Welcome everyone and thank you for coming to this government operations and fiscal policy committee meeting. Today we are to be by a colleague council member welcome thank you for joining us today. We are talking to our office of grants management. This is a follow up to our meeting we had on November 12th of 2024. After our meeting on November 12th we did send a letter over to the Office of Grant Management and the Executive Branch on December 3rd, outlining a number of questions and follow-ups from that November meeting. I'll turn over to Ms. Clemens Johnson to walk through the packet and then turn over to Director Murphy. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Stewart. For the packet, we just provided just a big background of what was discussed at our November 12th meeting and also highlighted the memo that the Geo Committee sent and also the response received from the Chief Administrative Officer. I did provide a few great updates, updates regarding the office and the work that they have been doing that efforts to really improve communication by hosting monthly forms, putting in place a weekly newsletter and their transition to a new grant platform. So the office has been very busy and trying to be responded to our organizations. So I do not have any further updates, but if there are any questions, please let me know and I can address them. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Martin, would you like to watch through the responses we've received that we send over to Mr. Madelineau, who unfortunately is not with us this morning? Of course, for record, Rafael, fromelio from Murphy, Director Officer Grants Management. So, when I will respond, it starts out by giving a background of the Community Grants Competition, and that's been presented in previous hearings, but I think it's worth noting just how enormous the number of applications were, how difficult the review process was due to the number of applications, how difficult it was to match reviewers, subject matter expert reviewers from county government to programs that were outside of their scope. And the difficulty that we had in the entire ten month long process from when we opened up for competitions, when we finally got the notification letters out. And then the ending competitiveness, 98.18 out of 100 score was the average winning score, which I've never seen that in my 20 year career of grants of just how competitive that was because of the volume, the range, and the quality of the projects that we had. And $5.3 million sounds like a lot of money, but that went really quickly with what we had in the quality of proposals. So that left a lot of traditional partners out of the mix, and that left a lot of new potential partners out of the mix as well. But that's how statistically, and it was purely a data driven approach in terms of how we came to awards. It worked. And so that leads into how we wanted to approach that, with the executive did after seeing that a lot of the traditional partners were going to be left off. We found, left over money in FY20th row and a little bit FY25 money to continue for another year awards for these legacy recipients 102 organizations, about $4.7 million total to give them continuing funding. So they weren't cut off in like two months before the fiscal year ended. So that money is ongoing. Those programs are continuing to be implemented going through. Now in terms of what the CAO puts in there in terms of going forward, he intends to or this kind of executive intents to continue the three year multi-year grants for the community grants recipients, pending council appropriations, of course, and pending performance. So if we find that new, these partners should not perform well, that the program should not doing what they said they were going to do or having other challenges, then we will cut off funding for them and that money will be recycled back into the general fund. But beyond that, the recompeting community grants, unless there's additional funds appropriated, those awards, that part of the money is going to be locked in, probably as multi-year awards until it's until those expire in FY27. That'll be the last year that the multi-year will be within regular. We compete those for FY28, where it's going forward. What the letter outlines is the intent to put more concrete targets close of what this part of money, like dice up the money basically into pots, focus on specific areas, not to have what we did in FY24, where it was just a wide open competition for any type of service in any type of sector. And so that will give us some more targeted approach and build on what we've seen as successes, where we are able to fly through grants competitions in two to three months, get the roads out the door quickly and get partners using the funds and having impact on our communities when you have a targeted. And then we also have a much much much better match of subject matter experts who are actually reviewing these applications rather than kind of you get what you get when you review or when you review or are an applicant which isn't the best way to go through these. The letter then goes into the ladies' asks about what we could do to improve the process. I feel like I'm pretty consistent about we really need to set specific targets for a possible money. If we want to do mental health, let's do mental health and set a parameters around it to do it. If we want to target rural nonprofits or small nonprofits, let's set the parameters around that to make sure the money goes to those organizations or reaches those organizations. We need if we move a wide open. Again, I think a lot of the data that we've collected is part of the review process and doing somewhere between 80, 90 hours of feedback sessions with our applicants going through the reviews line by line, comment by comments, score by score shows that there's just fundamental imbalances when you do these wide open competitions and smaller nonprofits are left out, certain sectors are left out, certain types of needs are left out just kind of systemically. I put those one on the sides I put them in the last hearing. So again, just being more targeted with how we approach it, clear boundaries around the pots of money that we put out there is just going to lead to better processes and throughout this past year with appropriations or other department like grant programs we've been successful in continuing to do that. So that that's pretty much again I just want to reinforce what I feel I've been saying for a while. And again, the week provided was to some of the different, you know, really unique types of grant programs that we've helped departments put money out as a grant agreement as opposed to procurement contract. And that often gets kind of lost in the mix of the fundamental differences between the grant agreement and procurement contract where procurement contracts are reimburseable, which is a huge burden on nonprofit partners. For a lot of our grant programs, we're giving people all the money at fund cash. so they're spending our cash as opposed to waiting to get reimbursement. And we still have accountability mechanisms. We still have the ability to audit at will to make sure that funds are being used appropriately. We still have the legal ability to call back funds if we need to. But it's just a fundamentally different model of how we approach