 Welcome everybody. I will now call the June 22nd, 2020 budget hearing of the Board of Supervisors to order. Will the clerk please call the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Here. Friend. Supervisor Friend. Here. Coonerty. Here. McPherson. Here. Chairperson Kepit. Here. We'll have a moment of silence and the silent prayer and pledge of allegiance. Please join me and we'll follow with a pledge. Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Well, we have quite a bit to do today, but we'll also have an evening session, virtual one, I believe, later on in the evening at 7 p.m. Mr. Palacios, how you doing? Good, thank you. Okay. Any late additions or changes? There are no late additions or changes to the agenda. Next, Mr. Palacios, if you want to present an overview. Yes, I'll go ahead and get started with our fiscal year 2021 budget hearings. Good morning, members of the board. The documents before you today include the CAO's proposed budget, which includes the accounting line item detail. In addition, the unified fee schedule and the continuing agreements list were provided on June 16th. All of the budget documents are posted on the County of Santa Cruz website and on the online interactive tool sccbudget.com, which is updated for 2021 recommended amounts. So this is a outline of our presentation today. I'll be giving brief opening remarks along with our budget manager, Christina Mowry. We'll also talk about the operational plan updates, which will be given by Nicole Coburn, our Assistant County Administrative Officer. And then I'll close with challenges, solutions, and opportunities before we get to the department presentations. So in this very challenging year, the first thing to remind ourselves is that there are some good things that we did in preparation. As we entered this crisis, we were very fortunate in that the board over the last decade has tripled the amount of our reserves to $56 million. If you remember back to 2008, 2009, for those of you who are here, we had less than a third of that entering into the Great Recession. So that fiscal discipline exercised by the board has been greatly, will greatly pay off now as we have the need to use those reserves in our current crisis. Because of that, we've also improved our credit rating. Before the crisis, we had improved our bond rating to a AAA rating, which is the highest you can get. The board had also taken actions to reduce our pension obligations. We passed a, along with our labor partners, a second tier of pensions, and then the state also did PEPRA or the Reform Act, which added a third tier. We also have controlled our employee growth. We entered the Great Recession almost a decade ago with 2,600 employees, and we are still even today under 2,500 employees in 2021. Finally, the board has taken action to start the hard work we need to do to improve our work with our deferred maintenance. We have a great amount of deferred maintenance that we need to do not only with our county buildings, but also with the county infrastructure. And the board has started to do that, investing millions of dollars in our roads, in our storm drains, as well as our county buildings. And in fact, we've done significant improvements to all of our campuses, things like HVAC systems, roofs, windows, and solar systems. This is just an overview of our reserves, and you can see that our reserves, according to Board policy, that hit the 10% level of $456 million, 10% of our general fund. And we had done that through hard work over a decade. The preliminary estimate is that we will need to use almost a third of those reserves to get through the current fiscal year. We are estimating, and we'll get into that in a little more detail later in the presentation, that we will need to use somewhere around $20 million in the current fiscal year. That's 1920, just to have a balanced budget. That will leave us with approximately $36 million. We've done a lot of work, even though we've exercised fiscal discipline, built up our reserves, controlled employee growth. We've also enacted a number of new programs, significantly expanding our behavioral health programs, including mental health and substance use, disorder treatment programs, as you'll hear about today. We've added new parks and expanded our recreation programs. As I mentioned, we've done a lot of work with deferred maintenance, and we've also improved our storm drains and our roads. Right now, because of the pandemic, we are in a position where we are just trying to hold the gains that we have made, but hopefully things will recover soon, and we'll be able to get back on track with our strategic plan. I'd now like to turn it over to our budget manager, Christina Mowry, to go through the detail of the budget. Good morning, members of the board. Christina Mowry, your county budget manager. I just want to remind you before I give you an overview of the 2021 recommended budget, that this was prepared prior to the health outbreak. So it does not reflect the proposed budget, any of the revenue losses. We did give your board a preview of that, and we will be discussing those changes on the budget during the August budget hearings. Next slide. So here it gives you an overview. This is primarily the proposed budget as a status quo budget. And you'll recall that we had, we did a two-year budget, so we had a projection originally put in place a year ago for 2021, and the revenues, as you can see there in the recommend, we're recommending about $826 million in revenues with about $52 million in fund balance from other funding sources for a total of $878 million for the total county. The budget was balanced by increases to some fees and charges to offset increased costs where applicable. There were some increases in tax revenue, primarily our property tax growth. We're still seeing growth there of about 4%. And then of course, we've used some fund balance, which is what our budget actual savings that helps us carry forward funding. The total budget, the $878 million is about an increase of 107 million, which is primarily an increase of about 17 million for the general fund to maintain operations and an increase of about almost 90 million for all other funds. This is primarily from the re-budget of incomplete projects within the road fund, the housing fund and other capital projects. Staffing is fairly flat. We have about 2,477 funded positions being recommended. This is an increase of almost 11 positions from the year two projection, but it includes about 13 positions that your board added during the 1920 adopted budget process. There were about eight positions your board added mid-year and which were primarily from grant funded programs within health services. And overall the recommended budget, when you compare that reflects a decrease in positions of about 10. And these are primarily within the general fund departments and these were as a result of sort of the, to address the financial constraints we were already under prior to COVID-19. So these reductions are offset by minor increases in non-general fund positions of about one. Next slide, can someone advance the slide? So here you'll see the general fund, the breakdown of the contribution by budget category. The general fund is one of the largest funds within the county. The recommended budget reflects the department's reductions between two and a half to 12 and a half percent in order to balance the budget. The proposed general fund contribution is our most discretionary revenues that comes from our county revenues, which we also call our net county cost. And for our general fund departments, this is approximately 172 million. So, and this represents a decrease of about 4.2 million from the original 2021 projected budget. Originally, you may recall, we said we had a deficit of about seven and a half million dollars going into the two year budget for the second year. We were pleased that we saw growth in our revenues of about 3.3 million. So we only had to find about 4.2 million in order to balance the budget. And this is why we asked the departments for some minor reductions. So the chart above reflects the percentages of the general fund contribution by budget category. And there's just some minor increases in contingencies and debt service, but otherwise all the categories you'll see there have decreases. The largest category of course is our public safety and justice. And this is about 56% of our general fund. And health and human services is the largest expenditures within our county, but they are highly leveraged with state and federal funding. So the general fund contribution needed is only about 19% of our total. And here we'll give you an idea of some of the primary revenue assumptions that we relied on for the proposed budget. There's four primary taxes that make up about 89% of our county's discretionary revenues included in the general fund. And these are some of the assumptions that we saw prior to COVID. Our assessed value for property taxes is about 4%, is approximately 4.4 million. So that's the majority of the growth that we're seeing next year. And prior to COVID, we were seeing our cannabis business tax growth of about 3% or just under 200,000. Sales tax is fairly flat in the unincorporated area. We've had some gains and losses. So overall, we were seeing about a 1% growth or about just over $200,000. And transient occupancy tax prior to pre-COVID was about a 5% growth or about a half a million dollars. And then of course, we've been wanting to always give you a sort of a forecast. And of course this forecast is pretty much old news at this point, but it was the forecast prior to COVID-19's outbreak. We were, I just wanna remind the board, we were in our five year forecast anticipating some deficits. We felt those deficits were manageable. The deficits are as a result of cost rising and we recognize that our revenues were on the decline, even though we were still seeing some moderate growth. But the expectation prior to pre-COVID was that we would meet our obligations over the next five years and preserve our 10% reserves if departments were able to absorb the majority of the cost increases. This is challenging for most departments, especially public safety, given the magnitude of the projected increases for health and retirement costs. And here you can see in the black line our best case was estimating deficits over the next five years between $3 and $7 million. These are the net costs. And then in the red line, estimated our worst case at that time, which shows anywhere between $8 and $12 million. So now I'd like to turn it over to Nicole. She's gonna give you an update on the operational plan. Cap it and members of the board. Christina, you need to meet. Okay, I'm Nicole Coburn, Assistant County Administrative Officer and I'm here to give you some updates on our operational plan this morning. So as you know, the county has adopted four strategic initiatives shown here on this slide. They've laid a foundation for the county's vision and mission. The strategic plan, which the board approved in 2018, provides the county with our North Star. It's why we exist. The operational plan that the board approved in 2019 says how we are gonna achieve our strategic plan and exactly what we are gonna do. Our Primo Santa Cruz initiative, which is focused on process continuous process improvement is showing how we are getting better each day. And then performance measurement, which is the last of the four initiatives, tells us if our work is having an impact and how we can tell. So here you can see our vision and mission for the County of Santa Cruz. As I mentioned, the strategic plan serves as our North Star. After the turbulence behind us and the new world to come, this North Star is becoming more important to guiding our work and our priorities. The vision, mission and values represent the voices of our community, our service partners, our clients and our employees. So as the board is aware, the operational plan is only a two year action plan. It covers the years from 2019 through 2020-21. In December, 2019, when we came to provide our first update on the operational plan, we were looking pretty good. Halfway through our operational plan in the current month of June, we've been knocked off our course due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fortunately, both department strategic plans and the County operational plan have guided departments through the ongoing revised budget process. These plans provide the foundations for staff. They are focused on our major initiatives and goals for improving our mandatory services. The objectives in the plan are measurable and in some cases, we will be able to see directly the impact of the pandemic in a way we would have not seen in the absence of the plan. So the two charts you were looking at here show the impact of COVID-19 on our operational plan. The purple pie chart and bar graph show the impacted or amended objectives. And the green areas show the completed or in progress and in time objectives. Still about 60% of the work is expected to finish on time or has already been completed. June, 2020 has seen the biggest impact. Almost two thirds of our objectives are impacted. About 50% of the impacted objectives are expected to be complete by this December, 2020. And we are still working with departments to quantify the full impact of COVID. It is still unknown. I want to take you, our ISD department has been working on updating our operational plan website so that the community can see the current, the progress that has been made and the objectives that have been impacted by COVID-19. The main site here, www.sccvision.us. If you go to this site, you can see under the operational plan up top, all of our 180 objectives. We've added a new designation for those that have been COVID impacted so that it's easy to recognize which objectives those are. We of course have different ways to sort the objectives. So the board or the public might be interested in seeing which objectives, by which departments, the status. For example, assessor recorder has had one objective completed, one is amended, and then one is COVID impacted. We're trying to add another search function here so that the public and the board will be able to sort by all of the COVID impacted objectives so that you can see what is happening with those objectives. So I encourage all of you to take a look at the updated site and continue to monitor how we're doing as a county in terms of meeting our objectives. So the plan for this upcoming fiscal year of 2020-21, this December of 2020, we will be providing another update that will be our third update on the operational plan. We're going to be working with departments to understand the full impact of COVID-19. This includes the impact from the public health standpoint, county, state, and federal budget landscape and the local economy. We are adjusting to a new normal work environment currently, and this is also having an impact on our work. We will be breaking down the 61 COVID impacted objectives so that we can more clearly see which ones are completed, which ones are in progress or back on track, which have been amended and will remain on track but with some delays and which may need to be discontinued due to either a change in how we're working as a county or budget impacts due to limited resources. We will be working with staff on providing training on measurement. The objectives currently use the smart framework and so we will be trying to work with staff again to provide them with some additional training on their performance measurement and results-based accountability framework. We want to get departments better at measuring impact. We are also going to be working on developing and presenting a resiliency addendum to our operational plan. The original plan called for a new two-year plan that would cover 2021 to 2023 and due to the uncertainty resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, we are going to developing a new two-year plan is a bit premature and we would like to work with departments on the resiliency addendum to the current operational plan that will ensure planning flexibility through the uncertain times, continue to build on training, Primo, and performance measurement and allow departments to think about the key management challenges necessary to adjust to this new world. With that, I'm going to turn it back over to Carlos. So the budget before you board of supervisors is a pro forma budget that was developed before the COVID-19 pandemic. And so what we are asking you to do in this budget season is to go over that budget, go over our operating, focusing especially on our operational plan and our strategic plan goals and objectives and then approve that budget on June 30th, knowing that we will have to return in August with an amended budget. We simply have not had enough time and there's not enough information to provide an updated budget at this time. So these two budget hearings are focusing more on the operational plan and the overall strategic plan goals of a limited number of our departments. The budget admittedly is a pro forma budget and then we are proposing to return on August 10th through 13th with budget hearings where we will consider an amended budget in detail and asking the board to approve that budget on August 18th. The reason of course is that this pandemic hit so quickly and we are still trying to understand the impacts on our revenues. We have had in 2019, we estimate a $20 million deficit due to primarily some of our hotel tax, sales tax and fee revenue being hit very severely starting in March. We are going to propose that the board use the reserves, the county reserves to cover that one-time deficit to get to this fiscal year absent the use of those reserves we would have had to have started with immediate budget cuts which would not have been advised because of the uncertainty and the timing. This in fact is why we have reserves for an emergency like this. Using one-third of our reserves is a very serious action. It'll put us at our minimum reserves of approximately 7%, which is an amount that we would not recommend going below. That'll be approximately $36 million. And the reason for that is that perhaps going below 7% would likely hurt our credit rating which would put us in jeopardy if we ever need to go out for debt again. It also puts us in danger if an another emergency hits. We know that we are entering into a very dangerous fire season. The pandemic itself is not over. There could be new outbreaks in the fall or winter that would require new county spending. And of course there's always the danger of other natural disasters like an earthquake. So we are recommending that we use the $20 million of reserves approximately to get through this fiscal year but not use any more of the reserves going into next year. The $20 million deficit that we are estimating is 12% of net county cost which is very significant. But that amount only increases next year. Next fiscal year, we at this time are projecting somewhere between $30 to $40 million of deficit. This is approximately 23% of our net county costs. This is an amount that's very significant, double what we experienced in the Great Recession. And for that reason, we are having to ask departments for reductions of up to 20%. We are trying to limit the budget reductions to public safety, health and human services agencies to 10%. We are doing that by trying to backfill the realignment funds that they would lose with the general fund contributions which in effect means that we, in developing the budget that we will submit to you, the budget amendment in August are trying to protect our safety net programs in particular. We know that's a value that the board holds very strongly, especially at a time when the economy is causing so much suffering. It would be horrible to have to cut our contribution to the safety net that the county offers our residents at this time. But that means that we are cutting other departments to make up for that realignment. We also are asking our employees to undergo furloughs. We also went through furloughs in the Great Recession and we are hoping and talking to our labor partners about that possibility. We will also be using some one-time funds. These include reserves and trust funds within particular agencies outside of our own county wide reserves. Normally this would not be advisable, but given the unique nature of this pandemic, we are hoping that once we get through this time period and a vaccine is developed that the economy will recover over the next few years. And so for that reason, it's probably okay to use some one-time funds to try and get through next fiscal year, realizing that next fiscal year will probably be the worst in terms of loss of revenues. We also have had to endure a lot of costs that we're incurring due to the pandemic. I think the last amount I saw was $17 million so far that we've spent on the actual emergency response. The good news is that the county has received an allocation of CARES Act funding. This is federal funding that is flowing through the state government. The state government has allocated about $1.2 billion to go to counties that did not receive direct allocations from the federal government. That includes Santa Cruz County. We estimate that we will receive about $28 million of this CARES Act funding that was proposed by the governor and it is in the legislature's budget. So we feel pretty confident that it is gonna be approved by the end of, by the next week. The good news is that that's gonna help meet some of the costs we are incurring due to the emergency. The bad news is that it's very, the uses of the funds are very limited and restricted. We can only use it on unbudgeted costs that are new costs directly related to the pandemic emergency response. So we are unable to use any of that funding to backfill any of our lost revenues. We anticipate being able to use some of it for the costs that we're going to be incurred by the general fund, such as the matching requirements for some of the FEMA funds that we will be claiming. The amount we will be able to ultimately claim that will backfill some of the general fund costs we've experienced is varied anywhere from eight million. That was the high and now we think it's only gonna be going to be about two to $3 million that we will be able to backfill general fund expenditures that we're making on the emergency. The other big news that potentially could help us is that the legislature included a billion dollars for realignment backfill that are, those are funds that go to health and human services and to public safety. We have backfilled those funds with general fund money to try and hold the departments from some of the drastic cuts they would have to make absent that backfill with the state legislature proposing the billion dollars, that could help us. There's some caveats though. One is that the governor did not propose that in his budget. And so the governor and the legislature remain in negotiations over a final budget deal. So it's unclear if that realignment backfill is going to be included. The other thing is that the realignment backfill provided by the legislature, 600,000 of that of those dollars are subject to the state receiving federal CARES Act funding or a new CARES Act funding. And so there's an October trigger in which that $1 billion that the state legislature is proposing to be used for the backfill of realignment funds would be reduced from a billion to 400,000. So it's unclear how much of that money will actually come to the county. It'll be a few million dollars. The other bit of good news or potential good news is that our revenues are likely to be higher than we estimated. In particular, our sales tax and hotel tax. And the reason is that we have reopened much more quickly than we anticipated. We were actually not anticipating that hotels and restaurants would be opened until later in the summer. Certainly hotels from the governor's earlier comments seem to be not untracked to be opened until possibly August or even September. But they opened last week, I think. So much sooner than we thought. And so there's no doubt that some of our revenue estimates are gonna be slightly better than we anticipated, especially in hotel tax and probably sales tax. Although it's unclear again, what's going to happen if