you you We have a number of additional staffing enhancements. the committee will also revisit two CIP amendments that HSC had requested. These would be funded with current revenue and came before the committee at the end of February, but since they were current revenue funded, the committee elected to revisit them at this time. The executive deferred declined decline to recommend funding for these two CIP projects in his updated, in his operating budget and subsequent amendments. And so happy to go into details regarding all of these, but I'll turn it back over to the Chair and the Committee for any additional comments or questions. Well, let's turn it over to Housing Opportunities Commission. If you wanna share any. Yes Yes, thank you. Updates. You have to know Mr. Chair, members of the committee. Pleasure to see you all. I'm Chelsea Andrews, President of HLC. I'm joined with a number of my colleagues as well. I'll just acknowledge to my left, I have the Vice President of Residence Services, the Vita Rowley, to her left Terry Fowler, our budget officer to my right, Vice President of Public Affairs and Government Affairs, Ken Silverman and to his right, Tim Gettsinger, our CFO. Thank you so much for considering our request and quite frankly for being a wonderful partner for HLC on the full spectrum of work that we do to provide affordable housing and resident services to our most vulnerable residents in the county. Our requests fall into various categories and Mr. Chair, you could let me know if I should just give an overall summary of what we're requesting or if it would be best to go topic by topic. Why don't you give an overall summary and then we will go topic by topic and if there are additional questions we can take them up topic by topic we'll let you go through as a summary to start. Thank you. So as it pertains to our request for resident services. Last year when I was before you all, you asked how can you support HLC better? At that time I shared that we would be seeking support for resident services. This is an area that has not caught up with the expansion of additional vouchers of our housing properties, the individuals on the waiting list. We have not had any additional resident services counselors dating back to, I want to say 2008. And of course, as you know, we have expanded dramatically. And the needs continue to increase. And we believe that they will even an all-time high here in the near future considering circumstances. We've outlined a request for additional counselors both at our senior sites as well as across the portfolio. We currently have 22 counselors providing resources for close to 57 sites. And we also have resident counselors providing support to individuals on the waiting list as well as the voucher program. I can, the appropriate time allow Ms. Riley to provide more details on the types of services that we do provide, how they look different than the services that we receive in partnership. I remember you asked this question last year. Councilmember Fynegunzalis, we are prepared to answer so that you could understand the full breadth of the work that our resident counselors perform. Secondly, we made a number of requests related to capital improvements and resources needed to support our portfolio. We have, as you are aware, a large site called Cider Mill in Gatersburg. It is one of the agency's largest properties, over 860 units, primarily diverse speaking, Hispanic prevalent population. And it's a site where we have worked really hard to address and stabilize security concerns at that property. In partnership with many of our great partners in the police department. We're seeking some support for additional cameras in the breezeways. There has been criminal activity that occurs in these areas that we're not able to monitor as closely and believe that with an additional $250,000, we'd be able to provide additional lighting as well as additional security. I have stats to demonstrate how our former commitments and contributions towards security has really paid off in terms of the number of calls that that site receives and believe that it would be a win-win for HLC and for the police department to continue to stabilize the security there. And there's another request related to the safety of some of the conditions at Cider Mill is specifically the balconies and they are a health and safety risk and there are structural issues that need to be addressed. We have spent millions and millions of dollars above and beyond what we anticipated at this site. This was a site that you all may recall, HLC purchased to preserve affordable housing and ultimately has gotten to a state where the income does not fully provide the revenue needed to address the issues at the site. So requesting some support as it pertains to the balconies as well as the security there. And then last but not least, we are in the process of demolishing our first public housing site, Elizabeth House. We built and you all celebrated with us, the Legit as well as the Aquatic Center, both very hallmarked beautiful reflections of our county and what we can do in partnership, Holy Cross is there as well. In demolishing the Elizabeth House building, it unfortunately had environmental issues that needed to be addressed, resulting in an increased cost of $1.5 million. We are seeking support as it pertains to continuing that demolition work and working with the county as it pertains to what an interim site a plan could look like. This is the front porch of the Aquatic Center. H-O-C is building our headquarters across the street. We have invested a lot of money, Alexander House, as well as the Legit and the Aquatic Center, and activating that part of the county and would love the support to ensure that it properly reflects what we all know is a beautiful reflection of services and resources. And so that's the overall summary of our request and I open for questions. Sure. take up the items one at a time. We'll start with the cider mill. If that works and there's two aspects of this, it's the safety issues and the balcony. Thank you. And of course, these can be bifurcated as you see fit. As it pertains to the balconies, they have severe structural issues. Repair again, it's not an option. At this stage, we have had to shutter the balconies off. There is potential exposure in terms of individuals underneath the balconies that we also have to address and rope off. We are seeking to point zero five million dollars to address the balconies. This is a property that while we, of course, continue to make these investments, we intend to stabilize and ensure that it is a resource for the community in the long haul. There are plans, future plans to do redevelopment here at Cider Mill, but it won't be in the near future because of how large this site is. It will be phased over many years. And while we have our residents there, we want them to live in safe and, of course, you know, decent environment. And so balconies is something that we would seek some port on. As you may know, the state also just recently provided through delegate whims, $65,000 for the soccer field to be revamped there. We have a great partnership with Parks and Rec in terms of providing resources to our kids there. And so this is just another step of ensuring that the site is safe and can be fully accessed by the residents. And just in terms of time, so was this request made of the executive just in funded? Or this was made after the executive submitted? I have to defer to Ken in terms of when the request was submitted. No, this was submitted with our capital request, went through the executive's process and he declined to fund it. Any questions from colleagues, Councillor Modranda? Thank you for being here and being great partners. I appreciate you got the expanded team in the audience too. We've got everyone here. So, a very important site, obviously, serious safety and security issues. The 2.5 million? It's 2.05 million and 2.05 million and for the security improvements, 250, Right. And that's CIP. These are CIP. That's what we're doing. It is in the CIP, but it's current. But it's gravely. It has an operating budget impact. We are talking about both, but it's really an operating reflected in the capital budget. It's really an operating budget. And it's two points. So that's where the 2.3 net comes from over six years. And how's it split up? What's the impact this budget yet? The impact in 26 is the full 2.3 million. Okay, so it's the full amount. And that would solve, that would take care of the whole thing as well, right? Do you remember yes at this point? That's what the explanation is yes, expect yes obviously the way longer things can cost more but absolutely or give worse Okay, and then we'll talk about the counselors later How many balconies in it and they're not being used at all right? They're currently blocked so the. So the doors out to them are sealed? Yes. OK. And of course, we don't want our children gaining access. Absolutely. So my understanding is there is approximately 45, 40 to 45 that fall in this category. Is there a phasing possible here? How would you phase this? That's a big number, right? You know, for this point in the budget process, but it's a huge concern. So there's 45 balconies. That the 2.05 would take care of all of them. Yes. Is there a way that you could, I'm sure there is, because they're locked down right now. You could do some, and we could split it out over years. Absolutely, and I did not bring my vice president of maintenance, but he would have loved to be here to share. There definitely is a very comprehensive report and analysis on which are in various stages of disrepair and we can prioritize. We could also of course look at which units may be offline, determine which units It's also have children. We can look at various approaches, but any resource towards addressing the balconies would be helpful. Well, yeah, I would want to do something here, defer to my colleagues, but maybe given that, maybe we would probably trunch it anyway, but there would be a way to potentially trunch this so that they could address it in a prioritization way. So I would be, I don't, I've just back at the envelope about the furt of colleagues, but you know, you could do three trances or four, you know, just depending on, but I'll be open to that. So, the furt of my colleagues. Yeah, I appreciate it. I think it's a good suggestion. I was thinking similarly, we could split it up. It splits up evenly into four tranches. I mean, fairly easily, you could do this slightly more on the first tranche because you have the extra five there, but it's 2.05. So split it up into essentially half million tranches. Just carry over the five. That's great. Okay, so we'll recommend adding that to the rec list. We'd love to hear back from you prior to full council if possible how you would prioritize. So if it's 40 to 45, how many needs each tranche get you and what category would you be doing in what order? How's that? in terms of disrepair, is it family units first with children as you noted, yield to you on what you think the priority would be, but I think it would be helpful to animate the request. We'll do. Okay, great. So we'll add that to the reckless in four tranches, not even, but close to even. I just think it's easier to do it that way. So we don't have fractions. And so we'll take that up. And then we have the additional for lighting and other safety improvements for the quarter million. You want to just speak a little bit more to that. This is an area where, as you all probably are familiar, we've contributed a great deal of resource in terms of security. We have 24-hour security personnel at this site. We invested, even this year alone, 3.85 million above our operating budget in terms of structural repairs, security, et cetera. And we have seen significant decline in the number of calls. When we began our investments in 2023, there were 54 calls per month. Now we are down to 18 calls per month. So we do believe that the additional lights, the additional cameras have been helpful. We installed cameras in the laundry rooms. They were an area where crime was taking place. But our residents also have shared their concerns about individuals in the breezeways. Ultimately, that's where people run when they see the police. And we believe that with additional cameras, that would ultimately address that. Our cameras have been so helpful not just to our own security, but also have been used successfully by the police department to apprehend and address crime. And so we have been working in partnership. Captain Stancliffe, Commander Brian Dillman, both I want to say thank you to them as well with the Montgomery County Police Department. They've been instrumental. And so this $250,000 would go directly towards additional cameras as well as lighting. Thank you, Kazuma, for finding the dolls. Thank you again for all the work that you guys are doing. On this issue, I've done a lot of work on this area in my district. So the first thing that comes to mind based on my experience and the things that I was dealing with related to fentanyl. So I, and this is gay this work. So it's a totally different animal for me. Sometimes some of these issues don't get solved just because you're putting cameras in lights. I'm just going to put it say that that way. And we don't want that problem just to move from one location to another location, because that doesn't help anybody. So I'm with you with the cameras and the lighting and all that stuff. That's fine. But I also, perhaps offline, we don't need to get into it right here, especially because these are sensitive issues. What kind of support is happening besides just calling the police? Because the issues that I confronted in my community, it was in just with the police. I got a team with local nonprofits making sure that these issues got resolved. And that difference has been day and night in my days. When I arrived, it was madness. And I can get any rest to come here and testify until you want to tell you the truth. So at some point, I need to understand what the support and if any of these individuals are coming from other communities, because that's what's happening in my cases, people who don't even live in my district were coming in. I don't know if that's the situation that you guys have, but it does make a difference. So if we have an agreement as a committee, I'm assuming this will go into the right list. And I'm okay with that 100%, but I want to tell you that we're going to have to talk offline and see what else is happening there. That's all. Thank you. Absolutely. And if you're interested now and or later we will definitely update you. We have great partnerships, wonderful partnerships with various nonprofits. There's gang related activity. We have nonprofits that are supporting that. We have federal partners helping us at this site. We have a lot of different supports that are working hand in hand. You will see that we only have one resident counselor, however, who is wonderful. He is fantastic. Yes, Louis is. But he's one person supporting the 869 resident families. And so one of their requests was for another resident counselor but we have great