Good afternoon. Welcome to the Education and Culture Committee. It is April 30th, last day of the month. And this is also our last education and culture budget session, our fourth, where we're going to take up a number of items. We have a couple of joint sessions left, but our last one just is a committee. First, we're going to talk and thank you for already coming up about our public libraries budget. And go through a couple of CIP amendments there. And then we'll have our arts and humanities council come up. And then we'll do community use of public facilities. And last, but certainly not least, we'll have our final Montgomery County Public Schools session. So we've got a full agenda. And I'll say it at the front end, if we don't spend an hour on each topic, don't think we don't love you. It's just that we're trying to make sure we move through. And I know you guys are good at taking yes for an answer. So we know that this is obviously a difficult budget year but all three, all of these four or five of these items are really interconnected. So we're glad to see you all. So I'll turn it over to Mr. Ambinder to just T.S. up for the first item which is public libraries and then we'll get into the discussion with the great team that's here. Thank you good afternoon. The county executive recommends an increase of $2,101,138 or 3.98% from the FY25 approved operating budget for the county public libraries. The majority of this increase is the same services budget. there are a couple of enhancements for the committee's particular review. That includes $121,000 to increase the digital collection budget and $153,000 to increase the funding for the world languages collection. The other same services items are broken out to provide more context for the committee in the packet. But again, those are those other items are continuation of current staffing and service levels. In addition, there are two CIP amendments for the committee's consideration that have not yet been committed, been considered by the committee. That includes a net $20,000 increase over the six year period for the Clarksburg Library to reflect an addition in state aid and a net $1.155 million decrease over the six year period for the 21st century library enhancements level of effort project, which I'm happy to go into more detail on the committees wishes. So with that, I'll turn it back over to the chair. Thank you. thank you very much. I see we have Ms. Graham and I see Ms. Hawes in the back there. And Mr. Cappini, good to see you. Who else we have here? Of Ms. Brown. Mr. Fromm, there you go. All right, good. I got, and who does that, Ms. Robinson? Michelle, oh, yes. Yes, Endeavour Lambert. But is the Lane here? See you around? Okay, that's all right. We'll tell her a love. So I'll turn it over to you, Miss Graham, any comments you want to make? I'm glad I was glad to see. I know this. We really have been working on the enhancements to the international collection over and over years. So I was glad to see that in the budget. But turn it over to you for anything you'd like to say about how the libraries are doing. Oh, well thank you. And high again to council members Ming, Joanne Doe and Albinaz. I'm Darceau Graham, Director of Libraries and super happy and thankful to be here to discuss how FY26 operating and capital improvements budget. I just want to first start off by saying as we all know, it's definitely been a labor of love and a successful on-boarding. It's been nearly six months since I began my position here. I'm super grateful for all the support of the county executive and all of the Council members. So I sincerely thank you. I want to also at this time Expresses to say a thank you to the former administrator Anita Vassalo Angelissa Halls who was the interim director and an amazing team here. That's with me who actually worked on the budget Presentation that you have in front of you today. So with that being said, I'm happy. We are happy to answer any questions that you have. Great. So I'll turn to the lead for libraries. Council member Mink. So yeah, as indicated, this is something I know that we've been trying to get done for several years now, and it's really, really, really important. And we are a community that is rapidly diversifying, and we need to ensure that we are actually serving everybody. And I know that this has been in the budget because our libraries recognize that with the materials that you currently have at hand that we're not adequately serving the full breadth of our community and when we really have to have improved language access here. Could you talk a little bit about the different, I know we have it some in the packet but if you could talk a little bit about the different languages that are going to be impacted with this funding? Absolutely and I'm going to turn it over to our Manager of Collections Felicity Brown. Hello, Felicity Brown, Collector Manager. So we currently have 12 branches that have Spanish collections. We've got 10 with Chinese, 5 with Vietnamese, 4 with Korean, 3 M-Harq, 3 with French, One with Ben Galley, one with Farsi and one with Russian. But these collections have been long neglected as you know. We have done a valiant effort to rebuild the Spanish and Chinese collections of the last two years, but there's so much more for us to do. We've been putting effort right now. We've been focusing on building up our team collection for Spanish, which has not existed before, and now it does. And so we're really hoping that with funding for this, that we can really serve our population better, and the way that they deserve. Great, thank you. So with this funding, with the funding that we have before us, would that be spread out and be able to touch? I know obviously you're going to have, there's some collections that are larger than others and some needs that are larger than others, et cetera. But are there going to be able to, which languages are going to be touched by this particular bucket of funding? So the intention with the full amount would be to touch every single one of these languages. We'd be ranging from Spanish being the most would get the majority of the focus. We'd add more than $50,000 just for Spanish there. And probably our smaller language closer to $3,500 just to get them started to rebuild them. Great and can you talk a little bit about the quality, the age of the collections as they stand now, why it's necessary to invest in updates? Absolutely. In the past year we've been doing a lot of efforts to better catalog all of these collections and try to separate them out by language. So it used to be sort of a lump browsing collection. We're trying to get individual cataloging records for all of them. But as we've been touching these collections, we're realizing many of these books are 20 years old. Some of them are things like 20 year old novels that were originally in English that have been translated into these languages. So they're not, we don't even have them in English anymore. We've seen some interesting copies of Disney that may be not authorized by Disney and other languages, things like that. It's not a quality collection for sure. And so, especially because we have a duty to provide accurate up-to-date information to our customers, we need to make sure that we're providing reading material in all of these languages that will support our communities in that way. Thank you. Yeah, when we have people who come in and they're looking for materials and this is what they see, a handful of very old ragged out of date, faux, Disney, you know, I mean, it's just, it sends, it sends a really bad message and it's also, I mean, that's aside from the fact that everybody needs and deserves quality content, but even just, you know, the weight that that carries the message that that sends is really antithetical to who we are and who are supposed to be here in Montgomery County. So this is important work right now on a number of levels. I know that you also work to align programming that is multilingual with the community that you're serving as well. And I know that you're thoughtful also about where the different language collections where you prioritize, having those to try to make sure that they're going to get the most used. But can you talk a little bit about the symbiosis between your programming and your language collections in terms of which branches you have them at, et cetera? Hi. Patrick from Interim Assistant Director for Program and Outreach. So, typically the programming follows where we're getting our attendees. And so when we've had specialized language clubs, like the French Book Group of Connie Morella or Spanish language conversation clubs in the branches, they tend to congregate where we're finding people coming in. Our hope with this reinvigorated collection would be that people visiting for those programs would also then be directed to those collections so that we can amplify them to people using our libraries for those languages. That's right, thank you. I know that I've worked with a group of families who was participating in a Chinese language program in a particular branch and really excited about that. And thank you for ensuring that that program was able to continue. But, you know, as we're getting people jazzed and bringing them in for that, for them to not be able to then go into the branch and check out libraries that are in that language is not what we want. So, really excited about having this in the budget and the work that you're going to be able to do. Obviously, if you had more money, you would be able to do more and so I know that this is but that you'll be able to use every dollar here so thank you. Awesome thank you for, yeah, going into detail on that. So that's one of the items that was an increase on 153,000 roughly for the world languages. The other is the continued demand of digital access to digital materials. And just wanna allow you to just, I know that we saw a huge, like a, that switched in COVID, like big time. I'd already been moving in that direction, but it like accelerated the shift. So now most of the materials are checked out. Digital and demand has gone up. Just anything you want to say I know in the package is 20,000 new customers signed up. I just want to, that's a huge jump in a year. Just if there's anything you want to talk about as far as I know you had to go from, you know, allowing people to check out 10 items to five and just the impact that has and this would maintain you at five is my understanding, right? That's correct. And it'll maintain us just at five. We have had many, many, from our customers who are not thrilled with that. When we explain to them the cost, they have been empathetic, but still want their taxpayer dollars, of course, being spent on the things they use. And it's been the thing that hurts the most about is that we have so many users of these items who do max out at five, you know, part way through the month and then they're looking for other materials and we suggest other ways for them to get them. But some of these customers are the ones who cannot come into the branches and we've also heard a lot about accessibility because Hoopla is provides audio books for those who can't read. You can blow up the text if you need it. There's a lot of accessibility features that they're taking advantage of. And they are letting us know. But we're hoping that we can maintain this level of five. It will do a lot to continue providing access to those materials. Yeah, and I'm glad you brought that up because I, you know, I have all my kids read, but one of my kids is a huge, huge like go to the library and text out like 30 things kind of person, you know, and you can only do that if you can go to the library and check out 30 things. And it's a big equity issue. And I was not, understand the cost but You know this is something I want to come back to because You know we've gone from we cut it in half so a hundred percent reduction I know it saves some money and I think in the packet. I just want to make sure it says 40,000 in March 2025. So it's like $40,000 is that per month? Yes. That's significant. You know four times 12, right? So you're talking about a half a million dollars a year to be at 10 roughly, all right? Give or take. But I do think when what's these all digital usage versus where we had a percentage rise? It continues to go up that our latest numbers are above, it's about 65% is digital usage and about 35% of our collections is print and physical usage. And it just continues to, it continues to track that way. And it's just from adopters, which is the amazing part. We have almost 2,000 new customers every month coming into hoopla, just to hoopla. And that doesn't even include our customers who are using Overdrive as well. We have people using both systems. They use them for different things. Our Libby app allows you to put things on hold so maybe your best sellers are on there and then hoopla is where you go while you're waiting for that book to come in. For the it's the middle of the night and I need something to read right now. And hoopla also provides a lot of streaming services which has been really important as streaming services get more expensive for personal use. You could watch television shows, you can watch movies, you can watch things in different languages as well. So it really just fill a gap in our collection having those materials. It also provides us digital circuits for things that we may not have an addition of in print, but sometimes we'll have it as an access through Hooplin instead. Do the, so how do the five checkouts work? So if I come in and I go online and I check out five things, am I done for the month, no matter what, even if I'm done with them? You're done for the month, and so tonight at midnight, your account would reset for the first of the next month. There are a few little things we offer to people that we can get bonus boroughs at the end of the month. There'll be a select list of things that they'll let you check out on top of that. But it is really limited. Once you hit that five, you're done and you have to go seek a different resource. Well, I'll signal, you know, interesting. My colleagues thought it's down like, I'm not going to do anything today, but there's nothing before us. But I think this is something we should come back to. As the demand continues to shift, I think we need to recognize some of the serious equity issues and accessibility issues and usage issues related to the difference there. So yes, Councillor Mourning. I'm wondering if there are any savings associated with the decreased use of, you know, as people are shifting over to digital, does it? Maybe it's so, maybe it's not anything that would be significant enough, but like do books last longer? I don't know. Is there, you know what I mean? Is there, is there any, or is it, are we solely looking at as digital ramps up as solely an increase in cost? The problem is all of our usage is ramping up and people still want the books. They still want the print. And we, as we look at our resources as a whole, we're trying to figure out how we can serve everybody the best we can. And so we still need those books on the shelves as well for those customers. And we still need the resources online for the middle of the night customers. And so it's just trying to meet everyone where they are, where they are when they come to user services. Do you have the numbers for your overall increase? I can get them for you, but for next week for sure. Great. I mean, it's awesome. It's great. And thank you and congratulations and all of those things. It just reflects what a fantastic job you're doing and how important libraries are. You know, just money is so tight, but obviously, but this is something that we should certainly keep an eye on. I mean, five books. I've last my kids like three days, you know. So. My daughter, like one night. The best $55 million in the budget maybe. A lot of people get great usage out of libraries. So thank you for all that you're doing. So I think without objection we will accept the kind of executives operating budget. Do you want to talk separately about the two CIP items? Sure, thank you. So picking up on page eight of the staff report, there are two CIP items for the committee's consideration. The first number 2.1 in your packet is for the Clarksburg Library. Subsequent to the committee's approval of the previous amendment for the Clarksburg Library. The executive has transmitted another amendment that reflects a cost increase of $20,000 over the six year period, just to accommodate the addition of $20,000 in state aid. Just for clarification, the amended line in your packet indicates that the change from approved is a drop of $160,000. The previous amendment was a drop of $180,000 to transfer some of the funding to the ADA project. So going from the $180,000 drop to the $160,000 decrease is what reflects this $20,000 increase. Got it. We remain excited about the Clarksburg Library as does that community and good glad that we're on track. So I think without objection, it's not a big change, $20,000 because of state aid. So we will accept that. And then the second project, 2.2 on page eight of your packet, is for the 21st century library enhancements, level of effort project. This is an overall decrease across two amendments of $1.155 million over six years. And there's two different amendments here. So the executives January 2025, Transmittle, recommended a shift of $31,000 per year in current revenue from this project into the operating budget and so that is budget neutral, that shift and that's reflected in the operating budget as well. The executives March CIP amendments reflects a further reduction of $200,000 per year beginning in FY26, also in current revenue due to underutilization in this project. MCPL has provided some information about the potential impacts of the reduction in $200,000 per year beginning in FY26 for this project with the project being intended to fund technology enhancements such as the automated materials handler for sorting and processing books in the library system. So the only other thing I'll add is that if the committee wishes to restore this $200,000 at least for FY26 since this is current revenue that would be added to the reconciliation list since it has an operating budget impact. Got it. Any context that you all want to provide on that, sir? Hi, Maddie Schellhart. I'm the digital transformation manager. I just wanted to advocate a little bit for that funding. We have long range projects that are massive infrastructure upgrades that take sometimes a year to two years to implement. And so when we're looking for, when we're looking ways to use that CIP funding, we're putting together research, we're doing RFPs, we are interviewing vendors, and sometimes these projects take a long time. So the automated materials handler project is probably gonna run between 400 and 400, 400,000 and 500,000 compared to some comparable systems. That's a large piece of technology that essentially sorts and manages our physical collection. We have about 8 million physical items circulated every year. It would allow us to be significantly more efficient in managing our physical materials. It would reduce weight times for physical materials and it would allow us to reappropriate seasonal part-time staff to other operations within the branches. And so, yes, while we have not utilized that funding, we did have plans for it. And so, I, while we have not utilized that funding, we did have plans for it. And so, I just wanted to advocate a little bit for that. Sounds like some of the plans include things that improve service inefficiency. And where was this taken out of which year? Fiscal year 26. Yeah, so it was at a neck, yeah, okay, that's the drop to 546, okay. And could you just talk a little bit, you mentioned the increase in physical, the wait times. Just talk a little bit more about that. What are the wait times right now for physical books? We talked about it on the digital side, but just- So right now, our physical books, they move through the system by hand. Someone pulls it off the shelf. It goes in a truck. You've seen it happen. You've come to the Seaward the Magic Happens. So they come into our warehouse. We sort them there, and then they go back out on tubs. Currently, the data I was looking at this sporting It takes about five, usually about five days, three business days to do this, but they're all sorted by hand. We have about a dozen seasonal workers who do all of that sorting. And so the intention of this would be to see if we could make that even faster, and get things to people. You know, people are used to two-day shipping. They want that from their libraries as well. Okay, well, I don't know if my colleagues have any comments on this. This would be an addition to on the reconciliation list or if you anything you want to say on this. We don't have to, but I'm just asking if the leaf libraries has any comments or Councillor Arboris. I mean, we're still waiting on a lot of information about where we stand exactly in terms of revenue, in terms of what's even possible and what's not possible. All right, that's true. That's a CFU. Well, I mean, my concern is that there's operating effects. And so, yeah. Yeah, no pressure. You made your case. It's important. And it's something that, you know, I'm sure we'll have to come back to, but I wanted to let you talk about it, because it seemed to me as something that could help in other areas too. It's not just an outlay. It touches a lot of different things, as you mentioned. But we got to make tough choices in this budget, so we get that. Okay, so But we got to make tough choices in this budget, so we get that Okay, so I think with out objection we will maintain the C's recommendation um And just where's the next library to be up to to go through the refresh? I know we don't have DGS here, but Yeah, yeah, the masses is in process right now. BG, Brigadier General is