how that contractual agreement between the county and the nonprofit is. And it's a fundamentally better one. It's also easier to include indirect costs. So all of our grants have allowed to 15% of indirect costs, if it actually adds a floor, as a floor of 15% of indirect cost. So if they're able to demonstrate they have a higher indirect cost that's been approved by the federal government, we'll give them that. But that's a lifeline for nonprofits to get that unrestricted funds that they use for the cooperation. So we've been doing that for two months. That's harder to even become in contracts. So there's just a number of benefits of having a grant. There's a procurement contract that really helps our partners. In terms of the legacy of rewards, with the CES intent going forward, Again, we felt that a lot of these projects scored very high. It was very disappointing. You have a feedback session with someone who scored in 97.5, average score, who is a traditional partner, seems to have been doing great work for the community, but average learning scores in 98.1, they lost out. And so there were a lot of partners who did score high and just were left out through the highly competitive nature of the competition. So the CES intent that there is not released as FY26 budget yet is to include funding for to give all of these legacy renewals another year funding through FY26. That is going to be subject to performance. So if we find any of these folks have not been doing what they to they have made good storage of resources or not having the impact that they said they would, then the funding will be cut off. But that is the intent going forward for legacy renewals into F-26. Past F-26, the letter outlines how we, again, this doing the targeting resources, setting parameters, and some examples are given such as use services, aging disability, natural resources, different types of topics that we could align the grant program around to collect applications that really focused on those key areas. And what the key areas are going to be a year from now, it's hard to say, especially about the uncertainty at the federal level. We could see hurdles in our needs and our community opened up that we're not used to. And so having that kind of flexible parole to kind of target at these key needs at that time, you know, it's better to set those needs when we have, when we know what they are. So essentially there would be a two track approach for effort that can be grants. The folks won the competition. They would continue on with a multi-year growth subject to appropriation and subject to good performance. And then the legacy renewals will get one year funding more subject to performance and appropriation. And then for the cost sharing capital grants, those of all the result or roads that are involved and sent out. I think there's a handful of partners that we don't have grand groom and scread, but those have all been resolved. And so we've actually opened up the FY25 competition now. I did the information session for nonprofit applicants yesterday. It's online as recorded for their accessibility, building questions for potential applicants. We've reached out to people who are unsuccessful last time around that we encourage them to reapply. And so that's ongoing. For FY26, what I anticipate doing is as soon as the legislative session ends is to post what we've been doing is a monthly stage applications for a lot of our programs. It's just simply posting an FY26 modular platform for questioning how to grant. And because what we always know is we know who gets money from the state, but we don't know how much they want from us. And so that module will be very simple, just to contact information, proves that they want a state of reward, and the base amount of what they're going to want from us. And so that will be, you know, after the CE releases this budget, but before you've wrote down the final budget. So you'll have some clear data of there. And then based on that, once it could eligibility, we can have a second stage, where then we ask for more detailed documents and backup and plans and demonstration that they're going to use the funds well. And then if council decides that as part of your voting that you want want to put more parameters of focus on these on these state matched funds for cost-sharing capital grants then you know that'll be a private event that will integrate that into the competition. So stage one would just be seeing what is the body of needle pass out there and stage two will be okay how do we meet your priorities as you sent them in the budget. So we did receive a letter that you sent about prioritizing cost sharing capital grants and that there should be for state matched and that's going forward. That's what we see just based on the data that we have and the volume of applications we get and the need that we see. You know, there's that really should be prioritized if the state does work for us. We should help them with these projects. And then we may not have reached the letter. I think it does. Thank you very much, Mr. Murphy. And I was informed there must have been a miscommunication effort that I believe I thought Mr. Madelineau had been invited, but it seems like there was miscommunication and he had not received the invitation to be here today. So he did not know, we requested him. So we'll follow up on how that miscommunication happened. I will say the letter did come from the CAO's office. And I appreciate all your efforts, direct and Murphy. You have, as you said in your comments, you have been saying these things for a while to this committee. I think one of the frustrations we have is that we have identified the places where we need to make improvements and changes in our letter of December 3rd to you and the executive's office. We asked for a strategic plan for the next community awards process because of the timing of when that will be put in place. And again, the response that we're receiving is we're going to get to that. The same thing with the legacy grants. We're going to get to that. I think the concern that I'm expressing as chair of this committee as well as channeling the concern I'm hearing at every single community meeting I go to. I was just on a meeting this morning with a commission on aging. And they mentioned this. I cannot go to a community meeting without some nonprofit or group in our community asking us, what are we doing with our community grants? I don't understand. There's a lot of instability right now in the county because of what's happening in the White House, but that is compounded by the fact that we still don't have clarity on how we're going to move forward with our community grants for our enrollment benefits and members of our community and the process for the legacy grants just doesn't not seem clear to people whatsoever. So we have requested and have not received a strategic plan and it just seems to me that this administration has well plans of actually addressing this problem. This administration has less than two years in place and given the time of community grants and other things, we'll plan yesterday for these things. And I'm going to use this saying to us, this is how you see how you you put things in place and move forward. And I guess, and maybe I'm putting you in an unfair position here, but I'm trying to figure out how do we move forward? to address