there are new outbreaks such as what appears to be happening in Monterey County right next to us where their rates of positive infections has increased very significantly in the last week. So again, lots of uncertainty. We are gonna be working very hard over the summer to come up with a budget that we will propose to the board and that we'll ask that you consider in budget hearings. And so we are proposing that you would open the public hearing on the proposed budget, accept the 2021 proposed budget consent, items of departments as a pro forma budget, realizing that we will be returning in August with an amended budget that will reflect the recent information we've received due to the emergency. We are also proposing that you hear presentations from Health and Human Services and tomorrow from County Fire Planning and Public Works. We are proposing that concluding actions be presented on June 30th. Again, this is a pro forma budget that we all recognize will be amended. We will return on August 10th through 13th with budget hearings, which we'll go over in detail all of the proposed amendments. And then we will be asking that the board approve that amended budget on August 18th. That concludes our presentation for an overview. And we would now open ourselves for questions from the board or you can open the public hearing and go to public comment. And then after that, we will hear the presentations from Health and Human Services Agency. Thank you very much. Chair, I just have one question. Do you wanna, we're gonna put off a public comment until after this part or? Well, we were proposing to the board ask any questions they have now regarding the overview. And then after that open up the public hearing for the public. Okay. And then we'll go to the Health and Human Services. They could speak on any item they want, right? It's also part of there as long as it's within our purview. On the public comment part. Yes. Yeah, okay. That's all right. Chair, just one question. Can we go with today, Supervisor Coonerty first and then- Certainly. Is that all right? We'll go with Supervisor Coonerty if you have any questions. Thank you. Any more questions? Okay. And then Supervisor McPherson? Yeah, it's not a question so much. It's just a comment. First of all, I want to really thank our professional kind of administrative staff and all our administrators in the county. Thank you, Carlos and Ms. Mauri and Ms. Coburn for trying to get an overall realistic picture in this times of crisis and uncertainty. But I do want to make a couple of comments if I could. First of all, I want to express my appreciation for the professionalism and the hard work of all of our county employees during this pandemic and amid the sudden loss of two members of our community county family in the past couple of weeks. You've gone above and beyond but hundreds of hours, maybe thousands of hours into providing some of the critical services that are needed by people in Santa Cruz County. It's demonstrated by the health statistics as well as the resiliency of our residents and businesses to make this comeback as best as we can. Health and human services and public safety are the most fundamental critical services the county provides. We have hundreds of community-based organization that provides safety net for all of us we expect from them and our government. And I just want to say that rather than, I've had, we've all had hundreds of emails, many of them starting with the phrase now more than ever, we need to do this or that. And rather than supporting one agency over the other, we really need to maintain a balanced approach so that the threads of our connectivity between health and human services and public safety are reinforced. Everyone needs, is losing funding. It appears it's going to happen. And I would really emphasize to try to tell us, those who are presenters, to tell us what they, what are the most critical needs that they have rather than trying to say, we should take from this or that. And I also want to thank, it's been mentioned, this board for their multi-year of support of Bill in the county's reserves without, which we could really not navigate this budget shortfall very well at all. Building our reserves is really critical as we have seen from the presentation by Mr. Palacios. And I'm incredibly grateful to my fellow board members that we agreed with the approach eight or 10 years ago now to really address this and thank heavens we have it. This will take us a long time to recover just to get our departments back to full speed, so to speak, but we really do need to address and recover that reserve as quickly as we can as well. One of the things that really comes to mind as we look at these presentation is our dependence on the federal and state finances to let our county operate. And there is uncertainty right there at this point as we speak. So I do appreciate the best projection that we can give at this time. And I also, I want to acknowledge the progress we have made as a county in developing a strategic plan and operational plan, thanks to our CEO and his excellent executive team, a lot of employees and many people from the public pointed out what our greatest needs are and how we can get there in a realistic timeframe. So I do, we have made some very good advances in this regard and I really very thankful and appreciative of that effort that has been made by our staff, our employees and the public to get us a picture of where we want to be and where we want to go or where we are. Although we face a serious budget crisis it would be foolish for the county to undo the progress we have made and nobody's suggesting that. And I hope that we can find a balanced approach as we make these budget adjustments. To that end, as we look toward August and revise approval of our budget, I wanna make sure that we are looking at all options to reduce our costs and recover revenue. Even though all of us will be part of the solution we cannot take, we cannot really ask our employees to close this gap on their own. We must look to see how we can better operate and put in some operational changes that improve our efficiencies and cut costs. So I do wanna thank all of our employees and especially our administrative staff for bringing this realistic picture together. And although uncertainty is before us we're gonna address this the best way we can. Unfortunately, when a crisis like this hit the need for human and health public safety services increase. And so it's kind of a double hit. When you need it the most you have less money to do it. But I do wanna thank all of our county employees again and our administrative staff for putting this in a good position and giving us a realistic outlook of what we need to do this year that's just about end this fiscal year just about ended and what we need to look forward to if you can put it that way in 2021. So thank you and let's move on and do the best we can and a cooperative manner the best of our abilities. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Zack, could you hear me? Yes, Chair, thank you. I have no questions at this stage yet for the presentation and I have nothing additional to add. I really appreciated Supervisor McPherson's excellent introductory comments. Thank you. Supervisor Leopold. Thank you for the presentation, Ms. Colburn, Ms. Mowry and Mr. Palacios. As we head into this very difficult budget year I feel as though we have, we've learned something from the past. We learned coming out of the great recession that we needed to rebuild our reserves and we've done that and we learned to do more work listening to our employees and the Primo program, the Lean Six Sigma program is all part of actually listening to our frontline staff about processes that will help us as we seek to move out of this very difficult financial period. I believe we have the leadership in place to be able to work our way through the difficult questions that we're gonna have to face over the next eight weeks and over the next year. But through these efforts, we've actually built a team that is well-prepared for this. No one would have expected this to happen but now that we have the, this is in front of us we have the pieces in place to be able to respond. And we know from our experience in the great recession that we were able to make judicious cuts that allowed us to not kill programs but reduce them so we didn't lose them. And coming out of that, we built new kinds of programs that have also leveraged other funds. And even as we deal with our response to COVID, the staff has formed great partnerships with organizations like the Community Foundation, the state and other individuals and nonprofit groups here in Santa Cruz to make sure we meet the needs of the community. So I wanna express my appreciation for the staff for the work that they did to develop this budget before COVID and the work that you will be doing over the next several weeks to come up with a revised plan on the budget. I did have one question that I wanted to ask with regards to something Ms. Coburn said about looking at the COVID impacted pieces of our strategic plan and to get some sense of how they were gonna be impacted and what would be new timelines and everything else. Do you expect that we will have that in time for the August sessions or what's the timeline for that? The full inventory of all the COVID-19 objectives or impacted objectives will be fully known this December as part of our update, but we do hope to provide some sort of indication of what might be affected by the revised budget and what may need to be either delayed or discontinued. Yeah, I think it would be helpful for us to have some information because part of our operational plan and strategic vision that we've created should help drive the financial decisions that we make and knowing that we, about the impacted goals may influence the way in which we think about where we to spend our resources. So to the extent that we could have that in time for August, I think that would be of greater benefit for the difficult decisions we have to make. Thank you very much for the work. That's all, Chair. You're welcome. Yeah, I wanna thank the public for standing with us and with everything that's happening in this country at the same time. Santa Cruz County has really been supportive and showing a lot of stability and sense as we go along. We're under tremendous stress from all different kinds of angles. We've had a lot of personal loss with the loss of lives of people that we love and respect. And also, of course, the economic stress that the whole public is going through. And we're asking, very proud of our staff and everything that we're going through with, we're asking people to work harder and get paid less, which is gonna be tough. But the public understands that because a lot of people are actually losing everything that they ever had economically up to this point. And as bad as it is, it could be a lot worse. I think because of our leadership that we're showing from the county administrative part. If we didn't have those reserves, where would we be right now? We'd be in real trouble. And later I'll ask, or maybe I should do it real quick now. The property tax projection, it seems to me that we're looking that we think we're gonna get a little bit more. I'm wondering if in reality it might not actually happen because people are having a hard time paying their property tax. We think that the property taxes that we've received for this fiscal year will be on track with our projections. But you're right, what'll happen is next year is we will potentially see reductions in that as people are not able to pay or if they have reductions in the value of their properties. But the collections that we've received this year, we believe are on track with our production projections. It really will be next year where we will see those reductions. Okay, and then with the federal, it says state and federal money that we're counting on approximately what percentage is state and what percentage is actual federal. And maybe some numbers if you have them. Well, the CARES Act money that the county is receiving is $28 million. As we mentioned, there's a lot of restrictions on how that money can be spent. And we think at this point, we think we're only gonna spend $2 to $3 million on costs that the general fund was going projected to reserve. So part of our deficit that $40 million, we think there's two to $3 million that will be, we were hoping eight to 10, it's now looking two to three that we're gonna be able to backfill some of our general fund expenditures from that CARES Act money. The state realignment money, we are projecting that the $1 billion will somewhere be around $5 to $6 million, potentially that this county could receive from the state. But the trigger is, remember, they have a federal trigger in October that the legislature put in that would reduce that to less than half. So now that $6 million in realignment backfill, now it's potentially two to $3 million again. So there's a lot of uncertainty. And then there's also legislation in the House of Representatives at the federal level to provide federal stimulus aid that has been approved. That would be significant as much as $24 million for the county that would be unrestricted that would greatly help us. But that legislation has been stuck in the Senate and also the administration has not yet supported any of that legislation. So there's great uncertainty whether any of that federal aid, new federal aid will actually be received. Okay. And then this is an unusual year, July, usually by July 1st, we're making the budget and everything. This year though, we're in August, we're gonna come back and actually settle it. Will it be retroactive or will it actually start in August? Changes. Yeah, the changes for the budget will actually start in August once the Board approves it. Okay, so everything we're talking about. And yeah, so anyway, yeah, we're all gonna share the pain with everybody else in the public. I'm very proud of the Board of Supervisors and working with them that we're showing a lot of strength and a lot of courage going forward. And that we do hear the public and we do understand you're going through a very difficult time. And we're gonna share that with you. Coming up pretty quick here. Thank you. So now you'd open up the public hearing and take comments from the public. We'll open it up now for, let me see where I got. A public comment is now open. Opportunity for members of the public to address the Board on topics related to the proposed 2021 County budget and also on topics not on the agenda but are within the jurisdiction of the Board. Also, if you cannot stay later to speak during specific regular agenda items, you may address those items at this time. So we'll go first, we'll allow three minutes and that'll be people in the chambers. Thank you, I'm sorry to keep you waiting. Thank you. My name's Olivia Martinez. I'm the Region 2 Director for SEIU Local 521. There is a lot of uncertainty and as you know, we've been in negotiations with the County regarding the furlough and we have been provided not a lot of information as you. A lot of projections, not knowing enough about specific budget cuts and how it will impact the membership and your employees, right? I think that in Carlos was saying that the HSA and HSC were gonna do about a 10%. Well, they had already been asked to do a 7.5. So that's approximately 17.5, right? Not 10% that they're gonna cut, which is services to the community. These are mental health services. This is social workers, right? Providing safety for the children. SEIU has provided a proposal to the County that we are willing to do a 7.5% furlough, right? And we are gonna go to our membership and ask that they support that. We are very concerned with that 7.5 because you are not giving us, right? The County is not giving us specific numbers, but we know that there's some kind of budget impact, right? We can see the numbers. A 7.5 is 156 hours a year, 19.5 days and three hours per week. That means members will be doing less in a week, right? We are hoping that this time around what we've learned from the last furlough is that the County did not reduce the workload for our membership. We are hoping they take this serious and reduce the workload to our membership because that's what it means. By asking that we take a cut, it means that you are cutting services to the public, right? One of the things that we're not being able to get an agreement is that we want our members to continue to get their annual accruals. Why? Because that's their PTO, that's their sick time. So anytime you're going to a department, to your building and you have some kind of temperature, you're being asked to go back home and that is your PTO time. That is time that they will not have if there's a COVID crisis, right? If there's more employees getting sick, yes, there's the FFCR, but that's not for one day, right? This is we're talking about one day that your kid gets sick and you have to use your PTO. So we want our members to continue to receive their accrual times over time. They don't want our members to get any overtime. This is a big issue. We have social workers that will get a call at 10 o'clock at night and come back at six o'clock in the morning. We need overtime to continue to be accrued for our members and counted. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anybody else here in the chambers like to speak? No. Okay. We'll open it up to the community room, I guess. No one in the community though. Any comments or questions? Nobody from the community room. However, we do have one web comment and this is from Becky Steinbrunner, your board of supervisors. I wonder why there is only a 0.5% reduction in the board budget. The public who has informed there would be a 10% board salary reduction to show leadership in these difficult economic times. I do not see the board's budget. In fact, the actual numbers in the supervisor's budgets are not shown just a summary. Please adopt a 10% board salary reduction and ask for reductions in all department directors' salaries. You need to show leadership at a time when many have lost their jobs and businesses. Thank you sincerely, Becky Steinbrunner. Okay. That brings us to the consent agenda, item number six. Do the board members have any comments or additional direction for items on the consent agenda? We'll start with Supervisor Leopold. I have nothing. Sure. I'd be prepared to move the consent agenda. Okay. Supervisor Friend. No comments. Supervisor Coonerty. Done. Thank you. And Supervisor McPherson. None. Second the motion. Okay. And I have no real questions at this time also. So we do have a motion. Do we have a second? Yeah. Supervisor McPherson. Ready for the roll call vote? Okay. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Chairman Caput. Aye. That passes unanimously. And that takes us to our regular agenda item number seven. And that will be to consider the 2020-2021 proposed budgets for the health services agency as outlined in the reference budget documents and memorandum of the director of health services. So, how are you doing? Good morning Chair Caput. Good morning. Honorable Board of Supervisors. Mamie Hall, health services agency director. And I also have my assistant director Marcus Pimentel in the room with me. And I'm pleased to be here today. I will speak up. I'm pleased to be here today to present the health services agency 2021 budget and operational update. This cover slide here is the backdrop to a very familiar site to many people who live in Santa Cruz County. It is the lightning formation air shows team that on May 9th honored Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Salinas, Monterey and King City medical and first responders as heroes of the COVID-19 response. To me, this is symbolic of our entire community because this past year, we have been challenged to bring out the humanity in each and every one of us across our own community as well as the nation. So on behalf of HSA, I'd like to express gratitude for heroes in all corners of our community that have helped to keep our residents safe, employed, fed, educated, sheltered despite great challenges. I'd also like to express my thanks to Mr. Carlos Palacios, our county administrative officer and his budget team led by Christina Mari and the staff of the CAO's office for providing leadership and support in developing the county budget and operational plan. Today I'll be discussing our mission, vision and values, provide a brief update on our operational plan objectives. Talk about some success stories that we have experienced as an agency because so much has happened in the last year. Review our HSA budget for your approval and discuss some of the actions that are most important to consider as we move forward. HSA serves Santa Cruz County, its community and all of our residents guided by our vision, driven by our mission and committed to all of our values. These were developed in the backdrop of the county strategic plan and informed by people we serve as well as our staff who serve them. This pandemic has brought out front and center more than any other time in our history, the role of county health services and each county's role in fulfilling state and federal mandates and requirements that are intended to safeguard our communities. So there are 58 counties in California and each one of those is a local health jurisdiction with a responsibility that no other entity has. As you know, we're responsible for public health, mental health services, substance use disorder services and environmental health, as well as many other voluntary programs and services. And every single one of these jurisdictions has an appointed health director and health officer, the health office, the health director myself, I'm responsible for the administrative operations of the health services agency and each health officer is the chief medical officer for the entire county. So now more than ever, people who didn't know what health services did before are much more familiar with our role. So I do want to make a special note to our health officer, Gail Newell, because in her role appointed by your board, she has expressed and demonstrated that she is one of the most principled and astute health officers in California and she has led us through COVID with a balanced approach standing firm on the side of medicine and science, but always with a kind heart. In summary, health services are one of the most complex and diverse areas of county government and one which affects every single county resident. Our operational plan update for 2021, we have newly completed four HSA objectives and those are the Groundwater Sustainability Plan for the Mid County Groundwater Basin, completing an environmental health on time completion of facility inspections for the entire year and that was quite a task amid COVID. And as a result of that, also was able to reduce health violations by 25%. Our public health community health education team finalized a complete Streets to Schools Plan. They collaborated with DPW to work with 19 schools for safe and active transportation that will serve as a foundation for future pedestrian safety and safe routes to schools. And then finally, we had a target to optimize the federal leveraging of resources to maximize not only the work of HSA but all of our community partners and I'll talk a little bit more about that later. We continue to prioritize access to care, community education, supported housing, disease prevention and treatment utilization. We're pleased to say that we have started every single one of our objectives, have completed nearly a third and about half of the remaining objectives are delayed due to our deployment to respond to COVID. Here you see our budget summary and as your board is aware, the budget before you today is a pro forma budget. We look forward to returning to the board in August with changes that reflect the state and federal adjustments to our revenues and also potential adjustments to our services and perhaps state and federal requirements as well. One of the things that I do wanna note is that the health services agency is a complex patchwork of funding streams with very minimal cost to the general fund and a heavy reliance on drying down other funds such as federal funds with our local match. This