Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Economic Development Committee to this last work session. Yay. We're going to have the first two items together. So is the FY26 operating budget in Amendment for the UM-3 Institute of Health and Computing, NDA. And we're going to go straight and have item number two. So whoever is here for item number two, let's all come forward. And that will be the supplemental appropriation 2526. With that, I'm going to ask Mr. Alito please kick us off. And then we're going to have the executive team and everybody else introduce themselves. Thank you. Thank you, good afternoon. Yeah, item one is the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing, NDA. The county executive is recommending a decrease of $1.3 million. This is because the county's entered into an MOU to provide $5 million in the first year. 3.7 was approved to make up for the 1.3 between the $3.7 and $5 million. The council approved $6.3 last year and now this reverts back to the $5 million that they expected annually. So this is what this budget recommendation reflects. On page two, you can see a description of what the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing is. and they can, they'll provide a brief update on page two. You can see a description of what the University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing is and they can provide a brief update on their work so far. And there's also a staff report for the follow up from January 30th linked here as well. Description of the proposal is on page three. And there's just a brief note from the UM3IAC staff about how they plan to be self-sustaining after the MOU period is over in FY29. Thank you so much. I'm going to ask the second Mr. Tom, would you like to, Mr. Lewis? Would you like to kick us off? Madam Chair, and I'm finding it as us. Council Member Bal hearing. I see something that this committee has been very supportive of and the council has been very supportive very supportive of for since the start. It's the core of the development for the North Bethesda area and this committee has been very supportive of that. Hopefully, Womada will have an announcement soon on a master developer and we'll certainly let you all know that as soon as we know when they would like to do that. But meanwhile, the Institute for Health Computing is the anchor for that development and the anchor for life science development in this part of the county, in North Bethesda. So with that, I will let each member each of the co-directors introduce themselves. Thank you. Hi, everyone. It's great to be here. My name is Brad Maron. I'm the senior associate dean for precision medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. And alongside my co-directors at the Institute for Health Computing. Good afternoon. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today about the HC and its progress. My name is Adam Porter and I'm a professor. at the Institute for Health Computing. Thank you for allowing me to speak to you today about the IHC and its progress. My name is Adam Porter, and I'm a professor of computer science at the University of Maryland, and I'm also one of the co-directors at the IHC. Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for your time today. My name is Warren D'Souza. I serve as the Senior Vice President and Chief Innovation Officer for the University of Maryland Medical System. So on behalf of the entire Institute for Health Computing, we wish to thank Chair Fawni Gonzalez, Council Member Glass, Council Member Sales, and Council Member Malcolm. We appreciate all the support by the county and for your gracious support for the Institute. We also wish to thank Mr. Ali for his kind guidance on our budget related questions and moving that forward. So our presentation today will have four specific and I understand brief parts. I'd like to review our progress at the IHC. Then hand it over to Dr. Porter who will discuss some of our progress and successes in business development. Dr. Tussuzo will discuss updates on the role of the University of Maryland Medical System at the IHC. We'll come back to Dr. Porter who will talk a little bit about our strategic plan on computers and then I will speak specifically to what we will be using or proposing to be using funding that relates to this hearing. So in brief, the progress of the IHC since the last time we met a year ago here has been robust and expansive. We're very proud to report that we've hired our 100th member, which is an increase from 38 members at the Institute just one year ago today. That includes approximately 32% of our members that identify as being county residents. We're also proud to acknowledge that our portfolio of workforce is balanced across demographic, research background, and skill sets to accommodate the wide range of successes that we aim to accomplish. Our business development portfolio includes interaction with 21 companies ranging from the big to the small, many of which are right here in Montgomery County. We have a wide range of areas across the life science and biotech spectrum, all of which are using the computational focus that represents our skill sets and the resource capabilities that you have trusted us with. We've already announced one spin-off company and have submitted three patents by scientific investigators at the Institute. Our academic achievements are robust. I won't go into all of them by detail, but suffice to say that our members identified 235 academic publications at varying stages of the editorial process, including 140 that have been published in some of the world's most highly visible academic, scientific, and computational journals. We've been out there, 120 local, national, and international presentations at respected meetings and lectures. As part of our sustainability effort, which I'll speak to in greater detail in a moment, we are part of 83 grant submissions to foundations, federal, extramural branches of the NIH, and other mechanisms to support our continued focus on maintaining sustainability at the IHC. And then of course, in response to the helpful suggestions by Councilmember Fahnick-Anzales from last year and delegate Sarah Wallick. We are also pleased to report that we have escalated our efforts in educational initiatives that directly interact with the citizens of Montgomery County, specifically at present the kids museum for which we'll be attending a nice fair in early June to commemorate our formal engagement. With that I'll pass on the discussion to Dr. Porter. Thank you. So as you know, one of the key ideas behind the IHC is to supercharge the use of advanced computing within the already strong Montgomery County Health, Biotech, and Life Sciences Innovation Ecosystem. And so we're using the funds that have been generously provided by Montgomery County to do just that. So to give you a couple of examples, we've used those funds to develop advanced computing infrastructure, including a planned $10 million plus high-performance computing cluster. We're putting together high value these disease-specific large-scale data sets. We're building cutting-edge AI models and we're building powerful software tools. And this infrastructure not only supports our basic research, but also be used to support several growing lines of IHC business, including as Brad mentioned, AI enabled image analysis and diagnosis, a drug discovery manufacturing pipeline, and patient safety tools, among other things. We're using these funds to be a technical and innovation resource to local biotech, health and lifestyles companies. We've met already with dozens of companies. We've created formal partnerships with several of them this year, and these relationships take a number of forms. For example, we have direct contracting. For example, we're building AI models for lung cancer screening with AstraZeneca. We are jointly pursuing private and governmental funding opportunities with local companies, for example, submitting joint SBIR proposal aimed at building AI models for early cancer detection with a local company, 2020 gene systems. We also are running an industry consortium where we bring together multiple companies under our mixer consortium, which stands mixer stands for medical innovations in extended reality. So we bring together a number of companies, we have common pre competitive interests in certain research and we do that work with them. We're, in fact, also a few weeks ago, the IHC and the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation co-hosted an entrepreneurship focused event. We had represented it there. We had over a, represented more 50 local companies. We had IHC faculty. We had representatives from Montgomery County, the state of Maryland, and the federal government from various entrepreneurship programs that they supported. We also have supported several county initiated engagements for companies that we're looking to move into, potentially move into Montgomery County. We've helped to support some of those activities with the County Executive Office. We've also used these funds to build unique relationships with local and federal labs and agencies such as the FDA and NIH. We've signed formal MOUs with them to support projects, for example, on the test and evaluation of AI-enabled medical devices and on the discovery of biological signatures that optimize the selection of heart treatment, heart failure treatments. We've used these funds to create new educational initiatives. We've created an initiated public seminar series on health computing topics. We're planning new educational programs for continuing medical education, for master's level, training for data science and AI, particularly aimed at health applications, and then as Brad mentioned, we've also, in response to guidance from the Council last year, are now opening a formal relationship with the Bethesda Kid Museum. And that's the will be support middle and high school innovation programs. We've used these funds to spur the creation of new companies. So we have three patents this year, and we've created, we spun out out the company Emergent LLC which is our first company based on IHC created technology. And then finally we've also supported health relevant legislative action. So for example this year the IHC supported the creation and we believe the passage of a Maryland state legislation to expand the professional and volunteer firefighter innovative cancer screening technologies program, which aims to provide grants to volunteer in the local fire departments so they can get enhanced access to early cancer screenings. Thank you. The University of Maryland medical system with its 11 hospitals and over 150 clinical practice site locations offers a diverse clinical test bed for the innovations and developments at the Institute for Health Computing and to engage in leading edge partnerships with industry, such as the one you just heard from Dr. Porter and that I will elucidate a little more. It also allows the IHC to retrospectively evaluate many of the technologies, particularly the AI and computational based technologies that are developed at the institute, as well as prospectively test them in conjunction with the electronic medical record through clinical trials using the test bed of the University of Maryland Medical System. These activities here in Montgomery County are spurring the discoveries and the treatments that are going to benefit the citizens of Maryland. Please allow me to share three examples of such activities here at the IHC, where we are directly linking them with the infrastructure of the University of Maryland Medical System in either developing, testing, or engaging some of these technologies in clinical trials. So first, we have entered into a partnership with AstraZeneca, a company with a presence in Montgomery County via our NCI Designated Comprehensive Cancer Center to launch a program at scale to use low-dose CT scans and AI technologies to screen and identify patients or members in the community at risk of developing lung cancer. We believe that by applying such technologies, we will be able to catch patients early in the detection process so that appropriate treatments can be prescribed for such patients. This particular project brings together industry, physicians, scientists, infomatisists, and engineers all working to solve a significant problem at scale while advancing the notion of health equity. In another example, investigators at the IHC are using large amounts of data, which is generated at very high velocity. This data comes from sensors, such as electrocardiograms, vital signs, and other physiological measurements, which are then processed at scale using some of the computing machinery that you just heard about to predict in this case a heart attack in a patient in advance of that patient having the heart attack. Why is this important? Because earlier intervention then allows care teams, clinical care teams, to intervene earlier and administer potential treat. earlier intervention then allows care teams, clinical care teams, to intervene earlier and administer potential treatments that could be life-saving in the instance of a heart attack. In a third example, we are on the verge of launching a fairly significant clinical trial, a prospective trial in which we are embedding AI-based technologies within the