support. Good to that next. Yes. Just giving it early plug. Okay so the request is to add to the reckless that 250,000 I did want to know it on the last item and this item we didn't get a request from the district council member to fund these and add these to the reckless which I should have noted for the previous item that we just added. It was true for both of these items. So it sounds like there is an interest in adding into the reckless that would be a quarter million dollars. I think we add that as the full amount. And so the 250,000 for lighting, cameras, and safety improvements. Thank you. We'll add that to the request. Understand that it still has to get off the reckless, which is like the reservation. It's the one thing to take it, but you gotta hold the reservation. So we gotta get it off the reckless, but we going to include that and see what we can do there. Okay, let's go straight in then staying on cider mill to the resident councilor at cider mill which you were just speaking to. Absolutely and just as shared in fact we have 864 Nass 69 units atMIL with one counselor. The cost to provide an additional full-time counselor is approximately 120,000 that includes benefits. And is a need at this site. We work very closely with the TINIT association there as well as many nonprofits that provide resources, but the need is great. And we'd also like to be able to expand our partnerships in terms of hours and availability. And so having another full time counselor at this site, particularly one that's bilingual would be a wonderful amenity and a great resource to the residents. I mean. Councillor Droner. Thank you for that. And just to be clear, this is 864 units. Correct. Which means it's like 2,000 people. Correct. Yeah, I just want to make sure people understand. It's huge. more than that. Yeah, actually, you know, you know, them just probably rounding down there. So do you have a sense of the people? The number of people I don't most of our property units are around two bedrooms, two and three. So in there is children. It's a pretty large site. But that's I'm not I'm probably under into right. Oh, absolutely. Yeah And so you know we've talked about this before you know my dad lived at Tanglewood small community HLC property had it but the resident service pretty people there were awesome they did a bunch of stuff in the community including the kids and tutoring and a whole bunch of stuff and and a property this big to have one person doing that is just, you're drinking from a fire hose, any analogy you can think. So I absolutely will support this. And I think the way we've split it up here, assuming my colleagues agree, I think we've given a good chance to put a package together where you get something, you know, you're going to have three things there, but you hopefully get something. I know you've got more coming here, but you know, we've got to think about that too, but as far as the CIDERMIL package, I understand the need and I think it's justified for sure. So, you go to my colleagues. All right. There's support for that, so we're going to have that to my insulation. All right. There's support for that. So we're going to have that. That's the right explanation list as well. So I think that covers site of the bill. That does. So let's go to three resident counselors at senior sites. Yes. As previously stated in our requests as well as in a supplemental attachment to the packet that outlines how our needs have grown in comparison to the number of resident counselors, you will note that we have over 10 senior sites. We're building yet another, the Radia off of along with Hill and El Gateway. And we do not have enough counselors to support those senior sites. We have 10 counselors that are, excuse me, 22 counselors that are serving the senior population and we do need three additional full-time resident counselors for our senior sites. Our seniors require and need additional support. We do have wonderful partners that come in and provide programming, but it's the ongoing support with keeping your electricity on, calling and assisting with completing your packets, maintaining your housing, getting access to various resources. They stand in line. They definitely leverage the resident counselors that are there. Our counselors have to rotate across the various properties which means that there are days where they don't have a resident counselor present and there are any other specific questions in regards to how we're providing resources right now for the seniors. I can definitely defer to Miss Riley to provide additional additional contacts, but it is a demand and we do track the number of touch points that we have and you can see that they are high. Appreciate it. It's a critical work and obviously a vulnerable and important population that you serve There's a potential recommendation from council staff to tronching into 320,000 Which would be one resident councilor each is that accurate? That will be helpful. Okay, it seems like there's support from committee members on that so we'll do three tranches of 120,000 each for one resident councilor at senior sites. Thank you. All right then there's the coordinator positions for the HSC Academy? Yes, and so the work that we do with our youth and our adult programming is oversubscribed. As you can see, we provided details in regards to the number of programs that we put on. And in our, in 24 alone, we served close to 1500 youth. This includes aftercare programs, STEM, back to school. We serve close to 500 adults and have seen wonderful results in regards to adult education and workforce development and tuition assistance. We leverage our partners, both nonprofit partners, but also contracts that are with HLC, PNC Bank, for example. Many of our contractors work with us to provide resources. But as we plan these events, we need someone that actually is going to be able to make the contact, get the events planned, get the programming done, follow through, find venues, et cetera. And as it stands, we do not have a large group of individuals doing this work. And as a result, have to pair down our programming to accommodate our ability to host these various events. So we are requesting two full-time program coordinators, one for youth and one for adults. We estimate the cost for both at $290,000. And again, these programs are fully subscribed. We do offer these programs to individuals on the waiting list as well and strongly encourage individuals on our waiting list to take advantage of. I hope that's not my purse. Take advantage of these programs as well especially on financial literacy, et cetera. Okay. Any questions on that? All right. So the quest is two program coordinator positions. The total amount is $290,000. If there's an interest in tronching it, it would be at $145,000 each and the question would be as one for youth, as one for adult, or as each for both. And whether or not we include it as well. Do we include one? Do we include zero? Do we include two? And what's the scope of the positions? Councilor Funningh's house. I'm going to be the butt cup here. You probably know what I'm about to say. If you need to prioritize with everything that we're putting on the reckless, will you include this last one that you mentioned? I head off the other ones that you describe and we spend a significant time to discuss. I'm just being honest because not everything that you're presenting is going to get voted on by six council members. We're going to say yes. I'm just keeping it real here. The more you know direct and the more concise the list, the more likely you get those on it, but if you give me 10 things, if you, if there's a council member outside this committee and they see 10 items from HLC, you know, you wanted to pick the top to top three. Do you want this item there knowing the, the budget that we're facing right now? I'll just let it in. You know, I feel like we should say no, right now. I'll just let and you know I feel like we should say no right now. I guess the question is if this got. Well, I think in terms of. Well, it's difficult, right? You're asking me to prioritize youth versus seniors versus a site that is overpopulated and underserved. And there is no really good answer to that. I would just say that if you're able to look holistically across our ask and provide us with support for resident counselors. And I can have further discussion with my colleagues to determine how we may be able to reap prioritized which sites we would need these. Maybe we think about a rotation or some other approach versus having to make the decision on youth versus seniors here. Thank you. I was kind of where I was going to go is obviously these are, you know, someone with four children who I don't have a favorite. I love them all. And we want, you know, I don't want it's tough to make you pick between these all very important things. So you, it sounds like you said yes, you could, if you got a, some money for the balconies, right? You know, if it wasn't all, if you got a counselor, a resident counselor, because we put those on for three tranches, which is one person per tranche, right? And then we put the other resident counselor for its cider mill on those were dedicated people. And then these are program coordinated. So what's the relationship of a program coordinators, duties versus resident counselor, you know,'m going to allow DeVita Raleigh, our Vice President of Resident Services, to give some context. Sure. So the program coordinators are really focused on programming with regard to adult education and workforce development as well as our youth enrichment services. So working with partners such as our sororities, fraternities, colleges, educational institutions, really to come in and work with our customers on-site or at our central office locations. The counselors are really dedicated to one-to-one service. In the case of seniors, I mean these are intensive services helping them read their bills, helping them call doctors, like really intensive services to make sure that they're able to ultimately stay alive in many cases. So it's different. It is complementary. The court. helping them call doctors, like really intensive services to make sure that they're able to ultimately stay alive in many cases. So it's different. It is complimentary. The coordinators who work with counselors to plan these programs and to ensure that residents would be interested. And so they work collaboratively, but it really does take focus work and a different skill set, I think, to be able to pull in these high level partners as opposed to working one-on-one in a more social service setting with our seniors and with adults and youth at the properties. Right, thank you. That's very helpful. And it sounds like the coordinators in particular, I'm sure the counselors try to help with this. They're trying to get more capacity in, right? Right. If my alpha chapter comes or someone else, you're trying to get hands and bodies in that could help and expand your capacity, which is important. So yeah, if there is a way, you know, and it all depends on how it's presented and we could maybe as a committee, just like, I would love for you to see for you to get a little bit of something everywhere and then you mix and do a, like you said, maybe a rotation, it's maybe it's not dedicated, And's, you know, and you work your way up over years to where you actually need to be, but they all seem like really, really important. I can see why you say it's hard to prioritize because they're all needed in different ways. So, yeah, I don't know if that means, so the two tranches, that would be two. Yeah, I don't, it's tough. Could know how to make a suggestion. Please. Why don't we go back and do two of the counselors at one twenty two tranches instead of three and then do one program coordinator but leave it open ended to allow you to decide so that you're not picking between youth and senior, you can choose at the moment what is the biggest need or have somebody split duties and have half their time dedicated to senior programming and half of it to youth programming. So it would be a little bit more than the original that we had just put over by 25,000 but we wouldn't be adding two more tranches, which I think all of us are a little bit more than the original that we had just put over by 25,000, but we wouldn't be adding two more tranches, which I think all of us are a little bit concerned that if we ask for too much of the budget and of colleagues that you might end up in a worse scenario than if not. So does that- So the three resident counselors go to two? Yeah, so the three resident counselors would go to two, so at 120 two tranches at 120 and then one program coordinator position at 145 But without a distinction of youth versus senior and allows some discretion to either split it or to choose how you program that position It'll be great. Thank you Okay, So that's a unanimous fight to get it all. That's a unanimous committee recommendation. Okay. So we are making our way through. All right. Are we up to Elizabeth House Settlingperson. Yes, that's the final item. Okay, and then I have one more item that I wanted to note here as well. Okay. Elizabeth House, Assemblyperson, to reiterate, we talked about this in a previous meeting during the capital budget. This is a significant public-private partnership between county government, H.O.C. and a private developer. It involves Department of Recreation, Department of General Services, and H.O.C. as well as the private property owner, super complicated project. It's always complicated when you have multiple parties involved when you throw a pool in the mix, a mix building, a building, even more complicated. And this was a request that came from county government asking to demolish this site, which is earlier in the process, if not mistaken, based on what you had shared previously, than what HOC had intended. And that comes with a cost. That was understood to have been a request to come with funding. It turned out it was a request that didn't come ultimately with funding. Now HOC is asking for the funding to come along with it. My understanding is this was a $2 million initial ask, 1.5 million for the demolition, and just under 500,000 for some of the, but I would call beautification, but some of the other, you know, kind of facade improvements, although it's not a side of a building that we would normally associate with a facade, that 500,000 is no longer part of the request, so it would be one and a half. Is that, do I have that correct or if not, please correct. Right, so just kind of taking a step back. Elizabeth House demolition has been undergoing for quite some time. We started this project a little over a year ago and had the county's partnership in beginning demolition earlier than HLC would ordinarily do so. The way that we approach demolition is obviously we need a funding source. Funding source is typically tied to redevelopment. This particular parcel will not be redeveloped for some time. Primarily because we need to allow the market to settle with the development of the legged and other developments nearby before we undertake another investment in additional development here. The