is an expenditure summary to compliment the revenues. And again, although this is a pro forma budget, one thing that's important for your board to note is that the largest line item that we have is salaries and benefits but almost as large as that line item is the line item of services and supplies. One of the things that I wanna note is that unlike many other county departments, we rely on contracts with our community providers to provide important safety net services such as mental health, alcohol and drug and other health services. And so we see the staff of our community partners as an extension of our own staff. I wanna talk a little bit about the year in review because so much has happened in 1920 that none of us anticipated. Our department has been extremely responsive to change and worked really hard together to ensure that we maintain our core services across our safety net. So prior to COVID, we had already started expanding our access to care. We added clinic rooms in our North County MLN clinics location and we also were able to celebrate UC supervisor Caput and CAO Carlos Palacios there in the photo celebrating the grand opening of our behavioral health office space in South County Freedom Campus. HSA was quickly able to transition to virtual and telehealth visits in a very short amount of time. We're grateful for a federal waiver from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare that allow us to draw down reimbursement for those types of services. We're gonna advocate for those to continue throughout the year and post COVID because they've actually been a really good model to increase access to care. We've created safe places for people to come and get treatment. So the photo that you see right there are staff from our Watsonville Health Center who had just stood up a drive-through clinic in our South County campus. We have a similar one in North County and for our homeless persons healthcare project we continue to serve our homeless folks in shelters and in the field. So much of the work that we've done has actually been spent dedicated to creating new systems that didn't exist before to connect data that we never had to collect before, testing and best practices across our own agency, other agencies as well as with the state and within the healthcare system. In our clinic services division, I'd like to call your attention to the chart on your right and that shows our integrated behavioral health visits based on our electronic health records. And you can see there was a sharp decline in March impacted by COVID. But because of their quick ability to turn around into virtual visits, telehealth visits more than made up for the March decline in the month of April. So that meant not only were we able to maintain access and services to our patients but we are also able to recover revenue. The other thing that I'm really proud of of the clinics is very early on, they understood that we had to have our own capacity to do COVID testing to serve our patients. And so I came to the board in the spring with approval to purchase lab equipment to accomplish exactly that. And it has been such an asset to not only our patients, but also the whole community. It's a vital testing source. It's the only onsite county lab that provides COVID test results within 24 hours. When you use a private lab, the wait times are typically between three to five days. And if there's a lot of testing, there are backlogs as much as a week. So this is very, very important. And we've loaned this resource to our first responders, our hospitals and law enforcement, their entire teams, their staff and their patients and clients in order to be able to be responsive to quickly identify COVID in our community and in our first responders. The other thing that clinics has done, and these seem like little things, but Metacruze is a program for uninsured and underinsured folks in the county, primarily those who don't have documented status. And our clinics team was able to transition all of the eligibility to a virtual environment and create workflows to help streamline the eligibility and verification and approval process. We also created an intranet page for our clinic staff to share all of their changing workflows to address COVID-19 and other related documents. Finally, the clinics division collaborated with the whole person care project to deploy Phillips mobile devices to their patients who were COVID-19 positive. And this allowed the patients to remain in their home or at their place of residence and check in daily with their oxygen levels, their blood pressure and their temperature, allowing both the clients, patients and the staff to remain safe. In behavioral health, as much the same story as our clinic services, we as the county mental health plan provide all the publicly funded mental health services to residents in Santa Cruz County. So that's primarily folks who are in crisis or enrolled in the MediCal program. One example is our mental health plan, children's service delivery. So much of what we did for children was in person at the school sites and in our offices. COVID changed that immediately with the closure of our schools and the desire to distance our visits. So pre COVID, we had school visits of 13% and office visits of 28% making up a large portion of our services. However, all forms of virtual services after COVID increased from 45% virtual visits to 80% of all of our visits. Behavioral health also set up video visits and telephone sessions as the standard for treatment and utilized a new reporting and electronic health records platform. In addition, there are people who don't have phones and don't have computers. So what our staff did was they created virtual waiting rooms. They converted office space into safe places for folks to come in and they could have a virtual visit with their clinician without actually on site but without actually being person to person. Our clients have shared their satisfaction at the reduced wait times for all of these. And we also had staff who don't normally work in technology work with all of our clients to make sure that technologically they had gone through all of the registration and other processes they needed to get their appointments on time. One of our unsung heroes of health services is our administration and finance teams. So you cannot have a complex agency with a nearly $200 million budget without a strong administration and finance infrastructure. So our fiscal and administrative division has always been excellent but in a time of COVID they were presented with new challenges. We have now had multiple new funding streams from the state and federal government. Our incident command structure hopes to be reimbursed by FEMA. And so we have to do incredible amount of record keeping of staff hours, expenditures and separate them from the existing funds and grants that we have. So our fiscal team has done a great job of stepping up to make sure that we can get reimbursed for all of our costs for COVID response and also make sure that any new funds available to us are quickly turned around contractually and fiscally. On optimizing resources, you may have recalled that I've come to the board before talking about MediCal administrative activities. So what these are, are there a way for the federal government to reimburse us at the county level for local dollars that we spend on helping people access MediCal, the program and access services provided by MediCal. So in the past year, HSA has brought in almost $1.2 million in new federal revenue to our own county departments and our community organizations who have participated and trained themselves and leveraged the work that they do to serve the MediCal population. Prior to today, these were federal dollars left on the table and we anticipate that this is just the beginning. We will build our program in the years to come to ensure that we don't leave important dollars for our community on the table. So some of the examples of what can be reimbursed from Medicaid for non-direct healthcare services are, when you have a community organization that has a youth residential treatment facility and they create outreach materials and marketing to let folks know that that is available to them, that's called Medicaid outreach and it's reimbursable by the federal government. When we have a home visitor or promotora, go into a household and let folks know that they could potentially be eligible for not only MediCal coverage but also immunizations and other things, that outreach is reimbursable. So I'm so proud of our staff for having dug in and reviewed every single eligible community organization and department and maximized those who have the ability to draw down these funds. Overall, for the county departments, there has been $768,000 in new revenues being brought into the departments and for our community-based organizations, a little over $400,000 going to a variety of community organizations. Environmental health, I'm incredibly proud of environmental health. They've thrived under the leadership of our new department division director, very experienced, Dr. Marilyn Underwood and they often don't get a lot of recognition but they have been a driving force that has supported the public health emergency response. A few years ago, they were instrumental in response to hepatitis A outbreak and they have stepped up again during COVID. They recently partnered with local businesses to distribute approximately 2,000 signs in grocery and convenience stores. So if you've been to a grocery store and you see the stop signs and these kind of stepping signs, those have been distributed by environmental health. They also played a key role in assisting the human services department and other county partners to stand up 18247 shelters, moving people experiencing homelessness into a living situation where they'd be less likely to experience COVID. So very early in the response, they helped to deploy these shelters and help with precautions before we were able, as a county, to deploy our own staff or disaster service workers. To date, they've conducted over 40 inspections of these 18 facilities. One of the other things that they did is we noticed that South County businesses were having a hard time coming up to speed with complying with the social distancing requirements. So our environmental health division worked together with the city of Watsonville's code enforcement staff and shared with the city staff the guidance material they had developed and they trained them about COVID precautions so that our South County partners could have the confidence in implementing these precautions to the best of their ability. There's so much more that the Environmental Health Division does and one of the most important things is working with all of our food facilities. So to date, they have worked with each one of the food facilities that they inspect and they have provided a partnership with the Communicable Disease Unit so that when there is a COVID-19 exposure or case, they work very, very quickly with the food facility to ensure that they've provided guidance in proper disinfection and also check in with employees in terms of their health check-in process, sanitizing procedures and other social distancing protocols to keep them and their customers safe. I'm giving a big shout out to our Public Health Department in what they've accomplished in 1920 over and above the operational objectives and I do have to say out of the 22 objectives that we have as a health services agency, Public Health has nine of them and it's one of our smallest divisions and has one of the smallest budgets and probably has the most important role, certainly today, if not always. The vision of the Public Health Division is better health every day for everyone and who can argue with that? The county began to take proactive steps very, very early in the emergence of COVID-19 and we first activated our Public Health Department Operations Center on February 28th of 2020. What you see in this colorful wheel are the 10 essential public health services identified by the Centers for Disease Control and embraced by every state health department and tribal. And so our public health team was challenged but always stayed true to implementing each one of these with the best of public health practice and data and intent. They have monitored health, diagnosed and investigated, developed policies and forced laws, assured a competent workforce and evaluated to see if what we were doing was working. So I'm very proud of the work that they have done and we continually increase our preparedness for the pandemic because as many of you know, this isn't over and we're here to coexist with this disease for quite some time. Another success story of public health and this is just a gentle reminder that there is public health work outside of COVID and that much of the year was actually spent striving for better health every day for everyone. Nurse Family Partnership is a part of the Thrive by Three initiative that's done in coordination and collaboration with the Human Services Department and that program reached an important milestone this year. In October of 2019, the program had its first graduation with 11 families participating. This is an intensive evidence-based program that follows a family from birth through the first two years of a child's life. It's quite an investment but it's proven to also have quite an impact. The existence of this program is in large part due to the advocacy and support from Supervisor Ryan Coonerty's office and much of its success is attributed to Alison Endert who championed this program from its inception. So we are grateful for her contributions to help young families get the best start in life and the mark that she has left on our county. The final success story I will tell about the public health division is that on the very same day we activated our department operational center in response to COVID. We also submitted our formal application to the National Public Health Accreditation Board. Very ironic and it was just a symbol to us that now more than ever is the time to make a commitment to quality public health services. So public health department accreditation is a measurement of health department quality and performance against a set of nationally recognized practice focused and evidence based standards across the 10 essential services of health. It also assesses a health department's ability to manage and administer an effective health department and maintain strong and effective communications with its governance entity. So we look forward to the work ahead with public health accreditation and I'm confident that this will improve both the quality and the performance of our local health jurisdiction. So finally, moving forward there are a few comments that I think are important for us to hear and to understand about where we're going in the future. We are at this point in time where we have a confluence of things happening in our nation and in Santa Cruz County as well. Life has changed abruptly, profoundly and irretrievably. The widespread impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in a deep recession that we in our county are preparing for today. There's an inverse relationship between the funding that comes to health and human services and the job that we have to do because so much of our funding is related to the economy. When the economy takes a dive, our funding takes a dive at a time when more people are unemployed, more people are on MediCal and more people need safety net services. This is a challenge that we have been facing for many, many years and I'm confident that we will do so and meet this challenge embracing our principles and our values. But it's important to note that save lives Santa Cruz which is our approach to addressing the pandemic is also for me something that speaks to our obligation to the residents of Santa Cruz County. COVID has exposed the systemic weaknesses in all of our institutions, public and private. Save lives began as our slogan for COVID but the words ring true to the County and HSA's overall vision and mission. In order to save lives, we must address the social determinants of health. These include poverty, education, employment, food, housing and health. But we can't talk about these things and we can't address them unless we address the issue of race. Racism is a public health crisis of the greatest magnitude and urgency in our country today. The elimination of health and equities will never be achieved without first acknowledging and addressing racism's contribution to health and social inequities. And then when we do address race and ethnicity, we must also address other root causes of health disparities such as gender, immigration status, country of origin, sexual orientation or identity. All of these impact someone's ability to reach their full potential. We will never have enough resources to do all that we need to but we can leverage the resources that we do have. What we have is expertise, resources, partnerships and a community that is always willing to collaborate. But before we look outward to see what can we do in our communities, health services agency is committed to look inward at our own institution and the social and economic structures and deeply held cultural assumptions and practices that foster institutional practices that have gone on for a very long time and prevented all people in our diverse community from reaching their optimal level of health. So what else does this mean for us moving forward? It means that we will prioritize our core mandates and equity. Even though we have budget challenges we'll be smart about our investments in the social determinants of health. We will do all this while sustaining our public health COVID-19 response and anticipating the changing needs of the safety net. Probably most important is our partnership with the human services department. Over the years I've taught a course for the California State Association of Counties for New Supervisors on Health and Human Services and I've shared over the years also that there's always somebody who is a new supervisor who asks what's the best way to organize county health and human services? A super agency separate departments and my answer always is there's no magic bullet organizational structure. The success of these organizations depends on their partnership and collaboration. And I've worked in counties where we've all been one giant agency. I've worked in counties where there have been separate departments for everything from public health to environmental health. And what I do know in Santa Cruz County is that we enjoy a strong foundational relationship with the human services department. And the work ahead of us as we look ahead to support a new housing for health division and to achieve all of the things that I've just talked about relies necessarily on building on that foundational partnership with human services. So our budget that we present to you is a statement of our values. And it's clear that there will be no economic recovery without safeguarding the safety net. The size and impacts of the recession that we have before us are unprecedented and it's the reason that we at HSA are so grateful to our county administrative offices and our board and our community partners in supporting the safety net and continuing to trust the expertise and the professional values of each of us working across the health and human services to protect the most vulnerable in our communities. It is my recommendation today to the board to approve the proposed budget for the health services agency and CSA 12 funds as well as any additional materials and as recommended by the county administrative officer. And with this recommendation, I want to express my additional gratitude for all of the county departments who have helped carry out our work this year, the community organizations who have felt the strain but also the need for the services that they deliver our healthcare first responder system, community partners such as schools, businesses, agriculture and more, HSD as I mentioned before. I want to give a special acknowledgement to HSA's budget team, Marcus Pimentel, Jessica Randolph and Christine Williams for their support in submitting the budget before you today. And finally, I want to express a debt of gratitude to everyone who works in the health services agency. I'm very proud to serve alongside them. This picture is another picture from May 9th of the air show put on to honor all of our first responder heroes. And I also want it to serve as a symbol to our board and our community for the contributions and the loss of Sergeant Damon Gutzwiller and Allison Endert, two people who embodied public service and have left an indelible mark on the County of Santa Cruz. Thank you. Thank you. First, do any board members have questions on item number seven? Mr. Chair, is the Supervisor McPherson? Sure. I'd just like to make a couple of comments. Let me again thank director Mimi Hall and public health officer, Gail Newell and the entire health services department and team for their work in combating the COVID-19 crisis. We're in a precarious place right now as we open things up to improve the economy but also to see the increased infectious race rates from some of our neighboring counties in particular Monterey and Santa Clara. But I think that there was one key issue to the mission statement that was mentioned in this day and age or in this recent time of ours and that was the use for us to use an equity lens. We have always done that, I believe, is very well in Santa Cruz County. I know we're going to be committed to doing that in the future as well. An area of environmental health, I want to call out the great work in supporting the creation of our sustainable groundwater basin plans and the local agency management plan. All those are going to be very critical to the future and sustainability of our natural resources. In the behavioral health area, I see we're a budget for an increase in telecare, psychiatrists, mental health and substance abuse through Encompass, Janus and other providers. And it looks to me like we're expanding these services which is great, is good, it's very much needed. A couple of questions that I have, are we taking on additional clients or are we varying up our services? And then two, how are we funding these additional investments? I know we're getting a lot of grants and much of the funding in this department comes from the state and local agencies but I'd like to have a better question if I could or some answers to those questions if we're taking on additional clients or varying our services in any respect. And then how are we funding these investments? Yeah. In closing, I just want to say thank you for your partnership. It was to your predecessors and the health and human services departments. It has just been absolutely incredible how well you're working together and thank heavens you have because it's really produced a lot of positive results because of that. But a couple of questions that I had. Sure. In terms of the question, are we serving more people? That's difficult to tell but I believe when we come back in August and we're able to take a look at how we've ended the year and especially the last quarter, I'll be able to answer that question for you. In terms of diversifying services, we have core services that we're mandated to provide. And so we haven't added to the types of services but we have, I do believe we've increased access. The virtual visits have allowed us to reach more, to have, we have fewer missed appointments. We have, people have expressed. So for example in the past, you had to, most of our clients take public transportation and they could spend three or four hours of their day trying to get to our campuses to access their visits. And it's just, so I think access in general has gone up. In terms of funding, how are we funding all of this? We've had to be creative. One of the things that's very important to remember is that the local dollars that come in to us, local and state dollars are the dollars that we use to leverage state federal dollars. So funding like realignment, the Mental Health Services Act, Medicaid administrative activities, the more net county cost, those are the dollars that we use to draw down an additional