the situation. It is clear from your expertise in what you've seen, from the expertise of our nonprofit partners in the community that there are ideas on how we can move this forward. And I guess my question is how what do we do? Because we're not getting that strategic plan. We're not getting that direction right now. And what our nonprofits and our community members need right now is answers and stability and understanding of in this great time of uncertainty how we can plan for the future. So I don't know if you have anything else to add to that and I understand all of the hard work that you've been doing. Oh, I'll colleague, dancing on the cats. I can't make a big circle when I come on my leg, but for me, I just musta kept it as well. I'm a little proud of how I can work with all of you. He will save that time. Somebody who can get a 90-70% from stolen at death, a legacy, create. Morning. that somebody who can get a 97% and still not get a legacy, create, the one who, first of all, that's unbelievable. And I said there are no outcomes to the people that are not serving. No, 97% is an A. So now, several people, as we speak, were saying, it's just like good enough. You need another one, whatever it is. What happens to people serving? Well, for that, the organization I mentioned, they received a legacy grant. So, they didn't receive a few grants that they received a legacy. So, because they did score very high, and that's where the CE did, put in 24 resources and that's where anticipates putting in FY 26 resources to keep that program going because they have been certain community well. They did get a high score. It wasn't high enough to win a community grant, but they got a legacy award. So there is a safety or is there a action at well say is there a safety mount that the groups have actually going out So there is a safety or is there an action at well and say is there a safety mount that the groups of actually are working on the brain processes because we are working in some cases. Is that a safety mount on that? Let you see in those words, the safety of. Okay. And we are, when we tell someone, and we'll talk about it in the discussion, that things are, we're talking about the building, and now the children are kind of funding. And we tell them, now they can correct that, the moment that we're understanding, we're working them, we've got them, we're finding this not all. And that was last year, that was the conversation throughout the last fiscal year. We anticipated or I anticipated that we could move through the process much quicker than we could. And we had the bridge funding and we thought, oh, no, we need more time and we need more time more time so we kept on doing it so that was a lot of stress in our nonprofit partners with that instability and I fully acknowledge that and that is also contributed very much contributed to the CE giving a full year funding for these organizations. So with the notification that these organizations are the CE intends to subject to progressions. It extends another year, they'll give them a lot of stability. But for other grant programs, you know, when funding runs out or if we lose the world, you know, we really do need to let it publish now as soon as we are certain that its funding is going to be cut off. You know, in the world, it is to those organizations, if we had the funding off, to release that money, when it happens to those organizations, we're serving the residents of the government, do we know how they can stay in business, how they're able to function? I think it was organization organization, a larger organizations, but probably just cut off that component, that program, that service, and just go on with other funded components that they have with the organization, but some smaller organization. If they lose that funding from us, then that's a very, very legitimate. Yeah. That's why there's a lot of concerns, but what are my greatest concerns? Is that the real financial, but one of my greatest concerns is that we are very anxious by some of the young 70% or whatever that number is extremely high number, and I'm stressing that we're that's just not good enough. That concerns me what happens to those organizations because we are their white flood. And I think we're going to make certain kind of presence in terms of, I think we're going to have a welcome, welcome to the yesterday to figure out what we're going to do in Howard Cooper people in business. And it's not a reality, but it's not a reality. The only thing is that it's not a reality, but it's not a reality. But it is, isn't it? It's a reality, a reality, a reality, a reality to become functionally. Because this is a real concern. And with that, I'll turn it back to you, Ben. Thank you. Council Member Peterson. Thank you, dear colleagues. Thanks. First of all, I want to just echo the comments that were made particularly by the Chair and President. There's a lot of frustration and understandably so. I mean, we're basically six years into this. I mean, there was a Provost Chair who was here with Councilmember Katz and me for these initial conversations. And frankly, it promotes your role in this. And by all accounts, the two universal truths of this whole process is one ongoing frustration and anxiety among our nonprofit partners. And two, the people will do a pushy that you're trying your best and that you're working really hard and within the confines of the world in which you have been given which is to execute what has been asked of you, you are doing what you can. And so the frustration that you're hearing from colleagues here, the frustration that you'll hear from me is not directed at you and your ability to do the job that you've been asked to do. And frankly, all the work that you have done up to this point, it's the fact that, you know, I think the quote that I've got down is this administration has no plan. And it's really not up to you to make the policy decisions on what that plan would entail. But we are six years into this, and it's just an on-bending dynamic of a black hurdle for a nonprofit partners who have no idea how decisions are going to be made, when decisions are going to be made, how they should plan accordingly. And the legacy grants is a good example of this. Last year there were unrealistic expectations set. We wanted to relitigate those. I was very upfront about my concern and my skepticism of whether or not the ambitious goals could come anywhere close to reality. What do we do when we give extra runway? That extra runway, which there was resistance to even giving that extra runway? We're going to extend the line that we have. We're going to do this This results in legacy grants. Now we're doing legacy grants again, and my concern is, we'll be exactly back our next year. And all we've done in all the sales, none that we suggest is that we've kicked the can down the road for what would be the seventh consecutive year for a process that has now completely changed. And how are you supposed to pay on the one-again in classroom returns discussing concerns about the services that are being provided? And what happens to those services that are being provided at a time when will these services more than ever. That is a removal question and a little concern. Beyond that though, how on profits supposed to plan if they have no one to apply for, if they have no one, the funding is going