over-spraying. And noise. We'll keep us posted. You know those are always like great events. I love being at those. Council Member Alvin. Thank you. Just first of all, thank you all for being here. Thank you for your continued leadership and commitment. Our family are huge fans of the services that you provide. I don't think there's a weekend that goes by that we don't spend time in a library somewhere. So thank you all for that continued leadership. I would love to have a follow-up conversation possibly this fall. So we know that a number of our county residents ascertain services to help with job searches within our library system and I know you all work closely with Workforce Montgomery. It's not appropriate now. We have a lot to get through today, but I would love to have a longer conversation on what we can do to further support you all and providing assistance to county residents who find themselves in that circumstance or county residents who find themselves under employed with an opportunity for more learning. So look forward to a follow-up conversation on that. Absolutely. You guys have continued to step up on that regard and with COVID and so many other things. So, all right, with deep appreciation, we say thank you and yes, Ms. Labyrinth? I just wanted to point out that there are some reductions in the packet where those accepted in their totality, I just want to be clear about that. Yes, thank you. That was the intention that we would be accepting the C's recommendation and the additions and the reductions. Yeah, one of which we discussed a little bit, but that is we did. Thank you all for being team players. Thank you have this. Next item is our Tacoma Park Library, folks. We're not done with libraries yet. It's Tacoma Park Library Payment NDA. And we have a great system. And Tacoma Park has its own separate arrangement, but also part of our great library system here. You sit wherever you like. So I'll turn it over to you Mr. Ambriner to TSU up here. Thank you. This is pretty straightforward. The executive recommends an increase of $39,963 or 21.7% from the FY25 approved amount for the Tacoma Park Library Annual Payment NDA. This amount is determined by a rebate calculation in the county code. You can see the calculation broken out on page two of your packet brings the total rebate for FY26 to $221,053.. Well, welcome. Good to see you again. Miss Jones, and then we have Mr. O'Med. Anything you want to add about to come with Park Library and anything. Press your button there. There you go. Gotcha. Thank you. Yeah, no. Thank you for having an opportunity to see and speak with everybody today. We exist in a bit of a liminal space compared to our county system. Great library word. Thank you. I try. But yeah, we do, we take a lot of pride in the level of service we're able to offer our county residents as well. The annual rebate from the county represents a pretty significant portion of our budget and while I know that amount is tied to the objectivity of a formula, we were happy to see the increase this year, especially as we prepared open a new facility in the coming months and as exciting as capital projects are. We anticipate a lot more foot traffic over the next fiscal year and beyond and these additional funds are an important part of being able to offer additional services with some flexibility. And because we do operate alongside the county libraries, we view our purpose as providing complimentary services rather than unnecessarily duplicating them. So to that end, additional funds for programming allow us to be especially responsive to the needs that are actually in front of us and to be able to pivot and to scale up our current offerings if attendance increases along with the traffic. So yeah, I'm here to answer any additional questions if you have any or provide any additional information. Well, thank you for that that you do all our great library as you know I've been there with my kids you have a great kids room and and just my annual reminder that if you check out a book from the CUME Park Library you have to return it to the Tacoma Park Library not to another library and otherwise it won't be where it's supposed to be. Any questions from colleagues? All right, so without objection we will happily accept the kind executive's budget which is tied to the formula and gives you about a $40,000 increase next year. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming in. Thanks. All right. We are now on our next item, our Arts and Humanities Council. Come on up and Miss Cummings is here with us. For this item and we see we have our Arts and Humanities folks, Ms. Jenkins. Missing for management and budget? Oh, yeah, no problem. Hello. So I'll turn it over to you, Ms. Cummings, to start us off. Thank you, Chair Joanda. Today, we are joined by Ms. Suzanne Jenkins, the CEO of the Arts and Humanities Council to discuss the Arts and Humanities Council NDA. The executive's proposed budget includes a $2,055 or 3% increase from the FY25 approved budget. This is the inflationary adjustment to non-profit service providers, which will be voted on as a standalone item by council. I would just note that on starting on page two of your packet, we have an overview of the FY25 grants that were provided with funds using this NDA. There are seven different types of grants. And you'll find on circles one through six of the packets, a letter from the Arts and Humanities Council with some information about an additional budgetary request they have, and their projected grant overview for FY26. This overview is also broken down on a table on page four of the staff report. Wonderful. Thank you for that overview. Ms. Jenkins, good to see you. Anything you would like to say as you, I know there is something you'd like to say. So let me rephrase. Good afternoon. I'll start with that. Thank you for having me. It's always a pleasure to be able to speak with you about our request. I think our request is pretty straightforward, so I'll just say that what we're seeing is an increase in demand. Not that we are asking for additional funding for increased grant awards, what we are dealing with were more applications coming in from new residents. I think it's I'm able to say that having been here both in the economic downturn of 2008 and then through the pandemic, I've been able to see some trends that I am noting are occurring now. And that is that often when we've been able to support residents through grant making in prior years, there have been many applicants who just don't need to come to our door. They're able to be more self-sufficient. They can do their own thing and they don't need our support. They augment the life of Montgomery County residents in vital ways without the support of the Arts and Humanities Council. However, during economic downturns, we saw that many of those residents who no longer were working, needed more support, came to us and asked for additional support. This is in a way workforce development, because we're talking about people who are carbenders and electricians and others who also support the arts and humanities community. We're able to do that for the organizations that we support through general operating support. So today we're asking for $500,000 more than the County Executive recommended. We're very grateful for his recommendation of the 3% increase. However, that will not meet the demand that we're seeing. You'll note that on one of the pages, I think that it is program and capacity building grants. I have my phone because I was asking my staff, right? That we have seen that the number of applicants has increased exponentially and for program and capacity building grants. We note that there were 46 applicants, but actually now we see that there were 52 eligible grants. So we see over time that we're just having more and more residents applying for grants. Again, not that we're increasing the award amounts as much as we're seeing new demand, new residents that need to be served. So I would hope that you would consider our request for $500,000, even though we are very aware of the very difficult challenges that the county is facing. But if you would consider an increase over the amount that has been recommended by the county executive We'd be grateful so that we can serve more residents who are asking for support And we know that these residents not only it's not only a workforce development issue But it's a quality of life issue that our residents have demanded thanks for that opportunity Well, I appreciate it. Thank you I think we can dispose of the 3%. That'll be as part of the larger conversation about 3%. But I think we are supportive of that. Thank you. And just I'll ask one question and turn to colleagues. So for every $100,000, I think it was said that would support 3 to 4 advancement grants, 8 or 8 or eight to ten artists and scholars with micro grants or a new round of Wheaton Cultural Project Awards. Because you just talk about the puts and takes there because I think, you know, just so we have an understanding of if something were to be added, what it would, what that would mean, given the demand that you're seeing. Okay, so advancement grants are big grants that organization needs, say for out, generally out of general operating needs. So if you have big technology enhancements that you need, like libraries we're just talking about, if you have infrastructure needs, these are the kinds of grants that support that. We don't get a high number of applicants, but the applicants that come have high needs in order to sustain their business and to become more competitive, I think, in the field. Other grants, program and capacity building grants, they support the smaller of the small organizations who may not yet be ready and often they are community based. They may not yet be ready for big general operating support grants, but they have a certain project that usually fills a certain niche and that project grants is really, really quite critical to the community. Others say in general operating support one and two, the only differences, their budget size, and this supports the overall health and capacity for an organization that are in those categories. So it's about where we seeing the demand more. One of the narratives was that we had, we saw that in the advancement grant category, there is a lot of need, but the competition was high. You can't have a very large organization with a $15 million budget competing against an organization with a $150,000 budget. But that was happening. And part of the challenge there, the constraint, was that the smaller organization had real trouble finding a match for that grant. That was one of the qualifications for the grant. So when we removed the match requirement, we got a lot more applicants from those really in need. They don't have to serve up a match. They just have to show that they need it. They have to demonstrate the need there. And by opening up that, we see less of the larger organizations because their general operating support is really sustaining them and more of these small, often time, culturally specific organizations who are saying, hey, I need technology, I need desks, I need X, Y or Z. So that's how we kind of think about it. We try to think Council Member Joana, we try to think about an organization's overall health the same way we think about our children's health. What is it that they need at any particular time in their growth? And we move our programs around to make certain that we are able to deal with everything from nascent organizations to the more storied ones and everything in between. It looks like last year you did 35 general operating support grants, eight advancement, 46 program capacity. And just the could you talk a little bit about the artists and scholars grant? Right. So the artists and scholars grants is really a fascinating program. We provide support so that artists can build their own practice. This is very important in Montgomery County because we live in a highly competitive region for artists. While Montgomery County has its own discreet number of artists in the DMV, there are thousands of artists. So being able to support those artists who live and work in Montgomery County is vital and allows them to compete in the DMV for opportunities that may be, you know, a call to artists or mural projects or public art projects that they otherwise would not be able to compete for. So in a way, getting a grant from you through us is a good housekeeping seal of approval that often artists, scholars and organizations need in order to attract other grants. Well, I remember having a similar conversation when we were in COVID about how, when, you know, with unemployment on the rise, with, you know, the health obviously, devastation, economic devastation, that making sure that we had investments in our art infrastructure, our institutions, the individuals, and we did that. We did a grant program just for that. Unfortunately, we're kind of heading in a similar direction. And I know you've been able to, you know, do this over the past year. So I want to hear what my colleagues say, but I would be interested in putting. I'm going to suggest I don't think we can do the whole 500, but maybe $200,000 tranches on the list. But again, not that to try to see if something can be additive knowing where we're heading in the value that this creates for our community, but I want to hear what my colleagues have to say. Thank you. Councilmember Mink. Yeah, I think, I mean, obviously I think it goes without time I'm going to say it anyway. That especially at a time like this when our arts and culture are under attack when our celebrations of diversity and of people being able to share their cultures with each other and having that be a positive thing and all all of those things are under such tremendous attack right now. That's a signal to us that we need to make sure that we really have a backbone there. It reinforces the importance of that work. At the same time, though, I think that one of the pieces that even putting that aside, that where we see just fiscally, a great return on investment purely from a fiscal sense, is in opportunities where we are going to protect jobs and create jobs. And that is largely what this work is while also supporting our values. So, as we've talked about on the HHS side, the investments in keeping people housed and along with that is ensuring that people have an income and increasing their income, like that's some of the most cost-effective work that we can do. That's it. Right now, it becomes much, much more. Again, fiscal should be secondary, but it's not because we're in budget season. So purely from a fiscal sense, it's just so much more expensive when somebody reaches the point where, you know, their business can't sustain, or they lose their other income, and they don't have the, you know, they don't have the capacity to work on something else to, you know, to get that jumpstart, et cetera. And we're seeing a lot of that right now, obviously. So I I do think that those are, as we head into reconciliation, that investments like that are some of the pieces that we should be considering and prioritizing. And so to me, this is very clearly directly in that bucket of workforce development, economic development, ensuring that people are able to maintain a living wage, ensuring that jobs stay jobs. And so I think it will be great outside of budget season to maybe do a joint session with Econ, where we can really focus on this and you can kind of share some of the stories. And I think it's very, it's going to be very compelling, I think, to everyone to really see some examples and understand that these are not grants that are becoming part of the annual budget, that these are grants that are helping people to level up or helping people to sustain through a tough moment. And that's what makes it, I think, such a compelling investment at this particular time. So to me, these are funds that are certainly worthy of at least consideration on the RAC loss ones we see how much funding we're actually going to have available. Thank you. Yeah, go ahead. I just wanted to state to your point, you know that the data that we get in for organizations is hard data. It's not conjecture. It's hard data. And right now, this sector in Montgomery County is employing almost 4,000 people. I've heard in the past that that's more than police, fire, and security combined. So when you consider that from a workforce development standpoint, I think you're right on target there, because we're talking about just sustaining people's livelihood and the cost of trying to bring someone up who has totally hit rock bottom. Our hope generally is that we help our constituents thrive. But in tough times, we just want them to survive. And I want to say to Councilmember Joando to your point, the hard work that we did during COVID helped us not lose one organization. We did not lose one organization. We had some mergers, we had a few acquisitions, but they were not lost. They were brought into other organizations as mergers and acquisitions. I expect we'll see that again, but if we let them fail, there's just no way oftentimes. I appreciate that, and I also want to lift up the point that Councillor McKinnell made. We're not doing this this year, but it's important to note that I think this would be one time funding as opposed to ongoing commitment. I think that also helps people understand who we are. Councilmember Avanas. Thank you. Start with the point of privilege I'm wearing a denim shirt today because today is National Denim Day. All right. Today's a day to campaign and raise awareness for sexual assault victims. A subject that was recently discussed in one of our Health and Human Services Committee and is on the rise, both locally and nationally and internationally as well. So, hence the denim. So, Suza, I love you. So, you know that. Thank you. And I do think that I know that you have been able to make a dollar out of 15, 20, 25 cents for a really long time. And I appreciate the comments of my colleagues, because I know that an investment in you guys goes a longer way and has a wonderful ripple effect. Having said that, we are in a really tough time right now. And we're about to make some really difficult decisions and sub-conversations that are about to start to, we're talking about increasing fees in our community use for public facilities. We're talking about increasing fees to offset the cost of some ambitious plans we have with on our, some other departments and agencies. So I appreciate and respect the request to add the two tranches. I also know the fiscal reality that once we do get a for full council and what I don't want to do is provide any sort of acknowledging there are a lot of moving parts. We don't know how much money we're going to have to deal with but I regretted in last year's operating budget advancing some some things that didn't make it through and giving false expectations. But having said that, although I'm not going to support this vote, and I'm totally cool with it being 2-1, I know that we're going to need to continue the collaboration over what's coming, and we stand ready as we always have to be able to lift up this work because we know how important it is particularly right now. But I respect the heck out of what you're doing and the request and understand why you're making it. It's just within that broader context is why I can't support this right now. But I'm very open to as we have conversations moving forward looking at other creative solutions. May I ask if there's any data or any information that we could provide that would make you think otherwise about your vote? Sure. You know literally and I think know where I live. And so I won't go there. But but I think I want to state that for the record. That's right. Oh, I will state for the record. I will not say that. That's right. That's right. That's invited. Yeah. But I would say the difference between serving organizations more deeply and serving more organizations, when we add capacity, just figuring out exactly how that plays out, because I know we're getting more requests, but I also know that you guys have done an outstanding job of trying to uplift as many organizations as possible and have really gone through some painful evolution to make sure that the resources are reaching more folks that are on the ground. And so I would be curious as to how you envision this being able to deepen some of those work. the resources are reaching more folks that are on the ground. And so I would be curious as to how you envision this being able to deepen some of those organizations or be able to expand the numbers you are serving. I would be curious about that. Well, we've done a lot of hard work in outreach. So I don't have my chart to show you right now, but I can get it to you, where I'm showing that for the first time we're funding areas never funded before. So we're gone from maybe one in Damascus, one organization in Poolsville, one in Darnstown to four or five. And that has been as a result of hard on the ground work, bringing artists into those communities, asking people who they are, what matters to them, what is their form of cultural expression. And you know the work that we talked about a couple of weeks ago about the cultural plan is unearthing communities that we have never heard from before. So Council Member, again, the request is not to enhance organizations that we already serve, but if you look at the chart on, well, I think it is four. 4. You'll see that this is where we're seeing an increased demand. Not that organizations are asking for more money, but that new organizations are coming in. And so I'm advocating so strongly because we've gone and done the work to to bring communities to the table Let them know these are taxpayer dollars that they deserve to be able to use however We hate bringing them to the table and then leaving them hungry and so this is the request Not simply to