federal dollar. And most of our mandated services fall under that dynamic of that funding stream. So it's the reason that we have been really working to increase our Medicaid administrative activities, reimbursement. It's the reason that we've been working and advocating so hard for, for our state legislature and our governor to include backfilling of realignment. It's the reason that our county administrative office with forethought is backfilling our realignment dollar losses because every dollar that we lose could potentially be two dollars lost in services. So that's how we're addressing it and we're funding it. And I will say there are difficult times ahead, depending on how all of these things shake out and again, we'll know more in August. We know that what we're going to have to do is prioritize those core services we are mandated to do. And I will say one area are those psychiatric inpatient visits and the cost for those is increasing. And we know that that's something that we're planning for as well. I think that when you talk about the money and the matching rent, we're probably as counties responsible for about 10 or 20% of the total funding and all in some of these programs, is that correct? That's correct. So the total net County cost, the total contribution to our entire budget from the County net County cost is about 10%. But what we've done is we devote a good portion of that to behavioral health because that's the area that draws down those federal funds and that has the most demand for its services. So rather than divide it proportionately or equally, we make an investment in those safety net services that most need that investment. Thank you for your service and for your coordination with the human services department. Hi, this is Supervisor Coonerty. I just wanna thank Meany Hall and her staff for the response to COVID, the SPAR, the numbers speak for themselves. The idea that we're responding to a global pandemic County by County is one of the most shocking failures of federal public policy in my lifetime and maybe history. But I think her team have stepped up amazing way to keep our community safe. I also wanna take a moment and thank you for your acknowledgement of the need for equity and to make sure that we are looking at our systems in order to ensure fairness. And I also wanna express my real gratitude for recognizing Allison and Dirt's role in Nurse Family Partnerships. She was passionate about that program and the fact that we got to be there for the first graduating class was tremendously meaningful to be able to see, to see all those two year old graduates and their proud moms and fathers and lives changed. I do, it's all so uncertain right now. I do worry about the impact of COVID on our ability to do other preventative public health measures, I worry about vaccination rates and preventative care visits and clinic visits. And I'm hoping in August as we're sort of more clear on funding resources and adjustments to COVID and COVID itself that we'll be able to put in place a plan so that we don't have, we don't see increases in other diseases and health impacts as a result of COVID. And I appreciate that I know the public health staff department is focused on that, but I think that's what I'm gonna be looking for in August because we don't wanna see by avoiding one set of disease and death, another set of disease and death. But thank you, Ms. Hall for your leadership. Supervisor Friend. Thank you, Chair, just very briefly, Director Hall, Dr. Newell, Jen and others, I think for a long time the work you did and many respects maybe just seem conceptual to people and it's really come to the forefront about the absolute importance of public health and public health leadership. And we really have in my opinion, the best team in the entire state of California. And I think that we've set a model for not just the state, but for the country as far as how to do things. It hasn't been easy. And I just want you to know that the board has been fully behind you. And I know that we're still in some pretty turbulent times moving forward, not just from budget, but with the actual health issues itself as Supervisor McPherson has noted, but we fully support you and appreciate your work. And we stand ready to be with you to ensure that this community stays safe. So thank you. Thank you. And Supervisor Leopold, thank you. Thank you, Chair. Thank you for the presentation, Ms. Hall, and for the ongoing work that the Health Services Agency does every day before COVID, during COVID, to get us through COVID. You know, we often hear this label of heroes bandied about. We've heard it a lot in the last couple of months. There are real heroes. You and your staff have been among those heroes. And I appreciate your recognition of Dr. Newell who has gone from hero to target in a pretty rapid timeline. And as my colleague mentioned, this board is fully behind Dr. Newell, the public health staff and the health response that we've had here in Santa Cruz. It has been successful. Dr. Newell has been the architect of that success. And together with your health leadership team, you have been very good at providing information to the public and developing strategies that have kept our numbers low here in Santa Cruz. I think also that you have brought that equity lens to that work and we've seen it here in the COVID response as everything, it's in just a much shorter timeline and you see it real quickly is when you identified that you needed someone to lead the save live Santa Cruz County, you selected someone who had a particular focus on where you identified correctly that we would need to do work. And that has proved very prescient and we're challenged to make sure that we're providing the best culturally appropriate language specific information down South County because this is, if we care about equity, we have to put the resources into making sure that that happens. And I completely appreciate the work that you've done and the work that your staff has done in COVID, not only Dr. Newell and Dr. Galaducci, Jen Herrera and Corrine Hyland, all of them have done incredible, incredible work and I just wanna express my appreciation. I also wanna express my happiness with your leadership around the Medi-Cal administrative funding dollars to know that through your leadership and conceiving of a program, this funding source has been out there. You have worked to make sure that we could access these funds and reorganize the department to make it easier for nonprofits to access these funds and to show in the first year an additional $1.2 million coming into our community. That's great work. And I think that will grow over time and especially when we look at tough budgets as we will in this year, having these additional revenue sources will make a difference in whether we keep certain services in the public. And so I know you played a leadership role, you play a leadership role in the state on this, but it's really gonna help us out now and into the future. The only question I wanna ask is related to the question of equity. You had talked a little bit about Metacruze and one of the things that we know around those social determinants of health is access to medical services and how poverty and immigration status have an effect on whether people can remain healthy. Metacruze is a program in which we can help out the people who've fallen through the cracks of our other systems. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit more about are we gonna see changes in that or is that gonna be able to be helpful to us in the future? Actually before COVID, we had started examining changes in that. So Metacruze, if you don't have health insurance and you don't otherwise qualify for coverage such as MediCal, you have the option of going to a federally qualified health center that is there to provide care for those without means. However, those are primary care clinics. So there are specialty care services and surgeries and things that are not covered. And so that's how Metacruze exists. So prior to COVID, we were looking at the eligibility for Metacruze and we were hearing from many families as a result of the Cradle to Career initiative about the difficulty of getting on Metacruze and then the share of cost. So that work was put temporarily on hold when we started COVID because I had two goals but they have to be supported by budget. And I believe that we can find a way to do that is to increase the income eligibility. Right now, you have to have 100% of FPL which is very, very, very low income to qualify. At a minimum, it should be 200% or more of the federal poverty limit. The other, there are other things that can be changed to improve access in terms of how often someone has to apply and many other things. So that was something that was put on hold but it's always been in the forefront of our minds. And one of the things that I hope that we can make progress on this coming year. Yeah, we'll make a difference, especially the people most in need in our community. And if we find a way to be able to support everyone in our community, there's always important but on health, it seems doubly important because what happens in one part of the community affects us all, especially in this age of which we have a virus transmission. I also just want to acknowledge the work that the public health team has done around getting to zero around our HIV age response. Another one impacted by COVID that the work around getting people to walk and bike is also exemplary. And as you mentioned, the Cradle to Career Initiative, Health Services has been a great partner in that work and health is one of the key themes within that entire initiative. And the fact that Corrine Hyland and other members of the health staff have been involved working with community members, looking at issues about ways in which we can have better services, health care services for all families in Live Oak. I just want to express my appreciation. You're doing great work and we have the right person at the right time. You care about collaborations. You're thoughtful about how to leverage money and you have the foresight to be able to look into the future about what it is we need to make sure that we're well-prepared. Thank you for your work. Okay, thank you. I admire the way you're handling everything in your department, all the people working with you and during this very difficult time. Just a quick question. With human services and health services, sometimes maybe it's just me where I get a little confused. Are there certain areas where you pretty much have to speak with each other and share the responsibility in certain areas that get blurred between the two departments? Yeah, I would say the biggest area is that we share a population. So they're responsible for child welfare services, adult protective services and eligibility for CalWorks, nutrition, Medi-Cal. And so all the people that we serve are typically eligible for those programs and we have partnered a lot on Thrive by Three, on the core initiatives. So sometimes the lines do get blurred, but there's a clarity to the blurriness. And one of the things that we do is when we look at supporting these initiatives that we know are going to lift up our community, we tend to make mutual agreements, whether it's financial support or supportive resources. So I think the biggest takeaway is that while we have different programs and services and different missions, we serve the same population and that's what ties us together. Yeah. And I guess with, let's see, your funding sources are, they're both health services and human services, are they from the same funding source or two different funding sources from the state, right? Yeah, we both have very complex funding. That's a mix of federal and state funds. The one kind of funding that we do share is something called realignment funding. And so that realignment funding is based on sales tax revenue and vehicle license fees. And so when we talk about realignment funding, it's that core state funding that flows to local health and human services. And there are different kinds of realignment, but the major one was the first realignment that happened in 1991. So we actually receive those monies in a different way, but we also have a partnership in that when things get really bad, the law allows us to have a transfer of up to 10% of our funds to help each other out. So it's a relationship that the state recognizes by law as well. And you also have a different pressure in a worst case scenario will actually a good and bad scenario. If the county part of the budget, we were able to, because of the reserves, we were able to finally stabilize. You're under tremendous pressure whether or not the state will actually be able to stabilize. Yeah, much of our budget is outside the county general fund. The county general fund helps us draw down those federal funds, but so much of how we're funded is dependent on the state and federal landscape. It's too bad. Okay, thank you very much. I'll open it up for public hearing. Do we have anybody in the board chambers here that would like to speak on this item? Ask the question. Okay, I don't see any. We'll go to the conference room downstairs. I don't see anybody either. No one to speak. And no comments online. Okay, well, bring it back to board chair motion. I would move the recommended actions for the health services agency budget and give our appreciation to the staff. Okay, I can second it if nobody else is gonna jump in. I'll second it. Okay, we'll call for a vote. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Supervisor Coonerty. Supervisor McPherson. Sorry, aye. Okay. Supervisor Coonerty. Supervisor McPherson. He said aye. No, that was that. That was Coonerty. That was that, okay. Supervisor McPherson. Is Supervisor McPherson there? Aye. Thank you. And chairperson Keppett. Aye. It passes unanimously. Should we take a 10 minute break now? Yeah. Or should, yeah. Is that okay with everybody? Yeah. Thank you, everybody. It's okay. We'll come back at about five or six after 11. Consider the 2020, 2021 proposed budget for the human services department as outlined in the reference budget documents and memorandum of the director of health services. Is that correct? This is human services now. I know. It says here health. Oh, thank you. Okay. I remember eight. That's okay. Okay. Memorandum of the director of human services. And go ahead. Thank you. Good to see you, Matt. Thank you, Chair Keppett. It's good to see you. Good morning. I'm doing well under the circumstances. It's tough times as I'll speak to, but it is an honor to be here, Chair Keppett and board members and to the public listening. This is my first opportunity to present the human services budget to Santa Cruz County. I started my position on February 3rd. And as I recall, somewhere between three to four weeks, I was during my orientation process and COVID-19 hit. And as you will hear today, my tenure so far has been dominated with adapting with this community and as a new director. And I'm humbled to follow healthcare and you heard throughout that. The team spirit between us and with you and the board and our county administrator in this community has been nothing short of remarkable during a tough times. And I hope I capture that spirit in my presentation. I wanted before starting, thank many people in the human services department, particularly our finance office who helped put this presentation together and the budget together with a special thanks to the deputy director of the human services department, Emily Bolly, who is here in the chambers and really gets line share of credit for all the work she's done, particularly in helping me as new director to settle in. And she loves credit, so I won't say anymore. Sorry, Emily. But I also do wanna thank the county administrator office, my supervisor and our county administrator, Carlos Palacios, who's been a gracious and wonderful supervisor and very supportive during this tough time. His executive team, the analysts who've helped us prepare this budget and actually help organize these presentations. And I would like to especially thank our budget officer, Christina Mowry. I have the benefit of working in partnership with Bay Area and statewide human service offices. And I can say, without saying a disparaging mark to any particular county, the partnership, the collaboration, the support of human services, and I'd extend that to health is not the same as it is here in Santa Cruz County. So a very special thanks to our county administrator that makes this tough time even easier. So the agenda today, I'm gonna ground the presentation and the mission values and motto, which is alive and well in human services despite the tough times. I'm gonna spend a little bit of time as did Mimi and our health director speaking about the profound landscape we find ourselves in that is really redefining trajectories for everything we do. As we have been asked to do, we're gonna talk about the operational plan, share some of our successes, but also really talk about the need to kind of pivot and double down and reconsider many things given the new landscape in front of us. I do wanna take some time to talk about what we've been doing in COVID-19. I've had an opportunity to share somewhat publicly a few times, but I wanna take a little more time. There's been a tremendous amount of work. The human service department has been doing often. It's invisible and behind the curtain and wanna take a minute to share what that is and to give recognition to the department employees. Today, officially the budget we're in front of you as agenda item number eight to ask for your board's approval of what Carlos described as the pro forma budget really has a preview to coming back to you in August. So we wanna share that with you, but really share a little bit about what we're hearing from the state because that's a preview to what we're gonna have to do to adjust because we're just beginning some information from the state and end with talking a little bit about what we're doing looking forward given the sort of new landscape we're navigating. So mission values and motto, this is what defines the work of the human services department. I'm not gonna read through this, but I think just to state what we do, we are a member of the safety net system and tight partnership with health to help the most vulnerable in our community. And we work very hard and I've inherited a department that has demonstrated an ability to provide that service with compassion, deep partnership and to work very hard to make sure our practice is effective. But I really wanna take a minute to highlight our motto and our motto is dedicated to making a difference. There is a very effective infrastructure in the human service department that does a lot of analysis and reviews what we do and is able to quantify whether or not what we do makes a difference. And a lot of our staff have been deployed to manage COVID-19 activities. So it has been an interesting environment to navigate where the passion and dedication is real and palpable. But trying to figure out whether or not we're making a difference as we're having to reevaluate what we do and track new things has been something we are working on and I'll speak to. So I wanna take a minute to just define the profound landscape that we are in because I think what I'm gonna call this trifecta of challenges, any one of which creates a great stress on a safety net system is enough to overwhelm anyone. But these three items put together have really created a moment that sort of challenges, overwhelms and the worst of days paralyzes us thinking about how to continue to move forward. But I want to break them all out, parse them all out. And I feel I would be remiss if I didn't also say all of this is happening in an environment where we are grieving the loss of two county employees that almost leaves us numb trying to continue to navigate this work. And that's the human element for all of us to continue to work through these challenges. So the first COVID-19, it is an absolute honor to work in a county where not only do I see the board and the county administrative office support as you articulated earlier, a health office who as you described, supervisor Leopold, are heroes. They're not only heroes, but they're very humble and every time I try to thank them for their great work, they say, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, let's keep working. It's an honor to work in this environment and everything we have done in human services to define our work in COVID-19 is under the leadership and direction and insights of our health partners. I'll say more later in the presentation about our work as a human service agency, we were responsible to provide mass care and shelter and a disaster and in this COVID-19 environment, that's to those who are unsheltered or those experiencing homelessness. We've also had an opportunity to really step up and look at food insecurity given the economic challenges of many of our community residents, including running a FEMA sponsored program, the Great Plates Delivered Program. And we have to do all this while keeping our operations going because none of our services shut down and the community needed us more. So that has been landscape item number one. Number two, as has been spoken to many times, COVID-19 and the shelter in place orders stopped a lot of our economy, which stopped a lot of revenue coming in. It led to a lot of people losing work. And this is the mission of a human service agency to be available and to support those who are vulnerable and those who are low and without income. So we are experiencing a 17% unemployment rate in Santa Cruz County, which is more than triple what it was a year ago at 5%. And that is unfathomable to try to figure out how to navigate a world like that. And we're also needing to do so as we hear a lot of discussion about COVID-19 and the worry about a second surge. We're having to deal with the prospect of a second surge of economic recession impacts when federal stimulus money and shelter in place orders expire and landlords need to evict. And there's a whole host of things we need to brace for in the recession. And as Mimi referred to, we too in human service agency sort of deal with what I'll call the public policy conundrum of we are better resourced when the economy is good to help the most vulnerable in our community. And when the economy is strained, we lose resources. And that's when the economy, when our residents need us most. So it's quite a challenge in this recession. And then last is the issue of equity. Very complicated vexing issue that is really baked into the DNA of our country. And I feel like I need to say this as a white male who holds not only privilege based on who I am, but also the privilege of being the director of a department that has a almost $150 million budget and serves 100,000 people. The issues that have played out in this country, the murder of George Floyd on May 25th whose daughter did not get to be with him on Father's Day yesterday is just one example that has recognized did not only a national, but an international call for action. And I think that having spent 25 years in Alameda County where the majority of my colleagues and supervisors have all been people of color. I've had an opportunity to have very deep, complex, meaningful, important, difficult conversations about systemic racism and about privilege and have come to recognize long ago how much privilege people like myself hold up to and including that we didn't even know what privilege was or that we had it. So I think we are in a moment where the human services department in partnership with the health department and all the safety net programs, we really need to not just talk about this, but we need to be very transparent, open, direct. And I would say most importantly, listen to those who are disadvantaged and are experiencing our systems in a way that they don't experience us as fair so that we can talk about what to do to move the needle forward in a meaningful way. The last comment I want to make about equity is the moment and the national narrative, rightly so, is based on a slogan Black Lives Matter because of the deeply disproportionate impact on people who have the darkest skin in our community. And there's a lot of