity around that. But I'm just a little worried about not everything was weighted equal. There are the priorities, but not every priority in the assessment was at the same level of importance. Karen, I think that's important. And it choked you up. It shook me up here. There's a hard one that Ellie Barrett ought to talk about. So let's create a safe space for him. And... I didn't even say it! The one safeguard that we do have though is, so is those individual agency limits to that because they do go down through the priority. So that is a safeguard to the, yes, you might get the same points, but you know what? You can't get the same amount of funding because your limit is lower. Right. So there are checks and balances in terms of the weighting. I do so. Yeah, in most of the... So I think the weighting, like one of the things I run up against when I think through it is that if we essentially have, I think, seven questions per application that we're rating. And... We have eight. We have seven. Oh, right. Because the two at the end. So eight questions. And there is the presumption that each question is as important as the next. And I think that the questions are well phrased. You could argue that, you know, you could make it that case that that would be true. I haven't found, I've actually, the evaluations, I really appreciate the alignment between the evaluation and the questions asked on the application. I think that's been going much better for me at least this year because of that. And I haven't seen any specific questions where I felt like, man, this is the question. Like if they're not doing well on this, they should just be, you know, go to the bottom of the stack. So it seems to me to be pretty even. And it does seem like the priority, the amount of funding we put, we prioritize the buckets by their funding levels. Yeah, but prioritization is just such a, it's such a handy little flexible tool, right? That you can kind of say, well, we're going to turn this one up to 10 this year and that one down to five without really modifying the structure too much. But I guess the question ultimately, because a lot of this is academic until we know if it's created material changes in funding. It'll definitely, the prioritization will create, and I'll give you a clear example. Self-sufficiency has gone up. And last year, the only agency that was hit a ceiling was a self-sufficiency agency where education I think has gone down. I don't remember, and I think that there will be more agencies hit in that ceiling because they're all- In terms of the high, the level of priority, yeah, self-sufficiency did go up. Between the buckets. In the buckets, what that means is individual limits also went up. Right, so it makes sense to me that the prioritization changed that way because of the circumstances we're in, we've agreed that self-sufficiency is a high priority because it's more on a survival level. The El Alberto, do you expect that the change, like not having the waiting like we did before, setting aside the funding allocation overall, would you expect that some agencies which previously had scored highly relevant to, relative to another one, now all of a sudden wouldn't be because the waiting system somehow gave it an advantage or put it at a disadvantage, the other one. I'm not seeing that myself, but it's hard to know until the numbers actually kind of are run. So there's two pieces to this. One is you never know, so one year an agency may answer the questions in ways that the board or the staff feel are excellent, right? So they get up, you know, the weight piece does help, but ultimately it is the scores that you all and that we do with it are the foundation. Yeah, they help, but they're not the one thing. It's almost a third, a third and a third, but our thirds are, in fact, your thirds a little bigger than our third than the staff third, right? And then the smallest third is the weights and that was the same last year too, right? That has not changed. The weight is always the smallest third, but it's still important because that depending on the ranges, whether you do an activity or not can decide whether you get 50%, 75% or 100% of the funding, right? So they're still important, but the foundational bedrock of the score is your scores and our scores. So it seems to me that in years past since we started this formulaic approach, we've had the opportunity to review the data and kind of do a gut check. Like, yep, that's working. Or, wow, that's not the outcomes that I thought, you know, would have expected, maybe it requires some finessing. With having sensitivity to the fact that we don't want to manipulate the formulas, but we want to make sure that limits and parameters are set in order to be a functional formula. That gut check seems to me will answer a lot of these questions to look at the outcomes. I think the outcome that we're going to see is going to be like, yeah, actually, that pretty much reflects the feedback. I think it's going to work, frankly, whether there's the weighted in there or not, but I think we may need some fine tuning. Karen, were you going to say something? I think, you know, I think if the advisory board, you know, wants to go with the option that Caitlin and Ellie Berto kind of worked out, I mean, I think we just give us that direction, and that's the matrix that we will use. And, you know, if we, it just seems like if we run into something really wild that we couldn't have anticipated, then we have a fallback formula, you know, that we could certainly, you know, apply. So we're really not going to know until we plug in the scores and see that it seems like we have two viable options. And if we want to go with the option two, which is