progress. Good afternoon and welcome to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors personnel administration and legislation committee. May I have a roll call please? Supervisor Fortinato Bass. Present. Supervisor Town. Present. Let's start with the federal legislation update. Good afternoon you've got Emily Bocka to over here with C.J. Lake. I will say in terms of the schedule things feel very quiet in the House and Senate. This is the first time since they came into the 119th Congress where both the House and Senate are in recess. The Senate has worked every week trying to confirm President Trump's appointees. So this week they are both back either in their districts or the state. As far as FY25 appropriations, we've been talking about it for forever. And I know We sent something out on Friday night, shortly after the vote. But they did end up passing a pretty clean, six-month continuing resolution that gets us through the rest of the fiscal year through September 30th. When we talked on Monday during our pal call, we were kind of, you know, thinking about what may happen in the house and we were hearing that, you know, it felt like house Republicans would be able to hold together that they wouldn't need Democrats to support the CR. That is what ended up happening in the house. And so once it got over to the Senate, I think ultimately Senator Schumer didn't want Democrats to be blamed for shutting down the government, thinking that would be even more painful with everything that has happened over the last couple months. And so it ultimately passed the Senate. I believe with nine Democrats voting in support, also Angus King and independent from Maine. And then Rand Paul, the lone Republican voting against. You know, we talked a little bit about it last week, but I do think it's worth noting. It was a really big deal that house Republicans were able to hold together because historically there have been different factions that just haven't supported either appropriations bills or continuing resolutions. I think it goes to show just how much the Republican party has changed under President Trump in the last just a months. And so first, with them being able to hold everyone in passing their budget resolution earlier in the month. And then again, with the CR, of course, President Trump was calling folks. And so I think, again, that is huge to note, and it's very different than what happened or what has happened in previous fiscal years. You know, I think again, Democrats thought they would have leverage and they ultimately did not because Republicans held together. And then as far as kind of confirmations, the Senate vote did vote to confirm former U.S. Representative Lori Chavez-Deremer as Secretary of the Department of Labor. We talked about that last Monday on Powell, and it actually happened, I think, shortly after Powell on Monday evening. The only nominee that has yet to be confirmed is Elise Daphonic to serve as the ambassador to the UN. You know, she's currently a sitting Republican on the house side. And so what she is confirmed, she can no longer vote in the house. And so Speaker Johnson's majority would be one vote slimmer. And so that is why they have held off on that. There are currently four vacancies in the house. Two of those seats are in safe Republican districts and two are in safe Democratic districts. So the first two seats will be filled on April 1 in special elections and two historically Republican districts in Florida. And then special elections have not been scheduled for the other two vacancies. So people seem to think that we will likely see a vote on Staphonic after the April 1 special elections. And again, that's not that far away. So that's really our update for this week. You know, we now turn to FY26. We're hearing a budget request could be sent over to Congress from the administration in April. And of course, the House and Senate still have to come to an agreement on a budget resolution. And we're hearing that the Senate may not take up the House budget resolution until potentially mid-Abral. So in terms of reconciliation, that just kind of pushes out that process further. And there have been a couple, a Republican senator who have said, you know, at best it could happen before the August recess. So again, the timeline is not as aggressive as we once thought. So that's our update. I'm happy to answer any questions that you all may have. Thank you for that update. Any questions? I just have a quick question. This is a what might have been so Senator Schumer basically said that it would have empowered the president with a lot of his do's and executive orders if there had been a government shutdown? Is that accurate? Yeah, I mean that was the concern. That was the concern. That in a shutdown, you know, first of all, each department has to issue kind of their guidance for what a shutdown looks like and you have what are considered essential personnel and non-essential personnel and those non-essential personnel are required not to come to the office during that time, not to work because they cannot be paid and usually they're then paid retroactively. So I think there was a big concern that with everything going on related to Doge, it would be another reason to give them to lay off more people. So that was kind of one of the elements. But yes, while we're in a shutdown, there was concern that they would be able to do other things as well. And I do think that was valid. Okay. That's helpful. And then you have any insights on the cohesiveness of the Republican block at this point going in past the six months, continuing resolution? You know, it remains to be seen. I think that reconciliation, kind of these discussions that the Republican need to have between House and Senate, they're very far apart on kind of what ends up being the actual instructions to committees. And so I think they're gonna have some challenges in trying to kind of figure all of that out. But right now, I mean, they, in general, they're pretty cohesive. I think that could open up some potential challenges. No doubt, we will be looking at a continuing resolution at least until December. So, you know, they're going to be so focused on reconciliation. They will begin the appropriations process. I have no doubt. But just as in previous years, there's no way they will be able to mark up these bills, get these bills through the chambers and pass into law by October 1. So we will certainly be looking at a continuing resolution. My guess is maybe through December and then they may once they wrap up reconciliation, then they may try to do something in the fall. But I think it remains to be seen and just kind of how the conversations around reconciliation go. And if there's any appetite to keep working together, but I will say I think they've realized if they are able to work together, then they don't need, you know, Democrats help. Thank you for that. At least on the House side, excuse me, at least on the House side. You still need, you know, a handful of Democrats on the center side. Yeah, part of the reason I'm asking is in watching the town hall meetings and reading the news, it's clear that in a lot of the rural states where many of the Republican representatives come from, their constituents want to continue to see Medicaid funded. They want to see Social Security funded. They want to see veterans affairs funded. So those are all at issue right now. That's right. And those need to be addressed before you even get to FY26. So you're right. That could create some kind of, some challenges within the party. Okay, thank you so much. Appreciate that update. Are there any comments or public comments on this issue? I have no speakers for this item. Okay, let's move to the state legislative update from FOMOan strategies. Good afternoon, Amy Costa with home loan strategies with your state legislative update. One of the big items that