to come, we've had F-like 24 money that doesn't get allocated until two years later. I mean, it's closeness. And it's just completely unacceptable for us to take six meters or seven meters to come up with a plan for how we've done post this at a certain point, we got inside either we're moving in a certain direction or we're not. Either we're going to make it tough choice or we're not. Either we're going to see if something works or we won't. Because that's just a perpetual dynamic of taking a can down the road, you're trying to pump things if we don like the outcome. And what it feels like is that we had in a direction either we can't execute what we say we're gonna execute. Who won? What people in the record range can put like the outcome. It's a big thing to put down the road because they're not in the record. That's not acceptable, that's not fair. That's not reasonable. It's not fair even for the legacy partners. You don't really know what this legacy is going to mean. It's real not fair. Those couldn't get in the chair because if this was a process, those were supposed to be more metrics focused and more equitable and more reasonable and fair and more transparent, it's more opposite of that. It's worse, not better in that sense. Because Arbitral, at some point in some, the line is missed, something of the old second flavor, the counties that killed the chief administrative officer, not because you're not you know essentially making these ultimate calls which I understand and I appreciate somebody's making decision I move forward I'm making that decision ultimately but what that decision is based on and that is just completely unacceptable. We have to decide. We have to have a plan. Executive meets the sender of the plan. The council needs to review that plan and then we all transparently need to communicate what that plan is with the stakeholders who are impacted here. We're at some here and shouting from the mountaintops about all of our frustration of how the federal government is treating nonprofit service providers and other service providers. And we're not doing our part to help in a timing there is so much uncertainty, so much chaos, so much challenge. We have to control the part of this that we actually can control, which is how we do our partnerships, how we can re-locate our processes. We are fine, mostly short. Again, it is not your fault. You are only able to communicate the information that you have. You're only able to execute the plan and the policy decisions that you've been given. But we don't have to be so much better than this and it is not anywhere near the level that it should be. We're not communicating. Attiquate where we're most and we haven't planned properly enough. And that just not acceptable. On the last piece I will note on the cautionary questions I do agree that we are going to have significant months and we send a separate letter on that as well to step up to the play in the way that you had described which which I appreciate the way you described this, that our state elevation is stepping up in significant ways to support our partners in the community to provide significant needs and address significant needs in our community. And I do think that we need to be prepared to meet that and to step up and partner with With them We're not going to solve the challenges in our community particularly in this incredibly chaotic moment unless we lean into partnership that means leaning to our state partnerships, their state delegation that means really leaning in even more than always have joined on profit partnerships. I talk a lot about how our secret sauce in Montgomery County is the partnerships the county government has with our nonprofit partners. The lawyers of Mesh that we cannot address and serve the most vulnerable North community with county government alone. And that is going to be more true now than ever before and we're going to have to really batten down the hatches. We're not to really double and triple down on those partnerships that we needed during the pandemic. We're going to need them just as much if not more moving forward because the challenges that we had during the pandemic aren't going away for further recovery populations andiding populations and for the challenges facing online profit service providers, and we have new challenges, significant new challenges that are coming on board. So, really, it's a community that we're learning a much better way and we need to get out of this perpetual cycle where it feels like groundhog day. It really does feel like there's the court again. I feel like the only thing that has changed that we're now on this, David's in here, I'm sitting for, in the seventh floor, we've had multiple conversations. Or the third floor, we've had multiple conversations. But it feels like everywhere this community has the exact same conversation with the exact same responses without a clear plan for moving forward and it has got to get better because our nonprofit partners deserve way more than what we're providing right now and a lot better communication than what they've gotten up to this point. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for allowing me to just sit in. So I have, I share the same concerns and I'll just focus just a few things. I just want to confirm. So the legacy grants for 2026 are currently in the, we will see those in proposed CE budget when we get it in a couple weeks. That is my understanding. I haven't seen the final book yet but yeah that is my understanding. Okay and is your intention then to get that money out so so can our legacy receivers, grantees, expect that money right away in FY26? Sure. So what we'll do and we'll be doing this for a lot of those little money more to your grant or its based on all the different grant programs we've run. So we'll open up like a special module within our grant platform. We'll essentially submit to us updated information for this going into FY26. Um, updating contact information, the grant agreements have a number of attachments to it that outline their proposal, which is generally not competing for it, but they start to give this proposal because their proposal becomes a scope of work. So we'll give them the opportunity to upload their scope of work, their timeline, their budget, to meet the level that they've been given. We integrate, we review those, the department grant monitors will review those. If they're okay, then we integrate all that into a grant agreement, and then we run it through the grant agreement approval process, AP2-4. And so that once that's fully signed and executed, we issued a DPO direct purchase order, but we should be able to do that all before our fiscal year 26 starts. So in fiscal year 26 starts in June 1, 2025, that grant agreement that DPO is in place and they'll have the money. Depending on the size of the green, they'll either get all, if it's a small grant, or kind of threshold is 25,000, 25,000 below, they just get all the money up front. If it's a larger grant, we'll give them maybe 30, 40% up front, they spend again our cash, they submit a report showing that they've been doing good work, then it releases another charge of funding. usually at 90% of their their funding, you know, before then. So yeah, that for those, yeah, so that's the question. And then the second year, I guess the second year for all the awardees, same