electronic medical a fairly significant clinical trial, a prospective trial, in which we are embedding AI-based technologies within the electronic medical record, where the AI-based technology that was developed is able to identify patients who are at risk of sepsis. Sepsis is a very severe blood-borne infection, which if left untreated in a timely fashion can result in significant mortality. And so what we are doing here is embedding the AI-based algorithm directly with the electronic medical record to, at the point of care, to alert physicians and care teams of the potential risk even before a clinician is able to identify whether the patient is at risk for sepsis. And so these are just some examples of the real world outcomes of the technologies and the work that is being performed at scale and then being pressure tested within the infrastructure of the University of Maryland medical system. And I'm really proud to be partnering with my colleagues, Dr. Porter and Dr. Marin on this incredible effort. This is incredible work and another reason why we're so proud to have you here in Montgomery County. Thank you for the presentation and amazing work that you're doing. As I'm hearing you speak, it's hard for me, and I'm sure everybody is thinking the same thing. And not to compare what's happening at the federal level in the attacks that are happening on NIH and in all these different institutions that are based in Montgomery County 2. How are you? Will you say that we are or you are a weak? Because it's a partnership. The we are fulfilling the gaps that are being left out of what's happening at the federal level because this is incredible work in this time. Well, I'm sure others here have comments. I'll maybe start by acknowledging how critical the support is by the county right now to maintain not only our productivity, but also to provide the opportunity for committee members that may be in need of engagement and collaboration or even employment. And we've certainly interviewed a sizable number of people in Montgomery County that have identified us as a potential destination they'd like to pursue in their post-federal role in the computer science and medical space. So that's one opportunity that we can fulfill for the county. And then secondly, our inherent goal of sustainability that includes extramural funding support as well as public-private partnership building allows us to maintain a path for sustainability and expansion that is not necessarily dependent on the disruptions that are ongoing with extramural funding. So I think that that vision by the county and by the deans and the presidents and by Tom and others was really ahead of its time, but critical at the moment. Thank you so much for saying that. I'm gonna open it up for questions. If any colleagues have any questions or comments to it, no, beautiful. Beautiful. That's because we love you. And it was straight to the point. And thank you so much for following up on the partnership with middle schools and high schools in the county through the kids' museum. I was there just last week. And they were so happy about this future partnership that you guys are doing. And it's about making sure that we are creating the next generation of folks we're going to take over your jobs. So thank you for following up on that. And so we have basically the item on the supplemental and appropriations with our objection. We are supporting that, and that's pretty much it, right? It's both the county's executive recommendations and the the Civil Mental. Yeah, without a vision. Thank you so much for being here and have a beautiful day. We're gonna stay here, but you can leave. We wish we were going with you. Yeah, more than that. Okay, now we're gonna move to item number three, the Business Center team. Please come forward. And we are also gonna be talking at the same time about the small business support services NDA, okay? Is it just you, Mr. Almond as well? Oh, there you are. Mr. Lee, could you kick us off, please? So yeah, item three, this is the business center team, which is a division within CEX. The county executive is actually recommending a decrease of just under $64,000 from the FY25 approved operating budget. This reflects a shift in contract funding to the administration budget within CEX as well as a change in compensation adjustments. CEX does receive an operating budget equity tool analysis, but the business center team does not on its own. We also, a council staff did identify one vacant and unfilled position, which we can talk about as we work through the packet. There's a description of what the business center team does on page two, as well as a summary of how the budget is changing. There were a few discussion items. There's really just the one position, but council staff did want to point out, just for clarity, that the description of the change in operating expenses and personnel costs is slightly different as it's described compared to what it looks like when you dig into the details. The overall change is still $63,487, but it's a reflects a $138,000 reduction in operating costs and a $75,000 increase in personnel costs, which is slightly different than how it's described in the budget, but the overall change is the same. So just to the sake of pointing that out, I wanted to say that, but council staff does recommend approval of these shifts. Starting with item 1.1, they're just moving three contracts over to the CEX budget. You may want to understand what's in those contracts, but council staff does recommend approval of that item. And I'll stop there before the next position. Can that's, can executives team providing input on this? Sure, thank you so much Chair Fountain, and all of the members of the Economic Development Committee. Appreciate this chance to come before you. I do want to appreciate before we get started the members of the Business Center team who are in the audience, Marie Harvey, Patrice Cheatham and Daniel Caroma. Sadly, we were down a business liaison, Guzman Elola, had to resign and that's left a big gap in the team, which is sorely felt. The contracts that we recommended shifting, they're more closely aligned with the activities of the CX, which is being talked about downstairs this afternoon, then they are with the activities of the business center so that decision was made to shift those over. Does anybody have any questions? Councilmember Vulcan. Yes. Thank you. So can you just when you say the work we're closely aligned can you just parse that out of it? Sure. Do you want me to go through the three? Well, I guess my point would be that I think that it's great to look at all of the services for small businesses in one budget pot. So if there are services that are being done that aren't related to the business center team, that's one thing. But if they are specifically related to the work of the business center team, I would just want to know why the shift is happening. So in my time working with these folks, for me, they appear more closely aligned with support for organizations and less on direct support to entrepreneurs and businesses. And there's a fuller discussion. I'm sure that is gonna happen downstairs about one of the three. Sure, okay, and thank you, because I think that we started having that conversation a little bit the other day, from the perspective of helping the organization function versus helping the small business. And so I thank you for that explanation. Thank you. Do you guys have any questions? No. We're going to read it. Next. Great. So then sorry. So the next item for the committee's consideration is a potential reduction 2.1 on page 5. As Mr. Hardman has bought a mention, there is a vacant and unfilled position, reducing, eliminating that position would result in the savings of $132,000 approximately. We also raised this discussion in the incubators packet, but to the extent that there is interest in or a recommendation for a third party manager to sort of supplement or support the incubators' NDA, there may be an opportunity to reshuffle some of the staff from the incubators NDA to the business center and eliminating this vacant and unfilled positions. You may want us to understand the consequences and implications of doing so if there is any interest in doing that over a partial period of time There's also the option to sort of lapse some of this and have a savings that way so Let let's have that conversation. Good afternoon. Nadia, include a small business navigator. So I'm gonna, we have brought today a state of presentations for you guys, just so that you guys can have a better understanding of the ecosystem of the business center and the impact that we had with businesses this calendar year 2024. So part of the activities that we had, we did over 2000 business direct assistance to businesses by the business liations and myself as the small business navigator. supported 74 businesses by the County Innovation Center. We provided at $1.2 million in direct grants as well as we provided 5.6 thousand businesses that receive assistance by county resource partners. So as we get the reports from the resource partners on the number of assistance they provide to businesses, this is the report that you have here. As you know, the county executive has this big initiative to make sure that the business liations are out in the community. You can see that through this proactive outreach we were able to engage and of 831 businesses. We collaborated on five targeted outreach projects from different departments, permanent, planning, Department of Environmental Protection, those were the departments that we assisted through outreach, as well as we concentrated outreach in every part of the region. As you can see in the map, you can see a little bit what is the gap. So for this year we're trying to identify how do we deploy the same resources that we have. But ideally, as you guys know, each business liaison has certain level of capacity. And with the number of small businesses in the county, we want to make sure that we can maximize that outreach? We have plenty of success stories this year. You guys have received already our annual report that contains a wide variety of success stories. But this is a clear example of Marie Harvey assistance that she provided to Marie Conner of the Stone Gate Arts. You know, she did not think that the county would reach out to her within the next couple of minutes that she submitted an inquiry through the business center. She got the assistance on how to start her business, how to navigate the county, something that she understood, or had the impression that was going to be complicated, Marie makes sure that that process did not feel complicated overwhelming and connected the business to the different resource partners that we have. A lot of the guidance that we're providing, as you guys know, with the CRM system we're able to pull certain information and what type of assistance we're providing. So a lot of the assistance has to do with connecting businesses to the resource partners. So they play a key connection to our businesses. The next in line was assistance to a startup of business. A lot of businesses now want to make sure that they are in compliance, that they know all the different process and the order that they need to follow to start a business. Funding grants and funding resources, that's what, as you guys know, now the business center also supports on review and applications for the move-run the business liaisons are involved on that process too And last but not least Permitting so we are still working with businesses help and navigate the permanent process or any issues that they might run into We are still moving forward with responding to businesses within two business days and The staff directly have assisted more than 1200 businesses throughout all the steps of their request during fiscal, during 2024. As far as funding opportunities, we manage five different programs directly by the business center team, which provided more than 1.2 million in assistance to 258 businesses in 2024. And our resource partners have also reported that they have issued more than 3.2 million to 178 businesses in 2024. Another success story, which this one I assisted with. So in clay, it's a co-working space based out on Chicago. They were very, very interested in coming here to Montgomery County. We provided the assistance on identifying a location, share the information about navigating the permit and process, provided them the pre-design consultation, as well as they had access to the move ground. So they have officially opened their first location, which is in the Catalan's in Gatorsburg. They have one in Silver Spring, that is in the midst of construction, as well as one in the testa. So in this case, you guys can see that even though it's a different type of business that the business center is assistant that we were able to provide a wide range of services. So connections to essential resources. As you guys know, the assistance that we provide heavily relies on the technical assistance that our resource partners provide, which that end up being over 4,000 hours of one-on-one coaching and technical assistance, 173 training events to over 5,000 businesses and 197 businesses completed intensive training through cohort style. The innovation ecosystem we also oversee part of the three innovation centers, Germantown, Rock,, and Silver Spring. Each of them with their own initiative. So, some of the highlights from the work that they have in person is they have reported 74 members that we have supported through the incubator system. 