Good morning everyone and welcome to the Montgomery County Council meeting this morning on Thursday May 15th. We have our final work session on our FY26 operating budget and amendments the FY25 to 30 capital improvement program. We're going to start with a review and a hand vote on the capital budget wrap up and CIP reconciliation. I think Mr. LeChenko and Mr. Mia here to walk us through that. Good morning. This was just mentioned, we have a reconciliation of the FY 25 through 30 amended CIP for you today. I'm going to provide some background just to sort of how we got here and then my partner, Mr. Mia here, will help walk through the specific adjustments that included in this reconciliation packet. First, the agency and the county government submissions this year, the Transmittals for the CIP, were fairly modest. It is an amended CIP year, but some years we've had very significant changes we dealt with. This year was relatively lighter. There's a number of reasons for that. One, I think the agencies did show some restraint and they're going to wait until the full CIP next year for a lot of their new efforts that they want to pursue. But also we had fairly flat revenue experience as well. So the executive in his January Transmittle had to recognize some reduced revenues and included some affordability projects in those. And the agencies I think recognize that there wasn't a lot of extra or would not be a lot of extra resources this year. So we started out with the executive's Transmittle and January of the recommendations across all the agencies being fairly modest. Beyond that then we also had some additional write down of revenue, partly because of revenue experience and also because of the council's passage of the impact tax bill earlier this year that resulted in the delayed receipt or would result in the delayed receipt of impact tax revenues. So that also had to be accommodated. And as part of the executive's March Transmittal, there are a number of additional affordability projects included in that that the council had to consider. So we've been through that process and I've noted on the first page of the packet, what the agencies did submit. Just as an example, the MCPS proposed amended CIP, the total six years was identical to the approved FY25 through 30 CIP. However, there are a number of wrinkles to that. They had several increases they requested in some of their ongoing construction projects, including Northwood Crown and Woodward projects. They also did have a state aid deficit in the Woodward project that also needed to be accommodated. So there were additional geobonds assumed in that same total. But still a relatively modest request, and they had a number of adjustments in other projects to try to offset a portion of that state aid loss. Montgomery College also had a few items that they requested, but once again relatively modest and parks basically didn't have any substantive amendments in their request. The county government did have some significant deferrals assumed, including the Summit Avenue Extension Project and the Outdoor Firearms Training Center, the Forest Glen Passage Way and other projects that the executive recommended for deferral for affordability reasons. In addition, in the in the executive's Transmitted one January, on the revenue side, the executive recommended a significant reduction in Pego in FY25. That was it was significantly higher than the policy level, which is 10% of bonds planned for issue. So the executive recommended a lower amount to free up some resources for the operating budget. And the council concurred with that ultimately during its spending affordability discussions in early February. So that also tempered a bit what the resources were for the CIP. So for purposes of the reconciliation, what we have to do is we have to reconcile both the six-year period and we're focusing on bonds, of course, geo bonds. But we also have to reconcile parking planning bonds to that spending affordability process, as well as current revenue. Make sure the current revenue is linked and consistent with your actions on the operating budget. B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B-B'll see and as we move forward, some years can be particularly more difficult than others. This year, actually the FY27, 28 and 29 years, we're more challenging in terms of getting to a reasonable set aside in those years. So we can talk more about that. Also, we've had updates since our last update to the council a few weeks ago. We've had some additional projects come through, some of which the Council has discussed, but for all the updates that we have received to date, we will incorporate those into the final amended CIP that the Council approves. Some of them did impact reconciliation, including some updates to the Montgomery College projects related to recent actions from the State Legislative Session, and also, of course, based on the latest staff recommendations for the operating budget for the reconciliation list that you'll talk about in the next item, we had to make those assumptions for our purposes for this reconciliation so that we're consistent. With that, I'll turn it over to Mr. Mia. Next, I'll talk about some of the revenue changes that the reconciliation incorporates since the recommended CIP was transmitted in January. So in this March amendment, Transmital Executive Reconciled reduced revenues for impact taxes and recommendation taxes. On the impact tax side there was a reduction of about 27.8 million that was essentially deferred to the beyond six years as result of Bill 22-24 that that the council passed in February 4th 2025 and there was also write down of recommendation taxes based on updated estimates at that time roughly about 21 million dollars there. So all together that's a 49.5 million dollar reduction revenues that was recognized by the CE in March. To meet those reduced revenues the CE did recommend additional afford affordability reductions. In a number of cases, some projects that were recommended for increases in January were essentially reversed in March, most notably the ADA compliance project. Most of these reductions, again, were approved by the Council, recognizing the reality of the revenue situation. In April, the executive recognized additional state aid awards, approved by the General Assembly, as well as some other technical adjustments related to inflation and slippage. And finally, staff did review some of the latest recommendation tax actuals coming in to the county to date through April 30th, based on those estimates or rather those actual collections. We did estimate a little bit higher on recognition tax for this year. We did not wanna show it all being recognized in 25 or 26, given that certainty involved with the housing market. So what we did was we programmed a million extra in 26 to give 26 some breathing room in terms of revenues. And for 28, we programmed a remaining 6.5 million. That way way if there's any, if our projections do fall short we will have some couple years to reconcile and to correct for any shortfalls. On the Spending Afford Ability Guideline the staff's reconciliation scenario maintains accounts of a proof sac level of 1.68 billion in bonds over the six-year period, equating to $280 million per year, and also maintains the park planning bonds of $48 million over the six-year period or $8 million a year. On the expenditure side, we have a number of changes, categorized in a couple of different areas. In terms of production delays, projects which are being recognized as actually having scheduled delays to not because of affordability, but simply because of the schedule. We are recognizing a two-year delay for the Fentoncy Street CycleTrack project. On the technical adjustments side, these again don't affect the scope or schedule of the project, but our simply adjustments made to either shift small amounts of money between years or to reflect funding switches or other technical changes. With Burton's Ville Elementary School Replacement, the Crown High School Project and Northwood High School, we are simply recognizing state aid funding and shifting between years to help balance the geobond expenditures. There's no impact on the scope or timing of those three projects. We respect to the White Oaks Science Gateway Development Project. We are moving four million of nine million I was programmed in 28 to 29. The project is fully appropriated, which should not affect the schedule of the project. The developer will construct roads and we will seek reimbursement from the county through that project. So there's no impact on the scope or schedule of that project. In terms of projects that have had actual deferrals and reductions in order to reconcile expenditures and revenues, the most notable project there is Summit Avenue Extension. The CE had recommended fully deferring that project to the Beyond Six Years in January. The Council preliminary approved restoring that project to its previous approved timeline and staff's reconciliation essentially is a three-year delay from the previous approved. It does allow leaving $1 million of planning funds at FY 30. So, a slight improvement from the CE's recommendation, but still a three-year delay from previously approved. We respect to the ADA compliance, the building modification program improvements project, the HVAC replacement for NCPS, and the plant lifecycle asset replacement on local parts. All of these are level effort projects. They have, what we've done is simply defer small amounts of money between years to help balance out the CIP knowing that there is these are ongoing projects with funding throughout the six years coming in. And finally the other two deferrals we've made were to both the college projects the Germantown Student Services Center and the College of Library renovations. Those are both reflecting state aid awards. In the case of German Town Student Services Center, the state aid award in the timing of which it was awarded is actually deferring the project a little bit. We expect that the college will return next year to correct or to advance that project further. And finally, there were two CIP projects that were funded by current revenue FY26 that were approved through the reconciliation process with the operating budget. For cost sharing MCG, there is a 1.5 million increase in FY26 to fund to increase funding for grants. And for the CIDER Mill Approveds project, there is a $250,000 approved or recommended for addition in FY26 for security and lighting upgrades. And finally, there are several other project changes that these are not impacting Geo Bond reconciliation, but simply we want to note because of the changes that came in sort of late in the process. These include the Montgomery College's College-wide Central Plant and Distribution System CIP. It receives slightly less state aid in FY26 than was previously assumed. About 376,000 of $500,000. And so the project expenditures there have been reduced by that amount. Again, there's no impact on geo bonds or the reconciliation. This is simply reflecting a reduced state aid that was received. The planning board transmitted a number of revised projects based on the action in the recent general assembly session, including an affordability reduction for the Wheaton Regional Park and Proofence Project. The council did not ultimately support that reduction, so that's been essentially, it's not being changed for the upcoming CIP for the proof CIP in 26. And finally, there are some text revisions to the Digital Equity Montgomery Connects Project, essentially changing the title of some narrative text. They don't impact a change, or they don't change the scope, time, or expenditures for the project. And so Council staff recommends supporting those changes, and we have no issues with those. But altogether, all the final PDFs will be included in next week's Council approval of the resolution. So that's up there. And just one quick note, if all