give more to organizations that we already serve. So I don't know if that helps any, but it really does. We are opening up our roles now and seeing so many more new and different people that we've never spoken to. It helps. It doesn't change where I'm at right now, but what I would suggest to you, because there has been a very healthy emphasis on geographic allocation of funds by this council, particularly by my colleagues in the northern part of the county who have done an outstanding job just highlighting the inequities in that level of investments geographically that we are making. So I would suggest to you between now and this is discussed before full council is maybe give some examples of some of those organizations and particularly the northern part of the county. You know, I know BlackRock continues to go through a number of challenges right now. They need some additional support. So if this could in some way support them by creating more capacity and funding organizations that could then have programs and services carried out of BlackRock, that could be a win-win. Then I'd be even a little bit more comfortable than I am right now. Well, I hope it's all right, but I'm going to push back on that a little bit and say that organizations the size of BlackRock, and I don't want to single them out, but you mention them, so I'll say that. An organization of a size like that has a lot more capacity for fundraising than say a very small, culturally specific Cambodian organization. I'll just throw that out because we've funded the Cambodian Buddhist Society before. And so when you have an organization with a full-time executive director, a full-time artistic director, a development director, they have the capacity to go out there and look for partnerships and relationships that are not available to a smaller organization. So while I want to support the largest of the large and the funding that's been recommended, we'll definitely support them with general operating support that they can use in any way they'd like. Where the biggest demand is coming from are these residents that have not had a seat at the table before. And I would ask that we at least feed those residents and then try to support other larger organizations through intersectional means. Are there other departments that can support them say if they have building needs? Is that something that DGS can do? If they have other kinds of needs, is that something that maintenance that our maintenance department can do? Are there ways to support each other in intersectional ways that still leaves funding for those new culturally specific organizations that are all over the county in places like I mentioned that we haven't funded before. So my pushback is not that I don't want to support that organization or organizations that are of any size. I do. But I think we also have a responsibility that we are asking people to show themselves, they are showing themselves, and rather than give money to organizations who are already receiving the largest, and that particular category is formulaic. And so they don't even really have to compete. They just have to show up. We're saying we really do understand what their needs are, but we also see the needs of organizations that don't have that same privilege. I appreciate in respect that. To me, it's not an either war, you know what I mean? And I was just, I was shooting from the hip there, just thinking, you know, because you had asked me, what would get me to be more intrigued? I understand, yeah. Killing two birds with one stone would get me more intrigued. Is to support these emerging organizations and then also be able to support existing infrastructure organizations I think could be a win-win. Well, advancement grants can certainly do that. And these could be used for, any of this money could be used for any of that. We don't endorse killing of any birds. Now we have a fence the denim. Right. We know that we're very. So, okay. So appreciate the feedback from colleagues. And I think we will to one, put the 100,000 on the reconciliation list with in two tranches, 100,000 of each. I do think when you come to full council, I was trying to find the date, but I don't staff will follow, I don't, when you're before, when you're coming before full council, when we're taking up your budget at full council, I think it'd be good to have those numbers you talked about. Absolutely. And a little more context in the geographic stuff. I do think that's a really good point. Absolutely. So that you can give it the best chance of getting through that process and then getting into the budget and totality, but really appreciate your work. Council member, may. And also at great point in regards to the geography and also any data that you can provide that kind of demonstrates the, you know, lays out the story that, you know, to show about how these are one-time investments or how these are, you know, investments that are used to, then, you know, the return on the investment they're used to help them be sustainable, you know, to level up, to provide more, et cetera. I think would also be really helpful. Great, I can do that. Awesome, so thank you. And then your overall budget recommendation, we are we accepted, so we'll see you at full council. But thanks again. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time today. I appreciate it. Thank you Miss Singh. I know you're sticking around. All right so our fourth item is we're going to move into the community use for public facilities. And I see our good friends from CupUP coming up. Oh, we have a presentation. All right. And we got Ramona Velpyrsin, Vanessa Lopez Quibes, Quibes, and Alicia Seng is with us still from OMB. Welcome to all three of you. I'll turn it over to Mr. Rodriguez Hernandez to TSO. Absolutely. Good afternoon, everyone. I want to thank our partners from the community use of public facilities for their time and effort and office management and budget in preparing the information for today's session. As noted, we do have a presentation from our partners at CUP for the item we are discussing today. So as you know, the Office of Community Use of Public Facilities is an enterprise fund where fees and charges are designed to cover costs related to its mission of facilitating the community's use of school and other public facilities. In 2020, Cuff contracted quality metrics to determine fee structure of visions and related recommendations as Cuff's fees have not increased since 2009. The study was completed in April 2024, and as a result of the study's findings and the interagency coordinating board for Cuff's recommendation, and the county executives' recommendation includes a revised fee structure and increased rate in fiscal year 2026, about 10 to 12.5% depending on the new three permit holder categories, and Cuff will present on the study and the findings and we'll dive deeper into their fiscal summaries as well. The county executive recommends a total of about $12.2 million in expenditures, an increase of $751,000 or $751,000 or $6.6 from the FY25 approved operating budget for Cuff. Due to the recommended fee increase, the executive projects fiscal year 26 revenues at 13.2 million, a $1.8 million increase or 15.7% increase, and the fiscal plan projects total resources at 12.2 million. The executive's recommendation does not include programmatic or staffing enhancements or reductions, however the proposed budget includes that 751,000 increase for compensation adjustments and required operating expenses. And these items reflect continuation of current staffing and service levels. Included in those costs are increased costs related to MCPS reimbursements and reimburseables. The operating budget equity tool analysis for the department states that CAF has opportunities to develop and sustain the infrastructure necessary to promote racial equity and social justice within the department and more information can be found on page 3 relating to their analysis. And now we have a presentation from our partners. I'll turn it over to them. Any comments you want to make as you misspell? No, thank you. Councilmember Joando, Albernace and Mink, we're happy to do this presentation. know that the difference this year for our budget is having the fee increase. So we thought it might be helpful just to do a few slides to represent what sort of boil it down a little bit. It must have been here before. And you haven't had an increase since 2009, just to be clear. Yes. Okay. Yes. And I will say, as we get the technology going up, we know how important I hear often, all of our offices do. I'm sure about the need and use of community public facilities for a number of, you know, whether it be sports or birthday parties or community-based events and fields. It's just a huge need in our community and gets a lot of use as I know you know and I know you'll talk about. But we have to make sure we're paying for it. And you are an enterprise fund which means everything you take in is what you pay for your services. So I'll turn it now that we have that up. I'll turn it back to you. Thank you. Let me say for the intro page, we're forward thinking. If you notice it says the date of this presentation is May 30th. Nice. That's so, I just- Why is it will be done by that? I just wanted to put that out there. But I'll defer to my colleague Vanessa Lopez-Cuevas and then I'll pick up a new way. Hi, good afternoon. Vanessa Lopez-Cuevas with financial. Sorry? Yeah, it's, but I'll have to be a closer. No, it's fine if I have to. Okay. It's pressed. Okay. Good afternoon. Vanessa Lopez-Cuevas financial administrator for Cough. So I'd like to, oh, it's tiny. Okay, so is our cuff balance, and then like to point out that in FY19, we had a very, very healthy, fun balance. It was close to six million. And at the end of every budget season, we would always reallocate resources to other, other different projects within the county. We've done the EOB carpeting, the Silver Spring Civic building flooring. We assisted in park field renovations. Also we purchased rec center furniture. So we always try to reinvest in the resources that the county had every year when we maintained when we had over 10% in reserves Which is the mandate that we're supposed to have so as you see the trend we kept We've been declining and especially during COVID and FY21 I did want to emphasize that we didn't have any community use the only community use we had and FY21 was childcare for some of the schools and not even all of childcare. So that's why there was a huge dip in 21 and we were very thankful that we had the Enterprise Fund because that's how we were able to still sustain all our personnel. We didn't lose any personnel during that time. Although we did allocate those resources a bunch of different people to different departments that were in need during the pandemic. So in 22, we went, we came back online, but we did see a really small, we never really got to people, people pandemic levels. Typically before the pandemic, we were receiving $12 million in revenue. And then after we reopen in FY22, we received $7 million in 22. And in 23, we received nine. If we go to the next slide, we can see our expenses. So our revenues drastically dropped after the pandemic. And then they've been slowly increasing every year to get back to pre-pandemic levels. FY19 was the last four year we received revenues as it was business as usual prior to the pandemic. So in FY24 we saw 90% of pre-COVID revenue. However, even though we're steadily, slowly going back to pre-pandemic levels, our expenses have been outgrowing us. We have MCPS reimbursements that we do every year and it's difficult to navigate because some of those reimbursements are done like two years in a year, some one year in a rears, and some are done the actual year that it's occurring. So we have seen a lot of increases, especially in MCPS staff costs, and our staff cost right now, when we put it on permits, they're the customer is paying significantly lower, in most cases. That's something else that that we just say more about that item in particular like what that means I know what it means, but like if someone rents a facility that what's the MCPS staff cost that you're talking about in the cost increase there? Okay, so Typically we don't charge the customer unless it's going to be like a large event. But say on the weekend, we have a mandatory three hour request. Like everyone has to have three hours in order to rent space during the weekend. So that means that the staff cost already rolled into the facility fees. Because we have some, anyone that works on the weekend from CPS, they have to get paid the three hours, according to the Union contract, they have to get paid at least a three hour minimum. So the fees are a little, they're slightly higher during the weekends because someone has to come in, they have to open the facility, they have to lock the facility and they have to be kind of like around, semi-around the actual permit holder and the gathering, but it's embedded in most of the fees. But if there's like a large event, then it just, if it's over a hundred or a hundred fifty people, which is depends on the event size, we have to put security and that's also a different fee than a building service worker, which is the building service worker is like the lowest paid worker and we pay like an average overtime rate for those staff. So then when we do like quarterly, every quarter we go in and we see how much ICB workers work during that quarter and then we reimburse MCPS for all the people that worked during that time frame. But like I said a lot of times even when we add them as an extra additional item the customers always pay lower than what we actually reimburse MCPS. Right so the fee doesn't support what the cost is in some examples. We're losing every time. Got it. Yeah. Ready for next slide? Over there. I'm sorry. I just wanted to emphasize, the graph probably speaks for itself in terms of giving you an idea of all the different factors that go into our cost and the analysis that goes on. We do not have fixed cost. based on usage, which is why when we went through the pandemic and there were no permits being issued, there were no fees coming in. Vanessa mentioned the fact that we did have some childcare. We had a lot of field use because at that point, the only thing people could do was gather outside. But even with the field use, we tried to heavily subsidize that because we did have federal funding that supported that through our funds, et cetera. When it came to the indoor use with regard to the childcare, the childcare doubled up. So what normally would have been maybe 150 to 200 schools that would have been in use, it was more like 75 to 50. And again, the sizes were very small. They were considered distant learning facilities, so that students would be able to have a learning environment at the same time child care to support their parents' needs for being in at work. I will say that one of the things that assisted us significantly was our successful partnership with MCPS. Because MCPS was willing to forgive the reimbursements during a period of time that we weren't in the schools and we weren't seeing the fee that we would normally see. So we were able to maintain our enterprise fund, even though we weren't able to grow it. We were able to maintain it, and then we were also able to live off of it for personnel costs,, etc. during that time period. I mean, just to give you an idea, I think Councilmember Druwanda, you might have been seeking some idea of numbers in terms of how much staff costs versus how much permit fees. We have situations where staff costs are like $25, $29 an hour and permit fees are like 11 to 15. So we don't incorporate, we're not able to recoup all of our cost. We do make it up at times when, as Vanessa was saying, we have a weekend, large event, and there's the need for security. There's the need for some other cleaning. So we are able to charge more so it will cover more of the costs that are incurred. But it's not a tip for tat definitely. Next slide. To specifically focus on the fee study recommendations, and while I'm talking about that, let me make a slight correction, we had a long history with the fee study. We began in 2020, right before COVID, trying to solicit for a procurement contract and that's why the date that Ms. Rodriguez Hernandez, did I say that properly, mentioned 2020. Our fee study, this fee study actually started in 2023 and concluded in 2024 because we had a false start in 2020. We weren't able to be successful in getting an actual individual vendor to successfully do it. So we had to start over again and that's when it actually happened. But as we concluded in 2024, we had a consultant who made some very successful and I felt appropriate recommendations implementing a simplified fee, is not only going to benefit the, in our opinion, the customers with regard to the fact that categories will exist that are now three categories as opposed to 11 categories, but it also will benefit our software platform, which I'm sure you've heard complaints from the community about in terms of being able to navigate, in terms of being able to keep it performance level at peak performance. And as a result, we are now hopeful, and so far our test runs have suggested that these three categories is compared to 11 or more categories are much more helpful to the processing, the performance levels are up, and so we're optimistic about that. The fee increase of 30%, initially, I think we had in the notes that the vendor, the contractor suggested that we do a big bite at first and then small bites over successive years. So it would look more like 28% off the top and then 2% for a year or 1% for successive years. The county executive as well as Cuff and the ICB felt that it was much more amenable to our community especially in light of times that we're going through if we did smaller by each year as opposed to one big bite. As you know there was a distinction between what the ICB recommended and what the executive recommended. Largely, that was because of assessments we did subsequently with OMB that told us in order to get to where we need to be to have an enterprise fund that's not at zero or negative right off the bat. We needed to do a shorter period of time and we need to do a larger percentage. So that's how the distinction happened. Realignment of fees with grass fields. That's been something we've been trying to do with Montgomery Parks for years. They have increased their fees, we have not. And as you know, I think Council even made a recommendation to cut over the years that we become more aligned. Because it's better for the community, it's easier for them, it's more fair, and that's what we've done. just to non-school facilities such as government facilities to allow for free permitting fees. The idea there is currently cuff is permitting government facilities at the same time that we're permitting MCPS facilities. And our government facilities amount, MCPS is like 89, 90% of our revenue and our real estate that we're permitting. However, government facilities are about 1%. So as the consultants were looking at how we could maybe build in some equity into what we're doing at the same time of raising fees, they suggested that we do some low hanging fruit cut and that that would be to make government facilities free. But as we all know, free is not totally free. What would be free in under our proposal is any permitting fees that you would normally pay that you'd be paying now to permit a government facility would go away. So the permitting fees go away. However, if you need security, if you need cleanup, if you need staff, those costs would continue. And to be honest, the majority of our government permits don't even require the community to have those costs. So it will to a large extent be a cost savings for our communities. All of our government facilities are located in your public transportation. They're located in your parking. So it makes it very convenient and accessible. So we took all of that into account when we were deciding about adopting that recommendation. And then charging different fees for out of county. That was something the executive has been very supportive of for years. We looked at commercial users and we looked at nonprofit out of counties. So the idea being is that our facilities should be for the benefit of in county users. and that's where they came from. Next slide. As I mentioned, we've narrowed it from like 11 categories to three categories, category A, and all of these categories apply to facilities that are MCPS facilities that are permitted. Before and after childcare, nonprofit, cultural schools and government, that's category A, category B, nonprofits and county residents. And these are the two lower categories. Those would be the two that we're recommending the executive is recommended a 10% fee increase for. And then the public schools, commercial users, out of county residents and out of county nonprofits is what the 12% is recommended for. Next slide. So category A and B, your 10% category C is 12. Yes, 12.5. 