23 new members have joined the incubator. 82% of global occupancy, which doesn't increase from previous year. 191 jobs created based on the data that we've been able to collect from the members, as well as 29 events sponsors. 2026 in HREF, the Business Center staff have taken the time to regroup and identify some of the key initiatives for us. The first one is to lead the collaboration between all of our resource partners and business support groups. Have you guys heard this week it is important for all of our resource partners to be able to know, work, connect, network with each other so that they have understanding of the type of service and support and training to start also helping to reduce some of the overlap of training and information that there might be. Partnering with county departments to deliver presentations for navigating license, permit, and registration. a quick example of that is this path we hosted the first event, a webinar with the Department of Health and Human Services on how businesses can obtain a special event food license. So we hosted that in English on Wednesday and we're hosting one in Spanish on Monday. We already have 30 businesses registered. And now with the Department of Health and the regional office in mid-county, they've been able to create this really great video that no business owners can utilize to be able to use and have an understanding of how to set up their 10 for any event. And last but not least, we are going to focus in on assessing the needs of the businesses that the Business Center is engaging through Anwand Survey. While also we want to focus and monitor some of the key performance indicators such as the number of employee count and capital infusion. As you guys know, part of the packet, one of the recommendations was to reduce the personal cost. So what would that mean for the businesses? Not just the business center. It is, When it comes to proactive outreach, we have done the evaluations. And on average, a single business liaison reaches about 40 unique businesses throughout reach. That is just in a month. And then when it comes to direct assistance, the same liaison conducts approximately 100 business assistance sessions monthly, not including the fact that these liations participate and take the lead on presentations, on attending networking, on ribbon cuttings, as well as review and move grant applications. So that is the highlight of the business center. I hope that you understand the importance that it is for us to keep and remain that business liaison position at this point. And to be clear, well, first of all, thank you so much for all your work. And I'm a witness on the amazing work that the business center liations have done throughout the county. And I know I can count on you guys. When I have somebody who's telling me they have questions about how to open a business or they're about to sign a lease, I'll just send them to you and you take care of it. And I want to thank you for all that. And thank you for the detailed presentation because it does places that human face on what you're doing. I love the highlights on the businesses that you place on your presentation too. That was really good. So going back to what's on the staff report. And we're going to have to connect with a conversation that we're about to have on the incubators. The idea would be if we agreed on the third party to actually focus on the incubators, then what we're saying is to move a person to the business center, so we're not, so we fulfill the vacancy, but by moving somebody to somebody else, right? From the incubator area to the business center, right? So that's what we're talking about here. Okay. Do it. Yes, go ahead. I need clarification on that. So can you confirm that that's what's happening? Or can you like jump in? So for us the business center team, all the layzons and incubators support the Richard, and Alicia Chavez are all supporting small businesses. They're all supporting entrepreneurs. And should we be successful in the recommendation before you for the private sector, third party operator, our hope had been the repurposed positions as business liais liaison to continue using them throughout the transition and then beyond as direct engages with small businesses. So there will be a lapse. Like let's say that we have the third party, well, if we're going back. And let's say that happens in eight months. So in eight months, the person who's right now under the incubator position is going to move to the business center, but there will be a lapse. Is that not here yet or in the package? Ojudis come into. Oh, good. Or somebody's coming. And what's before you is not what you're talking about is not reflected in the, there's no shifts or. But if we agree, like right now the decision will be to agree with again executive recommendation understanding that this shift will happen, right? So, I just wanted to so the position that we're looking at in the packet right now the For 2.1 that's not this shift. That's the open It's currently a big that's the currently vacant position, right? So manager position right so let's so I want to I want to be clear I want to I don't want to eliminate that position. The open position, the position described in 2.1. I feel strongly I mentioned this the other day. I think the biggest bang for the buck is the liaisons in this entire budget. So I would say no to this elimination. Yeah, just keep it. Yep. Okay. I agree. Is everybody in a room? Do you have questions? I'll start with myself. Well, I wanted Judy to speak before we talk about the elimination of this. So, but I wanted to be the, the, the, the, this 2.1 doesn't have anything to do with the incubator. Is that that's correct, right? So this just one individual decision doesn't have to do with the incubator. Correct. So the staff is recommending to eliminate it just because we told staff to look for opportunities to eliminate positions and that's why Mr. Ali did what he did. And what council member Baal Klin Singh is not to eliminate it which I agree with. Do you have something to call? I agree to the only reason I came down here was the word lapse. There will be a transition in a lot of lapse. If a lapse implies either someone not I I mean anything to do, yeah. So it's a transition and we need the existing Innovation Center staff during that time to transition. And we can talk about that more in a minute. Which means that we should keep this position as it is so we can have a transition. I would think so, they are a great thing. Thank you for clarifying that. Okay, so we're going to. Yes. I did have a question about the businesses. I believe you mentioned that a single liaison connects with 40 unique businesses every month. So is that 40 new businesses or existing businesses every month? So each liaison on a weekly basis goes out and do outreach to different business owners. New businesses? New businesses. Okay. And so, how are you identifying the businesses that you are going out? So, we do have a plan. So, each liaison right now is tentatively assigned to a region. So, Marie Harvey is assigned to cover the wide majority of East County. Daniel Koroma covers heavily the Silver Spring region. So we do have an internal plan that goes over the different areas within each specific region to identify. And now we have the database that can pull and said, OK, this is the area that we have visited. We already had presence. Now it's time to shift that liaison to a different shop, to a different commercial area to make sure that we're not repetitive, that same effort. And because now with the new postcard that you guys have seen from the business center, so we're leaving the businesses with our information and we tend to follow up with them through email to make sure that they have our contact information. So if there is a need, they can always reach back out to the business center. I'm just wondering, do you have like a database of, okay, these are the businesses that are in Silver Spring that you're gonna reach out to. I reached out to these 40, I've crossed them off and now I have 100 remaining. How are you, like, what is the system? So part of that is a reporting through the CRM. So I can pull reports from the CRM to identify, okay, these are the business. This is where they are located. And that's why in the report that you saw today, we're even able to push that information into a map that will let us kind of point, pinpoint where we have been. And you can see clearly where it has had the business liaison's more presence compared to other areas. But you can see certain areas of gap in the app county. So how many businesses are remaining that haven't been counted? So the county has about 33,000 businesses. You can understand that we now three, four business liations and myself. There is still a large number. But so outreach is just one way that we are connecting to businesses that is the proactive approach. We also have businesses that now throw us networking, marketing, and social media. And even you guys mentioned in go talk to the business center, that's why we're also able to reach more businesses. Okay, so since the inception of the small business center, you've connected with how many businesses total out of the $33,000. I will have to pull out a report. Okay. And then when you connect with these businesses is there a standard intake form that the liaisons use to evaluate the needs of the businesses? There is no per se an intake form so we go more, we have a customer service orientation. So if we go with trade and ask businesses, hey, what do you need? Are you having any issues with the county that, and even sometimes just saying, hey, I am part of Montgomery County. Sometimes businesses are a little bit apprehensive. So what we work is on going in and building relationship. Just saying, hey, you know, I'm from the county. We just want to check in how business is doing. Do you have any need? And most times, once you start talking and spending that time with that business owner, they will say, well, by the way, I haven't got the renewal of my business license or I haven't got my renewal for my Department of Health license. So we work on also nurturing that relationship so that they see businesses see Montgomery County more business-friendly too. With the financial constraints that we have and the data, the unspent money, the amount of businesses, I don't know how many connected with seems like there's a lot more that need to be connected with. I'm not understanding what's happening during these interactions. There should be a standard form that you all fill out when you meet with the business. You know, you have all of these grants that we have, but everyone should be having the same conversations with every business that they're talking to, so that nothing's falling through the cracks. Some businesses are getting this type of attention, some businesses are getting this. It should be standard and there should be a checklist. I told them about this. This is what they said they needed help with. This is how we close out the case. We met with the Office of Human Rights. They created a dashboard of how they interact with each case, how they close out cases. So I can look into a dashboard and find out where they're at with this problem. I don't know if you have in your system, you know, if I look up on the business and I press on a business, what sort of services you've provided, what interactions you've had, how many times you've interacted with them. I just don't know if that exists or what. Through the sit-around system, when a business has come and requested assistance, we can track how many times we have interacted, how many sessions who were with that business, if the interaction was on the phone, through email, through a virtual meeting, if it was during outreach, a face-to-face, so we are able to pull those reports for each business that we have interacted with. Okay, it would just be helpful if we standardize what discussions we're having, what information we are receiving what we are receiving what we are receiving what we are receiving what we are receiving what we are so that when you come to us to report, we have a better understanding of what's actually happening. So the testimonials are great presentation is beautifully laid out, but it would be helpful to better understand what's happening during these interactions. And when we can anticipate how close you're going to get through these 33,000 businesses. Councillor Marcia, I appreciate that your thoughts on the line of questions. I think we're thinking the same way. One of the things I've had the pleasure of doing since Gene Smith left us is sitting in more on the staff meetings and seeing how the business center interacts. They meet weekly. They talk about made issues that they're seeing. They talk about particular cases, they share information. So while there are three different liaisons, there is a check where they get together and they collaborate and they all work on solving problems together and sharing best practices. Nadia Clude has maintained that high level