process. So they'll get their money July, 2026. Anyone that has a community grant, a legacy grant, should be able to access, start the process to get their funding. Correct. Okay. And then the process of actually getting the check should be relatively quick. Sure, once the fiscal, I have to look at the specifics of the apologies. I have to look at the specifics of the grant agreement, but once we get out the, when, if we have to reach the fiscal year starts, actually cut them a check, preferably in the CH budget transfer, but almost as soon as the grant term starts, they should be able to get, if not that up from the payment 100 percent or the first chunk of funding. Great, thanks, thanks. I share the same concern about, okay, what happens in FY27, right? And without having in time, as everybody knows, goes by very quickly when you're trying to set up a program and it's doing up a program. So the issue of at what point does the duties legacy grants move from you office grants management to the various departments that have to assess whether the county is going to continue funding services. And so we need to have a full understanding of what kind of review process office grants management undert, because as Council Member Kat said, we have 102 nonprofits out there doing the work of the government with our residents that will no longer be able to do that work. We need to have a full assessment of how critical each of that, each of that those services are because if the money goes away and the organization goes away, then what is the gap of service? And so we need to be working on that now. The reason I'm here today is I hear it from my constituents out in the community as to what's going to happen to these services. The other reason I'm here is this is a major process issue and I just simply can't understand why we can't get it right. And I echo my colleagues. I appreciate the work that you're doing. And in particular, the communication that you provide, you've been very present whenever we have a question. So I really appreciate that. So I think that the question that has to be answered by the executive branch is how are they going to absorb the cost of services that aren't being funded through the grant process? So do we need to move into all the various HHS to say, okay, senior services, youth services, all of these grants are going to have to be either absorbed or we need to all accept that this service is no longer taking place in our community. So we need to, we need an answer to how that process is going to happen. because with a lack of process, you're going to have 120, 102 nonprofits knocking on everyone's door and 11 House of Members screaming about these services. So that has to happen. And I know that we're talking about 2026 right now, but 2027 planning, we need to be looking at that now. So that's that's it for the legacy grants. I do also want to say that from the overall opinion perspective, there are a lot of questions that I have that can't be answered today, that should be answered in the process of developing an overall strategy, long-term strategy for how we manage grants. One is the timeframe is three years too long. We're in such uncertain behind right now. And I hope that we'll level off from the crisis that we're going to be now. But... We're in such uncertain time right now, and I hope that we'll level off from the crisis that we're in right now. But I'm not here to make us even a suggestion about was three years too long. We don't have to strategically look at it. That might be two years. Maybe we should be two years. I can't answer that today because we don't have a process for answering that question. The other is subject matter expert reviews. Major problem with having those reviews, those individuals in place, is that the right strategy? We don't merely answer to that. And what is the strategy if it is a three year grant? How are we going to ensure that those people are in place? That is a strategic question. It's a logistical question and I think we cannot wait until we're ready to sit those panels. And then the other, I agree with the concept of having issued worst grants as opposed to come one come all, but which issues, which but which which buckets and how much money is going to go to each of those buckets. If we've got $5.3 million, how is that money spread out? We cannot wait to start having those discussions. And so I just want to really echo that we need to plan in place. So this never happens again, and I know that you appreciate that and understand that. I just want to take one last minute about the state, the CIP matching grants. And I understand that disconnect between the state budget and the county budget. And we, so there's like, there is a lag in regards to that budget. But can you just walk me briefly through the process? The state makes it to we just this this Monday are already hearing about the 2026. Grants 10 just briefly the process we get confirmation from the state knitting wrong as to what they're what they're going to find. What's the process then? So about 20, 48 hours after the state and extra final decision, directly a winger from off-sync to multiple relations, she passes me a spreadsheet showing all of the capital awards that were given in the state budgets. And so that we go through that to see who might be asking us for money. What did they say in their brown sheets, which is the application they submit in the fall, which may or may not be accurate. And so it's been kind of a guessing game there. That's so when we get that confirmation, get that spreadsheet, we'll go through that, but I'll also open up a module and our branch app, the digital platform, it'll be in our there will be enough forecast to broadcast that to our not proper partners who have a state award pending that hey if this does come through as soon as you know the soon as you know you got it go here you know very briefly and easily get it on the rest. So the timeframe of when you know those applications then then what then the process, how do you determine who gets grants? Just Well, because like that, we collect applications, they have to demonstrate, you know, what they're going to do with the funds, when it's in the back to the project, you have pretty standard grants application, you know, what cost sharing was or other money coming from, do they have all the money they need to actually with the project started, or are they gonna be waiting for two to three years for them to get all the money they need before the project started? So that's been a key point. And then what time, where are we in the comment? When we make your final determination, where are we in the calendar? So we were gathered all the applications. We are only expecting probably 15 to 20 because if we're only looking at state matched applications, people say again, sitcoms, green grants, we had unmatched car-shank capital grants come on, come on, all other many things. You have a wide idea. You have had a small amount of grants applications that jam things up. If we're only at state matches, and we're only collecting state matches, and they've got to prove they ever still match. We're looking at 15 to 20 applications. So a team of three people can go through those fairly quickly. We've had IGR and their government relations, or one being a reviewer, or as people that work out, the experience going through that state