county recognizing how this is the old public housing site definitely was in a state of disrepair, was not visually appealing, and asked for us to consider demolishing it earlier. We worked in partnership to agree on how we could fund that and we did. We got started. Once the contractor got into the site, there were some significant environmental issues that were identified and as a result additional cost, 1.5 million dollars of additional cost and we had had no choice at that point. Demolition was already underway, and we needed to continue the work. And there are expenses related to this additional work that we do not have a revenue source for. So seeking the support around that, and then secondly, when the building comes down, it will at this stage have gravel or grass and a fence around it. It doesn't necessarily portray the entrance of the aquatic center in a manner that we believe the county would want to. And in conversations with DGS, looked at some potential options that they asked us to explore. We're willing to do whatever DGS would like in that interim phase, but they asked for us to get some design work done. We provided them those concepts. If following that recommendation, it would be $450,000, a rain scape kind of walk path. I will also share that more than just a walk path, it is also addressing an accessibility challenge from the parking garage to the aquatic center. As it stands, if you have a disability or even just trying to get to the aquatic center, you have to walk down a very narrow sidewalk, apple, and then up to get into the aquatic center. I think several of us have parked in the garage and have been subjected to that. And fortunately, we're in a position to be able to Right. Not everybody in our community. Correct. And so a part of this redesign would allow for an easier, shorter, accessible path that would be available. That's the additional 400. That's the 450,000. That is, and it could be less depending on what DGS would want. But it was not included in this request from H-O-C. It was an additional request at the county to consider. And at this stage is not being funded. So when the demolition is done, it will have a fence around that site. And we will not have that walk path created until a later time when it's available. Well, I will express my frustration that there was a request that didn't come with funding and that there is not a plan here on how to make the site as accessible as it should be for such a well-trafficked jewel of our recreation department. We were all celebrating how great this facility is. We have one of our great champions in Dominic Dawes, her statue, and we want every young person to see and aspire to be like. We have the opportunity for our older adults to be able to swim is one of the most important recreational activities. We have a main site for our young people to be able to get in the pool. We know there aren't enough of these facilities and we don't have an entrance that is accessible as it should be. So I'll express my frustration there as I did in the previous conversation. The question is, I think we hold off personally on the half million, and that's really up to the executive branch to decide on what they want to do, what the scope is there working together with you, but ultimately to have a request that comes in, I think the one and a half million, that works already underway, you're doing what you are asked to do. I think we need to take that up and decide how we handle that. I think there could have been better options here to be perfectly honest with you. I think there are creative options, including low interest loans through the housing initiative fund. Since there is going to be a redevelopment at some point, and that could at least buy time that would have been an easy way to address it you know or just including it in the budget if that was preferred by the executive unfortunately none of those options have been pursued up to this up to this point so let me open up to colleagues for questions comments and let's see where we end up here council vice-versa-en- I appreciate it. Yeah, this is something we've been talking about a lot offline too. And it's an untenable situation. We've got it for something that's a great, great facility and where there's our great things happening. We've got to take care of it. So I appreciate I wanted to say thank you for your memo, that you wrote us with some options and some pictures of what it could look like around there. I think it's an obligation we've got to take care of. I share frustration that we're in this position where you're having to backfill this in this way when it was, you know, you were asked to do it. So just to be clear, the, so the one and a half million will finish what are we getting for that just to be 100%. It's the demolition of the building. That's how much it will cost to complete the full demolition of the building. And that's what it- In the timeline on that. It will be completed by September. If you drive by, you can't see it happening because it's occurring in a different way than where most times it implodes and you're dealing with wetting down the location because of the environmental issues it's being demolished piece by piece with highly skilled company assisting us with the environmental issues. It's already well underway and will occur and be done by September. And the issue, so the secondary issue is, you know, and I'm there a lot for different reasons, you can see it happening when you walk in, like the various high-tech demolition. That won't address, just to be clear, that won't address the... In a room site. The interim site at all. Yeah, okay. And that's just something that we're gonna have to deal with later as a county, as a community. But this would complete the demolition. This would complete the demolition. HLC has had to put the demolition on our line of credit and incur the interest along with that. And again, with no revenue source in site. So this is how that would address just the demolition costs. In terms of the interim use, if there are other creative suggestions around it, I do know that the design plan that was proposed was sought to avoid ongoing maintenance, which was why it wasn't grass. I was told not to use the tea turf word. There are other considerations on how the site could be leveraged in the interim time and we're very open to whatever would work best. I remember when we had the big it was turf. Right, it's silver spring. Silver spring and people liked it and complained complained when it left, you will remember this, Ken. But yeah, I think there are some ways that you could activate it. We'll deal with that. But so I think we've got to do this. So I think we've got to put it. It would be a reckless item once. Yes. Customer funding is ours. Yeah, I think this is not like it's a choice. we have to do is a commitment we made. So yes, to place it on the right list. All right, let's put one and a half million on the reckless for the demolition of Elizabeth House. I am a little bit concerned twofold. One, you all be honest with you when we have the choice of resident counselors to support our older adult population and the. When we talk about security at some of our most vulnerable places and among some of our most vulnerable communities, we talk about food security and education and all the other needs that we have. A demolition is a hard sell to be honest with you. I feel like to a extent, the council is being asked to bail out the executive here for not fulfilling their end of the bargain. And I do think that there's a little bit of a frustration that you can understand that we would have here. And I'm a little bit concerned that it's gonna have a tough time getting off the reckless to be honest. Let's hear from OMB. So we did have a lot of discussion with HOC. We presented several options in terms of how to fund this, including having the restructures and other work in other projects that they hadn't started to fund this now and then we'll look at the other projects later on. We did do that in the initial supplemental for 3 million. There was a share the county paid 1.5 million, HOC paid the other 1.5 million, DHC put in 1 million dollars as a loan to HOC to cover the 1.5 million. So there were options discussed. It's just the CE had to make decisions based on trying to maintain HOC's budget to provide same services this year with the fiscal climate that we're facing. Well, with all due respect, the options that it sounds like were offered were options to take money as other projects and I don't think that's a realistic option that that was offered or a fair option the request is coming from the executive branch if you say I'd like you to do this and I'd also like you to take money out of something else that you're doing in order to do it on my behalf that's not really a fair. And I understand the limitations of a tight budget, but lots of new things were funded here. And this was a request that came from the executive for work that was already happening. So it's a little bit hard to reconcile the fact that the request came from the executive to speed up the timing, which is an understandable request, but that request should come with a funding mechanism. And it sure requests that HOC presented a couple of years ago came with funding. We disstructured the supplemental so that they can be paid for half of it and H.O.C. Was responsible for the other half We learned about the asbestos problems a little bit later and So the C had was trying to figure out a way to make sure that with H.O.C's portfolio of CIP Improvements, what could we delay as other departments do? What could we delay in FY 26 and then address in FY27? And so we did have those discussions. But if you have a partnership and the cost of the deal go up, usually you continue the partnership. And I think the challenge here that I'm trying to figure out is the partnership seems to stop when the cost went up. It was, we're asking you, we've asked you to do this. You're doing it. There are environmental and other dynamics that need to be addressed, which increases the cost. And the response isn't, and we're in this together, and we're going to solve it together, it's you're on your own, and let's look at your portfolio and figure out other sacrifices that you can make in order to be able to fund the difference. That's the frustration that we have, and now we're being asked on the council who faced the exact same fiscal constraints that the executive did and does to address that shortfall. That's the frustration from here. Vice President Drauma. So I wasn't going to go, but since you opened the rabbit hole, I'm just curious. The, it sounded like what you said, correct me if I'm wrong, either side here, that you were saying, okay, you take it this year, let's adjust another project in later years and then we'll make you whole later or you just got to eat that loss till it underterm and time. I mean like most county government departments, once we delay a project due to unforeseen circumstances, or due to physical constraints. When we get to the full CIP, we look holistically at the departments and then we adjust. And one of the options we said was given that HLC had a certain balance in one of the projects that hadn't been accounted for, perhaps we could think of a way to fund the demolition this year and then look at the holistic HOC package for next year. When you say look at, see the problem having us with the second part of that sentence, we say look at does that mean give the money back? Because if you're saying take it on it on okay delay this now in the off your CIP because it's undesignated and then we will when we when I present me the count executive and you as his representative today will will make that project whole in the next in the holistic CIP that's different than saying well it sounds like you're saying maybe and I could I could see why I wouldn't want to do that if it's... Right, obviously. But my point is, that's not a great deal. You know, to say that, okay, take this Delay a project that's a whole schedule, and maybe if the fiscal circumstances allow it, we will figure it out next year. Right? Do you understand? I don't know. That's not. I know you're saying it's an option of fiscally, but it and you're trying to be responsible by saying you don't know what the future holds. I understand that. But do you see from their perspective how that's not a good deal? I see from their perspective. I also see that when other departments coming with requests for funding, we look at the schedule, and if there are opportunities to delay, because of other issues, we do that. So we can fit in something that is a safety issue or something that we need to do right now. I understood, I know that happens. And just to let you allow you to respond, is that a feasible a feasible item anyway? The county executive's office definitely proposed that we not continue with our scattered site improvement project. And at that time, we shared with them that we have already entered into contracts with various contractors to address sites that had significant capital needs and have and provided them with the full plan of work. So that option while it was proposed and while my response was I don't think we would even want to reduce affordable housing in this county and take more units offline. I don't think that's a great idea in the first place, but it's also not feasible because we've already entered into contracts. So we went through this iteration in this discussion and once we realized that wouldn't work, what we have offered up and continue to offer up is any other creative solution. From HIF to CDBG to any other funding source that may be able to be leveraged here and continue to be open to that discussion. Well let's, I mean look we're going to put this on the reckless because it's a responsibility but there is some time, very limited piece of time between now and the time the final budget's adopted. I would love another solution. I agree with the chair that the likelihood of this making it off the reckless is low given the other items when council members look at this. And in that scenario you just be this is my final question you would just be left with it on your credit card I'm assuming. Right. And paying an interest of rate of what? I don't know the current interest rate. No it's higher than it started. It's better than 23%, which is what most consumers pay, but it's still not very good. That would be until there's a redevelopment of that site, in which point. We would refinance that. And, you know, that was always the plan. I mean, the idea that H.O.C. is doing what the county government asked H.O.C. to do and is having to put it on their credit card and pay interest that's taking away funding from other affordable housing projects that we're trying desperately to fund to support the programming and other dynamics that could otherwise be utilized from the interest rate on that just seems backwards. And I will say, I appreciate where you're coming from and you're doing your job and you're doing it well. So thank you. I think the disconnect here is that the office and the county executive and the department are treating HOC like any other department where the county executive is the boss. And you can tell the department to do what you want and it doesn't really matter what they think and it doesn't really matter what they want to do. But HOC has a commission and they have a board and they have to agree to the financial decisions that are made and some of their funding doesn't come from the county. Actually most of their funding doesn't come from the county. So there are public housing agency, there a significant partner, but that's what they are, they're a partner. And I think this is the disconnect, it's different than going to a department where ultimately the county executive has the final say on the department's projects. If the county executive wants to delay their projects indefinitely and recommend that to the council, ultimately the executive and the council get to decide that. When it comes to HOC, we decide they're funding from the county, but that's it. We don't decide their entire work program, their portfolio, their other funding mechanisms, and I think that's where some of the disconnect is here. If you're asking a partner to do something, you gotta be a partner, and it doesn't feel like we being a partner, it feels like we're being a boss. And that's a disconnect from it. Again, it's not your role. You're doing exactly what you're supposed to be doing. And I appreciate it. And you've added the context to this conversation, which I think has been helpful. But I think that's the disconnect here where we've got to do better on the partnership side of this and to work together. I agree with Vice President Joondo. I think there is an opportunity as I have been pushing behind the scenes for and while pushing publicly. I mentioned it at the previous meeting as well. I still think there's an opportunity for the executive, OMB, the-H-C-A, and H-S-C to get together to figure this out. I think an interest-free loan is an option. I think there are probably other options. You heard CDBG or others. There have to be some better options because this is not a sustainable model to keep it on the credit card. And I don't think is good for anybody. It's not good for the county. It's not good for our affordable housing goals. It's not good for HAC. It's not good for the overall partnership, which is critical for us to meet our goals. Having said that, we'll put on the reckless. We'll see what we can, but that's taking cash out of other worthwhile projects the executive also wants to see funded. And so I think it's in his and our best interest for a better option to emerge between now and the final budget decisions that we make. And if you could please report back to us if there are updates on any conversations that occur. We will continue to work with HOC, partner with them figure out between HOC, DHCA, to figure out if there is anything that we can do to alleviate some of this and then perhaps do like a 50-50 thing or alone with DHCA. We'll look at all options and get back to you before four counts. Most appreciate it. Okay, we're going to add to the reckless,'re going to be offline conversations between the executive branch and H.O.C. And hopefully we can get to a suitable resolution. That's all we have on the packet. I did want to note, as I mentioned to council staff, and have had some, a lot of conversations many of us have about the Housing Production Fund. In ongoing conversation that we've had in the Housing Production Fund is the question of the loan repayments. We talked about revisiting this. There have been a number of updates, including at the state level that we've been advocating strongly for. There are funds available at the state. There are ongoing conversations of whether or not we can access those funds of what opportunities we would have to improve upon and build upon the extraordinary success of the Housing Production Fund. I've been excited to share the gospel of the success of that program in jurisdictions all across the country. And we're seeing a number of to I just most recently zoomed into Chicago. I was at in the Rhode Island folks previously, the city of Boston, Oregon. There are a number of jurisdictions that are following our lead. My suggestion is for us to follow through what we had talked about doing for the time being as we look at options moving forward that will give us some additional flexibility which is to keep the loan repayments in the PDF. So currently the loan repayment and we talked about this even when we created it of whether or not we would keep them in or whether or not we would pay them into the HIF, and then reprogram them. If we keep them in the housing production fund, it gives us a number of different options. It doesn't have a general-fomed impact. It has a HIF impact, a marginal HIF impact. But it would give us flexibility over the next several months to take advantage of the state opportunities that have been provided and try to be creative on how we can look at next and new options for the Housing Production Fund. So I wanted to recommend that we do that and recommend that to the full council. Again, it wouldn't have a general fund impact because those funds do not go to the general fund. So I just wanna do that. Yeah, council member, we talked about this when we created it, last council, just what is the operational impact of that based on what you're doing now and how much, you know, what, I guess, let me just leave it broad. What's the operational impact of doing that right right now? Right now we pay back 5% after every project is completed to the HIF. To the county who I believe allocates it to the HIF. To the HIF. and we're exploring the H. To the county who I believe allocated to the H. To the H. Yes. And we're exploring the potential right to the H. Got it. We're exploring the potential of leveraging the Housing Innovation Fund with the state and maybe being able to potentially repurpose those resources towards principal and interest for another trudge or thinking through different approaches potentially. But as it stands, there would not be a negative impact on our projects and it would allow for some exploration of how we could potentially leverage that. Reverge the repayment for potentially more of what we're trying to do with some state funds that could be available to us. Yeah, essentially, there's potentially up to $3.5 million in state funds that are available. It's complicated on how we could leverage those. I have been working with state partners and with HOC and others and looking at what options are available to us. There are bonding and fiscal dynamics and a number of other complications that are gonna take months for us to work through that have to have a formal proposal and then the state will have to decide and HOC will have to decide with the commissioners and the council and the executive will have to decide. We're not ready for that, but it would leave that option open if we kept the repayments in the PDF that funding would be available without needing additional general fund or special appropriations or other dynamics. If we kept that funding in, it would provide flexibility for us to continue exploring those options, which is part of what, and I know Councilmember Fonding Gonzales testified, and a number of us advocated very strongly, and we had members of our delegation, like Vaughan Stewart, pushing hard for the creation of this fund. It's been funded now twice, but hasn't been implemented yet. And so there's still early questions of how it will be implemented, and we're hoping that, as the impetus behind it, Montgomery County becomes central to the implementation statewide. So, and so it would just be on payments going forward. Or would you be taking every payment that you've made and now allocating it at, that's what I'm trying to say. I wouldn't be calling, I mean, I'm not recommending that. Okay, good. And then claw back. It's moving forward that rather than right now, the repayment is undesignated to the half. It would stay within the PDF. That's the signature. Go on. Are you looking for FY26 to begin this new structure to include the repayments in the HPF. Yes. So we would have to amend the MHI, the HIF. Yeah, it would impact the HIF, but not the general fund. Right. So we'll have to have discussion with finance. I think there may be some bond council issues also that would come into place. So if we're looking to do this in FY26, we'll have to figure out how to do this. Well, there wouldn't be bond council issues related to the repayment. There would be bond council issues with finance related to the issuance of another bond, which is what I'm sharing is there's a lot of complicated dynamics that we have to work through, including with bond council at the state level and the county level and with HOC. We're not ready to flush that out completely because we don't have a formal final plan. We don't know exactly what the state is willing to commit to. We don't know what language we would need to have. We don't know the amount that would be reasonable or appropriate to look at based on what would be committed. But the underlying question here, which is just the kind of elementary initial step, would be allowing for the funds to stay in the program. And by doing that, there's no bond council fiscal issue, the money is staying there, there's a nominal hiff impact for the housing initiative fund, which we have to adjust that. But there's no issuance that would be happening at this point. So that just to clarify. We have that on that issue with the bond council, because I believe that the repayments also go to us paying the debt service for the fund, for the bonds. And so we'll have to figure out how to structure. Well, I see Ms. Brown, can I ask you to come up with the chair's permission? Please. Just to expand on this. So my first question was, I don't want to take money that went into the hip. We're not doing that, so that's good. So we're not taking anything back, no claw back. But the second question was, is there any operational impact to changing? It shouldn't be because you're just taking money that it's not like you're not paying it back. You're just keeping the money in a different place. So it could be used for something in the future. Ms. Carine Brown. You're on. Good afternoon. I'm hearing Brown for the record. I see your executive vice president, Will H.O.C. So the counters appropriation or pledge funds for debt service and the funding came from monies that are in the half. And so those funds are available regardless. So as far as the bonds and bond holders are concerned, that money flows to the bond indentures. The proceeds that are paid from the projects as they're funded aren't required to go back to service the bond debt. Those funds come from the county regardless of what happens with the projects that are funded. Yeah, but by definition, if you're paying off a debt, right, when I pay back my 5%, I have no rights to the money that I paid you back. My only obligation is the money you pay me on the debt service. All we're saying here, if anything, it strengthens the bondholders' claim on money, which is what Bond Council would be concerned about, because it keeps more money in the pot that could eventually cushion a potential problem. So the issue, the bondholders concern, would be a new council and a new executive that aren't as enthusiastic about this program as we are. Who says, you know what? Fortable housing is really not our thing. We're not going to fund the housing initiative fund to this extent, and therefore there's not going to be enough money to cover the debt service, the nominal amount that we pay each year because we've got to create interest rate because we came in at just the right time, I wish we had done more earlier, but it is what it is. Keeping more money in that account actually helps the bondholders. It doesn it doesn't hurt them the only question here is if we do another bond issuance What impact does that have on the fiscal dynamics of HOC on the fiscal dynamics of the county You know, what is the state willing to commit to it's all subject to appropriation? It's complicated it took months and months and months of us sitting together. I have, you know, painful vivid memories of lots of knows that ultimately eventually led to yeses that we got there. We're going to have to work through that similarly to expand this if that's the direction that we're going. The other option would be to be creative in other ways that we could deal where we wouldn't issue bonds potentially if that's not an option. We could look at other options within this fund. We're not there yet. That's the point that I'm making, but it's not a bond council issue. We're going to have to work offline with council staff and OMB staff to reflect the budget language on this. Should the full council agree with us and should committee members agree and also make sure that it's reflected appropriately in the housing initiative fund, but there's no general fund impact on this and this doesn't have an impact on the bond commitments that we have made. I am not a finance expert, so I would like to have a discussion with the Department of Finance, the people who know. You're welcome, welcome to have that. So that we can say the right. We're not coming back to committee because this is not coming up again but you're welcome to come back to me, to council staff, to any of the members of the committee, and to HOC if there are any concerns that are raised related to bond council. Council and we'll also, you know, should we move in this direction, we suggest I would suggest if colleagues agree that council staff work with OMB staff on the language and the budgetary dynamic of it. The final question I have wanted to add is just what the impact viscally is to the hip, just like the actual numbers. I know we're just saying that here. I would like to know that so we can just be aware of it. Conceptually, I agree because we're not losing any money, but it will have an impact of what's in the hip. If some great project comes up tomorrow, what we were able to do and what that cash flow and the money and the have looks like so. The hip is right now the fund balance is at $1 million. You know, what we were able to do and what that cash flow in the head looks, either the money in the head looks like. So the hit is right now. The fund balance is at $1 million. The repayments that we received for from H.O.C. was 2.7, which is in the hit right now. So taking that out, we're not taking that out. I don't think is that was my first question that we're going to close back. FY 26. Are're prospective. So we're not revising FY26. Just to clarify that we're not revising the HIF in FY26, then that would not be an issue for the HIF. Yeah, so what you're suggesting is you're programming the 2.7 million in the future repayment. Yeah. So the recommendation would be that we that HSC would not be funding to the 2.7 that is and that is the fiscal impact. Yes. But but that's but in the hip. Yeah. We'll have to work out the I just want to understand the timing issue because that of when that what that means does that mean that 2.7 has that already been paid and put into the hip? Yes. Okay so that I want to make sure I don't want to remove that. It's projected. It's projected. When does that happen? What's the timing of that? June 30th. June 30 make one annual payment. That's what I thought. Okay. So yeah. I've successfully got the whole panel to say something. Hi, Tim Gatzinger, Senior VP of Finance and CFO. So we make two different types of payments. One is the interest generated in the bank account. We make that in June of each year. And then we make monthly payments on all of the projects that we have. So we have two projects that are funded by the HPF. One was the laureate, which is completed. The other one is Hillandale, which is drawing down. So we pay 5% on that. Okay. So it's about, the impact is about two to 2.5 million per tranche would be the impact annually. And the next, it will begin July 1st because that's going to fiscal year. Correct. Prospectively. Okay. So yeah, that as long as it's prospectively and that's which it sounds like it would be, I'm, it sounds like a fine idea to me. Obviously, if you get information, you guys can always come back to Full Council and share it. But I think we should just lay that out for colleagues so they understand. Well, we'll, you come back to us with questions, comments, or concerns that Council staff can share when we take this up at Full Council. We haven't heard from Councilmember Fondin-Gonzalez, so I need, so she's in agreement as well. We'll get the fiscal impact, the 2.7 million in the timing of it, if H.O.C. can explain the projected time of the payments on the two projects. Prospective, because budget language for fiscal year 26 starts fiscal year 26, which is July 1st, there's no clawback that's being discussed, but there are program dollars that, what would have an impact? There's also recordation tax and other dynamics that are going in. So there are puts and takes here, and the million dollars does not cover the totality of that, but that is part of what OMB is looking at, so I fully appreciate where you're coming from on that. Okay, so we have a committee recommendation on that. We have some follow up information that will be provided for context for full council when we do. And I'm very excited. The conversations have been very, very good. And I think there's a tremendous opportunity for us to build on a success, which we should be doing more of. In my opinion, I appreciate the collaboration and the advocacy of colleagues, because this committee has really advocated and fought hard for this. So thank you for that. Okay, I think that's the balance of Housing Opportunities Commission. I'm getting non-s from council staff. Appreciate your work. Thank you for joining us to our executive branch and our HAC partners. We're going to move on to item two. Welcome Miss Burn. Welcome. I'm going to turn it over to Council staff for a quick overview of the packet. Turn it over to Miss Burn for a quick update if she would like to share. And then we will take up the items in the packet and I'm guessing this one will be a bit shorter than the last one. Thank you. The County Executive recommends an increase of $63,719 or 7.78% from the FY25 approved operating budget for OSA, which is the Office of Zoning and Administrative Hearings. There are a couple of items for the Committee's particular consideration. I'll just mention before turning it over to Director Bern that the operating budget equity tool states that OSA demonstrates a commitment to advancing equitable outcomes for residents of the county. Appreciate that, Ms. Burns. Afternoon. Hello, everyone. Just highlight a little bit on what Logan talked about. There are two line items in there in particular. One, a $30,000 increase, which essentially covers our hybrid hearings. So if you recall in November of 2023, we began conducting hybrid hearings for OSA. And in order to do that, we need a Zoom operator. So we need someone in the hearing room who can pull up the exhibits. We put everything online now. And it gives individuals an opportunity to participate, I think. Likeally the first hearing that I did in 2023, I was the only person in the hearing room. Everybody participated remotely still because that was our transition from COVID all remote in. And now we have both people in person and we continually have individuals that participate through the Zoom. And so having that Zoom operator is crucial in order for us to have those hybrid hearings, they pull, we have all of our exhibits ahead of time online, so which is actually reduced the number of times that people have to come into the office to look at the physical file because it's all there. The applicants love it because they get to see everything beforehand. We are good to go once we start and we have that person in there who is our expert who can pull up all of those exhibits and it flows really, really well. The council generously we piggybacked on their PO for fiscal year 2025 and so we've estimated this, we're going to have our own PO. And 20 PO is a purchase order. Oh, yes, sorry. Sorry for my, my, my, my government speak. Yes. So we were grateful to be able to use the Council's purchase orders. Now we will have our own fiscal 2026 and based on the number of hearings in amount of hours, that's what we are estimating the cost to be. Great. Well thank you for that update. We're one legislative branch, so happy to assist in any way that you can. We share this wonderful building with and without the gas leak. So, you know, and with or without the 30 degree variance in temperature on a daily basis, Council vice president Juana. Yeah, I won't tell you what's going on up here, you know, with all the dust and everything else. But the only question I had was, because I thought you guys had piggybacked our account, is, and, you know, look, three years ago years ago I didn't know what zoom was we probably were in a similar situation now we can't live without it I've had two meetings on zoom today already that just that number just seems high to me and and without so could you contextualize a little bit it what and is the what are we getting for our dot yeah what do we get and is that just the price of the contract? These are other stuff built into the adder. So it's essentially the price of the contract. So every time we have a hearing, we estimate what the hours are. So essentially, we have a human reserve from 830 to 430 that comes in at 830 and make sure we have everything all their up, and they sit with us. So it's that humans hourly rate of sitting with us through those hearings. And we estimated it based on the number of hearings that we have. Now, if we ever have an in-person hearing only, there's no need for Zoom operators so we don't schedule them. If we have a remote hearing only, I don't schedule a Zoom operator because most of the time it's a smaller matter. It's the smaller daycare. It's something that essentially that I can handle or are other hearing examiners can handle. But it's the right negotiated with the company that comes in and does all of our tech support. That makes total sense. We actually had one of those who we then hired on staff here, Equin, who started as our operator during the pandemic and then is now on staff. So, all right, that closes the loop for me. Because I was thinking in my mind, It's just someone who's like pops on remotely and manages it. This is a physical person physical coming in helping which they run anything they run interference for the individuals like come in They make sure all the cameras are working. They make sure the microphones are working They're able to you know interface with the applicants with the lawyers with a lot more than just monitor monitoring online and that's probably a deal given all that, given the number of hearings you do. So thank you for explaining that. Yeah, a great glad you flushed that out. Cheaper than a person, an FTE. So this is a cost effective way to provide transparency and accessibility to important quasi-judicial perceiving. So thank you for that. I don't see any concerns. We will approve as recommended. Three to nothing. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, we're up to item number three. Board of Appeals. I see executive director Jay is with us. Miss Jay, welcome. Turn over to council staff to briefly walk us through the packet. We'll turn it over to Miss J and then open it up to see if there are any questions. Thank you. The executive recommends for the Board of Appeals an increase of $19,692 or $3.35% from the FY25 approved operating budget. This is entirely a same services budget, so no particular items for committee consideration for the reconciliation list. I will just add the operating budget equity tool for the board indicates that the board continues to demonstrate a growing commitment to promoting racial equity and social justice. Thank you, Mr. J. Good morning, Barbara J. for the Board of Appeals. Thank you for taking the time to consider our budget. We haven't been here that long. It's still afternoon. Oh, I've been saying that all day. I think this is the third time I've walked right into that trap. Anyway, I just wanted to say on behalf of the chair that she wanted to be here and she was unable to arrange her schedule to make that happen. So I send her regrets. At any rate, this is the same services budget. It's a maintenance level budget and I'd be happy to answer any questions that you might have. No, appreciation. Please send our regards back and you can take yes for an answer back without objection. We will accept as recommended. Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thanks for joining us and have a good evening. We're going to move on to item number four. This is Office of People's Council. Let me turn it over to Council staff to walk us through the packet. And I'll open it up to colleagues if they have any comments. Hello committee so the County executive recommends 261,783 To fund the office of the people's council as you know this committee and then the council reviewed this item in Fiscal years 23 24 and 25 and recommended not funding the office. So council staff consistent with that recommends not funding the office this year as well, given the budget issues as noted by council president of the chair. For the operating budget equity tool analysis, it was not completed for this office, presumably because it is a self-reported tool and there is no one in the office to complete it. And that is it, unless there are any questions. Okay, thank you for the update. Let me turn it over to Council colleagues. Councilor, we're finding a house. Oh, I think the world knows how I feel about this one. I don't even want to put it on the right list. I say no, we don't need this. Thank you. Councilmember, or council vice president Tronda? Yeah, I need to be quick, so that's what I was like. You just go ahead. So I actually do believe we should fund this this year. It is, I am paying the past. I've had in passion discussion about this at the committee. But I have also said that I do think there is a functionality for this like other counties have. The work around zoning, obviously we've had a ton of discussion around zoning in the county since last year. I heard from thousands of residents about this in the context of recommendations, master plans. Obviously the attainable housing strategy, ZTAs that have been introduced as part of other packages related to housing. And most recently, zoning related to a residential drug rehab facility and whether that the rules and that can around that and whether can exist near a school. And we're trying to respond to all this, but I think there should be this functionality, as I've always thought, should exist where, again, the idea that residents who do not understand planning and zoning can have an advocate they can go to to help them sort through an issue. I think that's a good thing. As a civil rights attorney myself, I've always liked that part of it. The problem I've had a problem with is that we haven't fully flushed out the how. So I think we need to do that. And I've been, you know, have some conversations around that with the executive branch, with folks on our side of the street as well. So, you know, I'm looking at you, Miss Nendue, and I know you don't take a position, but I just know how many emails you're receiving or have received about specific zoning questions. I think it would be good to have another outlet to help residents. So it has to be done right, but it is something that I think we should put in the budget this year. So I know we're Councilmember Funning and Zalas, as I know the chair has previously tried to do something with this. We need to figure out exactly what it looks like, but I think we should put the money in there. I think it's needed. Appreciate that. As colleagues know, this position has been funded since 2010. There still isn't really a plan for how the position would function. It sounds like there may be some conversations that are happening. I'm not sure they have really fleshed out to what that would look like. I have put forward the only concrete proposal that I am aware of of exactly what could happen here in the bill that we put forward in 2023 bill 1823. I still maintain and would be happy to fund that bill and that position which would address the equity concerns that have been raised but provide exactly the type of resource that you are referring to. Vice President Joanda, which I share, that there is room for that, and I think there could be a benefit to the public for that. Zoning is incredibly cumbersome and complicated and difficult to follow, and I think any opportunity for us to provide resources to residents is a positive thing. But I don't think we should fund this. We, the 1823, included a number of amendments in that working very closely with Miss Singleton and Miss Nadoo to even further enhance the equity dynamics. Unfortunately, there was not agreement from colleagues at this committee and there was not consensus among council members. Some want to do nothing on this. Some want to. Well, there was actually very little interest if any that I'm aware of moving forward with this position as it's funded. That's now changed, which is no problem. That's an update, but ultimately I still think that the best path forward was the bill that I had proposed. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like that's where the interest is, and so I would not support funding the same position that has not been funded since 2010. So that'll be a one to two vote, so it not included. Well, I think just to be clear, it is in the kind executive's budget. So it'll be a two to two. So I'll agree, yeah. Yeah, so I will agree with Councilmember Funding Gonzalez not to include the funding for it. Which would put it on the reckless as a reduction. Or actually, you know what, I'm gonna amend my, I will recommend the same funding level that was recommended to fund Bill 1823. In the event that there is a change, because there's a change of heart here a little bit, maybe there's a change of heart among other council members, I would recommend that we not fund the full amount at 261-783, I would recommend that we fund at the level to fund Bill 1823. So we can come up with what that number was. We just have to update that number with the current compensation number because the compensation number should be adjusted accordingly. I also think that what would it be? And then you need another person to agree with you to fund that, right? So we're not necessarily. I mean, there's. I'm not funding anything. Yeah, because I don't think she's agreeing to that. So it's two to one to put it on the reckless. We've got to agree for what we three can have a position and that could go to full council. That's we've done that before. Well, no, I mean, it's in the budget now. If my understanding of the only question there, we have to approve what's in the budget regardless. the question of what goes to the full council's whether it's on the reckless or not. Well, yeah, but I'm just saying I'm just clearing up that there would not be a committee recommendation. You could express three viewpoints in the packet, but I don't think if you're, if you want to take it out of the, include it as a recommended reduction in the budget, that requires a majority vote in the committee. my understanding of our process and now I've done every other thing we've done here. And so, and then if you, but what you just amended, you said you do wanna include A amount. So then if the two of us, if we're reducing the amount in the budget, that would also require a majority vote. So there wouldn't be a committee recommendation that would be three different options. Right. Well, I would like the, it to reflect that I would prefer to fund it at the 1823 amount. But if we don't have that amount, I'll not agree to fund it. I'll agree. I'll second the recommendation. But I would like it to be reflected in the, I was suggesting that there would be three different views and not have a committee recommendation but you're interested to have a committee recommendation which is fine I don't feel strongly but it'll be a two-to-one recommendation not to fund the position so put it on the remove recommended cuts list it would be on the recommended cuts list, but if we could note, and I will note in the summary, that I had recommended if there was an interest from the council to move forward with Bill 1823, that I think we should fund it at the level of 1823. And if I don't think we should put the funding in if there is an interest, if there is an interest for the council to move forward, I still believe that is the best path forward. And so should there be an interest in pursuing that, we could include the funding in the budget and we'd be able to move forward with the bill. If there's not an interest in moving forward then there's no need to fund that position. Yeah, and just you know one of the things we could also do is we could lapse it and try to work something out because obviously the building moved forward because you know there was a very fundamental thing in the bill as you know that whether it could be an advocate or not, that was one of the core issues. And I know Councillor Frenning is ours was like, I don't want to do anything so I get it. But so we could lapse it, which would functionally mean the same thing, like just and then try to take three to six months to figure out what exactly it You know You know, that's, that's, wouldn't that be an option? So it's less money in the budget. So if you did it as a lapse, you'd take the two, six, one, seven, eight, three, and then decide how long you want to lapse it for. And it also doesn't allow that. That's how it would be, or if it was right. can't move forward to hire it until there's some sort of further basis for it. But that's just I'm just trying to make it. I don't think we should I don't think we should move for this position unless there's an actual plan for the position which there isn't a until there's some sort of further basis for it. But that's just, I'm just trying to make it. I don't think we should, I don't think we should be before this position unless there's an actual plan for the position, which there isn't a plan for the position. What I'm suggesting is if there is an interest in moving forward with the only plan that has actually been put forward to address these issues, which I have put forward. If people will have another plan, I'm open for it. Then I would be interested in that. If not, then I don't think we should fund the position at all and I don't think lapsing a position that there's no plan for me is the right approach. I also want to find the answer. Let me remind you, we're dealing with the budget right now. If we want to create a new bill or go back and talk about our previous bill, we do that after the budget. Right now, we're discussing how much money we're going to allocate in a position that at least I am not going to support period. Maybe afterward done with the budget, if you want to revive this issue, we'll talk about it and fund it in the next year's budget. No right now. Thank you. All right. It's a two to one committee recommendation to remove the funding. I do want to reflect in the committee report that I would be interested still in 1823 which would have a lower budget cost to implement. Okay. So could you reflect my view of that? Yes. And Councilmember Dr. Hypologist. Councilmember Drwondo suggested that he would be open to laps in the position for savings. So in summary, it'll be two to one reduction, but the staff report will note, Councilmember Drawando was the vote to fully fund it at the 267-783 and that Chair Freedson... Thank you. He was a vote to laps it. But I was my commentator. Okay. that if there's support for 1823 from the full council, then you would be willing to change your vote to support that amount. Sure. Once again, the bill has, there's no proposal because the bill hadn't passed. So, and- Well, there's a proposal. There's no position because the bill has- Yeah. Anything would need to be figured out after, you know. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. All right, we're going to move on to our next item. Should I believe it's item number five, right? Yes.aration. Department of Recreation. Woo-hoo. Director Riley, Ms. Clutter, welcome Ms. Keys, Ms. Singh, welcome one and all. All right. I am going to turn it over to our council staff as comments and you can walk us to the packet and now I'm going to turn it over to our council staff as comings and you can walk us to the packet and I'll turn it over to director Riley to give us an update on all the amazing things that you're doing in the department of recreation and how you are doing a lot with not a huge amount. Good afternoon. Thank you chair Freedson. We will get much more into the packet as we go on, but just to give a little bit of an overview. For the Department of Recreation, the executive recommends an increase of $3,639,000, $325, or 5.6% increase from the FY25 approved operating budget for the department. 0.6% increase from the FY 25 approved operating budget for the department. Table 1 on page 2 provides a $125 or 5.6% increase from the FY 25 approved operating budget for the department. Table 1 on page 2 provides a summary of budgetary changes between FY 25 and FY 26. One thing to note, one recommendation in the budget for this year is an allocation of $786,644 in programmatic and staffing enhancements to expand Excel beyond the Bell Elementary program to two new locations, Waters Landing and East Silver Spring Elementary. As these increases are out of school time expansions, they will be reviewed separately tomorrow at the joint ECPHP committee meeting. With the exception of this particular increase, this is primarily a same services budget. And in addition to the operating budget items, the committee will also be discussing two CIP recommendations, increased funding for the Silver Spring Recreation and Aquatic Center, and reduction to the CIP for the Swimming Pool Slide Replacement Project. Great. All right, direct to Riley. Give us your update, please. And thank you for everything. Thank you, thank you for the opportunity to be here. Thank you to Kristen for working with us on the package. She did a great job this year. We appreciate it. Her due diligence. And thanks to our team who worked really hard. And I think you nailed it. We have a small but hardy group who are very hard, very passionate about the work they do, and making a difference in our community both youth as well as seniors and our families, which I think right now is a critical thing for many of our families. So that's it we're doing a lot and we're excited about summer. Summer camps are getting ready to get started and so it's been it's been a great time. Appreciate it. Fantastic. All right well first of all I just wanted a note. Last year we we had quite a bit of conversation about PLR and how you were not at the PLR level from before the great recession. It was a pretty demoralizing and depressing conversation or scientific confirmation of what your team sees each and every day with fitness facilities and playgrounds and other things that are not maintained at the level that they would like and you would like and that your team makes do with. You know, they outcoach the equipment, so to speak. Could you just give us an update on that? Obviously, this committee was very sympathetic with some challenging dynamics with adding funding to schools and having limitations of what we were able to do, but just wanted to give us an update on the PLR dynamics. I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, you guys have tough decisions ahead or respectful of that. And I think the county executive did the best that he could with the resources that we had. As our buildings continue to age, many of them are original in their structure. We are starting to see some infrastructure work that needs to be taken care of. The good news is our buildings are heavily used. I mean, that's the exciting news. The RecFit Pass has been amazingly popular. We're seeing so many more people that might not otherwise have the opportunity to come in and connect with a wellness program and use our fitness rooms. So I think that's exciting. But it does put pressure on us and our team to really make sure we're maintaining the equipment, doing our best to inspect it and keep it as operational as we can. Sure, we would love to have more Pilar money going forward in the years to come to really do those wholesale replacements of all of our fitness room equipment. You know, over the years we're seeing everything go up, our costs are going up. So we are responsible for maintaining not only our playgrounds, but our fitness room, the White Oak field. We have a maintenance fee on that as well. And then replacing tables, chairs, resurfacing gym floors, fixing basketball, backboards, white coating pools, all those things cost more and more money each year. So it does force us to stretch a bit. But I think we do an amazing job of being sure everybody is safe and things look as best as they can. Appreciate that. Okay, why don't we go through this? You know, I'll just note on the Pilar aspect, I think this is an area that we really need to be focused on and thinking about, I'm not sure this is going to be the budget year that's much better than last budget year in order to get across the finish line, so I don't want to set unrealistic expectations here, but I am a little bit conflicted because I do think we should keep the marker to raise the issue, But, you know, I think it's going to be tough, ultimately, for funding. But I do think this is just such an important issue. If we're going to actually utilize and activate the huge investments that we have and the personnel who we have paid for to have the equipment that actually supports them and to have places that people actually want to play and engage and show up. I do think is really important and it seems every other department within county government has grown dramatically and has gotten huge increases in expenditures and new programs and shining new objects and new toys. And I will just say that it doesn't feel like the Department of Recreation has gotten the same level of growth and increases since the tough cuts. And it's challenging because not only have you not gotten the increases, you got the disproportionate share of the reductions during the great recession. When our colleague was the director and all those tough decisions were made, there was the greatest number of personnel reductions in the Department of Recreation. There was the greatest number of cuts in the Department of Recreation and we haven't seen the greatest number of additions. We haven't even seen a proportionate level of additions from my perspective in the department. So just wanted to note that, I'm not sure we're going to resolve that in this budget realistically, but I do think it is an ongoing and chronic challenge and we need your department more than we ever have. We have a massively growing older adult population and we have a crisis among our youth. We have a health crisis, we have a wellness crisis, we have an absenteeism crisis, we have a health crisis, we have a you know a broad-scale challenge that the Department of Recreation is uniquely positioned to partner with other outside organizations to deal with. You know, I think Council will put it well last year when we referred to the destination kids versus the decision kids. And you play a role in the decision kids of those who have a program to activity that their parents can afford to cover are fine, generally. Those who don't have a program to activity that their parents or parents or guardian can afford to put them in and place them in are challenged. And the question is, what choices are before them and what program are we providing? And that's where the Department of Recreation steps in like Parks do and other you know outside programming which you know I just think are critically important and I know that this committee shares that we tried to advocate strongly for it last year but you know I just wanted to make sure I noted that. Councillor Viceroy Zouanda. Thank you appreciate the shout out and also love all the work that you all do. You know that. I did wanna ask one question. Obviously support the very modest increase to your budget. I do not support any potential reductions and I know council staff doesn't either and their heart of hearts just did her job to put some forward, you know, the three that are listening in the packet related to aquatic staff or senior program rentals or fireworks. So we need all the joy and recreation we can get, especially with the times we're in. As was mentioned, we were already facing various crises, but it's getting harder faster. Every You know, I was, I was, many of us were at the Public Safety Awards this morning. And some of those harrowing stories about what's happening in our community and the situations that were necessitated, the response from law enforcement and others. This was also a unique year. There was MCPS staff that was there to receive awards because of just recognizing the integration, but it could have been a rec staff that I know you, I know personally you guys have intervened and stopped bad things from happening. So the prevention aspect of what you do. And I did want to ask just one question since we have here a budget. The chair mentioned how you were hit really hard, now going back to the Great Recession. One of the lagging indicators of that was this part-time full-time thing that we've been trying to get a handle on. And I kind of remember us talking about, whereas just to state it, you have a lot more part-time staff than anybody else. Some of that is seasonal because of the work, but some of it is just a cost thing. And I know you would like to shift that over time, or where are we with that? And is there been any additional study or a plan in place? Just because that's something, in addition to the P-lar, the facilities where we need work, the workforce itself, we need to build this up over time. Yeah, I'm not sure this was the year to think about that. It's really challenging. Our seasonal staff numbers are around 2300 to your point. Many of them are summer camps, some repuls, but we know that our community center staff are the backbone of what we do. Our buildings are open some 70 hours a week and some have one staff person who's a career merit person. So that's create challenges. Sorry. The whole building. And that creates challenges. And they do a fantastic job. They build relationships with every customer coming in even though they're just, you know, as a seasonal employee. Many have other jobs, you know, this is a secondary employment for them. Many of them are students. But, you know, we've done a really phenomenal job of coaching and connecting with many of our seasonals and bringing them into the workforce as a pipeline, into our record leader, our specialist role. We're excited to see that growth and see that connection. Do I think there's room for more? Absolutely. I do. I just don't know that this is the time. Yeah, I get that and I know and I would just say we can come back to this after budget and we can, you know, it's an ongoing discussion. If we don't plan for it, we won't ever do it. And I think we just have to create the public demand. There's so much, when you have a consistent person, I'm gonna just go back to my long branch, wreck people that were there. I knew who they were and they were there over multiple years. So I'd love to, I know this is a tough year. We're not gonna do it this year. But can we come in into next year, think about what a plan would look like. That doesn't mean we have to do it, or we can do all of it, but maybe we can start it. And I just think, you know, and I want to offer our help, whether it's, oh, a load of resources to help dig into it with you more, or, you know, I'd say it to the exec, you know, so I just want to put that out there. I think we should put a plan on paper, demonstrate and document the need, and then chart a course to getting there. And we realize that we can't do it all in one budget or one year. So does that make sense? Absolutely. I appreciate it. Thank you. Customer funding in Zellos. I love you guys. You know that I'm gonna fully support the the kind of executives recommendation and not take any reductions. It's impossible, especially nowadays with everything going on at the federal level with all the late-offs. Now more than ever we need to be there for families, parents who may not have a job anymore. This is the place where people go to find peace. And there's no way I can take anything from it. So I do think that as a committee, we need to go very strongly in front of the full council to protect the right department. And I will end by saying that yesterday for the first day of flag football, that was awesome. My daughter loved it, so thank you so much for all your work. That's it. Thank you. I agree not taking any additional reduction. I'd love to add funding to Pilar, but as I noted earlier, I think it'd be challenging to do that even though to me, it's still absurd that you're well below almost 50,000. As far as I can tell, the level's just to get back to 2008, which is just staggering to think about given the increase in needs and population, particularly in the populations that you serve, the youth and the older adults in particular, although you serve everybody. I did just, this is such a small amount, it almost seems absurd that I mentioned it, but I just think it's also absurd that the switchover to a new bank account required that the department is going to pay $10,662 in slips to... I understand you handle cash and a lot of other departments don't handle cash. Correct. But we have a multi-billion dollar budget where a fairly substantial account. I actually used to serve on some procurement evaluation committees at the state level looking at banking contracts. And the idea that our bank partner at J.A.E. Morgan wouldn't assume the $10,662 cost of the banking slips for the Department of Recreation seems absurd to me. Maybe it was just an oversight and wasn't asked for, but I just wanted to note that, that whoever is evaluating or negotiating, that it should go without saying that a normal customer wouldn't pay extra for that. That usually gets included when you're a new customer as a thank you for banking with them, the fact that we're paying. And it's real money. I mean, $10,662 or a real part-time employees hours or overtime. In the scheme of the whole department's budget, it's nominal. But it's not nothing. And as a taxpayer, if you look at that, it's almost offensive. I'm not sure that we asked that question from our finance team in Cor Rockville, but we can certainly go back in. I would just ask about it. I mean, it seems you could imagine if you're a parent and you're scraping by and you're signing your child up for summer camp and you have to pay even the subsidized rate for summer camp. And then you look at this packet because you want to learn more about the department that you're giving your hard earned money to and you see that we're paying almost $11,000 to a bank for paper. It's a hard pill to swallow. It's not your decision, you're just passing along the cost and have to pay the bill, but it just stuck out to me as, I understand programs have cost escalations and that's part of the cost to do in business, but that just seemed absurd to me. So thank you for looking into that. OK, well, the committee is not interested in taking a reduction, so that's the good news. We fought the good fight, and we're unable to add funding to the PLR piece to the extent that we would have wanted to last year. I don't think there's really any other decision points before getting to the CIP, but before we do that, let me turn to Council staff to see if there's anything else on the operating side and then we can turn to the CIP. No other items on the operating side, just the CIP. All right. Before we turn to the CIP, let me turn it one last time to colleagues. Vice President Trouna. So on Pilar, what did we put on the reckless last year? How much did we? Do you remember? I don't remember. Okay. And while you do that, I'll just fill a buster. I just...it's so needed. Like, it's just so needed. Well, if you're open to it, last year, I recommended it. So last year, I believe we put them up to the 2008 level. So this year it would be 47,390. Let's just put it on there. All right. Well, if it's facilities needed, so. You know I'm there. So. Yes, go ahead. 47,319 for Pilar to be made whole to the pre-pandemic 2008. I'm sorry, I keep saying pre-pandemic. I did this last year too, by the way, because we- It wasn't pre-recessioned. It seems pre-pandemic, because that's the last time we have this point in time moment where the numbers change, but pre-recession levels in 2008, 2009. So, okay. As long as you use it for the only swim center pull ducts that I, you know, I'm just kidding, no, you use it wherever you need it. It would be helpful just for council staff to include and for me to include in the committee's report of examples of projects that would be funded. That wouldn't otherwise be funded. I think you had $47,000 more dollars. What could you do with that? All right, great. Let's move on to the CIP. Successful filiboss are not the most expensive filiboss that we've had at this committee, but not nothing either. Let's go to the CIP update, Ms. Cummings. Okay, so we have the CIP amendments up for discussion on page 8 of the staff report. Starting with the Silver Spring Recreation and Aquatic Center. In total, $3.2 million of construction work were spent on Srirach after its opening, primarily for change order work and towards fulfilling general terms and conditions of the contract. The total of this work has been split into two different CIP transmittals from the executive and must be handled as two separate transactions. The first decision point is for supplemental appropriation $25.20 and the amount of $2 million, which was discussed by the committee back in February, and the committee did recommend approval. The supplemental is going before full council tomorrow on April 29th, and if anyone needs a little bit of a refresher on what that was, we have the full item on circle six to 12 of the packet. The remaining $1.2 million required to complete the project was transmitted with the April CIP amendments transmitted from the executive, which includes an additional $1.2 million and FY26 geo bond funding to complete the. Final action on this amendment will occur in May as part of the FY26 CIP budget reconciliation. And we have more information on this on circles 15 to 18 of the packet. Great. Okay. Any questions, comments? CIP? No objections, so we'll take that as recommended. And the second project we have for discussion today is a new one. That came with the Executives to Recommendation. It's a reduction to this women's poll slide replacement project and the amount of $1,191,000. And this amendment was created to reflect the deferral of the Germantown outdoor pool project to align with planned accessibility improvements in the ADA compliance project. We do have an updated tentative schedule for the project found on table 4, page 9 of the staff report. Okay. Maybe we can turn to the department and get a little bit of an update there and understand. Sure. Basically this aligns the two projects together. So by pushing it back a little bit, it's not deleting the money, it's just pushing it back. We currently have a project right now at Martin Luther King where they combined the slide project with the ADA work. And that's been the most ideal way to complete a project. So you're not digging up the deck to do slope work and then coming back later and doing digging up slide footers. So this is just combining those projects so the work is being done at the same time. Okay. Any questions, comments? And so it just just delight or no safety issues or any other. Certainly no. It's just you know a lot of our slides are original to when the construction of the building so they're over but they go each year by the state. They're just on our list to go ahead and replace at some point. But no safety issues. No safety. So the delay won't have an operational impact. There won't be like a slide that comes out of service because of safety or other. The operational impact would be doing them separately. That would be impactful. OK. Without objection. Okay. Fun balance policies. We took up P. Laura already, but I'll turn it over to council staff to see if you want to share any additional information. An apology apologies just quickly before we move on for my own director keeping. It's three recommendations for approval for the poll replacement project. This one, this slide replacement project. The reduction. Yes. Further reduction. Thank you. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So for the second program we have highlighted in the staff report. We have RACASIS through which the department provides financial assistance to county residents receiving public assistance through subsidizing recreation activity and membership fees. RACASIS does not abudged operating expense but is funded through the department's current revenue. Transquently as the demand increases, revenue decreases. The utilization of the, of racist funds do exceed the budgeted amount and then this past year the amount of racist available increased $200, $400 per, from $200, $400 per eligible household member. Council staff notes that this program is aligns with the mission of recreation and that staff work directly with vulnerable populations in the community to provide information on the program and to assist them with the application process. Between 2022 and 2024, the number of households who received assistance through a requisite increased by 42%. And in FY25, this support helped account for a 225 camp registrations and 100 family pooled passes to linkages to learning participants. This is a demonstrated area of need and can be expected that enrollment in this program will continue to increase. Can we just talk with this for a second? So at what point do you know what your current revenue is and at what point can you offer up these subsidized passes, scholarships, et cetera? It's a complicated project. That's why I asked the question. I had a complicated question. I've recognized. What's an easy question? I think the answer is complicated. It's complicated. I have the easy part of this steel. Recuses is unique for us in that it crosses over a fiscal year. So the families are applying when I calendar year. So the revenue, the loss of revenue actually gets split in some sense because of that. So it's a difficult question to answer knowing the impact. I mean, we can tell you on a calendar year, you know, um, what, how much we give out. We generally give it, we allocate, gosh, Carmen, we're like 1.5 million allocations on families accounts already. So we place the wreck dollars on the account so the parents and the families are transparent. They don't, they don't, they can just go online and register their cells using their requisite dollars. And we have seen a big increase and a big need in that area. So I don't know that I answered your question because it's really difficult because of the crossover for the fiscal year to really give you the revenue impact. Sure. And the current revenue is coming in from where and under and on what schedule? Yeah, it's coming on the fiscal year based on rental revenues, class registration, sports. Is it like a net of something? I'm just trying to understand. Yes. You bring in, how does the accounting of it work? That's kind of what I'm trying to. Charlotte Keys, our finance Charlotte keys manager for business services so our revenue is same as she said it's kind of complicated to explain it but our revenue recognition comes at the end of the fiscal year we at the when we plan our budget we automatically set aside $800,000 so we'll take an $800,000 reduction to the revenue expectation. And that's how we do it on a fiscal year. We don't really have the opportunity to true up until after we pass that June 30th date, and we're going through the reconciliation process. So you're basically forward funding the first half of the fiscal year year and then you're reconciling in the second half of the fiscal year based on the calendar year. Correct. Exactly. Okay. I got it. That makes sense. All right. Thanks. I thought that I just wasn't sure and that was helpful. Okay. Well, thanks. I wish we could do even more of that because the needs are huge. thank you for doing that. I know it's complicated, but it's critical. So thank you for providing more opportunities to more young people and more families. We appreciate it. All right. Any other comments? Just thank you again for all of your work. We need you now more than ever. And really appreciate everything that you do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again for all of your work. We need you now more than ever and really appreciate everything that you do Sounds good. Yeah, why don't you stick around and we'll invite up Miss lesser if she's here I see her in the back And yeah, let me turn it over to council staff for an overview of this item. Thank you. This goes for the future NDA which was established May 2019 provides funding for high quality science technology engineering arts and mathematics programming, and recreational settings to low income youth. The intention of the funding is to build a pipeline of technical talent, ensuring equitable access to high-paying jobs and allowing Montgomery County to continue offering one of the best educated workforces in the world. And these ones are administered through the Department of Recreation. This NDA account was recommended to have the 3% inflationary increase this year, which would be decided later date by full council. And it would bring the NDA amount up to $300,000, $117. We have some information in the packets about the usage of the SENDIA. On, it helps to provide for services such as summer camp, school day out camp, field trips, Sunday open explore, which has interactive experiences and after school programming for pre-K through eighth grade. On table two, we have a little bit of information about how these funds have been utilized in FY25, the number of individual served per program. One thing that we did just want to highlight in this year's budget discussion that was also discussed at the EC Committee last Friday is that there are several streams of county funding going towards the kids museum. One being the kids museum and EA schools for the future and funding within Department of Recreations budget itself. As the committee considers the recommended budget for schools for the future, the committee may also wish to consider whether the funding may be consolidated into one NDA, into the kids' museum NDA. And on table three, we do have a breakdown of the different county contributions to Kid Museum. And I will leave it there for discussion. Yeah, well, I'd be open to consolidating into the Kid Museum NDA. I think it would be a lot easier for everybody to handle in that way and for us to fully understand where the funding is coming from. There's been quite a bit of communication issues between the executive branch and not Department of Recreation, which has been a great partner as far as I can tell, but the executive office and where the budget decisions are made. You have the programmatic folks who are actually on the ground working with the partners. And there's just a lot of moving parts and it's really nobody's fault. I'm not trying to lay blame here, but it becomes a lot of cooks in the kitchen. In terms of having money parked in multiple different places, I think consolidating it makes sense, would like to hear from the stakeholders here of operational impacts and whether that would concern or be exciting. And I just wanted to note one other thing. Chair Remer deserves credit. He and I worked closely together to start this, goes for the future program. Councilmember Jawando was an early supporter of it and the three of us unanimously pushed it forward at committee. We had originally included two tranches of 250,000 if Councilmember Vice President Jawando would recall for it to be 500,000. So we're not up to the point at which we thought there was a need and we thought we actually could do just for this particular program. So I just want to note that it has marginally gone up, but we were hoping for it to be 500,000 for the beginning. And that was before some of the significant needs happens. I just wanted to bring back that history. I'm glad it's being funded and has continued over the course the last five years. That's been a real positive and has had huge impacts. But I did want to note that we had even grander ideas and vision originally, and I think that interest still remains, although there are some limitations, of course, that we have. I did also want to note before we turn it over to Director Riley and Miss Lesser in general, and also about the question of the consolidation the council staff has put forward. We noted this, I lifted this up last year. I wanna lift it up again. I appreciate that it's in the packet that more than 60% of the program participants identify as Black or Latino. More than 50% are from under-resourced communities. Approximately 50% of MCBS schools engaged in the last two fiscal years are Title I or over 40 40% farms, frequently referred to as community schools in other scenarios. This is a huge need that's serving a critical population and is a tremendous bang for the buck. So just wanted to you, I have a question for you, I have a question for you, I have a question for you, I have a question for you, I have a question for you, I have a question for you, I have a question for you, I have a question for you, I have a question for you, I have a question for you, I have a question that counts as staff is pros. I think the recreation department and the Kids Museum have been strong partners from the jump right from the very beginning. And so we continue that collaboration and that partnership and they do amazing work that just raises all boats. For us administratively, it's cleaner and simpler to have it in one. So we would support that collaboration, that connection, putting them together. Ms. Lesser? I agree on all fronts. That first of all, just so proud to be housed under rec as our home agency. It means a lot because because this is we share a commitment to bringing really high quality services into our community and serving people who can't necessarily go out and buy this on the market on their own and so there's just tremendous alignment in the work that we're doing and as said, we've been at this for many years together already. So I think that we have been working really well together. I think there is confusion. This is a historical and skills for the future as a fund existed before we had our NDA. And it really started to help us expand the types of services that we have grown into with the NDA. So I think from an administrative standpoint, it really makes sense to bring these together. We will miss being part of this committee formally, you know, not only because we so enjoy the individuals who are on this committee, but it also, I think it represents that Kid Museum's work is about economic development just as much as education and culture, and those things are very much intertwined for us. We know your hearts are there too, but I think from an administrative standpoint, it really makes sense to put these under one NDA at this point. Sounds good. All right, so let's take that item and then let's open it up general comments and questions. So let's dispose of that first if we can and then general. Yes. I agree with him. Okay, just I just want to clear the deck. Seems to be consensus. Yes. All right. So we're going to make a recommendation on that. There's an interesting point raised of whether there's an economic smell because some of the money is a work source Montgomery. So that's something that can be worked out offline for future budget years of how that's taken up. I don't know that we have to litigate that here, certainly. I don't even know if we have to let it get at this budget. Year because we're not going to take that up. Is there a comment from Office Management Budget on the NGA? Budget, sorry. So I just wanted to clarify, is the committee's recommendation to reduce the recreation budget, the 159, 806, and add that to the, as well as Sun said, the skills for the future NDA to roll all those funds into the skills for the Kid Museum NDA. Is that the recommendation? Yes. Yes. Yes. So we would zero out the skills for the future NDA and we would move the totality of the skills for the future NDA into the Kid Museum NDA at 302116 and then we would reduce the Department of Recreation base budget 159806 and increase that in the Kid Museum NDA as well. So, the Kid Museum NDA would essentially be increased by $470,000, rounding to the nearest. Vice President Drona. Just in support of this on Friday, I think it was Friday. E&C met and we also as home to the Kid Museum in DA and also suggested that this would make sense pending my other committee's approval that oversees the recreation budget and appreciate that your answer hasn't changed since Friday as far as like that you thought it would work. Yeah, good weather outside and I think you're right. I mean to your point, Ms. Lesser, everything you guys do is touched almost every committee. You know, you could tie something in, you know, you can transfer tape, you know, you could tie it into economic development for sure. And when we were the Fed Committee, that was why, you know, that was a good, certainly, obviously, education, but mental health, HHS. So just, and that's actually, I think it was, so we're happy to maintain the relationship with ENC, but I think you all are such a cross-cutting important. It speaks to the work that you're doing in the community that you touch on so many things. And I do think this will be one of the things we did discuss in ENC, which I will just mention for my colleagues here, was that it will be really important to delineate within the NDA what's going to what so we don't lose the that connective connective tissue when we go over the budget and and just knowing that this is not a reduction this is just moving money over for administrative purposes and you're still going to do the whole breath of work and hopefully more going forward because you know this, so just wanted to say that and really excited that you're continuing to do the great work. And we also had a big discussion about philanthropy and unfortunately they've had a couple of at least one federal grant cut. Yeah, I was going to be my question if you want to appreciate you noting that. If you wanted to share here and it's been shared previously previously but I think it's important to note the federal impacts on the organization. Yeah, it is real. We were notified, I guess, a week and a half, two weeks ago now that we lost one federal grant or we had a grant through the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which sure you know as a whole agency has been taken down. And a couple of weeks after that, we got the notice that that included our grant that really was focused on supporting culturally sustaining pedagogy and ensuring that we're reaching all kids in our community. So that is work that we now need to find other funding sources for. We're seeing the impacts with, you know, in the same way that the whole economy is, that people have lost their jobs, in some cases, two earners in the same household have lost their jobs and there's, it's getting harder for families to participate in after school and camp programs. Our spring break camps, we had record levels of requests for support already. We're starting to see that for our summer break camps. People are just taking it in their lives in addition to the federal grant cuts. We're seeing some retrenchment in our corporate support as well as corporate prior user shifting. So it is a very hard time from the perspective of continuing and maintaining this work and ideally growing this work because we know the need is certainly growing. We as you were alluding to earlier, we have a crisis with youth and many fronts and academically, socially, emotionally, mental health. So we know that we are providing an important service and we're hoping to be able to maintain that and grow during this difficult time. Well, I appreciate it. I noted earlier with the Housing Production Fund of really trying to build on the strengths that we have and the proven models that we've been able to figure out. We haven't solved every problem far from it, but there are certain problems that we have seen real benefits and improvements in the Kimmy's Amazon as just a shining example of something that's clearly working. And so as much as we can lean into what's working and grow the light in a dark time and try to really double and triple down on the positives that we're seeing and doing and rather than pushing back, which we have to do to to a certain extent we need to lean in and really lift each other up and really focus in on the support and the interventions and the programs that we know are proven and that are successful and that are reaching the people they need to reach and the data speaks for itself. So appreciate that. Let me turn to Councilmember Funnigan-Zal, and then Vice President Juano. Well, that was this morning at the Kip Museum. And just because one of my district schools was the S. LIGO Middle School. And I, you guys complement the work that we have at MC, the Montgomery County Public School System, and complement the work that we just do in Montgomery County with the Rec Center, Parks Department and so on. And I think you're a great example of why Montgomery County is such a special place to live. And anything we can do to continue to support you. And the next generation of workers in Montgomery County and the nation, I mean those kids who were at the Kid Museum today, I mean, I was just looking at their faces, how amazing they were, you know, touching every single tool they have and to be creative and so on. So I fully support the recommendations that we had that were given today and I wish we could do so much more for you guys. So thank you. Thank you, Mr. Enjorn. In just a housekeeping matter, the, so the 3%, which will decide a full council is included here as it was with the NDA. And we approve that for, on the NDA side, it'll be improved, it'll all be looped in. And just so it can be reflected at full council that obviously the E&C committee would recommend the new full amount being moving forward to. I just want to make, I think that goes without being said, but I just want to say it. Does that make sense? OMB, right? Okay. Yes. And the way we treated it last year is the way the 3% is across the board anyway So we weren't gonna treat one differently than the other so it would just change the amount and so the 3% whether it's Separator together would still be 3% so I appreciate the clarification and We've a 3-0 committee recommendation to consolidate based on Council staff and make sure that it's reflected appropriately with the necessary reductions in the other NDA and the other Department of Recreation budget. For bookkeeping and simplicity to be a better partner, focus on the work and not following the budget process. Thank you to Council staff, thank you to the Kid Museum, thank you to the Department of Recreation, thank you to the Office of Management and Budget, thank you to colleagues and we are adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Right.