of coordination and oversight. And every week the manager of the team gets to look through this CRM system to identify the workflow, the needs that are emerging, and then plug that back into weekly staff meetings. Yeah, so it would be good to understand how many businesses haven't been touched and what that looks like in the year ahead. Thank you. Perfect. Before I pass the mic to Council Member Glaston, I just want to reorient that conversation. Two things going on. We have two decisions to make here. The first one is on page four, the 1.1 chief contracting funding from business and toinguished Budget to Administration Budget. And the second one, again, what I mentioned before, the 2.1, eliminate vacant and unfilled business lesions. The idea will be since we are going to be talking pretty soon about the incubators. And if we bring the third party, that will mean that there's going to be one person working on the incubators right now who could move to the business center. Okay, so we're not eliminating the position. Okay, so I agree with Councilmember Balkan, we should not be eliminating this at all. But before we start voting, can we have Councilmember Glass? Yes, I just want to clarification. You said we're not eliminating the position. At least I don't want to. No, we're not eliminating the position. So if we're transitioning, they're already receiving a salary. Why do we need to hold on to this line item? This hundred. There will be a transition time for this, which is not a lapse. Yeah, if it's a transition and they already have the salary from the incubator, why would they need the salary from a totally different position? The salary needs to remain in this NDA. Yeah. Because if there is, for instance, if what's going to happen is going to happen in item number five, the position needs to remain in this NDA. If there is a transition from the incubator, any change would happen at the incubator, in the incubator budget, not this budget. So we would shift funds from the incubator budget, the salary from the incubator budget, and it would just be the position we're holding onto, and we would zero the position out. Can I have a nice team to please clarify? I want to make sure I understand too. So I, sounds like what you're saying is, is for FY26 shift an existing position, or not, but make sure that person out of the incubator NDA into the business center. And then we would reduce the dollar amount in the incubator NDA. Yes. But so then we can reduce this money. This money has to stay in this budget. So we're shifting a person to the vacant position. And the position that will now be vacant in the incubator would be zero. If that's what we decide later on, this afternoon. But we don't have anybody from OMG here? There you go. Oh, what are you saying? Oh, what are you saying? Veronica, how are you? From the Office of Management and Budget and I'm covering for Julie Knight. I could not be here for us today. So positions that stay where they are, where you do is just to move the person. Then you decide what to do with this one. I mean, this is incubator, this is the business center. You move this person from here to here. And so there, if we're moving, that's why I didn't, because I realized that you guys figured out. Yeah, if we're moving the position, we move the position and the money. You leave the positions where they are. Okay. Move the person. A person stands up from that chair and seats in the other chair. Visually. And Councillor Marraisello, that's because of the goose month, the vacant position already exists. So someone can land in the existing vacant position. So we would want to shift the person in the incubator. Yeah, the other way. Yeah. I think that's a kind of a knock. That will be that third party's question. But OK, yeah, go ahead. Councilmember Klaus. There are a lot of different conversations converging at this point. And it's hard to make a decision on this one item, recognizing the moving parts that are to be. So understand that, I appreciate you framing and reframing and framing again the discussion because we need to figure that out. I want to take a step back and say that I appreciate the work that you all do as I've noted from the day I went out and walked around the White Oak community with one of the liaisons, I think it was two years ago, and saw firsthand that engagement. That is great. And there's lots of discussions and lots of problem solving. At the same time, two days ago, this committee had a conversation with the Department of Permanent Services where they wanted a nearly $90,000 position for an outreach person to go to community events, to table, and to talk to people who had problems. There's redundancy in the budget. It's all going towards good effort, important work, but it's not being coordinated enough. Similar positions are being created across different departments and agencies to do the same work. That's a problem. I'm not supportive of the DPS position. We were split as a committee on that. The description of what this group does is much more amenable to what I think the problem we're trying to fix is. It's that direct outreach talking and being multifaceted, not just tabling at events. And I'm not diminishing the importance of that, but in a very tight budget, do we have that money for somebody to go to events and be passive in their conversations? People have to go up to them and engage and share their problems here. This is an active group. You're knocking on doors, you're walking the streets, that's what we need. So I am supportive of that, I'm supportive of the shifts that have been discussed, recognizing we'll have more conversation. But I want to share with the executive team that in an extremely difficult budget, there's got to be better coordination across the different budgetary items. And I'll state here at this committee session what I mentioned previously, and I think I'll add a finer point to it. When we create positions to help people navigate regulations and bureaucracy, that is one way to deal with our regulations and bureaucracy. The other way is to streamline regulations and bureaucracy. And I very much want to work with you all to do that. We've been doing that. This committee has been leading that effort. I hope the executive branch in all the conversations, in all of the different agencies and departments and groups, as you're talking to folks, your team, eyes and ears on the ground, talk to the executive, talk to us in a critical thinking manner about what can be streamlined, because I would prefer to streamline our systems to help people than increase the budget, increase revenue to fix the problems that can be solved in another way. So thank you. Very well said. In that deepest position, we're not so bad, for the way. It's from the reckless. So I'm wondering, before I said, if there were more and forward, if Councilmember sells, do you have more questions on this? Because the decision right now would be to keep things as they are by the county executive. I'm totally embracing this, but I want to know if anybody else has questions for you. OK, with this, so we can move forward. Yeah. I'm fine with this. I just don't have any. It's on. Oh, yeah. I just, how long has this position been vacant now? It, I believe, mid-March does one, does one, he left. Yeah, the position currently closed, it was advertised, we do have a stack of resumes that we haven't done interviews. So knowing that budget cycle was coming around. And I'm going to come clean. I did say to Ken and I said, look, if we're going to be doing this third party situation with incubators, I don't want to let's use somebody who's ready there and move that person to the business center and that way we're not laying off anybody. So they stopped. Yeah, you don't know that? Okay. But are you mean, but you may move someone today? Not today. Well, yeah, okay. Transitioning. Transitioning. The transition in person. Anyway. I'm saying if we're transitioning I'm not understanding why we're what's happening Well, yeah, okay. Transitioning. Transitioning person. Anyway. I'm saying if we're transitioning, I'm not understanding why we're what's happening to the money in the incubator. We have to keep it. We had to keep it. Oh, and we're gonna talk about the incubator brace room. Maybe that will clear things up. Yes, yeah. Is it a certificate of hope? Can we take the book on this one, right now? Without objection, is that fair to say that we're gonna embrace what's here? Yes? Okay, I'm not. the book on this one right now without objection. Is that fair to say that we're going to embrace what's here? Yes? Okay. We're I'm not in agreement. So we should just vote three to one. Okay on on the 2.1 in the mini vacant. Okay. You got it be very clear on what the vote is. is 321 on the 2.1 item on page 5. Elimini vacant, so you are voting to eliminate the position. Okay, we do not, okay, I do not agree with that. And I don't think Councilmember Balkyne and Glass do either. Mr. Releas, are there anything else on this particular item? No, just that the full council packet will with OMB to update the shift and compensation adjustments to their accurate. So it's accurate. Perfect, thank you. So now we're moving on to the NDA. Yes, item 3.5 follow up from Wednesday. We've basically changed what the recommendation was from the County Executive in coordination with county executive staff. And so now the recommended increase is effectively $36,000, $387 above the FY25 budgeted amount. And this includes the compensation adjustments, which has not changed. Sort of just to jump to the meat of the discussion, which is the follow up from Wednesday, you can see on page four, a summary of the new proposal here. Effectively, the county executive staff will evaluate the FY25 spending from existing contractors that were allocated funds in FY25 and based on that, areimating to distribute about 1.3 to 1.4 million dollars to those contractors And then the remainder to the 1.7 that their requesting is allocated to this NDA They establish competitive grants of between 150 and 250 thousand dollars for new providers to provide a small business services, as well as a competitive grant for providers that will support small federal contractors. Some of those dollar amounts are still to be determined based on the total FY25 spend, but that's generally the idea of how this new $1.7 million fund would be allocated. I think that covers the reflects the conversation that we had on Wednesday. And I'm okay with it. I wanna open it up for questions that anybody may have on this. I'm gonna remember glass. Can we get the executive team to just dive in a little deeper on new challenge grants and the focus on collaboration? Thank you so much, Council Member Glantz for that question. So there are two pieces. And both driven by the fact that we have an appropriation for small business services. And if money isn't moving, if it's not being used, we need to redeploy it to be used by new partners, by other organizations that we all know are out there in the community supporting businesses for specific needs to fill the gaps. As Nadia said earlier, we want to get everyone together and talk about where the gaps are, what we're hearing from the business community, and realign services for FY26. Some of that we know our partners don't have the capacity to continue. And so we also want to open the door for new organizations to come in and utilize the limited county dollars that we have. And in the long run, we, the whole, as we've talked about, the entire NDA should be based on this sort of need-driven grant-based and let me say solicitation-based process where you get the right people in the right place to do the right job. On the second part, the $150,000 for small federal contractors, this is something we've talked about with the county chamber and with MCEDC. You may have seen a very similar proposal from MCEDC to do very similar activity. We believe this activity needs to be done. That some organizations can step in and provide direct coaching and support targeted towards these federal contractors. That's something that's missing in the ecosystem. So that's we want to redeploy funding for that need. And again, we've spoken to at least two organizations that we believe can do this work and are already developing plans to meet that need. Thank you for that explanation. So appreciate the quick turnaround, right? Recognizing we asked for more information. So clearly you've spent the last 48 hours thinking this through and already reaching out to partners and applaud that effort. Really important to note that when MCEDC was here, the board members explicitly asked for increased funding to cover this. And so if I'm hearing you correctly, you would be dissuading us from adding funding to MCEDC because a very similar program is being proposed here. If I could put words in your mouth. I think the funding here allows us to see who has the best proposal, who has the best capacity, and to make sure that that's where the funding is going. The MCDC might request the funding, but again, that will be weighed against capacity issues and to do the work. Understand that. And then a third, second or third agency depending on how you think about it, work source. And if could you provide also an update on supplemental appropriations that have already either come or are