experience. So the timeframe, I would say like a month after the application closes, we can have results. And so where are we in the calendar? Right now we're waiting for the state to come to resolution. In terms of the FY25 funds, because we're behind the FY25 funds, we just opened up the application late last week. So we've got about three year, three and a half weeks left before that closes. And so about a month after it closes, we're going to have results for FY 25. Okay, so what's going to happen in FY 26? So we're not in this situation. We're opening it up as soon as the state comes to their final resolution. And then so we collect the applications. So people who know they got their awards, we go through those applications very quickly, it might even be, we might even come to results before you complete your budget and have recommendations to even put in your budget. Okay, I think that it's, we got 24 out the door, right? Yeah. Okay, so and we're already starting to look at 2026 and so we just have to, the process has to be very clear and I don't, this is a situation where I really don't understand why the process has taken so long. But what are the bridge? I would assume that the 2026 will not have the same problem. Because again, we'll be limiting it to, do not apply unless you have the state match. And that limits the number of alerts. It creates that this very small boundary, again, getting back to the concept of targeting, it's targeting the eligibility. And so we won't have eight plus applications like we did in that Y-24, which was really difficult to find enough reviewers to go through. So that just logged in and everything. Same thing it did to community grants or these other smaller grants programs. So by targeting it, sitting clear with parameters around it, focusing on our money, which is scarce, and limited on the state matches, we can have a much more manageable competition. Okay, thank you. And we have to hear from the county executive branch, from the county executive that there is a planning place that this will be corrected and going forward. What we're going to do because right now I have absolutely no faith that the next time we do this we're going to get a different result. So I think we need to hear directly from him. Thank you. Can I ask you to give us some water to begin? Thank you. First of all, the reference was made of water under the bridge. I mean, I will say it might be water under the bridge, but it's simply a bridge to nowhere. That's the problem. That has been going on. So, six years going on seven years, I don't think there's any confidence up here. I believe there's any confidence among the nonprofit community more importantly that we're heading to a conclusion anytime soon forever. And what is fundamentally the issue that we have. It was concerning that we're going to have a process that ends in three and a half weeks, you know, where are we on the calendar that brings us to being on the march, right, right? Just giving where we likely are. There'll be time that it takes to then review. If you're timeline for moving forward is similar now, it's about a month. Is that accurate a month after the applications are received to review? Is that what we expect? To get results out the door. So after the review closes, we have options. So after the review closes, we analyze the data. We develop recommendations for the second floor, because the CAO has to sign off and all grants are rewards. So we develop recommendations if he supports some is okay with them, then he signs it and then we move into the grant agreement stage. And so as soon as he signs it, we send notification letters out, we step the net steps of developing the grant agreements and getting that through. So one month after, we're in process, plus all the internal approvals of the awards. Okay, so one month after, just to be clear, that's one month after end of March, that takes us to end of April. So let's just give a little bit of leeway here and say beginning of May, right, which is weeks before we finish the budget. It's after, really, we've done much of the committee work with the budget when the final decisions are being made. So it's really too late in the budget process unless we do something at the very, very end, which would be difficult. Then you're going to initiate a new process. No, I just want to understand. So if you want to move it up when you move first, those are your timeline. Honourable for me first, a cost sharing grant applicant is going to receive notification that they either received or didn't receive funding and how much. For that, for that price, we have to bring the rearview mirror here. Okay, so then when that happens, at what point once they receive that information, will they then start applying for FY26 funds and will be a protocol to deal with how that works? At that point, you would know what the state has done for FY26, we already know what the state has done for FY25, presumably, you know, because people are applying for funds from most before, and this is kind of how this process work, because the things that we've dragged on for so long, how is that going to work, just based on what you just shared with Council Member Balkham? That's why we would do the small-to-stage application. We're starting to do it across all the grants programs. We have a very simple, easy first stage, which is not a lot of administrative work, and we just kind of collect basic information. So for that person, if they don't, assume as they hear that they didn't get in the world, let's assume the person didn't get in the world. If they wanted, they don't need to apply again. They would quickly, they had an array, early FY26, pull the money. So they would not overlap. You would, before we would open up that, their opportunity for FY26, they would learn the results for FY25. Okay. All right. And it would also include additional folks who resumed that, you know, that may not have applied because they didn't receive state funding before they didn't move in and the circumstances have dramatically changed in recent months, et cetera. They would be part of that application for as well. Got it. And two questions. Who was involved in mentioning passing some of them might be involved in analyzing the cost sharing grants. I would like to hear from the county government who in the past, opposite entered over relations are participated. There's staff of backgrounds in the state bond bill process and looking at capital words there without on the analysts we see IP experience contributing. I'd like to get DGS involved and say there'll be the ones actually overseeing these awards and monitoring them as well. So for Officer Branch Management, we will not be administering the awards. We facilitate the grants competition and awarding process, but then we hand out these awards to departments to oversee and DGS oversees all of these cost- or it's always have. What, what will be decided and who will decide who is on this review panel? We typically recruit certain application period. So all we recruiting from, we're sending out notices, the directors of these departments asking them for staff to participate as reviewers. Again, I think based on the volume of applications we expect to receive, a team of three people, who we always want to have a non-number to go through these, can go through that. It's usually about half an hour