call to please not water down the movement by talking about all lives. And so I think there's a really tricky needle to thread here because in a community of Santa Cruz where the preponderance of inequity issues are about North, South and Brown, White, we're gonna have to be very careful in having that conversation to not look away from the Black Lives Matter movement but also call out the deep issues that are here around North and South and Brown and White and Montelinguo. And the one I'm gonna choose to mention is immigration. My third week on the job before COVID, I was honored to speak at the Thriving Immigrant Collaborative. I was just in the process of beginning to dig into discussions about how the Human Service Department could do more. And in a moment where our federal government seems to be making very intentional policies to hurt and minimize, almost attack other immigration policies are very serious for this community. And I think it's something that we in Human Services wanna be an ally to move the needle in the right direction. So with that said, and that landscape noted, how do you talk about your operational plan that was delved before all of this? I'm just gonna choose to sort of cover a very surface level response to the operational plan by saying much to our surprise as we were preparing for this budget presentation and our very effective data analytics team was lifting the stuff and showing us what we've been tracking all along. We're actually doing quite well, despite all the efforts to redeploy our staff to handle COVID-19 activities. All of this information is on the Santa Cruz website. Nicole Coburn, our assistant CAO showed it. So anybody hearing this who wants to go deeper or hear more about it, you can. But there are 16 objectives that were put together before my tenure. Almost all of them have started, almost all of them are on time and one has actually been completed before we expected. I do wanna take the opportunity under the objectives to sort of piggyback on a comment Mimi made just to recognize Supervisor Coonerty and Allison from his office because Thrive by Three is one of our 16 objectives. It is one that remains on target and it remains a priority to us. And though I didn't have an opportunity to be involved in the creation and the incubation and the launch of that program, I've certainly inherited something where there's a lot of pride in this community and wanted to take a moment to recognize that great work and we will do what we can to keep that work going forward. The other thing I wanna say about the operational plan is just to recognize the foresight of the Human Services Department to look at priorities that remain as important as ever under the current moment in landscape I just described. We have a number of food access and security priority items. Before there was ever a discussion about having the homeless service office be hubbed in the county and haven't moved to the Human Services Department next fiscal year. There was already items discussing housing and homelessness. Equity was already listed as a priority item for human services in our operational plan as is a host of issues around job training and economic support. So we will just continue to look at these. We will double up on these. We will pivot the best we can to make sure we can align what we're doing in light of this current moment. So here's where I wanna take a minute to highlight the work that we're doing under COVID-19 and I don't want to overstate it because we do have a lot of privilege to have a job as County Human Service employees but I wanna balance that with saying a deep appreciation for the Human Service Department who if you don't even read the words on here or hear what I'm about to say for the next two or three minutes we have almost tripled our responsibilities under COVID-19 rightly so and the ability of staff to remain resilient and strong and passionate is unbelievable and it's actually infectious and I have the easier job of just sitting here representing the great work of the staff who are working tirelessly and somehow we just don't know how we keep going but I think it's that teamwork that we just keep ourselves going. So number one under mass care and shelter as I described, we do have a responsibility as a Human Service agency to provide mass and care and shelter in a disaster. The risk of being redundant, I wanna repeat everything we did has been in concert with our health experts about what we needed to do to beat COVID and we don't wanna celebrate too early but I think we were a part of the success of the fabric of this community that made that work by providing care and shelter to those who did not have during COVID-19 very early on just to give a little bit of numbers in non-congregate or what that means is people aren't congregating together where they have individual rooms, we've been able to lease four hotels, three in Santa Cruz, one in Watsonville and that has led to 150 people who were previously homeless being housed and having three meals a day and having a safe place to shelter who were vulnerable and at risk of if not sick but not needing medical care. We are also able to expand shelter capacity by opening the Santa Cruz and Watsonville vets halls and Supervisor Caput, seeing you every meeting I have with you, you're sitting right there in the vet hall. It's been very meaningful work. That's led to 100 people being able to have shelter that they wouldn't have before and allowed the regular shelters to be able to have social distancing put in place by having that expansion and then we were also able to create space for 30 transition age youth and I understand there's quite a complicated issue in your district, Supervisor Leopold and it's not to minimize those complexities but just to name that we're able to put 30 capacity for 30 transition age youth who is a very unique population, not children but still very young adults to have a capacity to shelter. Under food insecurity, I wanna highlight the Great Plates Delivered Program. We have been called out across the state as being one of the most innovative and effective and quickest counties to be able to put this program in place under very difficult circumstances. It is thanks to the tireless effort of about a dozen people on my team who still have a full-time job and a thanks to community partners who sat with us on a stakeholders group to pull this together. What this is is it is a program that was created by the CARES Act which brought 75% FEMA money to the state. The state of California matched that with just under 19 cents on the dollar to leave just six plus cents on the dollar locally and thanks to the community foundation who committed to covering that local match which allowed us to find the money to put this in place. It was the marriage of an economic stimulus package to help food providers be able to prepare and deliver food to the second part, vulnerable older adults who are sheltering at place under certain eligibility criteria, low income. And we have been able to deliver over 12,000 meals and we have just sigh of 500 older adults benefiting from this program and the federal government just expanded it another 30 days from the expiration date June 10th to now it's going till July 10th and we'll wait to see if it expands further. The CalFresh program which was one of the programs that we administer that's formerly known as food stamps. That program was in high demand as people started losing income and as I have had a chance to share with this board and this is a statewide statistic there was a big surge in applications for CalFresh so people could have CalFresh and to have an ability to purchase food. At the peak we actually had 184% increase in applications for CalFresh from a year prior looking at the same week but when we averaged out the three months of the shelter in place order it actually has averaged to about a 50% increase and that has led to we have 5,500 newly enrolled CalFresh recipients who are in our community have that benefit available to them to be able to purchase food that's not out of their own pocket and money they don't have. And then menu is the acronym for a program that kind of gets dwarfed under the Great Plates Tillerade Program but it's an example of our adapting in the middle of the moment we actually had a contract with the local vendor teens kitchen that was actually part of our operational plan to help IHSS providers get training on being able to prepare fresh and nutritious food for IHSS recipients and given the challenges under shelter in place we actually repurposed that contract right away in partnership with All Involved and that led to 43 of our most vulnerable IHSS clients having home delivered meals before Great Plates Delivered even started and there's been over 4,000 meals delivered to that very vulnerable population. Supporting the economy it's not directly our wheelhouse but I feel like under the economic recession it's worth lifting up the things that we have done directly and somewhat indirectly to sort of help. None of this is to recognize that it's changing the trajectory that is very challenging but it's all pieces of a puzzle trying to help curb the challenge. First is, and as I've had an opportunity to share unemployment insurance under the State EDDD office is a state activity but this is often not understood by residents they don't know the difference between what's a state office and what's a county office and in Santa Cruz County in our Watsonville office we actually have EDD phone lines available but the State EDDD office really struggled with lack of staffing and there was long waits and there was huge applications and there was a lot of difficulty. So we were able to help over 1,000 people and we found out along the way that four other counties had people coming to us in Watsonville because of they didn't have similar opportunities in their county and we didn't say no. Our staff who staffed the lobby, our extra help greeters who help people kind of safely go in and make a call and the many, many calls we receive that our workforce development board staff have been fielding to just help people understand how to navigate this has been very heroic and helped a lot of people work through the challenges of obtaining unemployment insurance through the State EDDD office. The second I wanna lift up is CalFresh Employment and training it's often referred to as CFET as a board item and this is thanks to the ingenuity of my predecessor and Emily and conversations with your board that we are able to take not on local dime but CalFresh recipients and help get them subsidized employment to get them jobs and we've been able to help 90 CalFresh people get jobs and actually proud to report three of them are actually employed through our extra help hire helping us with the shelter work. So we were looking forward to expanding that we know there's some complications with the downtown street teams under the shelter in place delaying things but we're looking forward to keeping that program going. I mentioned the Great Plates delivered program under food insecurity from the perspective of the older adults who benefit but in terms of the economic stimulus money five food providers were selected through a competitive process with a selection committee that involved no county people but people who are more expert in the field of nutrition than we were and that has led to over $270,000 in economic stimulus money getting to those food providers before they were allowed to reopen that helped them under the economy challenge and then under the extra help this is one of those very invisible items that maybe is not well known to the community or maybe even to your board but one of the ways we were able to help staff up and support the mass care and shelter effort with all of those hotels and the expanded shelters and the food that's getting delivered to them is thanks to the partnership of our EOC and our general service department our personnel department and CAO analysts who worked very hard to create a miniature emergency hiring team of hiring people we targeted the community people who were recently laid off to help them and this is all paid for by the FEMA money to hire them to help staff this work and this is a complicated issue we stood it up very quickly almost created a nonprofit overnight but that has led to the hiring of 138 people who were otherwise underemployed or not employed over 18,000 hours of service and to nod to my department behind the curtain this is basically a new division of my department of 138 people where any issues that come back any concerns about supervision about complaints about them how they're treating people the payrolling of them it's just an entire division of extra work we've done quietly without complaint so I just wanna end in terms of the COVID-19 efforts our continuity of operations we still have had to deliver all the services we provide the child welfare system, the aging programs adult protective services and IHSS all the public assistance programs and the benefits and of course our employment work has been really an unbelievable journey for about two months almost every week there was a state or federal regulation change this was all being done in constant conversation with the unions representing our staff wanting to know about their safety as the community was expecting us to deliver service to people under shelter in place orders and it has been a remarkable journey and it's one that's going to continue as COVID is still here and we still have to prioritize staff safety so that was a lot I'm gonna pause as I pivot to the pro forma budget because all of this is done with money that pays for our staff and pays for our services so I have three slides here and the real budget is gonna be in August where we kind of talked to you about the nitty gritty of what's happening and what the federal and state landscape has done for what we're doing but this was all as Carlos presented in his introduction what we had in place before COVID and all the revenue shifts the things I wanna highlight is I have a revenue slide that speaks to the money that comes into us second, I have an expenditure slide that shows those two are balanced and third, adjust a preview of what's happening at the state and the reason for that is like the health agency and like Mimi's presentation our budget is profoundly complex any one of the allocations with any one of the programs is very complicated to tease out parse out our finance team that puts things in place to make sure we're audit proof we don't get disallowed money it's a very complex set of activities like the health agency almost 90% of our budget when you look at this revenue slide is federal and state money and also a state pro realignment which Mimi also mentioned in her presentation so it's really only about 10.5% of our budget that is local general fund and that money is almost entirely mandatory match to pull down that federal and state dollar so it's not actually a lot of discretionary money and these programs are all mandated counties must deliver them so that sort of creates the environment that we work in and because we are so reliant upon state and federal budgets it's next to impossible to share with the board today what our budget is for reasons I'll share in a moment and just to highlight our recommended budget based on what we know today is just under $146 million so a little bit smaller than health but I think it's the second largest budget in the county so this shares a little bit about our expenditures one thing that is a little bit unique about human services departments that might not be well known and I think is naming is we are mandated by federal and state regulations to deliver the vast majority of our services through county employees we can't contract out services to community based organizations by federal and state mandate so that is no surprise that when you look at our budget and the only thing I want to point out to you is the salaries and benefits that over 66 million is the largest expenditure that we have and that is by definition and because of the requirements that we have the next largest is actually if you look at other charges and this 56 million I just want to highlight that that is the work that we do to provide direct payments to CalWorks, general assistance, foster care grants adoption assistance and IHS provider wages so those are also mandatory deliverables that we have that get money into the community to help provide care to some of our most vulnerable people and then the last slide on budget I want to share is just a quick summary of what's happening at the state budget Carlos mentioned this in his presentation but as a reminder or for those who don't track this level of detail it's really remarkable that we live in a state when the budget is falling apart and the revenues are declining and the deficit is huge that the state legislature was very strong in their support of the most vulnerable which really translates to health and human services budget items. The state legislature did pass their budget on June 15th by the constitutional deadline however it still wasn't balanced it was still as complicated and this legislature and governor have been in negotiations so at least as of this morning when I looked online we're still waiting for the published budget we hear lots of rumors that much of what the legislature put forward will hold but we're still waiting so it's hard for us to calculate much of anything. The second I want to say about the state budget is homeless funding as your board is aware and I'll say in a moment the homeless office is transitioning from the CAO's office under Elisa Benson's leadership to our department and so we are having to track more closely everything tied to homeless services so that beyond just those things that have been human service specific but the other item I want to really highlight is how important it is from a perspective of managing expectations to underline how much that we've been able to do that rightly so would cause the community to say hey government you actually stepped up and did something for those who are homeless overnight that that was done on 75 cents of the dollar from FEMA money and a large amount of money from the state with very little county money including all those extra help hires and all the meals delivered and those leases so when those dollars are no longer available to us but the issue of homelessness is still in front of us it's going to be a moment that's going to be very complicated and require the best of us to talk through in a very transparent way what to do when we lose our primary emergency revenue that we had to stand up a lot of these programs. The second to last item is realignment Carlos and Mimi mentioned this it was very impressive that the state stepped up and said and if you tracked this the Senate first wanted to have $600 million of back filled the counties and then the house said no we want it to be a million and then the state and the both sides of the legislature agreed to the one million or one billion Carlos mentioned it's tied to triggers and this very complex issue but this is one we're tracking very closely and has a lot to do with how much money we have to run services next year and then finally the HSD implications if the state legislative proposal holds there's quite an irony which is part of the complexity of human service budgets that despite cuts we actually have from the May revise and the legislative proposal that moved forward on June 15th increases to our public assistance allocations and CalFresh and CalWorks and MediCal which might put us in an interesting position of having revenue we have to spend which might require us to actually hire up while we're looking at dealing with other complex issues like layoffs so we will have to work that through when the budget settles very appreciative in child welfare there was a lot of cuts that would have interfered with reform efforts let a lot of vulnerable children and family in our community given the challenges we're facing and also a program that knows very important to this board I'm in home supportive services the May revise proposed a 7% cut to all services which not only have been a decrease in services to recipients but a loss in pay to the providers and the legislative proposal is to restore those and to not let those cuts go forward so that's a preview we'll know much more in between now and August if your board wants the state budget settles has questions for our department please let us know and we'll happy to share what our analysis is so I wanna end with the formal ask of your board because it didn't get passed in consent board item number eight to approve our proposed budget as listed knowing we're gonna come back in August I wanna take just a quick minute to recognize those things that are priority us one I mentioned earlier the housing for health office that's a very big baton to lift to be the administrative hub of a complex issue very vexing issue in our community that we will take very seriously and do the best we can to do right by this population and the community who wants to see us do better COVID-19 long-term impacts are not going away we still have to prioritize staff safety while balancing that with the need to serve the community many of whom are vulnerable to COVID-19 as stated throughout and probably worth repeating the recession is going to lead to an increased demand for our services when we might we will see be confronted with a decrease in our availability to provide them and then equity I do not and I cannot in my position sleep at night if this is just a word a statement a slogan we need to do more in our community to create a space particularly for those who are disadvantaged or experience inequitable treatment as an employee or as clients or community-based organizations we want to have a candid discussion in this next year about equity we want to look at what we're doing and if we are doing anything that is contributing to the issues of structural racism or that is contributing to inequitable outcomes for people in this community we want to talk about it we need to take this call for action seriously to do so whether it be equity or anything I too want to end with recognizing partnerships I've said this every time I've had a chance to speak publicly the spirit of teamwork in this community is remarkable it's infectious it keeps me inspired to want to make sure I'm a part of the team and doing all I can to contribute to the team and I would like to just thank your board my individual meetings the public meetings the amount of time you spend recognizing appreciating good work of public servants is something that I appreciate greatly it helps keep us going Carlos been an amazing supervisor during an incredible time and to your staff it's been a great partnership I do want to recognize that the SEIU 521 representative Olivia spoke earlier and I think she's been a very reasonable and candid partner doing a tough time where she has to represent employees and I think that partnership with our union and the mid-management union is gonna be key to sort of navigate a difficult time all the other county departments and even cities we've been working very closely with cities and a lot of issues been very helpful I wanted to give special recognition to health that well-deserved board comments to Mimi, Marcus, Jen, Dr. Newell it really is an honor to work with them there was a lot of comments by Mimi and follow-up questions supervisor Cap but what's the difference where do you overlap? I want to let you know I would not have applied to this job in Santa Cruz County if my research did not surface who Mimi Hall is human service departments do not do well if you don't have a good partner in health and you can thrive when you do have a good partnership in health and it is my honor to work with Mimi and her team and so I want to give special recognition to their leadership I do also want to take a minute to recognize even though most of our work is done through county employees we too have community-based organization contracts not as many as health does but we're also very dependent upon even community-based organizations with whom we don't contract but deliver services to clients that we work with and then we refer to them and I just