coming that might further supplement this work? So the, as I don't have in front of me, but the $700,000 workforce supplemental which you you have before you, is to target federal employees who are often higher level, higher paid employees looking to transition by creating a new, repurposing space in their wheatens for direct contact space, as well as contracts with other partners who do this sort of engagement with employees looking to find work. And then so that is those are GS very high right very high GS levels who would benefit from this program. This program would be your your your small size federal contractor folks who not G.S.ers. They may work under contract. They may be a small organization, a small business that contracts, since loss or contract. That's our target. All of that makes sense. Again, very important to get that on the record right now because as we talk about redundancy and focus and making sure that these funds are helping the demographics and the residents who need them, I think by forcating or recognizing the different skills, education levels, work history within our diverse community is important. And I support this proposal. so thank you, take for rethinking it and reintroducing it. Great points from Council Member Glass, now Council Member Sills. So the adjustments are to provide new grants to businesses that may have been impacted by the federal government and then existing businesses? No. So the, we'd like to, so this is, this is in the same spirit, this is support for businesses that may have been doing business with the federal government and have since lost contracts. On, this is coaching them on reinventing themselves, on recreating their business plan, and identifying other procurement opportunities on other government or private sector contracts. The federal government, as you know, has a very specific procurement rule, and sometimes that doesn't translate to the private sector. So navigating that pivot for companies is a place that we'd like to be able to provide support with the funding you've allocated for this activity. And is there a cap for how much each business is allowed to qualify for? So this isn't a grant to businesses. This is coaching, this is in line with what we've talked about before. Services. Services, coaching, cohorts, training, networking, resources, connection to resources. That's sort of an answer. Does it fit challenge grants and I'm looking at challenge grants and new partner challenge grant? I hear you. So I use challenge grant instead of other terms because I want, we want the organization that applies to the for the grant to meet certain criteria. We want to make sure that they're invested in providing the services. We want to make sure they're partnered. We want to make sure they're connected and not off doing their own thing. So that that's what I mean by challenge against. It's for those organizations or organizations that will provide the support to the federal contractors. Okay, so one says for federal but there's two separate. One says new partner challenge and one says challenge to support small federal contractors. So you're just going to award these to the one person each. So the first one is the first set, I think I had 150 to 250. So this is the funding unspent by our existing managers who we've engaged to provide business support. Yes. We want to redeploy that money to organizations that have the capacity to provide business support, to fill the gap, to make sure that the entire appropriation is being utilized for the purpose that you intended to. But there's no cap on how many people can provide these. They could, there, there, I could see company, answer these, come in and get a $50,000 awards. It all depends on what they want to do. This is what I'm trying to understand. Are you putting a cap on this or not? Just to understand how many people will be able to take advantage of this or if this is just going to one person, one entity. We are looking to make sure that this is spread around as far as possible. It's not our intent to give it to one entity. Local regional business organizations are one other organizations that support. Minority businesses would be another. Those we haven't worked with today, we want to be able to engage with. So make- We haven't created any programators for how you're going to award this money. We would deploy it the same way or in the same spirit of the program that we're looking for. Direct business support activities. We're not looking to support admin or rent or things like that. This is for, you know, if you want to do a workshop for businesses with our office of procurement. If you want to do a training for Vietnamese American businesses, if you want to do a local chamber in Wheaton through the Chamber of Commerce, that's what we're looking at. We need RFP for these. Absolutely. We'll create a portal where folks would submit proposals to. No bid for the work that you need. Correct. Okay. And then just looking at these allocations to our service providers. I see that of three, one, two, three, four of the programs have either spent all of their money or theirs. You know, I'm just trying to figure out what life asset is providing for under $12,000. So life asset builds the county twice a year and then they build for the assistance that they are providing to businesses for micro grants Okay, so life assets that's what mainly they focus on probably not bigger their micro grants. What's the largest? So they they have a range friend like a thousand dollars to like 25 thousand dollars. That's why they focus on a lot of the micro grants, anything under 25 thousand dollars. Their budget's only 11,000 in 500. Yes, because they do get, they are national organizations, so they get fund in for different sources, not just the county. That is just to support county businesses. If I could just step in here. The so the EDF has the micro loan program and that's distributed to life acid and LEDC. That's the money that provides the loans. And this is I think just to provide technical services to businesses and that they're building us for. Okay. All right. And then the other. What is this MNT accelerator program? Are they also providing a coordinating services? So that is what we did last year. It's, that is a partnership between the business center with MNT bank and the funds, how they are being deployed is as a pitch competition winner fund. So it doesn't go to M&T is within the county executive and it is distributed directly to businesses who compete under a certain criteria for a pitch competition. And then I had one more question about the UMD Small Business Development Center. They've exhausted all their funds and what are they providing? Are they providing grants or services? They provide services. They provide one and one technical assistance to businesses within Montgomery County, as well within that organization. They have the Hispanic Business Center, so they also have a heavy presence supporting letting own businesses here in the county. But they are focused as on providing technical assistance. Okay, yeah, we're not just looking forward to having further discussions about all of these contractors and the services that they provide after budget. Yeah, thank you and actually you hit the nail. That's a special, right? Because today's ago, we also said during the discussion that we look forward to having you guys back and explain how you're destroying the money and have that very clear to us. So we look forward to having those work sessions. And on the M and T. S. L. A. program, I was there for the pitch competition. It was all, I was there for, to give out the awards. And it was great. So thank you for having me in that opportunity. I think, Council Member Balcon, do you have a question? Go ahead. Thank you. Yeah. It was two days ago when we asked for a new concept. And so thank you for doing the work in that amount of time. So yeah, I think that I think this is good. And yes, we certainly want to see how it rolls out. And but I think that I think we, I would still like to see this strategic look at, you know, this fits for me, fits the bill for the budget decisions that we have to make. But I still think we need to, when we look at this pot of money, which is a large pot of money, we need to look at strategically, How does it fit? I appreciate Council Member Glass's point of all the services throughout all the departments that happen with small businesses, the coordination. There should be a coordination element to what this entity would be the entity that would do that coordination with all the other departments for small businesses. So I'd like to see that in that strategic plan. I do have two specific questions. One is for the contracts with existing partners. I would hope that the assumption is that perhaps not 26 but by 27 they are competing as well. Yes. Thank you, Councillor Mellon. Our intent is that everyone in this NDA is submitting a proposal through a portal for county funding. Okay great and then from the budget perspective we there's a $36,000 enhancement and that was originally to keep this money whole. I'm questioning whether whether we should look at that as a potential savings and not have it be the whole 1.7 million. And just to clarify, so this is a change from what the increment was last time because there was like, it was an odd number, it got to like 1.713 and this is a clean 1.7. Right all right thank you I appreciate that. I'll take it back. Is that it? Okay thank you so much. Look forward to seeing you pretty soon and without objection we are gonna agree with this recommendation. Thank you. Okay moving forward item number four conference center and DA. Mr. Raleigh. Thank you. Okay. Moving forward. Item number four, conference center, NDA. Dye, Ms. Raleigh. Thank you. Yes, item four conference center, NDA. This is just for the management of the contract with the Maryach conference center in North Bethesda. There is an FTE that's employed through here and throughout the budget wide compensation adjustments. this NDA is receiving an increase of $9,000 for that purpose. And kind of executive staff also wanted to point out that as a result of the new contract, the revenues that are generated, which accrue to the general fund, will increase by approximately $500,000 going forward as a result of the new arrangement. But that's not a decision point before all of you. So any questions on this one? This is very straight forward. Mr. Ken Harman, do you have anything else to say? Okay. What I had to say about this already said it on Wednesday, and I will not repeat it. With that objection, we're gonna move forward. Last item of the day, incubator programs. Can I just say that I'm so excited that for the past year, maybe more than a year at this point, we have been doing all these different field trips with, you know, enjoying my people outside this committee, seeing how we can step it up and in the timing actually works with all the chaos happening at the federal level. Ms. Yuri Costello has been such a great ally in this effort and I'm going to pass it to Council staff and then the executive to please walk us through this packet. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. This is the incubator programs NDA, Ms. Costello. I just received an email. It was officially the director of economic development special project. So congratulations. Sorry, your promotion was announced within the last two minutes to director of economic development. You know that you were promoted. Oh, sorry. Sorry. So they recommended increases 2.1 million. This includes 2 million in programmatic and staffing enhancements. That's 2 million, ultimately, for the third party manager that's broken up as described in the budget as a mix of 1.2 million for entrepreneurship ecosystem support in $100,000 for coaching and mentoring support for entrepreneurs. But that's one package that they can explain and was described a little bit during your budget follow-ups. There's also the $152,000 increase for compensation adjustments for the three FTEs that are contained with this NDA. I actually don't have the breakout of the, the personnel cost that would be shifted, so that's something I'll identify with OMB for full council, and then we'll have that dollar amount ready for you all at that point. You can see the description of what the incubators NDA does on page two, summary of the decision points. I think it just makes sense to sort of discuss 1.1 and 1.2 together since that's the full $2 million third-mortem manager suggestion and I'll just turn it over to the experts to explain that proposal. I was going to hand it to Judy Kasele for Recreation Harman, it's about a assistant chief administrative officer. I was going to hand it to Judy Kasele for Recruigen Harman, it's about a Assistant Chief of the Ministry of Office. Really appreciate your support leading up to this point. There are two buckets that are make up this proposal. One is to bring in the operator if you you think fitsy, an organization that will nurture, challenge, recruit, and support tenants in the incubator. They have a great model for making sure that their tenants are moving forward. And then the other piece, there's a lot of support services that we need to build in this county for coaching and mentoring of entrepreneurs. And there are entities