these actions are taken, then we do, we will have established a, what staff leaves is a reasonable Geobahn set aside for the six-year period. It's about $139 million over six years. It is included in one of the tables in the packet. It gradually escalates over time because the CIP itself becomes much more uncertain as you get further out. So it's very important to have a reasonable set aside, not just in year one, which of course we know we'll be tapping into that as the year goes by as we did this year, but also it is important to keep those set aside for future years. For instance, next year we'll have a FY27 through 32 CIP. So there'll be two years entering the CIP. So projects that are right on the cusp, such as like Summit Avenue, those dollars will then logically be at the end of that if they're kept on that schedule. So it is important. You have a lot of ongoing projects like the level of efforts that will tap into those resources, but there will be a lot of new initiatives coming forward, as I mentioned, from the agencies based on it being a full CIP process next year. So with that, staff is happy to answer questions. Great. As I mentioned, we will be doing a hand vote on this today by Councillor Member Fanny Gonzales. Do you have a question? The comments. Okay, it's not a question and I have to say it. Number one, I will be voting yes, so don't worry. But I had to share my honestly, I'm not upset before, but I feel that I have to say it once again. My huge disappointment with the county executive for delaying one more time, the forestland passageway. This is an issue that the community has been fought. Has been fighting for four years. We have a major hospital, Holy Cross hospital right there where my children were born. Where have this county? Will you want to cancel vice president? You were wonder. Holy cross? No, no. Was it you? And I, I guess that was me. That was me. You used all your two, okay? Three, not just one. Oh, you did two. Okay, guys, we need the hospital community needs this tunnel. And next year, when we take up the full capital budget, we must bring it back to FY, to start construction at FY28, instead of the new schedule that you guys are talking about, FY31, am I gonna be here in FY31? I don't know. This has to happen now. So, hear me next year. That's right, I hear you. It's all my chest. And I hear you and and I have to say I'm thankful that some of the app is sort of hanging on by a thread there as well and come back to this next year. But I very much appreciate the sentiment. All right, is there a motion to approve the FY25 to 30 CIP reconciliation? Council member Balkemou, do I have a second? Council Vice President Joondo, second. All those in favor, please raise your hand. And that is unanimous. Thank you very much, Mr. LeChanko, Mr. Mia for all your work on this. Our second and last item today is the operating budget wrap-up and reconciliation. And I will turn this over to Mr. Howard and Mr. Smith. Okay, good morning. I'm very happy to come this morning and present a reconciled FY26 operating budget. And the council will take straw votes this morning on the entire FY26 operating budget. And this will enable staff to prepare budget resolutions, which will be scheduled for action next Thursday, week from today, on May 22nd. So this action today will confirm all the preliminary votes taken by the Council thus far on department and agency budgets over the past two weeks. And this includes a net reduction of a little over $40 million in tax-supported resources compared to the executive's March 14 budget. And this change in resources is primarily due to the council's decisions to reject the executive's proposed property and income tax increases. The attached reconciliation list at circles one and two of the staff report includes $44.45 million in reductions that the council has taken over the past, the course of the past two weeks. And it also includes $11.04 million in proposed additions. These additions include $3.56 million that were approved by the council yesterday, $2.46 million in required additions, and $5.02 million in new items for the Council's funding consideration. If the Council funds the attached reconciliation list, combined with all other actions described above, it will result in an FY26 total tax supported operating budget of $6.61 billion for all agencies while maintaining reserves at approximately 11.2%. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Howard. For that, we will take a hand vote on the amended FY26 operating budget. And then if colleagues would like to speak to this, just turn on your lights and I will call on you. Do I have a motion to approve the amended FY26 operating budget? Council Vice President Joondo Moote, seconded by Council Member Luki. All those in favor, please raise your hand. And that is unanimous. Great. Well, I will kick us off by saying good morning to everyone and thank you. Coming into this year, we knew there would be challenges ahead. But we remained committed to develop a budget that meets our collective needs of our diverse community and underscores our values. The Montgomery County Council's budget process for fiscal year 2026 was inclusive, transparent and collaborative. And this council delivered for our residents and businesses. As council president, one of my top priorities was increasing transparency and participation for all community members. I want to thank everyone who came and testified, who wrote to us, joined us for committee meetings and worked late into the night to prepare for our budget discussions. I'm very proud to say we didn't turn anyone away from any public hearing and we listened to the views of over 300 residents during our budget hearing, reviewed thousands of emails and met with numerous groups. This was a difficult budget. Simply put, the multiplicity of needs in our community are growing and the decisions we had to make were tough. This has been exasperated by the chaos at the federal level. Not even five months into the Trump presidency, Montgomery County and the state of Maryland and the entire region are facing the most uncertainty we've seen in decades. Federal cuts are and will touch all our lives and impact every public service that our residents rely on. Not to mention the thousands of federal employees and contractors living or working in the county who have been laid off or fired. But here in Montgomery County, we continue to live by our values of being a welcoming and inclusive community, with a thriving economy, with a best education system to prepare our young people and families for the future. And our FY26 budget reflects that. We worked with our public school system to make sure MCPS receives 99.8% of their budget request and we laid the foundation for future collaboration and partnership to make sure we meet the needs of our students and families as well as the needs of our educators and school staff. We provided increased funding for our public safety departments and expanded the successful Joan as first responder program to German town. We also increased funding for the Office of Emergency Management and Homeland Security to provide continuity and emergency planning, training and outreach, despite reductions in eliminations of federal grant funding. We also allocated $1.2 million for the nonprofit security grant program to protect our nonprofit and faith organizations and houses of worship. We prioritize resources for our social safety net programs. We are seeing an increase in needs in our community for food, housing, mental health services and other basic needs. And we expect this trend, unfortunately, to continue for the next few years. And this budget lays the foundation for us to meet these challenges. The council approved nearly $14 million to the office of food systems resilience to provide critical food resources. Just this week, we learned that the Montgomery County's unhoused population has increased 32% over the last year. To combat these rising rates, we allocated $62 million for services to end and prevent homelessness, and over $200 million in services to support children, youth and families, older adults, and people with disabilities. And I'm very proud to say we increased funding to $66 million for behavioral health and crisis services, promoting mental health services, treatment, and recovery services, and culturally competent care for people of all ages with behavioral health needs. Investing in mental health is not just about treating illness. It promotes a holistic approach to well-being, enabling individuals to thrive emotionally, socially, and physically. And as somebody who has worked in the field of reproductive and sexual health, I am incredibly proud of our public health department in stepping in and filling the void as we see more and more cuts from the federal government. We are also investing in housing, transportation, and economic development so that we are not only meeting the needs of our residents today, but also planning for the future. We continued an increased funding for affordable housing assistance, recognizing the role that safe and affordable housing has as a social determinative health. We increased rental assistance as well as funding to finance, construct, and preserve affordable housing in the county. And as we face uncertain economic times ahead, the Council approved economic development initiatives focused on job creation and business development, including for WorkSource Montgomery which is standing up a specialized office to assist federal workers now looking for jobs We also made ongoing investments in the Institute for Health Computing which is creating jobs in AI and machine learning innovation and we are making right on free for all residents in in alignment with our, yes, that's a good one. In alignment with our transit equity and climate goals and to encourage ridership growth. We also rejected proposed cuts for our parks, one of the most valued and defining assets of our community. And we partially restored money to the green bank to ensure we continue our work on climate change. And as Chair of the Government Operations and Fiscal Policy Committee, I am particularly glad that we crafted this budget so that we are having reserves at approximately 11.2% and we did all this without raising taxes this year. We accomplished all of these goals by coming together with residents, our nonprofit partners, union members, our department staff, and agency heads to discuss and make tough choices. Producing a budget of this scale under the strain of state and federal cuts and economic uncertainty requires diligence, careful review, and collaboration. And a lot of chocolate and coffee. So, and I just want to say to my colleagues, each and every one of you here, thank you for moving with great care, attentiveness and accountability to best support our diverse community. We made difficult compromises and came together to balance our priorities and keep our residents at the forefront of every decision that we made. Specifically to my team, my chief of staff, Cessli Thon, Paul B. Ellis, Diana Carrillo, Kieran Koshamikabe, DeBora Gettichu, and Andrew Gellman, thank you for your ongoing support and service to the residents of Montgomery County. Thank you to our entire Council Central staff and staff and my colleagues' offices for your meticulous and thoughtful work throughout the budget process and throughout the entire year. Your amazing work is the engine that keeps us moving forward. And I also just want to do a specific shout out to our analyst for whom this was their first budget going through it and just say thank you for an amazing job that you did through your first budget this year. Yes, so it was really good. I mean those of you who have been around for a while did a good job too. And that leads me to in particular I want to congratulate and express my deepest gratitude to our Executive Director Craig Howard. While Craig has played an instrumental role, while