or so per application, so it's a manageable volume. Who's on the FY25 review team? Oh, it hasn't been set yet. When is it going to be set? applications are doing three and a half weeks. Very soon, but we always train them usually midway between that. We work it down, then we do a training with them so that as soon as the application period closes, we do our own administrative reviewer, which is basically making sure the applications are completely the folks are actually legally eligible to actually have a state match within 24 to 48 hours. We pass those applications off to the reviewers for them to get started. Depending on the volume of applications, it's one, two, maybe three weeks. But for this volume, I would think about one to two weeks they could go through these. As part of the follow-up from this community session, I'd request that within two weeks that we have the specific people who will be involved in this review process and I would presume and would like confirmation of whether or not that same panel would be on the next review process. I can't imagine why it wouldn't be, since it's going to happen within weeks is what you have just told us and if they're good enough for the first review. I can't imagine why they wouldn't participate in the second, but if you could confirm, whether that would be the same review process, it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to reinvent the wheel or to wait until the applications go out to decide on new people or to spend the time doing training. So let's get right the first time. Let's confirm with with us if there's feedback from the council ahead of time. I think there should be enough time. You know, we can have two weeks for the council to weigh in. If we think that there aren't the right perspectives among that three person panel, we should have an opportunity to do that. I just like one detail is because we have the arts category and then the non-ARDS, just to fill it up and make it go, but the idea was the same three people were looked at, just one category inflow set out. That's a grand-spest practice. So the making move faster, we get up two teams of three people. We'll share both of those teams of three people. Okay, so I understand on cost sharing grants, the last question that I would have, are we proactively reaching out to everybody who's received a cost sharing grant? It's such a small pool of people. Are we communicating with them to tell them what the process is? Now I understand that the world versus nonprofits in Montgomery County is massive We utilize nonprofit partners like nonprofit Montgomery which we really appreciate who are here today among others Some of the the large overarching organizations that are umbrella organizations of many nonprofits to Lillian to to reach out, you know, hopefully that will continue. You can't possibly reach everybody. Simon's not sure if you're talking about non-profit organizations that have received state funding over the last several years, two, three, four, five years, whatever window you, are we proactively reaching out to them? No, I haven't done that. We have usually relied on the pass. Usually they're kicking down our doors about getting money from us. But yeah, that is a fairly limited list. The tricky part about that list is that it's not always clear who wants money from us and who doesn't. Because sometimes it will in the brown sheets that they are going to look, which is their state application, that they're receiving money or they have money from a county government. Other times they say, well, we're good. We've got all the money that we need if we get the state award to submit information and they don't need it. They will ignore it or they will say, thank you. This is really helpful. I'm really glad you're doing this, but we don't, we're not going to go through the of applying. It seems like a left trial and I would also strongly suggest that the same correspondence be copied or be sent to the members of the delegation, so that they're aware since these are the folks who are actually doing the light work to get the state funds to begin with. And so if we can coordinate with them, that would be how to, I think, all members of the state delegation would be helpful. Obviously Senator Zuckerberg is, Charlie, the capital budget is very, you know, active in the news, but each delegation has its own effort. And so making sure that they're all included in that, I would urge you to do that. And if you could follow up, it was another follow up for this. It's able to tell us exactly what you're sharing when you're sharing it and with whom you're sharing it. Related to both FY25 and FY26. So I think there's still time with three and a half weeks left to reach out to everybody who's received state funding within a finite period. I'll yield to you of of what are inappropriate time-lapse at the last three years. This is the last five years. This is the last three years. I go to you and but I want you to share with us how you decided on that. Which I really love to have been the themselves. These are the discussions about the services that these organizations are providing. The overarching question is, what are we, are they going to the base budget? There was a process before where there was a base budget question. And the department got to decide whether they liked something or didn't like something based on information that none of us have any idea how those decisions were made quite honestly. And I have been critical of that being part of the process. I think it was not the appropriate decision to make. I don't think department should be arbitrarily deciding if they like certain programs or don't, but that was what was decided. And then everything that wasn't picked was left as part of the like a subgrant essentially, you know, in the community grants. Is that a process for reviewing whether or not these legacy grants should move into the base budget? It would seem like a much more appropriate thing to do if the CIO has made the determination or the county executive and the CAO have made the determination that these legacy grants are some of the portal. These services are so critical to the community that they are replacing, we're supplementing core government services shouldn't they be in the base budget? The tricky thing with a lot of these programs is there's a lot of programs and services that important valuable to community, no question, but they don't really fit with, they do things that are really more aligned with other agencies outside of Montgomery County Government. So there's a lot of academic preparation programs. You know, County Government doesn't necessarily do that. There's a lot of workforce development programs. The, you know, work for work social Montgomery does that on behalf of the county. So there's a lot of things that if you look at the list and what the type of service being provided, there's really not a clear home where you would say, well, this is something that HHS does or this is something that recreation does. And so that's a tricky part about a lot of these awards is where we're going to put them. And so you can, and that was one thing and the leather to talk about clustering, about having competitions just for work, but having competitions just for these academic programs, which again are not really services that we really have a natural home, or where you