that we know already exist in the county who could fulfill these duties. And that funding is for the operator to then utilize to hire and engage with folks who have expertise, industry specific, as well as the bigger issues such as engaging with angel investors and things like that. So I'm going to stop because I'm not the expert. I'll turn it to the expert. Before you continue to use for clarity, we used our third party a moment ago. Now you're seeing Operator Boat. We're talking about the same thing. Just making sure that's clear. Go ahead. Sure. Thank you. Judy Castello with the Office of the County Executive. No matter the title. Working hard for you. So by the way, I do want to take a quick minute to acknowledge we thank Mr. Park, Department of Spotted Thank, Naughty and the Business Liaisons. We also have Derese who handles all the move grants here. Stephanie and our two incubator personnel who will be talking about a minute or not able to be here, they all do great work proactively and reactively so we're proud of them. So we're talking about these specific proposals and next thank you. I thought as Mr. Hartman said, it'd be helpful to separate it. They're combined and separated. And I think the budget, the way that we're describing them budget may have been a little confusing. It almost looked like 2 million for coaching. We've had a lot of conversations about coaching, by the way, even earlier today and earlier this week. This is specialized coaching for innovators, for people in biotech, clean tech, advanced tech. And that's different than the coaching. For the most part, the specialized coaching is different than the coaching that is needed for a restaurant or a business just opening up. otherwise you may wonder why do we need more coaches. So Mr. Hartman's already described the idea is and we've spoken to a number of possible candidates who are recognized most globally as being focused on innovation. have experienced managing labs bringing shared equipment through donation sponsorship purchase We expect that whoever we bring on board would do a combination of that to leverage things there are staff tend to be multi-faceted so if they managing equipment in a wet lab, they also can handle kind of the front office duties and maybe provide basic one-on-one coaching. And so these are people who do that every day. We do have two great staff supporting the incubators right now. They don't have that experience and expertise. They do a great job with speaking to the tenants similar to our liaisons, but they don't have the Ph.D. or the experience working with innovators. So the third party operator, as you see on your side, we also want them to bring together the three innovation centers and our new AI Innovation Center under one county umbrella and it's not just the facilities the most important part is Adding the programming that provides extra education networking and community building Among those incubators and makes that available to other entrepreneurs throughout the county. So that's the idea. Next slide, please. I think we've talked about this before. A lot of investment already has been made in the Innovation Center. You've got to see that. And you heard from tenants. I did have some questions from council members since we were last year. How many of these companies are profitable? And how much have they, you know, what's been their success? The majority of companies in the incubators are not profitable, then that's why they're there. We're providing them subsidized, affordable, flexible space to help them grow. The majority of industries that are the strategic industries that we support do not tend to enable profit and revenue soon. Biotech is the obvious example where it is depending on the numbers it takes 10 years and 10 million and the numbers have gone up to get through clinical trials. You may be talking hundreds of millions before they can first get reimbursement and paid for the medicine that might help you and I. I think I spoke about it before, but again, because there was a question that came in from staff to staff since we're gone. Our Celix and Deca biosciences are two of the recent graduates within the last couple of years. I think last year, our Celux a couple of years before, they both are biotechs. Our Celux is now a publicly traded company. You're talking, you know, tens, I believe it's hundreds of millions of dollars, but they still are, don't aren't fully approved through FDA. They're in clinical trials. So profit, it takes a long time to get to, or select similarly. I'm trying to think, and we've had some other internet of things, companies that we can give you extra background, but leverage is one of the mock food. Some of you may have met, they were in the Germantown Innovation Center and left right before it, but they now are profitable. So where you make products that aren't in a regulatory, as heavily regulated environment, you might get to profitability sooner. We believe that by bringing the community together and updating and refreshing our facilities and adding specialized coaching, we will raise the profile of innovation. Some of you have been to others. We saw the centers nearby, some of you have seen centers overseas. You walk into the leading edge and you just feel the energy and the innovation, not just from the facilities but from the people engaging and the resources. That's what we hope to bring. And it's a capacity issue, a word. I know you like to use it. In our case, there's only, you need an events person. We'll get to that. You know, an operations person. You need more staff. Be very difficult to hire the number of specialized experts that you need to manage, even one center at that higher level that we're hoping to get to and that's part of why we're bringing in a third party. We also don't want the government to be picking winners and losers even on coaches as well as tenants. Right now we are vetting them. We bring in extra experts when we need them. Ms. Bauchem has sat on the review committee before but we hope hope as we add more resources, the opportunity to be in the innovation centers will be even more coveted than it is. And I say that you heard the occupancy rate. Rockville is actually full and has a weightless. The labs at Germantown are almost full. They opened up when Dr. Graduated. And we have people interested in the AI Innovation Center and a couple of people already at our temporary AI innovation space. We do one-off coaching. We do one-off collaborations with universities and federal agencies by having someone focused on making those connections all the time and the bandwidth, that type of capacity to do so we think that we'll be able to leverage our existing assets further. So what's the role? Yep, manage the portfolio. This is what we're, this is what we'll be asking a third party to do, help with tenant recruitment vetting the license management which now is done by staff. By the way, if you go to most of the incubative or innovation centers that we visited earlier on the bus tour, they can pay rent with credit cards. They can host a network in a vet and pay for food. There are certain things that because we're government entity, it's very difficult to do. And the number one thing other than funding and or customers if there are a regular environment that are tenants through survey and one on one of the others they want is networking and specialized expertise. Those two things. So that's something we hope to have. Facility management, we have someone doing that now, now, but we hope we've talked about tenants asking us for advanced tech type of support. It's in a fab lab. I just talked to a tenant today who's going to College Park. I said would it help you if that were in Montgomery in Montgomery County the equipment you used it he said yes I said doesn't need much maintenance of validation. I mean these guys are ready for resources here And because they are new and not yet profitable they can't afford to own the equipment themselves So we're talking about a little more shared equipment for biotechs but also For the other industries that we know we're growing in county. We would expect that the success rate through having more education, networking and specialized expertise, the success rate of our startups in the incubators, and those who participate in programs hosted at them and by this operator would increase. And we hope that this would be self-sustainable. Basically, we'd be leveraging our investment with a third party operator and their connections to experts, to funders, to others. We'd be leveraging our existing investment today and be able to do more. It's, and when we support entrepreneurs, whether it's the business, the A'sons, or the work that we've done with that grants program that just opened and closed, or in our incubators, we're government, and we come, as not, Ms. Clute said, with a customer service attitude. And we try to help them, but not everybody is ready to be an entrepreneur or able to be successful. And in our role currently we've tried to support all those who can be successful and we've also tried to politely coach others that maybe they need other help or they need to pivot. That's frankly easier if you're not a government representative, if you have the background expertise and if you're not holding the government role. So they don't have to go through the list, but the types of things providing more resources, ensuring a competitive environment, having structured accountability. We do that now. We meet with these tenants, but because of the bandwidth of two-person staff, Judy and some others, we don't meet with them. I can't meet with them and our staff doesn't meet with them every week and say, what do you do? You'll remember at FITSEE specifically. She said, what do you do? Still on the Frederic. Yes. I'm sorry, the Frederic Innovation Technology Center. One of the models we visited, those entrepreneurs are challenged very regularly. And it helps them grow. We would ask a third party expect that that would happen. We'd ask them to help with market validation, customer discovery, and the last bullet about it done. Whoops, you're on a different hold, that yeah, I'm on that one, sorry. Holding an entrepreneur's accountable and if they need to move on helping with that. And I think you have this PowerPoint, but it goes to all of that next place. So this is a sample innovation center workshop. This is a few Google a little bit. It's not from anybody we've been talking to. However, it is very similar to different companies that we have spoken with. What would they need to do? You're talking right here, what, nine positions. We have two plus the receptionist, tenant managers, and a building engineer currently. Over three innovation centers. So again, this is what I'm talking about with leveraging investment. We have spoken with third party operators who basically gave a very similar proposal with the exception of full-time entrepreneur and residents. Very similar, I'd say, on everything else. Developing community, having events, some of them put lab managers in for some of that equipment. I said, the idea is that instead of one entrepreneur in residence, which you may recall we saw at the universities, and we visited launchports, so the owner or Mr. Story is an entrepreneur, so he's almost an entrepreneur in residence. We're counting, basically, we're not familiar with the University. We don't have that. The idea is that we use the separate coaching bucket for that type of support. And that's the next slide. So why specialize coaching? I talked about this a little bit before. What would they do? The budget that we came up with that was from different proposals we asked even last year. What would it take to run an Accelerator cohort? Are those innovation centers that we all visited earlier this year, including the Frederick Innovation Technology Center, including those up at the University in Maryland and Baltimore, many of them have Accelerator cohorts, UMBC which we didn't get to visit, runs their tenants through an accelerator. That focuses everybody of builds community. It leverages time that people are learning about different topics. And we would hope to be able to do the same thing. Next, that's about it. So in summary, with this proposal, we think we'd leverage the county's investment. We'd be helping our current tenants and many more throughout the county and raise the profile of Montgomery County and entrepreneurial community and most importantly, grow jobs and provide opportunities for those throughout the county, including possibly displaced federal workers to have an opportunity to learn and grow. Thank you so much for that presentation, Ms. Costello. And I think you ended with the right tone of idea. At the end of the day, I think this is the year where Montgomery County must step it up to invest on job creation. For that to happen, we need to invest in efforts like this one. I know it's a big number, as you can see in the report, but I think it's an investment that we must make, especially when we continue to go out and tell everybody where the third place in the nation on life sciences, well that's not enough being third. We wanna be number one. And to be number one, you gotta make investments. And this year with everything going on at the federal level, this is the year for us to step it