12.5, good. And the next chart is just for your purposes of understanding the actual logistics of the price differences. It gives you the previous rates, it gives you the proposed rate. It tells you the category at the top who it applies to before and after care, child care, nonprofits, and then nonprofit county residents and then commercial and non-county residents. These are all by hour. Yes, hourly rates, thank you. So just for example, if you're using an MCPS cafeteria and you're before an afterschool child care or a nonprofit it was $13. No sorry previous rate. Yeah so talk about the puts and takes there so the proposal excuse me it's $24 and that's going up to 26. Yeah I think it could be a little confusing Let's lose a a different one. What we're trying to show is, in addition to shrinking the categories, we also took out some of the differentiations, for example, with the first one you talked about cafeterias, we used to charge a different rate for before six versus after six. And now it's just one rate. And that proposed rate is $13. And again, the previous rate for weekends was $24 for cafeteria. And now the proposed rate is $26. So it went up from, it was 10.50 before six, it was 12.50 after six. Now it's just gonna be 13 total. Exactly. Anytime, week day. Exactly. And then the weekend rate goes up to 26. Right. Okay. And if you'll notice, that's like a 50 cents difference when you talk about the after six time and the proposed rate increase. So a lot of these categories are like that and some of them because they're grouped together and we we can't demonstrate how, for example, cultural schools rent multiple facilities, multiple rooms within a school. The way they're bundled could actually amount to with this new categorization. It might actually amount to some cost savings for them. So I'm sorry. Go on. No, I do want to emphasize also that in order for us to get rid of the before six and after six, we actually just took the average and then we did the 10% based on the average or whatever the increase was based on that average. So most people actually do use the space after six. That's the majority of the reservations and they're only going up slightly. But then if you look at the non-profit for the gym use, people that were doing after six were paying 17, and now they're gonna be paying 15. So in some cases, it is lower because we had to combine to the categories and then take the average from both of the categories. So. Appreciate you point that out. Next slide. And let's just further questions up there. Well, we'll probably have some. Okay. Continue to go. Finally, we wanted to make sure that we highlighted our racial equity social justice efforts. It would appear that we are staying in the same level because each year we talk about our grant programs such as the Facility Fee Assistance Program and the CAHP Program, which is the Community Access Program for Silver Spring. However, we have added some additions that we've seen increase our outreach. Our outreach communications manager has done quite a bit through podcasting and through blogging and through social media and some other outlets and just visiting locations to identify where there are needs and to try to market in those areas. We additionally are hoping, especially with a fee increase that we optimistic you're going to support, that we would then be able to have more funds to be able to do more outreach and to actually accumulate some of the data that has been mentioned multiple times to be able to structure the outreach and the opportunities that we have like schools that are being utilized fields maybe that aren't although that's not many because fields are very much in demand. So my point is we're still striving. We're not staying stagnant. We are very interested in willing to invest in racial equity and social justice measures and we intend to continue that. Outrage. Awesome. Thank you so much. So our considerations here are questions from colleagues and then our decision points are what we want to do with the fee increase, correct? Yes, and then the counting secondives enhancements. Not that they don't have service impacts, but there is a table on the top of page four which shows the additions. Got it. Yes. Thank you for that as well. Yes, so the recommended budget changes on page four at the program exit. Alright, so I'll start with one and then I'll go to Councilor Alvinis and Councilor Make in that in that order. You mentioned the frustration with the reservation software. I appreciate you acknowledging that on the front end. I've heard about that one a bit. What is, so what are the plans there? One of the limitations is the demographic information, right? When you talk about the racial-economic social justice that often comes up. So when will those updates, when will it be able to capture that information and what are the updates with changes to that system in software? Well, before the challenge was the fact that the system was so overburdened with all of the different fee compilations we had, that it was not able to delineate also the way we capture the information was not conducive to easily accomplishing that data. We had situations where households get permits and they get get permits for events that could be a large event. It could be a small event, any number of things. Particularly if there's a vendor that is getting the permit, we don't know what the complement looks like of the community that they're serving. They, if they're part of the Facility Fee Assistance Grant Program, they do have to fill out paperwork after the fact to tell us how many children or people were served in whatever community they came from. If they had any specific outreach to at needs or challenged communities, they have to identify that because that qualifies them. That shows that they met the requirements of the grant. However, on a general basis with our applicants, with our permit holders, we don't know exactly what their demographics look like. Yes, most of our permit holders, their organizations. So then, even if it's like a PTA meeting or if it's something like a Boy Scouts meeting, it's the permit holder is putting in information in the system whenever they create the account. But if it's for an organization, the demographics it's going to say NA because it's an organization. So unless we contact them directly and say we'd like to know who are the participants in these events, it's not going to be really easy for us to get that information. So if it's like an individual that, okay, a family is renting maybe like a field for an event or something, you know, maybe like that we'd be able to see who's participating, but it's really difficult to get that information since we have so many organizations. And what, and I appreciate you talking, illustrating that. The reason I ask, obviously, you might imagine, because we're trying to decide, OK, how does that shape our target subsidy work in our outreach and who has access and how we're weighing that? You know, and so it's, I understand the challenges, but that's something, you know, you hear about a lot, right right? Like I can't get access. I'm a small community-based organization that serves, you know, a underserved population and then, you know, obviously if they're applying for the facility fee, you get some of that information. But we just, we have to find a way to make progress in that area. I will say that we're hopeful that our scheduling platform is going to be able to accommodate more requests for that information. So example, we could put queries in now that would ask people, it would be voluntary to report as they're getting their permit what their demographics look like, what the target audience or what their actual audience is, before, because of the overwhelming task on the system of dealing with our fee structure and the other issues, the performance was significantly impacted. However, now it's freed up a lot. And we're being told by VSI, which is the owner of the platform, the software, that we will be able to get better performance and we will be able to query more information from that. So that's our hope. We also have our outreach manager working with Data Montgomery and working with our offices to county offices to see how we might be able to give them information that they then could call a gate, call? I'm sorry. And Kobe? Kobe? Whatever. We threw it. I was like, call, call eight. You said you had a couple words, but it sounds like first word. Go through. Got it. Yeah, yeah. So that they would be able to go through it and maybe give us information that we could use. All right. I'll ask one more question. I'll turn the councilman Robinus and make the consultant recommended the 30% increase over one year. I get I think I understand like if you're going to hit somebody with an increase in the has been since 2009 they're saying just do it so you don't have to have multiple years of increase. I also understand what you said that given where we are you wanted to to, so you can just talk a little bit more about the reasoning behind. So what you said is it sounds like that would be you'd be going up 10% a year for the next couple of years. 10% and 12.5% over the next three years. Yes. Because one of the recommendations that the consultant made was that we not just do a one or two or three bite at this, that in order to maintain the enterprise fund and to operate as an enterprise fund entity, we need to have regular intervals of fee increases. We can't go another 15 years without a fee increase. So even if we did three years of successive 10% and 12.5% for three years and we got to a good point, their argument is you still are going to be most likely behind or running up against the CPI and other challenges that will prevent you from being able to continue to grow. Don't forget, the significance of the reserve fund is to be like the rainy day fund and And if we didn't have that fund in the higher percentage that we had it in, when we went into COVID, we would have been bankrupt a long time ago. Good, good, exactly right. And we appreciate our MCPS partners for working with you during that period in particular. Okay, so, uh, turn to colleagues, but obviously we have to determine whether we want to go with the executive plan, which as you mentioned was 10, 10, and 12.5 for two for the next three years. And put us on the quickest path, I guess, other than doing 30% now to solvency. Obviously, you're an enterprise fund. You have to be solvent. That's the whole point. So we have to make sure. And I really appreciate the fee chart, because it's not a one for one. These are, in some cases, in most cases, you're talking about a couple of dollars. Sometimes it's a decrease, but in most cases, one to two to three dollars per hour, or 50 cents in some cases increase, so just for context. Council Member Abhinard. it's a decrease but in most cases one to two to three dollars per hour or 50 cents in some cases increase so just for context. Councillor Brabana. I'm a spell person and hello team. So I'm having like complete deja vu because I was not on the ICB because the Department of Recreation doesn't officially have a seat because they're considered to user even though they're a sister county agency, but they do have a representative at all the ICB meetings and that representative used to be me. So and former ICB member Grace Rivera-Oven is actually in the audience. And she was on the ICB and I was in the room when the decision was made in 2008 to make the increases in 2009 and ironically, sadly, that was in the midst of the recession when worse possible time to be raising in fees because people's discretionary incomes was going so dramatically down. But because of the enterprise model, you all didn't have a choice, literally. And so, and here we are all these years later and we're about to go through the exact same thing, which is so ironic. And I know that you had wanted to implement these just prior to COVID, but obviously COVID happened, everything got turned upside down, and we were not in a position then, but obviously all things being equal and in retrospect would have been better to start implementing these increases then, because that would have put you in a better position now, and then we wouldn't have had to make this change in the midst of what we know the cliff that's on the horizon. So the timing does stink. And with regards to the software, I mean, I'll just say it, there just isn't anything off the shelf that takes into account the unique operational nature of Cuff. It's always an element of a different booking software platform that may work for recreation or may work for the parks department, but doesn't work particularly well for the community-used for public facilities. And I've been saying this for a long time now, I think we need to build something that is true to what you all need rather than continue to pay licensing fees for software that doesn't meet our needs, and then the consultant changes, and the promises and commitments that were made during the process aren't, turns out to be true or exaggerated. And so I just feel like we're just spin in our wheels all over again. And so I know that's not before us right now, but moving forward while I'm around, I'd be very open to an even more creative solution than the one you've already provided on identifying a software platform that will work better for residents moving forward. With all of that as context, they do have a lot of questions about this proposal. So I understand and respect the thought that outside organizations should have to pay more, even nonprofits. But there are some nonprofits, for example, Open Door Sports, which is based out of the District of Columbia, has a chapter in Montgomery County. But I'm not sure if their 501C3 is actually in fact established in Montgomery County because I was just looking at their website and it's all DC focused, but they do an outstanding job serving our community for people with differing abilities. And while there are other organizations, including our incredible recreation department that are providing similar services, the services that some of these families receive are just based on relationships and trust, and open door sports, one example, there are many others, does it really well. And so I would hate to see them just because they're based in DC have to pay more, even though they're serving 99% of the clients they're serving in the county are county residents. Open door sports, they're nonprofits. But now they, we give them, actually for FY25, we did a FFAP award for them. I think 2500 if I'm not mistaken, but they're gonna remain in category B as another profit. Okay. they're categorized. You're only, so then I misunderstood. You're only talking about four profit organizations and out of county. Right. Okay, then I misunderstood your slide. They're gonna fall into B, nonprofit. Yeah, but nonprofits are still gonna have to pay more. They're gonna pay slightly more. They're gonna be in category B if you look at the chart on slide 7. So they're still going to get a 10% increase from the nonprofit status that they're already paying. So those are the fee increases that they're going to receive. So open door sports for instance, they use the gym a lot I think and they're going, they're going to decrease. It then instead of paying $17, $17 after six, if it's a week, they'll be $15, it'll be less. And then on a week and it'll be $4 more. Okay, that's helpful and definitely makes a difference. And I do think, you know, obviously we have to reflect the reality on the ground. You all are an enterprise fund and until this council and a future county executive changes the model entirely we're stuck with what we've got here And and we do have to keep pace with with the ongoing fees And I think it's important to note Well, I'm gonna ask does this mean any Program enhancements like if if somebody is paying more of fee, does that mean they will be receiving on some level a better service? Does that mean more maintenance of fields? Does that mean contributions to a software platform that's much more user friendly and effective? Or is this just sort of status quo to meet your you know, your ongoing demands? Well, at least at this point, based on our discussions with OMB, it's going to be status quo. But as we have demonstrated before in the past when we had a healthy enterprise fund, we always recycled or reinvested into our resources. So we have put gates into MCPS facilities to keep separate classroom separated from public areas. We have done things with the regional service centers, with the executive office building, with the council office building. We built the auditorium that's on the first level. So we do plan to reinvest. Mm-hmm. And as it stands right now, after the second quarter for the quarter analysis that we did for FY25, we're looking at an enterprise fund balance of 200,000. So we're very low. Yeah. So as I think in FY26, it's just going to be trying to rebuild the 10% reserve. But after that, I think we can revisit trying to see what we used to do before and reinvest into different projects and whatever the need may be. Well, in the good old days, when the enterprise fund was healthy, we were able to support more nonprofits. We provided a healthy subsidy because that was when the Silver Spring Civic Building first came online wildly popular, blew everything away, but people couldn't afford it. And it really helped underwrite the cost for organizations to have access to such a wonderful facility. And it's still so heavily used. I think my colleagues and I think about it, we probably spend more time there in the Bethesda, Marriott and Conference Center than we do sometimes some weeks at home. Absolutely. So, anyway, so I appreciate that. Just a couple of more questions. Our Citro-County agencies pay into the fee because they're considered nonprofit organizations, so Department of Recreation I know pays into the fee, so they will have to pay this increase as well. Just moving parts here because we haven't passed this but I don't believe this has been accounted for in their budget. If the increase is made, I would just ask Councillor Muchwanda who also serves on the PHP committee to please make sure that Recreation's budget reflects this change if it's passed otherwise they're going to have to rob Peter to pay Paul which which isn't fair. Let me actually ask one pocket out on that point. Do we know that, because we did Rex budget just recently, and I know Director Riley and team are here, I would just hope that that would be connected. All right, we got old people. Now just note on page 12, there is a chart from our Department of Recreation. That states that their projected amounts would increase about $34,000 this upcoming fiscal year. So just 34,000, that's okay based on these- 34,000 other increase. Increased based on these fee schedules, which is incorporated in their budget. Yes? Well, at the time, I'm sorry, Alicia Singh Office of Management and Budget. At the time, the budget was developed. The fee study was not completed, so the CE's recommendations weren't taken to account, but only I'm sorry, Alicia Singh, Office of Management and Budget. At the time, the budget was developed. The fee study was not completed, so the CE's recommendations weren't taken to account, but OMB will continue to monitor as well as the department monitor their expenditures to see how we can adjust for FY27. Okay, and I'm assuming Rex position, I don't want to assume, but you want to come up for just one second direct ride. Let's get you as long as we can get you. And the question would be 34,000 while not insignificant, which seemed I would think could be dealt with in one year, and the OMB could fix that going forward once they have a little baseline, but I don't want to assume that. So. And a note that we had our partners from MCPL here earlier as well, they know that there would be about a $10,000 reduction in revenues for them too. For them as well. Director Riley. Good afternoon, Robin Riley, recreation. Yeah, as Alicia identified, it came in, the study came in after what you'd have been submitted. We have met with Cough and OMB to sort of closely keep track of where we are. It all transparency could impact us at some point where we have to either ask for because we have a unique situation with the 111 fund which is our agency fund. I just gave him a remember. We might have to ask for an increase there or or have to not use schools and try to put things into our own which we do already put into our rec centers. It just might mean more of that and maybe inconvenience to customers where the class has always been. It's like a intermediate school and now it has to be you know somewhere else. It also takes to things offline more demand, you know, the scheduling harder. So we don't want that. I don't think I don't think you know. No, we don't, but we understand. It was after the fact and we'll do our best to keep close tabs on it and monitor it and see where we go. Got it. We'll keep us posted. It gives me a little less heartburn than it's only 34,000 that's not nothing but good to know. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. We'll keep tabs on this because it is tens of thousands dollars. So especially with hard to take blood from a turnip. So just, I said two more questions. One last question for now and then I make it back in the queue. So the world's about to change, right? I mean, the people's discretionary incomes are about to go way down. We're, I discussed this before. We're talking about fees and other categories. We're talking about the possibility of an income tax increase. I mean, all of these things add up. And, you know, one of my kids learned recently that the camp that they had signed up to work for is no longer going to be able to employ one of my children because they're going to have to downsize the size of their camp, because they're not getting as many kids registered as they originally thought they were going to get and the reason they're being given by appearances, they've been laid off and they were going to use the campus child care, they no longer need it. And so you're going to start to see more of that. And so this is coming at a challenging time for those reasons. And I know you know that, and I know you wish you didn't have to do this. And I know that you've done your best to minimize this and cut every corner possible. And it does make a difference that we haven't raised them since 2009. But it just, this gives me a tremendous amount of heartburn. A tremendous amount of heartburn. And I'm likely going to reluctantly support the executives recommendation, because I don't see another option at this point. But it is just lousy timing. Thank you. I agree with your sentiments. Council Member Mink. Completely agree with all of that. You have to mermain solvent and have been gone up in a long time, but I'm really concerned about the impact on those who can at least afford it, of course. So I wanted to better understand a couple parts of the chart. I'm looking at the increase in categories A and B for fields where we're going from five to 10. So that's a 100% increase. Can you talk about that? Well, we for field use, we were up $5. We've always been at $5 while our counterparts were at, they were always going up and going up. So right now it was recommended by the consultant for us to go to establish the same fee as parks. So parks I think right now if I'm not mistaken they're either $10 and they're about to go up to $11. But they felt that the consultants felt that it was necessary for us to be the same as our counterpart. Counterparts. I just have a point on that. It is a little bit of an apples and oranges comparison because the park's department is in a better position to provide maintenance of those fields so they're getting a higher quality product. That's why there haven't been as many complaints from the user community because they just understand. You know, you get what you pay for. That will be a dramatic shift in change to people who are going to have to pay a lot more overnight for a product that will not be any different than it was the night before. That's going to be a tough pill to swallow. So it is what it is, but I just wanted to make that point. I I'm really concerned, again, like you have to be solvent, and I don't know how much we can do right now. But I do think maybe some components of this warrant some more looking at as we go forward if there might be other, I know you've been doing a lot looking and then you're trying really hard but the I'm that category really concerns me I know personally many community members who use these fields because $5 is so is is doable for them and the parks fields are are not and and they don't and to get and to council merubiners this point like they don't complain about the quality, and to Councilmember Albinar's point, like they don't complain about the quality of the fields because they're grateful that they're able to, to bring these groups of kids to be here and stay busy and all that. And so, and this is going to be, you know, given that that's, you know, when we look at the weekend category, especially that, you know, they're going for, at minimum, they're going from $ 15 to $30 since it's a three hour minimum. Well, fields don't have minimum, that three hour minimum. It's for indoor space because we have to pay the worker to open the facility. Oh, God, I got it. You don't have to snap. Okay, okay. Got it. Well, I'm nervous. Well, that's something, but I'm nervous about the, I'm still nervous about the size of that jump. And I know that at least the groups that I'm thinking of are using it for more than one hour and so that, you know, that impact is going to be there. So it's not, you know, we have a 10% increase in most places, but this is a 100% increase. And I realize that that's because you all have worked so hard to keep that feel low. But I think that that has been done for a good reason that is still holds true now. Okay, the combining of the before 6 p.m. and after 6 p.m. into just one fee, which results in a decrease in fees for some people, but an increase in fees for other. Can you tell me a little more about the decision to combine it into one average and increase that as opposed to just increasing both of them maybe slightly less? Yes, we were, we took that into consideration of removing one of the categories because our system is very slow and it's very difficult to create contracts. Sometimes some of our staff members have to create a contract for a child care or just a contract that's going to take that six months for six months of use. And it takes hours and sometimes the system crashes and it's difficult because when we when we talk to VSI, they say, you know, your fee schedule is just really complex. It's, there's a lot of information that the system is sifting through to try to get this contract ready to go. So we thought that, you were in simplify in the fee structure, we thought that eliminating one of the category, eliminating both of the, one category to make it just, just one instead of two was going to be easier on the system and then also easier for our customers. Another thing is that our contracts are very huge. Like the receipts, they're like, they could be hundreds of pages long, like 200, 300 pages long. So when a customer is reading through it, it's hard to decipher because like you can have classroom and you can have it from 530 to 645. And then it's having two separate lines and it's different fees. It just makes it a lot more cleaner and easier for the staff and then also for the customer. So that's why we thought that was going to be better use of our time to have something more simple. And that, and BSI is also going to be much better, more efficient. I mean, ways that we can simplify the cup experience for clients, for our residents, is something that we, it's needed. At the same time, I think you said that most of the more, it was after 6 p.m. is where the bulk of the hours are, right? Yes. And so given that a lot of the, you know, that I mean I'm happy for those users who are going to see a decrease, but we're, you know, we're levying an increase now because it has been so, you know, for all of the reasons that, you know, that it's needed and it's legitimate because it hasn't been increased in two of the nine et cetera, et cetera. But we have, you know, there's one category in which we're going to be losing revenue. And I just, you know, but meanwhile, other categories that are going to hit some people especially hard. I'm also wondering the, for the, for category C, commercial and non-canny residents, where there is appropriately, I think, a larger increase there. Can you tell me about the factors that were weighed there when considering how much to increase category C, like if we increase it, too much now are we going to be losing private, are they're going to go elsewhere? And that's going to be bad for our residents, or can you kind of walk us through how we landed at 12.5? Well, when the consultants looked at the complexion of who was using and what, they found that there was a lot of use on the border areas like Silver Spring Chevy Chase where you had easy crossover from DC or Prince George's County or even higher up County with Frederick and What they found were fields where there's a significant shortage was impacted significantly by that and the thought was we already Haven't a shortage of fields for our in County users and if we're seeing that that's complicated further by out county users then perhaps we should make it less attractive to come across because there's a market there for our in county and they would use it if it was available but it's not available because we're seeing it's taken up by that. So that was a large part of what they looked at. The thought being that 12.5, and if you recall, when it was adopted by the ICB, it was a recommendation of 7.5 and 10%. So it would be 10% for the commercial users. So it was thought that the 10% would be possibly just enough to make them say reconsider, especially if it's a significant area like a field as opposed to just automatically saying, well, we'll just come across and use it. So that was largely what was involved in the thought process. It's always been an issue of resources. Even when you talk about the difference of 50 cents for some, and it not being much of an increase, and more like $5 for others. There's, there was a consideration done by the consultancies to what the users look like. And for example, with fields where it's a larger increase, we saw a lot of leagues that are using it. And they're making a lot of money off of our fields because they're charging a lot of money for the parents, for child for student to use it. So the impact yes is significant and it may disparate or disproportionately impact the one or two time user that's you know the local that just needs it for a couple of hours and and they're paying twice as much as they used to but the bigger impact is going to to be on the leagues and the other big users where we're seeing them get money off and the fields aren't being able to be kept up and there's more wear and tear as a result of that type of use. So the thought is we hopefully will be able to put money back into the fields to make them be more sustainable. Thank you. Yeah. I'm wondering why we don't want to do a larger increase for Category C. In order to have a less of an increase for Categories A and B. So if we look at fields specifically in Categories A and B, the increase there is 100%. Categories C, the increase is 20%. Now, Category C is already at $10 currently, so they're going from $10 to $12, but previously I think it was, I think it was appropriate that category C, that their rate was twice as much as categories A and B. Now they're going to be much closer, now they're going to be 20%. Apart, we've got, we're going from 5 and 10 to 10 and 12. So, you know, in order for us to get these numbers and also to project what type of revenue we were going to receive based on these increases, we looked at every single category and how many hours each category gave us for classrooms. So every single component you see here, we had, for instance, the nonprofits, let instance the nonprofits that's, let's just say it, I don't have the chart in front of me in the back of data with me, but let's say classrooms had, I don't know, 3,000 hours of use. So we had another chart that derived like, okay, with this increase, how much were we going to make it to? We have to also consider fields as only 6% of our revenue. So even if we did like a huge impact on category C, the category C in itself, it has the least amount of hours of all the categories. So even if we did do like a big push to increase in that category, it won't give us the revenue that we need in order to be sustainable moving forward. So yeah, all of the categories, we actually looked at each individual type of space and what type of organization and how many hours were in each individual category you see here. I understand that. I just wonder if that there could be, if more of the burden could be and should be put on category C as compared to categories A and B. And now I don't know. You have been over and I haven't, how many hours of use each, you know, are by each of those members of those categories. And, you know, I think that we, I don't know the way of time really to get into dollars right now, but I think that given that we are looking forward to multiple years of increases, I would like to have a much more thorough understanding of how we hit this balance because I think that we really want to continue to do whatever we can to keep costs very low for categories A and B and for category C, it seems appropriate that it would be like market rate, which to me, are just, should be wildly different numbers and it seems like the numbers are getting closer, closer together here and you know, acknowledging that doing a higher rate for Category C for the fields given that that's not that much of the proportionally of the overall funding that's coming in through fees, that's not solving all of our problems, but if you decrease the increase in fields for categories A and B, and then increased it, if you decreased it by a couple of bucks in categories A and B, and then increased it by five bucks in categories C, is there a trade-off that would make sense? Now market behavior comes into play, et cetera, et cetera. But I just would hope that we can really dive into this in more depth. Well, that's one of the reasons that we, the consultants as well as at the ICB, actually it was the ICB that came up with the plan to do it over multiple years so that we'd be able and assess it at the end of each year so that we'd have the opportunity to say well maybe we don't need if he increased this year or maybe we need more. I will tell you that the out of county users as I mentioned the barriers the coming across the line from Prince George's or Frederick or some other county, they will do a reassessment if it gets to be on the sweet spot, I'll say that. And they will choose to go back to their own jurisdiction because one of the reasons we've heard that they come to our jurisdiction is not only because the fields are easy to get to because it's right on the line, but they're cheaper than their facilities. So we're gonna become more competitive with them And that's going to, that could make us see a shift, you know. Right. And that's a market behavior question. And as you noted, some of that is OK, because we want more, our county residents are asking for more time on county fields. At the same time, we are making less money off of our county residents appropriately than we are from those out of county users. So it is a balance. It reminds me of the calculation that I, you know, a landlord would do and looking at their multi-family building. Don't love that either, but at some point there, you know, there is a calculation which says that having some vacancies is, is unfortunately better for them financially and if they charge way more and then the people that they get in who are taking up 80% of the building. They're making more than if they charge less and fill the entire building that is not a humane or ethical or potentially legal way to be making that calculation when it comes to housing. Not the video J's going to be doing anything about that, but when we look at our fields, I think making some of those calculations to ensure that we are getting the most benefit for our county residents is appropriate. So thank you. Really great points. I think I was reminded by council staff appropriately that we only are making a decision for the first year anyway. And even though you're the county executive and your intention is to do a multi-year, we do have to assess it every year and see what is happening and how the market responds and what the certain categories, how they respond. So we will be looking to do that and I think we can plan to come back in the fall to take a peek at that. That'll give you some time to get some initial data, assuming this does move forward. I agree with my colleagues. I'm not excited about a significant increase, but we haven't raised these fees in 2009. One of the things I think would be good to bring to full council just for context. You mentioned neighboring jurisdictions fees. If you're able to create side-side of what they are for similarly situated uses, I think that's relevant to the conversation as well. Councillor Marrago Noss. So I agree with that. Just to connect a couple of dots, though, and I'm going to ask for the same thing, but a little bit expanded. So the Council member, Funnygunzadez, is working on leading an effort to develop and comprehensive analysis of sports tourism in Montgomery County, and fields are a part of that analysis. We keep hearing repeatedly from parents and families, and I experience this myself. My colleagues in the Dias probably have to. People are going outside counties for tournaments and outside jurisdictions and they're tremendously frustrated by it. My family is and so I think the field conversation is broader than just the community use for public facilities because it's all interconnected. I don't know, we know that. But there's a cross section. And we also have the newly commissioned Montgomery County Sports Committee, which has been hearing a lot and receiving valuable information from the sports community and sports users across the county. And their mission is to help identify gaps in the system sports desertss where kids aren't playing but want to play but can't play it for different reasons. And so that's connected to. So I'd like to propose a broader deeper dive on fields generally because there are components of that conversation that we have to talk about. Tar fields, as an example, more lighted fields. We have to talk about historical use. Dare I say it? You know, there are components of this that we have to look at. And also I'll say this, if some of these users knew that they were getting a field of the quality that they're traveling to Frederick and parts of Prince George's and Northern Virginia for, it would make more economic sense to pay more than getting the car and spend hours and hours and hours traveling all around our region. And so I bet you there'd be an interest by some of these leagues in helping to underwrite some of this cost if it meant better access, better quality, more opportunities here. So I really feel passionately about this issue for a lot of reasons. And I look forward to a follow up conversation specifically about fields. But I appreciate the chair's leadership on this and reluctantly, yes, I do support the executives recommendation. Thank you, yep. And I think just we will definitely add that to the agenda for the fall. But just so I'm clear between now and then to get the comparison before full committee on the fee structure and other jurisdictions. I think that'll be helpful for colleagues. I too will reluctantly support the 10% this year with the caveat that we need to come back and see how it's impacting our service and who's signing up and I do think the move towards non-county and county I'm interested to see how that goes to I do think that is a good thing generally so are you in the similar position? Yeah. Okay so that would be a three oh to recommend the county executives level and I think we have One other thing that we need to know just there's no service impacts on the changes so without objection We'll accept except those adjustments And I think we are finished with Cup thank you And we'll walk them up MCPS for our last item. And it got hot in here, a little hotter. Maybe we open door back up now or something. Thank you, Ms. Rodriguez Hernandez. And thank you to our MCPS team for waiting. You are last but not least. And I'm glad that you're here. So before we jump in, hello, before we jump in, I just want to say a couple of things framing wise. Thank Mr. Pr. Proudi. This is our final work session on the MCPS budget and here in committee. And welcome to Superintendent and Board President Yang. And I think we have, I saw Laura Stewart, member of the board, and I saw Grace Rivera-Aubin as well. I think that's it for board members and welcome all the staff. So this is a big moment. We've got some context, and I know we'll go through some items, but at the end of this day, we're gonna make a refunding recommendation to the full council, and we're at a really critical time, where we have a lot of needs. We have a, I think it's ironic in a way and also sad in a way that we're here on the hundredth day of the current administration's presidency, where they are fired by former colleagues at the U.S. Department of Education are looking to disinvest and have talked in threatened schools. There were letters out today that our county executives spoke about. I don't know if the school system got any of those letters. I know you had previously received a letter talking about that they're literally going to charge elected officials with crimes who harbor immigrants who are not in this country legally and how that you will be subject as an elected official. If you, for example, put someone, have access to a homeless shelter for someone who's undocumented. And these are the times we're living in. We know that the needs in our school system, I think over the last several sessions, and indeed over the last year, we spent time in this committee going through the needs in our school system, the challenges, the opportunities. And we know that the need is significant. We also know that there has progress has been made, not as fast as we'd like to see, but a progress has been made. And we also are thankful that at the state level, it's not as bad as it could have been. As far as the pension shift, we do have some significant shifts that were made as far as the pension shift, but it could have been worse than it is. So we will talk about the tech mod and the other items today, but I just wanna say that it's important to me as chair. I know it's important to my colleagues on this committee and on the council that we support public education, especially right now. So that's, we entered this conversation with that context. Absolutely. The Superintendant has mentioned this a couple times. Emergent multi-lingual learners. We just talked about this threatening letter that we got, which is ridiculous and illegal from, in my view, and hopefully the courts view. But that population has grown by 37% in the past decade. Three times faster than overall enrollment. We know that more than 23,000 of our 160,000 students, including my daughter, received special education services. And that IEP referrals, which is the process that leads into that, have jumped more than 18% in just the last two years. We know that over 600 newly arrived refugee students have arrived in MCPS this year alone. 