the new one that we talked about tonight, it really depends on what the board wants to do. We can just, we can do that. And see where it takes us. Again, again, we don't want to really be, oh, I wanted that ages to get more. I think it really has to be look at what's the whole scheme and is something really, you know, skewed or do we get an unintended consequence that we just didn't anticipate. That I think we just give it a shot. I completely agree with Karen. If we see that there's just way too many outliers and we're not really sure that we're going to be able to do that. But I think we, we, we, we, we, we, we, we evaluate the formula, but it's not based on individual agency. It'll be based on what the whole big picture of the scores are telling us. Caitlin. That's, yeah. I mean, that's kind of my thought too is like tweaking it. When we get in there. Cause like if we, if the score, if we go in and the score is basically end up with us, we're not going to be able to meet the city's funding. We're not going to be able to meet the city's funding. Not funding something in like housing stability, which is our top priority that, you know, like, if we end up, you know, nobody meets criteria for housing stability, but we've got all that money setting there. Like that, that seems to be a pretty obvious case of like, maybe the scoring is off in some way. And so we need to look at that. And it's less about like one agency didn't meet it and more about the city's funding priorities for this in some way. Yep. So. Deanna, did you have something you were going to say? I wasn't certain. Okay. I caught a motion over there out of the corner of my eye. I thought maybe it was your hand up. I was also going to add that, I mean, that that as part of the reason why we have people reviewing applications and going through this funding, like we, we wanted to be objective, right? And we don't want it to just be a computer spits out what everybody gets funded and that's it. Nobody looks at it. Right. Like we don't just want that to be the case. Like there's a reason that we have a board that looks at these and tries to figure out the best way to allocate it. And so like the directionality of it, I think is really helpful to help us remove like biases and make sure that we're actually getting a holistic view of an agency and what they're doing, but then like we're a check on sort of just being like, oh, the computer spit it out, you know, which is what like banks tell people they're like, that's what they told me I could give your credit limit. Like, oh no, somebody, somebody programmed that. Like, um, yeah. So if we run this in Longmont meals on wheels, ends up at the bottom of the stack, somehow we'll be like, wait, crunch the numbers again. Some, something didn't quite work. You know, there's. Okay. So let's go with option two. Uh, I do like that it's simplified. I think that can help with accuracy and consistency and, and just kind of reconstruct, resetting things in future years. Um, and let's see what happens. We'll do a gut check and, and see if everything works out. Okay. And if not, then Caitlin and Ellie Berto are really to blame. I'm always to blame. That's all right. Just real quickly, Brian. Um, and I have someone to blame. Uh, I'm still working on myself, but if we can get all the scores by Friday, that would be great. I still have like five to go. I'm not done yet either. So. Yeah, I am. End of the day tomorrow or Saturday. That's fine. I'll probably take a look at a Monday. If I, if I get the energy, I'll look at it on Sunday. I'm just, I don't have the energy that Karen Roney has. I wish I did. It's not energy. It's something else. But yeah, I think it would be super desirable. Like Friday as mañana. Um, but, but for sure by the end of the weekend. So, you know, so we can work it on Monday because we do need to be setting our, what's our, we talked about even meeting later on, like meeting on the 17th. So that's, that's kind of number. Number six. Am I the only laggard who hasn't finished his evaluations? Okay. All right. All right. Thank you all for your company. But we'll try to, we'll try to push together as a group and get these things done. I think if we can get them done. Um, uh, end of day Saturday, that's a really good target because that is two days after our due date. And I, I'd like to say I'm just finishing mine up. But it might be more accurate to say I'm just starting them up. So, um, we'll see, but we'll, we'll get it done. Thank you for the reminder. You know, we, we realize it's a lot of work and, um, we don't know if we're doing it right. Yeah. But it's a lot of work and we know that we have lives. It takes a long time to go through all this. So we, we deeply appreciate all of the effort that it's requiring all the time that it's requiring, requiring. And so. Um, Just. You know, try to get to the finish line is, is, is quickly as feasible. So we realized it's a big ask. So. And, and Graham, I, I applaud your discipline. Before the deadline. You're, you're my model. I bow to you. Okay. Sounds like we're good on that set meeting date for funding deliberations. What day was that? I got, I got here late. What day is we doing that? We don't know yet where the agenda items to set it now. So it would seem like. I think we tentatively talked about this, you know, next, next week. We can't make it too early because we won't have everything ready. So I think we had thrown out the option of maybe next Thursday. We get into the next week and we're, we're starting to get into the holiday week that I bet you and not even though we can't go anywhere and do anything. I'm just betting that's not going to be a real desirable, you know, time. So if we don't, if we don't really work on this, you know, later on next week, then we're probably looking at after the first of the year. Yeah, but isn't that too late? It's not too late, but, but, you know, it's not too late. I mean, it's not too late. Yeah. And off the board and knowing it would be difficult for a new board. I think the thing is, can, can we, how many folks could make a meeting a week from today? Next Thursday night. I see a no. Miss Madeline is a no. Another no. I have another board meeting. At night. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to be quick about what we're going to do in the funding deliberation discussion. This is, I'm. I'm working off of a poor memory. This is. Go ahead. Yeah. So, I mean, so what, what will happen. Is that. We're going to, we. Is going to run the numbers. Right. So he's going to plug in all the, all your scores. And then we're going to, you know, apply the weights that we've identified in option two. And, and you all will receive a spreadsheet. That says, here's, here's basically what we are. You know, what, what we are recommending based on the scores. So. And then we work it from there. So, you know, actually it doesn't take. Well, anyhow, so that's, so we're coming with, here's, here's the matrix. And here's how the scores came out based on how everyone. And do we have to do any fine tuning? Or we. Find tuning. Yeah. You know, so would, so the other thing. You know, would there be desire if, if. Cause I think we really would love to pick a time where everyone could be there. You know, Monday the 21st. How, how is that as a. Option. That, that works for me. I'm right open. Can we do it early? So how early is early? Like some folks are like working. I don't know how they can get off. Oh, okay. I was thinking around 11. Or probably. How are we not that early? Oh, the 22nd, 22nd actually would be way better. But yeah, either early on the 21st or early on the 22nd, I can do it either. I don't know about everybody else. So Karen, I think it's going to be very difficult to get all of us. On the same day. But maybe Nicole could send out a doodle and with the, with the, the Thursday, the 17th, the 21st or the 22nd. And we just pick the day that most of us can be there. You're on mute. The most popular phrase of 2020. What's that? You're on mute. So how, how early, I mean, I don't think 11. I mean, I mean, so if we were to try to. We'll meet. Later in the afternoon, like started. Four or five. Does that make it any better or more desirable? Who, so let's, or is that possible? For how long, Karen, if we started, let's say, if we did it certain at four, how, how long would we need to grab her? So, you know, I would say. With, with how we've been doing that. And we have the scores already there. It doesn't take, you know, a two hour block of time is, is, seems adequate. Yeah. And we typically, we were probably, we could reserve two hours, but I, I honestly think, unless, unless we hit that hypothetical. I would say at the outset, you know, I think two hours would be max. Yeah, but we've probably done before that. Yeah. I would say we. But yeah, I think. Okay. So four to six on the 21st. So let's do a quick straw poll. If you can do four to six on the 21st, raise your hand. Okay. Katelyn's out, Graham's out. And out. So if you can do five to seven on the 21st, raise your hand. Graham, what's your timeframe? That's just a bad day for me. The 21st. The 21st in general. Yeah. Same time period on the 22nd, four to six. If you can do four to six on the 22nd, raise your hand. Do you guys need me to attend that? Do we need to vote? I'd love for him to attend. Karen can either. Can you tend like from five to seven Karen? No. Well, I could. Yeah. I can switch somebody in my son's appointment. I can do it. Oh, well, you know, I'm just, I'm just asking. So I don't want to. Okay. So five to seven Graham, you can do four to six. You can do on the 22nd. It looks like most people can do four to six on the 22nd. Yeah. Karen Phillips cannot. Well, I'll see what I can do. I can try to switch something around. I'll work on it. Okay. Do we need to vote on that day? We'll need a quorum. Yeah. Because what will be happening is we're going to be sent. Those are the recommendations that we're giving to council. I see. Okay. We're at that point. Got it. Yeah, we're at that point. Let's, let's shoot for. If, if you can do four to six Graham and Caitlin. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's, let's shoot for that. I think it'll be good to get it over a little earlier. Maybe we'll all have a little, well, maybe I'll have a little more energy and. Karen Phillips. I'll try to get my son's appointment moved. I think I can. Okay. And if you can't, it's, it's very understandable. So please don't create stress over it. No problem. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Hi, I'm Emily Berta. We good. Yeah. Once I get all the scores, I will start putting stuff in. And, and by the 22nd, I, I. I will have something more before. Awesome. Well, you'll have mine by nine o'clock tomorrow morning. And if you don't, it's probably because it went to your junk. E, you know, box and email. Pams. Bam. Exactly the spam folder. Okay. I lost my... It's other business and adjourned. Is there any other business for this evening? No. In that case, I would like to entertain a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. There's always so many motion, always so many hands shoot up when it's the motion to adjourn. Never a laggard in the group. Then we are adjourned and it is 830. So we've got an extra half an hour. I hope you make use of it to have the most joyful half an hour you've had this entire week. Yay! Thanks, everybody. Bye, thanks. Yeah.