Craig has played an instrumental role in putting together county budgets over many, many years, this was his first year doing so as the Executive Director. And he did it seamlessly. Thank you. And we have two new deputy directors, Sandra Marin, for keeping, thank you for keeping council operations running smoothly, and Jean Smith, for his leadership and expertise and managing all the moving parts of the budget to help us get, move this forward this year. And thank you to all the hard work and detailed oriented legislative analysts, chief legislative attorney, Christine Wellens, and our entire legal team. Thank you to our clerk, Sarah Tannenbaum, and her team who kept our agenda in meetings organized and well-worn. Thank you to our legislative information team led by Jill Gabel, who facilitated opportunities for residents to testify at public hearings. All those over 300 people we had here, Jill, helped get get here and make sure everything ran smoothly. So thank you to Jill. Thank you to our PIOs, so New Healy, and the entire Information Office broadcast team, IT and Multicultural Community Outreach team for your support through the budget process. As Councilmember Mink remarked the other day, we are now able to do public testimony in Vietnamese as well as other multiple languages and we're just going to keep on with that work. This is truly a team effort and it is a great honor and privilege to work with each and every one of you. I am proud the way that this council has come together to pre-land for the challenges ahead as we budget for today and tomorrow and I just want to say thank you very much to everyone for their contributions and now is my great pleasure to turn it over to our Council Vice President Will Jouando. That clapping was for our Council president Kate Stewart. Thank you so much. Good morning. These are always tough speeches because you got a lot you want to say and you got to decide and focus in. But I first want to thank all of my council colleagues for the debate, collaboration, and dedication throughout a challenging budget season. and they're always challenging, but I feel like every year we get a new wrinkle that makes it a little more challenging or challenging in a different way. I really want to thank my colleague and friend and the Council President for her leadership and guiding us through this process and to Craig Howard, as was mentioned, and the entire central staff for their support throughout. I want to shout out my staff, Dave, Marisa, Christina, Katrina, and Michael. Thank you for all your hard work. And I also wanna thank the executive branch to staff for all their work in helping us move through the budget. Our state delegation for the money that they've given us. You'll be happy to see the Capitol Cost Share that's on the reconciliation list here to our MCPS partners, the school board, President Yang and her colleagues and superintendent Taylor, into our labor partners who have been crucial allies throughout this budget process. All of our hard working, if you include MCPS, over 40,000 employees that work from a government county to try to move our county forward, not try but do. Equally important and impactful where our passionate community members, some of whom are here today, in businesses and nonprofits who spoke up and really truly helped shape what we decided today. I want you to know that that you all pushed us and this list is reflective of that. Your voice is truly matter and our shared work to build a county that's strong, responsive, and fair for everyone. This budget process occurred during a devastating time where the president and his administration are disproportionately attacking our residents from federal job losses and illegal firing, some of which we witnessed from our office and right here in Rockville, to non-efficiency at Doge where they're just indiscriminately going in and weakening our cybersecurity. Councilmember Baalkum and I and Councilmember Salesrat, the launch today just before here of a cybersecurity range at Montgomery College, which is going to help accelerate how many we hire in cybersecurity at the same time as the federal government is weakening that capacity. It's never been more important and more apparent to me that our work here on the Montgomery County Council is a direct response to safeguard our community's most critical services. As chair of the Education and Culture Committee, I believe Montgomery County's promise is rooted in our educational systems. From early childhood through higher education, that's why I'm proud to say that this budget does fund 99.8% of MCPS's request. This past fiscal year, our committee convened more than 30 detailed work sessions, digging into critical areas like special education, attendance, student engagement, school safety, the implementation of the anti-racist audit, restorative justice practices. And I want to thank my committee members, Council Member Arvarnas and Mink, for their diligent work throughout this last year. Through extensive outreach, including three budget forms, and many, many dozens of school visits, we heard directly from students, educators, and families about the unprecedented challenges they face, and how we can address them. I've mentioned this before. Just in the last decade, an increase of nearly 40% of emergent multilingual learners. Far outpacing our overall enrollment. More than 23,000 of our students now were speech special education services. And IEP referrals, the process by which you get identified are up nearly 20% in the last two years. Just this year alone, our schools welcome 600 newly arrived refugee students. And I'm so proud that we are a welcoming community But it takes hard work to make sure that those young people can be integrated well with their families Just days ago we faced potential reductions to the MCPS. Thankfully that did not happen. That would have been a nightmare scenario Through the collaborative leadership from the council president Superintendent Taylor and the Board of Education. In this council, we've managed to fund 99.8% of their request by reducing the pre-fund contribution to our retirees' health benefit trust to pay current retiree benefits. Now this solution, though necessary, now is not a sustainable one in the long term. So we must commit to find responsible, equitable ways to increase our revenue next year and years to come by growing our economy and creating a more equitable. in the long term. So we must commit to find responsible, equitable ways to increase our revenue next year and years to come by growing our economy and creating a more equitable tax structure. Our students, our educators and families deserve stable and predictable funding. That's how we prepare the next generation to thrive and how we make our county even stronger. I also want to highlight that we fully funded Montgomery College's request, maintaining flat tuition and preserving accessible higher education for all students whether they're recent high school graduates working parents or adults that are reskilling for the changing economy. Montgomery College consistently ranks among the best community colleges nationally and we must protect this legacy. Shout out to the ribbon cutting today for the Maryland Cyber Workforce Accelerator Program, which is gonna help us do that. Additionally, I'm thrilled about working with Chair Albinas to launch the Collective Impact Institute at Montgomery College with the $350,000 down payment and startup funding. This initiative will foster among our leaders in education, nonprofit, government, and private sector to help address our communities most complex and interconnected challenges through innovation. Beyond education, we've made strategic investments in areas crucial to our communities well-being and economic growth. I'm especially proud of the Planning Housing and Parks Committee. My colleagues, I appreciate our efforts and the full Council's efforts to prioritize affordable housing initiatives and restore vital funding to our county's cherished parks These investments will directly benefit our residents enhancing their quality of life and support our shared community values While with chair Fannie Gonzalez, we supported this funding for the sports tourism tax tax force This will leverage our athletic facilities yet Yeah, we can do a way for that one. To attract more visitors, boost more local businesses, and create equitable economic opportunities. So excited about that. We've allocated one-time funding to WorkSource Montgomery to support our federally displaced workers who are unjustly terminated under this current administration. Their expertise and their dedication to public service is what we want in Montgomery County. Excited to soon pass my bill to give them hiring preference here in the county as well, but we're going to continue to do what we can for those workers. And lastly, I want to highlight Montgomery County's commitment to protecting and enhancing our social safety net. You heard the council president speak about this, particularly during these challenging times. Special recognition goes to the HHS committee and Chair Albinaz for his tremendous leadership and tireless advocacy in ensuring that vital health and human services will continue during this difficult time and support our most vulnerable residents. I'm proud and closing to vote for this budget. It reflects our values, it emphasizes education. It supports our community in uncertain times. And it strategically invests in our collective future. Thank you so much. Thank you, Council Vice President Juwondo. And thank you so much for chairing the Education and Culture Committee this year. And only this year, but last year, because there was a lot of work done last year on Education, particularly our CIP, which actually helped us not have a very long CIP conversation this morning. So thank you. Next, we'll turn to Council Member Albinaz, who chairs our Health and Human Services Committee, and I think I just wanna do a particular shout out to Councilmember Alvarnos for all of his work day in and day out but particularly during this tough budget as we are seeing what's happening at the federal level particularly cut into our social safety net programs. You have really guided us through a process of figuring out how to prioritize those programs and set us up for the future. So thank you for all your leadership. Thank you, Council President Stewart. And once again, I need to begin by apologizing to my incredible team who gave me these great talking points, many of which I will use, but a lot of which I will probably not. So this is my 19th budget, 29th, if you admit your savings plans. And Katzmember Katz has told me once you get to 20, you get a magnet or a tie, which I'm looking forward to. But much, much more seriously, this budget in particular, for all the reasons noted, and all of the news we've been reading about, made this one particularly challenging. With more curveballs than any of us could have ever imagined, unsettling information, changing information by the hour. And I want to begin by giving credit where credit is due and thanking our Council President for shepherding us through this very, very challenging process. Council President Stewart, you did this with grace, you did it with calm, you did it with resolve, and the many, many, many hours that you spent on the phone with each of us stakeholders and the executive branch, buried very significant fruit. And I do want to acknowledge, Cecil Leathorn and a remarkable team for getting us to this point because this is truly remarkable to be able to fill most of the obligations and address so many of the needs but doing it without having to raise taxes and further making investments to ensure that we have a strong budget going into next year by strengthening our reserves was nothing short of remarkable. And so I really want to thank you for all of that. And I also want to thank all of my colleagues for your time, investment, and