would, there's a logical place to put it in the base budget. So well, I would suggest that there will be an analysis of all of the legacy grants and the buckets that you described. And either identify whether that bucket falls into a county government department or it doesn't and whether there is an outside partner that does that work. I think that analysis will help us make a decision for the actual plan that we've been talking about that we haven't seen, to decide whether or not it would make sense to corrupt new grant programs within these categories and within these buckets. I also think there's some more review to decide if there are grants, legacy grants that fall into departmental categories and I believe that they're likely are, they're not put, they're not cited for reasons that not gross out of that category that were made in black women, black hope that somebody decided somewhere either they liked it or they like it, they decided to include it and then they decided to include it and then they a decision and a decision and that should be moved into the base budget. And if they are moved into the base budget, how? Because if I'm looking for a decision for legacy grants, we should make a decision of whether or not some of these legacy grants should just be included in the base budget. And that is a decision that we should make in this budget cycle. And we can provide us the analysis to make those decisions prior to the submission of the budget. And I think that is a topic of conversation that this committee can have and then ultimately can send it over to the committee of jurisdiction to review the number of organizations and grants that fall within their category. Make a decision should be a base budget. It would be a level of mutual for this budget year, but it would have an impact potentially for future budget years. But I think it's an important conversation and one that the council has never been for you to despite my objection this previously that it seems inappropriate for departments on their own to be able to make these judgment calls and the absence of Council and in the absence of any fair Review process panel, you know, etc. It was an example of how this process is well intended as it was has had some of the opposite intended effects where it's been less transparent, it's been less accountable, it's been arguably has had more in colloquial influence potentially on some of the decisions that have been made or at Lucillac's charity that there have been decisions that weren't colloquial. So I think that is going to be important. You won't share earlier before on you sending your recommendations based on the panel's analysis, based on the tremendous work that you and they will do and have done to the CIO, who ultimately has to decide whether or not he agrees. What happens if he doesn't agree? How does that process work? And has there been an example in the past where that has occurred? Where you have submitted from the panel the results of a process and the chief administrative officer has not agreed with the decision and what happened? Don't believe that's ever happened. Okay. You don't believe it's ever happened. It seems like you don't. The CIO was essentially overruled you and overruling the committee. I would imagine that if your boss overruled you on one of the core functions of your job and a commitment that you had assembled and the work that they had done that you would remember that. I mean the grants is challenging, but there is no fund eventorship to the methodology. Okay, Mr there a slight change to the outcome? And I sure have some shift methodology would mean I believe that a slight change and change to the outcomes where there are any grants that had been changed based on their view? Grants have changed across all the different grant programs that we've done. No questions have been raised, but it's never been challenged who won grants or that the methodology shifted. It was all about the legacy decision was made based on the Chief Administrative Officer was not comfortable with the outcome of the methodology and so ultimately the decision for legacy grants was decided. That discussion was with the county executive. With the county executive. Okay. So the county executive ultimately decided to move forward with the legacy grants based on, so it was, don't change the methodology, change the process. Which we don't know. It's when there's all, it's the same process, the same data. Anyone can take the data I had if you're on the same methodology who come to the same results. And that's across all grant programs. So none of that has ever been changed. Okay. The amount of funds available because of legacy renewals and being able to fund that, that did change it but the fundamental methodology and the scoring the ranking that didn't change at all, not one data point. Okay. All right. I'll go back. Thank you. All right. That's all. Thank you. Council Member Fita, I think having that analysis of the legacy grants will help us doing this budget process. I want to add and just say thank you to your office. I think your new newsletter is excellent. I do receive it and I would say especially for folks getting the cost sharing, even just forwarding that information so that then they sign up for the most letter from the office of grants and management. I think would be helpful to those nonprofits as we're ever trying to increase the communication and information that's sharing on that. And in addition to the finding out who is going to be giving a reviewing for the car sharing, when you have solidified the timeline, if that could also be shared with the committee. As you know, in your office, there's always been incredibly responsive. We get a lot of inquiries. And so if there is information that we can just be passing on, like here is the timeline that you shared with us that just makes it easier, one for our nonprofits. So we're not sending them yet to another person to ask the information and hopefully that takes some of the burden off of your office as well. So anything that you can share with this committee that we can then share out to the full council would be very beneficial. Before we wrap today I think that we have a couple of things to move forward with and we'll continue this conversation. We'll continue it with our nonprofit partners to get us to a place where we have a strategic plan moving forward and figure out what we're doing and this ever-changing landscape. I do just want to spend a few moments, Mr. Murphy, if you had anything to update us on or want to come back. When we were here in November, we had talked about the cornerstone group had provided some additional information to you after the election. If there was anything else that you wanted to update us on, given the federal landscape and what your office is seeing. The office of the county attorney is performing the risk assessment regarding county grants and federal exposure. OGM is assisting them with their effort and I've been asked by the county attorney to refer all questions on their effort to him. All right. We will ask the county attorney. I'm not seeing any other questions during this. As always, thank you very much for coming. Thank you to our partners at Nonprofit Montgomery for their assistance and Ms. Clemens Johnson. Thank you for your work on the packet and putting together this session. With that, this...