600. Minion Council member makes district, a minion specific school in her district. And we know that this budget is an attempt to directly respond to those realities. With 47 new English language development teachers, 688 new special education positions, and millions more dollars in targeted support for the schools serving our highest need kids that are in poverty. It's, you've talked about it as a broccoli budget and I'm probably still in the summer of your thunder, but it's also a budget that we know, no budget ever does, will totally meet the needs that we have, but we'll hopefully put us on a path to greater sustainability. We just had a presentation in full council yesterday, or two days ago, this week, which would have had to have been yesterday, I think. Talking about the contracts for our educators and how we need to keep pace and raise wages for our, we approved straw votes. We took straw votes and approved the contracts for our government employees. And to rousing applause, many of them were in the audience. Obviously, this conversation in your budget is mostly related in large part to these new positions, but obviously the increases for the budget for those folks. And we're not alone. This is the last thing I want to say. We are in a context where I was talking to some colleagues on the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors just over the weekend. They are dealing with a similar situation, a budget shortfall, they're trying to fund teacher contracts. They've proposed not only an increase in property taxes, but also an increase of potential meals tax. And they are really in a lot of ways comparable. They're similar size, 1.1 million residents, similar to biography. They're the wealthiest county in Virginia, where the wealthiest county in the state of Maryland and there are others, but I just think it's important to understand the context that we are not an outlier in the need to they're seeing the same increases emerging multilingual special education all that that's happening across the country and across the region. And I think in moments like this, where we're facing headwinds, we have to double down on what's most important. So I appreciate my colleagues' indulgence, and I know we all take this very, very seriously. I didn't mention it's on my sheet, so I'll mention it's school safety. 55 positions in this budget for additional security guards not increase pay, which we need also, but additional security assistance. Something we hear from often from our residents, so in our students. So we'll go through the options, we'll go through the packet, but I want to, since this is the last day, and I want to turn to my colleagues and see if they have any comments, and I know Councilmember Albinas does. Thank you. I completely associate myself with all those comments. We've gone over the need. We know the need. We see the need. We feel the need. We know the need is deepening. We just exhibit tremendous respect and all of us have felt the breath of fresh air just in the last seven months. And I feel like a lot of progress has been made in a lot of different categories. That is all for sure true. I guess what I wanted to comment on it before we have this this last conversation is the awkwardness of the timing. So and council member make alluded to it in our last talking point in our last discussion. There are a lot of moving parts right now in the council with regards to this year's operating budget as you all are aware. The county executive has pulled his request for a 3% property tax increase and is now recommending an increase in income taxes. But we have not yet received the final final analysis on exactly how much we would be receiving from what has been proposed, because it did not take into account the people that have lost their jobs in the last three months, and it does not take into account the people that prospectively could be losing their job over the next eight. And so whatever that number is based on is based on a number that will be quickly outdated. And so that makes it difficult, obviously, to take that fully into account. And there's an awkwardness to that. And because MCPS's budget represents such a largest percentage of any of the others, it makes this conversation also difficult because we're not exactly sure where we're going to land, just even 48 hours from now, once all the committees have completed their work. So, you know, we're going to be based the decisions today on the needs and the programmatic areas and the renegotiated contracts, which is Chair Joando noted. We support. But when push comes to shove five days from now and we have to take the straw votes on the final budget, I just don't want there to be an impression that whatever we decide today and we still have to secure full support from the full council means that the conversation is done. And it just makes it tough on the staff for sure, but I just wanted to note that because it's hovering over this entire conversation. It's, I'm losing sleep over it. So that's it. Appreciate that. And I think as folks know, since I've been chair, the decision here has never been the final decision. So it is the starting point of the decision. But it's a good point. This year especially, we have a lot of moving pieces as well, but we gotta control, we can control and start where we can start. Council member, make do you wanna say anything? Okay. I mean, we've been talking a little bit about return on investment in regards to these funding items. And I think that's, that we've had before us today. And I think that's the conversation that we have to carry through the reconciliation process. And I think within that conversation, our schools obviously come up really at the top of the pile. How well we're doing in our schools, impacts pretty much every other department and area that we have to fund across the county budget. So I'm not going to list all the way to think we hear all know that, but I think that that is top of mind for me as I'm that we're not going to be able to presume we're not going to be able to fund everything that we want to fund we already know that. And so we really have to be looking at things that have that ripple effect. if we don't make the investment, it's going to be costing us. And if we do make the investment, it's going to be ultimately saving us money. You know, often within that same fiscal year, but especially if we continue looking more years down the road. And so that's where I think we have to make sure that we remember that public education, our schools sit squarely at the top of the pile there. Thank you, appreciate the comments from my colleagues. So with that, is it Mr. Pratt? Do you want to see us up for what we're going to go over? And then I'll turn to the board president and superintendent to have any opening comments. Thank you, Councilor. I was president of the Toronto Doug Prattie, Senior and Legislative Analyst. We will be looking at the Tech Mod CIP project today, information for the committee on that in the packet and an updated chart, which was handed to you today. Updates in terms of some items that have not been discussed in the three prior sessions, These items are all once from the discretionary list. And finally, discussion and decision on funding options. There's a number of options provided for the committee to consider in the packet. Thank you, Mr. Party. I'll turn it to Board President Yang. Thank you for being with us. Good afternoon. I'm Julie Yang, President of the Board of Education. So first let me say, Chair Joando, Council Member Ming and Albinad, I want to express my sincere gratitude to this committee and also to the full council in your partnership and collaboration throughout this budget. Season, I know you understand our need. Looking at you, we see a nine MCPS current of future students and I and and until all the community member throughout this process, I hear people understand our needs. They do. And I also want to say that throughout this process, I also, we hear a lot. This has been a long process. The system start in the fall, the board gets it in December, and now we are in May. Throughout, we have heard a lot of community advocacy. And we also have heard a lot of comments from community about this budget process. They appreciate how easy it is to follow along through and they appreciate the charts that we may readily available have everyone. So we will continue to improve our budget process in terms of transparency and we understand that is where we make good decisions. That's where we build, and that's where we actually have accountability and equity. Now I will say that as the President of the Board, I pledge with this budget that we will continue to closely monitor and evaluate our programs and its effectiveness. And that's on top of our superintendents pledge that by 2035 that our schools will be four and five stars. So what we are saying is that we understand their huge needs in our system. We also understand there is tough financial times that we are facing and a lot of moving pieces that we are dealing with and we will be the good store of the public money and helped improve the quality of life of Montgomery County by improving our services to students and meet the needs of our families. So we are here to answer questions today and I thank you for the work you have done. And you'll continue support. Thank you so much, Ms. Yang. Dr. Taylor. I won't add much more because I think President Yang has covered it completely. I do want to thank this committee for your thoughtful questions and for the dialogue that we've had. As your new superintendent, it's been proud to serve you and to be a part of this process with you. I am very happy that we've been able to make our needs known and I wanna thank you for understanding and appreciating where we are coming from in terms of communicating both the good and the not so good in very deliberate and intentional ways. I also want to thank you for your signal to your employees in County Government that you support them. And I want to thank you for your acknowledgement that your Educator Workforce is also your County employee group. And even though your educator workforce represents three times the county government employees, we are all still one Montgomery County and we really are all one team and that we're in this together and recognizing county government employee needs, I'm confident that you will recognize the needs of your educator workforce as well. And so I thank you for your support in this process and look forward to the conversation today. Thank you so much Dr. Taylor, President Yang. So why don't we start with the tech mod, right? Let's go into that. Another example of a potential reduction here that has some impact, so we'll talk about that. And I think as we go through the items today, in addition to the last item with the funding recommendation, I think it would be really helpful for you and your team to provide as much context as you can about potential impacts here as we go through. While we're preparing that, we do want to stick a pin in one piece of the conversation that we'd like to conclude with, which is an update on our pension assumptions and information from the state, which is some good news that we're delighted to share with the committee, and will positively impact our budget outlook. That will take that sweetener at the end. Miss Cummings. Thank you. The technology modernization CIP project or TechMod is a central component of the MCPS strategic technology plan. This project provisions network equipment, devices, software, and access to new innovative technology for MCPS schools. As is shown on table one, on page two of the staff report, the executive recommended $28.3 million in tech mod funding for FY26. This project is primarily funded through current revenue, which is why we are considering it today. Council staff did receive a updated expenditure summary table from MCPS, which has been passed on in hard copy to all of you. We did not receive any time to include it in the report today, but it does provide more detail on the expenditure categories and will be included when the council considers the tech mod CIP. Great. So did you have comments on this as well? I just wanted to add in terms of the following pieces if you rate it please. So there's a number of different items that two different items in fact that the committee is to consider here. The county executive's recommended budget had a reduction of 1.09 million for the tech mod budget. At the same time the board of ad request on March 18th, supplemental appropriation of 1.4, $2 million from the federal e-rate reimbursement program, reimbursement program, sorry. And that this is not factored into FY25 funding previously. So the council staff would recommend the committee consider an option of using funding from the e-rate appropriation to account for the shortfall. This would leave the TechMod program for FY 25 into 26 with an increase in funding of $331,000. Thank you. So, yeah, we saw that in the packet and we've got the updated numbers and this is obviously refreshes school equipment when someone drops a laptop or something. Now I did, I do, someone did ask me the other day, well, what about, I get charged, I got just got a charge for my broken laptop. What does that mean? And I said, well, it's probably subsidized a bit. So, but just to that parent, but, but we could just so you know that, but this is where that comes from. So, can you talk about the, the one, the impact of obviously, If you didn't have this funding, but also the potential switch to E-rate? So excuse me, I see McGuire, Chief of Staff, MCPS. I'm just going to comment briefly on the funding aspect and then turn it over to our technology folks to speak more specifically. So certainly, understanding that this is the only project where current revenue reductions can be taken, that was where the million dollars would be taken in FY26 is our understanding under the executive's recommendation. Appreciate that the E-rate certainly is an important funding source. However, because it has been the council's practice for a number of years now to have that be an assumed revenue source. I don't think we certainly are grateful to have it and it would come to us in FY 25 but it was part of our FY 25 working assumptions at least in an estimate. So just to clarify that again, understanding that we absolutely will work to make the dollars work across both fiscal years. We have come to count on that e-rate and perhaps that's a practice we can reevaluate in the future. But just wanted to emphasize that at this point, the reduction still would have an impact. Because you've already accounted for that money. That's correct. Okay. Okay. Do you want to take it? Would you like afternoon. I'm Cara Trinkamp, Director for Digital Innovation. Nice to see you. I just want to start by saying thank you so much for your continued partnership. I always love coming here at this time of year to share what we're doing in the TechMod program and really over the years how we've moved technology from Something that's been really nice to have to something that really is an essential instructional tool in the classroom And how we also continue to innovate and and think You know forward looking as we look at new technologies down the pike and what that means for our classrooms So to speak directly to your question around You know what the TechMod program is and how we will prioritize the most important things in this restricted budget, particularly with the recommendation on the table, is really looking at ensuring our classrooms are whole. That is our number one priority. Make sure that our teachers have the tools they need. That includes their own technology. It also includes software that is funded out of this budget and make sure our students have what they need. So we know that they use these devices to access curriculum to for language translation. We just spoke about our growing populations in special education and emergent multilingual language learners. And so how we use technology to help scaffold learning and make sure that they have access to the tools they need and to also help them make their thinking visible through technology. So prioritizing Chromebooks obviously, teacher laptops, making sure that they work so that they're able to plan their lessons and access things appropriately. We'll have to make some tough choices around some things that we might do less of, right? So we know we have interactive panels in the classrooms. We've invested prior year dollars, particularly when we were doing some remote instruction. That was a very essential tool, still essential, but our work there and our due diligence in making sure our classrooms are equipped has paid off. So really taking a look at really one of the most important things. We're also working with our vendors to stretch the life of the things that we buy. So we've partnered with our vendors to make sure our operating systems actually last longer than historically they have. So where they used to be a four year or five year, the device wouldn't stop working, but it would stop updating, then it wouldn't be a viable option for testing. We've partnered with our vendors to really stretch that life. We're working with our staff and our students and our community around making sure that we manage these devices appropriately, that we treat them respectfully, that we make sure that we're responsible users of these resources so that we can make our dollars go as far as they possibly had. And we also continue to innovate. So we've been lucky to also apply for some grant funding to help offset some potential shortfalls, especially coming off of S or funds and moving back into a more fiscally restrictive location. So we've had Title IV funds, a cyber safety grant, and Emergency Connectivity Fund, where we've not only been able to help fortify, you know, and make sure our learning environments are set, but we've also continued to innovate. And so what that looks like is continuing to offer eSports program for some of our middle and high school students, make sure that they have access to college scholarships in those areas. We've also been able to expand access to cutting-edge technologies, drones, 3D printing, that also are no longer nice to have. That's part of our industry now, industry certifications. And then forward looking to artificial intelligence and what role that plays in new and upcoming innovative technologies. So we're poised to look carefully at what we purchased, how we purchased. We are also impacted by changes right now, tariffs specifically. our vendors are looking at between 8 and 25% increase in technology costs. We have wonderful relationships so we've been able to work with our vendor partners to keep those costs down right now. But you know as we look through FY 26 and we come back to the table in future budget conversations, that landscape will possibly shift as you know. So we again just want to thank you so much for the ongoing partnership and you know, we will make sure that we prioritize instructional spaces and make sure that our teachers and our students have what they need in order to meet the needs of our community. I appreciate that. So obviously not a, not something that we would want to have happen, but you will do your best to prioritize within the funding that you have. And the e-rate supplemental, even though not officially approved by us yet, you are already accounted. Well, I think the update that it's been in your planning, even though not on paper in the budget. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. So I think in this, I just think there's obviously not any action, we're not going to add this to the additions list at this point. But I think it should just be noted in the packet, this updated schedule for full council and that the e-rate money has already been accounted for even though I'm not on paper. And folks have questions they can talk about that. So this is another reduction kind of in that context. But thank you for explaining how you'll deal with it. Any questions for you guys on this? Okay. All right. So we can move on to the I think other items update other updates. So the next section section B page three of your packet listed them. Listen number of items that have not been discussed for committee. These are all items that I said before taken from discretionary category in the the school system budget. So the first one is $5.7 million for differentiated school site allocation equity add-ons. These is additional funding, which will be provided to schools on the basis of the populations for students' interesting and special ed services for students impacted by poverty and emerging multilingual learners. The table below shows you how we split up by level. There is an additional table in the packet on pages 5 through 11, which breaks it down by the school and has data for each individual school, the basis of the populations in those groups, and the amount that would be allocated to the school. Appreciate that. I've heard about this in many settings, in many places, as probably my colleagues have, but it's a, I think, a really innovative and good approach to trying to differentiate need in different schools and have that be reflected in the resources. Is there's anything you wanna say about it and I'll see if colleagues have questions? Yeah, this is definitely one of those things that we haven't touched in a couple of decades and the value of the per pupil allocation for materials and supplies has changed. And awful lot in the last couple of decades. You have the dollar figure as relatively remain the same. So for a 600 student elementary school, schools could expect roughly around $50,000 worth of materials and supplies money, which is not very much. It goes very quickly in a school that size. And no to 600 student schools are the same as you can see. Every single one of our schools serves students with disabilities. Every single one of our students serves emergent multilingual learners. Every single one of our students serves students who are participants in our federal free lunch program. The question is, is how many? And knowing that those factors and those reporting categories do have an influence on creating a high quality education in terms of access to materials and supplies. This was our strategy on how we might start the conversation about adjusting. We'd keep that base amount intact and our strategy for growing that base amount in future years. This is year one of a multi-year implementation about how we would grow those dollars and do it on a more differentiated basis. And I appreciate that the whole effort but also that last point this is a growing the pie effort. This isn't taking away from the baseline which is important I think because as you mentioned 50,000 goes quickly for whatever school you're in and we often hear and I've often heard, whether it be my kids' teachers or other member community members, of the stories, of teachers going in their own pocket to buy things, for students that need it, because they don't happen at certain point in a year. And that is happening. And so this is welcome in that respect too. Any questions from colleagues on this? No? OK. So that's 5.7 million in the first year, or in this year budget, and you've laid out how you would do it. And it is, again, on your discretionary, as the word. Thank you. Thank you, Essie. The best of things that you should be doing, you want to do, but they're not required of you, but you want to do them. This is a practice that a lot of other school districts use. I'd love to call this innovative, it's not. But it is a great tool that we can create equity. I'd like to call it spreadsheet equity, where we can instantly in an overnight way improve the working and teaching conditions in a pretty quick way with a spreadsheet. I will say that as we think through this, like moving forward, it does fall under that discretionary space, but the only reason that it falls in that discretionary space is there's no law, there's no regulation, and there's no policy that compels us to do it, and that's the only reason that's discretionary, not because we see it as this choice, we see it as a necessity, but it's a necessity that is not directed by any external party. No one can sue you for it not happening. Correct. But that does, it should be happening. Yes, that's my ring. Yes. Yes. directed by any external party. No one can sue you for it not happening. Correct. But it should be happening. Yes, that's my ring. Yeah, just noting that I think that a lot of the complaints that were referenced by the Chair Gewanda, for example, are the ones that are going to be, are the ones that we're hearing and that would be addressed with this funding. And so as, you know, as we have to discuss in debate with if council members are looking for cuts within the MCPS budget which I think, if there is to be a cut, which I hope there's not, spoiler, if there's to be a cut to the MCPS budget, I think it's important that we are transparently discussing where council members see space to make those cuts just like we would do for any other department even though it's not legally required in this place I think for transparency safe that's important. And so in regards to this one I'll note that as you said it's not required by law but this is directly related to a lot of what we at least as certainly as a district council member what we hear from parents. Appreciate that. All right, next item. So next item is $250,000 which would provide for an internal evaluation of academic programs in terms of equitable access across the county within the school system both in terms of access geographically and also in terms of access by affected groups. So this would provide funding to be able to assess and ensure that the school system is finding ways to make sure that access to academic programs is equitable across the county. Let's spend a couple minutes on this. This is one we haven't talked about as much. It's, you know, I think something that is talked about a lot in the community. Yeah. So about how do we get access to programs? So we are living this now as part of our journey. Is there a study going on? Yes. There is. And the expectation of our Board of Education, which is the right expectation to have, is that they want everybody to be talking about this in our community and to have a lot of awareness. And to get that message out, just using conventional channels is not going to be the most effective strategy. We're aware of that. We are trying to plan ahead so that we don't rob Peter to pay Paul in our budget to make sure that we have the resources to communicate widely. We are in the infancy stage of this process, not in the full blast stage. By the time we get to the next fiscal year, this $250,000 will go very quickly because we will be in a fierce community engagement space where as we start the school year, we will need a lot of feedback from a diverse swath of our community to make sure that we land the plane on getting the right programming in the right spot. It is something we're concerned about. What's the timeline on that again? Like yesterday. When the plan plane will be landed. Oh, by December. This year. Yeah, because here's the timeline that we're working with is we are looking at the opening of Crown and Woodward and the the new Northwood as well as the expanded Damascus footprint having a game plan for what those boundaries would look like and it's great if we we just wanted to to keep doing what we've been doing and to keep the programming the same. But thinking about any potential programmatic changes or expansion needs to be considered in our boundary discussion in order for us to do this well. And if we really want to optimize the capacity within the school district at the secondary level and eventually at the elementary level as well, program consideration, where we have programs, how big the programs are, what the mechanisms for students to attend programs all needs to be considered. Right now we're all over the place. You'll find great irony in a couple of things that I will tell you. Right now we transport for some of our programs. Any indication on how we made the decision of which programs to transport for and which ones we didn't? Whoever made the most noise about it. Well I would love to tell you that was that was the case, but in friendly budget years we agreed to for transportation, and in unfriendly budget years we didn't. That's a pretty horrible metric for driving transportation decisions, but it's the truth. A great irony is at Councilmember Albernaz's alma mater, we have one program in particular. It is our Social Justice Leadership Academy. It's phenomenal. The students that participated in that participate from across the county and there is no transportation. How about that for irony? In the Social Justice Leadership Program, there's no transportation and equitable access from across the county. So we clearly have some work to do in this space and coming up with an approach that really is gonna satisfy our student interest, our future economic needs, as well as our parent and community needs in terms of access and opportunities and transportation. Appreciate that. You know, it's funny as someone reminded me last week that it was about nine years ago that I when I what I wasn't a council member but I filed a federal civil rights complaint against MCPS because of the lack under Title 6, the lack of access to immersion programs and other special programs. And I don't think any of the current board members were there at that time, but and that was when you could file something with the U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights, which now probably wouldn't have any interest. But they did investigate, and there were changes made to the selection and process for not only immersion, but also for magnet. This was prior to when you screening every middle school, you know, we didn't do that back then, and there were a lot of problems. So it's just we've been on a journey for a long time, and a lot of those special programs developed, if you take immersion, from just well-intended, well-meaning parents who were trying to help their kids at their school. And they just, you know, and I don't have to tell you, those parents normally were the ones who had the access and the ability and were in the communities where they had the time to think about it. And that's how a lot of our programs developed historically. And we've been on a mission, I think, continually on that mission, just how do we make sure it's equitably available to all of our students. So this is a small item in the context of MCPS budget, but something that's really, really important. I'm glad you're going to try to put, trying to put it down payment on it as we continue to move forward. All but meaningful for sure. Absolutely. OK, so we've got a couple more here. Continuing on with some of the discretionary items, we haven't touched on in prior meetings. There is 160,000, $170 towards teaching and learning, post-secondary preparation and foundations. This is an allocation going towards adding one FTE who will serve as an instructional specialist for hospitality and tourism. Working with the MCPS Foundation's program, providing instructional opportunities for students pursuing career and technical education. Council staff would just know that this position and the work involves the support of the Blueprint for Maryland's future 45% component, which requires instructional hours and on the job training. Well, we just were talking about a form of tourism in our youth sports, but this is so this would be an instructional specialist for hospitality and tourism. Anything you want to add, it worked with the Foundations Program obviously. It's important, but you don't have to talk anything about it. We've got not one but two major hotel chain corporate headquarters. We are in one of the nation's geographic areas that attracts one of the largest tourism bases in the country. And this is a very popular pathway of study for our students and the opportunity to really make this a hallmark of our educational program in our career and technical education space. It's a great recommendation from our CTE foundations and one that we support and clearly made it into the budget because of those reasons. Well, sir, yeah, Councilmember Macon. It was really glad to see this position in the budget. This is our partners, our industry partners, I think are really such a tremendous boon. And it's great. Again, this is a great investment because they partner, they provide supplies, they provide internship opportunities. We have blueprint requirements that we have to fulfill, and there are multiple ways to fulfill them. Some of them are pretty much entirely in-house in NCPS, partnering with Montgomery College, et cetera. This is another venue that has seen tremendous, tremendous success with a relatively low price tag relative to some of our other options. So I think it makes a lot of sense to ensure that this position makes it into the budget, which I know means that we have to fund all of the legally required positions as well. But again, this is blueprint and so I would put this in that category because this is one of the most efficient ways that we have of reaching some of those blueprint goals. And it also means that, you know, those partnerships with industry mean that we have direct pathways for students into earning positions and we've seen them, you know, into good salaries and we have seen them use those positions to fund their way through, for example, Montgomery College courses. It's just a great investment on so many levels and I know that in the past that there has been frustration from our industry partners that they have invested, you know, significant time, energy and, you know, financially also into the foundation's program and they, with MC MCPS because it's well worth it to them. And they enjoy the partnership with local students. And then, but they have not seen some of the investments that they were looking for. And so one or two positions to ensure that these partnerships are sustainable, and that we have somebody on the MCPS side to make sure that these pieces are coming to fruition. It's incredibly important. Agreed. Let's continue on. So, next item is $250,000 for the beginning of a strategic multi-year project to provide training certification for Central Office, Central Services Leadership Development. Just to talk about what that means. So this is actually an item that we reduced in the version that the Board of Education approved. I certainly am ambitious about this. Turn back the clock a little bit to 2010. The school district received two really significant recognitions. The Malcolm Baldridge Award and the Broad Prize. It could be argued that in 2010, Montgomery County Public Schools was the best school system in America. One of the things that made Montgomery County Public Schools a great school system then was that it had clearly defined system structures and processes for which it did its work. A lot of those systems structures and processes have eroded. It gives me no joy to share that with you. There is a lot of talent that have left the district and with it a lot of background knowledge on the things that made our system structures and processes effective. It is time for us to take this next generation of leaders and work with them on developing new systems, structures and processes that are updated for's work, and to move us in a direction where we can reclaim that title as the best school system in America, and having the mechanisms to do that is a requirement of leadership. So this would be presumably the start of a process of bringing on consultants to help. I would actually say no. I would say more directly think of it more like industry certification training and project management. We have a distinct need for project management. I'm actually thrilled that President Yang is sitting next to me because she helped solve a pretty much a crisis this summer. I want to say it was maybe my second week on the job. And Ms. Yang was alerted to an issue where we had missed a grant opportunity due to a timeline issue. And it took about six weeks for a document to make it through the bureaucracy of MCPS, ridiculous. Fortunately through some advocacy and some channels and Ms. Yang and board member colleagues waving some red flags and getting some help from our partners in the state, we're actually able to secure that grant and move forward, but it never should have happened in the first place. And it really communicated to me the need for us to revisit how we conduct business, not just what our business is. Appreciate that example. We were talking about the importance of chasing down grants with the out of school time of Jennifer Strobel, which I know Councillor McKinnell, and I and others have advocated for you, you got to have someone to wear those timelines and go in after them, but that's just one example of how project management training could help, so I appreciate that. Any comments on that? No? Okay. Let's go to the next one. we we have $160,771 towards the equity and organizational development assessment reporting. This enhancement would be used to bring on an evaluation specialist who would be responsible for designing, coordinating, and managing comprehensive academic and behavioral assessment programs to evaluate student learning outcomes, institutional effectiveness, and program success. Anything you want to add on that? Absolutely. As parents in our district, when you get mail from us, sometimes it is written in the language that is hard to understand that language is. Because of all of the complex statistical terminology on how your child is performing in school, I want to give a huge shout out to a community partner who's helped us with a pilot program on how we might better communicate student performance and that's our black and brown coalition. It's been a huge asset to us and a critical friend in terms of helping us really ascertain what is helpful information for parents to know about their child's progress. Useful. And useful. It really is coming down to all of this data that we're collecting from a variety of assessments, some required, some not required, and then on top of that, school performance and the form of grades and a whole host of other information, how do we communicate that effectively to parents so that parents really do have a good idea of how their child is performing in school? Well, I think we can do it. I think we can do it at scale. I think we can do it better than we have been doing. And I also don't think that this needs to be so burdensome to the teacher, and so burdensome to the principal. I think that this is one of those tasks that we can centralize for efficiency and save ourselves a whole lot of grief and aggravation at a pretty reasonable cost for what the output could be. They can be used at all schools. Yeah. All levels. Different. Yeah. Makes sense. And I think these I'm glad we're going over these. I think these are important items that like really impact the kind of day to day in school how people experience the system. the system. And no one is telling us to communicate better with our parents, but in terms of like a contract or a law or some kind of regulation or policy, but it's routinely something we hear from our community, but there is nothing that is compelling us to do it yet we know it's the right thing to do. And our discretionary request all match that dimension. Maybe this person wants to be done making your stuff easy to explain and help us at the council. We certainly have some arcane and archaic language related to certain things we do. But we've made strides, but Councilmember Macone to make comment. Thank you. On the reporting of academic and behavioral assessment, I mean, this really ties to a conversation that we were having just what yesterday, that I don't know what day we're on at this point. But in regards to looking at impacts of different extracurricular programs and out of school time programs and being able to tie those to various success metrics, beyond just like attendance are you feeling the seats in the program. And so we badly need that. We need that for within RAC, within HHS. We need that and we need that for, you know, for within RAC, within HHS, we need that with, and we need that certainly within MCPS and the ability for everybody to make sure that they have comprehensive data and that everybody is able to share it and able to have comparable metrics because, you know, we have the responsibility of funding things broadly. So we need to know who's got, everybody needs to know who's got which programs that are the most successful. And we know that kids are impacted in many different ways when it comes to how can we improve their academic performance and sometimes it's being in the band. And so we just, we have to have the tools to be able to look at where we need to put more money on things that are not obviously at their, that on surface, an academic program because we're really not going to, we're not going to get there without having all those other pieces. And then we have to have a data-based way of deciding which ones work the best. So I'm excited that we're moving there. Thank you. Council Member Abna. Yeah, I agree. I'm glad Council Member McBrute brought that up. Again, I don't have time to go over it now, but at a later date, discussing the sharing of information and data that helps both us make operational, budget, and policy decisions. It also helps us better strategize and put programs in the schools that need them the most. And so it's an MCPS's best interest to help us identify those outcomes so that we can provide those additional supports to kids. And so I look forward to those ongoing conversations. We were – it was reported to us that we're very close to an MOU with Excel Beyond the Bell that we're going to have it by July. We're actually coming back and having a joint session in July to talk about outcome measurements and out of school time programs and appreciate it the update from the MCPS representatives and the acknowledgement that it's so important to have a primary point of contact at the high Central Office level in addition to the school level and so look forward to following up with you all on that. Absolutely. I was a conversation earlier this week. All right we've got one more of these the Mistro hygiene products. This item isn't the amount of 106 $106,110 for being used to provide menstrual products. This would be an alignment with the public school's provision of menstrual hygiene products requirements at the state level, which requires each county board of education to ensure that each public school provides menstrual products at no cost to students by dispenser. This was actually discussed at the E&C Committee on February 24th. I remember, and this is one of those good and unfunded, but a mandate nonetheless, and something that is good to do, and that we need to be doing, so you've included in the budget. I'll have one piece to this puzzle and you may be asking why is this a discretionary component if there's a state law that has it as a requirement? Well beyond one time money that was committed at the start of this project there were not ongoing dollars committed at the state level so it is just that it is an unfunded mandate. And with that there is nothing in state law that compels the ongoing funding of this initiative which is why we landed it as discretionary. Now I will tell you how we fund this during our regular program up to date. This is one of those items that comes from your schools, materials, and supplies budget. So it is important that we segregate some funds for this purpose, and I'm going to tell you as the father of four daughters how absolutely necessary this really is, and that we be vigilant in making sure that we grow this fund over the next several years and that this is just really the first time to stick it in our budget as a line item, but it is something that you'll see reoccurring as we collect data on how this has been expended over the next couple of years so that we can write size a budget for this. Yeah, and we've talked about this. As I was mentioned in committee, I have a bill to require this in county buildings, which I'm hoping to get passed. Councilor Marau and I was not even talking about that, and I think we've got some good agreement, which was actually the idea of one of my former interns, who's a former MCPS student, in her third year at Harvard right now. Lulu Augusto shut out to her. But yes, and also the father of three daughters myself. Council member me. Thanks, I think it makes sense to segregate these funds as