motion, and all that you put into this and your teams as well. And of course, I want to thank Craig Howard, who I've had the opportunity to work with all 19 of those years through all of the respective budgets from different platforms. Craig, you've stepped up. Your team has stepped up and we are all better off because of it. So thank you for that tremendous leadership. And I do also want to thank the executive branch, particularly for the investments that they made in our social safety net as has been noted. It's not just morally the right thing to do to take care of our most vulnerable residents. It also makes the most sense, budgetarily and operationally, because if you address the needs of people before they're in crisis, then you help resolve budget challenges moving forward and help sustain our communities and families and ways that are critically important. And as a direct result of the immoral, cruel, and incompetent actions of this presidential administration, we are now facing challenges that are truly sobering and that acknowledge that states and local jurisdictions, just as we were in the first year during COVID, are not going to entirely be on our own, but very much on our own. And we will no longer sadly be able to count on our federal partners to be able to provide the support that they had been providing for generations. And that's why the enhancements that we've made to our social safety net through enhanced investments in our food funds for our food security system through the office of food system resilience, the enhancement of the reimbursement rate for a Montgomery cares and care for kids, the investments in our dental care clinic, our Department of Health and Human Services, our primary care organizations and providers, the work to end and prevent homelessness, and the work to address the behavioral health and crisis services needs of our community, which are growing by the day, are wise, wise, and right investments. We also want to thank our nonprofit organizations. I'm proud we were able to support the additional 3% inflationary adjustment, acknowledging more will be needed ahead. And I also want to thank the leadership of Councilmember Juwondo through the Education and Culture Committee, as we heard throughout the entire year, not just through the budget process of the needs of our school system, and I think did a good job of addressing those needs. And of course, I wanna thank Councilmember Sales and Lutki who are outstanding partners on our Health and Human Services Committee and have shown tremendous leadership in their own right in so many different ways. I'm proud to serve with both of you on that committee. So I also want to thank Tara Nicole and Monsey for doing the incredible work of preparing the budgets for the Department of Health and Human Services, which is the largest executive branch agency and had a lot more complications than normal this year. And of course, I want to especially acknowledge an incredible team led by my chief of staff, best shuman, then Christian Trouble, Pam Luckett, and Jackie Rivera-Aven. You are all members of my family. And I appreciate you. Sorry, I was going to try to get through this, but it's just really hard. I know, I know. So while I'm extremely proud of what we've been able to accomplish this year under extraordinarily difficult circumstances, everyone here and in the audience knows that we see the writing on the wall, which is in big graffiti letters. I have referred to this budget as a to be continued budget because it will be. The full weight, the full realities of their draconian cuts and the immoral policies being lifted up by this administration've already been felt but will be felt even more and will come even to more focus over the course of this fiscal year and the ones that lie ahead. And so we must remain steadfast and work collaboratively, which is why of all of the line items in this year's operating budget, one that I am really, really proud of is the investment and the seed funding for the development of the Collective Impact Institute. Because as I've said many times before, throughout my entire career, it's become very clear that no one person, organization, or sector is positioned to solve all of our unique challenges. We have to work collaboratively together, and we have to be intentional about creating times and spaces for us to be able to do so. And so through the work of the Collective Impact Institute Montgomery moving forward, I have higher confidence that we will achieve that goal. But I'll end with this thought. I started on a light note, but I'm going to end in a sobering one. We have to be and we know we will be extremely cautious with budgets moving forward and be especially austere. We are going to have to have what will feel very close to same service budgets because there will likely be reductions through no fault of anyone here or in the community that are going to be our reality. But together, I am confident that we will be able to weather those storms. And as I've also said many times before, there's nothing wrong with Montgomery County. They can't be fixed by what's right with Montgomery County. Thank you. I yield back to you. Thank you, Council Member Albinaz. Next we'll turn to Council Member Katz, who chairs our Public Safety Committee. And thank you Councilmember Katbinaz next we'll turn to councilmember cats who chairs are public safety committee and thank you councilmember cats I think as we went through the public safety budget You took seriously the task ahead of really looking at our fire and rescue budgets and our police department budgets and I thank you for Sometimes difficult difficult conversations and leading those this year. Thank you. Well, thank you, Madam President. And there's going to hear some reoccurring themes. Each budget that I've worked on, and it's been a few more than 20 gave over the years, everyone that I've worked on has always had unique challenges. And to say the least, this one was certainly no different. But as we listened to residents and under the leadership of President Stuart, who seemed to have a magic wand with her when we needed it most, we are passing a balanced budget that fund schools, neighborhood safety, and helps prepare for economic uncertainty, all without raising taxes. It reflects air commitment to fiscal responsibility and community well-being. I was very concerned about tax increases from the start, recognizing the economic uncertainty and potential downturn affecting our federal workers and small businesses. The state's new capital gains surcharge already hits Montgomery County disproportionately. This budget prioritizes compassion and physical responsibility, protecting core services and maintaining reserves above 10%, and investing in education, public safety, and social services. Education remains paramount to opportunity and equity. And this budget prioritizes it with record investments in Montgomery County Public Schools, supporting students, educators, and school safety while staying, physically responsible. Through collaboration with Council President Stewart, the MCPS Board and Superintendent Taylor, We funded 99.8% of the MCPS budget, ensuring fair compensation and benefits for educators and filling critical roles in special education, multilingual learning and school safety. I commend President Stewart for her openness and collaboration in finding this innovative solution. This budget also provides strong support from Montgomery College, meeting maintenance of effort, funding, and providing startup funds for its collective impact institute, reinforcing its role in workforce development and equitable higher education. By investing in education, we uphold Montgomery County's values and secure our shared future. As Public Safety Committee Chair, I'm committed to supporting our Public Safety agencies. This budget invests in essential services like law enforcement, fire rescue, and emergency management. It increases the drone's first responder program, which was deployed over 2,000 times already since it began in 2023, and it will expand to Germantown in potentially White Oak. It also funds the Speedon Green pilot program, which targets aggressive driving at risk and high-risk intersections to enhance pedestrian and driver safety. The Sheriff's Office receives funds for courthouse security, equipment upgrades, and deputy tools. Fire and Rescue gains a 24-hour basic life support unit, stronger EMS volunteer support, and recruitment investments. Additionally, this budget adds $300,000 for the non-profit security grant program to protect non-profit and faith-based institutions from hate-driven threats. This budget reflects Montgomery County's values and commonplace approach, prioritizing education, investing in safety, and maintaining fiscal responsibility. It tackles today's challenges while building a strong foundation for equitable vibrant communities ensuring a brighter future for our county. I cannot have a statement on the budget without thanking the incredible work of so many hard working and dedicated people. I again want to thank Council President Kate Stewart for her steady leadership and her chief of staff, Cecilie Thorn, for her tireless work coordinating with council members and staff throughout this process. Thanks to my public safety committee colleagues, council members Lukey and Mink, and I appreciate the guidance and expertise of our public safety analyst, Susan Farog and Logan Invinder. Thanks to my go committee colleagues, Chair Stewart and council member Freedson, and to the rest of my colleagues for their collaboration and commitment during this challenging budget, during such challenging times. And a special thanks, and he's certainly received a few of those today. He did not write this part. A special thanks to our Executive Director Craig Howard and our Deputy Director for Budget and Policy, Gene Smith, for their expert leadership and guidance as we navigate through the complexities of this budget. Thank you also to the entire Central Office staff for their relentless support and always being available to answer questions all times on the day, evenings and weekends. Finally, I want to recognize my incredible team, Chief of Staff Sharon Letner, Deputy Chief Laurie Edberg, Suzanne Love Jam, Shannon Sucard, and Juan Jo Val. Their dedication and hard work are invaluable to me and quite candidly all of Montgomery County's residents. This budget was complex and demanded a lot from all of us. It's never pretty to see sausage being made, but this budget reflects how we can collaborate to get it done. Thank you very much. Thank you, Council Member Katz. And I think it's fitting now. I turn it over to Council Member Freetson. So we go the GO committee here. And I just want to say to both of my colleagues on the GO committee, we would never have been able to come up with a solution of the plan on MCPS without the work that we have been diligently doing on the government operations and fiscal policy committee to looking at our funds and looking at them critically. And particularly the council member Freetzin, I just want to say as the past president of this council who shepherded it in the last budget, I think we always need to recognize the we stand on those who come before us, their shoulders, and I think learning from the process we've had beforehand, I think was very helpful in informing this year and just want to thank you for that leadership last year. Thank you, Madam President, and just another note of appreciation for your efforts to shepherd us through this extremely challenging budget process and to assess the Thorn and your whole team as well as Craig Howard in our exceptional council staff. Really appreciate all of the relentless work, the sleepless nights, ongoing calls that you get from us in the early morning hours and the late night hours. It is deeply appreciated by all of us. Thanks to my team as well to Cindy Matt, Warren, Angela, and Andrew