want to recognize the challenge for nonprofits today is very serious the budget challenges are very difficult and it's very difficult to figure out a way to help support them financially given the budget challenges but I feel like it's important that I recognize the ecosystem of safety net is dependent upon a strong community-based organization network and just want to recognize that's a difficult moment for them and I want to make sure we can do what we can so I have the opportunity to end my presentation by circling back to where I started with the motto of our department which is making a difference and there's been statements made by our health experts and it's actually been made throughout the state and this narrative of this COVID-19 is gonna be a marathon, you have to pace yourself and I actually did run marathons in my 30s quite a while ago so I know what it's like when you don't pace yourself literally and I actually think we're not pacing ourselves very well it's we are so dedicated and so passionate about what we do and we've been sprinting like I don't know if 880 or a 200 meter or something and we're not running at a marathon pace and that's because of the pride and the passion HSD has in making a difference so it's been a challenge to know whether or not what we're doing is making a difference because we're running so fast and we're not able to look at all our metrics like we normally do and so I wanted to just take a moment to just lift up one constituent appreciation we've had some complaints, we respond to them, we help but it has been remarkable the number of people who have also called us to say thank you and I wanna let you know that this constituent her name is Kathy Kavanaugh, she's a Santa Cruz city resident she left this voicemail, I found out can I play this I called her, I talked to her about it she gave us permission to do this and she was flattered by it but what I think you'll hear in this is when we got this message we sent it all around to the HSD employees and it lifted our spirits and it kept us going because it told us it's just one example, we are making a difference and I'll let her word speak for herself and thank you Ms. Kavanaugh for letting us share this with the public and the board just for me, it's not just the food which is very helpful but also just I'm not gonna save my spirit, my soul through these troubling times between just the pandemic and the race problem we have in the United States, so it has been a huge help just for my spirit, so thank you. Almost 500 Santa Cruz County residents who is getting two to three home delivered meals a day on great plates delivered, sheltering in place a little isolated, missing her friends and family but needing to keep safe and as she's shared it helped lift her spirits and it keeps us going we're not doing well at the marathon pace thing we're continuing to go, so with that I close with a deep sense of gratitude and appreciation to your board and to everybody and recognizing the emotions that are just so very difficult that make this a such a complicated moment to navigate but I welcome any questions or comments, thank you. Okay, does anybody on the board have any questions? Like I can go down the line or you can just jump in, Supervisor Friend. Thank you Chair, thank you Mr. Morris for that presentation which was both equally inspiring and sobering about the reality that we are facing as a community and as a state and quite frankly as a country right now but thank you for being the voice for those in our community that don't have it and for providing that net that some in our community didn't even know that they would ever need and the last few months have drawn people to rely on a net and for people and names that they didn't even know and I appreciate that call and I appreciate your work and please do let your staff know I hope that they're listening in right now to not just those messages but that the board really does appreciate the fact that you're providing that voice and that net for those in our community that need it. I long for the day one day where your department isn't really needed and a lot of these kinds of social safety net programs aren't needed until we reach that day as both the community and as a country I feel very fortunate to have you leading this department. I think your vision and your work is second to none and I think you have a great team there and thank you for lifting up those in our community that desperately need it right now. Thank you chair. You have stepped in in a very difficult period but you were smart enough to lean on your more than able staff, your assistant director and your partnership with the health services agency and just that you have a clear vision about what human services can do and how we can help out people. And when presented with opportunities like the Great Plates program you didn't sort of shy away from it going that's hard I'm not sure a lot of people would participate you leapt into it and now close to 500 people have food that need it, that wouldn't have had it without your success or your leadership there and there are five restaurants who have a nice contract to help them during this difficult time. So thank you for that. Thank you for the presentation. You know, human services has always done a lot here in Santa Cruz and whether the times are bad or sometimes better there is a need for the services because in just the vicissitudes of life people go through hard times people come out of those hard times and they need the support of agencies like the human services department to help them through those rough patches and the work that your department has done to create dashboards, to track information to know whether the services that people are seeking they get them in a reasonable amount of time whether they're satisfied with those services it has been exemplary and I just wanna appreciate that. I also appreciate the willingness of the department to take on the hot potato of housing for people experiencing homelessness and the housing for health program I think will be, will, can help make a difference here in Santa Cruz County and we've seen in the response to COVID that we can move quickly when we need to and we're gonna have to continue to do that when this funding runs out but I think that the work that the department has done leading the focus strategies effort the report that we got at our last meeting about doing six month check-ins about the connections being made with other jurisdictions and people in the community we will yield the results that can make a difference in addressing this issue here in Santa Cruz County so thank you for that. You mentioned in your presentation about the role of economic development and you do because of your connection with the workforce investment board that has been really critical in these last couple of months. I know that Andy Stone has provided a great source of support when we've had constituents call in wanting to deal with the problems of dealing with the state unemployment insurance program. He's also done great work working with the small business development center and so has made a difference there and the idea that you've been able to hire over 130 people that's exemplary and really critical and when you have to move quick you need people who can do that quickly and as we think about that interesting conundrum of getting more money from the state on some things at times in which we are cutting back in other places having those slots that might be available is to move dedicated employees who through no fault of their own maybe losing their job because of budget cuts but there might be something else that they can move into would will be critical to the long-term success for the county family. So good timing on that and I hope you'll look very closely at that. On the issue of equity this has always been a longstanding concern and North Star for the Human Services Department. You mentioned your assistant director Emily Polly who's here today. She has played an incredibly important role I know in my district but at the county wide in dealing with immigration issues making sure that we are addressing to the full extent possible ways to support the immigrants in our community. She has been involved with the Justice and Gender Commission or Task Force Now Commission and didn't wait for recommendations to start changing the way in which those services were being operated to better meet the needs of women and their families and I just wanna extend my appreciation for that. Your staff has also been very critical to the success of the Live Oak Cradle to Career program. Leslie Goodfriend has taken a leadership role. She has great experience in lots of different things around healthcare, around community building and she has been a great leader in partnering with families most of whom are monolingual Spanish to create an infrastructure and a steering committee that is making a difference in the lives of so many people in Live Oak and I just wanna express my appreciation and both the financial support and the staffing support to sort of make that work. When we look at the statistics on data share for Live Oak and the Cradle to Career program you can see in empirical ways about the increase in testing scores increase in kids feeling safer and less depressed and dealing with their health issues in a much better way than they were before the start of the program. So thank you for that work. The last issue I just wanna talk about is food insecurity. This has always been a big issue. Can't get through the day without food and I know the department has worked very hard to increase the number of recipients of CalFresh and there have been great strides made over the last couple of years in terms of that outreach and hearing the numbers just in the last three months about the increases and stuff. That makes sense to me that there's a greater need but you have to have the infrastructure in place to be able to get those folks involved with the program. Today in the paper there was an op-ed about SNAP and the federal food program and the need to change the maximum benefits to increase the monthly minimum benefit and some time limit rules and changes there. Can you just take a moment and tell me how that's affecting folks here in Santa Cruz County? Having not read the op-ed but being aware of the current federal administration's approach to taxpayers' money going to low-income vulnerable people, I probably don't need to read it to understand what that's getting at. I wanna make a comment, broad comment before CalFresh specifically, you mentioned appreciations for newly enrolled and the need to outreach. I think human services departments throughout California in any state that accepted the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act went through an experience of outreaching to a constituent base that they were not used to working with before. In many people in communities have a stigma. I think when you get to the issue of immigration and whatnot, real legitimate fear, especially under the current federal administration, that there might be benefits to which people are eligible and they don't know about it or they're fearful of it or they have pride and stigma. So the experience of rolling out the Affordable Care Act, expanding Medicaid to people who'd never before thought of being eligible with the newly eligible sort of is something not lost on us. So I think it informs us in this new moment that there's gonna be people who never before have needed to rely on the safety net. And I think we can build upon that to outreach, specifically to Santa Cruz. I think I'll say a general comment and if I'm not answering specifically, I do wanna lean on, as you said in your comments, Emily who actually is the person who ran and built up in the last director of before she became deputy of our program that ran CalFresh. But I think that it's a combination of outreach and it's a very real issue of dealing with the stigma and fear a community like Santa Cruz has of having their name put in a database, even if California wants to protect it from the feds. How to navigate that is a very tricky issue. And I think we need to work with community ambassadors, with community-based organizations, people who are deeply connected to the community in order to be able to address that issue. And I'll just end, and you can tell me if I'm on point or getting to your point, because I think this is the same for healthcare. So much of what we do is driven by not only federal and state revenue, which we've talked about today in a budget hearing, but federal and state policy and regulation. So a lot of what we have to do is not only lead locally, but we have to lead in partnership with our lobbyists to make sure that there is a groundswell of work done, state is not so much an issue. I think their values are pretty much aligned with the values of this community, but the federal government usually dictates the terms and I'll just kind of end with the federal poverty level. You know, the federal poverty level is a number made by the feds. And that is from most analysis, usually somewhere in the ballpark of four times lower than what it actually takes to survive. So when you're living and you're operating a county program that provides safety net services, and you can only enroll people in a program you have like CalFresh, which was your specific question, but we'd add Medicaid and CalWorks that are also driven by the same federal policies with a federal poverty level that is deemed by most to be two, three, four times lower than it should be to really help people who really are in need. That is a challenge that requires lots of lobbying, lots of work and not to be political I'm a government at will employee here, but who has elected president and whether or not the Senate swings, those are all factors on whether or not policies might shift that help the safety net be better resourced and help people more in need. So I don't know, you can tell me if I'm on 20 or not. I mean, these are along the same issues that were brought up by food bank directors nationwide and it was an op-ed in today's Sentinel. And it may be that we need to bring something to the board on June 30th to do that lobbying to make sure that our federal representative understand the importance that food security plays in the lives of so many people here in Santa Cruz County. Related to that, the great place program is a huge success and hearing that almost 500 people are on that program. And some of these is, it's clearly a result of the hard work that you and the team put together to get those people. It's somewhat surprising also to me that there are 500 people who make below $75,000 and can't provide food for themselves. And we're already in a food assistance program. And I'm wondering what we're doing with that group who probably has other needs than only food security to enroll them in other programs. So the day that Great Plates ends that they still can get their needs met. Well, one of the great benefits of the FEMA funding we have, which is anything that's tied to COVID and FEMA were allowed to tie back to that 138 extra help. We've been able to resource ourselves by like a miniature case management unit. And we out the gate assumed that unit would be a group of people who would just do an eligibility screening and enroll them and then connect them to a food provider. That team through their chain of command it tells me it's actually also turned into a case management unit because not only are there sometimes glitches with the food delivery and questions and whatnot, but it's also your very question, which is trying to help people think about what's next. And that I think it's back to my previous comment about the health of the community-based organizations and our resources and one of the tensions is they might be eligible for CalFresh, but if they enroll in CalFresh, they have to disenroll from Great Plates. So having that conversation so people are empowered to make their choices as part of what we're doing. But we can do it because we have a couple of extra staff helping support those 500 people when they need it. Great. Well, the collaboration has always been the key of the department, collaboration with other departments and sounds like that is strong with health services. But I know it's also strong with the sheriff's office with public works. I mean, there's a lot of places that you interact with, but also you downplayed the significance in the role that your department plays with the core funding program. We haven't really talked about that much today. I'm sure we'll talk about it more in August, but that collaboration between our community-based organizations in Santa Cruz County has always been a hallmark of Santa Cruz. And I know it's trying for you as someone new to the community and this COVID pandemic to make all those relationships, but it's always been key to the success of our community. And I know you're committed to that. I thank you for your work. Wish you and us all to move to the marathon speed rather than the sprinting speed. I know exactly what you're talking about there. And thank you for the work of your staff and the incredible work that they do every day. Thank you. Supervisor McPherson. Thank you, Chair. I too just want to thank the staff of human services as we said to health services as well for carrying out, well, doing more work with less funding. And this tremendous uptick that we've had for need for public assistance. And as a result of the pandemic and the unemployment and CalFresh, I think my question's been answered. One of my questions has been answered, just how do we sustain this level of service that we're providing now? And what are the indicators you're watching for? I would guess it's FEMA and the federal government and well, federal and state government, but is there anything in particular and there's something we have as a board pushed and lobbying for continuance or increases in those programs? Is there anything that's needed at this time that you can see? That in two ways. Number one is there's a process here as in all counties to lift up to boards to formerly and endorse state or federal legislation. And I think we can continue to be very active in going through our process to ask for your board's consideration of endorsing. Cause sometimes our state associations work very hard to lobby for state and federal change, but having the power of a full board and or something to double up with that can be helpful. So Supervisor McPherson, we can continue to lift those things up that we see as critical as they play out over the next many months. I would say the one thing as a preview to we'll see what happens in the August hearing, but if indeed it lands that we end up getting significant allocation increases while we're having to deal with budget deficits, it will be a complicated narrative to explain how we want to add to our budgets because if we do not pull those allocations, we lose money in the future years while asking your board to deal with the difficult issues of accepting a budget involves furloughs and maybe even laughs. So I would just say as a preview, it might be that we're responsible to explain that very nuanced moment of having extra revenue one place and asking for your board's support of increasing staffing. And I think Supervisor Leopold named the art of this is we are already having conversations to make sure we do that as part of the County family if one department doesn't have the money that they could be transferred over into a new position we have, that's what we'll try to maximize. So I think that would be a practical ask of your board come August potentially. All right. And more specifically, are there key objectives of new programs that will have to wait until we have gotten out of this pandemic that you haven't in mind? We honestly haven't gone through that analysis. I think that those that would require general fund to resource something that was on the table to move forward is something we'll have to look long and hard at and be very transparent with your board and the community. If we have choices to make, whether or not we need to pause something to see if a fiscal year future is maybe we're in a better position. I think that that's the concept in mind but I don't have the specifics. Right. Okay. I understood. And I too, as I said with the health services too and your call for action, I really do appreciate your recognition of the equity issue that we really have to take a deeper dive into. I feel that we have addressed that somewhat but we're going to have to have a new closer look and a deeper dive into that. But thank you for your recognition of that. It's truly upon us and we need to address it. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You're welcome. Supervisor Coonerty. Hi. Thank you Director Morris for your presentation. I agree it's going to be a marathon and your services are going to be critical, not only now, but going forward into the foreseeable future as the economy will continue to struggle. I guess the only addition I have, I appreciate your support of the Great Plates Program and Thrive by Three and all the CalFresh signups is if we do see a change in federal politics in November, having a plan that's ready to go to increase signups immediately, the economy will still no doubt be struggling in November, December, January, February. And so trying to get people signed up for benefits they're entitled to, even as they, even without the hopefully the fear that's coming from the federal government, I think will be really important. And I know you're going to have diminished staffing and a lot of different strains, but I think trying to get people the support they need as quickly as we can will be important. But thank you for your work. Recognized, yeah. I guess that leaves me, right? Okay. How many employees are there in human services? Just about 500. 500. And is that included? I should know the answer to this. That's not, is that, they're included in the 2400? Okay. That's a big section. It is. Yeah, it's about a fifth, yeah. Or fourth, right? Fourth. Correct. Okay. Yeah, the only other thing I was going to say, you know, your department, you're basically on the front line. And with, you know, budget cuts, normally if there's a critical area, you put more funding into it, and you hire more people to work on the problem. But you're facing the opposite as far as the number of employees. Are you going to have to cut a few or have early retirements or, you know, how are you going to make the budget work? Well, talking to a politician, I don't want to sound like a politician by being coy, but I think until the state budget settles, it's really hard to predict. I can tell you that we do not seem to be in a position today if the legislature and governor settle on something close to what the legislature put forward of something significant. We think we will be okay by just freezing vacant positions and not filling them as opposed to having, but I just, it would be premature to say until the state budget settles. So I think in August we'll be in a better position to be very official about what it's looking like. Yeah. And then when it comes to, yeah, thank you, you know, for everything you're doing. I know your funding is, the big part of it is state funding, right? But is there some, especially during the crisis we're in, you're probably depending upon what are you hoping for some federal funding and how does that look? Well, the budget's too complex to go sort of budget item and program by program, but I would say in general, the federal funding is almost half of our funding, but many of them are under what's called entitlements, like the federal government unless they change the policy, they're on the hook to keep their spigot open to keep 50 cents on the dollar flowing in general. And then the state matches that and then we have a local match. So I think it really depends the federal government, state government and the realignment funding is about 90, a little less than 90% of our budget. And I would say a large part of that is federal money. So it really depends. I think there are some programs that don't have federal funding that we would like to see the federal government step up. There are some programs as Supervisor Leopold mentioned earlier based on that editorial where the eligibility limits are very steep and strict and we'd like to see them lifted, but that would require an act of federal Congress and a president. So yes, what we do is heavily dictated by federal funding and federal policy. I think what's really impressing me is with the health department and also the human services department is how before the crisis and then going into the crisis and where we are now, both departments seem to have done this seamlessly and kind of just went right in and kept going and we have those words that you use and health services use, integrity, compassion, and quality and everything like that. I'm very impressed on how you guys are transitioning, especially with all these homeless shelters that your department is responsible for. I do want to recognize in partnership with the CAO's office, Elise and her staff, depending on which the program is, it's been a shared partnership and they deserve their credit as well. Yes. Okay. Well, I'll open it up for public hearing. Are there any questions from anybody here from the public in the chamber? Okay. And then that take nobody downstairs. There's nobody else. No one in the community room. What's that? No one in the community room. There is no public comment. Okay. Chair, I'd be ready to move the recommended actions for the human services department budget. Do we have a second? Don't care we have a second. Who was the second? Supervisor McPherson seconded. Great. I'll call the roll. Supervisor Leopold. Aye. Friend. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Mr. McPherson. Aye. Chairperson Kepit. Aye. Passes unanimously. We do have closed session, right? Not today. Not today. Okay. So it'll be no closed session. The Board of Supervisors will now recess and reconvene as a Zone 7 Board of Directors at 7 p.m. That'll be online to conduct its regular meeting. And then after that at 7 30 will be budget hearings continuing this evening. Normally what we would do is have one meeting here during the day and then in the evening we'd be down in Watsonville. But tonight's meeting will be online, right? Okay. All word live. That is correct. Tonight's meeting, Watsonville session will be online. Watson City of Watsonville has not opened their council chambers as we have. So therefore we are abiding by their decision and keeping to a virtual meeting. Okay. But we'll be here tomorrow night. But we will be here tomorrow night because our board chambers have been open to the public. And we don't need to give out any information to the public on how to actually watch that or. Mr. Chair. Yes. The public will be able to comment via telephone and there is a telephone number provided with the agenda. And if you'd like I could read that. If well, maybe I'll have. It's. Christine, do you have that phone number? Christine will read the phone number for folks. I can also, it's up here on the yes, the agenda which is if people want to call in tonight, it's four, five, four, two, two, two, two. And the collaboration code is nine, one, zero, four, six, six, nine, one, zero, four, six, six. And that's also the calling code for the continued public hearing on the budget. So call four, five, four, 22, 22. And the collaboration code is nine, one, zero, four, six, six. Thank you. Thank you. We'll see you here from everybody tonight. Thank you. So yeah, go ahead. So Greg, this is a zone seven. So I'm happy with chairing this one. And then I'll hand it back over to you for the budget hearing at 730. Okay. Okay. All right, I'd like to call to order the zone seven board of directors meeting for June 22nd, 2020. We're doing this meeting remotely. If we could have a roll call, please. Director Leopold. Here. Coonerty. Here. Caput. Here. McPherson. Here. Bannister. Mary Bannister. Billusich. Here. Suri. By Dale Gonzalez. Chair Friend. Here. And I know we do. I'm sorry, go ahead. I think Mary Bannister is on the line. Is she there? Yeah, she is. Okay. Here. Welcome, Mary. So does everybody, if you could mute, if you're not. Thank you. If you could just mute if you're not speaking, that'd be great. We did the roll call. We'll now begin with the consideration of any additions or deletions to the Consent or Regular Agenda. Mr. Strudley, are there any changes to tonight's agenda? No, sure. There are not. Great. Now we'll move on to oral communications. It's an opportunity for either members of the community or for members of the board to address us on items that are not on tonight's agenda, but within the purview of zone seven. First, we'll begin with any members of the board. Does any member of the board of directors have anything that they'd like to discuss briefly? Seeing none. Is there, anybody on the phone that would like to address us during oral communications? If you would allow us, we're gonna give a little blurb instructions for people on the phone. To the public using call in option, if your caller ID is blocked, we will not be able to identify your call and will not be able to call upon you to speak. If you wish to speak, please unlock your number by hanging up and dialing star 82. And then the meeting number you originally called on and the same collaboration code. If you would like to address the board, dial star 41 on your phone. This will virtually raise your hand. The clerk will announce your name or phone number when it is your turn to speak. Please allow for a few second delay. You will have three minutes to address the board. After the three minutes, your call will be muted. When speaking, please do not have your phone on speaker. And if you are watching the meeting online, please mute your TV or computer. If you change your mind and decide you no longer wish to address the board, then dial star 42. This will lower your virtual hand. County staff that is joining us through teams, please keep your computer on mute unless you are talking to avoid disruptive audio feedback. And if you would allow this to be translated into Spanish, please. Para el público que desea llamar con sus comentarios, si tiene su identificación de llamadas bloqueado, no podremos recibir su llamada sin poder intensificar su número. Para quitarlo, cuelgue y marque estrella 82 y lego el mismo número que anotó. Si desea dirigir a la mesa directiva, marque estrella 41 en su teléfono. La secretaria anunciará su nombre o número cuando le tocó usted. Hay que esperar unos segundos para empezar y tendrá tres minutos para hablar. Favor de no tener la llamada en bocina alta y poner en silencio su televisión o computadora. Si siempre no desea hablar a la mesa directiva, favor de marcar estrella 42. All right, thank you. At this point, does anybody have their hand raised clerk that would be interested in participating in oral communications? Thank you, Chairman Friend. After all of that, we have no callers. That's okay. I appreciate that we're affording the opportunity for people to participate during oral communications. All right, we're gonna move on to item four, which is an approval of the zone seven board meeting minutes. Do any directors have any questions? Director Bilicic, you are muted, so you just need to unmute yourself, please. I promise we're not doing this to you, Director Bilicic. You, I know, I know you look, you got that, there you go, there you go. Okay, no, I just wanted to approve the minutes. Okay, I'll come to you for a motion. Is, does anybody else have any comments on the minutes? Madam clerk, do you see anybody from the community that has their hand raised who would like to comment on the minutes? Okay, then we have a motion from Director Bilicic. Do we have a second? We have a second from Director Caput. We'll do a roll call vote, please. Director Leopold? Aye. Coonerty? Aye. Aye. Caput? You're muted, Greg. Director Caput? He said aye, but he's muted. Okay. McPherson? Aye. Bannister? I got muted. Aye. Bilicic? Aye. Chair Friend? I know. Aye. Do you want to go back to Director Caput? He's unmuted now. Yeah, you got me. Aye. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you. Yeah, it's okay, leave it alone. We're going to move on to the Consent Agenda, which are item six and seven. Does any Director wish to pull an item on consent or speak to an item on consent? Director Bilicic, any comments on consent? Comments. Yes, I'd like to say everything is so well spelled out. Everything, there's a lot of detail in there, and it's very impressive. The timeline, I thought it was a well done report. Thank you for those comments, Director Bilicic, Mr. Strudley, great work as always. Any other Director that would like to comment on consent? Madam Clerk, are there any member of the public that would like to comment on consent? Not at this time, thank you, Chair. Thank you. All right, we would. Chair, this is John Leopold. I'm prepared to move the Consent Agenda. Move by Director Leopold, a second from Director Bilicic. We'll do a roll call, please. Director Leopold. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Bannister. Aye. Bilicic. Aye. Chair Friend. Aye. That item passes unanimously. Chair Friend, can you tell me why Mary Bannister's going sideways? Yeah. Director Bannister, your photo is sideways. I was wondering the same thing. I say, why not? We're kind of living in that world right now, Director Bannister. Why not? It's kind of... Exactly. All right, we're gonna move on to the first item of the regular agenda, which is item eight, which is the Board of Directors of Zone Seven. This is a public hearing on Zone Seven assessment rates for the 2020-2021 fiscal year. We're gonna hear objections and protests, if any, and consider adoption of the resolution confirming the rate report as outlined in the memo of the district engineer, Mr. Strudley. Thank you, Chair Friend. Members of the Board, on March 10th of this year, the Board adopted a resolution confirming the previously approved increases in assessment rates for Zone Seven for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Those rates are attached to this item, and the Board set today as the public hearing date for those assessment rate report for Zone Seven. So in order to complete the assessment rate proceedings, the Board needs to open the public hearing, take testimony and consider objections and protests to the report, if any, and at the conclusion of the public hearing after considering the public, if there are any public objections to the report, Zone Seven asked the Board to consider adoption of the resolution. So with that, the recommended actions for this item are to open the public hearing and hear objections and protests, if any, to the proposed 2020-21 assessment rate report for Zone Seven and to close the public hearing. And upon the conclusion of the hearing, consider adoption of the resolution confirming the written report on assessment rates for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Strudley. Are there any directors that have any questions on this item before we open up the public hearing on the rate assessment? Okay, seeing none, we will now open up the public hearing. Madam Clerk, is there anybody from the community that would like to address us in the public hearing? Again, if you're listening to this on the phone, it's star four one, if you would like to be added into the queue for this. Is anybody interested in joining us for the public hearing? Thank you, Chair Friend, but at this time, nobody is here. Thank you, Madam Clerk. Okay, we will close the public hearing and we're gonna bring it back to the board for action. Is there a motion, please? Make a motion to approve the assessment rates. Second. We have a motion from Director Bilicich for the recommended actions in a second from Director Coonerty. We'll go for a roll call, please. Director Leopold. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Bannister. Aye. Bilicich. Aye. Chair Friend. Aye. And that item passes unanimously. We'll move on to item nine, which is the Board of Directors of Zone Seven to consider the 2020-2021 proposed budget for Zone Seven is outlined in the reference budget documents and memo of the district engineer. Mr. Strudley, please. Thank you, Chair Friend, members of the board. In accordance with the rules and regulations for Zone Seven, a budget hearing is held during the district's June meeting in which the upcoming fiscal year's budget is approved. For your notes, the budget is also approved by the Watsonville City Council, which actually occurred this year at their June 9th meeting. And then the budget is brought before the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors, which is set to occur tomorrow on the 23rd. We are following the new procedures of the county in which the budget follows a two year cycle. And that budget is presented this year to the board includes revised information for fiscal years 2020 and 2021. So this is being submitted to you as for approval as year two under the new two year budget cycle. So attached to this board item are the overall expenditures and revenues for the district. This includes a capital improvement amount spending for $3,138,491 as well as overall expenditures of $4,207,000. We will have a beginning fund balance this year of $29,485 and we'll be expending all of our revenue for a zero fund balance at the end of the fiscal year. The attachments have line item detail on the budget down to specific projects and other elements. And I'm happy to answer any questions you may have about this budget. I would ask that you consider approval of this 2020-2021 proposed budget for zone seven flood control water conservation district. And you also accept and file the semi-annual levy inspection reports which are also attached to this board item for your information. Thank you, Mr. Strathley. Are there any directors that have questions? Mr. Strathley, I'll see Director Bill Sitch, please. I noticed that the projected budget is one thing and the recommended is another and the recommended is more money. So the projected budget was the budget that originally appeared when the two-year budget cycle was initiated by the county and the district followed that model. So the 2020-2021 projected numbers are the numbers that were originally developed in the two-year budget roughly two years ago. The recommended amount are the revised amounts for those budget items. So they are updated now that we have more current information. Oh, thank you. And then you're the levy district where you went and did all of the inspections. The conditions, is that part of this too? Yes, so we typically include our semi-annual inspection report which our drainage crews developed for us based on their regular inspections as well as derived from their annual inspections with the Army Corps of Engineers. I have to say, I thought that was very comprehensive. A really good report and it looks like we're in great shape. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for that question, Director Bill Sitch. Are there any other questions on this item? Can I move to approve? I will open it up for public comment before we do the motion. So Star 4-1, is there anybody from the community, Madam Clerk, that's interested in participating on this item? Again, thank you, but no one has called in yet. Thank you. All right, so we'll move it back. Director Bill Sitch. Yes, I moved to approve the, let's see, the proposed budget has outlined and the memorandum of the district engineer with all of the attachments. We have a motion for the, all right, we have a motion from Director Bill Sitch and a second from Director Leopold. It will do a roll call vote, please. Director Leopold. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Bannister. Aye. Bill Sitch. Aye. And Chair Friend. Aye. And that item passes unanimously. We move on to item 10, which is the Board of Directors of Zone 7 to consider a status report on the Pahoa River Flood Risk Management Project and consider the design agreement and associated certifications to authorize the chair to sign the certification regarding lobbying on the district's behalf, authorize the chair to sign the design agreement, consider the memorandum of understanding between the department of the army and the joint non-federal sponsors, authorize the chair to sign the MOU on the district's behalf, consider the terms of the generic model funding agreement between the state of California department of water resources and the joint non-federal sponsors under the flood control subventions program and authorize the district engineer for flood control program manager to sign the agreement and adopt a local public agency authorizing resolution as outlined in the memo of the district engineer. I don't know, Mr. Strudley, I don't know that there's a memo that's needed after that title, but we will move on to it anyway. So Mr. Strudley, please. Thank you, Chair Friend, members of the board. Yeah, there's an awful lot going on with the levy reconstruction project, and this is a pretty important piece before you with a number of agreements and MOUs for you to consider and provide authorization for us to move forward. As you know, on December 12th of last year, we secured the director's report from the Army Corps of Engineers, which gave us the authorization to move into the design phase. And then in January, we received $1.8 million in appropriations to start the design phase. And ever since that time, we've been working through the initial stages of preparing for this design agreement to be brought before you as well as the other non-federal sponsor, Monterey County Water Resources Agency. And so right now, in order to proceed into the design phase and to get the Army Corps to embark on design of the first prioritized reach, we need to come to agreement on the terms of the design agreement, which is attached for your review. It describes the financial commitment of the federal government as well as the non-federal sponsors and describes the cost share allocation as we move into design. You may recall from feasibility, our cost share arrangement with the Army Corps was a 50-50 split, 50 federal funds, 50 non-federal funds. For design and construction, that shifts to a 65, 35% cost share split, 65 falling to the federal, part of the equation and 35 falling to the non-federal. So this agreement describes a contract for design of the first prioritized reach. So this is not all of design. It is the first component of design. And as described in this agreement, that's $7.1 million worth of effort for design. So that equates to a $4.615 million federal commitment and a non-federal commitment of $2.485 million, which will be shared with the both non-federal sponsors. The agreement allows us to accelerate provision of funds if we want to. I don't think we're in a position to do that right now. I would not make that recommendation at this point, but it does allow that. This can be useful if the core falls back and we want to spring ahead of them. So it allows us some flexibility. Also allows us to provide work in kind. So to get credit for existing work or work that we make arrangements to do with the Army Corps. So also included with this item is an MOU that allows for crediting. So this is similar to work in kind, but it just allows more flexibility for us to receive the credit for work that we arranged to do that the Corps would normally be doing themselves. So this can become useful again, if we want to speed things up or if we want to capture a little more control over the process as long as the Army Corps is comfortable with doing that. So both these agreements will be brought in front of Monterey County Water Resources Agency Board of Directors, as well as they're the Board of Supervisors. The dates in this Board memo are actually not accurate any longer. The June 15th Board date for the Water Resources Agency, that is accurate, but it looks like the Board of Supervisors on the Monterey County side will be considering this item sometime in early to mid-July. I just wanted to add on the federal side that the Army Corps has already put together a proposed appropriation for next federal fiscal year of $2.915 million. That would be the second federal component of this $7.1 million initial design effort. And at that point in time, we will have another funds request being made to non-federal sponsors. On the state side of the equation, we are moving forward still with our Subventions Authorization. In order to do that, we need to sign a funding agreement with the state as well as get a resolution adopted by this Board. So the resolution attached to this item is for your consideration and adoption, which will be an exhibit to the funding agreement with the State Department of Water Resources. The Subventions Agreement that is attached to this item is not specific to our project, but what I was seeking was your concurrence and approval on the basic terms of the agreement. All the details in terms of the actual funding source, our project name, as well as the exhibits, will come from the Army Corps once they develop their project management plan, which they are doing so right at this second. And we hope to have that done sometime in July. So with your consideration of this, the terms of this model funding agreement, you can authorize the District Engineer or the Flood Control Program to sign that agreement when those exhibits are completed and provided by the Army Corps of Engineers. We are still going through the CEQA process. We still plan to have a administrative draft document sometime this fall, and we are taking this summer to develop our impact analysis as well as to address comments that were received during the scoping period. Most important potentially along with the agreements that are attached to this Board item is the finance strategy. The coronavirus has really called into question our ability to bring a benefit assessment district formation vote, a Prop 218 compliant vote before the public, which we had initially anticipated doing perhaps in spring of 2000, or excuse me, in fall of this year. That is no longer a reality because of the economic downturn. And we are unclear at this point whether or not we will be able to do that at some point during next calendar year, but we are making our plans right now to develop a new cash flow analysis as well as finance strategy to address this issue and to identify how we can move forward efficiently without hindering the progress that's being made on the federal side. With that, I would like to hand the mic over to Matt Machado who's gonna give you an update on our governance formation process. Thank you, Mark, and good evening, Chair and members of the Board, Matt Machado, your district engineer. And so while financing the project remains the most important item moving forward, we still continue to work on the JPA, the establishment of the JPA to support the project. It is crucial to form the new agency for multiple reasons. We've listed some of those in the Board report and I'll quickly go through them. First off, a JPA will align and focus all of our purposes with our partners. Secondly, state and federal partners certainly prefer a single project sponsor, which the JPA would give us. Additionally, the JPA could be considered a part of the revolutionized Army Corps initiative which is important to our federal partner. And lastly, the JPA would certainly simplify our benefit assessment district vote. And so we are pursuing this effort, yet the finances is taking a bit of a lead at this point and COVID has put in a bit of a slow on our meeting schedule. Our governance and finance committee meetings have been, we're temporarily postponed until today. Mr. Strudley sent out an email today to set our next meeting for July 9th from three to 5 p.m. It will be an online meeting through Webex and we're looking forward to getting the group back together and providing updates on the project and moving forward with our JPA strategy. With that, I'm gonna turn it back to Mark and he will finish out our report. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Yeah, so I just wanted to finish with a repeat of the recommended actions and then answer any questions you may have. So our recommended actions are to accept and file the status report on the Power River Flavors Management Project to consider the design agreement and the associated certification regarding lobbying between the Department of Army and the federal sponsors, authorize the chair to sign the certification regarding the lobbying on the district's behalf and authorize the chair to sign the design agreement upon final concurrence with the Army Corps legal counsel. To also consider the memorandum of understanding between the Department of Army and the joint non-federal sponsors for work provided or performed prior to execution of a project partnership agreement and authorize the chair to sign the MOU on the district's behalf. And lastly, to consider the terms of the generic model funding agreement between the state of California Department of Water Resources and the joint non-federal sponsors under the flood control subventions program, authorize the district engineer or flood control program to sign the agreement upon state identification of funds and completion of exhibits A, B, C, and H and adopt a local public agency authorizing resolution which is exhibit E of the agreement. Happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you, Mr. Strathley for that presentation. Director Bilicich? You know, the state right now, obviously their budget is not in very good shape. How's the funding gonna come from the state? So right now, our recent discussions with Subventions staff indicate that the funds would be coming from Prop 84 grants. So Prop 84 was passed by the voters many years ago and so it is a stable and secure funding source. I have been speaking with other agency partners such as at PV Water who have very recently signed agreements with the Department of Water Resources. So I don't see any hindrances to signing an agreement with EWR for Subventions, hopefully sometime during the month of July. And I don't see any issues with securing funds for support of those reimbursements against the initial phases of design. I should point out that every time we step into a new contract with the Army Corps, so for example, two years from now when we expect to go into a project partnership agreement under construction with the Army Corps, we would then sign a new funding agreement under the Subventions program. At that point in time, it may be a different funding source, but at this point in time, DWR has identified Prop 84 as our funding source. Thank you. I also wanna say this is a very comprehensive report. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, Director Bills, Instructor Caput. Thank you about, thanks, Chairman Friend. Yeah, with the funding and everything we're doing, will some of them expire if we don't keep moving forward? Which, you know, the money for the design phase and all that, those are things that have deadlines. They have, you know, paperwork that has to be done. So we're doing okay as far as, even with the coronavirus putting us off a little bit, we're okay, we're on. Yeah, so the $1.8 million that have been appropriated from the federal government, it will require the design agreement being signed to actually exercise those funds and put them to use. There technically isn't an expiration on any of this, especially once we sign an agreement until we terminate an agreement. We certainly don't wanna be in the position of sending funds back either to a federal source or a state source. And we're also not in the position of contemplating having to do that either. What coronavirus has done really was called into question the support that will be needed from the public, the financial support needed from the community for this project. And we've always been in pursuit of trying to minimize that requirement on the community, but there will be a non-zero commitment required unless we're somehow able to secure a really fantastic grant source from the state. So the delay to that revenue stream has put a little bit of tightening on our cash flow situation, but what's also very important to that cash flow is our subventions because as we make appropriations to the federal government, 70% of those appropriations will be reimbursable under the subventions agreement. So part of our cash flow problem is getting the subventions agreement signed and in effect so that we can start exercising it and getting reimbursed back from some of these initial costs. Right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Director Caput. Are there any other board members that are interested in asking a question on this? Okay, again, star four one, if you're a member of the community and you would like to add input on this, Madam Clerk, is there anybody from the community that would like to participate? Good evening, Chair. Yes, we do have one speaker. One moment, please. Speaker identified as unavailable, you may now speak, you have three minutes. Speaker identified as unavailable, you may now speak, you have three minutes. I just want to say, I hope you all are making myself fortunate and you are to have a lot of struggling to be in this department. It's still a project, the process, the progress over the past year that has happened in the past six years. Thank you, Carol. Did you have anything else that you wanted to add on that item? We're doing an okay job. I'll take okay is better than terrible. So in my line of work, we consider that an approval. So I'll say that the approval rating of this board just went up a tick. Thank you, Ms. Shirley, for those comments. And thank you also for your advocacy, continued advocacy on behalf of Pajaro Dunes and the entire Pajaro River system. Is there any other member of the community that'd like to address us, Madam Clerk? That was all, thank you, Chair. Thank you. Okay, we'll bring it back to the board for action. Director Bilsich. Yes, I'd like to make a motion to approve and just thank Mark for all of his hard work. This is amazing how much detail is in this report. Second, Coonerty. All right, we have a motion for the recommended actions from Director Bilsich and a second from Director Coonerty. We'll go to a roll call, please. Director Leopold. Aye. Coonerty. Aye. Caput. Aye. McPherson. Aye. Bannister. Aye. Bilsich. Aye. And Chair Friend. Aye. And that item passes unanimously. Thank you, Mr. Stradley. Thank you, Mr. Machado for all of your work on these items and everybody else within the public works crew. That'll adjourn this meeting, but we will move on to, for those that are on the Board of Supervisors anyway, to the evening budget hearings and I'll turn it over to Chair Caput and Mr. Plosios. Okay, yes. This, I'm not looking right at the time, it's 7.30, right? Yes, we can go ahead and proceed. So we're okay. We're not jumping the gun here. Continued public hearing on 2020-2021 proposed county budget. We have time here for opening remarks and public comment from any person may address the Board during its public comment period. Speakers not to exceed three minutes. And they can speak only once during public comment. All public comments must be directed to an item listed on today's consent agenda, closed session agenda, yet to be heard on regular agenda. Or topic not on the agenda that is in our jurisdiction. That pretty much covers everything, right? Okay. Okay. Opening remarks, would that be you, Carlos? Yes, so I am going to make some brief remarks and then I'll turn it over to Assistant County Administrative Officer, Nicole Coburn, and then we'll open it up to public comments. So we're gonna share the screen and we're gonna show the PowerPoint. There we go. And so go ahead and go to the third slide, there, Christine. I will say that this has been, for the entire County family, a very difficult year. We have been working very, very hard on the pandemic response. And now we are faced with a budget deficit. And so the good thing to report is that we started the year with a very strong financial position. We had tripled our reserves. We had reserves of $56 million and tripled them over the last number of years. We have also improved our credit rating. We have a very strong financial position, actually having triple A, a bond rating, which is the highest rating you can get. So that says a lot about the board's fiscal stewardship over the last number of years to put us in such a strong financial position as we entered into this crisis. The board had also reduced pension obligations, passing a second tier of retirement benefits. And then the state followed with the third tier of retirement benefits, which lowered our unfunded liability. And we also have controlled our employee growth. In fact, today, we have less employees than we did a decade ago. And so even though we have reduced the number of employees, County employees, we actually are doing many, many more things. And we've done that through becoming more efficient with technology, and it's just a great thing to see how our County employees have been able to provide more services even though we have less employees. And we've also started working on our deferred maintenance. Go ahead and go to the next slide, Christine. This is just a illustration of our reserves. You can see that in 2014, we had about $30 million of reserves and we're now in 2020 at $56 million of reserves. The reason that we are showing a decrease in the reserves in fiscal year 21 that's next year is because we currently face a $20 million deficit in this current year fiscal budget. And that's due to the impact of the pandemic on our revenues starting in this March. And so the good thing is that we are not forced with having to make immediate budget cuts. This, the reserves we have will allow us to soften the blow and absorb those cuts through the reuse of reserves in this fiscal year. Go ahead and go to the next slide. I mentioned that we have had many successes over the last number of years. In behavioral health, we just opened up a new behavioral health building at our freedom campus. We also have remodeled and expanded our health clinic and we provided a brand new genetic clinic also at our freedom campus. Those are significant services offered to Watsonville. I know this budget meeting meeting is centered on Watsonville. So I wanted to mention those as examples of the county's commitment to South County. We also have expanded CalFresh, CalWorks and our MediCal services as well. It's important to note that even though South County and the Watsonville area represent about 20% of the county's population, South County actually has about 50% of the clients of our safety net programs. So these programs are of critical importance to South County. And I'm very proud to say that we've been able to expand all of those services over the last decade. We've also increased the number of parks that we've offered. And we had some wonderful successes this year in opening up Chanakler Park, Leos Haven, other parks as well, Heart of Soquel. And it's just a great success that the county has had including the new park out at our Felton library. We've also started addressing our deferred maintenance. We have a lot of county buildings that need repair and we've started that work, had some good successes in doing that. And we've also spent millions of dollars repairing our roads and storm drains after the storm event 16th of the 16th of the 17th. So we've had great successes and part of that has to do with the fact that we have a board that has been very fiscally prudent, but at the same time dedicated to expanding services community and South County has benefited greatly over the last decade with new services at our freedom campus. With that, I'm gonna turn it over to Nicole Coburn, Assistant County Administrative Officer. She's gonna talk about our strategic plan. Thank you, Carlos. So good evening to our cap and members of the board. So I'm Nicole Coburn, Assistant County Administrative Officer and I'm here to give you some brief updates on our operational plan. I'll go ahead to the next slide, Christine. So as you can see here, we have four major county initiatives that lay the foundation for achieving the county's vision and mission in 2018, the board adopted the county's first strategic plan. It provides the why for the county, why we exist and serves as our North Star. We also have an operational plan, a two-year operational plan covering the years 2019 to 2021 that describes how we are going to achieve our strategic plan. It is our action plan and it says exactly what we're going to do. We also have Primo Santa Cruz, which is our continuous process improvement initiative and it describes helps us to get an idea of what we're doing to get better each day. Finally, we have our performance measurement initiative and this is trying to measure whether our work is having an impact and how we can tell. Go ahead to the next slide, Christine. So here again, you can see the vision and the mission for the county's strategic plan. I mentioned that it serves as our North Star. After the turbulence behind us and the new role to come, this North Star is getting more and more important to guiding our work and our priorities. The vision, mission and values represent the voices of our community, our service partners, our clients and our employees. Go ahead and fast forward. So the operational plan is only a two-year action plan. In December of this past December of 2019, we were looking pretty good. Halfway through our plan, however, we've been knocked off course. Both the department strategic plans and the county operational plan have guided departments through the ongoing revised budget process as well as responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. These plans provide foundations for staff. They focus on the major initiatives and goals for improving our mandatory services. The objectives in the operational plan are measurable. So in some cases, we will be able to see directly the impact of the pandemic in a way we would not have been able to in the absence of the plan. So the charts before you, if you're looking at the purple and amended slices or bar graphs, those represent the COVID-19 impacted objectives. The pies and the bar graphs in green represent completed and in progress time of the COVID-19 impacted objectives. About 60% of our work is expected to finish on time or is already complete. June 2020, the completion date has had the biggest impact. Almost two thirds of our objectives have been impacted. However, about 50% of these impacted objectives are expected to be complete by December of 2020. We're still trying to quantify the full impact of COVID-19 on our operational plan and we'll be returning to the board with some further information. We have an operational plan website that's been updated and you can view it at our main site at www.sccvision.us. Christine, I don't know if you're able to go there, but if you are, we can take a look at it. So this is the website. The ISD and Sven Stafford in my office have been working very hard on updating the information shown here. We now have a way to display the COVID-impacted objectives for the public and the county. So if you go here, you can take a look at those objectives. You can see that we have our 180 objectives and 61 of those have been impacted by COVID. We're gonna be adding some additional features to the site so that we're able to search by the COVID-impacted objectives so that someone who might be interested in just seeing those, we have a number of other search functions available currently. So if you go to the sort by department, you can see specifically what objectives are either been completed or in progress or have been impacted by COVID. So if you go back to the PowerPoint presentation, Christine, and fast forward one. So our plan for fiscal year 2020-21 is that in December, this upcoming December, we will be providing the board with our third progress report on the operational plan. We're gonna be working with departments to understand the full impact of COVID-19, including from the public health standpoint, the county, state and federal budget landscape, our local economy and just the impact in general on the county, how we work as a county. We're going to be breaking down the 61 COVID-impacted objectives to show whether they've been completed, if they're on progress in progress and back on track, if they've been amended and are back on track but with some delays or if they've been discontinued and some work may have to be abandoned either because of budget impacts or what changes to how we're working. We're also gonna be training staff on measurement. We are currently using a smart framework for objectives. And we're planning to provide staff with some additional training on performance measurement and our results-based accountability framework. We're gonna be working with departments on getting better at measuring impact and that training will help us do that. We're also planning a one-year resiliency addendum to our operational plan. The original operational plan called for a new two-year plan for the years 2021 through 2023 and due to the public health pandemic and the economic uncertainty, we feel that creating a new two-year operational plan is not practical at this time. And we would like to work with departments on a resiliency addendum to the current operational plan that will help us through this period of time. It will enable planning flexibility. It will also help us build on our training effort, our Primo Santa Cruz initiative and performance measurement and it will allow departments to think about the key management challenges necessary to adjust to what we're facing currently. And so with that, I will turn it back over to Carlos to close the presentation. Thank you, Nicole. And if we could go to the next slide, Christine. So here's what we are facing both to get through this fiscal year and for next fiscal year with regard to the impacts that the COVID-19 pandemic have had on our county finances. Like all the rest of the community and many of our businesses, we are having a very difficult time with big impacts to our revenues. So in 2019-20, that's the fiscal year we are currently in which will end on June 30th. We are facing as I mentioned earlier, a $20 million deficit. This is approximately 12% of our general fund net county cost. To deal with this, I have implemented a spending and hiring freeze on all non-essential expenditures and any positions that we are able to freeze. We have been doing that. We are also recommending to the board that you use our reserves to get through this fiscal year. So that would mean that we will use approximately one third of our reserves. We have $56 million in our general fund reserve. We will use up to 20 million of those reserves to get through this fiscal year. That will leave us at approximately 7% for our reserves, approximately $36 million. I will not be recommending the further use of our reserves below the 7% and there's a number of reasons for that. One is that we have to be prepared for potential for additional emergencies. This year is predicted to be a very difficult fire season and we know that we have fire risk in our county and therefore we need those reserves in the event of an emergency. Also the pandemic may come back in a way in the fall or a winner that requires us to spend additional funds. So therefore we need to keep the remaining reserves ready in case we have a further emergency. Next fiscal year, we are facing potentially up to $40 million a deficit. That's potentially 23rd of our net county cost. Just to give you a sense of our magnitude, that's more than double of the deficit that we faced in the great recession in 2008, 2009. So it's very significant. So to get through that year, I have recommended that departments are going to submit budget submittals with pets of up to 20% of net county costs. We are trying to protect as much as we can public safety and our health and human services budgets by recommending that they cut up to 10% of their budgets. The reason for that is that we know that those safety net programs that are health and human service budgets are so essential to the community, especially during a recession. And therefore it would be the wrong time to cut those budgets. And I know the board has expressed their values in doing the strategic planning. So we're developing the budget, trying to backfill the losses in health and human services to keep them to only having to make up to a 10% cut. We also are going to be recommending furloughs, our employees and the great recession gave up to 7.5% furloughs. We are going to be using some one-time funds in some of our trust funds and some of our other departmental funds. Normally we wouldn't recommend that, but given that our economy is fundamentally sound, even though we are facing this pandemic, we're hoping that the economy will recover after one year. And so we know that the second year will also be, and the second year out will also be difficult over hoping that we start recovering and that we'll be able to get by with using some one-time funds. In addition, we are hoping for state and federal assistance. I know the state budget was signed today by the governor. We're still looking at the details. We don't know about that yet. And we also hope for federal relief as well. And we know that in our meetings with our hosts representatives and our senators that they've all expressed strong support for relief for state and local government. And so at the present time, we know that legislation is before the house stuck in the Senate, but we're hopeful that federal aid will come in the future. Can go to the next slide, Christine. So the good news, there is a little bit of good news that the state budget that the legislature passed had some additional relief for state and local government, including a CARES Act funding of $28 million. Unfortunately, much of that funding is very restricted and can only be spent on new costs incurred because of the pandemic. It can't be used to backfill some of our lost revenues, but nevertheless, it's helpful. And we think that some of that money can be used for the match that we were going to have to provide some of the information we're receiving and that way help the general fund. I also know that the state legislature had a realignment backfill. This is some of the funding that's used to help fund our safety net programs. And we're hopeful that some of that funding is still in the budget that the governor signed today, although we don't have all the information we need to know that yet. We are going to continue to rely on our community partners to help us with our county programs. This is many of our nonprofit partners. We are also going to continue as a county to rely on telework and using remote work that we've had to rely on as we're doing this meeting. So there is some good news and we're hoping that the budget that we had projected $4 million will actually be somewhat smaller. We're hoping that we can get that deficit down to about $30 million before we have to start making all of the cuts due to some of the federal aid and some of the state aid. But it's going to be very difficult nevertheless and we are still looking at the impacts that are much greater than we've faced in the great recession that we had in 2008, 2009. With that, I'll close my remarks, Chair Caput and turn it back to you. I know now you'll be open for public questions or comments. Thank you. Thank you, Carlos. Yeah, we'll open it up for public comment. Should I read it again? I read it earlier right before your report. So any, I'll do it, abbreviate it. Any person may address the board during public comment period up to three minutes. Please don't exceed that. And then you can only speak once during public comment and the comments must be directed to an item listed on today's consent agenda, closed session agenda, which we don't have today. Yet to be heard on regular agenda or a topic not on the agenda that is within our jurisdiction of the Board of Supervisors. So we are open to a public comment and I will take a pause here and wait and see if we have somebody ready to comment. Chair Caput, we have nobody that wishes to comment at this time. Nobody. Okay, I'll bring it back to the board then. Any comments from board members? Any questions from board members? I don't hear any. Okay, we'll move on then. Do we have anything else to report? We'll just be adjourning. We'll just be continuing the public hearing to tomorrow at nine o'clock, the board chambers. And that will be, some of us will be there live in Santa Cruz at the Ocean Street County Building and others will be online. So we'll close the meeting and we'll see everybody tomorrow at nine a.m. Thank you. Meeting adjourned.