well. And thank you for pointing that out. And just noting when we think about some of the students who are least likely to maybe go to the nurse and ask for these supplies, the importance of having an individual bathroom that is available on all of our schools for a really large secondary schools, ideally more than one that's available, that's open to everyone, where you don't have to go into the office or somewhere that's separate and different and making sure that these supplies are accessible there. Here here. All right, let's continue. The next item on the agenda is just a recounting of the budget changes, the table number three on page 4 has an overview of how MCPS is characterized in the budget changes, the table number three on page four, has an overview of how MCPS is characterized in the budget changes, a request for FY26, and then below that are details in terms of each budget category taken from the well-prepared summary spreadsheet that you guys had for us. Thank you. So that's just an overview for the committee's consideration, information which has been provided previously in packets. And then moving on to page six, the next session is in terms of funding options for the committee to consider. The first item here is a number of updates. So I'll go through those in order. The first one is a state in aid increase of $14.4 million. It was not assumed in the board's budget nor in the executive's March 14 budget. The committee, sorry, the kind of executive's recommending that this be used to offset county funding and that would reduce the gap between funding to 19.6 million. The next is a pension shift of 19.6 as well. The number is wrong there in the last digit. And this was something that also not assumed in the executive's budget. It was assumed in the Board of Ed's adopted budget. And so that would need to be accounted for in terms of the final FY 26 budget. And then finally, the state did shift as they indicated they were likely to do. The cost for non-public placements for students who are receiving special ed services. It shifted from 70 30 split in the fiscal year 25 to a 60 40 split and fiscal year 26. And the estimated cost here would be an increased cost of $3.6 million. And I think we have one other change on the positive side of the ledger here. Well, we'll take all the good news that we can get. But hopefully you see this as yet another artifact of our commitment to accounting for changes that occur in revenue from the state and crediting them to our request. And this is one more. Our initial assumption and the data that we received from the state in terms of the pension fund shift was overestimated and included the community college as well. So we have some good news and I'll leave it to S.C. McGuire to share that good news. So again the number and as everyone knows there was a lot of information flying around at that moment but the amount of the pension shift that is included in the board's budget does include the Montgomery College portion and that is just over a million dollars. And so as a result that's a million dollar assumption in the board's budget that we do not need and again are happy to reduce our need for county dollars by that amount. So that was it. Was that a count in the numbers? Yes. That did Montgomery College account for that in their budget? So was it double? I'd have to ask them on that. OK. I don't believe so, but we'll have to double check that. Montgomery College did not. That's what I think we'll be talking about before the full council untaste. That's what I thought. I thought we said that they did not. And so it is an actual savings. So it is an actual savings to our budget request. And again, the number that was coming out of the state, and I think this may be the confusion for both agencies, put all education. We're going to have to deal with that one million. But the question is can they just deal with it? Or we'll talk about that on Tuesday. But I think I remember that I don't want to speak for them out of turn. But it's not on your request. So that would take the pension. And I think that's not the case. I think that's the case. I think that's the case. I think that's the case. I think that's the case. or we'll talk about that on Tuesday, but I don't want to speak for them at a turn. But it's not on your request so that would take the the pension down would that change that down to 18 point The pension shift amount here is correct. It's 19 point nine 19 point nine so the board's budget Assume that we needed an additional million dollars got it that we don't need so this accounts for that. So this accounts for that your gap is reduced. So our request, our total request from the original Board of Education, a tentative adopted budget is the 14 plus the now one for a total of 15 reduced. Got it. Right, the 14.4 was state aid that you just said, take that off our request. Then this million dollar, and then obviously the negative was the pension shift that you did get, which wasn't accounted for in the count executive budget. That's correct. And so that amount is still $19.6 million dollars. And as you indicate. This nine in the packet is it six or nine? It's six. So it's 19.6. So the packet's just not correct. That's okay. Is it correct? In the paragraph below my phone. Got it, not in the head. In the headline, got it. The code is actually. Okay, so 19.6. Look, I'll take 300,000 anyway I can get it. Yeah, exactly. So again, that number is the correct pension shift. And you are also correct that that was not initially assumed in the county executive's March 14th budget amendment. Right. And then you're speaking of that, it's good segue we're going to the county executives amendments, which we'll talk about that momentarily. So in the county executive amendments, which we were sent to the council last week, there's two actions for the committee to consider here. One is to recognize the additional 14.4 in state aid, which was just discussed, and then a decision in terms of funding levels, and if full funding is desired to appropriate an additional $19.6 million to MCPS in order to be able to cover the cost of the petions shaft itself. Got it. Yeah, and I think the important thing to note there is that it could have been another 34 million at Gap, but the 14.4 and then the 1 million. So that's, I think that's just important. And that's not counting, obviously, the things you did before to bring, you know, the insurance pants down. And we discussed that, the whole council heard that on Tuesday as part of the presentation about the county employees, both the pension funds and the insurance and benefits in the growth fair. So yeah, I'll just start and I'll turn to my colleagues. I think, Ms. Prattie, were you done? Just a couple quick notes. In terms of the funding, I'll be sitting late out for you. Each description following the chart, table on page 7. Each description does have in bold actions that would be required in terms of the potential for each option. So, it's free to consider those. I appreciate that. And thank you for your work on this and you as well, Ms. Cummings. And just to the thing that you just said. So, if the chose to go with the full funding option, which I will not bury the lead, I do support given everything we've gone through, that the 19.6 million, which is the, again, just the pension shift gap that the county executive didn't recognize, but did recognize in his amendment that he sent over to us earlier this month that would be derived in part from the income tax increase proposed. That would need to go on the reconciliation list because it's not, it wasn't from the March 14th amount. Is that correct? That's correct. Okay. And so that would mean it would go on the list with all the other things as a recommended addition. And a majority of council members would need to straw vote for that when we take the budget up on Tuesday. I think it's Tuesday. And then when we do go through the reconciliation list after that, after we go through all the budget next week, all the puts and takes, it would be on, presuming it made it past that portion, would then be on the list. And the majority of Council members would have to decide to retain it, to put it in the full budget. I just want to make sure people understand the process. Similarly, if any of these other recommendations, if there was a decision to cut or make a reduction below the county executives, so item anything that's not item two or recommendation two, which would be to fund the county executives recommended level, that would all need to go on the list as a reduction. And we'd also need to be approved by the council. Is that correct? That is correct. OK. All right. Well, as I said earlier, and I'll turn to colleagues in order of seniority here, both age-wise and budget years. But he looks great. The, that I just, you know, I want to just acknowledge the progress. I think it's really, if we shouldn't overstate, it's hard to overstate that how much of a different position we're in just from just a few years ago. And the confidence level and do a no small part to the folks that are here and the folks that aren't here, the board, Superintendent Taylor and your time, Ms. McGuire specifically and your time understanding both sides of the street and your whole team, Ms. Alfonso winter, President Yang, our union partners, no one is entering this budget, questioning whether the school system needs funds to do these things. I just think, and that is a big accomplishment. I just think a couple years ago, that was not the case, even one year ago, that was not the case. There were questions that, what did this mean? What would you have to, and we didn't get clear answers all the time, that I think for our community, for this council, and for accountability, and is a significant progress. The only question that colleagues will have to consider is what level of investment is commensurate and can we afford given the context that we're in? I strongly believe that we cannot afford not to do these things That the investment is at this moment in time is exactly what we need to be if we want to get back to being the Vesicle system in the state and in the country We have to continue to make these investments and there's a dramatic return for our economy, for our students. And at a time when our nation is stepping back from its commitments, we can't do that. We cannot do that. We must step forward. And so I think that this is a big part of that. I know it's never easy to do this, but I am more confident than I've ever been, having done seven education budgets and being on this committee this whole time, that the money that we're going to put in and the level of detail you all provided gives me the most confidence I've ever had, that it's going to be spent exactly how you say and that the board will have grid oversight over that and we'll have a good partnership. So with all of that context, I am suggesting, and turn to my colleagues, that we go with the option one which would be the count executives for 25 amended level, which would fully fund the school system budget, and would put the 19.6 on the reconciliation list per our policies. So with that, I'll turn to Councilmember Robbins. Thank you. So, start with the good news. Read or rate what I said before. Just really appreciate the transparency, the strategic thinking, the partnership and the alliance. You guys have been tremendously responsive, not just through this budget process, but this last year in particular. I feel just as the chair noted, better than I have in a long time, about where the school system is in a myriad of different ways. Administratively, programmatically, loved hearing the passionate stories of teachers and central staff and administrators and frontline staff and families throughout this process, always tremendously informative and always tremendously powerful. Context I think here is important, as I said before, the Council President requested that each committee try as best we could to identify reductions, acknowledging that because of all the moving parts and the very complicated, messy, awkward reconciliation process last year that left a lot to be desired and made a lot of people grumpy that we were going to do the hard work through the committees and make productions or make budget recommendations through the committees. As Chair of the Health and Human Services Committee to put it in a perspective the entirety of the increase for HHS which is the largest executive branch agency of 24 million bucks. That's how much we were working with and working on in terms of additions from their budget from 25 to 26. And we found some reductions. They were painful. We didn't want to make them, but we did find reductions. And it's massively chipping away at the edges. So it's frustrating that on the one hand, you all have made very compelling arguments. I trust where we are and we're in a good place. And I also acknowledge difficult decisions were made by the board and by the central staff even before this budget got to us and there's clear evidence of that. And so I really wrestled and struggled with this and then you overlay that with the fact and it is a fact that we don't yet any of the 11 of us have all of the information that we're going to need to be dealing with before we can make comfortably, comfortable decisions next week at the end of the day. So I will concur with the chair's recommendation because we do have the opportunity formally, to revisit the 19.6 million. But I also want to put a big asterisk on what I'm saying right now, and that is to reserve the right once we get before full council and have the full overlay of information, because I'll be very candid. There are items within the HHS budget that I will die on a health war, that we cannot lose because it will significantly scale back the public health infrastructure of our community. And these are tough decisions that we're gonna have to make, but we're making them an isolation right now. So if push comes to shove, and because the dollar amount is so significant in the MCPS space, that chipping away at the edges on the others won't make up the difference in the numeric value, then I just want to let you all know and don't want the public to be surprised that my vote today may be amended based on the information that we've received next week. I also want to note the following. This budget is predicated on an income tax increase that we are not even sure of the final amount of yet. That's step number one. Step number two is seeing whether there are sufficient votes to even support that income tax increase, which underscores what I just said even more, because if the pie is even smaller that we're gonna have to work with, then obviously we're gonna have to revisit this in every other conversation in every other committee as we do every year. So I just wanna make those very clear points and be very transparent so that I'm not misleading anyone because my vote today has an asterisk based on what happens next week. And I do want to end with this. I have the deepest possible respect for everybody at this table. And in particular one who I've worked with for almost 16 years now, I trust these numbers. I trust these numbers. I acknowledge this need, but we cannot sustain nine figure over MOE increases every year. We just cannot. And as I've said before, the conversation we are most likely going to have next year at this time is what's being cut. And because of MOE and because of our, the budget, the way that it's structured, all of the other executive branch agencies end up taking a much more significant hit on a sliding scale. In 2007 and 2008, a couple of them got slaughtered and I was the director of one of them. And I don't want that to happen again. So I will support the Council Chair's recommendation. But this is to be continued. We'll see where everything lands next week. But it's not at all. At all. I can't think of the right word. It's indictment's not the right word. It's not an indication of how I feel about the work, about these conversations. And I do want to end with this and publicly acknowledge the work of Chair Joando, you know, as my second year on the committee and I think he has been able to improve the process, improve the accessibility and I think through the partnership and alliance with the team, I think in large part because of his leadership we're in a better place, from the body's perspective, even though I wish he had tried to find some reductions, but I get it. So that's where I'm at. And thank you all very much. Thank you for those comments. I understand and agree. I think, look, if we don't do the income tax increase, we're going to have to revisit everything. So I mean, I just think people need to know that. I will give you one more million dollars since you've since I spoke. So I think I want to check though. I think so the – when the increase be 18.6, given the news we just found out, so why? I believe that's correct. And again, understanding we're all doing math in real time. But so it is correct that the pension shift is 19.6 but again the gap which is what you're trying to fill with this recommendation is 18.6 because of the board's assumption. There's the board's assumption. There you go, Councillor Mellora. We're already down. So the recommendation which we now have two people in support of, pending Councilor Minks comments in a moment, would be to the option number one, which would now be 18.6 on the record list, not 19.6. Councilmember Mink. Yeah, I mean, tough but fair comments. Like we don't know how much money we're going to have. so we can't say for sure what's going to be able to come off the reckless and I think what we can ask for in this moment is transparency amongst amongst the full council and I think we have a council that is working to provide that you will have clearly worked very very hard to provide that what's been incredibly frustrating over the last couple of budgets is when there's still the ability on the council to say, like, and I'm not faulting council members, and we should not have the ability to say the money is in the couch cushion somewhere like they will find it. Where? What does that mean? We have to know what that means. We've really, we've taken these conversations to a different level than they have been at historically here in the council building. It's a very large budget because it's a very large piece of county infrastructure and it's expensive to run and you know taxpayers need to really know and understand where their dollars are being spent. So I also really commend the leadership of Chair Juando at kind of taking us to that next level and I really appreciate all of you for getting us there as well. There is now a clear understanding amongst the full council, amongst the public of where all of these dollars are going and why. And I think just starting from a place that is fair and transparent is what we can ask for in this moment. And probably all we can really give at this particular session because we don't have all the dollars and cents in front of us yet. We just don't. My hope is obviously to be able to fund this entire budget and I've been at a place of very high priority on our schools and ensuring that we have public education that is well funded and this is very much bare bones and much needed but we just don't know what dollars are going to be there. So with that I am going to support option one and I look forward to the conversations at the council and I think you know to to if somebody's going to say I'm going to I want to I think we should fund this and not that like that is a choice that everybody is entitled to make. We just need to be clear and transparent about it. And you have provided us with the ability to do that, which I think makes it very hard not to fund this full budget. So. Agreed. And you know, and I think we didn't go through this today. But obviously, I know you will be prepared. One of the good functions of the way the budget was presented and I've been calling it a HUD one, you know, if anyone bought a house, you know, like it has the shape of that, you know, as well. We all the items are there, but people are going to have to, you're going to be prepared to talk about and folks should be prepared on our side to say where we think the money shouldn't come from. Obviously, the board will meet, as it always does, after the Council takes action and decide how to spend the money. But the fact that we're at this level of transparency and talking about these figures in this way, I think it creates the trust that's required in that the community expects. So I'm very pleased, asterisk and all for the outcome today. And I think because there is, you know, we, our job is to say, I think as a committee is to assess what we think the need is and what the funding should be. But that is obviously always going to be dependent on what the revenue is and what resources we have. And that discussion on property tax will happen soon. I think fairly confident that there will be no property tax increase, but we will consider an income tax increase and we'll see where that lands. And it's obviously connected to all of this, not just the education budget. It's also connected to our other county agencies as well. So really appreciate your work in your time. I thank you to staff, yes, and board president. We end as I listen to our discussion today. First, I want to thank our MCPS staff, Superintendent, for putting forward a very student center budget that align with the board's priority. And I also thank you for your dedication and with your recommendation to the Food Council with Option One, we are investing in this bread and butter budget that address our staff, our safety, our building needs, and mostly teaching and learning. So thank you for investing in the future of Montgomery County. Thank you very much. I think that is all we have for today. So with that, we are adjourned. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks.