Welcome to the public safety work session of 1 April 21st, 2025. Today we have five topics on the agenda, the Sheriff's Office, Circuit Court, State's Attorney's Office, Foreign Rescue Service, and Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. I did want to note that Council Member Mink will be joining us or as joined us virtually. As we begin, I would like to thank Mr. Anbinder and Ms. Farag and Ms. Cummins for preparing the staff reports for the day's topic, topics. And for once again, always assembling the most informative packets for us. And unless the committee members have anything to say and I do seek council member Mink unless they can remember so many things. I would like to ask the first panel which is the sheriff's office. If the sheriff and anyone that would like to join him, I shouldn't say like to join him that would join him yet. I'm going to ask if the panel once they're seated, if they'll introduce themselves please and if they have any opening comments and we're going to turn to Mr. Reimbond. Well again, good afternoon. I appreciate the opportunity to present this afternoon. So I'm joined today with Mona Cabrera, our budget person, Director Tom Mannion, Family Justice Center, Assistant Sheriff, Kena Jones, and of course, we know Derek. Thank you, Derek. Just one name. That's the right area in person. Again, if I may, I would definitely like to express my appreciation to Logan and all of his work in helping us as well as Derek move through this budget process again to present before you. As you know, the Sheriff's Office is the oldest law enforcement entity in Montgomery County, having been established in 1777. Of course, today is the law enforcement arm of the court system. The Sheriff's Office fills a unique role in Montgomery County. Whether it is the transportation of incarcerated persons to court hearings or other appointments, providing safety and security to our circuit court, support to survivors of domestic violence at our Family Justice Center, attempting to apprehend dangerous fugitives or conducting court order evictions, the members of the Sheriff's Office perform their job professionally every day. And I'm especially thankful to our non-sworn professional staff who have continued to provide support during our ongoing staffing challenge. So thank you again. Thank you. And as I turn to live, I'm a Council member of Mink and I'm looking at you. I don't know whether you could see me or not. But if you need, when you want to speak, I don't always look up and see your an raise. Either yell out or text me or something, please. Okay. I had a feeling you weren't going to be shy. And with that, Logan, please. Good afternoon. The county executive recommends an increase of $2,770,373, or just over 9% from the FY25 approved operating budget for the Sheriff's Office. This increase includes $833,000 worth of items, which council staff has identified as being programmatic and or staffing enhancements. We'll go through those in some greater detail later in the packet. Moving on to department background at the bottom of page two of your packet. I'll just remind the committee, the most recent discussion at committee involving the Sheriff's office was the briefing from regarding the recommendations of the State Task Force to ensure the safety of judicial facilities, which have placed in March of 2025. So last month, Sheriff, we participated in the discussion alongside members of the Circuit Court Judiciary and building security staff from the District Court. And as far as pertains to the Sheriff's Office. In particular, there was a discussion at that time of some ongoing staffing challenges faced by the Sheriff's Office. The packet at the top of page three identifies some proactive steps the Sheriff's Office has taken to address some of the challenges in recruiting sworn staff. One of those is seeking to reclassify certain vacant sworn positions as non-sworn roles, which would facilitate filling those roles potentially more easily and lead to financial savings relative to employing sworn staff in those positions. That is an effort that is ongoing. Also, in FY25, the Sheriff's Office secured $1300,000 grant from the state for police recruitment and retention. And the office, Sheriff's Office continues to recruit new sworn staff and has recruits currently going through training now. The final component of the overview just regarding overtime last year, Council staff prepared a table to show the overtime over the past several fiscal years and for continuity we've included that and updated that in the packet for FY 25 projected. The council did approve an increase in the overtime budget for the sheriff's office and you see that reflected in the last row of table two on page three of your packet. Over time expenditures have continued to increase. So you can see in the third column the additional unbudgeted costs for overtime has remained roughly consistent from FY24 to FY25, even after taking into account that approved increase in overtime. Regarding the operating budget equity tool analysis and the analysis done by the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice since the Sheriff's Office is distinct from the executive branch. The office is not required to submit an OBET to ORESJ however, I'm sure they'll be happy to speak more to the efforts that they are taking with regards to Racial Equity and Social Justice So I'm happy to go into the specific items that council staff has flagged as a new enhanced, strict me, programmatic or staffing enhancements before I do I'll pause for any questions. Did Sheriff, did you want to speak to the, to the racial justice? So absolutely, Mr. Council member. So as a note, we not formally submit however I will again continue to affirm that while I am the sheriff I am committed to ensuring that we take into account diversity equity inclusion I recognize there are certain areas of our government where there's a pullback but I can tell you and I think you're aware They're not committed to making sure we have the best people in the best places as well as mentoring and fostering Mentorship and promotional opportunities for our wide range of candidates And I appreciate that and I think we should be clear that it's not just and it's not in government It's not Montgomery County government that there's been pulled back. That's correct. That's correct. That's correct. That's correct. Thank you. Please. Moving on to page four of the packet. The table at the top of page four summarizes all of the county executives recommended budget changes. The costs in the right hand altogether sum to that $2.7 million recommended increase from the executive. The top three rows of this table are the three that Council staff has identified as potentially construing programmatic or staffing enhancements. So to take those one at a time, the first is $336,000 for the Security Guard Contract Escalator. This item comprises a couple of different components. One is an inflationary increase for existing contract security personnel. The contract security personnel provide security at the circuit court building, at the family justice center, and at the child support office. Going back to FY24, the Sheriff's Office executed a new contract to change vendors, which permitted for an increase in contract staffing from roughly 940 work hours prior to the execution of that new contract to about 1,000 hours per week in FY25. And that increase in work hour funding was partially funded from other budget funds. So at this time, the executive has recommended an increase to the budget to match the enhanced number of work hours, the additional number of work hours that have been provided over the past couple of years and are projected to be provided going forward. Since the executive's budget transmittal, the Sheriff's Office has determined that an increase of $320,000 would be sufficient to provide safety to all visitors and employees at each of these locations that I've mentioned. Thus, Council Staff recommends approval of this item at the $320,000 figure, which wouldn't tell a reduction of $16,398 from the executive's recommended budget. Sounds good to me. I don't know. Are we good? Yes. Okay. Did you want to comment on that? No additional comments other than we may touch on other areas where we're looking at future recommendations, but but currently this is where we and I'm going to touch on something later on too, but I'm fine with. I think we're fine. I'm. Yeah, quick question. Yeah, I'm going to do a quick question. Just wanted to give you an opportunity. I wanted to understand the the analysis that you did to reduce the three through the three thirty six increased down to three twenty. Just how you determined those numbers. For the security guard contract escalator. Well without getting into specific, it's good to see your council member first all. Without getting into specifics, looking at managing our mandated front line screening stations, when we looked at what we can, would be able to monitor the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring of the monitoring on to item number 1.2 at the bottom of page 4 of the packet. The executive recommended an increase of $275,000 as a one-time installation of mobile data computers and radios in new vehicles for the Sheriff's Office. This provides for the installation of those items. It is a programmatic enhancement in the sense of these vehicles not being able to be used as public safety vehicles without the increase but is necessary in order for the vehicles to function as public safety vehicles. So Council staff recommends approval of this item. I'm fine with that. Okay. And then the third item at the top of page five of the packet is a contract escalator for a taser and body worn camera contract. This increase provides for an upgrade of taser from an older model to a newer model, as well as the expansion of a number of tasers in use in the department to 100 tasers across the department. The new taser model offers substantial improvements in terms of effective range and number of cartridges. And this new model is also the one that is in use at the county's Public Safety Training Academy. So upgrading to the new model would allow deputy trainees to use in service the same model that they're going to be training with. So council staff recommends approval of this item as well. And I'm fine with that, but let me ask, right now, Sheriff, you have about 120 people with lasers, with tasers. 100 but 100. Right. And how many for everyone to have one then? Let me ask it this way. For everyone to have one, how many more would you need? So we're currently allotted 155 sworn positions. so 55 additional tasers. We have been able to provide taser training and tasers to every deputy who has sought that training. As you can understand, based on, we've seen significant attrition, normal attrition over the last few years, based on hiring cycles and some other issues. So we've been able to continue to provide taser hardware to all of our deputies as they receive taser training. But as we get to that point where we will need to grow, we would have to have 55 additional units. Well, and I guess maybe we don't have to do it for this budget this moment. But I do believe that we should have the conversation whenever three months, six months down the road to make certain that everyone could have that once needs a taser could have it, and especially in light of the conversation we had for a courthouse security, et cetera, et cetera. I think it's something we need to continue to have that discussion. Council member Katz, I really appreciate that and I look forward to having that. I will tell you that having other force options and specifically deescalating situations with our teams in our domestic violence unit as well as within the courthouse, again, huge priority some money. We good? Go ahead, please. I had mentioned the top three items from the table where detailed in the packet, the fourth one is mentioned, just briefly here in the packet, that's $69,000 to provide for their replacement of ballistic vests that have reached the end of their useful life. And so staff recommends approval. Okay. The decision points that are laid out at the bottom of page five of your packet are the decisions that the committee has already made, not withstanding small inflationary adjustment for a nonprofit service providers, which will be reviewed by the full council to ensure consistency. So with that, that's all the items in this packet unless the committee has any other questions or concerns. I don't. I just want to very publicly thank you for everything you and your team does. I said this morning several times that people expect government to be done by magic. You know, it just happens. It doesn't. And you do such a good job. You and your team do such a good job that people don't even, and sometimes they just take it for granted, and that's not fair, but it's true. Well, again, thank you for your comments, Council Member Katz. I want to thank again the full Public Safety Committee for the time and to your point, many of our residents don't know for a variety of reasons what the Sheriff's Office does and quite frankly if we don't make the news we're probably doing our job and again I am very fortunate and privileged to serve as the Sheriff and as you mentioned could not do with our wonderful staff so thank you. Are we good? Is it a 3-0? Yes. Go ahead. It's a 3-0 but if I could make a quick What did you see? I couldn't hear you. Can you hear me now? Yeah, yeah. Alright. Yes, and go ahead. Yeah, but if I could make a quick. Go just me. I couldn't hear you. Can you hear me now? Yeah, yeah. All right. 3.0 is fine by me. But I just wanted to note that, I mean, I know we're supposed to be looking for places to come, but this really is like, this is the same services budget. It just is. I'm not saying really anything here that's outside the scope of that. And note that I really appreciate the partnership between the county and the Sheriff's Office in ensuring that they get the job that they need to do done, the parts of it that are unpleasant as well, but also being strategic and communicative and trying to you know minimize how many folks who need to leave their units for example are have to be left accompanied by the sheriffs and how many are able to get out with the assistance of of age H.S. and still within the same time frame is really that's really remarkable and that's a win-win-win for everybody so I just wanted to express my appreciation there. Well thank you council member Mink and again I want to make sure that I make it clear that I am committed to continuing collaboration there may be times where based on perspectives we disagree our job of course is to make sure we serve court orders professionally but anything we can do to prevent adding to the unhoused population. I'm committed to doing so thank you Appreciate that we have we have seen that on the ground. So so thank you for that Thank you. So it's three to zero. Thank you. Next up is Circuit court, please Judge Bonifint is here. Derek, are you running for local office now? Is that? No. No. Yeah. Good answer. And Ms. Farag is going to lead us through. But with the panel, could please introduce themselves. Certainly. Good afternoon, Council Member Katz. Council Member Lerke. Council Member Mac. James Bonifin. I'm the administrative judge at the Soaker Court from Montgomery County here with Tim Sheridan. Who's the court administrator? And I'm Dr. G. Count some member, Mick. I'm James Bonifin. I'm the administrative judge at the circuit court from Montgomery County. I'm here with Tim Sheridan, who's the court administrator. And I'm here on behalf of the 22 circuit court judges and approximately 130 county employees who work at the courthouse. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all of you do. And, the organism is for wrong. The lead is through, please. afternoon, everyone. The current executive is recommended about a $21 million budget for FY26 for the Circuit Court, and this is an increase of about 1.6 million or 6% from the FY25 approved operating budget. The recommended increase includes about $134,000 in programmatic and staffing enhancements, and we will go through those in a minute. It also includes about 1.14 million increase for compensation adjustments and required operating expenses. Those items reflect a continuation of the current staffing and service levels. There is an operating budget equity tool analysis that has been provided for the circuit court, and I want to talk about that in a little bit more detail. One of the things that they've highlighted is grant funded program grant funded access to Justice Coordinator position to advance racial equity. I have not been able to identify any potential reductions for committee consideration in this budget. Most of this is a same services budget. The program enhancement is a grant funded position. So I'm going to walk you through. I'm going to start with the operating budget equity tool. So we've been told that the judicial branch is not subject to the OBET analyses. However, Circuit Court did submit something to the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice and the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice actually gave us an OBET analysis for this. And I just wanted to recommend to the committee to the extent possible if judicial branch agencies submit information for analysis and O-R-E-S-J actually does the analysis because while we might think of it as one criminal justice system, it is in fact many different criminal justice, and each have different parts to play, different roles, and they can have different impacts. And very often we see as somebody moves through the different pieces, there are compounding effects. So for you, it's better to see what is being done at each part in the system. So to start with a circuit court analysis, O-R-E-S-J has indicated they've issued an analysis to highlight how the proposed budget and resource allocations help support the goal of eliminating or reducing racial inequities and social injustices in the county. They use the GARE framework, which is to normalize, organize and operationalize to analyze each department and they've issued a modified SWOT, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats analysis. There is not a numerical rating or score like there has been in prior years. It makes a little more difficult to try to compare to prior year performance but I'm going to go through some of the strengths and opportunities that have been noted. The circuit court, as I mentioned before, has recently created a grant-funded access to justice coordinator position and that position will be responsible for identifying, addressing, and implementing policies and practices that advance racial equity. They've established a, they're going to establish an advisory board focused on supporting DEI initiatives across the circuit court. They're also doing training on positive employee patron interactions with DEI and belonging lens. And they're creating mock scenarios based on lived experience and outside research to train personnel and best practices that are inclusive and anti-discriminatory for engaging with members of the public. Some of the opportunities that have been identified is that they could strengthen their normalizing efforts by ensuring that the Circuit Court staff and leadership also participate with the access to justice coordinator, ensuring they are all involved in the Court's efforts to advance racial equity, and also a creation of a core team, the development of an RESJ Vision Emission Statement and the use of racial equity tools. In terms of the budget discussion items on table two, there's a list page four for you, and the first one I'm gonna discuss is on page five. That is adding the Maryland Department of Transportation grant to support problem solving court for $72,000. The circuit court has advised they received a new grant award from the Maryland Department of Transportation for Fiscal Year 25 to support the problem solving court, which includes DUI court, drug court and their mental health court. The total funds awarded are $72,000 and that will cover contractual services, indirect costs and training. It will be used for drug testing and monitoring for those problem solving courts, hiring a part-time Spanish-speaking contractual case manager, and ETG, please don't ask me to pronounce that Ethel Blue Curinide testing for DUI Court for Alcohol Testing. It'll also enable three court members to attend the RISE conference to learn best practices standards for problem solving courts. The second increase is changing a position status from part time to full time, which supports senior judges coordinator for $62,000. These positions provide administrative and courtroom assistance to 18 senior judges. They help with preparing judges' dockets, tracking and reviewing cases and correspondence and communicating with attorneys to determine the status of court cases. The position also ensures the safety of senior judges while walking from courtrooms to the senior judge's suites. The next item is shifting state position supplement, non-departmental account or NDA, which is $60,000. The court advises that the state's position supplement NDA allocates funding for about $61,000 for county supplements to state salaries and fringe benefits for administrative assistance provided to the resident judges in the Maryland appellate courts. The appellate courts no longer employ Secretary or administrative staff and as a result the court is proposed using this ongoing funding from the NDA to cover judicial assistance salaries who are county funded assistance and subsequently closed the state position supplement NDA. The next item is increasing costs for mediation under the alternative dispute resolution grant for $10,000. That funding's necessary for training the court's in-house mediator to improve mediation skills and tackle obstacles that may hinder successful outcomes. It's also providing some training for the ADR administrative aid, ensuring that they both possess the essential skills and knowledge necessary for this position. The funding also covers some travel related expenses. And item 1.5 for your consideration is a lot of different shifts between general and grant funds, which is a lying different positions with appropriate grant funds. And then that total after you go through all those changes is zero. And it just makes the positions follow the money basically. In terms of compensation changes for $1.1 million, that reflects the items that I've listed on pages six and seven. Again, that's for ongoing personnel costs. And on page seven, finally, a summary of committee decision points, table below with the one enhancement which is grant funded for $72,000 is adding support to the problem solving courts. This is a new item. However, it is grant funded. I am recommending approval of that as submitted and I'm recommending approval of all the other items as submitted by the executive. Thank you. The only thing that I just wanted to mention, and I'm fine with everything that's been suggested here, is the concern about the safety of the judicial facility. And I'm sitting next to someone who's been on the task force along and so I know that we're to have experts. There again, for this budget, I think we're OK for the moment. But in just like with the discussion with the sheriff, but I do believe we need to bring this back. We need to figure out not that I'm somebody that thinks supplemental budgets are the way to go. But right now, I think that might be the way that we, once we know more about what we need and how we need to do it to bring this back in six months, three months, six months, whatever you think would be appropriate. Council Member Katz, thank you for saying that. I think when we met about a month ago, I thank the committee at that time because I've been very pleased with the support that the council has given to the court because of the events of over over a year ago. It's been an increased focus on providing security at the courthouse for the judges as well but for everybody works to courthouse and that that's extremely important. I was listening to Sheriff Wee's comments about what he does. They do an excellent job. They really do. And I feel comfortable. I know people in the courthouse feel comfortable. Just last week we had a training for an active shooter. There's an emphasis on this right now. And I think, Sheriff Wee, if, can't tell behind me, but we're in communication with them every single day. They have challenges with the number of deputies they have. So we have to stay in contact. I get a message from them every single day as to what coverage they're going to be able to provide to the courthouse. So that helps. So again, thank you very much. with regard, I just want to make one comment. Sure. Mr. Barag was stated, if you listen to what she said, it shows you the emphasis that the judiciary is now making with regard to conflict resolution, ADR, mediation. It's not the same court 25 years ago where you just come in, call your case the judge says yeah or nay There are a lot of services provided by the court now and That's the emphasis from the judiciary in Annapolis and many of these items you see on our budget are addressing that We get 25,000 new filings a year and And Mr. McCarthy is behind me. He will be happy to hear this in the last six or seven months the number of open pending criminal matters has decreased by 10% from well over a thousand to at the end of March It was 910 that's significant. I keep an eye on that and I keep an eye on the custody cases And we are just about back to the pre-pandemic numbers for custody cases Criminal cases were still a couple hundred more than we had before But that's just an example of the work that the people are doing at the courthouse I'm very proud of them from the 22 judges and we've done this without having the full complement of 24 judges. We're at 22 right now waiting for those appointments and we expect those in the next couple of months. So I anticipate that the numbers will continue to improve. Can you move this man? And take you here, Otter. And I probably spend more time at the courthouse than any other council members, but old habits die hard. I appreciate, and there was just a transition of appointment secretary, so now the new appointment secretary is in place, so it's a good time to nudge your request for your filling those vacancies. While I know that the security situation is one that we have to be attuned to and may evolve and we need to be in constant communication about that and your needs and what you see the needs of not just your office but of course the Sheriff's Office too in making sure that things are stable over there. And I know you're not going to be shy about letting us know what you may need in that regard. So I appreciate that. With respect to the ADR and mediation and the importance of those services, because I know you've expressed sort of the level of things that get filed in in the Circuit. And mind you, our circuit court is hearing Montgomery County is as big as handles the volume of work of a whole state like Delaware, right? It's all in one circuit court here. What percentage of non-family law civil cases end up going to trial these days. We're at far less than 5%. Right. There are few. And I handle all the civil pre-trials when we get the trial date and I start asking questions as to the status of the case. And the first question is, what's the status of settling this case? Sending them to ADR, the court program, or many times they'll tell us we need to go to private mediation. And it's just, it's a focus of mine. And whenever I go and speak, which I do often, publicly, there's a groan in the crowd because they're almost talking about backlogs. I can't wait till the next time I'm asked to speak somewhere because I'll have good news. This is great news that we have right now. Well, I hope at the CJCC meeting at the end of May, you'll have even better news. So thank you for that and thank you for the attention to making sure you were doing the best you could with this budget. I really appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. Councilmember Mink, did you? Are we good? Are we three out? Thank you very much. I did want to point out on your honor that you said that I should, if we listen to Ms. Frog, we always listen Ms. Hurrah. I want to put that on the record later. Yeah, here. Thank you very much. very much. Next is State's Attorney's Office and he is coming forward. Good afternoon. Would you like to please introduce yourselves? I came with a very large group here today. I can see that. You're right. The woman I work for, Lisa Russo, handles my, but it's my office manager and make sure that everything runs smoothly in my office every single day. My name is John McCarthy on the State Attorney for Hacker McGatty. Is that your opening? And do you have any other? Oh, I'll leave. Mainly I wanted to thank Dirk, who is my budget analyst and Susan. I've read what Susan has written and I think people have commented about how fabulous she is. And I think she's captured pretty much everything the report. And I don't want to delay what's going on here. I'm also very thankful to Dr. Stoddard who's very, very supportive of things that have ongoing within my office. Always have a tremendous ear from the county executives office with Dr. Stoddard. And this committee has always been very supportive of the work we do, very important work we do, and the state student is off, and I'm thankful for that, but I thought I would wait before I may any additional comment until you heard from Jarrick and Ms. Farag. Thank you. Ms. Farag, please. Sure. For FY26, the executive is recommended about 27.4 million for the state's attorney's office's an increase of 2.3 million or 9% from last year's approved operating budget. The recommended increase is include about 278,000 dollars in programmatic and staffing enhancements and we will go through those in a minute. It also recommends about 2 million increase for compensation adjustments and required operating expenses. Those items again reflect continuation of current staffing and service levels. I have not identified any potential reductions for the committee consideration in this budget. Again, the same type of narrative I wanted to highlight again for operating budget equity tools. Again, judicial branch was not required to submit, but the State's Attorney's Office did submit their analysis to the Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice. It was not in turn however published as part of that report. So the State's Attorney has shared with me what they've submitted in terms of strengths and opportunities, which I have outlined for you on pages two and three, and I just wanted to highlight a few of them. They continue to work in partnership with the prosecutorial performance indicators group and they also have a local research partner with the University of Maryland and they are looking at performance dashboards to maximize transparency, efficiency, community safety, well-being, justice and fairness and using data-driven decision-making. They've also assigned the long-term employee to be their diversity equity officer for the office, developing and implementing DEI initiatives, including internal training and coordination with community agencies. The State Deterna's office also retuning the testifies down in anapolis about important legislation that increases equity for all community members of Maryland by changing or adding laws to improve the justice system. And they also have a member of a community outreach unit that attends various community review board meetings, including the local NAACP meeting, the police departments, African-American Liaison Committee, the police department, systematically, the Latino Public Safety Work Group, and cluster meetings for several MCPS schools. And through those boards, the office continues to understand the evolving needs within the community so that it can address those needs. And after they submitted this to Office of Racial Equity and Social Justice, a new initiative came up. And the state attorney is also working with Mount Calvary Baptist Church to assist with an expungement clinic on May 17th. Expungements may help reduce the long-term consequences of criminal records. And some of those long-term consequences impact gaining employment and housing. So the expungement clinic can help assist impacted community members by removing those barriers. In terms of the budget discussion items, they begin on page four. The first one is an enhancement under the victims of crime act grant for victim witness coordinators. They're adding two of those and one office service coordinator for about $278,000. The state's attorney's office currently has eight victim witness coordinators with four and circuit court, three and special victims and one in the juvenile court. And if this is approved, the new positions will be assigned to the juvenile and district court. The unit also has one supervisor and one administrative aid. The second increase number 1.2 is the annualization of a attorney retention plan for $585,000. Last October, the state's attorney's office implemented a retention plan to address much higher than average turnover, particularly among more senior attorneys. And their office advises that since this plan has been put into place, the attorney resignations have significantly declined and are now within their office's normal range. The annualization of that cost is $585,000 required to add the retention plan to the FY26 budget. And on page five at table three, outlines the different types of bonuses or salary increases that employees get depending on their years for service and their position. The next item is increasing costs for annual case management system maintenance contract. It's a $39,000 increase. The total annual maintenance fee is $396,000. The next item is case management system interface fee to access case files and that's $6,000. Again, for potential reductions for committee consideration, I did not find anything in the current state to turn you's operating systems. The grant funded increase that we're talking about for new victim and witness coordinators the proposed budget is basically a same services budget. So the summary for committee decision points is on pages five and six for your consideration. It's the one enhancement that's a victims of crime act grant again for the three positions for $278,000. since it is grant funded, I am recommending approval as submitted. And I'm recommending approval of all the remaining items as submitted by the executive. Thank you very much. I tell them, uncomfortable with this. I want to, again, very publicly thank you for what you do. But as an example, for the Mount Calvary, the expungement event that you're going to have, you work so closely with the community with a variety of issues and that really is a big help for all of us that you're not they're just for prosecution side. I mean, the whole idea for students to, they used to call it true and true and true, I don't know what you're calling now. But all of those issues really do make, all of those events really do make a difference. and you could change a young person's life especially because of it. So I wanna publicly thank you for that. You have anything to add. Oh, just thank you as well. I really appreciate those programs and I really appreciate the attention to detail that your entire team has with respect to the work that they do, not just inside the courtrooms, but in the community and making sure to help educate folks about the law, too. So thank you. I don't know if Councilman Mink is going to say something, I would hold off. Can you remember Mink, did you have anything to? I'll just note that I appreciate the assignment of an employee to be a diversity equity officer for the office to assist with that. That's important. So we actually have, if I could add to that, we've actually established an entire committee within our office, in our office. Besides the person who's assigned to stay at the equity officer who is there? We also have an African-American young woman. We have a young man who has physical challenges, who is blind, who works with that. And we have a Hispanic gentleman. So we have a committee of people that work on this regularly. And they've actually, in addition to some of the things I mentioned, we've had a couple of different public forms we did with one during American History Week, where Tina Clark and I, I could participate it before hundreds of people in a discussion group about the development of racial relationships in Muckermy County, and they offered their unique experiences here in the community was just terrific. And I also said besides what we're doing with Reverend Mulchery, because we get to to know when you get out into the community, you get to know people. And they come to you and I said, look, I'd like to do this and we do this with the Mount Cavalry Church. Quite clearly, I want to say it's not the first time we've ever participated in an expungement clinic. This is a continuing thing and I found out that the Warren Association of African-American and we're in both Montgomery and Prince, for George County, is doing a clinic. We've reached out to them to say, look, whatever we can do to facilitate make sure your your expungement clinic is successful we'd like to be a partner with you as well and the final thing is and I you use the word education I really do think that more than the traditional locking people up and getting along I think public education on how to avoid becoming a victim of a crime, whether it's gold bars or kids who are taking pills in the community that don't realize they're faced with fentanyl, I see my role as educator. If I can prevent someone from becoming a victim of a crime in the first place, if I had zero crimes to prosecute, I'd be in a terrific job. So we're trying to work towards zero and I'm very proud of the men and women that work for me. And it is all about education and making this community safer, I think. Thank you very much. We leave 3-0. I'm looking at you, Council Member Mink, with Rio. Yes, okay. With Rio. Thank you very much. Next is a Fire and Rescue Service. And if anybody from that panel could please join us. I'm going to make a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little you today? Councilman Dukey, Councilman Mink. Councilman Mink. Just real quickly, of course, smelly the fire chief from Montgomery County Fire and Rescue. With me, we have Miss Vivienne E. Coulroy. Did I say it correctly? All right. I budget analyst and before I go any further with the announced introductions, I just want to just publicly say to Missy Coulroy, thank you. We know that she came in right in the middle of the process. And she picked up this complex department very quickly and needed to figure out what we were doing and how we were doing it to help us craft the budget. So thank you again for that. We have operations chief, chief Gary Cooper, our fiscal services chief, Dominic Del Pozo. We have Montgomery County Volunteer Final Rescue Association, Executive Director Eric Bernard and our local 1664 IFF Union President, President Jeff Bottle. I'm sorry I didn't see support services chief division chief Charles Bailey. He was trying his best to get down as close as he could to the floor. Resolving. Thank you Chief Bell for being up here. Just real quickly, you know, it is it is our goal to make sure that we create a department that provides enhanced service and reduced vulnerabilities while creating resilience to our community. And we strived hard for many years to do that. And I'm so proud of the team that we have assembled to be able to come together to do that. What everybody may not know in these last eighth months, we've had some significant tragedies in our organization. Alana duty death, a occupational death as well as a untimely death. And I can't tell you the way I'm proud of this organization for coming together and wrapping themselves around everyone so that we could help each other so that we are okay so we can be out there helping our community. Thank you. Thank you. Any, when the panel have any opening statements then we're going to turn to Ms. Farag. When one's going twice, Ms. Farag you're up. Thank you. The county executive is recommended a total budget for the fire department of about 311 million. That's an increase of 18 million or 6.2% from the FY25 approved operating budget. This includes about 1.2 million in programmatic and staffing enhancements, which again will go through in a minute. It also includes about $23 million increase for compensation adjustments and required operating expenses. Those items reflect continuation of current staffing and service levels. The operating budget equity tool analysis for the department indicates that the fire department will enable activities across all areas of the gear framework to advance racial equity and social justice. I have identified one potential reduction for committee consideration that was not included in the executive's recommended budget. That potential reduction would reduce career staffing at the Hyatt's Town Station 709. Projective savings for that would be about 956,000. And I know I didn't have any recommended reductions for my last two budgets, but just to frame it out for people who might be listening. The council president has issued guidance this year because we're in unique circumstances. So for budget deliberations, she indicated at the April 8th Council work session on the budget overview, the committee should seek to find reductions to recommended budget during the committee. And the reason to have those discussions at the committee is so that they would be transparent and involve the impacted departments who could also discuss how those potential recommended reductions might impact services. So that's why we're bringing it up today and I'll start walking you through the packet. And as you do that, let me just say that I know Chief Gross from the Heads Town is in the audience. We're going to call you up when soon as we will have to have someone move, but we'll call you up when it gets to that point. Please. Sure. In terms of the operating budget equity tool analysis, which starts on page three, the ORESJ analysis is an assessment of the strengths and opportunities and they indicate that the fire and rescue service will enable activities across all areas of the gear framework to advance racial equity and social justice. That gear framework normalizes organizes, and operationalizes racial equity work within the departments. In terms of their strengths, the funding supports this year, their diversity and equity and inclusion program, they have a core team, which is facilitated by their DEI officer, and that's anticipated to include committees with members from across the department who are permitted to use staff time to support their participation. In addition to the poor team, the OBET response indicates that MCFRS may also consider assigning fire station specific DEI liaisons to broaden the reach of the DEI program. Also developing synchronous and asynchronous DEI professional development, developing the website presence to house DEI resources, engaging with other county government partners engaged in DEI initiatives and working with community organizations to establish connections with black indigenous people of color, low income and other marginalized groups. The FY26 funding also continues the work of the community risk reduction team members and the community action coordinator. In terms of opportunities, they indicate that the DEI officer anticipates tracking participation of the department's DEI initiatives. In addition to tracking broad-based participation in these initiatives, racial equity and social justice office also indicates it may be valuable to establish establish a 14 recruitment strategy and membership tracking to ensure diversity in demographic characteristics, staff positions, and length of service. In terms of the budget discussion items, they're outlined for you starting on page 5. The first edition is adding one basic life support transport unit. This totals about a million dollars and it actually involves two of the enhancements listed in your list. The first one increases 10 recruits to support program enhancements for about $500,000. And the second one enhances emergency medical services by adding one BLS unit using ESPP funds for $539,000. ESPP funds are state emergency service, transport supplemental payment program funds, which is the result of a state Medicaid plan amendment. These two increases combined to provide 10 new firefighter recruits to provide staffing for a new BLS transport unit, which is to be located at the Bethesda Stations 26. The first item is providing the funding for the 10 new recruits through the Academy and the second item provides six months of funding for the firefighters at Station 26. The first item is using regular fire tax district funds. The second item uses ESPP funds. The next item is enhancing the community risk reduction for expanded engagement and education. Again, this is using ESPP funds for $100,000. It's increasing the department's community outreach activities which have grown and expanded in recent years and it adds additional personnel to support the growth. The department advises the operational funding is needed to continue expanding outreach efforts in addition to covering cost escalations for supplies that are currently used in the sections of work. The next item is adding a firefighter to position to the community action team again using ESPP funding for about $92,000. This position, when they created the Community Action Team in FY24, it used one lieutenant position, designed to expand community engagement through prevention and education services and this additional firefighter if approved would allow the program to continue to expand and reach more community residents. 1.4 addresses funding for local fire and rescue departments for a total of about 2.44 million. The first piece is the increase in EMST distributions, emergency medical services, transportation fee, distributions to the local fire and rescue departments for $2.34 million. MCFRS has two primary sources of income generated from medical transports, the EMST funds, transportation fees, which are billed to insurance companies and the ESPP funds. Again, received under state Medicaid plan amendment that increases reimbursement for the transport of Medicaid patients. The executive distributes 15% of both of these to the LFRDs. For FY26, they're assuming $23 million total in EMST funding and $13.7 million total for ESPP funding. So the total distribution from both of those sources to the LFRDs is projected to be $5.5 million. So where the recommended budget increase comes from, it increases $2.34 million over last year's distribution. MCFRS is advising that this increase is actually tied to ESPP payments instead of EMST even though it's labeled that way and that's based on making an additional payment to the LFRDs as a catch-up with FY24 and FY25 ESPP distributions that will occur in FY26 and it's a one-time funding parameter adjustment. Last year the Council adopted adopted resolution language that requires the Department to report on ESPP distribution and uses by LFRDs in a manner similar to the EMS-T funds. Draft language for both of those resolution portions are included for FY26, included on circle 28 for your review and approval. And then we have the MCVFRA agreement, which is totaling $93,717. Typically speaking, the county executive sends over a resolution that identifies all the different elements of this agreement. They're currently in a re-opener and we didn't receive a resolution this year. The current agreement as it stands through FY26. And these are the cost elements listed on page seven that outlines the different pieces of that agreement. So the FY26 increases are for association operating funds, nominal fee, and low sap for 93,000. I'm sorry. 84,000 for most of the elements of the MCFRA agreement. The low sap was handled separately for cost of almost 9,000 because of a change in the law last year. The next item is an increase of the Striker-Cott maintenance agreement for 454,000. The total contractual cost for this Striker-Cott maintenance contract is about $568,000. In years one and two, MCFRS paid about 57,000 each of those two years. And the FY26 cost reflects payments for years, three through ten of the agreement, which is why it's a large lump sum. The next item is an increase in fleet vendor contract rate adjustments for about $278,000. That reflects cost escalation in the combination of three fleet maintenance vendors who have increased labor rates and it shows the total estimated cost based on annual vendor usage. The next item is for protective personnel equipment, contract pricing escalations for about $100,000. That contract is a priceless contract rather than a fixed price contract and the total contract cost are about 1.3 million. This is based on the increase, it's based on price increases for individual items and projected PPE replacements as needed in the upcoming fiscal year. The next item 1.8 is an increase in the vendor contract for EMST collections for $100,000. This covers a cost of additional transports and is not driven by a change in the vendor. The total contractual costs are estimated to be about a million. An increase in the medical director's CPI contract adjustment for about $7,700. That's just based on the CPI index for the Washington metropolitan area, which was 2.9%. The total contract costs for this are 268,000. The next item replaces two uniform staff with two civilian educators at the training Academy High School cadet training program for net savings of $33,000. This program is currently overseen by two uniform firefighters, but they are working on overtime. This proposed change would add two civilian positions as EMS educators grade 25 at about 101,000 per position. But that cost is offset by returning two uniform firefighters to the field which equates to about $235,000 in overtime savings. An increase to the insurance premium increase, about $178,000, the total insurance premiums paid by the department now are 3.7 million. And this item reflects the increase over the last year's approved amount. The next item is providing bottled water for heavy apparatus for an increase of 15,000. This is a collective bargaining agreement provision, total contract costs about $120,000 and this year it's increasing by $15,000. There's a decrease for risk management adjustment by about $83,000. For FY26, the total risk management expenditures are projected to be about 13 million, which is based on the county's actuarial analysis of risk management funding. So for FY26, they are projecting that costs should decrease slightly by about $83,000. The holiday pay decrease is the number of holidays and it's related to the item below it. item below it. This is a reduction of about $376,000. They had included one holiday in their elimination of one-time items approved for FY25, but they forgot a different holiday. So the election day was included, but an inauguration day was not initially included. So this just reflects the reduction in pay for holidays. And then the decrease the the elimination of one time items approved in FY25, which is a $5 million decrease. There's a chart on page nine, which is reflecting the FY25 budget items that were one time expenditures, which have been removed from the recommended FY26 operating budget. The department advises that the one time costs related to the FTEs, which had been added last year, are actually based on recruit training costs and over time related to filling those positions with new FTEs in the budget year. Those costs are backed out after year one with the FTE position cost being annualized in year two and out years. So I'm just going to go through these really quickly. The EMS transformation saves $125,000. That removes funding for an additional EMS duty officer position, which was added last year to help provide better health outcomes for more diverse parts of the county. Fire Station 40 staffing, a reduction of 535,000. That item removes funding for six FTEs that was added last year to assist with failures to respond at station 40 the fire and Explosives investigation unit FEI restructuring a reduction of 234,000 that removes funding For restructuring that unit total FY 25 cost had been 286,000 and it added three FTE firefighters as cause and origin investigators for For the cadet training program or reduction of 234,000, that remains funding for the cadet program in high schools. Last year, 616,000 was added in one FTE to expand the program to two years adding firefighting to the curriculum. And for cancer screen annualizations, this is a reduction of 739,000. Last year, it included a million dollars for cancer screenings to be conducted at Fire and Rescue Occupational Medical Services or Phombs, the collective bargaining agreement structure allowed for the reimbursement of cancer screening costs to its members on a cyclical basis with year one, resulting in the highest anticipated level of funding. They estimated 75% participation in that first year and the excess funding has been removed and backed out in the out years. The compensation changes again. I just, I did want to point out that fire station 40 is Sandy Spring. Yes. I mean, for someone who's trying to follow this at home. The Georgia Avenueocates. Yeah, whatever it's. But it's, if we could do it not only by number, if we could do it in place. I think there's a map in the budget. Could be. Yes, there's a map with station numbers on circle 12 of your packet. I know I saw it, but then go remember where. And then the compensation adjustments under 1.16, the total changes are 18.6 million dollars, that just reflects negotiated compensation increases, which the council will review separately, as well as other annual compensation adjustments. In terms of potential reductions for committee consideration, I had identified the high-its town station for savings of a total of $956,000. This would remove three career staff from high-its town fire station would have a, I believe would have a minimal impact on the overall service delivery of the county. The department advises that to provide four person staffing for Paramanic Engine 709 requires what's listed in the chart on page 10 for you, table six. That includes three FTEs for Captain, three FTEs for Master Firefighters, three FTEs for Firefighters, and then there's one firefighter slash Paramedic position staffed fully on overtime. The recommended reduction here removes the career firefighters, three career firefighters and one firefighter paramedic staffed on overtime for total savings of $956,000, $13. And while cutting services is not ideal, the department has faced a structural overtime deficit for the past 10 years. The department has 1245 career firefighter positions with no current vacancies. They recommended FY26 overtime budget is 19.6 million while their FY25 overtime costs are expected to reach 32.4 million. The server time deficit has been discussed at length for the past several years, but the bottom line basically is countywide staffing is not sufficient to provide the current services. And we have had this discussion multiple times about trying to address 180 career firefighter deficit. Several positions have been added over the past seven or eight years. It has not been sufficient to shore up operations to the point where they don't have this huge overtime deficit. And it's very similar to the police discussion that we have. It's a little bit different. Police can't recruit and retain as well as they need to. And so they are currently looking at work load analyses to figure out where to redeploy their current staff to deliver the best community safety services they can. Fire department is fully staffed on the career side. The volunteers are suffering some challenges for recruiting and retaining. So, but again, the fire department is conducting a workload analysis again to figure out these are our current resources. These are our current call for service needs. How do you best deploy people to meet the services across the entire county? It's my understanding that Hyatt's town runs about 608 runs per year, 57% of them are in Montgomery County. It ends up being less than a call for a day. It's still important. I don't, I want to emphasize that a lot, but again, looking at the totality of the needs across the entire county, what makes the best sense. I think that reducing career staffing at Hyatt's Town would allow the department to redeploy these career firefighters elsewhere where the service may be more needed. And if the, whether or not the committee wants to take this recommendation, I would recommend a follow-up possibly in the fall or the early winter to both understand deployment reassessments and also are there ways to help support volunteers with recruiting challenges and retention. And, you know, based on what, you know, experience, if any of these recommendations are taken based on experience, they don't necessarily have to be permanent changes. Things can be switched back as data provides need. But I did want to offer that up for discussion. Let's put a pause on that and invite Chief Groze from the high it's down to please, doing this. If I can pester somebody on the panel to please Let chief gross it There thank you You're gonna need the touch the bus in front of There you go. Well, thank you members of the committee to allow me to speak. For over a decade we've fought against a budget reduction. This has been a reoccurring phenomenon for our station. Currently there are two efforts to threaten our career staff. Both Chief Smith, these redeployment plan and now the council staff's funding cut. As an operational leader, I oppose these cuts. They pose a severe threat to our department and community for several consequences. Longer EMS and fire response times due to units coming from Clarksburg or Frederick County, adding estimated six minutes to a call response. We also have no fire hydrants in our area in which would cause an increase in the ISO rates for property owners in the area. The loss of of our rescue engine is crucial for auto execution and technical emergencies requiring resources to replace that would have to come from Frederick or Germantown. On the volunteer side, we're going to try to address, make up some of the shortfalls that we have by recruiting neighborhood, neighboring volunteers. We're also looking at recruiting college students to become livens at our stations, so that's going to take some time to, you know, establish that and organize that. And we're going to continue recruiting from the community as we have done. In any case, all of these changes on our part will take time to do, and the gap may not be filled as quickly as enough to prevent a disruption and service from our department. It's also important to know our emergencies are in our community, our justice significant as any other emergency in our community should not be deprived of reasonable services from our county. We would like to participate in solving the staffing and budgetary concerns, but we can only do that if we have a seat at the table. Thank you. And thank you for everything that you do. Would you like a copy of this? Yeah, you can. Just give it to Ms. Farag. She'll make copies for us. Okay. I'm streaming to all of them. Thank you, Chief. I think we'll discuss it at the end of this, but please. The remaining items for your review are two CIP amendments that the Executive Senate have on March 14th for capital improvement projects. The first one is fire apparatus replacement. This is a funding switch, which ships about 7.1 million from current revenue to short term financing. There is no impact on total project costs or the apparatus replacement schedule. And the Clarksford Fire Station, again, a March 14th amendment, it reduces total overall project costs from about 31.2 million to 30.7 million, which is a reflection of $500,000 in savings in total project costs. I've outlined the fund balance policy. MCFRS is funded through the Fire Tax District Fund. The council may levy a tax on each $100 of assessed value of taxable property in the Fire Tax District, which is the entire county to a rate to yield an amount that council finds sufficient to fund MCFRS operations. They try to balance this out every year based on how much they think the projected operations will cost. Summary of the committee decision points are on page 12 and 13 for your review. The first two should be considered together, enhancing EMS by adding one BLS unit and increasing 10 recruits to support the program enhancements. That's for total of about a million dollars. That adds the one VLS unit for station 26. The second one is enhancing community risk reduction for expanded engagement and education. This is $100,000 ESPP funded. And the third one is the firefighter two, adding that to the community action team for about 92,000. Again, it's ESPP funded. Since most of these are ESPP funded at least in part, I am recommending approval as submitted by the executive. I do have the one recommended reduction for savings of about $956,000. That shift assumes career staff are reassigned to other assignments resulting in a reduction of both over time and also one minimum staffing seat. And then the two CIP amendments as submitted by the executive funding switch and one shows an actual net reduction. I'm recommending approval of those and recommending approval of all of their items as submitted by the executive. Thank you, Mr. President. I'm certainly in favor of the, I guess, the first two that you mentioned. The whole idea for the high-extend, for the $956,000. We deal in budgets. This committee deals in budgets. We don't deal in deployment and where things will actually be. And I know that the chief, there's more than one chief in the room, so I have to be careful on how I say that. I know that chief Smedley is wrestling with the fact of how we can do more at the same time and for all the savings that we need and what we're wrestling with from the council side. I don't believe we should reduce the amount of money that would be going to the 956,000. I believe that should stay in the budget and I know that we've received a letter from Mr. Buttle about an additional EMS transport and we'll get to that in two seconds. But I think we should leave the 956 in the budget even though it's not a savings such. And then come back and let the chief, smeadly and others work with the air partners to figure out what's the best way forward. I think we should come back to this in the three months or six months or whatever that time frame is. But I, there again, don't want to give the impression that I believe that it should necessarily be that people stay in, in high atstown or in any other place. I do believe that we should have some, the people that are there will be needed and I believe that they would be needed somewhere, what regardless of where it is. And then as far as the letter from Mr. Buttle about the EMS transport units, and I think you suggest in there that it would be 10 of FTEs at about 1.34 million for the first year and 1.2 million annually within a vehicle outfitting of 680,000 to be put on the reconciliation list. I have no problem doing that. I think we have to be very upfront and say, reconciliation list sometimes is kicking a can down the road. I mean, let's be, and it's what money we might have at the end of a process. The reality is the money we might have at the end of this process is probably going to be less than what we would like. I mean, that's just, I do believe we should have that on a list somewhere that says this is where we should be, could be, need to be, and they're again visited again. But at this point, I don't want to give any any false hope is to what I'm suggesting, but I do believe we're going to need it, and we all need the volunteers who do a wonderful job for us, the career firefighters, you do a wonderful job for us, for Commandstaff, you do a wonderful job for us. all of us need to sit at the table figure out what we have and what we don't have and it's both and and and then get back as far as we're concerned for the budget part but as far as you all are concerned about how how you actually serve the public that's where I am. Just a quick question. So my understanding was that the money that's marked as a potential reduction with respect to the Hyatt's town station is simply that's because of overtime costs. So it's not that we're reducing staff. It's not that you would be reducing overall number of staffing. It's where they are being staffed. And if they are staffing, high at town, in the way they have been, it will yield that overtime charge that comes in just under a million dollars. Is that accurate? That's correct. So positions are not being full time employees are not being reduced. It would be the daily number of seats we have to fill every day, which in turn has some overtime savings attached. Is the entire 956 overtime, is that what you're saying? I'm not saying that about half of it is overtime. The other amount will be covered with, if we have 308 seats that we have to feel every day, now we have to feel 306 seats and then those personnel will be used where there's over time and other places to reduce. That's the methodology based on the reduction. Right, so that the, and you again, the, how did, how did say this right way? So there's about 500,000 of it that's directly over time associated with that specific station, but then the, you're saying that the availability of the two career folks who presently must be allocated there to staff there could be used to relief overtime costs that are accrued at other stations where there's. Yeah, but let me give you the exact number so that one overtime person is the five hundred and something thousand dollars a year. The other one is other one person on each shift which is three shifts would be redeployed to curtail overtime elsewhere. Okay. And knowing that, you know, and we've all been in communication with with everyone here and I certainly appreciate everyone's, you know, positions and the need to get everybody at the same kitchen table to have discussions about what staffing looks like moving forward and certainly that is a function of you and the other folks up here and you get to decide that, right? That's we are not here to make operational decisions about fire department. But it's not clear to me what the time frame is for that or have you all had a discussion over the past two weeks or so? If you're talking about the proposed reduction, it would be by assumption that it starts fiscal year. If that's what we're talking about with the reduction, that's the fiscal year because the numbers are for a full year. So that would, if the reduction goes forward, my understanding would be July 1, it goes live. Okay. Does that accurate? So then my question now would be, could we take the line item with respect to the Hyatt's Town issue, which sort of seems to stand separate from some of the other things we're determining here today and say we're going to like put that, tranche that onto the reconciliation list so that we revisit that as a decision point in the next couple of weeks. I like your first statement of letting us do the operations based on our subject matter expertise. I can tell you there are discussions discussions and there are some differences of opinion from both our international association fire fighters as well as our Montgomery County Volunteer Fire Rescue Association that we have to work through that Those differences to figure out what are the best solutions for The organization to serve the community. We are asking for more and that's reflected in a budget. And we're going to find creative ways to not have response disparities throughout the organization. And I'll use this word, and I'm being very clear on that. It's not equal, it's equitable. We need to move the resources wherever the resources are to where the resources are needed, not where they're not needed. And so, some of the things that we have some differences of opinions about, that we need the time and space to work through that to figure out what's in the best interest of our community. Okay. Well, when you're saying, if we put something on the reconciliation list, to my earlier statement, it doesn't mean it's going to come off of it. It means that that's, that it's, you know, just aside of a wish list at some point here. Maybe I, that's being a little too dramatic. But if we did that and then we're going to have to come back to the whole, to the entire council, that would be several weeks, I guess, a couple weeks before that happens. Would part of your discussions be in the meantime for that? Yes, so we are, the plan was derailed and so we have to adjust how we approach it. So we had to identify the problem, which we know that it's don't have enough transport units. 78% of what we do is emergency medical services. So we don't have enough transport units and we know that how our deployment exists right now there's some disparity. So when we talk about race and social equity justice that's one of the things externally that we're going to look at and we're going to be deliberate and bold and my team has heard me say that many times. So we have to next really go through what are some of the options. We've done that with our regional partners. We have not done that fully with, we've done some areas not fully with the internal team. So that's the next phase where there are some meetings being scheduled to do that. And then we will consider alternative options to figure out what are some other things that we can do to help accomplish those goals of serving our community equally. Then I will make a final decision on that. So we're talking a few weeks, months before all those meetings happen, etc. So that we can come together on those things. But, you know, I fought hard in the county's executive's proposed budget process to keep any of the reductions that we put forward based on the guidance out of the process. So we can have a very sterile space to go through that collectively internally so that we can figure out other alternatives and we still need time to do that. So are you proposing? Okay. Yeah, I was proposing putting that item on the reconciliation list for revisiting when we come back. Which I agree to also. Councilmember MacPierre, do you have a comment on that one? I will say that I have concerns about not funding this because as is, it just, it's clear that there is a need that, we know that we know that we have to have coverage, the rural coverage in rural areas. We know that there, that overtime is very high and that there's no vacancies and I, and clearly there needs to be operational shifts and changes and we don't want to be doing that with this budget session. And I think everybody has agreed on that. If there is, this is definitely going to be a bigger conversation. It could be a bigger conversation to start the in-budget, but it's going to need to be a bigger conversation out of budget as well. And I would assume that that will come with shifts that we'll be hearing about from FRS also down the line as that all comes together. I think the question is just, you know, I think we want to make sure that we'll be hearing about from FRS also down the line as that all comes together. And so I think the question is just, you know, I think we want to make sure that we have what's in the budget to cover us from now to all that moment. And we don't really have a lot of extra. So we want to make sure it's not more than is needed. So Chief, is there anything that you want to add? I just want to be clear on what we're talking about on the reconciliation. You have the Hyatt's town, you're putting on the reconciliation. And you have the letter from the IFF to put on reconciliation. So if I'm clear on that, then I don't have anything else to add to that. We just still need space and time to go through that process. It is happening. Meetings are being scheduled. There will be three meetings scheduled to talk through those things. We have to share some more information with our partners. That information will be shared. We will come together to find solutions. I am very confident that we will come to some areas of a grants and I'm confident that there's going to be some things that we just let out disagree with. But I know that we will still have the common goal of doing everything we can to support our community. I appreciate that. And if I have concerns about putting us on on the reckless, I will note, but I certainly know that we're looking for stuff to put there, and that we're still, we're waiting to look through budget amendments and all of that to know exactly where we'll stand, and where we're going to stand, where our listeners, so folks want more information. I understand that, but I'll know. I have a hard time seeing not funding this one. Now I will just say it seems like there's certainly need and I just have concerns about getting involved on the operational side with a really important service, but I certainly understand colleagues desire for, for more information. So, there again, I'm in favor of the reconciliation list of the two items that Chief Smidley has mentioned. And you, the same, where are you one, one that one? Council member Minkink. That's fine. That's fine. As long as we're edge blockage that we have the full some conversation and obviously we need conversation. That's it. Yeah. Okay. All right. Are you clear? I'm not clear. So no recommended cut for Hyatt's town. That's correct. But the additional transport units on the reconciliation list. Well, the cut for high it's town would be, would be when a reconciliation list, not, we're not saying that it would stay there. Right. The point was to neither approve nor disapprove that today. I don't know if the record is still that it be placed on the reconciliation list though. Yes. Yes. So it could go on for a fuller council discussion. Correct. Okay. For both boards. And that's for the transport units too. Okay. All right. Okay. Thank you. Anything else? Anything from the committee? I do have just one clarification. Sure, please. On page five, add the recommendations, add the BLS transport unit. That all comes from ESPP funding. Yeah, Thank you. So I did have a question about station 40 since the career staff were added last year to deal with the failure to respond concerns but now I'll be pulled away. Could you speak to that and what the change in and call volume and or need is there. So I cannot address the change in call volume and or need is there. So I cannot address the change in call volume. I was not prepped for that. Okay. However, 100% impact failure to respond rates are near zero now due to the added staffing. So thank you very much. Okay, but did I, so the added staff is not disappearing. Oh, thank you. Just to make sure that we're out the first year recruiting training costs. Okay, also, I'm sorry. Thank you. Much better. I feel, you know, it's my district. Sorry. Thank you. Okay. Anything else, Ms. Frog? And so the way that we've set this up I think it's a 30 am I correct? Yes, okay, it is a 30 thank you all very very much for everything you do and The last item one today's agenda is the Is what is it it is I have more papers here than I got anything else. It is the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. They are coming forward. I'm sorry. So, look, I had to say anything but you cleared this room. I mean, it was something they thought you were going to say. I mean, I'm just asking. Telling you and you start bringing an entourage. Oh, effective. If the panel will please introduce themselves. Sure, absolutely. Good afternoon, councilmembers. My name is Luke Hodgson. I'm the director of the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. To my left, I have our deputy director, Nicole Marcoski. To her left, I have Mr. Derek Kerrigan, who is with the Office of Management and Budget. And to my right. Kristen Cummings, legislative analyst. You're going to lead us through this packet. Yes, I just want to start by thanking Chris and Darius commensely for the help over the last several months. As you know, this is, it's always a tough process. This year is particularly burdensome for our office due to some of the federal changes that we're seeing. And it is a very complicated, complex budget just by its very nature. And these two have been stalwart supporters of what we provided the community and making sure we find a way to continue to do so. So I want to thank you both very, very much with that. Turn it over to you. Please. Thank you. The county executive recommends an increase of 956,000. Can you speak up just to here? Absolutely. The county executive recommends an increase of 956,179 dollars or a 20.1 percent overall increase to the OEMHS operating budget over the FY25 budget. This total reflects a 35.2 increase in general fund and a 24.9 decrease in the grant fund. And the full operating budget proposal can be found on circles 1 through 6 of the packet. The executive recommends 1,255,447 dollars in programmatic enhancements and shifts from grant funds. To touch on a couple things before we really get into the numbers in the staff report today. The operating budget equity toll analysis summary is on pages three and four of the staff report and the department indicated that OEMHS detailed all of the subactivities that the office plans to undertake through the budget and all three areas of the the care framework and they did note that at the time that the OBET was written that the proposed RESHA initiatives were amongst the most extensive to be articulated by a department during this budget season. So as we go into some of the executives recommended budget changes for this year, I did just want to restate, as has been said by some of the other end lists this afternoon, that the process for going through enhancements is to consider if we would like the committee would want to put any of them on the reconciliation list for council consideration. Staff did not know any additional deductions to the budget for this year FY26. I did just also want to take a moment to thank Mr. Hodgson and Mr. Marcosky for their help and putting this packet together. So the first purpose change for committee review is the replacement funding for the continuation of urban area security initiative UASI programs, supported grants for the purpose of planning, training, and emergency exercise in the amount of $940,000 $893. This request would shift that amount of funds and 2.5 FTEs that have been funded through UA to support personnel as well as emergency management, law enforcement, fire, and EMS programs. It provides resources for community preparedness, specialized training, response technology, public safety enhancements, and disaster response. There is a table in each six of the staff report that breaks out the costs of replacing the grant funding with the County General Fund. And council staff that would just note that it has been an ongoing department initiative over the past several fiscal years to gradually transfer positions funded through UASI grants to the county general fund for security purposes. noting that this is a highly unusual grant year in light of federal events. This would bring contractors that are currently working with the department into full-time positions. The department did share that this would increase the flexibility that these contractors as full-time staff members would be able to work they would be able to do. And a full description of how the flexibility would increase can be found on circle 11 of the packet. OEMHS reports that the current grant funding for these activities is scheduled 10 September of 2025 with the federal support uncertain at this time. The committee will need to determine whether it supports moving these services to the general fund on a permanent basis. Chair Katz, would you like me to keep going or pause for a discussion? Yes, I think. Please. Kika. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. The second item is the enhancedhanced Funding for Additional Nonprofit Security Grant Program for Organizations and Facilities at High Risk of Hate Crimes in the amount of $300,000. This enhancement would actually bring the amount in the Nonprofit Security Grant Program up to the total amount of $1.2 million dollars that was made available last year. In FY25, $900,000 was allocated into the MHS's based budget. In an additional $300,000 was allocated as a one-time expenditure. Should the enhancement not be provided, fewer grant applicants would be able to receive grant funding for the coming fiscal year. We did include information on page 7 as well as on circles 12 through 13 about some of the results of the funding from last year. One point six five million dollars in grant funding were actually requested, had all eligible applicants received the grants. About 63% of grant applicants were houses of worship, and out of all the applicants in FY25, 27 recipients were first time award winners. Council staff does note that this area is a potential funding option for committee consideration. The committee could choose to place all or some of the total $1.2 million recommended by the executive on the reconciliation list as a potential reduction item. The third item we have is and funding for the emergency operation center EOC maintenance in $50,000. This requested enhancement would be used towards technology and equipment maintenance and updates for the EOC staff training and exercises to ensure that personnel are familiar with procedures and protocols, facility sustainment or the physical infrastructure, and supporting the maintenance of the operational readiness. Should this enhancement not be granted in the operating budget, OEMHS does report that it may cause challenges in maintaining the EOC operational capacity. Next, we have enhanced funding for emergency management accreditation program in the amount of $40,000. OEMHS is scheduled for reaccreditation through the emergency management accreditation program for FY26. This renewal necessities superior at costs of $40,000 every five years. And this accreditation process will allow the department to maintain accreditation and can strengthen grant application as it can indirectly affect eligibility. It also can help the Department to adopt and sustain a framework for continuous improvement, potentially resulting in identifying gaps in operational readiness and resilience that can be addressed. Next we have enhanced funding for a web-based system used for a, response, and recovery from emergencies for $30,000. And this enhancement was requested to a loss of grant funding. The wet-BOC was previously supported through the National Capital Region Urban Area Security and the SHV grants, which is at this point no longer provided. It must be absorbed by local jurisdictions. This current grant cycle will end halfway through FY26. And the web EOC is a tool to support emergency management efforts, real-time communication, and provide a centralized platform for attracting and managing critical incident information. The Department leadership did share that they are currently in the process of research and various programs that they think might work to replace the web EOC, including consulting with TABs to see if the system may be developed internally to have the operations capacity that was, that is required by web EOC. And should this be developed internally, it would have minimal or no expense to the department in future years. Our last item is enhanced funding for uniforms and personal protective equipment in the amount of $20,000. And this is a proposed enhancement for uniforms and personal protective equipment. This would include whether a assistant jacket, gloves, helmets, boots, protective eyewear, masks, and gloves. And with that, that concludes the executive's recommendations. Again, thank you for doing such a fine job on the packet. The only, I think, the one area where we've been, I guess, the word lobbied would be the right word is about the enhanced funding for additional nonprofit security. You're saying that, you know, it could be under consideration that we could have it as a reduction. I certainly am not in favor of reducing it, though there have been, I guess, some lobbying that would be, it's either 300,000 or 500,000, I remember the number. 300,000 in here. Well, that's from this, but a group, or groups have suggested that it be higher than that. You know, we've had discussions about how much would be more if we added the 300,000 with that take care of the requests. And at this point, it sounds like, or at least least I believe it would do that. Are you an agreement or disagreement with that? So unfortunately we've seen the requests for these funds rise over the years, which to me is indicative of absolutely the sentiment in the community not not necessarily reality but I think in fact it is reality to be honest with you. This past year we saw $1.65 million in requests from the community, which obviously far exceeded what we were able to process. As mentioned in the packet we did allocate funds to each and every organization that was eligible for them, but it wasn't to the extent that everyone had requested. I say that 1.65 number to tell you that following the October 7, 2023 attacks, our number climbed to over $2.5 million. So very much is influenced by what is going on in the geopolitical spectrum as I think makes perfect sense. So we did see an anomaly that year where we saw a stark contrast between previous years and that year. But in general we've been at about 1.5 to 1.6 leading up to that. And I think you see that, I think that is in the packet, what the request for in years passed. Well, my concern is that when we get a request, that we need to give an answer quickly because when they have a request, it's obviously a concern. Now, I would assume that it could be fairly collective. If you've gotten cameras prior, you don't need to replace those cameras at this point. You might need to get a few more cameras, but you don't need so at some point, that would catch itself up as far as that goes. I, there again, you know, we're here supposed to be saving money. We're putting stuff on the reconciliation list. I, I believe that we probably should put something else on the reconciliation list. Not that I think that it's necessarily going to be, that we're going to be able to spend, that we're going to have that money to allocate. But I do think it'd be something that we should consider. Do you work? Can you remember me? Do you have an opinion on that as well? Sure. Yeah, I wanted to clarify in the questions that says that of the, there were 11 applicants who did not receive funding. Four of those were ineligible and 7 were not recommended for funding primarily because it was unclear from the application how the organization was at risk of hate crimes. And then the funding, the 1.65 million is what would be required to provide the grant all eligible applicants. So that would include the seven who were not recommended because it was unclear how they were, how they would be at risk of hate crimes. That is correct. So was it, you know, in the grand scheme of things, it was a relatively nominal amount that we're talking about with those seven in comparison to the full. How many total do we have, 100? Well well over 100. We did include that because what we're working with with those organizations is to extrapolate whether or not they did in fact have some legitimate concern about hate that they just didn't articulate in their application. So the reviewers couldn't find any nexus to a hate crime or any fear of a hate crime and that's why it was Turned down But in the spirit of what we're doing here We want to work with those organizations engage them and find out how we can best help them So in the future we do consider that we may see those expenses again So do we know do you happen to have a figure for what the funding would be to provide the grant? I mean, obviously we want to make sure that it's getting to all the people who legitimately need it and who it's going to be effective for. Do we, you know, for the purpose for what someone is allocated? Do we have an estimate for what would have been required to fund everybody who was eligible, not including those, the seven who were not recommended after their screening? I, and Council Member, I don't have that number off top of my head, but we certainly have that in our record, so I can absolutely provide that to you. Okay, that seems the relevant, certainly. Absolutely, absolutely. And I would just say that's again going with the assumption that we continue with the same trend next year that we would have the same figure empirically of what's requested this year. That was the same as requested next year. Right. Obviously this is a field that is extremely dynamic. It's going to, it's going to, it's going to, it's going to, it's going to, hopefully go dramatically down at other times. I don't think we're in one of those times. But it certainly is dynamic and so I think making sure that we're coming back to give us a good thorough analysis each year makes a lot of sense. And I think that the council staff proposal of having some of the funds start to be, may be on one time funding, knowing that we're going to come back and talk about it and then possibly even have, have more on one time funding for the next year or whatever. But I think at some point, it makes sense for some of this funding to be one time because what we're hoping is that at some point it's going to go down and knowing that this is a council that's going want to make sure that we're funding what's needed and appropriated here, but that is dynamic. But for now, while we're waiting to get more details on the funding that would have been needed without those 11, because that is what we want you to be doing, of course, is what you're doing. doing a proper screening and making sure that this is going to those who are eligible for the purpose described. But I appreciate you digging in with each of them also to make sure that it's not just a grant writing issue. That maybe we should put some of this on the reconciliation list or it seems to me that we should be able to trim some of this. Well we don't know how much. So I don't know if colleagues might be interested in doing tranches or what would make the most sense. But I think that probably some more analysis is warranted on this one. I mean, I'm okay with that. Yeah, I'm fine not putting any of the suggested monies on the reconciliation list. I think all of that should be that we're recommending that. The question was there are those who said that it should be enhanced and whether or not there should be something on the reconciliation list for that. At this point, I think if we can just hold on to what we have, without putting that on the reconciliation list, I think that's probably as good as we could get at this point. I just want to be clear, I understand what you're saying. So with respect to that, you mean allowing for the 300,000 in the enhanced funding for the security grants as recommended in here and just not putting anything on the reckless which I'm fine with. And including the other general fund recommendations that are on this bulleted list and leave them be and recommend them three nothing. Is that correct? Yeah, go ahead, please. Sorry, just one clarifying question. Council member Minky mentioned about the one time versus ongoing funding. I just wanted to verify so we will add that for one time for the time being. So yeah, so those were the two items that I was bringing up for conversation. Thank you. So one is whether colleagues want to have the so there's the 900k that we want to make sure that we continue. There's a 300k enhancement of which some of that is is potentially what would cover some of the applicants who were deemed not eligible for the funds. And so whether colleagues wanted to put any of that on the record list, if they don't, that's fine also. But do we want to make any of that 300K, the enhancement, the one time, as suggested by Council staff? I don't. I would like to keep the 9.1 plus a 301.2 as it's in the budget itself. Okay. Well, I'm comfortable with that also. I don't have a doubt that there is going to be a need, but I will say that I think that making sure that we're coming back to understand the difference between the numbers, between the applicants who are eligible, and not eligible, and how that's working. I'm going to guess it's all going to bring us up probably to over this number anyway, but to make sure that we're having having that conversation as we go through these over time would be helpful And councilmember Mingat that's actually a very good point is that This year all applicants were capped at $15,000 so We can just do some some simple math there to say that exactly what you surmised is that even taking them out this wouldn't reach the full level of what was requested by those who were in fact eligible. Okay. If that brings you any comfort. Yeah, yeah. No, that's, I mean, I think that's the important question that needs to be asked and answered. And we all look forward to a time when we're not going to need these funds and we'll continue to reassess. So thank you. with keeping this all in the budget is recommended to the full employee. Quick question for Director Hodgson. Following up on Council Member Makes points. And just I'm thinking of this through the lens of having done the hate crimes grants for the schools and child care facilities that the state has. And you know sense, the funding may have changed year to year. There was the year the law passed. There was actually nothing in the budget for it. So that made it kind of hard. But every year, the agency in charge of administering that could determine, once it knew its funding amount, how it was going to use that and the criteria by which it would be judged. So have the criteria by which the applicant's been judged varied year to year based on needing to make adjustments programmatically in order to adapt to the needs in the community? I would say it's informed by previous years. We do try to be consistent year to year, and I'll just elaborate a little bit there. It speaks to what is eligible and what's not eligible. So for instance, this year we added the FUSUS Core system. Because we saw that as a growing need in the community. Yeah. To cats is comment yes they had all built for many of them had built security and surveillance systems into their security plan what we had and done is tapped into them so that we could watch and it all time and also reconstruct them for investigative purposes so this year we changed the criteria of what was allowed. We've also changed it to emphasize those who haven't received funding in the past. So their first time applicant, or they've demonstrated that they haven't made measurable progress in their security posture, then they do score higher by the Review and Committee. Okay, yeah, now thank you. That's really helpful. And I think at some point, not during budget time, it would be great to have a year over year. And that was this of criteria. Oh, we would be happy to do that. Yeah, and let's have a more robust discussion about it because then that helps inform, especially as we continue rolling through very uncertain times, what may be needed in the future. So thank you. Absolutely. We welcome that opportunity. Yeah, I think we need to put on a calendar somewhere that we need to get an update or revisit or whatever the right term would be. And for the places that are paying for a security person now, how does that work for them? Are they allowed to use these funds? Yes, so when we talk about some of the costs that are kind of one time costs, I don't want to call capital, but it's equipment. So it's just as the video equipment. Well, the majority of it is that those who request in the grants ask for and then they do receive is for security during their services. So that is an allowable cost. That's an encouraged cost in all literature that you'll see in Homeland Security, having a uniform presence there with a marked police car off-run is one of the most effective deterrence that we can possibly put out there. So not only do we provide them with the funding, but we do connect them with our part-time program here in Montgomery County Police, which allows Montgomery County police officers, but also all of our allied agencies who are authorized to operate here in Montgomery County. The opportunity to provide marked vehicles and uniformed armed police officers there during their services. Well, and there again, I think we need to get an update on that. How many are, you know, and to the point that's been made several times today, it'd be wonderful if we didn't have to have this discussion. Of course. But the reality is wonderful is a long way from now I can tell you. So, um, any, I'm fine leaving it the way it is and I think that's a 30 I believe. I'm looking at you again. I'm looking various places and I see you everywhere. Chris and I see you everywhere. But it's a 30 to leave it like it is and put nothing on the reconciliation list. But with the thing that's on the reconciliation list, that is nothing to do with budgets that we're going to come back and visit this again. Okay? Anything else? Are we good? Is it a three-o? Yes. Okay. Thank you very much and thank you all for everything you do. Thank you all very much for all the continued support.