for helping me navigate through this budget process. No budget is easy. This one certainly wasn't, but we have an exceptional group of public servants here at the County Council that all of us are so grateful to work with every day and a time when public service is under assault. When those who choose to work in the public sector are under attack, I hope that everybody who chooses this line of work understands how much we appreciate you here at the Montgomery Council and in Montgomery County. Today's budget action represents a big win for affordability. Together, we fought back against both the property tax and a retroactive income tax, which would have made Montgomery County less affordable and less competitive. Under your leadership, Council President Stewart, we found a path forward to fund our schools without adding unnecessary financial burdens on a community already struggling. Faced with unprecedented challenges for a county community in region, this body was tested. Yet your thoughtful, collaborative and dedicated leadership rose to the occasion, helping us to balance fiscal stewardship with the many competing and important priorities that we share. We avoided piling on more costs when our community could least afford it. By roundly rejecting massive fee increases for condos and co-ops, dramatically reducing proposed fees for rental housing and significantly lowering the proposed fees for solid waste. With free ride on bus service, ongoing support for our recreation centers and libraries, and a concerted effort to restore devastating cuts to our beloved parks. We will continue to provide free and accessible services to residents when they are needed more than ever before. With funding to support displaced federal workers through mobileized Montgomery and continued unwavering partnership with our non-profit service providers, we are prepared to meet the needs of this moment and the extraordinary challenges that lie ahead while continuing to ensure sufficient reserves to weather the storm and prepare for the looming fiscal and economic challenges that will come in the months and the years ahead. With strategic investments like the Collective Impact Institute at Montgomery College, we will continue to prepare for the future despite the myriad of unknowns before us, recognizing that it is only through public-private and non-profit partnership that we will be able to truly capitalize on our community's unrivaled talent to ensure that Montgomery County's best days lie ahead. Speaking of affordability, this council continued to make major progress on housing, with nearly $130 million committed to the Housing Initiative Fund to build and preserve affordable housing. In addition to the $50 million non-profit preservation fund that we completed last year, and the nationally acclaimed $100 million housing production fund, which we are now in a position to expand as we have been talking about for years. Especially with the federal government abandoning green energy tax credits and clean energy financing. I was deeply disappointed with the county executives recommended reduction to the Montgomery County Green Banks annual appropriation that was set forth in the Montgomery County Green Buildings Now Act that I co-authored. I appreciate that this council stepped up and that we restored nearly $1.15 million in funding so the Green Bank can continue to be a catalyst for sustainable investment, helping us to build a greener community without adding insurmountable costs on our residents, our businesses, and our nonprofits. Lastly, I continue to be deeply proud that Montgomery County is a place where our community can learn, worship, and gather safely and securely, with the $1.2 million in funding for a nonprofit security grant program. From the outset of this budget process, I have made abundantly clear that I would not entertain tax increases when our families and our businesses are struggling, and when many have lost their jobs and their livelihoods. Our future is brighter if we keep affordability for our families at the forefront of our decisions, by reducing housing costs, doubling down on economic growth to fund our community's priorities, and by being more effective and efficient with the tax dollars we already have. This budget is by no means perfect. It will not address every challenge and it will not inoculate us from difficult choices that lie ahead. It represents carefully crafted compromise forged by Council President Stewart and reflects this body's consensus in a challenging moment. This budget meets our responsibility to fund schools, public safety, transportation, parks and libraries without adding additional unnecessary cost burdens. Thank you to all the residents, businesses, and community stakeholders who have weighed in throughout this process. The work of Keeping Montgomery County affordable, as we support our shared priorities, will continue to be the challenge of our times. Through collaboration and partnership, I am confident we can meet that responsibility in this difficult moment and in the months and the years ahead. Thank you again, Madam President, for all of your leadership and thank you to all colleagues for the consensus that we are reaching today. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Freedson. Next, we're turning to Council Member Sales and just wanna thank her particularly as she is our lead on health disparities right now and has done an excellent job on that. And her leadership is more critical now than ever as we're facing the challenges at the federal level, the state financial challenges and and just want to thank her as we navigated through this budget for her insights and championing those issues. Council Member Sales. Thank you, Madam President. This is my third budget, and I am so grateful for your leadership in helping us navigate this difficult budget season. We navigated many challenges and your leadership helped us get to this day. I also want to thank my committee chairs, Council Member Albernos, Council Member Natalie Fone Gonzales and colleagues for leading us through the largest budget, Health and Human Services and always looking at ways to fuel Maryland's economic engine to attract new businesses and revenue sources on our Council's newest committee focused on economic development. I also appreciate all of my colleagues' integrity and openness to compromise. Additionally, I'm grateful to our dedicated Council staff led by Mr. Craig Howard. Thank you for your responsiveness from our department heads to the executive's team for working countless hours to provide accurate detailed information necessary to support our decisions. I also wanna acknowledge my dedicated team, my chief Victoria Tazai, legislative aid, Sierra Gray, Heather Mahoney, Joseph Galuah, and Saria Gaini. Thank you for your tireless efforts in analyzing budgetary issues, coordinating meetings with local stakeholders and officials, and meticulously documenting our progress. Your work has not gone unnoticed and your commitment to public services inspiring and essential. I am deeply thankful for your hard work and passion. I want to thank the thousands of residents and stakeholders who contributed to shaping this budget. Your insights shared through testimony, meetings, calls, emails, and postcards have been essential in helping us understand how this budget will affect our community. As an at-large council member, representing over a million residents, I tried to get around to as many events as possible, but ultimately I rely on your input to ensure our budget meets the needs of our community. Your voices are essential to this process, and I am always here to listen. Developing a budget that effectively meets our count is evolving needs is quite an undertaking. In this year presented particular challenges that we confronted head on from closing the state's budget deficit and the hundreds of untenable poorly planned actions the Trump administration took, including mass firings, grant withdrawals, kidnapping, legal residents, illegal deportations, and tariff threats. We focused our immediate attention on adapting our planning to navigate these obstacles and secure the resources necessary for our diverse communities future. Every year we prioritize passing a budget that funds our schools and maintains essential services and quality amenities such as parks, affordable healthcare and housing without increasing the tax burden on our residents. I am proud of the budget we are adopting even in the face of challenges. While our approaches may differ, we are united in our commitment to delivering the best services for our residents, businesses, and visitors. I want to emphasize key budget items that support my smart agenda, which has effectively guided my policy priorities and enabled me to make informed budget decisions. We are enhancing education from cradle to career and beyond, ensuring access to affordable healthcare, increasing housing options and prioritizing investments in economic growth. While cuts at the Department of Education threatened federal funding for low income and rural schools, our budget reflects our commitment to improving education for all students, especially those with individualized education programs, IEPs, and emergent multilingual learners. I appreciate the advocacy from educators, students, businesses, and parents that helped us prevent these cuts and fuel innovation with investments in the Collective Institute's Public Private Partnership initiative. We will continue to fight for our schools to ensure students have the resources they need to succeed. Rising living costs are challenging working families and retirees, especially following recent layoffs. Our budget addresses this by allocating tens of millions for rental assistance, rapid rehousing, and wraparound services to help individuals maintain their home and prevent homelessness. The billions of dollars in cuts proposed to snap the nation's most extensive food assistance program for purchasing groceries. Our budget supports local food systems by funding the Office of Agriculture in the Office of Food System Resilience. This funding promotes sustainable local food production in our Ag reserve while ensuring that food pantries remain stocked. Students do not arrive at school hungry and seniors receive healthy meals. Recent executive orders, cutting federal funding have created uncertainty for nonprofit contractors in the federal workforce, leading to inflation and compromise services. Our budget supports the Montgomery County Economic Development Corporation and directing resources to local entrepreneurs and small contractors while evaluating past grant spending to maximize taxpayer investments. We have also allocated 700,000 to work source Montgomery to establish a career center to help displace federal workers find a new job and remain engaged in the community. Despite attempts to roll back investments in equity-focused transportation infrastructure, electrification, and climate resilience policies, our budget addresses a long-standing community demand making ride on buses fair-free. This... and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care and the public health care like the span bus rapid transit co-ordors, making buses a more attractive alternative to cars, especially during peak hours. This approach also supports our climate goals by reducing transportation emissions, our nation's largest source of greenhouse gases. This budget reflects our counties' shared values despite the chaos and uncertainty that have dominated our lives this year. It underscores the commitment of your local elected officials to work together to achieve meaningful outcomes for our residents. When the Trump administration has undervalued hard working individuals. I look forward to ongoing collaboration in the coming year as we work to maintain a resilient county where everyone has an opportunity to thrive. Thank you for your continued support. Thank you Council Member Sales. Next we have Council Member Glass, who chairs the Transportation Environment Committee. And I think of, we had a lot of tricky parts of this budget this year, but addressing what we're doing regarding our solid waste management, the reduction that we got in the green bank, there were a number of things that landed in the Transportation Environment Committee, and I just wanna thank Council Member Glass for shepherding us through those decisions this year, as well as all his works on the building energy performance standards over the year. Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam President, for your leadership leading a body through the budget is never easy, especially a budget with many proposed tax increases and moving parts as we went along. I also appreciate the work of our central staff led by Mr. Craig Howard and the work of my personal staff led by Valeria Karanza. I appreciate everybody's efforts to get us to this point. And at this point, we are living in uncertain times. Montgomery County is home to 70,000 federal workers and tens of thousands more contractors. But right now, those workers, our neighbors, are experiencing deep and growing anxiety. President Trump is dismantling the federal workforce, leading to job losses not only for federal employees, but for contractors and a nonprofit ecosystem that relies on the federal government to do their work. Thousands of residents have been rift, and many more thousands are worried about whether they will have a job tomorrow. And in this context, the county executive's initial proposal to raise property taxes followed by an amended proposal to raise income taxes retroactively was simply unacceptable. You cannot ask someone to pay more on an income for a job they may no longer have. And in this moment, it demands both compassion and discipline. And I believe that's why we have short up our social safety net, making sure that we have enough for a rainy day fund. The weather in Washington is blustery and the forecast is about to get worse and we must be prepared for our most vulnerable residents in their time of need. And the biggest challenge that we faced in this budget was with MCPS and throughout this process I appreciate all the meetings with the superintendent, the Board of Education, countless educators, and parents. And together, thanks to the leadership of this council, we found a path to providing 99.8% of the Board of Education to request without raising taxes or cutting other essential services. That funding includes critical investments to hire special education teachers, power educators, and classroom support staff who help educate our most vulnerable students. This includes students with disabilities, English language learners, and children facing economic my hardship. These children deserve our full commitment and support and it means showing up. language learners and children facing economic hardship. These children deserve our full commitment and support, and it means showing up with real resources, not just good intentions, and we've done that. But investing in education is not only about what we fund. It's how we manage those funds. That's why I've continued pushing for clarity, transparency, and oversight over the MCPS budget. During our review of the MCPS budget last year, I asked a very simple question that unveiled the need for even greater transparency. My question focused on a $100 million line item that was labeled for contracting services. And in response, MCPS replied that contracting services included everything from snow removal to special education, a very large and expansive item. Snow shoveling should never be in the same budget category as special education. And thankfully this year, they were separate items. But have there been more clarity and transparency in previous budgets? Perhaps hiring special education teachers would not have been treated with the urgency it was and deserves in this budget. Perhaps we would have gotten to that sooner and not be scrambling to address those needs today. And while there is more clear-eyed budget realities about the true cost of meeting our school systems needs, we must also be clear in saying that we should never come to a financially and fiscally precarious position in the first place. Stopgap measures in this year's budgets do not make future budgets any easier. And we know that education is one of the best pathways to success, but access to transportation is also a pathway to success and a great equalizer in our society. It provides mobility, independence, and opportunity. It connects people to jobs, classrooms, and everything from groceries to medical services, and that's why I'm extremely proud that this year we are able to make right on buses permanently free for everybody. It is a goal that I've set out to have since I joined the council when I first rode the bus on my first day to the council, and we made buses free for all kids all the time, youth ridership increased 57%. Making buses accessible for everyone creates a lifelong love of ridership, gets people out of single occupancy vehicles and makes our community more fair and equitable. And let's be clear, fair free transit is not just a policy trend. It's a racial equity issue, it's an economic justice issue, and it's a climate issue. And this $7.7 billion budget is larger than the budgets of a number of states. And it reflects the great responsibility of the state's largest jurisdiction, and it also underscores the growing and urgent needs in our community. Nowhere is that more evident than in our housing and homeless crisis. Montgomery County has the greatest increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in the DC region. In 2024 and 2025, there were an additional 366 unhoused people, one-third increase. And we know that the scale is accelerating and without intentional action a larger crisis may be ahead. And so I'm pleased that in this budget we have expanded our policies to provide housing support. And I'm pleased that this budget provides funding for diversion specialists to help prevent residents who might be losing their homes in the first place. And at the same time, we must do everything to support our social safety and meet the growing needs and investments in our community. And so to my colleagues, to our staff and to our residents, this budget is stronger because of your voices and our community is stronger because of your compassion, all of which is embodied in this budget. Thank you very much, Madam President. Thank you, Council Member Glass. Next we're turning to Council Member Balcom, and I just wanna say thank you to her work on the Transportation Environment Committee, the Economic Development Committee, and being just such an incredible advocate for her district. And I just wanna say personally, just thank you for your steadfast guidance and cooperation as we're going through this budget. I'll turn over to Councilmember Bacchum. Thank you, Council President. I first want to thank everyone on the Central Staff, particularly our Executive Director Craig Howard who has such expert knowledge on both the numbers and the process and above all for your patients for answering all the questions no matter how convoluted they might have been. So thank you so much. I also want to thank my team Craig Wilson, Holly Mankuso, Waffer Jawad, led by my chief of staff Lisa Mandeltrup. At some point in every budget I question whether we're actually going to be able to balance the budget. Lisa will remind me that the council has never not passed a budget. So I want to congratulate her on her 27th budget. Rumor has it, you're going to get a tie. We'll make sure it's purple for you. So the headline this year is that we passed a budget that provides the essential services that our residents need and deserve and we did it without raising taxes. This was due in large part to the leadership of council resident Cade Stewart. So kudos to you and to Cecilie Thorn for thinking outside the box and bringing all 10 of us with you. Your leadership really made this budget happen, so thank you. As a district council member, I'm particularly proud that the Council agreed to expand our excellent Excel beyond the Bell program to Waters Landing Elementary School in Germantown. This is the first elementary school in District 2 to have the program. The parents, teachers, staff all did an excellent job of advocating for the needs of their students. We were also able to keep the upcoming Clarksburg Library on track, as well as providing funding for Black Rock Center for the Arts and Montgomery College. We will also be providing a proposed solution to reopen White Sphere, everybody keep their fingers crossed on that one. And we will be adding the highly effective drone as first responder to Germantown. We're all looking forward to that. I wanna thank my colleagues for understanding that for the entire county to prosper, the entire county needs to prosper. So thank you for your commitment. And I wanna, from a committee perspective, I'm also very proud of the unanimous support that made right on free for all writers. That was something that was in the works for a long time, and I appreciate that we finally made it happen. Very proud of that. And we also restored funding to our parks department to allow them to continue to provide the great services to our community. I know everyone in our community relies on parks and appreciate that we were unanimously able to do that. And we listened to our health care partners and increased the Montgomery Care's primary care reimbursement rate, which they so desperately needed and they came to came to us and shared their stories and we listened. I'm very happy to be expanding our county's innovation centers. We spent a long time looking at lessons learned and best practices. And these innovation centers will help grow businesses and jobs in Montgomery County. And we also expanded our services to federal workers and contractors during this extremely difficult time in our nation. This is just a small example of the necessary additional services that we will be providing to our community. Now it's easy to share all the good news, but we also have some big challenges ahead. We need to focus on the future sustainability of our budget, and we need to begin that work right now. We need to really assess our economic competitiveness. We need to take a good hard look at why, given all the assets that we have in Montgomery County, why we're not creating more jobs. We need to continue to address our housing affordability crisis and take bold steps to move the needle on housing. We also need to work with our partners at MCPS in creating a sustainably fiscal model for the future of our students. I know that my colleagues are ready, willing and able to do that very difficult work and I just want to share that it is my honor to work with each and every one of you every day. Thank you. Thank you, Council Member Balcombe. Now we'll turn to Councilmember Luki who sits on our Health and Human Services and our Public Safety Committee and has been throughout not just this year's budget, but over the last few years, such a steadfast support of our Public Safety Agency. And I just wanna thank her for that work and particularly the work advocating for them during this budget. Council Member Leukey. Thank you, Madam President. I want to start with gratitude myself. I wanna thank the many residents who made their voices heard throughout the budget process and throughout the year and in particular, I want to especially thank those who engaged with us for the first time. This might be the first time they've ever signed up to testify or come here to Rockville or visit us on Zoom. That matters. Your input directly informs the work that we do here. And I am very proud to live in a county with such passionate, knowledgeable and hardworking people. It's an honor to serve you. And I want to thank Council President Stewart for her steadfast leadership throughout this process. And thank all of my colleagues as well for the level of thoughtfulness as we deliberated. This is a time when each of us was being impacted by the universe around us, right? And it comes fast and furious and each person sitting up here feels those things directly, takes them in and puts themselves into trying to come up with the best solutions possible. So I appreciate each of you and your care and concern. We are living in a frightening time. And one of my key priorities at North Star throughout this process, given the landscape, was to protect our residents from the chaos and destruction of the current federal administration. How do we best protect our residents and understand what is within our control and what is outside our control? By preserving and enhancing our public education system, our social safety net, our public safety resources and our county workforce. That's how we say the course best to keep Montgomery County strong. Importantly, the balance I committed to striking was preserving essential services without imposing additional barriers on residents. Burdens, sorry, I also want to protect our residents by protecting affordability and sustainability. That has a significant impact on people's daily lives and the choices they make and that is a top stressor. That has a sick because of that, sorry, I could not in good conscience support attacks increase, whether property or income on our residents during this time of financial strain and anxiety. Our residents spoke up about their need for greater consistency and predictability, something they were craving during this time of great uncertainty. Through compromise and creative problem solving, we were able to avoid and the Montgomery investing in a number of key priorities. We dedicated $3.6 billion from Montgomery County Public Schools. That's 210 million over the state required maintenance of effort level. And this is the third consecutive year of substantial increased investment in our school system. An additional 657 million of tax supported resources over the past three years. We're proud of this historic investment because a strong public education system is at the core of what Montgomery County is. With the approval of this budget, we will fund 99.8% of the Board of Education's request, providing MCPS with enough funding to achieve a 3.25% base salary increase for staff and additional special education, English language development, teachers and security staff. I want to thank Superintendent Taylor, Board President Julieng and our partners in labor at MCEA, SEIU and Macat for your collaboration in helping us reach this resolution. Understanding the importance of also investing in our learners ages 0 through 5 and shielding them from negative impacts at the federal level, we also approved a major increase from Montgomery County's Early Care and Education Initiative, or ECEI, which will build on their progress that they've made this past year, including the completion of two key studies, supply and demand and the cost of that care. That will inform our work going forward. Their partner, the Children's Opportunity Alliance, helped more families access early care and education, provided more capacity building to community-based childcare providers, facilitated a much-needed analysis of state statute and regulations through a collaboration with Montgomery moving forward. There's a lot of success to celebrate and we have, while we acknowledge the work that remains in that space. We also approved a 3% inflationary adjustment for the county's nonprofit partners, our developmental disability providers and adult medical daycare services. This has been an incredibly challenging time for these sectors at the state and federal level, and they provide vital services to our residents and serve as critical partners in this county's work. Understanding the great need that exists in our community, we substantially increased funding for the short-term housing and resolution program or SHARP, the eviction prevention and rental assistance program, RAP, the RAPID rehousing, our RRH program, and permanent supportive housing. We have a lot of acronyms and they all do good things. We increase the reimbursement rate for our health care for the uninsured programs, Montgomery cares and care for kids, ensuring that the providers we partner with are able to continue meeting demand despite rising health care costs. And we expanded our health care for the uninsured provider network with the addition of the clinic at the Islamic Center of Maryland in my district. Understanding how taxed our public safety personnel are, we continue to invest in forced multipliers and innovation, including the drone as first responder program, congratulations, Germantown, the real-time information center, and a new automated traffic enforcement camera pilot called Speed on Green, or, and I'm saying this only for assistant chief McBain, as he would like to call it mellow on yellow. We added investigative staff for the office of consumer protection to enforce bill 625 consumer protection for renters which makes new tools available to force compliance when landlords repeatedly fail to correct code violations. Additionally, we allocated more funds for security staff at progress, please. To protect the safety of residents and staff. While we know we cannot replace everything that is being lost by drastic, destructive measures at the federal level, we are leveraging our resources and our incredibly talented workforce and nonprofit partners to continue providing services our residents expect and deserve and maintain preparedness for the future challenges that lie ahead. We were able to restore damaging proposed cuts to Montgomery Parks, which continues to provide vital community gathering spaces, events and places to enjoy. The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated with great clarity how important our parks and rec programs are to the overall well-being of the health of our community. That's not a nice to have. It's a necessity. Montgomery County is consistently recognized as the healthiest county in Maryland and ranks high across all counties in the nation. We should be proud of that. And by doing these things that provide preventive care like our healthcare programs in HHS and provide overall wellness to our community through parks and recreation. In addition to positive community engagement, we can maintain that. That's good for all of us. And I wanna give a shout out to our sports tourism for a tool for economic growth here in Montgomery County as well. Thank you to our state partners for advocating for capital improvement projects, such as the only community building and the officer Nolio to satellite police station. I'm proud of the matching funds. This budget will be providing to organizations all across the county that are receiving state grants, which is an example of how we must work together with our leaders and anapolis to bring back vital revenue to assist our communities with needed capital improvements and projects. Given the loss of federal jobs and overall impacts of the federal government on our regional economy, we are passing a budget that we are both proud of and no full well will likely change. It is our responsibility to constantly gauge where we stand to be transparent with the public about the hard decisions that will have to be made and to view all of our work through the lens of what is fiscally sustainable and practical. Because these are unpredictable times being honest about that is how we best protect each other. Thank you to our terrific council staff, our analysts, for working tirelessly to help us get over the finish line. I want to thank our communications and media team too for just being awesome people and talented and they stopped by and visit my office a lot because they're across the hall from me. And I always like to give an extra special shout out to our legal team, Christine Wellens, Ludin, McCartney Green, Livu, Nidoo. And the name I like to say the most in our newest edition, Jim, of course a lot. Thank you to our colleagues in the executive branch. And thank you to our amazing nonprofit partners doing impactful work out in the community every day and for always maintaining a clear and consistent communication line with us. I want to thank my team, Erin, Sarah, Caroline, Doug, and Piper. It's a true blessing to have such passionate and dedicated humans along this journey of service with me. And thank you, Craig Howard, for sitting next to me and putting up with me day in and day out, I appreciate you. In many ways, a lot of our work starts now. I am by nature a fixer. And when I cannot fix something, or I can't fix it fast enough, it's really frustrating. That being said, I'm also persistent and I'm trying to focus on that aspect of myself as we move forward. This will be an ongoing conversation and continue to be a team effort requiring collaboration, communication and compromise as we navigate these challenging waters. We can support one another and our teams in this work by doing so. We do our very best in service of our community's needs. With that, I thank you, Madam President. Thank you. Next, we turn it over to Councilmember Fanny Gonzalez, who chairs our Economic Development Committee. And as we're looking at budgeting for our needs now, we need to plan for our future and that is what she does as that chair. I want to thank her for all of her work, taking us all on the incubator tour and really thinking about how we're making investments so that we grow our economy. I'll turn over to Council Member Fannie Gonzalez. Thank you so much Madam President. Kate Stewart Stewart has been such a great pleasure working with you. You know I mean it. I don't BS. So I, look, I want to keep it short in suite. I, since you mentioned incubators, let's just start there. The innovation programs that we have, I had the great honor and I had to thank theUNN Executive's team, Ken and Judy alongside with Central staff Bilal, Bilal who's here. We really took a deep dive in ensuring that we understood what Montgomery County is doing in terms of innovation. We keep saying that we want to be number one in the nation on life sciences, both that takes effort, that takes investment. And by looking at what other places in the state were doing on this area, it really was a night opener and that led us to this huge victory of getting $2 million for the, to really emphasize the work that we're doing with incubators, especially now when we have so many people being laid off by the federal government, you know, we cannot afford to lose our talent. We cannot afford to have people who have been laid off from NIH and NOAA and so on, leave Montgomery County. So I have a lot of faith that the work that we're doing, the investment that we're doing through this budget is going to really help us move along in the whole idea of creating more jobs. So that's one thing that I want to say. The second thing, as you all know, I don't read. I speak from the heart. I can never read. The second thing that I, because I get confused, the second thing I wanted to mention, it's on housing. If you look at the data, we all understand that the group of folks who are living Montgomery County are young professionals. Okay, that goes side by side with a whole intention and idea of making sure talent remains among Montgomery County. So in order for us to also ensure that our talent remains among Montgomery County, we must increase housing options in Montgomery County. We have to protect our renters, but we also need to invest in creating more housing types, especially near transit.. And I think this budget speaks to that, to that investment. And I'm very proud of it. So that's a second thing. The third thing, and I cancel Vice President Will Jamon, I won't mention this, is the sports tourism task for is the Economic Development Committee in coordination with the Education and Culture Committee. We came together to see, you know, what are the needs in Montgomery County in relation to sports? And when I talk about sports, I'm not just talking about people who play sports, but I'm also talking about the science that gets involved. Yes, you love play soccer. Playing soccer, that's beautiful. But you need to understand the science involved to maintain a soccer field. Right? And for that to happen, we are working closely with Montgomery College, MCPS. We created this task force in the next step for this task force is analyzing and creating a facility study to see where we can have a multi-use facility that really speaks on this sports industry environment that we're talking about, but also can fit other needs that we have as a county. For example, do you know that if you are graduating for high school in Montgomery County, your graduation doesn't really happen in Montgomery County happens in other places because we don't have the space to hold high school graduations. They happen in Baltimore, they happen in DC, they happen in Howard County, it's really shameful. So this multi-use facility that the sports industry task force is looking at is also going to accommodate that use. And I'm very excited that this council say yes in supporting that. So that's the second thing, oh, maybe third at this point, but I wanted to mention, the other thing was with Worsers Montgomery, it has been set already, but Worsers Montgomery is honestly a jewel. I mean I am so proud of the work that they do, helping people in connecting them to just, but also training them to get into those jobs. Now that they're facing, that we are facing all the layoffs that we're having from the federal government, they needed more love to be ready. And we're giving them that love through this budget with $700,000. We're gonna keep eye on that one. To assure that, they have the support they need to succeed. And then the last thing I'm gonna say very quickly, yes, we're approving a budget, but I am very, very concerned for next year's budget and the one right after that one. I am telling you, I am one of those folks who is not afraid to say when it comes to reductions that we need to make, we are going to have to make them because there's no choice. So get ready. It's not going to be as nice as you see it today. What's going to happen next year? Just because they were not getting the funds that we are normally getting from the federal government or even the state. So I'm sorry to end in this on this note, but it's it's reality and so I look forward to continuing the partnership to ensure that we do the right thing for people, but also the same time doing it in a physically responsible way because there's just no other way to do it. Thank you. Thank you and last but not least, we have Council Member Mink who sits on our Education Culture Committee and Public Safety Committee. And I think if we were given out awards on the Council this year for the budget, I would say the person who brought the most advocacy and passion to specific issues for her district, just thank you for doing that, raising our awareness here, and as we were going through these difficult budget decisions. So thank you very much, and I'll turn over to Council Member Mink. Well, and thank you to the colleagues who reminded me to get in the queue. Um, And I'll get to this, but we could not have made those needed investments without the full investment and understanding of this Council and of the executive branch. So I am so grateful that to be a part of this team. I really want to thank my Council colleagues for the underpinning of teamwork and collaboration throughout this entire process, really throughout, since we've taken office together, even through collegial disagreements, I am so proud of who we are here in Montgomery County of the work that we are able to do together because of that teamwork and collaboration. I especially want to thank Council President Stuart for her remarkable leadership through a roller coaster of a budget for often quietly but effectively championing some of the deepest needs of our most vulnerable community members. And for leading us to about as positive of a finish line as I think anyone could have hoped for in an extremely, extremely difficult time. Thank you to our fantastic council staff, Executive Director Craig Howard, all of our hardworking analysts and legislative attorneys, our award-winning comms team, our clerk, our racial equity manager, everyone who keeps council business running and running smoothly, and everyone in the office of legislative oversight for their hard and essential work. I want to thank my incredible, incredible staff, the tremendous chief of staff, Chris Wilhelm at the four and the whole team, Ana Martinez, David Hanowitz, Wes Darden, and Frankie Santos Fritz. Thank you for the claps. If you can't hear them out there team, they're clapping for you. We are truly a team and I'm so proud and lucky to have them working with me to serve the residents of District five. I want to give huge thanks to the many community members who have weighed in, advocated, and helped bring increasing numbers and an increasingly diverse body of residents to the advocacy table, both through this budget process and throughout the year. And as Vice President Joondo noted, your fingerprints are all over this budget, and that is how it should be. We do have some housing justice, Montgomery members here today, so I'll do on a side here to especially, woo-woo, highlight a couple key hard fought housing investments that are in this budget. As I noted in last year's budget and then the months following, we did not have enough funding for rental assistance and for the SHART program. We were in a very difficult situation because of the federal funding that we have just lost access to. The SHART program helps families facing homelessness transition much more quickly from shelter to stable housing. And as the need became increasingly apparent, I called on the county executive to send over an appropriation with the advocacy of community members who were calling for it. December December, he did so and it was passed unanimously by this council. And as a result of that, this budget now includes from the start far more funding for these essential programs. Additionally, I am, let's go after that. I'm very proud of the recent passage of my bill, consumer protection for renters, bill 625, also a teamwork bill, which finally provides this county with an effective tool to hold accountable those slum lords who repeatedly flaunt the law and subject tenants to unsafe, unhealthy, illegal housing conditions. We pass that bill unanimously here. Thank you so much to my colleagues, but we wouldn't have been able to actually carry it out without key staff positions in this budget. I am proud to say that as of today's vote, those positions will be in the budget. So, some lords shape up or we're coming. I want to thank my colleagues on the Public Safety Committee, my seatmate here, Councilmember Don Lutke, and our fearless leader are always delighted for delightful chair, CityCats, especially for being fair about which of us gets to sit next to his good ear. And thank you to my education and culture committee teammates, our chair, Vice President, Will Jawondo, and Councilmember Gabe Albernos. We really are a team there as well, and I so appreciate the hard work that we have done. Much has been said about transparency regarding MCPS and so I also want to especially thank and commend Vice President Jawondo for his tangible and genuinely groundbreaking leadership in that role as Chair. share. The level of detail that we get into now with NCPS budget, not just a budget time but year round, is not just a budget time but year round is not how this committee or council really has historically operated but it is what the public deserves and now it is the expectation and that is a legacy shift. As a former NCPS student and teacher and a current NCPS parent ensuring our schools have what they they need and opening the books about how exactly those dollars are spent and why has been a personal priority for me from day one. It has really been a pleasure carrying that workout with my committee colleagues and with this full council. And I also want to thank NCPS's new superintendent, Dr. Thomas Taylor, and the Board of Education, with their buy-in and genuine partnership. As has been said, yes, we finally got that open book transparency this year, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and clear detailed plans that are already in action for getting us back on track to the excellence many of of us remember from our own years as MCPS students and the excellence that today's students need and deserve. Now with real confidence that every dollar is needed and will be well spent, I am proud and frankly believed that we have found the way to fund 99.8% of MCPS's budget request to That is the right and necessary thing to do. And I also want to thank my colleagues for recognizing the investments that are needed in East County and for stepping up to find a way for us to be able to make those investments. This is a huge equity issue in area that has not been invested enough historically. That's not a coincidence. And so this budget maintains our planned capital investments in the Viva White Oak development, a future full East County campus from Montgomery College and for East County schools, badly in need of construction projects. We also have linkages to learning, coming to Burnt Mills Elementary School. We have been working with community members, shout out to Action and Montgomery for a couple years now, to get those much, much needed positions, after being initially told no by the executive branch, and working with them to come up with a new plan for how to decide which schools get them. We have the program now in this budget and coming to Burt Mills Elementary School and also linkages, additional linkages staff coming to Green Castle Elementary School. And if you look at the map of where linkages is located, I will say it is very clear that they are not equitably distributed. We have barely, we have one little bit in East County. So we are changing that now. This budget also expands dental care to East County residents. A dental clinic that was in East County providing care to underinsured and uninsured residents was closed in 2019. It has been too expensive to reopen that clinic. And since then, and so unins'm insured East County residents have had to endure very, very long waits in clinics with very limited capacity or find a way to travel to other parts of the county. With this budget, we are expanding dental care access to hundreds of East County residents with a pilot program partnering with local clinics. This budget will also allow nonprofits that serve the East County community to maintain their vital services to residents, including the American diversity group medical clinic, the Maryland Vietnamese Mutual Association, Manifood, the Muslim Community Center clinic, and many, many more. I have confidence with the work that we have done here together with the community and with this council and with this executive branch that even as we see something's crumbling around us because of this federal government that we will continue pulling together and bracing our Montgomery County values without apology and working to fund a budget that reflects those values and our community needs needs. Thank you. Thank you Councilmember Mink. Thank you to all my colleagues, our staff. Thank you to the County Executive's Office. I do want to do a shout out specifically to the Office of Finance and Office of Management and Budget who are tireless on this and all our departments who really helped us move through this difficult budget this year. With that, we are adjourned and we will be back here next Thursday to take our final vote on the FY26 operating budget and CIP. So thank you all and we'll see you here next Thursday.