up. And so I think all the stars are aligning to this. In my view, I'm going to open it up for questions. Who wants to start? I think people know we're understanding. We're leading a completely embraced and support this. So anyone has questions? Mr. Glass. There we go. Thank you for the presentation. Ms. Castelli, you and I visited a number of these facilities in India most notably. T-Hub, if you think of that in a couple of minutes. T-Hub, Google it, it was incredible. We could not even fathom to do something on that scale. That is one of the largest states in India that puts that on. And it is the call center capital of the world, right? That is in that community. And so there are things to emulate. And it's a matter of figuring out how much we can do. My main question is about the $800,000 and trying to figure out how that number was determined. Because as the chair noted, this is a big ask in a very tough budget. Not questioning the need, but questioning how we get to fulfill that need. Sure. So, if you separated and think about the 1.2 as the third party manager and think of it as that org chart, without the entrepreneur in residence, the – how we got to that number very specifically was last year when we were before you, we reached out to several different entities who could do cross-sector coaching and accelerators. And they put together a proposal, that they put together a couple proposals that included things like at the time. I think we had 20 fewer residents in our incubators and we said we want you to help 100 tech innovation clients at a detailed level of assessment, coach, commercialization, advice, et cetera. We want you to do it 101 and we want you to do it as an accelerator. So we then have talked, we since have talked to different folks, I think different folks, including local people have spoken with you, some with one industry focus, some with another, but that figure was based on proposals, but we didn't want to say too much or talk too much because we were going to – we would open this – if we were doing this, we would open it up to an RFP. We want the third-party operator to do the equivalent, to make it open to the best person for the tenants whom the operator will be serving. If it had been said and illuminate me if it hasn't, how many different entrepreneurs or how many businesses and startups are we hoping to bring into this and to mature through the program? Well, so we have 70 some different companies in the innovation centers right now. I think it with four innovation centers, that includes the AI Innovation Center. And everyone at max capacity, I honestly, it's a good question. I've never added up all the rooms and labs. But I would think it should be well over 100. But more importantly, I think it should be many more than that, numbered to be determined, who would be served by the programming and coaching. For example, if we have legal office hours at any one of the innovation centers, we should have a calendar up and anybody in the innovation center gets first dibs first. And then anybody else, and we're hoping between the business center and the CEX and we'd share it with you to have some business newsletters and communications any other entrepreneur who fills out per council member sales request a certain inquiry should have the opportunity to take advantage of that the same is true with regulatory advice we don't have the bandwidth to do it because we don't have because our two people are very busy just managing the paperwork on the licenses and the incoming. You heard the 20-some new folks, many of those, by the way, are Maryland Global Gateway candidates and they come from all different places. But I would hope that in addition to what I just said, we would be having at least monthly to start and then buy monthly regular networking, you know, for AI innovators, for biotech, for satellite manufacturers, that this group would be quarantining that using the Innovation Center as a hub, but that others from outside those centers would be able to participate. That's where you add the value that outsiders come into the incubators. Ms. Clute mentioned that the two staff now have hosted, I think it's 30 programs since we got, since they took on and got launched over the last year. Those are meet your peers. There are some vendors who will speak. We're talking about doing more than that. We're talking about having experts that you would want to go to if you had the time. Listen, learn, and network with others. That's the hope. That's what's happening in Frederick. That's what's happening in Baltimore. That's what's happening in Boston. We're not doing that now. So that's going to put a lot of pressure on the third party, but on those that we have spoken to. We've said that networking and the coaching, not just we have many chambers, great networking events, not just networking, but the specialized networking, the innovation work, that that will make the biggest difference. And that will give someone who just left the federal workforce or someone who's unrelated to the federal workforce and think of a new idea, a place that's in the tech space and a place to go to. So my last question, I'm building on the point that you just raised. How quickly could this get up and running? So we've spoken with OCA and we've spoken with Procurement. If we find a, if we use a person who can do most of this, there are very few of them. There are a lot of people who do different parts. I answered staff's questions and listed a number of them. It will be a few months. That's why I said transition period. As soon as dollars would be operated, I can tell you that prior to dollars being operated, we've gone through with OCA and procurement what we might be able to do. But once dollars are operated, I can commit that we would start the process. If it's an RFP, it's gonna take longer. If it's sole source, it still would be a multi-month process. I would like to have an operational before the end of the year, and possibly in the fall, at least parts of it. Because we might not be able to get everything together, but we might be able to get a plan going. The different folks we have spoken to who are third-party operators have said they anticipate the longest thing that will take the most time is the initial hire of their top person. Because they don't, they don't want, can or you or me, they want someone who's done this before. So they may want Mr. Harbin, but they've said that. They've said that. So there are many people looking for work, but so I'm trusting that we're pointing trust in that if we hire the right person, that they will hire the right person and that's the longest period of time, then they will start hiring the other people on the org chart. Thank you. Councillor Mimble-Balcon. Thank you. Yes, I support this. I think that the field trips were really eye-opening in terms of what we have versus what is possible. So that was, I fully support the concept. Just a couple questions. One is, so I really appreciate the metrics that are outlined in the packet. And this is a significant investment and especially given this budget year that we're in. And so I think that it in the RFP and in the selection process, I think it's just critical that the contractor has an understanding of what metrics we're going to look at. And then from the perspective of once the contract is up and running, then the report back in the next budget discussion that we have, that we really have an understanding of these outcomes. So I think that's important. Also, we talked before about coordination within departments for small business services, but I think there, this ecosystem of the external ecosystem of supports for small business is massive. And so opening up services to people who are not in the incubator, I think is great. That could be a big can of worms in terms of how much does that cost and who gets those services. I think that there will be an equity issue in terms of people in the know get all the goodies, right? And so I think that I would want to be very cautious about how those services, the internal services are opened up to non incubator businesses. I think it's a great idea if we have capacity. So for instance, if there's a training for, and you have 30 slots and you have 25 filled, yes, let's get five other businesses in there. But that can be just dicey and messy. I agree, and I mean, we didn't get in the weeds and it would be up to the third party operator. But having done some of this in a past life and also attended and participating in many things, you will have, when the land of law firms, many of them, and back before the NCCOE was there, I used to have, I used to be at the state in that building, and once a week we had a law firm who sat there all day and was available. Now that's for innovation companies and others who heard about it. Now that was, again, a focus. So you can imagine there would be lots of people, a restaurant owner might want to take. So that's why I said you'd have to have an intake firm. But they welcomed it as both when they have a requirement for pro bono and two potential great client and regulatory consultant certain marketing folks will do the same thing. But the other is on if you go up to Baltimore and they've had state and federal funding, it's called equity or they have a program now that's regularly offered at a brewery I think every week or every other week. They have CEOs from very successful tech companies and others who just go there, it's all sponsored. That kind of thing can be opened to everybody with less challenge. But it does take a focused events person, someone to recruit sponsors, someone to manage, someone to do space because I would like to see more attendees than our innovation centers can hold. So I agree, I do agree with you, it needs to be intentional. Another example just thinking out loud, our tech innovation and founders grants. I have the numbers, but not off the top of my head. I can tell you that if you talk about people in the know, many of our innovation center companies applied, the majority of them won, but not all of them. And then we pushed out through various communities, the word about how to get the rest of the 104 or more applicants in. So, but those who came in first were those who were in the know. So, it's kind of similar. I think that's something that we need to do. I value the Business Center CRM. We want MCEDC to help us promote these types of opportunities. And then, of course, the chambers and others. If we have something that's valuable, they can be a partner whether paid unpaved I mean there's there's lots of potential but we need someone focused on bringing the community together and and and we are at a low capacity issue to be able to do it the right way at this time. Yeah so I think I think that's great and I really look forward to seeing it evolve. So there's the issue of the staff that are currently there. Where are those positions, the people who are currently working at the incubators? Because I don't see any. So there are currently three FTEs in the incubator NDA. Two of them are located at the incubators themselves and they are in the three circling between the three and running the programming. A third supports Miss Costello and her work globally on the proof of concept for the AI incubator for this project and others dealing with innovation. And your question is where are they going to go? No, my question is where are they in the packet? I haven't identified them for this particular packet. That's what I was saying at the beginning. I'm going to do it for full council. It's about to work with OMB. OK. So because that is, we need to look at the reduction. If we're approving the $2 million in contracting, then there would be a savings in staff assuming that there's you know time and we have to figure out what that dollar amount is So one thing that is critical to say I think Because it was impressed upon me by everyone I with whom I've spoken would you be interested in this we will have the current innovation center staff, Elisee Chavez and Richard Sous-Narris, would even if they were to move to become business liaison, that we need them to be with a new operator for a couple months, for a number of things. Of course. That overlap on dollars would be, so it wouldn't be an immediate to hear to there. Yeah. If nothing else for transferring from county government, security deposits, license agreements, etc. Yeah, and I understand that completely. But we need to look at what and there's only one position open in the business center. So we just need that for the full pack. Just for your information. I do, I got this like not in time for the packet, but the total personnel cost is 456,407. So of that, if you divide it up roughly by a third minus the lapse for how long they stay and the incubator would be roughly what will change. Yep, okay. Thank you. So, Councilmember sales, right? Yes. So I know that an RFP hasn't gone out yet and we have some people in mind to provide these services. What are your concerns about challenging this and doing this in phases? So I think if you, so I do have big concerns, because I think the way we've been addressing this year to year for some years is ad hoc services to companies and slight improvements. We're talking about raising the bar across, coordinating and raising the bar of services and opportunity across the Innovation Center network. And that's where that org chart, that this is what we're told we need to do that. So that is the one point, too. That's to manage that. Improved facilities. It's a multi-month thing. So it's not just picking up the licenses, but adding the share, refreshing and updating the equipment and what's available, getting a brand that is regularly promoting everything on behalf of the county and then bringing in coaches, learning what the tenants do and bringing in new coaches. It's a full time, full effort and by Toronto, where would you, let's say you hired the top person here, but then she or he didn't have the bandwidth to market, or to coordinate events, or to reach out for coaches. So that's the 1.2, and on the coaching and programming, which is the 0.8, that is equally important. And I think should start as if we can get an agreement signed as soon as possible, the program in the network and again, and the coaching is a high priority, a high priority request from our tenants. So the challenge is where would you launch it? I mean, I think that the 1.2 would take care of the org chart and they would be able to identify the people that they would bring in to do the coaching and to do the programmatic elements, the coordinating, the networking events, the advertising person. That's what I would think, one point. The 1.2, what the 800 is the specialized coaching accelerator cohort. So the truth is so say today is what are we in it? We're in May. Yes, thank you. If May, if we if this is approved and we start going through the county process, we learn if it's an RFP, there's a certain timeline. We learn if it can be soul sources at certain timeline. Depending on whether you know, tranchesches whether you're talking about within the fiscal year or beyond, it's not gonna be immediately up June 1. So can there be a certain delay, but our recommendation is that we think of this holistically as not abandoned, but as a new program that raises the bar and makes us competitive with the places we saw in the region and abroad and it takes a lot of work. If we may find, based on some of the conversations we've had, the wherein may, we get, I don't know, when we would get it approved, we get things approved very quickly. July 31st. Someone comes down. It's still going to be a couple months before the new hire. So will all of this money be used up immediately? I'm not certain. Some of these, that's all, yeah. Yeah, I was just thinking, I mean, it's almost half a million with the positions that are currently there. Those positions are going to be transitioned into this new entity and so while that transitions or until that transition happens, I think 1.2 is a more appropriate amount until those positions are transitioned out and see what you all can accomplish with the 1.7 million before we add on that 800,000 on top of the half a million that's already in the budget for the salaries. You thinking of the 500,000 from what Mr. Yes. Yeah, so that, so we just, so, and Mr. Hartman is spotted can also address this, but one I'm hearing I'm just thinking through a new, so one of those positions is moved. Two of them need to support the day-to-day activities for a number of months and don't have the bandwidth to set up. So what I'm saying is I can I guarantee you that if we put in very tight times, 2 million on the table that it all will be used up by June 30th, I can't. I can guarantee you that we will, that we would do our best to implement launch with the majority, if not all those funds between now and June 30th. That would be the plan. And so to pick and choose among among that hard. And Councillor Murrouss, I appreciate the questions and definitely appreciate your interest in finding savings in this budget scenario that we're in now. I think the delaying funding, our common goal is to have these refreshed assets with higher visibility that raise our profile sooner than later. Of course, anything in this budget can be delayed out to mid-year or next year. And that just runs the risk that we start down this path without fully realizing, without the full support that's needed to have a successful model. And which is why of all the items in the budget, the county executive believe this chunk needed to be in whole because that gets us the asset, that gets us the competent staffed operator that can provide us the success story that we need. And the asset that this county needs to support its industries. I appreciate that and it would have been nice if the County Executive Senate's a balanced budget. That's not the case. We have a very big gap we have to fill. So I don't believe that $2 million right now for where we are with our innovation incubator centers. Is an appropriate amount. I'm willing to support the one too, but I will not support the 100. Thank you for that. I think we have heard from everyone. We can start. Perhaps since we just heard this last comment, let's just vote. I fully agreed and understand that we need to support this at once. This is the time for the county to really push and walk the talk on job creation. This is a really tiny investment, understanding that we have a million people in this county and facing what we're facing with the federal government. You said create jobs. How many jobs have come out of these incubators since their inception? So while they're in the incubator, I'll have to go back to get exactly. Yes, since it's inception. By the time we get the packet to the full committee, I'd love to hear how many jobs have been created with the investments that we've made so far. I, I can tell you I've gone back to ask staff for prior graduate tracking information. And before I initiated the CRM, which this clue is talking about, they were not prior staff. No one is still here, they were not tracking them as well as they could. But I'd be happy to research those that I know about, those some of which I mentioned and tell you about the number of jobs that I'm aware of, which would not be, I'll be honest, it's not going to be a complete record because I'm told that those records don't exist. And that they should. Yeah. That's another problem, so I would love to hear how much we've invested and how many jobs have been created since the incubators inception by the time this comes back to the full council. I will do my best. I know you will. Thank you, Jude. Thank you for that. And it's sort of a fraction of why we need to step it up. Because we're not doing enough, especially compared to what we have seen in other places. We think the state of Maryland. So let's have two motions. First one, raise your hand. If you agree with the two million, which is the county secretary's recommendation, and then the second motion will be who agrees with only that 1.2, the trench, 1.2 versus in the second trench of 800. So the first one is the whole packet. Raise your hand if you agree with that. In your way, does that mean you should go out and you drive and work that way? Yes, let's just do how I just said it. So if you're agree with the whole packet as the county executive has presented, please raise your hand. Three to one. And just for the record, if you agree with the trenches, 1.2 and then the second stretch of $800,000, please raise your hand. One. what is what else do we have? Sorry the last item is not really a vote before the econ committee But it's a point of information that I think is relevant this discussion is happening right now downstairs a geo committee The leases NDA there's a recommended increased cost of $200,000 for a new lease. Potentially at $6,116, an executive boulevard, which is where the UM3IHC is for the new AI Innovation Center. It could be there. It could be somewhere elsewhere in the North Bethesda area. I think there's looking to finalize those lease terms. The GO question, I believe, is sort of if there is no lease yet, why is there an appropriation could come back from a supplemental I think that's a discussion that's happening downstairs for econ just because the incubators are obviously under your jurisdiction Maybe providing someone getting some understanding about the the need for this and so then maybe the two county the committees can come together A full council just to make a determination about how to proceed Thank Thank you for the heads up. Do you have a comment to make right now or you don't have to but since we're not voting on this but okay. No I would we're going to be voting on it. Yeah but do you do you want to put a comment and record on this right now? So the AI Innovation Center I think we have discussed this before maybe at the high level, but as we started talking about the UMD IHC, the great group that was here before, we started having more interest expressed by companies in AI, in gang connected with that center, but also asking us about resources for AI and other industries. And so we came up with the concept of an AI Innovation Center. And frankly, that was last year, maybe, about this time. And since that time, you'll see around another thing that our competitors are doing around the world. Everybody is talking AI, but the opportunity to leverage the UMD-IHC investment and that interest and help build a cluster together. It's North Bethesda because that's where UMD-IHC is, but that supports entrepreneurs throughout the county has been strong. We found temporary space in that same building that the IHC is located. And we started accepting companies in there. There are five companies who are in there. Mr. Freetson, I know, walked upstairs from that event that was at IHC and saw the temporary space. So when you're deliberating among, you may be able to talk about it. We in the interim have had to stall people till we knew for certain where the permanent location would be past June 30th. We've aggressively been working with DGS and have identified several spaces right next to that building. That space did not allow for the, not meet tenants of man's. Because what has ample co-working space, we found that people working in AI are working on their proprietary programming and wanted to be behind locked doors. So we found space more affordable nearby and that is what is being considered by the other committee. And we're excited about it. I can tell you as recently as, I think it was an hour ago, two hours ago, I've spoken with the IHC about they and the Smith School having a corner there because the UMD Smith School is doing AI for business across all sectors. And're very interested and they wanted the resources that these companies could connect with. Thank you so that again in full council we're going to be voting on. Yes and just thank you to an assist from council staff. In fact they actually held off on making a recommendation so that they could consult with you at full council council, and then the full council can make a determination about approving this $200,000. I have a staff report with all the members. Yes, this will be included in the Leases NDA staff packet for full council. Before I pass, do you have a question? Can you turn on your mic, please? I just want to say something. I don't know if you want to wrap up this point, but it's about the preview side. So I just want to say something. I don't know if you want to wrap up this point, but it's about the previous item. So I just, it just stays in my mind. You mentioned that the Gantyxekitiv submitted a budgetary of balance. The Gantyxekitiv submitted a budgetary balance and fits within available resources. If there is any thing that you found out that he doesn't fit, please let us know. The county executive submitted a budget that requested a 3.5% property tax increase. He withdrew the property tax increase. There's still a gap in funding everything in the budget. He submitted. I mean, I have to go back, but he submits a budget. That's our responsibility to bring the budget that he's valid with an increase for property taxes that was rescinded. So we have to figure out how we're going to balance the budget. Okay. Thank you. I just have a question about the, the, um, leases. So in the memo, is it, is it a federal grant or is it not? No, this would be county support. Oh, okay. Yeah. This is, I must have an old yeah and it will also include the discussion that had you know that will summarize this discussion from Geo but I think there was also a question of once they enter the lease can there be a supplemental appropriation the end day more of a technical consideration but we'll bring all of that. Thank you. Thank you. You say full council, do you mean as early as Monday? Do you say? I doubt this is on Monday. I believe it will be later in the week but it will be a work session not consent. Oh, got it. Thank you so much for that clarification. Is there anything else? No? Oh boy. Okay. No, just unrelated. Happy, I think. So you had asked for a one-page or we have a flyer that needs to site tweaking, but as all the resources? Yes. Yes. I think you asked for that last, when we were last here. I also, we also will do a one-page or that I think you might also want it that says the dollar amount you're spending. Certainly after budget we can do that. This is for your constituents and with websites where they can find more information or staff support. So thank you for that. I appreciate having weekened on this flyer. Thank you so much everyone and we are adjourned.