happened this past week is the Department of Finance and notify the legislature through a joint legislative budget committee notice of a request for a medical provider's interim payments on loan of $3.44 billion, which was approved by the Department of Finance on March 4th. And this was to allow the State Department of Health Care Services to complete critical payments. The general fund loan was necessary due to a projected increase in the current year of 2425 as medical expenditures compared to the caseload projections that weren't included in the 2024 budget act. This comes on the heels of the legislative analyst office, releasing a report on medical caseload showing increases among senior citizens, because of revisions to the asset test, as well as the expanded immigrant population. The speaker did know that he and his caucus were made committed to the medical expansion, regardless of this news. But we did hear in some of the subcommittee hearings that some members, particularly on the Senate side, are a little cynical about some of the case of projections coming out of the administration given this news. Additionally last week the California Interagency Council on Homelessness unveiled its 2025-2027 statewide action plan to prevent and end homelessness. The plan establishes five interconnected goals aimed at reducing homelessness and ensuring more Californians have stable housing. The top five are help more people leave unsheltered homelessness, help more people move into housing, ensure people do not experience homelessness again, prevent more people from experiencing homelessness and the creation of more housing. In our report, we will include a link to the full report for folks to review. In addition, we have all of the subcommittee meetings for budget occurring. Last week, the Senate budget subcommittee on Health and Human Services met to hear an overview of the state public health departments proposed budget, as well as the issue of public health information technology systems, such as myCalVAX, which is an issue for the county. Senator Weber in particular was critical of the proposal, which cuts funding for my CA Vax. The administration did testify that they're still having some internal conversations regarding funding for the program. The Senator expressed her hope that the administration would consider the legislature's position in continuing this program as part of their internal budget discussions. The assembly budgets of Committee on Human Services also met last week to discuss several items of interest to the county, including proposal on mandated reporting, various foster care issues, such as the new tiered rate structure, BH Connect, and the Bring Families Home Program, kind of one of the themes that emerged amongst the legislature across these multiple issues were concerns about ensuring that there were adequate funding for each of these programs, as well as the importance of effective implementation. Lastly, the Assembly Budget Committee on Accountability and Oversight met, and they met to discuss the matter of homelessness funding. There was a sentiment shared among some of the panelists and members. As I reported earlier, the governor unveiled a new statewide homelessness data website accountability. And there was kind of a consensus amongst the panelists that right now that website shows data at a count level and people wanted to see it at a city level. And also that the data would be stronger if it was broken down with sub population information city level and that it should include other insights such as the inflow and outflow of the data of individuals involved in the system. So more to come on that. And then lastly just a little bit of housekeeping for the full moon team is we're very happy to welcome a new team member, Gile Dantes, joined our team today. He previously was with UDW and he'll be helping us out on Alameda County's issues. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Questions? Thank you for that update and welcome to your new staff member. I was interested in understanding whether the five areas that you listed from the interagency on homelessness and the the database that is being collected will will there be enough information flowing in for example the things that you were listening included like people coming back into homelessness the prevention aspect of it. Are will the data allow some of that to be measured. I would really defer to the county staff on that point supervisor. I know that you are required all jurisdictions to have HMIS data, homeless disenactment information system. We do. You guys have a vendor and I'm not really sure how, and they can slice and dice the information. I do know there are quite a number of data points that are collected locally beyond even what's required, but I don't know if it gets down to that level of detail or not. I appreciate that and you're absolutely right. HMS data is something that we collect and we help some of the cities within our jurisdictions and then we feed them up to the state. It's just that collectively at the state level in trying to understand the allocation of funding and where the programs are most effective and what kind of results they're getting. I wasn't quite sure whether the information that was gathered and sent to the state will be able to address each of those five areas that you mentioned. Yeah and I will say the comments and the overview hearing were some of them were coming from the Mayor of San Diego, Mayor Gloria, and I think he was frustrated that when you looked at the county of San Diego which is how the data data is displayed, it didn't really look like they were making major progress, but he noted within the jurisdiction of the city of San Diego itself, they were. And so that's why he was really advocating for there to be city level data and a little bit more granular level of detail than just county-wide. Okay, thank you for that update. Do we have any questions or comments online? No speakers. Okay, so the next item from the legislation's perspective is that we have a request from Alameda County Health to ask for a delay in the California Children's Services monitoring and oversight initiative because the county needed an allocation of $524,000 or so to support the monitoring and the oversight, but the allocation was significantly under that around $332,000 and without that added resource, we would need this delay in order to be compliant. So I'm supportive of the recommendation from healthcare and if there's any comment. I'll just add that I'm also supportive of this. Okay, so both of... Jessica, did you want to comment on this? Hi, thank you. This is Jessica Blakemore, interim policy director with Alameda County Health. I just wanted to note that since we submitted the PAL form, Alameda County Public Health Department had some updated estimates to the funding gap, both just in the overall California Children Services program. So on the PAL form, we identified a gap of about 7 million for current program activities for the medical case management and other activities. But updated estimates put that at about 8.2 million overall. So just wanted to note that. And that is, in addition to that gap that you already noted, Supervisor Tam of the need for 524,000 ongoing for the monitoring and oversight initiative. And we were only given a one time allocation of 332,000. Thank you. Thank you for those updated numbers. We're still supportive of the recommendation, so we'll move that to the full board. Are there any other comments on items that are not on today's agenda? I have no speakers for public comment. Thank you, and those online, please identify yourself if you are so inclined. Good afternoon. This is Hana Hamilton, Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. This is Hana Hamilton, Policy Director with Alameda County Social Services Agency. Thank you so much. Meeting is adjourned. Thank you.